by Joonas Huhta
THESE PROFESSIONAL SOLDIERS are my family, Gideon thought. And I’ll see my father in a moment.
Since nobody bothered to blindfold or cuff him, Gideon granted the elite soldiers the authority they deserved. He was a member of a mission greater than them. It was only two months ago that the police captured him for shoplifting, put him in cuffs in the back of a police car, and dumped him in jail.
Patrick Praytor spoke on his phone, and Gideon concluded from the ‘Yes, sirs’ that he was receiving orders from someone outranking him. He just realized that nobody in the team wore any buttons or decorations that would have revealed their rank. Then again, his father had once said that in the battlefield it was suicide to use the insignia. He heard his father’s distant whisper:
Wear the medals on your chest, and you are already beef on the plate of the savages.
The car drove into a rock that was a hidden entryway for cars. Gideon had been inside this underground network twice; once with his class and once with his father. Santa Park was a Christmas theme park in the hill where Santa could welcome friends and visitors. A big picturesque nature sign with Santa Claus smiling his Coca-Cola smile in the wall read: ‘The Home Cavern of Santa Claus.’ A bit misleading. Overflowing with Christmas spirit, Santa was never seen hanging out there. His real home was his chamber a few kilometers away close to the airport.
Gideon wished Santa Claus’s death for Christmas. He hated the whole concept of fooling generations of children.
As the car came to a halt in a small parking lot, Gideon realized nobody had congratulated him on his successful mission. The appreciation and respect were probably hidden on the soldiers’ stern and stone-cold faces. The mission was teamwork. Top-notch. Nobody did it for thanks.
They walked down a tunnel wide enough for two buses. The walls and roof were bare stone; the air was cold but moist. At the dark end of the tunnel was a big metallic door that slid open with a horrible rattle. Behind the door Gideon saw somebody working with another car and filling it up with grates. There were more army men, but in Finnish uniforms. Everybody greeted each other without a shared word.
Patrick reserved an elevator. Gideon waited back against the wall, staying away from marching soldiers. He noted standing in a pool of water, whose source was high in the wall, and that the pool was frozen. He didn’t know how, but the temperature didn’t seem to be at water freezing point.
The elevator arrived as the light sprang in the hall lantern. Darkness swallowed the team. Extra light appeared in the floor designators.
Down in the hidden depths, the doors opened to a long bright white corridor with similar looking plain doors. Patrick chose, perhaps, the fifteenth on the left, behind which a silver spiral staircase led to an intricate corridor of a sophisticated laboratory.
Instead of thinking where his dad might be, Gideon missed his mom. He shook his head at the thought that when soldiers were severely wounded they always screamed for their mothers.
He didn’t have that weakness.
39
KONRAD HEARD WHISPERS in his hallucinogenic stupor, and his eyes flew open. His body was on fire with intense phantom pain as if his body parts were pulled off from their joints. The déjà vu moment reminded him that his body was designed for discomfort.
The sky was dark. As his vision came into focus, beacons of light sprang alive, as though they were mankind holding candles aloft. His head was about to crack open from the searing pain.
He moved his fingers, felt the wound in his skull. Blood. Lots of blood.
What the hell did you do to me?
The Parabellum was on the ground. Konrad rolled onto his side, drew breath and snow whistled into his lungs like flour dust. He coughed his throat clear, then started crawling to the pond. He wanted to see the wound in his head in the reflection of the water, although light was scarce. Crawling and vomiting along the way, the growing pain sent endless nauseating shock waves through his body.
Why am I still alive? Am I a machine?
Konrad managed to bring himself to the pond with elbows and knees bruised. He put his head down. The world saw what kind of filth and wicked creature he was. He had been anti-everything for too long.
Every sin has a price.
Konrad stared at the dark water. The stars gave a bit more light, his face still a gray mask of shadow. He wished he would see Oona’s face. Not because of her smile, but for answers.
