LITMIR.BIZ

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information and what I’ve been told. That means completing the mission according to plan.

      I accept the reality of my situation, even though I don’t like it, and prepare to act. Then the sound of a door being kicked open comes from the first floor. Wood splinters. Heavy footsteps pound up the stairs. The man and the young woman stop singing and look at each other. I have just enough time to dart back to the stairwell before three figures burst onto the landing. Two of them have guns drawn.

      “Evrard Sauer,” one of them, a man, says. “You are under arrest for collaborating with the National Socialist German Workers’ Party.” He’s speaking in German, but with a heavy Russian accent. And although he’s used the more formal name for them, I know he’s just accused Sauer of working with the Nazis.

      “Who are you?” the girl asks.

      “Be still, Lottie,” says Sauer. “Do as you’re told.”

      His voice is quiet, sad. As if he has feared this moment for a long time.

      I huddle on the stairs, my pistol at the ready. Besides the two men, there is a woman in the room. She stands slightly behind the men, her hands in her pockets. As I lean forward for a better look, my foot presses against the floorboards, making a faint creaking sound. I see her tense. She turns her head toward the stairwell, and for a moment I think she’s seen me. But I can’t look away. She’s younger than I thought. My age. And beautiful. She has long dark hair and dark eyes, and for a second I’m sure that I’ve seen her before. Then it hits me—she looks like Wonder Woman from the comic books my sister Lily loves so much. I find myself frozen in place.

      Then she turns away, and it’s as if a switch has been turned off and I can breathe again. I blend into the shadows, my finger on the trigger of my gun in case I need to use it. I know I will need to use it. I can’t let these people take Sauer. I think I know who they are. MGB. Russian intelligence. And apparently they want him because of his association with the Nazis. What he did for them, I don’t know. Just as I don’t know why he’s so important to my council. What I do know is that I can’t let them leave with him.

      “If you come quietly, there will be no problems,” the first man says.

      Sauer nods. He motions to Lottie, who stands up.

      It’s time. I start to raise my pistol, aiming it at one of the Soviet agents.

      Before I can fire, the woman draws her hand from her pocket. She’s holding a Tokarev TT-33. There are two shots, and her companions collapse to the floor. She lowers the gun.

      “You have a choice,” she says to Sauer and Lottie. “Come with me and live, or join them.”

       CHAPTER 2

       Ariadne

      Sauer and the girl look from the bodies lying at their feet to the gun I still have trained on them. Their fear is obvious. They know who the dead men are, or at least who they work for, but they don’t know who I am or why I’m here. They’re trying to decide if I am a greater or lesser danger.

      “I’m not going to ask again,” I say, giving them their answer.

      I point my gun at the girl. It has the desired effect.

      Sauer holds up his hands. “We’ll come.”

      He’s made the right choice. Had they resisted, I would have shot them both. If I had, they would have been my third and fourth kills. The men on the floor are my first and second.

      I’m surprised how little I feel about the killings. I’d expected something more, a sense of excitement perhaps, or pangs of remorse. Instead, there is simply an awareness of having done what was necessary. It probably helps that the two MGB agents were not good people. After six months of working undercover within their organization, I’d come to despise them. For one thing, they’d been dismissive of me because of my gender and my age. That was a mistake.

      Three weeks ago, I turned 18. But I grew up long before that. I don’t actually remember a time when I didn’t feel the weight of responsibility. As a child, when I played, I played games of war. And always, I had to win. Even if it meant defeating someone close to me. When I was chosen as the current Minoan Player out of my group of trainees, it was simply the next logical step. This is a role I’ve been studying for my entire life.

      I don’t have time to waste thinking about the dead men. I motion for Sauer and the girl to walk ahead of me. They start to leave the room, which is when a figure detaches itself from the shadows of the stairs and rushes at me. I have only a moment to curse myself for not heeding an earlier feeling and checking to make sure no one else was in the house before a man is tackling me. He hits me low and hard, and before I can get off a shot, I’m falling backward. I land on the floor, and my breath is knocked out of me. Also knocked away is my gun, which my attacker sweeps out of my reach.

      He, however, is still holding a weapon. He straddles me and points it at my face. “Who are you?” he asks in German.

      I take inventory, trying to figure out who he might be. He’s wearing the uniform of an American soldier. Then, as I look up at his face, an odd thought passes through my mind: his eyes are the same blue color as the cornflowers that grow in the fields around my grandparents’ house outside Kamilari. The same color as the Aegean Sea in summer. I feel a pang of homesickness, and I’m so shocked that this is what I’m thinking about in this situation that I don’t say anything for a moment. He mistakes my silence for not understanding and tries again in Russian.

      “The only reason for you to know my name,” I say in English, “is so you know who it is who has killed you.”

      I thrust up hard with my hips, trying to throw him off. I am surprised when it doesn’t work.

      “I’ve been riding horses bareback since I was four,” he says, grinning down at me. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

      “Or what?” I ask. “You’ll shoot me? You should have done that when you had the chance. You won’t get a second one.”

      Before he can answer, I lift my torso and grasp him around the chest, pulling him down toward me. My right leg traps his left foot while I hook my right arm over his shoulder. Then I push up on my left foot while swinging my left arm over. The next moment, our positions are reversed and I’m the one on top.

      “I guess you were too busy riding horses to get in many street fights,” I say.

      He surprises—and annoys—me by laughing. Then he says, “You’d better hurry up and decide what you’re going to do next, because those people you want so badly are getting away.”

      That’s when I realize that Sauer and the girl have disappeared. I can hear their footsteps in the hallway, so I know I still have time to catch them. But only if I go now. I look down at the man—a boy, really, or at least not much older than me. I don’t know what he’s doing here. Is he working with Sauer? Do the Americans (I assume he’s American because of his uniform and accent) want the man too? Or is he somehow connected to the girl?

      “What’s the matter?” the soldier says. “You trying to decide whether to kiss me or kill me?”

      I pick up his gun, which is on the floor beside us. “I’ve decided,” I say, pointing the pistol at him.

      He doesn’t flinch. “Come on,” he says. “You wouldn’t shoot a guy on Christmas Eve, would you?” Then his eyes flick to the bodies already on the floor. “Actually, I guess you would.”

      I probably should kill him, just to be safe. Unlike the MGB agents, however, I don’t think he’s a real threat, just an inconvenience. A GI who happens to be in the wrong place. Besides, there are those blue eyes that make me think of a place I love. For this small gift, I will spare him. “Merry Christmas,” I say, and bring the gun down on his temple. His body slumps beneath me as he passes out.

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