by John Ringo
“I like this place,” Katya said, smiling in her friendliest manner at the rotund physician. “I am told of what is plan. Put in microphone and camera. In body.”
“Not exactly a camera,” the doctor said, pulling out some papers and moving around to the other side of the desk. “We’re going to insert a small bundle of wires into your visual cortex, where the optic nerve intersects the brain. These, together with a microprocessor and a small transmitter, will decode the view that your eyes are sending to the brain. This procedure has been successfully demonstrated on everything up to and including chimpanzees. There has not, yet, been an attempt with a human. The technology is very cutting edge and, frankly, we haven’t found anyone willing to undergo the procedure. You’re aware of this?”
“Yes,” Katya said, shrugging. “I am being paid much to do this mission and I need the… things.”
“Very well,” the doctor said. “However, I have to warn you of potential known side effects as well as possible unknown side effects.”
“Go ahead,” Katya said, sighing.
“There is a possibility of reduction or loss of sight,” the doctor said. “We haven’t actually had a patient who could tell us just how accurate their sight is and how it has changed. There are visual acuity tests for animals, but they’re not entirely accurate. There is a possibility of long-term sight degradation. There is a possibility of long-term secondary cranial degradation. There is very little data on long-term brain implants available. Infection around the implantation site could cause cerebral damage, brain damage that is. Damage is also possible from the long-term degradation. There is a slight possibility of debilitating stroke. And as with any surgical procedure there are possibilities of death. Are you sure you wish to continue with the procedure?”
“Doctor,” Katya said, strangely quiet. “I was raised in an orphanage in Russia with hundreds of other girls. I had nothing of my own until I was sold, straight from the orphanage, to a pimp who raped me when I was twelve. And he was not the first; I got my tits when I was eight and was raped soon after by the master of the orphanage. I have been beaten, raped, tortured and threatened with death all of my life that I can remember. I have been hungry and cold more times than I can remember. Death holds no fear for me. Nor does blindness. Or brain damage. I wish that I did not remember most of my life. And with this… devices, I will have great power. Many will wish to use me for their spy. If it works I will never be poor, or dependent upon men, again,” she spat.
“Doc?” Mike said to the stone-faced physician.
“Yes?”
“Any other enhancements available?” Mike asked. “Hidden weapons? Poison fingernails? Jump jets in the feet? She’ll take ’em all.”
The doctor regarded him balefully for a moment and then cleared his throat.
“We’re only authorized to provide the listed implants. The visual system does, however, have a biofeedback replay system that is potentially capable of enhancing long and short distance vision. It requires practice.”
“Telescope eyes, cool,” Mike said, grinning. “So she can get jump-jets in her soles?”
“There are other… devices,” the doctor said, shrugging. “But I’m not authorized…”
“Got an outside line?” Mike asked seriously. “I can get them all authorized. How long would she be down?”
“How much do you want?” the physician snapped. “I can’t even tell you what they all are.”
“Get me an outside line,” Mike said, sighing. “I’ll get you the authorization.”
* * *
Katya looked over the long list in wonder.
“What is ‘micrometallic skeletal enhancement’?” she asked, her eyes wide.
“You don’t want that,” Mike said, looking over her shoulder. “Unless there’s been some radical breakthrough in nanotechnology they’re sitting on, it would mean stripping off your skin and muscle to get it. On the other hand, you’d be bulletproof, to low velocity weapons, over most of your body. Jesus Christ. There aren’t many of these that are listed as actually used. But the ones that are scare the hell out of me. At least the ‘sonic transceiver’ is listed as ‘tested, stable.’ But I was joking about the poison fingernails!”
“Where?” Katya asked.
“ ‘Digital extremity chemical insertion device,’ ” Mike said, pointing. “It looks like a pretty nasty procedure, though.”
“Worse than having someone stick a scalpel up your nose?” Katya asked.
“The pouch for whatever you want to give the recipient is in the palm,” Mike pointed out. “You’ll go around squirting cyanide all over every time you clench your fist. Not to mention injecting yourself.”
“Use something that has an antidote, then,” Katya said, grinning. “Antidote on one hand, poison on the other.”
“There’s bound to be problems with it,” Mike pointed out. “Go for the ‘subcutaneous nonmetallic puncture device.’ Means you can carry a knife anywhere.”
“I like the poison fingernails,” Katya said. “I can use them on this mission!”
“I’m afraid that if you get the full upgrade, they’re never going to let you out of their sight,” Mike said with a sigh.
“ ‘Subcutaneous injection, phys…’ I’m lost again.”
“ ‘Subcu…’ ” Mike muttered for a second and then shook his head. “It’s a combat drug. I’m not sure which one; they’ve been playing around with them for a long time. Probably a temporary enhancement of strength and reaction time along with calming agent so you’re less scared.”
“I don’t get scared anymore,” Katya said, darkly. “I get angry.”
“Perfect for you, then,” Mike said.
“ ‘Mas…’ ” Katya said, pointing to one line.
“Face job,” Mike said. “Change your appearance.”
“So I can look like a particular person?” Katya asked.
