Bitter Seeds

fourteen

23 May 1941

Swansea, Wales

Mrs. Weeks objected to the term funk hole. Her establishment was an exclusive boarding hotel, nothing more.

She also disapproved of people who arrived unannounced, with no ration books to share and, most uncouth of all, with no cash and no checks on hand.

And she did not like Will. Not at first. But that changed quickly when she experienced his charm and, more to the point, learned his brother was a duke. From then on, Will enjoyed unlimited credit and boundless goodwill. He had the run of the place. Or would have, had he chosen to venture from his small but acceptably well-appointed room.

After the first several days, he started taking meals upstairs. He'd met the other residents and found them dreadful. Posh hypocrites who'd done nothing for the war but criticize it. They had no appreciation of the dirty reality, no conception of what it took to keep the island safe. He knew, in that corner of his mind that could still form a thought, that their view of him was likewise dim: exceedingly wealthy, embarrassingly unkempt, a drunken lout at all hours of the day. Even here, where the rich and cowardly convened, there were standards to uphold. And Will was letting the side down.

He abandoned sartorial conceits a week into his residence. After all, if he wasn't to venture past the threshold of his room, what point in clawing out of his bedclothes for a few hours each day? Far better to lounge beside the open window in his dressing gown. Breezes whispered through stands of hazel in the garden and rubbed his skin with warm silk. He dozed in the sunlight, inhaling the scent of hyacinths and listening to the occasional clack-and-murmur of a croquet game down in the garden. The smell of hyacinths made him think of weddings and the happier world of a lifetime ago.

His appetite disappeared not long after that. It was, he imagined, the bravest part of him, preceding him unto death. Will dozed, dimly aware of a quiet tapping and the clink of a dinner tray set outside his door. Time passed. It grew dark outside, then light, and over again. Will lost count. More dishes rattled in the corridor outside his room. He lost count of that, too.

And through it all, he floated in a pool of molten gold, drowning himself in a tide of his own design.

Yelling. Crashing. Splintered wood.

Will dreamt he was back in the glade on his grandfather's estate. Where a natural spring gurgled up through earth and stone, where no birds sang. Grandfather was there, yelling at him with juniper-berry breath while he and Aubrey kicked down the trees. Crack. Smash.

Then he floated. Out the window. Down a hole into the dark earth, because the faeries had come to spirit him away. Into cold, damp warrens, where all the lost children went. Will shivered. The faeries sang to him, but he didn't like their language.

Mr. Malcolm found him. Craggy-faced Mr. Malcolm, who had died long ago. He tore into the faerie mound with rough, strong hands. He lifted Will and carried him away, to hide him from grandfather, just as he used to do.

Motion. Darkness. Tires ringing on macadam. The smell of leather seats.

Daylight on polished walnut, flowing like honey through mullioned windowpanes. Ravens cawing in the distance.

Moonlight. Flannel. Ice water. The taste of stomach acid. A bucket. Strong hands.

Will woke in a four-poster bed, vaguely surprised to find himself alive. His head floated on a raft of goose-down pillows. He realized he was naked beneath a mound of blankets. Cool bed linens caressed him. He ran his hand through the sheets. Soft, fine: Egyptian cotton, high quality. It soothed the stump of his missing finger.

He cracked one eye open, but the room's walnut paneling was polished to such a high gloss that the glow of sunlight caused a flare of pain in his open eye. He squeezed it shut, satisfied that he knew this place.

His nose twitched at a whiff of something sweet. Attar. If he could have mustered the strength to look, he knew he'd find a decanter of rosewater and a porcelain bowl on the bed stand.

Somewhere off to his left, he heard the clink and gurgle of somebody pouring from a service. A few seconds later, his stomach did a somersault at the smell of strong Indian tea. This time he did attempt to turn his head, but the effort left him exhausted.

He woke again some time later. Minutes, perhaps, or hours. The scent of tea still wafted through the room, less intensely than before. The ser -vice had cooled. The light had moved, too, enough that it didn't hurt to squint.

A figure stood silhouetted before a panoramic bay window. Will couldn't tell if the yellow sunlight was from a sunrise or a sunset.

Sunset. These windows faced west, he remembered.

