On Her Majesty's Behalf

by Joseph Nassise

  Richthofen had heard of the philosopher’s stone but had always considered it a myth, much like the Holy Grail or the sword of Excalibur, other symbols of British power and might.

  “You believe this stone exists and can be useful to us?”

  Eisenberg nodded. “The research I’ve done suggests that the stone is genuine and that it does, indeed, provide the individual who possesses it with considerable power. The Brotherhood wants to use it for several select rites, which we can discuss later, but even if you keep it in your possession, I think it is worth going after, if for no other reason than to deny it to the Allies. Eventually someone in the British High Command is going to mention it to the American commander and the last thing we want is for the stone to fall into their hands.”

  That, Richthofen could agree with. Giving the Americans an opportunity to bolster their already considerable ability to put men and equipment on the battlefield made very little sense.

  “You propose sending a team of Himmler’s men to carry this mission out?”

  “Good heavens, no, Your Majesty! Himmler’s far too unstable to trust something of this importance to directly. No, I suggest sending a team of our own Geheime Volks to handle the job, and I have just the man to lead them. May I invite him in?”

  A laugh burst out of the emperor’s mouth. Leave it to Eisenberg to come prepared for any eventuality.

  “By all means, Doktor. Is he waiting in the hall?”

  “Yes. I didn’t want to trouble you with him if you were not interested in the mission.”

  Eisenberg walked back to the door, opened it, and spoke a few words to the guards waiting on the other side. Moments later the door opened and Richthofen watched a large, hulking fellow cross the room, snap to attention, and salute.

  Richthofen recognized him immediately as the U.S. Army sergeant he’d pulled from the wreckage of the stolen transport truck in the wake of the attack on the Verdun facilities, despite the changes the transformation process had wrought in his appearance. The man’s skin had turned ash gray, his veins now black as pitch and standing out sharply beneath the skin. His eyes had the yellow cast to them so common to the new breed of Geheime Volks, and what little hair he had started out with had turned limp and sallow. He was dressed in the black uniform worn by all of Richthofen’s new supersoldiers, and there was no denying the strength infused in the man’s impressive frame nor the light of intelligence in his eyes.

  Eisenberg walked over to join them.

  “This, Your Majesty, is my latest success. May I present Vizefeldwebel Karl Jaeger, leader of the first Totenkopf Strike Force.”

  Moore bowed his head slightly in the emperor’s direction and said, “ ’ Tis a pleasure to meet you, Your Majesty.”

  Richthofen stared at the man for a moment. “Is that . . . ?” he began.

  Eisenberg nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty, it is. Or, should I say, was.”

  Richthofen laughed in delight. “Well done, Doktor, well done indeed!”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Buckingham Palace

  London

  ACCORDING TO SERGEANT Drummond, Bedlam had been in continual operation since 1247 and had earned its nickname from a time when chaos had reigned inside its walls and those who went in rarely came out.

  An asylum where the doctors were as crazy as the inmates. Wonderful.

  “And this ‘Veronica’ person?” Burke asked.

  “Veronica Windsor, Major, the princess royal.”

  “Ah.” That should have been obvious and Burke mentally kicked himself for being slow-­witted. He glanced behind him at the bodies, thinking, Princess no longer. Now she’s the Queen of England.

  Which meant his mission wasn’t yet over after all.

  Burke dug the map out of his pocket and spread it out on a nearby table. “Show me where this hospital is.”

  Drummond pointed to a spot on the other side of the Thames, just south of Lambeth Castle. “Here,” he said. Anticipating Burke’s next question, he went on. “If we backtrack along the same route we took to the palace,” he said, tracing the route on the map with his finger, “we can cross the Thames at Westminster Bridge and follow Kennington Road south to the hospital.”

  The distance wasn’t far; probably less than two miles total. But it wasn’t the distance that Burke was worried about. They’d been lucky so far and had managed to avoid any confrontations with the shredders roaming the city, but eventually their luck would run out.

  Especially if they kept trooping back and forth across the city.

  But Burke also knew there was no way he could morally justify leaving London without verifying whether or not the princess—­the Queen, she’s the Queen now—­was still alive. He had no choice but to make the trip to the hospital and see for himself.

  It was barely midmorning; they had plenty of time to make the trip across the Thames, check out the hospital, and then return to the boat, hopefully with the new Queen in tow.

  After that it was mission accomplished and back to France.

  Or so he hoped.

  “Good enough,” Burke said, folding the map back up and slipping it into his pocket. “Let’s get Their Majesties squared away and then we’ll go see what’s waiting for us at Bedlam.”

  Drummond looked like he was going to cheer, but in the end settled for a simple thank-­you. Burke didn’t blame him; these were his countrymen, after all.

  The men made short work of wrapping up the bodies of the King and Queen and soon the squad left the palace behind and set out for the Thames. Burke put Drummond back on point, trusting in his ability to steer them around any trouble spots, which was more important than ever now that four of them—­Bankowski, Cohen, Montagna, and Graves—­were burdened down with the bodies of His and Her Majesty. Burke, Williams, and Jones formed the other three points of the diamond around them, ready to come to their defense should circumstances require it.

