Dark as Angels: We are the Enemy

by Dominic Adler

  The girl gazed through a window, watching a finger of smoke point skywards. “It’s difficult for them, Paolo. The fascists bomb every day.”

  “Don’t worry, Anna,” the boy replied, swigging from a bottle of grog. “Black banners will fly over London before the year is through.”

  Paolo nodded, even though the kid was a fool. As a Colonel in the Crimson Brigade’s Special Action Group, Paolo had read intelligence reports from agents in Wessex. They said the regime was confident of peace with the Black Bloc, a plot hatched by Archangels. The transhuman fascists were in the ascendant, first in America and now Britain. Several had tried to join the Crimson, declaring themselves part of the struggle. Of course, they wanted to be in charge. Paolo himself was chosen to poison their food and burn their bodies with acid.

  On the next floor down, men worked on defensive positions. The Goons were dangerous – the local people were feral scum, given to theft and casual violence. Sweating, labourers busied themselves with sandbags and crates packed with rubble. “Salut, Paolo,” said a camouflage-clad Frenchman. “Hey, do you have any cigarettes?”

  Paolo passed the Frenchman a soft-pack. “Me? Cigarettes? You’re the master of rhetoric, Michel. Here’s some vintage Marlboro Red. Coffin nail of the true connoisseur.”

  “Merci!”

  More anarchists of the Commune International greeted Paolo as he walked its passageways and corridors, humming with music and chatter. The squat stank of skanj, chilli candles and unwashed bodies. He stopped to hand out cigarettes, slap backs and share gossip.

  No, Paolo, we’ve seen no pigs, not for days. We’ve heard there are food riots north of the river, and the No-Zone Clans are giving them trouble. Yes, we’ve heard it - the Bloc’s mortar fire gets closer every day…

  Paolo took a wheezing elevator to a murky sub-basement. Pulling on a pair of gloves he slid open a cobwebby ceiling panel, camouflaged with grease and muck. Inside was sixty kilos of nano-anonymised plastic explosive with acetone peroxide detonators. Sealed in tough plastic, dry and stable.

  Seals intact? Check.

  Detonators dry? Double-check.

  Then check again. Paolo realised his work made him obsessive-compulsive, but it was better than being dead. Or, even worse, failing.

  Inspection complete, Paolo headed for the Commune’s courtyard. He paused to smear rad cream into his cheeks, still sore from maxillofacial surgery. The agent had undergone three identity-change procedures in five years, and had no wish to undertake a fourth. The courtyard, encircled by a high earthwork palisade, doubled as a marketplace. Squatters traded with locals from the neighbouring estates, materialistic peasants who made Paolo’s temple throb. They were modern-day Kulaks, ripe for slaughter, wilfully defying any notion of class-consciousness, reliant on aid provided by the London fascists.

  “Fuck off,” a kid laughed, pushing his friend into a table selling bric-a-brac. Stuff fell everywhere, and they laughed. Nearby, a girl urgently fellated a pimply boy in full view. The crowd cheered, fob-streaming and showering them with hooch. Other men fidgeted with their flies and waited their turn.

  Paolo glowered. Beyond Lagoon City, in the No-Zones and Free Medway, scavengers and refugees eked a desperate living. One of disease, sex-slavery, poverty and occasional cannibalism. Pushing his way through the crowd, he returned to the apartment. He stopped, as he always did, to look and listen. Beyond the door, he heard raised voices. Sliding his pistol free, he gazed into a retinal scanner and crept inside. The noise came from one of the bedrooms. Inside, the girl lay rolled into a ball, arms across her belly. Her naked thighs were mottled purple, hair stiff with blood. A big man stood scowling and buckling his belt. Paolo’s voice was soft. “Did you rape her, Abid?”

  Abid shrugged, eyes fixed on the floor.

  “No…” said the girl.

  “He couldn’t get it up?” Paolo offered.

  The girl nodded.

  Abid, broad-shouldered and seven feet tall, sneered. Neck muscles tensed like cables. “I do my job, Paolo. The bitch tried to escape. I teach her a lesson.”

  “Try it again and I swear to god I’ll shoot you dead,” Paolo replied in fluent Arabic. “You’ll die in disgrace, not as a shahid. You were chosen specifically for this mission because your commanders assured me you were competent and disciplined. Don’t make me doubt them again.”

