Hammer of Angels: A Novel of Shadowstorm Read online

  For the escaping slaves and the citizens who help them, both routes are long and perilous. The penalty for helping or hiding a slave is a heavy jail sentence. Anyone convicted of coordinating a group that aids in the escape of a slave is sentenced to death by decapitation.

  31

  Same day, six hours later, 5:47 P.M. CET

  Outside Brussels, Province of Belgium, GG

  The Belgian countryside rolls past my window as the sun sets behind us. We ride in Marie’s bright orange Volkswagen Beetle. The spluttering little car bravely maintains a speed of 120 kph, or about 75 mph. Vast brown and green fields stretch to the horizon and nuzzle up against the skirts of the absurdly tall cloud formations they have in this part of the world.

  I turn my head from the passing landscape. “Marie, any word from Victor?”

  “He’s been … delayed up north,” she says vaguely, “but he should be back soon.”

  Brando leans forward from the backseat. “Does he need help? I could find out if we have anyone in his area.”

  “He’ll be fine.” Marie smiles to herself as though the idea of Victor Eisenberg needing help is amusing. “He was very unhappy about getting captured in London. I think it’s die Teutsch who need help wherever he is.”

  “Has Victor been in touch with you?”

  “Not directly.” Marie’s eyes sparkle. “But he sent a message to those of us who know what to listen for.”

  I comm to Brando, “Has ExOps heard anything about Victor?”

  He comms back, “Nothing that’s definitely about him. Holland is rumbling up to a full-scale rebellion, but that’s not the only place north of here.”

  Brando asks Marie, “Why are reporters permitted such freedom of movement during the curfew?”

  “The authorities find out more from us than they do from their military news sources.”

  No wonder our cover is working so well. Marie’s press pass, the fake IDs for me and my partner, plus a very official-looking heap of professional audio/video gear have allowed us to breeze through the checkpoints outside large towns like Dunkirk, Brugge, and Ghent. Brando and I pretend to nap or fiddle with the cameras while Marie does all the talking. Our instant road trip has been blessedly uneventful.

  Except for the schmuck on that nice little BMW motorcycle.

  I spotted the motorcyclist thirty minutes out of Calais, and he’s ridden behind us ever since. He could be coincidentally going to Brussels—it is a big city, after all—but he’s remained the same distance behind us for three hours. Plus, who the hell rides their motorcycle in March? I commed to Brando about him, and my partner agreed the guy is definitely Somebody.

  Marie has been chattering away about … actually, I lost track a few minutes ago. She realizes we aren’t listening and asks, “What are you two looking at?”

  “We’re being followed,” Brando answers.

  She says, “The motorcyclist in the black helmet?” Garbo can multitask with the best of them.

  “Yes. He’s been there for a while.”

  “Well, that won’t do at all,” Marie says. “We’re almost there.” She downshifts from fourth to second and sends her car lurching forward. She floors the gas for a moment, then takes her foot off the accelerator. Her little Volkswagen bucks like a bronco. Marie furiously runs the shifter all over the tree: third, fourth, second, and back to fourth. Her savage shifting would roast the transmission right out of a lot of the cars I’ve driven, but the Orangemobile takes it in stride. All this insane abuse fires a series of loud backfires from the tailpipes.

  “She’s pretending the car is stalling!” I comm.

  “Yah, no kidding.” My partner literally has his hands full in the backseat holding all the hopping audio/video gear in place. “I think I’m gonna puke.”

  Traffic flows around us as the heaving Orangemobile slows to a pathetic 35 mph. Marie clicks on the hazard lights while she hyperextends the car’s gearbox. There’s no way our motorcycle friend can stay back there without making it obvious he’s following us. He moves to the far left lane and roars past. I snap a series of images of him with my retinal cameras.

  Even through his full-face helmet I can tell he’s young, maybe even younger than me. He’s on a BMW R80G/S with a custom bag attached to the front fairing. The first thing I think about the bag is you could pack a nice rifle in there.

  “Was that him?” Marie calls over her self-inflicted wild revving circus.

  “Yes!” I shout back.

