by Kay Kenyon
The nurse screamed. Kim exploited the moment to rush down the hallway, her lungs almost bursting. Behind her, an animal howl and the eruption of shattered glass. Perhaps the Nachkomme had smashed the windows or thrown a soldier through them, she didn’t know. More soldiers raced past her toward the chaos.
When she got to the dispensary, the door was closed. Heavy tape sealed off the room. The atrium, empty.
She rushed outside where the car waited, engine running. Kim opened the door behind Hannah and threw herself in. Hannah gunned the engine and they screeched away, the back door swinging open on its hinges. Heart thudding, lying sprawled in the back seat, Kim fumbled at her uniform pocket, patting it. Empty. The Minox, missing.
They flew around the bend in the driveway as the windows in Treptow Sanatorium newly flared with light, casting a phantom pall on the front line of the woods, and then receding like a bad dream as their car barreled down the road and into the black woods.
18
THE ROAD FROM TREPTOW SANATORIUM
MIDNIGHT. Nerves primed, Kim kept an eye on the rearview mirror, watching for headlights. They had changed into their civilian clothes, having buried the uniforms in the woods. “What if we hit control points?”
Hannah drove fast on the country road, trying to put as much distance as possible between themselves and any SS pursuit. But there was a good chance that the soldiers had not figured out yet that the middle-of-the-night delivery was a sham.
“They will not have them up so fast.”
Kim thought they might. A few telephone calls is all it would take. “I could pretend to be pregnant.” She reached into the back seat for a scarf and began shoving it under her dress. Her hands were shaking, still. “An emergency, and you’re taking me to the hospital.”
“All right.”
Kim put her hand on her belly, as pregnant women did. She was sure her pallor and sweat-lined face were already on display.
They slowed as they entered a village, shuttered and quiet. Then back out onto the open road, faster. Kim would take the train to Berlin from Wittenberge—she could not be on the train soon enough—while Hannah took her own route back.
Emerging from heavy woodlands, they sped along a river valley illumined by a half moon, flashing now and then from the river Elbe.
Seared into memory, the fourth floor. The beds with their occupants lying on their backs, all drugged. One not enough.
“How many of them are there?” She imagined a cadre of them, advancing into Europe; a fifth column, ahead of conquest.
“We are not sure. Many.” Hannah shrugged. “Enough.”
“You said the effect fades. How long before it does?”
“Our man close to Irina Annakova says the augmentation lasts ninety-one days.”
Ninety-one days. The Germans and their specificity.
Hannah went on. “They used to call them the ninety-one. But the Nazis enjoy their dramatic names, and Annakova likes them to be hers, so they call them Nachkommenschaft.”
The Progeny. “Who is this Russian woman?” Kim asked. “Where did she come from? A relative of Tsar Nicholas?”
“A White Russian. We do not know how she justifies her claim.” She rounded a curve too fast.
“For God’s sake, slow down.”
Hannah ignored the advice. “The Nazis do not need justification of her claim. They despise the Communists. Annakova would like her country back and Hitler will give it to her.”
A German invasion of Russia was a breathtaking idea; surely Hitler would never be strong enough. But Westminster and Whitehall shared Hitler’s Soviet aversion. They would certainly listen to this. And yet, would they believe Hannah’s group was a credible source? Would they believe Kim herself and her tenuous collection of clues?
Pictures of the Nachkomme in the final stages would have been at least something tangible. Even if it didn’t prove Monarch’s European mission. But she had lost the Minox in the tumult of the fourth-floor debacle.
“Why didn’t you tell me they had a compulsion Talent? He could have killed me.”
“It was something we did not know! Do you think everything must be perfect?”
“You might have told me there was such a Talent.”
Hannah shook her head. Irritated, snappish. “I did not know about it either. Oberman Group did not know. We are two dozen fighters without funds, without support, without the trust of people who could help us.”
Kim took a deep breath. None of this would be solved right now. “How do they ever keep a compulsion Nachkomme restrained?” She shook her head, remembering the one whose straps she had unbuckled.
