Going Dark (18 page)

That’s when I decide that I am here to help recruit Abajian, to bring him into our network, because only with Abajian’s cooperation can we reestablish the appearance of legitimacy that has let us operate this long.

Returning my attention to the colonel, I speak as directly as I can. “We do not operate under the chain of command, sir. Our orders are issued by the Red.”

Cory snatches his hands off the table. Kanoa leans back in his chair, looking resigned. Logan exhales in a soft hiss, while I continue. “You’ve heard of the Red, sir. Maybe you’re one of those who prefer to pretend it doesn’t exist, but you
are
aware of it.” I look at Cory. “And I’m sure Helms has informed you that we believe we are not the only ETM unit in operation. It’s likely there are other squads in other sectors around the world.”

“But you have no direct knowledge of these units?”

“No, sir.”

“And assuming these additional units do in fact exist, do you have any concerns about the threat they may represent?”

I consider his question. My instinct is to answer with a cynical
Yes, sir!
But the truth is otherwise. “The Red, by its nature, limits the threat any ETM unit represents. You’ve already seen our armaments. There’s nothing unusual here, and there are only a few of us.” I pause, wondering if Julian has been arrested too, but I don’t want to give him up, so I don’t ask. “You have a hell of a lot more to worry about in this world than us, Colonel.”

“ETM,” Abajian muses. “Existential Threat Management.” He pronounces each word with sarcastic precision.

Kanoa says, “If the missions we undertake could be handled officially, 7-1 wouldn’t exist. But sometimes the chain of command is too slow or too cautious. That’s where we come in. We get our orders, and we go.”

“No questions asked?” Abajian wonders.

I answer him: “We ask questions. That doesn’t mean we get answers.”

“You execute anyway. Perfect, obedient soldiers.”

“Maybe not perfect.”

“That’s right. You managed to start a war in the Arctic. Was that the goal of your mission?”

“It was not,” Kanoa says.

“Just a side benefit, then?”

Logan speaks up for the first time. “We operate in the real world. There’s always a risk.”

Abajian looks at me. “You have a different assessment?”

He catches me by surprise. I didn’t think my doubt showed, but I don’t deny it. I answer him honestly. “We are not on the side of the angels, and in the right circumstances,
I don’t think the Red would hesitate to start a small-scale war. But this was something else. These past months we’ve been looking for something critical. It’s felt that way. But this time when we were sent to look, it was like the Red switched sides. We went in with bad intelligence and we almost didn’t get pulled out.”

“Every mission has problems,” Kanoa says.

“Not like this.”

“The Red did not switch sides,” Kanoa insists. “It backed you. Shelley, you were operating. It was the Red that got you on scene. It was the Red that helped you disable that helicopter. It was the Red that finally cleared Oscar-
1
to move north.”

“Oscar-
1
was detained and there shouldn’t have been a helicopter at
Sigil
. I think we make a mistake when we think of the Red as a single mind, a single entity. Why should it be? Why can’t it have competing versions? Because I swear it was helping us
and
getting the fuck in the way, from the start of Palehorse Keep straight through to the end.”

Turns out the ravings of a madman can induce a long, awkward silence. I lean back in my chair and wait for the reprisals.

It’s Cory who steps up first. “I think the Red would reintegrate,” he says thoughtfully. “Eventually, anyway.”

Is he agreeing with me? Or telling me I’m wrong? Either option irritates me. It doesn’t improve my mood when I notice that Abajian is watching me with a level of attention more appropriately directed at a zealot holding the trigger on a suicide vest. “Where do you draw the line, Shelley, between intentionality and random fucked-up luck?”

“I don’t, sir. That level of analysis is above my pay grade. I just work with what I’m given.”

“What is your pay grade? Do you earn a paycheck?”

It’s an insulting question; it trivializes what we’re doing.
I get paid just like I would in the regular army, but that’s not why I’m here. “I’m dead, Colonel. What the fuck do I need with money?”

“It’s that easy?”

“It’s not easy. It never has been.”

“But you keep at it. Don’t you ever want to say no to a mission?”