The man by the window held a saucer. He sipped from a cup, staring outside. Will recognized the way he held himself, the turn of his elbow and wrist as he sipped. Tense. Uptight. Even here, now, in his own home.

The tickle in Will's throat became a cough when he tried to speak. He worked up enough saliva to swallow down the gravel, and tried again.

“Good evening, Your Grace,” he croaked.

Aubrey turned from where he'd been staring out the window. “William.” It came out as a sigh, betraying the slightest hint of relief and worry. “I feared we'd have to call the physician back.”

Hunger clawed at Will. It wasn't a hunger for food, but for something else, something that would fill his body with liquid gold. Yes, Will wanted to say. Call the physician, call the man with the painkillers. The craving had been his constant companion for months. Will knew it intimately. Though strong and insistent, it was diminished from what it had been.

“How long—?” Will's voice broke into another raspy cough. He didn't have the energy to finish the sentence, but his brother understood.

“Several days.”

Aubrey moved to the bedside. He set his cup and saucer on the tea service and poured a second cup. Will's mouth watered. “Here,” said Aubrey. “Can you sit up?”

Will worked himself into a sitting position. The effort made his head spin, but he resisted the temptation to close his eyes again. Aubrey propped a spare pillow behind him. “Here,” he said, offering the cup.

Will wrapped his fingers around it. It was the good china, the Spode pearlware. That must have been a mistake; the lustrous Spode was meant for honored guests. The tea warmed Will's fingers. It was strong tea, with lemon, the way he liked it. He wondered how Aubrey had known this, or if somebody on the kitchen staff remembered how Will took his tea. It soothed him, and eroded the burrs that scraped his throat.

After half a cup, he rasped, “How did I get here?”

“The proprietress of the, ah, that place. She contacted us in quite a state.”

“Because I hadn't left my room in several days.”

“Because you hadn't paid. She said she had a, ah, guest on the premises who insisted, rather loudly I understand, that I would cover his expenses.”

“Oh.”

Aubrey sat in a century-old hand-carved oaken chair across the bed stand from Will. “What were you doing there?”

Will took a long slow sip, thinking about how to answer his brother's question. “I needed a change.”

“But why there? Why didn't you come home?”

“I'm rather unsure where that is these days.”

Aubrey quirked an eyebrow. Even during a heart-to-heart talk, or what passed for one, he strove for an elegant, understated comportment. The man was so entrenched in his position that he looked upon everything, even himself, with utter seriousness. “That's an odd thing to say. We grew up here, you and I.”

“We had different childhoods.”

Aubrey drained his cup. He poured the last of the tea for Will, then sent the service out with a servant whom Will didn't recognize. He supposed most of the house hold staff would be strangers to him. Who remembered the way he took his tea?

Sunlight on the near wall turned orange, then red, as it inched upward. The windowpanes crisscrossed the sunlight with thin shadows. Will nursed his tea. It was strong, astringent; it had steeped too long.

Aubrey's chair creaked when he uncrossed his legs. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

“What happened to you, William?”

“We had different childhoods.”

“That's not an answer.”

“It's the truest answer I have to give.”

The sun set. Aubrey turned on the lamps in opposite corners of the room. They spilled warm light across rugs that one of Will's forebears had obtained in India.

Will dozed off and on. Each time he woke, he was surprised to see that Aubrey had stayed. Will felt strangely pleased by this.

“I dreamt of Mr. Malcolm,” he said. “Do you remember Mr. Malcolm?”

“Who?”

“Malcolm. Grandfather's steward, long ago.”

Aubrey shrugged. “Of course.”

“That's good. He was a good man. He should be remembered.”

Aubrey pulled a pocket watch from his vest pocket. It clicked open. He read it, frowned, and put it back. He said, “I'll have the kitchen bring you something to eat. Can you eat?”

Will's stomach gurgled. “I shall try.”

“Excellent. Well, then.” Aubrey crossed the room, toward the door. “I'm having guests tomorrow evening. I presume your convalescence will last longer than that.”

It wasn't, Will noticed, a question. “Who can say? Perhaps I'll be on my feet sooner rather than later. Whom are you having?”

Aubrey hesitated. “I think it would be better for all if you indulged in a few days of bed rest.”

