Dear Miss Parry,
You must not call out. You must not try to escape.
The Blackout Beast
The “Blackout Beast”? Is this some sort of horrible joke?
Wiping at her face with her sleeve, Brynn began to pace back and forth in the small room, her feet and the hem of her gown becoming dirtier as she did.
You must not try to escape, the note had warned.
Well, bugger that, Brynn decided. She ran to the door, flung herself against it, pounding it with her fists. Nothing happened; it didn’t budge.
Her knees buckled and she slid down the length of the door.
People will be worried, she reminded herself. They must be looking for me. But she’d told her mother and sister she was going off on a mission and they wouldn’t hear from her for a while. She didn’t really know anyone in London. She’d missed her appointment at SOE, but they probably wrote it off as nerves or last-minute panic and desertion. Who would be looking for her? She was a fool to think so.
She felt light-headed once again, a tinny buzz in her ears. Must think. The walls were made of rough stone. Methodically, she pushed on each and every stone to see if any would give. No. She threw herself back on the bed, refusing to let herself cry. Think, think. She squeezed her eyes shut, frantic.
She opened them again, staring up at the ceiling. It was low and plaster. Was that a small, nearly imperceptible opening in one corner? She was too short to reach it, but she dragged the bed over, scrambled onto it, then reached up. The opening was well camouflaged, but it was a pipe, a copper pipe. The pipe was how she was being drugged, she realized. She was being gassed.
She ripped the flounce from the hem of her nightgown and stuffed it inside the pipe.
No more Sleeping Beauty now. Next time you come, you Beast—or whoever you are—I’ll be ready.
—
After taking leave of her father, and cheering herself up with a cup of tea and hot soup in the cafeteria, Maggie used the public telephone in the hospital’s lobby to call in to Durgin at MI-5.
“We’ve booked Max Thornton and brought him in,” he told her, “but the devil’s still being processed. If you need to go to the SOE office, do it. Take your time. I’m going to let him stew in a very small cell.”
Maggie took the Tube to the Baker Street stop, then went to the SOE office to see if there was any news of Agent Calvert and to go over Brynn’s files once more. As usual, the air in the offices was freezing. She could hear other people, but the reception room at least was empty. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a scrawled message: DAVID GREENE AT NO. 10. TELEPHONED. PLEASE RETURN CALL.
Is this about Max? She dialed the number and waited to be put through. When she finally reached David, he sounded relieved. “You’re a hard woman to get ahold of, Mags,” he scolded her.
“So I hear,” she said, thinking of the Queen. “It’s been a rather busy time. Are you all right?”
“Well, this isn’t a personal call. Well, it is in a way, but—I want to let you know, on behalf of the P.M., our agents in Berlin have your sister. They’re bringing her to Paris and from there to Free France, and then to Madrid and Lisbon and finally to London. Of course I’ll keep you apprised as things go forward.”
Maggie slumped back in her chair, flooded with relief. “She’s out,” she murmured. “She’s really out of that hell. David.” She blinked back tears. “Thank you. And please thank Mr. Churchill for me, too.”
“Will do.”
Maggie wanted to ask if he’d witnessed Max’s arrest, but bit her tongue. As she replaced the receiver in the cradle, she realized it was quiet in the office. Too quiet. Then she heard faint voices spilling out through the high transom window. There was a meeting going on in the conference room.
The SOE staff was discussing one of F-Section’s Paris networks, code-named Prosper.
“The rules are changing,” she heard Miss Lynd drawl. “Since the laws changed, all young men in France are liable to be arrested. They’re not classified as ‘essential workers.’ ”
“What happens to them?” Maggie heard Brody say.
“They’re sent to Germany as forced laborers—and we all know what that really means. Women, however, can invent any number of cover stories to travel and arouse little suspicion. I suggest we begin training even more women to be sent over, as our male agents are sitting ducks. Even with the proper paperwork, they raise suspicions.”
“Miss Lynd, I asked you to solve the so-called woman problem, not make it worse,” Colonel Gaskell cautioned.
