by Linda Nagata
“He will come,” she warns in a despairing voice. “You cannot win. He will burn us all. He will.”
“Fatima,” True says, not quite touching her. When Fatima turns, True tries to meet that hopeless gaze, despite the jerky jumpy motion of the racing truck. She tries to plant hope, saying, “He wants you to believe that, but I think we can win. And this much I know for sure: Hussam will be a prisoner of US forces by dawn, or he will be dead. For him there is no escape.”
Fatima opens her mouth as if to argue, but whatever words she intends are crushed by the thunder of a jet passing directly above them. Animal instinct kicks in and everyone ducks. Even Khalid, behind the wheel.
But no autocannon fires. No missile hits them. True grasps the reason first: “Must have been one of ours. If an Arkinson passed that close, we’d be dead.”
“Fuck!” Khalid swears as he straightens in his seat. His fingers hold the wheel in a bony grip while on his cheeks, rivulets of sweat trap the red light.
Rohan’s laugh belts out over comms. Pumped up, riding an adrenaline high he says, “Take it easy, Khalid! There’s no way we can outrun this fight. We live or die by the grace of our squadron AIs.”
“Truth,” True whispers.
Ahead of them, electric-white light bursts across the desert. Briefly, it illuminates nearly a mile of empty road. Inside the truck the chatter dies. They listen: to road noise, to the throaty bellow of the engine, the dopplered roar of jets. Waiting to learn who won.
The concussive rumble of an explosion rolls in, background soundtrack to Lincoln’s stern voice. “One enemy aircraft down. The other two are in retreat. The sky is ours.”
Cheers ring out in both cab and cargo bed, but True does not take part. “What’s Blackbird’s status?” she asks, voice cutting through the celebration.
Lincoln says: “Blackbird has overrun the rendezvous. Heading back now. Otherwise nominal.”
True’s fingers twitch as she calls up their position on her display. It’s twelve K to the rendezvous and the next phase of this mission.
“All the pieces in place?” Chris wants to know.
“On the way,” Lincoln assures him. “We delayed the transport helicopter pending the outcome of the air war, but it’s inbound now. We’ll be back on schedule soon.”
“And the merchandise?” Chris asks.
“Blackbird’s camera shows it still kicking.”
Wrapped in the backseat’s shadows, True allows herself a small private smile. Machines dominate the battlefield, but it took human soldiers to snatch a bad guy from his bedroom and recover four captives from their prison.
It’s a moment of contentment that doesn’t last.
“Shit,” Khalid says. “I see lights. Ahead of us. Goddamn army’s worth.”
Pro Bono
What now?
True leans forward to get a look at the lights and swears softly to herself. Khalid was not exaggerating. A long line of traffic is coming toward them, headlights yellowed by the dust.
“Take it easy, everyone,” Lincoln says in his gravelly, one-note voice. “That is not an army. It’s a merchant convoy, still a few klicks out.”
“Lincoln is watching over us,” Chris reminds Khalid. “We’ve got high-altitude surveillance, and the Hai-Lins patrolling the road.”
“Okay,” Khalid says. “Good. But convoys out here run armed. There are guards on those trucks, and a lot more of them than us.”
Chris says, “Just because they have weapons doesn’t mean they’re looking for trouble.”
Lincoln speaks again: “Khalid, I want you to turn your headlights on. Let the convoy see you. Let them know you’re not a threat.”
Khalid doesn’t rush to embrace this idea. “How about if we just wait off-road?”
Chris is first to reject the suggestion. “No. They’ll assume we’re waiting to pick off the last truck in the line. We don’t want to look like bandits.”
“Agreed,” Lincoln says. “These are not Hussam’s soldiers. They’re merchants, and they know an op just went down. Guaranteed someone in Tadmur called them. And they’ve heard the jets. They are not going to risk their cargo or give us any reason to hit them. And if they do? The Hai-Lins are watching. We’ll nail them before they get a window open. So turn on your headlights and make nice.”
Khalid turns the headlights on.
“What else is out there?” Chris asks. “Are we going to have quiet time to make the transfer?”
