A Game of Spies (25 page)

She felt like a slab of butter in a saucepan. It didn't require much warmth to turn butter from a solid to a sizzling liquid; and then, if one lost track and looked away for just a moment, the butter evaporated forever. She wondered if the men recognized that they were running this risk with her—of cooking her for a moment too long, and turning her into something less solid than air.

She mentioned her dream, of Klinger urging her to take her medicine. There was something wrong with the medicine, she said, conscious of the fact that her voice lost force as she tried to communicate this ineffable
something.
There was something wrong with Klinger.

The men sent knowing glances to one another, and seemed just on the verge of snickering.

“Dreams and intuition,” her “ally” said as kindly as possible.

“It's just a feeling—”

“Women are emotional by nature,” the frowner interrupted. “They're always having
feelings.
But their
feelings
can depend on so many things. Even on the time of the month. Isn't that right?”

She looked at him, amazed. He was looking back pointedly, as if she might actually confirm or deny this. Not, of course, that they would believe her either way.

Then she burst out laughing. Oldfield stroked his sideburns, picked a speck of lint off his lapel, and announced that it was time for tea.

After eight days of debriefing, she was led to a different room.

This was the Director General's office. Oldfield sat behind a vast desk, beneath oil portraits of men who had held his position previously. All of the men wore the same immaculate charcoal pinstripes as Oldfield himself. He made as if to stand when she came into the room—but in reality he rose only to a sort of squat, and waved her into a chair.

He offered tea, looked marginally and inexplicably disappointed when she refused, tented his fingers before his chin, and let a moment fall away.

“I believe you,” he said then.

She waited for the qualification, but none was forthcoming. He simply looked at her for a few moments more, then continued: “You've managed to make quite an impact on us. And we pride ourselves, as a rule, on not being swayed by ephemera such as
intuition.
So that's no small accomplishment. There's the matter of the SS men on the field, of course, which helped bring us along—positioned, as the airplane's pilot has confirmed, in such a way that you might have been stopped from reaching the plane. And then there's the ease with which you managed to seduce the OKW clerk in the first place. Not that I mean to imply anything about your capacity to …”

He colored a bit, and quickly rushed on.

“… in any case. It just all falls together rather neatly, doesn't it? A bit too neatly, if you ask me. I'm obliged to report your results to the Prime Minister, no matter what my personal opinion might be concerning their veracity. But I will make it perfectly clear that in my learned opinion, there's something rotten in Denmark.”

He smiled at his own small spark of wit; she inclined her head gratefully.

“I apologize for the rough nature of the debriefing,” he went on—speaking faster now, as if anxious to get on with the rest of his day. “But we're finished with you now. I'm afraid you won't be able to strike out on your own, however, if that's what you've been expecting. A few naysayers are still of the opinion that you're here at Canaris' bidding. So for the sake of caution, we'll need to keep you under observation.”

“Observation,” she repeated.

“Never fear. It's a temporary situation. The only alternative is an official inquest, which I assume you'd be just as happy to avoid.”

“I … yes.”

“Once this blows past, there will be several options available to you. A few within this agency, as a matter of fact, if I have anything to say about it. Or you can go about your business as you please. No doubt you'll want to take this opportunity to think carefully about your future, so that when the time comes you'll have a level head. Mm?”

She nodded again.

“I understand that you grew up on a farm in Saxony,” he said. “Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Why not spend a week or two at Plumpton Place, lending a hand with the horses? It will keep the handwringers among us at ease. And it might give you a chance to clear your head. Then we might discuss your future with Whitehall.”

His expressive eyebrows climbed higher on his forehead.

“If,” he said, “you choose to have a future with Whitehall.”

By the time May arrived, in an explosion of daffodils and crocuses, Eva had adopted the lazy rhythm of life at Plumpton Place.

She divided her time between an Arabian mare named Necromancer and a collection of Shakespeare that she had discovered in the mansion's dusty library. There was no hand to be lent caring for the horses, despite Oldfield's promise; the stables were tended by an elderly groom who guarded his territory jealously. Eva learned to recognize his ever-present stalker's cap from a distance, and learned to stay away except when she was determined to take Necromancer for a ride.

Yet she felt fairly content with her lot—riding and reading were pleasant diversions—or thought that she did, until one morning when she looked up from her book and noticed, through the window of the drawing room, a young woman strolling across the lawn with a baby in her arms.

The sight jarred Eva more deeply than she would have imagined possible. Her breath caught; suddenly she felt on the verge of tears.

She set the book aside and moved to the window. The woman was completely absorbed with the baby, which was carefully bundled in a blue shawl. This woman, Eva thought, should have been her. In fact this
was
her—in some other world, where life made perfect sense. It was a world where the Nazis had never come to power, where Eva was a struggling but promising young actress who was forever relegated, or so it seemed, to the bottom of the marquee. But there was time for her career to blossom; there was plenty of time. Her husband earned a good enough living. He had given up on just getting by when the baby had been born, at Eva's insistence, and now he worked long but honest hours, doing something with his hands. And she had not lost everything. She was not without a country or a future or a lover. She was this young woman on the front lawn, with many challenges ahead and many loved ones by her side to help her face them.

Then someone stepped into the drawing room behind her. She turned and found herself facing a young man with dark hair and smoky brown eyes, wearing a leather jacket faded almost white. He came toward her with his arms outstretched, as if they knew each other intimately.

When she drew into herself, he faltered. “I'm sorry,” he said. “You don't recognize me?”

She shook her head; the implied embrace became a professional handshake.

“Arthur Deacon. I'm the pilot—”

“Oh!” she said. “Forgive me. Of course.”

They shook hands. She found herself wishing that she had accepted the embrace instead—but the opportunity, of course, had passed.

