Enemy One (Epic Book 5) (29 page)

Stuff
was such a small word. They had so much to do. “The meeting,” Scott repeated almost mindlessly.

Nodding his head, David said, “The meeting. Let’s get it done.”

“Shall I rally the troops?” Becan asked.

Scott waved the offer off. “Not yet. I want some time alone.” When his friends offered him worried looks, he said, “I’ll be okay. I need to sort this all out in my head. That’s it.” Every word David said had been right. This changed nothing except what information Scott knew. None of this applied to their situation at
Northern Forge
. “I’ll get you guys in a couple hours. Then we’ll all meet.”

Quietly, the others acknowledged.

So this was how it would be. This was the pressure of the new normal—one stress after the next. He missed the serenity of Room 14 more than anything else.

After David, Becan, and Jayden offered him a pat on the shoulder and filed out of the room, Scott stood alone. He wandered to the bunk and sat down, propping his elbows on his knees. Making an irritated face, he glanced up at the ceiling in the spot where Valentin’s camera was hidden. “I hope you enjoyed that,” he said under his breath. Sighing, he stared blankly ahead.

For almost a full half hour, Scott sat at the edge of the bed, staring ahead as his mind negotiated terms with his heart. The latter had to yield to the former. He had no other choice. Shortly after that, Scott turned to the only other place he knew to fill his cup with peace: to God and prayer. Honest prayer, admitting his mistakes, his doubts, his confessions of love for Svetlana and his fear for her life. He unloaded it all. And in the midst of it, he found something that he’d scarcely found since his fall from grace at
Novosibirsk
. He found peace. Just a little bit…

…but enough.

They were going to get through this. As dire as their situation was, they were going to get through it. Together—as they had through every trial before. This would be no different.

A unit meeting loomed. A crucial one. This was their chance to find center, to collectively forge an action plan. To turn this thing around.

Rising from the bed, Scott hobbled about the room to mentally prepare.

Sunday, March 18
^th
, 0012 NE

0337 hours

Cairo, Egypt

THERE WERE FEW places on Earth that Torokin had never visited. He’d never visited South America, nor Australia’s more sparsely-populated west coast. He’d never been to Italy, something he considered one of the greater injustices in his life. He’d never been to the American Midwest. And of course, he’d never been to Egypt.

Until now.

The Russian judge, along with his nephew, Sasha, and Minh Dang, one of Vector’s two pilots, had been airborne for almost six hours in their blacked-out transport before the stomach-turning rush of descent came upon them. Beneath them and steadily approaching—or at least they assumed, as they had no way of seeing out the windows—was the EDEN base of
Cairo
.
Cairo
was one of only two EDEN bases that Torokin had never set foot upon; the other was the brand new facility of
Sydney
, though he had been to the city it was named after. He’d have much rather been visiting it than the desert base in Egypt.

Cairo
was not Torokin’s kind of base. It wasn’t a pillar of strength, as Scott Remington and his band of outlaws had proven. It wasn’t a source of mass production, such as
Atlanta
and
Nagoya
. It didn’t even have a notorious reputation, as
Novosibirsk
had prior to Thoor’s removal.
Cairo
was a research facility. It was a base run by nerds.

“Nerds” might have been a juvenile term, but it was the only word that came to mind when Torokin considered the Egyptian facility. It was full of scientists and engineers. Though it was true that good things
did
come as a result of the base staff’s hard work, the process for getting to those results completely bored him. He preferred his company combat-ready.

The three Vector passengers grabbed hold of the handrails as the transport clunked down on concrete. Moments later, the rear door lowered toward the ground. It was almost a quarter to four at
Cairo
, leaving Torokin and his comrades to be greeted by a surprisingly cool night wind. He could smell the desert sand in the air. It was a scent quite unlike anything he’d experienced.

They were there for one simple purpose: to pick up Lieutenant Logan Marshall and bring him to
Berlin
, where they would rendezvous with the handful of other Vectors who were to accompany them on their hunt for the Fourteenth. Despite his prejudices against
Cairo
, there was a part of Torokin that wished they’d have time to view the facility’s damage. But the time they did have was very much of the essence. They weren’t even supposed to get off the plane.

