Waging War (11 page)

Ringo pushed me out of the way at the sink.
“I’ll wash. Ye two go. But come find me when ye’re back. I’ll be in
the lab tinkerin’ with machines.” He grinned at us, and I blew him
a kiss as we left the kitchen.

Old Secrets

We were both dressed for free running in
dark clothes and good boots, and it had been too long since I’d run
through London just for the joy of running. I was so tempted to
scale an outer wall of the Tower of London complex where I’d worked
for a month, but Archer was right, we were expected at the front
gate.

A few minutes later we were sitting across
from Ravi in his office. He must have been past ninety now, and was
physically frail, but as mentally sharp as they come. A copy of the
Armada Portrait hung above his desk, and I gave Elizabeth Tudor a
nod of greeting. Her famous six-strand black pearls were currently
on display in the Jewel House at the Tower and had already drawn
thousands of visitors. My hand went absently to the black pearl
pendant Elizabeth had given me which lay hidden under my t-shirt.
It had been joined tonight by Millicent’s emerald, and I thought I
was in danger of looking lumpy in ways that had nothing to do with
my negligibly-endowed chest.

Ravi had hugged me and told me he still
hoped I’d come back to work with him at the Tower. I assured him it
was my dream job, and as soon as I finished school, I’d come
begging for work.

Then he finally got down to the business he
had summoned Archer about. “As you know, your grandfather and I
worked together in H Block maintaining the two Mark I Colossus
machines that were housed there. The Wrens essentially ran the
machines, but we both had engineering backgrounds and were trained
by Max Neumann to make repairs.”

“Wrens, as in birds?” I asked.

Ravi smiled. “Wrens were the nickname given
the Women’s Royal Navy Service, into the service of which so many
of England’s brightest young women were pressed. The Wrens who
operated Colossus were chosen as much for their height as for their
intelligence, as the machines were very tall and complex. You, my
dear, would have made a spectacular Wren.”

Archer looked entirely amused at that idea
and I almost stuck my tongue out at him, but fortunately for my
dignity, Ravi continued.

“We rarely saw the messages that were
decoded, of course. The Colossus machines were built to determine
that day’s settings for the Tunney—”

Archer answered my look of confusion. “It’s
what w— they called the machine they’d designed to decode the
Lorenz cipher.” I heard his near-slip, but it seemed Ravi hadn’t.
Then again, Ravi still thought he was talking to his good friend’s
grandson.

“Indeed,” Ravi said. “Each one of the
decoded messages from Tunney was sent directly to the mansion,
where the military commanders worked. In fact, in all the time I
worked in H Block, I think I only ever saw one decoded message from
Tunney, in a stack I’d just given Stella to run to the mansion. I
started to read it before I even realized what I was doing, though
it was in German, so I didn’t understand more than a few words. The
ones I recognized however, have stayed with me. Kunst. Schatz.
London.”

Archer stared at him and translated
automatically. “Art. Treasure. London.”

Ravi nodded gravely. “Over the years I did
wonder what that message meant, but it was near the end of the war,
and messages were coming in from every listening station around
Britain. One message couldn’t occupy more than a couple of minutes
of my time. Or so I thought.”

Ravi reached into his desk and pulled out a
manila envelope. It had been hand-addressed to him, a fact that was
remarkable enough in this day of computer-printed labels to get my
attention. He shook out a torn piece of paper that was attached to
a hole-punched strip of paper that looked a little like a ticker
tape and handed it to Archer. “The Bletchley Park Trust discovered
a small room hidden behind a fireplace in the mansion’s
library.”

Archer’s expression didn’t change, but the
muscle at his jaw jumped as he clenched his teeth. “Did they,
indeed?”

Ravi nodded. “More remarkably, a bedroll lay
against one wall, and a half-burnt candle sat in a brass holder
next to it on the floor. All indications were that someone had been
living there, can you imagine?” Ravi sounded horrified. “When they
unwrapped the bedroll, these scraps of paper fell out.”

Archer took the papers gingerly in his
hands. The ticker tape was torn, and the scrap of paper attached to
it was typewritten in German. “June 4, 1944. Entrance from Holborn.
Flammable art treasure. Extra care. Werwolf is London native, T.
Landers. Mission set for Ju—” He looked at me. “It cuts off.”

Ravi held his hand out for the papers. “Odd
enough that the decoded message was attached to the teleprinter
tape, but odder still is this.” He turned the ticker tape over and
handed it back to Archer. “Ravi. Find this tape. –A”

I stared at Archer, sure that my expression
was giving a whole novel away. Archer was expressionless, and Ravi
seemed to have eyes only for the scrap of paper.

“It’s your grandfather’s handwriting,
Archer. I can’t imagine what he could have been doing in a hidden
room behind a fireplace at Bletchley Park with a piece of paper we
weren’t allowed to have.”

My eyes jumped to Ravi. “You think he was a
spy.”

Ravi sighed deeply. “I know my friend was
not a spy. The good people at the Bletchley Park Trust may have
other thoughts on the matter, but as far as I know, they haven’t
brought MI5 into this. It took very little research to discover I
was the only Ravi to have worked at the mansion, and they brought
the puzzle to me first. Now I have brought it to you.”

Archer spoke quietly. “May I keep the paper
to compare against anything I might find?”

