Marie
France, 1944
Marie had not resisted arrest.
As she stood in the doorway to her flat, muzzle of the gun pushing against her ribs, everything she learned at training ran through her head: resist, fight, run. Though she had not been good at the hand-to-hand combat drills, she had absorbed enough from working with Josie to know to kick at the groin and claw the face.
But little Claude had been standing in the corridor and she did not dare risk the child’s injury in a scuffle. So she went with the police without argument.
They took her to Paris, not in a police car or a round-up wagon as she had always imagined, but in a black Renault with leather seats. One of the officers sat in the back beside her, reaching over to lock her door with an ominous click. As they wound silently through the streets of the Sixteenth Arrondissement, Marie fought the urge to scream out to the passersby on the street for help, women pushing prams and men walking home from work, unaware that she was being held prisoner in the car. Instead, she memorized the route the car was taking in hopes of escaping the prison to which they were surely taking her.
To her surprise, the car pulled up in front of a wide, elegant town house on the Avenue Foch. When they ushered her inside, Marie could see that it had once been a wealthy home, with brass furnishings and deep red curtains that someone had chosen to match the floral rugs just so. The air was heavy with stale cigarette smoke. A German corollary to Norgeby House, Marie thought, watching a messenger scurry between rooms, two uniformed men talking behind a half-closed door.
The policeman who had sat beside her in the car kept a firm grip on her elbow as he led her up one floor of the town house, then another. On the uppermost floor, the policeman unlocked a door to reveal a dormitory-style room with a sloped ceiling, a half-dozen army cots and a shelf full of books in the corner. Faded wallpaper with little yellow ducks suggested this had once been a nursery or playroom. The policeman threw her inside the empty room, the pretense of civility ebbing now that they were out of sight. Caught off guard by the unexpected roughness, Marie stumbled, banging her shin on the frame of one of the cots. She rubbed her leg to ease the throb, then looked around the space, which smelled faintly of sweat and waste. Others had been here clearly, prisoners like herself. But who?
The officer slammed the door, leaving her alone. Marie walked around the room for an escape. The door was locked. She raced to the window and tried to raise it. It was sealed shut, the nails painted over, as if it had been that way for years. She searched the room for other escape routes and found none. Then she walked to the window once more, and looked across the way at the grand houses where people still lived. There was an elderly couple in one of them and she considered trying to get their attention. Did they know people were being held prisoner here? Perhaps they did not care. Through another window, she saw a young woman, an au pair perhaps, serving dinner to several small uniformed girls at a long table. A lump formed in Marie’s throat as she wondered whether she would ever see her daughter again.
Male voices from below pulled Marie from her thoughts. She knelt and pressed her ear close to the heater, trying to hear the sounds that rose through the pipes. A voice with a German accent, asking something. Demanding. The voice that responded was deeper. English. It somehow sounded familiar to her.
Her heart quickened as she tried to calm herself. The German voice came again, then the Englishman. The exchange between the men reminded Marie of a Ping-Pong match, the German asking a question, the Brit saying no. There were several seconds of silence, followed by a sickening thud. Marie held her breath as she waited to hear the voice of the Englishman again. When it came it was desperate and broken, almost a sob.
Marie’s terror grew as she wondered what the German had done to the man, and whether the same fate awaited her. Her panic rose. She raced to the attic door and tried the knob again, desperate to escape, but it was locked. She tried the window once more. The situation crashed down on her then: she was trapped at the headquarters of Nazi intelligence, her cover blown. The Germans knew who she was and that she worked a radio for SOE, perhaps that she had set the charge as well. No one from SOE, either in Paris or in London, knew she was here and she had no way to call for help. The stories she’d heard at training of interrogation and torture filled her mind. Whatever dreadful fate the man downstairs was suffering, she would surely face it next. She would never make it out of here alive or see Tess again.
The door to the room opened suddenly and Marie leaped back so as not to be struck. A different man, German this time, stood in the doorway. “Madame Roux,” he said with mock deference. Marie’s blood chilled.
The German led her down the stairs to the floor below. He opened a door to an office, then stepped aside to let her in. Marie let out a yelp.
