Monika Ritter

Sometimes, the deadliest enemy lies within. It is 1942, and war is raging in Europe. Monika Ritter is in New York with her husband, Michael. Haunted by memories of her childhood in Germany and her father’s death at the hands of the Nazis, she longs to do her bit against Hitler’s rampaging armies. When Michael joins the new Army Air Force as a bomber pilot, Monika takes advantage of an invitation she receives to join the OSS, a fledgling group of spies with the mission to turn the war by gathering the most vital asset of all—information.

It is 1943, and WW2 is raging. After parting with her husband, Michael, in London, Monika Ritter is sent to the Swiss city of Bern to begin her career with the OSS. Bern is an international hub for the secret war being fought between the spies of America, Britain, and their counterparts in the German secret service. There, her new boss, the spymaster Allen Dulles, introduces her to a mysterious German double agent who might prove to be an invaluable asset.

Trapped inside southern Germany, Monika Ritter goes to the one person she can trust—her cousin, Sarah Graf, a woman scarred by her opposition to the Nazis. Despite taking refuge in Sarah’s house, Monika is determined to fulfill her mission and meet a potentially invaluable asset in the intelligence war against the Nazis, a man who could change the face of the entire war. After a daring mission to meet the new contact, Monika must escape Hitler’s Reich in the only way she can, over the alpine mountain ranges that separate Germany from Austria and Switzerland.

After spending a blissful few weeks with her husband, Michael, in Bern, Switzerland, Monika is assigned to return to Berlin, the most dangerous city in the world. Her mission for the OSS is to meet and collect information from the asset she cultivated, a man with access to a treasure trove of confidential Nazi documents. Sarah volunteers to go with her, and despite Monika’s protests, the two cousins travel to the heart of the Reich together.

Imprisoned in a prisoner-of-war camp in southwest Germany, Michael Ritter attempts a daring escape with two other downed American pilots. After being recaptured, Michael is transferred to Colditz, a medieval castle repurposed as a high-security prison camp for incorrigible Allied escapees. But when the Nazi commandant tries to paint him as an informant, Michael will find it’s not just the German guards he needs to be wary of.

It is May 1944. Something huge is coming. After a well-earned rest following their collective escape from the Reich, Monika Ritter, her husband, Michael, her cousin, Sarah, and her fiancé, Oliver, resume their respective duties. Michael returns to Switzerland to fly for the OSS once more. Sarah goes to Berlin alone to continue the flow of information from the most critical OSS asset in Nazi Germany.

Hiding out in a cave in the Austrian Alps with three others, Monika runs into trouble. Pursued by vengeful forces of the Wehrmacht and the Gestapo, she and her three companions undergo an arduous journey over the mountains to safety in a Catholic monastery outside the town of Hallein, near the German border. Meanwhile, Sarah is in Berlin, arranging with some of the highest-ranking German generals to assassinate Hitler and end the war. After being denounced by the local block warden, she is pursued through the streets and over the rooftops of Berlin.

Hiding out at a monastery outside Hallein, Sarah and Monika wait for Viertel and two other agents to return to Austria to investigate the rumored redoubt in the Alps—a network of underground bunkers and factories where the Nazi hierarchy plans to retreat when the Allies invade Germany. After being denounced by an informant and surrounded in a mountain farmhouse, Viertel and his companions must decide whether to try to escape or die with the top-secret information they hold.

Monika’s cousin, Sarah Graf, is alone in Salzburg, where Julius Prester, the Gestapo officer who arrested her, interrogates her one last time before sending her to Mauthausen concentration camp. Once there, she will face the infamous stairs of death and have to summon every ounce of her inner strength to survive. But Sarah isn't Prester’s only target. Monika, or the Dark Angel as the Gestapo calls her, is his obsession. With the help of an SS deserter, Prester sets a trap to lure out his prey, then forms a team to cross into Switzerland in search of her.

With her beloved cousin, Sarah, still languishing in a labor camp in Linz, Monika Ritter and her fellow OSS operative, Hans Viertel, return to Austria on a double mission—to rescue Sarah and investigate a possible new wonder weapon Hitler is developing in the city he regards as his hometown. After parachuting in, they pick up an unexpected guest who forces them to change their plans. In the labor camp at Linz III, Sarah cultivates her relationship with Wolfgang Baum, a foreman who is moved by the horror he witnesses in the factories.