There was no one else in the café, and when the waitress retreated to the kitchen, Alice leaned across the table toward Louise.
“So what did the surgeon say when you saw him?”
“He said it’s a relatively simple operation. The recovery time is brief. The swelling usually goes down within three to four weeks.”
“And the Company pays for all this?”
“Yes, that’s the deal. I believe MI6 shares the cost.”
“I wonder why? Seems sort of extravagant. I mean, it’s wartime. Even honey is rationed now, and this . . .” Alice made a low, throaty sound of disgust as she looked at the gray bread. Toasting it did nothing to improve the color. “But you’re really sick of it? The missions and all? You did so well. You got to do A levels before almost anyone else even close to your age.”
“I know. I was not much older than you are now when I was first sent to Norway—mopping floors in you-know-where just after the Nazis invaded.” She paused. Then, under her breath, she muttered, “Fertilizer plant indeed!” Then giggled.
Mopping and mapping had been Louise’s assignment. She had been part of an early spy operation. The mission was to map the Norwegian hydrogen production plant called Vemork, and observe the guard schedules. The Norwegians themselves thought they were producing fertilizer, but espionage work in Germany revealed that this was heavy water, as it was called. The factory could produce not only fertilizer, but also the key to an atomic weapons program that the Nazis were developing.
“Well, it’s gone now! And you certainly had something to do with it.” Alice’s eyes were bright with admiration.
There had been two previous attacks on the plant that had failed. But then almost a year ago, in February of 1943, there was success and the plant was destroyed. Norwegian saboteurs, using maps created by Louise during her undercover work in Norway, had skied across the pine forest of Telemark wearing winter whites and, like ghostly apparitions, descended on the plant. Their backpacks were filled with explosives and fuses. They had trained in Scotland, perfect preparation for the grueling expedition that would require these spies to scale icy mountains in pitch-darkness, ford rivers, and ski across treacherous terrain.
Alice reached across the table and grasped her sister’s hand. “Louise, you’re a hero.”
“Definitely an unsung one.” She laughed.
“I would sing to you loudly!” Alice said in a hushed voice. “Don’t you feel proud of how you helped in . . . in . . .” She dared not mention the actual name of the plant or the expedition, which had been called Operation Gunnerside.
“Yes, of course. But you know so much of what we do is boring. Stultifyingly boring.”
“Like mopping floors. But you said the skiing was fun. And there was that handsome fellow. Anders.”
“Oh yes, Anders!” Like fleeting clouds, a dreamy look passed across Louise’s eyes. “But did he ever remember me? Hardly!”
“But you said there was that one time he kissed you.”
“Almost kissed me that one time, and then I was extracted from the mission right after. He missed so many opportunities before that, as it took him the longest time to remember me enough to even want to kiss me.” Louise sighed. “I knew it wasn’t my cup of tea. Anyone can leave the Company. You think they want soft agents? Unhappy, whiny ones?”
“You never whined. I’m the whiner in the family, if anybody is.”
“No, you’re not. I just did my job, and I knew when I didn’t want to do it anymore.”
“But what will you do now?”
Louise looked about. There was no one sitting close by.
“Bletchley,” she whispered. “I scored quite high on the exam.”
“You did?”
Louise nodded. “I just have to be patient and wait.”
Alice thought a moment.
“I know you went to classes at Cambridge.”
“Believe me, if we get through this war, women will be allowed to enroll officially at Cambridge University. Some of the best code breakers are women who sat in the back rows of the lecture halls.”
The Winfields had moved close to Cambridge, England, directly from Scotland, where Louise had been part of the training program for the forces responsible for blowing up the plant. The move was somewhat of a reward for services rendered by their family. Their father had delivered some superb intelligence while in Berlin. For almost three years, Alan Winfield had been stationed as an operative in Germany, and he was responsible for the early data and information concerning the heavy water.
He worked as a chauffeur for the government—or what in Germany was called the Reich. Reich was the German word for “realm” or “regime.” Realm was a much prettier-sounding word. It conjured up thrones and queens and kings in crowns and beautiful robes. But Reich was so harsh sounding. Blades, clanking armor, and annihilating obedience. And yes, that little guy with the ugly toothbrush mustache and the dark madness in his eyes. Adolf Hitler.
The Reich Research Council was the government center for atomic physicists. Her father had chauffeured them all, the top physicists of the Reich: Otto Scherzer, Abraham Esau, Erich Schumann. But it was Werner Heisenberg who chatted the most, and from whose careless lips he had first heard the words “heavy water” and “Vemork.”
Louise had always dreamed of attending a great university. So as a reward for her services in Norway, in the late autumn of the previous year, 1943, Posie, Alice, and Louise were moved to a new home within two miles of Cambridge University. Louise’s entrance for lectures was of course arranged by the Company. Alice, in the meantime, had entered the local school. No posh school for her. Not the local pricey preparatory school, whose students carried crimson-and-orange school satchels. Her school colors were tan and black. And no special book bags were issued, although there was talk of changing the colors, as they had become favorite colors for many Nazi military divisions.
Alice’s main challenge in the local school was not to appear too advanced. For she was extremely intelligent, as all Rasa children were. The Rasa had a facility for picking up languages, especially, and every summer they were sent to language camp. It was not unusual for a youngster to have mastered five or six different languages and dialects by the time he or she was sixteen. It was called language camp, but they learned many other things there as well. It was where they took their first parachute jumps and began flight training.
Alice had made no close friends in Grantchester, for even in a small village school it took forever for her classmates to remember who she was. But this was as it was supposed to be. They were supposed to blend in unremarkably, seamlessly. Anonymity was their business—their family business. It never really bothered Alice that much. She had her sister. She had her mum—and soon, if things worked out, she and her mother might be reunited with their father. Louise would not join them now.
But Louise as a code breaker? She’d never have imagined her sister sitting around with a lot of Cambridge mathematicians. Though the code breakers at Bletchley were at the very epicenter of intelligence, monitoring the secret communications of the German forces.
Bletchley, an ornate mansion set in the middle of a beautiful park, was a closely guarded secret. It housed the code and cipher school for the British government. At Bletchley, they were devising a machine to decipher Nazi code, specifically working to crack the German Enigma code. They produced ultra intelligence, according to MI6 and the Company.