“Ah. You'd prefer if I not make an appearance tomorrow. Is that it?” Will asked.

“It would avoid unpleasant questions.”

“Unpleasant?”

“My own brother in a, a, one of those places. What image do you think that projects?”

Will ignored the spinning in his head when he sat upright. “I'm frightfully sorry to have inconvenienced you, Your Grace.”

“Don't be like that—”

“You wanted to know what had happened to me. Well, I'll tell you this. I've done far more for the war effort than you and your charities will ever manage.” Will's voice cracked. He had to clear his throat before continuing. “I've done things you'd ... I've been fighting a war and I'm exhausted beyond my capacity to express. I couldn't bear it any longer. Just like father.”

The mention of their father cracked Aubrey's imperturbable facade. Aubrey, being the older of the pair, remembered their father more than Will did. Sadness tightened the corners of his eyes. He shook his head.

Quietly, he said, “No. Not like father. You'll get better.” His rueful smile diminished, but did not erase, the look of regret in his eyes. “You'll be your cheerful, aggravating self once more.”

Will couldn't see his brother clearly, because his eyes were watery. “I would like that very much.”

23 May 1941

On the road, near Magdeburg, Germany

They made decent time, rushing east from Bielefeld, but at the cost of rapidly depleted battery stores. The task of clearing the roads fell mostly to Reinhardt, who could vaporize the ice and snow as quickly as their three-truck convoy came upon it. In places they used Kammler, too, for tossing aside downed trees and other detritus, but Spalcke lacked his pre de ces sor's finesse, meaning he couldn't make the telekinetic clear roads on the fly. This panicked, unscripted race wasn't a patch on the Gotterelektrongruppe's perfectly choreographed performance in the Ardennes.

And it was a race; nobody denied that. Their destination was the point of contention. In the past three hours, they'd received several conflicting sets of orders over the radio.

Klaus rode in the lead with Reinhardt. He swapped out the other man's battery as their truck plunged through another cloud of steam. The vapor froze to the truck when they emerged onto another clear stretch of road. The windshield wipers rattled quickly across the window glass.

The driver cleared his throat. “Herr Obersturmfuhrer ...” He trailed off, obviously reluctant to address either Klaus or Reinhardt specifically. The two had been arguing all morning, which made the driver fidgety. Nobody wanted to be stuck in the middle when supermen fought.

The driver pointed. They were bearing down on a junction where several roads met. A signpost indicated the distances to cities in various directions.

“East,” said Reinhardt.

The familiar copper taste filled Klaus's mouth as he angrily called up the Gotterelektron. “South,” he said.

The driver bit his lip.

Reinhardt repeated himself. “East. We're going to Berlin.” The air inside the truck became very warm.

Klaus turned to the driver. “Pull over. Get out.”

The truck barely skidded to a halt before the driver jumped out.

Klaus ran a hand over his face. “Reinhardt. There are three of us. Two and a half,” he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the truck containing Kammler. “You think you're going through the batteries quickly now? How long will they last when you're fighting an army?”

“That's what we were MADE FOR!” Acrid smoke wafted up from the upholstery beneath Reinhardt.

Klaus dematerialized, willing his body transparent to the surging heat. He reached forward with one ghostly hand and unplugged Reinhardt's battery. It quenched the supernatural warmth. Klaus released his Willenskrafte.

Reinhardt's pale eyes frosted over with rage. “Do you know how many ways I've imagined to kill you?”

“The Soviets were watching us,” said Klaus, attempting to deflect the threat with reason. Over the years, he had likewise imagined countless scenarios for dealing with Reinhardt, and even Kammler, should the situation arise. Few suggested a clear victory for anybody. “They want the doctor's research. They're probably advancing on the farm right now, while there's nobody to defend it.”

Reinhardt grabbed the loose wire dangling above his battery. “If that were the case”—click—”surely your sister”—snap—”would have given ample warning.”

He had a point. But Gretel had her own purposes, her own reasons for doing things. It was possible she had foreseen an attack and had chosen to stay silent; perhaps the best outcome came about when Klaus and Reinhardt arrived from the north, rather than being present when the attack came. Klaus expressed this to Reinhardt.

“You're making excuses for her,” Reinhardt said. “Perhaps she wanted us on the road, so that we could get to Berlin when the invasion came.”

