The Coldest War (33 page)

But Marsh's disfigurement was a direct result of Will's actions. Did he deserve that fate?

No.

Will had done this. Marsh wasn't dead (they called it miraculous, but they didn't know just how stubborn he could be), but his blood still stained Will's hands. Will's recklessness had maimed an innocent man. Marsh had become a mirror, an enchanted looking glass, reflecting a hideous truth behind Will's beautiful lies. Thanks to Gwendolyn, Will had begun to overcome his wounds. But Marsh would never overcome this. There was no healing it.

Will had entered this venture cloaked in righteous self-pity. The cloak fit no longer.

He wondered what Marsh had told Liv. Will had taken such a fancy to her, so long ago. And though he hadn't thought much about her in the intervening years, he found he couldn't bear the thought of Liv blaming him for what had become of her husband. Although, of course, she ought.

Will had his own part to play in Milkweed's preparations. If things worked according to plan over the next several days, the tenor of the negotiations was going to change. It was Will's job to ensure the children weathered the transition smoothly. Being dead, he no longer had access to the safe in his office at the foundation. But Stephenson—that cold, methodical bastard—had of course seen fit to copy the master lexicon Will had assembled from the individual journals of the warlocks recruited for the war effort. Pethick retrieved a copy from the Admiralty vault on their next visit to the children.

The work came with unintentional and unwelcome consequences. If Marsh's situation was enough to shatter Will's self-delusion, every minute spent in the Admiralty cellar made it more difficult for Will to believe himself a victim of the past. Those awful children were the true victims. Of abuses that sprang directly from Will's own actions. His evasions, the adroit self-justifications, these failed in that demonic classroom.

Will admitted everything to Gwendolyn, one evening in the safe house.

He sprawled on a sofa in the den, long legs dangling over the edge while the top of his head nudged up against her leg. It was the first time she'd let him touch her since the day Marsh had appeared on their doorstep. They held that arrangement a long time while he owned his actions.

“You were right. I am sorry.”

She twirled a finger through his thinning hair. “Do you know what I think?” she said.

“That your father might have been on to something when he ordered you to reject my marriage proposal?”

A sad smile touched her lips. From Will's vantage, peering at her upside down, it looked like a grimace. “I think the only way out of this is forward.”

This from the woman who had nearly tossed Marsh out on the street when she believed he'd come to ask Will to work for Milkweed again. Did she no longer feel protective of him? Surely she realized forward meant turning a blind eye toward further blood prices? He felt cold. Naked. But Gwendolyn had yet to be wrong about such things. Her wisdom outstripped his own.

Will drew a long, shuddery breath. He was frightened, and weary from the effort to relearn something he'd abandoned long ago. “I promised myself I'd never speak Enochian again.”

Gwendolyn absently tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Perhaps you won't have to.”

“Perhaps. But Pip wants me there when they try to bring her across.” The plan to reunite the Twins contributed to Will's growing sense of dread. It drew inevitable comparison to the wartime raid on the REGP. Which to Marsh's mind meant success was virtually guaranteed. After all, while the raid itself had been a monumental cock-up, courtesy of Gretel, the coming and going had worked. Marsh didn't know just how close the Eidolons had come to stranding the last surviving members of the raid in Germany. Will had never told him about it. Which sooner than later would make an uncomfortable conversation.

“And for the rest,” Will added. Marsh's plan came in two parts.

“He trusts you.”

“I rather doubt Pip trusts anybody. He doesn't know the children. Doesn't understand them. But I'm the devil he does know.”

“Needs must when the devil drives,” she quoted.

“Speaking of whom,” said Will. He turned his head slightly and nodded, quietly drawing her attention toward the staircase. Gretel descended slowly, her attention fixed on one of the books she'd requested Madeleine find for her, Shirer's
Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
. She and Gwendolyn nodded amiably at each other.

They waited until Gretel passed out of earshot. Gwendolyn whispered, “Can she truly do what they say?”

Will thought about this. “Yes. I believe so.”

