‘Carter!’ yelled Jam, and embraced the sweating man. They clasped hands, patting one another on the back. Slater grinned gormlessly, and Nicky smiled warmly. ‘Any chance of a party, my man?’
‘You’re joking, aren’t you? I remember the last one!’
‘It wasn’t my fault Slater got thrown from the bedroom window!’
‘
You
threw him!’
‘Hey, just our little tiff! It’s good to see you again.’
‘Come on in,’ said Carter, forcing another grin through his mild depression. ‘I’m ready for some breakfast, if I can entice three of my old friends to join me?’
‘Slater is hungry,’ rumbled Slater, kneeling and wrestling with Samson who began to growl and bark, play-fighting with the large man who pinned the Labrador to the ground and tickled the fur between his pads.
‘I seem to remember that you’re always hungry, Slater.’
‘Aye. I’m a growing lad.’
‘You are forty-six years old, Slater.’
‘Aye. Like I said, still growing.’
‘You don’t often pay me a visit, Jam. I assume there is a reason?’ Carter’s eyes were hooded, his mouth a grim line. Recent events had removed much of his humour, and this unsummoned gathering felt somehow ominous.
‘Oh yes,’ said Jam softly. He lit a cigarette, rested his head back and rubbed at tired eyes. ‘Something bad is going down, old friend. Have you logged on with your ECube? Checked out the coded info on your escapades in Germany?’
Carter shook his head. ‘No, not yet, I don’t like bad reviews.’
‘Something doesn’t add up. It doesn’t fit. Spiral seem to have no answers on how German Special Forces were infiltrated. And Feuchter - our friendly Spiral_H QIII coordinator - has disappeared and is presumed dead. They pulled the fried corpse of his niece - and the bodies of
all
the guests from the party - from the wreckage after the fire had been brought under control. Dog meat. But, mysteriously, no sign of Mr Feuchter himself. Strange, eh, considering you put a bullet in the cunt? I do find it disconcerting that our faithful employers have no answers for these questions - after all, their surveillance and technology budgets must exceed NASA’s.’
Carter shrugged. ‘They’re not God. They can’t know everything.’
‘You’re dead right,’ grunted Slater, busy picking pieces of bacon rind from his remaining teeth. ‘Go on, Jam, tell him about the Squads.’
Jam sighed, and Carter caught the resignation in the man. Strange, for sure, because they had survived some tough campaigns together. They had crossed the desert during the Battle of Cairo7, performed TankerRuns after a designer plague - the Grey Death - had wiped out 58 million people and devastated the economies, and of course populations, of Europe, North Africa and North and South America, and fought several pitched battles against the terrorist resurgence after the Anti-NBC Laws were passed.
Jam’s face was stern. ‘A DemolSquad, number 14, has been wiped out.’
‘I know,’ said Carter softly. ‘But things like this
can
happen. It is a probability in our line of work. Men and women
die.
Life’s a bitch, yeah?’
‘Yes, but what’s even worse is that Spiral have not published the information. I found out by hacking Cuban Special Circumstances computers, stumbled across the information by accident. So, me and Nicky set out to find out a few things, keep a few tabs on several of our other brother Squads, including members of the Core. Two more DemolSquads are missing, 77 and S-4.’
‘The sniper squad? Rex, Scope and Amber?’
‘Hmm,’ nodded Jam, blowing the room full of smoke. ‘Coincidence? I thought to myself. Then we get a real bad job in London; the sort that makes you regret ever even thinking about signing that fucking pink form by which you gave up your freedom. And guess what...’
‘Set-up?’
‘Yeah.’ Jam finished his cigarette, and immediately lit another. ‘They were waiting for us. I went in on foot to scope ahead; bastards almost tagged me. Six of them. Very professional: well armed, hard as fuck, intelligent, swift movers.’
‘And you also think I was set up?’ said Carter softly.
‘Did occur to me, old buddy.’
Carter scratched at his stubble, and accepted a cigarette from Nicky. ‘It’s funny ... I had a call from Nats this morning. She’s on her way up here. She sounded a little panicked.’
