Sue and Timmons jogged back into view, and they had company.
Mayra jogged easily with them and she carried a pistol of her own.
“This is new,” Terry said, still holding Kae by the shoulders. “I need you to be strong for everyone. There’s no reason for anyone to be crying. Before you know it, we’ll be back and then we’re going fishing! I hear we may be able to find a small boat that will be just for us and family outings!”
“Promise?” Kae asked, turning his head to look out of one skeptical eye.
“I promise that we’ll go and look. If we can find a boat, then we will all work on it together, earn the right to sail it. How about that?”
“I guess,” Kae conceded. Terry kissed him on the head, then Kim, and finally Cory. Char stayed with them as Terry left to talk with Mayra.
“I’m going,” she stated flatly.
“Like hell you are,” Terry responded, firmly with no room for negotiation.
“If you are going to free more people, then I’m going,” she insisted, this time with less confidence.
“This one is different, Mayra,” Terry started as he saw three familiar ships appear in the distant sky. “We’re going where the bad guy has surrounded himself with an army. This is all-out war, and you haven’t trained with us. I can’t let you wade into the middle of it.”
“Maybe it’s not your decision what I’m in the middle of. I don’t remember asking you for permission for anything.” She threw her head back and jutted her chin out in defiance.
“No, you haven’t, but this is a military operation, and the one flying those pods? He invited us, a combat unit to go make war. Stay here and please, help Billy and Felicity protect our kids, protect the whole town,” Terry pleaded as the three pods descended, slowing rapidly to touch down soundlessly. “If you want to go in the future, we can work you into some training, make sure you know what we’re doing so you don’t get into the line of fire. We would hate to see something bad happen to such a good person.”
When she turned, she was surprised to see three pods simultaneously lowering their ramps.
“One squad per pod!” Terry yelled. Mayra stepped aside and Terry moved past her and started directing traffic. A Japanese man left the pod as the FDG loaded.
She shoved the pistol into her belt. The man approached, stopped, and bowed.
“In due time,” Akio told Mayra. She hadn’t said anything, but he knew what she was thinking. That didn’t upset her. “You have many people who look up to you. You have been and will be their beacon of hope. If they are to be at peace, they need you.”
Akio turned and walked away. Mayra watched him go, feeling a strange sense of calm, knowing he was right. Rash decisions made on emotion would not help those in her charge.
Char separated the Were folk, putting Gene and Bogdan on the pod with Blackie. Timmons, Sue, and Merrit were on the second pod and Aaron was with Terry and Char on Akio’s pod.
Mark approached Terry as he was about to yell his trademark “wagons ho!”
“We’re still missing Ivan,” he reported.
“Get on board, Lieutenant, with the bear and put the platoon sergeant in number two. We need to go.” Mark saluted and did as Terry had ordered.
“Whenever you see Ivan,” he yelled at Billy, “tell him he works for Blevin and when we get back, he’ll be peeling potatoes for the rest of his god-awful life.”
“We don’t have any potatoes,” Felicity said, confused.
Terry checked the third pod, getting the thumbs up from the lieutenant. Terry nodded and headed to the second pod. The entire center area was filled with dogs.
“Get out!” Terry yelled. No one moved. “SERGEANT!”
James jumped up and started chasing the pack out of the pod. After a couple started running, the rest joined them, all except Clyde. He was held firmly in place at Sue’s side. She looked at him, challenging him to say something.
“Button it up, Sergeant,” Terry ordered, twirling his finger in the air.
He ran onto the first pod, getting the thumbs up on his arrival. He nodded to Akio and that was it.
The ramp closed and they lifted off.
***
On Lake Michigan
Anne was watching the sky as she always did, looking for clues to wind shift, for storms, for anything that she needed to react to.
She saw the pods ascending from the base. “Are those what I think they are?” she asked.
Adams looked at them and with his senses, he realized the rest of the pack was on board, every one of them except Ted.
“Damn. They left me behind,” Adams said.
“Are you sure?” Anne wondered.
