She said, “You’re a good man, Nephilim. Don’t try to make me into less.”

I turned to Jennifer, seeing embarrassment. And I understood it was true. Whatever had happened in the back of that van had been violent, and Jennifer had won. Which, because I’m a little bit of a Cro-Magnon, made me secretly slap the ground and cheer.

And Shoshana knew how I would react. She didn’t give a rat’s ass about her reputation. She was focused on the mission, and she was manipulating me to get it done.

I leaned back, acting like I was considering, but everyone understood it was for show. Shoshana could barely conceal her disdain for the act. Aaron waited patiently.

I said, “Okay, we’re in play here. We’ve got to get you guys outfitted and cover some basic contingencies. We’ve got a support team in a separate bird, and they’ll actually control our actions. We can’t meet them—ever—except for the drop-off of the precious cargo. They’re going into Albania under a completely different cover. We get Rashid, and that’s the only time we’ll meet. I’m sure you’re used to operating that way.”

Aaron said, “Yes, yes, we get the game. You made us leave our weapons and equipment. How will we do this?”

I said, “Knuckles, you want to show them the reason we fly with such incredible luxury?”

He said, “My pleasure. Follow me.”

They moved to the aisle and I stood, feeling Jennifer’s hand jerking my sleeve. I turned back to her and she said, “Pike . . . you know when we left the van, I didn’t think she’d kill al-Britani. Right?”

I stopped, looked her in the eye, and said, “I know. I believe you.” She glanced down at the floor and I took her hand. She looked at me again and I said, “I know.”

She paused, wanting to say something else.

“What?”

And, because I’ll never figure her out, Jennifer changed tack. “I think that whole report on the Lost Boys is crap. I don’t believe it.”

Like a guy seeing a car wreck, then trying to process it, I had to rewind her words to make sense. I said, “Jennifer, they’ve got the best minds in the world working on it. If they say it’s just a nickname, it probably is.”

“Maybe, but as far as the ‘best minds’ go, you rank right up with them. You’ve proven them wrong more times than they’ve been proven right. Half the time they’re predicting sunshine in a snowstorm.”

I moved down the aisle, saying, “Okay, okay. One mission at a time.”

She said nothing else and we reached the back of the aircraft. Brett said, “I guess we’re a go?”

Knuckles said, “Yeah, believe it or not. Let’s show our guests what they’ve won.”

Retro grinned and turned to the wall above the kitchen galley. He inserted a special tool into what looked like a straight plastic covering, firmly riveted in place. Magically, the entire panel fell away, exposing an interior full of armament where ordinarily the noise insulation would be. The entire aircraft was built as an infiltration platform, and housed everything from weapons to surveillance kits, all camouflaged to defeat host-nation customs and immigration.

Aaron said, “Very impressive. And we can choose what we want?”

Feeling superior, I glanced at the wall and did a double take. I saw a bunch of guns that shouldn’t have been there.

I said, “What the hell is this? What are those?”

Confused, Knuckles said, “What do you mean?”

I stabbed my finger at a black rifle hanging on a hook. It looked like an M4 that had been chopped down, with a collapsible stock and a bulbous suppressor running off of a nine-inch barrel, the free-floating aluminum hand guard acting as a sleeve over both, with Picatinny rails sprouting all over. Something from a movie set.

“This, damn it. What is it?”

The weapon was nothing like the HK UMP we ordinarily used, a .45-caliber sub-gun that could be suppressed without significant alteration of zero because the round was subsonic to begin with. Which is why we used it.

Sheepishly, Knuckles said, “We went away from the UMP. I thought, since you were a ‘team leader’ again, someone would have told you.”

Aaron went back and forth between us, I’m sure wondering if we were clowns in a circus and whether he wanted to put on the four-foot shoes.

Since Panda was a pure intelligence collection mission, we hadn’t needed a great deal of equipment in Kenya. We’d flown into Nairobi commercial, hiding our Glocks and surveillance kit the old-fashioned way: by breaking them apart in our checked luggage. When we’d redirected to Jordan for a capture mission, I’d asked for the deployment of the rock-star bird, complete with a package hidden inside. Due to cover concerns, it had arrived too late to be of any use, but would come in handy in Albania. Or so I thought. I hadn’t realized my idea of a “package” was now old news.

I said, “Nobody told me shit. So you don’t have my UMP here? The one zeroed for me.”

“Uh . . . no. But we do have the ability to zero. With lasers. Right here in the plane.”

Glancing at Aaron, and not wanting to make us look any worse, I said, “Okay, okay. What am I looking at?”

“Nothing more than an integrally suppressed AR, with some unique properties. Built by Primary Weapon Systems, it’s got a proprietary long-stroke piston system, making it much more reliable than the old gas AR guns like the M4.”

I said, “And that was worth the switch? Since when did we have issues with the UMP’s reliability?”

“Reliability wasn’t the problem. The caliber was. The PWS system is chambered in 300 Blackout. Much, much more knockdown power than the UMP’s forty-five. The can is Gemtech. Believe it or not, it’s shorter than the UMP suppressor, and it’s built specifically for the Blackout round. In subsonic, it sounds like a pellet gun.”

He saw my look and said, “You have to admit, we’ve been in some gunfights where the reach of the UMP was questionable. I know when we created the Taskforce we all talked about how the fighting would be within a room, but it hasn’t worked out that way.”

I said, “That’s why we have the HK416. There are different tools for each job. I can’t believe the Taskforce just switched complete weapon systems based on one idiot’s recommendation. The damn UMP worked fine. It was concealable, and had serious knockdown power for close quarters. Now you want me to tote an AR?”

He gave me his I’m going to act like I agree until I tell you you’re wrong look, something I’d seen for more years than I could count.

He said, “Yeah, okay, but let’s do some counting. One, Bosnia. Outgunned from a distance. Two, Hungary. Outgunned from a distance. Three, Egypt. Outgunned from a distance. Four, Ireland. Not outgunned from a distance, because you gave Jennifer a 416. I could go on, but those are off the top of my head, in operations with you. I’m sick of that shit.”

When I heard that, I knew arguing was going nowhere. Clearly, he was the man who’d done the testing, convincing the Taskforce to change, and I’d just insulted him with my comments.

He continued, ticking off statements on his fingers, “The 300 Blackout in supersonic has much greater knockdown power, and in subsonic it beats anything in its class. The HOLOsight has a Mil-Dot calibrated for both, so you don’t have to worry about zero problems if you switch from sub to supersonic, and the Gemtech suppressor can handle both just fine. In fact, better than fine. It doesn’t have the range of 5.56, but it works great for its purpose. A gap that needed to be closed. The PWS system will clear a room just like the UMP, but beyond that, it’ll clear a block when shit gets bad. Unlike the UMP.”

I grinned, and he backed off. I pulled one off the rack and said, “It’s a little big.”

He said, “Bullshit. It’s a little heavier, but it’s not big. What you’re holding is a massive half inch longer than a suppressed UMP. Half inch. The only reason it’s heavy is because it’s made with actual metal instead of that plastic crap that kept breaking on the UMP.”