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His Majesty's Hope(94)

By:Susan Elia MacNeal


Staying still and waiting seemed like too passive a move. Whoever was there would inevitably find her. Her only advantage was surprise. She waited until she heard the person get close. Then she banged the lid open with all her might. The searcher staggered backward and fell heavily against a pyramid of Rimowa luggage.

“Frau Hess?” Maggie whispered. “Clara?” Then, seeing Clara’s expression, “Mother?”

“Margaret Hope.” One corner of Clara’s mouth turned up in a smile. “You must have many questions. But, first, know this—I never meant to hurt you.”

“I do have a question,” Maggie said, desperately trying to still her racing mind. She must not be allowed to find John and Ernst. Think, Maggie, think! Keep her talking. “Why me? Why did you have a child?”

Clara shook her head. “Sektion demanded it of me. They thought it would cement my relationship with your father, in a way not even marriage could.”

“My very existence is due to Sektion?”

“It was part of my mission, yes.” Clara put one hand to her temple.”

“But you left England.”

“If I stayed, you’d always have been in danger. And I knew your father would take good care of you.”

Maggie gave a bitter laugh. “Well, that’s debatable. And the accident—how did you convince everyone you’d died?”

Clara chortled. “I bribed a morgue attendant. He falsified the paperwork, substituted another young blonde, a prostitute, with no family or friends. From there I left London, went to Grimsby, where—”

“Where a U-boat picked you up.”

“Why, yes,” Clara said.

“You planned the same route for Princess Elizabeth,” Maggie realized.

“How did you know that?”

“Because I was there with her.”

Clara raised one eyebrow, then opened her purse. There, glinting in the blue light, was the mother-of-pearl-handled gun. “I’m through with that life now. With those people.” She picked the gun up.

“You’re going to shoot me?” Maggie asked.

Clara studied her, then shook her head.

“Take me with you,” she said, handing the gun over to Maggie. “To London. I can be extremely useful.”

Mind spinning, Maggie accepted the gun. “You want to go to London?” she asked, incredulously. “They’ll hang you there.”

“No,” Clara said firmly. “I possess too much information that they want. I’ll be invaluable.”

There was a soft sound. It was the young guard. His gun drawn, he entered the car. “Was—?” He stared at the two women.

“Mein Gott,” he whispered, clicking the safety off his Walther pistol.

“Put your gun down,” Maggie said evenly.

“Nein,” the boy said, eyes blank with fear. He began to back out of the compartment. Maggie knew exactly what he intended to do—close the door and bolt it, then call for help. They would all be captured just hours before they reached the border.

“Stop!” she cried. “Please, stop.” She took a step forward. “I don’t want to have to shoot you. I don’t want to hurt you.”

He aimed the gun at Maggie’s heart and fired. A stain, like a dark red rose, bloomed through the silk of her dress. And in that instant, she focused, aimed, and squeezed the trigger three times. As she’d been trained to do, she shot the boy once through the forehead, then twice through the heart.

He staggered from the impact of the shots. Life left his eyes. Then he fell to the floor.

Maggie’s once-white dress was now stained red—with her blood, and with his, which had sprayed her. There was so much blood. Who knew humans contained so much blood?

Elise, aware her mother was no longer in their compartment, opened the door. She stood frozen in shock.

“Brava, darling. Perhaps you are your mother’s daughter, after all,” Clara said to Maggie. “Ah, Elise, how good of you to join us.”

“You killed him,” Elise accused Maggie shrilly. “You killed him.” Then, to Clara, “And what are you doing here?”

“You didn’t know? Your friend Frieda betrayed you. She let me know of your little nest of rats in the attic.”

Maggie fell to her knees, gasping from pain. Her dress was soaked with blood. It was puddling under her, sticky and red.

Maggie had killed him. She’d killed a man. A boy, really. It was what she’d been trained to do, what Thorny had told her to do. “Kill the Kraut!” he’d thundered at Beaulieu. But she hadn’t ever pictured “the Kraut” looking so young, so small, so vulnerable. “Elise,” she said to the horrified girl, her voice weak now, “I’m …”