Page 28 of Summer of Fire
Jack didn’t know whether Lizzie had been waiting for them, and worse still, he didn’t know what had become of her since.
Hungry for news, Jack had sent a coded test message to the original wireless operator, but once again he heard nothing back, so there was no way for him to reach Lizzie. He included nothing significant in case the wireless operator and the set were now in Gestapo hands, and they were listening in.
No response could mean many things, but it probably ruled out the scenario that the Gestapo had captured them. It was unlikely they would miss the opportunity to force the operator to reply, to try to trick London into revealing vital information. In the years Jack had been working to outfox the Germans, he had learnt there was nothing they lovedmore than lulling their opponents into a false sense of security to infiltrate their networks.
Jack sat alone on the terrace of St. Ermin’s Hotel, blowing smoke rings above his head and watching them slowly unfurl in the gentle summer breeze. The hotel was in the heart of Westminster, but the terrace was tucked away within the hotel walls and was a surprisingly tranquil haven in central London.
He sighed heavily. Jack blamed himself for sending a young, innocent, inexperienced girl into the viper’s nest to do the dangerous job of a fully trained agent. He should have trusted his instincts when he first rejected her for the mission. Now he’d endangered not only Hannah but Lizzie too. He would never forgive himself if he couldn’t get them both out.
His mood was bleak and the last thing he felt like doing was reporting to his boss on this latest disaster, but they were waiting for him upstairs to approve a new plan.
His whole body ached as he moved his weary limbs out of the chair and entered the lobby. He cast his eyes around quickly—a habit of the years working undercover—always on the lookout for danger. He trudged up the stairs to the fourth floor and, not for the first time in the past few days; he regretted being tied to a desk in London, instead of undercover in France.
Jack had taken the operations job because he thought he could make a greater difference by combining his field experience with strategy, which he knew was desperately needed now. Desk agents who had never operated in the field could only understand so much about the reality of working undercover during wartime.
The German bombing was intensifying each day, and his plan to get the intelligence they needed to foil the Luftwaffe’ssuccessful strikes on military installations and key factories on the south coast of England had failed miserably.
Hannah must have gathered what he had asked for, or the wireless operator would not have sent the message for an urgent physical pickup on her behalf. But there had been deathly silence ever since, which the longer it continued, forced him to conclude Hannah had been arrested, or worse.
It was a long shot, but he’d been hoping one of the local members would respond to Lizzie’s yellow scarf and pass on whatever Hannah had left with them. Even if she had since been captured or was in hiding, there was a chance she would have delivered the information first.
The thought of the Gestapo thugs getting their hands on the girls made him hot with rage.
‘Take a seat, Jack,’ said the Head of SOE, his tone sombre. ‘What’s the latest on the Reims operation? I heard you had to abort the pickup and we’re back to square one.’
Val was present and gave Jack a sympathetic smile.
Jack nodded. ‘Unfortunately, yes, sir. The Jerries were waiting for us and fired at the aircraft. I don’t think it was a pre-meditated attack. It was too amateurish, but we couldn’t take the chance and land.’
‘Any sign of the girl?’
‘Which one?’ Jack said despondently, running his hand through his black hair.
‘Seagrove. I presume there’s still nothing from the German agent?’
‘Correct, sir. Now we have two missing agents,’ said Jack. ‘We still haven’t heard from the Resistance, and Seagrove doesn’t have access to a wireless, so we have no way to contact her to organise another pickup. Yesterday was the last arranged time for her to meet us at the agreed spot.’
His boss frowned and looked grave. ‘Seagrove is ourpriority. We must get her out. The German girl has been missing for too long now. It’s probably too late to save her.’
This was what Jack had been afraid his boss would say.
‘That seems harsh, sir,’ Jack said.
‘Perhaps, but the German girl is a member of the Resistance. She was never officially one of ours. We recruited the new agent—Seagrove, not to mention her father is a prominent figure at the War Office. Lord knows what he’ll say when he learns of his daughter’s disappearance. Does he even know she went on a mission to France?’
Jack shook his head. ‘No, we thought it best not to bring the family in on it.’
The boss frowned. ‘I imagine her father won’t see it in quite the same way. The Beaumont family narrowly avoided the occupation in the Channel Islands, you know. Dreadful business over there.’
‘Yes, Seagrove told me she’s from Jersey. On the matter of Hannah, you realise she is a German Jew, sir? Her family was arrested by the Nazis before the war, and she is fiercely committed and quite brilliant. I recruited her myself and she has already demonstrated her loyalty and her ability many times over. It doesn’t seem right to abandon her.
Also, there’s a high probability she holds critical intelligence about the locations and numbers of Luftwaffe aircraft in Germany.’
The boss narrowed his eyes. ‘Hmm. I see the dilemma. Mind you, if she is as capable as you say, she will be able to save herself, won’t she?’
The comment angered Jack, and he had to hold himself back from saying something he would later regret. There should be no dilemma. He thought his boss’s attitude to Hannah was wholly unfair, and he could see by Val’s expression that she thought so, too.
He must have reconsidered because after a pause, he said, ‘Alright, use the resources you need to get the German girl out too. We can’t afford to lose whatever she has, but getting Seagrove back is a priority.’
