The Coldest War (10 page)

These are dangerous times, brother. Without you, all is lost. If you do not join me, we are both subject to a loud and terrible doom.

This wasn't the first time she'd spoken of doom. That word had passed her lips before, though he couldn't remember when or where. Long ago. He knew that.

She didn't appeal to brotherly love. Because, he realized, that would have failed. That well had been poisoned; its waters ran alkaline. Instead she appealed to his sense of self-preservation. She had given him the barest taste of a truly free life. They both knew he would endure what he must in the short term for the sake of long-term freedom.

Very well,
thought Klaus.
Let us use each other
.

They strolled down the Mall with Buckingham at their backs, passed beneath the Admiralty Arch, swung right on Whitehall. They came to a stop at a marble screen, behind which stood a jumble of what the British called neo-Palladian architecture.

The Old Admiralty building wasn't quite what he remembered from the war. Every entrance had been buttressed with sandbag revetments, blackout curtains had hung in every window. Those were gone, but the sentries remained.

Back then, he'd gained entry by looking the part; he'd worn the uniform of a Royal Navy lieutenant-commander. But here, in Gretel's mystical
now,
he wore no such disguise, and neither did she.

Klaus checked the gauge on his battery harness. They were down to their last two batteries out of the eight they'd carried from Arzamas-16. Visions of Reinhardt, the humble Junkman, flitted through his mind.

She put her small hand in his. Her skin was warm, almost feverish, compared to his own, which must have felt like ice. “Ready, brother?”

“No.”

She gave him a squeeze. Klaus took a deep breath. So did Gretel. They ghosted through the screen, the shouting sentry, one wall of the Admiralty proper, and several of the guards summoned by the sentry's alarm.

When they were ringed with nervous men pointing sidearms at them, Gretel squeezed Klaus's hand again. He released his Willenskräfte, rematerializing them both so that she could speak. But he didn't release her. Not yet.

Gretel addressed their wide-eyed captors. “We are poor political prisoners, recently escaped from the Soviet Union. We seek asylum.”

Three of the men broke off to confer in a corner. They whispered intensely. Klaus couldn't hear them, but based on their reactions, they clearly had no idea what to do.

Two men departed. One ran down the corridor and another jogged up a stairwell and out of sight. The third returned to the ring of armed men, to preserve the fiction that the intruders were helpless and overpowered.

In German, Klaus whispered, “What now?”

“We wait until news of our arrival reaches the proper ears,” said Gretel, responding in kind. “The men we seek control the warlocks. You do remember the warlocks?”

Klaus shivered, remembering a malevolent winter equal parts rage and ice. He remembered British commando teams appearing out of thin air, the few survivors disappearing just as easily. He remembered reports of an invasion fleet devoured by fog in the English Channel.

“Hey,” said the first sentry, the man through whom they'd passed. His voice quavered with fear and tension. Now that Klaus wasn't on the move, he took a closer look at the fellow, and realized the sentry was at least twenty years his junior. It was hard to believe that Klaus himself had been that age, and a soldier then. The boy cleared his throat, but his voice betrayed his confusion. “No talking. Or, if you must, speak English. But don't talk.”

They waited. Klaus's feet ached. Their captors responded in impotent shouts of alarm and disapproval when he led Gretel to a bench. The men settled down once the pair sat with no obvious intent to go anywhere else.

Gretel shook off his hand. In English she said, “You can relax now. They won't shoot.”

Naval officers and business-suited civilians passed through the foyer. The sight of armed sentries surrounding the pair of intruders elicited surprised glances and more than a few frowns.

Klaus studied their surroundings. The interior of the Old Admiralty was unchanged in all but superficial ways. It was still the same rabbit warren of narrow corridors, wood-paneled niches, and semi-hidden doorways he'd encountered when he'd come here to retrieve Gretel.

One of the sentries approached. “Look. This is right embarrassing, I'm sure, but if you've come here with the intent of defecting, or seeking asylum, this is a bloody great mistake. We're the Admiralty. We don't handle that sort of thing.”

Gretel said, “We'll wait, thank you.”

