by G T Almasi
The walls of the shell-hole cave in and bury us alive. Patrick and I are squished together so tightly it feels like our rib cages interlock. I untangle myself from around him then stab my right hand as near to “up” as I can figure. I piston my arm back and forth until I break through to the surface. My modified legs perform the heaviest squat-thrust they’ve ever done. After a few seconds I shove my body displacement’s worth of dirt out of the collapsed hole.
The shelling’s shock waves nearly turn me inside out while I frantically dig at the torn earth. My partner’s head and arms appear, quickly followed by the rest of him.
We lie on our stomachs. The barrage’s intensity momentarily reverses gravity. Twice it feels like I’m about to float away until Mother Earth slams me into her cratered bosom. Patrick flies off the ground, spins like a helicopter, then lands across my legs.
The air is choked with spent gunpowder and smoke from burning trees. Dirt clogs my nose and throat. I pull my jacket over my head. It helps, a little, but the shells hit so close together they create a localized vacuum. My wheezes and dry gasps echo in my head until I don’t hear anything at all.
41
I run along the deserted, locker-lined hallway, then dash into my homeroom. The teacher glowers at me as I hustle to my seat. I expect him to continue taking attendance but instead he closes his notebook and walks out of the room. The other students get out of their seats and surround my desk. One of them swings her book bag at me. I deflect the blow and attempt to say something, but I’ve lost my voice. The rest of her classmates—all of whom I recognize—drag me to the floor, where they take turns jumping up and down on me.
These people were never my classmates. Talon is here, along with Krysta, Hector, Cyrus, and most notably my late partner, Trick, who clobbers me with his vintage black leather physician’s bag. I see all this from two vantage points, my view from the floor, and a point on the ceiling above the surging little mob.
Eventually I only see my beating from above. I’m sad that I’m being killed, but the thought running through my mind isn’t very sympathetic.
I think, She had it coming.
A FEW MINUTES LATER, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 12:47 A.M. CEST
TIERGARTEN, BERLIN
For once, I regain consciousness before my partner. The local air pressure has returned to normal, but it’s still practically unbreathable from the burning trees and scorched ground.
And roasted flesh.
I uncover my head. The artillery fire has moved on to our right, somewhere near the old government centers on Wilhelmstrasse. Pulses of white light from the cannon fire flicker across our faces. Steadier, warmer light from the blazing forest washes around us like a giant campfire.
I shake Patrick awake. He sits up, groaning. Clumps of dirt fall out of his hair as I check him for injuries. He seems okay, and the stitches holding his ear in place are intact. We pull each other to our feet and dust ourselves off.
The north side of the Tiergarten has been absolutely flattened. Hundreds of smashed, burning trees lie tangled together. One large oak stands inverted with its dark branches buried in a crater and its twisted roots clawing for the steely sky. Pieces of clothing are scattered among the crushed branches. Forty yards from us, Fredericks’s boots peacefully stand next to each other.
My head swims. I move toward the dismembered boots and skid on a dislodged rock. I hold my arms out for balance and look down.
Of course it’s not a rock.
Fredericks’s skull has been sawn in half. The left side of his face grins from a barbecued pile of his brains. This unbelievable gore-fest is so frightful, so incomprehensible, that I actually feel my mind short-circuit. My senses become a spinning roulette wheel that fleetingly feeds me every possible emotion, one after the other.
Terror. Anger. Sadness. Anticipation. Joy. Laughter. Embarrassment. Fear. Horror. And back to Terror.
Even my dark imagination never conceived such a spectacularly definitive death for Jakob Fredericks. He’s literally been blown to pieces. Burying what’s left of him would be as practical as filling a grave with Piña Coladas.
So much for our promise to Talon. At least we tried.
My emote-o-wheel finally slows, but it glides past all the appropriate feelings like “Terror” and “Horror” and instead lands on “Laughter.”