He arched his back, stretching until his chest cracked. He'd spent too many hours hunched over the lexicon. He sat up. “So. Am I forgiven?”

Gwendolyn looked as if she'd swallowed something sour. “William. You committed
treason.
Men have died.”

It went without saying that his cooperation in Milkweed's efforts was the price he had to pay if he wished to avoid lifetime incarceration. Although whether it would truly keep him out of prison remained to be seen. He had the impression Klaus had made his own agreement and now wondered whether anything would come of it.

“I don't give a toss if Britain forgives me,” said Will. “Only that you do.” He sighed. His breath carried a lingering taste of the ginger tea he'd taken to calm his stomach. “Do you?”

She stared at him for a long moment before shaking her head. “Not yet.” Gwendolyn touched his knee. “But you are improving.” She kissed him on the cheek, then rose to leave.

“Gwendolyn?” he said. “I'm frightened.”

Accepting that he had been wrong meant also accepting the world was not improved by his actions. That the world was no safer for him and Gwendolyn. If the Soviets decided to give it another go, what could Marsh and his ilk truly do to protect them? But that wasn't what kept Will awake at night.

She sat again. “Frightened.”

“Of what's coming. Of what they'll make me do, make me witness. I'm afraid this will break me again.” He bowed his head, unable to meet her gaze. “And I'm terrified there will be nobody to pick up the pieces this time.”

She took his hand, laid an arm around his shoulders, pulled him close.

9 June 1963
Mayfair, London, England

The plan was complicated, and it was urgent. A bad combination.

It was crucial they put things in motion prior to the conclusion of the annual Queen's Birthday celebration. But the real difficulties weren't in the timeline, nor the resources that SIS had to wrangle on such short notice.

The second-largest difficulty was mathematics.

The largest was securing Klaus's cooperation.

Marsh stood inside a stand of silver limes, watching the tents, pavilions, and grandstands rising like toadstools in Green Park. Though the morning's drizzle had given way to bright sunlight shimmering in the puddles along the Broad Walk, he still wore his mackintosh. By turning up the collar and tipping the fedora to shade his face, he could hide the worst of his scars from random passersby. He hoped the beard would help, when it came in fully. He looked a proper fool—and felt it, too, as the sun rose higher and the summer humidity asserted itself—but it was better than the alternative.

People stared at him now. He would never be inconspicuous again. At the moment, his beard was nothing more than heavy stubble. It itched, particularly along the ragged edges of his scars. He rubbed his face, then winced.

His career in foreign ops was officially dead. Marsh reminded himself that he'd turned his back on that life long before, but somehow this felt more final. Something fundamental had changed, far beyond his physical appearance.

Liv would never touch him again. Touch him? She recoiled from him now. What woman wouldn't?

The rising heat made the park smell pleasantly damp. It mingled with the petrol fumes from lorries and omnibuses rumbling along Piccadilly. The traffic lurched forward an inch at a time, restricted to a single lane. Road crews patched holes on Piccadilly and several surrounding streets in anticipation of Saturday's crowds. Earlier that morning, before the breeze had died off, the roadwork had wafted the unpleasant stink of hot tar across the park. Marsh preferred the smell of old rain. He wished for a rain hard and pure enough to cleanse his life of all its mistakes.

On his left, across the wide expanse of Green Park, stood Buckingham Palace and the Palace Gardens. The palace itself was a jumble of the so-called revived classic style dating from the time of George IV, plainer additions and alterations made during Victoria's reign, and modern additions dating from after the Blitz. Before him, past the pavilions and slightly off to his right, across the snarled traffic along Piccadilly, stood the Soviet Embassy.

Ostensibly, the temporary structures in Green Park were there to accommodate the crowds expected for the Queen's Birthday. And so it would appear to any curious onlookers from the embassy.

Secretly, however, they existed to hide a new trench from those same onlookers. Just as the road crews—all manned by SIS agents, including Roger—were a cover for surveying, measuring, grading, and marking Half Moon Street according to figures from the maths boffins.

