Girl Who Fell 1: Behind Blue Eyes. Offbeat Brit spy series-cum-lesbian love triangle. Killing Eve meets female James Bond meets Helen of Troy returns (HAIL THE QUEEN series)
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Then she heard Caesar neighing. But she could also
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see—feel?—a hospital band around her wrist.
There was the humming sound, like bees. It was snowing the crystals and flakes that moved erratical y…
But she wasn’t on Caesar anymore; she was hooked up to her dialysis machine.
The train, its steel wheels spinning furiously, disappeared slowly into the crystal-fog, and she became aware of Grinin standing next to her, in Red Army battle dress, a red star on his peaked officer’s cap. He leaned against the dialysis machine, stroking Luna with his one hand.
‘Snow hides everything, covers al the traces,’ he whispered to the kitten.
‘I have to find my mother!’ Blanka shouted at him, then was surprised to find herself back in the railway car with the twins.
She turned to the nearest girl, Katya.
‘I have to find my mother,’ she repeated.
‘She is me,’ replied Katya.
Blanka stared, open mouthed.
‘Your move,’ echoed Grinin’s voice.
Then Blanka was riding Caesar again, through a blizzard, gal oping after the train. She had to stop the train.
She watched Caesar’s hooves rushing over a single pair of rails. The trees morphed; now they had gnarled branches.
Chestnut trees and Lombardy Poplars. The branches twisted into barbed wire. The scraping screaming metal sound returned.
The train whistled. The sickening smel was overwhelming. The words of the Agnus swept her high into the sky as if on a torrent of pain:
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
From the clouds, like an angel, she looked down on a long line of cattle trucks. Thousands of people—in ragged, dirty coats—
reaching out their arms.
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Though she couldn’t see, she knew there were children in the cars. Were Katya and Elsa there too?
Back riding Caesar, she patted his neck to encourage him.
‘Faster, faster. I have to stop the train.’
But when she looked at her hand, it was covered with white powder: Caesar was turning to snow. In sudden panic, she knew he might die.
‘I have to walk with you, keep you from crumbling.’
Blanka walked Caesar, as he struggled against his transformation. Icy clouds came from his nostrils, infused with smoke from the train.
Then, in a moment, he crumbled away. Somewhere, again, a bell tolled. And she stared at the mound of snow which had been Caesar.
The train clanked and whistled, and she turned around. In an endless world of cattle cars—one was much larger than all the rest.It was in the shape of a giant wooden horse, dozens of feet high.
Waffen-SS soldiers opened the side of the wooden horse, and the people from inside fel out. Some were stiff like corpses, but others moved. Al on top of one another they tumbled into the snow. With suitcases. With coats, children, dead babies.
As those who could move, struggled, they turned to icy statues. Then, as the wind swirled around them, they flattened into monochrome cut-outs that trembled in the gusts of snow.
They were turning to snow as Caesar had. She had to stop them crumbling.
‘Katya! Elsa!’ screamed Blanka.
The cut-outs, thickly covered with rags and dirty snow, rose from the pile near the train and began to move—their arms held out to her.
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Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world , have mercy on us.
She had to walk with them.
She ran into the crowd, but when she touched one of the women, her head fel off, and she shrank to a mound of snow.
‘Snow hides everything, covers al the traces,’ Grinin’s voice whispered.
(Blanka awoke for a split second. She was on dialysis; she could see her study around her. ‘I’ve got to get off this machine,’ she said to herself.)
Then she heard a woman laughing loudly. Blanka turned, and was back in the snow.
The woman wore a white doctor’s coat over a green Waffen-SS uniform, the visor cap of an SS captain on her head.
The woman was Felicity.
‘Where’s Katya?’ Blanka shouted. ‘Where’s Elsa?’
Felicity reached up her hand, and peeled a prosthetic mask off her face. Underneath was the face of a fine-featured man of 30, with a gap in his teeth.
Felicity with the man’s face was holding the twins, hugging and swinging them.
‘Who are you? What are you doing?’ Blanka shouted.
‘ Zwillinge,’ sang Felicity happily.
Blanka fel to her knees, and vomited on the snow.
