Ghosts of War: A Tale of the Ghost

by George Mann

  Now, he was sitting in Central Park, wrapped against the wintry chill in a thick woolen overcoat, trying to discern his next move. He needed to find transport to England, and he needed to find a secure means of communicating with the British secret service.

  Peter Rutherford had never expected to wind up working as a spy. In all his years of public school he'd trained to be a teacher, but then the war had come, and he had done what every self-respecting Englishman had done—he'd joined up.

  The war had not been kind to him, and he'd seen most of his friends cut to ribbons by enemy fire, or else frozen in the trenches or blown apart by mortar fire. But, amazingly, he'd managed to make it out alive, ferried back to England by airship after the Behemoth Land Crawlers—the giant war machines unleashed by the British forces to bring an end to the conflict—had effectively rendered the Kaiser's army impotent.

  Rutherford had seen one of them in action while still out on the front in France. It was like a fortified city on wheels, an enormous land tank bristling with gun turrets and machine gun emplacements. It was slow moving and ponderous, but it was utterly impregnable.

  The British forces had shipped them over the channel on massive floating platforms and set them loose on the battlefields of Europe, where they had simply trundled across no-man's-land to the enemy-occupied territory. Once there, they had unleashed a storm of death, gun turrets blazing as the Behemoths had rolled over the enemy trenches, crushing those who hadn't fled or been mown down by the all-consuming gunfire. The machines had even rolled into the enemy-held cities, remorselessly leveling buildings and razing all before them to the ground.

  The Behemoths were weapons on a scale never seen before—weapons of mass destruction—and while they had won the war for the Allies, they had inspired a sense of nervousness in the Americans. The British Empire was still a significant power in the world, and now, harboring such monstrous weapons and led by a monarch who was keen to reclaim the glory of her ancestors' days, many thought it was only a matter of time before they mounted an invasion of their former colony.

  Rutherford wondered if that were really such a wild claim. Queen Alberta regularly referred to the American government as “upstart colonists,” and, party as he was to many of the strategic secrets of the British government, Rutherford had himself wondered whether the reclamation of the American continent was the endgame they had in mind. Whatever the case, a cold war between the two nations had developed as they'd jostled for position in the new world order, and while things were not outwardly hostile between them, Rutherford knew the gloss of cooperation was only skin deep.

  By the time he'd returned from the trenches, of course, Rutherford had given up all hope of ever settling down to become a teacher. Instead, finding himself feeling dislocated from normal life and isolated from his family and the people he had left behind, he had enlisted in the secret service. At least that way, he had felt, he could still make a difference.

  As a veteran of the war he had risen quickly through the ranks, and having shown an aptitude for espionage work, he was soon assigned to work in Chicago, and then Washington, and most recently New York, operating out of the embassy.

  He'd been in New York for over a year now, during which time Rutherford had managed to ingratiate himself into New York politics, adopting the persona of a rich young bachelor from Boston. He'd attended parties and soirees, funded carefully selected political campaigns and written articles for the Globe. He'd made his presence felt, and soon enough he'd been drawn into an inner circle of senators, councilors, businessmen, and statesmen. He'd played their games, taking part in their petty political squabbles, earning their confidence and trust. He'd listened to everything, recording it all in his eidetic memory, searching out each of their weaknesses and flaws in case he found need to exploit them later. They all had their secrets: booze, whores, boys, bribes. Rutherford knew them all.

  For a while, little of any importance had happened: more political games, more character assassinations, more bribery and corruption. Then, when he was least expecting it, something had fallen into his lap, something so big and so startling that, at first, he hadn't known how to react.

  That night—last night—he'd gone straight to the embassy to report his findings. But he hadn't been able to get through on the holotube. Transatlantic connections were notoriously temperamental, and he knew it was likely the terminal would be working again in the morning. He didn't trust anyone else with such potentially explosive information, and he knew that any calls home through an unsecure line risked being overheard. So he had returned to his apartment where he had waited, barely able to sleep, and had returned to the embassy early that morning to make the call.

