And Ava. The chameleon. The woman who could blend in anywhere, persuade anyone of anything. Smart. Fearless. Gorgeous. Unflappable. The woman he loved.

They hugged and smiled, and slapped each other on the back, and then gathered in the kitchen. It was good to be back with his people again.

He opened his mind to theirs and they to his. Through the Nexus link he showed them the attack at the cemetery and they showed him their rushed trip to rescue him. They’d been on their way to risk their lives for him, heading to his location expecting to find a DHS team between them and him. He loved these three. He’d die for them if he had to.

“So Zara decided to off you,” Hiroshi said. “Why?”

Breece shrugged. “He’s always been a control freak. He’s always wanted to pick the missions, move cautiously. We’ve upset that. The truth is, we don’t need him, and that’s a threat to his power.”

“What does he know about this mission?” Ava asked.

Breece shook his head. “Nothing. Same as Chicago.”

“We need to deal with him,” Hiroshi said.

Breece nodded. “We will. After this.”

“So we’re still a go?” the Nigerian asked.

“We have one other problem,” Breece said. “Hiroshi?”

Hiroshi showed them the feed from the Chicago mission. Everything was normal until the last moments.

I think I have a bomb! the mule said in their minds. A bomb!

“The mission succeeded,” Breece told them, “but only barely.”

“We thought at first that the software had glitched,” Hiroshi said. “But the logs showed otherwise. Someone else hacked into that mind and overrode our commands. And whoever did this is very very good. It was less than a minute between the mule’s activation and this hack.”

Breece watched as his team absorbed that.

“Could this explain DC?” the Nigerian asked. “The mule there fired only twice instead of four times. And he missed.”

Breece looked at Hiroshi.

“Possibly,” Hiroshi said, nodding.

“So what do we do about this?” Ava asked.

“Two things,” Breece said. “First, we’re going to make a few changes to the mission profile. Second, we need to be more careful ourselves. As long as we’re running Nexus, we could be vulnerable to this hacker again. Hiroshi needs to run Nexus to prep the mule. None of the rest of us do. So until we’ve figured out what happened, the three of us are going to dump our Nexus, and after Hiroshi preps the mule, he will too.”

He felt their disappointment, Ava’s especially. He wanted to touch her in mind and body, feel her pleasure as he made love to her. But that would have to wait.

They all agreed with this decision. They’d all do what needed to be done. They were a team, and more. They were family. They were soldiers.

Chapter 29: Neanderthals

29

NEANDERTHALS

Friday October 26th