Daniel Silva - The Unlikely Spy

A young woman picked up a moment later. "Hello."

"This is Vicary from the War Office. I need some information about the weather."

"Quite a nasty spell we're having, isn't it?"

"Yes, yes," Vicary said impatiently. "When is it going to break in the east?"

"We expect the current system to move offshore sometime tomorrow afternoon."

"And we'll have clear skies?"

"Crystal."

"Damn!"

"But not for long. There's another front behind it, moving rapidly across the country in a southeasterly direction."

"How far behind it?"

"That's difficult to say. Probably twelve to eighteen hours."

"And after that?"

"The entire country will be in the soup for the next week-intermittent snow and rain."

"Thank you."

Vicary put down the phone and turned to Harry. "If our theory holds, our agent will try to enter the country by parachute tomorrow night."

The bicycle ride down to the beach usually took about five minutes. Sean Dogherty, late that afternoon, timed it just to make certain. He pedaled at a careful, unhurried pace, head inclined into the freshening wind beating off the sea. He wished the bicycle were in better shape. Like wartime England itself, it was battered, kicked around, desperately in need of maintenance. It clattered and grated with every turn of the pedals. The chain needed oil, which was scarce, and the tires were so bald and patched Dogherty might as well have been riding on the rims.

The rain had tapered off at midday. Plump, broken clouds floated over Dogherty's head like barrage balloons adrift at their moorings. Behind him the sun lay on the horizon like a fireball. The marshes and hillsides burned with a fine orange light.

Dogherty felt an intense excitement rising in his chest. He had not felt anything like this since the first time he met his Abwehr contact in London early in the war.

The road ended in a grove of pines at the base of the dunes. A weathered sign warned of mines on the beach; Dogherty, like everyone else in Hampton Sands, knew there were none. In the bicycle's basket, Dogherty had placed a sealed quart jar of precious petrol. He removed the jar, pushed the bicycle into the grove, and leaned it carefully against a tree.

Dogherty checked his watch-five minutes exactly.

A footpath led through the trees. Dogherty followed it, sand and dry pine needles beneath his feet, and started through the dunes. The crash of breaking waves filled the air.

The sea opened before him. The tide had reached its high mark two hours ago. Now it was running out fast and hard. By midnight, when the drop was scheduled, there would be a wide strip of flat hard sand along the water's edge, perfect for landing an agent by parachute.

Dogherty had the beach to himself. He returned to the pine trees and spent the next five minutes gathering enough wood for three small signal fires. It took four trips to carry the wood to the beach. He checked the wind-from the northeast, about twenty miles per hour. Dogherty stacked the wood in piles twenty yards apart in a straight line indicating the direction of the wind.

The twilight was dying. Dogherty opened the jar of petrol and doused the wood. He was to wait by his radio tonight until he received a signal from Hamburg that the plane was approaching. Then he would ride down to the beach, light the signal fires, take in the agent. Simple, if everything went according to plan.

Dogherty started back across the beach. It was then he saw Mary standing atop the dunes, silhouetted by the last light of sunset, arms folded beneath her breasts. The wind tossed hair across her face. He had told her the previous night; told her that the Abwehr had asked him to take in an agent. He had asked her to leave Hampton Sands until it was over; they had friends and family in London she could stay with. Mary had refused to leave. She had not said a word to him since. They bumped around the cramped cottage in angry silence, eyes averted, Mary slamming pots onto the stove and breaking plates and cups because of her jangled nerves. It was as if she were staying to punish him with her presence.

By the time Dogherty reached the top of the dunes Mary was gone. He followed the path to the spot where he had left the bicycle. Mary had taken it. Dogherty thought, Another round in our silent war. He turned up his collar against the wind and walked back to the cottage.

Jenny Colville had discovered the spot when she was ten years old-a small depression in the pine trees, several hundred yards from the roadway, sheltered from the wind by a pair of large rocks. A perfect hiding place. She had constructed a crude camp stove by stacking stones in a circle and placing a small metal grill on top. Now she laid the makings of a fire-pine needles, dried dune grass, small lengths of fallen tree limbs-and touched a match to it. She blew on it gently, and a moment later the fire crackled into life.

She kept a small case hidden beneath the rocks, covered with a layer of pine needles. She brushed away the needles and pulled it out. Opening the lid, Jenny removed the contents: a worn woolen blanket, a small metal pot, a chipped enamel mug, and a tin of dry, dusty tea. Jenny unfolded the blanket and spread it next to the fire. She sat down and warmed her hands against the flames.

Two years ago a villager had found her things and concluded a tinker was living on the beach. It caused the most excitement in Hampton Sands since the fire at St. John's in 1912. For a time Jenny stayed away. But the scandal quickly calmed and she was able to return.

The flames died, leaving a bed of glowing red embers. Jenny filled the pot with water from a canteen she had carried from home. She set the pot on the grill and waited for it to boil, listening to the sound of the sea and the wind hissing through the pines.

As always, the place worked its magic.

She began to forget about her problems-her father.

Earlier that afternoon, when she arrived home from school, he had been sitting at the kitchen table, drunk. Soon he would become belligerent, then angry, then violent. He would take it out on the person nearest him; inevitably that would be Jenny. She decided to head off the beating before it could take place. She made him a plate of meager sandwiches and a pot of tea and set them on the table. He had said nothing-expressed no concern about where she was going-as Jenny put on her coat and slipped out the door.

The water boiled. Jenny added the tea, covered it, removed it from the fire. She thought of the other girls from the village. They would be home now, sitting down with their parents for supper, talking over the events of the day, not hiding in the trees near the beach with nothing but the sound of breaking waves and a cup of tea for company. It had made her different, older, more clever. She had been stripped of her childhood, her time of innocence, forced to confront the fact very early in life that the world could be an evil place.

God, why does he hate me so much? What have I ever done to hurt him?

Mary had done her best to explain Martin Colville's behavior. He loves you, Mary had said countless times, but he's just hurt and angry and unhappy, and he takes it out on the person he cares about most.

Jenny had tried to put herself in her father's place. She vaguely remembered the day her mother packed her things and left. She remembered her father begging and pleading with her to stay. She remembered the look on his face when she refused, remembered the sound of shattering glass, breaking dishes, the horrid things they said to each other. For many years she was not told where her mother had gone; it was simply not discussed. When Jenny asked her father, he would stalk off in a stormy silence. Mary was the one who finally told her. Her mother had fallen in love with a man from Birmingham, had an affair with him, and was living with him there now. When Jenny asked why her mother had never tried to contact her, Mary could supply no answer. To make matters worse, Mary said Jenny had become her mirror image. Jenny had no proof of this-the last memory she had of her mother was of a desperate and angry woman, eyes swollen and red from crying-and her father had destroyed all photographs of her long ago.