Agent Omega: You Only Live Forever

by Schaffer, Bernard

  Donovan smirked and said, "Is that right?"

  "Perhaps caught up is not the right phrase. After all, even the great MI-6 does not have anything like your Omega."

  "No one does."

  The elevator creaked to a halt and the doors opened to reveal a long, sparsely furnished corridor. There was a man standing at the end of the corridor, leaning against the wall with his back to them. Cigarette smoke rose up over the man's shoulders, twirling toward the lights in the ceiling. He did not turn around as Donovan and Amelie exited the elevator, but still he said, "Who's the girl? She your new assistant?"

  Donovan held out his hand to stop her from walking any further and said, "Actually, she's one of de Gaulle's people. Her name is Amelie Brevot. She's loyal to the cause, Sean. As loyal as you."

  Agent Sean Pryce turned around slowly, squinting through the haze of cigarette smoke. His eyes were dark and rimmed with dark circles on the skin beneath. His lips curled into a cruel smile around his cigarette, pinching it between his teeth as he said, "Is that what I am? Loyal to the cause? And here I thought I was just a lap dog, here do whatever his master says."

  Donovan let the remark pass and said, "You look tired, son."

  "Tired's not the word, Colonel. I've seen things you can't imagine. I've been places you cannot fathom in your comfortable little world here, pulling people's strings like a puppeteer!"

  Donovan sighed and said, "I didn't start here, Sean. You know that. I've seen my fair share. Listen, we had no idea how bad Ivangorod was going to be. There was no way we could have."

  "Those Nazi scum were executing civilians, Bill. Cutting them down like dogs. Right after I got there, one of the bastards shot a woman in the back at point blank range while she was trying to protect her baby."

  "I know. I read it in your report. Right after the part about why you ignored your orders to remain out of sight and observe the situation."

  Pryce inhaled the last of his cigarette and dropped it to the ground, stubbing it out with his shoe as the ashes sparkled. "You sent the wrong man if all you wanted was someone to watch that."

  "They wanted to court-martial you, Sean."

  "Tell them to try it!"

  "We both know how that would end," Donovan said. "What you don't know is that we've been intercepting Nazi reports of Ivangorod like crazy. Dozens of statements from terrified witnesses who said a naked man appeared out of nowhere and started ripping the innards out of any SS officer he found. My favorite description was the person who said the Nazi's heads were being ripped off like dandelions." Donovan's voice softened and he said, "The mission was a complete success, Sean. We accomplished much more than just gathering intelligence. You put the living fear of God into those bastards."

  The agent looked at the woman then, obviously appreciating her beauty but also clearly doubting her abilities beyond them. "So you're de Gaulle's girl, is that right?"

  Amelie nodded and smiled at him, "It is a pleasure to meet you, Agent Omega."

  "I bet it is. Unfortunately for you, it's a short lived one. I'm retired, effective immediately."

  "That is…most unexpected," Amelie said. "I was told we could expect your full cooperation."

  "You were told wrong," he said. He looked at Donovan and said, "Find another lap dog."

  Donovan held up his hand and said, "All right, no problem. But can you do me one last favor? This woman flew here all the way from Algiers with specific instructions to brief you on her mission. You know the part of the world she's going to better than anyone. Will you at least sit in for the briefing? She has people to report to, Sean. Same as we do. Let her at least be able to say she tried."

  Amelie studied the agent's face. It was boyish and handsome, save for the nasty scar along his cheek. Pryce lit another cigarette and inhaled deeply. "I'm free for a few hours, I guess. After that, I'm gone."

  Amelie nodded her head and said, "Thank you so much, it is an honor, really."

  His only response was to shrug and head down the corridor toward the briefing room, leaving nothing but a cloud of smoke in his wake. Amelie leaned close to Wild Bill Donovan and said, "I was promised I would be meeting with the finest agent in the OSS. Instead, you bring me this insolent boy who insults me?"

  Donovan shrugged and said, "He is who he is, Miss Brevot. Give him a chance. He'll come around."