Felicity-man-face, Katya and Elsa under her arms, ran towards the dirty dark quarter-world of snow at the edge of the dream. Everything was gone except the black snow; there were no cut-outs, no trains, no tracks. Nothing. Then, in the distance, a hideous bleached glow. A huge iron Gate.
‘I am come to Hel ’s Gate,’ Blanka said aloud.
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She could see Katya pathetical y clutching her left ear, the only color, the crimson blood running from it.
Grinin was running ahead of Blanka, trying to catch up with Katya, who was reaching back to him, howling for his help.
‘I have to save the children,’ he yel ed, lurching through the snow towards Felicity-man-face.
Felicity-man-face turned, and pul ed the children out of his reach—and smiled as Grinin crumbled into snow.
‘ Cropped but not shaven,’ she laughed, as she pul ed the twins under The Gate.
Blanka woke, and instinctively clutched at her eyes with her hands, staring around her study in confusion.
She tried to get up, but was connected to her machine by tubes (was there no escape?). She grabbed the pipe connected to the cannula on her chest, wrenched it off and stood up.
She felt giddy and sat down; watched blood trickle down her breast, fal ing thickly onto the mat.
She flashed back to the dream, saw Katya’s red blood again, and convulsed.
Purple blood streamed out the cannula, as she struggled to cap it with the Dacron cuff. She looked down. The blood stopped.
She started her deep breathing, and her hand shook violently as she cleaned herself with a wipe. Vomit, amoeba-shaped, had hardened on the floor.
So it wasn’t just in the dream.
The room was familiar now: her scuba tanks, dive equipment and charts lay on the other side. She reached for her T-shirt and stared at the words Dive Master Instructor; wept at the comfort it gave her.
She pulled it over her bra; sat 30 minutes listening to the sound of her breath.
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Federal express.
Blanka’s doorbell was an antique bell-pull connected by a cord to a string of bel s.
It rang, suddenly, and she jumped.
Get a grip, she thought, you’re the leader of fucking OhZone, for Christ sake.
Through the window she saw a FedEx truck parked in the Mews outside her stable. She pul ed on jogging pants and ran down the stairs. Above the hall mirror was a discrete array of security monitors. In one of them, she saw her regular FedEx driver.
She rubbed her face, and looked in the mirror.
I look like shit, she thought. …Hebe?
You’ve had the Auschwitz dream, as wel as three hours of dialysis. Of course you’re not looking your best.
Don’t placate me, Blanka snapped. A simple yes would suffice.
She pul ed on a sweater to cover the blood-soaked T-shirt, parted her lips and checked her teeth. She grabbed a hair-band from the ledge, tidied her blonde hair, and tied it back. Then, wearing a big smile, she unlocked and opened the door.
‘Good afternoon, Boudica,’ said the FedEx driver.
‘Good afternoon, Mary,’ Blanka replied.
‘To Russi
a with love?’ the woman joked, tapping the shipping note on her PowerPad.
Blanka raised her eyebrows.
‘Snow globe for Lara Starikova in Moscow?’ she prompted her.‘How do you know it’s a snow globe?’ Blanka asked, as she
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lifted a smal box from behind the door.
‘You told me last year,’ said the driver.
‘Yay, now I’m loosing my mind as wel as my looks,’ Blanka said, handing her the box.
‘You’re certainly not loosing your looks,’ the driver said, taking it, and smiling at Blanka.
When the driver was gone and the door closed, Blanka leaned against it, her face bright red.
In the kitchen, she put the pink kettle back on the gas, picked up a pencil, wrote nightmare from hel on her calendar, and slumped into a chair.
When the kettle whistled, she jumped again, and scooped it off the hob.
‘Fuck!’ she said, burning her hand.
She lifted a samovar* down, and donned her oven mitten.
As she spooned Russian Caravan tea into the samovar and poured the water in, she studied it. [* tea making apparatus from Turkey or Russia]
Birthday gift from Lara, two years ago .
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It’s Really Nothing Like James Bond
Next day: Friday, March 13. 7:45 a.m.
The U.S. Embassy, Grosvenor Square.
