Hammer of Angels: A Novel of Shadowstorm (26 page)

“Jesus, you look terrible,” Brando says.

As he helps me to my feet, I say, “Thanks.”

Falcon and Grey have already passed through the undercroft and are lugging something up the stairs to the church. It's a blue plastic body bag.

“Patrick! Dad, is he—”

My partner holds one of my hands. “It's all right, he's okay. There's an opening in the bag for the ventilator. It's the best way to keep him wrapped and protected. It also stabilizes his IV feed.”

We race up the stairs. I ask, “How long will that thing keep my dad breathing?”

“An hour. But your dad's very sick, Scarlet. I think he's going into shock.”

“How long will he last without a Med-Tech?”

“ Fifteen minutes, maybe less.”

“Is he still awake?”

“No, I gave him a DOSE of the knock-out juice we've been using on everybody.”

We emerge into the dusky church interior. Falcon and Grey set my dad down behind the altar. Grey checks my dad and his bag to make sure everything is in place. Falcon runs to the windows on the church's north side.

Brando says, “I've also induced the process that'll get your dad breathing on his own, although in his weakened condition I'm not sure how long it'll take.”

Grey walks toward us as he comms on our team channel, “Linebacker to Coach. We're ready to get in the game.”

“Roger that, Linebacker. Stand by for Playbook.” Coach, our Navy mission coordinator, must be big football fan. All the codes he sent make us sound like fucking Howard Cosell.

Outside, an ominous mechanical rumble gets our attention. Falcon ducks away from the window and shouts, “GUYS! Watch out—”

A storm of gunfire hammers through the stained glass windows. Shattered glass and zinging bullets fill the air and chop into the walls, benches, tapestries, and statues. They also arrow through the negative spaces we each leave behind as we hit the floor like cats falling off a table.

Grey takes charge. “Scarlet, Falcon, return fire! Darwin, on me!” Grey propels himself across the glass-sparkled floor in a fast infantryman's crawl. Brando follows close behind.

I dose Madrenaline until my toes tingle and then roll toward Falcon's position. I clench my eyes shut against the flying debris until I bump into the wall. Falcon's fists clutch his rifle, and his eyes are as big as baseballs.

“Get a spud ready,” I comm to him as I jerk the pin out of one of the pineapple grenades I got from Jacques. Falcon fishes around in his jacket pocket and produces a German potato masher. He primes it and chucks it through the nearest window as I toss my pineapple outside.

A man squeals something before his voice is drowned out by one of the grenades going off. A second later, the other one explodes. I spring to my feet and stick my pistol out the window.

My infrared vision shows me everyone in sight is packing, so I authorize Li'l Bertha to automatically shoot the shit out of anything even remotely warm. Her gyroscopes spin up and swing my hand from target to target. My gun knows she only gets full fire control when I'm in super-deep shit, so she loads up the craziest ammo she's got without even asking.

The best part about .50-caliber Explosive bullets is every hit is a kill shot. Li'l Bertha's ferocious outgoing fire reduces each gun-toting competitor to a screaming cloud of meat chunklets. Three SZ men drop like rocks. Then three more. Body parts sail across the pitiless sky like glow-in-the-dark slabs of beef. My vision is literally red, and not from my vision Mods.

Falcon is so stunned by what happens to these jokers that he ducks back below the window. My sidearm runs out of ammo and spins down. I crouch next to Falcon. He ogles Li'l Bertha and gasps, “Holy mother of Mary!”

“Well, maybe.” I stick a another ammo pack into my pistol. “Whoever it is, pass the Lord, praise the ammo, and let's check the south side.”

Brando is behind the altar, huddled over my father. He's comming with our Navy pals, but the gunfire is so loud I can't hear what they're saying. Grey joins me at the southern windows.

Falcon,
Grey tells us, using field signals to communicate,
I want you in the spire. Let's see what your rifle can do from up there.

F-Bird nods and scrambles up the stairs of the central tower. Grey and I tuck ourselves in behind a heavy pillar between a pair of blown-out windows. Heavy incoming suppression fire keeps us tightly tucked into our cover.

A shadow looms behind Grey. Two black leather boots thump onto the floor. An SZ man has jumped in through the window to flush us out! I point and fire Li'l Bertha at the intruder as Grey jabs his pistol past my head and looses a short burst at another attacker behind me. We both wince as the reports from our pistols pummel each other's eardrums. The two competitors crumble to the crap-strewn floor.

