Nellie K. Neves
When the world perched on the brink of devastation, we turned to the scientists. Maybe that was our mistake. Too late to know now. Can’t take the ship out of the proverbial bottle.
I suppose it might have been our destiny to watch the economy crumble. I can imagine the alternative world. Thousands looking for work, babies starving, people dying, but this place we’ve landed where science is God?
I’m not sure it’s a decent alternative.
I swing down from the ladder and let my boots thump against the metal grate below. Crankshaft is working on the car, adding some new gadget or gizmo. She’s a gear head, but unmodified. The clanking and cursing coming from where she’s beating metal into submission is common place around here. The old hangar amplifies the sound, especially when the storm doors are closed.
They aren’t closed to keep out the elements.
Today they’re closed to keep in the secrets.
We have a mission.
“Crankshaft!” I shout over the steel bar I’m leaning on. “Come on! Commander wants a briefing.”
A wrench clatters against the cement and a trail of cursing follows after it. I can’t help the grin creeping over my cheeks. She’s not a lady. None of us are. That’s what makes us special.
“Oiy.” Her brown eyes are set off by the grease on her cheeks. “Can’t he wait a bloody minute? I nearly got the new engine mods in.”
“You know how he gets,” I say like it’s an answer. It’s enough and she tosses her tools in a bucket.
“They make better tools,” I say as she falls into step beside me. “The advances in the last year alone could really speed up your work.”
“Go’on.” It’s not a word but a noise to mean she thinks I’m crazy. “Now you’re soundin’ like Specs. Nobody’s makin’ any dohickie better’n a cold steel wrench.”
“Speaking of Specs,” I say as I start up the stairs that lead to the briefing room. I nod to our lead scientist staring down from the top. “You two make up yet?”
“Ehhh, more or less.”
“I’m guessing more on the less side.”
“She shouldn’t touch my things,” Crankshaft says like the crime is punishable by death. In her world it probably is.
“Cutting it close, aren’t you?” Specs asks as we trounce the last stairs. She adjusts the glasses on her face and I can see the iridescent glow that means the technology in them is working. Tracking our heart rates, checking for broken bones, likely she’s just messing around. Ethel “Specs” Rosenburg is not only our lead scientist, but our team doctor as well. Her love of technology leaves a few of us uneasy, because of what we’ve seen in the field.
A whole world gone mad with gear and gadgets.
“Tell ’im to keep ’is pants on. We’ll get there when we get there.”
“Are Jazz and Mouse already in there?” I speak before the two of them can get into it again.
Specs draws a tight breath in through her nose as if draining it of life first, but really she’s likely considering whether or not to beam Crankshaft with her bionic arm.
“Yes,” she says without looking away from Crank. “Just waiting on you two.” She turns on a heel and walks away from us.
“Don’t know why we put up with ’er,” Crankshaft whispers.
“Yeah, well, it’s your fault. Always gotta get her goat, don’t you?”
She has nothing to say because she knows it’s true. Specs would be more than willing to lose Crankshaft, but she’s the only mechanically inclined member of the team. If the world has taught us anything, it’s that the scientist can’t get far without the mechs. But right now Science is racing like an Alpha Romeo and mechanics are flailing off the back end hoping to avoid a bruising.
Mouse has set up the projection. I can see the team emblem flickering on the screen. The loaded bow and arrow spins, white against the black background.
12 Huntsmen is written within the center.
Our name.
Our identity.
We’re an elite group of agents created by what is left of the military departments as we knew them. Originally I suppose they meant for it to be men, but with the men on the front lines, the women are picking up the slack. Not all of us can be riveting the newest war machines on the scientist’s assembly lines. Those of us who were selected for this were picked for a reason.
Mouse, AKA Nancy Wake, was married to a special agent. When he went missing after a trip home to see his dying father in Germany the government interrogated Mouse for days, suspicious she was a double agent. She never cracked, never said a word, no matter the abuse. It wasn’t long before those in power determined she hadn’t learned her special skills from her husband, but that she’d taught him everything he knew. Jack, her husband, was killed behind lines, a raid on his father’s home, and Mouse has been cold steel ever since.
Jazz, AKA Josie Baker, was a singer and dancer in the city back when that sort of thing mattered. She started in espionage before the war, passing secrets overseas while she toured. Her dark cocoa skin works to her advantage, leaving her unnoticed when she chooses, and yet center of attention when necessary.
