Harris turns, puts two fingers to his lips and whistles sharply. “Chico!”
A shorter, thickly built Hispanic man jogs over—his hair is buzzed, but shows signs of salt-and-pepper, as does his beard, which is buzzed to the same length as the hair on his head. “Sí, SeñorHarris.”
“You’ve got a sniper in your bunch, don’t you?”
Chico nods. “Dyani. A girl, and a young one, but trulyincreíble. Why? You need?”
Harris gestures at Anselm. “Our plan for the assault requires a sniper, and he needs a scout.”
Chico cups his hands to his mouth. “Dyani!Acquí!”
I lean close to Rin. “Who is Chico?”
Rin is frowning. “I believe he’s with RMI—Raze Mercenary Industries. Another mercenary security firm. Competitors on the face of it, but A1S has worked with them a lot over the years, when the situation requires it.”
I nod. “Got it.”
A slender young woman trots over; she has a rifle strapped to her back, beneath a bulging rucksack. She’s young, probably barely even twenty-one, and appears Native American. She’s pretty, and her eyes are serious and glint with intelligence and calculated cunning. “Yeah?”
Chico indicates Anselm. “I am assigning you to him. You are support and scout, what he needs, you do.”
The young woman looks at Anselm, and her eyes grow wide. “You are The Ghost.”
Anselm nods. “I am.”
“It is my honor to work with you, sir. My father was Mato—he knew you, he spoke of you to me when I was very young.”
Anselm frowns. “Mato. A good man. A hell of a sniper.” He sighs heavily. “His death angered me. It was unnecessary and avoidable. I tried to save him, I hope you know this. A good man. He did not deserve to die in such a way.”
Dyani nods. “His best friends told me the story, when I was old enough, when I joined the Marines. Jackson and Shaka—they told me how you went after him. You took out twenty men on your own, trying to save him.”
“There were too many. His superiors had abandoned him, and by the time Jackson and Shaka knew what was happening, they were cut off from him. It was a bad, bad situation. Poor leadership, poor judgment, and your father paid the price. He sold his life dearly, though.”
Anselm leans his rifle against the table and slings his rucksack off his shoulder, props it on the table, and rummages in it. After digging to the very bottom, he comes up with a knife—a hunting knife, the sheath handmade leather, elaborately tooled and inlaid with exquisite, elaborate beadwork. The handle is antler. He holds the knife in both hands, reverently.
“I fought my way to his body,” Anselm says. “I recovered this. Nothing else he carried was of any value, mainly because it was an off-book operation. He wasn’t even wearing his dog tags. But this, he never went anywhere without. I did not know he had a daughter, or I would have found you and given it to you years ago.”
She doesn’t reach out to take the knife, but despite her obvious efforts to appear stoic and unmoved, it is clear she’s very emotional. “Jackson told me he had the knife when they shipped out for the op, but by the time they got to him, it was gone. They assumed the enemy had taken it.”
Anselm extends it to her. “I have carried it with me every single day since that one. He believed it was great medicine.”
“He was a traditionalist,” Dyani says, finally taking the knife. “He believed in the old ways. My uncles taught me the old ways, the way my ancestors hunted. I became a sniper to honor my father.” She withdraws the knife from the sheath—the blade is eight inches long, with a clipped point. “This knife was my great-great-grandfather’s, the sheath made by his mother, my great-great-great-grandmother, as a gift when he came into manhood.” She swallows hard. “I am thankful to have it back.”
Anselm shakes his head. “I am glad it is back where it belongs, with his family.” He shoulders his pack and rifle. “Come. We must prepare. I will tell you stories of your father’s exploits.”
Harris and Chico both watch the unlikely pair walk away together, and Harris glances at Chico. “Did you know about that connection?”
Chico shrugs. “I do not know anything about Dyani except that Raze recruited her before she could sign on with the Recons. She passed the tests easily, and scored higher on the fieldcraft and accuracy tests than anyone in something like twenty years. She is truly, truly remarkable.”
“Wouldn’t think it, to look at her. So skinny I’d wonder if she could do a single pull-up,” Puck remarks.
Chico snorts. “Do not let her appearance fool you,amigo. She’s strong, quick, and has a killer instinct like no one I’ve met since Cuddy herself. And even Cuddy won’t go all-out hand-to-hand sparring with Dyani.”
Everyone looks at Chico in shock when he says this. Lear, sitting on a crate a few feet away, typing swiftly, speaks without looking up. “Cuddy’s told me about Dyani. Says she’s the best sniper she’s ever seen.” A pause, keys clacking rapid-fire. “She said the only person on the planet who could touch Dyani’s skill with a rifle is Anselm himself, and the only reason Anselm would win is simply due to experience.”
“Well that’s the scariest thing I’ve ever fucking heard,” Puck says. “And I’m glad she’s on our side.”
Harris glances at me, then. “I know you’re going to hate this, Apollo, but I’m not sure you should come.”
