The Last Good Man

Into Thin Air

They are held overnight. No hotel. No shower. No sleep. But at 0400, word comes that they will be released. The senior officer who spoke yesterday with True comes to see her, and personally escorts her to a police van waiting in a garage behind the station. On the way she explains the confusion: “We received faulty intelligence, facts confused, dates wrong, names inconsistent, but it came from a credible source so we had to treat it seriously. I’m sure you understand.”

True plays the required role, speaking politely, communicating that they are both rational women who understand the complexities inherited from the War on Terror. “A perfect storm of inadvertent errors.”

“Yes. But we have been in discussions with your Department of State and have assurance that you and your companions are respectable and do not threaten our security here.”

True considers several responses but judges them all too acerbic, too sarcastic, too patronizing. In the end, she simply inclines her head as if in thanks. “May I get my things back?”

“All possessions are waiting for you in the van. Your friends too, your husband. We will drive you to the airport, where you will wait for your flight, and leave our country as you have already planned.”

“Yes ma’am.” Can’t fucking wait.

Shaw is out there somewhere in the wide world. True hopes that by the time they get home, Tamara will have a lead on where to look for him.

As soon as she steps into the garage, she sees the little van—white, with no police lights, no markings—Alex waiting outside. “Oh, thank God,” he says when he sees her. He meets her, they trade a quick hug, then he pulls back, studying her with an anxious gaze. “Are you okay?”

“Tired and dirty but otherwise fine. Let’s go.” Lincoln and Miles are already seated in the van. “Where’s my pack?” she asks them.

Miles hands it to her. She spot-checks the contents, confirming her combat lenses and tablet are still there. She switches the tablet on as Alex closes the van door.

A uniformed officer is behind the wheel, another rides shotgun. Both wear sidearms.

“Any word on Rey?” True asks as the van exits the garage.

“Yeah,” Miles says. “I got a message. They kicked him loose last night. He said it was a fun party. Call him anytime.”

The police officers stick with them until they’re through security. After that they’ve got a five-hour wait until their flight departs. True checks in with Ripley, reviews her messages and emails. Lincoln calls home, checks in with Chris. They clean up as well as they can in the bathrooms, have breakfast, and sit down to wait. It’s early enough that only a few people are waiting at the gate.

Alex and Miles nod off—soldier’s instinct: sleep while you can. Lincoln is engrossed in his tablet. Lack of sleep has left True brittle, coffee has got her wired, uncertainty has sharpened the edge. She paces, watching Lincoln out of the corner of her eye as his living fingers tap and slide on his tablet.

Nothing they learned from Daniel has changed his mind or softened his resolve. He’ll go after Shaw and bring him home—one way or another.

She recalls the accusation in his words when they stood together on the bridge: You’re feeling protective of him, True.

And her blunt response: I am.

Lincoln is not the only one hunting Shaw. Someone with deep links within the global intelligence community is interested. Someone with the resources to engineer a police roadblock.

Their detention was brief, just overnight. Not even long enough to make them miss their plane. But if they didn’t have the State Department to vouch for them? If they didn’t have a backstory that let them threaten a public relations nightmare? They might have been held up for days.

Just the idea of the delay eats at her.

Shaw has been invisible for eight years, but now the existence of “the American” is revealed. A survivor of the Rogue Lightning mission. A witness to events that have been, until now, successfully concealed.

Finding Shaw has become time-critical.

True needs to reach him before the opposition does. She needs to know what he knows—what went wrong on that mission, why he and Diego were abandoned in Nungsan, why he never came home.

It chills her soul to think that whoever condemned Diego might still be in a position of power, able and willing to trade the lives of good, brave soldiers just to protect their own welfare. More than Shaw, that person needs to be brought into the light.

Phones and tablets chime: a bright chorus of simultaneous beeps. True stops pacing, checks her screen to find a message from the airline. Their flight is delayed due to the crew’s late arrival last night. Departure has been pushed back six hours.

Lincoln gets up, grabs his pack. “There’s an earlier flight to Los Angeles,” he tells her. “I’m going to find a gate agent. See if we can get on that.”

She nods, casting her gaze over Alex and Miles, still asleep.

A new thought stirs: Why go back at all?

They aren’t going to find Shaw in Seattle or anywhere in North America.

