“Is that your airship?” Frank marveled.
“Yup,” I said.
The entrance ramp lowered. Pete stood inside the gondola, waiting for us. We grabbed our things and boarded.
“You look like hell,” Pete said.
“Better believe it,” I replied.
“There were reports of a massive explosion in downtown Dusseldorf,” Pete said. “That you?”
The rest of the airship crew appeared, leading the hackers away. Eve waved them off and stayed next to me.
“Yes,” I said.
He whistled. “At least there were no casualties. I thought you said something about a kill team?”
“Something like…” I paused. “No casualties? What do you mean?”
“The press said there were no casualties from the blast.”
“Son of a bitch!” Eve and I said.
“Eh? What’s wrong?”
“We were attacked by a kill team that just wouldn’t die,” Eve said. “We shot them, slashed them, blasted them… They just kept getting back up.”
“How the hell is that possible?”
“Soon as we’re airborne, we need to have a chat with our handler,” I said.
Captain Harding approached us. “You all right?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Thanks for coming on such short notice.”
“No problem. Where to next?”
“Anywhere that isn’t here,” I said. “We’ve got heavy hitters on our tail, and we do not need them attacking us here.”
“I need to file a flight plan before air traffic control will let me take off,” Harding said.
“Italia,” Eve said.
“What’s there?” I asked.
“I’ll explain later,” she promised.
***
The first thing Eve and I did when we arrived was to make a beeline for the infirmary. There, we shot ourselves up with medical nanomachines. They declared we had taken 0.2 Grays of radiation. Nothing to worry about. But it meant that the black stuff I’d seen inside the giants had to be nythium.
So what did it mean?
I left Eve to her devices and returned to my quarters. As the nominal owner of the airship, I had the privilege of staying in the master cabin. It was the airborne equivalent of a presidential suite. Shame it didn’t have furniture.
My cabin boasted a king-sized bed with a paper-thin blanket and disposable pillowcases. Next to it was a walk-in closet, which was completely empty. The bathroom featured a spa tub with built-in air and water massage systems, and Lisa had left an apologetic note in the tub, explaining that the engineers didn’t have time to work out the plumbing, so it was best not to use the tub.
There were no tables, no chairs, none of the fancy electronics I had seen when I first took control of the dirigible. There wasn’t even toilet paper. At least the tap, toilet and shower were working. Thank God.
On the bright side, there was plenty of space for exercise and solo training.
I set my stuff down by my bed and headed over to the war room. Previously, the Sheikh had used the huge room as his personal office. Occupying the bow of the upper deck, the wall-length windows provided an unparalleled view of the world outside. The morning sun filled the room with soft light, the glass tinting itself to eliminate glare.
There was an expansive table on the right of the room. It was no ordinary table; it was a computer in the shape of one, with holographic emitters embedded in the glass surfaces and processors hidden in the frame. Bookshelves and cabinets lined the walls, all of them empty. At the other end were a conference table and a collection of chairs. Like the worktable, the conference table was also a disguised computer.
I perched myself on a chair and prepared a pot of coffee. Instant coffee. Atrocious, but better than nothing.
After Eve mentioned Italia, I ordered a meeting in the war room the instant we had set our bags down. Moments later, Eve, Pete and Frank entered the room. They helped themselves to the coffee and took their seats.
“Eve, Frank, how’s everyone doing?” I asked.
“They’re fine,” Frank said. “Just tired.”
“We’re doing great!” Eve exclaimed, her face lighting up in a smile.
Frank raised an eyebrow. So did Pete.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
“It’s way too early to be this cheerful,” Pete said.
“Hey, not my fault if you’re not a morning person.”
I cleared my throat. “Let’s get this started.”
I touched the activation button. Holographic projectors emitted a menu in front of my face. I tapped a phone icon. Ultrasonic emitters fired, mimicking resistance. Scrolling through the contacts list, I called O’Connor.
A window blacked out. It wasn’t ordinary glass; it was an active panel, shot through with nano-scale circuits and hardware. When O’Connor picked up, his face stretched across the window. He had a suit on, but no tie. His informal look was much better than his idea of business dress.
“Good… morning, Luke,” O’Connor said. “I’m glad you and Eve made it out of Germania alive. We were worried about you.”
“Thanks for arranging our extract,” I said.
“Hey, it’s the least we could do. And I see you have a newcomer.”
“Yeah. Will, this is Frank. He’s the head of Hexenhammer’s cyberwar team. Frank, Will, our handler.”
“Good to meet you, Frank.”
Frank nodded sharply, crossing his arms. “Same here.”
“Heard about the hit team from Pete,” O’Connor said. “What happened out there?”
Eve, Frank and I took turns telling the story from our perspectives, beginning with the giants’ arrival and ending with our escape.
With major edits, of course. No way in hell Eve and I could tell them about our covenants. I told them that I dosed myself good and blasted away with particle beams, then Eve finished them off with her soulblade.
As the tale continued, O’Connor’s face grew increasingly incredulous. At the end of it, he shook his head slowly.
“My God! If anyone else but you said it, I’d say they were crazy.”
