Blades of Winter

by G T Almasi

  After a few moments he says, “Sind Sie fertig? Gut. Ich auch.” Ready? Good. Me too. He turns on the computer terminal. I say a quick prayer that Trick covered his tracks correctly. Kazim logs in and opens a complicated-looking spreadsheet.

  I hear the office’s door open. Through my fingers, I see two pairs of men’s feet walk in and stand to either side as a third man strides in. Then the first two men step back into the hallway and shut the door.

  Kazim stands up and obediently offers his seat to his visitor. I can’t see the visitor’s face as he takes the seat behind the desk, but Kazim’s head and legs move into my striped field of vision as he relocates himself to one of the guest chairs. I tilt my head to try to see who sits behind the desk, but all I can see are his elegantly manicured hands poking out from the sleeves of his dark gray suit jacket.

  “Solomon,” I comm, “can you see these guys?”

  “No, I’m on my back, so all I see is the ceiling. What’s happening?”

  “Some big shot and his bodyguards just walked in. The goons went back out to the hall, and the big shot took Kazim’s seat behind the desk.”

  “What does the big shot look like?”

  “I can’t see his face from here.”

  Mr. Big Shot speaks to Kazim in rapid and authoritative Arabic. I can’t follow a word of it, but my comm-phone’s recorder is capturing the conversation so it can be translated later. Trick’s commphone is also recording everything, and he knows enough Arabic to comm me snippets like

  “… finally acquired the completed Gen-2 formulas …”

  “… will work much faster on such small organisms …”

  “… Darius Covenant … can now move forward again …”

  “… make sure no one links the calamity to the Blades, even after it’s done …”

  Then Mr. Big Shot recites a list of words I can understand. They’re the names of places in the Middle East, the Caucasus, the United States, and others all over the world. Kazim makes a note of each place on a little pad.

  Trick comms, “He’s laying out a specific sequence of locations.” Mr. Big Shot reels off a few more places, and my partner comms, “Jesus, they’re all major oil fields.”

  Mr. Big Shot finishes his list. The desk chair creaks as he leans back. Kazim whips out a Zippo and holds it across the desk, out of my view. I hear the distinctive click of the lighter opening, the sharp rasp of Kazim sparking it up, and then the metallic note as he flips the lighter’s lid back into place.

  Mr. Big Shot mutters, “Danke.” A thin stream of smoke issues from his side of the desk.

  Kazim sits back down. He says, “Bitte schön, Herr Winter,” which draws a low chortle from both men.

  Winter?

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

  “You mean ‘Herr Winter’?”

  “Yes!”

  “I sure did. Can you get a picture?”

  “No, he’s too far to the side.” As I try to slide my eyes around my fingers, the smoke from Herr Winter’s cigarette wafts in through the ventilation cover in my hand. I stifle a cough. The cigarette smells incredibly bad, like it’s made of dead rodent—

  Wait a minute …

  —and rotten fruit.

  … The sidewalk café in Paris. That shit smells like a dead mongoose. Tell me what you already know. Darius Covenant? Score.

  Winter exhales another mouthful of smoke and ominously comments, in English, “As sey say in America, ‘Sey will never know what hit sem.’ ” His accent is a singular blend of Arabic, German, and British English. I’ve only ever heard one person talk that way.

  Oh, my God, I know who Winter is!

  “Solomon, you know how Imad Badr is so well informed about Winter?”

  “Yeah, why?” Then it dawns on him, “Oh, no way.”

  “They’re the same fucking guy!”

  More cigarette fumes drift into my vent.

  “Solomon, the smoke is gonna make me cough!”

  “Hold your breath or something.”

  I press my mouth against my sleeve and try to use my jacket as a filter, but the leather isn’t porous enough. I stop breathing as long as I can. When I finally take a breath, the smoke jams in my throat like a lump of hot coal. My eyes water, and my lungs burn.

  “Shit! Solomon, I—”

  Cough!

  The conversation in the office screeches to a halt. Kazim jumps out of his chair. He stares right at my vent and shouts a sharp command. The door bursts open, and the two bodyguards charge inside. They follow Kazim’s eyes to my position. At first I think it’s Buzz and Ponytail, but these two have different hair. One has a crew cut, and the other has long hair. Crew Cut growls and reaches for something on his hip.

