The Milkweed Triptych 01 - Bitter Seeds (16 page)

Marsh nodded more thanks, but a strange look passed between him and Stephenson as he did so.

Looking back and forth between them, Will asked, “And what, pray tell, has kept you from your loving wife? You made a rather hasty exit from the Continent, I gather.”

Marsh summarized the events of the past several days. Just as he’d done with his Spanish adventure, he made it all sound routine: secret meetings, speeding toward the German army, capturing a foreign agent.

After Marsh wrapped up his story, Will pointed at the window
through which Stephenson had been peering. “Our new guest?” Stephenson nodded. Will peeked inside the makeshift brig.

The storeroom was empty but for a cot. A woman lay across it, hair fanned about her head like a sable halo. Darker-skinned than he’d expected. She had bony ankles.

“Heavy sleeper, is she?”

“I dosed her as we entered the city. Better if she doesn’t know where we are.”

At this, Will rolled his head back, feeling dense—
Ah, of course. I’m hopeless
. Again he caught the glance flickering between Stephenson and Marsh.

“I sense you chaps are hiding a bloody great secret.”

“She knows things, Will.”

“Things?”

“She knew my name. And that we’d just had a girl.”

Air whistled through Will’s teeth as he inhaled. Though he was a tyro in this business, he understood Marsh’s liaison work for the Entente, and meeting Krasnopolsky, had both been carried out under false identities. And if those had been compromised—

“A mole?”

“Or,” said Stephenson quietly, “we have to consider the possibility that somebody has been watching Marsh. Perhaps watching each of us.”

The news made Will feel naked, exposed. He suppressed the urge to glance over his shoulder, but only just. “Why? And since when?”

“Since Spain would be the logical conclusion,” said Marsh. He pointed through the window. “And there’s more. Look. She has the wires.”

“No?”

Marsh nodded. Will’s palms slapped the door as he pressed himself to the window for a closer look. “I’ll be damned.” He couldn’t see anything under all the hair. “I don’t recognize her,” he said.

“She’s not in the Tarragona film,” said Stephenson.

Oh, hell. Nothing for it, then
. “Ah. Well. Speaking of that, and since I have you both here—though you ought to be home right now, my friend—that’s something I wanted to discuss.”

Stephenson said, “At last. You have an answer for us?”

“No and yes. As to what von Westarp has done, and how, I still can’t say.” Stephenson frowned. Will continued, before Stephenson could object: “But! There’s a way to find out. It’s a bit drastic . . . In fact, I came looking for you,” he said, pointing to Stephenson, “to suggest instead using this approach to find Pip in France.” He grinned at Marsh. “Glad we didn’t have to.”

“How
do
you propose we obtain this information?”

“Simplicity itself,” said Will, expressing a confidence he didn’t feel. “We ask the Eidolons.”

“Who the hell are the Eidolons?”

“Not
who
, Pip.
What
.” In response to blank stares, Will elaborated. “A warlock doesn’t perform magic. A warlock isn’t a magician. A warlock is a negotiator. A warlock changes the world around him by petitioning an Eidolon to circumvent the laws of nature. The Eidolons, being entities that exist . . . outside . . . of space and time, acknowledge no such laws.” He looked at Marsh. “That night in the Bodleian? The thing you felt was the passage of an Eidolon not quite noticing us.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Marsh.

“I fail to see how this helps us,” said Stephenson.

Will said, “It’s clear from the film that what ever von Westarp has done, it’s quite unnatural. That means the Eidolons are involved. But the most vexing thing about that film is how it shows no evidence of the negotiations. Which has made his methodology a deuce to unravel.”

“So,” said Marsh, warming to the subject, “we just ask these Eidolons to tell us how the Jerries are doing it?”

“More or less.”

“It can’t possibly be that simple.”

It won’t be so bad, if I’m properly prepared.

Will rubbed his aching hand and shrugged. “Mostly.” He pointed at the makeshift brig. “In fact, our little guest is a boon. Having her on hand could simplify things.”

“We’ve got Lorimer at work on her belt,” said Marsh.

Stephenson nodded. “Set it up, Beauclerk. I want it done as soon as
you can. And you,” he said, squeezing Marsh’s shoulder, “go home. That’s an order.”

Will slapped him on the back again. “I’ll walk out with you.”

Marsh pulled him aside when they reached the top of the stairs. “I need to ask something of you.”

“I am, as always, your servant. What can I do?”

“Look, Will,” said Marsh, looking at his feet. “First, I’ll always be grateful to you for looking after Liv while I was away. But now I need you to keep your distance from my family. Just until . . .” Marsh made a vague gesture that encompassed their surroundings. “ . . . until this is over and things go back to normal.”

Will took a step back, feeling slapped. “Why?”

“Because if they’re watching us, we have to keep as separate as possible.” Marsh raised his voice, perhaps even without realizing it. His eyes flashed. “I can’t protect my wife and daughter with you leading the Jerries straight to the bloody house. When I arrived this morning, the door was unlatched. Practically wide open. Was that you?”

The question, and the accusation veiled within, caught Will off guard. “I, I don’t know. Perhaps—”

“Well, it was you, or it was the Jerries rummaging through my house after you’d taken Liv. Didn’t occur to you to watch your surroundings, did it?”

“I stood for you at your bloody wedding.” The words came out forcefully, propelled by bitterness and hurt. “I
introduced
you.” Will’s voice echoed in the corridor. “You wouldn’t
have
Liv if it weren’t for me.”

Liv deserved better than to be cloistered from the world. She would suffocate. If Will understood that, why couldn’t Marsh? The man didn’t know what he had. Will spat, “She isn’t a china doll and she isn’t a trophy. Were she my wife, I’d have the respect to warn her of danger.”

