Designated Targets

The devastation of London, whole blocks demolished by blast damage and fire, never failed to stun her with a fractured sense of the familiar. It wasn’t just the city. It was the echoes of other cities. In every street, drums of oil-soaked rags stood ready to be lit to provide a smoke screen, just as in the Baghdad and Damascus of her youth. Then of course, there was the unfamiliar. In this London, like hers, military uniforms were everywhere, but here, apart from an occasional African-American soldier, there was nobody like her. No darkies, as the locals would have it. There were no curry houses or Indian spice shops. And it seemed that every spare patch of grass had been given over to growing carrots, potatoes, and cabbage. Flyers outside theaters advertised the new Agatha Christie play, Ten Little Niggers, while official posters promised that YOUR COURAGE, YOUR CHEERFULNESS, YOUR RESOLUTION WILL BRING US VICTORY.

Halabi found herself charmed and a little amused by the clunky, pompous slogan. It wasn’t a patch on the free-market propaganda from her day, like the swimsuit posters for the French Connection (United Kingdom) fashion label, which featured an Iranian “dignity officer” waving a copy of the Koran at smirking, lower-case supermodel, caitlin lye, who was clearly thinking of the advert’s tagline.

“Fcuk Off.”

Oh well, thought Halabi, to each their own.

Reaching their destination, Halabi climbed out of the jeep, thanked the driver, and checked in with the single bobby who was guarding the approach to the PM’s office and residence. It was nothing like the Downing Street of her day. For starters, the iron fence railings had been removed and melted down for scrap. They were probably enjoying a new life as Spitfire parts, or a destroyer’s armor plating.

An attendant met her at the front door, which did look just the same as always, painted black, with a lion’s-head knocker, lamp, brass numbers, and letterbox inscribed FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY. The man ushered her into the entry hall.

The windows were sandbagged, and long heavy drapes the color of port had been drawn, but it remained a large bright room, the floor mostly covered in black-and-white marble tiles—except for two surprisingly tacky pieces of brown carpet on either side of the front door. Five desk lamps added a golden glow to the light provided by the small chandelier in the center of the ceiling.

“The Prime Minster will see you immediately,” whispered the attendant, a gaunt fellow in dark civilian clothes who wouldn’t have been out of place in Boswell’s London Diaries. “You will find him and his party in the Blue Drawing Room.”

She followed him through into another room, this one lit mainly with lamps and chandeliers, and cluttered with Chippendale chairs and card tables. Again, the windows were all blast-proofed, although the drapes remained open, exposing old-fashioned window seats. Blue silk wallpaper lent the room a brooding atmosphere, unleavened by the portraits of Nelson and Wellington glowering down from above the doors.

Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was standing beside the mantelpiece over a hearth in which three logs burned amid a large pile of embers. Talking with him were Major Windsor, a woman, and another man, she didn’t recognize.

“Excuse me, Prime Minister,” said Halabi. “I’m sorry to be late. We had a little trouble, which delayed me unavoidably.”

The PM waved her over. She was struck by how much he resembled the caricaturists’ pictures of him as a British bulldog. When he spoke, however, his voice sounded much stronger and even richer in tone than she remembered from the famous BBC recordings of his wartime speeches. “Not to worry, Captain. Do come in, and please join us. I’ve already heard about the jet plane attack. I understand you’re going back to the Admiralty later to brief them.”

“I am, sir. It was hard to tell from the vision we took, but the Germans appeared to have fitted primitive missiles of a sort that wouldn’t have come into use for quite a while yet. It’s an unsettling development, I’m afraid.”

“Well, I’m sure they’ll keep you busy with that this evening. For now, well, you know the dashing prince, of course. This is Lieutenant Jens Poulsson, and Miss Vera Atkins.”

“Oh! Of the Special Operations Executive? I saw Cate Blanchette play you in the movie,” said Halabi, shaking each hand in turn. She hadn’t been expecting to meet such interesting characters as these. The SOE was famous, or perhaps infamous would be a better description, as the Western world’s first state sponsored “terrorist” organization. Tasked by Churchill with “setting Europe ablaze” after Dunkirk, they had gone about the mission with a passion.

Atkins looked slightly discomfited. “Yes. And I must say, it’s rather a bother when the whole world suddenly knows all about your secret life.”