Vengeance by Brian Falkner Page A

expressionless. Price wondered what was going on inside her head.
    “Is that true?” Wall asked. There was a mixture of emotions in his voice, and Price couldn’t help but think that he was one of those Fezerkers. If he hadn’t already switched sides, he too would have been betrayed by Brogan.
    “It’s what she does best, isn’t it?” Barnard said. “Betraying people. Chisnall asked for her to be on the mission but ACOG wouldn’t agree. They ended up making a deal. She gave up everyone from Uluru that she knew of, and she gave them some good leads on a lot of others, especially those who have infiltrated the military. She was the one who identified Colonel Reid.”
    Price caught her breath. The court martial of Colonel Thomas Reid had been headline news for weeks. He had turned out to be the one responsible for putting a Fezerker onto Little Diomede Island, which had nearly allowed the Bzadians to catch ACOG napping in the recent ice war.
    Brogan sat unmoving: unmoved, it seemed, by Barnard’s revelation. “Now you know,” she said. “I chose to be here, even though it meant betraying people that I had known since birth. People that I had sworn to protect.”
    “Can’t have be too hard,” Monster said. “You having plenty practice.”
    “Get over it, big fella,” Brogan said. “That’s in the past. Let it go. And learn to speak English.”
    Price saw Monster’s shoulders begin to rise and she quickly held up a hand to stop him, shaking her head. It was a sign of how rattled they all were that even Monster allowed himself to react to Brogan’s needling. Monster sat back down on the tray of the truck.
    “You know what I can’t stomach, Brogan?” Price said. “It’s not just that you murdered a friend of mine and nearly got us all killed. It’s not just that you betrayed someone who trusted you. What gets on my wick is when you gave us that big sob story to Chisnall about your parents dying in a shipwreck.”
    “He told you about that?”
    “Of course he did. Poor little orphan Brogan. But the joke is that the rest of us
are
orphans. All of us know what it feels like to lose the two people who love us the most. To be alone. But you … you just fed us a story. It was all a fraud. You’re a fraud, Brogan.”
    “It was the cover story they gave me,” Brogan said.
    “Is that supposed to make it better?” Price asked.
    “I know about your mother’s boyfriend,” Brogan said.
    Price, who had risen to her feet, sat back down with a thump on the seat of the truck, rocking it a little on its suspension. “That’s none of your goddamn business,” she said.
    “Maybe.” Brogan shrugged. “But I know what he did to you.”
    “What that got to do with anything?” Monster asked.
    “Until I was five I was raised by a Bzadian couple,” Brogan said. “Closest thing I’ll ever have to a mum and dad. They treated me really well, which can’t have been easy, considering that I looked like the enemy.” She shrugged again. “It’s sad the way humans treat their young.”
    “Don’t try to turn this around,” Price said.
    “I’m just saying,” Brogan said. “You didn’t deserve what happened to you. What’s wrong with the human race? Bzadians don’t do that stuff.”
    “Nothing’s wrong with the human race,” Barnard said. “Don’t judge an entire species by a few psychos.”
    “Yeah? Then what are you doing here?” Brogan asked. “All of you. You’re child soldiers. Think about it. This ain’t some paintball game.” She nodded towards The Tsar. “Your society cares for its children by sending them out to die in some muddy ditch. Now do you want me to help him or not?”
    There was silence.
    Price twisted around in her seat and leaned over The Tsar, listening to his breathing, low and ragged, noting the pallid colour of his cheeks. She touched his forehead, recoiling from the clammy coldness of his skin.
    Brogan had been the team’s medic long before Monster. Plus she had