Hood started at the abruptness of the move. He didn’t know what she had just thrown in, but whatever it was, it would bring on some kind of reaction.
“Relax, Major,” came the whispered voice of Vlad from a few feet away. “Is reconnaissance drone. Very small. Very quiet. Nothing to worry about.”
Hood caught his breath.
“A little warning next time,” muttered Mad Dog.
Wolfman turned and hiked back to stand in front of him. “No next time, Major. You’ve done your job. You and your men should clear out.”
“I thought we might stick around. Just in case you need backup.”
“We won’t.” He turned and started for the cave entrance without another word. He did not linger outside this time but continued inside, with the rest of the Monster Squad following. Bride brought up the rear, and just before she went inside, she looked back toward Hood and raised the barrel of her rifle in what he thought must have been a salute. Then she was gone, too.
Hood stared into the empty recess for what seemed like several minutes. Finally, he turned to Mad Dog. “Come on. Let’s go.” He started back up the trail to the OP, and as he moved, he keyed his mic again. “Rollie, Bender. Pick up your shit. We’re moving out.”
“Finally,” replied Bender. “A change of scenery.”
“We’re buggin’ out?” Mad Dog sounded disappointed. “I wanted to see how all this shakes out.”
“Hoping to see some real monsters? Or just want to see the Monster Squad in action?”
“Both? Come on, aren’t you even a little bit curious?”
Hood was curious, but he didn’t want to admit it to his friend. “Frankly, I’m sick of all this GI Joe bullshit. And monsters? There are real monsters in the world, but they’re as human as you and me.”
HOOD WAS AS eager to put some distance between his team and the cave as he was to resume their original mission, and the further away they got, the less curious he felt. The last two days had been a colossal waste of their time and resources. Worse, he hated the fact that higher-ups had dicked his team around. Someone would get an earful when they got back to HQ.
But even his ire began to fade as he focused his attention on basic soldier skills — stealthy movement across uneven terrain and three-hundred-sixty-degree situational awareness. The night was so quiet that he jumped a little at the sound of someone breaking squelch on the comms. A moment later, he heard a strange voice in his earpiece.
“Major Hood, please respond.” The strangeness wasn’t limited to unfamiliarity. The voice was male, but the cadence and intonation had an artificial quality that immediately marked it as computer-generated speech, probably generated from text entry. The use of his rank was similarly odd. Unit operators weren’t sticklers about following regular commo protocols, especially on the internal channel, but one thing they never did was mention rank.
He keyed his mic and spoke in a low whisper. “Who the hell is this?” He actually had a pretty good idea who it was — not the identity of the individual, but definitely the person’s affiliation. “You’re with them, right? The Monster Squad?”
“You may call me ‘Phantom.’”
Phantom, Hood thought, resisting the impulse to spit the word out. Naturally. “You need to stay off our comms. If you have traffic for me, send it through the JOC. No, actually, don’t. There’s a chain of command. If you need something from us, talk to my boss, and he can pass it down.”
“Major Hood, please listen carefully. You have been temporarily reassigned to my command. You may confirm that if you like, but the situation is critical and time is short, so please listen to what I have to say before you do so.” The flat, automated voice held none of the urgency the words were meant to convey. “First, I need you to instruct your men to switch off their radios. This conversation is for you and I alone.”
Hood glanced back at the others, all of whom were staring back at him intently, ready to follow his lead. He wanted to refuse, to demand confirmation before doing anything for this disembodied interloper who had hijacked their signal, and now seemed intent on hijacking their mission as well, but he knew that Phantom, whoever the hell he was, probably did have the clout to requisition them. He sighed and gave a throat-cutting gesture, signaling them to turn off their MBITRs. When they had complied, he depressed the push-to-talk again. “All right, Phantom, they’re off. What do you need from me now?”
“Major, I need you and your team to return to your original location immediately. When you get there, I want you to collapse the cave entrance with explosives. It needs to be sealed. Permanently.”
“What, is clean-up duty beneath the dignity of your precious Monster Squad?”
“Major, they’re all dead.”
The pronouncement was delivered with such utter dispassion that Hood thought perhaps he had misheard.
Now he understood why Phantom had requested a private conversation.
He turned his back to the others, covering his mouth and lowered his voice even more. “Dead? Are you sure?”
There was a long pause, and he imagined Phantom as a masked figure, hunched over a keyboard, typing furiously. “I lost contact with them approximately thirty minutes ago. There can be no other explanation except total mission failure, with no survivors.”
“They’re underground. Maybe something is blocking the signal.”
Another pause, then, “Our communications system doesn’t rely on FM radio waves, Major. And this isn’t a discussion. I’m ordering you to seal that cave. Nothing more. Do you understand?”
Hood was still struggling to process Phantom’s revelation. How could the man be so sure of the Monster Squad’s fate? More to the point, why was he so willing to just write them off? “If there’s even a chance that they’re still alive—”
“There isn’t. I know this must sound cold-blooded to you. Those people were my friends. Now, do you understand your orders?”
Fuck this guy, he thought. He turned back to the others and waved to Mad Dog, signaling him to switch on his MBITR. He didn’t know if Phantom would be able to detect that Mad Dog was back on the air, nor did he care that he was violating what was probably a direct order from his new superior. Let ‘em court martial me.
Aloud, he said, “Monster Squad down, no survivors—”
From the corner of his eye, he saw Mad Dog start visibly, but he pressed on. “Recovery of remains impossible. We are to proceed to the cave entrance and seal it with explosives. No, I don’t understand any of it, but I copy.”
“You may now contact your chain of command to confirm your status,” Phantom replied. If Mad Dog’s eavesdropping had been detected, no indication was given. “I will continue monitoring this frequency. Signal me when you have completed the mission. Phantom, out.”
Hood switched off his radio and went to join Mad Dog.
“Holy shit,” whispered the sergeant major. “All dead?”
“That’s what he says. I’m not sure how he knows, but he seems pretty certain.”
“And we’re supposed to blow the cave entrance? Bury them inside?”
Hood nodded. “So much for ‘Leave no man behind.’”