"I'm sorry, man. It didn't have to be like this."
Anger flared at the fallen priest, a deep rage filling his chest with honest, wholesome hate. Rees's eyes had dilated fully and didn't respond to light. They'd raised his legs and treated him for shock, and he hadn't died yet. Left to the EMTs he might yet live, might not even have permanent brain damage.
Matt stood, walked over to him, looked down at his almost peaceful face. A twinge of jealousy rippled through him, that Monica had bashed in Jason's skull and not him. His fists clenched.
Commotion fluttered behind him, his son yelling, his wife cooing calming words. He turned.
Monica huddled in the helicopter, trying to shield Adam from the violence he'd already witnessed, while Adam screamed and cried for "Unca Rees" and reached for the door handle. Icy wind howled through the pit, kicking up dust devils and peppering the helicopter with rocks. Matt shielded his eyes and shook his head, and when Monica wouldn't relent Adam calmed, so did the wind.
Sirens blared in the distance. He sat with Sakura and Sam by the helicopter, the weapons deployed in the fight on the ground twenty feet away, the rest packed away in the helicopter, and waited.
They were polite but adamant with the police, who realized straight-away that they were dealing with not only government agents but the last two Augs, and the miracle mother and child, and gave them far more deference than they deserved. He answered questions as patiently as he could, next to the helicopter with Sakura and Sam, far enough away to let the county and state forensics teams do their work.
Hours passed, and the sun crept toward the treetops. At long last the moment he'd feared came.
As a news van rolled around the corner, Matt turned away from the Sherriff. "Sorry, Sherriff, but looks like we're not going to be here when the FBI comes after all. You've got my number. Call me when you have to."
He left the man gaping as Sam hopped aboard. They went around the far side, invisible to cameras, and got in. The Sherriff banged on the door, hollering, which they ignored.
"Are we going?" Monica asked, face smudged but no longer damp with tears.
"Yeah. We're going."
They lifted off moments later, headed back for DC.
* * *
A blip in his COM woke him to a dark cabin and overcast skies.
"Yeah, go ahead," he said, voice low so as not to wake his exhausted wife and child, somehow not preposterous in a helicopter moving at a hundred and eighty miles an hour.
Janet's voice rang well too loud in his ear. "Two things. First, thought you might want to know we got the DNA back on Flynn's remains. He's a chimera, a mix of Conor Flynn and Ben Case. Even his fingerprints are a mix of the two."
"That's fucking weird."
"You're telling me. The lab weenies are all atwitter over it, and Stein's got a microscope up my keister looking for anything else that might be fun."
"Glad you've settled into a productive working relationship. What's number two?"
"Looks like your pal Williams ordered US forces under SACLANT back to US command. LC Smith refused, and so far the men are following him, not the Commander in Chief."
"Jesus. Do we know why?"
"The world's going to hell in a handbasket if you haven't noticed. Nineteen new insurrections today just in Africa, three in the Middle East. The Ural Mountains are a no-go zone right now, Delhi's on fire, Mexico just had a coup and is mobilizing troops toward the cartel land on their northern border, and the media's reporting hopping freaking vampires on the Yangtze. I think he wants more troops at home in case the shit hits the fan."
"I meant why did Smith refuse? He's a dick, but seems a 'takes orders' kind of guy."
"Hard to say, bud. The official line is that our obligations to NATO still stand. Unofficial line is that the Joint Chiefs scuttled the order through back channels. Rumor has it his first tried to strip him of command and Smith had him executed."
"Seriously?"
"No confirmation on that, but some chatter that went silent pretty fast, yeah."
"That might explain a little something about dissolving the Special Threats Bureau, pulling us closer to home as far as Chain of Command."
"I thought that, too. Pretty ugly. Anyway, see you in a few hours."
"Yeah." He killed the line and leaned his head back against the cold, vibrating metal.
"Everything okay?" Monica asked.
"Sure. As okay as they can be. We're still an hour or so out, so get some rest."
