November, 1978 — QRF Ammunition Storage Site, near Schweinfurt, West Germany

  “Get him inside and onto a cot,” Nick said as three men carried a fourth into the tent.

  “What the fuck happened?” the squad leader from B-Troop asked as the men from C-Troop id an unconscious—and muddy—Tyrone Green on the nearest cot.

  “He fell out of the back of the truck,” Nick Tiscarro expined.

  “How the hell did he manage to do that?” asked one of the men from B-Troop. Aric didn’t know his name, and he didn’t have time to ask. Their rotation guarding the ammo dump was over, and C-Troop’s was just starting. Not even a half-conscious anonymous man in the mud was going to keep them a minute longer than necessary.

  “He was climbing out over the tailgate when the driver started moving. Got pitched right out.”

  Green hadn’t moved since they’d found him—ft on his back in the mud, eyes shut. He’d been smiling faintly, oddly serene, but unresponsive.

  “Don’t stand there gawking—pick him up,” Nick had ordered the three men who’d stood at the back of the truck staring down at their motionless comrade.

  “Shouldn’t we call somebody, Tisk?” West asked as they picked Green’s uncooperative form out of the mud and carried him into the nearby tent.

  The reply Tiscarro gave was to Aric. “Keep an eye on him.”

  It was a twenty-five-minute drive from Ledward barracks to the ammo dump marked for the 3rd Infantry Division’s Quick Reaction Force—better known as 3rd Squadron, 7th US Cavalry. During the ride, the five men had talked, or smoked or, in PFC Aric Aamut?hti’s case, sat with closed eyes while he blocked out the thoughts of the men riding with him as the two and a half ton truck rocked and pitched over the less than improved road like a ship fighting its way through rough seas.

  “Hey, Ammo, when you gonna put a ring on that girl of yours?” Green had asked, using his nickname—Aamut?hti being too complicated a st name for some GIs to remember, or pronounce. Aric could not remember ever seeing the man without a toothpick in his mouth.

  Aric kept his eyes closed. “She doesn’t want to get married.”

  “Why the fuck not?” Trujillo asked. “You’re a good looking guy. So I hear. You’ve gotta beat the women off with a stick. Woulda thought she’d want you all to herself.”

  “She’s already got me all to herself,” Aric expined as he finally opened his eyes and fished a pack of Camels from his pocket. He’d been meaning to quit. Maybe next week. “I don’t sleep around. She just doesn’t want to get married. She likes things the way they are.”

  “You mean she likes when we’re stuck in Coburg or Hohenfels and she’s free to fuck somebody else,” Trujillo suggested before ughing.

  “She can fuck whoever she wants,” Aric said as calmly as possible. “She makes her own choices.”

  West shook his head in bewilderment at that statement. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  Tiscarro leaned forward and tossed the butt of his cigarette out the back of the truck. “It’s called being an adult. You wouldn’t understand.”

  West looked at Nick Tiscarro’s face and swallowed the unspoken insult whole.

  What Ada had actually said was, “You know I love you. But you’ll be gone next year, and I’ll still be here. And we’re both too young to think about lifetime commitments.”

  She was older than him, but only by a couple of years. Still, a woman learned a lot in those two years. Especially if she lived and worked next to a US Army base.

  “It’s not because of the other thing?” he asked. He didn’t eborate, but he didn’t have to.

  They y in her small bed, a pair of spoons nestled together. Their voices carried just enough to hear each other, but not enough to penetrate the paper thin walls of her apartment. They were still naked, but the sweat that had bathed them both earlier had dried. The window was open, allowing in a summer breeze—tinged with the scent of roasting meat—and noise from the Gasthaus below.

  “You know it’s not. I think it’s wonderful. I think you’re wonderful. I’m just not ready to even think about getting married. Settling down. Starting a family. Not even with someone as beautiful as you are. Besides, wouldn’t you miss your own family living so far away from them?”

  Aric smiled. “I could still see them.”

  She knew what he meant. Travel time from Schweinfurt to Boston at Mach 2 was about two and a half hours.

  “You know what I mean. You’d be here, they’d be there. You pn on flying back and forth every day? How long until you’re found out? And what happens to me then? Regur old human Ada Kesselman with no superpowers to protect her?”

  “I’d protect you.”

  “And there it is,” she said, “right on cue. I don’t want you to protect me. I don’t want anyone to protect me. I want to live my own life. I need to live it—and not from inside some protective bubble—yours or anyone else’s—whether it’s made of energy or money.”

