Ice War (10 page)

Something must have shown on Wilton’s face, because Brogan said, “What is it? What happened to Chisnall?”

Wilton considered that carefully. Chisnall’s “death” had occurred on a top secret mission. He wasn’t allowed to tell her about that. Chisnall’s “resurrection” was even more secret and he certainly wasn’t going to reveal it to a traitor.

“I need your help,” Wilton said. He took out his smartpad and opened a folder of images.

“What happened to Ryan?” Brogan asked.

“That’s classified,” Wilton said. “Will you help me?”

“I’m the enemy, remember?” Brogan said. “Why would I help you?”

“You helped us before,” Wilton said. “At Uluru. You helped us save those children. You’re not a Puke, Holly, you’re human.”

“I helped you save those kids because they were like brothers and sisters to me,” Brogan said. “I didn’t switch sides.”

“But you are human,” Wilton said.

“Genetically, maybe.” Brogan laughed. “Nice job on the skin recolouring by the way. I almost didn’t recognise you without your alien disguise.”

“There are others like you, aren’t there?” Wilton asked.

“I wouldn’t know,” Brogan said. “And if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. What happened to Chisnall?”

He ignored her question. “How many are there?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Brogan said. “I’m seventeen. And I’m never getting out of here. You understand that? This is my life, for the rest of my life. If I ever do get out, I’ll be some little old, twisted-back, grey-haired granny.”

“I guess Hunter was lucky then,” Wilton said. “His hair ain’t never going grey.”

“That’s unfair,” Brogan said.

“Who’s this dude?” Wilton asked, twisting his smartpad around to show her a photo of Jared Legrand, the deceased commander on Little Diomede.

“Tell me about Ryan,” Brogan said.

“Have you seen this guy before?” Wilton asked.

“What the hell happened to Ryan?” Brogan shouted, stepping closer and hammering on the glass.

An orange light in the corner began to flash.

Wilton stayed where he was. He remained calm. He suspected that if the watching guards got too concerned, they would rush in and the meeting would be over.

She pulled away, retreating to the far wall and curling into a ball, crying.

“Brogan …” Wilton began.

“Where’s Ryan?” Brogan yelled back at him.

“He never came back from the last operation,” Wilton said. “Ryan’s dead.”

After a while, she got up quite calmly and stood back at the glass wall. Her eyes were red but the tears had stopped.

“I thought so,” she said. “I knew so. I felt it.” She stared him in the eye. “How? Where?”

“That’s classified,” Wilton said. “But I saw him die.”

There was a long period of silence.

Brogan broke it with a cough, to cover her emotion, Wilton thought.

She gestured at the smartpad, just a flick of one finger. “I never saw him before,” she said.

She was telling the truth, Wilton decided, and she had no reason to lie. He had shown her Legrand’s photo to test her reaction.

“What about this chick?” He showed her a photograph of Gabrielle Bowden, one of the remaining station operators on Little Diomede.

There was no hint of recognition in Brogan’s eye.

“Is she from Uluru?” Wilton asked.

“Not as far as I know,” she said, tears staining her cheeks.

“What about this one?” Wilton asked, showing a photo of Nicholas Able, the second station operator.

There was a slight widening of her eyes and a drawing in of breath.

“You recognise him, don’t you? From Uluru,” he said.

After a moment, she nodded.

“Thanks, Brogan,” Wilton said, rising. “Take care.”

“I was only doing my duty,” Brogan said. “You would have done the same.”

“It was too bad about Chisnall,” Wilton said.

“Yeah. Too bad,” Brogan said.

Wilton was halfway to the door when Brogan said, “He’s Fezerker. That guy in the picture.”

He stopped. “What do you mean, ‘Fezerker’?”

“Just what I said,” Brogan said.

“Fezerkers are teams of Pukes,” Wilton said. “Roaming around behind our lines.”

“That’s what you were supposed to think,” Brogan said. “Fezerkers are humans. Like me. That’s what Uluru was all about. Wilton, I’m Fezerker.”

Wilton stood still. “Uluru?” he managed.

Brogan shrugged. “Long before Uluru,” she said. “The Fezerker program goes back to before the first ships.”

