Shadow Ops: Fortress Frontier-ARC (pdf conv.) (43 page)

Bookbinder pressed his face up against the tiny window of the Greyhound airplane as the catapult whipped it forward. The thrust briefly pressed Bookbinder back into his seat, but a moment later he was back at the window, watching the deck of the carrier
Gerald R. Ford
disappear behind them. He glanced around at the rest of his team. Only Stanley was awake, his eyes locked on the C–2A’s closed rear hatch. Sharp, Archer, and Woon were fast asleep.

Bookbinder couldn’t blame them. He’d barely slept since the same aircraft whisked them off the Indian base to the waiting carrier. Thus far, they’d been more closely guarded by their own countrymen than by the Indians. A doctor silently examined them, asking no questions and telling them nothing. Six MPs and a Suppressor stood by, keeping them confined to the carrier’s bridge until the plane was ready to launch again. The team huddled together, feeling alien back on their Home Plane and closer to one another. Bookbinder thought briefly of asking to contact his family, but decided against it. Sooner or later, they would be questioned, and that would be the time for answers and requests. Yelling at enlisted MPs wouldn’t do him any good.

Besides, he promised himself that no matter how it twisted in his gut, his family would wait. They were safe. His FOB wasn’t.

First things first.

Bookbinder eventually dozed himself, waking only when the Greyhound touched down on a smooth and well-maintained flight line abutted by rows of waving palm trees. The plane finally came to a shuddering stop before a sign depicting a blue shield broken by a waving gold chevron. ubon royal thai air force base welcomes the wolf pack! it read.
Thailand,
Bookbinder thought.
How can someplace so exotic seem so
mundane to me now?
But after the intensity of every sensation in the Source, he figured the Vegas Strip would be an anticlimax.

The Greyhound’s rear hatch descended with a whir, stirring the rest of his team awake as MPs and Suppressors trooped aboard, led by two men in dark suits and sunglasses, totally inappropriate to the near-eighty-degree heat. Bookbinder stood and shook himself as the suits silently motioned him and his team off the aircraft and into a closed white van. They rode in silence for just a few minutes before being dropped off in front of a plain white aluminum building at the line’s edge. It was completely surrounded by troops, and Bookbinder noted at least one armored humvee before he was ushered inside.

He nearly laughed out loud.

Though it was cleaner, and the furniture in better repair, the building’s interior almost exactly matched the Indian structure they’d just left. Same crappy folding chairs and tables. Same featureless walls. Same temporary structure.

A tall army major in his class A uniform met him. His short blond hair was cut exactly to regulation, his blue eyes frosty. His jaw line was as pronounced as his uniform creases. He looked every inch the textbook soldier. thorsson, his nameplate read.

Bookbinder could feel a solid Aeromantic current emanating from him, disciplined, like everything else about the man.

“Colonel Bookbinder, welcome to Ubon and welcome home.”

Bookbinder nodded. “Thanks. Forgive me if I don’t stand on formality just now, I’m about on my last legs.”

Major Thorsson smiled. “You and me both, sir. I was on a plane from DC the moment we got word you were on our side of a gate. I was so anxious to get here that I actually dropped myself and flew the rest of the way on my own. C–130s are slow.”

“You’re an Aeromancer,” Bookbinder said, though he already knew.

“They used to call me Harlequin,” the man said, extending his hand. “Now I go by Major Jan Thorsson, Special Advisor to the Reawakening Commission. I’m here to take care of you, and also to find out just what the heck is going on.”

Bookbinder slumped in one of the folding chairs, completely drained. He heard similar sounds around him that told him his team was following suit.

“You need a doctor?” Thorsson asked.

Bookbinder waved. “We’re fine, just tired.”

“Okay.” Thorsson approached Stanley. “It’s good to see you alive, sir. I captured your son after he tried to kill you. I’m sorry that he escaped—”

“Do you know where he is?” Stanley cut him off. “Can you get me to him?”

Thorsson looked at him in silence, shocked by the urgency in his voice. He turned to Bookbinder. “Sir, I think it’s best if we speak alone.”