“Colonel,” she replied crisply, “you asked me for my help and this is it. I know you’re not pleased with seeing women in combat, but the reality is, right now in France, women can accomplish things far more easily, and in more relative safety, than men.”
“Fine,” Gaskell retorted, obviously displeased. “For now, at least. What else do we have on the agenda today?”
“We have two new agents going into Paris with the full moon,” Miss Lynd explained. “Sarah Sanderson, who is now Madame Sabine Severin, and Hugh Thompson, code-named Hubert Taillier.”
As if reading Maggie’s mind, Brody asked, “Any news on Erica Calvert?”
“Reports say she’s been spotted in Paris. But it’s hard to get any confirmed information,” Gaskell admitted.
“So our agent’s in Paris, without the benefit of a network?” Miss Lynd asked, her voice sharpening. “We need to get her out!”
“Calm yourself, Miss Lynd! These two new agents—Severin and Taillier—can get us a better picture.”
“I’m not comfortable with two inexperienced agents being sent in blind,” Miss Lynd insisted.
This is Sarah and Hugh they’re talking about! Suddenly Maggie knew what Durgin meant about his “gut.” Something is very, very wrong.
Miss Lynd continued, “My feeling is we should keep Severin and Taillier here until we have a better picture of how Prosper’s faring. And we must make plans for an extraction of Agent Calvert. The materials she has are vital to the war effort. To see a world in a grain of sand—I don’t know the exact nature of her mission, of course, but if it’s to do with the geology of France’s northwest coastline, it must be of vital importance to those planning the invasion.”
Listening to make sure the meeting was still going on, Maggie picked up the telephone receiver again and dialed Beaulieu, waiting impatiently for the dial to stop clicking. “Yes, I need to get a message to Sarah Sanderson. It’s Maggie Hope. Yes, please ask her to call me. And yes, it’s an emergency.” If Sarah and Hugh were really still being sent to France, they deserved to know the whole story before they left. There were definitely problems in the Prosper network.
A niggling worry wouldn’t leave her in anything resembling peace. She took out Erica Calvert’s folder and looked once more at the message:
And, once more, she translated the Morse code into plain text:
Hello!
Everything good here. Left Rouen. Please remember mother’s birthday with gift. Mission going well.
Erica Calvert
Something was off, she knew it. Is it your “gut,” Hope? She chewed absently on a pencil eraser. No, she thought. It’s years of experience with codes and working as an agent behind enemy lines myself.
She squinted at the sentences, taking them one by one.
Hello!
Everything good here.
Left Rouen.
Please remember mother’s birthday with gift.
Mission going well.
Erica Calvert
The first letter of every sentence, taken together, spelled out HELP ME.
The message was a call for help. It was there, in code—and, once unbroken, plain as day. Her heart began to race. HELP ME—God only knew what was happening to Erica now.
The door opened and the group filed out. “Ah, Meggie, you’re back,” Gaskell muttered. “Terrific. Fetch me a cuppa, would you? Thank you, dear girl.”
“Colonel G
askell,” she said, paper with the broken code in hand, “I’ve gone over Erica Calvert’s last message to us again. There’s a hidden message. In code.”
“We’ve been over her messages already.”
“Colonel Gaskell!” She pushed the paper with the broken code closer to his face. “H-E-L-P M-E. HELP ME. She’s begging for help!”
“That’s no code.” Gaskell blinked pale eyes. “Coincidence, nothing more.”
“Excuse me, sir. But with everything—her not giving her security checks, the mention of a gift for a dead mother, and now HELP ME…”
“Coincidence,” he rumbled. His eyes flashed, and suddenly Maggie felt a stab of fear. He looked as though he wanted to strangle her. She’d always seen Gaskell as a bumbling, incompetent manager—now she realized he definitely had a more dangerous side as well.
He shoved the folder back at her, then turned, revealing a black X made by the crossed suspenders on his back. “You’re still working with MI-Five?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, taking a few steps back in alarm.
“Well, then I suggest you return to them—and get the hell out of here.”
