The door slammed. Cook stood, paced around to the front of the desk and perched on its edge.
“Well...I thought that went quite smoothly,” Donovan casually suggested, and snickered into the back of his hand. The men in the room followed suit, smiling and laughing, until only Cook remained straight faced and somber.
“Take a break, guys, and try to look natural. Remember you’re spies. Go on,” Donovan said as he searched his pockets for something. “And somebody get me a goddamned Havana while you’re at it.” The men began to filter out and Arnold turned to follow.
“Not you, Tom.” Donovan’s voice had shifted. It had steel in it now.
“Sir?” Arnold turned as the door shut behind him. Only Cook and Donovan remained.
“How would you feel about working with a Brit?” Donovan asked.
“Sir?”
“We know a lot more about the British paranormal operations than they think we do. My good friend at the Special Operations Executive, General Gubbins, absolutely despises this Major Cornwall, but apparently Cornwall has Churchill’s ear. From what I’ve found about them, I like to think they’ll play ball. So, how would you feel working with...say...Barnsby?”
“Fine, sir.” Just like Crosby and Hope. They could do road movies.
“Good. Good. You can go, Tom. Get some rest. Things are going to be pretty busy from this point on.”
Thomas Arnold maneuvered out of the building by rote, his mind far away, considering the possible outcomes of the discussion he had just witnessed. Outside the main entrance cars rolled by, and Arnold exited into the stinging cold of the English winter thinking about old men exchanging secrets.
CHAPTER 8:
Now my voice is heard, who knows by whom?
December 30, 1942: Kilmaur Manor, Scotland
The barren highlands of Scotland rolled past the car windows endlessly. Covered in a carpet of green moss and pockets of bright white snow, the terrain held no points of reference, no signs or markers, no standing stones to drift by and give an impression of movement. But the car continued, apparently, to roll forward, and the British driver behind the wheel continued humming a tune it had taken Arnold over forty minutes to realize was “Sweet Adelaide.”
Their destination was the very secret, very remote Kilmaur Manor, home to the British answer to DELTA GREEN, an organization known as PISCES, the Paranormal Intelligence Section for Counter-intelligence, Espionage, and Sabotage. No one except Donovan had seen the content of the invitation, but everyone at the OSS knew what it was when it arrived. The thick, handwritten letter had shown up by special courier three days after Donovan had sent young Barnsby packing. Apparently the missive had been from Major Cornwall himself, and everyone on the command staff at OSS headquarters was amazed when it came—except for Donovan, who would only comment (after carefully reading the letter), “This Cornwall’s a smart bastard.”
Arnold had been in the back of the car for more than an hour with General Donovan, who flipped through a series of paper-clipped reports, ignoring the scenery and his company equally, totally engrossed in his reading. Arnold could see the signature of President Roosevelt on a few of the documents.
The driver knocked on the glass window which divided the front seat from the back. Up ahead on the crest of a low hill stood a tiny yellow shack, the only structure Arnold had seen for miles. The grey of the horizon was broken by the three silhouettes of the sentries on duty.
At the checkpoint a red-cheeked, red-headed soldier tapped on the window, squinting to see into the darkened car. Donovan rolled it down quickly and glanced at Arnold with a smirk. The general stuck his head out into the drizzle and smiled at the soldier, letting him get a good look at his insignia.
“General Donovan to see Major Cornwall,” Donovan barked, and the soldier instantly shot to attention. The other two clicked their heels and snapped salutes so sharp they sounded like gunshots.
“Sir!”
Donovan flipped open his Allied identification for the terrified soldier to see. One of the soldiers hand-cranked a telephone in the shack and announced their arrival. The car rolled forward, waved on almost instantly by the sentries after the general’s ID was shakily returned.
Kilmaur Manor was as big as the sky and as bleak as the highlands. The huge, grey house stood like a monument to the will of civilization, defying the moors with its very presence, with dozens of arched black windows which looked out on the rolling hills with a proprietary air. Rich smoke poured from the clusters of chimneys as the car pulled up. Inside, Arnold imagined, it would all be mahogany and red velvet.
As the car came to a stop with a screech of wet tires, the door to the manor opened. General Donovan stepped out into the mist-like rain and tucked his files comfortably beneath his arm, and Arnold followed. A small woman carrying a huge umbrella met them at the car. Although she was very young her face wore a motherly concern, and her clear blue eyes found Arnold’s and locked there, her lips turned up in a slight smile. The woman was dressed in a beautiful, blue-green dress which made her golden, short hair even more striking. Arnold felt something lock in his throat; despite all he had seen and done, he was still a man after all.
“General. I am Natalie Greer, Major Cornwall’s personal secretary. The Major is upstairs in the library.” Her voice was child-like and enchanting.
“Wonderful,” the general answered and shook her tiny hand, giving Arnold a sly grin and a wink. The clutch of them moved into the manor house beneath the safety of the umbrella. Inside, Miss Greer helped them both out of their wet jackets and hats. The foyer was as complicated as Arnold had imagined, decorated in mahogany and red velvet rugs, hung with old paintings and swords, and broken here and there by huge, arched wooden doors. Directly ahead of them a humungous, green-carpeted staircase twisted gracefully up to the second floor. On it a dusky-skinned Indian woman in a bright pink dhoti stood frozen like a statue.
