The Prime Minister's Secret Agent (22 page)

“Popov. Pearl Harbor. The Americans … Good God.” The globe slipped from Churchill’s hands, falling to the floor with a crash, then rolling across the carpet. “They’re not going to attack us or our holdings in the Far East—the Japanese are going to attack the American fleet at Pearl Harbor on December eighth!”

When Maggie burst into Sarah’s room at Chalmers, her friend’s eyes were open.

“How are you feeling?” Maggie exclaimed, sitting gently on the edge of the bed.

Sarah gave a weak smile. “The doctor says I’m going to live.”

“I’m so glad! You can’t even imagine …” Maggie bent down to hug Sarah.

“We arrested her,” she went on. “It was Diana Atholl. She …” Maggie couldn’t mention anthrax. “Well, she put poison on the roses for Estelle. So Estelle was poisoned, and you and Mildred Petrie were, as well.”

The dancer shook her head. “You mean I almost died because of an
accident
?”

“I believe the technical term is
negligent homicide
. But you’re going to be fine …”

“Estelle and Mildred won’t be fine …”

“Shhhh,” Maggie soothed. “Just get some rest—”

But Sarah’s eyes were already closed.

The next morning, Dr. Carroll brought the book of German children’s tales for Agna, but it was Clara Hess who received him. “What’s that?” she demanded, eyes narrowing.

“Something for Agna.”

“Morality tales? Of course that’s what
she’d
pick. Here, let me see it.”

She held the book up to her nose and sniffed. “Ah, I love the smell of books. Even if they are sentimental drivel.” She turned the pages. “Look at this one!” she said, pointing to
Die Geschichte von den schwarzen Buben
. “Do you know it?”

“ ‘The Story of the Black Boys.’ I may have read it as a child, but I don’t remember.”

“In the story, St. Nicholas catches three boys teasing a Negro. To teach them a lesson, he dips the three boys in black ink, to make them even darker than the boy they’d teased.” She looked at the doctor. “But they were right to tease the black boy. They are racially superior.”

“I’ll take it away, if you don’t want it—”

“No, no, no,” Clara said. “Beggars can’t be choosers. The only thing is …” She smiled at Dr. Carroll, her lips curving in what looked to be an embarrassed grimace. “I’m over fifty now. My eyes aren’t as good as they once were. Do you—do you think,” she asked, her voice gentling, “that you could bring me a pair of reading glasses?”

Dr. Carroll smiled, relieved he’d seen the first crack in Clara Hess’s façade. “Yes, Frau Hess. I’m sure that could be arranged.”

“And my daughter. You have contacted her? She knows about the—” She avoided saying the word
execution
. “—Sunday?”

“No, Frau Hess. I’m terribly sorry to tell you that your daughter is in the midst of important government work. She cannot receive any messages.”

Clara gave a bitter laugh. “Is that what she thinks she’s doing?
Important government work?
Yes, yes, of course. And Edmund?”

“Mr. Hess, I’m sorry to say, is also busy with government work.”

“Edmund? Doing something important? My, how the worm has turned!” She hesitated. “And Peter?”

The doctor blinked. “He is also—”

“Busy with government work,” she finished sourly. “How fortunate the government has such busy little bees.”

“Frau Hess, we can have a clergy member visit you the night before and be with you the day of … Would you like me to make a call? Are you Lutheran or Catholic?”

“I have no God!” Clara spat. “He turned his back on me, and so I turned my back on Him. And never looked back. Not once.”

“With your permission, Frau Hess,
I
would like to be there for you …”

But Clara’s attention had already turned away. “Fine, fine,” she said, waving a careless hand. “How droll—my last audience.”

“Frau Hess …”

Her neck snapped around and she looked him straight in the eye. “Get out,” she whispered.

When he didn’t move, she repeated, “Get. Out. Now.”

Then,
“Get! Out!”

The next day, Maggie woke early. It was too soon to visit the hospital. It was too early for breakfast. It was still too dark to do much walking in the blackout. And so Maggie decided to go to St. John’s. As she picked her way through the darkness, the unexpected reflection of the crescent moon in a puddle startled her.

The stained-glass windows at St. John’s were boarded, but the arches were still beautiful. Inside the thick wooden doors, the church smelled of incense and age. And flowers, from the forced hyacinths on the window ledges and the amaryllises on the altar, next to a wreath of pine boughs with purple and pink Advent candles.

