Threshold (13 page)

He pointed to Kafer. “You’re Rook’s Pawn One and your men are Two through Five. In the field this will be shortened to RP-One. Understood?”

Nods all around. Despite their battle-hardened experience and high rank, the men knew they were being brought, at least temporarily, into the fold of the Chess Team. Each of them felt a mix of honor and intimidation.

“We’ve got a connection,” Aleman said before tapping a few keys on the laptop.

The wall behind King, actually a well-disguised flat-screen display, came to life. Queen, Rook, Knight, and Bishop appeared on the screen, sitting around a laptop on their end from within the
Crescent.
Their serious faces reflected that they had been briefed on the Fort Bragg attack and Fiona’s kidnapping.

“Can you hear us?” Rook asked.

“We hear you,” King replied and then nodded at Aleman. “Give what you have.”

King had plucked Aleman from his cot, which he’d been forced to stay in, and had him working on finding answers for the past thirty minutes. It wasn’t a lot of time, but Aleman tended to think faster than most men. And he didn’t disappoint.

“Here’s what we know. About a year ago, the Siletz Reservation was destroyed. We now have a pretty good idea how. That said, we still have no idea what actually attacked us.”

“A shitload of living rock, that’s what,” Kafer said.

Aleman looked at the ceiling for a moment, his eyes squinted in thought.

“Lew,” King said.

Aleman looked back at his screen. “Then we received tips that certain targets in Australia and Vietnam were in danger. In fact, the targets were killed before our team arrived on site. Or, in Rook’s case, just after. And it was the last words of this dying victim that clued me in. She said—correct me if I’m wrong, Rook—that they were after ‘bad words’ that you were then told not to speak. ‘Can’t speak them. Don’t speak them.’”

“You got it,” Rook said.

“Given the ancestry of the victim, it occurred to me that her native language would be very old; perhaps one of the oldest, if not
the
oldest, spoken language on the planet. I did some research on the other victims. All of them were the last surviving speakers of nearly extinct ancient languages. The Gurdanji in Australia had five living speakers. They’re all dead. The Siletz had two living speakers, Fiona’s grandmother—”

“And Fiona,” Queen said. “Shit.”

“I compiled a list of all dying languages around the world and found a disturbing trend. Many of the last speakers of ancient languages have either gone missing or been found dead. Someone is exterminating them. But because they’re relatively few people spread out all around the world, some in obscure places, no one has noticed. I’ve identified the speakers of the most at-risk languages that are still living. Tinigua has two speakers. Taushiro, one. Uru, one. And Vilela, two. All four of these languages are in South America. Then there is Chulym, known as Ös to its three speakers in Siberia, down from fifteen three years ago thanks to a flu that killed thousands of people in the remote area. And Pazeh with one speaker born in the Philippines, but living in Taiwan.”

“Are you assigning us to kidnap these people?” Kafer said.

“That’s your mission,” King replied. “Yes.”

“And you’ve done this before?”

“Bag and tag,” Bishop said, which got a smile from Rook and odd looks from the four team leaders in Decon.

“Are you questioning your orders?” King asked, his voice heavy, his eyes leveled at Kafer.

For a moment it appeared Kafer might argue the point, but he leaned back in his chair instead. “Just curious is all.”

Aleman cleared his throat. “Queen and Bishop will lead two teams to South America. Knight will take one team to Taiwan. Rook will take Siberia.”

“I don’t need to tell you that not only do we not know
who
we’re up against, but we also don’t know
what,
” King said. “You and your men have fought conventional wars up until now, but all that changes today. Throw out your preconceptions about human capabilities and effective tactics and do not, ever, believe a bullet can kill the enemy.”

“What
do
we know?” one of the team leaders asked. “I saw the damn statue from Bragg’s main entrance come to life and kill a man.”

“And that about sums up our intel,” Aleman said. “Someone has found a way to imbue nonliving material with, for lack of a better word, life. Statues come to life. Crude stone monsters. It doesn’t seem to matter what the material is as long as it is inanimate.”

“I faced off against two of them,” Rook said. “One made of stone and the other of giant crystals.”

“They appear to feel no pain,” Aleman said, “and when their mission, again for lack of a better word, is complete they return to their inanimate state, which is why the statue you mentioned is now in a barracks lobby.”

“You all need to move fast and quiet. I want you in and out of these countries with the targets without ruffling a feather, blipping a radar, or engaging the enemy.” King looked up at the screen, eyeing the members of his team, and then looked at the team leaders at the table. “Because as good as you all are, you won’t stand a chance.” He looked back at the screen. “ETA?”

“We’re incoming now,” Knight said. “Wheels down and hatch open in three minutes.”

King switched off the flat-screen and spoke to the team leaders. “I want you all on that bird in four minutes. Brief your men in the air. Got it?”

“Understood,” Kafer said as he stood. “One last question?”

“What is it?”

“Where will
you
be going?”

King’s nose twitched. “For now”—he looked at Aleman, who shrugged—“nowhere.”

Kafer gave King a pat on the shoulder as he headed for the door. “You’ll find her.”

The men filed out of the room. Keasling followed after them, intent on ensuring that each and every man made King’s four-minute schedule.

King sat down across from Aleman. He looked grim.

“Last night, did you get a chance to refill Fiona’s insulin pump and move it to a new location?”

