war criminals, who said they were powerless, that they had no choice but to commit the atrocities by their own hands? Then the Director sat up straighter. “But even if that were not the case, I still would have done it. When we realized that the Germans had the radio, it was an opportunity to feed them information about operations—false information that would redirect their defenses elsewhere ahead of D-Day. And it worked—surely if the Germans hadn’t thought we were amassing forces elsewhere, Allied casualties would have been much worse. If that blasted radio operator hadn’t flagged the message that was supposed to be from Tompkins, it would have kept working. It worked,” he repeated, as if to convince himself.
“Not for my girls,” Eleanor replied sharply. “Not for the twelve who never came home, or for the other agents like Julian who were killed.” The information London had fed to the Germans over the radio had revealed their locations and activities, led directly to their capture.
“Sometimes a few must be sacrificed for the greater good,” he said coldly.
Eleanor was dumbfounded. She had worked for the Director; supported him. The strategic way he approached the difficult work they’d had to do, deploying agents like chess pieces on a board, was one of the things she respected most about him. She had never imagined him to be like this, though: cold, cynical. “This is outrageous. I’m going to Whitehall.”
“And tell them what? It was a covert program, wholly sanctioned. Where do you think authorization came from in the first place?” It had not just been the Director, but the highest levels of government that had approved the plan. She saw then the full extent of the betrayal.
“I’ll go to the newspapers.” Something had to be done.
“Eleanor, have you stopped to think of your own role in the affair? You knew that the transmissions were suspicious. Yet you continued to transmit the information over the same frequencies to the same operator.”
Eleanor was stunned. “You can’t be suggesting...”
“You even sent the message signaling that Julian would be returning to the field. And when the operator said to switch landing fields, you okayed that as well. You sent Julian to his death, Eleanor. You didn’t press harder because you knew on many levels that no matter what, the mission had to go forward.”
“How dare you?” Eleanor felt her cheeks go red with anger. “I never would have done anything to jeopardize Julian—or my girls.”
But the Director continued, “And make no mistake about it. Your name is on all of the outgoing transmissions. If that gets out, the world will know that you are to blame.
“I never wanted it to come to this.” The Director’s voice softened. “I thought it was all in the past when you left SOE. But you couldn’t leave well enough alone. And then that business with Violet’s father. He brought his questions to his MP and they said there was to be a parliamentary inquiry. I sent off the files I could to Washington.”
“And burned the rest,” she said. He did not reply. The truth was almost too awful to believe—the Director had destroyed Norgeby House, the very place they had worked so hard to build, to bury the truth forever. “You sent me off, too,” she added slowly as the realization came to her.
“I kept receiving reports of you asking questions,” he admitted. “You wouldn’t leave it alone. I thought getting you out of London, sending you to look into things in France, would buy time.” He hadn’t counted on her getting to Germany and speaking with Kriegler. But she had, and the things she learned had changed everything.
“So what are we going to do about it?” she asked.
“There is nothing to be done. Parliament will conduct its investigation and find nothing and it will all go away.”
“What do you mean? We have to let the truth be known, tell Parliament.”
“For what, so they can further denigrate the work we did at SOE? They’ve always said we were inconsequential, even damaging, and we are to give them proof to support it? SOE is my legacy and yours, too.” He would do anything to keep that intact. “The truth changes nothing, Eleanor. The girls are gone.”
But to her, the truth had to prevail.
“Then I’ll go myself.” The words were an echo of the threat she had made when she suspected the radios. If she had made good on it then and followed through, some of the girls might be alive today.