The Prisoner in the Castle

by Susan Elia MacNeal

  Maggie tried to remember. “I met Leo and Sayid on my way to go fishing with Mr. Crane.”

  Teddy cleared his throat. “And I was fishing, of course. First alone, and then with Miss Hope. Afterward, I spent time with Mr. Novak.”

  Quentin appraised Teddy with narrowed eyes. “So you say…”

  “Where were you, Ramsey? Before you met up with Mr. Crane?” Quentin walked over and waved a hand in front of the man’s eyes. “Come now, speak up. Don’t be shy.”

  “Stop it,” Maggie ordered.

  “Well, if he won’t speak, why doesn’t he write for us?” Quentin went to Mrs. McNaughton’s sitting room and returned with pen and paper. “Here,” he said, shoving both in front of Ramsey.

  Ramsey took both and threw them in the fireplace.

  “So much for that idea.” Quentin watched the paper burn. “So, really, any of us could have killed Ian. And it’s probably the same for all the victims. We all tend to go off on our own…”

  There was a pause in the wind, and the group heard the distant clang of church bells from the abandoned village. “What the—” In all her time on the island, Maggie had never heard the bells ring before. “It could be Leo,” she offered. “He could be in some kind of trouble.”

  “Or it could be a trap,” Teddy warned.

  “This is why we need to stick together! We can’t leave a man down.” Maggie gazed out the window, gauging the rain and wind. The church bells stopped. And then began to toll again. Maggie gently moved the cat from her lap, then stood. He gave a meow of disgust, then slunk away. “I’m going.”

  “If you are, I am, too,” said Teddy. Maggie looked to the older man, grateful for his steadfast friendship.

  “I’ll go with you,” Quentin volunteered. “But not without a gun.”

  Anna nodded. “We’ll need weapons.”

  “There’s a gun room near the back door,” Quentin said. “But everything’s locked.”

  Maggie smiled, she felt as if for the first time in days. “And your point?”

  * * *

  —

  The grounds of the castle were a muddy quagmire that sucked at Maggie’s Wellingtons like quicksand as she stumbled to the path, followed by the four others. It seemed to take twice as much strength as usual to put one foot in front of the other, and she struggled to stay upright.

  The wind was still gusting across the island. Towering firs bent before the tempest, and though Maggie should have been able to hear the shuddering branches and the waves crashing against the rocks, the wind drowned everything else out. She no longer heard the church bells. Have they really stopped? And who was ringing them?

  As they blundered forward under the huge and ancient oaks, Maggie felt small and alone. The crackling twigs, the rustling of leaves as the wind tore through the branches, the screams of the Manx shearwaters filled her ears. Maggie pushed the feelings away. This is a mission, she reminded herself. Leo is at the church, he rang the bells—we need to find and help him. She looked back to make sure Teddy was all right. But he was fine, not even leaning on his walking stick.

  The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland wasn’t far from the crofters’ cottages. It was a small gabled rectangle, constructed from rough-hewn whitewashed stone. The prisoners, armed with rifles taken from the gun room, approached through the rain, which had slowed to a drizzle. The bell in the tower was ominously still.

  The weathered blue door was ajar. Ramsey opened it, the resulting creak echoing within. The group entered, one by one, rifles raised, lining up shoulder to shoulder. Inside, it looked as expected for a structure unused for twenty years, but the plain wooden pews were intact, most of the leaded-glass windows miraculously unbroken. Once in, Anna lowered her gun, bent to one knee, crossed herself, and bowed her head.

  “Now?” Quentin asked.

  “I don’t care what sort of church it is,” Anna replied, her eyes closed, “I think we could all use a prayer.”

  “Leo?” Maggie called as she made her way through the shadows and down the center aisle. “Leo?” Rain pattering at the glass was the only sound. The rest followed, wary. “Leo? Are you all right?”

  They approached the altar. There was a noise from the choir loft, and Maggie whirled to face the open door.

  It was Leo, gun trained on her. “Think about it,” he said, voice thick with anger. “One of you has to be the Nazi.”