‘Be careful with her,’ said Slater. ‘She’s one of the TacSquads, a Tactical Officer. Old School. Crafty as a fucking bitch.’
‘I’ve known her for years. We’re good friends...’
Jam shrugged and reached across the table, patting Carter’s hand. ‘Natasha is a bird—’ Nicky gasped ... ‘No offence meant, love. You know, Carter, a bit of moist cunt and you always did think with your dick. Trust no fucker, my friend. Not Nats. Not even us. There are DemolSquads dead, others missing. You’ve been popped at, and we sure as fuck had a lot of high-velocity shots spat our way. Why do you think we came up here in the van? For fucking fun? Our ECubes have been compromised ... and if ECubes are the pinnacle of encrypted communication, then nothing is safe. You can’t fucking
text
me your descramble code and hope it doesn’t get compromised when the shit finally hits the very large fan ... Carter, Spiral know something and they’re not telling... you sure
this
place is not bugged?’
‘I’m sure. I have my own - shall we say
custom -
scanning equipment.’
‘Good lad.’
‘I still don’t believe Spiral have anything sinister to add to this. After all, they pay our wages. They employ us. I’m sure they have their special reasons for withholding information - I bet there are people on the job right now.’
‘Maybe,’ said Jam. ‘But then, we’re employed because we think. Because we trust nobody. Because we do the job ourselves. Don’t have blind faith, Carter old buddy. There will be people in Spiral just as corruptible as in the real world ... as you found out for yourself. Listen, Spiral_H is assembling a strike force to shut down Spiral_Q. Things are getting way out of hand, or so it would appear... the apparent betrayal by Feuchter when you had your little lovers’ tiff in Germany is being kept quiet so Spiral_Q can be shut down with extreme force and minimum fuss. Don’t want to give the fuckers due warning, eh, lad?’
Carter rubbed at his stubble, then his tired eyes. ‘Feuchter. That fucker got everything he deserved.’
There was a long, uneasy pause. Outside, snow began to fall once more, small flakes falling straight down to earth through the absence of any breeze. Jam shivered, then grinned over at Nicky. ‘You be keeping my bed warm tonight?’ He winked broadly, a cheeky grin on his face.
‘Only if you pay me, Jam.’
‘This can be arranged.’
‘I’ll bite it off if you even try and wave that fucking maggot near me.’
‘Well, I’ll look forward to it. But enough of this banter - come on, team, we’re fed and have delivered our warning. Time to move on—’
‘Where to now?’ asked Carter as the group stood, leaving a pile of dirty dishes.
‘Can’t say,’ smiled Jam. ‘Classified. Y’know how it is. Remember, don’t use your ECube - not yet; I think ours are fucked so it doesn’t matter for us. Listen, Carter, I have a bad feeling about this one. A real bad feeling.’
‘Your bad feelings always turned out to be sheep instead of rogue enemy soldiers when we were training in the mountains,’ said Carter.
Jam shrugged. ‘Just advice, brother. Take it or leave it.’
‘Let’s swap descramble codes. I have a feeling that one day soon we will need secure communication. And ECubes are surely letting us down now, my friend.’
Jam nodded, and they memorised the information. Then Nicky led the Squad down the stairs, Samson jumping at their heels with the apparent motive of murder, and out into the snow and towards the van. They thanked Carter for breakfast and, with Jam’s grinning face mouthing the words, ‘See ya, Butcher’ from the rattling van window, in seconds through thick exhaust fames they disappeared through the snow.
Carter’s face went hard at the name. He spat in the snow, and said, ‘Come on, Sam, back to solitary confinement.’
‘You earned it, Butcher,’
said Kade.
‘Fuck you,’ snapped Carter.
He sat, gazing out at the snow. He toyed with the ECube, but did not activate it. The surface remained black and dead and he tossed it thoughtfully from one hand to the other, as you would with a soft ball.
Samson lay snoring beside his chair, and a low fire burned, crackling occasionally, the glow warming the room and contrasting cosily with the snowy wilderness outside the windows.
