Page 7 of Midnight on the Scottish Shore

7

Camp 020, Richmond, London Monday, April 14, 1941

The torture hadn’t begun. But soon it would.

Cilla lay on the cot in her cell. If only she could fall asleep. She’d slept a few hours on the train to London but scarcely more than fifteen minutes at a time since. Perhaps that was how the British MI5 Security Service meant to torture her.

She squeezed her bleary eyes shut. Why had she chosen to land on that beach at that moment? If the fierce Scotsman with his fierce red hair hadn’t stumbled upon her, she’d be sleeping on a soft bed at Tante Margriet’s.

But he had stumbled upon her. He’d marched her up the cliff, forced her into a car, and silently driven her to the police station in Thurso.

Cilla scrubbed at the inner corners of her eyes. At the station, she’d finally seen her captor, standing tall and sturdy in his kilt. Some women might consider him handsome—those who liked the rigid naval officer sort. Cilla didn’t. Not at all.

Especially when that naval officer wanted her to hang.

Her hand sprang to her throat, as it often had in the last few days. How long until a rope encircled her neck? How long would it take to die?

With a groan, Cilla rolled to her other side. No one would tell her anything. They just asked the same questions, over and over, looking for holes in her story. But she’d told the truth—after her first bumbling, misguided attempt to use her Abwehr cover story with Lieutenant Mackenzie.

But she’d told the constable in Thurso the whole truth, with the lieutenant glowering down at her. The constable had summoned the Regional Security Liaison Officer from Aberdeen, a man named Peter Perfect—a name which would have delighted Cilla, had he not arrived in the middle of the night, quite cross.

After she’d told Mr. Perfect the truth, he and Lieutenant Mackenzie had retrieved her equipment from the beach. Then Mr. Perfect and the constable had taken her by train to London.

More truth-telling at Scotland Yard, then they’d bundled her into an army truck and taken her to what they called Camp 020, where MI5 interrogated captured spies. From what little she’d seen, the camp was a manor house, surrounded by multiple high walls.

Cilla wasn’t the only one at Camp 020.

Yet she was so alone.

She pressed her hands flat to her face. She hated solitude. Hated how it made her think. Made her regret.

Regret leaving Gerrit and his friends without a source inside the Dutch Nazi Party.

Regret leaving Hilde with only awful Arno to watch over her.

Regret her reckless decision to pretend to be a Nazi spy.

And regret almost bothered her more than her pending execution.

Pictures swam before her gritty eyes. Hilde and Gerrit and her sweet cousin Aleida rowing with her, dolphins and seals swimming beside her, barking, playing. No—bumping her raft, spilling her into the—

“Prisoner.” A man shook her shoulder. “Come with me.”

Cilla groaned, pushed herself up to sitting, and put on her shoes. How long had she managed to sleep this time? The English had confiscated her wristwatch, and no clocks adorned her cell walls.

She stood, smoothed her hair, and straightened the skirt of the long-sleeved navy-blue shirtwaist dress she’d worn ever since she’d left the U-boat.

The burly guard prodded her shoulder. “This way.”

“Yes, sir.” Cilla walked down a corridor in the block of about two dozen cells.

Voices rose from inside some of the cells. How many agents had the Abwehr sent to Britain? How many had been captured?

The guard ushered her through a door, past more guards, and down a hall decorated with carpets and portraits as if a typical English manor, not a prison for spies.

Her shoulders tensed. Would the torture begin now? Hauptmann Kraus had warned her. But what more could the British learn through torture when she’d already told them everything? Over and over.

Her step wobbled, but she forced her chin high. Fatigue, not fear.

The guard showed her into a wood-paneled room with graceful drapes framing tall windows overlooking gardens. At a long table before the windows sat eight grim-faced men, including the man with the monocle, the man they called “Tin-Eye,” the director of Camp 020 who had questioned her so many times.

“Good day, Miss van der Zee.” One of the gentlemen smiled at her. A good-looking, fair-haired man in his thirties. “Please have a seat.”

