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

  When Brando finishes, I let go of the doors and we hotfoot it downstairs to the main office, where the data servers live. I try the door. It’s locked. I use my boot as a key, and presto! The door opens.

  I keep watch outside while my partner enters the office. He places one of our explosive devices next to the data server. While he works, another sound skips up the stairs: a sharp click. After a moment, I realize it was someone trying to be very quiet while they cocked their assault rifle.

  “Darwin, I hear company downstairs.”

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

  I turn on my infrared vision and peer through the floor to see what’s downstairs.

  Oh, my God, where did all those fuckers come from?

  I switch to the terse field-speak I learned at Camp. “Darwin, I have eyes on thirty competitors, all armed.”

  My partner’s response is terse, although not exactly field-speak: “Crap! Are they SZ troops?”

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

  Our teachers back 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 upstairs to the roof exit. I bash the door open, and we emerge on top of the building. Stars shine brightly on us, and the only sound besides our heavy breathing is the A16 highway’s dull hum a half mile away.

  The rules of engagement for this Job Number don’t exactly cover this situation. These nitwits are regular civilians. Granted, they’ve got guns, 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 jokers than it would to straight-up grease the lot of them.

  Brando and I take cover behind a big air conditioner unit. I boot up Li’l Bertha and aim her at the doorway. Her target indicator displays a 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 to steady my hands.

  The first blockhead creeps through the doorway and swivels from side to side, searching for us. My enhanced infrared vision picks his weapon out in bright blue against the shimmering red of his body. I wait until he turns so I see his automatic pistol in profile, then I fire a round through the gun’s bolt chamber. My bullet’s impact disables the weapon and blows it out of his fingers. He yelps and presses his 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 I can’t count on disabling his weapon. Li’l Bertha switches to .45-caliber standard slugs, and I put the brown shirt 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 line and secures it through a piece of stone railing in the building’s facade.

  He comms, “Scarlet, the line is 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 burst onto the roof and fan out. The competitor [6]in the middle peppers my position with bullets to keep me suppressed while the other two move to my flanks.

  I’ve still got the grenades I swiped from the Tower of London. I take out two of them, quickly arm them both, and simultaneously underarm them thirty feet to each side of my position. The militiamen don’t notice them until it’s too late. The grenades explode, and the two flankers clutch their faces and fall down, screaming into their hands. The remaining jamoke takes cover, and I sense this is my opportunity to get 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 crouch back behind my big air conditioner and comm, “How the hell do I get out of here?”

  “Can you jump down?”

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

  Another group of Purity League men storm onto the roof with me. My infrared vision shows five competitors out here, plus more of them waiting on the stairs.

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

  “Go for it,” Brando comms.

  I cram Li’l Bertha back in her holster, bang a big-ass dose of Madrenaline into my bloodstream, then arm and toss my last grenade toward my five opponents. They scramble away from the bomb. One of them shouts, “Granate!” When it explodes, I burst out of cover and hightail it off the roof at top speed.

  I fly into the stairway and cannon into the row of men waiting to come out. My impact knocks them all down like a line of dominoes. My feet stomp a few heads into the steps as I literally run over my competition in my haste to get out of this goddamn department store. I scramble downstairs, third floor–second floor–first floor, and barge through the front doors out to the street.

  Seven vehicles have appeared since we went inside. These cars and trucks must belong to the militiamen. My partner has taken cover behind a car parked across the road.

  Brando says, “I think the Purity League had the front of the building staked out but didn’t think to cover the rear. They heard you kicking the back door down and came inside to get us.”

  “What a bunch of fuckchops,” I say. All they had to do was wait for us to come out, but these beer-swilling Wehrmacht wannabes couldn’t control themselves. They didn’t even leave anyone out here to cover the exterior.

  We watch the store. Cop sirens wail in the distance as the militiamen straggle out the front doors. Most of them wear brown military-style uniforms. We count twenty-three of them. They mill around, hollering at each other. Nobody seems to be in charge. Maybe I disabled their leader.

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

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

  The sirens get louder. “Well, forget it.” Brando says. “We’ve gotta get out of here.” He holds his remote-control detonator device, takes one more look across the street, and presses the button.

  The entire neighborhood lights up like it’s high noon, except high noon is happening inside the big department store as it flies apart at the seams. The ground shakes my feet, and the car we’re hiding behind slides sideways at us. My partner and I squeeze ourselves into the smallest possible shapes as debris hails down around us. 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 is listing to one side like it’s been through an earthquake. I brush some small pieces of stone out of my hair and say, “Holy Toledo! I can’t believe we were gonna plant a third bomb in there.”

  Brando grins sheepishly and says, “I planted it at the base of the wall where I landed.” He shrugs. “I figured, ‘What the heck?’”

  We make a run for it as the militiamen struggle to get back on their feet. Brando goes first, and as we get moving, he looks back. His eyes open wide, and he draws in breath to call out. I spin around, draw Li’l Bertha, and aim all in one motion. One of the Purity Losers is on his feet. The clown’s got the
drop on me and has already aimed his weapon. Before Li’l Bertha can lock on to him, a bright rose blossoms on the gunman’s forehead and he tips over backward. A rifle shot cracks through the air.