C’s out-of-town office in Brighton was off-the-grid, and neither government surveil ance, the Russians, nor OhZone had penetrated his double life.
C could cal in favours at G.C.H.Q. (the British N.S.A.) to get it on his side; but Blanka knew, from what taps she did have, that C had no intention of al owing a vaccine to be made. So she set in motion the OhZone Op to move the Grinin family to safety in Dublin.
The first hurdles were the U.S. Ambassador, and the London CIA chief, Steven Patrick—otherwise known as Ma Baker (a name Blanka had borrowed from her DJ-ing).
Original y coined for a woman CIA station chief, based at the 169 Baker Street London bureau, the name was used state-side at Langley. CIA Director De Leon, Blanka’s long-time mentor, enjoyed the fun (no smal annoyance to the men who’d succeeded the woman chief).
Blanka’s discussion with the Ambassador and Ma Baker was brief.
‘The 72-hour deadline expires tomorrow,’ she reminded them. ‘President Obama has given this top priority.’
‘Diplomatic protocol has got to be gone through,’ the
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Ambassador explained. ‘I’ve briefed the Irish Defence Minister and informed him of the urgency. He’s agreed to meet me and our ambassador to Ireland on Wednesday.’
‘Wednesday!’ Blanka’s look of disgust required no interpreta-tion. ‘Hate to see how long it takes if it weren’t a fucking emergency.’
‘He was reluctant to meet at al ,’ the Ambassador replied icily.
As they left the man’s office, Ma Baker whispered to Blanka.
‘Diplomats don’t like to think in anything less than weeks.’
‘And I’m supposed to be grateful?’ she said.
They climbed into the embassy limousine, and Ma Baker handed Blanka an envelope. ‘Communiqué from Langley.’
As the limo swung around Grosvenor Square, Blanka opened it. The memo was on the DCIA’s notepaper.
Re. Operation Russian Caravan
Dear Blanka. I concur with your plans, budget $50m.
Do NOT render the Grinin family until Ma Baker confirms all diplomatic boxes have been ticked.
Cdr Gray will make U.S. military assets available if required.
May I urge you to prioritize recruiting new OhZones to counteract the toxic effect of ℧ 7, Felicity Robinson?
Admiral De Leon.
Ma Baker let Blanka have time to absorb it. Final y, she glanced at him and spoke as calmly as she could.
‘You can bet C’s not going through diplomatic channels. We have to move fast.’
Ma Baker handed Blanka a paper grocery bag. It contained 30
prepaid cel phones, stil in their packaging.
‘You’re short of staff and time, so here’s some of our burners.’
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Blanka leaned across the seat and gave Ma Baker a peck on the cheek.
As they drove past Trafalgar Square, the sun shone on the fountains. Yesterday’s fog had lifted and Blanka got a clear view. She was reminded of the singing fountains of Peterhof Palace, St Petersburg. Grinin had taken a photograph of her mother there, in 1999.
What was it her stepfather had said? Your mother, Kitty, was very superstitious. She didn’t like Thursdays.
Yes, she died on a Thursday, said Hebe.
‘Fuck it,’ Blanka said. ‘We go Thursday.’
‘Okay,’ Ma Baker replied.
Blanka returned to her thoughts.
Cousin Valentina. In the KGB, she must have to put up with politicians too. But that wouldn’t stop her from acting. If I were in Valentina’s shoes, what would I do? Get Grinin out too… Use the family connection through Kitty!
Blanka looked up, as if sensing something in the air… Lara!
Ma Baker had been checking his messages. ‘I’ve got clearance from De Leon,’ he said suddenly. ‘What do you need?’
Go, Blanka prompted Hebe.
Using Blanka’s voice, Hebe reeled off the prepared list, ending:
‘A 50 set CIA-Blue radio link-up, with mobile control to go in my stable. Up-to-the-minute Intel on the KGB, NATO, MI6, and MI5 positions on Grinin. 30 CIA field agents.’
‘A fair wind and a fol owing sea,’ added Blanka.
‘I wish you al that, and we wil go to Critical Alert Level.’
‘It would be useful to have the agents this morning.’
