“I’m possessed.”
This was Owain. It was the first time he had actually acknowledged that his thoughts and actions were not always his own; and yet he would not accept my presence as something distinct from himself. How could this be, if he knew of my life?
The door opened again and one of Sir Gruffydd’s staff entered.
“You’re needed,” he told Rhys.
“We’ll talk more later,” Rhys whispered, but it was clear he wanteut. When the door closed behind him Owain felt abandoned.
He made the mistake of catching Carl Legister’s eye.
“Sit down, major,” he said, indicating one of the armchairs opposite.
Owain didn’t move.
“Please.” He made the word sound like an order. “I want to talk to you.”
Rhys had thrust the TV control into Owain’s hand on leaving. I was tempted to turn up the volume again, to drown him out. Marisa was still looking into her lap.
“I’m so sorry,” I said softly to her.
“I want to talk about your father,” Legister said.
“What?”
“I think it’s time you knew the whole truth about what happened to him.”
I could feel Owain growing fiercely defensive. “I know what happened to him.”
“The full story, major. You’ve only ever been told the official version. It’s somewhat, shall we say, restricted.”
He wasn’t concerned about Marisa. It was as if she was no use to him in the present situation and could be discounted
“Come,” Legister insisted, indicating the armchair opposite him.
Owain took a step back.
“What are you afraid of, major?” Legister said with weary disdain. “I’m unarmed. We’re guarded. Aren’t you a seeker after truth?”
“I wouldn’t expect to hear it from you.”
“You have no interest in your father’s fate?”
“My father died while doing his duty.”
“Along with millions of others. I take it you were told the attack was launched by renegade militia making use of devices acquired after raids on abandoned missile facilities.”
Owain didn’t say anything, but neither did he turn away.
“Did you know your father was a member of the so-called Pazis?”
Angrily Owain said, “My father was no pacifist!”
Legister mimed surprise. “Of cour he wasn’t. Not at least in the popular sense of being a coward or a conscientious objector. But that’s not how the term is applied in official circles. Rather, it refers to a loose association of officers and civilians throughout our territories who favour negotiated settlements rather than continuing escalation. Most desire a permanent end to hostilities. A few even have as their ultimate aim the restoration of civilian, even democratic, rule.”
Legister’s sneering tone made it sound like a ridiculously idealistic aspiration.
“Are you suggesting my father was a subversive? A traitor?”
“My dear major,” he said emolliently, “I’m not suggesting that he was in any way deficient in his duties. But his record also indicates that he was a humane man who did not believe in unnecessary sacrifice.”
Was this a compliment or merely a means of winning Owain’s consideration?
“Colonel-General Blaskowitz was a more recent member of the fraternity. No doubt you’re aware of what happened to him.”
As usual he was giving nothing away but words. Then it came to me: Legister himself had similar sympathies. He’d been trying to negotiate with the Americans, and had been kept in the dark about the plan for using Omega.
“Ever since we began this entire enterprise,” he went on, “the bane of our existence has been our inability to stabilise our borders. And, of course, the problem of trying to meld the many constituent tribes of the Alliance into one harmonious whole against all the xenophobic instincts of our species. A utopian project, perhaps. Certainly a Herculean one.”
All this was remote from Owain’s own experience. It also sounded like a politician’s gloss on what had been military necessities.
“The Middle East presented a particularly intractable problem. Sixty years ago it was believed that the Jewish Question had been settled humanely by the mass evacuations to their ancestral homeland. But it bred equally virulent forms of domestic nationalism within the federated territories. In the Slavic lands we have a convenient wasteland for demarcation, in North Africa the desert expanses. But not in Palestine and Mesopotamia, despite our best efforts at homeland creation.”
His tone was that of a wearily exasperated parent, of someone whose boundless charity had been spurned.
“A festering wound on a sensitive frontier, Jews and Muslims and Christians in bitter unending conflict, even amongst themselves. Even with occupying armies. Too many symbols of religious and nationalist pride, too much history of strife. It became clear it was never going to go away. But the example of the east, how the very devastation of its territories was creating a cordon sanitaire, proved an inspiration to our strategic planners. Why don’t you sit down, major?”
Already I was beginning to anticipates gloss on might say. I made Owain sit. Marisa, whose head was still down, looked like she wished she were anywhere but here.
“The nuclear attack on Palestine was orchestrated by senior figures within the Alliance,” Legister stated. “It was they who supplied the weaponry, they who selected the targets. A means of reducing troublesome provinces to a radioactive desert that could more easily be policed while bolstering their own authority in the inevitable outrage that would follow.”
Sixteen years ago. Sir Gruffydd wasn’t C-in-C in those days, but as Vice-Chief of the General Staff his would still have been an important voice on the JGC. He would have known about such a decision, been party to it.
“You’re saying my father was deliberately sacrificed.”
“It had to look convincingly like an attack from outside.”
“No,” Owain retorted. “My uncle would never have agreed to it. He wouldn’t let his only surviving brother die.”
“Wouldn’t he?” Legister’s tone was laced with scepticism. “Perhaps he preferred to become the guardian of two impressionable boys rather than allow them to grow up under the tutelage of a father he considered a potential danger to the cause.”
“My father spent most of his time overseas. My uncle was already our guardian in all but name.”
“But he was a prolific letter-writer, busily expounding his humanitarian views to the two of you at every opportunity, is that not true? Views that your uncle would have considered dangerously at variance with sound military doctrine.”
“He loved my father, too.”
“That may well be so. But what of his duty to the greater cause? Do you think he would ever have retained his eminence without being able to take whatever action was necessary to preserve it?”
“This is his family. All he had.”
Legister gave him a pitying look. “You would find, if you were able to examine the records, that in the months preceding the attack there was an unusually high level of transfers and repostings to and from Army Group Middle East. A disproportionate number of the new arrivals were personnel whose files are stamped F. For Fraglich. Of questionable sympathies. It’s used to signify moral or ideological rather than military qualms.”
Marisa’s head was up, but she was looking at her husband, not me. It appeared that she was hearing all this for the first time.
“Your father had carried that classification for more than a decade. He was conveniently in place. Had your uncle wanted to get him out, he certainly had the authority to do so. He was meant to be there, major. He was intended to die.”< ><p>