  But something had happened during the night. Somehow, someone had found him out. He'd been turned away at the embassy door, and the pleading look in the eye of the concierge told him everything he needed to know.

  Rutherford wondered if perhaps he'd been followed to the embassy the previous day. He'd taken every precaution—heading home first, then changing and going out into town, taking in a show, visiting a speakeasy, then drifting past the embassy first before using the rear entrance when he knew the coast was clear. He wondered if perhaps he'd missed something crucial. Or perhaps someone had found his room in Greenwich Village, the little bolt-hole in a run-down apartment block where he stashed any evidence as to his real identity. That was where he kept all of his equipment, the tools of his trade.

  He knew they'd searched his apartment on numerous occasions, but the place was clean—they could have found nothing incriminating there, nothing to even suggest he was an Englishman from Crawley rather than a young and wealthy Bostonian with an interest in local politics.

  Regardless, it was too risky to visit either location now. So he was left wearing the clothes he stood up in, carrying only the items he had in his pockets. Luckily, experience meant he was rarely unprepared, and he had stitched a handful of useful items into the lining of his coat—a stash of dollar bills, a penknife, an American passport, a lock pick, and the address of a safe house in Brooklyn.

  Brooklyn was no good to him, though. Yes, he'd probably be safe there, perhaps even long enough for the whole thing to blow over and for him to make good his escape. But by then it would be too late. By then war would have been declared, and half of Great Britain would already be lost.

  Air travel was the only way. A steam liner would simply take too long. He needed a berth on a transatlantic airship. And he needed to call ahead. That was his priority. Get his warning to the people who could make a difference. Get help.

  If he couldn't get into the embassy—and he knew, now, that his enemies would be watching the embassy like hawks—his only other option was to head back to his room in Greenwich Village. He had a secure line there, for use in the direst emergencies. He knew it was a terrible risk and that it went against everything he'd ever been taught, all the experience he had from his years in the service. The safest thing for him to do was run.

  Yet running wasn't an option. There were bigger things at stake than Rutherford's own safety. He only hoped that he was wrong, that his cover hadn't been entirely blown. All he needed was ten minutes alone in the room, and then he could focus on getting out of the country alive.

  Bracing himself against the chill, Rutherford got to his feet. The walk downtown would do him good, stir some blood in his veins. He turned his collar up against the light drizzle and set off for the Village, alert for anyone who might be following behind him.

  The dingy, run-down apartment block was not at all the sort of place where anyone would expect a foreign spy to set up his bolt-hole. Rutherford knew that, back home, most people's idea of the secret service was swanky dinners in posh restaurants, Monte Carlo and fast living. They thought the danger was romantic, exciting, sophisticated. He knew better. There was nothing glamorous about poking around in other people's filth, in murdering people in alleyways and trying to scrub away the bloodstains afterward. It was dirty wor
k, and it left a dark impression on one's psyche.

  Rutherford had lost track of the number of people he'd killed in the name of his country. There had been dozens of them during the war, scores and scores, wiped out by the rapid-fire gun emplacements he'd manned, blown apart by the mortar shells he'd fired or speared through the bellies with his rifle blade as he went over the top.

  After the Behemoths had trundled over the battlefields, he'd followed in their wake, mopping up the survivors with his squad. He'd seen firsthand what their weapons had done to those young men, witnessed their eviscerated corpses, put mercy bullets through their skulls so they didn't have to suffer any longer, leaving them to bleed out in the cold, wet mud. He knew they were the enemy, but he pitied them nonetheless.

  Rutherford had seen what war could do to a man, and that was why he had to do everything in his power to prevent it from happening again.

  Of course, he'd killed others since the war. It was inevitable in his line of work. Whether it was self-defense or political assassination, he'd carried it out in as detached a fashion as he'd been able to muster, always doing what was necessary, always remaining calm and logical. But he knew someday it would catch up with him.

