Page 27 of Shadow Boxed (Shadow Warriors #2)

Chapter twenty-two

Wolf’s cell phone buzzed as he boarded the Chinook for the flight to San Francisco. He fished the device out of his tactical pants, expecting to see the name of someone from Shadow Mountain intelligence, or from the labs, lighting up the screen. Instead, the designation anistaa, screamed up at him.

His chest tightened beneath a wave of unease.

His anistaa would not call unless something had happened, something important.

He mind-linked the pilot, telling him to hold the bird, and turned back to the cargo door.

Before his feet even hit the tarmac, the line was open, and the phone was at his ear.

“ Ho'cee,” his anistaa’s voice, calling him by his Kali name, came through the line. There was an odd note to it, one he did not recognize. His fingers clenched around the plastic casing.

“Has something happened?” He wanted to ask if the call regarded Jillian, if something had happened to his le'ven'a, but his throat refused to squeeze the question out.

“Perhaps...” Her voice sounded uncertain, before it fell into silence.

“Tell me.” He braced himself. This call could not be good news. News about his le’ven’a was never good.

“Jillian tells me we are needed at Shadow Mountain.” She stated each word with gravitas, as if they were filled with the woohanta’s precious gold.

Still, he was certain he’d misheard. “Jillian? Jillian told you this?”

“Yes.” His anistaa sounded as confused as he was.

“Why?” This made no sense.

Did his le'ven'a even remember the base? She’d spent weeks here, true, but she’d drifted through each rotation—unaware, locked in her grief, one foot frozen in the Tabenetha. Nothing he’d tried had reached her. And now she wanted to come back? Why?

“All she will say is that the screaming woman told her we must come. Now.”

“Who is this screaming woman?” The confusion sank deeper. None of this made sense.

His anistaa’s hesitation was loud and long. “She does not say, but I believe she refers to her spirit heschrmal. ” Another hesitation, shorter, but no less loud. “It visits her often.”

Wolf staggered beneath this new revelation. This did not happen. Ever. Once a spirit animal claimed their Hee'woo'nee, they vanished. They did not return.

“Her woodlands spirit animal continues to visit her?” The question was more wheezed than spoken. “Are you certain?”

“I have seen it. Often.”

He sucked in a deep breath as he considered her words. First Jillian’s heschrmal claiming, then Gracie’s Ho'cee claiming, and now this. The elder gods were up to something.

“I will send the Citation for you. But I will not be here when you arrive.” He didn’t go into detail since news of this upcoming aggress would worry her.

“We will wait for you.” With that, she hung up.

He was not surprised. She hated talking on the phone. She had a smartphone only because he’d given it to her, showed her how to use it, and insisted she carry it with her in case of an emergency.

After arranging for the Citation to take to the sky, and a two-bedroom guest apartment to be prepared for his expected guests, he boarded the Chinook, took his seat, and gave the go order.

The flight went smoothly, giving him plenty of time and tedium to consider Jillian’s insistence on returning to Shadow Mountain. That alone was...unusual. This was a woman who had barely spoken in years. And now, out of the blue, she issued demands?

In what other ways had her heschrmal changed her?

They’d just climbed back into the air after the first refueling, when a text hit his phone.

He pulled it from his pocket at the chime, expecting a message from his mother.

Instead, the sender was from O’Neill, and he’d tagged Aiden as well.

The chopper was too noisy for conversation, so he’d chosen to text instead.

What do you make of this?

There were two pictures attached—aerial footage of Malcolm Oura’s ship, the Harbinger.

The photos showed half a dozen men, draped in moonlight, standing next to the railing on the upper deck of the cruise ship. They were looking across the bay, toward the gilded lights of Sausalito. The shots must have been taken by drone.

At first Wolf thought the two images were duplicates. The same six men were standing in the same position, at the same location, in both pictures. But then he noticed the time stamp. There were thirty minutes between the pictures.

Wolf enlarged the image with his thumb and index finger but couldn’t tell what the men were looking.