  “The bastard lured us here.” Quentin shook his head, not taking his gaze or his rifle from Leo. “Lured us here deliberately.” He clicked off the safety.

  “Leo, put down your gun,” Maggie called.

  It was as if he didn’t hear her. “If I kill all of you, I’ll kill the Nazi among us, too. I’ll stay alive.”

  “But you’ll kill innocent people, Leo,” she said. “People on your side. People who’ve trained with you. Your fellow agents.”

  “In war, sacrifices must be made.”

  “But, Leo, we’re not at the point of sacrifice. Look, the rain is letting up and the winds are dying—help is coming,” she said in what she hoped was a soothing voice. “There’s no need to kill innocent—”

  Leo’s gun exploded. Maggie and the other agents scattered, ducking behind the pews and shooting back. The small structure reverberated with the sound of gunfire.

  Maggie spotted two shadowy figures on their hands and knees at the wall end of a pew. “Maggie,” Teddy called, gesturing to her. “Come!”

  She did. She and Ramsey and Teddy scrabbled with their heads down toward the church door, as Quentin and Anna shot up into the loft, covering for them.

  Once outside, they paused. “Run!” Teddy cried.

  Maggie hesitated. Then she ran.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Under interlocking branches of pines, protected from the rain and wind, they stopped to catch their breath. Teddy was wheezing; Ramsey had forgotten a hat and was drenched. “If Leo is coming after us,” Maggie told the others, “we’ll need to be smart.”

  “He’s just one man,” Teddy countered, clutching his side. His face was ashen, and Maggie felt a pang of concern for him. “And this is a relatively big island.”

  “He’s an experienced hunter,” Maggie countered, “and it’s not really so big.”

  “We can hide,” Teddy insisted. “We can go to the boat in the bay. That way we’ll see anyone coming and have a good shot.” Ramsey nodded.

  “Or we can split up,” Maggie suggested.

  “No, I think we should stay together,” Teddy replied. “The storm’s passing.”

  Maggie gazed up at the sky. He was right: the gray was brightening. The winds were dying down. She nodded. “To the boat, then.”

  A branch broke in the underbrush, and Maggie started. The three of them froze like deer, sniffing at the air, eyes alert. Slowly, Maggie turned her head.

  Leo had her in his crosshairs. “It’s you. I knew it was you from the beginning.”

  “No, Leo.” She was eerily calm as she stared down the barrel of his pistol. A song ran through her mind, one of Mr. Churchill’s favorites: “Run, Rabbit, Run.”

  She shook her head to clear it. “Leo, the rain’s letting up. It’s over. The boats will be here any time now. There’s no reason to shoot anyone.” She needed to buy time. “Where are Anna and Quentin? Are they all right?”

  “Don’t worry your little head about them.” What did that mean?

  In an instant, to Maggie’s astonishment, Ramsey popped off the safety on his gun and shot. Leo flinched, swore, and tried to return fire. But he staggered back, a bloodstain blossoming on the outside of his thigh. His bullets flew up into the tree branches, startling a raven, who flapped away with deep, throaty cries of kwaa. Leo dropped the pistol. He fell to his knees, gripping at his leg.

  Maggie stepped in and grabbed his gun. “Ramsey, take care of Leo. Use
pressure to stop the bleeding. Just keep him alive until we can get off this island.” I don’t particularly like you, Leo, but you won’t be number eight. At least, not if I can help it. She turned to Teddy. “We need to make sure Quentin and Anna aren’t hurt. Come on!”

  * * *

  —

  The storm that had shrouded Scarra was sweeping inland; Arisaig House was now bearing the brunt. Outdoor training had been suspended and calisthenics had been moved indoors. Martens and Frain sat in front of a blazing orange fire in Colonel Rogers’s office in the former library. The colonel was at his massive desk. Captain Lewis was there as well, pacing by the windows.

  “We’d only just sent Agent Oddell to Scarra,” Rogers said, putting on tortoiseshell-framed glasses as rain splattered against the windows. “Four days ago, to be precise.” He frowned; the fire’s valiant best was doing little to cut the chill.

