Then there was the new arrival.
Bundled up as the figure was, about all Kovalic could tell was that it was a man – a short, stout man with a ruddy nose protruding over a subdued plaid scarf. Rather than a parka, he wore a sleek wool overcoat; more elegant than functional in the brisk Sevastapol weather. That made him a man concerned with appearances, especially when combined with the wide-brimmed felt hat pulled down tightly on his head. As disguises went, it was amateurish at best, unnecessarily conspicuous at worst.
The man walked past the shopkeeper, who was too busy reading from a thin volume held at arm’s length to notice. He made his way stiffly towards the back of the shop in a manner so painfully casual that it practically shouted LOOK AT ME, I’M STROLLING, NOTHING TO SEE HERE.
Kovalic tried to avoid rubbing his forehead, and stared instead at the wall of books. He’d known going in that their contact wasn’t trained for this sort of thing, but the general, Kovalic’s boss, had deemed it an acceptable risk, given the man’s stature and the value of the information on offer. Then again, the general didn’t have to sit here and watch the worst tradecraft this side of an espionage vid.
As the man got closer, Kovalic’s eyes narrowed. Something was off. The way the man was moving was wrong; his steps were wavering, unsure. Like he’d been injured. As if on cue, he clutched the side of the bookcase nearest Kovalic, his gloved hand gripping the wood as if his life depended on it.
Hefting the book in his hand, Kovalic opened his mouth to speak his part of the sign/countersign when he was interrupted by a mumble from the man in the hat.
“It was the… worst of times…” The voice was strained, hoarse, as if each word were being dragged out of it. The man was leaning heavily against the bookshelf. All the hair on Kovalic’s neck stood to attention.
Kovalic reached over and tugged the scarf down, recognizing the face that he’d seen in the dossier: wrinkled, pale, and jowly. But the man’s complexion was flushed, like he’d spent too long in the cold. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his eyes had gone glassy. They met Kovalic’s briefly, but there was no recognition there – they were empty and unfocused. The man swayed briefly, then started to crumple. Kovalic stepped over quickly, easing him gently to the floor.
“Shit.” He pressed his fingers to the man’s neck. There was a pulse, but it was thready and irregular.
Tapper, having seen something was off, made his way back over to his boss.
“What the hell happened?” he asked, his eyes flitting between Kovalic and the man on the floor.
Kovalic shook his head. “It’s Bleiden, all right, but he’s sick or something.” His gut clenched. He supposed that it could have just been bad luck: maybe he’d gotten the flu that was going around. Maybe he’d eaten some bad shellfish. Weird coincidences happened all the time.
Then again, Kovalic had found himself rather attached to his life over the years, and part of what had kept him alive had been sweating the small stuff. He glanced up at Tapper. “See if this place has a first aid kit.”
Tapper nodded and headed towards the front of the shop. A few of the other customers were now eyeing them curiously, though none had made a move to intervene.
His eyes alit upon a tall, dark-haired man who was watching the scene with studied disinterest. Snapping his fingers, Kovalic got his attention. “You. Gimme a hand.”
The man looked almost surprised to be addressed, then reluctantly made his way over and crouched down by them.
“How’s your field medicine training, lieutenant?” Kovalic murmured.
The man’s expression morphed from confused to sharp so fast it was a wonder it didn’t give Kovalic whiplash.
“Rusty at best, sir,” said Aaron Page. “Is he wounded?”
Kovalic patted the man down, checking for any obvious sign of injury, but, as he’d suspected, there was nothing. “I’m thinking poison.”
Page’s eyebrows went up at the conjecture. “But that would mean…”
“…that he was compromised. And that they knew we were coming.”
Tapper chose that moment to reappear with two things: a small dingy looking medkit that might have been new when the sergeant was young, and a troubled expression. “Uh, boss? We got company.” He jerked his thumb back at the windows.
Of course – he should have known there’d be another shoe.
“Uniforms?”
