The Autumn War

by Ani Fox

  Another hour of parsing through the entire compound convinced me that the assault had been thorough, professional, and absolutely complete. Not only were there no survivors, it was no longer clear whether humans had ever existed here. Bodies, or what looked like their empty husks, had been burnt or smashed beyond archeological standards of retrieval. No one would ever know what happened here or who had died. More than that, there were no indiscriminate marks, no extra shell casings, no prodigious collateral damage.

  Only what needed to be destroyed had been destroyed, and yet exactly what had to be wiped out had been blotted out from the sight of the world in totality. This was precision and discipline at a level that chilled me, and rightly so. Section 22 had this sophistication, though of late I’d been rewriting their script enough to make them look like rookies in roller-skates. This had to be The Syndicate or Zeus’ splinter cell. I checked for cigarette butts and was rewarded with exactly two butts and a gum wrapper, dropped near the ripped out gate.

  I had to retreat to the Camaro to get use of a light. They were innocuous, European style cigarettes; ditto the gum. But there were telltale traces of lipstick on the edges. Using a knife to scrape the edges, I retrieved a thin sample of the lipstick. Smearing it across the blade, then rocking it back and forth, I found what I’d been looking for: glitter. The Karkova sisters had very few vices; glitter lipstick and eyeshadows were a known weakness. Or a calling card for folks like me. Just as I had an annual drop of metal and vaults, there were several Gray Bankers who shuffled quite a deal of money into gift baskets that went out for every holiday. The Karkovas got them for Hanukkah, Purim, New Years, Passover, and their birthdays. For the Day of Atonement, white lilies and canvas shoes were delivered the night prior.

  I recognized the shade. Someone had been wearing Salle de Nuit’s Exotic Midnight as they rolled into the compound and executed a few hundred war criminal and mad scientists. I smelled the gum wrapper and got a whiff of perfume. Salle de Nuit again. They had been here. The Syndicate had just wiped out a major element of Section 22 including a security detachment and station chief. Assuming many of them had been detached to Albuquerque to kill Darcy, there would still have been more than hundred soldiers and a dozen or more of Generation VII or later guarding the factory. No more.

  I combed the area for more evidence, found a few more telltale mistakes and, without much thinking about it, collected them in a bag. Nadya wouldn’t want the girls hurt and I wasn’t much for helping the authorities in the regard. The assault had been a breathtaking work of art, an operation for the history books. Legen—wait for it—dary. I drove away, snacking on the pastries. To my surprise, they were cherry chocolate. Even banged up and X-96 flavored (that stuff sticks to your nasal passages) they were pretty damned good.

  I found a place for tacos, ate them with an excess of hot sauce and cilantro, spent fifteen minutes blowing my nose, and felt much better for having food and less toxic chemicals in my system. I followed up with the pastries, which also tasted much better, and then washed it all down with a sweet tea. I had enough sugar in my system to feed the bugs, I’d not been shot or punched in over a day, and I’d had time to stretch, relax a bit and let down my barely existent hair.

  It took me another hour to ditch the Camaro and acquire a solid vehicle for my last road trip. I’d snagged a large Suburban with a lot of band stickers, with flaking paint and a lot of small dings, then stolen several sets of license plates from Arkansas, Georgia, and Massachusetts. With the Arkansas plates installed, the vehicle gassed up, and four extra containers of gas in the back, I took my pirate cat bag on a shopping trip.

  I went to the Gap. Want to fit in? Buy clothes from a place that sells itself as fashionably normal. Donnie had supplied me with a couple of credit cards by mistakenly turning his back and I now employed them mercilessly. When I had finished, the Gap had provided me with sensible khakis, a corduroy sport coat, some sports sneakers, and a pair of leather shoes very fashionable everywhere Yuppies roamed, a half dozen pastel shirts of inoffensive cut and make, and a cheerful cap which made me look so unhip I shamed the grizzled hipsters shopping near me. I had sweaters, gloves, some really hideous paisley corduroys that matched a coat’s trim, and drove my profile well into Vermont tourist.

