I mean children.

  Yes. Of course. Do you think it’s possible?

  I’m not sure your mother would approve.

  Why would anyone not want grandchildren?

  Well, said Sun. She’s very focused on all this. The work.

  But all this is for family, I said. Otherwise, what’s the point?

  Good answer, she said, stepping in to kiss me.

  The solstice was barely a memory when I got notification of my next deployment. I was given a script to memorize, and at home I delivered it, word for word, as instructed. Some needlessly complex fib about a citrus disease rife in Perth and a trading opportunity we couldn’t pass up.

  Sun received the news of my imminent departure soberly, without surprise. As if she’d been steeling herself for it. I struggled to hide my exhilaration. I felt vindicated. I didn’t really understand how the Service could have gauged my recovery, but I was galvanized by the prospect of seeing action again, and in the days leading up to my departure I worked ever harder to manage myself.

  The night before I left, my mother crossed the compound on foot and hugged me with surprising ferocity. Be careful, she said. I’ll take care of things here.

  That night, I didn’t sleep at all. And from the way she lay, motionless and silent beside me, I was sure Sun was awake as well. But when I went downstairs two hours before dawn to lash my load of grafted citrus stock to the trailer, she stayed in bed. It was only in the hot minutes before first light that I sensed her standing beside me as I worked.

  We built a good house here, she said.

  We did.

  I finished stowing perishables on the rear tray of the vehicle and then stood with her wordlessly a moment. I felt queasy. Couldn’t tell if it was from excitement, dread, or guilt.

  Sun pressed something small into my palm.

  Here, she said.

  In the beam of my headlamp I saw the lozenge of jasper from the midden in the rock shelter.

  Something to hold, she said. Something to remind yourself.

  Of home.

  No, she said. Work.

  Confused, I pocketed the stone and hugged her.

  I’ll always come back, I said.

  Yes, she said. You’ll try. I know.

  When I flipped the lamp off, the darkness was so complete that if not for Sun’s cashew scent I wouldn’t have known she was still there.

  Life, I said. It needn’t be just work.

  To everything a season.

  What’s that one about passion again?

  Without passion, a soul is just latent force and possibility. Like the flint waiting for the shock of the iron.

  Maybe that’s you, then?

  Made of iron? I doubt it, she said.

  We’ll get our time.

  Yes. And the passion?

  Don’t worry, I said. You still shock me. Every day.

  We reached for each other in the dark. My mother never showed.

  We only got the briefing once we made landfall. That was six days after the initial muster. The planners didn’t sugarcoat the show for us. It presented, they said, a high degree of difficulty. But from the orders and intel they laid out, there was nothing to suggest the job would be anything out of the ordinary. It sounded like a standard long-haul interdiction.

  The country below was parched and riven. It looked like a smashed plate. High desert. Canyon country. It was eerie. To be on the other side of the world and feel such a sense of familiarity.

  Two hours before set-down, I was told I’d be the senior for the ground team. That’s how tight they were about security. I certainly hadn’t expected to lead the show. But the plan and the orders were straightforward. I knew I was capable. It felt like a reward for faithfulness and persistence. Vindication.

  The set-down was tidy. But the stat was already gone before we logged what was missing. The drones and the thermal wraps were listed on the manifest clipped into each cargo shell, but they were not in our kit.

  They’ll be out over the Pacific already, I said, as we took stock of the sun-blasted plateau.

  Fucking Supply, said the dark comrade, a woman with a face full of silver teeth.

  At least the makers arrived, said another operator, also a woman, in an accent that sounded Spanish.

  Saves drinking our own piss, said one of the young blokes.

  That never works anyway, said Silver Teeth in the clipped inflections of the Highveld.

  Coño, said Spanish, I bet the joven never tried.

  Well, I’ve tried, said Silver Teeth. No recomendada.

  Me too, she said. Joder eso.

  Okay, you piss drinkers, I said. Let’s bury these cases and strap up.

