The Fall: Illustrated Edition (An Anna Kronberg Thriller Book 2)
Page 5
Britain’s motorised war car, 1902. (4)
‘The art of war is changing, Dr Kronberg. Where men slaughtered men with swords and bayonets, countless more will be killed with weapons of yet unimaginably broad impact. Gas will crawl over battlefields to bring terror to man and beast. The Kaiser has been aiming at conflict for months now, he might even be pushing for war. We need to be prepared, or we will be overrun.’
For a second I had the ridiculous vision of children playing war in the slums, where the one with the biggest stick or the burliest friend was king. ‘I see,’ I said, leaning back in the chair and staring at the ceiling. The ensuing silence felt heavy; he neither moved nor spoke. I pictured him staring at me, unsure whether I was contemplating the discussion or ignoring him.
‘I think you are looking at the problem from the wrong angle,’ I said, focusing back on him. ‘You see how big the threat is and naturally want your threat to be even bigger. The most terrible weapon would certainly be the bubonic plague, so this is what you choose. However, I believe we must select what is most useful. And that is not necessarily the most threatening weapon we can think of, but rather one we can handle.’
‘I will not tolerate your subversive attitude much longer-’
Impatient with his rapid onsets of rage, I snarled, ‘How do you plan to teach fleas and rats to go only to the south, instead of the north? Both are vectors of the plague. Do you intend to train them?’
This was obviously more resistance then he had expected. His face grew pale. His jaws worked.
‘Let me finish, please,’ I said and he jerked his chin down once. ‘Correct me if I’m mistaken. Despite the technological advancements you mentioned, and the novel machinery that could possibly be used to deploy germs, a potential war would still be fought mostly by thousands of soldiers, horses, and mules, all of which represent targets for the weapons we will develop.’ He nodded and went back to sit at his chair.
‘Are we talking about a specific war, Professor? What I mean is, do you know for certain that there will be a war in the very near future?’
‘As I already said, the German Empire seeks conflict. As do others, Transvaal and the Orange Free State for instance. The beginning of a war is like tipping a scale. One can predict the collapse of the balance precisely when one grain too many has hit the bowl. Which might be the instant the first shot is fired.’
‘Very well. I will speak in purely hypothetical terms,’ I said. ‘What we want, then, are two diseases. One that brings down equines and one that kills men. Both have to be spread among the enemy fast enough to give us a chance to win a battle, but slow enough to allow the disease to spread between groups of soldiers and horses.’ His back stiffened in attention. ‘What if, after great effort, we can bring one man behind enemy lines to infect one battalion and the disease is so extremely aggressive that the entire unit is dead before the germs had a chance to spread to neighbouring units?’
Slowly, he leaned back again.
‘In warfare, gas might seem like a great idea at first,’ I continued, ‘but what if the wind turns? In germ warfare, we face the same problem. What if infected rats, fleas, people, horses, wind, or water are not behaving as we planned? This is a serious issue we have to consider.’ I kept saying we, in hopes he would notice and get used to it. Let it be a fact that this was cooperation and not slavery.
He searched my face. The silence between us felt very loud. I heard my heart thumping and my breath quivering as his gaze flickered between observant and cast inward.
‘What do you recommend?’ His voice carried a warning. I had to convince him now.
‘I will learn all there is to learn about the history of germ warfare — what has been successful, and what was a disaster. Spreading the plague would certainly belong to the latter category.’ I saw his expression harden and jumped up from my seat. ‘I would never use the plague, Professor Moriarty. I don’t believe my father would want to live if, for his sake, millions of innocent people would have to die because his daughter spread the Black Death across Europe.’
I did not look at him. There was no need to augment the impression that he would lose this debate. I paced the room, hands on my back, mirroring his earlier attitude.
‘It has to be a germ that can be handled by untrained men. Something that is safe enough in a small container, even if that container breaks. We need a germ which, in its transportable form, must be injected, ingested, or inhaled in large amounts to cause an infection. But once there is a diseased individual harbouring the active form of this germ, it must be highly infectious. Yet, it should not be too aggressive, so as not to kill before it can spread.’
I turned and looked at him. His face that had been open with interest closed shut as soon as our eyes met. I walked over to my chair and sat down, waiting for a response.
‘You have a particular germ in mind.’
‘Maybe,’ I said reluctantly. Noticing his seething impatience I added, ‘Glanders and anthrax.’
‘Why these?’
‘Glanders germs are fairly easy to isolate and can be added to fodder. Infected animals usually die within two weeks; the disease is transmitted by physical contact. It can infect men, too. It is a nasty enough disease and under unhygienic conditions it spreads like fire. Anthrax is a bacillus I studied in Robert Koch’s laboratory in Berlin. It has one great advantage—it produces spores.’
He frowned at that and I explained, ‘It is a very recent discovery. Spores are like eggs that hardly ever lose their ability to hatch. These spores can be stored as a powder in large amounts for many years. When inhaled, the lungs will be infected after a day or two. Another week and the man will most likely be dead. One can add anthrax spores to food, clothing, air, or water. This one is much more dangerous than glanders and close to being as terrible as the plague, but is relatively easy to control.’
