Justin Allen

Vic­tor unplugged his head­set and placed it, very care­fully, into a plas­ticene baggy. For the next two hours he’d be out of con­tact — free from Father’s near-constant stream of instruc­tions and updates. It was a rare treat. One-hundred and twenty-nine sched­uled min­utes dur­ing which his only infor­ma­tion would come via his eyes and ears. If he’d been born female, he’d also be able to smell minute vari­a­tions in his envi­ron­ment. But Vic­tor was male. His nose was ordi­nary at best.

The cab pulled up to the Euro­rocket ter­mi­nal and Vic­tor stepped out. He checked his pock­ets one last time, mak­ing sure all remov­able metal was deposited safely in his brief­case, then pro­ceeded to the check-in counter. After being fin­ger­printed and reti­nal scanned, he received a board­ing pass, placed his bags on the con­veyer to secu­rity cen­tral, and strolled down the long hall to the main ter­mi­nal. Shops lined the walls to either side. It wasn’t, but Duty Free was already open and doing brisk busi­ness. Vic­tor looked at the over­sized choco­late bars and cig­a­r­il­los. Nei­ther inter­ested him. A shop­keeper offered him sam­ples of four dif­fer­ent brands of scotch, but Vic­tor declined them all. Alco­hol had lit­tle effect on him. Once, when he was eight, he’d snuck into Father’s liquor cab­i­net with his brother Char­lie. They wanted to know what it meant to have a ‘buzz,’ and so pol­ished off three bot­tles of Irish Whiskey and a mag­num of cham­pagne. Both boys wet the bed that night but oth­er­wise felt noth­ing. It was the same for his whole fam­ily. Juliet once drank a bot­tle of rub­bing alco­hol. She threw up three times and wet her pants. There were no pos­i­tive effects.

Next to Duty Free was a gen­eral drug. Vic­tor watched as a pair of teenage girls sniffed under­arm deodor­ants – no doubt prepar­ing for an upcom­ing per­sonal secu­rity check. The makeup aisle was doing brisk busi­ness as well. One whole reg­is­ter was devoted exclu­sively to the sale of non-permanent appear­ance enhance­ments. Over the counter stress reduc­ers were nearly as pop­u­lar, though chemists had been say­ing for years that they were wholly ineffective.

Vic­tor hadn’t eaten for bet­ter than eleven hours, so he stopped at a cof­fee shop. He ordered a soy patty and a glass of root beer. The soda wasn’t as sweet as he liked, but he drank it any­way. Since the end of the war, sugar and corn sub­si­dies had been all but elim­i­nated. As a result, sweets had more than tripled in price even as they became increas­ingly bit­ter. Soda remained pop­u­lar because it was still cheaper than either cof­fee or tea. Rela­tions with the trop­ics, and the work­ers unions con­trol­ling those coun­tries, had become decid­edly more prob­lem­atic in recent years. Bananas were a treat for the wealthy. Pineap­ple was vir­tu­ally unknown.

Vic­tor sat at the counter, on the stool near­est the door. He’d just fin­ished his patty when an older cou­ple sat down beside him. Amer­i­cans, he guessed. The man was in his late for­ties — his wife just a year or two behind. Both were over­weight, but not obese. Vic­tor fur­ther sur­mised that the man had once served in the mil­i­tary. His hair­cut was early-millennium marine. The woman wore a hel­met of tight curls.

“Think it’ll be as bad as last week?” she asked her husband.

“Worse,” he grumped. His wife shuddered.

“First time in New York?” Vic­tor asked them.

“We’re on vaca­tion. What you peo­ple call ‘holiday’.”

“Hav­ing a good time?”

“All but the trip com­ing here,” the wife said. “We aren’t used to so much secu­rity. It’s dehumanizing.”

Vic­tor won­dered if that were true. Grow­ing up, he’d never shared a room with any fewer than three sib­lings. Often they’d shared beds. Dur­ing sur­vival train­ing, his whole fam­ily slept together beneath piles of limbs and grass. Per­sonal space. Body pri­vacy. Indi­vid­ual free­dom. He under­stood those ideas, but had never known them per­son­ally. “Where are you from?” he asked.

“Amer­ica,” the man said. “Kansas City.”

“That’s where I’m going.”

“You must be on our rocket,” the wife said. “What a small world.”

“Chiefs have a good team this year,” her hus­band observed. “Com­ing to see a game?”

