Next Year in Olympia - pt 3 (8-10)

 

Part 1 (Chapters 1-3)

Part 2 (Chapters 4-7)

8

 

While Hatch’s people finished loading up the cargo carts, Kilbane held an impromptu staff meeting. The bulk of the plan stayed intact if accelerated. Word was being relayed to Hatch’s unreliables to gather at the mustering areas with his reliables. His people would seize the ferry, coordinating with Kilbane’s people on the main island. With Tran acting as a liaison, that left Hall in charge over there. Klose would link up with him at the LZ and take over as soon as practical. Darby’s equipment contact had done well with comms. They had ample handhelds to go around. Klose relayed the frequency patterns and alternates that Morten had laid out. Tran went over rally points, approaches, and local defenses.

 

Taniqua Jones was nothing if not tenacious. She fought and clung to the idea that she would accompany Kilbane and Katz. She latched onto the fact that they had no recon of the landing site, without which they could not know whether to divert to the secondary LZ until the ferry was potentially under fire. She needed to see the defenses with her own eyes to evaluate them. Like a bulldog with a rag, she refused to let that point go.

 

Klose took up the cause for Kilbane, pointing out that increased traffic on the water for recon would tip off O’Grady. Hatch listened. Katz never said a word.

 

They were burning darkness. So, in the interest of time, Kilbane was forced to concede. Jones would accompany him and Katz. They would recon the primary landing zone and radio back what they found, diverting the ferry en route if necessary. Jones pressed for a full four-man squad to grab up the LZ but here she got shot down. They simply didn’t have the personnel. They’d have to rely on recon and surprise.

 

When Kilbane reached for one of the ARs from a cargo cart, Jones grabbed his wrist and directed it to one of the nine-mil carbines. “No one will miss these,” she said, taking another for herself. He didn’t protest.

 

While Hatch and Tran finished assigning teams to the carts, Kilbane, Katz, and Jones made their way back across the roofs to the boat with Klose tagging along behind. As the rest of them boarded and got settled, Klose fussed in her own way. She pointed out the idiosyncrasies of the boat to Katz, reminding her of the corridors and navigation hazards that Katz had sketched from Klose’s map. The map Katz had originally drawn.

 

After listening patiently, Katz finally stated levelly, “I think I can handle it.”

 

Klose paused sheepishly, then turned to Kilbane, rattling off frequencies, plans, and rally points, all of which he knew. She then pressed a personal first aid kit into his hands. “A gift from Darby.”

 

“Seriously, Becky,” he said, trying to sound reassuring as he accepted it and quickly stowed it in a pocket, “We’ll be fine.”

 

Klose paused again before turning to Jones, who immediately cut her off. “But not if we don’t get moving. You mind casting us off?”

 

Klose evaluated her militia counterpart a moment before bending down to untie the lines securing the boat to the roof. By then, Katz had the engines idling, low and throaty. The boat bobbed slightly in the swells stirred by the renewed and steady wind.

 

“She’s a drug runner, a true go-fast boat,” Klose finally noted. “You open her up and she’ll fly.”

 

“I expect she will.” Katz smiled in the moonlight. “A fine choice and acquisition, Ms. Klose.”

 

Rebecca Klose gifted her with a rare genuine smile, one that quickly faded as her eyes turned back to Kilbane.

 

“See you on the other side, Dave,” she said quietly.

 

“Take care of Hatch’s people for me,” Kilbane replied as Katz expertly pulled them back from the makeshift pier.

 

Klose just raised a hand and nodded, watching them as they pulled away in the moonlight until the dark waters separated them.

 

After stowing her rucksack of equipment in the back, Jones insisted on taking up a position as forward watch next to Katz, leaving Kilbane to cover their flanks and rear. They both had their assault nines out and ready, loaded with alternating rounds as Hatch had suggested, a second clip stashed in an accessible pocket. Katz’s over/under survival rifle was wedged beside her at the helm for all the good it might do. Whether she had any spare shotgun ammunition remained a mystery. None of the rounds Klose had brought had been the right gauge. Monique had a handful of spare .22 but no .410. Though if it came down to the single-shot combination rifle/shotgun, the battle was already lost.

 

Katz slowly picked her way across the submerged road, back through the golf course to the inlet of the former bayou. She put both Kilbane and Jones to work as needed, calling out obstacles left and right, port and starboard, where her chosen channel narrowed. Once or twice, they brushed soft vegetation beneath the surface but nothing solid. She was cautious, consulting her map and memory to avoid the mines, checking her landmarks often, so it took longer than Kilbane anticipated before they emerged into the open water that was once the intercoastal waterway and now the extended Gulf.

 

Even then, Katz kept Jones busy as she instructed her on how to call out markers for dead reckoning as she navigated the maze of mines she’d helped lay. Kilbane suspected it was mostly a doublecheck and make-work to keep the other woman occupied and engaged. Which left him time to scan the preprogrammed channels on the handheld.

 

All their assigned frequencies were quiet. He took that as a positive sign that radio discipline was being maintained. He caught one or two bursts when he scanned the sheriff’s frequencies. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary in length though without being able to decode the encrypted signals, there was no real way to tell. Until traffic ticked up slightly as they emerged from the postern gate into the now choppy waters of the channel between the islands.

 

“I think they’ve heard us,” Kilbane called to Katz over the engines.” At least they’re looking.”

 

Katz nodded, then dropped their speed to station-keeping against the tide. “You still sure you want to do this,” she asked, staring at Jones who was blowing warmth back into her fingertips through fingerless fishing gloves. Kilbane wished he had a pair.

 

Before either of them could answer, Kilbane’s’ handheld erupted with structured static as it locked onto a new signal. Encrypted.

 

He and Jones exchanged a look. Hatch must have begun his assault. Kilbane quickly flipped over to Hall’s frequency just in time to catch Klose giving him the go signal to create what distraction he could. Hall informed her the demonstration was a no-go. The sheriff was rounding up anyone with a history or under suspicion. Then another extended burst of signals erupted in response on the sheriff’s frequencies. Miles away across land and water, they heard Hatch’s assault begin like distant fireworks.

 

“No choice,” Kilbane said to Katz. “Looks like we’re committed.”

 

Katz nodded grimly but didn’t move to continue.

 

“What’s the holdup?” Jones asked.

 

Katz first pointed left to a gap in the shadowed, submerged buildings to the west. “That’s the old pass to the Gulf,” she noted. Then she pointed right. “That’s the old bayou entrance to the lake and your secondary landing. Pretty much a straight shot. The main hazards are the bridges and causeway but their decks should be deep enough to transit over.”

 

She shifted her arm to point forward and slightly right. “That mangrove-looking shadow on the horizon is really the tops of the trees where the old veterans' park and National Cemetery once stood.”

 

“What’s the point to all this?” Jones asked impatiently.

 

Katz continued undeterred, shifting her finger slightly more forward. “That big building is the old VA hospital. Five floors, at least three still above water. Your primary landing site is tucked behind it, just beyond an old anchorage basin. Which means a long run in their zone of fire. As bad for us as them.”

 

She stopped pointing but now looked meaningfully to her left again. “With the full moon now behind us, we’ll be silhouetted on the water. Any decent lookout will spot us. To check the 666 overpass, we’ll have to pass under their positions twice, at close range.”

 

Kilbane’s handheld broke the ensuing silence, interrupted only by the lapping of waves against the fiberglass hull and the low bleeda-bladda of the idling outboards. On the OpNet band, Monique’s voice gave a callsign and a status. Monique, not Hatch. They listened intently, piecing together a report.

 

The militia had seized the ferry quickly but the Third had responded with a counterattack while Hatch’s people were still loading it. The bulk of the militia had disengaged and departed, but a quarter of their force had been left behind to hold the terminal, including Hatch. The ferry had taken fire on the transit through the cityscape to the sound. Causalities but Monique still rated them mission effective. They were on their way to the first checkpoint. She would report again then.

 

The last thing they heard was Klose yelling in the background, “Tell him to find me a place to land this pig.”

 

“Sweet baby Jesus,” Jones whispered. “A quarter to a third. Gone.”

 

Kilbane dialed over to Hatch’s TacNet frequency. The messages were chaotic but not yet confused. They listened while Jones interpreted. Hatch was trying to organize his own counterattack from the community for a breakout. He still held the complex that was the ferry landing but that was all. He admonished his teams to keep an eye on the sky, which meant they thought the sheriff’s helo was on its way.

 

Kilbane dialed the frequency back to Monique and turned the volume down.

