“We’ll intercept him.”
Cilla’s eyelashes fluttered, and her face reddened.
Lachlan’s chest heaved. If the spy evaded MI5 and suspected Cilla of being a double agent, she would be in grave danger. He had to protect her.
35
Thurso
Friday, April 3, 1942
On a bench at the Thurso Railway Station, Cilla smoothed the red ribbon bookmark between the pages of her book to make sure her “scarlet thread” was displayed.
“Pardon me. Do you have a light?”
Cilla’s breath caught, but that washercode phrase, not the new Abwehr agent’s.
A dapper fair-haired man in his forties smiled down at her and tipped his homburg.
“I’m afraid I don’t smoke,” Cilla said.
“That’s quite all right.” He reached inside his overcoat and tucked a cigarette into the breast pocket of his suit jacket. “I must confess I asked only to determine whether your eyes are as gorgeous up close as they are from a distance. Indeed, they are.”
Cilla gave the man a tight smile. She’d always taken flattery in the fun intended, but in comparison to the intriguing contours of Lachlan’s character, flattery felt ... flat.
The man frowned in a concerned manner. “You’ve been sitting here quite some time. Are you—”
“My husband’s train must have been delayed.” She peered down the tracks.
“You don’t wear a wedding ring. I checked.”
A quick scan confirmed her suspicions. “And youdowear a ring. I checked.”
The man stuffed his left hand in his overcoat pocket and marched off.
Cilla caught the eye of the MI5 officer leaning against the wall about thirty feet away, and she gave him the slightest shake of her head. No, not the man the Abwehr had code-named Jericho.
The previous Saturday night, Kraus had sent the location and time of the new German agent’s arrival—after midnight on the night of 2 April. After Sunday dinner at the Mackenzies, she had met again with Lachlan and Yardley to make plans.
Steam rose in the distance, and a locomotive chuffed toward Thurso Railway Station, the northernmost station in Britain.
Men and women came through the door from the ticketing area, rose from benches in the shelter, and gathered on the platform.
Cilla followed them. The shelter covered the end of the line and had shielded her from the day’s wind and showers, but now she needed to be seen.
She shifted the book in her arm so the red ribbon could flutter its signal, and she fingered the red ribbon tied in a bow around her hair.
In the Bible, Rahab had draped a scarlet thread down the walls of Jericho to remind the Hebrew army how she’d welcomed their spies. Cilla and Yardley had adopted the scarlet thread as the way their fictional Free Caledonia subagents would signal their welcome of German spies.
Incredibly ironic, given how the Germans treated the Hebrews. Which was part of the appeal.
Last night, as Imogene waited in the staff car, Cilla and Yardley and Philo had lain in another damp freezing field, all dressed as Scottish civilians so as not to alarm Jericho. A Luftwaffe plane had droned overhead, and two parachutes fluttered down in high winds.
One parachute landed a quarter mile away, and they’d recovered a canister of German explosives and detonators and timing devices.
The other parachute had drifted into the night, and they hadn’t found it. Or Jericho. Or his wireless set. Or his pistol.
If he missed the rendezvous at the drop site, Jericho was to have met her at the railway station in the morning. As a public place where people came and went and waited, the station was ideal for a clandestine meeting.
