Jade Gods

by Patrick Freivald

  Matt kept his face neutral. "So we twiddle our thumbs while you make sure you can secure the assets. I don't think I like that."

  Freudenberg leaned back in his chair, eyes rolling to the ceiling before snapping back to Matt. "We are on the same team here, Rowley, but let me be clear about this." He jabbed his finger at the empty space between them. "Even if we weren't on the same team, you are under my command and my protection. We're doing what we can to protect your family, but we're going to use you as we see fit to defend and protect the United States of America. Sakura we can deport, but if you start bucking orders you'll go to jail."

  He swiveled in his chair and jabbed the finger at Janet. "That goes for you, too, Miss LaLonde. This is not a fucking democracy."

  She held up her hands, eyes wide and mouth open in mock terror, then formed her fingers into pistols and shot him with both. "We're civilian employees on US soil, daddy-o. On a war footing on foreign soil you could maybe court martial us for disobeying chain of command, but right here, right now, the only person you can order around is Matt, and that's only if you officially recall him to military service first. So if you don't like the way I do things you can fire me, but you sure as shit can't put me in jail."

  Freudenberg ran a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry, let's start over. I'm not trying to throw anybody in jail, I'm just trying to get us all on the same page. You want to destroy the OPD, and so do we, but there is a larger mission here as well, and you all need to understand that the secondary objective, your objective, is subordinate to the first."

  "If you'd have said that in the first place—"

  He slammed his hand on the table, cutting Janet off. "I'm not going to tolerate flippancy, Miss LaLonde. You have an impressive set of skills, but you're not irreplaceable, so if you're going to continue working here you will address me with an enhanced sense of respect. Is that clear?"

  "It is. Sir." She sat down, smoothed her skirt over her thighs, and blinked at him.

  He waited, she said nothing.

  "What?"

  "You're in charge, sir, and I'm done with my briefing, so I'm just waiting to be told what to do."

  "You're dismissed. Rowley, stay here."

  Marcia and Janet packed up their folders and walked out without a word. Matt stayed in his chair, and so did Sakura.

  "You're dismissed, Isuji."

  She shook her head. "If you're speaking to him I'm staying."

  "I second that," Matt said. "We're partners, and we don't keep anything from each other anyway."

  As the door clicked closed he leaned forward, almost conspiratorial. "How set are you on working with Miss LaLonde?"

  "I don't trust her," Sakura blurted.

  "I do." Matt tried not to glare at either one of them. "Without reservation. We've been through a lot together, and she's sacrificed a great deal to do the right thing."

  As far as he knew, nobody outside Janet, Matt, and Sakura knew that the largest Jade dealer in the world, Dawkins, had been an ex-ICAP agent and Janet's brother.

  "Marcia doesn't. Says she's cagey, standoffish."

  "Oh," Matt said. "She's got the people skills of a pissed-off grizzly bear, but she's a wizard with tech and one of the best engagement coordinators I've ever worked under. We won't be as effective without her."

  Freudenberg hesitated. "It's unfortunate you feel that way, Sergeant, because we're letting her go."

  "You're kidding."

  "No. She's not a good fit for our organization, and—"

  "She's my employee, goddammit. You—"

  "Have the prerogative to hire and fire anyone under FADE's purview, up to and including people who've been here for forty years. I've considered the real possibility of pissing you off and discussed the ramifications with President Williams."

  Raw fury boiled under his skin. "You already decided."

  Freudenberg nodded. "This meeting only reinforced that I'd made the right decision. She'll land on her feet."

  He stood; Sakura didn't. "This is a mistake."

  "Your opinion has been noted, Sergeant."

  Matt walked out, managed not to slam the door, and stormed down the hall to Janet's office. Always impeccable, only her computer sat on it, and on top of that her ID, which also served as a keycard to get into the building.

  "You missed it," Marcia said behind him. "They escorted her out the moment she left the building."

  He whirled, pulled her into Janet's office, and slammed the door. "You knew this was coming."

