Zhukov's Dogs (4 page)

Gully patted him on the shoulder soundly as he spoke. “Tell me. Why do you need this conference room when you’ve got a brand new office one floor up, McKee?”

“If you must know, I haven’t finished moving into it yet,” Aiden admitted. He’d been a brigadier of the Y.I.D. for a full week now, but somehow still hadn’t settled into the position. Aiden had never been very good at time management. He was, however, good at politely dismissing people he didn’t like. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, Colonel.”

“As you wish. Come find me when he’s finished with you, Zhukov,” Gully said.

I wanted to tell Gully I had a million other things to do before noon, but like a good dog, I just nodded and told myself I’d have to work one more thing into my schedule. Aiden shut the door behind Gully and immediately groaned, “Christ, his laugh is annoying.”

“Someone’s in a bad mood this morning,” I said as I sat back down in my seat. There was no need to be as professional around Aiden as I was with Gully, even though he was two ranks my senior. Five years older than me, Aiden was my best friend in the world and had put his life on the line for me more than once. He was the sort of person who’d spend the first half of his day nonchalantly preventing nuclear bombs from detonating in Disneyland, and the second half using his lifetime of espionage training to pick up women.

Aiden unbuttoned his jacket and collapsed into the seat next to me. He didn’t wear his stress as well as I did and was far more vocal about it. “Can’t imagine why. It’s not like I’m losing more sleep lately than I ever did in the field,” he said with a loud huff.

“I thought you wanted this promotion,” I said.

“I did. I mean, I still do and all, don’t get me wrong. There’s just
so
much damn paperwork.”

After serving with Aiden for over a decade, I knew how much he hated working at a desk. I too dreaded the day I would have to trade the field for a corner office. Nobody could last in the Y.I.D. forever. When our youth faded, we were typically transferred to the G.F. or S.O.R. as low-ranking field operatives. Aiden’s tactical brilliance, though, made him unfortunate enough to be selected as a Y.I.D. general. It was a highly-coveted position that gave him the authority he’d always desired, but it also pulled him from active duty.

“Hire an assistant?” I suggested. “All generals are allowed up to two.”

Aiden’s eyes lit up, and a devious grin spread across his face. He stared into the open air above us dazedly as he said, “Yeah… Yeah. A blonde one… Wait, you said I could have two? Nik, what do you think? Two blondes? Or should I mix it up and get a brunette?”

Any other day, I’d be happy to play along. Today, however, I was not in the mood. While he was busy going through paperwork and moving into a new office, I’d slept four hours in the last forty-eight and spent my entire morning running around, cleaning up messes made by the battalions I was in charge of. “Aiden, I didn’t clear my schedule so I could help you pick out an assistant. I haven’t slept. I’ve got two debriefings to get to, and both sets of idiots somehow managed to botch the most mundane, simple—”

“Whoa! Deep breaths, buddy. Deep breaths,” Aiden said, putting his hands up like my frustrations were being physically thrown at him.

I sighed and worked a hand through my hair. I shut my eyes for a second, taking a deep breath as instructed, and when I opened them again, I saw Aiden reaching into his jacket. He took a look around the room to make sure we were alone before saying under his breath, “You know, if you want, I’ve got something that’ll help take the edge off.”

Aiden was always good for a morphine injection or a Percocet. While any sort of non-military issued medication was illegal in our ranks, they were more common than any of the higher-ups wanted to admit. Personally, I wasn’t a big fan of drugs unless I needed them to distract me from something like a gaping hole in my chest or a bone sticking out of my skin.

“I’ll be fine,” I told him, waving the offer off. “It’s just been a rough couple of days.”

“Sounds like it,” Aiden said. He dropped the two folders he’d been carrying onto the table between us. I reached for them, but before I could open the one on top, Aiden’s hand shot out and held it shut.

“Aiden. Not in the mood,” I said warningly.

“I know,” he said, bringing his other hand up and raising his index finger. “Which is exactly why, in exchange for the awesome mission I’m about to give you, you’re coming out with me tonight, and I’m going to help you land the prettiest girl. Prettier than that one chick in Istanbul last month.”

