Necessary Evil (Milkweed Triptych) (9 page)

I wanted to believe I could. Wanted to believe it wasn’t a fool’s vanity.

I had turned back the years, but was the damage reparable? What bridge could span the vast gulf of years that separated me from the man I had been?

The gate didn’t squeak because I tugged up on the hinge slats as I pushed it open. A trick I’d learned in the postwar years, coming home from the pub late at night.

But once safely outside, I paused on the pavement and wept along with my daughter.

four

13 May 1940

Milkweed Headquarters, London, England

Marsh slammed the door to the storage room. He climbed the stairs and emerged from the Admiralty cellar just in time to find Will preparing to knock at his office. His coppery hair stood tousled like an ungainly haystack, except where the brim of his hat had rested. The raffish bowler was a peculiar affectation, one he’d adopted at Oxford, and which never looked more out of place than with Will’s Savile Row finery. For now the hat hung from his uninjured hand.

“I’d think twice about that,” said Marsh, “were I you.”

Will turned, surprised. Marsh pointed at the bandages on Will’s upraised hand. Rusty bloodstains and splotches of sickly yellow had marred the pristine cotton gauze. The sight sickened Marsh with guilt.

Marsh said, “I reckon that would hurt.”

“Ah. Yes.” Will lowered his hand, careful not to bump it. “And indeed you would be correct.” He paused, awkwardly. “A day later I find I’m still a bit careless.” Will smiled, though his face was peaked. Wan.

“Does it? Hurt?”

“When I’m not smashing it against locked doors, you mean? Hardly more than a toothache.” Again, his smile didn’t touch his eyes. “Such an ache wouldn’t send me to the dentist.”

Marsh cracked his knuckles against his jaw. “I feel like a right bastard, Will. If we—”

“Now, now. You mustn’t blame yourself for this, Pip. It could have been worse. Much worse if you hadn’t helped me.”

“Worse? I find that hard to believe.” Marsh shuddered. The demon’s presence was worse than anything he might have imagined. And what it made him do to Will …

“Never doubt it where the Eidolons are concerned.” Will looked him over. “I know that expression. Bad news for somebody.”

“Stephenson has me trying to question the girl.” Marsh shook his head, rubbed a hand across his face. “Two sessions today.”

“Any luck?”

Marsh snorted. “She’s not right, Will. There’s something very wrong about her. Lord knows I could use a pint after ten minutes in that cell with her.”

“Well, I’ll pass on the pint, but I’ve heard tell of a place that serves only the finest horsemeat if you’re in the mood for a chat. I did want to bend your ear.”

Will was a teetotaler. For the longest time, Marsh had only known that it was a personal choice. Something to do with Will’s grandfather. But after learning a bit about warlocks and their practices, and witnessing a negotiation firsthand, he understood better what might have driven the old duke to his cups. Marsh had finally come to understand that Will’s abstinence wasn’t a moral statement, but an effort at self-preservation. He respected that. Not to mention the courage with which Will accepted the Eidolon’s demand.

“Horsemeat?”

“I assume so. The chap said something about circus animals, you see, and I filled in the blanks. They use horses in the circus, don’t they? Although I’m quite keen to try zebra if they have any,” said Will, warming to his subject. If not for the bandages fluttering about—Will talked with his hands—one might have believed nothing grim had happened yesterday.

The Ministry of Food had exempted restaurants from the rationing restrictions, a fact that brought little comfort to the many Britons who couldn’t afford to dine out. But economic concerns were unknown to Will. Marsh tried not to take advantage of that unless Liv could share.

“We’ll all be eating horsemeat, and worse, if the convoys don’t start faring better. Bloody U-boats.”

“Perhaps the Yanks will help.”

Marsh snorted. “Roosevelt faces reelection this year. He doesn’t dare.”

“Pity, that,” said Will, looking somber again.

“Yes.” Marsh quietly berated himself. Will had been acting like his usual self again, and that was a fine thing to see. He pointed a thumb over his shoulder and changed the subject. “I need fresh air. Let’s walk.”

“Very good!” Will fell into step beside him. He tucked the bowler under his arm. They set off through the Admiralty corridors, paused briefly to allow a trio of matelots to pass.

“What did you want to bend my ear about?”

