CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - Ben
Grouse and Cormorant
Reeves screeched into the airfield and leapt from his truck, leaving the keys in the ignition. Their fastest jet waited on the asphalt, a DH-70R Grouse. It was already running, the engine bellowing its war cry. He smelled the fuel, pungent and toxic on the fresh Alaskan air.
Officer Miller was striding towards it. Reeves sprinted to catch up.
“What do you want?” said Miller.
“Anderson told me my team’s dispatching—”
“Yes. Her team, not yours.”
“Yes, sir. But she said the mermaids want a peace treaty.”
“They do.”
“And you’re sending special ops?”
Miller stopped at the jet. He faced Reeves with crossed arms, as though bouncing the Grouse’s entrance.
“A mermaid has control of the serpent now. She killed the merman king.”
Killed? The merman king was dead? Reeves hardly dared to believe it.
“Who’s this mermaid, sir?”
“Don’t know. Some girl. Used to be from Eriana Kwai.”
“A girl? What, like a kid?”
“She sounded like a teenager. Who cares? She’s a mermaid now.”
Reeves rubbed a hand over his eyes, making sense of this. A mermaid, a former human, killed the merman king, and now she wanted a peace treaty.
“Incredible,” he whispered.
And yet, special ops was going. Why?
“So you’re going to sign the treaty?”
Miller placed a hand on the railing. “We need that serpent. There’s only one way to get it.”
“Wait—you’re going to kill the mermaid?”
“She won’t give it to us. Says she’s going to destroy it.”
Anderson and her team arrived. Reeves kept his glare on Miller as they climbed into the Grouse.
“Isn’t that a good thing if this mermaid wants to destroy it, not use it?” said Reeves.
“You want to destroy the most powerful weapon in the world?” said Miller.
“Sir, think about what it would mean to have power over it. You’ll spend your life with a target on your head, because once word gets out that it’s passed by blood—”
“This isn’t your decision to make.”
“You’re going to kill a teenage girl!”
“She’s a mermaid, Reeves. There’s a difference.”
“There’s not!”
The words burst from Reeves’ mouth with such volume that Anderson leaned out the jet door to check on them.
For a long moment, he and Miller stared at each other.
Miller’s lip curled. “And you wonder why you were demoted.”
“Sir—”
“Go home.” Miller pointed eastwards, as though indicating all the way back to mainland USA. “I don’t want to see your face here again.”
Reeves trembled from anger. He clamped his jaw shut, afraid of what might come out if he opened it again.
He watched the officer climb into the jet. Anderson cast him a look of mingled apology and exasperation before the door slammed.
Reeves backed away as the ground crew jumped into action around him.
He couldn’t let this happen. Miller’s words about the mermaid being a former human settled uneasily over him. It drove home exactly what Reeves had been struggling to comprehend all along. The value of a mermaid’s life was no less than the value of a human’s. They were at war like nations around the world had been throughout history—and like all of those wars, there were innocent civilians to protect on both sides.
He had to get to Eriana Kwai before Miller did.
There wasn’t a proper airport, however. Miller and the team must have been going to Seattle first. Would they take one of the big choppers from there? Would they pick up the President, or Secretary of State, or anyone else arriving from the White House? Dammit, why was he so out of the loop?
The only way Reeves could get to Eriana Kwai first was if he went straight there in a helicopter.
He scanned the airfield desperately. How far was Eriana Kwai? 750 miles? He’d never be able to get there in something standard. He needed something long-range.
Then his eyes landed on her, waiting on the flightline in all her glory: the LM-80 Cormorant.
Reeves shifted his weight from foot to foot.
Miller hadn’t officially relieved him of command. He’d only yelled at him a bit.
He’d surely be sent home for real after this—but he could deal with those repercussions and overly supportive but secretly disappointed parents later.
Right now, he needed access to that helicopter.
He pulled out his phone. It rang twice.
“Bagh. I need a favour.”