Cold Silence by James Abel

beneath a blanket of North American stars and past small wooden buildings that would look, to any spy satellite above tonight, like a normal “barn” and “chicken house” and “stable” and “fruit cellar.”
    At one time they had been those things, housing nothing worse than canned peaches or whinnying geldings or masses of docile poultry.
    But they were not those things anymore.
    Now the old stable was a barracks.
    The moon was a bright sickle shape over the forest surrounding the ninety-acre compound, with its trout pond, long paved driveway, cornfield and apple orchard, and two-story warehouses, stocked with food, guns, and explosives. The January breeze brought the smells of fresh snow and pine smoke, barn mulch and winter mist and farm animals: goats, chickens, guard dogs, llamas.
    His goal was the old Quaker era—1755—meeting house, on a two-acre lot that had been added onto the original purchase of the property by the Defense Department. It was a one-story building, bricked over, 1950s style, new slate roof, stovepipe chimney, and lights blazing inside. He saw, silhouetted in a large ground-floor window, a single delighted face watching him approach. Then more faces. Happy ones. Black and white, coffee colored and Asian.
    Men. Women. Some as young as nineteen. Some as old as seventy-four. No children allowed in the meeting house. No pets allowed. No smoking. No alcohol, except on holidays.
    Someone in there shouted, “Here he comes!”
    They sang to Harlan, “He’s here! He’s here! He’s here!”
    â€”
    â€œMr. Maas?” interrupted a voice behind him before he could enter. He whirled. Nobody had been there a moment before. Orrin Sykes stood there now, bundled against the cold, an M4 over his shoulder.
    Harlan halted on the steps, breath catching, but Sykes’s eyes were properly respectful, semiaverted, and even slightly cast down. Sykes had done well in Florida. Maas had not realized the force inside the man when he’d first arrived. Sykes’s quietness came across as shy anonymity. His ordinary looks gave no hint of the extraordinary violence inside, and the intelligence enabling him to carry it out. He could not be intimidated by anything except his own priorities. Sykes decided what he feared, and he had put Maas’s displeasure at the top of his list.
    Sykes, in fact, was the most dangerous human that Maas had ever met. He was in charge of security tonight.
    The way he moved, if Sykes had been a sound, Harlan thought, he’d be a whisper. Respectful, though. Hair cut short to the skull, prescribed length, shirt tucked in the required way, right tail over left, to cover genitals. Orrin smelled of sheepskin coat, lube oil, freshly laundered jeans, and Juicy Fruit gum, which he chewed incessantly when on guard.
    Maas assumed his benevolent face. “Of course. Ask anything anytime, Orrin.”
    â€œHave we heard from Africa?”
    Maas needed all his willpower to suppress the flood of rage that seized him.
    â€œOf course! I was just on the red line and we’re good.”
    Sykes looked relieved.
    â€œI never doubted, sir. I mean, Harlan.”
    â€œAh, but you did doubt, just a little, eh?”
    Sykes reddened. “I need to work on that.”
    Harlan patted the man’s shoulder. It was like touching granite.“Everyone has a past, Orrin. The point is to learn from it. Everyone has doubts. But we use them and don’t let them slow us down. You have a gift. You are valuable. There’s a reason you have your skills.”
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œSo don’t worry because there’s absolutely nothing to be concerned about tonight, unless,” he said, allowing his eyes to rove the skies, and woods outside the fence, and razor wire, “we get a few you-know-who’s out there. They’re always looking for us.”
    Orrin straightened. “I have seven men on the wire, and the