Hammer of Angels: A Novel of Shadowstorm Read online

  I scream, “Falcon!”

  F-Bird soars out of our line of sight, but the pilots see the whole thing, and since their comms are open, we hear their reactions.

  “Watch it!”

  “What the—?”

  “Oh, fuck! Two guys with RPGs. We’ve got—”

  “Holy shit! Where’d he—”

  “He nailed ’em both!”

  “—come from?”

  They both yell, “Oh!”

  “My God, is he okay?”

  “Oh, man, he hit that roof hard.”

  I turn to Grey, “Sir, you’d better go get the kid. Darwin and I can get my father loaded up.”

  The color has drained out of Grey’s face, but he’s still fully functional, “Y-yeah. Okay, I’ll be right back.” He ducks under the descending chopper and runs to the house Falcon crashed into.

  The helicopter finally touches down. Smoke from our firefight swirls through its rotor wash. Patrick and I haul my father forward as the big side door slides open. Three Med-Techs pop out and guide my father’s body inside the evac. The helicopter’s interior is crammed with medical equipment, pressurized bottles, and electrical gear. There’s so much stuff in there I’m surprised the Med-Techs fit.

  The Meddies gently deposit my father onto a low gurney bed mounted to the floor and zip open his blue body bag. Two of them hurriedly flip switches, twist valves, and connect tubes while the third Med-Tech slides the helicopter’s door closed. My partner hustles up front and gives the pilots a thumbs-up sign. The chopper’s engine whines up to high C. The downdraft dumps my butt on the pavement as my father flies away into the Norman night.

  I sit on the cobblestones, struggling to breathe around the end of the last nine years of my life. All my sweat has evaporated, and I’m desperately thirsty.

  Daddy’s safe. He’ll be okay.

  Patrick dashes back to me and helps me to my feet. I wrap my arms around him and press my face against his chest. The fabric of his jacket muffles my sobs.

  “You did it, Alix,” Patrick whispers in my ear. “You saved him.”

  Mommy?

  Yes, baby?

  “C’mon,” my partner says, gently taking my arms from around his shoulders, “we still need to get out of here.”

  When is Daddy coming home?

  Brando guides me across the street.

  Soon, baby, soon.

  46

  Next morning, Thursday, March 12, 1981, 5:50 A.M. CET

  Cherbourg, Province of France, GG

  Saint Peter’s Heavenly Barge whispers through the predawn gloom. The lights are off, and I use my night vision to see. I slouch low in my seat like a goombah in his Monte. When my hair touches the headrest, it crunches a little from the dried blood. Earlier, Brando put a turban of bandaging around my head to protect all the cuts I got at the Cupcake. The turban seemed to have absorbed all the Alix juice it was going to, so I took it off.

  But my cuts and bruises are the least of my problems. I’m a fucking mess. The hallucinations and trembling hands have been bad, but those I can handle. However, even I don’t think I should be allowed to pull missions if I’m passing out in the middle of them. I love this work, though. There’s nothing else I want to do.

  I know Grey has to report my fainting spells, but he told me he’ll recommend ExOps do everything possible to keep me active. He and Brando know about some treatments we Levels can get, and they both reassured me that after dumping a jillion bucks into me, the last thing ExOps wants to do is park me in some human resources hellhole.

  “Are we there yet?” I grumble, even though I’m the one driving.

  “Not long now,” Brando responds from the seat next to me. My partner wears a bandage on the side of his head and has gingerly propped his injured left leg on the dashboard to keep down the swelling. He took a nasty hit when the decapitated head of a statue flew across the church and landed on his calf.

  I glance at Grey in the rearview mirror. “How’s F-Bird?”

  “He’s asleep, finally.” Grey yawns. “I think his leg was keeping him awake.”

  “Crazy-ass son of a bitch.” I tilt my head from side to side to stretch my neck. “Lucky, too.”

  The kid’s stunt, which we’ve already dubbed the Outrageous Flight of the Falcon, took out two moving targets from what could minimally be described as an extremely dynamic and unstable firing position. Jumping over a helicopter. My God! It was the most incredible combat sniping move any of us have ever seen.

