Slowly he roved his rifle over the empty houses and tall grass around the perimeter of the park. A few birds called out, their morning songs ringing in the stillness of the early morning.
The humidity began to climb with the temperature as the sun crawled into the sky. The resulting swampy smells made breathing a nasty chore.
Over and over, the team found spent bullet casings and other pieces of metal detritus that had ended up buried here. When the detector beeped again for after what felt like the thousandth time, Timothy clenched up, bored but still on guard.
Wong handed Boyd the detector and knelt for a better look.
“Shit, I think it’s a mine.” He stood and pointed at the spot.
The EOD team took control of the area and sent Timothy, Ruckley, Boyd, and Wong back a safe distance. Outside the park, groups of soldiers stood guard, watching for any threats.
“What the hell were those things doing here last night?” Timothy muttered.
“Scouting our defenses probably,” Ruckley said.
“Or maybe on their way back from doing that,” Wong said.
“You think they were already watching Houston?” Timothy asked. “Do they know what we’re doing in Galveston?”
“Relax,” Ruckley said. She patted him on the back. “Captain Beckham will figure out what they’re planning.”
The EOD team backed away from the mine that Wong had found, clearing a wide enough space to detonate it safely.
One of the men shouted, “Fire in the hole!”
Another loud bang tossed a cloud of dirt into the air. The smell of hot metal drifted from the blast site.
“Clear,” said the same soldier.
“You heard him,” Ruckley said. “Get to work.”
Wong picked up the metal detector again and started surveying the area where they had left off. The work was slow-going and tedious, and Timothy almost resented the effort. He would rather be out on patrol, searching for new signs of Chimeras or collaborators.
Ruckley was right. There would be more.
“Something else is bothering me,” Timothy said. “Why would they send Chimeras? Why not just a group of collaborators?”
“I think you and I both know why,” she answered.
“They’re closing in for the final blow.”
Ruckley confirmed the guess with a nod. The New Gods were constantly ahead of them.
The metal detector went off again, and Timothy halted.
“What is this?” Wong asked. He handed the detector off to Boyd again, before dropping to a crouch.
Timothy looked over his shoulder at a metal cylinder nestled in the grass.
“Looks like a smoke grenade,” Boyd said.
“That ain’t a smoke grenade,” Ruckley said.
Timothy noticed their position was ten yards from the picnic shelter where they had first seen the Chimera scouts camped out.
Boyd called over the EOD team.
One of the techs squinted at it, stroking his graying beard.
“Know what it is?” Wong asked.
The man stared, then gestured for everyone to move back. “I think it’s some sort of gas grenade.”
“So what?” Boyd asked. “Tear gas isn’t the worst thing in the world.”
“We don’t know what’s in that grenade,” Ruckley said. “Could be tear gas, but we’ve never seen these monsters use nonlethal weapons. For all we know it could be some kind of chemical agent they planned to lob into base.”
Timothy shuddered. “After what we saw in Mount Katahdin, I’d bet you’re right.”
Ruckley squinted at the canister. “Maybe it contains a bioweapon. An engineered disease. God only knows.”
“Now I hope it’s just tear gas,” Wong said. “You guys are freaking me out.”
“Whatever it is, if the New Gods sent Chimeras to deliver them, it’s got to be bad,” Timothy said.
Boyd whistled. “Real fucking bad.”
“Get it secured,” Ruckley ordered. “We need to get this back to the science team.”
— 7 —
By the time Teams Ghost and Spearhead returned to base, Banff was already in a state of chaos. Late morning light bled through the dense cloud cover over the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel.
Dohi ran toward the first steel-panel gate outside the hotel. Razor wire spanned the walls, interspersed by wooden guard towers where snipers and machine gunners lay in wait. Guns pointed at them from the men along the walls.
“Spearhead and Ghost, requesting entry!” Neilson shouted into the radio.
The gate blocking the road to the hotel began to shift, snow shedding from the groaning metal. The teams ran inside, and the soldiers manning the gate quickly replaced it, shouting orders to take firing positions along the wall.
Inside the base, soldiers were already preparing snowmobiles and large transport trucks for what appeared to be a potential evacuation.
A man shoved through the heavy snow toward them. Dohi recognized him as Sergeant Prince, the man who had first welcomed him and Team Ghost to Banff.
“Neilson, get up on those walls!” Prince shouted. “Ghost, we need you inside!”
Dohi ran with Prince, Fitz, and Ace past the hotel toward a warehouse-like garage. Inside it, civilians were being loaded up into a bus and a pair of trucks as officers directed soldiers into snowplows.
“Are we fighting or retreating?” Fitz shouted over the din.
“Both,” Prince said. “Kamer will explain.”
They went to a dark corner of the garage past stacks of crates and supplies that hadn’t yet made it on the trucks. Kamer stood next to a group of four officers and a few soldiers, hidden from the civilians, but several children had come over to look at their prisoner.
Corrin was on the ground, limbs bound by chains, body trembling. Blood wept from wounds across his flesh. Kamer continued barking orders.
“What the hell did you do to our prisoner?” Ace asked, interrupting him.
“What you failed to do,” Kamer said, turning slightly. “But this asshole is full of lies.”
Corrin spat a glob of blood on the concrete. When the red saliva hit, one of his fanged teeth fell out. “I told you. I hate the New Gods as much as you do. They gave me this body. They threatened my family…”
“Bullshit,” Kamer said. “Your friends came for you.”
“We don’t know that,”