  The giant’s eyes narrowed. Until the girl arrived, he’d been an obedient and discreet operative. Since yesterday afternoon? Like a dog on heat. “I understand,” he said slowly.

  Paolo crouched and passed the girl a bottle of water. “Lottie, how did you make Abid mad?”

  The girl sneered. “I found a nail under the skirting board. I tried to stab him in the eye.”

  Paolo liked Lottie Rhys. In other circumstances, he’d have recruited the girl for operations. He thought Bourgeois women made the best revolutionaries, like the Ivy-League bluestocking he’d spun into a suicide operative. He’d watched through binoculars as her truck-bomb crashed into NATO’s Milan headquarters. She was smiling when she detonated the device.

  “Next time,” Abid hissed at the girl in English. Avoiding Paolo’s eye, he stomped away.

  Lottie studied the dusty floor, spotted with tears. The girl’s hair was blonde, the fringe covering her eyes. Fine-featured, Paolo thought, like all the elite’s children. Maybe she’d had plastic surgery as a child. He heard that was popular in Wessex. He closed the door behind him and followed Abid into the corridor. “Where’s Rourke?”

  “She went for food,” the Yemeni replied. “Woman’s work.”

  It was these attitudes, thought Paolo, that led to the Global Jihad Brigade’s terminal decline. They’d offered nothing but death, enslavement and clitoridectomies. “You’ve set everything up as I asked?”

  The Yemeni nodded as they entered the apartment’s main bedroom. The walls were covered with thick black plastic. Positioned in front of a wide-angled camera was a chopping block, a sword embedded in the wood. A tulwar, worthy of a Saudi executioner. Tacked to the wall was a banner, a black hammer and sickle on a crimson field. Paolo tugged the sword free and examined the blade. “From now on, only Rourke deals with the girl when I’m not here. Do you understand?”

  “As you wish, Paolo.”

  “It is. Now go.”

  After the Yemeni had left, Paolo went to the tiny kitchen and poured a glass of water. He heard footsteps, the flip-flop of rubber on linoleum. “Paolo, are you there?” said Rourke, a bag of groceries clutched to her chest. She had tumbleweed hair, her body hidden beneath a shapeless black dress. Her accent was of Belfast, softened by English years. She read Paolo’s face. “Is there a problem?”

  “Abid tried to have his way with the girl.”

  Rourke grimaced. Apart from her eyes, the colour of cornflowers, she was unremarkable-looking. An advantage in her trade. “Last thing we need is for the other side to find evidence of rape after they recover the body. The Committee would have us all shot.”

  “I agree, standards are important,” Paolo replied. Rourke might be occasionally belligerent, but she understood the optics.

  “I’ll have a quiet word with the big fella,” Rourke replied, all hearty Irish colleen. “He listens to me, even if he does call me Kaffur.”

  “As long as the savage does his job,” Paolo half-whispered.

  Rourke pulled a face. “Leave Abid to me, okay?” she said, unpacking groceries. Ramen noodles, stock-cubes and sad-looking vegetables. “By the way, my man loaded the dead-letter drop.”

  “He delivered as promised?”

  Rourke rested her backside against the sink and studied her cigarette. “Yes and no. He says he’ll definitely get a location for Rhys’s meeting with the Bloc. Problem is, he’s insisting on telling me in person. No Darkwire.”

  “Why? Darkwire is un-hackable.”

  “They said that about the Enigma machine,” Rourke replied.

  Paolo shook his head. “A facile comparison.”

&nb
sp; Rourke was tight-lipped about her agents. Her network was years in cultivation, like a bonsai forest, and just as delicate. “Let’s say my man works in a specialist technical field. He’s paranoid about his comms being intercepted.”

  Paolo had a finely attuned nose for bullshit, especially where informants were concerned. “He’s angling for more money?”

  Rourke nodded slowly. “Aye, he is.”

  “I’m more concerned he’s setting us up. Maybe NatSec turned him, or MI5?”

  Rourke made a pffft noise. “It’s always at the back of my mind. But not this one. I’ve been running him three years without a hitch. I’ve got sub-sources reporting on him, the Centre cleared him twice. He’s a good agent.”

  “How much?”

  Rourke shrugged. “An extra fifty grand. US, not Reconstruction Dollars. It’s not the amount, it’s the principle. I’m running him, he isn’t running me.”

  “Kill him after the operation’s finished,” Paolo suggested. “Principles can wait where this piece of work is concerned.”

