He watched the vice admiral, a frown on his face. Scholes was clearly making an effort to explain his actions. Donovan stood up and joined him by the windows. The man looked haggard.
Scholes stared at the sprawling complex outside, peaceful in the early morning light, but was seeing none of it. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. Perturbed. “Aiden, you know, he’s a godsend. He organizes everything around her, I’ve never seen anything like it. He looks after her while she’s here. She relies on him. He works her schedule around so she can let out some of that tension she’s accumulating in a swim, he even clears her favorite pool for her so she’s there alone, God knows how he does that. He convinces her to get an hour’s rest in her office on the long nights she’s here, and he himself doesn’t go home if she doesn’t. Hell, he makes sure she eats even when the world is falling apart around her, and he thinks we don’t see that he slips a bottle of water into her hand when she works Mission Command, or a cup of that coffee she likes, which he always makes for her himself. If he decides that no one comes near her, then no one does, not even me. But”—he nodded to himself—“he can only get that close to her. She is his superior, and she’s far more tenacious than he is. He can’t make her stop, or even slow down. And what she goes through, the effects of being Oracle on her, she keeps bottled up inside. And then she leaves here, goes home alone and deals with it, I have no idea how.
“And I agree with you. These past weeks, the sequence of missions you’ve seen—and even before you came into the picture, Donovan, we’ve had a busy year. That, combined with the pressure of her having been targeted like she was, attacked. And now this, her being positioned as the only remaining way to prevent a war and having to push even further than she already had, take Oracle to another level or whatever it is she’ll do, has to do. So yes, I’m worried.” He turned to look at Donovan. “Donovan, no one has ever gotten as close to her as you have. I’m thinking you can do what no one else can.”
Donovan understood now the vice admiral’s clear struggle with himself, a struggle between reluctance and realization. Reluctance to put anything or anyone between Oracle and the job she had to do, and the realization that she needed, in a sense, to be protected from IDSD itself and from those who needed Oracle and who had no choice but to push her beyond her own limits. In a sense, Scholes was doing exactly what he did the first time he had brought Donovan into IDSD. Asking him to protect Oracle.
“You want me to watch her. Catch her when she falls,” he said quietly. “Well, you don’t have to worry about that, I have no intention of leaving here until this is over.”
Scholes nodded his thanks. “It’s been a busy day for her. She’s now watching the region from above, with the ground updates coming in in real time, and she has just finished reworking the deployment scenarios with the alliance commanders. We’re IDSD’s operations center on this one and she’s right in the middle, working the entire war zone. Every border, every force, every scenario. So far she’s been called twice to advise, and at some point she’s going to be called on to take over, you’ve seen how it is. At times like this, we have no choice but to use Oracle. There simply is nothing else like her.”
Donovan knew that all too well. He wondered once again about the pressure she was under, how strong she must be.
How much she still had left in her.
“As soon as this one’s over, I’m taking her away from here.” Distancing Lara would, he thought, be the only way to have her rest for longer than a few hours, recharge properly. And a change of scenery would do them both some good.
“Fine with me,” Scholes said, nodding.
“I do mean away. For a few days, weeks, however long she needs.”
“You got it. We need her, we’ll call her in.”
Donovan waited. No deal.
“You can’t be serious. Donovan, you realize if I agree to go through you to find her when she’s away with you and is needed, instead of contacting her directly, she’ll have both our heads.”
“I wouldn’t expect less of her.”
Scholes chuckled. This man had come into Lara’s life right in the middle of a crisis that had accentuated everything that she was and what her life was like. From the very beginning he’d had to deal with her strength of will, even before he knew her extraordinary capabilities and what she had to deal with to do the kind of work she did. And he had done so without hesitation. Already then all he saw throughout it all was Lara the person, the woman. She was the one who mattered to him. And she had found her way to letting him in, after all. So perhaps the best thing would be to let these two just be together and work things out between them themselves.
“I know I was the one who asked you to protect her, but you do realize this means you’ll find yourself standing up to her at times,” he gave Donovan a fair warning. “I’m not doing all the pushing when it comes to Oracle. She does too good a job of that herself, too many times. And stopping Oracle in midstride is something I haven’t seen anyone able to do.”
“Let me worry about that.”
Scholes acquiesced. Good. Donovan didn’t put anything before Lara, Oracle or not. As the one who was increasingly finding himself having no choice but to pressure her, and running the risk of burning her out in the process, Scholes was relieved there was now someone who didn’t think twice before putting himself between them.
“Very well. So”— Scholes changed the subject—“I’d like to hear sometime how you did that, get all the connections related to Bourne in place.”
Donovan sat back down and shook his head in frustration. “It’s still not enough, though. Bourne has no idea where the ambassador is being held.”
“No, the people he’s working with made sure he only knew what he needed to know. But then the fact that we stopped them once before would have made them careful. Anyway,” Scholes added, “I understand you don’t think Bourne has had any contact with his people since your investigation began. So I doubt he would know that the United States informed the Russians that Sendor is missing.”
