Summerland

7 THE TERMIN PROCEDURE, 10TH NOVEMBER 1938

The November wind whipped up leaves in the nondescriptly opulent Chelsea Square. Peter Bloom shivered in his borrowed flesh and nervously rubbed his numb hands together. It had been a while since he last walked amongst the living and it had not occurred to him to bring an overcoat. But the autumn air was not the only thing that chilled him.

The windows of the safe house were dark. That meant George was late, and he was never late.

There were times when George had shown up drunk, or decided to lecture on avant-garde poetry instead of debriefing Peter. But the Russian never strayed from the best practices of tradecraft. Was it possible that he had not received the message in time? Or perhaps the Listener had proved to be as erratic a messenger as his appearance had promised.

The steady ticking of the spirit crown’s control unit over his heart reminded Peter that he had less than six hours left. The device’s aetheric field anchored his soul into the medium’s rented skull, but at midnight the timer would switch the circuit off and banish him to Summerland.

It sounded like a fairy tale, but the transaction with the medium, a licensed charter-body named Pendlebury whom Peter favoured due to a slight resemblance, had been extremely prosaic. For an hourly fee equivalent to that of a high-class barrister, the medium quieted the vibrations of his own soul-spark and allowed a deceased visitor to take control. It was not quite the same as being alive again—fine motor control was difficult, for example—but more than worth the price. Naturally, the use of an amnesia-inducing anaesthetic that ensured the medium retained no memories of the spirit’s actions cost extra.

Peter entered the small, barren garden in the centre of the square. Mud squelched under his polished Oxford shoes. The key was hidden under a rock, and as he picked it up he was overcome by the tang of dead leaves and earth. It took him back to the first time he met George, three years ago.

It had been autumn then, too, and Peter was still alive. He had little idea of what to expect: a fanatic, perhaps, or an unforgiving taskmaster. When George opened the door, he embraced Peter like an affectionate bear. They sat by the fireplace, in a small circle of warm light in the empty house, with its scarred wallpaper where the electric wiring had been removed, and got drunk on cheap red wine.

Towards the end of the evening, the Russian asked Peter why he’d turned. Flustered, Peter muttered platitudes about inequality and war and world peace. George seized him by the shoulders and told him to pull his head out of his backside. George’s job was to help Peter, to safeguard him, to defend him from both the British and George’s own masters who sometimes did not see clearly. He could not do that if Peter was not honest. Did Peter understand?

After that, Peter did his best to explain what had happened to him at Cambridge. George laughed so hard he started coughing, and Peter had to pound him on the back to make it stop.

Peter realised he was now kneeling in the mud. His memories always became more intense while re-embodied. In Summerland, one’s senses were muted, especially smell—not surprising since all sensory impressions were memories imprinted in the aether. Maybe that, in part, led to Fading: losing the keys that unlocked one’s past.

He stood up, brushed off his wet knees and went to the door. Before opening it, he ran his fingers along the hinges.

The pencil lead George always placed there when leaving was missing. The safe house was compromised.

Panic washed over Peter. His rented heart missed a beat. Pendlebury’s sedated soul stirred and clawed at the inside of his skull like a trapped rat.

His leg muscles spasmed. He leaned on the door and fumbled for the spirit crown’s control unit in his pocket. His hands felt like oversized mittens, but he managed to twist the crown’s tuning dial. Feedback screamed in his head, and then he was in control again.

He tried to breathe the chilly air steadily as he replaced the key in its hiding place. He risked one last glance at the safe house. Its curtainless, blank windows had a haunted look. Turning his back on it felt like a betrayal.

Peter tried a brisk walking pace but managed only a wretched limp, his leg muscles still twitching. He cursed himself for not following a more rigorous surveillance-detection route from Pendlebury’s flat in Marylebone. For all he knew, the house was under observation and he had just blown his cover.

Briefly, he considered going directly to the Soviet Embassy, simply walking in and asking for asylum. It was tempting in the manner of the strange compulsion to leap one felt when standing near a cliff’s edge. But it meant abandoning all the progress he had made so far.

No, the thing to do was assume he was under observation and calmly act according to his cover story—which meant attending the soirée at the Harrises’, a couple who hosted a regular social event for the intelligence community. Later, he would check George’s dead drops for messages.

Absurdly, he wondered how to explain his muddy knees to Hildy Harris.

Just as he was about to hail a cab, a black electric car slid quietly from a cul-de-sac and swerved in front of him. The back door swung open.

