The Unlikely Spy Read Online Free PDF

to raise his voice above the clinking glasses and the din of conversation.
    "Peter, it's Jane."
    Peter heard her voice tremble. "What's wrong?"
    "I'm afraid there's been an accident."
    "Where are you?"
    "I'm with the Nassau County Police."
    "What happened?"
    "A car pulled in front of them on the highway. Wiggins couldn't see it in the rain. By the time he did it was too late."
    "Oh, God!"
    "Wiggins is in very bad shape. The doctors aren't holding out much hope for him."
    "What about Margaret, dammit!"

    Lauterbachs did not cry at funerals; grieving was done in private. It was held at St. James's Episcopal Church, the same church where Peter and Margaret had been married four years earlier. President Roosevelt sent a note of condolence and expressed his disappointment that he could not attend. Most of New York society did attend. So did most of the financial world, even though the markets were in turmoil. Germany had invaded Poland, and the world was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
    Billy stood next to Peter during the service. He wore short pants and a little blazer and tie. As the family filed out of the church, he reached up and tugged on the hem of his aunt Jane's black dress.
    "Will Mommy ever come home?"
    "No, Billy, she won't. She's left us."
    Edith Blakemore overheard the child's question and burst into tears.
    "What a tragedy," she gasped, sobbing. "What a needless tragedy!"
    Margaret was buried under brilliant skies in the family plot on Long Island. During the Reverend Pugh's final words a murmur passed through the graveside mourners, then died away.
    When it was over Peter walked back to the limousines with his best friend, Shepherd Ramsey. Shepherd had introduced Peter to Margaret. Even in his somber dark suit, he looked as though he'd just stepped off the deck of his sailboat.
    "What was everyone talking about?" Peter asked. "It was damned rude."
    "Someone arrived late, and they'd been listening to a bulletin on the car radio," Shepherd said. "The British and French just declared war on Germany."

3

    LONDON: MAY 1940

    Professor Alfred Vicary vanished without explanation from University College on the third Friday of May 1940. A secretary named Lillian Walford was the last member of the staff to see him before his abrupt departure. In a rare indiscretion, she revealed to the other professors that Vicary's last telephone call had been from the new prime minister. In fact, she had spoken to Mr. Churchill personally.
    "Same thing happened to Masterman and Cheney at Oxford," Tom Perrington, an Egyptologist, said as he gazed at the entry in the telephone log. "Mysterious calls, men in dark suits. I suspect our dear friend Alfred has slipped behind the veil." Then he added, sotto voce, "Into the secret Acropolis."
    Perrington's languid smile did little to hide his disappointment, Miss Walford would remark later. Too bad Britain wasn't at war with the ancient Egyptians--perhaps Perrington would have been chosen too.
    Vicary spent his last hours in the cramped disorderly office overlooking Gordon Square putting the final touches on an article for the Sunday Times. The current crisis might have been avoided, it suggested, if Britain and France had attacked Germany in 1939 while Hitler still was preoccupied with Poland. He knew it would be roundly criticized given the current climate; his last piece had been denounced as "Churchillian warmongering" by a publication of the pro-Nazi extreme right. Vicary secretly hoped his new article would be similarly received.
    It was a glorious late-spring day, bright sunshine but deceptively chilly. Vicary, an accomplished if reluctant chess player, appreciated deception. He rose, put on a cardigan sweater, and resumed his work.
    The fine weather painted a false picture. Britain was a nation under siege--defenseless, frightened, reeling in utter confusion. Plans were drawn up to evacuate the Royal Family to Canada. The government asked that Britain's other national treasure, its