“You must be our magician,” he said.
“And you must be Bob,” Karen replied, smiling.
Dennis and Jim snickered. They seemed nice enough, though she hadn’t expected the first CIA agents she met to remind her so much of the preening boys she knew in middle school.
“The name’s Arthur,” he said. He wasn’t laughing; he glanced at Jim and Dennis and then they weren’t either. “This is BOB: Berlin Operating Base. CIA headquarters on our little island in the Red Sea. I thought they’d send your boss.”
He was blunt for a spy. “Dr. Haupt felt,” Karen said with a slight hesitation, “that I would be up to the task. Though, we weren’t exactly provided with any details on what that task would be.”
“Hazards of the job,” Arthur said. “Everything we send over the wire has a chance of ending up in Moscow.” He looked Karen over again, seemingly doubtful. “I also imagine Director Haupt wasn’t too thrilled at the idea of a return trip to the Fatherland. Not with a history like his.”
“I’m not sure what you . . .” Karen began, but Arthur wasn’t listening.
He grabbed his coat and hat. “I’ll have someone take your things to your quarters,” he said, nodding at her suitcase. “Grab whatever you need and let’s go save the free world.”
* * *
• • •
“It’s grown.”
Dennis consulted a chart. “It’s nearly two inches wide now.”
Karen had been briefed about the breach on the drive over, and “brief” certainly seemed the right word to describe it. They didn’t know much, and what they knew, they didn’t like. She wondered if Dr. Haupt would have made a different choice if he had known why the OMRD’d been called in to consult.
“Has the area been swept for interference?” she asked as she knelt by the crackling Wall. So much energy. This was magic on a scale usually only theorized. “Or checked for disruption nets? At least purged of the latent magic bleed?”
“Umm . . .” Jim said, looking around.
“Magic is not our area of expertise, Miss O’Neil,” Arthur said. With the wan light of the Wall reflecting on his skin, he looked to be made of melting wax. “That’s why you’re here. Tell us what you need and you’ll have it. But this is your show.”
Alright then. She did her best to force an image of a sneering George from her thoughts and focused on the task ahead. “What exactly are you hoping for me to do here?”
“Fix it,” Arthur said. “Or at least tell us what, or who, is taking it down.”
Right, she thought. Easy. Just fix some inexplicable problem with the most complex magic ever cast, and try not to cause a war while you’re at it. Very helpful. She flipped open her satchel and rummaged around for the necessary tools: chalk for runes and marking any existing ley lines, pulverized lime for shielding, pencil and notepad to write down the hundred questions she already had, and an apple in case she got hungry.
“Settle in, gentlemen,” she said without looking back at the agents watching her, “this is going to take a while.”
Arthur made a noise that sounded like a snort then said, “Keep me posted.” He ducked out of the makeshift tent.
Karen touched her locus and felt the nerves that had been warring in her stomach start to settle. The magic was there, just waiting for her to ask for it. The answers would be there too, she knew, if she just knew where to look. This was why she had worked so hard and put up with so much, so that she could use her gift to do something that mattered. Without that, magic was just a game and it had always been more than that to her. It was why she got out of bed in the morning, why she put up with condescending men and disapproving glances and the eye-watering headaches. Because with the right ingredients, the world bent to her will.
“Don’t you boys have something better to do than supervise me? Catching Russian spies or something like that?”
Jim chuckled; he was probably checking her out while she worked. “Nope,” he said. “Right now, this is the most important place in the world.”
Thanks, she thought. No pressure.
SEVEN
The train groaned into the station at Friedrichstraße a few minutes after dawn, but despite the early hour, none of the men in the cabin slept. This was enemy territory after all, or near enough to it, and they were at war, no matter what the politicians might claim. And these men had been honed for war.
The colonel had taken his time when selecting his assistants. Weak links were no more acceptable than failure. There had been a few mistakes when he first began his work, but they had been identified and purged. Unworthy men always revealed themselves, in time.
Kirill sat by the door. He was a young man still, though with a face of indeterminate age. A war orphan, he had been enrolled at the People’s Institute for Magical Instruction outside Murmansk when he crippled another student during magical combat training. He was expelled and sent to a labor camp. It was probably for the best; not knowing what to do with someone more powerful than them, his teachers had beat and bored him. The colonel traveled to the labor camp to meet the ill-fated boy, and had been impressed by his power and his capacity for hate. Both skills were useful and dangerous. He often found himself somewhat afraid of Kirill, which was how he knew Kirill was indispensable.
Across from him in the cramped compartment was Leonid, his solid arms crossed over his massive chest. They had met in the ruins of war. Germany’s surprise suicidal invasion had burned across Russia for months but had mired in an unyielding Soviet winter. Despite presenting a temptingly large target for German snipers among the blasted rubble, Leonid had proven astonishingly difficult to kill. When the momentum swung back toward Berlin, the colonel and Leonid had ridden it together, and together had repaid in full measure the blood debt on Germany for its crimes. Leonid had no magical aptitude, but even Kirill gave the big man a wide berth. Across his cheek and nose, he wore a permanent reminder of those unpleasant days: a large curved scar, an unwelcome gift from a German bomb.
