The Rift

CHAPTER 5

Scout rode Comanche along the riverbank as far as she could, which wasn’t far, since waterfront property was prime real estate. She reached the fence on the far side of the pasture and halted. She stood in the stirrups and looked downriver. The rhythmic thump of the pile driver started up behind her as they went to work on another pole.

The river was smooth and calm. Scout could see the reflection of the few scattered clouds overhead in the surface of the water. It might be a river, but it was a slow-moving river, the flow determined by how much the TVA opened the sluices at Fort Loudoun Dam. There were times when it did indeed seem more like a lake than a river, the water still, logs and branches floating in it seemingly suspended in place for hours on end.

Slow would be good, Scout thought. Whatever had been in her toothbrush had seemed to move with the water. The boat whose engine had died had restarted and was gone downriver. There had been no other traffic since then. Scout was about to turn Comanche around and give him a workout when the hairs on her arm tingled.

Hoping the anal neighbors beyond the farm weren’t home, Scout looped Comanche around and then straight at the fence. He jumped and they cleared the top board easily. Scout pushed Comanche along the riverbank, through someone’s backyard, past their dock. Then she came to another fence, which Comanche bounded over.

She wasn’t in anyone’s backyard now, but rather a stretch of land underneath the power lines. The tower on this side had vines growing up the metal legs. The power lines, all eight of them, crossed the river high enough that they had large red balls attached to them as warnings for low-flying aircraft.

Scout slowly turned the horse, looking for whatever it was that was making her skin tingle. Comanche stirred nervously and started to back up. Since the horse had firsthand experience with a Firefly, and Comanche was smarter than most people she knew, Scout gave her horse free rein.

Then she saw it. A thin line of black through the high grass, as if a line of flame had come out of the river and moved inland about six feet. There was no fire visible, just the grass curling and turning black. Whatever was causing this was moving very, very slowly. Scout watched it for a few minutes. The line was headed directly toward one of the legs of the tower. She guesstimated at the rate it was moving, it would reach it this evening. Of course, she knew her guess was about something no one had probably ever seen before, so who knew?

Then Comanche stirred and began pawing at the dirt.

“I don’t blame you,” Scout said, patting the horse’s neck.

And then Comanche galloped forward, right to the black line being etched into the ground.

“Whoa!” Scout yelled, but the horse ignored her. He reached the line and then raced along it to the riverbank, where he came to an abrupt halt, almost sending Scout flying.

“What is wrong with you?” Scout demanded.

The horse looked over his shoulder and rolled his eyes as if trying to tell her something.

“I know. Bad, bad, bad,” Scout said, pulling on the reins and turning Comanche around.

Scout looked up at the tower.

She didn’t know what was going to happen when the line reached the tower, but she was willing to lay off every dime in her piggy bank it wasn’t going to be good

Then she remembered the Nightstalkers had broken her piggy bank when they took out the Firefly in her curling iron back in North Carolina.

When they showed, and she had complete faith Nada and the rest would show, she vowed to get another piggy bank out of them.

Burns was driving the Prius on I-24, just past Paducah, Kentucky, when the engine died. He steered the car to the side of a bridge on the interstate and sat still for a moment, examining the dashboard. A yellow light was blinking, indicating he was out of fuel. The battery was dead.

Looking around, he saw a dam to his left. The GPS indicated it was Kentucky Dam, the last one on the Tennessee River before it joined the Ohio, which he’d crossed just a few miles back.

“Interesting,” Burns murmured to himself.

He got out of the car and opened the hood. He stared at the engine for several moments. Behind him, a pickup truck pulled over. Burns glanced over his shoulder as the driver got out. He was a young, tattooed man in coveralls, sporting the obligatory John Deere cap every male in the flyover states had in their possession.

“Even them fancy electric cars run out of gas, don’t they?” the guy said as he walked up.

Burns turned to face the man, who stopped in his tracks when he saw Burns’s face. “Fuck, dude. What the devil happened to you?”

“An old wound,” Burns said. The suppressed pistol was heavy in his coat pocket.

“Awfully sorry, dude, awfully sorry.” The man jerked a thumb back at his truck. “I can ride you to the next exit and we can get you a gas can.”

