The Bogus Byrd Man's Biblioteca of Bits

[Byrd Man]

Just a place for me to put random scraps of posts and writings I don't know what else to do with.

[Byrd Man]

Part I:
Down the Rabbit Hole

"But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'
'How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
'You must be,' said the Cat, 'or you wouldn't have come here.'"
-- Lewis Carroll

French Riviera

Tresser watched Vertigo do a line of cocaine off the glass coffee table. They were in the opulent cabin on Vertigo’s yacht somewhere near Saint-Tropez. Vertigo snorted and rubbed his nose before shaking his head.

“Careful,” said Tresser. “Too much and you won’t be able to get hard.”

Vertigo chuckled and grabbed his crotch.

“No need to worry, Tresser. For me, getting hard is so easy.”

Tresser resisted the urge to roll his eyes. With his accent and gaudy jewelry, Vertigo was the perfect picture of Eurotrash. He was from some small Eastern European country, a deposed noble who clung to his title of count like a drowning man clings to a life raft.

“How are our friends in New York, Tresser?”

“The Campisis send their love, boss.”

“I can’t spend fucking love. What about their money?”

“I took care of it,” Tresser said with a slight sigh. “It wasn’t easy, but I think Angelo learned the hard way not to fuck with people with enough weapons to supply a standing army.”

Vertigo laughed and started to chop together another line with his black credit card.

“This is good shit,” Vertigo said after doing another line. “I need you back to America, Tresser. A potential business client will need wooing. You know of this Hub City?”

“Vaguely. It’s a real shit-hole.”

“Who cares?” Vertigo asked with a shrug. “Money spends regardless of where it comes from.”

Vertigo stood while Tresser started for the deck of the yacht. Two beautiful women in slinky dresses came from the cabin downstairs and wrapped their arms around Vertigo’s waist. He chuckled and said something to them in French, something that made them laugh, but not too hard that they sounded disingenuous. That was the difference between top dollar callgirls and the cheap ones.

“Call me when you are in Hub City and have made contact,” Vertigo said as he pulled his eyes away from the two hookers. “We’ll go from there.”

“Sure.”

Tresser started to walk away as the two women began to undress.

---

O’Hare Airport
Chicago

Tresser swiped his credit card and bought twenty-four hours worth of time on the airport locker. He placed a simple smartphone inside the locker and closed it up. Tradecraft dictated that someone would be by in the next twenty-four hours to collect the phone. The phone was only capable of data storage. On it was Tresser’s report on his movements over the last month.

Per the op guidelines, he never wrote anything down or left any evidence of his true identity where Vertigo could find them. He always bought a brand new laptop before boarding a plane. While in the air and cut off from almost all digital signals he would write up a report, put it on the dummy phone, and destroy the laptop soon after landing.

The report chronicled Tresser’s activities in New York City, along with the meeting Vertigo and Tresser in Turin with some real-life Italian mobsters. It seemed Vertigo was eager to get in bed with the Camorra, Europe’s oldest and most powerful criminal organization. If he could do that, then he’d really be playing in the big leagues. Maybe that would get him and Tresser in the room with the real people behind LEVIATHAN.

Tresser used his false passport and credit card to rent a car. Vertigo, for whatever reason, never wanted to directly fly in to whatever city he was doing business in. He’d always fly into the next closest city and drive the distance. That worked fine in Europe, but in parts of the Americas and Eastern Europe it could eat up a whole day just driving.

The little red compact car was his chosen vehicle and he hit the interstate, a sign announcing that Hub City was a few hundred miles away.

---

Hub City

The lobby of the office building wasn’t much to look at. But then again, Hub City itself wasn’t much to look at. If you could imagine all the worse parts of Detroit and Chicago without any of those redeeming qualities, then you got Hub. Tresser had only been here once or twice, and only then he was just passing through to a bigger and better city.

When the man he was here to see finally let him into his office, it was as dumpy as Tresser was expecting. A few bookshelves half filled, cheap desk and cheaper computer. It looked like a CPA’s office. The man who occupied this office would never been expected to work with international arms dealers.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said with a smile. “The surroundings are the point. No flash, no cash, no suspicions.’

He was middle aged and his suit was off the rack. A pair of reading glasses on his face helped with the CPA illusion. Tresser sat down across the desk from the man.

“You’re awfully trusting,” said Tresser. “To just invite me in to your office like this.”

“You’ve been vetted,” he said. “You and your boss are the real deal. Plus, if you are something like a cop I’m not too concerned. This office and the company who leases it are all registered in fake names. Shell companies within shell companies. I have many names, but nobody knows my real one. If you want to call me anything, you can call me Broker.”

“Okay, Broker. So why are you in need of my services?”

“Guns are my business. The past twenty years I’ve been selling weapons to the gangs in Chicago. Do you watch the news, Mr…”

“Thomas,” said Tresser. “Call me Thomas. And, no, I don’t want the news a lot. I prefer things with happy endings.”

“Right,” Broker said with a chuckle. “If you watched the news you’d see about Chicago. Politicians love to talk about the violence in the city, despite the strict gun laws. It’s pretty much a conservative talking point at this point. The problem with that talking point is that as strict as Chicago is with their laws, it doesn’t make a bit of difference. It’s surrounded by Indiana and Michigan, places you can get a gun with no problem. So I buy guns in both states with straw purchases, completely legal. Then I file the numbers off the guns and sell them to people in Chicago at double the amount I paid for them.”

Tresser tried his best to looked impressed. Broker was just another one of a long list of motherfuckers he wished he could put through a wall. The ops objective wasn’t to stop the influx of guns and violence in America. As fucked up as Vertigo’s business was, Tresser’s handler just saw it as a means to an end. They had no intention of shutting it down until Tresser could get intel on LEVIATHAN.

“It sounds like a pretty solid business,” said Tresser. “So why change it up?”

“I want to expand,” said Broker. “Into the other big cities in the midwest. Detroit, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Kansas City. I can’t do that with simple straw purchases. I need to up my supply to meet the incoming demand.”
“That’s where we come in, right?”