  There were six in the ground team. Good operators, all of us. This was the America job. Former Republic of Utah. Okay?

  Discipline shapes and protects our enterprise, they told me in Basic. But its core must be personal as well as collective. To preserve and maintain honour, discipline has to hold at every level. Our cause is not a crusade of vengeance. Actions in the field should be executed dispassionately. Our role is to prevent, not to cure. To purify, not to conquer.

  So what’s the end point? I remember asking. What do we do when the slate is finally clean?

  Then we stand down, they said. We become civilians. As if the Service never existed.

  So we’re gardeners, not janitors.

  Yes, they said. We water. And we weed. And allow growth. Whatever emerges will be organic.

  You don’t think this plan is a little trusting, a bit hopeful?

  How do you think this mosaic of associations and syndicates arose? they asked. How do you think the Long Peace has been achieved and maintained? By husbandry. Benign and impartial.

  You mean that was us?

  Those who came before. And those who’ll succeed us. This is no airy daydream. The Long Peace is real. And we’ll tend it for the sake of the common good. In obscurity. And when the end comes, we’ll stand down and rejoice.

  The trek in was a thirty-hour traverse. We did it nonstop. Keeping to schedule. As ordered.

  That was a tough trip, no question. You wouldn’t survive it today, not even in a suit. Back then, a hike like that, at pace, in country so hot, it was no jolly jaunt.

  As it fell away from the plateau, the lower plain was an eerie prospect. Dune fields of ash. With stretches of hard, glazed earth between. Lucky for us, there was no wind, but I still ordered breathers on while we crossed the drifts.

  All day and all night, there was nothing to see out there. No infrastructure, no tracks, no indications at all. Once we got to the critical zone, where a gentle gibber slope suggested a draw, I watered and rested the crew. We dozed under camo in the filthy-hot morning and, when we’d fed and strapped up again, we went down in patrol formation. Found the canyon mouth, then retreated to reconnoitre the hinterland around it. This work took the rest of the day, as expected. And as per our intel, there was nothing to see. Nothing human, anyway. And we were thorough. You wouldn’t have found a crew more scrupulous. As ever, none of us had met before embarkation. But everything about the bearing and conduct of the team suggested Planning had assembled a top-shelf crew. And that gave me confidence.

  We scoured every secondary ravine and overhang for tunnel exits, refuse pits, swarf, rubble – anything. There were no birds. Very few insects. We didn’t expect to see animals. Intel had the nearest formal settlement a week’s march south.

  Once we’d circled back to the wide, gibber-strewn draw at the mouth of the canyon, I watered the team again, had the maker secreted where we could find it easily on the return trip, and stood us to. There was no expectation of surveillance – this detail was explicit in the briefing. But given the nature of the stronghold, an assertion like that was hard for an experienced operator to accept, so I was determined, for safety’s sake, to act as if we were being watched at every turn.

  I gave it six hours. And nothing happened. No one showed. Everything was aligning as anticipated.

  So, under cover of darkness, we entered the canyon. Moving with painstaking care. Literally one ponderous step at a time. So slowly, it felt we were hardly travelling at all. And yet in time the canyon began to narrow. Its towering walls pressed in closer until we were forced to forsake the relative luxury of the open floor, with its river of sand and islands of cobbles, and press ourselves against the base of the stone ramparts. Here the footing was uncertain, the ground a jumble of fallen shale. By the time we reached the blind end of the canyon it was almost daybreak, but I was confident we’d reached our destination.

  I signalled for daylight posture. Everyone sought some kind of overhang or cleft in which to wait things out. And then, in tantalizing increments, the light came up. The first sun struck the brow of the bluff. Then, with a languor that messed with my thoughts, it painted the buttress beneath it, creeping down its tawny face until, toward midday, the canyon floor brightened treacherously, and hour by hour we pressed back deeper into any shadow or cover that remained. Not just to escape detection but to avoid being roasted alive.

