by Linda Nagata
She lets him sleep. There is no hurry now, not if circumstances work out as she intends. Besides, the mission is ongoing and, like Chris, she has duties.
She moves forward to check on Ryan Rogers and Dano Rodrigues. The Brazilian is asleep but the engineer is awake, alert. She gets him a bottle of water and trades a few words, letting him know they’ll be on their way again in a few minutes.
Felice emerges from the next row where she’s been sitting with Fatima, concealed behind the curtain of casualty blankets.
“How’s she doing?” True asks, peering past the barrier.
Fatima is curled against the bulkhead. A blanket tucked around her hides both her safety harness and her restraints. Her eyes are open, blinking, but she doesn’t look up. She gives no sign that she’s heard True’s question.
“She’s not talking,” Felice says. “But she’s calm. I’d like to take the restraints off.”
“I’d like that too.” She squeezes past Felice and drops into the vacant seat.
“Dr. Atwan?” she asks, just loud enough to be heard over the ambient noise. “How are you doing?” Fatima doesn’t respond, not by gesture or eye contact or words. “Talk to me, Dr. Atwan. I need to know that you understand. You’re safe now, and you’re on your way home.”
This time, True’s words have an effect. Maybe it’s the mention of home, but Fatima shivers—a tremor that runs through her whole body—and without turning her head she asks in a plaintive voice, “Are my parents dead?”
“No,” True answers emphatically as a flush of outrage heats her cheeks. “If he told you that, he was lying. Your parents are fine. They are the reason we are here. They asked us to come find you, to bring you home. They miss you so much. They love you.”
Fatima’s lips tremble. She seems on the verge of tears but she still will not look at True.
“We’d like to take off your restraints,” True tells her. “Okay?”
She doesn’t answer right away. Instead she straightens, stretching as if testing her bonds. Then she says softly, “Thank you. I won’t make trouble.”
~~~
By the time True steps back out from behind the curtain, Miles is up and out of his seat, standing with Ryan Rogers at the open door, both of them watching the activity outside.
Hussam is still strapped into a seat at the back of the cabin, eyes hidden by the blindfold and mufflers over his ears to ensure he doesn’t benefit from an overheard comment. Rohan is babysitting, sprawled casually in the next seat. He’s still wearing his visor, his Fortuna held in a loose grip, the muzzle pointed at the floor. He notes True’s gaze and flashes her a thumbs-up. She smiles.
The rest of the seats are empty. Everyone else is outside.
Miles gives Rogers a nudge. The engineer turns, takes note of True. “Hey,” he says. “I think I’m going to sit down before I fall down.” He shuffles back to his seat, water bottle in hand, swaying in exhaustion.
True joins Miles at the open door. “What’d you tell him?” she asks in amusement, indicating Rogers with a subtle tilt of her head.
Outside, the wind sweeps veils of dust through a pool of illumination cast onto the tarmac by a large rack of portable lights. The two-man Eden Transit ground crew works with keffiyehs wrapped around their faces. They’ve hooked up the fuel line; the pump is running with its grating noise. The pilot is with them, observing the operation. The copilot is up front, keeping an eye on the gauges. The entire refueling operation is watched over by two Eden Transit surveillance drones, backed up by Jameson, Nate, and Ted, patrolling beyond the reach of the lights.
Before they landed, True looked over a satellite map that placed the airfield in a dry, denuded plain, just a few scattered residences beyond the razor wire and chain-link fence. Abandoned residences, maybe. She can’t see any lights.
Miles answers her question, saying, “I told him you wanted to do separate interviews.” His lips barely move as he speaks. His voice is just loud enough for her to hear. She frowns. Did she give him the impression she was pursuing a private agenda? Maybe. She eyes Chris and Nasir talking together outside the pool of light. She considers Rohan in the cabin behind her, with his enhanced hearing. She pushes on anyway. There is nothing private about her next request.
“I’d like you to fly back to the States with us, if you’re willing—though I guarantee the State Department won’t like it. They’ll want you in their custody. They’ll want to interview you—but I want to interview you too, work with you during the flight home, see if we can figure out who Jon Helm really is. Interested?”
