“Take off the mask, Em. It was distinctive and set you apart in Fort Collins. Out here, we’re just two bored soldiers heading back to base. That’s our play. We can’t kill these guys. It’s too close to town, and they’re probably in contact with someone in there.”
When close to the roadblock, he counted five men on foot. Unknown number sitting in the three black Humvees bracketing the road. They carried rifles, Chinese models, if he remembered his weapons, and they were alert.
The plane flew ahead, descending toward a landing strip beyond the small high plains town.
He slowed the truck, rolled down his window, and prayed. Of all the encounters where they’d depended on tricking the enemy with their captured uniforms, he was the least certain about this one. Any army worth its salt would pass along information to all units how guys like him were sneaking in and causing havoc. Off the top of his head, he counted three separate times when he’d pushed his luck with the uniform trick. He wasn’t a gambler but even he understood there came a point when your luck ran out.
Please don’t let this be the time.
Wheatland, CO
Colonel Avery went silent. He studied Meechum with a hard glare before switching to Kyla. Rays of sunshine came in through the trees, catching the man’s blue eyes, so they sparkled with apparent wonder at what she’d said. “Is this true? It can’t be true, can it?”
She did her best to meet his gaze. “Colonel, we started out on the USS John F. Kennedy. If you check with them, I’m sure they’ll confirm who we are and most of where we’ve been. Though the captain was…one of them.”
Avery took a step back. “The captain of an aircraft carrier? Are you sure?” The once-confident officer seemed lost.
It was Meechum’s cue. “Sir, you’ve got to stop asking so many questions and take a little on trust. We’re dressed like them because it’s the only way to stay alive out here. If we’d been in sundresses and bonnets, we would have likely been shot on sight a dozen times by now.”
Kyla laughed to herself thinking about Emily wearing the beach dress back at Martha’s Vineyard, but it was before anyone had truly understood the enemy.
The Marine went on. “Don’t believe us? It’s like the Russians say…tough shitzky. We were doing fine without you boys, so if you want to go wander around aimlessly again, be my guest. If you want to do some hero shit, like me and Dudette here, you’ll point your grid squares downrange to NORAD. That’s where the party is. When you rescue President Williams and save the country, I won’t tell anyone you got the idea from us. Just get it the eff done.” She paused. “Sir.”
She couldn’t remember the combat Marine putting so many sentences together in a row, but she’d picked her moment perfectly.
Avery smiled. “No one could make up a story like you ladies. Let’s say we believe you and are willing to head south as part of our mission. How will you find your uncle and the president? Do you know their route? What are they driving? How—”
The conversation turned military, at least to Kyla’s ears. The commando team brought out maps and computer tablets full of aerial imagery. Meechum gave them a rundown on where they’d been, what they’d accomplished, and listed known bases, areas where attacks had taken place, and all they’d done on the East Coast. Kyla let herself relax a bit, knowing they were joining up with a larger group of competent warfighters. However, as the group started to move out, they came back to her.
“You have a phone?” Avery inquired.
“It’s out of charge.”
“We can help with that. We’ll get you charged up so you can make a call to your uncle when the time is right.”
“You have a charger?” she asked, anxious to help.
Avery gestured for her to walk with him. “It’s in the helicopter.”
NORAD Black Site Sierra 7, CO
Dwight had been taken to the cube of white light, bathed in it, then sent back to his room. He’d felt fine for an hour or so, but then, out of the blue, he’d coughed up a tiny bit of blood. Now he stood in abject terror looking at it.
“It’s happening again. I remember how it goes. I’ll get sicker throughout the day.”
A voice came from one of the cells out in the hall. “I’ll be glad when you’re dead.”
“Bernard?” he said, shocked. He madly scratched at his hair, pulling out a tuft by accident. Whether it was due to his maladies or came out naturally, he wasn’t able to say. However, it added to his panic.
“It’s really me,” the voice said. “David found me in the ashes, and I got rushed to one of his first aid trailers. I bet you didn’t know it was possible for me to survive that fire, did you?”
“You’re alive?” he asked, full of hope. If Bernard had made it, maybe the others were alive, too. If spraying them with fire was all a bad, drunken dream, David might let him go. Then he could return to San Francisco and go home. If no one was there, so much the better. He’d come to appreciate how overrated people were. They put him in strange boxes…
“I’m alive,” Bernard’s voice replied. “David threw me in here, though. Said ‘Bernard, you were doing great work, from what I hear, but you failed in a big way, too. You let Dwight Inverness onto your team without checking his credentials.’ I said I was sorry, but he had his men arrest me and toss me in this place anyway. I thought it was because they wanted me to have a good seat for your sentence, but it turned out he wanted me to suffer, too.”
“Bernard, I’m sorry. You were a cool dude. You didn’t turn me in when
