Deadlock (8 page)

She said, “My friend McKenna collects horses. Not real ones, little ones.” Her eyes grew big. “Some not so little. They're all over her room. She keeps one in her school backpack. She says it's weird for a girl to collect cars. Do you think it's weird? I don't. Look.”

She plucked up an ordinary sedan. Hairlines of blue metal showed where brushstrokes of silver had not quite met. Paint had encroached onto the plastic windows.

“I recognize that,” Laura said.

“Dad's car,” Macie said with a big grin. “I made it silver to match his. What do you drive?”

“A Jeep.”

“What kind?” Macie said, plopping down and pulling a case closer. “A lot of people like the Grand Cherokee.” She displayed one in her palm.

“I have a CJ7.”

Macie nodded appreciatively. “Ragtop. Cool.” She pulled a miniature version of Laura's car from the same case and held it up proudly.

“Wow,” Laura said. “I keep a hardtop on most of the time. It's pretty cold where I live.”

Macie shrugged. “That's okay. Dad has a four-wheel-drive too. For hunting. An XTerra.” She scanned the collection, apparently looking for one.

Laura had seen it in the garage.
FOR SALE
signs were taped to the rear windows.

“Oh,” Macie said. She showed Laura a Volvo painted white. “Mom's car. And here's George's car.” She drove a black BMW up to Laura's knees.

“George?”

Macie made a face. “Mom's boyfriend.” She appraised the Matchbox as though it were the man. “Before him, she dated Steve.” She set a yellow Corvette next to the Beemer. She pulled a gray Hummer beside it. “Mark.”

“Looks like your mother has good taste in cars,” Laura said.

Macie grinned at her. She studied Laura's face. “You're pretty,” she said. “Do you wear makeup?”

“Sometimes.”

“Mom wears a lot. She says I can use her eye shadow and lipstick in a few years, when I'm older.” The girl ran a fingertip over an eyelid.

Laura tried to picture her all dolled up, crashing toy cars into each other. She leaned forward and flipped one of Macie's pigtails. “I like your hair like that.”

Macie shook her head, flicking the pigtails back and forth. “Mom did it. Dad can't braid. He tries, but they always come loose.”

“Boys,” Laura said.

She and Tom had talked about having another child, and she had imagined life with a daughter: sitting on the bed, brushing through long hair; baking cookies; picking out frilly dresses. But who knew? With Tom and Dillon around, her daughter would probably have been more interested in camouflage overalls and setting traps. That would have been fine as well; Laura wasn't exactly debutante material herself.

Macie stood and walked behind her. Little eight-year-old hands brushed against Laura's temples, sweeping her hair back.

“Can I put your hair in a ponytail?” Macie asked.

“Sure.”

Macie ran to the dresser and returned with a multicolored scrunchie. She began raking Laura's hair back with her fingers.

Laura closed her eyes, enjoying the moment.

TEN

Julian Page rocked his chair back from the table, trying to get it to balance on its rear legs. Tired of his own quarters, which he shared with no one, he had wandered into Fireteam Bravo's quad. Now he was in their common area, which consisted of a kitchenette, a dining area, and a den. Doors set into each of the two long walls led to four bedrooms.

The barracks here at Outis's Washington state compound were modeled on the U.S. military's “four-plus-one” design, which had replaced the long rooms of bunks most civilians thought of when they heard the word
barracks
. The switch began before Julian was born fourteen years before, but even recent movies about the modern military showed the old style. Either Hollywood was slow on the uptake, or the filmmakers simply refused to give up the feeling of camaraderie and tension, and the romantic notion of a soldier's monastic existence that those halls of bunks and lockers implied.

Oh man
, he thought.
Monastic existence. Where'd I hear that? Too much time reading in my room and listening to these guys shoot the crap.

Which is what he was doing at that moment. The four fireteam members were in the den, ten feet away, arrayed in front of a big-screen monitor. Three of them were wiping out opposing teams who were unlucky enough to encounter them in the online version of a war game developed by one of Julian's dad's companies.

