Code Name Badass by Heather Demetrios

Author:Heather Demetrios
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published: 2021-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

THE LIMPING LADY RETURNS

Dindy was nearly thirty-eight years old when she and Aramis arrived in France on the night of March 21, 1944, landing on the Brittany coast of France via torpedo boat.23 She’d finally been given a military rank (first lieutenant), but, true to her life being on-brand, it was that of a low-ranking junior officer, despite her experience as one of the longest-lasting agents in France—one with an MBE from the king of England to boot.

To add insult to injury, Aramis was being paid a much higher salary than Dindy—despite being new to the spy ranks, lacking Dindy’s expertise in the field, and doing it all at an age that made him a major liability (as we’ll soon see). Records show Dindy receiving a paltry base pay of $150 a month24 to Aramis’s $350!25 But are we really surprised? According to recent census data in the US, there’s still a major gender pay gap: Women only earn about eighty-two cents for every dollar a man makes.26 But as crazy-making as this is, Dindy can’t sweat it. She’s a stone-cold bitch on a mission. As the choppy sea brought her to France’s shore, she was well aware of the German guard huts that dotted the beach and the snipers inside them. And though he was hundreds of miles away on the opposite end of France, Dindy knew Klaus Barbie was still on the hunt for her.

Here’s Henry Newton on Barbie, who had tortured the Newton boys after Dindy fled Lyon: “a bloody madman.”27

She kept her Colt .32 close.

Safely past the coast, she and Aramis hauled ass to Paris, their speed hampered by the older man, who fell on the beach, spraining his knee. Let it be known that our highly underpaid and undervalued Dindy, referred to as “the woman agent,”28 had, despite Cuthbert, been given top marks for her physical ability in her OSS file and was noted for her “ruggedness” and “daring.”29 Aramis’s obvious injury meant there was a chance they’d garner more attention as they traveled to their safe house. Good thing they’d be protected by their disguises, which would render them invisible to fashionable Parisians, who would only see an elderly country-bumpkin couple, out for a trip to the big city.

Upon entering the sprawl of Paris, they went directly to a safe house owned by Dindy’s friend Madame Long, who lived in a gorgeous apartment building in the heart of the city.30 Madame Long, however, determined that Aramis was “too talkative and indiscreet” and asked that Dindy never bring him to the flat again. The mission was off to a great start: Not only had Dindy’s circuit organizer injured himself the second he got into France, but he was also now persona non grata with the locals—and clearly not cut out for the clandestine services. But she had to do something with him. It wasn’t possible to immediately send Aramis back to OSS in exchange for someone more qualified, and besides, there was work to do.

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