The War in the Dark

by Nick Setchfield

  Kelly sent a second coin spinning from his fingers. This one he pitched at Winter.

  ‘An adulterator of the queen’s purse, they called me. It sounded rather grand, I thought. And just a little saucy.’

  Winter caught the coin. It was roughly the size of a half-crown but felt heavier on his palm. It had been forged from silver and was remarkably untarnished for all that it appeared to be centuries old. There was a depiction of a man stamped upon it. His hands were clasped against the crude lines of his face, hiding his eyes, as if deep in prayer or penance.

  ‘May saints preserve us from the judgement of the ignorant. We know art is transcendent, don’t we, my pig-witted boy?’

  Kelly held a fistful of coins now. Another gold one spun in the direction of the trooper to Malykh’s left. The young soldier stiffened his grip on his gun, uncertain how to react. The coin fell to the floor, landing on its side. It rolled an inch or two towards the cell door before toppling into dust.

  ‘Enough theatre,’ said Malykh. He struck a boot at Kelly’s hand, kicking the remaining coins from the old man’s fingers. ‘I know exactly who you are.’

  As the coins scattered into the shadows the Russian placed his boot on the alchemist’s hand. He pressed down hard, the boot leather creasing as he did so. There was an autumnally dry crack of bone. Kelly’s wrist shattered beneath Malykh’s heel.

  ‘The Widow of Kursk told me everything about you.’

  Saliva surged at the edges of Kelly’s mouth.

  ‘She… endures?’

  ‘Of course she endures. A creature like that is beyond any notion of death. But you know this, Sir Edward. You bargained with such demons. You made our world welcome to them.’

  Kelly stared at Malykh’s clouded, scar-cradled eye. He snatched his words between agonised breaths.

  ‘I see… I am… not… the only one… to… trade… with devils…’

  Malykh took Kelly’s head in his hands. He clamped the old man’s temples, his knuckles pale and sharp, pushing against the skin.

  ‘We do what is necessary in this war.’

  The Russian’s iris began to swirl.

  ‘The Widow told me that you knew a place,’ said Malykh, his words unhurried even as Kelly writhed in his grip. ‘A place of water and stone and shadow, where the stars wait, perfectly aligned. A place where angels could enter our world.’

  Kelly flailed, his bones buckling, as if electricity was riddling his body.

  ‘You and Dee endeavoured to hide this place from history. But new history waits for us in this century. So tell me. Where is this place?’

  Kelly fought against Malykh’s grip, his body struggling in protest, but the Soviet officer held him firm. The iris spun, remorseless and insistent.

  ‘The location, if you will.’

  Winter looked on in revulsion. He remembered the fierce sensation of violation, the way Malykh’s mind had scraped like a knife in his skull. This interrogation seemed even more violent, even more vicious, as if Malykh was determined to gut Kelly’s soul itself in pursuit of the information.

  ‘The location, Sir Edward.’

  Kelly was foaming with spittle and bile now. His mouth was stretched wide, the jaw nearly at the point of dislocation. His eyes had rolled upwards, the pupils vanishing beneath the lids and exposing tiny webs of veins at the base of the eyeballs.

  Malykh dug his fingers even deeper, breaking the old man’s skin. Water began to seep from his clouded eye. He blinked it away, keeping focus.

  There was a howl. For a moment Winter assumed it had come from Kelly’s throat. But it was closer than that. He looked up. The runes that Kelly had carved into the ceiling were cracking, fracturing. As Winter watched the arcane symbols began to warp and elongate, widening, deepening. In seconds the entire ceiling had splintered. Fine grey powder drizzled from the newly formed fissures in the stone.

  Winter glanced at Karina. They exchanged a mutual look of incomprehension.

  And then Kelly did make a sound. It was a rattle, dry and hollow.

  Malykh released the alchemist’s head. It lolled against the stone floor, the tongue protruding between the broken teeth. Winter saw Kelly’s chest tremor, ever so faintly, rising and falling beneath his ragged shirt. He was still alive, still breathing. But his body had the ungainly sprawl of an abandoned doll and his eyes were the colour of fog. It was obvious that his mind had been eviscerated.

  Maybe this was the closest Kelly would ever come to death, thought Winter. It was a kind of consolation, at least.

