Princess Elizabeth's Spy

“Magdelen?”

“Christ’s Church.”

“Excellent,” David said, dunking his fingertips into the proffered glass finger bowl and wiping them on the provided linen napkin, then tucking into the fruit course—red Windsor apples served with elderflower-wine-marbled Windsor red cheese, fig jam, and walnuts, served on Queen Victoria’s Royal Minton china, bordered in turquoise with panels of flowers and gilding. The conversation had given Maggie pause, for although she was happy to see David and Gregory discover they’d both attended colleges at Oxford, John had gone to Magdelen with David. Even hearing the name of John’s college brought back a rush of memories and a stab of pain to her heart. Still, it wasn’t quite as bad as before.

The dinner and the conversation went on, the long tapers burning down and voices getting louder and more relaxed with bottle upon bottle being brought from the castle’s vast wine cellar. The dinner ended with petits fours and black coffee. When the guests had eaten and drunk their fill, the King and Queen put their knives and forks down—and, as per royal etiquette, everyone else did the same. Then the King rose to his feet, offered his arm to the Queen, and they left St. George’s Hall for the Grand Reception Room.

The P.M. and Mrs. Churchill followed behind, along with the rest of the high-ranking officers and War Cabinet Ministers. Maggie stood up with the others, waiting for the head of the table to file out first.

“I’d love that dance later, David,” Maggie said.

“Oh, Magster, and I’d love to oblige, but I have some work to do, I’m afraid.”

“Maggie,” Gregory said. “Let’s show your friend to my office and set him up there. If you must do work on a holiday weekend, at least do it in comfort. I have a fantastic bottle of twenty-two-year-old Scotch, by the way.”

David smiled. “I like the way you think. Lead on, MacDuff.”

Chapter Twenty-three

Maggie, David, and Gregory strolled the chilly corridors of the castle, en route to the Equerry’s office. When Maggie saw Hugh in one of the hallways, staring intently at one of the Sleeping Beauty posters, she stopped.

“You boys go ahead,” she told David and Gregory. “I think someone might be lost.”

After the conversation of the two men had receded into the distance, Maggie spoke. “I saw Peter, but I didn’t think you’d be here.”

“Frain brought me along.”

“How—how are you?” Maggie asked.

Hugh took a casual tone. “Oh, fine. Trying to explain to my mother why I’ll be away for the holidays again. It’s bad enough I’m not in the armed services, as far as she’s concerned, but to miss Christmas.…”

Maggie heard voices in the distance. “In here,” she said, leading him into a dark room with high ceilings and sheeted furniture. They were alone. She closed the door. They both leaned against the wall, their eyes adjusting to the darkness.

Hugh was silent for a long moment. “Because of the secret nature of their work, there aren’t any memorials or tombs for MI-Five veterans. But there’s a wall at MI-Five, a marble wall with poppies carved in it, on the left-hand side as you enter. And on that wall are names. Names of agents lost in action. No clues as to how or where—or even when. All we know is that they died in service to Britain.”

He took a deep breath. “I was five when my father’s name was chiseled into that wall. And now I pass it every day.”

“Hugh, I’m so sorry.”

For a moment, Hugh looked as though he was going to say something. Then he changed his mind.

“It’s fine, Maggie. I mean—well, it’s not fine. But it’s done, it’s over, and you certainly had nothing to do with any of it. I want you to know that. That it’s nothing you had anything to do with. I don’t blame you.”

He reached into his black dinner jacket pocket and pulled out a small package, wrapped in silver paper and bound with a red satin ribbon. He handed it to Maggie.

“What?” she said, surprised. “Oh, really—you shouldn’t have.”

Hugh colored. “I know. It’s highly irregular. But I was thinking of you … and it is Christmas, after all.” He shifted his weight. “Anyway, I hope you like it.”

“I’m sure I will,” Maggie promised.

Slowly, she raised herself up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the lips.

He put his hands on her waist and drew her close. Then he leaned down and they kissed again, longer, this time. It’s different than it was with John, Maggie realized, and finally she stopped thinking.

Finally, they broke apart. “We can’t do this,” Maggie said.

“I think we just did.” Hugh reached out to stroke her cheek.

She put her arms around his neck and leaned against him, smelling his bay rum cologne. “We do work together, after all.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” he whispered. “But I do think you’re wonderful.”

Maggie pulled away. “We can’t …”

“Of course,” Hugh said. “You’re right.”

Maggie stepped past him and opened the door.

“Happy Christmas, then,” Hugh said, and turned to walk away.

“Happy Christmas, Hugh,” Maggie called after him.

Back up in her sitting room in Victoria Tower, fire already lit, Maggie sat down, gift in her hands. She pressed her fingers to her lips, smiled, and shook her head. She undid the red ribbon and took off the paper.

In a small silver frame, there was a watercolor portrait of her. While the colors were delicate, her features were defined and strong, vibrant and alive.

Oh, Hugh, she thought. It’s beautiful. Really beautiful. And you really shouldn’t have. She felt pardoned for all of the sins of the past, although whether she felt she deserved Hugh’s forgiveness was another matter.

She put the painting on the mantel, smiling.

There was a knock at the door. It was Polly. “Oh, here you are!” she said. Her fair, round face was flushed with excitement and drink. “You just disappeared. We were wondering where you’d gone.” Polly gave a sly smile. “And with whom.” She plopped down on Maggie’s sofa. “David—it’s David, isn’t it?—is quite the dish.”

Oh, if only Polly knew. “Not my type,” Maggie said. “So, what are you doing up here?” she asked. “Although of course I’m delighted to see you.”

“One of the old Admirals keeps trying to pinch my cheek. Can you imagine? And then he suggested we ‘take a walk.’ Please—he’s old enough to be my father. I’d rather be with someone like David. Or even Gregory, for that matter.” Polly looked up at the painting on the mantel.

“My goodness,” she said, getting up and going over to the fireplace and picking up the picture in the frame. “Is that you? Very nice.”

Maggie nodded. “Yes,” she said. “It was a Christmas gift.”

“It’s beautiful,” Polly said. Then, “I’ve got my chocolate ration from the last few weeks hidden away in my room—want to share? I’m in the mood for a bit of a binge.”

Maggie smiled. “No. Thanks, though. I should probably get back to David, anyway.”

“Suit yourself,” Polly said. “More chocolate for greedy me.”

Back in Gregory’s office, David had been set up to work at the desk, and Gregory had mixed and poured him the promised martini. When Maggie arrived, Gregory raised his glass. “I haven’t had the chance to say it before, but you do look beautiful tonight. And, again, sorry about before.”

“Oh, the Magster always cleans up well,” David interjected from the desk chair.

“You did, actually,” she said, “but thank you.” She hesitated a moment, then said, “Haven’t you had enough to drink tonight?”

“Hardly,” Gregory said. “I’m British—it’s what we do.”

David smiled. “Cheers to that, old man,” he said, clinking his glass with Gregory’s.

Maggie noticed something in the air, an electric connection between the two men. Perhaps Gregory’s interested in boys as well as girls? He certainly does seem drawn to David. “Then why don’t I leave you two Oxford blues to your martinis?” she said.

“Well, we’ll miss you terribly, of course. But I’m happy to show David where everything is,” Gregory said.

I bet you are. “Of course,” Maggie said. “Good night, you two.”

Maggie decided to swing by the nursery, to see how the girls were getting on with their rehearsals. She was pleased to see the corgis look up from their pillows and thump their tails in greeting.

“Oh, Maggie!” Margaret cried, “we keep forgetting our lines! And then Lilibet forgot her sword—the sword!—can you imagine?” She giggled. “How can you cut through the briars if you don’t have a sword?”

“A bad dress rehearsal means a good performance—at least that’s what I’ve heard,” Maggie said. “And how are you holding up, Crawfie?”

“It’s all very exciting, but I admit I’ll be relieved when it’s over,” she said, as the girls went on with their rehearsal. “To perform in front of the King and Queen—not to mention the Prime Minister.…”

“It will be fantastic, Crawfie,” Maggie said. “Don’t forget that the King and Queen, and Mr. Churchill, for that matter, are parents. The children can do no wrong in their eyes.”

“I do hope you’re right, Maggie.”

“Have you—” Maggie began, “Have you noticed anything unusual these past days?”

“Only that I’ve found a few new gray hairs.”

“Well, I’ll be backstage with you all during the performance,” Maggie said. “Just to make sure the scenery changes go smoothly.”

“At least something will go smoothly, then.”

In their spacious office at Abwehr, Torsten Ritter threw a paper airplane at Franz Krause. It hit him on the left temple.

“Allmächtiger! What’s your problem?” Ritter said.

“No problem—good news, actually—radio message from Wōdanaz. He’s got something for us—important documents—and wants extraction. We can combine his pickup with Operation Edelweiss,” Krause replied.

Ritter knit his brows. “We’re going to need to coordinate, then. Logistical nightmare really.”

Krause gave him a wide, white-toothed smile. “We can do it. After all, we’re Germans—we’re nothing if not efficient.”

“I’ll radio Captain Vogt and tell him to ready U-two-forty-six for guests,” Ritter said.

Krause smiled even wider. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“That if we can pull this off we’ll get promoted?”

“Exactly.”

Ritter turned serious. “Just pray that Operation Eidelweiss goes as well, or else.…”

“Becker will be pissed.”

“Not just Becker. I’m worried about Hess.”

Chapter Twenty-four

Day two of the Red, White and Blue Christmas.

After Maggie had woken up, gotten dressed, and begun the long trek to the nursery, she heard the sound of a radio coming from the breakfast room and stood by the door to listen to the BBC report on the wireless, detailing the previous night’s Luftwaffe raid on London. There were also details of the Prime Minister’s radio address, which he’d made from his makeshift office at Windsor, to the people of Italy, blaming Benito Mussolini for leading his nation to war against the British, in the face of Italy’s historic friendship with them: “One man has arrayed the trustees and inheritors of ancient Rome upon the side of the ferocious pagan barbarians.”

Maggie looked in to see guests from the previous evening’s banquet now helping themselves to breakfast from silver chafing dishes set up on large sideboards. Most were dressed in hunting attire: red coats, pale breeches, and glossy black boots. Louisa was there as well, in the requisite uniform accented with a yellow vest and a strand of gray pearls. She called to Maggie, “Coming along?”

“Back to work for me, I’m afraid,” Maggie replied.

Louisa frowned as she contemplated the idea of “work.” She looked up as Marion arrived and beckoned her over.

Like on obedient puppy, Marion obeyed. “Have you ever chased the wily red creatures, Maggie?” Marion asked, plump cheeks aglow in anticipation of the hunt.

“No,” Maggie said. For she hadn’t—and had no wish ever to do so.

“Oh, it’s great fun,” she enthused. “So exhilarating.”

“Probably not for the wily red creatures.”

Louisa was nonplussed. “Well, these days we’re hunting more for meat than for sport. Deer season, don’t you know. Survival of the fittest.”

Gregory, helping himself to a Bloody Mary, caught sight of Maggie, and meandered over to meet the ladies. “Good morning!”

“We British are a bloodthirsty lot beneath our formality,” Louisa added.

“Are you going hunting too?” Maggie asked, noting his more casual trousers, tattersall shirt, and cardigan sweater.

“No, no,” he said. “I find the sounds of shots being fired a bit disturbing after Norway.”

“Of course,” Maggie said, realizing that of course being around guns might bring back bad memories. “And how was the rest of your evening?”

“Fantastic,” he said. “Your friend David’s quite a wit.”

“He is, isn’t he?” Maggie felt a sisterly pride in David. I wonder what really happened last night.

“Actually,” Gregory said, “I thought I could perhaps be of service to you and Crawfie, as I know the big performance is tomorrow.”

“You’re an angel,” Maggie said.

Audrey, in her black dress and starched white apron, came in with another silver platter of scrambled powdered eggs, which she set down on the loaded buffet table.

“It’s a big weekend for everyone,” he said.

David had some time while the Prime Minister was in meetings and, briefcase safely ensconced in his room’s safe, decided to take a walk around the Great Park, even though the air was cold and the sky overhead a sullen gray.

There were footsteps behind him, crackling on the dead grass. It was Gregory, in his tweeds, cap set at a jaunty angle, striped school scarf around his neck. “Taking some air?” David said.

“Coming to warn you,” he replied. “Most of the castle’s guests are hunting today. They’re both armed to the teeth and still drunk from last night—or the hair of the dog. I’m concerned it’s not safe out here, under the circumstances.”

“By Jove, I think you’re right,” David said. Behind the high stone walls of the castle, he could hear the clomping of horses’ hooves, men’s shouts, dogs barking and the occasional high whinny. Then, “I’ll need to get back to work soon anyway.”

They walked along together, their breath visible in the cold air. “And does work always come first for you?” Gregory asked.

“Only during wartime.” David noticed that Gregory was pale beneath his scars, and not quite steady in his steps. “Shall we sit down for a bit? I’m not used to all this country air.”

Gregory smiled as though he knew David’s ruse but sat down with him anyway on a low stone bench. “Over that way,” he said, “is the Thames and the Eton boathouse. One of my favorite places in the world.”

“Can you—” David knew he should tread carefully. “Are you still able to—row?”

“Yes, I can still row,” Gregory said with significance. “Thank God. I go over every once in a while and take out a shell. Good to get the blood flowing. I can really think out there, on the water. Really feel free.”

“That’s fantastic,” David said. “Feeling free doesn’t come often these days.”

“I’m looking for freedom now, David,” he said. “I don’t want to go back to the Air Force in the new year—I only have a week or so left at Windsor, as the King’s Equerry, before I’m supposed to report back for active duty. But I’m still finding it quite difficult to be one of the walking wounded.”

“You’re hardly the walking wounded.” David tried to keep his tone light.

“Thank you for saying that, but I’m nothing like the man I used to be. Outside or in.”

“I think you’re selling yourself short,” David said.

“Perhaps,” Gregory said. “Perhaps.” Then he stood up. “We’d best outrun the hunters.”

Late that afternoon, the guests in their scarlet jackets returned, then hastened to their rooms to clean up and dress for dinner. In the Green Drawing Room, the enormous fireplace was blazing. As more and more guests came in, champagne flowed freely, and laughter echoed off the damask-covered walls.

That evening, the ladies were in red, white, or blue silk and satin, taffeta, and tulle, as per the Queen’s order. Maggie felt, under the circumstances, it was absolutely appropriate to wear her blue chiffon dress. In the Waterloo Chamber this time, alongside men in dress uniforms and full evening regalia, they made their way through multiple courses. Once again, Maggie noticed that Gregory didn’t eat much but drank a great deal. As the long candles dripped wax and dessert was being served, Winston Churchill rose to his feet and the gentle murmurs of the dinner guests quieted.

“First, let me thank the gracious hospitality of our King and Queen, for having us here this weekend. And showing us such wonderful patriotic spirit,” he began in the tones and cadences Maggie had grown to know so well when she’d worked as his typist. She felt her fingers twitching instinctively, mock typing on her Irish linen napkin.

“This is a strange Christmas Eve. Almost the whole world is locked in deadly struggle, and, with the most terrible weapons which science can devise, the nations advance upon each other. Here, in the midst of war, raging and roaring over all the lands and seas, creeping nearer to our hearts and homes, here, amid all the tumult, we have tonight the peace of the spirit in each and every generous heart.

“This Christmas, let the children have their night of fun and laughter. Let the gifts of Father Christmas delight their play. Let us grown-ups share to the full in their unstinted pleasures before we turn again to the stern task and the formidable years that lie before us, resolved that, by our sacrifice and daring, these same children shall not be robbed of their inheritance or denied their right to live in a free and decent world.

“And so, in God’s mercy, a happy Christmas to you all.”

“Hear, hear!” called a silver-haired Navy Admiral weighed down by medals, raising his glass.

“Hear, hear!” the crowd echoed.

Somewhere down the long table, a strong tenor voice began, “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” and everyone joined in.

Everyone, that is, except Gregory, Maggie noticed. She realized that once again he was in white tie and tailcoat, instead of his dress RAF uniform. How strange, Maggie thought. Maybe he doesn’t want to be reminded of the Air Force when he has only a few days left before he has to go back.

After dinner, Maggie saw Gregory and David in the Grand Reception Hall, standing by the fireplace, each holding coupes of champagne, their images reflected back in the long mirror above. For the occasion, the Gobelins tapestries had been taken out of storage and rehung, and the delicate gilded needlepoint chairs uncovered. Two huge chandeliers dripping with French crystals, each bead and prism carefully washed, had been rehung from the high gild-laced ceiling. With Gregory and David was a young man Maggie didn’t recognize. “Hello there,” she said, approaching the group.

“Maggie, please meet Christopher Boothby, a friend from Oxford.” Gregory’s voice was tired and sounded as though it were coming from far away.

Maggie offered her hand. “Quite the reunion, isn’t it?” she said.

“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Hope.” He had a touch of an accent—or was it an inflection?—she couldn’t quite place.

The Grand Reception Room was crowded with guests, and as Maggie and David walked into the room, the orchestra swelled into “You Stepped Out of a Dream.” Maggie scanned the crowd and saw Hugh, standing with Frain at the room’s edge. They exchanged a secret smile before studiously ignoring each other.

As the swirling melody of the violins mingled with the sounds of conversation and laughter, David swung Maggie into his arms and they began to dance, her cheek fitting comfortably against his neck. “You smell very nice,” she said.

“Blenheim Bouquet,” he replied, giving her a spin. “There may be a war on, but that’s no excuse not to stay fresh.”

Maggie laughed. She remembered how, even in the midst of the worst air raids, that David always looked impeccably pulled together. She looked around at the other guests. There were high-ranking officials in dress uniform with gold braid and ribbons and medals, of course, and ladies in patriotic hues—cardinal feather red, the blue of a sailor’s collar, the white like freshly fallen snow—their hair done up in diamond tiaras or pearl combs, wearing long twenty-button gloves. The room itself was decorated with velvety crimson hothouse roses and a huge Christmas tree in the corner, lit with colored wax candles in gilded holders, and covered in artificial snow, wrapped gifts, toys, and sweets. The effect was magical.

“This way,” David said, deftly spinning her through the crowd, away from a statuesque Countess, her curves straining at ruby satin, sagging neck wrapped in yellow diamonds. “It’s a shame that once women are in a position to own jewels like that, they no longer have the necks for it,” he mused.

Maggie saw Gregory with his martini, sitting alone at one of the tables near the perimeter of the dance floor, in a world of his own.

“Gregory looks lonely,” she said, indicating with her chin.

“Already looking for a new partner, Magster?” David teased. “I’m crushed.”

She gave his arm a gentle smack. “I thought maybe there was some … frisson last night. I was wondering if anything happened.”

