by Kay Kenyon
It would not be the case this time. He had her. And two hundred SS to back him up.
Somehow the awful moment passed. The tsarina and von Ritter moved on, leaving her stunned and unable to think.
Run. She must run. But where could she go that she would not be immediately apprehended?
Then von Ritter was standing in front of her again, having come to join her at the champagne table. He took her by the arm and led her away. To her surprise, it was not in the direction of the foyer, but to one of the divans strategically placed around the room.
“Please sit down, Miss Copeland. I should not like for you to fall to the floor as appears likely.”
She sat while he remained standing. Perhaps she should say thank you, to keep things pleasant for just a few more moments, but her words fled. Caught. She was caught by the only Nazi in Germany who knew who she was. Would he be kind? Could she somehow—but how?—avoid an interrogation? Why did she think he would be kind?
“Rievaulx,” came her hoarse whisper.
He looked down at her. “Survived. As you see.”
“The limp.”
“Not from Rievaulx.” A few beats of dreadful, static terror during which her thoughts evaporated.
He murmured, “Go out into the vestibule and wait for me.” A small, ironic smile. “You are over your surprise, I think. Yes?”
“I don’t know.”
“Collect yourself. Then go.” He turned and walked away, threading through the crowd, no doubt confident she would follow his order. As she would. He joined Annakova, who turned to look in her direction. Annakova did not know who she was; von Ritter did not know her plan. A faint thread of hope began to replace shock and alarm.
But had she completely lost her mind? There was absolutely no hope.
She waited in the foyer outside the hall doors, fading down the corridor a bit when Erika emerged from the lavatory. Her mood swung from panic to hope and back again. Here was von Ritter’s revenge for the thwarted invasion of England: now he would stop her assault on Monarch, exposing her as a mole, spy, saboteur.
But since von Ritter had not immediately arrested her, he might be her only hope to survive. What did he want from her? Names, contacts, places. He was Sicherheitsdienst, German intelligence. Kim’s thoughts fell into a dark and tarry place. This was the disaster that Adler had predicted. That Duncan had predicted.
Finally von Ritter emerged from the reception hall in the company of Annakova. Another officer escorted the tsarina away and von Ritter approached Kim. He led her down a corridor, and at the end of it he opened a door and took her in, switching on a light.
It was a small but finely furnished room with a desk, bed, and wardrobe. Outside the window, snowflakes drifted down, sparkling in the plaza lights. In the curve of the window, a small, padded seat.
Von Ritter motioned her to a chair at the table. She sat, looking up at him.
“You are my undoing, Kim.”
Why did he put it like that? She was undone. Baldly stated, she had infiltrated the headquarters of a highly secret military operation at a stronghold in the Alps to subvert a German military mission. There was no finessing it.
“It’s war, Herr von Ritter. Or shall I call you Erich?” He had suggested the familiarity when they thought they would die at Rievaulx.
He paused, his amusement now gone from his face. “You choose. In your time remaining, you may choose.”
Time remaining. The way he threatened: offhand, terrifying. Drawing up an extra chair, he sat before her, this impossibly handsome man, this charming spy who had given himself to a corrupt and degraded ideology.
He watched her with no hint of pity, just watched, not yet making any demands. How would she answer him, how could she protect Captain Adler and Irina Annakova? Whatever was coming, she desperately wanted to postpone it. She mustered a steady voice. “What happened at Rievaulx? I heard a gunshot.”
“I took aim at the nearest British soldier. And he at me, but in my wounded state, I missed. After that . . . they tell me I passed out. If it had been Germany, one such as myself would have been summarily shot. But when I awoke, I was on a small fishing boat headed for Germany. It seems your country did not like to admit how they failed to protect their shores. In any case, all the German soldiers were returned home by one route or another.” He shrugged. “It disturbed me to have missed that soldier and at close range.”
The Office might have told her he had been repatriated. So many things they might have done better. “Why are you called Sir Stefan?”
“It is a name Her Majesty prefers. Stephen is my middle name, which she pronounces in the Russian way. She petitioned the Führer to allow her to bestow a title as a reward for my care of her.”
He went to the dresser by his bed and removed a small box from a drawer. Inside it, medicinal supplies. At the small sink in the corner, he wetted a cloth and joined her at the table with the cloth and a length of gauze. When she opened her hand, von Ritter cleaned the cut and wrapped the gauze around her hand.
As he worked, he said, “So then, the British government knows of our operation.”
“We’d been tracking it for months.” She knew how interrogations went. Start with small questions, get the words flowing, moving to the larger things that the subject hoped to withhold.
He gestured for her to hold the bandage in place while he cut tape. “We knew there were disclosures, but we did not realize how badly we were compromised.” When he finished the taping, he looked at her critically. “You have grown thin, Kim. Purification does not suit you.”
“As you know, it suits no one. You know how they end.”
“Ah. So you were the one. You left your small camera at the sanatorium.” A broad smile. “I will have to kill you quickly, before you bring down the Third Reich.”
She snorted a laugh. It was funny.
He put the first aid box away and sat down on the window seat. “Someone revealed the Monarch operation to you. Even before you became a 10, you were a strong spill. I would like to know who told you.”
