Chapter 11
B aker Street, London
Seething anger ripped through Jack. Val appeared nonchalant, as though she’d told him something as ordinary as what they were about to eat for lunch.
She had no idea she’d just wrecked his life.
He couldn’t blame her for not knowing the impact the news had on him, but he could blame her for throwing Lizzie into a snake pit.
At that moment, every ounce of his being blamed her, and he was angrier with her than he’d ever been. Jack worked hard to control his feelings on the job and prided himself on his ability to weather difficult situations. This was different, and he realised he was trembling.
He couldn’t allow Val to suspect the effect her news had on him, so he hastily forced his demeanour into that of a tired agent coming home after an intense few months.
Underneath his carefully controlled exterior, he was so angry he had the urge to shout at Val, and it shocked him.
She was his boss, and it wasn’t his place to judge or criticise her decisions.
She had done what she thought best, and he would have to accept it.
It was too late to stop the St. Malo mission from going ahead now, anyway.
Despite his quick-fire resolution, he couldn’t hold himself back from grilling her on the details of the operation. He kept his emotions tightly in check and his mannerisms smooth, so he wouldn’t betray the pain that clawed at him as he imagined Lizzie arriving alone in the Nazi-occupied city.
Again.
Once they were inside HQ, he followed Val upstairs to her office.
‘When will we hear from Seagrove that she’s arrived safely?’ Jack asked, his deep voice cracking slightly.
Val indicated he should sit down, and he lit a cigarette to distract himself from his pumping heart.
‘We don’t expect a message from her for quite some time.’
Jack blinked, not believing what she was telling him. This nightmare was only getting worse.
‘Why is that?’ he asked, inhaling sharply, trying not to snap.
‘Well, there’s no organised network there, or we wouldn’t need to send her in.’ Val tapped her pencil on the desk, and he could see she was growing impatient.
‘Right,’ Jack said, blowing smoke upwards, fighting to sound like his usual pedantic self where his recruits were concerned.
‘But won’t she set up the radio once she’s got a base and message in with the usual protocol?
It shouldn’t take long, based on her past performance, especially if she stays with her family in the city. ’
Val had the good grace to look sheepish, and that alarmed Jack even more.
There was a sinking feeling in his stomach. What had she not told him?
Val adjusted her thick glasses. ‘We didn’t drop her into France by parachute, so there was no possibility of equipping her with a radio set.’
Jack returned Val’s stare cooly, drawing on all his years of experience. ‘That sounds like a suicide mission.’
Val sighed. ‘You always say that where Seagrove is concerned. You handle her with kid gloves. I knew you’d object.’
‘That’s not true,’ Jack said, knowing every word was true and wondering whether Val suspected how deeply he cared for Lizzie.
‘Now you understand why I didn’t tell you. It all happened so quickly as emergencies do. There was nothing you could say to stop it, Jack. Orders came from the boss, and the mission was approved from up high.’
Jack raised one dark eyebrow. ‘How high?’
‘Prime minister, high,’ Val said, her tone brooking no argument, as if she’d thrown down her trump card.
Violent feelings of despair washed over Jack, and, unusually for him, he felt helpless.
He should never have agreed to the damned assignment in the Highlands.
He’d had a bad feeling about it when they first broached the idea, but he had rebuked himself and put it down to his not wanting to leave Lizzie.
He couldn’t afford to get soft in this war, so he had overridden his gut and made himself go without a word of objection.
Stella tapped on the door and entered with her rickety trolley. Jack made small talk with the chatty tea lady, but it was like time stood still while he waited for her to pour the mugs of tea and arrange biscuits on a plate as if the world wasn’t crumbling around him.
Finally, the trolley jangled out of Val’s office, and he tackled the subject once more.
He needed to know everything, though every word Val spoke was like a stab in the chest. This was Lizzie’s office too when she assisted Val.
His eyes swept around the room with files and papers on the surfaces, and the view of St. Paul’s Cathedral in the distance.
He had counted on Lizzie being here, waiting for him after all this time apart, and now he felt wretched.
After he left for Scotland, he’d been concerned they might send her on a mission, but as the weeks turned into months, he stopped worrying.
It hadn’t even crossed his mind that she wouldn’t be here when he got home.
Val surrendered to his interrogation, knowing him well enough to know she may as well get it over with now because he wouldn’t leave her in peace until he was satisfied.
It was part of what made Jack a formidable agent in Military Intelligence before the war.
