The Coldest War (30 page)

“I have a new tasking for the children. Normally I would do this over the intercom—” He pointed at a microphone, and a speaker grille above the windowpane. “—but I think it would be best if you met the children directly. To take a closer look.”

Tasking?
That was a euphemism Will had hoped to never hear again. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat. It wouldn't move. A rivulet of sweat tickled the underside of his arm. “I will never,” he managed, “participate in another negotiation.”

Pethick didn't acknowledge this. He unlocked the door separating the viewing gallery from the “classroom.” Will took a deep breath before following.

Will had never in his life felt at ease around tykes and tots. Gwendolyn said he had a knack for it, but he'd never seen any such indication. He didn't know how to converse with regular children. And he hadn't the faintest of inklings how to approach these.

He needn't have worried. The children ignored them.

Pethick frowned. He stepped around a pair of children who twirled in a circle—arms linked and caterwauling—to approach the maps hanging across from the one-way mirror.

Will followed him. The maps depicted the entire globe, although the emphasis was clearly on the Soviet Union. He inferred that the pushpins represented locations targeted by various “taskings.” They were mostly confined to the sprawling USSR. But a handful of additional pins were scattered elsewhere, seemingly at random: Tanganyika Territory, the American Southwest, Nepal … even the Midlands—not far from Bestwood, in fact. On the wall above the maps, somebody had taped a spread of pages from an American magazine,
Life,
containing an effusive article about the Soviet moon program. A handful of artist's renderings of the space station in orbit accompanied the article (rather well-done, though the artist's name, Bonestell, was a tad morbid). These, too, had pins.

“You've certainly kept them busy,” said Will.

“This is odd,” said Pethick. “The children have been moving pins about.” He pointed at the pin in the United States. It was stuck firmly in the “x” of
NEW MEXICO
. “We've never done any taskings in America.” He pointed at a few other pins. “Or here. Or here.”

“Children play. Even I know that.”

Pethick clapped, twice. “Hello, children,” he said. That got their attention. The worst of the playtime chaos subsided after a few moments. The children turned to look at Pethick.

“Hello, Samuel,” said one of the older boys. He stretched the word into three distinct syllables.
Sam-you-ell.
He looked at Will. “You are not alone, Samuel.”

The boy spoke with an odd cadence. Random, like the flickering of starlight.

“This is William.”

Will donned the bravest, most deceitful smile he could manage. He waved to the children.

The boy glanced at the network of thin white scars spiderwebbing Will's hand. He tipped his head, looking at Will sideways. “Are you one of us?”

Pethick said, “William is a friend. He's here to watch us today. Are you ready to work, children?”

They gathered around Pethick like fidgety ducklings. Will fell out of their worldview as quickly as he'd entered it. He backed away and slouched against a far wall. Partially to put more distance between himself and those horrible children, and partially to observe the process more clearly. Dread became a cannonball in his stomach.

Pethick fished around in the breast pocket of his suit coat and produced a pin. “Now,” said Pethick, “whose turn is it today?”

A girl stepped forward. Her hair, wild and wavy corn silk, just brushed the ruffled shoulders of a lacy pink frock. The top of her head wouldn't have reached Will's waist, were they to stand together. Her round face still carried a hint of baby fat.

Will rubbed his eyes, wishing he could leave. But Pethick held the keys to the sally port at the bottom of the stairwell. Will dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief.

The girl offered her hand to Pethick. She made no sound, showed no discomfort, when he poked her index finger with the needle. He released her. She squeezed her fingertip until a crimson drop stained her pale skin.

Pethick wiped the pin clean. “And who remembers where Baikonur Cosmodrome is located?”

A handful of children went to the map of the south-central Soviet Union. They pointed to a bare section of the Kazakh SSR, a bit east of the Aral Sea.

“Well done,” Pethick said. He assumed a more somber tone. “Now, children. The evil men, the ones who seek to harm us, they intend to launch another rocket soon.” He pointed to the
Life
magazine illustrations. “It must fail.”

