All eight members of the detachment sat or stood around Sly and Captain John Ramirez. Feeling both his age and his responsibility for these young men and women, Sly had walked them by the ancient stairwells to touch the time-worn stone and look down into the gloom. Now, surrounded by their team-mates and lit by electric lanterns, they heard why the worn stonework mattered.

  Brown, Lee, Kim, Gonzalez, Clarke, Singh, Smith, Nguyen, Marcus.

  Sly knew them all so much better than when their journey began, but he didn’t know what they were going to do or say.

  Eli Brown was typically relaxed, listening without obvious concern. Sarah Kim and Josh Smith glanced at the other in the dark: a friendship there, a sense of camaraderie and mutual worry. Nio Gonzalez’s lips were pinched white. Grace Clarke’s freckles stood out on porcelain skin. She wore a thin smile.

  Emil Marcus stood near the back, unmoving: an ebony statue of a prince or pioneer, or a soldier at parade rest. He met Sly’s eyes, gave back a short nod.

  Far right, nearest and last, Richard Nguyen sat in a crouch and hugged his long legs. Nguyen had abseiled into L3 in the first group, he’d volunteered for the task. Now his posture was defensive, closed. Sly didn’t know what would make a very brave man take a pose like that but dropped the thought.

  Not everything is something.

  They listened.

  When Sly finished, he gave them the choice, to stand with Ramirez or by Emil Marcus at the back. If they stood with Ramirez, they’d come, consequences be damned. If they stood by Emil, they would retrench to the upper floors, to safety, not only from Ghost and L4 but from what awaited them at home.

  Nguyen was the one to ask the obvious question.

  “Let’s nail this one first. You’re saying that General Fox and this agent –”

  “He’s not an ‘agent’,” Sly interrupted gently. “Call him Officer Jarvis.”

  “You’re saying Jarvis sent us here, with you in charge, knowing that we’d see a national secret so big that, when we got back, we’d all be tucked away in a crate next to the Ark of the Covenant?”

  Sarah Kim was the only one who chuckled. Sly understood the joke, but he’d watched the films as a kid and wasn’t laughing. It was too close to the truth.

  “First, you’re assuming that the CIA chief who classified this place as ‘secret’, and Officer Jarvis, talk to each other,” Sly said.

  “Ah. You are paranoid,” Nguyen said, unfolding himself to sit on the rock that had been at his back. Sly ignored the comment, though it was on the borderline that divided normal SF informality from insubordination.

  “Let me summarize what I told you earlier,” Sly said, looking from one soldier to the next. “Five years ago, Willem Hunter, director of the CIA’s Adventure Fund, classified Area 71 as Top Secret. The CIA’s fund does more than provide a bit of money, they run Area 71 through a shell company. Officially CU only pays ten researchers for a short summer stint, but Hunter organizes enough researchers to keep the bunkhouse constantly full, for as much of the year as he can. He even arranges for winter caretakers, most recently a guy called Sam Peck.

  “The dead man, Ronald Thorpe, was recruited to work at Area 71 two and a half years ago. On his first home leave he somehow met the CIA’s Max Jarvis, who personally paid for a hotel room registered in Thorpe’s name. This is odd, as Thorpe wasn’t a registered asset with the CIA, and besides, his family is loaded – he could’ve easily paid for his own hotel. A couple of weeks later, Thorpe goes back to work at Area 71. Eighteen months later, and nothing. Thorpe and Jarvis don’t openly speak.

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  “Then four months ago everything comes to a head. Jarvis met with Fox, they set up a budget and start writing orders. According to my informant, Fox puts in all the budget but shares authority with Jarvis. That’s an unusual power dynamic. Soon after, Sam Peck joins Area 71 as security. Peck is Major Samuel Peck, who once reported to Fox, a fact that somehow escaped his official resume. And someone brings in a fortune in gems even as the place closes for winter.

  “Mid-winter, all hell breaks loose. Thorpe is killed. The surviving caretakers call for evac. During the crisis Peck calls Fox’s mobile, via satellite from Area 71.”

  Nguyen spoke up. “Nice research – I liked the detail and won’t ask how you got it. But what the hell does it prove?”

