Odyssey

by Michael Stephen Fuchs

  She looked back at him, seeming to master herself. “Nothing specific. But it sounds like more civilians are going to die as a result of this. And you’re not the only one with misgivings.”

  “Who else?”

  “Look. I heard them say there are mission planning documents online, on your intranet or something. Can’t you get access to them? Just take a look for yourself? Get proof?”

  Homer didn’t speak, but merely shook his head. He turned and looked at the door to the staging area behind them. It was a secure door, with no glass. But he could feel Kili staring at him right through the steel, no doubt along with all the others. And Homer knew one thing – he wasn’t going back in there to tell them what he was about to do.

  “Come on,” he said.

  Sarah nodded. “Where to?”

  “For starters, the room. I’m locking you in it.”

  Face-Off

  Like the corridors, the Red Squadron team room wasn’t anything like deserted now, not in the middle of the day. However many operators were going to be on the mission – and Homer didn’t even know that – it wouldn’t be too big a chunk of the 150-some left on the team. Homer could work that much out from the size of the boat they were taking.

  On the upside, when he entered, he found only a few guys inside. On the downside, they were his squadron-mates, so brushing them off was both harder and more painful than he would have liked. He got through the main area with smiles, waves, personal greetings, and a single comment.

  “Hey, we’ll catch up in a bit, okay?”

  With that, he was into the computer lab, where he sat down at a station in a corner, woke up the screen, hit control-alt-delete – and paused with his fingers over the keyboard.

  What he was about to do could definitely go either way.

  Finally, he just logged in with his old credentials – username and what he believed was the last version of his password, which he was more than a little surprised to remember correctly. He was immediately prompted to change it – that was about 27 months overdue – but he was in. Either deleting old accounts was just not a big priority in the ZA, or else their sysadmin was dead. Could have been either one.

  Clicking through to the mission planning areas, he found the most recent mission profile quickly enough. Kili had never told him, but it appeared to be called Op Tastes Like Chicken. But when he tried to open it, he didn’t have permissions. He stole a look over his shoulder, at a couple of guys still sitting out in the main room. Nobody seemed to pay any attention to him.

  He drummed his fingers on the keyboard, considering.

  Finally, he logged out again. And then he tried to log back in using Kili’s credentials – his old username, and then several versions of his most common password, which luckily ended with a digit, and so just got incremented every time Kili had to change it. Homer knew if he got it wrong five times, the account would lock.

  He got it on the fifth try.

  And this time the mission planning area opened up. There was a lot of material – text, imagery, maps, documents – but if there was any high-level concept document, like a five-paragraph op order, it didn’t jump out at him. He started flipping things open more or less at random.

  First, inexplicably, there was a bunch of material on dirigibles – including the Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle, or LEMV. Homer vaguely remembered, and the docs reminded him, that this was a 300-foot-long HAV, or hybrid air vehicle, meant to replace a lot of propeller- and jet-driven UAVs, due to its greater endurance and linger time. It could go 100mph on its four supercharged diesel engines, but also stay in the air for five days or more – and, uniquely, carry up to 30,000 pounds of cargo. This was particularly weird to find, because the program had been cancelled in 2012, due to schedule overruns, and also the American military getting out of Afghanistan.

  Then again, nothing was ever canceled canceled, and the prototypes would have been mothballed somewhere.

  Backing out, Homer scanned for anything mentioning cabinet members holed up in the Pentagon or nearby, or even any target profile details for secure facilities in DC. But he looked in vain. However, there was a target profile folder for Andrews Air Force Base, southwest of DC, and not far from the shores of the Potomac. That made a certain amount of sense.

  Homer queued that. He definitely wanted to read more.

  But then, backing out again, the next thing he found was less random than the airship, but perhaps more disturbing: a whole folder on the ADS, the Active Denial System. He skipped an unrestricted-marked PDF describing the weapon system, and jumped into a doc marked as secret. Immediately, the screen filled with a picture – a device looking like a satellite dish, similar to the one he’d seen on the Humvee downstairs – but at least four times as big, across every dimension. Homer could tell because there were human figures in the photo.