“Time enough,” Lincoln tells him. “Once the convoy is past, we’re looking at a twenty-two-minute window with no traffic. That’s your timeframe to rendezvous, transfer, and get clear.”
“We’ll get it done,” Chris assures him.
True eyes the convoy. If a firefight does break out, she’s in a bad position, on the wrong side of the DF-21 to return fire. No reason to think it will come to shooting, though.
As the convoy approaches, her visor filters the brightness of the headlights. The lead truck takes longer to arrive than she expects. “They slowing down, Lincoln?” she asks.
“Roger that,” he says. “Looks like they’re being cautious.”
“They’re as nervous as we are,” Chris adds.
True thinks about it, imagining how they must look to the lead driver: this lone armored vehicle, racing away from a night raid in Tadmur.
The first of the headlights pierces the cab. Fatima turns her head away, hunching her shoulders and hiding her face against True’s shoulder. The lead truck roars past, accelerating as it goes, rocking the DF-21 with its pressure wave. Khalid keeps their own speed steady, their course straight, as six more trucks sweep past.
Then the road ahead is empty.
“Holy shit,” Khalid swears, switching the headlights off again.
Lincoln says, “It’s good to remember not everyone in the world is out to kill us.”
True knows he’s right, but the tricky part comes in recognizing the enemy in time to thwart an attack—and that requires constant vigilance and a hair-trigger willingness to react in the face of partial evidence and half-imagined clues.
After another minute, Lincoln announces, “The H215 has reached the rendezvous.”
Khalid acknowledges this: “I see it.”
True leans forward to look. Her visor reveals a dust storm kicked up around the bulk of a large transport helicopter settling onto the highway maybe fifteen hundred meters out. It’s an H215, another piece of equipment provided by their regional ally, Eden Transit, but this time with a flight crew.
She looks past the dust for Blackbird but doesn’t see the little helicopter.
“You know your roles,” Lincoln tells them. “Team Red receives the merchandise. Team Gold escorts the civilians.”
“Blackbird in the vicinity?” Chris wants to know.
“Couple minutes out.”
Fatima turns wide, fearful eyes to True. “What’s going on? Is he here?”
“He’s our prisoner, Fatima. He can’t hurt you anymore. And we’re going to get you home. That helicopter is going to get us out of here.”
Khalid brakes hard, bringing the DF-21 to a skidding stop just outside the reach of the transport helicopter’s rapidly spinning rotor. “Switching to self-driving mode,” he announces.
True shoves her door open onto a night rumbling with the bass, bone-shaking sonics of multiple engines: the DF-21, the transport helicopter, the circling Hai-Lins. She exits the cab along with Chris and Jameson. Chris disappears into the night. Jameson slams the front door shut with help from the wind. Dust hazes the cold air, limiting True’s night vision.
She shoulders her KO and speaks over comms. “Rohan, keep the civilians back there until I have a chance to talk to them.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Felice, I need you up here.”
“On my way.”
True returns her attention to Fatima, still in the cab’s backseat. Bound in her restraints, she looks dazed and lost. A prisoner still. True would like
to remove the restraints, allow her some measure of control over her body, her fate. But if she balks or tries again to fight against her own rescue, she could endanger everyone.
“Fatima,” True says, striving for a nurturing tone, although that’s a challenge given that she has to shout over the engine noise. “We need to move you again, but no one is going to hurt you.”
Fatima watches her with frightened eyes but says nothing. True can’t tell if her words have gotten through. Nothing to do about it now.
She retrieves her pack from the floor, and then steps back, keeping one hand on the door to hold it open against the wind. Jameson is waiting. “Ready?” he asks.
True nods.
He leans in. Fatima rears back, trying to wriggle out of reach, her mouth open in a silent scream. He backs off, speaking to her in a low, confident, reassuring tone.
True crooks her fingers, signaling Felice to step in close so they can talk without comms. “You’re taking care of Fatima,” she instructs. “Jameson will get her aboard the flight, but I want you to stay with her. Make sure she’s up front, and rig a shelter for her if you can. I do not want her to see the merchandise. And I don’t want the rapist seeing her either.”