 

“A friend of mine used to drive a motorcycle back and forth to work, rush hour, mid-shift, you name it,” Jones said. “When I rode with him, he told me the key to survival was his patented school of offensive driving.”

 

The other two looked at her without comprehending.

 

“To kill us, he would say,” Jones explained, “they have to catch us.”

 

Katz stared at the other woman a moment then nodded once succinctly. Kilbane could only smile.

 

“You get one shot to note resistance as we shoot the gap up to the Bluffs,” Katz informed them, “A second pass won’t be an option.”

 

“Get us as close to that overpass as you can,” Kilbane said before Jones could react.

 

Jones seemed satisfied enough as she repositioned to brace her assault nine on the forward cover for a field of fire diagonally in front of Katz. Kilbane did the same across the guardrail on his side. The best they could hope for at this range with these weapons was suppressing fire.

 

Once they were set, Katz added with an uncharacteristically evil grin, “Strap in. This is about to get fast and rough.”

 

With that, she pulled the throttle halfway down.

 

The boat leaped into motion like a horse with a bit clamped in its teeth. The prow rose from the water. When Kilbane glanced back, he found his head was below their wake. Klose hadn’t been kidding when she’d called it a go-fast boat.

 

Katz gently, almost lazily, slewed the boat back and forth in a mild zigzag. If they took fire, a straight line would be terminal.

 

And take fire they did, as soon as they came into range of the hospital complex. Desultory and undisciplined. Katz increased their slalom. The icy wind was wicked. The fine spray bit Kilbane’s face and hands like needles.

 

Just before they pulled abreast of the hospital, Kilbane spotted it. A dark shadow floating above the broken outline of the half-submerged complex. Not above the main building, maybe a parking garage. He caught the barest glint of moonlight off the tail rotor which confirmed it. Rising like an English dragon, he could almost hear it beating the air into submission.

 

“Helo,” he shouted out to Katz over the roar of the outboards, “Break off. It’s a fucking trap.”

 

Katz didn’t seem to hear him over the engines. Jones did. She tapped the pilot’s arm and pointed skyward, yelling to be heard.

 

Kilbane dropped down, hoping to get into a sound shadow where he could be understood, and turned up the gain on the handheld, just in time to hear Monique say they were approaching the first checkpoint, which he knew to be the remnants of the southern bridge across the former mouth of the bay.

 

He didn’t acknowledge the message, just waited for her to finish. He then immediately gave his call sign followed by, “One Lima Zulu is hot, hot, hot. Divert. Repeat. One Lima Zulu is hot…”

 

That’s as far as he got before the boat was pinned by a spotlight, low and slanting but brighter than the moonlight. Jones opened fire on it with controlled bursts from her assault nine. Kilbane knew it would take a miracle to hit it never mind disable it. All it might do was spoil their aim by keeping their heads down inside the doors.

 

Before Kilbane could move either to complete his message or join Jones’s suppressing fire, Katz whipped the boat hard to the left and pulled the throttle down, sending him tumbling into the far back corner of the deck, trapped by the low sides and the guardrail. Somehow, he managed to keep ahold of both his gun and the handheld. Which explained how he ended up in a tangled heap.

 

As he sorted out his limbs against the acceleration, he heard Jones continue suppression fire. Somehow, she’d managed to maintain her position. Perhaps she’d heard a warning from Katz that Kilbane had missed. Their ride had gone from smooth to choppy. He could feel more than hear the boat slap and crash onto every wave upon the channel, many created by their wake, as they turned away from the hospital. Each swell they hit seemed to reinforce the next one harder, setting up a resonance pattern.

 

Kilbane stuffed the handheld into his jacket and concentrated on supporting Jones with a burst from his assault nine. A useless weapon at this range with this ammunition as its barrel jounced all over with the motion of the boat. Katz held the throttle fully open, completely abandoning any evasive maneuvers as she ran flat out for the former pass to the Gulf, marked now only by the broken teeth of shadowed high rises extending out of the water. He didn’t know what she hoped for, maybe to get lost in the maze of flooded buildings, or to find an artificial cove or cave or hidey-hole. But boats didn’t outrun helos. Not even go-fast boats. Not at this range.

 

They had been re-pinned by the spotlight after their violent course correction. He aimed in its general direction but couldn’t keep on target with the multidimensional movement of the boat, mostly forward but a good deal of jolting up, down, and side to side.

 

Jones turned her head and yelled something short and sharp at him, presumably, “Reloading,” as she then extracted her clip and deftly but deliberately slammed its replacement home. Kilbane increased his bursts, trying to give her cover, knowing his turn would be next, and soon. He desperately wished for a stable platform so he could stance, brace, sight-in, squeeze off, and hit was he aimed at. None of which was possible in the chaotic motion, all of which just made him mad.

 

Jones was just bringing her weapon back to bear. Kilbane caught sight of her empty clip sliding into the boat well in front of him. When he looked up again, he nearly relinquished all hope.

 

The helo had dipped in altitude until it was nearly on the deck. Its rotors were canted forward as it raced toward them. It was setting up for an attack run perpendicular and directly overhead to reduce its profile and to give firing lanes to the deputies stationed in the open doors on either side. It bore down on them with amazing agility and speed.

 

“Incoming,” was all he had time to yell as his thumb sought the nonexistent switch on his carbine to flip it to full auto. Instead, he had to pull the trigger as rapidly as he could, quickly emptying his diminished magazine. He popped out the clip, letting it drop to the deck as his other hand foraged for its replacement. His fingers had just reached it but had not quite completed their grasp as he extracted it from a pocket. They obeyed but only slowly after gripping the assault nine so long unprotected in the near-freezing wind. Before he knew what had happened, they fumbled and the magazine tumbled to his feet. As he lunged to retrieve it, cursing his ineptitude, the deck in front of him exploded with shards of fiberglass like tiny fragmentation grenades, trailing toward Jones.

 

Katz chose that moment to conduct another violent evasion. For a heart-freezing moment, Kilbane felt the boat rise and twist on its axis, threatening to flip or so his inner ear screamed as they hung in the air. Then time resumed at double speed. He slammed into the unforgiving guardrail. Simultaneously, his left arm went numb and he felt rather than heard a distinctive snap somewhere inside his shoulder or neck.

 

When he reoriented himself again, he could hear as much as feel the whump-whump-whump of the rotors as the helo retreated from its strafing run.

 

As he got his knees back under him and cast about for his missing clip, he saw Jones slumped across the forward deck cover, a line of holes leading up to her but displaced as they trailed away. Katz had reached out a hand to grab her pant leg but could do no more while maintaining control of the speeding boat.

 

Kilbane lurched forward, grasping Jones’s ankle with his good right hand and gently pulling her back toward him. Katz released her grip and concentrated on steering. Kilbane controlled and cushioned Jones’s fall as best he could. When she crashed onto him, his left shoulder erupted with lightning nearly causing him to whiteout from pain. He tried to ignore it as he eased her off of him and again struggled to find his loose clip. Instead, he snatched up the survival rifle from where it had fallen by Katz’s feet.

 

He tried to make his left arm obey and grip the stock so he could steady it. It responded with a grinding sensation from somewhere between his shoulder and neck. But it did as he asked until he had two hands gripping the weapon, his left as feeble as an infant’s. He knew the helo would swing around for another pass to finish what it’d started.

 

When he finally fixed it in the rifle’s sights with tear-filled eyes, he saw it pause, forward and to their right, as if calculating its best vector for a follow-up attack run, this one likely fatal. Kilbane gripped the rifle doggedly, thumbing back the hammer, switching the barrel selector to the .22, knowing he would only get one desperation shot.

 

But it never came. The helo hung in midair indecisively before it finally pivoted and streaked off toward the Gulf, gaining altitude as it zipped away, its spotlight winking out.

 

Kilbane thanked all this grandmother’s saints and every Irish fairy he knew for his inexplicable luck as he collapsed back to the deck, his breathing labored.

 

Katz throttled back the engines as the boat entered the old pass to the Gulf.

 

“What the hell just happened,” Kilbane asked, somewhat foggy as the last of the adrenaline abandoned him for the deep, dull ache that settled in its place.

 

“If I didn’t know better,” Katz answered, slowing the boat again to idle, “I’d say they found a better target.”

 

When Katz began to check Jones, Kilbane waved her off. “Get us to the rendezvous point before they launch a boat.”

 

That the helo could return went unsaid. If it found them again, they would be in a world of hurt.

 

Kilbane dug out the first aid kit Klose had handed him as Katz got them moving again, back at reduced speed. She kept the ride smooth as Kilbane began to evaluate Jones’s injuries after laying her out on deck.