  The Irishwoman put the kettle on. She kept her precious tea caddy next to it, the only luxury she’d brought to the squat. “Killing him is tempting, it’d certainly tidy up some loose ends. But it makes more sense to keep him in place. You don’t get many agents with his level of access. The window of opportunity into Rhys’s household comms node is very brief.”

  Paolo nodded. Rourke was the human assets specialist, whereas his talents veered more towards the more… kinetic. He allowed himself a smile. “Perhaps I could meet him. Would he benefit from a motivational chat?”

  “You know, I’d like to see that,” Rourke cackled.

  Paolo checked his watch. “Schedule?”

  “I’m looking to have a location for the Black Bloc delegation meeting by twenty-hundred. My source tells me they use a place on the border with Croydonia for meetings. Border security is shite down there, it’s where most of the cotics come through from Kent.”

  “Fine. I need to check the lock-up anyway. I’ll get your money.”

  Rourke fussed over tea-making, splashing milk and spooning sugar. Paolo despised the stuff, but Rourke drained cup after cup. “I always thought the operation too complex,” she said. “Sequencing Rhys’s press conference, then ambushing the peace delegation.”

  Paolo pulled up a chair. “The circumstances behind MADRIGAL demand it.”

  Rourke sipped tea, grimaced and added more sugar. “Tell me about MADRIGAL.” Rourke put her hand on Paolo’s, the Irishwoman’s fingers spidery against his skin.

  “You know it’s a compartmentalised operation,” Paolo replied, trying not to flinch.

  “Of course,” said Rourke, “but…”

  “My orders are unambiguous. Just remember, people aren’t interested in propaganda and fake news. They want cast-iron proof, from the guilty man’s lips. Then there’s the matter of operational security.”

  Rourke studied her teacup, stained and chipped. “You can’t tell me? That’s bollix.”

  Reaching into his pocket, Paolo placed three tubes on the table. Silver with protective caps, labelled in Mandarin. “These are brainstem injectors. You know what they do?”

  Rourke’s finger hovered over the injectors. “Of course. Do they really work?”

  “Yes. Once the girl is dead and Abid has eliminated the traitors, you’ll receive one. You can upload the information directly into your brain. Apart from me, only the Chairperson of the Command Committee herself has seen it.”

  Rourke nodded, eyes locked hungrily onto the injectors. “Then I suppose that will have to do.”

  Don’t be so fucking impertinent. You’re a low-level agent handler. “Have patience,” Paolo replied. “The mission first, comrade. Always the mission first.”

  five

  Hooker and Leah stood on St. Paul’s Quay, their shadows cast before them, cloudscrapers crowding the cathedral’s fire-blackened dome. Demonstrators and flagellants stood in the shade, singing hymns or torturing themselves. “Nice wheels,” said Leah, biting into an apple. “None of that ‘lectric shit.”

  Hooker ran a hand along the G-Wagen’s armoured flank. A matte grey urban ops model, equipped with roll-bars, ram, armorglass windows and riot-mesh. “We had these on the Taskforces,” he said. “Until the other side got advanced RPGs, that is.”

  Leah shrugged, kicking a tyre. “As long as it starts when I hit the ignition, we’re good.”

  “Where did you learn to drive?”

  “Brighton.”

  “On the beach?” said Hooker.

  “Nah, through the rubble. We had an old Land Rover on the Bloc. Nicked it from the army.” Leah was comfortable talking about her time as an insurgent. And if she ever resented Hooker for serving on the other side, she never showed it.

  An electric car sputtered to a halt, engine whining. Gordy stepped out, face oily with rad cream under a wide-brimmed hat. “Martinez, I had problems with your security clearance. You wouldn’t believe the strings I had to pull.”

  Leah stowed her weapons in the back of the Merc. “I got my de-radicalisation ticket five years ago. What’s the issue?”

  “You’re still on the NatSec intel system,” Gordy shrugged.

  “Who ain’t?” Leah shrugged, running a finger across the old man’s cheek. She licked rad cream and smiled. “Hmmm, strawberry. Tell your NatSec source I’ve killed more Bloc than any toy soldier in your private army.”

  “True,” Hooker agreed. “Woman’s got an unhealthy taste for it.”

  Gordy grimaced. “It’s not about how many you’ve killed, Leah. It’s about processes.”