“You don’t sing well enough to replace Jessica Simpson,” Mike said, shaking his head. “It’s for people who can’t use their present face for whatever reason. Get a couple of the subcutaneous pouches. You can fit all sorts of stuff in those. And, hell, if you really want the poison fingernails…”
“Why thank you, Kildar,” the girl said, smiling thinly.
“But I’m definitely getting you out of my house after this,” Mike said, grinning. “And you’ll need that maseo-facial surgery if you think you’re going to get back in.”
“You don’t love me,” Katya said with a pout.
“I don’t trust you,” Mike replied with a smile. “You’d be surprised how much I like you. I’m not sure I’d go as far as love, but…”
Katya looked at him oddly for a moment, then shrugged.
“The audiovisual upgrade,” she said, looking over the list. “Three subcutaneous pouches, the combat drug upgrade and the poison fingernails.”
“I’ll tell the doc.”
* * *
“So do I get to call you by your real name?” Mike asked as Director Pareis came into the small, and distinctly secure, waiting room.
“Do I?” Pareis asked.
“I hope you don’t even know it,” Mike snapped.
“Come on, I’m the DIA director,” Pareis said with a sigh. “And I’ve now officially stated that I’m uncomfortable with fitting this…”
“Russian whore,” Mike finished for him.
“Foreign agent,” Pareis corrected, “with some of the most advanced personal enhancement technology on earth.”
“Including the tracker?” Mike asked.
“What tracker?” Pareis asked.
“Oh, come on,” Mike replied, scornfully. “If there’s not a GPS tracker on that girl I’m going to call the President as soon as I get out of here and tell him he needs to can you for being a complete moron. Cottontail is one dangerous bitch. And she’s now going to be the most dangerous bitch on the planet. Once she gets those fingernails loaded I’m not going to want to be in the same room with her.”
&
nbsp; “It only transmits when a tickler signal comes from a satellite,” Pareis admitted. “And I’ll be surprised if even she can detect it.”
“You’ve tested these things for interference, right?” Mike asked.
“As well as we can,” Pareis admitted. “She’ll need a day or two of testing and tweaking once she’s out of recovery.”
“And then we hie ourselves to wonderful Albania,” Mike said, snorting. “I take it we got the overheads?”
“They’ll be brought to you by officer courier as you’re on your way home,” the director said. “Along with an intel update. We still don’t know if the girl is still there. They do ship them out, you know. Notably to Italy. And we’ve been afraid to put out feelers about her for obvious reasons.”
“She’s still there,” Mike said. “I can feel it in the water.”
* * *
“How you doing?” Mike asked.
The G-V was technically from a charter company, but it had been supplied by DIA so Mike figured it was something along the lines of Air America. The pilots were certainly reticent. Mike missed Captain Hardesty. Not to mention the stewardesses that had accompanied the flights over; he’d had to get his own drinks and it took some hunting and eventually resorting to forcing open a fixture with a screwdriver.
“You were right about the fingernails,” Katya replied, holding up her hands. The palms showed a line of small puncture wounds. “But there is a valve. However, I start playing with it when I get upset…”
“Which is most of the time,” Mike said, looking at her and smiling. “You’ll just have to learn some restraint.”
“I’m working on it,” Katya said, blinking and shaking her head. “And I keep getting double images, one of them grainy. Like a bad TV set showing me what has just happened.”
“You need to work on locking that down,” Mike said, pulling out the sheets of paper, liberally stamped with “Top Secret,” which were her post-op instructions. “No fever when we left, which is good.”
“I’m sore in some odd places,” Katya admitted.
“Odder than normal, I take it,” Mike said, carefully taking her hand. “You’ll get used to it. Are you going to be okay—”
“From all this?” Katya asked, withdrawing her hand. “Or on the mission?”
“Yes,” Mike said, crossing his hands in his lap.
“I am going to get well paid,” Katya said, smiling. “That is all that matters. Why this sudden show of concern, Kildar?”
“Do you think I didn’t care?” Mike asked. “From the beginning? Did you think I was just one of the users in your life?”
“No,” Katya admitted.
“I suppose that makes me one of the suckers, then,” Mike said, snorting.
“Not that… either,” Katya said, at least sounding honest. “So I don’t know what you are.”
“Because there are either users or suckers?” Mike asked.
“Yes,” Katya admitted. “So, yes, I must accept that you are a sucker. Certainly for giving me all these gifts.”
“Use them on the wrong person, and every agent on earth will have a termination contract on you,” Mike pointed out.
“So I must find the right men to use them upon, yes?” Katya said, smiling and working her fingers. “I look forward to it.”
* * *
“You’ve got real problems,” Nielson said, gesturing at the map. “You realize that, right?”
“I know some of them, tell me the rest,” Mike said, sighing and leaning back in his chair. He was glad to be back at the caravanserai; America had been almost a culture shock. The caravanserai really did seem to be home these days.
“I won’t go over the tactical issues,” Nielson said. “I’ve been looking at what you might call operational issues. The entire area around Lunari is controlled by the Albanian gangs. You’ve got multiple checkpoints to pass to even get to the town. And forget inserting on foot across the mountains. First of all, egress would be a bitch. Second, that’s the center of the clan power. You’d have a fight on your hands, from all the Albanian clans, from, basically, the time you cross the border. And it’s not only their turf, they’ll outnumber you a few hundred to one. I don’t see doing a land ingress and egress.”