“Yep,” Adams replied, sitting down and feeling alone, like the first time he woke up and knew that Xandrie would never be by his side again. He watched the ripples in the lake, losing himself in their hypnotic sparkle.
Anne realized that Adams had disappeared into himself. She wanted to ask why he was so upset, since in her mind, the pods would be back later. It wasn’t any big deal.
But Adams knew where they’d gone and was sure not everyone would return. Of all the Weres, he was the next most capable warrior beside the alphas. He and Xandrie had been the hunters of the group.
Now he fished and hadn’t been made welcome, not because the crew wasn’t friendly but because they didn’t need him. They already had a full boat.
Anne sailed an area off shore where there were shallows. They rolled out the net and dragged it through, coming up with almost nothing for their troubles. She swung the boat wide, tacking into the wind, then turning across it to head back in the direction from which they’d just come, but farther away from the shallows.
They cast the net and the boat slowed as the net filled. The men tried to drag it back into the boat, but the lines fought them.
“Adams! Grab on!” Anne yelled as she called to trim the sail, keep the pressure on the lines so they wouldn’t lose their catch.
Adams sulked, but moved to the other side of the boat and started to pull. It resisted him. He put more and more effort into it while the four men took the other line. Adams grunted with effort as he let the wet line coiled at his feet inside the boat. Hand over hand he continued to pull, winning the battle one foot of rope at a time. When the net appeared, they saw a mass of seaweed.
Anne was crushed.
“Wait!” Adams called triumphantly as the net bulged with fish. Alex used his knife to cut the seaweed loose and the men, in unison, heaved the net into the boat. Dumping the fish onto the deck.
Flopping fish filled the space and overflowed into the cabin.
“Here, here!” the men cheered. Adams smiled and rubbed his arms.
“Get out your knives, boys,” Anne ordered from behind the wheel. “Time to go home.”
They waded through the mountain of fish to their positions where they could control the sail. Two tacks later and the sailboat was on course for a lazy return to their home marina.
As they powered through their second tack, Alex noticed a boat on the horizon.
“They’re back,” he reported softly.
***
On the way to China
“We will land in the middle of their compound. It used to be a mining complex on the edge of the Xidayang Reservoir. The Forsaken and his confidants are somewhere deep inside. We believe he has less powerful Forsaken in addition to Weretigers, at least two that we’ve seen,” Akio briefed.
Terry’s eyes, of their own accord, turned to look at Aaron. The man sat a head taller than those around him. His eyes were closed, but he was awake. He looked too tense to be sleeping.
Terry felt for the man.
Aaron wouldn’t say how he was made into a Weretiger, but the Kurtherian technology in China had been used. The reasons behind why Aaron was changed remained hidden.
When the time was right, he hoped that Aaron would tell them. Until then, it didn’t matter.
“Your people will secure
the entrance. Only the enhanced will enter the mines. It is too dangerous for normal people. Any questions?” Akio asked.
“We wanted to tell you something that our daughter can do. You can see the images in my mind,” Char offered, thinking about the healing that Cory had done. She replayed the incident for her own benefit as much as Akio’s.
“We have seen something like this before. The nanites in her blood are tuned to that part of her that is you, Charumati-san and you, Anjin-san. She can share them, but they cannot exist outside of her body, they need the energy that only she can provide. That’s why she needed to put her hands directly on the wounds. It is how the nanites had the energy to heal. This is a very rare gift.”
Akio bowed to the parents of the gifted child, and they bowed back.
***
Zhenchiang, west of Baoding, China
Night had settled long ago. The rain made the darkness complete.
Human guards carried stout crossbows and walked back and forth in front of the entrance to the master’s home and more around the perimeter wall. It had been a mine once, but not anymore, not really. It was where the night people lived.
It was where the master lived, but soon, he’d emerge and lead them to victory, conquering his enemies until China was under his rule.
The master’s destiny was inevitable.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
China
“There are guards patrolling in the landing area, Anjin-san. This is new,” Akio reported. Terry looked at the group within the pod and started to formulate a plan.
