The Ocean of Time

by David Wingrove

  ‘Bodies, Otto. There was a distinct lack of bodies. Of bones and graves and, well, piece it together yourself. What is the likelihood of that? In fact, what is the likelihood – within one ancestral, genetic line – of all of this happening?’

  I open my mouth to answer, then close it. Because I realise suddenly that old Schnorr is right. At least, right in his broad reading of events. As for the detail …

  ‘How do we find them?’

  Old Schnorr laughs at that. ‘You go back. See for yourself. Work out how they were taken and where.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘They must be somewhere,’ he goes on. ‘Somewhere safe. Like this, maybe …’ And he gestures to the walls of Four-Oh that surround us.

  ‘But didn’t Horst—’

  The Meister interrupts me, for once unusually stern. ‘That’s not Horst’s job. He’s a researcher, not an agent. You want to find out what your friend Kolya is doing, you do it. After all, it’s you he killed.’

  I stare at him a moment, then look to Horst, noting the young man’s embarrassment. Then, knowing at some deeper level that he’s right, I bow, first to Schnorr and then to Horst.

  ‘Forgive me. But you can tell me where to look?’

  ‘Where and when.’ And, now that the moment has passed, old Schnorr smiles again. ‘Intriguing, eh? Makes you wonder just where he actually comes from, doesn’t it?’

  Only I think I know. I think another piece of the puzzle has just fallen into place.

  227

  I’m keen to get started, to track down Kolya and the ancestors who haven’t yet disappeared, only Hecht has other ideas.

  ‘Freisler’s seen one of their agents,’ he says, looking up from behind his screen. ‘In the Swedish camp. I want you both to go in there and take him. Question him. Find out what you can.’

  It’s not the time to argue, to say that there are more important tasks. I bow my head, then hurry to the platform where Freisler is waiting for me. He hands me a pack and a weapon – a tranquilliser gun, I note, made to look like a ‘replica’ from the age – and then steps up.

  I watch him vanish, then take my place on the circle. It’s only then, as I look about me at the room – at the concentric circles of desks that surround the platform, and at the women, seated at their posts – that I realise how intensely I’m being watched. Which is strange, because I’ve never had that feeling before, never had this sense that, somehow, all of their hopes rest on me. Or maybe I’m just imagining that. Maybe, in these tense and uncertain times, they feel this way about every agent who ventures out into the darkness of the Past.

  I turn, looking for Zarah, and see her there, at Urte’s station, leaning over the smaller, younger woman, whispering something to her. She looks up and, seeing that I’m watching her, smiles and gives a wave. That too is unusual. But I’ve barely time to register it when I’m there suddenly, among the bushes at the edge of the camp, the cold night air swirling about me. Freisler is three paces distant, his back to me, looking in at the activity around one of the campfires.

  I step alongside. Putting a finger to his lips, he points, indicating a soldier just to the right of the others, sitting with his back to a massive log. The man is dressed in the bright blue uniform of Lewenhaupt’s infantry, but even at this distance I recognise him.

  ‘Svetov,’ I say quietly.

  ‘Yes,’ Friesler whispers back. ‘Arkadi Svetov himself.’

  I confess that this once I really am surprised. Svetov is their chief agent up the line in the twenty-fourth century – in the Age of the Mechanists. Even Dankevich takes orders from him. So what is he doing here, playing the infantryman on the evening before Poltava?

  And I realise something else. He must have been in situ for some while, because these Swedish soldiers – their ‘shock troops’, famous for their use of cold steel on the battlefield – have been together the best part of a dozen years and more, and while Svetov won’t necessarily have had to have been part of it quite that long, he would most certainly have needed to be one of their comrades for a year or two simply to win their trust. These elite Swedish regiments do not recruit passing volunteers. Thus, to see him at his ease among them tells me a great deal. The Russians have been planning this a long, long time. They’ve had their agents in place all the while, waiting for us, setting their traps.

  Of which this, perhaps, is one?

  I can’t let myself believe that. Can’t start getting paranoid about them knowing our every move. I mean, how could they? Even I don’t know what I’m about to do.

