Page 27 of Retrograde

I pull my balaclava off. It’s only when I crumple it in my fingers that I discover the skull white is all crimson. There’s a slice of skin stuck to it, too ... right, I can see how that could be a bit off-putting. But at least I’m wearing black, so all the blood smearing my front isn’t too obvious.

I set the mask aside.

“Repeat after me, everyone,” I address the room grimly. “We’re fucked.”

More eyes on me now. Attila passes me a cigar and a lighter. I stick it between my teeth, click a few times and inhale deeply, holding the smoke in my mouth.

Knowing me well, it’s only when I exhale that Attila asks, “How fucked exactly?”

“They’re planning the biggest campaign yet.” I walk over to the map we keep spread on the table in the centre of the room, chess figurines representing units—white for theirs and black for ours.

They all form a circle around me and watch in breathless horror as I shift the white figures until they’re right next to our lonely black.

“Well fuck me in the ass ...” Martin grunts.

Men murmur nervously, dejectedly. My temples are pounding with the promise of one bitch of a headache.

“Do we call for backup?” Attila asks, like he doesn’t know all the other groups are stretched thin as it is. “What do you want to do?”

Fuck knows. It’s clear we need a covert op—we can never take this many of them head-on. But the problem is that with an offensive this size, the element of surprise can only take us so far.

Has the day finally come? The day I tell them we’re done? The day I arrange a passage to some Mediterranean island for them all, strap explosives to my body and run into a crowd of mustards to take as many of them as possible to hell with me?

I rub my jaw and take a few more drags on my cigar, scanning the map with my eyes.

And fuck me, I finally see it. A way to stall!

“They’ve got to cross the river,” I drawl. “And there’s only one bridge left for miles that has anywhere near the load-bearing capacity they need. Most Suda.”

Translated from the old language of the region: the Bridge of Judgement. How fitting.

“So we blow up the bridge,” Attila states pragmatically. “Your favourite thing to do. We’ve still got plenty of dynamite left. When do you want to go?”

My lips stretch into a nasty smile. “I want to blow it up when they’re on it.”

A few hours later, the room is empty and hazy, wisps of smoke swirling lazily right underneath the ceiling. I’m sprawled on the sofa, taking drag after drag on the third cigar of the night. Head thrown back, I blow out a perfect smoke ring, watching it dissipate as it floats up.

Maybe that happens to all of us. As we rise, we disintegrate, until nothing’s left.

I might go for another cigar after this one. Why not? The chances of getting cancer are over fifty per cent in the Rifterland, no matter what you do. I might as well smoke all I want.

I put the cigar between my teeth and return my attention to the crybaby’s laptop. And to what’s become my pastime over the last few days.

I’m going through the traitor’s photos one by one. All of them, even the drafts, even the scraps, the ones in the trash. Even the one million shots of Volker’s eldest daughter Daria—the stuck-up bitch—in the skimpiest possible outfits, jutting her hips and pouting her lips. Those are useless to me. I can tell even Riley was bored taking them.

But the rest are helping me map their movements to determine whether there’s any truth to that fairy tale about working with the Hounds.

I’ve seen hundreds of the photos already, if not thousands. And there isn’t a single one of the Hounds’ camp, members, or anything else that could indicate any connection between the duo and the rebel group. Not that it’s surprising. Martin told me that, in addition to a tracker, he removed three types of spyware from the device. Mustards always had access to the traitor’s photos, and she and the crybaby likely knew that. How they would have managed to bypass it and send anything to Synechord is beyond me, but Martin assured me it’s not impossible. But they would have been stupid to keep any proof of association with the rebels on a monitored laptop. I’m on a wild goose chase. I know that, but still I refuse to give up until I’ve seen all her work.

“Your hooker’s here. I sent her upstairs,” Attila announces, marching in. “You’ve got some appetite this week.”

“She can wait,” I dismiss him unenthusiastically.

He plops down in the armchair opposite me, lighting his own cigar. I barely raise my eyes to acknowledge him, still flicking through the images.

“Are we a fucking hotel now or what?” His voice grates on my nerves.

It’s been one hell of a day. All I want to do is go through these in peace. And in silence.