Mr. Churchill's Secretary: A Novel Read online

  David gave a slow nod.

  “And certainly not as a private secretary.” Snodgrass sighed. “You may recall that Miss Kelly worked for Ambassador Kennedy before he returned to the U.S.”

  John strode to the door. “I don’t know about you two, but I’m not going to just sit around and wait. We have the addresses of the Saturday Club’s safe house. I say we go. Who’s with me?”

  “That’s where we met her,” David said, hurrying after John. “At one of those cocktail parties Joe Kennedy was always giving. Nigel would always invite us—he was trying to win over Chuck.”

  “Yes,” Snodgrass said as they made their way to David’s car, and got into the passenger seat. “Miss Kelly made sure to connect with you. And when the tide turned and Chamberlain stepped down, she became even closer, didn’t she?”

  John got into the backseat. “That’s why she suggested Maggie for the typist’s job,” he said, connecting the dots. “She wanted to get a friend into Number Ten, when she couldn’t get the job herself.”

  “And that’s why you didn’t want Maggie to work as a private secretary,” David realized, sliding behind the wheel. “Too much classified information.”

  Snodgrass gave a nod as David turned the key in the lock and the engine turned over. “I didn’t want her working at Number Ten at all. But then Mr. Frain convinced me it was safer. We could keep an eye on her.”

  The car pulled out of the driveway in the darkness. “So she really could have been a private secretary, not a typist,” David realized.

  “Good Lord, yes,” Snodgrass said. “That girl’s smarter than the two of you put together. I would’ve been lucky to get her! But by that time we were suspicious that Miss Kelly and her handler were planning something big. It was easier to keep Miss Hope close but not let her know too much. Why do you think I was so distressed at her learning about RDF?”

  “Ah,” said John, putting the pieces together.

  “And what about her father?” David asked, straining to see the road ahead.

  “Miss Hope believed he passed away in ’sixteen. We were concerned that if she found out he was still alive, she’d compromise his cover. Or that he’d compromise his cover—which, of course, he did.” He looked at David. “Once I found out what sort of a fool’s errand you and Miss Hope were on, I realized that I needed to make a few calls.”

  “So he’s not really insane?” David said.

  Snodgrass shrugged. “It was necessary—is necessary. There’s a spy at Bletchley. That’s how the Germans know to keep changing the rotator wheels for their ciphers once we manage to break them. And with Professor Hope considered brilliant but mad, we hoped that the spy would slip up and reveal himself.”

  “Has he?” David asked.

  “Not yet,” Snodgrass replied. “But we’re close. Very close.”

  “But what about Maggie? And her father?” John said.

  “Professor Hope must have, somehow, secretly asked Miss Hope to meet with him. It was inevitable, really—he hadn’t seen her for years, and having her think he was mad proved too much for him. We knew there was a chance that he’d attempt to reveal more.”

  “But what happened to them?” David asked.

  “He’s close to finding out who the German spy at Bletchley is. Or, failing that, by their removing him from the equation, our ability to break German ciphers would be seriously diminished. I’m afraid that’s the significance of Operation Hope.”

  David’s tone was grim, and his hands tightened on the wheel. “So they’re going to either break him or kill him?”

  Snodgrass tilted his head. “Most likely break him, then kill him.”

  John started. “And what about Maggie?”

  “Hope probably wouldn’t break himself,” Snodgrass said. “But if …” He trailed off delicately.

  “If his daughter’s in danger, he just might,” David finished, pressing harder on the gas pedal.

  Roger watched Maggie and her father while Pierce went to the car for his radio. There was an uncomfortable silence.

  “Rather awkward, what?” Roger offered up.

  Edmund looked away, pretending to be interested in a row of chipped crockery on the shelf.

  “Indeed,” Maggie replied lightly. “My name is Maggie Hope, and this is my father, Edmund,” she said, giving them names, trying to humanize them in the eyes of their captors. “How do you do?” Maggie said to Leticia, giving her the most winning smile she could muster.

