Shadow Ops 3: Breach Zone (19 page)

‘Takes one to know one,’ she said, and nipped his lip. Harlequin was no Casanova, but he’d been with a few women in his life. None had moved like this, reaching, gasping,
participating
. Grace took ownership of her part in their union, from the conversation to the flirting, and now, at long last, to the touching.

She hooked an ankle around his, grabbed his ass, and tripped him over her. They fell onto the desk, knocking over one of the monitors. It toppled to the floor, the screen shattering. Harlequin winced at the expense. ‘Shut up,’ she said before he could say anything. ‘I’ll get another one. We’re busy.’

And they were busy. For hours.

Chapter Eleven

Burden of Command

The actions of the United States and India are a breach of trust on a global scale. Not since the Iraq War has America’s reputation sunk so low on the international stage. The Pope’s statement yesterday, condemning the use of the secret base in the Source, joins a chorus of voices from formerly staunch friends and allies. We have stood with the United States for most of our collective histories, but I cannot ignore the sentiment of my people. They are furious, and frankly, so am I.

– Victoria II, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories, Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith

Shouting broke Harlequin’s concentration. He looked up from the report he’d been drafting for Gatanas and listened. There it was, louder now. He leapt out of his chair, made his way through the ready room, and out of the castle.

Harlequin dismissed the thought of running around the castle, Bound his magic, and summoned a gust of wind that hurled him into the air, launching him clear across the turrets and over to the far side. He Drew and Bound again, summoning an air cushion that slowed his fall until he landed roughly on his feet, still running forward. Crude, but simple and effective for a man in a hurry.

A crowd of soldiers had formed, shouting, swarming the row of tents facing the water where the Fornax Novices were setting up shop. Harlequin saw a couple of the trainee Sorcerers in the mix, could feel their currents pulsing wildly from anger.

‘Order, damn it!’ Harlequin shouted. ‘What the hell is going on here!?’

The fighting raged on, shouts drowning out his voice.

He raised his hand, Bound to the air just above the crowd’s heads. A gray cloud formed, throbbed, pouring down a torrent of rain on the people below, rumbling thunder.

The belligerents shouted, covered their heads against the sheeting downpour, drew apart. Some of them noticed Harlequin and stood to attention, rendering shamefaced salutes.

He didn’t return them. ‘Are you fucking kidding me? What the hell is going on here?’

He followed their eyes to a pair of soldiers. The first was Command Sergeant Major Knut, her uniform already soaked through. She ignored the rain, shaking a fist over the other soldier, lying on his back and rubbing at an eye already beginning to swell shut.

Harlequin recognized the beaten soldier as one of the Fornax Novices, a skinny Pyromancer with an Eastern European name that Harlequin had given up on pronouncing and had at last resorted to ‘Hey, you’.

He reached the Novice in a few steps, hooked a hand under his armpit, and hauled him to his feet. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine, sir,’ Unpronounceable said. ‘Just got a little carried away is all.’

‘Brawling!? In my fucking headquarters! In the middle of a holding action!? Are you out of your fucking mind?’

‘Damn right he’s out of his fucking mind, sir! He goddamn . . .’

‘Stand down, Sergeant Major!’ Harlequin cut her off. ‘Did you strike this man?’

‘Sir, he . . .’

‘It’s a yes-or-no question, Sergeant Major,’ Harlequin said, eyes traveling over the woman’s bloody knuckles, Unpronounceable’s swollen eye.

‘Sir, he could have used his magic to . . .’

‘Yes. Or. No!?’ Harlequin shouted. The rain stopped as the cloud over them dissipated.

‘Yes, sir,’ Knut said.

Hewitt emerged from the crowd. He stopped long enough to take in the scene, the bruise, Knut’s shaking hand. ‘Damn it, Sergeant Major! You struck an officer!?’

Knut looked from Harlequin to Hewitt and back to the crowd, now so quiet you could hear a pin drop. None would meet her eyes. ‘Sir, you yourself said that . . .’

Hewitt cut her off, pointing to another soldier in the crowd with an MP tag on his sleeve. ‘Sergeant Feld, have Sergeant Major Knut taken under guard, subject to charges under article 90 of the UCMJ.’

‘Article 90!’ Harlequin began, ‘Sir, I . . .’

‘Lieutenant Colonel, please join me in the ready room right now. The rest of you, back to your duties. Let’s go, people!’

The crowd responded to Hewitt’s voice, dispersing, as Hewitt turned on his heel and stormed back toward the castle. Harlequin turned back to Unpronounceable. ‘Do you know what the punishment is under Article 90 in time of war, Novice?’