It was Leonid who broke the hours-long silence. “What do we do first?” he said. There was little formality among them. Rank had its uses, but his connection and control of his team went far deeper than any insignia on his collar could muster.
“Containment,” he said. “The West knows little, and we must keep it that way.”
The train shuddered and stopped. It could no longer be avoided: they were in Berlin. “Both of you go to Karlshorst and review their files on known Western agents operating in East Berlin. Monitor the checkpoints. They will come. They must. And when they do, you will be waiting. We will know what they know. And ensure they do not learn more.”
Leonid grunted. “And where will you go?”
He looked out the window, nearly opaque with grime. “We are guests in a foreign land,” he said. He recalled drinking fouled water from blasted craters, the whine of German artillery shells falling on a city they had already reduced mostly to char, and the first time he had seen German pyromancers at work on a squad of unprepared Russian infantry. It was the smell that lingered in his thoughts. He had not been able to eat meat since. “I will show our hosts the respect they are due.”
* * *
• • •
“My apologies, Colonel, but we were not informed of your arrival. If the proper communication channels had been utilized, then we would be in a better position to offer assistance.” The man who sat across the meager desk from him had a forgettable face, a perfunctory smile, and narrowed eyes that did not seem to blink. He spoke softly, but clearly enough to be heard. His hands were always in motion when he was speaking, but never enough to distract. His office was small, neat, and precise. He was, it seemed, perfectly suited to be the spymaster for the German Ministry of State Security.
“Perhaps,” he continued, that smile almost a taunt, “I can contact my colleagues at the Administration for the Use of Magic and t
hey will be able to offer their input into this matter.” He reached for the flesh-colored telephone on his desk, but the colonel placed his hand on the receiver.
“I have been misunderstood,” he said. He had not slept well on the train, though in truth he had not slept well in many nights. Sleep, it appeared, was only for the young. “I have not come to ask for your assistance. It was your assistance that has led us to this unfortunate situation.”
The man’s smile wavered. The eyes narrowed further. “Every report I have seen on this project shows it to be a remarkable success so far. We have every confidence. Every confidence. Besides, Colonel, need I remind you that this project belongs to the German Democratic Republic.”
“As will the failures,” he said. “And their consequences.”
Nearly a minute came and went with only the dull buzz of the lightbulbs to disturb the silence. Then the director abandoned his smile and asked simply, “Then why are you here?”
“You and I met once before,” the colonel said. “It was some years ago, in Moscow. Nineteen forty-nine. You had not yet completed your ascension to power, but I clearly remember you. It is said that you are elusive. It is said that you fashion yourself a man who stays in the shadows, a worker of string in a world of puppets. It is said that you are skilled. That your people fear you. That the West fears you.”
He watched his words, no more magical than the headlines of Pravda, do their work on this great man of the German Democratic Republic. Magic was a vital tool, yet he would not walk into a building like House 1 of the Ministry of State Security, so interlaced with magical wards that it was difficult to breathe, without other tools at his disposal.
“I am afraid,” the director said, those raptor eyes masking uncharacteristic unease, “that I do not remember you.”
“Nor would I expect you to. I do not say that because I am a humble man nor because I believe myself unremarkable.” The colonel leaned forward. He realized his hand was on his pocket watch, a reflex, but unnecessary here. “I say this to make a point: there are two types of forgettable men in this world, those who are elusive and those who are unknown. An elusive man can do many things, as I am certain you know. He can unseat kings. He can topple empires.”
He felt the ticking of time against the palm of his hand. Now he allowed himself a smile. “But an unknown man,” he said, “such a man can do anything.”
He stood and turned for the door. Enough time wasted on politicians.
“Colonel, a moment.” The director had let his voice take on the tone of a man who was unaccustomed to defiance. A weakness. “You did not answer my question. Why are you here?”
“Comrade Director,” he said with a sigh, “let me speak plainly, for my time is valuable. I am here in Berlin to clean up your mess. I am here in your office to tell you to stay out of my way.”
* * *
• • •
The apartment building was just far enough away from the Wall to have escaped the purge. Those too close to the Wall had been evacuated “for the protection and safety of its inhabitants” after a man died attempting to jump from a rooftop into West Berlin. Shortly thereafter, they had been demolished to make way for the guard towers and sandpits. But this building survived and to any observer (and in Berlin there were always observers) it was unremarkable. Men and women came and went. Lights in the windows turned on and off. Garbage accumulated in its alleys. It was nearly impossible to tell the upper floors were abandoned, the lower floors were occupied by security forces, and the basement area was a research facility for the East German Administration for the Use of Magic.
The colonel was ushered inside through a covered back entrance and quickly escorted to the basement. He did not speak to the guards, nor the assistants who met him at the rune-scrawled door. They were gears in the machine: vital but replaceable. They did not need to know him or his purpose.