  Pierce entered with his suitcase radio. “Shut up,” he snapped to Maggie, setting it down on the table and opening it. Leticia helped set up the aerials for transmission and then waited, nearly giddy with anticipation, as they heard the empty hiss of the airwaves.

  Pierce typed out his code slowly and carefully. “It’s been a while,” he said, almost apologetically.

  On the other end, there was an explosion of typing. Pierce copied it down, then asked for a repeat.

  “Is that really Berlin?” Leticia breathed.

  “Hamburg, actually.”

  From his bag he procured his codebook. It took him several minutes to decrypt the message.

  Finally, he looked up. “I have confirmation that they want me to break you both and then take the remaining one to Berlin,” he said.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  “CAN’T YOU GO any faster?” John called from the cramped backseat.

  “Mr. Sterling,” Snodgrass barked from the passenger seat. “Mr. Greene is driving an ancient car, with watered-down petrol, in the midst of a blackout. Perhaps you’d like to take over?”

  “She’s not old,” David said from the driver’s seat, pushing up his glasses and then patting the leather-covered dashboard. “She’s vintage. Like a fine Bordeaux. And since yours blew a tire in Bletchley, she’s all we’ve got.”

  “Maggie needs us. Her father needs us,” John said.

  Snodgrass looked in the mirror back toward John, and his face softened for a moment. “And we’ll get there. Hang on, old boy.”

  “You’re sure we’re going the right way?” David insisted.

  “Mr. Frain has had men watching Malcolm Pierce. He believes Pierce will be going from Bletchley to a safe house before trying to leave the country. Apparently, one of the London Saturday Club’s members has a contact nearby, and that’s where Mr. Frain thinks Pierce will take Maggie and her father. At some point, somehow, they’ll probably try to leave the country.”

  “Leave the country?” David said, surprised.

  “It’s possible,” Snodgrass said. “A boat to Ireland. Boat with a predetermined submarine pickup. Perhaps a plane flying under the radar to France, then another to Germany.”

  They all took a moment to consider the possibilities.

  “By the way,” Snodgrass said to John, catching his eye in the rearview mirror, “good work breaking that code.”

  “Sir, it wasn’t me,” John said from the backseat. “It was Maggie. Maggie broke it.”

  Snodgrass permitted himself a smile. “She did? Good for her.”

  “Maggie?” David said.

  “Yes. She noticed the code embedded in the advert a few days ago and showed it to me. To tell the truth, at the time I didn’t think it was anything. She called me around five today saying she’d broken it. That’s when I realized Mr. Churchill was in danger and went down to his office—”

  “Where Claire had a gun on you,” Snodgrass said.

  David started. “Who’s Claire?”

  “Paige,” John answered.

  “Paige?” David turned in his seat to face John. “No, Claire.”

  “Paige is Claire.”

  “No, Paige is Paige.”

  John sighed. “Paige is really Claire.”

  “Holy Hera.” David looked into the blackness out the window and considered. “And Maggie figured it out? And didn’t tell me?”

  “No. I mean yes. She figured out the assassination attempt but doesn’t have any idea that it was Paige. Claire, I mean. Or that P
aige is Claire.”

  “If you two are finished,” Snodgrass thundered, “we still have the matter at hand to take care of!”

  “Well, then, who’s Malcolm Pierce?” David asked meekly, eyes on the road. “Besides an undercover agent.”

  “We’ve identified him as Albrecht von Leyen,” Snodgrass said. “He was born at the London Hospital in Whitechapel in 1901 to Wolfgang von Leyen, a diplomat and wealthy Prussian aristocrat. His mother, Emily Ainsworth, was an English debutante. The family lived in London until the Great War, then moved back to Berlin. The mother died of lung cancer in Prussia in 1920. Meanwhile, Wolfgang and young Albrecht moved around quite a bit after the war, including another stint in London. In 1937, von Leyen vanished. We can only speculate what happened—that he underwent Abwehr training and was sent back to London under an assumed name, Malcolm Pierce.”

  “And he’s able to pass for British,” David said, tapping the brakes and swerving to avoid a deer stopped in the road.