Maggie, alone in the vast space, lit only by a few bare bulbs, listened to her footsteps echo on the marble floors. She lit a candle at a side altar, then went to the nearest pew to pray, knees on the worn needlepoint cushions. Or, at least, as well as an atheist and scientist could pray.

She thought of Estelle, and Mildred, and Sarah. Of Diana Atholl.

She thought of her half-sister, Elise, back in Germany. What was happening to her? Had she been arrested? Taken to a concentration camp? Elise had seen her shoot a man. Surely she wouldn’t want to have anything more to do with her. The thought pierced Maggie’s heart with guilt and shame.

She thought of Gottlieb Lehrer. She thought of the Jews of Germany. She thought of the women Diana Atholl had murdered and of Sarah, who had nearly lost her fight for life. Maggie didn’t know how to pray, but she tried to hold each in her heart, with as much love as she could. She thought, too, of Chuck and Nigel, and their little baby Griffin, only a few months old.

What would Griffin’s future be? She recalled his sweet face and little bald head. He was so tiny, so fragile. Surely they had to make sure the world was a better place by the time he grew up. Surely they had to do better.
Surely I can do better
.

Suddenly it came to her, clear as the dawn that was breaking outside in the purples and pinks of Advent candles. This wasn’t about her. This wasn’t even about all of them—Elise, Gottlieb, Hugh, John … This was about the next generation—the little Griffins and all the babies yet to be born.

Once she’d been so sure of black and white, of right and wrong. She wasn’t anymore. But she was certain of one thing—while there was no such thing as a good war, this particular one was a
necessary
war. The stakes were as high as they could be. And it had to be the
last
war.

On the one side was anger, arrogance, bigotry, victimhood, lust for power, unbridled sadism, and apathy. A brutal enslavement mentality. An utter lack of empathy in a world obsessed with power and racial purity.

And on the other side were courage, perseverance, selflessness. The dignity of the individual. Empathy, faith, and freedom. These were what was important. It wasn’t about her—it was about Griffin. It was about the children. It was about the children’s children. If the world could be a better place for them, her own Black Dog, her own life—well, things were complicated, but a glimmer of possibility shone through.

The possibility of peace.

“Are you awake?” Maggie whispered at the doorway to Sarah’s room.

Sarah moaned, but sat up and smiled at her. “Dr. Janus says I’ll be ready to be discharged soon, but I probably won’t be able to dance for months. So, touring with the Vic-Wells is out. Maybe I could go stay with my mother, back in Liverpool—”

“Absolutely not,” Maggie said firmly, pouring a glass of water from the carafe on the table. “You shall stay with me,” she decreed, holding the water to Sarah’s lips to let her sip. “You’ll need some help until you’re back on your feet, and until then I can give you a helping hand.”

“I wouldn’t want to intrude—”

“On me and my nun-like life? On my new cat, who will simply adore you?” Maggie kept her tone light. “Nonsense—the fresh air of western Scotland will be just the tonic for you. It’s beautiful there—the mountains, the woods, the shore … I’ll just have a little chat with Mr. Burns. Sort it all out.”

Then she shook her head, as if to clear it. “Sarah, dear, I do have one very serious thing to tell you. When you were very sick and it looked—well, it looked as if we might lose you—I called your mother.”

“My mum? Is she all right?”

“Your mother’s fine, darling, but I’m afraid there’s bad news about your grandmother. Your mother asked that I relay the news. I’m sorry to have to tell you that …” Maggie took a breath. “Your grandmother is dead.”

Sarah sat in silence, struggling to take in the enormity of the news. “No!” She shook her head. “No, it can’t possibly be—you must have heard wrong—my mum must have heard wrong—”

“I’m sorry, Sarah. Your mother has official confirmation.”

“How—?”

“The Nazis. She was shot just outside her apartment on the Île Saint-Louis. No reason given. But she didn’t suffer—your mother wanted you to know that.”

“I can’t believe it. Those Nazi bastards. I’ll kill those Nazi bastards!
Salauds de Nazis! Je les déchirerai en petits morceaux quand je sors d’ici!
”

Churchill walked about the frost-encrusted gardens of Chequers with John and David.

“Not that I think Chequers has been bugged, but we’ll have complete privacy out here. Look at it!” He swept his walking stick at the sprawling vista—tree-covered rolling hills, several horses grazing in a field, and sky. “England!”

