Mr. Churchill's Secretary (35 page)

“I think you’re right,” Claire said, also working at the tape.

“Too bad you cut your talons,” Maggie said. “Would have helped.”

“Well,” Claire said, under her breath, “I was trying to look like you. Right down to your chewed-on little fingers.”

“Better than the hair. Red’s a hard color to pull off.”

“Would you just be quiet and let me work?”

“I’m just saying.”

They were silent. The only noise in the dark was their fingers scraping at the tape. “I’ve got it!” Maggie said finally. “Got the end! I’ve pulled it as far as I can—can you reach it?”

Claire wiggled her wrists and fingers. “Let’s see.” She explored, using her fingertips. “All right, I’ve found it.… I’m pulling.…”

“It’s working,” Maggie said. “Let’s just keep going. We’ve got it now.”

It took them a while, but eventually they got their wrists free. Once they did that, it was a snap to undo their ankles. There was a moment, a short and fleeting
moment, where the two smiled at each other in the gloom and it felt, almost, like old times.

Almost.

“Come on,” Maggie said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Maggie and Claire headed for the stairs, tiptoeing their way up. As they did, they heard shouting. They peered around the door. Ten MI-5 agents had guns trained on Devlin, who was wearing a trench coat, carrying a briefcase, and had his back to the door. “Please hand over the override key,” the lead agent said, almost amicably.

“I think not.” Devlin smiled, his affable face now a death’s-head grimace. “If you kill me, you’ll all die.”

“But then—you will, too,” the agent said, uncomprehending.

“Exactly,” Devlin said, his mild eyes unblinking. “A hero’s death. A martyr to the cause.”

“Professor Hope?” Frain said, gesturing to the device on the crypt floor.

“Please, call me Edmund.”

He knelt down by the bomb and peered at it intently.

“We tried to bypass the remote current with the battery,” the shorter, stouter agent said to them. “But it was too unstable. We didn’t want to risk it. There’s enough juice here to bring down the whole church and a few city blocks.”

“Is there a trip wire?” Edmund said, now down on all fours.

“Jesus Christ, Sherlock,” the taller agent snapped. “Of
course
there’s a bloody trip wire.”

“All right, all right, just asking,” Edmund said.

Frain motioned for the two to step back, which they did, reluctantly. He, too, stepped back but never took his eyes off Edmund. “Anything?”

The agents were getting impatient. And nervous, because Frain was blocking their view.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “There are a few options. But any one of them could be a trick.”

“That’s what we were saying, sir,” the taller agent said. “It basically comes down to green, white, or orange. If we cut the correct one, the bomb will be disabled. If we cut the wrong one …”

“Kaboom,” the shorter agent finished. “There’s enough dynamite down here to take down the whole bloody cathedral. He must have smuggled it all in, stick by stick.”

“Thank you,” Frain said drily. “Professor Hope?”

He glanced up at Frain and got to his feet, wiping his hands on his trousers. “We could use that override key. Have one yet?”

All eyes fixed on the ticking gold pocket watch. Then Frain said, “No. And we now have exactly twenty-four minutes.”

From the crack between the door and the wall, Maggie and Claire took in the scene before them. Maggie whispered, “If he blows us all up, there’ll be no stopping the bomb at Saint Paul’s.…”

Claire knew what she had to do. “I’m sorry, Maggie,” she said softly. “I’m sorry about everything, especially about Sarah.”

Without warning, she opened the door wide enough to walk into the room. There was a long moment as the seconds ticked and Devlin and his men saw and acknowledged her presence.

Things began to happen more or less at once. As Devlin made his move, Claire grabbed a chair, raised it over her head, and ran to Devlin. He spun to face her and fired a single shot.

She staggered for a moment under the impact, making a high-pitched keening moan, but then continued on, side-swiping him with the chair.

Devlin staggered from the impact but didn’t fall. He looked more shocked than anything else. “Miss Kelly,” he said, putting his hand to the wound. “You shouldn’t—”

Claire slumped to the floor, her blouse slowly staining crimson.