Specs is our only member handpicked by The Commander, top of her class and leading scientist on all things war. Ask her and she’ll tell you she got stuck with The Huntsmen because the men couldn’t stomach her out leading the charge, better to stick her in an abandoned airplane hangar where no one could see her superior skill. The arm is a story she won’t tell. No point in asking.
There were more of us when it started, a full twelve. But war isn’t for the weak and it has a way of gleaning back the chaff. Khan, executed after a double cross betrayed her. Kawashima, our decoder, killed while trying to save another huntsman who had been captured. Shakespeare, shot while delivering a message on the frontlines. There were more, most before my time.
I came in a wide-eyed nobody from Iowa with a special set of skills that got me into nothing but trouble in a small town. Men love me. It doesn’t take much to wind them between my fingers and bend them to my will. Leave it to what’s left of the government to want to exploit that. I was born Margaret Harrison, but as a huntsman I’m Hari, leader of what remains of the 12.
We’re not normal, I know that, that’s why we’re here. The 12 Huntsmen do what no one else can, going behind lines, moving in shadows, working the back channels. While the rest of the women chant “we can do it” in their patriotic drones, the 12 Huntsmen whisper, “we already did.”
The transmission crackles and chirps before Commander’s face flickers into view on the screen. Specs is on the device, twisting gears, pulling wires and slapping Crankshaft’s hand every time she tries to help. I rub my palm over my face and draw in a breath. It’s this moment, the moment before the mission comes through where I question my choices— walking away from the farm, from the sunsets, from a life without bullets and corsets and fishnet stockings with a leather holster cinched to my thigh. But the image clears and Commander is speaking and those thoughts will have to wait.
“Agent Harrison, Huntsmen, we have a mission.”
“Yes Commander, we’re ready,” I say as I square my shoulders and send a glare toward Specs and Crank.
There’s no time wasted as Commander dives into the details. “Plans are rumored for a new weapon, The Spindle, developed by the Axis powers.”
“What’s the worry? They took up knitting?” Crankshaft asks, kicking her boots up on the table.
“I doubt it,” Commander says. “If Intel is correct, one charge from The Spindle can wipe out an entire squad in seconds. That’s the worry, Crank.”
Her feet slip to the floor and slap the grate. A bright flash before oblivion, it’s easy to picture it. If this war has taught us nothing, we’ve all learned there’s no limit to the horrifying creations of man.
“Yeah, okay,” Crankshaft says after a moment, “then what’s the mish?”
“You’ll go to Belgium where the plans are held. I’m transmitting the intel we have now about the facility. You’ll steal the plans and bring them home.”
“Then what?” I ask. “Why not destroy them? If this technology is dangerous, why should we allow it to survive?”
The quality of the picture on the screen isn’t crystal clear, but I can still make out the way his jaw tenses and tightens in frustration. I bring it out in him, always the first to question authority.
“Agent Harrison, that isn’t for you to decide. You have your orders.” He looks at the rest of them. “Crankshaft, you’re transport. Jazz, Mouse and Hari, you’ll breech the facility. Specs, go along, but stay outside the walls to coordinate. Retrieve the plans, and destroy the base.” He looks at me again to restate himself, “You have your orders.”
My jaw clenches before I say, “Yes, sir.”
The picture cuts out. My gut tells me there’s more, something else he’s left for the need to know, and I don’t fill that bill.
“What is it?” Mouse asks in a voice that’s only meant for the two of us.
I shake my head because I don’t have enough yet, but my guard is up.
This mission is different.
***
I sleep most of the way to Belgium. Most of the team can’t, not on this shaky bucket of bolts Crankshaft has welded together, but I’ve worked hard to develop the talent. It’s not that the plane is without merit, quite to the contrary. With all the modifications Crank’s made to it, it’s a wonder there’s still room for an engine or wings.
Mouse kicks my boot before she sinks next to me on the floor. Vibrations from the engines roll through me. “What are you thinking about, Hari?”
“Home,” I lie. It’s always an acceptable answer with the war on. I don’t need to divulge my innermost fears about the work we’re doing, or who we’re doing it for.
“Why bother?” she asks, and I get it. None of us have a home, at least not like it was before the war. The whole world’s gone mad with power lust. It leaves no room for the softer delicacies we once enjoyed. I look down to avoid her stare and catch sight of my hands. Covered in grease and dirt, like they always are, unless I’m running them over the stubbled skin of some soldier I’m meant to seduce, then I’m clean and flowered. The glaring contradictions in my life blind me.
