6The Transmitter
HERMANN SET A HOT CUP of strong tea down on the table in front of Newt. Newt, half dozing with his head against the kitchen wall, came back to with a start.
“Newton,” said Hermann, for the fifteenth time in as many minutes. “Please let me take you to a hospital.”
“M’fine,” said Newt, blinking.
Hermann didn’t like that.
“Then please do not become unconscious at this table before explaining why.”
“I won’t,” said Newt, without any confidence. He set his sights on the teacup and reached for it.
Hermann watched him lift the cup, frowning. Newt raised it very slowly to his mouth, took a sip, winced, and set it carefully back down. He only spilled a little bit.
“Are you experiencing impaired fine motor functionality?” Hermann said with enough forced casualness to launch a national security inquiry.
“No. My motors are fine. It’s my balance that’s being weird.”
“If you—”
“Stop it with the hospital thing, would you?” said Newt, nudging Hermann’s knee with his.
Hermann muttered something in German and produced a tea towel seemingly from thin air. He wiped up the small amount of tea Newt had spilled. Newt tipped his head sideways against the cool white wall and closed his eyes, feeling both comforted and oppressed by his partner’s attentions.
“Turn on the radio,” Newt said, gesturing with eyes closed.
Socks slid over linoleum, and then the BBC’s early hours classical show began to play. Hermann turned it up to a volume that would interfere with electronic eavesdropping.
“It started in February,” said Newt when Hermann had sat back down.
“In February? Newton, have you been ill—”
“No—I’m not sick! I’m telling you what happened, and it started in February, all right? Just listen. So in February. I got this file.”
“File?”
“Yes. Manila, with paper inside. You’re familiar?”
Newt cracked an eye open to get the full brunt of Hermann’s glare.
“It was misdirected,” he said, re-closing his eye. “It was lying on my desk when I came in, but it was not meant for me. Fifth-floor only. That was immediately clear from the labeling. Among other things, this file had a blueprint inside it. It was labeled ‘Transmitter’ and the credited author was ‘Greenwich.’ It looked like a bug. A radio transmitter. I gave it back to the delivery kid and told him to take it where it was supposed to go. But...”
“But you had already memorized it,” said Hermann. He reflected, not for the first time, what an asset Newton would be if recruited as a mole by the other side. He would not even need a microfilm camera to copy sensitive documents.
Newt explained that he had memorized both the blueprint and the first page of the file. The CO listed was Raleigh Becket. There had been a file reference number for Greenwich, and no other explanatory material.
The blueprint had been clearly labeled in every respect except for one: function.
“So, I gave the file back. But the more I thought about it, the more it bothered me,” Newt said. Here, a note of reproach crept into his voice. “I mean, I’m the head of Research and Tech Development—for engineering,” he added, before Hermann could interrupt to correct him. “I’m head of Radio RTD. I am Radio RTD. So what the hell is this transmitter? Why wasn’t I involved in the project? Who the hell is Greenwich? Is he gunning for my job, or what?
“And the device itself—it was bizarre. Not only had I been uninvolved, but I couldn’t... tell what this was. I couldn’t figure out how it worked or even what it was supposed to do.”
“That bothered you.”
“Immensely, my dear Watson,” said Newt. “So I started to rebuild it.”
“The diagram?”
“The transmitter.”
Hermann understood suddenly.
“That’s what you had hidden in your refrigerator,” he said. “Secret, stolen Division technology. Newton...”
“Hermann—please—before you say something about the unfathomable scale of my stupidity, just let me finish. See, I don’t think it is Division technology.”
“Please explain,” said Hermann, picking up his drink and downing half of it, wishing he had poured himself something stiffer instead of tea.
Newt had spent the next few months rebuilding the device in the privacy of his home lab. But even completed, it had answered no questions. When he'd turned it on, nothing happened. He'd had no idea what it transmitted, if it transmitted anything at all.
At a dead end with the device, he’d decided it was time to collect some internal intelligence. By this point, he explained, the conference was approaching. “Rumors about the big tech-trade-treaty with the CIA got me thinking: what if my transmitter is involved? So I made sure to get an invitation, and, then I, you know. Poked around.”
“How illegal of you.”
“Nobody gossips like spies gossip,” Newt said appreciatively.
By this point, it seemed Hermann’s anxiety had either eased or been forcibly contained.
Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor drew busily to a close. There was a pause, and then the radio said, “You are tuned to BBC 1. The time at the tone will be 2 AM.”
They fell silent. The tone played. Hermann reflexively checked his wall clock. It was a couple seconds off.
Piano Concerto No. 27 in B Flat began.
“Ah, Mozart,” said Newt. “The Paul McCartney of the 18th Century.”
“I have no idea what you mean by that.”
“I respect him and all,” said Newt, rubbing his temples. “But when you really come down to it, it’s just soulless pop.”
Newt could almost hear Hermann’s eyes roll. He resumed his story.
