In early 1942, the Avallon hotel—an opulent West Virginia resort shaped by the late Francis Gilfoyle—was placed under federal control. General manager June Porter Hudson maintained decorum as FBI agent Tucker Rye Minnick and State Department liaison Benjamin Pennybacker arrived with orders to house Axis diplomats and families under guard. June cleared the house, retained the elusive resident of room 411 as a “consultant,” and steered staff morale while Border Patrol and FBI operations refitted the hotel. Despite Edgar David Gilfoyle’s assurance that war would not touch the Avallon, June learned he had offered the property to the government, straining their bond even as she kept the place functioning.

As delegations arrived, June controlled access to the powerful mineral bathhouses, soothed fears, and managed tensions among guests, staff, and law enforcement. Tucker’s surveillance uncovered a hidden MP40 linked to German diplomat Friedrich Wolfe, and he confronted Gestapo officer Lothar Liebe, who sought contact with the Swiss. The diplomats settled uneasily: Japanese accounts were frozen, class frictions flared, and June’s “Approved Printed Materials” party imploded when Hannelore Wolfe—Sabine and Friedrich’s mute, brilliant daughter—suffered a screaming episode quelled by Dr. Otto Kirsch’s sedative, prompting June to press Tucker to confiscate such drugs. Amid shortages, draft notices, and stalled repatriation talks, June rallied the local town and staff, then began to suspect the sweetwater had “turned,” as snails proliferated and uncanny sounds and floods hinted the water was listening.

With departures rumored, June advocated for vulnerable cases: she quietly pursued a way to keep Hannelore in America and arranged a swift marriage between Erich von Limburg-Stirum and his fiancée Hertha to satisfy exchange arithmetic. Tucker and June grew closer; he confessed the past that shadowed his Bureau standing, and she confronted the price of her identity as the Avallon’s keeper. Tensions peaked when agent Pony Harris publicly arrested waiter Sebastian Hepp for aiding German journalists, and a German journalist, Lieselotte Berger, leapt from a fourth-floor balcony after learning she would be sent back. June proposed trading on Erich’s marriage to offset a place for Hannelore, but State refused to keep the child. Meanwhile, Hannelore overheard Lothar argue for her sterilization, and the hotel’s facade shattered as open swastikas and patriotic symbols faced off on the eve of departure.

As the exchange neared, June discovered ominous sweetwater flooding in the Wolfes’ former suite and sought counsel from the forthright occupant of room 411, who urged action without apology. Tucker revealed a covert operation: Sandy Gilfoyle, long thought unresponsive, had been conscious and collaborating, and he confirmed that Friedrich had encoded a sung list of anti-Nazi German contacts into Hannelore. June, Tucker, Sandy, and Griff Clemons aligned on a plan to keep Hannelore off the train without triggering an incident; freeing Sebastian was debated as too risky. Sandy agreed to hide Hannelore after extraction and demanded that June give up descending to the Avallon IV afterward, a condition she accepted as the likely end of the hotel as she knew it.

At midnight, as the exchange train arrived, June orchestrated a controlled catastrophe: with Hannelore at her side, she plunged their hands into the lobby’s font and bid the sweetwater to be free. Water surged from ceilings, walls, and pipes, forcing evacuation and breaking the government’s tidy handoff. In the chaos, Sabine placed Hannelore’s hand into June’s, Tucker tore open Sebastian’s confinement and told him to disappear, and the staff moved guests and guards out as the hotel flooded. June led Hannelore away through the water’s command—run—while Tucker navigated the dark corridors, trusting June’s alignment with the place.

In the aftermath, Sandy delivered Hannelore and the Wolfes’ terrier to Pennybacker in Virginia, explaining her memorized code and obligating the State man to shield her within bureaucracy. As the government weighed buying the damaged Avallon, Pennybacker understood June and allies had engineered Hannelore’s disappearance to save a child and safeguard intelligence. Calls to the hotel reached Griff and Basil; June and Tucker were gone, rumored to have left together, while Pennybacker settled into a long guardianship of Hannelore, anticipating the work—and the cost—still to come.