  An image of dead British soldiers was frozen on the projection screen. There were a dozen men, all of their uniforms shot to shreds, dark puddles of blood splashed on the ground all around them. Donovan clicked the projector button and changed the slide to show a new photograph, this time of a Russian family collapsed on top of one another along the side of a dark road. They were peasants, dressed in little more than sackcloths, and the photography was stark and spared no detail. There was brain matter tangled in the scarf tied around the mother's head. Her arms were clenched around her dead children.

  "I have a dozen more of these," Donovan sighed, pausing to look at his agent and Amelie. "It's more of the same. Random groups of people being used as target practice. Every single victim was gunned down in the darkness from unknown locations. They probably heard rifle shots in the distance and wondered where the fighting was, and the next thing they knew, there was a bullet flying through their foreheads."

  Donovan clicked the slide projector again to show the drawing of a fantastical-looking rifle. It was a bizarre assembly of a telescope and small searchlight mounted to the top of a gun barrel, then connected by wires to several brick-sized batteries. "What you are looking at is a prototype of an active infrared device the Nazis are calling the Vampir. MI-6 has confirmed SS troops armed with the Vampir now have the ability to see us in the dark and pick us off at will from a distance."

  Pryce stared at the device in wonder and said, "How long before they begin mass-production on them?"

  "Hard to say. Hitler is developing a whole host of experimental super weapons at his Hillersleben research facility. Wunderwaffe, or, Wonder Weapons, as he calls them."

  Donovan clicked the projector again and a black and white cartoon spooled to life, showing an orbiting space station rotating high above the earth. "This is the Oberth Sun Gun," Donovan said, tapping the screen with his finger. "It has a reflective shield designed to capture the sun's rays and store the energy until it can be used to emit a laser beam."

  Fans extended from the space station as it collected rays from the sun, building in immense power until the Sun Gun fired an enormous burst of fire at the surface of the planet. "This thing is supposed to have enough power to make the ocean boil like a tea kettle and reduce whole cities to ashes," Donovan said.

  "Just a space laser, Colonel?" Pryce smirked. "No giant robots? No flying saucers? I mean, if they're going to waste their time trying to invent things from cartoons, I hardly see why we should pay them any attention."

  Donovan turned to Amelie Brevot and said, "What do you think, Miss Brevot? Should we be concerned?"

  Amelie's eyes turned downward and she whispered, "My brother is a good man, Colonel Donovan."

  Donovan looked at the young woman and said simply, "Perhaps you are right, my dear. Unfortunately, Aleister Crowley is not."

  The next photo showed a balding, intense looking man dressed in wizard's robes peering at them from the screen. "What can one say about The Great Beast? Crowley's been called everything from a fraud to a sadist, an occultist, and the Antichrist. Frankly, I don't care what they call him, as long as it isn't alive for much longer. Two years ago Crowley befriended a French physicist named Louis Brevot whose ideas were routinely considered far-fetched. Crowley was planning a new secret society that combined the occult with experimental science. Who, you might ask, would take such a thing seriously?"

  The projector showed a grainy photograph of three men: A thin-looking scientist in horn-rimmed glasses, Aleister Crowley, and a tall, arrogant man wearing the uniform of an SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer. The SS officer's black hat bore the emblem of a silver death's head. Donovan p
ointed at the man and said, "This is Victor Kramer. One of the rising stars in Hitler's personal death squad. The SS are the worst of the worst and Kramer means to outdo all competition by killing his way to the top. He is detailed to Hillersleben, and it is his sonderkommandos that test all of the weapons invented there. It was his people you ran into at Ivangorod. It was Victor Kramer himself who gave them the order to kill those civilians."

  Donovan looked at his agent and let that sink in for a moment before he spoke again. "The sonderkommandos were training German night hunters at Ivangorod on using the Vampir, when they were redirected to the Ukraine to begin exterminations. Victor Kramer intends to prove his value to his Fuhrer by killing as many non-Aryans as humanly possible."

  Amelie clasped her hands together in desperation and said, "Colonel, please, we have to rescue Louis. He is a good man who has been turned by these monsters. Please, I beg you."

