Two Humvees with red crosses on their boxy rear cabins idled near the landing zone as the Black Hawk touched down in Salina, Kansas. Toward the east in the direction of Topeka and the ruins of Kansas City, the first hints of daylight separated the emptiness of night from the black silhouette of the horizon. A pair of medics rushed forward from one of the Humvees while Murray slid open the helicopter door. Wilson scooted out of the way to let the medics inside. Alex saw their rank and nametapes: Baker and Wood, both specialists.

The thundering pulse of the Black Hawk’s engines slowed and quieted. The helicopter’s blades, rigid and blurry as they spun, individually resolved as the rotor wound down.

“Go get the stretcher,” Specialist Wood said. Baker nodded and left the aircraft at a run.

“Is she going to make it?” Wilson said.

No one answered. Nicole’s skin had gone pale white. Her blood covered the cabin floor. She had not regained consciousness, but somehow, she had held on during the thirty-minute flight from Fort Riley to Salina. Finally, Wood looked up. “Maybe. There’s only so much we can do here.”

“Then get her a flight to Peterson!” Alex said sharply. The men looked at her but Alex’s gaze remained on Nicole. “Please. You have to do something.”

Baker returned dragging a stretcher and slid it into the cabin beside Nicole. The medics hefted her onto the stretcher and hauled her out of the aircraft. Alex undid her harness and made as if to jump out to follow. Murray put his hand on her shoulder. “Let them do their work.”

Alex watched as the medics loaded Nicole into the rear of one of the Humvees. Baker remained in the back while Wood hurried to the driver’s seat and shut the door. A moment later, the Humvee sped off toward the operations center.

The soldiers they had rescued from Fort Riley began to disembark. The Black Hawk had landed in the same field the team had departed from a week earlier. The operations center, still near the interstate between a group of inns and hotels, had grown in size. Tents filled the parking lot, and shipping containers full of supplies sat side-by-side along the road. There was even a command trailer festooned like a porcupine with antennae and aerials. The area reminded her of Topeka.

The helicopter emptied quickly. The soldiers removed the bodies of the two men who had died during the escape and carried them to the remaining Humvee. Soon, only Alex and the five men on the team remained inside the Black Hawk. Even the pilot and copilot had departed toward one of the hotels. Alex stared at the blood on her hands and on the floor. This was all her fault. She was the one who had convinced Nicole to break out of Cheyenne Mountain. They had rescued the team, but Shepherd was still missing and Nicole’s survival was far from certain.

“I was so stupid,” she whispered. “I thought… I thought Nicole could handle it. I thought we would just get in and out and we’d take everyone back to Cheyenne Mountain and everything would be fine.” Her voice trailed off as she looked at the men.

“How’d you know where to find us?” Jarden said.

Alex thought back to the hours before the escape from the mountain. The memories seemed surreal, like a dream, all of it happening so fast: the decision to disobey orders and depart on a two-person rescue mission behind enemy lines. “We… got on the network with my dad’s login. Sergeant Paul helped us. He got the flight path of the Osprey that dropped you guys off. That’s how we figured you were at Fort Riley.”

“But you and Serrano decided to come alone?”

“We didn’t have a choice. After I found out you were all MIA, I talked to Harrison. He wouldn’t do anything. They were just going to leave you.”

Wilson and Murray looked at each other. “You think…?” Wilson said.

Murray shook his head, slowly. “No, not a goddam chance.”

“It was against every single procedure for us to go out again so soon,” Wilson said. “Seven of us with no intel or support and they really expected us to infiltrate Fort Riley and take out General Martin?”

Alex looked up. “They sent you to kill General Martin?”

“That was the mission.”

“General Martin was at Fort Riley?” She thought back to the guilt on Shepherd’s face when she had asked him about the team’s mission. He was the only one on the team who knew Martin was her biological father.

“Maybe,” Murray said.

“We never had a chance,” Wilson said. “Even if we had gotten in… You said that ‘kinetic was the one that stabbed Serrano?”

Alex nodded. “Nicole said the same thing. She thought they sent all of you out to get killed.”

“Loose ends,” Wilson murmured.

“Bullshit,” Ziegler said. “They wouldn’t do that… right?”

“Why write up that damn report and make us read it if they were just going to send us out to get killed?” Murray said.

Wilson shrugged. “Hell if I know, but…”

“Heads up,” Sergeant Atkins said.

Four figures approached the Black Hawk from the direction of the operations center. They were black shadows against the halo of the sun rising behind them. Alex realized who they were long before they arrived at the helicopter.

