Within five years I, with his majesty’s blessing, had created a new secret agency, the most adept in the world of intelligence and counterintelligence. Thus far the Rasas, as in “tabula rasa” in reference to their completely forgettable, nearly blank faces, have endured. We of course refer to the agency now only as the Company. God willing and the empire be blessed, we shall endure for centuries to come. Our greatest triumph was a few day ago, July 29, 1588. The defeat of the Spanish Armada!
—from the 1588 diary of William Morfitt, spymaster to King Henry VIII
Mid-January 1944
London, England
One
The Unveiling
“How are we this morning, Louise?” It seemed odd that the doctor should be speaking to this great lumpy head swaddled in bandages.
“Good, I think.” The three disembodied words flowed out of the dark hole. Alice felt a peculiar queasiness wash through her at the sound of her sister’s voice. She regretted now that she and her mother had gone to the British Museum yesterday. There had been a mummy there, wrapped in burlap. Tufts of ginger hair sprang from the top of its head, escaping the cloth. And now she felt as though she was standing at the bedside of another mummy. Her sister, Louise Eleanor Winfield.
Her mother, Posie Winfield, held Alice’s hand in a hot, sweaty grip. Alice wondered if she was thinking of that same mummy from the museum—what had it been called, Clarissa? Yes, Clarissa. How stupid. How British! If the mummy was Egyptian royalty, why would the archaeologists use such typically English names? But they did—Clarissa, Peregrine, Derek. All cozy in galleries sixty-two to sixty-three.
“Louise, sweetie, it’s me, Mum. And Alice.”
“I’m not blind.” Louise lifted her hand from the bedcovers and pointed toward the two eye slits in the bandages. Her hand was a welcome sight. It looked the same.
“How are you feeling?” Alice asked.
“Excited.”
“As well you should be!” the doctor said buoyantly. “The unveiling is always an exciting moment. Or moments, I should say, as we do take our time. Never rush,” the doctor added softly. “Now Sister Agatha will help me snip the bandages.” As Sister Agatha entered, it was as if an immense seagull had flown into the room. Nurses at St. Albans belonged to a Catholic order that shunned ordinary nurses’ caps for voluminous wimples, cloth headdresses last in fashion during the Great War of 1914–1918.
“You’ll see some stitches, of course,” Dr. Harding continued. “But not as many as you would have, say, a year or two ago. We are now using a new dissolvable thread for a lot of the sutures.”
What Alice saw first was not stitches but bruising. Splotches of metallic gray tinged with rose. Her sister looked tarnished like old silver. It wasn’t the shock she had expected, but there was something, despite the bruising and the swelling, that was essentially different about Louisa’s face. Alice couldn’t help but wonder if she would ever do this herself. Would this be like a kind of divorce from one’s self? Would you have to get to know yourself all over again?
“Excellent!” Dr. Harding’s voice cooed like a dove as he admired his handiwork. “Very little swelling considering this stage of the game.” Alice saw her mother wince at the word “game.”
Game. That’s all it is for him—a game!
Alice thought back to the conversation they had had in the doctor’s office less than half an hour before. The preparation conference, he called it, four days following the surgery. This way they might all be ready at the unveiling.
Her mother had popped up from her chair the moment Dr. Harding entered the room. “Everything all right, doctor?” She was a veteran agent for the Rasa division, called the Company, under the authority of MI6, Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service. But of course the Winfield family was not “undercover” with Dr. Harding. He was one of perhaps four or five plastic surgeons who worked on these special agents when they decided they no longer wanted to serve. And that was what Alice’s sister Louise had decided. She no longer wanted to be part of the most elusive and secret of all the branches of the British intelligence agencies.
But why? Alice had asked herself this a dozen times every day since Louise had announced this decision. Louise was six years older than Alice, and she was celebrated as much as a spy could be. Two years ago, Louise had been advanced to level A missions. Her work had been impeccable. Her renown was not public, of course, but her reward had been increasingly sophisticated missions. Why would she give all that up?
The Winfield family was part of an ancient tradition dating back to the court of Henry VIII and William Morfitt, the spymaster for the king. It was Morfitt who had, over a short stretch of time, come in contact with two people whose faces were completely forgettable. Nonfaces that were like tabulae rasas, or blank slates. These void-like faces haunted him. They were not officially spies when he first encountered them. Indeed, many of these people were petty criminals. But what perfect spies they would make, he thought. No one would ever remember them. The king agreed. And thus the division later called Rasas was formed.
The Winfields came from a long line of Rasas. The Rasas had served kings, queens, and country for hundreds of years, through countless wars. And now Alice’s big sister was leaving. She and Louise had done so many missions together. Not level A for Alice yet, just B and C levels. But Louise had promised to be her guide. Now she felt abandoned. And yes, shocked. Not by this new tarnished face that Louise had been given, but because of the promise she had broken.
“Everything is perfect,” Dr. Harding was saying. No, not everything! thought Alice. “I’m sure you’ll be pleased with the results, and more importantly, I think Louise will be too. She’s been very clear in what she wanted all along. Definitely not film-star looks, like Greer Garson or Vivien Leigh. Ever since the movie Gone with the Wind, everybody is going for the Vivien look—the delicate little nose. But no film stars for our Louise . . .” Alice winced as he called her “our” Louise and waved his hand dismissively. In one simple gesture, he was banishing some of the most beautiful and talented women in the world.
“My ideal patient. Together Louise and I worked to create something highly original.” That was the first time the queasiness had seeped into Alice’s stomach.
The doctor had cracked a rather toothy smile. It seemed to Alice that he had about five too many teeth crammed into his mouth. He continued, “I’ve never enjoyed being a copyist.” He paused briefly. “Now before we go in for the unveiling, let me show you something.”
He rose from his desk and, reaching for a cord, pulled down a diagram of a human face, its features and the underlying musculature. “This”—he gestured at the diagram—“helps me explain the procedure that I performed on Louise and other cases like this.” By “cases,” he meant other Rasa agents who wanted to leave the service and acquire a unique and memorable face.
He then pointed to a poster on the wall with twelve digits, 1.61803398875. “Do you know the significance of that series of numbers?” he asked. Alice and her mother shook their heads. “It’s a ratio.” He paused briefly. “A very particular ratio that’s known as the Golden Mean.”