The Wild Rose

by Jennifer Donnelly

  Max moved around the cottage as he spoke. He shoved the settee back in place, righted a small end table that had gone over, and cleaned up some splintered wood that had fallen on the floor near the front door.

  “Right. That’s right. All clean and neat-like. No messes and no clues,” Billy said.

  “Good,” Max said. “Let’s get Finnegan outside. A bash to the head and then into the water.”

  “You can’t do this. Please, Max,” Willa begged.

  “What about her?” Billy said, ramming the pistol’s barrel into Willa’s head again.

  Max smiled. “Don’t worry about her. She’s my problem and I’ll take care of her. In fact, this is one problem I’ll take great pleasure in resolving. Come on now, Billy, let’s go.”

  He grabbed Seamie’s jacket and walking stick. After getting Seamie up off the floor, he half marched, half dragged him outside. Madden followed with Willa, closing the cottage’s door behind them.

  “Let’s be quick,” Max said. “I want to get back on the road. We’ve been here too long as is,” he said.

  Outside, Willa saw Madden’s car. He’d parked it up the driveway a fair bit. Probably to keep herself and Seamie from hearing it as the three of them drove in. Looking at it now, Willa knew that any ride she took in that car would be the very last ride of her life. She tried desperately to think of a way to save James, to save all of them—but there was none. Max and Madden were walking them toward the river. She and Seamie were bound. They were outnumbered. Madden had a gun and Bennie did, too. There was nothing she could do.

  “I’ll take this one to the car,” Madden said. “You do for Finnegan.”

  “No, Billy,” Max said. “Bring her to the water. I want her to see it. She nearly killed me. I spent a month in a hospital bed because of her. I want her to see him go in.”

  Madden, squinting in the darkness at the car and frowning, hesitated. “Where’s that fucking Ben—” he started to say.

  “You owe me that much, Billy,” Max said tersely. “I got you the boy. Without me, you’d never even have known about him.”

  “All right, then,” Billy said. “But be quick about it. Like you said, we’ve been here too long already.”

  It was over. Willa knew that now.

  She had tried her best to save James, but she had failed. And now she would pay for her failure, she and Seamie both. With their lives.

  Chapter One Hundred Nineteen

  “Walk, damn you!” Madden shouted, shoving Willa ahead of him toward the river. “Where’s that bloody Bennie?”

  “I told you, he’s in the car with the boy,” Max said. His grip on Seamie tightened. “Don’t do anything foolish,” he told him.

  Seamie made no reply. He was looking ahead of himself, past Willa and Madden. He was looking at the river, trying to see a way out of this. The blow he’d taken had dazed him, but his head had cleared now. He could take von Brandt, if only he could get his hands untied. But even if he got Max, Madden had a gun on Willa. And Bennie, who also had a gun, was inside the car with James.

  They got closer to the water. They were only about ten yards away now. Seamie strained against his bonds.

  “Please,” he said. “Don’t do this. Not to her. Not to my son.”

  Max said nothing. His eyes were fixed on Willa, who had started to struggle with Madden. Max’s grip on Seamie was steel-like.

  “Stay still,” he said quietly. “Don’t move or I’ll shoot her.”

  Willa kicked at Madden. She connected with his leg, causing him to stumble. He righted himself and hit her savagely. She staggered backward from the blow and fell to the ground.

  “You bitch!” Billy shouted. “I’ll fucking kill you!” He raised his gun and pointed it at Willa.

  “No!” Seamie shouted.

  They all heard the shot.

  Billy’s head snapped up. Seamie spun around. They both looked at Max at the same time, both saw the shiny glint in his hand, both realized that he was holding a smoking, silver pistol.

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty

  Willa felt blood, hot and wet, on her face and neck. Its thick, coppery smell was heavy in the damp night air.

