Breach

by W. L. Goodwater

  Arthur suddenly felt a need to be anywhere but right here, right now. “I was there,” he said. “I saw what happened. And I won’t tell you we’ve always done right by our fallen, but there still are good ways and bad ways, Alec.” He shook his head. “You don’t go against your own.”

  Alec’s face was dark. Without his usual chasm of a smile, his beard reminded Arthur too much of the emptiness that had almost swallowed the church.

  “So what now?” Alec asked.

  Arthur nodded east. “You’ve served king and country well enough,” he said. “So get going.”

  “You’re letting me go too?”

  “My mood is turning less generous the longer we stand here yapping.”

  Alec glanced back at the others. “What will you tell them?”

  Arthur shrugged. “I’ll tell them you needed a vacation and heard Siberia was nice this time of year.”

  This seemed sufficient for the big man. He looked like he was going to say something, but then thought better of it. “I won’t offer you my hand,” he said, “but I will offer my thanks.”

  “Good luck,” Arthur said.

  As Alec started after the Nightingale, Arthur decided it was time for that drink. Anything but scotch. He didn’t think it would taste the same anymore.

  “Should I ask what that was all about?”

  Arthur turned at the voice. “Miss O’Neil,” he said. She looked terrible. Her skin was white as fog, her hands were twisted together to keep from shaking, and her eyes had a faraway look that Arthur unfortunately recognized. “You here to apologize for stealing one of my cars?”

  “Sorry about that.” She smiled, barely. “It was in the service of a good cause.”

  “Any cause can look good, if you squint hard enough.”

  “You really believe that?” she asked.

  Arthur shrugged. “Uncle Sam doesn’t pay me to believe in things, Miss O’Neil.”

  She stared after the way Alec had gone. “You going to be alright, Arthur?”

  “I could ask you the same,” he said. “Though, as a gentleman, I’ll refrain from doing so.”

  “Thanks,” she said, her voice brittle.

  “You weren’t lying before,” Arthur said, “when you called this a lonely business.”

  “And you said on the good days, it was worth it.” He tried not to notice how her shoulders were trembling as she spoke. “Was this one of the good days?”

  Arthur exhaled. Damn, was it cold. “I’ll let you in on a secret, Karen,” he said, his words echoing back toward Auttenberg. He pulled off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. Looked better on her anyway. “I just pretend they’re all good days.”

  SIXTY-FIVE

  MEMORANDUM

  SUBJECT: De-escalation of Military Force Following Berlin Wall Collapse

  TO: Director, Central Intelligence

  FROM: Chief, Berlin Operating Base

  Forces at border remain on high alert following the total collapse of Berlin Wall. Estimated fifteen thousand (15000) refugees crossed between hours of 0500 and 0800. Processing has been set up at Tempelhof Airport. Expect will take weeks.

  Reports of Soviet aggression against refugees widespread. However, following orders from Soviet and GDR high command that arrived early morning, military strength was reduced at every border crossing.

  Seems they decided it was not worth World War Three (3).

  Can confirm reports that during the night following collapse of magical Berlin Wall, Soviet and GDR forces began construction on concrete barriers at every major crossing between East and West Berlin.

  Unrelated fire at Berlin Operating Base during same night was contained. Damage from fire suppression system widespread, but manageable.

  Tempelhof was awash in activity. Even though the sun had gone down an hour before, the airport still hummed with the rumble of truck tires and a choir of refugee voices. The lucky ones. How many others were still stuck in the East, barred now by concrete and tanks rather than shimmering silver magic? Too many, Jim thought. But it was a start.

  The military plane was running late (no surprise), but it would be taking off soon. He wasn’t supposed to be here, wasn’t supposed to be outside, but Arthur’s mercy was apparently without end. He tried to ignore his escorts. At least they’d taken off the handcuffs. He rubbed his chest where the bullet had hit him, an unconscious habit he’d picked up. No scar, not even a mark. Like it had never happened.

