by G T Almasi
Don’t tell me I’m having a spell, not in front of Raj.
I say, “Raj, do you see this?”
“Affirmative.” Raj draws his sidearm, an LB-503, and swivels his head all over the room.
“Darwin, what the hell is happening?” My partner doesn’t answer me. He’s still sitting on the couch. Actually it’s more like he’s rolling on the couch, laughing his ass off. “Relax, guys, it’s okay,” he comms.
At this point both Raj and I have full doses of Madrenaline pumping though us, so relaxation is out of the question. The gray-haired man appears on the couch right next to Brando. The man grabs my sandwich, takes a bite, puts it back, and disappears again.
That pisses me off. Nobody fucks with me when I’m eating. I override my neuroinjector’s normal doses and flood my bloodstream with Madrenaline. All of my hair stands up and my skin feels like it wants to crawl right off my body, but now I’m as fast as I can be. Time slows down so much it might as well be standing still. Brando is frozen in the middle of wiping a tear from his eye while he exhales a laugh. Raj isn’t completely motionless. He’s on Madrenaline too, so his big head gently turns from side to side as he searches for the intruder.
A shadow moves in front of the windows. I spin around and glimpse—barely—the gray-haired man running on the walls with a shit-eating grin on his face. Jesus, this son of a bitch is so fast, he practically defies gravity! He “disappears” by moving so fast that you can’t track him. I anticipate where I think he’ll be in a few microseconds and throw myself into Mr. Invisible’s path. He bashes into me and wipes us both out. We roll across the floor and knock over a side table. A heavy lamp and a heap of empty beer bottles crash all over us. My G.I. Joe kung-fu grip grabs Mr. Invisible’s ankle so hard I almost rip his foot off. I climb up his body until I’ve got him pinned to the floor.
“Got … you … FUCKER!” I bark in his face. My captive doesn’t respond because now he’s laughing too. I dose some Kalmers into my bloodstream to bring time back to normal speed.
Brando stops cackling long enough to say out loud, “Good to see you again, sir. That’s Scarlet top of you, and the big fella over there is Raj.” My partner pauses, then says, “Guys, meet Grey.”
CORE PER-S33–034
Grey
Position: Level 13 Infiltrator
Full Name: Terrence H. Steadman III
Summary: Grey’s family has been part of America’s clandestine community for three generations. His father and grandfather both graduated from Yale University and worked at the CIA as strategic analysts. Grey followed his seniors to Yale but decided to pursue a more physically active role in America’s intelligence apparatus. Rather than apply for a desk job at Central Intelligence, he joined the upstart Extreme Operations Division as a field operative.
Grey’s small stature, high agility, and superior people skills make him a perfect Infiltrator. Grey has achieved a Level promotion for every year he has worked at ExOps, a rare feat. Many Levels consider themselves to be doing well if they get promoted once every twenty to thirty months.
Most of Grey’s missions are carried off with little to no violence at all. The quieter his Job Number goes, the more successful he considers himself. He is, of course, still a Level and is entirely capable of executing rapid and lethal attacks as needed.
18
Same afternoon, Saturday, February 14, 1981, 1:30 P.M. GMT
245 Westbourne Grove, Notting Hill, London, Province of Great Britain, GG
Raj and I stand on the little porch outside our room and wait for our doses of Madrenaline to filter out of our bloodstreams. Brando kicked us out here when he heard all the colorfully gory threats we blustered at Grey.
I take in a lungful of keen English air. As I exhale, I mutter, “Fucking douche bag.”
Raj grunts, “Yeah. That was a stupid stunt. I’m tempted to report him.”
For once I’m glad the big man is such a stickler for process and procedure. “Why wouldn’t you?”
“He outranks me,” Raj says.
“So what?”
“So we’re not allowed to file disciplinary reports on our superiors.”
“What?” My voice rises. “Why not?”
“Think about it, Scarlet. ExOps can’t have all of us younger agents trying to get the older agents fired. It could become a way for us to get promoted faster. Plus, Grey is one of the best Infiltrators we’ve got.” Raj takes in the compact streets and leafless trees of Powis Square. “Maybe I’ll informally mention it to the Front Desk.”