“You got it, ma’am.”
Jameson backs out of the cab, holding Fatima cradled in his arms. She isn’t struggling anymore but whether that’s because she’s decided to trust him or because she’s in shock, True can’t say. He turns and carries her to the transport helicopter, Felice following a step behind.
True moves on to the next task. Opening her pack, she slips out her tablet and calls up a formal document. Then the roar of yet another engine draws her attention, and she looks up. Night vision shows her Blackbird coming in from the north, gliding slowly above the road, around forty meters away. It still carries its cargo suspended at the end of a long tether, dangling just above the pavement. Right action, she thinks with a grim smile.
But Chris and Red Team have the task of handling Hussam. Her job is to shepherd the civilians.
With her tablet in hand, True walks to the back of the DF-21 where Rohan is standing watch, facing the open tailgate doors. He looks menacing behind his MARC’s half-visor, with his Fortuna held across his body. She gives him a skeptical look, one eyebrow raised. I told you to keep them in place, not scare them to death.
A smile quirks the corner of his mouth as he steps back, lowering the weapon.
All three civilians wait, crouched just inside the door, still wearing their borrowed helmets. They watch her with anxious expressions: Miles Dushane, former Ranger and more recently an independent journalist; Ryan Rogers, a petroleum engineer; and Dano Rodrigues, a Brazilian doctor kidnapped at the same time as Fatima.
Dushane grips the LED flashlight she gave him, holding it so the red beam points down at a haze of blowing sand. He starts to speak, but Blackbird roars overhead and for several seconds words become impossible. True turns to follow the little helicopter’s flight, startled because there is a figure at the end of the tether and it’s not Hussam. The Kevlar cargo pouch that carried him has been removed, and the troop carrier deployed. One of their soldiers rides standing up on the small platform, leaning against a short safety line.
This wasn’t in the mission plan.
Her finger twitches as she links into comms. “Who’s with Blackbird?”
It takes Lincoln a few seconds to answer. “I’m sending Juliet to look over the debris from the Arkinson. Status on the civilians?”
“Getting signatures now,” she snaps, not pleased at being left out of the loop, but it’s a gripe she’ll save for the debriefing.
She drops out of comms. Though Blackbird is gone, the ambient noise is still overwhelming, and she has to shout just to be heard. “Don’t talk,” she warns the civilians. “Just listen.” She turns the tablet so they can read the document on display. “This is your ticket out of here. It’s a nondisclosure agreement. It says that you agree not to identify us or to describe the actions we undertook on this mission without prior written approval from our company’s chief executive. There is of course an exception allowing you to speak to American officials with top-level security clearances in a confidential setting. Sign it if you want a seat on that helicopter.”
No hesitation from Rogers. “Hey, not a problem. I’m in.” He takes the tablet and scrawls a signature with his index finger, adding his fingerprint in the adjoining box. “Done,” he says. “And what the fuck. I’m not going to write a book.”
But Dushane looks suspicious while Rodrigues sputters in outrage. “This is coercion. You can’t—”
True cuts him off. “We don’t have time to argue,” she shouts over the general cacophony. “Take it or leave it. We’re here for Dr. Atwan, not for you. Your rescue is bonus points as far as we’re concerned. But we’re willing to handle it on a pro bono basis. We will not be sending you a bill.” She takes the tablet back from Rogers, pulls up a fresh copy of the document, and hands it to Rodrigues. “All we’re asking is your signatures on these documents. And you can write a book. You’re free to tell the story of your captivity. That belongs to you. It’s the details of your rescue that you won’t be able to disclose. Small price to pay for your lives.”
“Come on, Dano,” Rogers urges. “Do it. So we can go.”
Rodrigues glowers but he signs. Dushane goes next. When he hands the tablet back, he asks, “What about Dr. Atwan? You going to make her sign one of these?”
“She already has,” True tells him. “Through a power of attorney. She just doesn’t know it yet.” She steps aside, clearing the way for them to exit the DF-21. “Rohan, escort them to the ship.”
