The woman was oblivious. She’d bent over to rinse her long raven-black hair and didn’t see them coming. The first she knew of their presence was seeing Siano’s M-16 pointed at her. The rain had slackened to a patter by then, but the naked woman didn’t appear fazed either by having a gun pointed at her or by her own nudity.
“Gotta get clean while you can,” she said with a grin.
“Do you usually bathe out in the open like this?”
“Not if I can help.”
“But you did this time?”
“I was dirty.” The woman cocked her head, as if trying to figure out who they were without asking. “Are you gonna shoot me or should I get dressed?”
“Go ahead and put your clothes on,” Jones said. “But don’t do anything stupid.”
The young woman frowned in the way people do when trying to figure something out. Rainwater ran down her face and made her squint. “Are you Americans?”
“Who wants to know?”
The squawk of a circling prairie falcon distracted them for a split second.
“My name’s Nado. Who are you?”
“Nado? That’s all? Where do you live? What are you doing here?”
“Uh-uh. I’m not telling you that until I know who you are.”
“We’re Americans.” Jones’ tone was cautious.
“I don’t mean Patton’s people. I mean American Americans.”
“Patton’s not in charge any more, we are, and yeah, we’re American Americans. Now, for the second time, what are you doing here?”
The young woman grinned and extended a soapy hand. “Looking for you!”
#
21 miles north-northwest of Seligman
1640 hours
Major Edward Wincommer watched the string of horsemen riding through the valley below. With his exec and company commanders flanked to either side, he tried to estimate the size, origin, and purpose of the cavalry force they’d stumbled into.
“I make it a hundred and twenty,” said Captain Lozano, his exec.
A few others grumbled assent.
“Any ideas as to their purpose in this area?”
There were a few guesses, such as a tribe or clan either hunting or migrating, but nothing that made much sense.
“The red scarves must be some kind of uniform,” Locano said. “If they keep to their current heading, they’ll pass through Seligman and ride right past FOB Westwall.”
Wincommer bit his bottom lip. He’d had command of the horse cavalry regiment for less than three months and at twenty-nine was young for the job. He only got the command because he was the highest-ranking qualified rider left after the various special forces units got their own horses. Screwing this up could lose him independent command and put him on some second-stringer staff, probably in supply.
“Coco,” he said to a stocky corporal with Coconino stitched to his breast, “radio Westwall and let them know company’s coming but that we’re in the area. Then tell Prime we’re trailing an unknown cavalry force with the intention of intercepting them, heading southeast toward Westwall.”
He sent two of his six companies ahead to pace the horsemen on the north, and two more to follow up in their wake at a safe distance. He’d follow between them with the last two companies. Their operating orders were to reconnoiter the assigned area and avoid combat, but Wincom couldn’t sit by and let a potentially hostile force penetrate too close to their operations. If it was the wrong call, so be it, but he’d be damned if he would sit by and watch.
#
Chapter 51
I’d rather be lucky than good.
Lefty Gomez
Operation Overtime, General Angriff’s quarters
1720 hours, April 19
Green Ghost tried to think of some way to break the awkward silence, but he could only smile and hope Saint Nick would find some way to do it for him. But even that felt off, thinking of him by that name. What name felt right? General? No. Saint Nick? Maybe. Dad? He wanted that to be the one, except it felt weirder than the others.
“I wonder where Morgan and Nikki could be,” Angriff said, smiling at his wife and lifting his eyebrows in a pleading gesture that meant help me out here.
“It was never like Morgan to be late for a family dinner,” Janine said. “Cynthia, did she say anything to you about being late?”
“She said she was going to show Nikki a few things about being a lady. I don’t think they’d like me talking about it at the table.”
“Get my sister to be a lady?” Green Ghost said. “I’m sorry, I forgot. Get my twin sister to be a lady? I’d like to see that.”
“Well, that’s what she said… ummm…” It sounded silly calling him Green Ghost, but Nick didn’t sound right either, so Cynthia Angriff avoided calling him anything. “She promised they would be here by seventeen hundred hours.”
Just then the door opened and Morgan Randall stepped through, alone. She took the seat next to her mother, opposite Green Ghost. “Sorry I’m late.”
“Where’s Nip— Nikki?” Ghost said.
“She’s having dinner elsewhere,” Morgan said.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” he said. “Excuse me, Saint, ma’am, I’m gonna go find her. She’s got to stop doing this.”
“They’re on the mountainside,” Morgan said.
Green Ghost stopped halfway out of his chair. “They?”
“Yes. Yesterday I introduced her to my crew chief, Joe Ootoi, and I’ve gotta say, I’ve never seen a girl struck like that before. Or him. I thought it only happened in movies.”
“I don’t understand.”
“What’s to understand? She was giggling like a twelve-year-old with her first crush.”
“Are we still talking about my sister?”
“Which one?” Cynthia said.
“I’ll get it right eventually. Are we talking about Nikki?”
“Yes, but that’s not the name she gave Joe. She called herself Nicole.”
Green Ghost sat back down, then leaned back in his chair and rubbed his lips. “Are you sure about that? She said Nicole?”
