Alex sat quietly in the back seat of the Humvee. Webb and Captain Whitfield were up front, the latter gripping the steering wheel while leaning forward the scan the roads. The already faint light of the winter afternoon had begun to surrender to the darkness of night while a snowy haze shrouded the Springs like a coastal fog. The streets, sidewalks, houses, and lawns all across down were vanishing beneath white. For as long as she could remember, she and her father had come down to Peterson to celebrate Christmas and New Year’s Eve. She would often go outside to play in the snow, to hear the soft crunch beneath her feet, and to feel the puffy white flakes against her face and hair. This drive was different, darker, and more oppressive than even the early years after the outbreaks.

During the brief trip to her room, she had showered and changed into a clean pair of jeans and a new shirt along with a brown winter parka. She took something with her as well: the framed picture of her, her mother, and her father. There was a strange feeling that if she left it behind, she might never see it again. Now, she held the picture in both hands, staring at her mother’s face – the steel-blue eyes, the smile, and the corona formed by her short brown hair. Her father as well appeared so young and happy. Why couldn’t it have been that man in the transmission to the Directorate?

They passed through Peterson’s entrance checkpoint and moved slowly along the snowy streets toward the airfield, which remained busy despite the blizzard. Tractors with mounted snowplows moved up and down the flight line to clear the tarmac. Most of the activity centered on the hangars. Mobile light towers now surrounded the tent-filled cantonments and struggled to hold back the winter haze. Chain link fences and strands of razor wire formed a perimeter around the hangars themselves.

Whitfield parked near the northernmost hangar. Alex and Webb got out and entered the building through a side door. The temperature inside was cold although not a frigid as outside. Several whirring generators provided power for a ring of industrial space heaters blowing warm air into the fenced-off area full of tents and Directorate soldiers. Webb approached a group of NEA guards huddling near one of the heaters.

“Sir!” one of the men said.

“I’m here to see a prisoner.”

“Yes, sir. Do you need an escort?”

“I’ll be fine.”

The guard led Alex and Webb to a padlocked gate along the perimeter and let them through. The Directorate soldiers gave Webb a wide berth. Many of the men wore NEA-patterned cold weather jackets over their fatigues. Water coolers and unattended boxes of MREs sat stacked along the inside of the fences close to the gas heaters.

Alex was the first to spot Shepherd. He was at the far edge of the cantonment closest to the rear of the hangar. He was alone and pacing while staring at the floor. Webb followed her gaze and then said, “I’ll be at the entrance.”

“Is the rest of my team here?”

“We separated them. I’m sure you can understand why. I’ll have them brought here.”

Webb departed, leaving Alex alone in the cantonment. She started toward Shepherd but paused when she reached the open stretch between the tents and the fence line. “Ryan,” she said softly.

Shepherd looked up. His first expression was relief. But then it became something else as he studied her eyes. An emotion alien to his features. Worry. Or fear, her voice said. The expression receded into his familiar calm as he approached from the fence.

She hugged him. His uniform was cold. He did not immediately return the embrace. The delay was slight but it caused her to give him a searching look.

“You’re okay,” Shepherd said at last. Not a question. Again, he seemed to examine her eyes.

They released each other from the embrace.

“Hell of a day,” he said.

“Did you hear? About my Dad? And New York?”

“I heard the guards talking. When did the NEA find you?”

“A few hours ago. Doctor Reilly said you got me back to Peterson.” Shepherd nodded but his expression didn’t change. “Webb took me to the mountain as soon as my dad’s transmission started. General Martin and General Lunde and Harrison were all there. They’re trying to make sure the war doesn’t start up again. Some of our outposts are listening to my dad and they’re not communicating with us anymore.”

“Those outposts don’t stand a chance.”

“They have nukes. My dad sent another transmission. He said he wants the NEA to send me to Antarctica to meet him. He said if they don’t, he’ll order the outposts to launch at the NEA.”

“What did the NEA say?”

