The War in the Dark

by Nick Setchfield

  Winter was pushed before Harzner. The men released his shoulders but stayed close. Winter could sense their eyes on him as he shrugged his jacket back into shape. Part of his mind was already calculating their potential response times. The other part told him it was pointless. This was a bad situation. He had no gun. He was considerably outnumbered.

  Harzner regarded him with an almost surgical disdain. Once again Winter was struck by the German’s uncanny stillness. He was a big man and yet even sweat didn’t dare to sabotage his composure.

  ‘British Intelligence,’ Harzner declared. There was an acid relish to the way he said it. ‘I confess the irony of those words had not occurred to me until this evening.’

  Winter said nothing.

  ‘How did you imagine you could accomplish such a deception?’ demanded Harzner. ‘It is an arrogant thing that you do, you British. An arrogant thing.’

  ‘My name is Malcolm Hands. I am here on behalf of Her—’

  Harzner dismissed the lie, impatient. ‘Please. You are not Malcolm Hands.’

  ‘My name is Malcolm Hands. I am here on behalf of Her Majesty’s—’

  Harzner hit Winter in the teeth. The fist connected with a loud crack. Winter tasted a sudden rush of blood on his tongue. He glared back.

  At Harzner’s side, Albrecht put a long, emaciated finger to his crude mask, etching a ragged frown in the clay. The woman, meanwhile, simply looked on, detached.

  The sudden violence had broken Harzner’s unnatural air of calm. Now he recovered it, gathering his breath and holding the moment before speaking again. He was oblivious to a thick gob of saliva in his beard.

  ‘You,’ he said, thrusting a silver-ringed finger at Winter, ‘are not Malcolm Hands. I know exactly who you are. I know. I know! How could you presume otherwise? It is an insult to my face, here tonight, in front of these people. Why would the British wish to insult me?’

  ‘Herr Harzner, we have no wish to insult you, believe me.’

  ‘So why assume my stupidity? Why try to deceive me, when I know you? When we have met, many times?’

  Winter shook his head, perplexed. ‘Herr Harzner, we have never met.’

  ‘We are acquaintances.’

  ‘I’m sorry. You’re mistaken.’

  Something wormed at the back of Winter’s mind. Perhaps it was just the emphatic certainty of the German’s words, their absolute conviction. It was almost enough to persuade him that they had, indeed, met.

  But it was impossible. Harzner had been a stranger until Winter’s arrival in Vienna. They had never crossed paths, he knew that. Winter had only just learned his name, after all. Until now the man hadn’t even existed as a coffee-stained intelligence file.

  And yet he seemed so sure that they knew one another.

  Harzner regarded him, standing so close that Winter could hear him exhale. He smelt of tobacco and lilacs, just like their first encounter in the office on Blutgasse. Winter suddenly remembered the moment that Harzner had appeared to recognise him. Clearly he had been wrong to dismiss it as some paranoid flicker of imagination.

  The German reached into the inner pocket of his tuxedo and produced a photograph. It was a glossy monochrome print, folded so tightly that the folds had scored sharp white creases. Harzner opened the photograph, almost delicately.

  ‘So we have never met, you and I?’

  Winter stared at the print. The first thing he saw was himself. A crease had sliced his face in two but it was unmistakably him.

  It was impossible.

  But there he was, a younger man, his hair darker, a little wilder, for all that it was slicked down with pomade. He was dressed in a suit he couldn’t recall – a wartime suit, by the cut of it, double-breasted with wide slashes of collar, as had been the style in those years.

  Harzner was next to him in the photograph. Significantly slimmer, equally younger, his beard trimmed tight to his face. They were laughing together, full of youth and mischief. Winter stared at his younger self’s smile. It was not a smile he knew.

  ‘Where did you get this?’ he asked, his voice sounding small in the grand room.

  ‘My archive is considerable,’ smiled Harzner. ‘You do remember that night in Aschaffenburg?’

  ‘I have never been to Aschaffenburg in my life.’ Winter knew that this was the truth.

  Harzner hit him in the mouth again.

  ‘Of course not. Perhaps you choose not to remember.’

