All Clear (20 page)

Polly wasn’t listening. She was thinking about the slippage and their altering events. “Eileen,” she asked, “did Linna or Badri say anything about what was
causing
the increase in slippage?”

“No, not that I remember,” Eileen said, and when they got back to their room, she handed Polly a sheet of paper. “Here, I wrote down everything I could remember, the way you and Mike told me to.”

On the sheet was scrawled, “G had umbrella, ddn’t offer it—Badri wking console—Linna on tphne—mad abt. Bastille—L sd she kn R of T first.”

“What’s R of T?”

“The Reign of Terror. Linna was talking to this person on the telephone about the lab changing whoever it was’s drop to the storming of the Bastille, and the person on the other end was obviously angry, and she said, ‘I
know
you were scheduled to go to the Reign of Terror first.’ But she didn’t say anything about slippage to them.”

Whoever it was had been scheduled to do the Reign of Terror, and they’d changed it so he or she went to the storming of the Bastille. Which had happened before the Reign of Terror.

“Where was Mike going before his assignment got changed to Dunkirk?” she asked Eileen. “Was it Pearl Harbor?”

“I don’t know. I believe so. They’d changed his entire schedule.”

“Where else was he supposed to go?”

“I don’t remember. Salisbury, I think, and the World Trade Center. I wasn’t—”

Really listening
, Polly thought, wanting to shake her.
Of course not. Just like you weren’t listening to Gerald Phipps
.

“You can ask Mike when he rings us,” Eileen was saying. “Why do you need to know?”

Because Pearl Harbor happened on December 7
, 1941.
And the storming of the Bastille was before the Reign of Terror
.

Mike had said Mr. Dunworthy had been shuffling and canceling dozens of drops. What if he’d been doing it because the slippage increase was a matter not of months but of years? What if Mr. Dunworthy had been putting all the drops in chronological order and canceling ones where there was already a deadline because he had been afraid their drops wouldn’t open in time? What if the increase had been four years?
Or the length of the war, and that was why she’d seen Eileen at VE-Day? Because they hadn’t got out?

But if that was it, then why hadn’t he canceled her drop?

Perhaps the increase isn’t that large
, she thought. Pearl Harbor was only a year and a half after Dunkirk. She didn’t know how far apart the two events in the French Revolution were. The storming of the Bastille was July 14, 1789, but she didn’t know when the Reign of Terror had begun. If it was less than three years …

Or that might not be the reason they’d changed the schedules at all. It might be something else altogether.
When Mike phones, I need to ask him the original order of his assignments and what it was changed to
, she thought. If
he phones. And in the meantime, it’s pointless to worry
.

But it was impossible not to. She spent her lunch break going to Selfridges and Bourne and Hollingsworth’s to look at women’s coats—which were luckily all far too expensive for Eileen to afford, even at Bourne and Hollingsworth’s “Bomb Damage” sale. And when clothing rationing went into effect, it would be impossible to save up enough points to buy one. But it still made Polly more cheerful to see that the only colors available were black, brown, and navy blue.

Mike phoned Monday night, and it was exactly as Eileen had predicted. He’d had difficulty finding a phone where he could speak without being overheard. “Either I’m going to have to find a phone booth that’s closer,” he said, “or we’ll have to conduct our conversations in code.”

“You’re surrounded by England’s greatest cryptanalysts,” Polly said. “I wouldn’t recommend that.”

“You’re right, it’ll have to be letters. Does Mrs. Rickett steam open your mail?”

“I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“Well, don’t worry. I’ll think of something. I don’t suppose the retrieval team’s answered one of our ads yet?”

“No. You were supposed to do your Pearl Harbor assignment first, is that right?”

“Yes, and then the World Trade Center and the Battle of the Bulge, so I could use one L-and-A implant for all three.”

“And what did they change it to? Were Dunkirk and Pearl Harbor the only two they switched?”

“No, they switched them all around. After Pearl Harbor they wanted me to do El Alamein and then the Battle of the Bulge—”

I was right. They put them in chronological order
. Polly felt the familiar flutter of panic.
But El Alamein’s only eleven months after Pearl Harbor, and
the Battle of the Bulge is only two years after that. It’s still not as great a length of time between as mine
.

