Incursion

Chapter 13: Unravel

“Reyes! We’ve got a problem!”

Reyes and I turned around from our silent vigil over the crowded street and restaurant a block off as we heard a familiar voice calling to the team leader from the stairs behind us.

My heart froze in fear as Rhodes and Yansen hauled the last member of our team between them. I recognized the man in between them immediately.

Michael struggled against Rhodes’ and Yansen’s grips on his arms. His nose was bloody and one of his eyes was swollen nearly shut.

Mikey. Oh god Mikey, no.

I wanted to rush over to him and defend him, but I stayed rooted in place. I knew what this was about; Mikey had been caught. He tried to ask for my help, but I was too scared to be found out—

Reyes walked over to where Rhodes and Yansen had forced Michael down to his knees. I wanted to do something, but my legs had locked up and my throat had seemed to stop working.

“What is this, Rhodes?” Reyes demanded, glancing from Rhodes to Yansen, and vice versa.

“Caught this bastard trying to disarm the Semtex, boss,” Yansen reported, his ebony skin glistening with sweat as he fought to hold Michael in place.

“What?”

“We suspected this,” Rhodes said, looking straight at the leader, “Remember the missing coolant charges? We found them on him.”

Rhodes took out a small block of the coolant charge and tossed it to Reyes, who caught it in midair. Reyes inspected the device, confirming it to be one of the stolen equipment used to freeze detonators and render most explosives temporarily harmless.

Reyes dropped the coolant charge to the ground and turned his gaze to Michael.

“Michael,” he said in that monotone voice of his, “So it was you, then? Did you think you could stop this?”

“This isn’t right, Reyes,” Michael said hoarsely, shaking his head. His voice sounded a bit warped too, thanks to his presumably broken nose. “You’ll kill dozens of civilians down there. There has to be another way.”

“Contract is time-sensitive, Reyes,” Rhodes reminded the team leader, “We won’t get another shot at those officials.”

In the evening semidarkness, Reyes seemed to freeze like a statue for a moment.

“Rhodes,” he said eventually, “Is the Semtex still intact?”

“Affirmative. I stopped this guy before he could use the coolant.”

Reyes looked down at Michael. “Who have you told about our plans, Michael? The police?”

Michael struggled in his captors’ grips but didn’t answer.

“Who else helped you, Michael? Your sister?”

“No!” Michael shouted, trying to lunge forward but failing to break free.

My mouth felt dry. My voice seemed to have deserted me. I couldn’t move.

Please let him go.

Reyes glanced back at me over his shoulder. “Did you know about this, Christina?”

“I said, she had nothing to do with this!” Michael yelled to Reyes, “Chrissy doesn’t… She didn’t know! It was me – just me!”

That was a lie. I knew. But fear had paralyzed me and rendered my tongue useless.

“What are we doing here, boss? Window’s closing,” Yansen asked the team leader.

“We’re moving ahead with the plan,” Reyes said dispassionately, turning back to the three men.

“What about this guy?”

Yansen shook Michael roughly in place.

“I bet girly over there was in league with this prick,” he continued, jerking his head at me. “They had to be. They’re siblings.”

My heart leapt up my throat as Yansen gestured toward me.

Reyes said nothing for a few seconds. Eventually, he glanced over to his right-hand man.

“Rhodes, did you grab all his gear? His comms?”

“I got them.”

“I want all his equipment when we’re done here. I want to know who knows about this.”

“Done.”

“Damn it, listen to me, all of you!” Michael’s voice broke as he looked around at us. “We can’t do this! That bomb will level the entire building. We’re only here for a few government officials. You’re going to kill everyone in there!”

“What are we going to do with him?” Rhodes asked Reyes.

This time, Reyes’ answer was prompt.

“No loose ends.”

He turned fully to face me, his cold eyes seeming to cut through me.

“Christina, did you know?”

“She didn’t! She didn’t know, I swear to—”

“Shut up!”

Yansen drew back a fist and punched Michael in the ear. I instinctively took a step forward, finally finding in me the strength to move, at least.

Please. Don’t hurt him.

Reyes slowly drew his Sig from his hip and raised it, pointing its muzzle at me.

