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  A helicopter? she thought, a slow smile sprawling over her face. Peacekeepers didn’t have helicopters; that had to be the TEradS.

  Sybil dug her heels into Star’s haunches, urging the horse into a full gallop northward along the sandy beach that ringed the reservoir. She had to tell the TEradS about her father and show them the evidence. Only one gunshot had been fired, the one that murdered Colonel Henry Ludington.

  Oh crap!

  The undulating, liquid footprint veered to the east and vanished as the helicopter ventured over land. Sybil lost track of its location and slowed Star to a trot. The sound grew stronger, then weaker. It seemed to oscillate east and west of her position; a confounding, auditory puzzle.

  Disheartened, Sybil was about to give up when she noticed it. A black object was blocking out starlight as it floated.

  The helicopter must’ve gained altitude and begun circling, she thought.

  Pocatello Regional Airport was just ahead. That had to be it.

  As she closed within five hundred yards of the runway, lights pierced the darkness. Four ground vehicles, arranged like a giant X, had switched on their headlights. Sybil reined Star to a halt, her optimism decreasing along with the helicopter’s altitude. The vehicles were pickup trucks—UW peacekeeper trucks. They would never let her talk to the TEradS.

  A bright light flared from the far end of the terminal.

  She heard a muted whoosh.

  A startling bang.

  Then a loud shu-u-u-ush.

  A trail of smoke arced across the sky.

  Barely ten feet above the ground, the helicopter bucked like a rearing horse.

  A booming explosion thundered outward, and its blast wave felt like a fist pounding her chest.

  Star snorted and shied, but Sybil’s attention was fixed on the burning helicopter. It plummeted, gyrating like a toy out of control and bounded against the ground. The tail broke off. Flames shot upward and highlighted a dense column of smoke.

  Then the situation deteriorated.

  Unimaginably.

  12

  TEradS West Headquarters

  Langden Air Force Base, Texas

  CAPTAIN RYAN ANDREWS frowned as he placed a call via an encrypted phone.

  He had light-brown hair, a customary buzz cut, and inquisitive honey-brown eyes that were constantly in motion. The contours of his cheeks and chin were smooth and rounded, yet there was an inherent strength in his face. Street-smart and battle hardened, the thirty-seven-year-old former Army Ranger was an artisan with expletives, a contortionist with rules and regulations, and an expert at pushing boundaries without consequence. As commander of TEradS West, he had deliberately given his teams maximum leeway, a strategy that had served him well.

  Until tonight.

  A firefight between instinct and reason was rampaging within his skull, prompting the onset of a dull headache. The missed check-in of TEradS Team 10A, the loss of contact with the helicopter, the inability to establish communications with UW authorities—logic alleged it was merely a weather or satellite issue affecting the entire region. His gut insisted something had gone seriously wrong.

  Ryan paced the confines of his office, gaze riveted on a row of pictures that graced the wall adjacent to his desk. An unceremonious staple held each portrait in place, one for each friend, colleague, and Soldier under his command who had made the ultimate sacrifice since the EMP. The line of heroes began with Dannel, Marcos, and Mike and now enshrined nine faces—sons, husbands, fathers.

  Good men, Ryan thought, worried that those ranks were about to swell.

  Bradley’s familiar voice came over the line.

  “How’s the weather up there, Sergeant Webber?”

  “Skies are clear for hundreds of miles, but we’re still unable to raise 10A or UW HQ in District Ten, sir.”

  “I take it Master Sergeant Hutchinson has already relayed my orders for Team 10B?”

  “We’re gearing up and should be on station at Pocatello Regional by 2300 hours, sir.”

  “Bradley, I called you directly because I—” Ryan hesitated, a pinprick of uneasiness dinging his already perforated gut. “I’m sorry about the timing.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  After the conversation concluded, Ryan sent Private Marino to track down Abby. Fifteen minutes later, she marched into his office and snapped to attention.

  “Lance Corporal Abigail Webber reporting as ordered, sir.”

