Lammas night

by Katherine Kurtz

  Of most immediate concern at the moment was astrology, though Graham's hand-picked little group gathered intelligence on other occult activities as well. Most of the senior intelligence staff no more believed in astrology than they believed in the rest of the occult, but at least they acknowledged the possible usefulness of astrological counteroffensives for psychological warfare, since Hitler was very much a believer. Michael's mission had to do with such a use.

  But the notion that occult forces might be applied to prevent a German invasion would be considered patently absurd, even though the oral traditions of Graham's ancestors and others could cite strong historical arguments for their part in stopping the Spanish Armada, repelling "Old Boney," and even keeping off the German fleet during the Great War. Outside his official function and unknown to his professional staff, Graham was being asked to engineer a repeat of what had been done in Elizabethan and Napoleonic times.

  And it must be done in secret, with utter confidentiality on the parts of all involved, because the old witchcraft statutes still on the books from the eighteenth century would make little distinction between what Graham and his people did in the name of their ancient tradition, for the protection of the realm, and what popular opinion tended to lump together as charlatanism, witchcraft, black magic, and satanism. There were vast distinctions, but Graham was loath to attempt reasoned explanations at a time when stories of Nazi black magical practices and atrocities were already too common.

  Denton stopped the Bentley again outside the Constable's Gate, where guards once more inspected their identification and shone shielded torches inside the car. Distractedly, Graham drummed his finger tips against the arm rest as they continued into the castle precincts, for he was impatient now to reach the Ops Room and find out for certain about the Grafton. Though his ability on the Second Road was usually reliable, he did not like the hints of danger that had teased at his sleep.

  But as they crawled past the few cars parked at the foot of the Constable's Tower, something less sinister caiight his attention: a familiar-looking Rolls-Royce that had not been there the previous afternoon when they left for Oakwood. Was it possible that William was back at Dover?

  "That Phantom 11 by the tower, Denny—isn't that Prince William's car?" he asked, craning his neck for a better look as Denton glanced in the rear-view mirror.

  "It does look like it, sir. They didn't build too many like that. His aide said Monday that he might be back today if the evacuation was still going on."

  "His aide?" Graham sat back in his seat with a vexed mutter. "I love the way staff always know our movements before we do."

  "Sir?"

  "Never mind, Denny. I was just being peevish. I haven't had my tea yet. Ignore me."

  "Yes, sir," came the slightly amused reply.

  Graham sighed and closed his eyes as the car inched along toward the headquarters car park, reminiscing with affection about the man who owned the Rolls—who, despite his rank, had always seemed almost like a younger, if occasionally exasperating, brother. There were many memories, some of them far too grim for a morning already ripe with the possibility of yet another disaster—for Prince William had worked the Intelligence Service with Graham when he was Michael's age— but the memory that surfaced now brought only a smile.

  He grinned as he recalled a night not very many years before when he and the prince had escorted two young ladies on a lighthearted evening on the town and had not returned to the Palace until well past dawn. William's father had been waiting for them, silently fuming.

  Both men had been less prudent then—and William retained a regrettable tendency to revert to his earlier playboy behavior with all too little provocation—but Graham, at least, had learned not to encourage frivolity in the King's youngest surviving son thereafter. It was all very well for William to endanger his life when on an active mission—the King had four other sons, after all—but woe be to anyone, relative or subject, who led a member of the Royal Family into public scandal!

  Contemplation of scandal brought Graham back to William, so often on the brink of trouble, and he found himself wondering, not for the first time, whether William would be scandalized, were he, to learn of the rather unorthodox methods in use to track Michael tonight. Of course, the prince was aware of the official and theoretical scope of Graham's section, as was anyone with even minimal intelligence connections who cared to ask. But he did not think William took it any more seriously than anyone else other than for its pure propaganda value.

  Especially with the prince, that suited Graham very well. Even in his early years with the Service, Graham had been careful to cultivate the impression that his interest in and knowledge of such subjects as astrology and so-called psychic phenomena had arisen from a childhood fascination and preoccupation with parlor tricks and stage magic. Skill in sleight of hand, for example, was not without its usefulness for an undercover agent. It was also amusing at government receptions.

  This reputation had not hurt Graham when the time came to form the section he now headed or when William asked the occasional too-perceptive question. The prince had shown a passing interest in Graham's "magical" skills and was fascinated by the way Graham's section seemed to be approaching their part of the war effort, but Graham was not convinced that William believed any of it was real. The lack left a gap in an otherwise intimate friendship that had built up over the years. But if Graham's own legal status vis-a-vis the occult was shaky because of archaic laws still on the books, then William's could only be described as precarious, were he ever to become involved. Far better for him never to know, though his royal line certainly had been no strangers to the Old Ways in centuries past—far past, as Graham sometimes had to remind himself.