The rapid clack of footsteps on the parquet floor announced a new arrival. The sentries relaxed when a tall fellow in a charcoal gray suit joined them. Klaus, who understood the mind-set of a military man, recognized the subtle shift of responsibility.

The newcomer's brown eyes widened when he saw Klaus and Gretel. Almost as if he recognized them. He turned to one of the sentries. “Fetch a roll of tape, won't you?”

“Sir?”

“Adhesive tape. Any sort will do.”

Then the newcomer took aside another of the men guarding the intruders. They exchanged a few sentences before the guard and one of his companions dashed outside on some other errand.

The new fellow approached the bench. He looked them over, paying particular attention to their heads, necks, and the wires in Gretel's braids. Whoever this man was, he understood the mechanics of the old Reichsbehörde technology, because he said: “I'll need you both to disconnect your batteries.” To Gretel, he continued, “I notice they're tucked under your clothing. Do you need a privacy screen?”

Her eyes twinkled with amusement. She shook her head, then gave Klaus a little nod. He unbuttoned his shirt and reached inside. At the same time, Gretel felt through the fabric of her dress for the latch on her battery harness. The latch on Klaus's harness clicked open, as did Gretel's a moment later.

“And now if you would be so kind as to pull the loose ends outside your clothing. Let them hang where I can see them.”

Klaus and Gretel complied. She, again, with an air of amusement. The sentries watched with various degrees of alarm and disgust dawning on their faces as they realized the wires were surgical implants.

The first sentry returned with a roll of shimmering black tape. The man in the charcoal gray suit tore off two long strips, handed one to Klaus and the other to Gretel.

“Wrap these around the connectors. Tightly, please.”

They did. When Klaus finished, the connector at the end of his wires was a solid bundle of black tape. The tape left his fingers gummy.

“Excellent. Thank you for indulging me,” said the man. His smile revealed a dark discoloration on his front teeth. “That should hold until we get you somewhere you can properly remove your harnesses without stripping in public.” He turned to address the ring of sentries, who were milling about looking very uncertain about what to do. “I'll handle this from here. You,” he said, pointing to one guard, “stay with me. The rest of you may return to your duties.”

They escorted Klaus and Gretel down a corridor, up a flight of stairs, along another corridor, and finally into what appeared to be a private office. Antique maps hung from oak-paneled walls. Behind a wide desk, a mullioned window showed the sun dipping under the cloud cover, setting over the park where Klaus had enjoyed warm peanuts. Klaus inhaled the strong, sweet scent of pipe smoke.

The sentry stayed in the corridor; the gray-suited man closed the door behind them. He motioned for Klaus and Gretel to seat themselves in the pair of chairs that fronted the desk. They did.

To Klaus's surprise, their host didn't take the seat behind the desk. Still standing, he said, “My name is Samuel Pethick. But the fellow you truly want to talk to, my superior, isn't here at the moment. I've dispatched a driver to collect Mr. Pembroke. He'll be here shortly.

“In the meantime, perhaps you can start by telling me why you've come here.”

Why
have
we come here, Gretel?

But she only said, “We'll wait, thank you.”

Klaus felt frustrated and weary again. Gretel's evasion had him ready to take the stranger's side.

Pethick chewed his lip. He said, “You're siblings, correct? The ghost and the oracle. If I'm not mistaken, you've both been here before. And now you're back, in the flesh, after all these years. I wonder why.”

Ah. Pethick
had
recognized them downstairs. Klaus wondered how.

After that, they waited in silence. The setting sun sank below the curtain of clouds, filling the office with a few minutes of sunlight before it dipped below the cityscape. Streetlamps flickered to life in the park. Pethick turned on a desk lamp.

Klaus craned an arm over the back of his chair when a man wearing a tuxedo entered the office. He was slightly shorter than Pethick, with a long, narrow face and high eyebrows. It made him appear frozen in a state of permanent surprise. A thatch of wavy auburn hair topped his forehead.

The tuxedo man addressed Pethick. “Well?”

