by Jon F. Merz
The crew member reappeared and set several heaping plates before Thatcher. Eggs, bacon, toast, sliced fruits, muffins and more piled high on the plates. Thatcher looked at it all and felt a rumble in his belly as he nodded his thanks and then set about tackling the feast before him.
“That’s a rather formidable meal you’ve got for yourself there. Is anyone else joining you? Perhaps a marching band?”
Thatcher smiled as he looked up into a pair of the most exquisite eyes he’d ever seen. And when he saw the rest of her face, he forgot about the feast sitting in front of him.
“I could use some help,” he said then.
Chapter 11
It was, Thatcher decided, perhaps the purest shade of black that he had ever seen in the woman’s hair. It was styled in a simple bob that fell to just above her shoulders and framed her face perfectly, giving her eyes a a facial point that immediately drew him into them where he gladly would have stayed had it not been inappropriate to simply gawk at her.
“May I?”
Thatcher nodded for her to sit and as she did, he couldn’t help but appreciate the curvaceous styling of her dress that accentuated her bust and hips, slowly drawing his gaze to her shapely calves. She looked like she stayed active but Thatcher wasn’t entirely sure what she might have done to do so. Perhaps she’d been an Olympian? He didn’t know.
He looked down at his plate and felt rather gluttonous. “You’ll have to forgive me for looking as though I’m engaging in one of the seven deadly sins at the moment.”
The woman smiled and leaned back appraising him. “From what I heard about you falling out of the sky last evening, I’d say it’s not only warranted, but mandatory.”
“Even still,” said Thatcher. “I could use a little moderation.” He glanced around. “Have you eaten yet? I could easily ask the waiter to bring a plate over?”
She held up her hand. “I dined earlier when the rest of the passengers ate. But I had to come back and introduce myself to the brave pilot who was shot down yesterday.” She smiled again and held out her hand. “My name is Cyra.”
Thatcher took her hand and felt its warmth. He held it a moment longer than a simple introduction as he smiled at her. “I’m Harrison Thatcher. It’s a pleasure, although I’m not a pilot. Just an unfortunate bystander if I’m being honest.”
He released her hand and she brought it back to her lap. “You don’t sound quite like a Brit. There’s enough of an accent there, but you’re not British, are you?”
“Guilty,” said Thatcher. “I’m American. From Boston.”
“You don’t have a Boston accent, either,” said Cyra.
Thatcher grinned. “Blame my father for that. When we were growing up he was determined that none of his children would ever have a telltale accent.”
“Interesting,” said Cyra. “And how did he go about achieving such a peculiar goal?”
“We studied multiple languages. Romance, Germanic, plus exposure to as many cultures as we were able to travel too. Which was plenty given the fortune my father inherited. It was a pleasant childhood.”
Cyra’s eyes bore into Thatcher’s. “So what happened to bring you across the ocean to this part of the world where war is just a heartbeat away?”
Thatcher ate his breakfast and took a sip of the juice. He shrugged. “I guess I wasn’t satisfied with being a trust fund baby. I think there was part of me that wanted to earn my own way. So I left it all behind.”
“All of it? As in you could never go back?”
Thatcher shrugged. “Oh, I’m fairly certain if I made amends, my family would welcome me. But to be honest, I don’t know that I ever want to go back. I like the unpredictability of my life these days.”
“Well, sure, who wouldn’t enjoy being shot down over the English Channel?” Cyra smiled again as she mocked him.
“Fair point,” said Thatcher. “But you can’t say it was boring.”
“Indeed.” Cyra glanced around before looking back at Thatcher. “And what will you do now that we have plucked you from the ocean? Will the captain turn this ship back to port to return you to England?”
Thatcher smiled. “Believe it or not, I was supposed to be aboard this ship in the first place.”
“How is that?”
“A friend of mine insisted on having someone fly me down to the port and that was when my world got turned upside down. I don’t imagine he thought I’d be going into aerial combat, but alas, that’s exactly what happened. When the captain had me radio back this morning, he was nearly beside himself with worry.”
“You must have interesting friends,” said Cyra evenly.
Thatcher took another sip of juice. “He’s recently gotten a promotion in the army. More of a desk job, but it did enable him to pull a few strings on my behalf. I told him it was completely unnecessary, but I think he was enjoying his bit of administrative power, if I’m being perfectly honest with you.”
“Power is always…something,” said Cyra.
Thatcher eyed her. “And you? What’s your story? I can’t place your accent and your hair is simply beautiful.”
Cyra touched her hair and then smiled again. “Do you like it?”
“Very much.”
“It’s rather obvious though, isn’t it? I could have it colored to a more neutral tone, but I do so love the depth of its blackness. It’s like light vanishes within it.”
“If it’s natural then I would be fascinated to learn where you call home.”
“Where do you think I’m from? At least in part?”
Thatcher leaned forward and stared into her eyes. Cyra held his gaze and didn’t blink which Thatcher found even more tantalizing than he wanted to admit. “Given your tresses, I would say there is Mongolian stock somewhere in your past. But your eyes aren’t missing their epicanthal folds so that means there are other genetics at play within your family line. More powerful genetics at that. Your accent is vaguely Teutonic but not from northern Germany or Prussia but more southern, perhaps Austrian or even Swiss.” He leaned back. “If I had to guess, you were probably educated at a prestigious girls’ school in Switzerland where you were exposed to any number of languages, resulting in your accent being slightly diluted as it is, rather than unmuddled like someone else.”
