Operation_Endgame

by Pip Ballantine

  "That she is."

  Bruce grinned as he pulled his hand away, straightening Wellington’s lapels before turning around to the Usher agents. "He’s all yours."

  Wellington began the walk forward even though his legs weakened with each step. No, he chided himself, I will not fail. This must happen. He paused as Edison passed him on his right. The inventor did not ever spare him a glance. It should not have come as a surprise, but a twinge of disappointment rose in his chest.

  The closer he drew to H H Holmes, the colder he got. It had been quite some time since he had tasted such fear. This must happen, he insisted.

  "Good evening, Mr Books," Holmes said, his hand taking hold of Books’ arm. "This gentleman is... well, he would prefer you call him by his nome de plume in the ranks. This is Mr Fox."

  "I am," the Usher gentleman began, his eyes wide with wonder, "a great admirer of your father’s work. He was quite the innovator."

  "Yes, well, one man’s innovator is another's heartless bastard."

  "As you are an honourable sort..." Holmes said, allowing his words to trail off as he removed the handcuffs.

  Rifles and pistols now trained on Wellington as Fox hissed, "What in the bloody hell..."

  "Oh, would you stop?" Holmes snapped as he clapped Wellington on the shoulder. "If we are to work together, we should trust one another."

  "I think it has to be earned, if you must know," Wellington returned, rubbing his wrists. At least he could get feeling back into his shoulders. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a few of the Usher gunmen slipping their fingers across triggers.

  He glanced over to Hightower, Sound, and fellow agents walking back the length of the bridge. Phase One complete, he thought, turning back to his captors.

  Holmes looked around, nodded, and said, "Understood, but the truth remains: you are here. You could have thrown yourself off the Cliffs of Dover, gone into hiding, or put up a good fight—and yet, here you stand. Seems out of character for you, this utter lack of heroics."

  "No, there are plenty of heroics in this. Edison returns to the hands of the United States, the Ministry find out who is holding the reins over Usher, and I attempt to foil you from the inside whenever and wherever I can."

  Holmes nodded. "An honest man. I can respect that." He looked him over from head to toe, his smile widening. "And a man of fashion it seems."

  "I am," Wellington said.

  "I do approve of this cut. Savile Row?"

  "Actually, no. This tailor is quite exceptional, nonetheless."

  “I must have his number. I thought I understood Mr Fox’s obsession with you, but you are quite a Pandora’s Box, aren’t you? The more we open, the more curiosities we discover."

  "If you say so," Wellington said, his breath misting the light of the Usher transport looming ahead of him. "As this witty banter is growing somewhat tedious, might we—"

  The air rushed out of him in a gasp as his chest took the impact. Wellington tried to catch his breath, but every muscle in his body was seizing up. He stumbled and caught a glimpse of Holmes and Fox staring at him as if he were some sort of aberration. Then he finally took in some air, and that hurt.

  Then he became aware of two things at the moment. The first was the distant, high-pitched crack of distant gunfire. The other was the warm sensation spreading across his chest.

  "No!" Fox called out. "No! They’re trying to—"

  The second impact sent Wellington back once more, and this time he saw someone—whether it was Fox or Holmes himself, he could not be certain—reaching for him. Instead of hands stopping his fall, instead of the hard wood and iron underfoot, Wellington felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. Only a cold, biting rush of wind that stung at his cheeks.

  Fortunately, that discomfort didn’t last long. It was a blessed relief at the black abyss claimed him.

  Chapter Thirty

  In Which the Gates of Hell Are Opened

  "How are we doing, Axelrod?" Eliza asked.

  The prolonged sigh coming from him made her skin to prickle. She was more than ready to give the eccentric engineer plenty of regret for his flippancy, but as she was still trying to make amends for past transgressions against R&D, Eliza needed to keep her wits about her.

  "Agent Braun,” he began, his tone stiff and slightly condescending, “the status has not changed in the past five minutes. They have reached the rendezvous point. Usher is in-bound. Any minute now, the exchange should happen."

