Wolves on a Train

Two days later found Pete carefully shepherding the offworlders through the Manchester Piccadilly Station, boarding a train for the new capital, Birmingham. The Greater Americans had gladly accepted the two defectors, who were swiftly smuggled out of the country in a cargo container behind a wall of sewing machines, on a small ship bound for Iceland. With them off Pete's hands, he was now taking his charges through the Resistance Headquarters, next step on their long journey to St Ives and home.

As they had suspected it would, word of the disappearance of two middling-high-ranking members of the German hierarchy in Britain had spread like wildfire, as did whispers of the involvement of a mysterious double of the English Rose. Obviously it was a double – she'd been quite visibly on the town with her General down in Birmingham on the day and night in question. With the whole country thus alerted, Rose was making concessions to anonymity, including a temporary brunette dye job on her tied-back hair, blue tinted contacts, and judicious application of stage makeup, which subtly altered her appearance just enough to deflect recognition. She'd also reclaimed Jackie's wedding ring (left off during the mission) and stuck close to Jared's side as further camouflage. (He'd made such a tiny – almost negative – impact on the Leipzig officers that no two of them could even agree on a description of the faux Rose's bodyguard, so he was safe.)

They would have preferred not to use public transportation at all, but the extra scrutiny being given every single vehicle going through the copious checkpoints on every highway had brought road traffic to a standstill – the resulting overflow of weary travelers flooding the rails and limited airlines had made those routes the safer choice. Still, not as many could afford the first class fares, so the foursome managed to find a tiny private compartment for themselves – a sleeper for two converted into a cozy daytime room for four. "Good thing its not an overnight trip," was Jackie's comment.

Shortly after the rattling journey started, the inevitable inspectors came through the cars, giving everyone's travel papers another once-over. The Johnson family, plus son-in-law, returning to their home in the capital after attending the father's brother's funeral up in Manchester passed inspection easily, and carefully masked their sighs of relief at the door closing on the inspector's back.

A little while later, amid desultory chitchat, Rose glanced across the tiny gap and caught Pete gazing at her with such a sad, bereft expression that it took her breath away. She held his eyes, her face twisting with empathy. "I'm sorry..."

He shook his head. "It's not your fault, sweetheart." He sighed heavily, turning at last to look out the window. "No, it's mine."

"What do you mean?" asked Jackie. None of them had any doubt the subject of the conversation: his own Rose.

He gave her a rueful grimace. "I'm in the rare and unenviable position among fathers of knowing exactly what I did wrong," he replied. "I didn't pay enough attention to her. Quite literally." She took a breath to object, but he stopped her. "No, I'm serious. I went to prison for four years when she was eleven, and when I got out, she was out the door – off with friends, and boyfriends, all day and into the night. She had her own life, and... I left her to it, and just dove back into the Res – the group," he amended hastily, glancing swiftly at the door as he remembered they were in a public place, after all. "I didn't try to reconnect with her, or spend any time with her. And I should have. I had no idea who her friends were, what she was up to. I never dreamed..." Another sigh. "... she'd go so wrong."

Everyone was silent at that, as he turned to stare back out the window at the passing scenery. Even Jackie had nothing to say (Rose had quietly told her of the other Rose's perfidy a day or two before).

Jared decided to change the subject. "Pete..." he began. "Tell me about the Bad Wolf."

That brought the fighter's attention back, though his face twisted in puzzlement. "It's just a bunch of fairy tales, for kids."

"I know, but we don't have them at all in our world, so we've never heard them. They must be important, for the movement to adopt the name."

"Well, I don't know about important. More like ubiquitous. Easily recognizable, but so innocuous as to not attract unwanted attention."

"Still... go on, spin us a tale."

"Well..." Recognizing the distraction for what it was, and willing to go along with it, Pete leaned back. "I'm so used to it being part of our culture that it's strange to think you've never heard of it. There's gobs of different stories. I guess the introduction should start with the fact that Bad Wolf is a she-wolf, not a male, and she's not bad at all, but a heroine. I think the explanation was that she's goodhearted and kind, but that she liked to play little tricks and practical jokes – nothing mean, of course! – on her friends and family, so they took to calling her 'Bad' as a kind of in-joke, to tease her.

