The Secret Files of Lucky Ford: Operation Arm Breaker, Part 17 of 17

The officials are cornered with the vengeful fury of Department Three bearing down on them. With all their losses, what remains for them in the aftermath of Eberkopf?

The Secret Files of Lucky Ford: Operation Arm Breaker is now available as a Kindle ebook, in paperback, and as a DRM-free ebook.

This is Part 17, the bonus-length final release of Operation Arm Breaker. If you haven’t read Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, or 16 yet, check them out first.

Content Warnings: Violence, Mild Swearing, Body Horror, Nazis

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, JULY 14, 1943
WEST OF ROTFARB
THURGAU, SWITZERLAND

“Run us aground!” the Colonel yelled. Bucket didn't hesitate. He leaned against the throttle and pointed the boat straight at the waiting trio. Whoever they were, Hrungnir had seen them, too. It held its fire. They were ten yards offshore and going full-tilt when Halistone shouted again: “Brace for impact, protect the wounded!”

The small ship plowed into the stony shore, throwing pebbles and nearly launching Lucky over the rail as it ground to a halt. The engine blew with a pop. Toxic smoke bubbled through the splintered deck.

“Everyone overboard!” Colonel Halistone shouted. He threw himself over the side and landed in cold water up to his ankles. “Help the wounded, tally ho.”

Lucky helped Miller and Bucket lower Goldbrick to the Colonel, then splashed down himself. The landing did nothing good for Lucky's ribs, but he was past caring. He grunted and took the general's bound ankles under his arm while Miller carried him by his shoulders. They laid him down once they were on firm land, and the remaining officials joined them.

The Colonel approached the suited man, ignoring his flamboyant guards. He put his filthy hand out. The blonde man hesitated for a moment, considering the soot, blood, and oil on Halistone's hand, then took it.

“I generally do not extend such courtesy to extortionists, Doctor Halistone,” he said. The Colonel squeezed the shorter man's hand.

“Mister Moser,” the Colonel said, “I generally do not extend such courtesy to those who launder money for Nazis.”

Moser threw off the Colonel's handshake, saying:

“Had your grandfather not invested such a considerable sum through our Bank during its initial offering, you would not be able to manipulate us so,” Moser snapped. His nose was high, his accent, German, his suit, silk.

“Ultimately, I am able to do so,” the Colonel told him. He looked over his shoulder at the looming Hrungnir, spitting exhaust and flame from its wrecked engines, kicking up a cyclone of superheated water as it hovered over the lake, just a hundred feet offshore. “Will you please explain the situation to your other clients?”

A sour look crossed Moser's face. He examined the gaggle of bloodied men and women before him, resting his eyes for a long second as he assessed Grease, then turned his spiteful gaze to the rumbling steel mountain over the water. He could see straight down the barrels of Hrungnir's cannons.

“I will need your signature,” Moser finally relented.

“Of course.”

Moser propped the briefcase on his knee and awkwardly tried to balance on one foot. The guardsman to his left had to steady him. When he finally entered in the combination and popped the briefcase open, the wad of papers he retrieved was thicker than Werner's clipboard had been. The Colonel took it from him and passed it over his shoulder.

Miller took it and buzzed through like a flip book. Lucky knew Miller could instantly and perfectly remember everything he saw; he did not realize that Miller could capture a picture of a page in his mind and recall the words in the same instant. Within seconds, he gave the Colonel a nod of approval. Halistone took the document back and Moser produced a gleaming fountain pen from the inner pocket of his jacket.

“Please endorse the first and last pages,” he instructed. The Colonel took the pen and signed each line with a flourish. Moser began rifling through his briefcase, saying: “Once I find my ink pad, I will need your thumbprint on the final page.”

The Colonel did not wait for Moser to find the ink. Instead, he dragged his thumb across the fresh cut Goldbrick had opened on his cheek then pressed it onto the page, leaving a scarlet imprint.

Moser scowled, then muttered under his breath in exasperated German:

“Wie dramatisch.”

“It has been quite the dramatic day,” the Colonel replied. He held out the pen, which Moser snatched back. He replaced its cap, wiped it down with a handkerchief, and slid it back into his coat pocket. The thick document went securely back into his briefcase which he made sure to lock. He meticulously spun the dials so the next person to see them could not guess its combination.

Content that his paperwork was secure, Moser sighed and nodded at his guardsmen. They laid down their long spears and picked up new items. One lifted a long flagpole and unfurled a long banner from it. The fabric was a vibrant green field bearing an intricate Swiss coat-of-arms bearing the letters S and B in white. Below the crest, a half-dozens symbols for currency were wrought in embroidered gold: dollars signs, Reichsmarks, pounds, francs, rubles, and more. The flag would be easily visible to the many eyes zeroing in on their exposed position. The other guard removed the cover from a shuttered lantern and raised it high into the air.

The banker held up his megaphone and addressed the waiting Hrungnir:

“Men of the SS! I am Fabian Moser, administrative vice president of Schweizen Bank,” Moser called out across the water. As he spoke, the man with the lantern pulled a string which flipped its shutters open and closed, flashing Moser's every word in Morse code. The banker continued: “Unless I am able to say otherwise, the following accounts will be closed at midnight tonight and their contents donated to the International Red Cross. Please relay the following account numbers to your commanders...”

Moser rattled off dozens of numbers, then repeated the entire message in German and French. The man with the lantern did not miss a beat and relayed the messages in code no matter the language. When Moser was done, the lantern snapped shut.

“There,” Moser said to the Colonel. “Your passage is secure.”

“The bastard is still here,” Grease grunted.

Hrungnir watched them. Lucky imagined eyes behind the aiming slits of its dozens of machine guns. The little candle-flames that ignited the flamethrowers' jellied petroleum flickered against the black metal. Cannons groaned as they adjusted their aim with each of the flying tank's jerking over-compensations. The decimated remaining turbines screamed to pick up the slack.

