The agent's breath misted in the cold air while she studied the crime scene. Around her, the crack of gunfire and the boom of cannon echoed around the desert landscape. A Marine Harrier jet banked overhead with a scream of jet engines. It was only in this small patch of the Twentynine Palms training range where the chaos of mock battle had ended. Years as a police detective and later training as a marshal told her the story. Blood on the Humvee to the right where the attack had begun. Footprints in the dirt--combat boots and bare feet--along with blood trails told the tale of desperate flight and battle. Just before her were the dead. She pulled cloth away from the battered face.
Sierra Tango, she thought as she examined features best left in George Romero's imagination and eyes sewn shut with sinew. The official euphemism brought over from the original military component of CENTURION. The agent preferred the simpler, more direct term used by the US Marshals who served the CENTURION program under SCUTUM's banner: Delta or Victor. Demon. Vampire. Her comfortable assurance that such things could not exist had been shattered years ago. It had cost her her sanity, her father, the respect of her peers. Nearly her life on several occasions and definitely her career, until one day a man in a sober suit from a government program that didn't officially exist came to make her an offer. For the past two years she had investigated scenes just like this. The only consolation was that this time the Deltas were the corpses.
Kate Lockley nodded to the lead forensic on her team. She left the crime scene to them to interview the knot of people standing at the edge of the spotlit area. Marine Corps CID and the base's NCIS agent guarding them avoided meeting her gaze. Kate did not mind. Once, she had thought her fellow LA cops stupid or blind. Now she knew it was a survival instinct for the mind and soul not to know what was out there. At least, as a marshal her relationship was somewhat more amicable with local police than that of the overbearing FBI. The cooperative nature of the Marshals Service--not to the unfortunate potential for Mulder and Scully jokes--had made it the host agency for SCUTUM rather than the Fibbies.
Within their circle waited a squad of Marines dressed, incongruously, in the shalwar kameez and turbans of Afghanistan rebels. Bloodstained AK-47's fitted with MILES laser-training gear were being bagged as evidence by the CID boys. Like the rest of the weapons on the range, they could only fire blanks. Unfortunately for the unidentified Deltas an angry squad of experienced Marine Corps combat instructors armed with fists, boots, bayonets and (according to the markings on one body) teeth could never be accused of being "unarmed". One of them stood by a much younger Marine being tended to by a naval hospital corpsman. His camouflaged utilities blouse was off, leaving him in just an olive undershirt rucked up to allow the corpsman to suture the gash in his side. The softness of the Marine's features and the constellation of freckles on his cheeks made him seem little more than sixteen. Bright ginger hair cropped short gleamed under the spotlights. Only the bloodstained fighting knife clutched in a deathgrip betrayed that the baby-faced man had accounted for at least one Delta.
"Hello." She smiled at him in the manner reserved for true victims. "I'm Deputy Marshal Lockley, assisting NCIS on this case. I'd like you to ask a few questions."
"No problem, ma'am," the Marine answered. The words were accented by a Southern mountain twang strong as chicory coffee. "Pardon me for not getting to attention, but the staff sergeant here said he'd whup me one for being stupid enough to try it."
"That's alright." Kate opened a small notebook. "The case was referred to me suddenly, so I don't know all the details. Your name?"
"Lance-Corporal Agatha Putnam, ma'am."
"Um." Kate blinked. His voice was far too high pitched. No, not him. Her. Kate attempted to regain a semblance of her professional demeanor. "Yes, thanks. Now, the officer who took your statement said you came out here to assist the observers?"
"Yep, damn Hummer broke down." Putnam gestured with--thankfully--her free hand. "Knew it would, particular one was running rich. Told my lieutenant that, but you know how it goes. Pressure's always on during a Mojave Viper. Came out with a couple of others from the motor pool..."
"It's alright." Lockley squeezed the Marine's shoulder. Putnam's breath huffed in short, panicked bursts. "Tell me at your own pace what happened next."