  He opened his eyes with a start and realized that Denton had eased the Bentley into its customary parking space and turned off the motor. The drizzle had turned to a heavier shower, pinging loudly on the roof and the wetly glistening pavement. The weather lent an eerieness and sense of isolation to the very air, increasing the feeling of imminent disaster that had been building since Graham woke.

  Then a ship hooted somewhere in the harbor below, and the mood was broken. A guard coughed noisily in the shadows not far away as someone came out of the building, and somewhere in the greyness a door slammed. Graham yawned and tried to ease the tension out of his body as he began buckling on his sidearm— a reflex concession to the awareness that this was wartime and he would have to keep up some pretense of military bearing inside Naval Headquarters. A weary-looking Denton turned in the front seat to glance back at him as he struggled into his mac.

  "Shall I wait here or come along, sir?" Denton asked.

  "Why don't you catch a few winks, Denny? No sense both of us getting wet. As soon as I find out about his ship, we'll have to go down to the harbor, anyway."

  "Right, sir."

  Within minutes, Graham was making his way down to the level of the Dynamo Room, pausing several times to flash his identity card at the Royal Marines on duty. As he threaded his way through the honeycomb of smaller tunnels and galleries, nearing the nerve center of the operation, he gradually became aware of the increasing level of noise: telephones jangling, voices, the occasional harsh rasp of a priority buzzer.

  The sounds washed over him in an almost physical sensation, grating on already taut nerves as he entered the gallery doorway and excused his way past two WRNS ratings consulting over a handful of signal flimsies. The room was full of navy and khaki uniforms, chaotic sound, the dim spark of lights—red and green and amber—on the status boards that loomed around the perimeter. The acrid bite of cigarette and cigar smoke and the ozone sharpness of too much electrical equipment in the crowded space added to the Dante-esque impression of purgatory.

  With a deep breath, he hauled himself up by the psychic bootstraps and headed toward the huge plotting table in the center of the room, where junior officers and ratings of the Women's Royal Naval Service and the Women's Auxiliary Air Force— WRNS
and WAAF—pushed battle and ship markers around the map like so many solemn croupiers. Banks of telephones and wireless positions lined the room, aides shuttling the incoming' information to the plotters. Graham had been in this room at least a dozen times in the past week and still marveled that they could makeany senseof it.

  He scanned the plotting table briefly, but it soon became apparent that he would gain little of the specific information he needed from such an overall picture. The table's map was geared to troop pxDsitions on land and the location of convoys in the Channel, not to individual ships. The ships themselves were tallied on a series of boards around the room, but he had no idea where to begin looking for the status of any particular vessel.

  After a moment of fruitless perusal of the nearest board, he found a staff sergeant he recognized from briefings with the admiral, working at one of the wireless positions. The ruddy Scot's face was haggard and even a little pale, as if he had not slept recently or long enough in the past few days. When he looked up, as Graham unbuttoned his mac in the closeness of the room, it took a few seconds for the identity to register.

  "Sir John," the man acknowledged, easing his headset off the ear nearest Graham and making a notation on the clipboard in front of him. "Anything I can help you with, sir?"

  "I hope so, sergeant. I need information on a destroyer, the Grafton. Can you tell me when she's due in?"

  The man riffled quickly through the sheaf of flimsies on his clipboard, pausing several times to listen to his headset and make more hurried notations, to acknowledge, or to murmur a few words of instruction. He shook his head as he looked up again.

  "I'm afraid I can't tell you much, sir. She took on fuel yesterday around noon, but I have nothing for her in the past twelve hours." He swiveled in his chair to point across the room with a well-chewed pencil. "Why don't you check with Sergeant Matthews, down the line, sir? I think he's monitoring sea traffic. If something's happened, he should be able to tell you."

  As Graham murmured his thanks, the sergeant was already speaking to one of the tugs out in the harbor. Increasingly apprehensive, Graham made his way to the side of the indicated operator, who, as harried looking as his colleague, pushed his headset slightly from one ear and looked up briefly over the top of his glasses, though his hand continued to jot down information.

  "Sir?"

  "I'm trying to locate the Grafton. Do you have an E.T.A.?"

  ''GraftonT The man grimaced and glanced at the plot board over his shoulder to the right, thumbed a switch and spoke quietly into his microphone, then turned back to Graham as he listened to the response.

  "Sorry, colonel. I wanted to be sure I had the latest information. Grafton took a couple of torpedoes out near the Kwinte Buoy between two and three this morning. Several other ships are steaming toward the area to assist, but we don't know the extent of damage or losses yet."

  "Bloody hell, I was afraid of something like that!" Graham swore under his breath. "Did she sink?" he asked, half afraid that this, too, would be confirmed.

  Matthews shook his head. "Not yet, sir. We've lost several ships in that area during the night, but at last report she was still afloat. Until we have some light to work with, though, I'm afraid I can't give you anything more definite."

  "I see. How long until we know, then?"

  "Several hours, anyway, sir. It's close to five now, coming dawn. But it could be—oh, ten or eleven before any survivors start coming in."