Brizzy Bunyip screeched overhead, west to east, following the curve of the lake shore. Only three Black Wings followed behind her. They were careful not to encroach on Switzerland's airspace: the Swiss were as likely to shoot down an Allied plane as they were an Axis one.

“What is happening?” Lucky wondered.

“They are conferring with their commanders,” the Colonel told him.

“They're transmitting something,” Bucket said, studying the blinking lights on his radio wave interceptor.

“They could roll over all of us,” Grease said.

“They will not,” Moser said again. “They will receive orders to leave. There are billions of Reichsmarks at state.”

“What's a 'billions'?” Grease wondered.

“I arranged all of the SS's hidden accounts,” the banker explained, ignoring Grease “Were they to cross me, I might place a hold on the entirety of all of their funding. Were I to die, no one else would be able to piece together the thousands of places I have concealed this money.”

“It is a matter of numbers for the Nazis,” The Colonel said. “Even the destruction of Eberkopf compares little to the damage Mister Moser could cause with ink and paper.”

“Indeed,” Moser agreed. “Though it is the Halistone accounts that concern me. Our bank has held millions of your pounds in escrow for many years, they are what built Schweizen Bank. Your withdrawal would put me under intense scrutiny and my activities on behalf of these Germans would be brought to light. No matter how valuable they are, the publicity would be very negative for the bank. It would cost my position, and possibly my freedom.”

A deafening air horn sounded from Hrungnir's hull. The rumbling tank blared its klaxon twice more, then revved its remaining turbines to blast geysers beneath it. The officials tensed, staring down the floating steel mountain.

Hrungnir watched them, blasted its air horn one last time, and let its engines roar. It slowly floated backward, north to Germany. The overcaster plume consumed it, with only the screeching stress on its engines lingering on the Swiss side of Lake Constance.

“Holy hell,” Lucky whispered. They had not survived by the sword, but by the abacus. He looked up to see Angel swoop down and buzz the water, the three remaining Black Wings in tow. She and Achilles were waving from their bubble canopy. Lucky waved back before she pulled up sharply and zipped over the western horizon.

Moser snorted impatiently. He did not appreciate his time being used for pleasantries.

“We have ambulances and limousines waiting. You will be taken to the British embassy forthwith, and in the future you shall only be welcome in Switzerland during normal banking hours.”

A short march through the welcoming treeline found them on a concealed bend of road. Two ambulances and a long Rolls-Royce limousine idled on the shoulder. The chauffeur studied his passengers in horror from beneath his little hat. They looked more mud and blood than human, a far cry from the suits and dresses he was used to. It would take days to properly clean his car's interior after they were through with it.

No one sat until Cheddarwright, Grand, Goldbrick, Grease, and the Deacon were secured in the ambulances. Despite their wounds, the rest of the officials refused to take up any stretcher space. Grease had to sit on the floor, the stretchers were too small for him, but he made sure the unconscious Deacon and Grand were comfortable. Quint, short one arm but still standing, joined Goldbrick and Cheddarwright in their ambulance, watching over them with the general's sawed-off shotgun.

When the ambulances were finally away, it was like a weight had been lifted from Lucky's shoulders. The PEP pills were bleeding off, and the slow, cold pain in his ribs was heating up. He held his stomach, feeling every cut, burn, bruise, and broken bone all at once. It was almost too much. He tripped and caught himself on the hood of the gleaming car. The chauffeur barely restrained himself from saying something. Lucky's hand left a black and red print on the gleaming silver paint.

Lucky opened the passenger door for himself and slid into the lush cabin with a groan and a cloud of dirt. The chauffeur allowed a single pained syllable escape his lips before professionalism zipped them right back up.

“We all have our battles,” Lucky muttered at him.

Sinclair, Bucket, Miller, Rothenberg, and the Colonel climbed in behind him and sank into the plush leather upholstery. Once they were settled, Moser crammed in after them, struggling with his briefcase and bullhorn. His absurdly-uniformed guards climbed onto the running boards. One slapped the car's roof, and they were off.

The roads were smooth, winding between small towns and well-tended fields. It was almost enough to put Lucky to sleep, but every time he started to drift, Miller would pinch him.

“No sleeping until after your physical,” Miller said. “You must be put through concussion tests.”

“So keep me awake,” Lucky finally snapped. The effects of the PEP pills had completely worn off. He was exhausted, filthy, in pain, and emotionally drained. The picturesque countryside and rolling silence in the air-conditioned Rolls was almost a dream in itself. “All the blood-bought peace outside is about as exciting as a lullaby.”

“What do you see out the windows?” Moser asked. He was sitting across from Lucky, watching him with his briefcase laid across his lap.

“I'm not talking to a collaborator,” Lucky told him. He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the window. Miller nudged him again.

“You do not know what this word means,” Moser snarled. Lucky stared at him. His aggressive tone had gotten everyone else's attention as well. Moser continued: “Look at my country and tell me what you see.”

Lucky puffed up and squared his shoulders before looking through the tinted glass. Vibrant green fields whisked by, untouched by craters or trenches. Canvas-tarped hay bales sat among fat, content, non-mutated cows. The sky was blue, with only the faintest hints of pink volcanic tendrils mingling with the clouds. Small houses with painted shutters lined the freshly-paved roads.

“Oz,” Lucky finally answered. After Eberkopf, Spain, and Vesuvius, Switzerland looked like a fantasy land. He expected a unicorn to stride out of an emerald glade at any moment.

“I see terror,” Moser said. Lucky looked around to find even the faintest clue what he was talking about. This wasn't England, with its checkpoints and barbed wire. The Swiss were neutral, they'd survived the war by minding their own business, by keeping a blind eye. It dawned on Lucky that whatever fear or greed that was driving Moser, he was risking this peace for the officials.

