The Shadow War

by Lindsay Smith

  “But he was polite, and encouraging, worked right alongside us to build out mathematical models for picking drilling sites or improving extraction techniques. When he asked me to build a digital computer to help the mathematicians run their projections, I was all too happy to help.”

  With the soldering iron running, Phillip almost couldn’t hear the laughter and tinkling glasses from the rest of Connolly Surveying’s offices at the top of the Philtower. His parents had all but ordered him to attend his employer’s Christmas party, much to his dread. It wasn’t that he hated being around people, though that was hardly his favorite thing, either. It was the added layer of tension, like a chewy cake fondant, draped over all his interactions with them, and in a company owned by a white man, the layer may as well have been concrete. He felt like some kind of jack-in-the-box everyone kept cranking, waiting to see what he’d spring up with next.

  Not even Darius, his best friend, was soothing his nerves this time. When Mr. Connolly dragged him out for a toast to his newest engineering success, Phillip had found Darius and several of the other mathematicians conspicuously absent. The other interns from the engineering school only glared at him until he lowered his gaze.

  He hated that Mr. Connolly was making such a big to-do about him anyway, like his freshman project was somehow world-changing. He’d designed a new tabulation machine: a massive system of levers and pulleys and vacuum tubes and rotating gear sets that could take in a complex set of data—like, say, the geological and survey data on a given piece of land—and output an array of mathematical projections for what an oil well drilled there might yield. What once took Darius and the other interns almost a day to calculate could now be computed in under an hour, thanks to Phillip’s creation. Mr. Connolly called it a marvel, said it was bound to revolutionize their work.

  Not Phillip. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d finally earned his place in the larger world, but in doing so, he’d left something just as valuable behind—something he could never get back.

  At least he had an excuse now to hide away in his lab in the office’s corner. There was always some gear set for him to tweak, a circuitry board for him to refine. Phillip liked the feel of the soldering iron in his hands and the burning, snapping ozone smell it left behind. He liked the way a circuit always did exactly what it was supposed to do. People were too unpredictable. Imposing. He never knew what inputs to give them. The only safe thing for Phillip to do was not engage.

  “There you are, Jones.” Mr. Connolly’s voice punctured the crackle of the soldering iron. “You’re missing out on quite the party.”

  Phillip switched the iron off and shoved his goggles on top of his head. Marty Connolly stood in the doorway of the lab, clutching a tumbler of scotch like he might have to use it as a bludgeon.

  Phillip shrugged. “Felt like making some adjustments.”

  “Always working, aren’t you? I like that. It shows good character.” Something in his words set Phillip’s teeth on edge, but he couldn’t quite name it.

  Mr. Connolly moved toward the dark leather armchair next to Phillip’s desk and settled into it. Phillip’s chair, usually. But Mr. Connolly inhabited it like his personal throne. He took a slow sip of scotch as he watched Phillip, and carefully, Phillip turned his attention back to the wiring in front of him: a replacement part intended to upgrade the data storage on his electrical computer from twelve-digit integers to twenty-four. Mr. Connolly hadn’t come here for no reason—that much was clear. But if he wasn’t going to make his purpose known, Phillip wasn’t going to make it for him.

  “It isn’t very comfortable, is it?” Mr. Connolly asked.

  Phillip looked up at his boss shifting in the armchair, leather creaking in protest beneath him.

  “Pah. All this money, and I can’t get you a proper chair.” He stood and continued, “C’mon, Jones, I think it’d mean a lot to the folks if you’d mingle with them. Just because you can invent something that does the job of five mathematicians . . .”

  “It’s not like I invented the concept,” Phillip said, scalp prickling. He knew what Mr. Connolly meant, though. He was worried about the rest of the office seeing Phillip as “uppity.” He didn’t know which bothered him more—that they might think it or that Mr. Connolly cared if they did. “Besides, I, uh . . . I noticed none of the mathematicians were here.”

