‘He’s on his way, actually,’ she said, then turned her face back to the window. The woman was approaching the door of the diner. The last thing Saffron needed at this moment was some boorish oaf distracting her.

  The man shook his head. ‘No he ain’t, and we both know it.’

  ‘Please, go away,’ Saffron said, without turning around.

  She kept her eyes on the window. The woman was at the door, and the light from inside the diner was illuminating her face.

  The man put a sweaty hand on Saffron’s shoulder.

  ‘I said, go away,’ Saffron hissed. ‘Beat it. Scram!’

  The hand stayed where it was. Saffron looked for a second longer at the woman’s face, imprinting it on her mind. Then she brought her right hand over the hand on her shoulder. Grabbing it tightly by the wrist, she got up from her chair, joined her left hand with her right, and twisted the man’s wrist while bringing his hand up hard behind his back.

  ‘Let me go, you bitch!’ the man shouted as he tried to reach around with his other hand and grab her. Saffron had time to glance through the window as the woman stepped inside.

  The woman was Mavis Playfair.

  Saffron gave the lecherous drunk’s arm another painful yank, then pushed him away. ‘Now . . . get lost.’ As he stumbled towards the exit, rubbing his arm, followed by a jeer or two from the drinkers at the bar, Saffron’s attention had already returned to the diner.

  She could see Mavis in the diner, clearly looking around for someone, before a waitress showed her to a table. Saffron could see the waitress talking to her and Mavis shaking her head. My God, how ironic! She doesn’t want to order until her man arrives either.

  Saffron should have felt elated. She had finally proved Stephenson right. Gerald really existed. Except that she’s Geraldine. And now that she thought about it, Mavis perfectly fitted Donovan’s description of the spy as the last person anyone would suspect. There she was every day, going to work amongst the poor, serving food to Black people, giving work to a young Black woman. It was the perfect cover for someone whose whole life was a lie.

  Saffron wished it had been anyone other than Mavis, but the facts were undeniable. The message on the park bench – her favourite bench – had been for her. She had answered the summons. Now all that remained was for her handler, Shadow, to make his appearance. Or maybe Shadow was a woman, too? And where was Stackpole? Saffron didn’t just need his help; she longed to have him next to her. But the time went by and Stackpole didn’t appear. Mavis sat at her table. After a few minutes, she ordered something, and soon afterwards a cup and a teapot were brought to her table. But like Saffron, she remained at the table alone.

  Saffron began to wonder if she had been blown. If so, Shadow would not risk being seen with Mavis. It struck her that she had not been looking out for anyone tailing her between the cinema and the pub. Her mind had been on what lay ahead of her.

  It was 19.15 when Mavis appeared to accept that she had been stood up. She placed some coins by her teacup and got up to leave. Saffron thought about Stephenson’s orders. He had told her to stay put, no matter what. But that order assumed that Shadow was going to turn up. In his absence – and with Stackpole not being there either – it was up to Saffron to confront Mavis and force her to reveal Shadow’s identity.

  Saffron got up and walked out of McGinty’s. The street outside had become more crowded as the evening had drawn on: couples walking arm in arm; small groups of students and soldiers; people spilling in and out of the bars and restaurants; a line forming outside the movie theatre for the 19.30 showing. She saw Mavis exit the diner and look around. Maybe she’s still hoping Shadow will come, Saffron thought, as she spotted a gap in the traffic and started to cross the street.

  As if she sensed her presence, Mavis suddenly turned her head in Saffron’s direction. For a second their eyes met, and Mavis looked at her uncertainly, as if she wasn’t sure it was really her.

  Saffron was about to wave and call out. But then she felt a hand grip her left arm above the elbow. There was a hard prod in the small of her back, which she recognised at once as the barrel of a gun, and a man’s voice in her ear, giving calm, precise instructions.

  ‘Walk towards the alley. Do not look around. Do not make a sound. Everything nice and easy.’

