Black Sword (Decker's War, #5)

by Eric Thomson

  “Ideology or fear?”

  “For my money? Fear.”

  She chuckled.

  “So far you’ve run up a perfect score, Whate. Not bad for someone who’s been on Marengo all of twenty-four hours. I’d like to guess you spent serious time working with, or even in intelligence, but don’t ask, don’t tell, right?”

  “I’m merely a good observer with decent instincts for human nature. People aren’t that difficult to read once you figure out how, and you understand what drives them.”

  The skimmer roared out of the settlement and over a rough country lane, headed for its neighbor ten kilometers away.

  “Have you read me yet?”

  “No. In my experience, it’s not a good idea to analyze your immediate boss. It can put a real crimp in the old working relationship.”

  Hurst laughed.

  “Bullshit, Whate.”

  “Honest to God, Sergeant. I’ve come across higher-ups who were real horror stories, and I prefer more light-hearted entertainment.”

  “I bet erotica is high on your list.”

  “Nah,” he replied. “That’s something I prefer to experience in real life. Reading about it isn’t the same if you know what I mean.”

  “When you live in a place like FOB Tanner, reading about it is as close as you’ll get.”

  “Now there’s a happy thought. And since the FOBs are dry, you can’t even use alcohol to numb the pain caused by lurid prose. I’m surprised we haven’t seen mass defections to the enemy.”

  “Has anyone ever mentioned that you’re a smart ass, Private Whate?”

  “Why do you think I ended up here?”

  *

  “Truculence seems to be a general characteristic of the folks in these parts,” Decker commented as they walked back to their skimmer after meeting with another group of local leaders. “Mind you, I don’t blame them.”

  “Did you see kids running for the woods this time?” Hurst asked.

  “Nope. But that’s not surprising since FOB Lucasz has eyes on the place,” he replied, nodding towards a distant hill crowned by visible fortifications. “I meant to ask — where do the names come from?”

  He unlocked the vehicle and raised the driver’s hatch.

  “Members of the 1st Battalion who died in a blaze of glory big enough to earn them posthumous decorations for valor.”

  She climbed into the crew commander’s seat and switched on the RWS.

  “Considering it’s lunch time, how about we break bread with Bravo Company and whatever members of number two section that are awake. We can save our rations for another occasion.”

  “You’re the boss, Boss,” Decker replied, his casual tone masking a surge of excitement at the idea of finally contacting Ariane Redmon.

  Once he’d primed her to come with him, he could call Talyn and set things in motion, and the sooner, the better. Stringing Lora Cyone along wasn’t something he wanted to do for weeks on end. She deserved better, as did Karin Hurst, to whom he had taken an instant liking, seeing in her a kindred warrior spirit tempered with decency and a sense of honor as well as humor.

  FOB Lucasz mirrored FOB Tanner’s layout and security perimeter, including a common vehicle park and a fenced-off part for the recon section’s modules. It did not however, have the benefit of an abandoned farm at its center.

  “Most of our guys were out on patrol overnight,” Hurst said, leading him to Bravo Company’s chow hall, a dozen containers merged into a single structure. “So I don’t know if we’ll see any of them at lunch, but we’ll stick our heads into their unit lines after we eat and say hi to anyone up and about.”

  Decker froze in place, head cocked.

  “They’ll be up and about in four seconds, Sergeant. Incoming!”

  As his eyes scanned for the nearest shelter, the first mortar round slammed into the center of the FOB, narrowly missing the dug-in command post. Almost at once, the unearthly howl of an alarm siren blanketed the fortification, competing with the explosions of the second, third and fourth mortar rounds.

  Hurst, more familiar with the layout, led him down a steep flight of wooden steps and into a bunker that was slowly filling with off-duty Bravo Company troopers.