“Nothing yet,” David replied. “Work, you know. But maybe tonight.…”

“Do you think—do you think he’s all right? I noticed he’s drinking quite a lot, even more than he usually does.”

“He’s a veteran. He’s been through hell. And he’ll be back with the Air Force soon enough. Let the man relax and have some fun.”

“All right,” Maggie said, allowing herself to be convinced. “Then perhaps we should join him?”

“I like the way you think, my dear.” David spun her to the table.

They sat down in delicate gold chairs as the orchestra segued into Noël Coward’s “If Love Were All.” Gregory sprang to his feet. “Maggie, you look lovely,” he said, kissing her gloved hand.

“Perfect evening,” David enthused, taking a seat and motioning to a waiter with a silver tray of champagne coupes.

As the castle’s clocks all chimed midnight, the orchestra segued into “Auld Lang Syne.” Around her, the guests stopped to sing the Robert Burns words: “Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne?”

Her thoughts went out to John. Wherever he was.

Gregory got up and stalked away, heading for the French doors leading to the gardens.

He looked upset.

“I’ve got it,” David whispered in Maggie’s ear and then followed after. “For auld lang syne, my jo, for auld lang syne, we’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.” Maggie had always found the song sad, and around her she heard voices crack and men wipe at their eyes. The war wasn’t even that old, and yet so many weren’t coming home.

David followed Gregory through carpeted hallways and then outside, to the North Terrace, overlooking playing fields and Eton. It was freezing outside. As his eyes adjusted to the night, David shivered in his dinner jacket. The only sound was the faint music from the party and the creak of bare tree branches blown by the wind. The stars in the dazzling darkness seemed close enough to touch.

Near a low stone wall punctuated with crenellations, David caught up with Gregory. “Need bit of fresh air?”

“It’s just that song. Lots of old acquaintance not coming back. By next year or the year after, they’ll be forgotten.”

“Or coming back strangers. A good friend of mine was shot down in the Battle of Britain. He’s back at work now, but—I don’t know who he is anymore. He’s a completely different person.”

“He is,” Gregory agreed. “Something I know far too well.”

The two men stood at the low stone wall that lined the terrace and looked over the grounds in the light of the waning moon.

“David,” Gregory said, not looking at the other man, “I think you’re very special.”

David moved his hand on the smooth flagstone so that his pinky touched Gregory’s. “And I feel the same about you.”

“If that’s the case, why don’t you come away with me?”

David laughed, a hearty laugh that rang out across the empty grounds. “Very romantic, but where could we possibly go? An island in the South Seas, with white sand and palm trees? Live on bananas and coconuts?”

“No, the Japanese have taken those islands,” Gregory said seriously. “I’m thinking more of Argentina. Buenos Aires.”

“Well, I’m afraid the British government might frown on that.”

“I’m not joking.”

David looked at Gregory’s scarred, serious face. He was not.

“The world’s at war, Gregory,” he said, shrugging. “There’s nowhere to run.”

“You have no idea what it’s like. You see the scars on my face—you have no idea how scarred I am inside,” he said.

David nodded.

“Millions of Germans are dead now. Millions of Poles, Czechs, Dutch, French, Norwegians.… Do you know how many Chinese have died since Japan invaded in thirty-seven? And what for?” he asked bitterly.

“The Nazis are evil, Gregory,” David said. “You know that. Hitler’s not just out to conquer the world, he’s set out to destroy anyone he’s declared to be ‘subhuman’—Jews, Czechs, Russians, Poles. The mentally ill. I’m Jewish and ‘like that,’ so I’d have been thrown up against a wall and shot years ago if I lived in Germany under Hitler. At least here I’m, well, relatively free.”

“With that fair hair of yours, you could pass for Aryan. And besides, it all depends on who’s defining evil. Churchill’s just as racist as Hitler when it comes down to it—and to win the war he’ll have to cozy up to Stalin—as if he’s any better than Hitler?”

“Churchill would cozy up to Satan himself if it would defeat Hitler. And I would too.”

Gregory snorted. “At some point the Americans will join, and they’ll die, trying to save us. The Chinese and the Japanese will always be at each other’s throats. The Raj will rise up and slaughter the British in India, not to mention the Hindus and the Muslims.… I’m just … done. Finished. I did my bit—and now I want out.”

After making sure they were alone, David reached up and touched Gregory’s scarred face gently. “I can’t imagine all you’ve been through,” he said.

“They’re sending me back, you know,” Gregory said. “Back to the Royal Air Force. I can still fly, so they want me up there,” he gestured to the sky. “Just the thought of getting into a plane makes me ill. I can’t. I just can’t do it.” Gregory said, grabbing David’s hand. “I mean it. I’m done. I’m leaving. And I’d like you to come with me. To Switzerland.”

“No,” David said, pulling his hand back. “I can’t.”

“You can,” Gregory insisted. “Look, invasion is certain. Churchill will be one of the first lined up and shot—and you and the rest of his staff with him. They’ll take out the present King and put the Duke of Windsor back on the throne.”

“That’s a future I’d hate to see, of course,” David said. “But that’s one of the reasons I’m staying—to make sure it doesn’t happen.”

David looked up at the starry sky, Gregory’s former battleground. “Gregory, you’re a hero. You did your part in the Battle of Britain. You paid—you’re still paying—for it. It’s hard. I can’t imagine how hard it must be for you. But you can’t give up.”

The other man gave a short, bitter laugh. “Of course. I’m being ridiculous. Christmas is hard for me. You must forget I ever said anything.”

“Of course,” David said. But he knew he wouldn’t. Something was wrong with Gregory. Maggie was right.

In his small, drab room in the castle’s servants’ quarters, George Poulter was getting ready for bed. The door opened. “Audrey!” he hissed. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“It’s our last night,” she said. “Then we’ll be out of here.” He was silent as she sat next to him, pressing herself against him. “It will be fine. That’s why I came. Tomorrow will be busy, and we won’t see that much of each other. I just wanted to talk with you.”

“I know,” he said, as she kissed his neck. “Just a bit nervous is all.”

“We’ve been over it so many times,” she said, pushing him back on the bed. “You do your part and I’ll do mine.”

“And then?” He groaned as she massaged him, and then unbuttoned his fly.

“And then,” she said, climbing on top of him, “Commandant Hess has everything set up for our escape from this Godforsaken island.”

Captain Vogt finally received his orders. “Type, ‘Danke, Commandant Hess,’ “ Vogt said to his first mate, who tapped out Morse code to reply. “Then, ‘I’ll move her into position.’ “

In the deep, dark waters of the North Sea, U-246’s engines started up and the submarine began to move ever closer to the eastern British shore.

Chapter Twenty-five

All of the furniture had been taken out of the Waterloo Chamber and a stage had been erected, with platforms and backdrops, looking just as it had in Queen Victoria’s time, when she regularly had theatrical productions in the castle. Footlights and follow spots had been procured from London. The delicate gold chiavari chairs were now arranged in rows, with a long center aisle. It had been transformed into a theater.

In the nursery, the children were getting ready. Margaret was thrilled at the opportunity to wear stage makeup, not to mention her crinoline dress, white Marie Antoinette–style wig, and small black patch for a beauty mark. “Not too much lipstick!” Crawfie warned, as Margaret applied pink to her lips.

“But Crawfie,” Margaret protested, her eyes shining with excitement, “I need it, otherwise I’ll wash out under the lights. That’s what Maggie said. Didn’t you, Maggie?”

Maggie had, remembering her former flatmate Sarah’s elaborate makeup for her ballet performances. She looked over at Lilibet, who was sitting a little apart from everyone, her lips moving, going over her lines. The rest of the children in the cast were putting the finishing touches on their costumes, erupting in fits of giggles before shushing themselves.

“Girls,” Alah said, clapping her hands, “we have five more minutes to get ready. Then we’ll walk quietly to the Waterloo Chamber, where you will quietly get into your positions for the beginning of Act One. Quietly, let me add.”

Audrey knocked at the door and Alah let her in. “For the Princess Elizabeth, ma’am,” she said, holding out a bouquet of golden roses.

“For me?” Lilibet said, running over to claim them and reading the card. She clasped it tightly to her. Even dressed as Prince Charming, with sword and shield, she exuded a womanly glow.

“Are they from Daddy?” Margaret asked, her rouged face breaking into a pout.

“None of your business,” Lilibet replied, tucking the small card into her tunic.

“Probably from Philip, then,” Margaret announced to the room as Lilibet ignored her.

I have a bad feeling about this, Maggie thought, as they all walked from the nursery to the Waterloo Chamber. The Red, White, and Blue Christmas, with all of the guests, opened the castle up to more dangers. Maggie knew there was extra security, but still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was in the air, an off-tune vibration that was making her anxious. She peeked from behind the curtain, looking out into the audience, searching for … something. She shook her head. Keep your eyes open but don’t borrow trouble, she reminded herself, as the children got into their positions for Act I.

From backstage, Maggie watched as Lords and Ladies, Dukes and Duchesses, Earls and Countesses filed in, the murmurs of conversation filling the room. Mr. Churchill was there, in the front row, of course, and then everyone stood as the King and Queen entered. When everyone was seated, the lights dimmed and the performance began.

Maggie needn’t have worried about the children’s acting abilities. Margaret shone as Briar Rose, first in her village girl dress, and then in a splendid satin Marie Antoinette–style gown and powdered wig for the finger-pricking scene. The other children were delightful in their roles. Lilibet was both heroic and dignified as the Prince in her velvet britches and lace jabot.

“It’s so much more fun with an audience!” Margaret exclaimed as they came offstage for her curtain call. “I wish I could really be an actress someday!”

“You all did a wonderful job, children,” Lilibet said to the assembled cast, still using the low tones of the prince. “Thank—”

There was a sudden bang.

Then a very loud pop.

Then a moment or two of horrific silence.

Backstage, everyone froze, listening. Then, from out front, the screaming began. Then the sound of people running, men shouting, “The King! The King!”

Maggie turned to Crawfie and Alah. “Watch the children while I see what’s happening!” She peeked around the flat of scenery. There were people milling about, shouting. The King was doubled over in pain, clutching at his shoulder. He and the Queen and Mr. Churchill were surrounded by Coldstream Guards, who began hustling them out. More Coldstream Guards were running through the ballroom, guns in hand.

“Who did it?” Maggie asked one of the guests, the woman she’d seen at the hunting breakfast.

“One of the footmen,” she answered breathlessly. “I didn’t see him shoot, but there was that horrible sound, and then the King bent over. Then we all saw him run.…”

Maggie realized the shooter was still at large in the huge castle. The Princesses. Maggie whirled and ran backstage.

“We have to get the children to the nursery!” she said to Crawfie and Alah. “Hurry!” Without another word, they surrounded all their charges and made their way out, back to the Lancaster Tower.

The King was taken to his study, where the royal physician was summoned to look after his wounds. “Put the castle into lockdown,” the King said, blue eyes blazing. “Find Lord Clive—he knows the protocol. No one goes in or out until we catch whoever did this.” Shock and anger seemed to have overpowered his stutter.

The Queen looked to the doctor. “He’s going to be fine, Your Majesty,” he assured her. “I know there’s a lot of blood, but the bullet just nicked the shoulder. He’s going to be fine.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” she said. Then she put a hand to her heart. “The girls!” she said, running to the door.

“Stop!” ordered the King. Then, in a softer tone, he said, “They’re fine, dear. Alah and Crawfie will take care of them.”

“I must go to them!” his wife wailed.

“No,” the King said. “There’s a shooter at large. We can’t risk it.”

The Queen went to the king’s desk and picked up the telephone. “The nursery,” she said into the receiver. “Hurry.” There was a long pause. Then, “Alah? The girls?” The Queen’s face lost some of its tensions. “Oh, thank goodness. And the other children?” Another pause. “And you and Crawfie?” She nodded to the king. “And Miss Hope?” After reassuring Alah that the King would be fine, the Queen spoke to both her daughters and told them that she loved them. Then she hung up the receiver.

“They’re all right,” the King said in soothing tones as the Queen began to cry. “You’ll see—everything is going to be all right.”

David had skipped the performance and was working in the Equerry’s office when Gregory arrived, out of breath. “Someone shot the King!” he cried, eyes wild.

“Merciful Zeus!” The blood drained from David’s face. “When? Where?”

“Just now in the Waterloo Chamber. The castle’s on lockdown. Nobody in or out.” Gregory’s eyes darted back and forth, as if following invisible ghosts.

“The P.M.—he’s …?”

“Fine,” Gregory answered, still out of breath. “The shooter hit the King, not sure how serious it is.” He pushed through the blackout curtains and let himself out through French doors, to a flagstone-paved terrace.

“Gregory?” David called. He put the contents of what he was working on in the briefcase and handcuffed it to his left wrist. “The King’s been shot?” David said, following him, briefcase in hand. It was freezing outside. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, David shivered in his dinner jacket and thin-soled opera pumps. It seemed he was alone. The only sound was the creak of the bare tree branches blown by the wind.

“Gregory!” David called.

He heard a low moan and followed the sound to a stone staircase that lead to a garden. Gregory was sitting on the top step, head in hands. “She’s here,” he whispered.

“Who?” David said, glancing around before sitting down next to him on the cold stone step, setting the briefcase down beside him. “Who’s here?”

“Lily,” he replied, eyes wide. “She’s here, waiting for me.”

“Gregory, Lily’s dead,” David said, laying a hand on his arm. “Maggie told me what happened.”

He shook his head wildly. “No! ‘She walks in beauty, like the night.’ She haunts me. She laughs at me.” He looked around the darkness, indicating the Great Park. “She’s still here, along with the rest of the ghosts.”

David smelled the alcohol on Gregory’s breath and rose to his feet and extended his hand. “Come on, Gregory,” he said firmly. “Let’s get you back inside. Have some coffee. We’ll call and find out how the King’s doing.”

Gregory grasped his hand and staggered to his feet. “Oh, Lily, Lily …” he moaned.

As David moved to help him, he heard a footstep—and just as he registered that they weren’t alone, he heard an explosive noise and felt a blinding sting in the back of his head.

As he blinked and fell to his knees, undone by the pain, he felt darkness begin to close in around him. Just before he lost consciousness, he heard Gregory say, to his unknown assailant, “You really shouldn’t have done that.”

Back in the nursery, the corgis were restless, whining their anxiety. Alah and Crawfie bustled about, helping all the children feel at home by removing their makeup with cold cream and having them take turns in the bathroom getting back into their regular clothes. Lilibet and Margaret helped the other children. “Remember, children,” Lilllibet said, “we’re British.”

“Stiff upper lip!” Margaret added.

Maggie thought about Hugh, then shook her head. He’s a trained professional—he’s fine. This is why they don’t want agents to get involved with each other.

When the Coldstream Guard knocked, Maggie, Alah, and Crawfie looked at each other. “Open in the name of the King!” he shouted.

Maggie went to open the door. It was with palpable relief that she saw it was a guard. He called to the Princesses. “His Majesty wants you to know that he’s all fine,” he said. “Nick to the shoulder is all.”

Lilibet and Margaret hugged each other, and Margaret tried very hard not to cry. “It’s all right, it’s all right,” Lilibet said, stroking Margaret’s hair.

“And are you—well?” the Marine said. “Your Highnesses?”

“We’re fine,” Lilibet answered.

“Good, miss. That’s what I’ll report back to the King and Queen, then. Her Majesty just wanted someone to actually check.…” He began to back out.

“No!” Margaret cried, her eyes overflowing. “We’re going with you!”

Lilibet stood up. “Yes, we’re going with you.”

Maggie walked over to them and knelt down. “I know you want to be with your parents, but you’re safe here and they’re safe there. The entire castle is on lockdown, and they’re going through, room by room, until the man who did this is found. Everyone must stay where she is until we do.”

Lilibet saw the wisdom of his argument, but Margaret didn’t. “Noooooo!” she shrieked. “I want Mummy! I want Daddy!” Lilibet wrapped her arm around her sister and held her tightly.

The Marine left, the corridor echoing with Margaret’s cries, even after he shut the door behind him.

After the shot was fired, the Prime Minister was surrounded by his private detective and a squadron of Coldstream Guards, who shielded his body from any potential shots and got him to safety, ensconced in his suite. Frain was with him.

“Give me your gun!” the P.M. was saying to his private detective.

“No, sir,” the man replied.

“I order you! Now!”

“Winston—” Frain tried to interrupt.

“Goddamn it, man!” Churchill exploded. “Someone tried to assassinate the King of England—within the sacred walls of Windsor Castle, no less! I was considered a crack shot in the last war. I’m going to hunt the bugger down myself—and let him have it!”

Frain poured a glass of Scotch and handed it to the P.M. “Please sit down, sir,” he said. “The castle is on lockdown and the guards will find the shooter. In the meantime, we need to keep you safe as well. You’re worth a lot more to Britain alive than dead.”

Churchill accepted the heavy crystal tumbler. “Very well, then,” he growled, waving a hand. “But if the bugger bounds in here, you’d better take him out on your first shot.”

In the nursery, all the children, including the Princesses, were still on edge. Alah had found a tin of biscuits she’d saved for an emergency and distributed them among the children, who accepted them and ate them greedily.

There was a nervous rap. Maggie jumped up and went to the door. “Who is it?” she asked.

“C’est moi, Mademoiselle. It’s Audrey.”

Maggie opened the door a crack. There was the young French woman, carrying a tray of sandwiches and pots of tea. “Come in, Audrey,” she said. “Look, children,” she said to the room. “Audrey’s brought you something to eat!”

The young people nearly fell over themselves to get to the sandwiches, while Alah set to work pouring the tea. Maggie noticed that the two Princesses held back, waiting to make sure there were enough sandwiches for everyone, before helping themselves.

“Thank you so much, Audrey,” Maggie said. “The children were getting hungry, although they didn’t complain.”

“Poor little things,” she said. “I couldn’t help but think of them here, especially the little Princesses.”

“They’re doing fine,” Maggie said. “I’m sure this drama will all be over soon.”

“I’ll be on my way then, Mademoiselle,” Audrey said.

“No,” Maggie said. “You couldn’t possibly go back. It’s bad enough you risked yourself by coming here. Stay until it’s over.”

“Of course, Mademoiselle,” Audrey said. “Of course I’ll stay with the Princesses.”

“We hadn’t planned on a lockdown, for Christ’s sake!” Boothby said to Gregory, looking down at David’s body lying on the cold stone terrace.

“No,” Gregory said. “But if we don’t act tonight, we’ll miss our chance. I’ve already contacted Hess. If we don’t do it tonight, we’re stuck here until God knows when. And,” he said, poking a toe into David’s body and jostling him, “he’s our meal ticket out of Britain.”