Unpronounceable stared. ‘No, sir.’

‘It’s death, Novice. During time of war, it’s death. So, I need you to very carefully, calmly, and accurately tell me what the hell just happened.’

‘She . . . she was in my tent, sir. I came back to get stuff, and she was in there.’

‘Why was she in there? Was she stealing or something?’

The Novice started to answer. ‘Be very careful about what you say next,’ Harlequin said. ‘If you lie to me . . .’

‘No, sir,’ Unpronounceable said. ‘I ordered her to leave, and she wouldn’t.’

‘What? Why?’

‘Fraternization, sir. Officers aren’t supposed to bunk with enlisted. She had to go.’

Anger brought Harlequin’s magic roaring through him, and he took a moment to tamp it down. ‘So, what you’re telling me is that this was
her
tent, and you tried to kick her out, is that right?’

Unpronounceable looked down, said nothing.

‘You tried to displace the garrison commander’s senior enlisted advisor in your gallant defense of the army’s no fraternization policy, Novice? Is that what you fucking did?’

‘Sir, I . . .’

‘Is it?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Jesus leaping Christ. Have you ever heard the phrase term “servant leadership”, Novice?’

‘Yes, sir. They taught it in SAOLCC.’

‘Servant leadership means that you work for the people you lead. That’s what good officers do. They don’t eat until all their people have been fed. They don’t stop working until the last of their people have gone home for the night. And they sure as hell don’t hold out on their people when there’s obvious overcrowding in the camp. Why didn’t you at least come to me?’

‘I would have, sir, but . . . she was yelling at me and I got pissed off and . . .’

‘That’s enough. Get your ass back on the wall and get to work. Whatever you do, do not get into it with anyone else. I’ll come talk to you once I have the rest of this sorted out.’

Unpronounceable nodded and stood to attention, rendering a crisp salute. Harlequin returned it and headed back to the castle, forming a game plan to mollify Hewitt. He hadn’t seen any burn marks on Knut, which meant Unpronounceable at least had the sense not to use his magic. If he had, Harlequin wasn’t sure he could have done anything for him.

Hewitt was waiting for him in the ready room, arms folded, leaning against a chair back and talking intently with Feld.

‘Colonel,’ Harlequin said as he walked in, ‘I got the story from my Novice, and . . .’

‘He tried to kick Sergeant Major Knut out of her hooch? That’s what I’m hearing from the people who saw it go down.’

‘Yes, sir. That’s what he said happened. Things got heated after that. I’ve spoken to Novice . . . to the Novice in question, and he understands I won’t tolerate that kind of aristocratic behavior.’

‘That’s good,’ Hewitt said, ‘but it doesn’t change the fact that a Novice is a commissioned officer and Sergeant Major Knut struck him. Article 90 is clear. We need to convene a summary panel immediately.’

Harlequin’s jaw dropped. ‘You want to execute her?’

‘She struck an officer in plain view of half the camp. I cannot allow that to stand.’

‘You’re absolutely right. It can’t be allowed to stand, but fights happen, sir. My man was throwing his weight around, stupid JO stuff. He’s new, inexperienced. He hasn’t learned what being an officer means. He certainly hasn’t learned that while he outranks a sergeant major, he sure as hell shouldn’t be bossing one around. We all had moments like that when we first pinned on. I know I did, and it took a hard-ass sergeant or two to show me the ropes. Didn’t that happen to you, too?’

‘Of course, but it never involved said sergeant punching me in the face!’

‘Looks like Knut knocked him on his ass and humiliated him in front of everyone. That alone is a hard lesson. We can discuss forfeiture of pay and confinement to base. We can demote her. Hell, we can put her out of the Army after all this is over. We don’t need to
kill
her.’

‘We don’t make that call!’ Hewitt said. ‘The UCMJ clearly proscribes what constitutes a crime, and the penalty for that crime. You strike a commissioned officer in time of war, you receive summary judgment. That’s not subject to interpretation.’

My God, he sounds exactly like I did before FOB Frontier. Was I really that much of an ass?

Harlequin turned to Feld. ‘Sergeant, would you please excuse us?’

Feld looked askance at Hewitt, who dismissed him with a nod.

‘This is a domestic disaster incident, not a declared war,’ Harlequin said. ‘I’m not even arguing the law with you. We are shorthanded in the middle of a conflict. I cannot afford to lose a competent NCO. She stays on until we win this thing and have a chance to do a postmortem.’

Hewitt purpled. ‘Why am I not surprised? Clear orders, and you somehow find a way not to follow them. You don’t tell me what to do with my own people!’

