WORLD ORDER

Copyright © 2019 by David Archer.

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PROLOGUE

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

WHAT'D YOU THINK?

ALSO BY DAVID ARCHER

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PROLOGUE

The Gulfstream touched down at just before seven a.m., and Noah and his team stepped off to find a van waiting for them. They climbed inside, and the driver took them directly to the headquarters building in downtown Kirtland. Rather than going down into the parking garage the way they usually did, they were dropped off at the front door and made their way to the elevator behind the lobby. The driver had told them that their luggage would be waiting in the van when they were finished, but that the Dragon Lady was waiting for them in her conference room.

Noah, Sarah, Neil, Jenny, Marco and Renée rode the elevator up together. When they stepped out, the current receptionist looked up at them nervously and simply pointed toward the conference room door. They moved as a group toward it, and stepped inside to find Allison Peterson and Donald Jefferson waiting for them as always, with Molly Hansen sitting close by.

“It’s about time you got here,” Allison said. “I trust you had a good flight over from merry old England?”

“It was comfortable,” Noah said. “I was actually expecting this call a lot sooner. I take it the mission you told us about before is ready to go?”

Allison nodded. “Definitely,” she said. “The CIA and NSA have been working on it for over a month, now, and they decided to turn it over to us. None of their people have been able to get in close enough to find out what’s really going on, and since we could be dealing with something out of a science fiction movie, the president suggested I send in my best possible team. You all know who that means.”

“Team Camelot,” Neil said. “But this isn’t one of our regular missions?”

“That remains to be seen,” Allison said. “There have been a number of unusual situations occurring. Several American military personnel have either disappeared or been murdered, and your first assignment is to look into those cases. They all seem to be connected to something unusual, and we need to know what kind of connection there might be.”

She turned to Molly. “Molly is going to give you what we know so far.”

Molly got to her feet and pointed a remote control device at the big screen on the wall in front of them. A satellite picture of what looked like a military installation appeared.

“This is a satellite image taken of what was recently nothing but virgin forest in Catamarca Province, Argentina. Some of our satellites detected unusual activity and the NSA decided to take a closer look, and this is what they found. Do you see the odd-looking structure in the center of the compound?”

The whole team leaned forward and looked closely. In the center of the compound was an oval-shaped structure. It appeared to be white, and quite a bit larger than the surrounding buildings.

“I see it,” Noah said.

“What is that thing?” Neil asked. “Almost looks like a flying saucer or something.”

“You may be right on target, Neil,” Molly said. She hit a button on the remote and the same compound appeared, but without the oval structure. “This photograph was taken twenty-four hours after the previous one. As you can see, that oval structure is gone. It appears that it was sitting over a concrete pad of some sort, and the pad is still visible.”

“Holy cow,” Neil said. “Are you saying that really is some kind of spaceship?”

“I’m saying that it’s gone.” Molly hit another button on the remote, and another picture appeared on the screen. This one seemed to have been taken at an angle, and showed several individuals walking across the grounds. The resolution was quite grainy, but at least two of the figures appeared to be nearly twice as tall as the others. “This picture was taken while the oval structure was still in place. When analysts zoomed in on it, they found what appears to be several people and some extremely tall figures. As you can see, the two tall ones are at least twice as tall as the other people in the picture.”

“Huh,” Marco said. “Could be grown-ups walking along with some kids.”

“It could be, but then we have this.” Molly hit another button and yet another photo appeared. This one was taken from ground level, and also captured the group walking across the ground. The resolution was a lot better, and it was clear that the four smaller figures were humans in some sort of military uniforms, but the towering taller figures had long, thin limbs and large, rounded heads. “The NSA believes you could be looking at the first photographic evidence of alien visitors to our world.”

All of them stared at the picture for several moments. Noah finally looked over at Molly.

“And is it?”

“We obviously don’t know for sure,” Molly said, “but there is definitely something strange going on down there. The problem is that every single operative who has tried to get close enough to learn anything has simply vanished without a trace. In some cases, they were maintaining radio contact with a support team several miles away and the transmission simply stopped in the middle of a word. There’s absolutely no indication that they ever got inside that compound, and even infrared imaging isn’t detecting additional life signs inside.”

“What about aerial surveillance?” Noah asked. “Has anyone overflown the area?”

“According to GPS tracking, yes,” Molly replied. “Unfortunately, they’ve seen absolutely no sign of that compound, not even the clearing that it’s obviously occupying. A few attempts have been made to penetrate the canopy with drones, but they simply disappear. Two helicopters flew over the area and were beaming back video, but they also vanished without a trace. Since then, there’s been no attempt to fly into that area directly.”

She clicked the button again. A new image appeared, this time showing two of the oval structures in the compound, and what appeared to be a third one hovering above it. This photo was taken from ground level, as well, and Neil let out a low whistle.

“No visible propulsion system,” he said. “Are we looking at antigravity?”

“We honestly don’t know what we’re looking at,” Molly said. “All we know at this point is that something is going on down there, and it could be a threat to global security. If this truly is some kind of alien activity, we certainly need to know about it.”

Donald Jefferson cleared his throat. “Noah, it’s been decided to send your team, along with a couple of specialists, down there to see what you can find out. You are not to attempt infiltration unless your orders change, but we need you to find any information you can about this compound and what might be going on there.”

“That’s right,” Allison said. “Most of you will be posing as FBI agents, but Renée will be busy with duties of her own. You will begin by investigating the deaths and disappearances of our military personnel in the area, because the joint Chiefs think they might be connected to this mystery compound. Jenny will be working with you as an investigator, Sarah will be handling transportation as always, but Renée, who has previous experience, will be running the laboratory. Of course, your primary objective is to learn anything you possibly can about those oval structures, or craft, whatever they are, and gain any information possible about those tall, alien-looking figures. Needless to say, you can take any equipment you like. I don’t want to be sending you on a suicide mission, Noah, so I don’t want you to end up like the other operatives who try to go in there. I want you to come back, do you understand me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Noah said. “When do we leave?”

“As soon as you figure out what equipment you want to take with you. The Gulfstream is being refueled now, and will take you to Buenos Aires as soon as you can be prepared to go. We’ve already established a diplomatic connection with the Argentinan government, so you’re not going to have any trouble about taking weapons in with you. For once, they want answers as bad as we do. No one in the Argentinan government has any idea what’s going on out there, and they can’t even get anybody close to the place.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Noah said. “Do you have any further information we need?”

Jefferson picked up a stack of envelopes and passed them out. “Here are your identification kits, satellite phones, and the dossier containing all the information we currently have on the compound and the dead or missing personnel.”

“And what if we find aliens?” Neil asked. His eyes were still wide, and yet he seemed to be excited.

“Should you get close enough to ascertain that they are indeed alien entities,” Allison said, “it will be up to you to determine whether or not they present a risk or danger to this world. If you find that there is such a danger, you are authorized to use whatever means necessary to either terminate that danger, or get word out to the rest of the world about it. If for any reason you cannot make contact with us, you are authorized to contact any other security agency worldwide.” She looked Noah in the eye. “This situation could present a danger to the entire world. This is about more than our own national security, Noah. I need you to find out for sure what is going on down there, and help us to preserve the security of the whole damn planet.”

“First off, however,” Jefferson said, “there are some things you’re going to have to look into. As Allison mentioned, there have been abductions and deaths of certain military personnel. You’re going to go in posing as investigators from the FBI at first, and your credentials will give you jurisdiction superiority in each case. Don’t let the local military investigative services interfere with you. Once you have completed that phase, their military will provide you with helicopter transport to a staging area ten miles from the compound. Unfortunately, you’re going to have to deal with the jungle down there. You might want to think about that while you are preparing your gear.”

“Are there any leads on what happened to these personnel yet?” Noah asked.

“Only one,” Jefferson said. “One man was abducted out of his front yard early this morning, as he was leaving to report to duty at a military base outside Buenos Aires. That will be your first stop, and the Military Police will assist you in the investigation. There are a few other cases wherein military personnel have died or disappeared under suspicious circumstances. You’ll decide which ones you believe might be related after you get there.”

“Yes, sir,” Noah said. “Is there anything else?”

“Just this, Noah,” Allison said. “I’ll be going along with you on this one. My cover is that I’m the Agent in Charge of your investigations.”

ONE

"Since when are you a lab technician?" Marco asked Renée as they sat on Noah’s couch. The team had stopped by Noah’s house to freshen up after leaving the briefing. Noah was taking his turn in the shower at the moment. “I thought you were just a clerk at R&D?”

“Is it really that hard to imagine?” Renée asked. “You know why Wally brought me with him when he came over to E & E? It’s because he said I was one of the best lab assistants he had ever had. You have any idea what a lab assistant does?”

Marco shook his head. “No. What?”

“Pretty much everything the lab director gets credit for. I can hold my own in the lab, Marco. Just because I was clerking for Wally at R&D, don’t think I don’t know my way around a microscope or a mass spectrometer.”

“And we’re taking a long along a doctor,” Marco said. He shook his head. "That's something that hasn't happened before."

"Read the dossier,” Neil said. “Doctor Emerson is a forensic pathologist."

Marco's eyebrows shot up. “Yeah, I know, I was there too, remember? I just wonder how Noah is taking it.”

"Black, with sugar; I thought you'd know that by now, Marco," Noah's voice interrupted in that very moment as he walked into the room. “Get ready. We’re leaving for R&D in ten minutes."

"Yes, sir,” Marco said. “Ten minutes it is."

It didn't take them long to get to R&D, and Wally was waiting when they entered the building, accompanied by another man in his fifties.

“Noah!” Wally exclaimed. “It’s good to see you. I want you to meet Doctor Eric Emerson, he’s going to be going with you on this mission. Doctor Emerson is a forensic physician, like a medical examiner, and Allison thinks he might be useful.”

Noah shook hands with the doctor. “Doctor Emerson,” he said. “Good to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Emerson said, his clipped British accent clear and precise. “I’ve heard quite a lot about you, Mr. Wolf. It’ll be good to actually see you in action.”

Wally grinned at the two of them. “Okay, you guys can get acquainted later. Right now, I need to know what kind of equipment you might want to take with you, Noah.”

“I’ve got some ideas,” Noah said, “but I’m also open to suggestion, Wally. Right off the bat, I want four of the gas pellet guns we used in Thailand, and a substantial supply of the pellets. Give me two pairs of deception detection glasses and one of your backscatter x-ray phones, and one of the smaller explosive printers. Add anything else you can think of that might come in handy.”

“To be honest,” Wally said, “I think those were probably the things I would’ve suggested. Of course, you probably want to take some conventional weapons with you.”

“We will, we’ll be stopping by the armory after we leave here.”

“Then let me get your list gathered up, and you can be on the way. And, Noah? Of course I know what the mission is about. If you find any really exciting technology down there, try to steal me a sample, will you?”

“You know I will,” Noah said.

It took about twenty minutes to get everything gathered up, and then they were on the way to the armory. Each of them chose their favorite weapons, although Neil selected a different submachine gun than the one he had been using most commonly. Instead, he picked up a Beretta MX 4, a nine millimeter submachine gun that was known for reliability and ease-of-use among law enforcement agencies worldwide. Jamison, the armorer, gave him a pair of double drum magazines that would give him a loaded capacity of more than a hundred rounds.

Noah and Marco picked up the special Glock forty caliber automatics they always carried. These weapons were electronically tied to rings that each of the men wore, and could not be fired by anyone not wearing the ring. Noah also chose a pair of sniper rifles, opting for fifty caliber Barrett M-102’s that were accurate up to two thousand yards. Both he and Marco were qualified with them, and Renée had trained with them as well.

An hour later, Noah and his team, along with Doctor Emerson, arrived at Kirtland Airport once again. Allison was already there, and she took Noah aside for a brief conversation. The rest of the team took care of loading their gear into the aircraft, although Sarah was watching the interaction closely.

“I wonder what they’re talking about,” she said to Renée. “It’s not like Allison to keep the rest of us in the dark this way.”

Renée shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “And maybe it’s something we don’t want to find out about.”

Whatever it was, the conversation ended abruptly and both Noah and Allison joined the others in boarding the plane. Noah sat down beside his wife, but Allison was in the seat directly across from them. Sarah decided to keep her curiosity to herself until she could get Noah alone.

Minutes later, they were both pushed back in their seats as the plane lumbered down the runway. It leapt into the air and began climbing, gaining altitude for the eleven hour flight to El Palomar Airfield.

Noah and the team had slept on the previous flight, so they were quite rested. Allison, on the other hand, dozed off within minutes after the plane left the ground. Sarah waited until the older woman started to snore, then turned to Noah.

“So, what was all that about back at the airport?” she asked softly. “Can you tell me?”

“Yes,” Noah said. “It turns out that the man who was abducted earlier this morning is actually the E & E liaison officer in Argentina. She’s concerned that if we are dealing with extraterrestrial activity, the things he knows could be dangerous. We have no idea what another intelligence might think of us, but they might not take kindly to learning that we engage in assassination.”

Sarah stared at him. “Yeah,” she said slowly. “That could make us look pretty bad, I guess. Noah, do you really think this could be some kind of alien stuff going on?”

“I don’t know enough to form an opinion,” he replied. “At this time, all I can do is keep my mind open and hope to come up with an answer.”

Neil, who was sitting behind him, leaned forward. “I’ve been looking at some of the dark web chatter,” he said. “There are number of conspiracy theories that could be connected. Some of them are about UFO activity in South America, but some of them are based on a rumor that two or three nations are working together to create a false alien invasion scenario. The idea is to make the world so scared that we are willing to forget about national borders and form some sort of global government.”

Noah nodded. “I’ve heard of such theories before. Henry Kissinger even suggested the idea once, years ago when he was Secretary of State. Give people an enemy to worry about, and they stop being concerned about their own personal freedoms and securities.”

Allison stirred in her sleep, and they dropped the conversation. Each of the team found a movie to watch on one of the seatback video screens, and eventually they all drifted off to sleep.

Sleep can only carry you so far on a long flight. They were all wide awake more than two hours before the plane touched down at El Palomar Airport, which was situated just west of Buenos Aires.

El Palomar is both a commercial and military airfield, home to the 1st Air Brigade of the Argentinian Air Force. For the past year, it has also been home to a number of U.S. military personnel who were in the country to establish a new base of their own. The new U.S. base, designated Donovan Range, would be just a few miles from El Palomar, which made it the perfect site to base the construction crews and security forces that accompanied them.

A large van drove out to meet the plane as it parked some distance from the terminal. Two men climbed out, and Allison led the way as they walked down the stairs. One of the men, a U.S. Army Major, smiled and reached out to shake her hand.

“Director Peterson,” he said. “I’d like to present El Coronel Geraldo Noah, of the Army of Argentina.”

Allison turned to Noah and extended a hand. “Coronel,” she said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you, and what a great help you have been to our people here.”

Noah smiled, then bent and kissed the back of her hand. When he raised his eyes to hers again, he said, “I do what I can, madame. Your American military have also been of great assistance to us in combating some of the illegal activities within our country.”

Allison turned and motioned for Noah at the team to come closer. “Noah, this is El Coronel Noah and Major Tim Wilson. Tim and I go way back, to when he and my father served together. There was a time when I called him Uncle Tim, can you believe that?”

“Major,” Noah said. “It’s a pleasure.” Neither he nor Allison introduced the rest of the team, but Major Wilson invited them all to climb inside the van. He took the shotgun seat, while Allison sat in the seat just behind him, so he had to turn in the seat to speak to her.

“Director, only the Major and I are aware of your real identity. As far as anyone here is concerned, you are FBI Special Agent in Charge Janet Rice. Mr. Wolf and your team are all part of your investigative unit, looking into what’s been happening to our personnel.”

“Good, that’s how I want it,” Allison said. “Have there been any new developments?”

“I’m afraid so,” Wilson said. “Three more men have disappeared in the last fifteen hours. I have all the files ready for you to review as soon as we get you situated in your operations center. I’m afraid it’s just a Quonset hut, that’s all I can commandeer on such short notice. I had some walls slapped up overnight, so you’ve got a situation room, couple of offices, latrines with showers, a lab and morgue, and four private rooms to bunk in.” He shrugged, looking a little embarrassed. “I’m afraid they’re pretty small.”

“That’ll be fine, Tim. We don’t need comfort, we need someplace to work. What about the unknown compound? Have you gained any information on it?”

Wilson shook his head, scowling. “I sent an entire platoon down there to see what they can learn. We were in constant radio communication with them until they got within a mile of the place, and then it just cut off. Each of them was carrying a specialized GPS tracker, and they vanished off the screen at the same time the communications came to a halt. Allie, I don’t have a clue what we’re dealing with down there. I had body cameras on some of those men, and the footage was beaming back in real time. I could describe to you what we saw, but I don’t think you’d believe me. As soon as we get to your OC, I’ll let you watch it for yourselves.”

Behind Allison, Noah and the team all looked at one another. Doctor Emerson cleared his throat.

“Major Wilson,” he said, “I wonder if you could tell me whether you have recovered any of the bodies of the missing personnel?”

“Only three,” Wilson said. He scowled again, and looked Emerson in the eye. “From the look of them, they were running scared from something. All three of them were from a single attempt to get close to that base, but the other seven men with them vanished without a trace. Maybe you can make something of what happened to them, because we sure can’t.”

Fifteen minutes later, they pulled up in front of the Quonset hut and everyone piled out. Wilson led the way inside while Coronel Noah drove away in the van. The Quonset hut was divided into several rooms, but the front section was set up as a working office. There were four desks and two other tables, with computer workstations already in place.

Wilson invited Allison to have a seat at one of the desks and then tapped the keys of the computer in front of her. A large wall-mounted screen suddenly lit up with a view of lush jungles, and he directed their attention to it.

“What you are about to see is classified as secret as it can possibly be. This is the actual body cam footage from Lieutenant Larry Jorgensen, who was in command of the platoon.” He tapped another key and the video footage began to play.

Lieutenant Jorgensen was apparently moving through the brush, and they caught flashes of machete as he chopped some of it out of the way. His progress was slow, and they watched for a couple of minutes as he hacked his way through the dense undergrowth.

Suddenly, his voice was heard. “What the hell?” he asked. “Matheny, you see that?”

Another man’s voice came through faintly. “I saw something, LT,” he said. “Some kind of ape, maybe? A lot bigger than any monkey I’ve seen.”

“I don’t think there are any big apes around here,” Jorgensen said. “Maybe it’s...”

In a flash reminiscent of some of the prank scare videos that pop up on YouTube, something suddenly appeared on the screen. It was moving too fast for the camera to get a clear image, but it seemed to be humanoid and with pale, almost iridescent skin. What looked like a blurry face appeared for a second, and then a long arm flashed out. The camera turned and caught a glimpse of more brush, and then went dark.

“Holy shit,” Neil said softly.

“Exactly,” Wilson said. “We tried every way we could to analyze that footage, but whatever that was moved so fast that we can’t even isolate it frame by frame to get an image. All you see is a blur, and no real detail at all. The only thing we can tell you is that, whatever it is, it bears a pretty strong resemblance to those sketches of pointy-chinned aliens that turn up from time to time. You know the ones I mean, the stuff that people who claim to have been abducted by spacecraft are always drawing. A long, oval-shaped face, chin coming down to a point and big, almond shaped eyes.” He nodded toward the monitor. “Whatever that was, it does not appear to be a human being. No human can move so fast that those cameras can’t keep up.”

Marco grunted. “When they said aliens in the jungle in Argentina,” he said, “I was thinking something like the one Arnie fought in Predator. This looks more like something out of Close Encounters.”

“Except those aliens were friendly, remember? I don’t know what happened to my men, but that didn’t look very friendly to me.”

“It certainly didn’t,” Allison said. “Tim, what about the other personnel who have gone missing or been murdered? NSA says you think there’s a connection. Care to explain?”

Wilson sighed. “We’ve got some strange reports coming in, reports that indicate some of these men have been seen, but that they are somehow different than they were when they disappeared. Three of them are now dead, but our own medical specialists are just flabbergasted. They don’t know what to think of what they’re seeing in the bodies.” He nodded toward Emerson. “I’m hoping your guy can make some sense of it.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Emerson said. “To be of whatever assistance I can.”

“Then I’ll take you down to the morgue we have set up. Allison, the only real lead I have for you is the man who disappeared yesterday. He was Specialist Daniel McRae, and the only witness was his uncle. His mother said she saw him leave to report for duty yesterday morning, and then the uncle says somebody grabbed him and dragged him into a car. It sped away, and he hasn’t been seen or heard from since.” He looked at Allison. “Since I knew you were already planning to come, I locked down the investigation. I didn’t want any of the locals messing things up before you got a chance to take a look at the situation. The mother was advised that an FBI team was coming to take over.”

“Smart thinking,” Allison said. “Noah?”

Noah looked at the Major. “I take it he never reported for duty after all?”

“No, sir,” Wilson said. “There hasn’t been any trace of him at all.”

Noah nodded. “Major, what does Specialist McRae do in the Army?”

Wilson glanced at Allison, then turned back to Noah. “He is an advanced systems analyst. McCrae spent a couple of years with DARPA, working on highly classified computerized weapons and intelligence gathering systems. His work is still classified, and his cover here is that he is a computer systems repairman.”

“So he’s a very valuable man to have around,” Noah said, “if you have something extremely high tech you’re trying to deal with.”

“Absolutely,” Wilson said. He picked up a file folder and handed it to her. “This is the report on the abduction, everything we’ve got so far.”

Allison passed the folder to Noah. “Well, we’re here,” she said. “Read through that, and then I guess you need to go and talk to McRae’s mother. Take Neil, Marco and Jenny with you, while Renée and Sarah stay with me and Doctor Emerson.” She turned to Wilson. “I’m supposed to have another man meet us here. Any idea where he is?”

Wilson nodded. “Yes, he flew in late last night, from some place in Mexico. I’ll have someone get him over here to you ASAP.”

“That’ll be fine,” Allison said. “I’ll brief him when he arrives.”

TWO

A young female MP was waiting outside for them, and introduced herself as Private Karen Lee. “I’ve been assigned to assist you today,” she said. “Just tell me what you need me to do.”

“Get in the car,” Noah said. “We need to go and speak with the kidnap victim’s mother.”

When they arrived at the McRae house, one of the new prefab houses set up for American military personnel and their families, they were greeted by an older man with gray hair and dark eyes who was sitting on a bench on the front porch, smoking a cigarette. An ashtray full of butts was on the bench beside him.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

Noah held up the ID he had been given. “Special Agent Noah Wolf, FBI. We’ve been sent down here to investigate Specialist McRae’s disappearance.”

“It’s not a disappearance,” the old man said, “it’s an abduction! I’m Thomas McRae, Danny’s uncle. I’ve been living with Danny and his mother since his father died six years ago.”

“That’s fine,” Noah said. “Is Mrs. McRae here now?”

“She is, but, let me give you a word of advice, young man,” McRae said. He leaned close and spoke softly. “She bristles when you call her ‘Mrs.’, because she’s a widow. I’d go with ‘Ms.’ if I were you.”

Noah looked at him for a moment, then nodded. McRae held the door open and allowed Noah and Jenny to step inside, while Neil and Marco waited near the car they had arrived in.

“Nancy,”” McRae said, leading them in to the living room. “This is FBI Agent Wolf. He’s here to talk to you about Danny.”

A tall woman in her late forties rose from the chair and extended a hand. Noah shook hands with her, and then she sat down again.

"Ms. McRae, I read the report on Danny’s abduction, and I understand you were upstairs when it happened?" Noah asked, keeping his eyes locked on the lawyer.

"Yes," the woman replied. She was keeping her tone steady, but it was obvious she barely held it together—she was wringing her hands in a nervous manner. "I went to my room to get my purse and I saw Thomas standing in the street, shouting at the car as it drove away. I came down to find out what was happening, and he told me that two men had dragged Danny into a car and driven off."

"Did you happen to get a look at the kidnapper?"

"No. I’m afraid it all happened too fast," she said, but then her eyes widened slightly. "What I can tell you is that the car belonged to a Mark Crawford, but it couldn't have been Mark driving; he and Danny have been best friends since they were kids, Mark would never do anything to hurt him. I tried calling Mark to ask if he knew anything, but he hasn’t answered.”

Noah cocked his head to the side and looked at the woman. “Did you mention Mr. Crawford to the MPs who spoke to you yesterday?”

She shook her head. “It didn’t dawn on me until later. I mean, I barely even saw the car as Thomas was shouting at it, and I was paying attention to what he was doing, not to the car driving away. It never occurred to me to mention Mark.” Tears began to well up in her eyes. “Please, you’ve got to find him. You’ve got to find my Danny."

"We are doing everything we can," Jenny said in a placating manner. She was doing a good job of posing as one of the FBI agents, assisting Noah.

Noah, however, preferred to talk business. "Have the kidnappers tried to contact you yet?"

Nancy McRae shook her head.

"We will need to set up our equipment," Noah said, standing up. “If they contact you, we’ll want to monitor the call.”

"All right," she said softly. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Just leave it to us," Jenny said. “This is what we get paid for.”

Noah glanced at the two women for a moment, then walked back to the door and looked out at Marco and Neil. Neil was taking pictures of the area of the unpaved street that was marked off by police as the scene of the abduction, while Marco was scouring the road for any type of evidence that might have been left behind.

"Neil! Bring in the phone monitoring equipment!"

"Yes, sir," Neil replied, already turning on his heel. He started gathering up the equipment, glancing at Marco to see if he was going to help.

Marco didn't bother looking up from where he was kneeling in the street. He simply waved a hand, preferring to focus on picking up the cigarette butt that he had just spotted. He picked it up with a pair of tweezers and looked at it closely, then slipped it into a plastic bag that went into his pocket.

“I could lend a hand, if you like,” Private Lee said.

Neil looked at her for a moment, but he certainly wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Sure. Grab that and come along."

She smiled politely, picked up the case he indicated and followed him into the house. Marco glanced around the street once more, then made his own way inside.

Once they had carried everything into the living room, they set to work. Neil wondered for a moment whether he'd have to guide Lee through everything, but fortunately the young woman seemed to know her way around the equipment. In less than ten minutes, everything was set up properly.

"Shall we test it?" she asked as she finally stood up.

"Yup," Neil said, sitting down with his laptop on his knees. Even as he tapped on the keyboard, though, he couldn't help but notice her massaging her neck with a slight wince. It didn't take Neil’s ridiculously high IQ to figure out that the muscles had been strained as the MP had bent over cable after cable for the past twenty minutes. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll stop hurting in a few minutes or so."

"I hope so," she said in a mildly wry tone.

Noah was suddenly standing over the two of them, looking at the equipment connected to the phones. "Have you got it working, Neil?" he asked, his feigned impatience clearly noticeable in his voice.

Neil turned back to his computer and looked at the readings on the screen. "Yes, boss."

Noah nodded, then went back to talking to Ms. McRae and her brother-in-law.

Marco stepped up beside Neil and Lee. "Not bad, for an army cop," Marco said.

"I'm familiar with this kind of equipment," Lee replied, shrugging slightly.

Marco thought about his reply for a moment, then grinned at her.

"Well, the job I have for you will be bit more challenging, but I think you have what it takes," Marco said, acting innocent.

"Certainly, what do you need me to do, sir?" Lee asked, getting to her feet.

"Got paper and pen?"

"Yes, sir," she replied, taking a small notebook and a pen out of her pocket.

"Right. Coffee shop is just down the street. Black, one sugar and make sure it's not any of that instant stuff," Marco said, keeping his face straight. "Got it?"

Lee’s face went blank for a moment, but then the expression was replaced with a wry look that said she probably shouldn’t have been surprised at the obvious hazing. She nodded and wrote everything down. "I’ve certainly got it, sir."

"Neil, what about you?" Marco asked, unfazed.

"No, I'm fine," Neil replied. “You might want to get a second cup for Noah, though.”

"Jenny?"

The young woman shook her head. "No, thank you."

"Be right back then, sir," Lee said with a calm smile as she headed outside and down the street. Only then did Jenny approach Marco and stand there staring at him, her arms crossed.

"That girl is just trying to help, Marco. Don’t you think it was a little snarky to send her off to get coffee?"

Marco smirked. "She looked like she needed something to do."

Noah, just coming up close to them, looked at Marco for a second and then turned to Jenny. "Go get her back. I want to talk to her for a moment."

Jenny started to argue that Marco should go, but decided against it. Besides, she personally thought Lee should probably have been given a fair warning about Marco before having to deal with him. When she went down the street to call her back, however, she was surprised to see that the young woman had not only already gotten to the coffee shop, she was having an animated conversation with the waitress and taking notes as she did so.

Lee turned and looked at her as she entered the coffee shop. "Did you change your mind about coffee?" she asked.

"No, Noah made sure Marco changed his," she replied. "Come on, the boss wants to talk to you."

“Actually,” Lee said, putting her notebook back in her pocket, "would you mind if I share something with you, Agent Lance?"

Jenny raised an eyebrow. "What is it?"

"Ms. Abrio, here," the girl said, introducing the smiling waitress, "told me that there was a man sitting at this particular table during the abduction." She pointed at a table close to the large window. "She said he seemed to be very interested in what was going on outside."

Jenny frowned gently as she looked at the table she was indicating, and then walked over toward it. Ms. Abrio and Lee followed close behind her. Her eyes never left the window as she sat down and realized how clearly she could see the McRaes' house and the spot where the abduction had actually happened.

"Any idea how long he had been sitting here?" she asked the waitress.

"A couple of hours, maybe; I didn't really check the time," Ms. Abrio replied. "But I'm pretty sure he left right after that. I did notice that he talked to someone on his phone as he was leaving."

"Did you hear what he said?" Sarah asked.

"No, I’m sorry," Ms. Abrio replied with a sheepish smile.

Jenny smiled reassuringly. "It doesn't matter," she said. "You can give a description to Private Lee so we can keep a lookout for him."

"Sure," she said with a nod. "Let me talk to my boss and tell him to cover for me."

"Of course," Jenny said. The waitress had hardly taken a couple of steps, though, when an idea formed in her mind.

"Actually, could I get a cup of coffee while you’re at it?" she asked.

* * *

Neil watched Nancy McRae pace up and down the room, worry written all over her features. He wished briefly that he could think of something to say that might actually comfort her, but first, he wouldn’t know what it would be, and second, that wasn't why he was there. The monitoring equipment was all set up, giving the impression that they were waiting for the expected phone-call and ready to trace it to wherever it was coming from.

"Shouldn't they have called by now?" Ms. McRae asked Noah, after Neil announced that everything was ready.

"There's not any particular time schedule to these things," Noah said calmly. "If this is about ransom, the kidnappers will call when they’re ready. We’ll be notified if that happens, and will be on top of it."

"Danny could be dead by then!" she said. “Isn’t there something you could be doing?”

"Actually, there is," Noah answered. “We will be working on other leads, but this equipment will notify us if you get a call. All you need to do is ask to speak to Danny, to make sure he’s okay, and then keep them on the line as long as you can. Whatever they ask you to do, tell them you are willing to cooperate, but that it’s going to take some time.”

The woman opened her mouth to voice her further objections, but the sound of the door opening made her turn around. Neil couldn't help but wince as he saw her hope changing to disappointment as Jenny and Lee walked in, however.

"Private Lee," Noah said, “I’ll be with you in just a moment.” He turned to Marco. "Marco, take Jenny and head over to Crawford's house; see if you can find anything there. We know his vehicle was involved, but we don’t know for certain that he was."

"On it, boss," Marco replied, and then frowned as Jenny held up a cup of coffee for him. "What did you put in it?"

"Just a little sugar," she replied innocently. "It's just the way you ordered it."

Marco looked at her for a second, then took a sip. His face suddenly screwed up as he tasted the syrupy sweetness. She had added several spoons of sugar, and stirred it thoroughly.

Neil kept his eyes focused on his monitor, grateful that it would let him hide behind it and grin.