“They haven’t decided what to do. General Martin’s talking to President Resnick.” She hesitated. “And… there’s something else. My abilities. I don’t know what happened on that ridge but it’s like everything switched off.”

“It’s not Webb?” Shepherd looked around as if expecting to see him lurking behind one of the tents.

“No. There’s always pain when he blocks me. Now, there’s nothing.”

“You think it’s temporary?”

“I don’t know.” Alex took Shepherd’s hand. His skin was as cold as his uniform. “They have heaters over there.”

“Yes,” Shepherd said simply before frowning and looking down at their interwoven hands. “I’m glad you’re here, Alex.”

Shepherd’s gaze remained on their hands. Alex searched his eyes. He was troubled. She could hear it in his tone and see it in his posture.

“Have you heard anything about Echo?” he said.

“Webb said they’re all right. He’s gathering everyone up so that we can see them.”

Shepherd sighed, let go of her hand, and began to walk slowly along the fence line. Alex followed, watching him and waiting. He shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about that mission to Fort Riley. Even when I got the orders from General Harrison, I knew it was risky. It’s not our job to do things like that – assassinations. But I just said ‘Yes, sir,’ and hit the maps, tried to gather as much information as I could. It looked worse and worse the more I tried to put a plan together. There wasn’t any clear-cut intelligence, no guarantee General Martin or Colonel Webb or any targets of opportunity would be there.”

He paused. The frustration in his voice was palpable. “We’ve failed every single mission since New York. That shouldn’t have been the case. We have the best soldiers in the Directorate on Echo. Murray and Wilson have more experience combined than any other line unit I know of. And we have you. That’s a force multiplier impossible to quantify. There was no excuse for us to fail in New York, in Kansas City, or at Fort Riley.”

“Those were impossible situations,” Alex said. “We did our best.”

“All of you did your best. In New York, I took us straight into a building with barely any cover and concealment on the main level. We should have kept moving. I let the NEA pin us down. In Kansas City, I led us right into that ambush. I should have known better. We were walking right down the center of a goddamn street in the middle of a war zone. Even a first-year lieutenant wouldn’t have made that mistake. And Fort Riley…”

“You didn’t have a choice. General Harrison gave you orders.”

“I was too focused on the mission. I convinced myself we could do it. I told myself we’d manage it somehow. An opportunity would present itself. We’d get in, do the job, and get out. Then we got on the ground and I realized how big of a mistake I made. The NEA hit us a few hours later. They knew we were coming. They must have seen that Osprey on radar miles away. O’Brian took three rounds to his vest. I don’t know how many went through. One? Two? Doesn’t matter. An entire platoon found us. They had every angle covered. There was a split second where I almost followed doctrine and ordered everyone to toss grenades and assault through. Then I realized how pointless it was. Smartest thing I’ve done these past two months. O’Brian died while we had our hands up in the air and our weapons at our feet.”

“It was a suicide mission,” Alex said. “They wanted all of you to die. If you—”

“You know that for sure?” Shepherd said.

Alex shook her head slowly. “No, but… It’s what Nicole thought.”

“Who did she think ordered it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think it was Harrison. I mean… maybe. But…”

“Who do you think ordered it?”

“The Committee,” she said quietly.

Shepherd seemed to consider this. He did not look surprised or angry, but tired. “You know,” he began, looking down at his uniform, “I didn’t always want to do this. I didn’t even know about the draft until a few months before the trucks came to take us to Fort Carson.”

“What was it like?”

“The draft?”

“No. Before that. What was it like where you lived?”

To her surprise, Shepherd smiled. “My parents ran a shop selling old junk. Loot, really. My dad would leave for weeks sometimes and head off with his friends into the cities. He’d come back with old electronics, gas, furniture, old guns. Anything. Not exactly legal in the eyes of the Directorate but… I remember one time he brought back a projector and some film reels. We hooked it up to the generator that night and the whole town came. We watched this movie called ‘Jaws’ about a shark that’s terrorizing this town and a police chief who’s afraid of water and has to go out to stop it. That was the first time I’d seen the ocean outside of pictures.”