  It was just gigantic.

  And what appeared to be its power source was even bigger.

  Homer reached for the mouse to scroll down.

  A hand came down from behind him – not just on the desk, but right on his own hand, which was on the mouse. Before he could react, he felt something tickling his ear – and found it wasn’t breath or hair, but fur. Looking over his shoulder, he saw a pelt, a thick beard, and a very dark and unamused eye.

  It was one of the Ulfhednar.

  But not a man Homer had ever laid eyes on before. Another figure stood behind that one, his hand on the butt of a sidearm. That one Homer knew – Jimmy, one of the ones he’d seen in the hall.

  Homer’s animal instincts told him to get the hell out from under this dude. But his training and experience told him it would be a bad idea to escalate the situation – instead he needed to de-escalate it. So, for starters, he didn’t move.

  “You’re needed for mission prep,” the voice an inch from his ear breathed, tinged with something a lot like menace.

  “No problem,” Homer said, waiting to get his hand back.

  And then, during his escorted walk out through the team room, feeling like a perp walk with guards on either side, Homer’s mind raced, not taking long to solve the problem of how these guys knew where he was. They might never have deleted his account, but they could still be alerted when he logged in – either as himself, or as Kili, and also when he pulled files from sensitive areas. Info-sec had been a big concern before the end. And those safeguards might still be in place.

  Should have considered that beforehand, he thought.

  Whatever suspicions he had raised with his whispered conversations with Kili in front of the others, and with Sarah showing up in the staging area, a bigger cat was out of the bag now. Homer had been compromised as disloyal, certainly in the eyes of these guys. He didn’t figure this would bode well for his health or longevity, never mind his prospects for getting out of there with his kids.

  Right now he just needed to figure out what to say to get these two goons off him for a little while…

  * * *

  Sarah breathed a sigh of relief when the door knocked.

  She had been sitting alone in dead Black Tom’s old suite, in the near dark. She figured being free of the kids would be a relief. But instead she found being on her own wasn’t a hell of a lot better. Alone with her demons. Wondering if anything she had ever done made any sense. Worried that she’d screwed things up with Homer beyond repair. Terrified about what was going to happen as a result. Desperate to finally be making the right decisions. Frantic not to get it wrong.

  It was all harder than she’d ever thought it would be.

  And it didn’t look like getting any easier.

  Homer hadn’t literally locked her in the room – it didn’t lock from the outside. But he had taken the keycard, and forbidden her from going out again. She had kind of burned that bridge – or rather used up all the rope she had, and then some.

  But now Homer was back. Nobody but him knocked.

  When she pulled open the door, her chirpy greeting died in her throat,
her smile disappeared – and her breath evaporated.

  Standing in the shadows was a monster in human form.

  Sarah was average height for a woman, and so far team guys had struck her as conspicuously average-sized – Homer said huge men just had more bulk to drag through the sand and surf, and up to the top of the mountain. But this man was a good six-five. She also guessed he weighed north of 200 – but not from bulk, never mind flab. Just solid muscle and bone mass. His shoulders and chest were broad, but the chest was somewhat concave, the shoulders hulking over and around it.

  He loomed.

  He wore a cotton t-shirt, but V-neck, beneath which Sarah could see thick chest hair. Over that was a windbreaker, zipped halfway up. Below that, well-worn jeans. And hiking boots, scuffed brown leather, not synthetic or high-tech like Homer’s. At the seam of jeans and windbreaker, on an embroidered leather belt, not a tactical one, rode an automatic pistol in a leather belt-slide holster. From the width, the magazine was single-stack, old-school, a .45 probably. Nickel gleamed, a wickedly sharp and skeletonized hammer.

  And that hammer was hauled all the way back.

  Like a snake ready to strike.

  Sarah knew this meant the weapon was either in condition one – chambered, cocked, and safety on – or else condition zero, with the safety off. She ardently hoped it was the former.

