Blades of Winter

by G T Almasi

  I stare at the data pod. The last thing I remember about my dad was him leaving for the mission that took him here. The material in this device is from after that, so it almost feels like it’s from the future even though it’s from eight years in the past.

  Rashid misinterprets my hesitation and stands up. “I will give you some privacy, Miss Scarlet.” He smiles at me and leaves the office, gently closing the door behind him.

  I grab the data pod and slide the top of my pants down to expose the data port built into my hip. I pop in the data pod. A selection of audio files and a stack of text documents appears in my Eyes-Up display. It’s my dad’s dispatches. They’re kind of a mess. The files are only identified by the date they were created, so if I copy them to my Bio-Drive without naming them first they’ll all have today’s date and they’ll be an unholy bitch to work with.

  I sort the text stack by date and skip to the end. I open the last entry and see from the header that my father wrote it eight years ago here in Baghdad. The report begins with codes and other official crap, the stuff that Trick does for me. Then I find what I’m looking for: the Field Action Report.

  ### Big Bertha / Baghdad / Begin 2 November, 04:45 ###

  Later this morning I am to accompany Winter to the lab outside of Riyadh. I’ve been invited to a meeting with him and several of his foreign financiers. Most of these contacts are from Zurich, with a few other Germans and even an American, according to a memo I was allowed to see.

  While my supposed role at this meeting will be security, I am sure that Winter is testing me. If any of the information I overhear is reflected back to him from his moles in our government, he will know where it came from and I will be eliminated.

  It’s time to go. All my work has led up to this.

  ### END 2 November, 04:48 ###

  Wow, this is already a gold mine for the Information people. Dad really was after Winter and the Blades of Persia, like Jacques told us. Which means he wasn’t surveying Russian covert activity in Germany’s Middle East like it says in the official CORE entry for his last Job Number.

  So who wrote those field reports in CORE? And what the h-e-double-toothpicks is a-goin’ on here?

  I remember that it was summer when Dad left on this trip and that he hardly packed anything. He only took a small suitcase to hold his lightest-weight suits, which could have been for either mission. But he left Li’l Bertha at home, which according to Jacques fits the Blades mission and not the surveying mission.

  I move backward through the documents and find the beginning of his dispatches from Baghdad.

  ### Big Bertha / Baghdad / Begin 19 July 19:45 ###

  Arrived Baghdad earlier today. Uneventful flight, but my taxi was followed from the airport. Two people on a single motorcycle, one adult male in his midthirties, one boy estimated twelve years old. I had the driver drop me off at a coffee house outside the city. The adult followed me inside the café. After ordering a drink, I went to the men’s room. While in the men’s room, I observed the boy as he loitered outside the window. I climbed out the bathroom window and eliminated the boy. I then reentered the coffee house through the front door. Predictably, the remaining enemy went outside to check on the child.

  I followed the adult male outside and eliminated him while he bent over the body of the boy. A search of their papers confirmed them to be, as I suspected, father and son. I rode the motorcycle to a known Blades base and set the vehicle alight. I was two blocks away in a taxi when the motorcycle exploded.

  I must make contact with the Greeks and attain their appraisal of the situation here.

  ### END 19 July, 19:58 ###

  Whoah! Dad’s stories down in the basement never mentioned this kind of shit. I knew that sometimes people got killed on his missions, but I didn’t know they were twelve-year-olds! When I entered the field, I was only a few years older than this poor kid. It’s pure luck that I never came up against someone like my father.

  I look at the dates from his first and his last dispatches. Impressive. In only five months my father went from the new guy in town to meetings at Winter’s secret lab. My mother has told me he was very charismatic. Since the report from November was his last, it seems like Winter didn’t think my father was as charming as everyone else did.

  I close the reports and open a set of audio files. These are clips my dad recorded to gather evidence. I pick one of the later recordings.

  ### Big Bertha / Baghdad / Recorded 4 October, 14:51 ###

  This is a digitally voiced time stamp that gets added automatically to the beginning of official recordings. I don’t recognize the first voice I hear, but it’s creepy.

  “There is no question at sis point.”

