Episode 1: Countdown To Disaster!

Laura Taylor…

Left in Laura’s wake, the young mother’s face moves through a series of expressions that the agent doesn’t see as she moves back into the hallway: surprise, annoyance, then a kind of inevitable, airless resignation. Eventually, she replaces that last look with a frown and then goes inside of her apartment, softly pushing closed her door, turning her attention back to her wiggling baby.

Laura moved between pools of weak hallway light, passing through a yellow dome of illumination, then into a shallow, brief shadow, before moving into the faint brightness of light again. To her right was the slow moving elderly woman who had been pacing in slow arcs over the long rug, the woman offering a little nod as Taylor passed. Ahead of her, ahead of the senior struggling to stay active in the cold months of winter, the staircase door swung open revealing...


Girl Friday...

Pink and stiff from her labors packing and shaping snow, Friday’s hands eagerly accept a quick exhale of hot breath, before enjoying the deep, warm darkness found inside of her coat pockets as she returns to the stairs she had previously ascended to the roof.

It was a simple idea, an almost obvious one, but her experience had been that it was often the simplest ideas that were the most successful. By counting the doors on either side of the hall and then doing a quick count of the windows outside, Friday should be able to deduce how many windows were matched to each door. Spotting her snowman landmark from below, peering down on her like a gargoyle, she figured she could easily work out which apartment contained the transmission gear she had guessed was warm enough to melt the snow on the roof.

Moving down flight after flight of stairs she started to hear heavy footsteps above her, pairs of feet first moving through the hallways, and then dropping heavily on the plain stairs she had already passed over. Those heavily footfalls, the steps of men, came like the distant rumblings of thunder following her own, crisp, sharp foot steps as she moved down. Her pace was quick. The footsteps of the men above her, were just as speedy, but not so rushed that they would overtake her. Still, it was a relief to step out of the stairwell and into the first floor hallway where she could see Laura Taylor moving toward her.

Friday’s investigation had been successful, or at least seemed poised to be a success. There was still the matter of strategic power interruptions in the basement, trying a different method of locating the transmitter, a task taken on by her teammate…


Maxime Weis...

If he were on the stage, Maxime Weis might pull out an oversized handkerchief to dab at imaginary beads of sweat over his brow, an exaggerated motion to telegraph his efforts, his hard work. Sometimes it helped to try out those motions anyway, those broad motions of an actor, to think through plans, to consider options, but in the dim basement of the tenant building it wasn’t necessary as Weis pulled one large fuse loose, then another.

The building should have shook as he removed power from one section and then another, the buzz of its lost electricity fading into silence, but the basement was still even with the changes he spurred in the floors overhead. All her heard was the soft click of the fuses coming free, their tight connections fighting him at first, then giving up, giving in to his gentle tugs.

Success would mean attracting the attention of the Stasi in the transmitter unit, agents suddenly dropped into darkness, forced to investigate the interruption of the power that feed their machines. His German was impeccable, his uniform and tools perfect, so it would be easy to talk his way out of it. Unless he wanted a conflict. Unless he decided to tackle things head-on like…


Henry Murray...

"< Lucky for you, I also like it rough, >" the man growled, trying a smile, but he taunting expression was cut short by Hank’s punch, a blow that crossed the space between them like a lightning bolt, so fast he couldn’t react.

"< Gruunccakk, >" he spit, choking on the sound, staggering back from surprise and pain. His eyes went wide. His dog, sitting at his feet, unbothered, yawned again.

Laura Taylor and Girl Friday…

There wasn’t much room inside of the closet. A collection of clumsy mop and broom handles swayed and bumped, rattled, threatening to fall if they were only given the space to do so, instead caught by the quick hands of the woman who had ducked inside.

Their timing was perfect. Just as they pulled the door closed, leaving a thin crack to peek out of, just as they settled the quiet racket caused by ducking inside of the cluttered space, the door to the stairwell swung open. Two men came out, the first one tall and lean with a predator’s gaze, the second one shorter, a bit more stout, following closely behind. Their footfalls were nearly indentical, the lanky man’s coming down hard with an intensity to his steps, the second making the same sounds with his own feet, but thanks to his increased girth.

They marched passed the closet, muttering in their natural German, the shorter man saying, "< Five marks says its the idiot in 322 again with that imported hair dryer. >"

"< Shut up. >"

The door they had used to enter the first floor’s main hall drifted closed behind them. They appeared to be the only source of the footsteps Friday had heard pursuing her downstairs.

"< All I am saying is this happens once a week… >"

"< Shut up, Joachim. >"

They left behind a wake of stale cigarette smoke and bad aftershave as they passed, heading toward the stairs that would take them to the basement. They moved quickly, taking a practiced path that lead them through the main hall of the building, moving as if they had taken that trip multiple times before. Their clothing was crisp, a relaxed style, but new enough that they still held creases in some places along their slacks and in the long sleeves of their shirts. The shorter man had a light jacket that covered his arms, open in the front, the kind of thing you might wear inside in the winter. Their outfits matched what anyone might find in East German shops, but there was something *off* about them, like they were either a little too large or too small. Neither was true, but there was something about the man that seemed peculiar as they passed, marching down the hall. It wouldn’t take them very long to find the basement and then…

Maxime Weis…

His palm was filling up with a collection of fuses, their glass and brass bits softly clanging together to make sounds reminiscent of a series of tiny toasts, as he moved between each unit’s stiff metal fuse box.

"< Just you watch, the whole north side will be out again because of that damn thing, >" came down the stairs, followed by heavy, annoyed steps.

"< Joachim, I said to shut up. You know I don’t like to repeat myself, so why do you make me? Sigmar doesn’t make me repeat myself. I think I like Sigmar better. >"

"< And yet, you took me, >" the other voice answers.

Clunk.

Clunk.

Clunk.

The stairs leading down into the basement aren’t as finished as the ones found on the ground floor and above, just bare wood when the flights above are covered with rectangles of carpet or thick plastic runners that the stairs wear like the skin threatening to come loose from a snake. These stairs are simple planks of wood, each one shaking loose only the faintest bit of dust as heavy footsteps drop onto them, each bass drum thump bringing the pair of men deeper into the space where Weis has been working.

It is the furthest thing in the world from a rising curtain, from the click of electric buzzing that comes from a stage light coming to life, but it’s not entirely dissimilar either. Weis, it seems, was suddenly *on.*

Henry Murray…

"< You made a big mistake, friend, >" the burly man grumbled. He dropped his hand from his face, a streak of blood painted across the back of his hand. "< A *big* mistake. >"

He tried on a smile, but it didn’t stick, didn’t quite seem as believable as he intended, then he turned his head and spit a bit of blood into the snow.

"< Do you have any idea of how long I can have you put away for what you just did? >" he said, getting some of his swagger back. He took a small step toward Murray, so small it wasn’t a challenge, wasn’t an effort to engage, more like he was only finding his balance, trying to shift his weight over his feet until they settled in the way he expected. "< You make a *big* mistake. >"

He reached up and unzipped his coat, letting it fall open, his weight finally under him, his feet finally grounded. That newfound balance, the confirmed solidity of his footing, put even more steel in his spine, but none of that stopped the blood that dribbled out of his nose and over his lips, down his chin.

Murray thought he saw a holster inside of the man’s jacket, but the large man didn’t seem to be reaching for a weapon, didn’t seem interested in anything inside of his jacket. Unzipping it was just preparation, maybe caution.