Blades of Winter (17 page)

The U.S. 8th Air Force’s strategic bombing campaign reduced Japan’s manufacturing capability to smoking rubble. Anything remotely connected with the Japanese war effort was targeted. Some Japanese civilians speculated that the colossal scale of the American bomber raids were manifestations of the wrath of God.

Only thirty months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, U.S. troops invaded Japan’s home islands. Starved and surrounded, the Japanese Army fought on until American troops broke down the doors of the emperor’s palace in Tokyo. Japan’s unwillingness to surrender led GIs
to remark that their enemy “must have one heck of an afterlife.” The American attacks killed most of the leaders of the Japanese government, although Emperor Hirohito was spared.

Although the United States and China had a common enemy in Japan, they had nothing in common beyond that. Tensions flared immediately after VJ Day in 1944. The Chinese felt that they should be given possession of Japan as a reparation for the destruction caused by the Japanese invasion of their country. The United States already held the islands and planned to maintain Japan as a strategic outpost in Russia’s backyard.

China saw, and still sees, the American presence in Japan as a direct threat to her security. To insulate themselves from a possible American invasion, they declared Korea a permanent part of China and concentrated three armored divisions near Pusan, just across the Korea Strait from Nagasaki. The United States responded to intelligence predicting a Chinese attack by landing American troops from Japan at Inchon, behind the Chinese front. The conflict’s first year was characterized by bold flanking maneuvers and a fluid frontline.

The war’s second year ground into a bitter, static stalemate. By the middle of 1948, President Truman was under tremendous election-year pressure to resolve the situation in Korea. America had just finished an exhausting war against the Japanese and was ready to vote for whoever could bring a swift end to this new Asian conflict.

With Truman’s approval, the U.S. Air Force dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on a large Chinese army base at Pyongyang. The effect was as dramatic politically as it was physically. China had no desire to follow Japan’s brave but foolish precedent of being obliterated
by the Americans. Chinese troops withdrew from Korea and requested an immediate cease-fire.

The United States added Korea to its list of Asian protectorates, and the nuclear age began.

If the dawn of the nuclear age signaled the end of overt hostilities, it also initiated the Shadowstorm. Each of the four powers launched a multitude of schemes and plots against the others. Germany, Russia, and China were all desperate to obtain the bomb. The United States was just as eager to keep it away from them. The Americans craved the German’s rocket and jet propulsion technologies and wireless communications systems. China and Russia were both resentful of the U.S. presence in Japan. Germany and Russia had many border disputes in Europe and the Persian Gulf.

The German-occupied European capitals maintained their cultural identities, if not their political independence. The new owners particularly cherish Paris. Undamaged due to the speed of the German advance, it remains one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. While the French resent
l’occupation
to this day, the white Christians among them have been reasonably well treated by Germany’s post-Nazi regime so long as they obey their new masters. The treatment is similar in the Province of Great Britain, although certain regions still erupt in unrest, particularly Scotland. One prominent member of the Reichstag commented that he now sees why the Roman emperor Hadrian simply built a wall to keep the Scots out.

Scotland provides an interesting example of the recruitment difficulties faced by anti-German groups. The Reich has kept most of its subjects well fed and reasonably safe. For the common citizen, this is all they want from their government, foreign or otherwise. As a French
aphorist once wrote: “The only stomachs that take to the streets are empty ones.”

The exception to this unsettled contentment is Europe’s indentured Jewish population and those who openly oppose their enslavement. These groups have the greatest potential to launch a serious rebellion. Even German diplomats admit—off the record—that all it would take is the right leader at the right moment.

When I was a kid, one of the things I loved about hanging out with my dad was that he treated me like a grown-up. He’d drink, tell stories, and swear about politicians—especially Nixon. He showed me how to fix stuff and how he maintained his Mods. I even got to help with certain things, like his knees. I’d squirt lubricant into his uncapped knee joints while he held his leg in place. He’d swing his lower leg back and forth to work the grease into the machinery inside. It sounded like two steaks rubbing together and smelled like pizza that’s been cooked on a car engine.

Daddy also used to take me to Extreme Operations’ firing range. Technically, guests weren’t allowed, but he was ExOps’ rock star, so they’d look the other way when the two of us walked in. It helped that he held the range’s record with a score of 298 out of 300. My initial results were barely over 100, but they zoomed up to 200 after my father taught me how to adjust for wind, elevation, and distance. Then he showed me how to time my breathing, to take a deep breath and hold it while I aimed and fired. Once I’d mastered this, I was up to 250 and qualified as a sharpshooter. As I got better, Dad began challenging me to friendly competitions. If I was shooting well that day, he’d let me win. He always got extra hugs from his Hot Shot when we went to the range.

All this transferred to my attitude at the local public school, which is to say I had a huge one. I knew my daddy could whomp all the other daddies’ asses, so I’d pick the biggest kid on the playground and pounce on
him: punch, bite, kick. They never expected it because of my size. I barely weighed eighty pounds when I left public school to enter Extreme Operations’ youth training facility, AGOGE, commonly known as Camp A-Go-Go.

