Twenty-Five

Ava

Ava consulted Peggy for more of her tactics and found they had grit. Between Ava's persistence, plus a few miracles coming into play, she managed to secure an extension on Sarah's and Noah's visas. The envelope containing the updated visas was waiting for her when she arrived at the embassy early that morning when she should have been out gathering newspapers. It was a worthy sacrifice. While there still wasn't enough time to make the USS Siboney, unfortunately, she could secure new tickets.

Once more, Ava appreciated the elevated position her employment at the embassy allowed her in aiding her friends. A benefit to which other refugees did not have access.

Amid the victory of those updated visas, however, she could not help but feel a nip of disappointment after the mail had been distributed. Yet another delivery without a letter from Daniel.

A knot twisted in her stomach. One she'd felt only once before—when her parents failed to return from France.

"What are you doing here?"

Ava looked up from the stack of mail to see Mr. Sims looming over her desk. A shudder threatened to shiver down her spine, but she squelched the reaction. "I had something urgent to tend to."

His gaze fixed on the visas. The telltale flush of color spread over his neck, and he squared his shoulders. "Miss Harper, your job is not—"

The crackle of a radio filled the office.

"Listen to this." Peggy waved them over.

The announcer's voice filled the open office. "A bulletin has just been received from the London office of the Associated Press that quotes the German Trans-Ocean News Agency and asserting that the invasion of Western Europe has begun." The speaker proceeded to declare that German news stations were reporting of an Allied invasion on the shores of the Normandy peninsula.

"It's happening." There was an intuition in Peggy's tone that indicated she had known of this for some time—classified information Ava was not privy to. And now she found out at 8:00 a.m. in Lisbon with every other American who was awake at 3:00 a.m. in Washington.

Ava covered her mouth with her hand as she listened to the tinny voice coming through the speakers drone on, citing no reports had been given from Paris. This came as little surprise with Parisian broadcasts being owned and operated by Germany. They would not give the French hope. Not when they were already struggling to maintain their control after the Resistance uprisings following Corsica's liberation.

But it was not the French Ava was considering as that horrible familiar sensation chewed at her insides. Her thoughts were on Daniel.

Based on what he'd told her of his battalion, they were where the action was. He'd said it often and with great pride in his flashing green eyes.

"Is C Company there?" Ava asked.

Peggy looked away.

Ava rushed up to her desk. "You know and soon everyone else will too. It doesn't matter now if you say it or not." Her eyes caught Peggy's. "Is C Company of the Second Battalion there from the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment? The 101st Airborne Division. Peggy," she pleaded.

Peggy stared up at her, heavily mascaraed eyes wide and unblinking.

"Please," Ava whispered. "Is C Company there?"

Peggy nodded, and Ava clung to the desk to keep from slipping to the floor.

Daniel was on the beaches of Normandy. Her brother who had given up his youth to raise a kid sister he didn't even know when their parents died. Her brother who sacrificed all his dreams of college so she could be the one to attend. She was the reason he joined the military, why he never went to college with the money he worked so hard to save.

If he didn't come home, it was all her fault.

Tears pricked her eyes.

"This is a good thing, Miss Harper." Mr. Sims approached and clapped her on the shoulder.

"My brother is there," she said through numb lips.

"And you should be damn proud of what he's doing for the war effort." Mr. Sims nodded. "My son is out there too. You don't see me weeping." He strode away, muttering in words he clearly meant to be audible. "This is why women should never be allowed to be part of government operations."

He didn't understand. No one did.

Suddenly in that moment of gripping fear and uncertainty for the person she loved most in the world, she needed someone to talk to. Someone whose heart was strung upon the same fickle thread of life and death, who had stakes in this war that were as sky-high as her own.

Peggy didn't have any siblings, and her parents were both home in Ohio, safe. Mike was still doing his rounds to collect newspapers that morning.

Even Sarah didn't know much about Daniel. Ava didn't speak of him often, not when she feared her worry would seep into the conversation and Sarah already had enough concerns crowding her overflowing plate.

James.

He knew about Daniel, and how much her brother meant to her. And his own brother was in the war as well.

"I have to go." Ava rushed to her desk and hastily snatched up the visas, shoving them in her purse as she left the room. Of anyone, James would understand.

Ava made her way to the British embassy, her thoughts reeling over Daniel. She clutched her purse as if it were a lifeline, the only thing keeping her centered in a world knocked off its axis.

Would it even be possible to find James?

She'd never been to the embassy before and had no idea if she could request him from the guard positioned out front. But as she hurried toward the high gate, a familiar face made his way toward her.

"Alfie," she cried out.

He regarded her with a wide smile. "Did you hear? We're finally going on the offensive in this war. I can't chat now though, unfortunately. I have a meeting." He looked at his watch and grimaced. "That started five minutes ago."

"Will you tell James to come find me after?"

Alfie frowned as he patted at his pockets. "After what?" He snapped open his leather briefcase and rummaged about, his cheeks flushing beneath the guard's impatient stare.

"After the meeting," Ava replied.

