Then again, the small blade is obviously measly against guns, and the cyanide is for only the worst of scenarios. Which as of yet, I decide, this can’t be. It isn’t. Not with the waist-high shrubs maybe twenty feet away. They squat in a dense row along the border of a pasture. If I hurry, I could stuff my parachute into the greenery. But can I manage to do that and still climb fast enough—and isn’t a tree the first place they’ll look, the most obvious?

Never was I more in need of misdirection.

An old trick comes to me—the sucker effect. Let the audience think they’re seeing something by mistake, a faux reveal, only to guide them to the actual illusion with greater impact.

Could it work?

What better option do I have?

Staying low, I spread out the parachute as if someone landed and abandoned it in a rush. I toss my helmet on it for good measure. Then instead of shimmying up the tree, I dash to the shrubs. Working my way in, I serpentine my body horizontally, careful not to disturb the top layer. The added bulk of my satchel makes the task more challenging. But soon I settle in the tangle of branches, thick but breathable. And I wait.

It’s a deceit based on a presumption, as I’d once taught Charles. A twist on a story that viewers convince themselves to be true. After all, no spy would be foolish enough to stick around when given a chance to run.

The seconds tick away.

Fifteen…thirty…forty-five…

There are hints of walking: a rustling of trousered legs, footsteps on farmland. Someone is getting close.

I see nothing through the shrubbery. I pray the obscurity works both ways. And if not, that true to my name, adapting like the Arctic fox, a creature built to survive, I’m indistinguishable from the background.

“Schau mal!” Excitement boosts a fellow’s voice, the pride of finding a treasure. In this case, a parachute. “Komm her!”

More rustling, more steps. A second voice joins in, his murmured words interweaving with clinks of the harness. Then silence.

My heart, still lodged high, presses into my windpipe. I ration breaths, in and out, envisioning the soldiers scanning the area, peering up at the trees, their rifle barrels hungry for another target.

A smattering of light penetrates the shrubbery. My eyelids drop to shield the white of my eyes, and I escape into the haven of a memory. The leaves around me are patches of my childhood quilt. The branches are my mattress, cozy by the potbelly stove. Papa is asleep in the next room, snoring after late-night drinks with the strikers.

I fill in the setting with every detail I can plunder, fending off images of Bram’s spray of blood, of the Nazi soldiers but a few yards away.

There’s a swooshing now. From fabric. Clinks.