CHAPTER 23

Constantine checked back into his unit and received all the warm welcome from his boys that he would have expected. Jokes were shared at his expense, about unseemly acts he might have been performing upon his new associates at the Agency, but these expressed the general jealousy of the team toward his unique opportunity to moonlight in a truly elite clandestine unit. His leadership, meanwhile, was just happy to have him back. The operational tempo for white side SOF had skyrocketed in these past few months as the world of international diplomacy came apart at its seams, and even their cobbled-together unit was gearing up for a deployment very close at hand. The only question was to which of the many sudden new theaters of operation they would be sent. Throughout their compound, the feeling was unanimous that this was it. This was the real deal. They were going to war.

Only too happy was Constantine to be going to war. They all looked forward to it as much as it terrified them. They had all joined up under the same call, to kick doors and shoot people. They were killers to a man, and no carrot could be hung before them more enticing than combat. Even these, the miserable survivors of Press Hook, were yet eager to return to the battlefield. They saw it as a chance to redeem themselves, and to take revenge upon “the enemy” for their losses. It did not even have to be the same enemy. They just wanted an opportunity, after barely surviving their last mission, to make themselves feared again.

All of this provided Constantine a tidy distraction from everything he had left behind, and everything that had left him behind. His life outside the office now seemed like a shell, devoid of any value. No wife or child, no life in his home, and a great blank space where had been all the work he had done with Sing and the Task Force—a void he had chosen to accept, and one he enforced upon himself now with rigor, but which nonetheless made him feel hollow inside.

He was just growing accustomed to this new existence when he came home from work to find three men in his house.

He noticed immediately upon opening the door that something was off. It may have been a sign as subtle as a scent, but he paused in his doorway, backed out, and looked around, and saw a figure getting out of a car in the driveway across the street. The figure waved to him.

“Come on in, Rob,” said a voice inside. “We’re just here to talk.”

Constantine thought about his options for a moment, and then he stepped inside. He had been faithful to his agreement. They had no reason to kill him. Nonetheless, he remained on a hair trigger as he advanced into his living room and met the three operators waiting for him there. Two of them, the one on his couch and the one leaning against the far wall by the passage to the dining room, he knew by the names Joe and Tony respectively. The third was a stranger but would almost certainly also be another member of Royal.

“What do you all want?” said Constantine, standing in the arch between the living room and the foyer. He left his front door open. If they made a move, he would be able to get out fairly quickly. He had only seen the one outside, and in any case they would not engage him in the open in his neighborhood. He hoped.

“We want to know where Melody Ritter is,” said the one called Joe.

“How should I know?”

“We know you called her when you got home.”

“Yeah? You know what I told her?”

“What?”

Constantine would have laid money that they had captured a recording of the call, but even so, he was happy to summarize for them: “I told her to fuckin’ drop it and not do anything stupid.”

“Well, she didn’t listen. She plans to go live, on the Internet.”

“Well, if you know that, then why can’t you find her?” snapped Constantine.

“We’re trying, which is why we’re here. She’s left her apartment. If you know anything, you need to fuckin’ tell us.”

“I don’t know anything. I swear to God.”

“You swear on your kid’s life?” asked the one he did not know. Constantine looked at the man and began planning his death.

“Look,” said Joe, holding up his hands. “We’re not here to go to that level. Straight up, you did good in the field. The guys respect you. You’ve got a place on the Force down the road, if you want in. If not, no drama. What he means is, professional courtesy only goes so far, you know? We’ve got a job to do, and there’s serious national security shit on the line, here. You understand that, right?”

“I understand. And I’m telling you, I haven’t communicated with her since I told her to leave it alone.”

The two who were seated stood, and Joe said, “All right, well, I believe you. We’ll leave it at that. My number’s on the fridge if you hear anything.” They moved toward him, as to pass him on their way out. Joe paused in front of Constantine. “It looks like things aren’t going well for you at home. Don’t let that shit go, man. Go find your wife. Tell her whatever you need to tell her to make up. Family’s important.”

“Get the fuck out,” replied Constantine.

Joe nodded and followed the other two as they brushed passed him and out the door. Once they had gone, he slammed it and turned around to face his empty home again.

“God damn it, girl!” he all but shouted. “What the fuck are you doing?”

He fished out his phone and began looking for her number, but he hesitated to dial it, wondering what he would say. If his phone had not been tapped last time, it certainly would be now. Furthermore, locating her by cellular phone would have been their first play; if they had not found her yet, that implied she had tossed her phone.

The fact that they knew her plan and were looking for her, yet had not found her, staggered him. She was clever, to say the least. Clever and careful. She could not win that fight forever, though. Their resources were unlimited; hers were not. In the worst case, they would hit her when she tried to broadcast. If they knew what she was planning, then they had some knowledge of when, where, and how.

How had they learned that much?