“Sir, you can’t enter this area,” the Coldstream Guard said. He was standing in front of one of the entranceways to the kitchen. Then he took a closer look at the man. It was George Poulter, out of his usual footman’s uniform, as he had been for the pantomime. The marine narrowed his eyes. “Wait—aren’t you—?”

Poulter pulled out his gun from the waistband of his trousers and shot the guard through the heart. As the man’s eyes glazed over, he dropped to the floor.

“Sorry, mate,” Poulter said as he shoved the gun back into his trousers, then took the narrow stairs down to the wine cellar and began rolling up the carpet. Hidden underneath the carpet was the trap door in the floor, leading into the castle’s dungeons.

It was getting late. In the nursery, Maggie was next to Margaret on the sofa, while Lilibet had settled near one of the windows, peeking out behind the blackout curtains. Audrey sat down on a needlepoint footstool, close to the princesses. One of the corgis growled low in his throat and bared his small, sharp teeth. “Dookie!” Lilibet snapped. “Stop that!”

“Thank you, Your Highness,” Audrey said. “I must confess, I don’t like dogs very much.”

“Oh, Audrey, thank you so much for bringing the sandwiches and tea,” Lilibet said earnestly. “It was extremely brave of you.”

“It was nothing, Miss,” Audrey said. She looked around. Everyone, including Alah and Crawfie, were either engaged in low conversation or sleeping where they could.

She lowered her voice. “There was a phone call for you, Miss. From—Lieutenant Mountbatten.”

“Philip?” Elizabeth said, hand going to her heart.

“Yes, Miss. I told him about the shooting, then that you were being kept in the nursery. He sounded beside himself with worry.”

“Oh, no,” Lilibet said. “Poor Philip. And we’re fine. I must let him know.”

Audrey leaned in. “He asked if you would call him back,” she said. “He practically begged me. He’ll be waiting by the phone in, let’s see,” she looked up at the clock on the mantel. “In ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes!” Lilibet said. “Why, if I don’t call, he’ll think something is terribly wrong!”

Audrey whispered in Lilibet’s ear, “Pretend to get something from Margaret’s room. I’ll follow you a few minutes behind, and then we can go down to the kitchen so you can call Philip.”

Lilibet’s face clouded as she looked over at Alah, dozing peacefully in the tufted chair in front of the fire.

“He’s waiting for your call, Miss.”

Emboldened by her feelings, Lilibet made up her mind.

Slowly, slowly, David began to regain consciousness.

“You gave us all quite a scare,” he heard Gregory say over the loud noise of an engine.

David tried to open his eyes. The pain was excruciating.

“What the—?” he managed, voice cracking. He tried to sit up, causing explosions of pain in his head. He tried to put a hand to his wound, but they were tied together in front of him. His briefcase was still handcuffed to him, and was leaning against his side.

“Where are we?” he managed, squinting at Gregory, who was sitting beside him, sliver flask in hand.

“We’re on our way to the coast. There’s a U-boat waiting for us not far off shore.”

“Who’s driving?”

“My old friend, Christopher Boothby.”

As David closed his eyes again, his mind raced. Why? Why would Gregory betray England? What could his ties to Nazi Germany possibly be? He was a RAF pilot, a war hero—one of Churchill’s “few.” He’d nearly died in the Battle of Britain.

David could smell petrol and the brackish Thames. It was cold in the back of the car, and he shivered. Gingerly, he tried once again to move.

Trickles of blood from his head wound had run down his face and were now congealing.

“David,” Gregory said, wiping at David’s face with his handkerchief, “I wanted you to come with us,” he said, his breath reeking of alcohol. “But not this way.”

David squinted up in the darkness. “Why?” Overhead, Messerschmitts and Heinkels whined, on their way to drop their deadly cargo on London.

Gregory checked his watch. “Almost one,” he called up to Boothby, in the driver’s seat. “The window for our pickup opens in half an hour. We need to hurry.”

“Achtung, mein Herr,” was Boothby’s response.

“I suppose you’ve figured out what I’ve done,” he said to David.

“You’ve kidnapped me—and my briefcase. And we’re going to Germany. But I still don’t understand why.”

Gregory took another long draw on the bottle. “Oh, where are my manners? Would you like some?”

“No,” David said. “I never drink while kidnapped.”

Sarcasm was lost on Gregory. “More for me, then,” he said, taking a sip and spilling a little as the car hit a bump in the road. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “It wasn’t you so much as your tantalizing briefcase. It was a present, from Father Christmas himself. You, with that.” He looked at David. “Now, you mustn’t think I’m a monster, I did try to get you to come with me.” He grinned and placed his hand on David’s leg. “And I was very persuasive.”

David was silent, repulsed by Gregory’s touch.

“Still, you, the Jew patriot, were unmoved. And so, Boothby and I took more—definitive action. He wanted to cut your hand off, by the way, and leave you at Windsor. I was the one who said we should bring you with us.”

“But why?”

“I like you, David. And I’d hate to see you go down with the losing side. To be honest, I just don’t give a damn who wins this bloody war anymore. Quite frankly, despite all of Churchill’s brave talk, it looks pretty certain Germany will win—sooner or later.” He shrugged. “And, you see, in Germany, my contact will pay me—us,” he said, looking to Boothby in the driver’s seat, “dearly for the information you have. Whatever you have in your briefcase must be worth a small fortune. It’s enough to let me disappear quietly to Switzerland.”

“Or Buenos Aires,” David said, remembering.

“Somewhere like that.” Gregory looked at David. “The offer’s still good, you know.”

“Go to hell.”

Gregory smiled. “Germany first.”

“This is it,” Boothby said. He slowed and took a hard left, pulling up and cutting the motor.

“And now,” Gregory said, pulling out his gold pocket watch, “we wait.”

Chapter Twenty-six

Pretending she was going to the bathroom, Lilibet had successfully pulled off her escape from the nursery. “Thank you so much,” she whispered to Audrey as they tiptoed down long drafty corridors.

“Of course, Miss,” Audrey said, letting Lilibet go on ahead. “I know I would do anything for l’amore.”

“Ah, l’amore,” Lilibet sighed, pressing her hand to the note hidden in her skirt pocket.

When they reached the castle’s vast kitchen, Lilibet headed for the telephone. She picked up the heavy receiver laying on the counter. “Hello? Philip? Hello?” Lilibet said as Audrey looked around to make sure they were alone, then pulled out a handkerchief and a small bottle of clear liquid from her apron pocket. She wet the cloth with the liquid, then reached from behind and held it over Lilibet’s nose and mouth. It had a sickly sweet smell. Lilibet struggled, then went limp in Audrey’s arms.

When Lilibet didn’t return, Dookie went to the bathroom door and got up on his hind legs to growl and paw at it, agitated, his claws clicking on the wood for the door. “Dookie! Stop it!” Maggie whispered. But the dog continued to whine and paw. Maggie got up and knocked. “Your Highness?” she called. “Lilibet?” There was no answer. She and Dookie locked eyes and he gave a series of low whines that sounded like sobs. She pounded on the door. “Lilibet? Open the door!” She reached for the knob and the door opened easily. The bathroom led into Margaret’s rooms. The door to the hallway was still open.

“Bloody hell,” Maggie muttered, as she ran through Margaret’s open door and then down the long corridor, calling “Lilibet! Lilibet!” Dookie followed her, barking loudly. She ran down the corridor to the kitchen, where she spied the two. “Lilibet!” she screamed, seeing the unconscious Princess. She looked at Audrey in shock. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Nothing that concerns you,” Audrey said, dropping Lilibet to the floor, then going to the door to the wine cellar. She knocked and Poulter opened the door. “There you are,” he said.

“We have company,” Audrey said, indicating Maggie, who ran to Lilibet and tried to rouse her. Dookie followed behind, ears pinned back and giving a low growls.

Audrey came at Maggie, who stood up, ready for the attack. When Audrey tried to grab her, she reached for her right arm and twisted, bringing the Frenchwoman down to the floor. But Poulter had come behind Maggie, and before she could react, he picked up the handkerchief with chloroform and pressed it over her mouth and nose with one hand, while his other arm held her in a choke hold. Dookie tried to bite his ankle, but Poulter kicked the little dog so hard he was thrown against the wall, too stunned to stand.

After a minute or two, Maggie slumped to the floor.

“Leave her and the chien,” Poulter ordered Audrey, shoving her to the side with her boot.

Audrey went back to the Princess. “Help me,” she grunted. “She’s not as light as you might think.”

Poulter picked up Lilibet’s limp body. “We must hurry,” he warned, as he descended the stairs to the wine cellar and the tunnels through the dungeons. “We only have a very short window of time to get to the U-boat.”

Slowly, slowly, Maggie began to regain consciousness.

“Are you all right, Miss Hope?” she heard Mr. Churchill say. “Damn it, girl—wake up!” he said, patting at her cheeks.

Maggie tried to open her eyes, which were heavy and uncooperative.

“Where?” she managed, trying to sit up.

“The P.M.’s rooms. One of the guards carried you,” Hugh said, voice tight.

She suddenly remembered. “Lilibet!”

“What about her?” Frain asked.

Maggie sat up, shaking her head to get rid of the fog from the drugs. “They took her.”

“The princess? Who took her?” Churchill barked.

“Moreau. The maid, Audrey Moreau. She somehow lured Lilibet from the nursery, then chloroformed her. I followed them, and Moreau did the same to me. She was working with George Poulter, a footman.” The winking footman, Maggie thought.

“I tried to stop them,” she said, the enormity of what had happened breaking over her. Why did I spend so much time being suspicious of Louisa? Why, when all the while it had been Audrey planning to abduct the Princess? And I had been suspicious when Cook told me about Audrey’s recent exodus from France. I just never pursued it.…

“Is there anything else that you remember?” Frain said. “Quick!”

“There was a trapdoor in the floor.” She rose, swaying, then steadying herself. “They must be using the tunnels to get out of the castle. Come on! I know the tunnels—the Princesses showed me. If we hurry, there’s still a chance we can catch them!”

Lilibet, unconscious, had been carried over Poulter’s back, like a sack of potatoes, through the dark and winding tunnels and then up the stairs before being unceremoniously dumped on the cold flagstones outside the servants’ entrance.

“Hurry!” Audrey hissed to Poulter. “We need to make it to Mossley while the U-boat’s still there.”

While he went to get the van, Lilibet’s eyelids fluttered. She came to, then lay quietly, appraising her situation. She realized she’d been kidnapped and that they were about to put her in a van. She was gathering her strength to make a run for it, back into the castle, when she felt Moreau’s foot in her back. “Don’t even think about it,” she said, springing a switchblade.

Normally, Lilibet could have outrun her, but not in her still-drugged condition. Then she saw a small stone and picked it up, considering. She began scratching on the stones.

“Hey,” Audrey said, looking over, suspicious. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Lilibet said in her clear voice. “Maths homework.”

Audrey, with the help of light from the moon, partially obscured by dusty spiderwebs of clouds, looked at what the princess was doing and saw:

23172614121+

121117816114+

16+

91115158121+

1724112316+

1252571712+

She gave a Gallic shrug. “People always wondered if you girls were right in the head, you know,” she said. “Especially with so much inbreeding.”

Lilibet didn’t reply but kept at her message, impervious to everything, even the cold seeping through her wool dress and cardigan. Poulter returned, pushing the car, but even with the extra precaution, he drew the attention of one of the Coldstream guards patrolling.

“Stop!” the young man said.

Poulter fired. The wound spurt a gush of blood between his eyes that looked black in the darkness, and then the man crumpled.

As Lilibet closed her eyes in horror, Poulter came with a length of rope, swiftly tying the girl’s hands and feet, and dumped her into the back of the van without ceremony. He didn’t notice the markings she made with the stone. She didn’t know who would find them, or when, but she did know that Margaret and Maggie would be able to read them. And then they would know where she was being taken.

She quietly prayed that they would find her in time.

With Mr. Churchill manning the situation from Windsor, Maggie, Frain, and Hugh ran down the corridors to find the trap door in the wine cellar floor.

“Here it is!” Maggie said. She grabbed the iron ring and opened the trap door and started down the stairs, grabbing Lilibet and Margaret’s hidden flashlight and switching it on. “Follow me,” she said. “I know my way. If we continue through, we’ll end up at the Henry the Eighth Gate.”

After running through the tunnels, through twists and turns and past dungeons, they found the stairway up and opened the trap door. They climbed, then ran on outside, in the cold, wet air, to the Henry VIII Gate. Have they already gone? Maggie wondered, heart pounding. Did we miss them? The dread of the unknown made her feet fly. At the gate, they all stopped.

Frain sniffed the air. “A car’s been here,” he said.

“Look,” Hugh said, pointing to the still body of the Coldstream Guard. He ran over and put his hand to the guard’s throat. “Dead.”

“Yes, I’d say they came this way,” Frain said.

Oh, no, thought Maggie. Too late, too late. She wanted to stamp her feet, throw rocks, swear at the top of her lungs. But she had a job to do. “They could be taking her anywhere,” she said, pacing. “They could have a plane tucked away somewhere, they could be going anywhere on the coast for a ship.…” Maggie looked down. Then she used the flashlight to take a better look. “Wait—Lilibet left us a message!”

Frain and Hugh came over and looked at the markings, then looked at each other.

But Maggie was already kneeling, her heart bursting with hope. “Oh, smart girl,” she said. “Brilliant, brilliant girl.”

“We can’t read that,” Hugh said.

“But I can.” She quickly decrypted the message, using the alphabet code Lilibet had created. “Audrey and Poulter are taking her to Mossley. For a U-boat pickup.” Finally, a lead! At least this way we have a shot at intercepting them before they get to the water.

She got back to her feet and wiped her hands on her skirt. “Peter, call the cavalry and tell them we’re going to need them in Mossley.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Frain said, his face twisting in a grim smile.

Maggie began running to the castle’s car park. “Come on, Hugh,” Maggie said over her shoulder, “let’s get going!”

From the P.M.’s rooms in the castle, Peter Frain orchestrated the biggest manhunt in Britain’s history. Every police station from Windsor to Mossley was alerted. Descriptions of Audrey Moreau and George Poulter were circulated. Frain used motorcycle couriers to dispatch photographs of the two to cities, towns and villages en route. Most were only told that there had been a kidnapping of a high-level official. Only a handful of the most high-ranking officials were told what really happened.

The police precincts contacted moved with alacrity; within minutes of Frain’s calls, roadblocks were established on all of the major and minor roads leading to Mossley.

Frain contacted the Admiralty and advised them to be on the lookout for U-boats approaching the coastline in the Norfolk area. He contacted the Coast Guard and asked them to keep a watch for any small craft heading out to sea. He telephoned the Y service radio monitors and asked them to be on the lookout for suspicious wireless transmissions.

Then he contacted the BBC and circulated a story about a shootout and two fugitives on the run—giving a description of Audrey Moreau and George Poulter, as well as a number people could call in case they spotted either. Within five minutes of the radio broadcast, the phones started ringing. Most of the tips were nonsense; none produced a lead.

When Frain had done all he could think of, he rose from the desk, rubbing the back of his neck. Things were grim, he knew, and every second that passed made things worse.

The Prime Minister looked at him from across the room. They exchanged the glance of battle survivors—dazed and weary. The king had joined them on hearing the news. He now sat alone, head bowed, hands twisting around each other. His arm was bandaged and in a white sling. The P.M. rose and walked to him. The room was silent.

“We’ve covered every possible escape route,” Frain said. “Now we just have to wait.”

“How’s your shoulder, sir?” Churchill asked the King.

“I can’t even th-th-think about the shoulder,” the King replied, his eyes still unfocused.

The P.M. lit yet another cigar. “How’s Her Majesty?”

“She’s with Margaret now,” he said, almost inaudibly.

“Good, good,” Churchill boomed. “Best place for her.”

“Would you like to lie down and rest, sir?” Frain asked.

“I want to be here,” the King replied. “In case there’s any news.”

“Gutsy move of theirs,” Churchill said, pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace. “An assassination attempt and a kidnapping right under our very noses! They’ve got stones, I’ll give them that,” he said, punctuating his words with jabs of his cigar. “Stones! But they won’t leave this island. I swear to you.”

The King blanched.

“We’ve covered every possibility,” Frain said. “Now we just have to wait for something to break.”

“There’s a map in the glove compartment,” Hugh said as he drove. The blue-black sky was encrusted with stars. A glowing waning moon hung in the sky.

Maggie opened the box. In it were the map, a flashlight, and a gun. She held the lit flashlight in her teeth, pulled out the map, and squinted at it. “Yes, we’re on track,” she said through the flashlight.

They drove together in silence for a time. Finally, Maggie spoke: “What happened between us—”

“Yes?”

“Well, it can’t ever happen again. There’s a reason why agents can’t be involved with each other. We’re working together.”

“Of course,” Hugh agreed. “I would never do anything to compromise your safety.”

“That’s just the point. It’s not my safety you need to worry about—it’s the Princess’s safety.”

“I know, Maggie. I know this may be hard to understand, but I’ve been doing this longer than you have.”

Maggie felt a flash of anger—then realized he was right. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

She took a brief moment to think of how it might work for them. Then dismissed the thought. “Thank you for the painting. It’s beautiful.”

“Glad you like it.” Hugh cleared his throat. “So, what’s the plan, once we get there? Sounded like you had one.”

Maggie’s smile was crooked. “As we say in America, Hugh—we’re going to wing it.”

Frain’s call to Scotland Yard had caused local police precincts to scramble to put up roadblocks, but the van with the Princess was already racing along the AI, on its way to Mossley. Poulter and Audrey were in the front seats, while Lilibet, tied up, was lying in the very back. The van, one used by the castle staff for transporting large game animals from the grounds where they’d been shot to the slaughterhouse, had the metallic smell of old blood. But it was fast and the all-terrain tires had a surprising amount of tread still left on them. They gripped the road as Poulter drove faster and faster in the blackness, past cities, villages, and hamlets: Hatfield, Welwyn, and Stevenage; Letchworth, Foster, and Baderton.

For a moment, he considered removing the blackout hoods from over the headlights. But only for a moment. A move like that would allow them more speed but would ultimately attract attention. And by this time, Poulter had no doubts that Scotland Yard had been alerted.

The winds had picked up. Between the motion of the van as it sped over the darkened roads and the gusting of the wind, the insides shuddered and shook. The passengers were silent as Poulter turned off the main road onto a narrower one, less likely to be blocked by the police. It was rough going, and he had to reduce speed, but he was convinced it was better to be safe than sorry.

“Shit,” he said, seeing lights and roadblock ahead. He could see at least four men in police uniforms, gesturing for him to slow down and stop.

Audrey’s eyes were wide as she reached into the glove compartment. There she found two guns. She passed the first to Poulter, then picked up the second, wrapped her hands around the Sten, hiding it in the folds of her skirt. “Merde,” she whispered.