 

Jones only had one visible wound. Bloodstained and pulsing from a hole in the thigh of her fatigues. How it had gotten in the front, he couldn’t quite piece together in his mind. Had she rolled to track the helo overhead? Regardless, he needed to treat it as quickly as he could. Which was a trick with the state of his arm. Cat had trained them all in field first aid. With the risk of shock from blood loss and cold, he didn’t have long.

 

He first retrieved compact medical shears from the trauma kit. He snipped a flap around the hole and pulled it back. Before he could apply a pressure bandage, he needed to know if there was a second wound on the other side, an exit or an entry. First, he stuffed Jones’s pack under her knee so he had access to her leg all around. Then he felt the back of her fatigues for a second hole. The moonlight wasn’t bright enough for a visual evaluation.

 

When he didn’t feel one, he didn’t trust it. So, he reached his hand inside the flap to feel around. As he ran his fingers over the back of her thigh, Jones whispered hoarsely through gritted teeth, “I knew I couldn’t trust you, Scammer. All you ever wanted was to get into my pants. I must be dying if you’re still alive.”

 

“Hush,” he said, still feeling for but not finding another wound on her blood-soaked leg. “No one’s dying if I can help it.”

 

He couldn’t take any longer searching. He’d have to risk it. He extracted his hand and extracted the pressure bandage from the kit. Israeli, infused with clotting powder, self-contained. He centered it on the wound, gave it the initial wrap, hooked the plastic tightening clamp, reversed it, and pulled it to apply pressure, then started wrapping it.

 

“How bad?” Jones asked, her voice quavering as she began to shiver. Shock. Even in the pale moonlight, Kilbane could see her dark skin had gone ashen.

 

“One wound, no exit,” he said, securing the clamps on the end of the bandage around the wrap to hold it all in place.

 

“So, it’s still in there,” she said, falling back.

 

“Or I missed it,” he said. Suddenly it hurt to talk. It hurt to breathe. Likely a cracked or broken rib in addition to his other pain that he now ID’d as a fractured collarbone. “But we’ll get you to my medic. She’ll make you right as rain.”

 

“You need to call the ferry and warn them what’s coming,” she responded groggily.

 

“Right after I see to you,” he replied.

 

Jones didn’t hear. She’d passed out. He checked her pulse and breathing. Both were shallow, weak, and increasingly erratic. Shock was setting in. He rubbed her arms to get some warmth into them. He didn’t dare do the same with her good leg. When her breathing steadied, he struggled out of his jacket and covered her with it as well. The best he could do until he could get her to Cat.

 

He had too many calls to make and too little time. Too much coordination. He had to warn Monique and Klose. He had to reposition Hall. The plan was falling apart. Whatever slim chance of success it had was rapidly diminishing.

 

But he swore to himself that Jones wouldn’t become collateral damage because of his lack of transparency, because of OpSec. Emily would never agree to that. If we lose that fundamental connection to people, he could almost hear her say, the cause is all but lost.

 

Jones shouldn’t even be here. They never should have reconned the primary LZ. But she’d been exactly right. If they hadn’t, the whole mission would have been clamped in the jaws of the sheriff’s trap before it could land. So, he vowed to save her if he could.

 

Kilbane grabbed the handheld and dialed it to Cat’s Medical frequency. He exchanged callsigns. He recognized Cat’s voice on the other end. She should know him by his.

 

“What’s your status,” he asked first.

 

“We’re redeploying,” she replied. “Intel’s orders.”

 

“I need a senior asset at the rendezvous site. We’ve taken casualties.”

 

“We’ll send someone when we can,” Cat said, clearly distracted and confused by his request. “The main force has taken casualties, too.”

 

“I don’t think you heard me, Medical,” he said, annoyed at having to repeat himself. “I need a senior medic at the rendezvous point. Stat. Preferably Medical actual.”

 

A long pause greeted him. Knowing Cat, she was controlling her breathing and counting silently to remain calm. Then, “With all due respect, we are stretched pretty thin. Numerous casualties incoming at the LZ. We expect triage.”

 

He didn’t have time for this. “Medical, this is Recon actual. This is not a request.” He then emphasized each word. “Make. It. Happen.”

 

Another pause, followed by a clipped but resigned, “Understood, Recon. Will do.” Tight but professional. “Need your location.”

 

“Coordinate with Comms for the rendezvous point,” he snapped, as much from frustration as pain. “Confirm we’re on our way. Recon out.”

 

Kilbane checked Jones again. Still as stable as could be hoped. He noted Katz watching him from the corner of her eye, saying nothing. He knew he was likely sacrificing others of Hatch’s people by diverting Cat, maybe even Tran or Klose. But somehow, he owed this woman now.

 

He didn’t have time to dwell on it. He flipped over to Klose’s OpNet frequency, hoping he wasn’t too late. Again, he exchanged callsigns. Monique was still on comms. Funny he still didn’t know her last name.

 

“What’s your status,” he asked.

 

“Just passed the first checkpoint” she replied.” Neutralized it in transit.”

 

Which likely meant Shaq had taken out the sentries with the sniper rifle. But likely not fast enough to keep them from getting a signal out.

 

“Be advised you have airborne hostile inbound,” he informed her. “Approaching from the west-northwest.”

 

Another frustrating silence responded as Monique relayed that information to her lookouts. Kilbane stayed on the handheld. He needed to hear how this played out. Maybe this time the moonlight would be enough.

 

“Target sighted,” Monique finally said. “Preparing to engage.”

 

Kilbane had no idea what that meant. From the air, the ferry would be a sitting duck, as would anyone on deck. Unlike Katz, Klose wouldn’t be able to conduct violent evasions like the one that had cost him a functioning shoulder but might have saved Jones’s life. The ferry was just too big. But he doubted the sheriff’s pilot was accustomed to taking fire from the ground, the chaff he and Jones had thrown up notwithstanding. All he could do is listen and wait.

 

It took him a moment to realize that in defiance of comm protocol Monique had left her mic open. Perhaps she, too, knew that they were a vulnerable target so wanted him to hear what transpired so he could confirm their fate. Risky but understandable.

 

Kilbane could almost picture the attack run. Head on, low profile, spotlight blazing, just like they’d come at their boat not long ago, setting up the deputies in the doors to rain down fire. Or they could stand off as snipers and blind the ferry, harassing the bridge, picking off anyone exposed on deck. No need for close-in passes like the go-fast boat had suffered, risking counterfire from Hatch’s people. Just wait for reinforcements to arrive.

 

Now he heard the distinctive crack of a rifle across the handheld, making him wonder if Monique was still on the ferry’s bridge. “That got the spotlight,” someone distant called out.

 

Kilbane heard a second crack and then a quick third. He thought he could hear bullets slamming into the deck as if the chopper had unwisely closed for a strafing run. He could almost hear the thumping of the rotors. But all that could have been his imagination.

 

“Holy shit,” Monique cried out, right on top of the mic. Kilbane could hear shouting erupt in the background. “He hit it! He fucking hit it!” Then the mic cut out leaving only dead air in his ear.

 

“Status, Ops,” Kilbane called into the handheld. His heart hammered. Everything hung on Monique’s reply.

 

She came back on a second later, excited but controlled. “Sniper engaged the target. The first round took out the spotlight. Then he put one through the cockpit which caused it to evade. A final shot through the engine cowling. Target broke off, last seen headed north, trailing smoke, losing altitude. Looks like he might be in for a hard landing.”

 

Kilbane could only stare at the handheld in disbelief. They’d taken down the sheriff’s helo with a sniper. Just a sniper. This was the first thing that had gone right all night.

 

“Shaq is one evil shot with a rifle,” Jones half-whispered from beside him, having returned to consciousness before laying back again. “Just ask ISIS.”

 

They might still have a way to make this work. But Kilbane needed to make sure that happened. The plan was still on track by however thin a margin. What it needed was even the slenderest thread to hang hope on if it was still to succeed. What it needed was more time.

 

Kilbane flipped over to Hall’s frequency, once again going through the callsign protocol.

 

When he heard Hall’s voice, he asked for status, despite having a good idea of what it was from his previous exchanges. The picture in his mind was getting clearer, and increasingly grim.

 

“Attempting to regroup forces at the secondary LZ,” Hall responded. “The advanced timetable and the sheriff’s filtration process are playing havoc with command and control.”

