She was a deep-cover military intel operative. Ironically, she was actually leading a triple life. Not just the role she played with this group, but outside of it, too. Then, she had to pretend she was a retired vet who’d received a medical discharge due to an on-duty injury.
Not that she was deep-cover military intel working to help bring down the currently corrupt US government.
* * * *
Sleep was impossible. Instead, Tank retreated to her thoughts, nearly as dangerous a place for her lately as the real world, but it was her only escape.
Trying not to think about her parents was impossible, that old axiomatic problem. The more you tried not to think about something, the more you couldn’t force thoughts about it from your mind, even under threat of death.
Over the past two years, she’d been more grateful for her father and his overzealous ways when she was growing up than she ever had in her entire life.
I just hope I get a chance to tell him that in person.
She always tried to think in terms of when, not if she’d see her dad again.
It was no secret he’d hoped she’d be a boy, but she’d never felt unloved by him. Instead, he made sure his only child could take care of herself in every way, leaving room for her mother to smooth off the rougher edges. She could set a formal dinner table and shoot any motherfuckers trying to bust down the door in the process without breaking a sweat.
She could change a tire or her nail polish.
Not at the same time, of course.
His careful tutelage had led to her not only going straight to officer’s school without passing go, but to being brought into military intel at a young age when some soldiers were still struggling through their first years.
He’d trained her well.
Too well, her mom had protested despite her own pride. Now a lieutenant colonel, her mom was—hopefully—still safe in Germany, buttoned-up in an underground base.
Her father…
He was still unaccounted for in Manila.
The thought of trying to get back to Manila herself to find him when this mission ended wasn’t something Tank planned in her mind. She knew how improbable that was, the logistics needed.
She was but one tiny cog in a world completely gone off the rails. A world that didn’t give a shit about her father or her mission or these damn college kids.
And if she ever lost sight of that fact, the world would grind her cog self up without a second glance.
* * * *
Despite the presence of fourteen other people, the building sounded quiet.
Too quiet.
Tank couldn’t sleep even if she wanted to, every nerve on edge, tension jangling through her veins. Sitting propped up in the far corner, back to the walls, even dozing off wasn’t going to happen. After another couple of hours, she gave up trying.
Back to the roof.
It was cold up there, but it gave her a clear view of their surroundings. This early in the morning, about an hour before dawn, she had the world to herself for a few minutes.
Then her jacket pocket started to vibrate, startling her.
Fuck.
She fished out the secret sat-phone the group didn’t know she had. This couldn’t be good news, because Bubba never texted her with good news unless she texted him first.
Sure enough…
ASAP. Window closes Tuesday morning.
“Shit,” she whispered. She thought about her reply before sending it.
RR. I’ll do my best. OO
She’d just gotten the group convinced that Kansas City was a reasonable place to lay low for a while. Getting them moving again to Topeka this soon might be problematic.
She took another turn around the roof and tried to think of a logical, plausible solution to this new hiccup. Worse came to worse, she’d just make something up. A contact insisted they had to leave now. An opportunity to evac to safety just emerged…
Something.
Anything.
While with this group she tried to keep the flat-out falsehoods down to a minimum due to the power of their Google-Fu skills, their lack of any first-hand, personal military knowledge helped. None of them had parents in the military, or who had served.
Fortunately, she didn’t need to make anything up. When Tank opened the stairwell door to go downstairs, she nearly tripped over Sylvan. The girl was sitting on the top step of the landing, laptop open and illuminating her shocked expression as she stared up at Tank.
“What the—” Tank grabbed the laptop from her. “Oh, hell no. Fuck, no. What did we tell you?” Tank slammed the laptop’s lid shut while fighting the urge to go back up to the roof and sling it off said roof and into the darkness.
“My parents, Tank,” she tearfully whispered. “I have to find them.”
Tank realized this was actually the answer to her prayers. “What did you do?”
“I just posted another message. To a different board, I swear. And seeing if anyone responded to my earlier posts.”
Tank pinched the bridge of her nose. “We have to move again. They’ll be on to us.”
“But it was one message. Late at night!”
“They’re monitoring stuff twenty-four/seven. Don’t you realize that? There’s a government sysadmin sitting somewhere looking for hits on searches like this. There’s probably already been a flag raised and an all-call sent out. Dammit!”
Sylvan had grown up with the hat-trick of privilege—wealthy parents, good looks, and brains. To her, before all of this, survival had meant figuring out when she could get her hair or nails done and not have to wait.
If it hadn’t been for her having an unrequited crush on Gatsby, Sylvan likely wouldn’t be here now.
Tank grabbed Sylvan by the arm, hauled her to her feet, and dragged her downstairs with her. Tank marched her into the makeshift tent area and turned on a battery-operated lantern. “Everybody wake up. We need to get ready to move.”
After Tank quickly explained the situation, almost everyone started hurrying to get ready.
