Ch14 - Vienna

The group all but stumbled into the vicinity of the ancient city of Vienna, the city having been the bastion of Europe against the Ottoman threat for hundreds of years, withstanding many a siege.
It was ironic, of course, that the occupiers of Vienna were the ones threatening the security of the continent for which it had so long served as the strongest of turrets, the sturdiest of pillars,
The problem, of course, was entering the city, the capital of Austria and before that the Habsburg Empire being one of the most fiercely guarded cities behind German lines, barring the cities in Germany itself. The checkpoints increased in number and magnitude as they drew closer, the team having abandoned their bikes when it became obvious that there was no way past.
The loss of Leo Valdez too was a shock to the team, the Texan having been a useful cog in the team, and a fount of mechanical knowledge in the absence of the captured Annabeth Schafer. What his loss had done, however, was very much apparent to the likes of Percy and Thalia, who could see the team as what it was.
The team had been galvanised, a common drive finally binding them, replacing the rather tame desire to do 'what is right'. The motive of vengeance, however, did a great deal more. Those who had not joined the fight of their own accord now had a reason, or at least they could convince themselves that they did, for in truth none of that team had known Valdez all that long. They knew not of his life, of his history, of his job. They didn't know him, but they knew that someone had killed him, or had ordered his death.
They knew that he was good, and that the person who orchestrated his death, therefore, was bad.
Bad people had to die.

Nightshade led the way, rifle held out in front of her, ignoring the ache of her arms as her starving, exhausted body screamed in protest. The jungle had been bad, yes, but rarely had she been through a situation such as this, where even what little sleep she could scrounge was disturbed by horrific nightmares. No longer was she fighting among her countrymen and women to keep her own people safe, no longer was she among a section, a platoon, a company of friends, a band of brothers who would trust each other with their lives.
She saw such a dynamic among those who had known each other since the Normandy assault and beyond, for they had gained the trust that one gains in the heat of battle, when each works for the other, and each owes the other his or her life.
This group had fought together, yes, but it simply was not the same.
There was no teamwork, only a shared objective and a plan. The plan had been ruined, as most were, upon first contact with their opponents on the startling discovery of their automaton nature, and beyond that it had been every man for himself, individuals battling to survive, Jackson the Graces and Zhang having enough trust in one another to free one another from danger, though the rest had no such thoughts.
McLean and Ramirez-Arellano, for all their skill, were spies. They fought like demons, nearly unassailable in an urban situation, a fine testament to their skills in close combat, and yet they did not truly appreciate the value of those around them. They were, for whatever reason,
Not yet alive to the extremely distinct possibility of themselves not being enough.
It was a conversation to be had, her time as an SNCO, a Senior Non-Commissioned Officer in the jungles of Burma teaching her that nothing would be found out without asking; skilled soldiers they may be, but they would never admit to having a problem, no matter how bad it may be.
This might pass in a civilian setting, but in the heat of battle, when every person must be at their absolute best, it was clear and evident to all present if someone wasn't giving their complete attention to the situation at hand.
That conversation would come later.
For now, there were more pressing matters at hand
At long last, they had reached their rendezvous.

Jason Grace was ready for most things at this point, the horrors of battle having taught him to remove his blinkered opinions of the world, and he appreciated that a book truly couldn't be judged by its cover; after all, who could have expected someone like Frank Zhang to be as good of a sniper or light infanteer as he was, with his heavy build an apparently clumsy manner.
This, however, was a little too far, even for him.
He knew he would be meeting Agent Selene's partner; that much had been told to them, as was the fact that he would provide them with entry into the city off Vienna, and that the elite agent had been undercover in Austria and Germany for years by now.
He did not, however, anticipate the legendary 'Helios' to be quite what he saw in front of him.
Sitting at the rendezvous point, an old, abandoned freight train depot was a young man, or so Jason could assume from his build, but with a mottled, shaggy beard and overgrown hair to the extent that it fell over his chin. Old, ripped and oversized clothes completed the look of a homeless man, the grime and dirt covering his boots and staining the fabric of his once-white shirt only went to reinforce the image, and Jason felt truly aware of the true commitment that being a spy entailed.