“Do you think about him?” I ask her. The weight of our bodies shift as Crank starts her decent. Jazz is in the cockpit with her studying the plans we received while Specs glowers over her shoulder. There’s no one around to hear our secret musings.
“Jack? All the time,” she says. “I imagine a world where he never left, where I never signed up. I can see it all so clear, a life without an empty bed and blood on my hands.”
Glad to know I’m not alone in my second-guessing. Where my hands carry grime, hers hold the lives she’s snuffed out. As a trained assassin and our security chief, they’ve figured out how to exploit her talents too, no matter the nightmares it leaves her with.
“This one’s different,” Mouse says as she leans forward, “I can feel it in my bones.”
It wakes me up, sharpens me like a knife. I’m ready for battle.
Ready for anything.
I’m a Huntsman.
***
We move as one, a single shadow against the perimeter, nothing more. Not a sound on the gravel rocks, as if we float about them and glide with ease. They got it wrong in the beginning. Our leaders told us to dress like men, walk like men, heavy feet and long strides to confuse the enemy. They thought our femininity made us weak.
That thinking cost lives.
We learned better.
It’s the differences between us and our male counterparts that make us strong. We can do what they never hoped to. We wear the grease and grime better than they ever could. On us it’s beautiful—war paint and rouge.
I wait for the guard to pause by the stairwell. My eyes dart to Mouse; she nods because she agrees. This one belongs to her. The blade slips free of her boot, catching the light once with a playful wink before she melts into the night. She’s hardly a ghost as she slinks through the dark. The guard makes one guttural sound as her hand slams against his throat. The blade winks again before hiding in his belly as Mouse bears his weight to the ground.
One less Axis Nazi.
It’s a quick nod before we’re up the stairs, two at a time, covering space in less than ten seconds as if we were never there in the first place. I breathe once the door is clicked shut behind me. Intel says the war room is to the left then thirty feet farther, but there’s no telling what we might encounter in that thirty feet.
They look to me because I’m the leader. I flick my fingers and once more we move. Lights sputter and shake as we pass, like spies transmitting our location. A sound catches my attention and I halt in a doorway, ushering my team behind me like a hen with chicks. The space is tight and I can feel Jazz breathing on my neck as I search for the disturbance. Two men, both reclined on chairs outside the door of what I suspect is the war room. Weapons lay across their laps, next gen tech with laser modifications added to the muzzle. I’ve heard of them but haven’t seen them in action. I only saw the aftermath when Shakespeare’s body came back to the hangar. Gaping holes of charred flesh, like a bullet set on fire. They aren’t in their trooper clothes—the gas masks with the black bug eyes—no, these are inexperienced foot soldiers, and the war room is likely empty.
“It’s all you,” Jazz’s whisper tickles my ear and my pulse races in response because she’s right.
“I’ll stay behind you,” Mouse says with a squeeze to my hand. “Use your tech.”
Drawing in a breath and smoothing my clammy hands over my corset, I pull the ties on my cape and let it fall into Jazz’s hands. Skin is far more dangerous than iron, at least in the hands of someone who knows how to wield it. I slip on the pair of black gloves Specs designed and clench my fists into tight balls. Electricity snaps to life.
It’s these steps, these moments before contact where my heart beats like I’m at a dead run, and not because I’m afraid. I’m more alive in this moment—striding toward two armed men with nothing but a black corset and a tight skirt to protect me—than I ever was on that farm in Iowa. I can say that I was forced to come here, do this, be Agent Mata Hari, but the truth is, being a Huntsman set me free to be who I should have been all along.
My last step is deliberate, loud, and awakening. They turn and see me for the first time, an apparent sacrifice for their altar of lust. But I see them as well.
Altered.
Half an arm is steel, whirring gears and dripping oil. The companion’s silver face enhancements catch the low light like a crescent moon, and it’s essential I don’t gasp.
They yell in German. I understand, but I don’t need them knowing that. Instead I tilt my head until my dark curls fall behind my shoulder and display my naked neck.
“I don’t understand,” I say with doe eyes. “Spechen sie Englich?”
My American accent throws them, but it’s my bust that has them distracted.
“Who are you?” the taller one’s voice is heavy with traces of German spit. “What are you doing here?”
I pause because only the fearful blurt out answers. And I’m not afraid.
“I’m a gift,” I say, letting the words bounce against my lips with careful cadence.
“A gift?” the steel faced one asks. “A gift for who?”