“What are you talking about?” Lucky wondered.

“This house, on the right,” Moser said, pointing ahead at a two-story white house, nestled up against the road. Flowers bloomed in its window-sill planters and its trim had been painted a bright, robin's egg blue. “The shutters.”

They zoomed past the house, and Lucky caught a glimpse of what Moser had meant. The old building had fresh paint because it had been fortified and reinforced. Its shutters were plate steel made to look like wood. They had no true openings and would block any light that could guide bombers at night while being strong enough to withstand an infantry assault. They had been bolted straight into the structure of the house.

“The bales...” Moser suggested. Lucky followed his gaze studied the rolled stacks of hay closer, noticing irregular angles underneath the tarps. He recognized the obscured silhouettes instantly once he knew to look for them.

“Anti-aircraft guns,” Lucky realized. He looked more intently at everything around them. The roads had been paved recently, he could still smell fresh tar, and they had been made much thicker than country roads needed to be. The Swiss could run heavy armor over them with ease. Anywhere the enemy struck, they could respond.

Even mailboxes were suspect: curling lengths of det-cord sprouted from them at random, some hidden better than others. Every one was mined and wired for remote detonation. If an unfriendly army tried to use these roads, they would find themselves in a world of hurt. There had to be bombs under the asphalt they were cruising on. The Swiss would have wired every bridge, tunnel, canal, and mountain pass.

“The war touches everyone,” Moser explained. “My country is among the smallest and richest in Europe. You Americans, with an ocean between you and the Germans, act so brave. You can come, fight, and return to your families at home. But here, the Germans could devour us whole if they wanted. It is the responsibility of myself and men like me to make our small speck on the map worth more to them the way it is.”

“So you capitulate with monsters?” Rothenberg asked. He was sitting forward now, leaning in toward the banker.

“I would do whatever it takes to keep them from my family,” Moser told him. “You may call me 'collaborator,' but I claim the title of 'survivor.' I shall continue to do as they ask so long as the true horrors of war stay away from my country and my children.”

“I had a family, too,” Rothenberg growled. He pulled his sleeve up and showed him a number tattooed into his forearm. He held it in front of Moser's unresponsive face. “Do you know what the Nazis did to them?”

“I am sure it was no worse than what you would do to see them alive again,” Moser replied. Emotion had left his voice.

Rothenberg surged forward, only to be pinned back by Sinclair and the Colonel. He raged against them, but couldn't get free. Moser stayed still. He looked as if he might welcome some reprisal; he knew the human cost of helping the Nazis.

“I am sorry for what happened to your family,” the banker said over the shoulders of the men who had just saved him from a beating. “I did not pull the trigger, but I helped them buy the bullets and the bombs and the pellets. I will burn in hell, and I will gladly accept eternal damnation, for my actions will allow my children to grow up.”

Rothenberg was cursing Moser a thousand times over in Hebrew, still fighting against the Colonel and Sinclair. The cut on Halistone's cheek had re-opened, and the old smell of new blood filled the car.

“I am a man of numbers,” Moser continued. “And I understand the many outweighing the few. But those few are the few I love. Never forgive me for helping the Nazis, but never pretend you would do different with death on your doorstep.”

Rothenberg seethed, but the Colonel whispered something in his ear, calming logics or warriors' philosophies, something Lucky couldn't hear. Whatever he said, the Jewish commando let up. The Colonel pressed a small container in his hands. When Rothenberg saw what it was, he a deep breath and held it, finally letting it go in a forced, staggered exhalation.

“So why risk saving us?” Rothenberg struggled to ask.

“Because I still retain my heart, it was only my soul that I sold,” Moser replied, then stayed quiet.

Rothenberg didn't have any more questions for the Swiss man. He looked at the container that the Colonel had given him. It was a canister riddled with air holes. He unscrewed the cap and Snowflake the rat crawled out onto his hand. The little rodent curled into a ball on his palm and fell asleep, happy for something warm and soft to rest upon.

No one spoke for the rest of the ride.

The fields eventually gave way to clustered buildings, each made war-ready. Disguised machine gun slits watched intersections, roofs had been shored up to take the weight of anti-air guns, notches had been cut in cobblestone streets to allow the placement of dragon's teeth across the roads.

They had reached Zurich, and a few moments later, the British consulate.

They were safe.

MONDAY MORNING, JULY 19, 1943
FORT DECIMUS BURTON
TUCKTON, BOURNEMOUTH, UNITED KINGDOM

Goldbrick Stephens pounded on the padded walls of his cell, screaming wordless howls that shook the bulletproof glass. His side of the one-way mirror was smeared in dried blood.

“Introducing sodium sobrialux, five percent concentration,” a technician reported. She adjusted a small dial in their observation room, then pressed a button. A vent in the ceiling released a cloud of silky mist into the cell. It drifted downward, swirling around the raging general. Goldbrick swatted at the gas but inhaled it nonetheless. He coughed, then wheezed, and red trickled down his chin. He moved his mouth as if he was yelling, but no sound came out.

“That is not a symptom of sobrialux exposure,” the technician said, anxiety edging into her calm demeanor.

“Continue the treatment,” the Colonel ordered from over Lucky's shoulder. “It's not the gas: he has shouted so much that he has torn his larynx. Increase the dosage, please.”

“Ten percent,” she acknowledged, then twisted the dial a bit further to the right. Another puff of gas settled into the cell. Goldbrick punched the wall again, but the strength was gone from his blow. He was breathing heavily now. The boxer leaned against the wall, then slid to the floor. He lifted his battered hands, every knuckle split and bloody, the cast on his right hand hanging in plaster tatters, and began to sob. The technician took another note.