Logan was there waiting for them, as he was supposed to be. With a duffle bag slung over one shoulder and his assault rifle over the other, the Australian ex-mercenary looked every bit the dangerous man Rath had portrayed. He was well-built—
nastily
built, like a man who’d dished out his fair share of barroom beatings. Between his shaved head and five o’clock shadow were eyes that screamed,
let’s get a move on
. Torokin liked him immediately.

Dashing up the ramp, Logan grabbed hold of one of the handrails and dropped his duffle bag to the floor. He extended his newly-freed hand Torokin’s way. “Logan Marshall,” he said simply.

The lack of a proper salute was the first indication to Torokin that Logan was in mercenary mode. Accepting the improper greeting, Torokin shook the Australian’s hand. “Judge Leonid Torokin. Behind me are Minh Dang and Sasha Kireev, both of Vector. It is good to meet you.”

“Same to you, judge.”

Stepping away from his handrail, Torokin slapped the rear bay door button. Slowly, the ramp lifted to a close. “Ready to go!” he hollered at the pilot. The blacked-out transported lifted from the ground.

During the flight, Torokin, Logan, Sasha, and Minh went over every detail of Remington’s arrival at
Cairo
and his assignment to the Caracals. Logan was frank about Remington’s wooing Rockwell, the disdain in his voice apparent. Remington’s accomplices were also discussed, none so much as Esther Brooking, the EDEN scout who’d used the moniker
Calliope Lee
to infiltrate
Cairo
and free the Ceratopian. Logan portrayed Scott and Esther as a modern day Bonnie and Clyde, and the rest of their posse—Auric Broll, Jayden Timmons, and Boris Evteev—as lackeys following their orders. Torokin found it striking that throughout the conversation, at no point did Logan give the outlaws credit for anything other than being liars. For whatever they’d managed to pull off in stealing the specimens from Confinement, they hadn’t impressed the Australian at all. Torokin wasn’t sure if that said more about the outlaws or Logan.

In return for hearing about Remington’s team, Torokin made sure to enlighten Logan on the team
he
was about to inherit—the Vectors. Besides Minh and Sasha, there would be three other Vectors joining the effort: Marty Breaux, Pablo Quintana, and a late addition to the group, Lisa Tiffin, one of the newer Vectors and the first woman to join its ranks since Uta Volbrecht, a demolitionist in Vector back in Torokin’s day.

Of the wide variety of characters who were in Vector, Marty was undoubtedly the most colorful. He was part of a dwindling demographic known as Cajuns, the first and only that Torokin had ever met. Beyond having the strangest speech pattern the Russian judge had ever encountered, Marty was a genuinely good man. He possessed the charm and elite ability that would have been ideal for leadership minus the simple fact that he had no ambition to lead. Marty was content just to do as he was told, which had a certain benefit itself. Beyond his vibrant, at times bizarre, personality, he was as ideal an ally as anyone could have asked for.

Now in his early thirties, Marty had been a relatively new Vector at the time when Torokin was still in the unit. The tanned-skinned, olive-eyed, self-proclaimed “bayou rat” specialized in fortification. He was one of the few men in all of EDEN who could be trusted to single-handedly protect critical personnel or facilities—he was a human choke point.

Second on the list of pickups was another operative who’d come into Vector Squad at roughly the same time as Marty: Pablo Quintana, referred to most simply as
Smiley
. There was good reason for the moniker. Pablo had one of the broadest, warmest, most enthusiastic grins anyone in Vector had ever seen. He was positivity exemplified, and everyone loved him.

Pablo’s official designation was that of a combat technician, but like most operatives in Vector, he was quite multifaceted. The spiky-haired Latino, in addition to the Vector prerequisite of being a combat elite, was also a full pilot. Though the brunt of the flying was taken care of by Minh Dang and Vector’s second pilot, Brock Thompson, Pablo was fully capable of taking the reins when a situation demanded it or when either Minh or Brock were on leave.