  She shook her head. "I didn't, but I recommended it and I'm glad it happened."

  "If you had a problem with her you could have come to me."

  "I did, multiple times, but you wouldn't hear it. Isuji suggested that we bring our concerns to the general, so we did."

  The world grew dark with his anger. "Sakura, too."

  "Yes, though he'd heard from others, too. Everyone but you, really. That woman is toxic, and we can't trust her. Between you, me, and the wall, she's got something very, very, bad between her ears, something so much worse than just being a prickly bitch, and we don't want to be anywhere near it when it breaks free."

  "You're wrong."

  "It's possible, Matt, but I've never been more sure about a gut feeling in my entire life. I'm sorry it happened this way, but I'm not sorry it happened."

  "When we need her and she's not there, we're going to regret it."

  Marcia patted his shoulder. "Sorry, Matt."

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Janet LaLonde showed her ID to the secret serviceman standing guard outside the Humans for Humanity headquarters in Martonville, Texas. The annex could have rivaled any cathedral, were it not in the shadow of the several-acre megachurch over which Ronald Kellett presided, six-stories tall and almost large enough to hold an NFL stadium. On any given Wednesday afternoon only a hundred cars dotted the parking lot, a tiny fraction of what the prosperity preacher drew for Sunday service. But this Wednesday cars stretched off into the distance in every direction.

  She pulled her white BMW sedan up next to the handicapped spot – rows upon rows of blue squares with white wheelchairs in them – and into the spot marked 'Reserved for J LaLonde'. The large, black doorman she'd first met under far different circumstances, Phil, rushed to open her door and take her bag. He glanced down her shirt and his breath caught, an involuntary response to the soul trap that hung there. A swirling gemstone of green and blue, it remained cold against her skin and left a slimy, unclean feeling wherever it touched, the spiritual residue of Ronald Kellett's soul as it shrieked and blubbered and begged to be set free. He met her eyes and, after she flashed her credentials to the Secret Service guard, let her in.

  Stacy, the busty, bottle-blonde receptionist greeted her as she walked by, and if the security cameras from the past six weeks told the truth, probably flipped her off behind her back. In a month and a half she'd become Ronald Kellett's most trusted advisor, and by playing down the white trash act and playing up the cutthroat professional she'd won the respect of his campaign staff and the hatred of this one jealous woman. Her first order of business had been to end Stacy's constant flirtations – Kellett hadn't been able to carry on an affair for at least a decade, but he looked like he could, and they didn't need an October Surprise rumor damaging the evangelical vote.

  To that end Janet never met him outside the office, plane, or bus, and always with other functionaries around. A slave to her will as long as she wore the necklace, she let him have enough autonomy to do anything but defy her, in letter or spirit. A gentle word or hushed whisper served, and when not in his presence she had bloodier, messier ways of making her will known.

  She followed the royal purple carpet past statues in alcoves and paintings on the walls, every one of them as religious as they were mediocre to a discerning eye, and let herself in through a modest door into an offic
e anything but modest and bubbling with joyous excitement. The octogenarian candidate sat at his giant mahogany desk surrounded by aides and advisors, already in makeup for the journalists scuttling around the room. An enormous screen blocked the garish painting of himself he'd had commissioned decades before when his scam of a church had suckered its first millions from the pockets and wallets of pious morons who could little afford it.

  The amulet squirmed between her breasts and desperation oozed from it; for release, for repentance, to please her. It radiated a conviction that Janet LaLonde had been sent from the almighty to punish Kellett, his own personal purgatory so that he might earn redemption before joining the Lord in his almighty righteousness above. Weak and foolish, his tattered spirit couldn't handle the simple truth: God didn't care one way or another, and his predicament arose when his usefulness brushed against her pragmatism.

  She approached through the excited gaggle of functionaries and campaign volunteers, avoiding some, brushing against others she might someday find useful. The screen above the desk blinked, drawing her eyes from the soon-to-be President Elect.

