of taut anger, and he looked over at Allenton. “I argued,” he said quietly, “that it was too much of a risk to keep the women in place.”
Allenton shrugged. “Risks have to be taken in wartime.”
Eve nearly leaned across the table and slapped him, but restrained herself as she saw Cameron biting back what were clearly hot words. Allenton picked at his thumbnail, oblivious, and Cameron scrubbed his hands over his lined face. “Lili,” he said, and shook his head. “I don’t know why I’m shocked. She always took too many chances. But she got away with so much . . . I suppose I thought she would keep getting away with it forever.”
“She didn’t get away with it this time.” Eve felt so weary she didn’t know how she would ever rise from this chair. “They have her now, her and Violette. I hope the Fritzes will put them together. They can take anything together.”
Major Allenton shook his head. “Those Boches, letting you walk out—!”
“They th-thought I was a half-wit.” All that histrionic crying. Eve was nothing but a long shriek of grief inside, but she didn’t think she could summon a single tear now. She wanted to curl up in a ball like a dying animal, but she had a job to finish, so she recited the full report about Verdun, watching as Cameron’s eyes went from exhausted to alert. He began jotting notes, visibly pushing aside his grief. Major Allenton kept interrupting Eve with questions, to her irritation. Cameron always let her make her report in one long recitation, then combed back over it to expand on the particulars, but Allenton interrupted every other sentence.
“Verdun, you say?”
“Verdun.” Eve imagined ripping his waxed mustache off. “Confirmed.”
Allenton gave Cameron a rather down-the-nose glance. “This is why I made the call to leave her in place.”
“Of course.” Cameron exhaled. “I think you’ll agree Miss Gardiner should go to Folkestone now, however. There can be no option but to dissolve the Alice Network.”
“Why?” Allenton looked at Eve. “I say send her back to Lille.”
Eve’s heart sank, but she nodded weary assent. Cameron looked astonished, eyebrows climbing toward his sandy hair. “You cannot be serious.”
No one had addressed Eve, but she answered anyway. “I’ll go where I’m ordered. I have a job to do.”
“Your job is done.” Cameron turned back to her. “You’ve done top-class work, but the Lille area is far too dangerous to keep running informants. Without Lili the entire network will come apart.”
“Someone else could run it.” Allenton shrugged. “This girl’s keen as mustard.”
Cameron’s voice was flat. “Allow me to register my disagreement in the strongest possible terms, Major.”
“Oh, it won’t be for long. A few more weeks.”
“However long I’m needed.” Eve pushed the dread away. She wasn’t going to cry off when there were lives at stake, no matter how much she wanted to. “I’ll catch the train back tonight.”
Cameron rose. His jaw was taut with fury, and his hand as he raised Eve from her chair wasn’t gentle. “Major, I’d like a word with Miss Gardiner in private. We’ll discuss this upstairs, if you don’t mind.”
Eve let him march her out of the parlor to the sound of Allenton chuckling. Up a flight of stairs to a makeshift bedroom, nothing but a narrow iron-framed bed piled with a few blankets. Cameron came into the room with her and banged the door behind him.
“C-coming into a lady’s bedroom uninvited?” Eve said. “You are upset.”
“Upset?” He was nearly whispering, voice vibrating with tension. “Yes, I am upset. You are refusing to beg out of an order that is clearly pure idiocy. I can only conclude you want to get yourself shot.”
“I’m a spy.” Eve set down her bag. “Some might say it’s my job to g-get shot. It’s certainly my job to follow orders.”
“I am telling you that order is absurd. You think there are no idiots in the intelligence business, that your superiors are all brilliant men who understand the game?” A furious hand waved in Major Allenton’s direction. “This business is rife with idiots. They play with lives and they play badly, and when people like you die as a result, they shrug and say, ‘Risks have to be taken in wartime.’ You’d really march yourself into a firing squad for that kind of fool?”
“I want to plead out, believe me.” Eve touched his sleeve, halting his furious outburst. “But I won’t claim to be b-broken when I am not. If I get myself transferred out of