An answer awaited him on his computer, in a form that he would have thought the stuff of science fiction. When he logged into his PC, there was an icon on his desktop, right in the middle, that had never been there before. It was a shortcut to a video service on the Web.

Constantine stared at it for a long time, and then, with a feeling like a man selecting his own doom, he double-clicked on it.

It opened to a post by a video-blogger. The host could not have been much more than twenty years old. He was well-dressed and well-spoken, if given to the kind of over-enthusiasm that typified non-professional online talk- and blog-hosts. By first impression, his theme seemed to be one of general skepticism of the government, and Constantine suspected he was one of those Internet conspiracy theorists, despite his more upscale presentation. One of those “the government is out to get you” types.

He was an obvious choice for the girl’s ostensible purpose. How happy he must have been to learn that his theories had finally become true. And he had viewers. This video—teasing an upcoming interview with a witness to the government’s cover-up of everything they had learned about the burgeoning wars, the now infamous Wraith of Avos, and a world-wide exploit of all Internet connected devices, and how all three of these matters related—already had over twenty thousand views. In the teaser, he even gave the date and time of the interview. Constantine checked a calendar. Six days. She had six days to live. She might survive to the interview, if she had been clever enough to evade them to this point, but she did not understand the efforts they would bring to bear on the day. It did not matter what her facility with computers; once they began to broadcast, even if she transmitted from a remote location, the government would find her, anywhere in the world, and Task Force Royal would put an end to her.

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And he was going to let it happen.

Constantine leaned his elbows on his desk and rested his face in his hands.

He had never understood suicide. Everyone said suicide was epidemic amongst military folk, and he could believe it. Of vets who had taken their own lives he had known two, one of them closely.

Everyone he knew also knew someone who had done himself or herself. Even so, the act had always been beyond his comprehension. He’d been through combat, had had his share of post-traumatic symptoms—the vivid dreams, the jumping and instant combat alert at the sound of a balloon popping, the difficulty with crowds, or with piles of trash on the side of the road. He had been in one particularly bad house clearance such that even to this day, certain staircases would make him terribly nervous, if they doubled back in just the right way. Even so, it was all normal. It was the price of doing business. Indeed, it was the burden he considered rightfully his as a man. He had never felt as though it was unbearable; they said the brain rewired itself for combat, and he took that at face value. As far as he was concerned, combat was the real world—or at least, a world in which combat was possible, and deadly threats were real, was the real world. If his wiring made him the odd man in his society, then it made him the rare sane man in an insane society. This he firmly believed. Besides which, he had taken his share for his troubles.

They were asking too much of him, now, though. For what had he fought all those battles but his country, and its security? The safety of its people? Now they were redefining national security as the need to kill their own people, so that they could safeguard their nation’s quiet capitulation to some unseen force. He had sworn, fought, killed, and eaten bullets to defend his nation, at the behest of his leaders, and now his leaders wanted him to be complicit in the death of a girl who had too much principle for their world, their plans.

Constantine fancied himself a man, and he had a son whom he hoped, despite all of the domestic and other mistakes he had made, would grow into a man someday just as tough and just as strong, just as ready to bear that manly burden. Indeed, he hoped his son would grow into a far better man than he had been, just as strong in battle but without the weaknesses that had plagued Constantine outside of battle. The life of this same son they had offhandedly threatened in order to secure his cooperation in the murder of Melody Ritter.

Never before had Constantine understood suicide, and he did not understand it yet, but he could look into the future, now, and he could foresee a day, seven days hence, when he would understand. He could see himself, on that day, unable to face his boy, and that would be the day, indeed the moment, when he would understand suicide.

Once again he picked up his phone and got so far as scrolling to a particular contact, and once again he could not bring himself to dial it. His son was too young to have a phone of his own, so it was his wife’s entry at which he now stared. Even if he could have called his son directly, though, what would have been the point? To seek forgiveness beforehand? To receive absolution from a child for all of his sins, and the sins to come? That was the purest weakness, to burden a child with what a man could not bear. No, as a man, this was his choice, and his alone, as each choice over the years, for good or ill, had been his alone.

That night he did not sleep.

The next morning he walked into the office of the Detachment’s commander, the newly assigned captain whom he had only known for a week. Young, light on experience like they all were, but he had seemed to Constantine a decent guy. Good enough for the job; no one was ever perfect. This would be a terrible thing to lay on his shoulders.

“Rob. ‘Morning,” the captain said. “You sleep all right? You don’t look great.”

“Sir, can I have a few minutes of your time?” said Constantine.

The young officer perked up, recognizing serious business when it was staring him in the face, and nodded. “Sure, man. Close the door?”

“Actually, sir, I think I’d better tell you and the CO at the same time.”

His captain stared at him for a moment, and then said, “Okay… I think he’s in. You want to go find him now?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right. Let’s go.”

They walked down the corridor and turned into the command suite, finding the office of the major who was their Company Commander. The captain knocked.

