The Chase: A Novel (45 page)

“It’s a big
but”
Rachel agreed.

The dress was removed, as were her slip, garters, nylons, brassiere, and panties. Eddy’s clothes followed, tossed into the same pile, much, much more quickly.

He loomed over her. Rachel touched his face. “I love it when you look like this,” she said. “So intense, so determined.”

His jaw was flexing. So were the muscles in his arms and chest. “I am determined. I can’t wait”

“Then don’t,” she said, and as he slid into her, she closed her eyes and held him, and the love inside her breast expanded impossibly until she thought that her heart would burst.

They paused outside their home in the gray dawn of the following morning. Rachel had to be back at Fighter Command by six-thirty, and she had just learned that a second Eagle Squadron was being formed. Eddy had to report to Bentley Priory at nine for several staff meetings before he would rejoin his men. They had about an hour left before Rachel reported to duty. It was still as dark as night outside, and here and there, a few fat raindrops were falling.

Eddy locked the door. “We’re just a few blocks from your cousin’s.”

Rachel was hardly awake. They had made love all night. Now she no longer feared a pregnancy; in fact, they both wanted a child, and soon. She yawned. “What?”

But Eddy was fully awake. “Elgin. His flat is a five minute walk from here. Would you mind if I put you on the underground by yourself instead of taking you back to base?”

Instantly Rachel was fully awake. She was too alarmed to be disappointed. “Why? What are you going to do?”

He looked at her. “Drop by.” He smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. “After all, I’m in the neighborhood.”

Rachel had never seen such a hard light in his eyes, and she shivered. What was going on? “Eddy, it’s a quarter to six.”

“I know. I’ll hang out at the café for an hour, then see if he wants to have a ‘spot o’ tea.’” He mimed her accent for the last three words.

Rachel could not be amused. “But you don’t like Lionel.”

“Hon, just trust me on this one,” he said lightly. He took her arm and started walking.

Oddly, panic surged within her breast. “I’m coming with you,” Rachel said determinedly.

“No. Definitely not.”

“Eddy, I’m coming with you.”

He glanced at her as they crossed the deserted street. “You’ll be late.”

“Yes, I will. But he’s my cousin. And—” She stopped and faced him, barring his path. “What is this about, Edward?”

His eyes widened at her language and her tone. Then he smiled and said, sheepishly, “You’re acting like a wife.”

“I
am
your wife. Why would you visit my cousin now, at this hour? I don’t like this.”

He sobered. “It’s official,” he finally said.

That was the very last answer she expected. She stared. A raindrop plopped down on the tip of her nose.

“Look. My superiors have asked me to check into strange. . . circumstances. That’s all I’m doing. We both think Elgin’s strange. I need to see a few of his bird pictures. That’s all,” he repeated.

Rachel found it difficult to breathe. She wasn’t an idiot. She worked at Fighter Command, in an intelligence unit. His “superiors” were in the air ministry. Weren’t they?

But this was war. Panic and propaganda were everywhere. Average citizens were warned to be on the lookout for German agents and members of the Fifth Column. In fact, German agents were constantly found in the most unusual places within Britain—strangers would suddenly appear in a small coastal village, carrying German-made flashlights or speaking with an unmistakable foreign accent. They were arrested immediately, usually by the Home Guard.

“It’s not a big deal, Rachel,” Eddy said.

Rachel hugged herself. “Good. Then I can come with you.”

He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Are you always going to be difficult like this?” But his voice was tender.

“Yes,” she said, and her tone wasn’t light, it was filled with tension.

“Okay. We’re wasting time.” He took her hand and they hurried briskly down the block.

Rachel hurried to keep up. “I still think you are wrong about Elgin. Lionel has always been odd. He’s still odd. He was an eccentric boy, and now he is an eccentric man.”

“I call it ‘better safe than sorry,’ ” he said firmly.

They continued in silence for several blocks. Finally they were about to turn a corner when Eddy yanked her back around it and pulled her against the wall. “Well, well,” he said, a low murmur of satisfaction.

Rachel’s heart skipped a series of beats. “What is it?”

