The Winter Palace

We're the Ones You're Fighting For

The snowfall was thicker; soldiers' white and grey camo blended into the rushing flurries. It was still bitter cold; he air clawed her lungs like a tiger. The buildings around wherever she was were single-floored, plain-jane cement blocks. Through the wind, she heard mechanical squeals—Jeeps and transports, maybe tank treads in the snow. Some kind of field base.

A soldier led her, handcuffed, by the arms. He was silent, good-looking, polite. He wore cologne, though Carmen barely smell anything but herself. She felt a decline below her feet, then saw faint blue—they'd entered a tunnel, dry and dark, its exit blindingly white due to the snow, the rest a blur. She couldn't see; her eyes were wet, and the soldier moved her too quickly.

They went ten or twenty feet in, then stopped. To her left, Carmen heard the soldier knock on a wooden door three times.

"Come in."

It was Playwright.

The door opened; her eyes came into focus. There were Playwright and Baker, seated at a wooden table. The walls were off-white and undecorated—wait, it was ice. The room was carved out of it. But it was warm. Playwright was still in her uniform. Baker wore thick horn-rimmed glasses and a tweed suit. The glasses didn't help his look; they made his frightened eyes look bigger.

"Hello, Carmen," said Playwright, her eyes commanding. Carmen now found her irritating. "Have a seat."

The MP left and closed the door behind him.

There was a folding mechanical clock on the table. It had an annoyingly loud tick.

Carmen sat down. Playwright took a key from her pocket and removed Carmen's handcuffs.

"Carmen, you changed the world today," Playwright said. "We can't thank you enough. It's my wish that one day you're honored as you should be."

Carmen set her hands on her lap, resisted asking for a cigarette. She struggled for words. Then:

"Playwright—is that your name?"

Playwright shrugged. "It's my field name.

"You wrote those words I said to the Red Duke? The 'weeping millions'?"

"Yes."

"You've got a way with words. Playwright, though—isn't your name a little on the nose?"

Playwright laughed. Baker laughed, too. They're so plastic, Carmen thought.

"It is," Playwright said. "To be honest, I—I don't know why I'm about to tell you this. When I was training at Langley, I decided that I'd be called Playwright. The world is controlled by words, I thought, and if you're going to be a spy, you can do a lot of good if your words are..." she thought for a moment, "specific."

"Your words certainly did some good today," Baker said, his voice soft and quick, his eyes on the table. He folded his hands, then unfolded them.

"Yes," Playwright said. "Carmen, that's thanks to you."

Carmen was silent. Playwright's smile slowly dissolved. She looked at a typed form on the desk in front of her, and her eyes stayed there.

"I'm sorry for Adam's loss, Carmen," Playwright said. "The first thing you should know is that Private Hendrix supervised the recovery of Adam's body. He'll be flown back home—"

"Where?" Carmen asked.

"I'm sorry?" Playwright asked.

"I—I don't know where he was from."

Playwright paused, checked the paper.

"Sioux Falls, South Dakota."

Carmen looked down, tried to imagine Sioux Falls. They'd never talked about home. They never talked about anything except missions; she never noticed that until now.

Why?

Carmen nodded. "Thank you."

Playwright folded her hands, looked nervous—like what she would say next could be worse.

"I need to tell you this, Carmen. Michael is being transferred to our rearward base at Leningrad, where he'll be flown back home to the United States."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Well," Playwright said, "Michael is going to receive credit for the capture of Salvador Innes."

Baker's eyes expanded, and he looked down. Carmen wondered why she was supposed to care.

"Okay."

Playwright leaned forward, like she had to get it out: "The Pentagon and the CIA both believe it's critical for a man to receive credit for the capture.

Who cares?

"He deserves it," Carmen said.

"So do you, Carmen."

"I'd rather not have it."

Playwright squinted. "Why do you say that?"

Carmen shrugged. "I'm not in this for a dog-and-pony show. Neither is Adam."

"That's true. He's furious that you're not receiving credit. To be frank, back home, they'd be shocked to hear stories of a woman trained for combat. It's too sensitive."

"I was never trained for combat."

It was true—Carmen had been the sole survivor of an attack on a forward medical base. She spent three weeks fighting behind enemy lines before she was rescued—and then they sent her back on the field with a rifle.

"Say, what's his surname, anyways?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Adam. I don't know his surname."

"You never learned his last name?"

"We didn't want to use real names. I called him Dash-Dash-Dash. We talked over Morse more than we did in person."

A quiver right in the corner of Playwright's left eye. She read from the paper: "Adam McCord. Carmen, he's from Glen Burnie, Maryland."

"He liked baseball. That's what I knew about him."

"The Orioles?"

"No, the Los Angeles Dodgers."

Playwright nodded. The Dodgers were everyone's favorite team—they kept playing, won the World Series, even after the Glaive struck L.A. They were a symbol of survival, hope, rebuilding.

"Baker," Carmen said, "Were you Quaker the whole time?"

Baker looked at Carmen without raising his head, the whites of his eyes too big. He looked like he'd been caught stealing or something. His eyes darted back to the table.

"Yes, Carmen, I am Quaker." He nodded and stretched the ends of his lips up, like a mannequin's smile.

"Who are you guys?" Carmen asked.

"Carmen, we're the ones you're fighting for," Playwright said. "Not everyone gets to see us face to face like this."

"You're CIA?"

Playwright and Baker nodded in unison.

"Why do you want to talk to me like this? I'm not a spy."

"That's true, Carmen. And really, neither are we."

Baker laughed out of the left side of his face. "We do more sitting at desks and reading than anything else."

"But you and we have one thing in common," Playwright said, "and I think it's something you can help us with."

"What's that?"

"We're not in this for credit. And everything I'm about to say might be the most well-kept secret in the history of mankind."