Free Without Warning by John Birmingham Page A

right words again. “You can see this curtain. But the scouts, they never emerge on the far side. Their uniforms. They fall in a heap. Charred and smoking.”
    Musso frowned. He thought he understood what Núñez was describing. The heat wall sounded a little like a blast wave, the front of supercompressed air that moves outward from the point of an explosion. But in this case it wasn’t moving, or compressed. It merely hung in the air “like a curtain,” as Núñez had called it.
    Musso cleared his throat.
    “Major, my own observers reported some of your men … heading north …”
    “Yes,” he said bitterly. “They abandoned their posts.”
    “And they ran into the haze?”
    Núñez nodded, almost looking satisfied.
    “Yes. There was no need to shoot them. They have gone, too.”
    “I see,” said Musso. “And what would you like us to do?”
    Núñez shifted uncomfortably in his seat, looking around, surprised at last to find himself in the devil’s lair. He sighed.
    “We would like help. We are not a tin pot dictator’s ship,” he said, forcing Musso to suppress a grin for the first time that morning. “We have been intercepting your satellite news services. We know this is beyond the normal. Something terrible and large is happening. We need to know what. To prepare.”
    Musso folded his arms and let his chin rest on his chest.
    “This ‘curtain’ of air,” he said after a brief moment of quiet. “Is it stable? Is it moving, expanding at all?”
    Núñez appeared deeply troubled by the question. “Like I said. It is a giant curtain and like a curtain, it moves as if blown by the wind, sweeping over the countryside like a curtain blows in a window.”
    Musso had to suppress a shiver that started at the base of his spine and ran up into his shoulders. The idea of this thing moving an inch was disturbing at a cellular level.
    “Major, how much is it moving? Have you been able to determine any limits?”
    Núñez bobbed his head up and down.
    “It seems to … billow … is that your word? It seems to billow like a sail, up to fifteen or twenty meters. It seems random. Just like a curtain or the branches of a tree moving in the breeze. But if it sweeps over you … poof! You are gone.”
    “Well, we need to know more about it, about the parameters under which it operates. But neither of us can send any more of our people in,” said Musso.
    “I know,” Núñez agreed. “We have watched your planes and ships, no? The pilots and sailors, they have been taken, too.”
    “What about a Predator?” suggested Stavros. “I understand there’s a unit on base. The effect doesn’t seem to interfere with electronics. Perhaps we could send one up and into the affected area.”
    Musso gave Núñez an inquiring look.
    “How d’you feel about that, Major? We could send an unmanned drone up, but we’d be violating your airspace. I would need a written authorization from your senior officer.”
    Part of him marveled at how deeply ingrained the ass-covering reflex was, but what the hell was he supposed to do?
    “I am the senior officer, now,” said Núñez as he began patting his pockets.“My colonel was in Havana, and Lieutenant Colonel Lorenz drove into the haze before we realized what it was. His car went off the road and burned.”
    Stavros handed him a pen and notepad. The Cuban began scribbling immediately. Nobody spoke while he wrote. Musso walked over to the window. It was coming on for midday and the sun beat down fiercely on the base. A flagpole across the compound outside cast only a short dagger of shadow, the Stars and Stripes hanging limp in the humidity. Guantánamo was not a major fleet base. It had been established as a coaling station, not the most glamorous of postings, long before it became a famous prison camp. Down in the bay, a couple of tugs and a single minesweeper lay at anchor close to shore. It was a scene entirely normal, even banal.
    “Here,” said Núñez, handing the