by Cara Black
She arrived at a decision.
Time to fight back.
She reached for the warden’s phone on his desk, asked for an outside line and repeated from memory the number the man with the cane had written on the card he’d given her at the firing range.
An hour later, Kate was standing downstairs in the factory yard, waiting. She watched the cloud-puffed sky and the harbor shining with a scum of oil slick. The air reeked of oil mixed with a fishy tang. Black and white puffins took wing in the vanilla midafternoon, light spread over the rolling green fields dotted by sheep and the Nissen huts at the naval base. Somewhere a wooden shutter banged.
An olive-green staff car from the Wick air base pulled up at the factory yard. Several of the munitions inspectors and the home guard warden had appeared to meet it. As the passengers disembarked, Kate recognized the man with the cane. He’d gotten her message.
“That’s her. That’s the one.” The home guard warden pointed an accusing finger at her as she approached them. “I told you to wait, you’re to be court martialed.”
“Court martialed? That’s for the military.”
“During wartime court martials extend to civilians,” he said.
“Why bother?” Kate turned to the man with the cane. Fine lines radiated from his eyes, whose irises were a mottled green with brown specks. He wore no uniform, in contrast to the military dress of his scowling assistant. “Thank you for responding to my message, sir. I’m interested in that job. Birmingham, you said.”
A muscle in the home guard warden’s cheek twitched. “What’s this? Some kind of fairy tale? You’re under disciplinary action.”
“Thank you, warden, I’ll handle it from here,” the man said. “Ah yes, the job offer stands.”
Kate looked him in the eye. “I can take the afternoon ferry and get the train to Birmingham tomorrow morning.”
“Well, Miss—”
“Mrs. Rees,” she corrected.
“Mrs. Rees, the job I have for you now is not in Birmingham.” He looked at his watch, then indicated for his assistant to open the staff car door. “We’ll give you a ride.”
After a military flight from Wick to somewhere on the mainland, Kate was bundled into a mud-splattered staff car for a short drive through the countryside. They pulled up to a grilled gate that opened into the driveway of a manor house. Peacocks strutted on the rolling grass in the twilight. It was like a scene out of Rebecca, the movie Greer had taken her to see at the recreation center a few months earlier. Only the emerging stars provided any light.
Once they were inside, Alfred Stepney, as he’d introduced himself, ushered her into a high-ceilinged drawing room with a flagstone fireplace and dark wood-paneled walls. No one had told Kate where they were going. She tried to tamp down her apprehension.
She wondered if she’d made the right choice in calling this man.
The bookshelves were full and a large globe perched on a stand. She caught sight of herself in a gilt mirror over the sofa and looked down at her greasy hands and stained factory pants. Well, what did Stepney expect? Not that she cared.
“Mrs. Rees, are you prepared to sign the Official Secrets Act?”
This sounded serious. “What exactly would I be signing?”
“You’ll be agreeing to never disclose any information regarding security and the intelligence services under the Crown. Basically, you will never speak of anything we ask you to do from this moment forward.”
“I assume it’s a condition of the job?”
“I’m afraid we have nothing more to discuss unless you do.” The piercing gaze from his keen mottled green eyes turned to a look of amusement. The expression reminded Kate of the poker players in Sands Flats. “And I believe you’re the right candidate.”
What did she have to lose? The pen scratched on the fibrous paper as Kate wrote her name. “You brought me here because I can shoot, right?”
“There’s a mission for you. You’ll go through an accelerated training, since unfortunately we don’t have much time.”
For the first time she noticed the bald patch he’d carefully combed over, just visible under the overhead light. How he favored his left leg. “What kind of mission?”
“War work for your special skills.” He tapped his walking stick. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t believe you could do it.”
Kate looked around the drawing room, out the tall windows to the sloping lawn. She’d entered another world. Sensed there were different rules. She still didn’t know what she was getting into.
