Page 131 of The Words Beneath the Noise

“Probably.” I felt nothing. That was the worst part. Should have felt anger, satisfaction, something. Instead there was just cold recognition of another man broken by impossible circumstances. “But that's not my decision. My decision was whether to put a bullet in your head right here in this field. And I'm choosing not to. Because I've killed enough people who didn't have a choice. You had a choice, Rowe. You made it. Now you live with the consequences.”

“You could let me go.” His voice was barely a whisper. “Tell them you lost me in the dark. I'll disappear. Never come back. Never contact them again.”

“And the raid? The one you've been helping them plan? The one that's going to kill everyone in Hut X if we don't stop it?”

He had no answer for that. Just stared at me with hollow eyes, all his justifications stripped away.

Footsteps crunching through snow. Multiple people. Torch beams cutting through darkness.

“Hale!”

Finch's voice, accompanied by guards. They must have seen us from the perimeter, or responded to the sounds of fighting.

“Got him,” I called back. “He's confessed. Was attempting to set signal marker for enemy aircraft.”

Finch and two guards reached us. Hauled Peter to his feet, cuffed him while he hung limp between them like a puppet with cut strings. His face was covered in snow and snot and tears, looking younger than his twenty-four years, looking like exactly what he was: a boy who'd made choices too big for him to carry.

“Take him to holding,” Finch ordered. “Formal interrogation at first light.”

“Sir.” I stepped forward, ignoring the blood dripping from my arm. “He said the raid's coming within forty-eight hours. Maybe less. They've got what they need for targeting. The marker was just final confirmation.”

Finch's expression went cold. “Then we're out of time.”

“We need to evacuate. Get the cryptanalysts somewhere safe.”

“We need to do whatever stops the Germans from successfully striking a critical intelligence installation.” Finch looked at Peter with something that might have been pity beneath the disgust. “Get him out of my sight.”

The guards dragged Peter away. He didn't resist. Didn't say anything. Just went, broken and empty, toward whatever waited for him.

Finch picked up the lantern from the snow, examined it briefly. “You're hurt.”

“It's nothing. Flesh wound.”

“Get it looked at anyway. I need you functional.” He started walking back toward the gate, and I fell into step beside him. “You did well tonight, Hale. Caught him clean. Got a confession.”

“Doesn't feel like winning.”

“It rarely does.” Finch was quiet for a moment. “The good ones, the ones who still have conscience, they never enjoy this part. It's the ones who enjoy it you have to worry about.”

I thought about Peter's face. The desperation. The grief. The terrible logic of a man who'd convinced himself betrayal was survival.

“He wasn't evil,” I said. “Just broken.”

“The broken ones do the most damage. They have nothing left to lose.” Finch stopped at the gate, turned to face me. “Forty-eight hours, Hale. That's what we have. Get your arm bandaged, then find Pembroke. Tell him what happened. And start thinking about how we're going to survive what's coming.”

“And if we can't?”

Finch smiled, thin and humourless. “Then we make sure the cost of destroying us is higher than they're willing to pay.”

He walked through the gate and disappeared into the estate.

I stood alone in the snow for a moment, looking back at the treeline where I'd caught Peter. The lantern still lay there, dark and cold, a weapon that never got the chance to fire.

Forty-eight hours. Maybe less.

Art was somewhere in those buildings, sleeping or working or lying awake thinking about me. Ruth and Noor and everyone else who'd become something like family over these past weeks. All of them in the crosshairs of a raid that Peter had helped plan.

I started walking. Had to find Art. Had to tell him what was coming.