“Where was your camera?” Colonel Holmes asked accusingly, not satisfied with Kathryn’s verbal account of what she’d seen in Bouchaule’s office and in the folio.
“I didn’t have my purse,” she lied. “I had nowhere to hide it.”
“Surely, there is someplace on your person you could hide a small camera.”
“Colonel Holmes, there is no place on my person Thierry does not, or has not, had access to. I couldn’t risk it.”
That shut him up, as he turned back to Kathryn’s report in his hand. Brian, Holmes’s mousy aide, quickly ducked his head to hide a grin.
Like with Daniel Ryan’s code books, she found herself hesitant to reveal all she learned from Thierry Bouchaule. Intellectually, she knew it was not her place to decide what was and wasn’t turned over to her agency. The information could be vital to winning the war, but it also could lead to Armageddon, and she reasoned they’d waited this long to destroy each other, so a few more days or weeks to find out exactly what was going on wasn’t going to put too much of a dent in the Committee on Medical Research’s quest for a vaccine to make way for their precious biological weapon for the Department of War.
She couldn’t shake the feeling there was a mole in her agency, and she couldn’t disagree with Bouchaule’s assessment of the ethics and morality of her government, though that wasn’t new.
Kathryn didn’t mind lying to Colonel Holmes about the photos, but she had never lied to Colonel Forsythe before, and she couldn’t help but feel her sin magnified under his attentive stare. He had trusted her, stood up for her, and now she was lying to his face. She did her best to remain indifferent and typically agitated at Colonel Holmes. She was playing another part in a place that normally was a purge point for her skills of deception. Now they were her victims, and it was not sitting well. She kept telling herself it was just temporary. She would uncover the truth and then act accordingly.
The world seemed like a safer place with Daniel Ryan’s code books hidden away and Thierry Bouchaule’s research at a standstill. Neither side was making progress, nor would they until the mysterious reservoir was found. Kathryn felt confident she was doing no harm holding on to her film while she determined the best course of action.
Colonel Holmes was not making her feel bad about that decision, as he was being as evasive as ever when she questioned him about Bouchaule’s connection to Daniel Ryan’s work.
“It’s classified, Miss Hammond,” was his dismissive reply.
Bouchaule had practically admitted access to the Ryan research, although he never mentioned the man by name. In fact, the doctor had been more than open with her about everything involving his work, which gave her greater pause about bringing him down. What if his agenda was exactly what he said it was and turning on him would set in motion the very thing she was trying to prevent?
She had told her superiors the basics—that Bouchaule had no interest in “their” war and was obsessed with some “miracle” cure of unknown origin, and the last thing he wanted was a vaccine in the hands of either side.
“And you believe him?” Colonel Holmes asked with the expected skepticism.
“From experience, I know you don’t want my opinion, Colonel Holmes, so I’m just recounting my evening.”
“I want your opinion,” Forsythe said.
“At the moment? Yes, I believe him.”
Holmes did not. “A real hero. Who do you think was responsible for the deaths of those patients in the files you saw?”
“Bouchaule was not the doctor of record in those files.”
“No?” He turned to a page in his notes. “How about these doctors …” He read a list of names.
“Yes, they look familiar.”
He slid a page containing six wallet-sized headshots with brief biographies from a French laboratory prospectus before her.
“These are those doctors. Note the figure on top, the head of the department.”
It was Thierry Bouchaule.
“I can only tell you what I saw, Colonel Holmes. I’ll leave the rest to you.”
“See that you do.”
“And what does that mean?”
“I think you know what that means.”
Kathryn leaned in. “Colonel Holmes, anytime you want to replace me on this case, feel free. I’m doing all I can to gather information for you, and all I get in return is, ‘It’s classified.’ I learned more about this case in one evening with Thierry Bouchaule than I’ve learned from you people in a year, and while I realize it’s not in your nature to disseminate information freely, neither is it in my best interest to fly blind here. I’m only going to learn more from him, and you standing there telling me pertinent information is classified is a little silly at this point, don’t you think?”
Holmes looked to Forsythe, who didn’t disagree. The British colonel sifted through the blue folder in his hand and pulled out a photograph. “Certain things will always be classified, Miss Hammond, but I do see your point.” He passed it to her.
It was Bouchaule with a group of scientists, judging from the lab in the background. One of the scientists was Daniel Ryan. The date stamped on the back was January 1940, two months before the Frenchman was deported.
“He wasn’t in your country long, but he was here, and they were working together.”
What she had already gathered was confirmed, and she pushed the colonels for details, anything she could use to catch Bouchaule in a lie. One lie, she decided, would cost him everything.
All he had told her thus far appeared on the level, including the story of his sister. She was unaccustomed to the truth in her line of work, and his frankness had the strange effect of making her personally comfortable but professionally uneasy. There was no room for such a conflict and no reason to feel anything personally. She felt unbalanced in the one place she’d never doubted her footing. One more unbalancing blow came from Colonel Holmes, when he turned to his aide and said, “Brian, kindly show Miss Hammond to A42 and give her as much time as she needs and any clearance required.” He smiled and turned to her. “It wouldn’t do to have her flying blind, after all.”
Room A42 was in the archives. Surely, he did not grant her access to the Ryan files?
