by G T Almasi
“Got it.”
I comm, “Hey, Vic, any sign of your old school chum?”
Victor replies, “Negative, Scarlet. I came back as soon as I heard the shooting. Kruppe can wait.”
“All right, whatever you say, Vicberg.” Then, “Falcon, where’d our guy go?”
“He’s across the nave from you, running toward the back of the building.”
I dose a bunch of drugs and scamper down my side of the roof. “Is he ahead of me?”
“Affirmative,” Falcon comms. “He’s already at the far end, climbing out onto one of the flying buttresses.”
“Copy that. I’ll cover him back here. Can you take position out front?”
“On my way.”
I make it to the transept. My feet tap-dance their way around all the corners and get me onto the roof over the Cake’s semicircular rear section. Flying buttresses splay out like a fan.
I hurry across the back roof of the structure. I stop a couple times to lean over the side and search for Geezo.
Victor comms, “Scarlet, I have eyes on the target. He’s halfway down the wall outside the northernmost chapel.”
“Roger that, Vic.” I charge around the back roof of the church until I’m over the last chapel. I lean over the side. There he is! He’s almost on the ground.
I comm, “F-Bird, where are you?”
He answers, “Out front. I heard Victor’s comm. I’ll cover that side.”
Meanwhile I’m stuck up here. I’m about to repeat my falling-leaf routine when I notice the thick black power cable. The heavy wire links the cathedral to a telephone pole down in the street.
My training at Camp A-Go-Go has taught me these lines are only dangerous if the sheathing is frayed and you touch something that grounds you. I run at the cable and jump off the roof. My metal-and-plastic right hand wraps around the wire and I soar down it like a zip line. Before I bash into the telephone pole, I let go, drop to the pavement, bounce across the street, and bonk into a parked car.
Ow! I’m quickly acquiring an overall coating of bumps and bruises, but nothing too bad in any one place. I comm, “Anybody still have eyes on the runner?”
Falcon answers, “Target is on the ground. He’s coming toward me at the front of the church.”
I take off after him. Man, I’ll be pissed if we wind up right back where we started after all this running around. Finally I spot Geezo. He’s halfway to the front, meaning he’s also halfway between me and Falcon.
I swing away from the wall so the two of us don’t accidentally shoot each other. Falcon’s shots ring out first. I add Li’l Bertha’s firepower to the mix. We both aim low. Now that we have this blockhead in a pincer, we’ll try to take him alive. Geezo’s legs collapse under him as our bullets flutter through his shins and ankles. The enemy Level gets to his knees and draws his pistol. Dammit, these people never give up! I take aim for a kill shot, but my target doesn’t point his weapon at Falcon or me. He points it at his own head.
Falcon comms, “He’s gonna off himself!”
A figure flies out from behind a parked car and pounces Geezo. It’s Victor! He grabs Geezo’s gun hand and tries to disarm the suicidal German. Victor may be a great fighter, but he’s no match for Geezo’s Mods and Enhances. The Level grabs Victor by his neck and throws him to the ground like a plush toy. Geezo points his pistol at Victor.
Madrenaline gushes into my bloodstream, and I hurtle up behind the enemy. My body plows into Geezo so hard his gun fumbles out of his hand and both of us sail over Victor and spill onto the sidewalk. Geezo lands facedown and doesn’t budge. A thin trickle of blood leaks out of his ear.
I sprawl helplessly on the sidewalk as my battered body overreacts to all the uppers. My skeleton rattles around inside my skin like a cat in a dishwasher. My extremities tap out a fast dance beat on the brick sidewalk, and my lungs inhale large gulps of air but forget to exhale them out again. One of my eyelids begins to flicker. I hold it still with one hand while I try to use my other hand to push myself off the ground.
Brando screeches the car up next to us and hops out. Falcon helps my partner bind Geezo with a few zip-tie handcuffs, shoot up the exhausted enemy with knockout juice, and dump his limp body into the trunk. I tell my neuroinjector to throw me some Kalmers as Victor helps me struggle to my feet.