“As long as I have a chance to get back at the Germans, fine,” she said, realizing it sounded like a line from a dime novel. But it was true. “But does this mean I’m joining the military?”
“We’re only accountable to the prime minister,” said Stepney. “My group, Section D, doesn’t exist officially.”
Not just another world, a covert world. “So—you’re spies?”
He considered her for a moment, then said, “All our operations are deniable. But I never told you that.”
Deniable. She turned the word over in her mind. It meant that if she failed at whatever they wanted her to do, her life would most likely be forfeit. That no one would ever know what had happened to her.
She was in over her head.
Had that ever stopped her?
“Still interested?”
“When do we start?”
In the next room, which was even larger, a deal table was covered with maps. Stepney indicated a chair and they sat down. Kate spotted a much-thumbed street map of Paris by the foot of yet another large globe.
Stepney cleared his throat to get her attention. “We have limited time, Mrs. Rees. Please, listen closely and try to remember everything I say. If nothing else, remember these letters: RADA.” He gave her a half-smile. “No, it’s not the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, but that will help you remember. Burn the letters in your brain, make them second nature. RADA: Read, Assess, Decide, Act. This stands for: read the situation; assess possible outcomes; decide on options; act on your decision. Can you repeat that?”
She did.
“You’ll have practice examples later. Think those letters, RADA, to yourself constantly, every moment of every hour; wherever you are, walking on the street, in the shop, boarding the Métro. Any moment a German soldier might stop and demand your papers. It’s impossible to avoid them so you need to be prepared. Always have a story ready, but be flexible according to the situation. Use your intuition. Your instinct.”
Kate shifted in the hardback chair. “So you’re sending me behind enemy lines.”
“That depends on how well you do in training,” he said. “But I believe you’re more than capable based on what I’ve seen. You’ve got what you Americans call moxie, Mrs. Rees.”
“In Oregon we call it hellfire.”
“Thinking on the fly is essential,” he said. “Improvising. Wherever you go, a shop, a café, you’ll need to always look for the back way out. Know the closest bus stop, and always have a carnet of tickets, one ready in your pocket. Mingle in crowds, blend in, never do anything to draw attention to yourself. The minute you open your mouth—well, it’s not a good idea.”
Stepney stood and went to the door, then turned around.
“Do you have any friends or acquaintances in Paris you still correspond with?”
She nodded. “One or two, but . . .”
“Who?” Stepney’s voice rose. For the first time she saw wariness on his thin face.
“Actually, they were Dafydd’s friends,” she said. “My classmates in the Sorbonne were international—Polish, Swedish, German, Austrian. I have no clue if they’re still in Paris now. With the war, I doubt it.”
Stepney blew air from his mouth. “Avoid the temptation to look them up,” he said. “Don’t go anywhere near your old lodging, the bake
ry you used to visit. Do not say hello if you see your old concierge. You don’t want to contact or compromise anyone.”
“What do you mean by compromise?”
“Paris has changed under the occupation,” said Stepney. “So has everyone you once knew. Some may have German sympathies, or need a job with the occupiers, or just need to keep their apartment, protect their family—there are a million reasons a former friend might turn you over to the Germans. Money, of course, is the simplest. Trust no one.”
At his words, the reality of the situation began to sink in.
“Would anyone remember you?” Stepney was saying. “A teacher at the Sorbonne perhaps?”
“There were tons of students, but I don’t think anyone would remember me. Haven’t even kept in touch with my old tutor.” She’d been oblivious to everything else after she’d met Dafydd. She’d spent every day at their café sipping wine while Dafydd sketched. “Why?”
Irritated, Stepney stared at her with those flecked green eyes. “Anyone you knew could point you out. Things have changed, you must understand that. We’ve lost two agents in the last few days.”
Lost two agents . . . maybe that was why there was a job opening for her.
“Don’t trust anyone,” he said again. “I can’t stress this enough. It’s lonely, I know, I’ve done this myself. One friendly face from the past and the mission is ruined. Speak to no one. It’s safer for you and for them. Never return to the same place twice. Wherever you go, think about a place you can hide. A bolt-hole.”