“Enable the intercom, please,” the Colonel ordered. The technician flipped an orange switch and handed him a microphone. When he spoke, his voice echoed out of a speaker inset into the ceiling above Goldbrick's head:

“Can you hear me, Ben?”

Goldbrick spun around, then realized there were people watching behind the mirror. He wiped the tears and sweat from his face.

“How long has it been?” he rasped. Fluid sloshed in the back of his ragged throat when he spoke.

“It has been five days since Eberkopf.”

Goldbrick groaned.

“I know these walls,” he said. He was in the one of the holding cells beneath his own bureau's subterranean base, Fort Decimus Burton. The sprawling complex ran beneath most of the riverfront north of Bournemouth, a quick trip to the Channel. He'd planned Operation Arm Breaker from just a few floors above.

“You are going to be all right, Ben,” Halistone told him.

“Ain't any cure for this,” Goldbrick replied. He knew exactly what had happened to him. “I have to resign my command.”

“Everyone is working towards a treatment,” the Colonel said. “You mustn't give up hope.”

“Did I hurt anyone?” the general asked.

“You still have the right hook of a champion,” the Colonel joked. The shiner on his eye had faded and the cut had been stitched shut. “No, we were able to subdue you.”

“Did everyone else make it?” he asked.

“Our teams saw no further injury,” Halistone assured him. “Four Black Wings pilots were killed in action.”

“I am sure their checks will still get cashed,” Goldbrick grunted.

“Their payments and pardons were accepted,” the Colonel told him. “In fact, the Western Hemisphere bureau reports that Captain Masterson has already returned to the States to recruit their replacements.”

“Well on his way to a new treason charge, and so soon after we got his last one expunged,” Goldbrick wheezed as he pushed himself off the floor. He took a long look at himself in the one-way mirror, checking the stitches in his head and arm that he'd ripped out in his fits of mania. There were cotton fibers wedged between his gold teeth from when he'd tried to chew through the padded walls.

“How are my people?” he asked after he'd accepted what he saw.

“Recovering well.”

“Cheddarwright, Grand, Quint, everyone?”

“Cheddarwright is already on her feet and practicing her archery upstairs. With her off hand while her wound heals, of course. Official Graves is still in critical condition, but he is on the way to recovery.”

“And Quint?”

“Castaño has transferred to the Western Hemisphere bureau. They have a prototype prosthesis he has agreed to be fitted for.”

“He's been through enough. Anyone that can be whole again, should be,” the general said. A tremor passed though his legs, almost tipping him over. He barely recovered, then sighed and added: “I can't command like this. Get me a pen and paper.”

“Your resignation will not be accepted. The field commanders have convened.”

“You idiots, whose idea was that?”

“It was a unanimous decision,” the Colonel assured him. Goldbrick snorted and smirked.

“Unanimous my behind. Ryazonova hates me, thinks I'm letting the Germans wear her down.”

“All bureau heads agreed and accepted my proposal for Sinclair to assume your role until Colonel Dufossé can return from the field. He will command in your stead until you recover.”

“Dufossé is a good man. French, but good nonetheless,” Goldbrick said. “A good choice.”

“His network got word to him yesterday, he will be leaving Paris tonight. His partisans have created a startlingly efficient travel network throughout France, so he should be here in the morning. Would you like to speak to him?”

“He knows the score, I'm confident in that. Besides, every dose of sodium sobrialux increases my tolerance against it, right? Save me some lucidity for when we really need it,” Goldbrick replied. He squinted, trying to see through the one-way glass. “Was this your idea, Miller?”

“Miller has taken on another assignment. Private Ford and myself are here, now.”

“Can't keep the Snowman down for long, and the war keeps going,” Goldbrick said. “You held fast, Ford. I like that, you can be proud of that. Too bad no one will ever hear about it. They don't make medals for Most Secret missions.”

“Thank you, sir, but...” Lucky said. He'd never been good at taking a compliment.

“But what?”

“Printmaster General Bellegarde disseminated a new memo today, Ben,” the Colonel told him. “The Office has been exposed to the world. Our exploits are front page news now.”

“Those dirty Germans.”

“It was us, America,” Lucky interjected. “There's a new party, one that wants to kick Roosevelt out of the White House and pull us out of the war. An Office defector told them everything and they are printing it nationwide. Everyone will know about the Office by the end of the day, on both sides of the ocean.”

“Are you sure I'm the one that got crazy-gassed?”

“It's true, sir,” Lucky told him.

“God damn traitors in our own country,” he growled. The veins in his neck were popping. “String 'em all up, I say.”

“Initial reports indicate it to be a grassroots movement of concerned citizens,” the Colonel explained. “This is the product of democracy: the people decide what is right for them.”

“Horseshit,” Goldbrick grunted. He he leaned against the glass. Blood oozed between his fingers. He tried to wipe it clean, but left Lucky and the Colonel watching him through a bleary red smear. “What's the next mission?”

“Your only concern is to rest and get better,” the Colonel told him.

“Don't you patronize me, Al, I know how tri-carnozone works, what it'll do to me. Where will you be?”

“I will be returning to the Saint George in two days' time. Though we inflicted untold damage on Department Three, our losses are unprecedented. The African Affairs bureau lost eight field officials in the last ten days, in addition to the six men who died during Operation Cobblestone. We are nearly crippled. My mission is to rebuild our bureau and to teach the lessons we have learned to the rest of the Office.”

“You're spreading your people out,” Goldbrick reasoned. “That won't keep them safe. Families stay together.”

“That is why Sinclair insisted you recuperate here, at home, despite superior medical facilities abroad,” the Colonel told him, ignoring the advice. “Miller has been requisitioned by my mother to the Library; Grease is in transit to Oak Ridge, Zoo Base, for physical rehabilitation; Cão, Achilles, Ajax, and Lucky are all still in recovery for their injuries.”