"Captain Jackson," the man greeted, bright, almost overwhelmingly blue eyes lighting up at the presence of the group. His accent was English, as one might have assumed, though it was surprisingly well-mannered, the intonations crisp and the gentle lilt of the upper class audibly present in his manner of speech.
The agent picked up a battered old matchbox and struck one of the old things, the slightly damp matchstick taking a couple of attempts to light before it went up, and it was hastily thrown into an old metal bin, the old twigs within lighting quickly, having been protected from the elements by the lid that had evidently been removed in the last few minutes.
"Congratulations on making it this far," the agent said, voice bright despite the cynicism in his eyes. "You are not far from where Artemis is being kept, though I must say that I'm not entirely sure myself as to where the base is located. I'd help myself but headquarters seem to like me where I am," he explained, inexplicably seeming quite genuinely disappointed not to be on the journey alongside Jackson and the battered team that accompanied him. The spy drew from a pocket in his trousers a map. Nothing too interesting, from what Jason could see, but Percy and Zoya each leaned in, apparently interested in what the spy had to say.

"This is what I've managed since I lost Artemis," he explained, guiding their eyes to several miniscule additions to the map. Signs and symbols were pencilled in, each invisible to an unaware observer, and yet even with his few months of experience in the art of ciphers, Jason could make out some ten or fifteen markings across a region of southeast Germany, in the Bavarian and Baden-Wurttemberg regions, probably a result of Helios, or Apollo as he was now known to the group, making slow progress around the German states.
"Not bad, Apollo," Jackson remarked, clapping the man on the shoulder. "That's what, some eighty positions in Bayern alone?"
Jason looked on, dumbfounded as the spy only smirked at the ex-naval officer's observation, implying that the Englishman had missed something.
Thalia stepped forwards now, throwing in her lot, leaning on Percy for a moment before pointing out her own observations. "Perseus Achilles Jackson, I thought you were better than this," she admonished, fixing her best friend with a faux glare, "You've missed the pinholes, see? I make it a hundred and fifty, Apollo."
The spy nodded, clearly happy with Thalia's observational skills, "It seems that the OSS have done well, Muse," he complimented, causing Thalia to raise her eyebrows as the veteran spy used her SOE codename.
"Indeed, Helios, though I'm sure that name has been left unused for even longer than the name Muse in my own case," she replied, causing the blond in front of her to chuckle softly.
"As entertaining as this has been," Apollo began, taking in a deep breath, "I must direct you swiftly onwards."
Percy nodded, pulling out a small notepad in which the exact wording of the original telegram still burned through the yellowing, dog-eared pages. Casualties expected.
"The tunnel will take you into the edge of Vienna proper, into the Favoriten District. Stick to the signs, they'll get you to the Hauptbahnhof. Your best bet into Germany is to get on a train, and my contact has got you tickets," he explained, producing a set of tickets, as well as two duffel bags filled with…
Something.

Apparently amused by their looks of bemusement, Apollo smiled disarmingly once more, opening it to reveal several sets of high-end clothing. The clothes of dignitaries. The second, on the other hand, was rather more familiar to the American Paratrooper, the familiar clack of weapons sealing the plan which had been forming in his mind. They were going undercover.
The reactions were mixed, Each knew that they had been given fake identification by British Military Intelligence, MI5 having provided them each with three sets of passports, and alibis to match. Jason knew, however, that a normal MI5. SOE or OSS agent would have been given years' training on concepts he had only learned for three months. He knew that an SOE agent would be subjected to rigorous interrogations, starved and exhausted as they did, to check if they were able to maintain their alibis.
He had barely survived the first time, and this time he'd need to get through it in perfect German.
Capture, he decided, was not the ideal scenario.
The story they had been given was simple enough. They were to travel in three groups, each with a separate route and fake purpose. The first team was arguably the riskiest, Jason realised, each member being the most believable at a first glance, and yet would be the easiest to call out should they be caught. Bianca di Angelo, with her intimate knowledge of German military protocol and grip of both German and Italian would travel as the wife of an Italian dignitary, fleeing from the allied counteroffensive, Reyna and Piper in tow. They would likely be challenged at first, but when their stories initially held up, they would be allowed through without much further challenge.

