by Myke Cole
The Greyhound’s rear hatch descended with a whir, stirring the rest of his team awake as MPs and Suppressors trooped aboard, led by two men in dark suits and sunglasses, totally inappropriate to the near-eighty-degree heat. Bookbinder stood and shook himself as the suits silently motioned him and his team off the aircraft and into a closed white van. They rode in silence for just a few minutes before being dropped off in front of a plain white aluminum building at the line’s edge. It was completely surrounded by troops, and Bookbinder noted at least one armored humvee before he was ushered inside.
He nearly laughed out loud.
Though it was cleaner, and the furniture in better repair, the building’s interior almost exactly matched the Indian structure they’d just left. Same crappy folding chairs and tables. Same featureless walls. Same temporary structure.
A tall army major in his class A uniform met him. His short blond hair was cut exactly to regulation, his blue eyes frosty. His jaw line was as pronounced as his uniform creases. He looked every inch the textbook soldier. thorsson, his nameplate read.
Bookbinder could feel a solid Aeromantic current emanating from him, disciplined, like everything else about the man.
“Colonel Bookbinder, welcome to Ubon and welcome home.”
Bookbinder nodded. “Thanks. Forgive me if I don’t stand on formality just now, I’m about on my last legs.”
Major Thorsson smiled. “You and me both, sir. I was on a plane from DC the moment we got word you were on our side of a gate. I was so anxious to get here that I actually dropped myself and flew the rest of the way on my own. C–130s are slow.”
“You’re an Aeromancer,” Bookbinder said, though he already knew.
“They used to call me Harlequin,” the man said, extending his hand. “Now I go by Major Jan Thorsson, Special Advisor to the Reawakening Commission. I’m here to take care of you, and also to find out just what the heck is going on.”
Bookbinder slumped in one of the folding chairs, completely drained. He heard similar sounds around him that told him his team was following suit.
“You need a doctor?” Thorsson asked.
Bookbinder waved. “We’re fine, just tired.”
“Okay.” Thorsson approached Stanley. “It’s good to see you alive, sir. I captured your son after he tried to kill you. I’m sorry that he escaped—”
“Do you know where he is?” Stanley cut him off. “Can you get me to him?”
Thorsson looked at him in silence, shocked by the urgency in his voice. He turned to Bookbinder. “Sir, I think it’s best if we speak alone.”
“Absolutely not,” Bookbinder said. “There’s nothing I know that this man doesn’t. He’s part of my team, and I’m not talking to anyone without him. You want to debrief us, you debrief all of us.”
Thorsson hesitated. “This man is not . . .”
“You’re wasting time, Major,” Bookbinder said.
Thorsson shook his head. “So, give me the bottom line, sir. Why are we in the middle of a political meltdown with India? And what happened to FOB Frontier?”
“The FOB’s cut off . . .” Bookbinder began.
“We know that,” Thorsson replied. “Britton killed our one Portamancer before he flew the coop. We need to know what happened to the FOB.”
Stanley looked at his lap.
“What the hell do you think happened to it?” Bookbinder said. “It’s cut off, surrounded, running low on supplies. The goblins get bolder every day. I left my XO in charge of the defenses. He told me he could hold for a month, and we’re already way past that. Things are dialed back a bit due to the winter, but he assured me that the fighting will pick up with the spring thaw.
The Sahir liaison informed us they have a FOB appended to this kingdom of snake creatures called . . .”
“Naga,” Thorsson finished for him. “I’m aware of FOB Sarpakavu, sir.”
“Did you know they had a Portamancer?” Bookbinder asked.
“Did you contact the Indians and have them send a team out to get us? Why the hell did I have to come to you?”
