“But you would release the rest to go on a rampage and kill the rest of us.”
The man had no response.
“?‘We are the solution to the tragedy of history.’ That your line? Or something you were told to help justify the awful things you’ve done? The awful future you’re making for all of us.”
Spencer shook his head. “You’re way out of your depth, Brodie.”
“Am I? Then why am I sitting here, and you’re over there on your way to the brig, and then prison?”
Spencer turned away and looked out the window. “I don’t know how it happened. Bucky. That wasn’t… Nobodydidthat. It did it itself. Screwed everything up.”
Taylor, who was listening, glared at Spencer in the rearview. “I’ve got an answer for you, genius. You put an animal in a cage, and you designed the animal to keep getting stronger, but not the cage.”
Captain Spencer said nothing to that.
O’Connor came over the walkie.“O’Connor for Colonel Howe. Over.”
The colonel responded,“This is Howe. Over.”
“We’ve got fifty-three. With your six that makes fifty-nine, not counting our dearly departed Bucky. That’s all of them, ma’am. We got them all. Over.”
“Copy that. Well done, Sergeant. Over and out.”
That was it. Taylor turned to Brodie, and they shared a look. It didn’t feel like a victory. Not given the cost. But for once the ledger of death had come out in the humans’ favor.
We got them all.
It was over.
CHAPTER 57
THE RUSTY PULLEYS SQUEAKED AGAINSTthe halyard rope as Private First Class Greer lowered the flags of the United States and the 75th Ranger Regiment to half-staff.
The storm had blown north, and the air had cleared. Brodie stood with Taylor on the parade ground and looked out at the line of bodies laid neatly on the ground before them covered by white sheets.
Seventeen bodies. Seventeen too many.
Brodie noticed two Rangers kneeling by the bodies, praying.
That was a good way to deal with grief, and a suitable replacement for anger. But Scott Brodie hadn’t found his way there. Maybe he never would. Maybe that was the part of him that had broken all those years ago in Iraq and would never heal. He’d have to look into that.
Greer finished lowering the flags and stood rooted there, staring up at them.
Brodie and Taylor exchanged a look, then both approached him.
Taylor asked, “Are you okay, Tom?”
He looked at her, and his face said it all. “I didn’t know it was so many. I didn’t know we’d lost so many.”
Brodie put his hand on Greer’s shoulder, and as he looked into the kid’s sorrowful face, it occurred to him that the two men who’d done the most to help Greer, to save him from his downward spiral, were dead. “I’ve been where you are, Tom. If you want to honor them, don’t do what I did. Don’t hate yourself for surviving. Live well.”
Greer nodded. “I’ll do my best, sir.”
“I know you will.”
Brodie and Taylor left him to his thoughts and found Colonel Howe near the fallen soldiers. The colonel said to them, “A truck is coming to take the bodies to Fort Irwin, where they’ll get the proper preparation before being flown out.”
Brodie nodded. “What about us?”