“Right.”

“I’ll have to touch base with my boss,” said Tresser. “But I think we can do business, Mr. Broker. Tell me what your needs are, and we’ll do our best to fulfill them.”

---

Tresser pulled his gun from the shoulder holster the second he walked into his motel room. There was supposed to be a splinter wedged in the doorjamb. He’d left it there after he went out to meet Broker.

He saw the figure sitting in the dark beside the lamp. It snapped on and he breathed a sigh of relief. His handler, Sarge Steel, had a jovial grin on his face. Even with the cool weather outside, Steel still wore shorts and flip flops.

“Read your report this morning,” he said with no preamble. “Forwarded the information about the mobsters over to Justice. Hopefully the FBI will be up on them in no time.”

“Why the fuck are you in my room?” Tresser asked as he holstered his gun.

“We needed to talk, ASAP. Can’t do it over the phone. Stopping you in the street would look suspicious as hell.”

Tresser sat down on the lumpy bed and faced Steel. The bed groaned slightly and sagged under his weight.

“What’s so important?”

“Your friend, Broker,” said Steel. “I assume your meeting with him went well.”

“It did,” said Tresser. “And how do you know about him already?”

Steel pulled a smartphone from his pocket and started to scroll through it in silence. When he found what he wanted, he passed it to Tresser. A mugshot of Broker was on the screen. A SHIELD logo in the corner of the photo.

“He’s on the government’s radar already. And I think you’re being led into a trap. You ever heard of an organization called HYDRA?”

[Byrd Man]

Washington D.C.
Twenty Months Ago

“Where were you when 9/11 happened?”

Tresser looked away from the pond and turned to face Steel. He was sitting beside him on the park bench. This was their third meeting in the past week and it was almost identical to the previous two. Every time it had been in a public place, somewhere they could be seen but audio surveillance would be hard to get. Per Steel’s orders Tresser spent nearly two hours before the meeting running countermeasures to throw off any potential tails.

“I was in high school,” said Tresser. “I was in ninth grade at the time.”

“But what about the day?” Steel asked. “September 11th, 2001. Do you remember exactly where you were?”

“No,” said Tresser. “I… used to... I think I was in my homeroom… no that would have been too early to have heard about it. It’s slipped away.”

“Of course,” Sarge Steel said with a slight nod. “More and more people are forgetting about the details of that day. Biggest tragedy in US history, and they’re moving on from it.”

“That’s how it works,” Tresser shrugged. “Time marches on, memories fade. I--”

“I was on my way to the Pentagon when a plane hit it,” said Steel. “My office was on the western side of the building, the one that got destroyed in the attack. One hundred and twenty-five of my friends and co-workers died that day. That memory hasn’t faded, Tresser. No matter how much time marches on, they're still dead.”

Tresser was at a loss for words. He remembered the aftermath and the way everyone in the country seemed to come together and rally around the flag. He also remembered how quickly it all went to shit. Patriot Acts, prolonged war in two countries. He’d witnessed firsthand the folly of US foreign policy when he was a SEAL, and time and time again when he was a CIA spook.

“If you could stop the next 9/11,” said Steel. “How far would you go to accomplish it?

“I’d do whatever it takes. At JSOC they said we stopped it several times over.”

“I bet that they did,” Steel chuckled. “The special forces boys hang their hats on that claim every chance they get. But I’m not talking about what you do to someone else to stop a major attack. What would you do to yourself? Would you die? Ruin your life? Does your life and happiness trump the lives of thousands?”

“This is starting to sound like a philosophy class,” said Tresser. “About to break out the trolley problem?”

Steel shook his head and looked at Tresser. “I’m gonna cut through the bullshit, son. I’ve combed through every bit of your files, both your time with DEVGRU and with the Activity. I like what I’ve read and I like what I’ve seen from you in these little chats of ours. I want to offer you a job… well, not so much a job but a mission.”

“What’s the mission?”

“Deep cover. I don’t mean pretending to be an Austrian drug dealer or some extremist right winger. You’re going to be a bad guy and live the life, 24/7/365. It means leaving the Activity and having your life rewritten to become a fallen angel in need of a job. Low-hanging fruit for the people we want to trap. What do you think?”

Tresser looked out across the park. It was early afternoon but there were a few dozen people going about their lives. He half-remembered some quote about people being able to live in comfort because of the people who lived in the shadows and did the things necessary for their comfort.

“What do I need to do?” asked Tresser.

“Leave that to me, Tom,” Steel said as he stood. “We’ll work on your legend. For now prepare yourself. Very shortly you’re going to go through the rabbit hole.”

---

Hub City
Now

Tresser whipped his rental car into the parking garage and found a spot to park. He watched the rearview mirror and waited to see any movement from behind him. A car on the highway managed to keep a steady three lengths behind him and got off the same on-ramp, keeping behind him all the way to downtown.

His first instinct was to cut and run back to France. Vertigo would understand the move, especially if this was a setup looking to get to him and his business. But Steel wanted intel to give to SHIELD, something to barter with in case he ever needed it. He also brought up another angle that intrigued Tresser. What if Broker was doing talent scouting? What if whatever HYDRA was, and Steel wasn’t sure exactly what it was, wanted to poach him away from Vertigo?

“What if you’re wrong and they try to kill me?”

“Kill them first.”

Tresser got out the car and started out on foot. He walked through downtown Hub. A few blocks away from the parking garage he noticed he was being followed. He caught glimpses in windows as he passed them and managed to catch snatches as he looked back from time to time. A man in a hoodie and jeans, white and very nondescript. Whoever he was, he wasn’t very good at shadowing. Tresser felt for the pistol tucked into his waistband as he stepped into an alley and waited for the man.

A few moments later, he came into view, hurrying with a gun pulled out and ready to aim. Tresser reached out and disarmed the man with a quick blow to the elbow. He stumbled back and started to pull a knife. Tresser stopped him in his tracks with two quick shots from the man’s own gun. The bullets ripped through his chest and dropped him to the ground. The knife clattered against the pavement along with something else. Holding his shooter’s stance, Tresser stepped up and kicked the knife and other object away. Even in the dim lighting he could make out what it was:

A golden shield with the words HUB CITY written on the top rocker, POLICE DEPARTMENT on the bottom rocker.

