The Winter Palace

The Sniper at the Gates of Dawn

I'm going to hit bottom today, Carmen thought. I'll hit bottom, and I'll take the world with me in my wake.

So far she had sent five communiques to Quaker, lead on the operation. No reply.

She was prone in a thorn-laden bush a thousand yards away from a Glaive base, letting the snow bury her slowly, eyeing her target through the scope on her M1 Garand rifle.

Her last message was as clear and as desperate as she could make it:

MUST MOVE NOW 

CANNOT LET RED DUKE ESCAPE

REPEAT MUST EXECUTE NOW

MESSY BUT WE WILL HAVE HIM.

Still, no response.

Carmen's target was the Red Duke. It was the first time she'd seen him in person—a human greyhound, tall and lithe, hair slicked back, barely filling out his Glaive uniform. He was six-foot-five, Greek-skinned, with a jagged, granite face. He paced up and down the base's flight line—checked his watch, frowned, paced. Behind him, a fuel truck—she could end the war in half a second if she put a grenade into it—and a couple of infantrymen idling in their patrol mechs. The mechs were bubble-canopied T-990s, bulky and armored, a pair of mechanical kangaroo legs holding up a minigun and half-dozen surface-to-air missiles.

Her finger tightened on the rifle's trigger. She couldn't quantify what was going on inside her emotionally... the darkness. Her first thought: she was the sword of a nation—she knew it.

She was Resistance, sent behind enemy lines months ago, living off the land, for the most part choosing her targets at will and harassing the enemy where she could.

Last night, she had been on her way to the base for an unrelated mission. Originally, she was to approach it, light up some jet fuel, and take out a couple of the enemy's eight-engined Tu-49 bombers while they were on the ground.

Then, just as they had made camp for the night, Quaker sent them a message:

APPROACH BASE

RED DUKE WILL ARRIVE 1430 VIA HYDRO-POWERED LIMOUSINE

HE WILL DISEMBARK AND AWAIT TRANSPORT BY AIRCRAFT

THIS INTELLIGENCE IS FIFTEEN MINUTES OLD

MOVE WITH ALL POSSIBLE SPEED

PROCEED TO WAYPOINT AND RECON

NO FURTHER ACTION UNTIL CONFIRM WITH QUAKER

REPEAT NO FURTHER ACTION UNTIL CONFIRM WITH QUAKER

Until now. Until this.

The Red Duke himself.

All of history was at her fingertips; all she had to do was pull the trigger. The chance to kill a murderer worse than Hitler, to cut the head from the Beast, to wipe the world's wickedest thing from existence...

Her second thought: she saw no bottom to the darkness she felt. It made her hesitate. She recited the names of her brothers and sisters, her father and mother. Her entire family had been murdered in the early days of the war. She could get reckless now; one false move, one slip of the will, and the world could be upended.

She checked in with her team.

On her left wrist, wired underneath her mechanical field watch, was a tiny radio transmitter. It could only send scrambled Morse code. The tech was frustrating, but it was secure enough. It was also the only way to communicate while remaining unseen, presuming the Glaive didn't detect their radio signal.

Before each message began, she had to address it to the correct team member. There were two others, Adam and Michael, also hidden in the bush, men she trusted with her life. To Quaker, and in Carmen's Morse code, they were DASH-DASH-DASH and DOT-DOT-DOT.

She pulled the fingernail-sized transmitter button from below the watch, removed some of the wire underneath, and attached it to her left palm. From this position, she could send messages while keeping her hands ready if something came up.

DASH-DASH-DASH: STATUS

She waited for a moment. Dash-Dash-Dash was about three hundred yards to her left, nose-deep in frozen brush and snow, just like her.

Dash-Dash-Dash said: HOLDING REQUEST UPDATE FROM QUAKER

Carmen: NO UPDATE REMAIN STEADY

From Dot-Dot-Dot, a thousand yards to her right: AIRCRAFT APPROACHING.

He's got an eagle's eye, Carmen thought. A moment later, she heard it—a Lisunov Li-2, a twin-engine transport. The Red Duke's plane.

She was out of time.

Carmen flicked a tiny switch on the watch to change the frequency of her transmitter. Her next message would go directly to Quaker—wherever he was.

From Carmen to Quaker: AIRCRAFT APPROACHING

PRESUME IT IS TRANSPORT FOR RED DUKE

REQUEST ORDERS

Carmen waited. The fuel truck drove off.

She reviewed her alternatives. Maybe Quaker wasn't responding because he was awaiting his own orders. That was likely. Maybe Quaker couldn't make up his mind. That was almost as likely. Maybe Quaker had somehow been compromised, or his communications were cut off. The timing was too weird to be true. Even if it were a setup... no. A Resistance fighter like her wasn't worth a ruse involving the Red Duke himself.

Carmen messaged Dot-Dot-Dot: STAND BY

Everything she did was in secret. She held secrets between her and Quaker, between her and her team.

She had secrets only she knew.

Sometimes, there were orders inside orders.

The longer she'd spied for the United States, the more they'd grown to believe in her. She fought from her heart; her hate for Glaive and the Duke was real. She was a master killer. Today, they'd finally decided they could trust her, to know her by name.

She had her plan, the one she shared only with herself and those above Quaker's head.

Now was the time to let fly.

She'd lie to the ones she was closest to. She'd please those in the shadows to bring justice to light.

Or so she told herself.

She switched frequencies on her transmitters again, checked her watch, and lied to her team:

FROM QUAKER

IN TWO MINUTES OBTAIN THE DUKE

ENACT PLAN C

REPEAT IN TWO MINUTES OPEN THE GATES OF HELL

Her life up to that point had been out of her hands, a series of catastrophic events that'd decided where she'd go, what she'd do, who she'd serve, and why. Today, that ended. The rest of her existence would be a brutal, winding road from the boldest "assassination" since Julius Caesar's to the long and hallowed halls of the Winter Palace.

Whatever happened, her future was now hers to decide.