The Queen Susan in Tashbaan
Chapter 21, The Queen Susan in Tashbaan, Part 3
Spies cannot be usefully employed without a certain intuitive sagacity… They cannot be properly managed without benevolence and straightforwardness.
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Espionage, for the most part, involves finding a person who knows something or has something that you can induce them secretly to give to you. That almost always involves a betrayal of trust.
Aldrich Ames, CIA Intelligence Officer and Soviet Mole
Develop a few vices, especially abroad, so that with luck, you can be compromised and blackmailed. If you cannot manage a vice or two, just be foolish. If you can't be foolish, be incautious…. Accept favours from officials. When they ask for some harmless service in exchange for good money, accept at once.
MI-5 Pamphlet, How To Become A Soviet Spy In Six Easy Steps
The late afternoon thunderstorm had rolled in, violently dousing the simmering city of Washington and then moving out. The sudden storms were like a glass of cold water dumped on to a hot skillet; rain sizzled as it hit the pavement.
Susan ignored the drips from the trees and eaves overhead. Standing in the Embassy compound, next to Gladys and between the Colonel and Tebbitt, she crossed her arms over her front and watched as Guy's murderer was shoved into a military van under heavy Canadian Army and MP guard.
It was strange, to be handing off an accused to someone else. It reminded her of what Aslan had permitted Caspian to do in sending the rebellious Telmarines away. Shrugging the responsibility on to others had never been an option for them in the aftermath of Jadis and beyond. Traitors, murderers, criminals, and Moles had been their charge and it was always hoped that they died in battle. It was so strange that the mustering of the case, the defence, the judgment, and the punishment were not part of her jointly shared responsibility.
Tebbitt stood next to her, still taut with rage. The Colonel had had to make loud and creative threats before he would consent to let any of them witness this departure. It was ironic, really. Susan felt Tebbitt was handling it less well than she, yet he had continued to be overly solicitous. She was weary to death of his deferential kindness.
The Colonel was better – he expected her to be composed and so she was. It was not easy; death never was. Susan, however, knew how to show the competent face, make the appropriate and supportive gestures, manage the details, and permit one's deeper grief in private. She knew she had been badly rattled by the actual event but most of the night was lost in the haze of the sleeping pills. She could not very well explain to Tebbitt, the Colonel, or her mother that what had horrified her had been the shock of the death here, rather than the horror of death itself. She had been to her elbows and knees in blood before. She was sick of death, but did not turn from it.
Nor could she explain that even worse than the death, was her raging sense of blame. She had known something was amiss, had seen it before, and still, she had not been able to stop it. Those here could not help her with this, for to explain why she felt such guilt was impossible. Peter's admonishments and exhortations played over in her head at night, and it helped, a little, but she needed to hear the words from her brother here and now, not through the filter of Narnian memory. She felt Aslan's comforting presence, or thought she did, anyway. She had hoped, forlornly, for a carefully written letter from Edmund and oblique words of support and encouragement from Lucy. Logically, though, there would not be time for letters to clear censors and make the ocean voyage.
So, as she watched the transfer, Susan smothered her own nagging sense of failure for what had brought the prisoner and Guy to this ghastly, wholly avoidable end. The prisoner was a young man, weedy thin, face tanned from work in the gardens all summer. He was dressed in baggy fatigues. The chains on his wrists and ankles clanked as he shuffled and stumbled. He crawled awkwardly into the van with a helpful shove from a burly Sergeant. Two MPs climbed into the rear of the van with the prisoner and a third locked them in with a heavy padlock and a jangling of keys.
The Colonel had not shared even a single detail of his interrogation. The senior officer in charge of the prisoner's transfer to an army base near Ottawa, a crisp Major not yet wilting in the steamy heat, saluted the Colonel. The Colonel handed over his file and returned the salute.
The Major climbed in the truck and they watched as it pulled out of the Embassy guard gate.
They all verbalized the same thought at the same moment.
"Drinks, in my office."
"Might we have a drink, Sir?"
"This calls for a drink."
"Sir, should I get out the drinks?"
The Colonel had already set out the glasses and his decanter with the good Bourbon on his desk. They were in a new office on the third floor. It was neater, brighter, larger, and had no ugly blood stains on the carpet. It also had that blessed innovation in office comfort known as a window air conditioning unit.
"To Guy Hill," the Colonel said, glass upraised.
Until we meet again in Aslan's Own Country, my Friend. Do not let our grief keep you from your journey home.
Susan returned the salute and sipped the American whiskey. It was far more pleasant than the Lightning Peter and some of the other Narnians had favored and more palatable than the rums so common in America now.
Into the who will go first pause, it was Tebbitt who finally asked, "Why Canada, Sir?"
The Colonel eased into his squeaky chair, cradling his drink in one hand and toying with his cigar in the other.
