by Brian Nelson
Jane realized that for Lili and her family, a long hard struggle was finally over. Xiao-ping was the last piece of the puzzle. The last living member of their family to escape the Chinese and come home.
Jane heard Lili say the name “Eric” and she perked up. When she met Lili’s gaze, she froze. The woman’s face had suddenly gone pale.
For Jane it suddenly seemed as if the air had been drained of all its oxygen.
The coconut milk fell from her hand and hit the floor, its contents flowing out across the tile floor as the carton aspirated like a panting lung.
Part Two
Tribal Formations
Chapter Twelve
The Storm
November 5, 2026
Naval Research Lab, Washington, DC
“I’m sorry, Jane,” Sawyer said, “but I don’t have much to tell you.”
“How can that be? Is he alive or dead?”
“We don’t know.”
“How can you not know? I thought you were leading the rescue mission.”
“Technically, I am, but we’re stuck on the carrier.”
“Oh, God, you mean he’s still out there? He could be . . .” She felt her emotions welling up, but her anger quickly stifled her fear. “What the hell are you doing, Sawyer? What happened to ‘never leave a man behind’?”
“The CSAR choppers were sent out before I reached the carrier. The problem is that the Chinese lost two aircraft just five hundred yards from our crash site. When our choppers saw theirs, somebody started shooting. It looked like it was going to be another clusterfuck, but luckily cooler heads prevailed, but the rescue mission had to be aborted.
“Then the Namibian government got involved and told both sides to stay the hell out of their airspace. Now the State Department’s trying to get a solution. In the meantime, we’re stuck here. I’m sorry. The only piece of good news is that we know the Chinese haven’t gotten there either.”
“Oh my God, Sawyer. You’ve got to go get him.”
“There’s more. A big storm is coming in. If we don’t get clearance from the Namibians in the next few hours, Everett will have to suspend flight ops. The storm could last as long as twelve hours.”
Jane pushed her palms into her eyes, feeling completely helpless. “Haven’t you heard anything? No distress call? Nothing?”
“No. We were able to keep a drone over the area for a few hours. We could see the crash site pretty clearly, and there was no movement. But it’s the region around the site that’s the problem. The tree cover is thick in the spot where we think Eric would be.”
“Why wouldn’t he be at the crash site?”
“Because he fell out the starboard door a moment before the aircraft went down. I saw the footage from the drone myself. He must have fallen about twenty feet before hitting the forest canopy. If anybody survived the crash it would have been him.”
Jane squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, trying to fight off the image of Eric lying wounded, with no one to help him.
“When are you going to get him?” It was part question, part directive.
“You know that if it were up to me, things would be different, right?”
She gave a long exhale. “Yeah,” she said, “I know.”
Chapter Thirteen
The Infiltrator
November 5, 2026
Naval Research Lab, Washington DC
Vice Admiral James Curtiss looked at the dossier and scowled. General Walden isn’t wasting any time, is he? As if I don’t have enough to worry about with the Namibian raid.
It had been less than twelve hours since their briefing, and already the Assistant Joint Chief had launched the first volley. Curtiss could tell it was going to be a bitter fight. Oh, the irony. He had spent the last eighteen months battling (and eventually defeating) the Chinese in order to keep this technology safe . . . to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. But now his biggest enemy was not a foreign power, but the very military institution that he had devoted his life to serve.
What a world.
He looked at the profile again.
Top in her class at the Air Force Academy.
A spotless record working in missile defense systems at NORAD.
Four years at the NSA working on SIGINT.
Seven years as a top AI researcher at Google.
Impeccable.
Perhaps I could dig something up from her high school . . . He stopped himself, realizing the length of his desperation.
There were several ironies here. Throughout his long career, Curtiss had encountered his share of fiefdoms within the DOD. Clusters of power or influence or laziness that were jealously guarded from the inside. Now he was on the other side of one of those fiefdoms. But his project was different. Here, for once, was a top-secret project that deserved protection, whose secrets had to be tightly guarded, kept to a wise few within the military and out of politics for as long as possible. This was not just for the good for the navy, it was the right thing for the whole country and, perhaps, all mankind.
But it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep this Pandora’s box closed. If it could even still be considered closed.
Such is the nature of power, Curtiss thought. He finally had it. And now everyone with a star on his shoulder wanted to take it from him. He felt besieged by half the Pentagon, NSA, the CIA, and Homeland Security. Thank God Admiral Garrett had been able to hold them off. It was safer for everyone if the NRL kept control.
Now Walden threatened to mess the whole thing up. Walden never gambled unless he was sure he would win . . . and win smelling pretty. Which was why he had waited until after Curtiss had achieved replication before he set his sights on the Naval Research Lab. As soon as he began to understand what Curtiss had done and the power and influence it gave him, he had been trying every possible trick to get the NRL’s secrets.
In Curtiss’s hand was the most recent attempt.
Olivia Rosario, special envoy from the air force. “To be given full access to NRL facilities, personnel, and records, and integrated into the Artificial Intelligence team.”
