The Prime Minister's Secret Agent (26 page)

“You were gone a bit longer than expected.”

“An old friend at MI-Five needed some help.”

“Glad we could lend you to them, then. But also glad you’re back.”

Satoshi Nagoka entered the room and went to his mail slot, picking up files, memos, and a few airmail letters with American stamps. “Thank you, Miss Hope, for teaching my class.”

“Sorry?”

Then she remembered. The jujitsu class she’d taught before she’d left. How long ago it all seemed … “You’re American,” she realized, putting together the accent and the stamps. “I didn’t know that. I’m from Boston,” she said, holding out her hand.

“Nice to meet you, Miss Hope from Boston,” he replied. “Satoshi
Nagoka, from California, at your service. Thank you again for teaching the class.”

Maggie nodded. “How did you get here?”

“The train from London, most likely the same way as you.”

She laughed. “No, no—I meant from the U.S. to Britain. To Scotland. To SOE.”

“Oh, that’s a long, long story.” Satoshi smiled. “You keep to yourself, don’t you?”

Maggie blushed. “I suppose.” Then she offered: “I have a cat.”

“In Japan, cats are considered wise spirits. There are many
maneki-neko
statues, said to bring good luck.”

“How do you know that?” Maggie asked. “Are you Japanese? Or American?”

“My parents are Japanese, and I’ve spent time there. But for the most part, I’ve lived in Northern California.”

Maggie had never been to California. “In San Francisco? Japan Town?” she asked.

“No, Berkeley,” he said, trying not to laugh. “My father is a professor at UC Berkeley.”

“Oh,” Maggie said. She had assumed … 
I’m an idiot
. “I’m sorry for my mistake.”

Satoshi smiled. “It’s a common one—don’t fret.”

They walked to the large windows overlooking what used to be the formal gardens and badminton lawn. “What does your father teach?” she asked.

“Physics. For over twenty years.”

“And what did you major in?”

“Trouble.”

Outside, Maggie could see Riska frolicking in the grass, chasing a squirrel. “Oh, come now.” As a professor’s adopted daughter, Maggie knew opportunities were few and far between. “I’m a
faculty brat, too—and so I question how much mischief you really made.”

“It’s true!”

“You made trouble at Berkeley? What did you do—break into a lab and release the mice?”

“I had a little trouble in J Town—or Japan Town, as you called it, in San Francisco.” He winked.

“And is that where you learned jujitsu?”

“Well, it’s not exactly a course offering at the university.” Then, “So, you’re a faculty brat, too?”

“My Aunt Edith, who raised me, is a professor of chemistry at Wellesley College, in Massachusetts.”

“You didn’t get into any trouble back then?”

“Long ago and far away, I was devoted to my studies—mathematics. Now—” Maggie held up her hands. “Well, let’s just say that since I came to Blighty, about four years ago, I’ve been in my share of hot water.”
If he only knew …
 Maggie reached for the hard outline of the bullet in her side. She realized she hadn’t thought about it while she was in Edinburgh.

“Anything you can share?”

“Not really. I’m sure you understand.”

“I do. There are all sorts of rumors about you, you know. And since you don’t actually talk to anyone, they keep growing. Soon you’ll become the stuff of legend.”

“I talk to Mr. Burns,” Maggie said, feeling defensive. “And Mr. Fraser, the gardener. And, as I mentioned, I now have a cat.”

“You’re angry.”

Maggie was surprised. “No. I’m not angry.” But she thought about it. “Yes, I’m angry. But not with anyone here.”

“I was able to see you teach the last part of my class last week. I watched from the dining room windows. You’re hiding anger. That’s not good.”

“When you were trouble, were you hiding your anger?”

“Back then, I was fighting everyone—and everything. Yes, I was very angry. But I’ve learned a lot since.” Satoshi grinned. “Good luck, Miss Hope.”

“And good luck to you, too, Mr. Nagoka.” They both bowed.

Maggie had some time before teaching her class, so she went down to the shore, with its view of the isles of Skye, Mudd, and Rhum, past the stones and broken shells, and rhododendron trees with buds promising pink blooms. On the beach, she was alone, with just the cries of the seabirds and the sound of the surf.

