The Unlikely Spy

But how?

 

She considered a second bump, a chance meeting on Grosvenor Square. She could entice him back to his house for an afternoon in bed together. It was fraught with risk. Jordan might become suspicious about another coincidental encounter. There was no guarantee he would go home with her. And even if he did it would be almost impossible to sneak out of bed in the middle of the afternoon and photograph the contents of the briefcase. Catherine remembered something Vogel said to her during her training: When desk officers grow careless, field agents die. She decided she would be patient and wait. If she continued to enjoy Peter Jordan's trust, eventually the secret of his work would appear in his briefcase. She would give Vogel his written report, but she would not change her tactics for now.

 

Catherine looked out the window. She realized she did not know where she was--still on Oxford Street, but where on Oxford Street? She was concentrating so hard on Vogel and Jordan that she had momentarily lost her bearings. The bus crossed Oxford Circus and she relaxed. It was then she noticed the woman watching her. She was seated across the aisle, facing Catherine, and she was staring directly at her. Catherine turned away and pretended to look out the window, but the woman still was staring at her. What's wrong with that damned woman? Why is she looking at me like that? She glanced at the woman's face. Something about it was distantly familiar.

 

The bus was nearing the next stop. Catherine gathered up her things. She would take no chances. She would get off right away. The bus slowed and pulled to the curbside. Catherine prepared to get to her feet. Then the woman reached across the aisle, touched her arm, and said, "Anna, darling. Is it really you?"

 

 

 

 

 

The recurring dream began after she killed Beatrice Pymm. It starts the same way each time. She is playing on the floor of her mother's dressing room. Her mother, seated before her vanity, powders a flawless face. Papa comes into the room. He is wearing a white dinner jacket with medals pinned to his breast. He leans over, kisses her mother's neck, and tells her they must hurry or they will be late. Kurt Vogel arrives next. He is wearing a dark suit, like an undertaker, and he has the face of a wolf. He is holding her things: a beautiful silver stiletto with diamonds and rubies in the shape of a swastika on the grip, a Mauser with a silencer screwed into the barrel, a suitcase with a radio inside. "Hurry," he whispers to her. "We mustn't be late. The Fuhrer is extremely anxious to meet you."

 

She rides through Berlin in a horse-drawn carriage. Vogel the wolf is loping easily in their wake. The party is like a candlelit cloud. Beautiful women are dancing with beautiful men. Hitler is holding forth at the center of the room. Vogel encourages her to go talk to the Fuhrer. She slips through the shimmering crowd and notices everyone is looking at her. She thinks it is because she is beautiful but after a moment everyone has stopped talking, the band has stopped playing, and everyone is staring at her.

 

"You're not a little girl! You're a spy for the Abwehr!"

 

"No, I'm not!"

 

"Of course you are! That's why you have a stiletto and that radio!"

 

"No! It's not true!"

 

Then Hitler says, "You're the one who killed that poor woman in Suffolk--Beatrice Pymm."

 

"It's not true! It's not true!"

 

"Arrest her! Hang her!"

 

Everyone is laughing at her. Suddenly she is naked and they laugh even more. She turns to Vogel for help but he has run away and left her. And then she screams and sits up in bed, bathed in sweat, and tells herself it was only a dream. Just a silly, bloody dream.

 

Catherine Blake took a taxi to Marble Arch. The episode on the bus had left her badly shaken. She chastised herself for not handling it better. She had rushed off the bus, alarmed, after the woman called her by her real name. She should have stayed in her seat and calmly explained to the woman that she was mistaken. It was a dreadful miscalculation. Several people on the bus had seen her face. It was her worst nightmare.

 

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