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STACCATO GUNFIRE RIPPED through the air, illuminating Anh Dung and the large field with muzzle flashes and glowing tracer rounds. Sara blocked her ears, though she couldn’t help but watch the tracers soaring over her head, cutting into the field and mowing it down. It was as though they had been transported back in time to when their mission began so badly. Bullets flying. Tracers glowing. People dying. The only difference was that this time she didn’t scream. She barely flinched.

Hybrids and old mothers wailed out as high-powered bullets slashed through their bodies as easily as they did the grass. Land mines exploded as those not cut down by the bullets fled through the field. The fight, if it could be called that, lasted only ten seconds.

King turned from the carnage and looked at the attacking force. Fifty men, dressed head to toe in black, lacking any insignia or marking of any kind. With eyes hidden behind rounded goggles and odd-looking face masks covering noses and mouths, their identities were cloaked. But King knew exactly who they were. He’d worn the very same gear on several missions.

“Cease fire!”

Delta.

And a lot of them.

Floodlights behind the line of soldiers flashed on. The field, now lit as though by the sun, revealed its carnage. Blood and chunks of flesh clung to thick reeds of grass. Depressions in the field marked where bodies had fallen. The Neanderthals, both hybrid and original model, hadn’t stood a chance.

Weston was right, Sara thought, nature selected one of the races to extinction, but it wasn’t humanity at the hands of Brugada. Humanity was far too good at killing to lose this fight. Even if Weston hadn’t let them go, this massive force of men would have stormed the halls of Mount Meru until the cure was found. And nothing Weston did could have changed that.

The Chess Team stood together as the soldiers descended on their position. The others kept watch on the decimated field.

A single black-clothed soldier stepped in front of the rest, approaching King.

“You have the cure?” The voice was deep, modulated to disguise the identity of the man speaking.

King stared back in silence, trying to figure out if he knew the man behind the mask. Something in the modulated voice sounded familiar.

“After all this time, you don’t trust me?” There it was. King recognized the sarcasm as the one member of the team missing since this debacle of a mission began.

“Deep Blue?”

Deep Blue nodded. “We’ll catch up on the way home . . . if you’ve got the cure. If not, I’ve brought some friends to make sure we do.”

“Could have used them a few days ago.”

“I know,” Deep Blue said. “I’m sorry.” He looked over the group standing before him. Rook, beaten and bleeding from gashes on his chest and what looked like a bite wound on his shoulder. Queen, sporting a swollen red brand on her forehead. Knight, standing on one leg. Bishop, looking hale as ever, but different. More . . . at peace. Pawn, the civilian, her back bleeding beneath her torn shirt. And King, a bullet wound in his shoulder. He noted the missing member.

“Pawn Two?”

“Gone,” King said. “Killed.”

Deep Blue’s head hung for a moment. “And the cure?”

“We have it.”

A rustle of grass brought fifty assault rifles to bear on a single location at the edge of the field. A lone figure stumbled into view.

Red.

Her body bled from three bullet wounds, one in her arm, two in a thigh. She hobbled a few feet from the grass and stopped, looking at the silhouettes lined up in front of the blazing bright light. She heard a few of the men curse and say, “What the hell?” She ignored them, looking for only one person. “Rook.”

Two more figures emerged from the field, also wounded, but not mortally. Two hybrids, male and female. They stood by Red, placing their hands on her thick mane.

“Rook!” Red shouted with a snarl.

“On my mark,” Deep Blue said.

“Wait!” Rook shouted, stepping out of the bright light and moving toward Red and the hybrids.

“Rook,” King said, his voice a warning.

Rook held up his hand, signaling them to wait. He stepped down the slight grade, stopping a few feet in front of Red. He crouched down.

“You father,” Red said.

Rook nodded. “Weston is dead.”

“You come now.”

“No.”

Red roared, pounded the ground, and charged forward.

