Necessary Evil (Milkweed Triptych)

by Ian Tregillis

  Somewhere, deep beneath the wail and warble of sirens, deeper even than the crump of distant explosions, I imagined the chthonic rumble of Enochian echoing through tonight’s conflict. Somewhere, in a citadel near the center of the furnace, the warlocks had convened. Had they succeeded? Would they blunt the sharpest edges of this attack?

  “Are they using the Eidolons tonight?”

  Gretel didn’t answer. During a momentary lull in the wind and the ack-acks, I heard a faint tink-slap when she flipped another coin.

  “What happens tomorrow?”

  Gretel ignored my taunt. She sat a few feet away, behind the glass partition of the foreman’s office. The braids were gone, replaced with wild, tangled snarls. Sometimes she woke up screaming.

  Her battery had to be dead by now. Couldn’t get her to part with it, though. I tried to remove it while she napped, but the crazy bint looked ready to scratch my eyes out when she caught me.

  I didn’t bother with her bandages. They were her problem. Will couldn’t fault me if she died writhing in pain from an infection. It was better than she deserved.

  Tink. Slap. She never looked at the coins. Just flipped them.

  I could have watched her for hours. Sometimes I did. It was perfectly delicious, her slide into ruin. I savored it as another man might savor fine red wine and the darkest Belgian chocolate.

  And therein lay my mistake. I’d been so busy gloating over Gretel’s disintegration that I hadn’t paid much mind for the first couple of days after Will disappeared. Only after I started watching his flat did I realize he hadn’t been home in days. And he wouldn’t have toddled off to Bestwood without alerting me. Which left one conclusion.

  Will’s capture changed things. I had no access to the warlocks. They were safe and snug in their armored citadel. Where, if I knew Stephenson, they’d also be keeping Will. If they’d kept him in the Admiralty cellar, as in the old days, I might have had a chance. But I didn’t. I couldn’t get near them. And without Will spiking their efforts, the warlocks were now free to wreak their unnatural influence on the war. How long before they became permanently entrenched in my country’s defense?

  All my efforts would amount to nothing if I couldn’t get to the warlocks.

  I spent weeks pacing the warehouse like a caged animal, my repeated thoughts eroding channels in the pathways of my mind. There had to be something I could do. I twined a bloody cloth around my fingers, wondering if I’d ever have a chance to use it.

  Another brace of explosions rattled joists in the warehouse roof. I paused, listening for the grating moan of tortured metal on metal. But the roof didn’t collapse on us. The thrum of wind through the loose rafters matched the tension vibrating through my aching muscles.

  After everything I’d done, everything I’d endured, I’d come so close to fulfilling my mission only to have it all fall apart. But I knew better than to blame Will. This had happened because I’d laid too much responsibility on him. He wasn’t trained for subterfuge. Wasn’t built for it. Thanks to me, he was now in great danger, but I couldn’t help him.

  I thought long and hard about approaching my younger self. My advice had steered him right; von Westarp’s farm was no more. Surely I might parlay that into a bit of trust? How would he take it if I revealed my true name and purpose to him?

  But it was moot. For by now Stephenson hadn’t merely confirmed my doppelgänger’s tale about the devastation of the REGP. He’d also verified there was no Liddell-Stewart associated with the service—nobody who matched my description, however remotely. “Lieutenant-Commander Liddell-Stewart” was, doubtless, a person of extremely high interest to MI6. Already twice I’d barely escaped their net. Just as with the warlocks, I couldn’t get anywhere near my younger self. Or Liv. And while my younger self might have entertained my warning about the danger posed by the warlocks, his superiors wouldn’t. If they caught me, it was all over.

  So now I was stuck in the cold, with no foreseeable end, a fugitive from my own government, harboring a useless Nazi ex-precog who could barely bathe herself. The woman I loved had been reunited with her husband; my long-lost daughter reunited with her father. Yet I couldn’t even take solace in the belief my little girl would have a long happy life, because every day Milkweed’s warlocks pushed the world a little bit closer to that screaming oblivion I still heard in my dreams. And there was nothing I could do about it except hide and watch all my efforts crumble.

