Soldier's Heart Part Four: Brotherhood Protectors World

by Ilsa J. Bick

  “Yeah, I totally got all that,” Boone said.

  Hacker’s lips thinned. “What I’m saying is this is no longer one signal. It’s many.”

  “We talking a new wrinkle?” Kujo glanced up from checking Six’s harness for the umpteenth time. Not nervy, are we? He was. Hacker’s little crack about Frankenstein had seen to that. This operation feels all wrong. He felt only marginally better when Six, still muzzled, butted his head against Kujo’s chest: Hey, boss, chill. He looked at Hacker. “I gather the whole harmonic whatever isn’t supposed to happen.”

  Hacker let out a snort that practically screamed, Well, duh. “Think of it this way. A PLB doesn’t change. If it did, you’d never recognize a friendly. But look at this.” Hacker turned the laptop. “Tell me which band is the one we want.”

  Back at Walter Reed, he’d had about a trillion EEGs, which happened when you were diagnosed with TBI. He hated that skull cap. All those leads and wires were like something out of The Matrix. Hacker was right, too. It was kind of Frankenstein.

  What he now saw was similar, only instead of nice, separate scritchy lines, the tracings looked as if a kitten had gotten into a couple balls of yarn. “Why are they tangled?”

  Hacker reclaimed his laptop. “Think of it this way. Play a note on a piano. It has a tone, but there are always sub- and super-positional tones occupying different frequencies. They are what give music its richness. Same with a person’s voice. We don’t occupy just one register. We occupy many and at the same time. We change pitches, tones, tonalities, harmonics. It’s why our voices can be warm, cold, show depth.”

  “And you’re saying a locator frequency shouldn’t do that.”

  “Even I know that,” Boone said. “No way to lock on. She trying to mask her signal?”

  “If she is, I want to know where she got her degree. This is too complicated. It’s as…” Hacker put a finger to his lips as if to shush himself before the words slipped out. “As if I’ve stumbled into a crowd or gotten onto a party line where everyone’s talking at once.”

  “Could it be interference?” Kujo offered.

  “Possibly.”

  “You don’t sound convinced.”

  “Because I’m not. This is…” Hacker thought about it a second. “Different.”

  “Different good or different bad?”

  “I can’t tell. We probably won’t know until I can get her back in the lab—”

  “Coming up on the drop site.” The pilot’s voice sizzled from Kujo’s helmet comm. “Nothing nice and level, but we’ll get you as close to the flank as we can, so you can circle around and intercept. Still gonna have a hike, about three—” A moment’s silence. “Mr. Hacker, Boone, you boys take a look at the drone feed?”

  Kujo heard the mister. Certainly answered who was ultimately in charge.

  “Why?” Hacker asked. “Is there a problem?”

  “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t think so.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that.” Boone tugged out his tablet. “What’s the problem?”

  “You look and tell me.”

  Everyone crowded round. Kate McEvoy’s signature was easy to spot, but was it… “Is she fading out?” Kujo asked.

  “You see that, hunh?” Boone didn’t sound happy. “Thought it might be my eyes.”

  “It’s not your eyes.” Hacker was staring hard enough to burn holes through his screen. “I’ll be damned. I think her systems must…know?” He seemed to be testing how the word tasted. “Yes, that’s close enough.”

  “Know what?” Boone asked.

  “Ever have a premonition, Sergeant? Or a feeling you were being watched? I think she or some portion of her knows we’re here. That we’re close. It might not even have reached her conscious mind. She may simply be uneasy or looking over a shoulder and then her systems respond in kind. It’s a guess, of course. Again, I won’t know anything until I can—”

  “Get her to the lab and take her apart.” Kujo heard the curtness and decided screw it. “Yeah, we got that. Will this interfere with this…” He almost said kidnapping. “Rendition?”

  If he’d expected Hacker to be offended, he was disappointed. “Return for evaluation. Again, I don’t know. If the core signal holds—”

  The pilot cut in. “Fellas, we got another problem. Look at your feed.”

  “Now what?” Checking his tablet, Boone groaned. “This just keeps getting better and better.”

