Page 7 of Summer of Fire
Lizzie’s silence appeared to unnerve him, and he bowed his head as if searching for answers on the scarred surface of the table.
‘Insulting your candidates seems to me rather an odd way of assessing their suitability,’ Lizzie replied after a brief pause. Her heart was racing, but she could not hold her tongue. ‘I don’t even know why I was asked to meet with you, so how could I possibly know what I’m getting myself into?’
Jack waited a beat, and said, ‘Look, fair point. I appreciate you coming here today, but you’re not what we’re looking for, so… This time it’s a no. If you’re keen to join our ranks, I recommend you do some intensive training. Drake can organise that for you, and if you pass the tests and still want to be involved, come back in a few months and I’ll see what I can do.’
Lizzie stared at him. For once, she was completely lost for words.
Jack rose from his chair. ‘See yourself out. Or you canwait by the front door if you prefer. I’m tight for time. Best of luck in your endeavours, Elizabeth Beauford.’
‘Beaumont,’ she snapped back at him.
And with that, he dismissed her, and flew out of the room, his black hair sticking up like the devil himself.
CHAPTER 4
August already felt like a long month, and it had barely begun. The previous week had been hellish. On top of that, Jack had lost contact with his top Resistance operative in France.
He struggled through yet another troubled night and when he fell into a restless sleep, his dreams were a fearful mix of his agent pleading for him to help her, and the Luftwaffe bombing military installations.
Eventually, he gave up trying to sleep, and let himself into his office at first light when there were very few cars on the roads. The dawn chorus hit a rousing crescendo. Robins and blackbirds hopped and skipped across the hedgerows bordering the communal gardens, and for a brief second, he wished he were carefree. Carefree and free of the war, like those jolly little birds.
There was still no word from Hannah. He had been hanging onto the hope she would radio in a message with a sign of life, and the silence grew more disturbing as each day passed. Jack knew he was too personally involved to be dispassionate, but he couldn’t help the way he felt.
They urgently needed a female courier to drop into Nazi-occupied France to retrieve vital intelligence that Hannah may have passed to another member of the local Resistance.
By 2 p.m. after several fruitless interviews with potential candidates, he had developed a throbbing headache. If only people would operate at his speed, everything would be a lot more efficient.
This war would be the death of him if he wasn’t careful. He was becoming obsessed, and he knew it, but couldn’t seem to stop himself.
Jack poured himself a cup of lukewarm black coffee and leafed through the papers with details of the remaining candidates he was to interview today. He needed a breakthrough and couldn’t delay any longer in sending someone in. If the Special Operations Executive didn’t re-establish contact with the Reims Resistance soon, their chances of locating the intelligence that could quite possibly stop the Germans invading England would diminish more with each passing day.
They needed to know how many aircraft the Luftwaffe had in reserve. They preferred a female courier who was experienced in espionage because a woman would be a lot less conspicuous.
Most men of fighting age had been sent to labour or prisoner of war camps in Germany after the surrender of France. If his superiors had approved it, he would already be there himself. He knew France like the back of his hand and spoke French as though it were his mother tongue—well, strictly speaking, even though he had been born and raised in London—it was his mother tongue. His mother was French and spoke the language with him since he was a baby. Even now, after all these years of living in England, she still insisted they speak French.
He considered the options for the hundredth time. Whilstolder candidates may have more experience, they might not be nimble enough for the parachute landing. It would also be difficult if they had to go on the run.
France was fraught with danger at every turn, and it was a lot more complex to operate there than before the war. There was no time for thorough training—a basic kitting out, so they blended in, a set of quick-fire instructions, and a speedy run through the basics was all they would get.
That’s why he’d dismissed Elizabeth Beaumont so quickly, even though her confidence was impressive for one so young. Ordinarily, he’d be happy to have someone as bright and energetic as her on board. She was clearly smart as a whip and not short on initiative.
Easy on the eye, too, which he couldn’t help noticing. But at age twenty-one, she was woefully lacking in life experience, never mind spycraft. It would be like sending a child onto a battlefield. His thoughts flitted back to Hannah and his chilling dream.
No, he would find someone more experienced. Drake told him that Elizabeth’s father worked at the War Office. That made it all a bit too real. It would be painful enough telling his mother about Hannah’s disappearance.
Had he overreached with his plan to infiltrate the German Luftwaffe? Hannah was to capture photographs of how many and what type of aircraft the Germans had so they could assess their current capabilities.
Jack feared he may have been too audacious and berated himself. Then the image of Britain’s courageous pilots braving the skies, many of them shot down and wounded or killed, entered his mind.
The fight was brutal, and they required new intelligence if they were to win it. He shook his head. Hannah understood what she was signing up for, but it didn’t make losing her any easier to stomach.
Defeating the Nazis and destroying their killing agenda was as important to her as it was to him—perhaps more so. As a German Jew, her life and that of the Jews in Europe literally depended on the victory of the Allies. Hannah told Jack stories of how she witnessed first-hand the terrifying rise of the Nazi regime in her country of birth.
The country she could no longer call home.
Hannah had evaded the Nazis when her family was arrested. Being Jewish was their only crime. She was doing this for them.
He had to know what reconnaissance she had managed to get and whether she was alive. The last they heard from her was a short, coded message asking for an urgent PPU. That was code for a physical pick up. There was no detail of what she’d managed to find. It was too dangerous to include in the message.
