The Coldest War (20 page)

It was their only exchange during the drive to Whitehall. The brilliant sunlight that came streaming through the windscreen couldn't begin to dispel the atmosphere inside the Morris. Beech trees in Hyde Park shimmered with new growth, a chartreuse fringe of tiny leaves. Some of the trees, Marsh suspected, were centuries old. As old as the park itself.

Would it all be destroyed because of Will? Did he know about the children? Had he told Ivan about them?

Will was silent but jumpy. Perhaps his recent accident had left him skittish. He lowered his window. But the susurration of wind through the car couldn't drown out the angry silence. He sank farther and farther into his seat as they approached the Admiralty, until it seemed he truly had deflated. A marine sentry waved them through the screen after Marsh flashed his SIS credentials. Will swallowed audibly.

After the exchange in the car, Will broke his self-imposed silence exactly once. It happened when Marsh took him downstairs, through the massive double doors that led to the soundproofed corridors where the warlock children had been raised. The cell Marsh chose had been recently vacated by Klaus's move to the Croydon safe house. Will looked over the carpeting, the foam baffles, and the rubber gaskets on the doors like a man plunged into a waking nightmare.

“My God,” he said. “I didn't imagine it.”

Marsh shoved him inside, then slammed the door. It barely made a sound.

*   *   *

He retrieved Will in the morning; Milkweed convened a de facto war council.

Will was already awake. He looked like he hadn't slept. He lay on the cot in his underclothes; the suit lay in one corner of the floor, carefully folded.

He stared lazily at Marsh from the cot, one hand under his head. “I see you're not holding a blindfold,” said Will. Speaking around an expansive yawn, he managed to add, “Has the firing squad been held up in traffic?”

“We're going upstairs,” said Marsh from the doorway. “You can walk out of this cell clothed, or you can be dragged out half naked.” Marsh's knuckles popped when he pressed the backs of his fingers against his jaw. “Either way, you have two minutes to pull yourself together,” he said, looking at his watch.

Will sighed. He rolled to his feet, then stretched. His back cracked. He picked up his suit.

Brushing indigo carpet lint from the pin-striped trousers, Will said, “You know, I seem to recall a time when our roles were reversed. When you were staying down here in a bit of self-imposed imprisonment. This cellar was quite different back then. Less carpet. Not so
quiet
.” He stepped into the trousers. “Nevertheless, I tried to talk you out of it. Tried to talk some sense into you.”

“One minute,” said Marsh.

Donning the shirt gave Will much trouble, owing to the sling on his arm. He left one sleeve unbuttoned. Pearlescent buttons glinted in the light. “But of course, you were too busy brooding back then to listen to anybody. Weren't you, Pip? Too busy to realize that everyone around you was falling apart.”

Marsh stepped into the cell, ready to grab Will by the neck. “All finished,” Will said hastily. “I do thank you for indulging my sartorials,” he said. “After all, without my wife, they're all I have now.”

“Don't play the victim with me,” said Marsh.

What a righteous prig. He put on a brave show, but it didn't hide the tremor in his voice. Will was frightened. As he damn well ought.

How many nights had Marsh lain awake—listening to the mindless keening from the beast in the attic, Liv's side of the bed cold and empty as an open grave—consoling himself that his life had mattered? His efforts had cost him terribly, but he'd done more than most to keep Britain safe and free. That knowledge had kept him going, even when Liv shrank from his touch, when the sight of her freckles repulsed him. And then Will decided to undo everything they'd achieved.

Marsh brought Will to the room where he'd first met Pembroke, where he'd had his reunion with Gretel. The arrival of Marsh and his prisoner brought the total attendance of the war council to six: Marsh, Will, Pembroke, Pethick, Klaus, and Gretel.

The others were waiting for them. A reel-to-reel tape recorder sat in the center of the table. Will did a double take when he saw Klaus and Gretel sitting at the table.

Gretel said, “Hello, William. Has your finger healed?”