"Because our prisoner's papers identify him as Michael Ribin, Vancouver, British Colombia, more lately of New York, and Ottawa. He appears to be a Canadian citizen."
"So the Nazi swine will be cooked by the British, rather than the Americans?"
"Tebbitt! Don't be foul!" Gladys protested, taking the secretarial seat near the Colonel's desk. Susan sat on the divan.
"The Embassy is British soil; he is and Guy Hill was a Commonwealth citizen; British military law applies, though it's the lawyers who will work out the details," the Colonel said. "Insofar as the death is concerned, it is not really for the American authorities at all."
Tebbitt immediately followed up on what was the concern. "Have you been able to trace his network, how long he's been here, what he's been after?" He slouched onto the divan next to her and stretched out his legs.
Susan felt a pang. There was so much more room in the new office and without Guy and Lowrey it was positively spacious.
"Taking the last first, no, I don't know what he was after and he has been on the Embassy grounds since May. We do not know how long he has had access to this office which was, by the by, likely not from a key stolen from a drunken Mr. Sykes."
"I am relieved to hear that," Susan said. She had heard that Sykes had been aggressively questioned.
"In your final week here you shall not be deprived of your lock picking instructor, Mrs. Caspian," the Colonel replied, raising his glass in her direction. "As for his handler, his network, and so forth, I have nothing thus far, save that I do not believe Mr. Ribin was recruited by the Nazis, which is, in fact, quite a significant supposition."
They all stared, silent and shocked. Tebbitt recovered first. "But who, then? Why?"
The Colonel leaned back again in his chair, staring at his cigar. Susan nudged Tebbitt with her elbow to keep quiet to allow the Colonel time to choose his words.
He finally said slowly, "These are excellent questions, Tebbitt, which Mr. Ribin has not enlightened me upon. By my judge, however, he does not fit the profile of the Nazi turncoat."
And the Colonel would know what the profile was, what the levers were that would turn a man or women to traitor and then turn the agent back again to the other side, the treacherous double cross. MICE – Money, Ideology, Coercion, Ego – these were the four drivers the Colonel had taught her. They were very similar to what she and Edmund had devised, though she wished they had thought to name as Mice the devices by which they had influenced Narnia spies – Willa, a Rat, would have felt very superior.
"I won't bore you with the details of the interrogation, which may be summarized as still too early to know anything, but suffice to say that the typical ties to Nazi sympathizers are utterly absent in Mr. Ribin's case."
"But he is a spy?" Tebbitt pressed, leaning forward eagerly. "You must have found something incriminating."
"Oh yes. In his personal effects we found more cash, American, than a construction worker should have," the Colonel said. "And there is a very interesting document which tells us rather more than the man himself ever could."
The Colonel set his drink down and teased out from his breast pocket a single small sheet of paper. Gladys snagged it first, studied it then shrugged and handed it to Susan. It made no more sense to her. Tebbitt was hovering at her shoulder, as eager as a Hound on a scent. Typeset on plain sheet of paper were eight columns of six letter groupings:
YRRBDG LYVZAS HOMMCI KUYMXG HHDBCI ZYKWQV ACQIVL VKTVEU
ENQTAV QYCBVW UTSIBZ FWDNNU VAWWCH YYDSAJ COTPED FHIWML
And so on.
Tebbitt whistled. "An OTP?"
"So it would seem," the Colonel said.
"Which is?" Susan asked pointedly, "apart from obviously being an encryption device?" She did not wish them to think her thick, but really, there was no reason at all why she would know their colloquialisms and acronyms.
The Colonel answered. "It is a page from what is known as a 'One Time Pad' system. The pad provides a random key that is used to encrypt text. Somewhere in the world will be another person with this identical page which will allow the recipient to break the code and decrypt the message."
"In theory, the encoded message will be impossible to break without the key," Tebbitt said thoughtfully, gently tugging the page from her hands to study it more carefully.
"If the key is kept secret and the pads not reused, there is nothing theoretical about it," the Colonel said. "Text encrypted using an OTP is unbreakable without the key."
Tebbitt handed the precious page back to the Colonel who studied its inscrutable letters again.
"So who is using this system of encryption if not the Nazis?" Susan asked.
"The Japanese?" Tebbitt said.
"Yes, that is a possibility, though we have not found any ties to Japan, either." The Colonel thoughtfully fingered the page. "I think the Soviet Union seems to fit the meager facts as we know them."
Gladys swallowed a hiccupping gasp. "Our allies?"
They had been covering Soviet-related gossip all summer – the promises Roosevelt had made to Molotov to open a Second Front in Europe, the stiff British opposition to that plan, and their grudging acquiescence that was resulting in the on-again, off-again Operation Jubilee planned for Dieppe. Surely Stalin knew what had been whispered among the British for months – that perhaps it would not be such a bad thing if the Nazis and Soviets drove each other to ruin. There were many things that had passed through their office that would be interesting to their Soviet ally.
