or is that roasting pig, perhaps...?
Here's the first two chapters, originally posted on TSR.
Enjoy!
The room was nearly a thousand feet underneath the city of Prague, but somehow the unseasonably cold weather still managed to make its presence felt. At one end of a long hardwood table, Bob sat slumped tiredly in his chair, fighting off sleep and prodding sporadically at the laptop keyboard in front of him. Every now and again, the speakers uttered a tinny whine and a sarcastic laugh, and the whole system shut down; with a groan, Bob hit the restart key and buried his head in his hands, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes.
"Any luck, Jim?"
Adam Atlantian stuck his head around the doorframe, checking the shadows on both sides before coming into the room. The edge of his trademark .38 pistol shone menacingly from underneath his jacket, open even with the chill in the room; several more bulges indicated other weapons stored around his person. Imp followed close on his heels, checking both sides of the door and the space above it. Adam had the grace to look guilty.
"You didn't check the above the door, did you?" Imp said with a wry grin, noting his expression. Adam shook his head mutely, and the underboss laughed tiredly. "It'll be the death of you, you know; one day you're not going to have time to get that Snubnose out fast enough, and someone's going to pop you in the back of the head." She cuffed him lightly on the shoulder and turned back to Bob. "So? Anything?"
With a grimace, the technician brushed his dull brown hair out of his eyes, pushing his glasses up to rub the bridge of his nose. "Not even a scent of an opening. They must be working completely blind, because they've shut down every line I can get a foothold in: internet, telephone, radio, there's silence on every channel." He laughed ruefully, fishing a battered stick of chewing gum out of his coat pocket. "If I know Nate, he'll be punching holes in the walls without any intel to go on. It's our one advantage, as far as I can see; as long as they're forced to keep the comm blanket on, we should be able to keep disappearing."
Imp nodded as if she'd heard, but her attention was on sound of running footsteps coming down the corridor. With a curt gesture, she motioned Adam to one side of the door and took the other, pulling out a long silenced pistol and crouching down, semi-hidden in the gloom. There was a tense moment as the steps grew closer; Bob reached under the table for his weapon, but the door exploded inward before he could get a good grip on it; for a second, the figure was only a blur, then resolved itself into the shape of IceCreamMan, completely winded with sweat running down his face. Bob gave a sigh of relief, and set his gun back against the table. Can't imagine I'd've even got the chance to use it, he thought ashamedly. Gotta work on that.
"Where's Melnikov?" IceCreamMan said desperately, struggling to reload a depleted uzi. "We've got to get the team together, quickly."
"She's pointing a pistol at the back of your head," Bob said dryly, starting to pack the computer away. "I'd be more careful about checking your area, she kneecapped the last recruit who missed a corner search." IceCreamMan blanched and swung around quickly, nearly hitting Adam in the face.
"I don't see him getting the 'you'll be dead in two weeks' speech," Adam complained, holstering his various pistols. "Two out of three ain't bad, anyway." He stopped indignantly as the whole room burst out laughing; even IceCreamMan felt the tension ease. "Well, it isn't!" he finished, but with a grin.
"What's going on upstairs?" Imp said finally, struggling to keep a straight face. "Have the scouts reported in yet? They're overdue at least an hour, but I thought with the streets in this town..." she trailed off, appalled at the look on IceCreamMan's face. "They can't have found us already? Christ, Guisseppe, we spent weeks throwing them off in the Ukraine! Azarov promised he'd lay down at least a month's worth of false trails, he wouldn't lie; I'd trust the man with my life, if I trusted anyone."
ICM shrugged helplessly, discarding his spent cartridges and checking his safety catch. "I don't know what happened, Boss, but Jimmy and Kyril are struggling to keep a dozen commandos from getting to the access tunnels. If we hadn't set up the machine-gun nest at corner two, you'd have Snoink and Grif emptying a clip into your skull right now; I doubt they'd have missed checking the door." He spat angrily into the dust. "I should get back up there; Jimmy's not his best with long range stuff, and I don't think Kyril's ever used a Gatling under pressure before. Should we pull back? I think we can keep them there another few minutes, but we're just sitting ducks once they start chucking grenades. And they will, if I know Grif."
Imp nodded, tying her long black hair into a functional ponytail to get it out of her face. "Blow the corner and use the sinkholes to get to the surface," she ordered, checking to see that Bob had finished his packing. "The three of us will meet you at the Karlovy Lazne, 5 Novotneho Lavka Street, near the fountain. I've had enough of being chased around the continent, we're heading back. The Commandos can enjoy themselves searching through this shell, there's nothing here; we'll radio Mirislav and cancel the operation, he'll just have to supply to someone else."