Vic­tor nod­ded. “I’m a Bron­cos fan. They’re play­ing this week­end.” He’d stud­ied Amer­i­can foot­ball in prepa­ra­tion for deploy­ment. After watch­ing no fewer than forty hours of plays, and read­ing exten­sively about player psy­chol­ogy and foot­ball his­tory, Vic­tor had actu­ally come to like the Raiders best. But not for their skill. Foot­ball seemed to him a bizarrely sim­ple game. He liked the pic­ture of the pirate on their helmets.

“Strycharz will throw on the Bron­cos’ cor­ners all day,” the Amer­i­can said.

“We’ll see.”

The woman got up. “I need to use the restroom,” she whis­pered. “If a wait­ress comes, order me a carob cookie and a glass of water. Tap.” She smiled at Vic­tor as she slid past him. He couldn’t tell if she wanted to see him naked or tou­sle his hair like a lit­tle boy. Prob­a­bly some of both.

As soon as she was out of hear­ing, her hus­band leaned toward Vic­tor. “I’ve never seen so many beau­ti­ful women,” he whis­pered con­spir­a­to­ri­ally. “Frankly, I’m a bit con­cerned about the secu­rity check.”

“You’ll do fine,” Vic­tor assured him. “No one will pay any attention.”

“My wife will.”

“Do you live near the sta­dium?” Vic­tor was being sent to inves­ti­gate one of the Chiefs’ star play­ers, a run­ning back call­ing him­self Arnell Brown. He was a cinch to win rookie of the year. His num­bers were impres­sive — 5.95 yards per attempt and catch­ing an aver­age of six passes per game. Maybe a bit too impres­sive. Victor’s job was to deter­mine whether Brown was an AWOL sol­dier, and if so, to decom­mis­sion him. It was the job Vic­tor was trained for. It was the task he was designed to do.

“We live in Lib­erty,” the man said. “Know where that is?”

“Kansas side?” Vic­tor knew exactly where Lib­erty was. He prob­a­bly knew more about Kansas City, both geog­ra­phy and his­tory, than most residents.

“We’re on the north-eastern edge. Twenty min­utes from the new sta­dium, if you take the fed­eral highway.”

Vic­tor grinned. Amer­i­cans were known the whole world over for deter­min­ing dis­tances based on drive-time. In New York, you might say it was ten blocks to the bank, or give the dis­tance by the num­ber of sub­way stops. In Amer­ica, still cling­ing des­per­ately to its hybrid com­bus­tion engines and the remains of a once-proud auto indus­try, drive-time was every­thing. “Go to many games?” he asked.

The man shrugged. “A few. It’s afford­able, as enter­tain­ment goes. In my father’s day, an ordi­nary man couldn’t. Tick­ets were mas­sively over­priced. But since the war…”

“I can’t wait to see Arnell Brown. Have you watched him?”

“Fastest kid I ever saw. Strong too.” The man held out his arm. “Biceps like hams. I’m not kid­ding.” Vic­tor had seen pic­tures. Accord­ing to Father, cer­tain Echo boys had been gene-spliced with goril­las. They were strong, but tended toward muscle-bound. “He fum­bles too much, but coach thinks he’ll get over that.”

“Is he ever hurt?” Vic­tor asked.

The man shook his head. “But he’s only played four­teen games.”

“That’s right.” With steroids and recon­struc­tive surgery, any­one could have arms like the busi­ness end of a can­non. Vic­tor would have to inves­ti­gate care­fully. But he had one last ques­tion. “What about his woman?”

“His girl­friend you mean?” Amer­i­cans went to enor­mous lengths to avoid objec­ti­fy­ing humans. In Boston and New York, women com­monly referred to the man they were with as ‘meat.’ Men referred to women as ‘bitches,’ some­times ‘slots.’ Dehu­man­iza­tion wasn’t much thought about. In Amer­ica, such terms would be tan­ta­mount to call­ing some­one a whore or slave. “I think he’s been see­ing one of the local beauty queens,” the Amer­i­can con­tin­ued. “Miss Bar­be­cue or Miss Corn Mis­souri. I can’t remem­ber which.” What a pecu­liar place Amer­ica was. What strange people.

The man’s wife had just returned from the toi­let. She smiled at Vic­tor as she trun­dled past. “Oh dear, what did you do to your neck?” she asked.

