Velvet Undercover

by Teri Brown

  The man answers, still in a whisper, but loud enough for me to hear. His words send chills down my back. “No. It’ll change the world for all time. A weapon such as this—”

  A door opens down the street and music spills out into the alley. There’s a sudden, silent flurry of movement from where Marissa and the man are standing, and I crouch low behind the barrels. Shadows pass close by and then melt away into the twilight. The door slams again and I wait, terrified, in the darkness.

  After several minutes of deep silence I’m sure that I’m alone. I want to close my eyes and have everything disappear. But it won’t. I’ll still be stuck in a Berlin back alley listening to people talk about war and treason and betrayal.

  Lillian will still be dead.

  It’s clear now that Marissa is a spy. But is she Velvet? Something is missing, some elemental piece to the puzzle. Miss Tickford said that Velvet’s handler had passed on messages that Velvet was working on something that had to do with weaponry.

  As I make my way back to the palace, I replay the conversation in my head over and over. All those men will be smoked out of the trenches like rabbits out of a warren. That definitely doesn’t sound like U-boats. Could it have something to do with airplanes? What am I missing?

  Thirty-five.

  My father’s voice whispers the number as clearly as if he were standing right next to me.

  Thirty-five? What does that mean? The paper I found in Marissa’s bedroom contained a picture with circles and one of them had Cl-35 in the middle of it.

  Suddenly it feels as if fireworks are exploding in my head. I stop and the noise of the street fades. My pulse races as a circle or square with Cl-35,5—not 35—flashes before my eyes. Marissa had written it wrong.

  It’s from the periodic table of elements. Chlorine.

  Herr Haber is a chemist. It must have been his name that was going to be written across the bottom of the paper. Then I remember that Marissa visited his laboratory.

  My mind is racing and I feel as if I can’t breathe. If this is true . . .

  Somehow I make my way back to the palace on legs that feel as if they’re made of rubber.

  “You know you’re supposed to be back by sunset. There’s a curfew,” the guard growls.

  Part of me wants to mutter an expletive, but the first rule of spying is not to be memorable and I have a feeling that he’d remember the governess who told him to bugger off.

  Back in my room, I tilt the chair under the doorknob and hurry to take the envelope from under my mattress, where I secreted it.

  I stare at the picture, unable to believe I didn’t pick up on it earlier. Horror rises up in my throat.

  That’s what Velvet has been working on. She discovered that the new weapon the Germans are developing is made from chlorine.

  PART IV

  Master

  EIGHTEEN

  HLJKWHHQ

  Cobbler: Someone who puts together false passports, travel documents, and birth certificates for fellow spies.

  When I wake up the next morning it takes a moment for the awful truth to wash over me.

  Lillian is dead.

  Marissa is Velvet.

  The Germans are developing a weapon that will be able to kill hundreds of men at once.

  I must get a message to Miss Tickford. While I’m still unsure as to why she’s here in Berlin, that’s secondary to letting LDB know about the Germans’ plan. No wonder Marissa said that it would smoke men out of the trenches like rabbits out of a warren. If the Germans have discovered a way to utilize and disperse a noxious gas like chlorine on a mass scale, it will change the entire course of the war. No longer will men simply be stuck in trenches, unable to gain any ground. Now they will be stuck in trenches and choking to death on deadly fumes.

  I dress for the day. I have to get to the bakery. Taking out the LDB codebook, I quickly write, Urgent. Velvet found. I pause, wondering if I should include something about the chlorine gas. Finally I add, Arma inventa. Latin for “Weapon discovered.”

  There’s a knock on the door and I quickly hide the note under my pillow before answering. A servant hands me a message.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  She bobs her head and is gone.

  I unfold it and read.

  Prince Wilhelm and the duchess have taken their children to Potsdam. They thought it best to suspend the children’s lessons temporarily. You will be called on when they decide to resume them.

