“Me neither,” Barb admitted. “I’m glad to be horizontal, but I don’t want to sleep.”
“Nightmares,” Janea said. It wasn’t a question.
“Worst I’ve ever had,” Barb said. “I woke up probably twenty times last night, same damned nightmare every time.”
“Want to talk about it?” Janea asked.
“Not on your life,” Barb said. “I just want to forget them. I’ve never been particularly submissive.”
“Held in place by an amorphous form?” Janea asked, frowning.
“In a dark place?” Barb said, sitting up.
“Skip the rest,” Janea said, sitting up in turn. “Recurrently?”
“All the time,” Barb said. “I had one intervention, I think, by a messenger. But other than that, every time I woke up it was from the same dream.”
“That’s not a dream, that’s a projection,” Janea said. “Do you feel…a longing?”
“Repulsed and pulled at the same time,” Barb said, nodding. “Like wanting a chocolate but knowing it’s got acid filling.”
“Any particular direction?” Janea asked.
“No, just the pull,” Barb said.
“Look, I don’t want to go through those dreams, either,” Janea said, pulling her legs up and wrapping her arms around them. “But if, when, we do, we need to see if we can get any impression of the location. If these are astral projections, we may be able to get a feel for where we are. It’s a clue and we’re currently clueless.”
“Not looking forward to that,” Barb said, lying back down. “But it’s a start.”
“The things I do for this job,” Janea said, still sitting up. She didn’t look ready to try her own idea yet.
“God never makes a Gifted life easy,” Barb said. “Get some sleep. We’re going to need it.”
“Ladies,” Randell said as Barb and Janea entered the briefing room. For once he wasn’t wearing a suit. He was in cargo shorts and a polo shirt instead.
Things had built up since the beginning of the investigation. The FBI had brought in a complete forward command center, a series of temporary trailers, instead of schlepping in a motel. Barb would have preferred the motel, but it turned out some of them were rigged as shield rooms. Since the real nature of the threat was being kept even from the vast majority of the responding units, keeping its nature secret in the command post area was going to be tough.
“We nearly couldn’t get in here,” Barb said. “There were a half a dozen checkpoints on the way in. Not to mention the rent-a-cops guarding the command center.”
“That is what credentials are for,” Randell said. “Okay, your new team. Master Sergeant Scott Attie of Fifth Special Forces group.”
“Ladies,” Attie said, looking at them with curiosity.
“The Master Sergeant has combat experience and has been a caving exploration leader. Sergeant Jordan Struletz,” Randell continued, pointing to a tall, slender blond guy wearing thick glasses. He was looking more than a touch anxious. “Sergeant Struletz is from 319th MI group. He has some combat experience and has done extensive civilian caving.”
“Ladies,” Struletz said, swallowing nervously.
“Just two?” Janea asked. “We had twenty last night and we nearly got our heads handed to us.”
“Three,” Randell said. “Me. I’ve worked in confined spaces and I’m not claustrophobic. I’ve also seen the threat. And I’m not insane.”
“Thank FLIRs and the Hand of God for that,” Barb said.
“FLIRs certainly,” Randell said.
“Master Sergeant,” Barb said, ignoring the implied jibe. “I’ve got some questions that are going to sound very strange. Especially since this is an official mission.”
“If I can anticipate some?” Attie said. “I was briefed on Special Circumstances and the threat. One of the reasons that there’s only two of us is that most people turned the job down when it was an unspecified ‘high risk of loss of life.’ Most of us have been in enough situations where we’re more than willing to turn something like that down. Others weren’t willing to believe the in-brief on SC, while being more than willing to never mention it. I think that most of them thought it was just a test, anyway. I am not a believer, as you would term it. This has got me thinking, but that’s not the same thing.”
“Not at all,” Barb said, nodding. “Last thing. How’s your mental stability?”
“Fair,” Attie said. “I’ve seen and done some things that bother me, but I’m one of those people that it doesn’t bother so much.” He shrugged. “When it’s your time, it’s your time. Monsters, bullets or IEDs, doesn’t really matter. You’re gone and that’s the end of the ride.”
“People like myself consider it a beginning,” Barb said, turning to the sergeant. “Sergeant, frankly, I’m considering just cutting you. You look too nervous already and when we get in the caves we can’t afford that.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Struletz said. “I can understand that. Ma’am, understand that I was unsure about accepting the briefing on SC. But when I was briefed, ma’am, I realized it was a necessity for me to volunteer. I am a believer, ma’am, Catholic, if you don’t mind. I’m a member of the Society of Saint Michael, ma’am. To avoid combat with true evil would be, in my eyes, a sin. Am I afraid of dying, ma’am? Yes. But my soul is the Lord’s, ma’am. I go to His arms unafraid.”
Randell snorted and shook his head.
“Problems with that, Agent Randell?” Barb asked.
“No, ma’am,” the agent said. “If he wants to put his trust in God, go for it. I’m going to put my trust in a good weapon.”
“On that note,” Barb said, looking at the Master Sergeant. “I asked for military-grade weapons.”
“And we brought a good array,” the Master Sergeant said, nodding. “I was given leave to draw on anything in the SOCOM inventory. But most of it’s not going to be useable in the caves. Very closed space, very close-quarters battle, ma’am.”
“There goes the rocket launcher,” Janea said, sighing.
“Yes, ma’am,” the Master Sergeant said, looking at her dubiously.
“That was a joke, Master Sergeant,” Barb said. “We’re both familiar with firearms. I’m better with them than Janea, but she’s not bad.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Attie said, reaching down and putting a bag on the table. “When I was given this mission, and the mission to prepare the gear, I had to think hard about it. I’d planned on MP-5s…”
“They’re not all that good with these things,” Randell said. “Five point five six is worse.”
“And then I got that intel in the middle of the night,” Attie said dyspeptically. “Which threw a wrench in the works. The optimum was a forty-five-caliber SMG that was small, light and robust. Unfortunately, the state of the art is still the Thompson in forty-five. The problem with forty-five is recoil and muzzle climb. The traditional way to deal with that has been weight. The weight of a Thompson is, looked at that way, a feature, not a bug. And they’re tough as hell.”
“Tell me they’ve at least been reworked,” Barb said with a sigh. “The last Thompson I fired was practically mint in that nobody had ever changed anything on it. Which meant it was a piece of…it was not a very good weapon.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Attie said, smiling slightly. “But then I got to thinking. SOCOM has been evaluating a new forty-five SMG. It’s barely out of the prototype stage but it’s been passing every test with flying colors.”
He opened up the bag and drew out a small-very small-submachine gun.
The distance from the rear of the weapon to the barrel was barely fourteen inches. The extended magazine was nearly as long as the weapon. And it was very close to a square, as opposed to the longer, more tapered style of weapons. Instead of a trigger guard, there was a full hand guard around the trigger area, and a pistol forestock. Forward of the trigger/hand guard was a large boxy area that Barb couldn’t figure out. And the barrel actually extended directly from where the middle of a person’s trigger hand would be instead of being above it. That meant the chamber was in front of the operator’s hand, which was a bit nervous-making.
Barb’s initial reaction was one of disdain. The majority of the weapon’s body was polymer, and she had never seen a polymer weapon that worked. And every time she’d seen the “newest thing,” it had turned out to be an old thing in new, and usually less capable, packaging. And small SMGs generally shot very poorly. Trying to control the
