The Last Good Man

Light and Shadow

Chris speaks to the team over comms: “We’ve found your destination.”

He’s shifted QRF communications off the cell network; they’re relaying now through the UAV. “About seven klicks out there’s a house situated on a flat below the road, close to a stream. Hills are steep on either side, no other structures anywhere near, and we can see a starburst copter patrolling in the ravine. Plus there’s a big anti-surveillance canopy rigged beside the house.”

True puts out a hand to brace herself against the dash as Lincoln brakes, cutting their speed by two thirds.

Chris says, “The building is a plain rectangular structure. One additional vehicle visible. No people, but we have to assume they’re there, under the canopy or in the house. Could be more vehicles too.”

So there’s no way to know how many enemy they’re facing.

He sends a screenshot. True studies it on her tablet. Between the road and the flat where the house sits, there’s a rugged, brush-covered slope with an outcropping of rocks in the lower half. A steep lane descends across the slope, angling down to the house, which is roofed with photovoltaic tiles.

Lincoln leans over. Anticipating that he wants to look, she holds the tablet out for him to see. A simple gesture reflecting the smooth way they’ve worked together in the past, and poignant to her for the broken trust that now lies between them.

Lincoln straightens up. He’s driving even more slowly now. “Let’s keep in mind,” he says, “our goal is to recover Shaw. If we can do that by obtaining a surrender from Al-Furat, all well and good. But our warrant authorizes use of force against armed resistance—and that’s how I expect it to go.”

True thinks back to the two soldiers she left in restraints at the riad. She got lucky there. It’s going to be different this time.

“Movement at the house,” Chris says. “Two individuals in sight. Armed with assault rifles, on foot, moving quickly. Okay. They’re heading up the access lane to the road, in plain sight.”

“They want to make sure Rihab doesn’t miss the turn,” Felice says.

Rohan snorts in amusement as Chris continues his report. “Confirming that at least one of the assault rifles they’re carrying has a grenade launcher. My guess—Rihab knows there’s a car on the road behind him. He’ll post these two soldiers along the road to watch for it, make sure it’s no threat. Lincoln, if you don’t want to put them on alert, you’re going to have to drive a few klicks past. Then backtrack. Come back down the ravine on foot.”

“I don’t want to sit here in the backseat while we drive past a fucking grenade launcher,” Rohan growls, his humor gone.

True adds her own objection. “It’ll take too long, anyway. This could be over for Shaw before we get back.”

Lincoln catches her by surprise when he says, “Agreed.” Afternoon light lances through the branches of a spindly tree leaning over the road, casting mottled patterns on his scars, making his expression harder than ever to read. “Chris is right, too. Rihab has to be aware someone’s behind him.”

Chris breaks in with an update. “Here we go, folks… Rihab has turned off into the lane that angles down to the house… and his vehicle has stopped… Okay, we’ve got a little chat going on with the two on foot… and Rihab is now continuing down to the house while the two are heading up. My, these boys are in a hurry.”

“So we get to play recon?” Felice asks. “Ambush the ambush?”

“Negative,” Lincoln says. “Not right away. They need to see this truck drive past and know it’s no threat. Khalid, Miles, that’s going to be your task. I want them to believe that no one has followed them out of Rabat, that they’re out here alone, that no one is interested in what they’re doing. So you two will stay with the truck and keep on driving, like you’ve got your own destination. The rest of us will exit early. We’ll use the ravine to approach the house from this side.”

There is a rustle of activity as everyone gets ready. True grabs her pack, shrugs it on. Checks the load on the Triple-Y. Her heart is racing in anticipation and she isn’t tired anymore, not deep down where it counts.

Lincoln summarizes the challenge. “Our goal is to take Shaw alive. Our best chance to do that is to get in close, then hit hard and fast, take them out before they can take out Shaw.”

“Lethal force?” Rohan wants to know.

“As needed—and I’m anticipating the need. Officially we are obligated to evaluate any offer on their part to surrender, but until we have control, don’t waste time on it.”

Chris breaks in: “Update on our road warriors. They’re in separate positions, about ninety meters to either side of the start of the lane, hiding in weeds above the road.”

