Chapter Seven
Seven
Zelie paced the room, her frustration mounting exponentially with every minute that ticked by. It wasn’t the forty minutes Navarre was late now—it was the fact that after his demand that she return to Vichy “immediately,” he hadn’t even seen fit to be here when she arrived.
Where had he gone? No one knew. The only reason she could be sure he wasn’t arrested or killed was the series of notes that kept arriving.
Called away. – N
Exciting things are brewing. – N
Another day or two at most. – N
The latest had told her to be ready to receive him at one o’clock this afternoon, so she’d obediently set aside all her work and had even taken the time to comb her hair and change into something absent coffee stains. And her reward?
Left to wait. Again.
When the door to the house they’d been renting as their Alliance headquarters finally opened, she flew to the drawing room door only to huff out a breath.
Henri Boutron met her greeting with raised brows. “Lovely to see you again too, Zelie.”
“Sorry.” She offered him a weak smile and invited him in with a flourish. “Navarre is due soon. Or rather, should have been here forty minutes ago. But I’m happy for a distraction. How did your business go?”
Henri’s face twisted in disgust. “Horribly. I’ve just come from the H?tel du Parc.”
Zelie froze, studied him. It couldn’t have gone too horribly—he was here, not under arrest, and he didn’t have an air about him of running from the authorities. “What happened? Was your cover blown on the naval base?”
He barked a laugh. “Well, I had to use it, if that’s what you mean. Ran into another Vichy official while I was making my notes. And do you know what he said?”
The bit of bread and cheese she’d had for lunch turned to stone in her stomach. “What?”
“That he was looking forward to reading my report. Which meant I had to actually write the thing, which I did, and handed it in four days ago. Then—then it got even worse.”
Sucking in a breath, Zelie rested a hand on the back of a wing chair that had seen better days. Writing a report wasn’t exactly bad—though she could grant it wasn’t Henri’s favorite pastime. “How so? Did you do so bad a job?”
“Bad?” He somehow managed to look both irritated and proud. “It was excellent. So excellent those blighters want to hire me to be their naval attaché in Madrid.”
For a long moment, she could only stare at him. “Wait. Vichy wants to turn you into an official? Would you be stationed permanently in Spain?”
“No, it would require travel.” He grimaced. “Said something about using me to carry their post. Turning me into a common mailman, that’s what, and then making me do boring work on top of it, when we both know I’m needed here.”
He was, yes, but . . . “Henri.” Her tone must have sounded as excited as she felt, because his gaze snapped back to her, suspicion darkening his eyes.
She couldn’t hold back a little laugh. “Don’t you realize what this means?
If you took this job, you’ll have a free pass into and out of Spain.
You can coordinate with our allies there, work with Raoul Laurent and my brother and the others sneaking Allied airmen out of the country.
You can help smuggle supplies back in—and those mailbags?
They cannot legally be inspected by the Nazis.
We could put anything in them. Anything. ”
The suspicion faded, replaced by begrudging recognition. “I suppose knowing I was undermining them under their very noses would be entertaining. That may offset the boredom of the job itself.”
“It would be brilliant! Surely the man who wanted to scuttle the fleet instead of standing down can appreciate using Vichy’s own post and position to help Alliance. And I know MI6 has a man in Madrid. You could be our liaison to him there.”
Excitement edged out the last of the resentment in Boutron’s eyes.
He grinned. “That would be good fun. You make me glad I didn’t turn them down then and there.
In fact, I’ll go give them my acceptance and get some more information on what all it will entail.
I’ll be back this evening.” With a salute, he rushed back out the door.
“Ah, afternoon, Navarre,” he said as he exited.
Zelie’s shoulders went taut again, and irritation sizzled along her veins. When Navarre strode into the room, she expected relief to eclipse the frustration as it usually did.
It didn’t. She jammed her hands onto her hips, not caring in the least if she sounded like a nag as she barked out, “You called me away from important work in Paris to wait for you for four days?”
Navarre waved a hand as if that alone would dispense with each and every anxiety that had built over those interminable days while she worried for him.
For all of them. The gleam in his eyes didn’t help either.
“It will soon be irrelevant, Zelie. We won’t need any of this for much longer.
