by Mel Odom
“Thank you, sir.”
Remington pursed his lips. “You’ve got some downtime coming, sergeant.” He glanced at the picture on the table. “Get this straight in your head. Figure out what you can do something about and what you can’t. Don’t let the world get so big you can’t deal with it. One thing at a time. One opponent at a time. One mission at a time. One battle at a time. One war at a time. That’s how we’ve always done it.” He paused. “It works. That’s how we’ll continue to do it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’ll get through this, Goose.” Remington stood, and Goose stood with him. “We will because we don’t have a choice. Get some sleep, then get back out there. We’ve got to make this city look like we’re going to hold it. That way Ankara and Diyarbakir City will have time to get ready to deal with the Syrian invasion when it comes. And it will.”
“Yes, sir.”
The captain hesitated. “I also want Baker and his snake-oil show shut down.”
Goose took a moment to consider, wanting to make sure he had his words right and wasn’t too confrontational. “I don’t know if I can do that, sir. The men have a right to peaceably assemble on their own time.”
“Back home, sure, but this is a war zone, sergeant. They can assemble only when I say so. Remember that.”
“I will, sir.”
Remington grimaced. “If you can’t shut the man down, Sergeant, at least limit him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t want an army full of zealots,” Remington said. “After last night, stories have passed all through this command about how God reached down and saved the 75th.”
Goose nodded.
“I’ve also heard that God took all those missing people.”
Goose didn’t say anything. Megan had tried to tell him that, too, but she’d sounded more like she was trying to convince herself.
“Including your son,” Remington said.
Reaching into himself, Goose made his face stone.
“I don’t believe that, Sergeant,” Remington said. “I believe if you’ll think back, you’ll remember that several SCUDS hit that mountain before we got there. SCUDS that didn’t make it to their target destinations. I know that’s what I saw.”
Goose knew that was true. The SCUDS had gone everywhere again for a while. The second attack was what had damaged Sanliurfa so much. But he could also remember the feeling, the euphoria, that had filled him when Joseph Baker had led the Rangers in prayer.
“You have to ask yourself, Sergeant,” Remington said, “that if you want to believe that God cares about the 75th so much that He would save us from the Syrians, why would He see fit to take your boy?”
And that, Goose knew, had been exactly the question he had been wrestling with while he’d sat there and contemplated drinking that beer. He faulted himself for being so weak. Yet he forgave himself immediately. The God that he had been brought up to recognize wouldn’t have just taken Chris away. Would He?
Would He?
Indecision chafed at Goose’s thoughts. Baker seemed certain of what had happened. But you no longer are, are you? The saddest part of that was that Goose honestly didn’t know. If Chris hadn’t been taken—
But he had. Chris was gone. Megan had told him that.
Remington dropped a hand to Goose’s shoulder. “And if you need anything, let me know.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Goose watched Remington go, feeling the distance that now lay between him and his friend.
Outside the door, still in Goose’s sight, Remington’s Hummer rolled forward. In the glare of the lights against the night, Goose saw Dean Hardin sitting at the steering wheel as Remington climbed aboard the vehicle.
Hardin showed Goose a cold smile and tossed him an insouciant two-fingered salute. In the next instant, the Hummer pulled away.
For a moment, Hardin’s presence drew Goose’s mind from the despair that filled him. Hardin was a dangerous man, and one that didn’t easily forgive grudges. He was the kind of man that would put a knife in another man’s back the first time a chance presented itself. During the upcoming battles with Syria, Goose knew there would be plenty of chances for Hardin to find him.
“Some piece of work, your captain there,” a quiet voice said.
Goose turned back to the table and found a man sitting in the chair Remington had vacated. Although the hours that stretched between their previous encounter seemed several lifetimes long, Goose recognized the younger man.
“Agent Icarus,” Goose said softly.
The young man smiled through a mask of bruises. “Yes.” He glanced furtively around the tavern. “I know your captain is looking for me, Sergeant.”
Goose nodded. “So is the CIA.”
“I expected as much.”
Goose started to get up.
“Don’t, Sergeant.” The young agent placed a hand on the table, safely out of reach of any sudden move Goose might make without getting up from his chair. Inside the hand, an electronic detonator blinked a red warning light.
Goose froze.
“Do you know what this is?” the young agent asked.
“Yes.”
“Good. I have the explosive planted in this place. If you move, a lot of people, perhaps even you, are going to die.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to speak with you.”
Goose inhaled and exhaled, taking time to think about that. “Why?”
“Because you impressed me yesterday. I think you’re a good man.”
Goose shrugged. “You could be wrong.”
“I know.” The young agent shook his hand holding the remote control detonator. “That’s why I came with insurance.”
“I’m listening,” Goose said. Using his peripheral vision, he glanced around the room, hoping he would spot a member of his unit that he could give hand signals to.
