The Autumn War

by Ani Fox

  Behind me, Littman and Karthago watched. I tried to put the pieces together. Roger had positioned himself where he could suicide quickly. It meant he knew he’d been made, maybe a while back. In chess, you sometimes play a queen sacrifice if you can execute a quick and unexpected checkmate. Section 22 had no end of fanatics. Think, think, think, I commanded myself into understanding. Fact: Section 22 had infiltrated The Syndicate. Fact: they had been caught fairly soon thereafter. But not until after they had touched a lot of knobs and buttons, put people into place, perhaps chosen the location of today’s meeting. Fact: Gutlicht had a very new, very deadly serum in his evil little hands. Fact: I had been invited to the party. Fact: Hans feared almost no one. But I knew that he did fear Karthago. And me.

  Fact: two of his potential enemies were standing in a closed room, hundreds of feet above the ground, with a sophisticated electronics suite I had handily hacked. And Roger had just died.

  I used the blade to pop my phone’s battery case and reversed a small disc. When I put the case back together, I had a fairly accurate Geiger counter. I swept the fake Roger’s body until I found the transmitter. In the same groin area. Apparently the Syndicate had enough homophobia to pass on searching a man’s delicates for things like extra bones, transmitters with cesium cells and such. I recognized the model. It held a deadman’s switch that triggered the radio whenever electrical impulses stopped: usually by death, although some kinds of torture—the effective kinds—could briefly disrupt it.

  I turned to The Concierge. “It’s Section Twenty Two issue. Response time likely under five minutes. If Roger set it up right, under sixty seconds. They have all your toys, plus now they have your old access codes, the lay of the building, and way better biologicals.”

  To her credit, she took it all without apparent fear. Her face stayed slack, coldly inhuman and very aware. Beside her, the Sous looked thoughtful. She stared out the windows while Littman paced again. “Harv. Recommendations?”

  He grimaced. “I’d say listen to Spetz and do whatever he suggests. We’re starved for good options. They know our game plan, Roger moved up the timeframe and it looks like the rumors about him,” he dogged a finger at me, “pan out. Spetz knows Section Two Two. Probably helped them come up with some of their playbook.” Here he raised an eyebrow.

  I shrugged. It had been rumored that I worked for Section 22, that I had volunteered for a special section of the Ukrainian Special Forces that swapped men for some bio-enhancement. The Soviet super soldier program. It’s not a bad rumor and it covers the paper trail that we couldn’t re-legend. But it’s a careful lie. I was cooked up by Section 22, bred along with a number of biological experiments and loaned out to the Ukrainians in payment for the Ukrainian women held in Gutlicht’s lab along with monies and favors provided to keep the Stasi safe well after the Third Reich crumbled. I am a failed eugenics experiment. The family runt, forced to use my brains, cunning, and work ethic to overcome deficits of size, speed, pain resistance, and reflex time. My brothers and sisters are all faster, stronger, bigger, meaner, and far more obedient. That’s what Gutlicht had at his disposal—a small, fanatical cadre of nigh sociopathic agents with a lifetime of combat, espionage, and special tactics experience. To a person, they hated me. Mind you, of my graduating class, only six of the forty-three of us remain alive. I’ve killed twenty-seven of them. And that’s just my generation—Generation XI. There are sixteen evolutions of the Overman Program. Each more dangerous, militant, and mentally unhinged than the last.

  “Lemme make a call.” Then I pushed a distress button on my phone and sent a prearranged signal to a waiting accomplice. Accomplices really, since you can’t just steal a CV-22 Osprey without a few helping hands. Funny thing, the Osprey. Nobody muchlikes them and all the media does is report how they crash in big splashy explosions, killing the soldiers they carry. And that’s mostly accurate. They’re big thundering birds of death and mayhem and I’ve personally dropped four from the sky using some nasty bits of sabotage. Two of those crashes made the news and voila, stocks went down, heads rolled, and Generation VIII ceased to exist. They’re also nigh indestructible if you can get one intact and airborne. Best way to do that is steal one from the Special Forces.

