A Season for Slaughter

Chapter 27 In Transit

We were on the ground for less than five minutes at San Antonio. We taxied to a stop, the pod was lowered from the cargo bay the door popped open, and we were Pointed toward a waiting chopper by a faceless woman in helmet and goggles. She waved insistently, almost angrily with her batons.

"Come on, let's go," I said, swinging my helmet and the autolog cases. It was obvious We weren't going to get either answers or courtesy here.

"You mean we're not gonna visit the Alamo?" Lopez asked. "One of my ancestors won a famous victory there-"

"Save it for later, Macha," I said. "This isn't a good time for that stuff." I shoved her with my shoulder in the direction of tho chopper; its rotors were lazily stropping through the air. I probably pushed her harder than I should have, but I wasn't feeling in the best of spirits, and there was some business I was impatient to attend to. I noticed that the air-taxi had no insignia of any kind. Interesting, but inconclusive. I climbed aboard with a sour feel in my gut. I wasn't looking forward to our arrival in Houston.

The door slammed shut behind me, and we lifted off the ground before I even had a chance to find a seat, let alone strap in. I fell into one of the backward-facing chairs at the front. The surviving members of the team were looking at me with puzzlement. "What the hell is going on?" asked Siegel.

I shook my head. Better they shouldn't know.

But Siegel wasn't satisfied. "Come on, Captain. This isn't standard. We should have been met by a debriefing team. And a medical squad." After a beat, he added, "And a chaplain too."

Lopez grunted. "Yeah, what gives? This isn't right."

I sighed. I looked at my boots. I wondered what my feet were going to smell like when I finally pulled them off. I wondered if there was a way I could leave the room before I unlaced my boots. I scratched the back of my neck idly. I did a whole performance of laconic, good-natured captain. I met their eyes again. They weren't convinced. So I shrugged and said, "You want my best guess? Blue Fairy Airlines doesn't like us. I don't think they want our repeat business."

"Just once-" Seigel said, "could we have a straight answer?"

"Somebody doesn't want us leaving a trail. The less we know, the easier it is for us to not say anything."

"Would you translate that into English?" Valada said, pulling off her helmet and pushing her dark hair back out of her eyes. She looked mightily annoyed.

I puffed my cheeks and made a horsey sound as I let the air out of my mouth. "Look-I agree with you, yes, there's something going on. But obviously it's a need-to-know operation, and you and I do not need to know."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Because nobody told us. That's why."

Valada looked like she wanted to throw her helmet at me. Instead, she hung it on the hook next to her seat and shook her head in frustration and anger. "This is fucked," she said. "You know that? Really fucked."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I don't know any more than you do. And I'm not going to speculate." I put one hand to my ear and pointed toward the ceiling with my other.

Valada looked unconvinced. Siegel mouthed a silent "Oh." Lopez said something in Spanish, too rapidly for me to translate. Something about cojones, something about la verdad. I wasn't sure.

I looked around the inside of the aircraft; it was a stock model, not quite military, not quite civilian, not quite government-issue, and not quite anything else either. Nondescript. I tossed my helmet aside and put my feet up on the cases in front of me. Abruptly, something occurred to me. I looked up at the wall behind me-I thought I'd seen a telephone there! And it wasn't a military phone either! It was a civilian line!

I plucked it out of its holder and punched in my ID number. Amazingly, it worked. I got an immediate dial tone. I hesitated, my finger poised over the buttons. Who to call first-?

Lizard didn't answer. And no, I didn't want to leave a message.

Dammit. Who else? Dannenfelser? Not a good idea. Tempting, but not a good idea. Oh-I punched for Marano. She answered almost immediately. "Marano here."

"This is McCarthy," I said quietly, but also very intensely. "What the hell happened to you?"

"Captain!" She almost shrieked in my ear. "Where are you?"

"We're in the air." I glanced at my watch. "We should be home within an hour. Where did you go?" I demanded.

"We got the special withdrawal signal-" She sounded confused.

"What special withdrawal signal?"

"Huh? Didn't you get it?" Her puzzlement was sincere.

"Slow down," I said. "Tell me what the signal contained."

"A coded message-it came over the red line. Do not acknowledge, maintain total radio silence, do not attempt to communicate, just head toward these coordinates as fast as you can for immediate pickup."

"We didn't get any signal," I said, "for the simple reason that it was never sent. We were deliberately-" I stopped myself before I said anything else. Civilian lines were supposed to be secure, but nobody really believed it. "Uh, look-" I said. "There must have been a mixup. I'll straighten it out when I get back. Don't worry about it. And, uh-" I tried to sound casual. "You probably shouldn't talk to anyone about this until I do some investigating, okay?"

"Yessir, I'm just glad everybody's all right-" And then she realized what she'd assumed. "Uh, everybody is all right… ?"

I hesitated. I didn't know how to say it.

Marano understood the hesitation. Her voice went soft. "How bad?" she asked.

"Bad," I said. It was hard to get the words out. "Reilly bought it. And-and Willig too. And Locke."

"Oh, no-"

There was a long silence on the line. Finally, I had to ask, "Lydia-are you still there?"

She sniffed and managed to say, "Yes, I'm here. I'm sorry-"

"Don't be. Uh-we'll talk. Okay?"

"Okay," she said. She sounded as bad as I felt.

"Over and out." I clicked off.

I sat in my chair, frowning at the phone for a long long time; then I punched up Lizard's number again, and this time I left a message, just a short one. I didn't want to say all that I was really feeling. Not where my troops could hear. So I just said, "I'm on my way home. We have a lot to talk about. Um-I love you. Please… be there for me. I need you. A lot." I hung the phone up and sat there alone for the rest of the rough trip in.