“Lem Jukes,” she said, reading the name.
“As in the Jukes?” said Father. “Is he related?”
“Ukko’s son,” said Concepcion.
“I’ll be damned,” said Selmo. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“Copy as much of this data as we can,” said Concepcion. “I want to know what their intentions are. Then let’s get the severed sensors back in the ship and get out of here before Mr. Lem Jukes decides to take more potshots. I’m going to be with Gabi and Lizbet, and then I’ll head to the fuge to address the family.” She turned to Father. “Don’t waste time and energy working on what we can’t fix. Work with Selmo to identify those things we can repair. Power first, communication second.”
“What about the starship?” asked Victor.
“What about it?” said Concepcion. “Selmo’s right. We’re not in any position to address that right now. Nor can we relay what we’ve found. We’re silent until we get communication back online.”
“We’re not going to be able to recover everything,” said Father. “We’re going to need parts and supplies.”
“The nearest weigh station is four months away,” said Concepcion. “The closest help we have are the Italians. They received our message and are watching the sky. If we hurry, maybe we can reach them before they move on. They’ll have plenty of supplies we could use.”
Victor looked at Father and could tell that he was thinking the same thing Victor was. Going for the Italians was a risk. There was no way to send the Italians a transmission to tell them to stay put and wait. If El Cavador arrived and the Italians had moved on, the ship would be in serious trouble.
Concepcion left the bridge.
Victor turned back to the holospace and looked at Lem Jukes. Some of the photos were ID shots: a straight headshot, a profile shot. But others were more casual photos taken from the ship’s archives: Lem standing with his father, Ukko Jukes, in a ceremonial photo at what must have been the ship’s departure; a more editorial shot of Lem in action at the helm, leaning forward over some holodisplay, pointing at nothing in particular, clearly a staged shot for the press. And then there was the brief holovideo. It was twelve seconds long at the most, running on a loop, playing over and over again. Lem was at a dinner party, sitting at a table after a meal. Empty wineglasses, fancy cutlery, a slice of half-eaten cake on a plate. There was no audio, but Lem was clearly telling a story, using his hands and his charming smile to emphasize his tale. Two beautiful women sat on either side of him, hanging on his every word. The story reached its end, and everyone burst out laughing, including Lem. Then the video began again.
Victor watched it a second time, and this time Victor imagined the words coming out of Lem’s mouth. “So we blow up their mooring cables,” Lem was saying. “And there were these three men out on the hull of their ship. The devil only knows what they were doing out there. So I told my pilot to rush them, to hit them hard and knock that PK right where they were standing. And lo and behold, that thing smacked one of those gravel suckers right between the eyes.”
Laughter from everyone at the table.
Father was talking with Selmo. Victor stared at the laughter in the video.
That man killed Marco, Victor thought. Lem Jukes, son of Ukko Jukes, heir to the fortune of thieves and murderers, killed Marco.
Concepcion wanted them to focus on power and communication. Fine. Victor would do that. But he was also going to rebuild one of the PKs, a special one, strong enough to wipe that stupid grin right off Lem Jukes’s face.
CHAPTER 7
India
Captain Wit O’Toole sat up front in the cockpit with the pilot until the plane was an hour away from the drop zone. The eight passengers in the cabin were Wit’s newest recruits, soldiers plucked from Special Forces units in New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, Russia, and South Korea. In his most optimistic estimations, Wit had counted on finding six men to join MOPs. Coming home with eight was like Christmas come early.
None of the men had ever met one another before this flight, so Wit had intentionally left them alone immediately after the plane had taken off from a private airport in Mumbai. If he had sat with them, they would have deferred to him as their senior officer and waited for him to initiate conversation. But now, as Wit left the cockpit and made his way back to the cabin, he heard laughter and conversation as if the men were the oldest of friends.
Sociability and friendliness were the first traits Wit looked for in possible recruits. There were thousands of soldiers who could shoot with accuracy and fight with ferocity, but there were few who could quickly earn trust among foreigners and strangers. This was especially important in MOPs, whose soldiers often rushed into violent situations where civilians were being brutalized, often by their own militaries and governments. It meant MOPs had the difficult task of earning the trust of those who distrusted anyone in uniform. These men had what it took.
Wit entered the cabin, and the South Korean, a lieutenant named Yoo Chi-won, sprang to his feet, came to attention, and saluted. The others quickly followed his lead and stood up.
“As you were,” said Wit.
The men sat down.
“I appreciate the gesture, gentlemen,” said Wit, “but this is not the South Korean Army or the Russian Army or whatever. This is MOPs. We follow a different protocol. You need only salute me in formal settings, and those are rare anyway. You will show me a much greater respect in the field by immediately following orders. You need not even address me formally, if you wish. I answer to Wit, O’Toole, or Captain. And speaking of rank. As all of you have no doubt noticed from your introductions and insignia on your uniforms, I am not the only captain on this plane. We have several captains and lieutenants and NCOs among us. These ranks were all well earned. You are to be commended for them. But they are ranks from a different army. You are no longer a captain or a lieutenant. You are all equal. Should you choose to address each other formally, you will call each other ‘soldier.’ Soldier Chi-won. Soldier Bogdanovich. Soldier Mabuzza. I hold a rank because I have been doing this for a while and my superiors need someone to blame if something goes wrong.”
The men smiled.
“There are other small matters of protocol, but these we will pick up as we go along. At the moment, we have more pressing matters. Beneath your seats you will find masks with one hundred percent oxygen. I advise you to begin breathing that now.”
All eight men reached under their seats, found their masks, and put them on. Wit put his on as well, speaking through the transmitter at the base of the mask.
“Since all of you are trained in high-altitude jumps, I need not explain the importance of flushing all the nitrogen from your bloodstream prior to the jump.”
The men exchanged glances. Wit had not yet told them where they were going or what they would do when they got there. His instructions had simply been to come to a designated hangar at an airfield in Mumbai with nothing but the uniform they were wearing. A plane would be waiting.
“And yes, we are about to make a high-altitude jump,” said Wit. “Your new home for the next few months is a training facility in the Parvati Valley in the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains in northern India. These two cabinets here contain the remainder of your gear. Leave your old uniforms here in a pile. You won’t need them. They represent your old life. You are MOPs men now. I suggest you change quickly.”
The men got up, opened the cabinets, and began distributing the gear. As Wit had suspected, they worked calmly, passing out the equipment and showing as much concern for one another as they did for themselves. They then removed their uniforms and dropped them where Wit had indicated. Wit could have asked them to come in civvies, but the ritualistic shedding of old affiliations helped remind the men where their new devotion lay.