  By the time I had done a few thousand dollars damage to Donnie’s card, I had become the most suburban out of touch dad known. With an ice cone and ugly mobile phone I could walk into the White House and open fire before anyone noticed. I went shopping at Whole Foods and acquired a few hundred dollars of camouflage: organic oatmeal and sports bars; chocolate with funky names and little animals; several bags of adorably named tortilla chips that promised farmers somewhere were not being exploited; a bag of exotic apples no one liked; a few boxes of sugary knock off cereals that made eating like a seven year-old pious enough for grown-ups; and the coup de grace, artisanal marshmallows.

  I pilfered a dozen Starbucks cups from a trashcan and snagged a few loaves of Panera bread at the local establishment. The bread went to a homeless man with a witty sign, the bags and cups littered the suburban’s floor. There was a local adventure store that sold me artic survival gear only idiots purchase, and I got lots of it, including a couple of ice axes and some magnesium fire starter blocks. They also sold exorbitantly equipped highway survival kits and first aid boxes. Our little enterprise acquired two of each. When the spree ended, the suburban had transformed into the kind of team van that drove some little group of tender hearted but fiercely spirited girls’ volleyball team to a national contest. Underdogs fueled on Ugg boots (we had several women’s pairs in pink and lime), Mochachinos and hope. They posed zero risk to the world. As their pathetically clueless driver, straight out of my corporate cube farm and on the road thinking myself the sly devil, I was the kind of dad who missed all the jokes and bulimic bathroom visits.

  Then I switched into some pure black clothes fit for the devil proper and slipped through the delivery door of the Elephant room, tipped Jimmy a fifty, and found a table that faced the door. I wore a bright blue fedora, which the Gap had done out in some kind of velvet. I expected to look ridiculous but there were three other men who wore the same hat, only two were raspberry and, one daring fashion god had gone with pale yellow and some lobster print pants. I added some tinted yellow glasses I’d acquired from a hipster with attention problems. The US Army called them BCGs—Birth Control Glasses. In Austin, every other grown male wore a pair. I lacked a beard and I was far larger and in better shape than my peers, but with a slouch and some sullen posturing, I looked like everyone else. After ordering an expensive bourbon and tipping well, the bartender stayed on hand to help Frankie Spoonface find me if the ugly hat didn’t do the trick.

  Austin collects a strange assortment of people and, precisely because it prides itself on being quirky and non-conformist, Hans had been able to park a weapons plant within the city limits. Hipsters and cowboys competed to be more urbane than one another with expensive mobile devices while musicians, artists, and a wide swath of delusional children of privilege who thought themselves one or the other, drenched the streets with a constant deluge of noise and activity. The feminists wore guns and the right wing nuts often ran marathons and saved injured ponies. They had world class food, world class internet, some of the best art, music, and artisanal innovation in the globe and no clue about reality. It was a land of ideology and dreams, whether utopian fascist or utopian socialist or merely utopian with a heavy dose of hallucinogens. They were a helpless people, easily misled and vulnerable, guarded by a paramilitary group of state police who scared even The Syndicate.

  Francis arrived late. He had as much subtlety as the Phantom of the Opera upon his first entrance stage right. He had worn a Che Guevara shirt with a monkey for the revolutionary in proper green, some camo pants, with skull patterned tennis shoes, the Palestinian shemagh and a red Army Rangers’ beret with some kind of Anime character in place of the unit insignia. His eyes darted left and right and he hel
d a shiny metal briefcase in fire engine red close to his chest. No one paid him the least attention. He might not even have been the first person to wear that outfit into the Elephant Room, that day.

  He found me my table and nodded, looking pale and scared. The waitress came by and gave us a bored stare. On the stage, the Martin McCain Duo were starting to check their trombones and run through music. Frankie seemed near panic. I ordered a Mexican Coffee, extra whipped cream. Frankie sputtered and then had a Lone Star beer.

