Page 103 of Winterveil

The secret was all in the black-and-white grid of the chessboard. Julian’s favorite opening, the Ruy López, had several established counters. The one she had played, the Berlin Defense, was the most standard, but the Archangel Variation was also acceptable. In chess notation, where the movement of each piece was recorded as a set of letters and numbers, such established lines had codes that every player memorized.

It was like a cipher. The notation for the Archangel Variation corresponded with geographic coordinates. Klaudia’s eyes quickly found the location Julian had chosen. She folded up the map and tucked it under her arm.

She should have thrown out the note he left her, torn it up and tossed it into the fire, just to be safe. But some inexplicable sentiment moved Klaudia to slip it into her pocket instead. Then she led Nadiya and Giselle out of the lodge, into the cold that felt less artificial by the moment.

They found Julian precisely where the note had led them: a small clearing on the outskirts of Traumstadt, enclosed by a circle of pine trees. Crispin was with him; Klaudia could tell by the footprints in the snow that they had both been pacing.

When he saw Klaudia, Julian smiled. “That didn’t take long.”

“I would never play the Archangel Variation, for the record. It’s too ostentatious.”

“Chess is half showmanship, Klaudia. But I suppose you’re not a Romantic.”

Klaudia was glad that now the cold could account for the color in her cheeks. Romantic chess referred to a historic era of play that prioritized winning with style over winning, period. Julian’s approach. Not hers.

“Stop flirting,” Nadiya said. “We have a German scientist to rescue.”

Klaudia’s stomach fluttered.

“If this is really about Satow . . . ,” Giselle began slowly, “well, it’s not that I don’t trust you—but if we’re supposed to rescue him, what does the cube have to do with anything?”

“I think it’s a stand-in,” said Klaudia. “Deckard would rather have us extract an object than a human being. It’s one less hologram to program; it’s neater. And it kept the purpose of the mission a mystery until we were able to figure out the code.”

But even as she spoke the words, Klaudia wasn’t sure she believed them. Would Deckard really have used a stand-in because it was neater? And was she misleading the others by even suggesting it? So many questions, and not even an inelegant solution. At least, not yet.

“So we break into Satow’s house,” said Julian. “Get the cube. Get out. Simple enough.”

“Simple,” Nadiya echoed, “but not easy. We’ll have to case the building. Determine our entries and exits. Time the mission down to the minute. How many people live there? When do they leave and when do they come back—if at all? What are the security measures? Is it a mechanical lock, or an electric one? Is there a numerical code? A biometric reader? A—”

“All right, all right,” Julian said. “You’re the tactician. You lead the mission.”

“I’m not a leader,” said Nadiya. She looked at Klaudia.

Klaudia wished she felt a sense of pride, achievement—but all that filled her was dread. “I’ll trust your expertise when it comes to the technical details. But . . .”

A sudden wind picked up, rustling the branches of the pine trees and shaking down the snow. She tried not to take it as a sign. Maybe they weren’t technically being bugged, and maybe Crispin really was there to help them, but surely Deckard had a way of listening wherever they went. And with the tunnels running underneath, he could have planted surveillance devices anywhere, out of sight. She wondered idly where Julian’s seemingly sudden but implicit and total trust in Crispin had come from. And she wondered why she had suddenly found it so easy to trust Julian.

“The solution to the puzzle may not be in the clues Deckard left around Traumstadt,” Klaudia went on carefully. “We have to think about why each of us has been chosen. Of all the students at Valeran, of all the officers the CIA already has in its employ—why us?”

Nadiya, Julian, and Giselle exchanged glances. Julian spoke first, and said, “The reason why you’re here is obvious.”

Was it? To Klaudia’s mind, Deckard had been twee when he said that Henry V was about loyalty. That was the facile, English-teacher-approved answer. The play was about more than camaraderie; it was about nationalism. That speech was intended to rouse English youth to take up arms against the French, to compel peasants to fight the wars of kings.

Deckard’s riddle had always been meant for her. He was prodding at her patriotism, testing its margins and limits. It was why he had made her destroy Lenin’s statue. A challenge and a taunt. Having a Russian-born agent was an inherent risk, no matter what Klaudia’s passport now read.

“I don’t think it’s so obvious,” she said. “There are plenty of other Russian speakers Deckard could have conscripted.”

“But there’s no one else like you,” Julian said.

Klaudia’s cheeks warmed again. “Let’s say, for the moment, that’s true: Deckard wanted a Russian speaker and a strategist. Fair enough. Then what about the rest of you? What makes you so essential for this particular mission?”

They were leading questions. Klaudia already had her own suspicions. But this was a test of her hypothesis. If her theories were reasonable, rational, the others would naturally come to the same conclusions.

“We know it has something to do with Giselle’s memory,” said Nadiya. “Back at Valeran, Professor Blanchard was running tests on her. He and Dr. Iver both kept saying that she was important. That no one else in the world can do what she can do.”

Giselle dropped her gaze to the ground. “I’m still not sure how much I can help.”

“You already have helped,” Klaudia pointed out. “With reconnaissance and code breaking.”