  It also left a Falcon-size hole in the ceiling of someone’s bedroom. Fortunately, the residents had all retreated to the cellar to hide from what they were sure was World War III. F-Bird’s body crashed onto their bed and cracked the frame in half. He doesn’t have as deep a Madrenaline reservoir as I do, but he was hopped up enough that he survived his rough landing with only a broken leg and a dense patchwork of bruises. He’s so black and blue he looks like one of those circus freaks with a million tattoos all over them.

  At least he isn’t dead. Seeing him fly across the night sky, I was struck by how much I’ve come to like having him as a sort of brother. While I helped Grey carry Falcon to the Barge, I told him he was crazy.

  Between sharp, painful breaths Falcon murmured, “I couldn’t let them kill Big Bertha.”

  “F-Bird, you idiot, you could have been killed yourself!”

  “Yeah, uh huh.” He grimaced. “Look who’s talking.”

  “That’s different. He’s my father.”

  As we loaded him into the car’s backseat, Falcon took my hand and said, “He’s my father too, Scarlet.”

  I held his hand while a big-ass window flew open in my mind. Through it, I could see Falcon hasn’t had much of a life. Labs, training, tests, and (fortunately unsuccessful) brainwashing. The thing that stuck out most in my mind was a single word: “lonely.”

  “Yeah,” I whispered. “He is, Falcon.”

  We got into the Barge and lit out. Behind us was a baffled scene of smoking destruction. We escaped the area and hunkered down for the night in the middle of a large pasture. The Cadillac spent the evening under a big fat haystack, about which it seemed very indignant.

  Early this morning we received our exit orders: get to Cherbourg, get on a boat, and get out of Europe. Those orders were soon updated with an ad hoc mission to aid and assist a group of slaves and abolitionists who have been besieged in the Cherbourg seaport by a large group of proslavery militiamen.

  I asked Brando why the German authorities didn’t fight the militia themselves.

  “Us,” he answered. “All the chaos we’ve stirred up has given the Fritzes more than they can cope with already. It’s the Wild West out here.”

  Now we’re a few minutes away from Cherbourg. The sky is getting light, so I switch off my night vision. Out of curiosity, I turn on my infrared vision, and hey, whaddaya know?

  “Smoke! Lots of it, over there.” I point at the column of heat rising from the far side of town. “Is that where the docks are?”

  Grey leans forward. “Yeah, it sure is.” He watches for a moment. “Wow, they’re really mixing it up over there.”

  “Should we wake Falcon?”

  Brando looks into the backseat. “I’d rather not. He just fell asleep.”

  “It’s okay, I’m awake,” Falcon comms to all of us. “Are we there yet?”

  “Almost,” Brando comms, then he points out the windshield. “What’s that?”

  Directly ahead is a large heap of hay bales and old furniture. Men stand behind and around the heap. It’s a roadblock made out of whatever odds and ends the militia could lay their hands on. I press the gas pedal to the floor and put my seat belt on. My companions follow suit. Grey and Falcon draw their pistols while I use the buttons on my armrest to open all the windows.

  The bozos on the roadblock don’t realize how fast we’re moving until it’s too late. The Caddy’s four thousand pounds of Detroit thunder bashes through their pathetic pile of bedknobs and broomst
icks like an all-state quarterback gliding through a sorority. The jamokes all wear brown shirts, black armbands, and expressions of anguish and terror as I crush them under my hammering radials. The Barge accepts this abusive driving so gracefully I wonder if the engineers at Cadillac actually had the foresight to consider how their vehicles would perform while ramming a mountain of junk.

  We blast into the city, trailing anarchy in our wake. Several cars packed with gun-toting buttheads chase after us. Falcon and Grey take off their seat belts so they can turn around and exchange small-arms fire with our brown-shirted pursuers while Brando guides me through town to the docks.

  “Left 40,” he comms to me. “It’s a one-way street.”

  I power-slide the Barge into the first left and nearly smash head-on into a truck. I swerve onto the sidewalk and miraculously avoid the truck, a telephone pole, a baby carriage, the baby’s mother, and two nuns. I have to slow down to do this, and now the cars full of chocolate-hat mofos are right on our ass.

  “Why is that fucking truck going the wrong way?”

  “He’s not,” Brando comms. “We are. I told you it was a one-way street.”