He approached me, keeping the gun on me. I took a few steps back, but eventually the back of my legs met the ledge of the roof.

Reyes frowned a little more deeply as he stopped walking. His gun was now within arm’s reach of me.

“I’m asking you a question,” he said, “Did you know your brother was going to sabotage the explosives? Do you know who he’s told about us?”

My eyes darted back to Michael, who seemed to be looking straight at me. His head appeared to shake from side to side almost imperceptibly.

Reyes cocked the hammer of his P226 with his thumb. My breath caught in my throat at the sight.

“No,” I croaked weakly, shaking my head vigorously. “I didn’t… I didn’t know. I don’t know anything.”

I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.

Reyes took another step toward me. I wanted to retreat further, but I was out of roof.

“Please—” I pleaded, but Reyes spun the suppressed pistol in his hand so that the grip was facing me.

“Then kill him.”

No. No, no, no, no…

“Take the gun,” Reyes commanded, his voice devoid of any emotion. “You know we can’t have loose ends. Nor traitors. Shoot him, Christina.”

As if my body was going against my brain, my arm extended and my hand closed around the gun’s grip. As if I had lost control of my legs, I walked alongside Reyes to where Michael knelt.

My brother turned his battered face up toward me. There was no hint of a plea on his face. He was as resolute as ever.

Always the big brother. Always the person I wish I could be more like.

Reyes drew his backup pistol and aimed it at me, making me jump a little as he did so. “Where do your loyalties lie, Christina? You have five seconds to decide.”

I slowly raised the pistol I was given, taking aim at the man kneeling on the ground.

Michael stared up at me as the muzzle of the Sig pointed shakily at his forehead.

As the pad of my finger touched the trigger, my eyes began to fill with tears.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Mikey.

To my surprise, Michael’s one good eye seemed to gleam a little. He shook his head again slightly, smiled, and mouthed two words:

It’s okay.



I jerked upward, drawing a gasp as I sat up. The speed with which I shot up made my head spin in disorientation. At the same time, a sharp pain exploded near my stomach, making my cry out hoarsely in the semidarkness.

It took me a moment to realize I wasn’t on that rooftop anymore. I recognized my bed, and my empty desk beside it. Unlike the other nights I’d spent here in this room, I’d left the bedside lamp on this one time.

I brought my hand down to the bottom of my shirt and lifted it up to check on my injury, which seemed to stab at my side relentlessly. The bruise’s purple colour appeared darker than it was back in the Med Suite.

That dream again. I hadn’t had it in a while, but…

Michael’s face near the end flashed in my mind. I never could understand how he could smile like that. How could he tell me it was okay?

My chest burned with that all-too familiar feeling of guilt as I felt something warm falling down my cheek. I brought a finger up to wipe it away. I rubbed my fists up to dry my eyes, cursing at nothing and no one in particular.

Glancing at my bedside clock, I saw that it was just four-thirty in the morning. It was still rather early, but I knew that I wasn’t going to go to sleep again like this.

I got up, being careful with my movements so as not to aggravate my injuries, then changed into a fresh shirt and pants. I slipped on my runners and left my room to head for the gym on this same floor. Some light cardio wasn’t going to hurt. I needed to clear my head.





After an hour of some light treadmill work, I took a hot shower before heading in the direction of the mess hall to grab some breakfast.

When I got there, I found the mess hall already occupied by one other person. At six in the morning, I’d been counting on having the place to myself, but I clearly didn’t take his waking times into account.

Knight sat in one of the booths closer to the doors. He lowered a half-eaten piece of toast that he was holding when I walked through the doors. He and I stared at each other silently for a couple of seconds.

“Hi,” I mumbled.

Knight had that same drab look on his face as always. I was beginning to wonder if he’d been born with it.

“Christina,” he responded tersely.

I took several tentative steps toward him until I was right beside his booth. When I got closer, I saw that he had several sheets of paper sitting on the table beside his plate of buttered toast and a bowl of soup. They appeared to be printouts of several webpages, as well as some more personalized notes. Taking a quick, surreptitious look at one of them, I caught two words in one of the headers: “Northstar PMC”.