Percy, Thalia and Jason himself were travelling with a rather riskier alibi, and yet the most likely to gain them access to high-end information should they succeed. Each was fluent in German, Percy and Thalia also commanding impressive control over languages the likes of French, Spanish, Greek and even understanding some of the languages of India, Percy's great-great grandfather having passed his knowledge of Hindi and Bengali down through generations of his family.
This group would pose as businesspeople, travelling as one might between Vienna and Munich to close off a deal. Between the three of them, they had devised a code through which they could speak to one another about the mission without raising suspicion, substituting key military and strategic terms for those rather more acceptable in a business setting. The German taught to them in their childhoods, at least in the case of Jackson and Grace, were typical to those who lived in the south of Germany, their father having served in the region for some time on peacekeeping missions following the Great War of 1914.
Their tutor had been a native German who had proved to be an especially good friend to a young Theseus Jackson, at this time balancing a fresh promotion to the rank of Commodore and dealing with the pressures of a young family back in his home nation, accessible to him only by telegram, and that too only for the most extreme of cases. He had seen in the daily papers and via the radio set in his office of the horrors of the Spanish 'Flu, and how so many in his country had perished to the horrors of disease, brave men who had served in the heat of battle who dropped dead by virtue of a microbe, a being so small that it would take a scientist in a laboratory to be able to see it.
Through all this, Theseus had heard of his wife's endeavours, working in charitable posts, providing treatment in general hospitals and on the front line of the beleaguered United Kingdom's response to the worst disease epidemic since the rise of cholera.
To make matters worse, his own father and brother had been placed in the thick of things much closer to home, in a rather more familiar role than the one in which Theseus currently served. Bellerophon and Achilles Jackson were both overseeing the British Army's response to the Irish uprising, a movement that had begun in 1916 and gained considerable traction. Achilles, a few years Theseus' junior, had been in the service of the Metropolitan Police in London as a detective, and had been sent out to Ireland as a Detective Chief Inspector in the hopes that he might be able to steady the rocking ship that was the police force in Dublin, crumbling as it was from the exodus of fighting age men to either the British Army or the Nationalist Forces of the IRA themselves.
In this time, Gunther Weber had been in the German administrative service, and upon meeting Theseus Jackson, had made such an incredible impression that he became a tutor to the Englishman's children without second thought.
Jason, on the other hand, had not received any such level of German tutelage, and therefore, despite admittedly being the most 'desirable' of the trio by the standards of the reprehensible Nazi leader's double-standards, he was the least suited to the plan by which the trio were adhering. Passable, yes, but not infallible in the bigger picture, which painted the grim image of an undercover train journey that might last as long as nine hours, depending on the number of checks and the speed of the train for which they held tickets. It would be long, and it would be hard, but in truth they had no option but to try, for without that there was no mission, and without that there was no victory.

Zoya el-Faouly found herself, late that evening, in a freight train carriage. It was not necessarily the most comfortable of positions, and yet she knew full well that she had seen worse. She had lived in worse, slept in worse and fought in worse.
She stretched out, dropping the pack that had been slung across her back for the first time since they had sat down to eat alongside the Spy Helios, or Apollo Sutherland, as she now knew him to be. It was a surprise, Zoya noted, for a spy as renowned within such circles as Sutherland was to be so far behind enemy lines without retreating to friendly ground, and yet she appreciated the sheer amount of work the man had done.
She had been the one entrusted with the responsibility of the veteran spy's carefully crafted map, and she had already begun copying it up onto her own map of the Bayern region, looking at adding in further details as she went. Of course, it would be difficult to do anything close to what the Englishman and his partner in the field had achieved in the years he had spent out in the heart of the enemy's territory.
It was all the more chilling to the Egyptian, however, knowing that she would be forced into hiding for a significant portion of the mission; there was no place for an Egyptian woman, a Muslim no less in this nation of people whose minds had been poisoned by a fool into believing that there was only black and white in a world of colour and light. She and the young Canadian, Frank Zhang, therefore, had been tasked with a rather more…
Interesting…
Mission
Their role was to sow chaos. There was not to be any rhyme nor reason, no method to their madness, only a desire to break, to incinerate, to ruin the enemy's capacity to make war on their own side.
Every combatant was fair game on their mission, for when they woke up in the morning, they would don the very uniform of the beasts who had subjugated Europe and Africa, of the savages who herded the defenceless into concentration camps, of the soldiers, to whatever extent they might have been forced to, killed her own comrades in Africa and Burma and now here, in Europe.
They were the enemy, and so they were as good a target as any.

