Hammer of Angels: A Novel of Shadowstorm (29 page)

“Did it work?”

“Yeah, it worked.”

What worked is that my maniacal teammate commandeered the other boat and rammed it into this one. My cracked-up boat lies on its side and sucks in water like a sponge. I've got less than thirty seconds before this tub sinks into Cherbourg harbor.

I quickly scout around until I see Kruppe's lifeless body facedown in a flowing pool of flickering red water.

Cause of death: killed by unhinged boat pilot.

I'm halfway out the door when I hear the two kids screaming from the front. I put Deathcalibur back in its holster and lurch to the bow. When I burst into their room, the kids scream even louder.

I'm quite an eyeful. Wet, naked, covered in blood, and flush with killing rage, I must be an ice-white portrait of frozen ferocity. There's no way I can calm these kids down right now, but I've got no time to dick around.

I reach out with both hands and glom one head of blond hair in each fist. The kids shout and try to pull my hands off them as I drag them by their hair across the flooding room and into the main cabin. I push them out onto what remains of the deck outside. Then I follow.

Grey has guided his scratched and dented boat beside my sinking mess. I hand the kids up to him. Then I throw him the damned dog, which somehow survived the aquatic T-boning from my fellow Level. Grey reaches down for me. I take his hand, and he helps me aboard as Kruppe's shattered vessel gurgles into the sea. Brando will be delighted when he finds out we've re-created his favorite line from
The Godfather
by sending Kruppe to “sleep with the fishes.”

Speak of the devil, Brando comms in, “Grey, Scarlet, can you confirm it's safe to move the
Longstreet
?”

“Affirmative,” Grey comms. “Come on out and pick us up.” Then he leans down to the frightened children and whispers something to them. They both vanish below deck. Momentarily, one of their little hands holds a bundle up through the hatchway. Grey takes the bundle. It's a pair of blankets. Grey drapes one around himself and hands one to me.

I wrap the blanket around my trembling body. “That was a mighty radical move for an Infiltrator.”

He nods at me. “I've spent too much time hanging around with you outrageous Interceptors.”

Across the water, the
Longstreet
eases away from the dockyard. I sit in the navigator's seat and clutch my blanket around me. Blood drips from my feet, and my ribs scorch like cattle brands every time I breathe. I notice Pepper the dog has already tracked bloody paw prints all over the boat.

After a few minutes, I discover a cooler full of beer next to my seat. I give one to Grey, then crack one open for myself. I chug it down, open a second brewski, chug that one too, and let out a long, loud, rib-searing belch during which I rumble,
“Ü-u-u-ber Alles!”

CORE MIS-ANGEL-6133

Heavily encrypted intercept, source unknown:

START TRANSMISSION : ACTIVATE TERMINATION SEQUENCE : TRANSMISSION END

Next morning, Friday, March 13, 1981, 5:52
A.M.
CVT

Longstreet
, Atlantic Ocean

Dear God, please make this horrible feeling go away and I'll never chuzzle eleven beers after prolonged immersion in winter-degree water again.

Hypothermia sucks ass! My bunk is drenched with sweat, the covers have gotten tangled around my legs again, and I have to pee like crazy. Plus, it's dark and the room smells like cheese. If it weren't for my night vision, I'd never be able to see where I am: in the officers' quarters on the cargo ship
Longstreet
, bound for America.

I'm bunked up with the rest of my team: Raj, Patrick, Grey, and Falcon. Three of us—Falcon, Grey, and me—have been confined to our beds while we recover from the injuries we've sustained over the last two days of our ROAR Tour.

F-Bird's leg has finally been set in a proper cast, but that isn't the only broken bone our team has suffered. That big bear hug I got from Kruppe broke one of my ribs, so my torso is wrapped up like a mummy to keep everything in place. I've also got big puffy bandages on both my feet.

Grey and I are being treated for severe loss of body heat while we slaughtered the brownshirts on their fishing boats. I got the worst of the hypothermia, supposedly because I got so much drunker than everyone else did.

I gingerly extract myself from my blanket knot and hobble to the bathroom. On my way back I check on F-Bird. He's asleep, and his eyes move around under his eyelids as he dreams. His breathing is shallow, and his legs twitch. Looks like a bad one. I should know.

I climb into my bunk, expecting to lie awake obsessing about my father and which circle of hell I go to for killing that boy. So naturally I fall asleep right away.

It's light out. I walk up to the deck of a ship. It's covered in grass and trees, like a small park floating in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. A group of children play on a little merry-go-round, laughing and calling to each other. I walk over to them.

