Hanging on

The rim of her cowl fitted tightly around her lovely face, holding her long hair out of sight. Her robe was black and fell to the floor, with a wide white vent down the left side. The Eisenhower women who had sewn the costumes really did know what a well-dressed nun should wear. Unless the nun was Lily Kain. If the nun was Lily Kain, the habit did not look good on her at all. If the nun was Lily Kain, she should wear pasties shaped like twin crosses over her nipples-and a G-string made out of rosary beads.
        "Blow up our bridge?" Lily asked, when he finished telling her the plan. "Is that our only choice?"
        "Seems to be," Kelly said. He looked at his watch. "Almost three. We have a whole lot to do before dawn."
        He and Tooley located the T-plunger, a coil of wire, and a wooden case full of carefully packed dynamite which was wrapped in airtight plastic to keep the sticks from sweating. They lugged the stuff toward the door, anxious to get on with things.
        "Major, wait!" Nathalie Jobert said, clutching his hand as he reached for the doorknob. "What about David?"
        Kelly looked into her lovely black eyes and smiled. "He's fine. I'll keep him right beside me, safe and sound."
        "Will you tell him I said-" She looked away, wiped at her pert nose with the back of one slender hand.
        "Yes?"
        "Tell him that I-"
        "That you love him?" Kelly asked.
        She blushed and nodded.
        "I'll tell him," the major said. He leaned over and kissed her cool forehead below her winged white hood. "Now I have to go."
        She raised his hand and kissed it, just as the lights went out. "You're a wonderful man." Then she was gone.
        But Lily was there to detain him another minute when he opened the back door and stepped into the convent yard. She came outside with him and, while Tooley crossed the yard, threw both arms around him. "I don't love you," she said, kissing him.
        Kelly put down the T-plunger and the wire. He embraced her, crushed her against him, inhaled the vaguely musky odor that always clung to her. "And I don't love you."
        "I don't love you at all," Lily said. "Not even a teensy little bit."
        "You make me so happy, Lily."
        "Do you love me even a teensy little bit?" she asked, looking up into his face.
        "No. You mean nothing whatsoever to me."
        Lily shivered. "That's marvelous, darling."
        "Yes, it is, darling."
        "Kiss me again."
        Kissing her, he lost control and slid his hands down her back and cupped her round buttocks and began to knead her firm flesh through the black gown. Abruptly, he pulled away from her. "I have to get moving. We have to get the explosives planted under the bridge."
        Lily sighed. "Don't worry about anything, Kelly. As long as neither one of us loves the other even a teensy little bit, we'll be okay."
        "You're right," he said.
        He picked up the plunger and wire and left her. He crossed the convent yard, cracked the secret gate, and cautiously checked on the sentries at the nearby intersections. When both the Germans were facing away from him, he went out into St. Ignatius. Tooley followed him, carrying the box of dynamite.
        Lieutenant Slade had just taken shelter at the base of an elm tree when he saw a gate open in the back of the convent fence. A second later, Major Kelly and that chicken-shit pacifist, Tooley, came out and pushed the gate shut and ran silently across Y Street, taking shelter by the side of the house just as the sentries turned to face that block. Both men had their arms full. But full of what?
        Major Kelly led the pacifist westward, dodging from shadow to shadow, and Slade followed them. At the intersection of Y Street and A Street, they knelt beside the nunnery and waited for the sentry to face away from them.
        Slade crept as close to them as he could, but was unable to tell what they were carrying.
        What was this? What was Kelly doing out of the rectory? What cowardly, yellow-bellied plot were they involved in now?
        The sentry turned his back.
        Kelly and Tooley went across the road, lugging the mysterious objects. They took just enough time so that Slade was unable to follow them until the sentry had made one more circuit. When he got over there, they were gone.
        Which was too bad. After all, now was the time. Slade had finished his reconnaissance.