“Earplugs,” Hannah answered easily. “That is what I would use.”
A car approached, its headlamps glaring through the night. It passed, and Kim resumed breathing.
In the light from the passing car, Kim saw that Hannah was smiling. “Imagine the doctor’s fury when they tell him that his name was used as having ordered radioactive medicine for TB patients!”
Kim was having trouble savoring that image. Her thoughts had turned to Duncan and how to make her report. She imagined telling him that she’d seen a disfigured man drinking blood. She imagined Duncan’s summation of Kim Tavistock: Poor old thing, went off the deep end. Hated the Nazis and fell for a Jewish story of a blood cult.
“I am one of them.”
“What?” She came out of her reverie. “One of them?”
“I have a Talent.”
Another thing Hannah had withheld. Kim’s annoyance flared. “Well?”
“I will trust you with this. The reason Franz protects me, the reason I must leave Germany.”
“And you didn’t trust me before?”
“Trust is a matter of degree. So. My Talent. My father, I have told you, studied meta-abilities at Cologne. This was 1929, 1930. He was a researcher, a psychology professor.”
“He tested you.”
“Ja.” She cut a glance at Kim. “I want you to know I am revealing this on purpose. It is not something I am spilling to you.”
“All right, you’re not spilling.”
“I have the ability. Catalysis.”
Kim sat in shocked silence.
A catalyst. Kim found herself reeling. Hannah, a catalyst. It changed everything. She put her hands to her pounding temples, trying to settle her thoughts. The vampires, the blood, the radioisotopes, a fugitive beside her in the car, one who could change the nature of the coming war.
“When you touch people . . .”
“Yes. The augmentation. Any Talent I am with, if I touch them, they come away stronger.”
Kim turned to look at Hannah. A catalyst. The dashboard lights gave her face an eerie glow.
Hannah went on. “My father had never seen anyone with this Talent, but even before testing me, he had heard rumors there was such an ability. It was not openly discussed because it had clear military implications and also because there was a stigma attached. No one would want to be in your presence for fear of a touch. It is a hard thing to bear.” She glanced at Kim. “And do not worry, you will recall that I have never touched you.”
Kim thought back and could not remember even a handshake. Hannah had been careful.
“So you see why Franz insists I go to the West.”
“You’d be a weapon against the Nazis.”
“But I am already a weapon,” Hannah said. “Here in Germany.”
Kim didn’t bother to hide a flare of bitterness. “If I’d known this, you could have saved me the trouble of breaking into Treptow.” She wouldn’t have needed to go. Being a catalyst would have earned Hannah extraction all by itself. “Damn it to hell. You could have told me earlier.”
“Would you have believed me?”
There was that. Treptow was a turning point in her receptivity to the Oberman claims. Before, it had merely been intriguing. Now . . . now she had seen the ward of monsters.
“You cannot blame me for being careful,” Hannah said. “Our group survives by trusting n
o one but our own members. I was not sure I wanted to tell you, but now—you risked your life. You are one of us.”
The car jolted from a pothole, and Hannah gripped the steering wheel harder. “I think it is time we trusted each other. For wherever we go from here.”
So they would go somewhere from here. Kim noted that with some hope. “Have you ever . . . augmented a Talent? Outside your father’s research center?”
Hannah didn’t answer for a long moment. Then she murmured, “I try not to touch people who may have a Talent.”
A farmhouse came into view, all the windows dark. Hannah parked and turned off the headlights. “This is where we change cars.”
“Hannah.” Kim made no move to get out of the car. “Is there anything else you’re withholding? I’m about to put my career on the line, so I need to know.” Hannah had said that Kim was now one of them. Trial by ordeal. But Kim wasn’t the only one that needed to prove herself. “Have you ever killed anyone?”
Hannah’s voice, edged with bitterness: “Is this my interview for extraction?”
“Yes.”
“Killed. Maimed. It is war.” Her face was set in a scowl. “I could ask you the same thing.”