“Well,” I say as my smile slips across my face with the urgency of a sunset, “that is the question, isn’t it? Because they said the General, but—” I take quite a few steps completely unimpeded until I can walk my fingers up the tall one’s chest. “—here you are. Finders keepers, right boys?”
He shudders once and I smile up at him as if I know a secret. Ol’ Steel Arm shifts behind me and I can feel the heat of his frame. I run my free hand over my corset, as if to smooth the fabric, but his metal hand catches mine. Gears click and jam as he deepens the pressure.
“Are you boys lonely?” I ask and drag out the weight of each word. “It’s been such a long war.”
“We shouldn’t,” the tall one says, but his eyes are telling me otherwise, wandering to every shadow I’ve created with my curves.
“Can’t you spare a little time?” I ask, walking my fingers back up his uniform toward his face. “Trust me, it’ll only take a minute.”
I doubt he sees the shift in my features, but I know he sees Mouse spring up from behind Steel Arm. My right hand latches to his metal face, and then the left grips his watch. Electricity snaps as the gloves conduct their power through his shuddering frame. I hear Mouse’s knife and a cry of alarm just seconds before I turn around.
Jazz grins as the men hit the floor. “You didn’t save any for me. You ladies have all the fun.”
I abandon the gloves. They’re a one hit wonder anyway. I link my arms under the dead man’s armpits. It’s a struggle to move them into hiding because of the metal modifications, but we manage and pull the door shut on the violence we caused. Jazz jams her listening device against the war room door, trying multiple locations to make sure we won’t be surprised. The radio at my waist crackles.
“Hari,” I hear the garbled hiss of Spec’s voice, “come in, Hari.”
I point to the door, as if to tell Jazz to keep listening, before I walk away to find better signal. Grease mars my skin as I shift the gears at the top, adjusting the tech she’s developed to maintain long distance communication.
“I’m here, Spec,” I answer into the radio as I depress the lever on the side. It’s a dead man’s switch she found in the field. She modified the radio specifically, says it’s a reminder to us of how tenuous our lives are and what we’re expected to sacrifice if taken alive.
“Hari, are you alone?”
Her tone anchors my heart. There’s warning beneath the structure, as if I’m in trouble, as if she knows more than I do.
“I’m alone, Specs,” I answer with a quick glance over my shoulder. Jazz and Mouse are still waiting at the door. The mission beckons me.
“New intelligence. It looks like we have a double agent in the Huntsmen. Mouse may not be who we thought she was. Commander wants her brought in. Those interrogators might have been on to something all those years ago.”
My blood chills at the thought. She’s been at my side on every mission, the blade ready to defend my every risk. It’s not possible. I can’t give even the slightest credence to the thought.
“Do you have proof?” I glance back again and Jazz is motioning to me with wide eyes.
“Commander says he does. I don’t know the specifics, but think about it, Hari. Think about the others.”
Her words conjure up memories of the Huntsmen we’ve lost. Mouse was on every mission. Every death could be trailed back to a moment missed, a slip of a hand or a breath of incompetency we’d never expected from our most skilled guardian.
“I can’t do this now,” I say and I release the dead man’s switch to end the conversation. Radio tucked back into my side satchel, I fall in behind my team.
“All clear,” Jazz says with caution in her eyes, “what are orders?”
“Breech,” I tell them.
***
There are no shadows to cling to and it leaves my palms sweaty and heart pounding in my ears. The room smells of dust and the men who plotted world domination not long ago. A center table, a desk and one window with heavy curtains haphazardly drawn. Maybe I expected more from what should be our greatest threat. Stepping to the center table, I push my fingers over the map, listening to the paper crinkle beneath my touch. Bile churns as I look at the plans. Death laid out equally in lead and red ink, deaths deemed inescapable and those not yet decided. How can they play with life like this? Evil men eager to snuff it out and stand at the top of the mountain as king.
“Fan out,” I tell them. “Find the plans. This place makes me sick.”
Time draining from my hourglass, I shuffle through the mess on the table. Maps make up the bulk of it, but there are also personal notes that I shove into my satchel, hopeful that they’ll prove useful to others with more experience. A drawing captures my eye, and I shift it free of the chaos. The charcoal smears and blends, building shape and contours until I realize why the drawing of a face has captured me.
It’s Mouse. Her silhouette.
“I’ve got something,” Jazz calls from the far side of the room. She unrolls the plans over a desk glowing with flickering light. With a deep breath she expels the dust up into a fog of neglect. “If this is it, then we’re in trouble.”