Seated in a chair in the middle of the room, with his hands and legs bound, was Julian.
Marie knew then why he hadn’t come back to them as he had promised. The Germans had already arrested him.
“You have five minutes,” the German snarled, untying Julian’s hands before slamming the door behind him.
“Vesper,” Marie said, not daring to use his real name here. What had they done to him? His face was nearly unrecognizable from all of the beatings. A long gash now marred his cheek and his left eye was swollen shut. His nose was off-kilter, too, broken badly. But she had found him. Marie ran to him as joy and relief and terror overtook her all at once. She threw her arms around him so hard the chair threatened to topple.
He leaned his head in her direction, unable to do more because his hands were bound. “Are you all right? They didn’t hurt you, did they?”
“I’m fine,” she reassured him, feeling guilty that he should worry about her when his own condition was so much worse.
“The bridge?” he whispered. “Did it work?”
She nodded. “Blown.”
He sat back. “Thank God. They were trying to get it from me, the timing and details. I held out as long as I could, but I didn’t know if it would be enough.” His face was a map of lacerations and bruises, his sacrifice so that the mission could proceed.
“The operation went smoothly. I set the detonator myself.” A note of pride crept into her voice.
“You did what?” Surprise, then anger, registered across his battered face. “Bloody Will! I never should have left him in charge.”
“There was no other way,” she replied. “Josie’s gone missing. There’s been no word of her.” Marie’s eyes filled with tears. If she and Julian had been arrested, was there any real hope that Josie might have somehow escaped?
“And Will?” Julian asked. She could see the concern in his eyes for his cousin.
“Fine, too, as far as I know. He went to London to notify headquarters you hadn’t returned. He’s supposed to be coming back for me tomorrow.” Only now she wouldn’t be there. “He wanted me to go with him, but I stayed.”
“He never should have let you.”
“It wasn’t his choice. I insisted.”
“Why?”
She faltered. “I needed to find you.” Their eyes met then. Here, in what might be their last moments together, there was no possibility of hiding what was between them. He tilted his head toward her once more, stopped by the bonds that held him. She leaned in, meeting him, and their lips touched. She kissed him softly, not wanting to worsen the pain of his wounds, but he pressed for more, seemingly heedless.
A moment later, she pulled away. “How did they get you?”
“They were waiting for me at the landing. They had the location and time of the flight. Why did you change the site?”
“We didn’t,” she said incredulously. “That is, we received word from London…”
He shook his head. “London said they received word from you.”
The realization passed between them then. The Germans had intercepted one of the radios and was transmitting to London, impersonating an agent. “That must be how they knew. Not just about me. They have everything, Marie. Our notes, our records.” A look of realization dawned in his eyes. “Eleanor suspected as much. She wanted me to warn you that the radio was compromised and to be on guard. Only now it’s too late.”
Her mind reeled. “But if they already have everything, then what do they want from me?”
“They want you to…” Before he could finish his answer, noise came from the corridor. Footsteps, followed by a turning of a key in the lock. Two uniformed men walked in. The younger one, who had brought her downstairs earlier, untied Julian’s legs from the chair and dragged him from the room. Marie wanted to cry out. But remembering her training, she did not. She turned to face the second man, whom she had not seen before. He was older, with horn-rimmed glasses. The breast of his uniform was adorned by a sea of metals and she wondered what he had done to earn them.
“I’m Sturmbannführer Kriegler of the Sicherheitsdienst.” Her terror grew as she recognized the name of the SD leader, known for his sheer brutality. “Can I get you anything?”
For you to let us free, she thought, and then to drop dead. “Perhaps some tea?” she asked, scarcely believing the audacity of her own voice. She lifted her head to meet his eyes.
He paused, then stood and started for the door and opened it. “Tea, bitte,” he called to someone on the other side. Kriegler waited in the doorway. Marie’s eyes darted around the room. The request had bought her some time. But there was simply nowhere to go.
A moment later, Kriegler returned and handed her the teacup. She held it, not drinking. “Now let’s get to work,” he said. He gestured for her to follow him to a small room off the rear of the office.
Walking into the annex, her heart sank. There, sitting on the table, was her radio.