  Saffron did as she was told. From his voice she knew it was not the man who’d beaten her to the phone, but the accent was similar: not German, but Eastern European. Suddenly the realisation hit her. They knew I’d be here. They left the message for me to find!

  So be it. Saffron had wanted the enemy to show themselves, and now they had. She felt her adrenaline levels rising, the body’s instinctive response to threat, preparing her to fight or flee. But she was not afraid. She had been trained to deal with attacks from behind, and that included a gun in the back. So now, as the man behind her prodded her towards the alley, away from all the passers-by, Saffron’s eyes were darting from side to side, assessing her surroundings, calculating possible courses of action and likely outcomes.

  They walked past the diner. Out of the corner of her eye Saffron caught a glimpse of Mavis, watching her go by, a puzzled look on her face, as if she couldn’t understand what Saffron was doing there. It certainly wasn’t the self-satisfied look of an agent whose clever trap had just been sprung.

  Saffron wanted to go over that in her mind, but there was no time. They were in the alley, where the light was gloomier. Another man was coming towards them from the far end, blocking off Saffron’s exit.

  ‘Stop,’ the man behind her said. ‘Do not move.’

  He lifted her shoulder bag away from her body and threw it against the wall of the diner, well out of reach.

  He wasn’t holding her arms now, so Saffron could put her hands up, in the universal gesture of surrender. ‘Please,’ she whimpered, wanting them to think she was beaten. ‘Don’t shoot.’

  The man coming towards them came to a halt, maybe twenty feet away. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a long-barrelled revolver.

  ‘Don’t move,’ the first man told her.

  The man behind Saffron switched the gun to his left hand and started patting her down with his right. There was nothing to find. He looked towards the man opposite them and said something in a foreign language that Saffron could not understand. Then she saw the man kneel down by her bag and open it.

  Saffron closed her eyes for a second, picturing a sequence of precisely choreographed movements, just as she had been trained to do. And then, at the instant when she was about to move, she heard a familiar voice call out her name. The man opposite her shouted something. His words were not in English. But a warning sounded the same in any language.

  Saffron felt the man behind her push her to one side. She saw the other man raise his long-barrelled gun from where he knelt. And as he fired, she heard herself scream, ‘No!’

  • • •

  I

  t was seven o’clock by the time Stackpole got back to the OSS headquarters on Navy Hill. The place was half-empty, and Donovan must have sent the secretarial staff home because their desks were cleared and their coats, hats and bags were gone. The boss would still be at work, though – Stackpole was sure of that – and he would want a first-hand report of Wermuth’s condition.

  Stackpole knocked on Donovan’s door and received the summons to enter. He spent five minutes describing Wermuth’s injuries, the surgical procedure he had conducted and the results as he had observed them before leaving Johnson City.

  ‘Is he going to be any use to us?’ Donovan asked.

  ‘Not for a while. He’ll be on his feet in a matter of weeks, but he’ll need crutches for some time after that, and it could be six months before he can walk unaided. Don’t count on getting him back before the New Year.’

  ‘We’d better hope they delay the invasion to summer of ’44,’ Donovan said. ‘What’s the best we can hope for?’

  ‘He’ll be capable of intelligence gathering, liaising with resistance groups, maybe supervising their training. Don’t expect anything physical, though. I doubt he’ll ever be passed fit for combat.’

  Donovan nodded. Stackpole took his leave and went to his own office, planning to call the Playfairs’ place and see if Saffron was around. He’d picked up the handset and was about to dial the number when he saw the note on his desk, written in a female hand.

  Saffron Courtney called at 16.23, asking for you. I told her you were expected back at 18.00. She said to meet her at McGinty’s Irish Bar at 3124 M Street NW, at 18.45. And please don’t be late. She was very insistent about that!

  Stackpole checked his watch. It was already 19.10. ‘Dammit!’ he muttered. ‘Should’ve come straight here, instead of seeing the boss.’

  Stackpole thought for a moment about telling Donovan where he was going. But that would take time, and he was already almost half an hour late. Saffron had asked for his help, and he had left her by herself. There wasn’t a second to waste.

