Threshold

For Norah, Solomon, and Aquila,

because you’re at your best when you’re together.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Threshold is my seventh novel. My third hardcover. And my best book to date—I know, I know, I have to say that, but it’s true! As I look back at the past few years I’m amazed and thrilled to see that the same people who supported me when I self-published my first novel, when I used three credit cards to start my own small press (Breakneck Books), and when I moved on to Thomas Dunne Books, are still in my life and as supportive as ever. So it’s with great appreciation that I thank the following.

Stan Tremblay and Walter Elly, you guys get top billing this year. The time and effort you two put into helping me with web design, social marketing, and something I’m typically not prone to do: relaxing, is amazing. Some people say that it takes a village to raise a baby. Well, I say it takes a village to write a novel. You guys are my village. C’mon, group man-hug!

For consummate proofreading and story comments, I once again thank Roger Brodeur.

Thanks to my agent, Scott Miller at Trident Media Group, who discovered my first self-published book, signed me on, and has been a shrewd counselor since. Thanks also to MacKenzie at Trident Media for being fast, diligent, and fun. Go team Miller!

Now for the people at Thomas Dunne Books, who put the Jack Sigler series on the map. Thanks to Peter Wolverton, my editor. Your advice has improved my story telling immensely, a gift for which I will always be grateful. Anne Bensson, you are an amazing source of fast answers to my endless questions and an awesome support. Rafal Gibek and the production team, if not for your awesome copy-edits, people would think I was a dolt. For the incredible jacket design, thanks to art director Steve Snider and illustrator extraordinaire, Larry Rostant, whose work has always impressed and inspired me.

And always last in my acknowledgments, but never least, I thank my kick-ass wife, Hilaree, who was graced with the ability to put up with and love a moody author and artist. And to my children, Aquila, Solomon, and Norah, you remind me what it means to be a child and help keep my imagination free of the prison known as adulthood. I love you guys.

Sick I am of idle words, past all reconciling,

Words that weary and perplex and pander and conceal,

Wake the sounds that cannot lie, for all their sweet beguiling;

The language one need fathom not, but only hear and feel.

—George Du Maurier (1834–1896)

5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. 6 The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

—Genesis 11:5–7

Mathematics is the language in which God has written the universe.

—Galileo Galilei (1564–1642)

PROLOGUE

The Past

HE CONTROLLED THE world through fear—merciless fear—conjured by the memory of genocide. He had scraped the earth clean, leaving only a single bloodline alive. To remember. To fear.

But Nimrod saw through the fear, watching how it manipulated the populace like silt stirred in the Euphrates. When the rains came and the thunder boomed, the people cringed and turned to the mysterious Originator for direction. When food was scarce, they tore at their clothes and begged for mercy.

The Originator demanded nothing less, despite his promise.

Nimrod doubted that such a promise had been made, just as he doubted the validity of the mass extermination story. It had been, no doubt, conjured by his great-grandfather to control the people. And he would not fear something or someone that was not real. He would not be controlled.

As a man, he learned that fear could motivate men to do his work. With whip, club, and spear, he had instilled a greater fear in men than the Originator could with the story of a deluge that few living people claimed to remember. It was with this fear that Nimrod came to power and laid the foundations of his kingdom. The cities of Uruk, Akkad, and Calneh flourished under his rule, finding plentiful food and water on the shores of two mighty rivers. But it was Babylon, nestled between the Tigris and Euphrates, that had become his greatest achievement.

But even glorious Babylon would soon be outdone and the Originator’s annoying voice would be reduced to a faint whisper, fading along with an age of paranoia.

As a direct descendant of his people’s founding father, he had been privy to the secrets of the language supposedly taught to mankind by the Originator himself. Not only could words move the hearts and minds of men through fear, but they could also move mountains. And move mountains they did. For with them, he had constructed a tower unlike anything humanity had ever seen, rising toward the sky, higher than any thought possible. Its ominous presence instilled fear into all who saw it.

Nimrod stroked the long, gnarled hair growing from his chin. It was black with a thin streak of gray. His face, thick and leathery from long days in the sun, was just beginning to show signs of his age. But his body was healthy and fit. Combined with his formidable height and baritone voice, it wasn’t hard for him to subjugate the people.

But even fear, it seemed, had its limits. For on the eve of what was to be the consummation of his greatest achievement, he had learned some distressing news.

Treachery.

It seemed his family shared some of his resistance to the compulsion of fear. But rather than use the fear, his great uncle, Shem, conspired against it.

Against him.

So as he sat alone in the central chamber of his newly constructed ziggurat, he considered the available options. Speaking to his uncle was out of the question. Leniency would reveal weakness, and weakness would give strength to the opposition. But without knowing the true strength of his enemies, or their numbers, he was acting blindly. A dangerous undertaking.

He needed something definitive. Something that would be feared for generations.

That’s when he saw the hands. Strong and unyielding. Impervious to sword or spear, and loyal to him—the creator of gods. The statues surrounding him in the large central chamber stood fifteen feet tall, and featured the heads of wild creatures and the bodies of men—images of the heroes of old. The men of renown. The gods given shape by his hands and life by his words.

As though a block had been removed from a dam, ambition surged into his mind, filling his thoughts with images of a magnificent future. The true capabilities of the power hidden within their language were further reaching than he had ever dreamed.

The Originator, living or not, had abandoned them. And he would be replaced by someone who truly understood how to instill fear and gain loyalty all the while being praised.

He looked at one of the tall statues, whose mighty hands now stretched up to the ceiling but had just months ago laid the very stones of the ziggurat’s foundation. It would begin with them.

The people had grown accustomed to their presence, but still trembled at their passing. Now they would witness their fears made real.

Nimrod stood from his chair, and walked to the nearest statue. He leaned into the marble, looked up at the large blue eyes, and spoke in the language of his forefathers, using the tones and inclinations taught to him alone.

“Versatu elid vas re’eish clom, emet.”

He moved on to the next statue and repeated the phrase. He continued around the room, speaking the words into stone, ten times.

He strode back to his throne, which felt more comfortable as the growing knots in his back unwound. The assurance that normality would be restored before the rising sun cast his tower’s shadow over the plains allowed him to relax again.

Even if just for a moment.

The heavy wooden door to the inner chamber swung open and clunked against the solid stone wall. Azurad, his most trusted advisor, rushed into the room speaking quickly, his long mustache twitching with each syllable.

“Slow down, Azurad. Breathe. And tell me what has you so troubled.”

Azurad rested his hands on his knees, his purple tunic hanging down to the floor, which was thick with dust from a year of construction. He took a long slow breath through his nose, smelling the same earthy dust, stood straight and spoke. “My lord, Shem and his followers are approaching.”

The knots returned.

“Their number?”

“In the hundreds.”

Nimrod felt his chest tighten for a moment. Hundreds of men? It seemed an impossible number. He would be undone … if not for the giants now waking behind him. He couldn’t see them, but the widening eyes of his advisor revealed their animation.

“You … you would use them … to kill?”

“The gods of old are not bound by—”

“You will bring down his wrath!”

Nimrod stood quickly. “What did you say?” He stabbed an index finger upwards. “His wrath is empty in comparison to mine. His strength is as…” Something was wrong. Azurad’s face should have shown fear. But he was confused instead.

“Speak, what bothers you so?” Nimrod waited a moment. “Speak!”

And then he did. But Nimrod couldn’t understand a word the man uttered. The sounds of his words were like nothing Nimrod had ever heard before, clearly enunciated, but sharp and fluid at the same time.

Yet he did understand the advisor’s facial expressions. The fear he’d expected before came with a flush of red in the man’s face. Then he screamed and ran away.

A shadow flickering in the torchlight fell around Nimrod. It moved, but not because of the wavering flame. The motion belonged to something else. Nimrod sucked in a quick breath and held it. He had yet to issue his commands to the silent giants. They should have waited for his word before moving, their minds filled only with his bidding. He turned around slowly, his eyes landing on the stomach of the closest statue.

What are they doing? he thought, and then registered the movement above the statue’s head. Its clenched fists, each the size of a man’s skull, rose up above its lion’s head. Despite its face remaining as frozen as ever, he understood the intent behind its action.

For the first time in his life, Nimrod’s eyes filled with tears. The fists dropped. The statues surrounded him, reaching for his body like wild animals, and tore him limb from limb.

Shem stood behind them, watching, arms crossed over his chest. Nimrod never knew that others in his family had learned several of the ancient language’s secrets—secrets they would carry with them through the generations but never again fully entrust to a single man. Wielded by the double-edged sword that is the tongue of man, all of creation could be corrupted. Nimrod had shown him that much.

As he watched the blood of his nephew’s body slide through the dust on the floor and seep into the cracks, he said a quick good-bye. “Eliam vin mortast.”

Shem’s heart beat hard in his chest. He understood the phrase he spoke as “Return to the Originator,” but the sounds that came from his mouth were strange. He had spoken in a new tongue, one he had never heard before. He tried to remember the sounds of his native language, but only pieces remained. Most of the words, and the power they held, had been erased from his mind.

When Shem met his men outside, he found them confused and agitated. Like him, they were all speaking a new language, but they weren’t all the same. The men spoke at least ten different dialects. Using hand gestures to communicate, he separated the men into groups by the sounds of their words. Out of several hundred men, Shem found only thirty-three that could understand and speak his new language.

He looked over his army, once united to protect the sanctity of their language, now separated. Could they ever work together again? This is Nimrod’s fault, Shem thought. He defiled the Originator’s words and now the tongues of men have been confused.

His men looked to him for guidance, but he knew only thirty-three could understand his words. Instead of speaking, he raised his hands toward the sky in a sign of supplication they all understood. As one, the men fell to their knees and, in twenty-three different languages, prayed.

LOST

ONE

2009

AS HE RAN the blood covering the man’s body stiffened with coagulation. The smell of it, like dirty pennies, overpowered the pine scent of the forest around him. He staggered forward, thankful to still be alive but in tremendous pain from his still healing injuries, which burned as though held to a flame.

He clambered up a rise, slipping on the thick mat of pine needles and moist leaf litter. He had survived the impossible already, but if he were caught by his pursuers, life would not be worth living. Not for a very long time.

So he ran on despite the pain.

After topping the crest, he slid down the other side, searching for some means of escape, but saw only tree trunks, rising up to the clear blue sky above.

Suddenly, his breath returned in full. He paused, feeling better in the brief reprieve, but still unable to turn his head or inspect the wounds he’d received. The burning had faded, but was quickly being replaced by an intense itch.

A distant explosion urged him back to his feet. The battle continued without him, but it would end soon, and they would come for him.

Running down the hill, he wove through the trees until coming to a path worn into the forest floor. He followed it, pushing his way through the overgrowth.

Minutes later, a wall of white in the distance gave him hope. Upon reaching the white fence, he smiled. Beyond the fence lay a lawn of bright green grass in need of a cut and a large house with a garage nearly as big. He waited for as long as he dared, watching and listening. Detecting no life, he moved around the fence and approached the side of the house.

The driveway was empty.

He headed for the front of the home. A swing attached to the ceiling of the long farmer’s porch swayed in the summer breeze. Nothing else stirred. Looking across the street, he saw the home’s mailbox popped open and packed with mail.

No one had been home in a while. On vacation, the man thought, and then eyed the large four-car garage. He found the side door unlocked and entered. The first two spots were empty, but a tarp covered something in the third. He rushed to it, his pulse quickening. The tarp slid free easily as he pulled it, revealing a perfectly polished, black 1957 Pontiac Star Chief, its chrome sparkling in the blue light cast from the garage’s overhead fluorescents. It wouldn’t be fast, but no one would suspect the vehicle was a getaway car, either.

He opened the door and slid, awkwardly, into the driver’s seat. Wondering for a moment if he would have to search the house for the keys, he looked down at the ignition and found them hanging there, complete with rabbit’s foot.

It was turning out to be his lucky day after all.

He turned the key and the old engine roared to life. Smiling, he reached up and hit the garage-door button attached to the sun visor. The door rumbled open, filling the garage with daylight. He put the car in gear, rolled out into the driveway, and pushed the garage-door button once again.

He glanced in the rearview mirror, watching as the door closed completely. He wanted to leave no obvious trace of his being here. He looked out the driver’s side window, searching the pavement for drops of blood, but his wounds had long since stopped bleeding and his clothes had dried. Unfortunately, there was not time to change from the rancid clothes, but he would find something on the road before long, when he was free of his enemies.

Not remembering if he’d closed the side door to the garage, he adjusted the rearview mirror, but moved it too far, catching the side of his face in its view. He leaned in close to inspect the bloody marks on his face and grinned as he found no wound marring the surface.

As he leaned back, an awkward pressure pushed against his back, like a clump of clothing or a wrapped-up towel had fallen between him and the seat. As he turned to look, the rearview mirror caught his attention once again. Not only could he see his face, but a second rising up behind him.

Had the man’s baritone scream not been contained by the thick metal and glass of the classic car, anyone who heard it might have mistaken the cry for that of a local moose. As it was, no one heard the man, or saw him, again.

TWO

2010

“JACK SIGLER, PLEASE take the stand.”

Jack Sigler, call sign King, sat down on the stand next to the Honorable Judge Samantha Heinz, who had been staring at him with distrust since he walked into the courtroom. It was an unfortunate circumstance that most military child-custody cases involved the active-duty father losing his family for one unsavory reason or another. Ultimately, King knew most of the soldiers were not to blame—combat tended to do awful things to those not wired for it. And most people weren’t. He looked at the judge as she stared down at him over her thick glasses.

As the bailiff swore him in, King thought about the path that had brought him, one of the world’s most elite soldiers, to a custody hearing. Six months earlier he had been summoned to the Siletz Reservation in Oregon by, he believed, his lifelong friend and the former fiancé of his deceased sister, George Pierce. But the message turned out to be phony, and when King arrived at the reservation he had found it in ruins. The town was in flames. Thousands of people were dead. And mysteriously, a little girl appeared in the backseat of his car with a note pinned to her:

King—this one is for you. I’ve gone after the rest.

The symbol belonged to Alexander Diotrephes, a man King believed to be the historical, and living, Hercules. His team had first encountered the man two years previous while searching for a way to stop the Hydra—one of Hercules’s ancient foes reborn by modern genetics. Alexander had been aloof and mysterious, commanding a loyal following he called the Herculean Society and strange creatures they deemed wraiths. Before disappearing he had provided them with the means to stop the Hydra’s ability to regenerate its body and to kill it. But he hadn’t been seen since, and all efforts to track him down led to dead ends. The symbol on the note was the only proof they had that the man still existed.

Believing the girl was in grave danger, he took her to Fort Bragg where she could be under constant supervision and protection, not just by the team, but also by the thousands of Special Forces troops stationed at Bragg. Short of a nuclear missile strike, there was no safer place on earth. But that did not satisfy North Carolina’s Division of Social Services office, who could not accept that a twelve-year-old orphan could be raised successfully by a team of Delta operators.

King looked around the oak courtroom, smelling the dry, dusty air. The room was essentially devoid of people, with only a child welfare representative, the bailiff, court reporter, and judge present.

The judge cleared her throat. “Mr. Sigler, as you know, this hearing is really just a formality. You have the support of some very impressive people, not the least of which is the president of the United States. That you will receive temporary custody of Fiona Lane is a foregone conclusion. However, I do not lack resources of my own, so if I feel for a moment that you are being facetious or dishonest with me, I will make such a stink that even you will beg for mercy.”

She didn’t know exactly who King was, but she knew his line of work, that he was close to the president, and that all other details of his professional life were classified.

“I understand,” he said.

“Good.” She straightened some papers on her desk and stared at them for a moment. “Then I have a few simple questions for you and you can be on your way.”

King nodded.

The judge smiled. “You know, almost every single time I’ve said that to a soldier, the response has been ‘fire away.’”

“Happy to disappoint.”

“Fiona Lane. Interesting name for a Native American.”

There was no question in the statement, but King thought the woman might be testing his knowledge of Fiona’s past. “Many Native Americans adopted more English-sounding names. Her grandfather renamed himself George Lane. Her grandmother became Delores Lane. Her father was also named George and her mother was Elizabeth. But Fiona’s middle name is more traditional. Apserkahar. It means Horse Rider.”

She gave him a good squint and then asked, “Is Fiona Lane in danger?”

“Absolutely,” he replied.

“From whom?”

“That’s classified, ma’am.”

“‘Your Honor,’ thank you. Is she safe?”

“As safe as she can be, Your Honor.”

“Is she safe with you?”

“I would give my life to protect hers.”

The judge’s eyes widened a bit. “I’m not sure I buy that.”

“It’s what I do, Your Honor. I would give my life to protect yours as well.”

That got a genuine smile from the judge. “Is this what you do in your line of work, Mr. Sigler? Risk your life to save others?”

“It’s the duty of every enlisted soldier.”

She looked back down at her desk, mumbling an affirmative but noncommittal “Mmm.”

“And what about her special needs?”

This brought a confused look to King’s face. The term “special needs” instantly made him think of people with developmental disabilities, but Fiona certainly didn’t fit in that category. She was brilliant, funny, and because she insisted on participating in many of the team’s training exercises, was more active than the average twelve-year-old girl. “Excuse me?”

The judge looked at a sheet of paper, head turned up, eyes looking down so she could read through the lower half of her bifocals. “It says here that she has type one diabetes.”

King tried to show no reaction and thought, Since when is diabetes a special need?

“Yes, Your Honor,” he said.

“Tell me about it.”

“Her diabetes?”

“Yes.”

“As you said, she has type one diabetes. It presented three years ago. While on the reservation she managed it with insulin shots. We now have her on an insulin pump.”

The judge nodded and made a note. “Last question, Mr. Sigler.”

He looked up at her, thankful that the experience was almost over. Accustomed to fatigues or T-shirt and jeans, the suit he wore—bought specifically for this occasion—was uncomfortable and hot. His black hair was neatly combed, rather than its typically slightly unkempt state. And the smooth skin of his face, usually covered in a thin layer of scruff, highlighted his strong jaw while revealing a few small scars.

She leaned over, looked him dead in the eyes, and asked, “Will you be a good father?”

King froze. It was not a question he’d been expecting. His own father had left when he was sixteen, three months after his sister, Julie, died in an air force training accident. And before he left the man had been far from a model father. As a result, King had never pictured himself having children of his own and dreaded the idea of being a father. If the rest of the team hadn’t backed out of the job, if someone else had recovered Fiona from Siletz, if she had not bonded to him so quickly, or if there were anyone else he felt could protect her as well, he would not be in this courtroom.

“Yes,” he replied. “Yes, I will.”

The judge looked at him for another moment and then sat back. “Very well. The court finds that Mr. Sigler is fit to be the foster parent of Fiona Lane and grants him temporary custody of her, effective immediately.”

“Your Honor.” The child welfare representative stood up. “The state would like to request visiting rights so that we might be able to keep detailed progress notes on Ms. Lane’s education, home life, and an accurate appraisal of her safety inside the confines of Fort Bragg. When the powers that be determine that Fiona is safe to live outside the protection of Fort Bragg and Mr. Sigler, we would like to find her a permanent home with a stable adoptive family.”