  God forgive me, but I found myself wishing Gretel would weigh in with her advice. Perhaps she sensed it. She looked at me, and started weeping again.

  interlude: gretel Olivia cannot be alive. She can’t be alive. She can’t be alive. She can’t be alive. Can’t be alive. Can’t be can’t be can’t be can’t be can’t why is Raybould’s tart whore still alive when it’s impossible? Impossible things don’t happen therefore it didn’t because William is lying yes he’s lying because she saw William say I don’t know how to tell you this I’ve kept you I’m sorry, Pip, so very sorry long enough to have to tell you go home they went to Coventry to your wife where they thought they’d be safe, we all did and daughter but we were terribly wrong no no no that’s not what he said she had it all planned and then he didn’t say what she saw him say she saw him deliver the news and Raybould screamed and said are you sure everything is all right crumpled with grief there on the floor of William’s flat yes of course now go home and say hello to Olivia and she held him while he cried and he tried to knock her away thanks for this Will but she forgave him because he was overcome with sorrow and I’ll see you soon she’s been hit before and knows how to shrug it aside.

  She sent the planes to Williton Coventry that happened because she remembers it.

  Why wasn’t that tart whore killed in Coventry? Why isn’t Olivia dead with her freckles and her forehead and her hair and her smell and baby and nose that ran in the cipher future in the corridor outside Raybould’s hospital room where she wept over lost opportunities and the death of love and they talked about the wedding in a garden and Olivia still carried the evacuation tag but why isn’t she dead like her future love for Raybould and she is impolite and selfish and she should be dead and its very very rude that she’s not.

  Her legs hurt under the bandages and and she can’t remember how the blisters got there and they hurt very much but she never hurt before even when they tried to control her with the hurt did the doctor and Pabst and others in the cipher future at a place called Arzamas but she went somewhere else somewhere else in her head where they couldn’t follow and they failed always they failed.

  Raybould tries to take her battery she doesn’t let him she needs it needs it to see the coin shining heads tails spinning tails up heads up tails up heads spinning heads tails shining heads down tails down heads down tails heads tails she will not look no she’s not wrong she just won’t look and then she won’t be wrong and everything will be the way she planned it once Olivia is dead the coins will be right and everything will be back to the proper path but the fog hides the coins hides both sides and makes them blurry.

  There is fog only fog no shimmering gossamer of unconsummated possibilities no golden threads to pluck and make the universe dance because everything is shrouded and gray it kept drawing closer closer closer but always she could see a thread a path a way forward not very far but she could see far enough to guide Raybould even though they were caught in the kitchen caught in the woods caught in Kammler’s room were caught in the doctor’s study she saw how to distract the doctor and make the doctor shoot Raybould in the eye the heart the throat and save Raybould’s life and then he kills the doctor and brother and Reinhardt and Kammler Heike kills Kammler and Raybould and Raybould kills her too and then they made it back to England got caught in Weimar caught in Lauterbach executed in Frankfurt recognized in Frankfurt shot dead in Cologne captured in Belgium because she could see ahead not very far but it was enough and then the fog was supposed to envelop her and she’d be through it to the other side to a brand-
new virgin universe awaiting her touch waiting for her to make the decisions that would push the universe on its proper path but the fog is endless and there is no other side and her bandages itch.

