Instinct: A Chess Team Adventure - By Jeremy Robinson Page 0,138
at the hands of Brugada. Humanity was far too good at killing to lose this fight. Even if Weston hadn’t let them go, this massive force of men would have stormed the halls of Mount Meru until the cure was found. And nothing Weston did could have changed that.
The Chess Team stood together as the soldiers descended on their position. The others kept watch on the decimated field.
A single black-clothed soldier stepped in front of the rest, approaching King.
“You have the cure?” The voice was deep, modulated to disguise the identity of the man speaking.
King stared back in silence, trying to figure out if he knew the man behind the mask. Something in the modulated voice sounded familiar.
“After all this time, you don’t trust me?” There it was. King recognized the sarcasm as the one member of the team missing since this debacle of a mission began.
“Deep Blue?”
Deep Blue nodded. “We’ll catch up on the way home . . . if you’ve got the cure. If not, I’ve brought some friends to make sure we do.”
“Could have used them a few days ago.”
“I know,” Deep Blue said. “I’m sorry.” He looked over the group standing before him. Rook, beaten and bleeding from gashes on his chest and what looked like a bite wound on his shoulder. Queen, sporting a swollen red brand on her forehead. Knight, standing on one leg. Bishop, looking hale as ever, but different. More . . . at peace. Pawn, the civilian, her back bleeding beneath her torn shirt. And King, a bullet wound in his shoulder. He noted the missing member.
“Pawn Two?”
“Gone,” King said. “Killed.”
Deep Blue’s head hung for a moment. “And the cure?”
“We have it.”
A rustle of grass brought fifty assault rifles to bear on a single location at the edge of the field. A lone figure stumbled into view.
Red.
Her body bled from three bullet wounds, one in her arm, two in a thigh. She hobbled a few feet from the grass and stopped, looking at the silhouettes lined up in front of the blazing bright light. She heard a few of the men curse and say, “What the hell?” She ignored them, looking for only one person. “Rook.”
Two more figures emerged from the field, also wounded, but not mortally. Two hybrids, male and female. They stood by Red, placing their hands on her thick mane.
“Rook!” Red shouted with a snarl.
“On my mark,” Deep Blue said.
“Wait!” Rook shouted, stepping out of the bright light and moving toward Red and the hybrids.
“Rook,” King said, his voice a warning.
Rook held up his hand, signaling them to wait. He stepped down the slight grade, stopping a few feet in front of Red. He crouched down.
“You father,” Red said.
Rook nodded. “Weston is dead.”
“You come now.”
“No.”
Red roared, pounded the ground, and charged forward.
Rook side-stepped, took the injured old mother by the back of her neck, and flung her to the ground. He knew if she hadn’t been injured the result might have been different, but dominance had to be established.
He stood above her.
She looked up at him, her chest heaving with each breath.
“Leave. Now.” He motioned to the hybrids. “And take them.”
Red huffed and got back to her feet. She growled for a moment, then frowned. “Rook come again?”
“Not a chance.”
Red looked at the soldiers aiming their weapons at her, then shook her head and turned around. She limped back into the grass, followed by her two children. They disappeared into the field.
“Rook,” Queen said, her voice tinged with annoyance. “We can’t let them leave. They’ve killed people. The villagers here. Somi.”
“This is their home,” Rook said. “It was before there was a human race. They were just protecting their home. We do the same thing every day on the job.”
“Sir!” A man ran toward the group, wearing all black like the others but sporting a pilot’s helmet. “We’ve got two MIG-21 inbound on our position.”
“ETA?” Deep Blue asked.
“Five minutes.”
“All right,” Deep Blue shouted. “Pack it up. It’s time to disappear.”
The soldiers sprang into action, falling back toward the floodlights.
“You six are with me,” Deep Blue said, leading them past the ravaged huts of Anh Dung where five UH-100S stealth Blackhawk transport helicopters waited, rotors beginning to spin.
Thirty seconds later, the reunited and complete Chess Team were cruising low over the jungle, headed south over Cambodia to the South China Sea, where they would rendezvous with the USS Kitty Hawk carrier group conducting “routine exercises.”
AN HOUR LATER, the five stealth Blackhawks chopped over the open ocean. The central Blackhawk