Riq heard Dak protesting when Tilda pulled the phone away from her ear, but her eyes only narrowed in on his. "You remember my friend Anton, correct? He spies on the British when needed, and spies on the Germans equally well."
A triple spy, Riq thought. One who had access to both sides of the war, but was loyal only to the SQ.
Tilda added, "Anton and another of our agents, Cleo, have access to that same headquarters. I expect Anton has made his way back to Germany by now."
Riq's teeth were clenched so tightly together that he could barely speak. "So?"
"I want you to tell me if Dak has the Infinity Ring. Because if he does, then my next call will be to Anton and Cleo. By tomorrow morning, Dak will be nothing but a distant memory. So, tell me, Riq, does Dak have the Infinity Ring?"
Riq closed his eyes to think. Dak didn't have the Infinity Ring, so nothing was really gained by lying to Tilda. And he couldn't let her make that call to Berlin and endanger Dak. But what could he possibly say to buy them all some more time?
He shook his head and then opened his eyes. "Dak doesn't have the Ring."
"Then who does?"
Riq tried to keep his voice even and to look straight at Tilda. "None of us have it. The Hystorian of this time period has it."
"Nonsense," Tilda said. "The only Hystorian in this area was killed in an air raid in Aberdeen." She smiled evilly. "I'm from the future, too, remember? You've lost your one advantage." She held the phone back up to her ear and said, "Listen carefully, Dak, because even though you just tried lying to me, what I'm about to tell you is the exact truth. I've got Riq, and if you do not tell me where the Ring is this moment, you will never see him alive again."
There was a long silence while Riq strained to hear Dak's response on the phone. But he couldn't hear anything and only knew Dak had answered when Tilda hung up the phone and turned to her thugs. "The girl has it and she's somewhere in Spain. We need to know exactly where she is."
"This kid can tell us."
Riq shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "She typed in the coordinates, and I don't know them."
"Will she call?" Tilda asked. Without Riq's help, she answered her own question. "Of course she will. We just have to be patient and wait for her to get in touch."
"What about him?" one of the thugs asked, gesturing at Riq.
"We have to keep him alive, for now," Tilda said. "We might still need his help to get that Ring."
It was a bad situation. All right, Riq admitted to himself, it was a terrible situation, but at least Dak was safe, and with any luck he might even find some way to warn Sera.
Or, that was what he thought before Tilda picked up the telephone once more and started dialing.
"Who are you calling now?" the other thug asked.
"Anton and Cleo, our friends in Berlin," Tilda said. "Maybe we still need Riq alive, but we don't need Dak."
DAK WAS in a full-blown panic by the time Tilda hung up on him. She had Riq, and who knew what she'd do to him if things didn't go her way? She also knew that Sera had the Infinity Ring. The only reason he didn't wonder if things could get any worse is because he already knew the answer: Even now, things could always get worse.
He needed to help both Sera and Riq, but didn't have a single idea for how to begin. Obviously, it wouldn't do any good to call Riq back, and he had no way to contact Sera, or any money to get from Berlin all the way to Spain.
Dak returned to the kitchen and slumped against a wall while he tried to force himself to keep thinking. He had to calm down, because if he panicked any worse, he'd do something crazy like rip off all his clothes and start running in circles, screaming.
Riq was in the most immediate danger. But Tilda would probably keep him alive until she had the Infinity Ring. Riq was smart and strong, and likely had a trick or two up his sleeve. If there was any chance to escape, Riq would find it. And then Riq could warn Sera.
Dak forced his fists to unclench. That wasn't much to base his hope on, but it was better than nothing. For now, the only thing Dak could do was to try to wedge his way closer to Hitler and make sure that once the fake plans from Mincemeat came through, Hitler would believe them.
Dak half-smiled. Yeah, just as easy as mincemeat pie.
Except that there were a few complications. First, Hitler only took advice from the small group of people he trusted. That group didn't include Dak. Second, only a few people ever got close to Hitler at all, and as far as Dak knew, none of them were eleven years old. And third, if Dak ever did get close to Hitler, he could never pretend to be on Hitler's side long enough to convince him of anything. The man was too evil, too cruel. Dak knew that much pretending just wasn't in him.
