The Coldest War

by Ian Tregillis

  Their situation—assuming they still lived—was almost certainly worse than Klaus’s. And they deserved it even less. Helping them could be an atonement for the foolish man he’d been in his youth. Another break with his past, more freedom from the anchors holding him down.

  But Marsh’s plan was reckless. The man didn’t understand just how dangerous it was. The slightest miscalculation and … Marsh had never seen somebody swallowed forever by the cold earth. Klaus had. Of all the terrible ways death could take a person, live burial was the only one to give Klaus screaming nightmares.

  Thinking of all the ways the plan could go wrong set Klaus’s breath to puffing in desperate gasps. He didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t have to. It was moot.

  The setting sun cast Marsh’s shadow across the easel. Klaus said, “You’re in my light.”

  Marsh stepped closer to the sundial at the center of the safe house garden. “Well? What do you think?”

  I think you’re a madman, thought Klaus. I think your plan is reckless. And that you’re gambling with my life.

  But he said, “We had an agreement.”

  “We still do,” said Marsh. “I’ve been trying to discuss it with Pembroke ever since leaving the hospital. He hasn’t been in.”

  “You might have mentioned it to him before you nearly died. How convenient it would have been if you’d taken our agreement to the grave.”

  Yes, Marsh was angry. He opened his mouth as if to argue, but stopped himself. He collected his thoughts, calmed himself with visible effort. “Yes. You’re right. I ought to have reported it to Pembroke before we went to Will’s house. Now. I am asking for a favor. It is the last thing I will ask of you. We already owe you a new identity. If you help me with this, I will personally go around Pembroke and see it done the same day. You will never have to see your sister again.”

  Klaus should have been released from the safe house by now. He would have been, if Marsh had kept his word. He’d risked his life in the belief he’d be, if not exactly free by now, no longer cooped up with his sister. Independent.

  “I don’t know if I can trust you,” he said.

  “Oh, you can, brother.”

  The kitchen door creaked shut behind Gretel. She strode across slate paving stones on bare feet. The hem of her skirt exposed bony ankles, the olive skin spiderwebbed with darker veins. She stopped before an azalea bush. It was in full bloom, a riot of lavender blossoms. She leaned forward and pushed her face into the mass of flowers. Her chest swelled with breath; she let it out with a rapturous sigh.

  Gretel set to work on the bush, delicately trimming away blossoms with a pair of scissors. She had picked up her old hobby of drying and pressing flowers. One of her arrangements stood on the kitchen windowsill. Madeleine had scrounged up the vase.

  “Our Raybould is a man of his word,” Gretel said.

  They ignored her. Klaus asked Marsh, “You believe both Twins are alive?”

  “Yes.”

  “If I did this, it would be for them.” Those poor, helpless girls. It ate at Klaus, that he’d willfully forgotten them for the sake of his own comfort. “But it’s pointless. I can’t. My battery died in the battle at William’s house.” The technicians at the REGP had designed the lithium-ion batteries to be rechargeable, but that required special equipment. Klaus felt no disappointment.

  Marsh unzipped the satchel he’d carried into the garden. Klaus recognized at once the final battery he and Gretel had stolen from the Arzamas vault. The gauge indicated a nearly full charge. It must have been the battery Gretel had worn on the day they turned themselves in. She’d never used it. Conveniently.

  Klaus chewed his lip, thinking. Was it worth the risk? Klaus was willing to do almost anything in order to end his life as a prisoner. But Marsh’s plan was profoundly dangerous. Given the choice, and if not for Gretel, Klaus would rather rot here than risk suffocating somewhere beneath London. But not risking it, not granting Marsh’s favor, meant losing another chance to escape her. It was no choice at all.

  What the hell, he thought.

  “Gretel,” he said. She glanced up from the azaleas. He steeled himself before looking in her eyes. “Tell me the truth. Will this work?”

  Did she look sad? Amused? Concerned? Mischievous? Damn that sphinx.

  She gathered her flowers and scissors in one hand. The other hand she laid on his elbow. “Yes. You will have a safe landing.”