Ma Baker snorted. ‘You’re not the only show in Europe.
Okay, I’l fly replacements in from Warsaw.’
As the limousine crossed Westminster Bridge towards the
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South Bank, Blanka looked over her shoulder at the Boudica’s Chariot sculpture, and River Heights behind.
I should move Grinin separately from his wife and children, she told Hebe.
I’m concerned that C may kidnap Diana and the twins, the AI replied. As bargaining chips.
I agree, Blanka said. They’l have to be moved first.
Diana and Grinin have their wedding anniversary Tuesday.
Behind her contacts, Blanka’s eyes washed over silver.
Okay. We can move Diana, Emma and Olga on Wednesday.
As the limo pulled up at Battersea Heliport, two helicopters were waiting: Ma Baker’s with its engine running, and an Atlas rental.
Blanka smiled at the figure of the African-American Dr Oxberry, standing by the Atlas, gyrating to loud music coming from inside. Blanka’s closest family friend, Oxberry was a physician, a world-renowned physicist, and the co-creator of OhZone. He was affectionately known, to one and al , as ‘ Drox.’
Ma Baker wished Blanka good luck, jumped out, and briefly shook hands with Drox. Then he climbed into his chopper, which rose vertical y into the beguilingly blue sky above London.
As Blanka got out the limo, she recognised the music playing from the aircraft as a band called The Band.
Their bassist, Rick Danko, was singing one of her all time favourites (from the decade her mother Kitty was born in, the 60s) This Wheels On Fire.
Blanka spread her arms and cried out to Drox, ‘In my hour of need… My knight in shining armour!’
‘My Celtic queen,’ her 70-year-old friend replied (in an American voice with something of a French accent).
Clasping hands, Blanka danced several bars with him
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around the helipad, until they stopped, laughing. Drox bowed, kissed Blanka on both cheeks Russian-style, then said:
‘What’s the pl
an?’
‘We move Grinin Thursday,’ she answered. ‘His wife and children the night before.’
Drox held open the helicopter cockpit door for Blanka.
‘Shal we?’
Blanka clambered behind the controls of the Atlas, and started the engine, while Drox climbed in beside her. As she ran through the pre-take off checks, they donned helicopter headsets. Drox turned to her.
‘Have you tried to figure what Valentina’s gonna do?’
‘I’ve been asking myself that. I think she’ll play the Kitty card. Which means she’l send an asset. She can’t do it herself, so it wil be one of her trusted captains.’
‘Lara?’
‘Maybe. I need to get eyes at al the airports. Can you watch the Eurostar in Paris?’
‘Good ol’ Gare Du Nord. Happy to oblige.’
Blanka completed the checks, ‘We’re good to go. And I need to vanish for a bit, and appear to be somewhere I’m not.’
‘A job for Nearby? Want to pick her up?’
Blanka nodded. She filed a flight plan for Regents Park Zoo helipad, the closest to Edgware Road spy hostel, and shifted the cyclic (principal helicopter control).
The blades of the main rotor bit the damp air, and they rose; the glare from the sun filling the interior. The bird turned over the river, and the Thames glimmered with gold beneath them.
‘Can you hold off putting Hans in the OhZone Machine for a few days?’ Blanka asked.
‘No problem,’ said Drox.
‘I’m concerned about the possible deployment of our newest
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graduate: 7,’ said Blanka. ‘Can we rely on Felicity not being ful y-functional?’
‘Not a bit, the hybrid processing was successful,’ Drox replied. ‘Although I loaded her with only the basic version 1 AI, and she skipped the second half of the training, she’s at peak physical and mental fitness. “La Bombe” is a-ticking I’m afraid.
And she has Hebe.’
At that point, Blanka’s Hebe spoke aloud again—now in her English Miss Marple voice—addressing her creator:
‘And Felicity is as unpredictable as ever, Doctor.’
‘Correct, Hebe. As unpredictable as ever.’
Blanka touched Drox’s knee, ‘What’ve you told Dad?’
‘Max has been careful not to ask, and I haven’t volunteered anything. He’s worried sick about your failing kidneys.’