“I'm on station,” comms Falcon. “They seem to be hanging back—oh, wait. I see.”

“What?”

I can almost hear Falcon gulp before he comms, “They've got a fucking tank.”

Shit.
That's
what the deep rumbling sound has been.

“Darwin,” I comm, “where's that duster?”

Brando comms back, “Playbook can't land until we take out that armor.”

“F-Bird,” I comm, “watch the tank and tell me if this does anything.” I stay low as I stick Li'l Bertha out the window. Her optics feed into my Eyes-Up display so I can aim at the looming metal menace outside. I bang a few Explosive 50s at the thing.

I zip my pistol back inside as the panzer's machine-gunner responds with a rattling shower of bullets that pound into the windowsill above my head. Shattered bits of stonework rip hot slashes across my scalp.

“Did that do anything?” I comm.

“Not really,” Falcon replies. “You made some scrapes in the paint and shot out one of the lights.”

Grey's brow is furrowed as he considers how to get us out of this. A bug-eyed girl dressed in a petite-size SZ uniform appears next to him. She holds her chin in her hand like that statue of the thinking guy. She pretends to be nodding along with Grey's thought process. Then she snaps her fingers and disappears. A shiver runs up my spine.

Grey gives me a hard look. “Stay with me, Scarlet!” He can tell I zoned out just now. “I've got an idea, but I need your help.”

I inhale a sharp breath through my nose. “Yes, sir.”

“You sure you're operational?”

“I'm fine, sir.”

Grey switches to the team comm channel. “Falcon, cover us. We're going after that armor. Darwin, stay with Big Bertha. Scarlet, follow me.” Grey hurdles out the window. Then he activates his cloaking Mods and damn near disappears.

“Grey, I can't see you. Where are you going?”

“Meet me under the panzer!”

I freshen my Madrenaline and bounce outside. Despite our desperate situation, I can't help laughing about the crazy shit we Levels say to each other.

Same evening, 9:13
P.M.
CET

Carentan, Province of France, GG

I race outside after Grey. I rush at the tank and slide under it like I'm stealing second base. Grey is already there. He rubs his hands around the bottom of the vehicle until he finds what he's searching for.

“Here! Scarlet, rip this panel off.”

Of course!
It's the escape hatch. Grey needs my help because part of what makes him so fast is he isn't weighed down with the extra strength Mods I have. I feel around the lip of the metal door. The fingers on my synthetic right hand act as a wedge and pry one side open an inch. I stuff all my fingers into the gap and wrench the hatch door off its mount. Dim blue light glows from inside the armored menace.

“Nice!” Grey calls. “Back inside with you. I'll be right there.”

I scramble out from under the panzer and emerge behind it. Screams and shouts burst from inside the vehicle. I wait for a moment to make sure my fellow Level is okay. Falcon's rifle bullets zing around us and keep the SZ infantry under cover. The access hatch on top of the tank flips open, and Grey pops out.

He sees me, barks, “RUN!” and charges back toward the Cupcake.

It's gonna blow!
I sprint after him. Grey dives through a shattered window and lands inside on his feet. I'm in mid-leap through the same window when the SZ tank goes up like a steel geyser. The blast wave throws me off balance, and instead of landing next to Grey, I plow into him. We tumble down in a heap together.

“Grey, how about a little fucking
warning
next time?”

My superior barks, “How about you
do
what I fucking
tell
you to?”

We glower at each other until my partner's comm interrupts us. “Sir, the helicopter?”

Grey burns his eyes into mine as he comms, “Falcon! How we looking, kid?”

Falcon comms back, “We're rad for the moment. The tank is toast. The explosion killed or disabled most of the troopers, but there are three military trucks coming up the road. I think it's now or never for the dust-off.”

“Got it.” He switches channels. “Linebacker to Playbook. LZ is clear and subject is ready for extraction.”

A man's voice with a southern twang responds, “Roger that, Linebacker. Playbook on approach, following your comm signal.”

I dash over behind the altar to my father and Brando. My partner has sustained a nasty injury to his head. A streak of blood runs from the wound on his temple down to his neck and soaks into his collar. When I notice it, he shakes me off.

“Later,” he comms.

The two of us hoist Dad up on our shoulders and stumble toward the side exit. Brando is limping. Grey joins us and holds the door open. A loud bang resounds from the stairs down to the undercroft.

