Blades of Winter

by G T Almasi

  I get about a zillion matches, but none of these documents are about scholarships or colleges. They’re about some kind of research. I skim through them and see the word Öl over and over.

  Oil?

  I run a frequency-filter, excluding common words like pronouns and articles. Near the top of the list is Bakterien. This word appears in the Darius Covenant documents almost as many times as Öl. Oil and bacteria.

  What the hell do oil and bacteria have to do with each other?

  I open my ExOps-issued onboard reference library—for the first time, I think—and query how often oil and bacteria appear together. The list of relevant articles fills my Eyes-Up display.

  I find an article that’s written for laypeople and discover that a certain kind of bacteria is used for cleaning up oil spills. Apparently the microscopic buggers can eat petroleum. I can only imagine what they crap out afterward.

  I switch back to the White Stone files. One of the Darius hits is a calendar. I bring it up. There’s something happening this weekend. I expand the entry. It’s an itinerary for Kazim Nazari, who will be traveling to Zurich for an event of some kind. It’s not a conference, or a symposium, or one of those other snooty soirées academics use to justify sucking down buckets of alcohol.

  Finally I figure out that it’s a fund-raiser at the University of Zurich. The guest list is packed with megarich whales who can write checks for more than the net worth of some small countries. Listed among the glitteringly notorious pillars of society are two Middle Eastern men. One is Kazim Nazari. The other is Imad Badr.

  Well, la-de-da.

  The search also turns up a list of the researchers who work at White Stone. All of them received scholarships from the Darius Covenant—except the Europeans. I check the bios of a couple of the Euros, and it turns out they were all recruited away from the Carbon Program. Now they work together at White Stone, along with their Middle Eastern counterparts. All these eggheads are supposedly exploring new ways to have fun with petroleum. We hope this info-plunder from our Creep ’n’ Peep will tell us what they’re really hatching in there.

  I have the search engine look for Big Bertha. There’s one hit. The file opens in my Eyes-Up display. It’s a … receipt? It’s from the Abwehr, Germany’s version of the CIA. I read the page so quickly that I can’t understand it. When I try again, I translate the first line as “In gratitude for delivering an enemy of Greater Germany.” The document grants a special security clearance that permits unlimited access to one thing: the Carbon Program.

  Even through Chico’s numbing anesthetic, I feel my temperature rising. Someone traded my father for access to Carbon. That someone is in the Blades of Persia. When I find that someone, I am going to kill the shit out of him.

  A voice calls out fuzzily, like it’s behind a wall of wool blankets. “Okay! Time to wake up!”

  A cotton ball bats against my cheek. The voice passes through the wall of blankets and becomes Chico’s voice. “Scarlet, you’re all done. C’mon, honey, time to wake up!”

  I open my eyes. Chico’s face looms over me, and she stops patting my cheek with her hand. “Guess I gave you a little too much. Try to stay awake, okay? But don’t move around yet.”

  My eyes are damp as the sedation begins to wear off. Chico cleans her tools and instruments while I shake off the effects of the anesthetic. She sees that I’ve been crying, brings me a tissue, and dabs my eyes with it. Then she holds the tissue under my nose. Oh, God, I haven’t had this done for me since I was three years old. I blow my nose, and Chico gives me a smile. She walks out of my line of vision and bustles around. I can’t really sit up yet, but I can talk fine.

  “How’d it go?” I ask.

  “Great. You’ll have some tenderness in the natural tissue around the modified areas for a day or two, but otherwise you shouldn’t feel anything different.”

  “When can I use them?”

  “You can walk today, but I don’t want you doing anything crazy for a couple days or as long as they still feel tender.”

  “Crazy?” I exclaim as I slowly sit up. My head is swirling, and my mind’s current inability to focus helps me transition from … whatever I was just thinking about … to doing my drunken sailor impression. I exaggerate my leftover slurred speech. “Who the fush you callin’ crazhy?”

  Chico laughs and continues to put her stuff away.

  “C’mon, Chee-sho, I’ll fush you up.” I feign a fighter’s stance, my fists held out in front of me. I try to stand, but my legs have gone on strike and refuse to hold me up. As I fall, Chico runs over and catches me.

