Blades of Winter

by G T Almasi

  I keep my eyes on Winter’s face as I hold my knife. I step away from him.

  This would be so easy.

  Winter sees me hesitate and says, “Go ahead. It will be poetic. You can finish what your father started.”

  So easy to end it all.

  Winter grits his teeth and growls, “Go on, Alix! Finish it!”

  He knows my real name! Did Fredericks tell him everything about ExOps?

  “I am finishing what he started.” I stalk back to his chair and squeeze the fingers of my right hand around the suspicious object under the skin of his thigh.

  He squirms and says, “Ah, but your kind is only satisfied with one finish.”

  “What the fuck would you know about ‘my’ kind?” I slice the knife though the skin over the hard object and squeeze a pudgy little plastic disk out of his leg while Winter grits his teeth and makes noises like “Ach!” and “Ow!” I hold up the blood-smeared disk. “Tell me what this is.”

  “No.” Winter shoots little sabers from his eyes. “And do not waste your time with threats. If you were an assassin, I would already be dead.”

  I spin my knife over in my palm and jab it into the seat of the chair between his legs. The knife’s edge takes a tiny bite out of his scrotum. Winter presses his eyes shut and groans into the back of his teeth, but he still doesn’t answer me.

  “You’re right, tough guy. You would be dead. But you’re useless as a corpse. You will, however, be perfectly useful as a falsetto.” I bring my arm up over my head and clearly aim a giant stab right at the center of his party zone.

  “Wait!” he cries. “It is a suicide tab. The poison is released when se device is firmly pressed for five seconds. It is a manual version of what your Infiltrators have.”

  I lower my knife, drop the disk on the floor, and crush it under my boot. Then I wrap a hand towel from one of the kitchen drawers around his thigh and begin to pull his pants up. I can smell coffee on his breath.

  I ask, “That was you who kidnapped my mother, wasn’t it?”

  “It was supposed to be you, but yes, sose were my men.”

  “Why the hell did you blow up my house?”

  Winter says, “A regrettable misunderstanding. In my haste I hired men I had not worked with before. I found sem lacking in … refinement, which is why I abandoned sem to Extreme Operations’ vengeance.”

  I hoist his pants past his knees. “How do you know so much about us?”

  He grimaces as I jostle him around, getting his pants back on. “I know so much about you because I employ many people like you.”

  “You don’t employ anyone now, asshole.”

  He looks up at me. The sun is coming back out. It glows through the shutters onto his face and casts his features into sharp shadow. “No, not anymore,” he says. “But after what you have shown me today, I’d never be satisfied with sem again.”

  I finish getting his pants back up and sneer. “Flattery will get you nowhere.”

  “It is true. I have spent most of my adult life recruiting talent. I think that even your father did not have the raw ability I see in you.”

  I lean in close to Winter and bark, “Stop. Talking. About. My. Father.”

  I check the time. It’s 1:21 P.M. and no Lovebird yet. I turn my back to Winter so he can’t see my face. I reach in my jacket and shut off the signal jammer.

  “Darwin, my taxi is late.”

  Darwin was waiting for me and instantly replies. “Scarlet, be advised we cannot get an evac to your current location. There are too many competitive units in the area. I’m sure they’re searching for the subject. You’ll need to relocate to the following position ASAP.” He sends me new coordinates to a location outside the city. Damn. I wondered how they’d land a helicopter in this rat’s nest, and it turns out they won’t. Darwin continues, “I’ll send these to Raj, too. He’ll rendezvous with you en route.”

  “Roger,” I comm. “Out.” I switch the jammer back on. Then I untie Winter from the chair, leaving his hands bound and his ankles tied to the ends of a twenty-inch-long piece of wire. He can walk but not run. I lead him down the stairs and into the garage.

  I shove him into the dune buggy’s passenger seat. Through the garage door, I hear the sound of a car approaching with its engine revving wildly. I turn up my modified hearing. Make that several cars approaching.

  There’s no way they triangulated Winter’s No-Jack signal in the few seconds I had the jammer turned off. The only way they’d find us so fast is if Winter gave them directions to this exact house. But that’s impossible. He was out cold until we were inside the house.