‘Very well,’ Moriarty said absentmindedly. ‘Very well.’
I waited while he inspected the tips of his fingers pressed together, his hands forming a cage.
‘I will consider it,’ he said finally and waved me away.
Wrapped in my blanket I cowered at the door, head against the wall, one ear listening to Durham, while my mind was busy. The bubonic plague would have been an uncontrollable and immediate danger if I had agreed to isolate its germs. The thought of growing large batches of these organisms right in the middle of London was terrifying. The risk of transmission was high. Especially in a hospital with all the comings and goings, with prolific rat and flea populations, it would take only days for the plague to sneak out of our laboratory. Suggesting glanders and anthrax was a foul compromise, but I could see no alternative. He wanted deadly diseases, and I had to supply them. The only improvement was that these germs could be controlled and would not accidentally kill hospital staff or patients. At least not so long as I was the bacteriologist and had any say in the matter of conducting isolation and growth experiments.
I wondered whether France and Germany were considering bacterial weapons. After all, Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch had been working on deadly disease for years. With tear gas and modern war machinery to deploy grenades, germ warfare would be but a small step further. It was only a question of who would be the first to lift a foot and dare to stick it into the dangerous soup of pathogens.
Obviously, Moriarty kept the flow of information to a minimum. I found that highly annoying. Why did he want these weapons? What war did he fear? The thought of the woman next door diverted my focus. Who was she and why did she remain in her room all day? Was she a prisoner, too? My heart ached as my mind steered back to my imprisoned father.
I rubbed my brow. Thoughts were raging in my tired brain, but without anything of significance being learned. It took a while to push the crowd of fears and thoughts aside.
My mind crawled slower and slower, until I finally closed my eyes and let it escape to the Sussex Downs. I opened the door to my cottage, replaced my dress with trousers and a shirt, picke
d up my crossbow and ventured out into the dark to hunt rabbits. Gently, the realisation sunk in that what I could create I could also destroy.
— day 14 —
Goff would lead me to the library and hang on me like a tick for the remainder of the day. In the laboratory he allowed me room to move about, but whenever we ventured into a populated area, he turned into my personal parasite. For a while I had wondered why he had been chosen as my assistant and gaoler. Perhaps Moriarty’s reasons were twofold. First of all, Goff was a swot and would do anything to please his employer. He was a man who had learned his textbooks by heart. This meant he might spot deceit in the laboratory rather swiftly and would report it equally fast. Secondly, his eagerness to please his master must have made him easy to control and manipulate.
But Goff lacked the slightest bit of energy for creative play and most of all, he lacked imagination. He lived in his own world of normalcy, where intelligent women did not exist. Yet, I had to be careful not to think him too stupid and allow myself to grow sloppy in my attempts to communicate with the outside world. It was unlikely that Goff would report my fake behaviour of knowing little and looking up to him. It was what an upper-class female would do. Normalcy has always been invisible. However, I could expect him to tell Moriarty these things without really knowing the breadth of information flowing from his mouth. If confronted, I would excuse my charade as an adaptation to my surroundings to prevent social uproar. As a compromise seemed much less likely to provoke a confrontation with Moriarty, I decided to modulate my behaviour a little towards being my real self. Goff visibly suffered from so much female power.
I pushed the heavy oak door open. The old wood was cracked and slightly worm-eaten, its width embraced by black iron bands. The hinges creaked invitingly and the smell of aged leather, old paper, and oiled wood shelves pulled me inside.
The librarian spotted us instantly. Without moving his head, his eyes darted over his spectacles and quickly back to his book. His hair was black and sleek from Macassar oil that held the few strands tightly to his skull — a shiny sphere striped black and white. Underneath that were scrubby mutton chops in a silvery shade, and further down, a lean and well-dressed person.
I had observed him for several days now and believed him to be a sensitive, intelligent and observant man. Others might think him slow of intellect, because he read with his index finger tracing down the pages, moving his lips quietly with the words that formed in his head, as though his eyes and brain needed a crutch. He was slow in responding to requests and when he spoke, he used words sparingly.
To me, though, he appeared like a lynx, with ears constantly pricked to detect the slightest disturbance in his kingdom. While I walked back and forth between the shelves, picking out volumes of journals and medical history books, I noticed that the librarian observed me, too. I was the only woman here and thus a curiosity. Besides, I was absolutely certain he had noticed the strangeness of my companion. But what would the man conclude? Judging from my reading, he must believe I had a medical education. Goff’s disinterest in reading anything at all must leave the oddest of impressions. What man visits a library only to hang onto a skirt?
For the past two days I had been testing the man by flinching, or grabbing a desk or a shelf for support whenever Goff got too close to me. The librarian’s eyes shot towards me for a second, brow furrowed. More and more did he seem to follow me around the large room with his eyes and ears wide open in a most discreet fashion. Perhaps he was a good actor, but definitely observant. I would continue playing my game a little longer; act one — damsel in distress. He could be my saviour. All I needed was to place an advertisement in The Times.