Disgusted by the thrashing they'd gotten, many of their opponents summarily added Ben, Emile, and Anton's player IDs to their “don't play” list, which ordinarily prevented another matchup. The Outis system, however, granted the fireteam special privileges, which included ignoring “don't play” lists and spontaneously changing their IDs.

Which override these guys chose depended on whether they wanted to merely continue owning their frustrated opponents or also wanted to taunt them, stalking them through game after game. Their game play, now as always, was punctuated by whooping and hollering, rude appraisals of their opponents' skills, and equally crass assessments of movies, actors, books, music, weapons, tactics, their own training—whatever struck their decidedly diverse fancy.

Only Michael wasn't participating—in the game or the bantering. He sat cross-legged on a couch, hugging himself, rocking slightly. A wireless controller rested upside down in his lap, as if one of the others had tossed it there. He'd been quiet like that since returning from a training mission a few days before. Normally he was the loudest, the most energetic, the first to plug into a game after a day's grueling drills. Now he was lifeless. If he expressed any emotion, it was a flash of disdain or sadness.

Julian had asked him what was wrong. Michael had frowned, told Julian to leave him alone. The problem must be related to something Michael had done. These past days, his teammates had either given him the cold shoulder or gone out of their way to razz him.

Julian saw it coming again.

One of their opponents took too long getting his gun around, giving Ben time to blow him away.

“Ha!” Anton said. “That dude pulled a Michael. Gotta be quicker than that!”

The three of them laughed.

“Hey, kid,” Ben said, “don't start bawling, you hear? You might slobber on the controls . . . then I'd have to shoot you.”

More snickers.

“I don't think he's listening,” Anton said. “Better pass this down.” He punched Ben lightly on the arm. Ben punched Emile. Emile leaned from his chair, couldn't reach Michael, and stood up. He stepped closer, and gave Michael a serious jab to his shoulder, hard enough for Julian to hear it.

Michael grimaced, tilted sideways, and caught himself from tumbling over. He pushed himself up, rubbed the spot, and stared up at Emile.

Grinning, Emile turned. Even through the darkness of the dining area, he made eye contact with Julian. Emile's smiled faded. He said, “What?”

Julian rocked, keeping his balance by touching the table with his fingertips. He said, “I didn't say anything.”

“Better not.” Emile plopped back into his chair.

Julian bit his tongue, choosing instead to run his fingers through his hair. Or going through the motion. He no longer had the long hair he was accustomed to flipping out of his eyes, playing with when he was nervous. These days, he sported the close-cropped Marine cut that adorned the heads of all the recruits.

Shortly after Julian's return from Canada, his father had switched his educational program from private tutors to the Outis Military Academy. Not long after that, Outis had started the Quarterback program to instruct squads of soldiers in special skills, à la SWAT teams or Navy SEALs. Julian had been “repositioned” as a loose entity within it. No doubt his old man intended to turn Julian into one of his elite soldiers. All the better to control his wayward son.

Julian's mind kept returning to a story he'd read in the Bible. This was back when his mother had been bringing him to church and Sunday school, before his father had moved on to another wife, separated Julian from his mother, and put an end to the “religious lunacy”-his father's words. The story Julian couldn't get out of his head was about King David. When he'd desired Uriah's wife, Bathsheba, David ordered his commander to put Uriah at the front of a battle. He had known Uriah would be killed, and he was.

Half of Julian's workday was spent training with the others, though his body was ill matched to the program's physical rigors. The rest was spent teaching himself from a homeschool curriculum. Then he'd watch a movie, read a novel, hang with the guys, or go for a walk in the woods. Long ago, he'd lost his taste for video games.

Usually, the guys in Fireteam Bravo were cool. Hard talking and short tempered when someone didn't agree with them or displayed any sort of weakness, mentally or physically-but otherwise cool. The way they treated Julian may have stemmed from his being the boss's kid, but Michael had once told him they had strict orders to behave as though Julian was just another recruit, no favoritism.

Julian had been relieved to hear the orders weren't for everyone to be especially hard on him. That would have been more like his father-to give Julian that extra opportunity to “become a man.”