He told Hermann about seeing Becket, and eavesdropping on the meeting next door with the American liaison. Hermann was not impressed.
“But I did learn a few things,” Newt said. “Important things. Rosewater said, ‘Wasn’t he your guy?’ And Becket said yes, he was Greenwich’s 'contact.'”
“Ah,” said Herman, finally understanding. “So Greenwich is...”
“The code name for a Soviet source.”
“And the transmitter is not Division technology.”
“No. It’s stolen Raz technology.”
“Passed to Raleigh Becket by someone who worked on the project.”
Newt nodded. He attempted another sip of tea. Hermann had so far vetoed his requests to move to the couch, on the grounds that Newt would nod off.
“Becket also mentioned Birch.”
“Bernard Birch?”
“I assume,” said Newt, grimly.
Birch had been a cipher clerk. He had defected the year before; his disappearance and subsequent return had been a minor public scandal.
“Then they talked about the CIA tech,” Newt went on. “‘The Transducer.’”
“That’s what they called it?”
“Yeah.”
“That makes it sound...”
“Yeah,” said Newt. “Transducer and transmitter. It makes it sound like the two are related.”
Hermann frowned. “How? How is that possible, if this is the first exchange between the two agencies?”
“Convergent evolution?”
Hermann tapped his fingers on the table. “Not impossible, I suppose, if it was us and the Americans. But the transmitter is Russian, and the transducer is American. Where is the convergence between the two of them?”
“There are plenty of projects they’re racing each other on,” Newt said, sitting forward and hugging one of his knees. “Picture this: In Langley, the DOD is working on some xyz—let’s say it’s nukes. A nuke thing. They know the Soviets are working on the same thing over in Moscow. They want to know how far along the Soviets are, but their agents are coming up with nothing. Knock, knock—it’s the Brits on the transatlantic cable.” He put on an exaggerated accent: “‘Ello Yanks, we’ve got a very valuable Soviet source sitting in our parlour, and he’s saying he knows all about the xyz nuclear project. But we want something in exchange...’ Then they negotiate with us, and in exchange, the CIA agrees to show the Division the x of their yz.”
“It’s not impossible,” Hermann said again.
“But.”
“But...”
“But,” said Newt slowly, “It sounds like they’re two complementary components. Like they're supposed to go together.” He dropped his knee. “I know. It’s weird, right?”
Hermann nodded slowly.
It looked like something was still bothering him, so Newt asked again, but Hermann said it was nothing. Newt went on.
Saturday evening, he had called Hermann. Hermann had hidden (“—Presumably?” “Yes, it’s in my safe deposit box at the bank,” said Hermann) the telltale transmitter. Then Newt had purloined a meeting schedule and found a time when all three—Rosewater, Becket, and Victor—would be occupied. They had a meeting from 8:30 to 9:15 PM. He’d left the boarding house, checked that the three were safely occupied, and gone in to the stables to look at the transducer.
Hermann did not like this part of the story.
“You did what with it?”
Newt winced.
“And that’s...”
“And that’s why you’re—”
“Hermann!” hissed Newt. “Keep it down!”
“So,” Hermann said several minutes later, when he had recovered his composure. “It’s still in your head?”
Hermann was no longer hovering, the way he had when Newt had stumbled in. Instead he had removed himself as far from Newt as possible while still remaining in the kitchen. He was leaning against the furthest counter, arms folded, surveying him as if he were an unexploded mine. Newt anxiously wrapped his hands around his tea cup. It was hardly warm.
“Yes,” Newt said.
“And hence your—incapacitation?”
“Yes.”
“And your balance problems?”
“Yes.”
“And your—” Hermann sighed and looked at the ceiling in hopeless appeal to unseen deities. “Flight in the night from both the Division and the Central Intelligence Agency?”
Newt took a diplomatic sip of his tea.
After it had got stuck, he resumed, somebody else had come in. “I can only assume to steal it,” Newt said.
“What a disappointment it must have been for them to find that you had beat them to it.”
“I didn’t mean to steal it, Hermann,” Newt said, coloring. “Really. I just meant to look. I had to know.”
“You didn’t have to, you wanted to,” Hermann snapped. “You don’t think. You just act. It’s irresponsible. You are capable of rational thought, I know you are. You simply—”
“Hermann, would you just listen for one more minute? I know, I know, I’m a trial and a disaster and a bore, and isn’t it generous of you to look after me, woe is you, but I’m almost done with my story, all right?”
Hermann glared at him in a way that said, Go ahead.
“So someone else came in. Through the back.”
“What time?” Hermann asked.
“I checked my watch at 9:02,” said Newt. “He came in maybe, I don’t know, two minutes after that.”
Hermann nodded.
“I hid. He went up to the table. He said something quiet, I didn’t catch it. Then he smashed the glass case and left.”
“Out the back?”
“Yeah. Same way he came.”
