The Prince of Spies Page 3

  Luke held his nose and worked with Clyde on a distribution plan. Gray imported the finest coffee beans from Kenya, and the Magruders did everything else. They rolled out the new line of coffee in Philadelphia, a city famous for its fine coffeehouses.

  Luke should have known better than to trust Clyde Magruder, who adulterated their top-notch coffee with cheap ground chicory and artificial flavorings to mask the chicory aftertaste. The resulting coffee tasted fine, with a smooth flavor and enticing aroma, but the cannisters bore no indication that there was anything but coffee inside. The chemical combination proved fatal to three people within a week of the coffee going on sale. While most people could easily digest the cheap concoction cooked up in the Magruder factory, some people had sensitivities to chicory root that proved fatal.

  Three people died because of that coffee. All of them had family, friends, and children. The devastation left in the wake of the tainted coffee would ripple through those people’s lives for decades, and no, Luke couldn’t blithely forget about it.

  “Could you help me with this box of books?” Luke asked. He didn’t really need help with it, but he’d do anything to divert the conversation from Philadelphia.

  Gray moved the box over to the bookshelves. “You’ve been taking risks and pressing your luck ever since Philadelphia. You practically killed yourself in Cuba. When are you going to move past it?”

  “Maybe when those five congressmen have been booted out of office. Maybe when there are finally laws to stop the Magruders from polluting their food with fillers and adulterants. That would be a start.”

  “Luke, what happened in Philadelphia wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known. You tried your best.”

  “And my best resulted in three dead people.” He wandered to the window, staring out over the bleak view of wet concrete and melting slush. “Whenever I start to laugh, I think about them,” he whispered. “When I hear beautiful music, I am reminded that they can’t hear it too. They are three ghosts who sit on my shoulder wherever I go.”

  “And are they good ghosts or bad ghosts?” Gray asked.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake, they’re ghosts, Gray! The kind who wake you up at night and steal your joy and make you pray to God for forgiveness. That kind of ghost.”

  Slow footsteps indicated Gray was coming up behind him, but Luke kept staring out the window, even when his brother laid a hand on his shoulder. “Then you’re going to have to defeat them. Or turn them into something that inspires you to be a better man.”

  Luke pushed away from the window and began unpacking the books. For years Gray had been trying to nudge him toward a life of safe, law-abiding good sense. Obey the rules, stay within the lines, don’t rock the boat. It wasn’t in his nature.

  “I really hate the Magruders,” Luke said. “They never paid a dime to those people in Philadelphia.”

  “But we did,” Gray said. “Those families were all compensated and signed off on the legal settlements.”

  “You paid them. The Magruders got off scot-free. They’ll do anything for money, so I intend to strike where it will hurt. First I’ll knock Clyde out of Congress, then I’ll go after their company. I’ll burn it down and force them to start over.”

  “Absolutely not!” Gray lashed out.

  Luke let out a snort of laughter. “Don’t be so literal,” he teased. “Of course I won’t actually burn down their factory. I bet it’s fully insured, so where’s the advantage in that? I’ll expose the Magruders for who they really are, ruin their business, and change the laws so that they can never exploit those loopholes again.”

  Across the room, Gray still looked at him with that mournful, somber expression. While Luke used to tease Gray about his overly protective ways, Gray had been a hero over the past year. Luke wouldn’t have survived the crucible of imprisonment in Cuba if Gray hadn’t made repeated visits to keep his flagging spirits alive. They were complete opposites, but over the past year Luke had learned to love and admire his older brother.

  “Gray, I’m sorry,” he said. “When I was in Cuba, I thought I was going to die. My biggest regret was that I was going to leave this world without making so much as a scratch on it. That wasn’t how I wanted to leave. I told myself that if I made it out of there, I would do something to make the world a better place. I had fifteen months with nothing to do but read the Bible and pray to God. In the end, the only sense I could make of what happened in Philadelphia was that it was a clarion wake-up call. A blast from a trumpet shaking me out of complacency and setting me on a course to do something important. And getting Congress cleaned up will be a good starting point.”

  Gray sighed. “Luke, you’ve already accomplished great things. You single-handedly broke up a spy ring in Cuba and stamped out corruption in the War Department. The articles you write for Modern Century go out all over the nation to sway opinion. I spend my time figuring out a better way to sell pepper or paprika, but your stories move the world. I’m proud of you. Dad never said it, but I will.”

  Luke paused. Gray was twelve years older than he was, so he’d always been more like a father than a brother, and his opinion meant the world to Luke.

  “Thanks for that,” he said, a little embarrassed at the emotion in his voice.

  Gray turned away and lifted a thick package wrapped in butcher’s paper from the box he was unpacking. “What’s this?”

  The breath in Luke’s lungs froze. “Nothing! Let me have it.” He crossed the office in two steps and snatched the package, then shoved it into the bottom drawer of his desk. He was tempted to lock the drawer except it would be a dead giveaway that these papers were precious to him.

  “Good heavens,” Gray said. “Love letters? International intrigue? I can’t imagine what’s got your protective hackles so raised.”