  Malykh turned in satisfaction. He wiped his wet cheek with his knuckles.

  ‘So,’ he smiled. ‘The history of this century is Russia’s to write.’

  26

  The truck slowed as it neared the gate, a furious spiral of snow in its headlights.

  Such weather was rare for October but not entirely unknown. Snow could come like a brigand in this part of Bavaria, descending from the peaks and stealing briskly through the towns and villages tucked beneath the Alps. One of these cold white storms could last an hour. Another could last a day, choking the remote roads and crippling the ranks of telephone poles hammered into the valleys. This one had blown in that evening, the blizzard swelling as the light dwindled, gathering strength in the dark.

  The truck’s wheels crawled, grit sticking to the tyres as they rolled over black ice. The vehicle sounded its horn, a single, insistent blare. Behind the gate a lone, scarf-muffled figure nodded in response. There was a dissonant jangle of metal. The chain-link gate swung wide. The truck rumbled forward, juddering over a grille in the ground, the impact loosening snow from its roof and sides.

  ‘Shevelis! Shevelis!’

  Christopher Winter was pushed through the slit at the rear of the truck. Tarpaulin slapped his face, slick and damp against his skin. And then he felt the snow upon him. It was wet in his pores and briefly blinding. He screwed his eyes against the biting gust, a mouthful of flakes turning to water on his tongue.

  The truck had brought them to some kind of industrial complex. A factory, perhaps, or a power plant. It rose out of the night, a bully of a building, all concrete and soot and steel, its featureless walls throttled by pipes. A thick chimney discharged clouds of smoke – or was it steam? – that drifted into the swirl of snow, indivisible from the flurry. Another, thinner tower stood next to it. This one had a furnace glow, bright as magma. Its interior burned a baleful red.

  Winter looked beyond the ugly, forbidding structure. The horizon gave precious few clues to their location. He saw the rugged sprawl of the Alps, a shadowy belt of trees, the intermittent wink of a transmitter mast in the hills. The countryside was moonless and made even less distinct by the haze of snow, but they were clearly some distance from the nearest town. This was some kind of clandestine Soviet base, hidden in the heart of NATO territory. Cheeky bastards.

  The journey from Schweigenbach had taken hours, the truck hugging the rural back roads. Winter sensed they had headed north but it had been hard to maintain his bearings while slumped in the back, staring at his mud-spattered shoes, hearing only the engine and the grind of the wheels as a fug of military-issue tobacco filled his nostrils.

  ‘Shevelis!’

  There was a thud of boots on tarmac, crunching through the snowfall. Two troopers had jumped from the truck. They stayed a vigilant two steps behind him, their machine guns trained at his back. Winter glanced over his shoulder and saw Karina follow him out of the truck, her blonde hair whipping her eyes as she emerged into the blizzard. There were two guards on her, too. One of them shoved her. She turned and glared, her body tensing, every muscle clearly containing the impulse to strike back.

  They crossed a wide, empty yard, the snow swirling around them. An assortment of vehicles sat in the parking bays: cars, vans, lorries, each as scrupulously nondescript as the truck that had brought them here. One particularly large vehicle was draped in camouflage netting, tethered to the ground by bolts and cables. It was the chopper, Winter r
ealised, as they passed the crudely concealed shape. There was no mistaking the bulge of the sleeping blades, the long spear of the fuselage. It must have arrived directly from Schweigenbach, moving under radar.

  Malykh strode ahead of them, his coat open to the blizzard. He led the way to a set of unmarked double doors in the side of the building. The doors were lit by a piercingly bright spotlight, high upon the wall. Their windows were small and rectangular, the glass reinforced with grids of wire mesh. There was an intercom next to the left-hand door. Malykh jabbed the buzzer and spoke into the grille, his words a gruff, impatient collision of Russian syllables.

  Moments later the doors were unbolted. Winter instantly felt the heat of the building’s interior on his skin. At first he imagined it was simply the contrast with the cold of the night. And then he realised that the temperature inside the building was queasily warm. It felt like a heavy, industrialised kind of heat, as if they were stepping into a forge.

  There was something else, too. An overwhelming smell. It was the scent of something overripe and sickly, like spoiled meat or burst fruit. Winter took a moment to place it.

