Souverain: The Kid Page 2

down the corridor.

  The monitor room door bursts open.

  What? Oh no. No!

  Lieutenant Ernie Peterson is the first through the door. He's thin, dark-skinned, his brown-eyes flash behind wire-rimmed round glasses. He's an old classmate of Lane's. Top IT guy in the Green Zone.

  The Colonel returns to the room, following Peterson in.

  "Peterson, what's going on?" Lane asks, trying to sound calm.

  "Gotta commandeer a couple of your screens for a feed we're receiving, Lane," Peterson tells her.

  He motions for her to get up from the seat so he can get at her post's computer. She breathes a little easier as she rises up out of the way.

  "Suicide bombers in Sadr City with another martyr video," he says as he begins typing orders into the monitor controls. "Only this time they're broadcasting live. They say they've got that vigilante whose been terrorizing them, Sova-whatshername."

  "Souverain," the Colonel says.

  Was that a look from The Colonel?

  Lane tries to ignore him, pretends to be distracted by the flickering screens as Peterson changes the video feeds.

  "They just started sending this," Peterson says. "My monitor station is down right now. Crashed during the upgrade I was doing. Figures."

  There are nine large screens mounted on the wall in front of them, three rows of three. As Peterson types, the three lower screens go blank. The images that had appeared on the lower screens begin appearing on the six other screens, alternating with the original images on them.

  "Your surveillance cameras are feeding the top six now, Lane," Peterson tells her. "You keep your eyes on those."

  Peterson calls up a new feed for the lower three screens.

  Lane can't help but look down. She lets out a gasp as a silent image appears on the lower screens.

  She recognizes the backdrop as the same place the suicide bombers have shot all their videos. But now the man in the black mask is holding a masked girl in front of him as he speaks to the camera.

  She must have gone back down the tunnel to Sadr City - Damn fool kid!

  The terrorist is holding the girl Lane was with half a day earlier, the teenaged, would-be Souverain.

  "What's he saying?" The Colonel asks. "Do we have sound? Do we need the translator?"

  "Getting it, sir," Peterson says. "Hold on a sec... There!"

  "...orking for the occupiers. The invaders," the voice says in accented English. "This makes her our enemy, just like the American aggressors!" The man in the mask on the screen speaks to the camera. "And now? We have captured Souverain! She works for the Americans – let them hear my demands!"

  No you haven't, you ass. You've got a kid.

  What do they want with her?

  "If you want Souverain alive, you must negotiate with us!" the masked man shouts on the screen. "We have many demands!"

  "I'm sure you do," the Colonel says under his breath. Then he asks, louder, "Peterson, are we tracing this?"

  "Working on it, sir."

  "We will broadcast again in one hour with our demands!" The masked man makes a chopping gesture at the camera and the screens go blank.

  "You get it?" The Colonel asks.

  "I get it – he has demands," Peterson cracks.

  The Colonel stares back, the hint of a grin on the corners of his mouth as he tries to stare down Peterson's remark.

  "Ah," Peterson clears his throat. "Ahem. Got it. This isn't a broadcast, per se, Colonel. It's internet. Looks like it's coming from a masked IP address." Peterson types into and scans data on a small laptop. "I'm seeing if we can crack the masking encryption now. Messaging in the brain boys back home."

  The Colonel shakes his head. "I liked it better when we were tracing phone calls."

  Peterson pounds his keys as he and the techs back home try to find the source for the footage. He sighs and stops.

  "No fix that time, sir," Peterson breaks the news. "But our guys think they can get set up to crack it when the terrorists come back at us in an hour. You want to give them the go ahead for that, sir?"

  "Do it," the Colonel says. "If we can find out where they are, we can hit them hard before they know we're coming! That Souverain's a loose cannon anyway, a vigilante. If she gets caught up in the middle of this, that's her own fault."

  Told that girl she was going to cause me trouble.

  "Colonel?" Lane interrupts.

  "What is it, lieutenant?" The Colonel responds. He sounds annoyed.

  "That's not Souverain," she says.

  The Colonel looks at her, curious. His eyes narrow into a squint.

  "You got something you want to tell me, Lane?" he asks.

  "I've, uh, seen Souverain before. Sir. That's not her," Lane says. "It looks like they've dressed up a little girl, sir. Souverain is a grown woman."

  "Peterson, can you play that back?" The Colonel asks. Peterson types in commands and the footage replays.