“I chopped them up,” Eve whispered. “They were still moving. I saw their limbs twitch. As though they were trying to… to pull themselves back together.”
“What kind of monsters are they?” Frank asked.
Pete carefully set his cup down. “You know, this reminds me of Project Conjurer.”
“Me, too,” I replied.
“Project Conjurer? What’s that?” Eve asked.
O’Connor frowned. “Luke? You knew about Conjurer?”
“Only open source material,” I said. “And I bet there’s a lot more to it than what the public needs to know. We have guys in the Program who cleaned up after Project Conjurer, don’t we?”
“Yes. What do you need?”
“I need every one of them assigned here to this mission.”
“No can do. They’re running all around the world on other ops.”
“We’re going to go another round with the giants again. Count on it. We need all the help we can get.”
“Luke, this mission was just to… help Hexenhammer with their current situation. Fighting monsters is not part of that mission. Neither is fighting a legitimate government. If you need info on Conjurer, you can just call or mail those guys.”
“It’s not that simple. Look. Nothing about this makes sense. If the cops had found us, why didn’t they send in KSK, GSG 9 or even SEK? Hell, for that matter, why were there only four shooters? Hexenhammer is the most wanted terrorist group in Pantopia right now. You’d expect a full court press—an entire platoon of operators plus snipers, heavy weapons, drones and a gunship if they’ve got one.
“No, something’s up. I think there’s another group out there hunting Hexenhammer. And they don’t answer to Berlin.”
Pete nodded. “Luke’s right. The Germans aren’t going to gain anything by covertly eliminating Hexenhammer. And if word gets
out, it’ll be a PR nightmare. There’s some other group out there with serious firepower. Maybe they pulled off the Chios attack and are blaming it on Hexenhammer.”
“But why would they?” Eve asked. “Terrorists need publicity to survive. If they’re terrorists, why give the credit to someone else?”
Frank cursed.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Maybe they’re not terrorists,” he said slowly. “Maybe they are one of us. A breakaway faction.”
“That’s impossible!” Eve protested.
“It’s the only explanation that makes sense,” Frank insisted. “The identity I used to rent our safe house was clean. We used that cover before without issues. We didn’t do anything under that cover to attract government attention. The only people who would know to even look for it are inside Hexenhammer.”
“Maybe they found us some other way,” Eve said. “Maybe they traced you over the Net or by power consumption.”
“Impossible,” Frank said. “We took every precaution we could to avoid being detected.”
“The shooters acted as if they knew we were already inside,” I mused. “They didn’t perform a close target reconnaissance. Maybe they did a drive-by around the site, but that’s all. No long-term surveillance. No attempt to identify anyone inside the apartment. They just kicked the door and rolled in. It was like someone had told them who was inside beforehand.”
“They could have had static surveillance in place before you arrived,” O’Connor said.
They didn’t, of course, but I couldn’t directly refute that. He had no need to know what I really was. I just shrugged. “Maybe. But I doubt that. How would they know which floor and which room to hit? They can’t tell that from the outside of the building.”
“But if they flagged the ID I used,” Frank said, “they’d know where to go.”
“You didn’t check in at a motel or something?” O’Connor asked.
I shook my head. “Hexenhammer are not operators. They don’t have our kind of resources. Frank aside, the hackers don’t have solid cover IDs. If we had gone to a motel, they would have left a paper trail and a larger footprint. By using TripHome, Frank only needed to use his cover ID.”
“It’s the only nexus the enemy had to find you,” Pete concluded.
“Leaving aside how they found us, I still don’t see why a breakaway faction would do this,” Eve said.
“Why not?” Frank insisted. “First, they commit a terrorist attack to pin the blame on us. The police expected ultranationalists, so they sweep up the ultras. Then, this faction kills whoever is left, so no one can contradict the narrative. After that, they can take over.”
Eve crossed her arms. “I don’t buy it. For one thing, while we aren’t a monolithic group, there are no signs of a rogue faction. For another, we don’t force anyone to stay against their will. If they don’t like how we do things, they are free to leave and found their own group. Why bother trying to kill us?”
Frank sighed. “Fine. But I’m telling you there is something wrong here.”
“Frank might be right about there being an inside man,” O’Connor said amicably. “It would explain how the Hellenic Police found you so fast.”
“Except that the Hexenhammer task force doesn’t officially exist,” I reminded him.
“Yes, there is that.” He frowned mightily. “Something smells rotten here.”
“Another reason to bring in the guys who know about Conjurer,” I argued.
I couldn’t well tell everyone here that the Unmaker was behind the giants. At least, not without evidence.
“We shall see,” he said noncommittally. “For now, what are your plans?”
I glanced at Eve. She nodded.
“I have a contact in Italia. He has connections in the black market, specifically arms trafficking and identity fraud. He might know where the kit used in the Chios attack came from. Also…” She paused. “Also, he is holding on to Hexenhammer’s Soviet-era weapons, and I intend to audit his inventory.”
“Are you sure of his loyalties?” O’Connor asked.
