I STARED RESENTFULLY at the back of Smile’s head while Byron and I followed him down the hallway of the palazzo, the rubber soles of Byron’s shoes squeaking from the soaking they’d got in the rain. My soles were leather, which meant they were quiet but probably ruined. Why couldn’t that goon have let us be, happily drinking in the Oriental Hotel, instead of dragging us through a monsoon? I still regarded Smile more as a captor than an associate, since he had kept watch over me at the Sawasdee Hotel. He escorted us to the library, where we found Bill settled in his velvet chair like a king on his throne.
“I heard from Miss Maggie,” he said.
Just the sound of her name brought my senses to a pitch of alarm. I sat down in the chair opposite Bill, clutching my pale blue purse. I did not want to speak to him, but this was something I couldn’t let pass.
“Is she angry?” I asked.
“Do you think so?”
“King Ananda is dead. We were supposed to protect him.”
“We were supposed to kill von Roth. We did that and we derailed Gaige’s mission. Miss Maggie was happy. How she felt about saving the king is something else. She is a sphinx.” He shook his head, stood up and started pacing. “But do you think she liked a king who was going to allow free elections that included Communists? Maybe they’d form the government. Prime Minister Pridi was getting too popular, and now the rumour mill says he planned the murder.”
“Pridi?” Byron asked the window screen, his back still turned. “Don’t you support him?”
Byron’s behaviour was strange. He was like a statue. Did he hear someone outside? Of course, I was equally paralyzed sitting here in this chair. Bill always wanted to be the one in control, the puppet master. I wouldn’t react to his revelations, because I knew it pleased him too well.
“I spread my dollars around,” Bill said. “I ain’t tarred by him. Anyhow, it will be a while before the local cops go after Pridi. They’re waiting to be sure the Americans back them. The police say the king was playing with a gun in his bed. As if!” He stopped his pacing. “You two look wet. Need a towel or something?”
“No thanks,” Byron said. I did not deign to answer. All I really wanted to know was what Miss Maggie was thinking or going to do.
“I insist. You’re dripping on my floor. Smile!” he yelled. “Can we get some towels in here?”
He stood silently until Smile appeared, two perfectly folded white towels perched in the crook of his arm, this brute somehow playing the butler. Bill plucked a towel off and threw it at Byron, who moved too slowly to catch it, and had to pick it up from the floor. Meanwhile Bill was carrying the other towel to me and held it out, but I refused to take it. After an awkward moment he dropped it in my lap and sat down again.
“I find it interesting that a new director was appointed to the secret service today,” Bill said. “Today of all days. General Vandenberg. And they’re changing the name again. Now it’s the Central Intelligence Group.”
Goddamn it, I thought, how did Bill know all this? Did Miss Maggie confide in him to such a degree?
“You think it’s connected to the king’s murder?” Byron asked.
“Who knows? But we got to be careful until we know what it means for Miss Maggie. Is she on the way up, or down?”
Bill was astute if nothing else. I could not decide if she had hated the idea of using Nazis, or only hated Gaige. Which horse had she backed at the top? But knowing Miss Maggie, she had picked this General Vandenberg. She would frame her own manoeuvres to curry favour with him, even if they ran completely at odds to his agenda. She was capable of that.
“Is it possible Miss Maggie was behind this murder, now that she discredited Gaige?” Byron asked, patting his arms with the towel. “Does she have other agents?”
“By God, I admire your suspicions,” Bill said. “But the answer, I do not know.”
The idea Byron proposed was disturbing. I knew damn well she had other agents, but outside of a few key cryptologists, I had no idea what they did. However, her ambitions clearly extended beyond gathering intelligence and into covert action. And in that realm, I now believed anything was possible.
Bill picked up an envelope lying on the table. “Read this,” he said, holding it out to me.
The envelope, I noted, had been opened—Bill, no doubt. Inside was a letter, encrypted. The last two code groups looked familiar, somehow.
“Pencil?” I asked.
I could tell, from the impatience in his face, that Bill had not been able to read the message. Despite this, he made a production of opening a drawer, pulling out a pencil, and examining it with maddening care. Then he pulled out a knife to sharpen it, the shavings falling to the floor, as I seethed. Finally, he handed it to me, the point sharp as a dagger, and for a moment I wished I could stab it right into his neck.
I fell to work on the transliteration.
It took me a moment to realize, but then I almost laughed. Miss Maggie had used the same key as the last message from her that I had decrypted on Shemya. I couldn’t remember it perfectly, but it was enough. She evidently knew Bill would try to break the code and would fail, that he would watch me do it and be impressed by my swiftness. I had to be grateful for small pleasures, I supposed.
I laid down the pencil, nudging it a couple times to make sure it was parallel to the envelope. Link’s family had been sent a Burma Star and a Burma Gallantry Medal in his name, I said to Byron. He would have a full military burial, with a flag draped over the casket and a bugler playing “Taps.” I supposed Miss Maggie was doing that for me, since the dead have no further use for honour. Or at least, she wanted me to believe our mission had redeemed Link. To lessen my guilt. To ensure my cooperation going forward.