Curious to know what options might be available, she connects to the airport’s website, pulls up the departures schedule, and finds flights leaving for all over the world.

Alex wakes up. She tells him about the flight delay. “Lincoln’s trying to get us on an earlier flight.”

Half an hour later Lincoln returns, the slight lift at the corner of his mouth hinting at cautious optimism. “We’re on a standby list for the Los Angeles flight, leaving in fifty minutes. The agent thinks we’ll get seats, but we won’t be together.”

Alex turns a tired gaze on True.

She shrugs. “That’s all right. We’ll be sleeping anyway.” She wakes up Miles and they walk to a new gate, this one packed with milling passengers. Kids scamper among the bags and backpacks and the buzz of a hundred conversations in Tagalog and English. The odors of coffee and damp carpet are thick in the air.

There are no empty seats, so they retreat, taking up a position at the edge of crowd, but still close enough to hear the gate agent’s announcements.

Lincoln’s tablet chimes with an incoming call. True turns an idle gaze on him, but her interest picks up when he says, “It’s Tamara.”

“Put her on speaker,” True says.

He taps the screen. They cluster around. “We’re all here listening,” he tells Tamara. “Me, True, Alex, Miles.”

Tamara has heard about their adventures from Chris. She’s full of questions, almost breathless with worry and relief. It takes several minutes for her to get to the point, but finally she tells them, “I got the lab results back on those filters we recovered from the crashed Arkinson. The analysis looked at mineral dust as well as microbiota. No surprise, it indicates low-altitude flight in the TEZ. But pollen in the filters points much farther west. Best guess: that Arkinson was last serviced near the western reach of the Atlas Mountains.”

True shuffles through her knowledge of geography. “So that would put it in—”

She meant to say Morocco, but she’s interrupted by interference in the call—a muted background roar—then Tamara, her voice pitched high, “Jesus, what was that? It sounded like an explosion.”

“What?” Lincoln asks. “Where?”

“I don’t know! I’m in the Robotics Center. I think it was up at headquarters. Hold on. I’m checking security feeds.” Her voice is shaking. Then it gets whispery. “Oh God. Lobby cameras are out. Front door cameras are out. Oh… I see it now. Lincoln, it’s the front gate. The security gate. Two cars are burning. I’ve got to go up there. I’ve got to see if I can help.”

“No!” Lincoln says, sharply enough that heads turn in their direction. He lowers his voice to a gruff whisper. “Stay where you are. There could be a second bomb. Wait for the police—”

“No, I’m going. Someone could be hurt.” She’s breathing hard. It sounds like she’s running. “Lincoln, come home.”

“I am. I’m coming.”

“We need you,” she insists as if he said nothing.

“I’m coming,” he repeats.

The call ends.

Lincoln immediately puts another call through, this time to Chris. It’s the middle of the afternoon at home. A weekday. Everyone should be in, at work somewhere on the ReqOps campus. There should be a class in session.

Chris doesn’t answer. Neither does Jameson. He finally gets Hayden on the phone. The kid sounds shaky but coherent. “It was a car bomb at the front gate. We’re on lockdown.”

“Tamara’s with you?”

“Yeah. Chris did a roll call. None of the clients are hurt.”

“And our people?”

He hesitates. “Everybody was down at the range except me and… and Renata. She was in the city, talking to potential clients.”

“You’ve been in touch with her?”

“No. She’s not answering her phone.”

Two cars, burning at the front gate.

True feels Alex’s arm encircle her waist. His calm proximity is a shield, a brace against the crushing pressure of grim expectation.

“Find Chris,” Lincoln says. “Tell him to call.”

They hear nothing for an anxious ten minutes—then all their tablets chime. True is sure it’s a group message from Chris—but she’s wrong. It’s their seat assignments for the Los Angeles flight.

They’re in line to board when Chris finally calls. “Hold on a second,” Lincoln growls into the tiny mic. He leaves the boarding line. True follows. So do Alex and Miles. They huddle in an empty corner while the other passengers continue to file onto the plane. Lincoln shifts the call from his TINSL to the tablet’s speaker. He tells Chris, “Report.”

Chris’s voice is flat, hard. “They must have followed Renata’s car back here. They used another vehicle to trap her at the security gate. She was their target, Lincoln. That’s what their message said. A combat pilot. Fair game. It was that interview she did. It made her the public face of the mission.”