But she never showed up. The pond turned darker, taking away the picture of his face.
He undressed, dived into the dark water, floated alone on the surface, then began to sink. But he opened his eyes at a sudden question.
How does a weapon designer fail at a point-blank shot in the head?
His muscles tingled. The automatic breathing reflex kicked in. The numb tension in his body produced an overreaction. His lungs were giving way for cold water to dash in, but he wanted to put the flawed design of his body to work—he plunged up through the red darkness a way back to the living.
And grabbed his Parabellum.
40
GIDEON MET A man who introduced himself as Aslan Said. It took him no more than a single question to affirm the man was Russian. Gideon remembered seeing him on the downhill slope.
“Basics,” Aslan said. “A soldier must know the number of bullets in the clip.”
Gideon felt the difference as Aslan masterfully added or reduced rounds in the pistol on the table.
“You know what this is?”
Gideon nodded at the green ball of metal. “A hand grenade.”
Aslan pulled off the pin. “This is how you set it up. When you throw it you’ve got three seconds to get cover.” Aslan put back the pin and offered it to Gideon. “If you throw this baby and see it land… bye bye to your pretty face.”
Gideon nodded.
“Remove the pin.”
Gideon triggered the grenade as showed, now realizing the true terror of what it was like to hold an actual one in hand with the fuse burning and counting. He quickly tried to put back the pin…
Aslan slapped the grenade away from Gideon’s hands, and the heart in Gideon’s chest froze; the grenade stopped in the corner of the small room. Instinctively he jumped over the table and shoved Aslan from the back toward the grenade, covering himself against the floor. He closed his eyes and held his ears.
After a long silence, he heard hands clapping, cruelly.
“Good. A strong survival instinct makes the best soldier.” Aslan went to pick up the grenade. “A training grenade.”
“I want to see my dad.” Gideon swallowed his fear and tears. “I won’t do this anymore until I meet him.”
“This is what your father wanted. Go through the training and reunite with your father. He needs time to heal his wounds.”
“He is wounded? How?”
“It’s better to hear it from himself.”
“I’ll kill you if you’re bluffing.”
A smile spread across Aslan’s scarred face. He signaled Gideon to take a seat.
“This is a flash bang. The blinding effect lasts for…”
Gideon stared at Aslan’s fingers dancing on the surface of the gray can of soda and drifted away to somewhere else, fighting his internal war against the self-accusing questions.
What the hell are you doing?
RUUT EMERGED FROM the woods in front of a taxi. The driver stopped the car in a chorus of brakes and horns. He jumped out, lips snarling with rage as he shook his fists and yelled at her.
“I’m sorry,” Ruut said, “but you’re wasting my time.”
She spun behind him and brought him down in a solid choke hold. She applied pressure but only enough, hopefully to keep him out of the hospital.
The man lost consciousness in less than ten seconds.
Swallowing down her adrenaline rush, she took his phone and dialed Gideon. She jumped behind the wheel. Gideon’s phone was dead. She tried Jake’s number and got through.
“Where are you?” Ru
ut demanded.
“Netta and I are at the playground,” Jake replied. “The one close to Gideon’s father’s.”
“You’re not safe. Get out of there, now!”
There was a pause. Something was wrong. She accelerated to fetch firepower from her home.
“Ruut,” Jake said finally. “I think you’ll need to come over here…”
41
HUNGER CHURNED KONRAD’S insides and his vision tapered.
Where did you go?
The bleeding didn’t seem to stop on his head; he kept a snowball attached to it, and made a new one every two minutes. He could barely walk straight, swaying as if in a narcotic fog. But there were temperature differences between areas of the air like warm spots in cold lakes, so he fumbled for warmth like a snake with extra-sensory perception.
Finally some artificial orange light appeared. The amount of snow increased as the trees grew less dense. The air was getting colder. And he was getting vicious pneumonia.
There was a house ahead. He cut across the backyard and concluded he would realize his whereabouts from the roadside.