“Positive.”
“In our entire life, I have never heard her call herself that. She hates being called Nicole.”
“That is her name, isn’t it?” Janine said.
“Yes, Mrs. Angriff, it is, but I’ve never heard her say it.”
“Mrs. Angriff was your grandmother, dear. I’m Mother, or Mom. And if that makes you uncomfortable, then Janine.”
“Thank you, Mrs… Janine. But I’m worried about Nikki. What’s this guy’s game, what do you know about him?”
“I know he saved my life last fall during the fighting on Highway Ten. I know he fought with me all through Iraq and Syria. I know he’s the best there is, and that I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him. But we lost another crew member back in Syria and her name was Nicky, too. I think it spooked him a little bit.”
“Maybe that’s why she said Nicole?” Cynthia said. “To be thoughtful.”
“Not my sister… excuse me, our sister,” Green Ghost said. “My twin sister. Empathy’s not her strong suit.”
“She couldn’t have known that, anyway.”
“All right, so you say this guy is okay. It’s just that she’s never had a date before that I know of. To tell the truth, I wasn’t even sure she liked men. It’s weird. So what did you say this guy’s name was?”
“Joe Ootoi, but everybody calls him Toy.”
“Toy?” A blank stare came over him and Green Ghost fell silent.
Morgan pointed at him. “That’s the same look she got when she heard his nickname. What’s up with that?”
“Nicholas, are you well, dear?” Janine Angriff said. “You look like a white ghost, not a green one. What on Earth is the matter?”
“His name is Toy?” he said to Morgan.
“Yeah, Toy,” Morgan said. “T-O-Y. What’s wrong?”
“Y’all are all gonna think I’m crazy… maybe I am. It’s f
ucking weird as shit.” He stopped then, realizing who sat at the table with him. “Janine, Cynthia, I’m so sorry. I—”
Janine Angriff’s amused smile gave him a brief glimpse of what her husband had to love about her. She leaned forward and patted the back of his hand. “It’s all right, dear. I’ve raised two teenagers and been an Army wife for a long time. I doubt you can say anything I haven’t heard before.”
“Thanks, but it won’t happen again. Anyway, there was this night a long time ago back in Memphis, during the summer. August, 2006. The night before Mom died. There was this spooky area in the southwest corner of the city, down near the Mississippi River, called Voodoo Village. It was sort of a teenage dare to try to go there and steal something. We were seventeen. Nikki and I went with a couple of friends. I guess it’s safe now to tell you that one of them was Vapor.”
“Your XO?” Nick Angriff, Sr. said.
“The same. We were childhood friends. It’s pure coincidence he had the skills to join Zombie. So some bad stuff happened that night, and a lot more bad came from it. There was this old man there they called Chief, some kind of Voodoo priest. He ran this little compound behind a wrought iron fence, weeds everywhere, all these bizarre sculptures.
“We showed up just as another car left and got blamed for killing the Chief’s grandson, except he knew we weren’t guilty. We just found the kid laying there, dead. The Chief chanted to himself and did something he didn’t let me see, and when it was over he told me I had a ghost inside me, a green ghost, one who serves the cause of Justice, and I was the Avenger. At the time we thought he was drugged out or something, but I thought of that when they wanted me to pick my code name for Zombie.
“This Chief, he looked at Nikki and he frowned, and did something that looked like he was blessing himself, and said she had a devil inside her, a demon… what did he call it? Oh, yeah, Congo Savanne. He told her she was his servant, or something like that, and he would stay inside her until a child’s plaything drove him out…”
“Child’s plaything?” Cynthia said. “You think he meant a toy?”
“Yes,” Ghost said. “That’s what we thought it meant, a real toy, like a doll or something. It didn’t make sense, but that’s what we thought. But a man… I didn’t even think that was possible.”
“She’s a grown woman, honey,” Janine said. “Anything’s possible.”
“I know she looks like an adult, Janine, but… acting like one? That’s new.”
#
Chapter 52
The world doesn’t owe you, but sometimes it gives you a gift anyway.
Idaho Jack
Prescott, AZ
1736 hours, April 19
One of the first things Rick Parfist did when he became Mayor of Prescott was to have a makeshift cot installed in a corner of his office. He spent most nights at home with his family, but sometimes work became overwhelming and he slept at the courthouse. The previous night had been such a night. Sunlight lit the floor under the heavy tarps covering his window when his assistant shook him awake.
“Mister Mayor,” Gracie Roe said. “Rick, get up. I think you need to see this.”
Her words didn’t penetrate for a few seconds, but when they did, he groaned and sat up. He still wore the same clothes as the day before. “What time is it?” he said, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands.
“Late afternoon. You slept all day.” She handed him a glass of water and he drained it. “There’s something I need to show you.”
“Can I pee first?”
The plumbing had been jury-rigged with a gravity system for the upper floors. He took the opportunity to splash lukewarm water from the sink on his face. When back behind his desk, he took a deep breath. “What have you got?”