“What is her status?” Lincoln demands in a hoarse whisper.

“She’s dead.”

True reaches for Alex, returning to the comfort of his embrace. Miles swears softly. Lincoln pushes on. “Any other casualties?” he asks Chris.

“No. The second car was empty. The gate’s destroyed, of course, and at least twelve parked cars have been damaged, but there’s no structural damage to the building. Police are outside. FBI are on the way. Lincoln, I’ve got to go.”

But Lincoln has another question. “Who signed the message?”

“Al-Furat.”

Hussam’s organization, supposedly taken over by his brother, Rihab. For True, this is a glimmer of good news. She leans in, wanting to be sure. “Not Variant Forces?” she asks.

“You think there’s a difference?” Lincoln snaps.

She turns to him, guarded, cautious in the face of his anger. She would like to believe that there is a difference, that this was not Shaw’s doing—but she answers him honestly: “I don’t know.”

Chris speaks up again. “Lincoln, I’ve got to go. I’ve got to talk to the cops.”

“Do it,” Lincoln agrees. “We have to board our flight anyway—but message me with any updates.”

Chris’s voice is low, his tone dangerous when he says: “We need to deal with this. We need to hit back hard.”

Lincoln assures him, “We will.”

True feels the pressure of Alex’s arm around her shoulders. He whispers, “Come on. We need to board.”

But she resists, unwilling to retreat in the face of Lincoln’s quiet anger because she knows what it portends. “You want to believe it’s Shaw,” she accuses.

He wants to get on that plane. He doesn’t want airport security brought in. So he speaks softly, his words confined to their circle. Even so, True feels his fury straining at the leash when he says, “Renata is dead. A fucking car bomb.”

True gulps air. Renata was a good person, a good friend, but she is not going to cry for her. Not here. Not now. “He didn’t want a war,” she insists. “He gave you a peace treaty. Out of respect for the past.”

“Maybe he changed his mind,” Alex says reasonably.

Miles jumps on this. “Yeah. If he worked out where we are and who we’ve talked to—he might not like it.”

“Al-Furat took credit,” True insists. “Not Shaw. Not Variant Forces.”

Beneath Lincoln’s scars, the muscles tighten, drawing seams across his face. His anger is contained, but when he speaks, acid edges each quiet word: “There is no such thing as Variant Forces. It’s not a company. It’s a syndicate. Independent operators. Maybe Shaw didn’t order it but it doesn’t matter. Al-Furat must have used his network, his connections. They don’t have the reach to do something like this on their own.”

True listens—and with each word she can feel Shaw’s existence, never quite real anyway, dissolving into thin air and everything he knows going with him.

“You want him to be responsible for it,” she says. “You want all the doubt scrubbed away. Make it easy for yourself when you finally corner him, when you finally have a chance to make up for your silence about what happened in Kunar. You don’t want to bring him home.”

“Jesus,” Alex whispers. “Come on. You’re upset. We’re all upset. Let’s just go.”

It’s good advice. They need to go. The last of the passengers has disappeared into the jetway. But she is not going to retreat. She wants to hear Lincoln confirm or deny what she has said, but he does neither, only watches her with a predator’s intensity. She feels it, the threat. It’s a chemical in her bloodstream, sending her heart racing, pushing a sickly heat through her pores, but still she doesn’t back off. She raises her chin instead, daring him, Deny it.

He says nothing.

Her lip curls as she guesses why. It’s Alex. Lincoln is furious with her but he is not going to risk a confrontation with Alex minutes before their flight is due to leave.

Miles tries to tip the balance. “Does it matter?” he asks with startling bitterness. “Even if that bastard had nothing to do with this, he’s done enough. He—”

The public address system interrupts: “Last call. All passengers booked on flight 422 bound for Los Angeles should now be aboard.”

Alex reacts first, a paramedic accustomed to de-escalating volatile situations. “That’s it,” he says. “You can fight this out when we get home, but right now we are getting on that plane. Let’s go.”

True cooperates this time as he steers her toward the gate. Lincoln and Miles fall in behind them. She gets out her tablet, calls up her electronic boarding pass on the screen, and lets the red laser light of the scanner read it. The rest of them brandish their phones. They walk quickly, boots thumping the jetway, until they catch up with a line of passengers still queued at the boarding door.

