The Prime Minister's Secret Agent

Chapter One


Maggie Hope had thought that summer in Berlin was hell, but it was nothing compared to the inferno of darkness that now raged in her own head, even as she was “safe as houses” in Arisaig on the western coast of Scotland.

A mixture of shame, anger, guilt, and grief had become a miasma of depression, which followed her everywhere, not at all helped by the lack of daylight in Scotland in November. She’d once heard Winston Churchill describe his own melancholy as his “Black Dog,” but didn’t understand it. She’d pictured a large black dog with long silky fur and dark, sad eyes, silently padding after his master.

But now she knew the truth: The Black Dog of depression was dirty and scarred, feral and rabid. He lurked in the night, yellow eyes gleaming, waiting for a chink in the armor, a weakness, a vulnerability, a memory. And then, jaws wide and fangs sharp, he would leap. She had trouble sleeping, and when she did finally fall unconscious, she had nightmares.

Sometimes, just sometimes, Maggie had a few moments in the morning, when she first woke up, when she didn’t remember her nightmares, or any of what had happened. Those were blessed moments, innocent and sweet. Until her mind started working again, and the sharp ache returned to her heart. She remembered what had transpired in Berlin. Remembered that her contact, Gottlieb Lehrer, was dead—a devout Catholic who’d shot himself rather than be taken by the Gestapo for questioning. Remembered that she herself had killed a man.

“It was self-defense,” the analyst she’d been ordered to see by Peter Frain had told her. “It’s war. You don’t need to torture yourself.” And yet, even though he’d shot first, and she’d killed in self-defense, the man’s eyes—sad and reproachful—haunted her.

As did the high-pitched voice of the little Jewish girl being pushed into a cattle car in Berlin, destined for Poland. “I’m thirsty, Mama,” she’d cried, “so thirsty.” What happened to her? Maggie often wondered. Did she die on the train? Or later in the camp? Could she still be alive? Because now that Maggie—and most of the rest of the world—knew that the Nazis were capable of killing their own children, calling it “Operation Compassionate Death,” she didn’t hold any hope at all for the children of Jews.

And as if that weren’t enough burden, her mother, Clara Hess, a Nazi Abwehr agent, was imprisoned in the Tower of London—and asking to talk with her. She was also scheduled to be executed soon, if she didn’t share some of the top-secret information she possessed.

And then there was John Sterling, with whom she’d worked at Number 10 for Mr. Churchill during the Battle of Britain. And had almost been engaged to marry. And who’d become an RAF pilot and been shot down near Berlin. And even though she’d managed to rescue them both and get them safe passage from Berlin to Switzerland, their return to London had been, well, less than romantic. More of a romantic disaster, really.

Maggie turned over beneath the scratchy gray wool blankets, reflexively reaching for the hard outline of the German bullet, which had just managed to miss her heart. Dumb luck was what had saved her—and allowed her to kill her attacker, instead. The doctors in Switzerland, and then in London—even one of her best friends, Chuck, a nurse—had wanted her to have the bullet removed, but she refused. She called it her “Berlin souvenir.”

I’m dead inside, she thought, not for the first time since she’d made it to Arisaig. Worse than dead—if I were dead at least I wouldn’t have to remember everything anymore.

On her nightstand, the black Bakelite clock ticked, and she reached over to turn it off before the alarm rang. Maggie concentrated on breathing—in and out, in and out. Even that caused pain, as though she had a shard of ice in her heart.

Maggie had heard the expression heartache before, of course, but never thought it would be so literal. So much pain, physical pain in her heart. But the heart was just a muscle, an organ, made to pump blood—not to feel things. So was it stress? Adrenaline? What made it hurt so much? Of course, the brain wasn’t much better—the brain could be a hellish prison of despair and pain and emptiness. Who knew that the brain could be such a traitor?

It didn’t help that it was coming up on Thanksgiving—and even though she’d lived in Britain since 1938, Maggie still missed her Aunt Edith, a chemistry professor at Wellesley College. She missed the United States sometimes too, truth be told. She missed its innocence—or was it ignorance?—of war, its clear skies and untouched cities. Not to mention unlimited hot water and unrationed food. Although she was British by birth, she’d been raised in the U.S., and even though she’d made a choice to throw her lot in with the Brits when war started, she missed her aunt and her friends and their broad, flat, nasal accents. She missed Thanksgiving. She missed turkey and cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. She missed Boston and Cambridge. She missed America.