His voice returns to normal volume. “Sure. If you can make it happen. I owe you a lot more than that.”
The lights of another aircraft appear in the night. It’s flying low and slow as it approaches the field. Miles draws back, watching it with a tense gaze.
True recognizes Blackbird. “No worries,” she tells Miles. “That one’s ours. A Kobrin Remote Lift 900 stealth. Leased for the mission from Eden Transit and flown by one of our AIs.”
The little ship buzzes in. As it draws closer, True makes out Juliet’s figure suspended beneath it. She’s laden with extra baggage beyond the standard backpack and weapon. Out beyond the fuel truck, Blackbird lowers her to the tarmac. Chris and Nasir set off to meet her while the 900-s moves away toward a line of three hangars.
“Juliet used to pilot machines like that,” True muses. “So did I. Now the AIs get to do the flying and we’ve been demoted to cargo. Pretty soon this business of war won’t involve humans at all—you know, except as targets.”
Miles gives her a cool look. “And the PMC that fields the best robots wins the day?”
“You got that right,” she says, crossing her arms. “It’s the only reason you’re here.”
“Yeah, sorry. From what I’ve seen, your outfit is damn good at what you do.”
She nods, too aware of the contradictions. “We’re a private military, but we still serve our country. And we’re in business only because there’s a need for our services.”
Some would make a counterargument that PMCs exist because they’ve created a need for their services: When one side buys protection, it encourages their rivals to seek armed protection too, and there’s no financial incentive for military companies to seek peace.
Miles scratches at his dirty beard. “I got to ask you something.”
Her lips quirk in cynical amusement. She can guess what’s coming. It’s what everyone asks eventually. Why the hell are you working as a hired soldier? Especially after what happened to Diego?
But he surprises her, asking something quite different, “How the hell are you old enough to be Diego Delgado’s mother?”
His question stirs a faint, bitter echo of old battles—her father’s harsh criticism, her own stubborn defiance. I would do it all again, she thinks as a melancholy smile tweaks the corner of her mouth.
She says, “I had him when I was still seventeen. Fell in love with a nineteen-year-old soldier. Dumbest thing a girl can do, you know? Thirty-one years later we’re still married. Three kids. Like they say, through thick and thin.” She whisks her hand through the air, a gesture that encompasses the helicopter, her fellow soldiers, the airfield, the entirety of the mission, maybe too, the historical weight of her marriage. “Alex hates all this. He’s a paramedic now. Got out of the army after his first term.”
Miles cocks his head, eyeing her uneasily. “At Ranger School, one of the instructors talked about Diego’s execution.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that.” She crosses her arms. It’s not her favorite subject, but it’s not one she hides from.
The pump has stopped. She watches the ground crew working together to reel the fuel hose back onto its spool at the side of the truck. “They should talk about it,” she says. “Young soldiers need to understand that what they’re taking on is not a game. Things get fucked up.” She turns back to him. Hard shadows cast on his face by the blue-tinged lights make him seem older than his years. “Y
ou know how fucked up things get.”
“I know.”
The pilot signs off for the fuel. The ground crew wishes him well. They climb into the fuel truck’s cab. The engine starts up with a rumble and the truck pulls away. In the distance, the little Kobrin is being pushed into a hangar lit with amber lights. Three figures walk together toward the H215—Chris, Nasir, and Juliet.
Miles glances over his shoulder to where Rogers is sitting, a row away, then tilts his head, indicating the tarmac. True nods. They jump down together and walk a few steps away. In an undertone, Miles tells her, “Every day in that cell we wondered if it was our last day. Maybe because I’d seen that tattoo, I kept thinking about Diego and that video and how people reacted to it. All the war talk that followed it. God forgive me, but I was angry about it—because Hussam was one sadistic bastard and I knew something like that could happen to me. And if it did? The world wouldn’t notice. People are so jaded, that kind of stuff doesn’t even make the news anymore.”