  She watched him fiddle with the modified Starlight Specs. The lenses clicked and hissed foreword, then back. Axelrod’s posture told her nothing.

  "Edison’s en route," he said. "He appears to be healthy. Two legs. Two arms. We’ll only know if they’ve got inside his head when OSM gets him back to DC Offices."

  Edison? That toe-rag was the so-called asset OSM was willing to negotiate with Usher for? She understood what politicians would call "the grander scope" of this, but that did not erase the mayhem Edison unleashed in collaborating with Usher, and then with the Maestro. Edison’s ledger had many deaths marked on it, but experience told her that there would be little justice for these families or loved ones left behind in the wake of the inventor’s shadowy endeavours.

  "You all right there, Eliza?" came a familiar, and welcome voice.

  Eliza gave a derisive snort and turned to look at Henrietta who was offering her the cigarillo. "I am as well as can be expected under the circumstances," she said, accepting the smoke.

  She nodded and stared off to one side. "Perhaps Wellington will do as he says and get on the inside. Perhaps he could relay to us..."

  "Considering what Wellington can do, I’ll be surprised if they leave him unattended in order to relieve himself."

  That would be a problem as Wellington was frightfully shy, even around her.

  "Anything is possible, I would imagine," Brandon offered, joining the two ladies. “Sorry, couldn’t help to overhear.”

  Still delightfully naïve, Eliza mused. Her eyes followed the length of the rifle strapped to his back. "Is that the latest LMT there?"

  "No, I brought this back with me from Whiterock. It’s a Model III. Maybe not the latest model, but it will do the job."

  Her heartbeat kicked up. "What is that supposed to mean?"

  "You know how these exchanges can turn nasty quickly. Just want to be prepared. Ya’ follow?"

  Trying to calm herself, she nodded. "Wellington would appreciate that."

  A whistle cut through the night. "Well now, that’s pretty brave of Usher," Axelrod said, adjusting the Starlights.

  Eliza waited a few moments. No reply. "What?" she asked, not caring a jot if it sounded rude or bossy—which men often seemed to fear.

  "They’ve removed Wellington’s cuffs. As this is Books that’s really taking their lives into their own hands."

  Eliza strained to see any movement in shadows on the bridge. In the distance, she could just make out a small lantern swaying back and forth, back and forth, as if in someone’s hand. Probably Bruce’s? Soon, the great Thomas Edison would return home, and Wellington...

  She craned her neck as she looked at Brandon’s rifle. "Is the scope fitted with Starlight filters?"

  "Should be. The optics are state-of-the-art," he said, but then chuckled. "At least that is what Axelrod and Blackwell tell me."

  "May I?" Eliza asked, extending her hand.

  Brandon obliged and, after a final check that had its safety on, passed the weapon to her. Shouldering the modified rifle, she flipped on the scope. The shapes of several men, and one imposing figure standing tall over them all stood in a wide arc around three men. She could only assume the one rubbing his wrists, his back to them, was Wellington. If she didn’t know better, the one man standing in front of him was admiring his suit.

  I have to see this through, she thought to herself.

  Something metallic clicked in her ear.

  "Eliza," Brandon asked. She was certain he was not letting his voice carry which it
could easily do around here. He was speaking only for her ears. "Did you just disengage the safety?"

  Wellington shifted slightly in the rifle’s scope. Oh, Brandon, I am so sorry for this...

  In the scope, Wellington stumbled as if something hit him in the chest. Even the sensitive nature of the Starlights caught long rivulets of what she knew to be blood reaching out in all directions.

  "Jesus Christ!" an OSM agent yelled out.

  The spotter must have seen it too.

  A heartbeat later, a single, sharp crack echoed through Eastwood Ridge. Then Bruce’s flare lit the darkness.

  The LMT safety re-engaged as Brandon relieved Eliza of the weapon. Her finger had remained above and away from the trigger, but that did not change what she had seen along with the spotter. "Sniper!” the OSM spotter called out. “We got a goddamn sniper out there!"