“We did what?”
Scholes laughed. “Yes. We agreed on it, thought it might rattle them enough to hopefully put a dent in their plans to rush in and conquer Bosnia and Srpska. And we were right, their military hasn’t crossed any of the borders yet. But also, US Global Intelligence has since intercepted messages indicating that the Russian defense minister has directed its Foreign Intelligence Service to search for certain people, and specifically a certain man he had been in contact with, so we know they’re looking for whoever took the ambassador. Which would, of course, also lead them to him. Which means we have to move faster than them, we can’t have them get to him before we do.”
Donovan frowned. “So if there was time, you could use this as an opportunity to flush out everyone involved. But under the circumstances, this could mean the ambassador’s abductors will feel the pressure and kill him ahead of whatever their original plan was.”
“A chance we all took, especially not knowing if he’s alive or not. Russia was moving too many forces too quickly, and the fact is that once they cross the borders into Srpska and Brčko it’s all moot.”
Donovan could understand the reasoning. “It will still happen, at some point, won’t it? Unless the ambassador turns up.”
Scholes nodded with no little exasperation and glanced at the satellite feeds. “The special forces of a number of alliance members, including our Defense Force-Europe Special Mission Units and some others we’ve got available elsewhere, are standing by in multiple locations to go where Oracle tells them the ambassador is. Once she does, our designated Combined Special Ops Task Force-Micronesia is ready to raid the extremist faction in Pohnpei, and agents are standing by to apprehend extremists not there at the time as well as Yahna members inside and outside the United States, Evans has set that one in motion.”
“This is unbelievable. We have the person who killed Major Berman and stole Sirion, and the connection to the extremists who took the a
mbassador, and yet none of it is enough to stop what’s happening. A war, of all things. Without Sendor, nothing we have is worth much, is it?” Donovan shook his head in frustration. “How the hell does it come to this, everything coming down to one person making the difference between life and death?”
Scholes’s eyebrows shot up, and Donovan motioned to him that he got it. Not one person, one special person who could change destinies.
Or one person who could see what no one else could. He marveled at that, at the rare existence, if the world was lucky enough, of people who could do what no other could and who ended up changing life for the better. Like Ambassador Sendor.
Or Lara.
On one of the screens, a satellite feed was replaced with a news broadcast showing images from a siege on a building, fires burning, people raging. Someone in the war room must have decided to go to live coverage, Donovan thought. The images changed as whoever was doing this switched restlessly between news outlets. The reality on all of them was the same grim one.
Scholes shook his head. “We’re running out of time. Spirits are heated over there, the people won’t listen to reason. I suppose you heard, it’s all over the news already, someone is making sure everything that happens in Bosnia and Srpska is made public almost before it happens. Someone being the Russians, of course.” He gave Donovan a brief breakdown of the latest developments, then chuckled bitterly. “It’s a hopeless ‘I know, you know’ situation. They know we know they’re behind it all and that we can’t prove any of it. Not that it would matter, the way things are now, with the people raging this way. Neither nation is noticing what’s being done to them. That they’re being manipulated, that the violent incidents are conveniently placed to turn them on each other and away from peace and to prevent them from seeing that they’re about to be taken over by a third nation, and it’s not the Internationals or the United States. At this point, explanations are no longer enough. It’s wildfire anger. They’re deaf to anything anyone says, even their own prime ministers. Hell, the Serbs burned down their government building. We are not sure about the fate of anyone inside, the protective detail managed to get only the prime minister out.”
Donovan shook his head. “Lara said it was them, you know, she said Russia did it. On the day of that conference call we had here, she already knew. And Emero thought so too, when I spoke with him.”
“Yes, I know,” Scholes said. “I was with her when she explained it to him.”
Donovan turned to him. Scholes shrugged.
“I really should have known by now.” Donovan turned back to the screens, bemused.
Scholes’s phone indicated an incoming call. He took it and listened briefly, then activated the internal comms and spoke, his eyes on Donovan. “Aiden, I need Oracle in Mission Command.” He stood up. “Well then, here we go. Our peacekeeping force in Brčko District is being attacked.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
IDSD’s busiest and most advanced Mission Command was operating with practiced efficiency. Everyone’s attention was on the main views showing drone imagery of the peacekeeping force and the negotiation team it was intent on protecting. The impromptu safe zone created for them by the military forces of the two countries flanking the Brčko demilitarized district was smaller now, the rage of protesters from both nations pushing the forces deeper into it. The safe zone’s position, close to the Bosnia-Srpska, Bosnia-Brčko and Srpska-Brčko tri-border, had originally put them safely away from the border with Russia and right in the midst of the people they had come to help, but these same people had now turned on them, effectively leaving them trapped. And the forces guarding them had themselves also dwindled. The soldiers were finding it impossible to stand up against their own countrymen, all the more so since they knew their rage was fueled not by malice but by fear and disappointment, and by anger at what they were so sure was the Internationals’ betrayal. They had been close, so close to a new future and had allowed their guard down and their hopes up, and their reaction was therefore that much more unchecked in its rage.