  Leah shrugged. “I fucking hate processes.”

  “That’s why you live in a No-Zone hovel. Just keep your bloody head down and don’t give NatSec the excuse to revoke your permit. It won’t take long for them to realise you two are cutting about the Green Zone.”

  Leah strapped on the contractor’s armband. “Wow Gordy, open-carry permits? What’s the budget on this job?”

  Gordy flashed his crocodile’s smile. “Welcome to the big league, Martinez. You’re going up in the world.”

  Leah looked around, lip curled. “You can keep it. I prefer it outside the walls.”

  Gordy muttered something and shook his head. “Rufus, what do you think?”

  Hooker was still admiring the Mercedes. A man could lock himself inside and be safe from the world. “I think we need comms data for Lottie Rhys and Evie Kendrick. Any news?”

  “Check your Darkwire,” Gordy replied. “A load of stuff just dropped in there. Hyatt didn’t waste any time.”

  “I’ll be in touch,” said Hooker.

  “Make sure you are. I’ll need updating on the hour.” The old detective got in his car and buzzed away.

  Leah climbed inside the Merc and studied the controls. “I like this,” she said, hitting the ignition and following the navigation system towards the Government Zone. A procession marched by, banners warning of The End of Days. Nobody laughed at them anymore. “Now, what’s this job all about?” she asked. “Why’s Gordy so pleased with himself?”

  “This job’s got politics wrapped around it, and Gordy loves that shit. Makes him feel important.”

  “Politics?”

  “A minister’s daughter, gone MISPER. Female. Pureblood Green-Zoner.” Hooker told Leah about the missing girl, and Hyatt’s offer.

  “That ain’t a MISPER, Hooker. That’s a kidnap.”

  “True, but at least it ain’t a rescue,” Hooker replied. “That’s usually the tricky part.”

  The Green-Zone streets were crowded with bicycles, tuk-tuks, electric cars and tipper trucks. Horses and dogs. Building sites, workers in hard hats laying bricks and pouring foamcrete. Street food vendors and corner shops. People not wearing armour, or trapping vermin for food. A snake of schoolkids wove through the crowd, escorted by teachers wearing orange tabards. “Man, this place does my head in,” said Leah.

  Hooker watched the kids, clutching
his mezuzah tight. Dammit, he could smell his daughter – milkshake and soap, biscuit crumbs on her dungarees…

  “You okay?” asked Leah.

  “Yeah, just thinking.”

  “What about?”

  Hooker turned in his seat. “Look, if Trashmob ain’t interested in selling Echo-Seven, I’ll talk to Gordy about investing in you. Mebbe he’d fund you to set up a company.”

  Leah pulled a face. “Gordy? There’d be strings.”

  “Do you want your own outfit or not?”

  Leah nodded. “Sure, but on my terms. I want PROTEX runs up to the fracking zone, not the shitty Medway gauntlet.”

  Hooker rubbed his face. He hadn’t slept for a while. “You ain’t got any terms unless you’ve got coin. Gordy ain’t that bad, having shares in a PROTEX company gives him another pie to stick his fingers in.”

  “Exactly. Green Zone fingers.”

  “You need to brush that chip off your shoulder,” Hooker replied. “They’ll win the war one day. They’ve got the money and they’re patient.”

  Leah’s face was hard. “And they’ve got the fucking Archangels on their side, right?”

  Hooker sighed. “Like I said, the Green Zone is coming our way, whether we like it or not. Make your dough while you can.”

  “Oh, I will,” Leah replied. “What ‘bout you?”

  “I’m going to Wessex.”

  “Your daughter?”

  “Sorry Leah, not now,” said Hooker, immediately feeling bad about being crotchety.

  “Ain’t no sweat, Rufus,” Leah replied. “Maybe one day.”

  “Maybe.”

  Leah laughed. “Definitely.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m your only friend. Depressing, ain’t it?” said Leah. They both laughed, Leah punching Hooker’s shoulder. Talk of owning her own company always cheered her up. “Now, we goin’ straight to the Kendrick girl’s place?”

  Hooker checked the fob Hyatt’s had given him, data streaming across the Darkwire. “Tempting, but there’s too much stuff here.”

  “Good stuff?”

  “Possibly, and we’ll kick ourselves if we miss it. Barnes ain’t far from Bleep’s place, and we’re gonna need a ‘mancer on a job like this.”