True doesn’t agree. “I don’t think people are jaded,” she says, surprising herself with the admission. “I think it’s self-defense. There are so many tragedies, who can process them all? You can’t grieve for everyone.”
“That tattoo though, what it said… ‘The Last Good Man.’ Doesn’t that sound personal to you? It’s like he knew Diego, admired him, grieved for him… you think?”
Her mind doesn’t want to go there. “No, I don’t believe that.” Her voice has become as soft as his. “I’m not saying they never met. You meet a lot of people in the service. But I think it’s a fetish. Fame and horror and martyrdom—they pull people in. Diego kept his friends close. I knew who they were, and I can account for every one.”
He glances around at Chris and the others as they approach. “Maybe another prisoner at Nungsan?” he suggests. “Someone you never heard of?”
“No. No one got away. Shaw Walker was the only other prisoner and he died there. Everyone at Nungsan, everyone who saw Diego, who touched him, hurt him, all of them—they’re dead. I made sure of it.”
As she says it, she realizes how it must sound, so she adds a clarification. “Not dead by my hand,” she says, moving back to the H215’s open door. “I just looked into it, because yeah, for a while, I wanted revenge. But you’ve gotta let that stuff go.”
“It must be hard not to hate.”
A slight, bitter smile as she lingers on the tarmac beside the cabin door. “Who said I don’t hate? The truth is I’m pretty indiscriminate about it. There are millions of people I could hate. Everyone who wants to give themselves rights they deny to others, who wants to fuck with self-determination, individual freedom—and a woman’s freedom matters too. It’s like this, Miles. We want to be friendly with people, but what I just said, that kind of philosophy? It’s deadly to most traditional belief systems. Most of them, maybe all, require violent enforcement or, at the least, emotional blackmail, or they fall apart. Tolerance cannot coexist within intolerant systems. Not back home and not here. One of them has to die.” She moves out of the way as Chris approaches, carrying two shielded collection bags. “Personally, I’m voting we push the intolerant assholes out the airlock.”
“You proselytizing again, True?” Chris asks.
“Always on,” she assures him. She trades a fist bump with Juliet. “Did you find us some treasure?”
Juliet’s expression has an electric intensity as she leans in close and grabs True’s elbow. “Lincoln didn’t tell you about the emblem, did he?”
The way she says it sends a shiver up True’s spine. “What emblem?”
“Rogue Lightning. Their emblem. We found it on the crashed Arkinson.”
~~~
“Remember that motorcycle you asked me to watch?” Naomi asks when Tamara returns to the command post after a short break.
Lincoln turns around, head cocked curiously.
“Sure,” Tamara says. “What have you got?”
“He’s freelance intelligence. Got to be. Look.” Naomi gets up, walks over to Hayden’s desk, and shifts a tile to the center of the screen. “See him? He’s here, just off the highway.” She shifts the view. “And way out here… is the wreckage of the Arkinson. He’s sent a starburst copter out to look at it.”
“I see it,” Hayden says. “To the right of the main wreck.”
“That’s it,” Naomi agrees. “He’s circled every fragment twice. Got to be taking pictures to sell.”
Lincoln shrugs. “Entrepreneurs are everywhere.”
But something about the situation makes Tamara uneasy. “Hmm,” she says. Just that. But it’s enough to make Naomi whirl around, eyes wide.
“You think it’s something else?”
“No,” Tamara says thoughtfully. “I think your assessment is correct.”
“Then what?”
Tamara isn’t really sure. “Damn,” she says softly. “I wish we’d destroyed that emblem.”
“The Rogue Lightning emblem?” Naomi asks, side-eyeing Lincoln.
Lincoln is glaring at the screen. “You’re right. We should have. There wasn’t time, but we should have.”
Hayden sounds puzzled when he asks, “You think it could come back to bite us? That wasn’t even our ship.”
“It’s a coincidence,” Lincoln explains. “That’s all. But coincidences get misread all the time. Tamara’s right. It’s a loose end. We should have cleaned it up.”
