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  He’d gotten with the military on it, since they had places for things like that. Spouses of military men with problems were, at times, given that kind of treatment. He didn't really qualify, but General Sayner was willing to work with him on it, so there was a place for the stripper, even if they weren’t married. A really high end thing, for special operations.

  “I already set up a place for you to go. If you want to. It won’t be easy, since… Well, the people running it are basically used to working with spies and spooks. If you mess up, they will put a bullet in your head before letting you run off to tell all the secrets, but they have a nearly hundred percent success rate.” Mainly because they could do things that weren’t strictly legal. He hadn’t been told about all of it. That was on purpose, since if he knew, it was possible that he might not let it be done.

  Then, Gina wasn’t his sweetie, so he also might let her be electrocuted into behaving, or water boarded into compliance. The idea didn’t bug him that much, he noticed.

  She smiled, suddenly, as if that was a big deal or something. Which it was, of course.

  “Then I can come back here? I… Kind of like you. I’m not kidding. I know that I can be a pain in the ass, but it will pay off for you. I swear.”

  He wasn’t certain of that, or that she was going to want that kind of thing after what happened to her, but he nodded, smiling and not responding, taking a bite of ravioli first.

  “Sure. If you want, after you’re done. We can go in the morning, I think. I have to get with some people first. Gary, Agent Herret and Sayner.” They’d been in touch, off and on over the last few days.

  The General had something for him to do, it was clear. Wet work, even though the old man had been very careful not to mention it at all. He was going to have to get to a range for a while first, since going in without refreshing his skills was insane. Not that he couldn’t review mentally. His fighting in Stena was probably going to help a bit, since he was paranoid now, used to being in the thick of it again. Even though to the world around him he should have been soft and spoiled by his easy life.

  They ate the meal in a nice, conversational manner. At about four he called everyone, working out that Gary wanted him for the day after the next, if possible, which would mean calling in a plow for the parking lot there at the garage. Not that people would be coming in, but they might, so it was up to them to make it possible. Agent Herret wanted a face to face meet, which would be soon and General Sayner had a package coming for him. That would be by special courier. They weren’t going to meet in person, since the man was working out of D.C.

  That evening after dinner, and another shower, Gina settled in next to him on the sofa. Cuddling in tightly, as if trying to drink in his body heat. He let her do that, even if it was going to be frustrating later. It was actually going to be better not to get involved with her yet, if at all. Still, it was nice in a way. Close and comfortable.

  Finally, as they watched the news she sighed.

  “Well, this cut down the terror attacks a bit. Not in Florida, but we did better, up here. I bet that ends now.”

  “Yeah. They had half a week to get ready for the next big thing. So probably a bomb, if they’re up on how to make those and had the materials around. My guess is that it will be a week or two on that, since they can’t just walk away from things too easily yet. Really, if they took out a bridge or two, that would work really well. People already feel trapped. It’s symbolic in most places, but I bet that would work.” They probably wouldn’t do that. Terrorists tended to focus on death.

  Almost like it was some kind of ritual magic thing, instead of just scaring people.

  Then, trying to guess at things only worked if he was right. That was one of the big mistakes that sane people made all the time in real life. They assumed that everyone else was going to think the same way they did. For instance, he figured that jihadists, if the attacks were coming from that direction at all, would be in a hurry to make the next attack to keep their momentum up.

  The problem with that was that he knew, first hand, that people from the Middle East didn’t even think of time in the same way that people from the States did. They’d be just as happy with an attack coming twenty years later, if that’s what it took. To Americans it would seem disjointed and weak, taking that long. People in the M.E. would see it as being directly related and relevant.

  Not that they wouldn’t, or couldn’t, make a big push in the short run. It was just that they could work in a very different way at the same time. That meant his own people kept thinking that the other side had given up, gone away and were acting peacefully while they plotted, ready to hit you later.

  The idea that it only counted as terror if people died was a different thing as well. Americans would feel scared if empty shopping malls were blown up, for instance. That made no sense at all to the jihadists. If no one died, they would have just shrugged that kind of thing off.

  Not that George was going to go and explain all of that to them. It wasn’t a big secret, but they just couldn’t work out what was going on, which might give him, and therefore his side, an edge.

  When a knock came on his door, he figured that it would be one of the neighbors asking for a cup of sugar. He had some to share, actually, if it were something like that. In a bin, in the other room, but he could get it for them. The man outside was dressed in tan however, and carrying a box. A large one.

  It didn’t take a genius to work out that the General had come through with his special delivery. Opening the door, the other man didn't even bother to smile, just looking around. As if he didn’t stand out, wearing tan gear that seemed military, on a cold and snowy winters day in Springfield. Thankfully it was dark and not snowing.

  “George Elder?”

  “Yes. Wait…” He had to go and get his I.D. or at least he did it, the other man standing there in the freezing cold. He wasn’t invited in, but the man did look at the photo on the driver’s license, as Gina peeked at who was there, standing back as all the heat left the room. That got the large, decently heavy, box to be handed over.

