The International

by Christopher Vale

  ***

  The room was large and empty, like a warehouse or hanger. Alena stood in the middle of it. The last time she had been here was when Team Blitzkrieg had busted Nazi Colonel Arnulf out. It had been a trap, intentionally set by the Centre. They had wanted Arnulf to escape, to unlock the alien base they had discovered in the jungles of North Vietnam.

  Alena wanted to escape now. She was not technically a prisoner, but it felt as if she was. This facility was buried deep in the wilds of Siberia. Could she run out of here and back to civilization? Possibly. But what about Brygida and Axel. She couldn’t leave them behind. Besides, she was hoping Alexi would join her soon. She missed her twin brother so much.

  Around the sprawling warehouse, Alena had set up twenty of what were referred to as Sams—mannequins dressed in U.S. military fatigues. It was easily forty meters between the two farthest Sams, and Alena was tasked with cutting all twenty down as quickly as she could. A uniformed soldier stood well back from her, a stop watch in his hand.

  “I am ready when you are Comrade Sickle,” the soldier said. Alena adjusted her leather gloves and then drew a sword with each hand. She turned to look at the soldier and then back at the Sams.

  “Ready,” she said. “Go!”

  She was off in a blur, her swords whizzing through the air as she sliced through Sam after Sam. When she had attacked all twenty Sams she returned to her starting point.

  “Stop!” she shouted to the soldier who quickly pressed the stopwatch. “Time?” Alena asked.

  The soldier frowned. “Six seconds,” the soldier said.

  SIX? That was twice as long as her normal time. Alena had mostly recovered from her injuries, but clearly it would take time and exercise to get her muscles back up to their full potential. She sheathed her swords.

  “Comrade Sickle!” a voice shouted and Alena turned to see who it was. Her jaw dropped when she saw Mikhail Petrov crossing the room toward her.

  The grip on Alena’s swords tightened as she stared at him. He stopped and frowned at her. “Hand over your swords, comrade,” he commanded.

  Alena didn’t move. What was he doing here?

  “I said hand over the swords Alena!” Mikhail shouted. “Or do you want to see just how fast you can run?” Mikhail stepped to the side and when he did so, Alena saw Brygida behind him, hands cuffed and a KGB officer with a pistol against her temple.

  “Hmm? Do you think you are fast enough to kill him before he pulls the trigger?” Mikhail asked Alena with a wolfish grin.

  Alena sighed, but unstrapped her sword belt and handed it, swords and all, to the soldier who had been timing her. Mikhail smiled.

  “Good,” Mikhail said, and then began to walk forward. He pulled a walkie-talkie from his belt and spoke into it. “Bring him in,” he commanded someone on the other end.

  Alena glanced at Brygida. She looked tired and beaten. What was happening here. Alena heard doors open behind her and dozens of troops armed with AK-47s began pouring into the room. They formed a circle around Alena, Mikhail and Brygida, their rifles pointed at the ground, but held ready for action. Then the circle parted and a soldier carrying two chairs stepped through, followed by two more escorting Axel, his hands handcuffed behind his back, and wearing nothing but a pair of worn out old pants. Brygida squeezed her eyes against the painful thought of what they had been doing to her son.

  “Axel!” Alena shouted and started to move toward him, but the barrels of several rifles trained in on her causing her to freeze in her tracks.

  The two soldiers pushed Axel down in one of the chairs. He looked exhausted. Broken

  “Have a seat Comrade Sickle,” Mikhail said, switching to English for Axel’s benefit. He motioned to the empty chair beside the American agent.

  “I’ll stand, thank you,” Alena sneered.

  “That was not a request,” Mikhail shot back. “Sit!”

  Alena slowly moved over to the chair and sat down beside Axel.

  “Cuff her,” Mikhail said. “Wrists and ankles.”

  Two soldiers moved toward her and clicked handcuffs on her wrists and ankles. It would be impossible to use her super speed while cuffed, and Mikhail knew it.

  “Your fight is with me, Mikhail!” Brygida said. “Let Alena and Axel go.”

