A Portrait of Loyalty Read online

  “My pleasure, sir.” She put her hand in his so he could help her out. “Daddy says there are instructions awaiting me?”

  Hall nodded. “If you have any questions, just send a note up to Commander James. He’s been briefed on the project.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  “We’ll see you at dinner tonight.” With a tip of his cap, he slid into the seat she’d just vacated.

  Daddy had gotten out too, and Hall’s driver had taken the wheel. Apparently, they really had no time to waste; it was unusual for her father’s friend to be so quick in his greetings. But when one was the Director of the Intelligence Division, sometimes one’s time was not one’s own.

  She smiled and waved as they pulled away again, stepping to her father’s side. “I take it he and Mrs. Hall are among the guests tonight?”

  “Mm. As well as a few young officers, of course, to entertain you and Ivy Green.” He gave her an indulgent smile.

  Lily put one of her own in its proper place. She knew he was trying to help, trying to see that she and Ivy were cared for. That they would have a future full of security and family. She never had the heart to tell him that she couldn’t let herself think of the future quite yet. Not when it took so much effort just to navigate today.

  He didn’t understand how hard it was for her to keep this part of her life from Mama. When she’d mentioned it once, years ago, he’d just waved her off and insisted she would get used to it. He, after all, had been keeping secrets from her mother throughout their entire marriage. It was necessary when one had a job like his.

  But it was altogether different for her. Mama never tried to be involved in Daddy’s work. But she maintained that her daughters’ business was very much under her jurisdiction.

  Lily drew in a deep breath and turned toward the entrance. “Well, I had better get to it. I daren’t be late again today.”

  Daddy chuckled and walked with her to the door. “If you want to drive home together, send a note up. Though I do need to stop at the bank this afternoon.”

  Lily took care not to react. She avoided the bank whenever she could. Stepping inside it inevitably reminded her of Johanna. Johanna, whose father had been the bank manager. Johanna, whose family had been friends with the Blackwells since they moved to the neighborhood when Lily was five. Johanna, whose family had fled home to Germany two days before war was declared.

  Johanna, whom Lily had been so sure was loyal to England . . . up until she’d been proven wrong.

  She smiled at the guard who held the door open for her and said over her shoulder to Daddy, “With a bit of luck, this won’t take that long and I’ll be able to leave before you. But if not, I’ll certainly let you know.”

  Her father nodded. “I’ll wait to hear from you. Let me know if you have need of anything, dearest.”

  “I will.” Though in general, Admiral Hall saw to it that she had absolutely anything she needed. In addition to her magnificent retouching desk, her darkroom at the OB also had drying racks, solutions, gels, frames, scalpels, brushes, paints, ink, an electric fan, and even a heater to speed up the drying process when they were really pressed for time.

  Her hand rested on her camera. “Have a good day, Daddy.”

  He smiled, but the shadows never left his eyes these days. Not fully. “I’ll have a good day once we’ve routed the Boche for good.” He hurried up the stairs.

  She watched him for a moment. The war had aged him. Four years ago, his hair had still been a rich brown, his face scarcely lined, his form robust. These days, there was more salt than pepper in his hair, he looked older than his fifty-two years, and his tall frame had gone gaunt.

  Perhaps some of it could be blamed on the illness within the first six months of the war that had landed him behind a desk instead of on his ship. But she suspected it was more because of the war itself, and the responsibilities that came with that desk.

  Turning to the familiar stone steps, she padded down to the rooms she had made her own. The door was closed, as always. She let herself in, turned on the lights, and smiled at the beautifully ordered chaos. Mama had her oils and watercolors and canvas. Lily had her solutions and gels and baths. But this was her art. Perhaps it wasn’t art that would make her a household name, an accolade Euphemia Blackwell could claim.

  But it made a difference.

  And that was what kept her coming back here day after day, developing and altering photos for the admiral. Her mother wouldn’t approve, not of the second part of her job. But her country needed her. Needed her skills.