—
“Hello?” Maggie called as she took off her coat, hat, and gloves, and set down her handbag on the front hall’s walnut console table, trying to quell her fear and outrage before seeing Chuck and Griffin.
She could smell the odor of burning bread, and followed it to the kitchen to find Chuck, making toast. Of course she couldn’t say anything to Chuck about Agent Calvert and the SOE’s refusal to take her disappearance seriously or her concerns about Sarah being sent to Paris, and the secret gnawed at her insides. She crossed to one of the high-backed chairs and sat, pressing her curled fist against her lips. Erica. Brynn. Countless other women…
“I was able to speak with Nigel last night,” Chuck began before Maggie could say anything. “Honestly, I don’t like to worry him—if it wasn’t for the change of address and telephone number, I might not have even told him. Poor dear has enough to worry about.”
Griffin lay in his makeshift bassinet on the table, his chubby little arms and legs waving as he babbled. “Well, hello, sweetie,” Maggie cooed, reaching over to kiss his bald head, where fine, wispy hairs were beginning to grow in. He smelled of soap and innocence, and grace—and he had absolutely no knowledge of war and undercover agents and murdered women. “You’re so yummy,” she cooed. The simple joy of having Griffin wrap his pudgy fingers around her thumb could almost—almost—keep her fears for the safety of Erica and Brynn at bay.
“Isn’t baby head smell the most wonderful smell in the entire world?” his mother mused. “I take big whiffs all the time. To me, he smells like Scottish shortbread—although all my Irish ancestors are probably turning in their respective graves at that.”
Maggie heard a string of loud mehs and spun to see K padding into the room, his claws clicking on the tiles. He rubbed up against her, purring loudly. As she reached down to scratch him under the chin, he flopped down, showing his belly.
“He’s missed you,” Chuck observed as K prowled to his food bowl. “Cheeky little bugger. Do you know he’s caught any number of mice—but won’t eat them? Leaves quite the collection at the foot of your bed. I’ve been burying them in the back garden.”
“Lovely.” All this and dead mice, too?
“Meanwhile, to get tins of cat food, I have to wait in yet another queue. With all the crazy cat ladies. The ‘crazy cat lady queue.’ These are dark times, indeed.”
She placed a plate of toast and margarine on the table in front of Maggie, then sat down with one for herself. “There’s some coffee, if you’d like. It’s mostly water, but it’s brown, at least. And hot. And it smells like coffee, even if it is chicory and has no bloody flavor.”
“You’re a miracle worker, Chuck,” Maggie said. Still, she only sipped at the coffee, leaving the toast untouched.
“Well, it’s the least I can do, with your letting us stay here and letting me use your coupons.” Chuck glared down at K, who had settled at Maggie’s feet. “I only wish the moggy would show a little gratitude.”
“Gratitude? From a cat?” Maggie tried her best to smile. “Oh, I think you’ll be waiting quite a long time.”
Chuck finally took a good long look at her friend. “What happened to you? You look bloody terrible.”
“Goodness, thanks.” Maggie shrugged. “Just—just another rough day at work.”
“By the way…” Chuck licked crumbs off her fingers. “Two packages came for you, while you were gone. I left them in your room.”
“Thanks. I’m going to wash up and then call in to the office.”
“Don’t you ever get a day off?”
“Maybe when the war’s over…” Maggie called from the stairs.
K followed close behind, meowing impatiently. “Hush, you,” she told him as she reached her bedroom.
After washing her face with cold water and brushing her teeth with powder from a tin, she went back to the bedroom. With cold fingers, she opened the first package, recognizing not only the rows of U.S. stamps but also the elegant handwriting. It was from Aunt Edith, and filled with tins of pineapple and raspberries, blue cans of Spam, and several thick, heavenly chocolate bars.
Maggie smiled, a real one this time. Their last meeting in Washington hadn’t been perfect, but she and her aunt were both doing their best to bridge the distance. Maggie laughed when she saw the final item, at the bottom of the package: an issue of American Physical Society Journal, with a lead article by J. R. Oppenheimer. Of course—to Aunt Edith intellectual sustenance counts as much, or more, as physical.