Based on the way Pethick deferred to him, Klaus concluded the newcomer was Pembroke. “They came through the screen, on the Whitehall side. Approximately an hour ago.”

“There must be more to it than that, Sam, if you sent an armed matelot to collect me. Which caused quite a bit of consternation, not incidentally.”

“Sir, you don't understand.” Pethick licked his lips. His gaze darted to the siblings, just for a moment. He looked back at Pembroke, and when he spoke, he precisely enunciated every word. “They came …
through
 … the screen. And the wall. And a handful of sentries.”

Pembroke looked again at Klaus and his sister, more carefully than the cursory glance he'd tossed in their direction as he entered. She twirled a finger through her hair, black onyx braided with silver, pretending not to notice how he stared at them. A furrow formed between Pembroke's eyes. It deepened when he came around the desk and saw the disabled wires hanging over their shoulders. A flash of alarm or surprise might have appeared on his face, too, but it was hard to tell.

“Are they—?”

“I believe so, sir.”

Pembroke took the seat behind the desk. He laced his fingers, rested his hands before him, and said, “I'm Leslie Pembroke. I believe you've been waiting for me. I would like to know why you've come here, and why you want so very badly to speak with us.”

Klaus looked at Gretel. He wanted to know, too.

Gretel looked back and forth between Pembroke at the desk and Pethick, who had moved closer to the window. From her blouse she produced a page torn from the newspaper. She slid it across the desk to Pembroke. Klaus saw she had circled a small article, two short paragraphs under the headline,
LANTERN BLAMED FOR GLOUS. FIRE.

“You gentlemen have a problem,” she said.

Pembroke glanced at the newspaper, then back at her. “What sort of problem?”

She shook her head. “The warning is free. An explanation of your troubles is not. We'll give you everything we know—” She fixed her stare on Pembroke, saying with emphasis, “I'll tell you what
I
know—after you bring in Raybould Marsh.”

Pethick interjected. “What?”

“Raybould Marsh. He worked here, long ago.”

Pembroke frowned. “We know who Marsh is.”

“Then you should have no trouble finding him, yes?”

13 May 1963
Knightsbridge, London, England

As always, Gwendolyn was up and well into her day, or at the very least finishing breakfast, before Will made it downstairs. Even if there hadn't been a biblical deluge raging outside, she still would have risen before him.

“Good morning, love.” A peppery scent wafted up from the empty shell of her soft-boiled egg when he kissed the top of her head. The spiciness mingled not unpleasantly with the lavender smell of her shampoo.

He took his seat beside her at the round inlaid table that served as their dining room. A proper dining room would have had a long table, suitable for entertaining a dozen guests. Will preferred to talk with his wife without resorting to flag semaphore. Their tastes ran more modestly than their peers'. The modest and immodest tables traded places in storage as necessary.

“You were up rather early yesterday.” He paused, waiting for a crack of thunder to subside. “I saw neither hide nor hair of you the entire day.”

“You were up rather late yesterday,” said Gwendolyn. She folded the paper she'd been reading and set it aside. Then she handed him the toast rack.

While he spooned lemon curd on lukewarm toast, Will said, “The ambassador's little soiree lasted entirely longer than I'd have preferred.”

She laughed, but ruefully. “I'm the one who found herself cornered by your brother's dreadful wife all evening.” Another blast of thunder swallowed the
tink
of her saucer as she set down her teacup. She pointed outside, where squalls of rain gusted past the bay window. “Do you know what we discussed? Window sashes. All evening.”

Will lifted the teapot. “I have every confidence you were up to the task.”

She nudged him with her elbow, but softly, not enough to make him spill. “You were rather scarce. Why did Fedotov need to speak with you so urgently?”

Their cook, Mrs. Toomre—the eldest daughter of one of his grandfather's servants, one of those who'd raised young Will—came in with a plate of egg, bean, and tomato. She set it before Will; he nodded his appreciation to her.

“I cocked up the schedule for Minister Kalugin's visit. We had to get it squared away.” Will took a bite of his toast and washed down the sweet curd with a sip of strong tea. It had steeped just long enough: astringent, but not unpleasantly so.