A subtle agency omnibus, p.80
A Subtle Agency Omnibus, page 80
part #1 of The Metaframe War Series
* * *
“She’s bleeding on the brain,” Chiara shouted. “She needs immediate surgery.”
Chiara looked around at everyone in the room - they stared back at her. Her heart sank. There was no one else; she was the best qualified to do what needed to be done. She just didn’t trust that she could do it.
She looked hard at Li. “Okay, let’s prep.”
The two young women blurred into action.
“Yvette,” Chiara half-shouted, pointing to a second trolley on the other side of the surgical theater. “Bring that one over here.”
Yvette blurred, the trolley appearing next to the table. Chiara reached over and grabbed the equipment she needed. Yvette started to back away, a shocked look on her face.
“Wait, I need your help,” Chiara pleaded, catching Yvette’s gaze with her eyes. “Here take this,” she requested, handing Yvette an oval balloon the size of a football, with a nozzle at one end. She concentrated on Juliette’s mouth, opening it, and inserting a firm tube down her throat. She attached the end of the tube to the nozzle of the balloon.
“Yvette, press on the balloon in a steady rhythm and keep her breathing.”
Yvette swallowed, stared at Juliette’s chest and matched her breathing with the balloon.
Chiara picked up the silvery wand, activated it, and ran a set of short sweeps over the wound site. The bleed showed up on the monitor as an angry red welt on the screen. It was just beneath the skull. An acute epidural hematoma.
Using the wand, Chiara located the exact center of the bleed, took a black pen and marked a line to the edge of the wound and a second line to make an ‘X,’ on Juliette’s scalp.
There was an electric razor on the trolley. Twenty seconds later, Chiara had cleared a strip of hair away from the ‘X.’ Disinfectant was next, then she scanned the room, rushed to a cabinet and came back with a drill with a shiny stainless-steel bit.
Chiara paused for a second, staring at Francis. “You may want to look away for this bit.”
Francis lifted his gaze away from Juliette for a moment. He looked at Chiara with eyes wide with dread and pleaded, “Do what you have to do, just … please … save her life.”
“We will,” Chiara replied, more confidence in her voice than she felt. She moved the trolley aside to give herself room, there was no time for hesitation.
She ramped, her hands becoming stonelike in their stillness. Time slowed, she activated the drill and placed it precisely on the center of the ‘X.’ It was essential that she reach into Juliette’s skull far enough to allow the collected blood to drain but no further.
Chiara pushed the drill forward. It cut through Juliette’s scalp with ease, then struck the bone. She lifted the pressure slightly and the steel bit ground into Juliette’s skull.
The whine of the drill cut through the air like a knife. Chiara ripped it back, dark blood spurting from the hole. The flow slowed to a steady trickle. Chiara placed an absorbent pad against the hole and strapped it in place.
“Normally,” she noted. “A surgeon would repair the blood vessels and possibly put in a drainage tube. Here, we have to rely on Juliette’s system zero genetics to stem the bleeding. We’ll need to keep an eye on her now and monitor her progress.”
Francis looked at his wife, his face clouded with worry. “When will she wake up?”
“She has to stay still, or she will most likely die. The longer the better, certainly, at least an hour.”
Francis looked up at the wall clock, Chiara tracked his gaze. The clock read, ‘17:12.’
“We’re here at least until after six pm,” he promised, gently stroking Juliette’s hand.
Chiara nodded and prayed silently for Juliette to wake up.
* * *
Thunder cracked overhead, and rain hammered the front windows of the medical center. The street lights had come on, responding automatically to the darkness of the storm.
The clock on the wall read, ‘18:30,’ a little less than two hours to sunset. The team had congregated in the main reception area as they prepared to leave. Everyone had picked up a large black plastic garbage bag from the cleaning cupboard, cutting holes in them for their head and arms, to make impromptu raincoats.
