Bound by Gold Chains

Prologue

July 17, 1953

It was ironic that they should meet on this date, though the man in the non-descript grey suit imagined his tablemate possessed no great awareness of that particular literary technique or the significance of the events that had unfolded on this very day so many long years ago. To those born in these current times, it had already receded into the remote past, during an era that most of this new generation considered unimportant and irrelevant. But that was egregiously wrong. Their very purpose in this current assignation had its roots in the past: a very particular and, in a sense, peculiar one.

Hadn't the last twenty years of his life been more or less consumed with what might finally have its culmination in the coming months? He certainly hoped so. He had sacrificed his promising career for this "project." Of course, there had been many other assignments over that span of years, though none as enduring and as significant as this one. Seldom was there an opportunity to return home. The time spent away from his wife and four children—who were more strangers to him, and he to them, as each year passed onto the next—was a burden he bore stoically, if not willingly. Yet... The same argument repeated itself in his mind—as it had on countless other occasions over the years. If success was achieved, his future would be assured—as it would be for his family. Likely, very little could be explained, but what he could share with them might end their confusion and growing animosity, and they would see him in a different light. And that—that had come to supersede the financial and professional prizes he had been promised.

"Nothing stronger than tea today, Basil? Are you anticipating my news might place a strain on your delicate constitution?" Her lips lifted into a smile, though her eyes retained their usual frosty haughtiness. "I suppose it could...or perhaps I'm reading you all wrong, and it's eagerness you're attempting to conceal from me." The lissom woman across from him cradled her chin on her clasped hands—hands he had intimately studied on the infrequent times they had been ordered to meet. Basil surmised them to be quick—and lethal—just as he suspected of her entire compact body. "Should I order the same? Are my faculties, poor as they are in comparison to yours, required to be unimpaired and at their full effectiveness?"

"You can decide for yourself, Stella. As you do with most things."

It was true as far as Basil knew. Their superiors had never clarified who was truly in charge of what were hoped to be the final chapters in the "project," which was unsettling to say the least for a man of his heritage. But he had lived with the ambiguity and the chaining of himself to unwanted and undesirable people and responsibilities over the long course of his career, as it was indeed with this assignment, and as he supposed was the case for Stella herself—though he expected, as the "project" neared its last days, she might well declare herself his superior, vexing and problematic as that would prove to be.

They only knew each other by their first names, which for him was not even the false one he had assumed upon entering England more than fifteen years ago. There were times when he would go through an entire day and not once call himself by the one given him by his parents. And he was certain Stella had another name she operated under in whatever occupation she had found for herself here in London. Superficially, she appeared to be just one more of a great flood of young English women who had infiltrated into the great city after the end of the war and had chosen to remain. Her trendy clothes defined her as an office clerk in one of the innumerable establishments carrying on business in the middle of London. Her jewellery, on the other hand, made him suspect she had secured a position higher and of broader extent than that of an entry level one. Or it might all be a subterfuge she was playing on him. But weren't they both actors? Perhaps, he more than her? Still, he believed it likely he would never come to learn the full truth of her.

Over the past year, after they had first met, Basil had never enquired, and he was certain Stella would have demurred and only said her occupation was unimportant—but he believed she knew much more about him than he of her—in fact, he suspected she had a full dossier on his background and his part in this venture—unlike himself, who still had no clear picture of what her ultimate role was intended to be. Still, he suspected. He just didn't understand the need for it, if he was right about her.