  He’d realized in that moment that she’d been trying to tell him that—had been repeating variations of it—for some time.

  She had no intention of living inside a cage.

  Now—finally—he understood.

  And he could entirely rete.

  Aric quietly monitored Green’s condition once they set the unconscious man on an unoccupied cot. He still needed to remind himself to look before he leaped. Not every injury required a full blown intervention. Some only needed a gentle nudge, a quiet application of well aimed cosmic energy. Healing had to be invisible when you shared space with a few dozen men. The Army gave no one privacy, and the st thing he needed was to become the subject of any more te-night whispers.

  But Green seemed fine. No serious head trauma. Just a bit of damage to his colrbone and shoulder—nothing Aric couldn’t fix without drawing attention. He rested his hand on Green’s forehead, as if brushing away a speck of drying mud. But concealed in the gesture was the final pass of his examination.

  The air hummed faintly as he drew a trivial thread of energy from the universe, but it went unnoticed amid the shuffle of one squad entering while another filed out—eager to return home. Any minor glow from his hand slipped by just as easily—lost in the chaos.

  “He’ll be okay,” Aric said softly, to no one in particur as he patted Green’s muddy shoulder.

  “Don’t get all weird on us, Ammo,” West muttered in his distinctive drawl—a bit more nasal than a Texas accent. He shook his head as if Aric was a continual disappointment.

  Trujillo was the first to come to Aric’s defense. “What about you, you chicken-fried Chickasha redneck? You’re the one chasin’ every snake you see like Went Hensley on his way to some holler church.”

  “Rattlers taste like chicken,” West expined, but stopped short of his usual recital of how they should be prepared.

  “There are no rattlesnakes in Germany,” Aric noted. “And you don’t die if a chicken bites you.”

  “Do chickens even have teeth?” Trujillo asked.

  “I hope you get bit,” Nick Tiscarro—known to the men he commanded as Tisk—said tartly.

  The temperature outside kept dropping, but the H-45 space heater inside the tent still managed to make it tolerable—if barely.

  “Those fuckers from B-Troop left us the wrong fuel,” Tiscarro muttered, looking at the markings on the spare can.

  “What’re we gonna do?” West asked. “Can we still use it?”

  “Not unless you want the heater to blow up. This thing needs mogas, not diesel.”

  “We’ll freeze to death without fuel.”

  It was an exaggeration, but nobody liked the idea of standing watch with their toes slowly going numb as the mercury dropped to 30 degrees Fahrenheit only to return to an equally freezing tent.

  “He’s coming around,” Trujillo said, still sitting beside the cot.

  Green blinked his eyes open. Four faces loomed over him.

  “Where am I?” he asked, confused, brushing at the mud on his field jacket. It was caked on but drying, same as his boots and pants.

  “We’re at the ammo dump,” West said.

  Green scanned each face in turn. “Why am I covered in mud? What the hell happened?”

  Aric did another quick scan, but the man seemed physically to be fine. He pced his hand on Green’s forehead again as he replied.

  “You fell out of the truck.”

  “I did?”

  “You don’t remember?” West asked, brow raised.

  Green scanned their faces again, slower this time. “No.”

  Tiscarro stood and stretched, then looked over at Aric. “Fuck.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a pack of Lucky Strikes.

  “You sure he’s okay?” he asked just before lighting up.

  Aric hesitated, but just for a second. “He’s not concussed. Nothing broken. But he had his bell rung, and he’s still disoriented. I don’t think he should be standing a watch.”

  “What are you, a fucking medic now?” West shot back. One man down meant more hours for everyone else, and less room to sck off.

  Tiscarro lifted a single finger. That was all it took. Silence followed. No one in the squad pushed back on their burley squad leader when he was in a mood.

  “Ammo, keep an eye on Green. West, see how much fuel is left in that first can. I need to redo the duty roster.”

  “I fucking knew it,” West said as he shoved through the tent fp, muttering the whole way. He gave Aric a sour look as he went, as if bming him personally for the longer night ahead.

  Aric just shook his head and turned back to check on Green again.

  The man from Detroit was already asleep.

  “Don’t turn it up past 3. Remember, this fucking thing wasn’t made to burn diesel,” Tisk reminded Trujillo before walking out of the tent. The mud had hardened. The cold was like a sp in the face, and his breath immediately became visible. He lit a cigarette and walked the short distance to the gate in the fence. He stood outside the perimeter and smoked as Aric reversed direction and headed that way.