Then she turned back to Lilibet. “Lie down and keep silent!”

Poulter slowed the van, braking to a stop in front of the barricade. He rolled down his window. “Good evening, officers,” he said, smiling.

“Please step out of the van, sir,” the fresh-faced officer said.

“Look, it’s late,” Poulter said, “and my wife and I are tired. Would you mind just letting us pass?”

“Where are you and your ‘wife’ going, sir?” the bobby asked.

Poulter could see the other officers conferring in the background, probably matching their faces to an issued description.

“Grimsby—visiting family there,” Poulter answered, even as one of the officers came up to Audrey’s door and the two others around to the back of the van.

The young officer pulled out his gun and then opened Poulter’s door. “All right, sir, we’ll need you to get out of the vehicle. Slowly, please. Mind the step.”

In the back of the van, Lilibet lay with her hands and feet bound. She’d seen the lights from the front window and felt the van slow and then stop. She’d seen Audrey pass Poulter his gun. She heard Poulter’s side of the conversation with the officer, for they had to be police officers. She’d also heard the door open and saw them both getting out of the van. She’d been afraid, to afraid to think, but now that was passing. She was still afraid, of course, but she was starting to get angry, too. How dare they! And Audrey! Cook’s husband’s cousin! They thought they were helping a poor French girl get out of occupied France, when the whole time she was plotting against them. Lilibet felt not only angry but terribly betrayed.

After seeing them shoot the Marine, Lilibet had no doubts about what they were capable of. She had to warn the officers. But how?

“Help!” she wanted to call, but no one would hear her.

In the dim light, she rolled over on her back and started kicking the metal side of the van with both feet, with all of her might.

Before the officers could react to the banging from the back of the van, they were dead.

While Poulter grabbed the men and dragged them, one by one, to the side of the road, Audrey went to the back of the van and opened up the rear doors.

“You little bitch,” she hissed at Lilibet, then slapped her hard across the face. “Thanks to you, they’re dead.”

Lilibet recoiled at the pain but wouldn’t allow herself to cry. She’d bitten her lip and tasted blood. They were dead? She was responsible for the deaths? Poulter had pulled the trigger, but if she’d only kept still.…

“Don’t even think of pulling a stunt like that again! Unless you’d like to change this little scenario from kidnapping to murder. I, for one, would be more than happy to oblige.” Then she slammed the doors shut.

In the darkness, the Princess realized she had to be good, that she couldn’t risk any more deaths of innocent civilians. She would have to see this through, on her own. She blinked away tears and set her mouth. She would wait for an opportunity and then use it. Yes, that was what she would do. They wouldn’t get away with this.

As Audrey climbed back into the front passenger seat of the van, shaking out her hand still burning from the slap, Poulter consulted the map. “We’re not far now.”

Finally, finally, Audrey, Poulter, and Lilibet reached Mossley by Sea. The tiny white cottage appeared in light from the dim headlamps. And Audrey was relieved to see a man standing in the drive with a kerosene lantern, directing them in.

The man was Gregory Strathcliffe.

She allowed herself a brief warm moment of hope that she would actually make it back to France.

Gregory, holding the lantern as well as his nearly empty flask, led them inside the cottage. The interior was cold, with just a few plain furnishings. He took off his hat and unbuttoned his mackintosh. David was lying, passed out again, on the stained sofa. Audrey was behind the Princess Elizabeth, whose feet had been untied to walk, although her wrists were tied. Every few moments, she prodded the Princess in the small of her back.

“Christopher Boothby, you already know Mademoiselle Audrey Moreau and Mr. George Poulter.” Gregory gestured grandly, as though they were at sherry hour. “And, of course, Her Royal Highness, the Princess Elizabeth.” He gave a sardonic bow. He pointed to David’s still form. “David Greene.” He walked to the window and peeked out. “The BBC’s been airing reports about a shoot-out at Windsor Castle. I don’t suppose that has anything to do with you two?”

“What’re the reports saying?” Poulter asked.

“Nothing about the attempt on the King. Just that you killed one guard and wounded another. Oh, yes, gave your names, your descriptions—everything. Mounted a nationwide search. By dawn, the entire country will be out in force to look for you.”

“Well, then it’s a good thing we’ll be in France,” Audrey said.

Gregory, swaying slightly under the influence of all the alcohol, took down a radio from the cupboard. He placed it on the wooden kitchen table and switched it on. Static hissed from it. He took out his pocket watch and checked it again.

“It’s almost two,” he said. “The U-boat should be waiting just off the coast. We’ll let them know we’re here and then set out. They’re going to be ten miles due east of Mossley and wait for us until six a.m. If we don’t make it, they’ll head back out to sea and try again in three days.”

“We’ll make it,” Poulter said, as Gregory sat down and began keying Morse code into the radio, alerting the U-boat that they were on their way.

“How are we going to meet the sub?” Audrey asked. “All the ships and boats have been confiscated since Dunkirk.”

“We have a small fishing skiff hidden in the barn,” Boothby answered. “We’ll use that to meet the submarine.”

“In this weather?” Poulter said. “Don’t you think that’s a bit dangerous?”

Gregory narrowed his eyes. His escape from the RAF, from Britain, from all of his problems, was in his reach—he wasn’t about to let the chance slip away. “Do we have another option?”

Beeston Regis was a village just in Norfolk, near the coast of the North Sea. Roman in origin, it was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Besetune. Now, it was just a small village like so many others. The ruins of St. Mary’s Priory drew a few tourists before the war, but other than that, it was quiet, with one main street, boasting one bank, one grocery, one pharmacy, one barber shop, and one beauty parlor.

Mary Manley, a young slim girl of just eighteen, was making her way from the house she shared with her mother, father and five sisters just outside of town, up the hill to Beeston Bump. She was going to work, as a radio operator at the Y-station. Beeston Bump was one of the many Y-stations in a network of Signals Intelligence collection sites. These stations collected material to be passed to the War Office’s Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley.

It was a damp, dark evening and the higher she climbed, the stronger the icy wind blew. It smelled of salt water and seaweed. Cold and wet, Mary was grateful to reach the concrete bunker and go inside. Once past the entrance, she took off her coat, hat and heavy wool mittens and put them in her cubby. She flashed her badge to the guard on duty, Lenny Doyle, even though they had known each other since they had been toddlers and in the first grade he’d stuck chewing gum in her long, honey-colored hair and she’d had to get it cut out. She hated him from then on and got in the habit of avoiding him. But now they worked together. He scrutinized her photograph on her card.

“Come on, Lenny,” she said, “it’s the same as yesterday and the same as the day before that. And it’ll be the same tomorrow.”

“Just doing my job, Mary. Just doing my job.” He handed it back to her.

“Yes, I feel so much safer with you here.”

She marched into the radio room, her the rubber soles of her shoes squeaking on the concrete, and slid into her seat between two other women before Mr. Leaper could notice she was late.

It was dim in the room, and damp, the smell of wet concrete pronounced. In front of her, the dials of her RCA AR-77 communications receiver glowed. She slipped on her heavy black headphones and listened.

Her job was to eavesdrop on Morse code that German senders were tapping out throughout Europe. She turned her receiver to “her” band of frequencies and listened in.

The German Morse code senders were fast, especially the professionals at BdU, the Kriegsmarine headquarters. However, they each had their own fist. Mary and the other operators had nicknamed some of the more distinctive: Kant, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. They could recognize them as easily as seeing a familiar face across a room.

This evening, however, Mary heard an unfamiliar fist.

Instead of the typical burst of fast-paced typing, this transmission was slow, with awkward pauses, indicating uncertainty and unfamiliarity with the transmitter.

Amateur, she thought dismissively. Still, she recorded the transmission on an ocillograph, creating a radio “fingerprint,” called a Tina, and then transcribed the Morse code that had been sent.

After the tentative sender had finished, there was a rapid-fire burst of code as response from whomever received it. Mary recognized the fist. They’d nicknamed him Hegel. He was a radio operator on one of the Nazi U-boats, one that was very close to the coast.

They went back and forth a few times, the amateur and Hegel, and then the channel went ominously silent.

Mary felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise. She went to the ossillograph and collected the printout. Usually she just put it in a metal basket to be collected at the end of her shift, bundled up with the rest of the communiqués, and sent on by motorcycle courier to Bletchley Park.

Still …

She got down a Morse code book from a shelf and began to decode.

“Miss Manley!” called Martin Leaper from across the room. He was a narrow middle-aged man, with a narrow pencil mustache, and the station’s overseer. The memo Frain had dispatched to all the Y-stations by motorcycle courier was laying on his desk, unread.

Mary didn’t look up from her translating. “Sir,” she said, “you’re going to want to look at this.”

“Yes, Miss Manley?” he said, pursing his lips and walking over.

“Sir, someone here, in England, just signaled to a U-boat.”

“What?”

“It could be a spy!” she ventured. “A spy signaling a U-boat for a pick up!”

“Control yourself, Miss Manley,” Mr. Leaper admonished, shaking his head as he took the papers away from her. “I’m afraid you’ve seen far too many movies.”

In the cottage, Audrey finished tying Princess Elizabeth to a wooden ladder-back chair. She took some moldy hard bread from the cupboard and stuffed it in the Princess’s mouth, securing it tightly with a tea towel around her head. If it were up to her, she would have killed the Princess—for keeping her alive was a bigger risk. Still, she was following the orders of Commandant Hess. And from what Commandant Graf had told her, one didn’t question Hess’s orders.

Lilibet kept very still, but her blue eyes glittered with defiance as Audrey went about her work. “I want you to be a good little girl,” Audrey said as she gave the knot at the back of Elizabeth’s head a final tightening. “Or I’ll kill you myself.” She smiled and came over to face Lilibet, her breath smelling sweet, like violet chewing gum. “And I know how to make it look like an accident.”

You just wait, Lilibet thought. This isn’t over yet, you know.

In the control room of U-246, First Officer Horst Riesch approached Captain Vogt. “Sir, our friends in Britain have given us word. They’re ready,” Horst said.

“Good, good,” said Vogt. “What’s the weather?”

“Clear now, sir, but the wind’s picking up, up to seventy kilometers per hour.”

“Christ,” Vogt said, rubbing his stubble-covered chin—water was too precious in a submarine to waste on shaving. “They’re probably coming in a dinghy, for all we know. Still, can’t be helped. I’ll set a course for the rendezvous point and have the men prepare to surface. You organize a reception party. Also, Horst told me they’ll have two prisoners with them.”

“Yes, Herr Vogt,” Riesch said, saluting. Then he issued a long string of commands to the crew. Moments later, U-246, like the mythical kraken, was making its way through the black waters of the North Sea, up to the rendezvous point, ten miles off the coast of Mossley.

Chapter Twenty-seven

A fierce wind was blowing as Gregory, Poulter, and Boothby went to the barn to uncover the small boat they’d hidden away, a twenty-foot gasoline–engine–powered fish tug, with a V bottom. The three men strained and grunted as they pushed it over the rocks and grasses until they reached the stone-strewn beach.

Gregory looked out over the rough sea. “Not the best night for a sail, eh, lads?”

“It’s that or hide out for another three more days, for another pickup,” Boothby said. “I’d rather take my chances on the water.”

“No, it’s now or never,” Gregory said, staggering slightly in the wind. “I’ll stay here with the boat. You two go back and help Audrey with the prisoners.”

Maggie and Hugh pulled up to Mossley by Sea’s two piers, with only a few fishing boats rocking wildly in the black water. The local police were there. Maggie got out of the car, heading into the stiff wind. Hugh grabbed the flashlight and gun from the glove compartment, slipping the gun in the back of his waistband under his coat, then followed her.

“These look like locals,” Hugh shouted into the wind. “So, where’s the cavalry?”

“I’m sure they’re coming,” Maggie shouted back. But she was worried. She thought that by now the Army would have soldiers assembled, Navy ships offshore, RAF planes overhead. Where were they?

As a police officer in a sou’wester waved them over, Hugh took out his MI-5 identification card. “Agents Thompson and Hope here,” he shouted, his words nearly blown away by the wind. “What have you got?”

“We’re on it, sir. If they’re here, we’ll find ’em.” He looked at them, still in their light clothing. “Why don’t you go back to the station, have a nice cup o’ tea? Me and my boys’ll take care of things here.” He walked off to confer with his men.

Hugh and Maggie looked at each other in the darkness. They were not reassured. “There are police all over—they won’t get these boats,” Hugh said, scanning the dock.

Maggie was thinking. Gregory and his crew were too smart to try to use a boat from the dock. “But what if they’re not using a boat from here? It’s possible they have their own, hidden away. They could carry it down to the shore and then launch from there.”

“In this weather?” Hugh asked. “Couldn’t be a very large boat, then.”

“They might not have any other option. And they just might be desperate enough to try it. I wouldn’t put it past them.”

“So we have two choices. Wait at the station, or—”

Maggie was already off, leaning into the wind as she made her way to the beach.

“—or we look for them ourselves,” Hugh finished. “Right, then. Off we go.”

They picked their way over stones and pebbles on the shore in the semidarkness. The white-tipped waves were crashing in, creating a low roar. The light from Hugh’s flashlight was ineffective against the crushing darkness. Only a waning moon overhead provided any useful light.

“There!” Maggie shouted, over the din of the waves. She pointed to a small shack on the beach.

The small shack on the beach was made of planks and covered in tar paper. The edges of the door were illuminated. Maggie and Hugh approached cautiously. He held the gun as Maggie rapped at the door. There was no answer. She pushed at the door. It swung open easily.

The stench hit them first—the overwhelming odor of stale smoke, sweat, and alcohol. The room was bare, except for a bulb and an old, stained mattress in the corner. On the mattress, a man was lying on his back, snoring loudly, a ratty wool blanket pulled over his legs and a half-empty bottle of gin clutched to his chest.

Trying not to inhale through her nose, Maggie went over to him. “Excuse me, sir,” she said, kneeling down and giving him a firm shake. “Sir?”

“Wha—?” he said, opening his eyes. He was unshaven and unkempt, with thinning gray hair and a weather-beaten face. His plaid flannel shirt had yellow stains under his arms.

“We’re looking for some people, sir,” Hugh began. “Not from around here. They might be in a cottage or shack close to the beach? Have you seen anyone?”

“Go ’way. Wanna sleep.”

“Sir!” Maggie said. Which was not at all the word she wanted to use.

No response.

No, no, no—we’ve come too far to be stymied by a drunk. She wanted to slap him, but instead grabbed the gin bottle from his lax hands. “I will take this gin and pour it all over the floor if you don’t answer our questions.”

“Bitch!” he slurred, trying to reach for the bottle with dirty hands with filthy broken fingernails.

Maggie tipped the bottle and let a few drops of liquid trickle out. She had to admit that while it was technically illegal to dispose of his property, it was probably the fastest way to get him to talk. It was also grimly satisfying.

“Al’ righ’,” he said, propping himself up on his elbows. “Give i’ back!”

“Not until you tell us what you know.” Maggie held on to the bottle and kept it out of reach.

“There’s a girl. Pretty,” he slurred. “Pretty. French. Pretty French girl.”

Maggie started. “Audrey,” she said to Hugh, who nodded.

“Where?” Hugh said. “Where have you seen her?”

“Pretty girl,” he repeated. He tried to sit up and then dropped back down. “Comes to the cottage sometimes.”

“What cottage?” Maggie asked. “Where is it?”

“Downna beach,” he said, pointing then turning back over. “Givver a kiss for me.…” he managed before beginning to snore again.

Maggie set the bottle down as she and Hugh looked at each other. It could be any French girl. Or it could be Audrey. “Come on,” she said at the door, bracing to run through cold wind again. “Let’s go ‘downna beach’!”

A new shift had just started at the Submarine Tracking Room. “Sir,” a young officer said to Donald Kirk, sitting behind his desk in his office. Kirk was looking over various memos. One was an alert, issued from the War Office, saying a man and a woman, plus a kidnapped girl, were on the run and might be trying to leave the country by boat. The next was a memo from Beeston Regis Y-station, saying that they had intercepted a radio communiqué between a location somewhere near shore and a Nazi U-boat. Martin Leaper, head of the Y-station, said that the transmission on the British side came from somewhere near Grimsby. The man had no idea what he’d stumbled on.

The two memos in hand, he rose, and with the help of his silver-tipped cane, made his way to the main room and the North Atlantic map table. The junior officers were repositioning various pushpins to reflect recent movement.

Kirk stared down at U-246. It hadn’t seemed to have moved much. He jabbed the point of his cane at it. “U-two-forty-six!” he called to the heavy-set middle-aged man moving the pins.

The man snapped to attention. “Yes, sir.”

“Is that her current position?”

The man, beginning to sweat, checked his list of coordinates. “No, sir.”

“Where is she now, then?”

The man looked to his clipboard and noted the position, then moved the red pin symbolizing U-246, toward land.

“Looks like she’s moving in closer to shore, sir.”

Two people on the run with a kidnapped girl, a radio transmission from the coast, a U-boat moving into position. It could mean only one thing—a pickup and rescue of two spies. And whoever the girl was. But there was only one girl, in all of England, who would be that important.…

“Get me Peter Frain at MI-Five on the line,” Kirk barked. “And hurry!”

Maggie and Hugh, breathing heavily, knocked at the door of the cottage. Maggie’s lungs were burning, but she couldn’t even think about her body, she was so focused on Lilibet’s safety.

There was no answer.

Inside, Audrey froze. Lilibet tried to scream through her gag.

Maggie and Hugh tried the door. It was locked.

Hugh pulled out his gun and handed it to Maggie. As she covered him, he kicked open the door. Even in the throes of the chase, Maggie was surprised and not a little impressed—she’d never seen Hugh in action before. But there was no time for that.

As the rickety door flung open, Hugh and Maggie entered the cottage, taking in the gagged and bound Princess, with Audrey standing beside her. An unconscious David, hands tied, was lying on the sofa.

“David?” Maggie gasped before she pointed the gun at Audrey. What’s he doing here? “Hands up,” she managed to get out. “On your knees.” Oh, what I wouldn’t give to pull the trigger, Maggie thought, surveying the petite Frenchwoman. What I wouldn’t give …

As Audrey obeyed, Hugh went to the Princess. “We’ll get you out of here in no time, Your Highness,” he said, working at the knots.

“Ahem.” Maggie and the others turned to see Gregory and Poulter standing in the doorway, dripping water.

Gregory was just as shocked to see Maggie, holding a gun no less, as she was to see him. It was with a mix of admiration and shame that he ordered, “Put your gun down on the floor. No one’s going anywhere. At least, not until I say so.”

“Gregory?” It has to be some sort of hallucination, Maggie thought. It can’t be Gregory. He can’t be wrapped up in this mess too—can he?