"Does this sort of thing happen a lot?" Lee asked, smiling.

Neil sobered and cleared his throat quickly before looking up at her; the MP had settled next to him, an innocent look of curiosity in her eyes.

"I'm sorry, what do you mean?" he asked.

"The way they pick on each other, does it happen a lot?" she elaborated patiently.

Neil thought about it for a moment, but finally decided honesty was the best policy. "All the time."

Lee seemed surprised at that. "And they haven't killed each other yet?"

"Nope."

"How interesting."

"Lee, you got something for me?" Noah said in that moment, his eyes boring into the young military policewoman.

Private Lee instantly stood up. "Actually, yes, sir, I do. The waitress from the café told me about a suspicious-looking man; he gave her the impression he was spying on the McRae house during the kidnapping."

Noah looked at him intently. “Go on,” he said. “Anything else?”

"She gave me a basic description. Male, Caucasian, mid-thirties, dark glasses, casual clothing. Blue jeans and a gray polo shirt."

"That's not much to go on."

"She didn't get that good a look at him. Still, I thought it would be wise to get what information I could. Unfortunately, no one else over there noticed him.”

Noah just looked at her for a moment and then turned to Neil. "Neil, have you collected everything from the scene?"

"Yes, boss," Neil replied. “It’s already packaged for processing.”

Noah nodded again. "Renée will be handling that. I’ll stay here for a while with Private Lee while you get back to the operations center so she can get started."

"Sounds good, boss," Neil said, getting to his feet.

* * *

"I can't believe you tried to poison me with that stuff," Marco said. He wasn't facing Jenny, but he was sure that she was probably laughing at him, even if it was silently.

Jenny’s grin simply grew wider as she sat in the passenger's seat, looking out the window and watching the scenery pass by. "Relax, Marco, you’re too stiff. I figured a little extra sweetness might mellow you out some."

Marco didn't bother with a retort, but held a hand out in her direction. "Just give me a bottle of water. Anything to get rid of that awful after-taste.”

Jenny chuckled and passed one to him, and he took a long pull from the bottle. A moment later, he caught sight of a small house, its front yard slightly overgrown and its paint peeling. "Is that Crawford's place?"

"Must be," Jenny replied.

Marco nodded and parked the car. The two of them got out and walked toward the house, and that’s when he noticed that the door was standing slightly ajar. He touched Jenny’s wrist and flicked his finger toward the opening, and she immediately reached for the gun on her belt.

Marco drew his own pistol and the two of them carefully flanked the door. He reached out and tapped on it with a knuckle, but there was no response.

“Mr. Crawford? FBI,” he said. He listened for a moment, then reached out and pushed the door further open. As he did so, he glanced over at Jenny. “Remember, he said softly, “we are supposed to be the FBI. First we ask questions; then we shoot."

"Spoilsport," the woman said dryly. She braced herself, holding her weapon in front of her as Marco shoved the door open the rest of the way.

The lights were off inside and there was no sign of any living presence. The place seemed, in fact, almost eerily quiet.

"Go," Marco said.

Jenny nodded and stepped inside, ready to shoot if a threat presented itself. She walked slowly, with Marco close on her heels, both of them as alert as they could be. She glanced down at the floor of the foyer and then motioned for Marco to take a look. Bloody footprints of some sort were coming from further inside the house, but faded away before they actually got to the door.

The surprise they were dreading was waiting for them in the living room, where a young man in his twenties was sprawled on the floor, his mouth parted slightly and his eyes in a lifeless gaze. The carpet was soaked in the man's blood and brain matter, the obvious result of a bullet going right through his skull.

Marco pursed his lips. It looked like they could scratch Mark Crawford off their list of suspects.

* * *

The first thing that Marco did after informing Noah about the new development was to call Emerson and let him know that his expertise would be needed in the scene of the crime. Noah told them to call Allison and have Doctor Emerson brought out, and the scene of the murder quickly became a busy place. Emerson and Doctor Jorge Rodriguez, the local military coroner Major Wilson had been kind enough to lend them, hardly noticed the others, however, as they concentrated on the body that was still lying on the floor.

"Poor chap never thought this would this would be the day he would die when he woke up this morning, I’ll wager," Emerson mused, still examining the dead body. "Señor Rodriguez, please take photos of the bruising on our victim’s hands, here."

"Of course, Doctor Emerson," Jorge replied, taking out his camera.

"So, what have we got, Doctor Emerson?" Marco asked, walking up to the two doctors.

"I should say the cause of death is rather obvious," Emerson said, pointing at the destroyed skull. "He put up a bit of a fight, but the poor fellow didn't stand a chance. Being shot at point-blank range tends to bring any fight to an end rather quickly, I'm afraid."

"Any idea how long he's been dead?"

"I would suspect at least twenty-four hours. I will know more after I examine him further."

Marco caught Jenny coming into the room from the corner of his eye. “Thanks, doc,” he said to Emerson, then turned to Jenny. "Any luck?"

"I don’t know if it means anything," she said, "but I can’t find anything that could be this man’s cell phone. According to the report on Danny McRae’s abduction, he told his mother he got a call from Mr. Crawford just a few minutes before he was snatched."

Marco nodded. "They called him on his own cell, he checked the number and saw that it was his old friend calling, so he didn't have any reason to think there was a problem. He stepped outside, and they were ready to take him. These guys seemed to know exactly what they were doing."

"But still managed to make some pretty stupid mistakes," Jenny said, looking around. "They smashed the lock, they didn't dig the bullet out of the wall, and someone actually stepped in the blood, making even more of a mess. Whoever's behind this, I’d have to say they're not professional, though they are certainly trying to look like it."

"Yeah, I guess you'd know a thing or two about that, wouldn't you?" Marco said wryly, and he turned to look back at the body. “Poor guy was probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“No,” Jenny said. “He just picked the wrong person to have as a friend.”

THREE

His bare feet thudded on the dirt floor of the path as he ran as fast as he could along it. The night was dark, the stars hidden by the canopy of leaves that separated the sky from the world below in this location. It didn’t matter, though, because he could see quite well. His eyes could pick up the slightest bit of light and multiply it, it seemed, so that it was almost as bright as the early dawn.

He wasn’t paying attention to any of that, though. The only thing on his mind was escape, and that meant going undetected. He had been running for more than an hour, ducking and weaving along the path, heading to the one place that might offer him a chance to really get away.

There it was, just ahead. He had known it had to be there, because it was where they were aiming all the creatures. All the other creatures, he thought. At least they never got the chance to send me out to kill my own people.

He felt the tiny rocks and burrs that sent tiny jabs of pain up through the nerve endings in his feet. He could feel the way his legs wobbled even as he ran, the drugs that were racing through his system making him unsteady and unstable.

He had also felt the way he was changing, noticed the greater feelings of rage and aggression, the way he thought less and less about how he had been kidnapped right out of his hotel room by those men so that he could become some kind of science experiment, and more about killing and hurting and being as destructive as he could.

Still, he had somehow managed to retain enough of himself, enough of who he was, to know that he had to get out. He had bided his time until he saw a chance to escape—as a soldier, he had been very well trained in such things—and he had run, escaping the building he was held in while everyone was busy. One of the creatures had broken its chains, and everyone was trying to get it contained again before it could do much damage. Nobody was watching him, so he reached out and grabbed the bars on the window and pulled.

They came out easily, as if the concrete had been nothing but Play-Doh. He threw himself out the window and disappeared into the forest, running at first just to put distance between himself and the ones who would drag him back, if they got the chance. He ran crazily, deliberately leaving a trail they could follow as he rushed toward the river he could smell in the distance.

The water was cold, but he barely felt it. It didn’t seem to matter anymore whether he was cold or hot, because he could simply tell himself he was warm, and he would be. He dived under the surface and swam as far as he could, coming up a few minutes later for another gulp of air, then diving once more. When he felt there was at least a mile of water behind him from where he had entered the river, he found a rocky ledge and climbed out.

He’d heard some of them talking about the soldiers who were trying to get close, even laughing about the ones they had killed or captured. Some of the creatures were well-trained, and would do exactly what they were supposed to do. Any of the soldiers who came upon them in the forest were probably already dead, but the man who herded the creatures had managed to capture quite a few. They were locked in the building beside the one he had escaped from, and a part of him felt like a coward for not breaking them out at the same time.

They would have slowed him down, though, and the creatures would have caught them, anyway. The only hope they had was for him to make his way back and get help, help that could shut down the entire compound.

That’s why he had made his way here. The soldiers he saw ahead of him were almost certainly trying to find out what was going on back there, but he wasn’t ready to try to talk to anyone just yet. What he needed to do was get back to Donovan Range, talk to somebody he could actually trust. He needed somebody who knew him, who would actually believe the crazy story he was going to tell.

If he had been thinking clearly, he probably would have realized that the soldiers in the forward base must know something about what was happening in the compound. The anger inside him, however, kept him from even considering trying to trust people he did not know personally.

He had made his way around to the airstrip, and was crouched in the brush near the head of the runway. They only had one runway set up, but it was big enough and long enough for the supply flights that came and went. One of them, a C-130, was just taxiing into position. He waited until it made the turn onto the runway, then bolted from the brush and leapt onto the starboard landing gear. It took him only seconds to climb up inside the bay, and he had positioned himself carefully by the time the big airplane started lumbering forward.

He watched the wheels leave the ground, and then the landing gear began to retract. He pressed himself against the side of the bay, barely managing to avoid being crushed in the tight space. When the bay door closed, he let himself relax. The only place this airplane could be going was back to Donovan, and that’s all he could hope for.

As the plane gained altitude, the temperature began to drop inside the bay. He cranked up his own internal temperature as hard as he could, knowing full well that it would leave him exhausted by the time he got back to Donovan. It couldn’t be helped, however. At more than forty thousand feet, a normal man would have frozen to death in that landing gear bay.

He slept, but not well. Keeping his temperature up required concentration, and he had to flex his muscles as much as possible. When the air temperature began to rise, he knew they were descending and braced himself once again for when the bay doors would open. It wasn’t long, and then he watched the wheels touched down. The smell of burning rubber hit him along with bits of shredded rubber and tiny rocks as the wheels touched down and began to spin.

It was still dark outside, or at least anyone else would think so. He waited until the plane came to a stop, then dropped out of the bay and hurried to the tall grass that paralleled the runway. He traveled as fast as he could in his weakened, almost exhausted state, but then fortune smiled on him. Not far from the airfield was a farm, where the locals raise goats and pigs. He snatched up one of the goats and carried it into the brush, ignoring its bleating until he got to a clearing. He started to simply feed, but that little part of him that was still human took compassion on the animal. He snapped its neck, then began ripping at its flesh.

Twenty minutes later, freshly fed but still not back to full strength, he started thinking clearly again. He couldn’t let himself be seen in broad daylight, that was too dangerous. He needed to wait and rest through the day, so he trotted further into the brush. It was thick enough here, outside the urban areas and the military installations, to be called jungle again. He found a tree and climbed it quickly, then twisted some branches together to make a hammock. When he was sure it wouldn’t come apart, he lay down in his spongy bed and let himself drift off to sleep.

When nightfall came again, he slipped down out of the tree and made his way toward the base. He had tried to think of who he could trust for months, and finally decided on his buddies from the gym. Dave and Danny, they were both good guys. They’d certainly be willing to help him, if he was able to convince them he wasn’t crazy.

As he slipped past the sentries onto the base, he realized that being naked wasn’t going to help him make the best impression. He spotted the laundromat he had used himself more than once, then watched and waited until he saw another soldier carry the first of several laundry bags from his car to the washing machines. He bolted quickly to the car and snatched up one of the bags, then vanished behind the building. He was in luck; there was a pair of jeans in there that were just big enough to go around his waist, even if his ankles did stick out a couple of inches. He pulled on a shirt, then decided not to worry about shoes. He abandoned the rest of the bag and made his way toward the gym.

Hopefully, Dave or Danny would be there. He still couldn’t hurry inside to talk to them, but he could watch until they were ready to leave. That would be his chance, and he knew he would have to work hard to convince them to help him. Still, there was no one else he felt he could trust that far.

“He’s got to be here somewhere,” said a voice some distance away. He recognized that voice. It was one of the men who had guarded him at times, while he was held prisoner in that godforsaken building. He peeked around the corner of a building and saw him, and then realized that there were five others with him, all of them dressed in those black suits they wore. Somehow, they had figured out that he had gotten onto that plane, that he would be back on Donovan Range, and they were looking for him.

Even worse, they were coming directly toward where he was hiding. Now, as he heard those guards getting closer, he knew his chances were growing thinner all the time.

He bolted, but even as he ran, putting as much distance as he could between himself and the men who suddenly broke into pursuit, his breath was hitching and his heart was racing. His feet were blurs in the night, but he was hungry again, still not up to full strength, and the guards were getting closer. He could see an alleyway up ahead, and he knew that if he could make it that far, then he might find a place that would give him shelter.

Unfortunately, the guards who were chasing him knew that, too.

Suddenly, just as he was about to dive behind a dumpster, he heard the gunshots behind him, at least three guns firing simultaneously. He was shoved forward, three white hot spots flaring in his back as he fell face down onto the concrete, his entire body going numb as heat flowed from and down his back, down his sides to spread out in a pool about him.

The world spun and then turned gray, the darkness seeping in from the corner of his eyes to leave the world black.

* * *

Noah paced the living room, trying not to think of Nancy McRae's eyes locked on him as he listened to Marco on the phone. Under the circumstances, he couldn't really blame the woman for trying to pick up any information she could get, especially considering what had happened to her son.

"Got it, Marco. Send your findings to Renée, and I'll find you at the OC in a bit. And tell Sarah to come out to the McRaes' place. I’m going to need a ride."

"What's going on?" Mrs. McRae asked as Noah put away his phone. "What did they find?"

Noah pursed his lips. "You were apparently correct about Mark Crawford not being involved. Unfortunately, he was found dead. Someone apparently killed him, probably to get access to his cell phone."

"Oh, my God," Nancy breathed out. "Does that mean Danny is likely to be dead, as well?"

"We don’t know that,” Noah said, “and so we continue to act on the assumption that he’s alive."

"But what if he’s dead?" she said shakily. “What if it’s already too late?”

“Then we will find the people responsible, and bring them to justice. Ms. McRae, don’t give up hope yet. I have to get back to my operations center, but I’ll be in touch.”

Noah started toward the door, but the shrill ringing of the telephone suddenly made him stop. He quickly waved away Private Lee, then hit the button on the phone monitoring equipment and slipped the earphones into place just before he nodded to Ms. McRae. "Talk calmly,” he said, “keep them on the line as long as possible, and ask for proof that your son is alive."

Nancy nodded, swallowing hard, and then she let out a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. Once she steadied herself, she reached for the phone and answered it.

"Hello?"

"Mrs. McRae?"

“Yes,” she said. “This is Nancy McRae.”

Noah nodded as he kept his eyes on the screen, watching the recording and the tracking of the call that was progressing slowly, but steadily.

"We have your son. We know you have the FBI there with you. They won't be able to help you. The only thing you can do to save your son is to follow the instructions I’m going to give you. Is that clear?"

"Yes," Nancy said. “But…”

Noah's eyes narrowed as the seconds ticked by, but there was no location on the screen yet. It should only take a few seconds to determine where the call was coming from, unless they were somehow masking that information.

“Do not interrupt,” the caller said.

"But, please, can I speak to him? I just need to know…"

"You are in no position to make demands, Mrs. McRae."

"But I need to know he's alive! Can’t you do at least that for me?"

She was getting upset, naturally. Noah watched her in silence, but kept glancing back at the screen and hoping for GPS coordinates that would take them directly to the kidnappers. He was listening intently to the conversation.

There were voices in the background, and then a young man's voice, clearly in pain, sounded from the other end of the line.

"Hello?"

"Danny?"

"Mom? Is that you?"

"Danny, where are you?!"

He never got the chance to answer. The sound of struggling came through the phone, and then they heard the kidnapper's voice once more.

"You've got your proof. Now, here’s what you do. You tell that FBI agent that any attempt to locate your son will result in his death. He’s going to be helping us with a project that is very important, and we cannot afford any interference. You get them to back off, or Danny will not survive. We will keep in touch."

“But, how will I know…”

The line went suddenly silent, and then they heard the beeping that indicated an open circuit. Nancy fell back into her chair, her face an absolute study of grief and anguish.

* * *

Renée had gone directly to the lab to begin preparing for whatever evidence might be coming in, and it was while she was still setting up that they heard about Crawford’s body being found. Doctor Emerson was sent to the scene, but they already had the items Marco and Neil had collected from in front of the McRae house.

She slipped on a pair of rubber gloves and put a mask over her face, then took the cigarette butt out of the evidence bag and began cutting small sections from it. These went into a solution that would help her to recover any DNA evidence that might be present, just in case the butt had been tossed down by the kidnapper while Danny was being snatched.

"Should I be scared?" Neil asked, walking into the lab and seeing her seemingly prepared to handle chemicals from some kind of biological warfare.

"Only if you think about how many people die from smoking every year," Renée said, looking up at him.

Neil grinned, glancing at the cigarette butt. “Good thing it’s not lit,” he said.

“Yes, but smoking may end up being bad luck for whoever took Danny McRae. If that’s who tossed this cigarette butt out, the odds are good that I’ll pull enough DNA samples to connect him to the crime."

Neil waited until she had done whatever she was doing with the cigarette butt, then followed her over to where she began examining tire track images side-by-side on a computer monitor. “Any luck?” he asked.

“Not just yet,” she replied. “Of course, this is purely academic. We already know the kidnappers were driving Crawford’s car, so I’m just trying to match tires so that we can confirm that suspicion once the vehicle is located.”

Neil stood back and watched her for a few moments, then turned around and left the lab. Noah had told him to try to get any information he could about the mystery compound to the south, and Neil had been scanning through satellite and other types of aerial photography, trying to spot any new anomalies that might shed some light on what was going on down there. He had needed a break for a moment, which prompted his trip to the lab, but it was time to get back to work.

Two hours later, he was still looking at images. A couple of them had caught his eye, including one that seemed to show one of the oval “spaceships” more than forty miles away from the location of the compound. It seemed to be in flight at the time, probably skimming just above treetop level. Neil had saved that one to show Noah when he returned, and then started studying radar tracking records for the past couple of months. So far, he had not found a single radar result that could match up to one of the craft. Whether that was because they stayed low, or simply because they were made of a material that didn’t reflect radar signals, he didn’t know.

Noah arrived as he was finishing his radar studies, and barely even grunted when he was shown the few images Neil had found. Only the one that seemed to show the craft skimming over the treetops was truly interesting, but it was also grainy enough that even Neil admitted he couldn’t be certain what he was seeing.

“Let that go and come with me,” Noah said as he turned and headed toward the lab. He stopped along the way at the coffee machine and filled two cups, then continued. Renée looked up when he entered, and her eyes zeroed in on the coffee cups.

"Noah!" she cried happily. "Please tell me one of those is for me!"

"That depends on what you have for me," Noah replied.Noah walked over and stood beside Renée as she replied. “I just got the DNA results, and ran it through the military database.” She turned to the computer and tapped the keyboard for a moment. “Unfortunately, it was apparently one of Mr. McRae’s. His DNA came back as a match.”

Noah nodded and then glanced at the cigarette butt. Frowning, he approached the Petri dish, looking at it closely.

"Noah?" Renée said, cocking her head.

"Boss?" Neil said.

Noah didn't answer, but turned to Neil. “I want you to get me the number to the McRae house,” he said.

* * *

Private Lee, the MP who had been assigned to assist Noah and his team, was sitting at the phone monitoring computer. She had been alone in the room for quite some time, drumming her fingers on the surface of the desk in an unconscious wish to break the silence that had reigned throughout. If she had something to do, then perhaps this waiting wouldn't have been so tedious, but, on the other hand, she didn't have that much choice in the matter. They all had their responsibilities and, for now, this was hers.

Then again, her responsibilities didn't include getting cramps from sitting in an uncomfortable chair for hours on end. Deciding that stretching her legs for a few minutes wouldn't hurt anybody, she stood up and started pacing the room. Her gaze took in the photos over the mantelpiece and shelves, and she noticed details now that she had her chance to examine things further. There weren't that many of them, and in most of them it was just the mother and the son. Even so, she got the impression they were very happy; their smiles were bright and open.

A sound caught her ears and she looked around. It sounded for all the world like a sob, like somebody crying in the next room. A second sob erased all doubt from her mind, and she turned toward the source of the sound. She opened the door slowly, silently, and wasn't surprised to see Nancy McRae standing at the kitchen counter. She had her back to the doorway and her head was bowed, but it was rather obvious that she was crying.

Before she thought about what she was doing, Lee knocked on the door gently to let Ms. McRae know that she was there, and the woman turned quickly to face her.

Nancy McRae quickly wiped away the tears on her cheeks. “Ms. Lee, isn’t it? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for you to see me like…”

“It’s not a problem, ma’am,” Lee said. “I heard something and just wanted to check and make sure you’re okay.

Nancy rolled her eyes. “I suppose I’m as okay as I can be,” she said. “I don’t guess there’s been any news?”

“No, ma’am, nothing yet.”

Nancy looked away again, disappointment written all over her features. “I see,” she said. “Was there something you needed?”

Lee looked at her for a moment. “Some coffee might be nice,” she said, “but only if you might care to join me in a cup.”

Nancy looked at her for a couple of seconds, then rewarded her with a soft smile of her own. The young woman had obviously suggested the idea for her benefit.

“Sure,” she said. “Come on, I’ll make us a pot.”

Lee nodded and stepped into the room, then stood beside Nancy as she set up the coffee. They stood there in silence as it percolated, then poured a couple of cups and took them to the table.

Nancy took a sip and then looked at the private. "Thank you," she said softly. “I suppose I needed a distraction.”

"Nothing to thank me for," Lee replied. “I think I needed the coffee more. What happened to Mr. McRae? Did he leave?”

“He was tired,” Nancy said. “He went upstairs to lie down for a bit. This has been hard on him, too, of course.”

“I suppose so. I got the impression he thought the FBI agents might be a little rough on you.”

“Oh, that’s just the way he is,” Nancy said. “Thomas is my late husband’s eldest brother. He’s always been the protective sort, it’s just natural for him.”

Lee looked at her for a moment, then reached over and laid a hand on her arm. “I know you’re going through things I could never imagine,” she said, “but I really get the feeling that Agent Wolf is quite capable. I think they’ll find your son and bring him home.”

“God, I hope so,” Nancy said. “You know, I’ve spent most of my adult life around the army, and I thought I had seen just about everything. This, though? There’s nothing that can prepare you for something like this.”

“Of course not,” Lee said. “And I can’t imagine ever wanting to be prepared for this sort of thing.”

She smiled weakly, seeing her point. "Have you... worked on very many cases like this before?"

Lee smiled back. "Would you believe me if I said this is my first one?"

Nancy looked at her in surprise. "Really? How old are you?"

"I’m twenty-two, ma'am."

Nancy regarded the young woman curiously. “And what led you into this line of work?”

"Well it was something I always wanted to do," Lee replied. "I was going to study law enforcement in college, but I couldn’t afford the tuition. The army gave me the training for free, and pays me while I learn."

The shrill sound of the phone rang through the air, making both women jump. Lee jumped up quickly and hurried back to the monitoring computer.

"I'll deal with the equipment,” she said. “Don't answer before I give you the okay."

"All right," Nancy said, following her back to the living room. Without wasting any more time, Lee was back on the chair in a second and, once she had made sure everything was in order, nodded for Nancy to go ahead and answer the phone.

“Hello?”

"Ms. McRae, this is Noah Wolf. I need to speak to Private Lee."

Lee blinked in surprise and exchanged a glance with Ms. McRae.

“I’m here, Agent Wolf,” she said. “What can I do for you, sir?”

There was a pause for a few moments. "Is Thomas McRae still in the house?"

Lee felt a shiver go down her spine. "Yes."

Another pause. "I have reason to believe the old man may know more about Danny’s disappearance than he’s let on. Wait there for Jenny and Marco. They're already on their way there. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir."

The other line went dead, indicating that Noah had already hung up. At that moment, Thomas McRae came down the stairs, a deep frown creasing his elderly features. Lee looked up at him and got the impression that he almost looked suspicious.

"What's going on?" he said. "Was that the kidnappers?"

Lee put a smile on her face and acted slightly embarrassed. "No, sir, and I’m sorry about that. I had forgotten to give Agent Wolf my cell phone number. He needed to ask me a question, and that was the only way to contact me."

The man looked at her, a hint of doubt in his face. "And what did he want?"

"To inform me that he's sending someone to back me up."

"Back you up?" the man said gruffly. “Hold your hand, you mean?”

Nancy scowled at him. “Thomas,” she said, “don’t be so rude.”

"No, he's probably right," Lee said, disarmingly. "It comes along with working with the FBI. I think they have a low opinion of MPs, like we aren’t really any kind of police officers at all." She pretended to laugh at her own joke, wincing at how fake it sounded. "I really am sorry. It won't happen again, I'll make sure he has my number from now on."

"You'd better," McRae said, still staring at her as if she was an idiot, and then he turned to his sister-in-law. "I'm going outside to have a cigarette."

Lee thought about how Noah had asked if the old man was there, and acted on impulse. "Actually, sir, it would probably be best if you stayed in here," she said.

"You give me and my niece here a scare because you’re too lazy to do your job right, and now you think you can tell me what to do? I don't think so, miss. Now, get out of my way."

Lee decided to be a bit more forceful. She stepped forward, blocking the elderly man's way. "No, sir. I don't think so. You need to stay inside."

"Private Lee?" Nancy said, confused. “What’s going on here?”

Lee refused to budge, her eyes locked on those of Thomas McRae, just in case he tried anything stupid. "Ms. McRae, Agent Wolf seemed to think your brother-in-law might know something about the kidnapping. I would be remiss in my duties if I allow him to leave this point. Two of the other agents are on the way back, and they can make the decision when they arrive, but I’m not going to allow Mr. McRae to leave the house until they get here."

Nancy stared at her "What?" she asked, and then she turned to look at her brother-in-law.

The man shook his head. "Are you really going to listen to this nonsense, Nancy?" he said. "Now, excuse me, I'm going out."

The doorbell rang in that very moment.

"Ms. McRae, please see who is at the door," Lee said. She was fairly certain, and fervently hoped, that it was Agents Turin and Lance.

The woman nodded hesitantly and then hurried to the door. To Lee’s relief, she had been correct. Marco and Jenny stepped into the room, and Marco smiled at the old man.

"Going somewhere, Mr. McRae?" Marco said.

"Well, I…" Mr. McRae started, his rudeness vanishing suddenly when he was faced with a man instead of a young woman.

"Hold that thought," Jenny said, an evil glint in her eye. “I’m sure you’re going to have plenty to say shortly.”

FOUR

Though Thomas McRae was alone in the hastily set up interview room, he was by no means unattended. Noah, Neil, Sarah and Jenny were watching him closely on the computer monitor, unimpressed by the guilty and shameful look in the elderly man's eyes. He certainly hadn't felt guilty when he had orchestrated his nephew's kidnapping.

Sarah looked around as the door opened, almost expecting Noah to be there. To her mild surprise, though, it was actually Renée.

"May I come in?" she said.

"Of course," Noah replied politely, beckoning her inside. Jenny glanced at her, then returned to watching McRae. Renée nodded and stepped inside, closing the door behind herself.

"I take it you want to watch the interrogation?" Neil asked.

"I thought it might be interesting," she said with a slight shrug. "Who will be asking the questions?"

"Marco," Jenny said.

Renée noticed a slight irritation in her voice. “I take it he doesn’t always do the interrogations?"

"No, Noah usually lets me handle it," she answered. "I’m pretty good at finding out what I want to know."

“Yes, but Noah wants to keep this old man in one piece,” Sarah said. “At least for the moment.” Noah looked at each of them in turn, but said nothing.

"I don't kill people just because they won’t talk to me," Jenny pointed out, trying not to sound too indignant. “Not all the time, anyway.”

Renée chuckled softly. "I should hope not," she said.

Marco appeared at that moment, walking into the interrogation room with the air of someone who was ready to wring the truth out of the man with his bare hands, if necessary. Thomas McRae looked up at him cautiously, but Marco didn't seem to be bothered by the stare. He simply sat down in a relaxed way and then held up a file for Mr. McRae to see.

"Do you know what this is?" Marco said.

Mr. McRae shook his head.

Marco snorted. "No problem, I’ll tell you. This is a complete dossier on you and your entire family, including your nephew Danny." He tossed the file on the desk. "It also tells us that you have had some pretty serious financial problems in the past few months, but all of them seem to have disappeared in the last couple of days. That bank account you set up in the Caymans? Maybe you can explain the quarter million dollars that appeared in it right after Danny was taken yesterday.”

The old man looked away. "I don't know what you are talking about."

Marco grinned at him. "Sorry, but that’s not true. We already know you were involved in the kidnapping, and that you were well paid to do it. The guy who ran the operation only had to watch from down the street to make sure you did your job yesterday. The men in the car just waited for you to call and say Danny had stepped out of the house. He’s undoubtedly the one who had Mark Crawford’s cell phone, so he was probably the one who called Danny that morning. Did you tell them to kill Mark, too?"

Mr. McRae's eyes widened tenfold. "What? No, I didn't!"

"But you admit to everything else, do you?"

Mr. McRae swallowed hard and then his face fell in resignation. "I—I had no idea what they were going to do," he whispered.

Marco shook his head. "Oh, come on, are you serious?'" he said. "Are you going to try to tell me you thought they were taking him out for a picnic?"

Mr. McRae lowered his gaze. "What do you want from me?"

"Just two things,” Marco said. “First, I want to know where they’re keeping your nephew, and second, I want to know what it is they wanted him for. Answer those for me, and it’s possible you might avoid the death penalty."

Mr. McRae sighed. "I don't know, either of those."

Marco snorted. "McRae, I'm not in a mood to play games. Tell me where they are, and you might find a judge who will be lenient."

"I'm telling you, I honestly don't know. They never said where they were going to take him, or even why they wanted him." Mr. McRae cried, and then let out a tired sigh. "All I was supposed to do was make sure to slip something into his coffee that morning and help him get out to the car. As long as they were able to take him without anyone getting hurt, I would be paid."

"So you drugged him?" Marco said in feigned shock.

"Yes. I just put a couple drops of something into his coffee, something to make him lethargic and cooperative. It took effect quickly and then all I had to do was walk with him out to the street and help him get into the car.” He raised his eyes to Marco. “I'm not proud of it."

"I can’t imagine that you would be," Marco said, his eyes cold.

The old man suddenly glared at him. "Don’t think to judge me, young man. They assured me he wasn’t going to be hurt, and that he’d be returned safely once he does what they want. You can’t imagine how expensive it is, trying to keep Nancy happy. That woman has the most expensive taste I’ve ever…"

"Never mind her," Marco said, slamming his hand on the table. “What is it they want Danny to do, Mr. McRae?”

"I don’t know," the uncle said just as emphatically. "They said they'd drop him off somewhere when he was done, and that would be that."

"Do you know how long they were going to need him, at least?"

"No. They said it would be only a few days at most, but that’s all they told me," Mr. McRae said.

“Okay, last question. Who was it came to you and suggested you help snatch your nephew? Had to be somebody who knew about your money troubles, so don’t give me any line about how it was just some guy you’d never seen before.”

McRae sighed and looked at the table top. “No, I certainly knew him. His name is Jared Gallagher, and he and Danny used to be friends. They got into some kind of argument a couple of years ago, had something to do with the girl they were both crazy about. He came to see me about a week ago, said the people he was working for now need Danny’s help, but that Danny wasn’t cooperating. He offered the money if I would simply help them arrange to borrow my nephew for a short time.”

“Why would they get you involved? Why didn’t they just go ahead and snatch him for real?”

