The Coldest War

by Ian Tregillis

  Marsh said, “Thought you’d want to know we sent a team to the solicitor’s office. Another to keep an eye on the flat you identified as Reinhardt’s.”

  Klaus didn’t bother to hide his skepticism. “You’ve captured him?”

  “There’s no sign of him.”

  Klaus sighed. It was too much to hope for.

  “She warned him, didn’t she?”

  “I don’t know.” Klaus shrugged. “Yes.”

  “Our men had slightly better fortune with the solicitor. They spoke with a chap who remembers a man and woman matching your descriptions. Thus far, your story holds water.”

  “I have told you the truth.”

  “Apparently he remembered you quite vividly.”

  “The wires,” said Klaus, absently fingering the bundle that dangled over his shoulder.

  “Yes.” Marsh frowned, as if something had just occurred to him. More quietly, he said, “Are they painful?”

  Klaus blinked. Nobody had ever asked him that before. Nobody had ever worried about his comfort. Who was this strange man? “No. Not any longer.”

  Marsh nodded. “Your solicitor friend claims he received one letter, preaddressed, to be posted on the following day.”

  Klaus nodded. “Gretel wrote two letters. The first she posted herself. The second she gave to the solicitor.”

  “Our problem is that the second letter has already gone out.” Marsh’s expression became very serious. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I need to know the contents of that letter, Klaus. What does your sister want Reinhardt to do?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Where did the second letter go? Where is he?”

  “I do not know. It wasn’t addressed to Reinhardt, but probably it was intended for him.”

  “If you’re holding something back,” said Marsh, his voice harder than the bricks that built their garden prison, “I’d advise you to rethink it.”

  “I’ll never help her again.” Frustration—buried for so long, it might have been fossilized—came surging back to the surface. Something else rode along with it. Something worse. He was alone in the world. He had no friends, no allies, nothing in which to take pride. The Götterelektron had made him insubstantial, but it was the circumstances of his life and his poor decisions that had rendered him a ghost.

  But that was too much to admit to this stranger. “I’m ashamed of myself for trusting her as long as I did.”

  Marsh mulled this over. Almost gently, he asked, “Your Reichsbehörde file describes you as fiercely protective of her. What changed?”

  Klaus hadn’t noticed it earlier, but Marsh pronounced the German flawlessly. No, you’re clearly more than a gardener, thought Klaus. You learned German just as we learned to speak English. The natural symmetry of enemies. But we aren’t enemies now. We aren’t friends. What are we?

  Marsh pressed his point. “Why turn on her after all these years?”

  Klaus ran a hand along the pitted bronze of the sundial. Such a lovely, subtle color. Why did he turn his back on Gretel? Even though he’d made his decision and knew he was right, it was an uncomfortable thing to articulate. Saying it aloud was an admission that he’d been a blind fool for most of his wasted life.

  Klaus sat heavily on the bench, gazing at the space between his shoes. He was quiet for a long time. Marsh didn’t interrupt his thoughts. When Klaus did speak again, the weakness in his voice surprised him.

  “My sister is a terrible person. I’ve denied it for too long.”

  Marsh matched his quiet tone. “But you must have known she had anticipated your rebellion.”

  This was a question for which Klaus did have an answer, because he’d thought about it a great deal. “That doesn’t free me from doing what I think is right.”

  “Hmmm,” said Marsh. He looked thoughtful.

  They sat on the bench without speaking, the ex-Nazi and the British spy. The starlings returned. Wind rustled the leaves of the dying maple tree.

  “Why is she obsessed with me?” said Marsh.

  “I don’t know why she did what she did to your daughter.” Klaus hesitated, unsure of himself and where he stood with Marsh. “I’ve rarely learned her reasons for the things she does. And when I have, I sometimes find it was easier not knowing.” He shook his head, thinking again of poor Heike. Marsh raised an eyebrow at this, but Klaus didn’t feel up to explaining that entire story.

  “It’s more than my daughter,” said Marsh. “It started before that. In Spain.” Klaus blinked. Marsh said, “We crossed paths in Barcelona, the three of us. And then again in France, Gretel and I. She wanted to be captured, didn’t she?”