I suppressed the urge to react visibly to seeing those words on papers being scrutinized by arguably the best agent the C.O.S. had. Taking a steadying breath, I summoned my best attempt at a normal tone of speaking.

“You’re up rather early,” I said casually, looking back up at him. When I gazed at his face closely, I saw that he appeared to be rather tired, as if he hadn’t even slept since we last spoke in the Med Suite last night.

Knight grunted, taking a sip of hot chocolate from a paper cup.

“Knight, you’re looking… sleep-deprived. Are you okay?”

He looked back down at the notes he had presumably been studying before I came in.

I was expecting another noncommittal grunt or a curt response dismissing my observation, but instead…

“I’m all right. My sleep cycle hasn’t been consistent in years.”

This piqued my curiosity – or at least it allowed me to momentarily forget recent events.

I stroked some of my hair away from my forehead absently. “Oh. Why, what happened?”

“Comes with the territory. I struggled for a while with sleep, being sent out on missions on short notice. After some time, I learned how to grab shut-eye whenever I could. Unfortunately, human bodies function best on a consistent sleep schedule.”

I paused. This was probably the most he’d ever talked about himself to me. Probably the only time, even.

“You should take better care of yourself, you know. Not getting enough quality sleep will affect your performance in the field,” I told him, being careful not to sound too pushy.

“Not possible in this business.”

I wanted to argue that it was possible, because my sleep schedule was definitely consistent, prior to the last week or two anyway. But I remembered that he was different from the rest of us, so I let the issue regarding his habits go.

When the silence returned, so did the threat of recent developments’ implications on me. Then I remembered something Knight had told me the previous evening: his reason for joining the C.O.S.

“I made someone a promise. I couldn’t keep it.”

It was vague for sure, but now that I really thought about it when I wasn’t reeling as much from meeting a skeleton out of its closet, his words did seem to have quite some weight to them.

“Knight,” I blurted before I could hesitate.

“What?” He glanced back at me.

“This is going to sound… strange, but have you ever thought of what you’ll do once your time with the C.O.S. is over?”

“Over?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I’m sure you had your own reasons for joining, but… what will you do once you’ve met your goal, whatever it is?”

Something in his dark eyes seemed to falter. For a moment, Knight truly seemed at a loss for an answer. In the end though, he gave me one.

“I don’t know.”

“What?” I said, surprised. “Why not?”

“Just that. I’ve never given ‘what comes after’ much thought.”

“You’re… You don’t have anything to look forward to?”

He closed his eyes, turning his face away sideways. “Well, the end of this mission, I suppose.”

I stifled the urge to shake my head in disbelief. What kind of answer was that? I’d have pegged that response as one of a workaholic’s. but coming from him, the implications seemed to run more deeply than him just being unable to stop working.

“Knight,” I said slowly, “Even the best of us needs something outside of their job to work toward. Don’t you have… friends? What about family?”

His eyes remained closed as his eyebrows appeared to knit together slightly.

“Who told you that, Angel?” he demanded, his voice seeming to change; to me it almost sounded like he was offended by what I’d said. “What makes you think I’m the best?”

“Well… Genel told me you were the Reaper, so I naturally—”

“All I’m good at is killing people.”

I stopped, silenced by the brutal remark. He continued to avoid looking my way.

Just what kind of response was that? These weren’t the responses of a human being with plans for the future. They were more like the answers of a…

I took half a step back from him. His eyes finally opened again. The lack of emotion in them became all too noticeable.

A machine. Something destined to repeat the same thing over and over simply because that was all it could do.

Someone whose sense of fulfillment begins and ends with their job.

How could anyone possibly live like that? No wishes, no desires for the future, no will to change. No plan to become better.

“Knight—” I began, wanting to argue that surely there was something else he looked forward to, but clearly he didn’t want to talk about this any longer.

“Enough about me. What about you, Angel? How are you feeling?”

“I— What?” I stammered, confused by the sudden change in the subject.

“Your injuries.”

“N-no complications, but—”

“That’s good. I suggest you take it easy whenever you can,” he said, turning back to his notes. “Sorry to keep you from your breakfast.”

If that wasn’t a sign that he was through talking, I didn’t know what was.

“Will there be a briefing later regarding what we uncovered last night?” I asked, suppressing a sigh.

