Hammer of Angels Read online

  In the car, I say to Brando, “I think fire will be very ‘in’ this season.”

  “Oh, most definitely,” he answers. “Nothing says ‘fashion forward’ like being wreathed in flames.”

  Josef drives us to our third and final target, a large department store in downtown Calais. It’s also the Purity League’s regional distribution center. Uniforms, provisions, even weapons are shepherded through this place by the store’s ex-Nazi owner.

  One of Marie’s associates, an electrician named Bruno, was here earlier tonight to disable the security system. In fact, he’s the person who originally installed it. Marie said she had to talk Bruno out of removing the equipment entirely. He wanted to save it from being destroyed along with the building. She had to illuminate for him how unbelievably suspicious that would look.

  “Bruno is a good man,” Marie told us, “but not the ripest tomato in the garden.”

  Josef the cabbie deposits us at the store and drives away. We’ll meet him at a prearranged extraction point a couple of blocks from here. When Josef heard our plan for this place, he declared he didn’t want to be anywhere near it while we’re inside.

  My partner and I sneak around behind the store. It’ll take three bombs to ice this place, one for each floor. We’ve already decided to go from top to bottom. I kick the rear door until it flies off its hinges. Nobody lives in this retail neighborhood, but even if someone hears us, we’ll be gone before the cops get here. Sometimes stealth is about being quiet, and sometimes it’s about being fast. Tonight’s stealth is the fast kind.

  As we run up the stairs, I can’t help enjoying how much better I feel than when we crossed the Channel two weeks ago. My combat wounds are healing well, and all the time I spent in bed has restored my nervous system’s ability to use Enhances. That downtime also allowed Brando and me to grow closer.

  We haven’t made love yet, but I don’t mind taking it slow with Brando. Trick was my first real boyfriend, so trying sex was, y’ know…ka-pow! Now, though, I’ve done it, I like it, but I don’t need to rush it. And when it’s time, all I’ve gotta do is put that skimpy black dress on. Patrick couldn’t wait to get home and show me how much he likes the way I look in that thing.

  We arrive at the third floor and hotfoot it to the elevators. They’re centrally located and run parallel to the ventilation, plumbing, and electrical systems. Wiping out this infrastructural spinal cord will completely disable the building. Even if the owner can salvage the structure, he’ll still need months to repair the place. And he’ll need even longer to explain why there are so many military-grade firearms mixed in with the beer steins and sausage stuffers.

  I stand in front of the elevator, heave the doors open, and hold them while Brando adheres the first bomb inside the elevator shaft. While he works, a quiet scraping sound ripples up the elevator shaft. I listen closely, but I don’t hear it again. Maybe sticking the bomb in place made a funny echo.

  When my partner finishes, I let go of the doors and we run downstairs to the main office. The locked door graciously defers to my boot heel. I keep watch outside while Brando goes inside to wedge our next bomb wherever it’ll do the most damage.

  A tight click skips up the stairs. I know that sound—someone’s trying to be quiet while they cock their weapon.

  “Darwin, I hear company downstairs.”

  He hurriedly finishes arming the bomb. “How many?”

  I activate my infrared and peer through the floor.

  Oh, my God. Where did all those fuckers come from?

  I comm, “I have eyes on fourteen armed competitors.”

  My partner rejoins me in the hallway. “Are they SZ?”

  “Negative. Their load-outs are all different. I think they’re Purity League militia.”

  Our teachers at Camp A-Go-Go drilled many things into us. One of them was the importance of not freezing in a situation like this. “Act!” they would bellow. “Even a bad decision is better than no decision!”

  I comm to Brando, “Roof?”

  “Yes.”

  We charge back upstairs and keep going. I bash a service door open, and we step through to the top of the building. The stars glimmer above us, and the only sound aside from our heavy breathing is the dull hum of traffic on the A16 a half mile away.