“Terrorist!” A voice mocked.
Konrad spun around. An old granny peeked out of a window.
“What’s the problem with you youngsters? When I was young, I respected the older folk!”
“I’m sorry,” Konrad said, “I was lost and I…”
“Always making up excuses! Get off my property, or I’ll call my husband. He’ll drive a tank turret up your ass!”
She launched another tirade before she slammed the window shut.
Konrad sighed. Fog began to lift.
A child laughed nearby. Konrad went to a playground, where a father played with his daughter. Only thirty meters down the road leading to the city center he saw a man dressed in black, gazing at the father and daughter. Konrad hid behind a pile of snow, barely in time.
Could they be Jake and Netta? Could he have been so lucky? Ruut might be close as well. Konrad gazed up along the steam of his breath dancing in the streetlight.
Shit!
His breathing could reveal his whereabouts. Quickly, he shoved a piece of snow in his mouth to neutralize the steam from rising. He checked the magazine of the Parabellum only to find it empty. The hair in his back and arms shot up as he peeked over the snow, keeping his head down and the snow tight against the palate.
The agent reloaded a silenced gun.
Then a taxi appeared behind the agent without headlights on. It approached fast, almost as silent as a tiger, and hit the agent’s legs. His head cracked against the windshield, and sent the body windmilling in the air before falling on its head.
Konrad watched the scene in utter disbelief.
Jake and Netta froze.
The driver of the car slammed on the brakes. Ruut rushed to the playground with a pistol in her hand.
As Ruut ordered Jake and Netta to take cover behind a children’s slide complex, another car curved into the scene. Two more agents appeared out of nowhere with tactical silenced rifles used in direct raids to end a bloodbath.
Or to start one.
Konrad started circling the park, crawling as fast as he could so that he could maintain the element of surprise. He shoved the suicidal signs of the mission to the back of his skull. The only environmental ally was that the snow wasn’t frozen but soft, it didn’t cause a sound to move on it.
Taking a split-second glance at what was happening, Konrad increased speed.
Ruut took Netta and Jake behind metal trash bins while luring the agents to herself. She managed to hide behind a massive pine. The bullets striking the bark sounded like giants bees swarming behind a wall. Ruut fired counter shots from behind the tree by leaning back against a tree and shooting over her shoulder. Her chances of surviving were slim at best if the agents flanked her.
BULLETS BIT INTO the bark behind Ruut’s spine. She reloaded her weapon. The shots sent sharp wood splinters at her eyes, and she almost lost eyesight. Netta and Jake were on her left; Netta held her ears, and Jake hid behind her.
Coward.
Now or never she needed a lucky shot, a miracle. Something. There was no way she could continue fighting half blind. Suddenly the world seemed surreal, empty and cold. As though God had turned a blind eye on her. A bullet sank into the tree from two o’clock. The agents were circling her.
She fired below under her armpit. Barely managing to hide, two bursts of bullets hit the tree again.
I’m dead.
Denial was futile, as was her feeble resistance. But if there was something she had learned in the army among men, it was what she always told herself: don’t play the game if you can’t stand the pain.
Suddenly she saw movement on her right. The other agent had her head in the crosshairs. Someone hit the agent in the head with something metallic, but as she raised her weapon, fire pierced in through her teeth and out of her cheek. In the inhalation of blood and loss of balance she aimed and pulled the trigger.
Got you, you son of a bitch.
Someone called her name.
Konrad?
Ruut turned to her left, blood escaping from her head and sending her to her knees. The sight shattered her world all at once.
Netta and Jake—unmoving in snow in pools of blood.
“No. No. No.”
Ruut dived and stumbled toward her family, but Konrad and the agent were fighting. Konrad took a huge blow to his right eye socket, and the agent stepped behind him, pulling Konrad into a tight strangle.
Ruut trained the barrel of her gun on the middle of the enemy’s eyes.