  "....orking for the occupiers. The invaders. This makes her our enemy..."

  "Pause it!" The Colonel commands. The image on the screen freezes. The Colonel squints in at the image, looking at the girl in the Souverain mask, and the man masked in black at her side. "Gaddamnit. Lane's right. That's a little girl. Those animals are dressing up their freakin' kids, now."

  "I don't think that's their kid, sir," Lane protests.

  "What's that, Lane?"

  "Well, uh, Colonel... it's her eyes. Look at her eyes. She looks scared. And he's got a gun on her," she points out.

  The Colonel looks at the screen again.

  "Huh. You may be right, Lane. Probably grabbed some poor kid off the street. Well, I'll tell the strike force to watch out for her when we go in, Lane." The Colonel adjusts his cap and then turns to leave the monitor room. "Peterson, keep monitoring for that feed and let me know when you get a fix on the location," he calls back behind him as he goes. "I'm getting the strike team together. We'll have the choppers ready to go when we get it."

  "Yessir!"

  Lieutenant Lane relaxes a little with the Colonel out of the room. She looks at the image - the same image - on each of the lower three screens: A masked man in black, yelling at the camera, holding the little girl dressed like Souverain out in front of him with one hand and waving a Kalashnikov rifle with the other.

  Peterson sits back down in the chair. He begins to type.

  "Ha!" Peterson suddenly bursts out laughing. "I can't, oh my god, those guys."

  "What?" Lane asks, a little peeved.

  "I can't repeat it. The, uh, joke, I mean. The guys back at Langley just made a good one. You wouldn't get it."

  "Try me. I know enough about computers."

  Peterson actually blushes. "It wasn't a computer joke," he says in a small voice. "It was, uh, kind of inappropriate, I guess." The guy regains his composure. "Just a joke."

  Lane glares at him. Her mind goes into dark places as she imagines the content.

  "You Sexist pigs making jokes about women in captivity?!" She challenges the tech.

  "Lieutenant Lane?" The Colonel calls to her from the corridor before Lane can act on her impulse to punch Peterson in the head. "Could I have a word with you?"

  "Yes, sir?" She answers in both word and action, leaving Peterson behind in the monitor room as she finds the Colonel in the corridor. He beckons her over away from the door, where he can talk to her without being overheard.

  "I'm going to give you some advice , Lane," the Colonel tells her. "You see these bars?" He points to the bars on his collar.

  "Yessir?"

  "You get ahead in this Army because of what you know. Know what I mean?"

  "I think so, sir," Lane answers.

  The Colonel looks her in the eye. He seems... sharper, for the moment.

  "Sometimes, Lane? It's what you don't know... or what you decide you're not going to know... that can also help you get ahead. Do you understand what I mean by that?"

  "Um, I might, I guess, sir. Sometimes you have to
pretend you don't know things?" Lane asks. She's not sure where the Colonel is going with this, and doesn't want to give anything away.

  "Not pretend, Lane. You simply don't allow yourself to know what it is you're not supposed to know. And I've gotten far enough along to know the things that I'm supposed to know, and the things I'm not supposed to know. And I know the trick of knowing the difference."

  Lane is no longer sure it was sharpness she was seeing in the Colonel's eyes.

  "That's handy for getting ahead in the U.S. Army, let me tell you," he continues. "But I also find it handy when there's someone doing good work I approve of – but when, if I knew that person was doing that work, I'd have to put a stop to it. So. Sometimes it's good not to know, you know?"

  "I think I know," Lane tells him.

  "Why don't you knock off for the day now, Lane. You're, uh, tired," the Colonel says. "Besides. Strike team's going to be ready to hit the house where they've got that girl in about an hour. Not knowing what I don't know, that might give someone enough time to get the girl out of there. Not that I know what I'm talking about."

  "That's funny," Lane says, now playing along. "Because I didn't hear you say anything. You know?"

  "Atta girl," the Colonel says, and for once Lane doesn't mind hearing it. "You get some rest."

  "Right sir!"

  Lane takes off down the corridor, and then out of Command and Control. She heads across the green zone to her barracks.

  Her bunk looks so inviting.

  She's tempted to rest, but manages to stay on her feet as she pulls on her gear. There's no time to sleep, not now. She has about an hour to get in and get out of that house with the girl.

  "They want Souverain? Those murderers are gonna GET Souverain!" She talks to herself as she gets ready to go, psyching herself up.

  She'll use