Shepherd seemed to be looking at Alex but she knew he was seeing the movie, the projector, the ocean. She could almost see it herself: Shepherd, a younger man without the deep tan or the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, sitting in the middle of a crowd watching the film against the side of a barn or onto a tattered bed sheet. His past fascinated her; it was not something he often spoke about.

Shepherd went on, “About a year later my dad said he was going down to Houston. I looked on a map and saw it wasn’t far from the coast. I begged to come with him. I always had to stay behind to help watch the shop. It took a week before I wore him down enough that he said yes. I remember it took days to get down there and it was even longer in Houston before we were done and decided to keep going to Galveston. I smelled the ocean before I saw it. The salt in the air. Just like in New York on the GW. I went into this old hotel and got up to the roof. And there was the ocean. Just like that. I’d read books from before the outbreaks about people who spent months out at sea. Fishing, crabbing, working for the Navy. That’s what I wanted to do. I’d never even been on a boat. Still haven’t. But…” His voice trailed off and he smiled faintly.

“Anyway, we got back home and the trucks showed up a few months later. The rest is history. Like I said, I didn’t always want to be an officer or a soldier but my dad always told me ‘be the best you can be.’ So that’s what I did. Eight years. I don’t want to believe they sent us out to die, but after we surrendered, I started thinking the exact same thing as Serrano. They made me sign my name to that report about Kansas City and then they sent us out the next day. Loose ends. After eight years…”

“We don’t know for sure,” Alex said but her words sounded hollow and uncertain.

Shepherd turned to the fence and wove his fingers into the chain links. Alex stood quietly by his side. She wanted to reach out and hold him. Then he looked at her and said, “Did you get to talk to your dad?”

The question caught Alex by surprise. “Yes. Everyone else was there, too. General Martin, General Lunde, Harrison, Webb. But I got to talk to him.”

“What did he say?”

“Just what I already told you: Antarctica and threatening to attack the NEA. I tried asking him about New York. He said he had ‘legitimate reasons for everything.’ How could there be a legitimate reason for what we did? Webb said the Committee shut down the mountain’s power after the Valkyrie took off. He said the Committee was trying to start a nuclear war but that doesn’t make any sense. Why would they want to destroy everything?”

Shepherd shook his head. “Do you want to go to Antarctica? To your dad?”

“Something’s down there. It’s what my dad and General Martin were working on before the outbreaks. I’ve seen it. I keep seeing it. I saw it when we were on that ridgeline.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know.” Alex looked down at one of her hands. Shepherd followed her gaze and both of them stared at the black line – the artery carrying alien darkness through her body – running from the middle of her wrist down her forearm. After a moment, she covered her wrist with the sleeve of her parka. “Webb was right. I shouldn’t have gone out there. I didn’t know what I was doing. I thought I could keep it under control.”

“How’s…?” Shepherd gestured at the back of his head.

Alex reached back to the bruise and probed at the edges. She winced. “It’s not too bad. Who was it?”

“Sergeant Cupper.”

She remembered grabbing the handgun by the slide and forcing Shepherd to hold the weapon against her neck. It was something she regretted: trying to make Shepherd choose between her life and his own safety, the safety of the other men in the trench, of every soldier on the battlefield. On the surface, it seemed an easy choice to make but she knew if their roles had been reversed, it would have been impossible for her to pull the trigger. She was a member of his team – No matter what Harrison or the Committee says, she thought – and although for her, perhaps, a bullet would have been an easy way out, it would be Shepherd who had to deal with the aftermath and the guilt.

She reached out and hugged him. This time, Shepherd returned the embrace without hesitation.

“I’m scared, Ryan. What if it happens again? What if no one’s there to stop me? I don’t even know what’s happening to me right now. This… blood and my abilities. What if it takes over?”