McRae shook his head. “Because Danny—Danny is a highly skilled fighter. Without those drops, he could have easily taken on the men who drove him away, and several more besides. It had to be done without anyone getting hurt, remember?”

Marco pursed his lips, taking in the information, and then got back on his feet. He had barely made a couple of steps to the door when Mr. McRae stopped him, however.

"Agent Turin?"

Marco turned and eyed him icily.

"Can you please tell his mother how sorry I am?"

Marco stared at him for a moment, then walked out without another word. He stepped into the main room and looked at the others. "If he doesn't know where they’ve been keeping him, there's no telling where they are," he said, frowning.

“Then we keep looking,” Noah said. “On the other hand, this means the calls from the  kidnapper are probably real. Whoever has Danny is trying to make us back off.”

“I just have one question,” Jenny said. “I’ve been going over everything, and I can’t figure out how you knew the old man was involved. Care to enlighten me?”

Noah turned and looked at her. “The cigarette butt,” he said. “It struck me as odd that someone who was willing to kidnap a man for some sort of secret purpose would bother to throw down a cigarette butt in the middle of it all. It didn’t hit me at the time, but when I saw the cigarette butt in the lab, I realized it was the same brand Mr. McRae was smoking when we arrived at the house. I figured he probably would have lit one if he was nervous about being involved in the kidnapping, and Ms. McRae said she saw him standing in the street shouting at the car as it drove away with Danny. That old man doesn’t move that fast, so for him to be in the street, he almost had to be there when the abduction took place. He was there, the cigarette butt was there. On top of that, the waitress said she hadn’t seen the suspicious looking guy who watched it all before. Someone planning a kidnapping would probably have staked the place out more than once, and the café was a perfect observation point. If he hadn’t been there multiple times, then he wasn’t expecting a problem; he was simply watching to make sure things went according to plan, and he simply watched while the old man was in the street right when the abduction took place. That tells me he wasn’t surprised by Thomas McRae’s presence, so it must’ve been part of the plan. I wasn’t certain, but I played a hunch and it paid off.”

Allison, who had been in a side office with Major Wilson, suddenly stuck her head out and caught Noah’s eye. “Noah? Get in here.”

Noah turned and walked to the door, then followed her inside. “What’s happening?” he asked. “You look worried.”

“We just got a call,” Allison said. “A body has been found in an alley in Buenos Aires, wearing a U.S. Army uniform. I want you to take your team to check it out, just in case it turns out to be McRae.”

She handed Noah a sheet of paper with an address and directions, and he turned to go without a word. He caught the eyes of Marco, Jenny and Neil, and hooked a finger at them to follow him, then took a short detour to the second of the Quonset huts that was being used as the lab and morgue.

“Doctor Emerson,” Noah said as he entered. “We have another body.”

Emerson looked up from where he was bent over the body of Mark Crawford. “I’m afraid he’ll need to get in line,” he said. He pointed at a hastily installed cooler. “Major Wilson has just brought me three more, the ones they had recovered previously. I was just finishing up with this one and about to start on those.”

“You find anything interesting with this guy?” Noah asked.

“Well, I was correct about the cause of death. A single nine millimeters round penetrated his right parietal bone and passed through the brain tissue, resulting in nearly complete expulsion of the brain through the exit fissure. The weapon was fired at extremely close range, and bruises on his hands and arms indicate that he was apparently putting up a fight. I get the impression that he may have surprised his killer, possibly while they were trying to steal his cell phone.”

Noah nodded. “That’s what we thought. Is there something special about the other bodies you’ve got now?”

“Yes, according to Wilson. They seem to be showing abnormalities that the army doctors don’t recognize. This is one of the reasons I was brought in, because I’ve been involved in looking at some strange anomalies with some other bodies that have been discovered recently.”

“Well, let your assistant start with those,” Noah said. “I need you to come along with us right now.”

* * *

It didn’t take long to determine that the new victim was not Specialist McRae. The soldier had been shoved unceremoniously into a corner of a back alley downtown, bare-chested except for dog tags identifying him as Lieutenant William Belcher. Noah and the team carried out their act professionally, photographing the scene and scouring it for any evidence that might lead to the identity of his killers. Emerson did his in situ examination, and the body was loaded up to be carried back to the OC for further examination.

“Neil,” Noah said, “find me everything you can on Lieutenant Belcher. I want to know…”

“Already on it,” Neil said, holding his specially enhanced smart phone. “Lieutenant William Belcher is assigned to the cryptography unit at the local base. Boss, he’s got a high security clearance and is responsible for handling all coded messages from Joint Operation Command. He’s been absent without leave for almost two weeks, nobody has had any idea where he went or how to find him.”

Noah nodded. “Marco, I want you to go find his unit and speak with his commanding officer. Find out about his friends, anybody he hangs out with. Let’s see if he had been talking about any problems before he disappeared.”

“I’m on it,” Marco said.

“Sarah, you go ahead and drive Marco. We’ll ride back with the body.”

Sarah looked at him for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, sir,” she said, keeping up her act as simply part of the team. She and Marco walked back toward the car while Noah, Neil and Jenny followed Emerson and the body to the van they were using.

Noah went to the morgue with Emerson while Neil and Jenny downloaded the photographs and went over them together. They studied them for almost an hour, until they finally put them on the big monitor screen on the wall. Jenny stood and watched as each one appeared, shaking her head.

"What are you thinking?"

Jenny looked up as Neil came to stand next to her beside the monitor, upon which photos of their latest crime scene were displayed. Witnesses said it looked like he had been mugged—his wallet, phone and watch were missing—but Jenny had the feeling that things were not quite as they seemed.

She shook her head in reply to Neil's question. "Just that the person or people who did this didn’t really seem to care much about what the scene was going to look like. It was obviously staged, but not in any way that makes any sense."

Neil nodded, staring at the photo with her. "I think I agree with you. I mean, who mugs somebody just to take a shirt? And who shoots someone in the back three times? He was obviously killed somewhere else, there's not enough blood anywhere near the body for that to be the place he was murdered. No matter how you look at it, there's a whole bunch of things the just don’t add up."

"Like what, Neil?"

Both Jenny and Neil jumped at the sound of Noah’s voice, just behind them, and they both spun to face him.

"Well, there is obviously the fact that the body was moved." He looked at Jenny as if asking for help, but she merely smiled and let him continue on his own. "I personally get the impression somebody dressed him in those jeans after he was already dead. There's almost no blood on them, and there’s plenty of signs that the blood pooled on his lower back, so some of it should have hit those jeans. And then, he was shot in the back, but he's sitting there with his back against the wall. That just isn’t possible." He paused for a moment, then pointed toward the victim’s right arm. "And then there's the fact that his wrists are bruised all the way around, indicating that he was restrained."

"And of course," Jenny added, pointing toward a picture of the victim’s elbow, "we have these needle marks. Doctor Emerson says there’s more than a dozen of them, and all of them are not more than a few days old." She turned to Noah. "Renée is testing blood samples now. She should be able to give us a good idea of what drugs are involved before long."

Noah nodded, then looked around. "No sign of Sarah and Marco yet?"

Jenny and Neil both shrugged. "Not yet,” Jenny said. “They should be…”

"We are back," Marco said as he and Sarah walked into the OC. "I spoke to Lieutenant Belcher’s CO, and to a Staff Sergeant Lambert. Apparently Belcher had taken a few days leave time last week, but he was supposed to be back on duty six days ago. Sergeant Lambert knew that Belcher was staying at a local hotel, so I went to check it out. The manager said he'd been staying there for a couple of months, but suddenly checked out over a week ago. No wait, strike that, a girlfriend of his actually checked him out."

"A girlfriend?" Noah asked. Marco shrugged and sat down on a desk.

"That caught my attention, too. I went back to his unit and talked to Sergeant Lambert again, but he claims Belcher never mentioned any girlfriends. Belcher was something of a loner, and the few friends he had didn't know of any girlfriend, family, or even friends outside of his own unit. I managed to get a picture of the woman from the hotel security camera, but she paid in cash. No credit card information, and nobody seemed to know her name.”

“Had anybody seen her with Belcher? Was she actually staying in the room with him?”

"I asked the manager about that, but this is one of those places that deliberately doesn’t pay attention. I asked him about the last time he had seen Belcher, and he said it was about a week ago." He looked at the photos on the monitor, then turned back to Noah. "There was already some people in the room, but the manager got them to let me take a look. I couldn’t see any signs of struggle or anything, and housekeeping didn’t mention anything when they cleaned the room."

Without a word, Noah turned and left, and the rest of them went back to discussing the photos. Marco scanned the photo he had gotten of the mysterious girlfriend, and Neil started running it through facial recognition software. Theoretically, if she was as American as she looked, her face should be in at least one of many national databases.

Noah went directly to the lab, where Renée broke out in a huge smile as Noah appeared. She was standing at a computer and motioned for Noah to come closer

“You’re smiling,” Noah said. "I take it you found something?"

"Did I find something?" Renée repeated, pointing at her computer monitor. "I’m going to let you answer that, Noah. We’ve got blood tests, bullet fragments, some other pieces of stuff that Emerson pulled from Lieutenant Belcher's feet, and we’re analyzing all of it right now. Blood test first?"

Noah nodded and Renée tapped away on her computer. "Good, because that's what I’ve got for you first, and there is something really odd about it."

"Why do you say that?" Noah asked, turning to watch the monitor.

"Well, we can confirm the identity as Lieutenant Belcher, based on a DNA match. The guy was either using drugs or had them forced on him, there’s no way for me to tell on that. Regardless of how they got there, though, he had a really weird mix of drugs in his system. There is a lot of the usual stuff, like steroids, muscle mass enhancement drugs and such, as well as a few others that are known to suppress mental activity.”

"Bodybuilder stuff?" Noah asked, looking at her and then looking at the computer again. "The lieutenant was into physical fitness?"

"There’s nothing really unusual about that," she told him, “and he was known to be working out a lot, but when you look at all the other things I found in his blood…”

"Other things?" Noah asked. "Like what kind of things?"

"To be honest, I don't know," she told him. "I found some unusual things, and it’s not like anything I’ve ever seen before. It must’ve come from something organic, because it tested positive for DNA, but nothing in the DNA database was a match. I’m thinking it’s something animal, but I can’t even be certain of that, because some of the markers are common to flora, while some are more common to fauna."

Noah looked hard at her. "Are you talking about some sort of chemical? Maybe something that’s derived from a plant, or are you talking about some kind of poison?" he asked.

"No way to tell, at this point. I don’t think it’s any kind of plant extract, exactly, and it isn’t exactly a poison. If I had to make a guess, I'd say that it puts me in mind of some kind of genetic manipulation. Noah, I think we’re looking at some sort of experimental genetic alterations. And whoever is behind it is pretty serious, considering how much of it I found in his blood."

Noah looked perplexed, which was something Renée had never seen. "I would have to say that’s strange," he told her, looking at her and thinking hard. "It makes it appear that Lieutenant Belcher was being used as some sort of guinea pig."

“It does, doesn’t it? And that makes me wonder about the others who have gone missing. Noah, I’m beginning to agree with Allison and the NSA people. I think this is connected to whatever is going on with those flying saucers.”

Noah nodded. “I don’t think there’s much doubt,” he said. “The only question is how they are connected, and just what is going on out there. I wish we had some way to know where Belcher was killed, and whether or not he was anywhere near that compound.”

"Believe it or not, there might be," Renée said. “Lieutenant Belcher’s blood also shows exposure to antimony, which, in Argentina, is found primarily in Catamarca Province. If he wasn’t at the compound, he was somewhere in that area."

“It sounds like it,” Noah said. “Doc Emerson is working on the autopsy, and then he’s going to start on the other bodies. I want to know if you find antimony in their blood, as well.”

FIVE

Jared Gallagher had not been hard to find. He was working just outside the base for a company called Morgan Pride, a supplier of food and materials to the U.S. military personnel on the base. Noah had taken Marco with him and headed directly for the place.

"Yeah,” the warehouse manager said. “He works here, good worker." He studied Noah’s face carefully for a moment. "FBI? Did he do something wrong?"

"We just need to speak with him," Noah replied. “Can you call him for us?”

"Sure, no problem," the man said. He picked up a telephone on his desk and punched a button. The intercom system came to life. “Gallagher, Jared Gallagher. Report to the office, Jared Gallagher.”

The office had a large glass window that looked out over the warehouse, and Noah spotted a large, muscular man who turned away from what he was doing and started walking toward them. He was almost to the office door when he happened to look up and spotted Noah through the window, and that’s when he turned and took off running.

"Marco, cut right! I’ll go left," Noah said, ripping the door open and breaking into a run.

"I see him," Marco shouted. He and Noah took different paths as they attempted to intercept Gallagher and cut him off. He had almost made it to a fire escape when the two of them grabbed him and snatched him back, then pinned him down on the concrete floor. Gallagher struggled to turn over, ready to start swinging, but the muzzle of Noah’s gun was enough to change his mind when he found himself looking down the barrel.

"If you are smart enough to tell me what I need to know,” Noah said, “then there is a reasonable possibility you might not spend the rest of your life in prison. If you do not, then there is a one hundred percent certainty that the rest of your life can be measured in hours, rather than years.”

Gallagher grunted, then relaxed and put his hands behind his head. He was still lying face down, for the most part, and it took Marco only seconds to get the handcuffs on him.

“You know,” Marco said, “I’m supposed to be acting like an FBI agent, which means I should read you your rights. Thing is, you just heard Noah explain that he doesn’t do things the way the FBI does. I’m pretty sure you know what your rights are, should you live long enough to exercise them.” He yanked the man up to his feet and marched him out of the warehouse and toward the back seat of the car. Gallagher got in without resisting and Noah slid in beside him while indicating that Marco should take the wheel.

“Now, Mr. Gallagher,” Noah said. “We’ve got a few minutes to ourselves, before we have to worry about anybody else listening in on the conversation. This is your chance to talk, and if you’re worried about anybody else finding out that you did, I can promise that it will stay between us. I’m in a position to guarantee you leniency if you cooperate, and I don’t have to reveal the extent of that cooperation.”

Gallagher looked over at him for a second, then turned his face forward again. “I got nothing to say,” he said.

“That’s too bad,” Noah replied. “See, I’m not really with the FBI. The organization I work for was created to eliminate incorrigibles who are a danger to our society, and I am authorized in this case to decide who that might be. I want to know where Specialist Danny McRae was taken, and I have reason to believe you know the answer to that question. If you tell me what I want to know, then it’s possible I can convince my superiors that you don’t fall in that classification, and you might get a chance to redeem yourself by helping us solve some problems. On the other hand, I don’t hold a lot of hope that you’re going to be that smart, so I’m only going to ask you one more time. If you give me a valid answer, you don’t die. If you don’t, or if I find out you lied to me, I will terminate you without a thought.”

Gallagher swallowed hard, then turned and met Noah’s eyes. “If I talk,” he said, “you are the least of the people I would be afraid of.”

“I’m not sure I understand that,” Noah said. “If you cooperate with me, you’re going to live longer than if you don’t. If the people behind the kidnapping are that frightening, I can arrange to do everything possible to protect you. Witness protection, a new identity, whatever it takes.”

“Witness protection? You mean, a whole new life and I don’t end up going to prison?”

“If your information is valid and helpful, I could arrange that. Last chance to talk.” Noah raised his weapon and pointed it at Gallagher’s head.

“Okay, okay,” Gallagher said. “Looks like I’m a dead man either way, so I might as well make it last as long as I can.” He took a deep breath. “You ever heard of the Men In Black?”

“The Will Smith movie?” Noah asked, his face straight.

“No, asshole,” Gallagher shot back. “I’m talking about the real deal, the guys in black suits and dark glasses. They come to visit after you run into something from another world.”

“I’ve heard of them,” Noah said. “Are you trying to tell me they paid you a visit?”

Gallagher looked at him for a couple of seconds, then nodded. “They sure as hell did. Two of them, just like you read about on the Internet. They were just like you hear about, black business suits, dark glasses and something about them just doesn’t look real, if you know what I mean. I gotta tell you, I honestly think these were not really men at all. I don’t know what they were, but—well, people don’t look like they are made of plastic.”

“Did they hit you with the flashy thing?” Marco asked sarcastically. “From everything I ever heard about them, they make you forget what you saw.”

“Nah, that’s Hollywood crap. What they do is give you a choice. Shut up about it or something bad will happen to you. In my case, it turned out to be both.”

“So, you’re saying you saw a UFO, and then these men came to see you?” Noah asked.

“Yep. About three weeks ago, I was out making a delivery to one of the outpost locations, and—and I saw something. Big white thing, kind of oval-shaped, and it flew right over my truck. When it did, the engine stopped running, the lights went out and I just about messed myself. After it went by, everything started working again, so I went ahead and dropped my delivery, then beat it back to the warehouse as fast as I could. I only told a couple people, because I figured nobody was going to believe me anyway, but then it was about two days later when I was at the warehouse by myself when those guys showed up. They said they picked me because I knew old man McRae, and I knew how to move money around. They said they needed Specialist Danny McRae because he was the only one in the whole freaking hemisphere who knew how to fix something, but they couldn’t let anybody know what they were doing. That’s why they had to stage it like a kidnapping, and they told me to set it up any way I could.”

“And you came up with the plan all by yourself, then?” Noah asked. “Thomas McRae got two hundred thousand dollars for his involvement. Where did the money come from, and how much were you paid?”

“Those guys, they gave me an account that was already set up. It had half a million dollars in it, and they told me to use it to pay anybody who helped me. I knew the old man was hurting for money, just about everybody who knows him knew that, so I asked him if he’d be willing to help me arrange for Danny to take a little vacation.” Gallagher shook his head. “That old bastard would sell his own mother, if he needed money. He told me he’d do it for two hundred K, and I already knew a couple locals who would do anything for money. I set it up and gave old man McRae the happy drops, then watched the whole thing go down. That’s the extent of it. As far as where they took him, I got no clue. All I know is they told me he’d be safe and that he would be returned within a few days.”

Marco glanced at Gallagher in the rearview mirror. “And you believed all that shit?”

“Yeah, you go ahead and judge me. You didn’t look into those weird blue eyes. When those men talk to you, you do what they want. There’s something about them that tells you if you don’t, they are going to be back and you are really going to be unhappy when that happens.”

“So, instead,” Noah said, “you betrayed an American soldier and probably your country. I’m going to need more information, Gallagher. Where did you see this UFO?”

Gallagher looked at him. “Get me a map and I can point to the spot. I was just at a crossroad when it happened, and I remember exactly where.”

“Tell me roughly for the moment,” Noah said. “Which direction, and how far?”

“Northwest, about eight hundred kilometers. It was just a little bit past Córdoba. I was at the intersection of RN 60 and RN 9. I always take 9, to avoid the tolls. That’s how I know exactly where I was.”

Noah watched him for a couple of seconds. “Tell me something, Gallagher,” he said. “Have you ever heard any rumors about some kind of secret alien base out there?”

Gallagher looked at the back of the seat in front of him for a moment, then slowly turned his face toward Noah. “There’s always rumors about strange things,” he said, “any time you’re around a bunch of soldiers. Those guys out at that outpost? They claim they’ve seen UFOs flying overhead, and some of them claim to have seen actual alien creatures in the jungles. If you can believe what they told me, more than forty men have gone into those jungles and never come back.”

“And you think your visitors had something to do that?”

“Man, I don’t know what to think. I mean, this wasn’t something I ever expected to have to deal with, you know?”

“And yet, after hearing that there could be alien activity in that area, you willingly cooperated with unidentified agents that you yourself described as not appearing human, and assisted them in capturing an American soldier. Did they tell you anything else about why they wanted him?”

“Like I told you,” Gallagher said, “they said he was the only guy in this part of the world who can fix something they needed fixed. I know Danny through his uncle, so I figure it’s probably something to do with computers.”

Noah nodded. “Yeah, probably,” he said. “Now, tell me about the locals who helped you grab him.”

* * *

Gallagher was more than happy to give up his accomplices, who turned out to be a pair of local thugs. Noah sent Marco and Jenny to find them while he checked in with Doctor Emerson.

"What have you got, Doc?" he asked as he stepped into the makeshift morgue.

The pathologist looked up from where he was washing his hands as Noah walked up to him. "I’m afraid we are dealing with something I have never seen before," he told Noah immediately, his accent thick. "I must tell you, Noah, that never in my career have I performed an autopsy on a body like that of our young Lieutenant Belcher."

Noah moved closer and leaned over the body. "Looks pretty normal on the outside," he said calmly. "What's different about him?"

Emerson shook his head. "Whatever the substance was that we found in his system has drastically altered his physiology. His muscles were large, but they are also denser than any I have ever seen in a man of similar age and size, even for a bodybuilder. It’s possible that the substance was something developed for increasing muscle mass and density, and if so it was obviously successful, but there were other alterations, as well."

He moved over to a light board and switched it on to illuminate the X-rays of Belcher’s chest. "Take a look at this. His lungs are markedly smaller than I would expect them to be, and his heart is quite a bit larger than normal, although its walls are considerably thinner than they should be. The heart muscle tissue, however, is also much denser than usual. It’s likely that his heart beat much faster than what would be considered normal, thereby making it possible to let the smaller lungs serve to oxygenate the blood sufficiently for the body. In addition, and I find this hard to believe myself, his skeletal structure was undergoing some sort of mutation, as well."

"Mutation?" Noah said, looking up at the doctor with a rare expression of surprise on his face. "Renée mentioned finding something that she thought could cause genetic changes. What kind of mutations are we talking about?"

"That, I’m afraid, is going to be difficult to explain," Emerson told him, hesitantly, and then pointed at the X-ray again. "His femurs are about five centimeters shorter than I would expect them to be, and there is a slight curvature to them that I have not seen before. His tibia and fibula, his shin bones, show signs of lengthening. Even the  metatarsals are elongated, by nearly an inch, as is the talus bone in each foot, to the point that I would almost say the man almost has the leg bones of something like an ostrich."

Noah stared at him. "You mean, like with the backwards knee?" he asked.

Emerson’s eyebrows rose. “Oh, I see the confusion. The knee of an ostrich is not backward, it’s simply much higher than you expect it to be when comparing its legs to those of a man. What you think of as its knee, pointing rearward, is actually more comparable to the human ankle or heel bone. The long bone between that point and the actual foot would correspond to the talus. Yes, I’m afraid Lieutenant Belcher’s legs were becoming more like those of a bird—or a Tyrannosaurus Rex.”

“Is that it?”

“Not at all.” Emerson pointed again. “Note the fingers. Each of them almost a centimeter longer than they should be, and once again the muscles show signs of excessive growth and density. I would suspect this man had a grip that could literally crush the hand of another man.”

Noah turned and looked at the body again, then walked over and picked up Belcher’s hand and looked closely at it. “Fingernails look awfully thick,” he said.

Emerson nodded. “Indeed. They are roughly three times the thickness they should be. If he let them grow a bit and sharpened them, they could be quite effective as claws.”

Noah looked at them for another couple of seconds, then laid the hand back on the table. “So, was it the bullets that killed him?”

Emerson nodded. "It was, although I was surprised when I removed the bullets because they were not in the least disfigured, so they are obviously not your common rounds. Renée has been running some tests and should have some kind of results by now. However, there are a couple more things I can tell you," he added, turning the light off. "The shoes he was wearing when he was found were added after he was dead. I found bits of wood and sand between his toes, so I suspect he was running barefoot from someone. As you surmised, he had been restrained for some period of time. He also had a number of bruises, some of them several days old, but some much more recent."

"So he probably wasn't there of his own free will," Noah said. He stood up straight and answered the inevitable question. "It looks like we have another victim of abduction on our hands. Anything else I need to know?" he asked, and Emerson gave a small, non-committal shrug. Noah looked him in the eye. "What is it, Doc?"

"Oh, it’s probably absolutely nothing. I mean, there’s no doubt that the bullets are what killed him."

"But?" Noah asked, nodding for the doctor to go on. Emerson sighed and scowled, looking perplexed.

"Well—Noah, I suspect that it may have taken all three bullets to take him down. The man’s skin is incredibly tough, my scalpel would barely go through it. None of the bullets penetrated deeply, and it was only a combination of the three wounds that caused enough bleeding for him to die of exsanguination."

One of Noah’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Are you telling me this guy’s skin was that tough?” he asked. “Enough to resist a bullet?”

“I’m saying that his tissues have enough density that smaller calibers probably would not have done him any harm. Had the bullets that struck him not damaged a couple of large blood vessels, he probably would’ve survived.” He scowled. “And I’m afraid that’s not all of it. I saw signs that the injuries were actually starting to heal before he died. Considering the amount of blood loss, that healing was taking place within less than a minute after he was shot. If the third bullet had missed, he probably would have recovered, and I would say that he probably would’ve been perfectly fine within a couple of hours.”

Noah stared at him for a moment longer, then nodded. “Check those other bodies,” he said. “Tell me as soon as you can whether they also show any signs of these mutations.”

“I certainly shall,” Emerson said.

Noah turned away and made his way quickly to Renée's lab.

"Hey," Renée said, turning to smile as he entered. "Great timing! I just got the results back from those bullets."

“Good. Emerson tells me they they were some kind of special ammunition?”

She turned and moved to the table, where the three bullets salvaged from Belcher’s body were sitting in a Petri dish. "Most definitely, and all fifty caliber, but they were not your normal lead slugs. See how pointed they are, and how they held their shape? That’s because they’re made of tungsten carbide."

“Tungsten carbide?”

“Yep. Just about the hardest metal there is, and capable of piercing almost any armor. These are the kind of bullets you might want to use against something that was going to be encased in steel.”

Noah nodded, smiling slightly. "Good work, Renée. Did you get anything more on that drug?"

Renée frowned. “No, I’m afraid not. I also think we might want to stop thinking of it as a drug. Whatever it is, the DNA component—which we still can’t identify, by the way—still has me leaning toward some sort of gene therapy program.” She shrugged and looked at him. “Reminds me of science fiction movies. It’s like somebody is trying to make monsters.”

Noah nodded, and smiled. "Don't worry about it, Renée. We'll get these guys, and then we'll make them tell us what it is."

Noah turned and left the lab, heading straight toward the main office area. Neil was sitting at his computer, like always, and Noah leaned down beside him.

“Anything on Belcher’s mysterious girlfriend?” he asked.

Neil looked around at him. “Sorry, boss,” he said. “I haven’t had any luck at all. I’ve run her through every facial recognition database there is, and haven’t gotten a single match.”

“All right,” Noah said. “But don’t quit trying.”

He turned away and headed into the office where Allison was sitting behind a desk, reading through a file. She looked up as he entered without knocking.

“Well?” she asked. “Any progress so far?”

“We know that we’re dealing with something pretty strange, and there does seem to be something alien involved. I’m not convinced it’s real just yet, but the body we picked up today has had some genetic mutations that we can’t explain at the moment.”

Allison laid the file on her desk and looked closely at him. “Genetic mutations? Noah, this is potentially very serious. If we really are dealing with something otherworldly, then we have to keep it quiet. If any of the soldiers on this base got wind of it and started sending emails back home…”

“The whole world could go into a panic,” Noah finished for her. “I understand, but there are already rumors going around about alien activity around that compound. One of the kidnapping suspects we picked up has heard those rumors, and was told by soldiers at the outpost that men have disappeared trying to learn more about them.”

“I know there’s been some talk out there,” she said. “Fortunately, they are on a communications lockdown. Nobody there is going to be spreading the word, and any rumors that come out with visitors aren’t likely to be all that believable. Any idea what your next step is going to be?”

“I’m waiting for more information about the bodies Major Wilson sent us. Doctor Emerson seems pretty competent, but even he admits he’s never seen anything like this before. I’d like to take a ride out that direction and see what I can find around the compound.”

Allison looked at him for a long moment, then picked up the file folder laying on her desk. “Major Wilson dropped this off a bit ago,” she said. “This is a man he’d like us to incorporate into your team for the duration of this mission. I want you to take a look at this file, because Wilson believes he might be useful. And, Noah? I’m not ready to let you go out there and disappear into the jungles just yet. I want you to find out who is behind these abductions, first.”

Noah accepted the file and glanced at it. “Yes, ma’am,” he said as he stood and left the room.

Neil looked up as he entered the main office section. “Boss? What do we do next?”

Noah glanced out the window at the setting sun. “We go have dinner,” he said. “We’ll be eating at the Officer’s Club, and then we might as well get some rest. I suggest we all try to get some sleep and tackle this again in the morning.”

SIX

Sarah came into the room she was sharing with Noah, her hair wrapped in a towel since she was returning from the shower. Noah was kicked back on the bed and reading through the file Allison had given him.

“So, who’s the new guy?” Sarah asked.

Noah answered without looking up. "Carl Litchfield, thirty-five years old, born in Albany, New York; got his Bachelor's Degree in physics at age 23, joined the army shortly after. He served with the 101st Airborne Division, rose to the rank of Sergeant. He served two tours in Afghanistan, and was then sent to Military Intelligence. The file ends there."

“And why is he going to be helping us?”

“Allison says he may have some kind of experience with the type of situation we’re dealing with. Major Wilson thought he might be helpful, but I’m not sure what he has in mind.”

Sarah took the towel off her head and pulled a hairbrush out of her bag. She began brushing out her hair as she asked, “What kind of experience could he have in dealing with aliens?”

“I guess we’ll have to ask him in the morning,” Noah said. “He’s scheduled to arrive around eight o’clock.”

The whole team was up at six, and made their way to the Officer’s Club for breakfast. As they gathered around the table, Noah began to tell them about Sergeant Litchfield.

“What do we need another ex-sergeant for?” Marco asked. “What’s so special about this guy?”

"Actually,” said a voice behind them, causing Marco to jump, “I was only a corporal when I was discharged."

Noah looked up and found himself looking into the same face he had seen in the photographs that accompanied the file Allison had given him.

“Your service record says you were a Staff Sergeant,” Noah said.

“I know, but that’s an error. I had actually been demoted just a few days before my discharge, and somehow the records didn’t catch up in time. Are you Mr. Wolf?”

Noah stood and extended a hand. “I am,” he said. He quickly introduced the others, and invited Litchfield to have a seat at the table. The waiter had already dropped off menus, and Noah slipped his glasses on as he picked one of them up.

“So,” Marco said as looked over his own menu. “They tell me you’re the new expert that’s going to help us figure out what’s going on down here?”

“I don’t know that I’m any kind of expert,” Litchfield said with a self-deprecating smile. “On the other hand, I do have some experience that may be helpful.” He looked around the room and decided that they were isolated enough that he could speak more freely. “Mr. Wolf, with your permission, I can tell you and your team the basics of what I know.”

“Granted,” Noah said. “I’m interested in hearing it myself.”

Litchfield grinned. “Since my discharge four years ago, I’ve been employed by the Office of Science and Technology Policy, which advises the president on the effects of science and technology on matters of domestic and international security. One of my duties has been to oversee security at a special government installation, and to investigate breaches of security there. I’m going to assume you’ve all heard of Area 51?”

"Please say you’re about to tell us that little green men really do have something to do with our mission," Neil said, his eyes wide.

Litchfield turned to look at him. “Nothing quite so dramatic, I’m afraid,” he said. “As far as I know, we don’t have any little green men stashed away anywhere. On the other hand, they would not necessarily represent the only kind of alien that would interest the scientific community. Area 51, despite the many conspiracy theories to the contrary, is not a hotbed of alien technology being reverse engineered; it’s actually a place where we can isolate bits of extraterrestrial matter for study. Meteorites that fall to Earth and are located occasionally contain minerals, microbes and spores that are not native to our world. Laboratories at Area 51 carefully examine them to determine any potential risks or benefits those samples might present to humanity. This is particularly true of any organic matter, such as the microbes and spores.”

“Wait a minute,” Neil said. “According to everything I’ve been able to find, we’ve never discovered any sort of verifiable alien life. You’re saying that isn’t true?”