  “Shit, Scarlet. Don’t kill them!”

  “I didn’t! That—”

  Another militiaman swings his gun in my direction. He takes a shot in the head too. The sucker spins around and smacks the blacktop with his face.

  Brando shouts, “Scarlet!”

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

  I backpedal away from the burning store. Every dunderhead who aims at us is the instant winner of a long-distance lobotomy. I count five. Then the rest of the Purity 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 in the air. The delay between the appearance of the bullets and the arrival of the bangs tells me the sniper is about a half mile away.

  The sirens are very loud now. We make a break toward our pickup point with Josef.

  I comm, “Five shots, 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. “We’re the only agency assets within thirty miles of here.”

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

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

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

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

  I say, mostly to myself. “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 wave 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.

  sHow 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 educated 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 glide above Paris with my arms outstretched. The warm air washes over my face, whips down my shirt between my breasts, and passes over my stomach. 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 I had it, 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!”

  My eyes pop open, and my left hand grabs Li’l Bertha from under the pillow as my body launches itself out of bed. Someone gasps and falls backward away from me. My feet hit the floor in a firing stance, and I quickly sight my pistol around the room, ready to riddle my assailant into Swiss cheese.

  Marie sits on the floor, eyes wide and 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 I weren’t so embarrassed, I’d laugh at the irony of my hostess apologizing to me when I’m the one who startled her so badly she fell over. Patrick helps Marie get up while I shut down my sidearm and sit on the edge of the bed. My nostrils flare as my breath whooshes in and out of my nose. I close my eyes and release some Kalmers into my blood to slow my pulse and help get into shape for dealing with a normal, everyday situation that doesn’t demand I fight for my life.

  Marie sits in her office chair. “I’ve never seen anyone wake up that way.”

  My bed gently creaks as Patrick sits next to me, “It’s her Enhances. I usually use my commphone to wake her. I’ve also found the smell of coffee brewing works.”

  I look at my partner and continue my slow breathing exercise.

  “Coffee, of course,” Marie says. “Yes, I can see she needs extra stimulation.” She watches me for a few moments and repeats, “I’m very sorry, dear. I really didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Marie. I’m sorry you had to see that.” I don’t mention how my spastic wake-up act has been the last thing some people ever saw. Instead I say, “Did you get hurt when you fell?”

  “Oh, I’m fine.” Marie waves her hand. “Next time I’ll wake up your partner first. That way he can be the one who ends up on his backside.” We all laugh. Marie’s smile fades as she leans forward. “But I do have 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 does an operation, she always calls Marie to let her sister know she got home safely. Marie never got that 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 wave of bombings prompted the German authorities to declare martial law and a three-day curfew. The people involved in the Floating Railroad had no idea this was coming. Activists like Betti are now stranded wherever they happened to be when the lockdown kicked in.

  Marie stands up and paces around the room, “I’d like your help to find my sister and assist her. My press pass will get me past the checkpoints, so getting out of Calais will be easy. I have to write a report on the bombings, anyway. What I’m worried about is entering Brussels with a vehicle full of runaway slaves. The guards will be on high alert, and if they do a search …” She leaves her thought unfinished.

  “How does Betti normally do this?” 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 Jewish slaves from a farm out in the Belgian countryside. She normally brings the runaways to her office, where she hides them in a storage room upstairs. Then she sets up the next leg of their journey out of Europe. This time, though, Betti got snagged by the crackdown. The longer she’s gone, the harder it gets to explain what she was doing.

  “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 sits back to wait. 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 asks his IC to hang on a second and says to Marie, �
�We’ll definitely help. The question is how. Shooting up a checkpoint isn’t exactly within our rules of engagement.”

  “What if it’s manned by SZ?” I ask.

  “No, I go through checkpoints all the time,” Marie interjects, “and they’re always manned by regular police.”

  “Even during martial law?”

  “This time, certainly.” Marie answers. “The Staatszeiger will be fully occupied investigating the bombings. But the police will be on edge, and we must assume they will search a large truck.”

  Brando takes off his glasses and polishes them with the tail of his shirt. He hmms to himself. He’s got an idea.

  “Smoke,” he says as he puts his glasses back on. “You’re right. The cops will search us, so we won’t even try to pass through normally. We’ll smoke ’em out and then dash through.” Brando runs the plan past his boss, who approves it on the spot. I sit and admire my partner’s braininess until I realize we don’t have any smoke grenades.

  When I point this out, it becomes clear to me Brando has lost his mind. He turns to our hostess and asks, “Marie, do you have any Ping-Pong balls?”

  CORE MIS-DATA-DAVID-519

  Floating Railroad, Midnight Railroad

  An escaped slave in Greater Germany has three choices, all of them dangerous: sneak into the Soviet Union, cross the Atlantic, or remain in Europe and join the Circle of Zion. Trying to pass as a free citizen is not an option because all slaves are clearly marked with a facial tattoo, typically a Star of David around one of their eyes.

  Approximately half of all German citizens openly oppose slavery. Some of these people have established an underground network of like-minded activists who conspire to escort fugitive slaves out of the Reich. In Eastern Europe the collected efforts are referred to as the Midnight Railroad, while in Western Europe they are called the Floating Railroad.