Marsh’s eyes narrowed, and he pulled himself to his full height. Though he was still shorter than Will, his anger gave him a palpable force of presence. Will had never seen him truly angry; he immediately regretted his words. Marsh tamped down on the fire in his eyes with visible effort, leaving just a smoldering irritation there.

“Stephenson’s arranging to have one or two men from SIS keep an eye on Liv and the baby, to find our watchers. Anything more runs the risk of drawing attention to Milkweed. Including your visits.”

“Haven’t I at least earned the privilege of meeting your daughter?” Will’s question acted like a bellows blowing fresh air on hot coals.

But Marsh swallowed the anger again. This time he shrugged, as though physically shaking it off. “The war will be over soon, and then things will go back to the way they were.” He patted Will on the arm. “Honest.”

Will knew that pressing the issue would only start a row when Marsh clearly wanted to avoid one. He resigned himself to hoping for a quick end to the war, so that he could visit with Liv again and meet Marsh’s daughter. Someday he’d get to be an uncle. “Can you at least relay my congratulations and best wishes to Liv?”

“Of course.” Marsh tried to lighten the mood. “By the by, does Lorimer know you stole one of his cigars?”

Will played along, though he didn’t feel like it.

12 May 1940

0°41'13" East, 50°26'9" North

I
t creaked and it sweat, this submersible coffin.

Every few minutes another bead of water rolled down the hull, leaving behind a trail that glistened like tears on the face of some iron leviathan. The droplets formed around the welds and rivets where the hull plates joined together. The submariners called it sweat; they said it was condensation from inside the boat.

But to Klaus’s eyes it looked like the English Channel bleeding through the steel skin of Unterseeboot-115.

It was nearly as cramped as the box that Doctor von Westarp used to punish him. The crew—made more crowded than usual, and therefore more churlish, by Klaus’s presence—breathed one another’s breath, breathed air tainted with a hydrocarbon cloy of diesel that lingered long
after the engines had been switched to electric power for silent running. He could have escaped the constriction by drawing upon the Götterelektron, but that would have meant dipping into the store of extra batteries they carried. And Gretel had been vague on why they were necessary.

He needed to rest. Though how anyone could sleep on a U-boat defied imagination. Every time he closed his eyes, another creak or groan echoed through the boat. And then his eyes would pop open, and he’d watch another bead of water rolling down the hull, and he’d be achingly aware of the ocean poised overhead to crush them at any moment.

He wished the submariners hadn’t told him about the minefields. The Channel had already claimed several U-boats; the coast of Scotland was a safer insertion point. But this route was faster, and the Reich’s commanders had every reason to expect a successful mission: Gretel had foreseen it. Or so she led them to believe. But as for the ultimate fate of the submarine, she had also kept that vague. This mission might include a three-mile swim to shore, and it would be just like Gretel not to mention it.

He squeezed his eyes shut, concentrated on breathing. He forced himself to relax, to take in air with a slow, relaxing rhythm.

The hull groaned as the boat sliced through the sea, changing depth once again.

Three days since he’d had any sleep. Before long, he’d start hallucinating.

Klaus pulled the crumpled paper from the breast pocket of his uniform. Soon he’d have to change clothes, but as long as he could get away with it, he wore his uniform. The Götterelektrongruppe insignia on his collar raised eyebrows and more than a few confused glances among the crew. They hadn’t learned to fear it yet. Not so with his rank insignia. He was an SS-Obersturmführer. That, at least, these submariners understood.

He unfolded the note he had found in his pocket on the night of the Ardennes offensive.

Dear Brother: By the time you relay the contents of this note to

Standartenführer Pabst, I will be in the custody of our enemies. . . .

12 May 1940

Milkweed Headquarters, London, England

H
ave you come to take me to the ball?”

“Get up.”

Marsh hauled the prisoner to her feet from where she’d been sitting cross-legged on the cot. He pulled her arms behind her back. So thin were her wrists that the handcuffs, twin bracelets of cold iron, hung loosely on her feverish skin.

She craned her neck to peer at him over her shoulder. “No flowers?”

With his hand between her shoulder blades, he nudged her out of the cell. The ridge of the wire beneath her frock rolled away from the pressure of his fingers.

“But you presented a bouquet to Olivia when you first took her to dinner.”

The twisted, unexpected invasion of privacy riled him. Were the prisoner a man, Marsh wouldn’t have hesitated to give him a little shove. And the prisoner, unable to catch himself, would have taken a tumble on hard concrete. A petty thing, perhaps, but it would make the point.

Threaten my family, will you?

But at that moment, looking up at him with faux innocence, she seemed so fragile. He remembered the bruises on her face when he’d first glimpsed her in Barcelona. Marsh also remembered the surgical scars. She’d been treated terribly, and she was too small to defend herself.

How could she have known about the corsage? A lucky guess, perhaps . . . but she also knew Liv’s name, and about the baby. And she had known Marsh was carrying ether in his pocket . . .
And
she wore the same kind of battery harness seen in the Tarragona film.

Was she a mentalist of some sort? A mind reader?

Perhaps she couldn’t stop herself from saying the things she did.
Perhaps she’d blurted out something she saw in somebody’s mind, some dark secret, and received a beating in return.

“How do you know the things you do?”

Her eyes widened in a caricature of harmlessness.

He tried a different tack. “You act like you know me. Perhaps you also know that you’re better off here than you were with your companions.”

Silence.

“We just want to understand what von Westarp did to you, and why.”

When she wanted, the woman had one hell of a poker face. It slid into place now, an expressionless mask.

He sighed. “Don’t ever mention my wife again.” As he took her elbow and led her toward the stairs, he added, “Or my son.”

She twisted around to look at him again, a frown tugging her eyebrows together.