  Mikhail threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, you are correct, Brygida, my fight is with you, and we will get to that in a moment.” Mikhail walked over to Alena and leaned down placing his face close to hers. “Did you really think you had seen the last of me, darling?” he asked and then chuckled. He straightened and looked at Axel. “And this one,” he said as he stepped over to Axel. “He just looks pathetic.”

  “You have no authority to do this, Mikhail!” Alena shouted. “When the Director finds out…”

  But Mikhail interrupted her. “The Director?” he asked. “Do you mean the Director of Special Operations for the KGB?” he asked.

  “You know I do,” Alena sneered.

  Mikhail threw back his head and laughed once again. “Oh, darling, I am the Director,” he said.

  Alena’s eyes popped wide. “No,” she said.

  “Oh, yes,” he replied. “You see the last director was replaced after his three most valuable agents went rogue and allied themselves with the Americans.” He turned to Brygida. “I mean, if the three of you were traitors, then it was assumed the Director might be, too. But at the very least he was incompetent.”

  Mikhail smiled as he walked over to Brygida and lifted his hand, running his fingers through her curls. “But I have bigger plans than simply being Director of Special Operations,” he said sweetly.

  Brygida jerked her head away from him. “Like what?” she snapped. “Director of the KGB?”

  Mikhail laughed and hearty bellow. “Oh no, my dear,” he said. “Much much bigger plans than that.” He turned and walked away from Brygida.”

  “If you think a weasel like you will ever run Russia…” Alena began, but Mikhail turned on his heel to face her, and his stare silenced her.

  “No, you sweet darling girl,” he said. “Russia is far too small for my ambition.”

  Alena and Brygida shared a worried glance.

  Mikhail turned to Brygida. “You are still so beautiful,” he said. “You have not aged at all since I first met you over twenty years ago.”

  “Diet and exercise,” Brygida replied.

  “Oh?” Mikhail laughed boisterously at that. “Diet and exercise, she says.” He wiped a tear from his eye before turning to Axel.

  “Your mother is funny,” he said. “Did you know we used to be an item?”

  Axel glanced at Brygida and then back at Mikhail. “Really? You look old enough to be her father,” he said dryly.

  “Yes, I suppose I do,” he chuckled. “I am in my forties now, after all.” He then turned back to Brygida. “I used to fear aging. I envied you so much.”

  “But not anymore?” Brygida asked suspiciously. She knew this was leading somewhere, and feared she would not like the destination.

  “No,” Mikhail said with a wry smile, shaking his head back and forth. “Not anymore.” He took a step forward and spread his arms out in front of himself, taking them all in. “I will soon be immortal. A god.”

  Axel, Alena, and Brygida glanced from one to the other. Axel prayed Tom was leading a rescue soon.

  Chapter 18

  Dawn’s parachute jerked her back. It had been a long time since she had last jumped out of an airplane and the her heart was pounding in her throat. She could make out a few other chutes in the darkness of the night. A platoon of the Army’s Special Forces, nicknamed the Green Berets were there somewhere in the darkness, led by Colonel Smith. Tom was strapped to Rolf’s back somewhere above her, floating down with their own chute. Tom had not wanted Rolf to land alone in the dark. In their practice jumps Axel and Tom and always taken turns jumping with Rolf.

  The ground began to come up faster and faster, until Dawn felt her boots slam into the ground with suc
h force that she was unable to keep her feet and fell over. She quickly stood and began reeling in her parachute, and hiding it in some nearby bushes.

  She had no need to check her map or compass, but instead knelt in the snow and placed the tips of her gloved fingers against her temples and mentally searched the area for the rendezvous point. She found the Green Berets and quickly moved in that direction.

  It only took a couple of minutes before she was being questioned by a sentry. After giving the password, Dawn was allowed into the rendezvous area where she quickly found Colonel Smith. Rolf and Tom arrived several minutes later.

  Smith was hidden under a poncho using a flashlight with a blue lens to read his map. “You don’t need that, Colonel,” Dawn smiled at him.

  “Is that right, ma’am?” he asked as he switched off the light and pulled the poncho from his head.

  “That’s right,” she said. “I’m all the map and compass you’re gonna need.”

