Chapter Twenty-two

Martens pulled the Vauxhall to the curb in front of Maggie’s house on Portland Place. Sarah, who’d been sitting in the backseat, left the car without a word. She’d been fighting back tears the entire way and looked relieved finally to be let free from the confined space.

“Thank you for the ride,” Maggie said, reaching for the door handle and stepping out of the car.

“Of course,” Martens replied.

Maggie closed the door and began to walk up the pavement to the entrance.

Martens reached over and rolled down the window. “Miss Hope!”

She turned. “Yes?”

“I—er, nothing. Sorry.” As Maggie stood and watched, bewildered, he drove off.

Inside, things were unchanged—David’s hand-painted mural of the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes in brilliant colors brightened one wall. A curved staircase dominated the foyer, with a grand dining room to the left, parlor to the right. “Maggie!” she heard.

“Chuck!” They hugged tightly. “And where is Master Griffin?” Chuck—really Charlotte—as well as her young son, Griffin, had been living with Maggie since their own flat was destroyed in a gas main explosion. Chuck’s husband, Nigel, was serving with the RAF in the Middle East.

“Taking a nap right now, thank heavens. Oh, you’ll see—and hear—him soon enough. His Nibs learned to sleep through the night—and then promptly forgot. Be warned.” Chuck leaned close to Maggie. “Sarah ran through here without even saying hello. Is she all right? She looked god-awful.” Chuck was never one to mince words.

“She’s—she’s had a big shock.”

“Understood.” Chuck nodded. “When—if—she’s ready, she’ll tell me. In the meantime, lots of tea, a good meal, and as much alcohol as we can beg, borrow, and steal.”

Maggie felt the softness of fur around her ankles, then heard the unmistakable, odd “Meh,” of her cat, K. She scooped him up. “You!” she exclaimed, kissing the top of his head. “I’ve missed you so! Have you missed me?”

“Meh!”

Maggie looked to Chuck. “Has he been good for you?”

“Define good.”

“Ah.”

“Why don’t you go up and change? I’ll put the kettle on and we’ll have tea.”

Tea, Maggie thought. Home.

“And I’ll bring some up to Sarah, too. It might not help, but it can’t hurt. By the way,” Chuck added, a twinkle in her eyes, “that charming Detective Durgin called while you were gone. I told him you’d call him back when you arrived home. Left the number on the notepad in the kitchen.”

“I’ll call him back later,” Maggie said. “Right now, all I want is to change and have that cup of tea.”

That evening, after dinner, there was a knock at the door.

It was Henrik Martens, hat in hand, blond hair glimmering in the moonlight. “I know this is quite unusual,” he began, looking sheepish, “but I didn’t have your number, and I wanted to speak with you again.”

“Oh,” Maggie said, surprised.

“I’d like to take you and Miss Sanderson out, to say thank you. And welcome home.”

“I’m a bit knackered, actually…”

“It’s, well, it’s important. Official.”

“Well, please come in, then. I’ll check on Sarah.”

She ran up the stairs and knocked at her friend’s door. “Sarah? It’s Maggie—may I come in?”

There was only silence.

Maggie called through the door. “Colonel Martens is here, Sarah. He’s invited us both out for a drink.”

More silence.

“Don’t you think it would do you good to get out?”

Maggie heard the rustle of bedclothes and then a sniffle. “Leave me the hell alone!” There was the sound of something hitting the door and then smashing.

Guess that’s a no, then. “All right, darling, I’ll check in on you later.” There was no response.

Maggie hesitated, then went back downstairs. “I’m afraid Sarah’s not up to coming.”

“Of course,” said Martens. “I’m sorry to hear that, but it’s completely understandable, all things considered. Would you like to go to the bar at the Ritz?”

“No,” Maggie replied, her voice firm. “Not the Ritz. Anywhere but the Ritz.”

“Actually, it’s just as well Miss Sanderson isn’t joining us,” Martens said as they drove slowly through the blackout.

“Oh?”

“There’s something I want to ask you.”

Maggie raised an eyebrow. “At your flat?” She was well acquainted with the tactics of lonesome soldiers. “No, thank you.”

“No! Nothing like that! At the Cabinet War Rooms,” he amended.

“Drive on then, Colonel Martens. You’ve certainly piqued my curiosity.”

