Today's Reading
Under clotted clouds that had swallowed the moon, she checked her Hamilton wristwatch again—only thirteen minutes left! Suddenly the cobblestones were coming up at her as she caught the tip of one of her loafers—men's, worn in lieu of the rare 12A women's. Angrily righting herself, she hurried past a thriving Victory Garden, its cornstalks towering over even her. Her throat tightened. It came upon her sometimes, being so tall and ungainly, so different. Never the girly girl, always the pal.
So what? Mother Caro used to declare throughout her high school years, insisting that Julia's time would come. Soon, she'd be back east at Caro's alma mater, Smith College&making lifelong friends, writing and staging plays, skiing, maybe also captaining the basketball team. Then on to achieve her dream: becoming a great woman writer. Julia McWilliams was free; that was more important than any boyfriend. First, live.
She powered on, propelled by the long legs her mother had passed down, along with her copper curls, strong opinions, and free spirit, her name itself. A Mayflower blueblood, Julia Carolyn Weston McWilliams—Caro to everyone—had bequeathed "Julia" to her firstborn.
As Georgetown Hospital drew into view, her sky-blue dress stuck to her back and her hair was a frizzy mess. After smoothing herself out, she flung open the door and made a beeline to the front desk. "I'm here to see Dan O'Connell." She reined in the emotions that often sent her voice fluttering.
Her white cap bobby-pinned to salt-and-silver hair, the nurse checked the register. "Down the hall, up the stairs, then the last corridor. Visiting hours are almost over."
One patient was asleep; the other regarded her with fevered impatience—O'Connell, his bandaged right leg hanging from an overhead device. His left foot was propped on a black briefcase.
"Julia McWilliams," she said, flashing her blue and white OSS ID. His face stubbled with dark beard, he looked disreputable. Perhaps his cover?
"What's this about?"
"The chief borrowed me from SI Scandinavia for a special op." He squinted at her as if to make sure she understood the gravity of his words. "A few hours ago, I'm heading to meet my contact when some jerk backs into me, smashes me against a parked truck."
Given the situation, she had to consider the worst. "Was he trying to stop you?"
"I thought I was clean, but..." O'Connell shrugged angrily. "Next thing I know, I'm in an ambulance, fighting the medics for this." He tapped his heel on the scuffed briefcase.
Whatever this contained was driving the man. Julia nudged her chair closer. "I sympathize, Mr. O'Connell. The general will get on it first thing tomorrow."
"Tomorrow's too late! My contact is leaving the country. Tonight. Even if I could break out, I'd never make it in time." He scowled at his bum leg. "Union Station is our final fallback. I need someone there." His burning black eyes met hers. "You're it."
"Oh my." She stared back, electrified. After Pearl Harbor—the intelligence failure that led to the birth of OSS—a Japanese sub had surfaced off the Santa Barbara coast, practically next door! Galvanized, she'd joined the Aircraft Warning Service in downtown Los Angeles. Commuting in her 1929 Model A jalopy, Eulalie, over the new Pasadena freeway, she spent long hours surveilling air and sea. Proud to finally have serious work, she made her way to Washington—and before long, an OSS clerical job that shook her into new life. Eighteen months later, she was gatekeeper for America's spy-chief, his Keeper of the Secrets, with the highest security clearance. Every incoming cable, diplomatic pouch, and crumpled, mud-stained agent's report landed on her Registry desk, to be logged, cross-referenced, and channeled to the relevant unit, a locked file, or the boss's desk. She was hungry, though, to get out of the files and into the field—to write her own reports.
Her heart sped up, then stopped. "I want to help you, but I could lose my job—"
"Or get promoted," O'Connell interrupted in a barely audible tone. "German telegraph traffic to occupied Oslo goes through Swedish-leased cables. The Swedes, although officially neutral, broke their code and have been passing us intel."
Julia nodded, having seen many of these dispatches.
"This time there's a price tag: fifty thousand dollars. But not for anyone's greed. The Nazis have issued a deportation order for Denmark's entire Jewish population, to be interned—at best."
She stared, still appalled by the Final Solution cable from their Berne station chief, whose German informant had been "invited" to supply prussic acid for a prison in Auschwitz, Poland. "And&?"
"A giant rescue operation is underway to smuggle them across Oresund Strait to Sweden, where the king will grant asylum. Almost every boat in the land is being mobilized; some are charging passage. Stockholm will transfer the funds to the Danish Resistance." He shot a meaningful look at the briefcase.
...
