THE EPOCH CHRONICLES | ✔

four

Chicago Basin, Colorado
2039

━━━━

THE HELICOPTER'S propellers buffeted Lale in his face as the sand that rested on the Needle Bank lashed his uncovered skin. He didn't move to rake back the dark brown hair that now rested in his face as Sergeant Major Fereldson climbed from the chopper's chambers, her greying gold crewcut having no such problem. His leave had taken effect.

"Staff Sergeant Jacobs, thank you for agreeing to meet me here at such short notice." She walked briskly across the hastily-set tarmac, her handshake as firm as ever. "As you've probably heard, this mission is of no normal means. So that means utter secrecy. If the public so much as catches a whiff of this, then..." Fereldson trailed off. It was the first time he had ever seen her look uncertain.

"You know you can trust me, Sarge," he replied. Of course she could trust him; she'd been his superior and mentor for more than three years. But his own hesitation in joining her here, next to a dirt-bowl at the foot of rugged mountains, had probably been noted. He was on leave, for goodness' sake. He'd had a right to refuse, but his sense of loyalty to Fereldson had won out. Lale hoped he wouldn't regret it.

"But what the hell did the NSCOA drag us out here for?" Lale followed Fereldson as they marched off of the landing pad, into the dirt and gravel surrounding the tar. Army soldiers darted forward to aid their descent down the mound, but the Sergeant Major waved them off. "At ease, gentlemen," she instructed them as they walked down a smoother dirt path, heading right towards a metal fence spanning the entire area. Lale estimated it was at least fifteen feet high, with barbed wire encircling the top ridges. Probably electrically charged.

"The National Security Guard felt that he wasn't entitled to tell us the objective of this field trip," Fereldson snorted. "They've led us on a right goose-chase - I've half a mind to call Jerry to give him a piece of it right now."

Lale hid his own irritation, making the appropriate amused sound. Projects to install receiving towers to act as semi-effective satellites around the continent were only partly successful; at this range, with the Rocky Mountains surrounding them, there would be no chance at reaching Jerry of National Security Co-operative Assistance's administration.

Truth be told, Lale was not looking forward to whatever proposition was going to be given by people who hid behind fences and mountains. Missions, he could handle. The need for secrecy was understandable for half of them - he'd killed more terrorists and illegal immigrants seeking to take advantage of America's already-failing economy than he cared to count. The Big Man in Washington didn't like reading about that. He wanted results. He didn't want gore or blood or the memory of having a conscience, which Lale believed half of his comrades did not possess.

But this one would be different. He could sense it. From the critical need of expending funds on fuel to fly over from Utah, and the hush-hush of even the most senior officials, Lale was feeling more and more uneasy. And he hardly ever felt uneasy. Maybe it was because he didn't have his handy Glock in his waistband; security measures had demanded it.

Tension hissed as loudly through the air as the volts running through the fencing — apparently electric — next to him as a padlocked gate was opened from the inside. A nervous-looking soldier, a first lieutenant by the single silver bar crossing his uniform, guided them from the fencing to a concrete base. A memory niggled in the back of Lale's mind - the Wolf's Lair, Berlin. Hitler's final stand, pictured in a history book that probably no longer existed. Chills ran up and down his arms beneath his Marine overalls.