by Bob Mayer
All that was left was Burns and a diminishing Portal.
Moms took a step forward, then spun, letting loose a high kick that hit Burns’s face and knocked him back. Up against the golden iris.
“No!” Burns screamed.
“Yes,” Roland replied, firing an entire magazine from his MP-5 into Burns. The bullets didn’t kill him, but they pushed him back and then he was sucked into the iris.
The Portal flickered, pulsed, and then snapped out of existence.
“Doc, help Kirk,” Moms ordered as she went over to Ivar. “You can stop pedaling.”
He didn’t hear her, pedaling faster and faster until Moms slapped him with a syringe and Roland caught him as he tumbled off the bike, unconscious.
The team was on the Snake, all the equipment from Doctor Winslow’s secret lab strapped down in the middle of the cargo bay. Ivar was seat-belted in, still unconscious, not aware he was going to a new job. Kirk was stable, Doc working on him the entire way.
Eagle brought them down onto the taxiway just outside the hidden hangar at Area 51. He lowered the ramp and Support personnel came in and carted off the equipment and Ivar on a stretcher. Eagle brought the ramp back up and took off. He flew them to the Ranch and lowered the Snake back into the Barn.
“Home again, home again,” Eagle said, because he always said that when they got back from an op.
They piled in the Humvee, Roland taking the fifty-caliber and singing “Werewolves of London” because he liked the howling part. Moms was in the passenger seat, Eagle was driving, and the rest were jammed in. Kirk complained about Mac jabbing him in the ribs with his MP-5, and Mac warned if he complained any more he wouldn’t get his three-beer successful mission allotment of Pearl when they got back to the Den.
Moms turned in her seat and spoke over the team net. “Mac, you took two extra Pearls during Kirk’s naming ceremony.”
That shut Mac up for a moment. “Sorry, Moms.”
“Just don’t do it again, all right?” Moms said.
Mac nodded.
Moms looked at Nada, crunched into the back corner of the Humvee. “You going to be okay?”
Roland stopped singing, and the only sound was the diesel engine and the tires rolling down the road.
“Yeah,” Nada said. “But I am going to miss her.”
Roland howled from the hole: “Aahoo! Werewolves of London!” And the rest of the team howled with him, the sound echoing across the Ranch so loud that they must have heard it in Area 51: “Aaho! Aaho!”
Ms. Jones read the debrief from the Ivar Incident one more time, then tossed it aside.
“This is not good,” Pitr said.
“It is never good, but we will deal with it,” Ms. Jones said. “Just as we deal with every challenge we are faced with. Do you have the other file?”
Pitr extended a painfully thin file.
Ms. Jones opened it and quickly read the contents. The ghost of a smile crossed her face. She snapped it shut, then extended it with her scarred and burn-streaked hand to Pitr.
“File it under priority possibles.”
“What title?” Pitr asked as he took the file. “Her name is—”
Ms. Jones forestalled him. “File it under Scout.”
Profound thanks to Debbie Cavanaugh for her invaluable streams, her font of ‘useless’ information, the horseshoe, and her incredible patience.
To Craig Cavanaugh for Riley K., the lab at UNC, and his imagination and working to invent the tricorder.
To ODA 055, 2d Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne), the A-Team I had the honor to command.
My mates at Western Command Special Operations, JFK Special Warfare Center, and other units in my journey in that world.
And, of course, to you, the reader.
Photograph © Bob Mayer, 2004
New York Times best-selling author, West Point graduate, and former Green Beret Bob Mayer weaves military, historical, and scientific fact through his gripping works of fiction. His books span numerous genres—suspense, science fiction, military, historical, and more—and Mayer holds the distinction of being the only male author listed on the Romance Writers of America Honor Roll. As one of today’s top-performing independent authors, Mayer has drawn on his digital publishing expertise and military exploits to craft more than fifty novels that have sold more than 4 million copies worldwide. These include his best-selling Atlantis, Area 51, and Green Beret series. Alongside his writing, Mayer is an international keynote speaker, teacher, and CEO. He lives in Knoxville, Tennessee.