Glen Allen - The shadow war

"Benjamin," the voice said. "Benjamin, are you awake?"

It was Gudrun.

He tossed the briefcase under the bed, gave the room a quick look, then went to the door and pulled it open.

Gudrun was in jeans and a sweatshirt, slippers instead of shoes. Her hair was mussed, she wasn't wearing any makeup-and yet her face still shone with a kind of clear, confident beauty.

But she didn't look confident; she looked frightened.

"Benjamin," she said. She pushed past him into the room. "Close the door."

He did so, turned around. Gudrun went to the window, looked down at the scene below.

"Did you hear it?" she asked.

"I heard something," he said, coming to the bed. "I thought it was thunder."

She turned around. "It wasn't thunder," she said. "It was an explosion. In Edith's lab. There's a fire down there now. The whole building is burning." She put her hand on his shoulder. "I thought perhaps you were in there."

"No," Benjamin said. His head was still blurry from sleep… and then he realized. "But Samuel!" He hesitated for a moment. "Sam Wolfe went to Edith's lab. To take another look at the scene."

Gudrun didn't flinch, and Benjamin realized she wasn't surprised.

"Gudrun," he started, "what do you know about all this?"

"I can't-," Gudrun began. She turned her head aside, looked out the window again, then back to him. "You need to leave," she said bluntly.

"What? I can't do that. What about Sam? Did anyone see him come out of there?" He went to the bed, began to put on his clothes. "Did anyone call the fire department?"

She came over to him, took his arm.

"There's nothing you can do," she said. "Not now. And not here."

He stopped with his shirt half on. "What are you talking about?"

She touched his cheek. "I wish-," she said.

Benjamin shook himself free, continued to get dressed, putting on his shoes, his jacket. He moved to the doorway. "Whatever is going on here, I need to find out whether or not Sam is alive."

Gudrun stopped him at the door.

"No one can get near the lab now. The only thing you can do for him is get away from here. Take your things and just go. Now. The fire department will be arriving any minute. I'll go and ask the gate guard to help with the fire so you can slip out. But you'll only have a few minutes."

She looked into his eyes, then moved into the hallway, glanced up and down its length. Then she turned back to him.

"I'll… I'll try and get in touch with you, let you know what happened."

She leaned in, kissed him briefly on the lips, and then turned and ran off down the hallway.

Benjamin stood indecisive for a minute. Then he went to the bed, bent down, and retrieved Wolfe's briefcase. He looked about the room, thought about gathering up his few other clothes, but left them and went into the hallway.

The foyer's chandelier wasn't on-in the rush outside no one had turned on the inside lights yet-so the mural passed by as indistinct, shadowed scenery as he wound his way down the spiral staircase, though it now seemed more populated with ghosts than ever.

He reached the ground floor, still without seeing anyone. With a last glance at the darkened foyer, he stepped outside.

Though the fire was on the other side of the manse, its pulsating glow reflected against the low, gray clouds overhead. He could hear the sounds now of breaking glass and the crackle of fire; and, rising in the background, the wail of approaching sirens.

He stood for a moment. Then he glanced down at the briefcase in his hand.

He quickly went to his car, opened the trunk, and tossed Wolfe's briefcase inside. He slammed the trunk closed, went around to the front, and got in. He started the car up and pulled quickly down the gravel driveway.

Even as he approached the gate, which he saw was open to admit the fire trucks, he could see the approaching flashing red-and-white lights. He gunned his car to get out of the gate before the fire engines could block his way. Even as he turned sharply, two engines roared past him down the driveway, sirens blaring.

A few dozen yards from the gate the darkened country lane proved too hazardous for him to drive very fast. He slowed down; even then, the hedges and trees seemed to leap out of the darkness with discomforting speed.

Benjamin wasn't sure exactly where he was. When he saw a sign indicating a road to the Massachusetts Turnpike, he avoided it. He realized he would have to stop soon, at a gas station or a food mart, and buy a map of the local area. He needed to find a way, somehow keeping to back roads and minor highways, to get from where he was to where he wanted to be.

Benjamin was headed, as quickly if indirectly as possible, toward N. Orlova, of the Russian Cultural Center, in Washington, D.C.

Even as the fire trucks pulled up in the gravel driveway before the manse and disgorged a dozen bulky figures who began extracting equipment and running toward the fire, two people emerged from the shadows by the door. Both were tall, both had blond hair.

"Nicely done," said the man, looking out through the gate where Benjamin's car had just fled. "And you're sure where he's headed?"

"Of course," said the woman, taking a drag from a cigarette. "He's more motivated now than ever. He's on the scent, and he's got his newfound friend to avenge."

"Um-hm," the man replied noncommittally.

"Speaking of his friend," the woman said, her tone harsher now, "couldn't you have been a little subtler?" The man didn't reply. "And how can you be sure, in all that mess?"

"I'm sure," he said.

"I hope so, for your sake," she continued. "We've set one hound loose. They wouldn't like discovering the other has gone astray, too."

She threw the cigarette to the ground, stamped it out, left without another word.

After she left the man pulled a cell phone from his pocket, flipped it open. He dialed a special extension that would cut through the communications blanket, and then dialed long-distance. The area code was for Washington, D.C.

Benjamin stood in the main concourse of Union Station in Washington, D.C. Behind and around him throngs were streaming by, all of them intent on their destination, and all of them apparently late. High overhead the immense arched roof of the station, with its frescoed inset panels and dramatic lighting, gave him the feeling he was in an enormous underground bomb shelter.

Which matched his other mood: watchful paranoia. He was certain at any moment men in dark coats would converge on him out of the crowd, quickly flipping open wallet badges they didn't really expect him to read, and lead him away to a black van waiting outside, after which he would never be heard from again.

He'd had that feeling of imminent danger ever since he'd driven recklessly out of the Foundation gates and barreled on down the country lanes of western Massachusetts as fast as his frayed reactions could allow.

Soon after leaving the grounds, he'd found a small service station where he'd filled the gas tank and purchased a road map for the Mid-Atlantic Region. Sitting in the car pulled off to the side of the road a half mile away, sipping his first of many cups of coffee, he'd traced a route that bypassed 95 and the glut of cities along the coast, and which instead led through meandering connections and small towns. He'd driven a constant five to ten miles over the speed limit of the back roads. But the closer he got to Washington, the more he worried about what would happen once he entered its permanent traffic jam. If they were looking for his car, it would be easy to spot and easier to seize.

So he'd decided to drive to Silver Spring, park his car in the MARC lot there, and take the train into Union Station. He figured he'd be just another anonymous commuter among the tens of thousands arriving for their Monday work. Once there, he found the saturating roar and bustle comforting, as though it made him invisible.