Tank stepped forward, and despite Orson having several inches on her, she got into his face, staring him down. “I sacrificed two years of my life. My father, who is a colonel with a different last name, is probably dead. My mother, who also has a different last name, is a lieutenant colonel, and is also likely going to die, so I could keep you all safe. You’re welcome. FYI, you’re now heroes. The rest of your lives from here on out, you’ll all be known as the brave cyber warriors who risked their lives to expose corruption and crimes against humanity. They’ll laud you in history books. I’ll fade back into the shadows and try to live with the fact that I couldn’t save six good people who didn’t have to die.”
She glared at Sylvan, who wilted under her focus. “All because someone bitched about wanting a shower. After she jeopardized our position—again—because she couldn’t follow one simple fucking order.”
She advanced on Sylvan, the girl scrambling away from her. “You all want to be pissed off at me? Fine. Go ahead. Without me, every last one of you would be dead right now. Multiple times over. From Kiters, from the violence, or from Barstow. Take your pick. I could have abandoned you at any given time and gotten myself to safety. Those were, in fact, my orders, to protect myself first. Could have walked out one night while you all were sleeping and never looked back. But I chose to stay with you and protect you for the greater good.”
Tank spun around. “Guess what? You guys are all set for life. Book deals. Parades. Holidays celebrating your birthdays. The FWF fan club. Biopics. You won’t have to pay for a damn thing in your life again, you realize that, right? Yes, we all lost people. People died. But guess what? The world is fucking dying. Was dying, until those scientists saved it. You pitched in as part of that effort. Congratulations.”
She made a motion with her hand, circling, indicating the Drunk Monkeys. “The rest of us? We don’t mean jack shit to anyone except each other. We get to go out again, anonymously risking our lives to save lives, and we keep doing it over and over again, and no one knows who we are. They can’t know. Because it’s kind of what we fucking do.”
She turned on Orson again, forcing him a step back. “Didn’t see you out there in that street in Kansas City, apologizing to Corporal Ellis Winchester as I had to put a bullet between his eyes after I’d run him and his partner over. Looking him in the goddamned eyes and knowing I was executing a poor sonofabitch only doing his job. You aren’t the one who will live forever haunted by the sight of Gatsby and Connell sitting there dead and knowing it was your fault for not taking charge a few goddamned minutes sooner!”
She stepped back and addressed all of them. “I’d hoped to not have it end like this. To just fade away and leave quietly and you’d never know about me. That’s how it was supposed to play out. But okay, so the truth is out now. It doesn’t in any way diminish what you’ve done. It doesn’t lessen the impact of how the world is now going to be a better, safer place because of all of you.
“So if you want to be pissed off at me because of principles? Grow the fuck up. All of you. Maybe I babied you all too much. Maybe I should have had us all camping in the goddamned forests and freezing our asses off every fucking night. Maybe I should have made you all learn how to hunt for your food to survive instead of foraging or using black ops money to go buy supplies.”
She slowly shook her head. “I don’t exist. Forget I ever existed. You need help, I’ll ask Ax to take over for me.”
“Does he really exist?” Torphin asked.
“Yeah. And no, he’s not military. He’s a civvie, too. He’s legit.” She shoved through them and headed for her quarters.
Chapter Nineteen
Papa had to grab Alpha by the back of the shirt and give him a shake of the head when he’d tried to follow Tank.
Alpha replied with a what the fuck look, which Papa answered with a command glare.
Alpha let out a deep, aggravated breath, but stepped back and Papa released him.
The group of kids looked like they were in shock, staring at each other, at them, at the scientists.
Papa finally clapped his hands for attention. “All right. Back to work.” He pointed and swept his hand, indicating his team and the scientists, along with various base personnel. “Give us a few, okay?”
He turned to the group of students before they could leave. “You all, stay right there for a minute.”
When it was just him and Alpha and the twelve remaining members of the FWF, he stared at them for a long, silent minute. “Everything she said was right. You realize that, don’t you?”
They looked at each other but no one stepped forward.
No one took the lead.
Orson finally said something. “You all used us.”
“We get used by the government. You get used to fix problems. Citizens get used by big business every fucking goddamned day to pad their bottom line. Where do you draw your line, huh?”
The kid looked clueless.
Figures.
He shook his head. “While you all can sit here and whine and bitch and complain that you were ‘used,’ take a look around you. Need I show you the videos of Barstow? Of LA? Need I remind you that Tank gave up over two years of her life to work with you? When TMFU hit, she had the option of bailing. She’s technically retired, you know that? She got shot in the line of duty, still managed to kill a man trying to kill her, and saved Shanghai from getting nuked by some whackjob terrorists trying to put together a dirty bomb to set off in the middle of a city of over a million people. Let that settle into your little brains for a moment.”
He was happy to see they had the decency to look a little ashamed of themselves.
“Know what else she’s done in her military intel career? She helped track down an insurgent group who was running a child bride ring in Malaysia. She rescued thirty-two girls, killed the ringleaders, and got the girls to safety, and that was with a concussion she sustained in a fist-fight with one of the bastards before she knifed him.”