  I blast my bloodstream with Madrenaline and drop the vent cover. My modified arms launch me out of the ventilation shaft like a missile. I smash Crew Cut with a flying head butt and ride him to the floor. I jump to my feet, block Long Hair’s punch, and grab his wrist and arm. I’m so hopped up that I barely hear it as I wrench his elbow ninety degrees the wrong way. I pop Long Hair in the nuts with my knee, and I’m about to pick him up and throw him at Badr when the door behind me flies open and all hell breaks loose.

  It’s more guards. There must be six of them. They all look like Buzz and Ponytail, except they each wear their hair differently. I’m about to carve a death tunnel out of there when I remember that I’ve got to bust Patrick out, too. Dammit! Fortunately, the office is so small that they can’t all grab me at once. I need to deal with only two or three at a time. As I bash and smash these fools, Trick comms in, “Scarlet, I just heard an automatic being cocked.”

  I turn toward Badr/Winter as he takes a point-blank shot at me. I duck under the bullet, but the concussion still stuns me. I’m blind and deaf for a second, and that’s all these guys need.

  The next thing I know, each of my limbs is in the grip of a twin and Winter has a pistol stuck in my face. Bodies sprawl all over the floor. Some are draped across the furniture, and there’s even a couple out in the hallway. Man, I must have really hammered them to send them flying way out there.

  I’m about to demolish all these dumbasses when Winter points his gun away from me and up at Trick’s vent. Trick is smart and has stayed in the vent while I’ve taken care of the fighting. My system is at full speed, so I’ve actually got some time to think. Winter’s mouth moves in slow motion. He obviously knows how we do deep-penetration work at ExOps, that we work in teams of one Interceptor and one Info Operator. If I didn’t have all these fucking guys galhandling me, I could easily disarm him before he got a shot off.

  “Solomon,” I comm, “you still in the vent?”

  “Don’t worry about me, toots. I’m sliding toward another office down the hall.”

  I comm, “Keep going!” Then I extend my limbs as much as possible, breathing in. I exhale sharply and snap my body into a ball. The goons’ heads all clack into one another like coconuts. Winter fires into the vent as I jump to my feet, push up as hard as I can, and slam two of the twins into the ceiling. The flash and boom of Winter’s gunshots fill the room as I leap into the air and kick a full circle around me. Another twin goes down.

  Winter looks up into the vent he’s fired into. He sees there’s no one in there and barks an order at Kazim, who hurries out the door. There are only two twins left between me and the Blades’ leader, but they’ve both got giant semiautomatics loaded up and pointed at my head.

  Winter swings his pistol around and aims at me, too. Three guns in my face and Li’l Bertha in her holster. This situation doesn’t have too many positive outcomes for me. I’m sure I can take down two of these jackasses, but the third buttsmoker will almost certainly shoot me before I get him.

  “Solomon, what’s your status?”

  “Kazim’s grabbed one of my arms! I was climbing out the vent in the next office, and he ran in.”

  “He’s got you?”

  “Yeah. You’d better take off.”
r />   “Solomon, you must be crazy if you think I’ll leave you here!”

  “Scarlet, you have to.” He quotes from the ExOps field manual: “ ‘In the event that an IO is captured—’ ”

  “Fuck that shit, Solomon!” Our objective here was to gather intel, which we’ve done. I’d love to smash Badr/Winter into his component organic pieces, but it’s time to get the hell out of here. I jack even more Madrenaline, which makes my teeth taste like copper and the hair on the back of my neck stand up, but I’ve got plenty of time simply to turn and run out of the office. The three guns fire, but all they hit is air and wall. I sprint down the hallway and burst into the next room.

  Kazim Nazari is dragging Trick out of the vent. My partner is trying to crawl back in, but Kazim has his hands clamped around Trick’s wrist. As I charge into the office, the big man lets go of Patrick and pulls a revolver on me. I whip out Li’l Bertha and splatter Kazim’s brains onto the wall. His body collapses to the floor.