As so often happened, Tebbitt spoke aloud what she had been thinking. "The Second Front," he said simply to the Colonel.
The Colonel nodded. "It is a possibility. Stalin would have certainly been worried about whether the Americans would hold to their troop commitment in Europe and whether we would finesse a double cross or deliberately sabotage Operation Jubilee. It is not my area, but I assume that the Americans are intercepting Soviet cables. If they are not, they should be. I will pass a copy of this along to the Army's Signal Intelligence unit."
Susan supposed he would send the sheet on to Intrepid in New York and from there it would go to the mysterious codebreakers in England.
"It's unsettling," Tebbitt mused, "to think the Soviets might be building networks here. And if in America…"
"Absolutely," the Colonel agreed, returning his cigar to his mouth. "We are fools to think otherwise. Stalin would undoubtedly view the British as a far richer espionage target. The Americans did not even have a foreign intelligence service to infiltrate until a month ago, as it is unsporting for gentlemen to read one another's mail."
They all laughed at his paraphrase of Treasury Secretary Stinson's admonition, famous in espionage circles.
"It would not have to be the OSS," Susan injected, again thinking of the Narnia experience. "Even aside from military targets, spies could infiltrate the diplomatic corps, industry, weapons research, the American Treasury Department, the Congress, even the White House."
The Colonel frowned, though whether in disagreement or for some other reason was left undetermined, for the phone rang. Gladys sprang from her seat to the phone on his desk.
"Colonel Walker-Smythe's office." Gladys cupped one hand over the receiver. "It's New York, Sir."
The Colonel nodded.
"One moment, Sir, Colonel Walker-Smythe is available."
Tebbitt pulled himself out of the divan, wincing a little. His back would hurt him after rain storms. Susan rose as Tebbitt did, knowing this was their cue.
The Colonel took the phone and waved them out of the office, "Walker-Smythe here!"
"Whenever he is in an expansive mood, New York calls and cuts him off," Tebbitt said, holding the door for her and Gladys.
"It is magic how they know that," Gladys agreed.
The Colonel sorted through the dispatches, one by one, making notes for briefing Tebbitt and Mrs. Caspian, and remembering that she was leaving in barely a week. With his staffing decimated, New York had said they would be sending more help, assuming they had anyone to send.
The Japanese had set up a puppet government in Burma. The American Marines were in the thick of it on Guadalcanal, and trying to build an airfield to get reinforcements in before the Japanese did. The Americans were being deceived by Vichy France, again. Churchill had visited the Eighth Army at El Alamein and (finally) decided to replace Auchinleck; unfortunately his replacement, General Gott, had been shot down on his way to Cairo. Which left Monty. The Colonel was still undecided in his views on Eisenhower being appointed CINC of the joint allied force planning the retaking of North Africa. He seemed competent as an administrator and logician, but it was the British who knew that part of the world, not the Americans. He hoped this was not Colonial bias on his part.
In the midst of the dispatches and cables, he vaguely heard Gladys and Tebbitt say their good evenings to Mrs. Caspian. Tebbitt had some event and had coaxed Gladys to join him with plans to meet Mrs. Caspian later. Mrs. Caspian would stay in the office as long as he did, or until her mother left, whichever came first.
He filed the dispatches away. With the others gone, it was time to finally address Mrs. Caspian and her remarkable letter to her brother. He withdrew it from the same pocket where he had, appropriately, been stowing the OTP sheet taken from Ribin's flat.
As he had read and re-read the treasonous letter to Edmund Pevensie, the Colonel appreciated anew that Susan Caspian had a knack with ciphers. The letter relied upon the same principles of idiosyncratic, highly personalized cryptography as her fake shorthand and was constructed as carefully. There were layers of meaning buried in the letter he could but guess at. The bloody censors had missed it because they were looking for mysterious number/letter sequences such as those encrypted with the OTP method. They had never thought to look at a code as allegorical metaphor. It was an addition to the training manual he would have to make himself. He would use her letter as an example of the form.
Some parts of the allegory were easy to follow as he had been living it, though he had had to consult a reference text at the library for what some of the creatures were. He could identify certain characters and places readily: Sallowpad, Bardon, Peridan, Fraxi, Prince Cor, the Lone Islands, Galma, Tashbaan, the Native Narnians, the Ettins and Telmarines, the High King, the Just King, the Tisroc, the Grand Vizier. Other parts, though, were fiendishly obscure. In this, he saw what Fleming had spoken of; part of the brilliance of the method was its verisimilitude – it truly did read like a thrilling adventure tale by Verne, Baum, or Carroll. It felt like a work of original fiction.