He didn’t answer, peering cautiously around the side of the building, clearly not wanting to be seen. He popped back behind the corner. “This is our lucky day.” He smiled at her. It was a smile she had never seen before.

It was chilling.

Rachel stared at his set face. He had a ruthless resolution now that she had never suspected existed. But this had to be why he was such a successful fighter pilot. This was why he was still alive. “What is it?”

Eddy continued to peer around the side of the building. “He’s leaving. Getting off to an early start. I didn’t realize these ministries started their business at the crack of dawn.”

They did not. Not usually.

Eddy pulled her out from behind the corner. “He’s gone. He just drove off in that Bentley of his. Funny, he’s still using that car, with all the petrol rationing.”

They crossed the street, watching carefully for traffic in the near-dark dawn, as a few motorists and cyclists had appeared. An old limestone building faced them. The café was on the ground floor, but its windows were all gone, as was the front door. Someone had boarded up the entrance. The building next to it had been partly demolished by a bomb. The blast had damaged the café as well. An
OUT OF BUSINESS
sign was tacked onto a board.

The building was a walk-up, Rachel saw, and it housed two apartments to every floor. The front door, massive and wooden with a small window, was locked. Rachel looked expectantly at Eddy as he tested the knob. They would have to abandon their plans, Rachel thought, not at all disappointed.

Eddy took an object out of his pocket. It was long and thin. Rachel saw him insert it in the lock. “That’s a pick!” she cried.

“Ssh. I told you what I did before the war,” he said in a low voice.

Rachel stared as he pushed open the door, having effortlessly picked the lock in seconds. She did not like what was happening, what she was seeing—it was almost as if she were with a stranger.

But that was impossible. This was Eddy, her husband.

They hurried upstairs, Rachel following a step behind and filled with trepidation. As they paused in front of apartment 2, Rachel asked, keeping her voice down, “Are we breaking in here, too?”

“Yes.” Eddy tried the knob; the door was, unsurprisingly, locked.

“This is against the law.”

“So are a lot of things.” He picked this lock with more difficulty—he had to take a shorter and thinner pick from inside his jacket to do so. It took him about three minutes.

Rachel was bewildered. “I’m not sure we should be doing this,” she tried nervously, glancing across the hall at the opposite door. “What if the neighbor steps out?”

“If you keep talking, he undoubtedly will,” Eddy said, opening the door and shooing her in. He closed and locked it behind them.

Rachel was relieved that they had not been caught. She glanced around the small flat nervously. “So what is it that you did for the FBI?” she asked.

He did not answer her.

Instead, he walked over to the wastebasket and dumped it upside down. Rachel could only stare. He sorted through a few tissues and papers, as if looking for something. Curiosity overcame her worry. “What are you looking for?”

He said, “Remember when I told you Elgin received mail from Lisbon? I’m looking for unusual mail.”

Rachel came over. “Why, Eddy?”

He said only, “Nothing useful here.” He stood and looked at the neat top of the desk where a pad and a few pens lay. He opened the drawer—inside were various items, including a lead pencil. He picked up the pencil and darkened the entire top page of the pad. Rachel peered curiously over his shoulder, forgetting her fears.

Words had emerged through the lead. “Tantallon Dec. 24 0700,” she murmured. “That sounds like a time, date and place.”

“Where’s Tantallon?” he asked, tearing off the top page and putting it in his pocket.

“Up north on the coast in Scotland,” she said, and she began to have an inkling. She shivered. “What are you thinking?”

Going through the two drawers, he did not answer. Rachel saw more pens, stationery, and a small tray with paper clips. There was also a pot of ink that looked new and unopened, as well as a small jar. Eddy picked up the jar and opened it. He sniffed, stuck a finger in. “What is this?” He showed it to her while tasting his fingertip with his tongue.

“I don’t know. It looks like a powder.”

Eddy grimaced at the flavor. He tore another page from the pad, poured some powder on top, folded the page securely around the powder, then put that in his pocket, too. He replaced the jar of powder in the drawer.

Rachel hugged herself. “You’re intelligence,” she said hoarsely, filled with fear. Fear for him, for them.

Eddy slowly turned to face her. He was so grim.

“Tell me the truth,” she whispered.