  Even in battle dress uniform she looked more like a china doll than a Sniper—blonde hair tied into a loose knot, high cheekbones tinged with sunburn, a button nose, and the deepest blue eyes Ryan had ever seen. Beneath that feminine exterior, however, lurked the heart and mind-set of a warrior. Abby was a five-foot-eight personification of the word stubborn. She never gave up or gave in, which made the swollen reddish-purple bruise protruding from her forehead more vexing. Getting the full story out of her? He would have better luck wringing whiskey out of a rock.

  “What the hell happened to you?”

  “I tripped while jogging, sir.”

  A conflicted smile tugged at Ryan’s lips. He was insulted by the ridiculously clichéd and unbelievable excuse; impressed by the convincing sincerity with which the bullshit was delivered. “Okay, who beat the hell out of you—after you tripped?”

  “My injuries were self-inflicted, sir.”

  “Injuries? Plural?”

  Abby’s eyebrows flinched, a split-second acknowledgement that she hadn’t intended to reveal that information. “I also sustained a cut on my right shin. Nothing serious, sir.”

  Ryan settled back against his chair, recalling the times he had stood at attention on that side of the desk, deflecting questions, massaging the truth into a more palatable form. He couldn’t help seeing a little of himself in Abby.

  “Okay, who else was present at the time of your self-inflicted injuries?”

  “I went jogging alone, sir.”

  “That wasn’t my question.”

  Abby remained silent, exploiting the fact that his last remark had been phrased as a statement.

  “Lance Corporal, I’m going to ask this question once. You ... are going to answer it. And if I discover you’ve lied to me, I will personally boot your ass out of the TEradS. Do you understand?”

  13

  District Six, Texas

  “SH-SHIT! I’M ON MY WAY.” Governor Kyle Murphy ended the call. He crammed the Chi-phone into his pocket and strode into the family room toward his adopted children, arms raised, fingers splayed like the claws of a bear, drawing giggles before he even began tickling them. It had become their nightly bedtime ritual. Billy rolled off the couch; Nikki let out an earsplitting shriek; and both children raced for the stairs.

  “Good-night,” Kyle called after them; then he slung the strap of an M4 over his shoulder, kissed his wife, Jessie, and bolted from his living room. Maintaining peace within District Six had been effortless—until the UW peacekeepers arrived.

  A year ago, the Army Corps of Engineers had restored electric, water, and sewer treatment. FEMA established a food bank that provided free rations of rice and beans, and they opened a general store that sold more desirable foods, enticing people to seek employment while rewarding hard work.

  When the Army and FEMA departed, presumably to assist other Americans, the UW peacekeepers took over with their Chi-phones and UWECs. Kyle had instantly disliked the electronic currency. After living through an EMP, technological dependence seemed asinine, especially given the inane limitations of the digital money. UWECs could only be redeemed at the general store or paid to the district government as taxes, effectively quashing entrepreneurship and denying citizens the ability to purchase goods or services from one another.

  Convinced that District Six needed its own currency, Kyle and the sheriff’s deputies had toiled for weeks in the basement of a former Internet precious metals dealer; and when the walk-in safe was wrested open, they commandeered a thousand ounces silver, five hundred
ounces of gold, and $21,000 in dirty silver, pre-1964 dimes and quarters.

  Residents, motivated by anti-UW sentiment, began transferring their unspent digital money to the district in exchange for coins, and Kyle invested all those UWECs wisely. He persuaded Major Carlos Rodriguez to let him purchase several cargo containers packed with weapons and ammunition that had been confiscated from civilians at Camp Sunshine. Then he sponsored his own private gun and knife show, and all that dirty silver quickly flooded back into district coffers.

  Emboldened by his success, Kyle allocated the next round of UWECs to acquire parts to repair six fishing trawlers. He fueled them with the district’s energy allowance, provided by the local refineries, and within weeks, a seafood market was thriving.

  Peacekeepers took note and retaliated by disbanding the food bank and hiking prices at the general store to exorbitant levels, literally choking off Kyle’s influx of UWECs.