Aiden responded first . Curious —he texted. What are they watching?

Unknown. O’Neill’s message popped up. They look in this direction.

Another ping. Another picture. The newest image showed a dark expanse of water drenched in moonlight.

And beyond that, the glittering lights of Sausalito.

But no ships, no people, not even a marine mammal was visible in the direction Oura’s men were looking.

Certainly, nothing intriguing enough to hold so many eyes for this length of time.

I see nothing to bring such interest. Wolf typed and hit send.

Ditto. Aiden concurred.

O’Neill’s shrug came before his text. I’ll update if necessary.

Frowning, Wolf settled back in his seat. The curious huddle likely meant nothing, but it was wise to keep an eye on such things. An hour later, another ping and another text hit his phone. O’Neill again.

We may have a problem.

The accompanying picture showed the same huddle of men, standing in the exact same position, staring out at the bay. Except the huddle had doubled in size. Twelve men, all standing there, all staring…at nothing.

This was not normal behavior.

A chill swept him. The way they stood and stared in unison reminded him of the resurrected SEALs in the isolation unit. Were these mercenaries infected too? But if that was the case, where was the initial aggression? The rage? The violence?

While the dead-yet-mobile SEALs weren’t exhibiting signs of aggression or murderous rage now, they’d exhibited those symptoms during the onset of their infection. For Shadow’s sake, they’d slaughtered each other.

But the men on the ship, they did not appear to be violent, merely catatonic.

They can’t be infected, Aiden texted. They aren’t killing each other.

They show no signs of violence, O’Neill’s text agreed. Unlike the squids or the people of Karaveht.

Yet their behavior is not normal. Wolf responded.

No…it is not. Aiden agreed. Perhaps the bot’s programming has altered?

To what? Standing around and staring?

Wolf would have recognized O’Neill’s response because of the sarcasm alone. Plus, the jie'van had an uncanny ability to read Wolf’s mind. He’d been wondering the same thing. If Oura’s men had been infected, what was the purpose behind the standing and staring?

Until we know if they’re infected, we can’t afford to take that ship. The text came from Aiden. We have nothing on-hand to prevent our own infection.

Wolf nodded and sent, Agreed.

They needed to determine whether the men were infected, but how were they to do so without risking infection themselves? Confirmation required blood and tissue samples. Even if they sent drones in with sampling technology, they had no way to safely process the samples.

He grimaced. If the bots were loose, their aggress on Oura’s ship could not happen. They had no protection against the nanobots.

He glanced at his watch. They were two hours from their target. The original plan had called for a water drop to the west of Sausalito. From there, they would deploy the Zodiac. A quarter breen from The Harbinger, the aggress team would enter the water, swim to the ship, and scale the hull.

But this was no longer an option. Yet they could not leave the ship where it sat either.

He frowned and pulled up O’Neill’s texts again, scrolling through them until he reached the picture of the bay.

His frown shifted to a grimace as he spotted another complication.

Judging by the pictures, the beaches of Sausalito were close.

..too close. If the men on board were infected, and they jumped ship, they could swim to shore and infect scores of people.

Yet his warriors could not board the vessel and take control of navigation, either. His scalp tightened and tingled. By the gods, this looked bad.

The next hour crept by, with periodic texts from O’Neill.

Each text, with its accompanying photo, ripped through Wolf’s gut.

More and more men joined the cluster. All of them standing.

All of them staring. None of them moving.

It was the isolation chamber all over, but on steroids and without the broken skulls and empty eye sockets.

By the time the Chinook skimmed across the bay and settled on top of the water, four dozen men stood in that motionless huddle.

Wolf studied the last picture O’Neill had forwarded, looking for Oura’s round face and bowl cut.

But none of the shadowy figures looked like the picture pinned to the Stone Ager’s dossier.

The helicopter’s engines shut down and seat belts unbuckled. Mackenzie practically launched himself from his position and stalked over to where Wolf, Aiden, and O’Neill were huddled together, staring at the latest images of the clusterfuck they were facing.

