wove around tables set with glass vases and spring daisies that shone white and yellow in the late-morning sun. He approached the woman's table from behind.
The corner of her mouth quirked up when he sat down.
In French, he whispered, “There's a gun pointed at you under this table. Try anything, anything at all, and I'll put a bullet in your gut.”
She turned a page, not looking up. “No, you won't.”
She spoke English tinged with a German accent. Her voice was throatier than he'd expected from one so petite.
“Try me,” he said. “Who are you?”
“No.” She shook her head, smirking. “The real question is who are
Before he could gather his wits to press further, she dog-eared the page and set the book down. It was a collection of poems by T. S. Eliot:
“I suppose you'll want to drug me now.” She nodded at the pocket where he'd placed the vial and cloth from the apothecary. She had large dark eyes.
Marsh struggled to keep the unease from his voice. “We're leaving now. Together.” To make his point, he gave her a glimpse of the gun. She stuck her tongue at him.
He stood. He took her arm as though helping her up.
“Wait.” She grabbed the daisy from the vase on her table. “For later,” she said.
Marsh escorted her from the cafe, his arm around her waist. She sighed, as if content. He pulled her into an alley, expecting a struggle. But she didn't fight him. Nor did she resist when he rolled the newspaper, stuffed it with cotton from the apothecary, and applied the diethyl ether he'd purchased. He'd prepared to do it all one-handed while restraining her.
Instead she waited placidly for him to apply the ether cone over her mouth and nose. She winked at him before slumping into his arms. Her head rolled sideways, revealing a wire taped to her neck. It extended under her blouse.
He carried her to the street. He flagged down a passing car. “Help! Help, please. My wife is very ill.”
Keeping her unconscious during the relay race back to Britain was a challenge. People frowned upon a man who drugged his wife. But he'd anticipated this, so he'd also purchased chloral hydrate. Slipping it into her water —”Drink up, dear, you're not feeling well”—worked best. People always plied the ill with fluids. Things got easier after he met a regiment from the BEF and could abandon the artifice. Still, he watched her for the entire journey.
Who was she? She knew him. She had
Had they been watching him since Spain? He fought the urge to hunch his shoulders, to gouge away the target etched between his shoulder blades. Then he thought of Jerry spies staking out his life. Perhaps they were watching Liv this very moment. He clenched his jaw until he felt a headache coming on. Anger and frustration made his face feel hot.
They crossed the Channel in the cargo hold of a Dutch merchant ship running supplies for the BEF. As soon as he had privacy, he untied the kerchief over her hair. He traced the wire bundle from a bulge at her waist— probably a belt like those in the film—up her back, neck, and into her scalp. At the back of her head it split into four smaller wires, each connected directly to a different location on her skull. When he sifted through the hair on her scalp, thick black locks that smelled of sweat and dirt and wood smoke, he found her skull riddled with a monstrous assortment of surgical scars.
He needed a closer look at her belt, too, but couldn't achieve that without stripping her naked. It would have to wait until he got her to Milkweed.
The mysterious woman woke again during the passage across the Channel, perhaps roused by the choppy waves knocking on the hull beneath them. Marsh reached out to dose her with more ether.
“Wait.” She grabbed his wrist.
His skin tingled under the intense warmth of her fingertips.
She fished in the folds of her dress for the cafe daisy. “Congratulations.” She handed it to him, adding, “It's a girl.”
Then she pulled his hand to her face and passed out again.
five
Marsh arrived home before sunrise. But for the chatter of songbirds ushering in the dawn, the city was quiet in this hour when the distinction between night and morning lost its meaning. The blackout kept the streets dark.
Though Liv had been sleeping fitfully in the past few weeks, he didn't want to ring the bell and risk waking her. He fumbled through his pockets, seeking his house key. Several moments passed, during which he envisioned the key jostling out of his pocket during his motorcycle ride (had that been just yesterday morning?), his encounter with the girl, or during the bumpy Channel crossing. He even started to wonder if the girl had picked his pocket, but then his fingers brushed the cold metal.
The door swung open, sending bright light spilling down the steps and into the street, when he pushed the key into the lock.
The door was unlocked. It hadn't been latched. And the lights were still on.
Exhaustion resisted him as he forced his mind into focus again. Too many hours on constant alert had frayed his nerves, but a single thought burned through the fog in his mind. Just hours ago he'd been speculating about Jerry spies watching him and Liv.
Marsh slammed the door behind him. “Liv? Liv!” His voice echoed through a quiet house. He trotted from room to room. She wasn't in the den; she wasn't in the kitchen. He went to the garden, hoping that perhaps there'd been an air raid alert and she'd simply fallen asleep in the Anderson shelter. But she wasn't there, either.
Back inside, he bounded up the narrow stairs two at a time. The bedroom was a scene of disarray: the drawers of Liv's wardrobe stood open, and her clothes were strewn across the bed and floor.
Scenarios, event sequences, spooled out in his head. He captured the girl in France ... her handlers contacted assets in London ... they snatched Liv in retaliation.
But if the girl knew him, she probably knew something about this, too.
Marsh had the telephone in hand, ringing Stephenson, when he found the note:
She'd taken the time to leave a message, knowing how terribly he'd fret if he came home to an empty house.
The sudden release of tension left his knees weak. Marsh slumped against the wall, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. He did a little of both.