Vic­tor felt where she was look­ing. It was his jack. Nor­mally, his head­set would be plugged into that hole, where it resem­bled an ordi­nary pim­ple. Now it was just an open socket. “Stung by a hor­net,” Vic­tor mut­tered, fin­ger­ing his hair down over the hole.

“Did you put mud on it?”

The idea was enough to make Vic­tor wince. He imag­ined a hideous scream­ing in the mid­dle of his brain, like feed­back from an ampli­fier, only inside his skull. “Excuse me,” he said. “I need to use the toi­let before we take off.”

“Hope we see you on the rocket,” the woman called after him. “Or in security.”

The toi­let was lit­tle more than a long hall, with stalls on one side and sinks on the other. Toward the back was a shower room, designed pri­mar­ily for long-haul multi-stop pas­sen­gers. There was no line, but some­one must have been using the facil­ity because the win­dow at the cen­ter of the door was fogged by steam. Vic­tor stood in line for the stalls. The teenagers he’d seen in the drug­gist were directly ahead of him.

“Should we shower?” one of the girls asked.

“It’d just wash off the per­fume,” her friend replied. Vic­tor sniffed, but could smell noth­ing over the bleach used to clean the floor. “Besides, they’ll be call­ing us for secu­rity checks in a few minutes.”

Vic­tor had just emerged from the stall when a voice boomed over the loud­speaker, announc­ing the open­ing of secu­rity for Euro­rocket 1796 to Kansas City. He glanced in the mir­ror, mak­ing sure his hair cov­ered the head­set jack behind his ear, then hur­ried to gate nine­teen. A line was already forming.

He waited patiently as the peo­ple ahead of him filed through the gate. A sign next to the door read: Cau­tion! Euro­rocket, in con­junc­tion with the Chi­nese Aero­nau­tic Admin­is­tra­tion and the Con­ti­nen­tal Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tions, has deter­mined that air­port secu­rity in the States of Amer­ica does not com­ply with inter­na­tional standards.

Vic­tor handed his board­ing pass to the agent on duty and started down the secu­rity cor­ri­dor. Trav­el­ers ahead of him were prepar­ing for final checks. Vic­tor took off his tie and stuck it in his jacket pocket, along with the cur­rency he’d brought for pur­chases in the airport.

“All nat­ural fibers,” the secu­rity offi­cer man­ning the first table called, hand­ing Vic­tor an oblong plas­ticene bin. “Cot­ton, wool and linen. Silk and paper. Leather on the bottom.”

Vic­tor slipped off his loafers and set them in the bot­tom of the bin. As he unbut­toned his pants, the woman ahead of him motioned to the wait­ing atten­dant. Her bin had a pair of leather shoes in it. “That’s all,” she said.

“Num­ber four­teen,” the atten­dant replied. “Remem­ber your num­ber.” Then he slid her bin into the appro­pri­ate slot in a wheeled cart.

“Here’s mine,” Vic­tor said.

His suit, both jacket and slacks, was folded atop his shoes. The atten­dant pressed them down, mak­ing sure the bin would fit into the cart. “Num­ber fif­teen. Remem­ber your number.”

The line con­tin­ued down the corridor.

At the next table, secu­rity offi­cers were col­lect­ing man-made fibers. Vic­tor slipped off his sox and under­wear and set them in the bin he was given. Again the atten­dant told him his num­ber was fif­teen, and implored him to remem­ber it.

The woman ahead of him slipped her dress off over her head before she even reached the third table, care­fully fold­ing and set­ting it in the bin for blended cloth. Vic­tor did like­wise, fold­ing his shirt care­fully so that it would take fewer wrinkles.

At this point, the secu­rity check became both slower and more inva­sive. Pas­sen­gers had to wait as each per­son stepped into a scan­ning cham­ber and held out his or her arms. A full body scan was per­formed, begin­ning at the feet and ris­ing until it reached the top of the head. Most took only a minute or two. A few lasted much longer.

Over the last four decades, secu­rity admin­is­tra­tions had found it ever more dif­fi­cult to pro­tect planes and rock­ets. When he was a boy, Vic­tor remem­bered going through secu­rity remov­ing only his jacket and shoes. That was before the bomb­ings at Mecca. Sub­se­quent inves­ti­ga­tions by the CBI demon­strated that Chris­t­ian ter­ror­ists had devised meth­ods for turn­ing high explo­sives into fibers resem­bling, in nearly every detail, ordi­nary cloth. Use of nan­otech­nol­ogy had enabled the same ter­ror­ists to cre­ate advanced cir­cuitry so small that it was detectable only by elec­tron micro­scope. This was to say noth­ing of fanat­ics swal­low­ing explo­sives, or insert­ing them into the anus or vagina. One par­tic­u­larly inven­tive ter­ror­ist had replaced the sil­i­cone in her breast implants with liq­uid explo­sive. It was hideously effective.