  “Wait, wait!” she exclaims. “You need to sit for a little while. I gave you a larger dose once I realized how much damage you did to your knees.” She guides me back to the examination table. I begin to lie down again, feeling dizzy.

  Then I see her. She peeks around from behind Chico. Her big bug-eye lenses are down and reflect two tiny pictures of my face back at me. I reach for my gun, but it’s with my pants across the room. Someone holds me down, and the bug-eyed girl reaches into her pocket. No, not her pocket. She reaches into her chest, right into herself.

  “Scarlet!” someone yells at me. “Scarlet! Oh, Jesus.” It’s Chico. She’s upset.

  “What? What’s the matter?” The bug-eyed girl has vanished. Chico looks totally freaked out as I lie back on the table. She reaches over to her desk, opens a drawer, and fetches a handheld scanner shaped like a clothes iron. It’s the same kind the Med-Tech used on Pavel Tarasov in Paris.

  I ask, “Did you see her, too?”

  Chico freezes.

  Oops. I shouldn’t have said that.

  “Did I see who?” Chico asks slowly. She hovers her scanner all over me, especially around my head. “Christ, you’ve taken so much damage.”

  “Yeah, I’m a good little Intersheptor,” I brag, glad to change the subject.

  “Obviously not, or you wouldn’t be so badly beaten up.”

  That hurts. “How the fush would you know? Maybe I’ve worked shum tough Job Numbers!” I shout, although I only mean to yell, and I can’t seem to turn off my drunken sailor bit.

  Chico steps back for a moment and looks at me. She resumes waving her scanner around me and murmurs, “I’m sorry, Scarlet. You’re right, that isn’t for me to say. It’s just that I hate to see someone so young take on so much.”

  “It’s not that much damage.” I pout.

  “Well, actually it is that much damage, but mostly I mean taking on so much responsibility. You’re still a Junior Level.” She puts her scanner down, takes out a small notebook and ballpoint pen, and jots down some notes. “Your Exoskin coverage is 20 percent, which is close to the limit. I’ll bet you sweat a lot.” She closes the notebook and returns the scanner paddle to her Med-Tech toolbox. “I want you to rest here until the anesthesia completely wears off,” Chico orders gently.

  “All right,” I say. “Is it okay if I comm my IO?”

  “Sure, sweetie, but stay on the table.” Chico looks in my eyes, gives my shoulder a squeeze, and walks out of the room, dimming the lights on her way out.

  I hope she’s forgotten about my hallucination. I may need to talk to someone about that. God forbid it happened on a mission. It looked so real! I freak myself out and take a good look around the room. Nope, no dead bug-eye girls in here. Get a grip, Alix! I’ll see if Trick is busy. He always makes me feel better.

  “Hey!” I comm. I keep it simple. He’ll know it’s me. If he doesn’t respond, it means he’s busy.

  He comms right back. “Hey! How’s the knee?”

  “Make that ‘knees.’ I screwed ’em both up.”

  “They’ll be okay, though, right?” Trick sounds concerned.

  “Oh, yeah, yeah. They hurt now, but I’ll be ready for action in a day or so.”

  “That’s perfect. You can heal on the way.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Switzerland, Hot Stuff,” Trick comms. “We’re gonna follow Kazim.�
��

  “I was just reading his itinerary. University of Zurich, right?”

  “Wow, look at you.” Trick sounds impressed. “Yeah, Harbaugh and I found his calendar after you left.”

  “Is something going to happen at the fund-raiser?”

  “We’re not sure, but this isn’t the first time my boss has encountered intel that includes this university. The U of Z hosts more than an annual charity gala. It also hosts a research lab for Carbon.”

  Oh, that is really weird. “Trick, did you guys find the letter from the Abwehr about Big Bertha?”

  “Not yet, we spent most of our time on those briefcase schematics.” He pauses. “How many times is your dad mentioned?”

  “Once.” My comm voice darkens. “But it’s enough.”

