Chapter 23 Marking the Target #2
“Nothing that matters?” The words came out harder than I intended.
“Twenty-three men dead on a convoy last week.
That doesn't matter? The patrol schedules that let reconnaissance flights map this entire estate.
That doesn't matter?” I gestured toward the buildings behind us with my rifle.
“Art is in there. Ruth. Noor. Dozens of people who've done nothing but work themselves to exhaustion trying to end this war.
And you've painted a target on every single one of them.”
“They said it was for reconnaissance only.” Peter's voice was desperate, cracking. “Just to confirm location for future reference. They said no one would get hurt, it was just intelligence gathering—”
“And you believed them.”
The words hung in the frozen air. Peter flinched like I'd struck him.
“You believed enemy intelligence handlers when they promised the information you sold would be harmless.” I shook my head slowly.
“Let me tell you something about war, Rowe.
About the lies we tell ourselves to survive.
I've killed more men than I can count. Some of them deserved it.
Some of them were just boys in the wrong uniform, following orders they didn't understand. And every single time, I told myself it mattered. That it meant something. That the next death would be the one that finally made a difference.”
“Hale—”
“I was lying. We're all lying. The difference is, my lies only kill the enemy. Yours kill your own people.” I took another step forward. “Now drop the fucking lantern and get on your knees.”
He dropped it. The lantern thudded into the snow, dark and harmless now, and for a moment I thought it was over. Thought he'd surrendered.
Then his hand came out of his pocket with a knife.
Not military issue. Something small, sharp, the kind of blade you'd use for opening packages or cutting rope. Desperate weapon for a desperate man.
He lunged.
I sidestepped, let the blade pass close enough to feel the air move, and brought my rifle stock around in a short, brutal arc. Caught him in the ribs. Heard the crack of bone, the wheeze of air leaving his lungs.
Peter staggered but didn't go down. Came at me again, knife slashing wildly, no technique but plenty of fear. I blocked with my forearm, felt the blade slice through my coat sleeve and into flesh. Pain bloomed hot and immediate.
Dropped the rifle. No room for it in close quarters. Grabbed his knife hand with my left, twisted hard. Bones ground against each other. He screamed, dropped the blade, but his other fist was already swinging toward my face.
Took the hit. Let it land. Used the momentum to pull him off balance and drive my knee into his stomach. He doubled over, retching, and I brought my elbow down on the back of his neck.
He went down. Face-first into the snow, gasping, trying to crawl away.
I kicked the knife out of reach. Drew my sidearm. Stood over him with the barrel pointed at the back of his head.
“Stay down.”
“Please.” He was crying now, tears freezing on his cheeks. “Please, Hale. My sister. She needs me. I can't die here. I can't—”
“You should have thought of that before you became a traitor.”
“I'm not a traitor!” The words tore out of him, raw and bleeding.
“I'm just trying to survive! The government doesn't care about people like us.
We're nothing to them. Numbers on a page. Acceptable losses.” He rolled onto his back, staring up at me with red-rimmed eyes.
“Do you know what it's like? Watching your whole world burn and knowing no one's coming to help?
Knowing that every day you go to work for people who'd let your sister starve if it served their purposes?”
“I know exactly what it's like.” I crouched down, bringing my face close to his. “I grew up in the same streets you did. Same poverty. Same feeling of being invisible. But I didn't sell out the people standing next to me. I didn't trade their lives for money.”
“You don't understand—”
“I understand perfectly.” My voice was quiet now, which was worse than shouting.
I knew it was worse. “You convinced yourself that the information was harmless. That no one would really get hurt. That you were just taking a little back from a system that never gave you anything.” I pressed the gun barrel against his forehead.
“But here's the truth, Rowe. The truth you've been running from since you made your first drop.
Every piece of intelligence you sold has blood on it.
Every schedule, every patrol route, every scrap of information.
Men died because of what you did. Men are going to die because of what you're doing right now.”
“I didn't know—”
“Yes, you did.” I held his gaze, made sure he saw every word.
“Some part of you knew exactly what would happen. And you did it anyway because it was easier than facing the alternative. Because taking their money made you feel like you had power over something in a world that had taken everything else away.”