‘Actually, sir, I do. I have struggled mightily not to invoke my authority as incident commander, but I’m doing it now. Convene your Article 90 panel, but any punishment that keeps Knut from working, including execution, is off the table.’

‘This will lead to a breakdown in good order, and . . .’

‘No, sir. Executing her will devastate morale. It’ll also exacerbate the hell out of the considerable divide that exists between regular Army and the SOC. People already treat us like dangerous zoo animals. Do you think that’ll improve because we put someone to death for having the temerity to stand up for herself? I won’t allow it.’

Hewitt was silent, jaw tensed.

‘Look, sir, I get it. I really do. But I need you to trust me on this,’ Harlequin said. ‘We’re holding on by a thread here. The fact that this incident happened at all is a sign of how frayed everyone’s nerves are. We need to do everything we can to put this to rest as fast as possible. I need you to back me on this.’

Hewitt pursed his lips. ‘You’re the incident commander. By order of the president himself.’

‘I’ll use that authority if I have to,’ Harlequin said, ‘but I’d prefer you just be swayed by my argument.’

‘You seem to think this is my first rodeo, Lieutenant Colonel. You forget that I’ve been soldiering my entire life. I know a thing or two about how to lead people and what the consequences are when you fuck it up. You want to sway me with an argument? Make a better one.’

He turned on his heel and stormed out of the room.

Harlequin let him go, content to let him have the last word.
He wouldn’t have actually gone through with it. You didn’t have to do that
,
Harlequin thought. Then why had he confronted him?

Because there’s a part of you who worries that he actually would. Because you see so much of the man you used to be standing there.

Would you have executed her?

He pictured himself, the man who’d chased down Oscar Britton, who’d thrown Scylla in the hole at FOB Frontier.

He turned away from that picture. He didn’t like what he saw.

The room felt suddenly close around him, and he stepped outside into a camp bustling as if the incident had never happened, but he caught the sidelong stares, heard the muttering. The tension was palpable.

Better if he hid his face for a little while. He toggled his commlink and spoke into it. ‘Cormack.’

‘Sir,’ came the reply.

‘I’m heading uptown to check on the barricades. Can you please make sure that . . . just make sure . . .’

‘I’ll let you know if anything happens with Sergeant Major Knut, sir.’

Harlequin was silently grateful to the man for saving him the trouble of saying it. He launched into the air, letting the wind envelop him, closing his eyes and forgetting for a moment that anything else existed.

When he opened them again, Greenwich Street snaked beneath him, now clustered with goblins. They swarmed around the exit to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, where Hewitt had stationed a Stryker heavy machine gun letting out a steady stream of fire. A group of soldiers sheltered behind it, trading fire with the goblins, who took cover behind the wrecks of cars, throwing javelins and slinging stones. A few automatons of asphalt and dirt stalked the cracked surface of the road, soaking up rounds, advancing until one of the soldiers realized the danger and put a grenade through one of them. Harlequin couldn’t see the Terramancer driving them, but knew it must be hiding nearby. He made a mental note to get a Sorcerer assigned to that position as soon as he could spare one. The tunnel was their main means to get refugees out and supplies in by ground. They had to keep it open. He sent a spray of lightning down into the goblin ranks and waved as a cheer drifted up to him from the defenders.

When he’d first set up in Battery Park, his only thought had been to ensure he had a presence close to the fight that was easily defensible and with a quick exit route should things go badly. He now realized that the position had an additional advantage. It kept a concentrated force in Scylla’s backfield, a finger pointed at the Breach that kept her troops rolling in. So long as he held on there, she could never fully focus her attention on breaking out of the barricades to her north. He knew it was dumb luck, then smiled inwardly, calling it commander’s instinct.
Is there really any difference?
He sent another blast of lightning into the goblins below and heard the tunnel defenders cheer again. The sound made commander’s instinct seem more fitting.

Then he looked up.

The air cover had condensed. Rocs and wyverns swept through the sky, getting the worst of it from two Blackhawk helicopters, hovering over the subway entrance in front of the barricade that straddled Varrick Street. The defenders had overturned two city buses, then stacked two more on top of them, forming a flying V that surrounded the enormous crane they’d used to drag the vehicles in place. Goblins swarmed the makeshift wall, climbing up over the buses’ undercarriages, being handed up by giants. As quickly as they came up, they were gunned down. Harlequin could see the tops of the barricade manned by dozens of NYPD officers in riot and tactical gear, their numbers augmented by the sage gray-green camouflage of the National Guard.