“Bolt-hole?”
Stepney grinned for the first time. “Like this.” He walked past her, slid open a wooden wall panel disguised to look like the others. Inside was a dark space, musty and full of dust. “It’s a priest’s hidey-hole. All the old manors had them to foil Henry the Eighth’s henchman. This manor belonged to a Papist.”
Kate ran her finger over France on the large globe. “Who exactly are you, Stepney?”
Just then, a gray mouse darted along the skirting board and disappeared behind a bookcase, and Stepney gave her a small smile. “I’m a little mouse like him. Part of the woodwork.” He handed her a manual. “This contains the basics. Usually there are six weeks of training. There’s much to teach you but we have so little time.”
Her tongue felt too big for her mouth, which had gone dry, so she nodded.
She opened the manual, scanned the headings in the index: Dead-Letter Boxes, Disguises, Escape, Surveillance. A spy manual. “But you know what, Stepney, I think you’re a big mouse.”
He glanced at his watch. “And I think you need time for your coursework. Memorize chapter three. You’ll recite it to me when I return. I’ll leave you to it.”
Stepney returned an hour later. After she’d repeated chapter three, “Escape,” to him, he nodded. “Some people want to meet you,” he said, brisk and businesslike.
Stepney led Kate down a long hallway and into a narrow sitting room, its walls hung with oil paintings. A moment later a woman, her white hair in a chignon, joined them. She was wearing a simple black dress, pearls, and bright red lipstick. “Ça va, Madame Rees. Vous êtes bien méchante, eh?”
“Moi? Pourquoi, madame?”
“No good,” said the woman in perfect English to Stepney. “Her accent’s too strong. She’d be picked out in a minute. I’d need a month of intensive work with her.”
“Can’t she be from the north, say Lille? Or Belgian?”
“She could say she grew up in Canada, that that’s the source of her funny accent,” the woman said. “Even better would be to keep her mouth shut, talk only when she had to.”
Stepney shrugged. “Unfortunately, the Gestapo have cottoned on to the deaf-mute ploy.”
He motioned Kate to sit down on a worn leather chair. Then he and the woman disappeared.
Curiouser and curiouser, Kate thought, like Alice down the rabbit hole. If he was sending her behind enemy lines to France, why not just tell her? She wondered who owned this big drafty house with its unlived-in smell and secret hidey-holes. Not for the first time she thought the English more than strange. Dafydd had always said the same thing.
June 16, 1940
Somewhere in the English Countryside | Evening
“A big-boned Yank. Her features and mannerisms are so obviously American. Good God, Stepney, they’d shoot her on sight.” Thomas Cathcart, Stepney’s counterpart in the Secret Intelligence Service, let his gruff voice ring out across Prime Minister Churchill’s study. “The language issue would never even have a chance to come up!”
The prime minister’s secretary entered. “Here’s her file, Prime Minister.”
Cigar smoke trailed from Churchill’s large worn leather chair. The PM waved it away and took the file.
“The girl’s a rifle champion. Gold medals from 1934, Butte Falls, 1934, Clackamas County, 1936, Deschutes County.” Churchill looked up as he read. “I’m half-American but have no idea where these are.”
“Oregon state, sir.”
“Aah, I see.” He puffed on his cigar. “What do you say, Stepney? It’s your bloody idea.”
Stepney met Cathcart’s expressionless gaze. Cathcart, the new SIS head, looked like a middle-aged accountant. Cathcart was far more familiar with the inner sanctum than Stepney, as was his lackey, a public school twit who had never seen a day of combat in his life. Rival intelligence services with their onerous old boy factions looked down on Section D. Not to mention the damn military.
“With respect, sir. The woman’s got spirit. And a woman can . . .” He paused. “Well, use her wiles.”
