Chapter 25
Fletcher brought Jack a letter from London marked urgent, and he tore it open with a paperknife, his body rigid and a pulse fluttering in his throat as he scoured the page for his secretary’s response.
He desperately hoped he was wrong, and Baker Street had known of the imminent danger and had alerted Hannah in time for her to get her people to safety and warn the other Resistance groups in Toulouse.
As he read his secretary’s words, the fury he had experienced when he discovered the raw intelligence the previous day engulfed him again like a dangerous storm, and he inhaled sharply.
Allowing his emotions to rule him was not the way forward, so he let them roll through him as he gripped the paper.
Fletcher cast a curious glance his way, and he avoided meeting her eyes.
She was a good assistant, but his role was temporary, and her ultimate loyalty was to her bosses at Bletchley Park.
Aubrey Gould’s face flashed into his mind, and he thought of him ensconced in his comfortable office at the mansion.
The officer was playing intelligence god over the pawns in the field who risked their lives to save the world from the Nazi regime, whilst warnings like this weren’t released to Baker Street.
It was just as he had suspected. Bletchley had known of the impending search for Resistance in Languedoc where the movement known as the Maquis had taken root and was gaining momentum.
Jack lit a cigarette and puffed on it. His thoughts circled back to Lizzie’s communication when she mentioned her concern for The Lavender Network.
Had Hannah and Lev been arrested even as he had waited to confirm his suspicions?
Were they this very moment being interrogated by the French police or the Gestapo?
Jack had always taken Hannah’s safety personally.
She was his Resistance recruit in France, and when Henry and Hannah fell in love, his commitment had only grown weightier.
Now he felt sick to the stomach that he’d let her down.
If he’d not left his Baker Street post at the same time as Lizzie, perhaps he would have noticed a sign and been able to warn them.
Lizzie would be distraught when she heard and would want to go in and find Hannah.
He couldn’t allow that to happen. It would be a deathtrap and result only in both of them being in danger.
She and Hannah were like sisters and their connection deepened with every mission.
If anyone was to go in, it should be him, but what could he do?
At this point, he knew too little to formulate a viable mission that Val would sign off on. That much he knew for certain.
His mind ticked over with the possibilities, but he struggled to think clearly when he was so angry.
Gould would need to answer for this, but Jack must tread carefully, or he would risk the tenuous link he’d forged with the wily SIS officer.
He needed his continued goodwill to access the raw intelligence at his increased security level.
If he confronted him now with accusations, he’d risk blowing it when there was so much more for him to learn.
No, he must confront this from another angle.
The most effective way to outfox the enemy, especially one within your own camp, was not to let them see you coming.
Jack had allowed Gould to think he’d fobbed the SOE agent off by giving him increased access and sticking him in a hut to quench his thirst for a seat inside Bletchley.
Gould expected a juicy reward and probably thought no more of it.
What he didn’t account for was that one should never underestimate an agent like Jack, who cared deeply about his agents in the field.
Jack would rather sacrifice his own career than sacrifice them.
This was the difference between Jack and other high-ranking intelligence officers who talked a good game, but ultimately watched their own backs more than they watched their agents’.
Jack stubbed out the cigarette and exited the dingy hut.
The torrential rainstorms had passed, leaving the estate washed and glowing.
Daffodil shoots had emerged overnight as if by magic, and as Jack strode to the lake, a cacophony of wild birds filled his ears, and the fresh smell of spring cleansed his lungs and cleared his head.
This was the England he was fighting for, and no inter-agency squabble was going to stop him.
His parents were French, and he was fluent in the language and loved France, but he was English through and through, and he was determined that Henry would not have sacrificed his life in vain.
Jack stood at the water’s edge as his senses feasted on the tranquillity, and a plan formulated in his mind.
Sometimes he needed to step away from the problem to see the solution, and this was one of those times.
After contemplating his plan, he returned to the smoke-filled hut to grab his mug and went in search of a much-needed tea and a piece of toast. If he were going to take on Gould and his bureaucratic ilk, he must keep his strength up and have his wits about him.
That afternoon, fortified and calm, he set to it.
The first thing he did was send an urgent message to Val, informing her of the state of play.
He urged her to do all she could to reach Hannah through whatever means possible.
The Lavender Network was in danger, and in fact, Hannah and Lev may already have been arrested.
The network was extensive enough and its contributions significant to warrant SOE resources.
He ended the note by saying if they couldn’t contact someone on the ground in Languedoc via one of the usual channels or contacts; he was ready to drop in.
They have sacrificed the safety of our agents in the name of keeping us in line. I request you allow me to go in and find Angel if you cannot contact her or Heart in the next few days.
Jack used the SOE codenames for Hannah and Lev.
Someone could read the correspondence before it left Bletchley.
This was a station of superspies, and to think otherwise would be naive.
He could risk them learning he was disenchanted with the SIS, as that would be no surprise to Gould if a copy of his message made its way to his desk.
But Gould wouldn’t know which agents he was talking about and what intelligence he referred to.
If he wanted to know, he would need to ask Jack, and he would be ready for him.
When the time was right, he would raise the subject of SIS’s failure to warn Baker Street on a matter of life or death.
But before he did, he would collect more irrefutable evidence to back up what he suspected ran much deeper than one oversight.
And there was also the matter of the alarmingly precise intelligence reports routed through Switzerland that he and Lizzie had noticed.
Jack had come to Bletchley to collate high-quality intelligence drops for his traitor at Baker Street. In doing so, had he uncovered another traitor in the heart of Britain’s secret codebreaking station?
If so, this was much larger than the SOE traitor dribbling information to Berlin. A traitor at Bletchley Park underpinned Britain’s entire military intelligence strategy to win the war.
Gould was up to no good one way or the other, and Jack vowed to unmask him. In the meantime, he would pretend he hadn’t yet located examples of Gould’s people failing to pass vital intelligence to London.
He would watch him from a distance and lure him into his trap.