  Exit polls showed a pending electoral landslide, even in the war-torn Pacific Northwest. Running on a platform of God, Borders, and Culture, Kellett's campaign seized the religious, xenophobic mania sparked by magic-fueled indigenous revolts domestic and foreign, and forged it into an iron-hard hammer to bludgeon the milquetoast, business-as-usual candidates from both of the major parties. He had promised no compromise, but only the righteous wrath of God, and had all but declared war on fallen angels, idolaters, witches and warlocks, pagans, heathens, and Satanists.

  In a matter of hours Humans for Humanity – Janet – would win the White House, control of the world's largest military, and the country's deepest secrets, of which she cared about only one.

  * * *

  "Did you see this?" Monica muted the volume on the remote as Matt's cell rang.

  Military, but he didn't recognize the number.

  He glanced over, smiled at his son asleep under the plastic Christmas tree FADE had provided, still up almost a week after New Year. Then he raised his eyes to the TV.

  The wide screen blared high-definition scenes from Paris, the streets packed with people chanting psalms and singing music with familiar tunes and unfamiliar words. White-eyed men in red robes stood on the steps of Notre Dame cathedral, a monstrous gothic construction in white marble, twin towers reaching skyward over three enormous archways. On the grainy, zoomed-in images, legions of people shuffled forward, kneeling, eyes cast heavenward, to have their throats slit by priests before acolytes dragged them to the side and dumped them in the river. Clogged with bodies, the Seine ran pink under the midday sun.

  On the third ring he hit 'Talk'.

  "Rowley, go ahead."

  "Sergeant Rowley," a clipped female voice said, "you are to report to Guantanamo immediately using STB transport and, once there, await further instructions."

  "On whose orders, please?"

  "Lieutenant-Colonel Smith's, Sergeant."

  "I have a pending mission, it will have to wait."

  "You're under orders—"

  "I'm already under orders, from the Commander in Chief. Whatever it is, Gitmo is going to wait."

  Smith's voice replaced hers. "Sergeant Rowley, Williams is a lame duck with fourteen days left in office. I'd consider my loyalties very carefully, given what's coming."

  "Given what's coming?"

  "Don't be naive, Sergeant. The country is fracturing, and the only thing that's going to hold it together is people like you and me."

  Matt snorted. "A little bird told me that you defied orders to return to Patuxent and executed several of your own officers to keep the men in line. Doesn't sound like keeping the homeland safe to me."

  "Those men were traitors."

  "I'm sure their wives and families will understand, sir."

  He hung up and dialed General Freudenberg.

  "Yes?" Even over the phone, FADE's director sounded exhausted.

  "I just got the weirdest call, thought maybe you could help me parse it." Matt relayed the conversation word for word.

  The line remained silent. On the TV, refugees streamed down from the Ural mountains, not a single man among them.

  Freudenberg sighed. "Yeah, belay that order, obviously. Smith has gone off the reservation, and a lot of assets are moving in that direction."

  "Doesn't he have command of nuclear subs?"

  "He did, but only the surface fleet went with him. The strike subs RTB'ed as ordered."

  "Thank God. So what's the move?"

  "I have no idea. Our focus is still supernatural threats, and as far as we can tell, even with two-thirds of the Atlantic fleet under his command, Smith's just a traitor."

  "Huh."

  The TV switched to riots somewhere in Africa.

  "Yeah. So I've got a present for you."

  Matt raised an eyebrow Freudenberg had no way of seeing. "Oh?"

  His phone blipped. He pulled it away from his face, opened the message. A satellite photo of a city by a lake popped up, then zoomed in to a building in the city center. A hot knife of anticipation scraped down his spine. "OPD?"

  "Yeah, dead to rights. We have confirmation of heavy equipment in and out, and infrasonic telemetry shows one massive tunnel leading to a warehouse abutting Burke, the airport by the lake."

  "When do we go in?"

