The Stair-Ways of the Tallest Gods When Tyranny was Young

Although Britain, Austria-Hungary, and the Soviet Union were able to drive the Germans back within their Weimar-era borders in short order once the alliances were dissolved, the German Crisis persisted in stagnation well into the 1940s, as Nazi Germany and the California Shogunate brought nuclear weapons programs to maturity nearly simultaneously, and the United States followed them in short order. California immediately shared this technology with Austria-Hungary, as did the United States with Britain, and the Soviet Union gained it soon through espionage against the Germans and Americans. This arms race and the subsequent stalemate developed the intelligence agencies of the major nation-states into what they are today, and served as a brief prologue to the Cold War until the Nazi regime lost its entire nuclear arsenal to masterfully-coordinated acts of sabotage and was subsequently partitioned through Austro-Hungarian, Soviet, and British ground invasions in 1943-44.

–Europe: the Decisive Century, by Brig. Gen. Mackenzie Earp, OP, PhD. Ishida Mitsunari Military Academy Press. Guadalajara, 2011.

The stolen armored car was inside a crowded parking garage near Jen’s apartment before the Gendarmes could mobilize any vehicles in pursuit. There, the MSI agents abandoned it for a less conspicuous vehicle, and made for a wharf in the bay. They took a rented speedboat just out of sight of San Francisco, where a Colombian submarine surfaced to receive them. The California Gendarmerie was able to trace most of these steps, and guess the rest, within 24 hours, but by that time the submarine was halfway to Panama City, a microscopic needle in the haystack of the Pacific Ocean.

When it became clear Jen wasn’t going to be recovered before she got to Gran Colombia, the American ambassador to California was invited to the Shogun’s palace, along with the Gendarmerie Chief of Staff and the Grandmaster of the Shinobi Corps. Joe Cooper and General Earp were flown into Shinkyo in short order, the general bringing Captain Hernandez in tow. After the CIA agent had been stripped-searched for bugs, weapons, or anything with so much as a suspicious air about it, the Shogun of California opened their meeting.

“Most honorable samurai and goodmen of the United States of America, as I have been made to understand the situation, one of my subjects, an engineer from Project Lepanto named Jennifer Higuchi, has been abducted by agents of the People’s Republics of Gran Colombia. Their goal, presumably, is to extract technical data from her related to the project. It is imperative that the Shogunate neutralize her as a potential asset to the Colombians, and certain means of doing so may align with certain objectives of the United States of America. Agent Cooper, I would have you elaborate on the American perspective on the situation, and please hold no information back. We will extend you the same courtesy, with respect to this operation.”

“Thank you, Lord Shogun. We believe their impetus for pursuing Miss Higuchi in particular was a series of leaks that, until around the time of the first match in the ongoing Duel between your country and theirs, were being passed from her to MSI through a liaison in Salt Lake City. She had intended this information for… my own agency, but the broker double-dipped and also sold it to MSI. His disappearance was a large part of what tipped me off to their plans.”

Chris nodded. “She was no Communist, I’m reasonably confident of that.”

“Though indirectly, Miss Higuchi was an American intelligence asset– knowingly and voluntarily, unlike her relationship with MSI. It would be… a stain on the Agency’s honor, if we failed to extract her, which aligns with your goal of denying her to the Colombians. What I would propose, from my humble station as a field agent, would be a coordinated effort between the Shinobi Corps and the Central Intelligence Agency to liberate Miss Higuchi from Colombian custody, with the understanding that her defection to the United States thereupon will not be obstructed.”

“Now, hold on.” The seniormost Gendarme was a white-bearded mestizo samurai with a chainsmoker’s scratch in his voice. “That woman’s committed treason! What about the honor of the California Gendarmerie? Not to mention, we’d just be passing an her from one foreign power to another– one she’ll cooperate with willingly!”

The grandmaster of the Shinobi Corps waved dismissively. A woman whose graying hair gave the only hint at her true age, her eyes with a shape from Asia and a color from Europe seemed fixed in a knowing smile. “The Gendarmerie’s honor is already beyond restoration, in this matter. She is outside your jurisdiction, and will remain so unless the Shinobi Corps delivers her back. For our part, our duty is not to justice, but to truth. Enlightening our lord the Shogun and his ministers to our enemies’ secrets, and denying them any knowledge they might use against us. If I understand the diplomatic situation right, even if the Americans can get our secrets out of Jen more easily than the Colombians can, they would have a harder time using them to our detriment before they became obsolete.”

