Neeta watched, slack-jawed, as Greg Hildebrand yelled, “This has to be a mistake!” All the while, two soldiers half-escorted, half-dragged him into the forward compartment, while a third soldier approached and said, “Doctor Patel, I’m Platoon Sergeant Williams, and I’ve been asked to inform you that Mister Hildebrand has been relieved of command for this mission and will be detained until I hand him off to the security detail that will await us when we land at Andrews. I’ve also been asked to inform you that until the wheels hit the ground, you’ve got command.” He hitched his thumb back toward the other soldiers, who were sitting on the seats that lined the walls of the plane. “The boys and I will help with anything within reason, if you need it.”
Blinking with shock, she glanced at Dave, who gaped at both her and Sergeant Williams with a confused expression.
The meaning of the sergeant’s words suddenly sunk in, and she sat up, resolve flushing through her system. She pointed at Dave’s restraints. “Sergeant Williams, can you remove Doctor Holmes’ restraints?”
The sergeant glanced behind him. He quickly pointed at his own eyes and then to Dave, and three soldiers hopped off their chairs, the seats producing a loud metallic clang as they slammed back up onto the wall. Sergeant Williams retrieved a key-like metal object from one of his pockets.
The soldiers gathered behind Dave, and before anything else happened, Neeta raised her hand and leaned toward her friend. “Dave, I don’t know what Greg told anybody about you, but I think these guys are nervous about you doing something crazy if they unlock your restraints.” She reached forward and put her hand on his knee. “You’re fine, right?”
Dave glanced behind him and saw the wall of soldiers, then turned back and gave Neeta a wink. “I’m still the same self-absorbed nerd I’ve always been. Hildebrand is the only one that needs to worry about me.”
He made two fists, and the veins and muscles in his forearms bulged.
The sergeant knelt to unlock the first of the straps that held Dave’s legs to the seat, paused, and then glanced sideways at Dave, giving him a lop-sided smile. “Sir, despite my own personal feelings on the matter, I can’t allow you to harm Mister Hildebrand.”
“Understood, Sergeant. I’ll behave.”
Dave sniffed loudly as the soldier began unlocking his restraints. He turned his gaze to Neeta and asked, “What about Bella?”
Neeta stood as the last of Dave’s restraints fell away. She curled her finger at Dave, inviting him to follow, and smiled. “I was hoping you’d be able to introduce me.”
###
Neeta watched Dave and Bella ever so gently hold hands, remaining silent as if some kind of unspoken communication flowed between them. She’d never seen Dave like this. Neeta wasn’t sure she’d seen anyone exude such a single-minded care for another.
A flush of warmth spread through her chest and infused her with something that seemed completely foreign. Watching the two stirred an unfamiliar emotion in Neeta, and inexplicably, the image of Burt popped up in her mind’s eye.
Clearly Hildebrand’s loss of his command could only have been made possible by Burt talking to the president. Nothing else made sense.
Stunned by these strange thoughts, she whispered silently to Burt, even though he wasn’t there: “Thank you.”
Dave turned to her and flashed a brilliant-white smile, which contrasted against his nearly black skin. He walked to Neeta with Bella following, and all the while she held onto his arm. “Neeta, I’d like to introduce you to my better half.”
Bella’s face lit up with a smile. She was pretty, likely in her mid-twenties, and there was something hypnotic about her green eyes. They seemed to sparkle with an almost incandescent fire.
“Neeta, this is Bella. Bella, this is Neeta Patel. She’s a brilliant researcher with a real gift for complex math.”
Neeta extended her hand, and Bella took a step backwards, an expression of pain or perhaps discomfort crossing her face.
Dave turned to Bella and spoke reassuringly. “It’s okay. She’s a good friend. You can trust her.”
With a determined expression, Bella seemed to screw up her courage and slowly extended her hand.
Neeta moved cautiously, recalling Bella’s rocking back and forth and shouting gibberish. She was obviously not one-hundred-percent there, and Neeta tentatively touched her hand, not sure what the girl’s reaction would be.
Bella’s eyes widened as her gaze locked onto Neeta’s and she shared a shy smile. “I think you’re a beautiful person, Neeta Patel.”