Special Envoy, Curtiss scoffed, is that what they call spies these days?
Curtiss intended to fight it, of course. The problem was that Walden had picked well. Rosario was one of the best in her field, a top AI researcher at Google who had, for some strange reason, left her seven-figure income and returned to the public sector. Why? Because she was dedicated to helping her country? Curtiss didn’t think so. No, there was only one good reason: there was something here she couldn’t get there. And he knew what it was.
Forced Evolution.
It was the key to everything, the single most important innovation that had gotten them to replication. And it was Eric Hill’s brainchild—an idea that was both simple and ingenious. He had realized that they could use the principles of natural selection to make dramatic leaps forward in their engineering processes. While human evolution was measured in thousands of years, the evolution of their nanosites could be measured in milliseconds, even nanoseconds. Just as bacteria could quickly evolve a resistance to an antibiotic over successive generations, their swarms could be forced to evolve into any tool or instrument they needed.
It was the one idea that had allowed them to defeat the Chinese, and its applications were endless.
That’s why Rosario was here. He knew it.
Chapter Fourteen
Boots on the Ground
November 5, 2026
Namibia
Master Chief Nathan Sawyer moved through the night jungle toward the downed Valor. He led his team cautiously. All their intel told them that they were alone and the first ones here, but he wasn’t taking any chances. The last thing they needed was another run-in with the Chinese.
He’d had to pull out all the stops
to convince Captain Everett to let him and his team off the Ford. After the botched raid, the man was afraid of losing his command. He’d told Sawyer flatly that he couldn’t afford any more bad news. Sawyer had assured him they could use the cover of the receding storm to make a clean insertion.
The storm had been a nasty one, and the rain was still pouring down around them. The sound of it filled his ears as it smacked off the wide leaves of the tropical forest. Yet despite the rain and the night, his visibility was excellent and not a drop of water touched him, thanks to the Venger armor and optics that filtered out the rain and turned night into day. Enhanced by AI, it was often difficult to tell it wasn’t daytime; only when he turned his head upward and saw the stars did he remember.
As he parted the foliage, the hulk of the ruined Valor appeared in front of him like the carcass of a prehistoric beast. The nose of the aircraft had slammed into the ground so hard it had snapped the fuselage in half, leaving the cargo area and wing upside down on the other side of the cockpit. The way the jungle had swallowed up the plane, with vines and tree limbs draped over the wings and rotors, made her look like she’d been sitting there for years.
“Patel and Duncan, you keep a perimeter watch. Loc, you go ahead.” The medic and his assistant sprinted for the downed bird, eager to find any survivors.
Sawyer headed northeast, following the path the Valor had been on when she was hit. One hundred and fifty yards on, he found a scattering of broken tree branches on the forest floor. He looked up. Sure enough, he could see where Hill had crashed through the canopy. He saw several cracked limbs including one as thick as his thigh that still clung to the tree by a long strip of bark. Must have hurt like hell, he thought. But where’s the body? He began searching the area, but there was no sign of Hill. He thought of Jane, waiting for him to bring her man home . . . dead or alive.
He stopped. There, not four feet in front of him was a pair of boots, set perfectly upright as if left by the back door. A pair of socks lay neatly beside them. He rubbed his beard, examining them. Then he looked around once more.
Nothing.
He tapped on his mic. “Papa Six Four Actual to Tango Seven Seven.”
“Go ahead, Papa Six Four.” It was Bailey.
“Are we sure there are no bad guys in the area?”
“Affirmative. It’s all clear.”
He risked calling out. “Eric! Eric, it’s me, Sawyer. Can you hear me?”
The only response was the pounding rain.
He circled the boots, looking for clues.
Nothing. He picked them up.
They were standard issue. They had to be Hill’s. There were three inches of water in them, so they’d been there for most of the night.
“Eric! Eric Hill!”
No reply.
He called Loc on the radio. “Sit-rep.”
“They’re all dead. Probably on impact. The pilots were still strapped in. Did you find Hill?”
“I found where he landed, but he’s not here. Do you see any sign that anyone else has been there?”
“No.”
“Anything missing?”
“Negative, everything’s where it should be.”
“Do they have their boots on?”
“Say again.”
“Winfred and the rest of the flight crew, do they still have their boots on?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Okay, over.” He hailed Patel. “Give Loc a hand with the bodies, then set charges on both engines, the egg, and anything that’s left of the cockpit. When you’re done, come help me look for Hill.”
“Roger.”
Sawyer began searching the area more thoroughly and calling out to Eric, determined to figure out what had happened. Sawyer was an excellent hunter and tracker, so finding one wounded man should have been easy. But the storm had made things very difficult, wiping away any footprints or blood, and pounding down the foliage, jumbling any sign Hill might have left. The rain had also wiped out any heat signatures. The Venger optics could pick up a footprint hours after it had been made, but the cold rain had made everything uniform.
After a half hour of fruitless searching, he heard four quick blasts as Patel destroyed the remains of the Valor. A few minutes later he joined Sawyer. “Loc and Duncan are getting the bodies out. Any luck here?”