I guffaw like a cartoon donkey until I run out of breath. I suck in a mouthful of smoke and erupt like a tuberculosis volcano. While I cough my head off, Patrick walks over to check on me.
As he approaches the mess on the ground he stops in his tracks and blurts, “Holy fuck!”
I crack up again. I have to get down on one knee and try not to hyperventilate. Now my partner starts laughing, too, which makes me whoop even more.
C’mon, Alixandra, get a grip on yourself.
Our hysterical outburst is interrupted by a comm-call. “Darwin, Scarlet, this is Bell. Please respond.”
Patrick collects himself. “Go ahead, sir.”
“Your transport has been delayed. What’s your status?”
“We’re okay, sir.”
“And Scorpio?”
Brando’s comm-voice shakes a bit. “He’s d—. Ha-hm! He’s dead…sir.”
“I see,” Bell comms. “Wait one.”
I guide Patrick away from the liquefied pool of meat.
Goddamn, fucked-up espionage mission. If I’d known Fredericks was gonna get himself tortured insane and then blown into chili sauce I could have saved myself a lot of trouble.
Now that we’ve completed Operation SCORPIO, kind of, Patrick and I are suddenly untethered from duty. But our vacation barely lasts thirty seconds.
“Darwin, Scarlet,” Frank Bell comms. “Our Acting German Front Desk will be your handler, effective immediately. It’s been a pleasure.”
We both comm, “Thank you, sir.”
I’m so out of it, I expect Cyrus’s comm-voice, so it takes me a second to recognize—
“Hot-Shot? It’s me.”
“Daddy?” Tears spring from my eyes.
“Hi, baby. Are you okay?”
“Yes, we’re all right.” I wipe my nose on the collar of my shirt. “Is Mom with you?”
“Yep. She’s around here, somewhere. We’re moving so often it’s a little hard to keep track of each other.”
“But you guys are okay?”
“We’re just fine, baby.”
“And Director Kennedy really brought the whole agency?”
“Yep!” Dad bubbles. “It’s been a hell of a field trip.”
Only Big Bertha would describe a transatlantic escape from bureaucratic disgrace to a continent of fire and death as a “field trip.”
My dad continues, “Darwin, you there?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Nico.”
“Great. You two are on Operation HIGHLORD, effective immediately. I need you to check in with Rachel’s cell. General Eisenberg wants those Flak Towers taken offline before his main forces are in range.”
Patrick and I blink at each other. He mouths, General?
I smile and press my lips together. Talon and Fredericks are deader’n dead, ExOps has relocated en masse to Europe, and Victor is a general.
Never a dull momo.
“Roger that, sir.”
Patrick and I move out, away from the sweltering fire. Behind us, we leave the last remnants of Scorpio, ARI, Talon, and years of frustration and fear. But we don’t move fast. We practically have to carry each other along the smashed ruins of Unter den Lindenstrasse to a nearby U-Bahn station. As we descend below street level, I ask Brando how a rascal like Vic talked anyone into giving him an army.
My partner braps his lips. “Pfft, damned if I know. Maybe Victor told them that disgusting joke about the Austrian who married a pig.”
42
I know I’m dreaming when I see the heads. They’re decorated like soccer balls, footballs, and softballs, but beneath the stitching and silkscreened logos, they’re human heads. Naturally, they all talk to one another. Most of their conversation focuses on which customer might buy which ball. When someone walks down the aisle, the ballheads turn on the charm, like puppies in a pet shop.
A young boy takes a soccer ball off the shelf then bounces it on the polished floor. The ballhead yells, “Whoo-hoo!” The boy giggles as he kicks the ball. The ballhead rebounds off the bottom shelf, then hops along the floor until it bumps into my foot.
“Well, missy,” the ballhead barks. “Don’t just stand there!” The ball spins itself along the aisle. “You got time to lean, you got time to clean!”