“Lunari is landlocked,” Adams said. “You want us to fly in? The troops aren’t trained in air-mobile operations. Or HALO for that matter.”
“Training on helicopter insertion and extraction isn’t all that hard,” Mike said. “But that begs the question; where in the hell are we going to get the helicopters?”
“More than choppers,” Nielson said, gesturing at the map again. “You’re dealing with multiple sovereign countries surrounding the area. I couldn’t find one spot that I’d like to do an assembly and extraction through.”
“I hope you’re not just throwing this out as an insoluble problem,” Mike said, sighing. “Because we can’t use U.S. assets for this. Not a one.”
“Not insoluble,” Nielson admitted. “But it’s going to be very expensive.”
“How expensive?” Mike asked. “And what’s your plan?”
“There is a group in Russia that supplies heavy lift choppers,” Nielson said, tossing Mike a brochure. “They mostly work on relief operations and oil operations in remote areas. They went in with the Marines in Dali, which is where I first heard of them. When you said the Keldara were going to have to hit Lunari in force, I started looking at the problem and saw the solution pretty quick. And I’ve had some very quiet conversations with them about the problem. They’re willing to provide enough choppers and pilots to get us in and out. But… they figure it’s going to be a hot LZ. And then there’s the problem of being identified. So they want two million, minimum, for the mission. Plus recoup costs on any aircraft lost on the mission, to be escrowed in a Swiss bank account controlled by a neutral third party. The vig on that is another mil. But there’s more.”
“Crap,” Mike said, shaking his head. “Three mil for insertion? We need to get our own helicopters and crews.”
“Maybe,” Nielson said, shrugging. “But the rest is expensive, too. You see, you can’t take off from any of the countries around or nearby. Nobody is going to miss seeing a spec-ops group boarding military helicopters. And most of the area around has Albanians that are going to report it to the mob. Then there’s just the diplomatic implications. So you’re going to have to come in from the sea. You can’t take off from Italy, which is the only place in range of a Hip helicopter, so…”
“We’ve got to lift from a boat,” Mike said, sighing. “How much for that?”
“Three hundred thou,” Nielson said, throwing the full budget brief on the table. “But that includes picking up the Hips, moving to Albanian waters, launch, recovery and taking the Hips back to Georgia.”
“Well, even if I can get the senator to geek, that’s it for a profit on the mission,” Mike said with a sigh. “I think I’ll call D.C. and tell them that I’d like a combat bonus. Because we are going to lose people.”
“And we’ll have to depend on these helicopter pilots not to fuck us?” Adams asked.
“You got a better plan?” Mike asked.
“Yeah, call some of the ‘trainers,’ ” Adams said. “One to ride on each chopper and a group on the boat.”
“Maybe,” Mike said. “But we have to get started on this now. Nielson, get that portion moving right away. Vanner, tactical intel?”
“We got reads from ground penetrating radar on the brothel and the surroundings,” Vanner said, shrugging. “So we’ve got an interior. The building is three stories of concrete with two stories of wooden addition on the top. There appears to be a basement as well—”
“Which is where the DVDs are going to be located,” Adams predicted. “We’re going to be fighting our way in and out.”
“We can get the troops familiarized with the building by doing a mock-up,” Mike pointed out. “But we still don’t know where any of the targets are located for sure.”
“Not I, said Cock Robin,” Vanner replied, shrugging.
“Gimme enough demo and I can move the world,” Adams said, raising an eyebrow.
“We want them back intact,” Mike said. “We need somebody who actually knows how to open a safe. Nielson?”
“One safecracker coming up,” Nielson said, sighing. “We don’t even know what kind of safe.”
“Then find one who can think on his or her feet,” Mike said.
“I’ll take that one,” Carlson-Smith said, smiling. “I’ll simply give Drake over at MI-5 a call. I mean, he’s the fellow who keeps an eye on fellows like that. And MI-6 has people who train in such as well.”
“Thank you,” Mike said. “What are the Italians going to say to a bunch of helicopters taking off for Albania? Or the Albanians for that matter?”
“The Albanians have shit for coverage on that coast,” Vanner said. “They’re not an issue. We’ll have to stay out of Italian territorial waters until we’re done. Or… I hate to suggest this, but we can take some copies of clips and present them to a couple of people in the Italian government. After that, I don’t think they’re going to say much at all.”
“That’s a very slippery slope,” Mike said after a moment’s thought. “Let’s see if the Brits can convince the Italians to look the other way,” he added, looking over at Carlson-Smith.
“It might help to have a pic at least of that Ital general…” Carlson-Smith pointed out.
“Do it,” Mike said with a sigh. “But let’s try to limit that. Otherwise we’ll become a target just like Lunari. Adams, get started on the mock-up. Nielson, get the freighter moving and get those choppers down here. Russell will take point on training for insertion and extraction with the chief in overall charge of the tactical training. Mr. Carlson-Smith…”