The Autumn War

by Ani Fox

“Shut up, Rick, and give him the antidote…”

  The room spun and I tried to slow my heart. Eventually they stopped panicking and time got away from me. The intercom burred. “Patient Zero has been stabilized. Debrief in twenty, Paul Revere room.” Then a kind hand brushed my shoulder and I began to be wheeled out into the corridor. I counted doors and paces, lights and turns. Whatever they had stabbed me with started to ease the collective pressure in my head. As if a tide were washing out to sea, color came back into the world, emotions returned. I carefully explored my bonds and did my best to transfer as much of the weapons and tools under my back to my waiting right hand.

  Someone parked me in a dark cool room with a door facing my feet. I saw two moving cameras sweeping the room. From the shape and size, they were advanced infrared models with light gathering optics and triple lenses—they recorded heat, low light, and normal views all at once. I counted the sweep. They never let me out of their sight. I slit my eyes and feigned sleep. On the wall, a clock ticked, giving me the context of time. It was half past eight.

  At just after one-fifteen, the cameras stuttered and moved to face the walls. I yanked my hand from the harness and freed my right arm, unstrapped my legs and hopped off the gurney before moving to untie the left. The door began opening before I could get it free, so I lifted the entire rolling bed and rammed into my would-be assassin with the full force of my body. The door itself saved him. As it was, the frame bent and my arm came free, hauling a railing with it.

  He leapt into the room, vaulting the bed. I let him come and jammed the railing into the back of his neck as he closed with me. I saw a smallish man, dark hair and eyes, holding a Taser and a full hypodermic in his hands. The blow took him by surprise and blood splattered against the wall as he spun away, exposing his left flank with the Taser.

  Rather than following him, I knocked the Taser onto the floor and used my right hand to drive the empty needle as far into the shaft behind his right knee as I could. He kept moving and the needle made a satisfying snap as the force of his retreat ripped open his leg. He tossed the full needle to his left and switched stances. I mirrored him, then copied Dieter and extended the rod like a sword. Klaxons began to peel. The lights went on everywhere and he took the moment to jump me.

  To properly inject someone with a hypo, a good combatant drives it in with fingers and follows with the quick thrust from the thumb. As he drove into my waiting arm, I turned and caught it under my elbow and started to scream. Instinctively he pushed with his thumb, spraying the poison over the wall and floor. I rammed my left knee into his groin several times, yanked his head to the floor, and started applying electric shocks until he lapsed into unconsciousness.

  Not two seconds later, Sasha, the Black Ops Director, stood above me, gun in hand, surveying the scene. From the look in her eyes, no explanation was needed. Men stormed the corridor and little red dots covered my head and chest. The fight had taken under five seconds and the Ring had responded within ten.

  I held up my left hand and made sure she was paying attention. “He will have a primitive kill switch. Likely in the elbow crease or behind the ear.”

  She appeared to consider what I had said. “What are you saying?” The cameras tracked me. A sudden frisson struck me. Pina and Sasha knew one another. This was their anarchist’s sewing circle, a second and final ploy. She had sent me to help Sasha. Maybe even set it up from the first day. I’m not a chess player but even I grasped how one promoted a pawn.

  “I’m saying he’s Section Twenty Two. That years ago, Hans Gutlicht killed and replaced your man with this impostor. I’m saying he turned off the bomb, that he was Hans’s accomplice all along.”

  “Impossible.” Her voice was a fierce stage whisper, captured by the cameras and men surrounding us.

  “No, it’s true. Hans told me before I killed him. Until I knew who it was, I couldn’t say.” Then I stared right at the cameras, the black eyes that held a band of dangerous men behind them. “Hans thought we were all going to die. He told me everything. About suckering The Syndicate and his own renegade faction into a war. Trying to demolish the Culper Ring by ruining your reputation. All the people he’d replaced in the organizations. He claimed there were three in the Ring, five in the Syndicate, dozens all across the American agencies and the Russian mob.”

