The Horde was killing everyone.
She had seen this before. Or rather Pr’chutt had.
This was the Queen’s Vengeance. Something had obviously caused She of the Horde to launch a punitive raid into the human realm.
And that something, she was sure, was this man identified as David Hooper. The newsmen had learned enough to concentrate their cameras on him. A man flying through the sky, moving at inhuman speed, and laying waste to giant monstrs with some form of war hammer, or battle-axe, will draw the attention that way.
Who is he? Karin asked herself. And then, What is he? Is he like me?
It was Pr’chutt un Threshrendum un Qwm who answered.
A champion. The monstr in her head recognized him as a champion. More so, it thought him the ur Champion.
What did that even mean? One Dave to rule them all.
Karin shook her head, chasing that ridiculous thought away. She did not exactly collapse onto the bed, but she did sit down heavily.
“Are you alright, Colonel Varatchevsky?” Josef asked, his voice serrated with anxiety.
“I am fine, Josef. Thank you,” she said. “A little dizzy. Perhaps a chocolate bar will help.”
“Pah!” he scoffed, fetching one of the joyless protein bars from the stash in the corner. “This is not chocolate. The Americans lie. They always lie.”
“Yes, but let us pretend otherwise,” Karin said, absentmindedly unwrapping and chewing at the energy-dense snack. She watched the news feed from New Orleans, explaining what she could to Josef and then to Niki, who eventually rejoined them.
“Why did they allow themselves to be led to the slaughter like that?” the young man asked an hour later, as they watched video of the final gunship attack on the defeated ranks of the Horde. The Vengeance had been broken and had obviously submitted to terms. Death waited for all of them when they returned to the Realm. Either in the pits of the Inquisitors Grymm, or on the white fangs of the Scourging Rocks before the walls of the Low Queen’s redoubt.
Part of Karin thrilled to see the Horde laid low. The part known as Pr’chutt. But she was no vassal of the Qwm. She was Colonel Ekaterina Yurievna Varatchevsky and she had a duty to the Rodina to understand what had just happened in New Orleans.
“I do not imagine they expected the Americans to betray them,” she said.
“So they are stupid then?” Niki said.
“Ha,” Josef grinned. “You make humorous comment then, Niki. Very good.”
“No, they are not stupid,” she said. “They are just very set in their ways. Particularly this sect. I would hazard one of their surviving officers, perhaps a Lieutenant Grymm, decided it was more important some of their host survive to carry word back to the Horde. They would not have expected to be defeated so easily.”
Josef looked at her steadily then nodded gravely. He seemed as though he knew the enemy a little better now. “We must report all this as soon as possible,” he said.
“You have not heard from Vladimir?” Karin asked.
No, he frowned.
And they would not for another two days.
###
When Vladimir returned he did not come with orders for her to report to their superiors with all dispatch. He would not discuss what had happened while he and Yuri were gone or where Yuri was now.
Karin did not need to press him. She knew Yuri was dead and Vladimir had paid a heavy price for the wild story he had taken back to Field Control.
She did ask if Oksana was okay and once more she could tell Vladimir was not lying when he replied, “The doctor is well. But she will be exfiltrated too.”
None of the ex-fil operatives asked after Yuri, or inquired how Vladimir had acquired his black eye and swollen features. The atmosphere in the little bedsit above the gym, which had been at times tense, at others tedious, while they waited for Vlad to return, now turned sternly professional.
“We must leave here for another location,” Vladimir informed them. “That will not be our staging post for ex-fil. I have activated three more safe houses.”
“Why are we delayed?” Josef frowned. Only he had the authority or perhaps the courage to question his immediate superior.
Karin was impressed that Vladimir did not dissemble or hesitate.
“Everything is in disarray because of New Orleans and the attack on Biden’s aircraft,” he said, turning to Karin and adding with the ghost of a smile, “and because of you, Colonel.”
“They did not believe you, did they?” she said.
The specter of his smile grew into something more real and he touched the tips of his fingers to his injured face.
“No. Not at first. Mr Hooper helped my case. And the dragon which attempted to fuck the vice-president’s plane. A much wilder story than yours, Colonel Varatchevsky.”
“So,” surmised Karin. “We must wait until they know what to do with me and with the information you gave them.”
“You are correct, Colonel. Also, superintendence of this mission has been transferred from Field Control to the Ministry of Defense.”
The ceaseless crashing of weight plates and dull thudding of fists on bags continued beneath the floorboards. There are some people who will never miss a gym session, no matter what the circumstance.
The Russians crammed inside the small bedsit apartment remained silent.
The GRU did not cede tactical control of field operations underway to anybody. Ever.
“I understand Moscow seeks a cessation of hostile activities in our matter,” Vladimir said at last. “Only the highest levels of the ministry have the authority to talk to the Americans in this way.”
“But the Americans remain hostile,” she said, both asking the question and reaching a conclusion.
“Their situation is even more confused than ours.” Vladimir shrugged.
“I see,” said Karin at last. “Then if we are going, we had best go.”
