“Yes, it’s true,” he sighed. “I don’t know how much progress they’re making. They’ve got a lot of brilliant people all locked down working on it. Hopefully something will come of it. In the meantime, we need to focus on what we can get the old-fashioned way.”
She nodded and carried her tea back to her desk. “I’m sorry I mentioned it now. I can assure you, I haven’t repeated that to anyone else.”
Bill waved a hand tiredly. “I know. Unfortunately, if you’re ever captured by the enemy, they will dig it out of you. They’re very good at that sort of thing.” He sipped his tea. “Do you remember those two agents I told you about in November? The ones who were kidnapped from Venlo?”
“Yes.”
“All of their contacts and most of our European networks have been compromised, and a lot of agents have disappeared. Montclair believes the ones taken in Venlo cracked under Nazi interrogation. There’s no other way some of the identities could have been known. It’s a bloody disaster.”
“All of the networks?” Evelyn asked, her face paling. “Even yours?”
Bill glanced up from his sandwich. “No, thank God. Mine are contained and, as far as I know, safe. None of my agents ever had any contact with the others.”
“Well, that’s a relief.” Evelyn sipped her tea and sat back in her chair. “What will be done now?”
Bill shrugged. “We’ll have to start fresh, recruiting and building new networks. It takes time, though. Jasper is concerned about the threat of invasion from Hitler. If he makes it into France before we’ve had time to rebuild, we’ll be working without any eyes or ears in Europe at all.”
He finished his sandwich and sipped his tea.
“Which leads me to why I’m here. On the tenth, a Messerschmidt BF 108 crashed in Belgium. One of the officers on board was caught trying to burn documents. Luckily, the border patrol stopped him before they were destroyed. They turned out to contain the invasion plans for Belgium, Luxembourg and France.”
“What?!”
“Exactly. There was no date in the papers, or at least none that survived the attempts to destroy them, but the details matched up with intelligence we’d already gathered. So it was assumed that the invasion would begin between the fifteenth and the seventeenth.”
Evelyn raised an eyebrow. “I hate to point out the obvious, but those dates have been and gone and there has been no invasion of the low countries.”
Bill nodded, a smile crossing his lips. He reached for another sandwich.
“The weather has been just as horrid there as it has here. There’s no way Hitler’s generals would have advised him to proceed. He’s postponed it, I’m sure. Now the question is whether or not they will stick with the same attack plan once the weather improves.”
“If they do, they’re fools.”
“Not if they believe the plans were destroyed. The Belgians launched a very convincing deception ploy to convince both the pilot and the man carrying the plans that they had been rendered illegible.”
Evelyn was quiet. She didn’t think the German High Command would be careless enough to risk an entire invasion on the possibility that the plans had been destroyed, but it was certainly a possibility.
“You want me to go to France,” she said. “That’s why you’re here?”
“Yes. You remember Josephine Rousseau?”
She thought of the black-haired Frenchwoman who had helped her escape the SS agents in Strasbourg over a year before.
“Yes, indeed.”
“She’s in Metz. I’d like you to meet with her. She has a contact in Germany who relays fairly reliable intelligence from time to time on German troop movements. If they’re moving troops south, Josephine will know. We’ve received a few reports that the Germans may try to go through the Ardennes region.”
“The Ardennes?” she repeated, surprised. “But that’s impossible!”
“That’s what the French say as well,” Bill said dryly. “But we’ve now received multiple reports that the Germans are looking at it seriously. In theory, their Panzer divisions could make it through. The difficulty would be crossing the Meuse river, which is why the French have dismissed the possibility out of hand. But Jasper wants to be sure. He wants to know if there is any indication of troops moving south towards the mountains.”
She nodded. “When?”
“Not until this blasted weather improves. But as soon as it does, we’ll make the arrangements.”
“I believe my mother plans on going to Paris in March,” she said slowly. “She and Auntie Agatha want to do some shopping, if the situation is still stable, of course. If she does go, she’ll stay with Tante Adele. I could join them for a few days.”
“Perfect.” Bill smiled. “I understand your Aunt Agatha is quite a force to be reckoned with.”
Evelyn laughed. “She is, but how do you know?”
“Monty told me. He’s the new gardener at Ainsworth Manor.” Bill chuckled. “He said he defies anyone to break into the house with your Aunt Agatha staying there.”
“That’s what Robbie said as well,” Evelyn said. “She really isn’t all that terrifying. She’s just rather blunt. I feel much better knowing that we have someone there to keep an eye on things. Thank you for assigning him to the house.”
“No need to thank me. Whatever is in that Chinese puzzle box of yours is a matter of national security. We have every intention of doing what we can to keep it safe.” He tilted his head and looked at her. “Have you been back since Christmas?”
“No. I have a long weekend coming up in February and thought I’d take a train up then.”
“You do that. The sooner you unlock that box, the sooner we know what your father was onto before he died.”
Chapter Two
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The man laughed at the parting shot of his colleague and turned to walk down the pavement in the opposite direction. Darkness had fallen over London, and with it, the blackout. A blast of icy wind whistled down The Strand as he strode along the dark sidewalk towards Trafalgar Square and he burrowed deeper into his