Wilton’s breath caught in his throat. Could that be true? Had the Bzadians been infiltrating human society all that time?

“How do we find them?” Wilton asked. “There must be some way of identifying them. Blood tests? DNA analysis?”

“That wouldn’t help,” Brogan said. “We are humans, remember. Our DNA is identical to yours.”

“So how?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I’ve got nothing more for you, Blake,” she said. “I just betrayed my own people. From now on it’s up to you.”

He considered that, then turned back towards the door.

“Hey, Wilton.” She stood and moved to the heavy glass barrier that separated them, pressing her body against it. This time the warning light did not flash. He did the same and they embraced, separated by an impassable barrier of bulletproof glass. It was probably the closest she had got to human contact in a very long time.

“Goodnight, Brogan,” he said.

[MISSION DAY 1, FEBRUARY 16, 2033. 1930 HOURS LOCAL TIME]

[BERING STRAIT, SOUTH-WEST OF LITTLE DIOMEDE ISLAND]

The neck-cuff was starting to get extremely uncomfortable. Part of that was the unnatural position – having her wrists held at neck height for a long period of time.

“At least Emile’s gone to a better place,” Wall said. “And Monster is now one with the universe.”

“You getting religious on us?” Barnard asked.

“Emile was a Christian,” Wall said. “He told me.”

“So he’s sitting nice and warm up in heaven, chatting to God and laughing his head off at us stuck down here in the middle of this frozen hellhole,” The Tsar said.

“If there was a God, do you think he’d let all this happen?” Price asked. “Millions of lives lost, the human race on the verge of extinction?”

“Maybe God’s a Bzadian,” Barnard said.

“God’s a sniper,” The Tsar said.

The others all stared at him.

“How’s that again?” Barnard asked.

“If there is a God,” The Tsar said, “I reckon he’s sitting up there in heaven with an M110 sniper rifle and a long-range scope. We’re all marching past below, and he’s just picking off random targets. Bam, you get cancer. Bam, you die in a car crash. Bam, you freeze to death in the Bering Strait.”

“Maybe we should find something else to talk about,” Barnard said, with a quick glance at Price.

“I’m sorry I got you guys into this,” Price said.

“You didn’t get us into this,” Barnard said. “We volunteered.”

“What were you thinking?” Price said.

“I had my reasons,” Barnard said. “I guess you did too.”

“A moment of madness,” Price said. “I’m not a hero, like The Tsar.” The words tasted bitter in her mouth and she regretted saying them immediately.

“What are you saying?” The Tsar asked.

“You’re a hero. The Hero of Hokkaido,” Price said. “Heroes always volunteer.”

“Just shows how little you know about me,” The Tsar said.

“Why then?” Price asked.

“Ask Barnard,” The Tsar said. “She always thinks she’s got me figured out.”

“You don’t want to know what I think,” Barnard said.

“I do,” Wall said.

“Feel free,” The Tsar said.

Barnard looked at The Tsar for a long time.

“All right,” she said. “You were the leader of the Hokkaido mission. Rescued a bunch of soldiers from right under the noses of the enemy, but it cost the lives of your team. They made you a hero for it, and you were proud to wear that badge, until you met Ryan Chisnall. He’s a real hero. You’re not. But they called you a hero, so ever since, you’ve been trying to earn it.”

The Tsar stared at her.

“How’d I do?” Barnard asked.

The Tsar still said nothing.

“Is she always like this?” Wall asked.

“Most of the time,” Price said. Barnard could be brutal, but she was seldom wrong.

“Where are the crew?” Barnard asked.

“What crew?” The Tsar asked.

“The tank crew,” Barnard said. “These guys are combat soldiers, not a tank crew. So where are the crew?”

“I don’t know,” Price said. “I’ve been wondering that.”

The centre hatch opened and Nokz’z reappeared, followed, as always, by the Vaza.

He did not speak, but moved straight to Barnard, scanning her face with a flash of green light while the Vaza held a pistol close to Barnard’s head. Nokz’z checked the screen and seemed happy with what he saw, although he did not share his thoughts with the Angels. He repeated the procedure with The Tsar, with exactly the same result, and a slight shake of his head, then moved to Wall, who snarled at him.