I try to breathe in my courage as I take in the creation, but it stills in my chest. I can see where the name comes from. The shape of the bulb is contoured like a spindle from a spinning wheel.
“What am I looking at, Jazz?”
“Specs or Crankshaft would know better,” Jazz says, “but if I’m reading it right, the blast will destroy the target at a cellular level. Commander is right. This would end the war. They could wipe us out in days.”
Worse yet, if we survive, we’ll have to come up with something stronger, because that’s the nature of war. They created bombs, and we created long range missiles. We created enhanced vision, and they created bionic limbs for the arms and legs we’d destroyed. Each step is another one towards destruction, Science jerking mechanics along like a slave in the name of domination.
“Set the charges,” I say as I draw the plans together. “It’s time to go.”
Mouse has been unusually quiet, watching the room as if she can feel eyes on her. She’s always had that sense, a power to know what’s just beyond our space. I wonder if she’s altered or enhanced. I’ve never asked, and I’ve never noticed any indication until now, but Specs’ warning is creeping along the perimeter of my mind and I can’t push it away.
“Set them.” I snap the words at her because I need to know if she’ll follow orders even in a country governed by those who she used to call family.
It jars her and I watch the door while my team executes my orders.
I hold the detonator in my hand. Specs claims the signal will reach once we’re beyond the walls. Impatience burns through my hand and a part of me wants to press it now, end this, put us all out of our misery. If only the charge were strong enough to end the war.
There’d be no question.
I’d press it.
To still my racing mind, I walk to the only window in the room. It strikes me odd to have a window on the interior, odd unless it’s not a window at all. I brush back the dust from the pane, coughing once as it chokes in my throat. Not a window, but a portal, a viewing station for the warehouse hidden inside the building. I twist and rise up on my toes to understand what I’m seeing. Hundreds of troops stand at attention, waiting. All eyes are converged at one point. Vibrations buzz through my fingertips. A blue haze is pulsating over their faces.
“What’s down there, Hari?” Mouse asks from over my shoulder.
It’s too horrible, too wrong to believe and I shake my head despite the fact that I can see it’s true. “Intel was wrong. We’re too late.”
Light increases until there is no more blue, but a white so blinding I have no choice but to shield my eyes. I expect an explosion, or a thundering vibration to shake my frame, but there’s only silence.
The light is gone.
But so are the soldiers.
Replaced by heaps of ash.
The room goes pregnant with questions as I meet my team’s eyes. Orders have to change, our plan is flawed. Voices spike alarm in my heart as I realize there are men entering our room. Jazz darts beneath the table. I have seconds before the door opens. I yank back the drape and flatten myself against the wall with only the heavy velvet to shelter me. In the last second, Mouse whips back the curtain and shoves her way in beside me.
“Where are the men that are supposed to stand guard?” I hear a voice ask in thick German.
There are moth bitten holes in the velvet offering me a view of the men. Three. One guard, with his gas mask and bug eyes, a general, and a lieutenant from what I can see of his uniform.
“Drinking, I’d wager,” the lieutenant replies. His weapon clatters against the table and Jazz cringes beneath. “The enhancements don’t subdue every human urge.”
The General is non-descript, just another Nazi drone as far as I can see. No enhancements, easy to take out if I need to. The bug-eyed guard is more metal than man and it’s not hard to spot the laser attachment to his modified weapon. The lieutenant is young, handsome, and familiar. I’m about to glance at Mouse for her take when her trembling hand covers her mouth to subdue a scream. With only seconds before it shatters the silence, I smash my palm over her mouth to hold the sound in. Her eyes widen with confusion, but not because of what I’ve done. It’s because of what she’s seen.
The men are moving pieces on the table, as if they’re playing a game and wagering bets in a casino. I don’t know how long I can keep Mouse contained before she blows like a kettle.
“Bring the car around,” the lieutenant says to the guard. “The general will send the troops in tomorrow. The Allied powers will be demolished by morning.”
With a click of their heels and a salute, they’re gone. Spit and sweat are collecting inside my palm, but I dare not peel it back until I know we’re clear. She can’t breathe, but the alternative is far worse.
“Calm down,” I whisper against her cheek. “I’m taking my hand away.”
My only reassurance is a jerking nod, but I know Mouse and the sweat clings as I peel back. Mouse draws in a deep breath and collapses into her hands.
“We need to go,” she says, “right now.”