Thorsson was silent for a moment before gesturing to five even stacks of paper on the folding table behind him, one for each of them. “Sir, you will of course understand the necessity for complete individual debriefs of you and each member of your team. I’m afraid my security people are insisting on polygraph tests, and there will be these additional nondisclosure req—”
“Nondisclosure! What the hell is wrong with you?” Bookbinder exploded, leaping to his feet. “There are people dying in a FOB that’s cut off from home. We should be mobilizing a team to get them out, and instead we’re spinning our wheels worrying about bad press. There has to be a way to work this out. You need to call the Indian ambassador. If they’ve got a Portamancer, then we’ve . . .”
“You’ve dealt with the naga before, sir. Getting them to assist is . . . something of a challenge. They have a differing perspective on the value of human life than we do.”
Bookbinder thought of the wasted idle hours in the opulent stone pavilion and nodded.
“There has to be a way,” he said. “Some other military with gate capabilities? Another Selfer? Even if the naga are tough, there’s got to be a way to work it out? There’s got to be, damn it.”
The door opened and a group of men in suits entered carrying briefcases. “We’ve got the debriefing rooms, prepped, Major,” one of them said, not bothering to remove his sunglasses.
Bookbinder turned to protest but Sharp stopped him with a wave of his hand. “Archer and I’ll go, sir. We’ve got nothing to hide. We came with you to accomplish a mission, and it’s been done. You’re in command, sir, you decide what’s the best course from here on out.”
Woon stood. “I’ll go, too, sir. If that’s all right with you.”
Bookbinder gaped at them. “Are you sure?”
Sharp met Woon and Archer’s eyes before turning back to him. “We’re sure, sir.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Stanley said through gritted teeth as Woon, Archer, and Sharp left with their debriefers. “And I’m not telling you shit until you tell me what’s going on with my wife and son.”
Stanley’s debriefer started forward, reaching into his jacket.
Thorsson stopped him with a wave. “Give us a few more minutes, please,” he said. The debriefers paused, looking askance, before leaving.
“This is bullshit,” Stanley said. “You’ve got a base full of your own about to get fried, and you’re so full of shit that you squeak going into a turn when I ask you about my son. He’s my family. My blood. Now you have got to tell me the truth. I’ve got a wife, too, damn it.”
“Desda,” Thorsson said. “She’s fine.”
“Jesus!” Stanley said. “What about Oscar? My clearance was still active when I retired. I have a goddamn need to know!”
“We’re doing what we can,” Thorsson said, looking at his feet, his face flushed.
“Something tells me that’s not entirely true,” Bookbinder said evenly. “There’s a division’s worth of people on that FOB, major.”
“This comes from the president, sir.”
Bookbinder amazed himself with what he said next. “I don’t give a rat’s ass. Do you know how many people are in a division?”
Thorsson was silent for a long time.
“The naga,” Bookbinder finally said. “We’ve got to get back in touch with them. Get me that consul who got us off the . . .”
“Sir, please.” Thorsson looked at Stanley. “If I have to, I can have you forcibly removed.”
Stanley opened his mouth, the words “do it” forming on his lips. Bookbinder waved him back. “Just step outside, sir,” he said. “Give me a minute with the major here.”
Stanley swore and left. Bookbinder spun on Thorsson. “Now, just what the hell is—”
“They naga aren’t the only ones with a Portamancer,” Thorsson cut him off.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Oscar Britton,” Thorsson said. “We’ve got him.”
“Take me to him,” Bookbinder said. “Right now.”
Thorsson shook his head. “He’ll never help us.”
Bookbinder paused, his mind trembling with exhaustion, with panic, with missing his family. All he wanted to do was throw up his hands, sleep, eat, let someone else deal with this.
But instead he stood and stabbed his finger at Thorsson’s chest.
“He has to,” Bookbinder said. “He fucking has to.”
Chapter XXV
Talking Points
The issue isn’t fear of upsetting the established social order, it’s fear of upsetting the genetic one. What if Selfers aren’t just the latest brand of insurgent malcontents? What if they’re the next rung on the evolutionary ladder? I doubt Neanderthals were big fans of the first Homo sapiens either.
—“Render,” Houston Street Selfers
Recorded “Message for SOC Sorcerers” distributed
on the Internet and the streets of New York City
Once the debriefs were completed, Thorsson had Bookbinder and his team bundled on to a plane back to the States.
