Nest of the Monarch

by Kay Kenyon

  It was very cold. The soldiers wore bulky, belted coats and heavy gloves, but she could not pity them their night duty on this mountaintop. They had never seen a Russian winter. Irina had learned from a young age that the colder you believed yourself to be, the more biting the cold. One did not submit to it. She loosened her fingers on the closure of her cloak.

  A rich vein of stars cut across the heavens. Below, the valley in its forest lay in impenetrable darkness. It was a vista that cleared her head, much needed after reading the report she had requested from Dr. Kaltenbrunner. At her inspection of the intake center, she had seen Progeny who were alarmingly thin, their skin so pale it seemed blood did not course through them. And of these four or five, two trembled exceedingly, with a vacant look in their eyes as though they no longer knew where they were. Who they were.

  The report explained that the doctor’s staff had specifically brought together the worst cases to give them the most thorough examinations in the hopes of discovering why some of them suffered more rapid deterioration than others. This was why there were so many individuals in poor condition at the time of her tour.

  Some of the SS had been under her wing for well over a year. That they suffered such debilitation alarmed her, despite Kaltenbrunner’s assurance that it was not typical. She did understand there was a price to pay for purification. They were altered, became more than human, for a time; then the gradual fade back to a normal. Ah, but some! What if some did not have the constitution for it, and these suffered, perhaps terribly, even to the point of madness?

  She caught one of the soldiers staring at her. He quickly turned away when he saw her take notice. One could imagine what the Germans thought of her, those who were not in the elite circles. That she was a lesser being because of not being German, a Russian minor noble anointed by the Führer, a pretender to majesty. The Germans and their intolerable pride. Perhaps, once she was tsarina, she would banish them from the motherland. She had not decided about that.

  Looking out over the bunker toward the road, she listened for the sound of a car, hoping for Stefan’s return. He would know what to do about the doctor’s report. But could her Nazi allies be counted upon to be truthful against their own interests? Even Stefan? What if the truth was that some individuals had not the capacity to accept augmentation of their Talents? Might the mind and body of some—God forbid, most—grow ill from the repeated interference that her touch represented? She could not know the truth of it, since until she had been taken in by her German hosts, she had scarcely touched another person of Talent.

  How gullible she had been to accept Himmler’s plan so easily. He had painted the picture of a cadre of powerful Talents who would precede the German forces in their sweep through Europe. The key role she would play. The reward she would have.

  Of course, in her desperate state—those first weeks after she had been given succor by the Nazis—she could only think of her unalterable goal: the monarchy restored. Stalin toppled from his stolen throne. Herself, and then Nikolai supplanting him. It was to be a more generous reign than the old tsar’s, with the people grateful to her, striving for the betterment of Mother Russia. She was not such a fool that she did not realize that Hitler meant to control her. At her birthday dinner Himmler had said that arms were not enough, that the people must be broken. She had not forgotten that. But Russia was vast. Once the German army left St. Petersburg, how could his long arm possibly control her?

  She pulled her cloak tighter. It was late at night after a bad day. Kolya had slipped on the ice with a loaded gun and had almost shot himself. Irina had been stern with him, but inside, she felt nothing but relief that he had come away unscathed.

  Without Kolya, she could not go on. She did not know how mothers survived the early death of sons, but she feared her own heart would never bear it.

  Well. These thoughts must be banished for now. Kolya was well.

  She looked out over the wall of the emplacement, hoping to see headlights coming up the hill. Soon she and Stefan would sit over mulled wine and she would lay bare her doubts. He must answer her honestly and without condescension. She would listen most carefully. She wondered if he had captured the woman who had maimed him. The Red Girl. She would have no trial, but would meet the fate she had earned. One did not grievously injure such a one as Erich Stefan von Ritter without ultimate punishment.