He didn’t give up, and he was a stickler for detail.
Val took a sip of her tea and held the steaming mug as she spoke. ‘Plan A is she stays with her family. From there, she’ll look for the wireless operator. The contact hasn’t radioed in for a while, and we’re worried he may have been arrested.’
Jack swallowed hard, his thoughts racing. This was turning out to be as horrible as he had feared. ‘But who knows if the family is still there? Lizzie doesn’t. It’s been years since she visited St. Malo—since well before the war.’
Val stared at him with compassion in her eyes, but the set of her jaw told him she was unrepentant.
He knew that look from years of verbal fencing with his superior.
They often disagreed on operational strategy, and whoever had the best argument wore the other down.
Occasionally, when Val was in a magnanimous mood, she observed it was the reason they were so effective together.
They had different perspectives, which was invaluable in the espionage game.
But at other times, she had been known to say he was pigheaded, stubborn and bloody-minded.
Jack stubbed out his cigarette, running the scenario through his mind.
‘There are a lot of potential potholes in the foundation of this mission.’
‘Nothing’s perfect, Jack. You should know that by now,’ Val said, sipping her tea and biting into a hard biscuit.
‘Perfect, no, but there should be a chance of her getting out alive, wouldn’t you agree?’
Val didn’t respond but continued chewing the biscuit.
Jack continued. ‘How did she go in? You said she arrived this morning.’ He couldn’t bear to contemplate that she hadn’t arrived.
‘HMNB Portsmouth,’ was all she said.
Jack’s mouth fell open. If he were in a lighter mood, he might have whistled. ‘Churchill approved Lizzie going in by sub?’
Val nodded and remained silent.
‘I see.’ This changed everything. He saw now that even if he’d been here, it would have been unlikely he could have stopped the chain of events.
Jack chewed his lip.
‘Now, you see why she has no radio set,’ Val murmured.
‘St. Malo is known for its dramatic tidal range. If I’m not mistaken, it has some of the highest tides in Europe. How the hell was she to get to shore?’
It was a rhetorical question. He knew she would have to swim, but his imagination rendered bleak images of the submarine slipping away, leaving his future wife fighting for her life in the dark, choppy Channel in the dead of night on an enemy coastline.
‘I must say, you’re taking this better than I expected,’ Val said with a twinkle of irony. ‘The good news is we heard from the sub. They dropped her without incident according to the agreed schedule.’
‘That’s the good news?’ Jack grimaced, the taste of smoke and fear filling his throat.
Val laughed.
‘Hmm, you laugh, but this operation sounds like a recipe for disaster. Her only contact has most likely been compromised, so she has no way of reaching us when she needs to be extracted.’
Val sighed and finished her tea. ‘Without our sense of humour, we may as well hand over the keys to the kingdom to the Boche right now. Lizzie is the best we’ve got. Don’t underestimate her. I’ve told you this before.’
Jack resigned himself to the inevitable. He had pushed it far enough with Val, and the operation was out of his hands. All he could do now was hope and pray. And wait to hear from Lizzie.
‘Oh, I forgot to say. There’s more good news. We supplied her with radio crystals.’
‘Well, that’s something, I suppose. Gives her a fighting chance of establishing contact without being caught if she can get her hands on a radio set.’
Since he fell for the young woman from Jersey who took his breath away with her courage and daring, he’d prayed more than he ever had in his life.
Somehow, he got through the debriefing but then lingered in the office until late, not wanting to go back to the empty flat and face the reality that she would not be there.
He desperately hoped there would be a message from Lizzie and plagued the cryptographer intermittently throughout the day, but it was all to no avail.
Val poked her head into his office after the busy corridors of the building gradually fell silent. ‘You must be whacked. Go home and get some sleep. That’s an order.’
Jack wearily collected his things and slipped his jacket on. The rain was coming down hard outside the window, but he didn’t bother taking an umbrella. He couldn’t feel any worse than he already did.
On the short walk to his flat, visions of Lizzie taunted him.
First, she was on a submarine waiting for the moment when she must abandon the safety of its walls, then battling through the deadly Brittany coastal tides towards St. Malo.
Finally, he dared to hope she’d made it to shore, and he envisioned her arriving at her cousins’ house in St. Malo where a member of the family would be home to offer her safe harbour.
He had to believe they still lived there, and Lizzie could rest for a while and get her bearings.
The first twenty-four hours in Nazi-occupied territory were make or break.
Where was she now?