  “And after?”

  “You’ll get what you want.” Her eyes gleamed. “As will we all.”

  She said it the way she announced every prophecy. Baldly. Matter-of-factly. Did he believe her? If this were true, he’d never again have to watch the shadows coiling behind her dark eyes.

  “Well,” said Marsh. “There you have it, then.” His old voice would have dripped with sarcasm. His new voice didn’t allow such subtleties.

  Klaus turned away from her. To Marsh, he said, “I want to leave the moment it’s finished. Whether or not this works, I will not return here.”

  “Done.”

  The sun had fallen behind the garden wall. It meant an end to painting for the day; the best light was gone.

  “Walk me through your plan. Every step,” said Klaus.

  Marsh said, “There’s a map in the house.”

  * * *

  To Marsh’s credit, Klaus found no obvious problems with the plan, no showstoppers. Except, of course, the sheer reckless audacity of it.

  Klaus required three pieces of equipment for his part in the operation. The battery worked. As did the net and the wristwatch.

  Marsh’s plan required only a few seconds of Willenskräfte. But they had to be perfectly synchronized and executed with precision. Klaus practiced until dozens and dozens of trial runs, flickering in and out of substantiality, threatened to damage the aged battery. The gauge needle dropped with every rehearsal. Klaus called an end to practice before the battery became unstable.

  After that, the only thing left was to wait for nightfall. So preoccupied was he with preparations that it wasn’t until evening when he realized the sun had risen and set on the last day he’d ever see his sister. If the plan worked, Marsh would let him leave. If it failed, he’d be dead.

  The thought swirled up a turbulent cascade of emotions. No regret. No remorse. But melancholy, and wistfulness, and a sense that this was closure without catharsis. The great, long journey of his life was coming to an end, soon to be replaced by the beginning of another. For good or ill, Gretel had been his traveling companion—more honestly, the captain, the driver—from the time of his earliest memories. And now he’d be going on without her.

  He felt excited by the prospect, but to his surprise, it also saddened him. Not because he’d soon see the last of her, but because in the end she hadn’t been the sister he’d thought she was.

  Klaus knocked on her door a few hours before leaving with Marsh. He’d nap until just before they departed. He didn’t need to pack; they’d come to England with a few batteries, a handful of money, and the clothes on their backs. He was sorry he couldn’t take the books and painting supplies Madeleine had kindly provided, but he wasn’t about to take keepsakes on a mission.

  Klaus smiled to himself. The very suggestion would have caused Standartenführer Pabst to choke on indignation. Strange. He hadn’t thought about Pabst in many, many years.

  Gretel said, “Come in, Klaus.”

  How rare for her to address him by name. She knew why he’d come.

  Opening the door released a whiff of attar into the corridor. She’d decorated her room with flowers from the garden. She sat cross-legged on her bed. Her blossoms stood in milk bottles and hung skewed from tacks in the walls. Spindly stems poked from books, like wax paper sandwiches pressed between volumes of T. S. Eliot.

  “I came to say good-bye,” he said.

  She watched him. She didn’t move, or speak, or blink.

  He sighed and turned away.

  “Wait,” she said.

&
nbsp; He faced her again. “Well?”

  Gretel stood. She said, “I’m remembering this. Remembering you as you are at this moment. For the past.”

  “Good-bye, Gretel.”

  She did something he didn’t expect: She hugged him. Tightly. And kissed him on the cheek.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Warmth? Humanity? Hints of a soul? Where had Gretel hidden it all these years? Damn her.

  Klaus knew, much as he tried to convince himself otherwise, that he’d miss her. Even though he’d stopped loving her, part of him would still miss her. But he’d made his choice. Nothing to do now but move forward.

  He passed Madeleine’s door on the way downstairs. He hesitated, considered saying good-bye to her, too. No. Starting over meant a clean break.

  Marsh woke him an hour past midnight. Klaus made one final test of his equipment before climbing into the Morris parked on the street outside the safe house. He sat in the rear, on the passenger side. He buckled his lap belt, knowing he’d need it. The tight pressure on his stomach worsened the anxiety.