The sen­sor was tak­ing its time going over the body of an elderly man. Vic­tor guessed that he’d had replace­ment surgery and the machine was paus­ing to look more closely at a knee or hip.

The woman ahead of him glanced over her shoul­der. “They say the usual scan takes forty-five to sev­enty sec­onds, but I always get in behind the geezer.” She raised her eye­brows meaningfully.

Vic­tor waited patiently for his turn. Stand­ing naked in pub­lic was of lit­tle con­cern to him. His whole fam­ily, all twenty-five kids, had used the shower rooms simul­ta­ne­ously for as long as he could remem­ber. Even ordi­nary chil­dren in the Euro­pean Pro­tec­torate were made to use open show­ers after co-ed physical-education classes. The idea was to desen­si­tize nudity. It must have worked. Cit­i­zens went through secu­rity checks like this twice a week on aver­age. There was sel­dom an inci­dent, and most of those were caused by vis­i­tors from Amer­ica, where fully nude checks were almost unknown. Cre­at­ing a scene did lit­tle good, of course. Every­one went through the machine, happy or no. Men were usu­ally the more uncom­fort­able, fear­ing uncon­trolled sex­ual responses. Vic­tor was immune to such hap­pen­ings. Both his train­ing and his phys­i­ol­ogy guarded against it. Once, when they were thir­teen, his sis­ter Fox­trot attempted to incite him against his will. She used every tech­nique she’d learned in sex train­ing – some of them almost unspeak­ably lewd — and it might have worked if Vic­tor hadn’t been tipped off to her inten­tions. A few of the other boys weren’t so lucky. Vic­tor teased Char­lie for a month after Juliet, Sierra and Fox incited him dur­ing a shower. All of the chil­dren in their fam­ily engaged in sex play — it was encour­aged by Father — but at no time were they to lose con­trol. Sex was a tool. A weapon. It might also be relax­ing and plea­sur­able, but never mind-numbing. If a sol­dier could be incited to pas­sion, he could also be con­trolled, and pos­si­bly turned from his duty. It had hap­pened through­out his­tory. Sam­son and Delilah. Antony and Cleopa­tra. Clin­ton and Lewin­sky. Mod­ern sol­diers were taught to inspire debil­i­tat­ing pas­sion from mem­bers of both sexes, but never to suc­cumb themselves.

The woman ahead of him stepped into the cham­ber and held her arms out at her sides. Sen­sors corkscrewed up the clear plas­ticene walls, paus­ing only once, at the woman’s abdomen. Maybe she was preg­nant, Vic­tor mused.

When it was his turn, Vic­tor calmly stretched out both arms. For him, these checks lasted, on aver­age, about ninety-five sec­onds. By all rights, he ought to have been left stand­ing there for upwards of a quarter-hour. The scan­ner should stop at his sur­gi­cally enhanced knees, the hip he’d bro­ken dur­ing com­bat ops in Iran, and his groin. When it reached his arms, it should have all but ground to a halt. Victor’s wrist bones had been removed and replaced with tita­nium flexi-joints. His knuck­les were tita­nium as well. In old movies, sol­diers described their hands as deadly weapons. In Victor’s case, that was true. But the scan­ners only paused once as they twisted past him — when they reached his left ankle. Embed­ded in that joint was a micro emit­ter. It told the scan­ner that this body belonged to the Euro­pean Mil­i­tary, scan­ning pro­hib­ited. A sig­nal was also sent to Father, of course. The only way for a sol­dier to get off the grid, as the old-timers called it, was to remove the chip from his ankle or cut off his leg. Oth­er­wise, satel­lites tracked his every move­ment. Vic­tor found it com­fort­ing to know that Father was always with him.

In the room beyond the scan­ner, naked pas­sen­gers milled uncom­fort­ably. A few talked, but most stayed to them­selves. The Amer­i­can tourists stood in one cor­ner. The man held his hands in front of his crotch. The woman crossed her arms in front of her breasts. Both stud­ied the floor. Vic­tor waved, but only the woman waved back.