“Alexandra.” General Park’s voice was soft and concerned, but for an instant, Alex thought she caught disappointment in his expression. Captain Andreski stood at his side with two armed soldiers trailing behind. Park held out his hand and gestured for her to exit the Black Hawk. She stared at him and then slowly climbed out of the cabin. The team followed. Murray saluted once they were all on the ground. Andreski returned the gesture. Park seemed not to notice.

“You’ve created quite a stir,” Park said. “The entire Directorate is on alert.”

“Where did those medics take Nicole?”

Andreski said, “We’ll get her stabilized and see what we can do from there.” He glanced at Murray and Wilson. “Sergeant Murray, have your team consolidate at our TOC. We’d like to debrief you on what you saw at Fort Riley.”

“Yes, sir,” Murray said, but none of the men moved. They looked at Alex, waiting for word she would be okay without them. In that moment, she knew she had done the right thing. They were a family. It was part of their oath to one another – to leave no one behind. She had gone after them just as they had gone after her in New York. None of them had known how many soldiers they would encounter in the MetLife Building or if any of them would even emerge from the skyscraper alive, but they had come.

She nodded to Murray although he still looked torn. He and the other men obviously wanted to stay with her, to be there if she needed them. Just as Andreski seemed about to repeat his order, Murray said, “We’ll see you later, Alex.”

Once the men were across the field, Park spoke. “I received a transmission from General Harrison. He ordered me to place you under arrest as soon as you landed.”

“Are you going to arrest me?”

“No.”

They left the Black Hawk, Alex walking between Park and Andreski. The two soldiers followed Alex, both staring at her while keeping their hands tight on their weapons. I might not be under arrest, but they’re not taking any chances. What would it be like back at Cheyenne Mountain? A platoon would likely meet her at the helipad and escort her in handcuffs to a holding cell deep inside the complex. And she realized how utterly useless all of it would be if she could shrug off their bullets, throw the men and vehicles aside, and disintegrate their weapons just as she had done to the NEA at Fort Riley. She heard Nicole like an echo in her mind: Girl, the problem is you are afraid of them. It should be the other way around.

Park led her toward a white trailer with two doors, one marked by a restroom pictogram of a man and the other a woman. A water tank sat on a truck bed beside the trailer. Hoses led from the water tank to the base of the trailer. She recognized the arrangement as a field shower station.

“General?”

“Yes?”

“Is there anything you can do for Captain Shepherd? Can you find out where they took him?”

“Our intelligence collection assets are tied up,” Andreski said. “I’m afraid there isn’t anything we can do for now.”

“Nothing?”

“I’m sorry.”

Alex wondered what would happen if she stormed into Cheyenne Mountain, breaking down every door and disarming every guard in her path, and demanded that Harrison devote the full weight of the Directorate to finding Shepherd. She shook the thought away. The hole she had dug for herself was deep enough already. “What about Nicole?”

“She’ll get the best care we can offer,” Park said.

Alex again looked down at the blood on her hands and uniform. Will that be enough?

They arrived at the trailer. “You’ll have the showers to yourself,” Park said. “I imagine you’d like to get cleaned up. Captain Andreski and I will be at the TOC when you’re done. Take all the time you need.”

“I’ll have some fresh clothes sent over,” Andreski said.

Alex nodded.

Park and Andreski departed for the command area. The two soldiers remained behind. Alex looked at each of them. “We’ll wait out here, ma’am.”

She went inside the trailer. The interior consisted of a cramped corridor with curtained shower stalls on the left and wooden benches on the right. She went to the stall at the far end of the trailer and got out of her clothes, dropping the bloody NEA uniform on the floor.

Inside the shower stall, she turned the handle. A blast of freezing water erupted from the showerhead. She didn’t move; the icy water was somehow pleasant and hypnotizing, wiping away the memories of Fort Riley, of the flight to Salina, and her worries about what would happen upon her return to the mountain. As the water turned lukewarm and then hot, she sat down, bringing her legs up against to breasts and wrapping her arms around her knees. The blood that had dried to her washed away as it mixed with the warm streams flowing over her body. There was so much of it, more blood than Alex had thought her friend’s tiny frame could have contained.

She leaned her head against her arms. She felt like crying as she had done on the Black Hawk. There, the turbines had masked her sobs. Now, there was only the beat of water against her skin. But no tears came. She was empty, and there was too much: her father’s coma, the soldiers she had killed in Kansas City, the splitting of the team, and now her breaking out of Cheyenne Mountain, Nicole’s condition, and the knowledge that Shepherd was gone, perhaps already dead. If only she could block it all out, run away, and escape. But she had nowhere to go. Even sleep offered no refuge; there were the dreams of the men and women she had torn apart on the overpass, of the city she had annihilated, and the thousands of men who were dead because she had lost control. Now Fort Riley would join those nightmares: the knife cutting into Nicole’s belly and the gaping wound pumping blood out onto her hands and arms.

