by G T Almasi
I’m Napoleon! No, I’m Napoleon! You’re both wrong—I’m Napoleon!
When we first arrived I asked why the Jewish people aren’t emigrating to Cuba. Their reasons vary, but a lot of Jewish families have been German for centuries—Europe is their home. So, some of them have stayed to help forge a new Germany where citizens don’t suffer from racism, the children are all above average, and the secret police don’t shut the goddamn water off.
I’m told we’re under Südbahnhof, or South Station, near the Arch of Triumph, but we could be anywhere. These tunnels all look the same to me, and they’re pretty much the only part of Berlin I’ve seen since we got here.
Seventy-two hours ago, our train dropped a stadium’s worth of Bavarian refugees at Berlin’s South Station. After being decontaminated for radiation, Krys, Dos, Brando, and I sludged into the station’s coffee shop to grab something to eat, enjoy our escape from southeast Germany’s nuclear disaster area, and figure out what to do next. We commed in with ExOps, not really expecting anything, but work habits can be hard to break.
For the first time in weeks, we got an answer. Broadcasting in the clear was a loop: “To all Almighty operatives. Comm-channel Alabama. Repeat, comm-channel Alabama.”
The four of us adjusted our commphones to “Alabama,” our first emergency comm-channel.
I excitedly commed, “Almighty, Almighty, this is Scarlet, checking in with Darwin, Krysta, and Doska.”
A familiar voice commed, “This is, ah, this is Almighty.”
“Omigod.” I sat up straight as a plank. “Director Kennedy?”
“Hello Scah-let! Good to hear from you.”
“You, too, sir!” I looked at the boys and hissed, “It’s Bobby!” The three of them nodded big smiles of relief. “Sir,” I commed, “I just want to say for the record that Darwin and I had nothing to do with the cyber-attack in Bastogne.”
“Understood,” Kennedy commed. “The whole idea never made sense to me. Even if you would do such a thing, you two don’t have a fraction of the clearance it would take to pull a stunt like that. Our jackframe techs have confirmed it was Fredericks. Don’t worry about it.”
I reached out and took Patrick’s hand in mine. “Thank you, sir.”
“You’re welcome. Now, where are you people?”
I answered, “We’re in Berlin, sir. Where are you? Where’s ExOps?”
“Ha,” Bobby laughed. “We’re in the Baltic Sea. The weather in Washington was terrible so I borrowed a ship from the Expeditionary Force and took everyone on an excursion to Europe.”
Borrowed.
A ship.
B-o-r-r-o-w-e-d.
Doska and Krysta burst out laughing and high-fived each other.
Patrick commed, “Director Kennedy, this is Darwin. Is ExOps back on the comm-net, sir?”
“Affirmative,” Bobby replied. “I sent Ted our findings about the cyber-attack. He restored our access with a special procurement earlier today. Are you and your people secure?”
“Not really, sir,” I replied. “We have no cover and no House.”
“Wait one,” RFK commed.
“Jesus H. Christ,” I whispered to myself. Bobby Kennedy went rogue with an entire federal agency. And God only knows what “special procurement” really means. Teddy probably climbed in a window and forged the entire kaboodle.
ExOps’s former director Chanez was nuts, but with this move Bobby firmly established a new gold standard for deranged management. I wondered if we’d even bothered to pass a law against something so unimaginably unhinged. Deranged or not, I had to admit it was a thrill that the man personally reestablished communication with us.
“Okay, Scah-let. A representative from the Circle of Zion will make contact in sixty seconds. She’ll escort you to a secure location.”
“How will we know her, sir?”
“She’ll wear a green coat with a white belt.”
“Green coat, white belt, okay,” I responded. “Sir,” I continued. “Can you give us a sit-rep?”
Bobby commed, “Sending reports to you now.”
A new document popped onto my Eyes-Up display. I set it aside for the moment.
“Report received.” I hesitated, thinking the man must be busy as hell, but I had to know right now. “Sir, are my parents with you?”
“Affirmative,” Director Kennedy commed. “Both are fine. Of course, they’re worried about you. What’s your status on Operation SCORPIO?”