“It’s better if I don’t.” He crossed the room. “I’m a pilot, Rachel. I’m a goddamned pilot who can smell the enemy a mile away.” He had his back to her now, trying the closet door. It was locked. “I can feel those Gerries before I see them. I can’t explain it. No one can. Maybe I just have a stronger intuition than the rest of my men. It’s why I have so many kills. I’m never taken by surprise.” He took a third pick from his pocket.

“I’m your wife!” Rachel cried.

Eddy quickly unlocked the simple closet door and turned to her. “I know. And you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Rach. I swear.”

“We can’t have secrets—and lies—between us!” And she thought about her own secret, her own lie. “I’m in the Y unit. And I never told you the truth about Papa. He hasn’t spoken to me since that first night we spent together. He has shut me out of his life, he has buried me alive!”

Eddy stared, turning white. He did not move.

“I lied to spare you,” she said in a more subdued but anguished tone. “The way you are doing now, to me.”

He swallowed. After a long moment, during which they gazed at each other, he said, “They didn’t let me out.”

“What? I don’t understand.”

“When I left the States to fight Hitler, they asked me to help. Last June they put me in a new, elite unit. The SIS.”

“They?” Rachel asked, clenched with fear. “Who are they?”

“Uncle Sam,” he said abruptly. “The FBI.”

Rachel could only stare.
He was with American intelligence.
Her mind raced.

“Don’t doubt me,” he said, coming to her with hard strides. He gripped her arms. “I’m an RAF pilot first. You know that. I put my life on the line every single day, a dozen times, maybe more, when I go up. There’s no conflict of interest. You know that. My fighting the Germans up there for your country, or down here for mine—in the end, it all comes out the same.”

Rachel wasn’t sure. She felt like she was reeling. She felt faint. She heard herself say, “And if Lionel is a German spy, then who will you tell? Your CO here, or someone in the States?”

He couldn’t respond.

She had thought so.

“Rachel?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, shaking her head fiercely, coming to her senses. “You’re an American, and you’re right, the final goal is the same. We all want this war over, with Hitler’s defeat. But . . . this is worse. Before I only had to worry about your being shot out of the sky. Now I have to worry about your being stabbed in the back by some damned German spy!”

He smiled a little and said, “Hon, no one’s going to stab me in the back. I promise you that.”

Rachel wished she believed him. She was so afraid.

He released her and turned back to the closet. An instant later he said, “Well, he lied.”

Rachel hurried across the room.

“He said his equipment was in the cellar. Here’s a Leica, two lenses, and everything he’d need to develop his film. The Germans use Leica cameras, Rachel.”

Lionel wasn’t German. The room felt so still around her, around them. She looked from the camera and lenses to Eddy.

“But he’s good, I’ll hand him that,” Eddy said, showing her half a dozen oversize photographs of birds. The first one was of a beautiful white swan, floating in a rippling pond. Rachel shivered.

Eddy went through the closet with incredible efficiency. Rachel said, “You were right. He’s an agent. Oh, my God.” As Eddy was going through the pockets of Lionel’s suits and uniforms, she said, “We had better leave, Eddy.” She glanced nervously at the front door of the flat.

“A German-made camera, imprecise notes, and what might be powder used to develop invisible ink is not enough to hang him.” Eddy closed and locked the closet after putting everything back where he had found it. He turned to look at her. “I want something big. A code list. Important contacts. And where the hell is his radio? He’s got to have a transmitter.”

Rachel watched him fearfully as he walked past her and dropped to his knees, peering under the bed. He stood. “Nothing’s there. There was a suitcase under the bed the last time I was here. It’s not in the closet. He must have it with him. He must be going out of town.”

Rachel said, “December twenty-fourth. That’s tomorrow. Maybe he left for Scotland today.”

Eddy smiled at her as if he was enjoying himself.

Rachel froze. “What are you planning!”

“Hon, relax. I know what I’m doing.”

“Do you?”

He came to her and guided her to the door. “It’s only six-twenty. You can be at the base in twenty minutes if you rush.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked again as he opened the door.

“I have a few more things to check out.”

“Here?” she whispered, aghast.

They stepped into the hall, and Eddy closed the door. From the outside, he could not lock it.