“She is hardly an exotic dancer,” said Cathcart. “A bizarre choice. Amateurish even for your Irregulars.”
Stepney’s Irregulars, who were both Brits and foreign nationals, did dirty jobs: clandestine operations involving Stepney’s contacts in the Deuxième Bureau, France’s internal intelligence branch. No one in the British government wanted to be seen interfering with other countries’ internal affairs. Yet after the humiliation of Dunkirk, the new prime minister needed a success. He’d tasked Stepney to come up with a plan. Something bold. A shock tactic.
Cathcart closed his folder. “There are just too many risks.”
“Our Paris network was compromised two days ago.” Stepney stood up, stifled a wince at the pain shooting through his hip, and paused to look each person sitting around the table in the eye in turn. “Our boys who have been stranded in France since Dunkirk are getting picked off in their hiding places. There’s a leak.”
Stepney let the silence hang. A log sparked and crackled in the fireplace.
“We lost our two top snipers in the last airdrop. Our third sniper unit is engaged in a desert mission outside of Tripoli. It will be at least seventy-two hours, if not more, before they’re in contact. There’s no time with the given deadline. We need someone now. You want the list of suitable candidates?”
He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolded it and held it up for effect. Blank.
“No one’s denying that, Stepney,” Cathcart said. “But even if she’s a crack shot, as I said, there’s just too much risk that she’d compromise our entire network.”
“She’ll only know the information she’s given. But yes, there’s the language problem, and her appearance.” Stepney lifted his arms as if in concession. “But no one knows her. We use only one contact, Mercier.”
“What if Mercier’s the leak?” the SIS lackey asked. Red-haired, a graduate of Harrow, going by his double striped old school tie. The type of Englishman who wore his pedigree around his neck.
Stepney cleared his throat. “I flew twelve joint-force combat missions with Colonel Mercier in 1917, until we were shot down. I vouch for the man.”
A nervous cough. “No disrespect intended, sir.”
“Gentlemen, you raise well-founded objections,” Stepney said. “Al
low me to make two important points.” He laid the shot-up target on the table next to the burning cigar. “We’ve proof of her ability to hit consecutive targets at three hundred yards. A marksman, er, markswoman. And this is personal for her.”
His finger ran over the holes made by the bullets.
“She’s the only faint chance in hell we have to make this work.”
Silence.
“Of course, if you have other candidates for this mission I don’t know about . . .”
The cigar smoke drifted in lazy spirals under the carved ceiling arches. Cathcart and his lackey looked to Churchill.
“Hmm.” The whiskey splashed in the heavy tumbler as the prime minister shifted it. He struck a match and took another puff from the cigar. “So you think I should meet her, Stepney?”
Let him think it’s his idea. “Sir, my job is to furnish information. It’s up to your discretion, of course. I just thought . . .”
“You just thought, Stepney?” A laugh.
The black phone by the whiskey decanter trilled. The prime minister answered. Grunted. He hung up and stood. “Midnight meeting for everyone in this room. Come up with a precise plan. I want it detailed down to which French-label silk blouse she’d wear. Get the weather projections and the latest decoded Abwehr rosters from Bletchley Park. I mean up-to-the-minute. Get a plane down there if you have to.”
A few raised eyebrows. But each of the four nodded.
“Reserve your judgment until tonight,” he said. “Treat this as Level One, highest priority. This doesn’t leave the room, I might add.” He gave a chuckle. “After all, we haven’t even asked the lady.”
An hour later, after a hot meal of rabbit stew at a scarred wood counter in a cavernous basement kitchen, Kate was escorted into what looked like a parlor and asked to sit down on another stiff-backed chair. It was hard to believe all this had happened since her lunch today with Greer. A radiator sputtered, emitting dribbles of heat. The high-ceilinged room was lined with blackout curtains and the only light came from a dim chandelier, which was missing several crystals, and an Anglepoise desk lamp. Three men in uniform stood surveying her. They began to ask questions, taking turns, impersonal and cold.