  As she gazed out, the world remained in unrelieved blackness. No headlights. The soldiers stole looks at her now and then. They dared. She had an urge to make them pay for such presumption, but though they guarded her, she knew from the tsar’s fate that allegiances could change. Guards lining up his family and shooting them in the little room. Their bodies, thrown in a well.

  She nodded to the soldiers as she made her way back to the chalet.

  41

  THE AERIE

  MONDAY, DECEMBER 21. Kim lay awake through the night until a gray dawn began to crank up the day. It wasn’t good to be without sleep. Adler was right that in her present condition she was at risk of making mistakes.

  But she was anxious to get on with the day now that she had a plan.

  She slipped into her boots, grabbed a sweater from the foot of her bed, and went down to the lavatory. When she flipped the switch, a blast of light, like a nail in her eye. In the stall, she heard water dripping into the basin. They had left the water on a little so that the pipes would not freeze. Plunk, plunk. Was she to be tortured by sounds as well as light? But it didn’t matter. She knew her way clear to disabling Annakova, and that left her light-headed with excitement.

  She must get up to the cabins first thing, before Captain Adler went on duty.

  It was Monday. Her shower privileges were Wednesdays and Saturdays. But she was sweating profusely and could no longer stand the odor, and now that she had the favor of the tsarina, she decided to have a Monday shower.

  The water hit her like a sand blast, but its warmth renewed her. The huge cake of soap released a few suds and she rubbed herself nearly raw. On her shoulder, an enormous bruise around the wound, but it only hurt like a memory of pain, not the real thing.

  Erika came in, standing at the doorway, a sweater over her floral pajamas. “So early awake. Are you well?”

  Kim dried off with a stiff, grayish white towel. “I have maid duty today.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “I’ll be back in time for breakfast.” You can pretend to control me then, Ja?

  In the bitter morning cold, Kim carried the folded linens up from the wash shed in a large canvas sack. She passed by the cabins she was assigned to, 1 though 10, and made her way to number 23, Captain Adler’s.

  He answered the door, ushering her quickly inside. He was dressed for the day except for his jacket. There were two windows in his one-room cabin, and he pulled the curtains shut on them before turning to her.

  “Well?”

  She placed the sack on his bunk. “You said they are going to execute Evgeny.”

  “It is past time to put him out of his misery.”

  “How will they do it?”

  “They will say he goes to a nursing home, but he will not get so far.” He glanced at the door, as though expecting discovery at any minute. “Why are you here?”

  “I think we should tell Evgeny that he will be put down.”

  Adler stared at her.

  “We have to tell him that he’s been betrayed by his Nazi hosts. That he should tell Annakova about the fate of St. Petersburg, the vision that he blurted to me the first morning I was here. I think we can get Annakova to abandon Monarch. And leave here with me.”

  His next words, uttered slowly, as though he thought she might have trouble understanding English. “This will never happen.”

  “I think it will.”

  “You and Her Majesty just walk out of the Aerie?”

  “No, we leave through the back door. I have a plane picking me up on Christmas Day.”

  “A plane.” He shook his head. “Landing w
here?”

  “A frozen lake in the woods.”

  “Perfect. An airplane engine draws immediate attention. Soldiers watch it come in for a landing and are waiting for it when it crashes.”

  He had lost faith. She’d have to bring him around to a better attitude. “Suppose the airplane skims over a shoulder of the deep valley and is only audible for a few minutes. In addition, the plane as it lands throttles back to dampen the sound. The soldiers are nearly a kilometer away and can’t get there so fast. We’re gone when they arrive.”

  Duncan, of course, would argue against sending a plane; she had walked out, pursued her own agenda, and he probably thought she deserved what she got. But London’s calculation would weigh the risks of a plane against the acquisition of a catalyst. The plane would come. With Hannah on Britain’s side, they could have a catalyst working for them instead of Hitler, adding to their arsenal a potential battlefield deployment of darkening, transport, sounding . . . So even if London had given up on her, the prospect of acquiring this weapon should be persuasive. And when they stepped off the plane in England, Kim would have brought them not just one catalyst, but deprived Germany of theirs, Annakova.

