TEN

THE SUN ROSE, bringing with it the hope of full-color vision and the chance to rest. The Chess Team had been moving since their landing. They’d traveled in silence, save for Sara’s heavy breathing. She was in good shape for the average person, but due to the level of activity combined with the sudden extreme stress of the battle, Sara moved like the walking dead.

An hour ago, as the sun first began to cut through the canopy and they removed their night vision goggles, Rook had surprised Sara by coming back to help her walk. He claimed her slow pace was going to get them all killed, but after a while he started chatting about his family. Turned out he was a real mama’s boy. Went on and on about her homemade whoopie pies. And he had sisters. Three. She reminded him of the youngest. Hence his chivalry and premission concerns.

But Sara was grateful for the help and conversation, which kept her mind occupied enough to forget her overactive senses. He kept her moving when she slowed. As her legs grew wobbly from the weight of the thirty-pound pack on her back, he took it and carried it along with his own forty-pound pack. He seemed giant. Surreal. Like God had sent a superhuman big brother to watch out for her.

The terrain, which had been blessedly level for the past two miles, began to slant uphill, gradually at first, but the grade grew steep as they ascended the Annamite foothills. Sara did her best to keep moving, but the slippery coating of leaves on the forest floor kept the ground shifting beneath her feet. Upon falling a third time, her muscles gave up and she slouched to the ground, a prone figure in black.

Rook paused. “Knight, hold up a sec. Pawn’s done.”

A half mile ahead, Knight stopped moving, pulled out his canteen, and took a swig. Queen joined him a moment later. Then Bishop. They shared drinks and energy bars, waiting patiently for those lagging behind. They felt secure in the fact that they were in the middle of nowhere and hadn’t seen or heard signs of danger since the previous night.

But they were wrong.

They weren’t alone.

King backtracked to Rook and found Sara nearly unconscious at his feet. He shook his head. Not good, he thought. More than any of them, she had to keep moving or everyone on the planet could be at the mercy of whoever had control of the new Brugada strain. He felt the jagged edges of the stitches in his chest rubbing against his moisture-wicking undershirt and felt a measure of comfort. If he died from Brugada, at least he’d come back.

“Catch up with the others,” King said to Rook. “I want an ETA when we reach you.”

“You got it,” Rook said before heading out.

King knelt down, lifted Sara’s head, and smacked her lightly on the cheek. Her eyes fluttered. “Drink this,” he said, holding a small container to her lips.

She sipped, coughed, sipped again. A moment later she was sitting up chugging the bittersweet mystery liquid. With the small thermos empty, she looked at King with wide, alert eyes. “Oh God, I can’t believe you brought coffee.”

“Espresso, actually. You just drank about five servings.”

Sara’s forehead scrunched. “Is that normal for you to carry?”

King stood and shook his head. “Made a pit stop before we shipped out. Thought you might need it. Make sure you drink a lot of water now or you’ll get dehydrated.”

Sara noticed they were alone. “Where are the others?”

“Waiting.”

“Shouldn’t they be here? In case something happens?”

“I wanted a moment with you.”

A twinge of fear squeezed Sara’s stomach. What was he up to? “Why?”

“Because I’m about to be a bastard and I didn’t want an audience.” He squatted down and faced her. “Listen. It makes total sense that you’re the core of this mission. We’re all here for you. But you’ve got to start carrying your own weight. Push yourself beyond what you believe you’re capable of. The pain doesn’t matter. Physical injury doesn’t matter. You can spend the rest of the year, hell, the rest of your life healing mind and body, but the mission comes first. Your survival is my mission, but that doesn’t mean your experience has to be a good one.”

Sara nodded, her jaw slightly agape. She had yet to consider what the lasting effects of this mission, aside from death, would be. Flashes of limbless veterans filled her mind. Victims of post-traumatic stress—shell shock. Night terrors. Would she become like that?

She looked at King, thinking, Why isn’t he like that?

Then she screamed.

“In the tree!”

The black shadow descended as King dove, rolled, and took aim with his M4. But even his honed reflexes weren’t fast enough. The black figure crouched behind Sara, using her as an effective shield from any bullets King might unleash. A knife was placed against Sara’s throat. The attacker was steady. Practiced.

“Lower your weapon,” the figure said with an accented feminine voice.

King followed her order.

He didn’t move, ask questions, or make threats. He waited.

The silence continued for twenty seconds. Sara sensed that these were predators sizing each other up.

“Pawn Two,” King said. “Let her go.”

“She’s going to get you all killed,” Pawn Two said. “If you can’t protect her, she has no business out here.”

“Who said we can’t protect her?” It was Rook. The muzzle of his .50-caliber Desert Eagle hovered an inch from the back of Pawn Two’s skull. One shot would make her head simply cease to exist.

