by Bob Mayer
Doc made no protest, which meant assent, which was just piling on top of all the strange things the Nightstalkers were going through.
Moms pointed in the direction that Scout had gone. “We cover her ass. I want over-watch on her twenty-four/seven. Got it?”
“Got it,” Nada and Doc and Kirk said.
Moms looked at Roland. “Got it?”
“Got it.”
* * *
“You look funny,” Roland said when Scout came in the door.
They’d sent her home, Kirk providing security, and now she was back. The team was geared back up, everyone much more comfortable in their cammies and body armor and combat vests.
Scout was geared up in her own way. Wearing boots and a little helmet and white pants and was so unlike the girl who’d rang their doorbell not long ago. But she still had blue hair.
She jerked a thumb at Kirk, who was hovering over her shoulder. “He says I can’t go.”
“Go where?” Nada asked.
“Duuuhhh,” Scout said, twirling about. “I need to exercise Comanche. I haven’t seen him since you guys dropped in. He’s probably going nuts.”
“Comanche?” Roland looked up from adjusting the trigger pressure on his MK-23 for the umpteenth time. “Why’d you name him that? Did you know that’s the name of the horse that survived Custer’s Last Stand? Captain Myles Keogh’s horse?”
“Duh.” Scout started humming “Gary Owen.”
Roland shook his head. “You are one weird little girl.”
“How do you know about Comanche?” Scout asked.
Once more the room fell silent, because Roland was exhibiting intellectual prowess, which was like Eagle throwing the hatchet. Dangerous.
“Myles Keogh was a distant relative on my mother’s side of the family, the wild Irish side,” Roland said.
“You have a not-wild side?” Scout asked, and Roland gave a hint of a smile, which was like a slab breaking off the Antarctic ice shelf.
Roland continued. “We didn’t have much in my family, but we had this big Bible and in it were all these names and Keogh was there. From fighting in Ireland to Italy to the Civil War to dying with Custer. He was a warrior.”
“His horse was the only survivor,” Scout said. “I thought that was pretty cool. He was wounded and all, but they took care of him.”
“Well,” Roland said, military tactics and history being an area he actually spent brainpower on, “technically people have the whole Little Bighorn thing kind of wrong. The Seventh Cavalry was not entirely wiped out. Just half. Just the guys in the companies following Custer. Reno and Benteen held their ground.”
“Most Medals of Honor ever given out for a single battle went to the men who crawled down to get water for the wounded,” Moms said without looking up from the laptop, earning her a look from Roland that no one else could interpret. She went back to typing in the report for the Great Water Battle.
“How the hell do you know this stuff?” Nada asked Scout. “Most people don’t even know where Little Bighorn is.”
Roland thumped the table. “Bet she got a hippo — hippo-whatever as big as Eagle’s.”
“Hippocampus,” Kirk said.
“I have all the books,” Scout said. “And my dad took me there when I was twelve. My mom was, well, she was off at the time. It was soooo not what I thought, but it soooo made sense when I got out of the car and saw it.”
“How do you mean?” Nada asked.
“Well,” Scout said, “all the pictures and paintings are so wrong. It looks flat. The battlefield. Two-D. But when you get there you see it’s all valleys and hills and rolling land. Three-D. You could hide Lady Gaga and her entire crew out there.”
“Yeah,” Nada said. “Cover and concealment. Critical to any battle. We had some shitholes in the ’Stan that—”
“No cursing,” Moms said, still typing, and Nada’s jaw flapped down.
“Why did Custer fascinate you?” Kirk asked.
Scout twirled her crop. “I guess I wonder what it would be like to have to follow him, follow his orders with no choice. Be one of his soldiers and they knew it was going to be bad and that he didn’t care about them because he had his own agenda. I don’t like the idea of not having a choice, of having no control over your own life. I just don’t understand how those guys did that — follow orders and just go and die?”
Moms stopped typing and everyone got quiet.
“Oh! Sorry.” Scout stopped twirling her crop and for once was still.