“Fuck,” Tresser said under his breath.

[Byrd Man]

Baltimore
Sixteen Months Ago

“You are a walking enigma, my friend.”

Detectives Burke and McNeil were studies in contrast. McNeil was young, black and handsome with a well-trimmed beard. Burke was short and fat with pasty Irish skin and white hair that had probably once been the color of fire. Despite their differences they both wore the same department store suits, and they were both BPD homicide detectives. To Tresser they as well have been identical twins.

McNeil was doing the talking as the two of them sat across the metal table from Tresser. They were waiting for him outside his rowhouse when he got home from the club. Burke leaned against the hood of the unmarked police car with a cigar clamped between his teeth while McNeil played on his phone. A short ride later and they were here, in an interrogation room on the sixth floor of the BPD building.

“We did some digging into you,” said McNeil. “Or at least we tried to. We know a Thomas Tresser matching your description and DOB was born in Baltimore and graduated from Edmondson.”

“Impressive,” Burke chimed in. “I bet you were the only white kid in your class.”

“One of three,” said Tresser.

“Mommy and daddy couldn’t afford parochial school?” asked Burke.

When that didn’t get a rise from Tresser, McNeil pressed on.

“You joined the Navy, Tom, right out of high school. Up until yesterday that was all we knew. Took awhile, but the NCIS boys got us your file. I have to say I am impressed by what I read, you know from the few parts that weren’t redacted.”

“You’re a real fucking G.I. Joe, Tresser. You kill Bin Laden?”

“I got an alibi for that one,” said Tresser.

“But it got me and Joe here wondering,” said McNeil. “Your Navy records end in ‘12. You pop up on BPD’s radar two months ago. That’s a gap of almost five years. Five years and there’s no travel records, no employment history, no tax filings. For all intents and purposes, Thomas Tresser did not exist until he reappeared as muscle for Jimmy Kappas.”

“It don’t work like that,” grunted Burke. “Not in today’s world. Everyone leaves a footprint.”

“There a point to this?” said Tresser. “Or are the two of you just working on your patter?”

“I think the black hole was created,” said McNeil. “Someone out there erased your history because you did something bad, so bad they couldn’t have it getting out. So they swept it under the rug and you were left out in the cold.”

“I was in Vietnam,” said Burke. “An MP during the tail end of the war. I ran into a couple of spooks when I was there. The way they carry themselves, the way they look at you, look through you, it’s how you look, Tresser. Like you’re figuring out all the ways you can kill a guy.”

“Jimmy Kappas started really taking over the west side about the time you show up,” said McNeil. “The Greek’s war with the goombas was brief and very one-sided. What was it, Joey? Six bodies?”

“Seven,” said Burke. “Every single one of them Carlo’s guys.”

“So it begs the question,” McNeil said as he leaned forward and placed his palms against the metal table. “Why is a killer like you working for a greaseball like Kappas? It’s like Babe Ruth playing little league.”

“If you got anything besides bullshit and conjecture, let me know,” said Tresser. “If you’re going to charge me with something, then do it and I’ll get a lawyer. If not, then I guess I’m free to go.”

“We’re watching you, Tresser,” McNeil said as he stood. “You don’t get to commit six murders in my city and get away with it.”

“Seven,” said Tresser. “At least, according to Detective Burke.”

A few minutes later Burke led Tresser down the halls of the Homicide Unit. They passed by the big whiteboard with names written on it in marker. Each homicide detective headed a column with a list of names and cases underneath it in different colors. There were a few written in black, but the overwhelming amount of names were in blood red. Tresser caught a glimpse of McNeil and Burke’s columns and the names underneath it.

“Lot of red, detective,” said Tresser. “Maybe too much.”

“They go black,” said Burke. “They always do eventually. Nobody gets away for good. Escape is just an illusion. Just remember that, Tresser.”

Before Tresser could respond, he turned when he saw motion out the corner of his eyes. Leaning against a watercooler, a paper cup in his hands, was Sarge Steel. Steel winked at him before going back to his water.

“You don’t have to tell me that, Detective,” he said with a sigh. “I know it myself. Too fucking well.”

---

Hub City
Now

Tresser pulled over to the side of the street and turned the car off. He sat in silence for a long time, dwelling over the events of the last hour. Killing wasn’t new to Tresser. He’d done it as both a SEAL and spy, and he’d gotten used to doing it during this assignment to maintain his cover. But the difference with those murders was that he had always killed some kind of criminal, be it a terrorist or rival trafficker or muscle. They were always someone whose actions had warranted murder in some shape or form. But the body in the truck of the car wasn’t a criminal. It was a cop who was just doing his job. To some killing was killing, but not to Tresser. A line had been crossed and he felt like he was living in a new era now.

He made sure the coast was clear before popping the trunk and getting out of the car. He was somewhere in the city’s industrial section. Half-full during the day, it was a ghost town at night. He’d be able to do his business without any interruptions. With a flashlight in one gloved hand and a pair of pliers in the other, he looked down at the body resting in the trunk of the car. The body stared back up at him with lifeless eyes. With the flashlight Tresser got his first good luck at the cop. He was young, twenty-eight his driver’s license had said, with rust color hair and the stubbly makings of a beard. Tresser thought back to that cop in Baltimore. The one who had all the answers, but yet still never asked the right questions. His ID said he was Officer William Janko with the drug enforcement unit. Tresser tossed the ID and badge over a bridge on his way here. No wedding ring. That gave him some consolation. At least Tresser wasn’t tearing a family apart.

“I’m sorry, Janko,” he said aloud as he gripped the pliers.

The Hub PD would move heaven and earth to find a missing cop, and they would zero in on the body found in the car as their likely candidate. But Tresser would do whatever he could to slow them down and buy himself more time to get out of here. Screwing up Janko’s dental work would slow the identifying of the body down. The alias he used for this trip was now burned. The rental car was tied to it so he was in no real danger. The problem was that same name had a return ticket waiting for him in Chicago. He would have to get out of the country another way with another name.