  “Wasn’t that your idea?” Mr. Connolly asked. “I mean, machinery like that . . . It’ll eat some electricity, sure, but at least you don’t have to pay it a salary.”

  Phillip tried to breathe in, but his ribs felt encased in ice. “I’m not sure what you mean, sir.”

  “You saved us a lot of money, Jones. No matter how much all those fancy tubes and wires cost, it’s still cheaper than paying the five of those boys.”

  The ice spread into his lungs, his blood. “Well—it still takes men to run it. People, I mean,” Phillip added quickly. “People have to run it.”

  “Oh, sure. But not five of them. That’d defeat the whole point, right?” Connolly took another sip of scotch and licked his slimy lips.

  “Mr. Connolly?” Phillip squeezed the bundle of wires so hard they crimped. “What did you do, sir?”

  “Your friends from the college didn’t appreciate that I’ve got to make hard choices.” He narrowed his eyes. “But they don’t know how to turn a profit like we do. You and I.”

  Phillip swallowed, but nothing washed away the taste like acid that was filling his mouth. “But the internship—”

  “Was always on my terms.” His teeth flashed with a vicious smile. “I’m so glad you understand, Jones. I think you’re going to go far.”

  Rebeka’s hand covered his. For all her boniness, she felt . . . sturdy. Like an anchor keeping him from getting carried out to sea.

  “Did you trust Mr. Connolly not to fire your friends?” she asked.

  “I should’ve known he would. But it—it never even crossed my mind. I was so busy trying to prove myself, that I could make my own way, give something back, and not just rely on my parents’ name . . .”

  Rebeka’s fingers curled tighter. “You made the machine for the right reason. But you didn’t think of the consequences.”

  “Sure. Everyone thinks they’re doing things for the right reason. Even Mr. Connolly.” Phillip pulled his hand from hers.

  Rebeka didn’t say anything more for a long moment, which he supposed was only fair. The whole world was on fire, eternally smoldering with the flames of good intentions. People who thought they were doing the right thing. No one, he supposed, ever did a thing because they believed they were in the wrong. They just accepted any bad they caused as the cost of something greater.

  He didn’t want her pity. Not when she’d suffered so much, from so many injustices carried out by people who believed wholly in what they did. Was there any good to be done in this world? Or was it always only a choice between bad and worse?

  “Now you can do better,” Rebeka said, a quaver in her voice. “You care enough to want to help. That alone means something. It was enough to drive Germans like Helene and your radio operators to do bigger acts.”

  A lot of good it had done Helene. “I wanted to prove I could make a difference out here. But what if I only keep making things worse?” He shifted forward in the darkness, his hand itching where she’d touched it. “All these technological advances, these modern marvels of science, and all we seem able to do with them is make everyone’s lives miserable. Bigger bombs, deadlier wars. And even though I think I’m helping the right side of this hell . . . am I really helping at all?”

  The corners of her eyes shone too bright in the starlight as she lifted her chin. Proud, determined. “You already have.”

  Phillip’s voice stuck in his throat. “Rebeka . . .”

  His instinct was to deny it. Put himself down and everything he’d done. But he’d made a difference
—the tiniest of a ripple, and she was right. They’d rescued her from almost certain death at Siegen. The village they just left could send back word to the Resistance—warn them of what was coming. And if they could answer that informant’s request for information out of Wewelsburg . . .

  “I let a terrible thing happen to my family, even as I saved Daniel,” Rebeka said. “I knew what was happening. But there wasn’t time to save them all.”

  “But you did save him. And yourself.”

  Rebeka shrank back. Disbelieving, maybe. But he’d only spoken the truth. Even if she couldn’t see it.

  “I did,” she said at last. “And what you did . . . What you created . . .” She shivered in the cold air. “Maybe there’s still some good it can do, too.”

  He bit back a sour laugh. “We’ll see about that.”

  “Quiet,” Simone whispered. They hadn’t even heard her stir.

  She padded toward them through the cabin on bare feet and crouched down. Something had shifted in the darkness outside; Phillip could feel it. He could no longer hear the roar of insects.