“I’m afraid I am. We, the Chinese and the Russians, at least, have all discovered organic material in meteorites, and both we and the Russians have detected microbes even in space. Samples have been brought back to Earth for study, but this information is kept highly classified in order to avoid panic. You can blame Michael Crichton; The Andromeda Strain was a wonderful book and movie, but it also convinced the people of the world that alien microbes would be extremely dangerous to terrestrial life. The fact is that it’s highly unlikely, because a pathogen has to evolve with its host. For an alien germ to affect us, it would have to live with us for quite some time, probably generations at a minimum. After all, there are probably a billion types of microbes here in our own world, and less than fifteen hundred of them actually make us sick.”

Noah was looking at him. “What connection does Area 51 have to the situation we are dealing with today? Obviously there must be one, or you wouldn’t be sitting here.”

Litchfield’s grin became less humorous. “I was warned that you get straight to the point,” he said. “You’re right. In the late 1980s, a meteorite was discovered that contained some of the most complex microbes ever to come from outside Earth’s ecosystem. It was taken to Area 51 for study, and those microbes were found to be surprisingly compatible with our world. They fed on many of the same compounds that earthly microbes consume, and their DNA bore a lot of similarities to that of microbes we find here. Now, let me point out that this is the only alien microbe we have discovered that could possibly interact with any Earthly life form, and it didn’t take long before there was testing to see if it was likely to cause any kind of illness or disease. It did not, not in any other type of tissues it was exposed to, and yes, before you ask, it was tested on human tissues in a Petri dish. No detrimental effects were found at all.”

“Now, hold on,” Renée said. “You’re talking about bacteria, right? If it’s that similar to Earthly bacteria, how do you know it isn’t simply a new native form that had never been discovered before?”

“Because of the presence of certain organic carbon molecules known as tholins,” Litchfield replied. “Some of these tholins contain helium-3 atoms, and such a compound is simply not present on Earth. It’s very likely that it can only be created under greater pressures than we can even generate here, even if we had access to the helium-3. Unfortunately, it’s one of the rarest substances on Earth.”

“But it’s common on the moon,” Neil said. “That’s one of the reasons we want to go back to the moon, to collect helium-3 to use in fusion reactors.”

Litchfield grinned at him. “That’s correct,” he said. “However, the scientists at Area 51 discovered that this particular tholin, when it is introduced into terrestrial DNA, causes certain mutations. Those mutations…”

“Those mutations cause changes to the physiology of humans,” Noah said.

Litchfield turned to him, and his grin vanished. “That’s also correct,” he said. “I’ve been assigned to Area 51 for the past two years, running the security for that research department. Eight months ago, one of the scientists working on that research suddenly failed to show up for work. When that happened, I set out to learn what happened to him, and that’s when I discovered that he had taken some of his research out of the facility. His name is Alvin Branigan, and we can’t find any trace of him, anywhere. We also can’t find the samples of his compounds that he took, and that’s why I’m here.”

Renée made a scoffing sound. “Well, that explains some of what we’ve found,” she said.

Noah glanced at her, then turned back to Litchfield. “I take it you are aware that we have discovered some genetic mutations in a body we examined,” Noah said. “You think there’s a connection?”

“There almost has to be,” Litchfield said. “Based on the information that was received at OSTP, I think you may be dealing with Branigan’s Cocktail, which is what we call his gene-altering mixture.”

Noah regarded him in silence for a few seconds, but they had to wait while the server came to take their orders. Once he was gone, Noah turned back to Litchfield.

“Is Branigan the type who might try to perform illegal experiments on human subjects? The body we found with mutations seems to have been abducted, and other soldiers have disappeared under suspicious circumstances.”

“I don’t think Branigan would do it willingly,” Litchfield said, “but I’ve come across circumstantial evidence that leads me to believe he might be working under duress. Shortly before he disappeared from Area 51, Doctor Branigan’s daughter, Lisa, also vanished. She was a literature major at UCLA, and it turns out she had been gone for a couple of weeks before Branigan vanished. The fact that he never told anyone she was missing makes me think that she was being used as leverage to force him to steal this technology. That being the case, I suspect he’s being blackmailed into performing these experiments.”

“That would make some sense,” Noah said.

Allison, who had been sitting quietly as they talked, suddenly spoke up. “What do you know about the satellite images that seemed to show spaceships of some sort? Are you aware of those yet?”

“I’ve seen them,” Litchfield said. “I don’t know enough to have an opinion, however. It strikes me as odd, though, that you are finding mutations that the missing DNA cocktail could cause while looking into the possibility of aliens being on the Earth. I can’t come up with a logical hypothesis on why aliens would want anything to do with Branigan or these mutations.”

“I’m thinking the same way,” Noah said. “Are you aware of any secret technology that could be responsible for those flying saucers?”

Litchfield grinned again. “Well, I can tell you that we’ve never really captured a flying saucer and reverse engineered its antigravity systems. From the pictures I saw, I suspect you could be looking at something as simple as a high-tech dirigible. There’s been no footage of these things actually in flight, so we have no idea how fast or slow they may be. If somebody is trying to pull off a flying saucer hoax, a dirigible would be one way to do it.”

“A blimp?” Neil asked, his face doubtful. “It couldn’t move very fast at all, it would be too flimsy. Besides, all we have so far are a few sightings and photographs. Surely it would have shown up on radar at some point.”

“Not necessarily. If these things are staying over the jungle, it’s pretty doubtful they would ever be within range of any of the radar installations in the area, so all they have to do is stay low. Besides, we have technology now that can absorb or cancel radar signals. I don’t think it would be that hard to make sure it was invisible to most ground detection. And as for being flimsy, I’ve seen nanofiber material that weighs less than a half ounce per cubic foot and is eighteen times stronger than titanium. It could make a helium-filled dirigible that didn’t need an internal frame and could stand up to a fairly powerful propulsion system, even a jet engine. It could move pretty damn fast.”

“Okay, but if they wanted to be invisible, why did they paint them white?” Marco asked. “All the pictures I’ve seen, these things are bright and shiny.”

“But that’s exactly what you would do, if you wanted people to talk about them. You might not want them showing up on radar, but you would definitely want rumors spreading about them.”

“That’s a valid point,” Noah said. “We’ve also seen footage of some sort of strange creatures. One of the scout teams the army sent out at that compound was attacked by something that doesn’t fit any of the local wildlife, and moved so fast it was almost impossible to see. And there are photos from the compound that seem to show extremely tall people of some sort.”

Litchfield turned and looked him in the eye, but said nothing for almost five seconds. “In that case,” he said, “I feel pretty certain that you’re dealing with the results of Branigan’s Cocktail.”

* * *

Noah tabled the discussion until they finished eating, then went back to the OC. When they were gathered in the operations room, Noah sent Neil to fetch Doctor Emerson. The doctor was fascinated at what Litchfield had to say, and willingly described the physiological changes he had found in Lieutenant Belcher.

“What about the other bodies?” Noah asked.

“They were completely normal,” Emerson said. “Bear in mind that those were bodies of soldiers who were killed while trying to get close to the compound, so they weren’t subjected to whatever happened to Lieutenant Belcher.”

Noah invited Litchfield to go ahead with his presentation, and the man opened a briefcase and took out a small black box that he handed to Neil.

“Can you put that on your big monitor?” he asked.

Neil connected the external hard drive to his computer and tapped a few keys. “Which part?” he asked. “You’ve got an awful lot of stuff on here.”

“Look for a file titled ‘Titan 1.’ It’s a video file, something I want you all to see.”

Neil looked at the list and then tapped the keyboard once again. A second later, the big wall display came to life and they all gathered around.

The first image that appeared was of a small capuchin monkey being held by a young woman. It was playfully patting the woman’s face while drinking from a baby bottle. That clip ended and was quickly replaced with a video that showed a much larger monkey. This one was grotesquely misshapen, however, with long lower legs and much longer arms. It’s fingers were surprisingly big, and tipped with vicious looking claws.

“Despite appearances,” Litchfield said, “that’s the same monkey you saw in the first clip. Her name is Dorothy, and she was an experimental subject of Doctor Branigan’s. The changes you see took place over about five months. She’s much stronger than any other monkey her size, and those legs give her the ability to leap more than thirty feet in a single bound. She got loose once, and it took twenty of us almost six hours to catch her. Unfortunately, she killed two of my men when they got too close.”

On the screen, the terribly altered Dorothy picked up a concrete block and threw it at whoever was holding the camera. Fortunately, there was shatterproof glass between them, because the block disintegrated when it hit the glass.

“Before the experiment, Dorothy was one of the sweetest, cuddliest little critters I’d ever seen. Unfortunately, the same genetic manipulation that creates the physiological changes also caused some mental aberrations. She became angry and violent, and the only way to control her is with drugs that keep her mellow and lethargic. Without them, she’s constantly angry and combative. They had to separate her from all the other monkeys because she began killing them, apparently just for sport.”

Doctor Emerson stared at the screen, then turned to Litchfield. “And this is the same kind of thing you think is being used on people down here?” he asked.

“Based on what you’ve told me, I would say it’s pretty certain.”

Emerson turned back to the screen, which Neil had paused. Dorothy’s face was frozen in its center, and Emerson leaned close.

“The face is different, as well,” he said. “It’s longer, and the eyes are much larger, almost almond shaped.”

“That’s correct,” Litchfield said. “The eyes are much more sensitive, and Dorothy can see in the dark better than any other monkey. You’ll notice that her face is also thinner, and her jaw has elongated so that her chin almost comes to a point.”

The screen suddenly split as Neil took the image Wilson had shown them the day before and put it beside the picture of Dorothy. The one grainy frame they had gotten of the creature that attacked Lieutenant Jorgensen appeared, and Marco let out a low whistle.

“Except for the fur,” he said, “it almost looks the same.”

“What is that?” Litchfield asked.

“That is the creature that attacked and killed some soldiers,” Noah said. “The one I told you about that was so fast the camera couldn’t quite catch it. That’s the best image we could get out of the footage.”

Litchfield shook his head. “Damn, I’d love to see that thing in person. It looks to me like Branigan’s taken his work a little farther. If they’ve managed to create human hybrids with this stuff, we’re probably talking about damn near invincible fighters. Dorothy is only eighteen inches tall and she managed to kill two men bigger than me with her hands and claws. I’d hate to think what a fully grown man could do with those enhancements.”

“Enhancements?” Emerson asked, turning to stare at him in shock. “Those are not enhancements, young man, those are aberrations! Any man given this treatment is no longer human at all.”

Litchfield held up a placating hand. “I don’t disagree, Doctor,” he said. “All I’m saying is that I would much rather be on the side that was controlling that thing, rather than the one that had to try to bring it down.”

“Unfortunately, that’s the side you’re on,” Noah said. “Whatever this thing is, we have to put an end to it. We also have to put a stop to whoever is trying to create these things.”

“I know, and that’s why I’m here,” Litchfield said. “All modesty aside, I’m as close as you’re going to get to an expert. After Branigan disappeared, I studied his work thoroughly. Dorothy is only one of his experiments. Neil, bring up ‘Titan 2.’ This is—or was—a German Shepherd named Rex. Take a look.”

The creature that appeared on the screen bore very little resemblance to a dog. Instead, it looked as if someone had taken a grizzly bear and put it on an extreme diet. The rear legs were much longer than they should have been, and its forelegs were more like arms. The creature could stand erect on the back legs and towered nearly 7 feet tall. Like Dorothy, its face had undergone changes that made it look unearthly, with a  long, thin snout and large, almond-shaped eyes.

“Rex was a very well trained animal,” Litchfield said. “He was one of the smartest dogs they had down there, but after Branigan’s Cocktail got done with him, he was probably as intelligent as any fifteen-year-old. Notice his front paws, how the digits have become longer and more manipulable. It isn’t quite a hand, but he can certainly use those fingers when he wants to. I saw him reach through the bars of his cage and grab hold of the man who was trying to feed him. We had to shoot Rex almost fifteen times before he let go.”

SEVEN

“You killed him?” Sarah gasped. “But this wasn’t his fault.”

“No,” Litchfield said. “No, it wasn’t his fault, and no, we did not kill him. He went down, but six hours later, he was up again and acting like nothing happened. The wounds were completely closed up and he is still alive today.”

“And he’s as vicious as Dorothy?”

Litchfield shook his head. “No, not usually. After he attacked the guy who was feeding him, we went back and checked security videos. Turns out that fellow had been tormenting the poor thing. By the way, he paid for it; Rex did so much damage to his arm that it ended up being amputated. With most people, he’s pretty well-behaved. I’ve spent time with him and never had a problem, and he doesn’t seem to hold a grudge against any of us who shot him that day.”

“If he isn’t vicious, then did he get the same treatment that Dorothy did?” Renée asked.

“According to Branigan’s notes, yes. The difference seems to be in his intelligence level. Rex, strangely enough, seems to understand the difference between right and wrong to some degree. Keep watching.”

They turned back to watch the monitor, and a moment later they saw a man come into view. This man walked up to the large cage Rex was in and opened the door. The animal walked out on all fours, then stood up and put its forearms around the man in what appeared to be a hug. It let go a moment later and dropped back to all fours, then walked along with the man as the camera followed. They went through a door to a fenced enclosure that was outside and the man produced a ball. He tossed the ball across the ground and Rex spring after it like a rocket. He caught the ball in his paws, then turned and ran back on his rear legs to give it back to the man.

“Rex likes to play, as you can see,” Litchfield said. “He also seems to understand a lot of English words. It’s possible that hybrids like him may one day find their way into military service. He’s demonstrated that he can still track as well as any dog, and he’s hit more than fifty miles an hour in a four-legged run. If he were trained for combat or espionage purposes, he could be quite an asset in the field.”

“Are there others like him?” Noah asked.

Litchfield nodded. “More than a dozen,” he said. “All of them display similar intelligence, and they all seem to be friendly unless provoked.” He turned to Neil. “Try ‘Titan 3,’ please.”

Neil did so, and Rex was replaced with an entirely different creature.

“That’s Grumpy. Grumpy was an alley cat, and he’s the only one of his kind. He’s got most of the same physiological changes, as you can see, but Grumpy is more intelligent than the dogs by an incredible margin. He’s kept inside that shatterproof glass cage because he hates humans with a passion. Doesn’t matter who, either. The behavioral animal psychologists theorize that he understands what’s been done to him and really wants to pay somebody back for it. ‘Titan 4,’ please.”

The image changed to show a large bird, but this wasn’t anything like an ostrich. It didn’t look like anything but a large crow, until they noticed the dead cow it was feeding on. The bird looked nearly as big as the cow, and was ripping the carcass apart easily. Sarah and Renée looked away, disgusted, but the others only watched as it tore off a foreleg and swallowed it whole.

“This is Kaiser. Other than growing to more than four times his normal size, he’s a common raven. He stands five feet, eight inches tall and can reach an object up to seven and a half feet off the ground with his beak. His wingspan reaches almost eighteen feet. He weighs just over three hundred pounds and his breast muscles are strong enough that he can fly even farther than his normal sized brothers. He eats almost four hundred pounds of carrion per day, and he is as smart as some of the scientists who work with him. Crows and ravens can talk as well as most parrots, you all know that, right? Well, Kaiser has a vocabulary of about twenty thousand words, and he knows exactly what he’s saying. I’ve had some interesting conversations with him.”

“With a raven?” Marco asked, incredulous. “Does he say ‘nevermore’ a lot?”

Litchfield smiled. “Actually, he can recite that entire poem. One of his handlers read it to him once, and he insisted on hearing it again until he could say it perfectly. No, he likes to talk about humans and our affinity for war and destruction. He thinks we spend too much time worrying about inconsequential things, rather than just enjoying life.”

Emerson grunted. “Sounds like a bloody genius,” he muttered, and it earned him a round of chuckles.

“Kaiser was the first of a dozen ravens who were subjected to the cocktail, and he has helped to raise and train the rest of them. After watching a video of fighter jets flying in formation, he insisted on teaching the others to fly in formation with him. Of course, they only get fly at night, because we don’t need rumors of giant birds flying around, but that led to Kaiser deciding that he and his fellows could become useful. He suggested we fit all of them with video cameras that can transmit images back via satellite, and his squadron has proven incredibly skilled at getting aerial imagery wherever we send them. The idea is that they can one day be used for aerial surveillance and espionage.”

“I thought you said he was against war?” Sarah asked. “Why would he volunteer to help us?”

Litchfield shook his head. “He isn’t against the concept of war, he just doesn’t understand our reasons for it. On the other hand, he’s smart enough to know that experimental animals like him must have a purpose if they are to survive. He and the other ravens are willing to serve in this capacity in return for our making sure they get the things they want. Nesting material, plenty of carrion to eat, and they each have their own video monitor with Internet access.” He grinned. “They spend a lot of time on YouTube and Netflix.”

“Too bad you couldn’t bring them along,” Neil said. “They might actually get close enough to the compound to figure out what’s really going on.”

Litchfield shrugged. “I actually tried,” he said, “but as all of these are still considered some of the biggest secrets we have to keep, permission to bring even one of them was denied. I’m afraid we have to do things the human way.”

Allison’s phone rang suddenly, and she answered it quietly. She listened to whoever was on the other end of the line, said, “All right, we’re on it,” and then hung up. She turned to Noah.

“Another body just turned up,” she said. “This one was found in a dumpster behind the base mess hall.”

None of them had to be told to get on it. They grabbed their gear and followed Noah out the door, with Litchfield falling in behind them

* * *

It wasn't difficult to spot the crime scene; all they had to do was look for the crowd of soldiers who were standing around, staring at the dumpster. A squad of MPs was trying to keep the crowd back, but the team still had to shove their way through.

"Let’s get busy," Noah said then. "Litchfield, see if you can find any witnesses and talk to them. Somebody must’ve seen something."

"On it," Litchfield replied with a nod, and he turned on his heel.

"Jenny, Marco, start looking over the scene. Neil, get your camera and start taking photos."

All three nodded as they set to their tasks. Noah headed in the direction of the body, which was covered in garbage and sticking out of an overturned dumpster. A lone MP was standing guard over it.

“Noah Wolf, FBI,” he said, flashing his ID. “What can you tell me about this?”

“Sir, I was notified that the body had been found by one of the kitchen helpers,” the soldier said, “so I’ve just been standing here to make sure nobody disturbs anything. I’m Sergeant Mitchell; my CO said you would be taking charge of the investigation, but we are certainly ready to help any way we can.”

Noah looked down at the body. “How did the dumpster get turned over?”

“It was the kitchen helper,” Mitchell said. “He had climbed up on something to toss trash inside and saw this fellow laying on the garbage. I guess he panicked and leaned backward, and actually dragged the dumpster over. He’s lucky it didn’t land on him.”

Noah nodded. “Any idea who we have here?”

“Yes, sir,” Mitchell said. “Dogtags identify him as Private David Latham. I called it in and found out that he’s assigned to the IT maintenance shop, computer repairman.”

Noah turned and looked at Sarah, who was standing beside him. “Find out if Private Latham worked with Specialist McRae. If he did, this could be connected to McRae’s abduction.”

Sarah nodded and took out her phone, then stepped away so she could make her call privately.

Doctor Emerson, ignoring the filth, knelt down beside the body. He looked it over for a moment, then pointed at a single hole in the man’s shirt. “This looks like a large caliber wound. Jorge, let’s roll him over to check for an exit wound.”

Jorge, who was assisting Doctor Emerson, knelt down beside him and took hold of the victim’s shoulder. He rolled the body upward far enough to look at his back, then looked up at Emerson. “There isn’t one,” he said. “The bullet is probably still in there.” He laid the body down again and started looking closely at the wounds.

Noah nodded, still looking at the body closely. "There's no pool of blood."

"It’s possible the body was moved here after the shooting," Jorge suggested.

"Or there could be another reason, which we will undoubtedly determine during the autopsy," Emerson said. “Let’s get him loaded up and back to operations.”

"I’ll see you there, Doc," Noah replied and then headed towards Sarah. She hung up the phone as he approached.

"The victim was Private David Latham,” she said. “He was twenty-two, recently assigned here from Fort Huachuca in Arizona. He lived alone in a small apartment that was assigned to him. He didn’t have a lot of friends, but it turns out he and McRae were pretty close. They worked out together, lifting weights, and they were into computer games, one of those online multiplayer games. I guess they were on the same team, because a lot of their coworkers heard them talking about the things they did when they were playing."

“Computer games? Any idea which one?”

“Several different ones. Most recently, they were talking about one called, ‘Lethal Rage.’ According to his shift commander, it has something to do with fighting zombies.” She rolled her eyes.

Noah nodded. “Let’s see what the rest of them are learning.”

* * *

Neil focused the lens and then took another photo before moving on. It wasn’t easy because he had to move through the pile of trash, doing his best to avoid getting any of the filth on himself.

"Ugh," Marco said, his face distorted in an expression of disgust. "They could have left the body somewhere else!"

"You got any particular place in mind?" Jenny asked, looking closely at the wheels of the dumpster.

"Just about anywhere else,” Marco said. “This place stinks.”

“There’s always a smelly dumpster behind a place that prepares a lot of food.”

"Got anything?" Noah asked as he and Sarah approached them.

“It would help if we had some idea what we might be looking for,” Jenny said. “It looks to me like somebody shot the guy somewhere else, then tossed him into the dumpster.”

Noah looked at her for a moment, then turned to Marco. “She’s probably right,” he said. “Still, we are supposed to be acting like investigators. Any ideas?”

“Yeah,” Marco said. “We need to find the real murder scene, because we might at least find something there to indicate who did it. Closest thing to a suspect I can come up with here is the rat who just ran across my foot.”

Noah nodded. “Private Latham had an apartment,” he said. “Why don’t the two of you go check it out? Sarah can tell you where to find it.”

“My pleasure, boss,” Marco said. “Come on, Jenny, let’s go somewhere not so smelly.”

Noah turned to Neil. “Latham and McRae were into MMORPG’s, one in particular called ‘Lethal Rage.’ I want you to see what you can find out about their activities on it. You and Molly once used a computer game to communicate, so I’m wondering if they might have been doing something similar.”

Neil nodded. “Does seem a little strange that this murder victim is connected to the one who was kidnapped. You think maybe they were onto something about our real target?”

“McRae was working on something secret,” Noah said, “and Latham was in his unit. They were friends, so it stands to reason they may have been using their friendship as cover for some kind of clandestine activities. Add the fact that Latham came from Fort Huachuca, which happens to be the Army Intelligence Training Center, and I suspect they probably had some connection beyond what was obvious. If they did, I want you to find it.”

Neil nodded. “I’ll head back to Ops, then. Once I get these photos downloaded, I’ll get on it.”

Noah walked over to where Litchfield was finishing up with the alleged witnesses. “Learn anything useful?” he asked.

“No, sir, not really. A couple of these people claim to have heard noises around the dumpster last night, but none of their stories match up. Nobody saw anything, I’m afraid.”

Noah looked around the area. “I see a dozen buildings around here where someone might have been looking out a window. Canvas them all and see if you can find anything more helpful.”

Litchfield looked irritated. “Sir, I was supposed to stay close to you and...”

“Were you placed under my orders, Litchfield?”

Litchfield blinked. “Yes, sir,” he said.

“Then do what I told you. When you’ve finished, make your way back to Ops and report to me.”

Litchfield swallowed, but all he said was, “Yes, sir.”

* * *

Finding the base enlisted housing, where Latham’s apartment was located, was easy, and it turned out to be just a short distance away. It took Marco only a minute to get a key from the housing officer in charge, and then he and Jenny were inside.

Looking for clues in an apartment that seemed spotlessly clean was an entirely different matter. The apartment consisted of only three main rooms, including a small kitchen, a bedroom and a tiny living room, with a bathroom tucked neatly in between the latter two. Marco took the living room while Jenny went into the bedroom.

"Found a Ruger, a twenty-two," she called out a moment later, using her gloved hand to take it from the drawer she had found it in. She looked it over carefully, then extracted the magazine and cleared the chamber. "Doesn't looks like it’s been fired, but we’ll let Renée check it out to be sure."

“These apartments have thin walls,” Marco said. “If he was shot in here, you’d think somebody on this floor would have heard it.”

Jenny shrugged. “People see and hear what they want to, most of the time. I’ve shot people in public places and seen people pretend nothing happened. If somebody in the  building heard a gunshot, they might have assumed it was a car backfiring or something else. That’s easier than thinking someone just got murdered close by.”

“Maybe so,” Marco said. “I checked the door and there was no forced entry. If he was killed here, then he must have known his killer.”

Jenny moved into the kitchen but came out again a moment later. “Nothing in there,” she said. “Did you look everywhere in here?”

“Pretty much,” Marco said. “No blood, no...”

He started to take a step. But his toe caught on a raised ridge in the throw rug on the floor and he suddenly fell flat on his face. Jenny laughed, but he sat up and felt under the rug, then lifted its edge. A brass casing rolled out from under it.

“Forty-five caliber,” he said. “Probably rolled under there while they were moving the body.”

Jenny took out her phone and snapped a photo of it, then picked it up and dropped it into an evidence bag. “But there’s still no blood. You’d think if someone cleaned up blood, they’d have found this.”

“Let’s get back to Ops and see what Emerson found out. We can give all this to Renée and let her sort it out.”

Jenny smiled at him. “You think maybe she’s found her niche in the team? Being like a lab person, I mean?”

Marco grinned back at her. “She definitely seems to be enjoying herself,” he said. “Up till now, I think she felt like a fifth wheel. Or maybe a sixth.”

“She’s awfully happy with you, Marco. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I can tell,” he said. “On the other hand, every mission we go out on carries a lot of risks. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn’t have backed out of her life, rather than bringing her into mine.”

“Hey, don’t worry,” Jenny said. “You’ve got me and Noah watching your back. We’ll keep bringing you home to her, don’t worry.”

EIGHT

Marco stepped into the lab, not a bit surprised to see that Renée was busily concentrating on something in front of her.

"Hey, honey," he said as he walked toward her. He knew that she didn’t like to be startled, and she was focused so intently on whatever she was doing that he wanted to give her fair warning of his approach.

"Marco!" she said, turning to him with a grin. “Where is Noah?”

"He went to see Doctor Emerson, so I came on down to bring you something.” He held up the bag with the cartridge casing in it.

“A forty-five,” she said. “That matches up with the bullet that Doctor Emerson found in the body. Give me an hour and I’ll be able to tell you whether this is the cartridge it came from.”

Marco pulled her into a hug and kissed her cheek. “Then we only have one question left.”

"What's that?" she asked, kissing him back.

"If Latham was really shot in the apartment, why didn't we find any blood?"

Renée smiled at him. “You need to go ask Doctor Emerson about that.”

"There’s a rather simple explanation," Emerson answered a few minutes later, pointing to the X-ray on the wall. "The bullet did quite a lot of damage to the young man's internal organs." He pointed to the bullet hole on the left side of the victim’s chest. "This poor fellow was probably trying to duck, which is why the bullet entered here and went through the left lung, the heart and right lung before coming to rest in his chest cavity. Since there was no point of exit, the blood accumulated inside his abdomen." He looked at Noah. "He died almost instantly, which is good. Bleeding to death internally can be excruciating."

Noah nodded as he and Marco stared at the X-ray in thought for several moments. “Renée says the bullet was a forty-five,” Marco said. “That matches with the casing Jenny and I found.”

“But there’s nothing unusual about the body?” Noah asked.

“Not anything like Lieutenant Belcher,” Emerson said, “if that’s what you’re asking. The only odd point I found was an abnormally high level of dimethyl sulfoxide in his blood. It wasn’t in any way connected to his death, but I found it unusual.”

“DMSO?” Noah asked, and Emerson nodded. “DMSO is commonly used as a painkiller by athletes, including bodybuilders and such. They rub it in through the skin, and most people find that it stops pain within minutes.”

Emerson glanced back at the body. “Well, he was obviously into heavy exercise, so that could explain it. Of course, I’m aware of its medicinal properties, so I should have considered that.”

“I’m curious about one thing,” Marco said. “The bullet was a forty-five caliber, right? If Latham was shot in his apartment, it had to be at fairly close range. I’d expect the bullet to go straight through the guy, and maybe even through the wall behind him. Any idea why it didn’t?”

“Yes,” Emerson replied, his eyes twinkling, “and I was waiting for one of you to ask that question. Along with the bullet, I removed a substantial amount of steel fibers from the body, scattered along the path of trajectory. Whoever shot Private Latham used a crude silencer, most likely a long metal tube that was stuffed with steel wool. Compressing and punching through that much of the stuff slowed the bullet significantly, so that it came to the end of its energy before it could leave the chest cavity.”

Noah looked at him for a second, then turned to Marco. “The killer wants us to think he was an amateur,” he said.

Marco’s eyebrows rose. “Or maybe he really is,” he said. “Could be this isn’t related to McRae and the other things after all.”

Noah shook his head. “A real amateur wouldn’t use steel wool in a tube. A pillow, maybe even a pop bottle would do almost as much to muffle the sound of that big a gun, but they’d take less time and effort to improvise. This is someone who knows enough to want it to look like an amateur killing, but he took it a bit too far. We’re dealing with someone who has some experience at killing for hire.”

Noah left the autopsy room and headed back to the main office area with Marco trailing behind. Neil looked up when they came through the door.

“Anything?” Noah asked.

“You hit it, boss,” the skinny kid said. “I got into both of their gaming accounts, and it looks to me like Latham and McRae were involved in tracking activity around our flying saucer compound. They used the game to cover their private communications, but it wasn’t only the two of them. There are three others working with them, and two of them are at the forward observation base in Catamarca.”

“That’s the base Lieutenant Jorgenson and his squad were working out of,” Noah said.

“And the one Gallagher was delivering to when he saw the UFO,” Marco added. “Boss, if they had people out there working with them, they could be next on the target list.”

“I’m way ahead of you, Marco,” Neil said. “I’ve identified all three of the other players. Here locally, we’ve got Corporal Darrell Latham, no relation to our most recent victim; he’s with the Supply Depot here, and may be the guy who was actually in charge of their operation. At the forward base, we have Staff Sergeant Paula Graves and Warrant Officer Wayne Smith. WO Smith is a helicopter pilot, and Sergeant Graves is an infantry machine gunner.”

Noah nodded. “Go get Corporal Latham,” he said to Marco. “Neil, come with me.” Noah motioned for him to follow them into Allison’s office.

Allison was already looking at the door as they entered. “What have we got?”

“Somebody is running a secret operation to learn about the target compound,” Noah said. “Our kidnap victim wasn’t just a soldier, he was part of it, and our murder victim this morning was one of his team. We don’t know who is running them, but Neil has identified three more, and I’m bringing one of them in for questioning now. I wanted to ask if you have any idea who could be behind it.”

Allison’s eyes were round. “No,” she said. “When we were handed this mess, the President said everyone else was pulling off it. Noah, do you have any idea what they’ve learned so far?”

Noah looked at Neil, who stepped forward. “All I’ve seen so far are major communications, talking about when they might get someone out to take a closer look. McRae was working with Latham on isolating radio signals from the compound, but hadn’t managed it yet. Other than that, I don’t know anything more.”

Allison turned back to Noah. “What does Mr. Litchfield say about it?”

“I sent him to canvas the area around where this morning’s victim was found,” Noah said. “He hasn’t gotten back yet.”

Allison sat in silence for a couple of seconds. “You distrust Mr. Litchfield?”

Noah shrugged. “I think there’s something off about him. When we showed him the image of the thing that got Lieutenant Jorgenson, he acted like he’d just met a movie star. I can’t help wondering which side of this thing he’s going to be on when we get close to finding out what’s really going on.”

“When we were talking this morning,” Allison said, “I noticed you putting on the deception-detection glasses. Did you get anything?”

“Litchfield is good,” Noah said. “The best I got was a couple of instances when they lit up with ‘Possible Deception.’ To be honest, I don’t think he was truthful when he said that there weren’t any UFOs at Area 51, but I don’t know if that’s important.” He glanced at Neil, standing beside him. “It also triggered when he said he didn’t know anything about aliens.”