Tank was, of course, ready to go in less than five minutes. She’d hoped to lead by example, to express to them how urgently they needed to get.
The fuck.
Out of there.
At least Gatsby and Connell seemed to grok the seriousness of the situation and started lighting fires under everyone else.
Which led to Connell and Sylvan getting into it when he called her out for forcing them to move again, after she bitched about having to move without getting a chance to wash up first.
We could quite possibly die, all because that little bitch wants a shower.
If it wouldn’t totally fark her mission and plague her with guilt, Tank would simply drive away without them.
She walked outside, loaded her gear into her truck, and grabbed three spare mags from their hiding place in her messenger bag and tucked them into her left jacket pocket. She moved her nine from her back holster to her right jacket pocket, in case she needed it while driving.
Walking around the building, she pulled out her sat-phone and texted Bubba.
EXFIL ASAP. 15 SOBS.
She received a response seconds later.
20?
She pulled up the GPS coordinates and texted them.
Barely time for three breaths before he replied.
EXFIL en route. ETA
Followed by GPS coordinates for the meeting spot, a park not even twenty minutes away.
With every minute that passed and they still hadn’t left, her tension ratcheted up another notch. She didn’t think they made a number to assign to the pucker factor she now sat on.
That Bubba already had an exfil team prepared to get them concerned her. She wondered what else he knew that she didn’t.
And if she even wanted to know.
Of course there was more Sylvan-related squabbling before they could get loaded and underway. When the kids were all finally ready to leave what felt like fa
r too damn long many minutes later, Tank took the lead in the truck, pulling ahead of the others.
One more lucky break. Please, just one more.
Tank headed out toward the meeting place, the other two vehicles falling in behind her. They were so close to safety.
So.
Damn.
Close.
But was it close enough?
Chapter Three
Papa stared out the windshield as they drove west through the darkness, Alpha behind the wheel.
Destination: Topeka.
Safety.
From there they were home free, and they’d head north to the secret base in Canada.
Meaning their research team could finally start producing the vaccine in large batches for final testing before it went into full-scale production.
They were almost “there,” at their overall mission goal, even if they were still several hours east of Topeka.
Find the scientists. Help them formulate a vaccine. Safely deliver scientists and vaccine.
Don’t die in the process.
So far, their unit had sustained minimal losses, and none of them to their core group.
Annie’s friends in LA. Scooter’s friends. Stu’s brother. Ak’s brother and aunt. Panda’s brother. Ax’s parents, although that had been decades ago.
None of them directly killed by Silo’s own hands, but close enough, as far as Papa was concerned.
Going on five years as the CO of the Drunk Monkeys, Major Sam Warner knew that once this mission was complete, he’d be leaving the military and starting the rest of his life, whatever that meant. He hoped Alpha would want to come with, because he loved the man like a brother and considered him not just his second in command, but his best friend.
Unlike the other nine pairs of men in their unit, they didn’t have a woman to keep them together. He didn’t know how that would play out later in terms of their dynamic.
Then again, they were in charge. Their job was to successfully complete their mission, not fuck around. Although the women who’d joined their unit so far had all played an important role in keeping them going, helping them fulfill their mission.
Clara had helped root out one mole, and as a nurse had helped the research team. Annie had taken out another mole. Ak helped keep their unit running, and Chief’s law enforcement skills, as well as her military experience, had helped save lives.
Pandora had started it all by helping to locate Q, the first doctor they’d brought in to keep safe. Scooter’s banking knowledge and skill at spotting patterns had helped them track and pinch off Silo’s money trail. Stu was a computer hacker. Snarky was a doctor.
Panda flew their asses out of Seattle, and back and forth from Florida to Atlanta.
In fact, Panda had already landed their big Zeus at the secret base in Topeka and had it safely stashed underground. All the scientists had been safely flown there already, either by her or by the pilot from SOTIF13 out of Atlanta.
They’d once again all be under the same roof, so to speak, and saving the world.
Alpha broke the silence. “I will not miss this,” he said.
“What?”
“This. Long-haul drives across the country at night, always checking our six, never knowing who we can trust. Having to check a GPS to see where the fuck we are, not because I don’t know, but because I can’t remember.”
“Sleeping in a real goddamned bed every night.”
“Fuck, yeah. I thought the racks in basic were bad. I never had it so good. Able to collapse every night and shut my eyes and actually sleep without worrying about every single noise.”
“So how’d a Georgia boy end up speaking Vietnamese? I never asked you that.”
Alpha shrugged. “There was a cute girl in basic taking it. I tested well on languages. I thought what the hell, why not? Gave me a little pay bump.”
Captain Kenner Chasco, also known as Alpha, second in command of the Drunk Monkeys, wasn’t just a good soldier, but a good man.
And Papa had been glad to have him on the SOTIF team when General Arliss brought them all together. They’d been in the same unit before trying out for SOTIF, and had each gotten a promotion when they were accepted for the positions.
