Once I resume my place at his side, he stores his gun in his pocket. Snuggled close, we tread forward like an amorous couple while concealing his belt-wrapped wound. With every passing building, every minute, I tamp my worries by trying to solve the problem: how to find a doctor. Rather than waiting for Brouwer to come to us, we could go to him—tonight. Except that we can’t make it there by tram before curfew, and the walk is much too far, specifically in Arie’s condition. How much blood would he lose by then?

“Hold on,” he says. We wait for a man with a dog heading toward us to round the corner to our right. I realize we’re in front of the large church Arie described. By my watch, it’s twenty-four minutes to curfew. We had hoped to have Evelien already.

When the stranger is out of sight, Arie whispers, “At the next street, peek to the left and get a look at the house. It’s the second one on your left side. See if there’s a motorcar parked out front. And a posted guard.”

I nod and hustle past the church and along the side of a neighboring house, each window covered for the night. Cautiously at the corner, I survey the specified home. Two-story and brick, it’s impressively wide amid the narrow houses in the area. No motorcar, a good thing. Per the housekeeper, the Zieglers planned to leave for the party at a quarter past seven. Their armed guard, leaning beside the front door, whistles softly while staring off.

Ironically, worse than his presence would be his absence, leaving his whereabouts in question.

I return to Arie and report my findings.

“All right, then. Through here.” He guides me on a narrow pathway between two sections of the church. After a few turns to round its smaller buildings, we squeeze through a damp wall of arborvitaes and enter an area adorned with trees and low hedges. We’re in a private courtyard, enclosed by three walls of a C-shaped house. It’s the back side of the Zieglers’ home—one they’ve stolen from a local family, at any rate.

“There’s the signal,” Arie whispers. In the far-right upper window, a small mound of white cloth sits on a corner of the sill, subtle yet visible against the blackout shades. The go-ahead from Gerda is welcome yet daunting. Venturing illegally into any place, let alone one dark and unknown, would be unnerving even if it weren’t a Nazi commander’s home.

I follow Arie’s trek to a window, the one farthest left on the main floor. “The bindings,” he says, flicking his gaze at the duffel, a request. I put down the bag, and from the hidden compartments, I produce the pair of scarves and two strips of rope, noting his added challenge. How will he handle these using a single arm?