The kids all stop and stare at me. The smiles drop from their faces like butterflies falling off a bug zapper. They stand still, staring at the ground. A few of them begin to cry. One boy, the tallest, frowns at me.

Wait. He's not looking at me. He's looking past me.

I turn around and nearly burst out of my skin. A desolate, brooding figure looms behind me, reeking of despair and ringing of pain. It holds a huge scythe and wears a black hooded robe.

I back away from the deathly apparition. I had the impression the Grim Reaper was tall, but this spirit is the same height as me. I trip over something and land on the grass near the frightened children. The nightmarish figure strides forward and throws off its hood.

Huh, I always thought death was a guy.

Wait a minute. Her face seems familiar.

A thick black snake slides out of her mouth and speaks in Trick's voice.

“Scarlet!” the snake shouts. “Wake up!”

“Whuh!” I sit bolt upright in my bunk. My forehead is slick with sweat, but my swaddled feet are like size-seven ice cubes. I push the covers off me and hold my side while I lie panting in the dark for a minute. Gradually I become aware I'm not the only person in the room who's awake. I switch on my night vision again.

Falcon stands ten feet from my bunk. He shakes and twitches even worse than when he was asleep. Wait, is he sleepwalking? What's he's holding? Out of habit, my hand slides under my pillow to get Li'l Bertha.

She's not there.

She is
always
there.

“F-Bird? Can you hear me?”

The poor kid jolts in his skin like he's about to come apart from the inside out. “S-Scarlet? I don't want to.” He presses something against his stomach.

“Hey, relax, man.” I slowly place my feet on the floor next to my bed. “Don't want to what?”

He grunts, and a stream of spit dribbles down his chin.
What the fuck is wrong with him? How is he even standing in his cast?

I comm on a private frequency, “Patrick! Wake up!”

My partner has been awake for days, tending to his wounded comrades and filing reports about all the crazy shit we've done. I glance at his bunk across the room. He doesn't stir.

I comm at maximum urgency, “DARWIN! WAKE THE FUCK UP!”

His head comes off his pillow, but he's really disoriented. “Alixsh? Waz sh'up?”

Falcon turns to see who's talking.
Now!
Madrenaline belts into my system, and I fly off the bed like I've been shot out of a cannon. The sudden motion fires a white-hot flare of pain all the way from my broken rib down to my feet. I slap at F-Bird's hands, and a pair of objects clatter to the floor. I knock the kid over and land on top of him with my hand at his throat.

“
Falcon!
What's the matter with you? Why are you acting so weird?” My free hand gropes for the things I slapped out of his grasp. One of them is his pistol.

The other is Li'l Bertha.

“What the
fuck
were you doing with my sidearm?”

Falcon writhes under me. Patrick has finally woken up and dashes to my side. “Scarlet, what's going on?”

“I don't know. Something's wrong with Falcon!”

Now everybody wakes up. Raj and Grey run over and hold F-Bird's arms and legs so I can get off him. The kid's body vibrates against the floor so hard, it sounds like someone whacking the dust out of a rug.

“Is he epileptic?” Grey asks.

I sit back on my bunk and press my hand against my side. “My father isn't.”

“Dammit,” says Raj. “He's gonna self-destruct.”

“Wait!” It's Patrick. “Alix, what did he say to you before you woke me up?”

“He said he ‘didn't want to.'”

“And he had your gun?”

“Yeah. He swiped her right out from under my pillow.”

My partner runs to his X-bag and retrieves his DOSE. He hurries back and holds it against F-Bird's arm. The results are immediate. Falcon limply flops to the floor and passes out. Spit oozes out of his mouth and down the side of his face.

“You know,” I say, “every time you DOSE somebody, I'm convinced they're dead.”

“Well, no, he's not. But he'll be out for a while.”

“What's wrong with him?”

Patrick stands up, inhales deeply, and then puffs out his cheeks. “I think he's a Sleeper. And if he were ExOps, he'd be a Malefactor, so I'd say he was about to kill you, Scarlet.”

We all look at each other in shock. A Sleeper is an agent with a preprogrammed mission that lies dormant in the operative's mind until his handler sends an activation signal. Once it's initiated, almost nothing can sway a Sleeper from attempting to complete the assignment. The brainwashing is so severe the affected agents lack the normal tactical restraint to avoid getting caught. For this reason, Sleepers rarely survive their embedded missions.

A Malefactor is a Level who specializes in sniping. They get used on all types of jobs, but there's one particular mission these agents own outright. Covert-action agencies develop Malefactors and their long-range lethality because they're perfect for killing other Levels.