 

Through his professional, terse demeanor, Kilbane could hear Hall’s frustration. He was better at slowly, steadily gathering information and cautiously proceeding step by step than with the dynamic adaption required of a field commander. But his status gave Kilbane an idea. Maybe they could turn the sheriff’s situation into a weakness. His forces were diffused and spread out. Maybe they could keep them that way as they pursued their mass arrests.

 

“How effective are you, Intel? No-shit assessment,” Kilbane asked. His arm and ribs ached fiercely. Shock and adrenaline were wearing off.

 

Hall didn’t respond immediately. “Half,” he finally answered. “May three quarters, depending on the sweeps.”

 

Kilbane sucked in a breath. That just might be enough. “Armed?” he asked.

 

“Improvisational,” came back the answer. “We were hoping for an upgrade at the LZ. We weren’t supposed to be a fighting force.”

 

“Understood,” Kilbane said. “I need you to redeploy as follows. One-quarter of your effectives to proceed to the secondary LZ and link up with Ops as reinforcements and guides. One-quarter to the objective as recon. Ops will need a solid assessment on arrival. Assignment of those two groups by proximity. We need them in place fast. All remaining personnel to perform harassment and interdiction focused on the primary LZ and the sweeps. Ambush tactics only. This is a delaying action, I repeat, a delaying action, not a full engagement. Do your best to trade space for time. Do I need to repeat?”

 

He could almost hear Hall smiling as he replied. “Copy. Confirming. One-quarter to secondary LZ, one-quarter to objective, one-half to harassment and interdiction. That my people can do. We’ll keep those boys in green from coming home too soon.”

 

Kilbane started to inform him about his requisitioning of Medical. But just then Katz fired the outboards back to full throttle, making comms near impossible unless he found his sound shadow again. He barely signed off, hoping Hall had nothing critical to add.

 

“What’s up,” he called over to her, eyeing Jones who winced at every impact on the waves.

 

“We’re taking on water,” Katz replied loud enough to be heard. “I noticed while you were talking that we’d become sluggish. When I tried the bilge pump, it wouldn’t fire. So, we either get there fast or we don’t get there at all.”

 

“What happened,” Kilbane asked, his mouth next to her ear now. He shot a glance at Jones, who appeared out again. He’d have to check her soon, though there was little more he could do. All the bouncing around wouldn’t do her any good but none of them were prepared for a mile swim through icy waters if their ride floundered. He had to trust Katz’s judgment.

 

“Don’t know,” she spoke into his ear in return. “Either that strafing run holed us. Or this boat had stress fractures in the fiberglass from being ridden hard and put away wet before she was ours. They would have opened up when we went full throttle over that chop. Either way, I measure the hull’s life expectancy in hours, not days.”

 

“Do what you have to get us there,” he responded when she turned her ear back toward him. “Put in early if we can’t make it to the bluffs. Just let me know so I can reposition Morten.”

 

This time Katz just nodded as she concentrated on navigating the dark, dangerous coastal waters at speed before she turned shoreward.

 

With nothing else to do, Kilbane settled in beside Jones, shifting her until her head rested in the crook of his shoulder, stabilizing her with his good arm so she didn’t slide around. God, his left arm hurt now that the initial numbness had faded. His hand felt clammy and slick like he was sweating despite the cold. When he looked at it, he caught the reflected flash of moonlight off something as it dripped from a fingertip just beyond where his thumb was hooked in his belt.

 

Well, that couldn't be good. Best case it was spray that had accumulated as they flew across the water, increasingly sluggish and low, the outboards sounding like they were bogging down like a vacuum digging into shag carpet or an electric chainsaw into oak. Worst case it was something much worse. But there was nothing he or Katz or especially Jones could do about it until they were ashore.

 

So, he leaned back against the forward bulkhead to ride it out, cushioning Jones with his body and his good arm. And while he waited, his eyes closed against his will and accidentally drifted into blackness.

 

 

9

 

Kilbane awoke hard, disoriented and displaced in time and space. It took a moment to clear his head. The roar of the outboards had pulled back to a low burble. The slap and sting of crashing across choppy waters had faded to a gentle rock.

 

As he struggled from leaning to sitting, he untangled from Jones, then checked her. Still out but her breathing was even. That was about as good as it got.

 

Then he heard a dog bark nearby, just once, and everything snapped back into place. His groggy fog lifted. Shackleton. Which meant Morten. Across the water in front of them, he glimpsed the arch of the causeway that had once connected the bluffs to the beach rising from the water. They’d made it to the rendezvous.

 

Awkwardly, he pushed himself to his feet one-handed, his left thumb still hooked in his belt to stabilize his arm. Katz was just easing the boat up beside an enclosed gazebo that one of the McMansions halfway up the former, steep bluff had platformed and terraced flat in their backyard. It now served as a makeshift landing.

 

As he set his feet wide against his unsteadiness, Kilbane spotted Morten waiting, guiding Katz in with low words and hand signals.

 

“Toss him the forward line, if you’re able,” Katz instructed Kilbane when she noticed him.

 

He reached for the rope and slung it over. Morten hooked it out of the air and tied it off to one of the low posts that circled the paver deck, maybe once for ambient lighting. He dragged the boat in as Katz killed the engines. She stepped around Jones and the gear still strewn across the bottom of the boat from the firefight and their flight. She fished out the rear line and passed it to Morten who secured it quickly to a second post, ensuring the boat was snug to their improvised pier.

 

“We need to get you and the gear offloaded first,” Katz said. “It’ll take two of us to manhandle Jones. The trick will be not swamping as we do.”

 

Kilbane now noticed how low they sat in the water. Katz hadn’t been kidding about taking on water. Darby would be disappointed not to be able to recoup their trade on the boat. Klose would be pissed thinking she’d been sold a bill of goods.

 

As much as he hated to, he knew he had to wake Jones up if he could. More than unfortunate as she was blissfully oblivious to her pain. But without a stretcher, there was about no way they could get her ashore without her cooperation. They didn’t have time to scrounge up the materials to improvise one. Cat would be aghast but there was nothing to be done.

 

“You and Morten get the gear off,” he said. “I’ll see if I can get her ready.”

 

Katz gave him an appraising look but then nodded. She started passing gear to Morten after double-checking the knots of their lines.

 

Kilbane struggled back down beside Jones. Every time he moved, his collarbone seemed to shift and grind with lightning strokes of pain. By contrast, Jones looked quite peaceful, her face slack, softly breathing. No sign of trauma from her wound in her expression, which he knew was an illusion he was about to dispel.

 

He reached out and gently stroked her forehead near her hairline. He knew she’d awakened by the way her brow knotted before her eyes fluttered open.

 

“Oh, sweet Jesus, I must be in hell waking up next to you,” she rasped.

 

Kilbane smiled wanly as he withdrew his hand. “Not yet. But I’m afraid I need your help.”

 

“I knew you were incompetent the moment I met you,” she said. “Not sure I’m in fighting condition, but just tell me who you need killed.”

 

“Probably me by the time we’re done,” he said with half a laugh.

 

“You’re on,” she replied. “Especially if you ever touch my face like that again.” She half-laughed, too, before her wound caught up with her in a grimace. She shifted her position slightly. Then her face contorted and her eyes drifted shut as she concentrated on mastering her pain.

 

It took the four of them and a lot of patience to get Jones onto dry land. First, they sat her up and waited a moment for her pain to subside. Then Katz and Morten linked their arms under her to form a seat, while she wrapped an arm around each of their necks. The hardest part was getting Morten and Katz to their feet without dropping Jones or tipping the boat, which by then was in grave danger of swamping from the slightest motion. Kilbane hooked his good hand onto Jones’s belt to help them lift her. Which shot pain deep into his left shoulder. He then took up position to support and guide her wounded leg. After another brief struggle to navigate the step up onto the gunwale and again onto the platform, then through the screened doorway into the semi-enclosed gazebo, they laid her out on a bench. By then, Jones was panting through clenched teeth. She sighed deeply once they set her down and covered her with a wool blanket Morten had brought. Kilbane retrieved his jacket, which he draped over his shoulder for the moment. He wasn’t up for the struggle of putting it back on, despite the intruding cold.

 

He checked Jones again. Breathing shallow but stable, heartbeat fast and fluttery but slowly settling. There was nothing more they could do.

 

“She’s out again,” Kilbane said. “Let’s hope Sanchez gets here soon.”

 

“You two should get moving,” Morten said. “I can stay with her until Cat arrives.”

 

Kilbane shook his head. “Sorry Luke, change of plans. Unless you brought something electric, there’s no way I can make the trip. I’d just slow Katz down if I tried. So, you get to pull field duty.”

 

“But...” Morten started.

