Tim Powers - Declare

But late one night at the end of October he was chilled to find one three-week-old message whose numbers visibly corresponded to the numbers on a couple of his discarded one-time pad pages, and after a moment’s work he found that the pad pages could actually decipher the message. This was a violation of protocol on Moscow’s part, for the whole point of one-time pads was that they were to be used one time only-if Centre was using the same pad more than once, for more than one network, it gave the Abwehr a sporting chance to deduce what the pad’s numbers were, and thus at least in theory enabled them to render out the basic substitution-code, which in turn could be broken easily.

The message was evidently addressed to another network somewhere in France, and it proved to be a complaint about him. Its text ordered the recipient to find out why the ETC network apparently wasn’t broadcasting-this must have been sent before he had figured out the efficient sending rhythm-and it gave the full address of the house in the Rue le Regrattier.

Hale reread the text, his face suddenly cold. How many other messages had been sent using this particular one-time pad? And had he now stumbled by chance across the one message that had given the address of this house, or was this message just one of several, addressed to all of the other networks, as seemed more likely?

This was a clear breach of security. The carelessness of some overworked cipher clerk in Moscow had irretreivably compromised the location of the ETC network-three weeks ago!-and Hale knew that the rules now required him to pack up the radio set and instantly escape across the rooftops and make his way alone to the military attaché in Switzerland; Centre would eventually send someone to escort Elena to safety, if the Abwehr had not broken the code and arrested her in the meantime. And Gestapo soldiers with socks over their boots to muffle their footsteps might be stealing up the stairs at this very moment.

Without pausing for thought he tucked the earphones and telegraph key into the set’s carrying case, unplugged the power cable and stuffed it in beside the earphones, and closed and latched the case; he swept all his papers into the waste bin and shook them all into the chute that led down to the building’s furnace, but carefully tucked his rubber-banded deck of still-unused one-time pads into his pants pocket. Then he paused, looking out through the little window at the moon hanging low in the dark western sky. Daylight and all its dangers couldn’t be more than a couple of hours away. He glanced for one yearning moment at the slanted roof door, then shook his head and unlocked the bigger door that led to the interior stairs.

He hurried down the unlit carpeted stairs to Elena’s apartment on the third floor and unlocked her door with the brass key she had given him, and which he had carried with him ever since, more for sentiment than for security concerns.

The lights were out in her apartment, and at least there were no uniformed figures ransacking her bookcases yet; in the moments until his eyes adjusted to the darkness he just stood still and sniffed the warm air, but smelled only her soap and the stale reek of her Gauloises cigarette butts. Hale lowered the radio onto the drawing room rug and tiptoed to her bedroom door.

She didn’t awaken when he turned the knob and pushed the door open on silent hinges-he could dimly see her long body in the bed, lying on her side facing him, and he could hear her regular breathing. The window was open to the autumn night breeze, and the blanket was down around her waist; moonlight faintly highlighted her bare shoulders, and he knew that he would be able to see her breasts if the electric light were on.

“Elena,” he said softly-and then froze, for when she sat up he heard the snap-and-click of an automatic pistol being chambered.

“Bless me,” he said clearly, recalling that she had said the phrase was code for Things are not what they seem-trust me. “It’s Lot,” he went on, keeping his voice level. “Or Marcel Gruey,” he added, giving his cover name.

In the thick silence he heard the snick of the safety catch being pushed up, and then the gun clunked faintly on the bedside table. She glanced around quickly, as if to make sure this was her own room, and he realized that she was still half-asleep. “What have I-” she muttered in Spanish. “ Lot? Yes, it is you. What have I said to you here? I did say-” She was clearly confused, and he opened his mouth to explain that he had only this moment stepped into the room, and that she had not said anything to him, when she spoke again, in a hoarser voice: “Oh, but do take off your clothes.”

Hale’s breath caught in his throat. Yes, he thought; the compromising message is three weeks old!-and if the Abwehr had broken it we would have been arrested by now. “I-love you, Elena,” he stammered, stepping toward the bed. He would tell her about the message afterward, in the morning.

And what would she think of him then, when she learned that he had kept her ignorant in mortal danger for several extra hours? Or even for half an hour?

Still in Spanish, she whispered, “And I know I have said I love you.” She shifted in the bed, clearly to make room for him.

He could pretend to find the message later today…Thus not only keeping her in unknowing danger but lying to her as well. What would he think of himself, if he did that?

“Ah God,” he wailed softly. “Remember that I love you. I’ve deciphered a message that was sent to one of the other Razvedupr networks-you understand?-it was enciphered with a one-time pad that Centre used more than once. The message”-Will we ever be in this position again? he thought despairingly-“refers to our network and gives the address of this house.”

She was out of bed in an instant, and he glimpsed her naked body in the moonlight only for as long as it took her to scramble into her skirt and blouse.

“You should have run, with the radio set,” she said in clipped French as she buttoned the skirt and stepped into her shoes.

“And left you to the Gestapo,” he said in a shaky voice. “Yes, of course.”

“I’ll have to report your dereliction of duty, once we’re clear,” she panted, stuffing the gun into her purse. “We are loyal to each other only in service to the Party.”

“I’ll add a postscript to your report, when I send it,” he said giddily. “‘I did it because I love her.’”

“Oh, you fool.” She kissed his cheek as she stepped past him into the drawing room. “I won’t make a report. Let them imagine that I was with you when you deciphered it, and we will both forget foolish things said while half-asleep in the middle of the night. That’s the radio set? Good. Come on, we leave now. Peculiar evasion measures are called for, and it’s high time you got practice at them-though you will never speak of them again after the sun comes up this morning, not even to me.”

They descended the stairs to the ground floor, and then paused in the dark entry hall just inside the street door while she explained how they were to walk. Two people, she explained, even a young couple, risked drawing suspicious attention; so they would emulate the clochards, the homeless gypsies who slept under the bridges and bathed in the Seine. “The boche do not like to trouble the clochards,” she said nervously, “even during the day, when they can see them. I learned this from a Hungarian agent named Maly, who had been a Catholic priest before the Great War, and they say that a man ordained as a Catholic priest can never divest himself of that status. He was later sent to run agents in England, and then recalled to Moscow.”

Her voice was sad. Hale knew that she hated Catholic priests, and he had gathered that a recall to Moscow by Centre was often a summons to execution; but he couldn’t tell which of these facts it was, if indeed it was either of them, that grieved her.