  The early hour made for a quick drive into the heart of the city. London was deep in its slumber. Streetlights illuminated a city devoid of human activity. It wasn’t difficult to imagine it had been emptied by evacuation, or plague. The few cars they passed might have been ghosts roaming through a silent cityscape.

  “We’re almost there,” said Marsh. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes.” Klaus’s stomach was so full of butterflies that he half expected one to escape when he opened his mouth.

  Buckingham Palace loomed over them as they zipped past the gate. Klaus glimpsed gold and iron gleaming in the light of electric torches. Marsh took the car through a roundabout surrounding an immense piece of statuary; Klaus guessed it was a memorial to a past monarch.

  They skirted St. James’ Park for a few heartbeats. Strange, thought Klaus. That park was like a lodestone, drawing him back again and again. Marsh wrenched the wheel, and they plunged into the jumble of London streets.

  He brought the car to a halt a few minutes later. They idled at the curb. Marsh lifted the handset of the two-way wireless mounted under the fascia. He announced, “In position.” Then he hung the handset back on its cradle.

  “Remember. Three seconds,” Marsh said.

  “I remember,” said Klaus. But he checked the wristwatch just the same. “Do you remember your part?”

  “Yes.”

  “And our agreement?”

  Marsh opened the glove compartment. He pulled out a thin valise of burgundy leather. “Cash, identity papers, and the lease for a flat in Aylesbury. Just remember it’ll take me a few minutes to ditch the car and get back to the park.” He returned the valise to the glove compartment.

  The radio squawked to life. “One, clear.” It meant traffic was clear on Half Moon Street. A moment later a different voice said, “Two, clear.” Nothing coming down Piccadilly, either.

  A third voice said, “Go.” And Marsh did.

  He slammed the car into gear, hard enough to shove Klaus back into his seat. The underpowered Morris engine whined in protest. Klaus concentrated on his breathing, trying not to let the butterflies overwhelm him as the car finally picked up speed and careered around the corner onto Half Moon. The maneuver would have sent him sliding across the seat—and out of alignment—if he hadn’t fastened the belt.

  They passed the first traffic barrel set out by the impostor road crews. It was an acceleration marker. But Marsh didn’t break off, meaning he had the car up to speed.

  The embassy appeared through the windshield. It grew larger by the moment.

  They flew past the second barrel. Marsh didn’t waver.

  The engine hum rose in pitch as they climbed the subtle incline left behind by the SIS road work. This was the final alignment. Klaus laid a finger on his wristwatch.

  The embassy looked much larger than Klaus had imagined. It dwarfed all the arguments he’d used to convince himself this was a good idea. It wasn’t a good idea. It was a terrible idea. It was insane. As the building loomed closer, he looked up, just for a moment, and saw what might have been a television antenna. Antenna?

  He remembered the Arzamas fail-safes.

  Klaus said, “How do we know—?”

  But then they were crossing the mark the road crew had painted on the street. Marsh swerved. He hit the brakes and bellowed, “Now!”

  Klaus pressed the stem of his watch at the same instant he embraced his Willenskräfte, and then he was flying toward the Soviet Embassy on a ballistic trajectory. The tall iron fence around the embassy blurred past him at over forty miles per hour.

  He unfurled the fine mesh net on a towline behind him. Like him, it was insubstantial, meaning there was no wind to force it open. Klaus opened it with a flick of his wrists while coasting through what might have been a kitchen.

  Three seconds after he pressed the stem, his watch vibrated. A regular alarm would have been useless, because it couldn’t have made a sound in its ghostly form. But Klaus could feel it shaking on his ghostly wrist.

  He willed himself and the net to flicker, ever so briefly, at the apex of his trajectory. He slowed; the net wasn’t empty now.

  And then he was out of the embassy, gliding across Piccadilly on the descent into Green Park. He tipped sideways to avoid the edge of the trench. The net resisted him. He’d snagged something on this fishing expedition.