He’d asked Bubba to quit holding out and send him her full jacket.
He had, with Arliss’ approval. He and Alpha had read it through, cover to cover, without telling her about it.
“Before she was with you, she worked in the Ukraine to shut down a terrorist ring that was planning on using eighteen children they’d abducted to blow up suicide vests in cities all over the UK. They’d been told if they hit the button when they were given the signal, it would call their parents for them.”
Yeah, they were looking a little ashamed of themselves now.
“She didn’t tell you all of that. Why? Because she was doing her fucking job. That’s what she does. She’s a hard-ass. And she saved your fucking asses, kept protecting you, sacrificing her safety and sleep and peace of mind when she’d been given an open-ended option to stand down and abort the mission.
“And she didn’t. She fought for you. So you know what? Fuck all of you. Every last goddamned one of you. You want to shit all over her? Whatever. It just shows you haven’t learned a single goddamned lesson about what we’ve all been through.”
The one girl, Sylvan, turned and ducked down the hallway. Alpha started to go after her, but Papa stopped him. “No, let her go.” He eyed the rest of them. “You want out of this? Say the word. Pack your shit and I’ll get you sent back to the States. Show of hands.”
Now their guilty expressions made them look like the kids they were. They exchanged glances and finally shook their heads.
“I’m in,” Orson said.
They all eventually echoed his sentiment.
“Then act like fucking adults. You’ve been given a chance to help save lives. To save the world. Quit acting like you’ve had your feelings hurt and grow the fuck up.”
He motioned for Alpha and started down the hallway toward Tank’s quarters, pulling up short at the end of the hall when he spotted Sylvan already there talking to her. He pulled Alpha into an empty room, the door open, both of them listening to the exchange.
* * * *
Guess it doesn’t matter now. Secret’s out.
She could go move in with Papa and Alpha.
And never leave their quarters.
She started angrily packing her stuff, only taking five minutes to do it.
What did it say about her that the sum of her life could be packed in five minutes?
She was still staring at the two wooden boxes on her shelf when someone softly knocked on her door.
Opening it, she found Sylvan standing there, alone.
“Come to chew me out?”
She’d been crying. She shook her head and, taking Tank utterly by surprise, she hugged her.
“Thank you,” the girl whispered. “I know they’re mad now, but…you’re right. Everything you said was right. Yes, I take the blame for Connell and Gatsby dying. And I’m sorry you had to kill those four guys. But thank you for protecting us.”
“In the interest of full disclosure,” Tank said, “I’m now involved with Papa and Alpha. That happened after we got here.”
She smiled. “It’s okay. I have Pax. He’s a good guy.” Her smile faded. “You were right. About…them. The Drunk Monkeys. I was scared and looking for someone to hold on to. I don’t belong with guys like that. I’d never survive, or worse, I’d get someone killed.”
Tank felt some of her irritation at Sylvan drain away. “That’s very mature of you to admit.”
“You did good, though,” Sylvan said. “I honestly never knew. I believed everything you told us.” She studied her hands for a moment. “But how do I know we’re not being used and lied to now?”
“You’re on the right team,” Tank assured her.
“You joined us before…before TMFU. Did you know that was going to happen?”
“No. I took over from Campbell, remember him?”
She nodded.
“We were supposed to point you guys toward the corruption of big business and political action groups, money influencing votes, that kind of stuff. TMFU hit and changed the direction of the operation. Arliss thought we’d be doing this for years until that happened. And that’s the truth. No one was supposed to die or get hurt. My orders specifically said to protect you all, to keep civilians safe, to keep you all from committing any cyber crimes that would hurt the average citizen.”
“We were all in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
“Pretty much, yeah. Once it happened, Arliss used what he had to get things done. If he hadn’t, Reverend Silo would have made sure it was his labs in charge of the vaccine production and doling them out only to those he wanted to have it. The man was a sociopathic monster, and he had the President in his pocket, along with a lot of others. You saw the data.”
“So why can’t we talk about him?”
“Because his wife was innocent. She’s working with Arliss to try to fix things. To help swing votes to the candidates who will make this country better. To rebuild health clinics around the world to help fight Kite and other problems. Sometimes, for the greater good, some things need to be left unsaid so it doesn’t taint the true message.”
Sylvan nodded but didn’t look convinced.
“Is there anything else?”
“Yeah. You told us you had to fight your dad to get your driver’s license. Why’d you make that up?”
“I didn’t make that up. That actually happened.”
She looked even more surprised. “Why? That sounds…mean.”
She shrugged. “That part was all true. They were officers who wanted to make sure I was prepared for life. They saw how bad the world was getting and wanted me to be able to survive in it. They knew that money could only buy so much. That sometimes you have to be able to fight for what’s yours to keep it safe.”
“Are they alive?”
“I think my mom’s okay. Her base is locked down in Germany. My dad…” She didn’t want to cry in front of Sylvan. “I want to believe maybe he’s still alive, but I know the odds.”