  "Confirmation?" Axelrod demanded as he brought his specs to a wider field-of-view. "Someone get me confirmation!"

  Agents from both the Ministry and OSM—all of them recognising that noise as she had—scrambled around the train, priming weapons of both short and long range. More calls rose for confirmation, but the sound could not only be that of a sniper’s rifle. Axelrod did not get far from her as Eliza grabbed the Starlights from his grasp. She blinked water from her eyes as she plunged her vision in the strange æther swirling within the lenses. After a moment of blindness, she could make it all out.

  Wellington stumbled back, a black monster creeping from underneath his waistcoat and jacket and consuming the bright white of his shirt. He struggled to catch his breath. From the waist up, he fought to regain his balance. Then his chest exploded a second time, and without a sound he toppled backwards into the night.

  A second gunshot echoed in the valley. That was an impossible shot. Even Wellington with his amazing talents could not have made that.

  Then again, he didn't. He had been on the receiving end of both of them.

  The specs fell and shattered against the bridge as she sprinted to the men now trying to escape to safety.

  Over his echoing gunshots, Eliza breaths coming short and quick. Edison, his hands still tied before him, attempted his best sprint even though his age and physique would have put such activity long in his past. His adrenaline, however, made Edison a man in his twenties again as he kept a considerable lead on Director Sound and Chief Hightower.

  "Agent Braun!" Sound called out as she ran past. "Agent Braun!"

  Another gunshot, followed by another, each gunshot preceded by the odd whir of a compressor priming to full capacity. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Bruce aiming his LMT in the direction of Usher. After that everything was a blur of lights and the distant shadows of the Usher train.

  A vice grip went around her waist and picked her up off her feet.

  "Lizzie!" Bruce was struggling to keep his balance. They both toppled back against the train tracks, and the fob at her waist struck the runners and then slipped between them. She had promised Wellington she would look after that watch of his. "Lizzie, what the bloody hell do you think ya’ doin’?"

  "Let. Me. Go!"

  "Lizzie, that would be a bad idea..."

  They had only taken one breath, before a commotion came from both sides of the valley, but from the Usher train came a distinct order: "Blow the bridge!"

  "But Wellington..." Eliza began.

  "He's gone! Now move!" and he tugged her back to her feet, pulling her back towards the OSM battle train.

  Their shadows stretched before them as underfoot wood trembled and shook. She was trying not to think of Wellington falling, not to think of the bridge around them as the explosives tore at its stability. Her feet slipped, but Bruce pulled her back up. Eliza could not—would not—stop. If she did, she would be dead—and that wouldn't do any good.

  The bridge bent underneath them. What was once a flat plane started to rise and twist under them. Not a terrible incline, but the erratic swaying did not put her sense of equilibrium at any ease.

  Just a few more steps...

  The wood bowed and kicked them forward several feet as the bridge tore itself apart. The distorted train tracks bucked. Bruce landed next to her, but he did not stay still for long as he scrambled to his feet, picked her up, and pulled her back to solid ground. Metal rails bent and disappeared into the darkness before them while far below a dull glow of red and gold surrounded in veils of grey flickered. Piercing through the smoke, though, were the brilliant white lights of Usher’s own steam train.

  "They’re clear!" Hightower called out. "Open fire!"

  The massive cannon atop the battle train punched the air with its concussive force, its ordinance a shooting star on a trajectory for Usher. The opposite side of the canyon lit up with a bright yellow-white fire. A few of Usher’s ranks fell. The train was chugging backwards, regardless of the impacts all around it. The sides of the transport lit up, and a heartbeat later came the signature report of Gatling guns. Usher had also come prepared for a potential betrayal.

  Bruce covered Eliza as bullets kicked dust and dirt around them. A few hit random targets nearby, but miraculously none struck home. Their own train hummed and rumbled just before their cannon fired again.

  As before, the opposite cliff exploded, dust, rock, and chunks of bridge flying in all directions, but the Usher train was now operating at full steam. It receded in to the darkness, its main centre light growing smaller and smaller by the second. The dimmer its light, the more her anger grew.

