Mr. Churchill's Secretary: A Novel Read online

  Claire looked at him, tears in her eyes. “You didn’t have to kill her.”

  “Yes, I did. Because you didn’t have the courage to kill her yourself.” He gently but firmly put his hands on her upper arms and gave her his most charming grin. “Besides, you, my dear girl, have an appointment with the Prime Minister.”

  With a long last glance down at the girl’s body, Claire wiped tears from her eyes and squared her shoulders. She took a deep breath. “You’re right. I do.”

  Maggie sat down in the smoky, dim dining room of the Eight Cups, which boasted burgundy flowered wallpaper, lace curtains covering the ubiquitous blackout tape, and spindly dark-wood tables and chairs. From the blowsy blond waitress, she ordered the fish of the day for both of them—an unidentified sea creature covered in a gummy sauce. Maggie toyed with hers in silence while David used the telephone in the back. In the distance, she heard a church bell toll five times, its solemn chime reverberating through the air.

  All right, Maggie thought as she waited, pulling out the newspaper clipping and the codebook for company. Around her she could hear the low rumble of conversation, the clink of silver and china, and the wireless playing “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.”

  She took a deep breath and then released it, letting her mind go still. What was it she needed to see? No, wait, maybe if she didn’t try to look so closely …

  Nothing.

  Oh, hell, she thought crossly, pushing it aside.

  As she walked the gravel paths of St. James’s Park in the cool fall air, passing the lake and plots of dying victory gardens, ducks and geese honked overhead as if in warning. Claire adjusted her hat and arranged the waves of newly red hair to conceal as much of her face as possible. She flipped up the collar of her coat against the bracing breeze and steeled herself as she reached the sandbagged Whitehall and the government buildings, making her way to the Treasury—and the entrance to the War Rooms.

  This is it, she thought. This is really it.

  Head down and eyes lowered, she passed by the two marines standing duty and presented her identity cards. One looked at her papers and motioned her along. The other spent considerable time looking them over.

  Claire took a deep breath and forced her face to relax. Finally, he handed her back her papers. “Thank you,” she said as he opened a large metal door, which gave a terrific creak as it swung open. She went down a narrow spiral staircase into the bowels of the building.

  Michael Murphy and Malcolm Pierce were engaged in an intense conversation in the shadows of the Black Horse pub. Pierce looked at his watch. “Must have happened by now.”

  “Claire’s a good agent. She won’t let us down. And she’ll get herself out, too. That’s part of the plan.” Murphy twisted his Claddagh ring, then motioned to the waitress for another round. “Besides, it’s not as if Churchill’s office would send out a press release to the BBC. They’d keep it quiet. We won’t know for days, most likely. Weeks, even.”

  “You’re right,” Pierce said, quieting for a moment as the bartender put down two more pints in front of them. “Although most likely your girl’s a goner, isn’t she?” he continued in a low voice. “Poor thing; such a looker, too. You’d think they’d use an ugly girl for that kind of mission.”

  “Your goal is Germany’s winning the war,” Murphy said, shrugging. “Ours is a united Ireland. Claire knew what she was up against.”

  “You’d blow up the Pope if you thought it would help, wouldn’t you?” Pierce gave an admiring whistle through his teeth.

  “Look, I’ve set off a few bombs in my day—Tube stations, women, kiddies.… The higher-ups thought it was bad publicity, ultimately. And the bigwigs put a stop to it.” He shook his head. “Shame. We were just getting started, really shaking them up.”

  “That’s why, when we had this opportunity with Claire—and Maggie Hope—”

  “Speaking of Miss Hope, what ever happened to her?” Pierce asked suddenly.

  “She’s away—some sort of trip, Claire said. Seemed like the perfect timing.”

  “Perfect, until she comes back.”

  Murphy swigged the rest of his beer. “What—you’re saying we need to …?”

  “My friend—” He paused delicately. “I would take care of the situation.”

  Murphy got to his feet and stood for a moment and thought. Why should that bitch Maggie Hope get to live when Claire, love of his life Claire, probably wouldn’t? He’d take care of Maggie. But first things first.

  “Sorry, mate,” he said, putting a few coins down on the table for the beer. “I’ve got an appointment with our friend Paul.”

  “Very well, then,” Pierce said. “We’ll each be on our separate ways.” With our separate memories of the same woman, he thought.

  “Go n-éirí an t-ádh leat,” Murphy said.

  “Good luck to you, too.”

  Just as the waitress brought more hot water for the tea, something clicked.

  There. There it is. It’s code, Morse code.

  But it doesn’t translate.

  “Want anything else, love?” the waitress asked. “We have strawberry cobbler—not bad, even if we don’t have enough sugar.…”

  “No,” Maggie said, not even looking up. “Thanks, though.”

  Maggie set her jaw in frustration.

  It just doesn’t translate.

  Maybe … Maybe it’s super-enciphered? One code within another? Scrambled once, then again? All right, let’s try that.…

  TWENTY

  THE AIR UNDERGROUND was cold and damp, and had the watery smell of concrete and chemical toilets. Claire’s heels clicked loudly on the cement floor as she walked down a long hallway with low whitewashed ceilings and hoses looped against the wall with red fire buckets, passing men with clipped mustaches and somber faces. She walked quickly and kept her eyes averted.

  She and Murphy had been over stolen blueprints of the Treasury and the War Rooms, but walking the steep stairs and cinder-block corridors was altogether different. Nonetheless, Claire kept her pace brisk and her head down as she made her way to the P.M.’s underground office.

  Her hands were shaking as she found it, room 65A, next door to the Map Room and across the hall from the Transatlantic Telephone Room. She knocked, and when no one replied, she eased the door open and found herself inside.

  The P.M.’s tiny private chamber had all the trappings of a senior officer—camp bed made up with a quilted silk duvet, plush red Persian carpet, large wooden desk. Microphones for his BBC broadcasts. A humidor for his cigars.

  She felt light-headed, and flashes of light danced around the periphery of her vision as she sat down at the P.M.’s desk and removed the pistol from her handbag. With a series of quick clicks, the ammunition was loaded and the silencer attached.

  Maggie refused to give up believing the code to be super-enciphered, a code within a code. All right, she thought, scratching her head, what if … What if it’s written backward? What then?

  And So

  in Morse code became Orqvsavnaqyhat Mhirefvpug Orqvsavnaqyhat Are Frrbssvmvre Orqvsavnaqyhat Cnhy.

  Bugger, bugger, bugger, Maggie thought, rubbing her temples and biting her lower lip.

  Murphy and Claire had no illusions about the mission she was to perform. Her goal was to assassinate Winston Churchill and thus topple the British war machine. Everything else was secondary.

  Claire would do the deed and then get out as quickly as possible, before the assassination was even discovered. Then into Michael’s waiting arms.

  But a more likely scenario was that she would be apprehended and hanged as a traitor to the empire. Or she could be killed by marines on the spot. In any case, they both knew her chance of survival was low. In a sense, she was already a ghost.

  But she wasn’t thinking about her own death as she waited, loaded pistol pointed at the door. She was gathering her courage, her hatred. She remembered the targets she had practiced on, the rabbits and then the deer. How it felt
to see them panic and run, then the hit and the huge recoil in her arm, and then how their eyes became glassy and still just as they began to fall. She remembered her first real kill, the British officer in Dublin who’d harassed her mother, then followed them back to their house. She’d fired a shot through one ear and out the other while he was raping her mother on the dining-room table. With Murphy’s help, she’d disposed of the body, driving to the sea and taking out a small fishing skiff.

  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.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  THE BLETCHLEY 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 a
nd 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.