At the Y-station in Beeston Regis, Leaper went to his office and sat down at his desk, still shaking his head. “Spies!” he muttered, going through his inbox. “Indeed! That’s what comes of having these young girls about, with their movie-star daydreams and their—”

He suddenly remembered the courier delivery and picked up the MI-5 memo about the alert. He read it, feeling the blood drain from his head. As he put his head between his legs in order not to faint, he called out his door, “Miss Manley!” Then, louder, “Mary Manley! Get in here with that U-boat transmission right away!”

As Poulter tied up Maggie and Hugh, she wondered, How did I get so much so wrong? Why did I waste so much time worrying about the wrong people? When it was Gregory, she realized, feeling sick. As much as she thought, she found no easy answers—except that she’d let her own prejudices blind her and lead her astray. Then she started to add up what she’d observed: Gregory’s increased drinking, his erratic behavior, a few of his more cryptic sayings, that he didn’t wear his RAF uniform to dinner.…

She looked over at Lilibet, who was pale, with shadows under eyes and the beginning of a mottled bruise on her cheek where she’d been slapped. “It’s all right,” she said to the girl. “Everything’s going to be all right.” Her heart nearly broke when she was able to get a better look at David, his hands and feet tied with heavy rope, a gag in his mouth. Trickles of blood from a head wound had run down his face and were now scabbing over. Never had she felt more powerless. Think, Maggie. Keep your head and you’ll get them out of this.

“What time is it?” Audrey asked.

Poulter checked his watch. “Almost three-thirty. We need to hurry.” He jerked his chin at Maggie and Hugh. “What are we going to do about them?”

“Actually,” Gregory said, “the question is, what are we going to do about you?” He and Boothby exchanged a look. Without preamble, Boothby shot Poulter through the heart, and then, before Audrey could scream, he shot her through the forehead. They each slumped to the floor. Then he took aim at Hugh.

“Nooooo!” Maggie screamed.

“Give me the gun,” Gregory said.

“What are you doing?” Boothby snapped.

“Give me the goddamned gun!”

Boothby handed it over and Gregory shot Hugh in the thigh, wounding, but not killing, him.

Hugh doubled over, moaning. “Sweet Jesus!”

“Hugh!” Maggie fought against the ropes binding her. “Are you all right?” she cried.

“I’ll live,” Hugh managed to gasp, trying to keep pressure on the wound. Nonetheless, crimson was staining his pant leg.

“Don’t want you following us,” Gregory said. “Sorry, mate. And I also need someone to tell the muckety-mucks that their precious Princess is still alive. And on her way to Germany.”

“Us?” Maggie said. She and Hugh locked eyes. It’s going to be fine, she tried to tell him mentally. I’ll take care of Lilibet. And I’ll be all right, too. I promise.

Gregory nodded. “You’re coming with us. Take care of him,” he said to Boothby, indicating the body. “I’ll bring the ladies.”

As Boothby lifted David’s inert body while still keeping a gun on the girls, Gregory untied the princess from the chair, leaving her hands bound and gag in place. “I suppose you’ve figured out what I’ve done,” he said, grabbing Maggie and the princess by an arm and hustling them to the door. Maggie gave Hugh one last look and then they were outside, in the cold and dark. He sounded just the slightest bit guilty.

“A lot of it,” Maggie said, trying not to trip on the stones. “But I still don’t understand Lily’s part.”

“Lily and I grew up together, remember?” he said, his voice rising against the wind. “We spent every summer together? We were soul mates.”

“So you and Lily had planned this operation?” Maggie tried to appeal to his vanity. “That’s quite the coup. How did you manage to pull it off?”

Gregory smiled, a grim smile. “Lily and I grew up with any number of other privileged young people. Another was Victoria Keeley.”

Realization dawned. “The woman from Bletchley who was murdered at Claridge’s,” Maggie said. “So, how does Benjamin Batey fit in?”

“Benjamin Batey was walking out with Victoria, and she exploited it. She stole the decrypt from him.”

“But why?”

Gregory snorted. “Why do you need to know?” The little party was trying to keep their balance on the slippery rocks strewn with seaweed, nearing the boat.

Maggie thought desperately. “Well, it’s been quite the victory for you, after all. I was sent by MI-Five to figure everything out and I didn’t—not in time, at least. So you might do me the professional courtesy of telling me how you did it.”

Lilibet’s eyes widened as she heard Maggie reveal that she wasn’t really a maths tutor but an agent.

And then she realized—the decrypt hidden in Lily’s copy of Le Fantôme de l’Opéra was meant for Gregory. It was right in front of you the whole time! Still, there was no time for self-flagellation. “Tell me your part—and I’ll tell you what happened to the decrypt.”

“The decrypt?” Gregory staggered a little and looked stunned. “How the hell do you know about that?”

“Tell me what I want to know—and I’ll tell you what happened to it.”

Gregory looked shocked, then smiled. “Victoria stole the decrypt because Lily asked her to. But Victoria, unfortunately, had fallen in obsessively in love with Lily. And when Lily made it clear she wouldn’t be with her exclusively, Victoria threatened to expose Lily as a traitor.”

“So Lily killed her,” Maggie said, understanding. “And then Lily herself was killed, not long after, by Mr. Tooke.”

“Actually,” Gregory said. “Boothby killed Victoria. He was concerned Victoria might make good on her threats and jeopardize our little operation. He took the decrypt from Victoria’s hotel room at Claridge’s and gave it to Lily. She said she’d hidden it—where did she hide it? And how did you find it?” They were approaching the boat.

“Tell me the rest first,” Maggie said with a tight smile, picking her way over rocks that made way to coarse wet sand. She stumbled then righted herself.

Gregory was breathing hard. “Clever girl.”

“If you knew about Enigma,” Maggie continued, “then why did you even need the decrypt? Surely your connections in Germany would have believed you?”

They’d reached the boat, and Boothby overheard this. He began to chuckle, and Gregory joined in. “Oh, Maggie. You may know many things, but you don’t know Germans—their pride, their arrogance. They believe they’ve written the ultimate, the unbreakable code. Quite simply, they would not believe anyone could possibly break it without proof. Absolute proof.” Boothby dumped David’s body into the boat.

“So without the decrypt, you had no proof,” Maggie said. “And then David, with his briefcase of top-secret documents, came to Windsor. And you kidnapped him, along with his briefcase.”

“He had it handcuffed to him. And I didn’t have the heart to cut off his hand.” He smiled. “I think he’ll thank me for it, someday. You see, in Germany, my contact will pay me—us, that is—dearly for the information you have. Whatever David has in his briefcase must be worth a small fortune.”

“And Boothby?”

“Boothby—do you want to tell her?”

Boothby gave a barking laugh. “My name isn’t really Christopher Boothby,” he said in his perfect English, “it’s Krzysztof Borkowsky. I’m Polish. I was one of the Poles that Chamberlain and Britain betrayed when he traded us for ‘peace in our time.’ “ He spat. “A peace paid for with the blood of Poles.”

“How did you get to England?”

“When Poland handed over its machine, I was recruited to Bletchley, to translate for some of the Poles that came over with it.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Pretending to like the British and work for them at Bletchley seemed like a small price to pay. But when I met Victoria and then Lily and Gregory, it was a perfect plan—to double-cross the bloody British.”

“Ah.” Christopher was the spy at Bletchley that her father had been trying to find! Two misses! Maggie thought. Thanks a lot, Dad.

She turned back to Gregory. “And what’s your relation to Audrey and Pouter?”

“Pouter was my manservant for years and another of our little group. You see, we are quite democratic. He began sleeping with Audrey, who was working for someone named Commandant Hess. Poulter shot the King, while he and Audrey arranged the kidnapping of the Princess with Commandant Hess in Berlin. The plan is to put the Duke and Duchess of Windsor on the throne when Germany invades. How is the King, by the way?”

“He’s fine,” Maggie said grimly.

“Pity.”

Boothby, who’d maneuvered David’s body into the boat, snapped, “Less talking, Gregory.”

“She knows what happened to Lily’s decrypt!”

Boothby whistled. “The lost one?”

“My dear girl,” Gregory said, ignoring Boothby. “You can come with us, or I’ll have to kill you.” In a jovial tone he said, “Set sail with us—what do you say?” He looked at her and she realized that he didn’t actually want to kill her. And yet he would if he had to.

Maggie knew the risks of getting into a boat with these two, but she had no intention of letting them take the Princess or David anywhere without her.

“Fine,” she said, feigning more bravado than she felt. “I’ll go.” Lilibet and Maggie stepped into the craft and took their seats, Maggie’s heart beating wildly. The goddamned Royal Navy’s supposed to be here, she thought. The Coast Guard. The police, even. Where the hell is everyone?

Boothby and Gregory pushed the boat into a few feet of water, then jumped in themselves. The boat rocked violently, then steadied.

“And, off we go,” Gregory said. “Just like old times.” He took a seat opposite Maggie as Boothby started the motor. “Keep an eye on her, would you?” he said to Boothby.

He turned his attention to the motor, which chocked a bit when he pulled the cord, then started to purr. The tiny craft set out through the wind and roiling white-tipped waves, out to sea. As they pulled away from the shore Maggie could see the headlights of cars on the shore and tiny black figures running toward them. Here! We’re here! She wanted to scream into the wind. But they were still too far away to catch up.

“What about Lily’s baby?” she asked. She hadn’t forgotten that a baby had been murdered as well. “Was it yours?”

“I knew about the baby,” he said. “She told me, right before she was murdered. But it wasn’t mine. I, alas, can’t have children.”

“Whose was it, then?” Maggie called.

“Christopher’s.”

Maggie wasn’t expecting this. “Christopher’s?”

Boothby nodded his assent. His face was unreadable.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Gregory said. “Lily, Victoria, Christopher and I—we—we shared many things.”

“I see,” Maggie said. She managed a quick glance at Lilibet. Maggie hoped the girl didn’t know what he meant.

“Would you take off her gag, at least?” Maggie asked. “It’s not as if anyone can hear us out here.”

Gregory pulled out his flask from his inside jacket pocket. He took a long pull, emptied it, then tossed it over the side. “Go ahead,” he said to Boothby, who went over to the Princess and undid the knots that tied the gag. As it loosened, she spit the moldy bread out of her mouth.

“Thanks, Maggie,” she managed.

“‘Elizabeth and Leicester, beating oars.’” Gregory quoted, finishing off the bottle and throwing it in a long arc over the water. He winked at Lilibet. “I suppose that would make me Leicester.”

“I hardly think Elliot was thinking of us all ‘supine on the floor of the narrow canoe,’” Maggie said. The wind was stronger now and she wrapped her arms around herself to keep warm. She looked at David. In the darkness, she could see his eyes were still closed.

“So now it’s your turn,” Gregory said. “Where was the decrypt?”

Maggie gave a grim smile. “In the frontispiece of Lily’s Le Fantôme de l’Opéra.”

“How the hell do you know?”

“Because I was the one who found it,” Maggie shot back, pride wounded.

“It was Lily’s nickname for me—after I was burned so badly on one side of my face. It was our little joke, her calling me Le Fantôme.” Then, “This is it,” he said to Boothby, who cut the engine and turned on a kerosene lantern.

“Ship?” Maggie asked.

“Submarine,” he corrected. Oh, fantastic, Maggie thought.

Boothby used a flashlight to check his watch. “It’s four now. The pickup window is open for three more hours.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

The Prime Minister’s rooms at Windsor Castle had been transformed into a makeshift War Room, with maps and pushpins and memos. The roar of the fire behind the andirons nearly overcame the soft and relentless tick of the mantel clock. The P.M. and King sat in large leather chairs while Frain paced.

“We have the Princess’s code, telling us they’re going to Mossley, which is near Grimsby. We have an intercept from a Y-station, saying that someone near Grimsby—close to Mossley—radioed a German U-boat. We have a German U-boat moving into position off the coast of Mossley. It’s obvious they’re trying to get the princess out of Britain. However, the U-boat can’t get too close to shore—she’ll need at least five miles. Which means that either a few men from the U-boat will form a landing party and try to get to shore in one of the U-boat’s rubber dinghies. Or they have a boat hidden away on shore and will use that to meet the U-boat.”

The King sat very still. “What are the weather reports?”

“High winds and rough seas, your Majesty,” Frain answered. “They need to do it at night, under the cover of darkness. If they decide the conditions are too dangerous, they may try to establish another rendezvous, in a few days. But they must know that putting it off would increase their chances of being found.”

“After Dunkirk, the Royal Navy seized everything that could float!” Churchill barked.

“Yes, sir,” Frain replied. “But it’s possible that someone hid away a fishing skiff or other small craft, for just this very occasion.”

The telephone rang, a shrill sound. Frain dove for it. “Yes?” he said, then listened intently. “Thank you, Admiral Kirk.”

He put a hand over the receiver. “Kirk, from the Admiralty,” he told them. “They’ve pinpointed the U-boat. The U-two-forty-six is moving closer into shore, near Mossley.”

“Wonderful!” the King said, his face not as pale as it had been.

“Not exactly,” Frain said. “They could be anywhere near Mossley. And the weather isn’t helping.”

“Put every man on it,” Churchill growled. “Have them sift through every grain of sand and drop of water—until we find the princess!”

Frain spoke into the receiver again. “Move two of our submarines into the area and see if you can get an exact location on U-two-forty-six. Move two of the Royal navy’s corvettes in, as well. If we can’t get a lock on them by dawn, I’ll have the air force do a patrol.”

“I’m assuming, sir,” Kirk said on the other end of the line, “that the hostage is valuable?”

“Yes,” Frain replied. “Extremely valuable. Tell all your boys to keep that in mind.”

Maggie was gripped with fear and pain, but adrenaline kept her sharp. Jaw clenched against the cold and wind, she scanned the sky and sea in the moonlight, looking for anything—British ship or plane, Nazi U-boat. Who would reach them first? Mathematics were true and cruel. You have a fifty-fifty chance, Hope. Probability equals the number of desirable outcomes divided by the number of possible outcomes. A coin flip. And that’s only theoretical—a big wave might take you out first—better make that one of the possible outcomes. Probability of survival dips even lower, then …

She realized that at this point, even if she and David were disposable to the British, the P.M. might not shoot the U-boat, in order to save the Princess’s life. She remembered the cyanide pill David had in his pocket and how matter-of-fact he’d been about needing to take it if it came to it.

But it hasn’t come to that, Maggie thought. Yet. Was she ready, if it did? Best to worry about that if and when the time comes.

“David needs a doctor,” Maggie said, shouting to make herself heard over the wind.

“Don’t worry,” Gregory said. “He’ll be fine. Believe me, it was a love tap. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to my ticket out of this mess.”

“Do you mind if I see to his wounds?” Maggie asked, looking at Gregory with what she hoped was an imploring look. She did her best, considering the high wind and saltwater spray. “I have a handkerchief—I can at least clean his face.”

Gregory and Boothby locked eyes. “No,” Boothby said. “Stay where you are.”

“Oh, Boothby,” Gregory said. “What’s the harm? We’re not barbarians, after all.” He motioned to Maggie.

Gingerly, Maggie made her way to the back of the boat and sat down near David, pulling his head into her lap. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and gently pressed it to David’s face. The sensation seemed to revive him, and his eyelids fluttered open.

“Magster,” he said weakly, gazing up at her, words getting lost in the wind. “You—you look awful.”

“You don’t look so great yourself,” she countered. He tried to sit up, but the ropes and the pain were too much for him. “May I untie his hands and feet?” she asked Gregory. “The ropes are too tight.”

Boothby scowled. “No!”

“Please,” Lilibet implored, eyes filling with tears.

“Oh, Christopher,” Gregory said. “Do you really think a Princess, a slip of a girl, and a poof can do much of anything?”

“Poof?” David muttered, stirring. “And here I thought you liked me.”

“I do,” Gregory said, having the grace to look chagrined. “And I’m terribly sorry about all this. When we get to Germany, I’ll make sure you’re treated well.”

David wasn’t buying it. “You do still remember I’m Jewish, yes?”

“You might want to keep that detail to yourself.”

“Gregory and Boothby plan to turn you over to Abwehr,” Maggie explained. “You and your briefcase.”

Maggie undid the ropes tying David’s hands and feet. Carefully, he rose to sit. “Bloody hell!” he said, clutching his head with his free hand.

At that moment, without warning, a long, thin, dark shape, like a sea monster, broke through the water, causing the small shell to rock back and forth in the waves. The protruding sail was black and painted with a red and white Swastika and U-246. Maggie held on to David, and they both tried to keep their balance before sitting down, hard.

“Finally!” Gregory shouted into the wind. Boothby grinned.

Two German officers emerged from the hatch. “Ihr habt’s geschafft!” one called.

“Noch ein Bisschen! Werfe uns doch das Seil runter, es ist verdammt kalt!” Gregory shouted.

Maggie could understand what they were saying but found the German words and accent chilling.

They threw a rope out. Boothby maneuvered the small boat around until he could grasp it, then used it to pull them closer to the sub.

Maggie took a last look at the horizon, now beginning to turn a pearly gray, hoping against last hope for a rescue. With blinding disappointment, she turned her gaze from the horizon to her captors. She, Lilibet, and David were helped from the craft into the U-boat.

Inside, it was dim and humid and tight, with low ceilings and the stench of too many men in close quarters. The submarine’s engines made a dull roar, along with the hissing pipes. Every surface was covered with buttons and dials and pipes and handles and gauges.

They were taken by the Nazi crewmen through narrow passageways lit by fluorescent overhead lights to the ship’s brig, a small, low-ceilinged room, with two thin bunks built into the wall. The men left them and locked the door from the outside. The bolt slid into the lock with a resounding clang. Maggie’s nerves were stretched to breaking. She never thought they’d get to this point. Where’s your goddamn cavalry, Peter? Taking tea?

Lilibet went to one of the bunks and sat down, hard. She had dark circles under her eyes and she was biting her lower lip, in an obvious attempt not to cry. Maggie sat down beside her. “Are you all right?” she asked, putting a hand on the princess’s thin shoulder.

The girl wiped her eyes on her sleeve and drew herself up. “Quite all right, thank you,” she said.

“Good girl!” Maggie exclaimed, impressed by the girl’s bravery. She couldn’t afford a hysterical child now; they all had to keep their heads. “Now, look here—we’re alive. We’re together. And we will get out of this.”

“Not exactly the Saint Crispin speech, but it’ll do,” David managed. “You have a brilliant plan to get us out of this, I assume?”

“Ha!” she retorted, the strain of the day finally getting to her. Her mind swam, contemplating escape scenarios, none of which would work. She took deep breaths, trying not to panic, willing thoughts of Aunt Edith, of Hugh, of Sarah, of Chuck, of Nigel, of everyone she loved, out of her head—focusing on what needed to be done.

“Where are we, by the way?” David asked. “Do you know?”

