Seven Day Hero

by J. T. Brannan

  Cole’s body made hard contact with Albright’s, and he could tell the wind had been knocked out of the man.

  Cole had rolled off to the side though, and was surprised when Albright caught him in the face with the heel of his boot, kicking up at Cole from the floor.

  Cole staggered back, and Albright took the opportunity to get back to his feet, pulling out a Gerber combat knife as he did so.

  Cole saw the draw, and angled his body away as Albright slashed horizontally towards him. He slashed through back the other way, and again Cole narrowly avoided it.

  When he came back through from the other direction, Cole was ready for it, and managed to parry the knife arm, then grabbed the man and pulled him forwards onto a head-butt.

  The force of the blow broke the plastic nose guard instantly, and Cole saw how the nose itself then sloughed off, leaving an ugly, gaping wound right in the middle of Albright’s face. In addition to the empty eye socket and the damaged, shaven head, the man looked grotesque.

  Cole slipped then, losing his balance on the steep ground, and the two men toppled over. Albright lost his grip on the knife, and both men grabbed each other as they went down, their momentum carrying them down the slope.

  They eventually broke through the tree line onto the steep hillside, their bodies now rolling and turning at an ever increasing speed as they tumbled downwards, bouncing from side to side off tree stumps and rocks whilst all the while keeping a death-grip hold on one another.

  The two men tried to punch, bite, head-butt and gouge each other as they rolled at sickening speed down the snow-covered hill, but they were moving too fast to do any real damage to each other.

  Eventually, however, the ground started to even out and their momentum started to slow. Cole was the first to react, turning their bodies so that Albright was underneath as they glided to a stop by a clump of rocks sticking up through the deep snow.

  Albright struggled underneath, but Cole dropped his head down heavily onto the man’s face again, dazing him even more. Moving quickly, Cole pinned Albright down with his legs, and reached across to the rock pile, picking up a big, heavy, metallic lump.

  ‘Son of a bitch!’ Cole yelled as he brought the rock down onto the face of his family’s killer. ‘Fuck . . . ing . . . son . . . of . . . a . . . bitch!’ he yelled, punctuating each word with another massive strike of the rock. He kept repeating the phrase again and again, not stopping even when the man’s head split open like an over-ripe melon, not even when his remaining eye bulged out of his head and the bloody grey mass of his brain started to leak out of the back of his smashed skull.

  Cole kept on smashing the rock down even after there was no head left at all, and he was just beating it uselessly down into the bloody, greasy snow.

  Eventually, exhaustion caused him to stop, and he slumped forward, chest heaving.

  And then he remembered his family, and all that had happened, and he reared backwards and screamed across the mountains.

  64

  The meeting had been a great success, and Hansard was finally beginning to see the fruits of his labours. Gregory had performed exactly as planned, and the other European leaders had fallen into step exactly as Hansard had predicted.

  He relaxed back into his leather armchair, seated behind the big mahogany desk in his Whitehall office, from where he monitored the activities of both the British and now the European JIC.

  His American agent had performed well too, sending the coded message about the false American alert status at exactly the right time. Another of Hansard’s agents would now send the US a coded message describing one of the results of the ERA meeting – that ERA was now at Defence Alert Alpha, and was readying her own military forces, including nuclear.

  Hansard knew that upon getting the message, the US would really increase their status to DEFCON II, which would prove the initial assessment received by ERA.

  There would be confusion on both sides of the Atlantic, and nobody would be trusting what the other side said. ERA were now convinced that the Americans were readying themselves for a pre-emptive nuclear strike, whilst the US would be extremely alarmed to hear of ERA’s own increase in readiness, fearing what it could mean.

  Diplomatic dialogue would probably continue for a while between the two sides, but neither would take what the other said seriously. Both ERA and the US would be becoming convinced that their counterparts were planning an attack, and would think that any dialogue would be mere subterfuge.

  The press would soon get wind of it as well, and a global panic would soon ensue. Citizens would start to flee cities, there would be rioting and looting, and chaos would reign everywhere once the word got out.

  The European heads of state were at this moment preparing to make live television broadcasts to each of their own countries later that day, hoping to quell the expected civil unrest. They would reassure the public that there was nothing to worry about for the time being and that they were sure the crisis would resolve itself peacefully, all the while knowing that this would not be the case.

  Because the citizens of Europe would not know that as soon as these speeches were made, each and every lead of the Euro Russian Alliance would leave their own countries and join each other in the ultra-secretive Joint Nuclear Command Centre, where they would start their preparations for war.

  65

  It was late afternoon, and Cole was already drunk, slumped over a table in the corner of a little back street bar in Salzburg, empty bottle of schnapps in front of him.

  He had managed to escape to the nearby village of Ausserkreith, where he had got a bus into Innsbruck, and from there on to Salzburg.

  Once safely lost in the back streets of the city, Cole had found the nearest bar and started drinking. On a conscious level he told himself he didn’t care anymore if he got caught – what was there to live for now? – but he had still subconsciously chosen an area of town where he wasn’t likely to be noticed.