“No need,” Burns said as he turned back to the engine. He had a feeling that ride would turn out differently than the man indicated. He reached in, wrapping one hand around a wire. He closed his eyes.

“Hey!” the guy called out. “Be careful!”

Burns’s hand glowed gold and power surged into the battery. He held on for ten seconds, then let go. Burns staggered, drained just like the car had been.

“You okay?” The guy came closer. “What did you do? I ain’t never seen nothing like that.”

Burns could now see the tire iron hidden in the hand the man kept at his side. He put his own hand in the pocket of the coat, fingers curling around the pistol grip. Then he reconsidered. Given all the cars and trucks racing by just a few feet away on the highway, the gun was unnecessary. Burns stepped up to the man, who realized at the last second, his last second, that he’d made a mistake to stop and try to rob this stranger.

Burns swung his arm, sending the man tumbling out onto the highway. A large pickup truck, apropos for the hat, hit him, sending him flying. Both the man’s shoes were still on the pavement where he’d been hit. As tires screeched and drivers swerved, Burns got back in the Prius, put on his turn signal, and accelerated around the traffic jam he’d just caused.

Heading southeast.

Following the river.

“We both have flights to catch and things to do today, so you’re getting the Cliff’s Notes version.” Moms jumped into Ivar’s in-briefing without a how-do-you-do. Of course, Moms never did a how-do-you-do, so it wasn’t a big deal. Doc was with them, because as soon as this was over, he was taking Ivar over to Area 51 and the Can and then the Archives.

Unlike Ms. Jones’s office, the CP (command post) that held Moms’s and Nada’s battered gray desks was secured by a solid steel door.

“Sit,” Nada said, pointing at a plush armchair facing the angled desks. As Ivar sank into the chair, Doc perched himself on a table covered with photos and documents.

Moms closed her eyes for a moment, as if remembering all the times she’d given this in-brief. “You don’t have a military background,” she started with. “So that makes things a bit different. Most of your teammates came out of elite Special Operations units: Delta Force, SEALs, Special Forces, Rangers, CIA, et cetera. So they came with a set of expectations, both good and bad. The good for you is we’re not like the normal military or even normal Special Ops. We’re a true team and don’t do rank or a lot of other military things. I’m the team leader and Nada is the team sergeant. What that means is that you have any problems, any questions, you go to Nada. The reason for that is I answer to Ms. Jones and that’s my focus. I’m the liaison between the team and her.” She paused. “Well, except for today apparently.” She and Nada exchanged another what-the-frak glance.

“Nada takes care of the team. I take care of the mission. Follow?”

Ivar nodded.

“But, if you need to, you can come to me. But always go to Nada first. He can solve pretty much any problem you got.”

“Pretty much,” Nada muttered. He was opening drawers, tossing thick binders on his desk.

“Nada has been a Nightstalker longer than any of us,” Moms added. “We’re all happy to have you join the team.”

“Let’s not exaggerate,” Nada said. “He hasn’t proved his worth yet.” He paused in his search and fixed Ivar with his gaze. “Newbies tend to have a high casualty rate.”

Moms pressed on. “We don’t do rank; we don’t do titles; we don’t do medals or badges or any of that stuff. Doc there”—Moms indicated him—“has five PhDs, right?”

“Right,” Doc said.

“And he’ll tell you all about them if you give him the chance,” Moms said.

“Lucky you,” Nada said.

“You know something about Rifts—” Moms began, but Nada jumped in.

“He even has some theories on them.”

“—but we have more missions than just Rifts,” Moms continued. “Nuclear, chemical, biological incidents are not uncommon.”

“Meaning we get called out on them a lot,” Nada said. “Hate the nuke ones,” he added. “Especially the nuke ones. Especially the last nuke one.”

“Doc will tell you about the Acme list,” Moms said. “They’re our on-call specialists.”

“‘Always listen to experts,’” Nada quoted. “‘They’ll tell you what can’t be done and why. Then do it.’ I wish that was an original Nada Yada, but Heinlein got to it first. You know Heinlein?”