“Absolutely not,” Bookbinder said. “There’s nothing I know that this man doesn’t. He’s part of my team, and I’m not talking to anyone without him. You want to debrief us, you debrief all of us.”

Thorsson hesitated. “This man is not . . .”

“You’re wasting time, Major,” Bookbinder said.

Thorsson shook his head. “So, give me the bottom line, sir. Why are we in the middle of a political meltdown with India? And what happened to FOB Frontier?”

“The FOB’s cut off . . .” Bookbinder began.

“We know that,” Thorsson replied. “Britton killed our one Portamancer before he flew the coop. We need to know what happened to the FOB.”

Stanley looked at his lap.

“What the hell do you think happened to it?” Bookbinder said. “It’s cut off, surrounded, running low on supplies. The goblins get bolder every day. I left my XO in charge of the defenses. He told me he could hold for a month, and we’re already way past that. Things are dialed back a bit due to the winter, but he assured me that the fighting will pick up with the spring thaw.

The Sahir liaison informed us they have a FOB appended to this kingdom of snake creatures called . . .”

“Naga,” Thorsson finished for him. “I’m aware of FOB Sarpakavu, sir.”

“Did you know they had a Portamancer?” Bookbinder asked.

“Did you contact the Indians and have them send a team out to get us? Why the hell did I have to come to you?”

Thorsson was silent for a moment before gesturing to five even stacks of paper on the folding table behind him, one for each of them. “Sir, you will of course understand the necessity for complete individual debriefs of you and each member of your team. I’m afraid my security people are insisting on polygraph tests, and there will be these additional nondisclosure req—”

“Nondisclosure! What the hell is wrong with you?” Bookbinder exploded, leaping to his feet. “There are people dying in a FOB that’s cut off from home. We should be mobilizing a team to get them out, and instead we’re spinning our wheels worrying about bad press. There has to be a way to work this out. You need to call the Indian ambassador. If they’ve got a Portamancer, then we’ve . . .”

“You’ve dealt with the naga before, sir. Getting them to assist is . . . something of a challenge. They have a differing perspective on the value of human life than we do.”

Bookbinder thought of the wasted idle hours in the opulent stone pavilion and nodded.

“There has to be a way,” he said. “Some other military with gate capabilities? Another Selfer? Even if the naga are tough, there’s got to be a way to work it out? There’s got to be, damn it.”

The door opened and a group of men in suits entered carrying briefcases. “We’ve got the debriefing rooms, prepped, Major,” one of them said, not bothering to remove his sunglasses.

Bookbinder turned to protest but Sharp stopped him with a wave of his hand. “Archer and I’ll go, sir. We’ve got nothing to hide. We came with you to accomplish a mission, and it’s been done. You’re in command, sir, you decide what’s the best course from here on out.”

Woon stood. “I’ll go, too, sir. If that’s all right with you.”

Bookbinder gaped at them. “Are you sure?”

Sharp met Woon and Archer’s eyes before turning back to him. “We’re sure, sir.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Stanley said through gritted teeth as Woon, Archer, and Sharp left with their debriefers. “And I’m not telling you shit until you tell me what’s going on with my wife and son.”

Stanley’s debriefer started forward, reaching into his jacket.

Thorsson stopped him with a wave. “Give us a few more minutes, please,” he said. The debriefers paused, looking askance, before leaving.

“This is bullshit,” Stanley said. “You’ve got a base full of your own about to get fried, and you’re so full of shit that you squeak going into a turn when I ask you about my son. He’s my family. My blood. Now you have got to tell me the truth. I’ve got a wife, too, damn it.”

“Desda,” Thorsson said. “She’s fine.”

“Jesus!” Stanley said. “What about Oscar? My clearance was still active when I retired. I have a goddamn need to know!”

“We’re doing what we can,” Thorsson said, looking at his feet, his face flushed.

“Something tells me that’s not entirely true,” Bookbinder said evenly. “There’s a division’s worth of people on that FOB, major.”

“This comes from the president, sir.”

Bookbinder amazed himself with what he said next. “I don’t give a rat’s ass. Do you know how many people are in a division?”

Thorsson was silent for a long time.