  No. They were just lucky, intercepting our agents in that fashion. Hard work and numbers, that’s what it was. Yes, and sharp eyes, too.

  I look to Freisler, wondering if he’s got any kind of plan. We can’t march straight in there, that’s for sure. I’m about to ask, when Freisler turns to me.

  ‘Just stay beside me,’ he whispers. ‘You take the Swede.’ He taps my gun. ‘In the neck. I’ll take Svetov.’

  I’m about to ask what’s happening when one of the Swedes gets up and, slinging his rifle over his shoulder, calls across to Svetov. My Swedish is poor – dialect Swedish, anyway, which this soldier speaks – but it’s clear it’s their turn to patrol the camp perimeter, and as the two of them move out from the circle of the firelight, Freisler and I shadow them.

  I do as Freisler does, taking his lead, obeying his silent gestures without question, moving through the darkness of the trees until we come down into a kind of gulley, at the foot of which is a clearing and a narrow stream. We are to the right of the other two, just behind them yet no more than ten paces distant as they emerge into the clearing.

  We hear a sharp exhalation of surprise, and I see that the two are faced by a loose semi-circle of men, all of whom point weapons.

  Freisler. Five times Freisler, and all of them grinning.

  I don’t need to be told. This is the moment. Even as I raise my gun, I hear the whizz and soft smack of Freisler’s dart thudding into Svetov’s neck. My own hits the other man an instant later.

  Svetov’s hand, half raised to touch his chest and jump to safety, falls limply away as he slumps, the drug taking immediate effect.

  Beside him the other guard topples like a dummy and lies still.

  Freisler looks to himselves and nods, and one by one they vanish, leaving only us there beneath a sliver of a moon, the stream rushing and gurgling not five yards from where we stand.

  ‘Come on!’ Freisler whispers urgently. ‘We’ve twenty minutes before they’ll miss him.’ And, crouching over Svetov, he rips the man’s shirt open then takes another capsule from his belt, slots it into the dart-gun and fires it – ungently, I feel – into Svetov’s chest.

  While the antidote is taking effect, we jointly haul him up and, as I hold him up against the trunk of a birch, Freisler secures him with special cord, tying his hands behind him, his legs and arms bound tightly so he can’t escape.

  Svetov’s a big, blocky man, in his forties now, with longish flaxen hair that’s groomed in the Swedish style, and a face that’s both hard and handsome in an unorthodox way. As the antidote kicks in, Svetov lifts his head lazily and makes the kind of noise a waking sleeper makes, an incoherent slur of half-words. And then his head snaps up, his eyes coming suddenly clear and sharp.

  ‘You!’

  I smile. We’ve only met once before, when we were both young and inexperienced, but I recall his animosity towards me. It was a long time ago subjectively, and the years seem to have mellowed him, for he stares back at me now with what seems almost like respect.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want answers,’ I say. ‘And I don’t care what we have to do to get them.’

  He looks down, avoiding my eyes. ‘Okay. What do you want to know?’

  I look to Freisler, surprised. It’s not what we expected. Svetov is supposed to be a real tough nut. Not a man to offer up anything.

  ‘I want to know what your role was here. Why you were s
lotted in where you were, in Lewenhaupt’s infantry. What was the reason for that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Come on,’ Freisler says with quiet menace. ‘Save yourself the pain …’

  ‘No … I’m serious. I don’t know. I wasn’t told.’

  ‘Who do you report to?’ Freisler asks, moving up close, his face a hand’s length from Svetov’s.

  ‘The Master.’

  ‘Yastryeb, you mean?’

  But he doesn’t answer that.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ Freisler asks. ‘Why are you making all these changes? Why are you fucking with your own history?’

  Svetov smiles at that, and Freisler slaps him: a vicious, stinging blow.

  ‘I asked—’ Freisler begins.

  ‘And I heard,’ Svetov answers aggressively, pushing his face almost into Freisler’s.