I gently brushed strands of my burned hair away from the scabbed-over bullet wound on my scalp. “We’re still on it, sir. Scorpio is here in Berlin. We’ll get him.”
“Glad to hear it. Do you need anything?”
“Just a House, sir.”
“Understood. Has your contact arrived?”
A middle-aged woman in a green coat with a white belt glided into view on an escalator. She looked directly at us. Her dark hair flowed across her cheeks as she gently tossed her head to say, C’mon.
“Yes, sir,” I commed. “We see her.”
“Good. Go with her. I’ve forwarded your statuses to your Front Desks. Check in the next time you surface. Kennedy out.”
“Yes, sir. Scarlet out.”
Green Coat Lady led us to the station’s lowest floor. On the way, she introduced herself as Rachel. We followed Rachel to the end of a quiet subway platform and into another one of those mysterious, unmarked doors all public spaces have.
A steel ladder carried us down, below the subway. Rachel’s path wound through a dizzying series of access tunnels, maintenance rooms, a stretch of sewer (yuck), and out to a long, brightly lit rectangular space. Cars zoomed past, only feet away from us. We were in the famous Unterbahn, Berlin’s underground highway. It’s one of the subterranean manifestations of Albert Speer’s huge urban remodeling project, known collectively as Welthauptstadt Germania, or World Capital Germany. Years ago, my dad told me about Speer’s famous architectural monstrosity; a single-word summary would be “monolithic.” We continued following our escort while I resigned myself to seeing the aboveground parts of it later.
From the Unterbahn, Rachel led us down another manhole. Minutes later she escorted us into the headquarters of her cell of the Circle of Zion. Rachel assigned us places to drop our gear before showing us where we could clean up a bit. The facilities aren’t as posh as Helen’s place in Dachau, but even a basic bath, a hot meal, and some sleep did wonders for all our moods.
The Circle has been here for years. They’ve explored, enlarged, and connected every below-surface system in the city. They’ve even tunneled into the basements of government buildings. The most experienced members can traverse the entire metropolis without ever going aboveground.
This subterranean mobility is the secret to their survival. They’re impossible to pin down. Every few months, the Circle fights off a raid by the Gestapo. The type of attack varies: shut off the utilities, block the ventilation systems, flood the tunnels with water, pump in clouds of poison gas, infiltrate the cells with spies, or raid the Circle’s strong points with armed commandos known as Tunnelratten. Tunnel Rats.
Which brings us to why Rachel had my partner roust me this morning. The secret police have once again tried to render life here in Unterland unsustainable. Today’s attack is the “shut off the utilities” type, which, Rachel tells us, the secret police use more as a demoralizing annoyance than anything else. The Creepstapo has no idea, however, that their tenacious foes are now reinforced by Levels.
One of Rachel’s scouts brings us to the assembly point. Rachel waits with a few other Circle members. Our guide joins her, giving us nine people—Rachel, four of her people, myself, and my three dudes.
We follow Rachel into the tunnels, our flashlights shining in front of us. After about ten minutes of hushed movement, we approach the local installation for the
Berliner Wasserbetriebe, Berlin’s waterworks company. It’s an intermediate pumping station, downstream from one of the city’s main pumps. The tunnel walls are lined with pipes big and small. Chalk marks indicate water direction, water type, and dates of inspection.
Rachel, leading the group, crouches low and stops. The rest of us follow suit. Rachel turns and whispers, “Scarlet, we usually examine the stations with only part of the group.”
“Okay,” I whisper back. “I’ll check it out.”
Krysta pulls at the arm of my jacket. “No you won’t. I’ll go.”
I’m about to wave Krys’s stupid idea aside when I catch a look from Brando.
“What?” I whisper at my partner. “I’m the boss.”
“Exactly,” Patrick says. “You have to send someone else.”
I switch to a private channel and comm, “Brando, what the fuck are you talking about?”
“You’re senior to Krysta.”
“Right. So—”
“So you have to send Krysta.”
“But…”
And so I discover the worst part of being a Leader of Men: delegating dangerous work to someone I know is less qualified than me. Nothing against Krysta, he’s a good Level 6, but he’s more of a hybrid Interceptor/Infiltrator. Most of his Job Numbers have entailed following people and collecting intel. Nothing like the circuses of sociopathic ultraviolence I’ve pulled with my partners.