  They hadn’t even left the palace grounds when a lone shredder erupted from the undergrowth and raced right toward them.

  “Major! On your right,” Williams shouted.

  The warning was unnecessary; Burke had already seen it coming.

  As the creature rushed toward him, Burke let his Tommy gun fall to his side so that it hung by the strap around his shoulder and then drew his combat knife with his right hand. He turned slightly so that his mechanical hand was closest to the shredder and waited for it to reach him.

  It didn’t take long. The shredder, a stooped older fellow who moved much quicker than anyone his age ever should, rushed forward with the single-­minded obsession of a starving man seeing his first meal in a week.

  For his part, Burke was unconcerned. Shredders might be slightly smarter and a whole lot faster than their shambler brethren, but in the end they were still nothing more than zombies and, as such, reasonably easy for an armed and able-­bodied man to handle on his own if he could keep his wits about him.

  Given everything he’d been through recently, it was going to take a lot more than a single shredder to ruffle Burke’s calm.

  The creature slammed into him without slowing down, but Burke was ready for it, falling over backward and taking the shredder down with him. He flipped the two of them over in midfall, so that they landed with the shredder on the bottom and Burke on top. The creature’s jaws snapped open and shut, open and shut as it sought to reach him with its teeth, but Burke pinned its head on the ground sideways with his mechanical arm to keep it from sinking its teeth into him.

  The research Graves had done before they’d departed France on the mission taught them that shredder bodies were much less fragile than those of their shambler cousins. A solid blow would often stave in a shambler skull, if for no other reason than the fact that the bodies from which they were formed most often had already started to decay before they were exposed to the corpse gas that resurre
cted them. Once that decaying process started, there was no turning back the clock; eventually the shambler was going to fall apart where it stood.

  But try that same blow on a shredder and you’d better be ready to run for your life because that strike was just going to bounce off the creature’s head more often than not. Shredders were once living ­people transformed through the strange science and arcane magick of Richthofen’s unique gas and weren’t, as far as anyone knew at this point, subject to the same slow but relentless decaying process.

  So while you were still trying to figure out what happened, that shredder was going to slip inside your guard and rip out your throat.

  Burke had all that in mind as he pinned the side of the shredder’s face flat against the ground with his mechanical hand and then jabbed his combat knife savagely into the creature’s temple where the skull was soft and wouldn’t be an impediment to his blade.

  The thing gurgled once in protest and then died.

  Just to be sure it didn’t get back up again, Burke gave his knife a bit of a twist as he pulled it free of the shredder’s skull and then climbed to his feet.

  The entire attack had lasted less than a minute, but off in the distance Burke could already see several shredders turning in their direction. It was time to go.

  “Get us out of here, Drummond!” Burke ordered, and the group set out once more.

  They were attacked three more times during the remainder of the journey back to the submarine, once by a pack of five shredders that required the pallbearers to put down their load and get in on the action. Each time, however, the Marauders came up victorious and they returned to the Reliant without suffering anything more dangerous than a few cuts and bruises.

  After speaking with Captain Wattley and arranging for the bodies of His and Her Majesty to be properly stowed for transport back to Allied Command, Major Burke asked to have the radio man put in a call to Colonel Nichols at the MID.

  Five minutes later Burke was led into the tiny room that served as both the captain’s cabin and radio room. The operator, a corporal named Symington, offered Burke the room’s only stool but he waved it away, preferring to stand.

  Symington extended a set of headphones in his direction. “Here you go, sir; put these on and we’ll . . .”

  The corporal caught sight of Burke’s mechanical hand and stopped in midsentence, his eyes going wide.

  Having lived with his mechanical wonder for long enough that he no longer thought of it as anything other than a natural part of himself, Burke often forgot how others initially reacted to it or how strange it must seem to them. Most mechanical hands were primitive devices, a far cry from the five-­fingered multijointed version that was grafted directly to the stump of his forearm and used a combination of clockwork mechanisms and his body’s own electrical impulses to power it. He could do almost as much with his artificial hand as the average person could do with one made of flesh and blood.

  Burke pretended the man hadn’t stopped in midsentence and took the headphones, slipping them on over his ears. He’d had some experience working with a trench telegraph and recognized them for what they were. The headphones were a snug fit but would work well enough for the time being.

  By the time he looked up again, Symington had recovered from his embarrassment and was settling in behind the radio panel. He began flipping switches and setting the dials to their necessary positions.

  “Ever used a radio, sir?”

  “No, just a talking box aboard a dirigible.”

  The corporal laughed nervously. “They’re pretty much the same thing, sir.” He pointed to a tabletop microphone with a button on the front of the base. “When you want to say something, push this button and speak into the microphone. When you want to listen, let go of the button and wait for the voice to come over your headphones.”

  “Press the button to talk, let go to listen. Got it,” Burke said.

