by Glenn Dyer
A moment later, Thorn and Bright were alone. Several of the bar’s customers began to leave, allowing a lull to descend on the space.
“I’ll get to Maggie. She’ll clear this up. But you heard what he said about Longworth telling the prime minister to put off Torch?” Thorn asked.
“Yes. That is news. But not his stance on the communists.”
“This guy becomes more interesting to me by the day.”
Bright frowned and looked away.
Thorn stood and picked up his trench coat. “By the way, we need to follow up on one piece of news that Donovan spilled today.” Bright ignored him. “It seems the lieutenant that ran the film lab has flown the coop.”
“Excuse me?”
“AWOL, absent without leave. Probably holed up in some—”
“Mr. Thorn?” The voice was raspy—a smoker’s voice. Its Boston accent was familiar. Thorn turned, and a face as recognizable as his own stared back at him. “It is you. Conor Thorn.”
Abe Fellows. The man standing before him was in his midthirties, short with a stocky build, and dressed in a US naval officer’s uniform; the single silver bar noted his rank—lieutenant junior grade. He squirmed inside the uniform as if it belonged to someone else. He was a crewmate from the Reuben James.
People in the bar seemed to move in slow motion. Their chatter became a low buzz as Thorn stood staring at what he assumed was a ghost.
Bright got up and went to him, touched his forearm; he flinched.
“Yes, it’s me, Abe,” Thorn managed to say. “I’m . . . surprised to see you.”
“You’re telling me! No one ever told us what happened to you.”
Thorn looked at Bright, his mouth open but not forming any words.
“Hello, my name is Emily Bright. I’m a . . . friend of Conor’s.”
Fellows extended his hand. “Abe, Abe Fellows. Mr. Thorn and I served togetha on the Reuben James. I was a chief petty officer then. That is, before they made me a ninety-day wonda,” Fellows said, nervously twirling his cap in his hands.
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand, Mr. Fellows,” Bright said.
“It’s wartime. The navy is hungry for experienced officers. They’re tapping the ranks of non-coms to fill their needs,” Thorn said.
“Yeah, you got it, Mr. Thorn,” Fellows said. “Hungry, they are, if they’re tapping me on the shoulder.” Fellows chuckled, then sniffled. He ran the back of his index finger under his nose.
“Abe, you were one of the best. You saved my ass a couple of times, if I remember correctly.”
“Thanks, Mr. Thorn. We all looked up to you. You kept us together. But . . . what happened? One minute you were there; the next you were gone. We sailed without an XO.”
Thorn chewed the inside of his cheek. His right hand balled tightly into a fist. He saw Fellows looking at Thorn’s academy ring. A shameful malaise swept over Thorn. He shifted his trench coat to his right arm to cover his hand. “I was called away by a family emergency. I couldn’t get back in time. I’m sorry. I truly am. I think about the Reuben James, the crew . . . every day.”
“That’s OK, Mr. Thorn. I do too. You couldn’t have helped. It was a real—”
“Tragedy. A gut-ripping tragedy,” Thorn said, his eyes lowered to the floor.
“You’ve got that right, Mr. Thorn.” Not a word passed between the men for several seconds. Fellows was the first to speak. “Well . . . it’s time I shoved off.” Fellows, who stood directly under a pool of soft light, saluted Thorn, then turned quickly and walked away. Thorn stared at the man as he exited the bar, then returned his old shipmate’s salute. He was still saluting when Bright grabbed his forearm and stood on her toes. She softly kissed his cheek. “It’s in the past, Conor. Nothing you can do now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
1900 Hours, Saturday, October 10, 1942
Saint George’s Hospital, Hyde Park Corner, London
The white dress shirt that had been drenched when Longworth arrived at Saint George’s one hour earlier was now dry, but it was stiff to the touch. The trigger for his chest pains—the early morning call from Churchill with his earsplitting expressions of disappointment and scorn—still rang in his ears like an air-raid klaxon. Longworth’s protestations and claims of a massive misunderstanding were, at first, ignored but had gained traction by the end of the call. Calling upon his shared history of serving with Churchill in the Sixth Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers in the Great War calmed the prime minister. But it was clear the threat level had risen and something needed to be done.