Rook side-stepped, took the injured old mother by the back of her neck, and flung her to the ground. He knew if she hadn’t been injured the result might have been different, but dominance had to be established.

He stood above her.

She looked up at him, her chest heaving with each breath.

“Leave. Now.” He motioned to the hybrids. “And take them.”

Red huffed and got back to her feet. She growled for a moment, then frowned. “Rook come again?”

“Not a chance.”

Red looked at the soldiers aiming their weapons at her, then shook her head and turned around. She limped back into the grass, followed by her two children. They disappeared into the field.

“Rook,” Queen said, her voice tinged with annoyance. “We can’t let them leave. They’ve killed people. The villagers here. Somi.”

“This is their home,” Rook said. “It was before there was a human race. They were just protecting their home. We do the same thing every day on the job.”

“Sir!” A man ran toward the group, wearing all black like the others but sporting a pilot’s helmet. “We’ve got two MIG-21 inbound on our position.”

“ETA?” Deep Blue asked.

“Five minutes.”

“All right,” Deep Blue shouted. “Pack it up. It’s time to disappear.”

The soldiers sprang into action, falling back toward the floodlights.

“You six are with me,” Deep Blue said, leading them past the ravaged huts of Anh Dung where five UH-100S stealth Blackhawk transport helicopters waited, rotors beginning to spin.

Thirty seconds later, the reunited and complete Chess Team were cruising low over the jungle, headed south over Cambodia to the South China Sea, where they would rendezvous with the USS Kitty Hawk carrier group conducting “routine exercises.”

AN HOUR LATER, the five stealth Blackhawks chopped over the open ocean. The central Blackhawk in the V-shaped formation contained the Chess Team. Each wrapped in a thick wool blanket, they began to relax for the first time in days. If they hadn’t been so intent on telling their story, the droning chop of the helicopter rotors would have lulled them to sleep. But the story begged to be told. They recounted their experiences with the Neo Khmer, the VPLA, Weston, the Neanderthals, and their half-breed brood. Deep Blue listened silently, all hints of whether or not he believed the tale hidden behind his mask.

When their story concluded with the confrontation in the field, Deep Blue nodded. “Glad we arrived when we did.”

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Queen said, “what the hell took so long?”

“I was indisposed.”

The six people sitting around him, who had been dipped in shit and come out clean, looked at him with dubious eyes. He’d have to do better than that.

Deep Blue sat still for a moment, his thoughts impossible to perceive while his mystery face was hidden from them. He glanced into the cockpit, made sure the pilots weren’t looking, and turned back to the others. “I was infected . . . am infected with Brugada. And I am the reason you were sent on this mission.”

He reached back and pulled his mask up and over his head. A handsome face all of them recognized immediately smiled at them.

President Duncan.

“Holy—,” Rook said.

“I don’t believe it,” Knight whispered.

Sara was more stunned than the rest. “Mr. President,” she said, offering her hand. Out of the six, she was the only one to have met him before, virtually, as she briefed the quarantined White House via video conference.

He shook her hand. “Nice to finally meet you in person.” He turned to King. “I was going to tell you last week. At the barbeque.” He shrugged. “Something came up.”

“Can we get a rain check on that barbeque?” Queen asked.

Duncan smiled. “As far as I’m concerned, you all can have anything you want.”

King leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “A barbeque will do.”

Sara looked over at the Chess Team. She had started to feel like she might have the potential to be like them. And she’d fought her way through the jungle, been captured, beaten, and shot at. She’d bit a man to get the cure to Brugada. She’d fought with mankind’s ancient enemy gone feral, whether from genetic assimilation or hyper-evolution she’d never know. And had no desire to find out. She didn’t want a barbeque, she wanted a million dollars, a yacht, and full-time masseuse. But these five, all they wanted was a cold beer and some ribs. Their commitment to their country, to all of humanity, went beyond anything she could conceive. They’d saved the world and wanted nothing for it. Despite all the failings she saw in them when she first met them, she saw them for what they truly were: heroes.