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The stall was soon steamy and humid. She turned the shower handle and glanced into the corridor. A towel and gym bag waited just inside the trailer door. She retrieved the items, sat on one of the benches, and dried herself with the towel. Inside the bag was a pair of faded jeans, tennis shoes, a black shirt, a dark red sweater, and undergarments. She dressed and set aside the towel.

Outside, one of the guards paced back-and-forth while smoking a cigarette. The other stood near the door, leaning against the trailer. The man with the cigarette flicked it to the ground and stomped it out as Alex emerged. “Ma’am,” he said with a nod.

“Can you take me to the medical tent?”

“We have orders to take you to the TOC.”

“Have you heard anything about Nicole?”

“No, ma’am.”

She followed them toward Park’s command vehicle. The area was quiet and still, strange for a unit preparing to embark on a major offensive. When they reached the command trailer, the soldiers waited at the base of the stepladder as she ascended. Inside, Park and Andreski were the only occupants. Both men were at one of the computer terminals. Andreski sat typing on the keyboard while Park stood behind him watching the monitor.

Park turned to Alex as she shut the door. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” she lied.

“Your ride will be here sooner than we thought,” Andreski said. “They’re only a few minutes out.”

“What about Nicole?”

“She’s in God’s hands more than ours,” Park said. “But if she survived this long with injuries like those… I think there’s a chance she’ll make it.”

Alex sat in one of the empty chairs. A flat-screen monitor hung from the ceiling. The monitor showed a satellite map of Salina, Kansas with symbols representing the main battle tanks and troops on the perimeter to the east. Most of the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team had consolidated around the interstate, preparing, she hoped, for an offensive that would pierce straight to the heart of the New England Alliance.

Park went to her side of the trailer, pulled out a chair, and sat. She thought about what Park had said. It brought back memories from Peterson, from after she had woken up in the hospital and gone to see her father. She had asked the nurse, Deirdre Cross, the kind, fierce woman, if her father would be all right.

That’s up to the Lord, child. But we can pray.

She had shaken her head and replied, I don’t believe in that.

However, she had closed her eyes and said a prayer anyway, Dear God, please let my father live.

“Do you really believe that, General? About God, I mean.”

“Of course,” Park said.

“My dad said it was a waste of time.”

Park sighed. “Your father lost his faith. Many people who survived the outbreaks lost their faith. So did I for a while. But… I found my way back.”

“My mom believed in God.”

“Do you?”

“No.”

She was afraid Park would be angry at her answer, but his demeanor did not change. “May I ask why not?”

“Last week right before we left, you said God gave me my abilities. If there really is a God, why would he do that to me? All I’ve done is hurt and kill people. Why give me these abilities if I can’t even use them to help my dad or Nicole or Captain Shepherd?”

“You choose how you use your abilities, not God. We all make our own decisions, and… it’s those decisions that we’ll be judged by.”

“So then what does God want me to do?”

“I can’t answer that. It’s a question you would have to ask Him yourself.”

“How?”

“Pray.”

Alex shook her head. Prayer hadn’t helped her father recover from his coma. Long before that, prayer hadn’t done anything to save her mother from cancer. Park thought her father had lost his faith during the outbreaks, but Alex suspected it had happened earlier, around the time her mother’s skin had turned a sickly white, her beautiful brown hair had fallen out, and her steel-blue eyes had become pale and lifeless. Whose decision was that? If God is real, why did he let my mom die? Why did he let the whole world die?

Yet even as Katherine Bedford’s body had become frail and helpless, she had kept her faith. Alex again remembered the time in her father’s office when he had walked in and seen her reading from her mother’s old leather Bible. He had told her reading the book was a waste of time, but that wasn’t the end to the conversation.

Did Mom read it a lot? she had said.

Every day, her father said. Every day until the end.

“General?” she said.

“Yes?”

“Will you pray for Nicole?”

Park’s reaction made her wonder if she had said something wrong. He immediately looked down at the floor. She caught a glimpse of an expression that betrayed sadness and what she thought was guilt. “I will,” he said after a brief silence. “And… no matter what happens, I’ll keep praying for you.”

“Thank you, General.”

“We should go,” Andreski said.

