Hammer of Angels: A Novel of Shadowstorm (24 page)

Same day, sixteen hours later, 5:35
P.M.
CET

Paris, Province of France, GG

I stand up and slap the side of the blabscreen. “Mom, can you hear me?” I'm in the vault at Jacques's safe house near Saint-Sulpice, trying to talk to Cleo, but the satellite feed is borked out. “Jacques, it isn't working!”

Me and my road buddies crashed all day at Jacques's apartment. I slept until 5
P.M.
, when our host came home and asked for my help with food shopping. Once we got outside, Jacques told me he'd gotten permission for me, if I wanted, to make a brief video call to my mother. I grabbed his hand and ran to his office as fast as I could.

So far the only thing working is the call timer, which is counting down from ninety seconds. A call that short is very difficult to trace.

Cleo's voice crackles through my commphone, “Alix? Are you there?”

Finally the sound and image snap into sync, and there's the red-haired top of my mother's head. She wears a comm set like the one we gave to Victor. Mom is crouched down in front of her screen, frantically fiddling with the controls. She looks up to see if it's worked. Her face is ashen.

“Oh! There you are! Alix, can you see me?”

“Yes! Hi!”

Our first comments overlap: “My God, Alixandra, you're so thin!” “Mom what's wrong? You're white as a sheet!” We each stop, then simultaneously say, “You go first.” Then we both giggle and cover our mouths with our hands.

Cleo's eyes are getting moist, so I take the lead. “I'm fine, Mom. Don't worry. Jacques said he was going to fatten us up while we're here.”

Mom tries to maintain her composure. Her pink lips press together like a pair of battling butterflies. She stammers, “Well, make sure you … that you …” Finally she breaks down. “Honey,” she sobs, “I've been so … I've missed you …”

Now I'm crying. “I miss you too, Mom,” I press my palm on the screen. She does the same, so the images of our hands touch each other.

After a few moments, Mom dabs at her eyes with a handkerchief. I wipe my nose on the sleeve of my shirt. Only a mother can attain the expression Cleo makes when she sees me being so uncouth. She's about to correct me, then catches herself and laughs through her tears. I sniff in sharply, shrug, and smile at her.

The call timer is down to fifteen seconds. The vault door hisses open. Jacques leans in and whispers, “Keep talking. I'll zay we had technical trouble.”

I nod my head and turn back to the screen. Cleo is still drying her eyes to keep her makeup from running. She places her hand back on the screen. I swear I can feel her skin right through the glass.

“Mom, are
you
all right? You really do look pale.”

“I've been so worried, sweetheart.”

“Are you sleeping?”

“Well,” she says, glancing away, “no. Not for a week.” Her eyes return to mine. “But neither is Cyrus. Every morning I ask if he's heard from you. He shakes his head and tries to say something hopeful.” She starts to cry again and chokes out, “Alix, when your comm signal disappeared, the Info Department thought you'd been captured. But Cyrus and I know how much you're like your father, and when you didn't come home with all the other Levels, we thought …”

She thought I was dead.

“Oh, my God! Mom, I'm so sorry. I couldn't call. But I never would have wanted you to—” Now I choke up. “I
couldn't
call, Mom. I'm sorry.”

“It's all right, Angel. I know you couldn't.” Mom wipes her eyes with her handkerchief. “I'm just glad you're safe.”

I nod my head and choose not to remind her I'm in enemy territory during a continent-wide crisis. Cleo knows my immediate plans are classified, so we catch our breath and briefly chat about small things. The Redskins have hired a new head coach, and she had to get the porch light fixed after the paperboy broke it one morning with an especially vigorous throw. It's trivial stuff, but I don't care. I've never missed her voice as much as I do now.

Jacques apologetically leans into the room again and gently draws his finger across his throat.

“Mom, I've gotta go.”

“Okay, sweetheart.” She takes a deep breath. “I love you, and be careful.”

“I will, Mom. I love you too.”

We stare into each other's eyes.

She's brave and goes first. “Bye, Angel.”

“I'll see you soon, Mom.”

The blabscreen disconnects. The call timer indicates we talked for three minutes and ten seconds.

Jacques opens the vault door again. He lets me blow my nose again before he asks, “Okay, Mlle. Scarlet?”

I nod.

“C'est bon.”
He pats my shoulder a couple of times. Then he says, “Time for
la boulangerie discrete
. Will you accept this critical mission?”

I stand up and dry my eyes with the back of my hand, “All right, Jacko. Let's see this secret bakery.”

Back in D.C., Cleo and I—like the citizens of any civilized society—shop for food at a big supermarket. Here in France, the natives gather their food at a series of small, crowded shops that each sell one kind of item. Butcher, baker, other stuff maker.

Jacques knows all the shopkeepers, to whom he bitches about his hometown soccer team and from whom he receives street-level intel about everyone's favorite foreign occupier,
les Boches
.

As we shop, it becomes clear why Jacques had me accompany him.

“Scarlet, can you hold zis bag for me while I pick out some wine?”

