Soul Intent Read Online Free PDF Page B

on the floor in the corner of the front room and watched them.
    James ran his fingers through his close-cropped brown hair and glanced over at Flora. “How about another cuppa joe, hon?” He held out his chipped coffee cup.
    Flora stood up and took the cup, then headed to the small kitchen in the back of the house. She took an American “K” ration breakfast package from the cupboard and slid out the inner wax carton. She emptied the coffee packet and sugar tablets into the cup and filled it with water from the kettle on the coal-fired stove.
    As she stirred the coffee, Flora poked through the rest of the food in the package. No wonder the Allies won the war—the GIs consumed twice the calories of the Axis soldiers. Flora saved the gum for Baba, tucked the cigarettes in her skirt pocket, and left the biscuits, cereal bar, and ham and eggs for the housekeeper to bring to her family.
    James was right—she had grown tired of the rations after only a month. When Flora and her grandmother first arrived in Nuremberg, he laughed at the way they exclaimed over the chocolate bars and canned meats. The Gypsies had wolfed down the food on that first day, barely noticing the two men gaping at them.
    “Eat all you want,” James had told them. “Soul Identity has rations a-plenty, and none of us will touch them.”
    Flora ran her hands over her hips. The bones no longer jutted out the way they did four weeks ago. Sitting was now less painful with some padding covering her pelvis and tailbone. And with her clean new clothes and shiny black hair, the soldiers around town were perking up and nudging each other as she ran her errands.
    Even Baba had gained weight. She was back to her old self—except for her unrecovered heart.
    Flora had spent the last month helping Mr. Morgan sort through Goering’s paperwork. They completed the final documents that afternoon, which was why the overseer turned his attention to breaking into the prison.
    Hermann Goering needed his soul identity read, but for that to happen, either Baba had to get to him inside the prison, or the Nazi had to get out.
    It sure didn’t seem like Goering would be getting out. The trials had uncovered so many evil deeds that Flora didn’t think any Nazi deserved to live. James reminded her to keep an open mind, as only the prosecution had presented their case, but Flora’s had been shut ever since she and Baba learned of her father’s fate in Dachau.
    Hating the Nazis only made her job harder. She rinsed the spoon with some hot water from the kettle. How did she let herself get roped into helping Goering join Soul Identity?
    It must be her awe of the mighty organization Mr. Morgan worked for—awe of their vast funds, and their ability to obtain food in a city where many German inhabitants were still dying of starvation. How did they obtain their unlimited rations, anyway?
    It was more than awe—it was the new clothes she wore, and it was the vitamins and medicine they supplied Baba. Flora had been seduced by the easy life. Every day she found herself drawn deeper into the comfort Soul Identity offered.
    But she wasn’t drawn into their plan—Goering’s Last Shot, James called it—the Nazi leader’s grasp at immortality by entrusting his memories and what remained of his fortune to Soul Identity’s depositary, in the hope that one day his reincarnated soul would return in a fresh body to take up the Nazi mantle.
    Flora shivered as she imagined a future Soul Identity member, excited to see what a previous soul line carrier had left for them, only to be burdened with Goering’s evil Nazi machinations.
    She knew what she wanted—what she needed—to do. She must destroy Goering’s memories and return the money to its rightful owners, the Jewish and Gypsy survivors.
    Mr. Morgan had pointed out that it wasn’t that straightforward. “Our number one job is to protect our members,” he declared. “Whether we agree with their philosophies or not, we must