Neil’s eyes went wide, but he didn’t say anything. Allison regarded them both for a couple of seconds before she continued.

“I trust your judgment, Noah,” she said, “but this is something beyond our usual line. He’s supposed to be an asset, but I’ll leave it to you how you use him. In the meantime, I’m going to get on the phone and try to find out who else is in country and working on this. I’ll let you know what I find.”

Noah recognized the dismissal and left the office immediately. Neil followed him and waited until they were back in the main office before he spoke.

“Boss? You think Litchfield is a plant?”

“I’m not sure,” Noah said. “I want you to see what you can find out on him. I already read his official file, but I think there might be more to the story.”

“I’ll get right on it,” Neil said. He went to his desk and sat down at his computer once again.

“Noah?” Sarah asked, walking up to him. “Something’s bothering you, I can tell.”

“You’re right,” he said. “Turns out we’ve got somebody else working on the same mission, but we don’t know what their orders or objectives are. Since Allison is unaware of it, that makes me suspect that it may be something off books.”

His wife looked at him for a moment. “I know you better than that,” she said. “You’ve already figured out who’s behind it, haven’t you?”

“I’m not certain,” Noah replied. “It bothers me, though, that Army Intelligence seems to be involved. To those people, the things we are up against could look like potential new weapons. The thought of things like we are seeing ending up on the battlefield, even on our side, just doesn’t sit right with me.”

* * *

"Boss, this is Darrell Latham," Marco said, as Noah stepped into the interrogation room. "Mr. Latham, this is Special Agent Noah Wolf."

"Agent Wolf," Latham said, and he stretched out a hand in Noah’s direction. "I understand this has something to do with one of my war game buddies?”

"It does," Noah said, shaking hands with the man. “You are familiar with Private David Latham?”

Latham grinned. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “What’s he done now? I told him he was going to get himself in to trouble if he didn’t stop being such a jackass, always back talking his superiors, that kind of stuff. I don’t suppose there’s some way we can settle this without him ending up in too much trouble, is there?”

Noah glanced over at Marco. “I take it you didn’t tell him?”

"Tell me what?" Latham said, curious. “Is David in some kind of serious trouble? Is he all right?”

“Corporal Latham, I think it might be best if you have a seat."

"Why?" the corporal asked, his voice taking on a nervous tone.

“Corporal Latham, your friend Private Latham was killed last night. Someone shot him to death in his apartment."

Latham’s eyes went wide, and stared at Noah for several seconds. He sank slowly into a chair behind him, then whispered, “Oh my God.” He sat there staring at Noah for a couple seconds more, then leaned over and put his face in his hands. “Do you know who did it?”

“Not just yet,” Noah said. “We are working on it, though, and that’s why I needed to speak with you. I need to know just what it is you and Private Latham were working on with Specialist McRae.”

Latham continued to sit as he was for a moment longer, then slowly raised his face to look at Noah. “Specialist McRae? I’m afraid I don’t know who that is,” he said.

“Corporal Latham, you, Private Latham and Specialist Daniel McRae were working on a covert assignment that involves a secret compound in Catamarca Province. My people and I are here for the same reason, so don’t try to deny it. I can assure you, I have sufficient security clearance to hear anything you got to say.”

Latham continued to look confused. “Agent Wolf, with all due respect, I don’t have the slightest clue what you’re talking about.”

“Corporal,” Noah said, “I have reason to believe that you may be with Army Intelligence. Private Latham has been murdered, and Specialist McRae has been kidnapped. We’ve already cracked the communications you are using through the computer game, ‘Lethal Rage,’ so you need to drop the pretense and work with me, here.”

Latham’s eyes had gone wide. “Danny’s been kidnapped?” he asked. “All I knew is that he had gone silent. When did this happen?”

“Couple of days ago,” Noah said. “We’ve already got the people who did it, but it turns out that the kidnapping was arranged by a couple of strange looking characters who dress in black business suits. Since two of your people are already victims of this thing, I think you might want to cooperate with us a bit so we can try to keep the rest of your team from ending up on that list.”

Latham stared at him for another moment, then slumped in his chair. “My current identity is a cover,” he said. “I’m actually Captain Jack Swaggart, Military Intelligence Corps. Specialist McRae was assigned to my team because of the unorthodox nature of the mission, looking into possible extraterrestrial activity. Private Latham was also MIC, and I have two others on my team.”

“Yes, I know,” Noah said. “Staff Sergeant Graves and Warrant Officer Smith. When was the last time you heard from either of them?”

“Graves and Smith? They were on last night, on the game.”

“The computer game? That outpost is supposed to be on a communications blackout, how did they manage to get online?”

“We are Military Intelligence, Noah,” Swaggart said, looking at him as if he were stupid. “They have a satellite equipped microcomputer, encrypted so no one can pick up the signal. Why? Has something happened out at the observation point?”

“Not that I’m aware of just yet,” Noah said, “but I think it’s probably only a matter of time. Think about it; McRae was abducted, and then a day later Private Latham was murdered. I have a hard time believing there is no connection, which means McRae has probably been tortured and interrogated. Whoever we are dealing with probably has all of your names and knows exactly where to find you. It may be nothing but a stroke of luck that we got you before they did.”

Swaggart stared at him for a moment, then swallowed hard. “Then we need to get my people out of there,” he said. “We’ve been working hard to get whatever information we can, and we can’t afford to let the mission fail completely.”

Noah looked at him for a moment. “Can you recall them? Get them back here?”

Swaggart grinned. “Just get me to a com center.”

“Follow me,” Noah said. “And, by the way. What do you know about Carl Litchfield?”

This time, the confusion on Swaggart’s face was real. “Carl who?”

“You never heard of him? He’s former MIC, himself. Just relax, because you’ll get to know him soon.”

NINE

Forward Observation Base Charlie, which was the official designation for the small outpost in Catamarca Province that was attempting to watch the activities at the unknown compound, was a hotbed of activity. Squads Echo and Foxtrot were preparing for their first attempts to get close to the compound, and their squad leaders were trying to impress upon the soldiers just how dangerous the mission was going to be.

Colonel Charles Berkshire, the Base Commander, was nervous. He’d already lost four squads who were sent to try to get close to the compound, and he wasn’t looking forward to losing any more of his men. He was observing the briefing, trying to convince himself that lieutenants Morton and Shaw were capable of bringing their men back alive, but the more he listened to the bravado of the soldiers under their command, the more convinced he was that he was sending another dozen men to their deaths.

“Colonel Berkshire,” he heard, and he turned to see his clerk. “Sorry to interrupt you, sir, but you have a priority communication coming in. It’s coded Sierra Tango 7, Sir.”

Berkshire got up and followed the clerk back to the command center. ST-7 was the designation for an emergency communiqué out of Military Intelligence Corps, and could mean that the mission was being scrubbed. As badly as he wanted to get the answers he was sent for, Berkshire also wanted to stop wasting the lives of his men.

He stepped into the com shack, the room in his command center that housed the encrypted radio system used for military communication, and ordered the radioman out. ST-7 was for his attention only. He clamped the earphones onto his head.

“This is Colonel Berkshire,” he said into the microphone.

“Colonel, this is Captain Jack Swaggart, MIC. Authentication follows. Alpha, Zulu, Hotel, India, Romeo. Please confirm and authenticate.”

AZHIR; that was the authentication code Berkshire had been given. “I confirm,” he said. “Authentication follows. Golf, India, Zulu, Tango, Charlie.”

“Colonel Berkshire, I confirm. Colonel, I need you to get two of my people on the way back to Donovan Range right away. Specifically, I need Staff Sergeant Paula Graves and Warrant Officer Daniel Smith to be sent back immediately, by special transport if necessary.”

Berkshire hesitated for just a second. He knew who Sergeant Graves was, because she headed up one of the fire teams in Foxtrot Squad that was about to go out. Pulling her out of the squad would mean having to scrap them from the entire recon mission. They couldn’t put someone else in her position and send them out on such a dangerous patrol so quickly, so it would justify keeping the entire squad back.

Warrant Officer Smith, on the other hand, Berkshire didn’t know. “Understood,” he replied. “I’ll have them located and on the way within twenty minutes.”

“Very good, sir,” Swaggart said. “Swaggart out.”

Berkshire set down the microphone and took off the headset. He shouted once for the radioman to return, got up and left the room. His clerk, Sergeant McCoy, was seated at his desk once again.

“McCoy,” he said. “Send a runner on the double to notify Lieutenant Shaw that Squad Foxtrot is being scrubbed from the recon mission. Tell him to send Staff Sergeant Graves to locate Warrant Officer Daniel Smith and bring him here, immediately. I want both of them packed and ready for transport back to Donovan within fifteen minutes.”

“Yes, sir,” McCoy said. He was up and out the door even before he finished speaking, and Berkshire sat down behind his own desk. As he had expected, Lieutenants Morton and Shaw came bursting through the door only five minutes later, and both of them snapped to attention and saluted when they stood in front of his desk.

Berkshire returned the salute. “At ease,” he said. “I know what this is about, but you can both settle down. Shaw, I just got orders to ship Sergeant Graves back to Donovan. That being the case, I cannot allow your squad to go out on this recon.” He turned his attention to Lieutenant Morton. “In addition, there is no way in hell I’m going to let your squad go out alone. I’m scrubbing the recon until Foxtrot has a couple of days to get a new fire team leader in place.”

“But, sir,” Lieutenant Morton began, but the look in Berkshire’s eyes made him chop it off. “Yes, sir,” he said smartly. “Permission to speak, sir.”

“Granted,” Berkshire replied.

“Sir, my squad is primed and ready. We can handle the recon on our own, sir.”

“That may be true,” Berkshire said, “but I’m not willing to take the chance. Lieutenant Morton, every squad we have sent out there has either vanished or come back dead. I’m not anxious to add names to the list of those we have to send home in boxes. When you go, it will be with a full squad backing you up. Is that understood?”

“Understood, sir.”

“Then you’re both dismissed,” Berkshire said. Both men saluted, executed perfect about-face maneuvers and walked out of the office. Berkshire watched them go, and felt a little bit of relief that neither of them was likely to end up on the casualty list that day.

Graves and Smith arrived moments later, both of them seeming confused about the sudden recalls.

“Sir, Warrant Officer Smith and Staff Sergeant Graves reporting as ordered, sir,” Smith said as they both saluted.

“At ease, soldiers,” Berkshire said. He returned the salute, and they both relaxed their posture. “I’m sure you’ve been told you’re going back to Donovan. If you’re here to ask why, all I can tell you is that I’m following orders just like you.” He looked them both over for a moment. “Considering the nature of the orders I got, I have to assume that neither of you is exactly who you seem to be. Regardless, you’ve both been an incredible asset out here, and I’m sorry to see you go.” He mentally crossed his fingers at the polite untruth. “There’s a C-27 on the airstrip warming up, and it’s waiting for the two of you to get aboard. Don’t let me keep you from getting on it.”

Both soldiers snapped to attention once again, saluted and turned to leave. As they stepped out of the command center, Graves looked over at Smith.

“I don’t know about you,” she said, “but I get the feeling the shit is about to hit the fan. If Swaggart called us back, things must be bigger than we thought.”

“Or they decided it’s nothing at all,” Smith said. “I don’t buy this whole aliens in the jungle thing. That sounds too much like a Schwarzenegger movie.”

“Something out there is picking off our people. You saw the footage from Jorgensen’s body cam. Whatever that was, it wasn’t human.”

Smith shrugged. “Well, maybe Swaggart will have some answers when we get back. I’m just glad to go back to somewhere that has air conditioning.”

* * *

Litchfield came through the door of ops a few minutes later, and Jenny caught his attention, crooking a finger for him to come closer.

“Yes?” he asked.

“The Dragon Lady wants to see you,” Jenny said. She pointed. “Through that door.”

Litchfield looked where she pointed and then walked over and knocked lightly on the door. Allison’s voice came through clearly, telling him to come on in.

“You wanted to see me, ma’am?” he asked.

“I do indeed,” Allison said. “Mr. Litchfield, you came to me with good recommendations. I was told that you would be an asset to our team, and to our mission. Now, it’s come to my attention that you may know a whole lot more about what’s going on here than you are supposed to. Would you care to enlighten me?”

Litchfield looked confused. “Ma’am? I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking.”

“Litchfield, I’ve just learned that there is another mission in Argentina working on the same compound that we were sent to investigate. They seem to be from Military Intelligence, but I can’t help wondering if you might be involved with them somehow. We already know you haven’t been completely truthful with us, so I want to give you one chance to come clean before I decide whether to ship you back home  in the seat of an airplane, or in a box in the cargo hold.”

Litchfield stared at her for a couple of seconds, his eyes wide, but then he relaxed them and began to grin. “If anybody else said that to me, I would say they were bluffing. Trouble is, I know too much about you to dare think that. I can tell you that I am not connected to Military Intelligence, and I am not aware of any mission they may have with regard to your target.” He cleared his throat and then sat down in the chair in front of her desk. “Now, having said that, I should tell you that you are correct in your suspicion that I am not quite what I seem to be. My name really is Carl Litchfield, and I really am the security commander for Area 51, but I’m also a Special Agent of the United States Exotic Corps. USEX is an even more secret organization than your own, and comprises less than two hundred personnel. Our job is to be ready to handle any contact with alien intelligences.”

Allison nodded. “I see,” she said. “Then, you have something to do with the so-called Men in Black?”

“Absolutely not,” Litchfield said. “Most of the reports of Men in Black are purely bogus, but there have been a few that seem to have some basis in truth. Trying to find out more about them falls under the purview of my organization.”

“So, you’re supposed to be here just in case this turns out to really be aliens. That’s interesting, since you went to such great lengths to try to convince us that it simply couldn’t be. I take it that was another area where you lied to us?”

“Not at all,” Litchfield said. “I’m personally convinced that what we are dealing with is nothing more than somebody trying to convince the rest of the world that aliens arrive. Using Branigan and his research to do so only makes sense if it’s not real. However, some of the mutations that Branigan’s Cocktail can produce could create forms of life that would be considered quite alien to the rest of the world. They would also likely be very hostile, which would make them incredibly useful in any attempt to create panic. My people suspect that whoever is pulling this off is trying to do just that, create a panic by dropping genetically modified creatures into different locations around the world. The creatures themselves would be sacrificial pawns; they would undoubtedly be killed or captured, but once the cocktail has done its job, it would be very difficult to determine that they were ever Earthly creatures at all.”

The door to the office opened and Noah stepped inside, followed by Neil, Renée and Jenny. There was a bench on one side of the office, and all four of them sat down on it.

Allison waited for Litchfield to acknowledge their presence. “Mr. Litchfield, we already have evidence that somebody is experimenting on human beings with the stuff. What can you tell us about those experiments? And don’t try to tell me that no human experimentation has been done, because I won’t believe you. I know the scientific mind pretty well, and they can’t resist trying something like this, no matter how immoral it might be.”

Litchfield licked his lips, glancing once again at Noah before he turned back to Allison to reply.

“All right, yes,” he said. “Branigan and his staff did experiment on a number of human subjects. Some of them were so close to the descriptions of aliens in so many alien abduction stories that it was almost like life copying fiction. They grew two to four feet taller, their lower legs became considerably longer than normal, heads and brains grew roughly thirty percent and the faces became long and thin. Eyes grew larger and more almond shaped, and the skin changed to various shades of blue or gray.”

“Which accounts for a lot of the leaked footage of alien creatures,” Allison said. “Am I correct about that?”

“That was the propaganda division,” Litchfield said. “They felt that leaking some footage and then spreading a campaign to debunk it would help keep a lid on what we were really doing.”

“What other changes did those human subjects undergo?” Noah asked.

“That depends on how the cocktail affected them,” Litchfield said. “Some of them became more intelligent, while at the same time losing all tendency toward aggression. Others, because of something in their own DNA, simply became murderous. Like Dorothy, they seem to be always angry, always violent.”

“It affects people in different ways?” Renée asked.

“Oh, yes,” Litchfield replied. “Branigan and his team were working on determining what factors in the subject’s DNA caused what particular reactions when he disappeared with a large sample of the cocktail.”

“You’ve described two different kinds of effects,” Renée said. “What other effects are there?”

Litchfield suddenly looked uncomfortable. “Look, there’s only so much I’m allowed to tell you,” he said. “I was ordered to tell you only what I felt you needed to know in order to help you accomplish your mission. I can’t give you all the answers, that’s not…”

“Give me twenty minutes alone with him,” Jenny said, smiling at him. “He’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

“Not quite yet, Jenny,” Allison said. “Mr. Litchfield, I really don’t care how secret your organization is. My own orders from the President of the United States tell me to make decisions on who presents a true and legitimate danger to our society, and to then order their elimination. My oath to the Constitution was to protect our country from all enemies, foreign and domestic, and I suspect you took a similar oath at some point. Right at this moment, I’m not sure you don’t fall into one of those categories, so why don’t we just cut out the bullshit and you tell me what’s really going on, here. You were asked a question, and I expect to hear the answer. If I don’t, I just might decide to let Jenny get it her way.”

“And you won’t like it,” Jenny said, still smiling.

Litchfield glanced at Noah, but his steely gray eyes offered no help. He took a deep breath, then looked at Allison once again.

“I don’t know all of the answers,” he said. “What I do know is that there were a few subjects who showed no visible changes, while still gaining greatly increased strength and stamina. If the scientists can figure out what makes the difference, then the treatment will be considered for possible use in the soldiers of the future. As for the rest of them, I don’t know anything about the effects they have.”

“So, you people are hoping to create super soldiers?” Allison asked. “I’m assuming these people will all be volunteers?”

Litchfield looked uncomfortable again. “As far as I know, none of the treatments were, or will be, performed on anybody who didn’t volunteer,” he said. “However, some of the initial experiments did involve condemned prisoners. They were offered a chance to avoid lethal injection and continue living in return for their cooperation, and more than two dozen agreed. These were people who had no family, who could easily be made to disappear, of course. They were all informed that if the experiment were to be a failure, they might still be terminated, but that if it succeeded, they would have a chance to live out their lives in a controlled environment.”

“Okay, then tell me what you can about those people,” Allison said. “What happened to them with the cocktail, and how many are still alive?”

Licking his lips, Litchfield said, “Of the original twenty-six volunteers, only nine remain alive today. Six of them are so drastically different that they never leave the underground bunkers. Those are the ones who have been taken for aliens. The other three show no physical differences at all, but they are much stronger than before. They can run at twice the speed of a normal man and deadlift more than a thousand pounds. I’ve seen one of them jump thirty feet straight up, and all of them are damn near bulletproof. Anything less than an armor piercing round doesn’t even leave a mark.” He grinned. “They say it still hurts like hell, though.”

Allison looked at Noah. “Anything you want to ask?”

“Yes,” Noah said. “Litchfield, why are you really here? You claim to be part of the security from Area 51, but I saw your reaction when we showed you the creature that attacked one of the lost patrols. You weren’t just interested, you got excited. Why?”

Litchfield looked him in the eye for a moment. “Agent Wolf,” he began, “I’m exactly who I told you I am. What you saw in my face wasn’t excitement, it was sheer terror.”

“Terror?” Noah asked. “That thing frightened you?”

“Damn right, it did. One of Branigan’s experiments got loose a couple years ago, actually escaped and managed to evade capture for eight days. It survived the desert with no problem, not even a sighting until it got to the town of Broken Spring, Nevada, almost fifty miles away. Broken Spring was a very small town, and the people there were pretty shocked to see a nine-foot alien-looking creature turn up. Some of them tried to capture it, and I guess all hell broke loose. Their town constable called in a report that something alien was attacking them, but he went off the air before he could give any details.”

“Broken Spring,” Renée said. “I read something about Broken Spring...”

“You read about how the whole town committed suicide, right? Well, after we heard the constable on the radio, I was ordered to take a platoon and fly to Broken Spring to check it out. It took us less than thirty minutes to get there by Chinook, and what we found was a bloodbath. Four hundred and eighty-two people, including men, women and children, had been torn to shreds by that thing, and we followed the trail of destruction it left behind for another day before we caught up to it. When we did, not one of us wanted to try to take it alive, so we hit it with everything we had.” He shook his head. “Damn thing wouldn’t go down, so finally I called in an airstrike. A-10 Warthogs, best low-altitude warplane ever built, came in twenty minutes later and hit it with napalm. Still took the thing fifteen minutes to die, and then we dragged the carcass into a truck and hauled it back. Another team went to Broken Spring and burned everything. When the state police got there, the official story went out that the residents had fallen into some kind of suicide cult, drank the koolaid and set the town on fire, and that was the end of it.”

Noah sat in silence for a few seconds, just looking at the man. “And you’re afraid it will happen again?”

Litchfield raised his eyes to meet Noah’s. “I’m dead certain it will, Agent Wolf. Remember what I said earlier? If some of these things turn up around the world, the world will think we’re being invaded by aliens. People won’t care about national borders and freedoms; all they’ll want is for their governments to band together to beat the invaders, and nothing we say will matter.”

“You’re talking global chaos,” Allison said, “the Kissinger Agenda. Give the whole world a common enemy, and we become a single global state.”

“Yeah,” Litchfield said. “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the New World Order.”

TEN

Graves and Smith arrived a couple of hours later and were escorted directly to the Operations Center, where Captain Swaggart was waiting to bring them up to speed. They all gathered in the main office, where desks had been replaced by a conference table and chairs to accommodate all of them.

Allison took charge immediately, and the first order of business was for Litchfield to bring Swaggart and his people up to speed. Doctor Emerson was also sitting in on the meeting, and his face reflected the shock and disgust he was feeling as he learned about Branigan and the experiments with extraterrestrial DNA.

“All right,” Allison said. “I think we can all agree that Mr. Litchfield’s hypothesis about the origin of the compound and the strange things we are seeing is probably correct. What we have to do now is formulate a plan, figure out how to put an end to this thing before it gets any bigger. I’m opening the floor to suggestions.”

“I say we nuke them,” Marco said. “If napalm had that much trouble taking down one of them, and we don’t even know how many of these creatures there might be, a tactical nuke sounds like the best option.”

“Unfortunately, it’s not one we can use,” Allison said. “Remember that we are guests on foreign soil. The government of Argentina may cooperate on the surgical strike, but they’re not going to want us to destroy a large part of their country. Next?”

“What about an airstrike?” Sergeant Graves asked. “Incendiary bombs, like napalm, burn them out.”

“That’s a possibility, though it’s still not one we want to use. That area is heavily forested, and we don’t want to start a conflagration that could wipe out the entire province. Noah? You’re being awfully quiet.”

Noah looked at her for a second, then turned to Litchfield. “Tell me something,” he said. “In all the research your people did with these things, did you identify any particular weapon that works against them? Something that can take one down quickly?”

Litchfield shrugged. “There are a few things, but they aren’t easy to handle. One of them is the .950 caliber JDJ round; 240 grains of powder pushing a 2400 grain bullet at 2100 feet per second. The only problem is that the rifle that fires it weighs a hundred and ten pounds, and it puts out two hundred and seventy-seven foot-pounds of recoil. There aren’t too many people around who can handle a gun like that, and as far as I know, there are only two of them in existence.”

“And we don’t have one, anyway,” Marco said. “What about a shotgun? 12 gauge deer slug, maybe?”

“It might do a little damage, but it won’t stop them. Another possibility is a mini-gun, with a very high rate of fire. The problem there is keeping it aimed at them, because they are very fast. Hit them enough and it can break through the skin, damage some internal organs.”

“I can think of something better,” Noah said. “An M32 Multiple Grenade Launcher with HEAT rounds.”

“Heat rounds?” Renée asked.

“High Explosive Anti-Tank rounds,” Noah replied. “They use a shaped charge to force a jet of liquid metal forward that can pierce armor several inches thick. Hit these things with one of those, and it’ll probably be enough to blast it apart. We can get them right here on base and they each hold six rounds.”

Litchfield looked at him. “Should work, yes. The next problem is how to get close enough to target them. As you’ve seen, no one has managed it yet.”

Noah met his gaze. “We haven’t tried, yet,” he said. “Me, Marco and Jenny. We go in with M32’s loaded with HEAT and take out everything we find.”

Litchfield shook his head. “It can’t be a conflagration,” he said. “If Branigan is there, he has to be brought out. He’s the key to making this technology usable, even his top assistants can’t do anything without him. He’s the only one who understands the process that makes the cocktail work at all.”

“I can understand why your people want him back,” Allison said, “but our priority is to shut that compound down before any more damage gets done. If we can bring him out alive, that’s fine, but if not…” She let her words trail off.

“Director, I have my orders,” Litchfield said. “I have two…”

“Mr. Litchfield, what you have to do is understand this.” She picked up a sheet of paper and passed it over to him. “I took the liberty of contacting the president. While he agrees that your organization is vital to national security, he has authorized me to assume full control of the entire operation. You, Captain Swaggart and his people, you are all under my command. Is that clear?”

Litchfield studied the order that was in front of him, then looked up at her. “Perfectly clear, ma’am,” he said. He passed the order to Swaggart, who glanced at it and shrugged.

“Okay by me,” the captain said. “Just tell us what you want us to do.”

Allison nodded, smiling. “Excellent. First, Captain Swaggart, I am placing Mr. Litchfield under you. His priority is to rescue Doctor Branigan if possible, so that’s what I want you and your people working on. Litchfield will assist you with mission planning and protocols. Noah, I want you to coordinate with them and produce a plan for getting them and your core team into that compound. Your priority is the elimination of any of these hybrids that exist, as well as the people who created them. If you are able to rescue any abducted personnel, you may do so. I want a mission plan as soon as possible, and I want a list of other personnel and equipment you might require. Major Wilson is waiting, and we don’t want to let this go much longer before we shut it down.”

* * *

"How come Smith and Graves don't have to help with this?" Litchfield complained a couple of hours later. He and Swaggart were sitting side-by-side at small tables in what had been a storage room near the back of the building. It was all Allison had been able to give them for an office.

Swaggart sighed as he heard the question for the third time. He looked up at Litchfield, who was looking through the latest intel on the compound, blinking as he turned away from the computer.

"Do you really think they would understand any of this?" he demanded. "You’re trying to find a way to infiltrate a compound that is defended by creatures none of us have ever seen before, except you. My people are soldiers, first, and intelligence operatives second. We’ll do what needs to be done, but we’re counting on you to let us know what that is."

He turned back to his computer screen, but Litchfield made a scoffing sound. "I just hope you can pull this off. It’s not going to be a walk in the park, you know."

“Especially with E & E looking over our shoulders,” Swaggart said. He got up out of his chair and walked over to the door, opened it slightly and peered out, then closed it and came back to stand beside Litchfield. “Do you think they have any idea that you’re one of mine?”

Litchfield scoffed again. “If they did, they’d never let the two of us be alone. Jack, we’ve got to figure out some way to get rid of them before this comes to a head. If the truth gets out…”

"Just review that intelligence report and break it down into something the soldiers can understand. If we don’t give them a mission plan, it’s going to make them suspicious." And do it soon, Swaggart thought, before I shoot you myself.

They had been at it for nearly three hours by that point, looking through reports and data and findings, trying to give themselves a sense of what they were going to be dealing with when they made the incursion. Litchfield, who had originally been with MIC before his transfer to OSTP, had found something to complain about every couple of minutes since they began.

Despite appearances, Swaggart and Litchfield had known each other for several years. It was Jack Swaggart, then only a second Lieutenant, who had come up with a plan for inserting a Military Intelligence operative into OSTP. Litchfield had volunteered, and they had created a situation that got him demoted in order to make it appear that he was no longer loyal to his former superiors. His scientific background made him a perfect candidate, and he was hired by OSTP only a month after his discharge. Since then, he had made regular reports to Swaggart about what was going on at Area 51, and Swaggart had been putting the information to good use, even though he considered Litchfield to be a bit of a whiner.

"I don’t see anything in particular that gives me much to go on,” Litchfield said. “Nobody has any real information about what’s going on inside that compound, so how am I supposed to give you the breakdown you want?"

Swaggart sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Just do the best you can, all right? You’re the only one with any experience dealing with things like this. None of the rest of us would really understand what we were looking at." He turned back to his computer again, knowing full well that the questions weren’t going to stop just yet.

"So why aren’t Wolf and his people helping out? They know what’s going on out there."

The captain groaned and leaned back in his chair, then picked up the coffee sitting beside him and took a big swig of it. "I’m sure Director Peterson is keeping them busy. Besides, we're the ones who are supposed to come up with the plan to rescue Doctor Branigan. Now, do me a favor, just shut up and get to work. If I have to listen to you complaining much more, I’m likely to think about strangling you."

Litchfield shot a glare at him, then swallowed what he was about to say and ducked his head, getting back to work. Swaggart watched him a moment longer before moving onto the notes Smith and Graves had made about their time at the forward base, pushing the computer aside. The notes were about the patrols who had gone out and never returned, and Captain Swaggart shook his head as he realized that a total of fifty-six men and women had been lost already, trying to infiltrate that compound.

Slowly, however, he was beginning to understand it. Double checking what he had seen, he sat up straighter, hoping he had just found their first break.

"I think I may have found something,” he said.

Litchfield dropped what he was doing instantly and looked up as Swaggart spoke. The captain glanced at him before reading through the notes once more.

"One of the patrols, the one Jorgensen was leading, actually got within two hundred yards of the compound, by coming in from the north. Body cam footage showed that they were attacked by one of the hybrids and are presumed dead, but analysis of the footage indicates there was only one hybrid present. If we took a team in from that direction, we might be able to handle one of them and get past it. That should satisfy Noah, don’t you think?"

Litchfield snapped his fingers and leafed through the papers he was looking at. “Maybe," he said, apparently finding what he was looking for. "If we can get inside, we can snatch Branigan and extract him quickly, while Noah and his people try to deal with the rest of them. We’ll be safe enough, because we have the repellers, so getting out will be a problem for us." He looked up at Swaggart. “The rest of them probably won’t make it, though. That would eliminate a problem so we don’t have to deal with it afterwards.”

"I agree," Swaggart said, getting to his feet. "Our big problem is Belcher. It would help if we knew how he managed to get all the way back here before he was taken down."

"Hang on," Litchfield said, grabbing the pathologist’s report again. "Doctor Emerson found something to go on, trace materials stuck to the skin of Belcher’s feet and legs. He found bits of fish scales, along with river-bottom mud, bits of asphalt and tire rubber. If he was abducted and used for this program, that means he must have escaped, and he figured out some way to get back here. Fish scales and river mud make me think he made his way to the river just east of that compound, then probably waded along it for some distance before climbing out again and making his way to the forward observation base. The tire rubber, I would bet, came from the tires of an airplane. The only way he could have made it back here would be if he stowed away on one of the cargo flights. I’m betting he climbed into the landing gear bay. When it landed, he would’ve been peppered with bits of that rubber, and that would explain the asphalt as well."

Swaggart nodded, still half-risen. He thought carefully for a moment, and then stood up straight. "You could be right. The only thing that would get me is how cold it gets in those bays. How the hell did he avoid freezing to death on the flight back?"

"It’s another side effect of the cocktail," Litchfield said. "All of the experimental subjects were capable of regulating their body temperature, but it takes a lot of energy. He would have been damn near starving by the time that plane landed."

Swaggart looked at him, then nodded. "That fits," he said, snapping his fingers. "One of the odd reports we got was about somebody stealing a goat from a farm out near the airfield, and then its remains were found yesterday. Something had ripped the poor thing apart and eaten it, but the only tracks around it seemed to be almost human.” He shook his head. “The people in charge out there must have realized he had escaped, and somebody figured out that he made it onto the plane. They undoubtedly sent some of their security people over here to try to intercept them, and they succeeded."