As he slipped his shirt on and pulled it across his chest to button it, a residual tightness in his chest remained. The private room that he now stood in was on the second floor. Looking out the window, Longworth had a clear view of Wellington Arch. The view of Green Park beyond the arch was slightly obscured by low clouds that had dampened the grounds of the park with a soft mist. The pleasing view of the park contrasted starkly with his current surroundings. He believed that the small, harshly lit hospital room with its pale-yellow walls was the perfect place to receive bad news.
Longworth finished dressing, sat on the edge of the bed, and waited. The call to Quinn had been made when he had first arrived at Saint George’s. He had expected Quinn at his bedside thirty minutes ago. Longworth had begun pacing when the door to the hallway burst open. His doctor, Algernon Smith, a frail, squat man, stared at the empty bed, his mouth agape. He fixed his gaze on Longworth, who stood by the window fully dressed.
“What exactly are you doing?” Smith asked in a voice much less frail than the body that it came from.
“I told you I felt fine. It was solely an exaggerated case of . . . indigestion.”
“Oh, I see. Just indigestion, is it? Is that why you asked me to call your nephew to your bedside?”
Longworth expected the push back from Smith, who never lost an opportunity to scold Longworth for ignoring his warnings about his weak heart. “It is none of your business why I asked that you call him. Now, what is it you want to tell me?”
Smith slammed shut the door and tossed a medical chart on the bed. “You’re a sick man, one who just suffered a heart attack. Yes, it was a mild one, but if you don’t properly respond to it, the next one may be much more severe.”
“Properly respond?” Longworth asked as he stole a look at his watch, silently damning Quinn for his tardiness.
“You need bed rest. Plain and simple. No more ministry work for four weeks at the least.”
“Out of the question. In peacetime, maybe. But not now.”
Smith sprang toward the bed, snatched the medical chart, and slammed it on the foot of the bed. “Peacetime? You have the heart of a ninety-year-old man. And frankly, if you don’t listen to me, you won’t see peacetime. You’ll see the underside of a coffin lid.”
“Oh, stop with the dramatics,” Longworth said as the door opened and Quinn meekly poked his head through the narrow space. “Well, don’t just stand there. Come in. And where have you been?”
Quinn, his uniform rumpled and his tie loose about his neck, shut the door behind him. “They couldn’t find me right away. I came as soon as I got the message.”
Longworth shook his head in disgust. He slipped on his gray wool suit coat and began to button it. “Doctor, I must speak to my nephew in private.”
Smith’s bony shoulders sagged. He shoved the medical chart under his arm and pursed his lips. “Mark my words: you will do severe harm should you continue to ignore my advice. Good day,” Smith said, turning and heading through the door, leaving it wide open.
“Shut the door, Quinn.” Longworth reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a small, creamed-colored envelope. “This is why I had you called.” He held up the envelope, walked over to the window, and placed it on the windowsill.
Quinn followed and stood behind him. Longworth leaned against the sill with outstretched arms and stared out onto Green Park. “Tomorrow night, Clementine Churchill will be h
osting a dinner for the wives of the cabinet members at Oddendino’s on Regent Street, right off Piccadilly Circle. One guest will be a woman who is a reporter for an American network.”
“So?”
Longworth snapped to attention and spun around to face Quinn. “Shut up and listen to me.”
Quinn recoiled.
“Get to the restaurant at half past eight. No later. It should be dark then. Ask the maître d’ to get this note to the reporter.” Longworth reached around for the envelope. “This note says that there is someone from General Eisenhower’s office waiting outside in a car who has important information concerning her brother.”
“Who is she?”
Longworth held his hand up to stifle Quinn. “When she goes outside with you, it will be dark—no streetlights, no electric signs. Get her into the car. I don’t care how, but do it quickly and quietly.” Longworth pulled a small, dark-colored glass bottle from his suit pocket.” If she struggles, use this.” He passed the bottle to Quinn, who studied its white label. “It’s chloroform.”
