by M. L. Huie
“No thanks,” she said.
“I admire your restraint. Smoking tends to make me want a drink and drinking makes me want another cigarette. Cyclical, I’m afraid.” He slid open the credenza and removed a half-filled bottle of bourbon and another of branch water. Deftly he mixed the two and returned to his chair. “Detained at work, you said?”
“That’s right.”
Fleming took a sip of his drink and gripped the cigarette holder between his teeth. “You don’t trust me, do you?”
Livy almost snorted. “Look, you’re an impressive man. Nice office. That map. The lot. But things haven’t exactly been going my way of late, and if you’re on the pull, then this is not going to end the way you want. So I’d suggest you say what was on your mind and then we can both be on our way.”
Fleming’s mouth curled into a predatory grin. “Your working- class candor is not without its charm, Miss Nash, but I assure you I’m not in the habit of chatting up drunk girls in pubs.”
“Right then, so you find me in the middle of London and invite me to interview to be a foreign correspondent for The Times? Is that it? Like you said, I’m a proofreader for a third-rate paper. Not even that now. I was sacked today. Or perhaps you already knew that.”
“Can’t say that I did. Why did they let you go?”
Livy huffed. “As you said, it’s a third-rate paper.”
Fleming stood and walked to the door. Livy tensed and wondered if the interview, if it had ever been that, was about to conclude. Instead Fleming closed the thick door. As he did, the rubber around the frame seemed to seal the entrance with a soft suction sound.
Closing the door now. All nice and alone. Livy’s patience was gone. Her heart banged against her chest. She wanted to scream. Instead she gripped the sides of her chair and held on.
“You’re unusually blunt for a woman of your age,” he said, returning to his desk. “So, let me return the favor. I did ask you here today to talk about a job, as a matter of fact. As I said yesterday, your foreign experience during the war will serve you well should I decide to use you. In other words, I didn’t traipse across London yesterday because I think you’re the next Somerset Maugham.”
“Sorry?”
“I don’t give a damn if you can write.”
“This is a foreign news service, isn’t it? You—wait, is this another proofreading job for the boys on your big map back there?”
“Miss Nash, I am interested in you because you were an agent with the Special Operations Executive. I am interested in you because I’m told you were one of the Firm’s best. You came home. Many of the girls we dropped into France ended up being captured.”
“Many of the boys too,” Livy said.
“Be that as it may, I am interested in you because of your wartime reputation,” Fleming said, parrying her rebuff with a compliment. “I’ve heard stories about you. Your exploits during the war. Tell me, is it really true that you walked right into a Gestapo headquarters and demanded they release a prisoner?”
“It was a long time ago.” She remembered every detail, but she’d not tell Fleming that. “A very long time ago.”
“A mutual friend of ours even told me the Germans had a name for you. Spitfire, wasn’t it?” Fleming’s wide mouth curled into a grin worthy of the Cheshire Cat.
Luc had been the one who told her about the nickname. He’d found it funny as well. Livy hated it at first. Like being called shrew. But RAF Spitfires had helped win the Battle of Britain, and if the Germans had a nickname for her, then that meant she’d gotten under their skin.
“You’re very well informed, but I still don’t have a clue what it is you want from me,” Livy said with a little more venom than she intended.
“Olivia, when you came back from France, our intelligence services wouldn’t give you the time of day despite your qualifications. Since the war you’ve been doing work that seems, frankly, beneath you and has caused you to become something of a bitter wastrel with a taste for bad vodka. So, if we can find the Olivia Nash who fought for her country, then I just may want to add another light to this rather ostentatious map behind me.” Fleming crossed his long legs and clinched his cigarette holder between his lips. “In short, I’m asking you to spy for your country again.”
Livy heard the words but still didn’t trust him. “I thought … this was a news service.”
“Oh, it is. Very much so.”
“A news service with spies?”
