Waging War (45 page)

“She’s crying,” I whispered.

“I’m guess she hasn’t let herself mourn
him.”

I knew Archer meant her father, and I
dropped my whisper even quieter. “Only about five or ten percent of
the people sent to Auschwitz survived.”

“Oh, God.” His tone was horrified, and I
rolled over onto my stomach to face him.

“Hitler and the Nazis murdered six million
Jews – most of them in camps.” Archer’s shocked expression said it
all, and I added the clincher. “In total, over sixty million people
died because of this war.”

Archer squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed the
heels of his hands over them. “How did we do this to ourselves? How
can we have allowed this to happen so soon after the Great
War?”

“
Have you ever asked yourself, do
monsters make war, or does war make monsters?
” I said. “It’s a
quote from a book about angels and demons, but it fits.”

He was silent, and his eyes went back up to
the chandelier above our heads. Ringo passed me and gave me a quiet
nod as he went to stand by Rachel’s side. He murmured something to
her, and she nodded, and I thought about what makes monsters, and
what makes men.

Going Underground

The night was clear and warm when we left
the synagogue. Whatever had broken in Rachel as she stood in front
of the altar had left exhaustion in its wake.

“I’m goin’ to take Rachel back to Guy’s if
it’s alright with ye.” Ringo said to us in a quiet voice. I nodded,
then caught her eye and stepped over to where she stood under an
unlit streetlamp.

“How are you?” I asked her.

She inhaled softly. “When they took my
father, I stayed in the village to keep the garage for him to
return to. Now there is no village, and perhaps my father will
never come home. It is as though my purpose for living was just
torn out of the book, and I don’t know what happens next.”

I searched her startling eyes and saw her
strength in them, even under the doubt and pain that clouded them.
“It’s your story to write now.”

“Is that what you’ve done? Did you choose
the purpose of your life?”

I almost smirked and made a joke about
barely being able to choose what t-shirt to wear each day, but I
realized it wasn’t true, and saying it wouldn’t do justice to
Rachel and what she faced now. “I don’t know how to choose my
purpose – that sounds too big and … significant. But I know who I
am, and I’ve chosen the things that are important to me. I think
the best decisions I make about what to do in my life come when I’m
being true to both of those things.”

She blinked, as though my answer had
surprised her. “Thank you.”

Ringo came up next to me. “Do ye ‘ave it in
ye to run back?” he asked Rachel.

She nodded. “Yes, but only if you show me
some new things to try.” She looked at me. “I’m writing a story,
you see, and I need to learn who my main character is and what she
likes to do.”

I grinned at her and they took off at a
sprint. I turned back to find Archer watching me thoughtfully.

“I told him we’d go up to Russell Square to
scout Holborn station, and then we’d meet them back at Guy’s
Chapel,” he said. “Although the encoded message gave the date of
Tom’s mission as June 12th, we’ve both learned that the twelfth
begins at midnight tonight.”

I grimaced at the reminder of my horrible
mistake in Victorian London on the night Mary Kelly was murdered by
Jack the Ripper. It was not one I’d ever repeat. “It
would
be nice to actually be able to make a plan, instead of just
reacting to everything,” I said.

We jogged through the streets of Old London,
and had to move away from the London Wall down toward the river
because of building damage and debris. The neighborhood around
Saint Paul’s Cathedral had been destroyed by bombs and fire, but
the dome still rose up from the ashes like a shining beacon in the
moonlight.

“Are the bombs that hard to direct to
targets?” I whispered to Archer when we stopped to stare at the
Cathedral. “I mean, you must be able to see that dome from miles
away.”

“That’s exactly why they’ve left it
standing. It’s a navigational tool now, especially with so much of
the city unrecognizable.”

We saw no one out on the roads until we
passed St. Bride’s Church, but it wasn’t a surprise that Fleet
Street was bustling with life. Slivers of light shone through
blackout curtains, and messengers darted between buildings as they
ran errands for the papers that delivered each day’s war news. They
barely seemed to notice us as we sprinted toward the Strand,
intending to cut up toward the British Museum after we’d passed the
Royal Courts of Justice.

The bit of activity on Fleet Street made me
happy. It was a small thing, to see people scurrying about at
night, but significant in this city that had been so besieged from
the air since the Blitz of 1940. I didn’t know a lot about the
Blitz, but running through London four years later was a major
education in the damage the German bombs had done.

The silence as we passed the Bush House
seemed almost absolute. Our feet pounded a soft staccato on the
pavement, and Archer’s pace was perfectly matched to mine. I was
just about to take his hand and pull him into a doorway for a
surprise kiss when an air raid siren sounded its wail above us.

I barely bit back a shriek of surprise when
Archer grabbed my hand and swung me off the curb to dart across the
Strand. “There’s a shelter at Aldwych Station,” he said with grim
determination. I remembered his story about having been caught in a
wave of people going underground during the Blitz, and I yanked his
hand sharply to make him stop.

“Wait! When did you eat last? The buck in
France?”

“I’m fine, Saira. We need to get off the
street.”

The drone of airplane engines was faint, and
I looked around us at the buildings. “There are no landmarks here.
We can hide on the surface.” People had already begun streaming out
of flats and houses, heading toward the Underground station. They
looked grim-faced and exhausted, and most were carrying blankets
and pillows. I suddenly didn’t want to be stuck underground with so
many grumpy people.

Archer spun me around to face him. “Saira,
you can’t hide from a bomb, because it’s not looking for you. The
only part of hide and seek it knows is
ready or not, here I
come
.” He wasn’t angry, just determined, and one small part of
me wanted to dig in my heels and resist on principle.