  He shot a look toward Rebeka, the question unspoken in his eyes—Shadows?—but she shook her head once, quickly.

  Simone’s hands squeaked in the darkness as they curved around her rifle barrel. Phillip reached down, too, for his sidearm, before remembering he’d left it in its holster halfway across the room.

  In the stillness of the cabin, the door handle twisted with a click.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  LIAM

  Liam was leaning against the shiny beetle shell of the officer’s Mercedes-Benz when the man emerged from the beer hall. The officer paused midstagger, tipping precariously toward the left, before catching himself and assuming something like an outraged expression. With the slack elasticity of intoxication, his features turned downright grotesque.

  “Guten Abend, mein Herr,” Liam said, his voice too chipper and too sharp. “So glad you could join us.”

  “Do I know you?” The officer curled his fingers through the ring of keys in his palm, so that the jagged bits of metal jutted from between his fingers.

  “Not yet, my friend. But we’ll know you very soon.”

  The officer suddenly remembered his P38 and reached for it in what he probably believed was a subtle fashion. Poor Fritz. His hand never even connected with the grip. Daniel emerged from the alleyway behind him and easily ripped it out of its holster before the bastard had time to react.

  Daniel then jammed the pistol’s nose into the officer’s ribs as his other arm locked around his throat, blade in hand. “How about you show us a good time?”

  He maneuvered the officer into the Mercedes-Benz’s back seat while Liam climbed into the front. The motor started up with an effortless purr, nothing like the chug of his landlady’s truck when he drove her to the grocery store.

  Liam ran his hands along the smooth steering wheel, bracing himself. This wasn’t going to be easy without touching the shadow realm. Its absence throbbed through him like a toothache he kept worrying with his tongue. Maybe he could just dip in for a moment, grab a fistful of shadow before it could sink its claws into him or alert Pitr that he’d returned—

  No. That was the darkness talking. He’d overused it already—that he was thinking these thoughts was proof enough of that. He could do this without the shadow. All he needed was that fierce spitfire boy grinning at him through the rearview mirror. Liam returned Daniel’s grin, chest swelling with pride.

  “Where are you taking me?” the officer asked. “What is it you want?”

  Liam smiled. “We’re asking the questions here, Klaus.”

  “My name is not—”

  “I really don’t care.”

  Liam steered them down the narrow streets of the village. They’d stumbled on the ski resort when it emerged from the thick of night like a Bavarian oasis of wood and plaster. There wasn’t enough snow to warrant a tourist infestation yet, but the taverns and inns were open for a smattering of visitors.

  When they’d spotted the officer’s pristine Benz parked out front, they knew they had quite a catch waiting for them inside. When they entered the beer hall and found he was only an Untersturmführer, certainly not important enough to be loaned such a magnificent piece of machinery for a night out, they knew their luck had just ramped up. Now to press it a little bit further.

  “Where’d you get the car, Klaus?” Liam asked, as casually as he might ask about the daily special.

  Klaus huffed indignantly, but shrank back when Daniel pushed in closer with the edge of his knife. “I am an officer of the German army, and as such, I am afforded—”

  “Oh, no. Nuh-uh. Not with those measly little squares on your lapel, you aren’t. Bet that line works all right with the Fräuleins, though, huh, Klaus?”

  Klaus glowered at him. “All right, so I borrowed it. What do you care? You aren’t German.”

  “I wouldn’t get too clever, Klaus. Who we are isn’t your concern.”

  Liam turned off the main road and onto an access trail, deeply rutted and rattling with muddied-out tracks. The nose of the car tipped upward as they climbed, their teeth chattering all the way. The darkened ribs of trees closed around them as the village began to fade below.

  “Where are you stationed? Wewelsburg?” Daniel asked.

  “All right. You sound German.” Klaus whirled toward Daniel. “But you look like a filthy—AUUGHHH!”