“This came in on an old radio the Republic had set up. We weren’t sure what it was for until today, but we’ve left it on for months now—”
“—in case somebody called it,” he finished for her. “I know. I had to authorize it. I think that was before your time. General Angriff thought it was wasting power. So we got a message?”
“I think so. One of the comm. techs worked for the Republic, a young man named Thomas. He was badly injured in the fighting last year and only just healed and got back to work.”
“Was he approved?”
“Yes, by Doctor Proctor and by Green Ghost himself.”
“Green Ghost wasted time checking him out? That’s a low position.”
“Communications is critical. He said a traitor could endanger everybody, so he insists on approving each person in the communications chain.”
“All right, so what’s this message?”
“This is going to sound crazy, but Thomas says it’s from Australia.”
“Where’s that?”
“Thomas says it’s an island way off the coast of California, a long way out. Like, thousands of miles way out. It’s another country.”
“What’s the message?”
“It seemed important, so I wrote it down.” She handed him a small triangle of paper torn from a larger document. Typed print on the reverse side read no dogs shall be allowed outside the residence of the owner without… The rest of the sentence was missing.
He flipped it over. “Chinese attacking Siorra army tell Americans… That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“Have you ever heard of someplace called Siorra?”
“Never.”
Parfist rubbed his mouth as he considered what to do. “Call Prime. I hate to bother them, but any message with Chinese attacking in it needs to be seen.”
“It sounds like a warning.”
“Oh, it’s a warning, all right. I just hope somebody knows what it means.”
#
Lt. Colonel Desiree Santorio, S-6 for the 7th Cavalry, lay on her back inside a large metal frame filled with wires and circuits. In her teeth she clenched a small flashlight while she worked on restoring power to a receiver unit. Understaffing in her office meant she was boss, tech, and janitor, all at once.
“Try it now, Corporal,” she said.
“No, ma’am,” came the reply a few seconds later. “Still nothing.”
“Damn.”
Glancing over, she saw the face of the sergeant on watch appear at the access panel opening near her feet. “Colonel, we just got a message from Prescott I think you need to see.”
“Can it wait five minutes, Gonzales? I’m right in the middle of something.”
“I don’t think so, ma’am. It looks important. Something about attacking Chinese.”
“All right.” She sighed, knowing they couldn’t hear her. “I’m coming.”
As soon as she’d squirmed from the cage, Sergeant Gonzales handed her a comm. tablet with the message on the screen.
“Have you ever heard of Siorra?” she asked him.
“No, ma’am.”
“Me, either. Take it to S-2 right away.”
“Send it or take it, Colonel?”
“Take it. Put this in Colonel Kordibowski’s hand personally. If he’s not in his office, find him.”
Gonzalez saluted and headed out the doors of Communications Room One. Santorio watched him and had a very bad feeling about the message. If the Chinese were on the move again, it meant they were prepared this time, and that didn’t bode well for the 7th Cav.
#
Rip Kordibowski sat in his office, poring over personnel rosters from Operation Comeback, hoping to glean information on potential troublemakers. He looked up at his closed office door when shouting began outside. Seconds later someone knocked on his door.
“Come.”
It was his adjutant, Captain Charlie Wu. “I’m sorry, Colonel, there’s a sergeant from Communications who refuses to give a message to anybody but you personally. I even ordered him to give it to me, but he said Colonel Santorio said to hand it only to you. He said it’s urgent.”
“All right, bring him in.”
Gonzalez marched in st
iffly, stopped in front of the desk, and saluted.
“At ease. You have a message for me, Sergeant?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why didn’t you send it through channels?”
“Colonel Santorio’s orders, sir. She said to put in your hands personally.”
Kordibowski stuck out his hand. “Let me see it.”
He handed over the tablet. Kordibowski read the message three times. “Who sent this?”
“Mayor Parfist’s office in Prescott, sir. They intercepted a transmission from Australia.”
“Australia?”
“That’s what they said, Colonel.”
“Is that possible without satellites?”
“Under the right circumstances and if you know what you’re doing, yes, sir. The mayor’s office didn’t say what frequency it was on, but I suspect it’s one of those that used to be for amateur radio.”
“You mean like ham radio?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So this could be real?”
“I’d say yes, Colonel.”
Kordibowski typed the message into his own computer and handed the tablet back. “Thank you, Sergeant. You’re dismissed.”
Once Gonzales had left, he read the message to Captain Wu. “Does Siorra army ring any bells, Charlie?”
“Siorra doesn’t, but could it have been garbled in transmission?”
“Why? What are you thinking?”
“I did a ten-year stint at the Sierra Army Depot, north of Lake Tahoe. That could be it.”
“Isn’t that where they kept all the surplus hardware?”
“Tanks, APCs, you name it, it was all up there. Just lined up in rows.”
“Ammunition, too?”
“Bunkers and bunkers of it.”
Kordibowski’s eyes focused on the air refresher grate in the ceiling as he considered the ramifications. Then he grabbed his uniform jacket off the back of his chair and headed out the door. “Call the Crystal Palace. Tell them it’s urgent I see General Angriff immediately!”
Standing at the Edge Page 25