“Stop. Lower your weapon.” The agent put more squeeze on Konrad’s Adam’s apple.
Konrad face was red, veins bursting.
“Konrad!” Ruut yelled. “Look at me!”
He didn’t pass out this time but played it as best as he could, which gave a bit leeway for Ruut with the agent’s head a little more exposed.
Ruut fired.
The bullet hit the agent in the neck.
Konrad found a knife to his hand from the agent’s sheath and pressed the blade into the muscle of the agent’s thigh, but he resisted the pain and swung the pistol, connecting it with Konrad’s head. He took balance from the ground and swung his fist, landing only at the clip. But the agent’s finger squeezed around the trigger, and bullets flew directly at Ruut’s chest.
Ruut squeezed the trigger without breathing. But she could breathe no more. As she fell, she saw from the corner of her eye how Konrad managed to wrangle the agent’s head into the line of fire.
She smiled.
Got you, too.
42
KONRAD CRADLED RUUT in his lap. Despair telescoped inside him as heavy as an extension ladder.
She traced her bloody forefinger on his forehead, forcing a smile over her pains. “Your eye’s hurt. Put an eye patch on it and update your dating profile. Women will love it.”
Konrad’s earlobes went warm. “You still try to take care of me. I realize it now. You always leaned in, offered help.”
“Servitude is love.” Ruut coughed. “The only sacrifice that matters.”
His brain finally put it together: the bee’s poison had still affected her thinking and caused paranoia in the glade. The enemy had the tools to reduce all inhibition and stimulate extreme aggression.
“Did Oona tell you that you were going to shoot me?”
She gasped for air, then held her lips together and nodded, eyes closed.
“What was in the bullet?”
“Progress.”
“Your design?”
“I tried to create peace, not grudge and revenge. Some bullets had optical sensors in them. If they don’t to curve away in time, the nanomachines inside repair the damage done. They know the value of human life when the shooter forgets it.”
“But Gideon killed one agent.”
“No. I finished him when you weren’t watching.”
Dumbfounded, he nodded.
&nb
sp; “Take the membrane from my pocket,” Ruut whispered. “I think Oona left you a message.” Konrad located it and put it in his pocket while Ruut continued: “Get to the bottom of the conspiracy. Be careful. But don’t worry about me…” Her words caught Konrad off guard.
Resurrection?
Trying to mentally reduce his high expectations, Konrad quickly glanced at the membrane. Disappointment flooded his limbs.
“Empty?”
“No, Konrad,” Ruut said. “The message is obvious: you must have faith.”
A cold sting of metal landed on the neck of his head. Konrad raised his hands up.
“I knew you were a terrorist,” a woman said.
“Iris,” Ruut sang. “Thank God!”
“Miss Ruut? What has this piece of shit done to you?” Iris contemplated the surrounding massacre. “Don’t you worry, I already called the cops. I can shoot him if that’s what you want.”
“Don’t.” Ruut winced her head to signal for Iris to stop pointing the RK-62 at Konrad. “I’m sorry to say this, but your husband is involved in a horrible plan that might turn into a global catastrophe.”
“I doubt that. Eric has learned decency the hard way after I discovered his relationship with an army officer.”
Ruut coughed. “You’ve got an army rifle. You must own Eric’s clothes. Disguise Konrad and take him over to the base. There’s not much time left…” The length of Ruut’s body stiffened. “Konrad. Tell Gideon I love him. I never said it to him. Please, it’s all I’m asking.”
“Of course.”
“I’m ready.” Ruut’s voice was weakening to a whisper. “Sleep is taking me.”
“See you on the other side,” Konrad said.
Ruut coughed a laugh. “And there’s my atheist...”
As Ruut’s final breath vanished out into the sky with her glazed stare, Konrad closed her eyes. He gave her forehead a kiss and laid her hands on her stomach, tears obscuring his vision. “Go gentle, dear.”
They heard the sound of sirens.