ExOps recruited me right after my father’s memorial service. Some people came to the house to gather his classified materials and equipment. They weren’t sure if he’d brought his ExOps-issued LB-505 with him on his last mission. When they asked me about it, I blasted them with enough swear words to make the Devil blush. My father had just died, and here were these clipboard-toting assholes bugging me about the only part of him I had left. They left that part of the form blank.

When Dad was away on his Jobs, I’d putter around in his workshop. He always left his shop a mess, so I’d tidy up for him. I liked to be around all his work things. Meanwhile, my mom would go to her job in ExOps’ Administration Department. We’d have our uptight little life together until he got home.

One time, I grumbled to my dad about what a pain Mom had been while he was away. He stopped what he was doing and sat down across from me on the workbench. I could see him collect his thoughts for a minute.

“Alix, honey, I know things are tense around here when I’m gone. You’re a big girl now, and I need to ask you for a favor.”

My big girl mind raced.
What could it be?
“Yes?” I squeaked.

“You know how your mom and I fight sometimes when I’m home?”

Jesus, did I. So did the neighbors, the cops, and the local newspapers. “Yeah, kind of.”

“First off, it’s not your fault, okay? It has nothing to do with you. We both love you very much.”

“Uh huh.”

“Your mother and I fight so much when I come home because she and I are both terribly wound up. She’s upset because she doesn’t know what happens to me on
my trips, and I’m upset because I
do
know. I’d like you to be really good for Mom while I’m away by helping around the house and doing what she asks. Maybe she won’t be quite so tense, and I’ll try to unwind without making her mad. We’ll all have a nicer time while I’m home.”

Children helping parents? I’d never heard of this. Kids are supposed to get-get-get, aren’t they? Still, that part at the end sounded good. I was always glad when my father came home, but I was also glad the fights stopped when he went away. “Okay, Daddy,” I said, “but I want an extra-nice treat.”

He chuckled and said, “You got it, sweetheart.”

As a typically patient child, I immediately asked, “What will it be?”

“What will what be?”

“My extra-nice treat!” I had my Daddy-slaying charm turned up to eleven. I figured if I played my cards right, I might score a life-size chocolate pony.

He laughed, stood up, and reached down to sweep me into his arms. I held on to his shoulder, right at eye level with him. He said, “Tell you what, Hot Shot. The next time I’m home, I’ll teach you to work on Li’l Bertha.” I kissed him on the cheek and wrapped my arms around his neck. It wasn’t what I’d expected, but my father knew me too well. I’d coveted that gorgeous gun since I’d first laid eyes on it. Some kids get into tennis or chess, but not me. I took to guns the way a senator takes to interns.

Dad had been home for an unusually long time, almost a month. He hadn’t had any drinks in a few days, so I could tell he was getting ready to travel again. That night, I lay in bed reading one of my dad’s gun magazines from the stash I kept in my closet. I stored my clothes in two-foot-tall heaps all over my room because my closet had become a warehouse of the stuff I scrounged from around the house: piles of magazines, a collection of old
tools and electronics, and a few empty liquor bottles with fancy labels.

Most of it was stuff my dad would leave around after he passed out late at night. My mom or I would find him in the morning, asleep in his shop. Sometimes he’d have written things on his bandages. It was usually gibberish, but some things you could make out. Mom would take a big black marker and scribble over it. She didn’t want him in trouble for walking around with classified information written all over him.

My parents’ room was right next to mine. Government-issue houses have notoriously thin walls, so I could always hear what they said. For once, what I heard wasn’t shouts. I didn’t hear any crashes, either, since my father had already trashed most of the bedroom furniture. But the fact that they weren’t shouting didn’t mean they weren’t arguing.

“For God’s sake,” my mother exclaimed, “she’s only ten years old.”

“Cleo, I know how old our daughter is. She’s very mature for her age.”

“I don’t care! Jesus, Philip. She asks the most awful questions when you’re away.”

“If she asks, that means she’s ready to hear it.”

“No, it doesn’t! Fourth-grade girls should not ask their mothers about machine guns and strangulation. I can’t even look at the drawings she brings home from school!”

“Cleo, I don’t talk to Alix about—”

“Well, she sure as hell doesn’t hear it from me!” my mom said, her voice rising. “I’m worried she’ll turn into a person like, like …”

“Who, me? What’s wrong with that?” barked my dad. My mother didn’t answer. I heard the mattress creak as one of them sat on the bed. My dad inhaled slowly, exhaled all at once, then continued. “Honey, I know my work bothers you, but it’s not all as bad as it sounds.
Besides, how many of your friends have a Level 19 Liberator at home?” This is how I learned to handle my mother. She’s a real sucker for this kind of charm.

“Philip, stop it.”

“Baby, enough for now. We’ll talk in the morning before I go to work. Why don’t you come here?” The bed creaked again. My dad had successfully lured my mother into bed. They talked for another minute or so, and then it got quiet. After a while I could hear them having sex, moaning and stuff. Maybe my mother wouldn’t divorce my father, after all. Once in a while, she would talk about it on the phone to her friends when she thought I couldn’t hear her.

I fell asleep and dreamed about being an Extreme Operations agent like my daddy. I’d travel and shoot guns and beat people up, but when I came home I wouldn’t drink, and I wouldn’t smash up the house.