“And we don’t want to hit the ground guns blazing, I suspect,” Terry said, thinking aloud.
Akio nodded slightly.
“I will take care of them, Anjin-san, but to be sure no one raises the alarm, I could use some help from those who can run in the night without making a sound.”
“Aaron and Char,” Terry whispered.
“And yourself,” Akio replied softly.
Terry nodded and brought Aaron and Char close. “We have a bunch of patrolling guards to take out. Akio will do the bulk of the work, but he needs us, the three of us, to remove the outliers. Then we’ll move the platoon in to take over security of the mine entrance. The key to the attack is to secure the entrance at dawn,” Terry briefed as his plan gelled within his mind. He wanted to brief those in the other two pods as soon as he could.
“The daylight will protect our people on top from the Forsaken, but not his minions. I suggest that when the rest of us go below, Aaron stays in the daylight, as a Weretiger, to protect our people from the evil that hides in the darkness.” Terry wasn’t a fan of being dramatic, but he didn’t know what was underground that concerned Akio, and that scared the hell out of TH.
Char shifted her pistols, torn between changing into Were form for the initial attack. “Werewolf?” she asked.
“Or an aware wolf?” Terry replied.
“What?” Char didn’t understand Terry’s joke.
“I think, therefore I am,” Terry intoned. “Revenge is a dish best served cold, and revenge is sweet, so for all intents and purposes, revenge is ice cream. I never ate much ice cream before the fall, but I would like some, although not as much as a Guinness. I mean, I’m brewing some righteous beer when we get back, but it still won’t be a Guinness, poured from a wood cask on top of the bar, warm and yet so refreshing, a meal unto itself.”
Aaron sat slack-jawed and stared at Terry Henry Walton. “We’re following the orders of a raving lunatic,” Aaron said seriously, looking about himself frantically. “How do I get off this express train to nut land?”
Char shook her head. “Dammit, TH! You and your combat humor. Werewolf or not?”
“Not,” he said, looking around inside the pod. To change into a werewolf, she’d strip and he wasn’t good with the platoon seeing his wife naked. He knew that she didn’t care and would do whatever was best for the mission.
Between his back and his pack, he carried the short cavalry sword, the weapon carried by the Forsaken that Akio had killed. It hadn’t helped the nightwalker, but Terry didn’t care about that. The sword was a tool, just like his whip, his pistol, his silvered knife, and his M4 carbine. Terry carried one flask of water and extra ammunition.
He looked at himself, a walking armory. In the Marine Corps, he’d have made fun of someone loaded down like he was, said that they were outfitted by Saigon Sam’s, a surplus and military clothing store outside the main gate of Camp Lejeune.
Too many Marines bought neat-looking gear made in China that failed under the rigors of combat.
Although he may have looked like a Saigon Sam special, everything he carried had already been used in life or death battles. Everything he carried would be used again.
He wondered how many more he would have to kill.
He wondered if this was his time to cash it in, although he didn’t bother worrying about that. He trusted his instincts in the middle of a fight. He saw the battlefield with a clarity that only came during the adrenaline-fueled rush of real-life combat.
Terry worried about Char. He was okay with dying, but he was not okay with her dying.
Damn Knights of the Roundtable.
Who said chivalry was dead.
“Anjin-san,” Akio interrupted Terry’s spiraling train of thought. “Focus and all will be fine.”
Char looked sideways at her husband, wondering where his mind had gone.
“Can you patch me through to the other two pods, please?” Terry asked. Akio used a pad nearby to key in a couple commands. He signaled for Terry to start speaking.
“Okay, you slimy worms, listen up!” Terry bellowed at the group in his pod. Feedback crackled through the sound system for only a second, then self-corrected. “We’re hitting a hot LZ early in the Chinese morning. Only one pod will go in, under cover of darkness, drop off four of us to eliminate the guards and seize control of the mine’s entrance. The other two pods will wait until the zone is clear. Then, they will land and the platoon will deploy into a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree perimeter around the entrance. Your job will be to keep people from surprising those of us who are going inside.”