"Of course, the other reason why the name was adopted by the group was that her most frequent opponents – the 'bad guys' of the stories – were various bears. Made it a natural to pit against Hitler's bears."

He thought for a few seconds. "I suppose the most famous and popular story – judging by the number of movies made about it, at least, both human and animal – is the story of the Rescue of Blue Wolf. When Bad Wolf grew up, she mated with a male called Blue Wolf, because of his blue-tinged grey fur and piercing blue eyes. They didn't have a territory of their own, but constantly wandered about. There are tons of little tales about them rescuing and helping all sorts of other animals. But this one story tells how they got into trouble one day, and found themselves surrounded by a huge pack of jackals, who were going to tear them to shreds. Blue Wolf gets wounded in some of the tellings, and Bad Wolf has to slip away to try to get help, leaving him to fend them off from his hiding place. But while she's gone, she gets captured, either falling into a wolf pit, or caught by a hunter and put into a steel cage. Eventually, she (very cleverly, of course) figures out how to get free, and goes streaking back to Blue Wolf, just in time to attack the jackals from behind, destroying every one, and saving his life."

Rose had been struggling to hide her growing smile, but Jared refused to make it easy for her, shooting her amused conspiratorial glances and nudging her side with his elbow when Pete looked away. Jackie was just quietly, resignedly shaking her head at them both.

"What about Red Wolf, your name?" Jared egged Pete on.

"Well, actually... Red Wolf is the name of Bad Wolf's father, believe it or not." Pete was beginning to catch on that something was... odd. "The story about him is that he'd been missing for years when one day, Bad Wolf heard that he was being held captive by an evil prince in a neighboring kingdom – remember, these are kids' stories. Anyway, she travels to rescue him, and does, with many battles against the evil prince and his minions." He looked squarely at Rose. "Kind of like how you showed up out of nowhere at Southhampton and bailed me out. And here I thought I was being funny when I named you Ulva."

She managed to keep her face straight, shaking her head. "Pure coincidence."

"Well, I'm still here, anyway. In some versions of that story, Red Wolf ends up sacrificing himself so she can get away. I sure hope our story doesn't end that way."

That caught everyone up short, and Rose stared at him, horrified. "It better not! No... don't let it, Pete."

Her sudden intensity startled him, to say the least. He stared, then burst out laughing. "It's just a fairy tale, sweetheart!"

She wasn't mollified. "I've seen too many fairy tales – and horror stories – come true." Then she snorted, and shook her head at her own reactions. "I need a vacation."

^..^

Headquarters for the Resistance movement was currently located on an upper floor of a huge old half-empty factory-and-warehouse building in a crumbling industrial park on the outskirts of Birmingham. "You understand that we move it around as frequently as we can, to keep the Nazis guessing," added Pete. He took them through to a large room that could be called an office – if you ignored the cot and clothes chest in the corner. He obviously lived here most of the time.

"Boss!" Several people had entered the office behind them; the forty-ish, tough-looking man in the front getting Pete's attention with his intense stare and sharp whisper. None of them looked very happy.

"What is it?" When the man dipped his head questioningly at the trio, Pete nodded. "I vouch for them."

"We had an urgent message from Gemini this morning, asking us to pick up a package immediately."

"And did you? Gemini has top priority."

"We went there, but... it wasn't a package. It was a person."

"Did you bring them back here?"

The man nodded. "We did a thorough scan first. No bugs or tracers of any kind. And we took the very long route back; no tails."

"Well? Who is it?"

He hesitated, long enough that everyone was staring at him. Finally, he whispered hoarsely, "It's her."

Pete went utterly still, that very fact transmitting to his visitors who "her" was.

"Pete?" whispered Jackie; 'concerned' was an understatement.

Not meeting their eyes, he waved the three of them over to the corner behind the door, then said tersely to the bringer of the tidings, "Bring her in."

They whirled around, and within a minute were leading in a short figure in slacks and a jacket, hands tied behind her back and a hood over her head. She was forced onto her knees in the middle of the floor, then Pete sent the other Resistance men back out with a curt nod, closing the door behind them.

Then he forced himself to walk over to her, pulling the hood abruptly from her head, her messy blonde hair falling around her white, frightened, tear-stained face.

Rose.