“Hey… guys. What’s up? Come on in. What’s going on?”

They stepped in.

“Sir, uh, Chief here has something he wants to tell us.”

“May I close the door, sir?” asked Constantine.

“Yeah,” said the major. “Go ahead.”

Constantine closed the door, and then he turned to face the two officers.

“So what’s this about?” asked the major.

He found himself taking a parade rest position, looking not at them but straight ahead. “Sir, about the Otrouse mission—”

“—Oh, son of a bitch, Rob—” the major was saying over him, but he forged ahead:

“—I took the money.”

“Why? Why are you telling me this now? After all this time? No,” said the major, interrupting himself and holding up a hand. “We need a Legal O for this. Have you read him his rights?” he demanded of the captain.

The poor captain looked stone-faced. “No, sir. This is the first I’m hearing of this. I mean, I knew there was an investigation, but I thought it had ended. Chief didn’t tell me what he wanted to talk about.”

“All right, Chief, shut up. Danny, go get the fuckin’ legal O—”

“Sir, I waive my rights. I’m telling you this because someone’s life is in danger. Please let me continue.”

They both stared at him. The major lowered his hand. “Okay. I’m listening.”

Constantine took a deep breath. His body was shaking. Combat never felt like this. “Sir, I’m telling you this because what I’m about to ask requires me to be completely honest. I took the money, and I’ll make a statement about that to the IG, or CIS. I’ll confess. But it’s not what I’m here about.”

“I know you weren’t the only fuckin’ one, Chief. You gonna confess for the rest, too?”

Constantine gritted his teeth. “I took the money, sir.”

“Uh huh. Completely honest?”

“Sir,” growled Constantine through his teeth, “please let me finish.”

“Fuckin’ finish.”

“An Agency unit called Task Force Royal—the one I’ve been working with over the past couple of months—is planning to murder one of our own citizens—an innocent person. I’m asking for your help to save her life. The unit’s help.”

They continued to stare. Finally the major said, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Sir, what I’m about to tell you they’ll try to kill me for. Me or my family. You have to protect my son.”

The major took a half step back, almost a stagger. “Are you saying they threatened your son?”

“Yes, sir. Openly.”

“All right. Go on.”

Constantine licked his lips—they had gone entirely dry—and then launched into a complete narrative of his time with Sing’s task group and TF Royal.

When he finished, the silence in the room lay upon it like a lead blanket. For a long time, no one spoke. Constantine dared not look at them. He kept his eyes fixed on the far wall somewhere between their heads. The one who broke the quiet at last was the captain.

“Sir, I can have the detachment ready to go today.”

“It’s not that fuckin’ simple!” the major snapped.

“Chief, step outside, please?”

Constantine brought himself to attention, faced about, and let himself out, closing the door behind him. He stood in the waiting room, sweating. Never in his life had he felt such a clutching in his chest, like claws clamping down on his ribs.

It seemed as if an hour passed thus, though in truth it could only have been a few minutes.

Finally, the door opened again behind him. He looked back to see the captain beckoning for him. “Come in.”

He stepped in and this time remained at attention. The captain closed the door and stepped around in front of him.

“Chief,” said the major, who was now sitting on the edge of his desk, “you’re absolutely certain about everything you told us?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If there’s any part of this story you want to revise, or anything you left out, now’s the time.”

“No, sir. That was everything.”

“All right. You know we have no authority on Federal soil, right?”

“Yes, sir. But neither does Royal.”

“Yeah, I get that. What I’m saying is, if we do this, we’re all going to be under investigation for years. However it comes out, it’s going to be the biggest scandal probably in military history.”

“Yes, sir. And we’ll be on the right side of it.”

The major nodded. “I get that, too. But that doesn’t mean we won’t go to jail.”

“I’m aware, sir,” said Constantine.

“All right. Get Five Four Four together and brief them on the situation. Be clear with them that they are not required to participate. This is strictly voluntary. Dan will lead the op.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Sir,” he added, nodding to the captain.

“Chief,” said the major.

“Sir?”

“Rules of engagement. You do not shoot first. Am I clear? Not even against Royal. Not even in the face of a clear threat. They shoot first. You fire only in collective self-defense or defense of a federal citizen, and only after they take first blood. Even if that means someone dies. Am I being perfectly clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How are you going to find this girl?”

“She reached out to me through my computer. Some kind of secret squirrel hacker shit. She’ll contact me again before this goes down, I’m pretty sure.”

“Pretty sure?”

“That’s all I’ve got, sir. If she doesn’t, then she’s on her own, we stand down, and I turn myself in to the Feds.”

“God… all right. Dan, it’s all yours. Remember what we talked about.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I appreciate you letting me do this.”

“That’s because you’re young and stupid, Danny. There’s no way this ends well.”

“Fuck an easy life, boss. If I’d wanted easy, I’d’a gone Ranger.”

“Get the fuck out, would you?”

“Yes, sir.”