  Trick slides himself out of the vent and lands on Kazim’s chest. He drags his bag out of the vent by the shoulder strap. We dash back into the hallway. Twins in both directions, but Winter and his molls are to our right. We run left. I keep Li’l Bertha in front of me and spray a light fog of small-caliber suppression fire to keep them all hiding in their rooms or offices while we get the fuck out of Dodge.

  Trick has his infrared goggles on and helps me identify targets. He hardly needs to; there’s someone to shoot everywhere we go. We fight our way past the elevator to a door labeled notausgang at the end of the hallway. Perfect, because this is an emergency and we need an exit.

  Li’l Bertha changes to .50-cal, and I blast away the door’s latching mechanism. The shot also shoves the door open, which triggers a piercingly loud whoop-whoop from a wall-mounted speaker with the word FEUERALARM stenciled beneath it. We run up the gray metal stairs, illuminated by naked light bulbs in the ceiling, with me up front and Trick in the back. For the moment we’re alone in here as we pound our way up one flight after another.

  I comm, “Who the fuck are all these guys?”

  Trick comms back, “I think they’re the mass-produced Gen-2 clones.”

  “There’s a shitload of ’em!”

  We’ve ascended to the ground floor. Patrick has pulled out his little millimeter-wave radar device and points it through the door to the lobby.

  He comms, “Dammit, there’s a bunch of people out there.”

  I ask, “Are they more goons or just students?”

  “It doesn’t matter. We can’t risk a firefight in a room full of civilians.”

  An idea pops into my head. I comm to Trick, “Let’s go all the way to the top. They won’t expect that.”

  “What do we do from up there?”

  “I’ll carry you down the outside. They won’t expect that either.”

  Trick thinks for a second and comms, “Roger, let’s do it.” We race back to the stairs. This building has five stories belowground and ten stories above, so by the time we reach the top, we should be able to build a huge separation between us and our pursuers.

  We soar up the stairs. Trick gasps for breath, but he keeps going. I may have to pay for all this frantic activity with another visit to Chico or Dr. Herodotus, but for now I feel fine. We can’t hear the posse chasing us over the wail of the fire alarm, but it’s a safe bet that someone is coming after us.

  We reach the door to the roof. I kick it open and we emerge into the Swiss sunshine. Trick reaches into his bag and pulls out the high-stress line we’ll use for our external descent. I scan the area while he gets the line secured. Most of the people down on the ground have moved away from this facility because of the fire alarm. A group of determined-looking men run toward it, but I don’t think these fellas are here to douse any blazes. That is, unless Swiss firemen carry assault rifles.

  As Trick hands me the line, I spot something coming from the roof of a neighboring building. It’s hot, fast, and headed right for us.

  I shout, “RPG! Solomon, get down!”

  He doesn’t get down.

  He pushes me off the building.

  I turn as I fall and watch the rocket-propelled grenade explode right next to Trick’s position and blow him to bits.

  “PATRICK!!!”

  The grenade’s blast wave wallops me, and I streak toward the ground. My synthetic right hand grabs the rappelling line as tightly as possible. The line burns into the metal and plastic of my right palm as I arc toward the wall. I hit a window and crash through in a shower of shrieks and shattered glass. For a moment I watch all this action from outside myself, like I’m someone else. I land at the end of a hallway, skid all the way down the long linoleum floor, and bash through a door into a broom closet.

  I look behind me, toward the window I smashed through. Flaming bits of crap tumble from the roof above. Tracer bullets ram orange streaks into the walls outside. The floor shakes, and the ceiling rumbles. I wonder if the architect planned for rocket-propelled grenades and a storm of gunfire.

  “Almighty, Almighty, this is Scarlet, over,” I comm directly to the Front Desk, the last resort of an ExOps field agent on a fucked-up mission. This long-distance comm call will definitely get picked up by the CIA, and they’ll know ExOps pulled some crazy job without telling them. Chanez will probably fire me, but I’ve got no choice. I’m surrounded, and I just watched my Patrick—

  “Scarlet, this is Almighty, report.” Cyrus comms very quickly. It’s all so fast right now.

  “Almighty, my cover is blown, I’ve lost my IO, and I anticipate a heavy assault. Request emergency evac.”

  “Roger, Scarlet, please confirm: your IO is terminated?”