  It was the tang of an abattoir.

  Malykh conferred with the man who had unlocked the doors, a greying, mournful figure in a drab brown workcoat. As the man listened he stared at Winter and Karina, his expression impassive. Then he nodded, his eyes remaining unreadable.

  Orders given, Malykh turned and left the building. The doors were closed behind him with a scrape of bolts. Winter peered through the mesh in the glass, watching as he strode away into the yard. The tall figure of the Soviet officer was soon lost to the snow and the dark.

  Malykh had ignored them entirely. There had been no farewell threat, no boast about their imprisonment. This in itself was a statement. In Winter’s experience few captors could ever resist such grandstanding. It was as if he and Karina warranted no further consideration, the pair of them simply dismissed now that Malykh had extracted whatever secret had reduced Kelly to a blind, mindless husk. That kind of indifference was another, subtler show of power.

  ‘So what did he say? Are we being left here?’

  Karina nodded, her eyes fixed on the man in the workcoat, watching as he returned a jumble of keys to his belt.

  ‘For the moment. We are to meet the evaluator. Immanuil.’

  ‘First-name terms. You know him?’

  ‘We are acquainted.’

  Winter pursed his mouth. ‘In a good way?’

  ‘It’s Immanuil. I doubt a good way even exists.’

  The guards marched them down a long corridor. The walls were panelled with steel plates, dulled with age. The presence of so much metal magnified the heat, brought it even closer to the skin. Winter felt his shirt-cuffs begin to dampen. He slackened his collar and glanced up. There was a tangle of pipes on the ceiling, chasing the length of the corridor. As he passed beneath these pipes he heard them rattle and shudder, vibrating like engine parts.

  The sickly-sweet smell was growing stronger. This had to be a meat factory of some kind. Winter did his best to ignore the pervading aroma of carcasses.

  They were deep inside the building now. Presently they reached an entirely unremarkable door. The man in the workcoat unlocked it and then stood back as the guards pushed Winter and Karina through.

  The room was wide and dark and bare. A simple wooden desk waited within, one plain plastic chair positioned behind it, two more in front. The desk held a green phone, a neat array of pencils and a silk-shaded electric lamp, the only illumination in the room. The chairs cast skinny shadows, stretching to the open door.

  There was an overhead radio on, low but noticeable. It was playing the Beatles. Winter knew the song. ‘She Loves You’. Joyce had liked it. He had always meant to buy it for her.

  They were led to the chairs. The guards placed themselves against the wall, their guns cradled in their arms. Winter and Karina waited, perched on seats that had the functional, uncomfortable feel of school furniture.

  Two minutes passed, the only sound the muted harmonies of the Beatles. Then came a jingle for Radio Luxembourg, incongruously jolly in the hot, dark room with its abattoir smell. The radio signal faded, broke into a crunch of static, returned. And then came the sound of footsteps from the corridor. They were surprisingly soft, almost delicate.

  Somebody entered the room. The figure was bewilderingly small, four foot high at most, dressed in a miniature tweed suit buttoned tightly across a pigeon chest. He wore a tie, too, blue with a thin silver stripe, knotted high against the starched collars of a crisp white shirt. The clothes looked altogether too neat, too formal for the person wearing them, like a child dressed by a parent for a wedding.

  The newcomer took his place behind the desk, laid a pair of manila folders on the wooden top and adjusted the lamp with pudgy, undersized fingers.

  ‘I trust you are not too warm. I understand the heat is quite unpleasant for your kind.’

  It was a boy’s voice, its timbre unbroken. Winter peered past the glare of the lamp, studying the figure on the other side of the desk. The face was smooth and unlined, the features still unformed. He saw a button nose, a small moue of a mouth and a thick shock of ashblond hair, scraped to the left in a harsh parting. It was a boy’s face but the eyes, impenetrable in shadow, belonged to something older, something else.

  ‘I take it this is an interrogation?’ asked Winter.

  The boy smiled. ‘No. This is simply an introduction. My name is Immanuil. I will be your evaluator in the months ahead. Please consider me a partner, not an interrogator.’

  ‘A partner?’

  ‘Yes. Of course. A partner. In our mutual journey towards understanding. It is easier that way. Less ugly, less awkward. We may even become friends. We can play, like friends.’