Brian nodded and extended his hand toward the door as he stood. Colonel Holmes wandered to the window, chewing on the end of his unlit pipe, and Colonel Forsythe courteously half-rose as Kathryn got up and was escorted from the room.
The two officers were silent as they gathered their thoughts.
“She’s personalized this,” Holmes said, staring out the window to the busy streets below.
Forsythe settled back into his seat. “I know.”
“How much do you trust your agent, Walter?”
After Kathryn and Brian signed in with the guard, Kathryn left her purse and hat in a locker in the outer room at the entrance to the archives and unbuttoned her jacket to leave it behind too. Brian, seemingly the opposite of his hard-nosed boss, said, “You don’t have to do that, Miss Hammond.”
Kathryn pointed to the large white sign beside the door that stated clearly, in bold red letters, No Personal Items, Satchels, or Outerwear Beyond This Point.
“Rules, Brian. We wouldn’t want to give your boss any more ammunition.”
“He really is a good chap,” the aide said in his cockney accent as he flipped through the collection of keys at the end of the chain in his hand. “He’s quite impressed with you, really. He’s a bit of a prat, but he’s only got our countries’ best interests in mind.”
Kathryn smiled weakly. “Don’t we all.”
Brian opened the door and paused, hesitant, but determined to say what he was thinking. “We’re all quite impressed with you, Miss Hammond, and though I don’t make a habit of apologizing for Colonel Holmes, I feel I—”
“Skip it, Brian.”
She’d never heard the aide speak more than a few words, and he certainly didn’t need to waste them on excuses for his boss’s behavior. He looked a little hurt at her dismissive interruption, though, so she put her hand on his shoulder to relieve him of the words unspoken. “Thank you.”
He smiled and nodded and led her into the room. “Right this way, Miss. I needn’t tell you, nothing leaves this room.”
“Of course.”
There were several rows of metal shelving units filled with file box upon file box that reached almost to the ceiling in the moderately sized room. There was a small table with a lamp, a chair, and a step stool.
“Which section?” she asked.
“All of it.”
She looked around. All of it. She briefly thought of Jenny. This is the room she was looking for: her family’s history. She’d not sensed Jenny’s discontent about her heritage lately, but, then again, with their conflicting schedules, they hadn’t spent that much quality time together as of late. That wasn’t going to get any better, especially now.
“Are you all right?” Brian asked.
She shook off the guilt, and the soft spot for Jenny, and fine-tuned her focus. This was about Bouchaule.
“A bit overwhelming.”
Brian smiled. “Quite. Take your time, Miss Hammond. The most recent acquisitions start on the right. The door will lock when you leave. If you need anything, the guard will summon me.”
“Thank you, Brian,” she said absentmindedly. The door click closed and she blinked, realizing what the man had said. Summon him?
She was alone in the room. They left her alone in a room with the entire history of the Ryan case.
It would soon be apparent why they felt safe in doing so. Most of the boxes contained coded documents. They had no way of knowing she had the key. She went to the earliest records first, which, according to the simple date code, went all the way back to 1914. She had a lot of work to do.
Kathryn dropped the first musty file box beside the table and spread the contents of its first folder onto it. She sat in the chair, and with a reassuring glance at the closed door, removed her peep-toed shoe. She pried the sole of the thick high heel away and slid her subminiature camera from it. She removed her other shoe and removed an extra film cartridge from its heel.
There were one hundred shots between the film in the camera and the extra roll, and she would take a sampling of the file contents from each decade. The dates were old but the paper wasn’t, so she hoped Daniel Ryan had transcribed them all around the same time period and hadn’t changed the code from the one in the books she’d found.
She thought she would feel dirty, essentially spying on her own government, but, lately, it had done nothing to inspire her confidence or her loyalty, and she used that to justify her actions, clearing her conscience about it.
She worked quickly, unsure if “take your time” was literal or said to make her feel trusted, but soon, the patterns of numbers became a meaningless blur, as the monotonous click of her camera shutter and the feeble whir of the advancing film became a rhythmic distraction to her thoughts, which had drifted to Thierry Bouchaule and the consequences of their previous evening.
Passionate kisses and hands in familiar places left no doubt about the outcome. Bouchaule led Kathryn to the grand staircase and dramatically swept her into his arms.
She laughed at his machismo. “Why, Rhett Butler, you put me down this instant,” she teased, impersonating Scarlett O’Hara. He laughed, and she kissed him again and felt his hold weaken because of it. He was hers. She slid her hand behind his head and gathered his hair in her fist. “Save your strength. You’re going to need it.”
His eyes grew dark and his nostrils flared, and with renewed gusto, he repositioned her in his arms and headed up the stairs to the bedroom.
She didn’t think of Jenny at all that night—the infidelity, the fallout. No, it was all about Bouchaule, securing her place in his world, her place at his side. To that end, she felt she’d succeeded, and for that moment, it made it all worth it.
“Where have you been?” Kathryn asked breathlessly as she lay across Bouchaule’s heaving chest.
He gently guided her hair away from her eyes.
“Too far away.”
She put her hand over his pounding heart. “Don’t leave me here again, Thierry.”
He kissed her forehead.
“I never make the same mistake twice.”
Thoughts of Jenny would come later. And come with a vengeance.