The judge turned to King. “Is this acceptable to you?”

King nodded. “Yes.”

Two knocks sounded as the judge brought her gavel down twice. “Court adjourned. You’re free to go, Mr. Sigler.”

“All rise,” the bailiff said loudly.

As King was the only person seated, aside from the court reporter, he stood and watched the judge exit the room swiftly. When she was gone, he stepped down from the stand and walked toward the back of the courtroom, not looking anyone in the eye as he did so. If he had, they might have seen the guilt that took all his effort to hide from the judge.

He’d lied under oath.

He dreaded the idea of being a father and knew it was one job he was not qualified for. But there was no choice. Fiona had to be kept safe; not because he cared for her as a father should, but because she was the only lead they had in the investigation of an event that took thousands of American lives. Solving that problem was his job, which made Fiona his job as well.

For now, King thought.

* * *

KING HAD SEVERAL meetings after the hearing and then went out for a drink. He told himself he needed to think, but the truth was he was afraid to go home. King, leader of the most elite Special Ops team in the U.S. military, was afraid of a twelve-year-old girl. His mind was a tangle of thoughts as he tried to figure out how he would handle this new, very foreign responsibility. Could he raise a child, even for a short time? He could protect her, sure, but could he give her all the other things a kid needed? Education? Affection? Love?

As he sipped his Sam Adams he decided the first thing he’d do was have only one drink. Wanting to get his mind off his worries, he turned his attention to the TV. CNN was covering, as usual, the rants of one Senator Lance Marrs of Utah—who looked like a wrinkly Pillsbury Doughboy with slick hair and angry eyes. After losing the last election to Tom Duncan, Marrs had made a career out of spouting fear-based propaganda that blamed President Duncan for everything from 9/11 to the nation’s financial woes that began two administrations ago. And the cable networks ate it up, adding a thick dose of bias and regurgitating it for the masses. I’ll stick with PBS, King thought, before requesting the channel be changed. He nursed his beer for another hour, giving up on it when the brew reached room temperature. He left the glass half empty and headed home, knowing Rook, who was babysitting, would be eager to start his Friday night.

Good-bye Friday-night drinks, King thought, as he pulled up to his modest two-bedroom ranch home at Fort Bragg. Hello Saturday-morning cartoons.

King opened the front door. The air inside smelled of popcorn and spray paint, which was odd but not unexplainable. What bothered him was that all the lights were out. Why does Rook have the lights off?

Rook, who was a natural with Fiona thanks to his many sisters, usually had her in bed by nine and waited for King’s return in front of the TV. King looked into the open concept kitchen. Not even the microwave clock was on. A quick glance outside at the lit streetlights confirmed his fear. Only his power was out.

He closed the front door silently and then listened. He didn’t hear a thing, but he did feel a draft. In the dim light provided by the streetlamp outside he looked at the back door. It was wide open.

Something was definitely not right.

And he was unarmed. With a courtroom hearing and several meetings to attend, King hadn’t thought to bring his sidearm. He moved silently through the living room and into the kitchen. He kept a locked Sig Sauer above the fridge. He took out the metal case, punched in the code, and opened the lid. His weapon was gone.

Shit, he thought.

Moving faster, King headed for his bedroom, where he had an arsenal hidden in his closet. He stopped outside his bedroom door, which was open. He stuck his head into the room, taking a quick look. The mattress was on the floor and his single dresser was in its regular place. That’s when he saw a mound resting on top of the bed, silhouetted against the windows, which were lit from outside.

His mind flashed back to the horrors he had found at the Siletz Reservation. He could smell the smoke and rotting bodies. Homes destroyed. Fires burning. Electrical wires twitching. He saw Fiona’s grandmother, trampled and crushed. And everywhere, mounds of strange gray dust left like a calling card. Just like the mound he saw on his bed.

His chest began to ache as his heart pounded. “Fiona,” he whispered.

He moved into the room and crouched by the bed. He reached out to the mound expecting to feel the same granular dust, but instead felt fabric. King let out a sigh of relief. The mound was his blankets.

That’s when it happened.

Three rapid-fire clicks.

He was struck in the back.

Then, as he spun, something hit his neck.

The third hit his forehead and stuck.

He reached up expecting to find some kind of hypodermic dart, but clenched his fingers around something soft and rubbery. As his fingers felt the suction cup tip, a high-pitch voice shouted from within the room, “I got him, Rook!”

The lights switched on, filling every room of the home with one-hundred-watt warmth. King squinted in the light and as he searched the room for the source of the voice. He didn’t see her.

“Up here,” Fiona said.

King turned toward the bedroom door. Fiona, dressed in her black pajamas and black socks, stood on top of it, her back pressed into the upper corner of the room. Her black hair had been pulled back into a tight bun and she wore a black bandanna over her mouth. She held a dart gun in her hands. He recognized it as one of two bright-orange dart guns they had bought, but it had been painted black.

Stan Tremblay, call sign Rook, shouted from the living room. “Sorry, King. Couldn’t stop her. I’m out!”

“Where’s my gun?” King asked.

“In the closet with the rest,” Rook replied.

“Bye, Rook!” Fiona shouted.

“Later, kid! Oh, and sorry about the kitchen floor, King.” The front door opened and closed a moment later.

There were a thousand parental things King knew he should say at that moment. You could have broken your neck if you’d fallen from the door. You had me worried sick. We don’t aim guns at people. And there were just as many nonstandard chew-outs. What if I was armed? I could have shot you. I could have shot Rook.

But he didn’t say any of that. Instead he said what he really thought. “That was pretty good.”

“Pretty good?” Fiona said, her voice full of mischief. “You just got taken out by a girl. And I’m not even a teenager yet. I’d say it was amazing.”

He could see her smiling with pride behind the mask. It was an infectious smile, which he was grateful for because it hid his true feelings. He had just been taken out by a twelve-year-old girl. The very girl he’d sworn to protect. Was he so distracted by Fiona’s presence in his life that he might actually fail to protect her?

She saw his distraction and brought him back to the current situation. “So, are you going to get me down or what?”

“You’re the ninja,” King said. “You get down on your own.”

He started to leave the room. “Rook put me up here.”

King gave a shrug, his smile spreading wider. “Taking out a target is useless if you haven’t planned your escape.” Halfway out the door, King felt a tug on his hair. A sudden weight on his back followed. Fiona had leaped from the door onto his back. She clung to him sideways with one arm and one leg wrapped over his shoulders. His protest was drowned out by her wild laughter.

King held on to her limbs and stepped back into the bedroom. He fell back onto the bed, careful to keep most of his weight off of her. He held her there, pinned and laughing. “King is awesome,” he said.

“What?” she asked between laughs.

“King is awesome. Say it.”

“Keep dreaming, Dad!”

That’s when the laughter faded. She knew he didn’t like to be called “dad,” but she’d also been unable to fall asleep that night because she knew about the court hearing. She had yet to learn the results.

With her grip on King relaxed, he sat up knowing full well what she was about to ask.

“So,” she said, “what’s the verdict?”

He turned to her slowly, suddenly uncomfortable. He couldn’t find the words. Luckily for him, Fiona was never slow at providing them for him. “Are you my foster father or not?”

He grinned. “I am.”

She sat still for a moment, eyes glossing over, lips pinched tight. Seeing her like that, glowing with joy, desperate for affection, and totally vulnerable, put a crack in King’s defenses. He let out a small laugh and held his arms out to her. She dove into his embrace and squeezed him tighter than he thought the little girl capable.

He lowered his head onto her small shoulder and repeated the words he knew she needed to hear. “I am.”

THREE

Fort Bragg, North Carolina

2011—One Year Later

“NOTHING LIKE THE smell of a firing range on a sunny day,” Rook said as he stared down the sight of his .50 caliber Desert Eagle. He pulled the trigger. The loud boom of the powerful handgun was followed by a distant ping as the fired round hit its target. He straightened, took a deep breath, and let it out with an “ahh.”

Next to him, Fiona took a deep breath and coughed. “Smells like gunpowder.”

King chuckled, running a hand through his messy black hair. “Gunpowder is like an aphrodisiac for Rook.”

“An afro-what?”

Remembering that the girl beside him was not only thirteen, but also under his direct care and supervision, King reminded himself to watch what he said. “Never mind.”

“Jack Sigler, the perfect role model,” Zelda Baker, call sign Queen, said from the next station over. She was cleaning her UMP submachine gun. Her grease-stained “wife-beater” tank top stood in sharp contrast to her wavy blond hair and her face, which was feminine despite the bright red skull-in-star brand burned into her forehead.

Beyond Queen, Shin Dae-jung, call sign Knight, lay on the ground staring through the scope of a sniper rifle at an apple a half mile away. “Ears,” he said.

Those not wearing protective gear covered their ears with their hands. A loud clap echoed. A fraction of a second later, the apple ceased to exist. Knight stood and offered the group a cocky grin. He looked at Fiona. “It was a bad apple.”

Fiona laughed and said, “Lame.”

“Lame?” Knight said. “That apple was more than a half mile away.”

“Not the shot,” Fiona said. “The joke.”

Eric Somers, call sign Bishop, laughed quietly, his barrel chest shaking. He’d already unloaded all of his ammunition and was watching the others from the long wooden bench that stretched along the backside of the outdoor range. He rarely spoke, allowing his actions to speak for him. His quiet laugh was enough to tell Knight he was being mocked.

“Shut up, Bish,” Knight said with a wave of his hand.

As King reloaded one of the assorted weapons he’d brought to the range, Fiona picked up his unloaded Sig Sauer. She aimed it downrange. King had never let her fire a real weapon, but she was eager to try. “So when do I get to shoot some bad guys?”

The team fell silent. Killing was something they did. It was their job and they were good at it. But it was not something they took lightly, especially when it came to kids killing people, which happened more than most people wanted to know. King took the gun from her hand. “Killing someone isn’t something you should want to do.”

“But when they’re bad guys—”

“Killing is a last resort.”

“But you guys joke about it.”

King shared a guilty glance with the others. They were prone to raucous retellings of old missions. King was hoping someone else would join in, but they remained silent. He was Dad now, after all.

“Don’t confuse happy to be alive with taking pleasure in someone’s death.” He looked her in the eyes. “Death is never fun.”

For a moment King thought Fiona was going to cry. Her eyes grew wet and a slight quiver shook her lip, but she fought it down and tightened her jaw. King fought a grin. The kid was growing a thick skin.

Before the following silence grew awkward, King’s cell phone rang. He walked away and flipped it open. “Jack Sigler,” he said into the phone. The person on the other end spoke for ten seconds. What was said in that short time stopped King in his tracks. After five more seconds, his head hung low.

King offered a quiet, “Thanks for letting me know,” and closed the phone, slipping it into his pocket. When he turned around, the others were waiting, standing around him in a silent semicircle. They knew something dire had happened when they saw a completely foreign emotion on his face: defeat.

“What happened?” Bishop asked.

King looked at each of them, knowing they wouldn’t judge him for weeping. But he fought the growing wetness in his eyes, until his eyes met Fiona’s. His foster daughter hadn’t met her yet. Now she never would. Twin pairs of tears broke free and rolled down King’s cheeks. He turned away from the team and said, “My mother is dead.”

Three Days Later

“C’mon, Stan, you know this.”

Rook leaned back in the yellow leather chair and pushed his legs into the floor to keep his body from sliding out. “Knight, these chairs have got to go. They’re like frikken Slip ’n Slides.”

“Watch the language, Rook,” Queen said. “There are virgin ears in the room.”

“The pip-squeak has heard everything there is to hear out of my mouth at this point,” Rook said.

“Doesn’t mean you should repeat it until she starts talking like a mini-Rook.” Knight entered the small living room from the kitchen of his modest on-base home with an apron around his waist and flour covering his black designer shirt. He smiled, which turned his almond-shaped brown eyes, courtesy of his Korean heritage, to thin slits. “I think you’re just trying to squirm your way out of the question.”

Knight headed back into the kitchen. “We’re a go for dinner in five.”

Rook rubbed a hand through his blond hair, which was two inches shorter than his long goatee, and closed his eyes, rerunning a year’s worth of history lessons through his mind. After the last two years of run-ins with creatures straight out of mankind’s darkest history and wildest mythology, coupled with advanced genetics, microbiology, and linguistics, it was clear the team needed an educational upgrade. The team’s handler, Tom Duncan, call sign Deep Blue, whose true identity as the president of the United States was known only to the team and a handful of others, had arranged for their highly advanced adult learning schedule.

Professors from Harvard and Yale taught history and language, while professors from MIT taught physics, astronomy, and robotics. George Pierce, lifelong friend of the team’s leader, King, who’d been rescued by the team after being abducted two years previous, taught mythology. Sara Fogg, from the CDC, who also happened to be King’s current girlfriend and a former Pawn (temporary team member) on the mission to Vietnam, taught genetics and microbiology. They were now the most highly educated team in the U.S. military, and as they threw themselves into learning just as readily as they threw themselves into battle, they were beginning to develop notoriety as nerds. Not that anyone dared say that to their faces. The Chess Team’s battle-hardened reputation preceded them with tales of their exploits becoming as modern myths among the other Delta teams.

And their education would continue until a situation requiring their unique experience and knowledge developed. Either that or a lead in the Siletz Reservation investigation that had brought them the team’s newest, shortest, and feistiest addition.

“Any day now, big guy,” came the high-pitched voice again.

Bishop laughed as he sat cross-legged on the floor, which was impressive for a man of his size. Not that he was fat. Quite the opposite. He sported two hundred fifty pounds of Iranian-born, American-raised muscle. And while Queen wore her battle scars on the outside, for all to see, Bishop’s were hidden. Internal. Thanks to some genetic tinkering at the hands of Richard Ridley and Manifold Genetics, Bishop’s body could heal any wound, but at the expense of his sanity. Only the crystal hanging around his neck, found in the ancient Neanderthal city of Meru, kept his mind in balance. Without it he’d become a raving mad, endlessly hungry “regen” who would only stop killing when his head was removed. But with his mind kept at peace by the crystal, he could sit on a living room floor, enjoy his friends, and hold a thirteen-year-old girl in his lap.

Fiona, call sign Pip-squeak, if you asked Rook—had come to call the Chess Team her family. Over the past year she had spent every day with them, watching them spar, study, shoot at the range—absorbing every detail of their lives and attempting to apply the lessons of valor and discipline to her tutored schoolwork. But she found the Chess Team much more interesting and the subjects of their study far less boring than Algebra I. “Okay, Rook. There is a plane with a bomb on it. When it explodes, the plane will crash into a train full of pregnant women on their way to a lactation conference. The answer is the code to defuse the bomb.”

Rook looked at the black-haired, brown-eyed girl and couldn’t help but smile. “That’s twisted.”

She shrugged. “Ten seconds. The unborn lives of countless children are counting on you.”

He cleared his mind and focused, playing along, but not wanting the kid, who’d become their weekly quizmaster, to gain teasing rights.

“Five seconds.”

The phone rang and Rook’s eyes popped open. “Djet! Djet Horus was the third pharaoh of the first Egyptian dynasty from 2970 B.C. to 2960 B.C.”

Fiona formed her hands into two guns and shot them at Rook complete with gunshot sound effects. As she spun the imaginary weapons and holstered them, she said, “Way to go cowboy. You got—”

She cocked her head and looked into the kitchen.

Rook noticed her attention on Knight as he spoke on the phone. “You can’t hear him can you.”

Fiona nodded. “Good ears.” She looked at Rook. “Something’s wrong.”

“What’s—”

Fiona shook her hands at him, her mood growing serious. “I want to hear if it’s about King!”

King had left three days ago after receiving word of his mother’s death. They’d all attended the wake and funeral, but she didn’t get to see him much as he greeted long-lost relatives and family friends. She knew he was supposed to be gone for another week, settling things with the estate, but she hoped he would be back sooner.

Before she could hear what was being said, Knight hung up the phone, shut off the stovetop, and returned to the living room. “Dinner’s off. Keasling wants us asap.”

Fiona frowned.

“Did he mention why?” Queen asked.

Knight glanced at Fiona and it was all she needed. She stood up quickly. “Is it King?” When Knight didn’t answer in the affirmative, she asked, “They found something?”

Knight shook his head. “Apparently, something found us.”

“Is Dad coming back?”

For a moment, no one responded. They were still getting used to King being referred to as “Dad.” In fact, he’d requested several times that she not call him Dad. But after being raised by her grandmother and having no real father figure for most of her life, she’d quickly adopted King as her father. He’d explained that their foster placement was temporary, until the danger had passed and a good family was found. The news had been heartbreaking and she did her best to call him Jack, or King, or Siggy, like his sister, Julie, had before she died, but in moments of excitement her true feelings rose up and exited her mouth before she had a chance to rein them in.

Knight frowned for the girl. They all had come to adore her and loathed watching her endure the emotional roller coaster that had become her life. “King needs more time off.”

Bishop stood, towering over Fiona. With his similarly colored brown skin, eyes, and dark black hair, he looked the most like Fiona’s biological father, but his angular nose and low brow revealed his genetics as Middle Eastern rather than Native American. He plucked the girl up and put her on his shoulders. “Hey, you’ve still got us.”

Fiona rubbed his shaved head. “I know. I just wish I could be with him.” Her smile faded. “I know what it’s like to bury family.”

FOUR

Richmond, Virgina

KING STOOD ALONE over his mother’s grave. Grass seed lay scattered over the fresh soil where she’d been put in the ground the previous day. The funeral had turned out nice—as nice as laying your last friendly family member in the ground could be. Bishop, Rook, Knight, Queen, Aleman, Keasling, and Fiona had all been in attendance. Only Deep Blue, whose presence would have been impossible to hide, was unable to attend.

The night before the funeral, George Pierce had flown in from Greece for the event. Sara Fogg had come to give moral support as well, staying with him through the night. Since she knew what it was like to fight alongside the Chess Team, their dinner together swirled with conversation about mythology, genetics, and battle-scar comparisons.

In the morning, Pierce headed back to Rome, where an excavation awaited. Sara had hoped to stay for a few days. The combination of their demanding jobs, coupled with the addition of Fiona keeping King on base, had kept them apart. But fate had pulled her away to Swaziland, where an unknown disease outbreak was under way. Since bringing home the cure to the previous year’s Brugada pandemic, she had become the CDC’s poster child and had been assigned to ground zero of more than a few nasty outbreaks. Finding himself alone again and without distractions, King’s thoughts were once again fully with his mother.

She was the kind of woman who smiled all the time despite a deep hurt hidden within. She baked pies from scratch. Had an open-door policy for friends and family. And she always, always, kept a fresh pitcher of homemade lemonade ready for visitors. He’d shared the last of that lemonade with his friends the night before the funeral.

But her bright exterior was all a sugar coating. Julie’s death in the fighter jet training accident was the first blow. The second blow came months later, when his father, Peter, left for a business trip and never came home. Peter had been dramatically opposed to Julie joining the air force, while Lynn Sigler had supported her children. Even when King followed in the footsteps of his dead sister.

