In The Archipelago's Secret Service

1: An Agent Falls

Chapter 1: An agent falls

The agent was running for his life, the cold, damp air of Berserk rolling around him like the skeins of fog that hung between the rimed firs. His breaths were harsh as he ran, a hand clamped against the jagged hole in his side, the pressure slowing the leakage of blood but not stopping it. He knew he was leaving an obvious scent trail for the trackers and he tossed his aniseed anti-track devices, smiling the scent exploded across his path to confuse the dogs..for all the good it would do him. If they had visual on him, they wouldn't need scent to track him.

He stumbled and his foot turned but he staggered on, his hand coming free and a pulse of blood dribbling down his side. He gritted his teeth, blood staining his mouth and full pale blonde beard. He had always accepted death as a risk of his job but he hadn't seen this coming. And he suspected no one would...unless he got the word out.

The sharp echo of dog barks bounced around the gloomy dusk forest and the agent staggered on, tripping against and rolling down a mossy slope, his clothes smeared with damp and mud. He stumbled up and forced his way through the bracken and brush, fumbling for his coms device and finally getting a weak signal. He opened the channel and entered the data, still staggering out in to the open.

Shouts were closing, voices echoing disorientatingly and his head snapped round, then he entered another line in the message. He was bleeding freely now, but the priority was letting AI6 know and then maybe his life wouldn't have been given in vain... He took a shuddering breath and ran forward...and then he screeched to a halt, random stones bouncing down the sheer cliff that yawned before him. He stared in shock: he had really taken a wrong turn. He desperately finished his message and pressed SEND. The poor signal quality meant the message was going achingly slowly.

"It's a long drop!" a voice echoed from behind him. He stumbled round and faced a man with cropped carrot-red hair, his pale green eyes narrow and mad, three claw-marks tattooed over his left eye.

"Dagur..." the agent breathed, regretting dropping his weapon as he escaped from the warehouse.

"You know, you did a good job, Hoark...if that is your real name?" Dagur called. The agent swallowed, his com clasped in his hand. Dagur gestured with his automatic pistol. "Not much reception here-and if you call 9-1-1, you may find it takes a long time for an ambulance to get up here." He raised his pistol and grinned.

"You don't even believe in Alvin's vision," Hoark replied, his deep voice shaky with blood loss. His vision was starting to grey around the edges.

"No-but I believe in the pay check," Dagur said cheerfully. "Always in advance, never less than seven figures..."

"Flattered," Hoark mumbled. The message send bar had almost crossed the screen now.

"Don't be," Dagur growled, his voice suddenly angry. "You were a job lot!" Three shots rang out and the impacts had Hoark pinwheeling backwards, the com spinning from his lifeless hand. He fell, his fading eyes seeing the cliff edge with Dagur's smug face grinning down on him recede away before they closed for the final time.

The message send was completed a mere second before the com smashed on the rocks beside his lifeless corpse.

oOo

The sun gleamed off the bronze-tinted mirror glass cladding the imposing building that loomed over the town of Berk, the capitol of the United Viking Archipelago. The Commander stared out over the view through floor to ceiling windows before he folded his arms, narrowed his eyes and considered the intelligence that had just arrived.

He was a huge man, close to seven feet in height and weighing hard on four hundred pounds of muscle and sinew, his flaming red hair beginning to grizzle. He wore a huge braided beard that wouldn't look out of place in ancient Viking Berk, but he was otherwise clothed in a tailored dark grey suit and handmade bespoke leather shoes. His thick fingers drummed on the glass and steel table in the office and he turned and paced back and forth in thought.