  German Cloning Research: Carbon Program (aka Kohlenstoff Programm)

  By the end of World War II, the German Wehrmacht had seized vast wealth, engulfed a huge population, and conquered an empire stretching from the Arctic Circle to the Persian Gulf. The Reichstag moved quickly to pacify the Third Reich’s half billion new citizens. The Geheime Staatspolizei, aka the Gestapo, conspired to inflict a climate of fear and obedience. Many other government bureaus followed suit. The Ministry of Agriculture, however, chose a different strategy to introduce the new Volk to the joys of being German.

  The Reichsminister of Agriculture reasoned that people are more likely to accept new leadership if they are well fed. To this end he launched a research project to enhance Greater Germany’s harvest by cloning the hardiest variants of crop seeds. This well-funded initiative was named the Carbon Program and attracted the finest scientific talent from all over Greater Germany. Within four years these scientists succeeded in the mass replication of a blightproof strain of wheat germ. The story of this achievement was proudly touted by the Ministry of Propaganda and received heavy coverage from news sources around the world.

  Kept from the press was the fact that the Wehrmacht and the Gestapo had secretly commandeered Carbon. The program’s new goal became the asexual reproduction of humans. The subjects were to be persons gifted with fearless martial talent and the proper mental aptitude for ruthless decision making. These parentless supermen would be exploited for military purposes.

  This quest required at first hundreds, then thousands of research personnel. The Carbon Program grew to become history’s most ambitious scientific enterprise and the Shadowstorm’s worst-kept secret. By the late 1950s, our intelligence agencies had provided scientists here in America with enough data about Carbon to begin our own domestic cloning research program.

  Germany stunned the world when it presented the world’s first human clone in 1959. Carbon’s director of research read a prepared statement to the press. Gen-2, their second generation of cloning experiments, had already begun. After the media event, Carbon withdrew once again from public view.

  Our efforts to penetrate Carbon have not been robust. Much about Carbon is unknown to us. The contents of our thin case file were harvested primarily from our brief access during the Warsaw Confrontation and by passively observing known Carbon facilities.

  CORE Entry Update: A recent spike in visits from high-ranking government officials indicates that something significant may be happening inside Carbon. Perhaps Gen-2 has been a success.

  CHAPTER 30

  SAME DAY, 6:30 P.M. CET LUFTHANSA FLIGHT 176 TO ZURICH

  “Three fifteens for six, a pair royal for six more, and eight from my crib,” Trick announces. I harrumph and toss down my cards. He’s dangerously close to beating me in our traditional in-flight game of cribbage. I catch my partner’s eye and wink at him as I slowly glide my tongue across my lips. My hair is too short to toss around seductively, but I still primp it a little and flutter my eyelashes at him while he grins and gathers up the cards.

  “Don’t worry, Hot Stuff. I’m sure your luck will change soon.” Trick winks as he deals out the next hand.

  “It better.” I pick up my cards and arrange them by suit.

  We’re lucky I remembered to grab the cribbage set. We had only three minutes to pack because our orders gave us practically no time to make this flight. Info Coordinator Harbaugh briefed us and then offhandedly told us we had to leave for Switzerland immediately.

  Our mission is to track Kazim Nazari while he visits the University of Zurich. He’s been invited to attend a fund-raiser on behalf of the Darius Covenant. That’s not why he’s going, though.

  The Info Department already knows the school hosts part of Carbon, the program Winter was granted special access to for capturing my dad. There’s no way it’s a coincidence Kazim’s visiting this place; we think he’s here to get something for his boss. The Blades of Persia have sunk their talons into Carbon and tailing Kazim is our best chance to find out why.

  Despite Kazim’s connection to both Carbon and the Blades of Persia, the agendas don’t seem related. In fact, they seem to be at cross-purposes. Carbon is about furthering German dominance, whereas Winter and his Blades are about ending it.

  ExOps allocated us to this Job Number because we fit the cover and our capabilities match the mission parameters. We’re also the only living ExOps agents who have seen Kazim Nazari in the flesh. Our cover story will be that we’re newly arrived American students. This gives us a built-in excuse for “accidentally” being in high-security areas while we shadow Kazim, explore the college, and hoover up all the intel we can.