  “The terrs do this every so often when they’re feeling flush with ammo. It’s never more than seven or eight rounds before they scatter. The bastards have developed a healthy respect for our counter-battery fire.” She paused as they heard the thump of Bravo Company’s one-hundred and twenty-millimeter mortars. “It’ll put an end to their shenanigans in a few moments.”

  “Hurray for artillery.”

  A few latecomers, looking like they were fresh from their cots, tumbled into the bunker, clutching battle harnesses and personal weapons. At the sound of thumping feet, Decker glanced up and straight into Ariane Redmon’s face.

  She seemed leaner than the images of her had intimated but more muscular, though nothing had prepared him for the intensity radiating from her eyes. Since she had never met Zack, Redmon showed no sign of recognition, but she must have seen something in his expression because she gave him a curious stare. Then, Redmon noticed Hurst.

  “Hey Sarge, slumming with the hoi polloi?”

  “Hi, Sharon!” Hurst grinned at her. “Neighborhood terrs gave you an early wake-up?”

  “Fuckers. But we’ll track ‘em from their firing positions after last light. Hauling a section of mortars through the woods leaves plenty of clues.”

  “No doubt. Say hi to Bill Whate.” Hurst nudged Decker. “It’s his first full day with recon, so I’m giving him the grand tour. He’s my newest command post operator. Bill, this is Sharon Lee. The two of you might have frequented the same places once upon a time.”

  Redmon nodded at Decker, examining him with renewed interest. He made the ‘okay, jumper’ sign with his right hand, thumb up, pinkie finger stuck out, and the other digits folded into a fist. A faint smile appeared on her lips.

  “We might have, Sarge,” she said. “Bill Whate, eh?”

  “It’s not what the manifest on my last jump said, but yeah.”

  “Ditto.”

  He could see intense curiosity about his real identity in those dark eyes. The Pathfinder Branch was small, yet not so small that one ended up knowing every serving member personally. But, it was clear she took it as a given they knew many of the same people.

  The all-clear siren finally sounded, and Hurst said, “Why don’t you join us for lunch, Sharon, or better yet, take Bill to lunch and compare notes. I’ll have a chat with Nori instead.”

  She glanced at Zack.

  “Nori Yasuke, the section commander.”

  Redmon shrugged with affected nonchalance, though Decker could sense a repressed eagerness to connect with someone from her past.

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “Off you go then.”

  Hurst climbed to her feet and made a shooing motion.

  Redmon led him out of the bunker and on a roundabout route to the chow hall. Once they were beyond the range of curious ears, she said, “You clearly know who I am, Bill Whate, but I can’t place you.”

  “My real name is Zack Decker.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “The Zack Decker? The one Josh Bayliss keeps holding up as an example of success among Pathfinder noncoms?”

  “I’m stunned that Josh considers me anything other than a horrible example.” Decker smirked. “But yeah.”

  “I’m Ariane Redmon, late of the 1st Special Forces Regiment.”

  “I know, and I also know you were railroaded. You’ve been a challenge to track down.”

  “Why are you after me?”

  A puzzled frown creased her smooth forehead.

  “So I can take you home.”

  Thirty-Five

  Redmon, visibly stunned by Zack’s words, stood rooted to the spot, her eyes searching his for proof that this wasn’t a joke.

  “Is there somewhere we can speak privately for a while without anyone findi
ng it unusual?” Decker asked.

  She shook her head, as if to regain control of her emotions, and then nodded.

  “Let’s grab a sandwich and eat by the vehicle compound. It’s where we go when we want to have a quiet meal away from the others.”

  As they headed for the chow line, she said, in a low voice, “You’d better not be fucking with me.”

  “QD Vinn sends his regards, Ari. My partner and I jumped with H Troop a few times when we visited Fort Arnhem to investigate your case.”

  “So how did you end up here?”

  “By following in your footsteps, more or less. But I organized my own bogus charges with the help of my superiors, using your case as a template.”

  He fell silent as they joined a rapidly lengthening line of hungry Marines.