He sends True a picture with their positions highlighted. She shows it to Lincoln. “There’s a spine of rocks running down into the ravine right here,” she says, pointing to the feature. “Call it a hundred thirty meters below the house. That’ll hide us from the first road warrior as we come up the ravine. But we’re going to be vulnerable to the sentinel drone.”

“Roger,” Lincoln says, returning his gaze to the road. “Chris, register the road warriors as targets and take them out with the copters as soon as the shooting starts.”

“Roger that. I’ve got it on the task list.”

“I want a best route, one that will let us exit the truck unobserved, three or four hundred meters from the house, and then drop down toward the stream using available cover.”

“Tamara’s looking at it.”

Lincoln’s voice shifts to a more casual tone. “We’re still a few kilometers out so I’m going to take a piss break.” There’s no traffic anywhere behind them, but he pulls half off the road anyway. “Just me and Khalid. Everyone else stay in your seat and out of sight.”

He’s not wearing his adaptive camo yet, and Khalid too is dressed in civilian clothes. True watches as they walk together to the back of the truck. They really do stop to piss. Then Lincoln opens the back hatch. The starburst copters are already out of their cases, each with a rifle barrel mounted under the central pod. Working quickly, he and Khalid unlock the arms and rotate them so they’re parallel, compacting the copters and making them easier to carry.

“Miles, I need you to do a job for me,” Lincoln says. “It’s not going to involve any direct combat.”

Miles is turned half around, his elbow over the seatback. “Let’s hear it.”

“You get to deploy Roach. But you’re going to have to do it fast. No margin for error.”

“Yes, sir.”

Lincoln details exactly what he wants Miles to do.

No one questions their authority to act. Away from the oversight of the police, it’s as if they’ve become a sovereign agency, making their own rules.

Khalid is behind the wheel when they start again. Lincoln is in the backseat, getting into his camo. Felice and Rohan are already appareled, hoods on and only their eyes showing. True rolls her own hood down, fitting the mask carefully to her face, before putting her MARC visor back on.

Miles rides in the cargo area, holding down the hatch. Tinted windows help hide him from outside observation. Trees and brush, along with a slight bend in the road just before the start of the lane, will take the truck briefly out of view of the watching soldiers. That’s when Miles will open the hatch, just far enough to kick Roach out. Ninety pounds of steel, titanium, and ammunition tumbling down onto the dirt road. When the truck drives back into view of the enemy, the hatch will be closed again.

Chris speaks over comms: “Okay, we’ve got a best route. You’ll be able to exit the truck unobserved, six hundred meters below the house. A stand of trees will cover your descent into the ravine.”

True studies the route map, overlaid on an aerial photo. She commits terrain details to memory, noting the many curves of the road, the varying cover, and the rugged, rocky slope above the flat. It comes to her that there is a better way to do this.

There’s no time for hesitation. Chris will give the order soon to go. So she turns to Lincoln—only to be distracted for a moment by what she sees. Light and shadow flickering across the three figures in the backseat has coaxed complex patterns from the basic dry-forest weave of their adaptive camo. The effect breaks up and blends the outlines of their bodies, even against the solid, artificial background of the seat.

True fixes her gaze on Lincoln’s eyes—his good eye and the empty black pupil of his artificial eye—visible past the screen of his MARC visor. She speaks swiftly. “I want to modify the plan, take my own route down so we can come at them from two sides. I can exit after Roach. That puts me on the slope right above the target, midway between the two road warriors. There’s good cover in those rocks above the flat. I’ll make my way down to them. That’ll get me an early look under the canopy. And I’ll be in position to use the Triple-Y, offer some crossfire, take out the road warriors if it comes to it, be there for backup if something goes wrong with Roach.”

Lincoln’s eyes narrow. “You don’t have ammunition for that, and I don’t want you out there on your own.”

“I can go with her,” Rohan says.

“Negative. We’re going to have a narrow window to deploy the starbursts. It’s going to take two to do that, and one for cover fire if the sentinel drone finds us first.”

“I won’t be on my own,” True says. “I’ll be behind Roach, and it’s capable of a better rate of fire than Rohan’s pistol.”

“Hey.”

“Truth, son. And if Roach works like it’s supposed to, the rest of us might not even have to fire a shot.”

“Tamara’s plotted a viable route for her,” Chris says. “If you want to do it.”