  The war had changed him. The war had made him a killer, and the British government had seen that, had harnessed that. They had taught him about efficiency, about stealth. They had trained him in the art of death. They had, in short, turned him into a monster.

  Rutherford knew he was damaged goods. He'd never be able to return to a normal life. Never be able to love without always somehow compromising it, seeing the blood on his hands and knowing that he didn't deserve to be happy.

  There was a dark place inside his mind, a place where he buried all of the memories, all of the sights and sounds, all of the things he wanted too much to pretend had never happened. The best thing he could do for his countrymen, he knew, was to ensure that in the future none of them had to see the things he had seen, or do the things he had done. Perhaps that, and only that, could be his benediction.

  Rutherford melted into the shadows on the street corner opposite the apartment building and stood there for some time, watching, waiting. He was cold, chilled to the bone, and his breath made steaming clouds before his face.

  People came and went. Cars hissed by belching trails of oily smoke. The light began to wane. Still he waited. He smoked a cigarette, and then made sure to dispose of the butt down an open drain. He didn't want to leave any evidence he had been there for even the slightest amount of time. He studied the parked cars nearby, watching for any signs that the building was being watched.

  Two hours later, confident that the apartment block was clear, he stepped out from beneath the awning of a derelict store and crossed the road. He moved quickly, ducking into the shelter of the doorway and slipping the key out from a hidden compartment in the sole of his shoe.

  The key grated in the lock, the door swung open, and then he was inside, rushing up the stairwell toward the third floor. The stairs were covered in a thick layer of grime and the detritus of poverty. He wrinkled his nose at the smell.

  Moments later he was outside the door to apartment thirty-four. A different key, this time in the sole of his other shoe. He unlocked the door and pushed his way inside the apartment.

  He hadn't been here for weeks, and the place was filled with a musty scent, of dust and underuse. Everything seemed to be in order. They couldn't have discovered the place yet.

  His heart was pounding in his chest. He wondered how long it would be safe to stay here. He only needed ten minutes, time enough to make the call to London and toss a few belongings in a bag. Then he'd take the train out to Brooklyn and spend the night in the safe house before trying to book a berth on one of the airships leaving for the Continent in the morning. If he could make it to Paris or Berlin, he could take a train to Calais and be home in a few days.

  Rutherford rushed to the small bedroom where, beside the single cot, sat the holotube transmitter he needed. He flicked the metal lever to the “Make Call” position and sat back, waiting for the unit to warm up to capacity. The machine whirred to life, emitting a dull electrical hum. The metal box was rectangular, about two feet tall, and contained a mirrored cavity within which a holographic image of the person on the other end of the line would be displayed. It was decorated in a modern style, the side panels covered in ornate fretwork and inlaid with colored glass. Rutherford found himself wishing the manufacturers had spent more time developing a way to make it work faster and less time worrying about how the thing looked.

  It would take a few moments for the transmitter to come online, and then a couple of minutes to establish a connection to London.

  Rutherford slouched on the bed, willing the machine to hurry.

  He cocked his head when he heard something snick out in the hallway. What was it? The sound of someone cocking a gun?

  Cautiously, trying his best not to make a sound, Rutherford slid off the bed and reached for the penknife in his pocket. He eased the blade out of the housing and shuffled across the room to stand behind the door. The door itself had swung to on loose hinges, leaving only the slightest crack of light spilling in from the hallway. Otherwise, the bedroom was shrouded in gloom, lit only by the shimmering blue light of the holotube unit.

  He glanced around the dingy room, looking for anything else he might co-opt as a weapon. It was sparsely furnished, with only the bed, the bedside table, and an old wardrobe filled with different sets of clothes—everything from sharp suits to pauper's rags, depending on what he might need to help him adopt one of the many personas that his trade demanded. There were weapons—guns, knives, explosives—in the other room. He'd been intending to collect those before he left. He cursed himself for not being better prepared.

