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The Prime Minister's Secret Agent(96)

By:Susan Elia MacNeal


Like Jakobs’s execution, Clara’s was to take place in the East Casements Rifle Range, on the grounds of the Tower of London. Eight soldiers from the Holding Battalion of the Scots Guards, armed with .303 Lee-Enfields, were waiting to fire in unison at her heart.

“Clara.” It was Frain, along with a Catholic priest, an older man with a long, drooping face, only emphasized by an even longer, drooping mustache.

She looked up at Frain, face hard. “Is Margaret here?” she asked. “Edmund?”

“I’m sorry, Clara,” Frain answered gently. “They’re not.” They had not come to the trial, either.

“Do you have any last words?” the priest said, face as white as his collar.

“No,” Clara managed, standing. He face was bare of makeup and her natural light brown hair, streaked with gray, was beginning to grow in, leaving a contrast between her real hair and the bleached platinum blonde she had sported in Berlin. But instead of looking older, she looked younger and more vulnerable. Except for the set of her mouth.

“We’re going to blindfold you now.” Frain stepped behind her, taking a black cloth from inside his suit’s breast pocket. As he placed it around her eyes and tied it tightly, he leaned in to smell her hair.

“Peter,” she said in a small voice, unable to see, her hands reaching out in vain in front of her.

“I’m here,” he said, taking one of her hands and pulling it through his arm as if they were about to enter a dinner party. “I’ll be with you.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

They made their way out of her cell and down the staircase of the Queen’s House and out the door. Clara’s nostrils twitched as she smelled the frosty air. “I’ll take it from here, Father,” Frain said to the priest.

Together they walked, arm in arm, as though out for nothing more than a Sunday stroll. Then Clara heard a car engine start and Frain dropped her arm as he went to open a car door.

“Peter?” she said, reaching out her hands, clawing the empty air. “Peter? Don’t leave me!”

Frain grabbed Clara around the waist and, careful to protect her head, helped her into the backseat of the waiting car, slid in beside her. “Go!” he snapped at the driver, who shifted into first gear and pulled out, leaving a shower of gravel and snow behind.

“Peter?” Clara asked. She began to pull at her blindfold.

“Keep it on,” he said, taking her hand in his. “It’s better for both of us if you don’t know where we’re going.”



An hour or so later, the car pulled to a stop. Frain untied Clara’s blindfold; it fell to her lap. She blinked at the light, and at the sight in front of her.

They were at the gate of a stately manor home, encircled by barbed-wire fences. Frain gave his identity papers to the Coldstream Guard on duty. The guard looked them over, then handed them back to Frain. “Our newest guest?”

Frain nodded. The driver pulled around the circular drive, stopping at the grand entrance. The double doors opened and a man stepped out. He opened the car door for Clara and offered his hand. “Welcome, Frau Hess.” He gave a stiff bow. “We are delighted to have you with us.”

“Clara, this is Lord Murdoch,” Frain said. “He’s your host here.”

Clara blinked, then found her voice. “And what sort of place is this?”

“This is to be your home now, Frau Hess.” Lord Murdoch was smiling. “We hope you’ll be very happy here.”

Clara looked up, taking in the soaring grand architecture. A chill wind ruffled her hair. She looked at Frain. “Thank you,” she said, and lifted herself on tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek.

“You really do have nine lives, Clara.”

“Well, at this point, I’m probably on my eighth.”

She turned back to Lord Murdoch and offered her gloved hand. “This will do,” she said. He bent and kissed it.

Clara gave one of her dazzling smiles, the one that used to bring audiences to their feet at the Berlin Opera House back when she was a prima donna. “Yes, this will do quite nicely.”