damage that might have been done. How could she have let this happen? Protecting the girls was everything, her life’s work. Yet she had failed them, just as surely as she had failed her sister decades earlier.
Rubbing her eyes, she stood and walked into the radio room. The operators were sitting more quietly than usual, the clacking of a lone wireless set the only sound.
“Is everything all right?” she asked Jane. The question was a foolish one; Jane had taken the compromise of Marie’s radio every bit as hard as Eleanor herself. The girl looked pale and drawn from the long hours of waiting and worrying since the false transmission that purported to be from Marie.
Jane shook her head. “Margaret didn’t broadcast as scheduled.”
“Nor has Maureen,” another operator chimed in.
“Perhaps there’s a problem with the transmissions,” she said, wanting to comfort them. But the words hung hollow in the air. Something larger was amiss.
Eleanor started down the street for the Director’s office, bypassing his secretary and not bothering to knock. “Sir?”
The Director raised his eyebrows. “Trigg? Come in. I was just about to come see you.” This seemed odd when he had not summoned her; in fact, he had not expected her at all.
“Two more radios have gone silent.”
He pursed his lips beneath his moustache, but did not seem surprised. “There have been rumors of more arrests outside Paris.” Eleanor’s stomach twisted. “Two agents taken at a safe house outside Paris. Others to the east and south.”
It was not just the destruction of the bridge that had set off the wave of arrests, she knew. Although the detonations had set off the round of reprisals that had come swiftly in its wake, it was more than that. Kriegler and the SD seemed to suddenly know all too well where to find the agents they were seeking. They must have been playing along for months, Eleanor suspected, letting the agents operate as long as the radio ruse had worked. Once they knew that they had been detected, the Germans had nothing more to lose. They had taken the gloves off, acted on the intelligence that they had amassed and began a dragnet to catch all of the agents. Though there had been no word of Marie or Julian, it seemed inevitable that they had been taken as well.
“Were the arrested agents men or women?” she asked.
“Maybe both,” the Director replied. “I don’t have the names yet.” With sinking dread, Eleanor felt certain that Margaret and Maureen would be among them.
“Sir, we have to do something.” They had sent word to all of the circuits in France, telling them to go to ground. It wasn’t enough. The agents should have been recalled; Eleanor had demanded it. But it was just days before the invasion, and they were not about to start a mass evacuation that would raise questions.
“We are going to do something.” He paused. “We’re bringing them home as you suggested.” Things must be very bad if they were actually going through with the withdrawal of agents. “Orders to extract those that remain have already been sent.” Eleanor felt as though she had been slapped. Why hadn’t those orders been sent through her? “It will take a bit longer than we hoped,” he added.
“How long?” she demanded. Another week and there might not be any agents left at all.
“I don’t know. Will Rourke, the pilot who organized Moon Squadron, has gone missing. There’s word of a plane shot down over Brittany, which might be his. But we’ll get them home as quickly as possible.”
Relief flooded Eleanor, quickly replaced by confusion. “All of the agents?”
He shook his head. “Just the girls. They’re shutting you down.” You, she noticed. Not us. “I’m afraid they’re writing off the women’s unit as a failed experiment.”
Failed experiment. Eleanor seethed at the words. The girls had done great things, accomplished their missions, done everything that was asked of them. No, the failure was not the girls, or even the agents, but headquarters.
Eleanor’s brain screamed with disbelief. “But the invasion is just days away. Surely our work there is more important than ever.”
“The circuits are being regrouped, in some cases eliminated. The work will be done by the men.”
“Have you accounted for all of them?” she asked, already knowing the answer. “The girls, I mean.”
“All but twelve.” The number was so much larger than she had anticipated. He handed her a piece of paper with the names. Josie was on it, Marie, too. Twelve of her girls were