  Rutherford held his breath, listening intently for any further sounds from the hallway. Yes—there—the scuff of a boot on the carpet. Someone had followed him. They must have been good; he'd been careful to take a circuitous route, and he'd been vigilant, stopping to look in store windows or to buy a coffee, using those opportunities to scan the faces of the people on the street, checking none of them were becoming familiar.

  There was no doubt, however. Someone else was in the apartment.

  The holotube blared suddenly, the sound ringing out like a foghorn in the otherwise silent apartment. Rutherford glanced at it. A face had resolved in the mirrored cavity. “Rutherford? Are you there, Rutherford? It's London here.”

  The door to the bedroom slammed open with sudden force as the intruder came running at the sound of the English voice. Rutherford fell back against the wall to avoid catching the door in the face and barely had time to catch sight of the dark-haired man framed in the opening. Rutherford dived to the floor as a gunshot rang out, the bullet splintering the plaster where he had been standing only moments before.

  He rolled, doing his best to get clear in the confined space of the small room.

  “Rutherford!” the man on the other end of the holotube cried as he must have heard the echo of the gunshot all the way in London. “Rutherford?”

  Another two gunshots, and this time the holotube transmitter fizzed and popped, the mirrored panels shattering as the lead bullets slammed into it, sending it spinning to the floor.

  Rutherford used the edge of the bed to haul himself to his feet, twisting around and leaping for the other man, his penknife clutched in his fist. He brought it down hard, catching the intruder in the top of the arm and burying the knife to the hilt.

  The man screamed and struck out with the butt of his gun, clubbing Rutherford hard across the side of the head. Rutherford staggered back, dazed, refusing to let go of the penknife and ripping it out of the man's arm in the process, causing blood to fountain up out of the wound. The man let off another shot, but his aim was wide and Rutherford easily avoided it, leaping out through the open door into the hall.

  He didn't have time to scramble for the weapons in the other room, however, as
moments later the dark-haired man was rushing him, pistol-whipping him hard across the face with the revolver. Rutherford cried out, dropping to his knees, spitting blood. Blindly he punched up, striking the man squarely in the balls.

  The man doubled over, and Rutherford, lights dancing before his eyes, repeated the motion, this time burying his fist in the man's gut, causing him to drop his weapon and stagger back a pace, gasping for breath.

  Rutherford stood, his back against the wall.

  Then the man was rushing him again, and it was all Rutherford could do to get his arms up in defense. He jabbed out savagely with the penknife, still clutched in his right fist, roaring in sheer, unadulterated rage. To his satisfaction he caught the man brutally in the face, burying the blade in his left eye.

  The result was almost instantaneous. The man slumped, his knees giving way, and then dropped to the floor, an inanimate sack of bones.

  Rutherford, his back still to the wall, slid to the floor beside the body, panting for breath.

  A minute passed, maybe longer. Rutherford felt numb, dazed. He was bleeding from a severe gash in his cheek where he'd been struck by the butt of the gun. His hands were trembling. In the other room, through the crack in the doorway, he could see the holotube terminal smoldering on the carpet, fizzing and popping as the electrics burnt out.

  Beside him, on the floor, surrounded by a growing pool of dark, glossy blood, the corpse stared up at him accusingly. The man was—had been—in his early thirties. He was swarthy and good-looking, muscular and fit. His chin was encrusted with stubble. Blood now ran freely from his nose and his slack-jawed mouth, and the penknife still jutted rudely from his left eye. The eye itself had burst, and optic fluid trickled down his cheek.

  Gingerly, Rutherford leaned forward and searched the man's pockets. The man was clearly a professional. No identification papers, no handwritten notes, no jewelry. Just a thick wad of ten-dollar bills and a packet containing a few sticks of gum. Rutherford pocketed both of these.