  The rules of engagement for this Job Number don’t exactly cover this situation. These toads are regular civilians. Granted, they’re packing, but the German press and public might view them and their untimely deaths differently than if they were Gestapo or SZ. This is a challenge. It’ll take much longer to not kill these shit-kickers than it would to straight-up grease the lot of them.

  Brando and I hide behind a commercial air-conditioning unit. The thing is four feet tall and ten feet square, so it should provide solid cover. I boot up Li’l Bertha and aim her at the doorway. She detects and labels the string of red figures zigzagging up the stairs from below. I set her for .22-caliber standard bullets, take a deep breath, and dose some Kalmers.

  The first dickwit through the door swivels from side to side, searching for us. My infrared picks his weapon out in bright blue against the shimmering red of his body. I wait until his automatic pistol is in profile, then fire a round through its bolt chamber, blowing the gun out of the guy’s fingers. He yelps and presses his empty gun hand against his chest.

  A second militiaman runs from the stairway and aims directly at me. This presents me with such a small target that I can’t count on disabling his weapon. Li’l Bertha switches to .45-caliber standard slugs and puts the brownshirt on his ass with a bullet through his right shoulder.

  Meanwhile, Brando crawls to the roof’s rear edge and pulls his rappelling line out of his X-bag. He uncoils the synthetic rope and secures it through a piece of stone railing in the building’s facade.

  He comms, “Ready when you are.”

  “You go first. I’ll fend them off while you make your descent.”

  My partner climbs over the stone railing and disappears from view. I’m about to follow him when three more brown-shirted goons pour onto the roof and fan out. The competitor in the middle fires on my position to keep me suppressed while the other two move to my flanks.

  I slide to my left. Flanker number one is sneaking along the air conditioner’s side toward the back corner, where I wait. His next step brings him into glomming range. I rush around the corner, wrench his weapon out of his grasp, and bash its shoulder stock into his schnoz. Then I pick the dude up and heave him—bloody nose and all—over the big metal cooling unit. He plows into flanker number two, knocking the other man to the ground.

  The remaining jughead ducks out of sight, and I sense this is my chance to bug out of here. I turn to the rappelling line—

  —but it’s gone! The loop of rope around the railing now ends at a truncated stub.

  “Darwin, our rope’s been cut!”

  “No kidding. I was still ten feet off the ground,” he comms. “Must have been a shot from one of the militiamen.”

  I grab the flying flanker’s weapon, a vintage MP-41, and return to the backside of my bulletproof air conditioner. “What the hell should I do?”

  “Can you jump down?”

  “It’s forty feet, Darwin. That’d wreck my knees for sure.”

  Four more militiamen storm onto the roof, and five still wait on the stairs, but with my partner in the clear there’s a new option available to me.

  “Darwin, how about I bull-rush right through these shitheads and exit from the ground floor?”

  “Go for it.”

  I make sure the submachine gun is ready, then spring onto the AC unit and spray bullets all the fuck over the place. My startled opponents dive for cover, and my feet hightail it off the roof at top speed.

  I fly into the stairway and crash into the row of men waiting to come out. The impact knocks them down like a line of dominoes. My boots leave tread marks on their heads as I literally run over my competition to get out of this goddamn department stor
e. I scramble downstairs, third floor, second floor, first floor, and barge through the front doors.

  The street is jammed with vehicles. Cars and trucks have been carelessly parked at every angle. One even rests on the sidewalk. Brando huddles behind a Volkswagen parked across the road. I jump over the VW’s roof and land next to him.

  He says, “Looks like the Circle has a leak.”

  “Yeah, but what a bunch of fuckchops these patsies are,” I say. “All they had to do was wait for us to come out.” The beer-swilling idiots didn’t even post anyone to cover the exits.

  We watch the store through the windows of our four-wheeled hiding place. Cop sirens wail in the distance as militiamen straggle out of the store. Most of them wear brown military-style uniforms. We only count twelve of them. They mill around, hollering at each other. Nobody seems to be in charge.

  Brando asks, “Can you see if there’s anyone left inside?”