Owl-eyed people on the street crouch for cover or stand back from us. The women have their hands over their mouths and their men’s arms around their shoulders. I nod and give them a thumbs-up as Victor drags me to the car. The neighborhood is deathly quiet except for the wail of approaching police sirens.
Brando and Falcon jump into the car’s front seat while Victor and I flop out in back. My partner revs the engine, and we zoom away from the scene of today’s shocking gun battle in broad daylight.
I try to negotiate a truce between my warring chemicals. My breathing is too irregular to talk, so I comm, “You know what? If church were always that exciting, I might go more often.”
CORE MIS-ANGEL-4414
ANGEL SIT-REP: PROVICE OF IRAQ. 3 March 1981
The local German governor declared martial law last night to forestall anticipated unrest today. Regional Circle of Zion leadership ordered central army barracks burned anyway to maximize German retaliation. Massive public outcry predicted. Iraq should be in flames by next week.
—Copernicus, IO / Raven, L7 Interceptor
39
Same day, three hours later, 2:58 P.M. CET
Outside Reims, Province of France, GG
Patrick shuts the trunk. “That should keep him out for a while longer.”
The problem with captured Levels is figuring out what to do with them. Geezo has such powerful Mods and Enhances we don’t dare let him out of the trunk. Hell, we can’t even let him wake up. Patrick has to DOSE him every hour to make sure the fucker stays unconscious.
I pull a pack of stolen Marlboros from my pocket and shake out a coffin nail. It slips through my trembling fingers and spins to the ground. I try again. This time I accidentally crush the cigarette flat.
Deep breath. I slide the next cigarette out of the pack with my lips. My jiggling lighter stands still long enough for me to spark up and take a nice deep drag. My neuroinjector thinks I’m being poisoned and automatically releases more Overkaine. I could shut it off, but fuck it. I hurt all over anyway, and it helps moderate my shaking.
I’m not stupid. I know what’s happening to me and that I’ll have to fess up about it when I get home. It’s bad enough that I’ve been underreporting my hallucinations, but now my after-action emotional recoil is so pronounced I can barely light a cigarette three hours later. If Cyrus saw me like this, he’d bench me for sure. Cleo would bash me with a rolling pin until I agreed to retire.
My partner made me copy my Day Loop over to my Bio-Drive so Dr. Herodotus can review my stress reactions. Patrick promises he’ll do everything he can to convince the good doctor to keep me in the field.
We’re quiet. Patrick dolefully watches me smoke but doesn’t say anything. He sits on the trunk, crosses his arms over his chest, and squints up at the sky.
After a minute he says, “So. Nice day, huh?”
My eyes launch little daggers at him for trying to cheer me up. And yet—despite our chaos casserole in Reims, my imminent demotion to mall cop, and the crazed one-man wrecking crew stuffed in our trunk—I start snickering. The more I think about my partner’s airheaded comment about the weather, the more I laugh.
Nice day, huh?
Even though I know he’s doing this on purpose, it still helps me relax a little. I smile at him and twirl his fingers into mine as we take in our surroundings together.
The severity of the mess we left in Reims made it easy for us to get away scot-free. Patrick drove us out to the farmland surrounding every city and town around here. This is champagne country, so every square inch of soil is meticulously cultivated. We found a relatively remote, tourist-free area in the middle of a endless field of gr
apevines and parked well off the main road on an old cart path. Patrick bandaged the worst of Geezo’s wounds and patched up my dents and dings.
Victor has stretched out across the car’s backseat. Geezo nearly broke his neck outside the Cake. Patrick told Victor he’ll be okay but advised him not to move around too much. Victor didn’t argue.
Falcon is perched on top of the BMW, keeping watch. He slowly pans his gaze across the striped green vineyards and gently hums to himself. F-Bird’s profile is strikingly similar to Dad’s, of course, but his manner is so relaxed and mellow compared to my father’s perpetual intensity that the resemblance is more like some incredible coincidence than the unnatural freak-out it ought to be.
