Claire sat in her windowless office, wondering how Helen was faring, hunted and probably scared. It was already after 2 p.m. Less than two hours before the daily check-in, which Claire would have to do by telephone unless things changed in a hurry. If she hadn’t heard from Marina by then—which would be impossible unless she could sneak away long enough to check her Sisterhood mailbox—then she’d have to scout out a new hotel for tomorrow.
She rolled a clean sheet of paper into her typewriter and stared at it. Then she unrolled it and surveyed the sorry state of her career as symbolized by her current plot of Agency real estate. Hers was the smallest, bleakest office in a building that offered most of its residents splendid views of the gardens of the Champs-Élysées, the Place de la Concorde, and the splendid Hôtel de Crillon. The view from Claire’s desk was of a blank wall with thumbtack holes left by the previous occupant, a fidgety man named Bewley who’d posted family photos alongside nudie snaps from one of the tawdrier floor shows in Pigalle. He’d rated out so poorly that he now worked for a private security firm in Oslo that specialized in crowd control for touring rock bands. Maybe that was her next destination if things went poorly for Helen. Claire tried to imagine booking limos for Aerosmith in Trondheim and had to suppress a yawn.
Then she thought again of Helen, living like an infiltrator on enemy soil, which in turn reminded her of a conversation at Langley two years ago, right before her posting. Peggy Mullen, a kindly old gal from counterintelligence, had sought her out in the CIA cafeteria to wish her well. Mullen, pushing sixty, had been based in London during the war for the OSS, enduring the Blitz along with all the heavyweights like Wisner and Angleton. She’d helped prep operatives for parachute drops into occupied France, and decades later she still talked about it with great animation as she discussed the pressures of knowing you couldn’t afford to overlook a single detail.
“Get the slightest thing wrong—the button you sewed onto their shirts, or even the lint in their pockets—and they might never come back. You were always on a wartime footing.”
That’s how Claire felt now—a wartime footing, worrying about every detail. It was the most urgent matter she’d handled in months, even though it was completely off the books. She absently picked up the sheet of paper once again, and was on the verge of rolling it back into her typewriter when there was a knock at her door.
“Yes?”
It was Maguire, her chief of station, oozing with forced charm as he entered with a hearty hello, which could only mean that he had some sort of disagreeable assignment. Get bogged down in scut work now and she might not even be able to reach a phone booth at four to call Helen. It would be unthinkable to phone from the office.
Maguire was past his prime, but had enjoyed some glory days during the latter years of de Gaulle’s reign, when the French had pulled out of NATO and flirted with the Soviets. He was not unkind, and not a groper, but he was too old-school to see what Claire had to offer. Although she enjoyed calling him her POS COS, she sometimes felt sorry for him, especially when the younger males laughed behind his back.
He had been resistant to Claire’s posting from the beginning. When informed that a woman would soon be assigned to operations at his station, Maguire had requested that the slot be filled by a “contract wife,” meaning a female employee married to a CIA male. Instead, he got Claire, all by her lonesome, so his next move was to try to slot her in an office job. On her second night in Paris he’d taken her to a bar to explain why.
“I don’t really believe in women ops officers,” he’d said, smiling unctuously.
Claire, who wasn’t above being a suck-up when the occasion called for it, maintained a game face and said, “You’re certainly in position to know best, but why do you feel that way?”
“Because, well, you know, women have babies. Eventually. I know you’re not married, not yet, but you might still get pregnant—this is Paris, after all, city of l’amour—and then of course you’d need all that time off even if you were right in the middle of something big. So you see?”
“Oh, absolutely. You’re quite right.” Having established the nature of the hurdle, Claire then proceeded to vault it in a single bound. “But that won’t be a problem for me, you see, because I’ve been fixed.” She said it with a winning smile, even as Maguire’s jaw dropped.
“Fixed?”
“Yes. You know, like with a dog or cat?”
It was a lie, of course. An utter fiction. Not that Maguire would ever know.
“Oh.”
His smile turned queasy, the discomfort of a man backed into a corner by his own words.
“Well, then. I suppose you’re a reasonable enough candidate.”
And that was that.
While getting acquainted with her new co-conspirator the previous day at lunch, Claire had discerned that if Helen lacked one vital office skill it was probably tact, or the willingness to suffer fools when necessary. Maguire would have loathed her, and she would have lost by fighting back. Yet the Agency needed women with attitudes like Helen’s, just as much as it needed ones who knew how to play along.
“So, how is my favorite cabinet minister?” Maguire asked. “Has he yet frequented the love nest of our scarlet damsel?”
“He has not. But one thing I’ve noticed, only yesterday, is that I’m not the only one who has taken an interest.”
Maguire frowned and sat down.
“Tell me more.”
“A certain ambitious young reporter for Le Figaro has been lingering in a bar across the street from her place, two of the last three times I was there.”
“Did he make you?”
“God, no. But I made him, and he wasn’t just there for a drink. There was a camera in his bag and he was taking notes as he gazed out the window. He was none too subtle.”
“What do you think?”
“I think we’re not the only ones who’ve been peddled this story. Although why the French would even bat an eye at a sex scandal is still a mystery to me. But if they would, then I suppose our journalist will be willing to run with it much harder and longer than we’d ever want to.”
“Meaning that any interest on our part—”
“Is probably a moot point, although I’m certainly willing to keep plugging away.”
She expected him to respond as he usually did—by gloomily telling her, yes, plug away a while longer. Instead, he perked up and said, “Actually, this news couldn’t have come at a better time. I have something else for you that’s much more urgent.”
“I’m all ears.” She wanted to groan.
“Remember that full alert we got the other night, on the renegade clerk from Berlin station?”
Clerk. Poor Helen, although it was probably a blessing in disguise if everyone was underestimating her.
“You mean the brunette with the nice eyes?” She knew Maguire would respond better if she spoke in his language.
“They were nice eyes, weren’t they? I’m told she also has quite a figure.”
“Well, that’s helpful to know.”
“Anyhow, they still haven’t found her, and I was wondering if, well…”
“If I could join the hunt?” More good news. And if Maguire was assigning Claire, then he definitely saw Helen as a low priority. Gilley, unfortunately, probably saw things differently.
“Yes! I was thinking the search could use an injection of feminine intuition.”
“I see. Great minds thinking alike, and all that.”
“Exactly. Knew you’d see my point.” He seemed relieved that she hadn’t frowned and called him some sort of pig.
“Any reason to think she’s in France?”
“None, really. But she hasn’t turned up anywhere else, and, well, how many different places could she go?”
“A few dozen?”
“Well, yes, but…”
“But she’s only a clerk with a limited imagination, and France is right next door, so…”
“Exactly.”
“I think I might have some insights on her mentality, if you’d like me to get on it right away.”
“Perfect, Claire. I knew you’d see what I was after. Her clearance was pretty low, so no one’s all that worried about what she might spill. Still, it would be a real feather in our caps if we could run her down for Berlin.”
A feather in Maguire’s cap, he meant. But now Claire had carte blanche to make sure that everything would work better for Helen. Her eyes flicked around the room as Maguire prattled on. Her coat hung by the door. She thought her handbag was atop her bookshelf, but then she spotted it over to the side. She glanced at her watch. Even after accounting for the usual counter-surveillance techniques, if she left now she should have enough time to swing by the mailbox before going to Helen’s hotel for their four o’clock contact. She stood from her desk.
“Where are you going?”
“To check with sources. If anyone like her is looking for help, they’d be the first to know.”
Maguire stood, too, and smiled again.
“Of course! Good to see you jumping right into the fray. Happy hunting, Claire.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He gracefully stepped aside as she breezed out of the office.