The Brits were quite right to want us to focus on North Africa. ”
Dread burrowed a hollow place into her stomach with its claws. “What are you talking about?”
He sat in his usual chair by the unlit fireplace, motioning her to take her own. He looked almost feverish with excitement, his dark brows riding high, his silver hair brushed back—military precision keeping every strand in place.
“I have found our ticket to freedom. Action, Zelie—action that will rid us of this Nazi menace for good. No more reports, no more encryptions, no more needing England to save us.” He slapped a hand to his knee. “Another month, maybe two, and we’ll be free.”
Dread was a machine with a drill bit, chipping away at her very foundations. “Much as I would love that, you’ll have to forgive my doubt. What magical potion have you found in Algiers that will do away with all the Nazis?”
She ought to have known better than to speak to him like that, but the cracks were spreading too quickly.
His grin turned to a glower. “Such an attitude is unbecoming, Zelie. It’s no wonder Jacques was always complaining.”
She winced, as he must have meant her to. “Low blow, Jean.”
Rather than apologize, he surged to his feet.
“I didn’t just find likely agents. You remember that friend I mentioned as a likely prospect, Léon?
We have a plan. Within a few weeks, we’ll be in control of the government there.
And once we have all of France’s foreign assets under our command, including what remains of our navy after that wretched attack by the English, it will be only a matter of time before we’re able to wrest control from Vichy. ”
Nausea gurgled up through the cracks, into the hollow. “Do you hear yourself? A conspiracy? MI6 wanted you to find people there who can feed them information, not to plan a coup. Do you really think you and a few friends will be enough to overturn the government and drive out the Germans?”
“Why not?” Fire burned in his eyes when he spun back to her. “A few men got us into this mess—a few men can get us out again, if they’re only willing to take the risk. To act.”
Action, that was all he ever wanted. This whole endeavor, the largest intelligence network France had ever seen, it was nothing to him—its founder—but a way to mark the time until he could do something else, something better.
She stood too, clenching her hands against her legs in hopes that he wouldn’t see them shaking.
“And when you’re arrested, then what? What are we all to do? ”
“Bah.” Another dismissive wave. “I’ll be fine.”
“You won’t. This isn’t going to end well.” She knew it down deep in her soul, in the same place that told her she had to do what she could to build a future for her children, the place that insisted there was hope, if they were clever enough.
Amusement edged out the passion—amusement! “A prophet are you, now? I didn’t think you went in for that sort of rot.”
“It doesn’t take divine revelation to know a disaster in the making when I see one.” She folded her arms over her chest. “How do you know you can trust this ‘friend’? With your life, with the lives of your wife and children?”
“It’s better if you don’t know that.” He straightened, lifted his chin. The amusement was gone, at least, though the calculation in his gaze wasn’t much better. “This is what I have to do. As for things here—you’ll run them, as you always do.”
Her breath escaped in a huff. “MI6 didn’t agree to work with us because of me. You’re the one they trust. The one they want in charge.”
“I don’t much care what MI6 wants.” He tugged his cuffs down, though they hadn’t looked out of place to her. “I’m here as a courtesy to you, Zelie, not to get your opinion. I leave for Algiers tomorrow.”
She folded her arms over her stomach. How many times had he insisted, to her and every other person they’d brought into Alliance, that she was the real boss, the heart of the organization, the one they should all obey?
What a fool she’d been, to think he had real faith in her. If he did, if he really thought she was a leader, worthy of respect, he wouldn’t dictate this to her now. Wouldn’t dismiss her concerns because he didn’t like them.
Trusting her with something he didn’t actually deem important work—yes, that spoke volumes. In some ways he was just like Jacques, dismissing anything that had to do with culture—music, the arts, the very things he’d put her in charge of—in favor of what the military or politics could bring.
She swallowed down the bitterness and gave him the same smile, sweet and useless, that she’d perfected with her husband. “Well. Thank you for the courtesy, then. Godspeed.”
“Zelie.” He said her name in the way Pappa had always done when she promised to behave and stay close to her nanny while they all knew she’d run off the very moment her back was turned. Equal parts exasperation and fondness. Both of which reduced her to a child. “Don’t be like this.”