Nest of the Monarch Read online

  “Leave me alone.”

  Hilde rushed in, and Kim turned to the wall.

  “He is crazy!” Hilde exclaimed. “Why do they keep him? Only because that ridiculous woman loves him.”

  “Be quiet!” Erika snapped.

  Hilde looked disconcerted.

  Oh, Hilde, Kim thought. What a foolish thing to blurt. Surely a spill.

  Hilde murmured, “Her Highness has every right, of course.”

  Kim lay facedown on the bed, pulling the covers over her head, finding relief in the shadows. If people would just stop talking.

  Leningrad, they call it now. What will they call it when it is dead?

  Blood on my shirt. The man in uniform who will kill me.

  The purified ones: Sonja’s husband. The patient at Treptow Sanatorium.

  And me.

  37

  THE AERIE

  SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19. Erika pushed a cup of hot tea at her.

  “We have inspections on Saturdays. You wake up now.” It was still dark outside.

  Kim sat up, accepting the mug. “Danke.” Erika had turned exceptionally nice. Under orders after Kim’s scare from the old Russian?

  She looked around the barracks: its sober, gray walls, the planked floor, the military bunks. Her barracks companions—or watchdogs. Despite her and Hannah’s careful plan, she found herself daunted. The nest of the monarch bristled with menace.

  Hilde was dressing, eyeing the two of them, maybe wondering about Erika serving tea.

  After Evgeny Feodorovich’s outburst yesterday she had spent the late afternoon in a Festival Hall training room with an instructor who briefed her on her spill assignment. It was to be at the British consulate in Paris, a Nachkommenschaft mission that would never be carried out. She pretended to be an earnest student, a little wide-eyed at the honor of her new role, eager to do her part. He had been a simple man to fool. Her confidence had swelled.

  Erika made an impatient gesture. “You must make yourself ready.”

  A pair of long underwear had appeared on Kim’s bunk, presumably another gift from Erika. Kim stripped off her nightgown and pulled on the welcome flannels.

  She made for the door to get to the lavatory, but Erika barked, “Dress first!”

  Kim grabbed her slacks and shirt, fumbling into them and then, as a statement of independence, left the room without putting her shoes on.

  “Shoes!” Erika called after her.

  The washroom smelled of mold and snow, the floor prickly with cold against her feet. She used the toilet, then cranked the pump to splash water on her face. If only there were a mirror. She needed to see her reflection, despite knowing that logically she should not be changing, not in that way of the Progeny, after just one session. Her hands looked normal. Only one purification. The only changes had been her appetite and a sense that she was not quite herself.

  She remembered Duncan’s words when they had first met in the Tiergarten. Everyone has their limits. She had wanted to ask about his two missing fingers. Had it happened under torture? Had he reached his limit then, and wanted her to know that there were some things that she was not expected to endure? She wondered how one knew when one had gone too far. Perhaps it was only after the fact that one might say, I should have turned back. She felt sure she would know her limits. But the thought nagged, that with the catalysis, her infusion of self-confidence was unreliable.

  Limits. Perhaps an excuse for the timid.

  Erika appeared in the doorway. “They are coming up the path! The inspection. Hurry.”

  As they rushed back to their room, she said, “Captain Adler expects us to be up early, but we let you sleep!”

  Adler. Her contact. The SS officer. Kim heard the tread of boots on the steps outside. She and Erika charged into the room. Kim threw her bed together and kicked her nightgown under it. She jammed her feet into her shoes without socks.

  Two SS entered the room.

  Erika and Hilde moved to stand by the pillow on their beds. Kim followed suit, her shoelaces slapping on the floor as she walked.

  One of the men, clearly the superior officer, scanned the quarters. Powerfully built, with a square, unlined face that looked like it had never known a smile. He noted the mug of tea that Kim had left on the floor.

  “Ist das ihres?” he asked Kim.

  “Yes, Captain. It’s my tea.” Flustered by the inspection, she forgot to speak German.

