Accidental Spy

Jolyn Jones

Description

The story opens in 1934 on the Spanish island of Ibiza. Following an incident at a fiesta Verity, a young English lawyer, is listed as a British spy by General Franco, the military governor of the island. She escapes just in time to avoid arrest. Back in England, she returns to work in her father's law firm but friendships made in Spain begin to shape the course of her life. As the tumultuous events in Barcelona build up to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War she is increasingly caught up in these events. As the Civil War gathers pace and the chaos builds, it becomes apparent that only she may be able to carry out a daring rescue mission. She finds that she has to make a choice between staying at home in a safe job or casting aside all conventions and being drawn into the shadowy world of espionage. Can she both succeed and survive as a woman in a man's world? The intricate threads of the story draw together a group of diverse characters in London and Spain whose lives come together in an explosive conclusion as Verity becomes the target for sabotage and final betrayal in a battle whose outcome is far from predictable.

Sujets

• Adventure (Guyana)
• Adventure

Informations

• Publié par: Powerhouse Publishing
• Date de parution: 13 février 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783010479
• Langue: English

Extrait

An Accidental Spy
Jolyn Jones
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter One
If Verity had intended to take up a career as a spy in the nineteen thirties, she would not have started by going on a tour round Europe with her maiden aunt. Verity already had a different career mapped out for her by her father. As a lawyer with no sons to follow him into the profession, his only daughter was going to have to fill the void. Someone had to be able to take over the family firm when he retired. So that was it - Verity had nearly completed her training and a lawyer she would be. Becoming a spy was purely accidental.
***
Captain Luis Moreno was a handsome young man who, at twenty-five, knew that he had great power over women. With his looks, his uniform, a commanding manner, and charm that he could turn on like a light, he was irresistible to women. This morning he was not at his best - it was after all only six in the morning when the door of his room was kicked open as he lay sprawled on his bed, still fast asleep. Moreno turned over, an oath dying on his lips as he saw that his visitor was not an orderly with his hot water but the Colonel from the barracks in Mallorca. Jumping to his feet, he stood to attention but felt disadvantaged by having to stand there naked, his feet cold on the rough surface of the stone floor.
"You’ve ordered an arrest?" said the Colonel, who already knew this fact perfectly well. "A saboteur? No, let me see, a foreigner, so a spy. What are the facts?" he barked, not giving Moreno any chance to explain.
"Come to the office directly you are properly dressed. By then" he added, "Your patrols that I saw sweeping the town, will have brought the spy in."
The Colonel swept out leaving Moreno to wash, shave, dress and present himself in double quick time as the Colonel, a noted disciplinarian, did not put up with fools lightly.
What had brought the Colonel here so early this morning on an unscheduled visit wondered Moreno? Appearing in the office - his own office as it happened - the Captain snapped his heels together smartly and saluted the Colonel, now that he was in uniform. The Colonel’s gaze appeared to be focused on his own highly polished boots that were resting lightly on the Captain’s desk in front of him.
"Our troops are scouring the island for an English woman. Why?"
"Sir, I attempted to interrogate her last night and she assaulted me and got away."
"Assaulted you?"
"Yes Sir," said Moreno, reluctant to furnish the details.
"And this was in the course of an interrogation?" said the Colonel crisply.
"Yes, Sir. I was seeking information from her when she assaulted me."
"Assaulted you?"
"She pushed me in a fountain, Sir."
"So, you met this woman last night and questioned her. Where were your escorts?"
"I was on my own Sir. I left my men at the café where I had found her," said Moreno, anxious to supply actual facts wherever possible.
"So," said the Colonel again, "You find and arrest a suspected spy in a café, you leave your men at the café and take the suspect along the street to a fountain out of sight of the café."
"Yes Sir," Moreno confirmed unhappily.
"Was she pretty, this suspect of yours?" asked the Colonel. Moreno did not reply.
"And then you stand by the fountain. Or perhaps you were sitting down, yes, that is more likely. You do not want to be overheard so love talk perhaps, rather than questions of spying, of sabotage?"
Moreno knew better than to answer rhetorical questions. He looked steadfastly at a dusty patch on the wall above the Colonel’s head and said nothing.
"You attempt to take liberties with her, she sees her chance and pushes you in the fountain. Am I right?" he suddenly fired at the Captain.
"Sir, I…" But the Colonel now turned his attention from his polished boots to Moreno, and his look was withering.