  It isn’t signed and I can only surmise that it was written by the prince’s secretary. I haven’t even thought about what I’ll be doing at the palace now that Lillian is dead. But then, now that I’ve found Velvet, I no longer have to stay.

  I slip on my coat, anxious to be off to the bakery. I’ll plan my next move, whatever that is, after I return. It isn’t until I put my hand in my pocket that I remember the note that I’d been passed. I freeze for a moment, stunned that it had slipped my mind. What kind of spy was I anyway? I pull it out of my pocket and stare at it, unease fluttering in my stomach. La Dame Blanche set up the drop spot believing it to be safer for me than trying to do brush passes. Why wouldn’t they just go through the regular channels?

  Perhaps the regular channels have been compromised.

  Alarm washes over me. I might have been walking into a trap if I’d gone to the bakery.

  Removing my coat, I pull out the LDB codebook and then unfold the note, with my pencil at the ready.

  Except it’s not written in LDB code.

  I stare at the slip of paper, puzzled. Something about it looks familiar. I tap the pencil against the wood, thinking. It almost looks like . . . The room suddenly spins and I grip the edge of the desk to keep from slumping to the floor. I close my eyes and wait for the dizziness to pass.

  Then I open them again and stare at the numbers. I’m right. I know I’m right.

  It’s my father’s code.

  My hand covers my mouth. Could the man who bumped into me be my father? Who else would know this code? But no. That would mean that my father isn’t imprisoned, and I know the only way he would stay away from my mother and me for so long would be against his will.

  Wouldn’t it?

  I frown at the handwriting. Is it my father’s? It’s hard to tell.

  My hand trembling, I reach down and pick up the pencil that I dropped to the floor. The code itself is simple once you know the formula. We’d made it up when I was nine. Instead of shifting three spaces forward on the alphabet, you shifted three back on the first letter, two forward on the second letter, one back on the third, and then you started all over again. Elementary, really, but I’d been so proud of it.

  The message is short and to the point, so it only takes me a minute to decipher it. When done I stare at it, shock spreading throughout my body.

  Go home.

  Cold sweeps over me and I shiver. The temperature in my room seems to have dropped ten degrees.

  Standing, I take the quilt from my bed and wrap it around my shoulders. Then I pace the room, my mind racing. My father would want me to go home because he knows I’m in danger. But if he’s free, he would come home with me, wouldn’t he?

  So he must have sent the note to me under duress, unless there’s a reason he can’t come home.

  I freeze.

  What if Father is doing the exact same thing I am? His German is impeccable and he’s a lot smarter than I am. Perhaps he’s an agent, too? Is that the information Captain Parker has for me?

  Then I remember the note in my pocket waiting to be delivered to LDB. Torn, I stare at my father’s message. I want nothing more than to rush out and try to find him. I’ve been waiting for something like this for so long.

  Then an image of countless troops choking to death on a poisonous gas flashes through my mind and my duty is clear.

  I put my coat back on, wondering if my father ever had to face a situation like this. Family or country.

  Somehow I think he must have.

  My legs
are still shaking as I hurry out of the palace. My heart aches for poor Lillian and I am desperate to find my father, but my first priority is to get the note to the bakery.

  I hurry down the street, my mind spinning. If Father is an agent, who is he working for? If it were LDB, wouldn’t Captain Parker or Miss Tickford have told me?

  Or would they?

  Maybe they wanted me to be a part of LDB so badly that they would have told me anything to get me to join. But why?

  I enter the bakery, but the operative is nowhere to be seen. Heart in my throat, I buy a cookie and leave, too spooked to try to see if anyone has taken his place. Maybe he was on a break. Maybe he’s taken the day off. There are many reasons he might have been gone, but somehow the streets feel less safe than they did just a few moments ago.

  I pass a little café where my father had taken me once when I was a child. He put me on the counter stool and ordered me a hot chocolate, while he had a pint of beer. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but he threw back his head and laughed and called me his little genius. Then we walked home, my small hand in his big one. I remember how safe I felt.