  She settled at her table and skimmed her eyes over what Hall had left for her—two photos to combine by three o’clock, when the field agent in need of it would pick it up before disappearing into the Continent again.

  She smiled and turned for her scalpel. Getting out on time today would be no trouble at all.

  2

  Zivon Marin gripped his briefcase and breathed a silent prayer. It had taken him weeks of watching, waiting, and gauging to be ready to sit in this chair before Admiral Hall’s desk. He had known the moment a return telegram reached him in Paris that he would work quite happily with his czar’s allies against the Central Powers. But that hadn’t meant he could trust them with his own country’s secrets.

  The admiral gave him the easy smile of a man who knew well he held this portion of Zivon’s future in his hands. “How are you settling in, Marin? Any questions for me?”

  Zivon splayed a hand across the flat side of his briefcase. “Yes, actually. I received my paycheck today—thank you. But I have not a bank here in London.”

  “Ah, of course. I’ll refer you to mine. Well, many of us here use it. I’ll just jot the name down, shall I? And the direction?” Even as he spoke, the admiral pulled forward a piece of paper and a pen.

  Zivon waited for him to scratch a few of the words onto the paper. Let him engage his mind in something positive, something easy. Then he drew in a breath and moved to the real subject he’d wanted to broach. “There is one other thing, sir. Directly before I fled Russia, my colleagues and I were still trying to do the work we had always done, despite Russia pulling out of the war. I intercepted a message that may be of interest to you.”

  Hall paused, pen halfway through a word, and blinked up at him. “Oh?”

  Zivon forced his hands to relax, his face to stay neutral. Still. Empty of any doubt. “Yes. From a soldier in the Prussian army, but who is apparently sympathetic to the soviet cause. He heard German officers whispering about a mutiny in the German ranks.”

  Hall sucked in a breath. “Mutiny. I’ve not heard these rumblings.”

  Not until that moment did Zivon realize he’d been hoping England already had the same decrypt in their archives. That would make it all so much easier. “I had not either, until then.”

  Hall leaned back, tossing his pen to his desk and steepling his fingers. “Implications? Why would this Prussian have alerted someone to this—the soviets, I presume, if you intercepted it?”

  Zivon nodded. “Everyone knows that the White Army has been asking for assistance from Allied forces.”

  “Ah.” Hall tapped his fingers to his lips. “Yes, of course. So the Bolsheviks would be quite interested in those allies staying busy in Europe.”

  “Exactly.” A fleeting smile touched Zivon’s lips. At least he never had to explain anything to his new superior.

  Thoughts raced through the admiral’s eyes. “You have a copy of this message?”

  “I . . . had.” Zivon couldn’t quite contain the wince. “It was in my bag, lost in the train accident in France.”

  And just as quickly as the thoughts had raced in Hall’s eyes, they stilled. The light went dark. The fingers lowered.

  Dismissed.

  “Well.” His tone still sounded casual. Interested. Friendly. But he might as well have ordered Zivon from his office then and there. “You know my dilemma, then. Without the actual message to give credence to this information, I must classify it
as rumor more than fact.”

  Of course he knew that. But in Russia, his word would have been enough. Not to take action, perhaps, but to look into it. To search for other evidence.

  But as every single thing in this place kept hammering home, he was not in Russia anymore. No one here knew him. No one trusted him. No one . . . He was no one.

  “We’ll keep our eyes and ears open.” With another easy smile, Hall sat forward again and folded the paper. Held it out. “And if this mutiny does happen, we’ll be ready to strike.”

  “Nyet!” It came out too vehemently. Zivon knew it the moment his lips parted. Knew how it would sound. He sighed. “If the Revolution has taught me anything, Admiral, it is that when the people cry out against their leaders, rebellion cannot be put down by an outside force coming against them in strength. That will give them reason to rally and forget their complaints for another day or week or month. If we want to encourage this mutiny, we must convince them that those complaints—their own superiors—are the enemy, the only one worth bothering with. Turn them on themselves, not on you.”