Confusion reigned on the faces of the men who didn't understand Gretel's comment. But Marsh knew she'd meant it as an inside joke, as a reference to an experience shared only by him, Will, and Gretel. The raven-haired demon.

Klaus looked at Will's hand. He caressed the stump of his own missing finger.

Will turned to Marsh, his eyes still on her. “Pip? What is this?”

“This is where we try to gauge precisely how much damage you've done to the United Kingdom,” said Pembroke.

Marsh took the empty chair across the table from Gretel and Klaus while Will received brusque introductions from Pembroke and Pethick. Gretel smiled at him. He laid his hands on the table as he watched the siblings; the polished rosewood felt like silk beneath his fingertips. Klaus sat rigidly, his posture and body language cutting Gretel from his peripheral vision.

Interesting,
thought Marsh.
Wonder if he's aware of it.

Will sat. “I'll give you my unfettered cooperation in exchange for a pledge that Gwendolyn be excluded from any charges. She had no knowledge of my actions or decisions. I won't see her tarred with the same brush you've prepared for me.”

Pembroke said, “Yours is not the position for making requests.”

Will crossed his arms. “In that case, I can't help you gentlemen until I've spoken with a solicitor.”

“Solicitor?” Pethick chimed in. “All we need do is tell the Crown you've disseminated to known agents of the Soviet Union the most extraordinarily sensitive information pertaining to this nation's security. That you've flagrantly and egregiously violated the Official Secrets Act. All of which is entirely factual, you may note.” He sipped from his cup. When he spoke again, his breath smelled of weak tea flavored with anise. “You'll be denied representation because sharing the details of the charges with a civilian solicitor would constitute yet another breach, and cause further risk to the United Kingdom.”

A moment passed while Will processed this. His resolve crumbled, leaving in its place an expression both raw and forlorn. The sliver of compassion it evoked from Marsh caught him by surprise. He bludgeoned the compassion back into hiding. Will's betrayal cut too deeply for anything other than anger and indignation.

Quietly, Will said, “I see. Very well, then.”

Pembroke opened a ledger. Uncapping a fountain pen, he said, “Begin by telling us your full name. Then recount everything you've shared with Cherkashin. Every piece of information you've passed.”

“Sir.” Pethick interrupted before Will could start. “May I please ask you to reconsider doing this in front of our guests.” He accentuated “guests” with a minute tip of the head toward the siblings.

“Finally,” said Marsh. Pembroke's idiotic intransigence on this issue had nearly driven him round the bend. “Thank you, Sam.” To Pembroke: “Your adviser is correct. This is idiotic.”

Pembroke shook his head. “No, Sam. There's no point in doing this on the q.t. As long as Gretel is involved in this affair, there's no reason to isolate her from our discussions,” he said. “Her involvement means she'll know about any actions we take in the future, which in turn means she already knows what decisions we'll come to today.”

Gretel acknowledged Pembroke's point with a low nod. Morning sunlight glimmered on her dark eyes. It occurred to Marsh that she was probably accustomed to people speaking about her as though she were absent.

“That is a truly stunning display of specious reasoning,” Marsh grumbled.

“In that case,” said Pethick, “why not save time and effort and simply ask her what our decisions will be?”

Gretel emerged from her cocoon of amused silence. “But then they wouldn't be your decisions, would they?” She smiled at Pembroke.

He smiled back. “Quite right.”

A great weariness settled over Marsh. He rubbed a hand across his eyes. “She's playing you, Leslie.”

As a younger man, he would have had the energy to fight this travesty. Tooth and nail. But with age came the need to select his battles wisely. He resigned himself to the fact that today wasn't about fixing Leslie Pembroke, but about assessing the damage Will had done.

Pethick started the recorder with a loud
click.
The reels lurched to life.

Will stopped fidgeting with his sling. “My name is William Edward Guthrie Beauclerk.” He recited the names of the warlocks he'd betrayed, along with what he knew about how to find them. The tape recorder reels turned silently, spooling in Will's litany of treacheries; the nib of Pembroke's pen skittered across the pages of his ledger.