The Canadian sat across from her was rather more sombre than she was, and some part of her understood it, having been in that position once before.
She had felt it, so far away from her home, away from her home and away from her family, not knowing if she might ever see them again. She remembered the feeling of that weapon in her hand, so heavy in her hand and yet so reassuring. She remembered the dark times through which she had waded before she finally found solace in the comradeship that the Army had given her, the feeling of doing what she could that the innocent in the towns and cities of Egypt might sleep a little safer in their beds, far behind enemy lines.
She thought of what the young man, some ten years her junior, might be thinking, and appreciated that, to a boy in his early twenties might not appreciate the words of a woman a whole decade older, and so she offered nothing but silence.
There would be dialogue, and the boy would learn how to be a true warrior, but such things could wait when confronted with the hell that was a train journey through enemy territory, accompanied by naught but one fellow commando in a nation where commandos were to be executed, and the instruments of propaganda that the leader of such a nation called motor vehicles.
She motioned for Zhang to sleep, motioning towards the Volkswagen Beetles behind her as a source of comfort as he slept, however rudimentary they might be. The journey would be long, and there was no guarantee of rest when every carriag of every train would doubtless be checked for British spies. It was given for granted that, should they be unable to hide from the soldiers who would inevitably check their cargo carriage, they would have no choice but to kill them, and take to the countryside early. Good thing, Nightshade supposed, that they were in a train carriage full of motor vehicles. She didn't have the most commendable grasp of the German language, of course, such an honour going to the likes of Jackson and Grace, though she was good enough to see that there were, among the various vehicles, there were at least four motorcycles in the carriage they had called their shelter for the duration of this train ride. As much as the Egyptian had built up a distaste for the two-wheeled vehicles, having travelled by Jeep or by truck for the majority of her time in the British military thus far, she appreciated that it was by far the most inconspicuous form of transport that one could take for themself, the speed and manoeuvrability of the vehicle invaluable in a fight, and the capability to fire from the saddle even more so. For a larger team, she acknowledged, it might have been better to carry out raids in jeeps, but for a pair of operatives, the ability to split off and carry out their sabotage raids was an invaluable asset to have at their disposal, and so for that she was thankful.

Reyna looked around herself, appreciating the lavish yet functional train compartment in which she and her travelling companions were sat, and admiring the beauty of the Northeast Austrian landscape as they made their way west. Their final destination was still a fair distance away yet, though it was good to be sat in a comfortable seat, eating hot food for the first time in a while, being treated, ironically, to the best their enemy had to offer.
It was almost easy enough to switch off, to imagine that they were safe and secure in this little cabin of theirs, and yet it was glaringly obvious that such was not the case.
Snippets of conversation in German, accompanied by the sound of footsteps in the vestibule alerted her to the reality of the situation, and reminded her of the danger in which she found herself. Her grasp of German was good, she knew, having been a spy for the Americans for such a length of time, and her Spanish nationality would quite possibly get her some modicum of leeway as opposed to Piper, currently under the pseudonym of Nicolette Schultz. The false identities fabricated for them by British Military Intelligence was good, she knew, and therefore it was entirely up to them to attempt to weasel their way through enemy lines and towards the imprisoned SOE Agent Selene, whose location was known only by a singular informant. The odds were stacked heavily against them, and each member of the team knew this.
She had only sympathy for Zoya El-Faouly and Frank Zhang, one of whom she'd had the chance to learn from, even bond with prior to their deployment behind enemy lines. The other, however, was less well known to her. Her instincts, however, told Reyna that Zhang was not hardened by war like Nightshade had been, not driven by the knowledge that his actions would have consequences that would ring across history. No, this was merely a boy, a few years younger than her, who had been conscripted to the cause and just wanted to go home.
She remembered, there and then, a conversation with Apollo; a large part of her sympathy for the Canadian rifleman, and a large step in her respect for each of those in the freight carriage some three hundred metres behind her as the train hurtled along the rails. The British spy had taken Thalia, Nightshade, Piper and Reyna to one side, knowing that the three had the tried and tested ability to keep a secret. That conversation was one that would haunt her nightmares for years.

"Ladies, I'm going to trust the three of you with the plan -" The Blond had begun, looking sharply towards Thalia as she made to cut him off, "- The entire plan."
The three spies nodded, understanding in the eyes of the Americans, though Thalia Grace's stormy eyes belied her rather less amenable thoughts on the matter, even without a word spoken.
"Jerry knows that we are coming for Selene," he began, "and we can only hope that Schafer is in the same place."
Piper nodded, motioning for the man to continue.
"You know of the legislation passed by the Reich on Commandos, yes?" he asked, glancing around the group, grimacing at their blank looks.
Blank looks, that was, barring one.
"Every Allied spy, Commando and covert operative is to be executed on capture," Nightshade answered, voice a dull monotone as she said the words that would strike fear into the hearts of those in her company. Each and every one of them at this moment knew two things for certain to be fact:
Their lives were damn well in danger, and that Jackson must never know.
"As such, we have come up with a plan to use this very piece of legislation against the Germans," Apollo explained, pulling a map from his pockets, the very same that he had shown off to Percy and Thalia before. "They know that we want Selene back," he said, "and so we shall make it clear and obvious that this is exactly what we will do."
Thalia nodded confidently in response. "A diversion," she said, fixing Apollo with a meaningful look. "A small team makes a lot of noise, blows up some shit as they go, I take it, while the other team makes a rather more covert approach on the target."
"Bravo, Miss Grace," the veteran spy praised, giving the woman a small smile as he marked out their spot on the map, just south of Vienna. "The train takes you into Munich, and from there two teams will make their own separate approaches on the target, having attained information of such from Nereus. These teams will be Jackson and the two Graces, and Di Angelo with the OSS Agents," he explained, looking at each affected person within the group he was briefing.
Piper nodded slowly, before she seemed to come to a realisation. "That leaves just two as a distraction, then?" she asked, eyes flitting to Nightshade and back to Apollo.
"I'd say perceptive," Apollo drawled, sarcasm barely concealed in his tone as he spoke, "but I must admit I have rather higher standards of a spy of your pedigree, Agent McLean," he finished, drawing a dry chuckle from Zoya…