“I’m sorry.”
“They’re military. They’re trained. It’s part of the risk.”
“I hope you can find them.” She turned to go, then hesitated. “Tank?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. Even if none of them ever say it, I mean it. Thank you. You’re right. I do want to live. I do want to keep going. I want people to know what happened.”
Tank nodded. Sylvan headed off.
Tank was going to grab her gear and start moving when she felt more than heard a presence in the doorway. Turning, she spotted Alpha and Papa there.
“Going somewhere?” Papa asked.
“Yeah. Hope you have room for my shit in your quarters.”
The two men stepped inside the room, closed the door behind them, and made her put everything down. Then they sandwiched her between them, Papa in front of her.
“Let it out,” he whispered. “You don’t need to be Tank when you’re with us. You can be Fiji or Noel or whoever the hell you want to be.”
“I just want to be yours,” she said, the tears already starting to flow.
Alpha nuzzled the back of her neck. “You already are, sugar. Always. Think we’re letting you go, then think again.”
“I had to kill our own guys,” she said. Unfortunately, without the daily distraction of playing a role, now that dark, heavy weight slammed home in her soul.
Papa cradled her face in his palms. “You had a mission. You had orders. You did the best you could do, alone, under the circumstances. Stop beating yourself up over it.”
“Could you stop beating yourself up?”
He let out a sigh and pressed her face against his chest. “We’re too much alike, sweetheart. We really are. Let’s get you moved and chill out for a little while.”
* * * *
They got her stuff moved, Papa and Alpha refusing to let her carry anything but the two urns, which she insisted on carrying herself.
They now knew what they were and didn’t argue with her.
Bypassing the common room so they didn’t have to see any of the students, they got her squared away, their mattresses pulled down onto the floor, and then the two men slowly stripped her, kissing every inch of her flesh in the process as they bared it.
She didn’t want to talk, she didn’t want to think. For just this once, she wanted to lose herself in them, let them take her mind off everything, no thinking about anything but what they were doing to her and she was doing to them.
She wanted them in her brain, in her heart, inside her body.
Eventually she ended up on top of Alpha in a sixty-nine, her eyes closed as she slowly sucked his cock, his lips and tongue teasing and playing with her as Papa took his time fucking her. Everything slow and gentle, easy, flowing naturally between them. Nothing rushed or taken for granted.
They were only guaranteed right now, and she wanted to make sure this memory lasted for the rest of her life in case it didn’t go very well after this was over.
She needed this mental downtime, this emotional release.
She needed them.
Not just needed, but wanted.
With this behind them, the next step would be finding her father. Nothing else in her life could happen until she at least tried to do that.
Everything on hold.
“Let go,” Papa whispered. “Stop thinking.”
She had been. She deep-throated Alpha, enjoying the soft rumble of his groan against her pussy, vibrating through her clit. Before she even realized it she was tipping over the edge into free-fall, neither man rushing or picking up the pace, her body adapting and soaring as they kept her orgasm rolling through her, one long, sweet release she’d never before dreamed possible.
Only when they were satisfied they’d wrung every last ounce of pleasure out of her did they finally let go, Alpha starting to rock his hips in time with her motions, Papa fucking her harder, faster, deeper.
One last orgasm from her triggered both of them. She moaned around Alpha’s cock, swallowing
every drop of cum he pumped out over her tongue, as Papa buried his cock deep inside her and fell still.
They got her turned around, the three of them cuddling together on their makeshift bed.
Papa brushed his lips across her forehead. “Relax, sweetheart,” he said. “I’m ordering you to at least take a few hours off.”
She snuggled her backside against Alpha, who was spooning her there. “For just this once, I’ll let you order me around.” She opened her eyes and stared into his. “Love you,” she whispered.
Papa smiled. It took years off his age. “Love you, too, baby.”
She looked over her shoulder. “Love you.”
Alpha kissed her. “Sugar, you have no idea how much I love you.”
“Even though you don’t outrank me?”
He chuckled. “Even though.”
Chapter Twenty
There was a certain irony to their mission going wheels-up in Canada on Valentine’s Day. They detoured through McChord, where they traded in the thirsty Zeus for a Murphy 820. Large enough to carry up to one hundred and fifty SOBs and gear, but lighter and easier on fuel, easier to safely put wheels-down on less than perfect landing strips, and hopefully sturdy enough to survive a trip to Manila. They spent a few hours in Pearl Harbor before heading out again with a mid-air refueling before approaching Manila not too long after daybreak on the sixteenth of February.
“We’re going to buzz the field first,” Papa told Tank after returning from the cockpit. “See what happens when we do that.”
Tank nodded, her gaze fully focused on the land passing below them.
Danilo Atienza Air Base was situated on the Cavite City peninsula and was proof that what goes around comes around. Back under US control for nearly fifty years after a series of punishing typhoons basically destroyed a good chunk of the country, the base, formerly known as Naval Station Sangley Point, retained the name the Philippine government had assigned it after it was originally turned over to their control by the US decades earlier.
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