  “Christ almighty, Darwin.” My feet fly across the pedals, and my hands swirl the steering wheel left and right. “I thought you meant one-way our way!”

  My partner skips this argument. “Right 50. It’s a two-way street.”

  I slalom the Barge off the sidewalk and onto the road in time to gun a tire-smoking turn to our right. I lean on my horn and do my best New York City cabbie impression: “Move it, fuckos! C’mon, shit-for-brains, outta the way!”

  Falcon and Grey hang on tight in the back seat as I stir up maximum traffic turbulence. I pass on the right, I pass on the left, I roar into the oncoming lane, I get the wheels half on the sidewalk. Mailboxes, park benches, and small trees all meet their doom on the hungry grille of my deathmobile. So much garbage jams itself into the car’s air intake that the Cadillac’s monster V-8 begins to overheat.

  “Darwin, the Barge can’t take much more of this. How far?”

  “Right 70, before that scrap yard. Then it’s a straight shot into the port area.”

  “Hang on, boys!” I floor it and kick the parking brake on, then quickly off. This slaps the rear wheels into an all-out skidtacular smoke show. Grey slides off the bench seat onto the floor, and Falcon gets jammed against his door. Brando holds on to the dash with both hands while the Barge’s hypertaxed suspension gives me one last sweet turn before finally crapping out.

  My Jackie Stewart–style maneuver comes as such a surprise to the cars following us that the entire group wipes out and crashes into the small front office of the scrap yard. We carry so much speed into the straightaway that our car smashes through the main gate of Cherbourg’s docks at a hundred miles per hour.

  The rattle and hum of a good-sized firefight jaggers through the car’s windows. The action is centered around a very large cargo ship with Longstreet painted on the stern. Men on the ship exchange fire with brown-shirted jackanapeses on the ground. I plow the Barge into the proslavery militia. Their brown shirts and black armbands are instantly slathered with the liquefied remains of their former occupants.

  The car’s tires are so coated with blood and guts that I lose control of the vehicle. The irresistible force of Saint Peter’s Heavenly Barge finally meets a bigger, singularly immovable object. We bash into the base of a gigantic dock crane, the kind they unload ships with. The engine compartment crumples up like a huge black accordion, and the entire rear end comes off the ground. Brando is momentarily suspended in midair by his seat belt, I brace my arms against the steering wheel, and both guys in back get scrunched against our seats. We land with a shuddering thud.

  It’s absolutely quiet. The Barge is dead. The gunfire has stopped. Only the shrill cry of seagulls cut through the stillness. Then time whooshes forward, and a volley of bullets pepper the back of the demolished Cadillac. The four of us crawl forward through the missing windshield and take cover in front of the mangled chrome grille.

  Our training allows us to maintain some composure. Grey comms, “Checkdown, youngest to oldest.”

  Falcon gasps, “My leg is a mess. I’ll need help moving.”

  I comm, “I’m good,” and lean out from cover to see who’s coming. What a shock! Baddies.

  Brando comms, “I’m no worse than before,” as he moves to examine Falcon’s leg.

  Grey comms, “Darwin, how’s F-Bird’s leg?”

  “Not good,” Brando answers.

  “Falcon, how’s your Overkaine supply?”

  “Fine, I’ve got a lot of it dosed. I feel okay, but my leg can’t support my weight.”

  Grey peeks over the Caddy and comms, “Darwin, see if you can help Falcon onto that ship. Scarlet and I will cover you.” He comms to me, “Ready, Scarlet?”

  I nod at Grey and brandish Li’l Bertha.

  Grey and I both stand up and lay down as much suppression fire as we can. The approaching brownshirts dive for cover. Grey reloads and keeps firing. I reload and dump a couple of Explosives into the area near where the shitheads are hiding. We walk around our smoldering car and get ready to rush onto the Longstreet.

  A shattering explosion rips into the schmucks in front of us. A second burst, then a third slashes into the proslavery slobs. The palookas that can still move flee from the dock in complete panic. Up on the ship, a vision of Vulcan himself rains down destruction on the brownshirts. He fires a gun so massive a shock wave distorts the air every time it goes off.

  “Hey, Shortcake,” Raj comms. ”What’s with the luxomobile? I always took you for more of a sports car girl.”