"The Don isn't going to like it," ICM said sadly, shaking his head. "This could've been the start of a beautiful relationship, and all that. Plus he was offering a very reasonable price."
Imp finished checked her arsenal and closed her backpack with a resounding snap. "He'll like six dead ops even less," she said shortly. "Now get up there and set the charges, and for God's sake give yourself enough time to get out. We don't need another Johannesburg incident." Her face crumpled for a second, before hardening itself again. "None of us do."
"You got it, boss," ICM said, unwontedly diffident. "We'll be fine, just get yourselves clear. Nothing's going to go wrong, we've got plenty of time." He turned to leave, then turned back. "5 Novotneho Lavka, yeah?"
Imp nodded, and ICM vanished around the corner with a hurried salute. There was an awkward silence.
"Come on, let's get." Adam hit a hidden switch on the table and a portion of the back wall sank silently into the ground, revealing a cramped steel elevator with a shaft stretching out of sight up toward the waiting city. He shouldered his pack and secured himself in one corner, punching in the access code to start the lift running. "Clock's ticking, guys, let's scram before the fireworks, yeah?"
"No time like the present," muttered Bob morosely, feeling his pack weighing all to heavily on his already overtired back. He squashed his protesting body into the opposite corner to make space for Imp, who cast a last look at the bare room and followed. There was a clanking noise and the grinding of gears even deeper underground, and the elevator started its long journey upwards.
Below, the stone wall section slid seamlessly back into place, leaving only a few discarded uzi shells to say that anyone had ever been there.
Barely ahead of the explosions, MetalHead, Arvandor and IceCreamMan scaled the ancient water sinkholes of Prague leading up to the sewers. Thin trickles of muddy water coursed down the sides, soaking the ropes and hands of the exhausted ops.
"Keep yerself goin', Kyril, we're nearly to the top," MetalHead called down as Arvy paused to suck in great gasping breaths. "Another couple o' hundred and we're up tae solid ground." He glanced up to IceCreamMan, who was pulling himself over the edge just above his head. "Solid sewage, at any rate."
Avoiding the worst of the muck, the three men hoisted themselves up and onto the narrow ledge running along the underground waterway. Rats scurried for cover as IceCreamMan shone his flashlight around, illuminating the dark stone walls and iron grills of the Prague drains; here and there, close metal pipes let in a glimpse of the world above.
"Christ Almighty!" Metalhead swore, checking the hang of the spiked steel knuckles at his belt. "Smells like they haven't cleaned in here since that good saviour himself was born."
Arvy sniggered. "It's a sewer, you dolt. They do the cleaning, not get it." His bright, oddly white eyes glinted like something feral in the gloom. "Do they not have sewers back in Ireland?"
"These weren't sewers to start off with, y'idiot," the huge bouncer shot back, "they were escape tunnels for the resistance during the Ruskie occupation." He snorted indignantly, throwing shadow punches at the walls. "An' an Irishman's forgotten more about fightin' underground than you'll've ever learned," he added with a glower.
"And about sewers too, I'll wager," came the predictable response.
"For God's sake, shut your gobs, the both of you!" snarled IceCreamMan, bending low over the hole they had just exited. "Listen; can you hear that?"
As if on cue, two of the climbing ropes twisted, and then pulled taut, straining against their bolts. MetalHead shook his head sadly.
"Surely they cannae be that stupid," he said wonderingly, pulling out a long knife. "Shall I cut it?" A sudden grin spread across his face. "We could always leave it 'till the beggers have made it halfway, o'course. That'd make a pleasent surprise."
IceCreamMan smiled distractedly, studying the hole. "No," he said finally, "no, I think something a little more decisive is in order. I've had just about enough of being chased from country to country; time to put a real warning strike across." Behind him, Arvandor chuckled appreciatively.
"A frag or a conker?" he said happily, unhooking two grenades from his belt. "Ten seconds ought to be just about right, and we've got both in stock!"
IceCreamMan paused, then shrugged. "We'll go with both; you can never be too careful, and I intend to take any chance I get of hitting that slimy bastard. I doubt he'll be climbing up himself, mind - not his style - but we might get lucky." He took the long explosive tube from Arvy's hand and gazed calculatingly down the hole. "On three."
MetalHead turned and walked slowly away as the two grenadiers let their weapons disappear down into the abandoned base. Punching half-heartedly at the walls, he slumped down against a stone buttress and listened to the explosion echoing off the walls, mingling with faint screams from the shaft below. IceCreamMan was gazing with grim satisfaction in the darkness, but Arvy had turned to watch the Irishman with a concerned look on his face.