My partner comms to both of us, “Scarlet, Raj, if your systems have recovered, why don’t you come in and we’ll review what Grey has for us.”
We walk back into the room. Brando and Grey sit next to each other on the couch. I get a better look at Grey now that he isn’t moving so fast. He’s older than the three of us, mid-thirties or so. Part of his speed is an illusion created by the active camouflage system all Infiltrators have woven into their musculature. It reflects what’s around them and makes them nearly invisible. Grey is also exceptionally lightweight and acrobatic, so his running-on-the-walls trick was real. It just wasn’t actually as fast as it appeared.
Grey says, “Hey, you two, I apologize. I thought you would realize I was only spoofing you.” He speaks with a fancy-sounding accent, like a combination of Cary Grant and Bobby Kennedy.
“Sir.” Raj’s tone is tightly clipped. “With all due respect, that stunt didn’t reflect well on your rank or your reputation.”
I jab my thumb toward Raj. “Yeah, what he said. Plus, where do you get off playing slap and tickle with Interceptors and Vindicators? You’re lucky we didn’t tear the entire fucking house apart to nail you.”
Brando holds his hands up. “Okay, okay, enough! This is my fault. Grey commed me to say he wanted to make a memorable entrance. We’ve been under a lot of strain, and I thought it would be funny for him to ride in on the room service cart and try to hide in the bathroom. Next time, I’ll remember how focused you guys are on food.” This is a dig that two Levels like Raj and me got surprised this way. Maybe it’s a good idea Raj isn’t filing a report about this. None of us seem very smart right now.
Raj sits in a chair. “Fine. Point taken.”
We dig into our lunch again. I make Grey take the rest of the sandwich he took a bite out of while I pick up another one. Once Grey starts talking about what’s he’s seen around England, we forget about his stupid entrance. He really is good.
“The Krauts have been taken entirely by surprise up north. The smoking crater you left in their intelligence apparatus will take months to fill in with new assets and case officers.” He takes a bite of sandwich and talks with his mouth full. “That’sh if they can even get new people to work up there. I’ve heard normally rational men spreading rumors of a Jewish ghost returned from the dead to slake its thirst for German blood. I think that’s a result of your knife work, Scarlet. Carving Stars of David into those imbeciles was a nice touch.”
Raj raises his brows. He never entered the Gestapo HQ, so he didn’t know about that part.
Grey continues: “The disruption in Yorkshire has absorbed a massive number of German troops and police, most of them from London. This has created an interesting opportunity for us.” Grey comms us a set of files. I open mine in my Eyes-Up display. A map of London superimposes itself over my view of the room. The map has three glowing markers in it. “The blue mark is where we are now. The green mark will be your drop-off and pickup point under Tower Bridge in the Thames River. The red mark is where Victor Eisenberg is being held, in the Tower of London. I’ve been in touch with the Tower’s Ravenmaster, and he’s given us a plan.”
I say, “Ravenmaster. Cool handle.”
Brando smiles, “It’s a real job. There’s a legend about the ravens that live in the Tower. When the Germans took over, they let the birds stay as part of their attempt to win over their new British subjects.”
Grey says, “The Ravenmaster is a
n English historian and ardent bird enthusiast. Not exactly covert field material, but his knowledge of the Tower guard is invaluable.”
I ask, “Do we have a way inside?”
“We’ve got a great way inside.” Our new Infiltrator friend sits back from his empty sandwich wrapper and flashes a flat metal case from his shirt pocket. As if by magic, a cigarette appears in his mouth. He flicks a Zippo in and out of his pocket, which somehow lights his cigarette without seeming to come anywhere near it. Grey inhales and then releases a mouthful of smoke toward the ceiling. He grins and says to Brando and me, “When was the last time you two went scuba diving?”
19
Next morning, Sunday, February 15, 1981, 1:14 A.M. GMT
Thames River, London, Province of Great Britain, GG
On the surface, the Thames is a charming ribbon of liquid commerce, wending its way through Olde London Towne. Beneath that watery veneer, however, are two thousand years of human waste and industrial slag. It’s not even a sewer, because sewers typically aren’t clogged with car tires, wrecked boat hulls, unexploded bombs, human body parts, and cattle skeletons.
