Page 16 of The Words Beneath the Noise

“Cracked. Ruth caught an error in my preliminary analysis.”

“Ruth catches errors in everyone's analysis. It's her gift and our curse.” Noor leaned back in her chair, studying me with eyes that saw more than I was comfortable with.

Before I could respond, the door opened and Captain Finch walked in.

The room went quiet in that rippling way that suggested everyone had suddenly found something urgent to look at on their desks. Finch's gaze swept the space with methodical attention, cataloguing, assessing, and when those pale eyes landed on me, my stomach dropped.

He crossed to my desk rather than summoning me to his office. A small mercy, perhaps. Or a calculated choice to make this public, to remind everyone that no one was above scrutiny.

“Mr Pembroke.” He pulled a notebook from his pocket, flipped it open. “Your sign-out logs show irregular times over the past week. Monday you left at seventeen twenty. Wednesday at eighteen forty. Yesterday at seventeen fifty-three.”

I set down my pencil carefully, buying a moment to steady my voice. “Yes, sir.”

“Can you explain the inconsistency?”

My brain, which could crack German military encryption in under four hours, suddenly couldn't string together a coherent sentence. “I... the work varies. Sometimes an intercept takes longer. Sometimes there are delays in...”

“Regulations state that unless given explicit authorisation, staff maintain consistent shift times.” His tone was clipped, but I noticed something I hadn't before. The way his jaw worked slightly between sentences. The faint tremor in his hand as he held the notebook. This wasn't enjoyment. This was a man doing something he found necessary but not pleasant.

My chest tightened anyway. Words fled. The overhead lights seemed too bright, the room too small, and I could feel my face going blank the way it always did when stress overwhelmed my ability to perform normalcy. Flat affect, the doctors had called it once. But to people like Finch, it looked like evasion. Like guilt.

“The nature of cryptanalysis doesn't conform to exact schedules,” I said, and my voice came out clipped, robotic. Wrong. “Some ciphers resolve quickly. Others require extended analysis.”

“You're saying you have no control over when you leave?”

“I'm saying the work dictates the schedule, not the other way around.”

Finch studied me for a long moment. Something shifted in his expression, so subtle I might have imagined it. “I'm not trying to make your life difficult, Mr Pembroke. But inconsistencies create vulnerabilities. Patterns that deviate from the norm draw attention. Attention, in a place like this, can be dangerous.”

It wasn't quite an apology. But it wasn't pure accusation either.

“I understand, sir.”

“Do you?” He glanced down at his notebook, then back at me. “Three months ago, we had a clerk in Hut F who kept irregular hours. Turned out he was meeting someone in the village. Passing information he thought was harmless. Small things. Schedules, personnel movements.” Finch's voice hardened. “Twelve men died because of those small things.”

The words landed like stones. Twelve men. Because someone thought their irregularities didn't matter.

“I'm not passing information to anyone,” I said quietly.

“I believe you.” The admission surprised me. “Your work is excellent. Your dedication is obvious. But I've learned not to trust belief over verification.” He snapped his notebook shut. “I'll be auditing your recent decryptions. Comparing them with your sign-out times. If everything aligns, we won't speak of this again.”

“And if it doesn't?”

“Then we'll have a different conversation.” His pale eyes held mine, and I saw exhaustion there beneath the sternness. The bone-deep weariness of a man who'd spent too long looking for enemies in every shadow. “I don't enjoy this, Mr Pembroke. But I've seen what happens when vigilance lapses. The cost is always measured in lives.”

He turned and walked out, and the room exhaled.

I stood there for a long moment, feeling the adrenaline drain away and leave me hollow. My hands were still shaking. Behind me, someone muttered something sympathetic, but I couldn't process it.

Ruth appeared at my elbow. “Are you alright?”

“He thinks I'm hiding something.”

“He thinks everyone's hiding something. It's his job.” She gripped my shoulder briefly. “But he's not wrong about the danger. We forget sometimes, buried in the work, that everything we do here has consequences beyond these walls.”

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

“Your work is impeccable,” she added, softer. “The audit will show that. And then he'll move on to someone else to torment.”