Lone eagle

This wasn't about them, she suddenly realized, it was about her, and she could feel her heart pound. She didn't want to hear what he was saying, but she knew she had to. She didn't make a sound as she watched his face. “Joe listed you as his next of kin, Kate, along with some cousins he hasn't seen in years.” Kate's mother had accepted the dreaded telegram, and called Clarke at the office, as she opened it. And Clarke had immediately called someone he knew in the War Department for further details, none of which were good.

He didn't waste more time then. Kate was holding her breath. “He was shot down over Germany last Friday morning.” It had been a week, and on Thursday night she had begun having those hideous dreams about planes free-falling through the sky. It had been Friday morning in Europe. “They saw his plane go down, and they have a rough idea of where he landed. He parachuted out at the last minute, and he may have been killed on the way down, or he may have been captured. But they've had no word of him through their underground sources since. There's been no sign of him on the lists of officers who've been captured. He's flying under a different name, but neither the one he's using, nor his real name has shown up. There's some concern that he may be being held secretly, or that the Germans have killed him. I believe he may have been aware of classified information, which would make him of considerable interest to the Germans, if they're aware of who he really is. Joe is quite a prize because of his own history, he's a real plum for them, because he's a national hero. ” She was staring at her father dumbly, trying to absorb what he had told her, and for a moment, there was no reaction whatsoever from her. “Kate… Allied Intelligence doesn't think he made it,” he summed up for her. “And even if he did, the Germans won't let him live long. He's probably dead by now, or either the Americans or the British would have heard something about him.” She stared at her father with wide eyes, and was too stunned to speak for a minute, as her mother moved closer to her and put an arm around her shoulders.

“Mom… is he dead?” she asked in the voice of a lost child, trying to understand what someone speaking a foreign language had just told her. She couldn't absorb it. Her heart refused to know. It was like a terrifying echo of the day her mother had told her that her father died. And in some ways, this was worse. She had loved Joe too much.