Lincoln gives her a withering look, but it’ll be tactically valuable if she can get in position down among the rocks. “All right,” he concedes. “Don’t make me regret this.”

True nods and turns around.

“Get ready,” Chris warns. “We’re coming up on the first drop site. Lincoln, Felice, Rohan. Your route will display in your visors once you’re on the ground. Khalid, the drop is marked on your visor.”

“I see it.”

“Ease it down to a crawl. Stop just long enough for the team to clear.”

The truck rolls beneath the swaying branches of a small grove of rough-barked trees, the glare on the windshield winks out, and Chris says, “Go now.”

Lincoln, Felice, and Rohan bail out the back doors, taking the starburst copters with them. Khalid slowly accelerates and sunlight flashes into the cab again. True looks back, watching as the team enters the trees below the road. Already they’re difficult to see as their camo reacts to the hard shadows cast by the afternoon light. The truck rounds a bend and they’re out of sight.

Miles is alone in the back now. He’s wearing sunglasses, not an AR visor, but hooked over his ear is a TINSL linked into comms.

“You’re next, Miles,” Chris says. “Get ready to give Roach the boot.”

“On your order,” he answers.

True looks ahead as sunlight strobes through the branches. She seeks out the place where she thinks the first road warrior is hidden, still a couple hundred meters away. Beyond that, she can see the road winding away along the hillsides, but she can’t see the house down in the ravine. She’ll see it soon. She’s ready to go. Her hand shakes just a little as she holds it poised above the door release.

Chris says, “Khalid, I want you to keep the truck moving slow and steady when it comes time for True to get out. Don’t stop or you’re going to make yourself a target.”

“How well can you see them?” Khalid wants to know. “Can you tell if they’re getting ready to take a shot?”

“They’re both casual,” Chris says in a soothing tone. “Just watching. Not expecting trouble. And the truck is armored.”

“Roger that.”

Chris continues his instructions. “Once True is out, gradually pick up your speed and continue at least five klicks down the road. Then stand by and wait for further instruction.”

“Yes, sir.” The sunlight flickers as Khalid looks at True. “Hey, you want to trade places?”

It’s a joke, but not a joke. She understands. Khalid is a decoy, a rolling target. Vulnerable, but out of the action. “I won’t give you away,” she promises him.

“We are going to pull this off,” Chris insists. “But timing matters, so let’s focus.”

True looks ahead, eyeing the slope above the road, the tangle of dry brush and tree shadows, trying to pick out the point where the first road warrior is hidden. Failing. She tells Khalid, “Be ready to drop the back window so I can return fire if it comes to that.”

He nods. His hand slides to the control pad on the armrest.

“Only on my word,” Chris says.

They all go silent. There’s just the noise of the truck as it jounces and rocks on the dust-dry road.

“Okay, you’re past road warrior one,” Chris says. “Maintain your speed, Khalid. Miles, you ready?”

“Roger that.”

They start around the bend in the road that comes just before the lane. “On three,” Chris says. “One. Two. Three.”

The back hatch opens, restrained by a tether so that it rises less than two feet. The sound of tires on grit, the rustle of a light wind in the trees, the smell of dust. Then a grunt from Miles as he uses his boots to shove the gray, lozenge-shape of the dormant Roach out over the back bumper. It lands with a thud as he pulls the hatch down again.

“Roach is out,” Miles says over comms, his voice low, taut with tension.

Tamara too is on edge. Anxious, frightened, and full of doubt.

She’s staffing the research desk in the command post at ReqOps headquarters. Naomi is with her. Hayden is at the front desk, managing the video feeds. Chris is pacing. His gaze is fixed on the wall monitor, palms pressed together, fingers tapping his chin in a display of anxious energy. Jameson is in the room too, standing near the door, but he’s present as an observer. Tamara is all too conscious of Renata’s absence.

She’s aware too—exquisitely aware—of the risks that both the team and the company are taking. She tried to talk to Chris about it. “We need to reevaluate,” she told him after True was recovered and the team was making its way out of Rabat. “Take a look at the risks, and weigh those against what we are standing to gain. What is there to gain, Chris? What? We’ve got True back. That’s what matters. Why go on? There’s no innocent to be rescued. No bounty. We are risking the lives of our people to take custody of a mercenary who is probably dying as we speak.”

