Page 127 of The Words Beneath the Noise

“Pattern analysis. His expertise was necessary to confirm what I suspected.”

Finch's eyes moved to me. Cold. Assessing. “Show me what you found.”

I stepped forward, spreading the intercepts across his desk in chronological order. “These messages reference a German asset codenamed Rabennest. Raven's nest. Six mentions in the past ten days, each one coinciding with intelligence the Germans shouldn't have had.”

I pointed to the first intercept. “Tuesday the third. Rabennest confirms convoy route. Two days later, that convoy was ambushed. Twenty-three dead.”

Second intercept. “Friday the sixth. Rabennest provides patrol schedules. That weekend, three reconnaissance flights avoided every patrol we sent up.”

Third. “Tuesday the tenth. Rabennest confirms shift rotations at sensitive installations. The timing matches exactly with the security gaps you've been investigating.”

Finch was reading now, following along as I laid out each piece. His expression gave nothing away, but he was listening.

“The pattern is consistent,” I continued. “Tuesdays and Fridays. Every leak corresponds with those days. My schedule doesn't match. I work irregular hours, but my irregularities don't align with when the intelligence was passed.” I pulled out Ruth's comparative analysis. “Here. My sign-out logs against the Rabennest timeline. Not a single overlap.”

“Then who does match?”

I laid down the final piece of evidence. Peter's filing logs beside the German source identifier.

“Peter. The source identifier in these intercepts uses a sequence that matches his personal administrative system exactly. The same quirk of organisation, the same numericalpattern. He built his signal code into the paperwork he files every week.”

Finch studied the comparison. I watched his jaw tighten as he made the connection.

“The timing errors in his logs,” I said. “The small discrepancies I kept correcting. They weren't mistakes. They were messages. He's been communicating with German intelligence through the very system he was hired to maintain.”

“And the attack?”

Ruth stepped forward with the final intercept. “This came through last night, sir. Rabennest confirms schedule. Primary target accessible. Window: seventy-two hours.”

“Primary target being?”

“Us.” I met his eyes. “The reconnaissance flights, the ground confirmations, the coordinates in the earlier intercepts. They're planning to bomb this estate. Hut X specifically. Take out the codebreakers, and they cripple our entire intelligence operation.”

Finch set down the papers. The silence stretched long enough that I could hear the clock ticking on his wall, the distant sounds of the estate waking up.

“If I act on this and you're wrong,” he said slowly, “we alert the Germans that we've broken their cipher. We compromise years of intelligence work.”

“And if I'm right and you don't act, everyone in Hut X dies.” I kept my voice steady. “Sixty hours, sir. That's what we have. Sixty hours to find the beacon Peter's using to guide the bombers, catch him before he can warn his handlers, and evacuate or defend this installation.”

Finch looked at the evidence spread across his desk. At Ruth, standing straight-backed and certain. At me, the suspended analyst he'd been so sure was guilty.

“Miss Adler. Return to Hut X. Monitor all traffic for additional references to this operation. Report directly to me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mr Pembroke.” He paused, and something shifted in his expression. Not trust. But acknowledgment. “You're still under investigation. But given the circumstances, I'm authorising temporary reinstatement. You work under Miss Adler's supervision. No independent access to materials. Everything goes through her, then to me.”

“Understood, sir.”

We left his office and walked toward Hut X in silence. The morning was bright and cold, snow glittering under pale winter sun. Somewhere in the hut ahead, Peter was already at his desk, filing logs, passing signals, unaware that everything was about to collapse around him.

TWENTY-THREE

MARKING THE TARGET

TOM

Finch's office had become familiar territory, though no less oppressive for the repetition.