Maybe if Falcon were the same age as my Dad, it would be as weird as it was, well … actually, when I think about it, like it is, with Patrick. It’s amazing how I can turn off parts of my mind to help me deal with things. Trick has been dead for less than six months, and I still have dreams about him. Then I wake up, and he’s been reincarnated right here. Sort of. But not really.
God, this could drive me nuts. Comic books always make it seem like sets of clones all think and act exactly the same way. Running around with Patrick and Falcon has taught me clones are definitely their own persons. It’s like close siblings who have a lot in common but retain a separate sense of self. Maybe if someone raised a group of clones in identical environments for identical lengths of time they’d all come out exactly the same, but what do I know about biology?
I lean against the side of the car, nod my head toward the trunk, and comm, “What do you want to do with our new luggage?”
My partner comms, “I’d love to give him to the Circle, but I doubt they’ll have a facility that can safely contain him.” Before he left the cathedral, Patrick went to see what the sport coats were doing at the main altar. He found a small panel in the altar’s base. When he traced the sign of the cross on its face, it popped open.
Inside was a small notebook filled with names and addresses. Patrick thinks it’s the recently deceased Michel La Jeune’s little black book of underground contacts and safe houses. This is great news for us since it means we can sleep somewhere besides in the car or on the floor of a gun shop. It’s also a chilling reminder of how easily the Circle can be compromised.
“The more I think about it, the less I like the idea of leaving this enemy agent with anybody. He’s no use unconscious, and he’s perilously dangerous awake.”
I finish my smoke and stub the butt out on the car’s bumper. “Want me to pop him?”
“Yes and no. He must have some good intel, but we can’t interrogate him out here in the open.”
“Think we could turn him?”
“I doubt it. He was ready to kill himself to avoid capture. There’s no turning a hard-core believer.” We mull in silence for a minute. Then Patrick rubs his chin and cocks his head to one side, “You know what? I’ll bet Jacques could cope with this guy at his place in Paris.”
I sneak a peek at Falcon. He’s still scouting the area. I lower my hands down to my waist so only my partner can see them and sign: Do we trust Falcon enough?
The Paris safe house is one of ExOps’s busiest and most important foreign locations. The place is strictly off limits to non-ExOps agents, especially agents deployed by a rogue—and apparently rival—domestic agency managed by a raving lunatic.
I think I trust him enough, Patrick signs back, but here are our options. He ticks off our choices on his fingers between his signing: One: all of us go to Paris. Two: we kill Trunk Man and no Paris. Three: we bring Trunk Man to Paris and kill Falcon.
Of these three options, the first one is the most challenging, breaks the most rules, and—if successful—will have the biggest positive effect on our mission. It’s not that option number one feels altogether right, but it feels the least wrong. There’s no way I’m going to shoot Falcon unless I have to. I could care less about the schmuck in the trunk, except that he represents a lot of potential intel about the Purity League and the German response to the Jewish Rising.
I extend my index finger.
Patrick nods and signs, Paris it is. He gets off the trunk, stretches his arms, and calls out, “Falcon, you up for the best food of your life?”
CORE MIS-ANGEL-4576
ANGEL SIT-REP: FRANCE. 9 March 1981
A notably destructive quartet of anti-German saboteurs tore through northern France this weekend. From their appearance, methods, and effectiveness, I could swear they were ExOps, but I was unable to establish comm contact. I last saw them driving toward Paris.
Eve, L6 Infiltrator
40
Next day, eleven hours later, Monday, March 9, 1981, 2:02 A.M. CET
Paris, Province of France, GG
My left hand clutches Li’l Bertha in my coat pocket. My right hand pounds on the apartment door for the third time. Despite the cool air in here, a trickle of sweat runs down the middle of my back. I’m about to give up when I hear footsteps from inside the apartment. I get ready to shoot whoever opens the door if it isn’t—
“Jacques!” I say. “Comment ça va?” How are ya?
The French spymaster blinks his eyes and blurts, “Holy shit!” It sounds more like “Olly sheet,” but I get the idea. Jacques pokes his head into the hall and looks around. He stands back and waves me inside.
Jacques leads me into his small kitchen. He doesn’t turn on a light, so we talk quietly and quickly in the faint glow from the streetlights outside. He asks, “What are you doing here?”