  “Why was she sent to the island?” Frain took out a cigarette from a silver case. “What exactly did she do? It’s not as if she was sent there for specialized training.”

  “She—” Lewis began. He and Rogers exchanged a look; Rogers dropped his gaze as Lewis lifted a brass ashtray from his desk and handed it to Frain. “That is, we didn’t consider her mentally balanced enough to be safe to herself or others during the stress of missions.”

  “So this is a lunatic asylum, this Scarra? SOE’s private Bedlam?”

  “The people on Scarra—we’ve trained them, they’ve learned our secrets, but they’re defective in some way,” Martens replied. “We can’t risk sending them abroad or keeping them here at home. They pose a danger to the war effort, and so they must be hidden away.”

  “And how are they ‘defective,’ exactly?” Frain challenged, lighting his cigarette.

  “They’re the agents who were too likely to talk when drunk, too violent and a danger to others, who speak English in their sleep…any number of reasons.”

  Frain narrowed his eyes. “And you didn’t see fit to inform the other intelligence agencies of the existence of this prison island?”

  “We need to protect our secrets,” Martens insisted. “And Bishop at MI-Six knows. He’s the one who set it up, actually.”

  “And you didn’t see fit to inform me?” A muscle twitched in Frain’s cheek. “Why exactly is Agent Hope there?”

  Lewis looked to Frain. “To be honest, I wasn’t aware Agent Hope had been sent to Scarra,” he admitted. “I worked with her both as her instructor and as her colleague when she returned here to teach last year. I can vouch for the fact she was a hardworking trainee and then an excellent, if strict, instructor.”

  “Whose order put her on the island, then?” Frain’s voice was dangerously even.

  “She knows one of the biggest secrets of the war—about the invasion,” Martens said. “I took it upon myself, with Colonel Bishop, to intern her there when we found her to be a security risk.”

  “Half of Whitehall knows the details about the invasion, you blithering fool!” Frain exploded, knocking over the ashtray. “And you’ve sent her straight into the clutches of a German undercover agent!”

  “Let’s focus now on the problem at hand,” Martens asserted. “Which is the practical matter of rescuing those still alive on the island and capturing the German.” He made a steeple of his hands. “Colonel, you say the last transmission from the prisoners said seven on the island are dead. And they’re aware one of them is a sleeper agent.”

  “Yes,” Rogers said.

  Lewis turned back from the window. “Well, then, they know there’s an agent among them. If we’ve trained them properly, they’ll discover who he is and take him out. They’ll just need to identify him before he can make his U-boat pickup.”

  “What’s the weather like out there now?” Martens asked.

  “Meteorologists say it’s clearing a bit there,” Lewis answered. He looked out the window and the other men followed his glance. The treetops were bending in the wind, dead leaves swirling down with the rain. “But the moving storm will make it hard to take a boat out.”

  “And Mallaig? Fort William?”

  “Same weather as here.”

  “The Navy’s corvettes, though, they’re large—they can make it regardless of weather?” asked Martens, his voice hopeful.

  Frain lit another cigarette with sharp, angry movements and retrieved the fallen ashtray. “We have a corvette approaching the island, listening for any radio signals.”

  “The message we received said the Scarra agents planned to destroy the radios,” Rogers offered.

  “Good. The island’s harbor’s not big enough for a corvette, of course, but when the storm clears, it can land a smaller boat. We’ve contacted Coastal Command aviation assets. They’re sending six Spitfires to shoot at anything that surfaces. The local coast guard is ready to move, too—although they’re most likely to be grounded by the weather.”

  Frain nodded. “It will depend on who arrives there first—us or the U-boat.”

  “You’ve covered all the bases,” Rogers replied.

  “The Spitfires won’t be able to do much real damage,” Martens pointed out.

  “They can strafe the sub—drop a few grenades,” Rogers told them. “Cause some trouble. Maybe buy us more time.”

  “You do understand the signal to the U-boat could be a distraction—he might really be trying to reach Ireland.” Frain exhaled blue smoke. “We just don’t know.”

  “What do you think he knows?” Martens took out his own dented cigarette case. “Do you think Hope’s talked?”

