King nodded.
“I was told to expect five. Where’s your team?”
King appraised him for several seconds. “Do I know you?”
“Obviously not.” The man seemed put out at having to explain himself. “I’m Vice Admiral Ward, commander JSOC. I worked closely with Mike Keasling, God rest his soul, so I know all about you and your little after-school club. You’re working for me now.”
What the hell? King’s brows knit together in a frown. “Forgive me, sir, but I’m going to need to see a copy of those orders.”
“Is that supposed to be a joke?” Ward put his hands on his hips. “Look, I’d like nothing better than to stand here and shoot the shit with you, but you’re the one ringing the fire bell. So what’s it gonna be? Do we stand here dicking around until the Mexicans decide they’re curious about an American bird sitting on their turf, or do we finish this conversation in the air?” He snapped his fingers for emphasis.
King felt an immediate and instinctive dislike for the man, but he also sensed that Ward was being forthright. Deep Blue had said to expect military transport. So why did he feel so much anxiety about getting on the plane?
He sighed in resignation. Without turning away, he raised his arms high, as if under arrest and held them that way for several seconds. Ward did not question the odd gesture, a counter-intuitive signal to the team that the situation was safe. King saw the admiral’s eyes darting this way and that as the rest of the team emerged from hiding. Ward said nothing, and after a few seconds, he simply turned away and stalked back into the belly of the giant aircraft.
Rook was the first to reach King’s side. “Everything cool?”
King shook his head. “I’m not sure, yet.” He waited for the others to gather around before continuing. “I really don’t know what’s going to happen when we get on that plane. We could be headed for Leavenworth—”
“Like that place could hold us,” Rook snorted.
“Or worse. I think we might be back under military command.”
That was a threat evidently too dire even for Rook to deflect with a witty remark.
“Have you spoken with Blue?” Queen asked. “What’s he say?”
“I haven’t. He told me he was going dark again, but that he was sending a military plane for us.” He nodded at the C-17. “And here it is. I’m going to go ahead and board. If anyone wants to—”
Before he could get the words out, the others were already filing past him, heading to the waiting aircraft.
As soon as they were aboard, the ramp was raised and the engine noise went from a persistent whine to a full-throated roar. Ward sat in a jump seat near the front of the cargo bay, but made no effort to engage with, or even look at them, as the plane climbed into the sky. It was only when they reached cruising altitude that he acknowledged their existence with a single barked word.
“Sigler.”
King rose and made his way forward to stand before the admiral. It had been a long time since he had been in a situation like this—required to behave as a subordinate instead of an equal. Even before Chess Team, when he had been part of Delta, rank and rigid military discipline had taken a back seat to camaraderie. Ward’s predecessor, General Keasling, had always chafed in their presence, particularly when Rook colored the air with wisecracks and obscenities, but Ward evidently subscribed to a more traditional military philosophy. While it felt strangely familiar to be standing at attention in front of a general officer, it was by no means pleasant.
There was a sound of footsteps behind him, and he turned to find the rest of the team gathering beside him.
A perturbed expression flickered across Ward’s face but he did not address the breach of protocol. Instead, he studied each face as if cataloguing them, noting details for future reference: Rook’s long goatee, Queen and Bishop—two women in a field where females were still considered a battlefield liability—and Knight’s eye patch. Finally, he came back to King. “I’m not going to get in the way of your current mission, whatever that is. Those are my orders. You can resupply on ammo—we’ve got 5.56 and 7.62.” He eyed Rook’s Desert Eagles. “If you’ve got anything exotic, I’m afraid I can’t help”
“Good thing I loaded for bear before we left,” Rook muttered.
Ward ignored him. “You’re going to have to decide how you want to enter the AO. If you decide to do a high-altitude jump, you’ll need to factor in your pre-breath. Flight time is four hours.”
King nodded. “I think we’ll just keep it simple. Do things the old fashioned way, low and slow.”
“It’s your call,” Ward said with a shrug, and then added. “This time, anyway. There’s commo gear as well. Your mission specialist—Deep Blue?—preloaded your operational freqs. You should be all set.”
Blue? That at least was a bit of good news, but Ward did not allow them to savor it.
“I know that you all are used to being off the leash, but that ends right now. This mission is yours, but you are under my authority now, and that means no rogue ops.”
“Sir.” The word felt strange on King’s tongue. “With all due respect, none of us agreed to that.”
Ward’s eyes narrowed. “You agreed to it when you swore an oath to defend the constitution.” He glanced at Bishop. “Except maybe for you, but we’ll deal with that later.”
“Sir, we cut our ties with the military four years ago.”
Ward made a ‘look around you’ gesture. “I’d say somebody glued the ends back together. But if that’s how you feel, I’ll put you off right now. You can even have a parachute. My gift to you.”
Before King could begin to formulate a reply, Ward went on. “Look, I know what’s going on here. I probably know more about it than you do. Tom Duncan’s secret strike team; did you think he could pull that off without help? Yes, officially your ties to the military were severed. Hell, technically none of you even exist anymore. But all that’s over now. In order to get you guys back, and deal with this crisis in North Carolina, your boss had to make a deal. He agreed to this, and not just so you could catch a ride home. Restoring your active duty service—pretty much undoing everything he did four years ago—is the only way to shield you from prosecution.