After nearly fifteen minutes of pulling and tearing, Janko’s teeth were scattered through the trunk of the car. Tresser dropped the pliers on Janko’s chest and retreated to the backseat of the car. He came back with a canister of gas. He poured part of it over Janko’s body before he closed the trunk. The rest of the canister he emptied across the car’s front and back seats before leaving the can in the back. He pulled a rag from his pocket before removing the gas cap and stuffing the rag into the fuel tank. He pulled out a metal lighter and put flame to the rag. It would act as a slow moving wick.

Tresser started to walk away. He was halfway down the block when the gas tank caught fire and the car exploded, the extra gas turning the car into a ball of flames. Tresser could feel the intensity of the heat on the back of his neck. He turned and looked back to watch the mini-inferno roar. The side of the fire covered up the noise of feet scuffling across pavement until it was too late. Tresser started to turn, only for something hard to crash against the side of his head. He fell to the ground and winced as he was kicked in the stomach.

A big man in a black turtleneck stood above him with a shotgun in his hands. Just behind him stood Broker with a look on his face that was somewhere between amusement and annoyance.

“Janko was one of my best men,” he said with a tut. “It’s a shame I’m gonna have to take it out on you.”

The man in the turtleneck brought the butt of the shotgun down on Tresser’s head and it all went to black.

[Byrd Man]

Baltimore
Sixteen Months Ago

Jimmy “The Greek” Kappas’ eyebrows knitted together in concentration the second Tresser walked through the Kandy Kane Club. The little Greek man was probably forty percent eyebrows and body hair, the rest polyester. He still dressed like the days of disco hadn’t ended. His partially opened shirt showed a hairy chest and a golden necklace with the astrological Taurus symbol on the end.

Kappas was the only one in the bar this time of the morning. The strip club looked smaller with the flashing lights off and the music not playing. Jimmy sat at a table near the far corner with a plate of cracked crab shells and the sports page of the Baltimore Sun in front of him. Jimmy always kept up with the Baltimore-D.C. teams religiously. With as much money as he bet on the games, he had to follow them religiously to even have a chance to make his money back.

“Have a seat.”

Tresser complied. Jimmy smelled like crab, and his stubby fingers were pruney. Tresser caught a strong whiff of garlic butter as Kappas folded his hands together together.

“Heard you took a trip downtown, Tommy.”

Tresser shrugged. “Two homicide dicks tried to scare me.”

“It work?”

Tresser arched an eyebrow. “Noticed I said ‘tried’?”

Kappas nodded, more so to himself than to Tresser, and leaned back in the booth. After a long moment of silence, Kappas looked around the strip club and smiled before speaking.

“You’re a smart guy, Tommy,” Kappas finally said. He rubbed his face with greasy fingers. He left behind a buttery streak on his chin. “Easily the best worker I’ve had since I’ve been in this business. You get shit done. I always wonder how a guy like you just fell into my lap...”

Kappas let the words hang there. From under the table, Tresser’s hand gravitated towards the gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans.

“Got something you want to say, Jimmy?”

Kappas’ face broke out into a toothy grin. He spread his hands out and shrugged. “Just thinking out loud, kid.”

“If you’re thinking that I’m not a stand-up guy then you’re wrong.”

“That’s bullshit,” said Kappas. He quickly corrected himself. “I mean the concept of a ‘stand-up guy.’ These fucking goombas created their little club with their rules and code of silence, yet when they get in trouble they drop it faster than the milkman dropped his pants when he was fucking my ex-wife.”

Tresser leaned forward and jabbed a finger at Kappas. “What do I have to do? Take my clothes off so you can see I’m not wearing a wire.”

“Do a job for me,” said Kappas. He brought his slimy hand down on the top of Tresser’s. “Quick and easy for a guy like you, and it’ll show me where you stand.”

---

Hub City
Now

Tresser silently watched Broker and his bodyguard from across the room. The silence wasn’t willing on Tresser’s part. A dirty rag stuffed into his mouth served as a gag. He was tied to a chair in what looked like a darkened ballroom. Besides the chair, a wheeled handcart was the only other inanimate object in the room.

“I spent a lot of time and money on that cop you killed,” Broker said as he approached Tresser. “Janko wasn’t the smartest or the most fearsome cop on my payroll. What he lacked in talent he made up for in dedication. You’d be surprised how unreliable a bribed man can be. And you took him from me.”

Tresser winced as Broker casually slapped him with the back of his hand. He grunted through his gag and tried to shake the cobwebs from his head. Broker snapped his fingers and his bodyguard wheeled the cart towards them. Along with a pistol, a variety of tools were resting on the car. Tresser saw a hacksaw, a rusty pair of pliers, and a power drill with a chipped bit.

“This is what I usually like to use on people who upset me. But I think you’re going to be a different case, Tresser.”

Tresser scowled and tried to mumble words through the gag. Broker chuckled and pulled out a pair of reading glasses before turning to the cart. Beneath the tools was a manila folder. He picked it up and shook it in Tresser’s direction.

“I said that I thoroughly vet everyone I wish to do business. You have a lot of names you go by, but there’s apparently a Thomas Tresser wanted for questioning in relation to a string of Baltimore homicides. Same Thomas Tresser has quite the service record. People like your boss, Vertigo, sees a killer he doesn’t have to train. But I see something else.”

Broker plopped the file back down on the cart and picked up the pistol. Tresser started to buck against his restraints in a futile attempt to break free..

“Alan, you can go,” Broker said with a glance back to his bodyguard.

“You sure?” Alan asked with a frown. “What if this guy--”

“He won’t. And what I’m going to do to him, you don’t want to be around for.”

“But--”

“I said go,” Broker said coolly. “Get the fuck out of here before I shoot you in the ass.”

Alan headed for the exit without another word. Tresser and Broker stared at each other in silence as Alan left the abandoned ballroom. Once he heard the door close, Broker’s face broke out into a smile.