###
Over the next week she did not stay more than one or two nights at any of the safe houses ex-fil arranged for her. Vladimir said he had activated three locations but she eventually stayed in six. Karin did not question or second guess the ex-fil commander. She had no idea how he kept moving her across the chessboard, always one or two moves ahead of Trinder’s pawns and knights. It was his duty and he did it well.
She stayed in a variety of places. A beautiful modern apartment overlooking the water at the northern end of Manhattan. A squalid, roach-infested room above a motor repair shop in Queens. Not all of them were owned by or associated with Russian émigré interests. She stayed one night in a warehouse in Chinatown. Another above a CrossFit gym in SoHo. That was almost like going home, the screams of the crazy people reminding Karin of her days in the Olympic trial squad in Moscow.
The Americans, as far as she could tell, never got the scent of them. She supposed, as much as Trinder wanted her, he now had to compete for resources and attention with whoever was in charge of the American response to the Horde’s incursion.
Not this Hooper buffoon, of that she was certain.
But perhaps the stern-looking black man who always appeared with him. A Navy SEAL, she learned. Or one of the civilians forever in attendance at the same short and infrequent press conferences and interviews.
She moved continually, until the morning Nikita awoke her in the nicest of their boltholes, a brownstone on the Upper West Side, not too many blocks from the Russian consulate. It seemed lived in, unlike the first apartment to which she had been sent, in the empty three-story building on the far side of the park. That felt like an unused hotel. This was somebody’s home, but whose she could not say. It smelled of toast and perfume and ground coffee and a dog.
But there was no dog. Only ex-fil.
“Come, Colonel, come,” said Nikita. Like Josef he had grown increasingly devoted to Karin while watching over her. Almost devout. His near-religious awe shone from him like an aura at times. Karin did nothing to discourage it. Had Moscow determined the nation
al interest was served by it, these men would have killed her and disposed of the body in such a way that it would never be found.
She did not think they would do so now, if ordered. Or at least Josef and Nikita would not. She was sure of them. Leonid, always quiet, always closed off, would almost certainly do as he was ordered. Vladimir? She did not know. His confusion and conflicted thoughts burned hot and radiated from him all the time now. He was not a happy man.
Nikita had brought her breakfast, flatbread wrapped around eggs and sausages. Something she could wolf down as soon as she opened her eyes. They had learned to manage her appetites in this way. She took the breakfast roll and climbed out of bed, wearing only shorts and a T-shirt. Immediately she felt Nikita’s discomfort and attraction.
“Go, I will join you when I have dressed,” she said.
Relief and disappointment hummed from him like a surge through a high tension powerline.
“In the big living room, downstairs,” he told her.
She dressed quickly in jeans and a black T-shirt, still marveling at the impossibly chiseled look of her body now. She was like some action figure in a stupid movie. It was disturbing. Although not nearly as disturbing as finding the lack-wit Hooper on some equally witless breakfast television show, flirting with the air-headed female presenter and dancing around as though he intended to strip on a pole.
“What the holy fuck is this?” she said.
“I will rewind,” Josef intoned severely. “We have been instructed you must study this before you leave today.”
“We exfiltrate today?” she said, her hopes of deliverance raised.
“No,” Vladimir responded flatly. “You are to proceed to the consulate and talk with ministry men. They have come directly from Moscow. We are to leave separately. I do not believe you will be extracted from America, Colonel. I expect they have some other mission for you here.”
Vlad spoke the truth, or his best understanding of it.
The correlation of forces had shifted again.
“All right then,” Karin said, not hiding her disappointment. “Show me.”
Josef had returned the DVR to the start of the segment with the super clown. Nothing Karin had learned of this man gave her any confidence in him. Quite the opposite. He had undeniably been gifted with the same enchantments as her, she had seen that in New Orleans; the whole world had seen that. But unlike her he had no obvious sense of purpose. He boasted of partying in a casino of all places! She could not sense him the way she could the feelings of the men around her in this room. Just seeing him on the television screen was not enough for that. But it was more than enough to recognize a man with no honor or sense of duty or even basic decency.
“This Hooper,” she said to nobody in particular. “Does he strike anybody else as the worst sort of American asshole?”
Yes, they agreed. He was.
Josef’s face was especially thunderous.
“I am sure that man is without pants,” he muttered. “Has he no dignity?”
They watched the interview together three times, and Karin watched it by herself twice after that, while the ex-fil team prepared their own departure. She wondered how they would leave, given the flight ban, but assumed Vlad would have some way around that.
She studied Hooper closely. He spent much of the early part of the interview confirming her low opinion of his intelligence. And yet, he was supposed to be an engineer of some sort. Perhaps with a diploma from an internet university? He was holding an old-fashioned microphone, which suggested they had not had time to wire him properly for his appearance. And the male presenter with the expensive haircut said more than once that they had been promising their viewers this interview all morning and now “Fox had delivered”.
