The men nodded. At no time had they challenged her, or acted resentful, or blew her off. They’d offered her respect and equal standing and not just deference because she was a superior ranking officer.
As much as it could, it felt like they were becoming a team. The difference being that the men were the team and absorbing her into their world despite her being the pilot and her training them.
On the ride back to Seattle she once again noticed the difference between the camaraderie she felt with them and the comfortably uncomfortable tug she felt for Kilo and Foxtrot.
Maybe it’s just that you never forget your first monkeys.
* * * *
Evening chow was ready when they returned, cleared their stick tests, and headed upstairs. Foxtrot and Kilo were there, but so was nearly everyone else in the unit, including the two civvies—an older woman, Sharon, and Mike, one of Chief’s former deputies.
Kyong knew it’d be more than a little obvious if she pulled Foxtrot and Kilo aside to talk to them right then, so she opted to sit back when Papa opened an unofficial status update session.
“You’re welcomed to stay,” he told her when he spotted her there, “but don’t feel obligated this time. I know you’ve had a long day.”
“Naw, it’s okay.”
“And I received your official orders today,” he said, swiping through a tablet and handing it to her to read. “You’re unofficially officially with our unit for the duration.”
She glanced through the orders and signed with her finger where she was supposed to. It was just a formality, and since it was a black ops team it basically meant most of her personnel file from this point on got shaded out to the average set of military eyes. They could tell she was in, active, and alive, but if they wanted to know anything else, they’d be referred directly to General Joseph Arliss about it. Her cover assignment listing was out of MacDill, which meant the average Joe looking at her ID wouldn’t see anything amiss.
Only a higher ranking officer digging deeper would be able to find the roadblock to more information.
She returned the tablet to him. “Welcome aboard,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“You still don’t have to stay for the briefing if you don’t want to.”
“No, I’m comfy now,” she said, wiggling her butt in the uncomfortable metal folding chair Omega had scrounged from somewhere, drawing a soft round of laughter from some of the others.
Besides, it wasn’t like she could do the other thing she wanted to do, which was talk to Kilo and Foxtrot.
And even if she did talk to them, alone, she still wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted to say.
Yes, she was attracted to the two men, but it didn’t mean she was ready to jump into bed with them. Well, maybe she was ready to do that. She was no prude. She wasn’t sure if she was ready to do that with the thoughts of making it more than a few fun rolls in the rack.
Although working with them for any period of time might end up leading to exactly that end, but she’d hold off making that call for now. Besides, she outranked them. And maybe the other women were okay bunking with guys from this unit, but if she was officially on a mission with them and things got weird personally, she didn’t want it spilling over into the rest of the unit’s dynamics.
Especially not when lives were at stake.
“Omega,” Papa said, “you’re up first. What do you have?”
Omega, Uncle, and Chief had just returned to the safe house with Canuck a few minutes after Kyong and the other three men. Kyong had watched, a little envious, as Echo had planted a sizzling welcome-back kiss on Chief that curled Kyong’s toes from the other side of the room.
“Well, the black market seems to be alive and well in Seattle,” Omega started.
“How’s that?” Papa asked.
The large man snorted as he rubbed a hand over his smooth, ebony skull. “Canuck’s friend told me what’s going on. You can get the basics of life here in the city, no problem. I knew ammo and weapons might be an issue, nothing insurmountable. But the medical black market here…phew. They are making a killing. Seems to have started just after Kite really hit the news last year. If it’s not an over-the-counter drug, good luck getting it. Lots of medical equipment and supplies, too. Even Canuck’s friend’s lab where they work, over three quarters of the supply shipments they order disappear in transit after leaving the Seattle warehouse hub for delivery. Hospitals are hurting big-time. Sending armed guards to retrieve their stuff directly from the shipment distribution warehouses once it arrives in Seattle. Dig this, that damn Silo has built one of his compounds out east of here, near this little place called Brewster.” He pulled sat pics up on his tablet and turned it so Papa could see it.
“Isn’t that interesting?” Papa mused.
“Yeah, and it gets better. Rumors are that the black market shortages coincided with them building that compound of theirs. It’s like a small, self-contained city slap in the middle of what used to be farmland, with its own irrigation system and everything. Even more interesting? They have a huge medical facility and research lab there. Neither of which apparently have had any troubles getting supplies.”
“How many people in the place?”
“Bubba ran me some numbers. Based on satellite images, it looks like it’ll house several thousand people, easy, but with room for more. Like maybe they haven’t finished moving everyone in there yet. A couple of the buildings are still under construction.”
“I didn’t think Silo had a church here in Seattle,” Papa said.
“He doesn’t. He’s got one out in Spokane.”
Papa sat back, staring at the tablet. “Why would he send volunteers to Seattle to infect the population, yet set up one of his strongholds not too far east of the city?”
It seemed everyone had moved well past the conjecture stage when it came to questioning Silo’s involvement in the underhanded plots. They had more than enough evidence of it to satisfy their minds.
