by Ewing, Al
Reed rolled his eyes. “Not this again. Cohen –”
“Captain Teach, dog!” Cohen leapt out of his chair, sending it rattling backwards, and drew his cutlass in one savage motion. “I’ll have ye dance a hornpipe at the end of me rope, ye scurvy bilge-rat!”
“Put it away, fool,” Mike Moses growled in his deep, rumbling bass. “Save it for the Ratzis.” Cohen turned to him, scowling through blackened teeth, then re-seated himself with a grudging aar.
“Honestly,” Marlene Lang sighed. “Boys and their swords.” She flashed El Sombra a contemptuous look, and he flashed her a grin in response. Savate, sat in the row behind, rolled his eyes.
“Zere eez an Eenglish phrase... ah, oui, I have eet.” He smiled, leaned forward and patted them both on the shoulder. “Get a room, mes amis.”
In the corner, Johnny Wolf raised an eyebrow. He didn’t speak. Ever.
Scorpio looked his team over as the banter continued. Seven specialists, each one the best there was at what they did – and right now, what they were doing was wasting his precious time. Calmly, he drew his multi-ammo Magnum and fired a dum-dum round into the ceiling.
That shut them up, all right.
“Captain Reed.” Scorpio smiled. “You have the floor.”
The six seated members of Yankee Bravo Seven grudgingly turned their attention to Reed. “Thank you, sir. Now, to answer Cohen’s – I’m sorry, ‘Blackbeard’s’ – idiotic question, the reason I’m giving this briefing is that I’m the best equipped to understand what we’re facing and translate it for you... laypersons.” He took a puff on his pipe. “Or ‘morons,’ as we in the scientific community call you.”
Mike Moses groaned. “Aw, man. This is gonna be all kinds of crazy-ass mad science, ain’t it?”
Reed smiled. “My dear Michael... is there any other kind?”
PERSONNEL FILE: RICHARD REED - CAPTAIN (OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES) - SKILLS: CODEBREAKING, ENGINEERING, SCIENTIFIC GENIUS, TECHNOLOGICAL SAVANT - PREFERRED WEAPON: NONE - WEAKNESSES: LOW COMBAT SKILLS, IS A CONDESCENDING ASSHOLE
“So! First slide – here we have Magna Britannia’s own Professor Philip Hawthorne. Fact: fourteen months ago, Hawthorne attended a scientific conference in Switzerland to give a lecture on Parallel Universe Theory and the I Ching. Fact: shortly before he was due to deliver his lecture, he vanished from his hotel room without explanation. Nobody knows why.”
El Sombra shrugged. “Kidnapped by the bastards, amigo. It’s obvious.”
“If by ‘bastards’ you mean Nazis – and you usually do – then yes, it was deeply obvious, but neither Magna Britannia nor Switzerland want to enter the war. Which is good for us. Right now, it’s the USSA versus Nazi Germany, with our various European friends – and theirs – providing moral support, staging posts and deniable resources like Savate here. If Switzerland and Britannia got involved, we have no idea which way they’d go...”
Reed took a puff on his pipe, and Jack Scorpio broke in. “Doc Thunder’s the big factor there.”
“Arrr,” Cohen growled. “How fares he ’gainst the ravages o’ the black spot?”
Scorpio shrugged. “He’s out of danger, I hear. In a couple of months, maybe he’ll even wake up.” He shook his head. “Anyway, as long as he’s recuperating in Zor-Ek-Narr – and who knows how long it’ll be before he’s back to his old self – we’re a lot weaker. Meanwhile, Magna Britannia know they can control Hitler when he’s at full strength; they’ve been doing it for decades, and apart from occasional Untergang agents like Dan Dashwood, they’ve had no problems. So do the math. If they enter the war, it’ll be to do a nice little deal with the Führer and get their old colony back. Then they’ll throw a bone to the Nazis – Italy, maybe – and get back to business as usual.”
“They’d do that?” Very little shocked Marlene Lang, but she seemed nonplussed at that.
“Sure. Britain wasn’t exactly friendly even before all their shit hit the fan. Anyway, back on topic...” He nodded to Reed and changed to the next slide.