  Adler snapped, “Where exactly is this lake?”

  “In the valley about a half kilometer or a little more west of here. Hannah believes the exit from the escape tunnel is not far from the lake.”

  “I have told you. I do not know how to access the escape tunnel.”

  “Then who does?”

  “There are three, but I can hardly ask them. The Aerie commandant, Irina Annakova, and a colonel who is her handler.”

  “All right, then. Irina Annakova will lead us to the secret way.”

  He shook his head, suppressing what might have been a snarl. “This will get us all killed. Evgeny will go wild. Then he will reveal I told him of the execution, or you did. It will be all over.”

  “I’ve seen him calm. He isn’t always unstable. He would do anything to save St. Petersburg.”

  “Then perhaps he has already told Annakova!”

  “Maybe he has. Maybe she didn’t believe it. But now the Nazis have betrayed them, because they’re going to execute Evgeny. She’ll see she can’t trust them. Plus, does Annakova realize what happens to the SS Nachkommenschaft, how they end up completely mad, strapped to their beds at Treptow?”

  “How do you know about that?”

  Met a guy in a straitjacket, came the thought. “Never mind. I just do. Does she know?”

  “We have strict orders never to mention Treptow. She thinks that since the enhancements diminish over time, needing renewal, that the symptoms go away if a Talent is retired after a few years’ service.”

  How excellent. Kim tucked that gem of intel away.

  In the distance, sounds of gunfire seemed to presage Evgeny’s death. The shooting range. Adler went to the window, parting the curtain to look outside. When he turned back to her, he had summoned a more patient tone. “You are losing control. I have seen it before, many times, with the Nachkommenschaft, of which you are now one. This plan, it is wild and will not work. Evgeny will not believe you.”

  “That’s why you need to get the papers that prove it. You have records for everything. I’m sure it’s in writing.”

  “Yes, papers that are in locked files! Papers that are in German—”

  She struggled to contain her impatience. Didn’t he see that this was their only chance to stop Annakova? “Evgeny knows German.”

  He took a deep breath. Paced away, turned back. “Why would Annakova give up her alliance with Hitler? He will deliver Russia to her.”

  “At the price of the ruin of St. Petersburg. Incendiary bombs. Starvation. Frozen bodies stacked like cord wood. Parents eating their children. Hell on a platter.” She rushed on, trying to put her plan in the best light. “Annakova loves her country. Russia is her life, her purpose. It and Kolya are all she cares about. Not the throne, not the title. Didn’t you people realize that? Did you think she was like you, living for power?”

  A bad idea, to insult the man who could help her or kill her. Stay calm. Must stay calm.

  “Annakova will think you mean to get her alone to kill her.”

  It was possible. So many ways for this plan to fail, and yet wasn’t that true for any dangerous mission? A good plan now was better than a perfect one later. The Nachkommenschaft would be reinforced on Christmas Day and sent out the next. Christmas was four days away.

  From a chair, Adler grabbed his jacket, buttoning it. “Your plan will end with both of us dead.”

  For a man who had helped the Oberman Group from the start, he was very eager not to get the job done. He was SS. Where was his courage? She kept her voice firm, confident. “Just get me a copy of the orders and I’ll do everything. When you’ve delivered the orders, find a reason to leave. Say you have to go to Berlin. Then it all falls on me.”

  His face rigid, he looked at her as though considering whether she was the one needing to be put down.

  “Think about it, Captain. This is what you’ve been trying to do since you first allied with the Oberman Group. The group is disbanded. But we can still do this.”

  Slowly, he shook his head. “I have to go.”

  She put a hand on his arm. It annoyed him, but he didn’t shake her off. “I know you were close to Franz. You took a big risk for that friendship. Now he is dead, killed by the Nazis. Don’t you want to finish this?”

  “Why do you ask?” He pulled away from her and picked up his hat. “It doesn’t matter.”