  “Delivered then. Have a good night.”

  That was polite really, given everything. George nodded.

  “You too. Drive safe. The roads are dangerous right now.” He meant the cold, slush and ice, but it was clear the other man took that as a warning of other things.

  “Understood.” Then he spun in place and walked away quickly.

  That let him get the door shut at any rate.

  The stripper, or possibly ex-stripper, looked at him happily, like there might be candy in the box. That or kinky sex toys or presents. She wasn’t wrong, given the shape of the thing. The weight as well.

  Shrugging, he opened the thing in the front room, kneeling on the floor.

  “You can’t see all of this. Don’t talk about any of it. Ever.” She was already likely suspicious of what he was getting up to. Probably guessing that he was into role playing or was planning strange sex things using code words. If so, she was about to be greatly disappointed, he was willing to bet. What he had in the box wasn’t going to be that much fun. Not for her.

  Inside the box there were a lot of goodies. Packed in tightly and carefully. It explained the weight, since there were three weapons in the thing. As well as a sealed package that actually had a confidential code on the front. It didn’t say top secret or anything, because it couldn’t be, if it were taken out of a secured area. It would be his briefing notes and orders, he didn’t doubt. He’d seen similar things before. The rifles were standard, though one was set up for a very fine hard wired remote firing option. The other just had a scope. They both needed to be snapped in and set before he got out into the field. The other weapon was a handgun. That was decent, but just a nine millimeter in matte black. There was ammunition for everything, which was probably half the weight, over all.

  Inside there were several badges and papers. Documents that indicated a whole lot about him that wasn’t true. Gin
a looked at everything, then started to nod.

  “What the fuck? That one says that you’re with the FBI? It looks real to me. Worn even, not new. Also, the DOJ, whatever the hell that is… This says that you work with… What is that?” She pointed at the shiny badge, as if she hadn’t seen the same basic thing on television a thousand times.

  “Chicago PD.”

  He had to check the paperwork, but by the time Gina worked out the next obvious question, he knew the answer for himself.

  “Isn’t it like, really illegal to fake being any of those things?”

  “Yep. That’s why they’re all real. If anyone checks, I’m in the data base and there will be people who can find me in the records. One of the perks of working with the government on things like this. They don’t mind bending a few rules to help their own people out. Anyway, like I said, if you tell anyone about this, things won’t go well. Probably for both of us. Not to put too fine of a point on it, but I mean that we’ll be killed. For real.” That was just a fact.

  Honestly, he wasn’t totally certain that he’d be left alive after the work was finished. A great way to make certain no one found out about the extra-legal operations was to bury all the evidence in a very deep hole. It also occurred to him that getting people like him, ones that could do the work and take out cops or FBI men, would be a great way to fake up a bunch of terror attacks.

  He familiarized himself with everything first, before moving to the sealed envelope.

  “Hey, you should be out of the room for this part. The less you know, the better off you’ll be later.” The government might not even kill her if she didn't have that kind of information. Then again, he should have hidden the whole thing from her, given how unreliable she really was. That part had been a mistake. Worse, it had been about him wanting to impress her, so he could get laid.

  A thing he wasn’t even trying for, consciously.

  Not that his hormones weren’t going to betray him anyway. They were bastards that way.

  She just got up and left, looking at him over her shoulder.

  “All this spy shit is really hot. Just so you know that.” She grinned, but got into the bedroom and shut the door tightly.

  Then he read for a bit. The operation was kind of telling, and certainly not about taking out law enforcement. Not unless one of them was secretly a mullah, who had a foot-long gray beard and a mosque filled with potential fighters. The data was pretty solid, covering his likely movements, the people that he tended to have around him and even some tips as to how to best take the man out. The hit was to take place inside the United States at least. In Michigan, so it was within driving distance. If George started right then, he could, possibly, make it there that night, do the work the next day and be back before Gary opened the garage.

  Packing things up, after memorizing it all for an hour, he started a fire, burning the sensitive bits in a pot from the kitchen.

  After all, if he screwed up, no one was going to claim him later. Having incriminating evidence would probably just get a lot of other people killed, to cover it all up. As the smoke cleared, he tapped on the bedroom door.

  Before it could open, he blinked.

  Hard.

  Chapter nine

  For once, when George came-to, fighting, he was pretty certain that it was for real. That was mainly down to the stabbing pain in his middle. Ignoring that, he whipped his own right hand out as the fur clad and bearded man tried for him again. There were two bodies on the ground, near the bush that he’d been sleeping under. Both of them were Tollan. They had been at any rate. Now they were worm food, or would be as soon as their bodies cooled enough to be tempting to the insects in the area.

  The blade bit deep, taking the other, slightly larger, man in the eyes. Both of them, which made him bellow in pain and grab his face. It was a mistake, since the next two moves sliced at the sides of the large and pale man’s neck. Killing him, slowly.