“This was Duncan’s idea, not mine,” he went on. “He did it to protect you. I’ve got a lot of respect for the man. Hell, I voted for him. He was one of us; a shooter. We need leaders like that. But the handwriting is on the wall, and he knows it. He’s going down, and he’s going to take some very powerful people with him. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes. Sir.”
“Good.” Ward settled back in his chair as if contemplating a nap. “You know what to do. Get to it.”
The team dispersed, but only for a moment. As soon as they were out of earshot from Ward, they clustered around King.
Queen spoke first. “Is he serious? We’re back in the Army?”
King raised a hand to forestall her. “Right now, all that matters is the mission. Ward’s wrong. Blue didn’t do this to protect us. He did it because he knows how important it is that we stop what’s happening in North Carolina.”
“And what happens afterward?”
“He’s going to break us up,” Rook said in a low voice. “I can see it in his eyes.”
“That’s standard operating procedure,” Queen said. “Shuffle the deck. Move experienced troops into leadership positions in new teams.”
“I don’t think we’ll be that lucky,” Rook replied. “Old warhorses like us get put out to pasture. Or sent to the glue factory.”
“We’ll deal with that later,” King said. “Right now, we need to prep. This isn’t going to be pretty.”
“When is it ever?” Rook said.
“We’ll be facing an unknown number of hostiles, but that’s not the worst of it. Every non-hostile we encounter could turn if exposed. There’s no way we’ll ever be able to know who was exposed to tainted meat.” He gave them all a long hard look. “Actually, we h
ave to consider the very real possibility that we might have been exposed as well.”
The statement was met with a collective gasp of disbelief. Queen had the most coherent reply. “I’ve never even heard of Mr. Pig before this.”
“We don’t know how long Beltran has been contaminating the meat supply or how widespread this is. There are other considerations as well. We know that people who have…” There was no diplomatic way to say it, “ingested human flesh…are susceptible to infection, but the last time this happened was long before the age of modern medicine.”
“What are you saying?” Queen asked.
“We don’t know exactly what the pathogen is, but a lot of modern medicines—vaccines and so forth—use proteins derived from human blood and tissue. We’re probably safe, but make sure you keep your distance from these things. No direct contact, if you can help it. Just shoot them from a nice safe standoff distance. The good news is, they won’t be shooting back.”
Queen shook her head. “This is insane. These are innocent people. There’s got to be some kind of cure.”
King shook his head. “Once a person is infected, they’re already dead. We have to eradicate them all. Any uninfected civilians we encounter have to be isolated until we can arrange for them to be evacuated. Blue can coordinate that.”
“What about Sara?” Bishop asked.
King winced inwardly but did not allow his face to register any emotion. “Cellular communication to the island was shut off to keep this out of the news, but maybe Blue can find a way past that so we can coordinate with her.” He glanced at Knight. “Anna’s with her.”
Knight stiffened, but said nothing.
King turned away, gesturing to a pallet loaded with ammo cans and green shipping containers. “Let’s pack for the trip. Bishop, load up on incendiaries. Blowing stuff up isn’t going to help much.”
“Well that’s a change,” Rook said with a chuckle.
King located a container that held half a dozen compact Tadiran PNR 500 tactical comm sets. They were state-of-the-art, but after the q-phones, the walkie-talkie sized radios seemed woefully inadequate. He passed them out to the others and then donned the attached headset before turning it on.
“This is King,” he said, speaking in a whisper too soft to be heard even by someone standing next to him. “Radio check, over.”
Queen answered first. “Queen, roger out.”
It took Bishop a moment to remember that she was the next in the order, and her answer was more hesitant. Knight was next, followed by Rook, who could not pass up a chance to turn even something as mundane as a radio check into an opportunity to crack wise.
Then another voice came over the net.
“Chess Team, this is Deep Blue. It’s good to have you back.”
In the stunned silence that followed, King felt all eyes looking at him, but he was as shocked as they were. The words were right, but the voice of the man who had identified himself as Deep Blue did not belong to Tom Duncan.
45
Rochester, New Hampshire
They arrived from the sky like an army of vengeful angels. Black Hawk helicopters, dark as storm clouds, swept in from every direction, converging on the airspace directly above the diner. The response of local citizens fell into two categories: some gawked at the aircraft, holding their mobile phones up to record the exciting drama as it unfolded and some fled in a panic.
Only one man remained immune to the polarized hysteria. He sat calmly at a table inside the diner, sipping his coffee beneath the shadow of the brim of his borrowed ball cap, which was emblazoned with, ironically, the state’s official motto: Live Free or Die.
Ironic, because Tom Duncan had discovered that the real world was not bound by those absolutes. There were other ways to live. Other ways to win.
The door of the diner burst open and men in black tactical garb flooded into the restaurant, brandishing M4 carbines and shouting conflicting orders.
“Don’t move.”
“Hands up.”
“Get down.”