  “No; it’s too far for my vision Mods.”

  The sirens are louder. “Well, forget it,” Brando says. “We’re outta here.” He pulls his remote detonator out of his X-bag, takes one more peek across the street, and presses the button.

  The entire neighborhood lights up like it’s high noon, except high noon is happening inside the department store as it flies apart at the seams. The ground shakes under my feet, and the Volkswagen we’re hiding behind skids sideways at us. My partner and I squeeze ourselves against each other. The blast topples the Purity Losers like a rack of bowling pins. Moments later they and their vehicles are pelted by a rattling rain of building chunks, broken glass, and shredded merchandise. The building lists to one side like it was hit by an earthquake.

  I brush small pieces of stone and glass out of my hair. “Holy Toledo! I can’t believe we were gonna put a third bomb in there.”

  “Actually, I planted the third one at the base of the wall where I landed.” Brando shrugs as we stand up. “I figured, ‘What the heck?’”

  We make a break for it while the militiamen are still struggling to their feet. Brando looks back and focuses on something behind me. His eyes open wide, and he draws in breath to call out. I spin around and draw Li’l Bertha. One of the brownshirts has already pointed his weapon at me. Before Li’l Bertha can lock on to him, a bright rose blossoms on the gunman’s forehead and he falls to the pavement. A rifle’s report cracks through the air.

  “Shit, Scarlet. Don’t kill them!”

  “I didn’t! That—”

  A second militiaman swings his gun in my direction, then violently whirls face-first to the blacktop. The sound of another shot reverberates through the streets.

  Brando shouts, “Scarlet!”

  “It’s not me! There’s another shooter.”

  I backpedal away from the burning store. Every militiaman who aims at us gets a long-distance lobotomy. I count five shots and five hits. Then the rest of the losers wise up and play possum. The sniper fire stops. I try to see where it came from, but there’s too much dust and smoke. The delay between the impacts and the bangs tells me the sniper is about a half mile away.

  The sirens are very loud now. We run toward our pickup point with Josef.

  I comm, “Five kills, all from about eight hundred yards. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that was an ExOps sniper.”

  “I do know better,” Brando replies. “There aren’t any other agents within thirty miles of here.”

  We swing around a corner, bolt down an alley, and charge into a small street where Josef’s idling taxi waits for us. I open the rear door, and we dive inside. Josef floors it.

  Brando comms, “My Info Coordinator confirms we’re the only assets in the area.”

  “So who the fuck was that? The Sniper of Christmas Past?”

  “My guess is it’s someone from the Circle of Zion.”

  I say, “Somehow ‘the Sniper of Hanukkah Past’ doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

  * * *

  CORE

  MIS-ANGEL-3727

  Translated from Der Pure, March 2, 1981

  Jewish terrorists attack Greater Germany!

  Early this morning, a series of bombings rocked Greater Germany and confirmed the fears so often espoused in this very publication: the Jews have declared war on decency and freedom! Once again, our kindhearted humanism has been repaid with hatred and violence.

  More than fifty stores and offices were destroyed in last night’s raids, all across the Reich. The attacks’ tightly coordinated nature reveals that our Jewish problem is worse than ever, for the Jew has clearly enlisted a new ally: the bloodthirsty mobster and notorious genetic mongrel President Henry Jackson of the United States.

  How long will we hardworking and honest Aryan citizens of Greater Germany submit to the whips of the CIA and their Jewish overlords? The Purity League demands these death-dealing fanatics be harshly punished! Our readers are urged to write to their government representative and call for swift reprisals against the menace lurking within our peace-loving borders!

  30

  SAME MORNING, EIGHT HOURS LATER, 11:39 A.M. CET

  CALAIS, PROVINCE OF FRANCE, GG

  I fly over Paris, arms outstretched. Warm wind washes around me and whips down my shirt between my breasts. I bank left to circle the Eiffel Tower. I flap my arms to gain some altitude and come in for a nice soft landing on the tower’s observation deck.