  Kujo crowded in for a peek. Judging from the silver smear along the eastern horizon, dawn wasn’t far away. What was on the ground might even have been visible without the drone’s night vision.

  “I count four guys,” Boone said. “Figure they gave themselves a couple hours to hit that eastern flank, which would tally. Take about that long to make the hike to the place where the drone picked up your lab experiment, Hacker.”

  The drone’s feed was clear and its magnification excellent, and with the night vision added, Boone was right in terms of timing, too. The bodies were mostly gray lumps with only a faint glimmer of green light emanating from their torsos as the dead men gave up the last of their heat.

  “Look.” Reaching past Boone, Kujo spreads his fingers then pointed. “Snowmobiles. Parked a couple miles out and bushwhacked in. Ten to one, the guys they killed knew them and didn’t think they were a threat. They could even have been part of the same crew.”

  “Or maybe only one got in close, pulled a weapon and then his guys came in, took out everybody.” Boone nodded. “But they can’t be thinking about taking everyone out on the snowmobiles. There are eight kids, plus the guy, the dog, and that woman, and no room.”

  And McEvoy. Kujo was pretty sure she would be both unexpected and unwelcome, begging the question again of why she was along for the ride in the first place. “I don’t think they’re planning on take passengers.”

  “Then why go for an intercept?” Boone favored him with a long look. “Oh shit,” he said, his tone almost mild. “I’ll be damned.”

  “What?” Hacker asked.

  “Think, Hacker. Where are you going to kill a whole bunch of people who, even if they’re missed, will never be found?” Kujo asked. “You do it out of sight and deep underground. You do it in the mountain, in Dead Man.”

  Hacker’s brows knit. “But why?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question.” But Kujo thought he knew. Those girls. He would bet good money they weren’t the prize, but what they carried was. A whole lot of trouble for a bunch of drugs, though.

  A few moments later, the chopper dropped to a hover sixty feet off the ground. As the crew chief payed out ropes, Kujo called Six then lifted the dog in his arms, grunting a little at the strain. At eighty pounds, the shepherd wasn’t a lightweight.

  “Man, and to think I know guys who go to gyms and pay to lift weights.” Clipping Six to Kujo’s harness, Boone grinned. “They spend some time fast-roping down and then climbing back up with this monster-dog of yours, that’d be a fine workout on Uncle Sam’s—”

  From the south there came a distant roll of thunder that made Kujo’s chest get tight because the sound was so familiar. Jesus. He jerked a look in time to catch an orange-red plume, as tiny as a candle’s flame with distance, leap from the summit of a far peak.

  “Gasoline. Maybe kerosene, but I’d bet money on gas. Gasoline burns dirtier.” Boone sounded remarkably calm. “See the smoke? All gray and black like that. Just like Iraq.”

  “Afghanistan, too.” Kujo’s mouth was dry, his tongue as coarse as sandpaper. “Where’s it coming from?”

  “Dunno.” Boone shrugged. “Not our mission.”

  “What?” Kujo goggled. “We know there are people there. Things don’t just explode. Someone could be really hurt.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “Come on. Spontaneous combustion in the snow? You know that’s not it.”

  “We don’t know any such thing,” Hacker said.

  “Bull. That was up high, above th
e trees. For my money, I’d say an old fire tower or something.”

  “Chaney Peak,” Boone offered. “Map says it’s got an old tower.”

  “Still not our problem,” said Hacker.

  The pilot cut in over their headsets. “Gentlemen, you going or what? Or are we heading over to investigate?”

  “We are not investigating,” Hacker spat. “It was probably nothing.”

  “That was a really loud and really bright nothing,” Boone observed.

  “What do you propose? We check it out? You have your orders. There’s no time for diversions and this is not a joy ride. Our mission is down there. We do not have the luxury of time to ride off to the rescue.”

  Kujo knew Hacker was technically right, but damn it. Then he remembered. “Wait. We have an eye in the sky, right? Ask them to look then decide if they should alert the local LEOs or maybe even get the National Guard or whatever, something.” For that matter, he bet Hank Patterson would scramble a team.

  “Wouldn’t hurt,” Boone said. “Be the right thing, too. Your call, of course.”