“I don’t think they thought they were going to die,” Kirk said. “Soldiers have hope. You gotta have hope or you can’t do the mission.”
“Sometimes they don’t,” Moms said, surprising everyone. “At Cold Harbor, the only battle Grant ever admitted he screwed up, there was a soldier who wrote in his diary: June 3. Cold Harbor. I was killed. Not much hope there.”
Roland stood abruptly, dropping the gun to the table, parts spewing everywhere. “It might not be the Medal of Honor, but Moms was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. I’d follow her anywhere, hope or no hope. She saved my life.”
Moms shook her head, ignoring the looks everyone was giving her, and knew Roland had said it as much for Scout’s benefit as anything else. “No personal stuff, guys. Roland, you drive Scout to the stables and watch over her. Like you’d watch over me.”
Roland picked up the MK-23 parts and had it reassembled in fourteen seconds. “Yes, ma’am.”
* * *
Roland and Scout came back twenty minutes later. Scout was pale and her lips were as blue as her hair. Her face was streaked with tears. Roland was literally twitching, gun in hand but shaking his head over and over.
“I didn’t kill him,” Roland said. “I didn’t kill him.”
Nada ran across the room and grabbed Scout, pulling her in tight to his chest, up against his body armor, his magazines and his grenades. Scout melted in his arms and he held her from collapsing on the floor. “What happened?” he asked, looking at Roland, who had the crazed look in his eyes of combat.
“I didn’t kill him,” Roland repeated.
“Good,” Moms said, walking over. She put a comforting hand on Roland’s shoulder. “Who didn’t you kill?”
Nada realized it. “There’s a Firefly in Comanche?”
Roland nodded, getting control. “The guy who runs the stables was hurt bad. I got him out. The horse damn near got us. Took out doors. Just kept kicking at us. I pulled the guy out. He got broke ribs, smashed jaw, but he’s alive. Said the horse just went nuts. He was lying there dying for a day after he got hurt. Support got him now. He’ll be okay. I didn’t kill the horse. I didn’t. I shoulda. I screwed up Protocol.”
“Please, please,” Scout said between sobs into Nada’s body armor. “You can’t kill him. I’d die if you killed him.”
Nada looked down at the rag of a girl in his arms, her sobs wracking through both of them. “We won’t.” He easily lifted Scout up and her head rested on his shoulder.
“Swear?” Scout said.
“Protocol,” Moms said. “We have Protocol. Containment. We have—” Then she stopped speaking, seeing the look in Nada’s eyes.
Nada held Scout with one arm and patted her on the head with the other.
“Ouch!” Scout said in her misery. “Curling iron.”
“Sorry.” Nada gently lowered her and she looked up with tear-filled eyes.
“We might have to hurt him,” Nada said, “but we won’t kill him.” Nada had snot on his combat vest from Scout. “It’s going to be okay.”
“The government will buy you a new horse,” Doc said. “Support is already rebuilding the Lindsays’ pool.”
Scout got even more upset. “Comanche isn’t a pool! I don’t want a new horse. I want Comanche!”
Roland spoke up. “Well, he did survive Little Bighorn. He could survive this. Maybe we can, like, you know, evacuate him, quarantine him.”
“Right,” Moms said. “Get a chopper a
nd sling-load a horse inhabited by a Firefly over the neighborhood to where? The goat lab at Bragg?”
They all, except Scout, knew what went on at the goat lab at Bragg. It was necessary to train Special Ops medics, but it was brutal. Each medic at the beginning of the lab phase was assigned a goat that they had to shoot. Wound only. And then nurse back to health. But they said goats don’t have a nervous system that registered pain anyway; so they said. No one ever asked the goats.
“We’ll just have to make the Firefly leave him,” Roland said.
“You said you have to kill him and flame him for that,” Scout whined.
“Well,” Doc said. “Maybe not.”
They all turned to him.
“We’ve never done a controlled kill,” Doc said. “It’s always been a—”
“Clusterfuck of a firefight,” Nada said.