She sat down on a rock and looked over the water. Watching sparked a jumble of thoughts and images:
fluid dynamics, Sir Isaac Newton, kinetic energy, stationary action, the Euler-Lagrange equation …

Maggie watched the waves crashing on the shore, then receding to gather strength, then crash once more. A warm breeze tugged at her hair, loosening tendrils from her tight bun.
The wave has to fall back in order to gather strength, before it can crash back onto the shore. Maybe that’s what I’m doing here at Arisaig House, in Edinburgh. Receding and gathering up my strength. Maybe it’s time to go back—to the SOE, to London, to where I can be useful again …

She took off her jacket, laid it on the rock, jumped down, and took a few steps toward the water. Maggie took a deep breath and shook out her limbs.

She closed her eyes, breathing in and out, taking in as much oxygen as possible. With great deliberation, she began a series of movements, done slowly, gracefully—more like modern dance than martial arts.

She remembered what her first teacher had said: “
First, it will teach you how to breathe. When you breathe, you relax. When you
relax, you clear the mind. Clearing the mind allows you to focus, and being focused allows you to live in the present moment
.

“As you begin, you step out, then turn in, with your weight in your bent knees—double weighted,”
she remembered.
“Let all the weight sink into the balls of your feet, keeping the bend in the knee.”

Maggie continued her sinuous movements.
“Now relax into the knees and let the energy fill you up, from your toes, up into the arms, and out into the fingertips. Now you want to relax and bring the arms back into the body, relaxing the hips, letting the weight sink back down into the balls of the feet. Let the energy draw back up into the fingers, then relax the arms back down to your sides.”

She wasn’t the best at it, but remembered her instructor’s words:
“Breathe. There is no great and no terrible here. Just doing and not doing. And you’re doing.”

She took another deep breath of cold salty sea air and did the sequence again. And again.

“You could spend your whole life trying to get this move right, and it would not be a wasted life.”
She’d never before known what that meant, but now she did, her movements slow and graceful, her mind at rest, focused only on the present. She was both in it and of it, connecting with the sand, the water, the sun, and the sky.

In that moment, she felt strong again.

In that moment, she felt truly alive.

She felt a lightness, a change. Her cheeks were now rosy—flesh and blood instead of wax.
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
, Maggie thought. She’d read it at school, but now she finally understood.

Finally, Maggie floated her hands down to rest at her sides. There were tears in her eyes. She looked out over the water, at the large black rocks rising above the waves, and saw that she’d attracted an audience. Eight gray seals had stopped to sun themselves there, and perhaps wonder at the sight of the curiously
moving human. There was a brief moment when seal eyes met human eyes and the light changed just slightly to a more rosy hue, and the wind gentled, just a little.

Maggie suddenly remembered all the times she’d come to the shore and thought of death, of filling her coat pockets with stones, like Virginia Woolf, or swimming out too far, like Edna Pontellier.

Maggie took off her wristwatch. She removed her shoes and sweater, then dropped the rest of her clothes. She walked naked over the sand to the water.

She stepped in and gasped. The water was icy on her toes, then feet, then legs, until she was up to her neck. She dove under the water, and came up giggling. It was cold, but agreeably so, the Gulf currents making it less frigid than it looked.

Something bubbled up inside her, warm and delicious, and for a moment she didn’t know what it was.

Then she remembered.

It was happiness—and it flowed through her veins until it reached her mouth, turning it upward into a smile. For a moment she was afraid to move. But then she realized, it was like the waves—even if it disappeared, even if it disappeared for a long, dark time, it would eventually come again.

“I think,” Maggie called to the seals, who were still regarding her curiously, “that after I teach my class today, I’ll have that bullet removed.”

It was a beautiful Sunday morning in Washington, chill and blue. The streets were still quiet, with birdsong louder than the usual traffic. Dead leaves swirled and eddied in the breeze.

Bratton and Kramer were in the “Magic” room, going over the fourteenth part of the message from Japan to the United States as it came in, the clicking of the typewriters loud in the silence. Both
men had stayed up all night and were pale and hollow-eyed. Their jackets were off and ties askew.

Bratton read the latest decrypt, translating it as it came in:
“Will the Ambassadors please submit our reply to the United States government at precisely one
P.M.
, December seventh, your time.”
He looked up at the row of clocks. “What the hell’s the significance of one
P.M.
?