‘FELIX,’ said a woman sitting in the back, using Peter’s Soviet code name and motioning with a gloved hand. ‘Get in.’

Peter hesitated, heart pounding. Was this some kind of Winter Court sting? But the woman did not look like any SIS agent he had ever seen. She had round cheeks and wore pink lipstick. Her hair cascaded in cherubic ringlets under a flowered hat. The dark green overcoat strained against a generous figure. The overall impression was that of a voluptuous tulip and he nearly laughed—until he saw her blue eyes.

Her pupils were pinpoints, and the utter lack of doubt and fear in her gaze belonged to someone who had spoken to God.

Gingerly, Peter climbed into the car and closed the door.

A man in a raincoat sat behind the steering wheel. He was young, perhaps twenty-five, with a long, sad face, protruding ears and dark, slicked-back hair. Apart from the rakish angle of his bowler hat, he looked thoroughly unremarkable.

‘I am sorry about this,’ he said as he manoeuvred the car back into the flow of traffic. Like the woman, he had a faint accent that might have been Dutch. ‘We received your message, but we had to make sure you were not followed.’

‘Who are you?’ Peter asked.

‘My name is Otto. This—this is my associate—’

‘Shut up, dear,’ the woman said. ‘I am his wife. You can call me Nora.’ Street lights flickered on her face and gave it a porcelain-like pallor. ‘Now, let’s have a look at you.’

With a nurse’s impersonal touch, she patted Peter down and, before he could protest, pulled the spirit crown’s control unit from his pocket. She cradled it in her hands and smiled.

‘I will hold on to this for a while. We have a lot to talk about, and we would not want you to leave us too soon.’

‘Nora. Show some respect,’ Otto said.

‘He understands, dear. He is a professional. Aren’t you, FELIX?’

Peter said nothing. The thought of escaping to Summerland had crossed his mind, but leaving Pendlebury with these two was hardly an option. Besides, they were likely to be armed.

‘Please excuse my wife,’ Otto said. ‘We were instructed to take precautions.’

‘Instructed? By whom?’

‘Your new case officer,’ Nora said, smiling. ‘And speaking of precautions, take off your mask and tie this around your eyes.’ She held up a piece of black cloth.

‘No. I want to know what this is about. Who is this new officer? What happened to George?’

Nora’s smile vanished. She exchanged a look with Otto via the rear-view mirror.

‘His name his Shpiegelglass,’ she said quietly. ‘He will explain everything. Now do as I say.’

She took his wrist in an iron grip and pressed the cloth in his hand.

Peter removed his mask. It was a custom for the New Dead to wear them when using mediums, both to separate the medium’s identity from the customer’s, and to hide the unavoidable ‘possessed’ look that resulted from the spirit’s inability to control their facial muscles. Pendlebury’s face was reflected in the window, slack-jawed and dead-eyed. Tufts of dark hair stuck out from the spirit crown’s silver net.

Quickly, Peter tied the blindfold over his eyes.

‘That’s better,’ Nora said.

Peter’s throat was dry. They drove in silence for a while.

When the car came to a halt, Nora took Peter’s hand. He could feel the cord of the spirit crown in her grip like a leash.

‘Now, let’s go and see Shpiegelglass,’ she said.

* * *

Nora led Peter out of the car, through a door and into a cold, empty space that smelled musty. Glass shards crunched beneath his shoes. They descended a narrow spiral staircase for several minutes, the air growing thick and oppressive. They had to be deep underground.

Ahead, somebody—Otto?—opened a heavy door. Peter smelled the mixture of antiseptic and poorly washed humanity he associated with hospitals.

Then Nora took Peter’s shoulders and gently eased him into a chair. She removed the blindfold, and he blinked at dim fluorescent lights in a high, arched ceiling. They were in a small space partitioned off from something big and cavernous with green hospital curtains.

A small, stout, blond man with protruding eyes sat on a folding chair in front of Peter, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, the tips of his thick fingers pressed together. There was a heavy leather suitcase on the floor next to him.

‘Good evening, FELIX,’ the man said. ‘It is a pleasure to meet you. I am Shpiegelglass. I am sure you have many questions, but if you don’t mind, I am going to start with a few of my own.’

He motioned to Nora, who handed the spirit crown control box to Otto and took a step forward.

‘Is this really necessary?’ Otto asked, his voice reedy and thin. ‘We made sure he was not followed—’

‘Comrade Otto,’ Shpiegelglass said, ‘would you prefer to answer a few questions instead?’

Peter heard Otto shuffling his feet.