“The gypsy we paid to keep quiet about the beheaded cult leader in the trunk?”

“Yeah, that one.”

Moments like these were exactly why I liked Aiden. Crude humor and womanizing habits aside, he was a great agent and an even better friend. We’d both been doing this our entire lives, and he was one of the few people who could actually relate to, and sympathize with, just how stressed out I was.

For the first time in forty-eight sleep deprived hours, a genuine smile cracked my face. Aiden took it as my response. He clapped me on the shoulder with one hand and flipped open the folder on the table with the other. And just like that, we were in work mode again. A seriousness settled between us as I stared down at the elaborate blueprints at the top of the pile, which Aiden wasted no time in explaining.

“These are detailed diagrams of Seattle, what’s left of it at least.”

“People still live there?” I asked. History and old timers who’d survived the changes of the world described Seattle as a large city bustling with people and making huge strides in technology. These days, all Seattle had was an abundance of scrap metal and snow.

Aiden nodded. “Hard to believe, right? Anyone with half a brain got out of Washington ages ago, but there were some people who just moved underground.”

“Underground?”

“Yeah. Hang on, let me find it. I did some research so I wouldn’t sound stupid during this,” Aiden said. He fished through his jacket pockets until he found a post-it which he proceeded to read aloud. “There was a big fire
way
back in the day. We’re talking, like, late eighteen hundreds. It destroyed a lot of the city, and instead of rebuilding it all, they just stacked a new city on top of the old one. When their shiny new city started collapsing under the snow, they reopened the underground.”

I already had a pretty decent idea of where the conversation with Aiden was going, but I hoped my hunch was wrong. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I want you to go there.”

I cringed and rapped my fingers on the blueprints. I hated the cold. I despised the cold. I despised Aiden for wanting to send me into the cold. He must have sensed my resentment because, at once, he scooted his chair closer and tried to smooth the situation over. “Nik, come on. I’ll buy you a big ol’ parka and stuff the pockets with those weird marshmallow candies you like.”

“We have dogs recruited from the north better suited for the cold,” I said, already standing to leave.

“You’re the only one I trust with this mission, Nik. Please, just take a look at it,” Aiden begged. I had never been good at ignoring a friend in need, especially when that friend was Aiden. I told myself I should at least hear him out and reluctantly sat back down.

Eagerly, Aiden reached for the open folder and pushed aside the stack of blueprints until he found a briefing sheet toward the bottom of the pile. No sooner did he shove it in my hand than he began to summarize it. “The people in the underground have managed to expand their hole in the earth. With the city above ground uninhabitable, they’ve become the number two exporter of recycled metal, and lately they’ve taken to melting it down and turning it into all sorts of stuff.”

“Such as?”

“Mostly weaponry, ammunition and whatnot. Really good, quality stuff, too.”

“And you want me to go survey how it’s going in the factories?”

Aiden laughed and shook his head. “Nah, you’ve outgrown those easy missions. There is trouble in the factories, though. Workers aren’t happy at all; always complaining about being overworked, under-rationed, and other bull. The guy we put in office over there, Governor Granne, seems to be convinced there’s some kind of conspiracy against the order he’s maintaining. Says there’s a group of revolutionaries giving him some real trouble.”

Aiden pushed the second folder toward me, this one significantly smaller than the first. I opened it and found a thin packet of work, each page describing a different one of the revolutionaries Aiden mentioned. There were very few details to each profile, and only a couple had pictures attached to them.

I paged through, memorizing the photographs and studying the criminal charges some were accused of while Aiden swiveled in his chair and said, “Misfit bunch of kids. I ran the names Granne gave me, and this is all I could get on them. He swears they’re a serious threat, though, so I want you to go see if there’s anything to his concerns.”

Shaking my head, I flipped back to the profile at the top of the packet. A black and white mug shot of a teenage boy glared back at me, his middle finger sticking up over the Orange County Police letter board. “Aiden, I thought you said I was the only one you could trust with this mission. It sounds pretty routine if you ask me,” I said.

