“Do you think you’ll take the vows?”
“I love God—I just have problems with promising lifelong poverty, obedience, and chastity.” The hint of a smile tugged at Elise’s lips. “Especially chastity. And really, obedience, too—when you get down to it.”
“Yes, I can see that.” Maggie pictured Elise’s escape from SOE and her desperate dash into hiding. “I’d have a lot of trouble with obedience myself.”
“I can see that.” Elise continued, “You love math? Well, for me it was science. I used to take a straight razor to my dolls and rip them open—no, not like that!” she said, seeing Maggie’s expression. “I not only always saved their lives but stitched them up, and gave them milk and cookies after. I wanted to be a doctor—”
“Before wanting to be a nun?”
“I thought I could do both.”
“Doctor Sister?” Maggie smiled.
“Sister Doctor!” Elise smiled, too. “But then the war broke out and nurses were needed…I like chocolate cake, too, and sweets and ice cream—really, there isn’t anything I don’t like to eat, as my—our—mother often lamented. She wanted me to wear couture, like her, but I had too many curves.”
Elise laughed softly, looking down at her thin frame. “Well, that’s not a problem now. And I play the piano—but you know that.”
“I play the viola!”
“We could perform quite the duet.”
“I’d like that.”
“How did you get here? To France?”
“By plane. SOE. The same organization that got you out of Berlin. Or tried to.”
Elise shook her head. “I didn’t want to be taken out of Berlin, to be ‘saved.’ I know you meant well and I apologize for running—”
“Please don’t.”
“But how did you manage it? Another mission?”
“I called in a favor.”
“He must be someone quite important.”
Maggie remembered Queen Elizabeth, waving her off at the airport. “She, actually….At any rate, I’d like to bring you back to England with me, when I go back. I have a house. And I have a cat, a tabby named Mr. K, who really has me. And my friend Chuck—Charlotte—and her baby are living with me while her husband’s serving in the Middle East. It’s quite nice, really.”
“And what if I don’t want to go back to England?”
“Then I will respect your decision,” Maggie promised sincerely. “It seems nice here, removed from the insanity of Paris. You’re interested in being a nun—this way you can see that sort of life up close, and make an informed decision. And Mère St. Antoine says you’re working in an infirmary?”
“Yes.” Elise nodded. “With mentally ill women.”
“So you can practice medicine as well. Doctor Sister.”
“Or Sister Doctor.” Elise bit her lip, as if deciding how much she could trust Maggie. “Would you like to see our grounds?”
“I’d love to.”
—
Henrik Martens arrived seventeen minutes early for his meeting with Colonel Gaskell at SOE offices. He was surprised to see the colonel emerge from the building wearing a light coat. “Let’s take a walk,” Gaskell said by way of explanation. “Jolly good day to get some fresh air.”
The two men made their way up Baker Street to Regent’s Park, passing John Nash’s elegant white terrace houses, crossing the Outer Circle, and heading over gravel paths through lush green grass toward Boating Lake. All of the metal gates and fences had been removed—to be melted down for munitions—but the park had sustained little bomb damage and retained its beauty. They reached the “lake,” which was more of a pond, filled with paddling ducks, two black swans, and a long-legged gray heron, posing on a fallen tree trunk. The paths were full of men and women in uniform; children played tag in a grove of trees.
“Stop here?” Gaskell suggested as they approached a wooden bench.
“Of course.”
Gaskell caught sight of movement overhead. “Ah, a cuckoo. Most unusual. I’m a bird-watcher, you know. Wish I had my notebook with me.”
The men sat in silence, the wind ruffling the dark waters under an opalescent sky. Gaskell took a bag of breadcrumbs from his coat pocket. Within moments, they were encircled by sleek ducks, flapping and greedily squabbling for their share.
“You’re probably wondering why I asked to see you, Colonel,” Martens began. “The thing is—” He was unsure of how to begin. What he was about to say could be considered an enormous criticism of F-Section. “One of the first things I did when I got this job was read through all the SOE agents’ back traffic.”
Gaskell continued to throw crumbs to the noisy birds.
“On some of the decrypts, the security checks were consistently missing. They were stamped as such by Station 53a, but no one at Baker Street ever followed up.”
“What’s your point?” Gaskell asked.
“Well, I’m asking you why. Why has no one followed up on the lack of security checks? Beyond reminders to remember for the next transmission—which also, invariably, was missing a security check.”
“I want you to know,” Gaskell said, his eyes not leaving the birds, “not only do we know all about this situation with the security checks but we’re on top of it. And there’s absolutely nothing to worry about, old thing.”
A man in a bowler hat limped by, his glossy ebony walking stick, patterned with golden feathers, striking the gravel at regular intervals.
After he was out of earshot, Martens began again. “I don’t see how you can say that, sir. Enlighten me—please.”
“These agents—they operate under unimaginable stress. They don’t have time to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s.”
“I was an undercover agent myself, sir. In Norway. My colleagues and I all found the time to include our checks, even in the midst of the most dire operating conditions.”
Gaskell was silent. He had run out of crumbs to throw to the ducks. Disappointed, they waddled off.
Martens pressed on. “There’s something else, too. There’s a certain agent, an Erica Calvert, in F-Section. I read all of her messages. Her coding was riddled with errors for a while, then, suddenly, became perfect—absolutely flawless. No agent in the history of SOE has ever sent such error-free messages. And yet, none of those messages have their security checks in place.”
“Women—” Gaskell waved a gloved hand. “They don’t always remember things the way we do. Their brains aren’t equipped to—”
“Colonel,” Martens interrupted impatiently. “I believe it’s not a question of if a French Section agent is operating under duress, but how many.”
Gaskell crumpled up the paper bag and slipped it back in his pocket. “You’re going to have to trust me. Everything is under control.”
“I can’t recommend any more agents being sent to France, parachuting to their unknown fate, if this situation isn’t addressed.” Martens’s voice became sharp. “We need to investigate what exactly is going on with the messages coming from France lacking security checks.”
“And as I have already told you, our agents are fine.”
“I read a particularly strongly worded memo on the direness of the situation by an agent from your office named Margaret Hope. Who is she?”
Gaskell rolled his eyes. “I haven’t the foggiest idea, old chum.”
“Really?” Martens had done his homework. “She worked for the P.M.? Went undercover on a mission to Berlin? Trained agents in Arisaig? Worked for your office for a few months last winter?”
“Oh, her.” Gaskell didn’t bother to hide his disdain. “She was just a receptionist.”
“I’ve read Hope’s file. She’s not ‘just a receptionist.’?”
Gaskell stood, brushing crumbs from his coat. “You’d best leave well enough alone, Colonel Martens.”
Martens stood, too, blocking the shorter man. “Do you mean ‘leave sick enough alone’?” the Welshman asked. “SOE is sick—and no one’s paying attention. If the infection is not checked, it could poison the entire organization.”