“Rikard Nagel. An SS captain.” Now the lies began, and she brought to bear all her determination to keep track of them.
“So. Göring’s man. And then you killed him.”
“I don’t do that.”
“Your people, then. And he also gave up the Aerie?” She shrugged, letting him draw that conclusion.
“And so you knew about Irina Annakova.”
“Yes.”
He looked out the window for a time, although there was nothing to see but his own reflection and a few bright, spinning flakes of snow. “Do you hunger for blood yet?” His voice, bitter. “Perhaps a small cup to last until your next meal?”
“If you find it so repulsive, what about all these people here, all the gaunt men, all the broken minds?”
“They are soldiers, ready to sacrifice. But you, Kim . . . you always went beyond what anyone could expect of you.” He was very near. His power, both physical and psychological.
“Really?” Sarcasm leaped out. “More than a mere girl could do?”
His dark eyes hardened. “More than a person can do.” He spread his hands, looking around him, as though encompassing her failed mission in the Nazi stronghold.
“What of your master race, then?”
He looked away. A pause lengthened. “I wish that you could have been spared.” His tone changed. More businesslike. “What was your assignment here?”
“To kill her.”
Turning, he raised an eyebrow. “How did you hope to do this?”
“Poison.” He must not know about, or have, the drug. Britain would soon have its own catalyst. “And then there was never a way to deliver it. So I used it on my roommate, Hilde, who dislikes me. She watched me too closely.”
“The one in the infirmary.” An appraising gaze. “You have become more ruthless. I think you do not trust our chancellor.” A slow, easy smile. She tried to join in and failed.
Nois
es in the hall. A man’s voice nearby. Von Ritter looked to the door, but the voices faded.
He turned back to her. “I have a question. Answer it truthfully and I may let you go.”
Let her go? Her breath went shallow. A little spike of hope surged up inside her, ripping as it went.
“How did you pass the test at the intake post? Since you had been a 6, and it does not meet requirements.”
Oh, not good, that question. It was obvious how she passed the test. A catalyst had brought her higher. But clearly it could not have been Annakova, not before Kim arrived at the intake center.
She paused, mind racing in place.
“Kim. Your country. They have a catalyst as well. Am I right?”
“Yes.”
“And the name?” He spoke softly, deceptively gentle. “You will tell me the name and also where they are.”
She had never seen him in uniform, that severe black, with leather and piping. A look to inspire fear. It was working. “Where does this end, Erich?” She sat up straight, so as not to be cowed or not to look like it. “You promise to let me live, but I must give up all my secrets, and then you kill me anyway?”
His reaction to that, undecipherable.
She wanted to say, Can it be quick? But couldn’t bring herself to say it.
His face revealed nothing as he watched her.
New lies came to mind. Her brain was kicking back into gear. “Since this man, our catalyst, is safely in England now, what good is it to know his name? A name that was not his real name in any case, when he catalyzed me.”
Von Ritter remained silent. Letting her talk, now that the time had come.
In the quiet of the room she began to speak, softly, without any purpose except to delay further questioning. “My first day here I sat next to an old man at dinner. Evgeny Borisov. It was in the civilian dining room. He told me that he saw my death. It would be at the hands of someone in uniform. It was like a terrible burden that he carried, to know such things, and by telling me, I think he hoped that his load would grow lighter. I didn’t want to know, but I couldn’t stop him. And when Nikolai, in his naval uniform . . . when his stray bullet found me, I thought it was the death the old man saw. But now I think I know who he saw. You.”
“I do not like to think so.”
She wanted to be brave. It was important, now that she had come so far, keeping her mind under steady control, navigating the Aerie. Almost succeeding. “It’s all right. I knew it could happen this way.”
He rose. “Come here, Kim.”
She stood, and he reached out his hand to take hers. He pulled her gently toward him. “I will do what I must,” he said, looking at her with what looked like regret. “Honor demands it, despite what I might want.” She allowed him to bring her into his arms. She pressed her face into his uniform jacket, the buttons gouging her cheek. How bizarre it was to have feelings for one’s executioner. At the last, she supposed, one would do anything for a little comfort.
His voice, soft in her ears. “I have not forgotten you, my Valkyrie.” He released her, pushing a strand of hair back from her face. “Perhaps you thought of me once or twice.”
Of course she had. When she looked back on the past half year, she had to admit how often Erich von Ritter had come to mind: the memories of the confusion and the fear he had inspired. The pull he had exerted on her. Allure mixed with aversion.
“Yes. I thought of you. Many times.”
Voices in the hall.
He took her gently by the shoulders. “We cannot be gone longer. I want you to go back to the reception, Kim. Everything is normal. Tomorrow, after the purification ceremony, your assignment is to be sent to—” He made an inquiring look.
“Paris.”
“But you will of course not go to your assignment. You will go home and tell your handlers of our location. It will do no good. I will find evidence that a spy was among us, and we will take the tsarina elsewhere for her safety. A place that even you would never find.”
She listened to this recitation with astonishment. “You’re . . . letting me go?”