King knew it couldn’t have been easy to let him go. But she had supported him, despite the risk to not only his life but her soul. She’d gone so far as to say his father would be proud of the choice, had he been around.

After a week of rain, the day of the burial had been beautiful, refusing those gathered the stereotypical rainy-day funeral. The trees, brimming with young, bright green leaves stood tall around the St. Mary’s Church graveyard. Flower beds surrounding the black wrought-iron fence bloomed with the warm colors of spring. The day was like his mother had been: alive.

But no longer—thanks to a head-on collision with another car. Apparently, his mother, weary after a day of gardening, fell asleep at the wheel and drifted into the oncoming lane. King shook his head at the thought and pushed it from his mind.

The following day’s weather was much the same, but being alone at his mother’s grave cast the day in a darker light. He knelt by the upturned soil of the fresh gravesite and dug into it with his fingers. After hollowing out seven shallow holes, he opened a small package and planted a single snowdrop bulb in each. He knew his work would often keep him from visiting the grave every year. This way his mother’s favorite flowers would bloom every spring to mark her passing, even if he wasn’t there to place them on the grave himself.

He patted the dirt down with his fingers, one bulb at a time, allowing the coolness of the earth to calm his nerves, and used the peaceful moment to remember his mother. As he finished the final bulb he sensed he was not alone.

Keeping his head down, he scanned the area and saw nothing. He turned around. No one was there.

He was alone and nerve-shot. Deep Blue was right to make him take a week away. He was off his game, sensing enemies where there were none. He placed his hand on the soil, whispered a good-bye, and stood up.

Standing, he now had a clear view beyond his mother’s headstone. Thirty feet away, a man stood in the shadow of a maple tree. This alone wouldn’t be enough to raise King’s hackles, but when the man saw King stand, he started and took a step back. Not a casual step. It was the kind of step a man took when he was about to make a run for it. King took a step toward the man, testing the theory.

The man ran.

King was after him in a heartbeat. He had no idea who the man was. It didn’t really matter. That he was running told King everything he needed to know. One, the man was guilty of something—only guilty men run. Two, he knew King was dangerous, someone to run from. And three, he was at his mother’s gravesite, which meant he knew King’s personal identity as well.

None of this was acceptable.

As King rounded his mother’s headstone and gave chase, he took in everything about the man he could. His black hair was slicked back neat. His trench coat covered most of his body. His shoes were shiny. Fancy. Not great for running. The man hadn’t planned on being chased down.

Then why is he running? King thought.

After entering a clearing lined by two rows of headstones, King broke into a sprint and cut the distance between him and the man in half. The man wasn’t fast, and as King closed in he could see streaks of gray on either side of the man’s head. Must be between fifty and sixty, King thought.

The man followed a paved path that King knew wrapped down and around a steep drop. Rather than follow the man around, King continued straight on, pounding up the rise. When he reached the top, the man passed directly below him. King jumped, landed with a roll, and grabbed a fistful of trench coat.

The coat pulled from King’s hand, but the sudden jerk made the man stumble. He toppled forward, fighting to right himself, but lost his balance and fell into the grass next to the path.

In no mood for a fight or a second chase, King drew his Sig Sauer and cocked the hammer.

The man must have recognized the sound because as he got to his knees he raised his hands and said, “D-don’t shoot!”

King approached the man, weapon raised, but he slowed when something about the man, the shape of his head, his ears, struck a chord. He knew this man, but couldn’t place him. The distraction slowed his reflexes.

The man, who was quicker than he looked, spun around and took hold of King’s gun hand, pointing the weapon to the sky. With his free hand, the man took a swing at King’s face. Thick knuckles brushed across King’s nose. If he hadn’t jerked back, his nose would have no doubt been broken.

The momentum of the missed blow pulled the man forward. King raised an elbow to jab into the man’s back, but before he could, the man charged, burying his shoulder into King’s gut. King fell back under the weight.

In the second it took the pair to fall to the pavement, King completed his assessment of the man’s fighting ability. He was a brawler. All heavy punches and big blows, concentrated into a single devastating attack. Old-school fighting. It worked wonders against people who didn’t know how to fight, but King’s abilities could be matched by very few people.

As he fell back, King dropped his weapon, took the man’s trench coat in both hands, and hopped up, placing his feet against his opponent’s waist. With all of his weight pulling on the man, King controlled the fall. When they struck, King rolled and pushed with his legs, sending the man sprawling into the grass.

King stood as the older man climbed up and raised his fists in front of his face like a boxer. He came in fast, taking hard swings that King easily dodged or deflected. With the element of surprise gone, the man didn’t stand a chance.

After dodging a jab to his face, King caught the man’s arm and, once again, used the man’s own momentum to fling him to the grass. The man climbed to his feet slower than before, which gave King time to pick up his weapon and aim it at the man’s back.

The man raised his hands in submission. The fight was over.

“Turn around,” King said.

The man turned around, head lowered, then slowly looked up at King’s gun. King blinked as recognition and a flood of memories and emotions hit him all at once. The man standing before him was his father, Peter Sigler.

“Don’t shoot,” his father said.

King gave his father an up-and-down glance. He wore an old gray suit beneath the trench coat. His face wasn’t exactly clean-shaven, but neither was King’s. His once-black hair was now peppered with gray, especially on the sides. And despite the wrinkles marking the fifty-five years on his face, his body looked well, and strong. For a moment, King felt as though he were looking through a time portal at his future self. But there was something off—the fear in his eyes.

King lowered the weapon. “I’m not going to shoot you, Dad.”

Peter’s eyes went wide. He hadn’t got a good look at King’s face while staring down the barrel of his handgun. “Jack?”

The man’s hands started shaking. He took hold of one with the other and squeezed. “I didn’t know who you were. I thought you might be—”

“Be what?” King asked.

“I don’t know, with the church. A gardener. I thought the graveyard might be closed.”

He was about to ask why he’d run from a gardener, but then thought, Of course he ran, that’s what he’s best at. Running. That didn’t explain the brawling, but his father was a stranger to him now. Who knew who he’d become.

King turned his back on his father, looking toward his mother’s grave, silently asking for guidance and the will to not pull the gun on his father again. “Then you weren’t here to see me.”

King holstered his weapon and moved to walk past his father.

“Well, I’m seeing you now, aren’t I?”

For a moment King’s angry resolve held out. But seeing his father again in the wake of his mother’s death … it was a pain he didn’t want to carry on his own. He motioned with his head for his father to follow him. “You hungry?”

As King walked away, he wasn’t sure if his father would follow or run again. But a moment later, the sound of scuffing shoes on pavement revealed his old man was done running. At least for the moment.

FIVE

Fort Bragg—Decon

“WHAT IS SHE doing here?” Keasling asked about Fiona, who was sitting comfortably in the seat that was normally occupied by King.

“This has something to do with my grandmother,” Fiona said to the stout but gruff brigadier general. “And who killed her.”

Queen quickly cleared her throat. “Sir, everyone charged with watching Fiona and keeping her safe is either in this room or unavailable.”

Keasling looked around. Sitting around the long executive table were Fiona, Queen, Knight, Bishop, Rook, and Lewis Aleman, the team’s former field operator turned computer whiz and walking Wikipedia. The room itself, known as Decon, or Limbo, depending on whom you asked, was nothing to get excited about—simply a rectangle with one wall of glass looking out into the hangar bay that held the Crescent, the team’s high-velocity, stealth transport. But the technology hidden within the table and walls was something else entirely. Concealed computers and a large view-screen allowed the team to coordinate and plan some of the most risky, high-tech, and successful Delta operations no one ever heard about.

“I don’t like it,” Keasling said. “The kid shouldn’t be here.”

“It’s all right, General.” The voice, recognizable to everyone in the room, and most Americans, came from the large screen built into the front wall of the room. To the team he was Deep Blue, their handler. To everyone else, he was the president of the United States. On screen they could see the man’s balding head, charming smile, and kind, gray eyes. The only thing marring his presidential image were a few small scars on his cheeks and eyebrows, reminders of his years as an Army Ranger.

Keasling turned toward the screen that offered them a view of the Oval Office and the hidden camera that allowed Deep Blue to see all of them on his laptop. He nodded. “Mr. President.”

“She deserves some answers,” Knight said. “It’s been nearly a year.”

“Agreed,” Deep Blue said, “but I’m afraid all we have is more questions. And a lead.” He looked at Keasling. “Show them.”

Keasling opened a folder on the tabletop and took out an opened envelope. It was addressed to Jack Sigler. “We’ve been monitoring King’s e-mails and snail mail—” He caught Rook’s aghast expression. “With King’s approval. This came in today. The letter was opened and red-flagged twenty minutes ago.”

He took out photocopies of the page and passed them around the room. They all read the brief note quickly.

King,

Keep them safe.

25°21'5.17"S

131° 2'1.07"E

Akala Dugabu

Balun Ammaroo

Warrah Ammaroo

Elouera Kurindi

Jerara Mundjagora

14°49'51.03"N

107°33'41.22"E

Any you left alive.

“Ahh shit.” Rook looked at Fiona. “Sorry.”

She shrugged. “What’s wrong?”

“The second set of coordinates,” Bishop said, shaking his head slowly. “We recognize them.”

“Where is it?” she asked.

“The stomping ground of some of our old acquaintances,” Rook replied. “Mount Meru. Vietnam.”

Fiona’s eyes went wide and she sucked in a quick breath. She’d spent the last year being regaled with stories of the Chess Team’s adventures and the creatures, madmen, and amazing science they’d encountered. She knew that Mount Meru was where Bishop found the crystal that hung around his neck, where Queen received the bright red scar on her forehead, and where Rook had been made Alpha male by the last surviving Neanderthal Queen. “Red.”

“That’s right,” Keasling said, crossing his arms, which was the general’s body language for: don’t bother trying to argue with what’s coming next. “Rook. Queen. You’ll be headed back to the Annamite Mountains. You will search for any hybrid or Neanderthal survivors. Should you find any, tranquilize them and bring them home. The Vietnamese government is still embarrassed as hell over what happened last year, so there were no issues getting you clearance to return to the site.”

Rook leaned forward, elbows on the table. “And I’m going because…”

“Because, sweet cheeks, you’re the least likely to get killed.” Keasling smiled. “Being ‘the Father’ an’ all.”

“Just making sure.”

“And the other location?” Bishop asked.

“Uluru, Australia.”

“Ayers Rock,” Knight said. “These are aboriginal names.”

Keasling nodded. “Glad to see at least one of you has learned something this year. The coordinates are on the southern side of the rock. No one has lived there for ten thousand years. The site is mostly a tourist trap now, but we think these people are there now, or will be soon.”

“Listen guys,” Deep Blue said, “we all know what happened to the Siletz Reservation last year, so we have to assume that these people are in danger, too.”

“Why not just call some government blokes in Australia and have them pick up the people?” Fiona asked Deep Blue, tinging the words “blokes in Australia” with an Australian accent.

He smiled. He hadn’t had much time to see Fiona, but the regular reports he got from the team included updates on the girl. He knew she was intelligent, straightforward, and genuine. He would try to be the same for her. “Given the identity of the person sending the message—”

“Hercules,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Riiight.”

Deep Blue cleared his throat. “And the unusual circumstances surrounding the destruction of the reservation, not to mention the amount of red tape and time it would take to interview the survivors, who may be in grave danger, would bring our investigation to a standstill. Good enough?”

Fiona grinned. It wasn’t lost on her that the president, the man her grandmother had voted for, had just answered her question very seriously. “Quite,” she said.

“Any more questions?” Keasling said.

Aleman raised his long arm. “I didn’t receive any briefing on this and there seems to be no relevant tech in need of explanation.”

“And…”

“Why, exactly, am I here?”

Keasling raised his hands toward Fiona. “Babysitting duty.”

Aleman sighed. “Ahh. Right.”

“It’s dangerous work, I know,” said Keasling. “Try not to get yourself killed.”

The smiles around the room were impossible to hide. Lewis Aleman was a dangerous man in his time. But since an injury took him off field work he’d spent most of his time behind a computer. Watching Fiona was a welcome change. He turned to Fiona. “We’ll bust out the Master Sergeant and kill us some aliens.”

She grinned and gave him a thumbs-up.

“Adorable,” Keasling grumbled, then raised his voice. “Wheels up in thirty minutes. Night is falling on the other side of the planet and we want you back in the air and on your way home by sunrise.”

SIX

Richmond, Virgina

KING’S EGGS WERE cold, not to mention runny. The burnt toast chewed up as well as a slab of cardboard. The orange juice was watered down. And the sausage, cheap as it was, encased more cartilage than pork. But the breakfast, courtesy of his father’s favorite hometown diner, was like heaven coated in maple syrup compared to the silence between King and his father.

What could be said to a son you deserted? To a father you’d put out of your mind? A lot, King knew, but he wasn’t ready. Not by a long shot.

After ten minutes and one forced-down sausage, King had had enough. He’d faced down the world’s most dangerous terrorists, the mythical Hydra reborn, and a horde of Neanderthal women. He could handle his father. Clearing his throat, he asked, “Did you make it to the funeral?”

His father looked up briefly, met King’s eyes, and then returned his gaze to his rubbery pancakes, which still held two miniature ice cream scoops of butter. “Nope.” He squished the butter with his fork, oozing the congealed paste through the tines. “I only found out two days ago and the bus was slow.”

“Where were you coming from?”

“Butner.”

King sat up straighter. “North Carolina?”

“Yeah, you know it?”

King chuckled and shook his head. “I’m stationed at Fort Bragg. You’ve been living two hours from me. Butner … Must have been one slow bus.”

The diner door slammed shut as a patron left. Peter jumped, looking at the door and then taking a quick look around the room. He relaxed again and squinted. “What?” When King’s statement registered, he took a deep breath and found the courage to ignore the subject. “How’s that working out for you? The military?”

“It’s a living.”

“Deployed?”

“A few times.”

“Anywhere interesting?”

“Haven’t left the planet yet.” King didn’t want to talk about himself, so he quickly U-turned the conversation back to his father. “I thought you went to California.”

“It didn’t take.”

“Couldn’t find any of those California girls to take care of you?” King inwardly winced at his low blow. He had no idea what the temperament of his father was like now. As a child, the man wouldn’t have stood for King’s “flack,” but now …

“You’re not going to turn this into a soap opera, are you?” his father said without a hint of humor.

The man hadn’t changed a bit.

But King had. He didn’t have to sit and listen to his father. “Nice seeing you, Pop.” He placed a twenty-dollar bill on the table and stood. He stopped briefly to admire the diner’s Elvis clock and headed for the exit.

“Jack, hold on,” his father said.

King hadn’t had a father since his teen years and he’d long ago grown accustomed to that fact. No father was better than a bad father. He continued toward the exit. Seeing the man had only reinforced his fears about caring for Fiona. The man’s blood was his own. If fatherhood was hereditary, he would eventually fail the girl. When he knew she was safe again, he’d make sure she found a good family to take care of her.

“Jack. Stop.”

King paused for a moment, but not because of his father’s voice. Something deep within had struck home. A pang of guilt, only a quiet whisper before, had been revealed for what it was. Without even realizing it, King was planning to do exactly what his father had done. He was going to give her up. He was going to leave her.

Feeling sick to his stomach, King reached for the door.

“King, wait!”

He stopped, his fist gripping the door’s push-bar, the bells just starting to jingle. He turned back to his father. “What did you just say?”

His father looked stunned by the incredulous look in King’s eyes and fidgeted uncomfortably as King pounded back toward him.

Waitresses, expecting a fight, stepped behind the long counter. Patrons swiveled in their chairs, turning their backs to the pair, not wanting to be involved. King stopped at the table, placed his fists on its surface, and leaned over his father. “How do you know that name?”

His father gave an awkward smile. “I named you, Jack.”

King reached under his coat, pulled out his handgun, and placed it on the table. It was the second time that day he’d threatened his father with the gun, but this time it was not an accident. “You … called … me … King.”

“Must have heard the nickname from your mother.”

“Mom didn’t know it.”

“Well, I—”

Without raising the gun, King cocked the hammer. “Who are you?”

“I’m your father.”

“Who else are you?”

King’s father cleared his throat. He stared at the table like he was in shock, but then all his fear and worry melted away. An act. A smile crept onto his face. “You know what, you’re right. The time for games is over. Why don’t we go back to the house? Have a glass of your mother’s lemonade.”

“It’s gone. I finished it.”

“Don’t worry, Jack. I’m sure she’ll have made some more by the time we get there.”

SEVEN

Annamite Mountains, Vietnam

THE SMELL OF the jungle—moist earth and organic rot—hit Rook like a childhood nightmare, bringing back memories of fear, suffering, and the stuff of monsters made real. When the Chess Team last set foot in the mountainous region of Vietnam known as the Annamite Convergence Zone, where Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia’s borders merged, they had not only come face-to-face with the last remnants of mankind’s Neanderthal ancestors, but also their modern-day hybrid brood. Not to mention Vietnam’s now disbanded special forces unit known as the Death Volunteers.

Rook looked at Queen, whose black face paint covered the star-and-skull brand she’d received at the hands of the Death Volunteers. To her credit, she seemed unfazed by their return to the site of her torture. Of course, she was Queen. He expected nothing less.

They stood in darkness at the edge of the jungle, looking at the concave remains of Mount Meru cast in shades of green through their night vision goggles. Hidden inside the mountain had been the last city of the Neanderthal people; a masterpiece of ancient construction lit by the refracting light of giant crystals, it was the inspiration for the design of Ankgor Wat in Cambodia. But now the place was a ruin.

Every entrance had been crushed. Brush and saplings had already begun to reclaim the clearing that housed the hybrid workforce, where Rook and Queen had made a half-naked dash through the rain before facing off against a hybrid and two tigers. All that remained were shards of stone spear tips flattened into the earth.

The place was dead.

“No one has walked here, let alone lived here, since we left,” Queen said.

Rook knelt and pried a stone ax head from the earth. He felt its still sharp blade with his thumb. “Don’t forget that these guys almost inherited the earth,” he said. “Wouldn’t have hesitated to kill either of us.”

“I remember…”

“Then you might also remember that they didn’t always walk on the ground.” Rook motioned up with his head.

She looked up, following the trunk of the closest large tree, toward the night sky. The thick branches toward the top were marred with light-colored scratches. “They’re still here.”

“Not here,” Rook said, lifting the night vision goggles from his eyes and looking at Queen in the moonlight. She was dressed, head to toe, in black with her blond hair tucked up inside a black skullcap. She carried an UMP submachine gun. The woman was as deadly as she was beautiful, something Rook had to remind himself about every time his eyes trailed over the curves of her face, or body. “We’re looking in the wrong place. The hybrids lived here, with Weston, when he was the Father. And none of them actually lived inside Meru, not at the core at least. But now Weston is dead, and—”

“And you, being made the new Father, became a deadbeat dad and left them.” Queen flashed a grin.

“They never did ask for child support,” Rook said. “But the old mothers didn’t live here.”