Connections
Miles doesn’t like the idea of military companies. Private armies operating without legitimate authority are dangerous. Destabilizing. National armies have political and economic motivations to pursue peace, but private armies rely on a system of eternal war—and their rapid adoption of robotic weaponry only makes them more dangerous, more likely to engage.
Even so, even knowing that someone is paying Requisite Operations for the actions they’ve taken tonight, Miles is goddamn grateful to be out of that cell. Dano was right to say the maneuver with the NDA was coercion, but True was right too. It’s a damn small price to pay.
He jumps down to the sand, dragging Dano with him, just in case the Brazilian is thinking of lodging another protest. But Dano stays quiet. Persuaded? Not likely. Probably in sensory shock from the ongoing engine noise, the stinging sand, the reek of dust and exhaust fumes jammed into their desiccated nasal passages by the wind.
Rohan waves at them to get moving. “This way to Liberty Air, gentlemen! Best service in the region, but we operate on a tight schedule, so double-time it!” In his night camo, he is a soft-focus shadow warrior.
Miles shifts into a jog, following Rohan around the still-idling DF-21. The pavement is cold and harsh against his bare feet, the whipping sand no kinder. His skull vibrates from the roar of the H215’s engine as the transport helicopter’s main rotor turns menacingly overhead and he’s eager to get inside. It’s just a few steps to the dull red light spilling from the open door.
But Rohan holds up a hand for them to stop.
The other soldiers jammed with them in the back of the DF-21 exited as soon as the truck jerked to a hard stop, disappearing into darkness, but now Miles sees them again, shadowy uniforms limned in red light as they move in unison to board the helicopter. They carry Hussam’s body, still hooded and secured in a brown canvas bag. Rohan waits until they’re aboard, then gestures for his charges to follow.
The cabin is cold and only faintly illuminated by the red lights. Every surface, the air itself, vibrates with the rumbling engine. Dust shimmers and dances on the seats, on the floor, in the air, a soft-focus filter that blurs every boundary.
The cabin is configured with rows of canvas seats. There’s a pair of seats to the right of a narrow aisle and, in most of the rows, a single seat to the left.
Near the door the single seats are missing, leaving an open area with cargo tie-downs. Hussam’s body has been laid out partly in that space, his legs blocking access to the rear aisle. Miles is stunned to see a soldier crouched over him, unzipping the body bag.
The hood hides the body’s face but the torso is revealed. It’s unclothed. There is thick black hair on the chest and arms; the red light gives the skin the color of old bronze.
Miles’s shock ramps up when he sees the body move. His heart jumps. He was sure Hussam was dead, but no. There’s no mistake. Hussam’s sinewy arms strain against the zip ties holding his wrists together and the Velcro restraints pinning his limbs to his body.
Rohan gestures Miles forward. A glance in that direction reveals a makeshift partition of casualty blankets that conceals the first pair of seats from the rest of the cabin. Dano and Ryan are settling into the seats behind it.
Miles feigns cooperation, moving a couple of steps, but he wants to know what’s going on with Hussam. So he lingers, watching as the black hood is yanked off. Nothing gentle about the way Hussam is being handled. His neck arches, his mouth opens wide as his bloody, bearded face gasps for air. A black elastic band covers his eyes. His nose is swollen. He flops onto his side, coughing and retching.
Miles stiffens as a hand squeezes his arm. “Get your flight helmet on, Dushane,” Rohan shouts over the engine noise. “And get strapped in.”
Roger that, he mouths. But he delays still, watching as Hussam’s naked body is hauled up and out of the bag. The man is limp, his head lolling. He’s manhandled into a seat at the back of the cabin. A blanket is draped over him, the seat harness clipped over it. He sags, blindfolded head drooping. A man edging in and out of consciousness.
Miles decides he’d better sit before Rohan gets annoyed. He takes the seat behind Dano, swapping the combat helmet he’s been wearing for a flight helmet. When he plugs it in, he finds himself party to a conversation.
A male voice, stern: “Road traffic approaching from the south at high speed, estimated four minutes out. Civilian traffic from the north, twelve minutes away.”