"What's wrong, Jimmy?" he said quietly, no trace of his usual sarcasm present. "Not happy? I'd have thought after Joburg, you'd be as ready as any of us to go after the two of them. Even more than some. We might have only hit grunts down there, but there's always a chance."
The big Dubliner shook his head slowly. "Ach, it's not that; when we find him, I'll be the first to clap my hands 'round his neck. But I want to see it in his eyes!" He clambered to his feet and hammered at the wall, angrily. "I want him to know what he's done!" The rage slowly died away, to be replaced by a tired looking calm. "I need to know that."
"Jimmy," Arvy started, but was cut short by a shout. IceCreamMan had left his post and was hurrying toward them, refastening his pack as he came.
"Come on, boys, no time," he ordered sharply as he came level with them. "There's some bloody fishy wizardry cooking down there, and I don't want to be standing here when it hits. Run!"
-----
Halfway across the city, their three companions were wandering in the winding night streets of Prague; square leading onto square, alleyways twisting around to meet themselves and ten thousand looming baroque buildings had served to get them hellishly lost.
Why the hell didn't I pack a street map? Bob was thinking angrily. Why the hell didn't I pack a bigger gun? Adam was thinking, equally angrily. Imp wasn't thinking anything, just standing at the corner, trying to guess which way led to the rendezvous, and which went straight to the mouth of a SPEW-aided Hell. I like the smell of the west road better, she thought finally. Helluva time to follow my nose.
"Come on," was all she said out loud, motioning the other two to follow her; keeping low and close to the shadows, they obeyed. Bob felt his hands sweating around his shotgun, and even Adam looked completely on edge; the streetlights played tricks with their eyes, flickering gently here and there or popping on and off with a loud 'crack'.
"It's opening up, we've made it to the city centre!" Bob felt his voice break with relief; it sounded high and strange in his ears. Adam shook his head warningly.
"Keep still, we're not out of trouble yet; there was easily enough of them in the base to have set a trap in the open. You can bet your life Grif wouldn't travel without backup."
"We might be doing just that," murmured Imp, peering carefully around the final corner before the wide, cobbled square. Amazingly, a hint of amusement had crept back into her voice. "We might be doing just that," she repeated thoughtfully, waving Adam to cover her exit.
The square remained mercifully silent the trio crept toward the fountain in the centre; only the noise of a few die-hard clubbers disturbed the early morning hush. With a groan of relief, Bob plunked himself down against the stone basin and gazed up at the serene angel, peacefully pouring water from a wide jug. What I'd give for that kind of peace, he thought wearily, what I wouldn't give...
You could've had it, his brain replied, scornfully. You knew exactly what you were setting yourself up the for moment you stepped through her door, the moment you recognized what the two of them were. You could've just smiled and stepped back out, but you choose this for yourself. You choose it.
I didn't choose for it to end up like this, Bob thought back to himself, sadly. God, not for any of us.
Adam checked the lock on his weapon and started patrolling in small circles, but Imp gave up scanning the area and sat down on the ground beside Bob with an impatient growl. In the pre-dawn light, all three of them looked haggard: animals on the run for one day too many. With a sigh of resignation, Imp set a pair of pistols on the ground and began splashing water from the fountain over her face; she looks how I feel, Bob thought, absolutely shattered.
"Gabriela," he said quietly, trying not to fall asleep, "when we get back, you've got to get some proper rest. You've been pushing yourself way too hard ever since we skipped Paris one step ahead of the gendarmerie; it's time you had an undisturbed night, for once."
Imp laughed incredulously. "Now you're telling me how to run my crew? We've been scampering from place to place with commandos breathing down our necks at every turn, and you want me to take a nap?" She laughed again, genuinely amused. "What, do I shoot them in my sleep now?"
"He's right," Adam put in stoutly. He had come to stand by her feet, casting strange shadows on the water behind them. "This isn't just about the field, either, is it? Out here you might need to push yourself, but everybody's seen you up and awake at all hours even when we're back at HQ. It's got to stop, Melnikov, or you're going to snap; you haven't got a good night sleep since Johannesburg." Imp's face darkened and she started to rise, but Adam held up his hands to forestall her. "We all know what happened, but it's just that: happened. You've got to put it out of your head, get on with the job at hand." He look down at her with infinite sadness. "That's always the way, isn't it? Don't think, just get on with the job. You're forced into it so many times, eventually you'll choose it."
The underboss's face was a mask of fury, but what she would have said - or done - wasn't to be known; there was a harsh whine of bullets, and Adam's left shoulder exploded in a cloud of blood. He dropped to the ground behind the fountain with a roar of anger, trying to aim and stop the blood at the same time.