“The naga,” Bookbinder finally said. “We’ve got to get back in touch with them. Get me that consul who got us off the . . .”

“Sir, please.” Thorsson looked at Stanley. “If I have to, I can have you forcibly removed.”

Stanley opened his mouth, the words “do it” forming on his lips. Bookbinder waved him back. “Just step outside, sir,” he said. “Give me a minute with the major here.”

Stanley swore and left. Bookbinder spun on Thorsson. “Now, just what the hell is—”

“They naga aren’t the only ones with a Portamancer,” Thorsson cut him off.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about Oscar Britton,” Thorsson said. “We’ve got him.”

“Take me to him,” Bookbinder said. “Right now.”

Thorsson shook his head. “He’ll never help us.”

Bookbinder paused, his mind trembling with exhaustion, with panic, with missing his family. All he wanted to do was throw up his hands, sleep, eat, let someone else deal with this.

But instead he stood and stabbed his finger at Thorsson’s chest.

“He has to,” Bookbinder said. “He fucking has to.”

Once the debriefs were completed, Thorsson had Bookbinder and his team bundled on to a plane back to the States.

He watched the plane take off and kept watching as it dwindled to a speck before returning to the temporary offices the Royal Thai Air Force had been kind enough to set up along the flight line for his use.

He entered, dismissed the guards, and sat, cradling his head in his hands. If what Bookbinder had told him was true, then Colonel Taylor was dead and Crucible in command of a division-sized outpost on the verge of being overrun. Hell, thanks to the nagas’ delaying tactics, it might have been overrun already. The computer on the desk before him had at least three hundred unread email messages, most of them pertaining to what Ambassador Buchar and the State Department were already calling “The Incident.”

He ignored them, swallowing hard. Buchar could handle it.

When Britton had escaped him, Thorsson had watched him fire his pistol through the gate, watched the bullet tear through the army’s only other Portamancer.
I don’t think you’re coming
for anybody,
Britton had said.
Not anymore.

Horror had curdled in Harlequin’s gut.

Because he knew from that moment, FOB Frontier was cut off.

A tiny proportion of the population came up Latent. Count out those who went Selfer, and the SOC was a very small force, indeed. Most commissioned Sorcerers knew one another, and the personnel at FOB Frontier were no exception. Taylor might have been a petulant bully, but he had also been a mentor and a friend.

Crucible even more so. They’d played golf together in Arlington before he’d shipped out to command SAOLCC. Thorsson had lent him a listening ear as he prepared to break the news that he was “going away for a while” to his wife. “What’s good for a career is bad for a marriage,” Crucible had said. “That’s the army.”

Thorsson, single, had taken the advice to heart. He tapped the gold pen in his breast pocket. Crucible had had it delivered as a promotion gift when he’d made captain. Crucible had been a major himself then, leading the fifth district’s “Recovery Teams,” ensuring no Selfer ever threatened the District of Columbia.

Thorsson had few friends; Crucible was one.

Every day since Britton had killed Billy and gated Thorsson onto the White House lawn, Harlequin had shouted to anyone in the SOC who would listen about the danger FOB Frontier was in. Could they capture another Portamancer? Maybe a foreign partner had one who could help?

The answer always came back the same. Wait. Be patient.

The FOB was a powerful force, they could hold. A way would be found eventually.

When Oscar Britton was recaptured, Thorsson had fully expected that answer to change, for a relief expedition to be mounted.

But the answer stayed the same, the weeks dragged on, and Thorsson’s horror mounted.

Thorsson logged into the computer and double-clicked on the icon the technician had set up for him before he’d taken the com-puter from Washington. It was labeled, simply, direct connection.

The face that appeared on the screen was craggy, serious.

“Gatanas.”

Thorsson’s involvement in the incident with Oscar Britton had seen him appointed to the position of Special Advisor to the Reawakening Commission. Apart from spending much of his time on television interviews, it made him one of the most trusted men in SOC. The position had its privileges.

General Gatanas, the SOC Commandant, had hounded Thorsson daily since Britton’s escape. While his recapture had brought Thorsson back into the general’s good graces, the man still didn’t look thrilled to see him.