“Unmuddled,” said Cyra. “An interesting turn of phrase.”
“Makes you more intriguing,” said Thatcher. “Well, at least to me.”
Cyra leaned forward and smiled at Thatcher again. “Do you enjoy intriguing women, Harrison?”
“Ever so much more than boring ones,” said Thatcher. “You’ve been all over the world, perhaps even more than me I would think.”
Cyra leaned back. “You have a keen eye for details, don’t you?”
“It’s a necessary part of my life,” said Thatcher. “Being able to spot details helps me to survive in this world.”
“That’s never been more true than it is these days I would hazard to guess,” said Cyra. “What with the world at war now.”
“Not yet,” said Thatcher. “The world, I mean. But I suspect that won’t be the case for too much longer.”
“The United States is not yet involved.” Cyra fixed her gaze on him again. “Do you think that will ever change?”
Thatcher nodded grimly. “I wouldn’t be surprised. There’s no way Britain can continue on her own as she’s been doing for the last few years. She needs the US in the war. And without them, she probably has under another year before Hitler brings them under his heel.”
“But the US is full of people who don’t want war. What could prompt them to ever enter it?”
Thatcher finished his meal and wiped his mouth. “There is always a way to manipulate people into seeing a new path forward, provided they are stimulated toward a certain belief. In this case, I would suspect some sort of precipitous attack would nudge the general population into accepting the necessity of war. But it would have to be a rather spectacular affair. Something enormous and the loss
es would need to be huge for the masses to really get behind the war effort. I don’t know that Hitler has the means to do so, but if he were to somehow reach New York or Washington with a flight of bombers, that would probably be enough.”
“That would indeed be something,” said Cyra. “To see Lady Liberty bombed…I imagine the US would go crazy with the desire for vengeance.”
Thatcher nodded. “But that’s neither here nor there, is it? I mean, after all, we’re simply here on a ship steaming toward Portugal.”
“And what happens in Portugal?” asked Cyra. “Will you vanish off into the wilds of the Basque countryside or will you set up shop on the shores of the Mediterranean and bathe in the warm waters therein?”
Thatcher smiled. “I will need to first find a way to support myself. A man can’t very well enjoy any of the Spanish delights without some sort of income, now, can he?”
“You don’t strike me as the type who will want for money for long.”
“No?”
Cyra shook her head. “I have a feeling that money has a way of finding you whether you want it to or not. You are one of those rare individuals for whom money is not an issue. You may have other challenges throughout the course of your life, but money is not one of them.” She winked at him. “Nor, it would seem, are women.”
Chapter 12
Cyra left Thatcher a few moments later with plans to meet later for a proper dinner. As he watched her walk away, Thatcher marveled at the styling of her skirt across her backside and appreciated the view just long enough before turning back to the cup of tea before him. He took a moment to look into his teacup at the amber liquid it contained and allowed a small smile to play across his face.
This was it, he thought. The moments of peace that he had to remind himself to appreciate. The simplicity of a cup of tea when all the world around you was in the midst of chaos could not be underestimated in its ability to evoke bliss. He lifted the cup to his lips and sipped the tea, tasting its warmth as it rolled back across his tongue and down his throat. It had cooled only slightly which made it the perfect temperature to consume. Thatcher remembered his father instructing him that he should never bend his head to drink the tea but rather lift the cup to his lips. That was how the aristocracy would do it; commoners would bend their heads forward.
Thatcher finished his tea and thanked the staff of the mess deck for their attention. Satisfied and in need of a walk, Thatcher strolled outside on the main deck and paid attention to the Archimedes for the first time. She was about four hundred and sixty feet long and roughly sixty feet at her beam. A pair of stacks jutted from her and belched steam into the sky as she plied ahead at a speed Thatcher estimated was somewhere around fourteen knots. Given her size and speed, he figured they had one more day at sea before they docked. After all, the ship had already been at sea for over a day even though Thatcher had slept through the majority of it.
There weren’t many passengers that he could see. Not that he could blame anyone. A cruise meant you were taking your chances on the open ocean with German U-boats prowling the waters. And apparently, commerce raiders. Thatcher had only managed to get bits and pieces of the news when he was in prison. He knew from his discussion with Hewitt that the commerce raiders were severely affecting British shipping. And if Raider X was their newest and most lethal addition to their fleet then once it reached the Indian Ocean, it would wreak havoc on any shipping it could find.
But in order to reach the Indian Ocean, it would need to set out from the North Sea ports the Germans operated. It would sail south then through the English Channel perhaps, or even around to the west of Ireland to better avoid British patrols. Once it reached the open Atlantic, it would immediately head south. That was where the Archimedes was right then. Thatcher assumed Raider X would have a U-boat escort until she could be relatively assured that she wouldn’t encounter any British naval vessels. It would be open season then.
