Chapter One

Giestermädchen

December 1943 - Aldbourne, England

Colonel Sink twisted the file in his hand, regarding it suspiciously before he let it drop to the desk in front of him. The folder landed with a dull thunk, and Lewis Nixon blinked. He weaved his fingers together and placed his hands on his knee and watched Sink chew on the edge of his moustache.

"I'm not a man to beat around the bush, Nixon," Sink said. He sank down into the leather armchair he had repurposed for his desk. "But I don't even know how to get started on this one."

Nixon was having a perfectly fine day before this. He had woken up - hungover, but not so much that he felt ill - and discovered that the English broad he had brought back to his billet the night before had gone but had left her address written on his washstand mirror in lipstick. He had gotten a fresh cup of chicory coffee that almost tasted like the real thing from his hosts, had gone for a stroll down to the pub to reclaim his aviators, and had run into a friendly Irish Setter and its very friendly owner on the way to the officer's headquarters. It was there that Sink's courier had intercepted him and loaded him into a jeep and deposited him in Sink's office. He didn't have the slightest clue what was going on. He wondered if all his misdeeds could fill a folder like that.

"Well, sir," Nixon said. "Are any of us being reprimanded? Or, is it, maybe, well, am I being reprimanded? If so, I can assure you..."

Sink waved a hand at him. "No, Nixon, it's not you this time. It's a new addition to the battalion."

Nixon nodded slowly. Sink sighed and tried again.

"Far be it for me to understand, but new team members are being added to each battalion in order to aid our strategy and intelligence when we drop into France." Sink scooted the file towards Nixon with a forefinger. "This is coming straight from division HQ. A better word for these "team members" would be operatives. They're straight from the OSS and assigned to each battalion based on the outfit's needs."

Nixon picked up the weighty folder and gave Sink an even look. "They think the 101st has needs?"

Sink grimaced. "They think the 101st needs spies." He picked up a fountain pen and drummed it on the desk. "These operatives are multi-national, some who've defected from their home countries to aid the Allied war effort. And they are both male and female."

Nixon flipped open the folder. Multiple files were attached to each other with overlapping paper clips, as if the secretary compiling it had kept adding page after page in surprise. Looking at the gritty black-and-white headshot that was attached to the top page, Nixon wondered if that had been the case. Staring back at him with an insolent gaze wearing something between a grimace and a smirk was a woman - no, a girl - with shoulder length dark hair and a circular face. He slid the photo off of the page and held it up to the desk lamp.

"And naturally, division gave us a twenty-four-year-old German Abwehr defector wanted for murder in her native land," Sink said. "She has a lot of names. Fuchs, her original German codename. Giestermädchen, a pleasant nickname given to her by SS officers, which means -"

"Ghost girl," Nixon said. He laid the photo on the desk.

"Indeed," Sink said. ""Ghost" is now her OSS codename. Apparently, she has the lovely ability to creep through enemy lines as if she were invisible."

"Comforting," Nixon said, flipping through the other pages. "She's skilled in hand-to-hand combat, has training as a sniper, is a valuable translator." He squinted at the next line of print. "And has...wait a minute, she's 'highly skilled in explosives'?"

Sink raised his eyebrows as Nixon scratched his stubble. Nixon had visions of a translucent woman blowing them all up to hell in their foxholes. "What is the protocol here?"

Sink chuckled, looking just as bewildered as Nixon felt. "She's coming to Aldbourne next week on the train from London, just in time for Christmas," he said with a snort. "She wants to meet the officers of Dog, Easy, and Fox companies, since those are the three she'll be working with directly. And she's going to fall into training for a month to acclimate herself to our progress."

"Lucky us," Nixon said, but straightened up after Sink leveled a particular stern gaze at him. "That is, sir... I'm not sure how the men will take this."

"They'll take it," Sink said. "Even if she is German, even if she is a she, if I hear any word of improper behavior towards her, there will be consequences." Sink dug around in his desk drawer and emerged with an old cigar. "She's a lieutenant by grade, though the OSS uses the term 'Agent' as the designator for all its operatives. So, she'll receive the respect due towards a lieutenant, and I expect you to be her guide until she gets used to performing inside the company alongside the men."

Nixon glanced down at the photograph again. "Does she take orders from us, sir?"

"When she's stationed with us, she will," Sink replied. "But division has already told me she'll be moved at large by the OSS."

Dick wasn't going to believe this. Neither were the rest of the men, for that matter - Nixon particularly wondered how Easy would take the infiltration of a German woman into their ranks. But, stranger things had happened. And at another glance, she wasn't half-bad looking. He raised an eyebrow and wondered if she liked whisky.

She, he thought, and then frowned. "What's her name? Her real name, I mean."

Sink chuckled. "Good question," he said. "Meet Karolina Shütze, Easy Company's new reserve lieutenant. God help us all."

Hello there, Karolina. Nixon smiled to himself. Welcome to the circus.

He walked out of Sink's office with the folder tucked tightly under his arm, the Ghost's photo buttoned into the pocket of his jacket. The wind had turned bitingly cold since he had been in Sink's office, and he turned up the collar on his coat. Blue-grey storm clouds gathered to the east, the horizon almost black with rain.

By the pricking of my thumbs, he thought. Something wicked this way comes.