The Prime Minister's Secret Agent(61)

Clara gave a bitter laugh. “Is that what she thinks she’s doing? Important government work? Yes, yes, of course. And Edmund?”

“Mr. Hess, I’m sorry to say, is also busy with government work.”

“Edmund? Doing something important? My, how the worm has turned!” She hesitated. “And Peter?”

The doctor blinked. “He is also—”

“Busy with government work,” she finished sourly. “How fortunate the government has such busy little bees.”

“Frau Hess, we can have a clergy member visit you the night before and be with you the day of … Would you like me to make a call? Are you Lutheran or Catholic?”

“I have no God!” Clara spat. “He turned his back on me, and so I turned my back on Him. And never looked back. Not once.”

“With your permission, Frau Hess, I would like to be there for you …”

But Clara’s attention had already turned away. “Fine, fine,” she said, waving a careless hand. “How droll—my last audience.”

“Frau Hess …”

Her neck snapped around and she looked him straight in the eye. “Get out,” she whispered.

When he didn’t move, she repeated, “Get. Out. Now.”

Then, “Get! Out!”


The next day, Maggie woke early. It was too soon to visit the hospital. It was too early for breakfast. It was still too dark to do much walking in the blackout. And so Maggie decided to go to St. John’s. As she picked her way through the darkness, the unexpected reflection of the crescent moon in a puddle startled her.

The stained-glass windows at St. John’s were boarded, but the arches were still beautiful. Inside the thick wooden doors, the church smelled of incense and age. And flowers, from the forced hyacinths on the window ledges and the amaryllises on the altar, next to a wreath of pine boughs with purple and pink Advent candles.

Maggie, alone in the vast space, lit only by a few bare bulbs, listened to her footsteps echo on the marble floors. She lit a candle at a side altar, then went to the nearest pew to pray, knees on the worn needlepoint cushions. Or, at least, as well as an atheist and scientist could pray.

She thought of Estelle, and Mildred, and Sarah. Of Diana Atholl.

She thought of her half-sister, Elise, back in Germany. What was happening to her? Had she been arrested? Taken to a concentration camp? Elise had seen her shoot a man. Surely she wouldn’t want to have anything more to do with her. The thought pierced Maggie’s heart with guilt and shame.

She thought of Gottlieb Lehrer. She thought of the Jews of Germany. She thought of the women Diana Atholl had murdered and of Sarah, who had nearly lost her fight for life. Maggie didn’t know how to pray, but she tried to hold each in her heart, with as much love as she could. She thought, too, of Chuck and Nigel, and their little baby Griffin, only a few months old.

What would Griffin’s future be? She recalled his sweet face and little bald head. He was so tiny, so fragile. Surely they had to make sure the world was a better place by the time he grew up. Surely they had to do better. Surely I can do better.

Suddenly it came to her, clear as the dawn that was breaking outside in the purples and pinks of Advent candles. This wasn’t about her. This wasn’t even about all of them—Elise, Gottlieb, Hugh, John … This was about the next generation—the little Griffins and all the babies yet to be born.

Once she’d been so sure of black and white, of right and wrong. She wasn’t anymore. But she was certain of one thing—while there was no such thing as a good war, this particular one was a necessary war. The stakes were as high as they could be. And it had to be the last war.

On the one side was anger, arrogance, bigotry, victimhood, lust for power, unbridled sadism, and apathy. A brutal enslavement mentality. An utter lack of empathy in a world obsessed with power and racial purity.

And on the other side were courage, perseverance, selflessness. The dignity of the individual. Empathy, faith, and freedom. These were what was important. It wasn’t about her—it was about Griffin. It was about the children. It was about the children’s children. If the world could be a better place for them, her own Black Dog, her own life—well, things were complicated, but a glimmer of possibility shone through.

The possibility of peace.


“Are you awake?” Maggie whispered at the doorway to Sarah’s room.

Sarah moaned, but sat up and smiled at her. “Dr. Janus says I’ll be ready to be discharged soon, but I probably won’t be able to dance for months. So, touring with the Vic-Wells is out. Maybe I could go stay with my mother, back in Liverpool—”