I add the bag to the seven I'm already carrying. “You know, Jacques, if you'd said I was going to be your damned pack mule, I would have told you—”

“To shut off the blabscreen ninety seconds earlier, when I was supposed to?” he interjects.

I clench my jaw and frown at him. Then I say, “Fine, whatever. But no more jibber-jabbering. Buy your stuff and let's go home. My arms are falling off.”

Later that evening, Patrick, Falcon, Victor, and I sit in Jacques's kitchen and consume a humongous home-cooked dinner. It is easily the greatest meal in the history of eating. I gobble so much food, I barely feel the bottle of wine I suck down.

Patrick asks our host, “Jacques, when are we meeting with Grey?”

Jacques answers from the stove. “Tomorrow morning. He'll come here to help you keep a lower profile.”

I swallow a mouthful of Jacques's roasted chicken, then ask Victor, “Vicberg, you gonna come with us?”

The lean-faced old soldier wipes his mouth with a napkin and quietly stifles a belch. “Sadly, no. I have some urgent business to attend to in Italy.” Victor lifts his wineglass and says to me, “But fate would not keep a beautiful fighter like you from my side for long, Scarlet. I am sure we will meet again.” He winks at me and adds, in German, “
Mein Füchslein
.”
My little fox
.

Falcon and Patrick both stop chewing and gawk at me with amused glints in their eyes. The wine has all our faces a little flushed, so I look down at my lap and hope nobody notices as I blush like a schoolgirl.

Jacques scolds Victor for flirting with his agents, then the Frenchman circles the kitchen table and dispenses heaps of desserts. As he piles cookies and petit fours onto my plate, I lean back and put my hands across my hugely full tummy.

“Ugh, my God. No, Jacques,” I groan. “I can't eat any more.”

“You must! My poor dead grandmother taught me how to make these when I was a boy. If you do not eat them, she will rise from her tomb and haunt you forever.”

I reluctantly lean toward my overloaded plate. “Do you Frenchies eat like this all the time?”

He shrugs at me,
“Mais oui!”
Of course!

“Then why aren't you all a bunch of blubbery hulks?”

“Zat.” Jacques points to his ancient tank-like bicycle looming next to the front door of his apartment. The two-wheeled relic could have survived the Battle of Verdun.

I cock my head to one side. “You French are thin because you all love prehistoric modes of transport?”

“No, we
exercise
! Unlike you flabby Americans. Sit around, do nothing.” He pauses to take in all of our tightly ripped and fat-free bodies, then adds, “Present company excluded, of course.”

I pop a cookie into my mouth. Crumbs fly back out as I yell, “Ha!
Mais oui
.”

CORE MIS-BB-RECOVER-001

Two days later, Wednesday, March 11, 1981, 10:30
A.M.
CET

Outside Caen, Province of France, GG

“Outrajuff!” Falcon blurts through a mouthful of baguette. “Loof a'all tha cowfs!

“Gah!” yawps Grey. “Falcon, you just spat food on me!” He makes a face and brushes bits of half-chewed bread off his shirt. “Take it easy, okay?”

Our young sniper chews up his huge bite of bread and swallows. “I've never seen so many cows all at once.”

Grey grumbles, “You'd think you'd never eaten bread before, either.” The Infiltrator looks out the car's windows, “Welcome to Normandy, kid. Cows, cheese, and the biggest goddamn shrubberies you ever saw.”

Speaking of big, our latest car is immense. The four of us float along the A13 in a huge white Cadillac. We haven't seen many Caddies here in Europe, and back home you never see hugemobiles like this monster. Its size, weight, and color inspired me to nickname it Saint Peter's Heavenly Barge. Brando sits up front with me and navigates while I drive. Grey and Falcon sprawl in the Barge's cavernous backseat.

We had a good couple of days in Paris, despite all the rioting in the streets. Crashing at Jacques's place gave us a chance to catch our collective breath. Our French host hooked us up with bread, beds, a couple of new gadgets, and most importantly, ammunition. I press my right arm against Li'l Bertha as she hums to herself in her holster. She happy to be full of genuine Lion Ballistics Multi Caliber ammo instead of that peasant fixed-caliber crap I've been stuffing in her for the last few weeks.

The day before we showed up on Jacques's doorstep, Grey was ordered to recruit a team for a special Job Number. Since ExOps had withdrawn all their Interceptors and Vindicators, he asked Jacques to find some local people. When Jacques told him about his unexpected American house guests, Grey was delighted.

“Well,” he told Jacques, “Scarlet will be motivated, that's for sure.”

Grey has been nosing around one of Carbon's nine cloning labs. It's in a small town called Carentan in Normandy. The Carbon techs there are cloning a former ExOps agent. That agent is the baddest-ass Level 20 Liberator in the world.

His name is Philip Nico.

Yeah, I'm pretty friggin' motivated.

Grey reported to ExOps that Brando and I needed a new encryption code for our comms. Once the new code was installed, Falcon reconnected our commphones to the ExOps network. Cyrus hosted a quick conference comm to get us caught up on what led to this operation.