Shepherd put his hand to the side of her head, avoiding the bruise, and held her gently against his shoulder. “Don’t worry.” It was the calm, confident voice that she was so used to hearing. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

For now, at least, she was willing to believe him.

---

Alex and Shepherd beside Webb outside the hangar. The grey haze had given way to black with the onset of night. Snow thwarted the efforts of the bulldozers and plows fighting to clear the tarmac. Shepherd wore one of the NEA’s cold weather jackets. The guards had offered him the coat from a pile in the hangar. Shepherd had been hesitant to take the jacket but had put it on at Alex’s urging. She understood his reluctance. They had fought the NEA in New York and Kansas. They had centered their crosshairs on young men wearing uniforms with the same purple and grey pattern. And those men had fought back, killing six members of the team.

Alex considered trading her parka for Shepherd’s jacket. The parka would be a tighter fit for him but he would prefer the neutral brown to the NEA’s urban camouflage.

But would it really be easier for you to wear one of their uniforms? After you slaughtered two thousand of their people? And what about your own uniform? You could have put it on back in the mountain. You could have shown Shepherd and the rest of the men that you’re still part of the team. But you didn’t. Is it because of all our soldiers you killed? Or is it because you really don’t want to wear that uniform anymore? Are you ashamed?

Alex wanted to shut away the voice, the thoughts. She remembered standing at her closet after taking a shower. Her uniforms hung neatly from their hangers, separated between the Directorate’s grey tiger-striped duty uniform and the team’s blotchy green, brown, and tan combat fatigues. She had reached for one of the combat uniforms, the same type that Shepherd wore now. Except then her hand stopped and fell to her side. She wasn’t sure exactly what caused her to shut the closet and go to her dresser to put on jeans and a shirt and sweater instead of a uniform. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know or even think about it for the time being.

A troop transport and a pair of Humvees soon arrived outside the hangar. NEA soldiers disembarked from the Humvees and formed a perimeter around the rear of the truck. The men stood holding their weapons at the ready. The truck’s driver got out and circled to the rear of his vehicle. He and one of the soldiers undid the safeties on the tailgate and then let it fall open. They removed the troop ladder from beneath to truck, hooked it into the bed, and then returned to the perimeter.

“Stay here,” Webb said. He made eye contact with two of the soldiers and nodded toward Alex and Shepherd as if to say, “Watch them.” Both soldiers left the perimeter and approached. They didn’t seem to recognize her but they honed in on Shepherd’s combat uniform beneath the NEA jacket. Their expressions were cold, and Alex thought she saw a flash of anger in one of the men’s eyes as Shepherd calmly met his gaze. They stopped a few meters away and kept both their hands on their weapons. They looked tense, ready to raise the carbines and open fire at the first hint of hostile action. Alex had a feeling the men were hoping for that tiny hint, a suspicious movement of the hand or a step in the wrong direction.

“Get out,” Webb said from the bottom of the ladder.

“Well, look who it is,” a familiar voice came from the truck. “Did you bring some blindfolds along with your firing squad? How about some cigarettes? Too much to ask for a last smoke?”

“Get out,” Webb repeated warily.

“Sergeant Murray!” Shepherd yelled. The two soldiers near them tensed but did not raise their weapons.

Master Sergeant Robert Murray leaned out the back of the troop transport and looked around. He spotted Shepherd and waved happily. He crouched as if about to jump to the tarmac, which caused Webb to scamper back from the ladder. Then Murray laughed and climbed down. He started toward Shepherd as Webb regained his composure but one of the soldiers moved to block him. “Outta the way, kid,” Murray said gruffly.

The soldier began to raise his weapon but Webb called out, “Let him through. Get a perimeter up. You have ten minutes, Ms. Bedford.”