  She moved in front of him, blocking his way to the door. “It matters, Captain. It matters. The reasons we do what we do.”

  Adler returned her gaze. “I have reasons.”

  “What you’ve seen here,” she guessed. “It must repulse you.”

  He spoke low. “My wife was Jewish. She died at a concentration camp. Dachau.”

  “I’ve heard of it. I’m sorry.”

  “They had forced us to divorce. We avoided it first, and then she insisted. Our hope was that it would satisfy them, but foolishly we kept seeing each other and in the end . . . they came for her. I could do nothing. So I told myself. But if, earlier, we had escaped together. . . .” He stared at her, shaking his head. “I did not mean to tell you such a thing. Of course, nothing private is safe from you now.”

  But his own SS had devised the plan for all these malformed Talents. “Your witch,” she said slowly, “has transformed me, it’s true.” She felt a mean smile pull at her face. “Nothing personal, Captain.”

  He ran his hands through his hair, staring at the wall. Perhaps he saw something there: a memory, a reproach.

  After a time, he murmured, “I will bring you the paper.”

  She remembered to breathe. At last, Adler was helping.

  Looking at his hands gripping his SS hat, he said, “We must try to do something, or why else should we live?”

  He had just said it all. The truth was often very simple.

  “So,” he went on, “you will try to leave on Christmas? Just before dawn?”

  “Yes.”

  “And if the plane cannot get through?”

  “Hannah and I have created a backup plan. You don’t need to know what it is.” He would understand that the less he knew about the details, the better in case he came under questioning.

  “And you’ll get out too?” she asked.

  “I will have a packet of orders to deliver. An escape plan that I have long planned.”

  She was relieved. There was no room for him on the plane.

  He went on. “So that I know your plan is going forward, Annakova must replenish the bird feeder in the chalet yard at noon on the twenty-fourth. When I am sure your plan is going forward, I will take a car.”

  “You’ll leave on the twenty-fourth?”

  “No, at dawn on Christmas, the same as you. To exploit the state of confusion that will happen when Annakova is discovered missing.”

  He put h
is hat on and took his gloves from the table. “If I am successful in taking the document, it will be behind the water tank in the women’s toilet, the stall in the middle. A snap inspection.”

  “Thank you, Captain. Good luck.” She noted the gun and holster on his belt. At least he had a quick way out if it all came apart. “Good luck to us both.”

  She left the cabin, her maid’s sack over her shoulder.

  A light snow had fallen during the night, silvering the trees and softening the outlines of the path. As she made her way back to her assigned cabins, a shape emerged from a stand of trees. Hilde.

  “You are lost?” she asked. “Your rounds are with cabins one through ten, not up here.”

  Hilde had been watching her. How long had she been up here, noting the time spent in cabin 23?

  “I got mixed up. I guess I saved another maid the trouble of that cabin.”

  Hilde joined her in the slog down to the lower cabins. “You were in there a long time. I would not like to think you were going through the captain’s things. I could make things difficult for you.”

  Kim’s thoughts sped through her options. It was as though her mind fed off the stark snow and cold, transmuting her dismay into calculation. Hilde was looking for any advantage.

  “I don’t think you want to do that, Hilde.” They stopped outside cabin 12, and Kim rested her sack of linens in the snow at her feet. “I don’t want to make trouble for you, but Her Majesty is well disposed toward me after the shooting accident. I’m sure she wouldn’t want to hear a story that Captain Adler has been taking comfort from one of her Progeny. She would be disappointed in him. She really wouldn’t thank you for bringing it up.”

  Hilde’s face crumpled into uncertainty. Then, slyly, “I don’t think Captain Adler was in his cabin.”

  Kim glanced up the path where Adler was just coming down toward them. It was an acute pleasure to see Hilde follow her gaze.

  “You know, Hilde, I’d keep my mouth shut if I were you. If you do, I won’t complain about you. All right?” She conjured up a friendly expression to mend things.