  It’s a man’s voice, but it sounds weird. The man has a strange accent; I can’t place it.

  “Do you mean it’s inevitable, sir?”

  My dad’s voice. It’s like he’s right here. A pair of big, cold teardrops form in my eyes. The drops flow down the sides of my face and soak into my shirt.

  “No, not inevitable, Philip, but we know what needs to be done, and we are prepared to do it.”

  “And what is that?”

  A long pause. I hear … footsteps? Maybe they’re walking together. Finally the other voice says,

  “I don’t want to demoralize the more senior recruits by accelerating your schedule. You show great promise, Philip, but it is still too early to reveal sat much to you.”

  There are more footsteps, then a door opens and shuts. Men with different accents speak German, one of them my father. Clinking glass and the sound of pouring liquid. They’re having a drink at a restaurant or someone’s house.

  Recording ends, 4 October, 14:54 hours.

  The time stamp ends the recording with a click.

  I wipe my eyes with the back of my hands and drop some Kalmers to keep myself together. My father’s voice echoes in my head and brings back a flood of memories of the time I spent with him.

  Focus, Alix!

  I open another unlabeled stack of text documents. There are two files inside, again labeled only with dates. The first was written after Dad had been on this mission for a month.

  ### Big Bertha / Baghdad / Begin 3 August, 22:47 ###

  Jakob,

  What’s the holdup? I’ve asked Info repeatedly for an analysis of that sample I sent a week ago. Smuggling it out of here was not trivial, as the facility I took it from has some of the stoutest security in the organization. It must be important.

  —Big Bertha

  ### End 3 August, 22:49 ###

  The second document was created two minutes after Dad’s last Field Action Report.

  ### Big Bertha / Baghdad / Begin 2 November, 04:50 ###

  To whom it may concern,

  If you are reading this, you have spoken with Ilan and received my backed-up data files for this Job Number. It also means I likely did not survive this mission.

  I have created this archive because of the strange things that have happened while I’ve been on this mission. My reports have been barely acknowledged by ExOps, and when I ask for assistance from the Information Department, I’m told that there are no resources available. I fear that something drastic has happened at the agency, and I am not certain what to expect when I return home. Therefore, I will summarize my progress thus far to retain some kind of record.

  My assignment to infiltrate the Blades of Persia has gone well so far. I was followed on my arrival from Paris, but after eliminating that inconvenience I was, as far as I know, no longer under surveillance.

  My first task was to meet with the Greeks and learn about the general situation here in Baghdad. They told me relations between the Germans and their Middle Eastern subjects are tense, as usual. The same cycle of violence continues, much as it has for the three decades since the war.

  Something new are the whispers of a man who is working on a way to eject the Germans and the Russians from the Middle East. The man’s plan is never clearly stated
, but his name is Winter. The Greeks aren’t certain whether this rumor is true or simply something the people cling to out of desperation. I couldn’t help but wonder if the Germans themselves started this myth to focus the locals’ attention on a baseless fantasy.

  But my meetings with Ilan at his café led me to conclude that Winter does indeed exist. Ilan wasn’t able to elucidate any further on how Winter intends to achieve his goal, but he did connect me with one of Winter’s top lieutenants, Kazim Nazari. I persuaded Nazari to believe that I’m a German security officer who has suffered some minor disgrace. This fictional scandal has forced my early retirement and compelled me to hire myself out as a freelance bodyguard. Nazari expressed interest in having some more experienced personnel around, as many of his local recruits are enthusiastic but largely untrained. Apparently the Blades of Persia employs a fair number of non–Middle Eastern security people, mostly retired Russian Levels.

  From there it was simply a matter of working myself into Nazari’s good graces. After proving my worth during an attempt on his life, my standing with Nazari improved so much that he decided to introduce me to his reclusive boss and leader of the Blades, Winter himself. This meeting is today. My goal is to make myself so indispensable that I become part of Winter’s personal guard. From there I will ascertain what his intentions are.

  If I have not survived, tell my wife and daughter that I love them both very much.

  —Big Bertha

  ### End 2 November, 05:13 ###

  Oh, God, I miss you, Daddy.

