Instinct: A Chess Team Adventure - By Jeremy Robinson Page 0,21

is familiar with Brugada. They might be in the area.”

“The Vietnamese?” King asked.

“They’d be brazen little shits, if it was them. It’s unlikely, but we’re looking into it. The fact is, we have no idea where this thing came from, who sent it, or why. Frankly, we don’t give a damn about the why right now. We just want to stop the end of human civilization if someone decides our time on the planet is up.”

He stood up straight. “You have five days.”

EIGHT

Thirty Thousand Feet above the South China Sea

WHILE IN DEVELOPMENT, the sleek plane carrying the Chess Team to their destination halfway around the world was code named Senior Citizen. Now in active service, yet still classified top secret, the stealth transport had been dubbed Crescent for its half-moon shape. Its two turbo fan engines pushed the black specter through the night sky at speeds up to Mach 2, but held a casual Mach 1 speed as it approached the target area. The Crescent could haul up to twenty-five thousand pounds, including tanks, but this one had been converted for Special Ops HALO (High Altitude-Low Opening) drops and, as a result, featured several private rooms complete with bunks, closets, and heads. It had a price tag of five hundred million dollars, not including the billions in research and development, but it did its job, which right now was to transport two pilots, two doctors, the five members of the Chess Team, plus their newest addition, Pawn, halfway around the world—undetected.

“You’re serious?” Sara said, arms crossed over her small chest. “Pawn?”

King nodded as the incision over his heart was stitched up. He winced as Dr. Mark Byers gave the wire a few tugs, pulling the cut flesh together. He’d been given local anesthesia, but because they were jumping right into a mission, the dosage had been low and the effects long since diminished. Luckily, Byers announced he was done, with a quick snip. “Thanks, Mark.”

The balding doctor winked and began wiping down the scalpel he’d used to open King’s chest. “Just try to avoid any physical activity for the next few days. Wouldn’t want it to reopen.”

As King laughed, Byers, who’d given King more than a few stitches in the past few years, patted his shoulder and added, “I put in a few extras. It should hold. Just make sure I don’t have to give you more when you return, eh?”

“No kidding. You do a terrible job. I’ve got scars in places no other man has seen.”

Byers guffawed as he placed the scalpel in an alcohol solution. “With that birthmark of yours you’d be lucky to find anyone, man or woman, willing to find all your scars. You’re just lucky I get paid so well.”

King smiled while inspecting his freshly sewn wound. “You get paid well?”

“Better than you.”

King shook his head. “I’m the one taking the bullets.”

“And I’m the one pulling them out of your ugly ass. Which do you think is harder?”

As the banter continued, Sara tuned out the rest. Her impatience mounted. She’d asked him a question and he outright ignored her. She’d been told that the “Chess Team” was supposed to be the best—smarter and tougher—but she was beginning to have doubts. She knew that Delta operators were more casual than their Special Forces counterparts like the Navy SEALs or Army Rangers. She knew they received stipends to purchase their own weapons. They had to blend. They had to look normal, fit in with a crowd. But that didn’t mean they had to be unprofessional.

And King, their leader—she had no idea what his rank actually was, as Delta had done away with ranks—was more casual than the rest. His blue jeans, Elvis T-shirt, and scruffy black hair wasn’t a cover. It was him. Who he was.

But the positively most annoying aspect of the mission thus far was the plane. If it was stealth, why was it so loud? Not to mention the smell of ordnance, oil, and human sweat that assaulted her nose and brought on a headache that had taken four ibuprofen to tame. And the shaking . . . the dipping up and down . . . the consoles with blinking lights . . . the—

Sara focused her mind back on King to avoid descending into sensory overload anxiety. She’d been diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder a few years back, which at the time had been a relief because it removed the guilt she’d carried for being so picky and demanding about her environment, but