  Symington made a few more adjustments to the settings then asked over his shoulder, “What’s the frequency?”

  “Frequency?”

  The corporal glanced over his shoulder at Burke. “The frequency that you’re supposed to use to . . .”

  This time he paused at the blank look on Burke’s face.

  “You don’t have any idea what I’m talking about, do you, sir?”

  Burke sighed. “Can’t say that I do, Corporal.”

  The younger man nodded sagely, as if this kind of thing happened all the time. When it came to newfangled technology like radio, Burke could well imagine that it did.

  “I’m sure I can get this sorted, sir,” Symington said. “Give me a moment, would you?”

  “By all means.”

  The corporal was nothing if not resourceful. A quick check revealed that Captain Wattley’s orders contained the radio frequency they needed. With typical bureaucratic reasoning, someone, somewhere, had apparently decided that Burke didn’t need that information himself because he didn’t have a radio.

  With that snafu solved, Burke turned his attention to the issue that started this all, namely, bringing Colonel Nichols up to speed on the mission thus far.

  The corporal dialed in the proper frequency and then reminded him, “Your call sign is Eagle One. MID headquarters is Nest.”

  “Understood.”

  The corporal excused himself and slipped out of the room, giving Burke privacy.

  Burke hit the on switch, waited for the light on the console to go green, and then pressed the transmit button.

  “Eagle One to Nest. Eagle One to Nest. Acknowledge.”

  The response was almost immediate.

  “Nest to Eagle One. Pass phrase ‘I’m looking over . . .’ ”

  Burke had expected the need to confirm his identity and was ready with the next half of the phrase from the song popularized by both Nick Lucas and Ben Bernie. “A four-­leaf clover,” he replied.

  Upon hearing the correct phrase to complete the pass code, the radio operator on the other end gave him the go-­ahead.

  “Message to Condor,” Burke began. “Mama and Papa Bear have fallen asleep. Reports state Goldilocks may still be awake. Will check before calling it a night.”

  His message was circumspect enough to confuse any enemy agents who might be listening in, Burke hoped, but should make sense to Colonel Nichols, a.k.a. Condor.

  Burke waited, didn’t hear any response, and was about to transmit again when he realized he still had his finger on the button. He pulled it back as quickly as if he’d been scorched by a hot stove and a voice immediately filled his earphones.

  “Repeat Eagle One, do you copy?”

  “Negative, Nest. Sorry. Please repeat.”

  “Coup in Germany. Richthofen has declared himself emperor. Be advised Condor expects he’ll send troops after Goldilocks and the Bears. Copy?”

  “Copy and understood. Eagle One, out.”

  Burke stripped off the headphones and sat there for a moment, thinking about Colonel Nichols’s warning. London might have been attacked, but England was still in Allied hands and sending an enemy unit into British territory was such a bold and audacious move that Burke hadn’t even considered that the Germans might try it. A bit shortsighted on his part, he mused. Especially since it was that same tendency toward nearsightedness that had allowed him to take a squad of his own behind German lines recently to rescue his brother, Allied ace Major Jack Freeman.

  Far more disturbing, however, was the news that Richthofen had staged a coup. Burke had interacted with Richthofen briefly during that very same mission to Germany and had read the extensive reports Jack had written on his time in Richthofen’s captivity. Burke had no doubt in his mind that the new German emperor was certifiably insane. Whether he was that way before he’d undergone his transformation or after was debatable, but the end result was the same; a bloodthirsty megalomaniac now sa
t on the German throne and directed the course of the war. That was not good news for the Allies by any stretch of the imagination. They had held on this long in part because of the kaiser’s bungling of the situation at the front; the generals he’d put in charge really didn’t know how to conduct a war in this new day and age, and their mistakes had allowed the Allies to regroup and dig in before all could be lost.

  Richthofen wouldn’t make the same mistakes, Burke knew. Unlike most of those who rose as a result of exposure to corpse gas, the German ace had not only retained full use of his mental faculties but had effectively had those same faculties enhanced, bringing his natural brilliance to near genius levels. Freeman’s reports had made it quite clear that the man—­if you could even call him that now—­thought like a world-­class chess player, staying eight, nine, even ten moves ahead of his opponent at any time. Now that same devious intelligence would be directing the enemy forces arrayed against them.

  It was exceedingly bad news for the Allies.

  Should have let Manning kill him when he had the chance.

  That decision was going to come back and haunt them all, he knew.

  With nothing more he could do at the moment, Burke flipped off the radio set and went in search of his squad. They had an asylum to visit.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ranelagh Gardens

  London

  THE PARK WAS empty, devoid of the life that usually filled it, and as a result felt particularly desolate. Even in the midst of war ­people often gathered here, to find that sense of community that told them they weren’t alone; but no one was here today. It was as if the universe understood what was to come and worked to keep the innocent from being here.

  Had ­people been standing in the park, they would have heard a faint thrumming sound coming from their surroundings. The sound would have grown slowly louder, filling the air around them, until it would have seemed to be emanating from the very ground on which they were standing.