 

“No argument,” Kilbane said, now short of breath. “It’s either that or she goes alone. It’s too late not to get involved. We’re all in it now, good or bad. Next year in Olympia, that’s what we promised Emily. This is how we make good on that.” Kilbane knew he was pushing the guilt hard. He had no real choice.

 

Morten closed his mouth and nodded bitterly, clearly still reluctant. Then he whispered, “next year” in response.

 

Before Morten could protest further, Kilbane whistled for Shackleton. The dog came bounding around the corner from the front of the house. He greeted Kilbane like a long-lost packmate he never thought he’d see again. He sniffed Kilbane’s left hand and whined once. Kilbane scrubbed his head with his right.

 

“Told you I’d be back for you,” he said. Shackleton just eyed him as enigmatically as only a dog could, reserving judgment.

 

Turning back to Morten, Kilbane asked, “What’d we get for transport?”

 

“My neighbor’s tandem bike.” Morten smiled sheepishly, adding, “It was all I could come up with on short notice.”

 

“It’ll do,” Kilbane said with a half-laugh that transformed into a cough that made his ribs ache. “You should get moving. It won’t be long before someone calls Lewis to float those birds now that the sheriff lost his. I need Katz to redirect them when they do.”

 

“Someone should take a look at that arm,” Katz said.

 

Kilbane waved her off. “Sanchez is on her way. She can mother me when she’s done with Jones. If she still talking to me at all.”

 

“I confirmed the rendezvous site with her,” Morten interjected. “All that’s been in the clear. If anyone was listening, they could be on their way soon.”

 

“All the more reason for you to head out now.” Kilbane waved his good hand at them. “Take the assault nines in case you run into trouble. Leave me Katz’s survival rifle.”

 

“I’m going to want that back,” she said. He couldn’t tell if she was joking.

 

“No worries,” he replied. “I’ll keep it safe. Now go.”

 

It took another minute before they did. Katz insisted on getting Kilbane into his jacket, then strapped his left arm against his side with her belt. When she spotted the blood on his hand, he simply said, “Jones.”

 

She eyed him but let it go.

 

By then Morten had returned with the tandem. Recumbent, side by side. A platform beneath and slightly behind the seats. Kilbane could picture Shackleton sitting there or in one of the mesh seats, happy for the adventure like when Emily would take him driving.

 

Morten loaded the gear from the boat as Katz finished up by fashioning a sling.

 

“That handheld is line of sight,” Morten reminded Kilbane once they mounted up. “On the flat, it’s no real problem. Down here on the backside of the bluffs, reception will be spotty at best.”

 

“We’ll hold the fort until the cavalry arrives,” Kilbane said, patting Shackleton, then laying a hand on the survival rifle by his side. Morten reached into his jacket and handed him back his pistol from when he’d dropped off Shackleton.

 

“You might need this more than me,” he said. “Don’t really like the things, to be honest.”

 

Kilbane accepted it, tucking it away, then waved them on.

 

When they rounded the corner of the McMansion, they were making good time, after a brief dispute over who was steering, which Katz appeared to have won. Kilbane did a quick calculation in his head. If they pushed, they might get to the new Naval Air Station in twenty minutes. He could only hope that wasn’t too late.

 

He leaned back against the end of the bench where Jones lay, still out. Shackleton curled up beside him. His head snapped up, ears alert, every time Kilbane moved. But Kilbane was warm. At least warmer than he’d been all night.

 

Everything had been set in motion. All the plans, all the contingencies, all the adjustments. All he could do now was wait. If Cat arrived soon, he might be able to get to higher ground and at least hear how it all turned out. But couldn’t abandon Jones even if there was very little that he could do for her other than monitor her. He owed her this, if nothing else because she’d seen through him from the beginning, just like Emily when they’d first met. But for her, that had been easier.

 

He and Emily had first run across each other at a wargaming club in college. She was a new transfer student. He was the club president who’d breathed it back to life. His nickname was El Kapitan, voted most likely to lead a third-world coup. He had cosplayed for the yearbook picture always taken at the first meeting of the year. Fatigues, mercenary insignia, field cap, beard, cigar. Like an aspiring Celtic Che Guevara, though he cleaned up more like Michael Collins. She had been corralled by the degenerates who regularly heckled him from the back of the room.

 

When he first saw her, he said to himself, I’m going to date that woman. She didn’t spare him a second glance. But she did fall for the first guy she spotted in a suit, who ended up being elected club Treasurer just for the way he dressed. Three boyfriends and just over a year later, Kilbane had finally gotten his shot. It had taken that long to figure out the degenerates in the club were withholding intel on exactly when she’d broken up with each previous beau. So, he cultivated his own network outside their ranks, including Morten, Katz and Jen.

 

Once Emily had figured out that he was more than a just dress-up character, they’d never looked back. Even though the degenerates were by then dispersed, most had attended their wedding some years later. He wondered where they were now, and whose side they were on. Some would not be on his.

 

But Jones still was. She’d known from the beginning he was asking more than he was saying. Despite that, she’d followed through to keep her people safe. And look at where it had gotten her. Had gotten them.

 

Kilbane tried not to worry about the blood he could feel pooling in his sleeve, knowing it was his but not knowing from where or from what wound or injury.

 

God, he hurt now. The cold just made it worse, even if he was no longer directly in the elements. Rather than numbing the pain, it slowly settled a deep ache over him. A physical ache just like he’d felt when Morten had relayed the news about Emily. First missing, just before the militia had been rolled up, which he’d allowed to filter out to his team, then later found, which he hadn’t.

 

Morten knew because he’d set up the comms when the confirmation had come of what he’d known all along. But if there was one thing Morten knew, it was how to keep a secret. As a defense contractor and crypto analyst, he’d made a career of it. He used to joke that he’d learned one phrase in Russian from his time stationed overseas. “Don’t shoot, I know secrets.” The kind of a joke that only people in the military understood. Even if the man could never quite provide more comfort than unspoken friendship, Kilbane always knew he could trust Morten with his life.

 

As the rest of his team had trusted their lives to him. It had gone unsaid that any of them could be killed tonight or any night of their struggle. But none of them were likely to survive at this point if they failed. If they lost. Even if they won, it was only a matter of how long the victory lasted. The governor could not tolerate an island enclave of Olympia on his southern flank. Emily had known that, better than Kilbane. That was why she always favored migration over insurgency. She thought he had too much of his grandmother’s romanticized Irish idealism in him. Her Scandinavian roots were more practical, more pragmatic. Her people had come a long way since Lindisfarne, as he liked to remind her.

 

He smiled at just that kind of conversation they’d have at their kitchen table, Sunday breakfast, or after wine with dinner on any given night. Solving the world’s problems, her father always said. Which Kilbane found condescending and offensive. Because after a pandemic, an insurrection, and a natural disaster of Biblical proportions, if they didn’t, who would? The intent was never just to talk. It was to understand, to plan, to prepare, to act if necessary. Only in this country did the majority of people see their choices as something short of existential. And those who did generally leaned toward authoritarianism and autocracy, exploiting the deep-rooted desire for individual freedom with Orwellian overtures intended to consolidate power through misinformation, propaganda, and an appeal to tyranny-of-the-majority populism that few had the sophistication or desire to understand.

 

Which had led them here.

 

Maybe Emily’s father had been right. Surround yourself with like-minded people and lead by example. Change, lasting, meaningful change, came slowly, incrementally, and only as people were ready. You can only lead where others are willing to follow, he’d always said. Like Katz, he believed that people talk but rarely mean what they say.

 

Which was why Kilbane had to push hard, sometimes in unexpected directions, sometimes without sharing the whole truth, only part of which came down to OpSec and need-to-know. If he had fully disclosed everything from the beginning, no one would have followed. Especially once it was clear that violence would be necessary, that the time for peaceful protests had passed. Hatch had once reminded him that without the threat of Malcolm X, there would have been no MLK. There was a lot of truth in that statement. Without the IRA there would have been no Good Friday Agreement, no EU membership, no free Republic of Ireland.

 

But Kilbane’s father-in-law, like Morten, was a man for whom violence was never a tool allowed in his box. Would that all men were the same. But in Kilbane’s experience, they weren’t. Ukraine had etched that reality into him indelibly.

 

They’d all made their choices and now they had to live with them, as his father-in-law was also fond of saying.

 

Kilbane suddenly wondered if anyone had told him about Emily. Had told him she was scouting a path for like-minded individuals to find their way to him. Had told him she’d died defending the old Milton Bradley factory so others in her community could escape. Another duty that would fall to him if the old man had survived.