Ivar nodded. “I’ve read all—”

Nada cut him off at the book. “Great. Eagle will love you for that, but you didn’t know who Harvey was, so you’re still on the short end of that stick. You’re never going to know more than Eagle, so the sooner you accept that, the better for you. Even Doc don’t know more than Eagle.”

Moms cut in. “Doc will fill you in on what we know about Rifts and the history of them. Stuff you’re never going to find on the Internet.”

“If you had, we’d have sent Roland to cut your head off,” Nada said, “and shove it in a safe.” He waited for Moms to continue but she leaned back in her chair, the old springs protesting loudly. She looked tired; hell, Nada thought, they were all tired. Maybe Ms. Jones was right. They needed a reboot. Burns being free bothered Nada and he knew he wouldn’t be able to “relax” or really think of much else until they took him down, but orders were orders.

Moms opened a drawer and took out an acetated notebook. She tossed it to Ivar. “That’s the team Protocol. You had protocols in your lab at the university, correct? Rules you followed?”

“Yes,” Ivar said.

“That’s our Bible. You’re going to get a lot of information thrown at you in the next few days—”

“Literally,” Nada said, hefting a thick binder.

Moms closed her eyes again as she rattled off a few of her favorites. “In the beginning of the Protocol is my philosophy. You can read it, but let me summarize the important stuff right now, so we start off on the right foot. Be honest. Always. Don’t hide bad news. I’m the team leader, but there will be times when you’ll have to make decisions on your own. If you have to, make the decision and act decisively.”

Nada nodded. “In Ranger school, they teach you that doing something, anything, is better than standing around with your finger up your butt in the kill zone. They call it the kill zone for a reason. We tend to enter a lot of places that would be considered kill zones. Don’t stand in it and do nothing.”

Doc spoke up. “Unless it’s best to do nothing at the moment. It depends on the situation.”

“Ain’t your briefing, Doc,” Nada said without any rancor, but that shut Doc up.

Moms reached into the same drawer and tossed Ivar a leather badge case. “For cover, you’re a senior field agent for the FBI—”

Nada snorted. “No one’s going to buy that cover, Moms. Look at him. They might have toughened him up a bit at Bragg, but he still looks like a geek.”

“The badge is real and the ID card is real,” Moms said. She looked at Ivar. “Plus, the FBI does have some geeks in it. You act like you’re the real deal, they’ll believe you. Most everyone you have to deal with is a big believer in the system. That badge puts you way up in the system. Someone thinks they outrank you, you point them in my direction.”

“No one outranks her,” Nada threw in. “If they think they do, then we might have to kill them.”

“Which leads me to this,” Moms continued. “Discipline stays on the team. I report to Ms. Jones and she reports to someone, but we’ll kill you before we let you go off the reservation. We should have killed Burns.”

Even Nada looked surprised at that, but he nodded. “Once a Nightstalker, always a Nightstalker.”

“You have to die to get off the team?” Ivar asked, ready to believe just about anything at this point.

Moms shook her head. “No. People move on to other things. Usually when they’re no longer capable of fieldwork, they go into Support. Colonel Orlando was once a team member.”

“Ended up having a bit of a problem.” Nada gestured with his thumb, indicating a drinker. “But he’s still a good man. We’ve got other ex-team members doing important stuff in Support. Just ’cause you’re a leg or an eyeball short doesn’t mean you can’t be useful.”

“Be on time,” Moms said. She gave a triumphant smile at Nada as she remembered the right order for her ending. “And last, and most important, we are ultimately accountable for the survival of the human race. That trumps the law, national borders, family, everything. Nada?”

“Any op we go on,” Nada said, “has three possible classifications: dry, damp, and wet. Dry is something we contain and want to study. Doesn’t pose a threat. Doesn’t happen often. If it wasn’t a threat in the first place, why the hell would we get Zevoned?” Nada asked, his frustration seeping through.

“Don’t go all Eagle on me,” Moms said.

Nada collected himself. “Okay, then there’s damp, which means it’s to be contained, and if we can’t contain it, we break it. Rare also. Finally, most missions are wet. We contain it until we can completely destroy it. Rifts and Fireflies are always wet.”