Klaus didn't voice his suspicion that Gretel worked according to her own plan, a blueprint to which the war was merely a side note. Instead, he said: “My first instinct is to protect the Reichsbehorde. Gretel must know that. I am certain it's what she foresaw.”

“You can't bear to be away from her, can you?” Reinhardt sneered. “You two always were overly close.”

The electric tingle of the Gotterelektron surged back into Klaus's mind. “This is perfect. I'm getting a morality lecture from a necrophiliac.”

The air around Reinhardt shimmered with another surge of heat. Klaus gritted his teeth, grabbed Reinhardt, dematerialized, and pulled him outside through the side of the truck before it went up in flames. They landed in a puddle, which instantly flashed into vapor. The contact with Reinhardt blistered Klaus's hands. It was painful.

“That's it,” said Reinhardt. “You're going to smolder to death.” Mud bubbled beneath his boots.

Spalcke, who had been riding with Kammler in the truck behind them, was standing on the road. “What are you two doing? And why have we stopped? I gave no order to halt.”

To Spalcke, Klaus said, “Shut up.” And to Reinhardt, he said, “Just listen to me for a moment.”

Spalcke's lips moved silently while he clenched and unclenched his jaw. He appeared to come to the same conclusion their driver had, deciding it wasn't in his best interests to get involved if Klaus and Reinhardt fought.

Klaus turned his attention back to Reinhardt as the salamander was gearing up for an attack. He held up his hands. “Wait! We're wasting time. This won't achieve anything, and it won't get you to Berlin any sooner.”

Reinhardt narrowed his eyes. “You agree we should go east, then?”

“No. I propose we split up. You go to Berlin, and I'll return to the farm.” He pointed. “You take one truck. I'll take another.”

This settled the matter because it gave Reinhardt what he wanted. After that, they quickly worked out the logistics over Spalcke's vocal but ultimately impotent objections. They split the remaining batteries evenly between the three trucks. Reinhardt took a driver, another one of the LSSAH men who'd been transferred to the Reichsbehorde and who knew how to swap out batteries. Spalcke, Kammler, the radio operator, and the third driver were consigned to the last truck. When Spalcke started to yell about insubordination and tribunals and courts-martial, the air around him shimmered briefly before he doubled over.

They were ready to depart for their separate destinations within fifteen minutes. As Klaus climbed into his truck—the one that stank of melted Bakelite—he said, “Go find your glory, Reinhardt.”

“Go find your beloved sister.”

Klaus's driver put the truck into gear. A stack of charged batteries sat piled on the seat between them.

They turned right at the crossroads, heading south. They were followed by a second truck, which carried Kammler and Spalcke and the large store of depleted batteries. Klaus watched in the side mirror as Reinhardt continued east through the intersection. A few seconds later, the road curved, and Reinhardt's truck disappeared from view.

The south road was just as icy and snowbound as the roads they'd driven out of Bielefeld. Klaus urged the driver to greater and greater speeds. And to his credit, the driver kept them on the road, though nothing could have been fast enough for Klaus. Rather than clearing the roads as Kammler and Reinhardt had done, Klaus willed the entire truck insubstantial when they encountered snowdrifts, stuck automobiles, and other obstructions. Spalcke and Kammler quickly fell behind.

The weather improved as they neared the Reichsbehorde. Icy roads became slushy roads, then muddy roads, then roads. Snow-heavy tree boughs became naked limbs popping with green buds. It was as though they had traveled from the depths of winter to a pleasant springtime over the course of a hundred kilometers. Klaus massaged his aching fingers, waiting.

They were minutes from the farm, sunlight and shadow flashing over their truck as they barreled past oak and ash trees, when Klaus heard the first explosion. The ground heaved. A crack echoed through the forest.

The driver pushed his foot to the floor. Klaus checked the gauge on his battery, reassuring himself it held a complete charge.

They emerged onto the Reichsbehorde grounds. The facility hummed with frantic activity. Cargo trucks lined the gravel drive. Mundane troops and white-coated technicians ran between the trucks and the buildings, loading the trucks with crates, filing cabinets, specialized electrical and medical equipment. A row of troop transports had been parked on the training field. Klaus realized they had brought reinforcements to defend the farm, and now the empty transports were being used to evacuate personnel. Klaus saw one of the Twins being pushed into a transport. There was no sign of Gretel.