K had jumped up on her dresser and was madly scratching at the other package. Wrapped in brown paper and tied with heavy twine, it had the name MARGARET HOPE written across it in heavy black, block letters. There were no stamps—it must have been hand-delivered. “Well, what have we here?” Maggie murmured, thankful for the distraction.
K stared up at her without blinking. “Meh!”
Maggie picked up the package; it was heavier than she’d expected. She froze. A red stain seeped from one corner, soaking the brown wrapping paper. It was blood—she knew the musty tang all too well.
She felt as though she were about to be sick, but took a shallow breath. She reached for the sterling silver letter opener on her desk, then sliced through the twine.
She pierced through the brown wrapping paper and tore it open, then lifted off the cardboard lid. Inside, there was a sheet of folded paper. This, too, was stained with blood. And then—something—wrapped in waxed paper that had parted wide enough to reveal its glistening red contents. It gave off a strong meaty smell, and K tried to stick his head into the box to get a better sniff.
“No!” Maggie screamed in horror, her cry echoing in the sparely furnished room.
She backed away, unable to tear her eyes from the bloody organ, smothering the howl she wanted to make by clamping her hands over her mouth. Realizing K was trying to investigate the obscene object, she scooped him up, then set him on the floor, none too gently. K jumped silently up onto the bed to regard her, and the package, with inscrutable eyes.
Maggie swallowed hard and with shaking hands lifted the letter. She unfolded it, staring at the spidery handwriting.
Dear Miss Hope:
As you may have deduced by now, I have decided to send the working women, who have always ruined my life, to their Maker (or to the Devil, as the case may be).
Even though I’ve taken on the legacy of Jack the Ripper, in homage to his killing of whores, I consider myself a rational and erudite man. However, the so-called modern woman enrages me.
You want to keep the advantages of being women, while stealing the strengths of men.
You are intent on transforming our patriarchy into a matriarchy, which denies the intrinsic worth of Englishmen.
And so the once proud, virile, and impregnable British Empire has been turned into a woman, one who is submitting to
the rape of the Nazis.
I may sound like a madman, but I am but a rational, intelligent English gentleman who has been driven to murderous insanity by modern women.
Do you want to know who’s to blame for the Blackout Beast killings?
Look in the mirror, Miss Hope.
It is you, and the rest of your modern sisterhood, who are at fault.
You did this.
And I will annihilate you all.
Chapter Fifteen
“This!” Maggie tossed the grisly box, which she’d wrapped in a white pillowcase, onto the low table in front of Durgin. “This package came today. It was left. At my house. My house!” She crossed her arms tightly across her chest, hugging herself, heart thudding.
Durgin looked up from a stack of papers. “And what do we have here?”
“See the viscous red liquid leaking out of said package?” Maggie fumed. “Well, it’s blood. Blood from a kidney, if I’m not mistaken. And a human one at that, if I’m to believe the accompanying note!”
Durgin put down his tea and peered closer, opening the pillowcase, his eyes widening at the sight of the bloody box. He squinted down at it, as if it were Pandora’s and contained all the horrors of man—then back up at Maggie, seeing the stricken look in her eyes.
“Do you think—do you think it could be…Brynn’s?” she managed.
“There’s no way to know.” His expression of sympathy was the last straw. She ran out of the room, pressing her hand against her mouth to stifle her weeping.
In the ladies’ W.C., she retched into the toilet, bringing up the bad coffee. Finally, when she was done, she made her way to the sink to wash her face. As she spat water into the sink, she looked at her reflection. Look in the mirror, Miss Hope, the letter had read. She waited until the urge to vomit again had passed. Then she dried her hands and did what she could with her hair before exiting.
Durgin was in the hall, waiting for her. “I asked the secretary, Mrs. What’s-her-name, to make you tea.”
Maggie nodded. “At least I didn’t vomit on a crime scene,” she tried to joke as she walked unsteadily back to their shared office. His hand closed on her upper arm as he guided her steps. She didn’t shrug him away. Human touch felt terribly important at that moment.
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