I want more answers, but we have what we came for and the charges are set. Answers will wait for the plane. Jazz pulls the plans from the desk. I keep the detonator in my grip as we exit the room. Silent feet once more, we move down the halls and make our escape the same way we came in. The night air slaps me as we ramble down the stairs. A shot rings out and I hear the siren. A bullet whizzes over my head and Jazz yelps but never stops moving. I’m not sure how far we have until we’re out of range. I duck down and pull my dark cloak over my frame, melting to the shadows.
“Blow it,” Jazz yells with her hand cupped over a gushing wound.
The button is hot under my thumb. I feel the tension press back. Mouse’s fingers curl around the detonator as she jerks it from my hand. Instead of pressing the button, she throws it as hard as she can. I stare at her with wide eyes.
“Mouse!” I scream. “Are you out of your mind?”
“That was Jack! That was my husband!”
***
“He’s my guy, Hari,” Mouse says even while I’ve got her shackled in cuffs. “You can’t expect me to toss that to the wind just because of his uniform.”
“If his uniform is boasting a Nazi emblem, then yeah I can!” I shout back at her. “That’s what you signed up for, isn’t it? Wipe them out? Get your revenge?”
“What revenge? He’s alive!”
“Stop,” Jazz pushes off the wall of the abandoned bunker we found. “Both of you. This is crazy. How do you know it’s him, Mouse?”
Mouse’s face goes absolute. “I can’t expect the two of you to understand, considering your special talents, but when you commit to share your life with someone, you can recognize him no matter the years. Mark my words, that was Jack.”
“Our special talents?” I ask, my voice dripping with the distain I feel for her superiority complex. “Are you calling me a—”
“Hari!” Jazz stops me. “Other room, let’s go.”
Against my better judgment I follow her to the other side of the wall of boxes. I can’t see Mouse from here and it makes my skin twitch. No mechanic or scientist yet has invented cuffs our little Mouse can’t bust out of, though Crankshaft would be the most likely to succeed.
“You know we can’t leave her long, so unload what’s bogging your chest down, and we have to get back there,” I tell Jazz.
Her eyes close, but even that has the grace of a dance. She sighs and refuses to meet my eyes. “Hari, you know I’ll follow you into any fight, but that’s Mouse in there, that’s Nancy, and you’re treating her like a criminal.”
“She disobeyed orders, Jazz. Protocol is simple.”
The slow shake of her head betrays her disbelief. “We’ve all disobeyed orders at some point. There’s something more, isn’t there?”
Once more that little town in Iowa is calling for me. None of this would be my lot if I’d stayed put. “Specs says the commander suspects Mouse of being a double, then Mouse hucks that detonator as far as she can and nearly gets our head blown off by the enemy. I don’t know, Jazz, husband or not, something isn’t adding up. But you’re right, we’ll sort it out when Specs gets here.”
It shakes her, just as hard as the news shook me. One of our own betraying us, it’s unthinkable, and yet commonplace in this new world. Who needs trust when you can make a deal with the devil and save your own hide?
“Hey! Hey! You can’t do that!” Crank yells and then Mouse screams and my feet are moving before I have a chance to process what I’m hearing.
“Put her down!” Crankshaft screams.
The bunker room opens into view. Crank is yanking on Specs’ metal arm, slamming a wrench against it as Specs lifts Mouse by the throat. Veins bulge from Mouse’s forehead as her skin turns gray. Jazz screams.
“Specs! Release her this instant!” I shout above the chaos and then throw my body against her unmodified side. We collapse in a heap. Specs’ fury turns on me, eye blazing with indignation.
“She’s a double, Hari!”
“What?” Crank yells as she hears it. “Blimey! Mouse ain’t a double!”
“Explain it then,” Specs demands as she pulls herself to her feet. “Explain the deaths on all the missions she’s been a part of. Explain why she tossed that detonator tonight.”
All eyes fall on Mouse, cowering on the floor, coughing and retching as her body tries to regulate air once more. “I’m not a double,” she wheezes. Blood rushes to her face as her body recovers. “But I can’t kill my husband.”
“Husband?” Crank is struggling to keep up. “Jack’s dead.”
“Not anymore,” Specs says. She retrieves her papers and thrusts them at me. “New mission from the Commander. The facility must be destroyed, no matter the casualties. He’s put me in charge. We move out within the hour.”
“No!” Mouse screams and lunges at Specs but Crank catches her before she can do damage.
Rage burning in her eyes, Specs turns to face her. “There’s nothing you can do now. Choose to live and answer for your crimes, or run inside to die with the traitor.”