  —oh, God, he’s gone he’s gone he’s GONE—

  “Scarlet! Confirm!”

  “HE’S FUCKING DEAD!” This can’t happen, not to Trick, not to me and Trick. I sob hysterically. I can feel my neuroinjector gushing Kalmers into me, but they barely help.

  “Scarlet, hang tight. Help is on the way. Are you mobile?”

  “Roger, Almighty, I am mobile.” Thank God for comming. I’d never be able to actually talk right now.

  “Stand by for extraction, Scarlet.”

  Booted feet clomp into the far end of the hallway. A group of silhouetted figures walk to the broken window and trace the path of blood and broken glass that leads to my dark little closet. I can’t move. I can’t do anything. My life has ended, and it’s only a matter of seconds until these assholes make it official. I’m sure they can hear me. I can’t stop bawling. I don’t even want to stop. I’ll never see Trick again, and I’ll never stop crying again.

  Alix!

  Oh, my God, it’s happened. The voice talks to me when I’m awake now. I’ve been driven insane.

  C’mon, Alix, get up!

  “Why? I’ve failed my mission, Trick’s dead, and it’s all my fault.”

  You’ve got to get up! Your mother and I love you very much. We want to see you again.

  Two flashlight beams land on me. Big guys with big feet and big guns arrive and clear all the broom closet junk off me. My eyes are so wet that everything looks blurry, but I still see that these men all look exactly alike.

  If you get up, I’ll tell you a secret.

  “Daddy, please, not now.”

  The twins, or quadruplets, or zillionuplets, whatever the fuck they are, have spotted me. One of them steps into the closet. At that moment, even I’m not aware that it’s the last step he’ll ever take.

  Alixandra, I need your help.

  My dad was always totally honest with me.

  I can hear a little. But I can’t see. It’s so dark here.

  He never lied, even when he should have.

  I’ve missed you terribly, honey.

  This can’t be happening. It must be the drugs.

  No, baby, it’s real. But I’m so cold. I need you to find me.

  “What do I do? How do I find you?”

  First, you’ve got to get yourse
lf out of there. Go, now.

  Somehow, from wherever he is, my father has found a way to talk to me. He’s really alive!

  Alix, go!

  He’s alive he’s alive he’s—

  GO, HOT SHOT!

  All the willpower I’ve cried out rushes back into me like a hurricane, and I burst out of the closet howling like a deranged tiger. My fingers gash through stomachs, lungs, and intestines. Torsos explode into crimson fountains. There’s so much blood in the air that it looks like a gore blender. Once I clear a small perimeter around me, I haul out Li’l Bertha. She’s turned herself on again, and she immediately perforates the rest of the goons while I watch their faces flash bright and dark as my gun illuminates the hallway like a strobe light. The gorillas I shredded on my way out of the closet hit the floor as the dudes I just shot begin their graceless flops. I’m so cranked up that I can watch individual drops of blood hang suspended in midair, floating like helium balloons. My gunshot victims collapse to the ground as I race back up the long hallway, leap through the shattered window, and land in the main quad.

  There are dozens of men with assault weapons out here. I sight on the closest one and decapitate him with a huge bullet from Li’l Bertha. The priceless look on this shitfuck’s face as his head tumbles to the ground without his body makes me burst out laughing. I pick up the head with both hands and give it a big kiss, right on the mouth. Then I hold it up by the hair and bellow, “Who wants to get fucked like a dog tonight?”

  I think that’s what I say. I don’t really know. Whatever it is, all the goons in sight look at each other, turn, and run away, just like that. This might be the most fucked-up thing they’ve ever seen. I’m a living nightmare that terrifies everyone who lays eyes on me. I drop-kick the head across the quad and hold my hands up like I’ve scored a point in soccer. “Gooooooaaal-l-l-l-l!”

  “Scarlet, this is Almighty. Evac inbound on your present position.” A chopper soars in fast and low. It’s good that he told me it’s friendly because I don’t feel very discriminating right now. This is the new worst moment of my life, and I’ll fuckin’ take on anybody.

  Some detached, well-trained part of me comms, “Roger, Almighty. The LZ is clear. Scarlet standing by,” while I hunt around the quad. I may have lost him, but I won’t leave him behind.