She closed her eyes and nodded, remembering the stories told by Rook, Knight, and Bishop, who had seen more of the Neanderthal’s underground world than she or King. “The Necropolis.”

“That’s the place.”

“Which way?”

“South, past the river.”

Queen stepped past him. “Then what are we waiting for?”

Rook watched Queen move past him and head south. They hadn’t been on a mission since leaving the jungles of Vietnam a year earlier, and though they had trained continuously since then, something felt different. Queen had always been detail-oriented and focused. Driven. But now her guard was down. Not quite laid back, but indifferent to life and death.

Over the past year, she had not once mentioned the scar on her forehead, at least not to anyone on the team, and he seriously doubted she’d been to see a professional. The brand, a skull inside a star, had been burned into her forehead by Major-General Trung, commander of the Death Volunteers. It was a torture few people could endure without lasting side effects. And while Queen wasn’t most people, the brutal act had changed her. Being trained to hide her feelings from the enemy, she would have no trouble hiding them from the team. But Rook could see it.

He realized he might be seeing something because he was looking too hard. His concern for her had grown over the past year, but he kept his thoughts to himself, afraid talking would reveal his true feelings. Was his worry for her well-being corrupting his assessment of her abilities? That seemed more likely than Queen going soft. Rook frowned. He was going soft. And being back in this jungle with her, where they had shared a brief kiss … He shook his head, trying to stay focused on the mission before his own distractions put them both in danger.

EIGHT

30,000 Feet Above Uluru, Australia

AFTER SWINGING OVER Vietnam to drop off Rook and Queen, the Crescent turned south and, flying at Mach 2 (1,522 mph), covered the three-thousand-two-hundred-mile distance in two hours. Bishop and Knight spent the last hour prebreathing for their impending HALO jump. They felt the stealth transport shift as its speed slowed, signaling their final approach to Ayers Rock, known as Uluru to the aboriginal Australians.

Uluru, a one-thousand-one-hundred-forty-two-foot-tall sandstone formation with a six-mile circumference stood out on the flat desert of central Australia like a crater in reverse. It had amazing views, three hundred sixty degrees of crags and fissures perfect for climbing, historical value as an ancient watering hole for desert travelers, and an ancient spiritual site of great importance since one of the sacred “Dreamtime” tracks—the paths taken by the Creator Beings as they walked the young earth—cut directly through the giant stone.

Knight and Bishop stood and walked to the hatch. Both had slept for the majority of the six-hour flight from Fort Bragg to Vietnam and had spent most of the time since then in silence—Bishop in meditation, Knight in study.

The pilot’s voice filled the cabin. “Two minutes. Prep for jump.”

“Copy that,” Knight said, closing his binder and standing up.

With their prebreathing complete and the LZ approaching, Knight and Bishop got down to the business of prejump preparation, which for the Chess Team meant a quick refortification of their close bond.

Bishop, standing nearly a foot taller than Knight, looked down at him. “How’s Grandma Dae-jung doing?”

“Could use some of that hoodoo juice from Manifold. Well, not the stuff you got. Grandma regen would not be a pretty picture.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Let’s just say I don’t think King’s mom’s funeral will be the last one I go to this year.”

“We go to.”

Knight smiled. “Thanks.”

“You ready to bag and tag some aboriginals?”

Knight’s smile widened as he laughed. “Bag and tag some aboriginals? You’ve been spending too much time around Rook.”

Bishop took the crystal hanging around his neck, gave it a kiss, and tucked it beneath his black jumpsuit. “Just finding my sense of humor again.”

The light above them switched from red to green. A moment later, the back hatch opened. Both men closed their helmets over their heads, which allowed them to use their night vision as they descended at terminal velocity. Knight gave Bishop a thumbs-up. Bishop nodded. And the pair leapt, one after the other, into the whipping, frigid winds above Uluru. The Crescent, invisible in the night sky, banked away and disappeared.

Knight focused on the ground below. Their targets had been watched via satellite throughout the day. A group of twenty people, five of whom were on the list the team had received, had spent the night around a bonfire, reenacting the rituals, dancing, and storytelling of their ancestors. The fire, being the only source of light for three hundred miles, was easy to spot and the Delta duo aimed their bodies, now living missiles, toward the fiery target. The group of aboriginals was tucked inside a deep valley, which meant they would have to land on the nearby desert and hike in. The trek would only add a few minutes to their travel time, but with helicopters already inbound and due to arrive in twenty minutes, there was no time to delay.

As they closed in, Knight’s keen eyes saw an aberration far above the target area. “What the…” He’d seen something moving. He squinted, searching for movement, but found nothing.

“What is it?” Bishop asked, his voice coming in clear through Knight’s earphone.

“I don’t know. I—” Movement streaked across Knight’s vision again and he saw it for what it was. “Never mind. Condensation on my visor.”

“Knight, Bishop, you read?” Deep Blue’s voice filled their ears.

“Loud and clear,” Bishop replied.

“Listen, there’s some seismic activity in the area some of the analysts are concerned about. Shouldn’t be a big deal, but the sandstone valley is crisscrossed by tiny fissures created by thousands of years of rain runoff.”

“Got it,” Knight said. “Watch for falling rocks.”

“Exactly.”

“Thanks for the heads-up, Blue, but it’s time to pull!”

Bishop and Knight’s parachutes deployed like gunshots, ripping open one thousand feet from the desert floor. Seconds later, they were rolling on the ground, gathering their chutes, and running toward the faint glow of the nearby valley, where large shadows danced in the firelight.

Sometimes, after completing a HALO jump, rookies stumbled on shaky legs or fell to their knees, wobbly from adrenaline. But Bishop and Knight had long ago overcome the post-jump shakes, so when both men suddenly found themselves off balance, they knew something was wrong.

They paused.

“That was a little more than a tremor,” Bishop said.

Knight placed his bare hand on the ground. The sand was shaking, as though to the steady rhythm of a bass-laden hip-hop song. Either that or something—

Knight’s head shot up as a distant squeal rolled over the desert. “Was that a car?”

Bishop shook his head, cautiously moving toward the valley ahead. “I don’t think so. It sounded more like a—”

The scream came again, this time shrill and very human. Both men slid their weapons from their backs and ran as fast as they could to the cacophony of terrified cries pouring from the valley, praying someone would still be breathing when they arrived.

NINE

Richmond, Virgina

KING’S JAW HURT from fifteen minutes of grinding teeth. The drive back to his childhood home had been slowed by traffic and had taken ten minutes longer than usual. All the while, he worried about having to have his father, who he’d just been reunited with, committed to some kind of mental institution. And with ten years of anger and frustration yet to be expressed, let alone forgiven, King was not happy about his father getting the clean slate a mental illness would provide.

He reminded himself that when his father left, he’d been sane. That, at least, provided him with some anger to hold on to. He glanced over at his father, who watched their hometown pass in a blur as they rounded Swanson Drive, the last in a series of suburban streets that led to the house. The man’s face was older, more wrinkled, but at peace.

A day after burying Mom and he doesn’t have a care in the world, King thought.

“Ignorance is bliss, right?” King said under his breath.

To his surprise, his father had heard. “That’s why crazy people are so happy.”

“Exactly what I was thinking.”

Peter grinned at him. “Except I’m not crazy.”

“Mom’s dead, Dad.”

“Buried her yesterday.”

King nodded, glancing quickly at his father. The man was certifiable. “Open casket.”

“Did you look at her wedding ring?”

The rock in his mother’s engagement ring had been red. A ruby. Given to Peter by his soon-to-be fiancée’s father, a German jeweler. King thought about his mother’s body, about her hands folded over her chest. He couldn’t recall seeing the ring.

“Didn’t, did you?”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” King said, becoming annoyed with the insanity of this conversation and the disrespect it showed his mother.

“You know, you were a smart kid. I thought you could tell the difference between your mom’s body and a wax figure. Cost a pretty penny.”

“Just … shut up until we get home.”

A gentle ring sounded from his father’s pocket. King shot him a curious glance. “Thought you were hard up for money.”

Peter smiled. “Did I say that?” He answered the phone. “Hey.” He looked at King while he listened. “We’re almost there. No, not yet. He’s okay. Shaken. Yup. Okay. Love you, too, Babushka.”

King’s eyes were wide and his foot had fallen off the gas pedal. Babushka. He hadn’t heard the word in ten years and its use—a pet name for his mother—came slamming back into his mind. He grew serious, with murderous intent in his eyes. “That’s not funny.”

His father held out the phone. “You can ring her back if you want, but I think seeing her in person would—”

King yanked the wheel, turning onto Oak Lane, and hit the gas. Twin streaks of black rubber lanced out from the back tires as the car shot down the street. A second set of streaks squealed onto the pavement as, fifteen seconds later, King hit the brakes. He slammed the car into park in the middle of the street, flung himself from the car, and ran for the front door.

King twisted the doorknob and put his shoulder into the door like he was raiding a terrorist training camp. He scoured the living room and found it empty. Circling through the dining room, he entered the kitchen, where his mother spent most of her time either cooking or sitting in the breakfast nook, looking out at the backyard trees and her bird feeders.

The kitchen was empty. Feeling a growing anger at his father for perpetrating such a sick joke, but clinging to desperate hope, he opened the fridge. A full pitcher of lemonade, swirling with pulp, rested on the top shelf. King stared at the amber liquid and just as he started wondering if his father had come here earlier and made it himself, a gentle feminine voice broke his heart.

“Sorry to cause you so much pain, Jack—”

King turned and faced his mother, his legs weak, his mouth hanging open.

“But it had to be convincing.”

* * *

A TALL GLASS of lemonade sat untouched in front of King. He sat at the small breakfast nook table with his returned father and still living mother, listening to an unbelievable tale. But what struck him more than their story was their affection. It was as though his father had never left. Their hands remained entwined the entire time. Their eyes glowed with love for each other. King had entered the Twilight Zone, and like William Shatner, wanted to throw open a door and shoot something. Instead, he picked up his perspiring glass and took a long swallow of lemonade. He placed the glass on the table and looked at his parents. They weren’t decrepitly old, but their age showed, which made their story so much harder to believe.

“Spies.”

His mother pursed her lips after taking a sip of lemonade and nodded.

“Russian.”

“He’s catching on, Lynn,” Peter said.

King looked at his father. “And you’ve been locked up for ten years, in the minimum security prison in Butner.”

“Told you I’d been in Butner. Now you can see why I never came to visit you.”

King rubbed his face. This was all too much. “And you went to prison—”

“I told you already, before the Cold War ended, your mother and I had fallen in love with this country. We kept our new identities and broke all ties with the Soviets in 1988.”

“Did they ever come after you?” King asked.

“Just once,” Peter said.

“And?”

Lynn took another drink, her eyebrows reaching up to her dark hair. When it was clear Peter wasn’t going to answer, she gave a gentle cough, smiled, and said, “I shot him. You were just a baby then.” She smiled at King’s shocked expression. “Don’t worry, he lived.”

“After that,” Peter added, “the Cold War ended in 1991 and we were forgotten about.”

“This is why you were opposed to Julie joining the military?”

His father nodded. “I wanted you both to live different lives, and to never fear for yours. But it seems the military is part of our genetic makeup.” He sighed. “If your sister had listened—”

Lynn put her hand on Peter’s arm. “Not now.”

His nod was nearly imperceptible. “When Julie died I thought it might not have been an accident. I started poking around. But was rusty. Asked too many questions. Was spotted poking around the base. Federal agents looked into my past and learned the truth.”

“I gave them every name and contact I had and was totally honest about what secrets we had sent home in exchange for your mother’s freedom and your continued belief that I had simply left. I got out of jail two weeks ago.”

“Why wait this long to tell me?”

His father began to reply, but King interrupted.

“And why fake Mom’s death?”

“There are elements in the current Russian government that are attempting to return to old Cold War policies. Shortly after my release we were contacted by an old KGB handler who assumed the dead end in our file back home meant we were sleeper agents.”

Lynn looked out the window, her eyes watching the shuffle of spring leaves in the wind. “We’ve been reactivated.”

“So you faked your death to what, escape?”

She nodded.

King chuckled.

“You think this is funny?” his father asked.

“You should have come to me from the beginning.” He looked at both his parents, amused, surprised, and thrilled to have them both back. “I have friends that could help.”

“You’re a soldier, son. This is the spy business,” Peter said. “Who do you know that could help us, chess pieces?”

King squinted at his father. “How did you know my call sign?”

Lynn smiled. “You let your guard down at home … and I’m a good spy.”

King’s stunned silence was interrupted by his cell phone. He ignored its ring as another question entered his mind. “What’s my real last name?”

“Our last name was Machtcenko. Yours has been and will always be Sigler.”

The phone chimed again.

“My maiden name,” his mother added. “Your grandfather really was German.”

“And a jeweler?”

She nodded.

As the phone rang a third time, King looked at the caller ID display and frowned.

“Who is it?”

“Unknown.” Which on King’s phone was virtually impossible. Thanks to Deep Blue, absolutely everyone who called this phone appeared in caller I.D., regardless of their personal preference. That this call showed as “unknown” meant the caller had impressive resources of their own. King stood and answered the phone. “Who is this?”

The unfamiliar voice on the other end was deep and strong. “Where are you, King?”

“You’ve got ten seconds to tell me who you are and then I—”

“Get back to Bragg, King. I’ll do what I can, but I’m not sure it will be enough.”

The line went dead.

As the pieces of the puzzle came together, King moved toward the front door.

“What’s wrong?” his mother asked.

“She’s in trouble.”

“Who is?”

“Fiona.”

His parents were on their feet, trailing him out the front door to the car, which his father had moved into the driveway. “Who is Fiona?”

Upon reaching the driver’s side door, King turned to his parents. “My daughter—foster daughter.”

He entered the car and started the engine. But before he could put it into reverse, the doors to the backseat opened and his parents climbed in. “What are you doing?”

His mother leaned over the backseat. “We’re coming to help.”

“This is going to be dangerous.”

His father put a hand on King’s shoulder. “Son, listen to your parents. For once in your life.”

The car spun out of the driveway a moment later and shot down the street. It was a four-hour drive back to the base. King would make it in three. He just hoped it would be fast enough.

TEN

Fort Bragg, North Carolina

“GET DOWN, THEY see you.”

“I can’t see them.”

“Above you. Flood infections!”

“Oh no … ahh! They’re everywhere. I think I’m dead.”

“Lew. Lew! They killed Lew. Ugh!” Fiona paused the game, put down the Xbox remote, and threw her hands up. “Every time, Lew.”

Lewis Aleman smiled as he stood. “Sorry kiddo. If they designed joysticks as guns we’d be all set. I was great at Duck Hunt.”

“Duck Hunt? Seriously? You are old.”

“Forty-one isn’t old,” he said, moving from the sparsely decorated lounge to the small kitchenette. The college dorm–like space typically held a good number of off-duty soldiers playing pool, cards, or watching TV, but Lewis had made sure the space would be empty. A room full of soldiers looking to relax and have fun was not typically the right environment for a tween, boy or girl.

“If you weren’t born in the nineteen-eighties or sooner, you’re old.” Fiona was dressed in all black pajamas and slippers—her favorite, she said, because they looked like special ops nighttime gear. The only aberration on her smooth, slender little body was a small rectangular lump on her hip. Hidden beneath her shirt, clipped to her waist, was the insulin pump that kept her blood sugar levels optimal. With a curtain of straight black hair hanging down around her head, only her brown hands and face weren’t shrouded in darkness. “Popcorn time?”

The loud rattle of popcorn swirling around in an air popper answered her question. “You know how to use that?” she shouted over the loud tornado of corn kernels.

“Popcorn is my specialty!”

“You said you were good at Halo, too.”

“Going to use a whole stick of butter. Can’t go wrong.”

“Might need to get your cholesterol checked,” she mumbled.

“What?”

“Nothing! Nothing.” Fiona stood by the large window that overlooked a large parking lot below and the expansive Fort Bragg that had become her new home. The nonstop movement of the base consisted of a mix of military and normal life. Men and women in uniform mixed with those in plainclothes. Jeeps shared the roads with SUVs and minivans. From her view in the barracks lounge she could also see the other barracks, their redbrick walls aglow from the setting sun.

She caught her reflection in the window and its distorted shape made her look like her grandmother, who even in old age had a youthful face. Her eyes grew wet as she remembered the woman who had raised her. Who had sung songs to her and taught her the traditions and language of a people who no longer existed. According to King, she was the last true Siletz Native American left alive. There were other descendants to be sure, but they had long ago shirked the tribe, joined the larger American society, and forgotten the ancient culture altogether. King also explained that she was the sole heir to the Siletz Reservation. And when she was old enough, she could claim the land as her own.

She lay in bed most nights daydreaming about what she would do with the reservation. She couldn’t live there. Not by herself. Not without the tribe. Too many ghosts on that land. A pair of statues was her answer, one a tribute to her people, the second to her grandmother and parents, perhaps with a single road leading to them. The rest, as her grandmother had taught her, belonged to nature.

The popcorn popper fell silent.

Fiona wiped her nose and turned from the window. This was an emotional trip she made on a daily basis and she was determined to get over it. To move on. Be emotionally solid. Like Dad. King.

As she stepped away from the window, she took one last look back, expecting to see the face of her grandmother once again. Instead, she saw right through herself as a bright orange glow in the distance caught her attention. She stepped forward and placed her hand on the glass.

It was shaking.

“Lew?”

She could hear him walking into the room and could smell the buttery popcorn.

Aleman heard the concern in her voice and quickened his pace. As he approached, Fiona recognized the growing yellow orb for what it was—a distant explosion. “Lew!”

Aleman had just a second to look out the glass pane, see the fireball, register the shaking beneath his feet, catch sight of the approaching shockwave as it flattened the grass on the baseball field across the parking lot.

The popcorn fell to the floor as Aleman picked Fiona up and dove behind the thick Ikea couch.

The window blew in just as they hit the thin rug, sending shards of glass stabbing into the opposite wall, the TV, and the room’s furniture. The building shook for a moment as the shock wave passed, then fell silent.

Lewis rolled off Fiona and stood, shaking the glass from his back. His handgun was already drawn and at the ready. He looked down at Fiona, his eyes more serious than she had ever seen them. “You okay?”

She nodded.

“Get up,” he said, and moved to the now glassless window. A second, small explosion plumed into the air. It was followed by the distant popping of small-arms fire. Then an alarm sounded. One he thought he would never hear used. It meant the unthinkable.

Fort Bragg was under attack.

He looked back at Fiona, whose skinny body looked frail in her black pajamas. She had her eyebrows furrowed, her fists clenched, and her lips down turned. She knew what was happening just as surely as he did.

They had come for her.

ELEVEN

Mount Meru, Vietnam

AS ROOK STOOD outside the cave entrance leading to the subterranean necropolis that he, Bishop, and Knight had discovered a year ago, he listened. And heard nothing. No distinct Neanderthal hoots. No movement inside or outside the cave. Nothing. Which meant they were either being watched, or no one was home.

“This is it?” Queen asked, peering into the lightless black square cut into the mountainside. Vines had begun to grow over the opening that Rook and Bishop tore apart when they fled the cave system, but it was still easy to spot.