Moriarty awaited me in his study after supper. My father’s answer to my letter was overdue. I had not even tried to sneak in a secret message. The two pages I had written could have essentially been put in two lines: How are you? I am well. With yet another morning having no sign from him, my mistrust had transformed into dread.
‘Have you got a letter for me?’ I asked as soon as I entered the room.
He raised his head, an expressionless face directed at me, then a flicker of a cold smile as his hand slid underneath a pile of papers. He pulled out an envelope. I stepped forward and took it from his offering hand.
‘Read it now,’ he said.
‘As you wish.’ I extracted the letter and unfolded it. Seeing my father’s childlike scrawl softened the rock in my stomach. I sighed in relief, lowered myself into a chair and read his words written in German:
My dear Anna,
I would like to put more into this letter than I am allowed to. I am told to answer your question, so you know I am alive. Let me tell you first that I am being treated well. Please don’t worry about me and do what you must. You asked what you dreamed of when you were a little girl. You dreamed of many things, but most of all, you wanted to understand the language of the trees. I think you did, in a way. You understood our cherry tree.
I hope you are well.
Love, Papa.
The letter sank into my lap and two drops slid down the sides of my nose, landing on the blue ink, smudging my father’s words. I turned away and covered my eyes with my hand.
‘Are we settled now?’ Moriarty rasped.
My head snapped towards him and I nodded.
‘I will write him once a week and ask him a personal question in each letter. If I don’t get an answer within ten days, I will assume he is dead. Can we agree on that?’
‘Certainly,’ he said with a smirk, as though he had anticipated my request.
I sat on my bed, bending close to the candle on the nightstand, and unfolded my father’s letter again. I let my fingers trail over the lines he had written, imagining I could feel his hands. I held the paper close to my nose and inhaled, but the aroma of fresh wood shavings that followed him wherever he went, was missing. He hasn’t been in his workshop for weeks now.
“…do what you must. … You understood our cherry tree.” The essential information. Our cherry tree… My mother died soon after giving birth to me. It had been a cold winter with a great amount of snow, as my father had told me so often. When she ran a high fever, no one could come to help, and no one came to bury her, either. My father had dug a hole in the snow under our cherry tree. There she rested for four weeks. When I was a child, I believed her soul lived in that tree.
My father’s mentioning of our cherry tree and writing that I should do what I must, was, I feared, his way of letting me know he had no hope of leaving his prison alive; and he was giving me free reign, trusting I would do the right thing. I could not bear the thought that all I should ever see of him now were pieces of paper.
It felt as though I were watching three hourglasses: one for my father — much too small, the sand falling too fast. One for my time with Moriarty — so big I couldn’t even see its outlines, and one of unknown size — for me to find a gap in Moriarty’s net and contact Holmes.
I lay facedown on the bed, thinking of the great difference between the time measured and time felt and began to wonder when I had stopped using Holmes’s given name.
The silence had been interrupted. Or did the sudden silence interrupt? Something had awakened me and whatever it was, it screamed into my ears. I did not dare move, only blinked twice to spot the two shadows cutting through the light underneath the door. Again, Moriarty stood in front of my room, waiting. Or listening? Had I talked in my sleep? I tried to remember my dreams, but without success.
As suddenly as he had appeared, he walked away again. His footfall was light and energetic, as it always was when he came from the woman next door. He used her like a privy. Every night he went into her room, disposed of his sperm and sexual energies, only to emerge an hour later, noticeably relaxed.
Not once had I seen signs of a fight on his face or hands. No scratches or bruises. She either did not want to fight or couldn’t. The thought of her being tied to the bed, being raped every single night, was sickening.
The day had been long. My legs felt heavy, my mind tired. While the former rested, the latter seemed to run in useless circles: who was in the room next to mine? Had there been others before her? Could I trust the librarian, and how would I approach him? Even if I managed to contact Holmes, how could he possibly find my father? Without information on his whereabouts, the only thing for Holmes to track was the occasional letter. My father was in England, I was certain. My letter had left the house, and four days later I had received an answer. Each letter must have travelled a maximum of two days, most likely fewer to give the translator time to read it and communicate its contents to Moriarty. The probability was high that my father’s response had not been what was expected or allowed and that he had to re-write it. Might he even be in London? So close?
The envelope looked new, without kinks or smudges. Whoever had transported it was not the regular runner boy. But who was the messenger? During my nineteen days of captivity I had yet to see or even hear a guest. Every evening seemed to be identical to the ones before: I arrived, ate and often had a meeting with Moriarty. And if not, I went straight to my room. The housekeeper bustled in the scullery. My room and clothes were taken care of while I was at the laboratory, and a good fire awaited me when I returned. Before nine at night, the maid hauled coals up the stairs and stoked the fire one last time. She did this for every inhabited room. That left her with five hours of sleep at the most before starting another day of hard work. She had her own prison, and every day I was grateful to not be living the life of a servant.