“Ha,” grunts Brando. “Got ‘em.”

“That was a mine?”

“Yeah. I set it in case anyone tried to get into the church from the lab.”

We lurch outside as a big unmarked black helicopter floats over the rooftops and quickly swoops toward the ground in front of us. Grey pitches in and helps us carry my father.

“
Shit!
” Falcon comms from above. “I see a trooper—no, two—with a rocket launcher!”

“Where?”

He doesn't answer. The three of us all look up as Falcon takes a running jump and flings himself off the church spire. The kid has lost his fucking mind! He sails over the spinning helicopter blades toward the far side of the street. While Falcon flies over us, he keeps his sniper's rifle pressed against his body and unloads six shots so fast it sounds like an automatic weapon.

I scream,
“Falcon!”

F-Bird soars out of our line of sight, but the pilots see the whole thing, and since their comms are open, we hear their reactions.

“Watch it!”

“What the—?”

“Oh, fuck! Two guys with RPGs. We've got—”

“Holy shit! Where'd he—”

“He nailed 'em both!”

“—come from?”

They both yell,
“Oh!”

“My God, is he okay?”

“Oh, man, he hit that roof hard.”

I turn to Grey, “Sir, you'd better go get the kid. Darwin and I can get my father loaded up.”

The color has drained out of Grey's face, but he's still fully functional, “Y-yeah. Okay, I'll be right back.” He ducks under the descending chopper and runs to the house Falcon crashed into.

The helicopter finally touches down. Smoke from our firefight swirls through its rotor wash. Patrick and I haul my father forward as the big side door slides open. Three Med-Techs pop out and guide my father's body inside the evac. The helicopter's interior is crammed with medical equipment, pressurized bottles, and electrical gear. There's so much stuff in there I'm surprised the Med-Techs fit.

The Meddies gently deposit my father onto a low gurney bed mounted to the floor and zip open his blue body bag. Two of them hurriedly flip switches, twist valves, and connect tubes while the third Med-Tech slides the helicopter's door closed. My partner hustles up front and gives the pilots a thumbs-up sign. The chopper's engine whines up to high C. The downdraft dumps my butt on the pavement as my father flies away into the Norman night.

I sit on the cobblestones, struggling to breathe around the end of the last nine years of my life. All my sweat has evaporated, and I'm desperately thirsty.

Daddy's safe. He'll be okay.

Patrick dashes back to me and helps me to my feet. I wrap my arms around him and press my face against his chest. The fabric of his jacket muffles my sobs.

“You did it, Alix,” Patrick whispers in my ear. “You saved him.”

Mommy?

Yes, baby?

“C'mon,” my partner says, gently taking my arms from around his shoulders, “we still need to get out of here.”

When is Daddy coming home?

Brando guides me across the street.

Soon, baby, soon.

Next morning, Thursday, March 12, 1981, 5:50
A.M.
CET

Cherbourg, Province of France, GG

Saint Peter's Heavenly Barge whispers through the predawn gloom. The lights are off, and I use my night vision to see. I slouch low in my seat like a goombah in his Monte. When my hair touches the headrest, it crunches a little from the dried blood. Earlier, Brando put a turban of bandaging around my head to protect all the cuts I got at the Cupcake. The turban seemed to have absorbed all the Alix juice it was going to, so I took it off.

But my cuts and bruises are the least of my problems. I'm a fucking mess. The hallucinations and trembling hands have been bad, but those I can handle. However, even
I
don't think I should be allowed to pull missions if I'm passing out in the middle of them. I love this work, though. There's nothing else I want to do.

I know Grey has to report my fainting spells, but he told me he'll recommend ExOps do everything possible to keep me active. He and Brando know about some treatments we Levels can get, and they both reassured me that after dumping a jillion bucks into me, the last thing ExOps wants to do is park me in some human resources hellhole.

“Are we there yet?” I grumble, even though I'm the one driving.

“Not long now,” Brando responds from the seat next to me. My partner wears a bandage on the side of his head and has gingerly propped his injured left leg on the dashboard to keep down the swelling. He took a nasty hit when the decapitated head of a statue flew across the church and landed on his calf.

I glance at Grey in the rearview mirror. “How's F-Bird?”

“He's asleep, finally.” Grey yawns. “I think his leg was keeping him awake.”