Unfortunately, most of that evidence had been gained by classified and, in some cases, highly illegal means.
Chief leaned in and poked at the tablet with her finger, spinning it around so she could get a better view of it. “He’s going for a certain demographic, obviously. Seattle’s population is probably too liberal for his tastes. Wipe out the masses, so to speak, and have his own people right there close by and ready to take over.”
“There’s been a metric shit-ton of pharmacy break-ins,” Omega said. “High-tech. Hackers disabling the security systems and then the thieves go in and clear things out.”
Kyong spoke up before she realized she was going to, but the thought had hit her out of the clear blue. “Anyone check out the Seattle Underground for your missing woman?”
When the group went silent and every person focused on her, she realized they had no idea what she was talking about. Or, they hadn’t considered it as an option.
“Seriously?” she said. “That old tunnel system below the city? Last I’d heard, they’d closed it to tourists about the same time the Space Needle collapsed, due to earthquake damage. But I bet it’s still there. What better way to move undetected and hide shit?”
Kilo’s eyebrows shot up. “Fuck me, I totally forgot about those. I bet no one’s checked those old tunnel systems out. Lima, what did Bubba find out about the local information the Preachsearch clinic gave each of the volunteers when they were sent out?”
Lima grabbed his own tablet and started tapping and swiping, pausing after a moment. Giggles erupted from him. “Holy. Shit. We don’t have all the exact info the volunteers were given. They memorized it. It just says that each volunteer was given detailed maps and vital information of the areas they were being sent to for study and memorization.” He swiped through some more stuff. “Holy farking hell, I bet the answer’s literally been under our noses the whole time. She probably made it down there under the city. I don’t think any of the SOTIF teams searched down there. I know we haven’t.”
Papa let out something that sounded like a groan, whether of frustration or exhaustion, Kyong couldn’t tell. “Alpha, take a team—”
The second in command was already rising to his feet. “On it. Kilo, Foxtrot, Juju, Delta, Oscar, Yankee, Uncle, and Tango. We roll in five.” Those men jumped up and ran, presumably heading for their respective quarters to gear up.
Kyong looked around, feeling a little adrift now that Kilo and Foxtrot would be leaving.
So much for having a chance to talk to them tonight. “So your missing woman is maybe dead down in the sewers somewhere?”
Papa rubbed at his forehead but didn’t look at her. “Worst-case.”
“Worst? Don’t you want her not infecting people?”
“Yes, but her being dead isn’t the best-case.”
“Then what is the best case?”
Q, who’d been leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, spoke up. “The best case is that they discover her alive and hiding out in the tunnels.”
She turned to look at the Korean scientist. “I thought your hypothesis was that she might not have survived because a pocket of Kite infection didn’t pop up.”
“It was,” he agreed. “Until we considered the alternatives. I admit I was having my doubts, but that was before we knew of the tunnel systems. Perhaps she got down there and did not make it back up again. That would be very disappointing. To have her survive Kite just to have something else kill her would be a shame.”
“I’m not sure you know what that word means, dude,” she snarked.
The scientist nudged his glasses up on his nose. “Believe me, captain. I know exactly what that word means. Unfortunately, I know all too well what it means because it was my actions that brought us to this place.”
Yeah, well, guess he has a point there.
He then said something to her in Korean. She thought it was Korean. She didn’t speak the language, only knew a few words of it. “Sorry, I didn’t grok that.”
Niner spoke up from where he leaned against the wall on the opposite side of the room from Q. “In trying to save a few, and myself, I helped kill millions, and shamed myself.”
“You speak Korean?” she asked Niner.
He gave her a little half bow.
“You are men of many talents,” she said.
“Some of us,” Niner agreed.
Chapter Fifteen
The search team—including Kilo and Foxtrot—hadn’t yet returned by early the next morning when Kyong and her crew-in-training were ready to pull out and head to McChord.
“Do you want us to wait in case you need some of these guys?” she asked Papa.
“No, they radioed in a little bit ago. They’re on their way back.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
He cocked his head at her. “Anything else?”
“No, that was all.”
Disappointment that she wouldn’t see Kilo and Foxtrot until that night, at the earliest, washed through her and caught her unaware. She tried to throw herself into the conversation on the way down to McChord, but found her mind drifting during any lulls.
Hoping the men had made it back to the safe house all right.
Get your head on straight, woman. You’ve got a job to do.
It was after 19:00 hours by the time they returned that evening. They’d spent more time running through the navigational systems during flight than she’d intended, but Zed had a knack or talent or spooky voodoo skills or something, and had zipped through her usual training far faster than she’d realized he would. It hadn’t made sense to just stop what they were doing because of the time.
Engulfed in their training, she hadn’t had the energy to think about Foxtrot and Kilo until she returned to the safe house. Pandora had kept chili warm for them in a pot on the stove, along with leftover cornbread. Everyone else had already eaten, and a smaller contingent of men, led again by Alpha and including Kilo and Foxtrot, had left minutes earlier.
