by G T Almasi
“Scarlet, that comm could have been from anyone!”
I cross my arms and lean against a side table covered with porcelain figurines from the Bible. My partner sees my utterly implacable expression and clenches his teeth. “Okay, fine.” Brando comms his Info Coordinator and rams the request through. He grumpily waits for an answer. Then his face drops.
“Jesus,” he says. “Carbon does have a facility in London. It’s right here, up in the White Tower.”
I haul Li’l Bertha out of her holster. She’s already switched herself on. I focus on her little targeting screen, which is mounted where the rear sight would go on a normal pistol. Her target indicator is blank. Dammit! Where is he?
I place my pistol—my father’s pistol—next to my head and comm, “Daddy? Can you hear me?”
My partner and I stand as still as blocks of granite.
Yes.
It works! My eyes brim with tears, and my breath catches in my throat.
Brando’s mouth hangs open. “He can hear you?”
“Yes!”
My partner gapes at my sidearm and whispers, “How the fuck is he doing that?”
“He must be here in London.”
No.
“No? Where? Dad, where are you?”
It’s … not a … big city.
“Daddy, how are you doing this?”
Carbon has its own comm net. I … oh, honey, I have to stop. This takes … Keep searching, baby.
He stops.
“Dad! DADDY? Uh, Philip? Hello? Big Bertha?”
Nothing.
I pull my hair and shriek, “FUCK!”
Brando holds my arms. “Alix, what’d he say?”
I wheeze around my hysterical breathing. “He said Carbon has its own communication network. He must have hacked in through his commphone somehow.”
“But how did your father know you were … that you’d be able to … ”
“Maybe it’s something he did to my pistol.” I hold Li’l Bertha up.
The only explanation I can come up with is that my father gave Li’l Bertha the ability to act as a comm-relay when he reprogrammed her artificial intelligence. I have no idea how. Something I do know is when a weapon is issued to an ExOps agent, the agent’s comm profile is blown into the gun’s programmable ROM and becomes a permanent part of the hardware. Dad either programmed a back door for me on purpose, or maybe it’s happening because he and I are so closely related.
Brando looks utterly bewildered. I think he wonders if I’ve gone nuts so convincingly that he’s been dragged along for the ride. Talking to my pistol wouldn’t be the craziest thing he’s ever seen me do. Levels aren’t always the most stable people, and some Levels have cracked during missions. “Scarlet,” he says gently, “ how about we ask Cyrus to send us back after we finish this assignment?”
I smack his arm with my heavy watch. “Fuck that, Darwin! After this snatch job we’ll never be able to get back in here. It’s now or never, and you know it.”
My partner glares at me and rubs his arm. Then his hand stops moving and his gaze moves to some indeterminate point on the ceiling. I can tell he’s getting an idea, so I refrain from whacking him again. Instead I go to the window and examine the White Tower. It’s not exactly white, but it’s certainly a lighter color than the rest of the architectural heap constituting the Tower of London.
There aren’t any windows or doors near the ground. The heavy stonework has long vertical ribs accenting its height and small windows emphasizing its weight. It’s like it was carved into a living slab of protruding bedrock.
“Scarlet, c’mon,” Brando comms. “Let’s go snatch Victor Eisenberg.”
I spin around. “What about my father?”
“Eisenberg can help us find your dad.”
I unclench my fists and throw my arms around his neck. Then I lean my pistol against my head and comm, “Dad? We’re going to find out where you are.”
There’s no answer, but if it’s possible to comm a nod and a smile …
Brando slowly opens the house’s front door and walks out into the main courtyard. I’m still trembling as I follow and close the door behind me. The courtyard is even gloomier than it was outside the main walls. We dart across a lawn and past a stone path. We’re halfway across another small lawn when my partner signals me to stop. We crouch down and scan the area. I crank up my hearing, turn my infrared vision back on, and force myself to focus on the moment.
All the cold stone walls show up as a black backdrop to the little row of houses that give off enough heat to gently glow orange. Six bright red man blobs are spread around the tops of the walls and towers.