  ‘Well?’ I ask, after a moment. ‘Are you going to answer?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says, with an exaggerated deliberateness, turning his head to look at me. ‘I wasn’t told.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ Freisler says, drawing his knife. ‘I think you know everything. I think—’

  ‘I think you’re full of shit!’

  Freisler punches him hard in the stomach. I wince, feeling the blow. When Svetov’s got his breath again, I crouch, and, looking up into his face, ask, ‘Why are you doing this? Why are you undermining Peter?’

  He spits blood – significantly, away from me – then meets my eyes.

  ‘We aren’t.’

  ‘You aren’t?’

  ‘I said we aren’t.’

  ‘Then who is?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Freisler explodes. He slams his fist into the side of Svetov’s head.

  ‘Don’t play fucking games!’

  Only maybe Svetov is telling the truth. Taking Freisler’s arm, I draw him away. ‘I think we should change tack,’ I say quietly, so Svetov can’t hear. ‘Find out what he does know. He must be in contact with other agents. You know how things are. There must be some word – if only rumour – as to what’s happening.’

  Freisler broods on it, then nods. There’s obviously bad blood between he and Svetov from somewhere in the past, but that doesn’t concern me right now. I want to know why Svetov – one of their most senior operatives – has been kept in the dark by Yastryeb. Because that makes no sense, unless Yastryeb for some reason doesn’t trust Svetov.

  And if that’s so, then why not simply kill him?

  Freisler turns back to Svetov. The Russian eyes him warily, like he suspects another blow at any moment, but Freisler merely stands there, hands at his sides, studying Svetov, as if to unravel him with his eyes.

  ‘So what do you know?’

  Svetov laughs. ‘Oh, that’s subtle. Real professional.’

  Freisler ignores that. ‘You know what? I could dissect you, if I wanted. Take you apart bone by bone. Draw the nerves out of your flesh like fine wires. I know how. Only I’m not sure the effort would be worth it. You clearly don’t know enough. And what does that tell you? Where does that place you in the bigger picture? You’re a big man, Arkadi. No foot soldier, you. But here you are, playing a sleeper’s meagre, lonely part, being fed scraps of information while clearly something big is going on. How does that make you feel?’ Freisler smiles. ‘I’ll tell you. It makes you feel shut out. Snubbed. Or is it worse than that? Is this a kind of … exile?’

  Svetov’s eyes flare. Not much, yet enough to show that Freisler has struck close to home. ‘The master would not do that.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why are you here? What possible reason could there be to use a man of your talents so … cheaply?’

  Svetov looks away. That clearly stings, as much as any blow. No doubt he’s brooded on this. Only I can see he has no answer, only his hurt, his growing resentment.

  Freisler sees it, too, because he hones in on it. ‘You see, we have a problem understanding just what’s happening here. Why your master should waste so many men buggering up his own history. Why he should expend so much time and effort doing our work for us.’

  Svetov is silent, but his eyes smoulder. It’s as if Freisler is articulating his own innermost thoughts. In fact, he probably wants to know why even more than we do.

  I interject. ‘He told you to be patient, didn’t he? To trust him, no matter what.’

  Svetov looks up at me, then looks away.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I say. ‘You don’t have to tell me. I know how difficult it must have been. I can see it. The two of you alone. Him telling you that he had a special task for you. One that – on the surface, anyway – was not merely unglamorous, but made little sense. Something that would make sense, only when the time came.’

  His eyes come up briefly, and I know I’ve got it right, but he still won’t answer.

  ‘I know how hard that can be, Arkadi. Know because I’ve been there.’

  ‘You don’t know anything.’

  It’s a cold, hard statement that makes me reassess things. I’ve got part of it, but not all. So what have I missed? I take a chance. ‘Does the name Reichenau mean anything to you?’

  Freisler turns and stares at me, but I press on.

  ‘Michael Reichenau? Do you know anyone by that name?’

  Svetov shakes his head.

  ‘What about Kolya?’

  Svetov shrugs, as much as he can. ‘Kolya’s a common name.’

  ‘Not so common.’