  When we alone I looked him over. Whatever had happened to the young conspirator, he looked terrified. “I’m Big Bear. I assume my boys sent you some description of me?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, yeah. Look I’ve never done this thing before.”

  That pricked my ears. Something had happened. “Done what before?”

  “Nailed a terrorist.” He held up and hand and undid the case, pulling out a manila folder. “Don’t bother with Iran story. I know why you told Declan that crap. He’s better off not knowing.”

  We agreed on that. Francis went up in my estimation. I took the folder and reviewed the contents. He had nine grainy photos of Hans in various places and poses. Hans on a dock next to a ship. Hans on the ship pointing to a crane. The crane loading a 1-800-FLOWERS van. Another shot of the ship, now at a different dock, late at night. Hans in a delivery uniform loading boxes against a large steel cage inside the van. A grainy shot of the cage with some blurry Cyrillic in the corner. Two more shots of Hans driving away with the license plate, the second had the street name. One last photo of Hans delivering flowers to the Mandarin Oriental Boston.

  Squinting, you could read the Cyrillic, which translated as Soviet Experimental Directorate. I memorized the street names, plate numbers, the location markers and such, then looked at Francis. “What did Google translate say the words meant?”

  “I used Babelfish. But it only did Greek.” When I gave him a quiet look he gulped and nodded. Our waitress brought the drinks and Francis seemed surprised that he was handed a draft beer and not a bottle. Lone Star was the national beer of Texas. Clearly he’d never been here before. That also got filed away for later consideration. “Um, it said Advice Center of Experiments. Or Experimental Council’s Council. So I called a guy I know who is actually Russian.” He gulped a portion of his beer. “He told me it says it’s some kind of political name for a Soviet program and the name is meaningless.”

  Score one for the Russian. The name was a cover for what had been a FSB sub-unit that handled special weapons development. It absolutely should not be in the hands of Hans Gutlicht. This particular directorate was tasked with hunting and killing Section 22. It might hold a bioweapon that could disable nanites, which made sense given that Hans wanted me very dead and, so far, had not been able to put me out of the ballgame. If he flooded Boston with a viral version of the weapon, and then launched his plague, in theory, it would then kill me too. Neat and effective. He knew I had to come for him and now he had an area weapon that might kill me before I breached the city limits.

  “Your Russian was correct.”

  “You’re not some courier are you?” Francis finished his beer and the keen waitress had another waiting. Word gets around when you tip with a $20.

  “What do you think I am?” No one ever died for saying too little in situations like this. I sat as quietly as I could.

  He mulled it over and took another gulp. “I think you’re from Julian. He had small team that worked on stuff like this, former spy guys who take the Wiki stuff and find the real hard data.”

  I shrugged and looked as unimpressed as possible. “If I am that guy, then what?”

  He smiled. He knew I was, knew he was right. Men like Francis have a need to be right, to fit the world into boxes. “Then I’ve done my part, you know. Tell him. Tell him, I’m…you know…worthy.”

  I sighed. “His health isn’t what it used to be. He doesn’t really keep track of us anymore. But I can let the head of the unit know what you’ve done here.” Which would mean keeping tabs on the man for the rest of his life. Francis would have zero privacy once I alerted The Syndicate.

  He nodded and drank more beer. “I’d like that.”’ He had a goofy grin. “That’d be great really.”

  “It’s not easy. They ask a lot. You’d have less privacy, less freedoms. It’s not like the Movement.”

  Francis clearly thought just the opposite and would be bragging about it online ten minutes from the moment we parted. That could get me and potentially him killed.

  I smiled and looked at my watch. I don’t normally wear one but for this bit of theater it had been required so the adventure gear store had provided. “I wonder. No…it’s too dangerous.” I made a motion to leave.

  Francis grabbed me. “Wait, no. I’ll do it. What? What is it?”

  “Well. I know you’d never normally, but I wonder. Could you brag about this meeting online? Indiscreetly. To all of Anonymous.”