“And you?”
“I waited a few minutes, then I followed.”
“Out the back way? No one saw you?”
“I don’t think so,” Newt said, “But I was, uh, a little disoriented.”
Hermann was rubbing his closed eyes. He looked exhausted.
“Then I caught a train home.”
“How?”
“I walked,” he said. “It’s only five miles,” he added when Hermann looked over. The anger had been shocked right off of his face, and replaced with something unbearably raw—pity, or just despair? Like a cloud had moved over the sun, Newt could suddenly see what Hermann was thinking with the total clarity of shadow—he could see himself in his partner’s mind’s eye, stumbling askew through the tall wet grass, skirting the light that fell from buildings, abandoning his beloved motorcycle and walking miles in the dark, disoriented and alone. The clarity with which he could read Hermann startled him, and then it was gone again.
“So, where do we stand?”
They were in the living room, Hermann hunching slightly sideways in an armchair, Newt tucked against the arm of the couch with his feet up and his eyes closed. Whenever they were open, the floor reeled unexpectedly.
The pronoun did not escape Newt’s notice.
“'We'?”
“You may be fired,” Hermann said, ignoring the question like it was beneath him. “But—much as I believe you have behaved badly—”
Newt rolled his eyes and suffered the vertiginous consequences.
“—and much as I hesitate to suggest this,” said Hermann, and then hesitated.
“What?”
“Well, it just seems like rather a lot of coincidences.”
Newt frowned.
“You receive a file ‘by accident.’ You are then conveniently invited to the relevant conference, where you are conveniently roomed next door to an important conversation between the relevant parties.”
“Mme Marsden said she made the room arrangements.”
“What I’m saying is that the possibility should be considered.”
“What possibility?”
“The possibility that you are being set up in some way, Newton,” Hermann said. “If, for example, the person who snuck in to steal that device wanted to frame you for the theft, they would not have a difficult time of it.”
“But I did steal it.”
Hermann sighed sharply. “Yes, Newton, thank you, I had forgotten. Don’t you see that, if this was a plot, it was aptly executed?”
“Except for one thing. They didn’t get it. I have it.”
“Well, yes,” said Hermann. “And that’s our second problem.”
“I would think it’s our advantage,” Newt said. “I mean, who knows what cool stuff it can—”
“Our second problem,” Hermann said, talking over him, “is figuring out how to remove it without doing permanent damage to your head, before it does permanent damage to your head.”
“I feel fine,” Newt said. He immediately stood up to demonstrate.
Hermann caught him before he tipped onto the carpet.
“Let me look at it,” Hermann said, sitting him back down on the couch.
The examination by pen light proved useless, and only agitated them both.
“If you will not go to a hospital—”
“Absolutely not.”
“—then I will find out what I can about this device.”
Newt looked at him quickly.
“If, however, your vertigo worsens,” Hermann said, taking out a handkerchief and wiping away the spot of blood from the small wound on Newt’s ear, “Or does not improve inside of a week, I will carry you to a doctor myself.”
“Deal,” said Newt immediately. Did he not expect any better offer, Hermann wondered, or was this absolute faith in Hermann’s ability to solve the problem?
“Good—” began Hermann, but Newton was already speaking:
“Or,” he said, “We could always run away. Disappear into the Pyrenees. They’d never find us, you know. They’d stop looking. We could cross the Atlantic and start a biker gang. Go riding through the prairies, purple mountains, from sea to shining sea.”
Hearing nothing, Newt opened his eyes again to find Hermann looking even angrier than before.
“Okay, okay, no road trip,” said Newt.
“That isn’t funny.”
Newt could see that Hermann was past the brink of exhaustion and losing his ability to regulate emotionally. Newt diplomatically effaced any reaction.
There was a pre-hysterical pause.
“What we need to do now,” Hermann finally said, carefully, “is find out where this device came from, what it does, and if the components are related. And if so, how.”
Two components. Two components, and Raleigh Becket. That is not enough to be a connection, Hermann told himself. Not enough.
But it could be.
“Tomorrow, I will go into the office. You will stay here.”
“Will you bring back the transmitter when you come home?”
“If I have the time,” said Hermann, with no intention of having the time. “At work, I will discover what I can. I will go to the registry and take out the Greenwich file.”
“Won’t that look suspicious?”
“I’ll handle it.”
“What if it’s classified?”
“I’ll handle it.”
Newt cautiously raised his eyebrows.
“I will not handle it in an illegal manner,” Hermann said. “I will not break any rules or perform any subterfuge to find this information.”
“Except for harboring a fugitive,” Newt did not say.
That was a given.
Hermann seemed more upset than Newt could understand, but he chose to blame it on the lateness of the hour. He let Hermann lead him to bed, and collapsed instantly. But despite the time, Hermann lay awake, imagining Abteilung searchlights stealing through the drawn curtains of his home. When he fell asleep, he dreamed of the Wall.