  When he opened his mouth, he didn’t speak – he rumbled.

  “I’m looking for Nancy Drew. She in?”

  Sarah’s blood ran cold. As she tried to control her breathing, she didn’t know whether it was from the words – obviously, glaringly, an accusation, right off the bat – or else from the face they came out of, which she only really saw now. Classic black eye patch. Jaw and cheekbones like an MMA fighter, or lumberjack. Black wavy hair swept back, graying at the temples. Thick dark beard, not long or unkempt – but lush.

  And, weirdly, a pretty mouth within the beard.

  But between the eyepatch and the top of that sensual mouth, it looked like half his face had been melted. This was not a beautiful or enticing effect. And the way it fired Sarah’s imagination, about what was under the eye patch, made her skin want to crawl off her bones.

  She felt as if she’d fallen into the boss level of some video game with phenomenal graphics, its characters rendered so realistically they dropped her into the uncanny valley. But this man was real, terrifyingly so. She imagined she could feel his body heat from three feet away.

  She could feel something. Physical. Primal.

  Finally, she realized what this whole experience reminded her of – that thousand-pound grizzly coming at them out of the forest. That was the last time she had been this frightened.

  When Odin nodded past her, to the dim interior of the suite, she found herself autonomously moving clear, like getting out of the way of an eighteen-wheeler that wasn’t slowing down. He took a seat on a bed – the same one the kids had slept and played in. Then he patted the mattress beside him.

  Sarah found her will – and pulled up the chair from the desk.

  He laughed: Fine, then.

  Watching him directly across from her in the dim light, Sarah’s lips parted a little – but she had no idea what to say, and wasn’t sure her voice would work even if she did.

  “So,” Odin said, his voice like an undersea drilling platform. “I was gonna ask if you were settling in okay. But they tell me you’re making yourself right at home.”

  Sarah finally found her voice. “Who told you that?”

  Odin smiled, deep lines appearing around his mouth, a lot of weathered crinkles around his eyes, both from low body fat, and advancing middle age. Probably also a lot of time in the sun and salt water, Sarah figured. Weathered. He said, “Not Kili, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Sarah just narrowed her eyes and watched him, transfixed.

  Odin laughed again. “Hey, lesser known story: Kili shouldn’t even fucking be here. You know that?”

  “No,” Sarah managed. “Why?”

  “He never should have made it through BUD/S in the first place. But the motherfucker cheated. And not in the wink-wink way the instructors always knew about, and let go on, if it was clever. No – in a way that should have got his ass booted. And can you guess who helped him do it?”

  “Homer,” Sarah breathed.

  “Gold fucking star. Yeah, man – motherfucker straight broke the rules, to help his teammate squeak in. To help him get through what every man is supposed to get through alone.”

  Sarah tried to take less shallow breaths. “I thought teamwork was the whole point. Of the teams.”

  “Ha. Homer tell you that? Yeah, okay. But, you know what, you gotta be careful about the team you choose. And you’ve got to know who your real teammates are. As for Homer, that pious son of a bitch… well, let’s just say he’s willing to lie to protect people when it suits him. But then he’ll fucking betray others, rat them out, when that suits him better.”

  Odin took a breath, his broad chest spreading out wide, then leaned back on arms straightened out behind him on the bed. “So, yeah, I bet you didn’t know that. Kili owes his presence in the teams, his trident, to Homer. And so motherfucking Homer shouldn’t be here, either.”

  His eyes narrowed, and Sarah realized the man hadn’t looked away from her for one second. This guy was like unmoving stone cliffs, and it was deeply unnerving. Then his voice got even lower, darker, and more edged.

  “But at least fucking Kili knows enough to be loyal.”

  Sarah couldn’t even nod in response.

  Odin touched his eye patch. “Homer tell you how I lost this?” Before she could reply, he answered his own question. “Fighting the dead. Got splashed with zombie gunk. So I cut the motherfucker out myself. Knifed out one bit of flesh, to save the whole body.”

