SEVENTEEN

Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina

FORTY MINUTES AFTER meeting the president, King stood outside Hangar 7, Delta’s personal hangar that typically housed the Crescent. Right now it was devoid of any aircraft but held four Delta teams made up of five soldiers each. The men, dressed in black fatigues, quickly off-loaded their gear from the two large trucks that had carried them to the airfield and stood before King. The four team leaders approached.

Jeff Kafer, call sign Mouth, thanks to his audiobook narrator’s voice, said, “I hear you’ve got an ‘ask and you shall receive’ order from Keasling. Well, you asked and we’re here, so mind telling us what this is about?”

King motioned to the open hangar. “Come with me. You can brief your men when we’re done.”

The five team leaders entered Decon, where a bandaged but conscious Lewis Aleman sat waiting behind a laptop. General Keasling stood in the corner, his short arms crossed over his chest. As the men entered the room, the tension became palpable. They’d all seen friends and comrades killed and the shock from the strange attack had not yet worn off. The team leaders, who were accustomed to sitting around this table with their own teams, sat down and turned to Keasling. He motioned their attention to King, who stood at the head of the table. “He’s running the show.”

“As of this moment,” King said, “your teams are serving under the Chess Team. Each one of you will serve under a member of my team and will obey their orders as though each and every one of them was God himself. You will be Pawns One through Five with the team leader’s designation coming first.

He pointed to Kafer. “You’re Rook’s Pawn One and your men are Two through Five. In the field this will be shortened to RP-One. Understood?”

Nods all around. Despite their battle-hardened experience and high rank, the men knew they were being brought, at least temporarily, into the fold of the Chess Team. Each of them felt a mix of honor and intimidation.

“We’ve got a connection,” Aleman said before tapping a few keys on the laptop.

The wall behind King, actually a well-disguised flat-screen display, came to life. Queen, Rook, Knight, and Bishop appeared on the screen, sitting around a laptop on their end from within the Crescent. Their serious faces reflected that they had been briefed on the Fort Bragg attack and Fiona’s kidnapping.

“Can you hear us?” Rook asked.

“We hear you,” King replied and then nodded at Aleman. “Give what you have.”

King had plucked Aleman from his cot, which he’d been forced to stay in, and had him working on finding answers for the past thirty minutes. It wasn’t a lot of time, but Aleman tended to think faster than most men. And he didn’t disappoint.

“Here’s what we know. About a year ago, the Siletz Reservation was destroyed. We now have a pretty good idea how. That said, we still have no idea what actually attacked us.”