  Today has flown by like a whirlwind: get debriefed, visit Chico the Med-Tech, receive the assignment, sprint up to our room, pack as quickly as possible, race to the airport, gallop through the terminal, and dash onto the plane. We motorvated so fast that anyone trying to follow us would have needed Acme Rocket Skates to keep up.

  Now that we have nothing to do but drink and play cards, I can have Patrick catch me up on the details of our mission.

  I quietly ask him what’s up with all the science and research I saw associated with the Darius Covenant. “I thought it was a scholarship fund.”

  He lays down a five of hearts and glances around. “It is, but it’s more than that.”

  “So the kids going to college is a front?” I pounce on my partner’s five with a ten, making fifteen for two points.

  “No,” he comms, “not exactly.” When I give him a confused look, he sets his cards down and spells it all out for me.

  Patrick whispers that according to the intel we swagged from the lab, the scientists working for Kazim at White Stone Research are engineering an oil-eating bacteria that can thrive in an airless environment. Normally this bacteria has to have air or it dies. White Stone calls this project the Darius Covenant, the same name as the scholarship fund. The Darius files include those suspicious-looking briefcase schematics, which are for some kind of portable bacteria factory. That brown liquid I pushed Trick into contained a unique strain of bacteria. Our Med-Techs found that it can survive without air.

  Trick says that all this research is ostensibly to clean up oil spills more efficiently. Info Coordinator Harbaugh believes that the Darius Covenant is related to Winter’s notorious statement, “If the infidels think it will be a cold day in Hades before we reclaim our birthright, then I shall give them a winter they will never forget.” This is, not coincidentally, why the CIA calls him Winter.

  The college scholarships, the bacteria research, even Hector’s trip to New York, are all connected to Kazim Nazari and, through him, to Winter. And Winter has got the ExOps brass losing a lot of sleep. Anybody who can protect a secret identity from both the CIA and the Abwehr is trying pretty hard. Winter’s Blades certainly don’t want us getting anywhere near the end of this riddle. Add in that we have no idea how Winter’s people managed to deliver a Level 20 Liberator—alive—to a competitor and you have one secretive, dangerous motherfucker.

  “Wait,” I say. “The college fund still sounds like a front.”

  Patrick takes a sip of the coffee brandy we brought for ourselves. “No, it’s a legitimate s
cholarship fund.”

  “Except all the scholarship recipients wind up at White Stone.”

  “Right.” Trick nods.

  “I bet I can guess what they work on.”

  “Right.” Trick nods again. “Oil-eating bacteria.”

  “How come the Germans haven’t looked into this?”

  “Ha!” My partner tops off my drink. “That’s the best part. The Germans are paying for it.” He tells me that Kazim won a grant from the German government to improve emergency responses to oil spills. The Krauts had three bad spills a while ago, one right after the other. The Germans suspected terrorists, but nobody stepped forward to claim responsibility. The investigators’ report was inconclusive, and the matter was pushed to the back burner. New safety procedures were dictated for the tankers, and a call went out for better cleanup techniques.

  Enter Kazim Nazari with his state-of-the-art microbiology research facility. His pitch wowed the German parliamentary committee so much that they gave him more than he asked for. Not that money is a problem for White Stone Research. The place is swimming in so much cash that you could make a money lake and race porpoises in it. Except for the grant from Germany, all that dough is from private sources. And all of those are anonymous. Of course.

  We finish our cribbage round, and I deal out our next hand. While I sort my cards, I ask, “You saw that Imad Badr is on the list, too?”

  “Yeah, I did.” Patrick smiles at me in surprise. “You’re getting a lot better at research. Pretty soon you won’t need me at all.”

  I reach over and take his hand in mine. “Tricky-Trick, if I ever thought it would come to that, I’d stop reading altogether.”

  He smiles again and leans over to give me a kiss. I resist the urge to peek at his cards and instead concentrate on how good his mouth feels.

  As we play through our round, we get back to Imad Badr. My partner figures that high-society events like this are part of how Badr maintains his steady supply of intel for his handlers.