After that they shuffle forward, making slow progress as the aisle clears. True’s seat is on the aisle, close to the front. She hugs Alex, kisses him goodbye, while Miles slips past.

“We’ll get through this,” Alex murmurs.

“I know. Don’t worry.”

He moves on toward the rear of the huge aircraft, leaving her to face Lincoln’s cold gaze.

Lincoln says, “When we get back, we’re going to talk.” It’s not a friendly invitation.

She nods and takes her seat. He moves on.

For a few seconds True just sits there, hugging her pack, with her tablet still in hand. She is flushed, nervous. Afraid. She glances at the young woman in the seat next to her who is steadfastly ignoring her presence. Then she looks ahead, toward the boarding door. The aisle is clear. No one else has gotten on, but the door remains open. She leans into the aisle and looks toward the back. Several passengers are still on their feet, frantically sorting through their bags in the overhead compartments. Alex has already gone past them. She can’t see him. She can’t see Lincoln, or Miles.

A resolve comes over her. She doesn’t examine it too closely. The circumstances call for action. Quick action. Right action? No time to judge.

She gets up, shoulders her pack, and moves swiftly, quietly, toward the boarding door. What matters now, what matters most, is that she finds Shaw first, before Lincoln can get to him.

Two rows ahead, a short, round, aged woman shoves herself up and into the aisle. She tries to lift a bag into the overhead compartment. “Let me,” True says quietly. She lifts the bag, shoves it into place, then squeezes past the woman, ignoring her effusive thanks.

A flight attendant is the next obstacle in her path. “Miss, we need everyone—”

“The term is ‘ma’am’,” True says softly. “Not ‘Miss.’ I’m not a child. And I’m getting off the plane.”

“Yes, uh… ma’am, there’s no time. The boarding doors are about to close.”

“I know.” Her voice is still very soft. “That’s why I need to get off now.”

“Ma’am, you’ll delay the flight.”

“I don’t have checked baggage.”

She looks stunned. “But if you’re getting off, we need to scan your boarding pass.”

True holds up her tablet. “I’ll scan it at the end of the ramp.”

“Are you… flying alone?”

True doesn’t answer. She turns sideways and forces her way past the flight attendant. Steps through the door, strides up the jetway. Thinks, Jesus, Brighton, you are a fucking idiot.

But she learned to read Lincoln years ago and she knows: The worst kind of war is a civil war, brother against brother, and that’s what’s coming. It’s what she read in Lincoln’s glare.

And Miles is no ally. Does it matter? he asked, not caring what crime Shaw hangs for, so long as he hangs.

But the truth does matter. It matters to her. She needs to know, not only what happened in Burma, but why, and who’s responsible. Shaw Walker may be the only one left alive who can help her find out.

Behind her, the boarding door closes. Ahead, a security officer waits. She walks boldly up to him, shows him the tablet with her boarding pass displayed. “Emergency,” she says. “I need to fly to Morocco instead.”

The officer scans it as other officials converge. The tablet is handed back to her just as a text from Alex arrives: I’m next to an infant! God help me. I’ll come visit you when we’re in the air.

She thinks maybe she just threw her marriage away. She thinks maybe she’s going to vomit. This was a stupid, stupid, stupid thing to do. But none of her inner turmoil can be seen in her face or heard in her voice. She speaks softly, her tone calm, words measured as she persuades the officials that she needs to book a flight to Morocco. After some discussion, they decide to help her. After all, her credit is good and the sooner she’s gone from their jurisdiction, the better. The tide turns her way, and she gets a seat on a plane bound for Madrid, leaving in ninety minutes. Easier to get to Morocco from there.

She is standing at the concourse window, watching the runway, when the flight to Los Angeles takes off.

She watches it climb into the air, recede into the hazy distance. Another plane barrels after it down the runway. She thinks, After this, I’m done.

She tells Ripley to put those words into a text and she sends them to Alex: After this, I’m done.

Then she calls up the tablet’s settings. Ruthlessly, she switches off phone and text functions, logs out of her ReqOps account, and sets her profile to anonymous to prevent any apps from reporting on her location, her availability, her activity. All automatic backups get switched off. She has a credit account in her own name that Alex won’t be able to access.

She can still get email.

She’s not looking forward to that.