Raj recovers first. “Why would Fredericks activate him now?”

Grey rubs his beard. “A last resort, I guess. Maybe Fredericks thought our young friend here could kill Scarlet and dump her body in the ocean. Make it look like she'd fallen overboard.”

My partner sits on his bunk and wipes his face, “Or maybe Fredericks had lost his connection with Falcon until tonight. We went offline for a while after we hooked up with the kid in Calais.”

Grey regards Falcon, still unconscious on the floor. “What about when he wakes up?”

Patrick says, “We'd better keep him sedated until we get home. The Med-Techs can flush the mission out of him.”

“And then he'll be okay?” I ask.

“I hope so,” Patrick mumbles.

“What if he's not?”

“Then …” My partner stares down at the floor and whispers, “Then I don't know.”

I scan the faces of my other two colleagues. Neither of them can look at me. I contemplate F-Bird's immobile form for a moment, then close my eyes and say a quick prayer.

Please restore my brother to full health, dear Father. Remove all fear and doubt from his heart by the power of your Holy Spirit, and may you, Lord, be glorified by how much he kicks ass. Amen.

CORE INT-GG-4629

Ten weeks later, Monday, June 1, 1981, 7:03
A.M.
EST

ExOps Headquarters, Hotel Bethesda, Washington, D.C., USA

The biggest advantage to sleeping in a chair is how it gives me a break from my nightmares. That's the
only
advantage to this uncomfortable son of a bitch. It's not like I actually sleep, but I try my best since most nights I let Mom have the couch.

Cleo and I have maintained a nightly vigil beside my father's hospital bed since I got back home. He's been unconscious since we busted him out of Carbon. Mom flew down to Cuba in time to meet the
Longstreet
as it docked in Havana. I spotted her turquoise scarf from halfway across McAuliffe Harbor[7]. After we docked, Cleo waited for me at the ramp. When I appeared, she waved at me with both hands. Her happy smile faded a little as she watched me limp down the gangplank. By the time she saw my bandages, cuts, and bruises and the shadow in my eyes, she was positively distraught. Mothers know when their babies have been in over their heads.

Cleo held her arms out to me. “You did it, Angel! Daddy's home.”

My vision blurred as I staggered to the bottom of the walkway.
“Mom!”
I held her as tightly as my ribs could stand and unloaded nearly two months of anxiety. Through my tears and sobs, she kissed my forehead and gently rocked me back and forth. “Daddy's home, Angel. You're home. We're all okay.” The rest of the disembarking passengers flowed around us like a stream washing around a fallen tree trunk.

On the rare evenings when I actually doze off in my chair, I wake up twisted into a pretzel-shaped, anti-good-sleeping position. My mother, on the other hand, seems capable of snoozing anywhere. She tells me it's all the practice she's had waiting for my father and me to wake up from the damage we incur during our missions.

I've been home for almost three months. My small galaxy of injuries has healed, my Mods have been repaired, and my Enhances have been replenished. Raj and Grey are all fixed up, too, and they've both been assigned new missions somewhere.

Patrick and I see each other every day. We're officially an “item,” but I'm too distracted by my father's condition for anything serious, which Patrick seems to understand. The two of us work together all week, and most Saturday nights we go to the movies. When I have my period, we go for ice cream afterward. When I don't have it, we fool around in the car or the theater and
then
we go for ice cream.

Most of our classes and briefings are about the wild situation in Greater Germany. The country is tearing itself apart over Jewish emancipation. All of us ExOps Levels are being prepped for missions on the Continent, and once the Capitol Hill dope addicts figure out which side we're on, we'll ship out and kick ass. Should be fun.

Falcon survived the Med-Techs' procedure to extract the Sleeper mission Fredericks embedded in his onboard software. The Meddies said it's an all-or-nothing operation and this time they got “all.” Now ExOps needs to figure out what to do with its surprise bonus Level.

Fredericks set the kid up to be a Malefactor, but his agency's undersize budget left Falcon deficient in some skills. He needs more Mods, and his hand-to-hand skills are for shit. But, his acrobatic ability is on par with an Infiltrator's, and his technical skills are top-notch. Falcon would make a good Protector, but his fantastic marksmanship skill wouldn't get used very often.

Cyrus sounded confident when he said he'd find something for the kid. “There are plenty of enemy Levels out there. I can think of a dozen Job Numbers right now that could use a good Malefactor.”