The rest of the team disembarked from the truck. Sergeant First Class Norm Wilson and Sergeant Ziegler climbed down the ladder. Specialist Jarden jumped from the back of the vehicle and then slipped and fell the moment he made contact with the ground. He looked more embarrassed than hurt as he picked himself up and brushed the snow off his uniform. Staff Sergeant Fred Atkins was the last off the truck, glancing nervously at the NEA soldiers before following the rest of the team toward Shepherd and Alex.

“Good to see you, sir,” Wilson said to Shepherd.

“Damn right,” Murray said. “Thought those bastards might have… Well, glad you’re still in one piece.”

“Ma’am,” Atkins said hesitantly. “I was just… I was wondering about Ms. Serrano. Do you know if she’s all right?”

Alex was surprised it was Sergeant Atkins who spoke to her first. He was the newest member of the team, the one replacement from between the missions to New York and Kansas City. She didn’t know him well. He was quiet and kept to himself but she vividly remembered seeing him during the escape from Fort Riley. Upon her arrival at the team’s makeshift battle position, he had knelt down to ask if she was hurt. Nicole’s blood had covered her uniform, her face, and her hair. She had only managed a slight shake of her head in reply. Then he had given her a pat on the shoulder before sprinting off. It was a small gesture but it stuck out in her mind.

Alex nodded. “She’s okay. I haven’t seen her, but…” She glanced at Webb. He stood speaking to the soldiers on the perimeter. “He says they have her sedated.”

“Is there anything we can do?”

“I don’t think so. Not right now, at least.”

“Oh. Well, I’m glad you’re all right, too, ma’am.”

“Thanks.” She smiled. “And you don’t have to call me ‘ma’am.’ Just ‘Alex’ is fine.”

Atkins returned her smile. Before he could say anything else, Murray moved between them and planted his hands on Alex’s shoulders. He gave her a friendly shake and grinned. “I knew those assholes couldn’t keep you down!” He looked around before speaking in a quieter voice, “Next time I see General Park, I’ll take one of those needles and shove it somewhere it’ll really hurt.”

Alex chuckled, but at the same time, she remembered the syringe plunging into her neck. The drug had only caused slight disorientation but the thick needle had been painful, like a knife or a pair of scissors shoved through her skin. She raised a hand and absently rubbed at the side of her neck. And where is General Park? He wasn’t in the mountain. Is he here at Peterson? Strangely, she had the desire to see him again, to talk to him, to discuss the conversation between her and her father. Alex found it difficult to hold a grudge against him; he had betrayed the Directorate and tipped the balance in favor of the New England Alliance but part of her was no longer certain that what he had done was so wrong.

“Alex?” Murray said, bringing her back to the airfield.

“Sorry. It’s good to see you. All of you.” She looked from Murray to Wilson and then at Ziegler, Jarden and Atkins. They all smiled except for Jarden who rubbed at his lower back where he had struck the tarmac.

Murray retreated as Wilson approached. “All of us really appreciate what you did,” Wilson said. “It took guts to pull off that operation. I doubt any two of us could have managed it. Glad to hear Serrano made it.”

“Would have been nice if we had stayed out of custody for more than an hour,” Jarden remarked. Then he quickly raised both his hands as Wilson and Murray glared at him. “Hey, just saying. It’s not like I don’t appreciate it. Like Sergeant Wilson said, that took some balls.”

There’s a fine line between stupidity and bravery. The words came to her in her father’s voice. She wondered if he knew of the rescue attempt. And what about Kansas City? He must know about it by now. What’s he going to think when he finds out what you did?

Murray looked to Shepherd. “What’s our next move, sir?” The other men gathered closer, forming a tight circle. It was just like the field. The team was eager for guidance. It was in their eyes, a desire for action even after everything that had happened.

Shepherd shook his head. “There is no next move. Game over. Checkmate.”

“But…” Sergeant Ziegler began before his voice trailed off. He looked helplessly at Alex. “Can’t you… you know…?”

“Something’s wrong with my abilities. I can’t use them, and even if I could, he can block me.” She nodded slightly in Webb’s direction.

