“We survived the war,” Beckham said. “We’ll survive whatever this is.”
Whatever this is… he thought.
The limited intel he had right now wasn’t much, but it led him to believe that the attacks at the outposts were the start of something much bigger and widely coordinated. That’s exactly why President Ringgold had requested his council at command to meet her and Team Ghost.
But it wasn’t just soldiers that would win this new fight. The work Kate was doing in her lab was also important.
The thump of a chopper sounded in the distance, and a Black Hawk crossed over the city, putting down in a green space a few blocks away.
“My ride is here,” he said. “I better get moving so I can say goodbye to Javier and the kids.”
He walked away from the window to grab his rucksack and rifle, but she grabbed his prosthetic hand.
“Reed, we still haven’t talked about Senator McComb,” Kate said.
“I know…but that can wait. For now, the more important thing is figuring out who is behind these attacks and what those tunnels are used for.”
“But what if President Ringgold asks you to run for Senate again? With McComb gone, she’ll be even more desperate to find a good candidate.”
“I won’t make a decision without talking to you first, I promise.”
He threw his pack over his shoulders and slung his rifle. Then he opened the door and reached for her hand. She gripped his prosthetic on the walk to the stairs. Several doors were open along the way, one of them to the room Donna was sharing with her son.
Beckham paused at the open doorway. “You guys doing okay?”
Donna managed a half smile, but he knew it was forced. She limped over to the door, her ankle wrapped. Bo wore a tank top that showed off his muscular body.
He seemed fine, despite the bandage on his head.
The two had been through so much in the past decade. Once again, they were victims of war, and if it weren’t for Beckham and Horn, they would have ended up like Bo’s father, Red.
A memory of the large man fighting the Bone Collector on Plum Island flashed through Beckham’s memory—the same beast that had killed Staff Sergeant Alex ‘The Kid’ Riley.
“Your ankle okay?” Beckham asked Donna.
She directed her dull eyes at him and nodded.
All of the torment she had suffered had taken its toll.
Beckham wasn’t sure if Donna would ever come back from the darkness, but he believed there was still hope for her son. Bo still had a sparkle in his gaze. Like most kids, he was resilient.
“I heard that raider died in the police station.” Bo crossed his arms as he continued, “You should have let me take care of that piece of garbage in the woods.”
The spark Beckham had seen a few moments before seemed to grow. But instead of the optimism and hope Beckham had expected, it was replaced by rage.
“We needed information from him,” Beckham said.
“Did you get any?” Bo asked.
Beckham shook his head. “Unfortunately, no.”
Bo snorted and muttered under his breath.
“I’ve got to go, but I’ll see you both soon,” Beckham said. He nodded at Donna and then did the same to Bo. The teenager nodded back and walked away, fists still clenched, knuckles white. “Just wanted to make sure you were doing all right.”
“Let me know if you need anything,” Kate said. “I’m right down the hall.”
“Thank you,” Donna replied. She slowly shut the door, whispering something to Bo that Beckham couldn’t make out.
Kate frowned and Beckham let out a sigh. They made their way down the stairs to the lobby. The place was packed with their fellow refugees, all friends and neighbors, from Peaks Island.
Beckham said hello to a few people but hurried outside. Horn stood on the sidewalk smoking a cigarette, a rifle slung over his back.
“Where are the kids?” Kate asked, holding up a hand to shield her tired eyes from the sun.
Horn pointed with his cigarette at the park across the street, “Figured I’d let ’em run a bit.”
Laughter came from behind several trees in the park. The sound was the last thing Beckham had expected to hear, but it was a welcome one.
He followed the drifting giggles to the park with Kate and Horn. On the other side of the trees, they found Javier, Tasha, and Jenny playing with Ginger and Spark. The dogs rolled in the grass and chased a bone Javier threw.
But not everyone was enjoying the sunshine and dogs.
Timothy sat on a bench, staring into the distance.
“Better keep a close eye on him while I’m gone,” Beckham said.
Kate folded her arms across her chest, looking at the young man with concern. “I will. He’s staying at the shelter until things are secure on the island, and then we’ll have to figure out if he’s going to stay with us.”
“Like I said, we’ll take care of him,” Beckham said.
Horn flicked his cigarette on the ground. “He’s welcome to stay with me, too.”
“We’ll figure it all out.” Beckham shrugged his pack higher on his shoulder. “I’ve really got to get to the bird now.”
“How long you going to be gone?” Horn asked.
“Hopefully not more than a day or two.” Horn smothered the cigarette with a boot. “You sure you don’t want me to come?”
“I want you to stay here and keep watch over the home fires,” Beckham said.
“You got it, boss.”
Javier spotted them then and came running over. He wrapped his arms around Beckham.
“Look after your mom for me while I’m gone.”
“I will, Dad.”
Javier ran back to the other kids, and Beckham made his way over to Timothy. The teenager looked up as he approached.
“How you doing?” Beckham asked.
Timothy didn’t reply.
“I’m really sorry about your dad.”
Timothy didn’t respond to that either, but he did look at Beckham’s fatigues, rucksack, and weapon.
“You going somewhere?”
Beckham pointed to the chopper waiting in a field a few blocks away. “To SOCOM on the USS George Johnson.”
“Can I come?”
“You have a more important role here,” Beckham said. He jerked his chin at the kids. “I need you to look after everyone like your dad did.”
Timothy glanced around. “I want to fight, not play babysitter.”
Beckham understood where he was coming from. Just like Bo, Timothy wanted to fight back. Wanted revenge for what he’d lost. But neither of the boys were ready or even trained to fight the raiders or Variants.
“When I get back, you, me, and Bo are going to sit down to talk about your futures,” Beckham said. “Until then, please watch after things here for me. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay,” Timothy replied. He got up and followed Beckham over to the group that had huddled around the dogs.
“I’ll see you all soon,” Beckham said. He finished his goodbyes, patted Spark and Ginger, and then he set off for a new mission.
The pilots and crew chief waited for him in the grass outside the Black Hawk, eating a snack of local produce a few citizens had brought them.
“Captain Beckham, good to have you with us,” said one of the pilots. He climbed back into the cockpit, and the crew chief jumped into the open troop hold.
“Captain,” he said, handing him a headset.
“Thanks,” Beckham said.
A few minutes later they pulled into the air.
Beckham looked out the window to the quaint city below, seeing the hotel turned shelter for refugees from Peaks Island and the Marines and Rangers patrolling the area.
Several Humvees and a MATV sat parked in front of the police station. Despite all their firepower and armor, they hadn’t been able to stop the raider from burning his face off with Variant acid.
Debris piles and the charcoaled ground outside town hall evinced the night’s des
truction.
Beckham closed his eyes and rested his head on the bulkhead.
There were so many questions in his mind; hopefully, in a few hours, he would start to get some answers.
But first, he needed sleep.
***
President Jan Ringgold flew under the cover of darkness in a stealth Black Hawk like the one she had used to escape the attack on the Greenbrier almost eight years ago.
Tonight, she wasn’t escaping anything, but her nerves were still tight like back then. Over the past several days, the situation had escalated from one outpost going dark to three outposts going dark, and three more attacked by raiders.
Her generals and intelligence officers were still piecing things together. By the time she reached command she hoped to have a better idea of what the hell was happening out there.
She had been in politics long enough to know one thing—these attacks would have a dramatic effect on the upcoming election. The violence gave General Cornelius and his Freedom Party plenty of ammo to accuse her administration of being unable to protect the country, which meant more ammo to support bombing the cities and conscripting an army of kids to fight.
Last week, Vice President Lemke had been ahead in the polls. This week the polls would tell a different story. Fear was a powerful motivating factor, and there had been plenty of reasons for fear to spread through the citizens of the safe zones.
She opened her briefing folder to see more numbers. These weren’t polls; they were the number of troops she had at her disposal. Before she left, she had requested the current count from her staff.
Now she stared at them.
These can’t be right…
Twelve thousand and change wasn’t much.
There were ninety-eight outposts, varying in size. If her math was right, and she deployed all the troops equally, there would be just over one hundred and twenty for each outpost to join the current militias there.
Hardly an army.
The Navy and Air Force had about the same numbers combined with just shy of fifteen thousand. But that wouldn’t help at the outposts except by pulling the Special Ops teams like the SEALs.
She didn’t like it, but Cornelius had two thousand of his own men and women in his private army that could be deployed should the need arise. But she wasn’t sure how cooperative he would be given the current political climate and certainly didn’t want to rely on them if she didn’t have to.
Next she looked at the current estimate of Variants in the frontier and living in the abandoned cities. The number seemed like a lot, but it wasn’t a surprise.
Sixty to sixty-five thousand.
The estimate had actually gone down since she saw it last, with scientists arguing the creatures were starving to death and killing each other. There was almost no evidence of any breeding, which was another good sign that their numbers would continue to drop.
The beasts didn’t seem like a huge threat until now, and that’s why she hadn’t destroyed the cities or sent in precious troops to wipe them out. Plus, there was still the hope that someday humanity could reclaim those urban centers, once symbols of their economic and cultural strength.
The idea was to let the creatures die naturally, and only go after the Alphas that ventured out to cause problems at the outposts. The plan had worked well until two days ago.
“ETA fifteen minutes, Madam President,” said one of the pilots.
Ringgold put her briefing folder back into her pack, trying to suppress her worries. She was packing light, expecting to stay on the USS George Johnson only twenty-four hours or less.
Vice President Lemke had remained behind at the Greenbrier’s PEOC. He and Brigadier General Lucas Barnes had insisted she stay there, but she wanted to talk in person to the teams most familiar with the situation.
The soldiers on the ground were always more knowledgeable than the generals about what was really happening, from her experience.
Men like Captain Reed Beckham, whom she trusted more than all of her generals combined. He had served his country in a way few men in the history of the country had served, and now she needed him for a new mission.
With the death of Senator McComb last night, it was time for the former leader of Team Ghost to carry the torch into the halls of Congress.
She also needed his wife, Kate, to figure out what was going on in the tunnels. The couple had done more for America than anyone she knew, and once again, she was asking for their help.
“Prepare for landing,” said one of the pilots.
Ringgold looked out the porthole window. She knew she was over the ocean, but she couldn’t see the stealth destroyer in the darkness. Clouds drifted across the horizon blocking out most of the moonlight and the stars.
A few moments later the wheels touched down with a soft jolt.
The crew chief across from her opened the door, and two of her Secret Service agents helped her onto the deck. A group of Marines ran over to escort them.
General Noah Souza, the SOCOM Commander, waited for her outside a hatch. He was a handsome man with a square jaw, sharp nose, and even sharper green eyes.
“Madam President, good to have you with us tonight,” he said in his rough voice.
“Thank you, General. First things first, take me to that Alpha.”
Souza looked at her security guards, but quickly focused back on her. “Yes, Madam President, but I’ll warn you, it’s pretty gruesome.”
“I’ve seen plenty of dead monsters,” she said.
“That makes two of us,” Souza said. “Follow me, Madam President.”
They went to the lower decks where two Marines stood guard outside a hatch marked with a biohazard symbol. When they saw her, both men came to attention.
“At ease, gentlemen,” she said.
Souza gestured toward the hatch and the Marines opened it to a cold dark room. One of them switched on a light, revealing several metal tables. A corpse lay on the center table, covered mostly by a white blanket.
Huge arms hung over the sides, talons protruding out of thick fingers.
Footsteps echoed down the passage and a man wearing a white lab coat with slicked back hair joined them.
“Madam President, I’d like to introduce you to Doctor Jeff Carr,” said Souza.
Ringgold shook the man’s hand.
“Nice to meet you, President Ringgold,” Carr said. “I take it you want to see our new specimen.”
“Indeed, I do.”
Souza nodded at the two Marines. They entered the freezing room and Carr followed without hesitation. He pulled reading glasses out of his breast pocket, put them on, and then placed a pair of protective goggles over those.
“Let’s give President Ringgold a look at our new friend,” Carr said.
The Marines pulled the blanket back to reveal the grotesque ape-like face of a monster without eyes. Crusted blood lined its wide nostrils, and saggy lips hung over curved fangs. But it was the bat-like ears fanning off its face that sparked her curiosity.
She stepped closer. “Doctor, tell me what in the devil I’m looking at.”
“A new Alpha Variant, Madam President.”
Ringgold kept her gaze on the beast while Carr put on surgical gloves. Then he grabbed a scalpel off a tray and used it to push up a flap of skin covering a tendril on its back.
“This Alpha has strange attributes unlike any I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a lot,” he said glancing up for a moment. “The huge claws’ purpose seems clear enough: digging.”
He focused back on the tendril. “But these are more interesting. They have some kind of fibers in them. According to Team Ghost, those fibers seem to interact with the webs in all those tunnels. I’m told Doctor Kate Lovato is working on identifying and studying those samples.”
“She is,” Souza confirmed.
“I’d like to talk to her,” Carr said. “Get her opinion on what we’re dealing with.”
“And what’s yours?” Ringgold asked.
Carr looked down at the corpse for several moments before glancing at her. “I think we’re dealing with a deadly new threat that’s been evolving underground right beneath our noses.”
— 13 —
“Beckham!” shouted Rico.
She got up from the metal table and ran across the mess hall of the USS George Johnson.
Fitz pushed himself up fast—a bit too fast. Pain flashed across his back, reminding him of the injuries and damage his body had never quite had the chance to recover from. The soreness quickly faded, replaced by joy at the sight of his friend and mentor. He and the rest of Team Ghost followed quickly after Rico toward his old friend, anxious to talk to the man that had once been the leader of the Delta Force Team Ghost.
Beckham walked toward them with a slight limp on his way to embrace Rico.
Despite his limp and the prosthetic hand, Beckham looked pretty good to Fitz, if not a bit older. His perpetual five o’clock shadow had streaks of gray on his chin, and his hair was much longer. But his uniform was filled out well with hardened muscles.
“Captain, it’s great to see you,” Fitz said. He reached out to shake Beckham’s hand but Beckham wrapped him up in a hug like he had Rico.
“You know you’re not supposed to call me Captain,” he said. “I’m a civilian now.”
“You’ll always be the leader of Team Ghost to me.” Fitz smiled and patted Beckham on the back. “I’ve missed you, my friend.”
“I’ve missed you too, brother.”
They pulled away and Beckham looked Fitz up and down. “You look good,” he said. “Still got that baby face.”
Fitz stroked his chin and smirked. “Still can’t grow a beard, but Rico doesn’t seem to mind.”
“Not a fan of facial hair on myself or others,” Rico said with a grin. That got a laugh from the rest of the team. “No offense, of course, Captain.”
“None taken. Kate doesn’t seem to mind.”
“How is Kate and the rest of the family?” Rico asked. “And Big Horn and his girls?”
“The family is okay. So is Horn and his family…but we lost Jake Temper and twenty-two more people across Peaks Island and Portland in the attack.”
The grins on Team Ghost’s faces all vanished. Fitz said a mental prayer for Jake and the other victims, then quickly regained his composure.
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