  As his people had done with their own government. Their czar.

  Hall just blinked at him. “Interesting theory. I’ll consider that idea, of course. But I daresay I’d have a hard time convincing any of the brass to back away if such a thing happened rather than doubling their efforts.”

  That was the true power of the Director of Intelligence, though, wasn’t it? It had been in Moscow. Hall got to decide what story to tell these generals and admirals making decisions on the ground. And at this point in the war, they’d learned to listen to him.

  But Hall hadn’t yet learned to listen to Zivon. Though frustration filled the blood in his veins, he understood that too. Hated it but understood it. He leaned forward and took the paper with the bank’s name and address. “Thank you for allowing me to speak, at any rate. And for this.”

  “Of course. Have a good evening, Marin.”

  He nodded, though it promised to be an evening just like all the rest. Solitary. Empty of anything but his own nagging thoughts and worries. He hurried from the building, glancing at the words on the page.

  Hall hadn’t finished whatever he’d been writing, but he’d gotten the name and street number down, and that would suffice. Zivon had studied a map of London and recognized this street name. It wasn’t far off.

  A few minutes of walking, then he would hand over his first paycheck from the British Admiralty. Open an account. Take the first real step toward becoming English.

  English. No, not quite. He would make his home here. He would serve with loyalty. But he would never—could never—be anything but Russian. He would live here and become a subject of the Crown because he was Russian. Because this was the best way to help his people.

  Assuming he could ever convince Admiral Hall to listen to him.

  He needed his album. The telegram. But he didn’t have that. Just as he hadn’t had the money stashed in his bag, or the clothes he’d had tailor-made in Moscow after his last promotion, or the invitation from the czar that he’d promised himself he’d never part with.

  Just as he didn’t have his brother.

  Evgeni. Lord God, where is Evgeni? Zivon forced the fist in his chest to release, his breath to ease out, back in. Every time he thought of his brother, urgency filled him. Had been filling him ever since he’d awoken in that French hospital, dazed and so very alone, Evgeni’s bag with him instead of his own, and a shadowy something gnawing at the edges of his mind. He’d remembered feeling irritation with his brother for being gone so long, gone during the entirety of the water stop. He remembered Evgeni waking the other passengers when he came back in. And then . . . nothing. Blackness. The twisted rails that had sent the train careening had stolen a few minutes from his memory too—or, rather, the concussion had. The French doctor had assured him this was normal.

  The French doctor had also said that, no, the memories wouldn’t return. That it was God’s blessing, really, that the mind didn’t retain those moments of trauma.

  God’s blessing. He’d once thought he knew the meaning of that. These days, his prayers seemed to be only hollow, echoing words. Cry as he might to the Father—morning, noon, and night—only unfamiliar silence greeted him in return. Well . . . unfamiliar silence and the continued echoing of a long-ago memorized Scripture.

  Be still, and know that I am God.

  Zivon turned the last corner, noting the puddle in the street up ahead. The bicyclist who would have to swerve to avoid it. The oncoming car that wouldn’t allow the cyclist to swerve into the road and so make the sidewalk the better option. The woman walking a few paces ahead of him who would be directly in the cyclist’s path. “Madam!”

  It was probably the urgency in his voice, more than the nameless call, that got her attention. She paused, turned.

  The bicycle’s bell jangled, and the rider called out an apology as he barely missed the woman. She clutched a hand to her chest, eyes wide. And then smiled at Zivon. “Thank you.”

  He nodded but made no other attempt at conversation. The bank was there, on his right.

  He’d have to find the proof, find the names, find something to convince his new superior that he should be believed—and then consulted on what the proper course of action would be.

  Because the end to this war was paramount. Only then, when hostilities were over in Europe, could the British or French or American forces spare any help for the White Army. Only then did Russia have a chance of renewed order.