I comm, “Not too many guards.”
“Yeah. The Ravenmaster was right about them stripping the garrison to provide extra manpower up north.”
“Which building are we headed for?”
He holds up his index finger. “Hang on. I’m asking Grey and Raj to begin their diversion.”
Raj must have been champing at the bit for this request. Brando has barely finished comming to me when a bright flash illuminates the sky at the Tower’s north side. A loud boom and rumble indicates Raj has opened fire on one of the outer guard posts, as far away from our path as possible.
My partner remains crouched. “We’re headed for the Waterloo Block, that big building against the west wall. We need to wait until the guards in front are drawn away.”
Raj and Grey have sucked the wall guards into a noisy exchange of small-arms fire that parrots off the walls and buildings. I scope out the front entrance to our target building. Two troopers posted there have unslung their rifles and alternate between looking at each other and looking toward the firefight.
Meanwhile, it’s gotten even chillier. “I’m freezing! Did it get extra icy all of a sudden, or is it just me?”
“It might be the ghosts,” Brando comms back. “We’re on top of the old scaffold site.”
“I didn’t think many people got executed in here.”
“Not many famous people, but lots of regular people died right where we’re crouching.”
I shiver and try to use mental telepathy to get the two guards to leave their post. An explosion outside belches a fireball into the sky. The two bozos bolt up to the walls. Finally!
Grey and Raj can’t keep this up forever. Their ungodly racket will lure cops like a thirty-story neon doughnut, so we quickly scramble across the courtyard. Brando pulls one of the Waterloo’s front doors open. I brace Li’l Bertha in front of me and burst through the entrance. My partner waits a few seconds, then pops in behind me.
We’re in a large, unoccupied, dimly lit hall. The floor, walls, and twelve-foot ceiling are all made of wide oak planks. The furniture here consists of a few card tables with metal folding chairs around them. A large and incongruously colorful jukebox stands in the corner.
“Where are we going?” I say over my shoulder.
“Eisenberg is up on the third floor with the other politicals.”
“How many guards are left in here?”
Brando pauses. He must be comming with Grey or Raj while he’s talking to me. Then he says, “The Ravenmaster wasn’t sure, so we need to watch out.”
The rules of engagement for this Job Number include lethal force, but only for SZ troops or if we’re under extreme duress. Otherwise I need to attempt nonlethal takedowns. That’s why we’ve been a pair of Sneaky McSneakersons and why we have the boys doing all this diversionary nonsense instead of simply killing our way in here like we normally would.
We find an ancient stairway to the right of the main hall. Heavy stone blocks rise from the treads and form a shallow arch over our heads as we trot up the bleak spiral. A radio broadcast echoes from upstairs. We pass the shadowed second story and ascend into the lights of the third. We emerge into a large open area.
This chamber may have once been part of the king’s quarters, but now it’s a hodgepodge of cages bolted to the floor. Two uniformed palookas sit at
a table. One thug reads a newspaper while the other jamoke leans toward a small radio and listens to a very loud German news broadcast. Radio Guy slowly turns his head as we come out of the stairway. Whatever he was expecting, it obviously wasn’t a pair of scuba divers. He blinks hard, confirms that yes, it is two scuba kids, and draws in breath to call a warning to Newspaper Guy. That’s as far as he gets because I’ve already covered most of the distance to him before he can form any words. He’s so shocked by how fast I move that he tips over backward in his chair to get away from me.
Since Radio Guy is already on the floor, I shift my trajectory and lance myself feet first into Newspaper Guy’s chest. He exhales a loud whoosh as a cubic meter of beer breath gusts out of his lungs. I hop up and turn to deal with Radio Guy, who’s regained his feet and drawn his sidearm. I lunge forward and swipe his pistol right out of his hand. Then I punch him so hard he flips over and lands on his head before sploogling onto his back.
I lean over Radio Guy and stick my index finger in his face. “Stay!”
He goes cross-eyed tracking my finger. His flabby chin waggles up and down. He says, “Jah! Okay! Jah!” and sticks his hands up. I take a pair of handcuffs from his belt and slap them on his wrists.