“He’s been with us since the beginning,” Eve replied. “I’m confident he’s remained true to the cause. But if there are traitors within Hexenhammer, once they hear that I’m conducting an audit, they might expose themselves.”
“Beat the grass to scare the snake?” Pete asked.
“Exactly.”
“Good luck,” O’Connor said. “If we have anyone near Italia who has experience with Conjurer, I’ll send them your way. Fair enough?”
It was the closest I would get to a promise from him.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Oh, and one more thing. You guys read the news?”
“We were too busy running,” I said.
“Thought so.” He brought up a phone and glanced at its hologram. “Be careful down there. Hexenhammer is now public enemy number one in Pantopia. You’re a, quote, ‘well-armed, highly dangerous far right Phosterian neo-Nazi terrorist group.’”
Frank uttered a darkly inventive list of German obscenities. Eve just stared, dumbfounded.
O’Connor scrolled down. “Lessee… ‘Sarah Adler, senior counterterrorism expert at Interpol, said, “Hexenhammer uses HH and 88 to refer to itself. These are neo-Nazi abbreviations for ‘Heil Hitler,”’”
Eve stood, slamming her palms against the desk.
“No. God. DAMN. Way!” she roared. “We are NOT Nazis!”
Frank flinched away, covering his ears.
“You have to admit, the name makes it awful convenient for people to believe that,” O’Connor said calmly.
“No! We chose that name because we are the hammer against the witches. We exterminate the gangsters, the terrorists, the villains who think their deeds will go unpunished. We have nothing to do with Nazis. Not one goddamn thing.”
I had never seen her so angry, so passionate, about anything before. It was startling.
And her surname was Martel. A word that meant “hammer.” I wondered how much that had to do with her naming the group Hexenhammer.
“I’m not accusing you of anything,” O’Connor said. “I’m just saying that they think of you as the next Hitler. They’re not going to cut you any slack. Be careful, yeah?”
“Yeah,” she said.
Sitting back down, Eve rested her chin on her hands and stared past me. Her hands hid her lips, but her eyes seemed… dull. Exhaustion? Moroseness? Something else?
“We’ll work through this,” I said.
“Yes,” she said.
Her back straightened, her hands fell to her lap, her face blanked out, and suddenly she was so calm and so cold that she seemed to be made of ice.
“Do you have access to the Interpol task force targeting Hexenhammer?” I asked. “We need to know how close they’re getting to us.”
“Not directly, no,” O’Connor said. “I can try, but no promises.”
“We can help,” Frank said. “If you can get us the right hardware, we can attack the problem on our side, too.”
O’Connor pursed his lips. “You’re referring to the list of computer equipment you requested? We don’t usually procure such specialized items on such short notice, but I’ll see what I can do.”
Frank nodded. “Thanks.”
When the conference broke up, Frank was the first to go, claiming that he had to talk to his cell. As Pete and I made for the door, Eve patted my shoulder.
“Wait,” she said.
“Yeah?”
She was, for a moment, the ice queen, she of the long blond hair, the glass-cut physique, the cool blue eyes that reflected everything and revealed nothing. Then, she bit her lower lip, tilted her chin down and flared her pupils. Just like that, she was a regular woman, proud but vulnerable.
“There’s another reason I want to go to Italia,” she said.
“What is it?”
“I have a source of aetherium in Italia. Pure aetherium.”
Gamma: The Liars
No risk, no gain. High risk, high gain. That was how intelligence operations worked. Sometimes, you just drew a bad hand. All you had to do was recover and try again.
But this?
“The units are irrecoverable. Their bodies are no longer functional, and their spines and cranial shells are cracked. Even if we insert them into fresh bodies, they’re going to be a liability. I recommend we slag this group and try again with fresh bodies.”
“And information management?” the handler asked.
“We were more successful with that,” the deputy replied. “The local police were the first to arrive on the scene, and they evacuated the area. No civilian witnesses saw what happened. It allows us leeway to massage the narrative. As for the units’ bodies, they have been transported to the city morgue. I can arrange for the remains to be quietly disposed of.”
“What about the people who recovered and handled the units?”
“We are presently working on identifying them, their families and their superiors. Once we have the full details, I shall forward them to you.”
The Organization had near-limitless resources, and mere humans were weak. He had any number of levers at his disposal. Any number of ways to ensure these accidental witnesses remained silent. Permanently, if necessary.
“Good. Time is of the essence. We cannot have anyone accidentally sharing the details. This must be your top priority. We must maintain operational security.”
“Yes sir.”
Hanging up, the handler leaned into his chair and tapped idly at his cheek. Hexenhammer was, frankly, better than expected. He hadn’t anticipated the cyber cell escaping the kill team. Perhaps they had linked up with the Krakens. That would explain how they got away.
Maybe he had struck too late.
Now’s not the time for self-doubt.
That’s right. Hexenhammer had to expose themselves sooner or later. All he had to do was give them a nudge.
He turned on his slate—the one his ostensible employers had issued him. Being a senior government employee in a secretive profession had its perks. Among other things, he had a practically unlimited travel and operations budget so long as he could justify the expenditures.
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