"Okay."
Adam stared at him, his gentle brown eyes icy pinpricks in the dark cabin.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The helicopter slowed as they approached Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling. Monica's eyes fluttered open to look down at Washington, DC below. The bags under her eyes had only grown in the trip back from White Spruce, but Matt loved her all the more for her disheveled appearance. She yawned and leaned her head against the window. "Is that the base?"
Matt followed her gaze. "That's Reagan. Abab is across the river."
She frowned. "Why do they call it an Air Force Base if it doesn't have any runways?"
"It's mostly support and ceremonial stuff now. Marine One, the Air Force Band, some other stuff. They have a helipad, though."
"Couldn't any big parking lot be a helipad?"
"Sure, Mon. But in—"
A burst of light accompanied the whispers. Matt unhooked his harness and turned. Sakura dove across and covered Adam with her body, hands twisted in the restraints to his car seat. The helicopter rocked with a bang, and the sound of the rotors dropped to a lower register.
"We're hit." Sam's voice came clipped and tight over the radio.
They listed to the right and drifted clockwise, rotating ever faster as they fell. Matt grabbed the strap and door handle on either side of Monica, wrapping her with his body to take the bulk of the impact.
"Hold on!" Sam said in their headsets. They leveled out at the last second above the Defense Intelligence Institute, a huge, industrial-looking building just shy of the helipad. Sam skimmed the higher roof, dropped and twisted, jerking them back and forth, before passing over the building and dropping straight down.
"Close your mouth, Mon!"
Monica jerked her tongue back and clacked her teeth shut a split second before a jarring crunch shocked up Matt's legs. A shriek of metal shuddered down Matt's spine and through his teeth, the chopper tilting as the landing skid gave way. They bounced hard, and her forehead rebounded off his shoulder.
As the machine skidded to a halt Sakura tossed him his AA-12 and a satchel of magazine; he still wore his pistol from the conflict in White Spruce. He popped the door shielded by the rest of the building, speaking into the COM with controlled authority.
"Sam, get my family out of here. Across the road! Sakura, on me."
Alarms wailed in the building, and lights flashed in bright, white pops. Whatever had mangled the tail rotor had punched clean through without exploding, a kinetic-kill weapon or a dud, and whoever had shot it had tremendous aim.
He bolted around the building toward the AA fire, hoping to draw fire away from Monica and Adam. His calf twinged as every running step re-tore something before it could heal. With Janet home for the night and no Dragonflies they had no tactical advantage, and no notion of the forces allayed against them.
Figures boiled out of the far side of the DIA – Matt bet they'd expected a closer crash, and said a silent prayer of thanks for Sam's flying. He set the AA-12 to range off of the laser sight and opened fire, spraying the mass of… commandos? Soldiers? He had no idea.
The semi-guided munitions exploded as they hit their target or reached their proscribed range. Some dodged with impossible leaps and spins, sheltering behind the slower 'normals'. Others died, stumbling, falling, a few missing limbs or chunks of their heads.
A rum
ble drowned out the whispers as he pulled back, large-caliber bullets chipping brick and mortar from the building's facade. A .50 caliber machine gun designed to take out light vehicles could make mincemeat of an Aug, and the M2A1 barely needed to reload.
"Sakura, what do you have on that M2?"
"On a Jeep."
Matt didn't have time to sit still, pinned down while his opponents out-maneuvered him. "Anything you can do about it?"
"In minutes, not seconds."
Shit. "Do it."
He backed up to a side entrance and smashed the window with the butt of his AA-12, tearing through the steel mesh in the safety glass. Reaching through, he hit the crash bar and pulled, then spun around the door to take cover behind the reinforced steel. A grenade tumbled around the corner, too far and too wide to be much of a concern. He fired twice, rounds set to pass the building and explode left.
Hot metal dug into his right eyebrow, but four men stumbled and fell around the corner, the only visual casualties.