Damn.
“They don’t get much sleep, huh?” she joked with Papa.
“Well, they already know where they searched, and have developed a little familiarity with the tunnels. In this case, it’s better to have the same guys going back in there. For our topside searches, I like switching them out. They’ve gridded those searches out on GPS already, mapped them out. It’s a little different below ground.”
“Ah. Makes sense.”
Canuck was just emerging from her shower as Kyong headed for their shared room. The scientist smiled and shook hands with her. “Day shift coming home, night shift going out, as it were.”
“I’ve had worse roommates,” Kyong agreed with a smile.
After her own shower, Kyong laid on her bedroll and tried to quiet her mind as she stared at the shadows cast on the walls by streetlights outside.
Somewhere in the building, she heard a woman’s soft moan, accompanied by rhythmic sounds that could only be flesh slapping against flesh.
Someone was getting it on.
She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the sounds. But now that she’d isolated and identified them, they only sounded louder.
Wonder what Kilo and Foxtrot sound like in the sack?
Argh, not helping.
She thought about rubbing one out and decided no, that wasn’t the problem.
Not quite, exactly.
She guessed.
Sort of.
No, she damn well knew what the problem was. Whenever something hung over her head, unfinished or unresolved, she rarely found rest until she rectified the situation.
In this case, she needed to talk to Kilo and Foxtrot. Even if just to explain why she’d lashed out at them the way she had.
To roll that boulder off her shoulder.
The unseen lovers finally finished, the woman’s voice as well as the man’s letting out bookended, satisfied moans that only echoed through Kyong and accentuated how empty and alone she felt.
Tomorrow. I’ll talk to them tomorrow.
* * * *
Apparently dead on their feet, the men had returned empty-handed and hit their racks before Kyong emerged from her room the next morning. When she went down to the kitchen and found Pandora at the stove, she got that news.
“Oh.”
Pandora smirked, but it looked more friendly and knowing than smart-assed. “I thought I’d heard you didn’t mix well with those two.”
Kyong grabbed a plate and hoped her face wasn’t too red. “Hadn’t really had a chance to get off on the right foot with them,” she said.
“Well, when we get to Florida, hopefully you guys will be able to figure out if there’s any chemistry there or not.”
Something inside Kyong deflated. That could be several weeks away, if not longer. “Yeah, Florida.”
Echo, Zed, and Victor appeared in the kitchen, thankfully derailing her train of thought. All three of them had been perusing the C-160 manuals on their tablets overnight and had questions galore.
Even better.
By the time they reached the main gate at McChord, her throat almost felt sore from nonstop talking with the three men.
Her confidence in their abilities was growing in direct proportion to her personal discomfort.
And since she was an expert at stuffing her emotions, she did what she did best, focused on her job and threw herself into trying to turn three monkeys into airmen.
* * * *
It was another late day for them, being after 21:00 hours when they finally returned to the safe house.
Pandora and Sharon sat talking at a table outside the kitchen. “There’s a pan of roasted chicken and veggies staying warm in the oven for you,” Pandora told them.
“Thanks,” Victor said. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you you don’t pull your weight around here, snowflake.” He flashed her a grin. “This army moves on its stomach, and you keep the wheels greased just fine.”
She smiled. “Aw, you sweet talker.”
Kind of like what she’d had with Tuan.
Aaaaannnnd there go the emotions again.
Citing exhaustion, she hurried through her meal and returned to her room so she could be alone and pull herself together. These were battle-hardened warriors taking every bit of the complicated procedures and skills she threw at them with aplomb and not a single ounce of complaint.
To break down in front of them would be unforgivable, in her mind.
She’d never be able to face them again if she did that.
* * * *
Canuck was just coming in to go to bed the next morning as Kyong was ready to head downstairs for breakfast.
Canuck sent her a smile full of exhaustion. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this. People will talk.”
Kyong managed a laugh despite how poorly she’d slept. “They wouldn’t be able to hear us over the moans and groans from the surrounding rooms.”
The older woman laughed. “Yeah, there is that. Some of them get a little frisky. I can’t blame them. Trying to fit as much of life in while they can, filling the little gaps.”
“Sounded like gaps were being filled last night, all right.” It’d been another reason for her own poor sleep.
Kyong closed the door on Canuck’s laughter and headed down for breakfast.
A guy she thought was named Roscoe stood there, holding a plate up like a shield against Pandora, when Kyong entered the kitchen.
“Uh, am I interrupting something?”
Roscoe slid behind Kyong, using her as a human shield and peeking from around her. “Look, I didn’t mean it like that, I swear!”
Pandora, who had a batch of pancakes cooking on a griddle stretched across two burners, angrily shook her spatula at him. “You know what, Roscoe? From now on, you are forbidden to come to breakfast unless you’re accompanied by Annie or Niner.”
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