He was silent for the remainder of the trip. It gave Maggie time to soak up the sight of London in the moonlight. How keenly she’d missed this city, bombed and battered as she was.

Martens pulled the car up to the curb and they both got out. He showed his ID to the guards at the door, then led her down the stairs and through concrete corridors to his office. Once there, he closed the door behind them.

“You used to work down here in the War Rooms, didn’t you? Underground?”

“A long time ago.” Maggie looked around his office. Yes, the same low-hanging red pipes, the same black fans, the same stale air…“Although unless bombs were actually dropping, Mr. Churchill preferred to work at Number Ten or the Annexe.”

“Still does.” He offered a chair.

Maggie sat, crossing her ankles and folding her hands in her lap. “I must say, sir, you definitely have my attention.”

He cleared his throat and went to his desk. “Miss Hope—”

“Maggie, please,” she said as he took a seat as well.

“And I’m Henrik. Maggie, I know you’ve signed the Official Secrets Act and have a high-level security clearance—”

“Yes, of course.”

“And I’ve read through your file—it’s quite the page-turner. You’ve performed multiple missions at a top-secret level. You’re used to a life of discretion.”

Maggie shrugged. “Part of the job.”

“Yes.” Martens opened a metal briefcase with handcuffs attached.

“Oh, that does look rather cloak and dagger, doesn’t it?”

He pulled out some files. “Before we proceed, Maggie, I need to ask—do you plan to continue working for SOE?”

“Well, yes—as long as they’ll still have me. I’m hoping to be sent back to France. With the experience I’ve gained in Paris, I think I can be of use to the networks over there.”

“I want you to know that I read over your notes about Agent Calvert’s decrypts. And you were correct. She wasn’t using her security checks.”

“But at least F-Section knows now.”

He blinked. “The truth is, there was nothing sinister about their not acting on the absence of security checks, just amateurish incompetence.”

Maggie remembered Gaskell’s ordering her to fetch his tea while dismissing her safety concerns. She leaned forward, frowning. “But they know now, yes? The Sicherheitsdienst has control of Hugh Thompson’s radio. If they don’t know, they’ll just send agents into a certain death trap.”

“They don’t know. And we’re not going to enlighten them. At this juncture of the war, it’s what we want—no, need—to do.”

Maggie wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. “Colonel Martens—Henrik—I don’t understand.”

“I think you do, Maggie.”

Maggie gnawed at her lip. “No—we need to tell Colonel Gaskell—inform him of everything that’s happened and alert him that he needs to disregard anything and everything coming from Hugh’s—Agent Thompson’s—radio. Immediately!”

“Not so fast. We have an incredible intelligence opportunity here.”

“What?”

Martens went to the desk, picking up a framed official photograph of a glowering Winston Churchill. “We’re playing a deadly game here, Maggie, and the odds are badly stacked against us. The endgame is the location and day of the Allied invasion. Already, we’re going about a slow and painstaking process to create disinformation. We need to use every tool we find, even if it’s one we stumble upon.” He put down the photograph and reached into the breast pocket of his suit jacket for his pack of Player’s cigarettes. “Especially then.”

“I still don’t understand.”

Martens pulled out a cigarette and stuck it between his teeth. “But I think you do.”

“No.”

He reached in another pocket for his lighter. “We don’t imprison Lebeau—or execute him. We send him back to Paris.” With a flick of his thumb, a bright flame appeared.

“No—”

Martens stuck the end of the cigarette into the flame, pulling on it until the tip glowed red. He waited a moment, then said thoughtfully, “It’s perfect. A double agent will become a triple. We’re going to turn Lebeau to our side. Then we’ll send him back to Paris, to continue just what he’s been doing.” He exhaled, returning the lighter to his pocket. “But this time we’ll know everything. He’ll be working for us.”

“But he’s not only photographing letters and documents. He’ll be turning over agents and their radios to the Sicherheitsdienst.”

“Exactly.”

Maggie was still at a loss.

“You know what I’m saying.” Martens gave Maggie a moment to absorb the idea. “Think about it—it will work. Lebeau will feed von Waltz and his cronies false information about the place and day of the invasion. In the meantime, any messages von Waltz starts sending via the captured agents will be quite revealing—his questions will become more expansive once we start to satisfy his greed for information. A patient process of listing, collating, and cross-referencing his messages will gradually reveal what our enemy already knows, as well as his preoccupations and priorities. We’ll be able to get a clearer picture of Sicherheitsdienst operations in France.”