“Have you got a moment?” he asked.

As if she had anything else.

He introduced her to his wife and son (the woman eyed her sideways, with the same jealous suspicion manifested by the groom when she came too close to the stables), and then she and Deacon took a stroll around the forest paths.

“I don't suppose you've seen a newspaper,” Deacon said. “They keep you to yourself out here, don't they?”

“Yes, I suppose they do.”

He walked for another few seconds without speaking. He had his hands jammed into the pockets of his leather jacket, and he kicked at small rocks whenever they presented themselves. “There's something you ought to know,” he said at length. “Oldfield would have come himself, but he's got his hands awfully full these days. So he sent me—his favorite nephew. His only nephew, to tell the truth. But therefore his favorite.”

Eva smiled. She found herself liking this young man very much. In fact, the affinity she felt bordered on the inappropriate. Did he understand that
she
should have been the one to have his baby? Ridiculous, she thought immediately, and struggled not to blush. It was only because this young man had saved her life that she felt such inappropriate affinity for him. For no other reason man that.

Deacon remained focused on the ground between his feet. “Hitler has made his move,” he said. “Five days ago, now.”

She knew the rest of it before the words had passed his lips—not the details, but the essence.

“Over a hundred German divisions moved into Belgium and the Netherlands. The French commander, a bloke named Gamelin, rushed the bulk of his armies to repel the attack. He was expecting a drive through the Low Countries and then Sedan. Based, at least in part, on information delivered by the Prime Minister—who chose to ignore the advice of my uncle and his esteemed colleagues.”

She nodded, hooking a strand of auburn hair behind one ear.

“Then the Nazis unleashed a blitzkrieg through the Ardennes,” Deacon continued. “There weren't many troops left to stop them, and the ones that were aren't worth much. For all practical purposes, it's already over. Chamberlain has resigned—the Labour leaders and the Liberals simply refuse to serve under him any longer. Uncle Cecil may well be tendering his own resignation within the next few days, if he can't find a way to wriggle out of it.”

“I tried to tell them,” Eva said.

“Yes. Uncle Cecil mentioned something to that effect. A lot of bloody bishes around Downing Street, if you ask me. They've got their heads in the clouds. They simply can't believe that a man like Hitler really exists—one who would lie to their faces, again and again, and smile all the while.”

He saw a stone, and kicked it.

“But now,” he said, “the real fight begins. Churchill's taken control, and he'll do what needs to be done. We may have lost the battle. But the war is far from over.”

For several minutes, they walked in silence. Birds chirruped brightly around them. Then a cloud passed in front of the sun; the day became overcast, the forest a patchwork of grays.

“There's something else,” Deacon said abruptly. “You'll let me know, of course, if I overstep my bounds …”

She glanced in his direction. “Yes?”

“It's about Hobbs. He was a friend of yours. Wasn't he?”

“A friend,” she repeated. “Yes.”

“I never met the man myself,” Deacon said. “But his reputation was fairly well known. And it was hardly pure. I'm afraid that it doesn't stand much chance of improving in the future, either. In the opinion of those who matter, he's guilty of treason.”

She refrained from saying anything.

“But that was him up in that tree, wasn't it? I saw him quite clearly, just as we were taking off.”

“It was him.”

“Uncle Cecil mentioned that you'd said that as well.”

“That's right.”

“He looked as if he was aiming that rifle right in your direction. Did you know that?”

She blinked. “No,” she said.

“There was a lot going on, of course. I can't be absolutely certain of what I saw. But I had the distinct impression that he planned on shooting you—and then changed his mind.”

As they continued strolling, she considered this. It had been at that moment, just as she was climbing onto the plane, that she had first realized for herself the strangeness of the situation. The men spilling out all around, and yet letting her go. And had that showed on her face? It must have.

So perhaps Hobbs had seen this—and he had spared her. For he had known, somehow, that Klinger had been part of a deception. He had fought his way to the extraction site to warn her, perhaps, that she had been tricked. But then his faith in her—and his love for her—had won out.

She thought there was a ring of truth to that. But perhaps it was just wishful thinking. It was a more pleasant conclusion, after all, than the alternative: that he truly had been using her; that in the end he had been faithful to nobody but himself.

“Who knows?” Deacon asked. “There was a lot going on, as I said. Perhaps my eyes tricked me.”

The trail was winding around now, bringing them back in the direction of Plumpton Place.

“In any case,” Deacon said, “I personally am of the opinion that he was a decent sort—at the end, if at no other time. I thought you might like to hear that.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“You may also be interested in hearing this: one of Uncle's oldest friends has expressed some interest in you. He's assembling an operation even as we speak, and he'll be needing a hand—several hands, as a matter of fact. It's to be rather a large undertaking. I was considering signing on myself, since my wife would rather not have me flying.”

He kicked at another stone and then looked up at her; his eyes gave a mischievous glint.

“Have you thought about what comes next?” he asked.

HAM COMMON, SURREY:
JUNE 1940

Professor Andrew Taylor led Eva into the cell, gestured at the two chairs by the small table, waited until she had sat, and men took the other chair for himself. He was a heavy man, and the wood creaked complainingly when he settled down. He ran a hand through his sparse hair, lit a cigarette, pushed his spectacles higher on his bulbous nose, and began to speak.

“When we arrest the spies,” he said, “we bring them here.”

Eva began to twist a strand of hair, listening.

“Then we have a go at them,” Taylor said. “The goal is to see whether they can be trusted. If we decide that they can, we turn them back out again. They continue spying, under close supervision. We'll use them as the war goes on, you understand. They'll be feeding Canaris exactly what we tell them to feed him. The Nazis may have put one over on us this time—but two can play at that game.”