  Smith glanced at Tom who nodded.

  “Alright, ma’am,” he smiled, “point the way.”

  A few minutes later the entire platoon was on the move in the direction Dawn had indicated. After about an hour of traversing the snow covered land in the darkness, the soldier on point sent word back that they had encountered a chain-link fence about ten feet high and crowned with barbed wire.

  Colonel Smith motioned for Dawn and Tom to follow him to the front of the line. When they reached the fence Smith gave the order to cut it. The soldiers quickly produced wire cutters and went to work. A large hole was soon cut in the fence and Smith ordered his men to continue forward.

  A sharp rocky hill soon came into view, jutting up into the darkness of the night. “That’s it,” Dawn whispered to Tom and Smith. “Axel is inside.”

  The two men stared through the darkness at the hill, which though covered with snow, was clearly largely composed of stone and rock.

  “Inside what?” Tom asked quietly.

  “The mountain,” she said.

  “In a cave or something?” Smith asked.

  “It’s a hidden base,” she replied.

  “A base hidden in the side of a mountain?” Tom asked.

  “Sounds like a nuke silo, or worse,” Smith replied.

  Tom nodded.

  “I don’t know about assaulting some nuclear installation,” Smith said. “This could go really, really badly.”

  “Agreed,” Tom said. Then he turned to Dawn. “Where are the guards?”

  Dawn closed her eyes as she searched the darkness with her mind. After about thirty seconds her eyes popped open. “A lone sentry, by the front door,” she smiled.

  “Okay, Agent Williams, help me out here,” Smith said. “Where is the front door?”

  Dawn sighed. “I’ll show you,” she said and then stood and crept out of the treeline toward the hill.

  Colonel Smith cursed under his breath before turning to his sergeant. “Sergeant Miller, kindly send first fire team to follow Agent Williams,” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” the sergeant replied and quickly signaled for first fire team to move forward. The four man team was soon sprinting out into the darkness behind Dawn watching her back.

  Dawn slowly crept through the darkness. The mountain was further away than she had originally thought. But she was slowly getting closer and closer. As she neared the area she knew contained the entrance, she saw a flick of light and then a glow of orange. She soon caught a whiff of smoke on the wind.

  She continued forward, now focusing on the small red dot that glowed in the night. As she moved nearer her boots crunched on a patch of snow and she saw the sentry quickly toss his cigarette onto the ground, stamping it out.

  “Who goes there?” came a young man’s voice. Dawn heard a click and then a light beamed forward cutting through the darkness about ten feet to her left as the sentry scanned the grounds with his flashlight. Dawn jumped, startled, as a Green Beret suddenly appeared at her right his rifle raised.

  “Permission to neutralize,” he said calmly as he aimed at the man with the flashlight. If Dawn said yes, the sentry would die. Dawn was not looking to kill anyone she didn’t absolutely have to.

  “Wait,” she whispered. The light searched the dark and fell on her, illuminating her and the soldier beside her.

  The sentry raised his rifle, but before he could even shout “Halt!” his rifle was yanked from his hands to fall harmlessly in the snow and the sentry himself was jerked to the ground and then pulled quickly toward them as if by some magical force.

  “What the hell?” came a voice behind her and Dawn realized there was more than one Special Forces soldier accompanying her in the darkness.

  The sentry slid to a stop at Dawn’s feet and she looked at the Green Berets near her. “I’m special,” Dawn smiled.

  “That’s a word,” one of the soldiers said.

  The terrified sentry tried to stand, but a soldier was on him quickly, knee on his chest, hand over his mouth and blade against his throat.

  “Not a word,” the Green Beret whispered to the sentry.

  The soldiers looked to Dawn for instructions.

  “Tie him up,” she ordered. “We may need him to get us inside.”

  ***

  Mikhail let the words hang over the room. “I will soon be immortal. A god,” he had told them. His eyes met Brygida’s.

  “You are insane,” she spat.

  “Oh no, I am quite sane, my dear,” he replied with a creepy laugh. “You see I am going to transcend humanity.”