“You want to fill us in on what the motherfucking hell is going on?” Mackenzie growled as soon as he reached them.

A scowl worked its way across his hawkish face.

“All the texting between you three—” he thrust his index finger at Wolf and then Aiden and finally O’Neill.

“— clearly indicates we all have something to worry about.”

Cosky’s grunt indicated agreement. “What clusterfuck are we looking at now?”

Aiden scrolled through his phone, pulled up the last picture O’Neill had sent and passed it to his brother by marriage. “There’s a very good chance the bots are loose on board the Harbinger and infected the crew.”

Mackenzie, Rawlings, and Winters crowded around Aiden, staring at the pictures and studying the time stamps.

“What the motherfucking…” Mackenzie fell silent.

“Nah…that don’t look suspicious at all.” Rawlings put a little extra roll on the vowels.

“What the hell are they doing?” Cosky sounded bewildered.

Aiden took it on himself to fill in his former teammates. “As far as we can tell, they’re just standing there and staring…at nothing.”

They all knew about the zombies back at base. They all knew what this type of behavior indicated.

Rawlings crowded in closer and plucked the phone from Aiden’s hand. He brought it closer to his face before enlarging the image. “It’s hard to tell with all the shadows, but their faces look blank. Like nothin’s happening between their ears.”

Wolf nodded. He’d noticed the lack of expression too.

“Fuck, there goes our assault plan,” Cosky said. “We can’t scale the hull and search the ship if those little bastards are loose and those boys are infected.”

“Can’t leave the ship there, either.” O’Neill pointed out. “It’s too close to shore. They could jump and swim for the beach.”

Nods of agreement followed.

“Suggestions?” Wolf asked.

“It needs to be towed out to sea.” O’Neill stated the obvious.

Aiden frowned. “Coronado is five hundred miles away. I could contact Hurley and explain the circumstances. But if his boys take control of the ship, they’ll want to take those men alive and canvass for the bot bomb.

SOCOM is no more prepared than we are. Odds are, their involvement would fast track the apocalypse.

” He turned to O’Neill. “What about you? You have some powerful assets in your pocket. Can any of them handle this situation?”

O’Neill scowled and shook his head. “My contacts won’t listen to warnings either. They’d take the crew alive and let loose the plague across Hokalita . Anyone we approach will do the same.” He fell silent, before adding. “We need to move that ship ourselves.”

“Right.” Mackenzie squared off against O’Neill, a scowl smothering his face. “How the fuck do you suggest we do that? Get out and push?”

“It’s doubtful the Zodiacs would have the power to pull it out to sea,” Cosky said, ignoring Mackenzie’s sarcasm.

But then, everyone ignored Mackenzie when he acted like an ass. Which was most of the time.

“Wolf and I discussed this possibility and already came up with a solution.” Capland pushed his way to Wolf’s side with a laptop tucked under his arm. “I’m going to hack into the ship’s navigation system and pilot it out to sea.”

“You can do this?” O’Neill asked.

“I believe so. I can hack into its AIS signal and trace the signal back to the navigation system. From there, we seize control of the ship and guide it out to sea.”

“There have been multiple accounts of ships being hacked through their AIS,” O’Neill said. “But far as I know, those attacks just shut down the ship’s navigation sensors. They never seized the navigation controls.”

“I’ve been working on a remote hacking technique, with the potential to seize the navigational controls of any craft.

” Capland backed into one of the seats along the rear wall and sat, balancing his laptop on his knees.

After a few minutes of typing, he shook his head.

“From this distance, I’m unable to pinpoint the correct AIS signal. We need to get closer.”

Wolf frowned. Getting closer in the Chinook meant a greater chance of exposure. “We’ll have to deploy the Zodiac.”

“At least we have an advantage now,” O’Neill offered with a wry smile. “As preoccupied as our targets are with whatever they’re watching, they won’t notice us coming.”

Wolf wished the jie'van had kept his mouth shut. That comment felt far too much like a taunt to the trickster gods.