Juliet doesn’t share his turmoil. She just sounds puzzled. “That’s your emblem, boss. What’s it doing here? One of your guys on the other side now?”
His answer is terse and unhesitating. “No.”
For three years Lincoln commanded Rogue Lightning, an elite Special Forces unit. “Rangers Squared” as their original commander, Shaw Walker, described it. The unit was dissolved after Lincoln’s career-ending injuries, but he keeps track of the surviving veterans. Jameson and Chris work for him. All the others moved on to new postings or civilian life. “Someone copied it,” he assures Juliet.
But the Rogue Lightning emblem, stolen and displayed out of place, has shaken him. He wants to know who’s behind it. He wants to put a name on his enemy.
“How’s the heat from the fire?” he asks.
“Not a problem. It’s a cold wind.”
“Okay. I’m giving you ninety seconds. I want you to take a look inside the fuselage. You see any electronics?”
Juliet climbs the wreck, looks inside. “Oh hell yeah. Mother lode. I’ll grab the drives.”
“Fans and filters too.”
“Serious?”
“They’ll contain microbiota. Could tell us where it’s been, where it came from.”
“Got it.”
“Make it quick.”
“Smash and grab. No problem.” With ruthless efficiency, Juliet snaps drives out of their mounts, rips out filters, shoves it all into shielded collection bags. She clips the bags to her backpack.
“Nice job,” Lincoln tells her.
“Did I make my time?”
He checks the clock. “You’re only twelve seconds over.”
“Shit.” She steps onto the troop carrier’s little platform and hooks into a safety line. Automatic straps close over her boots.
“Get the hell out of there,” he tells her.
“Blackbird, you heard the boss. Move out, best speed. Rest stop one.”
Lincoln checks the map, confirming that Blackbird has plotted the correct route. Juliet will be checking too, using her heads-up display.
The 900-s responds, ascending straight up as it shortens the tether to cruising length. Then the craft turns north and lays on the speed. Juliet soars beneath it at the end of the curving tether, drawn almost prone by the wind.
“I’m taking a break,” Lincoln announces in an angry growl. He heads for the command post door.
Tamara turns around, startled by his tone as much as by his sudden departure. The door closes behind him. When the latch clicks shut, Hayden says, “It was the emblem.”
Tamara turns to him. He’s a slightly built nineteen-year-old, fair-skinned and dark-haired, into video games and military history. Someone—maybe True?—said that he wanted to enlist in the army, but a severe allergy kept him out. ReqOps was almost as good. “You think?” she asks him. “He didn’t seem bothered by it.”
Hayden looks at her as if she’s clueless. When it comes to reading people’s moods, sometimes she is. “It was Rogue Lightning,” he says. “That means everything to him.”
Does it?
Tamara considers this as her gaze drifts up to the display. They’ve still got a high-altitude camera on the highway outside Tadmur. It shows a sedan and a small pickup truck stopped near the wreckage of the two technicals, with five individuals on foot exploring the debris field. A motorcycle from out of Tadmur approaches the vehicles, stopping fifty meters away. Tamara watches curiously, wondering if these people are friends or scavengers.
The motorcycle rider might not be either. He doesn’t join the searchers. After thirty seconds or so, he rides on—fast—away from Tadmur. He pours on the speed like he’s trying to catch up with the DF-21. That won’t happen, but Tamara gives her assistant, Naomi, the task of tracking him anyway. “Let me know what he does.”
Lincoln paces the hallway outside the command post. He still wears his headset, still listens to the chatter of ongoing communications, but he’s granted himself a minute alone to settle his anger. His boots strike the floor in strict cadence. It’s a display of discipline and control contradicted by the tremor that infects his hands—both the real one and the prosthetic.
In his mind the Rogue Lightning emblem is sacred, paid for in blood by men who risked their lives and who sometimes died doing work that was dark, remote, ruthless, and essential. Lincoln inherited command of the unit when Shaw Walker was killed with Diego Delgado and four other men. Lincoln rebuilt Rogue Lightning. He recruited new men, including Chris and Jameson, and for three more years they did what needed doing.
Then their gunship went down and Lincoln’s injuries were severe enough to end his army career.
He thought a new commander would be named, new men recruited, that Rogue Lightning would go on. But instead the unit was dissolved and their emblem retired.
So what the hell is it doing decorating an otherwise anonymous Arkinson? One flying in defense of a murderous outlaw like Hussam?
He tells himself it doesn’t mean anything. Someone stumbled across it, liked the look, and copied it, that’s all—and it’s not important to the outcome of the current mission.
He stops pacing. There is work to do. Phone calls to make. A procedure needs to be in place for transferring Hussam to American authorities.
He returns to the command post. There will be time for more questions when the mission is done.
Verbal Sparring
True closes her eyes as the H215 levels off. She lets herself rest, just for a few minutes. She tries to relax. But snippets of memory pop up in her consciousness: the dark glittering surface of the anti-surveillance canopy; the crunch of glass and mechanical fragments under her boots; the hair-raising buzz of the defensive mech that targeted her; the pak! of Blackbird’s precision kill shot… and her sense of a consolatory success as Miles—then Ryan and Dano Rodrigues—emerged from their stinking cell.
Ah, Diego.
Just that. A short, silent internal sigh. No more than that. She’s learned to go lightly past those memories. Circle around, back to the here and now.
We take the victories we are given.
Her eyes blink, her chin lifts. She stretches her shoulders, acknowledging to herself that the mission was a victory. It went well. It went as planned… almost. The Arkinsons were a surprise, but the team was prepared for surprises. Preparation translated to survival—and success.
She loosens her harness and leans forward to check on the men in front of her. The Brazilian doctor is nodding off. Beside him, the engineer, Ryan Rogers, sits in perfect stillness, staring at nothing, like a man worried that the least wrong move could shatter the illusion that contains him.
She turns next to Miles, sitting beside her. His posture is tense. He’s got one hand tight on the buckle of his harness like he’s about to release it and spring out of his seat. He notices her gaze, returns it. His olive-drab flight helmet frames his bearded, dust-encrusted face. Behind the mic, his cracked lips move, asking, “Where to now?”
His question goes out over the intercom, as does her answer. She tells him, “It’s under negotiation, but we’ll probably take you as far as Cyprus.”
He nods. “Sounds good. We can get home from there.”
Rogers comes in over the intercom, voice hoarse, not quite steady. “Hey. I just want to say thank you. Thank you to everyone involved in this. Thank you for getting us the fuck out of that subbasement of Hell. Seriously, man. I’d owe all of you my firstborn, if I had one.”