They waited the bet­ter part of a half-hour before the carts finally started show­ing up, the clothes bins inside now fully scanned.

“Num­bers one and two,” the secu­rity atten­dant called. A boy and his mother went to col­lect their belong­ings. “Three, four and five.”

Vic­tor had to wait for the sec­ond set of carts before his num­ber came up. The woman he’d stood behind in line was called up with him. As they col­lected their belong­ings, she glanced over at Vic­tor, just step­ping into his under­wear, and grinned. She slipped her frock on over her head. “Men should start wear­ing these,” she said, step­ping into her shoes. “You’d be done by now.”

“No kid­ding,” Vic­tor muttered.

The last of the carts had only just arrived when secu­rity opened the ele­va­tor doors and called for all dressed pas­sen­gers. Vic­tor, neck-tie still in his pocket, stepped forward.

They descended to the dock­ing level, dis­em­barked and filed to the near­est hatch. The Euro­rocket sym­bol, a comet blast­ing past a cres­cent moon, was embla­zoned over the airlock.

The ele­va­tors made two more trips before the rocket was fully loaded. It held twenty-nine pas­sen­gers and one air-marshal. Seats were set up in three rows, ten to a row, form­ing a per­fect cir­cle around the cen­ter of the rocket. A secu­rity atten­dant sealed the hatch.

“Good morn­ing, and wel­come to Euro­rocket launch 1796, with 11:30 ser­vice to Kansas City. I’m your Cap­tain, Phin­neas Sim­mons. For those of you who’ve never flown with us, an infor­ma­tion card has been tucked into the pocket beneath your seat, explain­ing the use of the oxy­gen mask and shoul­der restraints. If any­one feels that they’re likely to expe­ri­ence g-force related ill­ness, please notify the sky-marshal. She’ll gladly switch on your mask’s vomit suc­tion.” A few hands raised and the mar­shal calmly thumbed the appro­pri­ate but­tons on her arm con­sole. The sound of a low power vac­uum echoed through the cabin.

No sooner had the cap­tain fin­ished talk­ing than the shoul­der restraints descended over the pas­sen­gers, squeez­ing them into their seats. Shoulder-restraint was a bit of a mis­nomer. A solid har­ness actu­ally fit over both the shoul­ders and chest, and locked into a slot between the passenger’s legs. Next came the masks. Vic­tor took his from the hook on his shoul­der har­ness and fit­ted it over his nose, mouth and eyes. Cool air blasted at him. Even if he should pass out, which was more than pos­si­ble, air would be forced into his mouth and nose, fill­ing his lungs.

The next sen­sa­tion was one of heav­i­ness, as the cylin­der they were in began to spin, and then dropped onto its side.

“We’re being moved into the bar­rel,” the cap­tain announced. “Pre­pare for liftoff.”

The rocket began to shake. A moment later, Victor’s head snapped down and his arms were pinned in his lap. He lost con­scious­ness momen­tar­ily as the rocket blasted out of one of the three LaGuardia cannons.

When he woke, the cap­tain was back on the intercom.

“…now sail­ing over St. Louis. Our speed has bled off suf­fi­ciently to allow use of wings, so we’ll slide those out now.”

Vic­tor felt a jolt as the rocket stopped spin­ning. Unfor­tu­nately, his seat was on the top of the cylin­der, so he was left hang­ing face down for the remain­der of the trip. It could be worse. The woman he’d spo­ken to in secu­rity sat directly across from him. Vic­tor saw that she had vom­ited into her mask. He won­dered why she hadn’t asked for suc­tion. Judg­ing by the way she’d talked, rocket flight was noth­ing knew to her. Maybe she really was preg­nant, Vic­tor thought, but didn’t know it yet.

“Five more min­utes and we’ll glide to a stop at Kansas City Inter­na­tional, where the local time is 10:45,” the cap­tain said. “For those with seats up top, you have our sym­pa­thy. Soon as we can, we’ll get the ground crew to lift us upright. ‘Til then, stay as calm as pos­si­ble and take deep breaths. Thank you for fly­ing Euro­rocket. We know you have other choices in bal­lis­tic travel, but we hope you’ll allow us to serve you again in the near future. Sky-marshal, pre­pare for landing.”