Duncan drained the last few drops from his cup as they closed in around him. None of them fired, and while they continued to barrage him with testosterone-fueled commands, not one of them came within arm’s reach. They were waiting for something. Additional orders perhaps. Duncan was content to wait as well. He had done what he could—for the team, and for the country that he loved. Now it was time to face the consequences.
He raised one hand. “Check, please.”
Sardonic laughter erupted from behind the assembled SWAT operators. Two men, one wearing an FBI windbreaker, the other a Brooks Brothers suit, stepped forward. The latter was still chuckling. “I’ve got the check right here, Duncan. And believe me, you’re going to pay.”
Duncan raised his eyes, locked stares with Senator Lance Marrs until the oily politician stopped laughing and looked away in discomfort, and then switched his gaze to the other man. “You really didn’t need to go to all this bother, Mr. Taits. I surrendered already, remember? That was our deal.”
The deputy attorney general did not answer, and that, more than anything else that had happened, fanned a coal of anxiety in Duncan’s gut.
“You’re a dangerous criminal,” Marrs said, almost crooning in satisfaction. “The American people need to see how we deal with criminals.”
“I’m sure the American people will be very interested in your role in all of this, Senator.”
“Get up,” Taits growled. “You’re coming with us.”
Duncan inclined his head and then slid out of the booth, hands extended as if offering a benediction. Taits stepped back and nodded to one of his men, who promptly seized Duncan’s wrists and secured them with flexi-cuffs.
They hustled him from the diner, clustering around him, and then bundled him into a helicopter that waited, rotor still turning, on the road just beyond the parking lot. Marrs and Taits climbed in as well.
“Taits!” Duncan had to shout to be heard over the engine noise. “We have a deal, right?”
“Screw your deal,” Marrs retorted. “You’re finished. You’re going to testify before a Senate committee. Tell them and the American people how you and President Chambers created an illegal paramilitary unit.”
“If you want my cooperation, I need to know you kept your end of the bargain.”
“I don’t need your cooperation. I’ve got enough evidence to roast you and Chambers. All I have to do is ask the questions. You don’t even have to answer. When you plead the Fifth, that will be answer enough,” Marrs kept gloating.
Duncan ignored him and kept his focus on Taits. “I need to know.”
Taits’s contemptuous mask cracked just a little, and he gave a terse nod.
Duncan breathed a relieved sigh, then turned to Marrs. “Don’t worry, Lance. I won’t say a word.”
46
Manteo, North Carolina
There were no cars in the parking lot of the Lost Colony Festival Park. It was still early, but Beck had a feeling that this day’s visitor turnout was not going to break any records. The good news was that the wendigos appeared to have little interest in the theme park. Driven by their primal hunger, they went where the people were. During the drive from Fort Raleigh, they had glimpsed packs of the creatures roaming the neighborhoods, crawling all over houses like enormous pale white spiders, looking for some way inside. A few had looked at the passing vehicle but none had given chase. Perhaps at some level, they retained enough intelligence to know that they had zero chance of catching up to the little Nissan.
The park occupied a small island, one of several that jutted out into the Roanoke Sound. The only approach was a narrow two-lane bridge. The road from the bridge passed a complex of rustic-looking shingled buildings, surrounded by neatly manicured lawns, trees and flowering shrubs. Just past the buildings, separated by a short path, was the empty parking area. Beck shut off the engine and surveyed their surroundings for several minutes to see if anyone—human or wendigo—
would come to investigate their presence.
“Looks clear, but let’s move with a purpose.”
She waited for acknowledging nods, then threw open the door, grabbed hold of her recently acquired E-tool, and sprinted to the covered porch that fronted the largest building. Double doors with large glass panes blocked their entrance. Locked. No surprise there. Beck peered through the panes into the lobby beyond, then made a decision.
Bracing herself for the shrill alarm that she expected would surely ring out, she swung the E-tool at the door-panes. The glass shattered inward, but the only sound was of the shards tinkling on the stone tiles inside. Not one to question a stroke of luck, she used the spade head to knock down several jagged protrusions and then stepped through the narrow opening.
The museum lay just beyond the ticket lobby, with several small galleries arranged in a walking tour that began with the geological history of the Outer Banks, and worked forward through the native occupation of the area, and eventually to the Lost Colony. Although she was no expert in history or archaeology, Beck did not fail to notice that the exhibits were all style and little substance. There were reproductions of simple tools and artifacts, as well as dioramas of native men—bodies painted, wearing beads, feathers and not much else—hunting and fishing. Women were shown laying the catch out on drying racks to preserve the meat. There were even miniature depictions of entire villages. Missing was anything with provenance.
“I told you,” Ellen said in a glum voice. “There’s nothing here. The native people who lived here left very little behind. What few artifacts have been discovered went to more reputable museums. And most of what we know of early Native American culture is from the observations of the earliest European visitors. Half this stuff is completely inaccurate. The rest is guesswork.”
Sara was clearly making an effort to be patient with her. “Think. Does looking at this trigger any memories? What about the wendigo stories? Is there anything in them about how to defeat a wendigo?”
“Starve it,” Ellen replied, bleakly.
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