 

If.

 

Suddenly, Kilbane felt very tired. As the weight of the past few days, or months, or years, settled over him like a shroud now that there was nothing more he could do but wait.

 

He leaned back against the bench, listening to Jones’s slow, steady breathing behind him, wondering what Emily would think of him now, knowing Jones being here in this condition was his fault. As he closed his eyes if only for a moment, Shackleton rested his head on Kilbane’s leg and swallowed contentedly.

 

 

10

 

Kilbane awoke to someone gently brushing his hair back from his eyes, softly calling his name. Emily? Was it Saturday? Had he drifted off on a lazy, languid afternoon?

 

After several seconds of disorientation, reality crashed back over him like a wave breaking on the shore. Made all the worse by the shushing susurration suddenly in his ears.

 

Shackleton no longer pressed against him. His eyes snapped open as his right hand reached for the rifle he’d left lying by his side.

 

“Darby?” he questioned as his eyes focused the moment his hand made contact with cold metal. “What…”

 

“Shh,” she admonished in a whisper. “Someone might be listening.”

 

Now the situation fully enveloped him, like the waning moonlight slanting from the west. Cheryl Darby leaning on a rifle beside him only meant one thing. “Cat?” he mimicked her whisper.

 

“Went straight to checking on the patient,” Darby replied softly. “We rigged up a stretcher and transferred her inside. If she makes it, it’s because you called in time. But only just. Cat’s pissed you know.”

 

“Yeah,” he admitted guiltily, but only somewhat. “I know.”

 

“I doubt you do,” Darby said. “Becky was wounded at the landing site. Friendly fire. One of Hall’s people got edgy. Cat will never forgive you if she doesn’t recover.”

 

“And you?” he asked, now struggling to sit up one-handed. Where was Shackleton? “How’d you end up here?”

 

“Cat needed an escort.” Darby shrugged, nodding to her bolt-action rifle. “I’m not handy enough to help Hall’s people but good enough to watch Cat’s back. And I kind of figured you might need a friendly face.”

 

Kilbane blinked away the last of his disorientation. The battle? Klose? Katz? He had too many questions that he knew Darby couldn’t answer as she hooked a strand of loose hair behind an ear.

 

He looked around and saw lights flashing, beams probing farther south, higher on the bluffs. They were looking. Hunting.

 

Darby followed his gaze with hers through the screens, amazingly intact. “They’re doing a sweep, looking for us. We dodged them all the way here. We tried calling once to warn you but that just brought them closer. So, we had to rely on Morten’s directions.”

 

Crap. That meant Hall had done his job. Maybe too well. The sheriff was trying to turn the tables back.

 

“I’ve got her stable,” Cat Sanchez said, suddenly appearing outside the screen door. “I can’t do much more. She’s got a bullet near the bone which I can’t start fishing for out here. I popped her with morphine and antibiotics. The best I can do without facilities and help.”

 

“Will she recover?” Kilbane asked.

 

Sanchez shrugged as she entered the gazebo. “Who knows. But unlikely if we don’t get her care. Now let me look at you.”

 

He waved her off with his good hand, now fully awake again. “Katz already took a look and said I’ll be fine. Which won’t matter if we don’t divert those lights.”

 

He started to push up to standing again, trying not to wince from the pain. “I have to get to higher ground,” he said.

 

“You’re in no condition,” Sanchez replied, resting a hand on his shoulder, gently restraining him.

 

He tried to shrug it off and lost his balance. He sat back down quickly if not quite gracefully.

 

“We’ve been talking on clear comms,” he said looking up at them, conserving his energy for a second try. “If I don’t lead them off, the sheriff will track us down eventually. And I need to know what’s happening.”

 

Now gunfire echoed from the direction of the lights, single or double shots bouncing off the high rises that emerged across the water like a tall, offshore reef.

 

“This isn’t a sweep,” Kilbane gestured toward the lights, “it’s a full filtration. We saw this in Ukraine. They’re shooting any of our people they find.”

 

The two women looked at each other, knowing there was no way to move Jones in time, no way Sanchez could leave her for more than a few minutes unattended.

 

Kilbane extended a hand to Darby who helped lever him to his feet. While he’d been out, his feet had gone numb within his boots. He doggedly stamped feeling back into them through the pins and needles radiating down his ankles, and jolts of lightning down his arm.

 

“I can draw them off with Kharkiv tactics,” Kilbane said, now looking at Darby. “But I’m going to need your help.”

 

He sketched out his plan quickly. He and Darby would go separate ways. Sanchez and Jones would hide here.

 

It would take five minutes to establish comms. Darby would pose as Medical still on the move. Kilbane would establish comms with Hall and Klose. Once he had, Darby would double back and disappear, leaving only Kilbane as the bait. He would linger long enough to draw them off but not too far north. Then he, too, would go silent. By then, he hoped the battle would be won or lost. If won, Hall or Klose would send a detachment. Lost and it likely wouldn’t matter.

 

It all hinged on the sheriff’s people buying that Kilbane was recon gone wrong and was setting a command post for a second front on the high ground to coordinate across the entire island. He would establish comms with ghost units in one-sided conversation making it seem like they were low-power transmitters just out of range. Unlikely to work on a unit with a real S-2 but might just on the paramilitaries they were up against. At least once, and at least for a short time.

 

But a little time was all he might need.

 

Kilbane gave Katz's survival rifle to Sanchez who was quite familiar with how to use it from her rural upbringing even if she didn’t really want it. Darby kept her bolt action hunting rifle. Leaving Kilbane with the pistol he’d received from Morten, which was about all he could handle now. Even together, they couldn’t fend off a patrol. Separately, they could barely defend themselves.

 

Kilbane thought about leaving Shackleton with Sanchez as an auxiliary guard. In the end, he recognized he was in no real shape to go it alone, so opted to keep the dog with him to supplement his flagging attention. He only had so much energy and knew he would have to preserve what he had by focusing. Shackleton would be able to keep a sharper eye and ear and nose out than Kilbane could afford to himself. On a more selfish level, he wasn’t sure he could leave the last piece he had of Emily behind again.

 

Kilbane gave instructions to Darby on what to expect and how to move. She was excited by the possibility of participating in a field op, oblivious to the danger. He reminded her several times to abort and circle back to Sanchez if the sweep came too close. He could make the plan work with even a single transmission from her, though more would be ideal. But the goal was to draw off the patrols to keep Sanchez and Jones and hopefully Darby safe for the remainder of the night. Beyond that was out of his hands.

 

He and Darby set off in different directions, him north and slightly east, climbing the remaining bluff, her east and slightly south to circle back on the sweep. He doubted the sheriff could spare enough men to truly control the terrain they passed through. Still, Darby’s was the more dangerous mission, initially anyway. He gave her a codeword which meant to break off immediately if she heard it. Or she could use it to tell him she was doing just that.

 

To her, this was an elaborate game of flashlight tag they’d all played in their separate neighborhoods growing up. But he understood from experience that a more deadly set of rules applied. There were grave differences in the meaning of caught and safe. He tried to reinforce that without scaring her off. He needed her. But if anyone truly understood the threat level in a combat zone, no one would set out. You saw things, you experienced things that you couldn’t talk about with others who’d never seen them, things you were unlikely to forget. Like the encounter on the boat that came back to him unbidden in strobe-light freeze-frame flashes that he was still piecing together when his attention drifted. He couldn’t erase Jones’s grim determination in laying down fire as it transformed into agony from one snapshot to the next after he’d fumbled with his gun. Katz’s spontaneous maneuvers had likely saved her life, while he had been impotent and injured.

 

He tried to set that aside and focus on the climb up the bluffs. Thankfully, their name belied that they weren’t vertical like on the rivers of the Midwest or near Apalachicola, but rather a steep incline rarely seen in Florida, towering sixty feet about the mean waterline of the intercoastal before the meteors fell. But not so steep that a clever developer couldn’t build houses at the top and down the slope. Truly more of an old, eroded dune line combined with an underlying limestone ridge.

 

Just after he’d reached the crest, his mission slipped sideways.

 

He’d just finished climbing the contour lines and was entering a canyon of midrise buildings lining the boulevard leading to the submerged causeway to the beach when the signal came. Instead of waiting for Kilbane to establish comms, Darby initiated them with the wave-off signal. Either she’d panicked or the sheriff’s people were closer than he’d thought.

 

All he could do now was acknowledge her message and keep moving. If he wasn’t careful, he would lose all comms. Line of sight was line of sight. A hard limit on his capabilities. He was lucky to have received Darby’s signal at all. There was no way to get clear in time to save her, no way to establish the comms he needed as a distraction, not in this maze of concrete.