Juliette had woken up twenty minutes earlier. She was sitting in a chair in the waiting area, dressed in a fresh pair of pants. The only visible hints of her recent injuries, the heavy bandaging of her skull, and thick wrapping that tightened the fabric over her left thigh. Her eyes were alert, and she carried her head high.
Anton walked into the room carrying a pair of crutches, went over to Juliette, and offered, “I found these, I’ve already adjusted them for your height.”
Juliette smiled. “Thanks.”
“Good work Anton,” Francis said. His lips tightened, he frowned, catching Anton, Peter and Li’s gazes. “I have a very difficult mission for the three of you.”
“The best sort,” Peter observed, crossing and flexing his fingers, his knuckles cracking loudly.
Anton nodded resolutely and affirmed, “Whatever you need Francis.”
Li glanced at Anton and sighed softly. “I will do my best.”
“Good,” Francis noted. “Juliette’s going to conduct another full Panopticon hazing operation. It will be centered on her laptop. It will create an information black hole three miles wide for fifteen minutes … However, Shadowstone is on full alert, they will notice the hazing as soon as it starts and they will send all their available forces toward the center of the hazing.”
“So, we leave the laptop here and escape?” Anton asked.
“No. We’ll send it with you. The hazing begins at 18:45 and will run to 19:00. Between now and then, you will take the laptop as far north as you can go.”
Luther looked up from his seat, smiling grimly at Anton, “With all this talk, you’ve got less than thirteen minutes before the hazing starts. We don’t want you starting from here and giving away our position.”
Francis threw Luther an irritated glance. “One last thing, the laptop has a thermite charge in its base, it will self-destruct when the hazing ends.”
Anton asked, “Why destroy the laptop?”
“A normal hazing is defined on a single geographical location,” Juliette explained. “The laptop governing the hazing doesn’t even have to be there. This hazing is located on the laptop itself. When the hazing stops, the laptop is going to be in the middle of it. We have to destroy it to ensure it doesn’t fall into Shadowstone’s hands.”
“You don’t trust us to be able to escape with it.”
Luther stepped forward. “It’s standard operating procedure. The Order can’t take the risk. When a hazing is done this way, the laptop is always destroyed. It’s known as a ‘sacrifice play.’” He stared at Anton. “Like when a lizard drops its tail to escape a predator.”
Anton fell silent. He became preternaturally still, on the borderline of ramping. Luther’s presence was always filled with veiled threat. The situation could only last so long before it blew up. He believed the time was coming soon when either Luther or himself would be dead.
“Very encouraging,” Juliette said sarcastically, her eyes flashing at Luther.
Luther snapped. “I told you before we left. I would keep this team honest.”
Anton shrugged off the incipient Ramp, and stepped forward, crouching before Juliette. “It’s okay. Let’s get you safe.”
Juliette reached out, taking his hands in hers and said softly. “You’re just like your grandfather you know, and in the best possible way.”
Anton stood up, turning to the rest of the team. “Don’t worry about us.”
Francis directed, “You must go now, time is short. We will be at the manor house at Whitby in two hours.”
Peter nodded, grabbing the laptop in its protective satchel, he made for the door. Anton and Li, shouldering their weapons and gear, following behind him. A moment later, they were out on the street.
“North then,” Anton offered, shielding his eyes from the rain with his left hand.
“North it is,” Peter replied.
They ran off down the street. In ten minutes time, the hazing would begin, and Shadowstone would throw everything they could muster at them.
“We’re bait,” Anton observed wryly, his face caught halfway between a grin and a grimace.
“Better get used to it princess,” Peter remarked. “It won’t be the last time.”
“You hope,” Li said, running next to them.
Peter didn’t have anything else to say.
They ran on in silence, putting a mile every four minutes between themselves and the rest of the team.
