Mr. Churchill's Secretary (26 page)

Then the door opened.

It was hopeless, just hopeless. Maggie felt the beginnings of a headache coming on, like an ice pick behind her right eye.
I’ve already wasted so much time.…

She looked for David.
Probably still at the telephone
.

Her eyes kept going back.
All right, you annoying, miserable, pathetic bunch of dots. But what about, say … half-reversed alphabet?

Then the code read: O R Q V S A V N A Q Y H A T / M H I R E F V P U G/ O R Q V S A V N A Q Y H A T / Q R E/ F R R B S S V M V R E / O R Q V S A V N A Q Y H A T / C N H Y

Damn, damn, damn
. She pushed her hair back again and stared at the ceiling. A tiny black insect buzzed by her, and she batted at it, absently.

As she yawned and stretched, it came to her—and the hairs on the back of her neck prickled with excitement.
But … what about … in German …?
She felt cold and gripped the pencil hard, her heart beating fast. She could practically smell success.

Translated, the code transformed into:
Bedienhandlung die Zuversicht / Bedienhandlung der Seeoffizier / Bedienhandlung Paul
.

Jesus
, Maggie thought, shivers going up her spine.
Jesus, Jesus, oh, sweet Jesus
.

It took her a few moments, but she translated the German to English.

The broken code read:
Operation Hope. Operation Naval Person. Operation Paul
. Maggie copied it out in her notebook, breathing faster.

What the … Operation Hope? Could that …
She’d almost let herself think,
Could that have something to do with
me? She nearly laughed aloud.
But that’s ridiculous. I’m just a tiny cog in a very, very
, very
big machine
. She gave a grim smile.
And apparently a narcissistic cog at that
.

She turned her attention back to the notebook.

Operation Paul
. Simon
Paul? After all, he’s made no secret of the fact that he opposes the war. He works for Lord Halifax, a well-known Appeasement supporter.…

But Operation Naval Person?
Maggie took a ragged breath. Naval Person was Mr. Churchill’s code name, a reference to his stint as First Sea Lord. Could it be … an attempt on his life?

She put some money down on the table and ran to the short, dark-haired, and haggard bartender. “The phone, please?” she asked breathlessly.

“That way, miss,” he said, pointing to a dim hallway behind him.

Maggie found the phone booths and went to one a few down from David. She groped in her handbag for some change, inserted the coins, then dialed a sequence of numbers. She waited, chewing her lip and tapping her foot. “Westminster double-three four nine,” she said to the operator.

There was a series of short clicks and a pause, while a crackle of static danced across the line.

“John Sterling, please. Of course I’ll hold. Yes, this is urgent.…” Maggie wound the thick black cord
around her wrist. “Hello, John? It’s Maggie. No, no, I’m fine—” She listened and then interrupted, her voice soft and inaudible to anyone else in the room. “Look, John, that code? It’s for real. It’s in German, and it’s backward, in half-reverse alphabet. If you translate it, it says Operation Hope, Operation Naval Person, and Operation Paul. Not sure about the other two, but Operation Naval Person must have something to do with Mr. Churchill.”

“Maggie, where are you?”

“John, this information is far more important than—”

“Are you still at Cambridge?”

Maggie could see David finish his call, replace the receiver, and head back to the table.

“I’ll call back later,” she whispered behind a cupped hand. “But please look into it. It’s imperative!”

When Maggie returned to the table, David’s face was unreadable. “Made a few calls,” he said. “Pulled in some favors.”

“Yes?” Maggie wasn’t sure if she should tell David about the code or not. But technically John was ranked higher than David and had a higher clearance.

David laid his hand on hers. It was cold. “Maggie, you were right. Your father’s alive. And working at Bletchley.”

She was silent for a moment, letting the news sink in.
Alive. My father is alive
. Suddenly, a possible secret code didn’t seem so important. “But why—”

“It’s a little complicated,” David continued.

“Complicated?”
How can this be more complicated?
“But where is he? I want to see him!” Her hands were shaking. “I
need
to see him.”

“And you will,” David said. “But first you’ll have to prepare yourself.”

Is he joking?
she thought.
How can anyone prepare for such a meeting?

“It’s not going to be what you expect.”

At No. 10, John replaced the glossy green receiver with a loud click and then rummaged through the piles of papers on his desk, trying to find the clipping. On top of David’s in-box, Nelson blinked his eyes and then got up and stretched, his back hunching in an arch.

“Why she feels the need to go running off—with everything else that’s going on …” he muttered. Nelson jumped to the floor, landing lightly on small black paws.

As John sorted, he saw the newspaper clipping fall to the floor. “Gods.” He sighed, getting down on his hands and knees to retrieve the fallen scrap of paper.

Suddenly, he blinked. Once, twice.

Three times.

He scrambled to get a Morse-code book down from the shelf and started to transcribe the dots and dashes. Then reverse them. Then unscramble by using reverse half-alphabet. And then transcribe the German into English.

“Bloody hell,” he said. “Bloody
hell
! She’s right. It’s backward. Bloody, bloody, bleeding Germans …”

He’d felt his skin prickle as he began the decryption, but he didn’t allow it to stop him until he’d finished. As he looked at the decrypted message, he felt the roar of blood fill his ears. Nelson meowed, but John ignored him.

