In the Enemy's Shadow: The Secret Six, #2

By Pam Crooks

Pam Crooks’s release, The Spyglass Project, is the first book of the Secret Six series set in the Prohibition era of 1920s Chicago, featuring Major Michael Malone as an alcoholic ex-military intelligence officer who infiltrates the city’s underground to expose a crime lord funding the rise of Adolf Hitler.  The book opens with a Prologue set eight years earlier in a prisoner-of-war camp in Wittenberg, Germany, during World War 1.

In the Enemy’s Shadow begins where the Prologue in The Spyglass Project ends and is a behind-the-scenes look at the life of double-agent, Hedda Klein, leader of a secret dissident group and working as a spy for the United States government under the code name of Agent Delilah. After she witnesses the murder of a troubled friend and comrade, she must flee to save her own life, only to encounter revenge and betrayal from a woman she trusts most.

Short story - 14,000 words

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pam Crooks
• Release date: Dec 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9780988567047

Pam Crooks

Dear Reader, After being published in fourteen historical western romances and one contemporary romantic suspense, I’m excited to take a much different turn in my career with my new historical romantic suspense series, the Secret Six. I’ve fallen in love with that delicious grittiness of the time period—Mafia, Prohibition, and of course, romance. I'm a long-time member of Romance Writers of America and one of the founders of Petticoats and Pistols, a popular blogsite for western romance.  I'm married to my high school sweetheart, Doug, and we have four daughters.  I’m enjoying an early retirement where I can spend time with my children and grandchildren and do what I'm most passionate about: writing books.  Last, but not least, if you enjoy cooking, hop over to my newest venture, my food blog, Swanky Kitchen, where I love ‘making the past taste good again’! Pam  www.pamcrooks.com www.swankykitchen.com  www.facebook.com/pamcrooksauthor Twitter @pamcrooks www.pinterest.com/pamcrooks

Book preview

Author’s Note

I’ve recently released The Spyglass Project, the first book in my new Secret Six series set in the Prohibition era of 1920s Chicago.  The book opens with a Prologue set eight years earlier in a prisoner-of-war camp in Wittenberg, Germany, during World War 1.

In the Enemy’s Shadow begins where the Prologue in The Spyglass Project ends and is a behind-the-scenes look at the life of double-agent, Hedda Klein, a Munich university student working as a spy for the United States government under the code name of Agent Delilah.

I hope you enjoy her story.

Pam Crooks

PS:  The Brewer’s Daughter, Book 2 in the Secret Six series, is available now!

In Flanders Field

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

—John McCrae, 1915

Chapter 1

Wittenberg, Germany

July 20, 1918

The horse’s hooves hammered the earth in a frenzied escape from the dogs.  Hedda Klein couldn’t hear their growls anymore, not through her own ragged breathing trapped behind her mask.  But the vicious animals were back there, somewhere beyond the woodlands, whipped onward by their ruthless master who was as thirsty for her blood as they were.

She bent lower over her mount’s neck and kicked her heels against his ribs, again and again.  Faster, faster.  The old bay was unaccustomed to such harsh expectations; she feared any moment he’d collapse beneath her from his efforts.

Her gaze clawed through the German terrain, searching for the blackened shape of the old cowhouse that would give her refuge.  She was almost there, only minutes away, and the first stirrings of relief curled through her.

Until movement at the base of the hills jerked her cold.  One man rode out of the darkness, the lope of his horse swift but not frantic.  He lifted his arm in a wave, and only then did she see the second horse with him.

Riderless. 

Benjamin’s horse.

She fought down a sudden sting of emotion and straightened in the saddle, flexing her fingers after their tight grip on the reins.  The old bay slowed, as if sensing their ordeal was over.  That they were almost home.  And safe.

Claus Nussbaum rode into the yard ahead of her.  Hedda knew he wouldn’t have done so if he wasn’t sure they were no longer being pursued.  It was why he’d gone into the hills first, leaving her to escape by herself, so he could scout the countryside from a higher vantage point, making sure the master of the bloodhounds had lost their trail. 

Her horse halted near a crude corral built along one side of the cowhouse and shuddered in exhaustion.  Fritz Gissibl waited for them near the doorway, a lantern held high. 

Where’s Benjamin? he asked sharply.

Claus removed his mask and stuffed it inside his shirt.

Dead, he said, dismounting.

Hedda remained in the saddle.  Her breathing quickened at the memory of her friend’s murder.  Its utter senselessness.  She yanked off her mask, too, and ran a quick hand through her hair, chopped boyishly short.  Cool midnight air swirled across the skin on her face.

Claus shot him, she said, unable to hold back her contempt.

Fritz’s sharp glance swung toward her.  "I didn’t think you would have."

"I wouldn’t have been so careless."

He appeared to consider that.  It seems to be an unfortunate turn of events, doesn’t it? 

"It’s a fucking disappointing turn of events," Claus