  “Who’s that outside?” I yell at him, and grab his shirtfront. The bastard smirks at me like he’s pulled a fast one. Suddenly I know what happened. He wasn’t out cold. Winter woke up in the buggy and played possum. He watched where I took him and commed the address to his cronies the moment my jammer was off.

  I holler, “You fucker!”

  I should have guessed how sneaky this douche bag can be. Now I’m about to be ass deep in bad guys. Clearly Winter needs a lesson in kidnapping etiquette, so I punch him in the head again. While I buckle his nearly unconscious butt into the seat, the cars roar up the street and stop right outside.

  I switch off the jammer. “Darwin, I’ve got a situation.”

  “Roger that, Scarlet. Multiple hostiles are outside your current position. Raj is thirty seconds away. Stay on comm and get out of there!”

  “Roger, Darwin. Exiting stage left.”

  Time for some serious driving. I jump in the driver’s seat and fire up the ignition. The engine is deafeningly loud inside the garage. I set Li’l Bertha on my lap and shift into reverse. I do a brake stand to build up the revs as high as I can, then release the brakes. The buggy fires backward right through the wooden garage door and into the street. I slam the shifter into first gear and leave five thousand miles’ worth of rubber howling on the white-flake-covered cobblestones. There are hostiles out here, all right, but they’re all still in their cars. I take off down the street. Four big sedans full of Winter’s guys take off after me.

  “Darwin, get me some cover and find me an exit!” My feet do the Detroit polka across the pedals while my left hand steers and my right hand chucks a grenade behind us. My Madrenaline is flowing freely, so time slows down. Crap, I threw my grenade too soon. Three badguy cars drive over it before it explodes under the last vehicle and detonates the gas tank. The disintegrating automobile flies up in the air and crashes through the front wall of a house, which bursts into flames.

  Wow, that was one hell of a grenade.

  “Scarlet, take your next left. Air cover inbound.” Darwin leads me through the twisty little streets. I sling the buggy into the next left. “Okay, straight through this big plaza.”

  He can’t see that the plaza is crammed with big, heavy carts and wagons selling produce and shit. It must be market day. I slam on the brakes and slide between two screaming women. The lead chase car crashes into my rear bumper, jolting me and Winter in our seats. I race around the cobblestone square. It’s big but almost completely hemmed in by houses and stores. One of Winter’s drivers has blocked the way I got in. I’m trapped, but since all the shoppers have simultaneously decided to take their business elsewhere, I’ve got some room to maneuver.

  A dark shadow passes across the plaza, accompanied by a roaring clatter. “Scarlet, this is Lovebird. How can I provide excellent service for you today?”

  “Lovebird! Take these fuckers out!” His helicopter has black smoke coming out of the engine. He must have taken a hit after dropping off my buggy.

  “Roger that, Scarlet. You’ll need to create some separation first. The targets are too close to you.”

  You want separation? Fine, I’ll give you separation. There’s one other exit from the plaza, but it’s jammed with crates, barrels, and escaping pedestrians. I see room for motorbikes and people on foot to pass through but not enough for a four-wheeled vehicle. At least
not for a four-wheeled vehicle that’s actually on all four of its wheels. I execute a screeching e-brake turn to get us lined up with this little exit, floor it, and head for the crowded passage, honking my horn as fast as I can.

  I glance over at Winter. He’s awake. His eyes are wide open, and his mouth is stuck in an O shape. I run the driver-side tires up a small staircase and crank the steering wheel so the buggy tilts up onto the two passenger-side wheels. Winter looks down at the ground whipping past his seat, then up at me. He’s so petrified with fear that he can’t even speak.

  I laugh down at him and, over the roar of the buggy’s engine, holler my best Deep South war cry. “Whooohoooo!” He takes his eyes off mine as we bounce between the two rows of containers. People scatter wildly. Many leap on top of the crates, their eyes as bright as little moons in the shade of the arched passageway. My buggy knocks over the last wagon on the right, and veggies fly everywhere. A big tomato bounces off Winter’s nose. I cackle at how his expression shifts from terror, to indignation at being hit by a tomato, and then back to terror again. The buggy drops down onto all four tires after we soar out of the plaza.

  Lovebird uncorks a sparkling bottle of ass blaster on all the penned-in pursuit vehicles. His 20-mm cannon fire hoses down the bad guys and makes a loud ripping-fabric sound that harmonizes wonderfully with the screaming victims, crunching metal, and shattering glass.

