The dress sagged, revealing the edge of a lacy black bra and the pale, freckled swell of her chest. For one crucial second, Von Hammer’s gaze was locked exactly where she wanted it.
Pop. The third.
Von Hammer’s smirk faltered. He was a disciplined officer, but he was also a man. His eye flicked down.
"Don't mind me, boys," she said, the English accent now deliberately crisp. "Just a maid doing her… spring cleaning." The dress sagged, revealing the edge of a
The game was up. But Mackenzee Pierce didn't panic. She had another weapon. Slowly, deliberately, she reached for the top button of her maid's dress. Then the next. "You want to see what I'm hiding, General?" she asked, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.
" Fräulein ," a voice like gravel and ice said. "You are lost."
Mackenzee Pierce, known by her code name "The Duchess," was their secret weapon. Her Royal Air Force uniform, a crisp blue serge that strained magnificently across a chest that had made wing commanders forget their own flight plans, was her armor. Tonight, however, it lay folded in a laundry hamper. Tonight, she was in disguise. The third
Her hand, previously occupied with buttons, shot to the garter belt hidden beneath her skirt. She drew a Derringer, no bigger than a lipstick tube.
The shot was a soft phut . Von Hammer crumpled like a sack of flour, a surprised look on his face.
"A lady's possessions are her own, General," she said, voice steady. His eye flicked down
The ballroom was a sea of wolf-gray uniforms and champagne flutes. Mackenzee navigated the edge of the crowd, carrying a silver tray of hors d'oeuvres. Every saluting officer's gaze dipped from her face to her décolletage, a predictable trajectory she exploited ruthlessly. "More champagne, mein Herr ?" she’d purr, leaning just so, allowing the fabric to gape. The generals became drooling idiots. One colonel nearly walked into a burning fireplace.
She slipped away, climbing the servant's staircase to the second floor. Von Hammer’s study door was locked, but a hairpin from her impossibly coiffed blonde hair and a soft click later, she was inside. There, on the mahogany desk, was the leather folio. She photographed each page with a miniature camera hidden in a powder compact.
" Auf Wiedersehen , General," she whispered.
Mackenzee turned. Von Hammer was bigger than his file photo suggested, a bull of a man with a monocle and a scar. And he was looking not at her face, but at the bulge of the camera-shaped compact she was hastily trying to hide… down her front.