  The guilt weighed on him heavily, and drinking was the only way he knew how to cope. It wasn’t the guilt normally associated with his job – the targets of his professional assassinations were generally people the world was much better off without, so to a large extent he had learnt to rationalize these actions over the years.

  What he felt now was much worse, a feeling beyond anything he had previously experienced. His actions, insofar as these resulted from his work for the British government, had now directly caused the death of his wife and children, as well as two of his friends, his friend’s wife, and three other children. Innocent lives, all lost, and for what? He still didn’t know, and that was another part of the problem.

  He had followed Hansard’s orders for a large part of his professional life, and now doubt was cast on every mission he had ever carried out. What were Hansard’s motives behind all those other operations? Were they as he said, or were they all for some ulterior purpose?

  He felt like a fool, taking Hansard’s word at face value all these years, following his orders to the letter with no official outside corroboration. Hansard was his boss, a legend in the intelligence world, and Cole had put his faith blindly in the man, no questions asked.

  He began to realize how he had been manipulated over the years; the training, the missions with Flashlight, his rescue from the prison in Pakistan – and it wouldn’t surprise him now if he found out that Hansard had arranged the whole thing there – and his rehabilitation, even Hansard’s engineering of Cole’s marriage to his daughter, all designed to tie Cole to Hansard, body, mind and soul.

  His head snapped up and he grabbed the empty bottle as he felt someone approach the table, holding it up, ready to smash it into anybody who came close.

  ‘Easy Mark, easy,’ said the man in front of him in German, ‘it’s me. Eric.’

  Cole looked up at the man, forcing himself to concentrate through his drunken torpor. Eric Binder. He recognized him now. Mid-fifties, face craggy, hair short and military, build stocky, powerful. He had been
Stefan’s partner back in GSG-9.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Cole asked suspiciously, bottle still in his hand.

  Binder looked surprised by the question. ‘You called me and asked me to meet you here.’

  Did I? wondered Cole, and then he saw the payphone, out back towards the toilets, and remembered.

  ‘You look a little different than the last time we met,’ said Binder, staring into Cole’s eyes. ‘Nothing like the Mark that I remember. Except for the eyes. Not the colour, mind you. What’s behind them. You cannot hide that. It is good to see you.’

  ‘It’s good to see you, Eric,’ Cole said, pulling himself upright.

  Yes. Eric. He was going to help get Cole out of Austria. Because there was something to live for, he remembered.

  He was going to London to find out what Hansard’s plan was, and then he was going to destroy it.

  And then he was going to kill him.

  PART THREE

  1

  Washington Dulles had been an absolute nightmare. Outside there had been protests, just as there had been all through the city. Some of the protests were anti-European, whilst others were anti-US government, some of America’s own citizens blaming their country for the sequence of events that everyone now feared was leading to nuclear war.

  Europeans were starting to be lynched in the street, and groups of vigilantes were waiting outside the airport for passengers coming in off European flights. The police were trying their best to control the area, and there was now talk of the National Guard being drafted in.

  Inside the airport, the chaos was just as bad. Once word came out through the press – first on CNN, and then on every channel and in every newspaper – that America’s military was at DEFCON II, and ERA was at a similarly high level of alert, people had been fleeing Washington in their thousands.

  Some were taking to the road – and there was now a fifty-mile tailback on every major route out of the capital – but others were flying out, and the airport was full to the rafters with scared citizens.

  Foreigners were also descending on Dulles, just as they were doing at airports all over the country, in an effort to get home before the situation got worse. There was a fear that external flights would soon be cancelled, and foreigners would start to be interned.

  It meant that the British Airways flight to London, Heathrow was oversubscribed, but with the subtle help of the CIA, a couple of places were found for Ted Moses and Charles Arnold.

  Of course, they were travelling under assumed names, as British citizens returning to their own country. Americans making the flight to London would undoubtedly come in for strict questioning by the security services upon arrival – especially ones that worked for the CIA – and they wanted to avoid any such inquiries into the purpose of their visit.

  Now they were safely in the air, ensconced in their space-restricted economy seats, both agents listened to the talk amongst their fellow passengers. Some seemed convinced that war was inevitable, others thought the very idea was ridiculous – they were just travelling home to put their families’ minds at rest – whilst others wondered aloud if aircraft would be safe from nuclear weapons, and if they shouldn’t just keep flying between different countries until the whole thing was over.

  There was one thing that all the passengers, Moses and Arnold included, agreed upon though – the situation as it stood was decidedly worrying.

  2

  Gregory made his speech to the British public at 3pm that same day, a speech that was being repeated in different languages but similar guise all over Europe.

  He stood outside the black door of his Downing Street home, addressing the gathered mass of reporters from behind a small lectern.

  ‘Obviously, many of you will be aware of some of the things that have been happening over the past few days, but I would like to make everything clear. What I would say first and foremost is that you are in no immediate danger, and you should remain calm and go about your daily lives as normal.