“—followed by the second World Trade Center attack—”

Which was nearly sixty years after the Battle of the Bulge
.

“—and the beginning of the Pandemic in Salisbury,” Mike said.

Twenty years later
.

But that didn’t prove anything. The lab might have put his assignments in chronological order because of Pearl Harbor, not the others.

I need to find out when the Reign of Terror began
, Polly thought, and tried to think of who would know. Not Eileen. Polly didn’t want her to begin asking questions. And because Eileen was working in the book department, she couldn’t look it up in a book on the French Revolution.

Sir Godfrey would no doubt know—he’d almost certainly played Sydney Carton on the stage. But he’d ask questions as well, and he saw far too much as it was.

The librarian at Holborn
, she thought.

When they got to Notting Hill Gate, she told Eileen she’d forgotten to give Doreen a message and had to go to Piccadilly Circus to tell her. Instead she took the train to Holborn.

“The Reign of Terror?” the ginger-haired librarian said promptly. “It began in September of 1793.” Four years and two months after the storming of the Bastille.

MR. DUNWORTHY WENT OVER DR. ISHIWAKA’S CALCULATIONS
again and then called, “Eddritch, come into my office, please.” When his secretary appeared in the doorway, he said, “I need you to ring up the lab and see why they haven’t sent over that slippage analysis yet.”

“They did send it, sir,” Eddritch said, and just stood there.

I should never have let Finch become an historian
, Dunworthy thought, thinking longingly of his previous secretary. “Well, then, where is it?”

“On my desk, sir.”

“Bring it to me,” Dunworthy said, and when Eddritch came back with the file, he asked, “Has Research telephoned?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What did they say?”

“They said they had the information you requested and that you were to ring them back,” Eddritch said. “Would you like me to ring them for you?”

No, because you would very likely fail to inform me you’d put the call through
, Dunworthy thought. “I’ll do it myself,” he said, and rang them up.

“There were two hundred fatalities that night,” the tech who answered the telephone said. “Twenty-one in the area you asked about. But that figure doesn’t include those who might have been injured on that date and later died of their wounds.”

Or anyone who was killed days—or weeks—later as a consequence of what they did
, Dunworthy thought.

“Do you want us to attempt to find out about those who suffered eventually fatal injuries?” the tech asked.

“We’ll see. Give me what you’ve found thus far. You said twenty-one that night?”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “Six firemen, an ARP warden, a Wren, an officer in the Lancaster Rifles, a WAAC, a seventeen-year-old boy, and two charwomen.”

“No naval officers?”

“No, sir. But as I said, this is only the people who died that night.”

“Have you the exact locations where they were killed?”

“For some of them. The officer and two of the firemen were killed in Upper Grosvenor Street, and the others fighting a fire in the Minories. The ARP warden was killed in Cheapside. The post was hit.”

“What about the Wren?”

“She was killed in Ave Maria Lane.”

Only a few streets away from St. Paul’s. “Is there a photo of her?”

“No, not with the death notice. Do you want me to try to find one?”

“Yes. And I need the names of the fatalities and, if possible, photographs. As soon as you can. When you have it, phone me directly.”

He gave her the number, rang off, and started through the slippage analysis, afraid that it held more bad news. But although there was a slight increase in the average amount of slippage per drop, it wasn’t as large as Ishiwaka had predicted, and several of the drops were in areas where their opening was highly likely to be observed, which could account for the increase. And there was nothing to indicate a spike.

But the analysis didn’t include this week’s drops. He told Eddritch to ring him at the lab if Research phoned, and went out Balliol’s gate and over to the Broad.

As Dunworthy turned up Catte Street, Colin Templer caught up with him. “I’m glad I found you,” he said breathlessly. “That idiot secretary of yours wouldn’t tell me where you were.”

He should reprove Colin for calling Eddritch an idiot, but there was a certain amount of truth to his assessment. “Why aren’t you in school?” he demanded instead.