But as she walked closer, she saw that this was not the radio they had confiscated from her flat; the markings on the case were different. She wondered whose it was, and how long they’d had it. The Germans had been broadcasting to London, acting as one of their own—and London believed it. It all came together then—how the Germans had impersonated the agents and fooled London into sharing critical information. The radio, which had been their lifeline, had also now proved their undoing.
“But you already have the radio,” she managed. “What do you want from me?”
“We need you to talk to London to authenticate the messages.” There must be something about their transmissions, Marie realized, and they wanted her to validate them. Julian couldn’t have done it, even if he was willing. She understood then they needed her. If she helped them, she might save her life—and Julian’s. But if she refused and London realized that something was amiss, she might put an end to the radio game once and for all.
She saw Josie’s face in the sky above her, foreboding, beseeching her to be strong. She saw Eleanor, who would expect better. “No,” she said aloud. She would not do it.
Kriegler walked around the front of the desk and stood before her. Without speaking, he slapped her across the mouth so hard she was lifted from the chair. She fell backward and clattered to the floor, her head slamming against the ground. The teacup shattered, spraying hot liquid and shards of porcelain everywhere.
But what Kriegler did not know was that it was not the first time in Marie’s life she had been hit. Marie’s father had been a violent drunk. When he’d come home from the pub, Marie or her mother, whoever was closest, were the collateral damage of his rage. Blows and fists; once he’d slammed her head into the wall. She’d escaped her father’s wrath; he hadn’t defeated her, and she wasn’t going to let Kriegler defeat her now.
So as Marie lay on the floor of the office of Avenue Foch, seeing her father in this monster standing before her, something inside her hardened. Kriegler was going to have to kill her—because she would never talk.
Kriegler reached down and, with unexpected civility, helped her back into the chair. Warm wetness bubbled at her lip where it had split.
When she looked up, Kriegler was holding a list, which he passed to her. She turned away, but he pushed it forcibly, the paper scraping against her face. Finally she could avoid it no longer. The paper contained not just scraps of information but what appeared to be a list of every single agent in the region, their aliases and their actual names. They had the names of all of their French contacts, too, and their addresses. The safe houses and the storehouses where munitions and so much else were hidden.
She stared at the paper. Someone had given them up; Julian had confirmed that moments earlier. But the scope of the betrayal, before her on this paper, was staggering. Who among them could have possibly been such a traitor?
“We have everything,” Kriegler said smugly.
“Then I suppose,” she said, lifting her chin defiantly, “you don’t need me.”
Kriegler’s open palm slammed into her again. She fell to the floor and when he lifted her this time, it was by the hair. The blows rained down quicker now, one after the other. For the first time in her life, she prayed for death to come quickly. She saw Tess’s face in her mind and locked on it, transporting herself from this horrible place. She held her breath and counted, willing herself not to scream.
Kriegler suddenly stopped. Just as abruptly as it had started, the beating was over. She tried to see through her swollen eyes, to breathe and brace herself for whatever was coming next.
A door opened and shut again. A guard threw Julian into the annex and he fell to the floor, too weak and beaten to stand.
Seeing her mangled face, he let out an anguished cry. She sat up and tried to go to him. Kriegler stepped between them and put the gun to Julian’s head. “Do it or he dies.” His eyes were steely, no sign of life behind them. She knew he would kill Julian without a shred of hesitation.
“Marie, don’t…” Julian pleaded.
Marie faltered; her own life was one thing, but Julian was their leader and she had to make sure nothing happened to him. This was not about her feelings for him. The survival of the Vesper circuit, or whatever remained of it, depended on him. “All right,” she said finally. She spat away the blood that had pooled in her mouth. “I’ll do it.” It was against everything she had learned and trained for—but she would do it to save his life.
The guard wrenched her from Julian and dragged her over to the machine. She started to reach for the radio, but Kriegler shooed her away and set up the transmission himself, as expertly as any operator who had trained with her at Arisaig House.