  ‘I don’t know you,’ said Winter, his lip wet and burning. The impact of Harzner’s rings had split the skin. ‘I have never met you. I have never been to Aschaffenburg.’

  He girded himself for another assault. It didn’t come. Pocketing the photograph, Harzner reached towards Winter and, improbably gently, corrected his tie. He then fussed over Winter’s lapels, brushing lint from the tweed with his thick fingers.

  ‘Good little soldier. Her Majesty is proud. Stay true to your lies.’

  Harzner stepped back. His eyes moved to Griggs, hoisted above them. ‘Your colleague was equally unwilling to make conversation. They do train you men damnably well.’

  ‘I don’t know that man,’ said Winter, firmly.

  This was a different kind of denial – prescribed operational procedure in the field. If the situation was hopeless you cut away a captured colleague like a gangrenous limb. If Griggs could hear him he would know that. And still Winter felt guilty as he spoke the words. No training could ever remove that.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Harzner. ‘So the sight of his death will leave you quite unmoved. That is convenient for us all.’

  He motioned to Albrecht, who now held a small ceremonial blade. It was sheathed in a scabbard of elaborately patterned gold, scored with symbols that mirrored the ones carved on Griggs’s chest. Albrecht put a finger to the wet clay that concealed his face. This time he gouged a smile.

  ‘Why do you have to kill this man?’ Winter demanded.

  ‘He is fortunate,’ said Harzner. ‘His blood has purpose. It won’t be an empty spectacle, I assure you.’

  The wheel lowered with a squeal of gears.

  ‘My partners require forfeiture,’ stated Harzner. ‘They have certain expectations. It is a very old, very amenable arrangement.’

  Winter glanced around the room. ‘Your partners? You mean these people?’

  The disc halted its descent with a shudder of wood. Albrecht unsheathed the knife. It shone, reflecting the gleaming chandeliers.

  ‘These people? Of course not. Surely you remember?’

  Winter sensed something stir in the room then. Something more than the blood hunger of a crowd. A presence. A thing that clung, that stole the air, dense and oppressive, like bad weather about to break.

  ‘There is no need to kill him,’ said Winter, as calmly as he could.

  Albrecht walked towards Griggs. There was a sense of ceremony now.

  ‘My lords of the hollow spaces,’ said Harzner, his voice assuming the low, liturgical rhythm of a chant. ‘My kings of bone and dust, my queens of the buried. Feast upon this life. It is gifted to you with devotion.’

  Winter made to move forward but Harzner’s men seized his arms. Pinioned, he could only watch as Griggs faced the knife. He saw the man’s eyes widening, his mouth contorting, too full of fear to speak.

  Winter fought the men’s hold. ‘No, you bloody bastards!’

  There was a rush of breath in the room. A susurration, urgent and aroused, anticipating the kill. It was not a human sound.

  Albrecht employed the knife. It sliced cleanly across Griggs’s throat. And then it arced again, completing a ritualistic X. Blood spouted from the wound, the jugular pumping aggressively even in death.

  The room fleetingly darkened, the light sucked from the chandeliers. A sonorous groan rumbled through the sudden blackness. It was a sound of gratification. And it had not come from the crowd, Winter was certain.

  The lights returned, flaring for an instant. Winter stared around him, his arms still locked
by Harzner’s men. He saw delight on the faces of the guests. How could the people in this room witness a man’s murder like that? Some were representatives of the world’s intelligence services. Were they all complicit in this sickness?

  Malcolm. Hatherly. Joyce. Now Joe Griggs. There were too many bodies behind him.

  Harzner climbed the steps to a raised dais that gave command over the room, empty save for a tall, throne-like chair. Albrecht and Sabīne joined him as the crowd fanned in a deferential circle. Griggs was forgotten, a corpse now, his head slumped on his chest. The blood was beginning to dry on the carved symbols.

  ‘Meine Freunde,’ Harzner began, his voice velvet-warm. ‘I thank you all for your patience and trust you have found diversion in my home. Our pleasures must wait now. It is time for the true purpose of our gathering. Tonight’s auction is upon us.’

  Albrecht handed him a white envelope. It was sealed with a stamp of burgundy wax.