Sprinkled liberally throughout the letter were references to things wholly outside their real world of wartime Washington that did not fit the cipher at all – the frequently invoked deity, Aslan, the malevolent Witch, Jadis, a murderous tyrant of Shakespearean proportions named Miraz, and others referred to lovingly by name. With these references, there were hints of backstory so familiar, they needed no elaboration. The gryphon General, a female no less, certainly had no counterpart here. Wolves, cheetahs, and tigers acted as bodyguards. Willa and Sallowpad seemed to be characters both in and outside the tale. He saw a joke about bad food and Cook and recalled Mrs. Caspian's story at Hill's funeral.
The phone rang, interrupting his perusal, and Mrs. Caspian picked it up before he did. "Sir!" she called a few moments later. "It is Secretary Hull's office. They are sending something over and want to meet with you about it tomorrow."
"Fine! See to it!" It was not necessary to consult his appointments. Mrs. Caspian had his calendar and would set the time and adjust his other engagements appropriately to accommodate the American Secretary of State.
He returned to his study of the letter and the part that truly had stymied him. As sophisticated as Mrs. Caspian was, however old she actually was and however old she pretended to be, he could not fathom her self-condemnation.
And so, Queen Susan bears culpability for the death of Bardon. Had she been more attentive and less enamored of the glamour of Tashbaan, she would have given greater thought to the Moles toiling away all summer at the Narnia Residence. It was surely no coincidence; Just King and Gentle Queen both know the Rule of Threes better than that. Aslan was shouting to her to attend, but she did not hear him. Now a Good Beast, as noble as any who ever flew for Narnia during her Golden Age or since, is dead. Queen Susan recalls the Just King's wise instruction to be cautious in coming to Tashbaan so as not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Queen Susan sought to remedy her past failures, to make reparation for her foolishness and gullibility. Yet, the past has repeated itself again, two fold, both in her failure to see the Mole when all the ills were there for the watchful eye to see, and in making mistakes as foolish as those of her first time in Tashbaan. She wishes she had attended more closely to Aslan's voice and to the advice of the Just King. If she had, Bardon might still live.
She does not see hearts as the Valiant Queen; she does not see minds as the Just King does; the Gentle Queen does not see the view from the great height as the High King does. She never sees until it is too late.
The Colonel could think of nothing so severe in the middle class life of an English school girl that would warrant such profound self-censure. If Queen Susan the Gentle was indeed a projection of Susan Pevensie, and surely they had to be one and the same, she felt deeply culpable for failing to prevent Hill's death because of some events in her past. Tebbitt had reported the same thing. Even though he had long observed how at ease Mrs. Caspian was in and around powerful people, assuming responsibility for Hill's murder bespoke some past role for a fifteen year old girl in the business of nations, war, politics, death, deception, and espionage.
Of all the peculiarities of the letter, this made the least sense to him.
So that, my dear brother, is likely the final chapter of The Queen Susan in Tashbaan until we are able to pick up the story again upon my return. I am, as you can imagine, very much torn. There is so much to see and to do here. Washington is an excellent place for adventures! Of greatest value, I have made many good friends who appreciate me for what I truly am. As you know so well, I also dislike leaving tasks undone.
However, I miss you all terribly, my heart, soul, and mind. I have stood on my own, as I have not done in many an age. For this opportunity and lesson, I am grateful to Aslan, as Queen Susan would say. For all my many failings, I pray that he is pleased with the work of his servant.
I shall not write of our travel arrangements – the censors will delete them out to be sure! Mother and Father have cabled our aunt and uncle with the information. Until then, his blessings and mine upon you and Lucy.
Your loving sister,
Susan
Hearing the sounds of the messenger in the anteroom, the Colonel carefully set a file folder over the letter, covering it up for when Mrs. Caspian would come into his office. He leaned back in his chair, barely cognizant of the nervous chewing on the cigar end and contemplated his strategy. This had to be dealt with but he believed it easily manageable – trip her up, shame her a bit, and dispatch someone to bully the younger brother into silence. He did wonder if Mrs. Caspian had ever been caught before. This would be good practice for her in the role of the one being interrogated.
With the quick clip of heels, Mrs. Caspian strode into his office, envelope marked with the stamps of the American Department of State tucked under one arm and her stenographer's pad and pen in the other hand.
Mrs. Caspian handed him the envelope and at his gesture took the secretarial seat at the desk's edge.
In the envelope there was a copy of a cable and a hand written note about it being contrary to the policy of Secretary Hull and Undersecretary Welles to pass along private messages. But then, this was the same government who believed it unscrupulous to read other people's mail – a scruple the British certainly did not have.