“As of now, no. We didn’t get much actionable intel.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“I wasn’t blaming you.”

Maybe you should.

“So what do we have going for today?” I asked, crossing my arms.

“Just the supply run for Sergeant Burke,” Knight replied immediately, picking up one of his papers and lifting it up to eye level. He narrowed his eyes slightly, then glanced back at me.

“Actually, Angel.”

“Yes?” I stiffened a little.

“I have a couple of questions for you.”

“What would those be?”

“What do you know about Northstar Security Solutions?”

The question, along with his tone and stare, made my heart stop for a moment. Theo Rhodes’ smiling face flashed in my mind.

For just a second, I was back on that rooftop again.

“W-What do you mean by that?” I asked, just barely managing to stop myself from backing up.

Knight took a second, clearly noticing my poorly hidden reaction to his question.

“I’ve dug up all the info available on the net about Northstar,” he explained, “But all I’m getting is surface information. Mission, Vision, Who We Are, Contact Us, all that fluff. Since they’re a relatively new and private organization, there’s not much we can glean without physically accessing their servers. I’m simply asking if you’d happen to know something about them that’s actually relevant.”

“No offense, Knight, but I’m not a Northstar mercenary.”

When Knight gave a slow nod and turned back to his papers, I felt a weight leave my chest.

“Hmm. Fair point. We’ll just have to ask Hornet, then.”

My heart stopped again and the weight came back in my chest.

“What?” I blurted stupidly.

“Hornet. He’s our only source of information on Northstar. We need to get a hold of him and find out what he knows.”

I fidgeted with the bottom of my shirt uncomfortably.

“Is that a good idea?” I asked, fighting to sound calm. “He’s… a different level from Steele.”

Knight gave me a look, raising one eyebrow a little. “Exactly. He’s the only one we’re aware of who might know the story with those prisoners.”

“I don’t know, Knight. He… he seemed dangerous from what I saw. He… tortured a C.O.S. agent.”

Knight’s eyes widened slightly. “He what?”

For a fleeting moment, I couldn’t understand why Knight looked surprised, but I quickly realized that I may have forgotten to mention that bit of information to him last night.

I took a deep breath to steady myself. “I caught him carving up a man in the Currie Barracks.”

Knight paused for a second. “Was he cutting someone up, using slashes that were far from fatal?”

“That’s… right. How did you know?”

“I found the source of the distress signal last night. Three agents, all dead. Two of them were covered in those superficial cuts.”

“Jesus.”

So it was Rhodes, then. How did he manage to capture four Sector agents?

“I noticed one of the agents was missing,” Knight went on, taking another sip from his cup, “That answers where the last agent went.”

“Yeah. Mhm. That’s why I…” I stumbled on my words a little, causing me to pause abruptly for a second. “That’s why I think we should just neutralize Hornet straight away.”

Knight put down his nearly-finished cup of hot chocolate, fixing me with a subtly searching stare. It was unnerving – it was as if he was trying to read my mind.

“Dead people don’t typically spill secrets, Angel,” he said.

“But Rho— Hornet, he’s obviously unhinged. How much truth do you think we can get out of a man as insane as him?”

“Only one way to find out,” Knight said, his eyes shifting away from mine. “Regardless, we can’t kill Hornet until we’ve gotten answers out of him.”

“But—” I protested, panic starting to clutch my heart in ice.

“Hornet is a secondary objective. Our primary objective remains the same: ridding Calgary of the invading force.”

Knight took a bite of his toast and swallowed before meeting my eyes again.

“I thought you wanted to know where the prisoners go, Angel. What happens to them,” he commented.

“I do, but I don’t think we’ll get answers from Hornet,” I protested again, feeling my composure slipping.

Knight narrowed his eyes at me and frowned a bit. “Is there something I should know, Angel?”

I froze under his eerily patient gaze, trying my hardest not to react.

“None,” I replied after a few seconds.

“All right. We’ll talk more about Hornet later on. For now, we should focus on the prisoners we can still save, understood?”

“…Understood.”

“Good. I’ve talked your ear off enough for now. Go get breakfast.”