  All lies, of course, but it would force them to test every operative’s genetics and that would reveal more impostors if they had them. A man swore and his head exploded before he got a chance to pull the trigger. Four men in dark suits with perfect silver hair and green eyes paced down the hallway, guarded by a crew that looked like ex-special forces. One of them had his assault rifle raised, the barrel smoking. He had killed the traitor in a fraction of a second, on the move and from the subtlest of body language. He and Sasha exchanged the briefest of looks but it was enough. He worked for her.

  The lead man motioned to her casually. “Sasha, a word?” She walked away, putting the gun on her hip, then leaned in to confer with the enclave. A minute later, the red dots lowered and then disappeared. One of the men, the tallest and best dressed came forward. He offered me his hand.

  “Aaron Townshend, Spymaster.” I took his hand. Few people alive knew the identity of the Culper Ring’s master. In The Web they didn’t give out medals. You wore information as your badge. The name Illuminati spells it out. Townsend had just done his own version of promoting a pawn.

  “Spetz. Naked.” That made the dangerous men in the hallway laugh and the tension eased out of the building. If the Spymaster had taken my hand, then I spoke the truth and the men dead on the floor were despicable traitors not comrades. The Culper Ring knew how to treat a traitor.

  Sasha handed me a blanket and, as I took it, she patted my left bicep, gave my groin a pointed ogle and whispered, “I guess the carpet matches the drapes.”

  I gave her a pleasant smile. “Be sure to tell her the next time you see her. I’m sure she’d be thrilled to know.”

  She gave me a double take, controlled and barely seen. Aaron Townshend saw it, the wheels behind his merciless eyes churning. “I…I will.” She smiled and I felt her disappointment as she walked through the past few hours, reconsidering the play and counter-play. “Th…thank you, Spetz.”

  Wrapping the towel around me for cover, I leaned over to her and whispered back, “Sasha, you have the most damned intriguing tattoo.” The pulse on her neck jumped while a smile touched her lips. Ha! A&D had taught me something after all. The prowling woman left me with a lilt in her step.

  A man in black commando gear motioned me to follow him and the Culper Ring began the process of my repatriation. A day later, showered, shaved, drug free, and clothed in an exceptionally fine custom tailored gray suit from Louis, a handsome gentlemen with a thick Boston accent was dropped off in Brookline with a wad of hundreds, a burner phone, and a new winter coat of midnight blue wool, with a fine Scali cap of similar hue. I bought some sunglasses and gloves, found a good pizza place, and when I’d eaten my fill, meandered my way to South Station and caught a train to New York City. On the ride down, I fell asleep watching the countryside whirl by me in a blur of late Autumn.

  Chapter 15

  Baker Street Irregularities

  The streets of New York teemed with heavy coated people rushing to and fro, oblivious to the punch of headlines and banner ads on the electronic billboards. Chechen terror cells and Russian mobster plots were old news. Christmas was in the air, the first snows had fallen and stuck, the governors of New Jersey and New York were at one another’s throats again, and every conservative firebrand with a PAC had started running for office nine months early. They’d revamped 5th Avenue and turned the huge pile of rubble into a much larger snarl of traffic, complaints, and local jobs.

  Ground Zero Site Two (no one would ever erase Ground Zero in the minds of New Yorkers) had been shorted to Second Zero and then Z-2. Candles, pictures, flowers, and letters decorated the fencing around the site. I stood there, my cheek
s burning in the cold and considered the innocent lives lost. Pina had set the scene originally, having evacuated two buildings for cockroach spraying and New Yorkers had absurdly complied. Some local news station had dubbed it The Miserable Miracle and the name stuck. Sure, 1,300 people didn’t die, but in a flash they were homeless, broke, and very cold, their life possessions obliterated in a thunder of concrete and rebar. The pundits were screaming every night on the news for Russian reparations and the opposition party had the American President cornered. Everywhere the world screamed War, War, War and went about making peace. War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength. The world went on as before.

  A car came for me as I walked the avenue. The long sleek sedan had thick darkened windows. The caulk seals on the edges told me these were combat reinforced and the glass, thus, bullet resistant. A door popped open and the man who once was LaFlambé waved. He beckoned me with a ceramic mug of something steaming and I took the invitation. In the plush interior, he handed me a coffee drink that smelled of chocolate.