  George moved back, his left hand on his side, the blood flowing well from it. He’d had worse wounds before, in practice, but it was deep and bad, considering he didn't have any gear to handle that kind of thing on him. Thankfully the dead men did. Well, one of them was dying, bleeding out. He was stabbed in the throat a few times. That had to be done, because letting the man recover and lash out, even flailing around blind, was stupid.

  There might be more than just three men out there after all.

  Sighing, he found that each of the hairy men had a small leather bag with them. There were herbs inside each one of them, along with some bits of rag, to be used as simple bandages. He packed the wound with some dried leaves, hoping that it wasn’t poisonous. Then he tied the wrappings around his middle. All of them. It seemed to work, well enough. The only problem was that his heart started to pound after a bit.

  “Because that was their stash of uppers, not wound packing material. Great.” It actually was, more or less. He felt more awake, which was needed at the moment. His side burned, since it was kind of clear that the junk he’d put on his bloody injury didn’t kill pain at all. Taking their arrows, since those were at a premium for the time being, he limped off into the mid-morning sun. It wasn’t hot, but he hadn’t eaten in a while, so felt sick. The blood loss wasn’t helping with that, he knew.

  He had water, thankfully, so sipped at that as he moved almost directly north. It wasn’t comfortable, and he had to do it slowly and carefully, just in case there were other men out looking for him. More to the point, looking for anyone. If these were forward guards, then it would be an issue later, when they didn’t show back up.

  If it were him running things that would get a company sent out to see what was going on. At least fifty men, if not closer to two hundred. That might not happen, but he couldn’t swear to it. Worse, they’d all be moving faster than he was now. The wound on his side ached, burned and stabbed at him as he walked. Making the whole thing so much fun to do. Stopping meant death, so he did it, working to be quick.

  Failing at it, for the most part.

  The biggest thing at the moment was keeping himself from sitting and resting too much. The followers wouldn’t be running at him, after all. For all they knew he was a thousand men or more, coming directly at them. That would lead anyone toward caution. He was in a forest, which made that even more important. They couldn’t see him, so wouldn’t know he was stumbling away alone.

  The same went the other way, of course. Then, if it was only a few people, they could move faster, but would be more cautious. If it were hundreds, then he’d hear them coming. The problem with that was getting away in time. It pretty much meant that he had to get as much distance as he could, before that happened.

  So, he kept moving as long as he could, including under the moonlight. It wasn’t enough to let him see, so over the course of eight very dark hours he probably traveled two or three slow and agonizing miles. When morning came, he had to stop by a small river. That was so he could clean the wound and wash it well. That part was something he knew from his other military training.

  The people of Stena were clean enough, but they didn’t directly know about germs. To them infection just happened if you got wounded, part of the time. George knew that scrubbing up would help. Unless it was all just him being insane, in which case it probably wouldn’t hurt. It did, in the moment, the cold water stinging his slowly oozing side.

  He was hot, from moving constantly for so long as well as the wound. It was bright red around the edges, but he managed to clean out the bits of green leaves that had been put in to stop the worst of the bleeding. It wasn’t that bad looking, honestly. Then, stab wounds didn’t look bad. There was just so much internal damage that you could die from it. Everyone knew that.

  The washing took half an hour, with the clumsy rewrapping taking even longer. Then the slow stumble north started again. He did his best, or so he thought, but didn’t hear anything behind him for a long time. George just kept going north. Doing that for days, moving slower all the time.


  Finally, after a long time, feeling like he couldn’t go on, the Tollan helpfully gave him some incentive. That was all about catching up with him, thousands of men marching through the woods. At least they were walking. They were in a formation, which he saw from a hill, the men being about six miles behind him. They moved much faster than he was doing.

  “Well. That’s less than fair, you mother fuckers.”

  He hadn’t eaten in so long it felt like he couldn’t move at all. His arms and legs were heavy, his mind numb as George started to walk away as fast as he could. Jogging after a bit. There was nothing left inside of him, but he really hated dying. That meant going on, being pushed constantly by the people behind him.

  They moved faster than he did, but finally stopped for the night, camping. At least fires started, making waves of smoke rise above the trees in the twilight. It was tempting to do that himself. Except that, George knew, if he failed to use the time, the morning would come and they’d be on top of him. So, he spent half the night, stumbling forward in a jog, until he was suddenly hit in the head.

  The man who’d done it called out, getting ready to hit him again as he sank to the ground.

  “I got one!” The words were familiar, being in the language of Stena. That was English, but no one there called it that. The Tollan spoke something very different, so George answered, trying not to sound weak.

  “No, you didn’t. You got one of your own people. George Elder. I was trying to stall the Tollan.” He expected a blow to fall then, the man making him be quiet, since he was clearly an enemy spy, even if he wasn’t.

  Instead the other man, who seemed young, started to pull him up.

  “Sorry there, then! Clubbing you like that. I can’t really see out here.”

  No one could, most likely, so he smiled.