“Crazy-ass son of a bitch.” I tilt my head from side to side to stretch my neck. “Lucky, too.”

The kid's stunt, which we've already dubbed the Outrageous Flight of the Falcon, took out two moving targets from what could minimally be described as an extremely dynamic and unstable firing position.
Jumping over a helicopter. My God!
It was the most incredible combat sniping move any of us have ever seen.

It also left a Falcon-size hole in the ceiling of someone's bedroom. Fortunately, the residents had all retreated to the cellar to hide from what they were sure was World War III. F-Bird's body crashed onto their bed and cracked the frame in half. He doesn't have as deep a Madrenaline reservoir as I do, but he was hopped up enough that he survived his rough landing with only a broken leg and a dense patchwork of bruises. He's so black and blue he looks like one of those circus freaks with a million tattoos all over them.

At least he isn't dead. Seeing him fly across the night sky, I was struck by how much I've come to like having him as a sort of brother. While I helped Grey carry Falcon to the Barge, I told him he was crazy.

Between sharp, painful breaths Falcon murmured, “I couldn't let them kill Big Bertha.”

“F-Bird, you idiot, you could have been killed yourself!”

“Yeah, uh huh.” He grimaced. “Look who's talking.”

“That's different. He's
my
father.”

As we loaded him into the car's backseat, Falcon took my hand and said, “He's my father too, Scarlet.”

I held his hand while a big-ass window flew open in my mind. Through it, I could see Falcon hasn't had much of a life. Labs, training, tests, and (fortunately unsuccessful) brainwashing. The thing that stuck out most in my mind was a single word: “lonely.”

“Yeah,” I whispered. “He is, Falcon.”

We got into the Barge and lit out. Behind us was a baffled scene of smoking destruction. We escaped the area and hunkered down for the night in the middle of a large pasture. The Cadillac spent the evening under a big fat haystack, about which it seemed very indignant.

Early this morning we received our exit orders: get to Cherbourg, get on a boat, and get out of Europe. Those orders were soon updated with an ad hoc mission to aid and assist a group of slaves and abolitionists who have been besieged in the Cherbourg seaport by a large group of proslavery militiamen.

I asked Brando why the German authorities didn't fight the militia themselves.

“Us,” he answered. “All the chaos we've stirred up has given the Fritzes more than they can cope with already. It's the Wild West out here.”

Now we're a few minutes away from Cherbourg. The sky is getting light, so I switch off my night vision. Out of curiosity, I turn on my infrared vision, and hey, whaddaya know?

“Smoke! Lots of it, over there.” I point at the column of heat rising from the far side of town. “Is that where the docks are?”

Grey leans forward. “Yeah, it sure is.” He watches for a moment. “Wow, they're really mixing it up over there.”

“Should we wake Falcon?”

Brando looks into the backseat. “I'd rather not. He just fell asleep.”

“It's okay, I'm awake,” Falcon comms to all of us. “Are we there yet?”

“Almost,” Brando comms, then he points out the windshield. “What's that?”

Directly ahead is a large heap of hay bales and old furniture. Men stand behind and around the heap. It's a roadblock made out of whatever odds and ends the militia could lay their hands on. I press the gas pedal to the floor and put my seat belt on. My companions follow suit. Grey and Falcon draw their pistols while I use the buttons on my armrest to open all the windows.

The bozos on the roadblock don't realize how fast we're moving until it's too late. The Caddy's four thousand pounds of Detroit thunder bashes through their pathetic pile of bedknobs and broomsticks like an all-state quarterback gliding through a sorority. The jamokes all wear brown shirts, black armbands, and expressions of anguish and terror as I crush them under my hammering radials. The Barge accepts this abusive driving so gracefully I wonder if the engineers at Cadillac actually had the foresight to consider how their vehicles would perform while ramming a mountain of junk.

We blast into the city, trailing anarchy in our wake. Several cars packed with gun-toting buttheads chase after us. Falcon and Grey take off their seat belts so they can turn around and exchange small-arms fire with our brown-shirted pursuers while Brando guides me through town to the docks.

“Left 40,” he comms to me. “It's a one-way street.”

I power-slide the Barge into the first left and nearly smash head-on into a truck. I swerve onto the sidewalk and miraculously avoid the truck, a telephone pole, a baby carriage, the baby's mother, and two nuns. I have to slow down to do this, and now the cars full of chocolate-hat mofos are right on our ass.