“Armed response troops, with a few plainclothes running the show.”
Kovalic sucked in a breath through his teeth. “That’ll be Eyes. Well, shit.” He’d hoped they’d managed to fly under the radar of the Imperial Intelligence Services, but with his luck he clearly shouldn’t be buying lottery tickets anytime soon.
Tapper gestured at the shop. “Boss, this place is a kill zone. We gotta move.”
Page had taken the medkit from Tapper and unzipped it, and was now rifling through the contents. “Without knowing what they dosed him with, I’m not sure which antidote to administer.”
Kovalic rubbed his forehead. Saving Bleiden would be ideal, but at the moment even getting themselves out of here was starting to look like a tall order. “Lieutenant, talk to me about options, and make it quick. Sergeant, see if there’s a back door.” He nodded towards the rear of the shop, where a path snaked between two bookshelves. IIS wouldn’t be dumb enough to leave an exit uncovered, but if there was any chance of getting his team out of here, Kovalic needed to know the lay of the land.
Tapper disappeared towards the rear of the shop while Page pulled out a vial and an injector. “It’s mostly bandages and ointments, but there is a dose of epinephrine that’s only a few months past its expiration date. If whatever they gave him triggered anaphylactic shock, that might help.”
Well, if it didn’t, he’d probably be dead anyway. Kovalic nodded to Page, who locked the vial in place and, without much in the way of ceremony, stabbed it into the man’s thigh. There was a click and the man jerked.
Kovalic looked over at Page. “How do we know if it wor–”
The man gasped and convulsed, his eyes springing open as he tried to sit up.
Grabbing him by the shoulders, Kovalic held him steady. “Easy there.”
The man’s gaze swung wildly, seizing upon Kovalic. “Are you… Conductor?” he wheezed.
Protocol had gone out of the window by this point, so Kovalic just nodded. The man’s hand came up and gripped Kovalic’s arm tightly. His voice was strained again, and he fought to get each word past clenched teeth. “Eyes… watching me.” His grip curled Kovalic’s parka sleeve, insistent, and the colors of the display flickered and warped. “Important… meeting. Bayern. Three… days. Per–” Suddenly, his eyes rolled back into his head and he started convulsing again. White foam leaked from the edges of his mouth as his face twisted into a pained rictus. After a moment, he went limp.
Kovalic put a finger against his neck, but this time there wasn’t so much as a faint pulse. Gesturing to Page, they gently laid the man down on the floor. Kovalic closed the blank eyes and let out a long breath, hand over his mouth.
Tapper caught Kovalic’s eye from the back of the shop and jerked his head. There was an exit, then. He also raised five fingers and pointed them towards the rear. Five men watching it, probably waiting for the order to breach. Kovalic waved him over.
“Shit,” said Tapper, glancing down at the body. “He didn’t make it?”
Kovalic shook his head. “But he gave us something – we just need to make sure it doesn’t go to waste.”
“What’s the plan?”
“I’m thinking we need to give the abort signal,” said Kovalic, raising his sleeve and tapping an icon on the display. A burst of static exploded directly into his earbud, eliciting a curse.
“Too late,” he said, tapping it off. “They’ve already set up a jamming field.”
Tapper shook his head. “Not good. Standard portable jammer has an effective radius of about twenty-five meters.”
Kovalic peered a
t the wall behind them, measuring in his head. “That easily covers the whole shop. And getting out of its range is going to mean fighting our way through whoever’s out there.”
“So, maybe we don’t go through,” said Tapper, pointing a finger at the ceiling. “Maybe we go up?”
Kovalic looked up. The shop occupied the ground floor, but the building was at least four or five stories tall. Not quite high enough to get them all the way out of the jamming field, but it didn’t need to be – there ought to be a comm array on the roof that they could hijack to boost the signal. He didn’t like the idea of being trapped on the roof, but it was better than walking out of here and into the Illyricans’ hands. He glanced at his sleeve; it had been five minutes since Bleiden had come in, and Eyes surely had the place surrounded by this point. They had to move now.