“We’re off the coast of Mossley, near Grimsby,” Maggie said, grateful to focus on facts. “Gregory plans to take us both to Germany with him. Use us for information.”

“And, let’s be honest here—between us, we have quite a bit of information.”

Maggie nodded. “They—well, Audrey and Poulter, actually—had a plot to assassinate the King and kidnap Lilibet. They want to put Edward and Mrs. Simpson on the throne when the Nazis invade. The King survived with a flesh wound, but …”

“It’s my fault,” Lilibet said. “I knew better than to leave the nursery. But then Audrey said there was a phone call.” She cast her eyes down. “From Philip.” Her face turned red with shame at the memory.

“It’s not your fault,” Maggie said, thinking, No, it’s mine, I was the one who knew Audrey. I’m the one who was so blinded by Louisa that I didn’t see what was right in front of me. “I don’t want to hear you say that.”

“Without being overdramatic here, Magster, I’ll kill myself before I’d let them hand me over to the Nazis,” David said.

I know, Maggie thought, remembering his cyanide pill. And I would too. “Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” She tried to keep her tone light. “They couldn’t get your briefcase without you.”

“Gregory’s an arsehole. Er, sorry,” he said to Lilibet.

“No,” the Princess said. “I agree. He is an arsehole.”

Maggie bit her lip to keep from laughing hysterically at the prim Princess swearing. Hysterical laughter was just as useless as tears. “We need to do anything it takes to stop this sub from reaching France.”

The submarine suddenly seemed to dip and then turn. The three of them put their hands up to their ears as the pressure changed.

“Who else knows we’re here?” David asked.

“Hugh’s back at the cottage, shot, but alive, I think. Not sure how long it will take him to get back, or even if he can.” Maggie’s heart lurched as she thought of Hugh in pain. “Frain knows we went to Mossley. And Mr. Churchill. They’ve alerted the Navy and Air Force.” And a fat lot of good they’ve been to us. “But out here, we can’t depend on them to save us. How much do you know about U-Boats?”

“A fair amount. I know that there are any number of security measures in place that will keep us from reaching the cockpit,” he said, trying the door, which refused to budge, “even if we could get out of here.” He gestured with his briefcase-handcuffed hand. “I wish I could get rid of this.”

“We’re probably about twenty minutes from France, if that,” Maggie said, considering. It was hot in the room, hot and steamy. She was covered in sweat and a few beads started to trickle from her hairline down her face. She struggled to think of something—anything—that could save them. Think, Maggie, think. You have to get this tin can up to the surface. Nothing’s going to do that unless there’s some sort of emergency.…

She looked heavenward, the only sound the steady, rhythmic pulse of the engines.

“We don’t have time to pray, Magster.”

“No,” Maggie said. “Look up. At the ceiling.”

David and Lilibet both did. Next to the fluorescent light was a sprinkler, attached to a long, thin pipe. “Feueralarm—” Maggie read in German.

“—fire alarm,” David finished, knowing what she had in mind. With his free hand, he fished through his trouser pockets, as Lilibet watched with wide eyes.

They were trapped now, they really were. If this didn’t work, it would be time to plan what they would do when they reached France. Maggie saw terror in David and Lilibet’s faces. She hoped that they didn’t see the fear in hers.

“I know, it’s a filthy habit.” David tried to smile, coming up with a box of matches, from the Langham Hotel in London.

“A wonderful habit!” Maggie cried. “ ‘How about a little fire, Scarecrow?’ “ She winked at Lilibet, forcing gaiety for the girl’s sake.

David took the thin gray sheets from the beds and placed them in the corner. “Well, ladies,” he said as he tried to light the wooden match. It was too hard with the briefcase.

“I’ll do it,” Maggie said, and she took the match and the box from him, lit the match, and threw it into the bedding, “I really hope this sets off a boat-wide sprinkler system and forces this sub to surface. Otherwise …”

The match smoldered, but then the flame caught. The fire burned brightly and the small cell was filed with smoke and heat.

If the sprinklers didn’t extinguish the fames, they’d be burned to a crisp within minutes—that is, if they didn’t suffocate from smoke inhalation. “Come on, come on,” Maggie muttered. I don’t want to die like this. Not on a sub, in a fire. I want to die at age a hundred and one, in my own bed, surrounded by grown children and fat grandbabies.… The lights went out and dim red emergency lighting came on. An alarm sounded a series of low wails.

It was a long, long moment, but eventually the ceiling sprinkler began to trickle, then splutter, then finally spray water. The fire belched smoke, then sizzled out.

Maggie, Lilibet, and David waited, in silence broken only by the keen of the alarm. Finally, after what felt like several lifetimes, they felt the U-boat move. They held hands and swallowed hard as the sub seemed to rise up, up, up—their ears popping—to what they only could hope was the surface of the water.

Without warning, a crewmember in gray coveralls opened the door to the cell. His face was mottled with rage. “Was ist—”

David swung his briefcase, which hit the sailor square in the jaw. He crumpled to the floor, unable to finish his sentence. David stumbled as he recovered his balance. “Oh, that felt good.”

“Come on, Lilibet,” Maggie urged, taking the girl’s hand, all senses straining. They made their way down the dark, narrow corridor. Red lights blinked at them and steam hissed through pipes.

Lilibet tripped and fell, letting out a small yelp.

“Come on!” David said.

Lilibet looked up at Maggie, her face white. “My foot. I think it’s broken.”

Oh, Gods, what now? What more can we endure? But there was no time to lose. Just as she did at Camp Spook, Maggie hoisted Lilibet up and into a fireman’s carry. “You weigh less than Molly Stickler,” she panted, taking off in a trot as fast as she could.

“Who?” Lilibet asked.

“A girl from long ago and far away.” Maggie was grateful for her morning regime of sit-ups and push-ups and all the early-morning runs she’d taken since those muddy days at Camp Spook.

The submarine’s emergency sirens continued to wails. Maggie, carrying Lilibet, and David retraced their steps back to the ladder that led back up to the hatch. Over the intercom, they heard, “Die Gefangenen sind geflohen! Die Gefangenen sind geflohen!”

“They’re saying ‘The prisoners have escaped!’” Maggie gasped.

“Oh, hell,” David said. “So much for stealth.”

He climbed the narrow gray-painted ladder to the hatch and wrestled with it until it opened. They had predicted correctly. The fire safety system had caused the captain to take the boat to the surface.

Then Maggie, breathing heavily, but not slowing down, went up the ladder first, helping Lilibet. With his free hand, David helped the young Princess when she emerged. Outside, on the hull, they all drew great breaths of cold fresh air, watching the frothy white caps crest on the grey waves. The channel was rough and the U-boat bobbed in the choppy water like a child’s bath toy.

“Do we have a plan?” Lilibet asked.

Oh, Your Highness, if only we did. “Let’s climb to the top of the sail,” Maggie said, sounding surprisingly reasonable as she felt the sweat in her hair start to freeze. At least they’d be farther from the hatch that way.

Maggie, helping a limping Lilibet, and David all scrambled over the top of the hull until they reached the sail. They climbed up yet another long, thin ladder to reach the highest peak of the sub.

Cold, damp winds gusted around them. They held on to the railing of the sail for dear life—David muttering curse words, Lilibet with her mouth set in a grim line, and Maggie, fighting panic, trying desperately to think of a next step. While she was overwhelmingly grateful for an escape from inside the submarine that had seemed impossible, being up on the sail of a Nazi sub in the middle of the gray-green North Sea didn’t seem all that much better.

The submarine could continue sailing this way, on the surface, all the way to France. Unless they wanted to swim in the freezing waters, they were as trapped on the sail as they were in the bowels of the submarine. Here eyes scanned the horizon for any sign of a British ship. Come on, Mr. Churchill, I’m running out of tricks.

She looked at David and Lilibet. David had a nasty head wound; his blood still caked in his hair and on his face. Lilibet’s face had scratches and bruising and was stained with tears. Around them, on all sides, was nothing but sky and the ocean.

Gregory emerged from the hatch. He had a desperate expression on his face. He was followed by Boothby and two armed crewmen.

“No!” Gregory cried, his voice getting lost in the freezing wind, as he approached their perch on top of the sail. He climbed towards them as Boothby and the two sailors came behind him.

“Come back inside! You’re safe with me! I never meant to hurt anyone!”

The group stared at him in disbelief, as though he were an apparition. He certainly looked like one, his face gaunt, his eyes haunted.

“You don’t understand!” Gregory called. “I can’t go back to England!” His eyes leaked tears, as his voice grew frenzied. “I can’t do it!” He kept climbing. “It’s freezing cold up there in those planes, it’s dark—they shoot at you, you shoot at them. People die, but before they do, they scream—horrible high-pitched screams. Men cry. I’ve seen people with limbs burned off, with melted skin and bone.”

He reached them and raised his hands in supplication; his eyes had a cold, dead look to them. “I just want it all to stop. The nightmares and the memories and the horror—I can’t go back. Can’t even seem to drink myself to death! That’s why I made this deal with the devil. This way I don’t have to go back!”

Gregory’s pain was palpable. Was he a villain, or just a casualty of war? Maggie felt a mixture of both horror and sympathy wash through her. She knew him—or thought she did.

“Then no more killing,” she said. “End it. You’re not your father—you don’t have to be.” Just as I don’t have to be mine, she thought, almost absently. “Don’t sell us all out to the Nazis just to save yourself. You might live, but what about your conscience?”

But he couldn’t meet her eyes, and turned away. “Let me worry about my conscience, Maggie,” he said, calmer now.

The wind began to die down and the waves weren’t quite as violent. The gray at the edge of the horizon was turning a delicate pink. And she could also hear the rumbling engine of a ship. They all looked towards the direction of the sound.

Whose ship was it? German or British?

“It’s German,” Gregory said, as if reading their minds. “You quite cleverly disarmed the sub, but they’ve radioed to France for a pickup from a German patrol boat. There’s nowhere for you to run. Even if I wanted to help you now, I couldn’t. Things are in motion and have taken on a momentum of their own.”

“That’s pathetic, Gregory,” Maggie called. “Don’t be a coward. Be the hero I know you can be.”

The sound of the engine seemed closer, and Maggie felt a tingle of horror. She knew what she had to do, if the worst happened. David would have to use his cyanide tablet, and she’d have to jump overboard. The Nazis weren’t going to take them alive. And she had to believe that Lilibet would be treated well in Germany and that Frain and Churchill would somehow rescue her.

The sky was turning a streaked scarlet. Maggie could see the Nazi patrol boat coming toward them, and she put her arm around Lilibet. Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning, Maggie thought absently. She looked around her. So, this is how it ends, she thought. Well, she thought, looking over at David, at least we’re fighting the good fight together.

And then, without warning, the world seemed to explode. There was a wall of noise. Bright flashes and flares of light. The stench of smoke. Time itself was pierced by a thunderous detonation. The waves roiled and crested and the sub lurched to one side and back again. Boothby and the crewmen struggled to keep their balance.

Lilibet fell against Maggie, whose back hit the guard rail, hard.

David took advantage of the swaying to grab Gregory by his coat and sideswipe him with the briefcase, which hit his face with a loud crack. Gregory staggered back, stunned. He put his hand to his cheek, and his face lit with rage. He lunged for David, grabbing him by the throat and squeezing, eyes wild.

Maggie saw David struggling to get free from Gregory. She ran to Gregory and tried to pry his hands off David’s neck. Lilibet, seeing what was happening, crawled over to Gregory, brave as the Prince in Sleeping Beauty. Just as Maggie kneed him in the groin, Lilibet bit down on his ankle as hard as she could. “Good girl!” Maggie managed.

Gregory cried out in anguish and released his grip on David, who fell to the deck, gasping for air. Gregory stumbled backward and fell as well, curling into a fetal position.

“That’s for calling him a poof!” Lilibet yelled into the wind. Maggie was filled with both amazement and sisterly pride.

Before anyone had a chance to recover, there was another enormous blast—the approaching German ship exploded in smoke and lacy white froth. One final detonation, and the ship burst into a ball of orange and red flames, reflected in the grey water. Boothby and the two crewmen watched helplessly.

Gregory managed to turn himself over and whistled through his bleeding teeth and lip. “Goddamned British Navy.”

“You want to know a British military secret?” David shouted, propping himself up on his elbows. “We’re equipped with really big guns, you … jerk!” he said, realizing the Princess was there.

Maggie went to Lilibet and cradled her in her arms, keeping her eyes west. “The British are coming.”

“About time, Paul Revere,” said David, before turning back to Gregory. “You’ll have quite the story to tell before they hang you for treason.”

But Gregory was already unlacing his heavy boots and stripping off his mackintosh. “But it seems like such a lovely morning for a swim,” he said, a man with nothing to lose, nothing to live for.

“No!” Maggie screamed. “Don’t do it!” She didn’t know how she felt about Gregory—disgust, hate, pity? But she did know she didn’t want him to die. “You’ll never make it!” Even if he could swim to France, the water was too cold. It would kill him before he could reach the shore.

“But I might,” he said, winking at her with his good eye. “And it’s better than the alternative,” he called back to them before he dove into the sea.

Maggie watched Gregory’s head bobbing amidst the waves. Then he vanished beneath the surface, rising again, choking on seawater. His eyes locked with Maggie’s as he slowly, slowly slipped beneath the surface of the water. She watched him sink into the darkness until she couldn’t see his face any longer.

Oh, Gregory, what a waste, was all she could think, feeling her eyes well up with hot tears. What a tragic, tragic waste of a life.

She, David and Lilibet, exhausted, huddled together for warmth, until the rubber dinghy reached them.

Chapter Twenty-nine

That evening, after being debriefed and arriving back at Windsor Castle, Maggie and David were taken to the Royal Family’s private apartments. They’d been given hot baths, glasses of cognac, fresh, dry clothes, and a chance to sleep. Now up and dressed and looked over by the Royal Physician, they entered the royal family’s private sitting room. David’s head was bandaged, as was the wrist that had had the handcuff on it. Maggie looked tired and pale, but otherwise none the worse for wear.

It was a large chamber, but cozy, with buttercup-yellow silk walls, a soft red Persian carpet, and a plethora of needlepoint pillows. The King and Queen were there, sitting on an overstuffed sofa, surrounded by their corgis. Winston Churchill and Peter Frain sat in chairs opposite. Hugh was present as well, sitting next to Frain, a pair of crutches at his side. He and Maggie locked eyes. She smiled and his face relaxed. He tried to stand.

“Please don’t,” Maggie said. She tried to remember her Royal etiquette. “Your Majesties,” she said, making a shaky curtsey. David did the same, with a bow.

“Please, sit down, both of you. You poor dears,” Queen Elizabeth said. Maggie smiled. She sounded just like a mother—which, of course, she was.

“Quite an adventure you two had, heh?” Churchill said, getting up. He gave David a bear-like embrace, slapping the younger man’s back repeatedly, while David winced. Then he kissed Maggie’s hand. “Can’t seem to keep you out of trouble, Miss Hope.”

The King had risen as well. “Jolly good show, both of you. If anything had happened to Lilibet … Well, I just can’t bear to think of it.”

“Well, it didn’t,” said Frain. “And they didn’t get Mr. Greene and Miss Hope with the knowledge they each possess, either. The U-Boat’s been captured and the surviving men all taken into custody. I have just one question. What happened to Gregory Strathcliffe?”

“He decided to swim for France,” Maggie said.

“And?”

“He—he drowned.”

“Good.” Frain nodded. “More paperwork, of course, but that’s that, then.”

The Queen indicated an ornate silver tray with a porcelain teapot, with enamels and gilding, as well as matching translucent bone cups and saucers on the low table in front of one of the sofas. “Please sit down, everyone. Who would like a cup of tea?”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Maggie said, taking a seat as the Queen poured cups for both her and David.

“How is the Princess, ma’am?” Maggie asked, accepting the cup and saucer. “Her foot?”

“She’s, well, she’s had quite the time of it. The doctor’s seen to her and it’s just a sprained ankle, thank goodness. She’s resting with Alah now. But she has her grandmother’s strong constitution—and she’s going to be fine.”

“She was very brave,” Maggie told the King and Queen. “She helped save us.”

“Of course she did,” said the King, taking the Queen’s hand and beaming with pride. “She’s our daughter.”

“Mr. Thompson,” Maggie said, “how is your leg?”

“Fine,” replied Hugh. “I’ll be on crutches for a while but expect to make a full recovery.”

“Good,” Maggie said, wishing she could say so much more.

“I must apologize for my role in all this,” the King said. “I knew about Lily’s background and I allowed her to stay at Windsor anyway. If I’d sent her away, as I should have … Instead, I sent away Marta Kunst Tooke, who was completely innocent.”

“And I let my prejudice against Louisa blind me to the fact that it was actually Audrey and George Poulter who were setting up the kidnapping plot,” Maggie interjected.

“All’s well that end’s well, then?” the Prime Minister said.

“Indeed,” added Frain. Then, to Maggie and Hugh, “I’ll see you two at my office on Monday morning, after the New Year,” he said. Then his tone softened. “In the meantime, happy Christmas.”

“Thank you,” David chimed in. “Still Jewish, of course. But I do love a cup of mulled wine and those little almond cookies at this time of the year. And the trees are always pretty.”

As Churchill, Frain, David, and the King and Queen began a long political discussion, Maggie leaned over to Hugh. “So, how’s the leg?” she asked. “Really.”

“I’ll live,” he told her. “Just needed a few stitches.”

“That’s good.”

They listened to the discussion for a while, then Hugh said, “So, you’re off to Leeds for a wedding, then?”

“How did you—?” Maggie began, then realized that she’d had to clear her schedule with MI-5 months ago and of course he’d know. “Yes, off to my friends’ wedding. I’m a bridesmaid.”

“Are you, um, bringing anyone? As a date, I mean?”

“No,” Maggie said. She wished she could ask him, but they both knew it wasn’t in the cards.

“Well,” he said, not hiding his pleasure. “Good.”

The next day, after breakfast, Maggie and David packed up their things. From Windsor, they would drive straight to Leeds, for Nigel and Chuck’s New Year’s wedding.

“Merciful Minerva,” David exclaimed, “in all the excitement, I’d nearly forgotten about good old Nigel’s getting hitched.”

“Well, as a bridesmaid,” Maggie said, “I’ve been getting regular updates all fall. You wouldn’t think Chuck would be so girly about her wedding, but she really did get into the spirit. We might need to start calling her Charlotte Mary.”

They walked past the doors to the nursery. “Do you mind?” she said to David. “I’d like to check in on Lilibet.”

“Of course,” he replied.

Maggie gave a soft knock at the door. Alah opened it. “Oh, Maggie!” she cried, falling into Maggie’s arms. “We’re ever so grateful to you, for bringing our Lilibet back!”