They skidded to a halt in front of the ice house. The staccato chatter of automatic weapons fire rippled through the forest on the eastern edge of the farm, along with the rumble of diesel engines and the rattle-clank of tank treads. Klaus saw movement and flashes of red in the trees.

He jumped from the truck and hit the ground at a dead run. The metallic tingle peculiar to fresh batteries buzzed into that place in his head where his willpower resided.

Another explosion. More gunfire, closer now. Close enough for Klaus to hear screaming.

Gretel wasn't in the first transport. Or the second. Or the third. She certainly wasn't loading equipment, and she wasn't advising the reinforcements. Nobody knew where she had gone.

Klaus found his sister in the barracks that had replaced their sleeping quarters in the demolished farmhouse. She was sitting on a cot, back to the wall, thin legs stretched out before her and ankles crossed, reading poetry. A rucksack lay at her feet.

“Gretel!”

The corner of her mouth quirked up. She dog-eared her current page, closed the book, and looked at him. “Welcome home, brother.” The ground shook again. Gunfire chattered outside, followed by the thump of a mortar shell and more yelling. She scratched her nose. “Did you have a successful trip?”

“We have to leave.” Klaus grabbed her hand and hauled her off the cot. “They're evacuating the facility. We need to get to the training field.” He pulled her toward the outside wall.

“Wait,” she said. She pointed at the rucksack. “We'll need that.”

The sack clattered like ceramic or glass when he lifted it. “Don't worry,” she said. “I've packed for you, too.”

They emerged on the training ground. Klaus half pulled, half dragged Gretel toward the waiting transports. He was just about to grab her waist and hurl her aboard when a line of tanks burst through the tree line. Klaus glimpsed red stars on the tanks as they maneuvered into a semicircle that blocked egress from the field. Their treads churned up clods of earth as they advanced on the evacuees. The Red Army had arrived at the Reichsbehorde.

Klaus swore. He pulled Gretel in a new direction. “This way! I have a truck.”

The icehouse stood between them and Klaus's truck. He grabbed Gretel's wrist, invoked his Willenskrafte, and ran.

Twenty meters from the ice house. Ten meters. Five.

And then—

WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP!

A chain of muffled explosions circled the facility in rapid-fire succession. They strobed the grounds with flashes of blue and violet like artificial lightning. The odor of ozone washed across the field thick enough to sting Klaus's eyes.

He recognized these explosions. He'd seen something like them once before, when the British had attacked the Reichsbehorde. Pixies.

His battery died, leaving the pair tangible and vulnerable. The Communists' operation was well-planned.

Soviet infantrymen emerged from the tree line. They jogged past the tanks, rifles at the ready. The evacuees raised their arms.

Klaus tried to slip away with Gretel, but they didn't get far before a trio of soldiers surrounded them. They stared at Klaus's battery harness and the wires twined through Gretel's braids. She squeezed his hand. One of the men called over his shoulder, something in Russian. An officer joined them. He looked the captured siblings up and down, consulted a clipboard, then barked an order.

The men took Klaus's sidearm and the rucksack, then stripped the siblings of their batteries. He felt naked.

The sounds of combat faded away as the Soviets established control of the Reichsbehorde. Klaus stood with his arms raised, wondering what would happen next. He knew they wouldn't be shot. Gretel would never expose herself to such danger. Unless it somehow suited her purposes.

He looked at her. As always, she observed the unfolding scene with perfect sangfroid. She noticed his attention, and winked.

A low drone echoed across the facility. It was so faint at first that Klaus mistook it for the rumble of idling engines. But it quickly grew louder, and soon his captors seemed to notice it, too.

Klaus looked up, searching for the source of this new noise. He found it in the western sky.

British Halifax bombers. The Royal Air Force had arrived at the Reichsbehorde.

23 May 1941

Reichsbehorde fur die Erweiterung germanischen Potenzials

In a strange way, it felt like Williton all over again.

An eerie sense of deja vu prickled Marsh as he sped toward the Reichsbehorde. This time, it was a German road cratered by British bombs, rather than the other way round. But it was so similar: the cratered landscape, the smell of cordite, plumes of oily smoke rising in the distance.