  “She deserted us that night. You caught her?”

  “Yes.” Again that little smile appeared on Marsh’s face. Rueful, Klaus decided. “And I was there when you rescued her.”

  Klaus remembered a long chase through the Admiralty cellar. But he also remembered the tables turned several months later. When he chased a man across the grounds of the Reichsbehörde, moonlit snow crunching underfoot, gunfire and explosions echoing around them. That was the night he inhaled the phosphorus smoke that scarred his sinuses.

  “You were at the farm the night the doctor died.”

  Marsh said, “Yes.” He watched Klaus warily.

  “It was for the best,” Klaus admitted. “He was … as bad as my sister, in his own way.”

  Spain. That felt like a lifetime ago. It was.

  He shook his head at the perversity of the situation.

  Gretel truly was obsessed with this man. The poor, poor bastard.

  “I didn’t realize her preoccupation ran so deeply. I do not envy you.”

  What are we? Two unwilling chips in Gretel’s game.

  The door creaked open. Pembroke stepped into the garden. “There you are,” he said around the pipe clenched in his teeth. He removed the pipe and glanced at the sky. “I see why. Lovely day.”

  Marsh turned to Klaus. Just loud enough to ensure that Pembroke would hear him, he said, “Pass mal seinetwegen auf. Der glaubt das er Gretel versteht.”

  Be careful around him. He believes he understands Gretel.

  As Klaus suspected, Marsh’s German was perfect.

  Pembroke looked bemused. He said, in Russian better than Klaus’s,

  Whatever he may have told you, Klaus, keep in mind it’s not he in charge of our little family, but me.

  seven

  27 May 1963

  Walworth, London, England

  The doorbell chimed while they bathed John. Marsh knelt on the floor, ignoring the ache in his knee while he held his son’s ankles in the lukewarm water of an aluminum washbasin. Liv ran a sponge across John’s bare shoulders and back. Soap dripped into Marsh’s hair.

  John fidgeted. Water sloshed, dousing Marsh’s sleeves where he’d rolled them above the elbow. He tightened his grip and peered down through the gray water. John needed his nails trimmed.

  The doorbell chimed again. “Oh, sod off,” said Liv under her breath. She handed the sponge to Marsh, who wrung it out in the basin and handed it back. The slightly caustic scent of the soap masked the odor from John’s body and the stuffiness of the room. Soundproofing covered the windows, so the room had little in the way of ventilation. Leaving the door open was not an option.

  On the third chime, Marsh said, “Please get the door before it drives us mad. I’ll hold John for a moment.”

  Liv dropped the sponge into the basin. She stepped out of the room, drying her hands on the towel slung over her shoulder. She didn’t close the door behind her. A moment later, the stairs creaked.

  John sniffed. His head swayed back and forth as he sampled the stale air, eyes like flawless white pearls drifting aimlessly inside their sockets. He snuffled at his shoulder, where Liv had touched him.

  “She’s just stepped out, son.”

  John’s mouth dropped open. He began to moan.

  “Shhh, shhh.”

  The moans rose in pitch an
d intensity every time John paused to refill his lungs. Soon he would be screeching.

  Marsh released John’s ankles and stood. “It’s all right. She’s coming back.” He crossed the room to close the door so that the visitor downstairs wouldn’t hear John. Leave it to Liv to neglect the door just when John decided to have one of his episodes.

  Marsh heard the splash and slapping of bare soles on the floorboards a fraction of a second too late. He tried and failed to slam the door before John bolted past him. It hit John and swung back, sure to leave a bruise.

  Sightless, mindless, heedless of his nudity, John charged into the corridor. Marsh followed. He grasped at John, but the soap had left his skin too slick to hold. John smacked face-first into the frame of Liv’s bedroom door. The impact sent him sprawling backwards. Floorboards rattled as he landed on his back. It knocked the wind out of John, bringing a moment’s respite from his howling.

  “John!” Marsh kneeled over him, checking for wounds and bruises. He worried that John may have shattered his nose; if that were the case, they’d have to take him to the hospital, and that could only end in disaster. But John had taken the brunt of the impact on his forehead. He’d have a terrible bruise there, to match the bruises along his arm and torso where the door had hit him. Marsh felt monstrous for that.