  “Right and wrong do not concern me,” Hacker began.

  “No, of course, they wouldn’t,” Kujo said. “Listen to me. That was deliberate. For God’s sake, it was like sending up a flare. Someone is in trouble. It doesn’t cost you anything to have someone check it out.”

  Hacker cut him a venomous look. “I am not pulling our drone.”

  “Then find another.”

  “Come on,” Boone said when Hacker hesitated. “Surprise us and do the right thing.”

  The small muscles in Hacker’s jaw worked. “This is not my problem,” he muttered, but then he was reluctantly tip-tapping keys. “Give me a moment.”

  “Thank you.” Resting his hands on Six, still bundled in his harness, Kujo eyed the faraway pillar of black smoke churning against a silvering sky. “You’re doing the right—”

  “Hey. Hey, Hacker?” Boone poked his tablet. “Take a look at your feed.”

  Hacker was still typing. “In a moment.”

  “Naw, I think you better look now.”

  Kujo caught the sudden urgency. “Why?”

  “’Cause their lab experiment just made like The White Rabbit.”

  “What?” Hacker’s whole face folded into a deep scowl. “What are you talking about? What white rabbit?”

  “You need to get out of that lab, go read yourself some decent books. What I’m saying is, your girl McEvoy?” Boone turned his tablet so they all could see. “She just up and disappeared.”

  Chapter 4

  “She’s gone?” Hacker used an index finger to move the image around, pinched, spread his fingers. “That’s not possible, not entirely, but—”

  “But let me guess. It’s possible.” Kujo felt a moment’s…relief? Or was that pity? If they failed to catch her, that would be fine by him. “Is it the mountain?”

  Hacker’s skin was as gray as a gravestone. “I’m not sure. I told you. McEvoy’s signal was becoming erratic. Not only the harmonics, but…” A small wrinkle of worry and perhaps some fear appeared between his brows. “It’s as if her signal has a mind of its own and keeps changing it, as if it can’t decide what it wants.”

  “Say what? You mean, McEvoy changed her mind and switched off the beacon.” He remembered to add, “Don’t you?”

  Hacker opened his mouth, closed it, jerked his head in a nod. “Possibly.”

  “Whoa, whoa, you sure of anything?” Boone aimed an index finger. “Listen, I know this is your show, but don’t fuck with me here. These are my guys. I already know McEvoy’s rep, but seems to me you’re saying…well, I don’t know what you’re saying.”

  Kujo had an inkling. Replicators. “He’s saying she may not be calling the shots. That her…her parts, they’re in charge or, at least, somewhat.”

  “The machines in her head?” Boone’s jaw dropped. “They’re in control?”

  “I never said what they were and they’re not machines in the classical sense, not what you’re thinking at all…no, Boone.” Hacker put up a hand. “Let me finish. Yes, it’s a possibility they have assumed some functions beyond their original design parameters—”

  “She lights up like a Christmas tree,” Kujo said, dryly. “You said they were there to interface with her right arm and those legs. Well, I know a little bit about the brain and they’re spread out a good long way from the motor cortex.”

  “Granted.” Hacker forged on. “Even so, we’re not talking the entire framework.”

  “Yeah, just her whole frigging brain. How much more entire does it get?”

  “Please.” Hacker sniffed. “Think of what you’re saying. These are not autonomous. Her legs have not decided to take a hike nor has her arm developed a sudden burning desire to play one-handed piano.”

  Kujo got hot. “This isn’t a joke.”

  “And I’m not joking.” Kujo doubted Hacker would know a joke if he tripped over one. “What I am saying is she has not suddenly run amok nor are her systems capable of self-determination,” said Hacker.

  “Those are two different statements for which you have no evidence.”

  “Yeah, what about what’s in her head?” At Hacker’s cramped expression, Boone swore. “Listen, I get stuff is classified, but I will call this off if I don’t get some answers.”

  Kujo made a horsey noise. “He can’t tell you what he doesn’t know. He’s operating in the dark. Their little science experiment isn’t behaving as predicted. Those suckers in her head have spread and they did it themselves.” A ding in his own mind now. “Jesus. They’re the many voices. They’re your ghosts in the machine.”