I study him, puzzled, wondering if he gets it, if he gets what we do here. “What happens if I do say no?”

“You tell me.”

“We get a little closer to midnight.”

He trades a look with Kanoa, and I know I’ve said something wrong—but I haven’t said anything that isn’t true.

Kanoa turns to me. “Cory contacted Colonel Abajian because he was concerned that 7-1 was on the verge of going rogue, of operating on the basis of personal vendetta rather than on carefully considered orders, of overstepping our mandate, such as it is.”

This is too much for Logan. He leans in. “We’ve done more good here in the nine months I’ve been part of ETM than I saw done in my four prior years in the regular army. Cory wants to lay the blame for a freeway accident on Shelley. But Cory compromised our security and out of his own personal vendetta, he orchestrated a cyber attack.”

“That was my operation,” Abajian says. “I hoped to quietly neutralize ETM so we wouldn’t have to come in with the heavies.” He turns his hands palm-up. “But you got your security restored before we could pull that off.”

So it wasn’t Cory who attacked me. All he did was hand over the keys to the enemy.

He’s sitting with hunched shoulders, but when he notices my gaze, he reacts. “You’ve changed, Captain Shelley. I don’t deny your heroism and that you’ve saved
tens of thousands of lives, but that does not give you the right to dictate to others—”

“Mr. Helms,” Abajian interrupts in a tired voice. “No one is innocent in this operation, and we have another mission to discuss.”

My skullnet icon winks on, its appearance reflecting the ignition of a program in my head, one that tells me,
Listen
. Because this matters. This is the reason for tonight’s raid. It’s the reason Abajian was allowed to come here.

I hear a catch in Logan’s breath. We look at each other. I see my own ready state reflected in his eyes. “You operating?” he asks, mouthing the words.

I nod a subtle
yes
.

This mission Abajian has come to discuss—it’s our mission. Or the Red wants us to believe that anyway.

Kanoa doesn’t feel it. He’s looking puzzled. Abajian has no idea at all as he proceeds to explain why he’s come to me.

“My analysts have examined your records, your conduct, Shelley. They have identified in you something of a messiah complex, but they assure me that despite this, you are quite sane, and that you continue to be both a bold and intelligent officer. All of these characteristics recommend you as the ideal candidate for the mission in question.”

A messiah complex? I look to Kanoa for an explanation, but he won’t meet my gaze.

“This mission would involve you,” Abajian continues, “and at most two others. You would not be operating as a squad. You would not be operating as a military unit. You would not be anonymous.”

“What does that leave? Is this a PR deal?”

This induces a snort of amusement. “No, it’s not a PR deal. I need you on a field team tasked with locating a
missile launcher that may be next in line to target LEO.”

So. Kanoa warned we’d be heading out soon. Maybe he was operating too.

“What I’m about to tell you is classified information, not for dissemination,” Abajian says. His eyes narrow in an imitation of an ironic smile because it’s a joke.
Everything
I’ve been involved with over the last year and a half is designated classified, legitimately or not.

That’s as far as the joke goes.

“There are at least three missile launchers still at large in the hands of rogue operators associated with the Shahin Council. We know where two are housed. Allied powers are preparing operations against them. We know less about the third launch platform. Though we feel certain about the general region where it’s located, we need an operative who can go in, confirm its presence, and communicate its precise location. It has been suggested that
you
are the person best suited to do that, Captain Shelley.”

“Suggested by who?”

“A consultant.”

FaceValue doesn’t flag a lie, but none of this seems likely to me. My existence isn’t entirely unknown, but that doesn’t mean my name shows up on anyone’s roster of available personnel. I trade a look with Logan. The suspicion in his eyes reflects my own.

“Slide it back, Shelley,” Kanoa warns. “There is a reason your name was put forward.”

“What reason?” Logan wants to know. “If this is an official mission, it can be carried out by official troops, legitimate special forces operations, or CIA operatives.”

“No, we’re the best ones for it,” I say, “because they expect this mission to fail. And when we don’t come home, who’s going to notice we were even gone?”

