Rogue Spy Read Online Free Page B

shape of a rose. Forty years ago they’d picked the rose knocker out of the ruins of the old headquarters after it burned. The plate to the right of the door read,
The Penumbral Walking Club
.
    He didn’t have a key. Nobody got past the front door of Number Seven unless somebody let him in.
    He pounded again. Where was Giles?
    The lock disengaged. Giles, a sturdy, open-faced sixteen-year-old, opened the door, letter in hand. He said, “Pax.” Nothing but surprise and pleasure in his voice. “You’re back. Hawker said you’d be here in a day or two. Grey’s landed in Dover—”
    â€œGive me that.” He took the letter from Giles, dropped it on the table, and brushed his fingers on his coat.
    â€œIt just came,” Giles said. “Sam brought it. It’s addressed to Galba.”
    The door on the other side of the ugly front parlor opened. Hawker, compact, dark haired, deadly as a snake, dressed like a gentleman, strolled in. “I didn’t think you’d be fool enough to show up. There’s still time to turn around and run.”
    â€œNo, there isn’t. Hawk, look at this. Don’t touch it.”
    â€œI wasn’t going to.” Hawker approached, feline and inquisitive. “Communication from the greater world.”
    The folded paper was addressed to Anson Jones. That was Galba’s real name, not the name he used when he was Head of Service.
Mr. Anson Jones, Number Seven, Meeks Street.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with it?” Hawker took his knife out, twitched the blade under the note, flipped it over.
    â€œIt’s from a woman.”
    â€œNot, in itself, a bad thing.”
    In fifty words he told Hawk how the note had been sent. “And . . . I know the handwriting. This
e
with the sharp corner, tilted up. The bar on the
t
slanted down. I’ve seen that.”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œNot recently. It’s . . .” He shook his head. “A long time ago. Somewhere.”
    â€œPart of life’s eventful journey.”
    â€œIt’ll come to me.” He pulled his knife and helped himself to Hawker’s. He steadied the note and slit the seal without touching the paper at all. “Don’t breathe.” That was for Giles. Hawker had already stepped back.
    Hawker murmured, “You do realize we’re prying into the private correspondence of the Head of Service.”
    â€œI know.” He laid the page flat, using the knife point to push the edges back. On the paper, line after line of numbers and letters. “And we have code.”
    â€œDo we?” Hawker bent forward. “How dramatic.”
    â€œA Service code.”
    â€œA Leyland code.” Hawk’s finger hovered over the inkblot that marked it as Leyland code. “I don’t recognize the identifier.”
    â€œOne of the old ones. Before you came to the Service.” Code. Something about code . . . and that handwriting.
    Then he remembered. He’d been thirteen or fourteen, sitting at a long table in the cold, bare schoolroom of the Coach House, painstakingly disassembling a code. The dark-haired girl beside him leaned over her slate, scribbling down the sharp little
e
and the slanted
t
, deciphering as fast as she could write. None of them could touch her when it came to code breaking.
    Vérité. Vérité’s handwriting.
Ten years ago, when he’d had a different name and Vérité had been his best friend. “I know who she is. I knew her when she was a child.” A particularly deadly child.
    Hawk said, “A French spy, then. One of you Cachés.”
    â€œOne of us. Yes.” He flipped Hawk’s knife to hold it by the blade and handed it back to him. “I have to find her. Giles, go wash your hands. Don’t touch the letter again. Don’t let anyone get close to it till I come back.”
    Giles said, “Why not?”
    Hawker answered for him.