He watched the plane take off and kept watching as it dwindled to a speck before returning to the temporary offices the Royal Thai Air Force had been kind enough to set up along the flight line for his use.
He entered, dismissed the guards, and sat, cradling his head in his hands. If what Bookbinder had told him was true, then Colonel Taylor was dead and Crucible in command of a division-sized outpost on the verge of being overrun. Hell, thanks to the nagas’ delaying tactics, it might have been overrun already. The computer on the desk before him had at least three hundred unread email messages, most of them pertaining to what Ambassador Buchar and the State Department were already calling “The Incident.”
He ignored them, swallowing hard. Buchar could handle it.
When Britton had escaped him, Thorsson had watched him fire his pistol through the gate, watched the bullet tear through the army’s only other Portamancer. I don’t think you’re coming for anybody, Britton had said. Not anymore.
Horror had curdled in Harlequin’s gut.
Because he knew from that moment, FOB Frontier was cut off.
A tiny proportion of the population came up Latent. Count out those who went Selfer, and the SOC was a very small force, indeed. Most commissioned Sorcerers knew one another, and the personnel at FOB Frontier were no exception. Taylor might have been a petulant bully, but he had also been a mentor and a friend.
Crucible even more so. They’d played golf together in Arlington before he’d shipped out to command SAOLCC. Thorsson had lent him a listening ear as he prepared to break the news that he was “going away for a while” to his wife. “What’s good for a career is bad for a marriage,” Crucible had said. “That’s the army.”
Thorsson, single, had taken the advice to heart. He tapped the gold pen in his breast pocket. Crucible had had it delivered as a promotion gift when he’d made captain. Crucible had been a major himself then, leading the fifth district’s “Recovery Teams,” ensuring no Selfer ever threatened the District of Columbia.
Thorsson had few friends; Crucible was one.
Every day since Britton had killed Billy and gated Thorsson onto the White House lawn, Harlequin had shouted to anyone in the SOC who would listen about the danger FOB Frontier was in. Could they capture another Portamancer? Maybe a foreign partner had one who could help?
The answer always came back the same. Wait. Be patient.
The FOB was a powerful force, they could hold. A way would be found eventually.
When Oscar Britton was recaptured, Thorsson had fully expected that answer to change, for a relief expedition to be mounted.
But the answer stayed the same, the weeks dragged on, and Thorsson’s horror mounted.
Thorsson logged into the computer and double-clicked on the icon the technician had set up for him before he’d taken the com-puter from Washington. It was labeled, simply, direct connection.
The face that appeared on the screen was craggy, serious.
“Gatanas.”
Thorsson’s involvement in the incident with Oscar Britton had seen him appointed to the position of Special Advisor to the Reawakening Commission. Apart from spending much of his time on television interviews, it made him one of the most trusted men in SOC. The position had its privileges.
General Gatanas, the SOC Commandant, had hounded Thorsson daily since Britton’s escape. While his recapture had brought Thorsson back into the general’s good graces, the man still didn’t look thrilled to see him.
“It’s done, sir,” Thorsson said. “The full breakdown is in the report I emailed. Bookbinder—”
“Rescued Britton’s father, I know, I read the report,” Gatanas cut him off. “I’m giving orders for them to be detained until we can get to the bottom of their involvement.”
“They’re telling the truth, sir,” Thorsson said. “We have to evacuate the FOB. Taylor’s dead, sir. Crucible is running the post now.”
Gatanas’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not your call. Do I need to remind you of your title? ‘Special Advisor.’ That means you advise. You don’t order.”
“I understand that, sir. I am advising you to bring Crucible and his people home.”
“And how the hell do you propose we do that, Harlequin? Your ward, Oscar Britton, shot our Portamancer between the eyes on his way out the door.”
“We use him. Oscar Britton. We have to.”
Gatanas was silent.
“Sir, we . . .”