“Ayup. Bringing back such fond memories I can hardly stand it.”

“I’m the one with a brand.”

“Hey, an ape woman tried to make me her man-toy,” Rook said as he pushed the vines out of the way with his M4.

“Good point,” she replied before entering the cave. “That’s much worse.”

Rook smiled and followed her in.

The smooth grade led them down. One hundred feet in, the walls glowed. “We’ll be able to remove our night vision goggles soon. The algae covering everything glows bright enough to see by.”

The downward slope ended and opened up into a grand chamber, seventy feet wide, twenty tall, and longer than a football field. “What the f—”

“This isn’t how you described it.”

What once was a city built from the skulls and thick bones of generations upon generations of Neanderthal dead looked like a green-glowing war zone. Many of the buildings were crushed. Walls were burst. Skulls and bone fragments filled the stone streets. Statues of ancient Neanderthals had been overturned with their limbs pulled off. Rook noted that several of the skulls, which were dense and tough, had been crushed to powder, a feat he doubted even the strongest Neanderthal could accomplish.

“No bullet holes or blast craters,” Queen said.

Rook nodded. “This wasn’t a military j—”

A splash of dark shiny liquid caught Rook’s eye. Tiptoeing through the scattered bones, he made his way to it and knelt down. He switched on his flashlight and aimed it at the fluid. The yellow light turned the black puddle red.

Blood.

And a lot of it.

He followed the trail to a pile of bones. Setting down his M4, he shoved the bones away and stepped back. The twisted face of a Neanderthal-human hybrid stared back at him. The body was tall and strong, with thick brown hair on the limbs, back, chest, and head. A male. And given its muscle mass, one of the hunters. Despite its impressive size and strength, the body was bent at an odd angle and many of the limb bones were bent where they should have been straight. This creature, who could make short work of any living human being, had been mauled and folded up like an origami puzzle. “It’s a hybrid,” he said. “It’s been mauled something fierce.”

He looked over at Queen. She had found a body buried in the remains of a small structure. “This is one of the old mothers. Same story.”

Rook shook his head. For all the strength, speed, and instincts the hybrids had, the old mothers had double. “I think it’s safe to assume we were beat to the punch.”

Queen stood and activated her throat mic. “Deep Blue, this is Queen.”

She waited for a reply, but none came. “Deep Blue, do you read?”

“We’re too deep,” Rook said. “Go topside and warn the others. I’ll poke around here and try to figure out what happened.”

Queen didn’t like the sound of that and said so with a look.

“This place is a ghost town, twice over,” he said.

“It’s a bad idea.”

“If I get into trouble I’ll yell.”

“From a hundred feet below a mountain?”

“I’ll yell real loud.”

Queen shook her head, but couldn’t hide her grin. She headed for the exit. “I’ll be back in five minutes.” She paused at the large archway leading to the tunnel. “Hey, Rook, good to be back in the field with you.”

He nodded. “Likewise.”

Then she was gone, running up the slope.

Rook sighed, still concerned for Queen’s well-being, but also concerned over his own distraction. Queen took up too much space in his mind. As they had studied, sparred, and trained over the past year, he sometimes found his thoughts off target and on her. And in the field, that could get him killed.

Of course, they all had their distractions. Knight’s grandmother’s health was failing. Bishop was only sane because of a crystal around his neck. Queen had a cherry red stamp on her forehead. And King now had a foster daughter. “Course, none of the guys look as good in fatigues,” he mumbled to himself.

Shuffling through a sea of green-glowing bones, Rook made his way deeper into the city. He stopped occasionally to listen as every step he made created a cacophony of noise. He would be simple to find. If anyone were looking.

After counting fifteen bodies strewn throughout the ruined city, he decided that all the Neanderthals were either dead or had fled. But he’d still found no evidence of what happened. The bodies were crushed, dismembered, or impaled with bones, but it was as though something huge and blunt had been used to kill them.

The clunk of bone on bone spun him around, M4 tight against his shoulder. “That you, Queen?”

No reply.

He waited just a moment before an off-balance bone slipped from one of the half destroyed walls and fell. He relaxed for a moment, but another clatter of bones turned him around again.

Something was making the loose bones fall.

Then he felt it. A vibration.

Something big was approaching.

Bones rattled again, but Rook didn’t turn this time. He remained focused on the shaking beneath his feet, trying to determine its origin. It wasn’t until the rattle of bones turned into a crunch that he turned to look. And when he did, his head craned up as his mouth fell open.

“Holy mother … Que—!”

Rook didn’t get to finish his shout as something massive struck him in the side and sent him flying into and through the wall of one of the bone huts.

TWELVE

Uluru, Australia

AS KNIGHT AND Bishop arrived at the mouth of the valley, the sun had just begun peeking up over the horizon. The sandstone surface of Ayers Rock was well known for its ability, some believed supernatural ability, to change colors under certain conditions, most frequently at sunset and sunrise. Removing their night vision goggles, the pair saw the stone was beginning to glow red.

They paused at the valley opening, hoping to hear or see something that would give some hint about what they were about to run into. But only minutes after the attack had begun, the valley had fallen silent.

Bishop sniffed. “I smell the fire.”

Knight pointed to a wisp of smoke filtering up over the red rock. “I think it’s been put out.”

Sudden movement brought their weapons to the ready. Both men had opted for small, light UMP submachine guns over their usual specialized weapons. Without the rest of the team in tow, Knight’s sniper rifle and Bishop’s machine gun made a bad combination for standard combat. With fingers on triggers, both men nearly shot the small black-flanked rock wallaby as it hopped from the valley, its eyes wide. The small marsupial paid no attention to the two men it would normally flee from, hopping between them and into the desert beyond.

Knight took a step forward, but was stopped by Deep Blue’s voice. “Knight, Bishop, you read?”

“Go ahead,” Knight said.

“I’m patching Queen through.”

“Knight, Bish…” Queen was uncharacteristically out of breath. “We arrived too late. Our targets are down.”

Knight and Bishop both keenly remembered the strength and ferocity of the Neanderthal hybrids and their mothers. “Seriously?” Knight said, keeping his eyes on the valley ahead.

“Looks like they didn’t stand a chance. Listen, just—” A muffled boom sounded over the headset, followed by Queen’s voice saying Rook’s name. Then she was gone.

“I’ll try to get her back,” Deep Blue said. “The valley is in shadow with the sun rising so we’re not seeing anything on the visual scan.”

“Infrared?” Bishop asked.

“That’s the thing,” Deep Blue said. “I’m not seeing anything other than embers from the fire. Either everyone is gone, or…”

“Everyone is dead,” Knight finished. “We’re on it.”

Knight and Bishop crept into the valley, weapons ready. They focused on every crag and shadow where someone could hide. A series of petroglyphs caught Knight’s eye. He looked at the ancient pictographs. Some depicted ancient peoples and animals and others were simple swirling circles that he knew represented a watering hole. His eyes followed a streak of black algae that had grown in a water channel. Halfway up, the dry black surface became wet.

And red.

A small trickle of thick blood rolled down the stone and dripped at his feet. “Bishop!”

He followed the blood trail up and found a dark-skinned arm protruding from beneath a large boulder. It appeared the boulder had fallen on the person, but there were no cliff faces above it.

Bishop stepped farther into the valley as Knight continued looking at the crushed arm. “That stone must weigh a ton, Bishop. How—”

“Knight.” Bishop’s voice was quiet, but full of dread, which was an unusual inflection for a man who could not be injured or killed short of decapitation. Sensing the danger had passed, he lowered his weapon.

Knight joined him at a curve in the valley, which opened up into a large atrium. The back wall, covered in petroglyphs, rose up and hung over a large watering hole. It was fringed by adder’s-tongue ferns and mulga and bloodwood trees. A small clearing held a circle of crushed, smoldering ash. But none of this held their attention. It was impossible to see the beauty of the place amid the sheer carnage.

Counting the bodies was impossible because many were torn apart and intermingled. Several were squashed, like roadkill—bodies bent, faces twisted in disgust, entrails burst from stomachs. Others lay beneath massive stones, as though they’d fallen from the sky. And one man hung upside down from a tree, twenty feet above the valley floor, his legs bent at impossible angles. Several piles of sandstone dust, now scattering in the breeze rolling down Ayers Rock, were spread among the dead.

The attack had only lasted a few minutes, but had been brutally efficient, leaving only a single wallaby as an eyewitness.

Bishop bent down to a severed head and rolled it over with the barrel of his UMP. Ignoring the look of horror frozen in the man’s eyes, he focused on the Aboriginal facial features—pronounced brow, wide nose, dark skin. “These were our targets.”

Knight crouched by a nearby body, possibly the one belonging to the head Bishop was inspecting. A pouch tied around the waist contained a wallet. Knight opened it and found a photo I.D. The name read: Balun Ammaroo. But the man in the photo wore a business suit and tie. “They were reenacting all this. Connecting with their heritage or something.” Knight toggled on his throat mic. “Deep Blue, this is Knight.”

“What’s your status.”

“We were too late. Everyone here is dead. Same M.O. as the Siletz Reservation.”

The line was silent for a moment, then Deep Blue spoke again. “Take pictures of everything. Collect any evidence you think is important. When you’re done we’ll call in an anonymous tip so the bodies can be collected.

“Copy that,” Knight said, “and Blue…”

“Yeah?”

“We’ve seen some crazy things in the past few years…” Knight looked around the clearing imagining how long it would take the Neanderthals or even the Hydra to inflict this many casualties, this brutally, and then disappear without a trace. He thought back on the large shadow he’d seen in the valley and shook his head. “And personally, I’d hoped all that was behind us, that some kind of normalcy had been restored to the world. But that’s one wish that won’t be coming true anytime soon. We’re chest deep in it again.”

THIRTEEN

Fort Bragg, North Carolina

ALEMAN RAN DOWN the staircase with Fiona over his shoulder and his handgun in his hand. Surrounded by brick and concrete, the sounds of the battle raging outside were dulled, but he could still feel the shaking of explosions in his feet. The second-floor door sprang open as three Army Rangers entered the stairwell, ready for battle. Aleman recognized them and, outranking them, commandeered their protective services.

“They’re after the girl,” Aleman shouted. “Do not leave my side.”

The front man nodded. They had all been briefed on Fiona and knew she was under the military’s protection, though they did not know why. “Where to, sir?”

Aleman had been wracking his brain on this point. They had never assumed someone would actually infiltrate Fort Bragg and hadn’t come up with a fail-safe plan for such an event. They needed to be safe, but more than anything, they needed to hide. Someplace dark. Someplace secure. “Nearest fallout shelter.”

The three Rangers took the lead and descended the staircase first. They entered the short hallway at the end of the stairwell and made for the lobby. At the lobby door, the last of the three Rangers held out an open hand to Aleman.

He stopped in the doorway and waited for the men to give the all clear. One man was about to, but his voice caught in his throat as his eyes grew wide. Something outside the lobby had caught his attention, and there was no time to shout a warning.

The lobby imploded as a large projectile burst through one side, plowed over the three Rangers, and exploded out the other side of the building. Fiona screamed as Aleman turned and shielded her small body with his own, taking a chunk of concrete to the back of his head. He fell to one knee, felt his mind swirl, and then forced himself back onto his feet, ignoring the warm trickle of blood dripping down the back of his neck.

He ran into the destroyed lobby, holstered his handgun, and picked up one of the dead Ranger’s MP5 submachine gun.

Fiona’s second scream was directed straight in his ear and caused him to drop her. She landed on her slippered feet and tugged on his shirt frantically. She pointed through the ruined lobby wall, where the large projectile had exited. “Lew!”

He turned and looked through the opening. A large gray mass, perhaps one hundred feet away, was turning around.

It heard her scream, Aleman thought.

Then it charged. In the brief moment he took to look, Aleman saw that it ran on four legs and vaguely resembled a rhino, though perhaps twice the size.

Hoisting Fiona up again, Aleman ran out the opposite side of the building and into the parking lot. A garage full of Hummers ready to go stood on the far side of the parking lot. Once mobile in one of the tough vehicles, he would make his way to the fallout shelter—after losing the behemoth, which he could hear gaining on them.

Running down a thin alley of parked cars, Aleman did his best to keep their heads low. Bullets were flying. Buildings were exploding. Bragg had become a war zone. As he exited the sea of cars Aleman turned to look for the large hunter. He saw nothing. But it was there. A car on the far side of the lot exploded into the air. Moments later a second car followed. It was charging straight through the lot, flinging cars out of its way.

Aleman took hold of the garage doorknob and turned. But it didn’t budge. “Damnit!” He put Fiona down and kicked the door. Once. Twice. His head began to spin as blood seeped from the back of his skull. Knowing he wouldn’t get through the door in time, he turned to face the creature.

As cars in the middle of the lot were flung skyward, he turned to Fiona. “We’re going to dive out of the way at the last second, okay?”

She nodded and tried to look tough, despite her shaking lower lip.

“We’ll be okay.”

“Don’t die, Lew,” she said with a quivering voice. “Not for real.”

Aleman focused on the giant gray force approaching them and refused to promise something he knew he couldn’t. “Just jump when I say.”

The car at the edge of the parking lot shot into the air, spinning madly as the monster burst free and charged toward them. Aleman only had time to see that the creature looked more like a bull-rhino amalgam with bull horns on top of its head and a third horn rising from its snout. But the rest of the features were dull, as though worn by time. Aleman tried to see more, to get some kind of hint about what this thing was, but his vision was blurring.

Then something amazing happened. A man, dressed head to toe in Special Ops black, charged toward the creature from the side. For a moment Aleman thought it might have been King, but the man was too tall and what he did next, well, not even King could have pulled it off.

The man took the creature by two of its horns and pushed down. The face, if that’s what it could be called, dug into the pavement. The beast’s forward momentum thrust its backside up and it flipped tail over head, landing on its back with a ground-shaking impact.

The man continued toward them without looking back. In his fading vision, Aleman could see the beast trying to right itself. And when it made progress he thought he saw two large shadows descend upon it. But he couldn’t be sure. His attention moved back to the approaching man. Pushing Fiona behind him, he raised the MP5.

“Lew…” Fiona whispered.

The man raised his hands. “There’s no need for that.”

“Just stay back.”

“I can protect the girl.”

Aleman’s aim faltered for just a moment, but it was all the man needed. He stepped forward and twisted the MP5 out of his hands, tossing it to the side. Knowing he was about to fall unconscious, Aleman asked, “Who are you?”

He watched helplessly as the man scooped up Fiona, who had fallen limp, perhaps passed out, and said, “King will know.” He stepped away, and then paused. “I hope he appreciates me breaking my promise.”

With fading vision, Aleman watched the man retreat with Fiona in his arms. His last thought was of King and how the man would react to finding out his foster daughter had been kidnapped.

FOURTEEN

Mount Meru, Vietnam

A CHILDHOOD FEAR of drowning in a Chuck E. Cheese ball pool returned to Rook as he fought to free himself from a pile of ancient, green-glowing bones. The slippery bones rolled beneath him, making it almost impossible to move. When he felt the stone floor beneath his feet, he changed tactics—from moving forward, to moving up. He pushed up hard, shedding a shower of disassembled skeletons. He was free only for a moment when a second impact sent him soaring again.

He landed ten feet away in the middle of the street, rolling to a stop on a bed of femurs. Despite his groaning body begging him to stop moving, he climbed onto his feet and spun, looking for the … thing that had attacked him.

What it was he couldn’t say. He’d only seen a blur of motion as it attacked. But even that revealed nothing. Whatever it was seemed to be hidden within a mass of bones, using them as cover.

Bones rattled.

Rook turned, only now realizing he’d dropped his M4.

The city was quiet. Calm. As though the thing had never been there.

Rook scanned the roofs of the buildings still standing. They weren’t much taller than he was, so he should’ve been able to see the hulk. But there was nothing.

The building next to him shifted.

But it was thin. He could see through it and saw nothing but bones. No body. Nothing living.

He drew one of his prized .50 caliber Desert Eagles, which he referred to as “the girls.” “C’mon out,” he said. “Just give me a target.”

A portion of the building shifted and fell. Rook franticly looked for a target within the movement, but saw nothing but bones.

Moving bones.

Some of which were moving … up.

Rook took a step back as he realized the truth. The building was moving. Whatever had attacked him wasn’t hiding behind the bones or inside the bones. It was under the bones.

Rook opened fire, unleashing seven quick rounds, filling the chamber with the sound of thunder. But the moving mass showed no reaction as it rose up, shedding a layer of ancient body fragments. As the bones fell away, a ten-foot tall stone figure remained, nearly featureless except for the head, which was made from the head of a Neanderthal statue. It lunged for him.

With no time to reload, Rook did the only thing he could.

Ran.

While the Desert Eagle packed a punch big enough to put down any man or beast with a single shot, his assault rifle had a 40mm grenade launcher that could put down a whale. Maybe even a stone giant.

Bones shattered as a strike just missed him, sending an explosion of bone fragments into the chamber. The shrapnel struck Rook’s back, embedding in his flak jacket and pushing him forward. He stumbled through the sea of ancient limbs, struggling back to the spot where he hoped he’d dropped his weapon. His eyes widened as he saw the barrel of his rifle protruding from the debris. He ran for it, but his foot rolled on a femur, toppling him forward.

The accidental movement saved his life as an enormous appendage swung over his prone body. While the creature recovered from its missed swing, Rook dove forward on his hands and knees. Reaching the M4, he took it up, wrapped his index finger around its second trigger—

—and held his fire.

Being only ten feet away, if he had pulled the trigger, he would have killed himself along with the monster. Crawling once again, he moved as far as he could before noticing the creature making progress. He rolled himself behind the remains of a bone wall and took aim.

The grenade launcher’s cough was followed by a massive explosion. Bones and rock fragments rained down for several seconds and the air filled with the smell of explosives and the dust of the dead.

Rook leaned up and found only a bone-filled crater where the monster had stood. Before he had a chance to savor his victory he noticed his body was shaking. Were his nerves really that fragile after not being in the field for a year? But it wasn’t he who was shaking. It was the chamber.

As he reloaded the grenade launcher he remembered the pulsating vibrations he’d felt before. Whatever was causing the shaking wasn’t getting closer, it was—

Boom!

The cavern wall exploded as a twelve-foot giant barreled through it. Rook ducked as stone shrapnel shot through the cavern fast enough to shatter bones, toppling some of the still standing structures. Rook stood and fought to see what was happening through the dust-filled air. A large shape, its form shrouded in the foul air, surged toward him. He couldn’t see the details of its body, but unlike the first, this one wasn’t made from stone. It was crystal. The same kind of crystal that hung above the city of Meru. The same kind of crystal that hung around Bishop’s neck. The healing stones had become a killing machine.

Rook took aim and fired. The grenade covered the hundred feet to the crystalline goliath and exploded. The force of the explosion pushed the monster to the side, but did no other damage. The crystals were strong.

Very strong.

As he turned to run, Rook once again tripped on the bony carpet and fell to his hands and knees. The ground shook with vibrations as the crystal creature pounded toward him, crushing bones beneath its tree trunk–like limbs. It had no trouble moving about the bone city.

