The Archer

  highlights encouragingly when he strolled up.

  “Nikolaus Faust,” the shorter man said softly, his accent laced heavily with

  German, “Class Ten.” This brought a low whistle from Thiago and the others looked at Faust apprehensively. Class Tens, given only the most basic of training, were

  relatively harmless when in the field. Physically speaking. They were

  communications specialists, usually relegated to the O.R.G. hubs scattered across the globe. His presence here with them was slightly more frightening than he himself

  was.

  Bergeron was the first to offer his hand to the man. “They brought you out of

  one of the Cellars for this?” he asked in disbelief, referring to the communications hubs that none of them had ever actually seen.

  “That’s right,” Nikolaus responded curtly in the efficient manner all

  Germans seemed to possess. “You have been given your own comm officer. We are

  completely off the radar now. Not even Black Ops, yes?”

  “Invisible Ops,” Brandt Everett suggested, attempting humor as Thiago’s

  mind reeled at the implications of having their own communications specialist on

  board. They reported to no one now and they had no one to call in for back up or

  support. They were completely and utterly on their own. Invisible Ops, indeed. As far as Thiago knew, this was unprecedented.

  “How did you get behind the counter?” Carl Travers asked Bennett curiously

  as Thiago stared at the tabletop morosely. Bergeron snickered and the sound drew

  Thiago’s attention to him once more.

  “He got the owner tied up in the back office,” the Cajun said with a laugh.

  “Aye,” Bennett said gleefully. “Crabby old bugger. I’ve half a mind to leave

  him there.”

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  “He bite like a gator, than one. Shoulda shot him like I told you,” Bergeron

  scolded.

  “How do you two know each other?” Thiago asked. Their seemingly friendly

  relationship bothered Thiago to no end. He didn’t like being out of a loop. And he didn’t like Class One operatives who knew each other. They weren’t supposed to

  have any contact with their peers.

  “We’ve had a few dealings,” Bennett answered cryptically. Bergeron

  responded with a ‘pffft’ noise.

  “Dealings?” he echoed in a perfect imitation of Bennett’s accent, barking a

  laugh at the end. “We’re all on the same side now, Shawn. No harm letting ’em know our dirty little secrets, non?” Bergeron winked at Travers and Thiago found himself growing even more concerned. “We were given the same assignment a few years

  back, during that whole purging mess, you remember?” the younger man explained,

  waiting until everyone nodded before continuing.

  The purging mess Bergeron referred to had indeed been chaotic, with agents

  assigned the same targets and some agents targeted by mistake. Eventually, O.R.G., affectionately called the Organization by its agents, discovered it was a computer virus, but not before nine O.R.G. agents lost their lives to friendly fire. Thiago was almost one of them. It was now referred to as the Purge, capitalization implied with the hushed way agents murmured the word.

  “Mais, we started catching wind of each other as we tailed our mark, who it turned out was another covert, and finally we both decide that the other, he must be either a rival or a bodyguard.”

  “In a shocking example of how our training has brainwashed us,” Bennett

  said, taking up the narrative with a smile. “We both hatched the same plan and ended up attempting to kill one another in frighteningly similar ways. Thankfully the virus was uncovered and put right before we could follow through, but barely.”

  “I had him in my sights when I got the message.”

  “Bollocks,” Bennett responded grumpily. “You were dead to rights.”

  “Pfffft.”

  “How many times have I told you– ”

  “Yeah yeah yeah,” Bergeron said with a dismissive wave. “Anyways,” he

  went on pointedly, “when I came in here to feel the place out last week who do I find but Shawn, sitting in the corner there, looking all canaille and out of place. We had us une petite mêlée. Anyway! We got the safe house all set up already, thanks to that.

  Nikolaus, you got everything you need?”

  “In my car,” Faust answered readily.

  “Let’s get going then, shall we?” Everett suggested as he stood and towered

  over the rest of them.

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  “Laissez les bons temps rouler,” Bergeron drawled with a grin.

  Thiago still wasn’t very satisfied with the apparent history of two of his new

  companions as they gathered their few belongings and headed for their various modes of transportation, but he decided the information they had offered would have to do for now.

  II.

  THREE days after their initial meeting, Carl Travers thought he might like to kill each one of these blokes in their sleep while on watch and slink away into the

  horizon. He’d be done with this whole disaster waiting to happen and no one would ever be the wiser.

  It was an idle thought, though, caused by the fact that they were all going a

  little stir crazy. The safe house Remy Bergeron mentioned upon their first meeting was simply a small cabin in the middle of nowhere. There were four bedrooms, each roughly the size of a matchbox, each with submarine-style bunks. They had drawn

  straws for their beds. Carl had wound up sharing a room with Bergeron, the crazy

  Cajun who talked too fast.

  Being cooped up with five other very active trained agents was not helping

  Carl’s sanity. He was pretty sure he wasn’t the only one.

