“I did what I had to do. Doesn’t matter if I was scared of that thing or not, it needed to go.”
“Still, no fear,” Tate said.
Van chuckled softly as he watched the fresh coffee drip into the pot. That coffee aroma was starting to finally cover up their post-mission funk.
“Why you laughing?” Tate asked.
“You’ve never seen O’Neil around a dog.”
“Come on, you’re full of it.”
“I’m not.”
Tate looked at O’Neil. “You scared of Rover?”
O’Neil pulled up the sleeve of his right arm. Thin white scars crisscrossed his skin. Every time he looked at those scars, he could picture it clearly. The neighbor’s dog tackling him. Tearing into his skin. He imagined what he felt then wasn’t too different than what it would feel like to have a Skull ripping into him.
Truthfully, a Skull was probably way worse. But that didn’t stop that childhood memory from affecting him.
“I had a bad experience when I was six,” O’Neil said. “Neighbor had a big dog. No idea what breed. They were shitty trainers. Kept the dog outside all hours of the day and night, and all it did was bark. Every day I walked to school, it barked and snapped. I thought the thing’s bark was worse than its bite, right?”
Tate nodded, listening with rapt attention.
“The monster ripped at part of its wooden fence each time it saw me. Until one day, it tore the panel off the fence. Charged me, and that was that. My parents took me to the emergency room with half my muscle hanging out and the bone broken in four different places.”
“Good lord,” Tate said. Then looked at Van. “God, man, I’d be scared of dogs, too.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m scared,” O’Neil said. “Just cautious.”
“You grew up in Boulder, though, right?” Tate asked.
“Sure did,” O’Neil said. “Why?”
“Because I had a buddy that moved out to Denver. He told me everybody either got themselves a dog or a tattoo when they moved out to Colorado. Sometimes both. He told me every time he went out into the mountains to hike or climb, there were dogs all day, every day. People loved their canines out there. How’d you deal with that crap?”
“Same way we deal with Skulls,” O’Neil said.
“You didn’t shoot the dogs,” Tate said with a laugh.
“No, but I faced them,” O’Neil said. “I learned that fear wasn’t something you could prevent. It wasn’t something you could control. But you sure as hell can control your reaction to it.”
Van nodded, pulling the coffee pot out. He dumped it into the coffee server, then started brewing another batch. “O’Neil is like a monk when it comes to fear.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” O’Neil said.
“I would, and I did.”
“I believe him,” Tate added.
O’Neil checked his watch. “I’ll tell you what I am scared of. Smith and Reynolds getting pissed because we’re late. Let’s get moving.”
-8-
They started back down the walkway between the cages toward the opposite end of the building where their AAR would be held.
“You know, man, when we’re talking about fear, I miss being feared,” Van said.
“How’s that?” Tate asked.
“When you fast-rope onto a house or after you breach a nest where all the fighters are hiding in Afghanistan, those people might attack you, but they’re afraid of you,” Van said. “Sure, they do stupid shit. I can still remember busting into a room, and a fighter had his rifle sitting next to him but started tying up his Cheetahs first. Like those shoes were more important than his weapon.”
“Cheetahs?” Tate asked.
“If the Taliban had an endorsement, it would be from that Pakistani company that makes Cheetahs,” O’Neil said. “Seems like all of them wear those stupid-ass white high-tops.”
“Weird, man,” Tate said.
“Weird,” Van agreed. “But Cheetahs or not, those guys might shoot at us, they might even fool themselves into thinking they’re making their way up into jihadi paradise, but deep down they were humans, right?”
“Sure,” Tate said as they rounded the cages toward a hall bustling with men and women in uniform rushing to their duty stations.
“Sometimes they screamed and cowered. Might throw down their weapons. Or they might not pick a weapon up at all so we couldn’t shoot them. Rules of engagement, and all. I didn’t much like that the fighters got away with taking advantage of our own rules, but at least it meant our people didn’t get attacked that night.”
“No rules of engagement with Skulls,” O’Neil said.
“And no fear for their lives either,” Van said. “Those beasts throw themselves at us with less concern for their lives than those assholes who wore suicide vests. They don’t care about death. They don’t care whether they see SEALs or some defenseless civilian. They only see food.”
“That’s what the Oni Agent will do to you,” O’Neil said. They squeezed against the wall as a pair of grunts wheeled a cart full lab supplies past. “The Agent turns your brain into mush and your bones into weapons.”
“How’s it work?” Tate asked.
“You guys weren’t briefed on it in Chicago?” Van asked.
“All I know is that these nanobacteria things are in the claws and talons and all that other bone shit that covers the Skulls,” Tate asked. “And you don’t want that shit inside of you.”
“True enough,” O’Neil said. “I guess we get all the hottest intel since we’re in the heart of the scientific mission. Those nanobacteria make prions, too, which I heard is something like the crap that causes Mad Cow disease.”
“Mad Human disease,” Tate said.
“Kind of. It gets worse the more those nanobacteria spread in your body.”
“What the hell is a nanobacteria?” Tate asked.
“Like bacteria,” Van said. “But smaller.”
“Thanks, smartass.” Tate looked at O’Neil.
“Hell, I don’t know,” O’Neil said. “I’m not a scientist. Only thing I really understand about it is that it works like a coral reef.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tate asked.
“You been diving,” Van said. “You’ve seen the reefs. Each coral animal is tiny, but together they build those colonies, right? Same thing goes on in your bones with the nanobacteria. Those tiny organisms make the bones grow.”
Tate shivered. “I don’t like that at all. Scientists here at Detrick found all that out?”
“Mostly,” O’Neil said. “We were told the Hunters helped figure some of that out.”
Tate pulled a hand over his cleanly shaved head. “Crazy. I hear so much about those Hunters and haven’t met a single one.”
“They’re full of shit,” Van said. “I think they had something to do with the release of the Oni Agent.”
“I thought they were on our side,” Tate said.
“You ask different people, you get different answers,” O’Neil said. “Rumor as I’ve heard it is that the Russians are somehow responsible. Maybe the Iranians, too.”
“All rumor,” Van said.
“Seems about as possible as these Hunters being responsible. Probably more likely, even. I get that they’re a well-connected contractor org, but from what I heard, they don’t strike me as the people that would do something like this to their own country.”
Van paused in front of the door that would take them to the conference room where the rest of their troop would be. “I don’t know about that. They’re contractors. We speak in service. They speak in money. Doesn’t take a genius to do the math.”
As the rest of the troop settled into folding chairs around the small room, O’Neil saw Loeb come in. Just as he’d promised, he was a couple minutes early, his dark hair and beard still a mess. But he wore a content expression.