Choice of the Cat (Vampire Earth 2)

"I did. Shall I quote the key passage? Ha-hem ... 'The destruction of Lieutenant Caltagirone's platoon and Smoke's report of heavily armed Reapers employed in groups as a cohesive fighting force demand investigation. Any information on the General-'"

"Sorry. I wrote a report on these guys once before. I might as well have tossed it in a swamp."

"Fear not. I'm sure it lives forever in an index just like this one, so it can be located in a climate-controlled warehouse. Wish we filters got the same treatment-you should smell this place in August. Let's go talk to Doug; he's our Quisling expert for everything west of the Mississippi."

As he followed Lombard to the stairway, Valentine congratulated himself for passing through the filter.

Lombard took him to an office this time. Doug Metzel had a nameplate on his door, which opened only partway thanks to the volume of binders in his office. They lined shelves, filled corners, and cut off the light from the room's big, arch-topped window. A cat napped in the sun atop one labeled bridge security. But the man himself wasn't in.

"Two weeks' leave. His mother-cancer, I guess," his assistant reported. She was a slight woman, perhaps in her late thirties, and wore a Guards uniform. Her nameplate read sgt. lake.

"Shows you how often I make it to the third floor," Lombard said.

"What is it, Bone?"

"I've got a Wolf just in from ... ah ..."

"Lake of the Cherokees," Valentine supplied.

"Memory's great short-term." Lombard shrugged. "Five minutes later, it's mush. Comes from doing sort after sort after sort."

Lombard made further introductions. Metzel's Southern Command associate shook hands with Valentine. "I'm honored," she said gravely. Valentine hadn't heard that expression very often from either a civilian or a Southern Command Guard. He wasn't quite sure how to respond.

"It's a pleasure," he said.

"I'm Doug's liaison, and I'm filling in while he's gone. What do you have, Lieutenant? Sit down and give me the highlights."

Valentine sat across from her and began with his first encounter with the Twisted Cross swastika logo when he'd seen it on a canoe belonging to some Reapers hunting a Cat named Eveready in the Yazoo Delta. The Illinois Quislings who feared an organization with that insignia called the Twisted Cross. The Twisted Cross man he'd met in Chicago who spoke of a comrade who "fed" and suffered a bad leg wound. The man's own feeding, somehow inspired by the others. Then more recently, Smoke's description of Reapers with guns.

She listened attentively and brought down a binder. Inside it were pages of snipped insignia from uniforms. She consulted the legend in the front and then opened it before Valentine. "Like this?"

The card within had a black piece of fabric attached. On the fabric was a white piece of metalwork, a reversed swastika.

"That's their insignia. I saw one just like it in the Zoo in Wisconsin. The owner... he fed like a Reaper." Valentine's voice cracked, embarrassing him.

The liaison and Lombard grimaced. "Maybe just a sicko? Monkey see, monkey do?"

"I only saw him for a few minutes. He was definitely Twisted Cross."

She made a note on a pad of paper. "We don't know much about them. We think it's railroad security. They've been spotted in a couple different places." She looked in another folder. "Looks like the current theory is they run what we call 'Q-trains.' Trains filled up with soldiers that look just like normal cargo trains. You Wolves or whatever hit the train, thinking you're going to score some tires and penicillin, and out jumps a regiment of men. But there are no action reports having to do with the Twisted Cross attacking Southern Command, so we can only theorize about methods or numbers."

"It's got to be more than that," Valentine said. "There were border trash in Illinois that were scared-"

She turned the book around and looked at it again. "I don't doubt it. Lots of Quislings use Nazi insignia. Trying to be tough or scary." She waved at the binders. "I can name half a dozen groups that use that crap. There's a gigantic biker gang in California's Silicone Alley that has SS death's-heads and the twin lightning bolts plastered everywhere. Up in Idaho, there are brownshirts with those goofy cavalry pants and boots. The Quislings open a history book, find something that looks intimidating, and copy it. Hell, even our own guys-Colonel Sark's Flying Circus in the Cascades uses the Iron Cross as a decoration for valor. I'm sure there are others in the East; the West is my field."

"Will you read my report?" Valentine asked.

"It's informative," Lombard added.

"Of course."

Valentine passed it to her. "While I'm here."

She smiled at him. "You always been a Wolf, Valentine? Seems like you don't trust our department."

"Always been a Wolf, unless you count my year in the Labor."

"The millstones of Southern Command grind slow but exceedingly fine," she said. She rotated a pencil in her mouth as she read, looked up, and extracted it. "Sorry. Old habit."