“‘Always’?” Ivar repeated with a questioning inflection, causing both Moms and Nada to look at him hard.

“What do you mean?” Nada asked.

Ivar pointed at himself. “I’m here. Wasn’t the mission at UNC a wet one?”

“It was,” Nada said.

“Then why am I still alive?”

“Good question,” Nada said. “Want me to kill you?”

“We needed you,” Moms said. “You reversed the Rift and shut it. You were on our side.”

Ivar shrugged. “Okay. Not that I’m complaining or anything.”

Nada shook it off and grabbed the stack of binders he’d been piling up. He gave them to Ivar, one at a time. “Nuclear Protocol. Biological. Chemical.” He grabbed another binder but paused. “We work under the three Cs — containment, concealment, and control. Containment, first and always. We lose containment, we’re fucked and sometimes the world could get fucked.”

“So this Burns guy…?” Ivar said.

“Yeah,” Nada admitted. “We lost containment. But we maintained concealment. Ms. Jones covered up the Snake going down by saying it was an experimental military aircraft on a training mission. Support got the wreckage out before daylight. We used our badges at the Gateway Arch to take the murder away from the locals and get the body out of there. Concealment is important because panic is a bad thing. Remember War of the Worlds? H. G. Wells? Sometimes, next to the armed locals, our biggest problem is the media.” Nada nodded toward the door. “They’ve been all over Area 51’s perimeter along with the alien and conspiracy theory wackos for a long time. Which is why we moved out here.

“Last, and most importantly,” Nada said, “is control. That’s where dry, damp, or wet come in. Pretty much it’s always wet.”

“I’m picking that up,” Ivar said.

“You being a smart-ass?” Nada snapped.

Ivar held his hands up. “No. Just taking it all in.”

Nada wasn’t placated. He tossed the next binder at Ivar with a little extra energy. “Every mission the Nightstalkers have been on. Mostly shit caused by scientists.” He threw another binder while Ivar was still fumbling with the one he’d just caught and this one banged on his arm, causing him to hiss in pain. “This is the Dumb Shit Scientist Protocol. Maybe you should read it first since you want to take it all in.”

“First priority,” Moms said in a calm voice, “is the team Protocol. You’ve got forty-eight hours to get up to speed on it. Doc?”

“Yes?”

“Show him his locker and show him how to rig his gear according to Protocol once you leave here.”

“Roger that.”

Moms turned to Nada. “Any Nada Yadas you want to lay on him?”

“When I ask,” Nada said to Ivar, “just tell me how to kill it. Whatever it is. Got it?”

Ivar nodded.

“He’ll have to learn the rest on the job,” Nada said. “We need to get moving to make our flights.” He got up and walked out of the CP. Moms stood. She went over to Ivar, who hopped to his feet. She stuck out her hand. “Welcome to the team. Don’t let Nada get to you. He wants to kill Burns and he’s being stopped. He doesn’t take well to being stopped from killing those who need killing.” She nodded at Doc as she left the room. “Take care of him.”

Blake had lost both his flip-flops to the fluffer mud and he was beginning to think he’d overdone the “make the cache secure and remote” part of the Protocol. He was halfway between two barrier islands south of Myrtle Beach and the mosquitoes were feasting on him. He’d had to wait on the tide, a necessity of a beach cache, and that had eaten up two hours. It was just a little before noon and a day that had started with such promise was turning to crap.

One key to the Loop was they sacrificed speed of the message being transmitted for security.

He sucked it up, the way he’d sucked up every shitty mission for thirty-four years and the fluffer mud had sucked up his flip-flops. Yes, sir…no, sir…may I have some more, sir? Even when they dropped the “sir” and “ma’am” shit, it was still shit. Calling someone by their first name when they outranked you didn’t mean the order wasn’t real.

“‘Ours is not to wonder why. Ours is just to do or die,’” he quoted as he pulled his left foot out of the muck with great effort and took another step forward. It took another hour to go fifty yards and make it to the island. He took out his GPS and checked the coordinates. Then he took out his old compass and shot two azimuths to verify.

Protocol.