  “Yeah, Lovebird! Smoke those jackasses!” Trick would have loved this.

  Speaking of Trick, Darwin is just as fast as he was. “Scarlet, right 90!”

  Ninety feet later we careen onto another single-lane road on the right. It’s a slightly wider street, meaning the houses don’t scrape my buggy as I roar by them. We’re really cookin’ now. I haven’t felt this good on a job since I chased Pavel Tarasov up the Eiffel Tower. Three more dark sedans slide around a corner and take position behind us.

  “C’mon, Darwin, what’s next? There’s more of these fuckin’ assholes behind me!”

  “Scarlet, straight 2,000. Let ’er rip!” Darwin is in the groove, too. I crush the gas pedal, the buggy accelerates to eightysomething miles per hour, and we flash down the one-lane road. Some of the bumps launch us a few inches off the ground. When we’re in the air, the engine snorts to its redline and the unencumbered wheels spin even faster. Then we land, and our seats kick us in the ass. You must be this tall to ride the Jolt-a-Butt.

  The pursuit cars are still right on my tail. Their engines wail, and their tires thunder across the ancient pavement. I grab my pistol and blindly lay down some suppression fire behind me. The chase cars don’t back off. Winter’s people aren’t wimps; they won’t discourage that easily.

  I put Li’l Bertha back in her holster and grab another grenade. This time I’ll cook it for a couple of seconds so any close pursuit will be caught in the blast. I pull the pin with my teeth and hold the grenade under Winter’s nose so he can see me pop off the safety handle.

  He yells, “Throw it! Crazy demon bitch! Throw the grenade!”

  I toss it behind us as Lovebird comms in, “Scarlet, be advised that three—”

  The grenade explodes under the first car, kills the driver, and slams the blazing mess into a wall.

  “—make that two—”

  The second car plows into the now-exploding lead vehicle.

  “—okay, one! One vehicle in pursuit.” The third sedan swerves around the two wrecks and barrels after me.

  I begin to comm, “Lovebird, can you take care of—”

  The chopper pilot answers my unfinished question by nearly sawing the third vehicle in half with his automatic cannons. The car catches fire and crashes into the back of someone’s house.

  Darwin comms in again. “Scarlet, left 150.” I face front, put both hands back on the wheel, and slow down a little. This job has gone well so far, no need to fuck it up. I take the left after 150 feet and keep an eye out for more bad guys. A cloud of black smoke billows from the street I just exited.

  “Darwin, can you advise regarding pursuit?”

  “Negative, Scarlet. There’s too much smoke. Lovebird, do you have eyes on any competition?”

  “Negative, Darwin. We’re lookin’ good.”

  I keep driving. Still there’s nobody back there. I think we got ’em all. I’m about to appoint myself mayor of Smugville when a huge truck pulls across the intersection up ahead and stops, blocking the street. Guys pile out of the back of the truck. Lots of guys, with lots of guns.

  “Fuckin’ A, Imad. How many floyds do you have?” I shout at Winter while I comm, “Lovebird, smoke that truck! Darwin, roadblock 200, get me an exit.”

  A heartbeat later, Darwin comms, “Turn right!” I turn right, and the buggy bounces over the curb. Straight at a house. It’s got a first-floor garage like the safe house had. I hit the brakes, but since the buggy isn’t on the ground, we don’t slow down at all. Winter and I both duck our heads as we crash through the garage door. There’s nothing parked inside, so we fly completely through what turns out to be more of a carport than a garage. We blast into someone’s backyard and get stuck in their garden, which backs on to an alley. Goddamn gardens! I slam the buggy back and forth from reverse to first as I try to rock us out of the soft dark brown dirt.

  A loud screech on the street behind us makes me look in the rearview mirror. Another dark sedan stops in the street, and the door pops open. I’m reaching for Li’l Bertha when I see Raj’s giant head emerge from the car, followed by his giant body. While he opens the back door of his car, he looks at me with a grin and comms, “Darwin, please tell Scarlet that her team driving skills need some more work.”

  Meanwhile, Lovebird hammers the guys near the truck. They shoot back at him and make a terrific racket of it. Lovebird’s helicopter flies over the alley, followed by a storm of tracer fire. The black cloud coming out of his engine is much heavier than before. Lovebird comms, “Darwin, my engine just took a critical hit. I’ve got to get on the ground ASAP.”