Fleming nodded, as if this was the most natural thing in the world. “Some of my correspondents report the news, while others work at the behest of His Majesty’s Secret Service.”
This is more bloody like it, Livy thought.
Fleming smiled and opened a drawer in his desk. Then he slid a single sheet of thick paper across to her. Livy recognized the seal and the form itself. It felt like a lifetime had passed since the first time she saw the Official Secrets Act.
“And what exactly do you want me to do, Mr. Fleming?”
“Now, in order to answer that question, you’ll need to sign on the dotted line there,” Fleming said, offering her a black pen with gold stripes. “Then all shall be revealed.”
Livy pretended to read over the familiar document as Fleming waited. Did she really want this again? A life of secrets? But wasn’t that better than what she had now—no life at all? Her war had ended in more pain than she’d ever known, and it had all begun with signing this very same piece of paper. Livy’s mind raced, remembering the end of the war, her war.
The Gestapo prison near Paris. The firing squad. The explosion that shattered the courtyard where Peter and the others had stood, waiting to die. Yet she had lived.
That day the old Livy had gone through fire and come out the other end. She didn’t feel pity for her new self. No, Livy understood her quite well. Pity is what she felt for the older, naïve version. That Livy—the one before the courtyard—had so much to learn about the world and evil.
She had realized then there would be no going back to her old self. The girl from Blackpool who relied on others to see her through tough times was gone. Whenever she drank, which was every night now, Livy felt pain in her jaw in the exact spot where that German bitch in the prison had hit her. That pain, as well as others too painful to relive, reminded her of who she was now.
The line at the bottom of the Official Secret Acts awaited her signature. What choice did she have? Who’d want to hire a proofreader fired from the likes of the Press and Journal? No job meant no flat, and where would she go once Langham kicked her out? She’d have to throw herself on the mercy of her mum’s niece in Liverpool. And do what? Marry some bloke. Have a few kids. Beans and toast every night and the occasional pint on Saturdays.
Fleming smoked, waiting.
“I signed this once before, you know.”
“Only covered wartime, alas,” Fleming said. “If you’d prefer to not sign, then we’re finished here and you can get back to whatever plans you might have for the evening.”
Plans? Livy considered her life since the war. Wasting time with drink and relationships that ended after a week or two. Ticking off the minutes at the P&J. And after today she didn’t even have that.
No choice but this.
Livy signed quickly and pushed the fancy pen back across the desk, wondering where this might lead. She hadn’t known what she was getting herself into the first time she’d signed either.
“That was the smartest decision you’ve made all day,” Fleming said, pocketing the pen. He left the form on his desk, perhaps so Livy could ruminate on the contract she’d just made with His Majesty’s government.
Fleming blew a cloud of smoke across the room. “What do you know about Nazi spy networks?”
“I know enough,” Livy fired back. “Look, this job, there’s a salary, isn’t there?”
Fleming blinked. “Of course. Miss Baker can handle the paperwork for that tomorrow.”
“Good. That’s good. Go on, then.”
/> “Thank you.” Fleming stubbed out his cigarette. “Now, during the war the Germans had spies all over Europe, of course, but one of their networks was far bigger and more effective than any we have ever seen. Not unlike the Soviet Red Orchestra network back in the thirties, this one was vast, efficient, and damned well devastating to more than one of our operations. It’s a miracle one of its agents didn’t learn about the invasion before the sixth of June.” Fleming paused, refitting another cigarette into the holder. His gold lighter flashed and he drew in smoke.
“That’s history, though,” Livy said, still wondering how any of this might relate to her.
“The war is over, but the agents of this particular network—remain—in—place.” Fleming drew out each word, like a primary-school marm. “For the past year we’ve been rounding up German rocket scientists to try to keep them out of Joe Stalin’s clutches. Controlling a network this vast would give us eyes and ears throughout Europe. Think what that would mean for the next war.”
“If there is one,” Livy said.
