by Myke Cole
That was a lifetime ago. Magic had different plans for both of them.
He thought briefly of taking her out now, dismissed it. She was surrounded by enemy, and who knew how many sorcerers were down there in addition to the Gahe. He could call in an air strike and condemn civilians for blocks to a fiery death.
He’d done his recon. Harlequin turned, motioning the helo to follow, and made for Battery Park, Scylla’s face haunting him. He toggled radio channels until he raised Cormack.
‘You’ve got comms with Washington?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Cormack said. ‘Satellite’s a little spotty, but it’ll hold.’
‘Great. Get a video teleconference going as high up the chain as you can. General Gatanas at a minimum, President Porter if you can raise him.’
‘Sir?’
‘You heard me, Captain. Get it done. I’ll be landing in a few minutes, and I want to go right into the call.’
‘I’ll need to give them a reason, sir.’
‘Crisis. That’s your reason. We’re about to be outgunned. Tell them we’re going to need help, and we’re going to need it right fucking now.’
Chapter Four
Underway
And now we hear that Oscar Britton has appeared at the Ngāpuhi Rūnanga, negotiating directly with the Māori. The American government has been unsurprisingly silent on Britton’s whereabouts and actions, afraid to condemn such a public hero as a traitor and terrorist. Britton is clearly taking advantage of this, working to build a public movement in favor of the repeal of the McGauer-Linden Act. There are signs that he’s gaining ground, particularly on the topic of Limbic Dampener. But I will bet you anything that the Porter administration has every spook working around the clock to find and stop him. If Britton suddenly goes silent, it won’t be hard to guess what happened.
– Dick Schumann, News analyst, Action6 News at Six
Brigadier General Alan Bookbinder stood on the aluminum ramp and looked down at his cell phone. His home number was dialed in, his wife on the other end. All he had to do was push CALL, and he’d be speaking to Julie in moments. He twisted the simple gold band on his finger, staring at the phone. Touching it had become a habit over the long days away from his wife, and now it had become a ritual, his talisman against loneliness.
His thumb hovered over the button, his eyes hovered over his shoulder. The ramp led from the pier at Staten Island’s Sector New York to the Coast Guard Cutter Breakwater. The black-hulled buoy tender sat low in the calm water, 225 feet of steel, his reward for the insubordination that had saved thousands and made him a folk hero. He’d helped Harlequin and Oscar Britton save the division of people trapped in the Source, under siege on FOB Frontier, helped bring them safely back home. The surge of support had gone viral on the Internet, a groundswell that the government couldn’t ignore.
They’d pardoned him. Promoted him. And put him out to pasture.
As the SOC’s liaison officer to the Coast Guard, Bookbinder could do no harm to anyone and was still in the grip of military justice.
Just in case he had any other ideas that ran counter to orders.
The woman charged with keeping an eye on him waited at the bottom of the pier. She was slight, young, her uniform looking a size too big for her. Her dark hair was swept into a regulation bun beneath her patrol cap. He’d been her commanding officer at FOB Frontier, and like many of the ‘heroes’ who’d survived the base’s destruction, she’d been brevetted up a rank. Her name tape read RIPPLE, which was also her call sign. Her Hydromancer’s lapel pin was askew on her uniform.
Ripple did her best to cast a steely eye at him, a no-nonsense look she hadn’t mastered. Bookbinder felt his heart go out to her. The role of guard fit her as poorly as the uniform.
Ripple was there as more than a guard. She was there to keep an eye on Bookbinder’s unique ability, which he had sworn to keep secret. Alan Bookbinder could siphon off magic and bind it into inanimate objects, or even people. Which was ostensibly why he was reporting to the Breakwater, to oversee the deployment of one of his ‘Bound Magical Energy Repositories’, what he called ‘boomers’, an oil drum brimming with a blend of Hydromantic and Aeromantic magic supposed to calm rough seas.
After saving FOB Frontier, he’d stepped through the gate outside Bethesda Naval Medical Center ready to be court-martialed. Instead, there’d been questions, tests, days and nights ‘for his own safety’ in a blank, featureless room which felt suspiciously like a comfortable prison cell. When the cries for his release finally forced the government’s hand, and he emerged blinking into the sunlight, he’d been allowed home for one night.