“Ah. Well.” Will’s good hand gently touched the bandages. Marsh shook off a tremor of apprehension, tried not to let it show. “You may have gathered that something a bit queer happened yesterday. And before you brush me off with another charming snort, I’m not referring to the finger business.”

“Name,” said Marsh. Memory bristled the hairs on his nape. “You said the Eidolons had given me a name.”

“Yes they did, Pip. Yes they did.”

*

The low gray clouds and a tapering drizzle hastened the onset of evening. I paid for a taxi from Walworth back to Westminster. The return trip was fast and direct, but still twilight had swallowed the Admiralty by the time the cabbie pulled to a stop on Whitehall.

A man in a lieutenant-commander’s uniform like mine hurried across the street, trying to escape the rain, while I paid the driver. A sentry saluted when he entered under the Admiralty screen. I wasn’t the only imposter here tonight. Klaus had arrived to rescue Gretel.

What he did here in the next few minutes became a decisive moment in the original history of Milkweed, prompting Will to recruit the coven. Klaus and I eventually became allies later, during the Cold War, after he’d finally broken with his sister. But right now, he was the Klaus we’d come to fear: a wraith, an Overman, a true believer in Doctor von Westarp and the REGP, a man devoted to his sister the mad seer.

Tall sandbag revetments, and more sentries, flanked the entrance to the Admiralty. I received and returned the same salutes when I entered the building. Klaus was already searching for a stairwell to the cellar. He’d get down there quickly enough. I had to hurry.

I took my empty briefcase to the Milkweed vault. I’d last opened this door in 1963, or less than two days ago by my own reckoning. But the combination was different now; Leslie Pembroke, the useless tosser, had managed a modicum of information security after taking over from Stephenson. He was a piss-poor excuse for a section head, one of Gretel’s most willing pawns, but at least he’d got that much right. So it took a bit of concentration to dredge up the old combination, but I managed.

The vault was mostly empty in these early days of the war. But its few contents were bloody dangerous—more than enough to kick-start the creation of Milkweed in the first place. They were arrayed on a low shelf near the door: a slim leather valise; a handful of pages from a memorandum, written in German; a photograph of a farmhouse. And, of course, the Tarragona filmstrip. The original fragments, as well as the reconstructed version that Lorimer had cobbled together.

Some items, like the valise and photograph, ended in ragged scorch marks. Even now their blackened edges smelled faintly of smoke. Oddly, the fragments of burned film stock smelled of vinegar.

These were the meager fruits of my trip to Spain in the final days of the civil war. I’d gone to meet a man named Krasnopolsky, who had tried to warn the Secret Intelligence Service about the Reichsbehörde. But Reinhardt had killed him in rather spectacular fashion before he’d managed to come clean. Bastard nearly killed me as well. I’d snagged a berth on the last steamer out of Barcelona with nothing to show for the journey but a burnt valise, a name (Herr Doktor von Westarp), and an unbelievable story.

Not very much. But enough from which determined investigators could piece together a story. We did.

Which is why I scooped it all into the briefcase. If my efforts in the past were going to work, I had to eliminate all traces of both Milkweed and the Reichsbehörde.

Speaking of the latter, the vault contained one additional item: the battery I had taken from Gretel when I captured her in France. I tossed that into the briefcase, then snapped the locks shut.

Emptying the vault took seconds. In less than a minute I was back in the corridor with the vault secured firmly behind me. It would be several days before anybody noticed the theft. But I wasn’t finished yet. Next, I headed for Stephenson’s office. I had to get there before somebody recognized Klaus as an intruder; the hue and cry would only buy me a little time. So I did my best to hurry without drawing attention.

And found myself approaching two men heading from the direction of the Milkweed offices. Will Beauclerk I recognized at once. But his companion caused me to falter.

It was me. I was looking at a younger copy of myself.

Christ, was he young.

I resented his youth and strength. I envied his ignorance. I hated him for his loving wife and living daughter.

How long had it been since I’d seen that face in the mirror? Ever since my accident, mirrors had shown me nothing but a ruined man.

I wanted my face back. I wanted my life back.