  How did this happen when did this start it isn’t her fault it isn’t her fault she did everything perfectly and it worked and she tricked the Eidolons she tricked them into letting Raybould create a new time line for her where she lives and they’re together and she doesn’t cease to exist because the Eidolons hate her with such intensity and oh God what if the Eidolons are in the fog OH GOD what if they are there on the other side what if they are all around her now and what if they did this to her whatifthisistheirrevengeohGodohGodOHGOD— Raybould comes in looking very angry and he is wearing a blanket and suddenly it is dark outside. She doesn’t remember screaming but he said she was screaming and maybe she was because her throat is sore and Raybould says she’s out of her bloody mind if she thinks he’s going to scrounge up a cup of hot tea to soothe her nerves she can bloody well forget it because she can fucking die screaming for all he cares but she doesn’t like tea because it means kettles and a teakettle hurt her legs and it was William’s fault for telling lies about Olivia and that was very ungrateful of him because he’s living in the time line she created even though she made it for herself she lets other people live here and they are ungrateful and they don’t even know the horror that might have been.

  everything is broken because of Olivia. alive when she shouldn’t be. nothing will be right. the coins won’t behave until she fixes this the eidolons didn’t send the fog couldn’t have because they haven’t found her here no but when did it first appear she glimpsed it on the gossamer horizon on the day raybould arrived it wasn’t there and then it was there and so was he because it worked everything she planned had worked and then the fog appeared oh god

  she did

  no no

  did this

  no no no

  to

  herself

  fifteen

  24 June 1941

  Milkweed Headquarters, London, England

  Marsh studied the maps on the wall of Stephenson’s office while waiting for the old man to return from his meeting with the Prime Minister. It must have gone long.

  The pins arrayed across the maps told the story of a secret war. Black pins marked the places in southeastern England where a corrupted rain had fallen, cloud water salted with traces of mercury. It had drizzled on the Channel, too, but of that they could do nothing except perhaps survive the war and wait for long-term consequences. Milkweed had done what it could to monitor the areas where the poison fell on farmland, in some cases even requisitioning properties and tracts of land “for the war effort.” It did the same when rumors circulated of a new Messerschmitt or Heinkel down in the countryside, its fuselage riddled with corrosion. Milkweed ran off the books; it didn’t have to give answers.

  The first black pins had appeared in December, immediately after Will’s imprisonment. Milkweed’s saboteur had been caught quite literally red-handed.

  There had been no black pins during January and February, when winter weather had curtailed Luftwaffe operations. The warlocks had pitched in when the raids started up again in March. Gauging the extent of their contribution was difficult. Two months free of alerts had done the RAF well.

  Red pins on the map of Egypt showed places where the warlocks had attempted to exert their influence. The results here were more sporadic. The action in North Africa moved too quickly, and the local conditions were too varied, for the warlocks to devise an approach. Not that the Italians had offered much of a fight to the Western Desert Force. Africa had been a relatively reliable source of good news, until Rommel had arrived.

  A smattering of blue pins dusted the Balkans. The warlocks had enjoyed more success there.

  Two days earlier, the Führer had opened a new front in the east. Nobody was surprised when he turned round and stabbed Uncle Joe in the back. No pins on the Russian front yet; the situation there was too fluid.

  Marsh opened the window. Dust from the window sash clung to his fingers with a damp grittiness. Warm spring rains had put the green back into St. James’, and now a light breeze wafted through the office, carrying with it the scent of victory gardens and ozone. It gave Marsh a brief respite from the smell of tobacco, for which he was grateful. He wiped his hands on his trousers.

  He yawned. Another long night, entwined in hushed conversation with Liv. His long absence had scarred them both. They had to get to know each other again. He’d been back in England, back in Liv’s house, her bed, barely longer than he’d been on the Continent. Their relationship had survived, so far, but like a fractured rib, the trust and love knit back together slowly. The scar tissue was there, invisible to the eye but undeniable to the heart, much as the thin welt of pale skin where an assassin’s knife had nicked his jaw felt like an immense disfigurement to his fingertips when he shaved, yet shied from the mirror when he looked for it.

  It was still a fragile thing, this rediscovered intimacy between them. Thoughts of Liv, her loneliness and her long-empty bed, invariably caused Marsh to wonder about Liddell-Stewart. How much time had they spent alone together? He didn’t dare ask. Open it again, and the scar might never heal.