Kriegler pulled out her box of worked-out keys, which they had confiscated from her upon arrest. “Send a message, letting them know that it is you and that everything is fine. Then send this.” He handed her a message and a slip of silk bearing one of the ciphers. The message was requesting another drop of supplies to a specific location. If she did as Kriegler was demanding, the ruse would go on and on. SOE would keep sending agents and arms right into the waiting hands of the Germans.
Marie transcribed the message into code, then found her frequency with shaking hands. She finished the message and showed it to Kriegler. “Your security check,” Kriegler said. He jammed the gun into the wound beneath Julian’s jaw, and Julian grunted to keep from crying out in pain. “What is it?” Kriegler demanded.
Marie hesitated. If she gave up the information too easily, Kriegler would know it was a bluff. “Changing the thirty-fifth letter of the message to p,” she explained slowly, pointing. “I did it right there.” She didn’t mention the second check, the one she had left out. She prayed he did not know about it and would not notice.
“Send it,” he growled. Back in London, Eleanor would be reading the message. Surely she would notice the absence of the second security check and realize that something was amiss.
A message came back over the line and she wrote it down. As she decoded it with the silk, her terror grew. It was the one she most dreaded, the one she never thought they would send:
“True check missing.”
As she decoded the message, Marie stiffened with dread. The operator in London had just told Kriegler that Marie had tried to dupe him. But that was exactly what the second check was supposed to convey, that something was amiss with the transmission. How could the operator back in London not know that? Marie was flooded with despair. Behind her, she could sense Kriegler’s growing rage. “Wait, I…” She turned toward him, trying to find an explanation.
He grabbed her by the nape of her neck, pulling at her hair until her scalp screamed. Then, just as abruptly, he let her go. “Your second check,” Kriegler hissed, cocking his revolver against Julian’s head.
“Marie, don’t do it!” Julian cried out. “They’ll kill us anyway.”
But she had lost him once; she could not bear to lose him again, this time for good. “K instead of c,” she blurted desperately. “Every other time.” Now the Germans had exactly what they needed to transmit as her without detection.
“Fix it!” Kriegler ordered. She recoded the message and sent it again.
The response came and she used the worked-out key to decode it hurriedly: “Check verified. Information forthcoming.”
“There…” she began, turning back toward Kriegler. His gun was pointed at her now. She saw Tess’s face hovering above her, said farewell as she prepared to die.
“You should have helped us the first time.” He swung his arm sideways toward Julian.
“Don’t!”
It was too late. A shot rang out. Julian jerked, then slumped onto the floor.
“No!” she screamed, running toward him.
She knelt where he had fallen and took him in her arms. Kriegler had fired with deadly accuracy. The bullet had entered between Julian’s temple and cheekbone, lodged somewhere. The rational part of her knew that there was no way he could survive such a wound. But in her heart, she could not believe it. “Hold on, Julian,” she pleaded. His eyes were still open. But they drifted upward, the light fading from them.
“I love you,” he breathed. There it was, the feelings between them realized at last. Or perhaps he simply thought she was Reba, his wife. But he grabbed her arm. “We should have been together, Marie.” She heard in his words all that might have been between them if things had been different. “I love you,” he repeated.
“And I, you,” she said, holding him close. There was no denying what was between them anymore. She kissed him again, for what she knew would be the last time.
His body went slack then and she pulled away. “I see them,” he whispered. He had almost no voice left at all. “My wife and boys.” His hand reached out to the invisible image in front of him.
“Don’t leave me,” she begged, selfish where she should have been strong. She did not know how she could face whatever would come next without him. “This is not the end.” She remembered what he had once said about scores of others rising up to take their place. She saw it now in the light behind his eyes. He grimaced and then his face relaxed, the calmest she had ever seen him. His breathing stilled. She buried her face in his chest.
And then he was gone.
She set his head down gently. “Why?” she screamed, lunging at Kriegler. She gouged his face with her nails.
“Bitch!” he swore, raising his hand to where she had drawn blood. He gestured for the guard to take her.
“We did what you wanted!” she screamed, unhinged now as the guard dragged her from the room. “We did what you asked. We are prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention. You cannot do this!”
“Prisoners of war?” he laughed with contempt. “Fräulein, where you are going, you don’t even exist.”