I caught myself staring before he did. It took effort not to duck away. The closer they came, the more tempted I felt to scamper off and hide. But my destination was behind them, so I pressed on, hoping to hell they wouldn’t recognize me. The beard and scars suddenly felt like a preposterous disguise. But it wasn’t a disguise; it was my true face. I should have done more to hide myself from the one man who knew me better than anybody could.

Will and the other Raybould Marsh turned a corner just before we passed one another. They barely noticed me. They were deep in conversation. I caught only a fragment as they receded into a side corridor, but it was enough to set my head spinning with déjà vu.

“… fail to see the importance of this.”

“You don’t get it, Pip. The Eidolons don’t
do
that. It’s quite unheard of.”

“They must have names for things, Will.”

Will was trying to explain how strange it was that the Eidolons had chosen to name me. He was right about that; how I wish I’d listened to him. Perhaps if I had … But of course I hadn’t, and so we’d never unraveled that puzzle until it was far too late.

“Names for things, concepts, yes. But not for
people
…”

I glanced after them. And saw Klaus coming up the side corridor. In just a few more moments the other me would recognize him from the filmstrip in my briefcase. I picked up my pace.

The smell of Lucky Strike cigarettes ushered me to the old man’s office. Swirls of blue-gray smoke eddied through his open door. I loitered in the hall where he couldn’t see me, as though I were waiting politely to be summoned. A few startled shouts echoed to me from deeper in the Admiralty. The words were impossible to make out, but I knew what was happening. I waited.

“… don’t care how valuable he is…”

Stephenson was on the telephone, haranguing some poor sod. The sound of his voice put a lump in my throat. Another thing long missed. But he didn’t sound at all the way I remembered. From childhood on, my memory depicted John Stephenson’s speaking voice as a deep, intimidating rumble. The voice of God. But now that I could listen to it again, his voice sounded delicate compared to my own rasp. Time was a cruel alchemist.

“Oy! Sir!”

As I’d expected, the old man’s tirade was cut short. A fellow in civilian clothes came charging up the corridor and barged into Stephenson’s office. His was another face I hadn’t seen in a very long time: James Lorimer. One of Milkweed’s first recruits. The man whom Stephenson had brought aboard to reconstruct the Tarragona filmstrip. And who suffered a grisly death on a cold December night.

Stephenson barked, “What the hell is wrong with you? Can’t you see—”

“It’s one of those Jerry mingers from the film. He’s in the building, probably came for the girl. Marsh is after him now.”

“Bugger me.” Stephenson smashed the phone into its cradle. Lorimer ran back out again with the old man on his heels. They went right past me. Stephenson passed so close that I felt the wind from the flapping of his empty sleeve.

I wanted so badly to reach out, to grab his good arm.
John, it’s me,
I wanted to say.
I’m sorry I was too stubborn to visit when you fell ill. I’m sorry I didn’t swallow my pride. I’m sorry we never put things right between us.
And I wanted to know,
Why didn’t you see a bloody doctor?
He wasn’t much older than I was now when the throat cancer took him.

But I held my tongue and my regrets. He was gone in seconds, and I slipped into his vacated office.

The old man always kept his desk locked. Given time, and the tools, I could have picked the locks easily enough. But when mounting blood prices had driven Will to the bottle, he’d discovered that a good jab with a letter opener did just as well. Time was short. I took Will’s approach. But I wasn’t after the old man’s stash of brandy.

Instead, I rummaged the desk until I found a bundle of papers wrapped in a black ribbon. The pages were embossed with the full Royal Arms, effectively rendering each document a decree from His Majesty. I tugged out one of the blank transfer orders. With the new PM’s backing, Stephenson had already been scouring the intelligence services for suitable recruits to wrangle into Milkweed when the debacle of Gretel’s escape forced our hand. His plan to handpick a cadre of special operatives had been spiked by the wide-ranging chase through the Admiralty, which even now was leaving a trail of witnesses in its wake. Witnesses who would have no choice but to join Milkweed or face charges. A threat enforced by the Treachery Act, which Parliament would pass just ten days from now. I still remembered poor Lieutenant Cattermole, Milkweed’s sacrificial lamb. Stephenson and I had chosen him from amongst the witnesses for execution under the new Act. He had been sentenced on false evidence of being a Nazi collaborator, but his true crime was talking. His death served Milkweed by convincing the others to keep quiet.