“Colonel, welcome to our facility.” The speaker was a trim, neatly groomed, tired-looking German man nearing sixty. His hands were steady, his eyes alert, his gait unhindered; unlike many men of his generation, he appeared to have survived Germany’s wars unscathed. He spoke Russian with little trace of a German accent and did not bother to smile as he invited the colonel into a makeshift library.
“Comrade Ehle,” the colonel said as he inspected the spines of the tomes neatly arranged on nearby shelves. “Your earlier work is known to me.” Though his eyes were on the books, he did not fail to notice how his words landed hard on his host. For some men, their past was the heaviest burden they would ever bear.
“And your reputation is known to me, Colonel,” Ehle said carefully. Interesting. He was well informed. The colonel wondered from where that information came.
“How progresses the operation here?” he asked, switching the conversation to German.
“Slowly,” Ehle said. He stood near the center of the room, his arms at his sides. He was nervous but attempting not to show it. Something to hide? Or perhaps he knew more about the colonel’s reputation than he should. “As I have clearly stated in my monthly reports. This is no small matter you have commissioned, Colonel. We did our original work well. You cannot expect us to undo it easily.”
“I am here,” he said as he extracted a book from the shelf, “because there is a concern that you have not reported everything, at least, not to Moscow.” The book felt weighty in his hands. It was bound in leather and filled with old, thick paper, the way books ought to be made.
“Your support has been greatly appreciated in this effort,” Ehle said. He was now staring at the book. “We have no reason to hide results from you.”
“Perhaps not,” he said. He opened the book to the title page. The book was an eighteenth-century treatise written by a German magician on the study of magical containment fields. “But perhaps you have a reason to hide failures.”
“Failures? This project has been nothing but a series of failures since we began. I have not hidden this.”
“Unintended successes then.”
Before the colonel realized it, Ehle had crossed the distance between them and snatched the book from his hand, replacing it carefully on the shelf. “Colonel, you doubtlessly have many duties pressing on your time. Perhaps I can be of more assistance if you state your concerns directly.”
The colonel did not trust this man. He was accustomed to distrusting anyone outside of his team, but something about Ehle sharpened that sense. At present he had no reason other than instinct, but at present, instinct was enough.
“The Wall, Comrade. The Wall which maintains order in this cursed city that is waiting to be ravaged again by war.”
“I am familiar with the Wall, Colonel.”
“There is a breach, Herr Ehle,” he said. “Near Sebastianstraße. The West has discovered it. Now they are asking questions, questions that might lead them to look where they would otherwise not. Questions that will undermine this entire project before it can be brought to fruition.”
The color drained from Ehle’s face as the colonel spoke. If this was an act, he was a skilled performer. “A breach? Where?”
“Did you cause it?”
“No,” he said, “it is not possible.” The attempt at confidence was gone now. “Our work is progressing, both on the Wall and the barriers beyond it. But we have not . . . the Wall should not have been affected.”
The colonel took out his pocket watch. The day was already half gone with little to show for it. These Germans may be content to waste their time and plead excuses, but not him. The Chairman would want to hear of results, of progress. He felt the magic stirring in his fingertips, felt it itching his tongue. He wondered how Ehle would respond to his spells. Their records stated he had been a great magician once; the colonel was not certain what he was now. A relic. A formality. But it did not matter. His services were required by the Party and so he was safe. Useful men, with few exceptions, wer
e spared his severe attentions.
“Your task remains unchanged. The timeline, however, has accelerated. Slow progress and no progress are two paths to the same unpleasant destination. I am only interested in complete success, and I am very interested.”
Ehle gathered himself. The colonel wondered what calculations this experienced mind had been doing. “We will redouble our efforts,” Ehle said, speaking in Russian once again. “And we will keep Moscow informed on our swift progress.”
“You will keep me informed,” he said, in German. “I intend to remain to see this work to its end, Herr Ehle.”
EIGHT
The American met her where he always did: along Oranienburgerstraße, not far from the river, just after 10:00 P.M. He wore what he always wore: a long coat and a cheap red scarf that matched his hair. He smiled, again like always, and when he did he looked like he was ten years old. The other girls rolled their eyes at his terrible German and laughed at him behind his back, but she nodded and led him away, grateful to be out of the cold, if only for a few minutes.
Her apartment was a single room. A curtain hid the toilet and a threadbare quilt was draped over the ancient bed as though it were covering a corpse. Unwelcome light snuck in from a streetlamp by her tiny window. She did not bother to switch on her own bulb. Instead she lit a cigarette in the semidark.
“Cold night,” he said. He was barely visible in the gloom.
She exhaled gray smoke. “They are all cold nights.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed. The springs complained under even his slight weight. She stood with her back pressed against the far wall. She did not fear him, but neither did she like having him in her home.
“Your man can’t keep you off the streets?”
“Which? I have many men,” she said.
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