One.
The girls had flown into his arms, folding around his knees, the smell of their hair making his throat tighten. But Julie had hung back, one hand on the lintel, her face blank. She looked quickly away when he tried to meet her gaze, over his shoulder at his ‘protective security detail’, setting up their posts in the living room. Ripple was among them. She’d been assigned that morning.
The girls remained attached to his legs for the entire afternoon, and it wasn’t until they’d been put reluctantly to bed that he found himself alone in the bedroom with Julie, a guard outside the door.
She shrugged off his awkward embrace, looked at the floor. ‘There are a lot of people talking like you’re a war criminal.’
There were a lot of people calling him a hero, too, but not in the social circles of military wives where Julie spent her time.
She looked up at him. ‘Alan, what happened?’
He opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. How could he describe the adventure? The transformation? He’d left her a desk-bound bureaucrat and come home a battle-hardened war leader. That transformation enabled him to make the hardest decision of his life: defying the authority of his government in order to save tens of thousands of men and women.
The man standing across from Julie Bookbinder was not the man she’d married, and they’d both known that the moment he’d walked through the door.
He coughed, stammered. ‘Julie, I . . .’
The door opened, and the girls came running through. Ripple stood outside, shrugged, smiling. She looked scarcely older than his children. ‘They wouldn’t sleep, sir. They insisted . . .’
Bookbinder was too happy to acquiesce to letting the girls sleep with them. After all, he was only home for the one night. Kelly and Sarah lay between them, Julie’s silent form on her side, back to him.
As the girls snored, he reached out, traced a finger down Julie’s spine. ‘I did what I had to do, bunny. I had no choice.’ She stiffened, the pace of her breathing the only other indicator that she heard him.
‘I did what I did to get back to you in one piece. If I’d left those people when I could have saved them . . . what kind of man would I be?’
Silence.
‘Julie. The one thing that kept me going . . . it was so hard, and I was able to push on through dreaming about this moment. I kept thinking if I could just get back to you, if I could just hold on long enough to get back to you . . . then . . .’
‘Then what, Alan?’ she whispered.
‘Then it would be okay.’
‘It’s not okay. Nothing’s okay.’
He nodded in the darkness, biting back tears, unable to deny it. ‘It doesn’t have to be okay. That’s what “for better or for worse” means. It means that loving you is enough. And I do love you, Julie. Even if you’re angry with me. There’s still us after all of this. There has to be.’
Whether there had to be or not, she wouldn’t answer for the rest of the night, her back a white wall to his face, looming over the sleep-tousled heads of his children.
A stranger.
Bookbinder put the cell phone back in his pocket undialed. The ache tore at him. He knew that leadership was abo
ut making tough decisions, but he’d never truly understood it until he’d had to choose between orders and what he knew was right. That’s the man you fell in love with. Right, Julie? It wasn’t just about things being easy and comfortable. It wasn’t just about being a high-ranking officer’s wife?
Was it?
He knew he should be angry. Angry at the government for forcing him into this position. Angry at Ripple for dogging his heels. Angry at Julie for turning cold, for not giving him the benefit of the doubt.
But all he could muster was fatigue. All he could manage to crave was his old life. He loved his wife and children, and he missed them. There was simply nothing else.
One more fight in a string of many. He had found a way to stave off the overwhelming odds facing FOB Frontier. He would find a way to reclaim his place in the army. He would find a way to make Julie understand why he had done what he had done. He would fix this. The phone weighed heavily in his pocket. He’d put off making this call too many times. He wasn’t going to do it with a ship waiting for him to disembark. When he got back to shore, he’d grab a bench, wave everyone off, and talk for as long as it took. Ripple wouldn’t like it, but he’d figure out a way to deal with her.
He sighed and headed down the gangway. Ripple fell in behind him. He felt the disciplined eddy of her magic and pushed back on his own, instinctively reaching out to tug at her current. ‘Must be good to be on the water,’ he said. Ripple had helped him create his first boomers, water-cleaning devices that helped him make the long trek across miles of hostile territory.