It had saved his life several times, and he wanted to get back to that pool and the young mother, although he had a feeling she wouldn’t be up to chatting with him after he’d dumped her dumb kid in the pool. He’d have to try plan B. He didn’t know what that was right now, since he had other important shit on his mind, but he was content knowing there was always a plan B. Just like what he was doing right now was a plan B.

The Loop, which he was part of and was now implementing, was not official Protocol. The Loop was an attempt by operatives and former operatives to have a communication channel outside of official channels. One for all and all for one sort of thing.

It had not been an easy thing to set up. It was rarely used. And it was very slow.

But one had to try, because once in a while, someone needed help outside of official channels.

Blake removed the folding shovel from the sweat-drenched backpack he’d hauled out here. He dug.

At least the sand was soft.

He hit the ammo can at eighteen inches. It took a few more minutes to recover it from the hole. He unlatched the lid. There was a lot jammed into a little space. He peeled open two layers of waterproofing and removed the loaded pistol that was always the last item in and first item out.

He found the cell phone and encryption device. He opened the battery cases and removed the old ones. He replaced them with fresh ones. Then he typed in the message he’d received at the pool. The encryption device hummed for a bit, garbling the message into meaningless groups of five letters that only a device programmed exactly the same way could decrypt.

Blake hit send.

Then he removed the battery from the cell phone. He stood and threw the phone out into the salt water, watching it hit and sink. He replaced the phone with the exact same model. He then zeroed out the encryption device. He took a thumb drive out of his pocket and inserted it into the slot on the side. He loaded a new encryption program, removed the thumb drive, and put it back in the can. Then he put the pistol on top, resealed the two waterproof liners, closed the lid, and put the can back in the hole. He shoveled the sand back in the hole. The incoming tide would take care of concealment.

With bare feet and a bad attitude, but mission accomplished, Blake began making his way back to the mainland, his car, and eventually the pool and young mother.

He was not optimistic.

Mac had started bitching as soon as the truck carrying them rolled underneath the big sign reading: COLONEL NICK ROWE TRAINING FACILITY. Located at Camp Mackall, west of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, it was the field training facility for aspiring Special Forces soldiers.

Roland was more optimistic, pointing out there were modern buildings at a facility he remembered as having only shacks that were half-assed, leaky, and cold.

“They used to mermite chow from Fort Bragg out here,” Eagle observed. “Now they’ve got a chow hall.”

“I don’t think we’re here for the chow,” Kirk said.

Roland looked at his watch. “It’s thirteen hundred. We probably missed lunch.”

“I don’t think we’re here for lunch,” Kirk said.

A smatter of raindrops on the canvas roof over the cargo bay portended a storm rolling in. They’d flown in to Mackall Army Airfield on one of the blue-liners. Mackall was considered a sub-base to adjacent Fort Bragg and home to Special Forces Selection and Assessment, most of the Qualification Course, the SERE (Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape) compound, and other assorted training schools and scenarios. It was where the Delta raiders on the ill-fated Desert One mission to free the hostages in Iran had trained. The airfield was one almost every Special Operator had flown into or out of or jumped onto the large field the two intersecting runways contained.

The truck had been waiting, the driver shrugging when asked what was going to happen. His job was to drive them out here and that was the extent of his knowledge.

“They better not be putting us through SERE again,” Mac groused. They’d all been through the mock POW camp and training and no one was eager to do it again. “I already survived, evaded, resisted, and escaped. What more can they want? Become Houdini?”

“Probably something high speed,” Roland said. “Maybe some advanced weapons training?”

“Did you hit your head in St. Louis?” Mac asked.

The truck came to an abrupt halt, which sent them tumbling along the steel floor.

“Get your asses out of there!” An imposing figure wearing a green beret was standing to the rear of the truck, arms bulging under the rolled up sleeves of his camouflage shirt. His uniform was soaked, but he was obviously one of those guys who espoused the theory that the human body was waterproof, which was true, but tended to ignore misery.

The four team members all wore “sterile” cammies. No rank, no badges, no names. Just a number on a Velcro patch on their chest. That had started Mac’s complaining as they flew in. When the army took your name and gave you a number, it usually meant something not fun was getting ready to occur.