Reed smiled. “Back on topic – here we see Phil Hawthorne and Alexander Oddfellow having a drink in the Eagle in Cambridge, in happier times. If you’ve been reading your Above Top Secret files, you’ll remember Oddfellow as the man who accidentally discovered time travel. Which, funnily enough, was Hawthorne’s specialist subject and the focus of most of his theorising. The two of them corresponded until Oddfellow got caught in his own matter transporter back in ’97 – which we’re not supposed to know about, of course. After that, the British government was a little more careful about who he talked to, but it’s my understanding that they managed to meet up once or twice. In addition to his correspondence with Oddfellow, Hawthorne also wrote to me regarding the Devil’s Eye Incident of 1888, which my great-great-grandfather was the only surviving witness of. He theorised that that was also caused by a temporal anomaly. You see where I’m going with this?”
Savate shrugged. “Non.”
Reed sighed. “The world’s greatest living expert in time travel has been kidnapped by the Nazis.”
Johnny Wolf leaned back on his chair, lifted the brim of his stetson and looked Reed straight in the eye. Reed caught his meaning and nodded.
“As a matter of fact, Wolf, we do know where he is. Or rather, we’ve got a pretty good idea. Next slide, please.” The picture of the two men was replaced by that of a German schloss – a great stone castle in an eccentric and forbidding style, complete with two massive flat-topped turrets. “Castle Abendsen. Situated about ten miles from the ruins of Castle Frankenstein – also rumoured to have been the scene of a temporal anomaly in 1943, which I find significant. Recently, some of our spies operating behind enemy lines have spotted deliveries of vacuum tubes, microhydraulics and industrial cavorite being ferried to the castle by traction engine, and it’s rumoured that that’s part of a supply line running straight from Berlin bringing some worryingly high technology into the area. It’s also rumoured that Castle Abendsen is home to a VIP – that’s as in very important prisoner. Anyone want to have another go at putting the pieces together?”
Savate nodded. “Ze Bosche are holdeeng zees Hawthorne een zeir castle and forceeng heem to build zem... ’ow you say... une machine a voyager dans le temps.”
Reed scowled. “You’re making your accent even more ridiculous just to annoy me, aren’t you?”
“Oui, oui, mon petit chou-fleur. Do you suppose zey weel attempt to go back een time and change ze course of ze Second Great War?”
Scorpio broke in. “I doubt it. Current thinking for folks who know what went down back in 1943 – including the Führer – is that you just can’t change the past. All you can do is have shit happen the way you remember it happening, only it turns out that was you all along. Not much use in a military situation.” He finished his joint and stubbed it out on his flak jacket. “But from our point of view here in the present, the future’s still mutable, until someone comes back and tells us otherwise. So we could – according to those in the know – bring stuff back from there, like weapons, or troops. There’s nothing theoretically stopping the Nazi army of next week from coming back, joining up with the Nazis of today and kicking our asses, so long as the Nazis of today remember to keep their diary free next week. Try not to think about it too hard – I don’t need any of you getting a migraine before the mission – but be aware that on this op, there’s literally no time to lose. They could be throwing the switch right now, and the first we’d know about it would be when we suddenly had to fight five Ultimate Reichs at once.”
“Crazy-ass mad science. I knew it.” Mike Moses groaned, holding his head in his hands. “So the mission is to bust in, grab Hawthorne and bust right back out?”
“And destroy anything that even smells like a time machine.” Scorpio grinned. “Oh, by the way, Castle Abendsen’s in the heart of enemy territory and so heavily guarded on the ground that you can’t get inside a mile of it without coming down with a lead overdose. Rumour had it they’
ve even got a King Tiger patrolling the area.”
Marlene let out a low whistle.
El Sombra looked over at her. “King Tiger?”
“The largest, toughest, most powerful traction engine in the world. It’s like driving a battleship, so they say. I’ve been itching to get behind the wheel of one...” She purred, savouring the thought.
“Well, you won’t on this mission,” Scorpio informed her. “It’s way too dangerous to approach on the ground, and we’ve got the Luftwaffe patrolling the area from the air. Castle Abendsen’s sealed up tighter than a drum.”
“Also not to mention all the heightened security inside,” Reed murmured. “The place is crawling with SS, and I’d be very surprised if they hadn’t been assigned a Zinnsoldat or two to help tidy up any unwanted human beings breaking in.”