Chris silenced his microphone before he replied. “I don’t disagree,” he said. “But we’re doing the mission. Let’s just do it the best we can.”

But how do you determine best actions when you don’t know what you’re facing?

Tamara has no idea what is under the anti-surveillance canopy or inside the target house. She doesn’t know how many enemy soldiers there are or how they’re armed or if civilians are involved. Children? She doesn’t know, because the preliminary work that would have been done on any other mission has not been done. There’s been no time.

She’s worried too because she has no eyes on Roach; she can’t see it deploy. Ideally it will have hit the road flat, with no tumbling or bouncing. Its stout, jointed legs will unfold and activate—three on one side if it needs to right itself, or all six at once if it lands upright. Lens covers will open, giving sight to the tiny cameras that stud its body. The visual data they collect will allow the onboard AI to map the fine details of its surroundings so it can navigate in stealth, moving quickly and silently, much like its namesake. While this is happening, a whip antenna, a few centimeters tall, will rise from its carapace, and then she will get a signal. The rifle barrel will not deploy. The jointed mast that supports it will remain in its cradle, allowing Roach to maintain a low profile as it scuttles downslope and into position.

Four seconds after Miles reports that Roach has deployed, the robot checks in—

—a long series of reports on each of its components scrolling through a window. She shifts to a navigational view showing a scene in motion: pebbled slope padded with dry leaves and powdered with dust, dry branches slipping past as Roach moves toward its assigned position. She cross-checks its route on a map and announces, “Roach is moving into place. All components nominal.”

Rohan is in the lead, advancing quickly and quietly, paralleling a trickling stream as he follows the path projected in his visor. He carries the folded starburst copter balanced on his shoulder, loosely wrapped in camouflage cloth. Lincoln follows a few steps behind, carrying the second copter in the same way, balancing its weight with his right hand, not trusting his artificial hand to do it. Felice is in the rear.

They want to get as close to the house as they can before the enemy’s sentinel drone catches sight of them.

A red light winks on in Lincoln’s visor. “Sentinel drone about to pass to the south,” Chris warns over comms. “Take cover.”

His heart booms in slow, powerful beats as he eases deeper into the mottled shade between trees. He goes to his knees, tips the folded copter to the ground, then flattens beside it, pulling his pistol from its holster as he does.

He glances around to make sure Felice and Rohan are also belly-down. Then he looks for the drone.

After a few seconds he sees it gliding past on stealthed propellers. He notes the gun barrel beneath the central pod. It doesn’t swivel to target them. It remains fixed, its muzzle pointing backward—a standard practice to reduce the chance of bugs clogging up the barrel. “Roach is awake and moving,” Chris reports.

“Roger,” Lincoln whispers. He regards Roach as the critical element in a surprise assault on the house, but it’s vulnerable to gunfire from the sentinel—so the sentinel is the first element he wants to take out.

Chris waits another twenty seconds. Then: “You’re clear to move out.”

Felice helps him get the folded copter back on his shoulder. Then they move fast, determined to get as far as they can before the sentinel returns. The soft, slick fabric of their camo doesn’t rustle and it rejects the grip of grasping twigs, but it’s hot and Lincoln is sweating. It doesn’t help that he has to work hard to keep up with Rohan’s long strides. He breathes consciously: deep, quiet, steady breaths.

“Roach is in place,” Chris reports. A few seconds later: “Okay, you’re at the hundred-fifty-meter mark. Prep the copters.”

Lincoln kneels. He puts the folded copter down, pulls off the camouflage blanket, pops off the restraints, and pulls the rotor booms into position, locking them in place so that the eight rotors are evenly distributed in a meter-wide circle. Felice stands over him, pistol in hand, watching the sky.

“Copter one ready,” Rohan whispers over comms.

Lincoln looks up to check Rohan’s work. He’s got the rotor booms fully deployed with two of them propped on little rocks to keep the copter level, but he forgot one step. “Get the plug out of the gun barrel,” Lincoln reminds him.

“Oops.” Rohan pops the plug out and pockets it.

“Cover it with the camo blanket,” Lincoln says. “We don’t want to launch until True’s in place.”