  He ran from his office, through the building and down the stairs to the ground floor. Bursting through the front door, he dashed down the tarmac driveway that led to 23rd Street.

  Then he stopped and looked around. There wasn’t a cab to be seen.

  Stackpole turned left and began running again. A couple of blocks up the street, 23rd Street hit Washington Circle, where a bunch of streets and avenues converged. He was still a hundred yards away from the circle when he got lucky and flagged down a passing cab with its yellow light shining. Stackpole dived into the back and shouted, ‘Get me to McGinty’s Irish Bar at 3124 M Street, fast as you can.’

  The driver grinned. ‘That thirsty, huh?’

  Stackpole handed him a ten-dollar bill.

  ‘Just get me there!’

  ‘You got it, buddy.’

  The driver floored the accelerator and the taxi raced up the street. It was 19.13.

  The early evening traffic was light and the cab cut through it, horn blaring, lights flashing. They overtook sedans, trucks and trolley cars, and sent unwary pedestrians crossing the street dashing for the sidewalk. Less than four minutes had elapsed before they were pulling up outside McGinty’s.

  Stackpole got out. He was about to walk into the bar when something caught his eye: a movement on the far side of the street; a familiar outline. He stopped. As the cab pulled away, Stackpole dashed into the road, oblivious to the traffic, shouting. ‘Saffron! Saffron!’

  • • •

  T

  he man facing Saffron fired three times in quick succession. The man with the gun to her back turned his head to see if the shots had hit their target. Saffron desperately wanted to do the same thing. But first she had to get free.

  She spun to her left.

  The man had been distracted by the shots, but now he turned with her, keeping his gun trained on her – but still a beat behind as she chopped the edge of her raised right hand onto his left wrist. His hand sprung open and the pistol dropped to the ground. It was a long-barrelled revolver, the same as the other man’s.

  Saffron kept turning until she and the man were face to face. She jerked her knee up towards his groin, but he was too fast, twisting to take the impact on his thigh. Frustrated, she slammed the heel of her hand into his chin, but without enough force. He grunted but didn’t go down.

  In desperation, Saffron dived for the gun, grabbed it with both hands and rolled forward, hearing the boom of the other man’s gun as it fired again. Finishing up on one knee, facing the far end of the alley, she brought the revolver up and fired two quick shots. The man staggered back, then dropped to the ground. Saffron turned towards her first assailant. He was running down the alley, towards the street. She raised the gun again, but did not fire. There were people gathering at the end of the alley, trying to see what was happening. She didn’t want to hit an innocent bystander.

  Jumping to her feet, Saffron started running, chasing after the fleeing man, passing Stackpole lying motionless on the ground. He was on his back, with his arms spread out. As she reached the end of the alley, a pickup truck pulled up. The fleeing man opened the passenger door and dived in. As the truck roared away, Saffron noted the name on the side: AOK CONTRACTORS.

  People began clustering around her, asking her what had happened, and whether she was all right. Then they saw she was carrying a gun and backed off. She called out, ‘Please, someone – call the police! And an ambulance!’

  Before anyone could ask any more questions, Saffron ran to Stackpole. He was still alive, his face contorted in pain, his torso slick with blood, more black than red in the gloom of the alley, sluggishly spreading with each feeble beat of his failing heart.

  Saffron kneeled beside him. She put her assailant’s revolver down and clasped Stackpole’s right hand. He tried to smile, and her heart almost broke at the desperate effort he was making.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ he whispered.

  ‘That’s all right. I knew you’d come,’ Saffron said, forcing back the tears, knowing she had to stay strong. ‘Just hold on, stay with me, there’s an ambulance on its way.’

  ‘No point . . .’ Saffron saw Stackpole summoning up the last of his energy. She could see the fierce concentration in his face. He looked at her with imploring eyes, needing her to understand what he was about to say, then uttered one word: ‘Russians.’

  Then he was gone.