This time, he did not lift his gaze from his notes. Despite telling me everything he’d found on Northstar so far was trivial, he seemed intent to go over the information he had on hand.

I left him to it for now, feeling a disconcerting mix of unease and relief as I headed over to the kitchen to fix myself some breakfast.

Theo Rhodes. I swore to myself back then that I’d leave, not to plot a comeback, but to find a way to give my life meaning. Michael gave me a chance to live; it was up to me to make use of that chance.

I never desired revenge. Rhodes was plenty of unpleasant things, but despite that, Michael’s blood wasn’t on his hands.

I just want to make up for the wrong I’ve done. That’s all I want. If Rhodes is going to get in my way of achieving that, then I’ll just have to kill him myself.





I scanned the documents I’d printed out about Northstar Security Solutions for the umpteenth time, gnashing my teeth in mild frustration at the lack of relevance the information I had with me to our current situation.

As Genel typed away on the desktop beside mine, I put down the printed sheets I had been poring over repeatedly since this morning. It was no use; this was all information anyone with an internet connection could easily retrieve. We needed better intel.

Northstar. Angel told me she came upon a document in the base that pointed toward this well-known PMC being the ones backing the United States Army. Mercenaries being involved in a war hardly surprised me. They made a living off conflicts, after all. What I wanted answers for was why the mercenaries were transporting civilians from here to elsewhere.

A draft? Surely not. I’ve seen prisoners as young as five being selected to transfer to Northstar’s jurisdiction. Last I checked, children don’t exactly make great soldiers.

What’s their stake in this?

Before I could boot up the PC in front of me to try my luck at digging for more info on the mercenary company, a loud series of rapid, low beeps filled the room via the speakers built into the walls.

Genel jerked in her seat as if she’d been pinched when the noise suddenly bombarded the two of us and erased the relative silence within the room. She leaned forward in her seat to stare closely at her PC’s screen before glancing sharply at me.

“It’s HQ calling us,” she reported snappily.

“Put them on,” I replied, standing up quickly.

“It’s a video call. Better stand over there.”

Genel tapped several keys and clicked her mouse a few times as I stood by the nearby end of the table, where the Command Room’s camera would be able to capture me perfectly.

The big overhead screen above the PCs transitioned from the usual satellite view to a live webcam feed showing a familiar burly man with close-cropped blond hair, deep blue eyes, and a full beard that looked several days overdue for a trim. He was wearing a white collared dress shirt and a necktie that seemed to hang loosely from his neck.

“Ian,” the man on screen was the first to speak. A wave of relief swept his features and a small, tired smile appeared at his lips. “It’s good to see you’re still alive, son.”

I nodded up at the mounted camera above the monitor. “Likewise, Chase. How are things there in Ottawa? It’s been a while since the last transmission.”

Chase Coste, one of the Chairmen of the Board at the Clandestine Operations Sector, sighed and settled back in his office chair. From what little of the background I could see behind him, I guessed the chairman was in his quarters in the underground C.O.S. headquarters. It was the safest place to be right now in that part of the city.

“It’s not looking good, son. We managed to bring seventy percent of our military to defend the capital practically right as the US mobilized on the city, but we’re still outnumbered. The enemy has the advantage in troop strength and equipment. Right now we’re just trying to keep the remaining government officials here alive.”

“Continuity of government, huh.”

The chairman picked up on the hint of cynicism in my tone. “Like it or not Ian, we will need leadership once this is all over. I shudder to think what would happen if a general had to lead the country because they’ve become the most qualified person alive.”

“I take it we’re not there yet, then?”

Coste shook his head and crossed his big arms over his chest. His size and build rivaled that of Josh’s, and like Shadow’s weapons specialist, the chairman was a friendly man at heart. To see him looking exhausted and stressed like this brought a fresh reminder that Canada could possibly fail to come out of this in one piece.

“Not yet, thank goodness for that,” he answered, lacking much of the relief his words would otherwise have implied, “The prime minister and the Cabinet are hunkering down here for the moment. The ones we managed to reach, anyway. Over half the executive branch of the government are either missing, dead, or captured already. Imagine the shitstorm that would normally have erupted when those not in the know about us found out we had secret underground bunkers and the like. Thankfully, everyone’s just grateful to be alive. We haven’t been found by the US military just yet, and we hope we can keep it that way for as long as we can.”