  Aric nodded to his squad leader as he approached. He cradled the loaded M16A2 in his arms as he deliberately walked the interior of the fence. There was a ten foot gap between the chain link and the first crates of tarp covered ammunition. If a conflict with East Germany broke out, the entire squadron could collect their ammunition and be on its way to the rail head in under two hours while the rest of the 3rd Infantry Division was still getting its collective shit together.

  The night sky was clear, the air crisp. No moon, but enough starlight to clearly see their small camp and the much rger fenced area and its contents. The smell of burning diesel mixed with cigarette smoke.

  Tisk twisted the diminished smoke between his gloved fingers to separate the burning ember before crushing it under his boot. He field stripped the rest and let the steady breeze carry the remnants away. His face was cold, and he knew if he stayed outside without winter boots for much longer his toes would start to freeze. His presence reminded Aric to at least make an effort to look cold, so he copied the man from East Whittier’s motions.

  “Everything OK?” Tisk asked.

  “Nothing to report,” Aric said before they were once again serenaded by Tyrone Green’s loud voice.

  “Where the hell am I? Why am I covered in mud? What the hell happened?”

  “Besides that,” Aric added dryly.

  Nick threw his hands up in the air. “?Por el amor de Dios! Fourth fucking time tonight! You’re sure he’s OK?”

  Aric shrugged. “There’s nothing wrong with him,” he said before amending his comment. “I mean, there’s a shitload wrong with him. But normal stuff, like any of us. He took a whack on the head. That’s all. Just let him sleep it off.”

  “I wish he would sleep it off. But every fucking hour—”

  They stood for a short time before both men noticed the same thing. The top of the stove pipe sticking out of the tent roof was glowing red, and there was a three foot fme shooting out of it.

  Nick nodded to it. His voice when he spoke was nonchant. “That’s a pretty color.”

  Aric nodded, not sure what to say next. “It is. Do you think you should go and tell them?”

  Nick thought about it for a moment.

  “Fuck no. I told them not to turn it up past 3.”

  Aric looked at him and cocked his eyebrows, which were hidden underneath a winter cap he didn’t need.

  Nick gave in with a single word as he turned and walked back. “Fine.”

  Five minutes ter the spout of fire was gone and the stove pipe no longer shone like a beacon in the dark.

  Four men and one woman had been making their way stealthily toward the fence line in the distance when an orange glow appeared just behind it. They stopped and crouched where they were. They wore no uniforms. But for the automatic weapons and grenades they carried, they might have passed for hunters. A moment ter, a voice shouted something unintelligible.

  “Was zum Teufel ist das eigentlich?” the woman asked. What the hell is that?

  They all stared at the glow, heart rates climbing.

  “K?nnte es ein Signal sein? Wissen sie, dass wir hier sind?” one of the men asked. Could it be a signal? Do they know we’re here?

  Their conversation continued in quiet German, their accents scattered across the Bundesrepublik.

  “If they knew we were here, they’d be shooting at us,” another man muttered.

  “What do we do?” a third one asked.

  “We stay put,” the woman said. She was the leader of this assault against American imperialism. They had watched the site for weeks. Learned the guard’s schedule. Noted how often patrols changed. She knew that no more than five men would be inside the tent while one patrolled the perimeter. And those five men? Almost certainly asleep.

  This night—the night they would send a message to America and the Bundesrepublik that their ascendancy was over—was the first night to show any deviation from the pattern.

  They crouched, motionless, for ten minutes. The cold crept in, dulling their fingers and stiffening muscles. Then, at st, the glow vanished, and the night returned to silence.

  “Let’s move,” the woman said after a few minutes, her voice only slightly muffled by the scarf tied around her face.

  They had rehearsed the assault more times than they could count. But tonight there would be no bnks. No dummy grenades. Their weapons were live: a mix of AK-47s and HK MP5s. Two of them carried DM51 grenades, stolen from a Bundesgrenzschutz depot not unlike the one they now approached.

  Once the attack was complete, and the American guards y dead, they would collect whatever arms they could carry and disappear into the dark.

  On any other night, their pn would have worked fwlessly.

  But not on this night.

  Aric looked at his watch again. Twenty minutes.

  Twenty minutes until Aric’s shift was over, and West’s began. He’d have to put up with the man’s bullshit when Tisk walked him out to the gate, but Aric was used to it. The man seemed to have been born without an ounce of compassion, and had developed none in the intervening years.

  Someone had finally mastered the art of running a space heater on diesel instead of the mogas it had been designed to burn. The tent had not, despite shouted concerns, caught fire.