"Oh, he's not in the meeting with me." Alfie flashed an apologetic look to the guard and plucked out a small wallet that he flicked through. "It's only for ASLIB."

Ava froze. "Isn't James in the British Association of Special Libraries and Information Bureau with you?"

Alfie pulled a badge from his wallet and held it up triumphantly. His victory was short-lived, and he blinked rapidly as he turned to Ava, his reddened cheeks going pale. "I beg your pardon?"

"If James isn't with ASLIB, what sector is he with?" Ava asked.

Alfie swallowed audibly. "Forgive me, but I... I'm very late, you see. I... I have to go." With that, he clicked his briefcase shut, showed his badge to the guard, and scurried off.

What he divulged had clearly not been intentional.

Ava shifted her attention to the guard, her pulse thundering in her ears. "Please have James MacKinnon contact Ava Harper." By some miracle, her voice managed to remain calm. "The matter is urgent."

The wait to hear back from James was interminable. Ava paced her small apartment, worry building around her like snowballs rolling down a steep hill. First and foremost was Daniel and his safety surviving the beaches of Normandy. Then there was the need to obtain tickets for safe passage to New York for Sarah and Noah. And also, whatever it was that James did for the British government and why he had lied.

A sharp buzzer interrupted her thoughts and her heart leaped. She went outside to find James standing by the doorway, absent his formal jacket, his button-down shirt rolled halfway up his forearms. His breath panted as though he had run there. He held up his hand before she could speak. "Let us discuss this inside, and I'll answer whatever it is you want to know."

She folded her arms over her chest and locked away her barrage of questions. He would receive them in full force in only a moment's time. She shifted back a step in silent invitation for him to enter the building and followed him up to her apartment.

When he entered, he went first to the windows, which stood open, and looked back at Ava. "May I close these?"

She eyed him warily, not expecting the nature of his confessions to be so clandestine. The work she and Mike did as well as that of their British counterparts was not entirely so covert that it required that measure of tight security.

"You may." She strode toward her bedroom. "I'll close the others."

When she returned, a towel was rolled beneath the door to her apartment as well.

"What is this?" she asked. "Does this have to do with that night at Monserrate Palace?"

"Somewhat." James settled onto the small brown sofa, one elbow casually draped over the arm.

Ava sat on the chair beside the couch, her body stiff. "Who do you work for?"

"The British government," he answered in a quiet tone despite the precautions. "But I am not ASLIB."

She pulled in a breath. "I know."

"Please forgive the lie of omission." He gave her an earnest look, his eyes warm and soft in a way she used to find endearing. "I am part of a highly trained special operatives unit."

She shook her head, not understanding. "A spy?"

He nodded. "I was sent to Lisbon to gather intelligence to assist with the attack in Normandy that happened this morning." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "My purpose here was to gather details. This was implemented long before the plan began to take shape, to see if such a thing would even be possible."

His face was open and honest as he spoke, but then if he truly was a spy who had received solid training, he could make anything convincing, couldn't he?

"Why did you mislead me?" she asked, regarding him with scrutiny in an effort to find something amiss, a tell that someone who didn't know him as well as she did might not be able to catch. Something she would certainly note. Or, at least, she hoped.

There was a long pause before he finally answered. "Because you inadvertently became involved."

"What? How?" Her hand clapped over her mouth as a name struck her. "Diogo Silva." The man who lived next door, who had been taken away by the PVDE after she spoke with Lukas.

"No," James said with conviction. "Though I did not impart the entire truth about him as I didn't want you digging around."

Ava opened her lips to argue that she would not have, and James lifted a brow. She stifled her protest. They both knew she would have continued to hunt for details if she'd caught a trace of a scent.

"He did own the kiosk, yes," James continued. "But he also worked for Avante!, an underground press here in Portugal that operated outside of their strict censorship. I lightly prodded about when I looked into his disappearance for you and ended up with the PVDE following me for weeks after. When I tell you the conversation you had with the man you know as Lukas did not result in Diogo Silva's fate, know that you can completely put your conscience to rest. You truly had nothing to do with his disappearance."

Ava released a long, slow exhale as the burden of the man's arrest eased from her shoulders. Until that moment, she hadn't realized the weight of guilt clinging to her since that night.

"Lukas, however..." James tilted his head. "Or Dieter Hoffman, as is his real name, is a spy for Germany. Unfortunately, he is very much part of this."

Ava fought to keep from fidgeting in her chair. The room was growing warm and stuffy with the sunlight streaming in through the glass without the cool breeze to offset the heat.

James leaned back on the sofa and rested his hands on his knees. "Do you recall that day you met him?"

Even now humiliation at her own foolishness burned hot at her cheeks. She would never forget being called out for flirting with a Nazi.

"I had an appointment with a fellow agent that morning at a café beside the kiosk," James explained. "Only you showed up before they did. I should have left you alone, but when I heard you speaking to him, I realized you were the American librarian the ASLIB chaps were going on about. I couldn't very well let you walk into a Nazi trap on your first day." He looked away. It was the first time his confidence waned. "I had no idea the path I was placing you on with that seemingly benign little chat."