Litchfield nodded. “The other thing we need to be thinking about,” he said, “is the story Gallagher told. His claims that he got a visit from the Men In Black who demanded he help kidnap Danny McRae could lead to those same people. I’m a little surprised, but it stands to reason that they would be using that urban myth to try to enforce control over what they were doing.”

“I agree,” Swaggart said. “We need to learn everything we can about them, as well. I’m going up front, see if maybe Neil can think of a way to track them down.”

The team looked up as he entered, and Noah rose from his chair to meet him. "You come up with something, captain?"

Swaggart nodded. "I think so. Gallagher, when you brought him in for questioning, insisted that he was approached by the Men In Black, right? Belcher’s body was found on the base; I’m betting that those Men In Black are the security force for this operation. A base like this has cameras everywhere, can we scan for somebody who might fit those descriptions?”

Noah merely glanced at Neil, who began typing away on his terminal. Noah and Swaggart walked over to look over his shoulder.

“I’m scanning all of the security video for the last three days, and I’ve set a search key to look for people whose clothing seems to be primarily black. It’ll take a few minutes to run, but…”

A chime sounded and a thumbnail picture appeared on the screen.

“Or maybe not,” Neil said. He clicked on the picture and a sequence of video began to play. It showed a group of six men wearing black business suits, and Neil blinked when he saw that each of them was wearing dark sunglasses. “That definitely looks like the people we are looking for.”

As they watched, the men suddenly turned and hurried in another direction. Neil had to hunt around to find another camera that had caught them, but then they saw Lieutenant Belcher run into an alley, but there was something odd about the way he ran. Only a second later, all six men followed him in, only to turn and hurry away a few seconds later.

“That’s the alley behind the mess hall,” Neil said. “Those are definitely the guys who killed Belcher.”

“Find out where they went from there,” Noah said. “If they’re still on the base, I want to locate them.”

“You got it,” Neil said.

Swaggart shared a grin with Noah. "Looks like he found a lead on the killers. Now, if we could locate the woman who was with Belcher when he checked out of the hotel, we might actually be getting somewhere. Any ideas on that?"

The two of them sat down at Noah’s desk, and were joined a second later by Marco, Jenny and Sarah. They were talking about ways to try to track the woman when they were interrupted.

“Hey,” Neil said. “I found something else. Those guys in the black suits? Looks like they went straight off the base, out into the forest. I played a hunch and looked at radar tracking around the same time, and it turns out the airfield radar picked up an anomaly. Something appeared on radar for only a few seconds just over the trees about a mile out. There was no transponder, no way to identify what it was, and it vanished only a couple of seconds later.”

They all walked over to look at the screen again, and the radar blip that was displayed on it. Neil was pecking at the keys and suddenly another window opened.

“Well, would you look at that?” he asked, his voice filled with irony. An old building, large and square, appeared on the screen. “That’s an abandoned warehouse, formerly used to store agricultural products when the old rail line went through out there. It’s been gone a while, apparently, and the building has been falling apart for years. Hang on a moment...” He opened yet a third window and a satellite view appeared. It zoomed in on the spot until they could see that a large part of the roof of the building was gone.

Neil looked up at Noah. “That’s a big enough hole to let one of those flying saucers settle right down inside there. I think I know how they’re getting to and from this area.”

“Yes,” Noah said, “but why did the thing disappear from radar? It seemed to have been high enough in altitude to show up, but then it was gone.”

Swaggart cleared his throat. “One of the reasons we were assigned to this case,” he said, “is because of missing technology. There’s an electronic device that was developed by DARPA that cancels radar signals, and a few of them went missing from a secure warehouse at White Sands. It has to receive a radar signal in order to cancel it out with a burst of static, so there’s a couple of seconds when an aircraft is visible on radar before it kicks in. We suspected these same people might be behind that theft.”

Noah stared at the screen for a moment, then looked at Marco and Jenny. "I want you two to stay here, keep working on a way to identify that woman. Neil, see if you can find anything else on that radar anomaly, while Swaggart and I take a ride out to where it appeared. Sarah, you’re with us."

Sarah’s eyes went wide and she smiled as she hurried to follow them out the door. Noah stopped to pick up the M32 he had already requisitioned and loaded with HEAT rounds, and Swaggart took a second.

Because the area they were going to was already overgrown by the rainforest, they commandeered a VLEGA Gaucho, an Argentine Army version of a light personnel vehicle. The Gaucho was originally designed to be transported by air, but it is a rugged and capable 4X4 with a four-cylinder turbodiesel engine producing 130 horsepower. Sarah grinned as she got behind the wheel, with Noah riding shotgun and Swaggart in the seat behind her.

A GPS unit mounted in the Gaucho directed them to their destination, but Noah told Sarah to stop a few hundred meters away. “Stay here with the car,” he told her. “Keep your gun ready and let me know if anyone approaches you. If we run into any problems, you get back to Ops and tell Jenny and Marco what happened, do not wait for us or try to come after us. Understood?”

She looked at him. “Understood,” she said. “Subcom on.”

“Subcom on,” Noah said, and Sarah gave him a nervous smile. “I’ll keep you up to date on what we find in there.”

She nodded, and then Noah and Swaggart climbed out. They had gone about fifty feet when Swaggart asked, “Subcom? What was that all about?”

“My team is equipped with subcutaneous communicators. Sarah can hear everything I say and everything around me when they’re on. We’re too far from the others for them to be able to receive the signal without boosting it with WiFi, but she’ll know what to report if we run into trouble.”

Swaggart’s eyebrows rose, but he said nothing. They walked in silence the rest of the way to the old building, but then Noah held up a hand to indicate they should stop.

“Did you hear anything?” he asked.

Swaggart nodded. “Something, yeah. Don’t know what it was, but something is moving around in there.”

“Could be wildlife,” Noah said. “Let’s go on, but cautiously.”

Easing forward, they continued cautiously. They could still hear sounds from inside, but it sounded more like an animal stalking around than anything else. Noah led the way toward a door, and then pushed it open cautiously.

The hinges had recently been oiled. The door opened silently and they peeked inside.

There were no animals in sight, but there were still sounds coming from somewhere in the depths of the old building. Still cautious, Noah stepped inside after motioning for Swaggart to follow. The floor was made of asphalt, rather than concrete, and was covered with dirt and rotting leaves and brush.

Suddenly, something knocked over some boxes that were stacked at the back of the building, and both men turned that direction, turning on the lights that were attached to the rail of their weapons. The beams struck a strange looking creature, and it threw up a hand to block the light from its large, almond shaped eyes, but then it squinted until they were nearly closed and looked at them. It clearly looked at Swaggart, then turned his gaze directly to Noah and launched itself toward him, long-fingered hands outstretched. An old forklift, sitting there and rusting away, was between them; the creature shoved it aside with a single hand, and it slid nearly fifteen feet.

It screamed, and the sound was like the cry of a banshee. It was moving at incredible speed, and Noah couldn’t keep the weapon centered on it, because it was dodging from side to side as it came. Swaggart fired once, but his round sailed past it and struck the wall, exploding in a brilliant flash. A couple of seconds later, Noah simply pointed the weapon at the spot where he expected the creature to make its next turn and pulled the trigger.

The M32 made a whomp sound and then the HEAT round found its target. There was a brief but bright explosion, and then the scream rose three octaves. The creature went down, skidding and kicking for a couple of seconds before falling silent.

“Noah?” Sarah’s voice came through the subcom. “What the hell was that?”

“I think it was a hybrid,” Noah said. “It’s down, but I want to be sure there aren’t any more.” He moved farther into the building, his M32 at the ready.

Swaggart jogged up beside him, and with both of their lights on, they made a quick sweep of the building and found it empty. When they had cleared it completely, they circled back to where the dead creature lay and shined their lights onto the body.

“Their watchdog,” Swaggart said, a tone of disgust in his voice. “They left it here in case somebody came looking around.”

“That’s what it looks like,” Noah said. “Sarah, use the radio and tell Marco to bring Doctor Emerson out here. We have a body to take back for autopsy.”

ELEVEN

Marco showed up with Emerson and Jorge about fifteen minutes later, and Emerson’s first reaction was to gasp.

“Dear God in heaven,” he said softly. “How could any human being do this to another?”

“The how, we already understand,” Noah said. “The why is another matter altogether. Doc, I need you to get this thing back to autopsy and tell me everything you can about it. If it has weaknesses, I want to know about them. I also want to know about its strengths. Can you do that?”

“I shall certainly do my best, Noah,” the old pathologist said. “Can you gentlemen help us load it onto the gurney?”

Marco, Noah, Swaggart and Jorge lifted the thing up onto the gurney and Jorge pushed it out to the truck they had brought with them. It was loaded into the back of the truck and the tailgate locked in place, and then they all headed back toward the operations center.

Renée was waiting in autopsy when they arrived, and her own eyes look like they were going to pop out of her head. “Good heavens,” she said. “Can we honestly say that used to be a human being?”

“I’ll know more about that shortly,” Emerson said. “Be ready, dear lady, because I shall soon have tissues for you to examine.”

The same four men lifted the creature onto the autopsy table, and then Noah, Marco and Swaggart left the two doctors to their work as they headed back toward the main office. Neil looked up as they entered, and a smile broke out on his face.

“I think we found her,” he said. “Belcher’s mysterious girlfriend? I think we figured out who she is.”

“Tell me,” Noah said.

Neil pointed at the screen on the wall and they looked up to see the woman’s picture. “We didn’t get anywhere with facial recognition,” he said, “but I got to thinking about how that could be possible if she’s American. Just having a passport means her photograph has to have been taken, so it should be in at least one of the major databases. That led me to thinking about how she could’ve disguised herself, and I started taking the picture apart.”

“Taking it apart?” Noah asked.

“Yep. I started by calculating the bone structure of the skull, based on the standard points of reference. Cheekbones, jawbone, pointed chin, eyebrow ridge, all that stuff. That told me that the face was at least one to two centimeters bigger than it should be, so I started stripping away layers virtually. When I got to the baseline bone structure, then I used forensic facial reconstruction software to determine what the face should look like, and that’s what I came up with.”

On the screen, a box appeared around the woman’s face and then it began to change. A moment later, they were looking at an entirely different face, and one that was much younger than it had originally appeared to be.

“Turns out she was wearing a prosthetic mask,” Neil said. “Some guy came up with them a while back and has been selling them online to help defeat facial recognition software. They look quite real, and you can talk and blink and everything with them on, but they completely change your appearance. I know that Wally has developed some for us to use, but I never realized just how good they could be until now. See that new face? That one turns up in facial recognition. I’d like you to meet Lisa Branigan, daughter of Doctor Branigan. She’s the one who disappeared, and who Litchfield thought was being used to blackmail the doctor into doing his thing.”

“Has Litchfield seen this yet?” Noah asked.

“Yep. As soon as I figured out who she was, I called him up and let him take a look. He confirms that that is Branigan’s daughter, but this means she’s not a victim; she’s actually involved in the whole project, and that leads to speculation that Branigan himself might be dirty.”

“Yes, it certainly does,” Noah said. “Any idea where she is now?”

“I’m afraid not,” Neil said. “I’ve checked with the State Department on her passport, but she doesn’t appear to have used it. I have to assume she traveled here under a false name, but there are no other passports bearing her photograph in the database.”

Noah stared at the picture for a moment longer. “Or she came into the country undetected,” he said. “We know these people have the ability to fly from point to point without showing up on radar. God only knows what else they can do. Keep looking.”

Noah turned and went back through the door he had just come out of, passing the lab and autopsy rooms to get to the back room where Litchfield was still studying all of the intelligence reports that had come in. He looked up when Noah entered, with Swaggart right behind him.

“Noah?” he said.

“Tell me about Lisa Branigan,” Noah said. “We’ve got a picture of her posing as Belcher’s girlfriend, apparently on the day he was taken out of the hotel where he was staying. What do you think her connection could be?”

Litchfield shook his head. “I’m at a complete loss on that,” he said. “The girl has no scientific background at all, she was a literature major in college. From everything I was able to determine, she and her father enjoyed a good relationship. I saw the picture Neil brought up, that’s definitely her, but I can’t imagine how she could be involved in this plot. I was certain she was a victim, that she had been kidnapped and used as leverage against her father.”

“Do you still think that’s a possibility? Could she have been acting under duress, herself?”

Litchfield shrugged. “I never actually met her,” he said. “I never even heard of her until Branigan disappeared, then I had to follow every possible lead. That’s when I learned that she had been reported missing two weeks earlier. Other than that, I know basically nothing about her that can’t be found in her school or personal records.”

“We speculated that Branigan is doing what he’s told because they have her to use as leverage,” Noah said. “It’s quite possible that she’s also following orders in order to keep her father safe. There is no record of her coming into the country voluntarily, so I’m going to stick with that theory until we know different.” He turned to Swaggart. “You guys get back on finding us a way into the compound. I need something soon.”

* * *

Back in the autopsy room, Doctor Emerson was preparing to begin his examination of the creature they had recovered. It was laying on the table on its back, and Jorge was standing beside it, just staring.

“I have never seen anything like this,” he said. “This is nothing that came naturally onto the Earth.”

“I’m afraid it did, my friend,” Emerson said. “What you see before you is nothing but a man, but the things that have been done to him… I shudder to think what might await those who did this, in the darkest corners of hell. Surely God has some fitting punishment waiting.”

Jorge shook his head. “If that is true,” he said, “there is no punishment that could fit this crime.”

Emerson nodded, then leaned over the creature and turned on the microphone affixed to his lapel. “Report of Doctor Eric Emerson, forensic pathologist assigned to E & E investigation into potential extraterrestrial activity, mission ID #11784-Bravo, In re the examination of what appears to be a genetically modified human being. The subject was seven feet, three inches tall and weighs approximately three hundred and twenty-seven pounds. The lower legs are elongated by nearly thirty percent, as are the fingers, while the talus, the ankle bone, is nearly sixteen inches long, getting the legs the appearance of those that belong on a bird, or perhaps a kangaroo. The chest and abdomen have lengthened by approximately six inches, and seemed to be narrower than would be expected on a man of such height. The neck is roughly seven inches long, supporting a skull that is taller and thinner than normal. The chin is long and pointed, and the top of the skull is rounded like the large end of an egg. There is virtually no nose, but the nostrils open directly from the front of the face. The mouth is smaller than one would expect for a skull of such size, but the eyes—the eyes are almond shaped and slanted, measuring nearly two inches from corner to corner.” He paused for a second and looked over the length of the creature. “The skin is a bluish gray in color, and feels soft to the touch. The creature possesses male genitalia, but they are very small, almost atrophied. The penis itself measures approximately one and a half inches long, and the testicles are each smaller than the common marble.”

He picked up a scalpel and laid it at the creature’s breastbone, then applied pressure. He paused for a second, then leaned into it again, but was unable to penetrate the skin.

“The skin is incredibly dense, and cannot be penetrated with a normal scalpel.” He turned off the microphone and looked at Jorge. “Hand me the mopec saw, please,” he said. Jorge passed it over and Emerson turned it on, laying the circular blade against the creature’s chest.

The saw cut through the skin rather quickly, and Emerson repeated until he had the standard autopsy Y-cut, then tugged at the flaps of skin to pull them back. The viscera underneath was stronger than normal, and he ended up having to use the saw again to cut it free, but finally the rib cage and breastbone were exposed. Using the saw to cut through the rib bones, he cut the entire chest plate bone structure away and lifted it aside.

Two hours later, unable to puncture the skin with a needle to stitch the cuts back together, he finally gave up and used an adhesive. Jorge was still standing beside him, his face almost aghast at what he had witnessed.

“Jorge, would you ask Noah to come back here?” Emerson asked. Jorge nodded and hurried out of the room, returning a couple of minutes later with Noah and Marco.

“What can you tell me, Doctor Emerson?” Noah asked. “Was that a human hybrid?”

“I’ve sent tissues over to Renée, but I’m confident she’ll find that they are indeed human in nature, though genetically modified. Noah, this thing was an abomination. The lungs are incredibly small, but the heart is much larger than normal. All of the organs seem to be highly efficient, but the brain—Noah, the brain of this creature is much larger than it should have been. I found portions of this brain that don’t correspond to anything in humans. God only knows what its true intelligence potential was, but the amygdala experienced the greatest growth. That is the portion of the brain responsible for anger and fear, the part that is sometimes referred to as the monkey brain. It controls our reactions to stimuli, particularly those that might represent danger or threat. I suspect that this creature would see any surprise as a threat, and would react quite violently.”

“I found that to be the case,” Noah said. “As soon as it saw me, it wanted to attack. Any idea who he might have been?”

“No, there was no clue, but Renée may have better luck. She has the rapid DNA analysis device that the Army provided. With any luck, she may be able to find a match from the tissues I’ve given her.”

Noah looked at him for another second, then nodded curtly and turned to leave. Marco stayed a moment.

“Doctor Emerson? Are you okay?”

“Good God, no,” Emerson said. “I don’t know how any of us could ever be okay after seeing that. I’m simply devastated that such a thing could exist, and more so that there are human beings willing to do this to their fellow man. I am a physician, sir, but I would happily violate my Hippocratic oath should I be able to get my hands around the throat of whoever caused this to happen. This is an abomination, and must be brought to an end.”

Marco stared at the doctor and swallowed, then turned and walked out of the room behind Noah.

Noah had gone straight to the lab, and Marco caught up with him there. Renée looked up and gave each of them a sad smile, while she was working with the tissues Emerson had sent to her.

“Hey, guys,” she said softly.

“Just tell me,” Noah said, “do you know yet whether those tissues are human?”

“Not just yet,” she said. “The ANDE machine takes a couple of hours to read DNA from the samples, but I can tell you that the blood samples and some of the others look pretty strange. I’m not saying they aren’t human, I’m just saying they’re not anything I’m used to seeing in the past. I’m running a toxicological analysis on blood samples now, and I should have answers in an hour or so.”

“Any sign of the chemicals you found in Belcher’s blood?”

“At this point, all I can say is I think so. The mass spectrometer will tell me for sure, after I get all the results in. Sorry I can’t give you more information just yet, but these things do take time, Noah.”

“I’m aware of that,” Noah said. “You’re doing a great job, Renée. Too bad we don’t need you doing this on every mission.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “After this one, I intend to ask for a vacation.”

“Me, too,” Marco said. “This has been one for the record books.”

“Let me know when you have something,” Noah said. “I’m going back to see Swaggart and Litchfield.”

* * *

As soon as Noah had left them a couple hours earlier, Swaggart had looked at Litchfield. “Lisa Branigan? Our mystery girl turned out to be Branigan’s daughter?”

“I was just as shocked as you are,” Litchfield said. “I don’t know how in the world she could be running loose, she should be sitting in a comfy little room somewhere, just waiting till this is all over.”

Swaggart shook his head. “I get the feeling Randall might not be keeping control over the whole project,” he said. “It may be time to simply shut this whole thing down, at least for now. The last thing we need is for people like Noah Wolf to figure out who is really behind it all. If Lisa talks, the whole damn balloon could go up, and I don’t think she’s got what it takes to resist Jenny Lance’s kind of interrogation.”

Litchfield licked his lips. “Jack,” he said slowly, “it’s already gone too far. You try to tell the Coalition to shut this thing down and they’re going to go ballistic. This is what they’ve been working up to for more than seventy years; it’s all about to come together, you can’t tell them to put it off now.”

“Okay, I’m not necessarily saying they can’t go ahead with it,” Swaggart hissed. “I’m saying we need to shift the operation to somewhere else, and quickly. They can get everyone out of the current compound and take them somewhere else. You know damn well they’ve got at least one backup location prepared. It’s time to put them to use, get them out of Argentina before Peterson and her people figure out what’s going on.”

Litchfield stared at him for a moment, then slapped the table in front of him. “It’s that stupid jackass in the White House,” he said. “Without the United States cooperating in this thing, the Coalition has to be careful, but this may be the only chance we have in the next twenty years to see this thing come together.” He turned and looked at his handler. “Jack, think about it. With as many sightings as we’ll be able to create with this project, the whole damn world is going to think we are on the brink of an alien invasion. That’s the only thing we’ve been able to come up with that can create enough fear and global cooperation to bring on a single planetary government. The Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group, the CFR—how many times have you actually seen them work together properly before this? With Branigan’s Cocktail, we can finally create a believable alien invasion scenario, and even Kissinger knew that was going to be the only thing that would ever make it possible to reach the goal.”

“Yes, I agree, but this would’ve been so much easier if Branigan had only been willing to cooperate.” Swaggart shook his head again. “You’re the one with the contacts; I need you to find an opportunity to get in touch with them and tell them to move the operation somewhere else. Leave just enough behind at this one so that it looks like we’ve accomplished something, but make it clear that they have to move quickly. I suspect we’ll be going in sometime in the morning, and I don’t want Noah Wolf and his people to have any idea what the real scope of this thing is about.”

* * *

Litchfield was still at the table two hours later when Noah walked in. “I’ve just come from autopsy and lab,” he said. “Emerson is pretty sure that thing was one of the human hybrids, and Renée is running tissues and blood samples right now. We should have more information within an hour or so, but I want to know more about what you guys are finding. Have you found us a way in yet?”

Swagger looked to Litchfield. “Well?” he asked. “Answer the man.”

Litchfield scowled. “The only thing I’ve found so far is a slim possibility,” he said, and then pointed at a map that showed the compound. “The only patrol to get close was the one Lieutenant Jorgensen commanded, the one on that body cam footage we saw. He worked his way around so that he was coming into the compound from the north, right here, and got within a couple hundred yards. I think, and I want to stress that I’m not sure about this, that if we took a large team in from that direction, we might find only one hybrid standing guard out there. If we can take that one down, then we could conceivably get inside the compound. Swaggart’s team could go after Branigan and try to extract him while the rest of us work on rounding up the monsters who run this thing.”

Noah looked at the map for a couple of seconds, then nodded.

“Then that’s our plan,” he said. “Swaggart, you get your people and brief them. Litchfield, you’re going with his team because you know Branigan. We’ll contact Major Wilson and get some infantry fire teams to back us up, but I want to plan on hitting that place about sundown tomorrow evening.”

He turned and walked out of the room, and Swaggart and Litchfield looked at one another.

Noah went back up front and walked right into Allison’s office. She looked up at him with a haggard look on her face.

“Tell me you got something,” she said.

“We have a basic plan,” Noah said. “I’m going to need army backup, though. I want at least a half dozen fire teams, and I want half of their personnel equipped with M32s. We have no idea how many hybrids there might be, and it’s the only weapon we know of at the moment that is definitely effective against them. I want to go over there tomorrow, so that we are in position to hit them around the time the sun goes down.”

Allison looked at him for a few seconds, then nodded. “I’ll call Wilson,” she said. “You’ll probably end up working with Colonel Berkshire at the observation post, but I’ll make sure the weapons are available.”

Noah nodded once and left the room. Since they were going into action the following day, he wanted to give his team as much time off that evening as he possibly could. They all jumped at the opportunity, heading out for dinner before coming back and separating into couples in their own little bunk rooms.

As soon as the door was closed behind them, Sarah grabbed Noah by his shoulders and pulled him close, then yanked his face down for a kiss. When she finally let up, she stared into his eyes for a moment.

“You know, this is probably the most dangerous situation you ever gone in to,” she said.

“There’s always a risk, Sarah,” he said. “It’s the nature of the job.”

“Yes, but this is worse. My God, no, you’re going up against creatures that aren’t even human. How are you supposed to protect yourself against things that move faster than you can follow?”

“That’s why I’m taking Marco and Jenny,” Noah said. “Between the three of us, I think we have a good chance of coming out alive. Besides, we are taking almost two platoons of crack soldiers with us. I plan on coming back, babe, don’t worry.”

“But you might not,” Sarah said. “And I hate the thought of living without you if anything goes wrong. That’s why I…”

She ducked her head against his chest and held him tight again.

“You did what?” Noah asked. He pushed her back slightly and hooked a finger under her chin to make her look up at him. “What have you done?”

She bit her bottom lip for a couple of seconds, then gave him a defiant look. “I threw away my birth control pills. Don’t give me that look, Noah, dammit! If I lose you, I want something of you in my life. Don’t even try to argue with me, you know you won’t win. Just get over in that bed and make love to me.”

Noah cocked his head slightly to the side and looked at her. “How long ago?” he asked.

She shrugged. “About a month ago,” she said. “Right after we finished with the body snatchers. I thought I was going to die that time, and I just—I just decided that I don’t want to die without having a child, your child.”

Noah nodded slowly. “You do realize Allison will bench you if you get pregnant,” he said. “That’ll be the end of you going out on missions with me.”

She looked up at him for a moment, and then suddenly tears began running down her face.

“But at least I won’t be alone if something happens to you.”

Noah pulled her close and held her for a few seconds, then simply picked her up and laid her on the bed.

TWELVE

Danny McRae looked up when the keys rattled in the door, and then got to his feet. “Already?” he asked.

“They need you in the control room,” said the man standing in the hallway. Like all the others, he was dressed in black and wearing sunglasses.

“Whatever you say, Agent K,” Danny said. He stepped out of his bunk room and turned left, knowing exactly where to go.

The control room was a large section of the building in which he was housed, with numerous workstations set up. It looked a lot like the accounting office in a big corporation, he thought, but he kept his thoughts to himself. He had already learned that speaking up when he wasn’t addressed was a mistake.

He sat down at the computer he had been assigned and waited for his instructions. He knew better than to touch the keyboard before he was told to, but it was only a couple of seconds later when the woman appeared. Her name tab simply said, “Janet,” but he was fairly certain that wasn’t her real name.

“Good morning,” she said with a smile. “Ready to get to work again?”

“Why, certainly, Janet,” Danny replied, returning the smile. “What do you need me to do today?”

“Well, I think you should just keep going on the system upgrade. You’ve been doing a fantastic job, you know.”

“I’m trying,” he said. “This is—this is the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen, Janet. I’d give anything to be part of the permanent staff here. Think there’s any hope of that happening?”

“I already told my superiors that you feel that way,” she said. She gave him a coquettish grin. “I even sort of mentioned that I wouldn’t mind having you around steadily. I hope that’s okay?”

Danny reached out and touched her hand for a split second, and her smile grew wider. “I’d like that,” he said. “To be honest, I find myself wishing I had met you under other circumstances. I think you and I could have had some fun together.”

She giggled and winked. “Maybe we still can,” she said. “You just keep doing good work, and I’m pretty sure they’ll be glad to have you come aboard. Once that happens, we could—well, we could get to know one another better.”

“Sounds like a dream come true,” he said. “Well, I better get to work if I want to impress your bosses.” He winked at her, then turned back to the computer terminal and logged on, using the ID and password she had given him when he had been brought in a couple of days earlier.

At the time, he had thought of himself as a prisoner, and he had been terrified of what was going to happen to him. When they explained to him that they needed his computer skills, and allowed him brief glimpses of some of the things that were visible in the compound, he began to think of it as more of an opportunity than a danger. He was actually inside the operation he had been sent to spy on, and as long as he kept doing what they wanted him to do, he was probably in no immediate danger. The only problem was trying to figure a way to get some kind of a message out, to let his handlers know what was going on. There was very little chance he was going to be able to do that, so all he could think of for the moment was trying to stay alive. That meant making himself as useful as possible to his captors, so that he might be accepted as a new member of the team.

At that point, he might get an opportunity to get some sort of signal out. If he had to put up with a dalliance with Janet in order to make that happen, that was okay with him. Besides, she wasn’t bad looking for her age, and she seemed to think he was exactly the younger man she was looking for.

He had been tasked with upgrading their computer system, which required studying the system in order for him to create the new algorithms that were necessary for the system to do everything they wanted to do. The compound was using Cray computers, running on a modified version of UNICOS; somebody had butchered in aspects of UNIX and Z/OS, but hadn’t really understood what they were trying to do at the time. Danny was patiently rewriting large sections of operating system code so that the computers could interface properly with one another, and with the incredible craft that were housed outside the building.

Those craft, looking like nothing if not flying saucers, were what Danny really wanted to get a good look at. The tiny window in his cell allowed him to peek out at them, but he wasn’t close enough to hear any of the conversations between the people—and other things—that moved around them. He couldn’t help wondering just what kind of fuel they might be using, what kind of propulsion system allowed them to hover just a couple of feet off the ground and maneuver the way they did. He had watched several times as they took off and returned, and he had been shocked at how quickly they vanished over the tree line.

In shape, they resembled a large, flattened football, if a football could be eighty feet long and made of plastic. They were pointed on each end, and were probably forty feet wide and at least twenty-five feet tall. There were no windows that he could see, and the only entrance seemed to be a hatch that opened at the rear of the craft, reminding him of the rear loading bay of a C-130. Men and other things walked up the ramp into the craft and out of it, and he had seen hand trucks full of boxes being offloaded at times.

On other occasions, he had seen people carried off on stretchers. At first, he thought they were wounded or something, but then it dawned on him that they were probably unconscious. That’s when he realized he had most likely been brought in aboard one of those craft.

The day went smoothly, and he was almost surprised when Janet appeared to tell him it was time for lunch. He had grown accustomed to being taken back to his cell at lunchtime, but this time she motioned for him to follow her.

“I got the okay for us to have lunch together,” she said, smiling nervously. “I hope that’s okay?”

Danny put a smile on his own face. “That’s delightful,” he said. “Maybe you’ll tell me a little bit more about yourself while we eat?”

She giggled again, and led the way down another hall to a dining area that was set up. There were a couple of dozen round tables, each with four chairs. Danny followed her to the cafeteria style chow line and picked up the tray that was passed to him, then let her lead the way to one of the tables in the far corner. He set his tray down so that he could hold her chair for her, and she giggled once more.

“Oh, a gentlemen,” she said. “A girl could get used to this.”

“I hope so,” he said, leading down to speak softly into her ear. “I’d love to be the one to help you grow accustomed to it.”

He walked around the table and sat down in his own chair, facing her. “So,” he said, “I really would like to know more about you. Is there anything you can tell me? I mean, I know things are pretty secretive around here.”

“It’s not that much of a secret,” she said. “I grew up in Texas, a little town called Plano. Graduated from high school there, then went to UCLA where I studied computer science. I worked for Apple for several years, then got recruited into this job. It’s so exciting, working with all the incredible new technology.” She glanced around, then leaned toward him and spoke softly, conspiratorially. “The Coalition is doing some fantastic work here, don’t you think? I mean, everyone knows that globalism is the only real way to solve the world’s problems, and the Coalition has created the way to make it happen. It’s really exciting, to be in the middle of it all.”

“It sure is,” Danny said. “My only question is where all the alien stuff came from. I didn’t think we ever really made contact with extraterrestrials yet.”

She grinned and started to say something, but then thought better of it. “Well, let’s just say that there is more to all this than meets the eye. I wish I could tell you everything, but I have to wait until you get approved.” She winked. “I don’t think it’ll be that long, now, though. The directors are watching you, and they were pretty pleased with your enthusiasm.”

“Well, I got a lot to be enthusiastic about. I never dreamed I’d ever get to see these kinds of things, not in a million years.” He winked back. “Or get to work with someone as charming as yourself.”

She pushed the food around her plate with her fork for a moment, looking at him flirtatiously as she nibbled her bottom lip.

“Tell me something,” she said. “If I could get the approval, would you like to—would you like to sleep in my quarters tonight?”

Danny made a show of leaning to the side, so he could look her body up and down, then raised his eyes back to her own. “Would I ever,” he said. “Janet, I realize you probably hear this from a lot of guys, but you are about the sexiest thing I have ever seen.”

She giggled again, and covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, come on,” she said. “As good-looking as you are? You’ve probably had more beautiful women than you can count. There’s nothing special about me.”

“Janet, Janet,” he said. “There’s a lot more to being beautiful than just what shows on the outside, but your outside is pretty damn hot. Thing is, I always found that it was the woman on the inside that really mattered. A lot of girls can look good, but I need someone with intelligence, with compassion, somebody who really wants to be loved.” He shrugged and shot her another smile. “Somebody like you, I think.”