Miss Greer looked up at her and smiled. “Abhirati. These are the Americans you saw coming.”
Abhirati stepped gracefully down the stairs to meet them, her dhoti swishing on the carpet. “Oh. Yes,” the young Indian woman replied, in a perfect Oxford accent. Her voice was like honey, and her eyes were a lovely green.
“Were you out in this terrible weather?” Donovan asked taking the young Indian’s hand gently in both of his.
“Oh, no.” Abhirati laughed, a sound like tinkling bells, and then drifted away down the hall like a dream.
“Abhirati is one of our Talents,” Miss Greer offered, walking up the stairs. “This way, gentlemen.”
“I like their idea of talent,” Donovan murmured, following Miss Greer’s lead. Arnold found himself nodding in agreement as he watched the Indian woman disappear from sight.
Inside the library a dashing figure that Arnold assumed was Major Cornwall sat talking quietly with a small man, who looked like a mole with a pair of wire-rim glasses perched improbably on the end of his huge nose. The major looked up, stood, and strode over. His uniform, which suited him well, was freshly pressed and perfect .
“General Donovan. I am Major David Leslie Cornwall, commander of PISCES interagency task force.” Cornwall shook Donovan’s hand spryly but looked Arnold over with a disapproving glare, no doubt due to his lack of uniform. Arnold wore his usual fare—suit, tie, slacks and suspenders, all of it covered in the uncomfortable dampness of the highlands. Something invisible but powerful passed between Donovan and Cornwall. Arnold thought he could hear the distant sound of egos clashing.
“Feel free to call me Bill. This is one of my best men, First Lieutenant Thomas Arnold.”
“Sir.” Arnold saluted, wishing he’d had the foresight to shave his beard.
“Ah. The man who rained down terror on the Hun at the Cap de la Hague. Very good.” Cornwall smiled through his antique handlebar mustache, showing perfectly straight yellowed teeth in a grin. He looked like some sort of horse-riding instructor to Arnold; despite his size he moved with a lithe grace us
ually reserved for dancers.
“This is one of our Talents, Martin Briggs.” Cornwall gestured at the little mole man, who gazed at the three of them with his head tilted back for a better view through his half-moon lenses.
“Is either one of you a Sagittarius?” Martin said in a slurred cockney accent. He sounded frantic with worry. Arnold could smell whisky on his breath from seven feet away.
“What?” General Donovan asked, looking happily confused.
“Not now, Martin. Please excuse us.” Cornwall watched sadly as the little man padded out and shut the door with a clumsy bang. “They tend to be quite eccentric by nature. This way, please.” Cornwall walked to another double door and pulled it wide in a grand gesture. Inside, a huge study broken by four immense windows sat bathed in a misty grey light. In the center of the windows was an immaculate desk, flanked by huge shelves that were filled with hundreds of musty volumes. Two full sets of armor stood guard. Cornwall sat down in a chair behind the desk, sinking into hazy grey shadows, backlit by the overcast sky. He looked like a man preparing to go to work.
“Sit, please.”
General Donovan sat in a half-backed chair lined in red velvet. Arnold sat on a small divan. Cornwall looked up expectantly.
“You have provided my agency with an extremely valuable service, General Donovan. I, sir, am in your debt. The files you located in France are extremely enlightening.”
“Your letter was very forthcoming, Major Cornwall. I appreciate people who tell it like it is.”
“This plan to share intelligence between your agency and mine, I believe it will be quite beneficial in the long run. Your men have already proven themselves quite effective at dispatching paranormal threats.” Cornwall nodded approvingly at Arnold and continued: “Something I like to think I know a bit about.
“I have approved this interagency exchange with the prime minister, and I understand you have contacted your president, so I suppose we are merely the last link in a great chain.” Cornwall steepled his fingers. “We are up to date on your files, but you have not yet had access to ours, or our special Talents. I hope to have you and your men from your DELTA GREEN group cleared for PISCES access in as short a time as possible. And of course, vice versa.”
“Certainly. The Nazis are way ahead on this, so the sooner, the better.”
“Of course. As far as I am concerned such paperwork is simply a formality. If there is anything you wish to discuss about these matters, feel free to ask...”
“About these ‘Talents’ you keep referring to...?” Donovan asked, his voice hoarse.
“Ah. Yes, the Talents. I forget sometimes. I have interacted with their skills for so many years that I often fail to realize much of the world refuses to believe such...ahem...methods for intelligence gathering exist.” Cornwall stood and turned to look out the windows, and the shadow of a memory crossed his features like a shadow of a cloud passing over a summer field.
“I have found in my journeys an extremely small number of people who possess some sort of gift which truly sets them apart from the common man. The man you saw in the library, Martin, has successfully guessed the dates of significant troop movements in North Africa with a ninety percent accuracy, using nothing but astrology. We have many others like him, but they are... difficult to handle. They tend to be...trying. In many different ways, really.”