“Shit,” Murray said unhappily. He looked around the airfield, at the hangars housing the Directorate prisoners of war, at the fences and razor wire, and finally out into the darkness toward the Rockies and Cheyenne Mountain. He clenched one of his hands. Alex thought for a moment he would rush the closest guard and begin pummeling him. Then he dropped his fist against his thigh and stood with his shoulders slouched. He seemed smaller somehow, not the big Midwesterner or the team’s senior NCO but like the other quiet soldiers wandering aimlessly inside the holding areas.

“So why are we here?” Wilson said. “I get the feeling the NEA isn’t letting us meet out of the goodness of their hearts.”

“Him,” Alex said. “Colonel Webb. He said I could see all of you.”

“Isn’t he the one that shot your dad?” Atkins said. “General Bedford, I mean.”

“Yes.”

“So why…?”

“I don’t think they want me in the mountain right now. I was there when my dad’s second transmission came in. He said if they don’t send me to Antarctica to meet him, they’re going to launch more nukes at the NEA.”

“We should be launching them anyway,” Jarden said. “If there’s a way we can win this, why aren’t we doing it?”

Alex looked at him for a long moment. She was not angry but part of her felt disappointed. “We already destroyed New York. It’s all gone. Do you really think we should keep wiping out cities until there’s nothing left?”

“If they’re under the NEA’s control, they’re already gone,” Jarden said. “They come in, strip those places bare and then put everyone into slave labor camps. Hell, we’ve all seen the videos. It’s the lucky ones that make it into the camps.”

Alex realized Jarden was only repeating the lines from the Directorate’s propaganda. Everyone saw the films. Military recruits visited one of the old theaters to watch the recordings during the first week of basic training. Alex had seen them, too, although it had been against her father’s wishes. The films showed NEA atrocities: mass graves, executions, and piles of burning bodies. The worst was the beheadings. Those were the videos she had been unable to finish. Except nothing she had seen firsthand of the NEA hinted that they were anything like the organization portrayed in the videos. Even after the Directorate had wiped out New York City, the NEA was treating the team and rest of the Directorate’s soldiers humanely. There were no beheadings or executions. There was no violence at all.

Then how do you explain those videos? They were all real. Those were NEA soldiers committing those murders. Then her voice said, All you saw were men in NEA uniforms doing the killing. It could have been anyone. Maybe even—

Alex shook her head and suppressed the thought. “We were all there in New York. Most of us, I mean. The city wasn’t perfect. It probably would have taken years before it was close to how it looked before the outbreaks, but it could have gotten there. The NEA was trying to get there. And we wiped it out.”

“I’m sure we had a reason,” Jarden mumbled.

“I don’t know about you guys – I know you’ve been in the military a lot longer than I have – but I don’t want to fight for people that would do something like that.”

And inside, her voice said, Even if it’s your dad? To that, she had no answer.

There was a long silence.

“Back in Salina you told us you and Serrano came because General Harrison wouldn’t send a rescue mission,” Wilson said.

“Yes.”

“We knew the risks,” Murray said to Wilson.

“Just because they didn’t send a rescue mission doesn’t mean they sent us out to get killed,” Ziegler said. “They knew the NEA was going to attack. They didn’t have anyone to spare.”

Wilson persisted, “You said something about getting Ray to help find where we went.”

“Nicole and I tried but we couldn’t find anything. We were using my dad’s account. There wasn’t anything about the mission on the network. Sergeant Paul found the flight log from the Osprey. That’s how we knew where to go.”

Wilson looked at Murray and then at Shepherd. “Our orders for New York and Kansas City stayed on the network didn’t they, sir?”

“As far as I know,” Shepherd said.

“Well, I sure want to know why they sent us out undermanned and unsupported with less than a day’s notice when there were plenty of other teams just waiting in the chute. Hell, if they wanted to assassinate General Martin, they could have sent that psychopath Ellzey to do it.”