"So, the gallant Captain turns out the garrison to arrest a girl who bested him in what he thought he was best at, making love. Am I right? I’d better warn you that I have already spoken to the men who were with you last night. I was intrigued to find out the details of this sudden alert without the embellishments you would have felt compelled to add."
"Sir, you’ve decided that my conduct was dishonourable without asking for my own explanation first. I demand to offer my explanations to General Franco himself, he appointed me here."
"In that case you’d better report to him in Palma at once. You’ll find the patrol boat at the quay. I suppose that by the time you see the General you will have had time to think up a plausible story. You’ll get away with it as usual."
Moreno was turning red with anger as he saluted and left the room. He saw his most reliable sergeant crossing the square to intercept him.
"No sign of the girl, Sir. We found the hotel where the girl was staying. A Miss Verity Fleming, travelling with an older lady they think is her aunt. They’ve both gone, during the night apparently. It looks as though they left in a hurry leaving all their belongings behind. I thought you might want this" he said, handing over Verity’s sketchbook. "The men made enquiries all round the town, but she’s simply disappeared."
"Very suspicious," said Moreno. "They’ve probably fled the island. This proves my theory that the girl is a spy who was looking at the military defences of Ibiza. I was right all along."
The sergeant looked at him in astonishment. He had seen the Captain’s amorous pursuit of the girl but the ways of officers were often hard to fathom. Now he’d turned the girl into a spy, had he? Oh well, if that was the way he wanted it.
***
Captain Moreno arrived at headquarters in Palma in time to be invited to join the General and his staff for breakfast in the mess. It was not that General Franco was a sociable man, just that being rather short he hated anyone to have the advantage of height by standing. Franco remembered that Moreno had been a model student at the army academy at Zaragoza whilst he was its director and was always interested to see how his protégées were faring.
The General was a thin man with a small moustache and staring cold eyes. It was as well for an officer to have rehearsed any report that needed to be delivered to Franco since otherwise his gaze could reduce a man to stumbling incoherence. Moreno had thought through precisely what to say to the General. After breakfast in the mess, Moreno made his personal, and much embellished, report to General Franco.
"So I think Sir, that this girl must have sought me out to try and obtain information about the military defences of the islands." said Moreno in his most earnest manner.
"You said that she is British?"
"Yes Sir."
"The British Government proclaim a non interventionist policy but can never resist meddling in other countries business" said Franco, mulling over what Moreno had reported. "Do you think this woman might have had communist backing?"
"That was my first thought Sir." responded Moreno untruthfully. Fortunately for him all his military training had enabled him to impassively tell a senior officer whatever the officer wanted to hear without regard to the truth. Then he produced his final irrefutable evidence for the General.
"My men found this sketchbook in her room" he said placing it on the table in front of Franco. The general leaved through sketch after sketch of Ibiza views including the garrison sitting on atop of the city and its military defences.
"Mmm," Franco wondered for a moment and then made a swift decision. Following this interview Verity Fleming was formally listed as a spy, wanted for questioning. Moreno, far from being disgraced by the incident, had been commended by the General for his perspicacity in spotting and pursuing a spy of English origin but who was undoubtedly spying for the Communists, whom Franco thought were the cause of all Spain’s troubles. Moreno had carefully removed from the sketchbook everything that did not fit the espionage theory before handing it over. He had found Helen’s simple sketch of Verity herself and had placed in his pocketbook for safekeeping, the rest of the sketches he had discarded.
As a reward the General decided that Moreno should serve as an aide on his own staff for the time being. Trustworthy men such as Moreno, trained in the General’s own academy, were worth their weight in gold to him.
Whilst Moreno was pleased with the overall outcome of the affair, he swore to himself that however long it took, one day he would get even with that bitch, Verity, for soaking him in the fountain.
***
Verity thought herself very fortunate to have the opportunity to tour Europe with her mother’s sister, Aunt Constance, who loved to travel and was the complete antithesis of her own dead distantly remembered and constantly inebriated mother. Constance, a good-looking woman of mature years, had almost too much energy and was no one’s idea of a maiden aunt. She thought it would be good for Verity to widen her outlook from that of her narrow-minded father and learn to speak out a bit more. It was often very hard to understand exactly what Verity was feeling or thinking. She included Verity in her travel plans for the summer of 1934, just after Verity’s twentieth birthday. Verity’s father had thought that his sister in law would be a suitable companion and chaperone for someone of Verity’s tender age. In the latter he was mistaken, for Constance, a passio