Neeta blinked and wondered where the crazy girl who’d yelled numbers at her had gone.
The pilot’s voice sounded through the cabin. “Please take your seats, we’re on final approach and should be on the ground in ten minutes.”
Dave motioned to the seats in the back of the plane and led Bella toward them while Neeta followed, almost in a daze.
In her mind raced all manner of thoughts and worries, but she couldn’t help but wonder why in the world she was suddenly haunted by Burt’s image.
###
“Neeta, you just don’t understand,” Dave noted emphatically. “It can’t be done. At this stage, Earth is done for, and unless we can get ourselves and the graphene I’ve collected up to the Moon, we’re screwed.”
The plane began its descent as Neeta’s frustration rose. Dave had that stubborn expression that told her he’d settled something in his mind, but this time, she wasn’t about to accept it. “Damn it, Dave! Why are you saying that? I can guarantee you that the president will write any check and do anything to save everyone. She just needs your help, can’t you understand that?”
Dave shook his head and sighed. “I understand just fine, it’s you that don’t understand—”
“Explain it to me!” Neeta yelled, her nostrils flaring as she barely suppressed an urge to smack him. “You bloody need to get your head out of your ass and start thinking about saving the Earth, because I’m pretty sure nobody is going to be allowed to return to the Moon.”
Dave leaned back in his chair and pressed his lips together, as Bella glanced back and forth between him and Neeta.
Suddenly Dave’s words echoed in her head, “Unless we can get ourselves and the graphene up to the Moon,” and she leaned forward and asked, “Why is the graphene so important?”
“It’s key to everything, and it’s not something that the president can just snap her fingers and make enough of. It’s a royal pain in the ass to produce in quantity.”
Hope bloomed within Neeta as a smile erupted on her face. “Dave, I remember what you told me about the graphene production way back when we were at the ISF, and I knew it was key to whatever you had been doing. What if I told you that before I left the ISF, I managed to convince the new Director to continue manufacturing that stuff in quantity? I talked to him six months ago and he was asking me what in the world we’re going to do with hundreds of thousands of miles of graphene ribbon.”
Bella nudged Dave and whispered, “If it’s possible, you have to try and save them.”
Dave’s expression went from frustration to surprise. He glanced at Bella, and his expression seemed to soften. Turning his attention back to Neeta, he met her gaze and whispered, “Maybe it’s possible....”
###
Stryker braced himself as the sergeant driving the Humvee stepped on the accelerator.
The large, lightly-armored vehicle bounced along the unnamed road at breakneck speed, leading a convoy of four other Humvees, each filled with heavily-armed soldiers.
He could barely see the flashing blue lights of the police SUV they were following, due to the clouds of dust it kicked up as they all sped southeast, paralleling the Puyallup River.
As the white peak of Mount Rainier loomed to the east, only nine miles away, Stryker adjusted the mic on his headset. “Listen, guys, we’re almost on top of it. The road should be petering out in another half mile, and that’s where things can get dicey. Remember, the police chief is handling the initial engagement, we’re there to make sure the shit doesn’t hit the fan.”
Adjusting his headset to the police channel, Stryker asked, “Chief, anything else before we meet these folks?”
“Just remain chill, and we should be fine.” Mia’s voice carried a self-assured tone. After all, the militia encampment was located in a former Puyallup Reservation, and half of these people were likely in some way her distant cousins.
“Roger that, just remember that there’s a reason we’re hunting for these people—”
“Lieutenant, I got the message. There’s possible terrorists in our midst, and I don’t want them roaming free any more than you do. I’m just reminding you that these guys are better armed than most civilians and they’re the nervous types. I don’t need anyone getting shot or anything blowing up around me. My ears are still ringing from that damned hill.”
“Trust me, none of us want that. Just be careful.”
He switched channels as the lead police vehicle slowed and the convoy followed suit. “Okay, we’re nearing the border of the militia’s encampment. Units Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie—you’ll get out with me, I’m on point. Delta, I want you out here watching for anything. Sergeant Cohen, have one of your men manning the .50, just in case. You all got that?”
A chorus of affirmation returned in Stryker’s headset as the Humvee slowed to a stop.