The memory was chilling even now, Reyna knew, for it was nearly a foregone conclusion that they would lose members of their team as a result of the split. There was, after all, safety in numbers. She also understood, however, that there was logic behind it. The group numbered eight thus far, and so that was eight people who could be caught out. Here, travelling separately as they were, if one team was caught, then two more teams could move in to rescue the higher profile captured British agent, wherever she might be held.
The journey had been good thus far, the train racing through picturesque mountainous terrain as they went, and still without incident, by some miracle. Between the constant menace of the Wehrmacht patrols and the looming shadow of the mysterious all-knowing counterintelligence group that seemed to hound their every step, their plans had allowed for rather more disruption than they had encountered thus far.

That was, of course, until they reached the German border.

A quick glance out of the window told the Spaniard all she needed to know. They had reached the first checkpoint, and protocol dictated that there would be a full check of the train, as well as a replacement of the guards; two times the number of enemy soldiers with which they had needed to contend, and the highest chance of their capture, or at least the discovery of one of their teams.
The members of her own team were, for their part, both asleep, exhausted after the travelling they had done.
That needed to change.
Reyna awoke the sleeping agents quickly, appraising them of the situation and ensuring that they were mentally prepared for what was to come.

A few coaches ahead, a similar scenario was playing out, three Allied agents ensuring that all tangible evidence of their mission was hidden away, resuming their relaxed conversation in fluent German all the while despite the undoubtable levels of stress through which they were going in that instant of time.

At the rear of the train, however, two agents were blissfully unaware of what was to come, and yet awaiting the worst. Frank Zhang was on watch, Lee Enfield No.4 rifle in hand, and guarding Zoya el-Faouly as she got her much-needed rest. A full clip of ten rounds sat in his rifle, the bolt action weapon cocked and ready as he steeled himself for what might come at any moment.
The Canadian was no stranger to taking watch, 'Stag Duty,' as the British Army called it, and yet this might have been the most intense thing he had ever done. Never before had there been the looming threat of an enemy soldier wandering into their place of hiding at any time, never had there been the threat of that door opening, revealing a grey-clad man, no more than a few yards ahead of him.
Nerves and an increasing sense of dread found him waking up his companion, giving her some time, at the very least, to get her bearings before something, if anything, happened.
He could almost see it now, the creak of the poor rusted hinges, the shuddering roll of the heavy steel door and the emergence of a single man through the gap it left, ready to make the easiest check of his life, and yet finding an enemy agent sitting there, so much more experienced than him in the ways of war, and yet so much more nervous at that very instant.
He could hear the shot as it would be fired, the crack of the Enfield all too familiar to him from its use in the battles he had fought this past year.
He could see just the enemy soldier's eyes would widen, and he could see exactly where the man would fall, head just outside the carriage.

As though by fate, the door opened.
A finger pulled a trigger.
A man died.
Two people fled the scene.

A/N
A whole month since the last chapter, or at least thereabouts. If you've been awaiting this update, I can only apologise for how long it's taken; you might've seen that I've been writing in the meantime. 'In the Light of a Waning Moon' is one of many works that was sitting in my plans, and it was so polarly different from this that I felt like it was some sort of respite from the barrage of historical research that this is. Give it a read if you haven't already.
If you've come here from that story, welcome, it's a very different style of writing I know, but that's really what I'm going for when I write fanfiction; I want to see my own capabilities first and foremost.
I'll stop rambling, hopefully you found this chapter mildly entertaining, let me know what you think.
Until next time,
Sol
(I don't own PJO)