the table next to the burning cigar. “We’ve proof of her ability to hit consecutive targets at three hundred yards. A marksman, er, markswoman. And this is personal for her.”
His finger ran over the holes made by the bullets.
“She’s the only faint chance in hell we have to make this work.”
Silence.
“Of course, if you have other candidates for this mission I don’t know about . . .”
The cigar smoke drifted in lazy spirals under the carved ceiling arches. Cathcart and his lackey looked to Churchill.
“Hmm.” The whiskey splashed in the heavy tumbler as the prime minister shifted it. He struck a match and took another puff from the cigar. “So you think I should meet her, Stepney?”
Let him think it’s his idea. “Sir, my job is to furnish information. It’s up to your discretion, of course. I just thought . . .”
“You just thought, Stepney?” A laugh.
The black phone by the whiskey decanter trilled. The prime minister answered. Grunted. He hung up and stood. “Midnight meeting for everyone in this room. Come up with a precise plan. I want it detailed down to which French-label silk blouse she’d wear. Get the weather projections and the latest decoded Abwehr rosters from Bletchley Park. I mean up-to-the-minute. Get a plane down there if you have to.”
A few raised eyebrows. But each of the four nodded.
“Reserve your judgment until tonight,” he said. “Treat this as Level One, highest priority. This doesn’t leave the room, I might add.” He gave a chuckle. “After all, we haven’t even asked the lady.”
An hour later, after a hot meal of rabbit stew at a scarred wood counter in a cavernous basement kitchen, Kate was escorted into what looked like a parlor and asked to sit down on another stiff-backed chair. It was hard to believe all this had happened since her lunch today with Greer. A radiator sputtered, emitting dribbles of heat. The high-ceilinged room was lined with blackout curtains and the only light came from a dim chandelier, which was missing several crystals, and an Anglepoise desk lamp. Three men in uniform stood surveying her. They began to ask questions, taking turns, impersonal and cold.
Are you a Democrat or Republican? Would you join a workers’ union? Have you ever been, or are you, a member of the Communist Party? Have you supported the German American Bund?
So this was what an interrogation was like. Were they testing her to see if she could hold up under pressure?
She shifted on the chair, keeping her answers simple and truthful. Faltered once when asked about how she met Dafydd in Paris. She found her courage and replied, “Those memories are private, gentlemen, because that’s all I have. Memories.”
They grilled her about her childhood, the ranches her father had worked at, her student time in Paris, did she get along better with her mother-in-law now?
“How do you know all this?” Kate asked, nervous.
Had Stepney dug into her background since their brief meeting at the shooting range?
“We know all about you, Mrs. Rees. The only thing we don’t know is whether you can shoot as well under more difficult conditions.”
“I’ve hunted in blizzards and in the rain,” she said. “I would have qualified for the Olympic sharpshooting team but there’s no female division. Yet.”
“Have you ever killed a person, Kate?”
So they wanted her to assassinate someone. Her throat went dry.
“Shot wolves when times got tough on the ranch. They brought in a twenty-five-dollar bounty. But mostly just deer, elk, and rabbits to feed us all winter long.”
“Why don’t you give us a demonstration?”
The men ushered her across the lawn to a shooting gallery in an empty stable. She hit the target bull’s-eye at three hundred yards, ten out of ten attempts, at which point she put the rifle down.
“I’m tired of bruising my shoulder,” she said. “This recoil needs adjustment before I continue.”
One of the men, who sported a row of medals on his chest, nodded. “I hated that on the Lee-Enfield myself. Not bad, Mrs. Rees.”