The young man looked worn and much the worse for wear. Goose doubted he’d seen a bed since his squad had rescued the man from the PKK terrorist cell. “Things aren’t exactly what you think they are.”
“That transmission initiated the attack,” Goose said.
The young man nodded. “That was all planned. My capture. You being there to stop the PKK cell. All of it.”
Goose listened, thinking the younger man was delusional.
“They’re very good at what they’re doing,” Icarus said. “Of course, they’ve been waiting for that moment yesterday for decades. They’ve had time to think and plan and get ready for the final confrontation.”
“What confrontation?” Goose asked. “The Syrians?”
Icarus shook his head. “The Syrians are actually only a small part of it, Sergeant. The fate of the world hangs in the balance here.” He smiled in self-deprecation. “Or at least the next seven years of it. As well as the souls of all those who have been left behind.”
“Who was left behind?” Goose struggled to find the thread of logic in the man’s words.
“The non-believers,” Icarus said. “And those who only gave belief lip service. And those like yourself who had doubts.”
“About what?”
“God.”
A cold chill spiked through Goose’s belly.
“I heard about what happened out there on that mountain, Sergeant.”
“It was just a fluke,” Goose said. “The mountain had been shelled. It was ready to fall. When the Syrian heavy cav came through there, the fissures gave way and the mountain fell.”
Icarus smiled. “I’d heard it was the hand of God that spared you.” He shook his head. “Maybe I heard wrong.” He gazed into Goose’s eyes. “What do you believe?”
Goose hesitated. “I don’t know,” he replied.
“If it was just that the mountain that chose that time to fall, or some kind of uninvolved fate that simply occurred at that moment, the timing couldn’t have been any better for you and your men.”
Goose couldn’t argue with that, so he didn’t.<
br />
Icarus glanced around the room. “I was fooled, Sergeant. I was used.”
“You need to talk to the CIA.”
“I can’t. No one there will believe me. And if Cody finds me, I very much believe he will kill me.” Icarus smiled. “I think you and your team were better than he bargained for. I don’t think I was supposed to survive the rescue yesterday. But I did. And now he’s afraid of me because of what I know.” He paused. “Cody had a team waiting for me here. They captured me. I had to kill them to escape. Cody’s looking for me. And I know your captain has men out looking as well.”
“Why talk to me?” Goose asked.
“Because you seem like a good man,” Icarus said. “I’ve seen few enough of them my life that I’ve learned to know one when I see one. Your friend, Bill, is a good man, too.”
“He disappeared,” Goose said.
Icarus nodded. “I can’t say that I’m surprised.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“Yes.”
Blood thundered through Goose’s temples. If the man knew where Bill was, then maybe he knew where Chris was. “Where?”
Icarus studied Goose for a moment, then shook his head sadly. “You’re not ready.” He shifted the detonator in his hand. “I’ll tell you this, though. As bad as you think things have been, as bad as you think they’re going to get, they’re going to be even worse. Worse than you can ever imagine. Seven years of lies and subterfuge and unspeakable horror, Sergeant. Only those who find the truth will be spared. And even after everything that has happened, there are going to be so many that don’t believe.”
“Don’t believe what?”
“That’s what I’m talking about, Sergeant. The proof is lying before you, and still you refuse to see. That’s what the Antichrist is relying on.”
Goose studied the man. “You don’t have a bomb.”
A smile flitted across his face. “Of course I have a bomb.”
Goose shook his head. “You come in here worrying about the souls of people you don’t even know, and you claim you’re prepared to destroy this place and kill everyone in it? I don’t believe you.”
“Listen to me.” Icarus looked even more nervous, and he was scared now, too. “You’ve got to listen to me.”
“No,” Goose said. “No, I don’t have to listen to you.” He surged up from the table. Then his bad knee locked up in a blaze of pain that took him to the ground. He fought his way through the agony, willing himself to stay conscious.
By the time Goose got to his feet in the crowd of confused and concerned tavern patrons, Icarus was gone. Goose limped through the crowd to the back door to the alley.
Nothing moved in the fetid shadows that filled the narrow alley. Icarus was gone as if he’d never existed, but his words hung in the air.
“As bad as you think things have been, as bad as you think they’re going to get, in reality they’re going to be even worse. Seven years of lies and subterfuge and unspeakable horror, Sergeant. Only those who find the truth will be spared.”
Goose limped out into the alley. Overcome, nearly exhausted, hurting over his losses and more confused and lonely than he’d ever been in his life, he sat in the alley with his back to the wall.
He looked up at the star-filled sky and wished he could believe the way that Bill had, wished that he could hold Chris again, wished that he knew.
And only a sheer effort of will and years of training kept him from screaming in frustration. Still, just as Remington had said, he was a professional soldier. No matter what happened, he knew his place in the world.
But sometimes—sometimes when they were hurt and lonely and scared and confused, when there was no fighting to be done, sometimes soldiers cried.
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