  For weeks, he had wallowed in frustration, outmaneuvered and checkmated, praying for divine intervention. Then an immigrant ambled into his office with a brazen idea. Using the military satellite phone Rodriguez had issued to Kyle, the immigrant contacted relatives in Belize and negotiated a trade: a boatload of cows, chickens, and pigs for a hundred ounces of gold. At the time, Kyle had expected the Coast Guard to intercept and repel the vessel, but the nation’s borders and coasts were even more porous after the EMP.

  District Six teemed with new businesses, on the fast track to self-sufficiency. Nickels, pennies, and modern coins began circulating along with the dirty silver, and Kyle decided it didn’t matter as long as people believed the coins had value.

  Annoyed that Americans were no longer dependent on the overpriced general store, UW peacekeepers declared the livestock a “violation of food safety standards” and insisted the animals be destroyed. A four-hour standoff ensued, and five thousand well-aimed rifle barrels compelled the peacekeepers to retreat—or so Kyle had thought.

  Blue-helmeted Chinese troops had erected camps just beyond the district and launched nightly raids targeting livestock. Incensed pig farmers, ranchers, and poultry farmers slated their dimes and quarters for job creation; and in the past month, their security forces had shot nine peacekeepers.

  District Six had become a powder keg of anti-UW sentiment, and that phone call was an indication that the fuse had just been lit.

  A crowd of a hundred was already gathered in concentric rings, a human jail cell detaining the alleged criminal under the glow of a solitary floodlight. Outraged voices bellowed—a wrestling, brawling stampede of words choreographed with flailing arms, balled fists, and contorted facial expressions.

  As Kyle approached, the sea of bodies respectfully parted. The uproar abated. Anxious eyes met his gaze, silently pleading with him for justice.

  The accused was of Asian descent; and although the man wore civilian clothing, he had the demeanor of a soldier.

  “What’s the story, Gary?” Kyle asked, speaking to Sheriff Montanez, a sixty-year-old with a round face, coal-black eyes, and a pencil mustache.

  “During shift change, employees caught this guy with enough explosives to blow AF-2 off the map.”

  Ammunition facility number two was manufacturing .223, .308, and .50 caliber rounds for the military, supplying the bullets for Abby, Bradley, and Ryan. Kyle’s eyes narrowed, quick anger rising. This attack had just escalated from criminal to national security threat.

  “Read him his rights and lock him up,” Kyle said, his words swallowed up by spontaneous cheers.

  “You no arrest!” the prisoner said. “I no subject U.S. r-raw!”

  Again, the factory workers stilled.

  Kyle ran a hand through his sandy-brown hair, streaked at the temple by a recent invasion of gray. At forty-nine, he was a handsome man with a square jaw, a tall athletic frame, and a weathered complexion from his sun-drenched days as a Major League shortstop.

  Steadfast and shrewd, he weighed his options, then his weary green eyes shifted from the prisoner to Gary. “Did he have any ID on him?”

  “None,” the sheriff replied.

  “Then lock his ass up!”

  14

  TEradS West Headquarters

  Langden Air Force Base, Texas

  “LANCE CORPORAL,” Ryan said sharply. “Did your injuries arise from a sexual assault? Or an attempted sexual assault?”

  Without hesitation, Abby said, “No, sir.”

  Ryan sighed, not entirely sure that he believed her. Although he understood and respected her reasons for not outing the guilty, he would not terminate his inquiry.

  His phone buzzed, and he grumbled, “Andrews.”

  “Major Pavlick calling, attending physician at Med Center South. Captain, two of your TEradS personnel have sustained notable injuries. And frankly, their explanations aren’t credible. Would you like to handle this? Or should I call the MPs?”

  “I’ll handle it. You have names?”

  “Yeah ... uh ... Sergeant Zielinski needed a dozen stitches to close up his forearm, three more for his chin. And Sergeant Villano suffered a fractured nose.”

  Abby’s forehead, Villano’s nose, Ryan thought. Two seemingly distinct incidents most likely connected by one head butt.

  While scrutinizing her face, Ryan asked Pavlick, “How many stitches?”

  A microsmirk flittered over her expression, the confirmation he had been seeking. Ryan thanked Pavlick and ended the call. Now, he had a more palatable route to the truth—straight through Villano and Zielinski.

  “Abby, I summoned you because Bradley’s leave has been delayed.”