  “You are the American.” Speaking English now.

  “Yes, Captain.”

  He swept his dark gaze over her, noting her shoelaces. “Tie your shoes, Fräulein.”

  As she did so, her pants hitched up, showing her to be sockless. She stood, expecting a reprimand, but the captain merely took off his hat and handed it to the soldier who accompanied him. He raked his hands through his hair. “You do not speak German. Strange that they find you valuable.”

  “Yes, Captain.” Then the comment that she had planned to use: “But I love Germany. And Wagner is the best music. Especially Tannhäuser.”

  “Wagner,” the captain said. “The Führer’s favorite.”

  Walking farther into the room, he glanced at Erika’s bunk and pointed to her bed. Kim noticed that the blanket was a little rumpled. “Die Ecke ist nicht gerade!”

  Erika darted a glance in that direction, her cheeks coloring as she apologized in German.

  By the captain’s tone, it was a stinging reprimand. Erika stared at the floor, the blood rushing from her face. When the captain finished, he held out his hand in the direction of his adjutant, receiving his hat. “I will see you in my office, Fräulein,” Adler said to Erika in English.

  “Ja, Kapitän!”

  He turned back to Kim. “You are all responsible for one another. You will immediately take her bedding down to the washing shed and clean it, remaking her bed properly.”

  Smoothing back his hair, he placed his hat on his head and gestured for Erika to precede him out the door.

  Kim released a long, slow breath.

  He had assigned a meeting place for Kim and gotten rid of Erika’s snooping for a while. Neatly done.

  As Adler left and his officer marched Erika out the door, Kim began stripping Erika’s bed.

  The washing shed’s warmth fell over her, a blessed relief from the cold. Oversize wringer washers were tended by several women as large as their machines. In the back, clotheslines strung with sheets billowed under blowing fans.

  One of the women frowned to see Kim. She pointed to a table where she should deposit the sheets.

  As she did so, Adler came in. His dark, elegant uniform was a stark contrast with the laundry room.

  “Räumen Sie die Kammer,” he told the women.

  They quickly dispersed, grabbing coats hanging near the door.

  He turned to Kim. “Sie werden bleiben, Fräulein.” She was to stay. Of course.

  One of the women on her way out snuck a glance at Kim, perhaps thinking she knew the officer’s intention now that Kim had been ordered to stay.

  Adler cocked his head toward the clotheslines and led the way, ducking behind a wall of sheets.

  Once they were hidden, he snapped, “Who are you?”

  “Hannah sent me.” The sheets billowed around them like ghosts.

  “Who is this Hannah? Speak quickly, and be very clear.”

  “Hannah is with the Oberman Group. I’m with British intelligence, helping her.”

  He unsnapped his holster and drew his pistol, placing the barrel against her forehead. “You have made a very serious error. I know nothing of this.”

  She drew in a gasp of air. The barrel, pressed hard against her head. Bone and skin so fragile. The horror of the gun, its metal a promise of explosive death. She tried and failed to think of something to say. Only truth could help her now.

  “I think . . . ,” her voice wobbled. “I think you do know. You give information on foreigners coming to join Monarch.”

  “This is nonsense.” He cocked the
gun, pushing it hard enough that she took a step backward. He followed. The hot whirr of the fans, the air sucking and blowing against the white sheets. The unreal moment before the trigger was pulled.

  “Please listen,” she rasped. “I took the place of an American precognition Talent. They passed me through even though I’m a spill Talent, thinking it a clerical error.”

  “I received no advance warning of you.”

  “There wasn’t time. Most of the Oberman Group was slaughtered in a raid last week.”

  He frowned. “Who survived?”

  “I’m sorry, but Franz did not. I know he had been your friend.”

  Adler paused, absorbing this. The moment stretched on, a full minute, ten, she could not tell. Slowly, he holstered the gun.

  She felt weak with relief. He was not going to shoot her. “Hannah is on her own. She said Tannhäuser would help me.”

  “This raid. Any of them captured?”