 

No way but one. Keep climbing.

 

He needed to gain elevation quickly if he was going to draw the sheriff’s people in. He needed to present a more tempting target. And he needed to know how the operation was progressing.

 

So, he headed for a mid-rise condo across the four-lane boulevard, its landscaping first overgrown and now dying. There was nothing taller in sight. At a corner of the building, he found a set of emergency stairs behind a steel door, which had long ago been pried open. After Shackleton confirmed there were no fresh scents, they headed up.

 

At each landing, Kilbane had to pause to catch his breath. His ribs and collarbone smoldered now. If he pushed too hard, they’d catch fire. His feet felt uncertain on the stairs with his toes alternating between numbness and stabs of pain. Shackleton watched him uncertainly each time he leaned heavily against a wall to rest, not daring to sit for fear he’d never get back to his feet.

 

At the open latticework of each landing, he sent out his callsign over the OpNet frequency, requesting a contact.

 

“Operations, this is Recon,” he broadcast through the handheld, its antenna as close to the open concrete lattice blocks as he could get it. “Please acknowledge.”

 

He was on the third landing before he heard a response, broken and staticky.

 

“Unknown contact, please repeat,” he heard emerge from the electronic haze. “Receiving you three by two. Your signal is weak and distorted.”

 

Kilbane levered himself away from the cinderblock wall he was leaning against and resumed his slow, grueling climb. He struggled onto the next landing. The stairs shouldn’t be taking this much out of him. He knew he had to keep going until he made the roof. If he stopped to rest again, he might never restart. He could only hope his previous attempt at contact hadn’t gone unheard by the nearby sweep.

 

He continued to broadcast the contact protocol at each landing, even if now he barely paused. Each time, he identified himself as Recon, hoping that it would attract someone’s attention. No response came.

 

He checked the charge on the handheld. Just under twenty percent. Which meant he had a limited number and duration of transmissions before they wouldn’t be able to hear him at all. He might be able to hear other signals for a while depending. He needed to think about exactly what he needed to say. The problem was that increasingly he felt as though he was thinking through molasses.

 

Shackleton alternated between racing up the stairs to scout ahead and trotting back to check on his progress, almost as a kind of canine encouragement by example. You can do this, David. Get up there and you can rest.

 

Kilbane finally stumbled to the top of the stairs that ended in a steel door which fortunately had been forced open just like the ones on ground level and at each of the floors below. By the time he emerged into the clear, cold, sparkling night, he was in a near dreamlike fugue. As he collapsed onto the tar-bound gravel of the roof against the pillbox-like structure of the access, Shackleton began sniffing worriedly at his good hand, trying to nuzzle under it despite his still gripping the handheld, looking for comfort.

 

Kilbane set the handheld down a moment to pet and reassure his friend. Still uncertain, Shackleton lay down beside him and rested his head on Kilbane’s legs. Only his eyes and ears betrayed his alertness.

 

After a moment to catch his breath, Kilbane’s brain fog cleared and he could focus again. He noticed his left fingers felt increasingly damp and sticky. He tried to ignore the implications and concentrate on the mission.

 

From where he sat, Kilbane could see down the coast, the contours of the shoreline revealed in the slanting moonlight. To the south, the bluffs occupied a narrow spit of land, bracketed by the old intercoastal to the west and the mouth of a creek, now a wide inlet, to the east. The meandering stream that originated in the park behind his house. Maybe a mile across to where it now joined the rest of the island, several blocks east of where he was perched. Tapering down in a rough triangle to a point maybe a mile and a half away.

 

From his vantage, Kilbane could see the whole of that small peninsula. He watched a dozen lights playing back and forth in an east-west line, several blocks south of him. He’d only avoided them because he’d moved near directly north and they’d swung in from the east. Which meant Darby had run right into them. Farther south, he spotted more lights creeping up the coast. The lights they’d seen from the landing. Which meant they crossed to the spit from the main island, hoping to cut off all escape as they pressed toward each other.

 

Which also meant Jones, Sanchez and now Darby were squarely in the jaws of a vice that was slowly closing with no way out. He was clear, if barely, as were Morten and Katz by now, mostly because the sheriff’s forces were late on the scene as usual. They might capture the other three but they were merely a consolation prize, although they didn’t know that. Assuming they didn’t know about Katz. If they did, they’d be chasing her. Kilbane was the prize they wanted. To save the others and buy more time for Katz, and maybe relieve some pressure on the fighting to the south, all he had to do was get their attention. To do that, he had to let them know who he was.

 

The first part was easy. He checked the handheld beside him and then withdrew his pistol. Shackleton raised his head at being disturbed, wondering what was going on. Kilbane wished he hadn’t been selfish now and had left him with Sanchez. The thing about dogs was they never stopped defending you. They never gave up and never surrendered. No quarter was ever asked or given.

 

The other thing about dogs was that they had keen hearing. Firing a pistol near their heads was more than unkind.

 

“Shackleton.” Kilbane used his command voice. The dog’s ears perked up, fully alert again. “Scout.”

 

Shackleton looked at him intently for a moment then surged to his feet. He trotted nose down to explore the confines of the roof to see if there were any interesting sights, scents, or sounds Kilbane might want to know about.

 

Once the dog was a sufficient distance away, Kilbane aimed his pistol at the closest set of lights and then raised it slightly. It would take inordinate luck to hit anything at this range or even come close. If he did, he would take it, but that wasn’t the point. Aiming was just a pro forma exercise.

 

He squeezed off the first shot. The report from the pistol echoed through the ravine of buildings below. Shackleton’s head snapped in his direction but he didn’t return.

 

Kilbane counted to three then squeezed off another shot at the lights that now began to swing away from their sweep, searching. The delay was calculated to allow the sheriff’s men to home in on his position. Most people could narrow an unexpected first shot to somewhere between a sixty- and ninety-degree arc. A second refined it to ten to twenty.

 

He counted three again and sent a final round in their direction. With any luck someone might have seen the muzzle flash and now know exactly where he was. Anyone listening, friend or foe, would have just heard a standard distress signal, just like the one he, Hatch, and Shaq had heard Monique send up at the tower two nights ago. One that would carry for miles.

 

Now that the sheriff’s people knew where he was, it was time to introduce himself again. Kilbane set aside the pistol and picked up the handheld. Convinced that he was done barking with the firearm, Shackleton gave up his search and rejoined him.

 

“Operations, this is Recon, over,” he said, after changing frequencies back to the Medical channel. If Darby’s signal had been intercepted, this would be the frequency the sheriff would be listening on. He repeated the protocol until he made contact.

 

“Unknown Recon, this is Medical,” Kilbane heard one of Sanchez’s assistants respond. One of the kids she would call him. His signal was loud and clear, Five by five. “Clear this channel and use the proper frequency.”

 

At least the kid remembered some of his comms training, even if he should never have confirmed contact.

 

“Negative, Medical. Equipment malfunction. Patch my request through to Operations for contact on this frequency.”

 

He received silence in response. Long enough that he thought his Medical contact had rediscovered his radio discipline. Or someone with him had reminded him. Just as Kilbane was about to reinitiate the protocol, Klose’s voice came online.

 

“Unknow Recon contact, this is Tactical. Clear this frequency.” Klose sounded tightly controlled but pissed. Kilbane expected she was annoyed and in pain if injured. Hopefully not too much pain to miss what was coming, or to recognize his voice.

 

“Negative, Tactical. This is Recon. We have conducted a successful landing. Establishing a command post and drawing additional forces to my location.” That should both get the sheriff’s attention and keep them honest before they rushed the building.

 

“Please repeat, unknown Recon,” Klose said. “Your signal is garbled.”

 

“Tactical, Recon. Requesting comm check,” he said, trying to ensure this wasn’t a one-sided conversation.

 

“Receiving you four by four, unknown Recon,” Klose replied. Meaning she could hear the words but didn’t understand their meaning. She likely recognized his voice but didn’t trust it. Good girl.

 

So, he violated protocol and sent a message only she and a handful of others on his team might understand. A risk depending on who was listening but one he had to take. Either way, he probably wasn’t getting off this roof.

 

“Tactical, this is Recon Actual. Have successfully gathered Shackleton’s forces to my location. Proceeding to the next phase of the joint operation.”

 

Once again, he was greeted with silence. He could almost hear Klose swearing from confusion at what he was trying to say. She was more of a guard dog than a stealthy fox. Subtly was not her strong suit.