“Dickhead,” Mac muttered, voicing what they all thought as they exited the back of the truck.

“You gentlemen are late,” the dickhead said. “My name is Master Sergeant Twackhammer.”

“You gotta be shitting me,” Mac said in a low voice.

“What was that?” Twackhammer demanded.

“It’s on his shirt,” Roland observed, immediately bonding with the fellow large human being. “Hey, Master Sergeant Twackhammer. How’s it going?”

“Shut up!” Twackhammer shouted. “Your Selection began yesterday. I don’t know who pulled strings to get you in, but I’m going to be watching you.” To emphasize the point, he put a finger just below his left eye and pulled the skin down. “You gentlemen are late to my course and that makes me very, very upset.”

“Your course?” Mac said.

Twackhammer started yelling, getting them moving through the supply hut to get field gear; then they were out of there, into what was now a downpour, and over to the Nasty Nick obstacle course, where mud-covered Special Forces Assessment and Selection (SFAS) candidates were being put through the grinder.

“I’m too old for this shit,” Eagle said as Twackhammer slid them in line.

So they began the mile-long course, hitting the obstacles every so often, all of which seemed made of a lot of rope (vertical and horizontal), a bunch of mud-smeared tunnels, and lots of wood configured by a mad carpenter making a person jump, leap, shimmy, and climb up and down and sideways.

“Ms. Jones must be really pissed,” Kirk said as they completed another obstacle and were forced to wait, as a backlog of students was in front of them, all of them facing a wall that had them stymied.

“Get to the other side!” a staff sergeant was screaming at the candidates.

“I think Moms might have been the one who suggested this,” Eagle said, trying to scrape some mud off his fatigue shirt, a futile effort. “I doubt Ms. Jones even knows what the Nasty Nick is.”

“Yeah, but how is this supposed to help us?” Mac asked.

“Get to the other side!” the staff sergeant’s voice went up an octave as the bewildered candidates clawed, jumped, and fell off the vertical face of the eighteen-foot-high wooden wall. There were no handholds, just a single tantalizing rope that hung down four feet from the top and was knotted on the bottom. Realizing they couldn’t reach the rope on their own, the candidates began working together, trying to build human pyramids to get someone to the rope.

No such luck.

Eagle sat down on a fallen tree, watching with a bored expression. Mac, Kirk, and Roland joined him. Across the muddy path, glaring at them through the rain, Twackhammer suddenly appeared.

“What are you girls doing?” he screamed. A major was next to him, his green beret soaked and drooping on his head. Everyone in Special Forces agreed that a beret was the most worthless of headgear. Hell, Girl Scouts wore green berets. The major was quiet, watching, observing, and they knew he was the one who could wash a candidate out with a stroke of his pen. He walked with an odd gait, which meant one of his legs, if not both, were no longer flesh and blood, a common occurrence nowadays with those no longer physically fit for deployment duty and slotted to faculty positions.

“Waiting, Master Sergeant Twackhammer,” Roland said. “The wall’s a bit crowded at the moment.”

“Get your asses off that log!” Twackhammer yelled.

They got to their feet.

“Drop right where you are and give me forty.”

The four looked down. They were standing in a couple of inches of mud. If Ms. Jones and Moms had wanted to humble the four, they’d succeeded. Being treated like newbies — when they’d all gone through several training programs like this years ago, served in elite units in combat, and were now Nightstalkers, the best of the best, et cetera, et cetera — was hitting home. It was obvious Twackhammer had no clue who they were. The major, on the other hand, had his head cocked to the side, evaluating.

The major was no fool. He could see the clear difference between these four and the younger men flailing away at the wall, trying to get to the rope, their ticket to the other side of the wall. Besides the obvious scars on Roland and Eagle, all four were older and held themselves differently. Other services and agencies and even foreign governments sent people to go through the Q Course at Bragg, the Special Forces Qualification Course, but even those people were usually younger and more enthusiastic about the opportunity. And most bypassed SFAS, going straight to the Q.

