When Totems Fall (25 page)

Down for the count.

Mark asked
the necessary, next question.

"Okay, I pretty much get why you're here. What's the call? I mean, have you heard from command? Is there a play to recapture... take back what's ours?"

His face lit up with the thought, his pulse rising.

"I want in."

The fire in his eyes reminded her of why she liked this guy so much. So he wasn't Army. She would take him any day of the week, in any scrape. No doubt in her mind the man would perform with valor, and if need be, trade his life for hers or someone else's. You couldn't ask for more than that.

"Well, Mark. Honestly, the plan is... rather fluid at this time."

"What, no shining brigade taking the hill? No suicide mission working in the end?"

Sanchez waited, partly because she wished she had a better answer.

"It's a super long shot, Mark."

"So what? That's what you do best, right?"

She appreciated that one.

"I'm not even sure if what I thought I saw is actually what I saw," she added.

"Hold it," Mark said, head wagging sideways. "Now you're confusing me, Sarge. Lost, totally."

"Wait. Let me back up a little. A week and a half ago, I began a more extensive surveillance pattern of the city. Standard stuff. You know, get as much info as could be helpful if we have a chance to counter-attack. One of those mornings I dug in above the Dome. What was going on there..."

She had to stop for a second, adjusting to the overwhelming emotions associated with the experience.

Mark jumped in, helping her out, pulling his right shirt sleeve up to reveal the newly imprinted chemical ID on his upper forearm.

"I know," he said. "Unbelievable."

She recaptured herself, though with great effort, pursing her lips tightly instead of releasing the exasperated air from her lungs.

"Anyway, as I packed up, ready to leave, I caught something to the northwest, maybe even north of Seattle. A flash of light. Thought it might be random. Something seemed weird. Then I remembered."

"What," he said. "You remembered what?"

"The lighthouses, Mark."

He had trouble following her still, and for good reason. The confused look on his face though, said,
keep going.

"During the Cold War, the DOD installed a short wave system, taking over the frequency and length of some of the lighthouse lamps on Puget Sound. It had been envisioned as a way to hide communiques in everyday activities if we ever needed it. I ran across it in one of my textbooks from a military history class I took way back. A really cool idea at the time and then, well, along comes the internet and satellites and nobody figured radio control of big old light bulbs to be of strategic value anymore. I assumed they were tasked out of use at some point."

She continued.

"I think I saw the Mukilteo post flashing... dots and dashes."

"Morse?"

"Yeah," she said. "Morse."

"Well, c'mon, Sanchez—what'd it say?"

"Thur, 1330, S Falls."

"Mark," she kept going. "There's only one place that could be."

"Sanchez, are you telling me the Army is calling whoever might be left here to what...Snoqualmie Falls? In a little under twenty-four hours?"

"Mark, my good man. I do think this is the opening I've been waiting for."

THIRTY FIVE

Ft. Clark, Communications Center

"Corporal?"

"Sir."

"How are we doing here, young man?"

The comm specialist, hunched over antique gear for the past six hours, mostly wanted to say "my backside is killing me." He wagered the colonel to be less interested in his physical comfort than the operation's status, so decided on a more contextualized response.

"Sir, permission to speak freely?"

"Proceed."

"We've been sending out these pings by shortwave for three days, thirty minutes each, three hours of pause in between. What do you think our chances are? Really, sir. This all has to kinda be miraculous, don't you think?"

"Well, I am no expert in the supernatural, son. My mother, rest her soul, and our parish priest would vouch equally for that. Nor am I a man to throw long odds unnecessarily," he said. "In this case, I'm holding out for a good measure of both Providence and Lady Luck to be on our side."

He looked the technician square in the face.

"Is anyone there? Will someone pay undue attention to a couple of beautiful, historic structures along the shorelines acting oddly as of late? Maybe the Chinese themselves have an historian or two among them and we'll be walking into a trap? I don't know, my boy. What I do know is this: if any of our people are still out there, they'll respond. Let's hope whoever shows up at the Falls turns out to be a friendly and has the skill sets we need to help Loch and Dalton do their job. If not, those boys are on their own."

__________________________________

Sanchez had bunked down
for the last hour in Bannister's basement. She awoke to a messy pile of kids toys, a treadmill she guessed was used religiously, a few stacked board games, and a bad painting or two. A calm resonated the space. Waking up in a normal, family home. As attractive as the proposition of just staying here was her mind shifted almost immediately to the audacious plan to get to Snoqualmie and respond to the call from the lighthouses.

As mapped out, she faced a fifteen-hour hike to the contact point. On paper: ridiculous. The basis of her career had been in overcoming the absurd, so what should one more time around the block matter? The truth was she had grown tired of lying low, taking pictures. Her warrior's heart needed an objective, a hill to take or die trying. She knew so little. Who'd be waiting? What would be their orders? Was she waltzing into an ambush? She had to move. She would also need a little help. That's where Mark came into the picture. He was the man with the connections, and he certainly had the motivation.

The first phase of the transition—complete transfer of all services personnel from the region—had been hard enough to stomach. He and his comrades in blue had to stand guard at the heavily fortified gates of JBLM while their brothers and sisters in camouflage exited the base. The policeman's memory was seared with the image, branded there so recently. Things only went downhill from there. He and his fellow officers had been required to appear at a disarming ceremony at the local high school stadium. Stretched out across seventy-five yards of the football field, they stood in full view of the community, rendered powerless in fulfilling their oaths to serve and protect. The faces in the stands were so conflicted. Their body language said, "Do something" while their eyes pleaded for restraint, fully remembering the missiles over Elliot Bay and the way they had so narrowly escaped a fiery destruction. Chinese leadership had shown they were not above murdering even their own troops in the region in order to maintain their rule. That fact settled in deeply for every soul, in every seat. In that moment, when Mark handed over his Sig Saur 9mm to the smug authorities he vowed to find another way, a way to fight back, even without a badge and gun.