After clear­ing cus­toms, Vic­tor went to the rental car coun­ters. They offered him a late model Ford or old Chevro­let. Vic­tor took the Chevy. It wouldn’t be as reli­able, and had very lit­tle pick-up, but it was the more com­mon model on the roads. Until he made con­tact with Arnell Brown, his orders were to blend with the sur­round­ing population.

He drove to a motel in Inde­pen­dence, birth­place of Harry Tru­man, and checked in. The man­ager met him with a smile. “Wel­come to Mis­souri,” he said, pro­nounc­ing it Miz­zoura. “In town for the game?”

Vic­tor nod­ded. “Bron­cos fan.” He wasn’t used to so much pleas­ant­ness from a stranger. Euro­peans were more likely to spit than shake hands.

“Where are you from?”

“Boise, Idaho.”

“Gem state.”

“That’s right.”

“Vis­ited when I was a kid. You ski?”

“Some.” Just then, Vic­tor noticed a clock on the wall. If it was accu­rate, one-hundred and twenty-six min­utes had passed since he arrived at the Euro­rocket ter­mi­nal in New York. “Lis­ten, can I have my key? I’m anx­ious to get settled.”

“Sure.” The motel man­ager slid an elec­tronic guest reg­is­ter across the counter and pointed to the spot where Vic­tor was to sign. “My name’s Gatliff. If you should need any­thing, just holler. My wife and I are here pretty much all the time. Say hello to our new guest, honey.”

“Hello out there,” a woman’s voice came through the office door.

Vic­tor jot­ted down his name and slid the reg­is­ter back.

Jason stud­ied the sig­na­ture. “Vic­tor. What’s your last name?”

“Bravo.”

Vic­tor pulled his car around to the door marked 17. The room was sim­ple, but clean. It had close access to the high­way, plenty of light, and a rear door lead­ing to a swim­ming pool behind the motel. There was a Bible in one of the dresser drawers.

He set his bags on the foot of the bed and began to unpack. The first thing he took out was his head­set. Vic­tor was past due now, and the mere sight of it made him hun­gry for con­tact. He took it out of its baggy and spat on the elec­trodes. They con­nected bet­ter if they were just a lit­tle bit wet.

Vic­tor was about to plug the head­set in when he noticed some­thing mov­ing through the win­dow. Two lit­tle girls splashed their way to the shal­low end of the pool. They wore Amer­i­can bathing cos­tumes – leav­ing all and noth­ing to the imag­i­na­tion – and were hold­ing hands.

The older girl whis­pered some­thing in her sister’s ear. It must have been a touch off-color because both girls looked around to see who else heard. Then, they did one of the strangest things Vic­tor had ever seen. They closed their eyes, leaned together and touched tongues. It wasn’t a kiss. Vic­tor would have under­stood that. They just pressed their tongues together, held them there a moment, and then gig­gled maniacally.

They were about to do it again when a man — prob­a­bly their father — grabbed the younger girl by the arm and yanked her from the pool. Both girls cried as the man berated them, ges­tic­u­lat­ing wildly. Vic­tor had no idea what the man was say­ing, but he got the mean­ing loud and clear. Sis­ter weren’t to be touch­ing tongues.

For a moment, Vic­tor con­sid­ered march­ing out to that pool, grab­bing the man by the neck and smash­ing him against the clos­est wall. But he didn’t. Instead, he looked down at his head­set, still cupped in his palm, glis­ten­ing with his spit­tle. The hunger was enor­mous now — grow­ing worse with every pass­ing moment — an ache at the very cen­ter of his being.

Victor’s fin­gers trem­bled as he sunk the head­set into his jack, feel­ing the chips in his brain recal­i­brate. Moments later he heard the famil­iar sta­tic, and felt him­self uplink. Instantly he was full of voices, every one of them famil­iar. Delta was in Tokyo, attempt­ing to seduce the Emperor of Japan. Zulu was in the Philip­pines, his fin­ger on the trig­ger of a fifty-caliber sniper rifle. Charlie’s body was being loaded into an inter­con­ti­nen­tal bal­lis­tic rocket bound for The Hague. Sierra was miss­ing, pre­sumed destroyed.

“Fox­trot Alpha Tango Romeo,” Vic­tor thought, and the minds of his broth­ers and sis­ters dimmed to a low hum.

“Go ahead Vic­tor.” He rec­og­nized this voice as well. It was the sound he lis­tened for above all oth­ers, the voice of his own thoughts.

“Father,” he sighed. “It’s good to be back.”

Copy­right: Justin Allen