Quickly scanning the report from the American Vice Consul in Geneva, he could see why Hull and Welles wished to speak to him about it. The report of a Nazis plan to exterminate European Jews was not new given what he and Mrs. Caspian had already discerned from the Bletchley Park cable about a death camp in Chelmno and the newspaper accounts smuggled out of Poland. The Vice Consul's report was corroborating what the British already suspected. The how – prussic acid – was new information and inwardly he shuddered. It was monstrous but no longer surprising. They had to win the war or they would all be dead, and with them every Jew in Nazi-occupied Europe. He could guess what the State Department's view was – don't pass along private messages indeed. How else did one gain communications intelligence? It would be typical of them to ignore the message given the method by which it was received.
Mrs. Caspian shifted in her seat. He put the cable to the side and from her upturned eyebrow he could see she was surprised he did not immediately share it with her. He wished to do so – he owed her that courtesy given that she had helped him put the Chelmno pieces together. First, however, they had to address her imprudent letter. Mrs. Caspian was very, very good, but she had not mastered him, yet. She still needed more miles and more years however they were measured and lived in her odd, non-linear life.
She was looking at him expectantly, hand poised over the stenographer's pad, waiting.
"Where did you learn the trick of silence, Mrs. Caspian?"
She made a silent ahh and pushed her pen into the coils of the steno pad. With such a beginning, it would not be the typical workaday dictation. She settled elegantly into the hard little secretarial chair. "I knew someone who always maintained that given a silence, most people have the desire to fill it. The trick is knowing the impulse exists and training yourself to patience in its place."
"I have during this summer often speculated as to the identity of those prior mentors of yours, Mrs. Caspian."
"Surely not a productive exercise, Sir."
"Indeed, not. Which is why I find this so instructive." He slid the obscuring folder away and held up the letter to her brother for her to see. "I wonder if you learned your skills from Sallowpad?"
Not even in the moments after Hill's death or when they sat on the bench together and discussed mass murder in Poland had he seen her so unguarded. He pressed the advantage. "Given what is in this report we just obtained from Secretary Hull, I further wonder what I would receive if I asked you to retrieve the file on the Ettins' plans to murder Native Narnians."
The moment passed, stretching from strategically useful to uncomfortable, guilty silence, for now she knew that he had not only seen the letter, but had understood it as well.
"Now, Mrs. Caspian," he chided crisply. "You have been under my exclusive tutelage for weeks. I have trusted you and now accuse you of putting our secrets into a cipher and writing home about them!"
He brandished the letter, goading her to uncertainty and defensiveness, raising his voice. "Don't just sit there like an empty headed Tarkheena! Defend yourself!"
Come on girl, he urged silently. You have been found out. You anticipated this might happen. I have told what to do when your cover is blown. Where's your script? Where's the story you have prepared for this eventuality?
And with a breath that was a little too deep, her cover snapped back into place and her spine stiffened with scorn.
"Sir, with all due respect, you are both wrong and overreacting. My letter is nothing more than a silly children's story to my young brother. There is nothing secret or improper about it at all."
Silly children's story. As a script to weather a hostile interrogation, it was adequate. There were, however, some significant flaws.
"Mrs. Caspian, do not insult my intelligence! The assertion that this is, as you say, a silly children's story strains credulity. You are writing of someone dying under circumstances that closely resemble what occurred in this office barely two weeks ago. I cannot believe it. I do not believe it."
She pitched her voice to just the perfect bit of patience that was almost, but not quite, condescending. "Sir, traditional fairy tales are very grim…" Mrs. Caspian paused and savored the pun on Grimm's tales. "They involve cutting off feet, cooking and eating children, and dancing to your death. This is no more harsh than the typical."
"But telling the story of a tragic death to a school boy?"
"We are at War. Whether in children's stories or in real life, death is not uncommon at all."
She shrugged, perfectly nonchalant, as if all that was at issue was a fairy tale and not the revelation of secrets that if reported in the American papers could fracture their political support.
"And really Sir, I am writing about Talking Animals. It might as well be Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, with the, I remind you, often repeated phrase, 'Off with her head!'" Her look was superior and she continued, "Moreover, even if I were writing of the things we have done here, which I am not, why would I wish my thirteen year old school boy brother to learn of them? It is most inappropriate!"
"However you characterize it, Mrs. Caspian, this letter is capable of alternative and questionable interpretations that must not be bandied about. If Director Hoover and his lobby knew how we were manipulating Americans, they would boot us all back to Canada."
More than indiscretions in a letter back to England, it was the political ramifications in America that had concerned him and he needed Mrs. Caspian to appreciate the consequences of a misstep. There had not been a foreign intelligence service in America since 1929; Roosevelt had created the Office of Strategic Services only last month over the vociferous objection of his own FBI Director. The OSS head, Wild Bill Donovan, was in bed with the British, Director Hoover was not, and the two were embroiled in a bitter turf battle. Stories that British spies were manipulating United States policies, planting fake documents and stories, and sleeping with Congresswomen to further British political ends would cripple their ability to operate in America and damage the OSS as well.