Rook rolled over and emptied his clip at the beast. But the bullets simply ricocheted off. A cloud of dust billowed out in front of the creature as it charged through a sea of bones. With only seconds left before it trampled him, Rook prayed for Queen to show up.

But it wasn’t Queen who came to his rescue.

A blur leapt from the roof of a nearby bone building. The dark shape disappeared into the cloud of dust and struck the beast. The giant stumbled from the impact, but remained upright. Dust swirled as snarling howls filled the cavern. Then the howl turned to an ear piercing yelp. The smaller creature roared with pain before it was flung against the wall, where it lay still, a crystal impaled in its chest.

Though he still couldn’t see more than a vague shape, Rook felt the monster turn its attention back to him. He slowly reached for a grenade, ready to lob it by hand. But there was no need. A sound like breaking glass rang out as the crystal giant fell, breaking into a mass of inanimate shards.

Rook regarded the pile of crystals for only a moment before running, as best he could, to the prone form of his rescuer. He recognized her immediately, and despite his nightmare experience with her kind, treated her as kindred in the wake of the unreal giants. “Red!”

He knelt beside Red’s body. He was glad to see her chest still rising and falling, but immediately knew there would be no saving her. The short, but thick female Neanderthal already had a pool of blood around her, oozing from the large chest wound.

“Red,” he whispered.

Her red-rimmed yellow eyes opened and what appeared to be a smile, made ghastly by her blood-covered two-inch canines, spread on her lips. “Rook. Father came back.”

He nodded. “I came back.”

“Red save you?”

“You did.”

She grunted and coughed up blood.

“What did they want?” he asked. “Why did they come here?”

Red looked into Rook’s eyes with the closest thing to kindness he’d ever seen in the species. “Bad words.”

For a moment, Rook thought she was remembering some of the more colorful phrases he’d shouted at her a year ago. But then her expression turned to terror. She took Rook’s arms in her hands and squeezed. Rook almost didn’t hear her past the intense pain she was inflicting.

“Can’t speak the bad words.”

Rook grunted in pain, and Red released him, falling back. Her eyes closing. “What are the bad words?”

“Can’t speak them,” she whispered. “Don’t speak them.”

Her head fell to the side.

Red, last of the Neanderthals, was dead.

Queen returned moments later, weapon at the ready, but unnecessary. After working her way through the sea of bones, she stood over Rook, who was still kneeling over Red.

“You okay?”

“Thanks to her.”

He moved, giving Queen a clear view.

“Red?” she asked.

With a nod, he added, “She said they wanted the ‘bad words.’”

“Bad words.” Queen thought back over their last year of training; training that was supposed to have prepared them for the strange and unusual events they were encountering. But the reference was too vague to even speculate about. “Could be anything.”

“Yeah,” Rook said. “Well, I can think of at least one bad word that’s applicable after what I just experienced: we’re fucked.” He closed Red’s eyes with his fingers, stood, and looked at Queen. “God help anyone else who tangles with these things.”

FIFTEEN

Fort Bragg, North Carolina

TO THEIR CREDIT, King’s mother and father didn’t say a word as he pushed his car to one hundred twenty miles an hour. As they reached the highway exit for Fort Bragg, his mother’s only comment was that it was miraculous they hadn’t been pulled over. En route, King had put in calls to every member of the team, including Deep Blue, and finally to the office at Bragg itself. No one picked up. It could mean the team was engaged in a phones-off meeting, but Bragg not answering combined with the warning he’d received was ominous and he kept his foot pressed heavy on the gas pedal.

As they sped down the entry road to Bragg, disregarding the thirty-mile-per-hour speed limit, King saw the first security checkpoint ahead. He took his foot off the gas, intending to have the men there send word ahead. But as they drew nearer he saw that the metal gate lay broken and bent on the side of the road. The guardhouse still stood, but one of the walls had been shattered. He stopped next to the small building and saw the two guards lying dead in the grass.

“Stay here,” he said to his parents before opening the door.

As soon as the door opened, the distant sounds of battle filled his ears. Despite his urge to hop back in the car and tear off into the thick of it, his training kept him rooted. First he checked the downed guards for pulses. Finding none, he collected their M4s. Before heading back to the car he stopped by the shed, kicked through the rubble, and found a handheld radio. He turned it on and shouting voices filled the air. He quickly dialed through the channels and found the same on each; soldiers shouting orders, asking for reinforcements, describing large, fast-moving objects that couldn’t be stopped.

King dropped the radio. The strangeness of the attack confirmed the warning he’d received. Someone was after Fiona.

He rushed back to the car and slid into the driver’s seat. He handed one of the M4s to his father. “Can you handle this?”

Peter gave a curt nod. “Been a while, but I’ll manage.”

King shut the door and put the car in gear.

“Hey,” Lynn said from the backseat. When King looked back at her, she glanced at Peter’s M4. “I’m a better shot than Davy Crockett here,” she said, motioning to Peter.

King’s father smiled and looked at him. “It’s true. She could give Annie Oakley a run for her money.”

With no time to waste wondering about his parents hidden abilities, he drew his Sig Sauer pistol and handed it back to his mother. Then they were off, speeding past the main entrance to the base, where a statue of a soldier usually stood. King gave the missing statue’s base a quick glance, then veered hard to the left as a car rolled ass over teakettle past them on the right.

“Whoa!” Peter shouted as he watched the spinning car crash into the welcome center and explode.

King ignored the explosion filling his rearview mirror and focused on driving through the chaos. Soldiers ran in every direction, some firing over the car at something he couldn’t see. Explosions plumed all around, some bearing the telltale signature of fragmentation grenades, but other, larger and more fiery explosions looked like fuel depots or large vehicles exploding. And others, composed primarily of brick and concrete debris, looked more like invisible wrecking balls were tearing the base apart from the inside.

Which wasn’t far from the truth, King realized, as a dark blur ran up beside the car. With the car, and the object outside it, moving so fast he couldn’t make out any details, but its intentions were clear. “Hold on!” King shouted, intending to hit the brakes, but never getting the chance.

A massive force struck the rear side of the car, sending it into a three-hundred-sixty-degree spin. As the tires squealed, filling the air with the scent of smoldering rubber, King caught a quick glance of a largely shapeless, but four-legged, mass still in pursuit despite the constant bombardment of rounds fired by concealed special ops soldiers.

King yanked the wheel, compensating for the spin, and setting them back on course. He gunned the engine and shouted to his parents. “Everyone okay?”

Lynn slapped him on the shoulder three times. “Just go, go, go!” She watched over her shoulder as the thing gave chase. For a moment it appeared they would outrun the monster, but a sudden shake, followed by the left rear wheel’s rubber shedding off and rolling to the side of the road, slowed their progress.

King saw the creature gaining once again and made the final turn toward the barracks where he knew the highest concentration of soldiers would be—and, he hoped, Fiona.

At least one of his hopes proved true. Rounding the corner, he saw a line of Delta operators armed with a vast array of heavy-hitting weapons, from grenade launchers to antitank missile launchers laying in wait.

Knowing the speeding car with three passengers was not the enemy, the soldiers split and allowed them to pass. King stopped the car and directed his parents to the nearby barracks. “Hide in there. I’ll come get you.”

To his relief, his parents followed his orders, moving into the building, weapons high and ready … like people trained to handle weapons. Trained to kill. He forced the thought of his mother killing a man from his mind and joined the men at the line.

“Where’s my team?” he shouted to Jeff Kafer, a fellow Delta team leader with a blond mop of hair and a thick mustache. He didn’t know him well, but Rook and Kafer were friends. Both were loud and liked to tell jokes at the bar. Both had several sisters. And both loved their weapons like children.

“Not on base, King,” Kafer replied. “And you know I don’t know where.”

“Have you seen Fiona?”

Kafer motioned toward the garage fifty feet behind them. “Saw Aleman back there. Looks injured, but he might know.”

“Here it comes!” one of the men shouted.

Kafer raised his voice to make sure everyone heard him. “Wait on me!”

The line took aim at the charging mass of stone and waited.

King did not. He turned and ran for Aleman, who he could see slumped against one of the large garage doors, a smear of blood stretching down to the back of his head. He didn’t get ten feet before Kafer yelled, “Fire!”

The air filled with the sounds of launching ordinance one moment and a rapid succession of explosions the next. King turned and saw the giant creature charging through the onslaught. Several explosions sent pavement flying into the air. Direct hits shot chunks of its body flying. A few misses shredded parked vehicles. Despite the brute force of the attack, the thing showed no response, felt no pain. It simply charged forward. When one of its legs burst free, it ran on three.

It wouldn’t be stopped.

As the line of men realized this, and knew just as surely that they couldn’t get out of its way in time, they raised their arms and turned their heads, as a natural reaction to being trampled. King raised his M4 and fired, just as the beast reached the line of men.

But the useless bullets King fired never hit their mark. Instead, they sailed straight through a cloud of dust that burst out and over the line of men. The giant had disintegrated. Whether from the attack or some other reason, King didn’t care. It was gone, and Aleman was down.

As King rushed to Aleman’s side he heard the pop of gunfire cease around the base. The battle was over.

“Lew,” he said, kneeling down by Aleman’s body. “Lew, wake up.”

Aleman’s eyes blinked open. “King…”

“What happened?”

Aleman tried to sit up, but a stab of pain kept him down. “Took a hit to the head. Shrapnel I think.”

“Where’re the others?”

“Gone,” Aleman said.

“Fiona’s with them?”

Aleman frowned and King knew the answer before the man said the words. “They took her.”

King clenched his fists. Fiona was gone.

His daughter was gone.

At that moment all of King’s fears became realized—Jack Sigler never would be, nor should be, a father. And if he were somehow able to bring her back alive, he would find a better, and safer, home for her. King picked up his friend and headed for the barracks where a makeshift triage was already being set up.

As King passed, Peter saw a flicker of something in King’s eyes, an anger bordering on primal, screaming for revenge.

“What’s going to happen?” Lynn asked her husband as he closed the door.

“I’m not sure,” he said, meeting her eyes with a strong gaze that communicated more than words, “but whoever did this…” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to be them when Jack comes calling.”

“Are you sure this isn’t more than he can handle?” she said, lowering her voice to a strong whisper.

Peter took her arm. “He’ll handle it.”

“I couldn’t live with myself if something happened and we—”

Peter took hold of her other arm and pulled her close. “He’ll handle it. We Sigler’s are hard to kill.”

“I hope that’s true,” she said. “For both of them.”

SEEK

SIXTEEN

Fort Bragg, North Carolina

DESPITE AN UNCEASING urge to find out who was behind the attack and where Fiona had been taken, King was duty-bound to aid in the rescue efforts under way around Fort Bragg. Collapsed buildings buried the dead and dying. Triages treated burns, puncture wounds, and crushed limbs, some of which had to be amputated. Outside of a war zone, he’d seen nothing like it.

And neither had America.

The attack, seen and heard for miles around, was impossible to hide from the media. At first, news helicopters had hovered outside the no-fly zone, zooming in for close-up shots of the rescue operation under way, but they had since been chased away by several deadly attack helicopters now securing the aerial perimeter. Shots from visitor camera phones flooded YouTube. And a few reporters, who were already on the base when the attack occurred, took advantage of the chaos, hiding in the ruins and snapping photos of bloodied soldiers, destroyed buildings, and parking lots filled with overturned vehicles.

By the time the military launched a full-scale search to find and remove press from the base it was too late to contain the story. The world knew about the attack on Fort Bragg. The images of destroyed buildings and dead soldiers revolted each and every American who saw them.

Once they were sure the press had been cleared, the pilots of the large green and white helicopter known as Marine One were given the go ahead. The presidential helicopter swung into view above the base accompanied by two fully armed AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopters. A squadron of F-22 Raptor fighter jets secured the airspace above and around the base, their engines a constant roar in the sky.

The grass of the barracks’ central quad bowed away from the massive helicopter as it set down, the chop of its blades slowing. As the rotors stopped spinning a small group of soldiers gathered to see if Marine One carried who they all thought it did. When the door opened and President Thomas Duncan stepped out, his face grim, each and every one of the beaten and tired men snapped sharp salutes.

All but one.

King walked past the saluting men and stomped toward the president, who he knew as Deep Blue. Two Secret Service men moved for King but Duncan stopped them with an open hand.

The Secret Service men looked uneasy as they eyed the messy-haired man dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt approaching the commander in chief. The raw anger in King’s eyes set the president’s guardians on edge, but they stood down. King stopped and didn’t bother with a salute. “Fiona’s gone.”

Deep Blue’s eyes opened wide. “What?” Duncan had been so inundated with presidential damage control in the wake of the incident that he had yet to read the detailed briefing from General Keasling. “How?”

“Last I checked Lewis was still unconscious, so I’m not sure.”

Duncan turned and looked at the destruction, meaning to walk toward the line of approaching generals and their marine escorts. King took his arm. “Why wasn’t I told about the mission?” King asked, his voice tinged with anger.

Duncan looked at King’s hand then met the man’s eyes.

“You put Fiona’s life at risk.”

“There was no way to know this would happen,” Duncan said, motioning to the destroyed base. “We thought you needed more time to grieve your mother’s—”

“My mother’s not dead,” King said.

Duncan looked stunned.

King pointed to his mother, who was helping pass water out to the wounded. She saw him pointing and gave a little wave. Duncan smiled sheepishly and raised his hand to her. “I don’t understand.”

“You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

King shook his head. “We can figure out how that story fell through the cracks later. I need to find Fiona. Now.”

Duncan looked around. The approaching generals, most of whom did not know the president was also Deep Blue, were almost upon them. He leaned in close to King. “I’m going to be out of commission until things settle down. Every move I make is being watched. But I want you to do whatever it takes, King. Keasling has a blank check for this. The gloves are off. Find your daughter. Find who did this. Figure out what they want and put a stop to it.”

King nodded and turned to walk away, but this time Duncan took hold of him and turned him around.

“You and I may think of each other as equals, King, but when we’re in public remember who you are. And who I am.” He glanced at the approaching generals. “People are watching.”

Despite King’s frosty mood he snapped a salute. “Yes sir.”

King walked away as the swarm of marines and generals overtook Duncan and moved him to a more secure location. With the team due to arrive at Pope Air Force Base in an hour, he would meet them there, put the pieces together, and then turn them loose. But first he needed Aleman for information, his parents for good-byes, an ass-load of weapons for the obvious, and a few friends to level the playing field.

SEVENTEEN

Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina

FORTY MINUTES AFTER meeting the president, King stood outside Hangar 7, Delta’s personal hangar that typically housed the Crescent. Right now it was devoid of any aircraft but held four Delta teams made up of five soldiers each. The men, dressed in black fatigues, quickly off-loaded their gear from the two large trucks that had carried them to the airfield and stood before King. The four team leaders approached.

Jeff Kafer, call sign Mouth, thanks to his audiobook narrator’s voice, said, “I hear you’ve got an ‘ask and you shall receive’ order from Keasling. Well, you asked and we’re here, so mind telling us what this is about?”

King motioned to the open hangar. “Come with me. You can brief your men when we’re done.”

The five team leaders entered Decon, where a bandaged but conscious Lewis Aleman sat waiting behind a laptop. General Keasling stood in the corner, his short arms crossed over his chest. As the men entered the room, the tension became palpable. They’d all seen friends and comrades killed and the shock from the strange attack had not yet worn off. The team leaders, who were accustomed to sitting around this table with their own teams, sat down and turned to Keasling. He motioned their attention to King, who stood at the head of the table. “He’s running the show.”

“As of this moment,” King said, “your teams are serving under the Chess Team. Each one of you will serve under a member of my team and will obey their orders as though each and every one of them was God himself. You will be Pawns One through Five with the team leader’s designation coming first.

He pointed to Kafer. “You’re Rook’s Pawn One and your men are Two through Five. In the field this will be shortened to RP-One. Understood?”

Nods all around. Despite their battle-hardened experience and high rank, the men knew they were being brought, at least temporarily, into the fold of the Chess Team. Each of them felt a mix of honor and intimidation.

“We’ve got a connection,” Aleman said before tapping a few keys on the laptop.

The wall behind King, actually a well-disguised flat-screen display, came to life. Queen, Rook, Knight, and Bishop appeared on the screen, sitting around a laptop on their end from within the Crescent. Their serious faces reflected that they had been briefed on the Fort Bragg attack and Fiona’s kidnapping.

“Can you hear us?” Rook asked.

“We hear you,” King replied and then nodded at Aleman. “Give what you have.”

King had plucked Aleman from his cot, which he’d been forced to stay in, and had him working on finding answers for the past thirty minutes. It wasn’t a lot of time, but Aleman tended to think faster than most men. And he didn’t disappoint.

“Here’s what we know. About a year ago, the Siletz Reservation was destroyed. We now have a pretty good idea how. That said, we still have no idea what actually attacked us.”

“A shitload of living rock, that’s what,” Kafer said.

Aleman looked at the ceiling for a moment, his eyes squinted in thought.

“Lew,” King said.

Aleman looked back at his screen. “Then we received tips that certain targets in Australia and Vietnam were in danger. In fact, the targets were killed before our team arrived on site. Or, in Rook’s case, just after. And it was the last words of this dying victim that clued me in. She said—correct me if I’m wrong, Rook—that they were after ‘bad words’ that you were then told not to speak. ‘Can’t speak them. Don’t speak them.’”

“You got it,” Rook said.

“Given the ancestry of the victim, it occurred to me that her native language would be very old; perhaps one of the oldest, if not the oldest, spoken language on the planet. I did some research on the other victims. All of them were the last surviving speakers of nearly extinct ancient languages. The Gurdanji in Australia had five living speakers. They’re all dead. The Siletz had two living speakers, Fiona’s grandmother—”

“And Fiona,” Queen said. “Shit.”

“I compiled a list of all dying languages around the world and found a disturbing trend. Many of the last speakers of ancient languages have either gone missing or been found dead. Someone is exterminating them. But because they’re relatively few people spread out all around the world, some in obscure places, no one has noticed. I’ve identified the speakers of the most at-risk languages that are still living. Tinigua has two speakers. Taushiro, one. Uru, one. And Vilela, two. All four of these languages are in South America. Then there is Chulym, known as Ös to its three speakers in Siberia, down from fifteen three years ago thanks to a flu that killed thousands of people in the remote area. And Pazeh with one speaker born in the Philippines, but living in Taiwan.”

“Are you assigning us to kidnap these people?” Kafer said.

“That’s your mission,” King replied. “Yes.”

“And you’ve done this before?”

“Bag and tag,” Bishop said, which got a smile from Rook and odd looks from the four team leaders in Decon.

“Are you questioning your orders?” King asked, his voice heavy, his eyes leveled at Kafer.

For a moment it appeared Kafer might argue the point, but he leaned back in his chair instead. “Just curious is all.”

Aleman cleared his throat. “Queen and Bishop will lead two teams to South America. Knight will take one team to Taiwan. Rook will take Siberia.”