Still, this is just a simple recon. If we knew the room ahead was filled with armed competitors I’d go first no matter what the stupid rules were.
I try to keep my voice calm. “Krysta, Doska, escort Rachel’s people into the station.”
Krys and Dos both reflexively say, “Yes, ma’am,” as they roll from their knees to their feet.
Groan. Ma’am.
Our boys move forward with two Circle members, a thirtysomething woman named Matka and a young man named Hirsch. They sneak up the passage and out of sight around a turn. I activate Manhattan Radar Mode. My tingling fingers lightly brush my cross-hatch-textured pistol grips.
Down here, our commphones can’t reliably reach the global system, but we can comm to one another on a short-range frequency.
“Dos,” Patrick comms. “How’s it look?”
“Dark, quiet,” Doska answers. “We see the substation. It looks deserted.”
“No heat sigs,” Krysta comms. “No sign anyone was here recently.”
I want to warn them to check the ceiling for competitors, but of course they learned about the Spider-Man move in camp, the same way I did. I glance over my shoulder at my partner. His dry lips form a flat, wire-thin line. Covering the rear is more nerve racking than doing the actual job.
“Stand by,” Doska comms. “Matka is at the valves.”
Brando whispers to himself, “How’d they shut off the water without leaving any heat sigs?”
Krysta’s voice echoes from ahead, “Matka, what’s the problem?” Matka’s answer is muted, but I pick out the German word for “stuck.”
Another voice, Hirsch’s, says, “Achtung, blicken Sie.” Look there.
“Crap,” Dos comms. “The valve was shut off with a time-release mechanism. They could have set it days ago.”
Patrick quietly tells Rachel what the situation is.
“All of you!” Rachel immediately yells to the scouting party. “Return, now!”
Krys’s voice calls, “Rachel, I think I can remove the mechanism and—”
“No!” Rachel bellows, heedless of the loud echo. “Come back—”
An earsplitting shock wave blows us down like bowling pins. I roll over backward, jump to my feet, and run up the passage, holding my breath against the smoke in the already clammy air. Normal visibility is practically nil; I see the walls outlined in green with my onboard radar. I blink water from my stinging eyes and dash into the pumping station.
I slide on my knees to stop next to Krysta’s motionless body. He’s been demolished; the blast caved in his chest, tore both his arms off, and ripped away most of his face. I pull my eyes from his mutilated form to take in the rest of the scene. A sharp, sooty stain below the damaged valves reveals the source of the explosion.
Patrick, Rachel, and our other two escorts, Chaim and Benjamin, run into the pumping station’s control area. Bright spots from their flashlights pass across the walls like caffeinated searchlights. The Circle of Zion members cry out their friends’ names.
Hirsch coughs from the far corner. The burst knocked him across the room, but otherwise he seems okay. Matka, however, is a goner. Vital fluids pulse from broad wounds in her legs, and her lower abdomen has been torn open. Her ruby wet insides spill onto the grubby floor. The poor woman will either bleed to death right here or die of sepsis somewhere else. Rachel cradles Matka in her lap and cries.
Doska sits on the floor a few yards into the station’s other entryway. He presses his arms against his chest and curses. I loosen his grip so I can examine his wounds. Both his hands are missing fingers. Little bones protrude from the middle of his blackened palms and wrists. The front of his coat bears a small constellation of rips and tears, but none of the shrapnel seems to have penetrated his SoftArmor.
Patrick and I cinch tourniquets around Doska’s arms. The poor guy faints as we wrap his mangled hands to stanch the bleeding. While I finish bandaging Doska, Patrick briefly examines Krysta’s lifeless remains.
“Fuck,” Brando says.
Hirsch struggles to his feet and gapes at Krysta’s body. “He was t-talk…talking to you,” Hirsch stammers to Rachel. “Next I knew, I was on my…on the ground, looking at the ceiling.”
I wipe sweat from my forehead. “Hirsch, Chaim, help me bring Doska to your HQ. Benjamin, help Darwin with Krysta. Rachel, how’s—”
Rachel lowers her head to Matka’s chest, which muffles her sobs. Matka’s head droops with her mouth partly open. The young woman’s colorless face stares at the ceiling. Rachel’s pants and boots are soaked in Matka’s blood.