  "Would someone get these infernal ropes off me?!" someone shouted.

  Eliza’s gaze turned to see the famed inventor, the reason behind tonight’s mission, standing before a small collection of OSM agents. Some agents tended to the wounded, but in that moment all eyes turned on the inventor.

  "Mr Edison," Chief Hightower spoke, "On behalf of the Office of the Super—"

  "Instead of formalities, son, why don’t you take care of this first?" He thrust his hands out to Hightower.

  The Chief stood there, licking his lips as he considered the scientist before saying, "Of course." He motioned for an agent to approach. The woman took out a small butterfly knife and expertly produced a blade from its self-parting scabbard.

  As the blade worked through the hemp, Edison looked up. "Hightower?"

  "Yes sir. Of the Office of the Supernatural and Metaphysical."

  "So you are the incompetent agency dedicated to finding me?"

  "I wouldn’t have used those select words," Hightower said, clearing his throat, “but yes.”

  The ropes snapped free, and Edison let out a slight grunt as his bonds parted. He began to massage his wrists with his fingers as he continued. "Really? And how would you describe a rescue mission taking you close on three years to fulfil?"

  "I understand, Mr Edison, that you have been through a trying time..."

  "A trying time?" Edison asked, his eyebrow crooking. "A trying time? No, son, it wears not a trying time. It was three years of captivity. I was the prisoner of a complete madman. I keep this country the epicentre of innovation. I keep it lit, keep it powered, keep it from slipping back to the Stone Age, and it took you three years to find me." Edison stood there for a moment, keeping his eyes locked on Hightower. "Please, tell me more about how this was a trying time for me."

  The tense silence had returned. Doctor Sound smoothed out the lapels of his jacket as he stepped between the two gentlemen. "On behalf of both the Office of the Supernatural and Metaphysical and the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences, we apologise for the anguish you may have encountered."

  Edison sighed. "Finally, some respect."

  The cold, early morning breeze cut at her cheeks as she sprinted across to the three men. Her punch lifted Edison off his feet. He’d not even finished landing on the ground before she was on top of him, grabbing Edison by the collar with one hand in order to pull him into the punch coming from the other. Perfect strikes, each one. Her knuckles experienced no shock. A light sting, at th
e most, but each blow she made was effortless. Efficient. Effective.

  Eliza did not know how many times she had made contact with the man’s face before they pulled her away.

  Words failed her. She only heard own breathing; wrecked and ragged. Eliza grew light-headed, and her footing was uncertain. When the world was coming back into focus, Hightower hunched over Edison. The inventor’s right eye was now swollen shut, and the corner of his lip broken and bleeding. From Eliza’s quick assessment, he’d lost at least one tooth—possibly two.

  "That will do, Miss Braun!" Sound yelled.

  No, no, it would not. "A man far better than you, far more brilliant than you, gave his life so you could return to your own creature comforts. You collaborated with Usher, and Wellington paid for it! Go on, give me a reason to believe his sacrifice was worth your sorry hide?"

  Doctor Sound stepped between her and the downed inventor. "Stand down, Agent Braun."

  "Eliza," Henrietta said to her. She was gentle, quiet. "Wellington would not have wanted this."

  She spun to face her. "You barely knew him," she spat. "You barely knew him!"

  Henrietta put her hand on Eliza's shoulder. "Director, if it is all the same to you, I think I should go on and take Agent Braun home. Any additional debriefing you need from me, I can make at Whiterock. My second from the Institute will secure the battle train and oversee its return."

  His acknowledgement went almost unheard, but Sound did not question Henrietta’s request. It made perfect sense to put as much distance as possible between Eliza and Edison. She still had that urge to punish the inventor for the pain and misery he brought to everyone around him, right up to this moment. He may have been a brilliant man, but that didn't make him a decent one.

  Edison sat upright now, spitting blood to one side, while Hightower supported him. The inventor paid them no attention. Eliza was his main preoccupation. "I will see you ruined, little lady," he slurred. "I have connections. In my government. In your country’s government. I will have your guts for garters."