  The stairs creaked again. Liv stood a few steps below the landing, at Marsh’s eye level. She looked at John.

  “Is that what you call holding him?”

  “You left the bloody door wide open,” Marsh said. “Why must the simplest bit of cooperation escape you?”

  “One minute!” she yelled, her face carnation pink with anger. “You couldn’t hold him for one minute. You can’t do anything without my help.”

  John found his voice again. He howled.

  “Your help? I’m the one who feeds John every evening while you’re tarting up in the vain hope some drunken tosser will find you attractive.”

  That took the fight out of her. Liv’s lip trembled. Her eyes gleamed, on the verge of overflowing with tears.

  There had been a time when he would have laid out any man who spoke so cruelly to Liv. Back when they had been partners. Lovers. Before the love had soured to apathy, then fermented to a vinegar hatred. They were as sharks, constantly circling each other, constantly testing the water for the first taste of blood.

  There was only one other person in the world to whom he’d speak with such malice. How had Liv and Gretel come to occupy the same category in his mind? When had that happened? Perhaps he was a monster.

  Seeing the pain and shame so plain on her face hurt him worse than any retort she could have hurled in return.

  “Liv. I didn’t—”

  “You have a visitor,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper as she struggled to keep her composure. Then she turned and stomped down the stairs, brushing roughly past Pethick, who had seen everything. A moment later the door to the dining room slammed, hard enough to jostle the framed photographs hanging over the stairs.

  Pethick stared at John, who had gone back to snuffling and mewling. He struggled to find his voice. “I’ve come at a bad time. I’m truly sorry.” He turned to leave.

  “It’s always a bad time,” said Marsh. He sighed, deeply ashamed that any outsider would get such an intimate glimpse of his home. This was a family issue, not something for strangers. Especially a man he’d known for less than a month. “Well, you’re here now. Lend a hand.”

  “How?”

  Marsh pulled John to his feet, gently guided him back toward the soundproofed room. “Stand in the door. Don’t let him past you, if he runs.”

  Pethick followed Marsh and John down the corridor. He stopped short when he noticed the series of locks on the door, but then after a moment’s pause he turned away, pretending he hadn’t seen anything unusual. Marsh checked John for broken bones and cracked teeth, but found none. That was a small mercy. He rinsed the soap from John’s skin, so that it wouldn’t dry and itch. Then he kissed his son on the forehead and dragged the washbasin from the room. John settled in the corner in the fetal position, banging his head against the wall.

  “The basin?” asked Pethick, while Marsh flipped through his key ring.

  “I’ll empty it later,” said Marsh. He threw the locks on John’s door with a rapid clack-clack-clack that came from years of practice. “Follow me,” he said.

  Downstairs, Marsh paused briefly at the dining room door. Liv’s quiet sobbing sounded from inside. He knocked, cleared his throat. “I’ve taken care of John. I’m stepping outside.”

  She didn’t answer.

  It was humid in the shed. Pethick surveyed the setting with a few quick, cursory glances. He seemed a smart chap; the significance of the cot, the books, the electric hot plate, and the dirty dishes couldn’t have been lost on him. Not after what he’d seen inside. But he had enough class to pretend he hadn’t seen straight to the necrotic heart of Marsh’s home life.

  But it didn’t make Marsh feel any less lowly, didn’t cut the stinger from this humiliation. At Milkweed, Marsh was somebody respected. Something of a legend, Pembroke had said. But now here he was with his feet of clay where Pethick could see it all.

  Marsh pulled out the stool for his visitor and perched on the edge of the cot. He couldn’t bring himself to make eye contact with Pethick; he didn’t want to see the disgust and pity there. “Well? What is it? You’re not here for a social call.”

  “Lincolnshire Poacher is moving,” said Pethick. “Beauclerk’s ersatz defection has roused the network.”

  Marsh allowed himself a small smile. This was a welcome bit of good news on what had been a wretched day thus far. “It worked, then. Where did the signals chaps pinpoint the transmitter? In the embassy?”

