Ian Hocking - Red Star Falling

Saskia frowned. This business card was her Ego unit. The text about the meeting had been projected onto its surface in an attempt to manipulate Pasha. In that, the card had succeeded.

Saskia had long known that her mission would end in the valley of the Eiger, Grindelwald. The ‘JF’ before ‘railway’ stood for ‘Jungfraujoch’. The sons of Adolf Guyer-Zeller, a Swiss entrepreneur, were continuing work on a tourist railway that passed through the Eiger on its way to the ridge between the mountains of the Mönch and the Jungfrau. Saskia knew that the Russian anarchist community had connections with the company. Its tunnels were often used for all manner of contraband, including weaponry and expropriations.

‘Was there anything else with this card?’ she asked. ‘A photograph?’

‘No.’

Outside, a Bébé pulled up. Saskia went to the window. When Gaus saw her, he touched the brim of his hat. He was wearing goggles and driving gauntlets.

‘Pasha,’ she said, turning back to him. ‘The telegram you sent earlier this evening was intercepted. Whether or not you mentioned the money, its presence was clear to somebody. The person who killed Jenner didn’t want him to reach the embassy. It is likely that the same person wants to kill you, but has not made his attempt yet. He is probably watching this hotel.’

Pasha gave her a sickly smile. ‘Perhaps he is the man in the vehicle downstairs.’

‘That man is with me. Will you come with us?’

‘Mr Jenner…’ he began.

‘There is nothing you can do for him now.’

‘Is it still your intention to kill the outlaw?’

‘Pasha, please. I need someone I can trust.’

He smiled. ‘That does not say much for the man driving the automobile.’

Saskia folded her arms and waited. Pasha had helped smuggle her from Russia, and he had been engaged in the pursuit of Soso when she found him in the hotel. She was sure he would agree to help her.

‘I fell asleep after dinner,’ said Pasha, looking at his palms. ‘I dreamed of a man on a stone balcony. Below him were his people, all dressed in grey and arranged in lines. There must have been millions. There was a great red star above him. He was delivering a monologue. The solitude of each citizen overwhelmed me. It was the saddest dream I’d ever had. I wonder if Mr Jenner was dead by then.’

Saskia crouched before him and took his hands.

‘We’ll have somebody take care of Mr Jenner. At this moment, however, we cannot let anyone else know. Certainly no one at the embassy. It has been compromised. The local police may be able to help, but we cannot trust them. They might hinder us. Gather your things, Pasha. Hurry.’

‘Very good,’ he said.

Saskia left the room and put her boots next to the door, as though for cleaning, and moved silently down the stairs to the ground floor. She emerged on an L-junction. Ahead, there was a frosted glass door leading to a lounge. She walked confidently down the corridor and followed it around to the right. The concierge was seated in his booth. He was reading a newspaper.

Morning, Toaster , she thought, sending a neural transmission to her Ego unit. Wake up, and try to increase production from my salivary glands.

‘Saskia,’ came the reply. ‘I am surprised to receive a transmission from you.’

Saskia frowned. She continued her silent steps. She was almost at the booth.

Since when do you refer to me as Saskia?

‘My apologies, Agent Singular. For the last few days, your chip was overwritten by a digital entity from a parallel universe. Our manner of communication was somewhat less formal.’

The bitch is back.

‘“Toaster” gave that away.’

Saskia had called her Ego unit ‘Toaster’ ever since an earlier prototype had malfunctioned in the rucksack of her colleague, an Agent Singular codenamed Echo. That unit had vented its capacitor and reached three hundred degrees Celsius in five seconds. Echo’s dance as he desperately fought to shrug off the rucksack had delighted the other members of the Recruitment Clade.

Echo had not made it through training. A plasma weapon had sliced him in half during an exercise in Krakow.

Reduce the confidence interval on your humour detector. That should help you avoid false positives.

‘Funny.’

Reduce them further. Now, activate a sleeper neurotoxin in my saliva.

‘Activating.’

The concierge looked up. At first, he smiled, but his smile faded as her impassive expression overwhelmed him. He seemed to realise that something was wrong.

‘Madam, can I help you?’

Saskia leaned forward and took his tie. She pulled his lips onto hers. There was an initial yielding as the man accepted the kiss, but this was followed by a slight recoil.

He tastes the death in me , she thought.

It took three seconds for her saliva to penetrate his skin, and two more before the sleep agonist was carried across his blood-brain barrier. It triggered the suprachiasmatic nucleus on his brain midline, spread activation to surrounding structures, and dropped him into a sleep across his newspaper. As the rapid onset was designed to inhibit the encoding of recent episodic memory, it was unlikely he would remember her.

Saskia lifted his telephone, dialled the Count’s room, and said, ‘We’re going.’

She replaced the receiver and moved behind the desk. At length, she located Pasha’s passport and a receipt signed by Mr Jenner. She passed these to Pasha, who stood with his case in one hand and her boots in the other. He was looking at the concierge.

‘Did you hurt him?’

Saskia said nothing. She merely shrugged and put on her boots. The weaponised neurotoxins were decaying. In a few minutes, the concierge would be sleeping normally.

It occurred to Saskia that Pasha had not enquired further about her recovery. Could it be that Saskia Lacuna had revealed herself as a time traveller with advanced medical technologies? The Agents Intemporal like Gaus were convincible, but that unusual capacity was a criterion for their selection. Civilians like Pasha would always take it for a lie, a joke, or a delusion.

‘When I came into your room just now,’ Saskia said, ‘I wanted to say “Buh”. That’s what a ghost says in Germany.’

‘I know,’ said Pasha. He looked at her significantly. ‘Perhaps you don’t remember, but when I held you on the way to the surgery, I said: “Deliver me, O Lord, from my enemies; In You I take shelter. O Lord, revive me, for Your name’s sake.”’

Saskia did not know how he intended this remark. However, if he accepted her presence without the need for a lie about hereditary cataleptic trances, that would do.

Pasha placed his key on its hook behind the concierge and they walked out. Outside, in the rain, the engine of the Bébé puttered. Pasha exchanged a curt nod with Gaus, then put his briefcase into the back. Saskia inspected the space around the steering column.

‘What did you do with Mr Jenner?’ she asked.

‘You might have warned me,’ said Gaus. As Pasha climbed alongside him, he continued. ‘I left him behind a tree in the park, covered by a blanket. It was the best I could do.’

‘My thanks,’ said Pasha, tightly. ‘I am Nakhimov, an acquaintance of Ms Tucholsky.’

‘Hans Gausewitz. Everyone calls me Gaus.’

They shook hands.

Gaus offered to help Saskia up. She ignored him and climbed into the back. Before they moved away, Gaus turned to her and said, ‘He was carrying a gun.’

‘Give it to me.’

‘I thought it would be better if I kept it.’

Saskia said nothing. Gaus exchanged a glance with Pasha. Gaus’s expression was companionable; Pasha’s remained impassive. With a sigh, Gaus reached into his pocket and pulled out a small gun. Saskia took it. It was only a .40, but dangerous enough.