The Undaunted (Book 2 of The Undesirables)

Chapter 18: The Correspondent

Jillian's radio didn't work. It was an SSTR-1, with a range of up to a thousand miles in a package that could fit in a suitcase. It represented the height of American technology and had been provided to her by the Office of Strategic Services. She had been entrusted that radio so that she could send and receive coded messages to an American agent stationed in neutral Turkey. But the SSTR-1's battery was dead. And without a power, it was useless.

The engineers who had developed the SSTR-1 for the O.S.S. had anticipated electrical problems. The radio was designed to recharge from a variety of sources. But the German bombing had destroyed Stalingrad's power grid, and so Jillian had to find some other way to get her message to out, to tell America that against all odds Russia was holding out: the train station had not yet been taken and, by extension, Stalingrad was not yet defeated.

Jillian had arrived back at her new home an hour ago. It was in the remains of a chemist's shop; what in the United States she would have called a "pharmacy". The pharmacist himself had lived in an apartment above his shop, but that floor had collapsed into a mound of rubble.

That mound was a perfect hiding place. From outside it didn't look like anything special – just one more ruin in an endless landscape of ruins. But a narrow tunnel led through the mound to the interior, where the chemist's shop remained intact, like a hidden cavern. Everything inside that cavern was undamaged, even the scores of tiny wooden drawers containing mysterious chemicals and pharmaceuticals. It was such a good hiding place that Jillian had felt secure leaving her typewriter, radio and supplies here. She knew no one would find them.

But now, she realized with dread, her hiding place had been compromised. She'd have to move, she'd have to find some new home, because the children, the orphans, now knew where she lived.

Those children were currently crawling over the mound of rubble like it was a park play structure. She'd already given Natasha, the little girl who'd retrieved her pack and code book, the box of saltines Jillian had promised. But Natasha believed there were more treasures hidden in the ruins, food left behind when the apartment collapsed. So, she and her "brothers and sisters" were scouring the rubble like little pirates searching for hidden treasure.

Jillian was a terrible spy, she now realized with a sigh. A real spy would have never led these children back to her hiding place. A real spy would have never dropped her codebook. A real spy would have never allowed her radio's battery to die.

"I found a package of flour!" Natasha cried out in triumph. "And...and I think rice!" The other children swarmed to Natasha's position on the shifting hill of rubble and began to dig, excavating the little treasures brick by heavy brick.

Dr. Parsons had been wrong to recruit Jillian. He'd been wrong to train her, to give her this high-tech radio. It would have been much more useful in someone else's hands, some more effective agent's hands, an agent as intelligent and ruthless as Dr. Parsons himself. Jillian's handler would never have allowed this to happen. Dr. Parsons would never have allowed himself to be inconvenienced by mere children. Jillian should try to be more like Dr. Parsons, think more like Dr. Parsons. What would Dr. Parsons do?

"It is rice!" Natasha cried out with glee, lifting a paper sack carefully from the excavated ruin.

And suddenly, Jillian knew what Dr. Parsons would do. "That's my rice!" she yelled.

The children froze. They turned their eyes on her, menacing eyes, angry eyes. Natasha folded her arms protectively around the bag of rice. "Finders keepers," she sneered.

"Yes," Jillian acknowledged. "Finders keepers. And I found this shop so I'm keeping everything inside it."

"Says who?!" challenged Natasha.