Bratton kept reading and translating.
“After deciphering part fourteen, destroy at once your cipher machine, all codes, and secret documents.”

The two men looked at each other. “They’re going to attack at one, Eastern Standard Time,” Kramer said.

Bratton started to pull on his jacket. “I’ll find General Marshall, you find Admiral Stark.” He looked up at the clock with wild eyes. “We still have time.”

“Dr. McNeil?” Maggie said, pushing open the door to the veterinarian’s office.

The doctor was at his desk, his bushy white hair as wild as ever, typing up invoices with his two pointer fingers. “Who are you?”

“Maggie Hope. I adopted the cat from your office last week.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have recognized you, Doreen. You’re not half as pale and pinched as you were. But you can’t give the cat back. No matter how obnoxious he is.”

“No, no—the cat’s fine,” she said. “Dr. McNeil, I know you only work with animals—”

“Farm animals, lassie. Large brutes of the field. No dogs and no cats.”

She looked at his typing. It was riddled with errors. “What about humans? A human’s an animal. Sometimes not even as noble as animals.”

“What are you getting at, lassie?”

Maggie took off her coat and untucked her blouse, revealing the flesh just above her waist. The scar from the bullet was red and angry.

“Looks like you have an infection, there.”

“I have a bullet there,” Maggie retorted. “And it needs to come out. I’d like you to do it.”

“I don’t do cats and dogs—and I don’t do humans. Go find a people doctor—Fort William has a few. I can make a call—”

“Dr. McNeil,” Maggie interrupted, “I want it removed now. It’s been in there far too long, and now it’s time to come out. And,” she added, with a sly smile, “I’m an expert typist—even typed for Prime Minister Winston Churchill once upon a time. I’m sure I can help you with this batch of invoices. What do you say?”

The vet glared. “You drive a hard bargain, lass.”

Maggie grinned. “I do.”

“Should I even ask why you’re carryin’ around a bullet in yer middle?”

“Probably not. But let’s get it out now, shall we?”

Bratton burst into the offices of the Deputy Chief of Staff of Intelligence. “Where’s the General?” he barked.

The assistant covering the desk was freckled, slight, and fair-haired. “It’s—it’s Sunday morning, sir.”

Bratton exhaled with impatience. “I’ll need to use your phone,” he said, reaching for the receiver.

“Yes, this is Colonel Bratton,” he said. “Connect me with the Chief of Staff, General Marshall.” He began drumming on the desktop with his fingertips. “Yes, at his quarters in Fort Myer.”

There was an interminable wait while Bratton listened to the piercing ring of the telephone. He kept checking his watch. Finally,
someone at Fort Myer picked up. “This is Colonel Bratton,” he repeated. “I need to speak with the General, ASAP.”

He rubbed at the back of his neck with his free hand. “What do you mean he’s not there?”

Then, “He’s out
riding
? Well, somebody better mount up and gallop after him!”

In the Japanese Embassy, the clicks and clacks of hunt-and-peck typing ceased. The typist, sweaty and disheveled from his efforts, burst into Ambassador Nomura’s office, where he and Special Envoy Kurusu were waiting. They, too, had been up all night, and while their posture was impeccable, there were violet circles under their eyes.

The typist bowed deeply, then said, “Here’s another part of the document, sir.” He cleared his throat. “We are instructed to deliver the fourteen-part message at exactly one
P.M.
, sir.”

They all looked to the grandfather clock in the corner of Nomura’s office. It was already after eleven.

“One
P.M.
?” Nomura shouted, standing. It was the first time the usually placid man had ever raised his voice in the office, and the other men stared at him, mouths agape. “Hurry! Or else we’ll never have it ready for Secretary Hull in time!”

Kramer had reached the office of Admiral Harold Rainsford Stark, Chief of Naval Operations, out of breath, his white silk scarf undone, threatening to slip from around his neck. He handed the document to the Admiral, who looked askance at Kramer’s demeanor, his own thick white hair perfectly combed and square jaw set.

Stark left Kramer standing as he read through the document,
taking his time, while sunlight through the government-issue blinds cast lines across both men’s faces. A clock ticked on the mantel. Finally, Stark looked to Kramer. “This message indicates the Japanese are going to attack.”