  Aric had learned early that if he wanted to maintain his sanity under no circumstances should he catch even a glimpse of his squad mates dreams. It still took effort not to hear their thoughts, and occasionally the effort—and his ck of attention to the here and now that resulted—made him appear a bit scatterbrained.

  So it was that five intruders were able to get quite close before he had any idea that something was wrong.

  The terrorist’s pn had been simple, and direct. One man would approach the rear of the ammo dump and cut a hole in the fence. He would then open fire on the guard, and keep him occupied while the other four rushed the tent. They would fire through the canvas walls—low to catch the sleeping men—and then throw their grenades through the open fp. If the on duty guard was still alive at that point—well, it would be five against one.

  Aric was at his farthest point from the man cutting the fence, but the night air still carried the rhythmic click click click as the links were cut to his ears, and it took his brain several seconds to identify the sound. In a millisecond, he expanded his senses, identified the approaching intruders, and sent the same mental message to every man in the tent.

  ALARM! ALARM! ALARM!

  He turned towards the man at the fence, clicked the lever on his weapon from SAFE to AUTO and raised the stock to his shoulder.

  Dammit, the woman thought as she saw what was unfolding. The man cutting through the fence must have alerted the guard. The element of surprise was lost.

  “BEWEGEN!” she shouted to her three companions as she started to sprint towards the tent.

  Inside was pandemonium. Every one (even Green) had come awake with a start and a sense that something terrible was happening, but they had no idea what.

  “LOCK AND LOAD!” Tiscarro shouted. “MOVE!”

  They received added incentive as Aric began firing bursts from his weapon at the man who was now inside the fence. His preternatural senses sent him an image of the five intruders (strike that, four men, one woman) sprinting towards the tent, their weapons already raised. He knew the men inside wouldn’t make it out in time.

  The star shine from the night sky began to reflect off a dome of energy as it surrounded the tent. Smoke from the stove began to fill the space between, making the boundary even more visible and obscuring the tent from outside view.

  What’s happening? the woman wondered. A moment ago the tent had been clearly visible against the night sky. Now it was obscured behind something she couldn’t identify.

  The running terrorists began firing at the tent. Bright fshes appeared in the dome wherever their bullets struck.

  At the sound of automatic fire approaching them everyone inside the tent dropped to the floor.

  “Es ist kein normales Zelt! Es ist aus einer Art kugelsicherem Material gefertigt!” one of the men shouted. It’s not a normal tent! It’s made of some sort of bullet proof material!

  “Warum ist uns das nicht früher aufgefallen?” another man asked. How come we didn’t notice this before?

  “Weil wir vorher nicht darauf geschossen haben!” Because we weren’t shooting at it before!

  It’s a trap, the woman thought. They knew we were coming.

  The four terrorists continued to fire their weapons. The sound was deafening to anyone not wearing earplugs, which all the terrorists had and all the Americans did not.

  “FOLLOW ME!” Nick shouted as he began to combat crawl towards the tent fp.

  The four people behind Aric were circling the tent, looking for an opening in the dome.

  What the hell is this? the woman wondered, some new sort of American material?

  They had two options as far as she could see. Wait for the men to come out of the bullet proof structure, or trap them inside while they removed the weapons they’d come for. But part of their mission—some argued the most important part—was killing American GIs wherever the opportunity presented itself, and she wasn’t ready to give up on that yet.

  Aric continued to fire at the fifth man, but he would have to reload soon, and that would take a few seconds.

  The first thing to contact the dome of energy from the inside was Nick’s head as he crawled to the closed fp. All he could see out the gap was a yer of smoke or fog. Behind that there was something that he couldn’t budge. He didn’t understand what it was, but he knew what it was doing.

  “IT’S BLOCKED!” he shouted. His eyes looked around. “THEY’RE TRYING TO TRAP US INSIDE!” And suddenly he realized why. The sounds of automatic fire were still ringing in his ears, close enough to be deafening, but as far as he could see there were no holes in the tent walls.

  They’re not firing at us, he thought. They must be firing at Aamut?hti. Fuck!

  “WE NEED A WAY OUT OF THIS FUCKING TENT! AMMO’S OUT THERE ALONE!”

  The bolt of Aric’s weapon locked back, the dust cover stayed open. He was out of 5.56mm ammunition.

  But not out of options.

  He’d been hoping to avoid this. But they gave him no other choice. The longer this went on, the more likely someone would see too much. Learn too much. Not just these terrorists, but the men he lived with, ate with, showered with, every day. Some already knew—something. Others had heard rumors. Mostly over exaggerated, which helped him call bullshit on them. But with each new event they became harder to deny.