“Did you find a set of stairs back there?”
“Not quite. But I think I’ve got something.”
Kovalic turned to Page. “Keep an eye on the situation here. Let me know if it looks like they’re about to breach.” The lieutenant acknowledged with a tip of his head. Kovalic followed Tapper to the rear of the shop, which turned out to be a small storeroom with a side door that looked like it hadn’t been used since the founding of the Illyrican Empire.
“Jesus, would it kill them to send in a building inspection team every once in a while?” said Tapper, kicking at a soggy cardboard box filled with decaying books. Slivers of paper launched into the air, fluttering to the ground like dying moths.
“We’ll have to come back and enforce the fire code some other time. Talk to me about this exit.”
“Right,” said Tapper. “That door lets into a side alley, which feeds into the street out front, but there’s also roof access via a fire escape – I caught it on my recce earlier. They’re using standard breach tactics, stacking up right here.” He nodded to the wall to the left of the door. A workbench sat against the brickwork there; they each took an end and managed to shift it away from the wall, disturbing a cloud of what was undoubtedly valuable antique dust.
Wiping his hands, Kovalic rifled through his pockets, but they were empty aside from his backup comm unit. Weapons were a liability more often than a benefit in these types of missions, though he was wishing he’d reconsidered that stance right about now.
Tapper, meanwhile, had produced a fist-sized tube from his satchel and had set about drawing a rectangular outline in some sort of white substance onto the brick wall.
Kovalic blinked. “Do I even want to know where you got that?”
The older man chuckled. “You know me, boss. Always prepared. I know a guy around these parts who owed me a favor, and he just happened to have a spare tube of detpaste going to waste. Imagine that.”
Kovalic opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. Some people collected books. Others collected high explosives. Who was he to judge?
“Carry on.”
Finished with the outline, Tapper peeled an adhesive tab from the rear end of the tube, slapped it on his sleeve, and gave Kovalic a thumbs up.
Kovalic nodded and ducked back into the front room. At some point, the shop’s other patrons had begun to catch on to the fact that something was amiss – except for the shopkeeper, who had remained engrossed in the text he was studying and who, Kovalic was becoming increasingly convinced, was hard of hearing.
Instead of browsing the wares, the rest of the customers were eyeing Page, who had taken up a spot near the door, but clear of the windows just in case IIS had deployed sharpshooters. Though he was leaning casually against the wall and staring off into the middle distance, that seemed to have just made the rest of the shop’s patrons even more nervous. They’d huddled together, watching him, and every time one of them so much as shifted their weight, Page’s eyes would snap to them and he’d give a curt shake of the head.
Kovalic cleared his throat and addressed the room. “Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention?”
Half a dozen gazes shifted to him, so he put on his best calming smile.
“This is an IIS security action. I apologize for the inconvenience, and we’ll have you on your way in just a moment. In the meantime, if you could just seat yourselves against the far wall?”
Quite a few of them blanched at that announcement – nobody really liked the Imperial Intelligence Services, but that didn’t extend to questioning or disobeying them. That was way too much heat for the average law-abiding citizen. Although none raised an argument as they shuffled over to the indicated wall.
Tapper materialized at his shoulder. “We’re ready to go.”
“Good,” said Page, joining them. “Because they’re coming in.”
“In that case, exit, stage right.” Kovalic gave a last look over his shoulder at Bleiden’s body, lying limp against one of the bookshelves, and his lips thinned. But there was no time to linger on regrets – they had bigger problems. He looked up and pointed a finger at Tapper. The sergeant touched a blinking icon on his sleeve and there was a deep bass thump that rattled the antiques on their shelves.
Yanking open the door to the back room, they darted in. Particles of dust were floating everywhere, but, with the exception of the giant gaping hole in the wall, it was hard to say whether the back room was actually in worse shape than before. Wind and snow whistled in from the makeshift door.