  To his credit, his face fell when he realized what that implied. “Do we really have them?”

  I gave him a rueful smile. “Many, comrade. Many. You can tell your best friend and a week later people are knocking at our doors.”

  Francis gave me a grave nod. He bit his lip as he considered. “So, these…leakers. They got people hurt?”

  I held up a hand in properly dramatic fashion. “Call them what they are, traitors. They’ve gotten three operatives…killed.” I whispered the last and made my eyes flare open for melodrama. Francis ate it up. People love to be in the know and juicy gossip, even if it deals in human suffering, or precisely because it deals in human suffering, tends to entice the most.

  “I had no idea, Bear. That’s awful.” He closed his eyes and grimaced. Clearly he had been indiscrete in the past, likely about Hans’ photos and now he’d put men in danger. It bothered him. “I already told a few people about the photos.”

  “The locations? The identity of the target?”

  He looked embarrassed. “We don’t really know where he is. These images were taken from a scrubbed data feed being scrambled between the US embassy and Halliburton. We just took the stuff and got lucky. Most of it is invoices.” Likely they’d stumbled upon some kind of delivery request. Halliburton did a lot of special operations work and supplied much of the special equipment that allowed bad people to do bad things to even worse people.

  “Okay. We can salvage this, you and me.” I patted his hand and gave him a fierce smile. “Tell your buddies it’s Auckland, New Zealand. Then let slip in a forum you just identified a terrorist going to attack Auckland in three days. Using a biological weapon.”

  “Holy crap. For real? He’s going to wipe out a city? I loved Lord of the Rings.”

  Big Bear the proto-spy gave him the tough look I’d practiced watching John Wayne. “He’s going to try…”

  He put two and two together and got seven. “So our traitors tell him and he changes plans, ditches the attempt and, voila, we save the world.” He seemed terribly self-satisfied.

  “That’s how it works. The information must flow. When we have transparency, true transparency, then there will be no more us and them. For now, the Wiki community thanks our brothers in Anonymous for their assistance.” I saluted him badly using the American style and he replied with a lot of verve. Then he got up, stuffed the photos back in his briefcase, and stiffed me for the bill. But that was espionage for you. In an hour, most of Anonymous would be abuzz about the CHB’s newest coup: identifying a terrorist attack.

  I paid the bill, tipped large again, and stopped to listen to the band. The McCain Duo turned out to be a pleasant surprise. I’d have to pirate their work when I got home, wherever that would be. I realized, as I was walking out the rear entrance, that I’d sold my home and business, had nowhere to go. The music was good enough to consider getting an apartment so there’d be a place to listen to the jazz.

  Chapter 13

  Endgame Revealed

  A Suburban makes good time. Donnie’s
credit card continued to be the gift that kept on giving; it provided a full tank of gas in Little Rock along with some Piggly Wiggly soda cups (one half full of Big Red), some Twinkies, and a bag of Corn Nuts. All of which were dumped in the back seats, splashing soda across the plastic and trash. The trip from Austin to Boston nonstop takes thirty hours. I had roughly forty-five until the parties met.

  Outside Nashville, the state troopers had set up a roadblock and were pulling aside all vehicles. By then the Suburban had acquired some sweatshirts, some boxes of tampons, and Georgia plates. The officer who waved me over was a tall black woman with serious features. Backing her were fifteen patrol cars with teams of men, a K-9 unit, and some kind of Critical Response Van that had a communications suite and was running a generator to power their electronics. She had one of those orange flashlight wands which she used to direct me to a spot where the dog unit waited.

  “Sir, please step out of the vehicle.” I did so. “Please hand me the keys.” I did so. She tossed them to a stern guy in a FBI windbreaker who motioned to the K-9 unit, and a pimply kid they’d given a badge and gun led the dog around the vehicle and started opening up the trunk and passenger doors. The dog woofed and started licking the dried syrup off the plastic.