“Oh, not yet. Tomorrow, Kim.” He fixed her with that firm, black gaze so effective in eliciting terror and attraction. “Tomorrow, when we are finished. You will remain in this room tonight, since you are hard to trust.”
A reprieve. Against all odds, a reprieve. But locked in this room would not suit, not at all.
“If I don’t go back to the barracks tonight, Erika will report me missing. She’s at the reception right now probably wondering where I am. You can’t tell her to keep it quiet. It would draw attention to you. If she were questioned.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I see. Very well then. Perhaps it does no harm if you spend the night in the barracks. You are watched there. The woman, Erika. Do not give me cause to be the one Evgeny foretold.”
The one. The soldier who kills her. No, Erich. I will be on a plane to England soon. A profound relief rushed through her. The barracks. Not under lock and key.
“So, then. You must go back before your barracks mates become concerned about your absence.” He led her to the door.
When he prepared to open it, she stopped and put her hand on his arm. “It will be dangerous for you to let me go, won’t it?”
He shrugged, straightening his jacket. An ironic, devastating smile. “It is, shall we say, a professional courtesy. One spy to another.” He opened the door, checking the corridor, then nodded to her.
Out in the hallway, she made her way to the party, overwhelmed, almost giddy. An image came to mind of looking down on herself as she walked toward the Great Hall. Here was a slim figure in green, walking lightly, amazed by the world and that she had more hours in it.
Now she had to tread so very carefully, but the plan, her plan, was back in play. Von Ritter was back from the dead. And so was her mission.
7:41 PM. Captain Adler crossed the plaza, carrying a humbly wrapped package with a bright bow. A Christmas gift.
Earlier, he had returned from the intake center, having created an excuse to deliver documents. When he had arrived back at the bottom of the Aerie’s cliff, he had pulled the motorcar into the car park and disconnected the ignition.
Now, as he entered the Festival Hall, he noted that Annakova was leaving early. She would need her sleep for the rigors of what was coming. The purifications tomorrow. As she passed him with her escort, she didn’t make eye contact; she didn’t know that he had contributed to the escape plot, nor that it was for him that she had been instructed to put out seeds on the bird feeder near the shed in the chalet garden. As he had seen her do at noon.
So far, it was working. Nora Copeland’s desperate plan had gone undetected. The peace of the Aerie would not last long, he knew. He would make sure of that.
8:02 PM. “Kolya.” Irina closed Kolya’s bedroom door behind her. “I must speak to you.”
He stood up from where he had been playing with the dog. “Yes, Maman.”
“It is very important that you listen to me.” He grew solemn and waited. “You must not ask any questions, darling, but you will obey me in everything.”
His voice was brave, but his face betrayed his anxiety. “Yes, Maman, I will.”
Irina looked at him, with his soft brown eyes and her chest ached, down to her very heart. Heartache was not just a phrase to describe a mood, but a physical pain. This escape was fraught with danger. How could she lead her son into such peril? Looking at him, she almost lost her nerve. But enough of this prevarication! The Germans did not love them and would doubtless betray them in the end. So she must betray the Germans first.
She began speaking very softly, conscious that Polina might be nearby, even listening, the old crone. “We will be going down into the valley, into the woods tonight.”
Excitement flashed across his face. Another jagged cut at her heart.
She pushed on. There was, she explained, a secret way down to the forest, and they must take it before a very bad thing hap
pened. He must trust her and be the brave young man she knew him to be.
He must pack a small knapsack with extra trousers and socks. This he would place under his bed. But Polina must not know of their plans, nor anyone else.
His eyes, wide with alarm. “A bad thing happens otherwise, Maman?”
“A very bad thing, my darling. So we both must be very brave. There will be one more person who will go with us. The American woman, Nora Copeland.”
She put her finger to her lips. No questions.
“But what about my puppy?”
“I will ask Sir Stefan to bring the puppy afterward.” A lie. A necessary one, for they could not bring Lev.
When she had finished telling him what would happen, and how he must be prepared, she opened her arms for an embrace. She pressed him to her, and Kolya, being eleven, was still able to cling to her unashamedly. When they drew apart he resumed his poise. Oh, he would have made such a tsar!
“You will pretend to sleep tonight, sweet one. Or sleep, if you can, and I will wake you when it is still dark, and we will go.”
“Will I wear pajamas?”
“Yes, going to sleep, and when Polina tucks you in. But also under your bed, warm clothes to put on quickly. Your heaviest jacket.”
At the door she turned to him. “Do not be afraid, Kolya. We must be brave and serve our country. It is expected of us, for we are not like other people. We have royal blood and can do very hard things.”
“Yes, Maman.”
She looked at her precious son. It had all been for him. Her life was still all for him, even if he would not rule Russia.
Once back in her room, she pulverized a dozen of her sleeping pills, using a large, smooth-cut emerald ring that her aunt, Grand Duchess Tatiana Nazarova, had given her on her seventeenth birthday. When the tablets were ground to a fine powder, she swept it into a carefully folded piece of paper.
Then she began sewing the few jewels preserved from the old days into the lining of her riding skirt. She left Stefan’s yellow-gold diamond pendant on the dresser.