  I hoped to hell our intel was sound. There was plenty of time to wonder.

  It’s no sport lying on your belly or your back for twelve hours in the grinding heat. Sucking protein stems. Shitting where you are. In a diaper. Making a motionless ghost of yourself. By mid-afternoon, in those conditions, even your thoughts sound noisy enough to give you away.

  Dusk fell with cruel torpor. Once it was finally dark, I signalled the stand to and night glasses on. And then, an hour later, at full darkness, I gave the order to move up into offensive posture.

  Our two climbers picked their way across the cobbles and sand to the base of the canyon wall. The rest of us hauled up slowly to our firing positions. The sweat began to freeze on me before I was even settled. The desert sky was blank. The air tasted metallic.

  Out before us stood the towering rock face. Without night vision, just a silent vertical slab, a field of grey against the black beyond. With the thermal down, it was a grainy, pale void with the swimmy texture of sleep.

  The heat plumes were there as promised. It took a while to adjust sufficiently to find them, but they were unmistakable. High on the bluff, just short of the crest. Two of them. Both were nicely baffled and well disguised, but under night-viz they were exactly what we needed to see. Something incontrovertibly discordant. In the middle of nothing and nowhere, two beautiful, shimmering green columns. My blood jumped at the sight. For the confirmation. And the pride of having made it to the right spot despite everything.

  Exhaust plumes. As a signal of human occupation, this was a major tell. Because every bolthole, however well hidden, needs ventilation. And keeping a large household in a sealed fortress depends on circulating air, filtration, cooling. Every bit of that effort produces heat. And that must be vented somewhere. So a pair of industrial-scale heat plumes made it nearly certain that a fearsome citadel lay within this canyon wall.

  I scoped our flanks. Saw the higher team to my right vigorously signalling confirmation. The sight of those plumes had clearly buoyed morale.

  I checked my piece. Fourteen minutes to spare. Meaning we’d barely gotten ourselves set in time for kick-off.

  But there was no kick-off.

  Nineteen-forty-five hours came. And went. And nothing happened.

  The colder the desert air got, the clearer those vent plumes became. Long and wavering. Green as the ponderosa pines in the old clips. Whose ashes we’d waded through the day before.

  Our vigil ground on. And despite myself, I could feel the sense of vindication beginning to decay.

  We stood to. All night. In the bitter cold. Our camo lattice was as effective for insulation as it was for shade. Which meant we froze. Those green wands danced and wavered above us. And our eyes went dry and grainy from staring at them.

  We held position. Stayed staunch. Because that was our way, not just our job.

  An hour before dawn, seething but still calm, I ordered the stand down, and we withdrew to the canyon floor and daylight posture.

  We did the same thing again the next day. The day after that. And the night that followed.

  The nights were bad. But the days were worse. Not just because of the heat and the fact we were wedged into gaps and holes too small and too twisted or jagged to allow a moment’s comfort. And not simply because we couldn’t move except to suck blood-warm water from our bladder packs. It was the passivity of it. The helplessness. The understanding that during daylight hours there was no prospect of offensive action. At night, freezing as it was, we had the spark of anticipation to keep us sharp. In the dark there was, at least, the possibility of action. But by day, especially since our early certainty had been eroded, there was only endurance. Of one moment after another. And the dread feeling that everything might be turning to shit.

  We were schooled not to speculate on mission detail. For the sake of security. And because overthinking saps energy and morale. We were drilled to keep a hard body and a clean slate. But a man’s not a machine.

  After the second day in that box canyon, I began to question everything we’d been told about this mission. And by the next night, the intel had begun to feel fatally soft.

  I still believed we were at the correct site. Geographically, everything aligned. The distances, the dimensions of the canyon. But in all this time, the only other confirmation had been the exhaust. Which had seemed convincing initially. But this whole scenario. Was it real? Was there really a citadel here? Was our object really bunkered within all that stone? And was he still none the wiser to our presence? Or was all this just an elaborate decoy?