  ‘I have been impressed by your bids. So many secrets your nations are willing to surrender. Unbreakable ciphers. Atomic technology. A nerve gas formula. And all for a chance to possess the contents of this envelope. It is clearly a powerful thing you covet. A profoundly powerful thing. I wonder if any of you truly deserve it.’

  Winter sensed an irritation in the crowd. Harzner was just on the edge of baiting these people. It was theatre; a display of power.

  ‘I know many of you have sought this item for many years. Your predecessors also pursued it. It is, shall we say, universally desired. But there can be only one nation that takes possession of it tonight, and that is by my choice alone. So I have given your bids much careful consideration. And I have chosen a winner.’

  Harzner spread his palms in a gesture of mock reproach.

  ‘Please. Do not go to war over this. It is so nearly Christmas, after all.’

  He smiled, relishing the moment.

  ‘The winner is China.’

  There was a wave of surprise in the room, followed by a listless ripple of applause. Most took care not to react at all. The director of Chinese Intelligence acknowledged the win with a neat, appreciative bow. The woman on his arm beamed like a circus act.

  ‘Please, General Shao. Come join me.’

  Harzner extended a hand in invitation. As he did so his body spasmed. His smile froze and slowly collapsed, the teeth turning red with a swill of blood. He tried to form words but his throat could only summon a dry rattle. His fingers snatched uselessly at the air, the rings winking in the light.

  Emil Harzner toppled, quite dead.

  12

  The woman in the butterfly mask withdrew the porcelain-handled knife. It was thin as a reed and glimmered with Harzner’s blood.

  She took the envelope. And then she seized the heavy, throne-like chair behind her and launched it at the window that dominated the room. The glass shattered like ice. Bracing her body she leapt through the splintered remnants, shielding her head with her arms.

  In seconds she was gone.

  There was chaos in the room. Harzner’s men abandoned Winter and raced to their slain master. Winter took advantage of this and scavenged his gun from the floor. He swung it in a wide arc and put a bullet into Albrecht’s head. It tore through the man’s skull with a jet of blood and clay.

  For Joe Griggs, he told himself.

  Winter ran to the dais, pushing past the men as they knelt over Harzner. One of them saw him and moved to pursue. Winter spun the gun again and blasted the man in the collarbone, the punch of the bullet smashing him backwards.

  There was a jagged maw where the window had been. Winter felt the night air gusting through it, chillingly sharp. It was momentarily intoxicating, a promise of escape from the horror of Krabbehaus.

  He spotted Sabīne. She was scrambling across the floodlit roof, skimming the tiles, clearly targeting an optimum place to drop. She moved with a strange grace, all the more remarkable for the fact that she was in an evening dress. She had flung her shoes behind her.

  Winter made to follow her, scraped by the glass as he, too, leapt through the ruined window. He landed with a judder on the roof, his feet sliding, betrayed by the sheen of rain on the tiles. He felt his balance give way. He fought to steady himself but he was already falling.

  He grasped a chimney turret, his knuckles all but bursting as his fingers clung to the brickwork. His hand momentarily bore the weight of his body. This halted his descent but sent a hot lash of pain the length of his forearm. He clamped his teeth and endured it.

  There was a commotion at the window. Harzner’s men pushed their heads through the remnants of glass. There was a cry. And then the emphatic crack of gunshots, booming in the night. Bullets sparked against the tiles.

  Regaining his footing, Winter set off across the roof. It felt treacherous, like sprinting on a frozen lake, but he kept his focus on the woman, watching as she vaulted a parapet and fell to a lower cupola. Soon she had dropped from the roof itself, using an outbuilding on the side of the mansion to stagger her descent.

  He echoed her moves as best he could but misjudged the final leap. He landed with a slam of bone on the gravel drive, his knees taking the brunt of the impact. The off-duty chauffeurs regarded his arrival with amusement. And then, as one, they scattered as a whip of bullets ripped through the shingle.

  Twisting his body into a marginally smaller target, Winter bolted across the drive, using the parked cars for cover. As he ran, bullets tore into the chassis of a BMW, studded the side of a Volkswagen. He had his gun in his hand but it would be pointless to fire in retaliation. They had the vantage point and the illumination; he’d be as good as shooting blind into the night.