  “Ah.” Pethick looked uncomfortable. “They haven’t.”

  “What do you mean, ‘They haven’t’? You’ve just told me it worked.”

  “I said Cherkashin’s network is showing signs of activity. But we haven’t heard a peep of transmission.”

  Marsh rubbed his eyes. It was a mistake; he must have had a bit of soap on his fingertips. Sarcastically, he said, “Were you listening?”

  “I promise you that every antenna from here to Wales has been waiting with bated breath for Cherkashin’s people to call home. If they’d so much as cleared their throats, we would have heard.”

  “But they haven’t.”

  “No.”

  Marsh pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his stinging, watering eyes. “What evidence have you?”

  Pethick said, “They’re preparing a safe house, in Lyminster. We’ve had an eye on it for a number of years. It had been dormant until yesterday.”

  “Makes sense,” said Marsh. “They’d need someplace to keep Will until they’re ready to bundle him out of the country.”

  “That was our conclusion.”

  Marsh shook his head. “They don’t need Moscow to tell them to set up a safe location for Will. Perhaps they’re still running silently.”

  “They can’t get Beauclerk out of the country without help from the Continent,” said Pethick. “Something like this requires coordination. And,” he said, producing a grainy aerial photograph from his pocket, “three days ago, this vessel broke off from the tail end of a shipping convoy rounding the Bay of Biscay. It’s been lurking just outside the Channel Islands since Saturday.”

  Marsh dabbed at his eye until he could see well enough to study the photograph. The aerial photo showed a dark blur on a gray sea, the silhouette of a Soviet vessel. Marsh’s service as a naval officer had been long before the Soviet navy became a menace to the British Empire, so identifying the vessel was a matter of guesswork. The old man had always kept a jeweler’s loupe on hand for things like this. But if Marsh had to venture a guess, he’d say the mystery ship was a corvette: a fast, armed fleet escort vessel.

  “Shit,” said Marsh.

  It meant Ivan didn’t intend to take any chances by flying
Will out of the country. Coastal antiaircraft measures could legitimately shoot down an unmarked airplane in British airspace. But boarding—or, God forbid, sinking—a Soviet warship in international waters was the stuff of shooting wars.

  They probably intended to take Will out to sea in a small craft, something that wouldn’t appear on radar. Once across the maritime boundary, they’d be free to rendezvous with the corvette. Or, Marsh surmised, if they truly wanted to wind us up, the ship could be a decoy. They could be planning to pull Will out by submarine as well.

  Marsh strained to read the calendar tacked above his workbench. “Five days. Not enough time for a diplomatic pouch to make the round trip to Moscow.”

  “No.”

  “Yet Cherkashin has been in touch with his superiors.”

  “Clearly.”

  “And we’ve missed the burst transmission.”

  “Yes.”

  In other words, they’d lost their opportunity to roll up the network and isolate Cherkashin’s man.

  “What chance have we,” said Marsh, “of drawing this out? Get Will to drag his feet a bit more?”

  Pethick took the photograph from Marsh and tucked it back in his pocket. “Ivan’s getting ready to move him very soon. I suspect further evasions by Beauclerk will be viewed suspiciously.”

  The fatigued cot springs creaked when Marsh shifted his weight to stretch. “I feared as much.”

  Pethick said, “Our guests might know more about this.”

  “Klaus? I doubt it,” said Marsh. “Gretel does, but she’s immune to coercion. Von Westarp, the Schutzstaffel, and the NKVD couldn’t break her in over forty years of continuous effort. We won’t manage in a handful of days.”

  “They’ll want to move him. Sooner rather than later. We need to do something before they call his bluff.” Pethick frowned. “It is a bluff, is it not?”

  Marsh said, “William Beauclerk is naïve as the day is long. But I do believe him when he says he did what he did for purposes of revenge, not ideology.”

  “The Soviets won’t care if he’s a willing defector or not, if they see a chance to send him to Moscow. I don’t know him as you do, but I suspect he’d crumble under their questioning.” Pethick shrugged. “If they get him, he’ll tell them everything he knows about Eidolons and Enochian.”