F-Bird stops by my dad's room a couple of times a week, but he keeps the visits short. He can tell his resemblance to my father gives Cleo the creeps. It's like meeting a friend's identical twin and feeling just a little crazy until one of them goes away. Falcon also doesn't stick around because he's received strict directions that he must leave the room if Dad wakes up. The Med-Techs want to minimize their patient's emotional shock as much as possible.

The Meddies have done a great job so far. As soon as the Navy airlifted him home, the ExOps medical staff rushed Dad here to the Bethesda. His years in a Gestapo jail and the time he spent immobilized in the Original tank had wrecked his body. Dad's muscles were atrophied, he'd lost way too much weight, and he'd become a smorgasbord of viruses and bacterial infections.

Keeping him alive was incredibly hairy, and nobody—including Cleo—will tell me the details. All she said was, “Angel, your father is alive. That's what matters. Now we wait and see.”

I got Dr. Herodotus to tell me Dad had suffered a series of heart attacks and was in the ICU for over a week. This is a very long time to be at death's door. My mother was by his side for all this while I butchered my way out of Cherbourg and floated home in the
Longstreet
.

The Med-Techs transferred Dad to this private room after he stabilized enough to be released from intensive care. This doesn't mean his condition is any less critical, but it did mean Mom and I could set up camp. We spend so much time here that the ExOps mail room forwards our mail to this room instead of our house out in Arlington.

Mom could tell this was going to be a long wait, so she's done some things to cozy the room up a bit. The sofa she's sleeping on is from the Med-Techs' lounge. “They all owe me favors anyway,” she said. Cleo also brought in a few table lamps from home so we don't have to sit under the fluorescent lights all the time. A throw rug helps soften the linoleum floor. You'd hardly know it was a hospital room except for Dad's special gurney bed and the heavy rack of medical gadgets mounted to the wall over his head.

I stand up from the chair and stretch my arms over my head. I swing my hands in a flat circle to loosen up my torso. A big yawn moans out of my mouth and reminds me what terrible breath I have in the morning. Cleo is still asleep, so I ninja-walk into the bathroom and close the door so she won't hear me brushing my teeth.

I avoid looking in the mirror. I'm too tired to ignore my hallucinations. It's like I'm a vampire, except instead of not being able to see my reflection in mirrors, I see myself and lots of other scary people too. I told Doctor Herodotus about them in one of our daily therapy sessions. He didn't like hearing how my hallucinations had become a full-time phenomenon after I got home.

Dr. H also didn't like hearing about all my other symptoms. His face got longer and longer as I told him how I suffer from dizziness, how my hands shake sometimes, that I fainted a couple times during missions, and how my vision occasionally short-circuits and makes black into white, white into red, or shuts off entirely.

He filled page after page in his notebook and told me I'm suffering from practically every possible post-traumatic stress reaction on record. He promised to do what he can for me but warned it would take a lot of work. “You'll have to park your attitude at the door, Alix. This is about more than your work. Not long ago someone with your symptoms would have been committed to an asylum.”

My shoulders shudder as I try not to think about asylums and lobotomies and all that shit. I rinse out my mouth and pad back into Dad's bedroom. Cleo has shifted position on the sofa, but she isn't awake yet. It's almost time for Dad's morning visit from the nurse, so I take advantage of the quiet. I go to his side and rest my head on his chest. His heartbeat gently thumps against my cheek.

When I've done this before, Dad's pulse has sounded steady but weak. Today it sounds different, stronger, more like Patrick's heart sounds when we snuggle together. I close my eyes and think about how I used to be able to fit on a couch with my father while he slept down in his shop. I can almost feel the way his hands would stroke my hair as he slowly woke up.

Wait a minute. I
can
feel hands stroking my hair. I turn my head to say hi to Cleo, who must be standing next to me.

She's not standing next to me. She's still on the sofa.

My head whips back to my father.

His eyes are open. They look at me with the same intensity they always had. They're still a beautiful gray-blue with green flecks. The crow's-feet around the edges of my father's eyes crinkle a bit as he smiles at me.

The tube in his throat prevents him from speaking, so he comms, “My God, Alix. You look so much like your mother.” Dad's eyes get wet while he drinks me in. “You've grown so much, Hot-Shot, and you're so beautiful. I'm sorry I didn't … that I wasn't …” He tries to keep his composure and not cry in front of his little girl, but his brave expression crumbles like a snowman in spring rain.

I throw my arms around my father's shoulders and cradle his head next to mine.

“MOM, WAKE UP!”
I shout as tears pour down my face.
“DADDY'S BACK!”