  “Transcend humanity?” Axel asked. He turned to Alena who sat cuffed to the chair beside him. “Sounds like Arnulf.”

  “It’s funny you should say that,” Mikhail smiled gleefully at Axel. He strode across the floor to the American agent and placed his hand behind his head. “In point of fact, I am working with Arnulf.”

  Alena and Brygida gasped as Axel’s face twisted in anger. “That’s impossible. I fried that monster back in ‘Nam!” he snarled.

  Mikhail patted Axel on the top of the head as if he was a little boy who had just answered a question correctly. “And so you did,” he smiled. “At least, you fried Arnulf senior.”

  “He had a son?” Alena asked.

  “Yes, and Axel and his friends have been working for him,” Mikhail replied.

  “What are you talking about?” Brygida demanded.

  “Your son knows the man I mean,” Mikhail explained without taking his eyes off of Axel. “The one he and his friends call Mr. X,” he said demonstrating just how deep his inside knowledge of the situation truly was.

  “No!” Axel shouted in disbelief.

  “Oh yes, Axel,” Mikhail replied. “He was a Soviet plant within the U.S. government.” Mikhail began to laugh. “And with the help of not only the deep agents we have hidden throughout your country, but also this International Nazi Cabal—as Brygida calls them—we were able to move him up extremely high.”

  “How could…?” Axel began but Alena cut him off.

  “He’s right Axel,” she said. “Communists have infiltrated every level of your government.”

  “So have the Nazis,” Brygida added.

  “And after that sad affair in Dallas,” Mikhail smiled.

  Axel’s eyes went wide. “The Soviets killed Kennedy?” he asked in disbelief.

  Mikhail laughed dismissively. “Of course not,” he said shaking his head. “Khrushchev never had the balls to do something like that.”

  “The International did,” Brygida said matter-of-factly.

  Mikhail nodded. “As everyone knows,” he said.

  “But why would communists work with Nazis?” Alena demanded. “That’s a complete betrayal!”

  “A betrayal?” Mikhail scoffed. “Did Stalin not work with Hitler? He was broken hearted when Hitler betrayed him. He felt the two were kindred spirits.”

  “But Nazism counters everything we stand for!” Alena shouted in disbelief.

  Mikhail laughed heartily at this. “O
h, how well you absorbed the Soviet indoctrination, my darling,” he said. “National Socialism, like Soviet Socialism is an authoritarian ideology promoting a socialist collective, where the people submit all of their rights for the greater good of the state as a whole.”

  “But that’s just propaganda,” Brygida said. “Meant to foment the masses to rebel against those in power.”

  Mikhail nodded. “And to keep the masses content once the socialist regime has attained power.”

  “The true goal of all of these authoritarian ideologies whether Nazism, Fascism, Communism, or any other is always the same,” Brygida said. “Control. To legitimize force by the insiders against any dissent, to make certain the masses obey them.”

  “Exactly,” Mikhail smiled at her.

  “But how did you find Arnulf’s son?” Brygida asked.

  Mikhail chuckled. “With your help,” he remarked.

  “My help?” Brygida asked, completely perplexed.

  “Yes, my dear,” Mikhail replied. “You have met him before. Coincidentally, it was the same day you met me.”

  “What are you talking about?” she demanded.

  “He attacked you in that tunnel in Germany,” Mikhail replied.

  Brygida gasped.

  “Yes,” he smiled wickedly. “Now you remember.”

  “How did…” she felt sick.

  “I saved him,” Mikhail said. “Took him under my wing. Became the father he never had in Hans Arnulf. Then I released him in America. And he wants to see everyone burn.”

  Brygida’s eyes bored into Mikhail. “You sick bastard,” she shouted as she leapt forward and raised her boot up and slamming it into his chest, knocking Mikhail to the ground.

  The soldiers raised their weapons and were about to fire when Mikhail shouted “Stop!” He pushed himself to his feet, holding his chest. “Do not kill the Valkyrie,” he ordered as a sneer spread across his face “I want to take care of that myself.” He turned to one of the guards. “Uncuff her.”

  “You have never had a chance of defeating me,” Brygida spat at him as her wrists were released from their handcuffs.