They left the trailer. The sun had risen further, bringing warmth and brightening the cloudless sky. A truck idled alongside the Black Hawk, feeding fuel to the helicopter. Other vehicles surrounded the landing zone. A Stryker waited along the road, and four Humvees had taken position at the corners of the field to form a wide square of open space between them. We’re getting quite the sendoff. The team stood in the middle of the field.

“Where’s Nicole?” she said as they drew closer.

“We’ll transfer her onboard once the helicopter lands,” Andreski said.

Wilson and Murray approached.

“Hey, Alex,” Wilson said. “You look better.”

She nodded, slowly, trying to forget the blood swirling down the shower drain.

“We were talking,” Wilson continued. “We’ll do whatever it takes to get Captain Shepherd back. We’ll find him somehow. We’ll make sure everyone knows you and Serrano saved our asses.”

Murray put his hand on her shoulder. “We’ll break you out if they try putting you in the brig. We won’t let you get in trouble for saving us from that shitshow of an operation.” He glanced at Park. “Sorry, sir.”

Park nodded but said nothing.

“Is the bird almost here, sir?” Wilson said to Captain Andreski.

“Any minute now.”

Wilson jogged back to the team but Murray stayed next to Alex. She heard the distinct pulse of an aircraft’s turbines, and strangely, she again felt a tingle at the base of her skull. She looked into the sky for the Osprey. Then she realized the sound was coming from the east and not the west. Did the Osprey circle around? But why would it do that? If it was coming from Peterson…

Murray also began looking around with a puzzled expression. As she listened to the steadily increasing thrum, she realized the sound was different from an Osprey. The roar reminded her of a Black Hawk but deeper and more powerful. Then she spotted the aircraft: a CH-53 almost one-and-a-half times the length of a Black Hawk and twice as tall. The CH-53 was bulbous and fat with a refueling probe resembling the proboscis of a mosquito protruding from one side of the cockpit and two fuel tanks clinging to the sides of the cabin like tumors. The CH-53 hugged the ground and barely cleared the roofs of the hotels surrounding the operations center.

She braced herself against the downwash as the helicopter passed overhead and began its descent into the middle of the open field. And there, on the side of the airframe, was an emblem of a yellow, coiled rattlesnake and three white letters: NEA.

Murray bellowed, “Norm, get everyone out! It’s a goddam—”

Andreski tackled Murray. Murray threw him back but Andreski recovered and slammed headfirst into Murray’s midsection. Both men went down. Dozens of soldiers pointed their weapons at the team and sprinted forward from the field’s edge. The gunners on each Humvee twisted their machineguns toward the team as well. Alex retreated and bumped into General Park.

“I’m sorry, Alexandra.”

“What are you—” A thin, pointed object pierced her neck. She yelled and jerked away. She put her hand to her neck and ripped out an empty hypodermic needle. Her vision clouded as she collapsed to her knees. Then she felt her pulse quicken. The helicopter’s roar became a dull hum against the pounding of her heart. She looked at the needle and then up at Park. Her vision resolved. Park reached into his pocket and withdrew a clear plastic container. He opened the container and removed another needle. He betrayed us. He betrayed the Directorate. He’s giving us up to the NEA. Why?

Before Park could remove the cap from the second needle, she lashed out. The needle exploded and sent shards of glass into Park’s hand. He recoiled in pain.

“Alex!” Murray had managed to struggle free of Andreski and was holding Nicole’s satellite phone. “They’re blocking our comms! Take out that dish at the TOC!”

She recalled noticing a Humvee with a towed satellite array when they had arrived in Salina the previous week. Now, tents, freight containers, vehicles, and other dishes and antenna filled the parking lot. But then she saw it, a brown curve: the top of the dish protruding up from behind the command trailer. She focused.

The wires, circuits, screws, microchips, and transistors enveloped her as if she were a spark of electricity moving through the apparatus. She could target and destroy the tiniest component or shatter the entire dish with a wave of her hand. Except then her view expanded. Park stood waving toward the hotels. The muscles of his neck pulled, twisted, and contracted as he turned to look at her. Again, her awareness expanded. A sniper and spotted were aiming at her from the top floor of one of the hotels. The sniper’s crosshairs lay just above her left ear while a copper-jacketed bullet waited in the rifle’s chamber ready to explode forward with only a hair’s pressure on the trigger. Less than fifty meters away, Wilson, Atkins, Ziegler, and Jarden stood circled into a tight ball, facing out toward the surrounding soldiers. Murray and Andreski collided again. Andreski knocked the satellite phone out of Murray’s grasp, and the device clattered to the dirt. The surge of information multiplied with every second. Her focus no longer remained on any single target, but on everything. She perceived the giant main battle tanks, the soldiers, the buildings, the loose gravel on the road, and clumps of dirt. But in the middle of the field, centered on the descending helicopter, was a black aura her mind could not penetrate.