  “You’re jumping to conclusions you are unqualified to make.” Though Hacker sounded a touch less haughty now.

  “Yeah?” Boone’s expression darkened. “Well, answer me this. If what Kujo says is true, where’s McEvoy? When we find her, how do we know it’s really her and not them?”

  “You won’t, not entirely. A face is only what you see.” Kujo leveled a look at Hacker. “Isn’t that right?”

  Hacker’s eyes touched Kujo’s then shifted. “This is uncharted territory. I can’t say, with certainty, you will know she…her core personality…is in charge.”

  But Six might know. Animals were sensitive in ways people were not. He would bet his life Six would be able to tell if McEvoy was still the woman who’d saved his life. “Since everyone’s gone, we can assume they ducked into the mountain. You got old survey maps of—”

  “Hey.” Boone pointed. “Who are those guys?”

  The tablet’s feed had changed. Wherever he was, the drone operator had begun a slow sweep of the area, panning clockwise, and as the gray and green terrain slid by beneath its camera, four distinct figures appeared, heading for the mountain’s eastern face. Where had they even come from? “Maybe they’re headed for a rendezvous?” Kujo asked.

  “With the girls and woman, makes sense.” Boone dug at his neck again. “Handoff has to happen somewhere. They might be cutting through the mountain to save time, or even make the exchange somewhere inside. Certainly have privacy.”

  “Do we know they can cut through? I thought everything was blocked off.”

  “I guess they must think or know so.” Boone eyed Hacker. “Sure be nice if that tracker were online.”

  Hacker sounded almost hurt. “This is as disconcerting to me as it is to you.”

  “I sincerely doubt that.”

  “You don’t understand. She’s part-machine. Ergo, she gives off an electromagnetic field. Same principle as a utility company finding an underground cable. But there’s nothing.”

  So she can tamp herself down. Either McEvoy had sensed them coming—or the ghosts in McEvoy’s machine had. How distinctive and individual were they? Seemed to him Vance and Hacker and company had built themselves a toy they didn’t understand, and of which they might even be a little…fearful? “So, what are we doing?”

  “If we can’t lock onto McEvoy, I say we
follow the money.” Boone tapped his tablet. “Those guys.”

  “Easier said than done. There are a lot of places to go in an old mine. If they didn’t backfill, you got rooms, other access tunnels, tunnels cutting along the seam…and that’s not counting anything naturally occurring we don’t know about. Plus, it’s pretty damned dark.”

  “And we got IR and NVG. We hustle, get to within line of sight, we can keep tabs.”

  “Yes, and once they meet up, you and your people get me close enough,” Hacker said, “I can shut her down.”

  Boone’s eyebrows went for his hairline. “A kill switch?”

  “In a manner of speaking. Excuse me.” Hacker moved toward the cockpit. “I’ll just have a word with the pilot about the new drop site.”

  “Your party,” Boone said.

  “Yes.” Hacker offered a wintry smile. “It is.”

  A few moments later, as they vectored in on the drop site, Carson, or it might have been Crockett, peered at Boone’s tablet. “Hey, what are those? Are those dogs?”

  “Wolves.” Kujo had been holding up Six for the last fifteen minutes, and his shoulders were starting to complain. And to think he’d been nervous about fast-roping. Now, all he wanted was to get it over with. Get on the ground, get to work—then get the hell out of here. “I saw them earlier. They followed the whole way.”

  “Wolves, huh? Well, I’ll be damned.” Carson, or it might be Crockett, clucked his tongue. “It’s like that story…guy who did Call of the Wild…what’s his name?”

  “Jack London.”

  “Yeah, him. He did that book where they get stalked?”

  “White Fang.” The entire first chapter was devoted to a wolf pack methodically picking off sled dogs. “I don’t think these were stalking. I think they were just following.” Why was a mystery. Sensing a potential meal? Didn’t feel right, especially with dawn coming on.

  “Hunh,” grunted Carson or Crockett or whoever. “Well, those two are all tucked in now. Looks like they’re settling down for a nice long wait.”

  “Two?” Kujo’s eyebrows went up. “You sure?”