Chapter Twenty Four
“Low to medium level wars, proxy wars, and wars by non-state actors all provide excellent cover for the secret war between the Vampire Dominion and the Ramp masters. War within the human community is to be maintained at a level aligned with the goal of providing ready, and believable scapegoats to blame for those occasions when the operations of the Vampire Dominion become visible to humans. Note well, that one of our number is missing from this conference because his reckless ambitions plunged the world into six years of wasteful conflict. Let Dieter Franz’s punishment be a lesson to you all – world-wide conflagrations will not be tolerated. I trust I have made myself clear.” - Cornelius Crane, King of the Vampire Dominion at the Conference of Generals, New York, 1946.
* * *
Outside Egton, Yorkshire, August 22nd, 18:58
The storm winds whipped past the open doors of the nightfalcon helicopter.
The gunship was hugging the ground, flying at one hundred and eighty miles per hour at one-hundred yards altitude over the Yorkshire Moors. Four four-man squads of fully armed and armored Shadowstone troopers crowded the main cabin of the craft. Corporal Brian Jenkins strode up and down the aisle, slapping shoulders and checking equipment.
“Well fuck a doodle doo boys, it’s showtime,” he shouted over the roar of the helicopter, clasping the broad shoulders of one of his men.
The man grinned back, a wild light behind his eyes. They were all participants in the Phase IV Day Guard program. They’d been told it was a UK government program to create a superior fighting force to fight terrorists anywhere in the world. For the last two years, he’d been on a steady program of injected serums, steroids, and stimulants. The effects had been dramatic, Corporal Jenkins could bench press four hundred and eighty pounds and run a marathon with full kit in two hours. He could easily win gold in a host of Olympic events, but of course, he couldn’t compete. He was disappointed about that, he was sure there was no ‘official,’ drug testing regime that could detect the exotic cocktail flowing through his bloodstream.
Jenkin’s eyes tightened, and he snarled, “Time for some payback.”
“Hell, yeah,” came back from the men surrounding him.
He thumped an armored shoulder with his gauntleted fist. For a normal man, the blow would have cracked the joint. The trooper grinned back at him, eager, and ready to fight.
“ETA, one minute,” came over his tactical helmet comms link.
The major was on this bird, personally commanding Squadron F for this battle. An unknown number of hostiles faced them. It was anticipated to be more than twenty, and perhaps as many as thirty individuals had been warring with the ‘F,’ all day. The results had been horrific, nearly half the squadron had been destroyed. The four nightfalcons in this flight and the attached eighty troopers were the bulk of the remaining force.
Now the enemy had been found and identified. They were on the move, heading toward the village of Ogton. The squadron had been staged at a private airfield east of Goathland, mere minutes away from their targets.
It was a God sent opportunity. The enemy had appeared in their laps, and Jenkins would happily assist in hammering them into dust.
Jenkins looked out through the open cabin doorway, the trooper next to him was manning a Mk-19 grenade launcher. The weapon had been fitted to the helicopter earlier that day - an equalizer - there had been rumors that the enemy was enhanced with extreme speed, and the capability to fire half a dozen 40mm grenades a second was deemed necessary.
Were the enemy that dangerous? Jenkins stared into the stormy darkness outside the nightfalcon. The street lights of Ogton were just visible in the distance. He was keen to answer that question for himself.
Thunder cracked overhead, lightning flashing nearby, rain fell in sheets. The nightfalcons flew on in the dusk-like darkness without running lights. The whole of the remaining force of Squadron F converging on the hamlet of Ogton.
* * *
The trio ran through the lamp-lit streets of Ogton at Olympic level marathon pace.
Li pulled to a halt, Anton and Peter stopping a couple of yards later, turning back to her.
Thunder cracked overhead, lightning dazzling across the sky, gleaming off the wet black plastic of their impromptu raincoats. Li declared, “They’re here, or will be in seconds.”
The roar of jet turbines cut through the air, four nightfalcons emerging from the gloom beneath the storm clouds. The wedge formation separated, two helicopters veering to the left and the other two peeling off to the right. In moments, they were flying in concentric circles around the hamlet of Ogton.
Peter twisted around, watching the gunships circle and observed sardonically, “Geez, if brute force doesn’t work, we might need to use finesse.”