Marsh's stolen truck teetered around the edge of a crater and seesawed over another rut. The transmission groaned in protest. The farther he went, the slower he had to proceed, and the worse his frustration.

Milkweed's plan appeared to have worked. The RAF had flattened the REGP, if the condition of the surrounding area was any indication.

Grand job.

It was a good plan, but they'd formulated it before they fully understood their enemy. A sick feeling had taken root in the pit of Marsh's stomach.

The girl's a bloody oracle.

Gretel was no fool. Mad as a hatter, but no fool. She wouldn't have stayed for the bombing. She'd have an escape hatch. He knew it with a certainty deeper than the marrow in his bones.

Marsh parked his stolen truck on the outskirts of what had once been the family farm of the von Westarp clan. The truck wasn't designed for this kind of terrain. Taking it any farther risked getting stuck, tipping over, or even snapping an axle. And he wasn't about to lose the files he'd worked so hard to obtain.

With Walther P38 pistol in hand in case he encountered survivors, he toured the ruins. It took an exercise of imagination to reconcile his memory of the layout, based on a single dark night in December, with the charred debris strewn across the clearing. What the RAF lacked in numbers it had made up for with munitions. They'd even dropped incendiaries. The smell of kerosene and phosphorus lay thick on the still air, overlaying the odors of burnt pork and hot stone.

Bricks. Bodies. Tongues of flame licking at shattered timbers. Just like Williton.

But there was other debris, other things that he and Liv hadn't seen on their fruitless search for Agnes. Dismembered Waffen-SS soldiers. Flattened trucks and heavy equipment. Dead men in white laboratory coats. Half a troop transport. A mangled tank turret, its paint blackened ...

... but faintly visible, the suggestion of a sickle and hammer. Another dead soldier, his body and uniform torched beyond recognition. So, too, the rifle in his hands. But ... the length of the stock, the shape of the magazine ... Had he been carrying a Tokarev?

The devastation was so complete, he hadn't noticed at first. But once he knew what to look for, he found subtle hints strewn everywhere. An officer's cap with a red star badge. Fragments of Cyrillic lettering.

Oh, no. No, no, no. You grotty little monster.

The sick feeling in Marsh's gut became an oily dread. He shivered, afraid that he'd found Gretel's escape hatch.

Simply leaving before the bombs fell, before the Soviets arrived, didn't suit her style. It was simple, but she leaned toward the baroque. The information in her file suggested as much.

Handing herself over to old Joe might have been a crazy thing to do, but it also ensured Marsh couldn't find her. And she knew he was looking for her. He knew this, felt it, with a certainty that he couldn't voice.

Some of the ruins still crackled with fire. Behind a toppled wall, Marsh found mounds of shattered glassware partially melted into slag and a metal gurney with what looked to be wrist or ankle restraints. This might have been a medical ward, or a laboratory; the dead here wore lab coats. These had died under falling debris when the roof collapsed, or perhaps from shrapnel when the windows blew.

Marsh checked every dead body for wires in the skull, or a battery at the waist. But he found none. His census of the dead turned up dozens of Germans and Soviets, but also a large number of bodies either in pieces or burned beyond recognition, or both. If those men and women had once worn battery harnesses, it was impossible to know.

He did find one survivor. It was a young man, no older than twenty, wearing the uniform of the Leibstandarte Schutzstaffel Adolf Hitler, the elite Waffen-SS unit spawned from Hitler's original bodyguard regiment. This didn't surprise Marsh; an operation like the REGP would have required a standing population of mundane soldiers who could keep their mouths shut. The boy had been thrown against a brick wall, part of which fell on him. His breath came in gasps, and his chest gurgled when he exhaled.

Marsh crouched in front of him. The boy looked at him with a dazed expression. After taking a moment to recognize Marsh's uniform, he attempted a salute despite the compound fracture in his free arm.

Elite, indeed, thought Marsh.

“At ease. What happened here?”

The dying soldier struggled to explain, pausing frequently to shudder or cough. “Communists ... attacked. Tanks ... bombers ...”

