by G T Almasi
I comm, “Hey, Brando—er, I mean Darwin. You on your way?”
He comms back, “Three minutes, Scarlet.”
I turn to my parents. They stand next to each other, arm in arm. It’s cute.
“Damn,” my dad says to Cleo. “So this is what this is like.”
My mom shifts her eyes from me to him. “Goodbyes?”
“Yeah.” Dad frowns. “It sucks from this side.”
Mom raises one eyebrow and nods. “Mm-hmm.”
I lean against the doorway. “I’ll be fine, Dad. It’s just a Snatch job.”
My father cocks one eyebrow at me. “Hot-Shot, I appreciate your confidence, but you have never gone after a target like this.”
I ask him, “Have you?”
“Yes,” he murmurs, “a few.”
“How’d they go?”
He gently shakes his head. “Never the way they were supposed to.”
I look at the floor, push a lock of hair off my forehead, and suppress a shiver.
“But,” he adds, shrugging, “I’m still here.”
Mom strokes Dad’s arm. She tries to smile at me, but her expression is more of a well-intentioned grimace.
Car tires swish around the corner and mumble up the road. A taxi squeaks to a stop in front of our house. The back door opens. Patrick hops out. He meets us halfway up the front walk.
“Hey,” he says. “Need help with your bag?”
“Nah, I got it.” I give him a quick peck on the cheek. “Talk to my parents while I put my gear in the trunk.”
“Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Nico.”
“Hello, Patrick.”
Hug. Handshake. Small talk.
I carefully deposit my bag o’ boomies in the trunk and shut the lid. My parents follow Patrick to the sidewalk as he returns to the taxi. I skoosh Cleo. Her tears wriggle down my neck and run into my shirt. Dad wraps his big arms around me and bear-hugs me off the ground. My burned skin stings, but nothing beats being carried around by my daddy. He sets me down.
I reach out and briefly squeeze their hands. Then I turn and get in the car.
“Okay,” I bark at the driver. “Let’s boogie.”
I look back as the cab pulls away. My father stands tall and straight, but the streetlight glints off the thin streaks of water on his face. I feel as connected to my parents as I ever have.
Patrick comms, “They’ll miss you.”
“You think so?”
“Sure,” he says. “I mean, who’s gonna take out the trash now?”
I have to replay that a couple times.
“Oh-ho!” I ball my hand into a fist. My partner holds his shoulder bag up like a shield. I drop my hand into my lap. He lowers his bag.
Wham!
The driver ignores Brando’s profane outburst and pulls onto the highway toward the airport. My shoulders and neck already hurt from hugging my parents. Now they burn like branding irons from throwing that punch.
Patrick holds his arm and glares out the window.
Totally worth it.
11
FIVE HOURS LATER, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 12:10 P.M. EDT
LUFTHANSA FLIGHT 978
“What happens when we land in Dublin?” I comm.
Patrick comms back, “Someone from the embassy will pick us up.”
“We really get to meet Ambassador Kennedy?”
“Yep.”
I can’t wait be invited to Hyannis Port for the weekend.
Brando interrupts my reverie. “Cribbage?”
“Sure. Where are the cards?”
“I’ve got ’em.” My partner awkwardly reaches into his left pocket with his right hand. During the flight he’s had to do everything this way because somehow his left arm suffered a nerve-numbing blunt-impact injury in the taxi. After we boarded our plane, he showed me his upper arm. The bruise looked like the gigantic red spot on Jupiter.
“Stop laughing, Alix,” he said. “It hurts!”
“Ohh, poor baby,” I cooed. “Who’s gonna take out your trash now?”
He rolled his sleeve back down and grumbled, “Last time I try to lighten the mood.”
As he deals out the cards, we talk about what we have coming up in the next couple of days. Our plan is to use the embassy’s field assets to pick up Fredericks’s trail. We’ll track the bastard down and haul his ass back home to face a federal court filled with humiliations galore. Easier said than done, of course, since Fredericks may have even more assets in place than we do.
