The Montana ground was flat and covered with snow and the world was shades of green and white. The heads-up display on his contact lenses was equipped with microchips connected wirelessly to a relay implanted in his neck. The HUD relayed a constant stream of information. He could switch from his own field of sight to views from any of the hundred drones in the area, and cycle through infrared and heat signatures with no more than a thought. The Integrated Infantry Combat System, or ICS, allowed him to communicate with his fellow soldiers on the ground, command, and any other assets involved in the assault. The HUD revealed more than three hundred people in the compound ahead. There were guards in towers, and four on a perimeter patrol. Most of the people were sleeping.
In Montana, as always, there were few assets because the operation was not actually taking place in the eyes of the military or the government. Plausible deniability was the reason the Pack had been formed. More clandestine than the Navy SEALs or even Delta, the Wolves existed to solve problems within the United States, the kinds of problems that could not be dealt with by courts, local police, or the media. They crushed violent threats to the United States of America by any means necessary. Intelligence from the FBI, Homeland Security, the CIA, and the NSA filtered into the small, nondescript headquarters of the force, located in Nashville, Tennessee. They were ostensibly attached to the Tennessee Air National Guard. Aerial operations were often supported by the Night Stalkers out of Fort Campbell. They usually traveled via commercial aircraft, sitting beside unsuspecting civilians on the way from Nashville to Phoenix or New York or Billings. In two years with the Wolves, Henry had inserted by submarine, ultralight, and parachute into places where men tried to kill him when he got there. In Montana, he and the other members of the Wolf Pack had fast-roped from stealthy Blackhawks modified with ceramic tiles and quiet engines.
They’d humped it for a few miles over rolling hills and deep snow until the compound came into sight, then set up a perimeter for the assault.
The drones, each roughly the size of a bumblebee, flitted throughout the compound, relaying precise, real-time information on the position of targets. Some of the drones flew down the air-filtration system into the labyrinth underground, where the group of rebels had converted an ICBM missile complex into a fortress. The government had been selling those off for years to civilian bidders.
In this particular complex, there were houses aboveground, and there were children sleeping in those houses.
“Bugs in position,” came the voice in his head. The ICS allowed wireless signals to be interpreted as sound, thanks to the embedded chip connected to Henry’s brain. “Confirmation acquired. Radioactive materials, firearms, and munitions stockpiles.”
“Range, one hundred meters,” Henry said, although he did not actually speak. He thought, and the thought was converted to speech. It had taken practice and training; eventually he’d gotten used to it and no longer felt uncomfortable utilizing the system. His life depended upon it.
“Wolf One, clear to engage,” came the reply.
Henry crossed the open ground, the world still and silent in crisp shades of green and white. His snowshoes impeded his progress only slightly, and his steps were deliberate and sure. Two targets in a guard tower went down. The suppressed weapons carried by the soldiers muted both sound and muzzle flashes. The Wolves closed in for the kill. People in the buildings were up and moving around. They had been alerted to the attack, through motion sensors, pressure detectors, or drones of their own.
Two men came from the door of the nearest squat building, assault rifles in their hands. Henry fired as he came forward. A short burst for each man. The suppressor making a metallic cough in the green night, the submachine gun bucking against his shoulder. Henry kept moving ahead, switching his vision so that he could see the heat signatures behind the walls ahead. Bodies, some tall and some small, milling about. More heading for the door. Henry dropped to one knee. Thirty meters.
A knot of men emerged from the building, firing automatic weapons into the darkness. Henry heard the rounds zipping over his head like angry hornets. His weapon bucked and clacked, and his fellow soldiers fired and kept moving forward the way they had been trained to do. The men emerging from the building died before they took three paces.
“Bugs are hot,” said the voice in Henry’s head.
“Negative! Negative!” he screamed back with a scream that was not vocalized but was searing thought. They could clear the buildings aboveground themselves. No reason to use the bugs. Mission objectives were to neutralize the threat posed by the group and gather intel on related militia groups. There weren’t supposed to be kids here.
The drones did what they did best. They killed. Some of them were armed with high explosives, some with a single charge. All were locked on to targets, some big and some small.
There was screaming and burning, and sometimes it was Henry and sometimes it wasn’t, but in his dream, it was all one.
KEY WEST, FLORIDA
Suzanne’s air was low and she was deeper than she should have been. Hold still, damn you! I’ve followed you all over this reef and you refuse to act like a grouper. Turn, there you go. Look at me, nice and slow. The large fish hovered above a bleached-out mound of coral, turning with effortless grace, presenting his head to her.
She had chased the fish down the sloping reef from a depth of sixty feet to more than one hundred forty. The sea fans, all shades of blue, did not care, nor did the snapper, or the moray eel poking its head from a hole. Death was part of life in the ocean, and the reef was a constant riot of killing and fleeing.
The school of barracuda hovering to the right, torpedoes with teeth, waited. They knew an easy meal when they saw one, and there was nothing easier than picking off a speared fish. She’d seen it enough to know. They flashed quick and silver and strong, predators, scavengers, hunters. She hoped they would lose interest, but they’d hung around. She could not shoot the grouper, hang around at two safety stops, and then bring the fish back onto the boat. The fish would be gone. Just the head left, if she was lucky.
She checked her air one last time, looked at the waiting barracuda, and bade farewell to her grouper. She began to kick toward the surface, letting air bleed into her BC to increase buoyancy. Not in any hurry, watching her bubbles rise around her at the same pace, and listening to the crackling of the reef as parrotfish ate at it and motors plowed over it. She found the anchor line, added more air from her tank as she floated up toward the surface. At the first safety stop, she noticed her air was below 400 psi. She slowed her breathing and looked down at the reef below while she hung in the water, floated with the marvelous sense of weightlessness that came with neutral buoyancy. And she thought about Henry.
She loved him; that had never changed. But she couldn’t be married to him. When he was home he was brooding, prone to violent outbursts. He had changed. When he’d come home from a long deployment, back when he was still an Army Ranger, she knew he would be moody while he decompressed. He would adjust, and she was patient with him, and every time, the old Henry would emerge, a slow transformation, the sun burning through fog until it was full light.
Since he’d joined the Wolf Pack, there was less and less sunlight. Perhaps he took issue with what he was doing, but if so, he could never tell her. They no longer spoke about what it was he did for a living. There were occasional stories about fellow teammates, and how they’d seen this or that thing, but he couldn’t even tell her where he’d been. Communication was reduced to small talk. It was killing both of them.