  Rogers shook his head. “The prisoners know the same rules apply on the island as on the mainland. They’ve all signed the Official Secrets Act.”

  “But she could have talked,” Martens insisted, pulling out a cigarette, trying to hide his shaking hands. “The way I sent her to Scarra…wasn’t exactly gentle.” Frain glared at the man. “She could be resentful enough to throw the rules out the window. Or scared enough to talk. Especially with Captain Evans dead.”

  “Well, what chance do we have of catching the German bastard before he’s picked up by the U-boat?” Lewis asked. It took Martens three tries for the lighter to catch. The tip of the cigarette glowed reddish orange in the gloom.

  “It’s anyone’s guess,” Rogers replied, reaching over to turn on his desk lamp. “The spy will try to escape the island as soon as the storm clears. We just need to beat him to it.”

  Frain regarded Martens. “I know Agent Hope. I’ve worked with her. And I don’t believe she’ll talk. However, because she won’t talk, I anticipate he’ll try to take her with him.” His gray eyes pinned Martens in his seat. “You never should have told her the information about the invasion. It was too much too soon. She’d literally just returned from occupied Paris—one of her friends died there.”

  The colonel realized Frain had pieced together what he and Bishop had done. “Fine. I overstepped. But if the Gestapo gets their hands on her, she could lose us the fucking war.” He rose with some difficulty and walked to the photograph of Winston Churchill on the wall, gazing up at the growling countenance. “If it looks as though the kraut’s taken her, either bringing her by boat to the pickup or at the U-boat itself, we’ll need the RAF to shoot. Both of them.” He turned. “Tell them, Colonel Rogers. They need to shoot to kill. Even if Agent Hope’s on that boat, too. Especially if she is.”

  The room was silent. “Are we not all in agreement here?” Martens asked, voice rising. “I’m not a villain, but I am willing to do what it takes to keep information vital to the invasion from reaching the enemy.” He paced on the worn carpet in front of the fireplace. “Wouldn’t you kill Eve holding the apple before she handed it over to Adam? I would. We can’t afford mercy at this point. Not even to our own.”

  Frain crossed his legs. “I set aside my own morals long ago in this war. And yet, I m
ust say I hope we don’t have to cross that bridge.”

  There was a knock at the door. “Colonel Rogers?” It was a fresh-faced young woman in a brown FANY uniform. “You have…guests, sir.”

  “Good God, what now?”

  “Two men—a Mr. David Greene, from the P.M.’s office, and DCI Durgin, from Scotland Yard. They say they’re here about an agent named Margaret Hope.”

  “Send them in.” Colonel Rogers leaned an elbow on the desk and let his open palm catch his forehead. “And bring us all some bloody tea.”

  * * *

  —

  U-135 floated just below the turbulent waves on the water’s surface. Kapitänleutnant von Siemens squinted through the periscope, looking for ships and aircraft, as well as rocks and shoals missing from German charts. First Officer Schäffler stood with him on the bridge; together, they listened for engine noises on sonar—either ships leaving harbor or the corvettes approaching. “The window opens in forty minutes, Herr Kaleu.”

  “I am aware, Schäffler.”

  “We have had no further communication from the Abwehr agent, Herr Kaleu. And our systems show two British corvettes approaching.”

  “We signaled our ghost we would meet him during the window and we will, Schäffler.”

  “Herr Kaleu, it’s not safe for us to remain so close to the Scottish coast for much longer.”

  “I am aware of the complications, Schäffler. But I won’t let a fellow German officer down. He’ll most likely be coming in something small—a fishing boat or even a rowboat. A wooden raft, for Christ’s sake. Who knows what condition it might be in? The agent himself might be injured. And then there’s the wind, and the tide and the waves…”

  “Herr Kaleu—”

  Von Siemens smiled. Everyone on board knew a smile from the captain was a very bad sign. Schäffler swallowed and forced himself not to take a step backwards.

  But the impending tirade never came. “Fetch me coffee, Schäffler,” the Kapitänleutnant ordered. “For once, make sure it’s hot.”