Fleming chortled. “The next war began before the last even ended. It was always going to be West against East. We just had to settle Hitler first. The network, however, apparently survived. And the reason was loyalty. We had German double—even triple—agents working for us throughout the war, but not one member of this network turned. Until now.
“A few weeks ago, one of our patrols in Vienna picked up a Frenchman selling weapons on the black market. His flat was in the Russian sector, but when we threatened to turn him over to the Reds, he suddenly started telling the most remarkable story about being an agent in this infamous Nazi spy ring. The man was terrified and demanded protection before giving us any information. What he told us made it clear that the network and its agents are still very much operational.”
Fleming leaned back in his chair, cigarette between his teeth, grinning.
“But most important of all, he identified the leader of the network for us. Turns out this chap began as a traveling magician. Mephisto was his stage name. So, we’ve taken to calling the network after him. Apparently, he had quite the reputation in France and Germany before the war. Mephisto, as well as an accomplice or two, would pick up information from an agent at each stop of the tour and then funnel what was useful to the German High Command,” Fleming said, pulling a thick gray file from atop a stack of newspapers on his desk.
“This Mephisto used several aliases, I’m told, and was quite successful at erasing his past. But based on what we’ve learned from the agent who turned, Mephisto is a French national. His real name is Edward Valentine.”
Fleming pushed a small publicity photo across the desk toward Livy. The picture showed a tall man dressed in tails, wearing a turban. The man stood in a shadow so that only his eyes—all bugged out and Houdini-like—could be seen. He held a fanned deck of cards in front of him. Every card was the ace of spades.
“That’s Valentine,” Fleming said, watching her. “But we believe you knew him by a different name during the war. Luc.”
Livy picked up the publicity photo and studied it. The cards masked most of his face, but she’d looked into those mischievous eyes so many times. Luc. Her nerves jangled.
“He’s alive, then?”
Fleming nodded.
“I was there—at Fresnes when a mortar struck. He should have been killed. I don’t understand. Are you sure?”
“Our informant’s story checks out. Completely.”
Luc—the traitor—alive. Livy felt a tremor run through her body as she remembered the last time they’d met. Somehow he’d avoided the shell in the courtyard that day. Not only that, but he was alive and the head of this vast spy ring.
Fleming said, “I take it you do know this Valentine?”
“I knew him as Luc, as you said. We were in the same circuit for the Firm. I trusted him then. Even liked the bastard.”
Livy tried to sound nonchalant, but now the memories of Luc and the war felt more vivid than ever. She remembered how bitterly cold that day in January ’44 had felt when Michelle arrived before dawn at the abandoned café where they always met with bad news. Her brother, André, had not come home. He’d gone to Chaville, a town southwest of Paris, to secure a part for the wireless from an electronic shop there and hadn’t come back. Peter reassured Michelle that they’d find him, but Livy knew he was worried. When people went missing, they stayed gone.
Luc volunteered to take her to Chaville. He drove her the twenty miles south. He made jokes like always to calm her down. They both knew how much was at stake. If André had been tortured and talked to the Gestapo, their whole circuit could be rounded up before nightfall. Luc drove through the town slowly. They stopped at a market. Livy pretended to be the captured man’s wife, angry that her rakish husband hadn’t come home. The vendors laughed; some shrugged at the scorned wife’s distress. No one admitted to having seen the wandering husband.
The last place Luc stopped was the town hall, which had been taken over by the Germans. “If the buggers have him, he’ll be in there,” Luc said as he let the motor idle outside the three-story gray building. Two Gestapo guards stood outside the front doors, smoking, their MP42 submachine guns hanging from their shoulders.
“I’m going in,” she said. “I’ll be out with him in ten minutes. If I’m not, then go,” she said. Luc kissed her on the cheek.
Livy opened the car door and hurried toward the front. She had no idea what to do, and that thrilled her. Just play the mistress, the character, and get André. She charged right at the smoking guards, showed them her Annette Desjardins ID, and was taken inside.