Her face was beet red, and the smile looked like it was going to split her face in half. “I think you are just what the doctor ordered,” she said. “I’ve never had somebody be as charming as you are. Please tell me you’re being serious? You’re not just playing me, are you?”

“No way,” he said. “Janet, I think you might be my ticket to a whole new future.”

* * *

As Danny was following Janet toward lunch, Noah, Marco and Jenny walked into Renée’s lab, where she and Neil were staring at a computer monitor.

“You got something?” Noah asked.

“Oh, boy, do I ever,” Renée said, turning to him with a smile. “First off, you were right. The tissues and blood samples are human, even though they’ve been genetically altered. I definitely found the same compound in this creature’s blood that I found in Lieutenant Belcher, but that’s not the important stuff. I was able to isolate a few strands of unaltered DNA, and I got a match in the DNA database. That creature you killed was originally a man named Lawrence Gordon, but he never served in the military. Lawrence Gordon was, until just a few months ago, a student at the same college as Lisa Branigan, so I got Neil to see what he could find out about the guy. Check out his Facebook page. Lawrence Gordon was dating Lisa Branigan, and he disappeared from his dorm the same day she did.”

Noah’s eyebrows lowered. “I wonder why we hadn’t heard about him before,” he said. “Litchfield never mentioned that the girl’s boyfriend had gone missing.”

“Yeah, well,” Neil said, “on that note, you had told me to see what I could find out about Litchfield, remember? Everything’s been so busy that I had sort of put that on the back burner, but running across this little tidbit made me wonder the same thing, so I started digging into him. Noah, I found something pretty interesting. It seems that Carl Litchfield has actually served with Captain Swaggart before. He was also Military Intelligence, we knew that, but what we didn’t know was that the two of them were assigned to the same unit. Swaggart was a second lieutenant, and was Litchfield’s commanding officer at the time.”

He pointed at his computer monitor, which showed a photograph of several men in army dress uniforms. Neil had circled two of the faces, and Noah recognized them as Jack Swaggart and Carl Litchfield.

“And yet they claimed not to know one another,” he said. “I had the feeling they were up to something, but now I’m even more convinced.” He chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment, deep in thought. “Renée, tell me something,” he said. “When Swaggart and I came face-to-face with that creature, it turned and looked at us. It distinctly looked directly at Swaggart first, then turned its attention to me and attacked. Can you think of anything about it that might have made it ignore him and think of me as the danger it needed to deal with first?”

Renée stared at him for a moment, then shook her head. “Nothing that I’ve seen in the samples I deal with,” she said. “You might want to ask Doctor Emerson that question.”

Noah nodded. “I think I will,” he said. He turned and left the lab, going next door to the autopsy room where Emerson was reclining on a couch. “Doc?”

Emerson sat up suddenly, his eyes blinking as he tried to force himself to full wakefulness. “Noah? Oh, sorry, I’m think I might have dozed off for a moment.” He rubbed his eyes for a couple of seconds, then looked at Noah again. “What can I do for you, sir?”

Noah repeated his question, and Emerson lowered his gaze to the floor as he thought about it. After a moment, he looked up and shook his head.

“I’m afraid I can’t think of anything,” he said. “Are you certain of what you saw?”

“I’m certain that it looked at him first,” Noah said, “but I can’t be sure that there was any reason it chose me over him for its attack. It could have simply been that I was taller.”

Emerson scowled. “That could be possible, I suppose,” he said. “I’ll keep thinking about it, Noah, and if I come up with anything, I shall let you know.”

“Thanks, Doc,” Noah said. “Right now, it looks like we’re going into this place tomorrow night around sundown. We’ll be leaving sometime tomorrow afternoon to go to the forward observation base, and I’d like you to keep yourself ready. When it’s all over, there will probably be quite a bit of work for you out there.”

Emerson nodded. “I am at your service, sir,” he said.

* * *

Swaggart had listened through the thin walls as Noah spoke to Emerson and Renée, and waited until Noah was gone before he turned back to his team. Litchfield, Graves and Smith were all gathered in the tiny room, so he kept his voice low.

“Wolf is no fool,” he said. “I never would have guessed he would spot the thing avoiding me, but he did. The repellers work very well, and that’s going to work in our favor. When we get to the compound, make sure you have them turned on; that way, the hybrids will avoid us and go after Noah and the soldiers.”

“So, what’s going to happen when we get there?” Graves asked. “I’m assuming we got word to them?”

Swaggart scowled. “We got word out, all right,” he said. “We suggested they move the entire operation, but we haven’t heard back from Randall. They have nearly four dozen hybrids, now, and I’m afraid they think that’s going to be enough to handle whatever happens. He may be thinking it’s time to go ahead and launch phase 3.”

“Phase 3?” Smith asked, his face shocked. “But that means dumping these things all over the world. Do they really think that’s advisable, right after a raid like this?”

“What raid?” Litchfield asked. “If the entire attack force is eliminated, who’s ever going to believe anything actually happened? Once they finish up with Noah’s team and the soldiers, Randall will probably take out that forward observation base. From there, it’s just a matter of loading hybrids into the ships and sending them out to their destinations. All the world is going to hear about is attacks by alien creatures, and that should be enough for the Coalition to get the backing of the United Nations. All nations that want to survive will submit to Coalition leadership, and that will evolve over the next few months in to a global government. By the time anybody realizes there aren’t any more aliens, it’ll be a done deal.”

“But, you heard the lab girl,” Graves said. “She was able to identify human DNA in the hybrid, even figure out who he was. How can the Coalition expect to pull this off when at least some of those hybrids are going to be killed? Any halfway decent lab can do what she’s done, and figure out that these things used to be human beings.”

“Who cares?” Smith asked. “The story will be that aliens have landed, and that they are converting humans into their attack force. By the time all of the hybrids are rounded up, the Coalition will have come up with a story that convinces the world that, by all the nations coming together, we were able to defeat those nasty aliens and put a stop to their plans.”

“But once the threat is gone, what’s to stop the nations from wanting to break up into sovereign states again?” Graves asked.

Litchfield grinned. “That’s the beauty of the plan,” he said. “The threat won’t be gone; the world will simply believe that we were able to stop the current invasion from happening, but that means we have to worry about when the aliens come back. Only a global defense force would be able to protect us, you see? That will simply make it more desirable to create that one world government that has been the plan all along.”

Smith whistled. “It’s brilliant, I’ll say that,” he said. “And all of us end up at the top of the food chain. Right?”

“You know it,” Swaggart said, glancing over at Graves. “This is the very reason Randall recruited me in the first place, because he’s going to need people like us in the upper echelons. Carl and I will be running the security division in the new world order, and each of you will have prominent positions of power.”

The four of them looked at one another, and then Graves and Smith smiled. “Let the good times roll,” Graves said.

THIRTEEN

Something was happening, Danny realized the next morning. There was a lot of activity going on around him, but he wasn’t sure whether he should ask what was going on or just keep on working. He was trying to decide on a course of action when Janet suddenly appeared at his cubicle.

“Danny,” she said, speaking rapidly. “I just got word, we’re packing up. I guess the soldiers who have been watching are getting ready to raid the place, and we’ve decided to move to one of the backup locations. Save your work and then start taking down your computer. Somebody will bring you the packing crates and help you get all packed up.” She leaned close and put a hand on his shoulder as she whispered in his ear. “I got you tentative approval,” she said. “You’ll be on probation for a couple of weeks, but I think you’re going to be staying with us from now on.” She giggled softly. “And I got the okay for us to share quarters at the new base. I hope that’s okay?”

Danny turned and glanced around to make sure no one was looking, then quickly kissed her cheek. “Thank you, baby,” he said.

Her eyes lit up to match the smile that spread across her face. “Oh, Danny, this is gonna be great.” She turned and was gone instantly, and Danny quickly saved the work he had done on the computer. A man in a pair of blue coveralls appeared with a large plastic crate, and the two of them worked together to pack the computer safely inside.

“So, we’re bugging out?” Danny asked.

“That’s what they tell me,” the man said. “I hear you decided to join up, is that right?”

“Hell, yeah,” Danny said. “Man, this is about the most exciting thing I’ve ever seen.”

The guy grinned. “Cool,” he said. “I’m Brandon, I work on the tech side with craft maintenance. Once we get settled in the new spot, maybe we can hang out. Word’s already out that you’re with Janet, and my girl Kimmy is her best friend.”

Danny smiled. “Sounds great,” he said. “I’d love to know more about those ships, whatever you can tell me sometime.”

Brandon winked. “Dude, they are awesome. I got to go pack up some more stuff, you want to come help?”

Danny glanced around. “Is it okay? Usually, they don’t like me to leave this spot…”

“You’re good, now,” Brandon said. “Come on, I have to pack up the diagnostic system for the craft. You’ll get a kick out of it.”

Danny followed him out of the building, keeping a wary eye on the security guards. None of them seemed to be concerned about him going with Brandon, and a moment later they stepped out into the mid-morning sunshine. Two of the incredible flying saucers were sitting on their extended landing legs not even fifty yards away, and ramps had been lowered to allow loading. Men and women were pushing carts up into one of them, and Danny let out a low whistle.

“Man, that is incredible,” he said. “Are those for real?”

Brandon grinned. “They are real, but they’re not what they look like. Don’t expect to be going off into space in one of those. The biggest part of them is nothing but a gasbag; what you’re looking at are a couple of super high tech, high-speed lighter-than-air ships. Each of them can carry about three tons of personnel and cargo, because they aren’t entirely dependent on the helium inside them. They also have thrusters that help them to lift into the air, and then the shape is also designed as a lifting body. Once it gets a little altitude and starts moving forward, it has more lift than the wings on a jumbo jet. There’s a pair of EMP motors in the back that can push those babies along at just short of Mach 1.”

Danny stared at the craft. “Geez, are you serious?” he asked. “You mean, these aren’t some kind of alien spaceships?”

“Nope. I’ll tell you a couple of other neat things about them, too. They don’t show up on radar, and they can even become invisible when they need to. They’re coated with millions of dots of electroluminescent paint, so they can change color or even camouflage themselves to look like the ground or a cloud or whatever. These babies are really incredible.”

Danny nodded. “And what do you do? You said you work on these things?”

“It’s not anything special,” Brandon said. “I maintain the thrusters. They’re basically just electric fans that blow downward, but since those things are loaded with so much helium, it doesn’t take a lot of force to lift them up into the air.”

“So, it’s really just a balloon? How can it go so fast, then? Won’t it just collapse?”

“It’s not a balloon,” Brandon said. “The outer shell is made of a new material that was developed by the people who came up with nanotubes. It’s a lot stronger than steel, but it weighs almost nothing. That entire hull, without all the thrusters and engines and storage structures inside, weighs less than a hundred pounds, and that’s about six hundred pounds lighter than a balloon the same size. It’s also impervious to helium, so it doesn’t leak like a balloon would.”

“You said it has MP motors?” Danny asked. “What are those?”

“EMP, I said. Electromagnetic propulsion. It’s something out of science fiction, but some of the scientists connected to this project have managed to develop it into something feasible. Each one of the motors weighs about thirty pounds, but it puts out as much trust as the engine on one of those little Cessna business jets. Extremely powerful, and it just runs on electricity. It uses the Earth’s magnetic field to move itself from one place to another, it’s really incredible.”

Brandon continued into a garage-like building and began taking down various items of electronic equipment. “This is the stuff I use to diagnose problems with the thrusters, and some of the other techies use it to deal with other electronic components on the craft. You want to drag that crate over here?”

Danny grabbed the one he had pointed at and pulled it close, and the two of them began packing the equipment up. When they were finished, Brandon told Danny to go back to his station and wait, because he would be responsible for seeing his own computer system loaded.

He turned and walked out of the garage, took another look at the craft that were sitting on the ground and then noticed another one hovering in the air overhead. He stopped where he was to watch as one of the craft suddenly lifted off, the quiet hum of the thrusters making the only sound involved. It rose about ninety feet in the air, then suddenly began moving forward. As it disappeared over the treetops, the one that had been hovering overhead settled into the spot it had vacated. Moments later, when it was securely on the ground, the ramp descended from the back.

Danny thought briefly about trying to sneak into the craft after its crew disembarked, but he had no way of knowing what kind of control system it might have. The chance that he could steal it and fly away, get back to any place where he could get help, was probably nonexistent.

There will be other chances, he thought to himself. For now, I need to keep learning everything I can about what’s going on here.

He walked back into the main building and spotted Janet near his station. He hurried over quietly and managed to come up behind her, slipped his arms around her and kissed her on the ear.

“Did you miss me?” he asked.

She giggled, then twisted around until she was facing him. “Where did you go? I was scared when I didn’t find you.”

“Guy named Brandon helped me pack up, then asked me to help him get his equipment. I didn’t do anything wrong, did I?”

She looked up at him with rapturous excitement in her eyes. “No,” she said. “No, that’s fine. Come on, we need to get your station loaded up.”

* * *

Just after lunchtime, Noah let Swaggart know they were getting ready to go, and Major Wilson came through with a supply of M32s and a C-130 to carry them and their equipment to the forward observations base. It took less than an hour to get everyone ready, and then they were ready to board the plane.

Neil waited until he caught Noah alone, then motioned for him to come outside for a moment. Noah followed him, and they walked a hundred yards away from the Quonset before Neil turned to talk.

“Look,” he said, “yesterday you said something about how that creature ignored Swaggart and came after you. Remember that?”

Noah nodded. “Yes, of course.”

“Well, I got to thinking about it. Just for the heck of it, I hooked up a microphone to my computer and started scanning for sounds, particularly sounds outside the range of human hearing. Every time I got close to Swaggart or any of his people, I picked up a tone, and I got to thinking that maybe that’s the reason the thing didn’t bother him.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out three small devices. “So I cobbled a few of these together. They put out the exact same tone, so hopefully they’ll keep those things from bothering any of you guys.”

Noah accepted the devices and looked at them for a second, then put them into his pocket. “Thank you,” he said. “I wish we had enough of these for everybody.”

“Yeah, well,” Neil said, “I couldn’t do that, but I did manage to make enough for the three of you.”

Noah laid a hand on the skinny kid’s shoulder. “Very good thinking,” he said. “Now, let’s get back in there before they start wondering what we’re up to. It’s time to go.”

There were only a few minutes left before time for the plane to take off. Noah, Marco and Jenny used the time to say goodbye. Sarah held Noah close for a couple of minutes and whispered into his ear, but then it was time to board. He kissed her once more and walked to the aircraft while she stood and watched. Once it was in the air, Neil and Renée walked with her back to the car and they drove back to the ops center.

The flight took just a bit over three hours, and they landed at the FOB at just past five p.m. The sun was still a ways above the horizon, and Noah stepped off the plane to be greeted by Lieutenants Morton and Shaw.

“Agent Wolf?” Lieutenant Morton asked. “I’m Lieutenant Morton, this is Lieutenant Shaw. We will be the senior field commanders for the operation.”

“Very good,” Noah said. “Is everyone else ready to go?”

“They are all gathered at the command center, waiting for your briefing,” Shaw said. “If you will follow us, sir?”

Several soldiers were unloading the crates of weapon and equipment, so Noah and his team followed the two officers. It was a short distance to the command center, and they saw all seven squads seated on benches, with Colonel Berkshire standing at the podium in front of them.

“Agent Wolf, I’m Colonel Berkshire. I’ve got to say it’s about time we did something about the situation.” He turned and waved a hand toward the men and women who were gathered. “They are all yours, sir.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” Noah said. He stepped up to the podium and looked out over the soldiers. “First off, let me say that I have spent some time in Army green. It’s going to be good to be working with all of you again. Now, there are a couple of things I need you to understand.”

A satellite photograph of the compound appeared on the screen, and Noah took that as his cue.

“I know that you are all somewhat familiar with our target zone,” Noah said. “I know that there have been many rumors about what’s going on out there, but I can tell you that we have evidence suggesting that there is nothing extraterrestrial awaiting us. That does not mean, however, that there is not danger.” He nodded to a man sitting at a computer console, and the image was replaced with a picture of the creature that Noah and Swaggart had brought back.

“What you are looking at,” Noah said, “is some sort of hybrid human. As hard as it may be to believe from that picture, the creature you are looking at was once a man, and may even have been a soldier like yourselves. The people behind whatever is going on at that compound are performing some sort of experiments that actually turn human beings into—well, into those things. We can tell you that they are very strong, very fast, and extremely hard to kill. Being shot with normal small arms probably will not stop them, unless you hit them with full auto and from several directions. We learned that the most effective weapon we have available at the moment is the M32 multi-grenade launcher loaded with HEAT rounds. The shape charge does the job, and that’s how we took down the one you see on the screen.”

Noah stepped out from behind the podium and leaned his elbow on it. “The most important thing you need to understand about this mission,” he said, “is that this is not a recon. We are going there with the intention of destroying that entire operation, and that means terminating the people behind it. We are not going to take prisoners, but there may be people there who are already being held prisoner. Those we will rescue, but only if they have not yet been subjected to these experiments. As one of my people put it, I would not want to have to live like that. Putting them down is probably the most merciful thing we can do for them.”

There was a murmur through the crowd, and Colonel Berkshire called for attention.

“Who are the seven squad leaders?” Noah asked, and seven men, including Morton and Shaw, got to their feet. “I’m going to split you guys up. I have four people on my team, and each of us will be commanding one of the groups. Morton, Shaw, you’ll be coming with me. I need two more squads to go with Agent Turin,” he indicated Marco, “and two with Agent Lance.” He pointed at Jenny, who smiled and waved. “The remaining squad will be going with Captain Swaggart, who has a special detail on this mission. He will be searching for a particular scientist who may have been abducted and forced into performing these experiments. His mission is to find that scientist and bring him out, and you will support him in that effort. Lieutenant Morton, will you handle making the squad assignments?”

Morton barked orders, and the group broke up and centered on the people they would be working with.

“We’ve got just over three hours until sundown,” Noah said, “and that’s when I want to hit them. Everybody get your gear, and I want half of your people armed with the M32s. We brought a supply with us, so there’s plenty to go around. As soon as you are ready, we will head out.”

It took less than fifteen minutes for the soldiers to prepare. Morton knew the way, so Noah let him lead. Fortunately, there was a path that had been cut by previous patrols and they were able to follow it almost all the way. Not having to cut through the jungle saved a lot of time, and they reached the clearing just to the north of the compound in just barely under two hours. Noah suggested they settle down and wait for the sun to drop below the horizon, and then set off by himself for a moment.

“Activate all,” he said. “Jenny, Marco? Gather on me.”

Both of them appeared only a moment later and squatted down beside him. Noah reached into his pocket and took out the devices Neil had given him, passing one to each of them. He explained quickly what Neil had found, and told them to turn them on as soon as they started toward the compound.

“I like that kid more and more every day,” Marco said, slipping the device into his breast pocket.

“Just don’t expect it to protect you completely,” Noah said. “While you may not have to deal with the hybrids directly, I’m sure there will be other threats waiting for us.”

“Don’t worry, Noah,” Jenny said, patting him on the shoulder. “We’ll bring you back safe. Sarah made me promise, and you know I never break a promise.”

Noah just looked at her, then nodded solemnly.

An hour later, as the sun dipped down to the horizon, Noah gave the order to move out. They started toward the compound and had gone only a few hundred yards when they heard something rustling in the brush ahead of them.

There was a scream, and then one of the hybrids burst out of the brush and came running toward him. Several of the soldiers opened fire with their rifles, but the creature only seemed annoyed by the bullets.

Suddenly, there came the whomping sound of several M32s firing at once, and the creature was hit by four of them. The explosions came all together, and literally blew the thing apart.

“That was one,” Noah said. “Stay alert, because there may be others.”

They made their way onto the compound and paused just inside the jungle around it. Noah told Marco and Jenny to take the outer buildings, the four long buildings that formed a square around the center where the main building stood beside the concrete pad. He noticed that there were none of the flying saucer-like objects sitting there, but that didn’t concern him at the moment.

“Place looks deserted, sir,” Morton said.

“It does, but we don’t assume so,” Noah replied. “We’ll take the main building, with Swaggart and his people. He’ll go in search of Doctor Branigan, while the rest of us round up as many of the staff as possible. As far as the hybrids go, remember to kill all of them. If any escape, we’ll need to hunt them down.”

Morton gave the order, and they all moved out of the brush. Marco took his squads to the right while Jenny took hers to the left. Noah and his soldiers cut straight through toward the center and the main building.

The main doors on that side flew open as they approached, and a dozen men dressed in black burst out. They were carrying submachine guns and opened fire, but Morton and his people did their jobs. Each of the men dropped as small arms automatic fire took them down, and then they were rushing into the building. They found themselves in what looked like a store room at first, and met only token resistance. The three guards who were left inside the building went down quickly, and then the assault force stopped to evaluate their position.

Swaggart appeared beside Noah. “I think we should split up,” he said. “I’ll take my people to the right, toward where the airships are. If there’s a lab, it’s probably over that direction.”

Noah nodded. “Good thinking,” he said. “Go for it. The rest of us will spread through the rest of the building and see what we find. If we come across Branigan or his daughter, we will let you know.”

Swaggart nodded, then led his team and Lieutenant Seaver’s squad into a hallway. Noah waited until they were gone, then turned to Morton.

“Let’s go,” he said. “I want to find the people running this operation.”

* * *

Swaggart and his team had been equipped with the headset radios that the infantry was using, which allowed him to keep in touch with his team and the squad. He took the point position, knowing that the repeller in his pocket would keep any of the hybrids from attacking him. Litchfield, Graves and Smith were staying close to him, their own repellers also active.

He had cautioned them, before they even got on the plane to fly out here, that they had to make it all look good. If that meant having to kill a few of the security personnel at the compound, so be it. Now, however, he was wondering what was going on. He had expected the hybrids to attack quickly, taking out the assault force before it would be necessary for him to actually do anything. Instead, they were completely absent, and he had no way of knowing what kind of plan Director Randall must have put into play.

A noise caught his attention in a room off the side of the hall, and he motioned for everyone to slow down but stay close. It was probably one of the lab assistants, maybe trying to hide, but circumstances meant the poor fellow was probably in the wrong place at the wrong moment.

Well, there was nothing else to do. Tapping his radio once again, Swaggart gave the order. "Fire team one, go!"

The fire team burst through the door Swaggart had pointed at, their guns at the ready and their voices raised to add to the confusion and effect. He had been right about a lab assistant, but it turned out there were two of them. Somewhere deeper in the building a woman screamed, but neither Swaggart nor his team allowed it to distract them. The assistants came out from behind where they were hiding, hands up, but Swaggart nodded to Sergeant Graves. She raised her weapon and squeezed the trigger, and both of them fell.

At that moment, two more men jumped out from behind a shelving unit toward the back of the room, their own assault rifles firing on full auto. Two of Seaver’s soldiers went down, and Swaggart dived out of the way, joined by Graves and two soldiers who hid with him behind a large crate. He knew two of his men had been hit, but he couldn't do much to help that right now.

He turned on his heels to face the gun fire and ducked over the crate to take a few shots. He didn't want to actually kill them, and so he aimed for legs and arms, but he also knew that he needed to make it look good for the soldiers with him. He knew that Noah had said they were not taking prisoners, but he still had hopes that Noah and the other soldiers would be eliminated before things got too bad, so he took down two of the guards with careful shots before ducking back down and waiting to see what happened.

There was no returning fire, so he knew that he had been successful. He carefully raised up to look over the crate again and saw that both of the guards were down and unarmed. One of the soldiers ran over and kicked their weapons away, then looked at Lieutenant Seaver. He apparently didn’t have what it took to commit cold-blooded murder, so there was a chance these men might actually survive.

Seaver, however, did not hesitate. He walked up to the two prone guards and drew his pistol, putting one bullet through each of their heads. As soon as he was done, he motioned for his men to start into the next room, and Swaggart hurried to keep up.

There were three men in the next room, and it was obvious the guards had simply been trying to buy them time to escape. Thinking quickly, Swaggart tapped his radio.

"Smith, you're on," he called, knowing the operative was waiting with the second fire team of soldiers just outside. Turning toward the three men ahead of him, he fired off three quick shots before Smith's arrival could be heard from the back. The fire team came in via the side, taking down a few more guards that were watching that direction, driving several more back toward Swaggart.

Swaggart took the opportunity, standing up straight and firing. Graves and the two soldiers with him did the same, and, under fire from two sides, the guards broke ranks and ran, bolting through yet another door into a different section of the building.

"Smith, follow them," Swaggart called out before pointing to a group of soldiers appearing from behind another stack of crates. "Two of you go with him, while you two help the wounded.”

The soldiers went after the escaping security guards as quickly as possible, giving chase and soon disappearing into the same room. The two he had pointed out went to aid their fellow soldiers while Swaggart turned to the ones who had been with him. "We're checking out the rest of this place. Graves, you go help Smith."

They moved towards the corridor which Smith had appeared through, guns at the ready, moving carefully. The place seemed deserted; Swaggart knew from keeping tabs on his radio that Smith and his soldiers had chased the security guards outside into the open.

Swaggart suspected they had extra men waiting out there somewhere, because that’s what he would do. Hopefully, some of the other soldiers had the place surrounded from outside and would make sure they didn't escape.

A sudden clatter made him turn to face a closed door, and he shared a look with the two soldiers who were with him. The noise came again, or another noise did at least, and Swaggart realized there was someone in there.

He tried the handle and found it locked. He shared another look with the soldiers, who held their weapons up, ready. He nodded, no words needed, and aimed his service pistol at the handle.

A single shot blew it off. Taking a deep breath, Swaggart kicked at the door, slamming it open just as something rushed out.

Faster than humanly possible, a man dressed only in a pair of shorts plowed into Swaggart, sending him crashing into the wall hard enough to wind him. The gun dropped from his hand and he slid to the ground as the rapid fire of weapons filled the corridor.

They didn't seem to do anything to the man though, if they hit at all. Swaggart's head cleared slowly, and he looked up to see it take down one of the soldiers with a single swing of a rippling hand. The other soldier didn't last much longer, and then the man was taking off down the corridor, back the way Swaggart had come.

Groaning slightly, Swaggart grabbed his gun, climbed to his feet and took off after it, not even stopping to check on the unconscious—again, he hoped—soldiers. Still, he didn't forget about them completely.

"Smith, I found what has to be another hybrid, only more advanced," he spoke over the radio. "I'm in pursuit down the corridor you came up. It took out the two soldiers I was with. I think somebody needs to check on them."

"I copy, Captain," came back Smith's reply. "We managed to get a few of the guards, but the rest escaped out into the forest."

"Some are better than none," he allowed as he banged through a door into the fading daylight. "Just get someone to watch them and follow me as soon as possible."

He could see the hybrid ahead. Unlike the one he and Noah had faced, this one was still human in appearance, but it was far stronger, faster, and much more agile.

For some reason, it had slowed to a walk, for which Swaggart was thankful. This one was either not fully changed or was an entirely different kind of hybrid altogether, but either way he didn’t want Noah to get a good look at it. His legs pounded after it as he ran right past the room Lieutenant Belcher had escaped from only a few nights before. He kept his gun out, wondering how many shots he had left and how many it would take to kill this particular hybrid.

The creature leapt onto the concrete, and Swaggart was barely twenty feet behind it. If it would only run into the forest, it might be able to escape, but if it kept going the way it was, there would be no way to keep Noah from seeing.

He paused for a moment, then raised his gun and fired. The shot sounded loud in the hallway, and his bullet hit the thing in the back. It stumbled, slightly, but but then it shrugged it off and just kept on running.

Swaggart swore and gave chase once more, unable to get another shot off before it had disappeared through another doorway. He followed where he had last seen it, spotted it again as it turned left and disappeared into yet another room. How many rooms are in the stupid building, anyway? he asked himself. He wished he had been able to study the layout of the building, but Randall had insisted on so much secrecy that no one was allowed to know anything about the inside of the compound.

Swearing again, Swaggart followed, slowing as he reached the doors it had gone through. He wasn't about to rush blindly into a space he didn't know against a foe he probably could never defeat.

He eased the door open, wondering where his squad was, and wished he had a flashlight in the darkness that engulfed him.

There was a terrible odor that left something to be desired as well. He scrunched up his nose and looked around, his eyes quickly becoming used to the darkness. He checked the area close to the door, and, upon finding nothing, scanned the walls, making sure there was nowhere the thing could be hiding, but the hybrid was nowhere to be found.

He took a step forward, cautious and careful, eyes scanning every inch of the room. The room was almost completely empty, so there was no way the thing could be hiding. He should have been able to see it easily.

A small noise, almost a groaning sound, from the center of the room caught his attention, and he aimed at the lump on the floor that he suddenly realized was the hybrid he had been chasing. It rolled over as he began walking towards it, never once letting his aim waver in the slightest, but then it seemed to shiver and its eyes closed as it took one last, shuddering breath.

That’s a relief, he thought. I guess I killed it after all.

Something didn’t seem right, however, and he moved closer. The man wasn’t moving, he wasn’t breathing, but Swaggart had learned enough to know that hybrids were not always as they seemed. He decided he should check, and slowly knelt beside it, his entire body tense as if he was expecting the thing to attack after all. It still didn't move, so he reached out to check for a pulse, and then let out the breath he had been holding as his fingers came across nothing. It really was dead.

He tapped his radio. "Smith, this is Swaggart. The hybrid is dead."

"We're almost there," Smith told him. "The guards weren’t being very cooperative, so it took a couple minutes to get them to understand the situation. Are you sure it’s dead?"

Swaggart nodded at no one. "Yeah, I'm sure. It hasn't got a pulse, and it isn't breathing, so that’s about as dead as it can get."

He trailed off as he heard a noise, turning slightly as a shape ran by a window. A nasty thought went through his mind as he realized that there were undoubtedly more of these things somewhere in this building.

"Captain Swaggart?"

"Just a moment, Smith," he whispered. "Something else is moving around over here, and I don’t think it’s human."

* * *

Noah and the soldiers with him spread through the building quickly, and they found more than three dozen people inside, but all of them claimed to be prisoners. Most of them were in ratty clothing that smelled, leading Noah to believe they might be telling the truth.

“Where are the people who were in charge?” he asked.

One of the men stepped forward. “Sir, I’m PFC Jerry Kruger,” he said. “All I can tell you is that they put us in here and told us to wait, and then there was some big rush to gather up all the computers and everything and take off. As far as I know, they got into those shiny flying saucers and split right after that, but they left quite a few of their security guards in the building. You need to watch out for them.”

“What about the hybrids? Are there any more of those around?”

Kruger squinted, looking confused. “Hybrids? Sir?”

“Alien looking things,” Noah said. “Have you seen any of those?”

Kruger suddenly understood. “Oh, the goblins? We didn’t know what they were, and nobody gave us any answers. As far as I know, sir, they were all gathered up in one of those saucers, as well. I know I haven’t seen any running around in here.”

“Kruger,” Noah said after a moment. “You were one of the men who went missing from the recon patrols.”

“Yes, sir, that’s correct.” He turned and pointed at two other men. “This is Jenkins and Rinker, we all came out of the same squad. Everyone else is from other squads, except for those four over there,” he added, pointing at a small group that was huddled together. Two men and two women seemed completely disoriented, but Kruger went on. “They claim they were each at home in different cities, and then just woke up here.”

Noah told one of the soldiers to talk to that group, then looked at Kruger for a couple of seconds. “You were captured? We were under the impression that anyone who got too close was killed.”

“No, sir,” Kruger said. “Those things, whatever they are, they just smacked the snot out of us and then dragged us back in here. They got a lot of us, but quite a few have disappeared. I was hoping maybe they escaped, and were bringing back help.”

Noah shook his head. “I only know of one escape,” he said, “Lieutenant Belcher. Do you know him?”

Kruger shook his head and looked around at the others, who also indicated that they didn’t know who Belcher was. “Sorry, no, sir,” he said. “There were about thirty of us at one point, but now we seem to be all that’s left.”