  Max had shot her. Not Madden, Max. She’d seen him raise the pistol and fire. There was no pain, though. She had been close to death before and the pain had been terrible. Now she felt nothing at all. Is this what it’s actually like to die? she wondered. She looked down at her chest for a bullet hole. There was blood spattered across her jacket, but she could see nothing else. Had he hit her in the neck? The head?

  “It’s all right, Willa,” Max said. “You’re all right.”

  Willa, still on the ground, realized that Madden was no longer standing over her, screaming at her. Where was he? She sat up and saw that he was lying on the ground next to her. His eyes were lifeless. There was a dark, wet hole in his forehead.

  She turned and looked up at Max. He untied her hands, then he took Madden’s gun from the dead man’s hands and shoved it into the waistband of his trousers.

  “Where’s James?” Seamie was shouting. “Where’s my son?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Finnegan,” Max said.

  “You said he was in the car!”

  “I lied. Turn around. Let me untie your hands.”

  As soon as Seamie’s hands were free, he raced off to Madden’s car, shouting for James. Willa struggled to her feet and raced off after him.

  She found him opening all the car doors. “He’s not here,” he yelled. “Oh, God … where is he?”

  “Look in the boot,” Willa said.

  Seamie wrenched the boot’s lid up and Willa screamed. Bennie, a livid gash across his throat, was lying inside it.

  “James!” Seamie shouted, spinning in circles. “James, where are you?”

  Willa was about to slam the boot lid down again when Max, suddenly close by, asked her not to. She turned and saw that he had his arms around Madden’s chest. He had dragged him all the way from the river to the car.

  “I … I don’t understand,” Willa said. Nothing made sense to her. Nothing at all. She felt as if she was in some horrible nightmare, one from which she could not wake.

  As she stood there, trying to figure out what was happening, Max tumbled Madden’s body into the boot, then slammed it shut.

  “James!” Seamie called out again. His agonized cry echoed through the woods.

  “We must help Commander Finnegan find his son,” Max said to her.

  “His son’s fine,” said a new voice. Slowly, a man emerged from the darkness. He was holding a shotgun and it was trained on Max. “I know where he is and he’s safe.”

  It was a very disheveled Albie.

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-One

  “James is nearby, Seamie. He’s in good hands,” Albie said, still holding the shotgun on Max.

  “Albie, what are you doing here? How did you get here?” Willa asked.

  “By car. After you called, I thought I should come to Binsey, meet you here and take you back to Cambridge,” Albie said. “I took Eddie’s automobile, but it ran out of gas a few miles outside of the village. I left it at the side of the road and walked the rest of the way. When I got to the drive, I ran into James—literally. He was very frightened, but he managed to tell me what was happening. I took him to a neighbor’s house, the Wallaces’. Mr. Wallace and James went to the village to get the police. They’ll be here shortly.”

  “Did you borrow that gun from the neighbor, too?” Max asked, looking at the shotgun.

  “Mr. von Brandt,” Albie said, “I’ve been after you for a very long time, but never in a million years did I expect to find you in Binsey. I’d like to know what you’re doing here.”

  “It’s a long story, Mr. Alden,” Max said.

  “That’s all right. You’re not going anywhere.”

  Max told them all about Billy Madden’s first visit to him at his hotel, and how he’d had to tell Billy about James in order to save his own life.


  “I never expected Madden to actually track Josie Meadows down,” he said. “I thought he was in a bad way due to his grief over his sons and that it would wear off in a day or two. I was wrong. He paid me a second visit this evening, as I was getting out of a carriage in front of my hotel. He was waiting by the door for me with a gun. He forced me into his car and told me he’d been to Paris and had found Josie and that she wouldn’t tell him the boy’s name or where he was. Then he threatened to kill me if I didn’t take him to the boy. So I did, figuring the ride would give me time to think, time to figure out a way to kill him, for I saw then that he would never stop. Not until he had James, and I did not want that to happen. I did not want an innocent child’s abduction on my conscience. I knew I could take Bennie if I could just get them apart. Sending James out of the window was a great help. Bennie went after him. I saw him go. And then I went after Bennie. I was able to get his gun off him, kill him quietly with a clasp knife Billy foolishly left in my trouser pocket, and get him into the car boot.”

