Killers of a Certain Age(22)

We had seconds to jump, a good twenty feet straight down to a target that looked a hell of a lot smaller than I had expected. Nat went first, landing squarely in the middle of the launch and scuttling out of Helen’s way as she dropped. Mary Alice didn’t even try, preferring to take her chances in the water. She went in a clean six feet from the launch, a few strokes pulling her to the side, where Helen and Nat hauled her in. Behind me, the alarms were shrieking and there was a thunderous boom from somewhere deep inside the boat. The noise caused more mayhem, with people screaming and shoving as the lifeboats were launched.

I took a breath and jumped, aiming as Mary Alice had done for the sea next to the launch. The water closed over me, warm and silky, and so dark it was impossible to tell which way was up. I held my breath, letting it out slowly so I could figure out where to go. A slender line of silver bubbles trailed out of my nose, pointing the way. I followed, breaking the surface to see a constellation shimmering just overhead.

Helen and Mary Alice reached out, hoisting me under the arms until I flopped into the bottom of the boat, coughing up seawater.

Helen looked up into the night sky, assessing the stars to determine our location.

“Got it?” I asked her.

She nodded.

“Good. Aim for Nevis and let’s get the hell out of here.”

And that’s exactly what we did.





CHAPTER NINE


JANUARY 1979


It is raining when the plane touches down. The quartet of girls who spill out of the plane, yawning widely, might be mistaken for school friends as they collect their bags and lie, smiling, to the official who stamps their passports and asks their purpose in visiting the United Kingdom. A man in a tweed suit with a printed sign is waiting for them and escorts them to an estate wagon, where a hamper of sandwiches is waiting. They eat as he drives them into the country. An hour passes, then another. By the time they arrive, it is getting dark and the girls are cramped and jet-lagged. They stagger out of the car to stand in front of a mansion—or at least it seems like a mansion to them.

The house is a Victorian monstrosity of red brick surrounded by gardens and a big lawn that rolls down to the cliffs. It is scruffy, from the worn brick paths to the streaky windows of the glasshouse attached to one side. The trim could use a lick of paint, and the brass door knocker is black with grime.

But the door opens and none of that matters. She is standing in the doorway, looking them over with the air of a general inspecting her troops. Constance Halliday. Code name Shepherdess. They do not know yet the full extent of her legend. They will learn her story in pieces, and what they will hear is as much myth as truth. She wears her thin white hair closely cropped to her scalp and she walks with a stick, not for balance, but for hitting recruits who don’t move fast enough.

As a young woman, she studied Classics at Cambridge and would have taken a First if women had been allowed degrees. Her brother, Major Halliday, has told each of the girls about the Furies, Constance’s squad of all-female operatives, and how they died—parachuting into Germany as Nazi sharpshooters picked them off in midair. He has told them Constance survived, but he never mentions she was injured in the drop. Upon being captured, she was sent to Ravensbrück, where her broken leg was set badly. She escaped from the camp, walking halfway across Europe on it before it was fully mended, and her limp is a badge of honor to others, but to her it is a reminder of everything she has had taken from her. When Churchill singled her out for honors, she returned her letter of commendation in pieces with a pithy note in blue pencil about his collective failures.

Her time as a founding member of the Board of Directors at the Museum bored her. She put herself back into the field within months, spending three decades training the best assassins in the business—all of them men. It is her idea to freshen up the talent pool by finding a group of young women to train together. A series of small strokes has slowed her, and she realizes properly that she is growing old. For the first time, Constance Halliday takes stock of her life, and it occurs to her that she would like to leave a legacy to her own sex. She misses the Furies, the camaraderie of women at war. It takes three years for her brother to find her exactly the right sort of young women to train, but she believes they will be worth the wait. They will be the last and best thing she ever does—a fitting coda to the Furies. She will make avenging goddesses of them, killing machines who will fulfill a very special destiny.

But she says none of this when she meets her quartet. She has read their files until the pages are soft and blurred, but this is the first time she has seen them in person. She stares at them through cold blue eyes until finally she gives a single nod and motions for them to follow her inside. The house isn’t much warmer than the driveway, but at least it isn’t wet. There is a fire burning in the drawing room and she leads them in, making them stand while she circles slowly before coming to stillness in front of the fireplace.

“Welcome to Benscombe Hall. If you are here, it is because we have seen something in you. It is entirely possible that we are wrong,” she says, her eyes pitiless. “But we have been doing this a very long time and we might just be right. Project Sphinx is a very special undertaking, the first chance for a squad of female operatives to be trained together under the auspices of our organization. You will not let us down.”

It isn’t a question, and the temperature in the room seems to drop about twenty degrees while she talks.