In what looked to be slow-motion choreography, one agent dove for the briefcase and threw it to another, who began to open it, while yet another agent shot Devlin through the head, which exploded, leaving nothing but blood and tissue. When he’d fallen, two agents ripped the gun from his hands, then began to search his body for the key.

Time began to progress normally again.

“Claire?” Maggie cried, running to the girl. Although blood continued to pump from the wound in her chest, Claire’s body was still and her eyes glassy. “Paige?”

The closest agent examined Claire’s body, then lowered her eyelids. “She’s dead,” he said impassively.

The agents searching Devlin’s body began to panic. “There’s no key!” one cried. “There’s no key!”

Maggie got to her feet. Her shoulder protested at the abuse and gave a renewed white-hot throb of pain.

“But—” But there was Paige. Claire. Lying in an ever-widening pool of her own blood.

“Place might be rigged,” the agent said. “We’ve got to move out.”

“But—” Maggie said.

“We have to go.”

They made it to an unmarked black van parked in the warehouse’s lot and climbed in. A few other men in
the van moved aside to make room for them to sit on the floor, and one closed the sliding door with an earsplitting bang. With a screech of the tires, the van sped off.

“You were pretty brave back there, miss,” one of the men said. He was blond, almost white-haired, with kind eyes.

“Thanks,” Maggie managed.

He gave her hand a quick pat. “Sorry about your friend.” He looked around at his comrades, who nodded.

“Name’s Will,” he said. “Will Archer.”

“Maggie,” she said, on autopilot.

“Maggie, nice to meet you, although under unusual circumstances.”

“Likewise.”

“Are you all right? You look a little green around the edges,” he said.

“I think—I think I need to not talk right now,” she said, feeling a sudden pressure rising beneath her ribs and a wave of nausea. For a brief moment, she thought she was going to vomit. Then, mercifully, the urge subsided, but she could feel her legs and hands start to shake.

She felt light-headed and bent over, trying not to faint.

She exhaled explosively and then began to sob in long, racking silent cries. Her hands clenched and unclenched, her body admitting what her mind couldn’t yet process.

Will Archer patted her back awkwardly as she sobbed silently.

“I’m sorry,” she said finally, sitting up and taking large gulps of air.

“Not to worry,” he said, taking a large linen handkerchief from his pocket and passing it to her. “Clean. On my honor.”

“Thank you,” she said, dabbing her eyes and then
blowing her nose with a good, loud honk. “Thank you very much.” Then, “So now what?”

Archer spread his hands helplessly and shook his head. “I wish I knew.”

Maggie raised her chin. “How far are we from Saint Paul’s?”

T
HE VAN PULLED
up a few blocks from the cathedral, and the men jumped out. There was a barricade manned by bobbies in uniform. “So sorry,” they solemnly informed the milling, muttering crowd. “So terribly sorry. Everything’s closed. Come back tomorrow. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

The agents sprinted to the barricade and jumped over.

“What the—?” the bobby yelled. He had red cheeks, a double chin, and bulging, buggy eyes.

One turned around. “MI-Five!”

“Right,” the cop muttered. “Here to save the bloody day.” He saw the crowd’s reaction to the agents and said, “Gas leak! Not to worry! It’s all under control.”

Maggie tried to follow.

“Oh, no, you don’t, miss,” the bobby said, suddenly joined by another. “It’s off-limits; you can’t go in there.”

“But I’m with them!”

The officer took in her bruised face, dirty hands, and ripped and burned sweater, and slowly shook his head. “Right, miss,” he said, trying not to laugh. “Sure, you’re a secret agent.” He elbowed his friend, laughing. “Looks like we have our very own Mata Hari here.”

“She’s with us,” Archer shouted from the stairs.

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir,” he said, begrudgingly letting Maggie by.

Together, Archer and Maggie sprinted up into the cathedral, down the endless nave, and down to the crypt, dark and dank as a dragon’s lair. Breathless, they met up with Frain, Edmund, Snodgrass, and the other agents in the gloom.

