THIRTY-EIGHT

WAVES OF HEAT caressed Sara’s body. She still couldn’t see, but she knew from the dry warmth and the occasional pop that she was sitting in front of a fire. The cold stone against her hands, which were tied tight behind her back, coupled with the occasional echoed voice, revealed she was in a cave. She tried to focus on her other senses, her odd senses, but something about the enclosed space and constant heat of the fire kept her from “feeling” anything more than her immediate surroundings.

She couldn’t even tell if King was with her. She had sensed a struggle behind them when they were still on the path and wondered if Queen had escaped. A group of their captors gave chase to something, but there was no way to really know what had happened. Queen might have escaped, but Sara held out little hope that she could make it far, never mind return to free them.

“Sara, you there?”

A wave of emotion, both joy and dread, swept through Sara. “King,” she said, his name infused in a sigh of relief. “You’re alive.”

“Given my current condition and the pain in my head, I’m starting to wish I wasn’t.”

“Are you injured?”

“Nothing that won’t heal, but they’ve got me hog-tied upside down. Don’t suppose you managed your loose-rope trick again?”

Sara fought with her bindings but quickly gave up. “Not a chance.”

King sighed. This mission had been one humiliation after another. Landing in a battlefield. Sara’s abduction. Being captured and tortured by the VPLA. And now, after rescuing Sara, they had been captured again.

The question nagging him was who had captured them. He couldn’t remember a thing up until a minute ago when he woke to a pounding headache. At least they were still together. Or were they? “Queen?”

“She’s not with us,” Sara said. “I think she escaped.”

King didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. They’d already been separated from Knight, Rook, and Bishop. The team found strength together. Each represented a part of the whole. King the head, cunning and cool. Bishop and Rook the arms, strong and steady. Knight and Queen the legs, mobile and deadly. Still, with Queen on the loose, a rescue attempt would be no doubt forthcoming—if she was still alive.

Sara waited for an answer, but King remained silent. She couldn’t handle the silence. Not now. With her senses shut down and her vision blocked, his voice helped ground her. But what to ask him? She knew so little about him. His childhood? Did he have a family? A girlfriend? The man was hardly an open book. “King,” she said, “why do you do what you do?”

“What do you mean?” King asked, hoping she wasn’t planning on a long conversation. His head pounded with every utterance.

“Delta. Most kids want to be a fireman or paleontologist or . . .”

“Or a doctor,” King said.

“Yeah, or a doctor.”

“I wanted to be a farmer. Corn. I loved corn on the cob. Wanted to eat it all the time.”

“So what happened?”

“Other than becoming a teenager, discovering girls had boobs, and deciding a skateboard was better for me than vegetables?” As King’s attention turned inward, the pulsing pain in his head ebbed.

“That’s hardly far from normal. What made you . . . I don’t know . . .”

“Into a soldier?”

“I guess.”

“My sister.”

“Must have been some awful teasing.” Sara managed to smile beneath her hood. The idea of anyone teasing King to some kind of breaking point seemed impossible. Like trying to freeze the ocean’s tide or stop the rotation of the planet. The man had deep, strong roots. Her impression of him being an over-casual grunt had been replaced by a deep respect for the man. His easygoing demeanor hid a calculating, efficient soldier. But he was more than that. After all he’d seen and done, King still had a heart. And a heart like that, one that could endure through the worst horrors the world had to offer, and keep on beating . . . keep on caring . . . that heart belonged to a man worth getting to know better.

“Julie, my sister. We hated each other for a while. I suppose most siblings do at one time or another. Then things changed. We got older and closer. Then she left for the air force. Wanted to be a fighter pilot.”

“Did she make it?”

“Yeah. She was amazing.”

Sara waited for King to continue. She doubted he opened up like this to anyone, probably not even to the Chess Team, and didn’t want to pressure him. Maybe the blood in his head made him loopy. Or maybe the connection she felt growing between them was mutual. But she couldn’t take the silence anymore. “And?”

“She crashed.”

Sara kicked herself for pushing it, but then King continued.

“It was a training accident. She never did see combat. I enlisted that year. A tribute to her, I suppose. Pretty dumb, looking back at it now. Turns out I was good with a gun.”

“And a knife.”

King chuckled, then grunted as pain jolted through his blood-filled skull. “And a knife. Of course, everything changed when Deep Blue . . .”

King fell silent.

“What is it?”

“Deep Blue sat this mission out.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure anymore . . .” King faded into his thoughts, putting pieces together. Why wouldn’t Deep Blue take part in a mission? Death or severe injury. His identity had been kept a secret, so he was most likely a man with a position of power. A busy man. Another mission? What could be more important than theirs, and if so, why hide that from the team? And that had never stopped him before. Brugada. The word came to King in a flash. It had something to do with Brugada. Had to. Before his mind could finish the puzzle, his concentration faded with Sara’s voice.

“King . . .” Sara sensed movement to her side. The new arrival was close enough to feel despite the fire. “Someone’s here.”

“You’re quite perceptive,” said a friendly sounding male voice. It wasn’t Bishop, Rook, or Knight. The hood came off her head and all at once she could see. The fire, five feet away, blazed brightly. She squinted and tried to see the man standing above her. But her blurry vision couldn’t make out the details of his backlit form.

King felt himself lifted up and then placed gently on the stone floor of the cave. Then his hood came away as well. King blinked as his eyes adjusted to the flickering light. He could see Sara across the cave, squinting. A fire danced between them. And to his right, a man squatted. King looked at the man’s spectacled eyes. They were electric blue and friendly. Then he glanced down and noticed the man was clothed in only a loincloth. A spectacled, hairy, not-so-handsome Tarzan.

Great, King thought.

The man smiled. “Sorry for your discomfort. My name is Dr. Anthony Weston.”