To Karin this implied that Davyd Huper had been rushed at the very last moment into the chair in which he sat. The delay was possibly connected to his missing pants. The cameraman was careful not to pan down, but once or twice Hooper’s own unpredictable movement in the chair brought a naked knee or thigh into the very bottom of the screen. Josef was correct.
The man was without pants.
Colonel Varatchevsky shook her head.
What was happening to the world?
And why did the interview end so abruptly? Hooper seemed to relax as this Elizabeth woman flirted with him and flattered him. Again, this did nothing to raise him in Karin’s estimation. He seemed as easily led by his cock as Martin Gnoji. But that did not make them very rare among their gender, did it?
Unlike Gnoji, Hooper had enough sense to at least pretend at modesty, but it was a thin pretense. His avowal of how lucky he had been to slay the Hunn—a BattleMaster no less! Surely an exaggeration!—did not impress her as being even remotely sincere. It was very much an American’s gesture of, “Aw shucks, t’weren’t nothing, ma’am.” All doubtless calculated to reduce the television woman to the same pants-less state as Hooper himself as soon as they met in person.
She was about to watch the recording for the sixth time when Vladimir returned.
“It is time,” he said. “You must go to the consulate.”
She could not help smiling at the absurdity of this suggestion. The building was under surveillance by all of the American security services.
“So I shall just walk up? Or drive. Or maybe catch a cab?” she said.
“No. You shall ride.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The ex-fil men wished her luck. Little Nikita hugged her, all but jumping on her like a large dog. Josef, always the stern and righteous one, embarrassed Karin by going to one knee and bowing his head, as though venerating a religious icon. Vlad shook her hand, a strong grip, but one she dared not return lest she crush his strong hand to gristle and pulp. Even Leonid parted with a nod that could have been interpreted as something approaching deference.
They did her one last professional service.
“There is a motorcycle in the street outside,” said Vladimir, handing her the keys. “A Honda. Change into these and take this to the consul.”
He produced a large brown shopping bag and a long plastic tube of the sort used to transport documents and blueprints. She thought for a moment that he had kept the motorcycle leathers she’d taken from the luckless courier on the first night of her strange adventure, but these were newer, less scuffed.
“They will fit you better,” he said. “You will not stand out from the couriers who have been coming and going from the consul many times every hour since the attack on New Orleans. Park out the front. A space has been reserved for you. Just walk in as though you were anybody else there on business.”
“Thank you,” she said, addressing them all. “I know you would have taken me home if you could.”
“It is my hope that we will, very soon,” replied Vladimir and she could see through his swollen bruises and blackened eye that he was sincere.
###
There was a slightly unreal aspect to being out on her own again. She had not been alone or unmonitored for a week. She found the city a fantastical place under bright spring skies. Multicolored blooms painted the trees in Central Park, filling the air with a sweet and heady aroma. It was as though nothing had happened. She was isolated within her helmet and leathers of course, and she crossed the short distance to the consulate on E91st Street on a motorbike, further cutting her off from human contact. But apart from the screaming headlines of newspaper stands, there was no evidence that the world was any different.
The street outside the consulate appeared busy, but Karin had never been there and so had nothing by which to judge it. She avoided looking in the direction of the separate observation posts that she knew of, staffed by the CIA and OSCAR. She was simply a courier, delivering banal documents. She would run them to reception and be on her way. There were indeed two bicycle couriers arriving at the same time as her, and one woman on a motorcycle who appeared to be leaving. Her motorcycle was a little moped, however, not a growling power bike like Karin rode.
###
The great weight returned with crushing suddenness as the third secretary explained what she must do.
“But Comrade Secretary,” she demurred, “surely my place is at home. I assure you, these creatures know nothing of borders or boundaries. They are as likely to appear in St Basil’s or the Bolshoi as anywhere.”
The third secretary was not in fact the third secretary. He was the GRU’s senior officer in the continental United States, the fourth-ranking officer of the Second Directorate, no less. He did not stand on rank or browbeat his underling, however. He seemed almost pained by the orders he had to convey. Next to him, General Podolski from the Defense Ministry, newly arrived from Moscow via London, seemed altogether more true to type; a glowering, colorless man, he gave every impression of personally resenting Varatchevsky for the inconvenience she had put him to.
He did not speak for a long time.
Third Secretary Mikhail Sitnikov did all the talking and likewise took responsibility for hosting the discussion. He offered hot tea and chilled vodka, and quietly pointed Karin towards three trays of sandwiches, “should she feel hungry at any point”.
At first she felt ridiculous, reporting to these men in their Savile Row suits while she was dressed like some cartoon biker bitch. Her discomfort changed to surprise, incredulity and even anger when Sitnikov explained exactly what they expected of her.
“But he is a pig, Comrade Secretary!”
“Yes,” the third secretary sighed. “I too have been following the reports of his exploits. Both in New Orleans and Las Vegas. We are not putting you into a honey trap, Colonel. But we do need to know if this man has the potential to threaten state security.”
Soul Full of Guns: Dave vs the Monsters Page 8