Nest of the Monarch Page 19

  “Nothing more? Would you like me to sidle up to Hitler? Hermann Göring? Do you run me like one of their ghouls? Where does this end?”

  “End? I don’t know where it ends for you. When you stop, I suppose. When you get a posting in Buenos Aires. When you vacation in the Cotswolds.”

  Kim winced, and the anger trickled away, leaving her deflated. Ready to know the things she’d been pushing away for weeks, maybe years. What you really had to do when you went against them.

  Hannah murmured, “For me, it ends when they catch me.”

  It was so cold in the basement. Kim had begun to shiver. “The woman in there,” she whispered. “Nora.” She looked at the door tilted off its top hinge. “What is her Talent?”

  “Precognition, a 7. But listen: yes, they will test you, and you are not precognition. But they have contempt for the American tests. You say, ‘No, excuse me please, I am a spill.’ They will test you, and you will say, ‘Yes you are right, my people got it wrong.’ ” Hannah pushed on, ignoring the expression of skepticism on Kim’s face. “In Albuquerque, Copeland’s recruiter reported her as precognition. But whoever recruited her, he will not be at the Aerie. And of course, we make you a passport saying you are Nora Copeland.”

  “And I would be a 7.”

  Hannah looked away. “You will be something. I can get you to a 7, even if you are low 6.”

  “We don’t have test equipment. How do we know the optimization would go far enough?”

  “We don’t. But a catalyst senses when an augmentation is strong or weak.”

  “Your mole at the Aerie told you?” Kim asked.

  “No. It is what I remember. Sometimes, it felt like a kind of . . . serenity. When stronger, almost a rapture. I thought that with my boyfriend, it was the sex. Then I learned it was a symptom of the augmentation. And there were other things. It’s hard to explain. Senses, especially hearing, are more acute. So if I feel a strong effect, I will know I brought you up a good amount. A big amount.”

  “And if you suspect there is a weak effect?”

  Hannah shrugged. “Then I do it again.”

  “Again! You said that short intervals make the symptoms worse.”

  “Yes, but it would only be two times—three times when Annakova touches you—but it is not dozens, as when I had a lover. You see?”

  Kim paused, allowing all this to settle. She could still back out; meanwhile she wanted to hear the plan details. “How would we get the medicine inside? They would search everything.”

  “Inside your women’s sanitary towels. They will wave those through.”

  Kim rose and paced to the window where, through the nailed-up boards, frozen rain squeezed through. She must decide, and it was very hard. Gone were the comfortable soirees where she had imagined getting lovely spills and afterward going home to a cozy mansion. She had been playing at resistance.

  Here was the real thing.

  She saw the choice Hannah offered: to switch places with another American, infiltrate a Nazi hideout, meet the catalyst, and put her down before the December 26 launch. It was the ultimate gamble, the final test.

  Of what? Of herself, maybe. Even while she had these thoughts, she knew the choice was already made. Sometime in the last minutes, it slid into place, like something she had always known.

  She would do it. When your lieutenant is shot from his horse, and you are the only one left to ride forward to do the job, you do it. All the dead at Ypres had made such a decision. And all the living who were left behind asked themselves, would they have done the same? Certainly, many thanked God that they would never be so tested. But now came her test. It was necessary for some to die. Even if it was herself.

  Erich von Ritter had known her. He understood her, or seemed to, that day at Rievaulx. Those left behind can never understand why they are alive. And so one thinks of one’s own death and it’s not as bad, not nearly as bad, as people say.

  She turned back to Hannah, and her face must have revealed her heart, because Hannah came to her where she stood under the boarded-up window. Her dark eyes now with a new look; maybe respect. Or maybe it was compassion.

  “How does it work, this transfer? How long does it take?”

  “It is a touch. More than a brush against the skin, more than a fingertip.” Her face softened in encouragement, and Kim was grateful for it.

  “I will do as they tell me Annakova does. Place my hands on your face. Then the augmentation happens within a minute or two. You may not notice much.”