‘You get sick of it after a while,’ she said. ‘Spend your life in Hydromancy, and after a while all you want to do is burn something.’
Bookbinder smiled. ‘Back at the FOB, all you wanted to do was come with me on a mission.’
Ripple looked around at the ship, the placid quay, the low buildings in the distance. Her mouth settled into a thin line. ‘Somehow, sir, this wasn’t what I had in mind.’
He laughed. ‘It’s safer.’
‘I didn’t join up to stay safe.’
The Breakwater’s skipper had spared four sideboys, two to either side of the gangway, to salute him as the boatswain piped him aboard, calling out, ‘Now, Brigadier General Alan Bookbinder, United States Army, arriving.’ Bookbinder had been briefed to salute the flag flying from the ship’s stern, but there were no officers visible to request permission to come aboard from, so he simply returned the salutes the sideboys offered, stepped onto the main deck, and stood awkwardly until the boatswain, a chief warrant officer whose name tape read RODRIGUEZ, came over to him.
She had a face like a granite block, hair cut efficiently short, black streaked with gray. Her hard muscle and leathery skin spoke of a life at sea. ‘Commander Bonhomme is waiting for you up on the bridge, sir,’ Rodriguez said. A breach of protocol and an insult, but Bookbinder had grown used to them.
Rodriguez led them into the superstructure, up a ladder, and down a narrow passageway. The Breakwater’s tight spaces made Bookbinder claustrophobic, the gentle rocking of the ship turning his knees watery. His appetite fled. Ripple took it in stride, also stumbling but not looking nearly as green.
He put out a hand against the bulkhead to steady himself, waving away Ripple’s support. Rodriguez turned, regarding him doubtfully. ‘You okay, sir?’
‘Fine,’ Bookbinder answered, straightening. ‘Just . . . not used to this is all.’ He felt his gorge rise and burped before he could stop himself.
Rodriguez’s eyes narrowed, with disgust or sympathy, he couldn’t tell. ‘Breakwater’s a stable platform, sir. It’ll get a little worse out there, but not much. I’ll ask the storekeeper if we’ve got a patch for you.’
Bookbinder wasn’t sure what a patch was, but he shook his head. ‘That won’t be necessary.’
Ripple glanced an apology at the boatswain, who shrugged. ‘Sure, sir.’ She led them up another ladder. The Breakwater’s bridge overlooked the bow, dominated by the massive buoy-hoisting crane, rising some sixty feet in the air. Sailors in blue uniforms bustled around it, stowing gear, making lines up, about the business of casting off from the pier and getting underway.
Commander Bonhomme stood in front of the console, beside a dour-looking lieutenant whose name tape read MARKS. Bonhomme was skinny, with tired blue eyes and a head of brown hair gone prematurely gray. Marks was young and robust with a weight lifter’s frame. His brown eyes widened as they fell on Bookbinder. Not everyone looked on him as a traitor. Some treated him as a hero. It was better, but not by much.
Bonhomme held a radio in one hand. The other was braced against the console edge as he gestured out the window. ‘No! There, damn it!’ he shouted, before realizing that he wasn’t speaking into the radio. He thumbed it, and said, ‘Yes, there. Thank you.’ He turned and acknowledged Bookbinder with a nod.
Bonhomme had an unfortunate combination of a skinny frame and a potbelly. His uniform hung off him, rumpled and unwashed, but he moved with a veteran’s efficiency. The stains on his uniform were engine oil, sea salt, and rust, his legs instinctively adjusting with the rocking of the ship. Rodriguez looked at him with respect.
‘Welcome aboard, General, Captain,’ Bonhomme said, not sounding welcoming at all. ‘You’ll have to forgive me for not greeting you at the gangway, but we’re late getting underway as it is.’
Bookbinder knew it was customary on ships to come to attention when a flag-grade officer like himself came onto the bridge. That, and Bonhomme’s failure to greet him personally were carefully disguised as the carelessness of protocol shown by a veteran seaman, but Bookbinder knew Bonhomme was letting him know he was unwelcome on his ship with the petty, passive-aggressive slights that military protocol seemed to have been designed for.