  “It proves that Fox and Jarvis conspired before Thorpe’s death,” said Sly, irritated by Nguyen’s dragging feet. “If Peck’s team brought in the gems as funds for a deal, it was on their behalf. Which in turn links Fox and Jarvis directly to the death. The pair recruited us with real footage of Peck and Thorpe on Level Four but, as you saw on the video-clip earlier, the audio track was very cleverly deep-faked. The lip-sync mismatch is obvious, and Peck didn’t say what the subtitles suggested he did.”

  “As I said, it could’ve been just AI error,” Nguyen said reasonably. “You can’t make out what Peck actually said.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Sly replied, blunting the edge threatening to enter his voice. “The audio track wasdeliberately changed, Jarvis or Fox should’ve spotted it – unless they faked the footage themselves. I have no idea what the unedited video would’ve shown, I’ll probably never know, but I’m willing to bet Peck and this safety team weren’t drilling the cave walls for samples – not that day.”

  Sly waited for comment, but there was none. The video analysis hadn’t left much room for misinterpretation, but he’d thought Nguyen would toss in a wrench. Instead, the S2 stayed quiet.

  He frowned. Maybe Nguyen was simply doing his job, challenging the intel.

  Sly gave him the benefit of the doubt.

  “Meanwhile, neither Fox nor Jarvis contacted Hunter or the CIA Adventure Fund at any time. And Hunter didn’t ask for their help. We’re here entirely under their joint authority, which is to say ‘none’. The CIA’s Adventure Fund runs Area 71 but doesn’t even know we’re here.”

  He let a long silence hang in the air.

  “One thing you didn’t explain... Why us? Why this team?”

  The quiet voice in the long shadows was Grace Clarke.

  “Fox discovered I was looking for an opportunity to train,” Sly said softly, glancing around at his small audience, “and sponsoring us was a legitimate way to hide the cost of sending a team out. If we’re caught, we genuinely didn’t know the real reason why we were sent. No doubt Fox has deep fake synthetic media footage making this trip look like we fooled him into providing funding. Amazing what you can do with AI these days.”

  “We’re their cut-out,” Grace declared. “Thrown under the bus before we left.”

  She’s right, Sly thought sourly, expecting her to blame him. After all, Fox likely chose him for his accident-prone reputation. Instead of throwing stones Grace grinned, surprising Sly. She walked to Ramirez and folded her muscular arms.

  “I’m in. No way I’m paying the price without getting the prize. Who’s with us?”

  Without another word, Kim got up and went over to Marcus instead. Sly thought she would, as Kim was the most career oriented of them all. He expected Josh Smith to join her, given their friendship. Instead, the medical sergeant got up and joined Clarke. Kim looked confused, perhaps even a little hurt. Like Sly, she had expected something else from Smith.

  “Y’all need a medic,” he said, by way of apology to Kim, “and I’m it.”

  Trap Singh seemed undecided. “Rich, what are you going to do?”

  Nguyen stood up, brushed himself off, and walked over to stand next to Sarah Kim. Nio went to Ramirez and Clarke. Eli Brown half smiled and did the same.

  “Shit,” Trap said. He hesitated, then went to stand by Ramirez. “Sorry, bro.”

  Michael Lee went to stand next to Emil, Sarah Kim and Nguyen.

  “You’ll need a fourth, upside.”

  Marcus guffawed. “You’re the third. I’m not going up, I’m with the captain, I’m after the spook who killed O’Connor. Colonel Harris asked me to stand here, in case you people were too chickenshit to put it out there on your own.”

  Lee glanced at Sarah. “Stand or hit?”

  “I’m going back up,” she said, resolve firming in her eyes. “Either way this goes, you need someone up top. And I’m not so keen on busting down to private. Are you coming?”

  She gave Lee a flat look, as if daring him to back out.

  “Yup.”

  His characteristically laconic answer decided the split. Sly and Ramirez would take the bulk of the team down: Nio Gonzalez, Trap Singh, Eli Brown, Emil Marcus and Josh Smith, plus Grace Clarke. Nguyen, Kim and Lee would go back up, use the coms equipment in the offices to talk to the States, and hold the fort.