Maggie was stunned, and held the woman, patting her back. “She was truly brave,” she said. “A credit to you and Crawfie.”

Alah sniffled. “If anything had happened …”

“But it didn’t.”

Alah wiped at her eyes. “It didn’t. You’re right. Stiff upper lip, Miss Hope. Stiff upper lip.”

“May I see Lilibet?” Maggie asked. “I’m off to a wedding and then, well, I’m not really sure what’s next.”

“Of course,” Alah said. She went to Lilibet’s bedroom door and knocked. “Miss Hope is here to see you!”

The door popped open and Lilibet and Margaret both burst out. “Oh, Maggie,” Lilibet said, hopping to her on her good leg and wrapping her arms around Maggie’s neck. “It all seems like a dream now, doesn’t it?”

“A bit,” Maggie said, smiling.

“Were you really on a German submarine?” Margaret demanded. “Because sometimes Lilibet likes to tease me.”

“We really were,” Maggie answered. “Cross my heart.”

“Maggie,” Lilibet said, taking her hand and leading her over to the sofa, “I want to thank you—and Mr. Greene—for everything.”

Maggie blinked back tears as she sat next to the young woman. “It was our pleasure, Your Highness. And now you and Margaret have a wonderful holiday and New Year.”

“Will you be back in January?” Lilibet asked. As Maggie searched for an answer, the girl suddenly realized, “You—you weren’t here to teach me maths, were you.” It was more of a statement than a question.

Maggie smiled. “Well, that’s partly why I was here,” she said. “And you have to admit it came in handy.”

“The code—” Lilibet began.

“Yes,” Maggie finished. “So, keep working on your maths, all right? And I’m sure we’ll see each other again. Someday.”

The day of Chuck and Nigel’s wedding dawned clear and sunny. Maggie awoke from her trundle bed, set up in Chuck’s old room, and spent a moment looking out the window, watching the gray turn to bright white and then, finally, a bright azure.

“Wake up, sleepyhead, it’s your wedding day!” she said to her old friend, fast asleep.

Chuck groaned and pulled the pillow over her head. “Five more minutes …”

“Up!” Maggie pulled the duvet off.

Chuck sighed and turned over, a dreamy smile on her face. “It really is today, isn’t it?” She looked over at her wedding ensemble, on a hanger over the door. It wasn’t a white dress—not enough rations—but it was a lovely portrait-neck burgundy silk suit that Chuck’s mother had done over with an ivory lace collar.

“It’d better be,” Maggie said, sitting down on the corner of Chuck’s bed. “I don’t think my back can stand that trundle bed any longer.”

Chuck sat up. “Now, just because it’s not a feather bed in a castle.”

“Oh, please. Living at Windsor was like ‘camping in a museum,’ as Crawfie used to say.”

“Well, I hope it wasn’t too awful. I’m so glad you came a bit early—dealing with all of the wedding plans, plus the family and the future in-laws—or, as I like the call them, ‘the outlaws.’ “ Chuck rolled her eyes. “Well, let’s just say I’ll be glad to finally be married.”

“And you’re going to be a beautiful bride.”

“Nigel thinks so, at least, and that’s all I care about.” Chuck rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. She wasn’t a conventional beauty, but she was handsome and her intelligence and wit gave her a sparkle that drew people to her.

“Well, we might as well start by getting you some tea and breakfast,” Maggie told her. “Don’t want the bride fainting away, now do we?”

“Is it going to be strange for you, Maggie? I mean, without John?”

It was, but Maggie didn’t want Chuck to spend even a moment of this day worrying about it. “It’s hard. Every day is hard. But life goes on. And I know he’d be so happy to see you and Nigel finally tie the knot. So, I’m fine, darling. Really.”

The wedding was a small ceremony, with only close family and friends, at Chuck’s family’s church, Holy Trinity. Maggie was wearing her green wool dress and had rolled her hair. She was putting on Chuck’s lipstick when Sarah arrived.

“Kittens!” she squealed, putting down her valise. “You both look ravishing!”

“Sarah!” Chuck and Maggie chorused, running to the slender, glamorous woman in the smart cherry-colored suit and matching turban. “You’re here!”

“Without a moment to spare,” she said. “The Ballet’s in Liverpool this week. The damn train kept breaking down. I’ve been up all night—never thought I’d get here.”

“Well, you’re here now,” Maggie said, “and that’s all that counts.”

“Plenty of time,” Chuck said.

“My, aren’t you calm for a bride-to-be!” Sarah exclaimed.

Chuck motioned to the glass of Buck’s Fizz Maggie had made for her. “That certainly doesn’t hurt.”

Sarah’s eyes lit up. “Oh, may I have one?”

“Of course,” Maggie said, mixing orange juice and champagne. “Let’s have a toast.”

The three women raised their glasses. “To Chuck,” Maggie began. “A beautiful bride and a beautiful woman, inside and out. We wish you a lifetime of happiness.”

They clinked glasses.

“To the honeymoon!” Sarah said, with a sly smile.

They clinked again.

Then, “To friends,” Chuck said. “War, bombs, rationing—my engagement—I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“And you’re going to need us.” Maggie smiled. To Sarah, “I don’t know if you’ve met her in-laws yet, but they make the Germans seem like Beatrix Potter’s fuzzy bunnies.”

Holy Trinity Church was small and stone, with a sharp gothic bellower pointing heavenward. The young women and Chuck’s parents parked in the lot, then walked in the cold, crisp air, past the graveyard with its gray lichen-covered headstones, to the entrance of the church. They passed over the threshold and waited in the vestibule for the organ music Chuck and Nigel had chosen, Purcell’s “Welcome, Glorious Morn.” The sunlight streamed through the stained-glass windows, making them glow and casting reflections of sapphire, ruby, amethyst, and emerald on the hard wooden pews.

Chuck’s mother proceeded down the worn stone aisle, followed by Maggie and Sarah. There was a pause and the small group in the first few rows of the church rose as Chuck took her father’s arm and began the walk down.

Nigel waited for her at the altar, smart in his RAF dress uniform, still a bit barrel-shaped, but thinner now, his face showing more angles and planes. As Maggie took her position at Chuck’s side, she managed a glance at the congregation in the pews. David was there, looking handsome in his gray morning suit.

Maggie looked away, back to Chuck and Nigel, as her heartbeat quickened. She was overwhelmed with conflicting feelings—happiness, relief, longing, anger, and anguish, all at once.

The ceremony was short, solemn, and sweet. And after it was over, the bride, groom, and wedding guests walked over to the wedding luncheon, held in the back room of Anthony’s, the town’s finest restaurant. In the small room, tables were pushed together. The guests sat down as waiters brought in trays of champagne coupes, for the toast. As soon as the speeches were made, waiters brought bowls of steaming parsnip soup and trays of dainty-looking sandwiches—cucumber, ham and mustard, mock crab salad. The drinks began in earnest—pints of beer, shandies and gin-and-tonics pink with Angostura Bitters and glistening ice cubes.

Maggie found herself caught up in the swirling joy of the day, raising her glass to Nigel and Chuck’s health and happiness for at least the fifth time. It was infectious and there was no way she could resist.

“You doing all right, love?” Sarah asked.

Warmed by a glass and a half of shandy, Maggie answered, “I’m fine. Really. It’s Chuck and Nigel’s big day and I couldn’t be happier.”

Chapter Thirty

Back at David’s flat in London that evening, Maggie telephoned Hugh at the office. “So, we don’t work together anymore, do we?”

“Well, technically, we both work for MI-Five, yes. But, to the best of my knowledge, since the Windsor case is closed, I’m not your handler anymore. So, yes—and no.”

“Well, David’s going to be out and I’m going to try and cook something tonight. If you happen to be passing by—”

“I’ll be there,” Hugh interrupted.

From across the room, Mark laughed.

Hugh grinned and mouthed, “Shut up.”

Over dinner, Maggie’s attempt at Potato Jane, a bake of potatoes, leeks, cheese, and bread crumbs and vinegary red wine, the two had their first somewhat normal conversation. “You have the advantage, though,” Maggie said, “because you know more about me, than I know about you. You have my file.”

“You’re more than your file.”

“Well, I know you’re a Chelsea Blues fan.”

“How did you know that?”

She smiled. “You wear blue socks on game days. Also, you play the guitar.”

“No.” This time he smiled, and reached for his wine.

“No?” Maggie was surprised. “You have calluses on the tips of your left fingers, but not your right.”

“Cello,” Hugh admitted.

“Ah. A lovely instrument. Very soulful.” Then, “So, what did I miss?”

“You know most of the other details. My mother raised me. I ended up at Selwyn College, at Cambridge, for a degree in theology. And, for a while I thought I wanted to be a priest.”

“Catholic?”

“Anglican.”

“Well, well, well.” Maggie had no idea of Hugh’s religious proclivities.

“Do you go to church?”

“Er, no,” Maggie said. “I was raised Episcopalian—what you’d call Anglican—but more because my Aunt Edith said it was a cultural necessity. That the Episcopalians use the King James Bible, which, according to her, is the best—meaning most literary—translation. And it would be impossible to understand history and literature without reading it. But I consider myself a scientist, first and foremost.”

“Are science and religion mutually exclusive, then?”

“Not necessarily. My position concerning God is that of an agnostic, in the Jeffersonian tradition.” Her smile widened. “So, how are the Chelsea Blues shaping up for the spring season?” They talked easily and freely, laughing loudly and often, and ate with gusto.

When they were through with dinner and wine, Maggie rose and began to clear the dishes from the dining room to the kitchen. Hugh began to clear as well.

“Oh, it’s all right,” she said, running the water in the sink and adding some homemade dishwashing soap, made from baking soda and Borax.

“How about if I wash and you dry?”

“Excellent.”

Dishes put away, they went into the parlor, where Maggie put on one of David’s records. Hugh picked up the Vera Lynn album that Maggie had listened to, thinking of John, before she’d left for Windsor. “Oh, not that,” she said without thinking.

“Too many memories?” he said, understanding instantly. “How about Noël Coward’s “Bitter Sweet”?

“Perfect.”

On Monday morning, Maggie rose from her bed at in her room at David’s flat and stretched.

“Must you go?” Hugh murmured, eyes still closed, reaching for her.

“Yes,” she said, leaning back to kiss him, “and you must too.”

In the weekend they’d spent together, Maggie had experienced such joy in his company, his wry grin, his pointed way of looking at the world, the simple pleasure of—behind closed doors, at least—being a normal couple. Despite the gray morning outside their window, she was still surrounded by a feeling of surprising happiness, a feeling that had only grown during their time together. As she watched him stand naked in the dim light, she delighted how very beautiful he was. Despite, perhaps because of, his injury.

“Poor leg,” she said, taking in the bandages.

“Much better now,” Hugh said.

Maggie threw a pillow at him. “Stop smirking!”

“That wasn’t a smirk. It was more of a leer, I believe.

She put her arms around his neck and he put his around her waist. They kissed, a long kiss. “I’ll see you at the office,” she said, voice serious. Her meeting with Frain was today.

“I know,” he answered. “I’m there for you—no matter what happens.”

Maggie and Hugh sat next to each other in a large conference room in the MI-5 offices, at a long, polished wood table, dotted by a few heavy glass ashtrays. It was impersonal, except for a framed photograph of the King and a large black clock. Maggie had her book in front of her. Outside the windows the day was chill and grey.

“You sure you’re all right?” Hugh asked, as men in dark suits began to filter in, taking seats around the long polished table. A few of them lit cigarettes.

“I didn’t realize this was going to be such a big meeting.” Maggie whispered, wishing she could take his hand.

“Neither did I.”

As the clock on the wall ticked, they all waited. Then Frain walked in. He was followed by Edmund Hope. Maggie took a sharp intake of breath.

“Good morning gentlemen, Miss Hope,” Frain said, as he took the seat at the head of the table. Edmund sat down next to him.

Maggie looked at Hugh, confused. He raised an eyebrow, surprised as she was.

Frain cleared his throat. “Our first order of business is the review of the attempt to smuggle critical information from Bletchley Park to the Germans, the assassination attempt on the King and the attempt to kidnap the Princess Elizabeth. In addition, there was a last-minute attempt to smuggle out an important aide to the Prime Minister, one who knows nearly everything Churchill himself knows, with a briefcase full of classified documents. Thanks to courage, bravery, and quick thinking by our team, disaster was averted. The stolen decrypts never left England. The King is recovering nicely, the Princess is safe at home, and Mr. Churchill’s private secretary is back at work at Number Ten this morning.”

“Hear, hear!” Maggie heard. She and Hugh exchanged small smiles.

“Yes, and we owe special thanks to the two young agents here—Margaret Hope and Hugh Thompson.”

There was warm applause.

Suddenly Winston Churchill opened the door, lit cigar clenched between his teeth. Everyone rose.

“Please come in and take a seat, Prime Minister,” Frain said, offering up his own. Churchill did.

What’s he doing here? Maggie wondered. They all took their seats once more.

Frain held up his hand. “However, we can’t ever rest on our laurels. We’re still at war—there are still any number of threats to the Royal Family, the Prime Minister, the carefully kept secrets that give us an advantage in this war. And Commandant Hess is still in Berlin, a most formidable foe.”

“Commandant Hess?” Maggie asked.

“Yes.” Frain and Edmund exchanged a look. “The mastermind behind the King’s assassination and the princess’s kidnapping plot.”

Edmund Hope shifted in his seat.

“Ah, yes,” Frain said. “There’s one additional matter we need to discuss.” He gestured to Edmund. The room was silent. Mr. Churchill puffed impassively in his cigar.

“Good morning, everyone,” Edmund said, rising. “As most of you know, I’ve been working as an undercover agent for years, at Bletchley, and was part of the team investigating the stolen decrypt. Thanks to the work of my daughter, Margaret Hope, and Hugh Thompson, Christopher Boothby, an engineer at Bletchley has come to light as the spy we were searching for—and he has been arrested, along with the rest of the crew of U-two-forty-six. However, there’s another matter I would like to address at this time—a more personal one.”

All eyes were fixed on him. Edmund continued. “I knew weeks ago that my file had been removed.” He looked at Hugh, who looked uncomfortable. “And that certain people were suspicious of my actions during the Great War, regarding the German group Sektion, the precursor to today’s Abwehr. Actions which cast doubts on my integrity as an agent, and as a father, today.”

Maggie and Hugh exchanged glances.

Edmund looked directly at Maggie. “The pinprick encryption you found in those books—yes, they were orders from the Sektion. Yes, they were orders to kill British intelligence officers.

“Including Hugh Thompson, Senior,” Maggie stated.

Hugh swallowed. Maggie put her hand on his arm, aware that he was in the same room as his father’s murderer. Her father.

“Yes,” Edmund said.

Maggie was in shock. We’re right? And yet here he is at MI-5? Admitting to all of it? Why isn’t he in handcuffs? In jail.…

“But, Maggie—” His tone softened. “I wasn’t that agent.”

Across the long table, Maggie met his eyes.

“Then who was it?” she asked, softly.

“It was—” Edmund faltered, unable to continue.

“Oh, good Lord, man, just rip the bandage off!” the P.M. interrupted. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Miss Hope—I truly am—but the double agent in question wasn’t your father.

“It—she—was your mother.”

Unblinking, Maggie pushed back her chair and rose to her feet. Then she slowly walked to the door. Once through it, she began running down the long hall, her footfalls echoing on the marble floor.

“Maggie!” Edmund called. “Wait! Please!”

Maggie stopped in the middle of the empty corridor but didn’t turn around.

“You can’t …” Edmund chose his words carefully. “You can’t let this affect you.”

She spun to face him. “You know what—Dad? You have no right—no right to lecture me. Or to tell me how I should deal with this!”

“I know how horrible this feels. I’ll never forget how I felt when I learned the truth.”

“And having a child? Was that part of the plan too? Did Sektion dictate that as part of the cover story?”

Edmund was silent in the face of her accusation.

Maggie turned on her heel and left.

Meeting adjourned, Hugh caught up with Maggie outside of the MI-5 building on St. James’s Street.

“Quite the piece of news,” he said, falling into step beside her.

“I adore British understatement.”

“Let’s find somewhere to sit down, all right?”

She shrugged.

“Or, we can just keep walking.”

“Let’s go to Saint James’s Park.”

Eventually, they reached a bench by the bottle-green lake, wrinkling in the wind. Hugh put his arm around her and Maggie started talking, words pouring out of her. “When we were on the U-boat, I watched a man die. Someone I cared about.” Despite the bucolic picture in the front of them, they could still hear the sound of traffic and bells of big Ben.

“Gregory Strathcliffe was a traitor. If he hadn’t drowned, he would have been taken into custody and hanged. Do you really think once you reached Germany, you’d just be sent back to England? Or that you and he would go quietly to Switzerland? Gregory was a bad man. The worst kind, actually—a turncoat.”

“A weak man, perhaps,” Maggie admitted, watching the swans circle warily around the geese on the water. “I’m not exonerating him, but the way he grew up, and then the stress of battle, and his injuries.…” She sighed. “I supposed it doesn’t matter. He did what he did. But the truth is, he’s one in a long line of people I’ve known who’ve betrayed me, who’ve lied to me. And where does that leave me? Never knowing whom to trust. Since I’ve come here, since I’ve gotten involved with these people, it’s becoming a part of me. And I’m afraid of becoming what I despise.”

The cold wind rustled what leaves were left on the enormous ancient maple trees. “Maggie, you’ve a brave, loyal, strong Briton, despite that accent of yours. What you’ve done—are incredible accomplishments. You should feel proud.”

“I got distracted,” Maggie said, admitting her secret guilt. “I didn’t like Louisa and I let that color my perception of her. You were right all along—she wasn’t an exemplary human being, but she never did anything wrong. And I was so convinced she had, that I let my feelings trump logic.” She gave a sharp laugh. “I did that with my father too. I was so mad at him for abandoning me, that I let it cloud my judgment—and lead me to suspect him of being a double agent.”

“The file was incriminating.”

“No,” Maggie snapped. “It was inconclusive. I let my emotions cloud my judgment.” Then, in gentler tones, “I miss math—two plus two always equals four.” Maggie thought for a moment. “Although, as Kurt Gödel theorized, there’s a vast difference between the truth and the part of the truth that can be proved.”

“Er, what?”

“Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem tells us that it’s impossible to fulfill Hilbert’s wish to find a complete and consistent set of axioms for all of mathematics. In other words, we’ll never be able to prove everything. We might know something to be true, or we might want something to be true, need it to be true—but we may not ever be able to prove it.”

“Let’s take this back to the practical—you had theories and you followed them.”

“I wasted valuable time on Louisa, when I could have been looking for the real threats: Gregory and Audrey. And I missed the connection between Lily and Gregory. She called him Le Fantôme. Then she hid the decrypt in Le Fantôme de l’Opéra. It was plain as a nose on a face! How on earth did I miss that?”