  Shaking his head, Graham thanked the man and turned to search the room for someone else who might have more information. Merle Collingwood, one of the naval commanders on Ramsay's staff who had come over to the central plotting table while Graham questioned the two wireless operators, was sipping a cup of tea as he studied the blue line of the Dunkirk coastline. He gave a vague salute with his cup—the gesture of a man who is tired almost beyond functioning—as Graham stp-proached.

  "Morning, colonel. You look almost as grim as I feel. Tea?"

  "Thank you, no. I don't suppose you can give me any more details on the GrafionT

  "Grafton.'' Collingwood sighed and shook his head, looking possibly more dejected than before. "Christ, you don't believe in asking the easy ones, do you? If you know she was hit, you probably know as much as I do already. There's something about one of our own ships firing on another, but it's too soon for details on that yet." He hesitated a beat at Graham's dour expression. "Any particular reason you're asking?"

  "A very particular one."

  "But you can't talk about it."

  "Sorry."

  Collingwood shrugged. "No need to apologize to me. Gray. I wouldn't trade places with you intelligence chaps for all the commissions in the Royal Navy."

  "Smart man."

  Graham glanced at his watch, one hand rubbing at the stubble on his jaw as he considered his next move.

  Five to six hours before there was word. He would go mad if he had to spend them waiting in this room. Even less appealing was the thought of waiting in the crush and confusion by Admiralty Pier, where the evacuees were off-loading down in the harbor. The mere psychic din of that much pain and battle shock in such close proximity for so long would addle his Sight for hours, perhaps even days.

  Then he remembered the Rolls-Royce parked at the front of the Constable's Tower and the man who owned it. He would wait with William. The prince knew that Graham had been monitoring the progress of an important mission for the past week even if the identity of the agent had never been revealed. He would be delighted to be in on the mission's hopefully successful conclusion. Besides that, the prince could use some reassurance that what he was doing was useful; the past few years had included far too little of that kind of reinforcement.

  "Listen, Coll, are you going to be on duty for a while?" Graham asked, looking up at his friend again.

  "Through the morning, unless the boss pulls me for something else."

  "Good. Could you ring me at the Constable's Tower as soon as you have anything firm on the GraftonT

  "Will do."

  "Thank you. Also, if any calls should come through for me, can you patch them through as well?" he added, thinking of Audrey and the rest at Oakwood.

  "Of course. I'll brief the operators at once."

  Graham made his way back through the maze of Naval Headquarters and into the open air without further incident, but he was still uneasy as he collected Denton and walked briskly along the pedestrian path toward the tower, collar upturned against the mist.

  The significance of his dream was clearer now, though he still could not recapture any details. His instincts had been right all along; something had gone wrong. While he slept, he must have picked up something of the confusion and turmoil surrounding the attack on the Grafton and perhaps some of Michael's fear, the brief touch triggered by the earlier psychic contact. Now he longed to go back on the Second Road and try for a more solid contact. Audrey would still be monitoring, of course, but Graham was not certain she could hold onto something this chaotic.

  He knew he was foolish even to be considering such a thing. But despite the danger, he found himself examining the terrain in the shadows ahead and looking for a place that was sufficiently sheltered for him to make a quick foray. The matter was becoming urgent, and he dared not do anything of this sort once he reached the tower. The last thing he needed was William asking awkward questions. He did not want to even think about what he would do if Michael were dead or had lost what he had been sent for.

  "I need a few minutes of privacy, Denny," he murmured, touching the man's sleeve lightly and nodding toward the shadows beneath a small footbridge to their left. "See that I'm not disturbed, all right?"

  As Denton grunted agreement, Graham headed off into the darkness, singling out a particularly dense patch of shadow next to one of the timber bridge supports. He leaned his back against it and stood there listening for several seconds, hands slipped inside the pockets of his mac for warmth, then locked his knees and closed his eyes, consciously
drawing a slow, steadying breath. As he settled into a comfortable level of trance, he began to visualize himself within a ring of darkly flickering light.

  He knew he should not be doing this. Alix would be furious if she found out. If the slightest thing went wrong, alone and outside the bounds of a formal protecting circle, he knew that the best he could hope for was a blinding headache. He might also endanger his thus-far meticulous cover if, despite Denton's efforts, someone came upon him like this—and those were the more pleasant alternatives. At worst—

  He did not even want to think about the worst. The Second Road was neutral; it did not lead only toward the light. There were others just as adept as he, and even more adept, who walked other paths altogether. Hitler himself was said to be an initiate of one such black tradition that had spawned much of the racist aspect of Nazi doctrine. Furthermore, Graham's research had uncovered hints that a very powerful black adept might be actively supporting Hitler—which was one of the reasons Michael had been sent into Germany a week before.

  Michael He fastened on the image of Alix and David's younger son and let his Sight go out along the Second Road again, questing now for the Grafton and her six hundred souls, seeking some hint of their fate.