  “But Max, how did you know Billy Madden in the first place? And Josie Meadows? And Binsey?” Willa asked.

  “Mr. von Brandt knows a lot of things, Willa,” Albie said. “Too many things. He was a spymaster in London before the war even started. That’s how he knows Madden. He used one of Madden’s boats to get naval secrets to the North Sea. He’s going to tell us what he knows. Every last thing. Raise your hands, Mr. von Brandt. You’re under arrest.”

  “No, actually, I’m not.”

  “I have a gun. I’m not afraid to use it,” Albie said menacingly.

  “You won’t shoot me, Mr. Alden,” Max said, a note of weariness in his voice. “You can’t. That shotgun’s ancient. The trigger’s rusted. And you’re holding it incorrectly. It’s probably not even loaded, is it? And even if it is, I have two pistols and I’m a much better shot. I’ll get you first.”

  Albie still refused to lower the shotgun.

  “Mr. Alden, two prime ministers will be most unhappy with you if you shoot me. Mr. Asquith, who protected me for the duration of the war. And Mr. Lloyd George who continues to protect me. You are right, Mr. Alden … I am a spy. But I’m not working for Germany. I never was.”

  “My God. That … that means,” Albie said, as the full weight of Max’s words hit him.

  “That you’re a double agent,” Seamie said. “Fucking hell.”

  Max smiled ruefully. “Yes, Commander Finnegan, that’s it exactly—a total fucking hell.”

  Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Two

  “When, Max?” Willa asked. “When did you turn? When did you become a double agent?”

  “I never turned. I was a double agent all along,” Max replied. “I’m a high-ranking member of the British Secret Service and have been for quite some time. I long ago saw the writing on the wall. I saw that the kaiser was a madman who would find any pretext for going to war. Had it not been Sarajevo, it would have been something else. I wanted to do what I could to stop him, to stop the war.”

  Willa shook her head in disbelief. “But how? How did you pull it off?” she said. “It seemed very clear to me in Damascus which side you were on. And it wasn’t the Allies’. I would never have even suspected you for a double agent.”

  “It was difficult,” Max said, “but I had a part to play, and I played it. I first had to convince Berlin that I was a loyal to the kaiser. That was easy enough. I’d had a sterling record of military service, after which I became a member of the German Secret Service. They found out I had family in London and wished to exploit that. So they had me stage a fight with my uncle—an industrialist and the head of our family’s firm, and a big supporter of the kaiser’s. We had a public falling out—or what looked like one—in a restaurant over my dissatisfaction with the kaiser’s policies. A few days later, banished by my uncle, I arrived in London. Because of my family connections there, and because I had been publicly critical of the kaiser, I was welcomed everywhere.”

  “You were above suspicion, which made it easy to run a spy ring and which is exactly what Berlin wanted,” Albie said.

  “Yes, of course. I assembled the ring as soon as I got to London. I had to feed Berlin information. Good information. Constantly. If I hadn’t done so, they would’ve suspected me—hence the documents in the packets that Gladys and Jennie couriered. But I gave London far more than I ever gave Berlin. No one knew about me except Asquith. Not you. Not Burgess. Not even Churchill. They couldn’t know; it would have been too dangerous for me. Asquith played along quite well, I must say. He even invited me to his country home at the same time as he invited other spies—German agents who he knew were in constant contact with Berlin—people who would report back that I was doing my job. In fact, Asquith himself told me, just two nights ago, that I’m the reason the Allies won the war. Though I have to share credit with the Spanish flu, I suppose. It carried off more German and Austrian soldiers than it did Allied ones.”

  “People died because of your activities in London,” Seamie said angrily.

