he could control the work, the decisions, even the risks. He could not, however, control this…woman.
“The plans are locked in a newly built cabinet. My key will only open the old one.”
“That’s it?” Jack had to resist the urge to laugh in relief. “That was your mistake?”
He’d dealt with worse. Much worse. Missions were always more complicated than they first appeared on paper. Real life had intricacies that tended to create a powder keg of unexpected problems.
“Are you just going to stand there staring at me?” she demanded. “Didn’t you hear what I said?”
“I heard. You gave the British outdated information.”
“I gave them wrong information. I never get it wrong. Never.”
“Until now.”
She inclined her head slightly, her expression giving nothing away. “Until now.”
“So we make a new plan.”
He didn’t add that this was just the sort of tangle that had first led him into the heart of Germany two years before—the type of unexpected twist that ruled his every move. Disorder was so much a part of who he’d become, he’d long since accepted the realities of living without certainty. He didn’t especially like the ambiguity of never knowing the outcome of a mission or when the next twist would come, but he bore the pressure with steely grit.
He had no other choice.
“Make a new plan,” she repeated. “It’s that simple for you?”
“Nothing is ever simple.”
In fact, the possibilities were endless, but Jack was exceptionally skilled at finding the perfect solution inside the less perfect ones. “Tell me exactly where the plans are and I’ll come up with an idea. Or better yet, get me some paper and something to write with. I think better with a pen in my hand.”
She sank into a chair with an uncharacteristic lack of grace. “There is one more complication you should know about.”
Jack felt like he was free-falling without a parachute. His tight control over dangerous emotions was slipping, and that made him furious. Nothing shook him, and no one caught him by surprise. Even when the real Friedrich Reiter had come to kill him, Jack had kept his wits about him enough to prevail in the deadly clash. There’d been no time for prayer, no begging the Lord for assistance, just reflex.
And now…here…with this woman…he was in another situation where his control was being tested.
Enough. The feminine manipulation ended now. “Let’s have it,” he said, pure reflex guiding his words. “All of it.”
“As you wish.” Narrowing those glorious eyes of hers, she jumped up and planted a hand on her hip. “The admiral keeps the key to the cabinet on a ring he carries with him at all times, except when he sleeps. Whereby, he sets the key chain on the nightstand by his bed.”
The roll in Jack’s gut came fast and slick, surprising him. He didn’t take the time to analyze the emotion behind the sensation. “And you know this how?”
Taking three steps toward him, Kerensky pursed her lips and patted his cheek. “That’s my business, darling.”
He grabbed her wrist. “Not if it’s going to endanger my life.”
“Which it won’t.” She dropped a withering glare to his hand, waited until he released her. “Now, back to what I was saying. Since I alone know where the key is located, all I have to do is sneak into the room while Doenitz is asleep and—”
“No.” Whoever went in that building had to respond instantly if discovered. Jack was the trained killer. She was simply a mole who gathered information. He was the obvious person for the job. “I will break into the admiral’s private quarters.”
Her smile turned ruthless, deadly. The change in her put him instantly at ease. They were finally playing on his level.
He smiled back at her, his grin just as ruthless, just as deadly as hers.
She appeared unfazed.
“Here’s the situation, Herr Reiter, and do try to pay close attention. There are only two ways into Admiral Doenitz’s quarters. Through the front door or through a small window into his bedroom.”
The thrill of finding a solution had Jack rubbing his hands together. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“The window leading into the admiral’s room is small.” She dropped her gaze down to his shoes and back up again. “Far too small for you.”
“Then I’ll go through the front door.”
She was shaking her head before he finished speaking. “To get through the front door you would have to pass through six separate stations, with two guards each. They rotate from post to post on twenty-minute intervals, none of which are synchronized. Translation, that’s a minimum of six men you would have to bypass at any given time.”
“It’s what I do.”
She flicked a speck of dust off her shoulder. “Needlessly risky. Especially when I can get through the window and back out again in less time than a single rotation.”
Jack’s mind filed through ideas, discarded most, kept a few, recalculated.
“I’ll ultimately have to get past those guards the night I go in for the plans,” he said.
More thoughts shifted. New ideas crystallized, further calculations were made.
“I’ll just take the key and the plans all at once.” He blessed her with a look of censure, testing her with his words as much as with his attitude. “Translation: we go to Wilhelmshaven tonight and finish the job in one stroke.”
She jabbed her finger at his chest. “You’re thinking too much like a man. Go in, blow things up, deal with the risks tomorrow.”
“Not even close.” If anything, Jack overworked his solutions before acting on them. It was the one shred of humanity he had left.
“Two nights from now Karl Doenitz will be in Hamburg, at a party given for him by my mother.” She raised her hand to keep him from interrupting. “And before you say it, that also means the key will be with him in Hamburg, as well.”
“Keep talking while you get the paper I asked for.”
She remained exactly where she was. Naturally.
“Here’s how it’s going to work,” she said. “I get an impression of the key tonight, make a copy tomorrow, then go back the evening of the party and photograph the plans.”
“Why not just steal the plans tonight and be done with it?”
“And alert the Nazis that the British have discovered their secret weapon? No.” She shook her head. “We need to photograph the plans when no one is around and replace them exactly as we found them.”
