Ian Tregillis - Bitter Seeds

“I ... don't ...” Again, the slide into that unfocused stare.

Marsh shook him again, as hard as he dared. “Gretel! What happened to Gretel?” But the boy shuddered, and then said nothing more.

“Damn it.” Marsh wiped the blood from his face.

Most of the Reichsbehorde staff might have died in the bombing, or been killed by the Soviets. Even Gretel. Perhaps she'd seen it coming, but it was inescapable.

He kneeled next to the dead soldier, weakened by despair. He and Liv would carry the sorrow of Agnes's death for the rest of their lives. And now he carried another sorrow, too. It was the shame of his inability to avenge her, to punish the people who had killed her. He'd tried, and failed, twice. What kind of a father was he? The kind that couldn't do a goddamned thing for his daughter. He hadn't even been there when she was born: he'd been with that raven-haired demon, Gretel.

Marsh stood, sighing. The Jerries would arrive soon to assess the damage. He had to leave.

I tried, Agnes. Lord as my witness, I tried.

Marsh drove his stolen truck toward Denmark, and home. He didn't look back.

It took most of a week to secure passage back to Britain for the stolen files. Marsh spent that time holed up with the crates in the secret oubliette beneath a Swedish fisherman's cottage. He passed those days thinking of Liv, sleeping, and reading the entire archive.

The more he studied Gretel's psychological profile, the more certain he became that she hadn't perished in the bombing. He absorbed everything they'd written about her, scrutinized it, read between the lines: Gretel excelled at twisting everything that happened to her own personal benefit. If the Red Army had occupied the REGP, he could be confident she'd found a way to take advantage of that.

The miserable bitch had gotten away with it. She'd killed his daughter, and then she got away with it.

Marsh stayed with the crates throughout the journey, even riding in the cargo bed of the truck that carried them all the way from his landing site in the Scottish highlands to Westminster. The files went into the same vault that contained the Tarragona filmstrip, a cloven stone, a photograph of a farmhouse, and the charred pages of a medical report. Marsh also returned Gretel's battery to the vault. He wasn't sorry to be rid of it; the ache in his back wouldn't subside.

Liv could fix that. But first he had to do something.

Stephenson wasn't in his office. He wasn't in Milkweed's wing of the Admiralty building at all. But he was in the building, and in the middle of a meeting when Marsh barged in.

Marsh recognized the lamps, the end tables, the smell of leather and tobacco. Daylight made the room much smaller than he'd remembered from his first visit. Back then when Stephenson had taken him here—Marsh's first trip to the Admiralty, back in '39, when the old man still held his position as the head of SIS's T-section—the room had been cavernous, draped in shadows.

He entered on a tumult of voices raised in heated discussion. He recognized some of those, too. The same voices had said that Milkweed was a fool's errand.

Perhaps they were right.

Stephenson was seated at a wide oval inlaid table with six other men. Some wore suits, some uniforms. The discussion stopped immediately.

The old man's eyes might have revealed a hint of relief in seeing Marsh had weathered his mission. But he voiced nothing of the sort, not even a “welcome back,” which told Marsh something about the nature of this meeting.

“Commander! If you please,” said Stephenson with a gesture encompassing the other men at the table. “This is not a good time.”

“We need to speak. Immediately.”

“It will have to wait.” With a dismissive wave, Stephenson added, “Find me tomorrow.”

“Oh, you'll want to hear this,” Marsh said quietly.

Several of the meeting participants turned to study the brash interloper who didn't know his place and didn't acknowledge when he was excused. One of the military men draped an arm across the back of his chair in order to crane his neck and see the source of the disruption. He was a big man, with thick caterpillar eyebrows perched over dark eyes and a wide, flat nose.

Marsh recognized his uniform. He'd seen several variations of it on dead Soviets at the Reichsbehorde.

Ah.

Stephenson sighed. “I believe most of you gentlemen are already acquainted with Commander Marsh. General-Lieutenant Malinovsky, may I please introduce Lieutenant-Commander Raybould Marsh of His Majesty's Royal Navy.” Then he looked at Marsh. “Commander, please meet General-Lieutenant Rodion Malinovsky, who is here on behalf of our new allies.” The old man's gaze hardened into flint as he said allies.

Malinovsky nodded politely. In thickly accented English, he said, “Commander.” His voice was a deep baritone.

Marsh returned the nod. “Welcome, General-Lieutenant.” Then he nodded to Stephenson, too, saying, “Tomorrow, then.”

“Yes.”

Marsh started to leave, but he stopped himself. He stopped himself because she'd killed his daughter. She'd killed his daughter, and now she was getting away with it. He turned back to Malinovsky.

“Where is she?”

Was there a pause, the slightest hesitation, before the Soviet officer cocked his head, frowning? “I, I do not understand your question, Commander.”

Marsh locked eyes with him, stepping closer. “Where. Is. She.”

The Soviet officer blinked, turning to address the rest of the table. “My friends, please. Who is this 'she'?”

“I truly couldn't say,” Stephenson said. The flint in his gaze had been knapped into arrowheads, all aimed at Marsh. “I must apologize. Commander Marsh has been under great stress of late.”

Marsh gripped the back of Malinovsky's chair and heaved. In one quick motion, the chair and occupant slid away from the table and tipped over backwards before there was a chance to react.

Stephenson leaped from his seat. “Raybould! Have you lost your bloody mind?”

Marsh ignored him. He loomed over the Soviet officer. Quietly, he asked, “Where is she?”

Surprise and anger played over Malinovsky's face. He said nothing.

Stephenson skirted the table and grabbed Marsh while the others helped Malinovsky to his feet amidst a cascade of profuse apologies. The old man's single hand had a strong grip, which he clamped on Marsh's forearm to pull him from the room. His voice was like the first rumble of thunder from an advancing storm. “With me. Now.”

He waited until they stood alone in the corridor, the door closed solidly behind them. Then he rounded on Marsh.

“What the hell has gotten in to you?” he demanded, his tone a shouted whisper. “Have you any idea whom you've just humiliated? Have you any idea the damage you've done?”

“They have her.” Marsh paced, pointing back toward the meeting room. “They fucking have her.”

“They have who?”

“You know damn well who!” This came out as a shout. “The girl.” He pointed to his head, pantomiming wires and braids. “Gretel.”

“My God. You're still obsessed with her. You have to let it go, son.”

“Let it go?” Marsh abandoned the pretense of being quiet. He didn't care who heard him. “Let it go? She killed my daughter. I've seen the goddamned records.” He added an afterthought. “They're in your vault now. Sir.”

That caught Stephenson by surprise. He faltered for a moment. “The ... Oh.” He cleared his throat. “Even if the Soviets have captured her—”

“They did. I was there.”

“—you seem incapable of grasping even the rudiments of this situation. Times are changing. It is imperative that we cultivate good relations with those people. And we absolutely cannot afford to act like hooligans. You've done more harm than you know.”