The stubborn condescension of a woman living her cover was replaced with a more thoughtful expression. "I understand the source of your unease, Sir, particularly if someone were to insist upon misconstruing a simple letter to a school boy." Mrs. Caspian conceded his concern while admitting nothing. "I apologize if this wholly innocent letter caused you some anxiety."
Brilliant. She was expressing regret not for her action, but for his reaction.
"I accept your apology, Mrs. Caspian. The question remaining is what I do about this letter. I should probably inform the Ambassador, your mother, and Mr. Stephenson that you have divulged His Majesty's secrets in personal correspondence to a thirteen year old school boy."
Mrs. Caspian raised her chin, her cheeks flushing a little. "It was a story to a child, Sir. Nothing more. There is no need to involve any one else. It has certainly gone no further than my brother."
"I agree with you about keeping this limited," he admitted and saw her relax at the prospect of not having to explain her indiscretion to others. "However, while you now better appreciate the risks of such ambiguous correspondence, I am uncomfortable with these secrets also residing with a school boy. Someone must speak to your brother and impress upon him the importance for silence on everything you have communicated in this Narnia story."
Her eyes widened with a sudden anxiety. It was those emotional reactions she would need to learn to better control. "Sir, I will see Edmund in less than two weeks! I could explain to him then. There is no need to send someone!"
This was interesting and he wanted to string it out a little longer. Using her brother, he was coercing greater honesty from her than he had ever seen before. Money and Ideology did not affect Mrs. Caspian. Ego did, to an extent, for she responded to those who afforded her respect. He had just discovered that Coercion, by exerting pressure on her family was a very effective lever for moving Mrs. Caspian.
"Undoubtedly you could obtain your brother's silence, Mrs. Caspian. But not with the gravitas the circumstances warrant."
She tried again. "Edmund is very young. I would not wish for him to become alarmed."
"Alarmed that you have been caught and your cipher found out? Alarmed that you might have been actually injured in the events described in the letter?"
"Nonsense! He knows this was all a story!" Mrs. Caspian scoffed. "But, it would be very alarming for some Major or Colonel to come out of the blue and threaten him with violations of the Official Secrets Act."
He was not concerned at all by a little alarm. It was warranted to assure both that her brother did not babble indiscriminately and that she did not make this mistake again.
"I will not have a great deal of control over this, Mrs. Caspian. I do agree it is better that this be handled quietly."
"But then surely having me deliver the message would be the most discreet way to handle it."
Her persuasion was such that it almost moved him. Almost. Her dissembling was maddeningly superb and he could but wonder at the brother's reaction when a Colonel or Major did show up at the Cambridge door. Did Edmund Pevensie believe these letters were merely an engaging story? How much had he actually comprehended of what his sister had so cleverly written?
He opened his mouth to respond and abruptly shut it as the realization hit him like an incendiary. He ran a hand across his face and glanced down at the letter again, considering anew not just who had had written this cryptological masterpiece but to whom it was intended. Blind. I have been blinded by official paper.
"Tell me something, Mrs. Caspian, to satisfy my curiosity. Speaking hypothetically and assuming this is not simply a highly imaginative, slightly incautious story, why have you sent letters about our dodgy business to your younger brother? "
She smiled enigmatically. "I really do not see what one could expect to gain from the views of a thirteen year old schoolboy, Sir. This was for entertainment, nothing more."
He pressed harder, now seeing it in a whole new, additional light, and underscoring in his mind the critical importance of having the right man button down Edmund Pevensie.
"But hypothetically?"
"Hypothetically?" Susan pursed her lips, her gaze so appraising and sophisticated, he, who had studied her so closely for two months, was taken aback. "I find personally that my brother is old beyond his years. He also knows me very well and could, if called upon to do so, advise me."
And there it was. Laid bare and as candid an admission as he had ever received from her. He had realized that Susan Caspian née Pevensie was not fifteen. And so neither was her younger brother thirteen.
The Colonel tipped forward in his chair, twiddling with his cigar, mind working furiously. He had to proceed very carefully. If he were not in such awe of how they had all been played, he would be furious and lock Susan Caspian and her brother, and possibly the rest of the family in the brig until the War ended. If this had been a simple children's story written to a school boy, handling it would be straightforward. He had intended to test her interrogation skills, threaten them both, and be done with it. But, coercion was not the proper tool here at all. Sticks applied inappropriately would backfire spectacularly. Ego. A cleverly couched, subtle appeal to Ego was called for.
He picked through his words. "Would your brother, hypothetically, share your aptitude for, this business – what would you call it in the story?"
"Rat and Crow, Sir."
"Would your brother have a similar aptitude for Rat and Crow?"