Thatcher put his hands on the rail and looked off into the distance where he saw nothing but the blue ocean meeting the blue of the sky, which had broken out into sunlight from the earlier clouds. He was sitting on a massive pile of bait, he reasoned. And he wondered what Adamson would say if Thatcher told him what the plan was. Could he convince the captain to steam for the coast and pretend that Thatcher had gone overboard? Would he do Thatcher a favor in order to save his ship?
Thatcher sighed. Probably not. Adamson seemed a strictly by-the-book sort. Worse, he would probably voluntarily sacrifice his ship if he knew of the plan to destroy the German raider. He would love to be part of the Crown’s effort to hurt the Germans. No, thought Thatcher, Adamson was no help to him at all.
He did several loops of the upper decks, getting a feel for the layout of the ship. He had no idea how the Archimedes would be attacked, which necessitated that Thatcher be as familiar with every part as he could be. If Raider X sent a couple of torpedoes into the side, then the Archimedes would list to one side or the other, or it could simply break apart into two and sink. Thatcher wanted to know the best evacuation route in case of such a thing. He forced himself to note lifeboat locations as well as the means of winching them down. The last thing Thatcher wanted was to be adrift in the ocean again. Sharks, he remembered Hewitt telling him. Thatcher shivered. He had no desire to ever see the things up close and personal.
His best bet, he reasoned, was to make his way to the lifeboats immediately once Raider X attacked. There seemed to be plenty of life boats available given the paucity of passengers he had seen thus far. There was no need for panic provided the initial attack wasn’t completely overwhelming and destroyed everything. He suspected it would not be. The Germans were more interested in sinking merchant ships than killing the passengers that rode on them. And Hewitt’s idea of using the Archimedes for bait would be a tempting target for Raider X. Her captain would be itching to get his crew into action to test them, especially as a proud Prussian military man. This Schwarzwalder character would want to see how his men operated and use the time spent sailing for the Indian Ocean to drill them into a perfect unit. So yes, it would attack the Archimedes, almost certainly.
Thatcher grinned to himself. Hewitt, for as much as he had wagered a rather staggering amount, seemed to know what he was doing. At least in regards to planning the operation. There was still the question of how exactly Thatcher was supposed to scuttle the ship when he was taken prisoner aboard it. Most likely he would need to gain access to some of the ship’s munition stores and rig an improvised charge that would set it all off.
He sighed again. He had gone from getting shot down, to riding on a ship that was presumably going to be sunk, to eventually being taken prisoner on another ship that he was going to try to sink. The ridiculousness of the situation made him almost laugh. He was thirty-two years old and he’d been in the war for less than two days. And he was already tired of trying to survive it.
But that was his life in a nutshell. Thatcher had lost count of how many times he had jumped out of the proverbial frying pan and into the fire. And then done it in reverse it seemed. Most times, the only thing that saved him was his knack for self-preservation. Maybe that was why Hewitt wanted him for this assignment so badly. Perhaps he didn’t want to sacrifice Thatcher after all. Maybe he thought that his new secret agent might actually be able to survive the harrowing ordeals and make it back to England intact.
Part of him wanted to die just to prove Hewitt wrong. But that would be silly. Thatcher had no desire to die. There was still a great deal of the world he wanted to explore. There were still a great deal of wealthy women he wanted to liberate from their riches. And that meant he would need to survive in order to do so.
It was funny, standing there by the rail being employed by the Crown in its efforts against the Germans. Thatcher was an American citizen officially, yet that hadn’t mattered at all when he was charged with his crimes in England. He couldn’t even get proper representation from the US embassy. It was as if he had been forsaken. He
wondered if his father and his powerful connections had had anything to do with it. When Thatcher had left the US, he had walked out on everything that he’d ever had, determined to make his own way in life. The family had turned its back on him for doing so.
And even though Thatcher had killed that man in self-defense, the charges had been absolute and the verdict almost pre-ordained. Interestingly enough, though, once the sentence of death was pronounced, Thatcher had spent the better part of six months in jail waiting for it to be carried out. He wondered if he had been on Hewitt’s radar for a great deal longer than the SOE man had been willing to admit. Perhaps Hewitt had been grooming Thatcher for far longer, waiting until just the right time to offer him a job, knowing that the option was either death or serve the Crown.
Fucking Brits, he thought. They could be as polite and gracious as ever and yet you’d never know they were equally as cunning.
Time would tell, thought Thatcher.
Chapter 13
Thatcher took a quick nap before dressing for dinner. As Adamson had noted, the closet in his cabin was full of clothes that Hewitt had presumably had bought for him prior to the trip. At least whoever had done the shopping had a sense of style, thought Thatcher as he browsed the selection. He chose a starched white shirt, tie, slacks, and a jacket. He tucked a red pocket square in the breast pocket for a splash of color that matched the tie and then checked his hair in the mirror before leaving his cabin.
Cyra was already seated when he arrived. There was a bottle of white wine sitting nearby that had been previously uncorked. Cyra held the glass with all the elegance of a woman who appeared to have the entire world exactly where she wanted it. In any other time and place she might have been holding court with scores of admirers. But here they were on a ship in the midst of a world at war.