  “One who has no knowledge of you. The others . . . dead.”

  He watched her, evaluating. “What is your plan?”

  She paused for a calming breath. “I will disable the tsarina.” The sheets bulged and flapped. Against this fluttering screen, Adler’s dark uniform commanded her entire attention.

  “One move and her guards will have you. You can never harm her. You think we would not have done it?”

  You haven’t done it because you didn’t want to die.

  “I have a way.” She told him about the powder and its effects, watching the contempt and doubt her story brought to his face.

  “She told me nothing about this drug.”

  “No, because you are not a Talent. You could not find a way to use it.” She gave a brief and amended rendition of how the drug had been developed and what was known of its efficacy, while omitting any mention of Hannah’s catalyst Talent. That critical piece was best left secret.

  Distant gunfire caught Adler’s attention for a moment. The gun range.

  “But how . . .” He paused, raising his chin as the insight came to him. “You will transfer the powder during purification. When she touches you.”

  She nodded.

  “It is enough? A few minutes touch with the powder?”

  “We think so. But if not . . .” At least we tried. “What is the secret way out? I need to know. In case.”

  Adler shook his head. “I do not know.”

  “But Hannah said . . .” This was a setback. “You must know.”

  “I tried to discover it. Only a few people are privy to the information. I am not one of them.”

  Another thing Hannah had gotten wrong, she of the supreme self-assurance.

  Adler went on. “But they will deploy you for the winter campaign, and you will leave at that time. So you will not need a back way.”

  “I need it,” she said, putting venom in her voice. Always a back door, a backup plan.

  “I will try again. I cannot promise. Come here with your linens tomorrow at dusk. The door will be open, the staff gone.”

  She nodded. “Thank you. Also, I need to know Erika’s and Hilde’s Talents.”

  “Erika? Object reading. For Hilde, it is sounding.”

  Sounding. The ability to create a loud sound that instills fear. It was useful in a riot or a skirmish. Even a war. The ludicrous image came of Hilde on the battlefield. But at least neither woman had an ability that could blow her cover.

  Adler said, “You are the one who brought on Evgeny’s fit.”

  “Yes. His predictions, are they accurate?”

  “Why ask this? Did he give you a vision?”

  “Several of them. One of them was that the Wehrmacht will destroy St. Petersburg. A million people will die. Starve. Eating the family pets first, then their own dead children. Bodies stacked up in the snow like lumber.”

  Adler sneered. “He is mad, could you not tell? They will put him down presently. His execution is ordered.”

  So Irina Annakova’s influence only went so far. She felt a pang for the old man.

  Adler went on. “If you must contact me, tie a shoelace around the leg of your bed near the foot.” He handed her a new set of shoelaces. So he had believed her from the start.

  “Make sure that Erika does not see it. She is one who keeps track of you.” He raised his chin. “You are reckless. Running on your emotions.”

  “So I’ve been told. If it were you, they’d call you brave.”

  A narrowing of his eyes. She imagined him shooting her now, blood dappling the white sheets. But instead he shook his head, turned, and walked away.

  He stopped, looking back at her. “British intelligence sent a girl?” He shook his head and disappeared around the clothesline. She saw his boots underneath the sheets as he walked away.

  “No men could be found who would risk it,” she said, loud enough that he could hear.

  He stopped. Stupid, stupid to goad him.

  She saw his boots move on. Finally, the door closing.

  38

  WHITE’S, A GENTLEMAN’S CLUB, LONDON

  SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19. Julian showed up five minutes early at E’s summons. He shed his camel hair coat, sopping wet, into the arms of the valet and handed off his ineffectual umbrella. He’d had to wait rather long for a taxi and was the worse for it. Add to that not having slept the night before, pacing his flat. Where was Kim? Out on her own or picked up by the Gestapo?

  E was waiting in the billiard room.

  “Julian,” his boss, his old friend, said. “Take a seat and warm up, for God’s sake. Frightful weather.”