Fewer than he used to, however. For starters, he’s homeless because the Justice Department impounded his house in North Bethesda. His Strategic Services Council has been closed and its officers busted for facilitating Fredericks’s illegal initiatives. Justice froze his bank accounts, but God knows how many bags of cash Jakob stashed in Switzerland, the Caymans, or wherever else “stolen” and “earned” are synonyms.
Patrick said the man’s biggest loss was his secret lab at Aberdeen. Fredericks’s Lake House operatives allowed him to physically project his will anywhere in the world. Now Falcon works for us, and the black-haired girls are dead. Talon is Fredericks’s last agent, and he ain’t gettin’ no more. The triplets we rescued were at least ten years away from being field-ready. Their deliverance represents the end of Fredericks’s personal intelligence agency.
I keep thinking about those three babies—all girls. I heard they lost so much fluid, they weighed something like ten ounces at the hospital. A strong wind would have carried them away.
All this brooding distracts me from our cribbage game. I totally fuck up my discards. Patrick hits it out of the park with a zillion points and drops a big, fat goose egg on me. I scowl at him. The only reason I play this stupid game is because he lets me win. Patrick finally caught on to this old agreement between me and my deceased first partner, but to show he’s a Kenny Rogers cardsharp, Brando takes a big lead before letting me catch him with monster cribs and triple-15s. While I shuffle for the next round, I glance around the plane. My hallucinations are on vacation for the time being. I’m pretty sure everyone I see is genuine, not a figment of my concussed sense of reality.
“How many other teams will be in-country with us?”
He gently rubs his arm. “Most of the Levels in our section, plus Info support.”
“Huh.” I whip twelve cards into two little piles. “Are we all on the same Job Number?”
“I was told we’re the only ones on SCORPIO. But this is ExOps, so who knows.”
We pick up our cards. I sort my laminated rascals into combinations that add up to fifteen. “What’s everyone else working on?”
“It’s called Operation HIGHLORD. In essence, their mission is to hold the Reich together.” He slides two of his cards facedown into the crib.
I lay down my two crappiest cards to complete the crib. “Whose side are we on?”
“The government in Berlin.”
“Erich Honecker is still chancellor, right?”
“For now.” Brando studies his cards. “The Reichstag has been swamped with calls to act on the vote of no-confidence.”
“Because of the Jewish Emancipation?”
“No, some of the calls come from abolitionists. They’re upset because Berlin has responded so poorly to the violent reactions to the end of slavery in Europe.”
“How bad is it?”
“Localized riots, assassination attempts, stuff like that. Bad, but not out of control yet.” My partner discards a five of diamonds.
“Yet?” I pound a ten of hearts on Patrick’s five and add two points to my score.
We continue to play as Brando relates a few possible scenarios. Most of them begin with one of the big German institutions declaring itself the Reich’s new government.
“Like who, the army?”
“Any branch of Germany’s armed forces could try it. They’d have to form the right alliances. Maybe get the Gestapo on their side and find a way to appease the other branches.”
“How about the general populace?” I tally up my points.
“The people will follow whoever they think can restore order.”
“So the other ExOps teams will make Berlin look good by attacking militants and radicals?”
“I think that’s the general idea, yes.”
“Maybe we’ll get in on HIGHLORD after we finish SCORPIO.”
“Yeah, maybe.” He deals out the next round. “We’ll get a better sense for the situation once we’re in-country.”
My pegs race up the cribbage board and claim another glorious victory. Take that, Kenny Rogers.
—CORE: GESTAPO—
2 JUL 1981
PROTOCOL 8
From: John F. Kennedy, American ambassador to Ireland
To: XIC George H. W. Bush
Dear Sir,
Please find attached my collected files regarding Protocol 8, the Gestapo plan to seize control of Greater Germany. Be advised Protocol 8 represents a profound threat to international stability. This danger has been unwittingly confirmed by the Soviet Union (see included KGB report).