“Thank you.” She sat in a chair facing the long table, and her shoulders relaxed. Once again, no torture. “Good day to you, gentlemen.”

The pleasant-faced man kept smiling. “Rather impolite of you to arrive on Good Friday, I say. My colleague was forced to spend Easter here with you, instead of with his family.” He tipped his head toward Tin-Eye.

“I do apologize.” Cilla returned his smile. “I had every intention of spending Easter with my aunt, not here—as hospitable as you’ve been.”

“I know you’ve told my colleague your story, but I should like to hear it myself.”

As his was the only friendly face at the table, she focused on him alone and told her whole story. From helping the resistance, to infiltrating the NSB, to Dirk’s death, to meeting Dr. Schultz and offering her services as a spy.

Then she related—again—every detail of her Abwehr training, her cover story, her instructions, her wireless security key, her journey on the U-boat, and her trip to shore. And her capture by an angry kilt-clad Scotsman.

Tin-Eye adjusted his monocle. “Once again, you’ve failed to provide the names of your friends in the Dutch resistance. We need them to verify your story.”

How on earth could they verify? But Cilla didn’t allow herself to frown. “I cannot do that. If the Germans conquer England and confiscate your records, no one I’ve mentioned in the Dutch Nazi Party or the Abwehr would be in danger. I have no qualms about naming them. But anyone in the resistance would be tortured and executed. I will not tell you their names.”

Tin-Eye squinted at her through his monocle. “Even if it means your life?”

A wave of sorrow contorted her lips, but she composed herself. “Even then.”

“You’ve provided a full written confession.” Tin-Eye waved a document. “You have violated the 1940 Treachery Act, which provides only one possible sentence for violations.”

Death. Cilla’s throat swelled, but she managed to nod.

The pleasant-faced man clucked his tongue. “We don’t care to execute spies, Miss van der Zee. This may surprise you, but we take no pleasure in it at all.”

Cilla tried to give him a smile. “I’ve always found the British to be most civilized.”

“How kind of you.” He inclined his head. “But the people do demand it, as you can imagine. Capturing and executing spies satisfies a need for justice and security. Also, we hope it will deter the Abwehr from sending more agents.”

She wet her lips. “I understand, sir.”

“As I said, we find executions to be rather ghastly affairs, so we prefer to offer you a chance to save your life.”

Had she heard correctly? Or had sleep overwhelmed her again and swept her into a dream? Wobbling in her chair, she blinked her heavy eyelids. “A ... chance?”

“If your story is true”—he gestured down the line of stern-faced men—“and we aren’t convinced it is—then you’ll leap at this opportunity. And if you’re lying, which we will inevitably discover, you may prefer this opportunity to the scaffold.”

She’d prefer anything to the scaffold. “What is this opportunity?”

“Turn and become a double agent for us.”

“Oh.” All her hope deflated. “I would like to leap. I would very much like to. But my family. Hauptmann Kraus said if I turned, my family would be punished. I can’t allow them to be sent to a concentration camp or—or executed.”

“If you do exactly as we tell you, the Abwehr will never know.”

Cilla winced. “I told Hauptmann Kraus I wouldn’t be caught. I was wrong.”

Mr. Pleasant leaned back in his chair and smiled. “The Abwehr has failed to discover even one of their agents who are working for us.”

Just how many were there?

“Your family would be perfectly safe, Miss van der Zee. But the choice is yours.”

Cilla closed her eyes. How could she make a decision when so fatigued? When she’d failed so miserably?

But had she failed? If that Mackenzie hadn’t gone for a ramble, Cilla would have buried her raft, gun, and wireless set, and she would have traveled to Tante Margriet’s undetected.

Hadn’t she tricked the Abwehr into sending her to Britain? Couldn’t she continue to convince them she was loyal to their cause?

Why did she feel like a traitor for considering MI5’s offer? Despite Kraus’s kindness, the Germans were her enemies. The Nazis killed Dirk and many more like him. They sent innocent people to concentration camps simply for being Jewish.

Crossing your enemy wasn’t betrayal at all.

Cilla opened her eyes. “I’ll do it.”