The Prime Minister's Secret Agent(21)

“Fine.” Mr. Burns nodded. “I’ll give you the countdown, and then in you go.”

Charlie drew his pistol, his jaw set. Maggie wondered if, in his mind, he was playing the role of war hero. She could picture him someday repeating the same grimace for a movie camera. If the boy survives this damn war …

“And five, four, three, two …”

Charlie approached the front door of the house as they’d all been taught, pistol cocked and held at his side, ready for action. On an angle, he snuck up the porch to the door and waited there, listening, before signaling the all-clear. He kicked in the door.

Mr. Burns, Maggie, and the students waited outside the open door as he made his way inside. There he saw an old, warped mirror and took in his reflection, posing just a bit with the gun.

Mr. Burns nodded to the technician, who pulled a lever. A cardboard figure of a man appeared at the top of the staircase and, through use of rope and pulleys, drifted, ghost-like, down the stairs.

Charlie shot. And missed. And missed again and again and again. “Damn thing keeps moving!”

“That’s the point, lad,” Mr. Burns said drily. He turned to the technician. “Stop.” Then, “Stop!” he called to Charlie, who was still trying to hit the target. Mr. Burns shook his head in disgust. “That’s enough. God help you and your team if you even make it to France.”

He scanned the group, his eyes lighting upon Maggie. “Miss Hope, this was always one of your favorite exercises. Come and show Charlie and the rest how it’s done.”

Maggie hadn’t touched a gun since she’d returned from Berlin. She had no desire to, ever again. “Mr. Burns, I would prefer not to.” But apparently Mr. Burns wasn’t a Melville aficionado.

“Miss Hope,” Mr. Burns said, his voice kind but firm. She knew that he knew why she didn’t want to touch a gun. And he wasn’t going to let her get away with it any longer.

“All right.” There was a rustle of whispers from the trainees. They were eager to see what she could do.

She took Charlie’s gun from him, weighing it in her hand. It was a Sten, not a Luger, the weapon she’d used in Germany. Feeling sick, she inspected it, then walked to the front of the house.

Doing as she’d been trained, she stood, back to the door frame, and listened. Nothing. She reached out and turned the knob. The door swung inward, groaning on its hinge.

Maggie kicked it all the way open, gun shifting in her sweating palm. She gripped it tighter. Nothing. No one.

She made her way into the dim light of the room; a few floorboards gave way and creaked underfoot. Dust motes floated in the air, illuminated the slanting sunlight from a high window. A chill lurked around the corners of the room.

Out of the corner of her eye, Maggie spotted movement. She shot once at a plywood cutout of a man painted to look as if he was wearing a Nazi uniform moving at the top of the stairs, the bullet piercing the cross over his heart. She then spun around to shoot another cutout, this time of a Nazi officer emerging from an armoire. From behind a door, there was a movement. Maggie whirled, her heartbeat exploding in her chest, her weapon raised to shoot. The cutout this time was of a mother, holding a baby in her arms.

Maggie fell to her knees. And stayed there, paralyzed.

Mr. Burns came through the door. He was saying something. Maggie turned the gun on him, eyes wild.

She couldn’t hear him, but she could see he’d put his hands up. She kept the Sten trained on his chest. There was an interminable moment before she could make out who he was, and what he was saying.

“Put the gun down, Miss Hope,” Mr. Burns said, walking to her slowly.

She backed away on her knees, keeping the gun on him, eyes darting, every nerve alert.

“Stop!” she called. “Stop—or I’ll shoot!”

“It is only I—Mr. Burns,” the older man said. He continued to walk toward her, as one would approach a wild animal with teeth bared. “It’s all right, Miss Hope. Everything is all right now. You’re safe—you’re fine. Everything is fine.”

Maggie’s eyes were still glassy with terror, and the hand holding the gun was shaking, but she let Mr. Burns approach her, and then allowed him to take her gun, put on the safety, and pocket it. It was the scent of pipe tobacco clinging to his sweater that calmed her, finally.

“It’s all right.” He extended a callused hand and she grabbed on to it, letting herself be pulled up.

“It’s all right,” he whispered to her as she sank into the cushions of the dusty sofa. “Get out!” he yelled at the faces peering in the doorway. “Go away! There’s nothing to see here!”