They’d just received another promotion when TMFU happened and they became one of the frontline warrior groups trying to save the planet.
“How’d you end up doing tai chi?” Alpha asked.
“Cute girl in basic teaching it.”
The men looked at each other and grinned, the lights from the dashboard illuminating their faces.
“How long’s it been, anyway?” Alpha asked.
He didn’t need to clarify. This was an old, running joke between them, a little less jokey since Pandora joined their unit in Australia.
“Too damn long,” Papa muttered.
Like the other men in their unit, yes, they’d shared women before. Nothing boosted a guy’s ego like hearing a woman breathlessly gush about how she’d just had the best sex of her life with you, even if it was two of you.
But they’d been in charge, and the circumstances and the stars hadn’t yet aligned properly for them to meet their permanent match.
At first, Papa wasn’t sure bringing the women along was a good idea. Saving Pandora’s life had been more for an altruistic reason, not a logistical one. Even after Bubba had taken over the role of their secret guardian angel. But the larger their group had grown, the more like a family they’d all become.
With the mission’s end finally in sight, Papa almost regretted the inevitable break-up, the going of their separate ways.
“If you want to take a nap,” Alpha said, “I’m good.”
“Seems like every time I want to take a nap, the shit hits the fan.”
“You’re paranoid.”
Papa glared at him. “Where’ve you been the past two years?”
“Yeah, I know. Civvie life will be damned boring.”
Papa tipped his head back against the seat. “I don’t think that word means what you think it means, buddy.”
* * * *
It’d felt like he’d literally just closed his eyes, but in reality Papa had been asleep nearly an hour, when Alpha woke him.
“Sam.”
Alone together, they usually didn’t stand on formalities or titles, much less ranks. They were Sam and Kenner, or, usually, Ken.
It was Kenner’s tone of voice that immediately awakened Papa from his sleep and pulled him into a heightened state of alert. “What?”
“Phone.”
Yes, his secure sat-phone was ringing on the seat next to him, the screen showing it was Bubba.
He answered, now wide awake. “Papa.”
“Where are you guys, exactly?”
“Where are we?” he asked Alpha. He realized it was just after dawn, the sun not yet cresting the eastern horizon behind them.
“Topeka, as of five minutes ago.”
He related the information to Bubba.
“Good. I need you to turn around.”
“What?”
“Not all of you. Need you to put together an exfil team. ASAP. Send them back to KC to grab that student group.”
Papa indicated for Alpha to find a suitable place to pull over. Since they were leading the convoy, everyone followed them into a deserted shopping center parking lot.
“What’s up?”
When he got off the phone with Bubba five minutes later, Papa took a second to suck in a deep breath and clear his mind before looking at Alpha.
“I’m not going to like this, am I?” the other man asked.
“Nope. Ax’s hacker buddies have a team on their tail. We need to get them out ASAP.”
He reached for the door handle and got out, walking back to Lima’s vehicle to break the news.
Five minutes later, he had the exfil team put together and had given them the intel, the coordinates, and they were getting geared up to go. Lima, Niner, Chief, Zed, Uncle, and Snarky.
Y
es, it was good to have another doctor on the team, an actual medical doctor as opposed to a scientist without any real-world patient experience.
Even better, she was experienced in ER and trauma cases.
He needed Doc and Tango there, with the rest of the team. The scientists were far too valuable to risk not having enough people guarding them. Yes, there were base personnel, but he wanted his people on them.
Once the two vehicles were speeding back toward Kansas City, Papa returned to theirs and got in.
Alpha looked at him. “Seriously?”
He sighed. “Seriously.”
Alpha started the car again. “We can’t catch a fucking break. Going to be damned pissed if a bunch of college students get one of our people killed.”
“Well, if they do, it’ll be the last thing they do,” he said. “Ax’s friends or not, Bubba wanting them moved or not, our people come first.”
The men fist-bumped.
* * * *
They continued on to their destination, to the secret base where Panda and the scientists were awaiting their arrival. Papa and Alpha would get their group inside and buttoned up, safely protected by the base’s underground structure, before he headed back with Alpha to meet the exfil team.
He grabbed Annie. “Get your Askers,” he said. “And a vehicle.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“We need to head back and I want you on a roof and ready in case there’s trouble.”
The sniper arched an eyebrow at him. “I’m back in the saddle, huh?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She grinned. “That sounds weird coming from your mouth.”
“That’s what she said,” Alpha teased.
Annie rolled her eyes. “Let’s go before I shoot you for shooting off your mouth.”
Considering she put up with Roscoe, who had a perpetual case of foot-in-mouth disease, Papa figured maybe they shouldn’t press their luck with her.
Equipped with two-way radios, Papa briefed her and Alpha both on their speedy return trip to the shopping center to await the exfil team’s return. They’d just figured out the best roof vantage for her to watch from and had split up from her to go stake out their own observational position from across the street when Papa’s phone rang.