 

After a moment, a new voice came on the line. “Recon Actual, this is Ops. Message received. How can we assist?”

 

Hall. His Intel chief would get it and know how to play along. Quite an audience he’d gathered. He wondered if they were all together. Maybe Klose wasn’t badly injured after all. But if so, why was Hall still Ops?

 

He didn’t have time to sort that out.

 

“Shackleton is requesting a sitrep before we proceed to the objective.” The dog’s ears twitched at the continued mention of his name.

 

Hall paused momentarily. Kilbane almost could see him thinking furiously, caught between revealing information in the clear and getting tripped up by inventing it in a disinformation campaign, uncertain which Kilbane might be looking for. When he came back on, Kilbane could hear he’d settled on an elegant solution, as only a veteran Machiavelli player could. “Tactical will comply with your sitrep request in real-time.”

 

Meaning they were together and he had more than one handheld, which was in keeping with his character and position. Knowing Klose, even wounded she would find a way to keep up. If she was injured, she could be spared where Hall was likely still coordinating his irregulars. Monique or Shaq would have taken over their own operations. Which still didn’t clarify the command structure. But that was unimportant.

 

Once Hall had interpreted what he thought Kilbane wanted, Klose knew what to do. She came back on the line and started relaying the direct broadcasts from the other channels. This way they weren’t revealing new information that anyone monitoring couldn’t pick up for themselves. Kilbane assumed they’d reassigned Medical to an alternate frequency over one of the other nets.

 

As he watched below, the lights that had been winking in and out between the houses moments ago went dark. The sheriff’s forces were regrouping to converge on his position unobserved. This might just work.

 

Kilbane checked the charge of his handheld again. Down to about ten percent. He’d be able to listen for a while longer but he didn’t have many transmits left. That amplifier chewed power and after three years stored in an unregulated environment, the battery was likely dicey at best.

 

But he’d done what he needed to do, at least for the moment. If nothing else, he’d given the people on his team a chance to succeed. Which was all a leader really could hope for. Emily had constantly reminded him of that.

 

He hoped she knew he’d listened. He hoped she knew how important she’d been to him. He hoped she knew he’d done this all for her, hoping she’d be proud.

 

Succeed or fail, win or lose, it was too late now. If he held to his Nana’s faith, the faith he was raised in, which he wasn’t sure he did, he’d know soon enough. If not, it wouldn’t matter to anyone but him.

 

He was cold, tired and in pain, desperately wishing Emily were here to comfort him. Instead, he focused on her proxy as Shackleton’s head resettled on his lap, his ears twitching uncertainly at Klose’s voice coming from the handheld he’d laid back on the roof.

 

Kilbane leaned against the wall to the roof access wondering how long he had before the sheriff’s people stormed his position. It probably didn’t matter. Shackleton would warn him if their arrival was imminent. What mattered was they were on their way, which meant Sanchez, Darby, and Jones were safe for now. The best he could do.

 

Kilbane closed his eyes and pieced together a mental image from the reports he was receiving, as much from what Klose said as from what he knew of the plan. The landing at the secondary site, a bridge over the former lake now channel, had gone mostly without incident. Klose had been injured when she’d drifted out of the LZ to scout a dry path for the electric carts, a nasty graze after one of the Hatch’s unreliables had sent a round into her boot before she screamed him into submission. Hall’s irregulars had tied down the sheriff’s forces at the primary LZ so they couldn’t respond fast enough to prevent their landing. The electric carts had come in handy, speeding Hatch’s people to the Emergency Ops Center before O’Grady could respond. Hall’s scouts had guided them in. Fighting was fierce, the outcome uncertain even though they maintained tactical surprise. The EOC was well fortified and defended despite the lack of air cover.

 

The call had gone out to the naval air station for support. No acknowledgment had come back. The call had gone out to the mainland for reinforcements, which were currently being gathered. The call had gone out to the cutter in for interdiction. It was on its way but had since gone silent.

 

Someone had floated the idea of sending the landing ship to embark as much of the FL Third as could be spared, which wasn’t much. Hatch was somehow conducting an Azovstal Steelworks defense of his stolen position at the ferry landing. Ultimately doomed but more tenacious than anticipated. It sounded like he’d mobilized half the detention center and now had the besieging Third also under siege, like the Romans at Alesia, with Hatch as Vercingetorix. But West was Caesar only in his own mind.

 

Kilbane wondered where Klose had come up with that intel. One of Hall’s people must have picked up an encrypted, digital radio off a dead deputy. Or Morten had set up Hall with a black-market scanner for intercept before the operation began. Gods only knew where he’d come up with that. Knowing Morten, from the workbench in his garage.

 

As Kilbane let Klose’s economized words wash over him, her soprano voice drifted toward Emily’s alto. He let it lull him as he drifted, an aerial view of the island and the unfolding battle animating in his mind as if a dream.

 

He snapped back alert when Shackleton’s head shot up from his lap, ears pricked, nose sniffing. Were they here already? Klose’s voice on the handheld had faded to barely audible. Kilbane checked its charge. Under five percent.

 

Shackleton bounded up and settled by the corner near the roof access but didn’t growl. He just kept looking at Kilbane and then to the north. The eastern sky had yet to lighten but dawn couldn’t be far away.

 

Shackleton now paced as he watched the sky. Kilbane checked his pistol, ensuring it was ready when the sheriff’s people finally came. Klose’s reports had slowed to intermittent, her voice fading farther second by second. Monique’s offensive had settled into a stalemate. The Swat team had recovered and was now dug in like ticks. And they still had an armored APC.

 

Then it registered at the edge of his hearing. More of an impression than an actual sound, like a distant bass note outside a popular beach nightclub before the meteors. A steady, rapid thumping that briefly surfaced on the moving air then faded.

 

Had he imagined it? It had to be wishful thinking or a dream. But Shackleton was still staring north and had begun to whine when he looked back to Kilbane as if seeking either reassurance or explanation.

 

Kilbane levered himself around the corner of the stairwell structure, scanning the horizon. That’s when he spotted them, six sets of blinking red and green lights moving low and fast in a vee formation. As he watched in fascination, the two trailing points split off, one veering east toward this island’s ferry terminal, the other west and south toward him. The remaining four continued in formation down the spine of the island toward the fighting to the south.

 

Just as Kilbane began to feel hope and certainty rise in his chest, all the lights winked out as if they’d never been. Leaving him to wonder as the darkness returned, near complete, if they were a product of his delirium and exhaustion.

 

But now the sound was unmistakable. The sound of rotors, many sets of rotors, one drawing closer, the others fading. Running dark.

 

Kilbane regained some semblance of clarity as the sound split the cold air of the night. He snatched up the handheld. He barely had enough power for one final transmission. Something brief. A signal or a warning, one only his team would understand. A flare.

 

By now Shackleton’s demeanor had changed. The dog was staring at the roof access, growling at the door, hackles bristling.

 

Kilbane waited for a break in Klose’s transmissions. When it came, he seized it, knowing what he had to say. He turned up the transmission gain as far as he could.

 

“Tactical, this is Recon. Objective achieved. Please relay the following on all frequencies to all stations. Next year in Olympia. Repeat. Next year in Olympia. Recon Actual signing off.”

 

When Kilbane unkeyed the mic, the handheld emitted only the barest hint of static which faded to silence. As the lights on the radio’s buttons dimmed and winked out, he discarded it and retrieved his pistol. No way to know if his message had been transmitted, never mind received. No matter, his team would know soon enough, one way or another.

 

As would he. Shackleton was now barking aggressively at the stairwell, snarling in between but not yet lunging toward the door.

 

With difficulty, Kilbane repositioned himself until he was in front of but well back from the doorway to the stairwell. He called the dog to his side to await his command. No sense in having his only ally obscure his line of fire.

 

He lay back, lowering his profile to aim between his feet, the cold gravel of the roof digging into his back as he braced the pistol against one slightly raised knee, sighting in on the center of the doorway, ready to squeeze off a shot against the first shadow that graced his sights.

 

He thought about shifting his aim to the helo, having no clear indication whose side it was really on. But no. Only Shaq could make that shot. Instead, he chose to hold to the assumption that Katz had succeeded. He had to keep that hope alive, however forlorn. For Emily.

 

So, he stuck with the enemy he knew, the one proceeding up the stairs.

 

The chopping air from the rotors continued to approach until the sound was deafening. At a glance, a shadow eclipsed the stars to the north.

 

As his finger caressed the pistol’s trigger, Kilbane wondered which would arrive first.

 

 

© 2022 Edward P. Morgan III