“Exactly,” Doc said. “We do not know what Fireflies are, and we have only a limited knowledge of their parameters, and lately they have been pushing that. Whatever was going on inside the Rift in the Fun Outside Tucson was new. The backhoe trying to take out the Wall around here was different. Maybe we need to be different. Approach things in a new way.”
“You still said kill,” Scout said.
Doc knelt in front of her. “You say you’ve seen a lot of movies?”
Scout nodded.
“Seen The Abyss?”
Scout nodded.
“Remember where the woman drowns and they revive her?”
Scout’s eyes grew wide.
“Do you trust us?” Doc asked.
Scout looked him in the eyes, and then at the other team members. “No.”
“’Cause you think we’re Custer,” Roland said. “But we aren’t Custer.”
Nada nodded. “That can be our new Nightstalkers motto: ‘We aren’t Custer.’”
Scout wiped snot off her face. “But that’s like saying we aren’t Fetterman. Custer knew about Fetterman, they all did, from ten years before Little Bighorn, but nothing different happened.”
“Who’s Fetterman?” Kirk asked.
“Don’t you guys read anything?” Scout asked. “Or watch the History Channel?”
Roland nodded. “She got us there. Fetterman was a lieutenant at Fort Kearny who went out to relieve a wood-cutting party that was attacked and disobeyed orders. Went beyond Lodge Pole Ridge because Crazy Horse sucked them into an ambush with a diversion. Ten years before Crazy Horse sucked Custer into the Little Bighorn.”
“We ain’t him either,” Nada said.
Moms sat down with a deep sigh into a chair. “Do you see the irony of that statement, considering we’re going to try to kill a crazy horse, dissipate a Firefly, and bring the horse back to life? Ms. Jones is going to kill me.” She looked up. “And I am not speaking metaphorically.”
Scout started crying again and Nada started to say something, but he knew his limitations. He was a soldier and he knew when to keep his mouth shut while his commander made a decision.
CHAPTER 24
The FedEx truck backed into the driveway with an irritating beeping.
The team was ready, combat gear on, locked, and loaded. Doc got on board the FedEx truck to check the gear he’d requested directly from Support, while the rest of the team piled into the SUVs with the tinted windows. The convoy rolled down the street and turned to the stables.
Comanche wasn’t hard to spot. He was running around the white-fenced pasture, dirt flying under his huge hooves. Every so often he paused and struck out with one of his front hooves, mostly at nothing.
“Geez,” Kirk said to Scout. “You ride that thing?”
Comanche was big. “Yes. He’s always been peaceful,” Scout said.
“Why hasn’t he jumped the fence?” Eagle wondered, turning the wheel and pulling them up to the stable.
“Why didn’t the pool Firefly break the glass door?” Moms said. She looked over her shoulder to Roland. “You ready?”
Roland was unhappy. His beloved M-240 was on the floor, next to his feet. He had a bolt-action rifle on his lap. “If they don’t stop when we blast them and kill them, how are we going to stop them with just a drug? The Firefly will just ignore it.”
Doc’s voice came over the net. “Most likely. The drug will overdose the horse and stop his heart and that might not change anything. But you’ve read the binders, Roland. This has never been tried before. It’s always been an all-out firefight between us and the Fireflies. Black or white. Maybe we’ve been wrong? Maybe there’s a middle ground?”
“That’s a big maybe,” Eagle said.
Kirk was watching the horse through binoculars. “What if we’re wrong?”
Moms sighed. “I know we’re probably wrong.” She looked at Scout. “We’re going to try, but the chances aren’t good. You have to understand that.”
“You’ll do it,” Scout said, the words more confident than her tone.
“No,” Kirk said, “what if we’re wrong about our supposition about the Firefly?” He turned to Scout. “Watch the horse carefully.”
The horse spotted them and neighed loudly. It kicked out once more, then raced hard in a counterclockwise circle. As it came to the fence separating the humans from the horse, it lashed out with its left front hoof and shattered the top board in the fence. It was shaking its head and its eyes rolled wildly. Roland had the rifle to his shoulder, but he also had the machine gun slung over his shoulder and the flamer on the ground next to him.