  "What do you say, Sean?" Donovan said, casting a sideways glance at his man. "Are you retiring or would you like the chance to go pay Herr Kramer a visit and teach him a lesson in picking on those who cannot defend themselves?"

  Pryce looked at the photograph on the screen and finally rolled his eyes in defeat and said, "Mad scientists, evil wizards, and Nazi death squads, oh my. How can I resist, Colonel?"

  Donovan kicked his feet onto his desk and leaned back to light a cigarette. He took a deep drag and said, "Get to Hillersleben and find Brevot. If Amelie can't convince him to come home, neutralize him."

  Pryce picked up the glass of scotch from Donovan's desk and sipped it. It was late, and the moon was directly over the OSS building, reflecting off of the soaped windows and turning everything a dull yellow. "Why is the girl even involved?"

  "She gave us the location of the facility and insisted on being part of the package."

  "What about this Antichrist character, Crowley?"

  "He's a charlatan, plain and simple, but he's dangerous because he believes his own bullshit. If he thinks the Nazis will be able to unlock any kind of otherworldly power, you can bet your ass he'll be trying to get his hands on it. These maniacs are developing weapons of the Apocalypse out there, Sean. I want you in Hillersleben and I want you to do what you do best."

  Pryce sipped his drink and said, "And what is it I do best, Colonel?"

  "I called you Omega for a reason. Bring these people to their end."

  Their small cargo plane landed in France's zone libre two days later, behind an abandoned farm. There was a taxi waiting one mile down the road from the farm, driven by an annoyed-looking man who smoked long, black cigarettes. "You are late," the man said in a heavy French accent.

  "You were paid to wait, not to give your opinion," Pryce said.

  Amelie smiled at the driver and said, "I'm sorry, monsieur. My husband gets air sick and hates to travel. We didn't mean to keep you waiting."

  The driver puffed on his black cigarette and shrugged, checking his rearview mirror as they slid into the seats behind him.

  The ride was long and the driver took no care navigating the sharp turns in the dirt trails through the back woods. Worse still, he spent more time watching them in the rearview mirror than he did on the road.

  Amelie slid her hand inside Pryce's and intertwined their fingers, letting the driver see them. "Darling? Will you please roll down your window a little? It is so stuffy in here."

  The car's engine whined through the open window and the sound of the tires squeaking on the dirt and stone was enough to drown out her voice as she whispered in his ear, "How is your German?"

  "Vollkommen," Pryce said.

  "Most excellent," Amelie said. She opened her bag and removed an envelope containing perfectly reproduced identification papers for a German man named Hans Vogel and his French wife Lena. "Here you go, Herr Vogel," she said, handing him his papers. She leaned over and said, "I think you look nice in that photograph." Amelie then pointed to the small black and white picture of herself and said, "Well? Do you think I look pretty in my picture? I am your wife, after all. You're supposed to pay her a compliment."

  Her smile was eager and pleasant as she looked at him, waiting for his approval, but instead he withdrew his hand and turned away from her, staring off into the countryside. Wounded, Amelie slid away from him in the backseat and turned toward the opposite window. It was nearly one hundred miles until Hillersleben. It was going to be a long, silent ride, she decided.

  They saw no other vehicles for over an hour except an occasional German military transport. They passed families trudging through the cold, children barely old enough to walk turning to look at their car with sallow, sunken faces. Amelie felt hot tears in her eyes and said, "What in God's name has happened here?"

  Pryce clenched his left hand into a fist as he looked at the people, keeping it tight to his chin as he said, "France surrendered is what happened. The only way Hitler would agree to accept was if France footed the bill to house three hundred thousand German troops. He set up a twenty to one currency exchange rate in Germany's favor and requisitioned all of France's food and fuel. Now, it all goes to the Nazi occupiers, and the people have nothing."