  Saffron was vaguely aware of more people spilling into the alley from the street. She felt a tap on her shoulder, and then a calm, authoritative male voice said, ‘Excuse me, ma’am . . . I’m a doctor.’

  ‘Too late for that,’ she said.

  The doctor ignored her, crouching down over Stackpole’s body, searching for any faint sign of life.

  Saffron picked up one of the revolvers and got to her feet. She saw her bag, lying by the wall where it had been thrown. She walked over to pick it up with her back to the doctor and crammed the gun into the bag. It was a .44 Magnum, which was a tight fit, but she didn’t want it lying around with her prints on it, and the way the night was going, for all she knew it might come in handy. But these calculations were unconscious, all those months of training kicking in, short-circuiting the grief that threatened to overpower her.

  As she walked back towards the street, the onlookers moved out of Saffron’s way, seeing the distress etched upon her face. She barely heard the English voice calling, ‘Saffron! Saffron!’ until Mavis took her by the arm and said, ‘Come with me.’

  Mavis led Saffron to the end of the block and around the corner, away from M Street to a less crowded stretch of sidewalk. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

  Saffron nodded. The shock of Stackpole’s death was slowly clearing from her mind. She was regaining her faculties, her mind returning to her mission. But before she could say anything, Mavis said, ‘I don’t understand. If you were here, why didn’t you come into the diner? I was waiting for you, like you asked.’

  Saffron grabbed Mavis’s arm.

  ‘Hey, that hurts!’ complained Mavis, but Saffron ignored her.

  ‘What do you mean, “Like you asked”?’ she demanded.

  ‘I didn’t ask you to be here – Shadow did.’

  Mavis looked at her in bafflement. ‘Who the hell is Shadow? You asked me to meet you at the diner.’

  Saffron let go of her arm. She took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry I hurt you. But this is important . . . Who told you that I wanted to meet you?’

  ‘Charlie – he called me up this afternoon. He said that Millicent James had asked him to tell me that you wanted to meet at the diner.’

  Saffron had a sense of pieces falling into place, though the puzzle was still not quite complete enough to see the full picture. ‘I haven’t spoken to Millicent since the day I arrived here,’ she said.

  ‘So why did she think you wanted to meet me?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Saffron lied, as the truth became clear to her. Millicent was the spy. She had helped her handler lure Saffron to M Street by getting Mavis to act as the bait. They wanted me neutralised, out of the way. But why now?

  ‘So, where’s Charlie?’ Saffron asked Mavis.

  ‘He’s at the embassy. All the senior staff are there this evening.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There’s a do on. It’s supposed to be totally hush-hush, but you know Charlie, he couldn’t resist dropping hints about who was coming.’

  ‘Who?’ Saffron demanded.

  Mavis smiled. ‘Well, you won’t believe this, but I reckon the ambassador’s having Winston, President Roosevelt and the Duke of bloody Windsor round for dinner.’

  ‘Oh, no . . .’ Saffron could hardly believe that her worst fears – ones she hardly credited herself – were coming true. There was going to be an assassination attempt. She was sure of it. The opportunity to kill a president, a prime minister and an abdicated king was too good to pass up. And if there was an enemy agent on the inside, and the one person who might work out what was going on was removed from the equation . . .

  Saffron did her best to keep the near-panic out of her voice. ‘Do you know what time the guests are arriving?’

  Mavis shook her head. ‘But Charlie said that he had to be in the receiving line by ten to seven.’

  ‘So, assume a seven o’clock arrival time, dinner at half past . . .’ Saffron checked her watch. It was almost 19.35. They’d have sat down by now. That was the time to do the job: when all the targets were in one place, around a table. ‘Did you drive here?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ said Mavis. ‘I came on the trolley car. Charlie’s the driver in the family.’

  ‘Right, then, this is what we’ve got to do. You get to the nearest phone. Call Charlie at the embassy. Tell him that the ambassador and his guests are in serious danger. No . . . make that mortal danger. I think someone’s trying to kill them.’

  Mavis’s eyes widened. ‘Oh, God, there really is a spy, isn’t there?’