“I don’t need to tell you that not only do we not know who we’re up against, but we also don’t know what,” King said. “You and your men have fought conventional wars up until now, but all that changes today. Throw out your preconceptions about human capabilities and effective tactics and do not, ever, believe a bullet can kill the enemy.”

“What do we know?” one of the team leaders asked. “I saw the damn statue from Bragg’s main entrance come to life and kill a man.”

“And that about sums up our intel,” Aleman said. “Someone has found a way to imbue nonliving material with, for lack of a better word, life. Statues come to life. Crude stone monsters. It doesn’t seem to matter what the material is as long as it is inanimate.”

“I faced off against two of them,” Rook said. “One made of stone and the other of giant crystals.”

“They appear to feel no pain,” Aleman said, “and when their mission, again for lack of a better word, is complete they return to their inanimate state, which is why the statue you mentioned is now in a barracks lobby.”

“You all need to move fast and quiet. I want you in and out of these countries with the targets without ruffling a feather, blipping a radar, or engaging the enemy.” King looked up at the screen, eyeing the members of his team, and then looked at the team leaders at the table. “Because as good as you all are, you won’t stand a chance.” He looked back at the screen. “ETA?”

“We’re incoming now,” Knight said. “Wheels down and hatch open in three minutes.”

King switched off the flat-screen and spoke to the team leaders. “I want you all on that bird in four minutes. Brief your men in the air. Got it?”

“Understood,” Kafer said as he stood. “One last question?”

“What is it?”

“Where will you be going?”

King’s nose twitched. “For now”—he looked at Aleman, who shrugged—“nowhere.”

Kafer gave King a pat on the shoulder as he headed for the door. “You’ll find her.”

The men filed out of the room. Keasling followed after them, intent on ensuring that each and every man made King’s four-minute schedule.

King sat down across from Aleman. He looked grim.

“Last night, did you get a chance to refill Fiona’s insulin pump and move it to a new location?”

Aleman paled. He hadn’t thought of that problem. “I did. The pump was on her hip. The needle just above it.”

Fiona’s insulin pump lasted three days when full. After that Fiona would be susceptible to hyperglycemia, which resulted in painful symptoms including coma and death, sometimes very quickly depending on circumstances such as diet and exertion. But that wasn’t the most pressing concern at the moment. The girl he’d been entrusted to protect had been taken from him by a man he knew very little about.

After first hearing Aleman’s description of the mystery man, King suspected his identity was none other than Alexander Diotrephes. He was sure of it. And Alexander was a doctor, among other things. In theory, he should be able to supply her with insulin. Hell, he could probably cure her. But what did they really know about the man? He’d helped them defeat the Hydra, but he had personal reasons for doing that. He’d saved Fiona once before, at the Siletz Reservation, but no one knew his real motives or intentions. Who’s to say he wasn’t behind the attacks himself? Until all of these questions were answered, King couldn’t trust that Fiona’s life wasn’t in danger. “Let’s operate under the assumption that she’s not going to be cared for. There’s no way to know for sure until I find her.”

Aleman nodded. “You really think Hercules—Alexander—has Fiona?”

King’s mind refocused on the task of finding Fiona. He couldn’t do anything about her diabetes until she was safe in his care again. “Sounds insane, I know. The question is: Where did he take her? And does he have anything to do with these living statues?”

Aleman shook his head. There were so many unanswered questions he was having trouble keeping track of them all, which was frustrating because he could feel the answer to one of their questions on the tip of his tongue.

Then it came to him. Living statues. “Oh my God,” he whispered, and then said loudly, “I know what they are.”

King immediately sat up straight. “What?”

“Golem.”

EIGHTEEN

“STAI BENE, TESORO?”

Fiona opened her eyes to the concerned face of a middle-aged woman with dark curly hair. She couldn’t understand a word the woman said, but she recognized the language. “I can’t speak Italian.”

“Sorry,” the woman said in English. “I should have learned to greet newcomers in English by now. Most of us here speak it well enough.”

Fiona tried sitting up, but a spinning head kept her planted in what she now realized was a cot made up in white sheets. The woman saw Fiona’s trouble and helped her sit. “It’s the drugs. You’ll feel dizzy for just a few more minutes and drowsy for another day. Maybe more because you’re so small.”

“Drugs?” Fiona gave her body a visual once over and saw no injuries, but her body and the woman’s face were as far as she could focus. She looked up and saw brown, but the room twisted madly causing instant nausea. She turned her eyes down and saw a brown stone floor. “This isn’t a hospital.” She looked at the woman. “And you’re not a nurse, are you?”

The woman frowned and shook her head. “I am a linguist. And no, this is not a hospital.” The woman held out her hand. “Elma Rossi.”

Fiona shook her hand. “Fiona Lane.” She looked into Elma’s eyes, wondering if she was someone she could trust. Deciding she had no choice, she asked, “Where am I?”

“Where we are in the world … I cannot say. There are no windows. No clues. The only thing we know is that we are underground.”

Underground? Fiona focused on the floor, fought down a fresh wave of nausea, and then looked again. The wall closest to her resolved as a continuation of the stone floor, brown and featureless. The room continued to spin, but she forced herself to look, to glean what she could.

She saw people. Small groups of them gathered in huddles around the room. Some appeared to be self-segregated by race. Others lay on cots like hers, staring at the ceiling—also stone. The space was about the size of her junior high cafeteria, before the reservation was destroyed.

A persistent pain in her hip drew her attention. She lifted up her shirt and saw the insulin pump attached to her waistband. She turned it up, looking at its digital display, which showed her glucose levels, battery life, and insulin supply. All was good.

“What is that?” Elma asked.

“Insulin pump. I’m diabetic.”

“That can be hard, especially on one so young. But I wouldn’t worry about it,” Elma said. “Those of us with medical needs have been taken care of. I’m sure you will be as well.”

“I’ll be fine for a few more days, anyway,” Fiona said. To prove it, she stood. When she did, a fresh wave of nausea struck. She stumbled and was caught by Elma.

“Slow down, child, you’ll—”

Fiona yanked her arm away. “Let me do this,” she said, her little voice almost a growl. “I can do this.” Driven by a deep desire to be strong like King, she did what she’d seen him do after taking a hard hit or running a long distance. Hands on knees, head between legs, and long, deep breaths. She finished with a deep grunt and stood. She felt stronger, but still dizzy. Though she didn’t let Elma see that. Rook told her that when they were on a mission they had to swallow pain and discomfort to get things done. He made it sound easy.

It wasn’t.

But Fiona had Elma convinced as she stood up straight and rolled her little neck. When she opened her eyes again, the woman had taken a step back with a hand to her mouth. “Child, you may be the toughest person here.”

The statement helped Fiona stand still as her body threatened to buckle over and wretch. She swallowed, knowing that Rook had meant pain-swallowing as a metaphor, and forced a cocky King-style smile. “Just trying to take after my dad.”

Elma’s eyes were wide. “And … who is your father?”

“You can ask him when he—” Fiona lurched forward and vomited at the base of her cot. After three heaves and a coughing fit, she spit the remaining bile from her mouth and stood with tears in her eyes. Elma stepped forward and held her. Fiona melted into her hug. “Not as tough as you thought.”

“Nonsense,” Elma said, brushing a hand over Fiona’s straight black hair. “Some of these people did not stop crying for days. Some still cry.”

Fiona looked up at her. “How long have you been here?”

“Three months.” She motioned to the groups around the room, some of whom were looking their way. “Others are new arrivals like you. The longest have been here for a year.”

Fiona slumped in Elma’s embrace, horrified. “A year.”

“We are well cared for,” Elma said, her voice suddenly hopeful. “Look there,” she said, pointing to a door at the far end of the room that Fiona had missed during her dizzy turnabout. “We’re fed three times a day. And the food isn’t bad.” She pointed to the other end of the room where several hanging sheets divided the space. “There is a toilet with working plumbing, and a shower with drainage there. The water is cold, but it is nice to be clean. Even the lighting was carefully chosen.”

Fiona looked up at the string of lights hanging from the ceiling, spaced out every ten feet in a grid from one end to the other.

“The bulbs mimic sunlight and reduce the effect of not getting outside. It’s no replacement, but it’s better than regular bulbs.”

“Then why are we here?”

Elma shrugged. “We do not know. But it is clear our captors mean us no harm.”

“Yet…” Fiona added.

Elma grimaced and then nodded. “Yes. Yet. We are supplied with games, water, reading material, and medical supplies should the need arise.”

With her emotions reined in by the conversation and her body returning to normal, Fiona stepped away and stood on her own. “Who brings the supplies? The food?”

“We do not see who brings the food,” said a tall, skinny black man. “They come when it is dark. At night. When they shut off the lights. We cannot see them. But we hear them.”

“Buru,” Elma scolded. “Don’t frighten the girl.”

“She will be less frightened if she knows what to expect.” He turned to Fiona. “Who do you think deposited you here during the night? None of us saw you arrive. We woke, and there you were.”

Elma muttered some exasperated Italian and said, “She has only just arrived!”

When Elma threw her arms up, a black symbol could be seen on the back of her hand. It was small, about the size of a quarter, but Fiona recognized it instantly. She stepped away from Elma.

Elma’s hands stopped in midair. She’d noticed Fiona’s fear and followed the girl’s eyes to the symbol on her hand—a circle with two vertical lines through it. “What is it, child?”

Fiona just stared, her mind putting together pieces faster than she knew how to react.

“It’s a brand of a sort,” Elma said, lowering her hand and holding it out.

Buru showed her his hand. Though less visible on his dark skin, the symbol was there. “All of us have one.” He pointed to her right hand. “Even you.”

Fiona looked at her hand, the dark symbol fresh and shining like a cancer. She tried rubbing it off, but it did not smudge or dull. Tattoos, she thought, and then realized their purpose. She had helped her grandmother tag goats on the reservation once. Hated every second. But the experience was etched into her mind, impossible to forget. The tags showed ownership. And she was the only one here who knew the name of their shepherd.

Alexander Diotrephes.

And the knowledge gave her strength.

Rubbing the tattoo with her thumb, she turned to Buru. “They only enter in the dark?”

He nodded, perplexed that the little girl would return to the topic. “There is a dim light from the hallway beyond the door, but that is all.”

“Have you seen one?”

Buru looked at Elma, who threw her hands up, and walked away while shaking her head and muttering in Italian.

“Only shadows,” Buru said. “But others have seen them.”

“Dark cloaks and gray skin?”

Elma stopped and turned around slowly. Her eyes wide.

Buru was likewise stunned. “You know of these things?”

Fiona sifted through a year’s worth of Chess Team education she got on top of her regular school studies. “My father called them wraiths but that’s a misnomer because ‘wraith’ is a Scottish word for ghosts … and these are not Scottish. And they’re not ghosts.”

“What are they?” Buru asked.

She shrugged. “I dunno, but I can tell you two things for sure. First, we won’t be escaping without help. Second, help is on the way.”

Buru looked incredulous, like he’d just remembered he was speaking to a young girl. “How do you know this?”

She looked at Elma, trying her best to sound confident, to believe that King, her father, would scour the earth for her, and said, “I never did tell you who my father is.”

NINETEEN

Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina

KING RESTED HIS elbows on the table and tried the word on for size. “Golem.” He didn’t like it. “As in the legendary Jewish variety?”

“You know it?” Aleman asked.

“Just the basics,” King said. “That they’re figures, most often created from clay and brought to life when a rabbi places a piece of paper in its mouth with the word ‘Emet,’ truth, written on it. Sometimes the word is inscribed on the golem’s body instead. To destroy the golem the ‘E’ is erased, leaving the word ‘Met,’ death.” King looked up at Aleman, who was typing away on his laptop as he listened. “You know how stupid this sounds?”

“You’ve seen Hydra reborn and Neanderthal women wanting to mate with Rook. This kind of thing should no longer be strange. What else do we know?”

King sat back and focused. They had covered the golem briefly during their year of study, along with a slew of other myths representing the world’s cultures and religions. Visualizing what he knew of the golem, images began to fill in the missing gaps.

“The most popular golem story involved a rabbi in Prague. In the 1500s. He used a golem to defend his ghetto against anti-Semitic attacks. The golem grew violent. Killed slews of people. Non-Jews. And the persecution was stopped.”

“Are they intelligent?” Aleman asked.

“No,” King said. “They can’t act without instructions from the rabbi who gives them life. They can’t talk. I suppose they have a limited intelligence in that they can understand commands and carry them out, but maybe that’s just the creator’s thoughts and feelings being imprinted on the golem?”

Aleman looked up slowly.

“What?” King asked.

“Just impressed is all. I don’t think you would have said that a year ago.”

“That’s nice, but none of it tells me who to shoot. Any idea?”

Aleman shrugged. “Beats me. But if inanimate objects really are being brought to life, maybe someone figured out how to tap into some kind of ancient creative power. God. Aliens. Intelligent capybara from another dimension. I’m leaving all the cards on the table.”

King opened his hands. “Okay, fine. We’ll call them golems for now, but that doesn’t get us any closer to finding Fiona, which is why I’m still here. Tell me what happened again. How she was taken.”

Aleman pursed his lips, looking down at the empty table. “The thing … the golem … was charging us. A man in black special ops gear, who I thought was you until he latched onto its head and drove what had to be a ton of stone into the pavement. As my vision faded I saw two things, black shapes attack the downed golem. I couldn’t see the man’s face, but he had a deep voice and said you would know who he was.”

“And we do. But he could be anywhere in the world.” King shook his head in frustration. “He didn’t say anything else?”

“Something … maybe … something about a promise.” Aleman looked up as the memory returned. “Breaking a promise. He said, ‘I hope he appreciates me breaking my promise.’”

“Breaking his promise?”

“Did he promise you anything?”

King’s head moved slowly from side to side. “Nothing.”

Aleman quickly scoured everything he could find about Hercules, searching for the keyword “promise.” He found nothing. “There’s no mention about a promise anywhere in literature or online. If he was dropping a hint, it’s not something publicly known.”

“Then it would have to be personal,” King said. “But I never met the man.”

“Queen and Rook did,” Aleman added.

“Can you search their reports?” The team kept detailed reports of all missions including every action taken, why, and, to the best of their ability, what was said. The process was long and they often ended up with novelettes by the time they were done, but many missions overlapped and what was at the time a minor detail could become important in the future.

Aleman’s response was to begin typing. Thirty seconds later, “Bingo! Queen’s report has him saying, ‘I long ago promised someone I loved that I would refrain from getting directly involved in the world’s problems.’ The context was his refusal to get physically involved in the Hydra mission.”

“But he’s getting involved now.”

“And breaking that promise … to who…” King pounded the table with his fist, but not in anger, in victory. “Acca Larentia.”

Aleman wasn’t used to being the one asking questions. He was typically on the delivering end of strange or pertinent information. “Who?”

“Acca Larentia. She was Hercules’s mistress, said to have been won in a game of dice and later, when he was done with her, married to an Etruscan man named Carutius, whose property she inherited when he died. The property later became known as Rome.”

King’s thoughts shifted, knowing that history, especially when it concerned Hercules, could not be trusted. Over the past several thousand years, his secret organization, the Herculean Society, had systematically altered history by either erasing Hercules’s influence and existence altogether, or heaping on legend to make it unbelievable. The truth that no one knew was that Hercules was more genius than a god-man, and had extended his life through genetic tinkering and boosted his physical prowess, when needed, by consuming adrenaline-boosting concoctions. Immortal, yes. A god, no.

He stood and paced, his energy building as the pieces began coming together. “I’m willing to bet that Hercules was also Carutius, now Alexander Diotrephes. And I think we can safely assume he’s had many names in between. If he was married to Acca, then the promise he made might have been to her.”

He turned to Aleman. “Are there any monuments to her?”

After working the keyboard, Aleman said, “Not a one.”

King frowned, thinking of the fear that Fiona must be feeling and loathing the absolute helplessness he felt. Never before in his life had he felt so powerless. So vulnerable.

“Hold on,” Aleman said. “She was supposedly buried in the Velabrum, between the Palatine and Capitoline hills in Rome. It was once a swampy area, but it’s now covered by the ruins of Foro Romano—the Roman Forum.”

“It fits,” King said. “His last hiding place had been beneath the Rock of Gibraltar, one of the two pillars of Hercules. If the Herculean Society is dedicated to protecting the historical Hercules, it would make sense to set up shop at his most prized locations, especially one housing the body of his one, and only, love in twenty-five hundred years.”

He opened his cell phone and dialed. A moment later he said, “Bring my ride around. Yes. Rome.” He hung up and dialed again, waiting for the other end to pick up. When it did, he got an answering machine. “It’s Jack. I’m on my way to Rome and I need your help. ETA fives hours. Thanks, George.”

No one knew Rome or Hercules better than George Pierce, the man whose inquiries made him a target of the Herculean Society’s cloaked thieves and, later, the mysterious wraiths. He wasn’t sure if Pierce would want to help, but knew he would. King made a mental note to tell Pierce about his mother not being dead and headed for the door as the roar of a two-seat F/A-18 Hornet filled the hangar bay, signifying the arrival of his ride.

“King,” Aleman said, stopping him in the doorway. “About the golems. If that’s what they are, and they are mindless, keep in mind that you’re not just up against dumb hulking rocks. Someone smart is behind this. And they have an agenda that is beyond us. Beyond Fiona.”

“I’ll take care of it,” he said, but only made it one more step before Aleman stopped him again.

“I’m not sure you will, King. Not this time. Because the last three attacks happened on three different continents at the exact same time. Whoever is behind this is not alone, and has amazing resources.”

King looked back. “What are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying that Hercules may not have meant us to figure out where he was. And if you’re right, and find him beneath Rome, he might not be happy to see you.”

“I’m going to make damn sure he’s not happy. We might be named for chess pieces, but he’s done moving us on the game board.”

* * *

THE ROAR OF the F/A-18 hit him like a pressure wave as he left Decon and entered the hangar. He held an index finger up to the waiting pilot, who nodded in response as he brought the jet to a stop and killed the engines. King approached his parents, who had been sitting in metal folding chairs on the opposite side of the hangar. His mother looked worried as she sat with her hands over her ears. His father looked positively thrilled by the presence of the jet.

Peter held his hands out toward the jet and spoke to King. “You know, if this was a MiG I could fly you wherever you’re going myself.”

King stopped, looking at his father with a quizzical expression. He really knew nothing about his parents. In many ways they were strangers to him, and small things, like the creases around his father’s eyes that had once given away his jests, now said nothing.

Peter waved at him. “I’m kidding, Jack.”

“Right,” King said, but he still wasn’t sure if the man was joking or not. His parents had been spies. His mother shot a man. That one, or both of them, could pilot a jet at this point wouldn’t be too shocking.

Lynn placed her hand on King’s back and rubbed hard, the way he had liked as a child when sitting through a boring event. “Honey,” she said, standing in front of him. She took his cheek and pulled his face down, while glancing at the jet. “Are you someone important?”

King couldn’t help but smile. For all the secrets his parents had, he had just as many. Whatever documents his mother had seen, most likely an I.D. or message from one of the team, wouldn’t have given away exactly what it was he did. They knew as little about him as he did about them.