“It’s easy to see these things after the fact.”

Maggie snorted.

“Personally, when I think of Intelligence, I like to think of Sherlock Holmes. Not the hot-on-the-trail-of-the-killer Holmes, but the man sitting quietly at his desk, putting two and two together. It’s not glamorous in the least—it’s hard, boring, often exasperating work. You need to organize the facts, assess them, dismiss the irrelevant. Then, using induction and deduction, you come to a conclusion.”

“I know—”

“But you’ve got to do this without emotion, or prejudice or even hope clouding your judgment.”

“It was so much easier when it was just maths. You throw all these people into the mix—”

“It’s hard, yes. But now you know. You have experience. And I know you—you won’t make the same mistake again.”

“That’s for certain.” Maggie looked off across the lake. After a few moments of silence, “Thank you.”

“We’re partners, Maggie. And friends. And … more. I’d do anything to help you.”

“I know.”

Prime Minister Winston Churchill was in his large Victorian bathtub in the Annexe when his butler, Mr. Inches, showed in Peter Frain.

The P.M., plump, rosy, and naked as a cherub, was immersed in steaming water, smoking a cigar, glass tumbler of brandy and soda balanced on the edge of the tub.

“Prime Minister,” Frain said.

“Take a seat,” Churchill growled. Then he shouted to Mrs. Tinsley, seated outside the bathroom door with her noiseless typewriter propped on her lap. “We’re done, Mrs. T.! Go away!”

“Yes, sir,” she said serenely, picking up the typewriter and her papers and making her way downstairs.

Frain sat down on the wooden chair placed in Churchill’s bathroom specifically for meetings. He tried not to stare at the large, pink form. “Sir.”

The P.M. splashed like a child, then a shadow passed over his face. “Inches!” he bellowed.

The beleaguered butler appeared in the doorway. “Sir?”

“I believe the temperature of my bath has dropped below one hundred and four degrees, Inches. Check. Now.”

The butler entered the bathroom and went to the tub. He knelt, rolled up one sleeve and reached into the water, pulling up a thermometer that was attached by a thin chain to the faucet.

“Well?” the P.M. demanded, chewing on the end of his cigar.

“Ninety-nine degrees, sir. Shall I add more hot water?”

“Damn it, yes! Do I need to tell you everything?”

“No, sir,” Inches said mildly as he turned on the hot water tap.

Frain permitted himself a small smile, thinking of the rest of Britons with their five-inch water mark and limited supplies of hot water. Rules just never seemed to apply to Winston Churchill.

As the tub filled, the P.M.’s lip jutted forward in a pout. “Now get out!”

“Yes, sir.” Inches took his leave.

Churchill rested his cigar in a cut-glass ashtray, then sank beneath the waterline and blew bubbles. Rising to the surface, he stared up at the ceiling, floating. “I was thinking about our meeting at MI-Five today.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It occurs to me that, with Miss Hope’s connections, we have an in.”

“The thought has occurred to me, too, sir. Miss Hope did well at Windsor. She’s in much better physical shape now, stronger, with more endurance. I think with some additional training up in Scotland, we’ll have her ready to go in a few months.”

Churchill blew a few blue smoke rings. “War’s a nasty business, my friend.”

“It is, indeed, sir.”

“And when we see an advantage, we must press—no matter what the personal cost.”

“If that’s your decision, sir.”

The P.M. took a swig of brandy and soda. “It is.” He waved Frain away. “Tell Mrs. T. to invite Miss Hope to Number Ten this afternoon.”

“Yes, sir.”

It was strange for Maggie to return to No. 10 Downing Street after so many months and so much that had happened. She remembered how nervous she’d been when she’d first knocked on that dignified front door, so plain and black and unpretentious. She was met by Richard Snodgrass, her former nemesis, now her colleague and friend.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Snodgrass,” she said, extending her hand.

He shook it. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Miss Hope. Follow me, please.”

She followed Mr. Snodgrass through the dignified hallways of No. 10, past the main entrance with its grand cantilever staircase, and through several carpeted hallways. They reached a small conference room, where a projector and screen were set up. A cut-crystal bowl of apples—green Bramleys, bright red Bismarcks, and mottled Pippins—was set in the middle of the polished wood table.

“Hello, David,” Maggie said, surprised, as David rose to greet her.

“I just found out about all of this myself, Maggie.”

“All of what?” she asked as Mr. Snodgrass left them.

“You’ll see.”

The door opened and in came Frain and another man, short and round, where Frain was tall and slim. In his late fifties, with a beaky nose and a shiny pate. “Hello, Maggie, David,” Frain began. “I’d like to introduce Sir Frank Nelson, head of the so-called Baker Street Irregulars.”

“Sir Frank,” Maggie said, extending her hand. “How do you do?”

“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Hope.”

Maggie’s mind was racing. “Baker Street Irregulars?” She’d heard rumors of a secret spy organization, but had always assumed they were just that—rumors. “How very Holmesian.”

“Nickname for the Special Operations Executive, or S.O.E.,” David said, pleased, for once, to know something she didn’t. “Also known as Churchill’s Secret Army, Churchill’s Toyshop, or the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.”

“We’re a bit off the grid, Miss Hope. Our mission is to coordinate espionage and sabotage. All hush-hush, of course,” Sir Frank said.

Maggie shot David a look. “Of course.”

They all sat down at the conference table, waiting. Finally, the door burst open. It was the Prime Minister. “You’re all here? Good, good,” Churchill rumbled, taking a seat. He waved his already-lit cigar. “Let’s get on with it, then.”

Frain began. “Maggie, what can you tell me about your mother?”

My mother? Will it never end? “Not very much,” Maggie replied. “As you know, I was raised by my Aunt Edith Hope, outside of Boston, Massachusetts. She didn’t talk about my parents much, and I never pushed her to.” She shrugged. “Until this very morning, I thought that my mother was a typical English housewife, who’d died far too young in an automobile accident. I knew that she played the piano, loved books. In my mind, in the past that I constructed, she was a loving mother and an adoring wife.” She gave a sharp laugh. “Well, that was the fantasy, anyway.”

“Your father sent you one of her books.”

“Yes, he sent it to me at Windsor. The Princess Elizabeth spilled tea on some of the pages, and—well, you know the rest.”

“You found code contained in that book, code to a Sektion agent. The code contained the names of three MI-Five agents who were to be assassinated.”

“Yes,” Maggie said, her heart pierced with sadness as she thought of Hugh’s father and the other agents killed.

“You believed your father was the double agent. But today, you found out it was your mother who was the Sektion agent.”

“Yes.” Then, “Look, what’s this all about? Why, with a war going on, are we talking about something that happened over twenty years ago?”

“Because, Miss Hope,” Sir Frank said, “your mother is, indeed, still quite relevant to us in this war, right now.” He motioned to David. “Mr. Greene, would you turn on the projector?”

David turned off the overhead lights and then flipped the switch on the projector, the incandescent light bulb glowing and the fan whining. Mr. Stevens turned off the overhead lights.

Maggie was bewildered. First she was told it was her mother, not her father, who was a double agent responsible for murdering five British officers. Now she was back at No. 10, asked to watch—a slide show?

David dropped a slide in the projector. The black-and-white slide was old; still, the lovely woman photographed was obviously Maggie’s mother, at approximately Maggie’s current age.

Sir Frank took a deep breath. “This is Claudia Hess, better known to you as Clara Hope. In 1912, she was recruited to Sektion by Special Agent Albrecht Kortig.”

Maggie stiffened.

Stevens paused but pressed on. “She was given a mission. She was to pose as a British woman, a student at the London School of Economics. She was to make the acquaintance of a British agent, Edmund Hope. She was to make him fall in love with her, to become his confidante.”

“And to murder three MI-Five agents,” Maggie managed.

“Yes,” Sir Frank replied, evenly. “And then, she faked her own death in a car accident, and made her way back to Germany. Next slide, please.” David hit a button. The picture was now of an older woman, with the same thick hair and fine features. Her eyes were inscrutable.

If Maggie hadn’t already been sitting down, her legs would have buckled under her. What more can they throw at me? “Is that her? But that’s a recent picture! Surely that’s not possible?”

“Clara Hess, the woman known in Britain as Clara Hope, returned to Germany,” Stevens said, ignoring Maggie’s questions. “Ultimately, became the agent known as Commandant Hess, along with Walther Shellenberg, one of the most dangerous figures in the Abwehr. The figure behind the attempt to assassinate the King and kidnap the Princess.”

“She’s Commandant Hess?” Maggie breathed.

David turned the overhead light back on.

Winston Churchill studied her, with eyes blue and cold. “You’ve proven yourself to be mentally, emotionally, and physically capable of being an S.O.E. agent. How would you like to go to Berlin?” He glanced at Frain. “We have a few things that need doing over there—including a few that have to do with Clara Hess. We thought, after all your hard work, that you’d like to do the honors.”

Chapter Thirty-One

Maggie, in her room at David’s flat, was packing the last of her things in a valise. She was going for three months of intensive training at an S.O.E. camp in Scotland, and then, when ready, a nighttime parachute drop into Germany.

Edmund Hope stood at the doorway, coat still on, twisting his hat in his hands. “Maggie, I don’t want you to go.”

“Dad, this is my job now. I must.” Finding an armload of socks and stockings, she dropped them into her open bag. “She’s a German spy, one who nearly succeeded in running a mission to kill the King and kidnap the Princess. One who’s plotting God knows what else as we speak. That doesn’t bother you?”

“Of course it does,” he snapped, “but it doesn’t need to be you!”

“Mr. Churchill asked me.” She went to her closet.

“Forget Churchill! It’s too dangerous.”

“I would disagree,” Maggie said, taking a few dresses off hangers. “And the Prime Minister and Mr. Frain think otherwise, too.”

“Look, she’s a despicable human being, a sociopath. Do you really think you can just walk up to her and say, ‘Hello, Mother’?”

Maggie gave a tight smile as she folded the dresses and placed them in her suitcase. “That’s not in the mission plan.”

“And even if you do have a moment where you can reconnect, it doesn’t change what she did!”

She turned back to the closet, rummaging for sweaters on a high shelf. “Dad, I know. Hugh is—one of my best friends. How could I possibly forget what she did to his father, the pain he still carries? And that she did the same thing to nineteen other families?”

“Do you expect her to say, ‘Oh, my dear darling daughter, how I’ve missed you all these years? Let’s go shopping and then have tea?’”

“N-no. No! Of course not!” Maggie took down a few sweaters, then turned and looked Edmund in the eye. “There’s one thing I’ve been wondering about, though.”

“Yes?”

“When I went to what I thought were your graves at Highgate Cemetery—which turned out to be only her grave—there were fresh white roses by the headstone. I remember the gardener said a man came regularly, to leave them. Is that you? Were you—are you—leaving flowers on her grave?”

Edmund lowered his eyes. “Yes,” he said finally.

“But why? She betrayed you—betrayed us. She’s not even there, not even dead! Why?”

“I loved her,” Edmund answered. “Or at least the person I thought she was.”

“I see,” Maggie said, not seeing at all. She placed the sweaters in the suitcase.

After a few moments passed, Edmund rubbed at his eyes with his fist, then said, “And, what, exactly, is your mission?”

“I’m afraid, Dad,” she said, closing the valise and tightening the leather buckle, “that it’s classified.”

They both heard voices in the flat. “Maggie? Maggie?”

“Coming!” she called. Then, to her father, “they’re giving me a little party before I leave.” There was an awkward pause. “Would you like to stay?”

Edmund tugged at his collar. “I have to get back to the office, actually. I’m off the Bletchley case now. Getting a new assignment.”

“I’ll walk you out, then,” Maggie told him.

People had already begun to arrive. David put a Fred Astaire record on the phonograph and she could hear him in the kitchen, using a pick to make ice chips for shaking cocktails. As “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” began to play, he came in with a tray of glasses full of amber liquid.

“Sure you won’t stay?” she asked.

“Afraid not,” he said. “Good luck, Maggie.”

“Thank you. To you too.” She let him kiss her cheek before he left.

After the door closed, the party began in earnest. David was there, as was Hugh, talking to Sarah, perched on the windowsill. And there were a few dancers from the ballet and people from No. 10, including Richard Snodgrass.

“Don’t suppose you can tell us what you’re up to next, Miss Hope?” Richard asked as Hugh handed her a martini.

“It’s terribly boring,” Maggie said as she accepted the glass. “Up to Scotland, to do goodness knows what sort of paperwork.”

“That’s your official story, then?” Richard asked.

“I’m afraid so.” She smiled. “And I’m standing by it.”

Hugh raised his glass. “To Maggie,” he said. “Wherever her travels may lead. Although, I must say, I hope they ultimately lead her back to me.”

“Thank you, Hugh,” she said, blushing.

“To Maggie,” the rest chorused.

She was momentarily speechless, then pulled herself together. “Thank you,” she said. “But I must toast to you, all of you—it’s a horrible war we’re in, but it’s had a strange way of bringing people together—and helping us all achieve much more than what we think we’re capable of. To us, then.”

“To us! Cheers!”

And they drank and danced long into the night.

The pilot had survived, but barely.

He’d survived first by burying his parachute. He’d survived by limping, then finally crawling, though fields and woods until he found a barn. He’d survived by drinking rainwater from a pig trough and eating their scraps. He’d survived by hiding his identity disks and ripping out any British labels in his clothes. And he’d survived by staying in the barn’s hayloft during the day, afraid to move a muscle or make a sound.

Still, with the internal organ damage he sustained, he wouldn’t be able to survive much longer, at least without proper medical care. Which was why, finally, he gave himself up to the farmer and his wife, Herr and Frau Schäfer.

They did not turn him into the local police.

Instead, they put him to bed in a room with fresh white sheets and fed him brown bread soaked in milk. When he had slept for hours and hours, he awoke to see Frau Schäfer sitting at his bedside, knitting a heavy wool sweater with hand-spun yarn.

“It’s all right,” she said in German, her gnarled fingers moving like lightning. “We know who you are, and you’re safe here.”

“Thank you,” he replied. He wished he had studied more German in school. Still, he tried his best. “I appreciate everything you and your husband are doing.”

“You’re very lucky,” she said, pointing a knitting needle at him.

“Lucky,” he repeated, and gave a sour laugh. In some ways he was—lucky to be alive, lucky to be picked up by sympathetic Germans—and in some ways he wasn’t—injured in enemy territory, mostly ignorant of the language.…

“You are lucky,” she insisted. “God was looking out for you.”

He was a pro-forma Anglican, who attended church services at holidays only, and then mostly for the music. “I’m not sure if God had much to do with it.”

Herr Schäfer heard them talking and came in, his bulk blocking most of the doorframe. “God has everything to do with everything. Now make the poor man some breakfast, Maria. I’ve brought in the eggs.”

What saved him from despair was the courage of Maria and Hans Schäfer. He had no idea what the price would be for harboring an enemy soldier, but it had to be bad.

The Schäfers knew he had flown over their land, dropping bombs, and yet they fed him white asparagus with butter, golden fried potatoes, coarse sausages, and plum cake. They would not take any of his marks, which all RAF pilots flying over Germany were given in case of an emergency, to help out with the added food ration. “We live on a farm,” they said to him. “What is one more mouth to feed?”

In return, he held hanks of coarse, greasy yarn between two upraised hands while he lay in bed, while Frau Schäfer wound it into balls. Often they would sit together in silence. Sometimes she would speak to him, and he would try to keep up as best he could. And sometimes she would pray, her eyes closed, her hands still wrapping strands of yarn around the ball. This was his favorite time. Whatever happened—and he knew that anything could happen, at any moment—this was peace.

They knew they couldn’t take him to a hospital, but they called their veterinarian, to take a look at the Briton’s injuries.

The veterinarian, Dr. Lang, a stooped-over man with scraggly white eyebrows, examined his injuries with cool, gentle hands. His ken was pigs and sheep and chickens—not humans. Certainly not humans this damaged. “Wait here,” he said to young man, as if he were in any condition to get up from the bed, and then went to talk to the Schäfers.

“It’s beyond what I can do,” Dr. Lang said, sitting down at the table to a cup of coffee and Brötchen with sweet butter and gooseberry preserves. “The boy needs a hospital.”

The Schäfers looked at one another. They had been married for more than thirty years, raised three daughters who lived nearby with their own families, and could read each other’s minds with a glance. It was clear they both thought it was unsafe to take their British refugee to a hospital.

“I have an idea,” Dr. Lang said. “My son—I still have my son’s Luftwaffe uniforms.” Dr. Lang’s son, Helmut, had died in one of the early air raids over Britain. “There is a comradeship among pilots, even pilots of warring nations. I know he’d want …” He swallowed. “I mean, if Helmut had been shot down, over England—”

Frau Schäfer put her hard, callused hand over his. “—you’d want an English family to take care of him. Of course.”

Dr. Lang shook his head, focusing on the present. “So, we put him in the Luftwaffe uniform and I drop him off at a hospital in Berlin. I say that he must have been shot down. He’s been gravely injured—and that, because of trauma, he can’t speak.”

“Do you think they’ll believe it?”

He shrugged. “What choice do we have?”

And so, after profuse thanks that only seemed to embarrass the Schäfers, and promising to return after the war was over, the British pilot was carried into the truck Dr. Lang usually used for transporting large animals. Dr. Lang drove from the rural countryside of Rietz, to Charité Mitte in Berlin.

The young nurse at the admissions desk wanted his papers, but Dr. Lang feigned insult. “Look at him!” he cried. “Look! A German pilot, a war hero, shot down while defending his country. Defending you!” The more he said, the easier the lies poured from his lips. “His entire plane went down in flames—you really think he had time to reach for his papers?”

“Of course not,” the nurse said, backtracking. “I’m very sorry, sir. We will admit him immediately, and have our very best doctors examine him.”

“Thank you, Nurse,” Dr. Lang said, giving the pilot a wink. He placed a hand on the younger man’s shoulder, then whispered in his ear, “You’ll see, they’ll take good care of you here.”

Looking around at all the doctors in long white coats with swastika armbands speaking rapid-fire German, RAF Flight Lieutenant John Sterling felt a wave of fear. Then he thought of Maggie. And so he smiled at Dr. Lang, and then at the young nurse in gray who came around from behind the nurses’ station.

“I am Nurse Hess,” the young nurse said by way of introduction. “Elise Hess. I’ll be taking care of you while you stay with us.”

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL is the author of the Maggie Hope mystery series, including her debut novel, Mr. Churchill’s Secretary, Princess Elizabeth’s Spy, and the upcoming Hitler’s Nightingale. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and child.

Copyright © 2012 by Susan Elia MacNeal

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