“Come,” Crocker said, then got to his feet as Sir Walter Seccombe entered the room, umbrella and hat in his hand and a smile on his face. “Sir. Can I offer you a seat?”
“No time, I’m afraid. I have to brief the Foreign Secretary so he can inform the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. But I wanted to stop by and let you know how things are shaking out. You still have your job, Paul.”
“I’m relieved.”
“Sir Frances will be tendering his resignation this morning, with no explanation given. Best that way, for all concerned, I should think. Certainly he has no desire to explain how it was that four Starstreak MANPADs ended up in Uzbekistan. Nor does HMG wish to see a public inquiry into the same.”
“And our involvement in Uzbekistan?”
“Will be kept quiet as well.”
“I see.”
Seccombe lifted his chin slightly, regarding him with a smaller smile this time. “Any news on Chace?”
“She was taken by the Interior Ministry, but we’ve got her back now. She should be home in the next few days.”
“And you’ll reinstate her?”
“If she still wants it.” Crocker ran a hand through his hair. “The irony is, she’s going to come back thinking she blew the mission. She doesn’t know that she did exactly what you wanted.”
“This wasn’t solely about Barclay. It began exactly as I presented it.”
“When did it change?”
“When the Prime Minister thought better of antagonizing the White House. And as Chace was running without contact, we couldn’t rightly abort the op, could we?”
“We could’ve,” Crocker said. “If I’d notified the Station.”
“Hmm,” Seccombe said. “I’m afraid I didn’t think of that.”
Liar, Crocker thought.
“It all worked out in the end, regardless, Paul. I think you’ll get along well with your new C. You share a great many traits.”
“It’s confirmed, then?”
“Not officially. Alison will step up as acting C following the resignation. Should confirm the posting by the end of the week.”
“She’ll need a Deputy Chief.”
“Yes,” Seccombe said, nodding. “You should probably talk to Alison about that.”
CHAPTER 31
London—Vauxhall Cross, Office of D-Ops
18 August, 0858 Hours GMT
Time didn’t heal all wounds, not for her, but in some cases it helped. Chace had come back from Tashkent thinking she was repeating her return from Saudi Arabia, expecting to find Crocker and another trip to the Farm, and then an uncomfortable and unceremonious discharge, this time once and for all.
Instead, she’d returned home to find Crocker acting as if she’d never left; not for Tashkent, not for Saudi, as if she’d been Minder One all along. He’d given her two weeks leave to recover and get her things in order, and to move from Lancashire back to London. So she’d continued on to Lancashire as she’d done for over a year and a half, taking the GNR to Leeds and then changing to Skipton, finally hiring a cab to take her the rest of the way to Barnoldswick.
People either stared at her as she went or studiously avoided looking at her. The bruises on her face had swollen, and she’d been given an ointment for the scrapes, which made the wounds appear still wet and fresher than they were. The sight in her right eye was beginning to return, clearest when she stood upright, worse when she lay down. The doctor who’d tended her at the British Embassy, hovered over by a concerned Station Number One, had explained that there was blood in the eye, and that was what was occluding her vision. It would stop and be reabsorbed soon enough, he assured her. As for her feet, luckily nothing had been broken, but the blunt trauma was severe enough that he’d advised her to stay off them as much as she could. He’d given her a set of crutches.
When Chace finally hobbled through Valerie Wallace’s door in the late afternoon of the twenty-fourth of February, she found Tamsin and Val in the front room, playing with a sorting set, plastic pyramids, spheres, and cubes that could fit into an elbow-shaped tube. Val came to her feet quickly, unable to completely hide the dismay and concern on her face, or the sharp inhale she made at the sight of Chace.
Tamsin merely looked at her blankly, eyes wide and blue and curious.
Chace thought her heart would break then, that her daughter couldn’t remember her. But Val saw it, too, and understood.
“It’s your face, love,” Val told her softly. “She doesn’t recognize you.”
Chace propped her crutches against the side table, nodding, still drinking in the sight of her daughter. Ten days had passed since she’d seen her last, and Chace was stunned by how much Tamsin had grown.
“Hello, Tam,” she said. “I’ve missed you.”
Tamsin dropped the ball she was holding, struggling to her feet, her face lighting with an openmouthed smile. She wobbled like a drunk, then lurched forward, arms out, a miniature Frankenstein’s Monster, babbling happily.
Chace knelt and caught her in her arms, and held her until she was certain her heart wouldn’t break.
She stayed in Barnoldswick for the week, and one night, after putting Tamsin to bed, sat with Val at the kitchen table, and explained her intentions. She was going to return to work, and that required her moving back to London, and she wanted Tamsin with her. She would hire a nanny, someone to live in and take care of her daughter during the day and sometimes the night, if need be.
Valerie nodded, failing to hide her disappointment or her hurt. “If you think it’s best, then.”
“It’s what’s best for me, and in the long run, I think that makes it best for Tam as well,” Chace said. “I’ll be traveling again, though. I don’t know how much, and I’ll never know when. But if you’re around, I’d like it so that Tamsin stayed with you while I’m away.”
“Here? Or in London?”
“Whichever you’d rather, Val.”
“Don’t much care for London.”
“Then here, by all means.”
Val considered, then nodded. “She’s my granddaughter, and far as I’m concerned, Tara, you’re my daughter-in-law. You’ll always have me, the both of you.”
“You’ve been generous beyond reason, Val, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am.”
Val reached for her hand on the table, resting beside her mug of tea. Her touch was warm and soft and dry, and the look she gave Chace was grave.
“And this is what you want? What you truly want?”
“It is.”
“And it’s the same work, the same work you and my Tom were doing before?”
“Yes.”
“Either you’re good at it, or you’re a glutton for punishment, Tara. For Tamsin’s sake, and for yours, I hope you’re good at it.”
“I’m very good at it,” Chace told her.
And so she returned to London.
Her feet had recovered enough that she could walk on them without the crutches for short stints. It made it easier to go about the shopping, the acquisition of those things that would be required to turn her bachelorette’s house into a home for a single mother. She contacted a service, set about interviewing nannies, and before the end of the second week had spoken with three she liked the looks of, forwarding their names to the Firm’s Security Division for the appropriate checks. Two of them came back clean, and Chace hired them both, a young woman from Salisbury named Missi, twenty-one years old and studying art history, and an older girl who’d grown up in Bristol, named Catherine, who was planning on a career in early childhood education.