King stepped forward. “Pawn Two. If you do not remove your knife—”

With a quick twist the knife was removed from Sara’s throat and sheathed in Pawn Two’s sleeve. Sara scrambled away and turned to face her attacker. If she hadn’t nearly been killed by the woman, she would have found her almost comical. She was dressed in black, like they were, but wore a mask over her face like some kind of ninja. And she wasn’t imposing at all. Her five-foot height was balanced by a spindly build. She looked like an overgrown ant, but her gleaming green eyes revealed her to be a praying mantis.

As the Chess Team took up positions around her, keeping their weapons trained on all parts of her body, Pawn Two removed her hood. Her oval eyes squinted when she smiled. “Consider it an object lesson.”

“You could have been killed,” King said.

“And she would have been,” Pawn Two said, motioning to Sara. “If she hadn’t warned you, it would have been you with the knife to your throat.”

Not only did King not have the time or energy to have this discussion, but he also knew she was right. Sara was a liability. But he had no choice. She was the mission.

The woman finished tying her spaghetti-straight black hair in a ponytail and extended her hand to Sara. “They’ll keep calling me Pawn Two, I’m sure, but you can call me Somi, short for Sommalina. Sommalina Syha. Sorry about the neck.”

Sara took her hand and was pulled to her feet. The woman was a mystery. Not only was she small, exotic, and dangerous (not in that order) but she was also charming. She walked to a tree, reached around, and picked up a Franchi SPAS-12 shotgun. Its dual design allowed the shooter to fire both single pump-action shots and gas-powered automatic shots of up to four rounds a second.

Rook raised an eyebrow. “That’s all you got?”

“Born and raised in the jungle. This is all I need, G.I. Joe.”

“Just call me Gung Ho,” Rook said.

Somi smiled and started off into the forest.

“What’s the hurry?” Queen said, her voice cut with tension and distrust.

Somi paused and looked at each of them. “I’ve been following you since you touched down. One of the two factions you found fighting has been following you as well. The others were Khmer Rouge remnants defending their turf. They stayed put.”

King tensed. This was bad news. Why would someone follow them?

“Well, that’s just shitabulous,” Rook said. “How many men are we talking about here?”

Somi shrugged.

“You don’t know?” Rook said.

“It was dark.”

“Then how do you know they’re following us?”

Somi put her hand on Rook’s mouth. It appeared more an act of seduction than of covering his voice, but the effect was the same. Rook held his breath.

“Listen to the wind,” Somi said.

They listened. All of them. And each heard nothing but Somi’s lingering sarcasm. But in the still silence of the jungle, Sara felt them as her senses turned the distant shuffle of feet through leaves and the odors of men caught on the wind into a physical sensation. She couldn’t hear them. But she could feel them like a gentle tickle on her skin.

Strange, she thought. In the city, her senses were so overwhelmed that she rarely fully understood the world. She just focused on her destination and moved, doing her best to ignore her senses. But in this natural setting she seemed to be more aware of what she felt. She spoke without thinking. “They’re coming from the southeast.”

Sara blinked and looked at the others. They were all staring at her as though she had two heads. “What?”

“I was joking,” Somi said.

“But you said—”

Somi held up a small PDA. “Motion sensors. I spent all day yesterday lining the game trails with them.”

King squinted. Twice now Sara had warned him of danger long before he knew it was coming. In the reed field she may very well have saved his life. He turned to Somi. “Is she right?”

Somi was already looking at the PDA, her lips pursed, her forehead crisscrossed with confusion. “Dead on.”

Bishop walked up to the group, leaving the tree he’d been leaning on throughout the interchange. “We better go.” He turned and began ascending the foothill. Queen and Knight followed.

“No more object lessons,” King said to Somi.

She nodded. “The next lesson you get won’t be from me, and it won’t be an object lesson.”

She said it with such confidence, King realized she knew more than she’d revealed. “Pawn, stay with the others. We’ll bring up the rear.”

Sara nodded slowly. Her muscles, tight with tension, fought against her as she moved. The introduction to Somi had been so unnerving that it had exhausted her. The caffeine seemed to be wearing off already. She remembered King’s reprimand and pushed against the pain in her legs. The mission would be completed, no matter the cost to their bodies or psyches. They just had to succeed and survive. She left with Rook, moving fast to catch up with the others.

When the group was out of earshot, King turned to Somi. “Who are they? Who is following us?”

“I wasn’t sure at first, but after last night’s battle ended I had a chance to inspect the dead men’s uniforms. VPLA. The Death Volunteers,” Somi said with a frown. “Vietnamese special forces.”