The Soviets had bombed their own troops? Unlikely. The boy was understandably confused about what had happened. It was clear, based on what Marsh found in the debris, that the RAF bombers had arrived before the last of the Soviets had pulled out. But to somebody in the middle of the chaos, it could have seemed that the Soviets were dropping bombs.

Marsh didn't correct the misconception. His interests lay elsewhere. “Was the facility evacuated? Did our people get away before the Communists attacked?”

“ ... loading trucks when ... came through ... trees.” The look in the boy's eyes became distant, unfocused.

Marsh jostled him. “Hey! Stay with me. The medics are coming,” he lied. The boy coughed explosively. Marsh ignored the warm spray of blood that speckled his face. “Did anybody get away?”

“I ... don't ...” Again, the slide into that unfocused stare.

Marsh shook him again, as hard as he dared. “Gretel! What happened to Gretel?” But the boy shuddered, and then said nothing more.

“Damn it.” Marsh wiped the blood from his face.

Most of the Reichsbehorde staff might have died in the bombing, or been killed by the Soviets. Even Gretel. Perhaps she'd seen it coming, but it was inescapable.

He kneeled next to the dead soldier, weakened by despair. He and Liv would carry the sorrow of Agnes's death for the rest of their lives. And now he carried another sorrow, too. It was the shame of his inability to avenge her, to punish the people who had killed her. He'd tried, and failed, twice. What kind of a father was he? The kind that couldn't do a goddamned thing for his daughter. He hadn't even been there when she was born: he'd been with that raven-haired demon, Gretel.

Marsh stood, sighing. The Jerries would arrive soon to assess the damage. He had to leave.

I tried, Agnes. Lord as my witness, I tried.

Marsh drove his stolen truck toward Denmark, and home. He didn't look back.

It took most of a week to secure passage back to Britain for the stolen files. Marsh spent that time holed up with the crates in the secret oubliette beneath a Swedish fisherman's cottage. He passed those days thinking of Liv, sleeping, and reading the entire archive.

The more he studied Gretel's psychological profile, the more certain he became that she hadn't perished in the bombing. He absorbed everything they'd written about her, scrutinized it, read between the lines: Gretel excelled at twisting everything that happened to her own personal benefit. If the Red Army had occupied the REGP, he could be confident she'd found a way to take advantage of that.

The miserable bitch had gotten away with it. She'd killed his daughter, and then she got away with it.

Marsh stayed with the crates throughout the journey, even riding in the cargo bed of the truck that carried them all the way from his landing site in the Scottish highlands to Westminster. The files went into the same vault that contained the Tarragona filmstrip, a cloven stone, a photograph of a farmhouse, and the charred pages of a medical report. Marsh also returned Gretel's battery to the vault. He wasn't sorry to be rid of it; the ache in his back wouldn't subside.

Liv could fix that. But first he had to do something.

Stephenson wasn't in his office. He wasn't in Milkweed's wing of the Admiralty building at all. But he was in the building, and in the middle of a meeting when Marsh barged in.

Marsh recognized the lamps, the end tables, the smell of leather and tobacco. Daylight made the room much smaller than he'd remembered from his first visit. Back then when Stephenson had taken him here—Marsh's first trip to the Admiralty, back in '39, when the old man still held his position as the head of SIS's T-section—the room had been cavernous, draped in shadows.

He entered on a tumult of voices raised in heated discussion. He recognized some of those, too. The same voices had said that Milkweed was a fool's errand.

Perhaps they were right.

Stephenson was seated at a wide oval inlaid table with six other men. Some wore suits, some uniforms. The discussion stopped immediately.

The old man's eyes might have revealed a hint of relief in seeing Marsh had weathered his mission. But he voiced nothing of the sort, not even a “welcome back,” which told Marsh something about the nature of this meeting.

“Commander! If you please,” said Stephenson with a gesture encompassing the other men at the table. “This is not a good time.”

“We need to speak. Immediately.”

“It will have to wait.” With a dismissive wave, Stephenson added, “Find me tomorrow.”

“Oh, you'll want to hear this,” Marsh said quietly.

Several of the meeting participants turned to study the brash interloper who didn't know his place and didn't acknowledge when he was excused. One of the military men draped an arm across the back of his chair in order to crane his neck and see the source of the disruption. He was a big man, with thick caterpillar eyebrows perched over dark eyes and a wide, flat nose.