“That’s enough. I’ve been on the horn with Senator Whalen and the Joint Chiefs since Bookbinder pulled his little stunt with the Indians. They’ve got questions for you. Pack up whatever you’re doing at Ubon and get your ass back to the Pentagon.”
“Sir, Crucible’s a friend. We have to . . .”
“I am just about done being told what I have to do, Major,” Gatanas said. “Get on a plane, or fly yourself, I don’t care. But I had better see you back in the Pentagon, or it’s your ass.”
“How soon, sir?”
“Now, Major. Right fucking now.”
Thorsson knew something was wrong as soon as he got out of his car. The Pentagon’s expansive north parking lot was packed with black SUVs and cordoned off around the edges with orange traffic cones topped with yellow police tape. The usual crowds of morning commuters, civilian and military, were absent. He glanced up at the bridge leading past the athletic club and over the highway and counted at least two snipers walking slowly back and forth. A helicopter circled conspicuously overhead.
This was a lot of security, even for Senator Whalen. Had there been a death threat? He took a deep breath and quickened his pace across the parking lot.
He fumed as he went, thinking of all the time he’d wasted flying here from Thailand. And for what? A face–to–face meeting that could just as easily have been held over the Internet?
They were wasting time. With every second that ticked by, FOB
Frontier was at greater and greater risk. To hear Bookbinder tell it, the attacks were coming pretty much nightly now. Who knew how many men and women were dying with each step Thorsson took across the parking lot?
What if one of them was Crucible? Was his friend even now commanding the perimeter defenses, assuring his people that help was on the way?
The main entrance was completely blocked off. Harlequin could make out a small squadron of Pentagon police hunkered down behind bulletproof barriers, geared for war. He tried to slip into the crowd heading for the alternate entrance, being herded along by impatient Pentagon police officers, similarly equipped. As he stepped into the stream of commuters, one of the officers tapped his elbow, glancing down at a photograph on his cell phone. “Major Thorsson?”
“That’s me.”
“This way, sir.” He led Thorsson out of line and over to the main entrance he’d originally a
voided. The police there waved him through without checking his ID.
Inside the long foyer, he was led east, past the escalators that would have put him on the path to his office. After a few feet, four hard-looking Secret Service agents took over from the police and resumed their escort. Thorsson smirked at the direction they were taking. “We’re going to the gift shop?” The Secret Service agents were stone-faced, silent.
They stopped outside the fire doors that led to shopping concourse, shut tight. Thorsson had never seen that before. The area, normally the busiest in the building, had been cleared.
“Go ahead, sir,” one of the agents said, motioning him through the doors.
Thorsson straightened his uniform one last time and went through.
The shops were shuttered, steel gates drawn down over their doors and windows. The lights were dimmed, but Thorsson thought he could make out figures in the distant gloom, men standing on overwatch, weapons ready.
A man stood immediately before him, back turned, in a windbreaker, jeans, and docksiders. Thorsson recognized the forced casualness of his stance from hours of television, but the man’s voice confirmed it.
“Major Thorsson. Thank you for coming.”
Thorsson swallowed. “Sir, I was expecting to see Senator Whalen.”
President Walsh turned, giving him a grim look. “The senator is attending to some urgent business for me. I’m taking a personal interest in this matter. It’s a hell of a thing, Major, wouldn’t you say?”
“I would, Mr. President.”
Walsh gestured with a sheaf of papers. “I’ve looked over your report. Thorough. Precise. I wish I could get my staff to write like this.”
Praise from the commander in chief was never a bad thing, but there was something in Walsh’s sugarcoated tone that put him on edge. “Thank you, sir. I’ve lost a lot of hours over poor communications. I try to secure that wherever I can.”
Walsh smiled. “That’s good. That’s good. It’s quite a kerfuffle he’s stirred up with the Indians. Ambassador Buchar has got his hands full trying to get that put to bed. Not to mention that we’ve got the Russians, Singaporeans, and Chinese all demanding answers. It’s a hell of a headache.”