  A waiter brought whiskies, which Julian gratefully accepted. The meeting was likely related to Kim.

  “You look ill-used, Julian. Getting along all right?”

  “I’m waiting it out. All we can do.”

  “Yes.” E stared at the fire for rather too long. “Four days now. I’m afraid she’s flown the coop.”

  “Has there been corroborating evidence?”

  “No. Just that message from Berlin station reporting on her phone call to her handler. We’ve had some communications from the embassy, though. Apparently she’d been expressing impatience with Alex Reed and the legation for dragging their heels on the Linz matter. Acting increasingly on edge, to the point that the cover of her marriage has been less convincing. The embassy is fed up with the arrangement.”

  Julian, annoyed, let himself shrug. The embassy had its own agenda.

  “And so is the PM.”

  Julian straightened. “The PM?”

  “Vansittart and I met with Baldwin this morning. If it blows up, we needed to prepare him. It was not a very satisfactory meeting.”

  Julian waited, apprehensive.

  E sipped his whisky, frowning. Whatever had been said in the meeting, it was not a subject he looked forward to broaching. “They took the viewpoint—and it’s not mine, you understand—that some of this is the result of the relationships involved.”

  “Relationships?”

  “The PM doesn’t like that you’re running your own daughter. Come to that, they don’t like that you report to me, bypassing the deputy director. They used the word nepotism, I’m sorry to say. Of course that’s not it at all.”

  Julian braced himself for a bad turn of events.

  E continued. “But they’re right that the situation is mired by chain of command.”

  Setting his whisky down, Julian said, “She’ll be handled by another case officer, then.”

  “If she comes in, if she can weather this, yes.” E sighed and pursed his lips. Quite expressive for the head of SIS. “Look here, Julian. It’s bad policy to have relatives working side by side, as it were. It does look like you stuck up for her, pushed her agenda. No matter the truth of it, you will always be accused of it.”

  “But is it true?” He just wanted to know if, in the Monarch affair, he’d failed to keep her at arms’ length.

  “No,” E said. “I agreed with you. But that’s another problem.”

&nb
sp; Julian began to see how all this would end. “You’ve let our friendship cloud your judgment, is that the conclusion?”

  “Not in my view. But in the views that count.”

  They sat for a time then, neither one wanting to bring the conversation to its logical conclusion. Julian watched the sheets of rain pelting St. James Street. Washing away his world. His world, such as it was, always precarious, subject to the whims of Whitehall.

  “Are they asking you to clean house?”

  E frowned. “If her career is in the ditch, you can still survive.”

  It was a dismal hope that Kim would be moved out of her job. He could not hope for it. But that wasn’t the only problem. E had become tainted with favoritism. Not a fatal mistake—His Majesty’s public servants exercised favoritism as a right—but in this case it might have helped create a diplomatic incident. Never mind that it hadn’t done anything of the sort. He could have recalled Kim weeks ago, and hadn’t.

  In hindsight, he could see how the problem had been stalking him. His clubby relationship with Richard Galbraith, upperclassman friend from Eton, now chief of SIS. A few early exploits solidifying his ability to pull off complex operations, making him the golden boy of the service. Access to privileges like reporting to E and running a member of his family as one of his field agents. All based on E’s trust and indulgence. But brought into the open, it all looked too loose, too risky. Chain of command undermined. Agents’ personal lives undercutting reliability. It was unsettling indeed to think that it might be true.

  “Do you see a way forward?” Julian kept his face neutral. If they put him on a desk, he would leave. He wasn’t an analyst or an up-and-coming recruit. Ten years in. Ten years.

  “Best to let the Sparrow situation play itself out before we worry too much,” E said. “But I wanted to give you the full picture.”

  The picture wasn’t pretty. No matter what played out. “I’d like some time to think about this.”

  “Julian. We don’t need to let this defeat us.”

  “I hope that’s the case. Thank you.” He rose, and they shook hands. The handshake solid, conveying decades of friendship, national perils, grievous losses, a few bright victories. Toasts to the King.