  The 58th Special Operations Wing black ops CV-22 looks a lot like the Marine’s version of the bird, but it’s blacker, badder-asser, and filled with terrifying electronic countermeasures, armaments, tools, and trinkets, and special shrapnel proofed cabin for hot insertions. It also has something we needed: a six person rappelling line attached to a master winch. During active combat, the SEALS drop out staggered two meters behind one another and can put two kill teams to the dirt in under twenty seconds. From a quarter klick in the air. F=MA, baby.

  I had a small cadre of men who owed me their families’ lives and were always happy to piss off the US government to help a friend. On the off chance I’d need a rooftop exit, I’d rerouted three Ospreys to Homeland Security’s local Manhattan forward reaction staging area, roughly Tribeca. ETA for my bird was three minutes from theft to pick-up. Once I gave the order, I took stock.

  We had control of the room. I knew the Section 22 gear and good as it was, triangulating off a transmitter in a thigh was perhaps local to a hundred meters and that mean they could isolate a few floors and take a guess. Roger’s phone and clothes had far better GPS tech. I started stripping him, using the knife to carve off the clothes in surgical strokes. Littman helped, gathering everything related to Roger and his team. Karthago said something and the two remaining members of the kill team started stripping. I waved her off. They’d have implants at this point, or something slipped in their morning muffins. In a very soft voice I asked her, “How crucial are those men?” In reply she shot both in the head with a gun I never saw being unholstered. I took Roger’s gear, found the laundry chute and dropped them down. The whole thing had taken us thirty seconds.

  I found a couple of guns, grabbed a satchel of grenades, reloads, and some kind of kit, perhaps first aid or rations. “We need to get higher and lateral. What was the highest risk exit path?”

  Harv closed his eyes. I’d seen it before. He was consulting his memory, probably had the floor plans memorized. His lips moved in a weird fashion and he pointed a finger up and to the left. “Through the ballroom and onto the unsecured portion of the roof.”

  I nodded and considered. “What’s next to the ballroom?”

  Harv cocked his head and blinked hard. “We have a small substation. Maybe six guys. All Corsicans. They insisted and I needed a spot to…” I knew where he was going. He’d dumped the loaner thugs somewhere he never planned to be but close enough to raise zero criticism from the esteemed associates who had interfered with his op. Corsicans. I weighed my options.

  “Okay, order half the forces to the roof, tell them we have incoming choppers that are hostile and get the Triple Ay online. And put your missile defenses on active radar.”

  That raised an eyebrow from Karthago and Littman both. Harv keyed a mike and gave a few short commands. Military chatter started immediately. Questions, confirmations, locations and sound offs. His people were on the move. Most of them. The spies were trying to get information and make decisions. Locate their targets or report in or bug out as assigned. Some all of the above.

  I turned to Pina. “Call in a bomb threat and have someone lock down the street. Then pull some strings and declare La Guardia a terrorist zone or something. Get Homeland Security’s panties as bunched up as humanly possible.” I motioned them to follow me and Littman, Karthago, their crews of people, nine in all, moved in almost perfect unison. Creepy and kind of beautiful. I heard her make a quiet call.

  Let me stop here and say this: The Syndicate gets high marks for several things. Ruthlessness, preparation, and flexibility. For this reason, other organizations hire them or pay a stipend or pretty much report to the bastards directly. When I say eleven people followed me, I mean that, like ghosts, these eleven terrifying professionals went in
to the unknown, formation around the Concierge, the Sous on point with his shooters, a two woman team, quietly and without a hint of rancor.

  I popped open the door, shot the mook loitering in the hall, and tossed four grenades against the wall that abutted the theoretically empty ballroom. Then I closed the door and put my back to a pylon. That’s when the fun started.

  Chapter 3

  Exfiltration for the Budget Traveler

  The ensuing blast did several useful things for me and mine.