“But that means—” Maggie protested. “Colonel Gaskell will never agree! You’re talking about”—she lowered her voice—“deliberately sacrificing agents.”

Martens didn’t blink. “We don’t tell Gaskell.”

“SOE in the dark? Gaskell as a stooge?” Maggie swallowed. “My God,” she exclaimed, realizing.

“You can see the endgame now, can’t you?”

Maggie constructed the formula aloud: “You’ll get information about what the Germans know from the messages they send back. And you’ll be able to plant false information about what we’re doing. About battle plans. About—” What’s the biggest secret of the war, Hope? Think! “About the Allied invasion.”

At the realization of the extent of the deception, she was breathless. “You’re going to let the Gestapo torture our agents and turn them, aren’t you? You and Bishop—sending agents over, like lambs to slaughter.” She thought for a moment. “They will know, though? You’ll tell the agents what will be expected of them before they go, yes? It will be their choice?”

“Think.”

She did and the realization made her ill. “No….They must be convinced the information they’re carrying is good. So, if they break under torture they won’t give away the game. That when they break under torture, they’ll reveal what you want them to—and not the truth about the invasion.” She sucked in a breath. “Good God—it’s like Kipling’s tethered goats. A blood sacrifice.”

“I have no qualms about exploiting a man and an agency that’s proven over and over again to be utterly incompetent—do you? Before this, SOE was a liability. Now we can use that ineptitude to our advantage.”

The silence between the two agents stretched. Finally, Maggie shook her head. “You’re condemning SOE’s F-Section agents to torture and death.”

Martens blew smoke out through his nostrils. “War is sacrifice,” he said, his voice harsh. “I sacrificed in Norway. We sacrificed at Dunkirk. We sacrificed at Coventry. We’re going to make sacrifices at Dieppe. It’s like sacrificing the queen in chess—”

“We’re talking about the lives of real people, not chess pieces!”

“A few lives to save millions and millions,” Martens said harshly. “We’re at war with a savage empire, people who are determined to debase and enslave and eradicate races, who slaughter and plunder with impunity. If they win, it’s the end of the world as we know it. Our survival overrides any moral consideration. They are waging total war, and so we must have total commitment to winning. As they say, ‘No country was ever saved by good men, because good men will not go to the length that may be necessary.’ ”

He continued: “You see the logic—follow it to the very end. And then you’ll realize I’m right. We’ll run this as a church-mouse operation. Nothing on paper. No one will ever know.”

Maggie wasn’t ready to give up. “People will be killed!”

“People will be killed regardless. And in far greater numbers. If you can’t live with what we must do—all of it—consider the alternative. What will happen to us, to England, to the entire world, if the invasion fails?”

Maggie stared at him, speechless with horror.

“Before you decide to hate me, there’s something else you should know.” Martens took a manila folder out of his briefcase, the one Bishop had given him, and handed it over to her.

Maggie looked down at the first page:

Republic of Poland CAP

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The Mass Extermination of Jews in Occupied Poland CAP

Addressed to the Governments of United Nations

“Read that,” Martens ordered. “Then ask yourself whether you still have issues with sacrificing a few individuals.”

Maggie began to read. As she turned the pages, certain words and phrases jumped out at her: extermination camps and cattle cars. Showers and Zyklon B gas. There was a photograph of a crematorium.

When she’d finished, her hands were shaking. “Genocide?” she said, putting it together. “The Germans want to…exterminate the Jews? It—it can’t be!”

Martens got up to retrieve the folder and return it to his briefcase. “I’m afraid so. In addition to everything else, this—an official extermination of the world’s Jewry, as well as the physically and mentally infirm, political prisoners, homosexuals, and gypsies—has begun in earnest in Eastern Europe.”

“Of course we knew things were bad, but…”

“The Allied governments will be making a statement and releasing this information soon. Then the whole world will know.”

“This is what we’re fighting.” Maggie said it softly. “For the success of the invasion and also because of…this.”

“Yes.”

“This is why you’re willing to sacrifice SOE agents.”

He sighed deeply. “Yes.”