  The commander had gone to ground after Marsh’s return from Germany. Will was their only lead on Liddell-Stewart but he wasn’t cooperating. Marsh had had to work on Stephenson for two months before the old man agreed to let them take the gag out of Will’s mouth. They stationed a sentry outside his door, who would enter the cell and knock Will about if he launched into Enochian. Weary duty for the sentries, and a silly use of manpower in time of war, but more humane than leaving a man gagged twenty-three hours a day.

  “Trust the commander.” That’s all Will would say.

  Stephenson entered. He carried a brown dossier under his arm and an umbrella in his hand. When he turned, his empty sleeve kicked up like the skirt of a dancing girl. With his hip he shoved the door closed, while at the same time tossing the umbrella handle over a coat hook beside the door. Rainwater spattered across the wainscoting. Water stains stippled the wood polish beneath the hooks where this had happened with some frequency. The old man had eased into his seat behind the desk and already held a sterling letter opener to the ribbon that sealed the dossier before the umbrella pendulumed to a rest.

  Marsh eyed the ribbon. Black. Not good.

  “Your meeting with the PM went long,” he said.

  “Not just the PM,” said Stephenson. He cursed under his breath; the ribbon was giving him trouble. It slid away from the dulled blade of his letter opener. He needed another hand to hold down the dossier while he hacked the ribbon apart. Marsh knew better than to offer. “Menzies was there. Ellis, too. We had to speak circles around them.”

  “Ellis?”

  “Army intelligence.”

  Lieutenant-Colonel Menzies ran the Secret Intelligence Service. Stephenson’s post, if he hadn’t given it up in exchange for a free hand to run Milkweed. Not even C knew Milkweed’s true purpose. So what brought him, and a bloke from army intelligence, into a meeting between Stephenson and Churchill?

  The ribbon snapped apart. Stephenson flipped open the dossier. A fine dusting of sand sprinkled out. Fishing around in a desk drawer for his jeweler’s loupe, he said, “This package arrived via special courier late last night.”

  Stephenson fell silent while he studied the photographs. Marsh fidgeted, though it did nothing to ward off the icy apprehension trickling through his veins. Stephenson slid a quartet of photographs across the desk, along with the magnifier. “These were taken in Egypt, three days ago.”

  The first photo was a wide aerial view of stony, wrinkled terrain. With the use of Stephenson’s magnifier, Marsh could see tents and other structures scattered within the labyrinth of ravines.

  The second photo was also from aerial recon, but gave a clearer and closer view of a subsection of the previous photograph. Now the tents were clear
ly visible, as were armored vehicles and embedded artillery positions. Two of the tents were circled in red. Marsh knew he was seeing an Afrika Korps forward position.

  He glanced at the terrain in the first photo. Ravines.

  A bit over a week earlier, Britain’s Western Desert Force had suffered a demoralizing defeat near the border between Egypt and Libya. “Operation Battleaxe” intended to evict Rommel’s forces from a strategically important position known as Halfaya Pass, as part of a larger push to relieve the besieged port of Tobruk. The first day of Battleaxe saw an entire British tank squadron obliterated.

  The third photograph was terribly grainy. It had been taken from a great distance, through a fog of heat shimmer, and then enlarged. The photographer had hid in the shadows of a ravine to get the shot. It showed a narrow slice of an Afrika Korps position, tents and half-track transports. In the background, a man held the entrance flap to a tent as though just stepping out. The dark leather bands of a harness ruined the clean lines of his pale uniform. Sunlight glinted from something at his waist.

  So extreme was the devastation at Halfaya that the few surviving Tommies had given it a new nickname. They called it “Hellfire Pass.”

  Marsh ran the lens over the man in the photo. The enlargement had washed out his facial features. But the coloration fit. And the man wore dark goggles to protect his eyes from the desert glare. As though he had very pale eyes.…

  The fourth photo had, like the third, been taken from a great distance. Its subject was a shirtless man with his back to the camera. He stood alongside an antiaircraft gun, hands laid upon it and head bowed as though in prayer. Something dark trailed from his head to his waist. The gun was halfway submerged into the sand.