Catherine Pradier, a highly intelligent and very beautiful woman of half French, half British parentage, wanted very much to do something to actively serve both her countries. Her godfather, a British peer, was able to pull the necessary strings to grant her wish. He would never have done so had Catherine not possessed tremendous strength of character and courage. Catherine was trained to be "dropped" into Occupied France and assist in the sabotage of France's German-run arms industry and cause as much chaos behind German lines as possible. At best, she could hope to do her job successfully. Worse case scenario, she would be captured, tortured and killed or deported to a German concentration camp. The British government's position was clear, "Women are entitled to join in the defense of our common beliefs as are men. The war is total, not restricted to men alone." And, in fact, women were better able to move around Occupied France than men. They were less suspect and they couldn't be swept off the streets and shipped to Germany for forced labor. Catherine's job was to function as radio operator and courier for a French resistance chief. The contact who first meets Catherine when her Lysander plane lands in a French field is an agent, code name Paul. His history of espionage and counter espionage is too complicated to do justice to here. The two are immediately drawn to each other, but clearly their professional duties and obligation to their country come before everything else.

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