~~~
In the air again, heading north:
True broods over the question of Jon Helm—anonymous mercenary riding the reputation of Rogue Lightning, paying false homage to Diego’s death.
She messages Lincoln: You need to try Hussam again. He’s got to know more about Jon Helm.
Lincoln responds, Fuck him. Hussam is done talking. We’ll find out what we need to know on our own.
True knows he’s got queries out to his contacts and that he’s assigned Tamara’s team to do research, but so far it’s like the man is invisible. Nothing more than a name. There isn’t much on Variant Forces either and what there is, it’s all from dark sites. Chatter leaves the impression that Variant Forces is a sophisticated operation, a PMC that’s involved in finance as well as security, backing enterprises that deal in currency, drugs, petroleum, weapons, hostages.
They reach the coast, head out across the Mediterranean.
A message comes in from Tamara, addressed to both True and Chris: Al-Furat finally issued a statement. They’re claiming Hussam is dead. We gunned him down in cold blood.
Chris responds: Damn, I missed that part.
True asks: They worked out a successor yet?
Tamara: Looks like it’s going to be Rihab. It says he swears revenge.
True: Hussam’s little brother, right?
Chris: No worries. We’ll get him next time.
True sighs and leans back, closing her eyes. Twenty minutes later, they set down again, this time on the helicopter deck of a US Navy destroyer. Chris and Jameson escort the prisoner to the door, where Navy personnel take custody. They cover Hussam with an IR-opaque blanket and lead him away beneath the spinning rotors.
Seconds later, the H215 is in the air again and en route to Cyprus.
Lincoln messages the team’s families, letting them know the mission is done and that everyone is safe and on the way home.
Ghost
They arrive in the middle of the night at a British Sovereign Base Area on Cyprus, setting down on an isolated concrete apron. No media waiting. No fanfare. Just a cluster of British officers and American officials, along with three gray vans.
In the deal worked out by Lincoln, the British have agreed to mediate the repatriation of the civilians but they want to stay outside of an anticipated legal squabble over the activities of mercenaries. So Requisite Operations is to depart immediately—a scenario that suits True just fine. Even better, Lincoln has worked a magic spell, persuading US officials to let Miles Dushane leave with them.
“Chris,” True says
over the intercom as the H215’s engines wind down.
“Here.”
“Hold the officials at the door. I want a couple of minutes to talk to Fatima.”
“You got it.”
The curtain of casualty blankets still hangs between the seats. True looks around it to find Felice helping Fatima out of her safety harness. Felice looks up. “Ready?” she asks.
“Just about.”
Fatima appears tired but calm. Her face has been washed and her hair neatly tucked away beneath a thin orange cloth that she’s using as a hijab. She meets True’s questioning gaze and with a hoarse edge to her voice she says, “You want to know if I will throw another mad fit?”
True sits down beside her. “You seem past that.”
“For now,” Fatima agrees.
True says, “Felice has told you that there are US State Department personnel here, waiting to receive you.”
“Yes.”
“They’ll see that you get medical treatment and that you get home. Your parents will be here tomorrow.”
“I understand. Thank you.” Her gaze cuts away. Her hand closes into a tight fist against her thigh. “I’m pregnant.”
This is not a surprise. True tells her, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry he’s laid that claim on you.”
Fatima looks at her again. Her gaze is steady, focused. Angry. “You understand, then. If I bear this child, I will be a slave, his slave, for all my life. My body used by him, to his own ends. I hate it. I hate his voice in my head, so superior, lecturing me how it is all God’s will. I hate this fear he has put into my heart. I hate him. I hate him.”
“He deserves your hate,” True says. “Never forget what he did to you. Never forgive it. Never forgive those who inflict such horror on others.” Her focus slips. She hears again the soundtrack of Diego’s agony—and her own hate bleeds as raw as ever.
She draws in a sharp breath, forces herself back to the surface. “Hate him,” she advises Fatima. “But don’t let him live inside your head. Don’t let him make any decisions for you. It’s on you to decide who you are and why you’re here in the world.”
