She checks with the assistants. Michelle shakes her head. Naomi says, “The name’s too common. Must be a thousand Jon Helms out there.”
Tamara tells them, “Assume it’s a nom de guerre. Cross search on a security company or PMC.” A few seconds later she pushes back from her desk. “Got it. Jon Helm, associated with a PMC, name of Variant Forces. Black hat. Not much data out in the light.”
“Go dark.”
“We’re on it.”
He turns his mic back on. “Was Jon Helm managing your security, El-Hashem? Did you pay Variant Forces to look out for you? I don’t think you got your money’s worth.”
“You think it’s over?” Hussam asks. He shows no fear: not in his voice and not in his manner. “No. You are marked. He will come after you. All of you.”
“Are you worth that much to him?” Lincoln asks. “He’s already lost an Arkinson. Are you more valuable than that?”
“Yes.” His lips draw back, exposing ivory teeth. “I am worth more to him than the money you will get for my head. And his reputation is worth more than that. He is… relentless. That is the word. He is one of your own. American. Special Forces. That’s what you were, right? Both of you, mercenaries now. Jon Helm is his war name. I wonder if you know him by his true name?”
Lincoln doesn’t like this thought, not at all, but he concedes to himself that it’s possible. Plenty of former operators work in military and security companies. Still, it doesn’t add up, because the Rogue Lightning emblem is stolen. He’s certain of that. And if the emblem is stolen, maybe the backstory is stolen too, and “Jon Helm” is just some steroid-soaked wannabe badass who’s concocted an ex–Special Forces origin story to boost his bottom line.
That’s what he’d like to believe, but he can’t get the theory to parse.
Long ago, he learned to trust an inner sense that perceives patterns, connections, and looming threats long before his conscious mind can map them—and that sense is telling him he’s reading it wrong.
It’s worth remembering that Variant Forces, the company behind this “Jon Helm,” has a cash flow real enough to maintain a regional fleet of Arkinsons.
Hussam shifts restlessly, seeming puzzled, and then annoyed at the lack of an answer. When he speaks again, it’s in the petulant tone of a man not accustomed to losing command of a conversation. “I think you do know him.”
“Maybe. Why don’t you tell me more about him?”
“I will tell you the kind of man he is. When I met him I saw that his left hand was crippled and scarred. I asked if he’d been shot through his hand. He said no. He said in Burma, his enemies tried to crucify him. They hammered in a spike through his left hand. Then he killed them. All of them.”
Lincoln goes cold. The Burmese mission was the worst tragedy ever endured by Rogue Lightning. Diego Delgado was just one of six men lost, but his horrific death is the one everyone remembers. Eight years out, it lives on in the popular imagination through a video that persists in the Cloud despite all efforts to eradicate it. Hussam’s story is a fictionalized retelling of what happened to Diego—same setup, better outcome—in other words, a lie. Lincoln understands now the reason for the Rogue Lightning emblem: some would-be tough guy co-opted and subverted the unit’s history in a play to enhance his own reputation. Twisted fuck.
“Nice story,” he says, determined to give nothing away, trusting his team to follow that lead. “And worthless without a name to back it up.”
“Names change when war remakes us. But he will kill you.”
It doesn’t take an effort to sound unimpressed. “He missed his first shot.”
Hussam shrugs. “You will never see the second shot coming.”
Nice story.
True gives silent approval to Lincoln’s acerbic assessment. Even now, eight years on, it’s a gut punch every time she hears another callous reference to Diego’s death. The consolation this time is that Hussam is out of the game. And this friend of his, this anonymous soldier of fortune, Jon Helm—she resolves she will not allow the idea of him to get under her skin.
Miles taps the back of her wrist—a gesture to draw her attention. He wants her to hand him the tablet. She turns it over, watching curiously as he opens a note-taking app. His fingers conjure a spell of words across the virtual keyboard. The screen is tipped at an angle that makes it hard for her to read, so when he’s done, he hands it back.
Her eyes scan the message: The American with the crippled hand is real. He led the raid when I was taken.
Her eyebrows rise above the rim of her reading glasses. She is intrigued, sensing the possibility of valuable insight into Hussam’s operation. She lowers the volume on the intercom, then with one hand types a single word: Describe?
She hands the tablet back to Miles. This time she leans over to watch the words appear: Caucasian. Late 30s. Light eyes. Lean face. Lean build. Six-two? Weathered look. Tells: crooked upper lip, scarred. And a tattoo, left forearm. Inscription
He sits back abruptly without finishing the sentence, lips parted, staring at nothing in a stunned expression that puts True on edge.
The verbal sparring between Lincoln and Hussam continues at low volume. True knows that Lincoln is trying to draw out hints and details on the status of other hostages in the region—but she isn’t really listening anymore. Miles has come to some unexpected and—going by his expression—unwelcome realization, and she wants to know what it is.
Reaching out, she gestures at the tablet, fixing him with a demanding eye, saying without words, Go on!
He looks at her with a measuring gaze. There is something of caution, of wariness in his eyes that ignites in her a nascent anxiety. He returns his attention to the tablet. Types. This time, a question: You said your name was True Brighton, right?
It’s a question so out of context it startles her. Her anxiety ramps up. That caution, still in his gaze. What the hell? And where is this going?
Fastest way to find out is to tell him what he wants to know.
She nods.
He looks down. Types a brief phrase.
She reads it—I’m sorry—and her chest tightens.
He keeps typing. She watches the note take shape: Inscription on his tattoo. “Diego Delgado. The Last Good Man.”
Prickling sweat flushes from her pores. An insurgency of emotion—anger, grief, regret—wells up, warring for the territory of her mind. She slides her glasses off, leans back, closes her eyes. She’s had years of practice countering similar assaults. It takes seconds of concentration, a few deep breaths, but she steadies herself. When she opens her eyes again, she’s back in operational mode and determined to learn more.
Taking the tablet from Miles, she types, Would you recognize him, if you saw him again?
Miles nods. No hesitation.
It’s the answer she expected. The memory of his kidnapping is surely burned into his mind. That’s the way of traumatic events. Eight years on, she still easily remembers the residential twilight, the clothes she was wearing, her breath white on the evening air as she jogged the last half-block home, and the first, vague tendril of dread when she realized it was Lincoln waiting with Alex on the porch, the two of them standing unnaturally still beneath an amber light, a few intrepid moths fluttering in the warm glow.
She shivers. She learned of the circumstances that led to Diego’s capture only because Lincoln violated regulations and told her—those words graven in her memory too—his voice gentle but matter of fact: