by Debra Tash
“Meaning?”
“Come on, Beck.”
I knew exactly what she meant. It had been a shadow dogging me for weeks. “No, we didn’t have a chance.”
Lois was silent a long moment. “You haven’t told him, have you?”
“Not yet. I wasn’t sure.”
“Easy to find out now. The truth is, you didn’t want to know.”
I hesitated a moment, then nodded. “He’d have sent me back to Texas.”
“To keep you safe,” she grumbled. “Charon.”
My back stiffened.
“That’s right,” she said. “I figured it out a long time ago. My son died the first time Poole ordered the weapon deployed.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“It’s war,” she spat. “Two of the saddest days of my life…always when the sky was red. My husband died of cancer. Damn, he went so fast. Died right at sunset. The sky filled with this hot bright light. It was the end of summer that second year after we’d moved to Farmsworth. And that light when my son…red…”
She squeezed her eyes shut a moment, then stood erect, pushing herself away from the railing. “I’d rather remember the two best days in my life. When I told my husband I was pregnant. And that Fourth of July. There were fireflies both of those nights. Imagine that.” Her eyes grew distant, then latched onto me again. “It’ll make the commander so happy when you do tell him.” She squared her shoulders. “And maybe you’ll be lucky enough to see fireflies.”
She walked away, leaving me alone. I looked out to the sea again. There was nothing but the moonlight skipping on the waves, and a quiet wish…to see fireflies again and to find a way to tell my husband we were expecting…and not be sent away.
CHAPTER 29
Just the garage of the house remained standing. That’s where we set up with a small team under my command. It was the same team I’d led for a year before going on my temporary exile to Texas. Four techs, John Miller our lead, and two enlisteds acting as my bodyguard, we’d developed an expertise in providing backup for sensitive missions. So there I was in the town of Friendly Maryland again, near the spot where the sand cat in which I’d traveled had crashed. According to Bradley, it was a good place to access the DC tunnel system. So we’d made base and were tracking the squad tasked with punching a hole in DC’s defense line. Not a large hole, but just big enough to push through a surgical strike force under David’s direction aimed at their main command center. Hit that and the whole outer shield would fall, along with their defensive drones.
Lois and I sat side by side on piles of scrap wood. With the coms behind our ears and the floating monitor before us, we could hear and see everything. Ten sets of images from the squad’s cams fed into that monitor. We enhanced one at a time, trying to find the best angle as the squad advanced. After a two-hour stretch, they made it through the tunnel and emerged in what looked like an old Metro stop. The team crossed the tracks and heaved themselves onto the platform. Thin sheets of chipped plastic decorated the concrete wall opposite the tracks, old ad screens that once touted a host of products, relics from a time of abundance.
“Up the escalator to your left,” Lois said, her voice coming over the com. She knew this particular urban landscape better than anyone.
Ten in all, the squad had eight crack troops and two of our best techs. They heeded Lois and filed up the escalator, a metal staircase frozen in place, its steps dulled with disuse. The squad entered a cavernous space of the Metro station. The crowds of commuters were long vanished, the ticket and food kiosks abandoned. There was a vaulted ceiling with what looked to be some kind of fanciful mural, a marble floor littered with dried leaves from endless autumns, and street debris blown in through broken windows that had once lined the entrance.
“North through the passage,” Lois said. “Connects to the office building.”
Gunfire. I heard it coming through the com. My breath caught, eyes focused as I yelled, “Report!”
“Under fire,” came the advisement.
I punched an image, the one showing an opening to the street. Outside stood a DHS Humvee with its turret gun pointed into the station. The squad scrambled for cover as they returned fire. The gun battle was over in minutes. What remained of our troops walked out, hands up, weapons given over.
I turned back to our lead tech as he sat at a small portable console. “Miller, DHS contacting base command?”
“Can’t get a read,” John responded as he kept fiddling with the instrumentation.
“Lone patrol,” Lois suggested. “They probably already radioed back they captured intruders.”
“Mission compromised?”
Lois sat silent a moment, then shook her head. “Not yet. But once they get whoever survived back to headquarters, we may be.” Torture. The team could hold out for hours, but not days. I’d learned over the years to what lengths the Feds would go to get the information they wanted.
I stood up and started putting on gear. “Signal base,” I ordered. “Kit up! We have to go in.”
Everyone scrambled. We took a quick inventory of all the armaments we had on hand. Our team would deploy, four techs, Lois and I, along with the two enlisted. Not exactly the crack squad that had gone in ahead of us, but the best we could hope for now. I pulled on my helmet and adjusted the feed. We were ready. “Beck.” It was Jason with our main force. My husband, friend and lover, commander…and I still hadn’t told him about my condition. If we failed, I’d be compromising more than the mission.
“Don’t worry, Poole, I can watch my own back,” I assured him on a private channel.
“You better.”
I sucked in a deep breath, wanting to tell him that I would protect the two of us, our child and me. What my husband did know was this was our best chance of breaking through. I had to go.
We ran past the blast crater where the sand cat had crashed and went west, then down a manhole a few blocks away. It felt cramped as I moved forward, hunched over with a heavy pack on my back. The smell, the closeness, all of it made me nauseous, and my shirt sticky with sweat. I willed away the feeling, pushed it down with each slap of my boots against the rancid water puddled along the tunnel.
After nearly two hours of moving at a fast clip, we stood on the Metro platform. I gave the order to arm, rifles ready as we bounded up the escalator steps. Our team stopped just short of entering the train station. Five bodies were lying out in the open. All our people. Their armaments had been stripped. But not everything; DHS had left something behind. I spotted a thin sliver of silver…what looked to be a small pack with one of the two techs from the squad, dead and lying on his side.
“Miller, look.” I pointed.
“The stunners…maybe,” the lead tech said.
DHS must not have recognized the pencil-thin devices as weapons.
“Give me range.”
Looking at the small tab in his hand, the tech reported, “Nothing in the immediate area.”
I bolted, bent down, rolled the dead man onto his stomach, and unclipped the pack and two rods. With the weapon secured, I ran back and handed the device to Miller.
He checked it. “Fully functional.”
Lois seemed puzzled, but there was no time to explain the latest weaponry.
I waved, signaling our team to advance. We kept down, going behind kiosks and counters, staying clear of the entrance. The train station connected to an indoor arcade of sorts; storefronts, dusty and broken, looked as if they’d been looted eons ago. We raced through the passage and made it to an enclosed courtyard. The skylights, nearly three floors above, were cracked and dingy. The planter directly beneath must have been lush with plant life when this place was a bustling office complex. But now there were only dried reminders of greenery, chipped tiles, and decorative sculptures that had been cannibalized for their metal. Only bits and pieces of them remai
ned, shadows of a time when one could afford the luxury of art.
We skirted the courtyard and found the stairwell leading to the basement. “Miller,” I whispered.
“No scans,” he responded under his breath.
They weren’t scanning for intruders, even after the skirmish. What we could learn from intelligence about the facility under this particular building led us to conclude it was a small security substation. Lightly manned, with a few techs and a solitary guard on each shift—the perfect target. I pointed to the two rods now clipped to Miller’s belt. He nodded, triggering the pack next to them. A quiet hum sounded as the stunners armed.
“Get the guard,” I ordered quietly.
We switched our helmet vid to night vision. It went black for a moment, then brightened again, giving me a clear view as I entered the darkened stairwell. My heart thudded as we made our way down each step. We finally reached the bottom with only a door separating us from our target. Again, I pointed, this time at the metal lever. Miller used a low-level pulse and electronically picked the lock. He tapped my arm, signaling it was open. I played out the scenario in my mind: the two enlisted could strafe the room. But if they hit the equipment, then what was the point?
No, in this, I’d rely on one of Charon’s offspring. “Miller, ready?”
“Yes,” came his answer.
I signaled to one of the enlisted. He kicked open the door and we all stepped back as the tech threw the two stunners inside. A brief flash, a tint of red, and everyone inside collapsed, rendered unconscious. A new development from Deven Michaels’ brainchild. Stunners emitted a low EMS field set for bio frequency.
It would temporarily incapacitate any living thing. The drawback—using so little power, the effect was short-ranged and lasted only minutes. The two soldiers on our team pushed past me. Rat-tat-a-tat, the cold sound of no mercy, the soldiers performed a grim necessity with so much at stake.
I walked into the room and took inventory. The equipment was still operational. The three Fed techs, two men and a woman, were waking up but the guard lay lifeless in his own blood. I only hoped Miller and the other three would be up to the task. They took places at the numerous consoles. Lois came up beside me, visible shock on her usually hardened features. I realized with a cold chill, she’d never seen anything like that stunner with the exception of the day her little boy had died, killed in a flash of red light.
Half an hour went by—a lifetime, under the circumstances. “Shit,” I snapped at the lead. “You close to upload?”
Miller looked over his shoulder at me, sweat beading on his brow. “We can’t get past their wall.”
A wall was more than just an old-fashioned firewall, more than simple virus protection. A wall could keep resetting itself to prevent any foreign code from being uploaded. Only the lead tech on a team would know how to get in and reset, allowing a way to update software. If we couldn’t break through their wall, we couldn’t upload our runner, programming much more powerful than any common worm. If we couldn’t do that, then it would be over, and sooner or later we would be found and eliminated.
I walked to the three captured techs, and examined each of their identity badges dangling from their necks. One of the men bore the rank I was searching for—Adam Tao, their lead. I pointed my rifle at him as he stood next to the lone woman on their team. She looked at me, chin raised, a defiant glint in her eyes.
“You’re the damn lead,” I barked at the man I’d singled out. Tao nodded.
I jammed the rifle against his forehead. “You ready to help us, Mr. Tao?”
With eyes wide, he looked to be fishing for courage. Tao managed to puff out his chest just a little and finally shake his head.
The crack of a bullet reverberated in the room. The female tech’s expression changed from defiance to surprise as she slumped down, her knees buckling, her chest painted with red splatter. One second more and her eyes rolled back in her head as she slid to the floor, lifeless. I turned to see Lois standing behind me, her rifle still pointing to where the woman had stood. Bradley’s eyes, cold crystal, were void of feeling.
For one terrible moment, I thought if I’d made a mistake and the dead woman had been the lead, Bradley could have just destroyed our only hope for success. Lois turned her rifle on Adam Tao.
“Don’t!” Tao yelled, hands held out a moment before dropping to his sides, his voice a whisper as he said, “I’ll help you.”
I took a step back as he came forward and claimed a place beside Miller at the console.
“Watch him,” I ordered our man, the barrel of my rifle pointed at the back of Tao’s head.
Visibly shaken, the Fed worked the touch screen with unsteady fingers. In five minutes, we had the runner uploaded into their security system.
I finally pulled back my rifle and eased its strap over my shoulder. Turning, I saw Lois, those eyes of hers still blank. I needed to reprimand her for acting without orders. Discipline, that’s what Jason had told me, was the key to any military success. But those words stuck in my throat. There was nothing left of this woman, no humanity, no compassion. The Lois Bradley who had crumpled under the guilt for killing the first casualty in this war was no longer present. My neighbor from Farmsworth had died along with her son.
I signaled Jason, a single code word sent out on the Fed’s network—the only way we had to get anything through before we punched a hole in the shield. “Washburn”—short for “Washington Burning.” The clock was now ticking.
CHAPTER 30
Our runner worked. The monitor showed a break in the outer defense shield. We had only minutes to clear out before the Feds traced the security breach to that substation. My team locked down the equipment and made ready to take our prisoners with us. A few seconds, just that quick, and I caught sight of Bradley, her rifle raised and pointed at Tao.
“Stand down!” I snapped.
She glared at me, rifle still held ready. “I said, stand down!”
“You going to leave them at our back?”
A tense moment, with the two enlisteds’ weapons trained on Bradley.
“Stand down,” I said, my gaze fixed on Lois. “Now.”
She finally lowered her weapon. With hands bound, we led the Fed techs out and started up the stairwell just as a shrill whistle blew from inside the substation.
I looked back at Tao, the Fed lead.
“They’re arming the self-destruct!” he yelled, trying to push by me.
We sprinted up the steps. Just as we got to the exit and made a turn to the left of the doorway, a thunderous boom resounded. The explosion jolted us, knocking some of our team off their feet. An orange fireball roiled up the stairwell, licking flames spewing from the doorway. A terrible stench—whatever was left behind had been instantly incinerated. The floor buckled as the substation’s ceiling in the basement level collapsed.
I ran. The weight of my backpack, the rifle clutched in my sweaty hands, felt like nothing. All I could do was run, focused on every bit of ground I could gain as we raced through a passageway connecting to a different office building.
Another explosion boomed nearby. I could see the plume curling skyward thorough the passageway’s plate glass windows. Something had hit blocks away. David. It had to be. Orchestrated well beforehand, the surgical strike would have to be swift to succeed in knocking out as much of their security as possible before the Feds could scramble frequencies and close the breach.
We made it to another enclosed courtyard. It was in the same state of disrepair, its marble flooring cracked and littered with debris. I stopped and looked at the broken skylight, catching sight of the sweeps overhead. The unarmed probes were searching for heat signatures.
I turned and pointed to the two techs. “Cut their ties.”
One of the enlisted followed my order and slashed the cords binding the Feds’ hands.
“
You’re free to go,” I said.
“Then we go with you,” Tao responded.
I glanced at Bradley, her head tilted slightly, her mouth pressed into a scowl.
I studied the techs, then motioned for the whole party, Tao and the other Fed included, to move. We headed out a rear doorway, away from the office complex. More strikes farther away. Behind us, gunfire strafed the train station.
“Bradley!” I yelled over my shoulder.
She came up beside me, easily keeping pace. “Shelter!” There was no time to have the techs check.
One curt nod in response and she took the lead. We kept close to buildings, any place to protect us from being spotted. A bullet whizzed past me. I spun, aimed, and hit the small drone tailing us. It burst into a compact fireball and fell to pieces on the cracked pavement.
Lois bolted down a stairway leading to the Metro.
“Stop!” I shouted, fearing that’s just where the Feds would search for intruders. More bullets—one of our enlisted, along with a tech, were hit. The Fed tech crumbled into a heap at the top of the stairs. Our enlisted keeled over and tumbled down the concrete steps, his body coming to rest at Lois’s feet. For a crazy moment I thought Bradley had killed them both. But she’d been standing looking up at me, never moving, her rifle pointed at the ground. Another round—two drones were locked and ready to take out the rest of us.
The surviving enlisted finished them off with a few clean shots. We rushed down the Metro stairway. But instead of leading us through the subway tunnel, Bradley stopped on the platform. With the flat of her hand, she pushed against a darkened ad panel, struck it in several places, over and over, using a set pattern, until it slipped aside. She went through the slender opening, then came out a moment later when we didn’t follow.
“Damn it, it’s one of the entry points I showed you people.”
“An entry to where?” I yelled.
The ringing of gunfire from even more drones. “Safe shelter.” She took a step back, turned, and disappeared into whatever lay beyond.