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“I…”
“I anticipated this, Scott. Don’t act so surprised. If I was off my game we wouldn’t be having this call.”
“I knew I could rely on you.”
“Yeah, yeah, if the world doesn’t end, buy me a beer.”
“I’ll buy you a brewery.”
“Deal. Now,” said Sam, “if we’re done with the bullshit, Scott … tell me why I’m really taking a squad of first-team shooters into the Q-zone.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
FARMLANDS SUPER MOTEL
BORDENTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA
Sam put down his cell phone and took a long breath, held it until everything inside his mind and body felt steady, then let it out with slow control. Both aspects of the job Scott Blair wanted him to do—the official and unofficial mission—were going to be a real bitch. Although Sam had run with a SpecOps team for a long time, that was years ago. He hadn’t fired a shot in anger in a decade.
His technical skills were still there. On the rifle range he was still one of the two or three top snipers in the U.S. military. But was he still fit and sharp enough to lead men into a situation like this? Had he have lost a step getting to first base?
Possibly.
More important, could he do what Blair wanted him to do? Would he do it? Sam certainly agreed with the NSA advisor’s logic and even, to a degree, with the plan. But it was ugly and it was risky. There were a lot of ways it could go wrong and very few ways it could all work out right.
He took a second calming breath.
And a third.
Then he called the four members of his team waiting in rooms here at the motel. They were all seasoned Special Operatives. None of them were active military. Like Sam, they had retired to contract work, but also like him their only employer had been Uncle Sam. Different groups within the government, and sometimes the agendas didn’t quite mesh, but since they were freelancers they could pick and choose their jobs. None of them ever wanted to follow an order they didn’t like or couldn’t square with their consciences. That adherence to a specific ethical code had earned the team the sobriquet of The Boy Scouts. Nice nickname but far from the truth. People in Special Ops never felt entirely comfortable in, say, a confessional. Certainly not Sam.
Sam caught his reflection in the mirror bolted to the back of the motel room’s door. The man he saw looked small, old, and guilty even though he hadn’t yet done anything except take a call from an old friend. But then he thought about what was at stake. He thought about his family back in California. His dad, his stepmom, his brother, and his infant half-brother. They were three thousand miles away from this, but with something like Lucifer 113 distance wasn’t a guarantee of safety. All it did was buy some time.
Time before what?
Before the inevitable or something that might already be over.
There was no way to know. No way to be certain.
Except to gather his team, saddle up, and cross the Q-zone into Stebbins County. The one place on earth that no one in their right mind wanted to go.
“The fuck are you doing?” he asked himself.
His reflection looked pale and sickly and it offered no reply.
Then Captain Sam Imura stood up, reached for his gear bag, slung his sniper rifle over his shoulder, and headed out to war.
CHAPTER TWENTY
BORDENTOWN STARBUCKS ON ROUTE 653
BORDENTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA
“Please…” he begged. “Don’t … please…”
Goat was crammed into a cleft formed by his overturned table, a couple of chairs, the wall, and a tourist who sat bleeding and weeping. He huddled into his niche, arms wrapped around his head, knees drawn up tight as if the bones of his limbs offered some real protection for what was happening. The air in the Starbucks was filled with screams and prayers.
And laughter.