  I was counting Karthago’s team as my cadre for purposes of simplicity and a reminder not to shoot the wrong lunk. The explosion set off every detector, every alarm, every raw nerve in the whole building and likely was heard a block or two away. It burned the crap out of the hallway, tearing away in a thunder of shrapnel and white phosphorous every curtain, planter, and other swagtastic obstacle for a couple dozen meters on either side. It had blown a hole into the ballroom and revealed whatever and, hopefully, whomever had been standing waiting in the supposedly empty space. And it absolutely let Section 22 know where we weren’t going. Ain’t nobody stupid enough to walk through a burning hallway, which is why I popped out and dumped another six grenades in an underhand lob, scattering them roughly equidistant along the boiling carpet. Or at least I hoped so. I didn’t bother sticking around to make sure they landed where I tossed them.

  The fire set them off in a cascade of concussions popping outwards left and right from the main fire. I did a stint in the Ukrainian Ministry of Extraordinary Situations, mostly fighting fires along the edge of the Red Forest. Turns out a couple of grenades can serve as a fast and dirty back burn. It took another few seconds but the familiar suck of a vacuum came and went, then I motioned to the team to move. I kicked open the door, sighted my pistol into the smoking hole I had created out of the ballroom wall, and all but sprinted in, the elven ghosts following me. Bodies covered the floor and I heard a shot from behind, someone in the hall not entirely dead. With methodic care, I put one bullet into each of the prone forms. On the third shot, the ambush tried to spring and met with Harv’s shooters. Four soldiers were dead before they rose to a shooting position.

  Harv caught my eye. He pointed to his watch and raised one finger. One minute down, two to go. I nodded and motioned them into what we call Small Vee, a kind of hunkered position on our knees, where you have shooters at three corners. Then I very politely knocked on the Corsicans’ door. I waited five seconds and said something absolutely filthy about the man’s mother in Corsu. That brought a chuckle and a question—Who are you?

  Someone who knows Tony Icepick.

  There as a brief silence, then a second voice. Yeah, then what’s Tony’s biggest problem?

  That’s easy. Mrs. Icepick.

  Another chuckle. And you know that because?

  I’m Sveta’s cousin.

  A rough man with scars around his eyes popped open the door and looked me up and down. “Spetz?”

  I knew him. Well. I was there when he got the scars on his left eye. “Hey, Pierre.” I motioned with my left hand at the crowd behind me, bristling with nervous bravado. He gave them a wicked smile.

  Pierre Lafontaine was nobody’s fool. How he’d been put on this duty was a bit of mystery, one I tried to piece together quickly. Nominally Tony’s equal and, in some ways his boss, La Flambé as they called him, was a specialist in ordinance and supply. He ran arms around the world. He also tended to solve problems with some interpersonal arson. He absolutely should not be in New York City manning a flunky crew of loaner Corsican thugs. Unless…

  He nodded towards Pina. “That her?”

  I nodded back, then switched to French. “My friend, they’ve put their fingers in their eyes here. We have an exit if you need one.” I left it hanging. I wasn’t sure whether Pierre was with friends or foes. Or, for that matter, if he was here to kill Karthago’s company or save them.

  He shrugged. “You expect them to attack?” We both knew who them was. Good. He followed my train of thought and was considering my offer.

  I shook my head. “I expect them to drop the building.” Behind me Littman held up two fingers. One minute to go. Go Team Spetz. I hoped Hans and his goons were reluctant to go full force until they knew Karthago was definitely in the hotel. Me, I’d drop the whole block if I were Hans and kill everyone. A gas main explosion would hit the news: problem solved.

  Pierre gave a solid unblinking stare for perhaps two agonizing seconds and said in very plain English, “I’m not going on the roof. No, thank you.”

  I nodded and very slowly pulled two phosphorous grenades from my bag. Pierre stepped slightly closer, his hand still on the door, now within reach of my offhand. In one motion, I tossed the payload in and wrenched the smuggler out. He had the dexterity to slam the door closed before the inevitable whump of the explosion knocked us both to our knees.

  Covering him with my body, I turned to the agitated Syndicate people and made introductions. “Pina and Harv, allow me to introduce Pierre La Flambé, the man who just saved you from being captured and brainwashed by Section 22.” Pierre stepped out from behind me and gave them a little bow. Then noticed the cocked pistol I had in his ear. “And who may be a double or triple agent for them as well.”