“I’m going to ask you a question and you can respond by either nodding or shaking your head. Do you work for anyone else beside Vertigo?”

Tresser shook his head. Broker chuckled and fingered the gun.

“You’re lying, Tresser. Vertigo is too much of a fucking cokehead to see it, but I know a sheep-dipped operative when I see it. You don’t go from special forces to holding some Greek gangster’s water. SHIELD sent you didn’t they? After all these years, it’s finally time.”

Broker looked over his shoulder before reaching into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a round metal object that had an eagle on it and the words “Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division” written around the edge.

“Time for me to come in from the cold.”

[Byrd Man]

Washington D.C.
1986

“Operation: Red Harvest.”

Mike Stevenson looked up from his legal pad at Deputy Director Peters. Along with Stevenson and Peters, three other SHIELD agents Stevenson didn’t recognize were in the briefing room. Peters stood at the head of the table next to a slideshow presentation. He pressed the clicker in is hand and the slide switched to a picture of the world with red arrows projecting from the Soviet Union and stretching across the planet to other countries.

“This is the flow of illegal weapons from the USSR. You see places we expect: Somalia, Cuba, Egypt. They’ve slowed down the flow considerably now that they’re stuck in the shitshow that is Afghanistan. But that’s going to end eventually. This is what SHIELD projects that flow of illegal weapons will look like in 1996.”

Peters clicked to the next slide. Same map with almost all the same countries being fed weapons. The big standout was the giant red arrow that pointed to the United States.

“Once they’re out of Afghanistan, our sources at the Kremlin say the Russians are going to make a push to destabilize America. The inner cities are turning to war zones thanks to that rock cocaine shit that they’re smoking. Reagan’s doing all he can to stop the influx of drugs into this country, but that’s a band-aid at best. The second they get Russian guns flowing in with the crack rock, this country is going to be in big trouble. The makings of armed insurrection. Capitol Hill and the White House are doing their part with crackdowns on drug dealers and users. But SHIELD is going to our part. This is where you four come in.”

Another slide showed a map of the US with four cities circled in red.

“New York, LA, Houston, and Hub City,” said Peters. “All four are either high poverty, high crime, high minority, or in the case of Hub City, all of the above. This is a deep cover assignment with all four of you operating in your chosen city as either a drug or arms dealer. You would identify any criminals with soviet ties or leftist affiliations and pass them on to SHIELD for further action. The ideal goal of this operation is for you to contain these criminal elements using your operator skills, either through coercion or hostile takeover of their enterprises.”

“Jesus,” said one of the agents. “Is SHIELD sanctioning organized crime?”

“This is all above board,” said Peters. “This has already been run up the ladder to DOJ and the White House and both are signing off on it.”

“So we’d be criminals?” Mike asked. “Under deep cover, sure, but still doing criminal activities. What’s stopping us from getting arrested by the FBI?”

“We have fallbacks in that case,” replied Peters. “Ways for you to avoid arrest. As with any undercover op, you are granted leeway to maintain your cover. Anything up to murder or conspiracy to commit murder.”

Peters straightened the knot in his tie before looking at the four agents with a raised eyebrow.

“Shall we continue?”

---

Hub City
Now

“You know the rest of the story,” Stevenson said to Tresser. “Or at least you should.”

“The Soviet Union collapsed a few years later,” said Tresser. ”The great crackbaby revolution of the 90’s never came to pass. And you were a man without a mission.”

Stevenson nodded. He and Tresser were at an all-night diner. Stevenson led Tresser there by gunpoint after showing his SHIELD badge. Even though the restaurant was half-full with the usual late night clientele of drunks and working girls, Tresser knew he wasn’t safe. Stevenson’s left hand was still hidden under the table, no doubt it had a gun in it and that gun was pointed at Treser.

“How did they forget about you?”

“You wouldn’t know this, but there was a huge purge of SHIELD in the mid-90’s.”

Stevenson stopped talking while the waitress delivered their coffee and they continued to stay silent as Stevenson poured cream and sugar into his cup with his one free hand.

“With the Cold War over,” he continued. “SHIELD and the rest of the intelligence community had their budgets slashed to half of what they used to get. Massive layoffs followed and anything involving fighting the Soviets got shelved. It was small item stuff in the newspapers, but I followed it closely for obvious reasons. I can’t speak for sure, but I imagine everything relating to Red Harvest either got put into storage or destroyed. Anyone with knowledge of it either left or was forced out.”

“Your cover was too deep,” said Tresser. “For once, the government did too good of a job.”

Stevenson chuckled and sipped his coffee.

“By the time of the purge, I was firmly established in Hub City as the Broker. I had information on all my rivals, my subordinates, and so much dirt on the local government.”

“Did you ever find any actual Soviet sympathizers or agents?”

“Fuck no,” Stevenson said with a laugh. “Just another hair-brained Cold War op by an agency with more money than sense.”

“So why stay?” asked Tresser. “Why not just walk away?”

Stevenson looked down into his coffee. “Easier said than done. When you get in as deep as I am, you learn something about yourself. You learn what kind of guy you are.”

Tresser saw a small smile creep on to Stevenson’s face and it raised the hair on the back of his neck. There was a glimmer in Stevenson’s eye that Tresser knew well. He caught a glimpse of it in his own eyes if he passed by a mirror when he was with Vertigo or one of the count’s clients. The look of being the tough guy. The mask of being Tom Tresser: Nemesis. Michael Stevenson had that look right now.

“I like being the Broker,” he said with a chuckle. “And I don’t intend on going back.”

“I’m not here to bring you back,” Tresser said, raising his palms to show he meant no harm. “Believe me when I say that I’m just a criminal. A criminal who knows how to keep his mouth shut.”

“But you see my position, right?” Stevenson asked with a shrug. “You’re either here to take me back, or you’re a criminal who knows who I really am. That leaves me exposed to either reprisals or extortion.”