Marsh recognized his uniform. He'd seen several variations of it on dead Soviets at the Reichsbehorde.

Ah.

Stephenson sighed. “I believe most of you gentlemen are already acquainted with Commander Marsh. General-Lieutenant Malinovsky, may I please introduce Lieutenant-Commander Raybould Marsh of His Majesty's Royal Navy.” Then he looked at Marsh. “Commander, please meet General-Lieutenant Rodion Malinovsky, who is here on behalf of our new allies.” The old man's gaze hardened into flint as he said allies.

Malinovsky nodded politely. In thickly accented English, he said, “Commander.” His voice was a deep baritone.

Marsh returned the nod. “Welcome, General-Lieutenant.” Then he nodded to Stephenson, too, saying, “Tomorrow, then.”

“Yes.”

Marsh started to leave, but he stopped himself. He stopped himself because she'd killed his daughter. She'd killed his daughter, and now she was getting away with it. He turned back to Malinovsky.

“Where is she?”

Was there a pause, the slightest hesitation, before the Soviet officer cocked his head, frowning? “I, I do not understand your question, Commander.”

Marsh locked eyes with him, stepping closer. “Where. Is. She.”

The Soviet officer blinked, turning to address the rest of the table. “My friends, please. Who is this 'she'?”

“I truly couldn't say,” Stephenson said. The flint in his gaze had been knapped into arrowheads, all aimed at Marsh. “I must apologize. Commander Marsh has been under great stress of late.”

Marsh gripped the back of Malinovsky's chair and heaved. In one quick motion, the chair and occupant slid away from the table and tipped over backwards before there was a chance to react.

Stephenson leaped from his seat. “Raybould! Have you lost your bloody mind?”

Marsh ignored him. He loomed over the Soviet officer. Quietly, he asked, “Where is she?”

Surprise and anger played over Malinovsky's face. He said nothing.

Stephenson skirted the table and grabbed Marsh while the others helped Malinovsky to his feet amidst a cascade of profuse apologies. The old man's single hand had a strong grip, which he clamped on Marsh's forearm to pull him from the room. His voice was like the first rumble of thunder from an advancing storm. “With me. Now.”

He waited until they stood alone in the corridor, the door closed solidly behind them. Then he rounded on Marsh.

“What the hell has gotten in to you?” he demanded, his tone a shouted whisper. “Have you any idea whom you've just humiliated? Have you any idea the damage you've done?”

“They have her.” Marsh paced, pointing back toward the meeting room. “They fucking have her.”

“They have who?”

“You know damn well who!” This came out as a shout. “The girl.” He pointed to his head, pantomiming wires and braids. “Gretel.”

“My God. You're still obsessed with her. You have to let it go, son.”

“Let it go?” Marsh abandoned the pretense of being quiet. He didn't care who heard him. “Let it go? She killed my daughter. I've seen the goddamned records.” He added an afterthought. “They're in your vault now. Sir.”

That caught Stephenson by surprise. He faltered for a moment. “The ... Oh.” He cleared his throat. “Even if the Soviets have captured her—”

“They did. I was there.”

“—you seem incapable of grasping even the rudiments of this situation. Times are changing. It is imperative that we cultivate good relations with those people. And we absolutely cannot afford to act like hooligans. You've done more harm than you know.”

“I'll do more than that,” said Marsh. He headed for the meeting room door, rolling up his sleeves.

“No! You'll do nothing.” Stephenson blocked his way, shoving him back with a firm hand to the chest. “Beauclerk was right. You've gone round the bend.”

He shook his head. “You're done.”

“Not until I know why she—”

“You've done your service to the country.” Stephenson's tone was firm, if a little sad. His hand felt heavy against Marsh's heartbeat. “But you've lost your objectivity. You're no longer fit for this work.” He shook his head. “You're out. Go home.”

Long seconds ticked away while they stared each other down. Marsh swallowed down the rage, tamped down the urge to lash out. It left him feeling, for all the world, like a little boy caught stealing from a winter garden. He knocked Stephenson's arm away.

Stephenson returned to the meeting room. The door latched shut behind him, followed by the snick of a lock sliding into place.

Marsh went home. He didn't look back.