Gavin Smith: Special Purposes: First Strike Weapon

It doesn’t matter what you think of the place, you have a job to do, a decision to make, he thought.

“Why doesn’t the government do anything about this?” Farm Boy asked, appalled.

“Free enterprise, dude,” Eugene answered in English. “And you should probably try and get used to speaking English.”

“We don’t all speak English,” Vadim told the infiltrator. Eugene stared at him before turning back to the road, shaking his head, as the minibus drove into a cloud of steam venting from a manhole cover.

“‘Do something’?” Gulag asked. “This place looks like paradise.”

“This is hell,” Mongol muttered, his voice full of superstitious dread. Vadim glanced over at Skull and the Fräulein. He looked impassive, she looked tense.

The minibus came to a halt at a red light. Eugene was glancing around. A blue car, emblazoned with the letters NYPD and topped with a light, pulled up next to them. Suddenly Vadim’s feeling of conspicuousness came flooding back as one of the uniformed police officers in the car looked up them. Eugene smiled back at them. Vadim could see suspicion written all over the jowly police officer’s face. Gulag and New Boy, on the opposite side of the bus from the police car, had inched their Stechkins out of their holsters and were screwing suppressors into the barrels. Skull had his knife in his hand.

“Take it easy, everyone,” Eugene managed through his fixed smile. “You, the pretty chick,” he said to Princess, and then when she didn’t answer: “Does she speak English?” he asked Vadim.

“Very well,” Princess answered.

“Give them a smile,” Eugene suggested.

“Why don’t you go and fuck yourself?” Princess counter-suggested, practising her English.

“Woah! Hostile!” Eugene muttered, still grinning at the police officer. The choked-off caterwaul of the car’s siren almost made Vadim jump. The minibus was bathed in a hellish red light as the police car pulled away from them.

“The light is green,” Vadim pointed out.

TWO WALLS OF the apartment were floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the city’s lights. The apartment was huge, split level, open plan, with little more in it than a long, L-shaped sofa and some sort of entertainment centre that flashed and glittered like the cockpit of a fighter plane. A solitary picture hung on the whitewashed wall, two fields of subdued colour bisecting the canvas.

“How many people live here?” Vadim asked, crossing to the window and looking out. They were high above the street now, in a different world.

“Just me,” Eugene said, sounding confused. Vadim had expected the answer, but it still managed to surprise him.

“And the State pays for all this?” Farm Boy asked, awe and disgust warring in his voice. Vadim could understand how the big Georgian felt: awe and disgust were pretty much all he’d felt since arriving in America.

“Where’s all your furniture?” Gulag asked.

“It’s called minimalism, man,” Eugene told him and went to slap Gulag on the shoulder.

“Don’t touch me,” Gulag said and Eugene froze, arm still raised. “If this was my place, I would fill it with a lot of things.”

“You’ve got to have style, you get me?” Eugene asked. Vadim was looking at a large, roughly square building, arched windows, a pillared frontage. It looked like a train station built by the decadent gods of Greek mythology. There was a broad skyscraper behind it, an ugly concrete block that ruined his appreciation of the station by reminding him of the brutal state architecture of the USSR.

He turned back to see the Fräulein organising the rest of the squad to thoroughly check through their gear. Mongol was kneeling over one of the bulky suitcases, shaking his head.

“No med kit,” he said. Gulag glanced over at his friend, and then turned to look at Vadim. It was clear to the captain that if the squad decided they’d had enough, there wasn’t a lot he could do about it over here. It would be very easy for them to defect right now.

“What’s the mission?” Vadim asked Eugene. The spy looked around at the rest of the squad.

“Em… I think it’s best that we speak alone.” He’d actually lowered his voice to answer. Princess was closest to him.

“Princess,” Vadim said quietly. Eugene screamed as she seized him, put him in a painful hold and showed him her knife. Most of the squad had stopped working, though New Boy had drawn his pistol and moved to the door. Vadim liked that.

“I have a number of misgivings, comrade Eugene,” Vadim said as he started to pace. “The first is you don’t seem very bright…” Eugene opened his mouth to protest. Princess hissed, almost sensuously, but the threat was apparent. He closed his mouth again. “For example, what possible reason could I have for hiding information from my people, and why would I risk losing something in translation? My second misgiving is that you seem to enjoy being American just a little too much…”

“I’m a loyal—” he started, giving a frightened yelp as Princess drew blood.

“…which makes me wonder if you’ve been compromised,” Vadim continued. “And thirdly, you’re annoying, and we’re not renowned for our patience. So when any of us asks a question, I would like an answer. Do we have an understanding?”

Eugene opened his mouth to say something.

“Think about what you’re going to say,” the Fräulein warned him. In the end, he just nodded. He was pale and covered in sweat. Princess let him go.

“What is the mission?” Vadim asked again.

“I think you guys are here for the duration,” Eugene said, shakily lighting a cigarette. Vadim wondered how this man had the nerve to be a spy. “I’m awaiting further orders, but initially it’s very simple. They want you to pick up something from a locker in Grand Central Station.”

Vadim pointed at the building far below.

“That station?” he asked. Eugene nodded, nervously sucking on the cigarette.

“Why can’t you do it?” Gulag growled before standing up and taking Eugene’s cigarette from him.

“That’s what I asked,” Eugene said fumbling for another cigarette. “Apparently there’s a threat to the package, so they want you guys there and loaded for bear.”

“Loaded for bear?” Farm Boy asked, frowning.

“Heavily armed,” Vadim said. A building a little distance away had caught his attention: a silver, needle-like tower. It looked like something from a pre-war German Expressionist film he had seen at an illegal screening as a teenager. A city peopled by robots.

“Why weren’t we given our body armour?” the Fräulein demanded.

“Or a medical kit?” Mongol added. Eugene stared at them.

“How would I possibly know that?”

“Why do they want us so heavily armed?” Skull asked quietly.

“I told you: a threat,” Eugene protested. “Look, I think there will be more instructions with the package. You may be going straight on, catching a train to go and blow up Washington, or something. How would I know? This is what compartmentalisation is all about, comprende ?”

Vadim stared at the spy, who look terrified. Gulag reached over, took Eugene’s packet of cigarettes from his pocket and the second lit one from his unresisting hand. He offered it to Farm Boy, who shook his head. Gulag shrugged and started smoking both cigarettes.

Vadim didn’t like any of this: the weapons, the missing equipment, the sparse brief, the trail of dead KGB they had left in Afghanistan. This stank of a setup.

“I’m sorry Eugene, but I don’t believe you,” Vadim said. “We’re going to have to torture you until you tell us what the real plan is.”