“Rocket fail,” said the boy who had greeted Pethick.

“Rocket fail,” said the bleeding girl.

“Rocket fail,” said the rest.

Another rivulet of sweat dripped from Will's underarm. It trickled down his side, hot like ice.

The boy repeated himself. The others responded, each child with a different cadence and intonation. But each in a manner that accentuated his or her unnatural accent. Brought it to the fore. The chorus continued with slowly increasing tempo until the children converged upon a single rhythm. They switched to Enochian in midchant.

Will was buffeted by a howling maelstrom of inhuman language. The rumbles, the gurgles, the fury of newborn stars and the death cries of galaxies ancient beyond knowing … everything an echo of his old life.

And all incomprehensible. It made no sense. Granted, his Enochian was rusty. More than that: cursed and abandoned. Yet he found himself struggling to attain even a fingerhold on this eldritch grammar of intent.

One facet of the problem was old and familiar. Enochian was far too ancient to encompass a concept like “rocket.” During the war, Milkweed's warlocks had spent countless hours devising workable circumlocutions in order to express the things they needed. It was difficult, dangerous work. These children had been at this long enough—judging from the maps and pushpins—that they'd devised their own shorthand. An Enochian creole.

Will strained to make sense of the pandemonium. It was as though these children spoke a different dialect of Enochian, although he knew that was impossible. Dialects were a human construct. Part of it, he realized, was that these children spoke Enochian without inhibition. They were raised on it; perhaps they even
thought
in Enochian. But if they held the grammar in their minds, stored it in brains pulsing with human blood—

His train of thought progressed no further. Shadows cast by the fluorescents in the ceiling writhed and shuddered; the floor canted. The air assumed the cloy of rot and tingle of aftershave, making it a chore to breathe. A vast consciousness filled the room. Cold and crushing, darker than the bottom of the sea.

The children had called forth an Eidolon almost as easily as they might have called for their mothers. Which perhaps, in a way, they had. Another terrifying thought.

The Eidolon spoke. Its voice was the thunder of creation and the silence of a lifeless universe. Even the children could produce only a pale imitation of pure Enochian. They were, after all, merely flesh. But that wasn't all. The Eidolon sounded different from every other negotiation he'd attended. Beyond the enormity of its presence, beyond the ever-present undercurrent of malice, it sounded … agitated. If he hadn't known better, he might have said it was excited. Impatient. He trembled.

Will turned his back on the Enochian call-and-response of the negotiation. He staggered into the viewing gallery, closed the door behind him, and huddled in a chair. After a moment he reached up and ripped the wire out of the speaker above the one-way glass. Killing the speaker did nothing to keep out the Eidolon, didn't insulate the gallery from the fact of its presence. There was no insulating oneself from something that brushed the world through cracks in time and space.

One part of the negotiation came across clearly. The blood price: three souls. Milkweed would buy this act of sabotage with the blood of three innocent civilians. Poor, unsuspecting sods chosen at random by Pethick and his team of killers.

What will it be, Sam? Will you set fire to somebody's house? Cut the brake lines on an omnibus? Or perhaps you can arrange for a piece of masonry, a molded cornice, to topple loose and smash into the flow of pedestrians along Shaftesbury. A well-aimed corbel could easily take out a couple strolling hand in hand.

All for the greater good of the British Empire.

Will drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped long arms around his legs. But hugging himself didn't chase the chill away, didn't lessen his shivering.

He sat that way until the Eidolon departed. Pethick appeared to thank the children. The children resumed the activities they'd been pursuing when the adults had arrived. As though the past half hour hadn't happened at all.

Pethick entered the viewing gallery. “Well?”

“Your problem isn't the children. It's the Eidolons. Something has worked them into a frenzy.”

2 June 1963
Croydon, London, England

It surprised Klaus that Gwendolyn would choose to converse with him at all, much less be pleasant about it. He knew little about her. Only that she was married to Will, that she now lived in hiding, and that she shared a bathroom with Gretel.

