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“Not yet.” He turned back to face us. “We believe in loyalty too. We would never squeal or betray a member of our organization. But sometimes your choices become limited. Tell you what, I’ll save you boys the trouble of breaking your oath. I’ll do the talking.”
    â€œDon’t believe anything he says!” I exclaimed to our mother. “None of it is true.”
    â€œI certainly hope it is true,” he said. “Because if it isn’t we will have no choice but to kill the three of you.”
    His words sent a chill up my spine and I felt myself start to shake. It wasn’t just the words, it was the way he’d said them. His voice was quiet, gentle, friendly and so matter-of-fact, like he was talking about inviting us out for dinner.
    â€œYour boys were involved at Camp X,” he began.
    â€œI don’t even know what this Camp X is ,” our mother said.
    â€œIt is a training camp for Allied spies, the biggest spy base in all of North America. It’s located in Whitby, close to where you once lived.”
    â€œI don’t know anything about it, but even if it was there, what could my boys have to do with it?” she asked.
    â€œA lot. At first they just stumbled into the camp, breaching security accidentally. Then they were enlisted by one of the men in charge—his name isBill—to try to break into the camp, as well as break into the DIL plant.” He paused. “Did you know the boys once came out to visit you at work, pretending that you had forgotten your lunch, but they were actually smuggling in a fake bomb to test the security of the munitions factory?”
    My mother looked stunned. I felt stunned. How did this man know these things?
    â€œNo,” he said, shaking his head. “You never knew anything about that. Just like you don’t know how your boys were really injured when they landed in the hospital, or how Mr. Krum, the newspaper editor, was really killed. You know nothing.” He shook his head slowly and then turned to face Jack and me. “You must be surprised that I know all of these things, aren’t you?”
    Neither of us answered, but he was right.
    â€œIs there anything you boys would like to say?” he asked.
    There were a lot of things I wanted to say. Instead I kept my mouth shut, my face blank, and I stopped myself, again, from chewing on the inside of my cheek.
    â€œNow I’m going to tell you something that none of you know. I’m going to tell you what we want from Camp X and, more importantly, how you two boys are going to help us get it. It is very simple. We want gold.”
    â€œGold?” I said. “They don’t have any gold.”
    The man laughed, and instantly I realized what I’d done. I’d let on that I did know something about Camp X.
    â€œAnd how would you know that?” my mother asked.
    â€œHe knows a lot, but he doesn’t know about the gold,” the man said, before I could think of what to say, or not say, in answer to her question.
    â€œThe gold is being stored in the catacombs, a series of caves,” he went on.
    I knew about the caves. I’d seen them before, close to the cliffs above Lake Ontario. But why would he think that there was any gold there?
    â€œThis gold is the property of the Bank of England … in fact, it’s the entire reserves of the Bank of England.”
    â€œBut … but why would that be here in Canada instead of in England?” our mother asked.
    â€œPrecaution. It was all moved here when there were fears that England would be invaded. It was brought here to keep it out of Hitler’s filthy hands.”
    â€œBut what has any of that got to do with us?” Jack asked.
    â€œYou’re going to get us into the camp.”
    â€œUs?”
    â€œWe know that you’ve snuck in there a couple of times, and now you’re going to get us in,” he said.
    â€œBut even if we