Then there was Lisa Tiffin. Lisa hailed from Essex, and was not only new to Torokin, but was new to Vector Squad, having entered the unit shortly after Sasha. Much like Sasha, Lisa had entered EDEN through
Philadelphia
’s Type-1 scout program, designated for tactical combat. Unlike Sasha, however, she had failed.

Most of what Torokin knew about Lisa he’d learned through Sasha. Her reason for failing the scout program hadn’t been due to a lack of skill. It was quite the contrary, actually. Her skill set was formidable, a true jack-of-all-trades who could do just about everything. It was the “just about” that had failed her in
Philadelphia
. She needed direction to function. In a class of operatives that demanded improvisation on a solo level, a lack of battlefield creativity simply didn’t cut it for a scout. She was demoted unceremoniously to soldier class.

Had that been the end of the story, it would have been a sad one, but in true redemption fashion, she persevered. As it turned out,
with
direction, Lisa could excel at practically anything. She graduated from the Academy with top rankings in every statistical category but one: improvisation.

Lisa had been assigned to
London
for all of two months before her commanding officer removed her from his unit because “her talent was being wasted.” He had actually taken a flight to
Berlin
to pitch her to Faerber, an almost unheard-of gesture for a captain to make, as most held onto soldiers such as Lisa with iron grips. The selflessness impressed Faerber so much that he held a personal tryout for Lisa. She won Faerber over in a span of thirty minutes. Based on her highest Academy score of marksmanship, Lisa was re-categorized as a sniper both to fill a need Vector had and to justify her transfer on paper. By winding road, the failed scout had become a member of Vector.

There was a particular benefit to having Lisa involved in the hunt for the Fourteenth, too, in that she actually knew Esther Brooking. Scout training was a six-year course, by far the most rigorous program in all of
Philadelphia
. Esther had entered the scout training program at Lisa’s halfway point, giving the two an opportunity to train together for roughly a year, before Lisa’s demotion to the soldier program. They hadn’t been roommates—or friends, for that matter—but they definitely knew one another’s names. It was insight Torokin wouldn’t have otherwise had. He gladly took it.

All in all, this was as diverse a “hunter unit” as EDEN was capable of assembling. The only untested cog, at least in Torokin’s mind, was Logan Marshall. Torokin had spent much of his flight time en route to
Cairo
going over Logan’s pre-EDEN file, as supplied by Jaya Saxena. His mercenary unit,
Chimera Group
, was frightfully efficient. There was no question that on the battlefield, Logan was a killer. It was the leadership aspect that was in question. He
had
been identified as the leader of Chimera, at least for a short time, though Jaya had even warned Torokin that some of
her
information might have been erroneous. There were no other names even associated with Chimera beyond Logan, a fact that Jaya explained was most likely due to his being forced to reveal his mercenary role when he decided to join EDEN. Every other member of Chimera was a mystery.

Torokin had no idea where the group would go first in their search for the outlaws. That would be everyone’s discussion and Logan’s call, for better or worse. This was already shaping up to be the strangest military operation Torokin had ever been on, and they hadn’t even begun their search.

*
      
*
      
*

Sunday, March 18
^th
, 0012 NE

0827 hours

Novosibirsk, Russia

NOVOSIBIRSK
WAS A wasteland. Mountains of rubble were piled up from where its massive towers had fallen, the physical impacts of EDEN’s invasion visible on every corner on every building. The Machine had not simply been defeated—it had been kicked in the teeth with steel-toed boots. With every step Judge Rath took, his gaze discovered new holes and new wounded.

With Novosibirsk General Hospital inundated with casualties—both EDEN and Nightman alike—EDEN had been forced into setting up rows of infirmary tents across the cratered airstrip that had once beckoned
Novosibirsk
’s faithful into its hangar doors. It was like a scene out of the Old Era. With bits of shrapnel and debris crinkling under his boots, the Canadian judge kept onward until his cautious strides brought him to the base’s main building.

Well over two hundred prisoners had been taken in the attack—and it was because of that fact that Rath found himself once again on a gopher’s errand courtesy of Archer and Blake. There were three persons of interest from Novosibirsk, one of whom was at the base currently, and the other two, a technician named Matthew Axen and a captain named Tanneken Brunner, at Novosibirsk General Hospital.