But she didn't mention any of that. She complimented his painting. (She wasn't a convincing liar.) When he asked, she explained the upcoming celebration of the Queen's Birthday, which he had seen mentioned on the television. (A strange thing, that television. Klaus had known of the idea, but he'd never actually seen one until his arrival in Britain.) And she surprised him by revealing a passing familiarity with the German philosophers: Goethe, Schiller, Nietzsche.

Klaus had been exposed to quite enough of Nietzsche in his youth. He felt no desire to spend another minute ruminating over
Zarathustra
or
The Gay Science
. But Schiller! Doctor von Westarp had included Schiller in the reading curriculum at the farm, though he hadn't pounded the point home as obsessively as he had with Nietzsche. The doctor had emphasized Schiller's notion of
Pflicht und Neigung,
the harmony of duty and inclination.

Those lessons had returned to Klaus over the past few weeks. Schiller had much to say about beauty and freedom.

Do you have a beautiful soul, Gwendolyn? Do I? Does any living person?

Gretel didn't. That he knew for certain.

Gwendolyn broke off in midsentence when Will leaned outside. He smiled at Klaus, pronounced another well-meaning lie about his painting ability. Klaus understood Will's overtures; he had, after all, participated in saving the man's life. But the platitudes grated on him.

For one thing, he wished he could be alone, to paint in solitude. But more maddening was how nobody said a word about the agreement he'd made with Marsh prior to the battle with Will's would-be assassin. Neither Pethick nor Pembroke had shown any indication that they even knew of the deal, much less that they'd honor it. Once again, Klaus had chosen to trust the wrong person. Marsh has used him just as efficiently as Gretel might. Klaus's one attempt to inform his own destiny had been a pointless failure. He'd never be free.

He gave Will a polite nod, then rinsed his brush in a jar while Will and Gwendolyn had a brief awkward exchange. Madeleine had cleaned the empty marmalade jar before presenting it to him as a supplement to his painting supplies. It was useful.

Will departed. The closing door sent a gust of air across the garden, rattling the easel. Klaus lunged for the canvas, which sent his disconnected wires flying in a wild arc about his head. It made him feel conspicuous. Vulnerable. Especially in front of a stranger.

After steadying the easel, he turned his back to Gwendolyn. Then he moved the wires so that the bundle dangled down his chest, where she wouldn't see them.

“You needn't be ashamed.”

Klaus concentrated on painting. Clean, steady strokes.

Gwendolyn said, “You weren't a victim of the camps, were you? You were part of that project, during the war. William explained it to me.”

Her voice carried a tremor of wistfulness. He glanced over his shoulder to study her face. There was, around her eyes, a minute crack in her façade. Gwendolyn put up a good front, but it was just that. A front.

“He told me all about the war,” she continued. “About Milkweed. About the Reichsbehörde.”

Ah.
So that was why she had come outside.

He told you about it, but you've never
seen
it. And you want to. You want to understand the incomprehensible things that have brought you here. To witness firsthand the things that ripped your life apart.

Klaus focused his attention on the easel. “It wasn't a wartime project. The war was only the end of it.”

“The incredible things he told me. They're all true, aren't they?”

“I don't know what he told you,” said Klaus. He chose a finer brush and moistened its tip in a tin of ivory black.

“He described a group of Germans who could … do things. Things that other people couldn't.”

“Did he confess that he also belonged to such a group? A group of men capable of unnatural things?”

She answered with a slow, melancholy nod. “And that they did wretched things for the sake of this country. Of that I have no doubt.” She paused, choosing her words. “William was ill for a long time after the war. I knew he meant the things he said. He believed every incredible word of it. But it was
so
incredible, the entire story. I've always wondered if parts of it had perhaps been the illness speaking.”

“You want to see a demonstration.”

Gwendolyn drew a long, shuddery breath. “Yes.”

Klaus shook his head. “I have no battery.”