  The coffin was rolled out onto the tarmac without ceremony. There’d be time for that when it landed Stateside. All the time in the world. The family would be waiting, impatient after all the delays, but Jim was for once grateful for the slow-moving wheels of bureaucracy. Otherwise he would have missed his chance to say good-bye.

  Jim put his hand on the polished wood. He could feel the grain under his fingers, almost imperceptible. He tried to think of something to say, one last joke for his friend, but nothing seemed all that funny anymore. “It should be me,” he said. Distant rotors scattered his words into the German sky. “I should be in there and you should be out here. I think you’d have done a better job.”

  “Jim.” He hadn’t heard her walk up. He knew she’d be here (this was her ride home after all), but hadn’t decided if he wanted to see her or not. She looked good, or at least better. More like herself. Less like the woman with dead, blazing eyes who had been about to kill him. Not like he could blame her for that, though; he’d earned it.

  Jim steadied his quavering legs with both hands on the coffin. “When you land, his sister will probably be the one to meet the plane,” he said, staring at his whitened knuckles. “His parents are older, probably won’t be able to make the drive. If you see her, tell her . . . tell her Dennis was a good guy, good at his job. Tell her . . . that he’s a hero.”

  “I’ll tell her,” she said.

  “And tell her that he was terrible at poker,” he said with a cracked voice, “and that he couldn’t hold his beer, and made dumb jokes. And that . . . he was a good friend.”

  She put her hand on his. “Jim.”

  He forced himself to look up. She was crying too.

  “It wasn’t you,” she said. “Trust me, I know. It was the magic, not you.”

  He wanted to smile for her, to put on that mask in the hopes of raising her spirits, but somewhere along the line, he’d forgotten how to. “That would be easier to agree with,” he said, “if I knew who I was anymore.”

  “You’re still you,” she said. “We both are. It’s the world that changed around us.”

  “Not sure if that’s comforting or not.”

  He earned a tiny smile for this, one he’d cherish.

  “You saved me,” he said before he could stop himself.

  “It seemed like the thing to do at the time,” she said softly.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said. She glanced at his hovering babysitters. “What’s next for you?”

  “Debriefing,” he said. The euphemism sounded ominous.

  “It wasn’t you,” she said again.

  “I’ll be fine. Arthur understands,” Jim said, as if that mattered. If they needed a scapegoat, well, he knew they wouldn’t have to dig around much. He suddenly needed a cigarette. He patted his coat and produced a crumpled pack and offered one to her. She took it carefully, but steadily. Not a two-pack-a-day gal, but this wasn’t her first smoke.

  “A light?” she asked.

  This made Jim laugh, despite everything. “Sure,” he said. “I’ve got a light.” He spoke the incantation in Latin (accent on the last syllable) and snapped his fingers. A warm little pool of fire illuminated their tired faces. They lit their cigarettes and exhaled out over their heads.

  The flame turned her eyes to gold.

  “Hardly anything impressive,” he said, a
little embarrassed. “Just a little trick, one of the few I still remember.”

  “No,” she said, mesmerized by the glow. “This is what magic is. Mankind’s great endeavor.” Now she laughed, but the joy had gone out, like a snuffed candle. “We spend all our time trying to steal fire from the gods, and when we succeed we have to find something to burn with it.”

  Jim said nothing. There didn’t seem to be anything to say.

  She dropped her cigarette and put it out with her shoe. Leaning over, she kissed him on the cheek. “Good-bye, Jim,” she said. “And thanks.”

  They loaded the passengers and the coffin into the rear of the plane. The huge engines spun to life, drowning out everything else with a bored roar. Jim felt a firm hand on his arm, his cue to go, but he stayed put, watching, watching until the heavy green door was all the way closed.

  SIXTY-SIX

  SIX MONTHS LATER

  “Sorry, Elvis,” Karen said as she hurried the bandaged rat back into his cage. The little creature scurried out of her hands and into the sawdust, nose twitching like mad. If he begrudged her the incision, he showed no signs.