“I’m not--”

“You were about to say that you were an honorable crook or some bullshit like that? In my experience there’s no such thing. You’ll be in a tight spot so you’ll let the truth slip out. Spook or not, I gotta do what I gotta do to survive. I can’t let you leave Hub City alive.”

Tresser sipped his coffee and sighed.

“That’s a shame. Real shame.”

Tom threw his cup of coffee at Stevenson’s face and leaped to his left away from the table. He felt two bullets clip his torso as he tumbled to the floor. Stevenson was yelling in pain from the hot coffee to the face. He began to fire wildly with the gun as all hell broke loose in the diner and Tresser started to run for his life.

[Byrd Man]

Baltimore
Sixteen Months Ago

Tresser cracked his knuckles and settled back into the seat of his car. Six hours into the stakeout and it looked like he was in for a long haul. The house he was sitting on was a dump, a scorched husk of a rowhouse on the Baltimore west side that someone torched years ago. It was the perfect place for squatters and people trying to lay low.

According to Jimmy Kappas, Little Roy Lewis was inside the house. Little Roy was one of the many dealers on Kappas’ package. The Greek sold coke, dope, and weed wholesale for a percentage of the package. The money Little Roy was kicking up to Kappas had gotten smaller and smaller until finally Little Roy stopped paying altogether. Word was that Little Roy was getting high on his own supply. If that was the case, Kappas wanted Tresser to eliminate Little Roy and whoever was in the house and get back what was his.

He waited until nearly forty thirty in the morning before he made his move. That was how he’d learned it when he was with DEVGRU and the Activity. KGB time, they called it. The old Soviet secret police always committed their arrests and assassinations between four and five in the morning. It was the sweet spot where night was beginning to fade away, but morning was still not quite there yet. Even most night owls were soundly asleep by four in the morning.

Tresser slipped on a pair of black nitrile gloves and carried a Beretta with a suppressor attached to the end under his coat. He looped around the back of the building and came through a broken window, slow and quietly. Tresser pulled the gun out along with a flashlight covered in tape, emitting only a pin-sized light to use as a guide. He held his breath when he passed by three buckets that had been used as latrines. It took him ten minutes to find their stash tucked away in a baseboard near the fireplace. About half a pound of heroin wrapped in cellophane nestled inside a gymbag. Alongside the stash, Tresser found nearly twenty thousand in tens, twenties, and hundred dollar bills, and four machine pistols. He tucked the money, dope, and guns into the satchel and slung it over his shoulder.

He slowly glided up the rickety stairs like a ghost. Muscle memory kicked in when he reached the landing where the crew was sleeping. Check the corners, clear the rooms, plan your escape, kill as soon as you have eyes on the target. Flashbacks went through his mind, killing a Somali pirate with a sniper rifle, garroting an Al-Qaeda cutout in Iraq. Tresser didn’t believe in the stereotype of born killers, but he was a killer now thanks to Uncle Sam. Like a chunk of coal, the government had applied pressure and polished him up to turn him into a sparkly diamond of murderous potential.

Three guys were passed out on piss-stained mattresses. He kept the flashlight beam low and was able to make out Little Roy in the dim light. His target acquired, he aimed. Recoil shot up his elbow as he fired off three quick shots. The rounds hissed through the room, three bullets exploding the three men's heads. He fired off three more to each man's heart to be sure he was dead before he started down the stairs. He was on the first floor when his phone started to vibrate. Tresser reached into his jacket and pulled it out. The screen said that a blocked number was attempting to call him.

“Hello?”

“Good morning, Mr. Tresser,” the voice on the other end of the line spoke with an accent Tresser couldn’t place. It sounded like Eastern European. “There are men outside waiting for you. They intend to kill you. They will be inside this house in thirty seconds. Goodbye.”

The line went dead. Tresser looked at the screen in confusion before he put the phone back and quickly but quietly walked towards the rowhouse window. He cursed softly when he saw a car that wasn’t there before, parked in front of his own and blocking his escape. Four men he recognized as Jimmy Kappas’ muscle were stepping out of the car with guns in their hand.

Tresser retreated back into the house and attempted to get his bearings. He heard footsteps approaching. They didn’t care about stealth. They had numbers on the side. Tresser leaned against the wall and listened to the front door opening from down the hall. It creaked on rusty hinges as it came open. He prepared by getting into a shooter stance as the men sent to kill him started to fan out through the house.

---

Hub City
Now

Tresser kept a hand pressed against his right side as he leaned against the concrete wall of the building. He felt blood slowly oozing out the wounds on his torso. The bullet had only just clipped his side, but they had gone deep enough into the skin that it would take a while to clot and stop bleeding on its own.

He’d run out of the diner during the chaos of Broker’s shooting and tried as best he could to put some distance between the two of them. Now he was resting against a wall in a side alley a few blocks away from the diner. Tresser looked down at the ground by his feet and noticed that there was a steady blood trail leading down the alley towards where he had been.

Tresser cursed when he saw Broker appear at the mouth of the alley with a gun in his hand. Somewhere far off was a police siren slowly getting closer. Broker raised the gun as Tresser disappeared deeper down the alley. Tresser felt something whiz by his head just before the heard the crack of the gun.

He took a right and disappeared out of Broker’s line of sight just as another bullet ricocheted off the brick wall. The stabbing pain from the wound limited his running ability, but he still managed to exit out the alley before Broker could turn the corner and take another potshot at him.

This being downtown Hub City, Tresser knew hiding in an abandoned building would be his best bet. He had his pick of the litter on this particular street. An old movie theater was right across the alley from him, the dilapidated marquee still advertising “DOC SAVAGE LIVES” in faded letters. Tresser forced his way in through the rusty fire exit door and disappeared inside.

---

Baltimore
Sixteen Months Ago

Joe Burke watched Terry McNeil as the younger detective stood in the rowhouse living room. They weren’t the only detectives on scene at the moment. Crime techs were upstairs collecting evidence while patrolmen worked on keeping people away and canvassing the scene. The white shirts were here too. The western district nightshift commander was ostensibly the highest ranking on-duty official here, but his boss, the real western commander, and a few majors and colonels from downtown had joined him.