True is looking back behind the SUV. She wants to watch Roach transform but by the time she can see it, it’s already awake and scuttling off the road.

Miles has climbed over the seatback, out of the cargo compartment. He leans forward to touch her elbow. “Give me your pistol, True. I’m going with you.”

She stares at him, incredulous. “Are you serious?”

Khalid glances over his shoulder. “You can’t go. You’re not here as a soldier.”

The mics are on, so Chris is in the conversation too: “Talk to me, people. What is going on?”

True feels a gentle pressure as Miles’s fingers close around her arm—not tightly enough to interfere with her imminent exit, but enough to let her know he means what he’s saying. He tells her, “I’m going out this door at the same time as you. You might as well give me the pistol.”

“You don’t have camouflage.”

He holds up a camouflage blanket. “I don’t need a full uniform. This action is scheduled to start when you’re in position and that’s going to be ninety seconds after we exit the truck.”

Her mind races, seeking options, seeking to fit this new variable into her mental model of the coming battle.

“True?” Chris asks.

“Miles says he’s going with me.”

“Shit,” Chris says. “We can’t—”

Miles cuts him off. “No time to argue. Just call the mark.”

True concedes the truth of this by handing him the pistol. “He’s right, Chris. No time left and I’ve got no way to stop him. He’ll go if he wants to go.”

“Damn it,” Chris says.

But what can he do? Tell her to abort her role in the operation? He knows she’d go on her own. So he lets it run. “On three,” he says in clipped syllables. He counts down while Khalid gradually slows the truck to a fast walking pace.

The truck is visible to the second road warrior, but he’s low on the slope, he’s on the driver’s side, he’s still sixty meters away, and the flash of light and shadow as they pass beneath the trees is a kind of camouflage. True snatches a breath. Again, that soothing eclipse of shade across the windshield. She opens the door, slides out, scrambles hunched over for two paces—time enough to nudge the door gently shut. Then she’s over the road bank and into the brush, following the designated route that lights up on her visor, aware of Miles a step behind her, wearing the camo blanket like a hood.

The air is cool despite the sun. It smells of dust and some aromatic leaf. They move quietly but quickly, using the tire noise of the retreating truck to cover any sound they do make as they weave through sparse brush on a path that keeps the rocky outcropping between themselves and the house below.

True hears a man’s voice as they enter the rocks. Sudden harsh laughter and water being spilled. She pauses several seconds, waiting as a two-foot-long snake slithers away from her booted foot. A good sign, she tells herself. The shy snake’s presence confirms no third man is hidden up here.

Over comms Chris says, “Khalid is in the clear and our two warriors are walking back on the road.”

True looks upslope, evaluating the terrain, and concludes that the vegetation, the rocks, and her camouflage will combine to keep her hidden even if one of the soldiers is standing on the road’s edge, looking directly down at her position. She creeps forward again.

Now she can see two SUVs, below and to the right. They’re backed up almost to the shade of the anti-surveillance canopy as if poised for a getaway. One of them—not the one Rihab drove, but the other—has plastic crates and cardboard boxes lashed to a roof rack, and twenty-liter plastic jugs in a rack on the back bumper. The blue jug is labeled water in Arabic characters. The other is red-orange. There’s room for a third.

She works her way around a boulder. When she can see the roof of the house and the anti-surveillance canopy on the flat below, she gets down on her hands and knees and crawls.

Ten meters separate the bottom of the slope from the canopy. Close enough that she can hear the pulsing tone of an alert. She pauses to look up at the span of sky framed by the ravine’s walls, searching for the enemy’s sentinel drone, but she doesn’t see it. The tone cuts off. A man speaks in Arabic, his voice carrying easily across the quiet afternoon. He sounds annoyed, not alarmed. Something about goats… in the ravine? If they’ve been dealing with false alarms, it will make them less wary.

“I’m in position,” she whispers to Chris.

“I see you.”

Miles is a few feet away, crouched under the camo blanket.

True tips her head sideways to peer over the rock. She’s come down the slope far enough that she can see into the shaded area beneath the canopy. She looks for only a moment. Then she ducks down again, whispering, “Oh God.” Her hand goes to her face. She pushes her visor up, using the pressure of her fingers to fight the pressure in her eyes.

No one deserves to die like that.