“Just tell me,” she whispers.
Alex furrows his brow and complies. “They were in Kunar Province. The assignment was to kill or capture a Saudi radical rumored to be in the area. They were working with a contingent of highly trained Afghan National Army soldiers, supposed to be the best of the best. Except one of them tried to lead the team into an ambush. It didn’t work. The team detected the presence of enemy soldiers in time to stage a counterattack. But the ANA soldier turned his weapon on our men. Lincoln was hit bad. Two of the Afghanis were killed. This, from a man they believed to be a friend.
“The enemy retreated but they had their wounded too, so they didn’t go far. They took refuge in a house. It wasn’t clear if the family was present as hostages or if they were collaborating. The surviving ANA soldiers insisted they were relatives of the traitor. But everyone knew there were children in the home.”
Alex shrugs. “They were under a lot of pressure. Two dead, enemy soldiers in the area, evacuation delayed, and Lincoln bleeding out, slow but sure. Shaw let his temper off leash, turned into an avenging angel. On the terrain map, he marked the house as a known enemy position, no civilians present. Seconds later a drone strike took it out.”
He scowls at his glass, takes a long sip, waits for the burn to pass. “Diego didn’t understand at first what had happened, but Lincoln did. Despite his wounds, his wooziness, he was furious. Swore he’d report what Shaw had done. But he never did. None of them did. Tribal loyalty won out. Five months later, Shaw and Diego were in Burma.”
Lincoln didn’t go on the Burma mission; he was still recovering from his wounds.
Alex fixes her with a measuring gaze. “I’m certain Shaw did his damnedest to save Diego’s life. But don’t kid yourself. He was dangerous and unpredictable even then. If he really is this Jon Helm, he’s not someone you want to get close to.”
“Maybe not.” She doesn’t like the resentment that edges her voice. It’s real though. She doesn’t try to hide it. “But here we are, years later. Shaw’s name comes up, and suddenly I’m finding out critical things I never knew about my son.”
“Hey,” he says. “I didn’t like sitting on this. I would have told you before, but I promised him.”
Her hand tightens around the cold glass. “What else don’t I know? Shaw had that tattoo. ‘The Last Good Man.’ What was that about? Don’t you want to find out?”
“No. No, I don’t. And you need to let it go. We have two living children. Just because they aren’t kids anymore, that doesn’t mean they don’t need you. Someday they’re going to have children of their own. You need to be around for that. You owe us.”
She sips the whiskey, holds it in her mouth as she focuses on keeping her temper in check. She hates it when Alex plays the guilt card. He knows she hates it. He does it anyway because sometimes it works.
Not this time. “I’m going to be blunt, love. There’s a creed. No man left behind. In a day, maybe a week—it won’t be long—Lincoln will remember that. And then we’re going after Shaw. He was Rogue Lightning. Still is. He’s still flying the colors. It’s just a matter of time.”
Alex scowls, but his tone is surprisingly conciliatory as he says, “Lincoln might have things to make up for, but that doesn’t mean you need to be part of it.”
“I’m already part of it,” she warns him. “So are you. We’ve been part of it since the day Diego died. Like you said, what happened is a black hole, and we can’t ever escape it.”
Cold Morning
True and Alex wake to an intrusion alarm. It’s 0432. Both grab tablets from their respective sides of the bed. True holds hers at a distance so the image on the screen is sharp. The screen shows a video feed with the source labeled Brighton-Delgado-3. One of the squirrel mimetics. The device is moving in the forest canopy, skittering through low branches, gliding when it needs to, as it works to keep up with an intruder on the ground whose slender shape is intermittently visible past evergreen deadwood and half-gone autumn leaves.
True recognizes it. So does Alex. “It’s the mech from last night,” he says, anger edging his voice. “Heading straight for the house. Fucking mediots. What, they don’t think we have defenses?”
True watches the feed, on edge, her heart racing after being startled awake. She is struck by the speed and grace of the device as it dashes through the rough terrain. It disappears into darkness. “Damn, it’s fast,” she says, with growing trepidation. “BD3 can’t keep up.”
“Did we just lose track of it?” Alex growls.
“’Fraid so, love.” She tries to be reassuring. “The gargoyles will pick it up when it gets close to the house—but I don’t like this.” She shoves the blankets off. Stiff muscles protest the movement. Chill air shocks her bare skin. She reaches for a thermal shirt and jeans. “That thing is no mediot’s toy. It’s too sophisticated.”
He’s up too, pulling on trousers he left draped over a chair, tablet abandoned on the nightstand. “Who, then?” he asks. “Are you thinking El-Hashem’s people—”
“No,” she says firmly, dressing as quickly as she can. “There is no way they could have tracked us down already, gotten a weapon in the field.”
“A weapon?”
She pulls her shirt down over her belly and considers. “I don’t think it’s a weapon. I’m sure it’s just a spy device. Fairly sure—but I don’t want it close to the house.”
“Neither do I,” he growls. He doesn’t bother putting on a shirt, disappearing out the bedroom door.
She grabs her tablet and follows him downstairs, leaning hard on the banister and hobbling to ease her painfully tight calves. He ducks into the office, where they keep the gun safe. A series of sharp beeps as he punches the combination on the electronic lock.
She heads for the mudroom. Just as she reaches it, the tablet trills a second alarm. A glance confirms that the gargoyles have detected the intruder.
Her heart rate ramps up. It’s not a weapon, she thinks, reminding herself there was no visible gun, no room to hide one.
If it is a weapon, it’s a kamikaze. Fuck. Not a reassuring thought.
The tablet’s screen shifts to display a video feed streamed from a gargoyle on the roof. She watches it as she steps into a pair of rubber boots. The mech is thin, lithe, and nicely camouflaged, so even with adaptive night vision, it’s hard to see as it moves slowly to the edge of the undergrowth separating the forest from their wide front lawn.
She’s relieved to see it stop there. Its stick-thin legs bend as it sinks to the ground. Its torso can’t be more than eighteen inches long, shaped like a flattened loaf. Processors don’t take up much space, so most of that volume probably contains battery and sensors—or maybe explosives?
The neck retracts, leaving the stereoscopic camera only an inch and a half above the grass. It’s like the mech is settling in, taking up an observation post from which it can keep the house under surveillance. Given its matte-brown camouflage, it would be damn hard to see, even at noon on a sunny day.
The mudroom is cold. It has a musty smell. One of its doors opens into the garage, the other onto a concrete pad outside the house. The mech will be able to see that door open.
Alex joins her. He still hasn’t got a shirt on, but he’s got a shotgun in hand.
True shows him the tablet. “It’s at the edge of the lawn.”
“Got it.” Not bothering with boots or a jacket, he shoves the door open, brings the shotgun to his shoulder, and fires. True watches onscreen as a spray of leaves and dirt erupts from the spot where the mech was just a moment before.