My team has crumbled before me but as Mouse looks to me, eyes full of despair, I know in my heart she’s no traitor.
***
“I can see four men inside,” Specs says, adjusting her frames to see through the walls. “If we subdue them, we should be able to set the new charges.”
“But the blast will ignite the originals we set,” Crankshaft reminds her, “then bing bang boom, it’ll take out most of this quadrant, including us.”
Determination glows in Specs’ eyes. “Then we’re a sacrifice for a cause worth dying for.”
I’m all for dying if the reason is right, but Specs looks like she’s lost it. I have to wonder if some screw has come loose in her modified bits and has altered her system. After all, we left Mouse tied up in the bunker and she’s our best chance at surviving this breech Specs is planning. Odd to be back here again, back in the same facility, on the same night, crouched in the same hall. Feels foolhardy, but a weapon like The Spindle won’t wait.
I listen to our collective breathing. The world is waiting on us—waiting outside this room, hoping we have a chance at stopping global annihilation.
“3,” I start the countdown and my grip tightens on the hilt of my knife.
“2,” Jazz says, making room for me to lead the charge.
“1,” Specs says.
My blood chills.
The muzzle of a gun is pressed into my back.
Questions are burning through my mind. “Specs, what are you doing?” But there’s no answer, only her hand on the knob as she flings it open and shoves me inside. The floor rushes toward my face. Jazz collides and we roll into a heap. Crankshaft’s elbow jams into my rib cage as she scrambles to keep away from Specs’ gun pointed at her head.
“Crimy Specs, what are you doing? You gone mad?” She hurls the words at her as guards pull us from the floor.
I jerk my arm free of my captor only to be captured again. “What is this, Specs?” I ask.
“Herr Rommel,” Specs’ isn’t speaking to me, but has saluted the men behind us, “I’ve brought The Huntsmen as discussed.”
Jazz’s eyes are wide with fright. It’s not the fact that Specs is speaking German, it’s the fact that the Specs we know has disappeared and we’re seeing her true identity for the first time.
“Very good,” General Rommel says. “Take them outside.”
“What do you want with us?” Jazz demands, but her question is lost in the shuffle.
“Wait,” the lieutenant speaks for the first time, “one is missing. Where is your companion?”
His English is broken, despite the time I know he spent in America. I want to pull him apart, tear out his motivation and examine it before I say anything about Mouse’s whereabouts.
“She’s nearby, in a bunker outside the facilities. Tied up, per your instructions,” Specs answers.
“Enough,” General Rommel’s voice silences any further conversation. “Outside.”
My bug-eyed guard shoves me forward, smashing my body against the door frame before I stumble to the hall. Crank’s cursing swells as she fights back. No matter how she curses or Jazz pleas, our demise is imminent. We exit the building, stumbling down the stairs. The betrayal cuts deep. The night feels empty as we stagger down the last of the stairs. It’s strange to think that the moon above us is the same one that will shine on folks back in Iowa later tonight.
But by then, I’ll be dead.
“Get them together!” The command sends our guards into action, shoving us until we’re tight, fish in a barrel. No need to waste bullets. I stare into the bug-eyed goggles of the guard pinning me into place. Empty, hollow, void of a soul. It’s no wonder these men could extinguish hundreds of them with a flick of a switch, hardly even human.
“So these are the powerful Huntsmen, yes?” General Rommel asks Specs from where she stands next to him. “I thought there might be a fight, a struggle of some kind, and here they are, common women.”
He’s pointing to the tears rolling down Jazz’s cheeks, catching that will-be-Iowa’s-moon. I don’t have tears, not yet. I’m waiting. Waiting because it can’t be real, Specs has to have a plan.
“Why Specs?” I ask. “Why betray us?”
“Power,” Specs answers me with a grin, “I can lead this army from the front of the pack, not shoved in a dark hole where no one will see me.”
“A dark hole is where snakes like you belong,” Crankshaft yells before she spits in the dirt.
I’m weaseling my fingers into the back of my corset, trying to jimmy free the blade I’ve hidden. But the guards are taking aim. The General’s finger twitches. It’s too late. The betrayer stood in our midst, but Mouse was not the culprit. Every death within The Huntsmen could just as easily be traced back to Specs. Faulty radio signal, tech that failed, transmissions dropped at the wrong moment. How long had she stood in our ranks just to pick us off one by one?
The knife is pinched between my fingers, two more seconds and I could have it, but time is up. I close my eyes and watch the sunset over the hills in that small town in Iowa as I hear the gun shift and the bullets fly.
I draw in a breath, knowing it’s my last. The oxygen is sweet. Bullets rattle through the air but I keep my eyes squeezed shut. My fingers tighten on the knife. Metal grates on leather as I pull it free and flip it once, catching the blade between my fingertips.
I’m not dead.
Opening my eyes, I gasp. A guard has dropped. A pool of blood grows beneath him. The other guard is aiming his gun, but not at us, at the general. Tearing the goggles and hood off, Mouse’s hair falls free.
“Mouse!” Crankshaft yells as if it’s too much to believe.
She’s not paying attention to us. “Hands up, we’re taking you in.” She catches my eye and grins. “Did he really call us common women?”
“You think you’re done? You think you have us?” Specs pulls a gun from her holster and levels it between my eyes. “You shoot him. I’ll shoot Hari. Are you ready to sacrifice a Huntsmen?”
“You’re outnumbered,” Mouse tells her. “Give up, Specs.”
“Three on four is hardly outnumbered.”
“I agree.” His voice catches me off guard as Jack sets a weapon to Spec’s temple. “But two against five is a losing battle, wouldn’t you say?”
Her eyes pinch shut but her hands come above her head.
“Well said, darling.” Mouse’s words warm the chill in the night. “Ready to go home?”
“I’ve been waiting on you,” Jack says.
Mouse turns to Crankshaft. “Can you get us out of here?”
“You know I can,” Crank says.
It’s not long before we’re airborne, headed back for the hangar, two criminals in tow. We circle over the top of the facility, and I swear I can still spy the faint blue glow of The Spindle. My fingers tighten around the plans we stole. No one should have this kind of power.
I give Crankshaft my command. “Light it up.”
With a press of a button, she unleashes the hell storm. The whistle pierces the night, as if the facility is screaming at just the thought of what’s coming. Explosions burst, vibrations rock us, but Crankshaft’s white knuckle grip never wavers as she releases the full arsenal of modified weapons.
I press open the cockpit window and stare at the plans in my hand. Jazz’s words filter into my mind, We’ve all disobeyed orders at one point or time. I release my grip and watch the plans unfurl and glide down to the destruction below, burning until their mystery is lost forever.
***
“I knew he was alive,” Mouse says as we kick our feet up on the table back in the hangar, “but only recently. He was taken captive after his father died, forced to work for the enemy in order to stay alive. When he contacted me last year, I couldn’t believe it, but The Commander wanted to use him as a double agent. I hoped he might be liberated by this mission, but I almost lost it when he was there in the room. Now you can see why I couldn’t trigger the detonator.”
“Obviously,” Crankshaft agrees with her, “woulda blown one of our best assets sky high.”
Jack laughs nervously. He hasn’t dropped Mouse’s hand since Belgium. He’s the reason we had the intel about The Spindle in the first place, so it’s no surprise that The Commander has offered him a spot within the 12 Huntsmen.
I had a heck of a time explaining what happened to the plans we’d taken. Blamed it on turbulence and a slippery grip. “Cryin’ shame,” I told the commander during debrief, just like my Granny used to say when she spilled milk. Instead of demoting me, he brought on four new huntsmen.
I look around the table, faces I know, and others that are not familiar at all. It could happen again, a betrayal and double cross. I’d be crazy to believe otherwise. But isn’t that the point of being here? In this room? On this earth? Give folks a chance and see what they can do. Iowa crosses my mind and I feel the pull of home in my heart.
The transmission chirps to life. Crank dims the lights and The Commander fills the screen.
“Commander Harrison, you’ve had a couple days R & R. I have a mission. Are The Huntsmen ready?”
I glance at Crankshaft sitting across the table. One eyebrow juts up as a sneaky grin crosses her cheeks. Grease on my hands, fire in my heart, that’s the blood of a Huntsman.
“Yes, Sir.”
***
A self-proclaimed California country girl, Nellie K. Neves is an independent author, contributes to RAC Magazine, and spends most weekends crafting culinary delights. As depicted by her Lindy Johnson series, Nellie has a penchant for writing about strong female characters caught in the midst of adversity with plots known for exacting twists and turns. That is what drew her to the Brother’s Grimm tale, “The Twelve Huntsmen.” In her version, “As the Spindle Burns,” Nellie pairs elements of the original fairytale with her interest in famous women throughout history, specifically female spies like Mati Hari. But it’s best to remember, nothing is ever as it seems, especially not in love and war.