Kim thought of Sulcliffe Castle and the man she had killed. Yes, it was war.
“Or,” Hannah went on, “is it a standard that pertains only to Jews?”
And was it? Bloody hell, yes; and Kim was the interrogator, obligated to report on the potential asset who was also a saboteur. “We have to be prepared for how London thinks.” She fixed Hannah with a look. “You and I.”
In the last hours it had indeed become her and Hannah. When you went through things with someone—dangerous, terrifying things—it formed a tie. Kim knew this was true for men in wartime. And now, it formed this connection with Hannah, though they had only known each other a few days.
As they got out of the car, several dogs came charging around the house toward them. “Easy! Stay down!” Kim hissed at them. At her tone, they paused in their assault, but continued barking.
Light from a candle flared in the window, and Hannah strode to the door.
WITTENBERGE STATION
2:15 AM. Hannah left her at the station on the outskirts of town. They would meet in Berlin. But when they did, in order to learn where the Monarch operation was, Kim would have to offer extraction.
The Wittenberge Station was a sprawling and busy place, even at this hour. Kim was not in proper travel attire, lacking a hat or gloves or even a town dress. Her trousers and sweater had been selected for the appearance of being on an outing with Hannah. Hannah, the catalyst. Who, for this reason as well as having maimed or assassinated Nazi officials, had to escape Germany. It was a different game now. Hannah was valuable not only for what she knew, but for what she was.
Kim bought her ticket at the window. Her hand shook even though it was clear sailing from here. The clerk, with a pencil mustache and a frown, paused when he heard her accent, saw her nerves. It was 2:20 AM, and she was traveling alone. But so were others at the busiest train station between Hamburg and Berlin.
She stared him down. There was a time to be ingratiating and a time for the air of privilege. She raised her chin. He issued the ticket.
Almost home. After all she’d been through, and she could still out-intimidate a German clerk. She wasn’t green anymore after Treptow.
A half hour wait, no more, Hannah had assured her. The Flying Hamburger or another train would be along. In her handbag, from the farmhouse, the remains of a hunk of cheese and piece of bread, wrapped in paper.
In the station lavatory she washed her hands and face. Ran her hands through her hair. Stiff strands here and there. Dried blood. She yanked the spigot on full blast. Get it out, her only thought. She stooped over and heaped cold water into her hair, hands pulling it through. Oh God, blood, the room, the screams. She was saying Oh God out loud.
She grabbed a piece of paper towel and lashed it through her hair, rubbing hard.
In the mirror, a wraith looked back at her. Tendrils of dark hair plastered to her forehead. A bright, stunned look in the gaslights. Get ahold of yourself.
The comb in her purse. She found it, used it. Chills now, in the cold lavatory. Her coat sleeves wet. A deep breath, ragged as hell. Just get home. Pinning her hair back so it wouldn’t look bedraggled, she judged herself ready for the train.
Outside on the platform, men in civilian clothes. Checking papers. Gestapo. Looking for her?
She sat down on the nearest bench to collect herself. In the escape from Treptow she hadn’t considered the story she would need in Wittenberge if confronted. All the while, she had imagined control points as being along roads. But of course they would also be at train stations. My story. My story. Exhaustion dulled her thinking as she tried to rouse her best lie.
A train was coming in on the western-approach tracks. As she stood, one of the checkpoint men saw her and walked toward her.
“This is your train?” he said in German. The leather coat and fedora. Bland face with alert blue eyes.
“Ja, ist er.”
“Englisch?”
“Ja.” The passengers debarked from the train. Her train.
“The papers,” he said, switching to English. Her hand shook as she handed him her identity card. Scrutinizing it, he said, “It is very late for travel, Madame Reed.” He had seen the consular stamp.
“I have cut short my visit. An illness in the family.”
“But in Berlin?”
“No. In London. I’m returning to Berlin to arrange my affairs for a lengthy absence.”
He gazed at her for a moment. “Who has become ill?”
“My niece.”
The locomotive sighed. A conductor waited at trackside, checking his watch. She glanced at him.