  The woman had cleared the drive and was now running for the lawns that enclosed Krabbehaus. Past the reach of the floodlight she slipped into the dark, a silhouette absorbed into shadows. Soon she was lost to his sight. She had to be making for the trees. And then, no doubt, the fence beyond, the ring of wire that ensnared the grounds. He could still catch her, he told himself.

  Winter raced across the grass, the wet earth grasping at his shoes. He was straining his muscles to the limit now. He could feel ligaments burn, his heart protesting as his arms pistoned. There was fire in his side.

  He passed the woman’s discarded butterfly mask, tossed to the ground. He was close enough to hear her breathing, torn and urgent. He knew she was trying to keep her body focused, pushing her physical limits just as he was. Her dress glittered in the dark. He was closing on her.

  It was then that he heard the dogs.

  The barking was frenzied, rageful. Harzner’s men must have loosed the Pinschers. Or else the dogs had been on duty and caught their scent on the wind. Their baying grew louder, ever nearer. They were closing.

  He stopped. Sabīne had halted. She faced him now. They exchanged a wordless moment, both aware of their predicament. He glanced back and saw the dogs carving through the night, jaws bared to reveal dagger-ranks of teeth. Their eyes looked maddened, ready to burst.

  Winter pushed the woman back. He levelled his gun at the first of the dogs. He closed an eye and pulled the trigger.

  No bullet. The gun was empty. The Doberman sprang at him, its belt of a tongue spilling drool.

  Now the woman pushed him away. He saw a flurry of silver. It was the blade, the same thin knife that had killed Harzner. She was wielding it against the dogs, her slashes vicious but expert. There was a pair of agonised howls and then the beasts were silent.

  The woman recaptured her breath, the bodies of the dogs at her feet.

  She wiped the blade clean on her dress. And then she replaced it in a fold, concealing its cold length against her thigh.

  ‘Come on,’ she hissed. ‘We must go.’

  There were lights in the field now. Torches, or maybe headlights, cutting through the dark. There was a stir of voices in the distance. The lights began to slide across the lawn.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Winter. ‘Who are you?’

  The woman ignored him
with a look that suggested the question was imbecilic. She turned and continued running, making for a copse of trees at the fringe of the grounds. Winter followed her, holstering his useless gun.

  The oaks formed a dense thicket. The stout trunks reared into the night, lashed to the earth by ancient roots. Their branches were empty, snagging their sisters to create a vast, ragged cage. Winter looked behind him, past the collusion of trees. Across the field, the lights that were hunting them had shifted closer.

  He was level with Sabīne now. She had stopped running. It was as if the trees themselves demanded a slower, more reverent pace. Winter and the woman stepped deeper into the shadowy coppice, decaying leaves crunching underfoot. A throng of moths parted as they passed.

  He heard her gasp. There was a face nailed to the tree in front of them.

  ‘It’s just a mask,’ said Winter, pragmatically. ‘Some kind of totem.’

  He peered at the object. Was it a mask? Its surface was as thin as paper. The texture was puckered, closer to parchment than human skin. The nose was flattened, the mouth a tight, shrivelled slit, the eyelids shuttered. If this face had once belonged to a man then it had been removed with clinical precision. Tiny nails pinned it to the bark like a grotesque crucifixion.

  The eyes flashed open, bright as fire.

  ‘Kuwaamba! Wageni ni kupatikana!’

  The words were unintelligible but their meaning was obvious. This was clearly some kind of occult sentry, stationed at the furthest edge of Krabbehaus, keeping watch for intruders. Winter wondered if the thing was futilely attempting to communicate with its dead master. He caught himself. How instantly all this insanity made sense to him now. He had stopped questioning any of it.

  ‘Wageni ni kupatikana! Konchaka!’

  The pair of them ran, pushing through the clutch of trees. Winter reached for Sabīne’s hand but she flung his back at him. Her other hand held tightly to the white envelope.

  Soon they had cleared the copse and arrived at the chain-link fence at the perimeter of the grounds. Winter hurried along its length, searching for the hole that Griggs would have cut a matter of hours ago. ‘This way,’ he said. ‘There’ll be a bike on the other side. We can use that.’