  That big Australian bastard with the explosives wouldn’t stop blowing up the

  tree stumps behind the cabin– or anything else he could get a hold of, for that matter.

  Carl was fairly certain it wasn’t the captivity driving Brandt Everett insane, though.

  He seemed generally unstable regardless of the circumstances.

  For the past two mornings, Carl awoke to the sounds of small explosions

  followed by maniacal laughter and whoops of delight. Carl would jump up, gun at the ready, and hit his head on the top bunk without fail. It was a bit disconcerting, to say the least. And painful.

  Carl was also slightly befuddled by the general tone of the group. He’d

  expected an atmosphere of reticence and suspicion, something befitting some of the most highly trained black ops agents in the world. But this had to be the most open, trusting, ridiculously good-natured group of spooks in the history of covert

  operations. With the possible exception of Thiago, who was still slightly suspicious of everyone and generally grouchy, they seemed to be trying to accept that they were on the same side of this particular fight and become chummy.

  Carl had never been chummy with anyone. He hadn’t personally given a

  flying pigmy fuck about any of these blokes at first, either; he hadn’t expected this assignment to last long enough to need to care. Now it was three days later, and he found himself not only wanting to kill each of them, but actually enjoying their

  company at the same time. It was an odd mixture of feelings and Carl wasn’t

  accustomed to the latter, but he didn’t really care about that. What he did care about

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  Abigail Roux

  was the fact that not a fucking thing had been done yet, and despite his notorious sniper’s patience, he was ready to get started. You couldn’t finish something until you got started.

  He allowed himself to grumble this particular observation as h
e prowled

  back and forth in front of the fireplace, thinking he would simply implode if he didn’t start to feel useful soon. The others sat in various stages of relaxation, ranging from Everett leaning forward on the edge of his seat looking ready to set fire to anything that moved, to Bergeron sprawled along the sofa with his eyes closed. Carl glared at the younger man as he made a pass by the stone fireplace and snorted like a bull

  preparing to charge.

  “Calm down, lad,” Bennett said in his soothingly gruff voice.

  “Don’t ‘lad’ me,” Carl grumbled testily. “What are we waiting for?” he

  demanded

  “Weapons. Communications. Mobility. Intelligence– ”

  “Remy.”

  Bennett’s stern admonition cut off Bergeron’s droning monologue. The

  younger man never even opened his eyes as he spoke, simply ticking off his words

  with long, slender fingers as he reclined.

  Shawn Bennett’s piercing green eyes pinned Carl with a hard stare, and Carl

  stopped his pacing short as Bennett began to speak calmly. “We don’t know one

  another, Mr. Travers,” he said in a low, soothing voice, the type usually reserved for small children and irate animals. “We have no idea how we’ll operate as a team, or even if we’ll operate as a team. We have very little information to go on at the moment regarding our target, and even if we knew exactly where he was or what he

  was doing, going after him in the state of disarray in which we find ourselves at the moment would be suicidal.”

  Bennett looked at them each carefully as he spoke, as if he were making sure

  that his words were sinking in, and Carl’s ire began to noticeably ebb. His shoulders slumped and he sat down heavily on the hearth as Bennett continued speaking.

  “The next two weeks should be considered a crash course for us all in how to

  work as a team. I know the other Classes are more accustomed to working in groups, Mr. Travers, but I for one have never done something even remotely similar to this mission.”

  “Is that why we were told to meet way the fuck out here?” Everett asked

  curiously.

  “If by ‘here’ you mean in the middle of North Dakota where no one can hear

  you and your explosives,” Bennett drawled with a smirk, “then yes, I would assume so. We’re free to train out here without much chance of showing up on anyone’s

  radar.”

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  “How much more do you know about this situation than the rest of us do?”

  Thiago asked, leaning forward and unconsciously mimicking Everett’s stance.

  Bennett looked at him blankly for several tense moments before responding.

  “Well that’s difficult to say, isn’t it?” he finally answered with infuriating

  calm.

  Thiago harrumphed unhappily and leaned back into his chair. Bennett looked

  back up at Carl and continued as if he had never been interrupted.

  “Now this Archer bloke isn’t going anywhere in two weeks, and in all

  honesty, we all know whatever damage he can do has long since been put under way.

  And all that’s not to mention the fact that our mobile hub isn’t even up yet.”

  “Uhhh….”

  All eyes turned to settle on the German, Nikolaus Faust, who shifted

  uncomfortably under their collective gaze and cleared his throat. “The hub is up, actually,” he said in clipped, precise tones. “Prepared for a test run whenever you are all ready.”

  Bergeron sat up suddenly and looked at the smaller man with interest. Carl

  watched him curiously and alarm bells began to sound in his head. Why, he wasn’t

  quite sure yet. Something about the meerkat-like way the man moved. “What sort of test?” Bergeron asked with what Carl thought was undue enthusiasm.

  Carl had always heard Class One agents were generally fucked in the head.

  Whether this condition was due to the stress of their job or to a trait with which most of them were born, Carl didn’t know, but he hoped the rumors were exaggerated.

