9. BROGAN

[MISSION DAY 1, FEBRUARY 16, 2033]

[2100 hours local time]

[United States Disciplinary Barracks, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas]

From the air, the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth is an odd collection of geometric shapes, like a child’s puzzle waiting to be assembled. It is surrounded on two sides by dense forest and ringed by two separate security fences that even extend across the rooftop of the entrance building. At night, those fences are lit up like Christmas tree lights, a string of bright baubles that radiate out across the ground on both sides.

Wilton approached the main entrance with more than a little nervousness.

Getting in meant getting a high-level security clearance, and doing that without setting off alarm bells meant going right to the top. Fortunately, Bilal’s friend was connected in very high places. The guards even saluted. Wilton returned the salute lazily, as if he were a little bored by the whole thing, when in fact his heart was pounding as much as it had sliding down a rock in the Australian desert or racing T-boards around the Brisbane River. Nobody questioned why a seventeen-year-old kid would have top security access. Nor should they.

The visitors’ center was part of the entrance building, with separate doors for visitors and inmates.

He was escorted by two guards and left to wait at a plain wooden table for over twenty minutes before a door on the other side of the room opened and the prisoner was shown in.

There were no bars. There were no armed guards inside the room. But there didn’t need to be. He was separated from Brogan by a thick piece of bulletproof glass. It was not particularly clean and when he caught the light at the right angle, he could see palm prints, fingerprints, even here and there the imprint of lips.

He stood as she entered. “Hey, Brogan,” he said.

It was strange seeing her. Strange and unsettling. As though she were a pet dog that was wagging its tail but might turn vicious without provocation.

She wore a gray prison T-shirt and loose-fitting dark blue pants. Prison pajamas. It was after nine, local time. She had been getting ready for bed. Her head still had the distinctive Bzadian bumps and her skin was still the same gray-green shade. She was human but, appropriately for a traitor, had the appearance of an alien.

Her hair was cut short, in a buzz cut. Maybe that was a prison regulation. It looked hard. She looked hard. She said nothing, but crossed the room in three quick steps, coming right up to the glass and peering through it as if unsure that he was real.

She pressed a hand against the glass, and after a moment he did, too, touching hands through three centimeters of glass.

When she moved away, she was crying, silently. The tears softened her.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded, then shook her head. She remained standing close to the glass wall.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a friendly face,” she said. “I seldom get to see anyone. They keep me in solitary confinement.”

Solitary confinement. That was something they shared, but for different reasons. Since he’d left the Angels, his whole life felt like solitary confinement. He didn’t say so. His problems were pretty minor compared to hers.

He stared at her for a while, then said, “I ain’t your friend, Holly.”

“In here, you’re as good as it gets,” Brogan said.

“You want to talk about friends?” Wilton asked. “Hunter was a friend of mine. Remember him? He was the one you killed. With a snake. A snake!”

“Hunter treated you like crap,” Brogan said. “Don’t delude yourself.”

“He didn’t mean any of it,” Wilton said. “We were friends.”

“Yeah, and some of those people you blew up inside Uluru, they were my friends,” Brogan said. “War’s a bitch.”

“You’re a—” Wilton shut his mouth.

“I’m a bitch?” Brogan asked. “That what you were going to say, Wilton?”

Wilton forced himself to be calm. There was no point in being confrontational if he wanted her help. “Ryan would have done anything for you,” he said. “He didn’t deserve what you did to him.”

“So he can come here and tell me that himself,” Brogan said. “Instead of sending his boy.”

Something must have shown on Wilton’s face, because Brogan said, “What is it? What happened to Chisnall?”

Wilton considered that carefully. Chisnall’s “death” had occurred on a top-secret mission. He wasn’t allowed to tell her about that. Chisnall’s “resurrection” was even more secret, and he certainly wasn’t going to reveal it to a traitor.

“I need your help,” Wilton said. He took out his smartpad and opened a folder of images.

“What happened to Ryan?” Brogan asked.

“That’s classified,” Wilton said. “Will you help me?”

“I’m the enemy, remember?” Brogan said. “Why would I help you?”

“You helped us before,” Wilton said. “At Uluru. You helped us save those children. You’re not a Puke, Holly. You’re human.”