"We'll continue this discussion later," Imp said coldly, edging around the stone siding for a better view. "Get yourself patched up and take the right; Bob, stay down. If anything comes over the top of that wall, turn it into a hunk of meat." Her eyes held his terrified gaze for a second; they were absolute ice. "Tenderized meat."
For a heartbeat, there was silence; then, accompanied by a howl of pain from the street opposite the fountain, the air became red-hot with gunfire. Adam could smell powder and cordite as bullets smashed home around them, hammering great chunks out of the stonework; despite the pain in his shoulder, he grinned. This is what it's all about, he thought, this is why I'm here: this is the Job.
There was an insane whoop in the air above him, and a body hurtled headfirst over the lip of the fountain, crashing down a few feet away. Ignoring the protesting wrench of pain from his arm muscles, Adam reached across just in time to stop Bob's shaking hands from emptying his shotgun into the figure's head. "That's Guisseppe," he commented brightly, feeling a great joy welling up in him. "I know it's hard, but we try not to shoot him." Letting go the shaking technician, he resighted himself carefully, waiting for an enemy figure to come into view.
IceCreamMan pulled himself shakily to his knees and crawled into relative safety beside Bob, rubbing his bruised head and checking over his uzi. "Having fun?" he said unsteadily, popping his head over the top to send a stream of bullets into the darkness. "You don't look entirely up for this, if I may say so."
"Unlike some people," Bob managed to articulate, "I don't need to live every moment on the edge to remember I'm alive." Down low beside him, Adam laughed, not entirely sanely; Bob winced. "I know I'm alive, now can we stop trying to prove me wrong?!" Taking advantage of a particularly heavy barrage, he pulled ICM down and asked, "what happened to the other two? Weren't they with you?"
"Kyril's crouched just inside a doorframe over that way, as you'd have seen if you weren't so courageously challenged," the big man responded casually, "but I'm not quite sure where Jimmy went. I think he was leading a pack of them off so he could get them at close quarters." The hail of bullets lessened, and IceCreamMan resumed spraying the area. "More his style, close combat," he reflected meditatively, grunting in some satisfaction at a shout of pain from further down the street. "Not nearly so useful as a good semi-automatic, in my humble opinion: doesn't have quite the same range of expression."
There was a sudden ominous silence. Save for the howling of police sirens in the distance, the road was absolutely still. Screwing up his courage, Bob peered over the edge with the rest of them. Across the square, Arvandor crouched in the lee of a massive stone doorframe, looking wary and holding a grenade poised to cock and throw. His gaze met Imp's, and he shrugged. Don't ask me, he seemed to be saying, I haven't even gotten a shot off yet. Bob opened his mouth to ask the obvious question, but the words died in his mouth.
There was a hideous shriek from the far end of the road, and the four behind the fountain threw themselves flat on the ground. Trembling like a leaf, hands over his face, Bob felt bits of debris from the rocket raining down around him; most of the fountain was gone, and water was rushing up through a huge rent in the cobbled square.
"Oh, children," came an amused, high voice from behind the rocket launcher. "Oh children, you seem to have lost your hiding place." Imp's eyes were wide with barely contained rage, and Adam was searching desperately through the cloud of dust and water droplets for a target to hit. "It would be such a great shame to waste another rocket on you babies," Grif continued, "but I'm perfectly willing to make that sacrifice. Do we surrender like good little boys and girls, or do I turn you into so much blood and goo all over these pretty little streets?"
There was a pregnant pause; the four ops looked at each other silently. With a shrug, Adam pulled back the hammer on his pistol. "Fuck this," he said quietly. Bob could see that his hands were shaking.
"What a shame." Grif's high voice was laced with a giggle. "I thought we might be saying goodbye today. But don't worry, I won't miss you." His voice dropped 'till it was barely audible. "We had enough fun with the last one."
There was another roar and a whoosh over their heads, and the whole street seemed to shake. Might as well fire my gun, at least once, Bob thought desperately. That's what I brought it for, after all. Trying his best to hold it steady, he stood up and raised it level, fully expecting to be hit by another rocket-blast.
It never came.
Uncomprehending, he looked down the street: far away, SPEW Commandos were pulling back, trying to cover their retreat with a bursts of machine-gun fire. Unsure, Bob raised his shotgun, only to have it pulled out of his hand for the second time that night.
"Save it for later," said Phoenix with a hard smile, pushing him toward the waiting Cabassi helicopter, still furiously spitting bullets and small rockets at the retreating commandos. "God knows we'll have death a-plenty on our hands, soon enough. Save it for later."
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