“We had a holiday,” Colin said, and at his look added, “No, truly. You can ring up the school and ask them. So I came up to see you. I’ve an idea for an assignment,” he said, walking beside Dunworthy. “Do you know the land girls?”

“The
land
girls?”

“Yes. In World War II. They were these women who—”

“I am familiar with the land girls. You’re proposing to pose as a female and enlist in the Women’s Land Army?”

“No, but the
reason
they had to have land girls was because the farm laborers had all gone off to the war, and the farmers hired boys as well, so I thought I could say I was fifteen—that way I’d be too young to be called up—and I could observe wartime farm life. You know, food shortages and all that.”

“And what’s to stop you from enlisting the moment you get there? Or haring off to London to see Polly Churchill?”

“That’s the
last
thing I’d do,” Colin said fervently, and Dunworthy wondered what
that
was all about. Had she laughed at him and hurt his feelings? “And I promise I won’t enlist. I’ll swear to it if you like. Or sign an oath in blood or something.”

“No.”

“But I’ve found a farm in Hampshire where there wasn’t a single bomb or V-1 for the entire war. And I’ve researched milking cows and gathering eggs—”

They’d reached the lab. Dunworthy stopped outside the door. “I am not sending you anywhere until you have passed your examinations, been admitted to Oxford, and completed your undergraduate degree—none of which look likely at this point.”

“That’s unfair. I rewrote my essay on Dr. Ishiwaka and got high marks on it, even though I still think his theory’s rubbish.”

And let’s hope you’re right
, Dunworthy thought. “Run along,” he said. “I have business to conduct.”

“I don’t mind waiting.”

“There’s no point. I do not intend to change my mind. And in case you were hoping to sneak into the drop with me the way you did when I went after Kivrin Engle, I am not here to use the net. I am here to talk to Badri.”

“Then there’s no need to bar me from the lab, is there?” Colin said, sidling in before Dunworthy could shut the door. “I’ll wait till you’re done and then tell you my
other
idea. You won’t even know I’m here.”

“See that I don’t,” Dunworthy said, and started over to Badri, who was at the console.

“If you’re here about your drop to St. Paul’s,” Badri said, “we just finished calculating the coordinates, so you can go at any time.”

“Good,” Dunworthy said. “I want to see the slippage for this week’s drops. Is the amount still increasing?”

“Yes.” Badri called it up on the screen. “But the rate of increase is less than last week.”

Good
, Dunworthy thought. Perhaps it was only a temporary anomaly.

“I’ve been looking at the individual drops,” Badri said. “The elevated slippage seems to be confined to drops back to World War II, so the increase could be due to the greater incidence of divergence points wars produce. Or to wartime conditions—civilian observers, ARP patrols, that sort of thing.”

But scores of historians had gone to World War II over the years, and there’d been no increase in the average slippage. “Have all the historians I spoke to you about been canceled or rescheduled?”

“Yes, sir,” Badri said, and Linna handed him a list.

“What about Michael Davies?” Dunworthy asked, looking at it.

“We rescheduled him to do his Dunkirk evacuation observation first. He left”—he consulted the console screen—“four days ago. He’ll be back six to ten days from now.”

“And the Pearl Harbor drop’s scheduled for when?”

“The end of May.”

Good
, Dunworthy thought.
I’ll have six weeks before I need to make a decision
. “Why the uncertainty in when he’ll return? Was the projected slippage high?”

“No, sir, but his drop’s outside Dover, so it may take him a day or two to make it back there after the end of the evacuation.”

“We had a dreadful time finding him a drop site,” Linna volunteered. “The only one we could find was five miles from Dover.”

Dunworthy frowned. Difficulty in finding drop sites was one of the signs Dr. Ishiwaka had predicted. “An abnormal amount of difficulty?”

“Yes,” Linna said.

“No,” Badri said, “not considering the large number of people in the area. And the high level of secrecy surrounding the operation.”

“Any other instances of difficulty finding a drop site?” Dunworthy asked.

“We had some minor difficulty finding Charles Bowden one in Singapore, but we were finally able to send him through on the British colony’s polo grounds. And we had a good deal of difficulty with Polly Churchill’s, but that was because of your location requirements and the blackout.”