  We pass a sign reading BRUSSELS: 10 KM and another that says ASSE, TERNAT, HERFELINGEN.

  She shifts into third and, blessedly, leaves it there. “Good. This is our exit.” Marie swerves off the highway and onto the exit ramp. I grab the Jesus strap. The equipment in back shoves Brando off his seat and buries him on the floor.

  The exit ramp leads to the N285, a smaller road that arrows through several farming villages. As we cruise by the compact, weathered farmhouses, I reach into the backseat and extricate my partner from under the heap of cases.

  “Thanks,” he groans. “Hey, Garbo, where’d you learn to drive like that?”

  “My first CIA case officer,” Marie chirps. “We were followed while he was training me, and he used that technique to make it impossible for the person to remain behind us.”

  “Remind me to send the CIA a thank-you card,” Brando grumbles.

  Marie turns onto another road at a town with the hilariously unpronounceable name of Borchtlombeek. The little road morphs into a rough dirt track that leads to a sprawling white farmhouse set on a low hill. Our car jounces through some spectacular potholes. I need both hands on the dashboard to stay in my seat. My partner desperately tries to control the hopping equipment pile.

  Marie parks her car between the white farmhouse and a big black barn. A large delivery truck looms in the shadows next to the barn. We clamber out of the car and take a minute to stretch our muscles. The cloud of dust created by our entrance floats past us and leaves a thin layer of beige grit all over our clothes and Marie’s vehicle.

  The truck’s side has OPEKTA emblazoned over an illustrated crowd of jam jars and sausages. What the heck does Betti’s company make again? Marie rushes into the house. A moment later she’s talking with another woman. Both of their voices gabble away in something like German, except a lot of the words are different. They speak so fast I miss most of it, but I do catch one thing.

  I comm, “What’s Marie talking about? Who’s Margot?”

  Brando purses his lips and comms back, “I don’t know. They seem to have special names for each other. Betti just called her sister Anne.”

  We follow Marie into the farmhouse. Once we’re inside, the sisters go back to calling each other Marie and Betti. We take their slip of the tongue and file it away. You never know when you’ll need leverage with someone.

  Marie introduces us. “Betti, these are two new friends of mine. They offered to help get you back home. The young lady is Scarlet, and her partner is Darwin.”

  Betti smiles and shakes our hands. “Pleased to meet you. Thank you so much for escorting my sister all the way out here.” The sisters bear a strong resemblance to each other, but Betti is taller, wears glasses, and has a quieter presence than her energetic younger sibling. Betti introduces us to the farm’s grizzled owner, who gruffly shakes our hands and shyly mumbles something in German.

  Betti leads us out into the evening gloom and walks to the barn. The runaways are hidden up in the hayloft. Betti calls out to them, and they descend a thick wooden ladder. I’m about to ask where their belongings are when I realize what a stupid question that would be. They’re slaves. They have nothing except one another.

  There are four of them: two women, an adolescent boy, and a girl who’s still a toddler. One woman holds the girl in her arms, and the other woman tries to get the boy to hold her hand, but he keeps slithering his fingers out of her grasp. They’re all thin and grubby from the road. Each of their left eyes is surrounded by a Star of David
tattoo. The women’s faces have lost some color from the constant stress and anxiety, but the firm set of their mouths shows their determination.

  We help the escaped slaves into the back of the truck and slide the door shut with a rattling bang. Betti climbs into the truck’s driver seat, and Marie, Brando, and I get back in Marie’s citrus car. I swear her VW is so bright, it glows in the dark. Our two-vehicle convoy drives back out to the highway and heads for Brussels.

  No sign of motorcycle boy. But that only means I don’t see him.

  32

  Same evening, 6:21 P.M. CET

  Brussels, Province of Belgium, GG

  Betti’s use of her clearly labeled company truck to smuggle escaped slaves might seem crazy, but the way she does it is a good use of the principles of hiding in plain sight. To provide a precedent for the guards at this checkpoint, Betti maintains close relationships with some of Opekta’s customers outside of Brussels. This includes making occasional deliveries even though she runs the company.