  He beamed and smoothed a hand across the folders, running his fingers over the security classification stamps. Winter saw dried blood on the skin and what looked like hairs trapped beneath the tips of the nails. He was reminded of a cat’s claws after a fight.

  ‘I know how you play, Immanuil,’ said Karina. ‘You’re a monstrous little bastard.’

  Immanuil giggled. ‘Karina Ivanovna Lazarova. Just one name among many, it seems. You always seemed such a good soldier. I do look forward to knowing you a little better. You are a tantalising prospect to me. So many layers to peel and to taste.’

  ‘I’m thrilled at the thought.’

  ‘You’re at a disadvantage, of course. You are familiar with my methods. Most people have the delight of discovery.’

  ‘You don’t look old enough to have methods,’ said Winter, cutting in. ‘Frankly you don’t look old enough to piss in a straight line.’

  Immanuil ignored the taunt. He moved his hand to Winter’s file. It was considerably thinner than Karina’s.

  ‘And you, Christopher Winter. An equally intriguing subject. A British Intelligence officer… and yet perhaps something more.’

  Winter frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  Immanuil opened the file. Winter saw a photograph of himself, ragged and unshaven. He remembered it being taken that fortnight he was held in the farmhouse. There were other photographs clipped alongside it. He saw a shot of himself and Karina at the pavement café in Berlin. Another placed them near Potsdamer Platz, their faces blurred but recognisable, clearly captured by the long lens of the Stasi.

  ‘Colonel Malykh has added his own intelligence to your file. He states he was unable to penetrate your mind. He’s not entirely convinced you even have a soul, as most would know it. Isn’t that fascinating? A puzzle. A challenge. So succulent.’

  Immanuil’s eyes darkened, glittered. Winter remembered the black eyes of the Widow of Kursk.

  ‘My name is Christopher Winter. And that’s all you’re getting, you stunted little sod.’

  Winter knew these words were a bluff even as they left his mouth. This child, or this creature, or whatever it might be, had already begun to prise himself under his skin l
ike a tapeworm. He was determined not to show his unease.

  ‘You know the truth of what I say,’ Immanuil goaded, softly. ‘There’s a voice inside you, isn’t there? When the world is quiet? A voice that insists there’s more to you than you know. You should listen to it some time, Mr Winter. It may be wiser than you imagine.’

  We are the Half-Claimed Man…

  ‘I’m an operative,’ snapped Winter, forcing himself to ignore the awakening whisper in his head. ‘I take orders. I get things done for my country. That’s my job. I don’t need to think about it too much. Can you understand that?’

  Immanuil giggled again. ‘So like your empire. Defiant in defeat. A brave British face as the flags fall and the lights go out. Burying your failure behind another rousing chorus of “Rule Britannia”.’

  ‘Well, I’ll let you know when I’m prepared to take psychiatric advice from a commie demon.’

  Immanuil sunk a tooth into his bottom lip. ‘You know, I have never cared for that word.’

  ‘Demon?’

  ‘Commie. So pejorative.’

  ‘You’re no communist,’ countered Karina. ‘You have the ideology of a scorpion. And the heart of one, too.’

  ‘And what would you know of the heart, Karina Lazarova?’

  Immanuil opened her file and turned through the sheaves of paper inside, studying the tightly typed paragraphs and the occasional scrawl of ink in the margins.

  ‘Sexually active and yet no history of lasting emotional commitment. Presumed inability to form close relationships with either gender. No fear of physical intimacy, clearly, and yet such intimacy has only ever been demonstrated in pursuit of a private agenda. I may as well be reading the psychological profile of a whore.’

  Karina gave a cold smile, refusing the bait. ‘You’re more of a whore than I am, Immanuil. You’re selling yourself to the Russian army. Tell me, what do they pay you? I can’t imagine you have any need for roubles.’

  Again the dark eyes glittered. ‘All I ask is professional satisfaction.’

  There was another burst of static from the overhead radio. This one was louder than the last, a sudden eruption of white noise that hissed and sputtered from the ceiling. It faded as quickly as it had come, returning to the murmur of Radio Luxembourg. Now they were playing Eddie Cochran. ‘Three Steps to Heaven’.