My breath caught in my throat, ragged. There was nothing more I could have done, was there? No one could have stopped him from going after von Roth. Link had died brave. He’d deserved those medals. By rights von Roth was dead because of him. Link led the hunt. I found the strength to kill because I was trying to save Link. I wiped at my eye. He died without forgiving me. How could I expect it, when he couldn’t forgive himself, either? There was nothing worse than unfinished business, and sins that could not be undone, but there was no going back. I would just have to be stronger now. Harder. I composed myself.
I returned to the message, and read aloud that Miss Maggie’s budget for Far East operations had been approved.
I paused over the last lines.
“What is it?” Byron asked.
“I’m not with the Shemya radio unit anymore. I’m a field agent. Assigned to Detachment 302.”
“In case it ain’t clear,” Bill said, “that’s headquartered in this room. We’re a team, Lena. Just like old times.”
Old times, Bill said. What were old times? Cruelty, blackmail, and lies? I’d told Bill there was nothing left of my love. He was just clutching at the past and wanted to forget all the parts in between. To carry on with his old life as though he hadn’t ruined it by his own actions. He’d never once apologized. We were over. I didn’t want to be a team with him again, yet Miss Maggie was making it so.
I had to admit that part of me felt proud: I was a field agent. I had redeemed myself after Camp X, or maybe I had not failed there at all—maybe Miss Maggie had been waiting for the right time to use me. Maybe Bill hadn’t abandoned us on the von Roth job as I’d thought. Siam had been my proving ground.
I was also a murderer now. That was something that could never be erased. Miss Maggie had me over a barrel, not only because of my past as a criminal, but because I’d killed an American agent, even if he was a Nazi. These were dark days. I almost longed for the simplicity of war. Everyone had agreed who the enemy was.
There was only silence. I realized that even the antique clock was not ticking. It was dead. Time had stopped.
“What about me?” Byron asked.
“You’re in it too, of course,” Bill said.
“That’s good. I was worried for a minute.” His eyes darted toward the window. “Did you know that the brainfever bird says different things, depending on the language of the listener? It makes sense, since everything’s a matter of perspective.”
I didn’t know what the hell Byron was going on about—I hadn’t heard any bird at all—but I couldn’t be bothered to ask.
Bill went over to the ornate French sideboard and poured amber liquid from a crystal decanter into three glasses, which he put on a tray. “A toast,” he said, proffering the tray to each of us. Reluctantly I took a glass, and Bill stared into my eyes so that I couldn’t look away. “Now that we’re spies,” he said, “we’ll get rich while we rip the secrets out of everyone.” He turned to Byron and clinked his glass. “And you, By God, will count them up.”
“What about saving democracy?” I asked. Partly sarcastic, and partly hoping that’s what we were really about.
“I leave that to the politicians,” Bill said. “The spymasters don’t buy it. They just talk the talk when it suits them. What’s an ideal except a weak spot? The arrow always goes into the neck, so you keep your neck covered.”
Bill was right. Link had died because he wanted to restore his honour. I didn’t want an end like that. I would have to predict everything that might come, and fight to make my own way within Miss Maggie’s constraints. Bill seemed to have managed it. “I don’t want to be bait for men,” I said, putting my empty glass down on the sideboard. “That’s what they always have women do. It’s too boring. I want to be a full part of the front business.”
“That’s exactly the plan,” Bill said. “Gems and opium provide cover to travel to some odd places. The Chinese Commies have spilled into Burma to regroup. Miss Maggie believes they’ll win their war. China is next door to the Soviet Union. Commies everywhere now. There’s work to do.”
The Soviet Union. I felt a surge of excitement. Maybe I’d get there yet, as I’d wanted for so long, to finish my language research from before the war. Alone, if possible. Of course, I could still meet somebody out in the field. Love was a hazard and I apparently lacked judgment in this area. Link and Bill, two strikes. And to be honest with myself, had I not thought von Roth attractive before I knew he was a Nazi? I felt sick to think of it. I had a fifty-fifty chance of picking wrong again, and I did not play the roulette tables for this reason. I’d been independent for thirteen years—since I fled Bill—and wanted to stay that way. Maybe Byron still loved me a little, but not like when we were younger. I supposed that wouldn’t interfere with our work. In fact, I could make use of it. He’d be my ally and he would protect me, even from Bill. It would be best if I could get away from Bill, though.
“Will she send me there? I speak Russian. Far as I know, I’m the only one,” I said pointedly.
“If it comes to that, we’ll all go.”
Bill’s eyes as he looked at me were so blue, deep and cold as ice off a glacier when it breaks away in spring. In innocent seas, a freed iceberg crushes ships and destroys people.
I would not be destroyed.