Deployment.

 “And that is 50!” Kato counted out the last Bulgarian dwarf to hop out of the last of the vans. “Pay me.”

Volkmer opened his parka against the gathering blizzard and retrieved the green bricks of cash, the edges of which fluttered violently in the wind.

Kato shoved the bricks inside his conversion van and slid the door closed. He shouted into the blizzard howl, “You like the face paint? I did them all myself this morning. All of them!” He handed the book on mimes back to Volkmer, “I missed maybe my calling.”

Volkmer began to walk to his truck, then stopped to looked back. He watched Kato distributing machine guns to each of the dwarves, with their painted faces and children’s department striped shirts and sweaters. He watched them clumsily organize into formation on the road, the drifts of snow momentarily obscuring the ones furthest from him. Volkmer thought then again of haystacks and of light held in place by cold.

Volkmer returned to the high school basement, fished the transmitter out of the muck and sent the only message he was allowed to send: 

Deployed.

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