  Sarah cocked her head. It didn’t even occur to her to believe Odin’s version of the story over Homer’s. That this guy would be big on self-mythologizing didn’t surprise her in the least. Hell, this whole place was one big web of lies. Mainly, and despite being massively intimidated by him, overwhelmed by his malevolent presence, she could read Odin perfectly, just like any small-time tough guy out on the street. The thing about bad guys was they were mainly interested in themselves.

  But she definitely got the point of his version of the story.

  And just in case she didn’t, he went on. “So I strongly urge you to take my advice when I tell you you need to let Homer get the fuck on with his mission. Fuck, man, you need to make sure he does the mission.”

  Sarah’s ego stirred. “Oh, yeah? Or else what?”

  Odin laughed, not a nice sound. “Or else you become an obstacle to the mission. And you know team guys, man. We eliminate obstacles.” He stood up, and reached into his pocket, pulling out a phone. He unlocked the screen, stabbed a finger, and turned it around toward Sarah. “And in case you were thinking of telling him about this conversation…”

  Sarah squinted at the screen. It showed CCTV footage of her creeping down a hallway, then stopping at a corner, peeking around, and ducking back again. She’d never seen the camera, but that didn’t mean much. She immediately realized it had been taken when she was following those two men. Eavesdropping.

  “So – you want Homer to know how you were sniffing around, trying to dig up dirt on his brothers?” He moved to the door, opened it, and turned back. “Risking his career? His safety? Risking his fucking children? Nah. I don’t think you do.”

  Sarah sat rooted, breathless, as the door shut again.

  The Bear

  No one answered the door when Homer knocked.

  Pressing his lips in a tight line, he knocked again, then gave it another few seconds. But then he touched his card, and slapped at the handle, instantly getting annoyed again. Even after all this, his explicit instructions, Sarah was off screwing arou—

  But she wasn’t off screwing around. She was there, sitting in a chair in the dark in front of one of the beds. Looking
like she’d just lost her family all over again. But then Homer remembered how recent that event still was, and guessed she was in here alone, communing with her demons. Any annoyance he felt bled away, and he put his hand on her shoulder.

  “You okay?”

  She just nodded, her expression not perking up much, and still inscrutable. Homer sat down opposite her on the bed and peered into her face. He guessed she hadn’t worn any mascara in some time, or it would still be staining her face from their blow-up down in that stairwell.

  “You may be right,” he said.

  This seemed to perk her up slightly. “About the mission?”

  “Yes. It’s pretty clearly not what I’ve been told it is.”

  Sarah just nodded.

  Homer went on. “But I still have to do it.”

  It was true. This wouldn’t be the first time Homer, and many other shooters, had sensitive operational details kept from them. And it wasn’t the first time he had to follow orders and run the op anyway. The difference this time was – well, everything was different, most importantly having his family in the balance. Homer didn’t elaborate on what he’d found, and Sarah didn’t ask him to.

  Instead, she asked, “What happened at BUD/S?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you helped Kili get through it. How he wouldn’t have made it without you.”

  Homer just squinted, wondering how she could possibly know about that. Had Kili come to see her?

  “Is it true?” she asked.

  Homer shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. Was Kili here?”

  She ignored his question. “Just tell me. One more story.”

  “Okay, Sarah.” Homer leaned back and took a breath. “It was the second night of Hell Week. They had us out in the surf, all in a line with our arms linked, floating there up to our necks – in sixty-degree water. And, believe me, just floating there in water that cold is much worse than doing something out in it. A lot of guys quit that day. I remember there was one, who had been one of the strongest performers in the class. Now his teeth were chattering, like everyone else’s, but he pulled free of the arms on either side of him and said, ‘Fuck this, I’m quitting.’ Just like that. But as he started stumbling out of the surf, our class leader, an officer and Annapolis grad, also broke free and ran after him. When he couldn’t physically stop him, he grabbed one of the instructors. ‘He doesn’t mean it,’ he pleaded. ‘Don’t let him ring out, send him back in the water’.”