Nora was holding a hammer and a very sharp, needle-like chisel. Shpiegelglass nodded to her. She stood behind Peter and pressed the chisel’s tip against one of the thick vertebrae in his neck.

‘What are you doing?’ Peter hissed.

‘I am sorry about this, Comrade,’ Otto said.

The small smile on Shpiegelglass’s face did not waver.

‘Our Nora is not only beautiful but also talented. She is an accomplished sculptress who has exhibited bold work in Rotterdam. She is a student of anatomy, and is able to sever your spinal cord with one blow, just at the right spot to paralyse but not kill. I do apologise for the discomfort. This is merely a precaution, you understand, in case your answers do not prove satisfactory. We have other guests who have failed to be helpful. I am sure you have no desire to join them.’

There was a faint moan somewhere beyond the green curtains. Peter imagined lying in a hospital bed, trapped in Pendlebury’s paralysed body until the medium’s brain started to reject the foreign spirit and developed the inevitable tumours.

‘Why are you doing this?’ he whispered. ‘What have I done?’

Shpiegelglass pulled his chair closer and leaned forward until Peter could smell his faint aftershave and meaty breath. He gave Peter’s knee a fatherly pat.

‘Why, that is precisely what we are trying to find out. Tell me, why did you request an in-person meeting?’

Shpiegelglass’s voice was gentle, yet Peter hesitated. Telling him about Inez felt like sharing something intimate with a stranger. The tip of Nora’s chisel was a tingling point against his neck. He could feel its slight rise and fall in rhythm with her breathing.

‘FELIX. I understand you are upset. You are not sure why I am asking these questions, why I am treating you like an enemy. All will be made clear. I am here to help you, just like George was. But I cannot do it blindfolded. Please. Why did you ask for the meeting?’

‘There is a couple, the Harrises, who work for the SIS,’ Peter said. ‘They are hosting a soirée tonight. It offered me an opportunity to give my regular report to George.’

‘I am sure you know that an ectophone recording or an encrypted ectomail would have been much safer. I take it you had something very important to share? I want to believe you are not here to betray us, FELIX. I know Nora does, too.’

‘For the love of God, I am not here to betray anyone! Why can’t you tell me where George is?’

Tears rose into Peter’s eyes. He wished he still had his mask to conceal the hideousness of a crying man with a dead, empty face.

Shpiegelglass leaned back in his chair and stroked his upper lip with a crooked finger.

‘I cannot tell you because I do not know,’ he said slowly. ‘A month ago, I came to London with a very pleasant task. I was to perform the Termin Procedure on George. He was to receive his reward for long service and join the Presence.’ Shpiegelglass’s smile vanished. ‘Imagine my surprise when he was nowhere to be found. We had to reconsolidate his network—not an easy task, as it turned out that many of his reports had been incomplete. Finally, a source inside the SIS informed us that a senior Russian intelligence officer had defected. A bear of a man, bald, with a fondness for drink.’

The words were a punch in Peter’s gut. Pendlebury’s soul felt his pain and squirmed inside him. He was half a ghost again, half a living man, a contradiction.

Like George being a defector.

In mathematics, if you started with a contradiction, you could prove anything to be true. One could be made to equal two. Black could be turned white.

Was it the Termin Procedure? George had often talked about the Presence in an irascible manner, like describing an overbearing relative. Maybe George was afraid. Maybe if Peter had explained to him what the Presence was, if he had only tried harder that night they first met, George would have understood—

‘Why?’ Peter whispered.

‘The why no longer matters,’ Shpiegelglass said quietly. ‘Now you see why we took precautions. You could have been followed, or used as a decoy duck. George could have turned you as well. Observing your reaction, I do not believe he did. However, it is possible that the SIS knows about you. It is prudent to assume they do. Therefore, it is imperative that you tell us what you were going to tell George, since that is the one thing left about this operation that is not compromised.’

‘No,’ Peter said. ‘This has to be some kind of misinformation operation, he is under instructions from the Presence—’

Shpiegelglass shook his head and touched Peter’s shoulder.

‘Betrayal feels sharper than Nora’s chisel, I know.’ He motioned to the woman and the metallic pressure against Peter’s neck disappeared.

Peter massaged the sore point. The words rolled out easily now.

‘I asked for a meeting because I have a new source in Madrid,’ he said. ‘A Republican fighter. She told me that Iosif Dzhugashvili, Stalin, is in Spain. The SIS wants to put him in charge of the Republic so Britain can stop supporting Franco. I am supposed to present to a special committee tomorrow, including the prime minister. I wanted to talk to George because I did not know what to do.’

