The Last Good Man

A Presentiment of Danger

Lincoln is alert, scanning both ground and sky as he crosses the dark parking lot with his daughters—but it’s Anna who spots the threat. She’s chattering with her sister, a step ahead of him, when she stops, hand up, hissing at Camilla for quiet.

Lincoln is hit with a presentiment of danger.

He’s coached his girls to be alert, encouraged them to always be aware of their surroundings. He’s trained them how to recognize potential threats and how to react. It’s a game for them. Not for him. He shifts both collection bags to his prosthetic hand. His skin prickles, puckering around his scars as he tries to figure out what’s wrong.

Anna is partly on his blindside, cast half in amber by the building lights, half in black and white. She turns to look at him. He’s confused to see her smiling—proud, excited—not scared at all. When she’s sure she has his attention, she points—using just her finger, not extending her arm, exactly the way he’s taught her. She indicates the unlighted access road that leads to the highway. Then she flattens her hand, wobbling her palm. It’s their sign for a drone.

He sees it then, painted in light from the highway. It’s gliding on meter-wide membranous wings, engines off as it drops in a long, slow arc toward the parking lot. He recognizes the model—a Coriolis PR30. It’s not much more than a toy, incapable of carrying a payload beyond the tiny camera that comes standard, but it’s quiet and capable of stealth surveillance.

It’s probably recording the thunderous pounding of his heart.

“Mediot?” Anna whispers.

All of them jump, and Camilla screeches, as a squadron of three defensive starburst copters shoots from hutches on the roof of the single-story terminal building. It’s illegal to fly private drones this close to an airfield and the perimeter on this field is strictly enforced. It’s one reason Lincoln uses it.

“Don’t worry,” he tells Camilla. “Those are just going to chase the mediot away.”

He’s wrong. The squadron’s lead copter streaks toward the PR30. The winged drone tries to turn but it’s slow. There’s no way it can outrun the copter. There’s a pop. The PR30 drops, disappearing into an open field. The starburst copters circle the site, moving with manic speed, then shoot back to the terminal building.

“Holy hemlock!” Anna exclaims, and Camilla immediately echoes her.

Holy hemlock? Lincoln wonders, but he knows better than to ask.

He scans the parking lot, the nearby fields. He’s on edge, wondering what else might be out there. The airfield’s defensive copters offer protection from aerial intruders, but would they detect a ground-crawling mech? An ambitious mediot might try both approaches in an effort to get first pictures of the team. An Al-Furat hired gun might choose a ground crawler too.

Anna fails to hold her position. Without waiting for permission, she starts for the truck, waving her hands to make sure the sensor sees her. Lincoln almost panics. He jumps after her, grabs her shoulder with his free hand.

“Stay put,” he warns.

His grip is too tight. It makes her squirm. “Dad!”

He ignores her, heart racing as he eyes the truck suspiciously. He’s picturing the kamikaze crabs True used in Tadmur. It’s easy for a crawler to carry a payload, to get up into an undercarriage, and from there into the engine block… or the gas tank.

No. He rejects the idea with a sharp shake of his head. This is not Tadmur. It’s not the TEZ. Don’t get paranoid. The worst threat his girls face is mediot harassment.

“Dad,” Anna protests, “you’re hurting my shoulder!”

He lets her go. Both girls stare at him, eyes wary, uncertain. “What’s the matter, Dad?” Anna asks.

“Nothing,” he says gruffly. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

It’s the truth, and still, he’s beset with anxiety. A sense of vulnerability. It’s the way he used to feel in the weeks and months after a mission. It’s this talk of Shaw Walker, he decides. It’s the reality of Variant Forces. An outfit capable of fielding three Arkinsons on a few minutes’ notice might have a long reach.

He parked his truck between two other vehicles. They’re both still there, and nothing has approached since. If anything had—human, animal, mech—he would know about it. One of the tiny cameras mounted around the truck’s frame and across its undercarriage would have captured the motion and sent him an alert.

He pulls out his phone and reviews his list of alerts, just to make sure he didn’t miss anything. “We’re okay for now,” he concedes. “I want you two to move fast. In through the driver’s door. Let’s go.”