  Sandwiches and drink bulbs in hand, Decker and Redmon slipped away to the vehicle compound. At her urging, they sat against the rammed earth berm surrounding FOB Lucasz. It would allow them to spot anyone coming within earshot.

  “Okay, Zack Decker,” Redmon said after swallowing a bite. “Take it from the top, because right now it feels like I’ve fallen through the looking glass.”

  He took a sip of juice and said, “The beginning is always the best place to start, cliché intended. You know who I am, obviously, but I doubt you’re aware that I work for Naval Intelligence’s Special Operations Section. We’re the CNI’s action arm, the purveyors of dirty deeds that never officially happened. When your regiment is called in on one of those missions that will never be declassified, chances are we set it up.”

  Redmon nodded.

  “I’m aware of the organization and its work, if only tangentially. Your operational security is impressive.”

  “Apparently not impressive enough.”

  Decker took a bite of his sandwich and chewed, giving himself time to put the rest of the story in a coherent order.

  “The section’s missions have been failing one after the other in recent times, including those run by my partner and me, and we’re among the best. Operatives have been vanishing without a trace, or if we do find them, their corpses are in various stages of decomposition. Counterintelligence is clueless and Fleet security is deaf, dumb, and blind. So we looked for a pattern, something to connect superficially unrelated incidents. We wanted to figure if we’re going through a run of bad luck, or whether someone’s targeting the Fleet’s covert operations capability, including Special Forces.”

  “And you found my case.”

  Decker nodded.

  “Since we had access to every classified file at Fleet HQ, we eventually stumbled across it. I picked up a bad stench from the word go. Your job as the Special Forces Regiment’s S-3 made you a high-value target for elimination. Except you were the only high-value target not only still alive but with coordinates.”

  “You wondered why and decided to dig me up so I could give you answers.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Precisely. With our CO’s blessing, my partner and I contrived a mission that would see me found guilty by a court-martial and sent into exile. I would become another high-value target from the covert operations community taken out of circulation for good. Officially, as far as the Fleet is concerned, I’m a convicted felon because we don’t know whom to trust. My partner’s been shadowing me for months, under deep cover, waiting until I found you. She should be in Treves right now, waiting for my signal to spring us.”

  “You realize,” she said with wry expression when Decker paused to catch his breath, “that your story sounds like a fantasy spun by someone who’s lost touch with reality, right?”

  Decker chuckled, “I suppose it does.”

  “What if I told you I was okay with my new life and didn’t want to involve myself in whatever mad conspiracy has you risk everything? That I didn’t want to run away from my new family?”

  “The goal is to give you back your good name, rank, and career, along with mine. But before that can happen, we have to expose whoever or whatever is slowly killing off our ability to fight traitors. And if I’m right, those traitors are people determined to remake the Commonwealth into something neither of us would like.”

  “Sound the bugles, beat the drums, and wave the flag? I guess I always was a sucker for a good fight. What do you want to know?”

  “How did an officer with your exceptional record end up here?”

  “I’m not sure,” she replied as her eyes glazed over with that thousand light year stare he had seen much too often. Sometimes even looking back at him from the mirror.

  “Take it from the top. Speculate, infer and head into whatever rabbit hole beckons, no matter how strange you think it sounds. I’m convinced you have a good idea of why this happened to you, and we need to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

  Redmon looked up at him and grimaced.

  “You’ll think I’m the crazy one.”

  Decker snorted.

  “Ari, you have no idea what constitutes crazy when you’re in my world. I live in a parallel universe where up is down, left is right, and right is wrong. Nothing can surprise me anymore, and nothing will shock me.”

  “Would you care to put a wager on that?”

  “Do you really think your story will amaze me?”

  “According to Josh Bayliss and anyone else I’ve heard discuss Zack Decker in the Pegasus Club, you don’t suffer from a lack of forthrightness. You also seem to have a rather old-fashioned belief in honor.”