Two more shots for good measure, then he bolted inside and up the stairs, swapping out his magazine for another drum. A massive office building, he'd never visited DIA headquarters and had no idea where any hallway led – but if pursuing him kept their attackers away from Monica and Adam he'd gladly trap himself in a maze of hallways.
* * *
Sakura circled the firefight perimeter at a full sprint, ducking between apartment buildings and dashing through groggy crowds of annoyed residents, men and women in underwear and robes peering toward the conflict with more curiosity than worry.
An older black man wearing an Army hat with gold oak leaf on the front frowned at the scene with dark, intelligent eyes. She stopped in front of him, letting the rush of air billow the towel around his waist before speaking, though it startled him anyway.
"Not an exercise. Matt Rowley and his family are in danger. Only two friendlies, him and me."
He opened his mouth, but she took off, weaving through the growing crowd faster than they could react. Their attackers had planned well – had the helicopter landed where they'd hit it, none of them would have survived. By putting them down on the other side of the building Sam had turned their crossfire ambush into a chase and left several elements out of position.
The Jeep crept forward, the gunner searching for a target near the DIA building with a pair of night vision binoculars. She approached at a run, boots rolling across asphalt as close to silently as possible without sacrificing speed. Ten feet from the vehicle she threw her first knife. The gunner stiffened as it sunk into his neck.
Boot on the bumper, she leapt, landing in the back seat. Two swipes with the knife and the soldiers on either side of her grinned red smiles from their necks. Before their blood fell she reversed her grip and jammed the blade into the driver's carotid artery, then leapt up to the machine gun.
As blood gushed across her shoes she snatched the twitching gunner's ear bud from his head and put it in her right ear, then pulled the trigger and swept left. The tang of gunpowder and hot metal mingled with the smells of blood and gasoline. White tracers lanced from the bucking gun into the squad of men taking shelter behind a brick wall. With no cover and nowhere to run, they fell like grass.
"Regent Four, hostile on your three o'clock. Engage." The calm, confident male voice sent a shiver up her spine, cold terror and white-hot hatred her only emotions since he'd taken her from woods of Centralia. Shane Keene.
She turned the M2 left, still firing, as a metal bay door exploded outward with a hideous shriek. Twin mechanical behemoths charged from a hundred feet away, hydraulics clanking as the ten-foot humanoids built up to speed. Parodies of human form, they sported enormous, stylized helmets decorated with huge serrated jaws jutting out from skulls that shined a metallic black.
Paint peeled and metal dented as she concentrated fire on the rightmost, walking the tracers into neck, groin, knees, and elbows. With a harsh clack the M2 ran dry.
Crouching, she pulled her knife from the driver, and leapt as they hit the Jeep. The impact rolled it. She ran across the now-horizontal door and up the battered one's arm, jamming the knife into the crack between its helmet and shoulder pauldron. It jerked her to a stop, and she jammed an incendiary grenade between the jaw and helmet—while the magnets didn't stick, the gap left plenty of room to insert the device and pull the pin. Huge hands reached up and it whirled, grabbing for her but unable to bend enough.
Feet against its back, she let go of the knife and pushed off.
The thermite ignited with a white flash that turned the night into day. Boiling metal and cooking meat sizzled under the dying shrieks of the woman inside. She hit the ground, pulled another incendiary, and smiled at the other beast.
It reached up, tore off the decorative jaw that had doomed its partner, and circled her.
* * *
Matt had seen those web-guns before, when they'd rescued Sakura. Stubby like a grenade launcher, they fired a sticky goo that hardened into extremely strong filament moments after impact. Four men carried them, their movements sleek and inhuman, each leading a squad of three more armed with HK416 carbines, short-barreled assault weapons favored by Special Forces.
They lifted their night-vision goggles in response to the fire alarm strobes, a worst-case mix for night blindness on unaugmented eyes. In the ultraviolet the LED strobes made an annoying flicker, nothing more, and registered not at all in the infrared. Even half-blind, they fanned out through the third-floor, clearing cubicles and hallways with methodic, professional precision, communicating with US military hand signals.