After Will finished his monologue, Marsh began the questioning. “Why didn't you use a dead-drop?”

Pembroke: “Was that Cherkashin's idea, to meet in person for these exchanges?”

(“If it was, he's a bloody amateur,” said Marsh under his breath.)

“No,” said Will. “I insisted on delivering the information in person. I wanted to be certain it would land in the hands of people who would … act … on it.” Will looked uncomfortable with the awkward and unconvincing euphemism, as though it had left a foul taste in his mouth.

Good,
thought Marsh.
You ought to squirm, traitor
.

Pembroke: “How did you arrange meetings?”

“By placing a flowerpot on my office windowsill.”

Marsh: “What was the acknowledgment?”

“A pair of blinds on a window across the way. Different configurations for different responses.”

Pethick: “Who chose Kew Gardens?”

“I did.”

Gretel's expression betrayed no amusement, no sense that something important had slipped. No sense that Pethick had just given her another piece of information she needed to orchestrate the unmasking of Will's clandestine activities. That she'd foreseen this mistake years ago.

But the questioning continued. “Did he approach you at first? Or did you approach him?”

“He approached me.”

“In person, or through an intermediary?”

“In person.”

“When? Where?”

“A year ago this spring. At my brother's foundation.”

On and on it went. The questioning followed a predictable pattern. Marsh let the drone of conversation wash past him. He knew that Will wouldn't cling to deception now the cat had been hurled out of the bag. He could read it in the slump of Will's shoulders.

The question now was what to do. Piece by piece, Marsh laid out the parts of the puzzle for himself.

One: The Soviets have been killing warlocks.

Conjecture: They're clearing the board for something.

Two: According to Gretel, the Soviets have reverse engineered the old Reichsbehörde technology. The source is unreliable; the information is highly plausible.

Conjecture: Points one and two are related.

Three: The assassin, or assassins, may be a product of the research program at Arzamas-16.

Conjecture: They're field-testing the first batch of new troops. This would follow the procedures established by von Westarp.

Four: Cherkashin's network, Lincolnshire Poacher, is running the assassin. But it has changed its procedures and fallen silent. We've lost track of it.

Conjecture: We are buggered.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, concentrating. The future of Milkweed, and therefore quite possibly of the country, rested with a dozen halfway inhuman children locked in the cellar.

The cellar. What was it Will had said?

My God. I didn't imagine it.

Marsh sat up. “Will,” he said, interrupting a question from Pethick, “how did you know about the cellar?”

Will shook his head, processing the sudden change of topic. “The cellar? Oh, you mean—” His eyes flicked over to Gretel. “I witnessed some of that work. Just prior to leaving Milkweed.”

“Did you tell Cherkashin about it?” asked Marsh.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I did what I did to bring evil men to justice. Anything else was irrelevant.”

“This is important. Does he know about it?”

“To my knowledge, no.”

“Are you certain? Did he ever ask about it?”

Will enunciated every word with emphasis. “We never discussed the cellar.”

Klaus surprised everybody except his sister by chiming in. “Your worries are misplaced,” he said.

The room fell silent. After the space of several heartbeats, Pethick said, “And how do you know that?”

“You worry that this Soviet agent may know of something hidden in the cellar of this building,” Klaus said. “He doesn't. If he did, he would have taken it long ago. Or destroyed it.”

“What makes you say that?” said Marsh.

Klaus took a deep breath. Like somebody steeling himself to dive headfirst into murky water. “Because I was trained as an assassin, too. It's what you do with somebody who has my ability.”

Marsh laid his hands on the table again, thinking very carefully. “So. If things had gone differently, you would have been the Götterelektrongruppe's wetwork specialist?”

“Yes, me. There was another.…” Klaus glanced at his sister, just for an instant. A complex expression played over his face. Marsh wondered what passed between the siblings just then. “Heike.”

“Heike.” The name rattled around in the back of Marsh's mind, dredging up memories of things he'd read long ago. “She could make herself invisible. Is that right?”

“You know about Heike?”