Ravi winced. “I’m very sorry. I promised to
return the original to the people at the trust.”

“Here. Photograph it.” I handed Archer the
iPhone my mom had given me as a birthday present. I didn’t have
that many people to call, so I didn’t carry it very often. The
camera feature was the one I used the most.

When Archer had finished, Ravi tucked the
scraps of paper back into the envelope. “I haven’t returned to the
Park since the war ended, but I find I now wish to see this hidden
room. I fear I may be too old for the train travel, however. The
bustle of the stations is more than I can handle these days.”

Archer reached a hand out to touch Ravi’s
arm. “I’ll tell you what. If you can arrange an after-hours visit
for us, I’ll be very happy to drive you to Buckinghamshire and push
your wheelchair myself.”

The idea seemed to delight Ravi. “That would
be quite extraordinary, young man. I’ll see what I can do.”

We left his office soon after that and made
it back to Elian Manor before midnight. Clocking into the walled
garden put us in direct line-of-sight of the laboratory, and it was
clear from the yellow glow of lights that Ringo was still up
working. Archer took my hand and we walked in silence toward the
lab.

Just before I opened the door, Archer turned
me to face him. “I don’t remember writing that note,” he said
quietly.

I exhaled deeply, dreading the implications
of my next words. “Maybe because you haven’t yet.”

When we arrived at the Elian Manor lab, Mr.
Shaw and Connor were back at work on the viral delivery system for
the Vampire cure, and Ringo was deeply engrossed in dissecting the
motherboard of a computer. Our tale of Archer’s note to Ravi
surprised them all, and the content of that note became the primary
subject of discussion.

“Are we going with the assumption that
‘London native T. Landers’ is Tom?” I asked.

“Given that Tom Landers is a fairly common
name, and he has access to all of history, it
is
a huge
assumption to make,” said Mr. Shaw. He looked pointedly at Archer.
“However, the fact that you know Tom, and you wrote the note
narrows the odds considerably.”

“Ringo found anecdotal evidence that may
point to Tom’s presence in World War II as well.” Archer said
thoughtfully.

Mr. Shaw considered Archer for a long moment
before addressing him. “What do you know about the Werwölfe?” He
pronounced it with a German accent, which made it sound like
Ver-volf-a
.

“You’re joking, right? Tom might be a lot of
things at this point, but he couldn’t be a werewolf too. He’d be
dead.” Connor said. He’d been bitten by one, and we’d gotten an
education in them when his infection had to be burned out by one of
Mr. Shaw’s chemical concoctions.

Archer shook his head. “Not the mutant kind,
spelled w-e-r-e. Hitler’s Werwölfe, spelled w-e-r, were a group of
young men who had come through the Hitler Youth program and were
hand-picked near the end of the war to become terrorists. Hitler
feared he was losing, you see, and his plan, unrealistic though it
may have been, was to have Werwolves throughout the occupied
territories setting off explosions and causing enough destruction
that perhaps the people would rise up against the Allies. His hope
was that in the mayhem, his high command would be able to regain
their foothold in Europe.”

“But they clearly lost the war. What
happened to the Werwolves?” I asked.

“Poor leadership and not enough resources,
apparently. No one really knows why the terrorism plans fell
apart.”

“Did they ever pull anything off in London?”
Ringo asked from his seat in the far corner.

“Nothing of which I’m aware.” Archer sounded
grim.

“What does ‘entrance from Holborn’ mean?” I
asked.

“Holborn Underground station is up near the
British Museum. Could that be it?” Connor asked.

Archer suddenly jumped up and began pacing.
“There was a rumor during the war that many of the treasures of the
British Museum were moved out of the galleries and stored in one of
the Underground stations to protect them from the bombing
raids.”

I breathed quietly. “Art treasures.” I
looked up at Archer. “Which station?”

“I don’t know. As I said, it was just a
rumor.”

“That’s all been declassified now, I’m
sure,” said Mr. Shaw. “I have a friend at the Home office I can
call tomorrow.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, why are we
looking into a seventy-year-old mystery about something that didn’t
happen?” asked Connor.

“Because Archer doesn’t remember writing
that note, yet here it is. And he didn’t remember being infected by
Wilder until my interference caused it. In our whacked-out world,
just because a thing didn’t happen doesn’t mean it won’t.”

Connor rubbed his temples as if the whole
notion of time travel hurt, which to be honest, it sort of did, and
then he nodded. “Good point.” He looked at Archer. “And if it is
Tom Landers leading some sort of art heist for a group of Hitler
Youth, after you find him and stop him, you’re going to want that
cure, right?”

The grim expression had hit Archer’s eyes.
“Right.”

Differences

Archer was in a prowling mood when he left
the manor, so I just kissed him and let him go. Those moods had
been few and far between since we got back from France, but I could
feel this one coming on a mile away. Ever since Slick had taken me,
Archer had been extra hard on himself for things he had no control
over. That, of course, was not a conversation I could have with him
in this mood.

There was no note the next morning when I
woke up, so I assumed he had gone to sleep in the keep as usual. I
grabbed coffee and a muffin from the breakfast room sideboard and
went back upstairs. There was a dormer window on the third floor
that was easier for roof access when my hands were full, and I
dropped down next to Ringo to have my breakfast with a view.

“How long have you been up?” I asked him
after a sip of coffee.