The Empire of Time (20 page)

‘He might,’ I say. Then, pushing him – for I know I must – I add, ‘Unless you prevent him.’

Frederick beams, his blue eyes shining at me. ‘Exactly! And now that Finck is here, we should move at once. Word is that Loudon has crossed the Oder and joined Saltykov in Frankfurt. They have a combined force of seventy thousand to our fifty, but we’ll do what we did last time – ferry our troops across the Oder north of them and establish a bridgehead. From there we can outflank them …’

Frederick stops, looking past me, even as the sound of the commotion reaches my ears. There are raised voices, threats and curses, and then a young captain – barely twenty if he’s a day – bursts into the tent and, sweeping off his hat, bows before Frederick.

Frederick strides across, his face deeply lined with concern. ‘What is it, man?’

The captain glances at me, then answers. ‘We have captured an intruder, your majesty. A friend of Herr Behr.’

Frederick looks to me, but I am too shocked to respond. Hecht said nothing about sending anyone else in after me.

‘Otto?’

I shrug. ‘I’m sorry, I—’ And then I gasp, as Gruber steps into the tent, his arms held securely by two soldiers.

‘Otto,’ he says, his eyes pleading with me. ‘Otto, you have to help me.’

I have them tie him to a pole, then have them leave me.

Frederick was curious, naturally, but he has known me long enough to trust me, and so did not insist on being here for the interrogation. I have explained only that Gruber was captured and, so I thought, killed. But I say no more than that. How could I? After all, it was I who killed him. Or so I thought.

I look at him now and sigh deeply. ‘Hans … what in Urd’s name happened?’

He tries to look away, but his head is tightly bound and he can’t turn it. There is shame in his eyes. Understandably so, for I was his friend, his
brother
, and he betrayed me.

‘They’re after me,’ he says, his voice quiet against the noises from the camp outside. ‘They took him, and now they’re going to kill me.’

‘Took who?’

‘Adel.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I have a son, Otto. A little boy. Six he is. Just like me. He—’

‘And they took him, right? The Russians?’

Gruber nods.

So that was it. I can see it all at a glance. It’s like Hecht said. The Russians take blood hostages. Nothing else could have turned him.

‘Who was the mother?’

‘A Russian.’

‘You knew she was, when you slept with her?’

‘No. No, I … I fell in love, Otto. She—’

But he doesn’t have to say. I know. I know all too well how it is.

‘So tell me. How did you get out? We blew that place sky-high.’ Gruber almost smiles. ‘So I saw. And it saved my life. I ran, you see. Tried to get away. And they came after me. They cornered me and were about to shoot me, and then the bunker blew. I knew it was you, Otto. You always were the smart one.’

But I don’t want his compliments. I want to know what the Russians are up to. I’m about to ask another question when Gruber speaks again.

‘I knew they’d failed. Knew it as soon as I saw you following us.’

‘You saw?’

He shrugs. ‘I thought I glimpsed you once. Through the trees.’

‘And the others, the two Russians, they didn’t know?’

‘Those two!’ Gruber almost spits his contempt out. ‘They were brothers. Alexi and Mikhail Kondrashov. Nemtsov hated them. They were the weak links, or so he claimed. Corrupt, lazy, and they drank. More than was good for them. Nemtsov wanted them dead, but Yastryeb overruled him.’

‘The argument – when Nemtsov killed them.’

Gruber’s eyes meet mine for the first time, surprised. ‘You saw that?’ He looks away again. ‘Yes, well … it seems Nemtsov was right. If they’d not fucked up you’d have never known.’

That’s true. If they’d been more alert they’d have known we were trailing them, and then, perhaps, we’d never have found the bunker, and they’d have won. And I’m surprised for once, because I thought Yastryeb was better than that.

‘So what now?’ Gruber asks, glancing at me, trying to gauge my mood.

Again I sigh. This is hard. Much harder than the first time.

‘I can’t let you live, Hans. Hecht wouldn’t let me. You’d always be suspect. There’d always be the chance that you were still a “sleeper”, playing the long game. You talk of Yastryeb. Well, I don’t believe he’d make such an elementary mistake. He’s not such a fool.’

‘Then what?’

‘I don’t know. This has a … diversionary feel. I think Yastryeb is playing a deeper game.’