  He rematerialized just before hitting the first layer of air bags hidden beneath one of the pavilions. They burst, slowing him. Fwump. He dematerialized again to let the net and its contents pass through him. He glimpsed an arm, a leg, pieces of a cot, and half a cinder block.

  Then he was substantial again, bumping and rolling to a stop along the trench floor while a second and third set of air bags ruptured. Fwump. Fwump.

  Twelve seconds had passed since Marsh applied the brakes. But Klaus wasn’t done, and he had to work quickly.

  Dizzy, disoriented, he gained his feet. He followed the dim light of an electric torch to the end of the trench. Trapped in the net, beneath a jumble of bedding and concrete, a woman flailed.

  Frantically, spasmodically. Because she was terrified. How could she not be?

  Klaus peeled the net away. “You’re safe,” he said in German. He repeated it over and over while tossing aside the debris. Miraculously, she hadn’t broken any limbs; he could tell from the flailing. But fresh cuts and bruises bloomed on her porcelain-pale skin owing to the violence of her extraction.

  Her mouth opened in a silent scream. She was mute. As was her twin sister.

  Klaus put his hands to the sides of her face, gently brushing aside the bundle of wires dangling from her scalp. Marsh was right: she wore a battery harness even in her sleep. Because Moscow might decide to send an urgent message at any time of the day or night.

  “You’re safe. It’s me, Klaus. Do you remember me?”

  The Twin writhed in his grasp. She stared. Confused, uncomprehending.

  “Klaus! From the farm!”

  She frowned, pulling away.

  “I’ve rescued you,” he said. Which was true, more or less. He hoped. “I’m sorry it had to be so sudden. We couldn’t get a warning to you.”

  Her brow furrowed; her struggles flagged.

  Klaus? she mouthed. She looked no less confused. And perhaps even more frightened. The last time he’d had any meaningful interaction with either of the Twins, it was before the war, when he and Reinhardt had vied for the doctor’s favor. He’d been young and arrogant. A killer. How could she know he was a different man now?

  “Yes. It’s me.” Klaus put an arm around her, helping her to sit up. She flinched away from his touch. He’d forgotten the sisters’ eyes were two different colors. One blue, one brown. A side effect of the doctor’s experiments.

  They darted left, right, down, and up. She took in the earthen walls of the trench and the crude oak timbers. Where? How? she mouthed.

  “You must
listen to me. We have very little time.” He looked first into the brown eye, and then the blue. “Am I speaking to both of you?”

  She frowned again, eyes narrowed in concentration. Her head shook slowly. Concentration became disbelief, then a new fear. She trembled.

  Klaus had never worked with the Twins, but her reaction was easy to interpret. She’d lost contact with her sister, and now she was panicking because she was too confused to think properly.

  Poor girl. Klaus leaned forward; she flinched again.

  “I’m not going to touch you. I want to inspect your wires and your harness.”

  The hunch in her shoulders dropped by a fraction of an inch. Klaus inspected her battery. It wasn’t a Reichsbehörde design, but rather a hybrid between the original technology and the assassin’s implants. The Soviets had upgraded the Twins’ equipment for better durability and longevity in the field. Klaus had received no such upgrades, since they had intended for him to spend the rest of his life at Arzamas-16. And, of course, their captors had never dared to make even the smallest alterations to Gretel’s equipment. She was too valuable.

  The gauge showed two thirds of the charge remaining. The three-pronged banana plug from her wires (this, too, differed from his own) sat firmly in the connector, with the safety latch snapped over it. Klaus traced the wires to her head; halfway back he found a sharp kink where fine strands of copper poked through the insulation. That, too, had been replaced by the Soviets. Probably many times. A small spasm racked the Twin when he brushed the frayed strands with his finger.

  “Sorry.”

  His own battery had begun to fail, sputtering out the last remnants of its charge. He disconnected it. Then he carefully peeled the insulation away from the kink with his fingernails, just enough to let him unwrap the insulation around the break. Naked copper gleamed in the torchlight. Rolling the segment of bare wire between his thumb and forefinger rebraided the strands enough to restore the flow of current. It would need solder and a proper splice later, but the repair would hold for now.