  Liam tried and failed to stop himself from laughing. He didn’t need to look back to know Daniel had embedded the knife in Klaus, carefully missing his vital organs for now. “Sweetheart, you were supposed to wait until after we got his uniform off.”

  “Couldn’t help myself.” Daniel flashed him an embarrassed grin in the rearview, lighting Liam up from the inside. “My filthy parents were butchers, so I’m fairly certain that right now, the blade is beneath your left lung,” he told Klaus. “But if you make any sudden moves, it’ll take nothing for me to puncture it. That’ll be considerably more painful than what you’re currently feeling.”

  “You fucking bastards—”

  “Answer the question, Klaus,” Daniel hissed.

  “Yes! I’m stationed in Wewelsburg! Why are you only asking me things you already know?”

  “Just want to make sure we’re on the same page.”

  Liam clenched his jaw against a particularly sharp jolt in the road. The trees were parting to reveal the star-smeared sky above them. As they crested the ridge, he turned toward the left and scanned the ridgeline for the chairlift.

  There it was, hunkering down in the darkness like a primitive beast. Daniel was right—maybe they didn’t need the shadows to have some fun.

  “Now,” Daniel said, “for our real questions.”

  Liam brought the Mercedes to a stop and opened the back door. As Daniel climbed out, silver starlight limned his face; it sent a flutter through Liam’s heart. Daniel negotiated Klaus out of the back seat while keeping the knife firmly planted inside of him, like meat on a spit.

  Liam yanked the covering off the chairlift, sending pollen and dead leaves flying. It took some digging around with only the stars to guide him, but finally he found the pull chain for the prime mover’s engine. A couple sharp yanks, and the diesel rig woke up from its long summer slumber with a dry cough.

  “Not much gas in the tank,” Liam called. “Better think quick, Klaus.”

  “What? What is it you want to know?”

  “What Dr. Kreutzer’s doing at Wewelsburg.”

  Klaus allowed himself to be jerked forward by Daniel, closer to the chugging engine. The chairlift began its slow processional, bobbing high over the hillside. It was a pretty sad slope, as ski villages went; even upstate New York offered better courses than this. But it would serve their purposes just fine.

  “What do you think he’s doing at Wewe
lsburg? It’s the SS headquarters.” Klaus glowered at Liam as he pulled a length of rope from his pocket and lashed Klaus’s hands together in front of him. “Reichsführer Himmler is stationed there, and the head of the Einsatzgruppen—there’s quite a lot of paperwork—”

  “I think you know that’s not what we mean.” Liam yanked him forward by the rope, and Daniel reluctantly pulled the knife out with a thick slurp of blood and a pathetic whine from Klaus. “Kreutzer is experimenting with things better left alone. Dark things. Isn’t he?”

  Klaus’s whole body went rigid; he gained the shifty-eyed bravado of subterfuge unique to drunkards. It was like a dog playing dumb when its owner tried to pry a mystery object from its jaws.

  “I—I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Klaus said, his voice growing more labored. “As you said yourself, I’m only a lowly Untersturmführer—”

  “Oh, don’t be so humble.” Liam tossed the second length of rope to Daniel, who headed over to the chairlift engine and pulled the lever to switch it into manual mode. The engine whined, eager to get back to work. Daniel climbed up and looped the rope over the cable, then tied Klaus to that loop. Once they were in the air, he’d dangle a good five feet below their chair.

  “After you,” Daniel said with a dramatic sweep.

  Liam beamed at him, then settled into the pollen-flecked chair like it was the finest chariot. Daniel joined him, then tugged loose the rope he’d wrapped around the braking system. They set off careening down the mountainside.

  “Are you crazy? The minute I’m out of these ropes, you fairies are—YAUGH!”

  Klaus was abruptly yanked off his feet as they descended. He dangled only a few feet up, for now. But the terrain was changing soon.

  “These fairies get to decide whether you live or die, Klaus. So think very carefully about what you want to say next.” Liam pressed his knife’s blade against the rope that suspended Klaus below them. “Kreutzer’s project. What’s he doing to his soldiers?”