  “Everyone has to live with his character flaws. You can add a certain lack of patience to my list after I spent months searching for you, first on Desolation Island, and then through the fun and games of convict-recruit training.”

  “All right, I understand.” Redmon raised a hand in surrender. “One incredible conspiracy story coming right up.”

  She took a deep breath to gather herself.

  “Eighteen months ago, I was approached by Colonel Allister Wynt, one of the Commandant’s advisors, responsible for special operations, with an offer of mentorship. I knew Wynt from my work as S-3 and had frequent dealings with him in the course of planning and approving missions laid on via the Commandant’s office. He told me he was impressed by my abilities and wished to help further my career, in the best interests of the Corps and the Fleet.”

  “Flattering.”

  “Just so. You know how we products of the Academy have stars in our eyes the moment we graduate.”

  “Another argument for making sure everyone angling for a commission does a stint in the ranks first. Seeing the Fleet’s top monkeys from the bottom of the tree exposes a lot of bare asses.”

  “A facile statement from someone who went from private to major, with intermediate stops at command sergeant and chief warrant officer, in addition to a stint on the retired list.”

  “My checkered career doesn’t make the idea a bad one. But we’re not here to discuss Marine Corps personnel policies, even if they need a lot more common sense. Please go on.”

  “I accepted Colonel Wynt’s offer. During each of my visits to HQ — every two weeks, sometimes more often — he would spend time with me, discussing my work, my ambitions, that sort of thing. This was beside anything operational involving the regiment, stuff he was overseeing for the Commandant. I took months to realize Wynt was grooming me. The discussions around special operations became more specific and touched matters beyond those involving Wynt in his official capacity. Our orders don’t always flow through the Commandant’s office. Missions laid on by Naval Intelligence, for instance, are compartmentalized. They shouldn’t come to the attention of Wynt or anyone on the Commandant’s staff. But you probably know that.”

  “Yep. The fewer people in the loop, the less chances of betrayal. Except that’s not been helping us lately.

  “When it finally dawned on me that under the guise of advancing my career, I had discussed more with Wynt than I should have, I tried to regain some distance.”

  “At which point
he became unpleasant and warned there would be consequences for refusing him.”

  “No. That was the weird part. When he sensed me backing away, Wynt amped up the charm and took me around to his private club, where I met other senior officers from his circle. He introduced me as his protégée, someone who would go far and whose career deserved fostering. It was, in retrospect, somewhat surreal, but it overcame my earlier hesitation. Then Wynt offered to sponsor my admittance to a select group. He described it as a fellowship of like-minded officers dedicated to advancing the Fleet’s interests in the broader socio-political realm and to helping each other’s careers. Sort of like the Academy alumni club, only smaller and more exclusive. Heady stuff for an ambitious major with limited experience of service politics outside the Special Forces community.”

  “There are plenty of secret handshake brigades in the Fleet,” Decker said, “and most amount to nothing more than the occasional drunk fest. Heck, you and I belong to the Most Ancient and Mystic Order of Pegasus, because we made jumping out of perfectly good shuttles a career goal. If that’s not a drinking club, it’s nothing.”

  Redmon graced him with a sardonic smile.

  “This wasn’t the same. There were no elaborate induction ceremonies, no secret handshakes as you put it and no drinking to excess. And no club membership lists. That should have tipped me off, but when you have stars in your eyes...”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Wynt explained that people within the Fleet and the government might take exception to the group’s existence and goals. So it did its good works through restricted circles, a few smaller and tighter, a few larger and not as focused. Wynt introduced me to several members with an interest in special and covert operations, explaining that each had contacts with other circles, something I would develop myself in time.”

  Decker laughed, softly at first, then with more gusto.

  “This fellowship of yours sounds remarkably like one organized by cells, like — oh — every subversive group in history.”

  Redmon tapped the side of her nose with an extended finger.