The Coldest War (23 page)

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 and 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.”