I write now exactly a month from my previous entry, which is pure coincidence. I’ve been forced to delay writing by chance, and perhaps a bit of necessity. I will explain. The apartment complex is no longer safe, especially for anyone who could even be mistaken as French. I do not say this lightly. I have seen watchmen in the halls, in the streets surrounding our block, and all across the city, particularly in places where the French have been housed. There is a distinct air of distrust in the streets now, and not strictly for the French. The watchmen aren’t with the military. In fact, the army has apprehended multiple of them in front of me, on the street in broad daylight. They wear black bowler hats and blue woolen serge coats down to their knees, it’s always the same. A man lurks around a shadowy corner, eyes hidden in shadow, hands stuffed in the serge pockets.

This is not paranoia. The Deschampses, both Hugos, and my father have all seen them, as has everyone I’ve asked. These men are not military, hell, are they even American? Open intimidation and espionage from the enemy are not out of the question. Europe is all but taken. France, Spain, England, Belgium, even most of Russia now. This is not natural, whatever it is, and I’ll be damned if it isn’t the fault of this book. Damn you, Adam, where are you? When will the proper time be to intervene, if not as the world becomes shrouded in darkness? Whose side are you on? Am I to sit down like a dog and watch as my people, no, all people of the Earth fall to this shadow? Ashcroft is now the public face of the German cause, known as the commander of the first battalion to breach Versailles, and now leader of the entire German army, and how could it have happened, I wonder?

Had we left France but a day late the diary would now be in enemy hands, and if this is what a journal-less Ashcroft looks like, I cannot fathom what he would become with it. Yet, I cannot destroy it. The chance it offers is too important, the abilities it holds too precious. I have told only my mother and father of it, and now only my father remains. He has vowed never to speak of it to anyone, including myself unless prompted.

“I’ve been tortured and held onto information far less important than this,” he said to me, and I believe him.

The watchmen have shown no special interest in me as far as I am aware. Their surveillance seems too broad. They are clueless, and is it any surprise? On the chance their orders come from Ashcroft, they wouldn’t even know who they’re looking for. I am, at best, a name read at a glance over the shoulder of my brother. There was every chance I was killed in the raids in Tulle, or at the dock, or on the island, and who’s to say I was able to get the journal from Otto’s body at all? To the Germans I am nobody. The Duvals are now the Blakes, as far as the United States government is concerned, and Charles Blake, French immigrant who happens to speak and write in perfect English, is no more a threat to the German cause than his dead mother. No, that’s not true. My mother would have ended this war weeks ago, single-handedly, and been conversing with Otto to do it. For this I understand why she had to be taken: it would’ve made it too easy. It’s the ill-trodden road for me, then.

I must leave for San Francisco at once. My father will understand, and perhaps he’ll come with me. I don’t see a reason why not, and but for the children I would ask the Hugos and Deschampses to join me as well. Still, it will be unfailingly valuable to have trusted contacts in New York, though I hope for their safety they find their own way out. On second thought, maybe bringing the Hugos and Deschampses along isn’t such a terrible idea. The American west coast is, as my information goes, perhaps the safest place we could plausibly go, and how could I sleep knowing I left their children here, waiting to be taken by a watchman at a moment’s notice? I need a network. They may be the start.

If we wait much longer we risk losing our one advantage here: there are too many people in New York to keep track of. The government will soon need some new form of identification to quell the public’s fears, and drastic is the defining word of the hour. Staying means risking being catalogued, tagged like cattle, which means risking the mission, and nothing - not even our own lives - is worth risking the mission. It seems we are on our own.