“Where did you get this?”
Longworth turned back to the window, still clutching the envelope. “From an underpaid and overworked nurse.” Quinn held the bottle up to the faint sunlight that came through the window and shook it.
Longworth turned around at the sound of the anesthetic swishing about. “Quinn, pay attention!”
His nephew slid the bottle into his tunic pocket.
“Take her to your flat in Norwood and make sure she goes nowhere until you hear from me.”
“You going to tell me who this bird is?”
Longworth paused, then handed the envelope over to Quinn. “Maggie Thorn. The sister of Conor Thorn.”
Quinn’s expression morphed from bored errand boy to a prizefighter waiting for the bell. “Shite.” His face broke into a smile. “What’s the plan?”
Longworth moved past Quinn and headed for the door. “For now, just a distraction for this pest Thorn, something to take his mind off of you . . . and me.”
“I got it. Knock him off the scent, right?”
Longworth reached the door and turned back to Quinn. “Yes, in a manner of speaking. But, Quinn, don’t cock this up. Is that clear?”
Quinn took several big strides toward the door. “As a cloudless, blue sky.”
#
His freshly lit cigarette dangling from his lips, Toulouse stripped off his tunic and flung it over his shoulder. It was his fifth cigarette since he’d watched Montgomery enter Saint George’s Hospital. The midafternoon traffic on Duke of Wellington Place headed toward Hyde Park was thick with military trucks and double-decker buses. Toulouse watched as a young woman behind a pram, holding the hand of a squirming and bawling blond-haired boy, stood on the curb across the street, looking for a break in the traffic. The woman, also a blond, was rattled. Each time the boy took a step away from her, she yanked firmly on his arm to bring him crashing into her leg. Toulouse took his eyes off the woman to gaze back at the entrance to the hospital. A steady flow of people, many in uniform, traveled under the four-columned portico, through the hospital’s front entrance. There were a dozen or more patients in wheelchairs parked on either side of the entry. A few patients had their heads bowed, chins resting on their chests. Several others smoked and chatted up other patients.
Toulouse lit his sixth cigarette with the end of his nearly spent fifth as he spied Montgomery exiting the hospital, stopping and shielding his eyes with his right hand. As Toulouse flicked his cigarette to the curb, he put his tunic back on and looked back at the street and the blond, pram-pushing mother. She had begun to cross the street, taking a chance on a gap in the traffic that was shrinking fast as a military truck tried to speed past a lumbering double-decker. She pushed the pram, struggling to steer it with one hand across the pitted street. The boy’s wailing became louder as they approached Toulouse. Nearly across the street, the boy jerked his arm from his mother’s grasp and stepped backward only to trip on the pavement, falling onto his back and hitting his head as the speeding truck, laboring to pull in front of the bus, bore down on them.
Toulouse looked back at Montgomery and spotted him now more than half a block away. Toulouse took a short step toward the woman, who had left the pram to retrieve the stunned and now-silent boy. The pram began to roll into the truck’s lane, and Toulouse stopped and looked again at Montgomery, whose figure was growing smaller as he walked down Duke of Wellington Place.
What was he thinking? This Englishwoman and her brat of a boy meant nothing to him. Montgomery had his money. He began to run toward the withdrawing man, and five steps into his sprint, he heard tires squealing and the woman’s scream. Toulouse didn’t look back.
He followed Montgomery down, then across Duke of Wellington Place, into a stand of trees adjacent to the Royal Artillery Memorial, with its limestone replica of a massive howitzer targeting the cloudy southeast sky. As he approached Montgomery, he slowed to a trot. The man was crouched over tying, his shoelaces.
“Thank God. I thought I’d never catch up to you . . . you son of a bitch,” Toulouse said joyfully.
Montgomery, still in his crouch, spun around and almost lost his balance. He spread his arms wide, touching the unkempt grass to steady himself, like a sprinter at the start line.
“Toulouse! Shite! What . . . Why are you following me? What do you want?” Montgomery asked, rising to his feet.