  Another bust. She’d actually let her hopes rise for this one, but it turned out to be just another fool’s errand. Gerald apologized, but it hadn’t been his fault. She jotted down the last of her notes in her research notebook and sighed.

  Sometimes, she wondered why she bothered.

  And then she’d remind herself that it was possible. The magic was there, somewhere.

  When she returned to the OMRD after Berlin, she could have had any job she wanted. Her report had become required reading for all field agents. Everyone wanted to hear about the strange magic she’d found in Auttenberg, but she didn’t have it in her to tell the story again. She just told them it was classified.

  She didn’t say that there were entire chunks of it she couldn’t remember.

  Dr. Haupt had called her to his office on his last day. His retirement was long overdue, he said, and would be a welcome chance for rest. She hadn’t argued. They hadn’t spoken once while in West Germany, nor on the flight home. The only one less chatty than Dr. Haupt had been George, who’d resigned from the OMRD before their landing gear had touched down. She wasn’t sure if he’d quit because he didn’t want to work with a woman or because he didn’t want to work with a woman he’d tried to murder. Either way, he wasn’t missed.

  “Tell me,” she’d said to Dr. Haupt as he packed away his things, “why did you send me to Berlin? You knew that we’d helped erect the Wall, you knew about Auttenberg. Why send me? Why didn’t you go yourself?”

  When he stared at her, he’d never seemed so frail. “My dear,” he said, his voice a tired whisper, “I did not know the Wall was involved. I thought it would be a good experience for you. Give you a chance to learn, to grow. I never meant for you to be hurt. I never meant . . .” He trailed off. Since Auttenberg, he looked less like the fearsome director of the OMRD and more a fragile old man who had stepped out into the street only to forget where he lived. “You were always like a daughter to me,” he said eventually. “I only wanted what was best for you. I only wanted to keep you safe.”

  I already have a father, she had wanted to say. And I don’t need him to protect me either.

  “I thought the Wall would stand for a thousand years,” Dr. Haupt said, shaking his head. “I thought Auttenberg was buried forever. I thought the past would stay where it belonged.”

  “It rarely does,” she said as she left.

  She’d turned down the offers from the other department heads, though she didn’t fail to notice the newfound deference they paid her. She just wasn’t interested in fieldwork, weapons research, or whatever else they offered her. None of that mattered. She had glimpsed the true face of magic; she knew its voice now. The rest could still choose to believe it was some unexplainable force that existed for men to harness for a brighter tomorrow, but she knew better.

  It wasn’t man’s future; it was his end.

  Except, it didn’t have to be. Jim was alive, somewhere, after all.

  Now she had Gerald and two other magicians for her research. As it turned out, being a celebrity meant a bigger budget. She’d even found a woman willing to join, fresh out of St. Cyprian’s. The next generation, the next turn of the wheel. She left the actual spellcasting to them. She was too busy, she told them, and they needed the experience; they, of course, were honored. She didn’t tell them she hadn’t cast any magic since Auttenberg. She didn’t tell them her locus was gone, a pain she felt every day, like a lost limb. And she didn’t tell them that the very thought of trying to work magic without it filled her with stomach-turning dread.

  “Don’t look at me like that, Frank,” she said as the other rat eyed her from his cage. “You’re up next.”

  There was some solace to be found back in her research, back in routine. There were times she even felt stable, like the ground under her feet wasn’t about to give way. Like her legs could still hold her up. Those times didn’t last long, but she appreciated them when they came.

  She realized she was holding it again; the ring had come back with her from Berlin, a souvenir for the forgotten moments of her time there. It had been enchanted once; the spent magic left a faint echo she could sense when she tried. The ring had translated words spoken in German to English: powerful, unique, startling magic. And it had been given to her by the man who had enchanted it. And she had no memory of who that man was.

  The door opened. Allison’s head poked in. “Karen? You have visitors.”