At twenty-seven, Ben was the oldest and toughest. He had seen actual combat in Iraq, had the scars to prove it. During close-quarter tactical training missions he was the most violent, pumping extra rounds into a downed enemy, choosing to kill with a knife or his hands when he could get away with it. He'd laugh at movie bloodshed, comparing it unfavorably to the real thing. In any situation that could turn either way, peacefully or through physical force, there was no question which Ben would choose. He often egged his teammates into aggressive thinking: “Don't take that from him! Punch him” and “Man, if my girl ever did that to me, I'd smack her down on the spot.”

Julian wondered if Ben, as team leader, had been given the directive to talk like that, to toughen the men in his charge.

Still, he was cool to Julian. He'd let Julian in on practical jokes he was pulling on the others, and he always encouraged him on the training field. The other team members were too concerned with their own performance to take the time to show Julian a faster way to exchange ammo clips or climb a rope or whatever it was they were doing.

Anton was a few years younger than Ben. A little high-strung, but he called Julian his “brother from another mother,” and sometimes acted like it. He'd bring Julian leftovers when the team went to the steak place in nearby Gold Bar, and insist on letting him have a vote if Julian was there when the team picked out a DVD to watch.

But Emile treated him more like a brother than Anton did. He said he had a younger brother Julian's age. He shared his comic books-G.I. Joe, Avengers, Wolverine-and wrestled with him in the grass. Emile was moody, though, and got into funks for long stretches at a time, during which he'd push Julian away and generally act the way Michael was acting now.

Michael was the youngest on the team, only four years older than Julian. They didn't have a lot in common, since Michael's sole reason for living, it seemed, was to play video games and be a soldier. Sometimes the drills were as hard for Michael to finish as they were for Julian, and that made Julian feel better. But while Julian didn't care that much, Michael was hard on himself about it.

Julian also saw a softer side to Michael than he did in the others. When they'd first been assembled as a team, Michael would debate with Ben about the need for violence in certain situations. Ben always beat him down, so now Michael only listened without getting involved.

Yeah, Julian noticed such things. He'd picked up his philosophical streak from Declan, and he hoped it was the only thing of his older brother's that had rubbed off on him. For as long as he could remember, both his father and Declan had pushed him to think and act older than he was. He'd been taught to field clean a machine gun when he was seven, taken a course on business management at the University of Washington at eleven, and received a subscription to Playboy from his father when he turned thirteen. Now this, hanging out with mostly guys in their twenties, learning how to fight in war zones. He'd had just about enough, but what could he do?

The volume of the voices in front of the game grew louder.

“Get in the half-track! Get in the half-track!” Ben ordered.

“Hold on!” Emile said. His fingers blurred over the controls.

“Oh!” Anton said. “They got behind us!”

“I'm on 'em,” Ben said.

A rap came from the open door. Colonel Bryson stepped in.

“Ten-hut!” Ben said, springing to his feet.

The other men hopped up. Michael took longer, but in the end managed to straighten himself as stiffly as his teammates.

“At ease,” Colonel Bryson said. He squinted into the gloom. “That you, Julian?”

“Yes, sir.”

Colonel Bryson nodded, obviously displeased.

Not for the first time, Julian thought the longish hair of the faculty and administrative staff somehow conveyed their superior positions over the recruits. If that were true, Colonel Bryson's curly locks, as much as his rank and position as executive vice president of Outis, put him at the top of the heap.

Colonel Bryson stepped into the den. His eyes flicked up to Michael. “You hanging in there, son?”

Michael cleared his throat. “Yes, sir.”

Colonel Bryson scanned him up and down, as though doubting Michael's response. “Whadda you got, Ben?” he said.

“This one kid,” Ben said. He gestured at Emile, who snatched up his controller and began flipping through menus on the screen. Emile found a video file and started the playback. On the screen, a digitized soldier ran, jumped, cycled through weapons and fired, every move fluid, intentional. The left portion of the screen was dedicated to statistics: number of games played, hours online, frags-or kills-number of wins, both as a solo player and part of a team, overall points accumulated. Under the stats was information about the player: name, address, date of birth, the credit card used to pay for online access to the game. None of this data was available to other players. Only to Outis recruiters.