“It would be, but…” Aiden paused, tongue darting out over his lips as they turned up slightly at the edges. “The Council is thinking about bringing the abandoned city down onto the underground.”

“W-What?” I must have heard him wrong.

Made up of the “least unbiased” senators and governors selected by the last acting President of the United States, The Council was the ultimate authority. They were kind of like an all-powerful and merciless god which had come into power shortly after Chicago was wiped out by tornados. They’d come up with all sorts of plans to better the lives of the many, even if it meant destroying thousands of lives of the few.

In my eleven years of service, I’d never heard of something as extreme as crushing an entire city. The fact Aiden just told me I was going to have a hand in the crime made everything else on my mind seem trivial. Good dogs held their tongues and relied on nothing more than the briefing sheet in front of them, though, so I tried to keep my nerves together and not think about the mass genocide I was being asked to take part in.

“The workers there don’t harvest materials quickly enough to turn any real substantial revenue,” Aiden said, the severity of the conversation not tripping him up one bit. “The Council wants to lower the old city on the underground so they can turn it into a massive quarry and collect faster.”

“That’s all well-and-good, but I mean are they going to at least evacuate the city? How would they even manage to bring down something that big?” I asked, trying to sound as nonchalant about it as he did.

Aiden shrugged. “Don’t know. They didn’t tell me much more than what I’ve already told you. I’m guessing there will probably be a lot of explosives and not a lot of warning. You know how The Council is with the whole ‘staging it like an accident’ thing. Bunch of drama queens. But hey, don’t worry about it. It’s not even official they’re going to bring the city down, yet.”

Usually if there was rumor of The Council wanting to do something, action followed shortly. I bit at the inside of my bottom lip and looked back down at the briefing sheet on the table. Before I could even start to comb through the moral issues tearing into my conscience, Aiden scooted his chair closer. His voice was low, like he was afraid someone was listening to our conversation. “I’m asking you to go, Nik, because if The Council does decide to go through with their plan, we’re going to need someone in there who can get the job done right.”

It was times like this I wished I hadn’t tried so hard to live up to the expectations that came with my last name. The older I got and the better I became, the more missions I was assigned where ethical lines were crossed. I knew better than to say anything. If I were to ever mention my doubts or unease, I’d certainly be put through another series of detestation exercises. The last thing I wanted was “a week of induced anxiety for the sake of developing healthy coping mechanisms,” as the waiver we had to sign described it. In the field, it would simply be described as torture.

For a moment, I considered telling Aiden I didn’t want to take the mission, admit to him I didn’t feel comfortable potentially being a part of the demise of an entire city. He was my friend. He’d understand. The dread that somehow voicing my concerns would come back on me with consequence, though, was too great. So I offered up my only other argument, even when I knew it wouldn’t get me off the hook. “But it’s cold.”

Aiden laughed and slapped me on the back, thinking I was just being funny when, in fact, there were few things I hated more than the cold. “You’ll leave first thing in the morning,” he said.

I looked to my watch as I gathered the folders in my arms. With a debriefing at eleven and having told Gully I’d swing by his office after I finished with Aiden, it looked like I’d be cutting it close. At least I’d have a lot to keep my mind off the mission I’d just accepted.

Gully’s office was on the fourth floor, and Aiden followed me all the way to his door, prattling away about how he was going to start searching for an assistant or three. Aiden’s office was in a different hall, and he bid a quick goodbye before leaving me at Gully’s door. As soon as I knocked, Gully called from inside, “Come in.”

The colonel’s office was moderately-sized and decorated with dozens of taxidermy pieces he’d collected during his travels. “In your lifetime,” Gully would always say, “the only polar bears you’ll ever see will either be in books or in my office.” It always surprised me that his office didn’t smell like a zoo but rather reeked of cinnamon and other expensive spices he burned in a brown pot on the mantle.

The walrus appeared to be busy at his desk, a set of glasses too small for his face resting on the tip of his nose so he could read a document in his hands. He cut his eyes up to see who had entered his office and quickly set the papers down, removing his glasses. “That was a quick meeting,” he said.