“And you need a new chief of security on your boat,” the general said.

“That will be Dixon's choice,” Halistone told him, “I am not ready to replace people. I...”

The Colonel was interrupted by a tremor that rattled its way through Goldbrick's body.

“It's wearing off, isn't it?” Goldbrick asked.

“We can only risk using limited amounts of sodium sobrialux. It is extremely toxic, and we don't want to damage your nervous system any further as we try to heal you,” the Colonel told him.

“So I got to use my few minutes of sanity wisely.” The general sighed, then turned around and leaned against the mirror. His hospital gown was soaking through with sweat. “You're good with words, Al. Tell me you put my name on something poetic for MacLeod and Bastedo.”

“You were touching, eloquent, and inspiring,” the Colonel assured him. They'd entombed empty caskets in the fort's mausoleum the day before. Rafael Bastedo, Feargus MacLeod, Corbyn Farisi, Paul Benjamin, and Edgard Neff were put to rest with full Office honors. Save for Neff, all of their ceremonies were generously attended, with awe-inspiring tales and belly-aching yarns told about each of them.

Neff's service had been a more solemn affair. The only mourners in attendance were a few of the officials from the African bureau. There was no priest, no coffin, just one fat candle that blew out every time the underground fort's air vents kicked on. No one had any stories about Neff that elicited laughs or tears. He was no man's friend, and he was more distant to women. But everyone had a story about how Edgard Neff had saved their lives in battle. He had always been willing to trade one life for another. No mention of Simon Chouette was made and the small assembly broke up as informally as it had come together. The candle was lit once last time by Miller, but it went out as quickly as before.

While the European and American officials saw their remains, in this case a few personal effects and back-up weapons, interred in the fort, Farisi's real ceremony was to be deferred for three weeks, until his wife graduated the Bellegarde School. Traditionally, a man from the Congo would have been washed and buried in his home village. Best case scenario put his actual body beneath a million tons of south German concrete. It would be up to his wife to decide what to do.

According to Bucket, Zola Majambu was an even bigger hard-ass than Corbyn, who'd organized Ethiopian brigades into crack guerrilla hunters with nothing more than attitude and a rifle. While her husband had waged open war on these Italian insurgents, Zola had hunted them down, one by one. As their forces clashed on the battlefield, their officers died in hidden outposts, far behind their lines. She was called la Mandragora, the Mandrake, and her name meant death to fascist colonizers.

“'Though we may mourn, we must not let it dissuade or distract us from the task ahead,'” Goldbrick recited with a slight stutter. His hands were shaking and his eyes wouldn't focus, but his words were the same as those used by the Colonel after Moore and Nikolas had died nine days and five thousand years back. “A smart man said that, and he was right, there is always more work to do.”

“My father said a great many things, but that is what stuck with me the longest,” the Colonel told him. “Duty before self. The heart must not distract from the battle.”

“I wish I could have met him,” Goldbrick said.

“He was a bitter old codger when he died, well-remembered by those who knew him only by war records and headlines. A cult does not hunt you halfway across the known world and murder you in an alley for being a good person. He took his own words too literally, and pushed everyone away through histrionic ambition. He died bloody and alone.”

“You really know how to cheer a fella up, Al,” Goldbrick groaned. The twitches had traveled from his fingers, up his arms, and were his torso now. His head thumped against the thick glass. “Thank for having my back. And keep your chin up, Lucky. You got a lot to offer the Office, I can tell. Now, if you boys don't mind, I'd like to do this part alone, I understand it isn't pretty.”

A low whimper escaped Goldbrick's lips and he began rocking back and forth as the last sodium sobrialux dissolved in his bloodstream. The crazy gas-induced mania had returned and his whimper became a moan that rose in volume and pitch to become a excruciating, maddened howl. The Colonel ushered Lucky from the observation room and shut the door behind them to offer the afflicted general a modicum of dignity.

“Is there any cure?” Lucky wondered.

“Not today,” Halistone told him. “But when the greatest minds in the free world focus on something, they are like a magnifying glass. Their light will shine through. We will get him back.”

Lucky knew that too many magnifying glasses can start a fire.

“Everyone is gone,” Lucky muttered.

“This is a time of great change for us, Lucky,” the Colonel said. “Never before have we inflicted such damage on Department Three, but now, with our reduced numbers, ‘we are on our heels’ as the general would say, our greatest asset, our ability to operate in secret, to remain mobile and unpredictable, has been taken.”

“So what do we do next?” Lucky asked.

“Our intelligence is spent. Every piece of actionable information we have will have been rendered moot as the Nazis relocate their operations. We must prepare for their counter-attack.”

“I'm ready,” Lucky declared.

“We are not,” the Colonel said. He entered a lift and he racked the lever. It brought them up two floors, its mechanisms so loud that it drowned out any possibility of conversation. When the doors ratcheted open, the smell of diesel exhaust and stale seawater washed over them.

Fort Decimus Burton was not just a barracks and communications center, it was an underground sheltered dock large enough to house and repair four capital ships at once. The whole facility had been built in secret decades before to house a massive smuggling operation, designed by a kidnapped architect for whom the re-purposed base was named. The soaring subterranean harbor was a work of art, from the long iron beams spanning its great curved ceiling to the reinforced brick columns holding everything in place.

A throng of seagulls had braved the intricate canals and locks that led down there and had colonized the high ceiling. They squawked in an aggravating chorus, louder than the thrumming big boat engines and the dozens of repairmen working on a battle-scarred tank transport, removing charred and ragged steel plates.

“The future is beyond me, Lucky,” the Colonel finally said. “My generation started this war. It will take those better than us to end it.”

“I don't know what you want me to do,” Lucky told him. The Colonel's vague words saddled Lucky like iron weights.