  Luke scratched behind his ear and looked out the window. “Like I said, it’s nothing.”

  “When you were a little kid, do you know how I could always tell when you were lying?”

  Luke quit scratching behind his ear. It was an old tell he’d forgotten about. He folded his hands across his chest and grinned. “Fine, it’s something,” he admitted. “I’m not ready to tell anyone about it yet.”

  “Whatever it is, it’s making you blush.”

  He was blushing because he was nervous and embarrassed. He wasn’t ready to peel back the layers of his soul and expose this wildly romantic, overblown experiment to his fusty older brother.

  “Maybe someday I’ll be brave enough to show it to the world, but for now?” He leaned over and locked the drawer. “For now, I’m keeping it to myself.”

  Once Luke’s office was operational, he set about tracking down the lovely Marianne. He knew almost nothing about her except that she was pretty and valiant and that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her in the two weeks since they met on the ice.

  The Department of the Interior was housed in a massive building on F Street with two marble wings built atop a granite foundation. The department was a hodgepodge of government agencies that didn’t neatly fit anywhere else. It oversaw the US Geological Survey, the Census Bureau, the Patent and Trademark Office, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Pensions, and a dozen smaller agencies.

  Luke had an old friend who worked in the department’s accounting office. Oscar might have access to payroll records that could lead to Marianne’s identity.

  Luke got straight to the point after entering Oscar’s crowded office. “I know the department has a team of photographers documenting the state of the city,” he said. “Do you know one named Marianne?”

  Sadly, Oscar had no access to employee records. Over six hundred people worked for the Department of the Interior, and Oscar didn’t know of anyone named Marianne, but he managed payments for the department’s external vendors.

  “I pay a weekly bill for our photographers to use a darkroom on Twelfth Street every Friday morning,” Oscar said. “You could probably track her down there. Better hurry, though.
There’s a rumor that the government photographers will be getting the axe soon.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Oscar rolled his eyes. “Penny pinchers are always looking for ways to trim the budget. They’re saying that the government has plenty of blueprints to document all our buildings and bridges, so they don’t think the photographs add anything.”

  Luke frowned. It was hard for a woman to make her way in this city, and he didn’t like the thought of Marianne losing her job because of tightfisted government bureaucrats.

  “Thanks,” he said to Oscar, casually strolling from the office.

  Where did this clawing sense of urgency to protect Marianne come from? He didn’t even know her, but he felt an instinctive need to look after her. He had connections throughout the city, and if Marianne needed help, he would be there to provide it.

  Three

  Marianne trudged down the sidewalk on Friday morning, cradling the satchel of photographic negatives for the pictures she’d taken this week. Ice and a crusty film of snow covered most of the sidewalk, but she aimed for the few patches of bare concrete as she made her way to the Gunderson Photography Studio. It was the largest studio in the city, with a gallery in the lobby, a studio for making portraits, and darkroom space that could be rented by the hour.

  It was mercifully warm inside. She flashed a smile toward old Mrs. Gunderson at the front counter. “Is the government darkroom available?”

  “Abel Zakowski is still using it, but he should be out soon.” Abel also worked for the Department of the Interior, although they performed drastically different tasks. While she took photographs of people and buildings all over the city, Abel took photographs at government speeches and events.

  Marianne took a seat in the waiting area. It was crowded today, with a number of families lined up to have their portraits made. Photography was becoming more affordable, with some people coming every few years for new family pictures. Marianne’s gaze ran across the photographs mounted on the wall. None of them were to her liking. They were formal poses taken before props of Grecian columns or painted backdrops, whereas Marianne preferred capturing people out in the real world. Sometimes it was pictures of workday routines that were the most moving. Last year she had photographed girls working in a fish cannery down by the wharves, and those pictures had been submitted to the Bureau of Labor to argue for better enforcement of child labor laws. Three of those girls were only fourteen years old, and seeing their young faces drawn with exhaustion was more persuasive than any dry government report.

  She still had a few minutes before Abel left the darkroom, so she took a well-thumbed novel from her handbag. Opening the book, she was soon transported to the arid landscapes of seventeenth-century Spain and the adventures of long-ago people.

  “Hello, Aunt Marianne.”

  She caught her breath as her gaze flew up to the man standing beside her chair.

  “Hello, Luke,” she said, trying to block the thrill from her voice but probably failing. He’d come looking for her. This couldn’t be a coincidence. Not after the roses, and especially not after the way he was currently gazing down at her with roguish delight. “Thank you for the roses.”

  “You’re welcome. May I join you?”

  There was an empty chair beside her, and he filled it the moment she nodded.

  “Have you recovered from the ice?” she asked.

  “Fully. How’s the dog?”

  “Bandit is doing well, and my nephew thinks you are the bravest man in the city. How did you know I would be here?” Her heart still pounded at Luke’s unexpected arrival, for he was as attractive as she remembered.

  “Rumor has it that the photographers who work at Interior get their photographs developed here on Friday mornings, and I couldn’t resist the temptation to seek you out.” There wasn’t much room in the crowded lobby, so he was pressed close to her side, and energy and excitement immediately hummed between them.