  The damnedest thing was, in the middle of all this assassination, explosions, and paranoia, my head felt superb. I hadn’t been this relaxed in, sigh, six years or so. Worse (or better if you’re thinking in pure operational terms) I felt some of the buzz that came with this level of adrenaline. Somewhere, a viral protein was waking up and triggering a small factory sitting in a pair of ceramic pods attached to my femoral arteries. It’s very old school and static—my nanomeds never evolve or improve nor are they much help. Gen 13 onwards got weekly shots with bigger, better, badder versions of everything I had in horse doses. Along with whatever mind control cocktail Cassandra had embedded with them. My stuff lacks several key features that every gen got. Whatever made me smaller and weaker also made me resistant to most of the euphorics and psychoactive components. So they had to ditch pain killers and oxytocin boosters and swap them for plasminogen inhibitors and some electrical impulse carriers, which together make me calm, focused, logical, and able to process a lot of different activities at once. As in walk and chew gum at the same time. Or in our case, manage a murderous triple agent, count down to an aerial rescue, and shoot the sniper in the building across the street.

  I fired across Pierre’s hairline, three quick shots through the window and into the location I felt, rather than saw, movement. The sniper got off an automatic burst that chewed through the lower half of their own window, revealing a brutally well-armed soccer mom. From my vantage above and to her right, I saw in almost precise slow motion as she dropped to her knees. Blood was everywhere but nothing black and no arterial spikes. She had time. None of us made a move. It’s not a written code, but there are times when mercy should be given. By the time she could hurt us, we’d be long gone. Killing her just wasted a life. Then she smiled and I saw the room explode in a charnel house of flame.

  Suicide soccer moms? This is why I don’t work for those bastards in Abschnitt. That’s almost a bad movie cliché. Yet here we were, forty-five seconds from rescue, watching a room across Fifth Avenue burn. Above us, Section 22, or some interested collateral entity, blew apart the triple A and roof defenses. Harvmotioned, bringing me back to the ballroom.

  He pointed his H&K in our direction (but pointedly not at me). “He works for Oslo.” I shrugged. Oslo? Harv seemed to intuit my confusion and, perhaps for Pina’s benefit as well, he elaborated. “Oslo’s a high placed independent operator. Strictly third party, slick as hell. Lots of intel, embedded in everything and everyone. Has people in Section 22, Kay Gee Bee, that farm in Kansas with the remnants of the Cubans. Pretty much everybody. No one knows who he is. Not even Pierre here.” Then he turned to his boss. “Oslo’s dangerous but not hostile to us, per se. At least we can’t find a link that says he is. Might cut a deal wi
th his agent?”

  Pierre nodded. I knew his ears had to be ringing madly. If he could hear at all. “Just know the password, neber met the boss.” It came out in a mutter. Definitely could not hear much. It made me smile.

  I had the timing running in my head. Thirty-five seconds, more or less. Grand theft helicopter wasn’t an exact science.

  Pina stood up and sighed. “I’m Oslo.” That whipped both Harv’s and Pierre’s heads around in a trice. She stepped forward and looked Pierre dead in the eyes. “Pyrethrum.”

  Pierre barked a laugh. “Didn’t see that coming. Yeah, okay. You’re Oslo.” He looked around at the dead bodies and the broken furniture. “Want my report?”

  For my part, I was rather relieved. I had always liked La Flambé and throwing him out the window would have stunk. But bringing him along presented a different set of issues. I dumped my handgun and pulled out another ceramic blade. Pierre eyed me and pointed to his left shoulder. I tapped the spot and felt a seed sized capsule a few millimeters below the surface. “Recent?”

  “They put the newest one in last week.” Then he pointed to his ankle where I saw some small scars. Section 22 tends to use an extractor that looks a little bit like a cherry pitter and feels far less comfortable.

  “How do you contact them?” I ignored whatever questions Harv and Pina were asking. If I understood the situation, seconds were all we had.

  He held out a lighter. “Simple radio. I can transmit but not receive.” What he didn’t say was that activating the radio would also turn his transponder on and keep it on. I found the nearest corpse, someone wearing the latest commando gear. The shrapnel had cored his neck like an apple. Perfect. With a heave his body landed against the wall behind which lay Pierre’s immolated men. I saw his fluids sizzle where they touched.