Mr.Churchill's Secretary(71)

As David and Maggie drove up to the imposing red-brick house, they could hear the cacophony of a construction crew and the honking of ducks and geese. Overhead, the sky was a glossy enameled azure and the fall afternoon sun was warm. Maggie felt her underarms start to perspire and had the sudden thought that she should have worn something lighter than her brown poplin suit.

“Victorian monstrosity,” David muttered as he pulled in and parked. The place bustled with men and women in uniform as well as civilians, mostly men, in baggy wrinkled trousers with worn linen jackets. The estate’s lawns were patchy and worn from all of the foot and bicycle traffic to makeshift huts and office buildings. The gardens were overgrown and shabby. A fat duck with an iridescent green head waddled across the parking lot.

“So this is Bletchley.” Maggie looked around in amazement as they walked to the front door. She imagined how it must have been at one time, before the war. She half closed her eyes and saw it. A smooth, green lawn. Children in flowered cotton dresses and sailor suits running back and forth with kites, while nannies in starched white aprons looked on approvingly. Ladies in silk afternoon gowns—rose and daffodil and mint—sipped tea and ate meringues with tiny ripe strawberries, while men in blue seersucker suits and straw boaters drank amber sherry.

“Officially, it’s the Government Code and Cypher School,” David said. “I secured our clearance. But first we need to jump through some hoops.”

They went in and were taken through dusty halls and up an ornate wooden staircase, now scratched and scraped. In an upstairs room was a long table covered with a gray army blanket. Outside the window Maggie could make out several magnolia trees and an assortment of huts and buildings, surrounded by a security fence of upright metal laths topped with swaths of barbed wire.

“Miss Hope,” one of the officers said, and led her into the hall. He was short and round, with buck teeth and a shadow of stubble. He held up his hand to David. “I’m taking you to meet Dr. Edmund Hope, your father.” He said to David, “You’ll wait here.”

“But—” David began.

“Sorry. Orders,” the officer said.

“It’s all right,” Maggie assured him, and herself as well. “It’s fine.”

David gave a quick wink and a pat on the back. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

Maggie and the officer went down the long hallway, their footsteps echoing on the scuffed wood.

“In you go,” the officer said, gesturing at a door.

For a few seconds, she stood there in front of the door, unblinking. Once the thick oak door was opened, nothing would be the same ever again.

She grasped the white ceramic knob and turned; the door opened with a click and a creak. The room was cool and dim; drawn shades diffused the light.

It took a while for her eyes to get used to the halflight. When they did, she could make out the slumped figure of a man behind a battered wooden desk. He reached to a lamp and turned it on. “There, that’s better,” he mumbled.

Then, to Maggie, “Who are you?”

“Kneel!” Claire hissed.

“No,” he said, not believing his eyes.

“Shut up.”

John did as she directed, dropping the clipping and his papers and falling to his knees, hands on his head. But he kept his eyes on her face. “Paige,” he said, finally accepting the figure in front of him.

“I’m not Paige!” she cried, her hand shaking. “My name is Claire.”

“Paige—Claire,” he said. “Don’t do this. Whatever’s going on, just put down the gun and we can talk about it.”

She was silent, lips pressed tightly together, while one hand wrested the case off the P.M.’s bed pillow. She threw the pillowcase at him. “Put this over your head. Then turn around.”

“If you’re going to murder me,” John said slowly, pillowcase in hand, “at least have the courage to look me in the eye.”

She did not.

“Paige. Put down the gun.” John stood up very slowly, lowered his arms, and took a step toward her.

“Stay where you are!” Claire said shrilly. She caught a glimpse of the clipping that had fallen. “What—what’s that?” she cried. “Where did you get that?”

“The advert?” John asked softly. “Why? Did you have something to do with that? Operation Naval Person?”

Claire blanched, and John knew that Maggie had been right. He took another step forward. “It’s over, Paige.”

“No,” she whispered. Her hand was shaking.

“Yes,” he countered.

“I’m afraid it is over, Miss Kelly,” echoed Snodgrass from the doorway.