  Kim realized she was postponing. But still: “What if the contact is too long? Is it a stronger effect? I only need to get to 7.”

  “You are nervous for a spy.” She put her hand on Kim’s arm. Even though Kim wore a jacket, she jumped.

  Hannah gripped her arm reassuringly, and went on. “A catalyst cannot control the strength of the augmentation. No matter how intimate and no matter how long the touch—this is what Tannhäuser told me. He has been watching Irina’s optimizations for more than a year.”

  “And it must be skin to skin, you said.”

  “Yes. What I will do now is what Annakova does every time she purifies her Nachkommenschaft. I will touch your face, and you must hold still.” She drew closer to Kim. “You are ready, then?”

  Kim nodded, unable to speak, suddenly terrified.

  “No, say it.”

  “I’m ready,” Kim whispered.

  Hannah’s palms cupped her face, pressing into her temples and cheeks. Though Kim couldn’t tell if she was receiving power, she had the strange sense that she was being annointed, annointed by one who knew true courage.

  Hannah kept her gaze steady, and after a few moments Kim began to feel—unless it was her imagination—that the two of them were connected at some fundamental level of trust, obligation, and sisterhood. Tears leaped into her eyes.

  And then the touch ended. Hannah leaned against the wall, looking up at the ceiling. Perhaps it had been a powerful experience for her, or it had taken something from her.

  “It was strong,” Hannah whispered. “It was very strong. I believe, at least a 7.”

  So it’s over, Kim thought. This part was over. She still had all her options open, she could still back out.

  But she wasn’t going to. Leading Hannah to a chair, she reheated the tea and poured her a cup, steaming in the heavy cold of the basement.

  30

  AN APARTMENT, BERLIN

  THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17. “Do not smile.” Joel lined up his camera shot. “For the passport, they do not like a smile.”

  Kim tried to comply, but gazing into the camera lens, the smile hovered. She finally knew her place, the thing she was to do. And she was around people who supported her, were willing to work for the cause. Hannah, the mastermind. Joel doggedly doing his part. Gone, now, was the strain of pretending, fearing, struggling with everyone in her sphere. And, worst of all, fighting with herself. She suppressed the smile, but she felt it below the surface.

  The camera flash popped. The after-image in blue, gliding across her eyes. Joel disappeared into the darkroom to develop the pictures.

  In his apartment, Joel had drawn heavy drapes over the windows, leaving a grayish morning light to squeeze out the sides. The apartment smelled of wood polish and books. Posh, for Prenzlauer Berg.

  On the sideboard, her letters requesting the airplane that would get them out of Germany.

  Earlier, they had considered the issues and, together, fine-tuned the plan.

  “You will have to meet me at the lake, Hannah. My people want you; me, I’m less sure about.”

  “I will be at the lake, I promise.”

  “Have you been there? How will you get to the lake?”

  “A service road. I’ll have a truck, which will also be our backup transportation if your friends don’t show up.”

  “Can you really get so close to the Aerie? A half mile . . . They must have patrols.”

  “They focus on the road from the village to the
Aerie, feeling impregnable otherwise.”

  Hannah had arranged sliced beef and dark bread on the dining room table. “Eat something,” she said. A topographical map of the Aerie’s locale lay where they had been studying it.

  She wasn’t hungry, picking at the slices of beef. At times, she had the urge to laugh for no reason.

  “Is it starting?” She looked at Hannah, who had taken a seat next to her, hovering a bit, as though her maternal instincts had been triggered. “The meat looks very good. Is it all I’ll want?”

  “Do not think about it too much,” Hannah said, sitting beside her. “Who knows how it will go?”

  They had talked through the possible side effects, including the danger that she would have to endure another catalysis from Irina Annakova in order to deliver the powder. The only way to make physical contact with Annakova and transfer the tincture was when the woman would initiate the close contact of catalysis during a purification ceremony. Depending on where Kim was in the line to see Annakova, more or fewer of the Nachkommenschaft would receive new power, but after she touched Kim, her powers would unravel. In the line behind Kim would be faded monsters living out their last weeks of power.

