But Operation Naval Person? Maggie took a ragged breath. Naval Person was Mr. Churchill’s code name, a reference to his stint as First Sea Lord. Could it be … an attempt on his life?
She put some money down on the table and ran to the short, dark-haired, and haggard bartender. “The phone, please?” she asked breathlessly.
“That way, miss,” he said, pointing to a dim hallway behind him.
Maggie found the phone booths and went to one a few down from David. She groped in her handbag for some change, inserted the coins, then dialed a sequence of numbers. She waited, chewing her lip and tapping her foot. “Westminster double-three four nine,” she said to the operator.
There was a series of short clicks and a pause, while a crackle of static danced across the line.
“John Sterling, please. Of course I’ll hold. Yes, this is urgent.…” Maggie wound the thick black cord around her wrist. “Hello, John? It’s Maggie. No, no, I’m fine—” She listened and then interrupted, her voice soft and inaudible to anyone else in the room. “Look, John, that code? It’s for real. It’s in German, and it’s backward, in half-reverse alphabet. If you translate it, it says Operation Hope, Operation Naval Person, and Operation Paul. Not sure about the other two, but Operation Naval Person must have something to do with Mr. Churchill.”
“Maggie, where are you?”
“John, this information is far more important than—”
“Are you still at Cambridge?”
Maggie could see David finish his call, replace the receiver, and head back to the table.
“I’ll call back later,” she whispered behind a cupped hand. “But please look into it. It’s imperative!”
When Maggie returned to the table, David’s face was unreadable. “Made a few calls,” he said. “Pulled in some favors.”
“Yes?” Maggie wasn’t sure if she should tell David about the code or not. But technically John was ranked higher than David and had a higher clearance.
David laid his hand on hers. It was cold. “Maggie, you were right. Your father’s alive. And working at Bletchley.”
She was silent for a moment, letting the news sink in. Alive. My father is alive. Suddenly, a possible secret code didn’t seem so important. “But why—”
“It’s a little complicated,” David continued.
“Complicated?” How can this be more complicated? “But where is he? I want to see him!” Her hands were shaking. “I need to see him.”
“And you will,” David said. “But first you’ll have to prepare yourself.”
Is he joking? she thought. How can anyone prepare for such a meeting?
“It’s not going to be what you expect.”
At No. 10, John replaced the glossy green receiver with a loud click and then rummaged through the piles of papers on his desk, trying to find the clipping. On top of David’s in-box, Nelson blinked his eyes and then got up and stretched, his back hunching in an arch.
“Why she feels the need to go running off—with everything else that’s going on …” he muttered. Nelson jumped to the floor, landing lightly on small black paws.
As John sorted, he saw the newspaper clipping fall to the floor. “Gods.” He sighed, getting down on his hands and knees to retrieve the fallen scrap of paper.
Suddenly, he blinked. Once, twice.
Three times.
He scrambled to get a Morse-code book down from the shelf and started to transcribe the dots and dashes. Then reverse them. Then unscramble by using reverse half-alphabet. And then transcribe the German into English.
“Bloody hell,” he said. “Bloody hell! She’s right. It’s backward. Bloody, bloody, bleeding Germans …”
He’d felt his skin prickle as he began the decryption, but he didn’t allow it to stop him until he’d finished. As he looked at the decrypted message, he felt the roar of blood fill his ears. Nelson meowed, but John ignored him.
“The Boss,” John managed, struggling to his feet. “I’ve got to tell the Boss.”
The door opened. It was John, carrying a newspaper clipping and his notes. “Maggie? But we just spoke on the telephone—”
Claire had worked through a multitude of scenarios in her mind, but this one had never occurred to her.
John fell silent as he looked. He stared, not trusting his eyes. “Paige?” he said in a whisper. Then, “Paige?”
“Oh, John. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
TWENTY-ONE
THE BLETCHLEY ESTATE, a Victorian Tudor-style mansion surrounded by high fences, was guarded by marines. When David showed their identification papers, the guards waved them through.