Terry let that settle in.
“Although we are going up against an army, we won’t be fighting it head to head. Best case is we don’t fight it all. Our goal is to be in and out before they realize that their snake is getting its head cut off. Aaron will remain outside with you, as a tiger. Make sure you know what he looks like because I can’t guarantee that more like him won’t show up. Know the difference. Sue, are you there?”
“Yes,” came a disembodied voice.
“Don’t tell me that Clyde is going with us into the mine,” Terry asked, seeking affirmation of what he suspected.
“Okay, I won’t tell you,” Sue replied. Terry could hear the snickers from the other two pods. Lacy started to laugh outright. He looked at her and shook his head, smiling.
“The tac team going inside will be Akio, the major and I, Timmons, Sue, Merrit, Shonna, and Gene. Gene, when we took Bogdan into Cheyenne Mountain, he didn’t like it. Tell me that he’s going to stay outside with Blackbeard.”
“That is plan,” Gene’s heavy Russian accent boomed through the speakers.
Akio flashed ten fingers.
“Stand by, people. My pod lands in ten, expect touchdown and deployment for everyone else in twenty. Saddle up, people! This is not going to be a cakewalk. Welcome to China.” Terry drew a finger across his throat and Akio cut the link.
Terry flexed and stretched, while rocking back and forth as the adrenaline surged into his body. The look of grim determination gripped his features. He called it his war face. Aaron stood up, ducking slightly so he wouldn’t hit the roof of the pod. He hung his head, because he didn’t want to be there. He didn’t want to change into a Weretiger and didn’t want to do what he never remembered doing.
He took a deep breath, sighed and changed into the magnificent tiger that was his Were form. Char stood bes
ide him, loosened the pistols in her holsters, then pulled them one by one, checking to make sure a round was chambered, the magazine was seated, and both were on safe.
Akio stood and pulled his katana from its saya, the scabbard for the Japanese blade. He moved closest to the rear hatch and stood with his legs wide. The ramp started to descend as the pod dropped the last two feet. Akio was gone before the ramp hit the ground with Terry, Aaron, and Char following him into the darkness.
***
North Chicago
Ivan sat with his head hanging between his knees. Billy looked at him, not knowing what the man needed.
“I really fucked up, didn’t I, Billy?” he asked for the twelfth time.
“Ivan, you were on guard duty all night. How could they expect you to be two places at once? You slept on the beach so you could be there for the next watch. It’ll be okay. You know that I would never let anything happen to my uncle’s brother-in-law’s grandson, so buck up and get the hell back out there! We’ve been left pretty thin in case an unwelcome surprise shows up.”
Felicity was outside with the four kids. She wasn’t happy. She and Billy were ill-prepared for Cordelia’s sleep pattern. The baby slept for fifteen minutes at a time, then was up for the next four hours. Billy didn’t know how Terry and Char did it.
Billy and Felicity had taken shifts, but that gave them less than half the amount of sleep they were used to.
Marcie was sound asleep in Felicity’s arms. The little girl had been sleeping through the night for most of the past year and wasn’t used to being awoken as Cory had done to her.
Being tired didn’t help Billy’s patience.
“I hope they come home soon,” Billy told Ivan. They both sat with their shoulders hunched. “Then you’ll find out that it wasn’t any big deal. Shit happens. In between, I need you to make sure that we’re safe. Can you do that, Ivan?”
Ivan looked up, his features distorted from where Terry had smashed his face in with the butt of his own shotgun. “You can count on me, Uncle Billy!” he said, trying to sound confident.
Billy hated being called Uncle Billy. Most of the time he didn’t tolerate it, but Ivan continued to use the title. Maybe being related to the mayor made Ivan feel like he was somebody.
Nomad's Justice: A Kurtherian Gambit Series (Terry Henry Walton Chronicles Book 6) Page 15