Come forward. Relinquish your shield and sidearm. It was an act amounting to nothing less than a very public neutering. Those moments—no, they were not anything he would soon forget. Not soon. Not Ever. And tonight, with Sanchez appearing on his back doorstep he hoped anew that retaliation was on the near horizon.

They argued for about fifteen minutes straight, neither yielding ground to the other. In the end she was right; he couldn't go along. Bannister was an especially marked man. As a former policeman their new overlords would have a sharpened eye on him at all times. And he was expected, like all other citizens, to show up daily for re-education classes before and after nine-hour work shifts, reassigned as a crane operator on the docks of Tacoma's waterfront. Any shift missed would raise suspicions. He couldn't leave. His wife and three children would be immediately targeted, vulnerable to interrogation and harm. Sanchez would've loved to have him alongside for whatever might be ahead. As that would not be the case, she still needed him. Or more accurately, she was in need of an asset he uniquely could procure. That specific thing awaited her as she made her way upstairs to the dining room table.

"Bernice Hampstead?"

Incredulous, she reviewed the document again.

"You've got to be kidding me. Do I look like a Bernice... Hemp... Hampstead?"

"Well," Mark couldn't help himself. "Maybe a Bernicio?"

She hit him on the right shoulder. Hard.

"Hey. Whaddya expect on such short notice? The boys had only a couple IDs that would work if needed. You should be more appreciative, you know."

He was right. The route to Snoqualmie Falls would generally be astride major roadways. And though the Seattle-metro area was highly developed, it was still quite forested overall. With the rare exception of a few places along her journey, the woman would be traveling just out of sight. If for some odd reason Jessica needed to break her cloak of invisibility, she would do so as... the young Ms. Hampstead.

The possibility of having to assume the new alias also dictated that she couldn't take her rifle and kit along. So it lay buried, off the runways at Baotong. Able to get the job done without it, she still would've preferred to have it at her side.

People spend a lifetime excelling in business, education, or the sciences. For Sanchez, competence came down to a target and a trigger. In all honesty, she felt most alive looking through her scope, sizing up the shot, executing orders with the utmost professionalism. Over the next three-fourths of a day, though, she'd be relying on her wider set of finely honed skills.

One hour of sleep and fifteen more of travel left her with no surplus at all with which to make the rendezvous. She should get going. Sanchez didn't want this goodbye to draw out any more than it had already. It was, likely, the last time she would see Mark on this Earth. Even at this, the two weren't overly sentimental.

"Thanks, puke," she said. "I knew you'd set me up right."

"My pleasure,
Bernicio
..."

He paused.

"Sanchez. Be careful, alright?"

"Wouldn't do it any other way, my friend."

Out the back way, fifteen feet to the gate, and she was gone. It took him a full minute to realize it. Not a single sound. Not a solitary footfall registered. Even the door, normally squeaky, had respected her command of silence.

"Phewww," he whistled softly. "That girl is good at the ghost-thing."

Godspeed.

Godspeed to you... Bernicio.

__________________________________

Hot. Uncomfortable.
Sweating profusely from tension already, Zeb's standard-issue nylon flight suit only made things worse. Apparently they had maddened some sky god by entering his domain. The cabin rocked side to side as the airframe cut a path through angry, violent air. He looked across the bay of the Chinook CH47 transport helo. Except for the fact that he was strapped in, over shoulders and across chest, Dalton would've been tossed all over the insides of the seemingly unstable bird. The radical dropping and swaying gave the impression they flew at the mercy of the elements. This was only appearances. The seasoned crew held the reigns steadily. Routine.

It didn't feel that way from where Dalton sat.

To arrive on station with the best opportunity at maintaining stealth, they'd need to stay under the radar sweep of the Chinese air-defense corridor. This meant nap-of-the-Earth. It also presupposed a rough ride, ascending over treetops and rocky outcroppings, cresting at 8,000 feet before leveling off again at the drop zone. Which was the second factor leading to Zeb's current state of perspiration. The jump. The pilot could transit them no closer than twenty-five klicks to the meet. Deep in the mountains, this would allow the team to make their way down to the falls undetected. From there it would be another arduous travail through overgrown, slippery paths, one that Zeb himself had made not too long ago, only in the opposite direction. At a mere 3000 feet above the foothills their freefall would be brusque. Constrained direction upon landing was critical, riding an utterly narrow window to a successful touchdown. In this terrain, it was as likely to be blown off course by a sudden up- or side-draft as make it to where you intended. Fifty percent soft green meadow. Fifty percent jagged rocks, ice, or hundred foot firs. Branches so thick they would snap a man in two upon impact. Even odds; success or death.

Zeb had the entire op, along with its dozens of permutations, present in his mind's-eye; the percentages, the multitude of contributing factors and their exponential outcomes. Once again, collecting and interpreting data wasn't the problem. He could imagine and calculate to a more refined degree than many of the best algorithms produced to date. Seeing the scenarios wasn't the issue. Dalton couldn't actually determine which of these scenarios they might walk through. As always, this was the problem.