Hopping out of the car, Stryker rested his hand over the assault rifle hanging in front of him and jogged toward the forward position, meeting with Mia at the end of the dirt road.
Scanning ahead, he watched two men in camo step out of the edge of the forest. Both had AR-style rifles slung over their shoulders and a bandolier with a dozen magazines draped diagonally across their chests.
“Mia, what in the world is going on?” One of the men pointed in Stryker’s direction as soldiers arrayed behind him.
Mia glanced at Stryker and motioned toward the man who’d spoken. “Lieutenant Stryker, let me introduce you to Billy Sterud.”
“Sterud? Any relation?”
Billy stepped forward and extended his hand. “Older brother.”
Stryker shook hands with Billy and nodded as the man frowned. “I can tell. You two have the same grimace.”
With that, Billy snorted and flashed a brief smile. He glanced back and forth between his sister and the dozen soldiers and asked, “So, what’s going on?”
Pulling a photo from her pocket, Mia showed it to her brother. “I’ve seen this guy hanging out with your buddies before. The lieutenant has some questions for him.”
Billy glanced at the photo, and Stryker could tell by his reaction that he knew him.
“Never seen the guy.”
“Billy...” Mia growled.
Billy sighed and took a closer look at the photo. The frown appeared once again. “That’s Raven Miller. Do you have some kind of warrant?”
Stryker pulled a copy of the federal warrant out from under his battle vest and handed it over to him. “Mister Sterud, I’m here only to ask some questions. Nobody’s in trouble, but we’ve had some incidents that we need to follow up on.”
Handing the paper back, Billy shrugged. “Listen, lieutenant, Raven was here, but he’s not anymore. You can look around, but there’s nothing to find.”
Stryker’s earpiece suddenly crackled with activity. “Lieutenant, we’ve got a man at nine o’clock, about fifty yards away, hiding in the brush. There’s also one at three o’clock, same distance. They’ve both got rifles trained in your direction. We have both men in our sights and on a hair-trigger, just give us the word.”
Glancing to his left and right, Stryker caught a glimpse of the militia’s men and pressed the talk switch dangling from his headset. “Roger that, hold steady.”
“Billy, do you know where he might be?” Mia asked.
“No, and frankly, I’m not exactly inclined to tell you much more than that.” Billy glanced at Mia. “You should have called. I could have saved you a trip.” He turned back to Stryker and said, “Sorry, lieutenant, but I’m not about to help the military out when you guys have screwed my people over and over again. Even if you’ve somehow talked my sister into trying to help you, I’m not her.”
Stryker pulled in a deep breath and stared into the man’s eyes.
“Mister Sterud, I’m not going to pussyfoot around here. I’ll lay it out for you as straight as I can, but either way, I have questions that I need to get answers to.
“I’m here to follow up on a rash of terrorist acts that have occurred across the country. Maybe you’ve heard about them in the news?”
Billy’s eyes narrowed. “I might have. What’s that got to do with us or Raven?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m just following up on some leads. I have lots of questions and not enough answers. These scumbags aren’t stopping at just cops, they’ve set bombs off that have killed kids as well. I figured since your sister is a cop, maybe you might want to help.”
Mia interjected, “One of the people we were looking for just a day and a half ago set a bomb, and Lieutenant Stryker saved my life.”
Billy’s eyes widened as he stared at Mia. “What? There’s no way Raven—”
“Not Raven, but someone else.”
Billy shook his head and turned to Stryker. “Listen, I don’t know what you want from us. None of us have any interest in killing cops or kids, we just want to be left alone.”
Stryker pulled out a notebook. “This Raven guy is a suspect, that’s all. Can you or any of the other folks here maybe answer questions about him? Who is he, where has he been, where do you think he’s off to, does he have any tattoos, habits, unusual behaviors recently? I’ve got a long list of things I’d like to know about.”
Billy stared at the ground for a full five seconds before raising his head and nodding. “Fine, I didn’t really know him, but there’s some around here who did.” He turned, raised his arm and made an exaggerated circular motion.
“Sir, men are in motion in the woods. Our targets went back into the tree line.”
Billy glanced over his shoulder and met Stryker’s gaze. “Follow me, I’ll take you guys in.”