Seven dead bodies was a redball, and when it came to redballs every member of the BPD command wanted their fingers in the pie. The brass were all collecting in a command tent outside the house, drinking coffee and figuring out who best to pin this on if things went sideways, while Burke and McNeil did the real work.

“I think this was one guy,” McNeil said after minutes of silent thought.

“Explain yourself, son,” grunted Burke. He sounded gruff, but he was doing his best to hide the grin he wanted to show.

McNeil began to point upwards to the second floor where three bodies had been found after finding the first round of four.

“Guys up top were sleeping when they got their tickets punched. No signs of struggle or restraints. Doer probably used a silencer and took them all out without them knowing. He gets down here and all hell breaks loose.”

Burke followed behind McNeil as he walked into the kitchen. A dead man was slouched against the kitchen counter with his neck at a twisted angle.

“The kitchen is the furthest room from the living room and doesn’t have direct line of sight on the door. I bet the doer hid in here while these four guys came into the house and fanned out. Looks like when one of them came in, our guy got the drop on him and smashed his neck against the edge of the counter. Minimal noise and one of them is dead.”

Burke didn’t interrupt as he followed McNeil down the hall into an empty bedroom. Another dead man was on the floor with a pool of blood underneath his neck and face. McNeil crouched and gingerly adjusted the man’s head to show Burke the discreet little slashes on the man’s neck and shoulder.

“The cut to the throat stuns and silences the victim, the one here on the shoulder? That’s the brachial artery. If it’s executed like this, perfectly, the victim bleeds out in less than five minutes. Our guy pulled the move off and pinned him to the floor while he bled out. Two dead.”

Burke stifled a laugh as they moved further down the hall to the bathroom where the bathroom door had been blasted off its hinges. Here was a two-for-one special. A body with a bullet hole in its head rested against the bathroom tiles. Just outside the bathroom was another body, this one with its face blown off and a shotgun on the ground beside it.

“This one seems obvious enough,” said McNeil. “Our guy pops the guy in the bathroom in the back of the head, not giving a fuck about noise now that the odds are even, and steals his shotgun. He closes the door and sits on the can. As soon as he sees the doorknob move, he lets loose with the shottie and blows number four away. He drops the shotgun to the ground and calmly walks out the house. Minimal noise and gunfire, something nobody in this neighborhood is going to bat an eye at anyway.”

“Brilliant,” Burke said with a smirk. “If it’s all true, that is.”

“A working theory at best,” McNeil said with a shrug.

“That move you mentioned earlier?” Burke asked. “The one with the cut to the throat and shoulder? They call it sticking the bleeders.”

“I know," McNeil said as he looked at his partner. "It’s textbook special forces.”

They let the implications hang in the air between them. Seven dead bodies. If this was the work of Tresser, which it may very well have been, then were they at least partially responsible? They had the son of a bitch in an interrogation room downtown and let him walk right out. There was no doubt in either detective’s minds that the four men on the first floor, and even those on the second floor, were anything other than criminals and lowlifes who had courted their violent deaths in some fashion. Still… the blood of seven people may have been on their hands because they didn’t just arrest Tresser then and there.

Burke’s cellphone chirping drew their attention away from their potential guilt. He pulled it out and looked at the text message on his screen.

“Shit,” he muttered under his breath before looking up at McNeil. “Rick and Dana are over on the east side with the fire department and the arson unit. Someone burnt Jimmy Kappas’ club to the ground. Looks like there's remains of at least three people in the wreckage.”

“Fuck,” said McNeil. He pulled out his own phone and called the BPD communications section. “This is Terry McNeil, BPD Homicide badge number 9819, we need an all points bulletin and BOLO on a Thomas Tresser, white male, approximately thirty years of age. Height and weight….”

---

Hub City
Now

Tresser could hear footsteps somewhere nearby. He was huddled down near one of the few rows of movie seats that had not been ripped out and stolen. He still kept one hand on his wound, the other cradling a jagged shard of glass he’d picked up on his way through the lobby.

Agent Mike Stevenson had once been a highly decorated SHIELD operator. Even if thirty years had elapsed, Tresser knew enough of that training remained to make Broker lethal in hand to hand combat. That training, plus his own wounds, meant that his window would be narrow. A creaking floorboard perked up Tresser’s ears. He could hear breathing somewhere close. He had taken a deep breath and breathed out slowly from his mouth to avoid making any more noise. A ruffle of fabric against a chair told him Broker was just one row away.

Tresser popped up and let his training go to work. Broker was standing at Tresser’s eleven o’clock and facing away from him, but he saw movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to look. That was when Tresser struck out. The glass slit a neat, little horizontal line across Broker’s windpipe. He let out a bloody gasp and squeezed the trigger of the gun. The barrel of the gun erupted by Tresser’s right ear as he leaped over the seat and sliced Broker’s brachial artery on his shoulder.

With his ears ringing, Tresser slapped the gun from Broker’s hand and slammed him to the ground. The older man wheezed as blood poured from his shoulder and coated the already soiled carpets with thick crimson. Tresser pinned him to the ground with his knees and held on as he thrashed and tried to find some purchase to pull Tresser off of him. After a minute, he slowed and continued to slow until he was completely still. Tresser stayed on top of the dying man. He reached out and grabbed Broker’s gun off the floor. He put the barrel to the back of Broker’s head and pulled the trigger.

[Byrd Man]

Baltimore
Sixteen Months Ago

Tresser walked away from the burning strip club and didn’t bother to look back. Jimmy Kappas and his two bodyguards went for their weapons the second he walked into the room. He made quick work of the muscle before taking his time with Kappas. The Greek was afraid Tresser was working with the cops to bring him down. He was afraid that when he went downtown the other day, he’d cracked and was going to wear a wire and take him down. That made Tresser laugh. So he told Jimmy the truth. The real truth about who he was and who he worked for. He was a snitch, alright, he had said just before killing Jimmy. But The Greek was a piss ant compared to the people he was after.