They dropped down and began doing push-ups, but in a way that said “yeah, yeah” rather than the anxious desperation of a candidate. Any Spec-Ops person who had been through a selection and assessment course, and especially if they’d ever been cadre in such a course, understood the reality of what was going on. Certainly it was important to weed out those who didn’t belong and to evaluate the candidates, but much of the screaming and the yelling was by rote, a routine that can begin to numb one out.

So they languidly did their push-ups, except Roland, of course, who was done first, knocking them out without even breathing hard. He snapped out five more, just for shits and grins, then hopped to his feet.

Eagle was last, and he was breathing hard.

The major ambled over, obviously not worried about getting his feet wet and muddy since he didn’t have feet. He smiled at the four. “Welcome, gentlemen. Someone named Ms. Jones says hi. And gung ho.”

Then he moved away.

“What the frak was that about?” Mac asked, wiping a hand across his forehead, which only served to move mud around. “We know Ms. Jones sent us here. She’s rubbing it in.”

“Gung ho,” Eagle repeated. “That’s it.” He nodded at the other three. “It’s an American version of two Chinese words that were appropriated during World War Two. Gong, which means ‘work,’ and he, which means ‘together.’ In China it was actually the name of a corporation, but a marine major named Carlson decided to use it as the motto of the Second Marine Raider Battalion. Now everyone’s heard of it.”

“You are just full of arcane stuff,” Kirk said.

“Huh?” Roland said.

“Great history lesson,” Mac said. “Couldn’t she have just told us to work together?”

Kirk spoke up. “How well do words work on you, Mac?”

Mac bristled for a second, but then his shoulders lumped. “Yeah. I get it.”

“I work with everyone,” Roland said.

“Maybe that’s the problem,” Kirk said. “You all did the unauthorized mission to help me in Arkansas. And you”—he indicated Roland—“did an unauthorized mission with Neeley in South America. I think Ms. Jones is trying to get us to stay on the reservation.”

“This ain’t the reservation,” Mac said.

The cluster of candidates still hadn’t defeated the wall. Some were arguing with each other now, teamwork breaking down in the face of frustration. Lightning flashed in the distance and thunder rolled through the pine trees.

“Still in loner mode,” Kirk said, nodding at the ones arguing.

“I think that’s the other point,” Eagle said.

Kirk laughed as a couple of the candidates jumped as a bolt of lightning struck so close that everyone could feel the static electricity in the air. “City boys.”

“Gotta remember,” Eagle said, “they’re on short sleep, short rations.”

“And short brains,” Mac said. “Geez, how long do you want to watch this frak-up?”

“Hey.” Kirk was pointing. “I think that guy’s crying. You can’t tell ’cause of the rain, but he’s fraking crying. Ranger up, dude. Damn SF weenies.”

“He won’t make it,” Eagle said. “There’s no crying in Special Ops, fella.”

“The longer these guys take,” Mac said, “the longer we’re going to be standing here in the rain. How about we gung ho up?”

Roland nodded. “Let’s finish this thing and whatever else Ms. Jones wants us to do here so we can get back to the team room and just have Moms and Nada give us shit. This is ridiculous. I set the course record on this thing ten years ago.”

“So you know what they’re doing wrong, right?” Mac asked with a grin.

“They’re not listening,” Kirk said. “I never went through the Q Course here, but I went to Ranger school. People think the N in Ranger stands for ‘knowledge,’ but we learned to listen to orders. And we had the Darby Queen to negotiate, which wasn’t no cake walk.”

Some of the candidates were now piling their rucksacks, trying to build a platform, to get them closer to the knotted rope.

“How did you get over the wall, Roland?” Eagle asked. “It wasn’t here when I went through.”

“I threw a little fellow up there,” Roland said. “He got the knot and then held on for his life. I jumped, grabbed his legs, used him as part of the rope.” Roland flushed. “Dislocated both his shoulders. But the instructors were impressed.”

“I don’t think that was or is the correct solution,” Kirk said.

“Worked for me,” Roland said.

“You aren’t in the bell curve,” Eagle said.

“No one here is supposed to be in the bell curve,” Kirk said.

“The rope is a MacGuffin,” Eagle said.

“A what?” Roland asked.