At some point, Dak must've fallen asleep against the wall because he awoke to the sound of a man and woman in the hallway just outside the kitchen. Even through the walls, he recognized Anton's voice. But it now bore a German accent.
"Tilda said the boy was here!" At that, Dak's eyes sprung fully open. Instantly, he was wide awake. Wide awake and trapped.
"You know the Fuhrer would not want us roaming around at night," a woman's voice said. "We can look for the boy in the morning."
At one point while he had been on the phone with Tilda, Dak had thought he heard her threaten to send SQ agents after him here in Berlin. But the static had been so thick on the phone, he had hoped he heard wrong. Apparently not. He looked around for a place to hide, but where was he supposed to go? A cupboard?
"Who are you more afraid of?" Anton asked. "Tilda or the Fuhrer?"
Dak asked himself the same question. It was sort of like asking which was the better way to die: by lightning or by getting thrown off a cliff. Neither option sounded particularly fun, and both ended the same way.
"She said that if we don't catch him, this boy could destroy the SQ." Anton paused while some closets were opened, searched, and shut again. "Maybe we shouldn't do this. Back at the Admiralty, one of the kids - the girl - told me she had been to the future, and that everything gets destroyed. I'm worried, Cleo. What if we're wrong?"
Cleo scoffed at that. "Do you trust three kids more than Tilda, one of our own? She said she can stop the Cataclysm and I believe her. And if we help her, she will reward us well once she's in control. Now let's find the boy, and then go after the others."
"And if the Fuhrer catches us, he will say we are spying against him and have us arrested!" In his nervousness, Anton's voice was just a touch too loud.
"Be quiet, or we will be caught," Cleo said. "Let's check the kitchen. If he's not there, we can resume the search tomorrow."
The kitchen. Where he was. Just his luck. They could've chosen any of a dozen rooms to search, but of course they chose the one place he was.
Dak darted one direction and then the next, hoping a good hiding spot would pop out at him. But it was too late, and the kitchen door was already opening. So he ducked behind a cabinet and folded himself into the smallest ball he could make. And waited to be caught. From a certain angle, he would be all too visible.
"He won't be in here," Anton said. "If he was allowed to spend the night in these headquarters, they'd have given him a bed."
"But I think this time traveler will be awake tonight," Cleo answered. "He'll be snooping around the place."
Awake, yes. But snooping around a bunker loaded with Nazis? No. Dak considered himself brave, but not stupid.
"Check the back of the room," Cleo ordered. "I'll look over here."
The back of the room. Dak figured the only thing that could've made him more obvious back here was if a large blinking arrow somehow lit up over his head. He could see Cleo's reflection in a metal cabinet between them. She wasn't much taller than him but was built like a wrestler. Her dark hair was pulled back into a neat bun and her face was pinched with irritation.
"Be ready for when we find him," Cleo said. "When you see him, just do it fast."
Dak understood those words. They wouldn't question him, or give him a warning. T
here would be no chances for escape and no one would come to rescue him here. They wanted him dead and nothing else.
But then the door opened and a new voice said, "You two, what are you doing up so late?"
The tension in the room shot up so quickly, Dak could actually feel the change in the air.
"Colonel Von Roenne, we were just searching for a -- a, uh, lost ring," Cleo said.
Von Roenne? Dak had heard the name before, but couldn't quite place it. He reassured himself that if he were not on the brink of being captured, tortured, and likely killed either by the SQ or by the Nazis, that he could probably remember who Colonel Von Roenne had been.
"Whose ring?" Von Roenne surveyed the room until his gaze fell directly on Dak, who quickly waved his hands, silently begging the German not to reveal him. He knew that he must've looked scared and alone, but Dak didn't care if he did. He was scared and alone.
Von Roenne turned back to Cleo. "You can find your ring in the morning. Until then, the Fuhrer does not want people wandering the halls at all hours of the night. Now go!"