The green light highlighted Wall’s features and Nokz’z stared at him for a few seconds longer before turning his attention to the screen. His eyes widened.

“Hold him,” he said, and the Vaza put away her gun, clamping Wall’s head in a steely grip with arms that looked as though they could pop his skull like a pea.

Nokz’z held the device much closer, directly in front of Wall’s eye, and the flash this time lit up only his eyeball. A retinal scan. Why? Price couldn’t imagine.

Nokz’z took the device back over to the control panel and spent some time on a computer. He had a low conversation with someone, although Price could not hear what he was saying. Eventually, he walked back to Wall.

He spoke to him quickly in a strange language, Bzadian for sure with all the low buzzing sounds, but not one that Price knew, or had ever heard spoken before.

Wall stared at him.

“Tell him to get stuffed,” The Tsar said.

After a while, Wall spoke, but to Price’s surprise, he spoke in the same strange Bzadian language.

Nokz’z nodded to the Vaza who moved quickly across to Wall and undid the neck-cuff.

Wall stood, rubbing his hands where the nylon had bit into them.

“What’s going on?” Price asked. “What did he say to you? Why did he release you?”

“I told him I was Fezerker,” Wall said.

“And he believed you?” Barnard asked.

“Yes,” Wall said.

“Why?” The Tsar asked.

“Because it’s true,” Wall said, and added, “bro.”

Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory
.

– George S Patton

[MISSION DAY 2, FEBRUARY 17, 2033. 1000 HOURS LOCAL TIME]

[THE PENTAGON, VIRGINIA]

The man with the olive green briefcase had perfect credentials and, although nobody recognised him, that was not unusual at a busy place like the Pentagon.

It was just after ten am in Virginia. Although security was extremely tight, thousands of people went in and out of the Pentagon each day, through five separate entrances, and it was impossible to know all of them. This man was very ordinary with no distinctive features that might stick in the mind of an alert security guard.

He smiled a little at the PFPA officers manning the security checkpoint, as he had the previous day. Just a little. Any more and it might stick in their minds.

The briefcase he was carrying went through the usual X-rays and explosive detectors without setting off any alarms. A bomb dog sniffed at it, and glanced away incuriously.

The next stage of security was a visual inspection and, on opening the briefcase, the PFPA officer found only official documents and two sandwiches in a plastic Tupperware container.

The man came in and out of the Pentagon regularly. He was part of the furniture, a nondescript part of the background hustle and bustle of people coming and going.

If the security guards on any of the days had observed his wristwatch, a stylish black and bronze TAG Heuer, they would have noticed that it was not working. They might have thought that was poor, for such an expensive watch.

[MISSION DAY 2, FEBRUARY 17, 2033. 0710 HOURS LOCAL TIME]

[BIG DIOMEDE ISLAND, BERING STRAIT]

There was a face above him, human, male, perhaps in his twenties. The face was broad and flat.

He spoke, but the words made no sense. It was not a language that Monster knew.

Monster shook his head. He was still shivering, but not as violently.

“I don’t understand,” he said in English.

“You speak English, demon?” The man seemed surprised.

“I am no Demon,” Monster said. “I am Angel.”
How did this man know about Recon Team Demon?

The man looked at the lumps on Monster’s forehead and almost laughed. “I see no halo,” he said.

The man did not know about the Demons, or the Angels, Monster realised. He meant something else.

“I am human,” Monster said.

“That does not appear to be true either,” the man said.

“Is true,” Monster said. “I wear disguise.”

The man said nothing, but his eyebrows raised slightly.

“There was another with me,” Monster said, trying to stop his teeth from chattering.

The man shook his head and glanced away at something Monster couldn’t see.

“Is okay?” Monster asked.

The man shook his head again. “The other boy was much smaller than you, and not as strong. He was already gone when we found you. It was touch and go, even for you.”

Monster closed his eyes and lay still.

It was Emile’s first mission. It was supposed to have been a simple reconnaissance task. But the fun-loving little Lebanese kid, the new puppy in the team, was not going home. Emile had risked, and lost his own life to save the other Angels, even though he barely knew them. He had wanted to be a hero, but the cost of that dream was his life.

“When I found you, you were lying on top of him, trying to protect him from the cold,” the man said.