The shift of his demeanor rankled Ava's inflamed unease. "What path was that?"

"Dieter thought you were my contact."

"Me?"

James's finger subconsciously tapped lightly on his knee. "I did not discourage him." His finger stopped. "In fact, I encouraged his confusion."

Ava's thoughts jumbled together over this news, at learning James had kept her in the sights of an enemy even after realizing a mistake had been made. "Was I in danger?" she asked slowly as all the puzzle pieces fit into a perfect, ugly truth in her head.

James swallowed. "Yes."

Disbelief and anger flashed like fire through her. "Why didn't you tell Mike or Mr. Sims at the embassy? Why didn't you tell me?"

"You're our allies. I couldn't allow the relationship between the Americans and the British to be fractured because I'd placed one of your own in danger." He gave a sigh that seemed to well up from his soul. "But nor could I allow the actual contact to be found out. While the Germans were watching your every move, they stopped looking for the real person feeding me information. I couldn't risk losing them."

"You were willing to sacrifice me?" The memory of that kiss in the alleyway in Alfama shoved forefront in her thoughts. She wished she could take back every second she'd thought of that intimate moment, as well as the kiss they'd shared on New Year's Eve. What she had interpreted as romantic interest had simply been espionage at play.

The mortification was more than she could bear, her naivete yielding nothing more than foolish humiliation. Tears stung her eyes despite her resolve to keep them bottled up.

"Your brother is in this war, Ava," James said gently. "You know how important the offensive attack is. If my real contact had been discovered, the battle at Normandy may not have happened."

She picked at a loose thread on the arm of her chair; the pale sage color was slightly darker than the fabric.

Would she have allowed herself to be put in danger for the sake of the war? Would she have done it all to keep Daniel and the rest of the Allied men safe from the Axis if she'd known of their scheme?

Yes. Without a doubt.

"You could have told me." She lifted her gaze to James, unable to stop the ache in her chest at the depth of his deception.

"I could not compromise this mission." His expression remained cool as he spoke, a man set on his task. "No matter the cost."

"Then why tell me now?" she asked.

"The mission is complete," James explained. "There is nothing further to be compromised."

Yes, of course. There was no additional risk.

"Thank you for letting me know." She gave a stiff smile, wanting nothing more than for him to leave.

Those kisses they'd shared had been real to her. They had meant something. The time she spent with James had brought vibrance and color to the corner of her world that had been black-and-white for far too long.

But for him, she now realized, those interactions were the facade of a cover, a means to the end of a mission, part of his job.

Nausea churned in her belly.

"You don't need to worry about Dieter if that is your concern," he said gently. "I tried to enlist the PVDE's help to remove him as a threat when I learned how intently he was watching you, but it only turned their attention onto me for several months. The Allied launch has now marked a significant turn in the war and while Portugal claims to want neutrality, they are not so stubborn as to overlook when a side is winning. The PVDE has suddenly become most accommodating." He folded his hands in front of him. "That said, Dieter will no longer be bothering you."

Ava looked at the thread on her chair once more and pulled at it with the pinch of her forefinger and thumb. She didn't want to know if Lukas—Dieter or whoever—was dead or not. Only that he could no longer interfere with Sarah and Noah and their journey to America.

"There's another reason I'm telling you." James sat forward. "Ava, I care for—"

"Don't." The word erupted from her mouth before she could stop it, but she was glad for her quick response. She didn't want his platitudes.

"It's why I fought to rescue Sarah and Noah," James said. "My boss insisted if it was to be done, I had to go myself since the plans for today were already in motion. Ava, I did that for you."

She forced herself to look at him. "You did that for you—to alleviate your own guilt by giving me something I wanted in return for your deceptive betrayal."

He returned her stare and a muscle worked in his jaw. "That is only partially true."

"It's enough." The energy drained from her, sapped from the ache threatening to consume her. She didn't want to have this conversation, be subjected to his explanations anymore. Too much had already been said. "Please leave."

He hesitated. "Ava..."

She shook her head. Finally, he rose and slowly walked away from her. He paused before turning down the narrow hall leading to her front door. "Your brother will be fine, Ava," he said gently. "From everything you've told me about him, I have a strong idea of the type of soldier he is. And that man always comes home. He'll be safe."

Ava lowered her head into her hands, refusing to let her tears fall.

James's footsteps echoed down the hall and the door clicked closed behind him.

Silence bathed her, but it did not bring the relief she sought. There was an emptiness left in James's wake, raw and cavernous.

In the end, he had soothed the very concerns she sought him out for. He knew her so very, very well and apparently, she did not know him at all.

However, now was not the time for tears or embracing her hurt. Not when Sarah and Noah still needed new tickets to New York. The American Export Lines office would be swarming with refugees desperate to flee Lisbon on the off chance the Allies botched the attack and the war swung back into Nazi favor.

For Ava's part, she could not even allow herself to consider the battle in Normandy failing, not when she knew what that would mean for Daniel. And despite James's comforting words, she could not clear her heart of worry until she knew with certainty that her brother was safe.

God help them all through the hell of this war.