The ship rolled, and Bookbinder stumbled again. He caught his reflection in the shined stainless steel of the console and marveled at the greenish tint of his cheeks. Bonhomme turned to one of his sailors. His voice was icy. ‘SK3? Can you get General Bookbinder a scopalamine patch? It’ll take a few hours for it to kick in, sir, but . . .’
Bookbinder stopped the man with a wave. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Captain?’ Bonhomme looked at Ripple.
‘Thank you, sir. That’s not necessary.’
The sailor froze, and Bonhomme looked doubtful. ‘Sir, the chop will only get worse once we cast off . . .’
Bookbinder couldn’t give the man any more excuses to disrespect him. ‘I’ll manage. Where’s the armed guard?’
Bonhomme, Marks, and Rodriguez all looked at one another. ‘Sir,’ Bonhomme stammered, ‘I . . .’
‘Skipper, this trip will go a lot smoother if we dispense with the bullshit and be straight with one another. Captain Ripple is here for magical Suppression . . . aaand . . .’ Bookbinder looked around, spotted a sailor behind him in body armor with a pistol holstered against his thigh. ‘Ah, there you are. I suppose having an armed and armored sailor on the bridge of a buoy tender is just SOP?’
Bonhomme broke eye contact, looked to Marks for help, then at his feet. Bookbinder felt the air of empowered hostility shift and nodded in satisfaction. ‘So, let’s get it done. Let your command know I’m here and that you have me under guard, and we can get about our business.’
‘It’s already taken care of, sir,’ Rodriguez said, a ghost of a smile appearing on her hard face.
‘Good.’ Bookbinder smiled back.
Bonhomme didn’t smile, but the look he gave Bookbinder lacked the hostility it held before. ‘Bosun, take us out,’ he said. Rodriguez nodded and began giving commands to the sailor at the helm.
Bookbinder came to stand alongside Bonhomme, looking out the windows over the deck. The engines sent vibrations up through their feet, as the Breakwater began to make way. The ship rolled as it cleared the dock and the current took it. Bookbinder’s stomach rolled wit
h it. He swallowed hard, loosening his knees and tried to let his feet move naturally with the deck, refusing to reach out a hand to steady himself. Black smoke belched from the ship’s smokestack, wafting past the window.
Ripple rocked easily with the ship’s motion, already used to the pitching deck beneath her boots. ‘How the hell do you do that?’ Bookbinder asked.
She smiled. ‘Not that hard once you get used to it, sir. My dad used to take me sailing when I was a kid.’
They shared the smile before Ripple remembered she was his minder and secured hers with an effort. Bookbinder grinned. You know why I did what I did, he almost said out loud. You’re just too damned young and insecure to go against the might of the US Army.
The sailors on the deck rigged a black oil drum to the crane’s hook. In a humorous nod to the Breakwater’s main purpose, the words LOVE ME TENDER were painted along the crane’s giant boom. Bookbinder had spent two days Binding the magic of a half dozen SOC Aeromancers and Hydromancers, Ripple among them, into that drum, and he could feel the faintest touch of the magical current even from here.
‘So, that’s it, huh?’ Bookbinder asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ Bonhomme replied. ‘It’s pretty calm here, but once we get out of the bay, we could get four-to-six-foot seas. Should be enough to test your . . . device.’
‘Boomer,’ Bookbinder said. ‘We call it a boomer.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Bonhomme said doubtfully. ‘Anyway, provided your tests don’t take too long, we should be tied back up by sunset.’ And then you can be on your way, Bookbinder silently finished for him. ‘What exactly are we doing again, sir?’
Keeping me out of the public eye. Punishing me for disobeying the president. ‘Search me. You tell me how rough the seas are. We put that thing in the water. We wait a few minutes. Then you tell me how rough the seas are. I report back. Think you can handle that?’
Bonhomme looked affectionately over the crane. ‘She’ll pull fifty thousand pounds with the auxiliary. I think she can handle one oil drum, sir.’