"My younger brother, most certainly, Sir. I believe Edmund has a natural affinity for Rat and Crow even more pronounced than my own." She paused and now that they finally understood one another, he more easily divined the source of her grave consideration.
"And your older brother, he will be eligible for service next year, won't he? What of his aptitude?"
"I will not deign to speak for Peter."
There was a peculiar ringing quality in her voice when she spoke – slightly old fashioned, a hint of the regal, and said with the familiarity of a statement she had been called upon to make before.
He responded in kind, for the prospect of another Pevensie or two in his short-staffed office was too enticing. "I would not impute to your brother anything that you say of him, of course. However, as I have indicated before, I value your insight to the extent you might share it, Mrs. Caspian."
She spoke so carefully, he concluded that the older brother was either in need of her protection (highly unlikely) or was a considerable force in his own right (far more probable and intriguing).
"I believe, speaking hypothetically, that Peter has a deep appreciation for and understanding of Rat and Crow. Though he would take little real pleasure in participating in it himself, he would do so where necessary to serve a greater cause or to spare someone else an unpleasant task."
"So, Peter Pevensie is noble and self sacrificing to a fault?" And also, like his sister and brother, far older than his actual age.
Her smile was warm. "That is very well put, Sir."
The rug had been pulled out from under her, the gig was up, and Mrs. Caspian was not only adapting, she was turning it to her advantage. She knew he was desperate for talented personnel and was dangling attractive solutions that depended upon her continued cooperation.
"While I do so with great hesitancy, it does occur to me, Sir, that there is a matter on which I would appreciate your advice."
"Of course, Mrs. Caspian. Please continue."
She sat more primly in her chair, taking command of the conversation and he let her do so. They needed one another here and the give and take was a fascinating position to be in.
"As you noted, Sir, Peter will certainly volunteer for service next year yet I suspect he may take ill to certain types of military discipline."
"What sort is that?"
"The stupid sort that he could improve upon."
From any other, he would have dismissed it outright as a family member fretting about a young man going to war who she believed was ever so unique. Those young men were all unique and most took very ill to virtually all discipline, at first. But, this was Mrs. Caspian speaking to him.
No more of this hypothetical nonsense.
"In your judgment, Mrs. Caspian, might your brother, Peter, have the same sorts of skills that you possess?"
She nodded.
"Do you believe your elder brother has the acumen that even an old, jaded hand like myself could profit from attending to?"
She nodded again.
He had recruited local talent for decades in slums, brothels, docks and orphanages throughout the Empire. Those gritty children – with a gift for languages, a knack for blending in, and a quick ear – were old beyond their years. With a little love, a little encouragement, and a little discipline, they blossomed into extraordinary resources that were fed back into the grimy places from whence they had come, but with the zeal of a purpose and loyalty to him and their shared cause. He had never expected to find such a rich pool of talent in a middle class English family, but he was not one to let it go to waste. Not with a War to win.
Mrs. Caspian had said when she arrived and made herself indispensable that she was a godsend, and so she was and her family with her.
He could not explain it. It was fashioned as a children's story, but was not. Rather, a place called Narnia and a fantastic tale called The Queen Susan in Tashbaan had bred sophistication in English children that was more akin to what a life on the streets bred into his urchins. The end product was different – more Eliza Doolittle than Kim O'Hara – but the feel of it was very similar. Forces could create canny, savvy adults from children – he had seen it before and would be damned if he let this opportunity slip by. It was the passports and birth records that lied and his error had been in trusting them.
A godsend.
He folded up the letter. "I will be cabling a colleague of mine in London. He shall oversee the contact with Edmund, Mrs. Caspian. Does he need to speak to Peter as well?"
She shook her head vehemently. "No, Sir. I wrote the story for Edmund, alone."
The Colonel very much wished to handle this himself. As that was impossible, a sternly worded cable to McFarland would have to do. Given the unexpected talents within the Pevensie family, it would be very unwise to alarm or threaten Edmund Pevensie. They could lose the lot of them. McFarland would bluster a lot, but he could read between carefully written lines and he had a keen eye for talent. If this unfolded as he expected it would, McFarland would meet with Edmund Pevensie, go back to his office and put a tickler in his calendar for the day the boy turned seventeen. To that end…
"Are there any other particular instructions I should communicate to Colonel McFarland to assure he does not unduly alarm your brother?"
She had the graciousness to not appear too over smug at this victory. "Might you permit me to send a note, Sir?"
He mimicked her upraised, disapproving eyebrow.
"No?" she asked archly.
Of all the cheek. "No."
"In that case, if you ask Colonel McFarland specifically to deal with Edmund discreetly and gently, that will be sufficient."
She lightly emphasized the words just so and he wondered what they signified in the Narnia code with her brother. They were probably a call sign for Mrs. Caspian herself or a signal as to her state.