  “Von Leyen allegedly died in a hiking accident in the Alps,” John said. “His body was never recovered. Meanwhile, a man named Malcolm Pierce dies alone and destitute at Bethlem Royal Hospital. Von Leyen assumed his identity and became Malcolm Pierce, ordinary British citizen. Of course, he joined that Fascist group, the Saturday Club, in order to make connections with like-minded British citizens.”

  “That’s how we found him,” Snodgrass added. “And that’s how he was able to make contact with Miss Kelly and her handler. He’s working with them to coordinate their attacks.”

  David turned back to look at John. “How the hell do you know that?”

  “I have clearance,” John said, looking out the window and not meeting David’s eyes.

  “So do I.”

  “Mine’s higher-level than yours.”

  “Prat,” David said, swerving to avoid a fallen tree branch.

  “Boys, this isn’t some sort of Oxbridge club where everything is debated over port and cigars,” Snodgrass snapped. “We all work for the Prime Minister. We all handle sensitive information on a need-to-know basis.”

  “And apparently John needs to know more than I do,” David said, sniffing, looking at John in the rearview mirror.

  Snodgrass sighed. “Britain is doomed.”

  “Almost ready,” Pierce said, stoking the red-and-orange fire with a heavy iron poker.

  Edmund struggled in his bonds, but Roger had tied them too well. Pierce continued to poke at the fire with one hand while keeping his drawn pistol pointed at Edmund with the other. “Roger,” he said. “Tend to the girl.”

  Roger came up behind Maggie and placed both hands on her shoulders. Then, stroking the back of her neck, said, “Now, you be a good little thing and we won’t have any trouble.” Her flesh crawled at his touch.

  “Roger!” Leticia hissed.

  “Sorry,” he said, dropping his hands. “Getting into the spirit is all.”

  “Leave her alone,” Edmund said. “Look, take me—I’ll tell you anything—everything. But let her stay; let her live. She’s no threat to you.”

  “Why do you care so much about me?” Maggie snapped. “It’s not like you know me. It’s not as though you’ve ever acted like a father before this.”

  “Margaret!” Edmund whispered. “This is not the time.”

  “Ah, family reunions,” Pierce said, his eye on the poker that was slowly but surely heating up. “But I’m afraid she already knows too much. Besides, she probably has quite a few tidbits of information worth hearing.”

  “She could identify us,” Roger said, worried.

  “So I’ll have to die,” Maggie said slowly to Leticia, whose eyes widened in sudden understanding. “That will make you murderers.” She gave Leticia a hard look, sensing a moment’s hesitation. “Are you sure you can live with yourself—as a murderer?”

  “Not before she can tell us when the Americans will join the war.” Roger looked her in the eyes. “Surely, as Mr. Churchill’s secretary, you must have typed innumerable missives to President Roosevelt and filed any number from him. Is America joining in the fight or not? And when? What are they bringing to the table?”

  The truth was that she had typed what felt like hundreds of letters from Mr. Churchill to President Roosevelt. And seen a number of his responses. The United States was sending food and arms, as well as planes, submarines, and ships. Although there was no official commitment from the United States yet, it was very close to entering the war.

  But they don’t need to know that.

  “Mr. Churchill and President Roosevelt have limited contact,” Maggie said, turning back to Roger. “And when they do communicate, it’s by scrambled telephone line. In private. I don’t know anything else,” she lied.

  Maggie had a sudden and fierce longing to see Aunt Edith. Don’t let the bastards get you down, she used to say. As she felt the horror of the situation closing in on her, she clung to Edith’s words.

  “That’s too bad,” Pierce said. “All right, Professor Hope, now let’s try you. Where are you boys in relation to code breaking? What do you know?”