“I see. A King Tiger, the Luftwaffe, the SS and a couple of Zinnsoldats. And a time machine.” Marlene raised an eyebrow. “Jack, dearest, would you say this was a suicide mission?”
“Like the man said.” Jack Scorpio grinned. “Is there any other kind?”
IT REALLY IS a beautiful day for killing, Emil Farber thought.
He’d led his squadron south, for a sortie over what had once been Austria, and they’d run into a platoon of Rocketeers escorting a troop carrier on the ground. Farber couldn’t help but smile at how easily his men had out-manoeuvred and out-gunned the Americans in their clumsy jetpacks and helmets. The socialists just couldn’t afford the cavorite necessary to maintain a proper flying corps, and their experiments with hydrogen peroxide were only good for creating gangs of human fireworks, exploding with a single bullet in the right place. What sort of moron would send their men out wearing their own deaths strapped to their backs?
The best the Rocketeers could have done was bought time for the troop carrier to get to safety, but they didn’t even manage that – it only took half of Farber’s squad to destroy the American fliers, their cavorite-infused wing-packs flying rings around them, while the other half calmly machine-gunned the soldiers from above. Farber counted a good forty Americans killed, at the hands of a mere eight men. A good afternoon’s work.
He chuckled to himself as his men landed on the tarmac at the Staffel. As long as the Fatherland had the vital advantage in the air, the Americans were doomed. Sooner or later, he knew, his Führer would realise how weak Magna Britannia was and finally give the order to attack the French and Italians. One by one, the countries of Europe would topple like dominoes, and then – finally – Britain and all her resources would fall before the might of the Ultimate Reich.
After that, mopping up the Americans and their fireworks would be child’s play.
Behind him, Pfeffer, the newest member of the squadron, piped up shrilly. “Herr Major? Where is everyone?”
Farber looked around the Staffel. It was a small area, with a barracks, an officer’s mess and a couple of administrative buildings, and usually it was crowded with guards and clerks – at the very least, the engineers should have been rushing out to check over their wing-packs. And yet, nobody was there at all.
“Have we been attacked, Major?” Ludwig Richter this time, ever ready to jump to a pessimistic conclusion. Farber shook his head, although he found himself unable to think of any other explanation. And then, just as he was about to order the squadron to split up and conduct a search, the door to the Officer’s Mess opened.
Standing in the doorway was a strikingly attractive blonde woman, wearing a suit of some figure-hugging black material – from a distance, it seemed like leather, but surely it couldn’t be – along with a pair of red gloves, and red high-heeled ankle boots. Farber seemed to remember seeing girls dressed like that during pre-war furloughs in Milan – ‘swinging Milan,’ as the British called it. As the blonde flashed him a dazzling smile, he began to wonder if perhaps this was some star of the cabaret stage, here to raise the morale of the troops? No, he would have been informed. A working girl from nearby Feldkirch, then, smuggled in by the ground crew to help one of his young charges celebrate a birthday and a coming of age? No, nobody in Feldkirch looked like that – and again, he would have been informed. Wouldn’t he?
In his confusion, he almost didn’t hear the sound of seven bodies hitting the ground behind him. He turned around – and saw all his men splayed out on the concrete, a tranquiliser dart jutting from the neck of each one. How... how did...?
He turned back, wide-eyed, to see the blonde aiming a pistol directly at him. He had time for one thought before the dart buried itself in his neck: this is how the Rocketeers must have felt.
Then everything went black.
Marlene smiled, and spoke into the communicator at her wrist. “Blood Widow to King Sting. Snake Eyes got seven of them, I dispatched the last. Over.”
Jack Scorpio’s voice crackled in response. “Only seven? He’s slipping.”
“He’s a gentleman. He knows how much I enjoy shooting commanding officers – I always think of you when I’m pulling the trigger.”
“You’re going to hold what happened in London over my head for the rest of my life, aren’t you?”
“At the very least.” Marlene said, and blew a kiss towards the roof of the barracks.
If a man spent an hour poring over that roof with a pair of high-powered binoculars, he’d see nothing but roof tiles in the sun. And then – ten seconds after he’d given up – the pattern of the tile would shift almost imperceptibly, or the shadow of the chimney would lengthen by a fraction...