The three men clambered over the rubble that lay in the threshold of the new door, finding themselves in a narrow alley between two tall buildings. In addition to the debris from the explosion, there were five armed response troops scattered about: two of them were down and not moving, apparently flattened by the explosion, while one was staggering to his feet. The last two had their hands clapped over their ears and were shaking their heads slowly. Carbines hung from slings over their shoulders, and pistols were holstered at their waist alongside a standard issue pair of grenades. Their heads were swathed in helmets, balaclavas, and goggles.
Kovalic pointed Tapper towards the one who was trying to get up. The sergeant jogged towards him, then dealt him a swift kick to the head that knocked him back to the ground. Page had already closed the distance to one of the two standing members of the team, delivering a knee to the gut that doubled the trooper over, followed by a sharp elbow to the back of the neck.
The last was standing against the opposite alley wall; he’d started to regain his balance, and when he saw Kovalic coming towards him he fumbled for his carbine. But he was clearly still reeling from the explosion’s concussion, and as Kovalic’s hand came around – still clutching the hardcover book he’d been perusing earlier – it clipped him just under the chin, slamming his helmeted head back into the brick wall with a satisfying thunk. Not enough to knock him out, but it would at least ring his bell. Kovalic gave him a kick to the ribs, just to make sure he’d stay down.
Tapper had already liberated the weapons of the trooper he’d downed, slinging the carbine over one shoulder. He’d also grabbed a comm unit, and was starting to collect the grenades from the other troops as well. Page had likewise stripped another fallen trooper’s equipment, checking the magazine on the weapon before locking it back into place.
“They’ll localize the explosion any second,” said Tapper. “We’d better make ourselves scarce.”
Kovalic looked around: the alley dead-ended here, but, as Tapper had said, there was a metal fire escape on the side of the building – so at least the fire code hadn’t been wholly ignored. The last flight was retracted, but with a short jump Kovalic pulled it down, clanging loudly to the ground.
“Go,” he said, gesturing at Page and Tapper. The two didn’t need any further encouragement as they scrambled up the ladder, Kovalic following close behind.
It was five stories to the top, navigating stairways that switched back and forth upon themselves as though they were sailing ships taking advantage of prevailing winds. Snowflakes bit at Kovalic’s face, which had already started to numb from the cold. Reaching the top, he swung himself over the
small lip that ran around the edge of the roof.
The roof itself contained an extensive collection of venting pipes, an emergency exit, and – Kovalic let out a sigh of relief – a comm array. Page was already ripping the cover off its junction box. As Kovalic joined them, Tapper took up position at the top of the fire escape, waiting for their pursuers.
Kovalic hoped to be long gone by the time they showed up.
“Stay low,” he muttered to Tapper. “Eyes probably has snipers on the surrounding rooftops. No reason to make it easy on them.” The curtain of snow around them made it hard to even see the adjacent buildings, but in a sniper’s thermal scope they’d stand out like a parade float.
Tapper gave him a dry look. “Not my first dance, boss.”
“Fair point.”
“Just go get us our ride home.”
With a nod, Kovalic went to join Page at the comm array. The younger man had a multitool clenched between his teeth as he twisted a pair of wires together; he looked up when Kovalic arrived, and took the tool out of his mouth long enough to say, “Two minutes.”
Running a hand through his snow-covered hair, Kovalic glanced over his shoulder at the fire escape. Two minutes might be pushing it, depending on how fast the rest of the shock troops figured out where they’d gone. That meant the three of them would have to hold the roof while waiting for pickup, which was made easier by the fact that they had the high ground, and much, much harder by the fact that they were severely outnumbered.
“Do what you can.”
Page didn’t bother to respond, just delved back into the mess of wiring. Kovalic returned to Tapper, who was at the top of the fire escape, sitting with his back against the low wall.
The Light Years Page 27