Carter stared at the mountains, tracing their contours. On his lap sat a small A4 pad, and his fingers held a small knife-sharpened pencil. He dropped the ECube to the floor, and then chewed the end of the pencil thoughtfully for a moment. He wrote:
Problem: DemolSquads missing/ murdered
Problem: Feuchter ... and Maria’s involvement?
Problem: German Special Forces in on the betrayal in some way/ percentage not known/ Bribed? Or other incentive??
Question: Who was the real target? Carter? Or party guests? Or both?
Probable that Carter a target in lieu of other Squads being wiped out. But why? And by whom?
Feuchter- expert in computer processor development - The QIII Proto, developed under licence for Spiral at specially built complexes around the world, namely stations Spiral_H, Spiral_M and Spiral_Q. The QIII processor: military chip and surrounding hardware destined for implementation over the next five years. Highly classified; many Spiral members even unaware of its existence.
Who is the enemy?
Spiral? Unlikely.
And where is Feuchter? How did he get out before the explosion wiped out Castle Schwalenberg?
Carter stared at the scribbled words on the page. Spiral knew that he was alive. He had signed in, reported on events in Germany. They had okayed his return to Scotland and told him to await further communication. If they wanted him dead, he was sure as fuck he would already
be
dead. Unless it was somebody
within
Spiral operating independently, or
unless
they were awaiting a certain turn of events ... like Jam arriving? Or Natasha making an appearance? Had Jam been tracked?
No. He shook his head. Spiral stood for everything that was good; they might have their own seemingly strange reasons, but everything was carried out with precision. There were no mistakes ... not usually...
Carter followed the premise: if Spiral
did
want the Demolition Squads dead, why the elaborate set-ups? Why not just gather them together and murder them in one huge gas chamber? And why could they possibly want their top operatives dead in the first place? Why spend billions of pounds in recruitment, training, faking deaths -only to wipe them out?
Something did not fit.
And where did the QIII Proto fit into this jigsaw? This puzzle? Feuchter was in charge of development, programming and refinement of the military processor; Carter knew very little about the project because it was tightly under wraps, but Natasha had worked some long hours in the early QIII development stages before being reassigned to babysitting the DemolSquads as a Tactical Officer and seeing to their every whim and need. A year ago, when they had shared much more than just sex, she had trusted Carter implicitly; she would talk in the long warm comfortable hours after love-making, her features softened by candlelight, lips ruby and wet; she had spoken, almost aimlessly, feeding his desire for technological knowledge ... she would tell him about the advanced chip architecture, about the implementation of ProbEqs which were being drafted into CoreCalcs and the CoreClock. And despite his expertise with computing systems the jargon had flown way, way above Carter’s head. He still remembered Natasha’s bitterness at being pulled from the project, but she had finally taken it with good grace when assigned as a TacSquad officer.
And now. Now?
Carter wrote:
Demolition Squads in trouble? ALL the DemolSquads?
Assassination/ how to assassinate the world’s most professional operatives? DemolSquads are perfectly trained killers; the elite of the elite; each chosen for specific skills. DemolSquads are assassins; demolition experts.
How to assassinate the assassins?
And why?
ECubes no longer secure; in Germany the ECube died, only reactivating afterwards, as if affected by some sort of power drain????? Somebody has access to Spiral mainframes????? Internal betrayals?
Feuchter.
Everything revolves around Feuchter; he pulled gun on Carter: therefore he was willing to throw away his position within Spiral. Who would do that? It is rare somebody wants to leave Spiral ... leave the ultimate organisation - leave the embrace of such a world-active company, who strive for peace, who genuinely set out to fuck the bad guys ? ? ? ?
Spiral were being betrayed. Set up.
Who better than the star military-processor development team? Feuchter, obviously ... but he is more of a puppet; he cannot be the one pulling the strings.
So, who else?
And Natasha ... Natasha knew Feuchter; Nats set up the protection gig in the first place. Sent Carter to his own assassination. How perfect.