The Deep Zone

for those fools to come out and get dead.”

“Roger that.”

Kathan seemed to have run out of words. Stikes geared up and made his way to the hide at the tree line. The rock face two hundred yards away reflected enough starlight to glow softly green in his NVDs. The cave mouth was a black oblong at the face’s bottom. Stikes settled down, sitting cross-legged, to watch that dark space and wait for the moment when luminous shapes would appear to float from it.

To pass the time, Stikes disassembled his Beretta and then started putting it back together. He could do it easily blindfolded and now he did it in the dark, keeping his eyes trained on the cave mouth. His hands took on lives of their own, moving over the pieces like a piano player’s lightly touching keys. Then he imagined touching Keyana, and while Stikes’s hands worked, his mind played with her astonishing body.

Eventually, though, his thoughts were pulled back to Kathan. There was something wrong with the man. Objectively, Stikes knew you had to be a little off to do this kind of work. But Kathan was way off. Stikes had met such men before, and he felt that Kathan’s mind, like the others’, must have been dismantled by some horror and never properly reassembled. Earlier, during the daylight, Stikes had returned from the hide to find Kathan playing with some of the orange, white-spotted lizards that were about the size of a cigar and slow enough to be caught bare-handed. Kathan had made a small track framed with rocks to contain the lizards and was staging races.

“Need to do a little handicapping,” Kathan said. As Stikes watched, he pulled a hind leg off the next two contestants. He looked up to see Stikes staring at him. “I got bored.” Grinning. “I used to do stuff like this when I was a kid.”

“With lizards?”

“Cats, mostly. My old man’s metal shears worked great. But they bled out too quick. Big veins in their legs.”

“So what’d you do?”

“Well. You make them run around without eyes, now that was a hoot, take my word for it, bro.”

“How in the hell did you do that?”

“Welder’s gloves.” Kathan chuckled. “Like steel mesh. You can’t drive a nail through them. And they come up to your elbows.”

“You are one sick bastard,” Stikes said, flat-voiced, but Kathan laughed, appearing to take it as a huge compliment.

THIRTY-SEVEN

STILWELL’S BERTH IN THE MEDICAL BAY OF THE C-5A GALAXY transport was surprisingly comfortable. The self-leveling bed was affixed to a set of stainless steel pillars with oil-filled shock absorbers. Instead of a mattress, she was cradled in a red elastopolymeric cocoon that molded to her body, insulating her from turbulence and the aircraft’s vibrations. She was receiving oxygen through a nasal cannula. A baby-blue, IMED Genie-R1 intravenous pump, hung from a stanchion beside Stilwell’s berth, kept a steady ketamine drip flowing into her right arm. Every sixty seconds, it beeped softly.

Stilwell was one of six ACE patients being transported back to the United States for admission to Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The doctors and nurses on board were all garbed in full Chemturions with self-contained ventilation units. There were three doctors and twelve nurses for the twelve-hour flight. When they rotated off-shift, they went to eat, rest, and sleep in a secure, biosafe section of the plane.

When it came time for her next half-hour check, a nurse trundled over in the ungainly suit and stood beside the bed.

“Hey there,” Stilwell whispered. “Don’t you people ever sit down?” One of ACE’s many gifts, she was learning, was a sore throat that made strep seem mild.

“When the aircraft lands and we roll you off, then we sit, ma’am,” the nurse said. This one, the shift supervisor, was a female lieutenant named Gauthier, a young woman with short-cropped blond hair.

“Where are you from, Lieutenant?”

“Vermont, ma’am. Northern part of the state.”

“Vermont. I’ve never been there. What’s it like?”

“Quiet. My parents run a dairy farm. They milk three hundred cows.” Stilwell could see the pride in her eyes, but then she added, “I couldn’t wait to get out of Vermont. All the kids are like that.”

“Did you?”

“Oh yes. I wanted to go to a city where it was warm. Those were the only two criteria. Well, and a good nursing school.”

“Where?”

“Rice, ma’am. In Houston.”

“Great school. Expensive, though.”

“Yes, ma’am. But my uncle paid for it.”

“Lucky you. He’s not a dairy farmer, I’d guess.”

“Uncle Sam, ma’am.”

“Ah. Did you like Houston?” She could talk for a while, until her throat hurt too much. It took her mind off things.

“At first it was incredible. So many places to go and things to do—restaurants, clubs, malls. Wow. But you know what? By my junior year, I couldn’t wait to come home. You don’t know what you’ve got till you lose it,” Lieutenant Gauthier said. “Houston was great for a while, but there was dirt, and crime, and people were rude, always in a hurry. Nothing like Vermont.”

“How long till you get out?” Stilwell assumed that the woman would do “five and fly,” as they called it. The Army paid for college educations, but got five years of service in exchange. Most recipients, especially medical professionals, put in their time and jumped back into civilian life.

“I’m thinking of staying in, ma’am,” she said.

“Really?”

“Yes, ma’am. I kind of like the Army.”

“Army can use people like you.” Stilwell’s voice was a raw croak, her throat beginning to hurt too much.

As if sensing it, Lieutenant Gauthier said, “I’ll let you rest now, ma’am. But you know how close I am.”

“Two things before you go, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Please turn off that IV pump beeper.”

The nurse tapped a red touch-pad button on the pump’s front panel. “What else, ma’am?”

“What mode is the ketamine pump in?”

“Auto, ma’am.”

“Reset it to PC mode, please.” Patient control.

The nurse hesitated for just an instant. “The doctors like to keep them on auto mode, ma’am, when they’re dispensing pain meds.”

“I am a doctor, Lieutenant,” Stilwell said, locking eyes with the younger woman.

“Yes, ma’am, you sure are.” The nurse tapped an orange touch pad on the pump twice. “There you are. All set, ma’am.”

“Lieutenant?”

“Ma’am?”

“This stays with you and me. Clear?”

“Yes, ma’am. Clear.”

“Thank you. I think I’ll sleep a little now.”

It had felt good talking to the young lieutenant, had taken her mind to the green beauty of Vermont. Maybe she would go the Guard route, as Stilwell herself had. Or maybe she really would stay in. God knew the Army could