“You are oversimplifying, Captain.” Abajian glares across the length of the table. “Time is of the essence, and if we expected you to fail, I would not waste time recruiting you. This mission has highest priority.
Highest
. You will receive all the support we can provide.

“That said, there are political considerations. The election that followed Coma Day shook up Congress and brought in a large contingent of non-interventionists who want to abandon all American military action abroad. They’ve left us operating under a severely weakened Authorization for Use of Military Force. We will do what we need to do to prevent another orbital strike, legal restrictions be damned. But it’s essential that we obtain solid intelligence on the location of the missile launcher before we act. We cannot afford a mistake. If we don’t get this right the first time out, an impeachment hearing will be called against the president. Monteiro is vulnerable—an unelected president with no political base, and with many potential enemies.” He raises an eyebrow. “I trust you don’t count yourself among those enemies, Captain Shelley?”

“No sir, I do not.”

Before Susan Monteiro was appointed to replace the sitting vice-president, she was Colonel Monteiro, who presided as the judge over the court-martial of the Apocalypse Squad. When the president resigned, she became his handpicked successor. She has tried hard to impose the rule of law instead of the rule of money over the country, and I admire her for that.

Abajian gives a short nod and continues:

“We believe the missile launcher has been transported in pieces to its current location—probably a UGF, an underground facility—where it’s been reassembled, ready to be rolled out when the stars align.” Another joke. He cracks a half smile. “Once you pinpoint for us the location of this
facility and confirm the presence of the launch platform, we will deliver a cruise missile strike to permanently close the facility’s doors.”

“That’s all?” Logan asks. “You just want confirmation of the location?”

“And of the presence of the missile launcher.”

“It’s hard to believe the Red doesn’t already have that information,” Logan says.

“Do you know something I don’t, Lieutenant? Is the Red behind this mission?”

“Why else would you be here, sir?”

Cory speaks up in a soft, uncertain voice. “Lieutenant Logan, you can’t assume this is the Red’s mission.”

I answer for my lieutenant: “It’s not an assumption.” Then I turn to Abajian. “Colonel, I want to know how this target can remain unknown. An underground facility big enough to hide a missile launcher must have attracted notice when it was under construction. There’s got to be a history somewhere.”

Abajian responds with admirable patience. “Shelley, Intelligence is searching for that history, for any kind of data, but we are talking about a region where secret projects have been undertaken for the better part of a century. A large, rugged, remote region. Given time, we might be able to find it, but we don’t have that time. This mission needs to go tonight.”

“That’s a tight schedule.”

“But we could do it,” Logan says.

My messiah complex must be in remission, because doubt is pushing out my initial programmed enthusiasm. “Let’s hear the rest of it.”

Abajian complies. “A terrorist cell codenamed Northern Sword is known to be affiliated with the Shahin Council. Northern Sword operates within the target region and we
believe they are in control of a BXL21 road-mobile missile launcher.

“Mission ‘Arid Crossroad’ has been adapted from a plan already under development. It calls for you to work with a civilian asset who will put you in contact with key elements of Northern Sword. Our analysts have modeled the personalities of those elements and they believe that you have a good chance to gain access to their facility—but there is an issue of timing. We cannot hold off the strike indefinitely. The political situation in the host country is unstable and we will be operating there without permission. We prefer to act only after we receive your confirmation that the launch platform is present, but we will act in any case at the slightest sign of hostile intent.”

Logan follows the subtext as easily as I do. “So, the plan is to track us to the facility, and if we’re still there when you start shooting, oh well?”

“It gets better,” I say. “If things go south, no one will be able to prove we are legitimate US soldiers operating under orders, because we’re not.”

Abajian doesn’t deny it. “You are correct, Captain Shelley. You will be presenting yourselves as private sector, minimizing risk to the president.”

I appreciate that he’s not lying to me, but I don’t like the setup.

I feel like
we’re
being set up.

Arid Crossroad is a rogue mission, ultra-dark, and there’s no guarantee Abajian is on our side. He might decide the best course is to track us to the facility and take his shot as soon as we enter. Waiting longer, waiting for us to get out with confirmation of the presence of the missile launcher, is a risk he might decide not to take. Maybe he already has decided.