  These guards have seen Betti drive this jam-and-sausage truck in and out of the city dozens of times. On a normal day, they would hardly notice her vehicle, much less search it. The problem we have right now is during an all-day curfew everybody gets searched, including the familiar Opekta truck.

  If the guards were SZ troops, I’d shoot them all, trash any video security, and wave Betti through. These will be regular cops, however, and we don’t want to spoil the Rising’s popular support by greasing a bunch of reasonably well-liked sons of Brussels.

  It’s a thirty-minute drive to Betti’s office in downtown Brussels. Half a mile from the city limits, we pull into a small rest area. There’s a parking lot, a low cement building with two signs that read Damen and Herren, and a carpet of half-dead grass that stretches back to a thick stand of woods.

  I get out of Marie’s Orangemobile and mosey around behind the concrete structure. Nothin’ to see here, folks, just stretching my legs, pay no attention to the sexy vixen with the pocketful of homemade smoke bombs. Once I’m out of sight, I break into a full run through the woods behind the rest area. After a minute I emerge near the highway’s exit for Brussels.

  There’s a checkpoint here. I crouch down in some undergrowth and watch the guards thoroughly process each vehicle before they allow it to pass through the gate. Four men work the checkpoint. One guard examines everyone’s paperwork while another inspects every car and truck. The last two guards occupy raised platforms on either side of the road, their MP-50 submachine guns ready.

  “Darwin, I’m in position.”

  “Roger that, Scarlet. We’re leaving now. I’ll tell you when we have eyes on the target.”

  I reach into the big cargo pockets on my pants legs and fish out the three smoke bombs Brando made last night. Externally, these devices consist of nothing more than soda cans with a fuse sticking out of the top. Inside each can are the shredded remains of a half dozen Ping-Pong balls and a bullet’s worth of gunpowder. I thought my partner was crazy when he asked Marie if she had any Ping-Pong balls around the house, but it turns out if you mince them up and burn them, they’ll make a huge amount of smoke. Who knew? I take my lighter out of my shirt pocket.

  “Scarlet, we’re almost in sight of the target. It’s showtime.”

  “Roger that, Darwin.”

  I stand up and light the fuse on one of Brando’s smoke bombs. I wind up like Tom Seaver and whip the can at Paperwork Guard. The can hits him in his stomach and thumps to the ground. Herr Paperwork cries out in surprise and puts his hands over his midsection. Then he’s swallowed up in a big cloud of white smoke.

  My second fastball hits Vehicle Guard in the leg. He looks down and gets ready to kick the soda can away from him, but he starts coughing and choking from the fumes spewing out of the first smoke bomb. Moments later, he and the car he’s searching are engulfed by the second cloud of smoke.

  The two platform guards are above the thickest smoke and can still see what’s happening. If Betti tries to run the checkpoint now, one or both of them will be able to call in a description of her Opekta truck.

  I fire up Li’l Bertha and charge into the open. I pepper the areas around the two platform guards with short bursts of .12-caliber pellets while I move in close. Both dudes take cover. I spring up to the first platform and furiously pistol-whip the first guard until he stops shouting and struggling. Then I climb onto the platform’s handrail and launch myself across to the second platform.

  Oh, fuck me!

  While I pummeled the first guard, his partner on the other platform had a chance to recover from my suppression fire. The second guard aims his rifle at me as I sail straight into his sights. I bring my pistol to bear, but I can tell he’s going to shoot first.

  A loud rifle shot rings out, and a shiny dent clangs into existence on the top curve of the guard’s helmet, stunning him. This gives me the extra second I need to land in front of the policeman. I rear back and cold-cock the poor slob into next week.

  “Darwin!” I comm. “All clear. Make your run!”

  “Roger that, Scarlet. Here we come.”

  Marie’s bright orange car zips off the highway exit, closely tailgated by Betti in her truck. Brando rides shotgun in the Orangemobile. He holds his infrared scope up to his eye. His mouth moves while he directs Marie through the smoke screen. She hunches forward over her steering wheel as she avoids the car already in the checkpoint and the guards who are still crawling out of my big smoky Ping-Pong cloud.