  Only then could the Bolsheviks be destroyed.

  He thrust a hand into his pocket, wrapped his fingers around Batya’s pocket watch so that the steady tick-a-tick could soothe him. Remind him of the eternal march onward, despite whatever disruptions came into the pattern. He let the ever-present Scripture flood his thoughts in time to the ticking.

  He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire. Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

  Be still. He drew in one more breath and released his grasp on the watch in his pocket.

  Still. He forced the rocking of the world, of his thoughts, of his heart to halt and then forced his legs to move him forward. Through the doors. Into the elegant interior of the bank. He took his place in the back of the queue and tried to convince his pulse to stay slow and steady. Tried to convince his heart to hold tight to what his mind knew.

  Despite what the Bolsheviks claimed, God was still in His heaven. He was still holding them all in His hand. He would make this war, like all wars, to cease. Zivon’s job, as it had always been, was to be still, steady. To watch. Learn the patterns. So he would know when stillness should give way to action.

  “Mr. Marin! Good afternoon.”

  Three weeks in England, and still the English words, the English pronunciation of his name, sounded strange to his ears. But he turned and smiled at the tall captain behind him. “Good afternoon, Captain Blackwell.”

  As strange as English sounded to his ears, it felt stranger still on his tongue. He spoke it well enough, but it never felt quite right as it emerged, not as his German and Greek and French did. And he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to truly think in it, though he was doing his best. He’d gotten permission from Admiral Hall to spend the first hour of work reading a newspaper, to get his mind accustomed to English words.

  The other cryptographers seemed baffled by this practice. He’d be happy to explain his reasoning if anyone ever asked. But they were content to stare and whisper instead.

  Captain Blackwell had never looked at him as though he were a display in a museum, at least. “How fortuitous that I’ve run into you.” The captain smiled, and it looked like a lonely shaft of sunlight through the clouds ever-present in his eyes. “I’ve been meaning to ask you to join my family for dinner one evening.”

  Zivon’s brows lifted. He hadn’t
shared an actual meal with someone in weeks. “I would be delighted, Captain. I thank you. Name the day.”

  The captain chuckled. “How’s this evening for you? Another of my guests just cancelled—he’s a bit under the weather, it seems—and my wife does detest an empty seat at the table. But if you already have plans, next week or the week after would work just as well.”

  How gracious of him to even consider that Zivon had plans, when surely he’d seen that their colleagues viewed him more as an oddity than a friend. Zivon knew his own smile was self-deprecating. “Tonight would be lovely.”

  “Excellent.” A few of the clouds in his eyes shifted, though they didn’t exactly flee. “I’ve a car outside. I’d be happy to drive you to your flat to tidy up and then to my home. It’s close, I believe?”

  Zivon nodded. “That is most kind. Thank you, sir.”

  “Next. May I help you, sir?”

  The captain nodded, directing Zivon’s attention back to the queue, where his turn had come. He put on what he hoped was an easy smile and approached the clerk behind her gleaming wooden counter. “Good afternoon.”

  If only he could speak without an accent. The woman’s smile flickered, dropping into a momentary frown before she remembered herself. “Good afternoon, sir. How may I help you?”

  He opened his briefcase and withdrew the crisp paycheck. “I would like to open an account and deposit this.”

  Now the woman’s brows winged upward. No doubt she had a hard time reconciling his speech—clearly Russian—with Admiralty pay. He knew the feeling. But she produced another smile, unconvincing as it was, and said, “Of course. I’ll just need to see your references.”

  “I beg your pardon?” His chest went tight, holding captive the air already in his lungs and barring out any fresh influx. References? “It is my money. I ought to be asking you for references.”

  Laughter belted out behind him, and he felt someone drawing near. Captain Blackwell, he soon realized, who leaned in and said, “I’m his reference, Miss Knight. And Admiral Hall. Let the man give you his money.”