The agent noted this. “Another train comes after this one.”
“Well. But it is very late.”
He nodded, handing her identity card back to her. “I expect you enjoy German trains. They are the best in the world.”
No, those would be British, she fiercely thought.
And then she was boarding the train, heart hammering, remembering that she should have had a suitcase. He hadn’t asked her about one. Why not?
She found her first-class compartment. Through the window, she kept watch on the Gestapo agents on the platform.
Had the Treptow incident rippled as far as Wittenberge, or was the Gestapo presence about something else? Couplings clanked as the train got underway, slowly, slowly, as though the iron conveyance had doubts about leaving. Had the Staatspolizei questioned her because she looked like the disguised nurse at Treptow or because Rikard Nagel wanted her watched?
If the Gestapo was interested in her, they knew where she lived. She leaned her head back on the cushioned seat and closed her eyes. Despite an almost painful alertness, she needed to sleep. The wheels of the train squealed and grabbed the tracks as they picked up speed.
Flower vase in the window, came the thought.
The White Russian. She would like her country back.
Just loosen the strap. The bruises, they hurt me so.
19
THE AERIE
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10. “Too many soldiers, Stefan,” Irina said. Beneath the Nazi and Imperial Russian banners hanging from timbered beams, SS guards lined the reception hall. “It is not suitable for my birthday dinner.”
“Your Majesty,” Stefan said, “we have been alerted to a threat. Minor, but we take no chances with your welfare.”
“A threat?”
“Someone has been taking pictures where they should not.”
“Not here, surely.”
“No, no. Not here.” He led her to the table where Heinrich Himmler waited.
Having resigned herself to an evening in the Reichsführer’s company, Irina summoned a regal demeanor and put her gloved hand on Stefan’s arm.
Fat vases stuffed with flowers were brought to the Aerie at great expens
e. Beyond the bunting and flowers, the tall windows looked out onto the plaza below, nestled under an ermine cloak of new snow.
Himmler met her as she approached, bowing before her, pushing his ratlike face into her hand.
At table this night were four SS officers. Stefan, of course, and two who had accompanied Himmler from Berlin, as well as Colonel Bassman, the taciturn and bespectacled commandant of the Aerie. Evgeny Feodorovich was here too, in his much-laundered suit with a new cravat. The SS officers were all darkly powerful in their dress uniforms, but Evgeny had his own power. Perhaps even now his forward vision told him how Heinrich Himmler would die. Or Stefan. Or herself.
Irina wore a white evening gown with a pearl-studded bodice, tailored from one of Aunt Tanya’s gowns salvaged by Polina at the end when everything had been in chaos. Accented by the low-cut gown, her neck, not as smooth as it once was. At thirty-seven, her skin had gone as slack as a fifty-year-old’s. She fed the Progeny with her vigor and did not begrudge them.
Stefan took a seat at her side to translate while Himmler sat opposite. She tried to pay attention as Himmler droned on about the Führer this, the Führer that, while acutely aware of her adjutant. At court, Irina had known many handsome men. Ah, but Stefan, the bittersweet knight. How could he bear to be so beautiful and not use it as a weapon to seduce and control? Perhaps he did. She had never seen him around other women.
Himmler was saying something. “Will I have the honor of meeting his Imperial Highness tonight, Your Majesty?”
Annoyingly, he spoke German, his only option. Stefan repeated the question in French for Irina.
“He sees to his prayers,” she said. “And then sleep. Tomorrow.”
“I trust I will have the pleasure.”
Down the table, Evgeny blurted out in Russian, “My soup is cold.” He pushed the bowl away, slopping it on the table.
Himmler glanced at him coldly.
Let Himmler stare. It was her table, and she would decide who was welcome at it.
The Reichsführer went on. “Russia is a land of the orthodox church. Will His Imperial Highness foster the church?”
Hearing Stefan’s translation, she frowned. Himmler spoke as though she were dead already. It was always about Kolya. It both gratified and grated her. She would rule for a few years, surely.