“Nothing!” He explained about the boots.
“So he falls forty feet through a tree, gets up, takes off his boots, and walks off into the jungle?” Patel asked.
“He couldn’t have made it far. You don’t fall like that without getting messed up. And he would have known that his best chance of rescue was remaining here. Maybe he was in shock.”
Suddenly his radio came to life. “Tango Seven Seven to Papa Six Four.” It was Bailey.
Sawyer tapped his mike. “This is Papa Six Four Actual, go ahead.”
“We have three approaching aircraft. It looks like two Z-15s escorting a Harbin Z-9.”
The Harbin was a typical CSAR bird. It looked like the Chinese were coming to collect their dead too.
“ETA?” Sawyer asked.
“About seven minutes.”
Sawyer assessed the situation: This was bad news. He’d recovered the bodies of the crew and destroyed the Valor’s advanced weapon technology. Most of the mission objectives were complete. Hill was the only missing piece. But he couldn’t risk another confrontation with the Chinese. Not now. Shit! For a moment, Sawyer considered staying. Alone. He prided himself on his ability to survive anywhere, under any conditions. He could find Hill no matter where he was, if only he had more time. And time was of the essence. If Hill were still alive, he’d need medical attention fast. If only he could stay. But Captain Everett would never go for it.
He turned to Patel. “Time to go.”
Patel sighed reluctantly.
“Eric!” Sawyer called as loud as he could over the pounding rain. “We will come back for you. I swear.”
Three minutes later Sawyer was in the Valor, airborne, the black body bags of the four dead crew members on the floor in front of him. He looked out the window at the smoking wreckage of Winfred’s Valor and the thick jungle where Eric Hill had to be . . . somewhere.
Chapter Fifteen
The New Anarchists
November 5, 2026
Washington, DC
The iSheet came to life in video mode. It was a night shot on a selfie stick, so the exposure was brightened and extra light was thrown on the subject—a pretty woman in her thirties, with curly reddish-brown hair under a baseball cap. The GPS locator identified their position as 38.891767 -77.008869, on the north lawn of the US Capitol building near Constitution Avenue. She was dressed casually in jeans, sneakers, a black North Face jacket, and the cap, similar to many of the tourists visiting the nation’s capital. The only incongruity was that she was wearing sunglasses after dark.
“Start recording,” the woman said.
A red light began to blink on the screen.
The woman began. “Directly behind me is the Russell Senate Office Building. There on the second floor”—the woman turned and pointed to a lit window—“is the office of Senator Nathanial Peck, a man who has been enriching himself with oil company profits for the last twenty-five years. His brother Anthony is a partner at Peck, Chase and Andrews, a PR firm that disseminates false information about climate change. In exchange for the lucrative contracts his brother receives, Senator Peck always votes in the interests of the oil lobby, which includes blocking efforts to clean up oil spills and supporting legislation that prohibits citizens from suing oil companies. Together, the two brothers receive over thirty-five million dollars every year to be lapdogs for Big Oil. But no longer.”
At that instant, there was a blinding flash, and the Russell Senate Office Building exploded behind her. The woman was rocked forward by t
he blast, her hair blowing over her face.
With determined poise, she calmly removed her sunglasses, exposing lucid hazel eyes. “I am Riona Finley of the New Anarchists. This is what happens to elected officials who enrich themselves by poisoning the environment for the rest of us.”
A fire alarm rang in the background, followed by the sound of approaching sirens.
“Eighty-two percent of Americans want better protection for the environment, yet year after year nothing changes. That is not democracy. So we are sending a message to America’s leaders. You will be held accountable. Protect Mother Earth . . . or else.
“End recording.”
Eight blocks away, FBI Special Agent Bartholomew “Bud” Brown was sitting in his office, bored out of his mind. He hadn’t been assigned a case in months, and he knew he wasn’t about to get one anytime soon. Especially not if the new assistant director, Anastasia Collins, had anything to say about it. Next month Bud would hit the FBI’s mandatory retirement age of fifty-seven. While the limit was sometimes waived for “high value” agents, that would not be the case with him. And since he was unlikely to see any case to its conclusion in his last month, he was essentially off the roster. So here he sat, alone in his office, waiting for his inevitable retirement, mulling over cold cases that would never be solved. His own private hell.
He sighed, loosened his tie, and looked at the stack of manila folders on his desk. He leaned forward and was about to turn on his desktop computer (he was the only agent on the floor who still had one) when he caught a glimpse of himself in the dark screen. “Damn, you look like shit,” he said aloud. The man he saw before him looked closer to seventy than sixty.
He could suddenly see how the thirty years of smoking had depleted the collagen and elastin in his skin. And his hair, well, it was just pathetic. Each morning he tried to rally the few remaining stands into a wispy comb over, but he suddenly realized how ridiculous it looked. Then there were the problems you couldn’t see: the hypertension, the high cholesterol, the type II diabetes, his failing liver.