  You know this already, comrade: a single no-show could be explained away. But two consecutive failures to conform? That was red-flag territory.

  I determined that if nothing happened by zero-hundred hours of that third night of standing to, we’d withdraw and bolt back to the uplift point. But this was not a pretty option. People – hundreds of them, for all I knew – had probably worked on this job for years. The groundwork for an op this big was astronomical. No senior liked to come in from a job empty-handed. We were not the kind to die wondering. But I had the lives of five good operators to consider.

  It was all well and good to have these vent plumes, but we’d seen no movement, sound, smell. Not a single corroborating sign of habitation. If this wasn’t a dummy location to begin with, then there was every chance our object and his company had already scarpered. Which meant that a ground force, or something worse, could soon be upon us. The longer we held on here without shelter or resupply, the more vulnerable we became. We were weatherworn already, and a long way from the watermaker at the canyon mouth. So I was resolved: tonight was it.

  Darkness fell. And we did it all again. Glasses down. Night posture.

  The climbers creeping out with coils on their backs, cartridges in hand. The rest of us crawling up to best vantage either side.

  According to Intel, our object emerged once every evening. At 1945 hours, he came up through an airlock and stepped out onto a long parapet cut into the bluff. Above this terrace lookout was a landing pad which had once been, but perhaps no longer was, remotely defended. Without confirmation, we had to take this on trust. It wasn’t my business to know how this information had been obtained. But neither the parapet nor the gyro pad was fully visible from our positions. The terrace seemed to be distinguishable, if only partially. But the landing pad was still unsighted from these angles. Without drones, we were guessing.

  I accepted there was a decent chance that lofty balcony was broad and deep enough to mask the flare generated by body heat. The parapet wall around it would be high, and probably a metre thick. Whichever clan had built this stronghold would surely have had the means to do it right. There was no point going to the trouble unless they could guarantee themselves total discretion, optimal strength, maximum security. And with their sort of history, they’d be highly motivated. They’d have seven billion reasons to be careful. Objects like this one hadn’t held out so long by accident. By and large, these types were as ruthless in defending themselves as they’d been in the pursuit of their fortunes and the conduct of their empires.

  Maybe that’s why we hadn’t seen him. For all we knew he’d come out both nights. Been out and back, undetected. Because he was canny, and his fortress well designed. Not a thought I wanted to entertain. And yet, there it was, heavy in my mind. Bloody Supply.

  I’d been trained to trust our intel. You’d go mad if you didn’t. But the days and nights had eaten into me. And I was thinking, seriously now, about whether any of what we’d been told was credible. Like the reported absence of mercenaries. In the briefing, that detail was jarring. No mercenaries? No confirmed defences at all? It could have been misdirection on the part of the object. Maybe the Intel assets had fed us bullshit to set a trap. But our planners were adamant. And it was true, no force had slipped in behind us. No airborne assault had arrived to take us by surprise. As yet, there’d been no defensive action from the citadel of any kind.

  Although I was still a young operator, I was by then well-acquainted with depravity. I began to wonder if this joker could be one of those inbred nutjobs you encountered now and then. Because, by all accounts, not only was he going undefended, he’d reportedly discharged his entourage. Eighteen months back. Apart from kin, he had no household to speak of.

  The prospect of eccentricity rattled me. In this entire complex, behind that cliff face, there were, supposedly, only four individuals. The object. His wife. And two children. Nobody else. I’d seen it there in the docs, but I struggled to believe it. I just couldn’t see how it was possible. As a longstanding arrangement, it simply couldn’t be. Bastions and bloodlines like these didn’t hold for generations without layers of personnel. These creatures required servants, mercenaries, technicians. But according to our assets, this peculiar divergence was recent. And personal. Like some sort of whim, or a burst of innovation. Which, of course, explained the sudden flow of information to the Service and its assets; the fact that we were there at all.