  A huge sob flies out of my throat and ricochets off the walls of Rashid’s office. I yank the data pod out of my hip and clutch it tight while I bury my face in my hands and bawl like a child. I hear the door open behind my chair.

  “Miss Scarlet, what’s wrong?” It’s Rashid.

  “Scarlet, what’s happening?” It’s Trick. He can hear everything I do. “What’s the matter?”

  Rashid crouches down in front of me. “Are you all right?”

  I nod my head and gasp for breath. “Solomon, I’m fine,” I comm. “Gimme a minute, okay?”

  “Sure thing,” Trick comms faster than normal. He’s worried.

  Rashid closes the door and gets me a cup of water from a cooler opposite the filing cabinet. I drink a little and slowly calm myself down. Rashid sits in his chair behind his desk and stays quiet, letting me recover.

  I imagine my father’s rapid speech and the way he’d stalk around the room as he told me one of his stories. We’d be down in his shop. I’d watch and listen while he maintained his Mods or reprogrammed his Level 20 handgun and turned her into Li’l Bertha.

  He’d keep his drink up on top of his red Snap-on tool cart. Sometimes he was in a cast or wrapped in bandages from all the damage he took on his Job Numbers. He’d tell me stories about what he did to people and what they did to him. By the time he was on his third drink, he’d be telling me how sometimes he hardly felt it when he got shot and how sometimes he could barely think from the pain. It broke my heart to think of my daddy alone in some dark shithole, fighting for his life so he could come back to his little girl and scare the daylights out of her.

  His stories gave me terrible nightmares, but never while he was home. The bad dreams would begin the day he left on a mission and stop the day he returned. After his last job, when we realized he wasn’t coming back, sleepy time became a nonstop horror show for me. The nightmares got to be less frequent after I joined ExOps.

  Rashid sees that I’ve stopped crying. He leans forward. “I know how you feel, Miss Scarlet. I weep sometimes, thinking of my father.”

  I sniffle and wipe my eyes again. “Still?”

  “Yes.” His animated voice has gone flat. “Still.” He sits back and stares at the top of his desk. “My mother once told me that growing up isn’t learning how to get over loss. It’s learning how to carry the pain of loss and keep going.”

  I inhale a deep rattling breath. “Well … that fuckin’ sucks.” My stoic bluntness brings a smile to Rashid’s face, which in turn makes me laugh. He laughs with me.

  “Are you hungry, Miss Scarlet? My kitchen is open all night, especially for distinguished guests such as yourself.”

  “No thanks, Rashid. I need to—”

  Suddenly there’s a loud rapping at the door. Rashid calls out in Arabic, and the door swings open to reveal a wide-eyed boy. He’s about eleven, and I guess that he’s one of Rashid’s many nephews. The boy stammers something to Rashid, who replies quickly and waves his hands to shoo the boy out of the room.

  “Miss Scarlet, my lookouts have seen something they don’t like outside.” He grabs a set of car keys from his desk. “We must go.”

  CHAPTER 15

  SAME NIGHT, 12:18 A.M. ST TIGRIS AREA, BAGHDAD, PROVINCE OF PERSIA, GG

  I hate somethings. They’re never good. Apparently, the lookout saw two out-of-place-looking men. Out-of-place-looking means competition.

  I follow Rashid out to the garage. “Scarlet to Solomon.”

  Trick’s right there, of course. “Go ahead, Scarlet.”

  “Solomon, the Greeter’s people have spotted suspicious activity,” I comm. “How’s it look outside?”

  “Crowded.”

  Rashid walks past a rack of license plates for the truck and presses a button on the wall. The big garage door clatters open. The parking area beside the café glows in the glare of streetlights overhead. I lurk behind the puker delivery van while Rashid ambles outside and lights a cigarette. He strolls toward the sidewalk and casually looks around.

  Trick continues, “You’re in an all-night café, and across the street is a movie theater and a jazz club. It’s night-owl heaven out there.”

  Rashid returns from his recon. “We’ve attracted interest.”

  “Cops?” I ask.