  It did mean that Kim would undergo two catalysis sessions, not just one. But the effects would weaken and evaporate with time, Hannah had reminded her. So whatever the initial shock to the system, she would not deteriorate, or at least not much, or at least not for long.

  Hannah brought the map closer. She pointed to the topographical lines that indicated ridges and valleys. “Here is the main ridge that follows along the road leading to the Aerie. It is lower than the others and close to a higher ridge that extends all the way to the lake.”

  “We’ve already been over this,” Kim said.

  “Yes, and now again.” Hannah pointed to the small lake. “The valley fingers right here all lead to the lake, so when you get out of the tunnel, head downhill at an angle following the ridgeline and you will find it. On the south side is a shack used as a warming house for ice fishing. I will be waiting for you there. If your friends do not send a plane—”

  Kim interrupted. “I think they will if the weather allows. Remember, they want you with your Talent.”

  “All right. But it’s a good backup. I will have a truck parked on the service road here.” Kim noted a dotted line leading down to a larger road, presumably paved.

  Hannah repeated what she had told Kim before: “The airplane can find its landing place when there is enough light. That will be no sooner than seven thirty this time of year. In any case, we shouldn’t wait past eight o’clock. Your absence will be noticed at some point. It isn’t likely they will immediately think you have gone into the secret tunnel. They will search. That gives us some time; not much. If the plane does not arrive by eight, we take the truck.”

  “We have discussed this, Hannah.”

  “When you may be running from the SS, people tend to forget things. But these are the details you must not forget.”

  Kim cut up a few mouthfuls of beef, conscious of needing her strength for what was to come. “And you’ll come to England.”

  “I said I would.”

  “But when the plane comes for us you won’t change your mind.”

  “I have said yes.”

  Of utmost importance, Kim would have to make contact with Tannhäuser. His name was SS Captain Dietrich Adler. He spoke English. Irina Annakova had a German handler, Sir Stefan, who stayed very close to her. He was SD, secret intelligence. Annakova preferred to speak French but had some English. Evgeny Feodorovich Borisov was Annakova’s Russian friend from the old days, badly deteriorated.

  The Aerie was one of Hitler’s summer retreats, given over to the Monarch preparations. It perched nearly five hundred feet above the nearest approach and backed up against sheer mountain cliffs. Not only was it protected by heavy security on the sole road leading to it, but a gun emplacement atop the cliff covered the road and the surrounding woods. The retreat was accessed by a lift that led to the middle of a small plaza. Captain Adler knew another way out, a secret way.

  Behind the plaza, the ground sloped up into alpine trees under which were the officers’ billets and a distance away, barracks for the Nachkommenschaft. Between them, a pond served as a source of water in case of fire. There was a gun range beyond the barracks. Facing the plaza, a large hall for gatherings and across from it, a chalet housing Annakova and her eleven-year-old son, Nikolai.

  Hannah finished by saying, “I expect that the intake center at the Aerie will want you no matter what your Talent. But you must be at least a 7. It is unlikely to be a problem, but if I did not manage to augment you so far, they will not take you into service. Tannhäuser said that sometimes they send people away as unsuited for one reason or another. In that case at least we will have tried.”

  Kim nodded, finding it a little hard to concentrate. She felt a little wild, too alert. Was that how it began?

  “You will not have time to sleep today,” Hannah said. “Nora Copeland is already late for her rendezvous with her German handler, Luther. So today, we go forward.” On Hannah’s wrist, Kim’s Helbros. To prevent the Nazis from confiscating it at the Aerie. She liked the fact that Hannah wore it, a sweet gesture, unless Hannah just had nowhere else to put it.

  She and Hannah had a story ready about why Kim was five days late meeting her handler. “I’ve had a bug,” she recited, “and couldn’t leave my hotel room.”

  “Perhaps it was food poisoning from the ship,” Hannah said, helping her practice her story.

  The Queen Mary, they had decided, by the transatlantic schedule Hannah had found. “Yes, it might have been the shellfish on that last day. I should have known better.” She felt mirth bubble up and barely restrained it.