They scamper for the truck, Lincoln right behind them. The truck unlocks for them and the girls climb in. He stashes the bags behind the seat. “Make sure you fasten your seat belts.”

“We know, Dad,” Anna says irritably. “We’re not babies. Why are you acting so weird?”

“Always vigilant,” he reminds her.

She rolls her eyes and, remembering that she’s angry with him, flounces back in the seat, crosses her arms, and glares at the dash. “I wish we didn’t have to leave early. We were having fun.”

“Sorry,” he says as they pull out.

Camilla gets her cell phone from the dash compartment and retreats into some comforting game world—Lincoln has no idea what game it is. Anna watches her for a few seconds, then gets her phone out too. “Let’s link,” she tells her sister. They tap their phones together.

Lincoln drives, thinking about Shaw Walker, remembering him as a man who believes in revenge. Relentless, according to Hussam. His grip tightens on the steering wheel.

Hussam’s brother, Rihab, swore to seek revenge, but Lincoln is skeptical, suspecting Rihab will first have to fight to secure his brother’s operation. He’s far more concerned about Shaw… if it is Shaw. Requisite Operations’ name is already out in the media.

Are we at war? Lincoln wonders. And if they are, where is the war zone?

A memory. A mission in the Hindu Kush. Lincoln has called in targeting coordinates. A Reaper responds. It flies below them, entering the valley through a low pass. Shaw, speaking in an undertone scarcely audible over the wind: “If I was the enemy, I’d be gunning for that pilot.”

Lincoln snorted at the absurdity. “Those pilots are seven thousand miles away.”

“Yeah. I’d hit ’em where they live.”

Lincoln thinks about this now, watching the red taillights ahead of him. Renata flew the Hai-Lins from out of ReqOps headquarters. Does that make her a target? Is the ReqOps campus a potential war zone?

He glances at the girls. They’re preoccupied, plugged into their game. When he left the airfield, he planned to stop at the office, drop off the electronics, and then take the kids to their mom’s house. Now he reconsiders, deciding it’s better to take the kids straight home.

He’s not worried. Not really. But he drives past the ReqOps exit anyway.

Farther on, traffic gets heavy. Slows to a crawl. Lincoln is frustrated, but the girls don’t notice. They’re happy in their electronic world. That’s how kids are. Lincoln was the same. He regrets it now, thinking of his own dad. He wishes he’d known him better.

His parents were both army: his mom a rangy blonde, the descendant of Southern slaveholders, and his dad, not quite as tall but an outstanding athlete, the youngest son of Korean immigrants. Lincoln remembers him as quiet, determined. Remembers too the longing for his return when he was deployed, gone for months at a time—and then gone forever. A stupid accident during a training exercise, when the helicopter carrying his squad clipped a rotor and went down, leaving a trail of burning wreckage. It’s a parallel Lincoln tries not to dwell on.

His mom left the service after that, but two years later she married back into the army—one of his dad’s friends, a talkative good ol’ boy, full of philosophy. The transition was rough, but Lincoln came around. In retrospect, he should have learned more from his stepdad about what it takes to stay married.

After he pulls into Claire’s driveway, he walks the kids to the door. She’s surprised to see them back so early.

“Something wrong?” she asks as they slip past her, disappearing into the house.

She’s tall, full-figured, only a little heavy. Beautiful dark eyes. Teaches advanced math at a small prep school.

He speaks softly, his scarred voice a low burr. “We might be getting fallout from this latest mission.”

“Come inside,” she urges. “Tell me about it.”

He’s tempted. After six years apart, they’ve lately embarked on a slow and cautious rapprochement. But he’s got the recovered electronics in the truck and he needs to get them safely locked up. “I can’t. I’ve got to run by the office.”

“Are you going to make it to the soccer game this weekend?”

“I don’t know.”

She presses her lips together and nods.

“I want to,” he tells her.

“I know.”

Lincoln would like to make it work with Claire and he intends to try. But in the long term? He doesn’t give it much chance of succeeding.