  He’d never had to deal with any of them for any extended period of time. Only one or two hour stints in the past, and then he’d been concentrating on his job, not his companions. If these three turned out to be half as mad as they were rumored to be, Carl could see himself having a hard time of it. Not to mention that Remy Bergeron seemed to be a bit of a livewire and Thiago the mysterious Argentinean was a sulky bastard. He had yet to find a fault with Shawn Bennett, unless you considered the ability to intimidate five men– all of whom were either bigger, younger, or both– a fault.

  “Well, the easiest thing to do would be to take the radios out into the woods

  and, you know, test them,” Faust said in response to Bergeron’s query with apparent discomfort.

  Carl snorted in amusement. Of course it was that simple. Just test them.

  “That’s it? Like they’re fucking walkie talkies or some shit?” Everett asked

  incredulously.

  “High tech doesn’t always mean complicated,” Faust replied defensively.

  “Well, it’s something,” Carl said in exasperation. “Let’s get to it.”

  “Now?” Faust asked in surprise.

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  “Why not? Have we got anything better to do?” Carl asked snappishly.

  “Well,” the German responded uncertainly, looking at Bennett first as if for

  permission to answer. “No, I suppose not.”

  “Good,” Bergeron said as he unfolded himself gracefully from the couch and

  stood, stretching his arms to the ceiling. “This couch is chafing my ass end.”

  He winked at Carl as if to say he understood the need to get up and do

  something, anything, and Carl found himself reconsidering his opinion of the younger man. Being a livewire wasn’t always a bad thing, especially if you could contain it well.

  If the young Cajun felt half as antsy as Carl did, then he had an impressive

  amount of self-control. Perhaps that was why the kid was a field operative and Carl was a weapons specialist. In the field, they had to remain calm under any

  circumstances. Carl’s duties allowed a little more temper to enter the picture. A flash of memory involving beating on a land-to-air missile launcher with an oversized

  monkey wrench accompanied Carl’s thoughts, and he had to bite his lip to keep from grinning as the little group disbanded to gather equipment.

  After almost an hour of what Carl thought was entirely too much discussion

  on the subject, they finally geared up for a little nature hike.

  “We’ll go in pairs,” Bennett said as he tied a knife to his thigh. Carl listened

  to his orders respectfully, thinking it did the man credit that a group of headstrong warriors such as they were automatically accepted him as their leader. Even Thiago, who seemed a bit reluctant to head blindly into much of anything, hadn’t questioned Shawn Bennett’s authority.

  Carl wanted to question that authority now, though, because Bennett had just

  told him to partner up with Everett and head off into the wild unknown. Carl gave the Australian a wary glance and a nod. The big man returned Carl’s nod with a slightly snaggletoothed grin that made his eyes sparkle mischievously, and Carl wondered if it were too late to become a religious man.

  In Carl’s experience, some people were crazy, and you weren’t aware of it

  until they opened their mouths to speak or tried to kill you. But some people were crazy and you could tell just by looking in their eyes. Brandt Everett’s eyes fairly gleamed. Whether it was madness or something else, Carl wasn’t yet certain. He

  almost hoped that it was madness, plain and simple. Madness he thought he could

  deal with.
>
  “Nikolaus, you’ll go with Remy,” Bennett said. The two young men gave

  each other unreadable glances, and then Bergeron looked back at Bennett with a look that could only be described as familiar. Carl found himself wondering yet again about their relationship. He’d never heard of two Class One operatives being

  acquaintances, much less friends.

  It was obvious just from the sour look on his face that Thiago wondered the

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  same thing and didn’t like the situation one bit. But Carl reckoned that it was none of his affair until his life was on the line. Even if these two blokes shagged each other senseless every chance they got, he didn’t see how that really affected him.

  Carl shrugged into his coat and took the earpiece Faust offered him. “We’re

  on one,” the smaller man said as he turned each receiver to the correct frequency and handed them out. “On we go then,” he said, placing his own piece in his ear and

  heading for the door. Carl watched the smaller man with interest. He seemed nervous and a little shifty most of the time, but at other times he seemed cool and confident. It was a strange thing to observe.

  Carl didn’t know much about the different Classes of agent, but he knew

  each and every one of them had to pass rigorous tests, both physical and mental,

  every three months. Nikolaus Faust might be a glorified computer tech in many

  respects, but he was still a trained agent, Carl reminded himself.

  Their plan was simple enough; just a little hike through the woods to make

  sure the comms worked. Regardless of simplicity, each of them went out armed. Carl and Everett were ordered to go west, Bergeron and Faust were ordered to go east, and Bennett and Thiago set out to the north.

  “Go one kilometer,” Bennett ordered as they stood in what Carl had come to

  think of as the courtyard, the area in front of the porch trampled to mere dirt. “Don’t shut off unless you give us some forewarning.” They all acknowledged the order and set off walking in their various directions.