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 9:45 A.M. CEST
BENEATH SÜDBAHNHOF, BERLIN
I wake to the dim green of glow-in-the-dark bomb shelter paint. Patrick lies next to me. He forgot to take his glasses off last night. His soft breathing floats into the cement room’s stale air. I settle back onto my sleeping mat and fold my arms behind my head.
After our terrifying night in downtown Berlin, the tunnels and caves of Rachel’s Circle of Zion cell seemed like a five-star hotel. I’ve slept for twenty hours straight.
I turn up my hearing Mod and listen around for activity. Someone fusses in the communal kitchen area, making breakfast for people as they wake up or return from patrols. I get up to use the bathroom—the toilets are working again. Then I walk into the kitchen.
This long, open space used to be the waiting platform for a U-Bahn station. The maintenance closets and machine rooms have been converted into dorms and sleeping areas like the one Patrick and I have been sharing. Stout wooden planks act as bridges between the inbound and outbound platforms.
One of the cooks is Rachel. She wears a spotless apron. The other is Chaim, one of our guides on the disastrous water-main mission from our first days down here.
I say, “Guten Morgen.” Good morning.
The two cooks turn from their food preparation to greet me with their own Guten Morgens.
Rachel asks, “How did you sleep, Fraulein Scarlet?”
“Really well.” I approach the table and grab a knife to help peel potatoes.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Chaim says. He rolls a few spuds my way. “But also surprised.”
“Why?”
Rachel picks up the thread. “A few hours ago we heard someone screaming. We quickly followed the sound to your room. Your partner had woken you by then and was calming you.”
I silently pick up a potato then whip the knife around it. A long, single strip of potato skin drops off. I put the smooth result in a big bowl near Chaim. He sets his knife on the counter and watches me peel a dozen more in under a minute. Chaim leaves the big sack of potatoes to me and moves to one of the electric ovens. He opens the door to inspect its contents, then shuts the door. The stove is stuffed with loaves of baking bread. The heavenly smell fills the kitchen.
I finish the bag o’ spuds. Rachel suggests I get some air up topside.
“This will be a busy day for all of us,” she says.
My feet climb the stairs, ladders, and crumbled passages to the surface. I continue up a long flight of stone steps until I emerge at the top of the arch, above the north–south boulevard. I settle on my perch and try to figure where Berlin went during the night.
The Tiergarten’s well-tended woods have been reduced to cinders. The gray concrete Zoo Flak Towers loom above the wasteland. The towers’ guns busily fire salvos into the suburbs west of the city. Distant booms indicate the fall of their shells.
A flight of three Luftwaffe fighters whooshes in from the south to strafe one tower with rockets and machine guns. The batteries on the tower return fire and claim one jet, which crashes just north of the River Spree. The tower isn’t even dented.
“Scarlet,” my partner comms. “You up top?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
A few minutes later Patrick appears from the stairwell. He holds two plastic mugs.
“Hey.” He gives me a coffee mug.
“Hey.” I take a swig of java. “Did I wake you last night?”
“You don’t remember?”
“No.” I swallow another mouthful of my drink.
My partner shrugs and leans on the parapet. Smoke floats above Wilhelmstrasse, where Germany’s government ministries were based until they relocated to Speer’s egomungous theme park. Across the city, the Great Dome warily watches over her brood of smaller buildings like a titanic mother hen. Beyond the dome, thin, sharp shadows rise from the ground. The shadows are capped by a continuous fireworks display.
I point at the distant spectacle. “Are those the other Flak Towers?”
Patrick adjusts his glasses on his nose. “Yeah.” He turns to take in the panorama. “They’re all firing outbound missions. Berlin must be surrounded.”
I finish my coffee. “Any news from ExOps?”
A smile slides across Brando’s mouth.
I whack his arm with my free hand. “Stop keeping that shit to yourself!”
He rubs his arm, still grinning. “ExOps has been ordered to neutralize the city’s defensive artillery to open the approaches to Berlin for Victor’s Loyalists and the American army.”
I lean toward Brando. “Did we get a Flak Tower?”