“It’s the curling iron,” Scout suddenly said.
Kirk nodded. “Right.”
Roland’s finger was on the trigger.
“What are you talking about?” Nada asked.
“Watch him,” Kirk said. “Watch him kick. Notice anything strange?”
They all watched as the horse once more did a hard circle and several kicks.
“Same leg,” Moms said. “Stand down, Roland. The Firefly isn’t in Comanche. It’s in the horseshoe.”
Roland lowered the gun. “That’s a fucking stupid Firefly.”
“Language around the girl,” Moms said absently, staring at the animal. “Actually, it almost got us to kill the horse and miss where it is entirely.”
“This is new,” Doc muttered.
“This is bad,” Nada said. “But good,” he added, looking at Scout.
“You have a tranquilizer?” Moms asked Doc.
Doc nodded. “Yes.”
“Roland, switch out the round. We’re going knock Comanche out. Kirk, get me Ms. Jones.”
The radio clicked and it was as if Ms. Jones was somewhere close by, watching them as she responded immediately. “Go ahead.”
“I’m going to need a blacksmith,” Moms said.
“Did you need to use the resuscitation gear you had Support bring?”
Moms swallowed. “No, Ms. Jones.”
“How interesting. Consider the blacksmith en route.”
CHAPTER 25
There were four Ivars in the basement lab now, taking turns pedaling the bike backward. The really hard part for Ivar was that there were moments he wasn’t sure which one he was. His mind was teetering on the precipice of going insane. Sometimes he blinked and he was on the bike, but he’d been the one tinkering with the device just a second ago.
There was only one Burns. But he was sitting in a chair, doing nothing, just watching the Ivars.
Ivar had lost track of what he was doing, but it was apparent at least one of the Ivars was paying attention, because Ivar watched that Ivar throw the switch and another mini-Ivar appeared in the chamber, crawled out, and began growing to normal size.
The Ivar who’d thrown the switch went over to a new machine, one the second Ivar had built, and opened a panel. He pulled out a circuit and held it out to the real Ivar. Then held up two fingers. Then pointed at the door.
“You need two more or two, which means just one more?” Ivar asked, because the labeling was a bit confusing in the sign language.
The other Iva
r blinked as if processing that question through a long series of synapses, then put the circuit down on the table and pointed one finger at it. Then pointed at a blank spot near it with two fingers.
“He wants two more,” Burns contributed.
Ivar was happy to leave the lab.
“Hey,” Burns said. He held up the toggle switch.
Ivar nodded.
“See you soon,” Burns said. Then he and the other Ivars suddenly stiffened. They all looked at each other.
“Only one is left,” Burns said. “We must work faster.”
“What—” Ivar began, but Burns pointed to the door. “Go. Hurry.”
Ivar went up to Winslow’s lab. It was late in the day and the building was mostly empty. The weirdest thing was that despite there being more Ivars and this getting really crazy, he was starving. As he raided the fridge, he noticed that the door to Doctor Winslow’s office was ajar.
Ivar went over and stepped inside. As he reached for the light switch, he felt something metal press against his temple.
“Do not move,” a man whispered, more hissed, “or I’ll splatter your brains all over this place. Where is Doctor Winslow?”
“I don’t know,” Ivar said.
The metal moved away and the man stepped in front of Ivar. He had a gun in his hands with a bulky suppressor screwed onto the barrel. He was a tall man who spoke with the trace of an accent Ivar couldn’t place. His face was expressionless.
“When did you last see him?” Stone-face asked.
“Three days ago.” Was it only three days? Ivar wondered.
“What’s with the Feds at his house?”
Ivar held his hands up helplessly. “I don’t know anything about that or his house.”
“What do you know?” the man asked, raising the gun so that the black hole at the end of the barrel was pointed directly between Ivar’s eyes. “What did he buy that he needed five hundred thousand dollars for?”
Ivar couldn’t blink. He was mesmerized by that black hole. He felt as if his entire being was being drawn into it.
“The hard drive.”