Gruber is watching me. His blue eyes plead with me. ‘We were friends, Otto. You could let me go. No one would know.’

I could. Only then the Russians might capture him again and we’d be back to square one.

‘You see, I thought maybe I could go back. Save the boy.’

‘The boy’s already dead.’

I watch him deflate and wish I’d not had to say that. But it’s probably true. The Russians don’t tolerate indiscipline, after all, and they don’t make idle threats.

I swallow, my throat suddenly dry, then draw my gun. ‘I’m sorry, Hans.’

But he hasn’t finished.

‘I know about your woman, Otto. The one in Novgorod. Does Hecht know?’

Hecht doesn’t know. At least, I don’t think he does. Then again, it isn’t Hecht’s business. Not really.

‘It’s one thing taking lovers, Hans, another to betray your blood.’

‘I didn’t
want
to, Otto. Urd knows I love you all. But the boy …’

And now his voice breaks and tears begin to flow. I’m moved, but I still have to kill him. It’s my duty.

Yet even as I raise my gun, a cry of surprise comes from outside the tent. I turn, then hurry out, just in time to see something small and fleshy vanish from the air.

Locators! Shit!

The two guards are standing there, their rifles out before them, as if under attack, but there’s an unnatural fear in their eyes. And little wonder.

I whirl about, just as another two – no three! – materialise in the air, in a circle, not a metre away from me. Each is a tiny gobbet of flesh, rounded and opaque, like a gouged eye. For a full twenty seconds they hover there, rotating slowly, giving off a hissing, crackling noise, like meat on a spit, and then, with the tiniest pop, they disappear.

Beside me the two guards moan and cross themselves, their eyes almost bulging out of their heads with fright. But those were no works of witchcraft, those were locators: the means the Russians use to test out a location before sending in a man. Those tiny, ugly gobbets of flesh are expendable. They measure air pressure, temperature, oxygen content. And if they jump into something solid, that’s measured too. Send a man in without first using them, and the likelihood is that he’ll die.

‘Shit!’

I turn and run inside. Taking the knife from my belt, I slice through Gruber’s ropes, then hand him the knife.

He stares at me as if I’ve gone mad.

‘The Russians, Hans. The fucking Russians are coming!’

It shocks him into action. ‘Here?’

‘Yes, they’ve sent locators.’

‘Shit!’

Yes, deep shit. And I know who they’re after. Not me, and certainly not Gruber. They’re after Frederick.

I hold Gruber’s upper arms a second and look into his eyes. ‘Help me, Hans. Help me save him and I’ll try my damnedest to help you get the boy back.’

‘But you said—’

‘I know what I said. But I don’t know for sure. And you don’t know. And there might be a way. Shit, we’ll find a way …’

And Gruber nods, and gives me the faintest smile, then turns, even as the first of the bastards comes in through the flap.

Frederick gets up slowly from beside the second corpse and turns to me.

‘Who were they?’

‘Russians,’ I say. ‘The ones who took Gruber.’

Frederick nods, then looks to his
Flugeladjutant
, von Gotz, who is standing just behind me. ‘I don’t understand. How did they get through? Did the guards see nothing?’

‘They’re very good,’ I say quickly. ‘Three of Bestuzhev’s best.’

‘Bestuzhev-Riumin? He’s in charge of security now for the Russians?’

‘No, but there’s a special corps …’

Frederick stares at me a moment, then lets out a sighing breath. ‘Otto, what’s happening? What aren’t you telling me?’

I hesitate, then decide to tell the truth – or half of it, at least. ‘They were assassins. They meant to kill you.’

He gives the briefest nod, as if he already knew, then gestures to von Gotz to take the bodies away.

We were lucky. If I hadn’t stepped outside when I did, they’d have nailed us. As it is, Gruber is hurt, his left arm badly burned.

But Frederick isn’t finished. ‘This other matter, the manifestation. You saw it, Otto?’

I shake my head, denying it. ‘I saw nothing. Nothing at all. I can only think—’

Frederick frowns. ‘What?’

I laugh, as if embarrassed. ‘That they were
enchanted
somehow.’

I almost said mesmerised, but Mesmer is yet to be born and hypnotism is way in the future.

‘Enchanted?’ Frederick laughs, amused by the idea. He is a rational man, after all. ‘No matter – but I will find out who’s responsible for letting the bastards through!’