  "Tomorrow afternoon. We've got intel their bigwigs are meeting to discuss the change of power in Washington. I've called in Miss Sakura and we're briefing tomorrow 8 AM. This is going to be a big operation, and we don't want to hurt any civilians if we can avoid it."

  "How big?"

  "Terror from the North big. Yesterday we pulled the 1st Battalion, 24th Marines from Detroit, dropped them into Erie for the 174th Arctic Warriors Joint Training Exercise. Tomorrow they learn they've got an actual mission on their hands."

  "The whole battalion?"

  "With support. Current strength is nine hundred and sixty-four marines and sailors, eighteen beach-assault hovercrafts, nine helicopters, fourteen combat drones including yours, and eight 1126-SPARX amphibious battle suits to take on their big guys." Slower and four times as massive as the OPD's behemoths, SPARX towered over tanks and carried twice as much firepower, but could maneuver in much tighter spaces.

  "Holy shit. What's our role?"

  "The Marines are going to hit them hard, pen them in and terminate with prejudice. We figure that will force them into the tunnel they'll hope we don't know about, and you'll meet them there."

  "Roger that. Two questions."

  "Go ahead."

  "First, how is this legal, and second, with that many people involved how can we insure secrecy?"

  Silence. Then, "Yeah, as to the second, not even their commanders are going to know the plan until we give it to them at zero-minus-three hours. They'll be keyed up and ready for another evening of training, but they're marines, so they'll get it. As to the first, why don't you let Williams worry about that?"

  An image flashed in his mind, his wife and son holding on for dear life as the helicopter fell from the sky.

  "Yeah, good enough for me."

  * * *

  Monica followed Matt out of their tiny apartment in the FADE basements, down the hall to the T intersection. Right led to the cafeteria, gym, and pool, so she swatted his butt as he cut left, then let him blow her a kiss before turning down the other hall. Her heart always ached to see him go, and she said a little prayer of gratitude that most of the time she had no idea what kind of danger his day might bring.

  The fluorescent lights buzzed as she pushed Adam up over the small lip that led into the gym. She hadn't seen the sun in over a week, and in the back of her mind a maelstrom of shrieking souls swirled over an endless plain of broken needles. P
arking Adam in front of the TV, she warmed up where she could keep an eye on him, then wheeled both of them into the dojo annex.

  "Oh, shit, there she is." Pete Marshall's grin lit up his dark brown face. Tall, handsome, and well-built, the martial arts instructor waited for her in red shorts and a white t-shirt, both too small for sufficient modesty. The shirt rippled over his massive biceps, almost as large as Matt's, stretching out the 'One Mind, Any Weapon' logo of a fist under a crossed knife and rifle. The MCMAP instructor bobbed on the balls of his feet and worked his hands together, a contrast in almost every way to her Sifu, Chris Malec, one of the few people besides her parents she missed since their decision not to return to White Spruce until things calmed down.

  Adam tumbled from the stroller as she unhooked him, somersaulting across the padded floor with a cackle.

  She shut the door behind them, turned, and cracked her neck. "Here I am. What's on deck today?"

  "Savate."

  She frowned. "I don't know what that is."

  "French kickboxing. We use elements of it in MCMAP training, because it emphasizes foot kicks instead of ankle or shin, and works well in shit kickers. It's a different animal than your northern-style kung fu. I think you'll like it."

  "All right, let's kick each other to death."

  He nodded toward a pair of small combat boots by the door, polished to a shine. "Should be your size."

  * * *

  Drenched with sweat and covered in bruises, Monica shuffled down the hall back toward their apartment, combat boots still on her feet. More leaning on the stroller than pushing it, she reveled in the burning muscles and extreme fatigue from the intense workout.

  As they reached the apartment door Adam shot up, whirling, his eyes wide.

  "No, Mama." He put his hand on the door and shook his head. "Don't."

  Suddenly cold, she bent to one knee next to him, bored her eyes into his. "What do you know, little man?"

  He kept his voice low, like hers. "Bad man. Don't go in."