It was another beautiful day and the sun shone over the ancient streets while a soft breeze blew off the river, stirring her blonde hair under her hat. Breathing deeply, she inhaled the scent of aged stone mixed with the river and sighed.
Oh, how she loved France!
As her fashionable heels clicked along the pavement, Evelyn sobered. Metz was close to the German border, and one of the most heavily fortified regions in the Maginot Line. When the Germans came, and they would, this city would be one of the first to be attacked. She looked up at the buildings next to her and wondered, suddenly, if they would be spared the wrath of the Luftwaffe, Germany’s Air Force.
It had been well over a year since she last saw Josephine Rousseau. The young woman had been in Strasbourg on that fateful day in August, 1938, when Evelyn had gone to pick up a package for Bill. If it weren’t for Josephine, she wasn’t entirely sure that she would have made it back to Paris. When she arrived to meet the man from Munich, it was only to find out that he’d been followed out of Germany by an SD agent. Hans Voss.
Evelyn shivered despite the mild spring day. It had been her first experience with the Nazi Sicherheitsdienst, the intelligence division of Himmler’s SS, and Josephine had helped her escape. She had hoped that would be an end to her dealings with the SD, but she had run into them again in Oslo this past November. It was a different agent, but he had been even more persistent and determined than Voss.
As she made her way up the street towards the bridge, Evelyn wondered if Josephine had been surprised to hear that she was still working with Bill. When she last saw her in the streets of Strasbourg, there had been no guarantee that Evelyn would continue down this road. At the time, she was simply doing an old friend of the family a favor. Her lips curved faintly. She had often wondered in the months that had passed if Bill had already known what her decision would be the day he asked her to go to Strasbourg.
She paused on the corner and waited for a break in the traffic before running lightly across to the bridge on the other side. The sun glinted off the waves of the Seille, an off-shoot river from the Moselle, and the breeze pulled at the little rose-colored hat on her head. It was all in the past now, in any case. She had decided to continue with SIS, now called MI6 since the war began, and now she was meeting the French intelligence agent who had saved her neck all those months ago.
She started across the ancient stone bridge, the round tower of the medieval gate looming over the bridge like a sentry. An ornate iron railing ran along the bridge on either side, allowing an unimpeded view of the river in either direction. A group of tourists stood in the middle, clustered together at the railing while they gazed over the water and chattered together in what sounded suspiciously like Dutch. As she approached the center of the bridge, a woman emerged from behind the large group and walked towards Evelyn. Her black hair was tied back with a ribbon and covered with a brown hat. She was dressed in a simple brown suit and looked just like any of the other Frenchwomen moving around the city. Evelyn smiled, meeting her dark gray eyes over the distance.
Josephine smiled and, as she approached, held both her hands out to her.
“Mon vieil amie!” she exclaimed, grasping her hands and leaning forward to kiss the air beside her cheek. “It’s been so long! How are you?”
“It’s been too long!” Evelyn replied, returning the greeting. “It’s so nice to see you again! You look fantastic.”
Josephine laughed and tucked her arm through hers, turning to continue across the bridge towards the gate.
“I couldn’t believe it when William told me you were going to be in Metz,” she said. “I never thought I’d see you again. When we parted company in Strasbourg, I was convinced that you would return to Paris and never be seen again. What changed your mind?”
“You did,” Evelyn said, surprising the other woman.
“Moi?”
“Well, and Karl,” she qualified. “How was I to walk away and go back to my parties and my shopping knowing that people like you were out there doing unbelievably brave things in support of Liberté, Equalité, Fraternité?”
Josephine smiled and glanced at her, her dark eyes squinting in the sunlight.
“I’m glad you continued,” she said. “We’re in desperate need of people like you.”
They reached the end of the bridge and Evelyn looked up at the medieval fortress gate before her.
“Incredible,” she murmured. “Just amazing.”
“Have you never been to Metz?”
“No, I’m ashamed to admit. I can’t think how I never came to explore the city.”
“It’s quite beautiful. It doesn’t have the same feeling as Strasbourg, but it still has plenty of the old world charm.” They walked towards the arched entry to the gate. “I’ve been here for a few months now.”
“Why did you leave Strasbourg?”
Josephine glanced at her. “I didn’t have a choice,” she said after a moment. “If I had stayed, the SS would have discovered my identity.”
“How?”
“Not everyone in Strasbourg is as patriotic as we are,” she said with a twisted smile. “I knew it was getting dangerous for me, but I foolishly didn’t think it was unsafe yet. When one of my contacts from Stuttgart was arrested at the border, I knew it was time to leave. As it turns out, I heard that the