I listened intently to Coste’s account of his situation at HQ, then spoke again.

“What about you? Personally?”

“Me?” Coste smiled ruefully at the camera. “Oh, you know. I miss walking outside. Too dangerous for that now, though. Director’s ordered all of us essential personnel to stay until the situation topside gets resolved.”

“If it even will be, you mean?”

“Not to sound defeatist. But yeah, we’re not in the best of shape. We’re not losing by a landslide, mind you, at least not here. But it’s still hard, and it’s only going to get harder the more soldiers we lose the longer this goes on.”

“I know,” I said, nodding a second time.

“Anyway, what about you, son?” Coste changed the beaten down tone of his voice to be more assertive and brisker. “What’s your situation there? Your team is still intact, I hope.”

Genel rose from her chair and stood beside me. She looked up at the camera. “Chairman.”

“Genel.” Coste smiled warmly at her. He knew the pair of us more so than the other agents because we both took a couple of his weapons training classes prior to our endorsements to become C.O.S. agents. “Nice to see you’re all right.”

“You too, sir. Sorry to hear that things aren’t much better there, though,” Genel said solemnly.

“Aye. This is a shitty situation through and through. No other way to look at it.”

“We’ve launched some ops in the past two weeks. So far Shadow Team is still whole. No small miracle when you think about it,” Genel reported.

“That’s good. Anyway, fill me in. What have you learned?”

Together, Genel and I took turns giving the chairman an overview of everything that’s happened from the first night of the invasion to the events of the previous evening. The longer she and I recounted our experiences, the grimmer Coste appeared. He particularly seemed aghast at the news of prisoners being executed while a select few were being shipped off to who-knows-where for whatever reason.

“It’s worse than I thought,” he mused darkly after Genel and I had told him everything. “We’ve been struggling to reach the other teams within the different cities. You’re one of the first we’ve managed to contact. Our comms system here was damaged when this all started. We had to get our techs to fix the hardware and then ensure our lines were still secure. That’s why it took us until now to reach you.”

He paused, rubbing absently at his beard, then continued: “We don’t have prisoner camps here. Your experience there is news to me. But that’s most likely because Ottawa isn’t ‘occupied’ yet. We’re still fighting here, even if we’re on the back foot. You haven’t figured out where the special prisoners are being taken, have you? Or why they’re being taken?”

I shook my head. “No. We tried to get answers last night, but the op didn’t go as planned. We’ll keep at it.”

“All right.” The chairman ran the palm of his hand down his tired face. “I’ve got some good news for you, even if it’s… not really big.”

“We’ll take anything we can get at this point, Chairman,” Genel said crisply.

“I heard the military leaders here are splitting off any personnel we can still spare to assist with taking back some of the occupied cities across the country. It’s not going to be much, before you get your hopes up. In Calgary’s case, they’re sending a detachment of about one-hundred thirty Canadian Army troops to assist with liberating the city.”

I sensed Genel relaxing slightly next to me upon hearing this.

“When will they arrive?” I asked Coste.

“All goes well,” Coste replied, glancing down at something on his desk. A piece of paper with the information he was relaying, perhaps. “They’ll get there by January thirteenth.”

“Is this a direct joint effort?”

“That’s still being discussed, but yes I’d wager it will be. It needs to be. The C.O.S. may be clandestine, but at times like these we need to be a little flexible. We need you agents coordinating with our military. The director will most likely be informing more military officials about us for the sake of collaboration.”

“Desperate times,” I agreed, “I’m not complaining, Chase. Got to compromise if we want to win.”

“Agreed, son. We trained you agents to work in secret, but right now we can’t afford to be disconnected with our military.”

“Don’t worry, Chairman. We could do with just a smidge of recognition, anyway,” Genel said lightly.

Coste smiled a little. “Normally, recognition is failure in our line of work, but this is an extraordinary situation. Speaking of which, I’ve got more good news, although again it’s small news.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“CSOR has dispatched small teams to recon a select few cities outside of Ontario. You know, to give the remaining government and military officials a greater appreciation for how the rest of the country looks. We don’t have a lot of Special Forces left, frankly, but there are three already heading your way.”