But then the drone of the bomber engines
carried a new sound under them. It was sort of like a mechanical
bumble bee, with an engine that surged rhythmically.

Until it didn’t.

My brain automatically began counting. In
the movies, the V-1 rockets went silent for a count of twelve
before they exploded. Except … this wasn’t a movie.

“Ahhh!” I grabbed Archer’s hand and pulled
him after me. “Run!”

We wove through the people moving like
lemmings to the Underground entrance, dodging the kids who decided
running with us looked fun. No one else seemed to understand the
imminence of the danger, and we had just made it to the top of the
stairs when the unconscious count in my brain hit twelve.

BOOM!

“What was that?!” Archer shouted.

“A V-1 rocket,” I shouted back over the
screams of panicked people as they ran for the station. “Haven’t
you heard one before?”

“No!”

I didn’t know how far away the explosion was
– a couple of blocks, maybe – but I felt it in my teeth and bones
and eardrums. A tidal wave of people running for the station
entrance threatened to sweep us away with it. The stairs were
completely jammed, and I leapt to the stair rail to ride it down.
Archer was right behind me, and we made it down the multi-level
stairs before the next bomb hit.

Underground, the explosions were like a
great, angry giant thumping his club on the ground as he demanded
the blood of Englishmen. Both platforms at Aldwych were filling
rapidly.

“Is Central the only line that runs here?” I
asked Archer.

“Yes. It’s a dead end from Holborn, so it’s
an easy air raid shelter. They stopped running trains to Aldwych
during the Blitz.”

“So the track should be dead, right?” I had
heard enough horror stories of people being pushed onto live rails
that I stared dubiously off the platform.

Archer searched into the blackness of the
tunnel for a long moment, then quickly took my hand and pulled me
toward the northern end. “You’re a genius.”

“I am? I mean, yes, thank you, I know.” I
grinned at him. “What did I say?”

“Holborn is about two hundred and fifty
yards away. We can get there underground.”

“Yep, I’m a genius. Especially since I have
this.” I whipped my little Maglite out of my pocket, and Archer hid
it from view as he took it from my hand.

“Undeniably genius.”

Archer gave me a quick kiss on the lips. I
was a little giddy from the adrenaline of running from bombs, and I
kissed him back with enthusiasm. An older woman standing behind him
smiled cheerily through her exhaustion.

We dodged people who were beginning to
settle down in hopes of getting an hour or two of sleep, and
finally made it to the far end of the platform. A very quick look
around revealed no obvious watchers, so I blocked Archer’s body
with mine as he dropped to the tracks, then surreptitiously knelt
as if I was tying my boots. I took his outstretched hand and leaned
forward to slip down next to him. “Nicely done,” he whispered as we
crouched low and hugged the platform wall.

A moment later we were inside the tunnel,
with the dim light of the platform fading behind us. I held
Archer’s hand tightly and used my night vision until the light was
completely gone.

“Torch, please,” I whispered into the
blackness.

A moment later, the Maglite clicked. I
stifled a scream as a headless ghost rose up in front of us, its
arm raised in a warning. We both froze in place, until I realized
the ghost was naked … and not a ghost.

“It’s a statue,” I breathed, relief pouring
out of my whispered voice.

“It’s not just any statue. It’s one of the
Elgin Marbles.” Archer shone the Maglite around the headless naked
guy, and I realized he was made of marble, and he was hanging out
with a headless centaur.

“From the British Museum?” I had just been
to the Duveen Gallery a few weeks before and had been following the
controversy about whether Britain should return the marbles to
Greece.

Archer snorted derisively. “Duveen was an
idiot, and Elgin was a thief.”

“So, apparently, you have an opinion about
whether or not to give them back?”

We had continued walking, though more slowly
now as the light from the torch played over the surfaces of friezes
and sculptures that had once graced the Parthenon in Athens.

“I have opinions about art dealers and
preservation techniques,” he said as we approached one of the wall
friezes filled with horses and their riders. Archer shone the light
at the carvings and pointed to clear grooves in the finish. “Lord
Duveen did this a few years ago. Pentelic marble patinas to a honey
color, but he thought the marble should be white, and he directed
the use of scrapers and a chisel against the stone.”

I held out my fingers and touched the
two-thousand-year-old sculpture, feeling the ridges and grooves
that should have been worn soft with age. “I didn’t notice when I
saw them in the gallery. But you’re right.”

“The museum must have moved them here after
the Blitz,” he whispered as we continued making our way down the
tracks. The tunnel was full of the marble slabs, but the most
striking pieces were the statues. The head of Selene’s horse glared
down at me from the top of another piece, and I wanted to blow it a
kiss.

“I wonder what else they have stored down
here?” I said as we resumed walking.

Archer froze and stared at the marbles. “Or
if this has anything to do with the Werwolf mission with an
entrance from Holborn
?”

I peered down the tunnel in front of us, but
it fell off into blackness. “You think it’s a simple case of
theft?”

“The Germans are looting the rest of Europe.
Stealing Britain’s greatest art treasures right out from under
their noses would be utterly demoralizing.” We had begun walking
again and whispered as we picked our way past the marbles that
still lined the tunnel.

It did make a certain amount of sense,
except for one glaring thing. “But why would Tom steal art from his
own country?”

Archer was silent for a long moment as we
walked. “I don’t know Tom. But I do know that if this is indeed
theft, there has to be an inside man. These are priceless
treasures, and there was no guard posted. Anyone could do what we
just did and walk away with a beautiful horse head for their
fireplace mantle. Except no one in England knows they’re here. No
one but the people who moved them and the people who arranged to
have them moved.”