The rider was dressed for the road, in heavy oilskins, crash helmet, and goggles. He pulled an envelope from his satchel and handed it over, probably wondering why the woman with the cat’s butt for a mouth was glaring at him so fiercely.
Harry thanked him and then made his apologies, assuring the three women that Sergeant Major St. Clair would keep them entertained for the rest of the evening. He moved around the bar and into the relative calm of the pub manager’s office. Closing the heavy oak door behind him cut the sound of the party down to a muted roar. He broke the seal on the envelope, which came from Downing Street.
The prime minister had ordered that he proceed to London with all dispatch.
THE SOLENT, SOUTHERN ENGLAND
As a child, Captain Karen Halabi had retreated from a deeply unpleasant family life by hiding herself in books, specifically by seeking refuge in the lore and mythology of English seafaring. From her preteen years, when her school friends were plastering their bedroom walls with garish posters of pop stars, she dreamed only of running away to sea and escaping the prison of her father’s house. Her obsession was a mystery to all.
Not in its origin—because anybody who had endured the misfortune to deal with Khalil Halabi was soon possessed of the same desire to flee—but because Karen had no seafaring blood in her at all. Even on her English side, her late mother’s family ran back through an entirely unimpressive lineage of slum-dwelling lumpen proles. There was no reason why she should have been drawn to the sea, other than the obvious one: it was so much more pleasant than going home.
And it was still the place she chose as her home, she realized as the lighter carried her across the waters of the Solent, which separated the Isle of Wight from England, back to her ship and crew. Still the one constant in her painfully conflicted life.
The sea spray was cold and stinging on her coffee-colored skin as they motored into the chop. The sailors, ’temps, were used to her by now. They’d made the trip from Portsmouth to the
She wondered if it would always be that way here. If she would forever be allowed to serve her function, grudgingly valued, but never appreciated for herself.
Halabi huddled deeper into the thick jacket and woolen scarf she wore against the stinging spray and sharp, biting wind. She could feel winter’s teeth in the chill of the sea air, and wondered idly whether she was just imagining that the autumn seemed colder here. The air was certainly cleaner, when you got away from the war. If only everything could be cleaner and simpler, but the longer she was here, the more conflicted she became.
She’d promised herself she would not become emotional over the snub she’d received in London, and for most of the return trip to her ship, she had managed to maintain an admirable detachment. But as the little motorboat thumped and beat against the confused swell of the Solent’s meeting waters, she found it increasingly difficult to contain her anger and distress. After all, the insult had been as much directed at her crew as at her.
She’d been in the capital only a short time. She had a briefing to deliver to the Combined Chiefs of Staff at the War Room and a meeting with Professor Barnes Wallis, the head of the government’s new Advanced Research Council.