"Yes, Colonel," Anton said, hastily sweeping both himself and Cleo out the door.
Once they had gone, Von Roenne impatiently said, "Well? Come out, boy."
Dak poked his head up over the counter to find Von Roenne staring back at him, arms folded. He was a thin man whose short, neatly combed hair revealed a deep widow's peak, and he wore round glasses that gave him a strict, studious look. He didn't seem to be the type of person who smiled often, but then, his voice was also gentler than Dak had expected from a high-ranking Nazi. At least Von Roenne had sent the SQ duo away. Dak figured his odds of surviving the next few minutes were pretty even.
"I haven't seen you before," Von Roenne said to Dak.
Dak said nothing. Mostly because he was sure if he tried speaking, it would come out in some high-pitched squeal of terror that'd wake the entire house.
"Can you tell me why those two were looking for you?" Von Roenne asked. "What might two Nazis want with a young boy working in the kitchen?"
Okay, maybe he wouldn't scream, but he was also pretty sure his mouth had forgotten how to form actual words. So Dak only shrugged his shoulders and hoped the end would come quickly and painlessly.
"I think you must have played a joke on them and gotten caught," Von Roenne said. "Yes?"
Well, yes. If the joke was getting himself inside the most dangerous place in Germany.
Then Von Roenne smiled, just a little. "I suppose I played a joke or two myself when I was younger. But these are not the kind of people you want to tease."
"No, sir," Dak mumbled. Frankly, he was already pretty clear on that fact.
"And remember that you now owe me a favor in return. Do not forget."
Dak nodded. If there was one thing he would never forget, it was what Von Roenne had just done for him.
"Now, let's have no more trouble," Von Roenne said. "Something has been found in Spain, something that might give us a great advantage over the Allies, and there is tension in the bunker. You'll be smart to stay out of everyone's way."
"Yes, sir," Dak mumbled.
Von Roenne nodded at him, then left the kitchen. Once he'd gone, Dak slumped back down to the ground, exhausted, and never so scared in his life.
SERA HAD intended to call Riq that first evening. She felt desperate to know how he was, and whether Dak had made it to Germany safely. But she had the chilling feeling somebody was watching her, most likely that creepy Clauss. It wasn't worth the risk to make a phone call.
She did, however, discover a surprising fact that made her want to call Riq even more. One of their first adventures had been on board Christopher Columbus's ship as it sailed for the new world. This Spanish city, Huelva, had looked familiar to her from the start, but it was only after she began wandering the busy port town that she realized why. Four hundred and fifty years had changed a lot of things, but not the basic landscape. She was now less than ten miles from where she, Dak, and Riq had boarded Columbus's ship. For such a small coastal lagoon in the big world, it had seen its share of history. Dak would completely geek out about that. But not tonight, not until she was sure it was safe to call.
In the meantime, she had to live the life of a spy. And that meant lying, something that Sera wasn't altogether comfortable with. It was one thing to lie to Clauss, but the doctor seemed like a good man, and Sera took no pleasure in deceiving him. She'd managed to convince him that she'd come to town from an impoverished village in order to pursue her love of science, something her family didn't understand. He allowed her to stay the night in a small room above his garage -- but warned her that he would be putting her on the next bus out of town. "A girl's place is with her family," he had said.
Sera hadn't had to fake the lump in her throat at hearing that. Until then, she had managed to avoid thinking about how her parents had been SQ. But now she felt torn. Her mind struggled to understand how they could have aligned themselves with such evil people. And her heart longed for an explanation that would make everything okay. Despite everything, she still wanted to see them again.
Sera spent the following day hoping to bump into Clauss, but he was nowhere to be found. The day after that was a funeral for Major Martin attended by the same British officer who had been at the postmortem, some disinterested Spanish officers, and a few curious people from the town. Even if she hadn't been there on spy duty, Sera wanted to attend the ceremony. She might've been the only person there who knew Major Martin was really a homeless man who'd died a few months ago from eating rat poison. He may not have given his life for his country, but he had given his death. For that, he deserved to be honored.