  Both vehicles whoosh through the checkpoint and into the city. Now the sisters will simply drive to Betti’s office downtown. Brando and Marie will spend a night or two with Betti and leave Brussels from the other side of town once things have cooled down.

  The rest of our plan calls for me to “acquire transportation” back to Calais. I’ll keep an eye on Marie’s house and lay low until she and my partner return.

  Before I do anything else, though, I have to locate that sniper. I get the feeling it’s the same shooter from early this morning at the department store. On the one hand, I appreciate the help. On the other hand, I don’t dig some mystery guest crashing my mission because it means my comm signal has been compromised.

  Who is it? If it were someone from ExOps, I’d have been told they were coming. If it were an opponent, I’d be dead. I bend down and examine the unconscious guard’s helmet. The dent’s shape and angle indicate the shot came from the policeman’s right side. I sight in that direction. The faded evening light shows me a highway entrance ramp that mirrors the exit Brando and Marie just used. Between me and the ramp is a expanse of open terrain with nowhere to hide, except …

  Except for a big patch of tall brush next to the highway. It has excellent cover and a built-in highway-shaped escape route. That’s got to be it.

  I holster Li’l Bertha and drop off the platform. The shooter can obviously see me, so I don’t bother hiding my intentions. I aim at the brush and blast off. My legs accelerate to a blur, and my feet only touch down once every ten yards. My target is a quarter mile away, and I cover it in half a minute.

  A young man emerges from the brush and holds his hands out like he’s trying to stop traffic. I tackle him at full speed, and we both fly into the stand of bushes. I land on top of the punk and ride him like a surfboard until we skid to a stop. On the ground next to us is a rifle resting on its case, and next to that is a small BMW motorcycle with a black helmet hooked on the back.

  I seize the lapels of his jacket and demand, “Who the fuck are you, buddy?” Wow, his face looks awfully familiar.

  Instead of speaking, my seat cushion waves his hands around. After a moment I realize he’s using sign language.

  Turn off your commphone, he signs.

  “What?” I say. “Why?”

  He has to spell out his next message one letter at a time: F-r-e-d-e-r-i-c-k-s.

  I cautiously take my hands off his coat and sign back, What about him?

  He sent me to kill you.

>   Now I recognize this guy’s face. I’ve seen his face in my house. I’ve seen his face in my parents’ wedding album. I’ve seen his face in my dreams every goddamned night for the last nine years.

  It’s my father’s face.

  33

  Same evening, 6:49 P.M. CET

  Brussels, Province of Belgium, GG

  “Falcon,” the young man gasps around the grip my right hand has clamped on his throat. “I’m called Falcon.”

  Even his voice sounds like my dad. That’s all I have to go on right now because I suddenly can’t see anything. I shake my head and rub my eyes with the heel of my left hand.

  Trick looms out of the blackness. “You’re hysterical,” he says.

  Somehow I find a snappy comeback for my late partner: “If you think this is funny, wait’ll you see the dancing panda bears.”

  “No, I mean you’re emotionally hysterical. That’s why you’ve lost your sight.”

  I point my head up at the sky. Still nothing. “Will it come back?”

  “Take a deep breath … that’s it … try to relax until—”

  Click! I can see again. Trick vanishes. I blink away the ghosts and get back to the business of strangling this teenage version of my dad.

  I turn off my commphone, just in case, so nobody but the two of us can hear me demand, “Why do you look like my father? What the hell are you?”

  He chokes and wheezes. He’s turning blue. I relax my grip slightly. My left hand holds my pistol an inch from his mouth, so any false moves from him will result in a splattery cloud of deconstructive dentistry.

  “Fredericks raised me,” he pants.

  “That’s impossible!” I say. “I’d know if my dad had given RUACH permission to clone him.”

  His breath hisses around my choke hold. “Not RUACH. I’m from ARI.”

  “You can’t be. ARI got shut down—” I hesitate. “Unless …”

  The young man nods his head a little but doesn’t say anything.

  “Jesus,” I whisper, “unless Fredericks kept it going as a—”