“I feel sick.” She forced herself to take steady breaths, then looked up. “It’s going to work! That’s the worst part, isn’t it?”

He nodded somberly.

Fury flooded through her. “I hate this! I hate all of it. I hate the way the world is. I hate knowing these things. I hate what we’re becoming. I hate who I’m becoming.”

“If we loved it, we’d have to worry. We’d be no better than the Nazis.”

There had to be a way to stop this. “I’ll—I’ll tell Fleet Street!”

“I’m afraid you’d simply be arrested and discredited.”

“I’ll tell Mr. Churchill!”

“You know the P.M. needs plausible deniability. And don’t fool yourself that the same man who let Coventry be destroyed in a Luftwaffe attack to protect the secrets of Bletchley Park will be sympathetic to your moral qualms. Really—do you think he’d hesitate to use any weapon at his disposal? I read in your file you know about the chemical weapons, the anthrax, already.”

We shall fight on the beaches…Maggie recalled typing for him, when she was his secretary back in the summer of ’40. And she remembered their conversation here at Number 10 in Churchill’s office the previous fall, when she heard the terrible truth about what he was willing to sacrifice, when she bargained for Elise’s rescue.

No, no I don’t believe the P.M. would hesitate, she thought. If only math could help. But the value of human life is immeasurable, and so neither option is morally acceptable. How do you measure and compare the quantity of x versus the quantity of y + z if you don’t know the values of any of them? How many angels can die on the head of a pin?

“How can you keep on”—Maggie began, her voice raw with emotion—“knowing what you know? It’s so…cynical.”

“A cynic is what an idealist calls a realist.”

“It’s wrong. It’s evil.”

“We need to win this war, Maggie. As someone said to me, chivalry died with the poison gas and trenches, when we attacked cities and civilians. There is no nobility now, no good and evil—only victory. Or defeat.”

“History will judge us.”

“That’s why we put nothing down on paper. You must understand one thing—never, ever admit anything. No matter what happens, never reveal what you know, what you’ve done. You must resolve to go to your grave resolutely denying anything ever happened. Remember that.”

“No! No, I won’t be part of it.”

“You need to grow up,” he replied harshly. “And learn the meaning of duty. In fact, we need you to continue to do your duty—and work for us. Colonel Bishop and I would like you to take over Gaskell’s position—to run F-Section.”

“Me?” It was what she’d wanted—to have a position of authority where she could use her brain—but not like this. “No—my God—no.” Maggie shook her head. “I can’t. I’m not like you. The men and women of SOE give their hearts and souls! They sacrifice everything! They trust you! We trust you!”

“Our agents will still be able to give their hearts and souls—and achieve the same ends.”

“Which justify the means? No, just—no. You’re as corrupt as the Nazis.”

“I’m afraid that, in this war, things aren’t as black and white as the propaganda reels would make them seem. I’m merely willing to be a part of something that’s hateful and dangerous for the sake of victory. Believe me—I didn’t like it at first, either. But then I saw the logic.”

“When your moral sense begins to rot, it’s worse than if you had none to begin with.” Maggie stood. “I’m sorry, Colonel, but I can’t work for SOE in that role—knowingly sending agents to their deaths. I won’t be a part of it. No. An unequivocal no.”

“I was afraid of that.” He rubbed his hands together. “And now you know too much.” He rummaged around in one of his desk drawers. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m leaving.” She rose.

“I don’t think so.” Martens stood as well, both hands clasped behind his back. “I want to assure you that I respect your decision not to work for SOE. We don’t consider you a traitor, you haven’t betrayed anything—but now, alas, you know too much. It’s in your own interest that you be kept safely.”

“Kept? What—?”

As Martens stepped around the desk, his right arm rose, swiftly sweeping toward Maggie’s head. Instinctively, she raised her hands. This threw Martens off balance, allowing her to use both hands to swing his arm up as she rotated under. He gasped at the pain as Maggie forced him over. He hit the desk sideways. His right hand opened.

“A pen?” As Maggie voiced her disbelief, Martens’s left hand came up behind her, covering her mouth with a cloth wet with chloral hydrate. She struggled, then went limp.

After she’d lost consciousness, he laid her gently on the floor, then walked back to his desk. He picked up the red telephone receiver. “It’s Colonel Martens,” he said. “Let them know that Miss Hope will need to be detained indefinitely.”