John Gilstrap - Threat warning

“I am Brother David,” he said. “Please don’t shoot me.”

“Don’t make me and I won’t,” Jonathan said. “That’s a promise. Now, I want you to approach very slowly and unlock the gate.”

“The man out there says he’ll shoot me if I move.”

“Not now. Not that I’m here.”

“Does he know that?”

Jonathan sighed. “Big Guy!” he called, louder than a whisper, but not quite a shout. “Tell Brother David that it’s okay to move.”

“As long as he’s careful, he’ll be okay,” Boxers replied. From behind the lights, and filtered through his fear, he must have sounded like the voice of God to the kid.

“You heard him,” Jonathan said. “Move smartly, please.”

Brother David did as he was told. He produced a key from the pocket of his coat, slipped it into the massive padlock, and slipped the loop out of the hasp.

“Throw that away,” Jonathan said. “Into the woods.”

He heaved the heavy lock in an underhand arc that made it disappear into the night. After that, they zipped him up like the others, disarmed him, and dragged him to safety on the far side of the gate’s swing arc. He laid the guard face-first in the mulch, and then planted his knee between his shoulder blades.

“I haven’t hurt you yet, have I?” Jonathan asked.

Brother David shook his head. “No, sir. Well, your knee hurts some, sir.”

“I guess I’m making a point,” Jonathan said. “You need to know that I am capable of hurting you a great deal. Do believe that, son?”

His emphatic nod looked more like a spasm.

“Okay, then the way to avoid pain is to answer one question.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And if you lie to me, I will come back here and cripple you.”

“They’re assembling in the parade field, sir,” Brother David said. “That’s where the executions will happen.”

They made Christyne strip naked before they gave her a white gown to wear. Gown overstated it, actually; it was more like a muumuu, with slots for her head and her arms. Sleeveless and stark white, the cover reached to her ankles. A cluster of people watched her-men, mostly, but a couple of women, as well. Christyne wondered if the women were there just to keep the men from hurting her. One of the women, herself dressed in black garb with her face covered in the manner of an Arab peasant, actually helped her don the simple garment, holding the openings wide so that it would slide easily over her body.

“She is ready,” the dresser said.

Christyne realized that the garment wasn’t a gown or a muumuu. It was a burial shroud.

Her stomach knotted, and she started to cry. “Why are you doing this?” she whispered to her dresser. Part of her believed that after nonviolent physical contact as mundane as helping another person dress, there might be a vein of kindness to be tapped.

“Very well,” said the man from the aisle. “Tie her hands. It’s time to proceed.”

Christyne felt panic boil in her core. She tried to focus on options she might have, but nothing materialized for her. All she saw was bleakness and death. This was the payback for showing kindness to a girl on a cold winter night. How could that possibly be right?

If it’s possible to tie someone’s hands gently, that’s what they did. Christyne stood unmoving. She didn’t fight and she didn’t squirm. They took her arms one at a time, brought them behind her back, and wrapped them with what felt like nylon rope, smooth against her skin.

What would Boomer do? she thought. He probably had nowhere near the superhuman capabilities that she had dreamed up for him as she imagined his exploits overseas. He’d be devastated when he heard about what happened to his family. When he did, the people responsible for this misery had better plan for short futures.

Boomer had his faults and he had his weaknesses, but his sense of loyalty was second to none. Ditto his sense of vengeance.

She just wished that she would be around to see it all unfold.

When Ryan’s face crystallized in her mind, it arrived without preamble or even active thought. She saw him climbing out the window of their terrible little cell and looking back at her, wishing that there were a way to take her along.

He’d always been a protective boy. A happy boy, but with his dark side. When she realized that she was already thinking of him in the past tense, misery washed over her and she began to cry.

Outside, a motor cranked and caught. An instant later, the night burned white.

The man in the aisle reached behind his neck and lifted a hood over his face, covering everything but his eyes. He looked like an executioner.

“Bring her to me,” he said.

In the distance, the horizon erupted in light.

“What the hell is that?” Jonathan said, pointing.

“Looks like they found themselves a generator,” Boxers said from behind the wheel. He’d relieved Gail of her driving duties for a lot of reasons, but mostly because Boxers always drove. He was extremely good at it, and he got a little whiny when someone else was behind the wheel. Throw in the lack of legroom in the crew cab’s backseat, and it only made sense.

“Scorpion, this is Mother Hen. Be advised, the Web page is up and broadcasting. At this point, all I see is an empty stage, but something clearly is about to happen. The tracer now shows that the transmission is originating in Islamabad.”

“Which means nothing,” Jonathan radioed back. This explained the blast of light in the distance. “Definitely a generator,” he said to the team.

“I think we should take that away from them,” Boxers said.

“Mother Hen, Scorpion. Is there any chance we can get support from SkysEye? A little satellite imagery would go a long way.”

“I’ve spoken to the powers that be, and I’m told they’re moving heaven and earth, but that it’s a major retasking. He is not hopeful.”

A new voice boomed on the channel, “The generator is located on the northern perimeter of the parade ground. In front but slightly to the east of the stairs leading to the main assembly hall.”

“Who the hell is that?” Boxers asked the truck, not on the radio.

Jonathan smiled. He recognized the voice of the scared kid from last night’s wake-up call. “He’s a friend from the NSA,” Jonathan said.

“A friend from the NSA,” Boxers mocked. “I believe they call that an oxymoron.”

The role of American intelligence services in special operations has always been tenuous, at best. The intel you received from State was generally skewed toward pacifism, and that from the CIA tended toward hawkishness. Jonathan had learned to depend most heavily on intel from the Defense Intelligence Agency, which had a tactical bent. DIA was all about the good guys kicking the bad guys’ asses.

The stuff from NSA was always… careful. That this kid with the rod up his ass was still hanging in there made Jonathan proud.

“Who is that on the channel?” Venice said, pouncing on the interruption.

“Let it go, Mother Hen,” Jonathan said. He turned in his seat and asked Gail, “How long do you need to take out the generator?”

“Once we find it, it’ll be the absolute distance divided by two thousand feet per second.”

Boxers asked, “Is the plan changing?”

“Nope. The plan is to get the Nasbes out alive,” Jonathan replied. “No matter what the cost.”

“That sounds like a goal, not a plan,” Gail said from the back.

“It’s the best I can do. Rescue, evade, and adapt, and not necessarily in that order.” Even as he said the words, he heard their emptiness, and he dialed back. “Once you take out the generator, we’ll have darkness on our side. We’ll also have the element of surprise.”