then, before I could turn around, felt the cold blade of the knife pressed against my throat.
“Don’t make a sound,” a voice hissed in my ear.
It was a vaguely familiar voice, but there was something about it that was so off-kilter from the way I had heard it before that I couldn’t place it.
“Start walking toward the sea,” he commanded. “If you try to run or scream, I’ll have to kill you.”
There was something in his tone that made me believe him. So I started walking.
We moved through the forested area, him pushing me ahead of him, heedless of branches or the thick undergrowth. I stumbled more than once on roots or fallen branches but hurried to catch my footing, afraid that the knife would accidentally slice my neck.
My heart was pounding, but I did my best to keep a cool head.
Who is it? I thought. I didn’t think it was the German agent because the accent was British. Surely there were German agents who could mimic a British accent or who might even have been raised here, of course, but I still had the feeling I had met him before.
We reached a clearing, and before us there was a stretch of green that led toward the cliff.
“Keep going.” He took my arm and pushed me ahead of him in the darkness. There was barely enough light to see by, but I did my best to make my way in a straight line toward the cliff. I knew there was a path that led down to the beach. I had seen it in the daylight.
We reached the edge of the cliff, and I could barely make out a steep trail of sorts in the sandy red earth.
“Go,” he said roughly, and so I kept moving. It was difficult to make my way down the steep path with the sand crumbling beneath my feet and a dark figure with a knife at my back. If I made it out of this alive, I’d be qualified for a circus act, I thought darkly.
We reached the beach at last and the man, with one arm across my chest, holding the knife to my throat, reached into his pocket for something. A torch, I realized.
He turned it on and flashed it out onto the water.
A moment later there was a responding signal from far out across the water. The German spy was coming.
What should I do?
One thing was painfully obvious. There was no good reason for this man to keep me alive. They’d killed Harden and the waiter-messenger when he was of no further use to them, and I was sure they’d have no qualms about doing the same to me.
If I was going to survive this, I had to do something. And quickly.
Once I’d decided that, it didn’t take long for me to act.
Grabbing his arm to steady the knife, I slipped quickly from beneath his grasp and began to run. I didn’t know if I could make it back up the cliff without his catching me, but I had to try. Major Ramsey had a gun, and that was the only thing that would trump the killer’s knife.
I scrambled up the embankment, the sand giving way beneath my feet with each step. I lost a shoe, but continued my climb, clutching at the sand and stray weeds that had managed to find purchase in the grainy soil. There were no thoughts in my head but escape. Every part of my being was focused on my flight, my body moving almost of its own accord.
I’d made it nearly halfway up when I felt the blow from behind. He tackled me, grabbing me around the waist as I struggled and pulling me back with him. He slipped on the sand then, and we both tumbled down the embankment in a tangle of limbs.
We hit the ground hard, me on my stomach and the man atop me, and the air was knocked out of me. I felt the grit of sand in my eyes and mouth, and I struggled to catch a breath. I expected at any moment to feel the hot slice of his knife, but he must have dropped it in the fall because I could feel both his hands on me now, holding me down.
I managed to turn in his grasp onto my back and dragged in a ragged breath. The burst of oxygen cleared my head a bit, and for the first time I got a good look at my assailant,