Meanwhile Newspaper Guy is crawling around on all fours. There’s a puddle of puke under his wheezing mouth. Blood drips out of his nose into the vomit. That may have been my best flying kick ever! I’ll have to tell Raj about it. Of course, if Raj had done it, this goombah’s bones would have exploded out of his skin like calcium rats leaving a sinking meat ship.
Our spectacular entrance has all the prisoners on their feet. This makes it easy to find our man. I load Grey’s image of Eisenberg onto my Eyes-Up display and jog up and down the rows of cages until I find a matching face.
“Victor?” I say to the thin, fierce-looking prisoner behind the bars. One look at him and I can see why he’s called the Hammer. He bears his lean, muscled body like a ramrod, you could chop down trees with his chin, and his burning stare barbecues the inside of my skull.
Victor Eisenberg’s file says he’s in his forties, but in person he looks early fifties. Not regular fifties, mind you. More like that super-rugged, frontiersman fifties where he still drinks the young cowpunks under the table and then chucks their boozed-up asses over a barn.
The man examines me and says, “American.” It’s not a question. His eyes travel down and then back up all five feet four inches of my scuba-clad body. He nods appreciatively and states, “It’s about time.”
I’m not sure if he means it’s about time Americans got involved in the abolitionist movement or if it’s about time an American chick in skintight clothes busted him out of jail. B rando grabs a ring of keys from Radio Guy and opens the door to Eisenberg’s cell. Victor walks out, stretches his arms over his head, then takes Brando’s keys and tosses them to the prisoner in the next cell. The other prisoner opens his own door, then flits around unlocking all the other cells. My partner and I each drag one of the guards into separate cells and lock them in.
The freed prisoners gather in front of Victor.
“Men,” Victor barks, “introductions will have to wait, but I think you all know me. We arrived separately, yet we will escape together. To do so, we will harness our energy as a group to overwhelm our opponents and take back our freedom. Are you ready?”
The man standing closest to Victor says, in German, “Yes, sir!” This is followed by a ragged but lusty chorus of “Yes, sirs.”
Victor turns back to us. “Okay, little Americans, what’s the plan? Victor Eisenberg and these men are at your service.”
Brando comms his boss to report we’ve picked up a squad of pissed-off guerrillas, and would he like us to grab him anything as we torch our way out of here?
CORE PER-BB-342
6/21/1971
To Captain Bourbon,
Hey, Cyrus, I finished the upgrades on your LB-505 and put it back in your locker. You’ll find a new fire mode called “Auto-Pilot.” This enables your pistol to shoot at a locked target with no trigger pull required. As long as your palm is in contact with your weapon’s grip pad, it can fire itself. I also rewired the gyroscopes for extra spin so the targeting system can maintain a target lock even if you fall down a flight of stairs (ha-ha).
I tried to give your weapon a persistent personality like mine has, but I couldn’t get it to work. To be honest, I’m not exactly sure how I did it to mine in the first place. You should let me try again sometime. The way Li’l Bertha anticipates what I need from her is amazing.
Enjoy the upgrades and remember all us little people when you make chief someday. If I ever have to come out of the field, maybe you can give your old buddy a job in the Tech Department.
Sincerely,
—Captain Vodka
PS: Don’t forget, you’re coming over for dinner on Sunday. Cleo will make pork chops and her incredible homemade applesauce. Alix has volunteered to help chop up apples, and she asks about her Uncle Cy all the time.
20
Sunday, February 15, 1:47 A.M. GMT
Tower of London, London, Province of Great Britain, GG
ExOps agents are trained to expect surprises, and surprises are usually bad. But Victor’s instant company of fighting men is a very pleasant exception. A few of these bruisers are even tougher-looking than the Squad troops I work with back home. Their only weakness is their current lack of weaponry, but we’re about to rectify that shortcoming.
