TWENTY
THE AIR UNDERGROUND was cold and damp, and had the watery smell of concrete and chemical toilets. Claire’s heels clicked loudly on the cement floor as she walked down a long hallway with low whitewashed ceilings and hoses looped against the wall with red fire buckets, passing men with clipped mustaches and somber faces. She walked quickly and kept her eyes averted.
She and Murphy had been over stolen blueprints of the Treasury and the War Rooms, but walking the steep stairs and cinder-block corridors was altogether different. Nonetheless, Claire kept her pace brisk and her head down as she made her way to the P.M.’s underground office.
Her hands were shaking as she found it, room 65A, next door to the Map Room and across the hall from the Transatlantic Telephone Room. She knocked, and when no one replied, she eased the door open and found herself inside.
The P.M.’s tiny private chamber had all the trappings of a senior officer—camp bed made up with a quilted silk duvet, plush red Persian carpet, large wooden desk. Microphones for his BBC broadcasts. A humidor for his cigars.
She felt light-headed, and flashes of light danced around the periphery of her vision as she sat down at the P.M.’s desk and removed the pistol from her handbag. With a series of quick clicks, the ammunition was loaded and the silencer attached.
Maggie refused to give up believing the code to be super-enciphered, a code within a code. All right, she thought, scratching her head, what if … What if it’s written backward? What then?
And So
in Morse code became Orqvsavnaqyhat Mhirefvpug Orqvsavnaqyhat Are Frrbssvmvre Orqvsavnaqyhat Cnhy.
Bugger, bugger, bugger, Maggie thought, rubbing her temples and biting her lower lip.
Murphy and Claire had no illusions about the mission she was to perform. Her goal was to assassinate Winston Churchill and thus topple the British war machine. Everything else was secondary.
Claire would do the deed and then get out as quickly as possible, before the assassination was even discovered. Then into Michael’s waiting arms.
But a more likely scenario was that she would be apprehended and hanged as a traitor to the empire. Or she could be killed by marines on the spot. In any case, they both knew her chance of survival was low. In a sense, she was already a ghost.
But she wasn’t thinking about her own death as she waited, loaded pistol pointed at the door. She was gathering her courage, her hatred. She remembered the targets she had practiced on, the rabbits and then the deer. How it felt to see them panic and run, then the hit and the huge recoil in her arm, and then how their eyes became glassy and still just as they began to fall. She remembered her first real kill, the British officer in Dublin who’d harassed her mother, then followed them back to their house. She’d fired a shot through one ear and out the other while he was raping her mother on the dining-room table. With Murphy’s help, she’d disposed of the body, driving to the sea and taking out a small fishing skiff.
Then the door opened.
It was hopeless, just hopeless. Maggie felt the beginnings of a headache coming on, like an ice pick behind her right eye. I’ve already wasted so much time.…
She looked for David. Probably still at the telephone.
Her eyes kept going back. All right, you annoying, miserable, pathetic bunch of dots. But what about, say … half-reversed alphabet?
Then the code read: O R Q V S A V N A Q Y H A T / M H I R E F V P U G/ O R Q V S A V N A Q Y H A T / Q R E/ F R R B S S V M V R E / O R Q V S A V N A Q Y H A T / C N H Y
Damn, damn, damn. She pushed her hair back again and stared at the ceiling. A tiny black insect buzzed by her, and she batted at it, absently.
As she yawned and stretched, it came to her—and the hairs on the back of her neck prickled with excitement. But … what about … in German …? She felt cold and gripped the pencil hard, her heart beating fast. She could practically smell success.
Translated, the code transformed into: Bedienhandlung die Zuversicht / Bedienhandlung der Seeoffizier / Bedienhandlung Paul.
Jesus, Maggie thought, shivers going up her spine. Jesus, Jesus, oh, sweet Jesus.
It took her a few moments, but she translated the German to English.
The broken code read: Operation Hope. Operation Naval Person. Operation Paul. Maggie copied it out in her notebook, breathing faster.
What the … Operation Hope? Could that … She’d almost let herself think, Could that have something to do with me? She nearly laughed aloud. But that’s ridiculous. I’m just a tiny cog in a very, very, very big machine. She gave a grim smile. And apparently a narcissistic cog at that.
She turned her attention back to the notebook.
Operation Paul. Simon Paul? After all, he’s made no secret of the fact that he opposes the war. He works for Lord Halifax, a well-known Appeasement supporter.…