“I helped you save those kids because they were like brothers and sisters to me,” Brogan said. “I didn’t switch sides.”

“But you are human,” Wilton said.

“Genetically maybe.” Brogan laughed. “Nice job on the skin recoloring, by the way. I almost didn’t recognize you without your alien disguise.”

“There are others like you, aren’t there?” Wilton asked.

“I wouldn’t know,” Brogan said. “And if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. What happened to Chisnall?”

He ignored her question. “How many are there?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Brogan said. “I’m seventeen. And I’m never getting out of here. You understand that? This is my life, for the rest of my life. If I ever do get out, I’ll be some little old, twisted-back, gray-haired granny.”

“I guess Hunter was lucky, then,” Wilton said. “His hair ain’t never going gray.”

“That’s unfair,” Brogan said.

“Who’s this dude?” Wilton asked, twisting his smartpad around to show her a photo of Jared Legrand, the deceased commander on Little Diomede.

“Tell me about Ryan,” Brogan said.

“Have you seen this guy before?” Wilton asked.

“What the hell happened to Ryan?” Brogan shouted, stepping closer and hammering on the glass.

An orange light in the corner began to flash.

Wilton stayed where he was. He remained calm. He suspected that if the watching guards got too concerned, they would rush in and the meeting would be over.

She pulled away, retreating to the far wall and curling into a ball, crying.

“Brogan…,” Wilton began.

“Where’s Ryan?” Brogan yelled back at him.

“He never came back from the last operation,” Wilton said. “Ryan’s dead.”

After a while, she got up, quite calmly, and stood back at the glass wall. Her eyes were red but the tears had stopped.

“I thought so,” she said. “I knew so. I felt it.” She stared him in the eye. “How? Where?”

“That’s classified,” Wilton said. “But I saw him die.”

There was a long period of silence.

Brogan broke it with a cough, to cover her emotion, Wilton thought.

She gestured at the smartpad, just a flick of one finger. “I never saw him before in my life,” she said.

She was telling the truth, Wilton decided, and she had no reason to lie. He had shown her Legrand’s photo to test her reaction.

“What about this chick?” He showed her a photograph of Gabrielle Bowden, one of the remaining station operators on Little Diomede.

There was no hint of recognition in Brogan’s eye.

“Is she from Uluru?” Wilton asked.

“Not as far as I know,” she said, tears staining her cheeks.

“What about this one?” Wilton asked, showing a photo of Nikolas Able, the second station operator.

There was a slight widening of her eyes and a drawing in of breath.

“You recognize him, don’t you? From Uluru,” he said.

After a moment, she nodded.

“Thanks, Brogan,” Wilton said, rising. “Take care.”

“I was only doing my duty,” Brogan said. “You would have done the same.”

“I’m real sorry about Chisnall,” Wilton said.

“So am I,” Brogan said.

Wilton was halfway to the door when Brogan said, “He’s Fezerker.”

He stopped. “What do you mean, ‘Fezerker’?”

“Just what I said,” Brogan said.

“Fezerkers are teams of Pukes,” Wilton said. “Roaming around behind our lines.”

“That’s what you were supposed to think,” Brogan said. “Fezerkers are humans. Like me. That’s what Uluru was all about. Wilton, I’m Fezerker.”

Wilton stood still, in shock. “Uluru?” he managed.

Brogan shrugged. “Long before Uluru,” she said. “The Fezerker program goes back to before the first ships.”

Wilton’s breath caught in his throat. Could that be true? Had the Bzadians been infiltrating human society all that time?

“How do we find them?” Wilton asked. “There must be some way of identifying them. Blood tests? DNA analysis?”

“That wouldn’t help,” Brogan said. “We are humans, remember. Our DNA is identical to yours.”

“So how?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I’ve got nothing more for you, Blake,” she said. “I just betrayed my own people. From now on it’s up to you.”

He considered that, then turned back toward the door.

“Hey, Wilton.” She stood and moved to the heavy glass barrier that separated them, pressing her body against it. This time the warning light did not flash. He did the same and they embraced, two lost souls, separated by an impassable barrier of bulletproof glass. It was probably the closest she had got to human contact in a very long time.

“Good night, Brogan,” he said.