“My partner and I have a package for you.”
Jacques stares at me.
I say, “What? What’s the matter?”
“When I asked what are you doing here, I didn’t mean here in my house. I meant what are you still doing in Europe? Haven’t you heard?”
Now it’s my turn to stare at him. “What?”
His brows rise like he just remembered something. “Mademoiselle Scarlet, before I forget, I am so much sorry to hear about Monsieur Solomon.”
It’s perfectly natural for Jacques to mention Trick’s death. After all, this is the first time we’ve seen each other since it happened. But it’s the last thing I expected him to say, and I’m so tired and stressed I burst into tears.
“Oh, je me désolé. I am so sorry, Scarlet. I did not mean to upset you.”
The tension of transporting our captured time bomb has my nerves as taut as a guitar string, plus I haven’t slept in two days. I choke out a couple of big wet sobs. “It’s okay, I’ll be okay. Can …” I take a deep breath and will myself to stop crying. “Can I bring my partners up here?”
“Of course! How rude of me. They must be frozen, waiting outside.”
Well, no, Jacko. Actually they’re hiding down the hall ready to help me fold, spindle, and murdilate anyone who gets in our way—including you, if necessary.
I comm on our local team channel, “Boys, come on in,” as I dry my cheeks on the sleeves of my coat. My three cohorts schlep a large, heavy body bag into the apartment. It’s too dark in here for them to notice how damp my eyes are.
It’s not too dark for Jacques to recognize Victor. “M’sieur Eisenberg! Good to see you again.”
“Hello, Jacques.” They shake hands. “How are you?”
Jacques shrugs and gives a lopsided smile. He’s accepted that part of his job description includes receiving a gaggle of surprise guests in the middle of the night. What isn’t part of Jacques’s routine, however, is to receive visitors from beyond the grave. When Brando walks in, Jacques’s mouth flops open and the Frenchman is rendered speechless. Almost.
“Non …” Jacques sputters. “C’est impossible! M’sieur Solomon?”
Brando’s eyes narrow and his jaw tightens. He’s had to meet a lot of his late brother’s contacts, and their initial reaction is never easy on him.
“Bonjour, M’sieur Jacques. It’s good to meet you. I’m Darwin.” He takes Jacques’s hand and shakes it, then bypasses
Jacques’s surprise. “Our friend here is named Falcon, and this—” He drapes the body-shaped package on the floor. “—is a live German Level.”
Jacques’s eyes open wide as saucers. He forgets his shock at meeting Trick’s doppelganger and backs away from the body bag like it’s radioactive. “Mother of God, why have you brought zat here?”
Brando and Victor bring our French buddy up to speed while Falcon and I move to the windows to watch out for baddies. I keep one eye on Jacques. We have no idea if he’s been turned by Fredericks or what. Having already been smoked out of two places on this trip, we’re done with the whole trusting-people thing.
Rather than meet Jacques at the safe house he runs here in Paris, we thought it would be appropriately unpredictable to come to his residence. Fewer people around means less chance of our whereabouts getting back to Fredericks. We’d rather stay off the grid—things have gone fine since we went offline—but we need help, and we’ve worked with Jacques before. Once my partner finishes giving our host the Reader’s Digest version of our last few weeks, it’s Jacques’s turn to fill us in on current events, many of which have been triggered by our ROAR Tour.
The Rising has turned into an all-out continent-wide brawl. Slaves have risen against their masters and escaped in droves. Martial law has been declared in most of Greater Germany. Huge, often violent protests involving pro-slavery conservatives and abolitionist activists are thundering through cities all across Europe and the Middle East. Many factories and farms have ground to a halt for lack of slave labor, and regular workers have been staying home to avoid the clashes sweeping back and forth across the region.
Jacques heard the German Chancellor had reached out to the United States for help. The rebellion is so out of control the President countered with a most unexpected offer: release the Jewish slaves and send them to America.
Jacques slaps his forehead, “Can you imagine? Shipping ten million people across ze Atlantic? It would take twenty years!”