Toulouse, bent over with his hands on his knees, chuckled, and took a few deep breaths. Finally, he stood and took several paces toward Montgomery, who was creeping backward. He smiled but kept advancing while Montgomery continued slinking backward until he tripped on a tree root and tumbled to the ground, breaking his fall with his extended arms.
Toulouse surveyed the grounds around the war memorial. There were a few people traversing the far corner of the Palace Gardens, paying little attention to the two men gathered under the shade of the trees. “You owed me two hundred pounds.”
Montgomery strained to stand, but Toulouse jammed the sole of his shoe into his chest and sent him back to the ground, grunting. “Owed? What do you—”
“You owed me two hundred pounds yesterday. But you’ve been making me wait for over a week, so you now owe me three hundred pounds.”
Montgomery rolled over to one side, his face twisted.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t have it.”
Toulouse pulled his right leg back, as if to kick him again.
“Wait. I’ll have it . . . all of it . . . in a . . . in a few days,” Montgomery said, his arm raised in a feeble defense.
Toulouse paused momentarily, then quickly followed through with a solid kick to the other man’s rib cage. “I let you go too long. That was my fuckup.” Toulouse wedged his foot under the gasping Montgomery’s chin and transferred his full weight onto the man’s neck. “Where’s all that money—my money—coming from, Quinn?”
Montgomery’s mouth formed words, but he was soundless.
Toulouse backed off the pressure.
Montgomery clutched his neck. “My uncle . . . he’ll spot me the quid.”
Toulouse removed his foot from the man’s neck. “Ahh, right. Your uncle the minister. Should have thought of that days ago.”
Montgomery rolled over onto his hands and knees, but Toulouse kicked him in the ribs again, flattening him.
“When?” He waited as Montgomery regained his normal breathing; then he nudged him with the point of his shoe.
Montgomery jumped. “Give me a few days. Wednesday at the latest. My uncle won’t be an easy mark.”
If it meant getting the extra hundred pounds, Toulouse could wait; he wasn’t going anywhere. “One week. But not any longer. And, for the wait, it’s an extra thirty pounds. You hearing me, Quinn?” All Toulouse could hear was Montgomery’s labored breathing and a throaty gurgle. He landed another blow to Montgomery’s midsection with his right foot and said, “I’ll take your silence as a yes.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
2000 Hours, Sunday, October 11, 1942
Oddendino’s Imperial Restaurant, Regent Street, London
Clementine Churchill was chilled. Her request for more heat, made an hour earlier, had resulted in making the private room on the second floor of Oddendino’s a sweatbox for everyone else, but no one complained. Maggie Thorn wondered if anyone else had beads of sweat running down their necks.
The multicourse dinner was accompanied by several heartfelt speeches from the cabinet member’s wives. Some speeches extoled the bravery of the Allied forces, but most praised the dogged determination of the British people. When it was Clementine Churchill’s turn to buck up the gathering, she stood. Five minutes into her disjointed speech, the maître d’ slid silently into the room, handed an envelope to Maggie, and bent down close to her ear.
“Miss, please excuse the interruption. But the officer was quite insistent that you receive this right away. He says that it is urgent.” The man’s breath was warm and carried the overpowering smell of cigarettes. As he left, Maggie concealed the envelope beneath the table, on her lap, and opened the flap. She read it once and then again, her breathing quickening.
Miss Thorn:
Apologies for interrupting your evening. Please meet me outside the restaurant as soon as possible. I have urgent news concerning your brother Conor Thorn. I am waiting in a parked car near the restaurant. My adjutant, who will be waiting downstairs, will show you the way.
The typed note was signed illegibly. Maggie fumbled with the paper, trying to get it back into the envelope. She placed her napkin on her plate and quietly exited the room. She found the maître d’ waiting in the hallway to escort her downstairs.
When she arrived at the maître d’s station at the front of the restaurant, she noticed a man in a RAF uniform leaning against a dark-paneled wall. One side of his face was swollen; the other side featured a black eye. It momentarily baffled her that a member of the RAF had been sent to get her, but her concern for Conor overrode the oddity.