“Were they given orders to stick to recon?”

“Initially, yes. But I can pull some strings, see if I can get the three Special Forces operatives to stay there and back you up.”

“That’d be good,” I remarked, nodding with renewed vigour. “The remnants of the Canadian Army reserves we told you about earlier could use the morale boost.”

“All right then, I’ll talk to the brass about it. Being ex-CSOR, I’m sure I can convince them to get the SF guys to coordinate with you.”

“We’re not going to be taking orders from them though, are we?” I said tentatively to the chairman.

“You’re intelligence operatives with CSIS at the end of the day,” he replied, shaking his head a little. “CSOR is military. We don’t mix, so no. But you do need to work together. Got that?”

“Crystal clear,” I replied. I appreciated having the Canadian Special Operations Regiment fighting alongside us, but our autonomy as C.O.S. agents was crucial. We couldn’t afford to get hung up on whether or not we could act because of a rigid chain of command dictating our every move.

“One last thing, you two,” Coste’s voice seemed to shift again, this time to a quieter volume.

“What else?” I said, noting that the chairman seemed to be trying to tell us something that he wasn’t supposed to officially.

He appeared to hesitate for a few seconds.

“Keep this quiet,” he said in a hushed voice, his face leaning in a bit toward his camera. “But I heard that if we keep taking military casualties like we have been the past several days, there’s talk of summoning C.O.S. agents from across the country to supplement our military here in Ottawa.”

I considered this silently for several seconds. “Bit like trying to drive in a nail with a mallet, don’t you think?”

Coste sighed, looking truly weary. “I know that and you know that. But the folks here, Ian… They’re desperate. They don’t want to hear they’re losing, and I can totally understand where they’re coming from. England and the rest of our allies in Europe have gone dark. Last I heard Russia was starting to give them problems, too. But anyway, after the parts of the government here that were out of the loop learned we actually have highly trained intelligence personnel doubling as operatives with training roughly on par with that of Special Forces, they’ll take any edge they can get. Just giving you a heads-up. You might be ordered to come to Ottawa in the coming weeks.”

“We’d better wrap things up here in Calgary by that time, then,” I said, going over what little of a timeline we had at this point. “Here’s hoping that Army detachment makes it here soon.”

“Yeah. Not to put any more pressure on you than there already is, but I figured you should know in advance.”

“No, we appreciate the heads-up, Chase. Really.”

“Glad to hear it. We’re currently getting in touch with all the other C.O.S. cells scattered throughout the Canada to see how we’re doing as a whole. When I have more news, I’ll let you know.”

I nodded a third time. “Got it. We’ll keep working here.”

“Aye,” Coste said approvingly, eyeing me and Genel in turns. “If you ever need anything, ring me directly via this frequency. No need for you to go through a handler or middleman. I’ll offer what I can by way of support, even if I can’t really do much being stuck here.”

“We appreciate the sentiment anyway, Chairman,” Genel smiled at our endorser. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Hell, I know you guys actually out in the field have it rougher than we suits do. We’re practically counting on you to keep us afloat. That’s all I’ve got for now,” Coste said, drumming his fingertips against the top of his desk. He must really feel restless in HQ because of his background as a soldier; he was taught to act, not deliberate. “Anything else I can help you with before I sign off?”

“No, that’s all we have for now, too,” I replied, shaking my head. “Thanks. We’ll update you as necessary.”

“Okay. Take care of yourselves. Send my best to the rest of the team. I’m a call away if you need me.”

With that, the window showing the chairman’s camera feed disappeared from the monitor. The satellite view of Calgary came back on the screen.

Genel stretched her arms and stood on her toes as she turned to me. “Well, I hope you don’t have any dates lined up in the next several weeks, ‘cause it looks like we’re gonna be busy for a while.”

I glanced at her stiffly. “You know I don’t. What about you?”

Her mouth went slack with shock and her cheeks quickly turned pink. “Of-Of course not. What are you on about?”

I contemplated for a moment bringing up Sergeant Burke, but decided against it at the last second.

“Nothing. We’d better start hauling the supplies for the reservists to the trucks for tonight.”