At the front desk she pled her case to a sleepy-looking, bald Gestapo captain who probably hadn’t seen action since 1940. Livy said she knew her good-for-nothing lover André had been mistakenly taken into custody after visiting her in Chaville to say he would not leave his wife back in Paris. Simultaneously crying and yelling, Livy told the captain she wanted to see the fils de salope and spit in his lying face.
The sleepy captain had no idea how to deal with a woman scorned, so he scanned his ledger and ordered one of the young guards back to the cells. Livy paced and cried and kicked the furniture as she waited, praying that her gamble would work. She knew the risk. If they didn’t have André, they’d suss her out. In the space of half an hour she could be back in the same cell. Then, the questions, the torture. They wouldn’t stop until she had given them everything.
The man the guard escorted out had bruises on the right side of his face. His eye was almost swollen shut and his upper lip looked about three times normal size. Despite the toll of the beatings, she could see it was clearly André.
Livy reacted, in character, to André’s wounds. She stifled a gasp and gently touched his bruised face. Then she slapped him on the untouched side, letting loose a rant of some of the raunchiest French swearing she could muster. It was quite a performance.
The guard said something quietly to the bald captain. He turned to Livy. “This man was picked up for being on the street after curfew,” he said in perfect French. “He’s the one you are looking for?”
“Yes, this is the pig,” Livy hissed.
The captain dismissed them both with a wave of his hand, and the young guard took the screaming woman and her beaten lover out the front door.
Her rescue of André made Livy’s reputation among her circuit and others. It also elevated her to a level alongside Peter. Before Livy had been his subordinate, but now she felt like his partner, and he treated her as such.
That night Luc pulled her aside and said, “That was a masterpiece today, girl. The Boche don’t have a chance against you.”
Luc the traitor. Valentine. Mephisto. Whoever the hell he was, he owed her two years of her life. All Livy wanted was the chance to be in the same room with him. To look him in the face and to hurt him as badly as she’d been hurt.
Livy tossed the Mephisto photo back onto Fleming’s desk. “So you want the Mephisto network.
Is that it? And I’m to be a part of—what? Retrieving it?”
“Something like that.”
“Meaning?”
“The next step, Olivia, is that we begin the process of seeing if you’re ready for this work.”
“I just fought a war. I’m ready. Now.”
“Your feistiness would be an asset in certain circumstances,” Fleming said, his wide mouth curled into a half grin. “But for what I have in mind, it might also get you killed. Not to mention what it would do to the operation. No, this job requires subtlety. A quality you decidedly lack. So, I’ve no intention of shipping you off to Moscow tomorrow to eavesdrop on Joe Stalin just yet.”
“Fine, then,” she said. “Let’s get started.”
“You don’t sit back and wait for things, do you? I daresay there isn’t a submissive bone in your firm little body.”
Again, that predatory grin. The more pleased with himself Fleming seemed, the more Livy wanted to give him what for. She caught herself grinding her teeth, which she turned into a forced smile. Some men just made you feel like a show pony. Another time, another man, she’d have walked out. This time she held her tongue on the assumption there might be a point to this particular leer.
“So that’s why you want me to work for you—because I knew him?”
“Yes. And you were a damned fine agent for the Firm. But there is another reason. You see, you’ve been requested.”
“Requested?”
“A young woman approached one of our people in Paris. She says the Mephisto list is up for sale. They want to negotiate. But only with Olivia Nash. The girl called Spitfire.”
Chapter Four
Livy had eaten breakfast and bathed by seven the next morning. She then put ground acorns in a pot, poured hot water over them, and pretended it tasted like coffee. By the time she got to the second cup, she could almost imagine it had a kick like the real thing.
She’d barely slept the night before. Her mind continued to process the previous day. Sacked at the P&J. Then Fleming. Luc alive. Mephisto. Her presence requested in Paris.