“So you’re telling me these people are involved in some kind of psychic mumbo-jumbo?” Donovan seemed taken aback, and Arnold noted the sudden concern evident in the old man’s voice.
Cornwall turned with a knowing smile on his lips. “That ‘psychic mumbo-jumbo,’ as you so quaintly put it, is precisely why PISCES is here today, sir.”
Donovan simply stared, politely blank faced, hands folded in his lap.
“The Hun’s move on the continent in the summer of ‘40. Only two people in this country knew about that beforehand. Me, and the source of the revelation, a rather happy, older woman named Amanda Chalmers, whose only concerns at the time were her four cats and a grandson. And her ‘spells.’” Cornwall turned around and considered his reflection on the surface of the desk.
Donovan smirked. “Witchcraft?”
“No. Her fainting ‘spells.’ I know it sounds unusual, but somehow during these seizures she suffered from, Amanda could see...ahead. She saw it all before it happened. The German’s push on Belgium, the Netherlands, and then into France. The evacuation at Dunkirk, even the date and time of the initial mobilization. But no one in the BEF command would listen to me. You see, I had learned years before that Amanda’s ‘spells’ were rarely wrong.”
A shiver ran down Arnold’s back, and suddenly the room seemed cold. Once again, unimpeachable sources were telling him unbelievable things. Looking over, Arnold saw Donovan’s expression had changed from incredulity to one of interest. Cornwall looked physically pained as he continued, as if he himself were responsible for the rout of the British Expeditionary Force in 1940.
“Many, many boys died on the beaches who did not have to, to prove my point. After the miracle, Churchill opened the sealed letter from Amanda I had left with his office. And so at the cost of three thousand, four hundred and seventy-five men, PISCES was created. The prime minister, of course, is now our greatest supporter. The clarity of hindsight, as they say...” Cornwall sat down again as the mist outside turned to rain. In the shadows, with his face downcast, he looked much, much older. “One of my mates from the Great War died there, on the beach, covering the retreat. Good Old Jim Lowell.” He pronounced ‘Old’ and ‘Lowell’ as if they rhymed.
Cornwall looked up and locked eyes with Donovan. “It is my supreme conviction that people like Amanda Chalmers were put on this Earth to prevent events like the retreat at Dunkirk from happening. So I gather them, here...”
“I am more than willing to remain open-minded to new intelligence-gathering technique,” Donovan stated in a careful tone.
“And you, Lieutenant Arnold?”
“It’s much easier to wrap my mind around some lady predicting the push on France than what I’ve seen in France itself, sir,” Arnold said, glancing down at his shoes.
“Hear, hear,” Cornwall said, standing up. “Would you both care to stay for dinner? We have much to discuss.”
Downstairs Miss Greer had gathered about twenty people into the parlor, in preparation for dinner. Arnold was immediately overwhelmed by hospitality. While General Donovan and Major Cornwall spoke quietly at one side of the parlor, Arnold was passed from person to person on a chain of friendly banter. Abhirati introduced him around, holding his hand as if he were a lost child. Arnold had to continuously remind himself why they were there as he was bombarded with the pleasantly bizarre.
In the midst of his conversation with a man who could read auras, Arnold noticed Lieutenant Barnsby quietly enter the parlor, freshly out of the rain by the look of his uniform. Barnsby removed his officer’s cap and scanned the crowd eagerly. Miss Greer’s arm encircled the young officer’s knowingly. She stood on tip-toe and kissed him briefly, and Barnsby blushed a deep red just as he had several days before in Cook’s office. The two exchanged quiet, smiling words as Barnsby kissed the young girl’s hands, one of which wore an engagement ring. Arnold watched this while something gathered uncomfortably in the back of his throat and Abhiriti and the aura man talked about the theory of predetermination. He thought maybe what he was feeling was jealousy. Maybe he should ask the aura man?
After Miss Greer pointed him out, Barnsby walked up to their little group briskly. He removed one of his black gloves with a careful gesture.
“Lieutenant Arnold?” After rapid hellos and good-byes, Abhiriti and the aura man drifted away.
“Call me Thomas.”
“I am Alan. I understand we will be working together.” Barnsby’s gawky hand reached out to shake.
“Yeah.” Arnold locked hands with the thin man.
“Tomorrow, th—” Barnsby began and then froze, eyes unfocusing, and sudde
nly his grip intensified until it became almost too much for Arnold to bear. Arnold looked about uncomfortably as he tried to remove his hand from the tiny man’s now-iron grip. As suddenly as it had begun, the fugue ceased, and Barnsby let go, apologizing and wiping his forehead with his sleeve.
“Are you all right?” Arnold placed a hand on the little man’s shoulder.
“Yes. I’m terribly sorry. Tomorrow, then, eh?” Barnsby walked off and he and Miss Greer left the parlor together. Her face was overcome with concern, and she took Barnsby’s temperature with her wrist as they departed.
“Dinner,” Abhirati announced, opening a door into a room which smelt of rich foods and wine, and the knots of people slowly filed through. Alone in the parlor, he could hear Miss Greer and Barnsby talk in heated tones from the foyer beyond the closed door. Why did he care what was said between the two?
Delta Green: Denied to the Enemy Page 11