“Inbound,” Eagle said. “ETA ten mikes.”
Moms gave a hand signal to Kirk to change freqs to the Ranch. “Ms. Jones, we’ll be airborne in ten minutes and monitoring for location. Did you hear back from Cleaner regarding the toothbrush?”
“He did not replace it,” Ms. Jones said. “He did scan everything and found nothing unusual.”
“Roger. He made a mistake or missed something.” Moms turned to the team. “Gear up.”
As they proceeded to do just that, Mac, as he was wont to do, asked a question. “If a Rift is just forming now, why were we alerted via the Loop earlier?”
Moms quickly explained the golden glow coming out of Scout’s toothbrush, the power outages, and the golden glow in the water.
“So something was still in that toothbrush even after we got the Firefly,” Mac said, and it wasn’t a question.
“Duh,” Roland said, and everyone on the team turned to look at him. Apparently pain had sharpened his wits a bit. Doc had wrapped his ribs tightly, about all that could be done for the three broken ones. He warned Roland not to laugh too much, which didn’t appear like it was going to be a major problem.
Doc spoke up. “The question is, if this glow wasn’t a Firefly, what was it? So far it’s apparently caused no harm other than shorting out the power for short periods of time.”
“It hurt my mouth,” Scout said.
“If it came through in North Carolina,” Doc said, “it’s been dormant a long time. Waiting.”
“That’s not good,” Roland said.
“How do we track this thing down?” Mac asked.
“It’s in the water,” Scout said. “And the water flows that way.” She pointed to the left.
“Out of the mouth of babes,” Mac muttered.
“Hey!” Scout was offended. “I’m not no baby.”
Moms interceded. “But if it doesn’t come to land like you say it did at the power line or affect something like the boat, we need a way to locate it. Whatever it is.”
“It’s power,” Ivar said, a split second before Doc said something, apparently the same thing, because he gave Ivar the fish eye. Ivar continued. “So we try to figure out what kind of power, most likely electrical, and we rig a device to track it.”
“Get to work on it,” Moms ordered Ivar. “You stay here while we take care of this Rift.”
Doc looked like he was going to protest and then just shook his head.
They could hear the Snake coming in, landing in the paved circle out front in the cul-de-sac.
“My neighbors aren’t going to be happy,” Scout said.
“I think we crossed the threshold on that when Roland landed in the power lines,” Eagle said. “His chute is still up there. Support will get it eventually.”
“Let’s move out,” Moms ordered.
As they moved out of the house, Nada sidled up next to Moms. “What’s with Ivar? Leaving him behind.”
“We’ve got a problem,” Moms said. “Someone shut down the Can. Doc and Ivar were just down there before the alert. I put my money on Ivar being the problem.”
“I’ll keep an eye on Doc, then,” Nada said.
The golden glow was now about three feet in diameter.
Burns checked his watch. He stood up. He could hear the muted sound of jet engines echoing across the river. Sound carried really well here, reflecting off the water, and with little to obstruct it. He recognized the sound of the Snake, which was interesting since he’d seen it crash back near St. Louis.
Ms. Jones was nothing if not persistent.
That could be an asset in most situations. But not all.
Scout followed the team up the ramp into the cargo bay, unnoticed among the loading of gear and mission prep. Everyone was checking off their part of the mission Protocol on their team handbooks, slightly out of sync since they were used to loading the Snake in the Barn back at the Ranch.
But not completely. “Oh, no, no, no,” Moms said, taking Scout’s elbow and leading her back down the ramp. Dust and dirt and mowed grass were swirling about, kicked up by the Snake’s engines. The sound was a high-pitched whine and a dog was howling somewhere down the street. Lights were on in several houses and Ms. Jones would have to get Support to work hard to keep video of this off the Internet while spreading a good cover story. A bunch of supposed FEMA personnel were on their way with some cover story.
“You’re going to leave me alone with that Ivar guy?” Scout asked. “He’s a little bit freaky. Big Bang Sheldon, sort of, but not so funny.”
“This is a combat mission,” Moms said.
“Let’s go!” Nada shouted from the cargo bay.
“Please?” Scout begged. “I’ll stay on the plane.”
“The last plane crashed,” Moms said.
“Then I’ll stick with Nada.”
Who was suddenly standing next to the two of them. “Sorry, Scout.”
“I’ve—” Scout began, but Moms held a hand up, silencing her.
Moms’s and Nada’s headset crackled with Ms. Jones’s voice. “I believe the young lady has earned a place on the team. What is being played out here came through her. Regardless of how we feel about it, she has a role in this.”
“This is going to be dangerous,” Nada said, knowing his words had no power.
“The stakes are high,” Ms. Jones said.
“Roger,” Nada said. He pointed toward the cargo bay. “Come on. Rules were made to be broken.”
They ran back on board the Snake and it lifted up into the night sky.
Burns knew exactly how they’d come in to try to seal this Rift.
Protocol. The hobgoblin of little minds. Burns began to giggle as the phrase passed through his own mind.
He looked up at the golden sphere, flickering in the air. It was five feet in diameter now. His face was bathed in the glow. He could almost see through. To the other side.
That was the whole point. The other side.
Burns giggled once more.
Then he clapped his hand over his mouth. This was no laughing matter, but he couldn’t stop giggling.
Nada grabbed Moms’s elbow and leaned close so he could talk to her off the team net. “We do it different.”
“Do what different?” Moms was staring at the screen of her iPad, scanning the Google Earth map of the area around them.
“The way we hit the Rift and the Fireflies,” Nada said. “If Burns is opening this thing, he knows our Protocols. He’ll be waiting. Plus, we’re going to be late. Odds are the Fireflies, however many there are, will already be through.”
“What do you want to change?”
“No HALO or HAHO parachute jump onto the target. He’ll be waiting for that. We come in fast and hard. Everyone fast ropes right onto the target.”
“And if it’s a trap?” Moms asked.
“Of course it’s an ambush,” Nada said. “And you know the only way to break an ambush is—”
Moms finished for him: “Assault directly into the ambush with everything you’ve got.” She nodded. “All right. Brief the team.”
She switched frequencies, going on the TACNET back to the FOB, getting their Heavy ready.
The lights flickered and then came back on. The two screen watchers ran back through the tunnel to their stations. Computers were rebooting, agonizingly slow.
Then the clicking alarm came back on, along with the strobe light.
“Yeah, yeah,” the woman muttered. “We know.” She slapped a palm down on the button that cut off the alarm as she adjusted controls with her other hand, zeroing in on the Rift that was forming.
“Got it!” she cried out as she forwarded the data.