Mr.Churchill's Secretary(92)

Maggie held her breath, waiting.

“Yes, I understand,” he said finally. He hung up the receiver.

“Devlin will see you.”





TWENTY-NINE





IN MCCORMACK’S CAR, a black Vauxhall, there was an uneasy silence. Ambulances from the staged accident keened in the background. Claire was driving, and McCormack and Maggie were in the backseat. He had the gun poking into her ribs.

“How far are we going?” Claire asked.

“Not far,” he said.

Claire looked at McCormack’s reflection in the rearview mirror. “You seem nervous.”

“What do you expect?”

“Look,” she said, “I wouldn’t have contacted you if I felt I had a choice.”

“And as a result, I have no choice.”

“We do whatever we need to for the cause, so what’s the problem?”

“There is no problem.”

In the backseat, Maggie kept going over the plan. This was their only chance to stop the bomb, she knew. And something, a number of things—anything—could go wrong. Too many variables …

The car made its way through the rubble and debris of the East End—until the war, it had been the largest and most important port on the face of the earth—and pulled up, finally, in front of a large gray warehouse. It stood intact amid the surrounding destruction, arrogant and alone. Large lorries rumbled in and out, and a few men in dirt-stained sweaters loaded heavy-looking boxes into an unmarked truck.

McCormack pointed. “Go through those doors and to the right. He’s expecting you.” Maggie and Claire got out of the car. As they walked toward the entrance, they suddenly heard the car’s engine rev behind them. They turned to see McCormack speeding away.

Claire looked at Maggie. Maggie looked at Claire.

They knew there had to be MI-5 agents getting into place—behind mountains of rubble, hidden by the few brick-and-mortar walls still left standing—but she couldn’t see them. Were they really there?

“This is it, I guess,” Maggie said finally.

Claire gave a quick nod.

There was a black gate with an electronic buzzer for deliveries. Claire pressed the button, and a shrill ring reverberated throughout the building.

Nothing.

She pressed it again, longer this time.

After an interminable pause, the door clicked open. They walked through and took a small freight elevator to the second floor.

Eammon Devlin was sitting behind a teak desk, flanked by two muscled flunkies. He was in the early part of middle age and remarkably pleasant-looking, with regular, even features and light brown hair parted neatly on the side and glossed with Brylcreem. He was dressed in an innocuous brown twill suit and looked like an accountant or perhaps a librarian. Behind him, the blackout curtains were raised, giving him a view of the boats working on the leaden Thames in the morning light.

He looked at Claire and Maggie, and smiled pleasantly. Despite his warm affect, Maggie felt a shudder of fear run through her. She thought, “O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain! / My tables—meet it is I set it down / That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.”

“Look at what the Germans have done to this place,” he said, indicating all of the East End. “Used to be one of the glories of England. And now? Destroyed. Pity.” He smiled once again, like a kind uncle.

“You’ve caused me a lot of trouble,” he said mildly to the two young women. “Miss Kelly …”

“I didn’t have a choice!” Claire cried. “They had me in custody and were taking me to be hanged. The accident was my only chance—and I didn’t know where else to go—”

Devlin poured some coffee into a cup. “We’ve received word that Murphy was picked up and is now in custody. He’s a good man.” A pause, as he put the pot back down. “They’ll hang him, you know.”

“Yes,” Claire said. Her face was impenetrable.

“You’re a good liar, Claire Kelly,” he said, adding a sugar cube with tiny silver tongs.

Claire looked up sharply. “What?”

Devlin stirred the sugar into the coffee. Then he picked up the cup and saucer, took a sip, and sighed with pleasure. “Nothing like a good cup of coffee.”

“Mr. Devlin, please believe me. I did not betray you.”

Devlin looked at Claire, then at Maggie.

He went around to the desk’s drawers, pulled out a small gun with a delicate ivory inlay from the top drawer, and then handed it to Claire.

“Prove it to me,” he said, with the same pleasant expression.

This scenario had not been part of the plan. Maggie could feel her armpits dampen and sweat bead on her top lip and lower back.