"Came out've nowhere." Putnam shivered. "Quiet, fast, swarmed us. None us even had M16's loaded with blanks. We weren't part of the exercise. Sumbitches went after us with knives, never even said-- What are they?"
"Fanatical Islamist sect ." The flimsy cover story had been concocted on the fly on the flight over. "They mutilate themselves and use daggers for assassination to prove their devotion to jihad. Very skilled in blind fighting."
"Al-Qaeda, huh?" Putnam spat in their direction. "Why I joined up right after the Towers went down. So I sent a few of 'em to meet Allah, huh?"
"Oorah," the sergeant rumbled. Even at rest, he loomed like a main battle tank. "Earned that green belt of yours. Two of them down before we got here. "
"Aww," Putnam mumbled. Her ears flushed almost to match her hair. "I'd should done what you said to do when some crazy bastard comes at you with a blade: get the hell outta there."
"'Advance in the opposite direction'," the sergeant corrected. He turned to face Lockley. "Look, I can give you the rest. Captain Masters, one of the observers, managed to get on the radio while the lance-coolie here was busy. We were out as insurgent OPFOR, shadowing a convoy the observers were judging. Got here as quick as we could."
"And you..." Kate raised a brow at the devastation.
"Like to think they died of natural causes." The NCO smiled, showing what Kate briefly thought were fangs. "Pissing us off being natural causes. Me and the boys haven't had that much fun since we mixed it up with shore patrol in Diego in '98."
"The evidence bears that out." Inwardly, Kate rolled her eyes. Jarheads. She had met enough of the breed while liasing with Lieutenant-Colonel Ellis' GLADIUS unit. "Agatha, one last question. They seem to have concentrated on you rather than the others. Is there any reason to think you were a special target?"
"Me?" Putnam asked, shocked. "Ma'am, I'm just a Marine doing her job. Nothing special. I figure the only reason they were after me was 'cause I was stupid enough to swing instead of hiding under...uh finding cover like the officers, under the Hummer."
"Alright." Kate flipped her notepad closed. "From what we've seen, this is a clear case of self-defense against a terrorist attack. I don't expect any repercussions."
"Aw, that's great." Putnam sighed in relief. "See, I'm shipping out to the 'Stan in a week. Finally getting in theatre. Doc here says the cut ain't too bad, so I don't have to spend much time in sick bay. You sure, ma'am? Don't have to talk to me later?"
"I may ask the NCIS people in Okinawa for a follow-up interview when you pass through." Kate nodded. "Good night. Oh, and Lance-Corporal? You might want to let the nice detective take your knife as evidence."
"Ooops!"
Kate Lockley left Putnam and her fellow Marines to continue their lives. None of them seemed to suspect the unnatural nature of their enemy. Following up the possible threat was SCUTUM's job. Just another one to add to the huge pile the secret law-enforcement unit was already dealing with. It could be a random attack, a cult selecting Putnam based on some bizarre criteria, or the start of another damned apocalypse. You never really knew until someone in the intelligence analysis division put together the pieces. Kate made a mental note to ask Ellis to arrange protection for Agatha while deployed. The colonel was busy these days with the GLADIUS operation in Iraq, hunting down Saddam's weapons of mystical destruction caches. Still, he was protective of military victims. Ironically, the lance-corporal was probably safer on the tighter security of a field base. At least there she was only liable to face mortars or sniper fire.
Pausing, Kate scribbled something else down in her pad. Two words: "potential Slayer". CENTURION took a particular interest in cases where women showed skill in combat against the supernatural. Kate had watched, awed, at the video taken of the current Slayer during the debacle of the Demonic Research Initiative's Project ADAM. The two known examples of the breed were still alive, as far as CENTURION knew. They still liked to keep tabs on possible successors. Though, in reality, Putnam was likely yet another unfortunate who had prevailed briefly against the occult. No sign of inhuman strength, merely a motor pool Marine with a good grasp of fighting and a lot of luck.
Just like she had said. "Nothing special".