The American ambassador nodded. “Whatever these Smithians believe, the United States has no plans to contest any of the California Shogunate’s territorial claims, or otherwise invoke the Treaty of Budapest against it. In the spirit of full disclosure, as His Excellency the Shogun has requested: we have used Higuchi’s reports thus far to assess the strengths of the Don Juan de Austria in an effort recreate them in our own Duelist, for our own defense, not to write out a list of weaknesses to exploit in a Duel of aggression.”

General Earp also bobbed his head slightly. “Even if y’all had a change of heart on that today, my program’s workin’ at such a frenzied pace that the entire Don Juan might be completely reworked, Ship a’ Theseus like, ‘fore ya could set up a fight against it.”

The Shogun turned to Chris. “Captain Hernandez, you know Higuchi the best of anyone here. If any traitor can deserve clemency, does she?”

“Tono-sama… sorry, is that too casual–”

“Call me güey, for all I care in a meeting like this.”

“My lord, these revelations about Jen’s activities explain certain shifts in her moods lately, but only if one assumes she’d had a change of heart, that she hadn’t quit informing solely out of fear. I believe, strongly, that she is contrite and repentant, and would serve the Shogunate faithfully, if given a chance.”

“I will not go that far, but if the CIA is willing to give its full cooperation, I am willing to extend her a stay of execution. If she is brought to American soil, I will not ask the United States to extradite her, nor any other member state of NATO or the League of Vienna to which she might go. She is, for all intents and purposes, exiled from California, under pain of death.”

Chris bowed his head, accepting the Shogun’s judgement upon his friend, perhaps his would-be lover, if her earlier overtures had not been for the sake of espionage. That was a question whose answer would probably never matter.

“There is one other thing,” General Earp said, “a secondary objective I would tack onto the mission. Project Lepanto needs a Colombian nuke core, like what Don Quixote uses, or one of their P-28 tanks.”

The grandmaster’s smile as at some inside joke spread down from her eyes to her lips. “Depending where they choose to hold Miss Higuchi, that might be easy to arrange.” She turned to the CIA man. “My station chief in Bogotá will need to get in touch with her counterpart from your agency, but she has a couple sources who might be able to find out where our girl will be held, before she even gets there.”

The evening after this meeting, Alejandra Montoya met the CIA station chief for Bogotá in a cute little restaurant in La Candelaria called El Castillo de Cromwell. When she arrived, she asked for a table indoors, near a front-facing window, and for a waiter by the name of Omar. She always had Omar Atencio Sanchez serve her when she dined here, but she knew her informant better by his codename, Jeeves. When the CIA field agent arrived, a short, square black man with the hurried gait of a New Yorker, she waved him over.

“What’s the big idea, setting this up in Fernandez’s favorite hangout?” He asked in a sharp whisper, his Brooklyn accent confirming her appraisal. “Perdón,” he quickly added in a tone less polite than the words, “¿prefieres hablar español?”

“English is fine. We’re tourists, either way, what with my Spanish having a Mexican accent, and yours… vaguely Caribbean. Don’t worry, sound doesn’t carry from this booth, and the waiter I asked for is one of my people.”

The American laughed. “You’ve had better luck than us, then.”

She glanced out the window, saw Fernandez stuffing himself in the middle of a meeting with Admiral Castro and the Minister of the Interior. Castro had a bodyguard other than Mountain, but just then Jeeves made his way to their table.

“Ah, Mrs. Montoya, I see you brought a friend today. Will you be having your usual?”

“Hi, Omar. I think I will be having my usual, yes, but my friend here will need a moment to go over the menu. American, we’re working on a little project together.”

When Omar heard Alejandra confirm “her usual,” he slipped a napkin underneath the glass of ice water he passed her. She thanked him, pulled the napkin underneath the table, and unfolded it to read Fernandez’s meeting minutes, as put down by an evesdropper.

“They have an asset called Aldonza in transit to the Project Windmill compound.” She told the CIA man. “We have a few scouts in place, and an informant who visits regularly, but this gets a lot easier if we have guns to pass out to the Bolivians.”

The CIA man laughed again, his initial sour mood completely dissolved. “We have paramilitary assets up in the Andes, and if there’s one thing we Americans are good at… well, there’s a line I just love from one of our movies. ‘There are over five hundred and fifty million firearms in worldwide circulation. That's one firearm for every twelve people on the planet. The only question is: How do we arm the other eleven?’ Yeah, Montoya, I think we can pull this off.”