“You and Bucket are jumping the pond tomorrow,” he said. “His skills are required at Oak Ridge. You, Official Ford, are going to Canada. I understand that was Lieutenant Benjamin's plan for you.”

“You want me to leave, right now?” Lucky asked, excited and disappointed all at once. Angel was already back aboard the Saint George with Achilles and Rothenberg. They were debriefing, recording their observations regarding the Hrungnir weapon and the defenses deployed in southern Germany. Lucky would not get to see her, or any of them, before he left.

Goldbrick's words rattled around Lucky's head:

'The war keeps going.'

If they stood still, people would keep dying. It didn't matter who was looking over their shoulder or trying to stop them: right was right. The fight must go on. Those who stop to take a breath get left behind or get run down.

The Colonel squeezed Lucky's shoulder and said:

“You are to learn everything you can. Devour knowledge, weaponize it. Learn from your peers, make friends who you would die for, earn trust, teach the next generation of recruits what it means to be an official. Tell them of our victories, and our losses. Teach them to respect the unknown, to transmute fear into intelligent caution, to observe and to adapt. You will be a student for yourself and a teacher to others, and when you return home to the Saint George, you will be a leader and a legend.”

MONDAY MORNING, AUGUST 2, 1943
’LUDUS FAIRBAIRN’ AT THE BELLEGARDE SCHOOL
CAMP X, ONTARIO

The old man came in low, catching Lucky behind the knees with an acrobatic spinning kick. Lucky hit the ground like a sack of crap, knocking the wind right out of him. He wrapped his arms around his freshly-healed ribs, not even noticing the attacker's hand, twisted into a gnarled claw, descending upon his exposed throat.

Then there was nothing.

Lucky opened his eyes to find that claw stopped in mid-air, clenched in his green hand's iron grip. It was like having someone else's arm attached to his body, one that struck like a snake.

“That move usually works,” 'Dangerous Dan' Fairbairn told the circled class, chuckling. He was straddling Lucky, his fingers inches but miles away from plucking Lucky's esophagus out of his neck. The recruits' jaws hung open: none of them had so much as dodged one of Dangerous Dan's attacks before, much less blocked him. And to see the green hand they had whispered about so much in action, it was a lot all at once. Fairbairn's smile cut away in an instant and he glared down at Lucky. He snarled, saying:

“Impressive, but foolish. What did I bloody tell you? You fight to end the fight.”

Lucky realized in that second that he'd committed one of Fairbairn's cardinal sins, but his instructor did not give him a chance to rectify it. Lucky was about to get his rear handed to him by a fifty-eight-year-old Brit. The old man smirked.

With that, Fairbairn shifted in Lucky's grip, ignoring the pressure the alien hand was putting on his bones. He caught Lucky with an open-handed blow to the temple, rocketing stars through his vision with enough velocity to loosen his hold. That was enough for Fairbairn to twist free and begin raining pulled-but-debilitating punches onto Lucky's head, neck, and chest. Lucky couldn't count the blows that fell, but the next thing he knew Fairbairn was kneeling into his chest, crooked fingers half-an-inch from gouging out his eyes.

“What is mercy?” Fairbairn asked the class.

“Hesitation,” they recited.

“What is hubris?”

“Hesitation.”

“What is uncertainty?”

“Hesitation.”

“Mercy is hubris is uncertainty is hesitation,” Fairbairn intoned. He leaned all his weight onto Lucky's sternum and asked in a whisper: “And what is hesitation?”

“Hesitation is death,” Lucky wheezed.

Fairbairn slowly drew his fingers away from Lucky's eye sockets and stood up to crack his back and rub his sore wrist. Purple bruises were already blotting Dangerous Dan's knife-scarred skin, bruises in the shape of fingers and a thumb. He stuck his other hand out. Lucky took it and Farbairn lifted him to his feet.

“Thank you, sir,” Lucky said. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve and brushed the red Ontario dirt off his ass.

“Don't thank me, I hand out arse-kickings for free,” Fairbairn told him. “Even with that hand of yours, you fight sloppy. The best way to thank me is to stay on your bloody feet next time. Get back in your ranks. Crash, you're up.”

Lucky stepped back into the circle as a younger Arab man entered the ring. There was no pushing necessary to make room for Lucky: everyone jostled to get out of his way. He still didn't know if they were scared of him or in awe of him. Every recruit knew his name. They knew he had killed the alpha Vargulf, that he had flown a rogue mission into fascist Spain, that he had secured the Vesuvius Papers. Battle-hardened veterans all, plucked from every front in the war to join the Office, and they did not know what to make of Lucky.

“The old man's stronger than he looks,” Lucky whispered to the hulking commando next to him, trying to regain some dignity after being flipped ass over elbows.

Isaiah Anwanwar was already covered in dirt from his long dreadlocks to his steel-soled boots after Fairbairn had tossed him over his own rear.

“That dog got a bite on 'im,” Anwanwar agreed. He was Ethiopian by way of Jamaica, his skin the color of burled walnut, with a good six inches on Lucky, sporting twisted locs down to his waist that always stank of reefer, and one of the only other recruits able to look Lucky in the eye. He was quick to put a bullet between the eyes of a paper target and even quicker to smile.

In the center of the circle, Qarash yelped as Fairbairn wrenched his arm over so hard that the rest of his body went flipping after it. Another cloud of dust rose around him, but the Arab pirate did not yield. He twisted around, relieving the tension on his arm while he lashed out at Fairbairn's groin with his heel. The old instructor pivoted away, dropped Qarash's arm to catch that extended leg, twisting his ankle to turn him onto his belly. A heavy knee pressed into the small of Qarash's back finally convinced him to tap out. Fairbairn dragged him up by the collar and dusted him off.