  I look away from the helicopter to glance back at Raj. He hauls his Bitchgun out of his car’s backseat and props it against his side-of-beef-size shoulder. The Bitchgun belches flame and drowns out the world. The weapon’s concussion shakes the dust on the road into a round, flat cloud floating away from Raj’s feet. I hear a huge explosion, and the ground trembles. Raj must have hit the truck’s gas tank.

  He looks at me and comms, “Scarlet, this is Raj. Consider this area secure.”

  “Thanks, Raj. Thanks, Lovebird. I’ll get you guys each a case of beer for that one.” I finally break the buggy loose from the garden. “Darwin, which way?”

  “Take a left, Scarlet,” Darwin comms. “Raj, continue down the street to cover Scarlet’s flank.”

  I gun the engine and swerve left into the incredibly small alley. The buggy barely fits. A donkey would barely fit. Sparks fly as we scrape and bounce off the walls. I try to make sure Winter’s side hits more often than mine. I take a second to glance at him. His eyes are shut tight, and his mouth moves rapidly. I think he’s praying.

  “Pray all you want, fucko. Nothing can save you now!”

  He looks over at me. His face is slick with sweat and covered in bits of paper, little chunks of tomato, streaks of dirt, and other debris. He breathes in ragged, wheezing gulps, almost audible over the roar of the buggy’s engine. Now that I take a good look at him, I notice he looks terrible, like he’s about to die from fright. I think I’ve discovered a new interrogation technique.

  “Had enough?” I yell over the cacophony as we smash our way down the alley.

  “Yes! Please. Please stop. I will call off my people, only please stop!”

  “Darwin, please advise on directions and pursuit.”

  “Scarlet, right 180. Hostiles are still closing on your location.”

  I count to 180 feet and bang a beautiful power-drifting right into a fairly large street. It’s got space for two vehicles to pass each other safely and even has room on the sides for pedestrians.
It feels like the autobahn after that alley. The buggy has overheated, and all the indicator lights are on. I can’t tell if they’re real problems or if I’ve simply driven the poor thing insane. Behind me, Raj roars around the corner and follows me for a block before skidding to a halt and getting out of his car, his Bitchgun at the ready.

  “Scarlet, straight 3,000. Hostiles seem to be breaking off pursuit.”

  “Roger that, Darwin. Lovebird, what do you see?”

  Lovebird comms, “Negative, Scarlet. I’m already on the ground.”

  Darwin comms in. “Roger that, Lovebird, we’ll get you a ride. Raj, do you have a visual on pursuit?”

  Raj comms, “Three vehicles full of competition just stopped in the middle of the street and reversed direction. I think we’re good, Shortcake. Keep going. I’ll cover your exit.”

  I slow down and glance over at Winter. He’s white as a sheet and drenched in sweat. “Darwin, be advised the target may be having a heart attack.”

  Darwin laughs. “Scarlet, be advised he’s not the only one.”

  CHAPTER 39

  SAME DAY, 3:00 P.M. ST OUTSIDE RIYADH, PROVINCE OF ARABIA, GG

  “Still with me?” I sneer at Winter.

  He takes a few moments answering. “Yes, I suppose so,” he finally replies.

  Winter and I are in an abandoned bunker outside of Riyadh. Back in town, Raj is patrolling the road that leads here to make sure Winter’s dogs don’t come sniffing around. Lovebird has found a quiet place to repair his wounded helicopter. He commed a few minutes ago, saying he should be in the air pretty soon. So far, the DTET is still drawing attention away from the Slaytona 500 we just smeared across the city. Sooner or later, though, the local authorities will know us by the trail of dead.

  I try to mentally compel Lovebird to work faster so I can escape this country-size furnace. Poor Raj has to stay here for a few more days. He’s going to lurk around Riyadh to confirm that White Stone Research and the Darius Covenant were completely destroyed.

  After Winter called off his people, I followed Darwin’s directions out of the city and parked my dune buggy behind a smashed-in corner of this blazingly hot bunker. It must be 130 degrees in here. My face is streaked with sweat, my throat is as dry as the Bible, and my legs are wobbling from all the Madrenaline I did today. Every few minutes my hands start to vibrate, and I have to drizzle some Kalmers to make them stop.