  ‘As for what has been going on, the facts are these. On Christmas Eve, there was an attack in Stockholm that was designed to stop the treaty for the Euro Russian Alliance from being signed. It was initially thought to be an operation by the People’s Republic of China, but was subsequently discovered to have been organised by the United States, who arranged for it to be blamed on China. The US claim that it was the work of one rogue CIA agent, but this has yet to be proved.

  ‘We have been involved, through ERA, in continual dialogue with the United States over how to resolve the matter, and things have been progressing well.

  ‘We found out yesterday, however, that the US government gave orders for its military forces to be put on their highest alert level. ERA followed suit, as a purely defensive measure to balance the action of the Americans. We are obviously now at stalemate again, which will give us time to act on a diplomatic level.

  ‘I stress again that our current alert status, blown out of all proportion by the media, is purely defensive, and nothing further should be read into it. There is no immediate danger, and you should remain calm and go about your daily lives as normal.

  ‘Thank you very much for your time, and I am afraid I am extremely busy, as you can imagine, and therefore cannot take any questions. Thank you.’

  With that, Gregory smiled reassuringly at his audience, turned on his heel, and retreated back inside Number 10, reporters clamouring for more answers loudly behind him.

  Hansard was waiting for him in his office. Gregory smiled at him and sat down behind his desk, exhausted. The plan was going according to schedule, but the associated stress was phenomenal. Still, he knew that if it all worked out, it would be worth it.

  ‘What time do I leave?’ Gregory asked his adviser.

  ‘After dinner. Both you and your family will be flown directly to the JNCC, with only a handful of staff being aware of it.’

  Gregory nodded. ‘It’s really happening, isn’t it?’

  Hansard smiled back at him, the same kind of reassuring smile Gregory had himself given the British public just moments before. ‘Yes Adam, it really is happening.’

  The US had indeed responded as Hansard had hoped, going to DEFCON II as soon as they received the information about ERA’s actions, and this had confirmed to the ERA leadership the validity of what Gregory had told them, further strengthening his grip over them.

  Earlier in the day, ERA had agreed to acquiesce to Gregory’s lofty demands, and to go along with his plan. There had been some dissension, but due to the emergency of the situation things had been decided in a timescale unimaginable under most circumstances.

  Hansard was delighted over how things were progressing. The political side of the operation was perfect, and it seemed his deep-cover operatives ensconced within the US military and government machinery were still on task.

  It was not known whether Cole had died in the attack on the house or not, as the building would have to be excavated and searched with a fine tooth comb, the physical evidence being examined in minute detail. There was evidence, however, that someone had escaped from the area, and Hansard would certainly not have been surprised to find out it had been Cole.

  Things had progressed to such a stage now, however, that it was possible that Cole’s continued existence might not even matter anymore.

  ‘I need to get back to my office and oversee my side of things from there,’ Hansard said, rising from his chair and reaching out to shake Gregory’s hand. ‘If everything works out, the next time we meet will be in a different world.’

  3

  By the next morning, Cole had both sobered up and reclaimed his mind. He could still feel the emotional horror stored up inside of him with its almost physical presence, but he now at least had something else to concentrate on – a mission.

  He didn’t solely want to kill Hansard, although that was of course on the agenda; his aim was to find out what the man’s plans were, and then to dismantle his whole operation. Of course, if
the plan was going to have a positive outcome then, despite the methods that had been applied in its execution, he might decide to let it run, and just keep the mission to killing Hansard instead. He wouldn’t damage a good operation out of spite; it just wasn’t in his nature to do that.

  However, as Cole watched the news on the television in Binder’s kitchen, and caught up with the newspapers, he couldn’t possibly imagine what a positive outcome might be, as he was now convinced that Hansard was behind the whole, terrifying current state of events.

  Whilst he had been making his way across Europe, Cole hadn’t had the chance to fully digest what had been occurring on the larger scale. It was truly horrifying, and what was worse, Cole seemed to have played some sort of part in it himself.

  The missile attack on the Swedish parliament house was being blamed by the US government on the ‘rogue CIA agent’ William Crozier. Cole read between the lines immediately; Crozier had been working on Hansard’s instructions, and then Hansard had wanted him taken out of the picture, perhaps worried that the man might expose him. All of which meant that it was Hansard himself that had been behind the attack.

  This would also explain why the missiles had been programmed to miss; it was so that the treaty would still get signed and the Euro Russian Alliance would still be formed, despite the apparent assassination attempt.

  Hansard and Crozier would have had the mission carried out by ethnic Chinese, because that is how the CIA would have carried out such an operation, trying to blame it on another nation.

  It would have been Hansard, or one of his agents, that had called the security services at the last minute about the boat, too; not early enough for the attack to be stopped, but in time to be intercepted after the missiles had been launched. Hansard would have given orders for the men to fight back, and he would have known that they would all be killed, and therefore unable to answer questions.