To the right of the door beckoned a control panel with four lights and four heavy switches, not unlike oversized circuit breakers.
"Right there, sir!"
The shout came from behind.
Haas did not need to turn around to see the M16s. Either Sanchez had entered with Lewis’s security card or the guard Haas had shot in the knee had managed to open the door. Either way, a part of the colonel felt pleased.
While his pistol dangled from one hand, he used the other to push the first switch, sending one of the lights from red to green as a heavy electronic bolt slid open.
"Drop your gun, sir! Don’t make us shoot you!" Sanchez shouted. "Concentrate sir, remember how they told…"
Sanchez still spoke but his words faded amid the Klaxons, the screams of the soldier shot in the knee, and the voice inside Colonel Haas's head.
Daddy…it’s almost too late…
Haas activated the second switch, and yet another light turned from red to green and yet another electronic bolt released.
Corporal Sanchez pleaded with him to stop, reciting from the textbook for such emergencies: reasoning with him, trying to get him to concentrate, trying to make him remember.
What was my focus again? Was it a wildflower or something?
Whatever the psychological warfare experts had wanted him to focus on was so far removed from his mind that he could not find it.
The third switch opened and the third of four bolts made the door vibrate as it unlocked with a loud thud.
Haas felt a tremendous push in the back that slammed him forward into the door. A millisecond later, he heard the sound of exploding cartridges
Warmness rushed over his body. His strength flowed out. His body fell heavily to the floor, one arm reaching for the sealed door.
"I’m sorry, Katy…"
2
Thom Gant's dream came in a swirling mix of emotions. His sleeping mind could not translate the parade of formless images parading through his dream, but feelings of frustration and anger came through clear enough. There was something out there he could not quite comprehend.
A loud buzzer pushed aside the emotions and undefinable shapes.
Thom snapped awake.
The phone rang again.
He glanced to Jean and saw a jumbled mass of pillow, blanket, and tangled black hair. The only movement came from the gentle rise and fall of her chest. Thom supposed she had become dulled to phones ringing in the middle of the night.
He answered with a whisper,"Yes?"
Thom listened while rubbing sleep from his eyes. When the voice on the other end finished, he offered the obligatory "thank you" and cradled the receiver.
He took a long look at that tumbled mass next to him, mildly surprised that his movement had yet to wake her. Perhaps she had truly become accustomed to his running off in the middle of the night, or the middle of the weekend, or the middle of their life.
Thom swung his legs off the bed and walked away.
Jean stopped pretending to be asleep and opened her eyes, but did not move.
The drone of the Learjet's engines hummed through the flying cigar tube, creating a steady and nearly hypnotizing vibration. No light came from outside but some of the soldiers had turned on overhead reading lights, resulting in patches of dark and light around the compartment.
Major Thom Gant stood at the back near the refreshment cabinet. He surveyed his team while constructing another cup of coffee, sugar, and cream. It scared him that his men could be so calm. Several slept slumped in their seats, others read newspapers or books or listened to music on headphones. Had their job become so mundane that they could pass the time with so little anxiety? Or had they been so well trained, so disciplined, that they could switch off and on the adrenaline at will?
Gant wondered which would be worse; their missions becoming routine, or the idea that human beings could be conditioned into such automatons.
The major pushed aside his philosophical ramblings — they served no purpose in his profession — and returned the sugar dispenser to the pantry. After another sip he walked the center aisle through the patches of light and dark. As he moved he heard whispers among those men who were awake.
Wells and Galati talked among themselves like a couple of junior high kids riding the school bus. Their banter was not the result of nerves, it was normaclass="underline" those two were always chattering on, usually with Sal — Galati — telling some tall tale of adventure or relating a sexual conquest and Wells tossing in the occasional "bullshit" or "you're full of it."
One of the patches of light shined on Captain Campion, who read a copy of yesterday’s USA Today.
In nearly twenty years of service, Gant had never known a soldier so disciplined, so focused. The major rarely saw Campion show any emotion. Of all his robots, Campion was the best programmed. And while Gant may have questioned his comrade’s humanity, he could never question his skill.
At the captain's feet rested Tyr and Phobos, a couple of military-trained German shepherds.
Occupying a seat one row over was Master Sergeant Franco, a big man in many ways, and he liked to throw that weight around. Unfortunately for Franco, assignment to Task Force Archangel meant a relaxing of the normally rigid rules of rank and command, and that meant fewer opportunities to bully.
Still, it was not Franco's penchant for assigning derogatory nicknames or his outright dislike for Campion that bothered Gant the most. No, it was something far more personal; something Gant saw in Franco's eyes every time he gave that man an order, every time a reminder came along that the Department of Defense had trusted Major Thom Gant — a black man — to command the nation's most secret military unit.
Gant eyed the sleeping Franco. A sound like an old engine trying to start rumbled out of the sergeant's drooling mouth with every exhale.
Certainly Major Gant noticed Franco's dislike for Wells, Pearson, and Moss, the other black members of the team, but he tried to give Franco the benefit of the doubt. After all, the members of Task Force Archangel's tactical team came from the best special forces units in the military, including Force Recon, Delta, and the Air Force's Combat Controllers. Egos and interservice rivalries made for boiling testosterone.
But no, Thom could no longer deny there was a racial component. Still, Franco had yet to overtly disobey an order or disrespect a superior officer. Besides, while Major Gant would have loved to boot Franco from the unit, if only so that he would no longer have to listen to his stale jokes, the security clearance surrounding Archangel was that of a Special Access Program under Top Secret classification. That meant very few people were to know the program even existed and those who went through all the hoops to receive Top Secret/SAP clearance would not be wasted on account of stale jokes or simmering bigotry. No, once you were in you stayed in until they threw you in one of those bags with the zipper on the outside.
Major Gant moved on, passing the other members of the team, including Roberts, whose boyish complexion could pass for fifteen years old; Sawicki, who was the exact opposite thanks to a balding scalp and an intense smoking habit that played havoc with his thin frame; and lastly Van Buren, whose thick sideburns gave him a distinct 1860s look.
Waiting at the front of the cabin was a tall man with streaks of gray hair blooming to either side of otherwise dark thatch. While the rest of the team wore black BDUs, Captain Brandon Twiste dressed in the green camouflage variety. Another difference could be seen on his collar, where a Caduceus pin adorned his lapel not far from captain's bars. In comparison, no other soldier onboard wore notations of rank.
Twiste spoke first: "The pilot says we just entered Florida air space. ETA to Patrick Air Force Base thirty minutes."