Stryker glanced at Mia and she nodded reassuringly. Pressing his coms button, he adjusted the mic and said, “Delta, keep watch out here. We’re going in to gather some intel. It’s 1100 hours. If we aren’t back or communicating by 1300, you know what to do.”
“Roger that. 1300 hours.”
Mia walked after her brother, and Stryker followed with the rest of his team as the darkness of the woods enveloped them.
###
With a campfire blazing in the center of a forest clearing, Stryker sat on a tree stump and focused on one of the older militiamen who’d evidently known the suspect, Raven.
The man was easily in his fifties, had an overgrown salt-and-pepper beard that covered most of his face, and spoke in a calm manner, despite a dozen army soldiers sitting in the midst of their encampment. “I don’t know where Raven went, but I can tell you he’d been acting weird for the last two weeks.”
“Weird in what way?” Stryker asked.
“Well, he’d been gone for about a month, which really isn’t that unusual for some of us. Heck, I’ve got family in Idaho that I sometimes visit with for months at a time. But Raven, he wasn’t the family type. He’d just up and vanished one day and when he came back, he’d gotten all weird. Said he’d seen the light and was talking all religious and shit.”
The twenty militiamen who’d gathered around the campfire nodded, as if they’d experienced the same from the enigmatic protester.
Billy, who seemed to be one of the leaders of the militia, cleared his throat and asked, “Jeb, you talked to him more than anyone. What’d he say?”
The old man shrugged. “I wasn’t brought up with much religion, and the only time Jesus Christ was ever mentioned was when my paps would yell at me from the front porch. But Raven was talking about God and shit. He was coming, and we needed to believe and have faith.” Jeb drew a large Bowie knife from a sheathe hanging from his belt and smiled. “He didn’t like it none when I told him the only faith I had was in this here knife.”
Stryker leaned forward and scratched at his chin. “Raven got on our radar because he was reported to be talking about the end of the world and trying to get people to rise up against unbelievers. Did he ask any of you to do anything?”
“Yeah,” one of the men chimed in. “Raven was talking about how the government was trying to keep the believers holed up and afraid. He wanted us to fight, but I never really got an idea of who in the hell he wanted to fight with.”
Another said, “He asked me if I’d join him in a war against the heathens. I’m not into that kind of mumbo-jumbo, so I told him he was barking up the wrong tree.”
Others began affirming the same general message, and Stryker scribbled notes as they talked.
Finally, he flipped through some of his notes and asked, “So, Raven was gone for a while and came back talking religion. Did he mention at all where he’d gone? Anything else unusual?”
“I noticed he had a new tattoo,” a teenaged militiaman spoke up. “And when I pointed it out, he didn’t seem too eager to talk about it.”
“What’d it look like?”
“It was two triangles laying on top of each other. Kind of weird. I only noticed it because one day when he took his shirt off, I saw the fresh red marks from the tattoo on his chest.”
Remembering the tattoo he’d spied on the dead old man, Stryker grabbed a nearby branch and scratched a symbol of an hourglass in the dirt. “Something like this?”
“Yeah, that’s what I saw.”
A chill washed over Stryker. “Did any of you catch where he was heading?”
Most of the men shook their heads, and old Jeb hitched his thumb toward the east. “He just up and vanished a couple days ago. He might be back, since he left his footlocker locked up.”
“He left stuff behind?”
Billy interjected, “We don’t generally pry into other people’s footlockers.”
Stryker rose from the stump and asked, “Can you show me the locker?”
Billy pressed his lips together into a thin line, took a deep breath, and stood. “Follow me.”
###
Stryker stared, eyes wide, as he and the group walked toward a large cave built into the side of a hill.
Mia, walking next to him, pointed at it. “You know what that is?”
“A cave?” He responded flatly.
“Well, duh.” She chuckled and shook her head. “No, smartass, that’s actually an old lava tube. Nobody thinks about Rainier being a volcano and spewing lava, but this is just one of the many tubes that lava flowed through ages ago.”
They walked into the cave and lights flickered on, illuminating the fifteen-foot-tall cavern. Several dozen bunks were set throughout the natural shelter.