  I halt so quickly that the person behind me almost bumps into me.

  “Dummkopf!” he mutters as he passes by, but I ignore him.

  That image of my father and me spins around in my brain. When it stops, it grows crisp and clear in my mind.

  We’d been walking home.

  I know where to find my father.

  Turning quickly, I head down into the U-Bahn and hop on the train going toward the Königsplatz, where the Reichstag building is. If Father knows I’m here—and the note clearly indicates that he does because he would never share our code with anyone—there’s no reason for him to think that I don’t know that he’s here. He’ll know that I’m looking for him. So if he wants me to find him, he’ll make himself available. He’ll go to a place that we both knew and loved.

  That’s what he meant when he wrote Go home.

  We’d loved the Bellevue neighborhood. Because it was near the government buildings, our neighbors were families from all over the world. Even the bustling shops had an international feel.

  A wispy cloud of nostalgia settles over me as I enter the part of our district where we had spent so much time. The homes still show pride of ownership, though many of the foreign families left after the war started.

  And then I’m in front of the house I’d been so happy in. Built more for function than form, it is not a remarkable house, but I loved it. The narrow brick building rises four stories into the air and each floor boasts two multipaned windows. Steps ascend from the street to the first floor, while a small path leads around the snowball bush to the servants’ door in the back. The stoop is clean, and I wonder if Frau Engel still scrubs it twice a week.

  We lived in the house for seven years, longer than we’d lived anywhere else as a family, and a lump rises in my throat as I look at it. Enough, I tell myself, turning away. Since we no longer rent the house, if my father is here, he will be in the gardens across the street.

  The park is as large as four city blocks and follows the curve of the Spree River. Stately linden trees guard the entrance to the park, which seems oddly wild and overgrown—not at all the manicured park of my memories. Then it dawns on me—of course Berlin’s parks would be neglected. All the able-bodied young gardeners are off fighting the war.

  There are a few women in nanny uniforms giving their young charges an airing, but for the most part the park is strangely empty of people. I remember it as a lively place, but perhaps my memory is playing tricks on me. Of course, that was before the war.

  The path by the river is punctuated by willows, but I veer away from the water toward the epicenter of the park—a large oval pond surrounded by acorns and birch trees. My father and I used to build boats to float on the water, each trying to design the swiftest craft.

  Memories, as painful as a hangnail, fill my mind and I turn away from the pond. Taking a deep breath and pushing the images away, I scan the tree line. He has to be here. I know it as surely as I know the color of my hair. The connection my father and I have always had comes into sharp focus. Go home meant to come here. I know it did.

  “Samantha.”

  A shudder runs through my body at the sound of my father’s voice and I close my eyes against the assault of emotions rushing through me. I yearn to throw myself into his arms, but my hurt and doubt are so strong that I’m frozen in place.

  “Samantha,” he says again, stepping in front of me. I tilt my head to search his face and notice that he’s let the trim little beard he always wore grow into a tangle of whiskers shot through with white. There are lines in his face that weren’t there before. Lines that say much about the grief and worry he must have experienced during the time we were apart.

  He opens his arms wide and my paralysis is broken as I throw myself at him. He pulls me close and relief courses through my body. He’s alive. He is here and he’s alive. All the complications—La Dame Blanche, Velvet, even being in an enemy country in the middle of the most violent war the world has ever seen—mean nothing next to the fact that my father is alive.

  “I missed you so much,” I finally say, my voice muffled against his shoulder.

  “Oh, Sam. What are you doing here?” His voice is tired and I pull away to look at him again.

  He’s much thinner than I remember and his cheeks are gaunt, but his greenish-gray eyes are still warm.

  Without waiting for an answer to his first question, he asks the next one, so I know it’s been weighing on his mind. “How is your mother?”

  “Fine,” I say. “Heartbroken, but fine.”

