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“Maybe I’ve moved on. You did mention you liked the view.” She turned and walked to the window. Indeed, from here, the sun spilled twilight gold upon the waters of Lake Como, the peaks to the west covered in blue snow, the glory of the heavens turning a deep magenta with the late-afternoon hour. “I love it here. And I love my job. And I’m going back to my life.”
“What if we find something…I don’t know…incriminating in that locker?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know—like your photo and pictures of your life.”
“Spoken like a SEAL who’s had too many op packages or whatever they’re called put together.”
He shrugged.
“Okay, if we find a picture of me and my itinerary and a blueprint to my house, then yes, I give you permission to freak out. Until then, I’m packing my uniform and going back to work.”
He held up his hands. “I’m not the one you have to convince.”
“Dad.”
“Just saying. It was his grand idea to jump on a plane.” Ned came over to her. “No one is trying to boss you around. We do know better than that.” He kissed her forehead.
Sure they did.
But maybe she was wrong, because twenty-four hours later, as they disembarked in Berlin’s Tegel Airport and got on the S-Bahn for the Hauptbahnhof, her father let her lead the way, her German directing her to the right train stops, finally pulling into the central train station.
The soaring glass ceiling let in the wan sunlight from an overcast sky as they pulled into the station. She slung her backpack over her shoulder and lined up by the door, flanked by her way overprotective brothers, and disembarked into the massive train station. The platform surged with travelers, and she pulled out in front, weaving through the crowd, past a couple holding hands, a mother and her children, countless students. Someone bumped her and she turned, frowned at him, but the man wore headphones.
Shae caught up to her. Oops, she hadn’t realized she’d been walking so fast.
“I’ve never been to Berlin,” Shae said. “I heard it was destroyed in World War Two.”
They emerged from the massive glass tunnel into the station. “The bombing of Berlin destroyed almost the entire city,” Iris said. “Which is why Berlin is a modern, hip town, while the rest of Europe is steeped deep in its history. Aside from a few miraculously saved buildings, like the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and the Brandenburger Tor, most of Berlin was either reconstruction or rebuilt after the war.”
The others caught up, and they got on an escalator, which brought them up from the platform to a massive shopping plaza, with a McDonald’s and other restaurants. Above them, on the next level, another platform led to the trains into the city.
“I could go for a burger,” Jonas said.
“After we find the locker,” her dad the general said. He’d been brutally quiet since arriving at her apartment yesterday, and Iris guessed that probably he’d been more than traumatized at the state of it.
And what might have happened to his daughter if she’d been there.
She fell in beside him now. “You know, I’ve lived overseas for a while now. I do know what I’m doing.”
He wore a flannel jacket and shoved his hands into the pockets. “I know. But it feels like that time I showed up at football practice to see you out in the field. The ball was snapped, and you were nearly mowed over by a defensive tackle, and it was all I could do not to run out into the field.”
“As I remember, you did cross into the plane of the field. And I was fine.”
“Scared me to death. I still have a hard time seeing you out there.”
She glanced up at him.
“Not that I’m stopping you.” He held up a hand. “I am aware of your stubborn streak. Got it from your mother.”
“Yeah, right.”
He smiled, but then turned his voice low. “Just don’t forget that you’re not alone. And it’s not weakness to let other people protect you. You have a team.”
“I’m not a SEAL, Dad.”
“No, you’re a Marshall.”