‘One thing,’ I say, as two guards enter the tent to take away the first of the bodies. ‘You should burn them.’

Frederick stares at me, surprised. ‘
Burn
them?’

‘You didn’t see what they did. In one village …’ And I shudder and look away.

Frederick nods, as if he understands, then looks to von Gotz again. ‘Do as he says, Carl. Burn them.’

You might ask why. After all, they’re dead.
They’re dead and they’re still here
. Normally the Russians take their bodies back. So why not this time? My guess is that they planned to wait a while, then call them back and send in live agents in their place. But not if there
are
no bodies. Not if their foci are destroyed in the flames.

No. These dead were going to stay dead. Dead for eternity.

Alone again, I laugh with relief. But it was close, and, if I know Yastryeb, he hasn’t finished with us yet. No. These were only his opening gambits. It is beginning to feel like he’s sounding us out, testing us, looking for our weaknesses, because he knows, just as I do, that Frederick is the key. Not Hitler, nor Peter, nor even Nevsky, but Frederick.

I walk across and stop, looking down at the dark patch of blood on the sandy ground. Something is nagging at me. Something about the whole situation.

What
was
Yastryeb up to? What did he want? When he went to sleep at night, what did he dream?

In essence, the scheme he had concocted was a simple one. He’d had five chances – five separate possibilities – of getting one of the ‘turned’ agents back on to the platform. Once there he could have had them jump back … to Moscow Central. And then he’d know
precisely
where we were in Time and Space. Four-Oh would become a number – a grid reference on the Russian map, and once there …

I laughed, astonished. So
that
was how …

If you live with a problem day after day, year after year, eventually you stop looking for an explanation. It’s how things are, and you get on with life. But for years now we have been suffering a prolonged sub-space bombardment, wondering how they knew where we were, when all the time …

They’ve already done it! They’ve already sent an agent back to the platform.
Only …

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to work through the logic of it.
Only why aren’t we all dead?

And I laugh once more, amused by the paradox inherent in the answer.

Because I thought of it just then.

I jump back and summon Hecht. He comes to the platform and I tell him what I’ve been thinking, and he nods and turns to Zarah.

And he organises it there and then and sends someone back to when the bombardments first began, along with the blueprints for our defence system. And so we survive.

Put it down, once more, to the fallacy of inaction theory.

If I’d not thought of it and told Hecht, then it would never have happened. But I had to, and it did, and here we are.

I jump back, arriving only seconds after I’d left. Only Gruber is there now, inside the tent, his left arm bandaged, in a sling. He smiles then draws a gun from his waistband.

‘Was it true, about the boy?’

Gruber nods. ‘I’ve a dozen of the little bastards. These Russian women …’ He laughs unhealthily. ‘But you know that, don’t you, Otto? They’re like animals in bed.’

I know nothing of the kind – only that I made a mistake. I should have killed him when I could. Oh, I could jump right now, but I need to stay and find out what’s going on. If I jump, what then? Gruber stays here, armed and within striking distance of Frederick. And so I stay, to keep an eye on him.

It is the ninth of August and Kunersdorf is three days off. I can’t keep awake that long, not even on what Zarah gave me, but that doesn’t matter. If something doesn’t happen soon, I’ll have to jump back and get some help. That is, if we’re not stretched too thin already.

Which sets me wondering. Is that Yastryeb’s plan? To keep us busy and stretch us thin, almost to breaking point, while somewhere else, on some other part of the board, he makes the move he’s been thinking of all along?

It would explain these endless subterfuges, these time-consuming distractions he has thus far thrown into our path. But one thing doesn’t make sense. Why, when he sent that first ‘turned’ agent back to the platform, did he not also send a bomb? It wasn’t difficult to do, and he could have destroyed the platform in an instant.

Yes, but we would have rebuilt it.

Maybe. But it would have bought him time. Time in which to make a dozen different moves. A dozen deadly changes to reality.

I look at Gruber thoughtfully. ‘Was it you, Hans?’

‘Me?’

‘Who went back. To the platform.’

He laughs. ‘Urd, no. That was Krauss. He’s worked for them for years. His father …’

But I know the story. Krauss’s ‘father’ – that is, the agent Krauss believed to be his father – was abandoned in an alternate time-line. He might have been saved, only, well, it might have cost us three, maybe four agents to get him out, and there was no guarantee we could.