The Unlikely Spy(43)
The wind gusts. She waits.
She rises onto one knee and swings the rifle into firing position. The deer, startled by the crunch of snow beneath her, raises its massive head and turns in the direction of the sound.
Quickly, she finds the buck's head in her sight, accounts for the crosswind, and fires. The bullet pierces the buck's eye, and it collapses onto the snowy meadow in a lifeless heap.
She lowers the gun, turns to Papa. She expects him to be beaming, cheering, to have his arms open to hold her and tell her how proud he is. Instead his face is a blank mask as he stares first at the dead buck, then at her.
"Your father always wanted a son, but I didn't give him one," Mother said as she lay dying of tuberculosis in the bedroom at the end of the hall. "Be what he wants you to be. Help him, Anna. Take care of him for me."
She has done everything Mother asked. She has learned to ride and shout and do everything the boys do, only better. She has traveled with Papa to his diplomatic postings. On Monday, they sail for America, where Papa will be first consul.
Anna has heard about the gangsters in America, racing around the streets in their big black cars, shooting everyone in sight. If the gangsters try to hurt Papa, she'll shoot them through the eye with her new gun.
That night they lie together in Papa's great bed, a large wood fire burning brightly on the hearth. Outside it is a blizzard. The wind howls and the trees beat against the side of the house. Anna always believes they are trying to get inside because they are cold. The fire is crackling and the smoke smells warm and wonderful. She presses her face against Papa's cheek, lays her arm across his chest.
"It was hard for me the first time I took a deer," he says, as if admitting failure. "I almost put down my gun. Why wasn't it hard for you, Anna darling?"
"I don't know, Papa, it just wasn't."
"All I could see was the damn thing's eyes staring at me. Big brown eyes. Beautiful. Then I saw the life go out of them and I felt terrible. I couldn't get the damned thing out of my mind for a week afterward."
"I didn't see the eyes."
He turns to her in the dark. "What did you see?"
She hesitates. "I saw his face."
"Whose face, darling?" He is confused. "The deer's face?"
"No, Papa, not the deer."
"Anna, darling, what on earth are you talking about?"
She wants desperately to tell him, to tell someone. If Mother were still alive she might be able to tell her. But she cannot bring herself to tell Papa. He would go insane. It would not be fair to him.
"Nothing, Papa. I'm tired now." She kisses his cheek. "Goodnight, Papa. Sweet dreams."
LONDON: JANUARY 1944
It had been six days since Catherine Blake received the message from Hamburg. During that time she had thought long and hard about ignoring it.
Alpha was the code name of a rendezvous point in Hyde Park, a footpath through a grove of trees. She couldn't help but feel jittery about going forward with the meeting. MI5 had arrested dozens of spies since 1940. Surely some of those spies had spilled everything they knew before their appointments with the hangman.
Theoretically, this should make no difference in her case. Vogel had promised her she would be different. She would have different radio procedures, different rendezvous procedures, and different codes. Even if every other spy in England were arrested and hanged, they would have no way of getting at her.
Catherine wished she could share Vogel's confidence. He was hundreds of miles away, cut off from Britain by the Channel, flying blindly. The smallest mistake might get her arrested or killed. Like the rendezvous site, for example. It was a bitterly cold night; anyone loitering in Hyde Park would automatically come under suspicion. It was a silly mistake, so unlike Vogel. He must be under enormous pressure. It was understandable. There was an invasion coming; everyone knew it. The only question was when and where.
She was reluctant to make the rendezvous for another reason: she was frightened of being drawn into the game. She had grown comfortable--too comfortable, perhaps. Her life had assumed a structure and a routine. She had her warm flat, she had her volunteer work at the hospital, she had Vogel's money to support her. She was reluctant, at this late stage of the war, to put herself in danger. She did not regard herself as a German patriot by any means. Her cover seemed totally secure. She could wait out the war and then make her way back to Spain. Back to the grand estancia in the foothills. Back to Maria.
Catherine turned into Hyde Park. The evening traffic in Kensington Road faded to a pleasant hum.
She had two reasons for making the rendezvous.
The first was her father's safety. Catherine had not volunteered to work for the Abwehr as a spy, she had been forced to do it. Vogel's instrument of coercion was her father. He had made it clear her father would be harmed--arrested, thrown into a concentration camp, even killed--if she did not agree to go to Britain. If she refused to take an assignment now, her father's life would surely be in danger.
The second reason was more simple--she was desperately lonely. She had been cut off and isolated for six years. The normal agents were allowed to use their radios. They had some contact with Germany. She had been permitted almost no contact. She was curious; she wanted to talk to someone from her own side. She wanted to be able to drop her cover for just a few minutes, to shed the identity of Catherine Blake.