John and David nodded. They were used to the P.M.’s theatrics.

They walked farther along the path. “I’ve been thinking about
Mount Niitaka,” the Prime Minister began. He plopped down on one of the wooden benches, with a view of the rolling hills. He was humming “There Will Always Be an England.”

“How can we help, sir?” asked David.

Churchill looked at both the young men, who’d stood by him through so many years. “I’m asking you not to say anything.”

“Sir—?”

“If we tell Roosevelt, he’ll publicly denounce the Japanese. Then they’ll call the attack off, swearing it was a training exercise or some such falsehood. Pearl Harbor will be put on alert, and so the Japs will never have the element of surprise again. They’ll turn their attentions to
our
territories in the Far East … And then we’ll be at war with Japan, as well as Germany and Italy.”

“But sir,” John began, “there are over two thousand American servicemen stationed at Pearl Harbor. To not warn them of a potential attack—”

“—is wicked,” Churchill finished glumly. “Evil, even. Despicable. Don’t you think I’ve wrestled with this? If I don’t tell them, I’m the Devil himself.

“But if I do warn them, they still won’t join the war. And the Japanese will destroy us in the Pacific. While Roosevelt smokes his cigarettes with his ivory holder and talks out of both sides of his mouth, we will be destroyed. We’ll become Nazi slaves. And, personally, I have a cyanide pill handy, should things come to that.”

“You—you do have some time, sir. We have until the eighth,” John reminded him.

Churchill got to his feet, walking stick tapping. “Yes, Mr. Sterling, that’s true—we have until December eighth.”

The very same message that Consul Kita had sent to Admiral Yamamoto was also picked up by “Magic” in Washington.

That afternoon in Washington, one of the young men from the Intelligence service gave it to Kramer’s secretary, Mrs. Dorothy Edgars, to file until a translator came on duty the following Monday.

But Dorothy was bored, restless. She didn’t like to be idle. She’d already typed everything that needed to be typed, filed everything that needed to be filed, washed the coffee cups, and sharpened all the office pencils. She looked up at the ticking clock—still another three hours until her shift ended. And so when the next “Magic” landed in her in-box, she decided to take a crack at it herself, using her hard-won knowledge of Japanese learned while her husband had been stationed in Tokyo.

She took one of the freshly sharpened pencils and began. The more she read, the more engrossed she became. It was Kita’s message to Admiral Yamamoto explaining Otto Kuhn’s signals for last-minute information to be communicated to ships offshore—by lights lit at certain times in certain windows, code hidden in newspaper advertisements and radio spots, and even burning garbage for smoke signals.

Dorothy was new to Washington, and she was brand-new in the Intelligence department. Still, she knew that something was wrong, and she sensed that this particular decrypt was of paramount importance. The Japanese had plans for the military base at Pearl Harbor—and the U.S. fleet was in jeopardy.

She showed her translation of the decrypt to Chief Bryant, her supervisor. “It’s interesting, to be sure, Mrs. Edgars,” he murmured, glancing at his watch. It was Friday, and he was eager to start his weekend. “But surely it will keep until Monday.”

Dorothy bit the inside of her lip in frustration. “I’ll keep working on the translation, sir,” she said. “If you don’t mind.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” He waved her off. “Would you mind getting me a cup of coffee first? Milk, no sugar.”

But back at her desk in the deserted office, Dorothy continued the translation, hoping that when Lieutenant Kramer arrived, he, at least, would see its importance.

She finished the final lines:
If the above signals and wireless messages cannot be made from Oahu, then on Maui Island, six miles to the northward of Kula Sanatorium … at a point halfway between Lower Kula Road and Halakala Road (latitude 20
^°
40′ N, longitude 156°19′ W, visible from seaward to the southeast and southwest of Maui Island), the following signal bonfires will be made daily until your EXEX signal is received: from 7 to 8, Signal 3 or 6, from 8 until 9, Signal 4 or 7, from 9 to 10, Signal 5 or 8
.

“Oh my stars,” she whispered, reading the translation again. “Oh! Oh my stars!”

She waited, heart thumping, pencil tapping, until Kramer arrived. “Look, sir!” she exclaimed, jumping up even before he entered the room.

“Mrs. Edgars, please allow me to take off my coat and hat before you start badgering me,” Kramer snapped, not happy to be working the weekend shift, especially after Bratton’s false attack alarm of the previous weekend.