The seeds of Protocol 8 were planted thirteen years ago by the infamous hostage incidents in Berlin. Public reaction in Germany was extremely negative. Tense, clamorous anti-American protests and demonstrations fanned Berlin’s perpetual fear of rebellion.
In response, the Reich’s secretary of the interior formed an anti-insurgency committee. To protect the committee from Communist infiltration, counterintelligence specialists were supplied by the Gestapo.
Secret police chief Markus Wolf sensed an opportunity to increase his influence. Gestapo agents quickly usurped the committee and drafted the Protocol. This plan established a quasi-legal basis for the Gestapo to declare an emergency government in case of “subversive action from within or without.”
The committee was also infiltrated by agents of KGB, who were aghast at the Protocol’s comprehensive transfer of authority to the Gestapo. Their dispatches anxiously highlighted the document’s ambiguous parameters of execution, which could apply to almost any situation.
The committee’s eighth draft was accepted as the final version. Markus Wolf spent much of the next decade quietly laying the foundation for Protocol 8. His operatives now haunt every major ministry in the Reich, and Gestapo sleeper cells lurk in all of Europe’s cities. KGB believes Wolf’s shadow government-in-waiting comprises tens of thousands of agents and assets.
When activated, these assets will establish a base of influence by confiscating money and manpower. The money may be in secret bank accounts, or Wolf may plan to appropriate funds from some other section of the German government.
The manpower begins with the Staatszeiger, the paramilitary army that spent decades enforcing slavery alongside the Gestapo. It will also include irregular urban forces like remnants of the Purity League, Munich’s Nazis, plus terrorist groups such as Red Army Faction and The Phalanx for “special actions” to be defined later.
These ground units will have air cover. Correspondence between Wolf and General Heydrich confirms an agreement between the Gestapo and the Luftwaffe. This startling alliance provides Wolf with air support while simultaneously denying it to his domestic enemies.
Two considerable resources Wolf has not secured are the German Navy and Deutsche Petroleum, Germany’s national oil company. Both the Kriegsmarine’s Admiralty and Deutsche Petroleum’s board of directors are openly hostile to the Gestapo. Of unknown loyalty are the German Army, the Reichspolizei, the conservative political parties, and the labor unions.
My office will continue to investigate this crucial issue. Your advice and guidance are welcome.
Sincerely,
—JFK
12
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 9:28 A.M. IST
DUBLIN, PROVINCE OF IRELAND, GREATER GERMANY
“Oh my God, Brando, look at that ugly building!”
Patrick leans across to my side of the car and peers out the window. “Huh. Pretty wacko.”
I wish my father were here to help me critique this shit-shanty. It looks like a tipped-over tractor tire with three rows of disfigured windows where the nubby treads should be. Concrete barriers surround the property like pioneers circling their wagons.
“Is there actually anything in there?”
“Yeah, it’s where we’re going.”
“That’s the American embassy?”
Our driver passes between two of the barriers, through a security checkpoint, and pulls into the small parking lot behind the hideous architectural mess. We get out of the car and walk inside.
I comm to my partner, “This place looks like a snow globe wrapped in madness.”
He laughs, but holds a finger to his lips and comms, “I agree, but this is the ambassador’s office, so let’s keep our opinions to ourselves, okay?”
“He doesn’t live here, does he?”
“No, he lives out in Phoenix Park, near the zoo.” We check ourselves through security and follow our escort to the elevator. On our ride up, Brando comms, “How are your burns?”
“Getting better.”
“Does it still hurt too much to sleep?”
“I can manage with Overkaine.”
Brando squints at me. He worries I use my chems too much.