Simple physics,
the boffins had said.
Assuming you chaps have done
your
figures correctly.

That depended upon having an accurate layout of the embassy. Which Milkweed didn't have. They had the original designs, dating from the building's construction, and Will's testimony. But it was wise to assume the Soviets had altered the internal layout for their own purposes. Or for spite.

SIS didn't have a man inside the Soviet Embassy. Thus, Pembroke had funneled requests via his superiors to their colleagues in MI5. Milkweed was a mystery to the rest of the British intelligence community, which knew only that the tiny, semiautonomous organization was deep black, and that its rare requests were to be afforded the highest priority. MI5 had provided an updated floor plan. It came with no guarantees, but it was consistent with Will's recollection as to the location of the guarded door.

Satisfied that preparations here were under way, and resigned to the fact he couldn't speed them along, Marsh returned to the Admiralty. He couldn't in good conscience ask more of Klaus without first apprising Pembroke of the agreement they'd struck prior to the operation at Will's town house. He'd been trying to do so for the past day.

Marsh knocked on Pembroke's door. No answer. He knocked again and, on receiving no answer, tried the knob. It was locked.

Pethick poked his head out of his own office. “He hasn't been in today,” he said. “Nor yesterday.”

“Where is he?” Marsh enunciated his question carefully. People found it difficult to understand his altered voice.

Pethick stepped into the corridor. “Probably off smoothing ruffled feathers.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the doorjamb. “There have been quite a few of late. The new operation isn't helping.”

Marsh reached up to crack his knuckles against his jaw and winced when he touched his scar. It would be a difficult habit to break.

“Ruffled feathers?” he asked. The jagged ache he'd learned to dread wedged itself in his throat.

“First,” said Pethick, “Milkweed came this close—” He held his forefingers a centimeter apart. “—to burning down half of Knightsbridge. No explanation given. And now we've made a point of blowing the Queen's Birthday far out of proportion this year. Thirty-seven is a rather odd number for such a large production, isn't it?”

Marsh shrugged. “Ten years since the coronation.” A fortunate happenstance. It lent plausibility to the celebration.

Pethick said, “Even we can't tell the Crown what to do. We advise. The Crown listens, if it so chooses.”

Marsh shook his head. “Somebody had better listen, if we're to avoid a war,” he muttered. “When he returns, tell Pembroke I need to speak with him, please?”

“I will,” said Pethick. “Where can he find you?”

“I'm off to beg Klaus for a bloody great favor. But first I'll check on Will,” said Marsh with a nod to the floor. It hurt.

Pethick fished out his basement key. Handing it to Marsh, he asked, “Has he shared his concerns with you about the children? I mean the Eidolons, rather.”

Marsh rolled his eyes. “Yes.”

“What do you make of it?”

“I think Will would say anything to get out of this.”

“He struck me as sincere.”

“No doubt he was. Will excels at lying to himself.”

“I do understand you two have a history,” said Pethick. “But for what it's worth, he has been cooperating.”

“Good. He's come to understand he has no choice.” Marsh set off down the corridor. Over his shoulder he said, “Perhaps his wife set him straight.”

Marsh spent a few minutes in the Milkweed vault before going downstairs. While there, he chewed another painkiller. The conversation with Pethick left Marsh feeling like he'd attempted to gargle hot pitch. But he still had Will and Klaus to deal with.

He found Will in the observation room, hunched over a lexicon. An odd expression crossed the dead man's face when he looked at Marsh; Marsh was growing accustomed to that. But the children in the adjoining room were too rowdy for the adults to converse easily. Rather than speak over the half-human–half-Enochian din, Marsh gestured Will into the soundproofed corridor outside. Silence engulfed them as soon as the door whispered shut behind Will.

Will said, “How are you feeling, Pip?”

“Leaving aside the constant sensation of choking on a razor blade?”

“Ah … no. I only meant to say … Look, Pip. I am sorry about what happened. In spite of our disagreements, I wouldn't have wanted … Well. You didn't deserve this.”