She reached the flat rooftop. Though not tall enough for a proper view of London, she could make out the top of St. Paul’s dome and a bit of London Bridge. Sooty chimneys jutted upward in the foreground like an endless candelabra, seeming to light the unusually fiery sunset.
Eleanor inhaled deeply. The damp air burned with the mix of coal and petrol that was always present. She felt herself trembling with rage and helplessness, the full adrenaline of her disagreement with the Director now set loose. Something was wrong over there; she knew it. Her girls were lost and alone and she was failing them as surely as she had failed her sister. But no one, even the Director, would listen.
Then came a shuffling sound behind her, the gravelly scuffing of footsteps. Eleanor jumped and spun around. At the far corner of the roof, a man stood, half-facing away from her toward the view of south London. Taking him in, the profile was somehow familiar, but she couldn’t place it. Then she stifled a gasp.
“Vesper.” He did not nod or otherwise acknowledge his identity, but his silence signaled assent. She had only known Vesper by reputation, having heard his name and exploits whispered throughout the halls of Baker Street from the day she’d arrived. She’d seen a lone photo of him in his personnel file and though he looked different here, more rugged, she knew his craggy features on sight. She studied the man about whom she had heard so much. He was tall and leonine, with a strong jawline and broad shoulders befitting all that he seemed to carry on them. He was much younger than she had imagined, though, for someone shrouded in such greatness.
The closest direct link to one of her girls was standing right before her. She could hardly believe it.
Eleanor moved closer. “What are you doing here?” she asked before realizing her mistake. He had no reason to answer a total stranger. “I’m Eleanor Trigg.” She studied his face, wondering if he would recognize her name. But his expression did not change. “I’m in charge of the women’s unit.”
“I know. Marie speaks highly of you.” Eleanor cringed as she imagined Marie saying too much and breaking protocol. At the same time, Eleanor could not help but feel a tug of pride. Though she had been hard on Marie for good reason, Eleanor had often worried that it would cause the girl to hate her. It might be the first time in her life she had ever worried about such a thing. “How is she?”
He smiled reluctantly. “Brilliant. Charming. Infuriating.”
Eleanor stifled a laugh, remembering the girl who had asked questions constantly in training. She had been asking about Marie’s work, though—and Vesper’s answer suggested something else entirely. Vesper’s reputation in the field was that of a lone wolf who isolated himself somewhat from his agents in order to lead. She wondered if he had developed feelings for Marie.
“And the others?”
“Only a few of your girls are with my circuit.” Eleanor nodded. “Josie’s unstoppable. She’s out in the field right now with the maquisards. Le Petit, they call her.” The Little One. “But I think they’re afraid of her. She can outshoot any of them. They trust her more than most of the men at this point.”
“What are you doing in London?” Eleanor asked. He had left his agents alone in the field to come; it must have been vitally important. She noted, with annoyance but not surprise, that she should have been notified he was coming. Had the Director kept Vesper’s visit from her on purpose? Or perhaps he himself had not known.
“Not here,” he said, gesturing around the corner to the part of the roof far from the windows where others might hear. She followed. “I was recalled to report in for meetings at headquarters,” he said, returning to her original question about the purpose of his visit.
“Why?”
“I really can’t talk about it.” It was not her area of responsibility; he did not report to her, and she did not need to know.
But she persisted anyway. “Marie and those other girls, they’re mine. That is, I recruited and trained them. I need to know what is going on.” Vesper nodded, respecting her as an equal, but still offering nothing. “How are your operations?” she asked, trying a different tack.
“Things are going well, I think. Not perfectly, of course, but as well as can be expected.” She wondered if this was true or if he was putting a brave face on it for headquarters. “We had a setback with a depot sabotage last winter, but we’ve recovered. Right now the whole focus is blowing up the bridge at Mantes-la-Jolie.” Eleanor nodded. She’d heard about it in their daily briefings at headquarters; preparations for it were the reason she had agreed to deploy Josie early. The bridge was a key choke point for holding up the German tanks as they moved toward the coast for the invasion. But blowing it up was dangerous—and it would put the whole circuit at risk.
“You have what you need to do it?”
“We were lacking in explosives. But an agent from Marseille passed through a few weeks ago to establish contact. He was able to get us what we need, additional TNT in exchange for some munitions storehouses. We’re managing.”
“Is there any chance you’ve been compromised?” she asked bluntly. The question was too abrupt, out of left field, but it was what she most needed to know in order to determine what was going on with Marie’s transmissions and there was no point in hiding it.
He bristled. “Not at all,” he replied, too quickly. But he did not seem as surprised by the suggestion as Eleanor might had thought.
“You’ve considered the possibility, though, haven’t you?”
“It’s always a possibility,” he countered, unwilling to admit more.
Then all of the concerns of the past weeks about the infrequencies of the transmissions and the way they didn’t sound quite like Marie came rushing back. “Her transmissions,” Eleanor ventured. “Some of her messages just don’t sound like Marie.”
“I’m sure it’s just nerves, the newness of being in the field,” he replied. “She’s fine—or at least she was when I last saw her a few days ago.” There was a warmth in his voice when he spoke of seeing Marie that answered Eleanor’s question about his feelings for the girl. She wondered whether Marie felt the same, and whether anything had come of it. “She retrieved a package for me from Montmartre,” he added.
Paris. “Good Lord! You aren’t using her as a courier, are you?” Marie had the language skills, but she was so green. Her clandestine skills, how to blend in and not make the kind of mistakes that would get her caught, were simply undeveloped.
“She’s better than you know.”
“Perhaps.” Eleanor bristled at the notion that anyone knew her girls better than she did.
“Anyway, we have to be fluid in the field, send people where they are needed.”