“Why is that fucking truck going the wrong way?”

“He's not,” Brando comms. “
We
are. I told you it was a one-way street.”

“Christ almighty, Darwin.” My feet fly across the pedals, and my hands swirl the steering wheel left and right. “I thought you meant one-way
our
way!”

My partner skips this argument. “Right 50. It's a two-way street.”

I slalom the Barge off the sidewalk and onto the road in time to gun a tire-smoking turn to our right. I lean on my horn and do my best New York City cabbie impression: “Move it, fuckos! C'mon, shit-for-brains, outta the way!”

Falcon and Grey hang on tight in the back seat as I stir up maximum traffic turbulence. I pass on the right, I pass on the left, I roar into the oncoming lane, I get the wheels half on the sidewalk. Mailboxes, park benches, and small trees all meet their doom on the hungry grille of my deathmobile. So much garbage jams itself into the car's air intake that the Cadillac's monster V-8 begins to overheat.

“Darwin, the Barge can't take much more of this. How far?”

“Right 70, before that scrap yard. Then it's a straight shot into the port area.”

“Hang on, boys!” I floor it and kick the parking brake on, then quickly off. This slaps the rear wheels into an all-out skidtacular smoke show. Grey slides off the bench seat onto the floor, and Falcon gets jammed against his door. Brando holds on to the dash with both hands while the Barge's hypertaxed suspension gives me one last sweet turn before finally crapping out.

My Jackie Stewart–style maneuver comes as such a surprise to the cars following us that the entire group wipes out and crashes into the small front office of the scrap yard. We carry so much speed into the straightaway that our car smashes through the main gate of Cherbourg's docks at a hundred miles per hour.

The rattle and hum of a good-sized firefight jaggers through the car's windows. The action is centered around a very large cargo ship with
Longstreet
painted on the stern. Men on the ship exchange fire with brown-shirted jackanapeses on the ground. I plow the Barge into the proslavery militia. Their brown shirts and black armbands are instantly slathered with the liquefied remains of their former occupants.

The car's tires are so coated with blood and guts that I lose control of the vehicle. The irresistible force of Saint Peter's Heavenly Barge finally meets a bigger, singularly immovable object. We bash into the base of a gigantic dock crane, the kind they unload ships with. The engine compartment crumples up like a huge black accordion, and the entire rear end comes off the ground. Brando is momentarily suspended in midair by his seat belt, I brace my arms against the steering wheel, and both guys in back get scrunched against our seats. We land with a shuddering thud.

It's absolutely quiet. The Barge is dead. The gunfire has stopped. Only the shrill cry of seagulls cut through the stillness. Then time whooshes forward, and a volley of bullets pepper the back of the demolished Cadillac. The four of us crawl forward through the missing windshield and take cover in front of the mangled chrome grille.

Our training allows us to maintain some composure. Grey comms, “Checkdown, youngest to oldest.”

Falcon gasps, “My leg is a mess. I'll need help moving.”

I comm, “I'm good,” and lean out from cover to see who's coming.
What a shock! Baddies.

Brando comms, “I'm no worse than before,” as he moves to examine Falcon's leg.

Grey comms, “Darwin, how's F-Bird's leg?”

“Not good,” Brando answers.

“Falcon, how's your Overkaine supply?”

“Fine, I've got a lot of it dosed. I feel okay, but my leg can't support my weight.”

Grey peeks over the Caddy and comms, “Darwin, see if you can help Falcon onto that ship. Scarlet and I will cover you.” He comms to me, “Ready, Scarlet?”

I nod at Grey and brandish Li'l Bertha.

Grey and I both stand up and lay down as much suppression fire as we can. The approaching brownshirts dive for cover. Grey reloads and keeps firing. I reload and dump a couple of Explosives into the area near where the shitheads are hiding. We walk around our smoldering car and get ready to rush onto the
Longstreet
.

A shattering explosion rips into the schmucks in front of us. A second burst, then a third slashes into the proslavery slobs. The palookas that can still move flee from the dock in complete panic. Up on the ship, a vision of Vulcan himself rains down destruction on the brownshirts. He fires a gun so massive a shock wave distorts the air every time it goes off.

“Hey, Shortcake,” Raj comms. ”What's with the luxomobile? I always took you for more of a sports car girl.”