“Miss Hope, this is highly—” Frain began.

“It’s not safe, Margaret. Get out,” her father continued.

Archer ignored them. “There’s no key, sir.” He said to Frain, “No actual key, at least. Not like his other bombs.”

As the other agents groaned, one exclaimed, “Damn!”

Maggie thought for a moment. “No
actual
key … no literal key,” she said, as though to herself. She turned to her father. “What does the bomb look like?”

“Do you think,” he began, “even absent father that I was, that I would
ever
allow you to—”

“
I’ll
take you,” Archer said. Frain nodded his approval and followed them into the heart of the crypt, where the bomb softly ticked like a beating heart.

Maggie and Archer circled the bomb, taking its measure—all of the dynamite wrapped in different-colored wires. “What’s this?” Maggie said, pointing to the gold watch.

“Timer,” one of the agents on the bomb squad said curtly.

“But why a pocket watch? Is there any significance?”

He shrugged. “Damned if I know.”

“And look,” Maggie continued. “The wires.”

“What about them?” Frain asked.

As though in a dream, Maggie recalled her last conversation with Claire.
“The white in the center is supposed to signify peace between the two.”
It reminded her of something, but she couldn’t quite place it.

Frain grimaced. “You say one needs to be cut?” he asked the head of the bomb squad, who nodded.

“Cutting one will shut down the whole system. But it’s impossible to know, from the configuration, which one it is.”

What is it?
Maggie thought, trying to remember.
Something about the Irish flag …

“Five minutes, Mr. Frain,” said an agent, over the ticking.

Maggie furrowed her brow.
Something about green …

“Sir! She’s gonna blow!”

“Yes, yes.” Frain waved at him impatiently. “Go ahead, get out. Get all the men out, including Professor Hope.”

Maggie and Archer looked at each other and then at Frain. “No, we’ve come too far now,” she said. Archer nodded.

As the other agents exited, pulling Edmund with them, Maggie, Archer, and Frain stared back down at the wiring.

“I doubt that he would ever let the green wire be cut,” Maggie began, knowing what it symbolized, what it had meant to Claire.

“So then it’s white or orange—fifty-fifty chance.”

“Cutting orange is like cutting the Protestants,” Archer mused.

“But cutting the white is destroying the truce, such as it is,” Frain said.

“Orange or white, then?” Maggie said, heart in her throat, hot sweat beading on her upper lip and lower back.

“That
is
the question,” Frain muttered.

Then it came to her. It was Chuck—Chuck in the pub, on Maggie’s first day of work at No. 10, so long ago. What had she said?
“I love Ireland and her green, white, and orange flag with all my heart, but the IRA makes me
ashamed to be Irish. That’s the point of the goddamned flag, you know. Green for the Gaels, orange for the Protestants—and white for the peace between them.”

“What if it were a British and Nazi flag!” Maggie blurted suddenly.

Frain and Archer looked at her.

“No, really—blue for Britain, white for truce, black for Nazism. If we’d made the bomb, which one would be cut?”

“Black,” Frain said unequivocally.

“Black,” Archer seconded.

“Me, too. I’d cut the black wire, too,” Maggie said. “So then—it has to be orange. We need to cut the orange wire.”

“Fifty-fifty chance at this point,” Archer shrugged.

“Well, Mr. Archer?” Frain said, looking at the golden pocket watch, with less than a minute to go. “Will you do the honors?”

Archer picked up a pair of slender wire cutters and took a deep breath.

He snipped the orange wire.

The ticking stopped.

“Oh, gods,” Maggie muttered, hearing a ringing in her ears.
It’s the end. After all this, it’s finally the end
.

A few moments went by, and the three stood, still as statues, as though afraid their tiniest movement would set the ticking in motion again.

Finally, Frain turned toward Maggie and Archer. “Well, Mr. Archer, Miss Hope,” he said. “Well done.”