We arrive at the ambassador’s office. It’s in the center of the circular building, with a large round skylight for natural illumination. Across the room broods a heavy desk accompanied by a rocking chair. Before the desk sit a comfortable-looking sofa and a polished wooden coffee table. Near the office’s entrance, a round staircase spirals to the roof.
I’m peeking up the stairs when the roof’s access hatch opens. Black high-heeled shoes clack down the steps, followed by a pair of shapely legs, an immodestly short skirt, two bare arms, and a white short-sleeved blouse, all capped off by a mane of curly blond hair. The same sequence repeats itself for her companion: men’s dress shoes, a blue pin-striped suit, and one of the most gorgeous faces in the U.S.A.
“Hello!” John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s smile floods the room. “Welcome to Dublin, my friends.” He shakes our hands and guides us to the sofa. His attractive assistant slides the tall wooden rocking chair over next to the couch.
Patrick and I park our butts on the divan, glad to finally be sitting still. Kennedy turns to the young woman. “Thank you, Miss Carroll, that’ll be all. We’ll, ah, continue that letter tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir,” she purrs. All three of us watch her skirt wiggle back and forth as she sashays out of the office.
I comm to my partner, “Who gives dictation on the roof of their office building?”
Brando comms back, “Maybe it takes his mind off how ugly it is.”
Kennedy sets a trio of steaming coffee mugs on the low table in front of us. I can’t help but notice how he carries all three mugs with their handles gathered into only his right forefinger and thumb. The ambassador winks at me and says, “Harvard.” He sits in his chair. “Probably the most useful thing I learned at that shithole.”
I nearly snork coffee out my nose, which makes Boston’s favorite stud roar with laughter. He rocks back in his chair and blinds us with his megawatt dentistry.
“Now then.” JFK leans forward and rubs his palms together. “Let’s, ah, get to work, shall we?”
We set our mugs down and look at JFK expectantly.
He says, “My sources tell me Jakob Fredericks did not receive the friendly reception he was hoping for.”
Brando asks, “Fredericks went to London?”
“Yes. He and his female bodyguard made it to the governor�
�s office at Number 10 Downing Street. They asked for political asylum, but the provincial governor refused to jeopardize Greater Germany’s alliance with us. Fredericks threatened to reveal America’s role in the slave revolt. The governor promptly put Fredericks under arrest and called the chancellor’s office in Berlin.”
“Why?”
“The last thing the Reich needs is Herr und Frau Bierkopf knowing their American ally started the Rising.”
I have to figure out that Herr und Frau Bierkopf, or “Mr. and Mrs. Beer-Head,” is the Greater German public.
Brando half closes one eye and purses his lips. “ ’Cause Chancellor Honecker would look like an idiot?”
JFK gently shakes his head. “Worse than that. Honey could be shot for collaborating with enemies of the state.”
Wow.
“Did Honecker collaborate?”
“Absolutely not, but this has become the biggest Shadowstorm crisis since ’68. Everyone’s emotions are highly elevated, which means their sense of reason has flown out the goddamn window.”
“Isn’t the chancellor pissed?”
“Hell, yes! But the Rising is devouring his popularity. His position is so precarious he can’t afford any more scandals, whether they’re his fault or not.”
Patrick thoughtfully turns his cup around a couple of times. “Will Germany extradite Director Fredericks back to the States?”
“Only if they catch the son-of-a-bitch. Honey hadn’t even answered the phone when Fredericks’s bodyguard laid out the governor’s security personnel and spirited her boss out of the building.”
“Bodyguard,” I say. “You mean Talon, sir?”
“Yes, Talon.” Kennedy shifts in his chair. “Honecker immediately authorized a countrywide manhunt to catch Fredericks and Talon. His office put it on the wire to every government flunky in the Reich.” The ambassador takes a drink of his coffee. “It wasn’t long until a trail of stolen cars led Reichspolizei detectives to Dover.”
“The Channel.”
“Right.” Kennedy thoughtfully presses his thumb against his chin. “That’s how I’d escape, anyway.”