  Max’s eyes turned hard. “Yes, they did,” he said. “Once I was here, it was very important to look like a German spy to other German spies. That involved cruel, even brutal actions. I regret Maud Selwyn Jones’s death. And Gladys Bigelow’s. I regret any suffering I caused Jennie Finnegan. But that is the cost of what I do, and it is a very high one.”

  “Jennie Finnegan was my wife. My wife,” Seamie said. “You had no business … you had no right …”

  “Yes, she was your wife. And all those German sailors you sent to the bottom of the Mediterranean, Commander Finnegan, who were they? I shall tell you. Each of them was some mother’s son. And probably some woman’s husband, some child’s father. Jennie suffered, yes. Maud and Gladys are dead—all at my hands. But how many more were saved because of what I did? How many were spared because I, and others like me, helped to shorten the war? Hundreds of thousands? Millions? Do we sacrifice the many for the one? Or the one for the many? It’s a question that I’ll never answer, Commander Finnegan, and one that will always haunt me.”

  In the distance, lights were suddenly seen shining through the trees.

  “The constable, no doubt. With Mr. Wallace and James. It looks as if they’re still a fair ways off, but even so, I must be going,” Max said. “When they arrive, please tell them that Madden and his man were trying to break into the cottage to rob it. You, Commander Finnegan, shot at them with a pistol you keep in the cottage.” He pulled Madden’s gun from his waistband and handed it to Seamie. “Now is your chance, Commander Finnegan,” he said quietly. “Take it, if you must.”

  Seamie shook his head. “The war’s over,” he said.

  “Good-bye, Commander Finnegan,” Max said. He offered Seamie his hand, but Seamie would not take it.

  “Good-bye, Mr. von Brandt,” he said. “Thank you for saving my son.” He turned away and started walking toward the cottage. Albie followed him.

  Willa stood where she was, too stunned and tired to move.

  Max turned to her. “I am very sorry that I hit you. Back in the cottage,” he said. “Forgive me, I had no choice. I had to quiet you. If you had kept talking about your brother and aunt, and what they knew, you would have spooked Billy, and he might’ve killed both you and Commander Finnegan right there.”

  “Oh, no worries, Max,” Willa said bitterly. “I’ve no hard feelings toward you. Not for that, or anything else. None at all.”

  Max looked at the ground. “What will you do after tonight?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Get out of these clothes. Sleep. Then go back to Paris, I suppose,” she said wearily.

  “Why? So you can finish the job?” he asked, looking up at her again.

  “What job?”

  “The job of killing yourself. You were always trying to. On Everest. In the desert. And now, apparently, with a needle. Oh, you needn’t look so surprised. I know an addict when I see one. You must stop, Willa.”

  “Strange sentiments comin
g from you, Max. I should think you would want me dead. You were going to kill me yourself in Damascus. I saw the order. From Berlin. It was in with the maps I stole from your desk.”

  Max shook his head. “I follow most of my orders, but not all of them. I never would have killed you. Not you. I would have stalled Berlin. Told them you still had valuable information. I might have locked you up for a bit, but I never would have had you shot. I couldn’t have. It would have been like killing myself.” He paused, then ruefully added, “The best part of myself, that is.”

  It was Willa’s turn to look away.

  “Stop it, Willa. Once and for all. You’re here. Seamie is here. You have always wanted to be together. You should stay with him now.”

  Willa laughed. “After everything that’s happened? What I did to his wife?”

  “What you did, eh?” Max said. “What did Seamie do, meeting you all those times at the Coburg? What did Jennie do, lying to him about their son? What have I done, Willa? To you in Damascus … to Jennie … to dozens more.” He fell silent for a bit, then said, “Think about the boy. James would likely not be with his father right now if it wasn’t for you. Seamie would not be alive. I doubt very much that things would have turned out the way they have without you. Think on that, and perhaps, in the days to come, it might help to balance the scales a little.”

  Willa looked at him. Her eyes filled with tears.

  “Don’t be stupid, Willa. Take what love you can find in this wretched world. There’s little enough. Grab it with both hands. For yourself. For Seamie. For the boy.”