While the mission coordinators standing on the operations platform before Mission Command’s wall-wide screen seemed intent on their work, speaking on their headsets, it didn’t seem to Donovan as if anyone was actually moving anything. Nothing was changing on-screen, and he said so to Scholes.
“Patience,” Scholes replied quietly. His eyes were glued to the views on the screen. Those were IDSD soldiers out there. He had trained many of IDSD’s now-commanders in his day and knew quite a few of its servicemen and servicewomen. “When I called for Lara, she was talking to the designated extraction overseers working this. She’s still with them in her office.”
“Let’s hope they stop advancing,” someone remarked beside them, meaning the raging civilians. There was a bitter edge to his voice. “Our guys will never turn a weapon on them, no matter the cost to themselves. They were there to give them peace, not more of the same violence they’ve known all their lives. If only these people would remember that.”
As the man spoke, the protective military force on the Bosnian side was suddenly forced back into the safe zone. Just as it fell back under the onslaught of angry protesters, the main views of the incident suddenly moved aside sharply along with all other views on the screen, out of the way, and a single view took their place at its center, a satellite feed of the peacekeeping force. Around the satellite feed, new high-flying drone views appeared, intermixed with additional fast-moving images. It was only when one of the drones was at the right angle and position that Donovan realized the dynamic images came from dual-purpose transports flying in formation among them.
Time seemed to crawl by until finally the transports descended, and everyone in Mission Command watched tensely as they landed, one by one, at the heart of the safe zone, each picking up IDSD personnel and rising smoothly into the air again. Finally, the safe zone was empty except for what looked, in the zooming satellite feed, like a small secure compound in its center. It was, the man who had spoken earlier told Donovan in response to his question, the original safe structure built for the peace talks back when there was still danger to the lives of the ambassador and the representatives of both sides who dared speak with him when he had first initiated the talks. It hadn’t been used for the past year. There had no longer been any need for it, until now.
As Donovan contemplated what he was seeing, two uniformed IDSD officers with an insignia he didn’t recognize came into Mission Command and approached the operations platform, taking in the views on-screen that now showed the transports heading west to the alliance’s Croatian border, where they had originally been dispatched from.
“A small force stayed behind to protect the negotiators, who are refusing to leave, sir,” one of them told the vice admiral. “It’ll keep them safe in the secure compound.”
“General Slaviek is staying with them,” the other added. “He would have stayed anyway, earlier he was worried that if they all left, there would be no chance the talks could ever be resurrected. He refuses to accept that with Ambassador Sendor gone, it’s all over. Certainly now, after this attack on the negotiators.”
On the screen, the views from the transports slid to the left, now less of a priority as the transports approached safety. At the center of the screen, the previous satellite views returned, again showing all forces in the region, although a low-altitude drone remained immediately above the now much smaller safe zone. One by one the views zoomed in and out, as if someone was taking in the current situation.
Donovan turned to Scholes, who nodded, confirming. Lara was manipulating the images.
“These are our extraction overseers,” Scholes said, indicating the two officers who had joined them. “She had them initiate the removal of the peacekeepers from the area, this was the best way and the latest possible timing to execute it.” His eyes returned to the screen. “But as long as we still have people there, that’s a problem.”
“What if someone had tried to shoot at
the transports?”
“You didn’t see the air cover they had. I assure you those on the ground did,” the extraction overseer closest to them answered Donovan somberly. “Oracle limited the views from above to the point rescue, so you didn’t see them. It wanted to have close eyes on the extraction while it was going on, and it activated on its own screens additional views that you don’t see here, for its eyes only. Ask to see the broad views later, you’ll be surprised.”
“Yes,” the second overseer said beside him, “you should have seen it. The air cover disabled electromagnetically a launcher from above. Oracle saw it before they did, I’ve no idea how, and gave the order. Nasty thing, too, could have brought down a transporter.”
“The force commander at Split also had more fighters deployed,” the first overseer added. “They’ll stay up there to protect our remaining people. Some of the low-altitude drones are armed, too. The problem is that none of them can do much, we can’t run the risk of hurting civilians while protecting our peacekeepers and the negotiators. We are still the good guys in this.” He fell silent and listened on his headset. “Oracle says to expect Russia to move just about now. And it says it has already spoken to all force commanders.”
Donovan frowned.
“Damn,” a mission coordinator said loudly, then glanced around him and apologized. On the screen, the Russian ground forces began trickling across the Brčko-Russia border into Brčko District and toward the area the IDSD force had vacated.
“And here they go,” the extraction overseer in direct contact with Oracle stated the obvious.
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