  He spoke melodious French. “Mochas from a little place on Park and 34th.” He took a sip and I took a sip. Dark rich coffee hit me followed by a sharp kick of chocolate.

  “So, you took a job with Harv?”

  “Yes. He promoted Karina. You know, the one who lived.” I’d never gotten her name but it made sense. These days loyalty mattered more than mere resumes. Likely Karina had the chops to be the Sous. Or would gain them quickly.

  “Which makes you what?” I took another sip and felt the warmth hit my toes.

  “Head Commis. I work for Karina and report to Harv’s staff.” It made sense. For Lafontaine there would be no going home again. His wife had mourned him, his children given his pensions and his sons his territory.

  The car took us uptown on Amsterdam. Holiday traffic merged with New York traffic and a light flicker of snow slowed the trip to a rolling crawl. “Good for you, Pierre. You like the work?”

  He shrugged. “I miss my kids but hey, New York has plenty of young French women, dreaming of meeting a strong older man.” His eyes did not smile.

  “But not many Corsicans.”

  “No. Not many of them.” His face had been altered, his voice box scratched a tad, his hair changed. They had transplanted a huge, unruly mane of blond-gray hair that made him look older but at the same time more vital. Along with the sharper chin and reshaped nose, the doctors had turned him into a rakish character.

  We sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the city throng in huge heaving waves of people and traffic. When the mug was empty, I set it on a small tray on the eats between us. “What was the final death toll?”

  La Flambé stared out a window. “Here or the whole thing?”

  “Both. Our and theirs, the innocents in between.”

  “New York City, eleven hundred. Wait, I know you like precise figures. Eleven twenty-six with another forty-three sixty-five with critical injuries. Lots of cripples running around after this.”

  I grimaced and he nodded in acknowledgement. 5,400 casualties from one battle. “Toronto was much worse. Bastards had a lot of nasty crap in the building, smoke did a whole lot of long term damage, killed a bunch of kids. Last count six hundred nine dead, most of them folks you blew up or shot. Did you know that building had a basement?”

  “The staging area?”

  “Yeah. They had basement full of biologics and a lot of troops sleeping. Whatever was in the drums, it cooked them before the fire did.”

  “Advanced nerve agent would be my guess.” I knew exactly what it had been but I didn’t want to burden Pierre.

  He nodded and seemed to make a mental note. “Gibes with the coroner’s reports.”

  “Toronto…”

  “Yes, yes. Casualties were more than fifteen thousand. Mostly the young, old and sick. Stuff got in their lungs.”

  “From the main site?”

  “No, no. Sorry. Whatever Zeus had attached to his bombs when he dropped the whole Centre to make a point. It released something.”

  “They were testing a new product.”

  “That’s…amazing really. Seriously. They’d rig explosives with a new biologic agent on the off chance they had to retreat?”

  He got my best shrug and half smile. “Welcome to the genius of Cassandra.”

  He coughed and it was clear the notion made him uncomfortable. The reality of Section 22 and the kinds of operations supported by The Web usually did. Even hardened killers like Pierre had their illusions, needed them to stay what they were and feel human. Perhaps I’d seen too much.

  “Total global count now at about thirty-five thousand dead, maybe three hundred thousand casualties. Lots of stuff we can’t sort out as reprisals, opportunistic attacks, accidents, etcetera, etcetera.”

  That made the Autumn War the costliest, most devastating conflict in the history of The Web. Historians might quibble over per capita losses and total damage in modern dollars; the Battle of the Great Game in 1893 did a similar amount of overall damage and destroyed the Freemasons’ hold on Africa, wiped the Bin Bai Tong off the map, and deeply weakened the Yakuza, which still had not recovered.

  “I like the new face. Suits your position.” He smiled and gave me a mock salute. We exchanged pleasantries after that. The BBW had survived the war but had required major retrofits. The CSS had been shut down and a few rogue operatives found face down with a couple of shots behind their right ear. A very nice Israeli man came to Pina’s office, delivered to her a steamer trunk of platinum ingots, apologized once curtly, and left the country. Apparently the Mossad took things personally, regardless of the status or relationship of their people.

