Now that her alternative plan had been rejected, there was no prospect of redeeming herself. All those brave people had died for nothing.
Eventually she drifted into an uneasy sleep. She was awakened by someone banging on the door and calling, “Flick! Telephone!” The voice belonged to one of the girls in the flat below.
The clock on Flick’s bookshelf said six. “Who is it?” she called.
“He just said the office.”
“I’m coming.” She pulled on a dressing gown. Unsure whether it was six in the morning or evening, she glanced out of her little window. The sun was setting over the elegant terraces of Ladbroke Grove. She ran downstairs to the phone in the hail.
Percy Thwaite’s voice said, “Sorry to wake you.”
“That’s all right.” She was always glad to hear Percy’s voice on the other end of the phone. She had become very fond of him, even though he constantly sent her into danger. Running agents was a heartbreaking job, and some senior officers anaesthetized themselves by adopting a hard-hearted attitude toward the death or capture of their people, but Percy never did that. He felt every loss as a bereavement. Consequently, Flick knew he would never take an unnecessary risk with her. She trusted him.
“Can you come to Orchard Court?”
She wondered if the authorities had reconsidered her new plan for taking out the telephone exchange, and her heart leaped with hope. “Has Monty changed his mind?”
“I’m afraid not. But I need you to brief someone.”
She bit her lip, suppressing her disappointment. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
She dressed quickly and took the Underground to Baker Street. Percy was waiting for her in the flat in Portman Square. “I’ve found a radio operator. No experience, but he’s done the training. I’m sending him to Reims tomorrow.”
Flick glanced reflexively at the window, to check the weather, as agents always did when a flight was mentioned. Percy’s curtains were drawn, for security, but anyway she knew the weather was fine. “Reims? Why?”
“We’ve heard nothing from Michel today. I need to know how much of the Bollinger circuit is left.”
Flick nodded. Pierre, the radio operator, had been in the attack squad. Presumably he was captured or dead. Michel might have been able to locate Pierre’s radio transceiver, but he had not been trained to operate it, and he certainly did not know the codes. “But what’s the point?”
“We’ve sent them tons of explosives and ammunition in the last few months. I want them to light some fires. The telephone exchange is the most important target, but it’s not the only one. Even if there’s no one left but Michel and a couple of others, they can blow up railway lines, cut telephone wires, and shoot sentries-it all helps. But I can’t direct them if I have no communication.”
Flick shrugged. To her, the chƒteau was the only target that mattered. Everything else was chicken feed. But what the hell. “I’ll brief him, of course.”
Percy gave her a hard look. He hesitated, then said, “How was Michel-apart from his bullet wound?”
“Fine.” Flick was silent for a moment. Percy stared at her. She could not deceive him, he knew her too well. At last she sighed and said, “There’s a girl.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“I don’t know whether there’s anything left of my marriage,” she said bitterly.
“I’m sorry.”
“It would help if I could tell myself that I’d made a sacrifice for a purpose, struck a magnificent blow for our side, made the invasion more likely to succeed.”
“You’ve done more than most, over the last two years.”
“But there’s no second prize in a war, is there?”
“No.”
She stood up. She was grateful for Percy’s fond sympathy, but it was making her maudlin. “I’d better brief the new radioman.”
“Code name Helicopter. He’s waiting in the study. Not the sharpest knife in the box, I’m afraid, but a brave lad.”
This seemed sloppy to Flick. “If he’s not too bright, why send him? He might endanger others.”
“As you said earlier-this is our big chance. If the invasion fails, we’ve lost Europe. We’ve got to throw everything we have at the enemy now, because we won’t get another chance.”