He nods. “We’re lookin’ at Zoo, kid.”
43
THREE HOURS LATER, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1:04 P.M. CEST
BERLIN ZOO, BERLIN
Chaim, Patrick, and I scamper onto a little bridge over a small waterway, part of the canal system carved from the River Spree. A dense column of smoke billows beyond the huge Volkshalle to the north. Flights of Luftwaffe dive-bombers rush down at their targets. The bases of their trajectories precipitate a rolling explosion and another bloated cloud of smoke. Small-arms fire chases the planes back into the sky with no effect.
What does have an effect is the startlingly cacophonous anti-aircraft battery on the roof of the Zoo Flak Tower. The SZ gunners nail three dive-bombers in a matter of seconds. The artillerymen cease fire. The weapons’ long barrels exhale thin streams of white smoke, and the slightly less ear-pounding sounds of battle become audible again.
The Zoo Flak Tower is a crude, intimidating structure. It was built near the zoo’s animal pens because nothing makes exotic wildlife feel more at home than deafening explosions and toxic fumes. The tower’s dark-gray walls soar 130 feet to support a battery of anti-aircraft artillery. Known as the installation’s G Tower, the imposing fortress boasts a footprint the size of two football fields.
Nearby, a thin but equally tall concrete spire jams its ugly snout through the scorched foliage to sprout a dense hairdo of radar and communication dishes. This skinny monolith is the command station, called the L Tower.
Today’s target is the G Tower, with the guns. Our mission is to pull its teeth by disabling the rooftop weapons.
Intel indicates the stronghold’s outer skin is ten feet of concrete poured around so many steel bars, it’s essentially a reconstituted block of solid metal. The monolith’s impenetrable hide is pierced only by small rectangular slits with steel blast shutters. Shallow scuffs in the walls indicate the futility of trying to damage this behemoth, which is why it also serves as a shelter for as many as twenty thousand civilians.
Our guide waits for the planes to go away, then leads us forward. Chaim is Rachel’s longest-serving scout and has memorized Berlin’s entire underworld. He guides us across the bridge
to a shot-up subway entrance. A big bloodstain covers the sidewalk. We follow Chaim down the station’s motionless escalator to the darkened main platform.
“There.” He points at the signage. “Follow the arrows for Spandau. Then cross the tracks at the last NO SMOKING sign on the right. A subway tunnel will take you under the G Tower.”
I ask, “How do we get in?”
“A vent,” Chaim says. “They built the ventilation system such that passing trains would help circulate air through the fort. Good luck.” He turns to leave.
I say, “Hey, Chaim?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry about Matka.”
Chaim sighs deeply. “I am also, but thank you. I am sorry about your colleagues. I did not know their names.”
“Neither did we, actually.”
We part ways. Chaim’s directions lead us straight to the subway tunnel. When we find the vent, however, my impression of Chaim dips a little. The vent cover is in the tunnel’s ceiling, twelve feet overhead. From there the vent shaft goes sixty feet straight up.
“Well now,” Patrick drawls, “howdya like that.”
I give him a slow burn. “Stand back a little.” I dose some Madrenaline, settle to my haunches, and fire myself at the vent grating. I ram my synthetic right fist through the thin metal slats, bash a gap open, hang on to the cover’s outer lip, then pull myself into the smooth vent shaft. I press my back against one side and my boots against the other. My feet, shoulders, and arms collaborate to shimmy me upward.
Halfway up the column, my head’s gashes and bruises begin throbbing. My sleeves and pant legs tangle around my limbs and slow circulation to my extremities. The hard handles of my stick grenades scrape into my ribs like fireplace pokers. By the time I’m near the top, my skull is pounding. But a dose of Overkaine squashes the pain, and I keep going. Finally, I make it to the shaft’s summit, where another slatted grating yields to my untender mercies. I haul myself out of the vent and lie on the floor, panting like a shaggy dog at the beach.