“I don’t think it matters much at this point,” Ziegler said.

“Like hell it doesn’t,” Wilson said. “We lost O’Brian out there. If it was a real mission, then sure, I guess we all did understand the risks, but if they sent us out there because they wanted to hush up Kansas City…” Wilson’s voice trailed off as he looked at Alex.

Alex frowned. She understood his frustration and anger. And you’re the reason all of it happened. If you hadn’t destroyed Kansas City… killed all those people, there wouldn’t be anything to cover up.

“Ms. Bedford!” Alex looked to see Webb approaching from the perimeter. He was holding a radio, which he clipped back onto his belt as he arrived. He stared at the men as if waiting for them to disperse. When no one moved, he said to Alex, “I need to speak to you.”

“You can say whatever it is right here.”

There was a glimmer behind Webb’s membrane. Alex wondered if it was the equivalent of him rolling his eyes. “President Resnick wants to talk to you.”

“Are you taking me back to the mountain?”

“We’re going to one of our command vehicles. They’re setting up by the old NORAD HQ.”

“What about my team?”

“They’ll be fine. As you can see, our treatment of your people has been quite civilized considering the circumstances.”

Murray snorted. “I don’t see how forcing us to eat those frozen MREs is civilized.”

“Tell you what, Sergeant,” Webb said. “Point me toward the Directorate’s stock of gourmet food and I’ll see that it’s distributed. You’re eating better than most of my men are right now.”

“Why don’t we take a walk and I’ll show you exactly where—”

Wilson slapped Murray on the back and said loudly, “Well, this has been great! Speaking of MREs, I need to go dig around for the spaghetti before someone else gets all of them. Great seeing all of you. Alex. Sir.” Wilson half-guided and half-pushed Murray away toward the waiting troop truck. Murray resisted at first but then went grudgingly.

“Keep your head on a swivel!” Murray called out to Alex. “You never know what these bastards will try to do!”

“Get them on the truck,” Webb said to his men. “Take them back to the hangars. Make sure none of them are together.” The soldiers collapsed in from the perimeter and started to escort the team away. Atkins and Jarden went quietly after Wilson and Murray but Ziegler moved close to Shepherd.

“Sir,” Ziegler said. Alex heard the anxiety in his voice. “About what Norm was saying… You don’t think they purposely sent us on that mission to get killed, do you?”

“I’m going to find out,” Shepherd said. “You men will be the first to know.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ziegler left. Alex and Shepherd watched as the men climbed into the back of the transport truck and disappeared behind the burlap cover. The NEA soldiers mounted into their Humvees and followed the truck as it departed down the flight line. Murray stood from the troop bench and waved goodbye but the vehicles vanished into the haze before Alex could return the gesture.

“Let’s get moving,” Webb said and then waved at two of the guards near the hangar entrance before pointing at Shepherd. The men approached.

Alex started to protest. She wanted Shepherd to remain at her side. She didn’t want to be alone. The men on the team were safe even if apart from one another, and Lunde was only a few miles away at Cheyenne Mountain. But she felt isolated, a colorless piece in the middle of a chessboard, unsure of which side was home. Shepherd took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. She looked at him. He shook his head slightly and then offered a reassuring smile. “Stay out of trouble, all right?”

At that moment, she wanted to embrace him, to hold on even if Webb and the other soldiers tried to pull them apart. However, Shepherd left toward the two approaching soldiers. The men fell in on either side of him and escorted him inside the building.

“President Resnick is waiting,” Webb said.

Alex didn’t reply. She turned from Webb and went toward the waiting Humvee. She got into the back and took her seat. The picture from her room was still inside. She stared at it for a long moment and then held it against her chest as Webb and Captain Whitfield got into the front. The vehicle started with a low growl, and they proceeded away from the airfield. She watched the northernmost hangar until it vanished in the fog of snow. Then she closed her eyes and did her best to steady herself for her second conversation with the President of the New England Alliance.