He kept the handle of the office door turned and closed it, slowly, to make as little movement as possible, then turned the lock. It wouldn't stop them, but he didn't need a lot of time. The plastic rolly chair behind the desk was useless, but the wooden desk chair had sufficient heft and durability to meet his needs. Damned office windows wouldn't open more than six inches, which wouldn't even fit his thigh.
The glass shattered as the chair sailed through, tearing out the miniblinds in a flutter of cheap plastic. Then he stepped back into the coat closet and closed the door, holding it shut with his left hand, WildStang in his right.
The office door blew inward. He counted to three, let the whispers cheer his death and in doing so give him the locations of his would-be killers, then broke out, pistol raised.
The squad leader turned, faster than human, almost as fast as Sakura – and not fast enough. Matt pulled the trigger at point-blank range, splattering brains across the other three. As they flinched back he pistol-whipped one hard enough to crack his skull, shot a second, and kicked the third in the chest. He flipped over the desk and his thighs slammed down on the broken window, plate glass embedded deep in the muscle.
Matt leapt, tearing the injured man off of the glass and manhandling him underneath as they fell. His chest cavity imploded as it absorbed the impact of Matt's boot, and Matt rolled out of the collision to come up on his feet, weapon raised and firing. Men scattered back from the broken window, and Matt bolted for the corner of the building, denying them line of sight to return fire.
The whispers giggled as his skull popped like a melon hit with a sledgehammer.
He ducked and slid around the corner. A massive hydraulic claw shattered the brick over his head. He punched the WildStang into the behemoth's groin and double-tapped, wincing as the second armor-piercing bullet shattered against the thick plate, spraying hot shards of tungsten and ceramic into his face. Wet liquid ran down his left cheek, his eye totally blind. He leapt up, turning to keep the thing in sight.
Red fluid gushed from between its legs, and it sagged against the wall. He spun, scanning for targets. Men with web guns piled out of the doorway. He ran thirty steps across open ground before a whine drew his attention. Another behemoth lurked behind a dumpster across the parking lot, the minigun on its shoulder spinning up. Wit
h nothing but empty all around, he charged, firing.
* * *
Sakura danced back, schooling her breath to the calm necessary to maintain proper focus in a combat situation. Scrapes and dings along joints were the only signs that she'd made contact with her opponent, bonk-killer rounds and frags as ineffective as her knives against the thing's armor. It might as well have been a human tank for all it cared, but like a tank she had no problem getting out of the way of the massive claws and feet that could crush or dismember with a single stroke.
Without the stupid jaw it had a tiny head, almost comical compared to its upper body, but that left her nowhere to put another incendiary grenade. Ponderous and bulky in appearance, on open ground it could beat her foot speed and had stunning maneuverability. Escape seemed as elusive as destroying the thing, so she circled, feinted and dodged, and inched toward the storage sheds near the water.
In her ear Keene told it to keep her there until reinforcements arrived, reported Rowley engaged with Reaper, and coordinated the hunt for Monica and the child. She listened for any clue to his whereabouts, but heard none.
Twenty feet from the sheds she bolted, counting on inertia to slow the enormous machine enough for her to get out of sight. She rounded the corner between two small buildings and sprinted for the far end.
A pair of men swung out, one on either side, and took aim with snub-nosed guns. She leapt as they fired, using her speed to run up the wall, but an orange strand nicked her foot. Her next step brought more of the web around her ankles. She fell, .357 already out of its holster and firing, but they'd disappeared behind the walls.
She hit the ground, kicking at her boots, but the stretchy mess clung to her legs and turned rock hard. Straining, something tore in her hip, but the substance didn't give.
A shadow blocked the lights from the city. Behind her, the behemoth lumbered forward, claws spread wide to scrape against the alley walls. She fired twice before more orange strands entrapped her arms and hands, settling like splattered paint between her fingers and limbs before solidifying.
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