A couple of times during the funeral, she saw the top of Clauss's crisp blond hair poking into people's whispered conversations as if eavesdropping for anything suspicious. Perhaps he was hoping Martin's briefcase might somehow fall from the sky and land in his lap. But it wasn't until the guests left that he found her, sitting on a bench near the cemetery. Just to have him beside her felt like a cold wind had blown in. But she kept her calm.
"I heard a rumor that Major Martin drowned at sea," he said. "Probably after his plane crashed."
"That's what the doctor decided."
"Why didn't any other bodies wash up on shore? Where's the plane wreckage?"
Don't appear too obvious, Sera reminded herself. If she was supposed to be on Germany's side, then she should be hopeful, but not yet convinced.
"That's a good point," she said. "You should probably wait another week or two and see if anything else washes up."
"Stupid girl!" Clauss crossed his legs and turned away from her. "If Martin was carrying information, we can't wait two weeks to get it."
Sera tried to hide her smile. That's what she'd hoped he'd think. Who was stupid now?
"Martin had papers with him, correct? In a briefcase?"
Sera nodded. She wanted to tell him the entire fake plan, to convince him right then that Martin was real, that Britain was invading Greece and not Sicily, and that he should tell Hitler just to surrender now. But the truth was that she hadn't seen anything written on the papers. Right now, it was more important to make Clauss trust her. And to get that trust, she had to tell him the truth.
"He had papers," she said. "But I couldn't see what they said. There were envelopes inside the briefcase, too, and they were sealed." Then, just in case it helped, she added, "The British officer in the room didn't seem very happy that Spain has them."
Clauss smiled. "That's because many officials in Spain quietly support Germany in this war. But they can't just hand the papers over to us. Our work must be . . . subtler." He stood and withdrew from his pocket a single coin. "That's for your trouble."
"Only one?" Sera said. "This won't buy anything."
"Then find me more information," Clauss said.
Sera nodded and he left. Only then did her heart begin to beat normally again. Had she done enough? Would the papers really make their way int
o German hands without any further effort on her part?
She was so lost in thought that she didn't realize the doctor was approaching her until he sat on the bench where Clauss had just been. "Sera, why were you speaking with that man?" he asked.
"Clauss?" Sera tried to keep her cool, but her heart rate was already back up again. "He was curious about Major Martin. He wanted to know what happened to the briefcase. I . . ." She decided to go for it. "I told him I was curious about that, too. Do you know what the man who took it will do with it?"
The doctor scowled. "He will keep it under lock and key until he's ordered to take it to his superiors in Madrid. It's none of my business, and if you're smart, you'll leave it alone, too."
"But --"
The doctor grabbed her shoulders and nearly shook her. "Right now, Martin's papers are at the center of a world war. If you meddle, you will get in the way of some very dangerous people." He released her and then pulled some money from his pocket, which he shoved into her hands. "Clauss isn't fooling anyone. He's almost certainly spying for Berlin. If you need money, it isn't worth making a devil's bargain with him. Take this instead. Use it to leave town, return to your family while you can. The Nazi spies will know you saw those papers. I never should have allowed you in that room. I wish I had not been in that room!"
Sera pocketed the money and thanked him, promising she would consider what he'd said. Then she made her way back into town. The worry in the doctor's voice bothered her more than she wanted to admit. Obviously, she knew this was dangerous, but hadn't she been playing a dangerous game since the moment she and Dak stumbled into time travel? What made anything different now?
Sera knew the answer. On past missions, she had Riq with her, or Dak, or both of them. Now they were all separated, all fighting their individual battles, and she felt totally cut off from even knowing whether both boys were still okay.
Focus, Sera told herself. Focus on the job that had to be done. For now, that was the most important thing.
So she went back to hunting for any information that might be useful to Clauss. She hoped to hear some gossip or rumors about what was happening to Martin's papers, but if anyone had something worth sharing, they didn't let her in on the conversation. It was strange to be in the spy business, pretending to want one thing when she really wanted the very opposite. It was exhausting, actually.