  47

  Same morning, 6:28 A.M. CET

  Cherbourg, Province of France, GG

  The Longstreet’s crewmen extend the gangway, and the four of us make it up to the ship’s main deck. Raj meets us halfway and takes Falcon from the limping Brando. Grey and I go up last to cover the group. He and I pop a few rounds into likely hiding places on the dock and near the surrounding warehouses. When we’re safely aboard, the crew retracts the gangway. Raj helps Falcon lie down on a stack of rough shipping blankets. Grey rushes up to the bridge to check in with the ship’s captain.

  “Raj!” I shake the big man’s paw. “Didn’t you get recalled with all the rest?”

  He says, “I was ordered to stay behind in England in case one of the Infiltrators needed me. Then I was sent here to make sure you and your gang got out all right. Some people back home are anxious to see you.” He leans down closer to me. “I heard about your dad. Nice job.”

  “Thanks, Rah-Rah.”

  Brando’s hastily commed after-action report for that mission consisted of the single phrase “Subject retrieved from Carbon facility.” Raj and I both know how dry phrases like that can bury a lot of people. They can also break roofs, beds, and legs.

  Raj says to Falcon, “So you’re the sniper bird.”

  F-Bird nods and winces as Brando adjusts his broken leg. Raj watches my partner work and says to himself, “Sounds like Fredericks got your name right.”

  The deck is littered with expended bullet casings and chips of painted metal that have been shot out of the shiny pockmarks in the bulkheads. Two long bloodstains show where wounded men were dragged inside. Several crew members armed with shotguns or pistols crouch along the rail. They’re tough-looking sea dogs, but they’re prepared for isolated raids by pirates, not a large assault by a paramilitary group. They watch us intently.

  Grey returns from the bridge. “All right, I’ve met with Captain Demet, and here’s the situation.” The view from the bridge showed Grey two fishing boats out at the mouth of the harbor. The captain’s binoculars revealed that each of those small boats had at least one brownshirt jackoff with a rocket launcher watching the Longstreet.

  On the landward side, we’re dealing with a full company of Purity League militiamen. The captain is sure he’s seen some of these men carrying rocket launchers. If it
weren’t for those heavy weapons, the captain could ram his way out of the harbor and make for open water. Small arms aren’t going to slow down a cargo vessel this big. If the fishing boats tried to block his exit, the captain would ram the craft and send the occupants to the hell of drowning in their own pigheaded ignorance.

  Brando asks, “Has Captain Demet received any demands?”

  Grey answers, “Yes. The terms were the complete surrender of the Jewish passengers and the ship in exchange for the lives of the captain and crew.”

  “What did the captain say?”

  “Well, it turns out he’s part Jewish, which he’s successfully hidden, but an entire branch of his extended family wasn’t so lucky, and they disappeared into the slavery system. Plus, he owns the Longstreet.” Grey pauses. “So he told the militia’s commander to shove it.”

  I keep an eye on the docks. “Who’s the militia’s commander?”

  Grey shifts his weight from one knee to the other. “His name is Kruppe.”

  Brando and I look at each other. “Figures,” we both say.

  Raj swings his big head from me to my partner and back. “What, have you met him?”

  “Yeah,” I grunt. “A couple times.”

  Captain Demet’s blunt reply led to the standoff we crashed into. If it weren’t for Raj and his 50-mm grenade-spewing Bitchgun, the brownshirts could suppress the ship’s defenders, grapple up to the deck, and overwhelm the badly outnumbered crew. Fortunately, the Purity Leaguers aren’t professional full-time soldiers. They’re ass-faced weekend warriors who are used to beating up on unarmed civilians, not riding the Afterlife Express from fighting a fully enhanced Vindicator like Raj.

  The Purity League doesn’t want to sink the Longstreet unless they really have to. For one thing, the ship is smack dab in the middle of the region’s biggest commercial harbor. It won’t go over well with the locals—no matter how anti-Semitic they are—if the Purity League fouls up Cherbourg harbor with a shipful of diesel fuel and dead bodies.

  The other reason is they still think of the Jewish people on the ship as private property. To them it’d be like destroying livestock. Them critters’re expensive!