...and Johnny Wolf wouldn’t be there any more.
PERSONNEL FILE: JOHN STALKING WOLF - CAPTAIN (MARINE CORPS) - SKILLS: SNIPER (ULTIMATE CLASS), STEALTH, EXTREME SURVIVAL, NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION - PREFERRED WEAPON: DRAGUNOV SVU GAS-OPERATED SNIPER RIFLE (ADAPTED FOR MULTI-AMMO CAPABILITY) - WEAKNESSES: HAS NEVER SPOKEN
He unfolded himself from his hiding place on the roof, and Marlene couldn’t help but note that he’d taken his shirt off.
How delightfully decadent of him.
“I AIN’T STRAPPING on no wings, fool!”
PERSONNEL FILE: MICHAEL MOSES - CIVILIAN (PREVIOUS OCCUPATION: CIRCUS STRONGMAN) - SKILLS: UNARMED COMBAT, EXTREMELY HIGH NATURAL STRENGTH, INTERMEDIATE MEDICAL TRAINING - PREFERRED WEAPON: FISTS - WEAKNESSES: CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR, SUFFERS SEVERE AVIOPHOBIA
“I will steal a damn tank if I have to!” Mike Moses bellowed. “I will walk! I will hitch-hike! But you are not getting me into no damn wings!”
“Oh, for goodness’ sakes, Michael.” Reed sighed theatrically. “Statistically, wing-packs are the safest form of travel.”
“Like hell! You shot a damn missile at one last week!”
Reed shrugged. “I can’t argue with that logic.”
“They’re the safest for what we’re about to do.” Scorpio said, buttoning his coat. “Now get your damn clothes on.” Apart from Moses, they were all dressed in the uniforms of the Ultimate Reich fliers; the fliers themselves were bound and gagged in the Officer’s Mess, with the ground crew and the guards. “We need to be in the air in five minutes if this plan’s gonna work.”
Moses scowled, struggling into a uniform a size too small for him. “Well, it’s a crazy-ass plan, Jack. I mean, we fly up to that castle, what the hell are they supposed to think? ‘Aw, hey, two black guys wearing our clothes! That look suspicious to you, Hans?’ ‘Hell, no, Fritz, ’cause the Nazi party’s all about equal opportunities and also it’s German Opposite Day –’”
“Es ist Gegenteiltag,” Reed murmured.
Scorpio sighed. “I’ve done this before, Mike. We’ll be too far away. Nobody on the ground is going to see what colour we are.”
“How about when we land on the turrets? Those guards are gonna shoot us like pigeons –”
Marlene smiled, adjusting her cap. Out of all of them, she was the only one who didn’t look out of place in the Reich’s uniforms; El Sombra in particular was scratching himself as if afflicted with the shirt of Nessus. “Not if we shoot them first, darling
,” she purred.
“What’s this ‘we,’ lady?”Moses scowled angrily. “I don’t kill fools. You know I don’t kill fools. Hell, I pity the fools – ain’t their fault they got all indoctrinated, y’know? But you don’t have to worry about me not killing fools, because I ain’t strapping on no god-damn wings –”
Marlene shot him with a tranquiliser dart.
“What?” she asked, as the others looked at her.
Jack sighed. “One of these days I’m getting him a therapist. Reed, you got that doohickey you told me about?”
Reed smiled, removing a large piece of clockwork from the backpack he wore and clipping it onto the controls of the largest wing-pack. “This little brain will keep him flying with the rest of us while he sleeps. Just wind it up when you want us to take off.”
“Excusez-moi, mes amis,” Savate piped up. “But, ah, what do we do with...” He indicated the Officer’s Mess.
El Sombra shrugged. “They’re bastards, amigo. We kill them.” He hefted his machine-gun.
Savate laughed nervously. “Well, I am not wishing to sound like Monsieur Moses, but to machine-gun two dozen men in cold blood... it seems so... wizzout honnair, n’est-ce-pas?”
El Sombra drew in a breath, and the Officer’s Mess picked that moment to explode.
Once the rubble had settled and the myriad pieces of smoking meat that had once been men had hit the ground, Scorpio turned to Lev Cohen. “Blackbeard. That was you, wasn’t it?”