The massive heap of Carbon intel we swagged from the Tower of London triggered a flood of revelations and developments. The Information Department used it to trace my father's location, and it allowed the Med-Techs to prepare a three-part life-support strategy for my dad. The first part is a hand-carried ventilator kit so my father doesn't suffocate if we have trouble when we extract him out of his Original tank. The second part is a medevac helicopter to spirit Dad out of Carentan. Part three will be flying him home in an A-3 Skywarrior converted from electronic surveillance to ambulance duty.

When I asked Grey where these aircraft will come from, he said, “The Squids.”

As a show of support to Greater Germany, the U.S. Navy has stationed a task force off of Europe. One of these ships is the aircraft carrier
Indefatigable
. When we call for it, the
Indy
will dispatch a helicopter with an ExOps Medical-Technical team and a portable life-support system. After they return to the
Indefatigable
, the Med-Techs will tuck Dad into the modified A-3 for his flight back to the States.

All we need to do is bust him out of the lab in Carentan. Normally, a foursome of modified and enhanced field agents like us would make short work of this job. These aren't normal days, though. The Rising has every German in uniform watching, harassing, and, most important, shooting anyone who even remotely seems like a troublemaker. The fake papers we got from Marie have held up so far, but the amount of scrutiny they're being subjected to keeps increasing. It's only a matter of time before one of these checkpoint-watching, stick-up-his-ass ding-dongs asks too many questions and I have to blow his cockamamie head off.

Brando keeps an eye on the road signs, “Okay, we've passed Bayeux. We should be clear for a while now.” He turns around. “Anybody up for a game of speed chess?”

Grey opens his window and says, “Yeah, man. I'll play you.” He lights a cigarette.

“Hey, Grey,” I say to his reflection in the rearview mirror. “Got one for your driver?”

“Sure thing, Red.” He flicks his pack into his hand and passes a butt up to me. I stick the cigarette between my lips and turn my head to one side so Grey can light it for me.

“Thanks,” I say from the side of my mouth as I open my window.

Falcon and Brando switch places. My partner takes out a little magnetic chess set Pericles gave him back in England. He and Grey whip through a game in less than three minutes. I think Brando wins.

“Nice.” Grey nods. “You like the Russian players, eh?”

Brando resets his pieces. “And the Chinese. Everybody back home studies the Europeans and the South Americans, but fewer people follow Asian players.”

The two brainiacs begin another game. Falcon quietly sits up front with me. He rotates his head around like he wants to see every single thing we pass.

“Hey, F-Bird.” I blow smoke out the window. “What are you gonna do when we get home?”

He takes a minute to answer. “I don't know. I'd rather die than go back to the ARI.” He turns to me. “Maybe I can work for ExOps.”

I glance over at him. Now that he's fatigued and road-weary, he looks a lot more like my dad. His skin is smoother and his teeth are a lot better, but Falcon's eyes have acquired the same silent intensity Dad's eyes had.

Do.
The same that Dad's eyes
do.

“Yeah, I'll vouch for you,” I say around my cigarette. “You're the best goddamn shot I ever saw.”

“Thanks. Do you think ExOps will have a problem with my … resemblance to your father?”

“Hell, no.” I take one last drag and toss the butt out the window. “They'll think you're manna from heaven.”

Falcon doesn't respond, but his lips are pressed tightly together like he's about to say something major. Finally, softly, “Scarlet, I've been meaning to … to ask you something since we met in Brussels.” He looks at his hands. “Do
you
have a problem with my resemblance to your dad?”

This question has already cost me a few nights' sleep. The fact that Falcon is a clone of my father should weird me out as much as Brando used to, but for some reason it doesn't.

“Not really. I mean, it's not like you asked for it.” I close my window. “It might be strange when you're older, but for now it feels kind of like you're my brother.”

Falcon's reaction surprises the shit out of me. His lips tremble, and his skin flushes red. He turns his head away, but before he does, a teardrop flows down his cheek and drips onto his collar.

I keep an eye on the road, but after a moment I sneak another peek at Falcon. He holds his head in one of his hands.

I wait a minute, then comm just to him, “Hey … Falcon, what's wrong?” I reach over with my right hand and put it on his leg.

He takes my hand in his and squeezes it. He quickly checks that the two boy geniuses in back are still engrossed in their chess game, then turns his tear-streaked face back to me and comms, “Thanks, Scarlet. I don't know if someone like you … can have any idea how much that means to someone like me.”

“Someone like me how?”

“Like that you have parents, and grew up in a house, and had Christmases.” He lets go of my hand and wipes his face on the back of his sleeve. “Like that you don't care I'm a … fucking lab rat, copy of someone else …” The young version of my father takes a deep breath and whispers. “Like that you don't care I'm a clone.”

“You're right, Falcon. I don't care about that.”

CORE MIS-ANGEL-5203

ANGEL SIT-REP: BERLIN. 10 March 1981