Once they were sure the press had been cleared, the pilots of the large green and white helicopter known as Marine One were given the go ahead. The presidential helicopter swung into view above the base accompanied by two fully armed AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopters. A squadron of F-22 Raptor fighter jets secured the airspace above and around the base, their engines a constant roar in the sky.
The grass of the barracks’ central quad bowed away from the massive helicopter as it set down, the chop of its blades slowing. As the rotors stopped spinning a small group of soldiers gathered to see if Marine One carried who they all thought it did. When the door opened and President Thomas Duncan stepped out, his face grim, each and every one of the beaten and tired men snapped sharp salutes.
All but one.
King walked past the saluting men and stomped toward the president, who he knew as Deep Blue. Two Secret Service men moved for King but Duncan stopped them with an open hand.
The Secret Service men looked uneasy as they eyed the messy-haired man dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt approaching the commander in chief. The raw anger in King’s eyes set the president’s guardians on edge, but they stood down. King stopped and didn’t bother with a salute. “Fiona’s gone.”
Deep Blue’s eyes opened wide. “What?” Duncan had been so inundated with presidential damage control in the wake of the incident that he had yet to read the detailed briefing from General Keasling. “How?”
“Last I checked Lewis was still unconscious, so I’m not sure.”
Duncan turned and looked at the destruction, meaning to walk toward the line of approaching generals and their marine escorts. King took his arm. “Why wasn’t I told about the mission?” King asked, his voice tinged with anger.
Duncan looked at King’s hand then met the man’s eyes.
“You put Fiona’s life at risk.”
“There was no way to know this would happen,” Duncan said, motioning to the destroyed base. “We thought you needed more time to grieve your mother’s—”
“My mother’s not dead,” King said.
Duncan looked stunned.
King pointed to his mother, who was helping pass water out to the wounded. She saw him pointing and gave a little wave. Duncan smiled sheepishly and raised his hand to her. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
King shook his head. “We can figure out how that story fell through the cracks later. I need to find Fiona. Now.”
Duncan looked around. The approaching generals, most of whom did not know the president was also Deep Blue, were almost upon them. He leaned in close to King. “I’m going to be out of commission until things settle down. Every move I make is being watched. But I want you to do whatever it takes, King. Keasling has a blank check for this. The gloves are off. Find your daughter. Find who did this. Figure out what they want and put a stop to it.”
King nodded and turned to walk away, but this time Duncan took hold of him and turned him around.
“You and I may think of each other as equals, King, but when we’re in public remember who you are. And who I am.” He glanced at the approaching generals. “People are watching.”
Despite King’s frosty mood he snapped a salute. “Yes sir.”
King walked away as the swarm of marines and generals overtook Duncan and moved him to a more secure location. With the team due to arrive at Pope Air Force Base in an hour, he would meet them there, put the pieces together, and then turn them loose. But first he needed Aleman for information, his parents for good-byes, an ass-load of weapons for the obvious, and a few friends to level the playing field.
SEVENTEEN
Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina
FORTY MINUTES AFTER meeting the president, King stood outside Hangar 7, Delta’s personal hangar that typically housed the Crescent. Right now it was devoid of any aircraft but held four Delta teams made up of five soldiers each. The men, dressed in black fatigues, quickly off-loaded their gear from the two large trucks that had carried them to the airfield and stood before King. The four team leaders approached.
Jeff Kafer, call sign Mouth, thanks to his audiobook narrator’s voice, said, “I hear you’ve got an ‘ask and you shall receive’ order from Keasling. Well, you asked and we’re here, so mind telling us what this is about?”
King motioned to the open hangar. “Come with me. You can brief your men when we’re done.”
The five team leaders entered Decon, where a bandaged but conscious Lewis Aleman sat waiting behind a laptop. General Keasling stood in the corner, his short arms crossed over his chest. As the men entered the room, the tension became palpable. They’d all seen friends and comrades killed and the shock from the strange attack had not yet worn off. The team leaders, who were accustomed to sitting around this table with their own teams, sat down and turned to Keasling. He motioned their attention to King, who stood at the head of the table. “He’s running the show.”
“As of this moment,” King said, “your teams are serving under the Chess Team. Each one of you will serve under a member of my team and will obey their orders as though each and every one of them was God himself. You will be Pawns One through Five with the team leader’s designation coming first.
He pointed to Kafer. “You’re Rook’s Pawn One and your men are Two through Five. In the field this will be shortened to RP-One. Understood?”
Nods all around. Despite their battle-hardened experience and high rank, the men knew they were being brought, at least temporarily, into the fold of the Chess Team. Each of them felt a mix of honor and intimidation.
“We’ve got a connection,” Aleman said before tapping a few keys on the laptop.
The wall behind King, actually a well-disguised flat-screen display, came to life. Queen, Rook, Knight, and Bishop appeared on the screen, sitting around a laptop on their end from within the Crescent. Their serious faces reflected that they had been briefed on the Fort Bragg attack and Fiona’s kidnapping.
“Can you hear us?” Rook asked.
“We hear you,” King replied and then nodded at Aleman. “Give what you have.”
King had plucked Aleman from his cot, which he’d been forced to stay in, and had him working on finding answers for the past thirty minutes. It wasn’t a lot of time, but Aleman tended to think faster than most men. And he didn’t disappoint.
“Here’s what we know. About a year ago, the Siletz Reservation was destroyed. We now have a pretty good idea how. That said, we still have no idea what actually attacked us.”
“A shitload of living rock, that’s what,” Kafer said.
Aleman looked at the ceiling for a moment, his eyes squinted in thought.
“Lew,” King said.
Aleman looked back at his screen. “Then we received tips that certain targets in Australia and Vietnam were in danger. In fact, the targets were killed before our team arrived on site. Or, in Rook’s case, just after. And it was the last words of this dying victim that clued me in. She said—correct me if I’m wrong, Rook—that they were after ‘bad words’ that you were then told not to speak. ‘Can’t speak them. Don’t speak them.’”
“You got it,” Rook said.
“Given the ancestry of the victim, it occurred to me that her native language would be very old; perhaps one of the oldest, if not the oldest, spoken language on the planet. I did some research on the other victims. All of them were the last surviving speakers of nearly extinct ancient languages. The Gurdanji in Australia had five living speakers. They’re all dead. The Siletz had two living speakers, Fiona’s grandmother—”