“This must be the most disgusting place in the world,” I comm to my partner as we swim downriver toward our entrance, Traitors’ Gate.
“I’ve heard the Ganges River in India is pretty bad,” he comms back. “But yeah, this is fucking gross.” He pulls along a waterproof dive bag stuffed with our bare tactical necessities. The thing seems to be a magnet for clingy blobs of yuck, and Brando has to keep brushing them off.
We began this aquatic excursion by jumping off a fishing boat. The boat’s captain, a fellow abolitionist, will pretend he’s having mechanical problems and wait for us under Tower Bridge. It’s a short swim to the gate, but we need to be submerged the whole way to avoid searchlights. The gate itself isn’t much of an obstacle, but the guards inside Ye Olde Fortress may be. This is why we have Raj and Grey positioned on the far side of Tower Hill, ready to provide a patented ExOps-style diversion.
We swim under the stone arch that acts as the tower’s entry for boats and gently float toward Traitors’ Gate. Brando told me it’s called that for all the people accused of treason who were transported into the Tower through this entrance. The gate is made of heavy timber painted black and at the moment is mostly submerged beneath the high tide. This entrance has an array of electronic sensors to prevent exactly this sort of sneaky ingress, but tonight they’re out of order thanks to our friend the Ravenmaster.
I swim ahead and start digging a big hole that will allow us to pass under the gate without disturbing it. My excavation fills the water with even more crap than before, and our visibility drops to zero. We didn’t anticipate this. I dig faster, and as soon as the hole is big enough, I pull myself in, kick my legs, and zip under the gate. Brando swims right behind me, following by touch.
We gently break the water’s surface and gawk around like a pair of alligators, with only our eyes and the tops of our heads showing. We tread water in front of a steep flight of steps that lead up into the tower grounds. I turn on my infrared vision and amplify my hearing.
There’s nobody in the immediate area. Almost all the structures in the Tower are made of stone, which effectively blocks heat signatures, so I switch to starlight vision to make sure. Still clear. According to the Ravenmaster, most of the London garrison was sent to Yorkshire, Scotland, Wales, and even Ireland to contain the massive shitstorm us ExOps Levels are generating.
We shrug ourselves out of our scuba tanks, fins, and masks. I stash the gear on the steps, below water level, while Brando unpacks the dive bag. He hands me my F-S fighting knife, Li’l Bertha, her holster, and a few MultiCaliber ammo packs. Then he extracts his X-bag and stuffs the empty dive bag under the scuba tanks.
He hoists his spy-stuff depot. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
We trail a stream of brown sludge up the steps to what my Eyes-Up display informs me is Water Lane. In front of us is the thirty-foot-tall inner wall, topped with square crenellations like castles in fairy tales.
Now we get to some old school cloak-and-dagger stuff. The Ravenmaster has marked a secret trapdoor in Water Lane that will get us past the inner wall and into the main courtyard. He said it was built ages ago as a secret emergency exit for some royal somebody-or-other. It sounds like the Tower is riddled with these sort of things. Our man wasn’t sure what he’d be able to use as a marker, so we’ll have to search carefully. He won’t have used a piece of white chalk to draw a big arrow or anything. It’ll be something that won’t seem out of place.
We know it’s right near Traitors’ Gate, so we scout around near the wall. I extend my search left while my partner moves right. Our head-to-toe black scuba outfits turn us into a pair of shadows. After a minute Brando curses under his breath.
“What’s the matter?” I comm.
“I just stepped in a huge wad of bubble gum!” he gripes.
“Could it be our marker?”
He scrapes his foot on the pavement. “I’m sure it is, but now my damn boot sticks to everything.” Brando is a fastidiously neat person, like Trick was. A blob of goo stuck to one of his extremities is definitely not his idea of a good time. I try keep a straight face as I walk over and examine the ground near what’s left of the marker.
The ground is paved with cobblestones, but tucked between two of the stones is a small, smooth gray disk. I press it with my finger. Nothing happens. I bunch my fingers together and press hard on the disk. The round button clicks down, and a manhole-size slab of cobblestones pops up an inch.
“Hey-y, not bad,” Brando comms. We lift the secret hatch out of its mount and look inside. “I’d better go first, so you can put the cover back.” He swings his legs into the hole, hops in, and lands with a gentle thud. “All clear,” he comms up. “It’s even dry.” I swing my feet in, grab the lid, and shimmy my way into the hole. My partner holds my legs as I descend so I have time to reseat the cover, which clicks into place. Inside the tunnel it’s jet black.
Even my night vision can’t see anything. Starlight technology works by enhancing available low light, but in here there’s not enough to amplify. I click on my watch’s light, and Brando takes a small flashlight from his X-bag. He leads us through the tunnel and, presumably, under the inner wall. After only fifty feet the tunnel ends. We both shine our lights up at the ceiling, revealing another trapdoor.
I boost Brando onto my shoulders. He waves his flashlight around until he finds another small gray button. This one presses in easily since it hasn’t been exposed to God knows how many years of weather and bubble gum.
The lid clicks up an inch. Brando slowly slides it off to the side. I bend my knees, then spring up and launch my partner into the room above like a Brando-in-a-box. Then I bend down again and boing myself out of the tunnel. I land with my feet on either side of the hatchway, which is squirreled away in a little pantry off the kitchen. I reseat the lid, then walk through the kitchen into the living room.
We’re in a little house. It’s a typical-looking English living room complete with overstuffed furniture, patterned drapes, and a rocking chair set in front of a small fireplace. On the mantelpiece are some big antique keys and a shiny brass lamp. While I replace the tunnel cover, Brando goes to a window and peeks past a lacy curtain into the main courtyard. I expect a hobbit to walk in and offer us tea and crumpets. What I don’t expect is …
Alix!
I freeze. Was that Brando? No, he’d say “Scarlet.”
Alix, sweetheart, is it really you?
Spiders of ice burrow out of my scalp and skitter down the back of my neck. This cannot happen. Not in the middle of a mission! Of all the times I could pick to lose my mind, it can’t be now.
Please, Hot-Shot. I need your help.
Brando walks to the door and puts his hand on the knob. When he turns to make sure I’m ready, his eyes open wide, “Scarlet, what’s wrong? You’re as white as a sheet.”
There�
�s no time for beating around the bush. “Darwin, you know my father was kidnapped by the Germans and turned up in their Carbon Program, right?”
My partner squints and slowly says, “Yeah, I know about that.”
“When we—I mean, when Solomon and I—were in Zurich last year to investigate Carbon, I heard my father’s voice speak to me.”
To his credit, Brando absorbs this crazy-ass shit very quickly. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“I just heard it again.”
He take off his glasses and gives me a look.
I hold my palms out to him. “I know, I know. It sounds like one of my spells, but I swear I heard it come through my commphone.”
He polishes his lenses on his shirt and sighs, “Scarlet … “
I stamp my foot. “No, Darwin! I heard it!”
He jams his glasses back on and scowls at me. But he says, “All right. Comm me into your Day Loop.”
I grant his commphone access to my twenty-four-hour audio-video log and rewind it a couple of minutes. We listen to our footsteps in the tunnel, the quiet rumpus of me boosting him up into the room, and the thump of my feet after I leapt up here myself. Then,
Alix!
Brando twitches in surprise at the unexpected voice. A sheen of perspiration forms on his brow as he listens to the rest of the transmission. He whispers, “Ho-o-oly crap.”
We both check the comm’s metadata, but it’s garbled. I say, “The only time I heard it like this was in Zurich, at the Carbon lab. Maybe there’s a Carbon facility near here. We have to check it out.”
Brando disconnects from my Day Loop and indicates our surroundings, “Scarlet, we’re in the middle of an assignment. Whatever that comm is about has got to wait until—”
“It can’t fuckin’ wait! If my dad can comm to me, it might mean he’s nearby. Call your boss and find out if the Krauts have a piece of Carbon in the area.”