I’m up on the outer wall’s parapet. In front of me, twelve regular German Army guards are exchanging small-arms fire with Grey and Raj. The troopers are so focused on the street below they don’t notice my dangerous group sneaking up the stairs. Brando has stayed in the courtyard with Victor and half of his insta-army while I’ve led the rest up here to disarm these guards. Li’l Bertha perches in my left hand like an obedient peregrine, ready to unload an assful of liberty into these pigs.
My nine men wait behind me like a long, silent shadow. I raise my hand to signal them to get ready. Then I have Li’l Bertha lock on to the nearest guard’s backside and load up some maiming-caliber slugs. Her artificial intelligence sets the other eleven butts as targets 2 through 12 and spins her gyroscope once to signal me she’s ready. I mash down on the trigger. My pistol automatically gyros from one Kraut heinie to the next, and before you know it, a soccer team’s worth of Germany’s finest have collapsed to the stone walkway, howling in pain. Victor’s men rush past me like a vengeful wind and stomp the Fritz’s heads. My ex-prisoners load up on German weapons, and we all scurry back down to the main courtyard.
Brando comms, “Grey and Raj, hold your fire. The wall guards have been neutralized.” The sudden silence reveals the men’s excited breathing as they distribute the guards’ rifles to the members with the most military experience. It also lets us hear the approaching police sirens.
Raj comms, “Darwin, I’ve got opposition coming across the Tower Bridge. Grey and I can slow them down, but hurry up in there. We’re behind schedule.”
“Roger that,” Brando comms. “We’re dealing with significant scope creep. Do you need help holding the bridge?”
Raj comms, “Affirmative, if help is available.” He pauses, then shifts to a more conversational tone. “What’d you do, recruit Mary Poppins?”
I comm, “More like Peter Pan.”
Brando confers briefly with Victor, who dispatches ten gun-toting members of his company to fight their way outside and help Raj fend off der Kops. This leaves us with Victor and eight of his men to bust into Carbon.
The outer Tower guards have been disabled with bullet wounds to their asses and blunt-force trauma to their heads, so they’re out of the game. It’s a quick run from the Waterloo Block to the White Tower’s base. Up close, the old keep is as imposing as it must have been the day they built it. I circle the building to find an entrance. The only doorway is twelve feet off the ground. I call my partner over to me. He’s followed by Victor Eisenberg
and his men.
Brando says, “This can’t be how they get in and out of this building every day. There must be another way in.”
“Well,” I say, “I don’t think we have time to search for it. Darwin, get on my shoulders. I’ll bounce you up to that doorway.”
“We’ll need more than two of us. The Krauts may have drained their garrison, but this is still Carbon we’re breaking into.”
I turn to Victor. He’s not too tall, and he’s thin. I think I can get him up there. Victor looks at me quizzically—he’s not sure what we’re talking about. I say to Brando, “Sure, but let’s get you up there first so we don’t have to explain it.”
I stand under the high doorway, face the wall, and take a knee. Brando walks to me. We grasp each other’s hands, and he steps onto my front leg. He presses down on my palms, climbs up onto my shoulders, then turns around so we both face the same direction.
“Ready?” I ask.
He bends his legs into a crouch. “Ready.”
I stand up for a moment and then crouch down too so we’re stacked up like two coiled springs.
I say, “On three. One, two, three!” Brando and I simultaneously flex our legs and launch him up to the small landing in front of the doorway. I hear muffled exclamations from the men. This isn’t how we’ve always done this. I used to just grab my partner and vault the two of us over things together. That turned out to be dreadful for the Mods in my knees, so we came up with this cheerleader routine to reach high places.
I turn and point at Victor Eisenberg. “Your turn.”
Eisenberg quietly gives one of the men directions, indicating with his hands to form a perimeter around the building. Then he walks in front of me and says, “Okay, red hair.”
Victor’s not as graceful as my partner and of course we haven’t practiced this together, but it’s not a bad first-time Scarlet boost. He lands with his arms and midsection on the landing and his legs dangling over the edge. Brando grabs Victor’s arm and helps him up. Once both of them are set, I bend down, take a big breath, and fire myself into the air. Brando and Victor reach out to guide me in. I land on my feet and brace my hands against their arms. Presto! Now for the door.