  They drove past a building scarred with a massive poster that stretched across its one side, the poster nearly as wide and tall as the building itself. Pryce read the vulgar anti-Jewish slogans printed on it and grunted in disbelief. Amelie pressed her hand against her mouth when she saw the numerous signs forbidding Jews to enter any of the shops along the road. "My father used to bring me this way to Paris when I was a child. It was so beautiful then. Now look at what this bastard Hitler has done to it. I want to kill him."

  Pryce leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, mumbling, "It's a shame your country's leaders didn't feel the same way."

  It was dark when Pryce shook Amelie and urgently whispered, "Wake up. We have to go. Get ready."

  The car was still moving and they were driving in the darkness, the dim headlamps barely able to light the trees only a few feet in on either side of them.

  Amelie looked around in a daze, seeing nothing but darkness and stars in the night sky above. "What are you talking about?"

  Pryce leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder and said, "Stop the car. We're getting out here."

  The cab driver looked back at him in confusion, "But there is nothing out here, monsieur."

  Pryce fished a Reichsmark out of his pocket and pressed it into the man's hand and said, "Stop the car, now."

  The driver looked down at the coin and shrugged as he stepped on the brake and brought he car to a skidding halt. He shook his head in wonder as the man made quick work of getting out of the back seat and ordering his wife to do the same. Bastard Germans, the driver thought. They are taking all our beautiful women now too. "You are in the middle of nowhere," the driver said over his shoulder.

  Pryce ignored him as he hauled Amelie out of the car and closed the door as quietly as he could. He patted the roof and told the driver to get going.

  Amelie watched the car drive off as she wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, saying, "It's freezing out here. What the hell's gotten into you?"

  Pryce picked up their bags and walked quickly into the woods off the road, stopping momentarily to look in the direction the car had left in and then stooped to listen. They heard the car's brakes squeaking again and then hear another car's doors open and slam shut.

  Amelie gasped at the sound of two men shouting at the driver to turn his car's engine off. Both of them very loud, and very German.

  "Why are you out so late?" the first man said. "What are you doing driving around in the dark?"

  They could hear the driver's nervous response that he was lost and just trying to get home, and then a sharp, heavy crack that sounded exactly like the butt-end of a German pistol hitting the man in the face.

  The driver moaned and said, "I was driving a man and a woman. Both of them were very suspicious! They jumped out less than a hundred yards back."

 
"Lying dog!" the German snarled. A torrent of gunfire erupted in the woods, flashing light between the trees with the report of the gun echoing all around them.

  "Oh my God!" Amelie cried, covering her mouth to stifle a scream. "They killed him!"

  One of the Nazis activated a high-power spotlight and held it up, scanning the woods all around them, lighting it up with a harsh, glaring cone of light.

  Pryce pushed Amelie behind a tree and told her to get low to the ground. He ducked down beside her and waited for the spotlight to shift away before taking a chance to peek around the side. He cursed under his breath. The Nazis were coming directly toward them. "Stay here and don't make a sound," he whispered.

  Amelie grabbed his sleeve and said, "Please don't leave me."

  Pryce pushed her hand away and slid into the shadows, moving so quickly she soon lost sight of him. The light was passing back toward her and Amelie pressed herself flat on the ground and covered her head with her hands, trying to block out the sound of the leaves and sticks crunching under the Nazi boots as they came forward. It was all she could do not to hyperventilate and give herself away.

  "I see something over there, behind the tree," one of the Germans said. "Give me the spot…" the man's voice suddenly cut off.

  "Hey," the other German said. "Where did you go?" He swept the woods with the light in the last place he'd seen the other man and said, "This is not the time for jokes, kamerad."

  Amelie heard something whistle past her in the dark, sending a rush of leaves into the air and the spotlight suddenly flipped toward the sky, sending a long cone of light into the darkness that dissolved among the tops of the trees. A sickening crunch of human bones snapping and then the guard screamed in pain.

  It all went quiet then.

  The light shut off and Amelie was alone on the ground, still covering her head. She started to shake as someone came walking back toward her. "Omega?" she whispered desperately. "Is that you?"

  "Stay put for a second," Pryce said. "I have to get my clothes back on. Christ, it's freezing out here."