He was sobbing now. Ugly, broken sounds that came from somewhere deep in his chest.
“Desperation isn't an excuse,” I said. “It's an explanation. And explanations don't bring back the dead.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I'm going to hand you over to Finch. He's going to interrogate you.
Get everything you know about your handlers, your contacts, the raid they're planning.” I stood, keeping the gun trained on him.
“And then you're going to spend the rest of your life in a cell, knowing that every breath you take is borrowed time.
Time you bought with other people's lives.”
“They'll execute me.”
“Probably.” I felt nothing. That was the worst part.
Should have felt anger, satisfaction, something.
Instead there was just cold recognition of another man broken by impossible circumstances.
“But that's not my decision. My decision was whether to put a bullet in your head right here in this field.
And I'm choosing not to. Because I've killed enough people who didn't have a choice. You had a choice, Rowe. You made it. Now you live with the consequences.”
“You could let me go.” His voice was barely a whisper. “Tell them you lost me in the dark. I'll disappear. Never come back. Never contact them again.”
“And the raid? The one you've been helping them plan? The one that's going to kill everyone in Hut X if we don't stop it?”
He had no answer for that. Just stared at me with hollow eyes, all his justifications stripped away.
Footsteps crunching through snow. Multiple people. Torch beams cutting through darkness.
“Hale!”
Finch's voice, accompanied by guards. They must have seen us from the perimeter, or responded to the sounds of fighting.
“Got him,” I called back. “He's confessed. Was attempting to set signal marker for enemy aircraft.”
Finch and two guards reached us. Hauled Peter to his feet, cuffed him while he hung limp between them like a puppet with cut strings.
His face was covered in snow and snot and tears, looking younger than his twenty-four years, looking like exactly what he was: a boy who'd made choices too big for him to carry.
“Take him to holding,” Finch ordered. “Formal interrogation at first light.”
“Sir.” I stepped forward, ignoring the blood dripping from my arm. “He said the raid's coming within forty-eight hours. Maybe less. They've got what they need for targeting. The marker was just final confirmation.”
Finch's expression went cold. “Then we're out of time.”
“We need to evacuate. Get the cryptanalysts somewhere safe.”
“We need to do whatever stops the Germans from successfully striking a critical intelligence installation.” Finch looked at Peter with something that might have been pity beneath the disgust. “Get him out of my sight.”
The guards dragged Peter away. He didn't resist. Didn't say anything. Just went, broken and empty, toward whatever waited for him.
Finch picked up the lantern from the snow, examined it briefly. “You're hurt.”
“It's nothing. Flesh wound.”
“Get it looked at anyway. I need you functional.” He started walking back toward the gate, and I fell into step beside him. “You did well tonight, Hale. Caught him clean. Got a confession.”
“Doesn't feel like winning.”
“It rarely does.” Finch was quiet for a moment. “The good ones, the ones who still have conscience, they never enjoy this part. It's the ones who enjoy it you have to worry about.”
I thought about Peter's face. The desperation. The grief. The terrible logic of a man who'd convinced himself betrayal was survival.
“He wasn't evil,” I said. “Just broken.”
“The broken ones do the most damage. They have nothing left to lose.” Finch stopped at the gate, turned to face me. “Forty-eight hours, Hale. That's what we have. Get your arm bandaged, then find Pembroke. Tell him what happened. And start thinking about how we're going to survive what's coming.”
“And if we can't?”
Finch smiled, thin and humourless. “Then we make sure the cost of destroying us is higher than they're willing to pay.”
He walked through the gate and disappeared into the estate.
I stood alone in the snow for a moment, looking back at the treeline where I'd caught Peter. The lantern still lay there, dark and cold, a weapon that never got the chance to fire.
Forty-eight hours. Maybe less.
Art was somewhere in those buildings, sleeping or working or lying awake thinking about me. Ruth and Noor and everyone else who'd become something like family over these past weeks. All of them in the crosshairs of a raid that Peter had helped plan.
I started walking. Had to find Art. Had to tell him what was coming.
Had to figure out how to keep him alive when the sky started falling.