  A hawk circles lazily above, then dives straight at me. I reach for my gun, but it’s not with me. Even if it were, I couldn’t wield it because I’ve been transformed into a mouse.

  The hawk’s black claws glint in the sun as the ruthless hunter stabs its knifelike talons into my little gray body. The bird’s stone-hard beak opens and screeches—

  “Scarlet!”

  I open my eyes, grab Li’l Bertha from under my pillow, and leap out of bed. Someone gasps and falls backward away from me. I hit the floor in a firing stance, ready to riddle my would-be murderer into Swiss cheese.

  Marie sprawls on the rug, her hand over her chest. I’m in her little office, on the third floor of her house. My body is slick with sweat under my T-shirt and panties despite the cool air. Patrick scurries in to see what’s going on.

  “Scarlet, please forgive me,” Marie exclaims. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  If this weren’t so embarrassing, I’d laugh at the irony of her apologizing to me when I’m the reason she’s on her butt. Patrick helps Marie up while I deactivate Li’l Bertha and sit on the edge of the bed. My nostrils flare from breathing so hard. I release some Kalmers to help me deal with a normal, everyday situation that doesn’t require fighting like a cornered animal.

  Marie puts herself in her desk chair. “I’ve never seen anyone wake up like that.”

  The bed gently creaks as Patrick settles next to me, “It’s her Enhances. I usually use my commphone to wake her. The smell of brewing coffee works pretty well, too.”

  “Coffee, of course,” Marie says. “Yes, obviously she needs extra stimulation.” She watches me for a few moments. “I’m very sorry to have frightened you, dear.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Marie.” I don’t mention how my explosive wake-up act has been the last thing some people ever saw. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” Marie waves her hand. “Next time I’ll rouse your partner first. That way he can be the one on his backside.” We all laugh. Marie’s smile fades as she leans forward. “But there is something I need to talk to you two about.” She wrings her hands. “My sister Betti is missing.”

  Marie’s sister is an active part of the Floating Railroad. When Betti carries out an operation, she always phones Marie to let her sister know she returned home safely. Marie never received that phone call last night, and there’s been no answer at Betti’s house all morning.

  This situation illustrates a downside of decentralized organizations like the Circle of Zion. Last night’s bombings prompted the German authorities to declare a three-day curfew. Those involved with the Floatin
g Railroad had no idea this was coming. Activists like Betti are now stranded wherever they happened to be when the lockdown kicked in.

  Marie paces around the room. “My press credentials will get us past the checkpoints, so leaving Calais will not be a problem. I have to file a report on the bombings, anyway. What I’m worried about is entering Brussels with a vehicle full of Stars. The guards will be on high alert, and if they do a search…” She leaves her thought unfinished.

  “How does Betti normally move these people around?” Brando asks.

  “She uses one of the trucks from our family’s business.” Marie tells us Betti left her home in Brussels last night to retrieve a small group of escaped slaves from a farm out in the Belgian countryside. She normally brings the runaways—or “Stars”—to her office, where she hides them in a storage room. Then she arranges the next leg of their journey out of Europe. This time, though, Betti was snagged by the crackdown. The longer she’s gone, the harder it becomes to explain what she was doing.

  “She can’t just go home without the runaways?”

  “She could, but every day a Star spends on the run dramatically increases the danger.”

  “What do you think?” I comm to Brando.

  He doesn’t answer, but I can tell he heard me. He holds up one finger and gently nods his head.

  “Is he all right?” Marie whispers to me.

  I point at my head and say, “He’s talking to HQ.”

  Marie waits. I tune in to Brando’s comm-call in time to hear his Info Coordinator say, “…CIA has confirmed Garbo and her sister are VIAs. You and your partner should undertake all reasonable measures to ensure their continued contributions to our information stream.”

  Well, well. Very important assets. Marie and Betti are hot shit back in Langley.

  Brando says to Marie, “We’ll definitely help. The question is how. Shooting up a checkpoint isn’t exactly within our rules of engagement.”