  “I’m glad you did,” she said, seeing no reason to be coy.

  His gaze dropped to the book on her lap, and he tilted to read the spine. “Don Quixote?”

  “It’s my favorite novel,” she said.

  Luke slanted her a disapproving glance. “But you’re reading a terrible translation.”

  “I am? I didn’t know there was more than one.”

  “Don Quixote has been translated into English eleven times in the last two hundred years,” Luke said. “The twelfth will be out later this year, and it’s the best.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’m the translator.”

  She burst into laughter. “No!”

  He grinned. “Yes!”

  “Why are you bothering to translate a book that’s already been translated so often?”

  “Because the other translations are lousy. I’ve read them all, and know I can do better.”

  It was such an arrogant thing to say, but it was impossible not to smile at his unabashed boasting, and if he had read eleven different translations of Don Quixote, he must love the novel as much as she did.

  “Please don’t tell anyone,” he continued. “This translation is shamefully close to my heart, and aside from my editor at the publishing company, no one knows about it.”

  The fact that he shared the secret with her triggered a tiny thrill. “Why haven’t you told anyone about it?”

  “It’s embarrassing.” He blushed madly as he spoke, so apparently he was genuinely sensitive about it. This was a man who risked his life to save a stranger’s dog but was embarrassed about his secret translation project. “It’s not a traditional translation. I’ve modernized it. I’m not as long-winded as Cervantes, and English is a very different language than Spanish. I’m afraid I took some literary license. A lot, actually.”

  Marianne’s brows rose. “Are you allowed to do that?”

  He shrugged. “I’m doing it. The other translations are so literal. A word-for-word translation sounds unnatural in English. I want the text to heave with emotion. I don’t want Don Quixote to be sad, I want him to rend his garments and howl in despair. I want blood and tears on the page. It’s going to be a controversial translation. A lot of people will hate it.”

  “Blood and tears on the page? My, we are extravagant today.”

  He preened at her comment. “We are extravagant every day,” he admitted. “Passion is what sets the world ablaze and drives men to strike out for the horizon and discover new worlds. It makes me get up in the morning looking for a new dragon to slay or an antiquated text begging for the breath of new life.”

  She couldn’t wait for his Don Quixote translation. If he wrote with the same fervor with which he spoke, the book would probably burst into flame while she read it.

  “The darkroom is all yours, Marianne.”

  It was Abel Zakowski, her fellow photographer from the department, nodding to her on his way out the front door. Never had she been less eager to head into the darkroom.

  She sent an apologetic glance to Luke. “I only get an hour, so I can’t loiter.”

  “I’ve never been in a darkroom,” Luke said. “Can I join you?”

  She longed to spend more time with him, but a darkroom wasn’t the ideal place. “It can be a little stinky.”

  “I don’t mind stinky,” he said with a good-humored wink.

  She had a lot of work to squeeze into the next hour, so she tucked Don Quixote into her satchel and stood. “Then let’s go,” she said, and he rose to follow her.

  Was this really happening? Was the world’s most charming and exciting man only steps behind her as they headed down a narrow hallway toward the darkroom?

  She led the way inside, where the sharp scent of silver nitrate was ever-present in the air. She pulled the heavy drape away from the only window to let daylight into the room.

  “This is where all the magic happens,” she said. The room wasn’t much bigger than a closet, with a worktable mounted against a wall and shelves laden with jugs of ch
emicals. She watched him scan the room, noting the bathing trays, the glass plates, the wooden frames, and stacks of mounting paper. Taking pictures was easy. It was developing them that was the challenge.

  “I was planning to enlarge pictures today,” she said. “My camera only takes small photographs, but the government needs them to be at least eight-by-eleven inches, so we use an enlarging box to make them bigger.”

  “Don’t let me interfere,” Luke said. “Do exactly what you would do on any other day. Pretend I’m not here.”

  “As if that would be possible,” she quipped as she took a stack of small photographs from her satchel. She kept the negatives in a tin box but would only enlarge the best of them because paper and developing solution were expensive. “Here,” she said, handing Luke the stack. “Have a look and tell me which you think I should enlarge.”

  “I’d rather sit here and watch you work. You’re more interesting than”—he glanced at the top picture—“a photograph of the US Capitol. I see it every day. You, on the other hand, are a living piece of art. A Gibson Girl. A Fragonard milkmaid. A Botticelli nymph.”

  “I’m not a Botticelli.”

  “No? Botticelli’s women are beautiful.”

  “They’re naked.”

  His smile was pure mischief. “Not all of them.”

  “Most are. Look at those photographs of the Capitol and tell me which you think I should enlarge.”

  She watched his expression as he studied them. He moved through the photographs quickly, but the narrowing of his eyes indicated complete concentration.

  Then he froze, his expression shocked. “You took this?” he said, his voice aghast as he showed her a photograph of the Capitol dome.

  “I did.”

  “You had to be crawling on the dome to get this shot!”

  “I was.”

  “Are you insane?”

  She fought not to laugh. “No. And I’m proud of that photograph. I had to work hard for it.”