Miss Lynd continued, “My feeling is we should keep Severin and Taillier here until we have a better picture of how Prosper’s faring. And we must make plans for an extraction of Agent Calvert. The materials she has are vital to the war effort. To see a world in a grain of sand—I don’t know the exact nature of her mission, of course, but if it’s to do with the geology of France’s northwest coastline, it must be of vital importance to those planning the invasion.”
Listening to make sure the meeting was still going on, Maggie picked up the telephone receiver again and dialed Beaulieu, waiting impatiently for the dial to stop clicking. “Yes, I need to get a message to Sarah Sanderson. It’s Maggie Hope. Yes, please ask her to call me. And yes, it’s an emergency.” If Sarah and Hugh were really still being sent to France, they deserved to know the whole story before they left. There were definitely problems in the Prosper network.
A niggling worry wouldn’t leave her in anything resembling peace. She took out Erica Calvert’s folder and looked once more at the message:
And, once more, she translated the Morse code into plain text:
Hello!
Everything good here. Left Rouen. Please remember mother’s birthday with gift. Mission going well.
Erica Calvert
Something was off, she knew it. Is it your “gut,” Hope? She chewed absently on a pencil eraser. No, she thought. It’s years of experience with codes and working as an agent behind enemy lines myself.
She squinted at the sentences, taking them one by one.
Hello!
Everything good here.
Left Rouen.
Please remember mother’s birthday with gift.
Mission going well.
Erica Calvert
The first letter of every sentence, taken together, spelled out HELP ME.
The message was a call for help. It was there, in code—and, once unbroken, plain as day. Her heart began to race. HELP ME—God only knew what was happening to Erica now.
The door opened and the group filed out. “Ah, Meggie, you’re back,” Gaskell muttered. “Terrific. Fetch me a cuppa, would you? Thank you, dear girl.”
“Colonel Gaskell,” she said, paper with the broken code in hand, “I’ve gone over Erica Calvert’s last message to us again. There’s a hidden message. In code.”
“We’ve been over her messages already.”
“Colonel Gaskell!” She pushed the paper with the broken code closer to his face. “H-E-L-P M-E. HELP ME. She’s begging for help!”
“That’s no code.” Gaskell blinked pale eyes. “Coincidence, nothing more.”
“Excuse me, sir. But with everything—her not giving her security checks, the mention of a gift for a dead mother, and now HELP ME…”
“Coincidence,” he rumbled. His eyes flashed, and suddenly Maggie felt a stab of fear. He looked as though he wanted to strangle her. She’d always seen Gaskell as a bumbling, incompetent manager—now she realized he definitely had a more dangerous side as well.
He shoved the folder back at her, then turned, revealing a black X made by the crossed suspenders on his back. “You’re still working with MI-Five?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, taking a few steps back in alarm.
“Well, then I suggest you return to them—and get the hell out of here.”
—
“Hello?” Maggie called as she took off her coat, hat, and gloves, and set down her handbag on the front hall’s walnut console table, trying to quell her fear and outrage before seeing Chuck and Griffin.
She could smell the odor of burning bread, and followed it to the kitchen to find Chuck, making toast. Of course she couldn’t say anything to Chuck about Agent Calvert and the SOE’s refusal to take her disappearance seriously or her concerns about Sarah being sent to Paris, and the secret gnawed at her insides. She crossed to one of the high-backed chairs and sat, pressing her curled fist against her lips. Erica. Brynn. Countless other women…
“I was able to speak with Nigel last night,” Chuck began before Maggie could say anything. “Honestly, I don’t like to worry him—if it wasn’t for the change of address and telephone number, I might not have even told him. Poor dear has enough to worry about.”
Griffin lay in his makeshift bassinet on the table, his chubby little arms and legs waving as he babbled. “Well, hello, sweetie,” Maggie cooed, reaching over to kiss his bald head, where fine, wispy hairs were beginning to grow in. He smelled of soap and innocence, and grace—and he had absolutely no knowledge of war and undercover agents and murdered women. “You’re so yummy,” she cooed. The simple joy of having Griffin wrap his pudgy fingers around her thumb could almost—almost—keep her fears for the safety of Erica and Brynn at bay.
“Isn’t baby head smell the most wonderful smell in the entire world?” his mother mused. “I take big whiffs all the time. To me, he smells like Scottish shortbread—although all my Irish ancestors are probably turning in their respective graves at that.”
Maggie heard a string of loud mehs and spun to see K padding into the room, his claws clicking on the tiles. He rubbed up against her, purring loudly. As she reached down to scratch him under the chin, he flopped down, showing his belly.
“He’s missed you,” Chuck observed as K prowled to his food bowl. “Cheeky little bugger. Do you know he’s caught any number of mice—but won’t eat them? Leaves quite the collection at the foot of your bed. I’ve been burying them in the back garden.”
“Lovely.” All this and dead mice, too?
“Meanwhile, to get tins of cat food, I have to wait in yet another queue. With all the crazy cat ladies. The ‘crazy cat lady queue.’ These are dark times, indeed.”
She placed a plate of toast and margarine on the table in front of Maggie, then sat down with one for herself. “There’s some coffee, if you’d like. It’s mostly water, but it’s brown, at least. And hot. And it smells like coffee, even if it is chicory and has no bloody flavor.”
“You’re a miracle worker, Chuck,” Maggie said. Still, she only sipped at the coffee, leaving the toast untouched.
“Well, it’s the least I can do, with your letting us stay here and letting me use your coupons.” Chuck glared down at K, who had settled at Maggie’s feet. “I only wish the moggy would show a little gratitude.”
“Gratitude? From a cat?” Maggie tried her best to smile. “Oh, I think you’ll be waiting quite a long time.”
Chuck finally took a good long look at her friend. “What happened to you? You look bloody terrible.”
“Goodness, thanks.” Maggie shrugged. “Just—just another rough day at work.”
“By the way…” Chuck licked crumbs off her fingers. “Two packages came for you, while you were gone. I left them in your room.”
“Thanks. I’m going to wash up and then call in to the office.”
“Don’t you ever get a day off?”
“Maybe when the war’s over…” Maggie called from the stairs.
K followed close behind, meowing impatiently. “Hush, you,” she told him as she reached her bedroom.
After washing her face with cold water and brushing her teeth with powder from a tin, she went back to the bedroom. With cold fingers, she opened the first package, recognizing not only the rows of U.S. stamps but also the elegant handwriting. It was from Aunt Edith, and filled with tins of pineapple and raspberries, blue cans of Spam, and several thick, heavenly chocolate bars.
Maggie smiled, a real one this time. Their last meeting in Washington hadn’t been perfect, but she and her aunt were both doing their best to bridge the distance. Maggie laughed when she saw the final item, at the bottom of the package: an issue of American Physical Society Journal, with a lead article by J. R. Oppenheimer. Of course—to Aunt Edith intellectual sustenance counts as much, or more, as physical.
K had jumped up on her dresser and was madly scratching at the other package. Wrapped in brown paper and tied with heavy twine, it had the name MARGARET HOPE written across it in heavy black, block letters. There were no stamps—it must have been hand-delivered. “Well, what have we here?” Maggie murmured, thankful for the distraction.
K stared up at her without blinking. “Meh!”
Maggie picked up the package; it was heavier than she’d expected. She froze. A red stain seeped from one corner, soaking the brown wrapping paper. It was blood—she knew the musty tang all too well.