  He bows his head and I feel a twinge of pain for having hurt him. But it’s the truth. I move on to the question uppermost in my own mind. “But what are you doing here? Why have you stayed away for so long?”

  He hears the anguish in my voice and pain etches his face. He pulls away. “We should walk. I don’t like to stay in one place for too long and we’re exposed here.”

  I nod and fall into step beside him without letting go of his arm.

  I never want to let go of him again.

  “First,” he says, “I need to know what you’re doing here and who you’re working for. When I first learned of your arrival, you could have knocked me over with a feather. Especially when I discovered you were living in the Stadtschloss and caring for the kaiser’s grandchildren.”

  “How did you know?” I ask.

  He gives me a grim smile. “I know all the comings and goings in the palace. When I first heard of a new governess, I didn’t think anything of it. It wasn’t until I saw you walking into the bakeshop arm in arm with a German guard that I knew it was you. Why couldn’t you just stay home where it was safe and take care of your mother?”

  I bristle at the reproach in his voice. “I was recruited for La Dame Blanche. I actually told the captain no at first, but he promised me that if I helped them, he would give me information about you. It was the first time I knew for sure that you were alive. I couldn’t say no.” I glance at him, so many questions spinning in my head, I’m not even sure what to ask first.

  “Who told you they had information on me?”

  His voice is sharp and I stop walking.

  “Captain Parker—the assistant to the head of Military Intelligence. He’s the one who sent me to find Velvet.”

  “Velvet?” He sounds confused. Of course, he knows nothing about what I’m actually doing here in Berlin.

  I lower my voice. “Velvet is an undercover operative who has been feeding the British information on some new sort of weaponry. I was recruited to extract her before the Abwehr became aware of her presence.”

  He pauses and turns to me, frowning. “Why on earth would they recruit a child to extract a valuable agent?”

  Resentment flashes through me. “I’m not a child and I happen to be very talented.”

  His face softens. “I’m sorry, Sam. You know
I think you’re brilliant, but you’re also untrained.”

  His words align so exactly with my own insecurities that I turn my head and swallow. “I think they wanted someone who knew Berlin and spoke several languages. I also look very much like the duchess’s cousin from Cologne. Apparently, they had faith that I’d be able to complete the assignment.”

  My jab isn’t lost on him and he changes the subject. “Who is Velvet?” he asks. “There are just two operatives in the palace that I know of, and only one of them is loosely connected to LDB and unknown to all but a few highly placed officials.”

  Two? “Who are they?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “Samantha, there are people who would slit throats for that information. I’m hardly going to give it to my daughter. Now, who is this Velvet?”

  I hesitate, thinking of Marissa. “At first, I wasn’t sure who Velvet actually was,” I finally admit. “But now I’m fairly certain I know who she is.”

  My father’s bushy eyebrows fly up on his forehead. “Pardon? They sent you in to extract an operative and didn’t tell you who it was? Of all the irresponsible . . . No. This can’t be right.”

  “Her handler disappeared,” I put in quickly. “No one within LDB except her handler knew who she was.”

  He shakes his head. “No. That isn’t how it’s done. Samantha, listen to me.” His voice is urgent and low. “Something feels very strange about this whole thing. We must get you out of Berlin. Go to Marissa Baum. She’ll help you. She is the duchess Cecilie’s friend.”

  His grip on my arm tightens as he propels me out of the park. I jerk away, impatient. “Yes, I know. But you have to come with me. I discovered what kind of weapon the Germans are developing. We have to tell LDB and MI6.”

  He grabs my arm again and marches me across the grass. “You know? Good God, Sam, do you have any idea how much danger you’ve put yourself in?”

  “No, Herr Donaldson,” a voice says from behind us. “It is you who have put your daughter in danger.”

  NINETEEN

  QLQHWHHQ

  A Wilderness of Mirrors: When an operation becomes so complicated and confusing that it’s no longer possible to tell the difference between truth and untruth.