  On the topic of Section 22, things looked fairly controlled. Several couriers and a couple of safehouses had been stormed, Hans’s accomplices summarily cut down, and everything burned beyond recognition. The Syndicate couldn’t be sure that all the weaponized nerve agent had been found and destroyed, but every illegal lab and freezer vault had been searched and, in many cases, obliterated. Whatever was left of the virus had a short lifespan and few human vectors.

  The car stopped in front of a large building fronted with glass and stone, modern with a nod to art deco. Behind it, another building loomed and in front Central Park. Pierre gave me curt smile. “Fifteen Central Park West.” When I didn’t react, he added, “It’s a posh place. You’ll like it.”

  Harv opened the door and handed me out of the vehicle, ushering me from the windy street into an opulent lobby. The imposing doorman and his many underlings made no move to stop us. Harv took me silently through a corridor, then across a ballroom and into a second corridor before stopping at a nearly hidden elevator. From the woodwork and details of the place, I finally made the connection. This was The Location. Among a handful of the most coveted residences in the World, and certainly among the top five in New York. Someone powerful lived here, perhaps Bernard or Pina.

  Once the door closed and we were alone, Harv’s impassive face broke into a grin. “Hiya, Spetz.”

  “Harv. You look well.”

  “Thanks. We had a few minutes of excitement here and there, but you know, nothing like your end of it.” Which told me he’d been fighting tooth and nail keeping his principal alive and had barely gotten out with her intact. But he had done the job.

  The elevator kept going up. His dark skin and eyes glowed with an irrepressible energy. “Give me your piece.” I handed him the gun on my back. He looked it over and frowned. “Christ, Spetz. What the hell is this thing?”

  “I don’t know. I took it off an energetic young lad in the Bronx a night or two ago.”

  “How do you know it will even fire? The thing’s a piece of junk.”

  “I didn’t exactly want to test it. The thing’s a cannon and he unfortunately did not have spare rounds on his person.”

  Harv chuckled at that. “Yeah, course not.” He handed me a bundle, which turned out to be holster with a military Sig Sauer and extra clip. “Pu
t this on. It’s one of Karina’s. She sends her love.”

  I sighted the pistol away from either of us, checked for a round in the chamber, and put the superior weapon in the small of my back. The holster fit as if designed for me. Even the spare mag lay just right. Unless you were Harv, or someone of his caliber, the gun would go unnoticed.

  “Thank her for me.” I didn’t know what else to say. Things had started to go off script, which meant Pina had been busy.

  The elevator stopped at a penthouse floor. We exited into a small foyer with an obvious security station and four very scary men who did not hide the guns under their arms. In the corner, a rack of assault rifles rested. In a nod to the facility, the rack was a carved hardwood and the guns were clean, well-oiled, and somehow elegant. They also held extra-large mags and the men had every conceivable bit of surveillance gear out and ready. Each wore visible body armor covered with a suit coat, tactical boots under Armani pants, and was ready to fight. They had none of the idiotic bravado I’d seen with the last set of Syndicate guards. These men meant business and took nothing for granted.

  Harv waited for the lead soldier to face him and said in a clear loud voice, “Highball.”

  “Confirmed, Highball. Please proceed, sir.”

  The reinforced door clicked open and we passed through a twelve centimeter gate of ceramic and titanium. They’d installed a bomb resistant wall in the lobby. The door itself had five lock mechanisms and an actual hand operated bar. Inside, two more men greeted us from a matching operations station covered with camera feeds, surveillance data and, interestingly, a huge swath of monitors covering what looked like internet and network chatter. A third man sat at the station, headset on, eyes locked on the feeds. He did not allow himself to be distracted.

  “Learned from my last visit, did you?”

  Harv gave me a wider grin. “Extensively. Thank you.” I gave him a tiny bow with my head and shoulders.

  A fourth man appeared and ushered us to a second gate. From the welds on the ceiling and floor I realized they’d modified the whole area, likely locked the two stations in a Faraday cage, and then reinforced the entrance to resist intrusion from any direction. “Welcome to the penthouse, Sir.” He stood at rigid attention as we passed through a second door of similar make. I had the peculiar sense he had meant to salute me.