He got into his car and without another look back at the roaring inferno that had been the Kit Kat Club, hauled ass down the street. He had to get out of town fast. He didn’t want to make contact with Sarge Steel until he had something concrete. No doubt he’d hear about the massacre and be pissed. Kappas was supposed to be his in to the people running LEVIATHAN. Now that was shot to hell.
His phone started to ring. He looked down and saw it was a blocked number. That was when he remembered the phone call from earlier. His rage had consumed him to the point that he forgot all about the warning from before.

“Bravo, Mr. Tresser,” the same accented voice from before said. “Bravo indeed. Jimmy Kappas was a parasite who I only did business with out of necessity. It was only a matter of time before he ended up in prison or dead. I am glad it is the latter instead of the former.”

“Who exactly are you?”

“Someone who knows talent when I see it. In the trunk of your car, taped to the carpet, is a key. If you go to the airport, there is a locker that the key will open. Inside are a set of fake identification for a Timothy Tutwiler and a boarding pass to an early morning flight to Rome. Think of tonight as a job interview, Mr. Tresser. You passed with flying colors. I look forward to seeing you in Rome.”

The line went dead. Tresser tossed the phone to the seat and checked the clock on the dash. BWI was less than a half hour away. He got on the highway and started towards Anne Arundel County and whatever was waiting for him in Rome.

---

Lake Ontario
Now

“I’ll let you know when we’re almost there.”

The tugboat captain shouted over the droning of the engine towards Tresser’s good ear. Tresser nodded his thanks and stepped out of the controller room and made his way onto the deck. It was late and overcast, but the moon was beginning to peak out of the clouds. Just enough light for the tug to make its covert run across the lake.

He seemed like the ask no questions type when Tresser found him on the Hub City waterfront. The captain confirmed Tresser’s hunch when he said an even five thousand dollars to take him across the lake and into Canada. Tresser paid him the five and promised two more if they could get there by dawn.

Tresser had backup identification that marked him as a Canadian citizen with a different name. He’d be able to get a flight to Europe with the ID, he just wasn’t in any shape to cross the border and not raise questions. A vet had been paid well to tend to the wounds on his side and ear. His eardrum hadn’t ruptured from the gunfire, the vet had said, but it would ring for at least a few more days before going back to normal. The wounds on his side would heal within a week.

“Well that was a disaster,” Sarge Steel said as Tresser approached the side of the boat. Steel had met him at the docks and hung back while Tresser hired the tug captain. He’d kept his distance from the captain since getting on the ship. The last thing either of them wanted was someone remembering Steel.

“Do you buy Broker’s story?” Tresser asked.

“I do. I wasn’t part of SHIELD back then, but I’ve heard all kinds of stories about the crazy things they did at the height of the Cold War. Besides, with the position you’re in who are you to doubt a story like that?”

“He went off the reservation and forgot who he was. That worries me.”

“He went off the reservation because his people failed him,” said Steel. “I’m your handler, Tom. Nobody’s forgotten you.”

“I think about that night in Baltimore,” said Tresser, ignoring what Steel had said. “The night I took out Jimmy and his guys. That’s not something a good guy does.”

“You’re not a good guy, Tom. I’m not a good guy either. There’s just shades of bad. What you did in Baltimore got you working for Vertigo, didn’t it? It got you on LEVIATHAN’S radar. That’s what your mission is. That’s what made all of it worth it.”

“Vertigo won’t be happy I came up empty handed,” said Tresser. “But he’ll understand that things don’t work out.”

“Gonna tell him the truth?”

“I’ll tell him it was a trap and that Broker tried to kill me and muscle in on his business. He wouldn’t believe the SHIELD part even if I told him.”

“That means he’ll be gunning for whoever Broker works for.”

“Broker was independent.”

Steel let out a little laugh and shook his head.

“No such thing, Tommy. Everybody kicks up to someone else.”

“Excuse me.”

Tresser turned at the sound of the tug captain. Steel turned away to hide his face in the shadows. The captain was looking at the two of them curiously. It was loud enough with that waves that Tresser was sure he hadn’t heard what they were talking about

“Umm… we should be dropping anchor in about five minutes.”

“Thanks,” Tresser said with nod. “You’re gonna earn your tip.”

“Just remember,” Steel said once the captain was gone. “We’re through the looking glass, Tom. Down here, we’re all mad.”

Tresser didn’t offer a reply. Instead he looked out across the water and the waiting shores of Canada.

---

Epilogue
Washington D.C.

Special Agent Valentina de Fontaine looked through the file that the FBI field office in Chicago had emailed her just before lunch. Val was part of SHIELD’s Interagency Task Force that liaised with everything from CIA and Mossad down to the rural sheriff’s departments. In the past interagency rivalry led to things like Oklahoma City and 9/11, so the ITF helped the agencies communicate and share information.

On paper it sounded prestigious, but it was a desk job. She was a traffic controller that looked over files and assigned them to other departments to do the work. If CIA needed information on a threat risk, she sent it on to counterrorism. If FBI needed help with a bank robbery in Bearshit, South Dakota she sent it on to tactical.

The file in question was an unusual one. Originally Hub City had been where it took place but HPD had passed the buck on the feds given the circumstances. A series of chaotic events had transpired over one night that they thought were linked. A cop had been murdered and left in a burning car, nearly two hours later a shooting at a diner wounded at least three, and shortly after that during the search for the suspect cops found a dead body in a rundown movie theater. SHIELD had been called in because the dead body had been found with a SHIELD badge in its possession.

She was about to pass it on to the fraud and counterfeiting when she found a video file among the email. Val clicked it and watched black and white surveillance camera footage of the deceased officer chasing after a suspect. The timestamp said that it was taking place right around the time the medical examiner said he died. The suspect seemed to know cameras were around so he did his best to hide his face. But there was something else. His gait, the way he carried himself. She had seen it before, a lifetime ago. She’d followed behind that man as they ran through the Hindu Kush Mountains with assault rifles in their hands.

Val paused the video and tried to zoom in on the man running from the cop. It was grainy… but she could make out a few details. Details she recognized.

“Oh, my god,” she said under her breath. “Tresser."