Nora started to take notes as Shpiegelglass asked more questions.

Peter told him about Inez’s recruitment process, BRIAR and what he had gleaned about the uneasy alliance of parties that formed the Republican Government. It took the better part of an hour, and when the spirit crown’s timer chimed, he realised it was seven in the evening.

‘I am nearly due at the Harrises’,’ he said. ‘I will be missed if I don’t attend.’

Abruptly, Shpiegelglass stood up. He folded his hands behind his back and paced around in tight circles. Then he picked up the suitcase, placed it on top of a small surgical instrument trolley and opened it.

‘I am afraid you will not be attending, FELIX.’

The case contained a Fialka Terminal, easily recognisable by its ten wired rotors, typewriter keyboard, silver-grey sheen and a Ouija-style alphabet disc for displaying answers. Only a few illegals—NKVD operatives living in foreign countries with a false identity—possessed a Terminal, a direct line to the Presence. The last time Peter had seen one was in Cambridge.

‘There is a high likelihood that you have been compromised,’ Shpiegelglass said. He punched a long sequence of letters and numbers into the machine. The rotors spun and sparked, and spun again.

Peter’s new handler opened a second compartment and took out a contraption that resembled a spirit crown but was larger and of distinctly utilitarian Soviet make. It had a thick frame that went over the skull and a halo-like arc with two porcelain-tipped electrodes. Curly copper wire connected them to the terminal.

‘If your cover is blown, it is safer if you do not go back. And the fastest way to convey your findings to the Presence,’ Shpiegelglass said, ‘is to perform the Termin Procedure on you.’

Peter stared at the device. A sense of relief washed over him. He would not have to face West tomorrow. He would never have to lie again.

He was going to join the Presence.

Peter smiled as Shpiegelglass placed the device on his head. It was heavy and barely fitted over the spirit crown. Its function was exactly the opposite: to push the soul out, to transmit it directly to the Presence. The body he occupied would not survive.

For a moment, Peter felt a twinge of regret for Pendlebury. But at least in death the man would be free from having his body used as a receptacle for the pleasures of wealthy dead.

Shpiegelglass’s fingers danced deftly on the Fialka’s keyboard. The electrodes pressing against Peter’s head warmed up. The air smelled of ozone.

He tensed, but there was no pain. The world began to warp into a sphere, like a fisheye lens. Then everything went dark, except for a white pinpoint in the distance. It rushed towards him and grew. It was a face, made of light. Its benevolent smile was framed by a perfect, triangular beard. Its radiant vastness filled Peter’s vision.

The song of the Presence washed over him. The voices of the countless souls that made up the Being rose in praise. Longing to join the chorus, he tried to dive into the smiling god-star’s corona.

He was denied. The will of the Presence held him suspended before its all-seeing gaze.

Let me in, he screamed silently. I want to be you.

The Being swallowed him.

It was like drowning in an ocean of light. Suddenly, he knew that—like the mind of the ectotank—the white around him was the sum of many colours, many souls.

The brightness poured in through his eyes like a liquid and filled his skull. It left no room for fear or doubt. For an instant, Peter Bloom ceased to be.

And then the Presence withdrew.

Its absence was worse than death. Peter could not bear it. He heard a terrible sound and realised it was his own voice, screaming. In a mad hope he clawed at the spirit crown’s cable. If he escaped Pendlebury’s body, maybe he could still follow the Presence.

Then Otto and Nora grabbed his arms and held him tight. The only light he could see was the cold, greenish fluorescence of the underground hospital.

‘Send me back!’ Peter cried, tears flowing from his eyes. His mind throbbed like an open wound. ‘Please. Try again. Send me back.’

Shpiegelglass frowned and punched a string of letters into the still-humming Fialka. The arrow on the alphabet disc moved instantly and spelled out a sentence, twitching from one letter to the next. The Soviet agent let out a surprised, musical chuckle. Then he flipped a switch. The Fialka sparked one more time and died.

‘Well, FELIX,’ he said, ‘our task is not yet finished. The Presence thinks having access to the Iberian Commission is more important than the risk of exposing you. And if I know George, he will play the SIS for a while, bargain and cajole. You will be his last card. So there is still a little time.’

Shpiegelglass closed the suitcase with a snap.

‘I have been instructed to go to Spain immediately. Otto and Nora will be your case officers in my absence. As for you, young man—it looks like you are going to make it to your soirée of spies after all.’