Jerome Preisler: Net Force--Attack Protocol

Almost before he knew what was happening, the man grabbed the front of his jumpsuit with two large fists, bunching it up below the collar, hauling him off his chair with a violent jerk. The chair crashed to the floor, its metal legs rattling and rolling hard against the tiles. Zolcu was slammed back against the wall, his feet hoisted into the air, the man facing him now, pressing his chest against him, leveraging him even higher off the floor.

His spine jolted. His skull thumped. His molars clacked together. The man slammed him against the wall a second time, a third. Zolcu grunted in pain, his mouth gaping open, the wind knocked out of him.

The man brought his face up close to his. It was blunt and wide with flat cheekbones. All planes and no angles. His nose looked like it had been broken many times and carelessly set.

Zolcu immediately noticed his eyes. One brown, the other hazel, with faint brown lines radiating from the pupil.

“You’re going to answer every one of our questions,” the man said, shaking him hard. “You don’t, I’ll break your jaw, and we’ll ask them again. And you’ll answer anyway. But it will hurt a hell of a lot worse.”

Zolcu stared at him in astonishment. That voice...

No man knows how bad he is till he’s tried very hard to be good.

“You,” he said. His face had gone pale. “From Romania. The field...”

The man grinned in his face.

Nodded.

“The name is Carmody,” he said. “And I’ve got no rules.”

Colonel John Howard was conflicted.

He was good with his housing at the airfield being double the size of his old quarters at FOB Janus. He was good with the Officer’s Club, where he ate practically every meal; good with its waitstaff, full service bar, comfortable chairs, and, presently, the steaming hot lunch of spiced pork and potato stew on the table in front of him. He sure as hell didn’t miss the glorified trailer that passed for Janus’s chow hall, and was also good with being coddled in small doses. But he hadn’t climbed the Army’s promotion ladder—truth be known, it had felt more like pushing a boulder uphill—for creature comforts. The privileges of rank had never interested him. He would never forget the day a Black lieutenant came to his West Baltimore junior high school, looking about a thousand feet tall in his crisp uniform and shiny shoes, looking like he’d come down off Olympus to the seniors in the auditorium.

Or to him anyway.

Howard could still picture him. His name was Ewing, like the hoops player he idolized. Lieutenant Edwin Ewing. His skin had seemed to glow onstage. He had come to Howard’s classroom after his talk, wanting to know if any of the kids had questions. Howard had asked if he was ever in battle and he said he was in the Iraq War. Howard had asked about the decorations on his jacket and he’d pointed to a couple. A Purple Heart. Somehow that made him seem even taller.

Before he left, the lieutenant had taken Howard aside and asked a question of his own, wondering if he might be interested in becoming a cadet at the United States Military Academy. There on the spot he’d said yes. Ewing told him to work hard on his grades, “stick with the curriculum,” and keep out of trouble. He’d also asked what high school Howard planned to attend and promised to stay in touch. And he kept that promise.

Four years later, after graduation, Howard enlisted in the Army, and with Ewing’s endorsement attended West Point Prep for the summer to bring up his grades. The following September he was admitted to the Corps of Cadets, one of only eight Black admissions in a class of fifteen hundred.

It was tough. As a plebe he caught shit from some of the white boys, but he’d played basketball in the schoolyards of Baltimore and was nobody’s punk. The real slights, the ones that stung, weren’t made while trash talking during drill competitions. When it came to a mouth, he had one that couldn’t be outmatched. But overhearing some of his classmates calling him an affirmative action cadet behind his back...that had been something else entirely.

Howard forked some stew into his mouth, nodded with satisfaction, and followed it with a deep gulp of beer. Lessons learned, he thought. Tough was one thing. But he’d always needed to be tougher than the rest. And right now, right here...though he couldn’t really say he minded being spoiled by the privileges of rank, he was ready for his recuperation to end. Ready to get back to Janus.

The satphone rang on the table and he glanced at its caller ID. Perfect timing.

He picked up.

“Duchess,” he grunted. “What is it?”

“And a good day to you, too,” Morse said. “I work with so many cheerful men!”

“Not sure what you mean.”

“Just a stray thought,” she said. “Colonel, I’m calling in part to let you know your visitor’s in the air.”

“ETA?”

“About zero nine hundred your time.”

“Fernandez’ll drive him to base,” Howard said. “Where I should be.”

“It’s a glorified tent city right now. In the middle of winter. You’ll be cleared for active duty when the doctors say you’re ready.”

He frowned. “What’s the other part?”

“Our prisoner’s in the sweatbox as we speak. I thought you’d want to know.”

“Your boy in the room with him?”

“Yes. He just made a crashing entrance.”

Howard was quiet. He couldn’t argue with putting Carmody on Zolcu. He would have preferred the grilling take place in-country, but Morse was the CO, and she had wanted to include Harris, her investigations chief. It was Carmody’s friend going stateside that had been done over his objection.

“Tell me about Outlier,” he said.

“She’s here.”

“You trying to irritate me?”

“Never.”

A pause. The silence over a secure satellite connection, like the hollow whoosh of a conch shell held to the ear.

“Outlier has been technically designated a person of concern,” Morse said. “That entitles her to liberty and freedom of movement while in detention.”

“Still doesn’t answer my question.”

“We have a close watch on her. Which in my personal view isn’t necessary.”

“She’s got forty-one computer hacking charges pending against her in the United States alone. I stink at math, what’s the total count around the world?”

“She’s given us her full cooperation.”

“Let’s hope so.”

“We’re working on plea arrangements with prosecutors. Ours, other countries’,” Morse said. “How many times does she need to prove herself?”

Silence bled through the line.

“We don’t know who hit us in November,” Howard said after a moment. “Who put the hogs on attack protocol.”

“I think we agree the prisoner probably holds the key to that.”

“He give up anything yet?”

“No.”

“Then, I repeat, we don’t know,” Howard said. “Outlier and the Wolf were hot for each other once.”

“A long time ago.”

“And maybe the candle’s still burning.”

Morse exhaled audibly. “One thing’s for certain, Colonel,” she said. “Speculation gets us nowhere. I’d prefer it doesn’t morph into unfounded suspicion. If it does, it will eat away at us from the inside out.”

Howard said nothing.

“I’d better sign off,” she said. “There’s obviously a lot going on here.”

“Sure.” He eyed his beer mug. “You’ll keep me updated?”

“Yes,” Morse said. “And I hope you’ll consider what I told you about unwarranted suspicion.”

A second passed. Another.

Howard said nothing.

20

Various Locales

New Hampshire, USA

Grigor swung the blue Toyota Corolla off the interstate at the Seabrook, New Hampshire, exit, bore left off the ramp toward US-1, and continued north past the tax-free package stores and strip malls to a gas station where he pulled in to fill his tank.