The nightfalcons slowed, hovering thirty yards off the ground beyond the edge of the village. Dark lines dropped from the helicopters, Shadowstone troopers followed, rappelling down the lines. The operation was completed in less than ten seconds, the troopers dashing off in the gloom to take up positions in a cordon around the village.
There was a gas station, forty yards away, on the main road leading out of town. Given the state of emergency curfew and the storm, it was deserted. Peter glanced inside the laptop satchel; his face momentarily lit by a faint red glow. “Thirteen seconds to go.” He blurred to the station, pulling the laptop from the satchel as he ran.
Anton and Li ran along the other side of the street.
The nightfalcons veered upward, making a single evenly spaced circle around the village. They were flying in a broad circle from right to left, their waist mounted Mk-19 grenade launchers swinging toward the village.
Peter blurred back to their side, guiding them further back from the gas station. A second later the laptop’s thermite charge detonated. A bright glare appeared next to one of the fuel bowsers. Half a second later, the bowser erupted in a towering fountain of flame.
“The hazing is over,” Peter declared. “That’s the distraction, now we break through their lines and escape.”
“It’s still too light to avoid being seen,” Li observed.
Li was right. Shadowstone would have them in their sights and were only positioning to take the final shot. Anton’s face became still, his eyes deadly serious in the gloom. “Then we will have to kill them all.”
He turned and blurred down the street. He didn’t know what he would do yet, but he was sure he didn’t want to leave an operational Shadowstone unit hunting them, or the rest of the Mirovar team, alive and on their tail.
The forces circling overhead, and setting up a perimeter around the village, would have to die. It was the only way he could be sure to keep his friends safe.
A dreadful fury boiled within him, his eyes glistening beneath the storm clouds and pelting rain. Ripping away the plastic sheet around his shoulders, he lifted his FN P90 submachine gun from a holster at his side. The Blue Dragon’s handle jutted over his right shoulder, ready to be drawn at a moment’s notice.
He headed back into town, looking for a high spot to get to, he needed to see all of his enemies so he could see who needed to die.
“Violence will be my friend,” Anton uttered, a ferocious light behind his eyes.
He blurred into the shadows, Li and Peter following closely behind him.
* * *
Major Frank Quiver rolled along in his railed chair, scanning the wall of screens in his command nightfalcon. The vital signs of his ground troops were all displayed underneath feeds from their individual helmet cams. Everything was in the green and proceeding according to plan.
The Order of Thoth’s hazing operation had just ended, defeated by cyberwarfare counter attacks from Shadowstone units across the world. With the storm and the curfew, the streets were empty; except for three newly identified forms running hot in the infra-red and super-fast toward the center of town.
He ignored the flaring gasoline fire on the edge of town. It was an obvious distraction, he wasn’t about to be tricked by something so simple.
With the Panopticon linked into the networked sensors on the four nightfalcons, he had a clear three-dimensional view of the village and everyone in it. This was going to be easier than he’d expected. The enemy had divided their forces. The three operatives discovered in the village at the center of the Panopticon haze were exposed to every weapon he had at his disposal. But he had to be wary, the Shadowstone mandate was to operate in secret. There was only so much that could be done out in the open. He couldn’t simply blow away a whole village to get to three operatives. It would be next to impossible to explain, especially on top of the disasters at the Squadron F base, and the RAF airbase at Coningsby.
The Shadowstone PSYOPS directorate was shitting kittens, secrecy was not something that could be thrown away on a whim. He would have to send in his men and flush the enemy out into the open where his heavy weapons would prove decisive.
He opened his tactical comms link to his squad commanders. They were all on the ground, manning a cordon around the village. He gave the order to flush the enemy to the south. The hostiles were moving toward the center of the hamlet at frightening speed, but it only took him a moment to vector his squads after them. He pulled two of his squads away from the south entrance of town to give the Order operatives a path of ‘escape.’