She fought to block out everything except the communications dish. The distractions were overwhelming. She felt she was aiming down the sights of a gun at a blurry, moving target. The surrounding vehicles, the weapons, the individual blades of grass across the field – everything demanded her attention. It would be easy to lash out, to clench her hand into a fist and destroy whatever her mind identified as a threat. Except she had no idea where it would stop. Shepherd’s voice spoke to her, a memory from her first time on the gun range at Fort Carson: Find your target, take a deep breath, let it out, and pull the trigger. It’s that easy.

Her skull threatened to implode as she struggled to isolate the dish. Burning warmth flowed across her skin. Then the Humvee and its satellite array resolved into perfect focus. She threw out her hand and opened her eyes.

A black shimmer appeared along her fingers and then vanished. The Humvee and its communications dish left the ground and slammed into the hotel building, producing a luminous fireball that billowed into a mushroom-shaped cloud of smoke.

Murray slammed his fist into Andreski’s cheek and then scrambled for the satellite phone. He picked it up and hit the transmit button. “All Directorate channels! General Park’s command has defected to the NEA! If you receive this transmission, report immediately to—”

A high-pitched crack interrupted Murray’s transmission. Dirt erupted from the ground a few inches away. Alex focused against the top floor of the hotel building and again saw the sniper aiming at her through a broken window. A spent cartridge ejected from his rifle and clattered to the floor as he drew back the weapon’s bolt. She focused on the remaining rounds in the weapon’s magazine and clenched her hand. But instead of destroying the cartridges or even the weapon, the upper corner of the hotel collapsed into the building’s lower floors. The earth shook as the western half of the structure disintegrated. The walls fell inward into a haze of dust and debris.

Two soldiers rushed toward her and Murray. She instinctively focused on them. The closest soldier fell to the ground and screamed as his femur broke and ripped through his thigh. The second man slowed and brought his weapon up. Then he slammed to a halt. He coughed up blood and bile as red streams leaked from his ballistic vest. He stared at her and then took a step forward before crumpling to his side.

More soldiers followed. They surrounded the area and pointed their weapons at her. She felt the cold aluminum and steel of the soldiers’ weapons, the tightly woven fibers of Kevlar behind ceramic ballistic plates, and the firm muscle tissue in their bodies and the pulse of their heartbeats. Everything was open for her to rip into and tear apart.

“Shoot her!” the man with the broken leg groaned.

“I’ve got the shot,” someone else murmured. Alex sensed him applying pressure to the trigger and saw the sliver of metal holding back the hammer, a millimeter that would slide away with a hair of movement. The millimeter gave way. Her senses heightened as the hammer released. The striking surface slammed into the head of the firing pin and propelled the tip into the primer of the chambered round. There was a spark and a burst of flame as the powder ignited and propelled the round through the barrel. She directed her concentration against the spinning bullet, preparing to flatten the round just as she had done at Fort Riley.

A brilliant, fiery, and now familiar light wiped away her perception of the oncoming round. She heard the muzzle blast and felt something tear across her left arm, cutting through her flesh and ripping at muscle. Then a blunt object struck her in the side of the head. Her legs gave way, and she fell to the ground. The light faded and became a murky black. There were jumbled sounds and voices. She felt the cool morning air against her face.

As the world came back into focus, she saw a rifle muzzle hovering inches from her head. She was on her back. The ache in her skull remained but the hot, jabbing pain between her eyes was gone. Andreski and two other soldiers hauled Murray away toward the rest of the team who all lay flat on the ground with their hands behind their heads.

She looked at her left arm. The fluid seeping from the bullet wound was black instead of red. General Park appeared above. Blood trickled from his right hand, but he seemed not to notice. The reflection from his glasses allowed her to see herself sprawled on the ground. Her irises were dark and murky, almost indistinguishable from her dilated pupils. Another figure appeared and knelt beside her. Faint lights flickered from behind the thin black shell covering his eyes. A bloodstained bandage clung to the side of his head.

“You know,” Webb said, wiping blood from his nose, “you really are a nuisance.”

Webb touched his fingers between her eyes. Her vision turned brown and distorted as if she had fallen into a pool of dirty water. She tried to resist the numbness creeping across her body. Webb pressed his palm into her forehead. For an instant, she saw black strands intertwining and clouding the edges of her vision. Then nothing.