  She remained silent, disappointment visible in her blue eyes.

  “I know it’s not much consolation, but you can write him a letter, and I’ll make sure he gets it.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Dismissed.” Ryan stood, clipped his phone to his belt, and headed to Med Center South.

  Major Pavlick greeted him, and as they walked through the emergency area, he said, “I’ve photographed the injuries in case an investigation is warranted.”

  “Could you forward those to my e-mail?” Ryan asked.

  “I’ll take care of it now.” Pavlick directed him to a treatment room, and Ryan closed the door behind him. Villano sat slumped against a chair, his nose swollen twice its normal size, a puffy blue arc stretching beneath his right eye. Zielinski sat atop a paper-covered examination table. Black stitches zigzagged across his chin. The angry red gash on his forearm conjured thoughts of Frankenstein.

  Both men rose to attention, faces flushed with embarrassment.

  “Before you feed me any bullshit, let me warn you that I’ve spoken with Lance Corporal Webber.” He gave a taunting whistle. “Man, she fucked you up ... Good!”

  Ryan watched them exchange grimaces. “So you defied my orders and hazed her?”

  “Yes, sir,” they replied in unison.

  “I’m a little confused,” Ryan told them. “Typically, it’s the person being hazed who gets injured.”

  Head bowing under the weight of humiliation, Zielinski said, “We black-hooded her and created the impression we were Islamic terrorists, sir.”

  “And you didn’t think she’d fight back? The woman dispatched a sniper team before she set foot in boot camp. You’re lucky she got your arm and not your jugular!”

  “No one would have gotten hurt if Webber hadn’t been in possession of contraband, a concealed weapon, sir.” Zielinski presented a credit-card-sized scrap of duct tape.

  Ryan opened the sleeve and removed a ceramic blade flaked with dried blood. “So this is her fault?”

  Pointing to his stitches as if Ryan hadn’t noticed them, Zielinski said, “I believe she bears responsibility, sir—”

  “Then you’re a fucking idiot!”

  “We were just trying to assess her fortitude and integrity,” Villano told him. “We wanted to know if she would give us up, sir.”

  “And she did,” Zielinski added bitterly. “Sh
e went crying to you.”

  Ryan’s head jerked toward him. “For the record, Webber claimed she tripped while jogging. She didn’t give you up. She protected your sorry asses, and you tried to throw her under the bus with this.” He displayed the ceramic blade. “And that speaks volumes about your fortitude and integrity.”

  Chapter 2

  —— DAY 442 ——

  Monday, May 2nd

  15

  District Ten, Idaho

  HOT TEARS STREAMING down her cheeks, Sybil stomped a shovel into the pile of dirt beside the grave, hoisted a heaping mound, and flung it onto her father’s reposed body with a robotic intensity. Maybe if she pushed herself hard enough, long enough, the physical pain could eclipse the emptiness bubbling up to the surface. Somehow, she had to submerge the grief and fear, to lock it away deep inside where intense pressure and anger could smelt it into something useful.

  Why can’t I be strong and brave like my dad?

  She glanced at Izzy, a ten-year-old, four-foot fortress of courage. With a shake of his head, he swept dirty-blond bangs away from his unusual eyes, the color of copper infused with the strength of steel; but today, there was a glint of pain. Izzy had grown close to Sybil’s dad over the past year, and she found comfort in knowing that she wasn’t grieving alone.

  “Mom?” Izzy reached out to steady Mrs. Bissel, who was stumbling on jellied legs. “Are you okay?”

  “I just need,” she said, sounding breathless. “To sit down.”

  Sweat soaked her clothes; her skin had a weird yellow cast; and although Sybil managed to chase away the morbid thought, a pervasive fear lingered.

  “Mrs. Bissel, you should rest.”

  “Yeah.” Izzy squinted critically above a smattering of freckles that stretched cheek to cheek. “Sybil and I can finish ... finish up.”

  Lethargically, she rolled onto hands and knees, propped one leg up, and used a shovel to pull herself upright. Sybil and Izzy escorted her into the house, and by the time they reached the master bedroom, they were carrying her.