Not Money, not Ideology, not Coercion. Appeal to Ego, yes, of a sort. Mrs. Caspian knew she was unique and very much responded to those who recognized it and acted accordingly. As she had written in her letter, I have made many good friends who appreciate me for what I truly am. He was certainly very appreciative.
With this new rapport, he was reluctant to open up the issue of her guilt over Hill's death. Even trying to approach it hypothetically would likely not be productive. To explain why would necessitate explaining how, and Mrs. Caspian would not do this; as Agnes would remind him, the High Priestess keeps her own counsel. So, he tucked the precious letter away again in his pocket, next to the OTP cipher. Two very different pieces of cryptography and both unbreakable in their own way.
He now proffered the Geneva cable discussing the report of an Allied "mole" in Hitler's own headquarters. "Before I show you this cable, Mrs. Caspian, let me repeat my warning for the final time. You might have characterized your Narnia tale as a bedtime story, but clever minds could see it otherwise. This is very serious. Do not confuse Narnia with our business again."
A troubled expression crossed her face.
"Is there a problem, Mrs. Caspian?"
With a deep breath, her mask of brisk competency swept away the uncertainty. "No Sir, I understand. I will be more careful to avoid such confusion in the future."
He waited, but she did not seek to fill the silence with whatever misgiving it seemed had stayed her momentarily. Satisfied, he handed her the cable. "It is from the American Vice Consul in Geneva. He reports his source says that the executions of European Jews will begin this fall."
She studied the cable, skimming it first, then going back and reading it more carefully, grimacing as he had at the grim contents. She then scooted her chair closer to his desk and putting her fingers under the grooved edge, pulled out the writing table and set the cable on it so they could both review it together.
"We thought the information reported in the papers in June was being smuggled out of the Polish ghettoes in Łódź. This makes it appear that the murder is far more widespread, with deportations from," she paused and her finger moved along the sentence in the cable, "Paris, Holland, Berlin, Vienna, and Prague."
"Paris," he repeated. The Colonel withdrew the earlier reviewed dispatches from his desk and began thumbing through them. "I recall something odd in here between the Americans and Vichy France about Jewish orphans."
"Perhaps they are orphaned because their parents are being deported and murdered?" Mrs. Caspian rose from her seat, face set in a stern line. "I shall collect the file and we can go over it again, and prepare for our meeting with the Secretary tomorrow morning."
To her retreating back, he called, "Our meeting?" It was their private humor. Of course she would attend with him. She always did.
Mrs. Caspian turned slowly about to face him. She stood in her plain, perfectly fitted blue suit, framed at the doorway, hand resting on the jam. In that moment, in the golden haze of dusk slanting through the blinds, the Colonel saw someone else, not the school girl, not Mrs. Caspian, but another, gowned and crowned, taller and older. It was an apparition that matched the regal voice he sometimes heard and the commanding presence he sometimes saw. He started as she flicked on the switch and the gilt vision of the Queen of Pentacles popped like a bubble in the harsh white of the office light.
"Sir?"
He blinked and saw a look of concern at his distraction. "Nothing, Mrs. Caspian. A trick of the light only."
She waited, but this was not a silence he would fill with tales of fanciful visions. Mrs. Caspian pivoted again, out of the doorway, but not before tossing over her shoulder, "Oh, and Sir? Our meeting is at ten o'clock."
The conclusion, Chapter 22, Crossroads, to follow
The One Time Pad system is described in various on line sources. The American National Security Agency (NSA) and Army Signal Intelligence (SIGNIT) worked with British intelligence as they began intercepting and eventually decoding Soviet cables and telegrams. The Americans began collecting the encrypted Soviet transmissions in 1942 and initiated the VENONA project in 1943 to attempt to decipher them. VENONA, under various names, would continue for another 40 years.
The World Jewish Congress representative in Geneva, Gerhard Riegner, obtained information from a German manufacturer, Eduard Schulte, indicating that Hitler intended to systematically annihilate all European Jews with gas. Howard Elting, Jr., American Vice Consul, Geneva Switzerland met with Riegner on August 8, 1942 and Elting communicated his report of the meeting to the U.S. State Department three days later. Links to the sources are in my LJ, and include various online sources (Google Riegner report or Riegner telegram) and the Jewish Virtual Library. The situation Susan and the Colonel reference, the status of Jewish orphans in Vichy France in August 1942, is discussed in the NSA Report, Eavesdropping on Hell: Historical Guide to Western Communications. Intelligence and the. Holocaust, 1939-1945, available from a variety of on line sources.
Thanks to Lady_Songsmith, Metonomia, and Love_and_Rock_Music. TQSiT very nearly ended with this chapter, unfinished. So, thank you for bearing with me through the long delay.