April 16th, 1944. 3 am.

The anti-aircraft was housed overnight under a tarp in a heavily guarded section of the German battery. Such fortifications were common along the coast of Normandy. I had watched their construction from my bell tower, studying and marking them carefully on my map. Madrid would surely have a detailed array of such outposts. I had spent a particularly careful hour watching the movements of this battery. There were two guards on a three-hour shift, exactly 5 minutes between each shift change. The pattern was set and I knew they wouldn't be likely to change it. My window of time was small but manageable.

I had slipped home to the home on Rue de Joly and told Simone that I would be out late. She had taken my night's plans as a good sign and had promised to leave the back door unlocked. Curfew was at sunset, so I departed as the sky began to turn pink and purple like a fresh bruise. My enigma machine was housed in the fire-scarred warehouse a half-mile from the town; my equipment buried beneath a charred floorboard that concealed all my secrets. It was too much of a risk to keep them near me or within village limits. Searches and suspicion were common and finding even a scrap of evidence were enough to incriminate. I knew that now more than ever.

The message had been sent, the photos and package were slipped into my mailbox ready for pickup. It was there, in the rubble of that barn, I changed from my civilian clothes to the black pants and dark jacket. There was no real uniform for my kind of work, not like the army and marine uniforms that had become a common sight during my last few months in Chicago. I hadn't been able to see Miriam and Dad from the train platform through the browns and greens. Unlike in Chicago, I had an assortment of gadgets and explosives, a few of my own inventions. It was calming to have my gun and my grenades so close again, a strange comfort in their proximity. Crouched by the tree trunk, watching the soldiers mark the perimeter around the weapon, I heard my mother's voice in my head.

"Fear makes the bear bigger than he is."

The bear took the form of two soldiers, their path clearly marked. They were only two men. Small in size, I had taken bigger. They each had StG 44, something I knew how to disarm. The five-minute shift change would be in less than two minutes. I had enough time to slip through, plant my TnT, and hightail it back to the treeline. That was just the first part of the plan. I would then have to run all the way back to the barn, hide and conceal my uniform and run back to the boarding house. All without being caught.

Piece of cake. I had done several missions like this at Camp-X but there had been trainers and instructors to oversee my work. This was on my own. No one would pick up the pieces if it all went to shit.

I took a deep steadying breath and looked down at my watch. One minute. I wouldn't let it go to shit. I had no reason to worry. I shifted my boots, footprints concealed with rubber soles that were shaped to look like bare feet. Unsettling to look at but ingenious nonetheless. Madrid had an assortment of oddities and bizarre tools that were useful if not disturbing. Felix had thought it amusing to mess with the gadgets, poking fun at their bizarre disguises but I was sure, wherever he was now, he was grateful for anything that made his work easier.

30 seconds. I gathered my courage and my feet underneath me, readying my already tense muscles for the dash. The ground was damp beneath my knees. My mind wasn't on the gun before me as it should have been but on Simone's backdoor that was left unlocked for me. Would I be able to enter the garden and the house without being caught?

Glancing down at my watch one last time, I watched the hand tick to 3 am and started to creep down the slope, like a spider. The soldiers retreating backs was all the encouragement I needed to slip through the bush line and slither across the dimly lit complex to the shadow of the tarp. I ducked underneath the covering, the only sound was my heavy breathing against the metal of the weapon.

I was so close I could smell the death that would soak every inch of this gun, kill the men who were just trying to do their duty. Trying to make the world a little brighter. The thought of this gun making children fatherless and women widows was enough to steel my resolve and my fingers worked quickly to affix the TNT on the weapon and flick my lighter, illuminating the cool metal. Guns didn't discriminate but fingers behind the triggers did.

The sound of the fuse crackling sent a second wind of speed into my feet, I ducked my head back under the tarp and, looking around the complex, darted back to the tree line. I threw myself into a bush, watching as the courtyard was illuminated with the red hot flash, my whole body shaking in the explosion that followed. Shrapnel flew, slicing through buildings and trees, sending leaves falling around my ears. I didn't wait for the dust to settle, by the time the shouts were ringing and the alarm had been called, I was thirty yards away.

My route back to the barn was quick and efficient. In twenty minutes at high speed, I had made it to the skeletal remains of the structure and slid on my knees to where the rickety floorboards and hay hid a cavity that perfectly aligned itself with my need of concealment.

My fingers were trembling as I tore open the buttons of my uniform and pulled it over my panting chest. Throwing on the civilian clothes that had been the common dress, I glanced down at my watch. 3:30 am. Sighing, I allowed myself a minute to catch my breath. I opened the case of my enigma machine and laid my trembling fingers on the keys. Pausing, I formulated my thoughts.

So much had happened in the last twelve hours. Could I accurately convey it to Madrid? The clatter of the keys was deafening in the silent barn as I typed out my message. I had been burned, as the agents of the OSS liked to refer to suspicion or one's position being revealed.

Saw some fireworks. Burned. Not sure how deep. Won't be sleeping for a while. Eris.