Excerpt from Hornet Flight by Ken Follett, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Harald liked Hermia. Some of Arne's girlfriends had been, well, dumb blondes, but Hermia had brains and guts. She was a little scary on first acquaintance, with her dramatic dark looks and her direct manner of speech; but she had endeared herself to Harald by treating him like a man, not just someone's kid brother. And she was sensationally voluptuous in a swimsuit. "Do you still want to marry her?"

"God, yes--if she's alive. She might have been killed by a bomb in London."

"It must be hard, not knowing."

Arne nodded, then said, "How about you? Any action?"

Harald shrugged. "Girls my age aren't interested in schoolboys." He said it lightly, but he was hiding real resentment. He had suffered a couple of wounding rejections.

"I suppose they want to date a guy who can spend some money on them."

"Exactly. And younger girls...I met a girl at Easter, Birgit Claussen."

"Claussen? The boatbuilding family in Morlunde?"

"Yes. She's pretty, but she's only sixteen, and she was so boring to talk to."

"It's just as well. The family are Catholics. The old man wouldn't approve."

"I know." Harald frowned. "He's strange, though. At Easter he preached about tolerance."

"He's about as tolerant as Vlad the Impaler." Arne threw away the stub of his cigarette. "Let's go and talk to the old tyrant."

"Before we go in..."

"What?"

"How are things in the army?"

"Grim. We can't defend our country, and most of the time I'm not allowed to fly."

"How long can this go on?"

"Who knows? Maybe forever. The Nazis have won everything. There's no opposition left but the British, and they're hanging on by a thread."

Harald lowered his voice, although there was no one to listen. "Surely someone in Copenhagen must be starting a Resistance movement?"

Arne shrugged. "If they were, and I knew about it, I couldn't tell you, could I?" Then, before Harald could say more, Arne dashed through the rain toward the light shining from the kitchen.

Reprinted from Hornet's Flight by Ken Follett by permission of Dutton, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. Copyright © 2002, Ken Follett. All rights reserved. This excerpt, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.