My vision abruptly blinks off. Then it snaps on again, except now everything is reversed. Then my vision Mod spins past a bunch of different presets before deciding on the dim, low-chroma setting I use for really bright daylight. I try forcing my vision Mod to use the proper preset, but it ignores me. I unhappily launch the Mod’s maintenance application and get back to work.
We carry our casualties to Rachel’s headquarters as quickly as we can. The cell has a medical team who put themselves on alert when they heard the explosion reverberate through the twisty passageways. They meet us at the chamber’s entrance. After a quick triage, the medics rush Doska into a large plastic tent packed with surprisingly modern-looking hospital gear. One person anesthetizes my wounded man while another cuts the sleeves off his coat and shirt. When the scalpels come out, I turn away.
Patrick wraps his arms around me. I cling to him while my body trembles uncontrollably. Some more members of Rachel’s cell have come to weep over Matka and check on Hirsch.
After a couple of minutes, Brando and I approach Krysta’s body. We find a length of old drapery and lay it on our dead friend. I imagine Patrick’s after-action report.
Two dead. One critically injured.
What a boondoggle.
Cyrus wouldn’t have let that happen. Or Raj. Of course the goddamn room was mined!
I catch myself rehearsing an apology to Krysta, and the permanence of my mistake takes my breath away. I’m a double-digit Level. I can’t lose people to a motherfucking booby trap.
What’ll I tell Krysta’s parents? How will I face my parents? For a terrifying moment I can’t remember Krysta’s face. Doska will never forgive me. I’ll never be trusted with a field command again.
I still feel responsible for my first partner, Trick, who was killed in Zurich because he pushed me out of harm’s way and di
ed as a result. But that was a reflex, whereas this was premeditated. I blindly followed a stupid entry in our three-ring binder that says Krysta had to die instead of me.
Well, fuck that. From now on, this Leader of Men writes her own three-ring binder. The first and only line reads, “Lead from the front.”
“Darwin,” I growl, “Get me a goddamn Job Number.”
36
TWO HOURS LATER, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 10:40 P.M. CEST
ARCH OF TRIUMPH, BERLIN
I perch like a black-and-red gargoyle on the northwest corner of Berlin’s hulking Arch of Triumph. My Day Loop methodically records the cresting wave of violence sweeping into Berlin from the east, west, and north. Artillery flashes in the distance, marking the deployment of oncoming troops. The shelling is heaviest to the north, past Berlin’s big north-side train station, the Nordbahnhof.
Protocol 8—the Gestapo’s plot to rule Europe—is disintegrating. Germany’s European empire is dissolving along with it. All over the Continent, Wehrmacht units recruited from the Provinces join their once-and-future countrymen in wars of secession from the Reich. In Germany, Loyalist army battalions have pushed the Staatszeiger into the capital from all directions. The American Expeditionary Force—having raced across northern Germany from their anchorage in Hamburg—now also knocks on Berlin’s door. ExOps is out there somewhere, but they don’t seem to have made landfall yet. RFK may have chosen a different place to come ashore.
Markus Wolf is finished. Even if his insurrection were to survive this crisis, millions of Red Army troglodytes watch from the Soviet-German border and brandish their submachine guns like clubs.
Ugh, ugh. Europe, ugh.
Three hundred feet below me, the city’s central boulevard slashes northward. It carves a broad gully between twin strips of brutishly blocky government buildings, impales Leipzig plaza, and finally sticks itself into the biggest building in the world, the Volkshalle, or People’s Hall.
The Volkshalle is as outrageously oversized as this arch. German architect Albert Speer force-filtered the Pantheon through Hitler’s congenital megalomania and dreamed up the ultimate in conspicuous excess. The hall’s ground floor alone is three hundred feet tall. Above this vast auditorium, the Grosskuppel, or Great Dome, pushes the Volkshalle’s elevation to a mountainous one thousand feet. You can see the fucker from everywhere in Berlin. On the rare occasions when the Volkshalle is filled to its capacity of 180,000 humidity-expelling people, rain falls from the curved ceiling high above.