But they were family.

King hugged his mother. “The things I do … no one will ever know about them. I’m no one, Mom.”

“You’re a father,” she said.

“Foster parent,” he corrected, leaving his mother’s embrace and standing up straight. “And not a very good one.”

“Bullshit,” Peter said. “Where you’re going, is it dangerous?”

“Yes,” King said, not wanting to lie to his parents and realizing his father wasn’t asking for important details.

“You could get killed?”

“Yes, Dad.”

King could see worry creeping into his mother’s eyes and didn’t want her to break down in tears.

“And you’re doing this for your daughter?”

King thought about the question. It was his job to put his life on the line for all Americans. He did it all the time. But this was different. This was personal. It was for Fiona. “Yes.”

“Son, there is no greater love than a father who is willing to lay down his life for his children.” He took King’s shoulders in his hands. “Do you understand?”

The words resonated with King. He wasn’t a good father. He knew that. How could a single man on the world’s most mysterious and elite Delta team attend to a thirteen-year-old girl? But that wasn’t his father’s point. The point was, he would die to save Fiona.

Strange, that a man who spent the last ten years in prison could make so much sense, King thought, and then held his breath. Peter had gone to jail and suffered the loathing of his son so that he could have a normal childhood. He had given up his life to protect King from the realities of their past. The tough old ex-con, ex-spy, without realizing it, had just told King he loved him.

“I understand, Dad. Thanks.” King headed toward the jet and looked back with a grin. His mother grew weepy as he climbed the ladder. He turned back toward Decon where Aleman stood in the doorway. “Find them someplace to stay.”

Aleman saluted in reply.

He climbed into the jet’s rear section, sat down, and strapped in. He tapped the pilot’s head and they began moving back out of the hangar where an empty runway awaited.

As the jet taxied out of the hangar and Aleman walked toward them, Peter looked down at Lynn’s teary face. “All set?”

She nodded and said, “I don’t like this.”

Peter squeezed her arm. “He’ll be fine.”

Aleman arrived and said, “How do you feel about Best Western?”

“As long as they have a continental breakfast, I’m good,” Peter said.

The three exited the hangar together and watched King’s F/A-18 roar into the air, headed east. A loud boom washed over them as the jet broke the sound barrier, becoming a distant speck in the sky.

TWENTY

HE SAT TWO hundred feet beneath the surface of the earth surrounded by darkness, and yet able to see. The large circular space had once served as a kind of sitting room, a bath perhaps, but had, for the past year and a half, been used as a laboratory, though some might call it a torture chamber. His test subjects included insects and animals from the desert above, humans from surrounding villages, and even the earth itself. They were like clay in the hands of an artist, malleable, but his skills needed honing and his manipulations often cost the living their lives while the inanimate found life—at least temporarily.

Those brought to life had vastly different roles. The quickly animated stone subjects were large, strong, and doltish. But they followed orders without pause or moral hindrance. Unfortunately, they didn’t last long. If he didn’t repeat the words that granted life within fifteen minutes, they would return to their prior state. Clay held together best, enduring without need for a repeated imbuement, and with it, his finest creations came to being.

But there was more to accomplish. Much more. He had a firm grasp of manipulating the inanimate, but the animate still eluded him. And that was key. A computer programmer couldn’t rewrite software code if he didn’t know the language in which it was written. But if that language was learned, the code could be hacked and rewritten. The same was true of the human mind, the world’s most sophisticated, organic computer. And he was close to deciphering the original coded language. Once he knew the language, he could rewrite the code of the human mind. Only a few fragments of knowledge still eluded him and they were nearly lost to time.

Sometime, far in the past, the human race spoke one, unifying language. But suddenly, as though erased from the minds of its speakers, the language was lost—though not completely. Fragments of the ancient language remained hidden in the new dialects, passed down orally through generations. Even fewer fragments had been etched into stone by those wise enough to realize the knowledge would die with them. Identifying the lost written fragments had taken time, but the tracks of the ancients were easy to follow once you knew what to look for. With the last stone fragments still being tracked down, there was time to perfect a few more tricks.

He read through his notes one last time as he would soon attempt something he knew could have disastrous results. Even the smallest mispronunciation could undo him. He might survive, in fact he didn’t doubt it, but even a small explosion could reveal his position to his enemies stationed above.

He sipped from his teacup and noticed the time. The others would be checking in soon.

A blue glow lit the space around the man as he turned on his laptop. It revealed lab tables covered with cages, some containing rodents or reptiles. Several different types of rock, sand, clay, and crystal filled a collection of bowls. Lines of metal bars came next—an assemblage of earth elements.

The laptop chimed a moment later. Seth. The man answered it, looking at a reflection of his own face. “All went well, Alpha,” Seth said. “All living specimens have been eradicated and all traces of the written language have been destroyed. No interruptions this time.”

A second chime indicated a second call. Enos. Opening the second call and networking the three, Alpha said, “And how is Australia?”

“No problems,” Enos said. “Have you heard from Cainan yet?”

They were all nervous about Cainan. Their successes around the globe couldn’t dull their apprehension about facing the mass of special Forces stationed at Fort Bragg. At the same time, it was an excellent test of their true capabilities.

He glanced at his watch, seeing Seth and Enos do likewise on the screen. How alike they all were.

The computer chimed.

Cainan.

Alpha took the call and patched it in, allowing the five of them to talk as though each were in the room despite being worlds apart. “Cainan.” The tone of his voice was loaded with questions that didn’t need to be voiced.

“Bragg is in ruins. The U.S. special forces took large casualties and were unable to mount a successful counterattack.”

Alpha knew well enough that Cainan was delaying the meat of his report. He cleared his throat. “And the girl, Fiona?”

“He was there.”

“King?”

“No, the other one,” Cainan said. “The thorn in our side. He took her.”

Alpha grimaced. The man, whose identity and location were still unknown, but were being tirelessly researched, had first made his presence known at the Siletz Reservation in Oregon. In the confusion, the girl had escaped into the arms of Delta, behind the fortified walls of Fort Bragg. And since then he had thwarted many of their attempts to eliminate those that, know it or not, had the knowledge to undo what had taken half his life to achieve. They had succeeded in as many attempts, but the cumulative knowledge of those now protected in secrecy …

He pushed his fears aside, focusing on the problem at hand. “King will go after her. Wherever he goes, follow him.”

Enos nodded. “He’s resourceful. He’ll find her.”

“He’s being tracked?” Alpha asked.

Cainan’s head bobbed up and down. “The assets did their job. He’s on a jet over the Atlantic.”

“Alone?”

“The other chess pieces left earlier, each leading an individual team. I don’t know where.”

Alpha’s eyes widened momentarily and then he chuckled. “They’ve gone looking for others. Identify which at-risk languages are the most likely targets.”

“You don’t want us to intercept?” Cainan said.

Alpha was grinning. “Not at all. But I think letting several countries know that U.S. special forces intend to invade their territory and abduct their citizens will create a hostile atmosphere that might do the work for us. If any of them are headed for Russia, our friends there will be most welcoming, I’m sure. That would leave only King as a concern for the future.”

“And what if King finds us?” Enos asked.

Alpha smiled and stood, taking a small lizard by the sides and picking it up. “I am leaving for Pontus shortly. And should he track us here…” He held the lizard up and spoke the ancient words he had recited so many times in his mind. The lizard began thrashing in his hand, changing before their eyes. “He will find only death.”

Seth, Enos, and Cainan watched with wide eyes as the video appeared on their laptops in Vietnam, Australia, and the United States. Identical grins stretched on their faces.

After placing the still changing lizard into a large cage, Alpha returned to his seat and paused. Something about killing King was unsatisfactory. The man had taken everything from him except the one thing no man could take: his life. King deserved worse. He deserved to know the same pain. “On second thought, Cainan, take the girl. Bring her to me. If King survives the journey, we will welcome him here.”

He disconnected the call and powered off the computer. When the screen went black, he caught his hideous reflection in the glossy laptop display and frowned. “I’ll take care of you soon enough,” he said before closing the laptop.

He sat back and looked at a clipboard. A long list of communications gear—satellite dishes, servers, routers, miles of cable, and enough computing power to handle a worldwide network—ran down the page and onto two more following it. The writing was in Russian, but after forming an alliance with factions of the Russian military, he had taken the time to learn the language. They were supplying him with the means to change the world, while he supplied them with technological advances. The least he could do was learn the language. It would soon be extinct.

Once he had the missing pieces of the ancient language and the equipment from the Russians was connected, he would access the world’s media—TV, Internet, radio, everything—and undo the damage done to mankind so many millennia ago. The world had been fractured. The original code had been rewritten.

It could be rewritten.

He would remake mankind.

In his image.

He turned to the collection of insects caged on the table behind him and leaned down to them. “But first, let’s see what can be done with you.”

TWENTY-ONE

Rome, Italy

AFTER A FIVE-HOUR flight that ended on the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier deployed to the Mediterranean Sea, a two-hour boat trip, undercover, to Porto Cesareo, followed by a six-hour drive to Rome, King found himself exhausted. To wake himself up and help him fit in with the nighttime tourists, he helped himself to a large cioccolato fondente gelato that Rook had raved about since Queen made him try it during their second trip to Gibraltar. The dark chocolate snack not only tasted good, but was packed with caffeine and sugar that King could already feel opening his eyes.

Working his way through the crowds of locals and tourists mingling by the shops and cafés of the Piazza d’Aracoeli, he paused to watch a family snap photos in front of a Renaissance fountain. The mother and son stood in front of the father, who held a second son on his shoulders. They smiled as a college student used their camera to snap a photo. The flash lit the street and snapped King out of his thoughts. He turned away and quickened his pace.

The street rose up and merged with the Piazzo Venezia, which he crossed and then stopped, looking up. Before him was a staggered ramp of short and deep stairs that led up the Capitoline Hill. Two statues of caped men standing with horses known collectively as the Dioscuri—Castor and Pollux, the sons of Zeus—stood at the top of the hill. Behind them was a large, open plaza designed by Michelangelo with a bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius on horseback. The plaza was surrounded by large buildings built during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but the one that interested King lay straight ahead—the Palazzo Senatorio, or Senatorial Palace, now used as city hall. He headed up the steps of the bell tower–topped building, past a fountain featuring several river guards, and approached the front door.

Despite being closed for business and to visitors, it was the building through which he would gain access to the Roman Forum’s ruins. The door inched open at his approach. After making sure no one was watching, he slipped inside and closed the door behind him.

The main hall inside the palace was dark, lit only by a single flashlight, but King could see the face of George Pierce smiling at him. They had connected by phone during King’s long drive to Rome and he had explained everything as best he could and, hopefully, got Pierce’s mind working on solving the problem of locating a second Herculean Society getaway.

Having seen each other at Lynn’s funeral, which Pierce now knew was bunk, and after speaking for an hour on the phone, the two had no pleasantries to exchange. Pierce motioned down the hall with his head and said, “Follow me.”

They wound their way through the hallways, heading for the back door that led directly into the ruins of the Roman Forum.

“So how did you manage to get an all-access, after-hours pass to the ruins?” King asked as they descended a staircase.

“Actually, it wasn’t me. Mayor Alemanno owed Augustina a favor.” Augustina Gallo, a friend and colleague of Pierce, had been central to uncovering the location of the Herculean Society hideout beneath Gibraltar. In doing so she had saved the team’s lives and provided the means to restore Pierce back to his fully human self after Manifold Genetics had modified his genetic code using the legendary Hydra’s DNA. “So the doors were left unlocked while the guards looked the other way. In fifteen minutes we wouldn’t be able to get in.”

“How are we going to get out?”

Pierce paused at the exit and looked back at King. “I have no idea, but if we get arrested your bosses can pull a few strings, yes?”

“A few,” King said.

The door swung open revealing the darkness of night beyond. The warm air outside carried the smells of the city, but the streetlights ringing the acres of land did little to light the ruins. With the moon covered by clouds, Pierce’s flashlight shone like a beacon. It would make them easy to spot, but Pierce didn’t seem to notice as he took out a second flashlight, clicked it on, and handed it to King. He didn’t like being exposed, but had little choice. Time, as usual, was not on his side, and a daylight search in the midst of tourist throngs would draw unwanted attention.

As he stepped out into the ruins and moved his flashlight side to side he realized what an impossible task this could be. The ancient site included several temples, basilicas, and atriums, some built on top of one another, forming layers of history. On the far side of the space was the Coliseum, which was brightly lit in the distance. That seemed as fitting a place as any for Hercules and his wraiths to hide out, but impossible to search in solitude. King sighed, not knowing where to begin.

Pierce clapped him on the shoulder. “Have no fear, George is here. This way. I have an idea.”

King followed Pierce into the ruins, descending a path of large flat stones spaced out just enough for tufts of grass to grow—the remains of an ancient roadway. The path was fenced in on both sides by short black metal fences that seemed more like a reminder to stay off the ruins than an actual deterrent. During the day the site might inspire awe, at night King felt the ruins looked more like some eerie underworld that housed creatures of the night. The truth, he knew, might not be far from that. But despite what he thought might be waiting for them under the earth, it was their exposure to onlookers that had him on edge. He couldn’t help but feel they were being watched. There was no evidence of it. Just his instincts.

Instincts he had come to rely on.

He drew his Sig Sauer pistol and held it in line with his flashlight. It wasn’t always effective against regenerating capybara, Hydras, Neanderthals, or giant rock monsters, but it almost always gave him a head start, and that could save his life, and Pierce’s.

TWENTY-TWO

Washington, D.C.

PRESIDENT DUNCAN SAT in the backseat of The Beast, a black stretched Cadillac with five-inch-thick military armor, run-flat tires, and bulletproof glass. The car could protect him from almost any enemy, except one: the press.

The assassination attempt on his life a year earlier, which almost led to a global pandemic, coupled with the fourth major attack on U.S. soil in the nation’s history, had the press swirling like vultures. This wasn’t a terrorist attack on civilians like the World Trade Center or Siletz Reservation, which rallied the nation together. It was an assault on the country’s most elite military facility. An act of war. Worse, it was a successful attack.

Thanks to the earlier successes of his presidential career, stamping out terrorist organizations around the world, the press saw this as retribution. To the world it looked like he’d picked fights with the world’s terrorist organizations and grossly underestimated their resources. Speaking volumes to this were the number of American dead and injured, not to mention the complete lack of enemy casualties.

Duncan and many of the soldiers at Bragg knew that was because the enemy had simply fallen to pieces, but he couldn’t very well say that on television. The American public would think him insane and incompetent.

Instead, he would do something he loathed. Something he had done only once before as president.

He would lie.

When the attack on the Siletz Reservation had gone public it was declared a terrorist attack. But with no one claiming responsibility and their investigations turning up no leads, the country’s anger had been swallowed and contained, but not forgotten. The country’s rage simply lay in wait for a target.

Once again, without an enemy to point his finger at, without a clear target of the nation’s wrath, not to mention the military’s, the American people would have no outlet for their anger. Unfortunately, there was always someone who would attempt to turn that anger toward his office. Presidents were blamed for scores of the world’s problems, especially when someone was gunning for the job. With an election year coming up, the political wolves smelled blood. Lance Marrs, a senator from Utah and the man who ran against Duncan in the last election (and lost), had come out with guns blazing. The man hit every media outlet that would have him, blasting Duncan for not only failing to prevent the attacks, but inviting them. It was the same old shtick from Marrs, but people were buying into it this time.

A small flat-screen TV that swung down from the car’s ceiling played his latest news conference. The man was doing his best to look presidential. Hair slicked back. Trophy wife waiting off to the side with a candy smile. Flag pin prominently on his chest. “Tom Duncan has failed the American people, not once, not twice, but three times now. When the good people of this nation elected him president, I accepted the decision. The people had spoken, and as one of the people, I accepted my defeat.”

“Horseshit,” Duncan murmured. The man had accused Duncan of fixing the election, called for recounts, and had even talked of a lawsuit. But with Duncan claiming nearly sixty percent of the vote, no one believed the results could have changed enough for Marrs to win.

“When Duncan put his hand on that Bible and was sworn in, he became the landlord for our nation. When something breaks, he’s supposed to fix it. And if our house is broken into, not once, but twice, installing a little security seems like an obvious step to take!” The statement was followed by cheers. “But he clearly neglected his duties to the people of this country. I used to think highly of President Duncan. I thought he was a good man. A man of character. But now I realize he is nothing more than a slum landlord!”

More cheers. Duncan was sure the crowd was stacked with former “Marrs for President” supporters, but it was still disturbing to see. In a time of crisis, when people are afraid, they tend to listen to the loudest voice. And right now that was Marrs.

And the results showed in the latest polls. A growing percentage of the population now thought Duncan was at least partially to blame for the attacks. Duncan turned off the TV and reminded himself that he’d suffered through worse, both in combat as an Army Ranger and on the campaign trail. Putting Marrs out of his mind, he took one last look at the speech in his hands and exited the vehicle.

The path from the car to the podium was clear of people save for his Secret Service escorts. Four of them waited, faces grim, hands ready to draw weapons if need be. They received or uncovered more than two hundred threats on his life in the last twenty-four hours and no one was taking chances. He scanned the roofs of the Fort Bragg barracks surrounding the quad and counted ten snipers. His eyes fell to the base of the buildings where a hurried reconstruction effort was under way. There would be no delay like at the World Trade Center. The military was in charge of the cleanup and repair and expected the base to not just be fully functional within the month, but also much more heavily fortified.

Duncan’s practiced confident stride didn’t falter when he saw the press, who had been allowed back on base for this press conference, turn and face him. Photographers snapped photos and Duncan met them with his handsome face held high. His eyes were set and serious. His shaved head and rigid posture letting the watching world know that this former man of action would take action. But while his body language spoke of a man ready to wage a war, his mind fought with the fact that the words he would offer were ultimately hollow.

General Keasling and Dominick Boucher, head of the CIA, waited for him at the podium that had been erected at the center of the quad. Construction vehicles were hard at work in the background, a strategic view to let the people know that recovery was already under way. The two men were his closest advisors on the subject of war. He nodded to them as he passed and ascended the podium steps.

The seated press suddenly stood, no longer able to control their brewing barrage of questions. A sea of voices flooded over him. He raised his hands for quiet, ignoring the individual voices.

When the press realized he wouldn’t be answering any questions yet, they quieted down and let him speak. He delivered his speech, offering contrived words and phony facial expressions. He asked for patience while they hunted down the identities of those responsible for the attack. He promised swift and just action. And he pleaded for calm and logic, reporting anything strange to the authorities instead of taking action into their own hands.

Much of this was the truth, but just as much was misdirection. Duncan knew the best deceptions were ninety-nine percent truth, so as he crafted his story, he worked in the truth about the number of dead, the monetary costs to rebuild, and the timing of events. But he added a layer of deceit when he placed blame on the Arab world. He mentioned Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen by name. He dropped the names of known terrorist organizations and played the Osama bin Laden card. At the same time, he couldn’t blame any one of them specifically and no one was taking credit.