“A shitload of living rock, that’s what,” Kafer said.

Aleman looked at the ceiling for a moment, his eyes squinted in thought.

“Lew,” King said.

Aleman looked back at his screen. “Then we received tips that certain targets in Australia and Vietnam were in danger. In fact, the targets were killed before our team arrived on site. Or, in Rook’s case, just after. And it was the last words of this dying victim that clued me in. She said—correct me if I’m wrong, Rook—that they were after ‘bad words’ that you were then told not to speak. ‘Can’t speak them. Don’t speak them.’”

“You got it,” Rook said.

“Given the ancestry of the victim, it occurred to me that her native language would be very old; perhaps one of the oldest, if not the oldest, spoken language on the planet. I did some research on the other victims. All of them were the last surviving speakers of nearly extinct ancient languages. The Gurdanji in Australia had five living speakers. They’re all dead. The Siletz had two living speakers, Fiona’s grandmother—”

“And Fiona,” Queen said. “Shit.”

“I compiled a list of all dying languages around the world and found a disturbing trend. Many of the last speakers of ancient languages have either gone missing or been found dead. Someone is exterminating them. But because they’re relatively few people spread out all around the world, some in obscure places, no one has noticed. I’ve identified the speakers of the most at-risk languages that are still living. Tinigua has two speakers. Taushiro, one. Uru, one. And Vilela, two. All four of these languages are in South America. Then there is Chulym, known as Ös to its three speakers in Siberia, down from fifteen three years ago thanks to a flu that killed thousands of people in the remote area. And Pazeh with one speaker born in the Philippines, but living in Taiwan.”

“Are you assigning us to kidnap these people?” Kafer said.

“That’s your mission,” King replied. “Yes.”

“And you’ve done this before?”

“Bag and tag,” Bishop said, which got a smile from Rook and odd looks from the four team leaders in Decon.

“Are you questioning your orders?” King asked, his voice heavy, his eyes leveled at Kafer.

For a moment it appeared Kafer might argue the point, but he leaned back in his chair instead. “Just curious is all.”

Aleman cleared his throat. “Queen and Bishop will lead two teams to South America. Knight will take one team to Taiwan. Rook will take Siberia.”

“I don’t need to tell you that not only do we not know who we’re up against, but we also don’t know what,” King said. “You and your men have fought conventional wars up until now, but all that changes today. Throw out your preconceptions about human capabilities and effective tactics and do not, ever, believe a bullet can kill the enemy.”

“What do we know?” one of the team leaders asked. “I saw the damn statue from Bragg’s main entrance come to life and kill a man.”