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when he had long since abandoned any notion that there was more good than evil in this world.
    On this night, he had waited for her train to arrive, knowing that a plane was down near her grandparents’ farm, knowing that this meant the Germans would be searching every house and outbuilding for miles around the wreckage, knowing that her instinct would be to find any American crew member or evader still hiding out and get him to safety. He could only hope that the fact that her son, Daniel, was spending the weekend at the farm would keep her from taking too many risks. She knew the dangers as well as anyone—better than most.
    As the train pulled into the station, he’d seen her sitting next to a window, her head resting against the glass. He hoped she had managed to get some sleep on the ride from Brussels, for the likelihood was that she would not get much sleep once she reached the farm. He had information for her to pass on to the baker. The Nazis had discovered and raided one of their safe houses. One of her main jobs with the escape line that ran out of Brussels and the surrounding countryside was locating places where the evaders could stay for a few hours or perhaps a few days. Moving these men from one safe house to another—often right under the noses of the Nazis—was perhaps the most dangerous part of their work. But Anja insisted that as a nurse she had the perfect cover for going in and out of houses and visiting farms in the region.
    Once the train came to a stop, he had waited for her to disembark and then started pushing the luggage trolley down the platform close to where she was walking. He had pressed the note that contained the address of the raided safe house into her palm without a word. All of this had been done in the blink of an eye. They had been two strangers passing in the growing darkness of a late November night. But for Mikel that single moment of contact and the news of the plane down near the farm formed the foundation of hours they might spend together in the coming weeks. For the Allied crew that had fallen from the sky would need help, and he and Anja would become their lifeline to freedom.

    Peter was shivering so hard that he could barely keep himself from emitting low moans. At the same time, he felt as if he had a raging fever. He fought to stay conscious, to listen for sounds of anyone coming. Not that he was capable of doing anything but surrender should the enemy discover his hiding place. Truth was, they would probably shoot him without asking any questions, or worse, they might accidentally kill him by probing the stuff covering him with their bayonets.
    Focus
,
Trent
.
    He tried to remember as much as possible about the terrain he’d been able to see from the plane and then again as the boy helped him drag himself across the field to the ditch. There had been smoke rising. Was that from the downed plane or a house? And what about the rest of the crew?
    Mentally he tried to reason out their fates. Haversole was definitely dead. Walker—the pilot—would probably have not had time to bail out before the plane hit and exploded. Peter knew that the man wouldn’t think twice about trading his life for the safety of innocents living in the area. Peter was sure that he’d heard a burst of machine-gun fire coming from the direction of the trees where Simpson had landed. There were four other crew members he couldn’t account for. He hoped they’d managed to land safely and get to a hiding place. Focusing his attention in the direction of the road where he’d seen the military trucks passing, he heard more traffic. The wind carried the smell of burning oil and gas from the smoldering plane in his direction. He closed his eyes.
    So tired. So very …
    A sound nearby brought him immediately alert. Judging by the darkness, time had passed. Minutes? Hours? Instinctively he tried to flatten himself farther into the ditch. The action sent a shot of pain burning its way the length of