  Hannah frowned. “The SS will not tolerate amusement.” When Kim acknowledged this with compressed lips, fending off the smile, Hannah went on. “Where did you undergo your Talent rating test?”

  “In San Diego, at the Rawlings Institute. It’s new, a slapdash setup, but awfully nice people.”

  “They rated you a 7 for precognition.”

  “What? Precognition? No, it was the spill. Didn’t Ken Meyers tell you?” Nora’s recruiter in Albuquerque.

  “The spill is no use to us. It is only good for spying. We have plenty of those.”

  “But I’ve come all this way! To serve. You can’t believe all the nonsense in the US right now. The smears and lies about the Führer. The inferiors who are coming into positions of responsibility, even in government! It’s disgusting. So you will allow me to contribute, I hope?”

  “Good. You didn’t say he must do something, or they have to do anything. The SS expects deference. Some do not like women as Talents at all.”

  Kim pushed the plate of food away as Joel joined them in the parlor. He laid the passport before her.

  She opened it. Her face, looking back at her. Hair cropped short, with bangs. A calm on her face that some might mistake for innocence. Five feet nine, 130 pounds. Birthplace: Tucson, Arizona. Paging through, a stamp for Mexico, 1921, a splurge after high school. Scuff marks on the cover, a wine stain on the back two pages.

  “Beautiful, Joel.”

  “I was an art student at Heidelberg.” Wistful. What he might have done besides forgeries. “I did my first passport for a girlfriend. As a thank-you, she went off with another man.”

  Hannah paged through it, frowning. “It smells new.”

  He nodded and took the passport back into the other room to fix it.

  Kim stared after him. “A spill. The girlfriend. He didn’t want to tell me that.”

  “You think so? Maybe. But do not talk yourself into something.”

  “No, it was a spill. He could hardly wait to leave the room after he said it.” She was certain of it, in a way that she had never felt positive about spills before. Overconfidence? Or heightened powers? She pushed the plate of food away. “Is this what a 7 can do?”

  “If
my father were still alive, he could tell us. But we are lucky, Elaine. You are doing so well.”

  Kim stood, crossing to the little suitcase they had prepared for her. She opened it, checking that all was familiar to her. The clothes, a couple of books.

  It was almost time to go.

  She turned back to Hannah. “That’s not my name. It’s not Elaine. You knew that?”

  Hannah held her gaze. Maybe she didn’t want to know her real name. What use for real names?

  “What is your name, then?” Hannah said, softening.

  Kim clicked the latches closed on the suitcase and lifted it off the chair. “It’s Kim Tavistock.”

  “Ah, Kim, is it? That suits you.” She nodded and the two women regarded each other for a long moment. Then Hannah rose as Joel came back with the passport. “From now on I will call you Nora, though. Until we are done.”

  Done. It was a lovely thought. To be done. But, at the same time, she wanted to enter the Aerie and go through with it all.

  Fivel was assigned to load the dead drop with her report. If Duncan was having the dead drops watched, he would be picking up Fivel, not Kim. In any case, the Berlin station would get her message. Fivel was to wait three days, dropping the message off on Monday at a secondary drop at a brick wall in a cemetery called the Invalidenfriedhof.

  Duncan:

  I’m pursuing the operation. Yes, against orders. Our contact has devised a method to remove the problem. It’s a risky plan. You wouldn’t like it. But the contact has decided it is impossible to work with us—unless it’s me. This may be our only chance to eliminate the threat.

  Below are the coordinates of a pickup point if you want to extract our contact, as you’ve said you do. Once this operation is complete, the person has agreed to work for us and she’ll be with me at the pickup point. I’m afraid it’s a risky landing for an airplane. On a frozen lake. It’s only a mile from our target, but that area is not guarded. Be there on Christmas Day as close to first light as you can. The signal by flashlight will be “Robert.”

  I’ve sent the gist of this on to London. I feel better setting the record straight in case I never get the chance to tell what happened.