A cluster of candidates had their top man come within a foot of the rope, before the pyramid collapsed into a muddy pile.

“It’s a term Hitchcock used for something that seems important and everyone is focused on it, when it really isn’t important,” Eagle explained.

Kirk was the first to get it, as he usually was. “It’s misdirection. What if the rope wasn’t there?”

“No way anyone could get over that wall,” Roland said. “Even working together with what they got.”

“Yeah,” Kirk said, “but what was the instruction?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Get to the other side.”

Mac laughed. “Well, shoot. Even in Texas we’d figure that out. Eventually.” He shouldered his rucksack. “Ready, guys? Watching these newbies is making me wish I was in a different army.”

The Nightstalkers shrugged on their weighted backpacks, then simply walked around the wall. Roland was last and he paused, looking at the candidates. “Coming?”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Twackhammer screamed.

“We’re going to the other side of the wall,” Roland said. And then he was gone.

The muddy candidates stood confused, staring at the wall, and then at Twackhammer, and then at the Nightstalkers. It was only when the major started to laugh that they got it. They grabbed their packs and followed the Nightstalkers around the wall.

And they were better soldiers for it.

Gretchen was sipping cheap white wine and getting a wonderful foot massage, which kind of made up for the trimming of her ingrown big toenail. She put the glass down and closed her eyes. Her mind wandered to that boring morass of wondering what she was going to make for dinner, which was inevitably a few hours from now. She did find it odd, perhaps even ironic, that her wife never cooked. Never learned, never wanted to try, and it was not a subject to be discussed. Nope, cooking was Gretchen’s, except she’d never really learned either.

You’d think in a marriage of two women that one of them would have learned to cook. What were the odds?

Gretchen, however, could make a mean smoothie and that’s about it. She tried to remember what was in the freezer because she might have a couple of chicken fillets to nuke and then half scorch. She opened her eyes and reached into her purse, pulling out her phone. She Googled a recipe for chicken. She’d spent thirty-six years working in IT for the government, although her partner thought she’d worked for the IRS. As if. Gretchen had worked deep in the bowels of the Pentagon for Mrs. Sanchez, but much like the women who worked at Bletchley Circle in England during World War II, once she retired, that was it. One never, ever, discussed that world with outsiders.

There were many reasons for that beyond the secrecy oath they swore. But even that issue outsiders had a problem with; some didn’t think oaths were worth that much, but for those in the covert world, their oaths meant everything to them. Also, outsiders didn’t understand. They couldn’t. One had to live the life, experience it, to understand.

And last but not least, speaking out of house could bring a very unfriendly visit from the Cellar.

As she scrolled through recipes, Gretchen smiled as she remembered watching the movie RED with her wife. Her wife had thought it stupid, but Gretchen had just howled and wondered who’d whispered the little truths to the screenwriters. Retired. Extremely. Dangerous.

The covert was over for Gretchen, even though the closest she’d come to the front lines were the bundles of millions of dollars of cash she and Mrs. Sanchez had prepped to be shipped overseas to be used to bribe, acquire, and who knew what else.

The woman rubbing her feet was the best and Gretchen tried to remember her name for the next time.

Then her other phone gave its distinctive Warren Zevon ringtone for the first time and Gretchen was reminded for the first time since she retired that her covert life was almost over. It was like the mafia: Just when you thought you were out, they pulled you back in, even though the Loop was technically, well, out of the loop.

Gretchen scrambled through her bag and found the second phone at the bottom. She punched the receive button and saw the five letter groupings message on the screen. She nodded, then forwarded it, as she’d been instructed, to the number she’d memorized. Gretchen then sighed and forwarded the message to a second number, not part of the standing operating procedure of the Loop but part of the reality of her continued existence as part of the living. One could only go off the reservation as far as those in power allowed.

She dropped the second phone back in her bag.

The woman doing her feet laughed. “You’re naughty!”

Gretchen was confused for a moment.

“Only one reason to have two phones,” the woman said with a smile. “You have boyfriend and no want husband to know.”

Gretchen smiled back and wished she were indeed naughty.

Maybe she could find someone who could cook.