"Lou?"
I wiped the tears from my eyes and turned to face Benjamin, the dim light from the moon illuminating the concern on his groggy face.
"I'm sorry to wake you," I whispered, "I'm fine."
He touched one of the tightly wound pin-curls on my head and cocked his head. "You didn't sound fine. You were crying so hard you shook the bed."
"I'm sorry, I'm really fine, darling. It's just," the tears began to fall again and Benjamin pulled me to his chest comfortingly, "every time I close my eyes I see those Jews in the train car. I can't take this guilt anymore, Ben."
Despite his strong arms and stoic look, I could feel his shoulders grow weak. He knew how devastating the news had been to me, and the past few weeks had been clear evidence.
Every time I slept, I awoke screaming with a nightmare. Every time someone asked to take my picture or recognized me from the newspaper, I couldn't help but feel like a hypocrite. I was no hero; I was a murderer. No better than the Nazis in Munich.
The men in charge of the OSS didn't fire me, but I almost wished they had. Every day, I lived in dread that someone would find out what had happened to those Jews and blame me.
"You know what I'm going to say," Benjamin whispered, massaging my neck as he let me cry on him.
"It's not my fault," I sobbed, "I know. I know. But-"
"What could you have done, Louisa?" he replied, "In all reality, what could you have done to save those people you met on the train?"
I shook my head. "I don't know. I could have...just not gotten on that train to begin with, Ben. I was just scared of waiting any longer to get medical help for my side and I made a terrible choice."
Benjamin took my face in his hands and said urgently, "You would have died if you had waited any longer to get to Virginia Hall-"
"But that's just the point," I argued, hiccuping with sobs, "I survived and seven-hundred men, women, and children died because of me. And then I took my escape just in time for all of them to pay the consequences."
"They were on their way to a camp. It's not like you could have just smuggled them all out of Germany, Lou."
I was silent. He was right, I supposed. But he brought up another good point.
"What if we could have smuggled them all out of Germany?"
"What?"
"You know that report we got a few weeks ago of a French Resistance member smuggling Jews from his home?"
Ben scoffed. "Yeah, the one that was beheaded in the streets while his family watched because of it. I know where you're going with this."
I sat up and turned on the little lamp beside the bed, looking at him earnestly.
"The OSS is looking for an agent to infiltrate Marseilles right now, Ben. Think about it: helping hide Jews and get them to safety somewhere in America or England, while also providing intelligence to Washington DC."
"You're not leaving me again, Lou. Not to do something as foolish as that."
I laughed a little and kissed him on the forehead, whispering, "That's why you would come with me. Besides, I'm not as fluent in French as you."
His eyes widened. "I can't-"
"We have to, darling. Nobody in America knows what's going on over there—besides people like us with classified information. If we do nothing, that makes us no better than the Krauts beheading people and sending innocent children into these horrid camps."
     "Do you understand how dangerous that is, Louisa? Marseilles is one of the most dangerous places in the world."
     I laughed. "And Munich is the most dangerous place in the world, and I've been there. We can handle it. We could buy a little house and you could open up a little medical practice downstairs, wouldn't you like that? And Jews could come in with a secret code and we could provide them with food and a clean bed and good friendship before sending them on their way with ration cards and fake identity cards. We could save lives."
     "I get that you want to make up for what happened to the people on the train, love," Ben sighed, rubbing his temples, "but this is impossible. I'm the Head of Intelligence here, Louisa...I can't just leave with my wife on a field mission to France, even if I thought it was a good idea for us to go."
     A dog barked outside and it made me jump, reminding me of the vicious attack dogs that marched beside German soldiers in Munich terrorizing anyone they wanted to. Benjamin gave me a look, as if to prove his point.
     "I can't stay here, Ben. You haven't seen the things I've seen over there. Something has to happen, and we are the only ones who can do anything about it. Just let me talk to the OSS tomorrow, okay? Sleep on it."
He groaned. "That means I'll have no choice but to agree in the morning."
     "Exactly."

     The next afternoon, I hurried into Arthur Goldberg's office with a cup of steaming coffee. He raised his eyebrows as I set it down and said, "Hello, Mr. Goldberg. And how is Europe today?"
     "On fire as usual. What's going on, Agent?"
     Goldberg was a supervisor of the Secret Intelligence Branch in the OSS, in charge of keeping contact with the Resistance forces (both American and European) and organized anti-Nazi Europeans into an extensive intelligence network.
     I'd worked with him a lot in preparation for my time in Munich, and he was often the person who passed my messages along to Benjamin. Now, he was exactly the person I needed.
     "I need your help."
     He smirked and took a sip of the coffee. "What a surprise. Where do you plan to go this month, Louisa? Africa? Japan? Hitler's bunker?"
     "Marseilles, France."