Aleman paled. He hadn’t thought of that problem. “I did. The pump was on her hip. The needle just above it.”

Fiona’s insulin pump lasted three days when full. After that Fiona would be susceptible to hyperglycemia, which resulted in painful symptoms including coma and death, sometimes very quickly depending on circumstances such as diet and exertion. But that wasn’t the most pressing concern at the moment. The girl he’d been entrusted to protect had been taken from him by a man he knew very little about.

After first hearing Aleman’s description of the mystery man, King suspected his identity was none other than Alexander Diotrephes. He was sure of it. And Alexander
was
a doctor, among other things. In theory, he should be able to supply her with insulin. Hell, he could probably cure her. But what did they really know about the man? He’d helped them defeat the Hydra, but he had personal reasons for doing that. He’d saved Fiona once before, at the Siletz Reservation, but no one knew his real motives or intentions. Who’s to say he wasn’t behind the attacks himself? Until all of these questions were answered, King couldn’t trust that Fiona’s life wasn’t in danger. “Let’s operate under the assumption that she’s not going to be cared for. There’s no way to know for sure until I find her.”

Aleman nodded. “You really think Hercules—Alexander—has Fiona?”

King’s mind refocused on the task of finding Fiona. He couldn’t do anything about her diabetes until she was safe in his care again. “Sounds insane, I know. The question is: Where did he take her? And does he have anything to do with these living statues?”

Aleman shook his head. There were so many unanswered questions he was having trouble keeping track of them all, which was frustrating because he could feel the answer to one of their questions on the tip of his tongue.

Then it came to him.
Living statues
. “Oh my God,” he whispered, and then said loudly, “I know what they are.”

King immediately sat up straight. “What?”

“Golem.”

EIGHTEEN

“STAI BENE, TESORO?”

Fiona opened her eyes to the concerned face of a middle-aged woman with dark curly hair. She couldn’t understand a word the woman said, but she recognized the language. “I can’t speak Italian.”

“Sorry,” the woman said in English. “I should have learned to greet newcomers in English by now. Most of us here speak it well enough.”

Fiona tried sitting up, but a spinning head kept her planted in what she now realized was a cot made up in white sheets. The woman saw Fiona’s trouble and helped her sit. “It’s the drugs. You’ll feel dizzy for just a few more minutes and drowsy for another day. Maybe more because you’re so small.”

“Drugs?” Fiona gave her body a visual once over and saw no injuries, but her body and the woman’s face were as far as she could focus. She looked up and saw brown, but the room twisted madly causing instant nausea. She turned her eyes down and saw a brown stone floor. “This isn’t a hospital.” She looked at the woman. “And you’re not a nurse, are you?”

The woman frowned and shook her head. “I am a linguist. And no, this is not a hospital.” The woman held out her hand. “Elma Rossi.”

Fiona shook her hand. “Fiona Lane.” She looked into Elma’s eyes, wondering if she was someone she could trust. Deciding she had no choice, she asked, “Where am I?”

“Where we are in the world … I cannot say. There are no windows. No clues. The only thing we know is that we are underground.”

Underground?
Fiona focused on the floor, fought down a fresh wave of nausea, and then looked again. The wall closest to her resolved as a continuation of the stone floor, brown and featureless. The room continued to spin, but she forced herself to look, to glean what she could.

She saw people. Small groups of them gathered in huddles around the room. Some appeared to be self-segregated by race. Others lay on cots like hers, staring at the ceiling—also stone. The space was about the size of her junior high cafeteria, before the reservation was destroyed.

A persistent pain in her hip drew her attention. She lifted up her shirt and saw the insulin pump attached to her waistband. She turned it up, looking at its digital display, which showed her glucose levels, battery life, and insulin supply. All was good.

“What is that?” Elma asked.

“Insulin pump. I’m diabetic.”

“That can be hard, especially on one so young. But I wouldn’t worry about it,” Elma said. “Those of us with medical needs have been taken care of. I’m sure you will be as well.”

“I’ll be fine for a few more days, anyway,” Fiona said. To prove it, she stood. When she did, a fresh wave of nausea struck. She stumbled and was caught by Elma.

“Slow down, child, you’ll—”

Fiona yanked her arm away. “Let me do this,” she said, her little voice almost a growl. “I can do this.” Driven by a deep desire to be strong like King, she did what she’d seen him do after taking a hard hit or running a long distance. Hands on knees, head between legs, and long, deep breaths. She finished with a deep grunt and stood. She felt stronger, but still dizzy. Though she didn’t let Elma see that. Rook told her that when they were on a mission they had to swallow pain and discomfort to get things done. He made it sound easy.

It wasn’t.

But Fiona had Elma convinced as she stood up straight and rolled her little neck. When she opened her eyes again, the woman had taken a step back with a hand to her mouth. “Child, you may be the toughest person here.”

The statement helped Fiona stand still as her body threatened to buckle over and wretch. She swallowed, knowing that Rook had meant pain-swallowing as a metaphor, and forced a cocky King-style smile. “Just trying to take after my dad.”

Elma’s eyes were wide. “And … who is your father?”

“You can ask him when he—” Fiona lurched forward and vomited at the base of her cot. After three heaves and a coughing fit, she spit the remaining bile from her mouth and stood with tears in her eyes. Elma stepped forward and held her. Fiona melted into her hug. “Not as tough as you thought.”