  A moment later, Martha burst into the room. “Whoa,” she said, taking it in.

  “Say hi to your aunt,” Helen said, coming in after.

  “Hi, Aunt Karen,” Martha said. “Is this where you do the magic?”

  Karen shared a glance with her sister. “This is where I do research,” she said. She set the metal ring down on her desk.

  “That sounds boring,” Martha replied.

  “Magical research,” Karen amended.

  Martha shrugged. “That sounds a little better. Oh!” She rustled in her knapsack and came up with a red leather book. “I read your birthday present!”

  Karen took it from her and smiled. The cover announced, in fading gold leaf, The Discovery of Magic. It had been her first textbook. After she had passed the tests in school, her father had forbidden her to consider the extra studies, but one morning she had found this book wrapped in thick brown paper at the foot of her bed. A simple note had been attached. It read: Change the world, darling. Her mother had signed it, for her and her father.

  “And what did you think?” Karen asked.

  “It was neat,” Martha said. “I mean, I want to read it again, and Mom says it will make more sense after I take the tests, but I can’t believe the stuff in here. Can you really do all these spells?”

  “That and more,” Karen said, suppressing a wince.

  “Neat,” Martha said.

  There were times she found herself back there, staring into that void. In the lab late at night, where she found herself often these days when she couldn’t sleep, or looking into the mirror, or when she passed by a church or a park. It whispered to her, even now. But in those moments, she tried to focus and remember the man who had given her the ring.

  She saw him in other people’s faces. A glimpse, nothing more. Like trying to grip a vapor. And then there was the bag: an old, tattered leather satchel she’d carried back from Auttenberg, from Berlin. Someone had given it to her, she thought, along with the enchanted items inside. Whose magic was it infusing wood and stone? It seemed unknowable, a word in a foreign tongue. But this mattered. Something was missing until she could recall his face. Something was broken inside until she knew his name.

  It was hard; probably impossible. But she’d made progress. It was becoming a new obsession, not unlike her research. Sometimes it seemed eve
n more important. When she narrowed her thoughts, truly forced herself to think, she could believe it could be done. She knew only one thing for certain: she had forgotten someone who was worth remembering.

  It must have happened again; Helen was giving her that look. The blackouts were brief and manageable, she tried to tell her sister, but big sisters were experts in not believing a word spoken by their little sisters.

  “Come meet our friends,” Allison said, ushering Martha over to the rats’ cages. That was a bad sign; that meant her assistant was noticing it too.

  Helen came over. “Are you okay?”

  Karen smiled. It felt tired, but genuine. “I’m great. Really.”

  “You look like you haven’t slept in a month.”

  “You look like you haven’t slept since Martha was born.”

  “I haven’t,” Helen replied. “Just wait until you have a daughter. Then you’ll understand.” She put her hand on Karen’s arm. “Really, you can tell me.”

  “Really,” Karen said. “I’m good.”

  The look again, mastered by big sisters everywhere. “If you can’t have lunch with us, Martha will understand.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Karen said, and meant it. “Let me just tidy up a bit and we can get going.”

  Martha was telling Allison all about the hamster they kept in their classroom at school. Helen looked like she was doing her darnedest to avoid touching any surface in the lab. And for a moment, Karen felt a glimmer of the peace she’d been looking for her entire life.

  She grabbed her research notebook and dropped it into one of their filing cabinets. As she did, something inside caught her eye.

  “You coming, Aunt Karen?” Martha asked eagerly from the doorway.

  “Yeah,” Karen said. “Just a minute.” She reached into the drawer. At the bottom was another research notebook, like any one of a dozen she had spread throughout the lab. But unlike the rest, this one didn’t have a title on the cover, just a blank spot where she’d normally write it in. But the spine was worn and the pages already a little ink-spotted and dog-eared. It was clearly in use. She flipped through it: it was full of strange formulas, spells, and incantations. It wasn’t anything she recognized. Maybe it was from one of the other departments and got mixed in with hers by mistake.