     Sitting down in the chair across from his desk, I looked at him pleadingly. As sarcastic as he was with me, I knew he would be sympathetic to my request.
     If I could get his support, the operation would definitely go through and Benjamin would be obliged to go with it.
     "You want to go to occupied France. Wasn't Munich enough?"
    I sighed. "You know you need someone there to scout things out. The French government has been begging for the liberation of Marseilles. You know how important that port is to our cause, and the only way we have a chance of getting it back is if you have someone inside."
     Explaining the whole plan I had come up with, I watched his expression carefully. He seemed impressed that I had been able to figure all of it out, as though making coffee was my greatest asset.
     "What's Tallmadge saying?"
     "He'll come around—if you agree to back this plan."
     Arthur Goldberg put his hand on his forehead and leaned forward. "You realize it's against OSS regulation to have married couples even work in the same theater of the war. We are already bending the rules for you two."
     "Oh, so you do a lot of rule-following here? I couldn't tell."
     He sighed. "It's gonna take a lot more than my endorsement to make this happen."
     "I know. Just approach Mr. Shepardson about it and see if you can get it approved for me. If I have to spend the rest of my life getting coffee for people I outrank or listening to Caleb tell me about his latest hunting adventure, I think I'll go crazy. Please."
     "I'll talk to him. Now get back to work, okay Agent? Why don't you do some research on the area and where we could station you in Marseilles."
     Grinning, I reached into my leather messenger bag and placed three typed pages of information on businesses in the town, the industries that thrive, Resistance members within the area, homes for sale, and hundreds of other facts they'd need to know.
     Goldberg gasped and flipped through it silently. "How long did this take you?"
     "All morning. I was the only one in the library, so I got a lot more done."
     "I can see that," he muttered, looking up at me with a small grin, "and I'll pass this along. You're probably the best operative for the job, Louisa, besides your recognizable face. Shepardson will agree."
     I thanked him profusely and left his office with high hopes. The fact that Benjamin would be with me would help my case, and hopefully he would come around to the idea once everyone else was on board.
     Sitting back down at my desk down the hall, I glanced up at Caleb Sullivan who looked at me expectantly.
     "What did he say?"
     "He's going to ask Mr. Shepardson and try to convince Ben. You can call me Madame Tallmadge from now on."
     He laughed deeply and gave me a sideways smirk. "I'm happy for you," he said in his slightly slightly southern drawl, "but if they put some other agent in your desk while you're gone, I'll quit. Nobody else will let me take my shoes off while I'm working but you."
   I rolled my eyes.
   "I'm going to go pick up my mail from downstairs," I said, standing up slowly, "Do you want me to get yours too?"
     "C'mon now, Louisa, you're too nice for this job. Would you?"
     "You bet."

     On my way back from the mailroom carrying a fairly large package addressed to Caleb and a few letters to Benjamin, I heard someone call, "Hey, dolly! I've got a job for you."
     Indignant, I looked back to find two men in their late thirties looking at me with grins on their faces.
"What did you call me?"
"I called you dolly," the one man said, snapping at me and pointing to a stack of papers on his desk, "and I need you to fill these forms out for me."
"You may call me Agent. And that's not my job."
They rolled their eyes and I felt my face grow hot as the entire Research and Analysis branch watched, trying to listen over the clicks of hundreds of typewriters.
"Listen sweetheart, we are actual agents and have things that need to be done. We'll have to report you to your boss if you don't do your job. Secretaries are not agents, darling. You're cute, though."
     He slapped me hard on the behind and I froze. Someone gasped.
Fuming, I approached their desks and bent down to look them in the eye. "My name is Louisa Tallmadge," I said quietly, "and I am a special agent in the Secret Intelligence branch down the hall. Not only am I your boss here, I highly outrank you on the battlefield...not that you've ever been there. That little stunt may have worked with some women here who would get fired if they talked back to you, but not me. Be glad we are in a public place right now, boys, because you'd be unconscious otherwise."
They exchanged glances.
Standing up and giving them a honeyed smile, I asked sweetly, "What is your name?"
The one man avoided my eyes and didn't answer, so I reached down and picked up a piece of paperwork from his desk.
"James Massetti, it has been a pleasure meeting you. And you?" I asked, turning to the other.
He shook his head, chuckling, and mumbled, "You're nuts if you think I'm tellin' you my name-"
An exhausted-looking woman around my age leaned in from behind him, holding three empty coffee cups in her hand, and said, "McFeely. His name is Bert McFeely, Agent Tallmadge."
I smiled and the man looked absolutely stunned at this turn of events.
     "Thank you," I said genuinely to her, a look of understanding between us that transcended anything these men could understand. She was there for me, and I was there for her.
     "Mr. McFeely, Mr. Massetti," I said, taking a deep breath, "it has been a pleasure."