  ‘Common enough. I know three at least, across the ages.’

  It’s enough to make me wonder whether one of them is my Kolya, but I don’t pursue it. Not now, anyway. And he doesn’t seem to be hiding anything. But we’re not getting anywhere being so obtuse.

  ‘The agents Yastryeb sent in—’

  ‘What agents?’

  ‘The ones who ambushed our men.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about that.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you know that things are going wrong here? From the Russian point of view, that is.’

  Svetov’s voice is almost contemptuous. ‘I know my history.’

  ‘Then why is Yastryeb allowing it?’

  For once his silence – combined with the look on his face – suggests not resistance but an inability to answer. Svetov doesn’t know. And he burns to know. To understand what’s going on. And again that makes no sense.

  I look to Freisler. ‘What do you want to do?’

  It seems an innocent enough question, but Svetov watches us both with concern. The fact that he can’t answer makes him valueless to us. Yet we can’t just let him walk away. And even if his colleagues jump right in and change time, bringing him back to life, it’s never easy dying.

  Because you can never be absolutely sure. Not when things are happening that you just don’t understand.

  This once, however, Freisler surprises me. Reaching down, he takes another capsule from his belt – like the others, but yellow-banded – and fits it in his gun. Then, without a word, he presses the mouth of the gun to Svetov’s chest and fires.

  Svetov twitches violently. He looks to me pleadingly, then jerks again and falls limp.

  It’s an eraser. I know by the colour of the capsule. Svetov will remember none of this. He’ll wake up with a violent headache and a gap in his memory that he’ll fill with speculation. Only he won’t jump to find out why, because he’s a sleeper. Yastryeb has told him to stay.

  It’s not a permanent solution, because the first time he meets another agent he’ll tell them what happened and they’ll investigate. Only it’ll buy us time. Time, maybe, to take another of their agents and question them.

  Only this is feeling less and less right. Less and less like the Russians have a clue what they’re doing.

  Which leaves me thinking one thing.

  228

  ‘Reichenau,’ I say, before Freisler can say a word. ‘It h
as to be Reichenau.’

  Hecht looks to Freisler, who just shrugs.

  I might be wrong, of course. I might be barking up completely the wrong branch of the World Tree, only if the Russians don’t know and we don’t know, then it would seem that there has to be a third party involved somehow, and the only third party I know – the only one with a platform of their own, if Gehlen is right – is Reichenau.

  But how do we find that out?

  The answer is we don’t. Because Hecht is not convinced. He wants me to go in again, only this time back six months. He wants to drop me in alongside our two sitting agents and find out first hand what’s going on.

  ‘What if they’re waiting for me?’

  ‘The Russians or Reichenau?’ Hecht asks.

  ‘Whoever. What if they’ve done what they did to Burckel? What if they’ve surrounded them with so-called “friends”?’

  ‘Then let’s put you in there at a distance from them. You can watch them for a while. See whether the situation looks clean. Then you can go in close.’

  ‘Okay.’ But I’m asking myself why Hecht wants to send me in, and why he hasn’t done this already? He could have spared an agent for the task, and it seems such an obvious thing to have done. So why has he waited?

  Is he losing his touch?

  Looking at him, I dismiss the thought. Hecht looks as sharp, as in control, as ever. So there must be a reason. He must have a game plan, even if he’s not sharing it with me.

  Which makes me think of Svetov and Yastryeb.

  Hecht looks up at me again. ‘I want you to go and see Zarah to work out the details. Oh, and while I think of it, Meister Schnorr wanted to see you. Says he has news of your friend Kolya.’

  ‘Ah …’

  Freisler looks to me questioningly, but I’m not about to explain. Besides, I want to ask old Schnorr a few questions of my own. Things that have been nagging at me since our last little talk.

  229

  Old Schnorr welcomes me in, then, dismissing his assistants, locks the door and turns to face me again.

  ‘What I’m about to tell you, you must tell no one, understand me, Otto? It is a great secret. One that I have sworn to keep. One which, well, one which I have had to seek special permission to share with you.’