  Edmund blinked hard, and a muscle twitched in his cheek. “We haven’t gotten very far,” he said in a conciliatory voice. “As you must know by now, we’re receiving German decrypts. We only have one key. Takes too long to decode—and so not much practical use, I’m afraid.…”

  What he wasn’t saying, what he couldn’t say, was that the key to British intelligence was something the Germans had never counted on. Bletchley didn’t use human beings. At least, not in the way the Germans expected. It was using Alan Turing’s calculating machines, based on the work of the Polish cryptographer Marian Rejewski. Nazi ciphers were slowly but surely being broken by these British machines—hundreds and thousands of times faster than any human could possibly do it. Although they were still at the very beginning and had a long way yet to go, espionage was entering a new age.

  “Really?” Pierce said. “Somehow I doubt either one of you is telling the truth.” He gave the fire one last stab with the poker. “Here’s the way this is going to work. Do you see this poker? It’s nice and hot now. Well, I’m going to burn your daughter with it until one of you tells me what I need to know. She’s a pretty thing—too bad she won’t be when I get through with her.”

  He walked toward Maggie with the red-tipped poker. She fought in her restraints, but Roger held her arms down. The poker came at her face, and she could feel the heat it was giving off. Her heart felt as though it would explode.

  The poker touched her hair, and she could hear the sizzle and then smell the stink of burning.

  “You bastard,” Edmund rasped between clenched teeth.

  “It’s all right,” Maggie managed to get out. “Done worse with my curling iron.”

  Leticia gave a chortle, then clapped a hand over her mouth. Once again, Maggie locked eyes with her.

  Pierce heated the poker again and then touched it to the wooden kitchen table. There was a hiss and a wisp of smoke. From the corner of her eye, Maggie could see Leticia jump. From the panic in her eyes, Maggie could see that Leticia had never expected things to get this out of hand.

  “Mr. Pierce,” Leticia began, “surely you don’t need to—”

  “Shut. Up.”

  The words struck Leticia like a slap in the face. She cowered and seemed to shrink a few inches.

  Pierce started toward Maggie with the poker again. This time, he touched it to the shoulder of her cardigan, which smoked and smoldered before burning out. The smell of scorched cotton filled the room, and she could see Leticia’s nostrils flare.

  Pierce touched the poker to her shoulder again, and this time pressed it into the flesh.

  Maggie cried out as the burning metal seared her arm. The stench of charred flesh filled the room. Unbidden tears filled her eyes. She turned once again to Leticia, deliberately allowing the tears to run down her face. Maggie saw Leticia blanch.

  “All right! All right!” Edmund said. “I’
ll tell you. Everything. Just stop.”

  All eyes turned to him.

  “As you know, we’re aware you’re sending encrypted messages,” Edmund said.

  The poker waved in front of Maggie. “Tell me something I don’t already know,” Pierce said.

  Maggie could see Leticia begin to inch around the kitchen, unnoticed by the men.

  “We know that you communicate with each other using ciphers generated from five rotator wheels.”

  Leticia was now at the kitchen sink.

  “Yes, I know that already,” Pierce said, impatient.

  Leticia picked up a large, black cast-iron skillet. Maggie could see remnants of scrambled eggs—that day’s supper?—coating the bottom.

  “Leticia!” Roger called.

  Yes! Maggie thought. Leticia, you do have a moral compass, after all.

  As if in slow motion, Pierce turned to her. “Mrs. Barron? What on earth do you think you’re—”

  The heavy pan hit Pierce at the base of his skull. He crumpled to the floor.

  Roger gasped at Leticia. “You stupid bitch! What have you done?”

  Murphy wasn’t impressed by the symmetry and elegance of the soaring interior of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Too bloody Protestant, he muttered, as he made his way down a side aisle, his tread soft on the black-and-white marble tiles. He avoided looking at the altar and any depictions of Jesus.

  He permitted himself to light one candle in the chapel of St. Dunstan for Claire and her mission before moving on. Claire was surely dead by now, he knew. But if she had accomplished her mission—to assassinate that bastard—then it was worth it.

  It had to be.

  An elderly woman with an elegant gray chignon, holding a Bible in trembling, blue-veined hands, gave Murphy a sideways look.

  “Eh, sorry, ma’am,” he said, suddenly realizing he still had his hat on his head. He snatched it off and covered his heart with it, affecting a pious posture as he made his way down the long aisle.