“The Boss,” John managed, struggling to his feet. “I’ve got to tell the Boss.”

The door opened. It was John, carrying a newspaper clipping and his notes. “Maggie? But we just spoke on the telephone—”

Claire had worked through a multitude of scenarios in her mind, but this one had never occurred to her.

John fell silent as he looked. He stared, not trusting his eyes. “Paige?” he said in a whisper. Then,
“Paige?”

“Oh, John. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

T
HE
B
LETCHLEY ESTATE
, a Victorian Tudor-style mansion surrounded by high fences, was guarded by marines. When David showed their identification papers, the guards waved them through.

As David and Maggie drove up to the imposing red-brick house, they could hear the cacophony of a construction crew and the honking of ducks and geese. Overhead, the sky was a glossy enameled azure and the fall afternoon sun was warm. Maggie felt her underarms start to perspire and had the sudden thought that she should have worn something lighter than her brown poplin suit.

“Victorian monstrosity,” David muttered as he pulled in and parked. The place bustled with men and women in uniform as well as civilians, mostly men, in baggy wrinkled trousers with worn linen jackets. The estate’s lawns were patchy and worn from all of the foot and bicycle traffic to makeshift huts and office buildings. The gardens were overgrown and shabby. A fat duck with an iridescent green head waddled across the parking lot.

“So
this
is Bletchley.” Maggie looked around in amazement as they walked to the front door. She imagined how it must have been at one time, before the war. She half closed her eyes and saw it. A smooth, green
lawn. Children in flowered cotton dresses and sailor suits running back and forth with kites, while nannies in starched white aprons looked on approvingly. Ladies in silk afternoon gowns—rose and daffodil and mint—sipped tea and ate meringues with tiny ripe strawberries, while men in blue seersucker suits and straw boaters drank amber sherry.

“Officially, it’s the Government Code and Cypher School,” David said. “I secured our clearance. But first we need to jump through some hoops.”

They went in and were taken through dusty halls and up an ornate wooden staircase, now scratched and scraped. In an upstairs room was a long table covered with a gray army blanket. Outside the window Maggie could make out several magnolia trees and an assortment of huts and buildings, surrounded by a security fence of upright metal laths topped with swaths of barbed wire.

“Miss Hope,” one of the officers said, and led her into the hall. He was short and round, with buck teeth and a shadow of stubble. He held up his hand to David. “I’m taking you to meet Dr. Edmund Hope, your father.” He said to David, “You’ll wait here.”

“But—” David began.

“Sorry. Orders,” the officer said.

“It’s all right,” Maggie assured him, and herself as well. “It’s fine.”

David gave a quick wink and a pat on the back. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

Maggie and the officer went down the long hallway, their footsteps echoing on the scuffed wood.

“In you go,” the officer said, gesturing at a door.

For a few seconds, she stood there in front of the door, unblinking. Once the thick oak door was opened, nothing would be the same ever again.

She grasped the white ceramic knob and turned; the
door opened with a click and a creak. The room was cool and dim; drawn shades diffused the light.

It took a while for her eyes to get used to the halflight. When they did, she could make out the slumped figure of a man behind a battered wooden desk. He reached to a lamp and turned it on. “There, that’s better,” he mumbled.

Then, to Maggie, “Who are you?”

“Kneel!” Claire hissed.

“No,” he said, not believing his eyes.

“Shut up.”

John did as she directed, dropping the clipping and his papers and falling to his knees, hands on his head. But he kept his eyes on her face. “Paige,” he said, finally accepting the figure in front of him.

“I’m not Paige!” she cried, her hand shaking. “My name is Claire.”

“Paige—Claire,” he said. “Don’t do this. Whatever’s going on, just put down the gun and we can talk about it.”

She was silent, lips pressed tightly together, while one hand wrested the case off the P.M.’s bed pillow. She threw the pillowcase at him. “Put this over your head. Then turn around.”

“If you’re going to murder me,” John said slowly, pillowcase in hand, “at least have the courage to look me in the eye.”

She did not.

“Paige. Put down the gun.” John stood up very slowly, lowered his arms, and took a step toward her.

“Stay where you are!” Claire said shrilly. She caught a glimpse of the clipping that had fallen. “What—what’s that?” she cried. “Where did you get that?”

“The advert?” John asked softly. “Why? Did you have something to do with that? Operation Naval Person?”

Claire blanched, and John knew that Maggie had been right. He took another step forward. “It’s over, Paige.”

“No,” she whispered. Her hand was shaking.

“Yes,” he countered.

“I’m afraid it
is
over, Miss Kelly,” echoed Snodgrass from the doorway.

“W
HO ARE YOU
?” the man repeated. Their eyes locked, and Maggie felt a shudder of recognition.

She tried not to stare. “My name—” she began in a small voice. Then, stronger, “My name is Margaret Hope.”

“Margaret Hope,” the man said, leaning back in his army-issued metal folding chair. “Margaret Hope, Margaret Hope, like the Pope, Pope, Pope, is a joke, is a joke, is a joke, joke, joke!”

She stared in disbelief. The features were the same ones she knew from photographs—the man had the same high forehead, aquiline nose, and strong jaw. He was older now, of course, and laugh lines, forehead creases, and silver hair at his temples had changed his appearance. But not too much.