Old Jeb motioned as he walked toward one of the metal-framed beds and pointed at the locked metal box at its base. “This is where Raven bunked.”
Stryker knelt in front of the three-foot-wide metal box and studied its padlock. It had a dial on the front and a keyhole in the back. He glanced over his shoulder and asked, “Anyone have the combination?”
“No idea what he set it to, but I’ve got this,” Billy handed Stryker a bronze master key. “It’ll open it.”
With a quick twist of the key, the lock popped open, and as Stryker removed it, he broke out in a cold sweat.
Along the top lip of the metal case, Stryker noticed a copper sheen. A barely visible frayed wire was wedged between the upper lid and the lower portion of the footlocker.
Slowly backing away, Stryker glanced over his shoulder at the soldiers who’d followed him into the cavern. “Are any of you by chance EOD trained?”
“I am,” Jeb replied. “Sergeant Jeb Macintyre. MOS 89D, retired 2045. Why? You think Raven booby-trapped his own footlocker?”
The rest of his team shook their heads, and with a feeling of resignation, he focused on Jeb. “Actually, yes.”
“Shit,” Jeb growled as he stared at the footlocker. “I don’t have a drill and scope to look inside, do you?”
“No, we didn’t bring anything like that.” Stryker stared at the box and worried that he was just being paranoid.
Jeb turned and yelled at one of the militia members standing near the entrance to the cave. “Tyler, go get Betsy out of the armory. Jeff, get her parts bag.”
“Betsy?” Stryker asked.
“You’ll see.”
Moments later, Stryker heard tank treads grinding on gravel as an old-style bomb-disposal robot entered the cavern. Both men followed Betsy; one held a remote control, while another hefted a large backpack over his shoulder.
“Where the hell did you get that thing?”
Jeb smiled sheepishly and shrugged as he grabbed the heavy backpack from one of the men and withdrew a long, metallic arm.
As Stryker watched, the former EOD member confidently replaced one of the parts on the robot with the mechanical arm from the backpack. Stryker figured Jeb had probably stolen the thing from inventory before retiring.
Grabbing the remote, Jeb fiddled with the controls, and the robot moved smoothly back and forth, extending and contracting the newly-attached gripping arm. “Okay, everyone, let’s back out of the cavern.”
Everyone filed out of the converted lava tube and didn’t stop until they were deep in the woods.
Stryker hovered over Jeb’s left shoulder as the man peered at the video panel attached to Betsy’s remote control.
Jeb furrowed his gray brows as he adjusted a control on the remote.
“Okay,” he said, “Betsy’s got ahold of the right handle of Raven’s footlocker.”
“Are you dragging it out of the cave?” Billy asked.
“You bet your ass that’s what I’m doing. Don’t know about you, but if this thing’s rigged to blow when you open it, I’d rather have a bed to sleep in than not.”
Billy nodded as Jeb slowly pulled back on one of the sticks on the remote.
The speaker on the remote broadcast a loud scraping noise as Betsy pulled backwards, dragging the footlocker.
Jeb let out a big breath. “Well, if it’s rigged to blow, it isn’t motion sensitive.” He pulled further back on the stick, dragging the box toward the cave’s entrance.
Stryker watched through the small screen as the man expertly maneuvered the robot, and dragged the locker across the gravel outside of the cave.
“Okay, now to see what we’ve got in the box.”
Jeb manipulated a different control stick on the remote, and in the monitor, the gripping hand came back into view.
Jeb blew on his fingertips and rubbed them together. “Here goes nothing.”
Slowly, Betsy’s metal gripper clamped down on the footlocker’s latch and flipped it open.
“Latch is clear.”
The gripper grabbed the edge of the lid, and just as Jeb pressed on the control stick, the monitor turned white.
The ground shook just before the sound of a massive explosion ripped through the forest.
Even though they were easily one-hundred yards from the cave entrance, Stryker felt the pressure wave hit as smoke billowed toward them.
“That motherfucker!” Billy yelled an extended string of profanities as gravel began falling from the sky.
Mia glanced at Stryker with a haunted expression. “That blast could have killed everyone in the cave.”
Stryker blinked the dust out of his eyes as he stared toward the cave. “What kind of homicidal assholes are we dealing with?”