He lets her go. Both girls stare at him, eyes wary, uncertain. “What’s the matter, Dad?” Anna asks.
“Nothing,” he says gruffly. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
It’s the truth, and still, he’s beset with anxiety. A sense of vulnerability. It’s the way he used to feel in the weeks and months after a mission. It’s this talk of Shaw Walker, he decides. It’s the reality of Variant Forces. An outfit capable of fielding three Arkinsons on a few minutes’ notice might have a long reach.
He parked his truck between two other vehicles. They’re both still there, and nothing has approached since. If anything had—human, animal, mech—he would know about it. One of the tiny cameras mounted around the truck’s frame and across its undercarriage would have captured the motion and sent him an alert.
He pulls out his phone and reviews his list of alerts, just to make sure he didn’t miss anything. “We’re okay for now,” he concedes. “I want you two to move fast. In through the driver’s door. Let’s go.”
They scamper for the truck, Lincoln right behind them. The truck unlocks for them and the girls climb in. He stashes the bags behind the seat. “Make sure you fasten your seat belts.”
“We know, Dad,” Anna says irritably. “We’re not babies. Why are you acting so weird?”
“Always vigilant,” he reminds her.
She rolls her eyes and, remembering that she’s angry with him, flounces back in the seat, crosses her arms, and glares at the dash. “I wish we didn’t have to leave early. We were having fun.”
“Sorry,” he says as they pull out.
Camilla gets her cell phone from the dash compartment and retreats into some comforting game world—Lincoln has no idea what game it is. Anna watches her for a few seconds, then gets her phone out too. “Let’s link,” she tells her sister. They tap their phones together.
Lincoln drives, thinking about Shaw Walker, remembering him as a man who believes in revenge. Relentless, according to Hussam. His grip tightens on the steering wheel.
Hussam’s brother, Rihab, swore to seek revenge, but Lincoln is skeptical, suspecting Rihab will first have to fight to secure his brother’s operation. He’s far more concerned about Shaw… if it is Shaw. Requisite Operations’ name is already out in the media.
Are we at war? Lincoln wonders. And if they are, where is the war zone?
A memory. A mission in the Hindu Kush. Lincoln has called in targeting coordinates. A Reaper responds. It flies below them, entering the valley through a low pass. Shaw, speaking in an undertone scarcely audible over the wind: “If I was the enemy, I’d be gunning for that pilot.”
Lincoln snorted at the absurdity. “Those pilots are seven thousand miles away.”
“Yeah. I’d hit ’em where they live.”
Lincoln thinks about this now, watching the red taillights ahead of him. Renata flew the Hai-Lins from out of ReqOps headquarters. Does that make her a target? Is the ReqOps campus a potential war zone?
He glances at the girls. They’re preoccupied, plugged into their game. When he left the airfield, he planned to stop at the office, drop off the electronics, and then take the kids to their mom’s house. Now he reconsiders, deciding it’s better to take the kids straight home.
He’s not worried. Not really. But he drives past the ReqOps exit anyway.
Farther on, traffic gets heavy. Slows to a crawl. Lincoln is frustrated, but the girls don’t notice. They’re happy in their electronic world. That’s how kids are. Lincoln was the same. He regrets it now, thinking of his own dad. He wishes he’d known him better.
His parents were both army: his mom a rangy blonde, the descendant of Southern slaveholders, and his dad, not quite as tall but an outstanding athlete, the youngest son of Korean immigrants. Lincoln remembers him as quiet, determined. Remembers too the longing for his return when he was deployed, gone for months at a time—and then gone forever. A stupid accident during a training exercise, when the helicopter carrying his squad clipped a rotor and went down, leaving a trail of burning wreckage. It’s a parallel Lincoln tries not to dwell on.
His mom left the service after that, but two years later she married back into the army—one of his dad’s friends, a talkative good ol’ boy, full of philosophy. The transition was rough, but Lincoln came around. In retrospect, he should have learned more from his stepdad about what it takes to stay married.
After he pulls into Claire’s driveway, he walks the kids to the door. She’s surprised to see them back so early.
“Something wrong?” she asks as they slip past her, disappearing into the house.
She’s tall, full-figured, only a little heavy. Beautiful dark eyes. Teaches advanced math at a small prep school.
He speaks softly, his scarred voice a low burr. “We might be getting fallout from this latest mission.”
“Come inside,” she urges. “Tell me about it.”
He’s tempted. After six years apart, they’ve lately embarked on a slow and cautious rapprochement. But he’s got the recovered electronics in the truck and he needs to get them safely locked up. “I can’t. I’ve got to run by the office.”
“Are you going to make it to the soccer game this weekend?”
“I don’t know.”
She presses her lips together and nods.
“I want to,” he tells her.
“I know.”
Lincoln would like to make it work with Claire and he intends to try. But in the long term? He doesn’t give it much chance of succeeding.
War Crime
A war crime—and Lincoln knew.
True ponders this unsettling revelation while Alex splashes Irish whiskey over ice.
Alex tried for years to steer Diego away from military service, but Diego refused to be persuaded. He grew up wanting to be a warrior, a boots-on-the-ground protector, a defender of the tribe—and he wasn’t willing to wait. “Give college a try,” Alex urged him. “You can always enlist next year.”
He wouldn’t consider it. “Dad, if I don’t go now, I might not get a chance. The army’s cutting back. Robotics are going to take over combat jobs and pretty soon frontline soldiers will be obsolete.”
He’d been wrong about the timeline but not about the process.
Alex hands her a glass. She takes a cautious sip, focusing on the sweet burn and her own culpability. Where would they be now if she’d made different choices? If she’d left the army early, put the military behind them. Kept Diego home those summers he’d spent with her old man?
Pointless questions.
She chose the life she wanted and Diego did the same. He worked hard and he took his chances—and she was proud of him. She’s still proud of him. She will always be proud of him.
Alex is proud of him too. He looks across the great room at the cabinet with the eternally lighted shelf holding Diego’s formal army portrait. A triangular flag case, set at an angle beside it, holds the neatly folded American flag that draped his coffin. On the other side of his portrait, a black-framed case displays his medals along with an embroidered patch. The patch bears the Rogue Lightning emblem. It’s too far away to see the details, but True sees them in her mind’s eye: a half-circle, with two star-filled fields flanking a bright orange sun, lightning bolts dividing them, the unit’s name and the motto underneath: Anywhere, Anytime.
Alex says, “I think he’d be okay with this if he was here now.”
It’s hard for True to speak against the pressure in her chest. She breathes in the vapors of the alcohol, letting it distract her. Alex is making this hard for her. He’s doing it on purpose.