“Good attempt at improvisation, Crash,” the old instructor said, mispronouncing Qarash's nickname like always. He turned and addressed the whole group: “Not quick enough for this old bastard, though. Remember, this is gutter fighting. You are not trying to hurt your enemy, you are not trying to win. Anything you do to the man you're fighting that does not fully end his life gives him the opportunity to end yours.”

Makram al Hameli, called Qarash by his former shipmates and now his fellow officials, beamed. That was as close as Fairbairn ever gave to a compliment, and the nineteen-year-old took it.

“All right then, have I mopped the floor with the lot of you, then?” The entire circle of recruits nodded. Each one of them was covered in bruises, scrapes, dry dirt, and bloody noses. “Good, and in record time. Do you know how an old man did this? Instructor Zhu, please tell them.”

A Chinese official pulled herself off a bench and onto a set of wooden crutches and checked her watch. Zhu Wen had lost her leg to Black Dragon poison during an incursion in Burma. She was assigned to the Bellegarde School while she recovered from the lingering effects of the deadly toxin and self-amputation. She was always tired, a diminishing side-effect on the slow-acting antidote, and she sighed before she answered, brushing her short black hair out of her eyes.

“Momentum manipulation,” she answered. She'd been studying English while she healed, as well, though her accent was still very thick. “Body weight techniques.”

“Exactly right, Zhu. I turned your own bodies into weapons against you. Study section four of Scientific Self-Defense tonight, and be prepared to utilize those techniques against each other tomorrow. Bring your knives as well, in case we get ahead of schedule. Dismissed.”

Zhu whistled to get the recruits' attention, then said:

“Because you were defeated so efficiently, you have fifteen minutes extra for meal. Eat up, Chiron will be taking you from mess hall, and he will need your strength. Today is evasion training. You will be running. Take your gear and move out.”

At her word, the recruits broke the circle and gathered their packs, heading south across the sprawling fields of the former farm toward the distant mess hall. Zhu loped along behind them, as nimble on her crutches as they were on their feet.

“I almost had him,” Qarash was telling Anwanwar. He adjusted the red and white shemagh he wore wound around his head and brushed the dirt out of his thin beard. He assured everyone it would grow in thicker, one day. Lucky believed him. It was so thin, all it could possibly do was get thicker.

“Irie, 'tis true,” Anwanwar agreed. He plucked a worn paperback out of his front pocket and tapped Qarash on the head with it. Scientific Self-Defense by William E. Fairbairn. “But if I and I ‘ad read ‘is udda books, I and I would know…”

Anwanwar put on his best British accent: “‘Almost' in life or death is always death.”

“I have fought enough to know this is true,” Qarash replied. He bent over to pick up his pack, a worn rucksack stuffed with maps and after-action reports with a red rug rolled up and strapped to the top. “Save me a seat, I will join you after prayers.”

“I and I always do,” Anwanwar told him.

“I have to hang back for a second, too,” Lucky added.

“Two seats, bredren, ‘eard,” the big man confirmed. He packed away Fairbairn's book and took a red, gold, and green kerchief from his pocket. He brushed the dust from his face, then wound it around his long dreadlocks and tied them into a high bun atop his head.

Qarash took his prayer rug from his pack and headed east, toward the red-banded horizon and the scarlet volcanic stripe bleeding upward from it. He was looking for privacy among a copse of nearby oaks, while Anwanwar strode south, plucking a twisted reefer cigarette from behind his ear and lighting it with a Zippo. He puffed and hummed an upbeat hymn as he ambled toward the main compound. Skunky smoke billowed behind him before the wind whisked it away.

Lucky waited until the others were gone before he approached Fairbairn. The old cop was preparing for his next class. They were a cycle ahead of Lucky's, learning techniques to combat Japanese weapons, so Fairbairn was setting up their lesson. He pulled a long sword out of a duffel bag and gave it a few practice chops.

“Instructor Fairbairn, I have something for you,” Lucky said. The old man sheathed the sword and set it down.

“What's that then?” he asked. He studied Lucky through narrowed, intense eyes. Fairbairn's hair was close-cropped, silver slicked gray with sweat, and his high cheekbones made his hollow face look skull-like.

“I thought Lieutenant Benjamin might have wanted you to have these,” Lucky said. He pulled a canvas-wrapped bundle out of his pack. Fairbairn took it and unrolled it.

“I gave these to him,” Fairbairn told Lucky. He held up Benjamin's gleaming smatchet and stiletto. He examined their edges: Lucky had sharpened and oiled the blades before he'd brought them to him. Fairbairn nicked his thumb on the smatchet's tip, adding: “He was one of my best students. Cocky, though. And over-confidence is...”

“Death,” Lucky recited.

“It is. But I understand he took down more than a few ninjas in his last moments, so he might have been on to something,” Fairbairn told Lucky, smirking. “I'm too long in the tooth for the field, lad. And these are not museum pieces or trophies. They are tools meant to be put to work. They are yours.”

“Are you sure, sir?” Lucky asked.

“Take them, win the war with them,” Fairbairn said. He spun the stiletto blade in his palm, testing its balance. It was perfect, as he'd designed it to be. He flipped the smatchet into the air and caught it by the hardwood grip. Its blade was heavy as a machete's and shaped like a gladiator's short sword. It was Fairbairn's design for the modern combat knife, ideal for chopping right through a Nazi. He held both blades out to Lucky, handles first. “You are going to need everything you can get your hands on.”

Lucky took the knives and rolled them back up into the canvas and packed them away.

“You are a good official, Ford, go get some chow,” Fairbairn said.

“Thank you, sir,” Lucky said.

“Thank me by putting that stiletto in a kraut's neck. Go, eat. Chiron's hunts can last overnight and I will not take it easy on you lot tomorrow.” With that, Fairbairn picked up the Japanese sword and began warming up with it.

Lucky threw his pack over his shoulder and started the long walk to the mess hall. He had been under the impression that Canada was cold, but Ontario in August was a nightmare. The mercury was pushing eighty degrees every day, and black flies swarmed like a furious hailstorm as soon as the sun set.

The trio of HYDRA radio towers dominated the southern horizon. Each stood a thousand feet tall and swayed with the hot summer wind. A quarter-mile away they made a man's arm hair stand at attention. Any closer and a ringing sound grew in the inner ear. The three towers drank in radio broadcasts from the entire hemisphere like they were starving, greedy for every scrap of errant emmission. They were the Office's ears, capable of intercepting, recording, and cracking any Axis transmission. There were a lot: between Department Three, the Japanese Black Dragons, the Italian SIM, their minions infiltrating America, and this new party undermining the Office, the transcribers and codebreakers hardly got any rest.

The Grave was somewhere to the west, in a secret location Lucky had not been informed of yet. In fact, he was only told west in case they needed to mobilize the whole base for a prison break. From what he needed to know, there wasn't much risk of that with the extreme, lethal security measures the warden had implemented.

Lucky walked in silence for a while, thinking about the past month. About the dead and those yet to die. About those maimed, inside and out.

It was quiet for a moment. All he could hear was his own tinnitus as he trudged along.

After a while, staccato rifle fire drifted from far to the east, distracting him from the memories of Burke, Grease, MacLeod, Jonesy, Neff, and so many more.

Beyond the oaks, the greater Camp X trained OSS and SOE agents, unaware of the Most Secret facility just a few miles away. Even after the Office had been exposed, men still trained to fight men in the old ways. It seemed quaint, in the face of things like Hrungnir and the Vargulf, but it was all most people could think to do.

Hell, Lucky himself carried a cross and a knife. In the face of what was going on, it was quaint.

The Western Hemisphere branch of the Office was up to its neck in Nazi-funded militias whose ranks were growing with each weekly propaganda blast. The Nazis were winning the war of words using America's own free press.

Of course the Office denied causing the Vesuvius eruption, but that only made them look more guilty. The American public, scared of losing its sons to foreign war, would rather blame the erasure of Naples on a secret Allied cabal than accept that the Nazis were capable of wiping out thousands in an instant on a whim.

Lucky shifted his pack on his shoulder: it was stuffed to the brim with textbooks and technical manuals, military histories and after-action reports. The hardback corner of a particularly thick examination of glacial cosmology and the philosophies behind Aryan ‘science’ dug into his shoulder blade and, when he paused to adjust the bag, Qarash caught up to him.

“Trust me today, Ford,” Qarash gasped, out of breath from running through the open field to catch up with Lucky, “Get the halal meal. Falafel, tabbouleh with grilled flatbreads, hummus. You would love it, I promise.”

“Chicken and beans has done me fine so far,” Lucky told him.

“Is that a Vargulf-puncher's diet?” Qarash asked. Lucky smirked.

“About all I could taste that day was my own heart in my throat,” Lucky told him. “I just got...”

“Lucky,” Qarash blurted. The word usually grated on Lucky's insides, but not this time.

“Yeah... lucky. But you don't have to. You know how to knock their blocks off on purpose, now. No luck needed.”

“Khara, that is mental. I would have lost it.”

Lucky thought for a long moment before he answered. The Colonel had sent him here for a reason.

“It is okay to be afraid,” Lucky said. “Fear is what kept me alive. Fear is the first step in identifying a problem, and once identified, you can neutralize it.”

“Still, a Vargulf,” Qarash said.

“A Vargulf is just a problem with fewer solutions, but you're going to learn them all, and you'll be ready.”

“Like what?”

“Silver, you know that one. That will light them right up. Regular bullets and shrapnel won't do anything against their fur, but they don't have fur everywhere,” Lucky said.

“Eyes, mouth...”

“Right on the first try! Small targets, but they still do the job.”

“So you expect me to shoot one of them through the eye?” Qarash asked.

“Practice and training, buddy, practice and training,” Lucky told him. The young pirate smiled.

“I bet you could squeeze the breath out of one with that hand,” Qarash said, pointing at Lucky's green left hand.

“Maybe,” Lucky said, “Though I trust silver a bit more.”

Lucky flexed his green hand. All the hair had fallen out and the skin was smooth, supple yet immune to damage. Needles would no longer pierce it and it never seemed to cramp or tire. The doctors at Decimus hadn't had the equipment to run all the tests they wanted, and Lucky had elected to go to training rather than get locked up in the labs at Oak Ridge.

Grease hadn't had the option. Doctor Pietrzak's treatments were temporary, and he'd need the expertise concentrated at Oak Ridge to heal properly. He’d called once, saying that it was comfortable enough there, though he was never alone and wasn't allowed to leave one hospital wing except for supervised walks of the base's grounds.

Still, the School's doctors at the training hospital had taken a look at Lucky's arm, and their best guess was that the green fluid that had oozed into it was a super-concentrate of the photosynthetic bacteria that infested the gremlins. It had turned his arm into a light-fueled chemical energy reactor, thus far limitless in endurance and healing capability.

Or that's what the quacks theorized.

“Do we get to choose our bureau assignments?” Qarash asked suddenly, interrupting Lucky's train of thought.

“Good officials are needed everywhere these days,” Lucky replied. “But you can make a request.”

“Yeah okay,” he said. “And you're going back to the Saint George after this?”

“That's the plan,” Lucky said.

“Neat, okay, good,” Qarash mumbled. He didn't say anything else for the rest of their long walk, but he never drifted from Lucky's side.

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Copyright © 2024 Daniel Baldwin. All rights reserved.

Written and edited by Daniel Baldwin.