  “No, I know all the police in this area. It’s someone else.” Rashid rubs his jaw and scowls.

  “Lemme guess,” I say. “Russian?”

  Rashid’s eyebrows go up, and he purses his lips. “Hmm. You know, they could be.”

  “Young or old?”

  “Middle-aged. Definitely not young.”

  “Solomon, did you hear that?” I comm.

  “Affirmative.”

  “Rashid gave me a copy of some of my dad’s reports. My father said the Blades of Persia used to hire a lot of retired Russian Levels as security.”

  “That matches the guys who jumped you at the drop zone earlier tonight,” he comms. “We ran the picture you sent through Archives and found a match. That competitor spent fifteen years as a Russian Protector until he left the KGB five years ago.”

  “Was he working for the Blades?”

  “We don’t know, but it would explain why he dropped off our radar until tonight. I hadn’t even heard of the Blades until all this started.”

  “Jesus, Solomon, what the hell is going on?”

  “We’ll figure it out, Scarlet. It could be the Blades, since it seems like that’s who your father was after, but it could also be a lot of other people.”

  “Well, whoever the fuck they are, I think the bastards have found me again. Should I ride out with Rashid?”

  “One sec.” Patrick mumbles with his Info Coordinator in Washington. Then he comms, “No, the Greeter is being watched too closely. Leave the café on foot and proceed as planned.”

  “Roger that.” I stick my hand out to Rashid. “I’m outta here, Lonely. Nice to meet’cha.”

  Rashid shakes my hand and says, “Miss Scarlet, are you sure? I can get another car.”

  “Don’t sweat it, Rashid. I’ll be fine.” I pop outside and turn toward the back wall of the garage. I squat down and then thrust my legs straight. As I fly up to the roof, I glimpse Rashid’s mouth dropping open.

  I run across the top of the café, crouching low to remain hidden from the street. My boots carry me across the roofs of a few adjoining single-story shops until I get to a side street. I drop down to the sidewalk and walk toward a big
parking garage a few blocks away.

  I turn on amplified hearing, infrared vision, and starlight vision to keep track of everybody on the street. I call this my Manhattan Radar Mode. After I’ve traveled a block, I peek back over my shoulder. Two goons have stopped hanging around in front of the café and are jogging after me.

  I check with Trick. “Solomon, are you tracking these two?”

  “Roger, Scarlet. Two palookas in pursuit.”

  I’m a few blocks away from the garage. It’s got six aboveground levels and I don’t know how many underground. I zap some Madrenaline into my blood and break into a full-out sprint. I speed up to thirty-five miles per hour and lean forward to counteract the wind resistance. My arms pump so fast that my jacket sleeves make a clapping sound as they slap back and forth from my biceps to my triceps.

  I’m almost inside the garage when a huge Mercedes sedan roars around the corner and skids to a halt across the entrance to the upper levels of the car park. The doors fly open, and a group of men pop out like bread from a toaster. I swerve to the side and disappear down the ramp to the lower levels. The garage is filled down here. Rows of cars are parked among ribbons of concrete barriers set up to direct the flow of traffic. I move into the middle of the floor and crouch next to an old BMW.

  “Solomon, I’m hemmed into the lower level by a pack of goons.”

  “Russians again?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. They’re not cops.” I lean against the car and turn up my hearing. It’s one thing to eliminate a group of baddies when they don’t know I’m there, like at the cemetery in Paris. When they’re all locked and loaded, it’s something else entirely. I peek over the hood. “Solomon, I count six competitors.”

  “Sit tight, Scarlet. Let me see if the Greeter can draw their attention away from you.”

  I switch off my Manhattan Radar suite except for my infrared vision. The cars have been here long enough to cool down, so I have a clear look at the pair of overheated goombahs who huff and puff into the garage. These must be the schmoes who chased me from the café. They pause to catch their breath. One of them is big and muscular, and the other dude is small and wiry, hardly bigger than me. They’re only fifty feet away, so I can’t count on Rashid getting here before they spot me. I set Li’l Bertha to .45-caliber, chug some Kalmers to steady my aim, then stand up and let ’er rip.