  Fine, he thought, letting the hand holding his cooling weapon fall to his side.

  He didn’t need weapons.

  He didn’t need tools.

  He was enough. But he needed to end this fast—so he could deal with the others.

  He reached a strand of consciousness out to the man who had been firing back at him. He tched onto his amygda and flooded his neuronal fear pathways. The man let out a choking high pitched scream before colpsing.

  Aric dropped his weapon and turned around. Two of the men had pulled the pins from their grenades and were about to toss them at the tent fp just as two glowing tendrils ripped them out of their hands and sent them flying high into the air. When they exploded a few seconds ter—bursting like fireworks high overhead—the sound was barely audible.

  The four terrorists turned and began firing at the man walking towards them, switching to pistols once their automatic weapons ran dry.

  But like the tent, the man was encased in an impenetrable yer.

  Each of the terrorists had time to wonder what was approaching them. A moment ago it had looked like a man. Now it looked like—

  Glowing tendrils quickly pinned their arms to their sides, and then they all rose into the air together. They could do nothing besides watch as the man shaped being himself began to glow—a small sun illuminating the ndscape, transforming it from night to day—like an extra dawn.

  “Who the fuck are you guys?” he asked, his voice echoing unnaturally in their ears. “And what the fuck were you thinking attacking a US military instaltion?”

  He began to squeeze the tendrils tighter then, and one of the men—who looked to be no older than Aric was—began to cry.

  “Barmherziger Herr, es tut mir leid für alle meine Sünden. Ich bin fest entschlossen...” Merciful Lord, I am sorry for all my sins. I am firmly resolved…

  No atheists in foxholes I guess, Aric thought as the man’s voice grew quiet but his lips continued to move.

  The woman looked at the praying man and screamed a half-formed word that turned into a guttural explosion of rage.

  “VerAAAAH!”

  Aric didn’t recognize what she’d been about to say, but it didn’t matter. He pulled her closer until their faces were nearly touching. She was sweating despite the cold—bitter this high up, where the wind seemed to double in strength. Her eyes were wide, her chest heaving with sharp, rasping breaths after that primordial scream.

  When he spoke, his voice was no more than a whisper.

  The threat it carried was unmistakable as he projected it into her mind.

  “I promise you—you’re going to tell me everything I want to know. Make it easy on yourself and your men and just tell me. Or don’t, and make it hard. Make your choice.”

  He could see it in her face. Fear. Defiance. Hatred.

  “Was sind sie?” she whispered back, her lungs struggling against the tendrils coiled around her. What are you?

  Aric’s face broke into a smile. It was not the friendly variety. “Your guess is as good as mine,” he said truthfully.

  “Stirb, amerikanisches Schwein!” she shouted as loud as she could. Die, American pig!

  “Fine. The hard way.”

  He began then to invade their minds. Gently at first, teasing out the information he wanted. After that he was not gentle with them, much like he had not been gentle with their comrade by the fence. Their screams echoed across the ndscape. In the distance, where the nearest houses stood, several lights began to turn on. But he paid the lights—and the screams—no attention. A lesson needed to be taught. And learned. He was a soldier after all. This was a war. And they were the enemy.

  When he was done he returned them all to earth. He was standing by the tent fp when the dome dissipated. He waited five seconds before speaking.

  “It’s over. You can come out.”

  They were still armed when they stepped into the freezing night. It took a moment for them to look at four unconscious terrorists.

  “?Hijos de puta!” Trujillo yelled at the four unconscious figures.

  “There’s another one on the other side of the fence,” Aric said, nodding in that direction as he pced an unfiltered Camel cigarette between his lips and lit it with a Zippo lighter embossed with the words Gary Owen and the 7th Cavalry insignia.

  “Safety’s on,” Nick said calmly. “Get dressed. Find the other guy. Then sweep the area. And West...you’re on the gate.”

  “Fuck me,” the man grumbled before going back into the tent for his winter gear.

  Aric offered Tiscarro his half empty pack, and his lighter.

  “Do I even want to know what happened here?” he asked as he handed both back, taking a drag from his own smoke. He was beginning to shiver, standing outside without a hat or jacket.

  Aric shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine,” he said less honestly than before. In situations like this, Aric felt that truthfulness was overrated. He began to walk back to the fence to retrieve his weapon when a familiar tune began to py.

  “Where the hell am I? Why am I covered in mud? What the hell happened?”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Nick said as he looked up at the sky and exhaled a lungful of smoke.