A gun shot rang out in a distant part of the building, and Noah turned to Morton. “See if we can find out what’s going on,” he said. “Something about this just doesn’t feel right.”

He turned away from Kruger and spoke softly. “Marco? Your people finding anything?”

“A few black suited idiots, but we dealt with them. Since you guys went to the main hacienda, we went ahead and checked out the other two buildings. Same situation, a few security guards, but nothing else. You, uh, did notice that the flying saucers are gone, right?”

“Yeah, I saw that. Any casualties in your group?”

“None serious,” Marco said. “Couple of minor injuries, but nothing that needs medical attention.”

“Okay, standby,” Noah said. “Jenny? How about on your end?”

“No problems here,” she said. “You guys had all the fun before we got inside, I think. Did you at least save me one or two for interrogation?”

“We’ve actually taken a few prisoners, so just relax. Let me catch up with Swaggart, and I’ll see what I can do for you on that.”

* * *

A door banged open suddenly and Swaggart jumped to his feet to aim his weapon at the people who were coming toward him. It took him a moment to make out their faces with the light in his eyes, but he realized almost instantly that they weren't hybrids.

"Hang back, Smith," he whispered into the radio as he heard the door behind him crash open. "I may have a situation."

"We'll be there in a minute, Captain," Smith promised

"What’s going on, Swaggart?" one of the figures asked, and the captain recognized the voice instantly.

"Noah," Swaggart said, lowering his weapon. “I was just checking on this man. He surprised me out of another room and knocked me down, then took off running in here.”

Noah walked up and looked at the man laying on the floor. “Any idea who he was?” he asked.

Swaggart shook his head. “Not a clue,” he said. “I can tell you this though, he wasn’t a normal man.”

“A hybrid?” Noah asked, looking at him curiously. “He looks pretty normal to me.”

“I saw him take down two of my soldiers just by slapping their faces off,” Swaggart said. “I think maybe he just hadn’t gotten the full treatment, yet. I only shot him once, with my sidearm. After what we saw yesterday, I wouldn’t have believed that would do the job.”

“Nor would I,” Noah said. He raised his eyes from the body and looked at Swaggart again. “This place is just about deserted at the moment. We found about three dozen people who seem to have been held prisoner, most of them captured from recon patrols that were trying to investigate the compound. Other than that, all we’ve come up with is about a dozen of the security people. It’s so curious I decided to break my own rule and take a few prisoners. Shaw and his troops are rounding them up so we can take them back to the forward post for questioning.”

“I saw some of them, as well,” Swaggart said. “Now I know why people were talking about the Men In Black. They look like they were trying to fit in to some kind of movie convention or something.”

Noah nodded. They spent another twenty minutes checking through the rest of the compound, but found no other hybrids or personnel. The obvious office area had been cleaned out, and there was absolutely nothing that could tell them any more about what was going on, so Noah decided to take his prisoners and the rescued personnel back to the forward base.

He wasn’t convinced the situation was over, not by a long shot. Somebody had answers, and Noah intended to get them.

FOURTEEN

Noah had Morton call for extraction, and a pair of CH 47F helicopters arrived twenty minutes later. They brought back a total of forty-seven people alive, along with all of the military personnel that had gone on the mission, as well as the body of the apparent hybrid that Swaggart had killed.

Emergency housing was set up for the rescued, and the prisoners were put into a makeshift holding cell. Doctor Emerson had been provided with an area to use for autopsy, and had brought along some of his equipment and even convinced Jorge to follow him.

"I'm guessing your pathologist has already started on the body?" Swaggart asked Noah once everything was settled.

Noah shook his head. "We put it on ice for tonight,” he said. “Doctor Emerson will start first thing in the morning. I’ll confess I’m really interested in knowing what he finds. That man looked perfectly normal, to me."

Swaggart nodded. “I thought so too, until I saw how fast he was moving. My men fired at him, but they all missed. When he knocked those soldiers cold with the palm of his hand, I actually thought he had killed them. It was all I could do to chase him down, and when he stopped and turned to face me, I was pretty sure I was about to die.”

Noah nodded, looking at him, but didn’t say anything more. A few minutes later, he announced that he was going to get some rest and would speak with Swaggart in the morning.

Swaggart turned and went to his own quarters, a square tent that had been set up quickly for him and his team. Litchfield and the others were waiting when he got there.

“So?” Litchfield asked. “What the hell are we going to do now? I was expecting Randall and everybody to be there when we arrived, but he packed up and split. I don’t have a clue what to think, right now.”

“Just stay quiet, and don’t let on that you are that confused. Remember, we are supposed to be part of the investigation. We need to keep acting like that, for now.”

“What about the dead one we brought back? Have they been able to identify the guy yet?”

“No, but it’s probably only a matter of time. Any idea who he might have been?”

“I didn’t get a really good look,” Smith said, “but it looked a lot like Chuck Thompson. He was one of the men who went missing in the very first patrol after we arrived. I only met him a couple times, but I have to say it looked like him.”

“Well, if you recognized him, no doubt somebody else here will. Hell, for all I know, they may already know who he is. It’s probably good that I killed him; wouldn’t do for him to be talking too much about what was going on out there.”

“Yeah,” Graves said, “but what about all those people they brought back? Do you honestly think they aren’t going to interrogate those security guards? You heard Jenny Lance, she really gets off on making people talk, and the look in her eyes scares the hell out of me. That girl is into torture, pure and simple.”

“Which means they’re going to talk,” Swaggart said. He sat down on a stool and put his head in his hands. “Okay, here’s the thing. Nobody at the compound knew anything about our involvement. No matter what they tell, it won’t lead back to us, so all we can do is ride this out.” He looked up at each of them. “No matter what happens, just keep your cool. With everybody gone from the compound, this whole thing will come to an end pretty quickly. We simply have to wait and see which way the wind is blowing, then get in touch with the Coalition once we get back to the States.”

Litchfield suddenly spoke up. "It's not going to be all that easy,” he said. “And what if they decide to go ahead with the program? We could get left out of it completely."

Swaggart glared over at him. "This isn't your usual optimism, is it, Litchfield? Right now, we need to keep ourselves together, and not worry too much about what might be happening without us. We’ve been doing our jobs, we won’t get left out."

The OSTP agent glared back at him. "That’s all good for you to say," he said. "You are in tight with some of the top people, and we all know it. The rest of us, we’re just trying to make sure we are going to be getting what we were promised."

Smith sat forward. "We’ll be okay, Carl. Just..."

Swaggart was going to agree, but Litchfield cut them off. "Excuse me? We’ll be okay? Let me tell you something, kid,” he spat at Smith. “I'm a genius, do you know that? And I’m not just blowing my own horn, I’ve got the…"

"Litchfield!" Swaggart hissed, cutting him off before he could describe, in great detail, everything he had and had not accomplished. "Keep it down. Do you want to blow everything we’ve worked for?"

Swaggart checked his watch, ignoring the look shared between the other three. “It’s getting late,” he said. “There’s not going to be much to do before morning, so we better get some sleep. God only knows what’s going to happen when the sun comes up.”

* * *

Noah sat down on the bunk he was assigned and took out the satellite phone that he kept in his pocket. He dialed a number quickly and put it to his ear.

“Noah?” Sarah asked, answering. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Noah said. “The compound was almost deserted when we got there, other than a few of the security guards and some of their prisoners. We brought them out, and will start interrogation tomorrow.”

“What about,” she asked hesitantly, “those things? Were they still there?”

“No, actually,” he replied. “We ran into one as we were approaching the compound, but that was the only one we saw that was anything like the one we brought back before. There was a man who seemed to be rather enhanced, though. Swaggart killed him, so Doctor Emerson is going to perform an autopsy tomorrow.”

“Well, we have some news back here,” she said. “Neil had kept the facial recognition running on cameras in the area, looking for Lisa Branigan. Turns out she is staying in an apartment building in Buenos Aires, in the Flores district. He hacked into the company that owns the building, and there are only three women living in it that he couldn’t identify. He got the apartment numbers for those, and she has to be in one of them.”

“Really? Maybe we need to send someone out to pick her up. We still don’t know whether she’s actually part of the problem or not.”

“Well, that’s kinda why I brought it up,” Sarah said. “How would you feel about me and Renée going after her? It would be something we could do to contribute, and we both feel like we’re just sitting here doing nothing at the moment.”

Noah thought about it for a moment, then said, “I think you should ask Allison, but you can tell her that I think you can handle it. You have FBI identification, and be sure to take your weapons. If you need or want backup, ask Private Lee from the MPs to go with you.”

He could hear the smile in her voice. “I think we can handle it on our own,” she said. “It’s too late tonight, but we’ll go tomorrow morning.” She seemed more relaxed. “So,” she asked sultrily, “are you all alone?”

* * *

The following morning, right after breakfast, Sarah and Renée took the car they had been assigned and headed into Buenos Aires. Neil had tried to insist on going with them, but they convinced him to let them go alone. He gave them the address of the building the girl had been seen going into, and the GPS navigation system gave them directions.

Buenos Aires is the capital of Argentina, and its largest city. With a population of roughly 14,000,000, it is one of the biggest cities in the Americas overall. It is a mixture of many cultures, including Spanish, Italian and others, but the area they were visiting was one of the most recently developed. Skyscrapers seemed to be everywhere, and the building indicated by the GPS was no exception.

The agency car came to a halt outside the tall building and in the passenger seat, Renée looked up at the structure, trying to keep her surprise from showing in her face. The building was much larger than apartment buildings back home, reaching more than fifty stories tall. Renée had seen a number of tall buildings in her life, but she rarely got so close to one that seemed to disappear into the clouds.

She turned back to find Sarah looking at her. For a moment Renée felt a bit of embarrassment at her reaction, but Sarah just cocked her head and smiled.

“Ready to go in?” Sarah asked.

Renée glanced up at the building again, then nodded. They got out of the car and started toward the entrance to the building. She looked up at it again as they approached, and the awe showed on her face.

Sarah giggled. "Not used to the big city?" she asked gently. Renée looked at her and smiled.

"I’ve been in a lot of cities," Renée said, “but this one is something else, I’ll say that.”

They walked towards the door and Sarah looked at her with some curiosity. "So, I don’t think I ever asked, but where are you from originally?" she asked.

Renée smiled. "You might not believe it,” she said. “I grew up in a dinky little town called Asa, Kentucky. Three saloons, two churches and a general store, with a population of about three hundred and twenty people. If I hadn’t gotten a scholarship, I probably would still be there, and I’d probably be working at one of those saloons.”

Sarah nodded, and her smile got a little wider. “I thought I heard a hint of the South in that accent,” she said.

They walked into the lobby, and Sarah walked straight through the lobby like she owned the place. Renée followed, sure she looked out of place, then reminded herself that any American would look out of place, here. Unfortunately, there wasn't much she could do about that and so she tried to look confident.

They made it to the elevator without anyone paying attention and Sarah pressed the button for the seventh floor. The first of the apartments they wanted to check out would be there.

They found the apartment with no trouble and Sarah knocked on the door. A young woman answered with a smile, and Sarah, who spoke fluent Spanish, quickly ascertained that she was the actual occupant. Sarah apologized for getting the wrong apartment, and the two of them moved up to the nineteenth floor.

Once again, the woman inside the apartment turned out not to be Lisa Branigan. She seemed somewhat upset at being interrupted from whatever she was doing, and both of the women stifled a giggle as a man wearing nothing but a towel stepped out of the bedroom to see what was keeping her. The woman shut the door quickly, and Sarah and Renée turned back toward the elevator, but the laughter broke free as soon as the doors closed on them.

The last apartment they needed to check out was on the twenty-fifth floor, and Sarah pushed the button. The elevator stopped and dinged, announcing their arrival and they stepped out of it side-by-side as they made their way toward the apartment.

They found it a moment later, and Sarah raised her hand to knock, but Renée suddenly grabbed it, her face deadly serious.

"What is it?" Sarah asked as Renée inclined her head as if to listen through the door. Then she shook her head.

"Something’s not right," she whispered. A couple of seconds later, she was proven correct. They heard a crash of something glass or ceramic breaking, and then they heard a gunshot and a scream. Both of them reacted instantly, drawing their weapons and stepping back from the door. Sarah nodded for Renée to try the door, and she put a hand on the handle, twisting to see if it would open.

It did, and she pushed it open hard. It flew wide and Sarah hurried in, gun raised, closely followed by Renée, her own pistol held out in front of her. They found themselves in the living room, and the scene in front of them caught them both by surprise. Sarah shouted, “FBI, get down on the floor!"

Renée followed her in, assessing the situation quickly. A woman she recognised as Lisa Branigan lay on the carpeted floor, bleeding from her shoulder, already unconscious and pale. Two men stood over her, both holding guns of their own aimed down at her. As Renée entered, they raised the weapons to point at the two women.

Renée reacted instinctively, ducking to the side as a bullet whizzed past her. She snapped off a shot of her own, and the man gave a yelp as the bullet slammed into his arm, making him drop his weapon. The other man stared at his friend and then looked up at the two women, but it was obvious Sarah’s gun was aimed directly at his face. He dropped his weapon and slowly raised his hands to put them behind his head.

“Now don’t move,” Sarah said. “Renée? You have handcuffs?”

Handcuffs were part of their identity, so Renée pulled her own out and used them on the man Sarah was covering, then took Sarah’s to use on the man she had wounded. She kicked both of their weapons away out of reach, and made them sit down on the sofa nearby.

“Keep them covered,” Renée said. She knelt down beside Lisa, checking for a pulse, then looked up at Sarah and nodded.

"She’s alive," she said to Sarah. “But her heartbeat is fast and thready.”

Sarah nodded, then took out her cell phone. She dialed 911, since Argentina uses the same code as the United States for emergency services.

Renée shrugged out of her jacket and pressed it against Lisa’s wound, wishing she had a first aid kit. Sarah spoke rapidly to the emergency operator, and then turned as a man knocked on the apartment door. She held out her ID, and the man produced his own. He was part of building security, and it took her a moment to explain to him what was going on.

As the paramedics arrived and took over, Sarah took out her phone again, dialing the number that would connect her to Allison Peterson. The director picked up almost immediately, and Renée heard one side of the conversation.

"We located Lisa Branigan, only to find her under attack. She's been shot, but she's alive. Paramedics are here now, and they're taking her to a hospital. Police are coming to take the two men we caught who had shot her, and then we’ll head for the hospital to check on her. We'll call you when we have news."

“Excellent work, Sarah,” Allison said. “I want a full report when you get back here, but make sure you stay with Lisa until I can get her transferred here to the base. We don’t want anybody else making another attempt to silence her. It could mean she actually has information we need.”

 "Okay. We'll stay with her to make sure nobody else can get to her."

“Do that, but it won’t be long. Because she’s part of this investigation, I can get the MPs to come and take over pretty quickly.”

Sarah looked over at Renée, who was watching Lisa closely. "I'm pretty sure we can handle it,” she said. “Just let me know when you get the transfer arranged.”

She snapped the phone shut and watched the paramedics moving Lisa from the room, laid out on a gurney with an oxygen mask over her face. Renée had just finished speaking to them and came over.

"You know," Sarah said, “we did pretty good for our first time out in the field alone.”

Renée smiled. "I found out which hospital they are taking her to. I gather we are supposed to go along and stay with her?"

Sarah nodded. "As soon as the local police get here, we need to head for that hospital. Allison wants us to stay with her until she can arrange to get Lisa transferred to the base medical center." She looked at Renée. “She’s afraid Lisa may know something that people don’t want us to find out.”

* * *

At the FOB, Noah, Marco and Jenny went directly from the mess hall to the Medical Center, where Doctor Emerson had been provided with a room to use for the autopsy. The man Swaggart had killed was laying on the table, and had already been splayed open. Marco made a sour face, as if he was suddenly wishing he hadn’t eaten scrambled eggs. Jenny, on the other hand, was grinning.

“Doctor Emerson,” Noah said. “You got anything for me?”

“Well, I have a number of tissues that need to be sent back for Renée to examine,” Emerson said, “but the most important thing I have to tell you is that this man is indeed a hybrid. I don’t have to have a DNA analysis know that, because there have been subtle realignments of some of his innards that can’t possibly happen naturally.”

“How do you mean? Subtle realignment?”

“Oh, yes,” Emerson said. “For example, where our previous samples had smaller lungs and a more powerful heart, this man has lungs that are roughly ten percent larger than normal, and a heart that is smaller and more compact, but every bit as strong as the one in the earlier creature. Those are two examples, but the most telling modification is the attachment of muscles to bone.” He turned to an x-ray board and flipped the light on. “Take a look at the triceps brachii. This is the muscle that allows extension of the forearm, and it is normally attached here.” He pointed at a diagram showing the elbow. “In our friend, here, however, there is an additional growth of bone on the elbow that moves the attachment outward by almost an inch. The increase in leverage that this creates would mean that, should this fellow decide to throw a punch at you, he might conceivably take your head off.”

Noah’s eyebrows went up half an inch. “He’s that much stronger than normal?”

“In every possible way,” Emerson said. “Every muscle attachment in his body has been slightly altered to generate far more leverage, and thereby strength, than any normal man should ever have. No doubt you have seen weightlifters do a single arm curl with dumbbells that weigh as much as a hundred pounds? This man could easily handle three to four times that amount with each arm. He was probably capable of picking up nearly a thousand pounds, and I could go on and on.”

“What about other changes? What other ways is he different?”

“Why, physically, that’s about it,” Emerson said. “I find no significant difference in his other organs. His skin is perhaps slightly tougher than yours, but not to a degree that it would be noticeable. This is why a single bullet was able to kill him so easily.” He turned and looked at the body on the table again. “It’s a pity the man could not have been taken alive,” Emerson continued. “If we knew what was done to him to create these changes, it could easily become a treatment for many muscular conditions.”

Noah was also looking at the body. “Or a process for creating the ultimate soldier,” he said. “Do these changes in muscle attachment extend to making him faster?”

“Well, in essence, I would have to say yes. He has similar alterations to his legs, so he could conceivably run much faster by taking greater spans between strides. When a man runs, he actually leaves the ground for a short distance between steps. This man could probably sail a dozen feet between those steps, simply because of the strength of his legs. In practice, I would estimate he might be capable of running at speeds of more than forty miles per hour.”

“But unless somebody were to examine him closely, he would otherwise seem normal?”

“That would be true,” Emerson said. “Unfortunately, there are a few potentially noticeable changes. Intellectually, I doubt he would be much smarter than the average person, and he would certainly be able to function in society. However, there are differences in his frontal lobe, particularly the areas used in decision making. I can’t be certain, of course, but other than in the most mundane circumstances, I suspect this man would have needed someone to tell him what to do, most of the time.” He looked Noah in the eye. “And then he would carry out those instructions, regardless of what it might cost him.”

Noah looked at the body for a couple more seconds, then turned his attention back to the pathologist.

“Doc, is there any possibility that those changes could be reversed? Could he be brought back to norm, if he were still alive?”

Emerson shook his head. “Sadly not,” he said. “I think that there is probably no possible way to undo the damage to any of the bodies I have examined.”

FIFTEEN

Swaggart came into the morgue at that moment, prepared, like the E & E agent, to get every piece of information they could, and almost seemed to scowl when he saw Noah there ahead of him.

“Noah,” he said. “So, what have we found?”

Noah explained what Emerson had just told him, and Swaggart looked at the body with his own wide eyes.

“Wow,” he said. “Branigan must have made some improvements to the cocktail.”

“Yes,” Noah said, “it does seem that way. Have you learned anything from our prisoners?”

Swaggart suddenly looked at him and grinned. “Yeah, you could say that. Turns out we had an imposter in the midst of them. One of those so-called security guards was actually, according to one of the prisoners, working with Branigan and other scientists. He seems to have missed the flight out, so he tried to hide among the guards. I guess he thought we would simply arrest them; he’s lucky you decided to take them alive instead of eliminating them.”

Noah looked into his eyes for a moment, then nodded. “Then let’s go see the man,” he said.

“I was just waiting for you,” Swaggart said. “I figured you would want to be in on the questioning. Incidentally, the guy’s name is Derek Morris. He’s from Atlanta, or so he says. I took the liberty of putting a call in to your computer guy to see what he can find out about him.”

“Smart thinking.” Noah led the way out of the morgue and they headed toward the building where the prisoners were housed. “I don’t suppose we have a regular interrogation room?”

“We do, complete with one-way mirror and all,” Swaggart said. “I already had him taken there, so he’s waiting for us even now.”

“Then let’s not keep him waiting,” Noah said. “I want some answers.”

The stress levels in the interview room went up two or three notches when Swaggart walked in, closely followed by Noah. Behind the glass, Marco and Jenny exchanged a glance before turning to watch and see what was going to happen.

Morris, who was nearly as tall as Neil, seemed to shrink back into his seat as the two men took theirs in silence. Both of them merely stared at him for several seconds, with Swaggart wearing a cocky half-smile on his face.

Morris looked between the two of them, as if trying to determine which of them might be easier to handle. He turned to Swaggart, obviously thinking he would have more chance with the military man. Behind the glass, Marco and Jenny smiled.

"I want my phone call," Morris demanded, making a show of bravery.

“Phone call?” Swaggart asked, his eyes looking shocked. “Where do you think you are? This isn’t exactly the Los Angeles police department, you know. You were picked up in the middle of what can only be considered a terrorist compound. I think you can forget all about Miranda rights, my friend.”

Morris licked his lips at Swaggart's tight response. "But I have the right to a lawyer," he pointed out, and Swaggart's cocky grin grew.

"No, you don't,” Swaggart said. “Under the antiterrorism act, you don’t have any rights at all. The best thing you can do right now, if you have any hope of ever seeing daylight again, is be as cooperative as you possibly can.”

Morris flicked his gaze over to Noah, who was still looking at his folder, and then looked back at Swaggart. "When the government hears about this…"

Noah cut him off. "And what government might that be? I know you don’t work for the American government, and I’m pretty sure you don’t work for the Argentinian government, either."

The scientist paled, leaning back in his chair. "I have information,” he said. He looked like he was going to say more, but Swaggart cut him off with a sinister chuckle.

"Yeah," Swaggart agreed. "And that's why you are still alive." He leaned forward, resting on his elbows. "See, when you get yourself involved in extremely illegal experiments that involve stolen, top-secret material, you can pretty much kiss all of your options goodbye."

The scientist glanced at Noah, and was startled when he found the assassin staring at him. Swaggart continued as Noah held the geneticist's eyes.

"You want a lawyer? Too bad. You want a trial? Sorry, not going to happen. You want to appeal to a judge? We are probably the best you’re going to get. You want some kind of plea bargain? Now, that’s where we might be able to help. You talk, and maybe, and I stress the word maybe, you get to spend the rest of your life in some dark cell in the bottom of the super max prison. You don’t talk, and you won’t even make it out of this room alive.”

Morris inhaled sharply before looking between the two of them, doing his best to muster the courage to argue. "Wait a minute, what is this? I told you, I have information that you guys want, but I’m not giving it up unless I walk free."

Swaggart cut him off once again with a laugh, while Noah simply stared at him. "What makes you think your information is that valuable?" Noah asked. “What makes you think we really care what you know?”

"You see," Swaggart said, “we already know a lot about what’s been going on out there. Somehow, I don’t think you got anything to add that we really care that much about.”

"That’s where you’re wrong," the man said. "You don’t know half as much as you think you do. You give me a break, I’ll tell you what you need in order to stop everything from happening."

Noah shrugged, crossing his arms. “And what might that be?” he asked. “What is it we can stop from happening?”

Morris stared at him for a moment, and then a grin spread across his face. “The end of the whole freaking world, man,” he said. “That’s what you can stop, but only if I talk. And I’m only going to talk if you guarantee me I’m going to walk out of here a free man.”

Noah shook his head. “That’s not going to happen. The best you can hope for is to live out your days in a concrete room. You get one hour a day to come outside and see the sunlight through the chain-link fence over your head. You will be in a concrete enclosure, but you will still be all alone. That’s your future, which is a whole lot better than the one you’re going to have if you don’t talk.”

"No, I know things that can help you," he told them. "If you cut me a deal, I'll tell you everything I know."

Swaggart leaned back in his chair, nodding slowly. "Well, give us a sample," he told the man. "What have you got?"

Morris shook his head. "First I want guarantees. No charges. I want to go back to Atlanta, and I don't want to do any time."

Noah leaned forward and put his chin on his fists. “You’d have to have something awfully good to get a deal like that,” he said. “Give me something I can work with, and I’ll consider the possibility.”

Morris swallowed, and then sighed, looking dejected. "I know where they were planning to set up next," he told them quietly, not meeting their eyes. "It's—it's another compound a few hours away, and it’s in the city this time. Some old warehouse building or something like that. I can give you the address."

Noah smiled. "See, that wasn't so hard." He took out a sheet of paper and passed it over with a pen, and Morris sighed again, rubbing his eyes. "Go ahead and give it to us, then."

"You're going to need to protect me," the scientist told them. "They'll come after me."

"Who are they?" Swaggart asked, glancing at Noah. "Got a name? An organization, maybe?"

Morris shook his head. "I don’t actually know who they are, but I know what they’re capable of. I saw people who pissed them off disappear, I don’t want that to happen to me."

"Well, when you're done with the address, maybe you can start writing down names of other people we need to look for," Swaggart suggested, leaning forward. "Maybe then you won't get that nasty concrete cell."

Morris flinched before nodding, never raising his head. "I'll need a bigger piece of paper," he told them. "As long as you protect me, that is."

Swaggart shrugged. "We'll do what we can." He grabbed the piece of paper before Noah could. "Take your time. Chances are we'll be rounding up your friends in any case."

The two of them left the room, closing the door firmly behind them. Noah looked at Swaggart. “So, what did he write down?”

Swaggart held out the paper. “It’s the intersection of a couple of highways, not far from Buenos Aires. He’s right, there’s an old rail terminal from the state Railway Company out there. It really would make a perfect place for them to set up shop again.”

Noah looked at the paper and then raised his eyes to meet Swaggart’s once again. “Looks like we’re headed back to Donovan Range, then,” he said. “Get your people ready, and I’ll get mine. I want to be wheels up in half an hour.”

Colonel Berkshire had sent a platoon of soldiers back to the compound to secure it, but it was beginning to look like the FOB was no longer necessary. Noah spoke to him for a moment to arrange a flight back to Donovan, and the Colonel confirmed that he had orders to strike the entire base over the next week.

The plane lifted off forty minutes later, after Noah had called ahead to let Allison know what was happening. She had promised to arrange military backup for when he arrived, and Noah relayed the information to his team once they were in the air.

Once again, the flight took almost three hours. They landed at Donovan field at just after lunchtime, but Noah didn’t want to wait. Arrangements were quickly made for troops to escort them out to the location Morris had given them, and they split into two cars. At Noah’s orders, Marco, Jenny, Smith and Graves rode in one, while Noah and Swaggart took the other. Litchfield was sent back to the operations center, on Swaggart’s orders.

"There's a squad of soldiers meeting us at the warehouse," Noah told Swaggart as he slid into the passenger seat of the car. "They’ll be waiting a couple of miles away for us to get there."

Noah turned the ignition on and put the car in gear, then looked at Swaggart as he drove away from the airfield. “This time, we need to surprise them better than we did before,” he said, and Swaggart chuckled.

"I’m not so sure about that," he said. "If these people are half as good and financed as I think they are, they will probably see us coming long before we get there."

Noah's mouth thinned. "Yeah, I'm aware of that. I just want to catch these guys and put a stop to this whole thing."

Swaggart nodded. "I understand that," he told the agent sincerely. "I can’t help wondering if we really have any idea how big this is."

Noah glanced at him. "Yeah? Well, why don't you clue me in a little?" he said, swerving into the next lane to cut in front of the car that had been beside them. “Because I’m really getting the feeling you know a lot more than you’re letting on.”

"I would if I could," Swaggart told him, not showing any signs of panic as the driver sped and swerved over the road. "But you are actually a lot better off by not knowing."

The two men sat and stared at each other for a moment, but then Noah looked back at the road and drove on without a word. Finally, he cleared his throat. "We're here."

A little frustrated, Swaggart rolled his eyes and got out of the car, heading straight for the lieutenant waiting by the nearby unmarked van. Noah followed moments later, not about to be left out of anything, while Smith and Marco shared a knowing look before getting out of the car with Jenny and Graves and heading over to the men.

"The building is just a mile down the road," the lieutenant told them, pointing to where he meant as a second soldier fitted them all out with radios. "Major Wilson has already moved a number of my men into strategic positions around the location, and they're ready to go."

"They got into place without tipping the people inside off?" Noah demanded, and the lieutenant stared at him.

"Of course, sir," the soldier answered. "My men are very good at what they do.”

Swaggart nodded, taking off his jacket before grabbing the bullet-proof vest one of the waiting soldiers handed him. He chucked his jacket into the back of the van. "Have any of your men spotted anything unusual?" he asked.

The lieutenant shook his head. "No, sir. But they haven't managed to get a good look. Major Wilson supplied us with blueprints of the building, so we know what we’re looking at inside." He glanced at Noah again, and the agent scowled at realizing that they were being careful in front of him. “There are three large rooms in the main section of the building, and we suspect those flying saucer things are in the biggest one. We aren’t certain what might be going on in the rest of the building, but infrared scans indicate that there are at least a couple of hundred people inside.”

Swaggart nodded and looked at Noah. "Ready to do this?"

Noah nodded. "I want Marco with you," he demanded, and after a moment Swaggart nodded. “Jenny and Sergeant Graves can come in once we have the place secured.”

"Fine. You've got Smith. Let's go."

He grabbed the offered rifle from a soldier handing weapons out, not surprised when Smith took a machine gun instead. Noah and Marco seemed content with their sidearms, and Swaggart wasn't about to push them on the matter.

Dividing into two teams, they took off down the road, splitting as they drew close to the building. The lieutenant who had been filling them in took Noah and Smith around the front, while Swaggart, followed himself by Marco, headed for the back of the building via a small alley, keeping pace easily with the other lieutenant and his team.

They were at the targeted building within seconds, and Swaggart nodded at the men waiting at a door and beneath windows. He paused, listening intently for any noise, before popping up to take a look through a small window.

He ducked back down again quickly, satisfied that at least they weren't about to run in on anyone's private business. What he had seen convinced him that they were in the right place.

He jogged over to the door, lifting the grenade launcher up to his shoulder before tapping his radio. "All teams go!"

* * *

Renée had been in hospitals before, and had naturally assumed that this one would be just like any other. She realized how wrong that assumption was the moment she stepped inside the tall, white building.

She didn't stop, and managed to retain her confident walk as she followed Sarah inside, but she still couldn't help but stare at everything out of the corner of her eye. There were people everywhere, even reception was busy, and most of them appeared to be overcome with symptoms she could only assume were far worse than they looked, because the doctors and nurses that she saw seemed frantically busy. The hospital was so busy, and she was starting to get an idea of just how populated this massive city was, but it was all a bit overwhelming for a former country girl.

In silence, she followed Sarah through to emergency, where they found a free nurse and asked after Caroline Lamphier, which was the name they had learned Lisa Branigan had been using. That nurse led them to a doctor who was busy on the phone.

Seeing them, he hung the phone back on the hook, sighing as Sarah flashed her badge.

"I'm guessing you're here about Caroline Lamphier," he told them tiredly. "I'm Doctor Garza."

"You are the one looking after her?" Renée asked, and Garza nodded.

"Until they get a free spot in surgery, I'm your guy."

Sarah frowned. "So I am assuming her wound is pretty serious?" she asked, looking around as she tried to find the woman.

"Serious enough to need surgery," Garza told them. "But it's not life-threatening at this moment. We managed to slow the bleeding and manage the pain, but she's not complaining much. I think she's just glad to be alive."

Renée’s eyebrows rose in surprise. "So she is awake?" she asked, looking around herself now.

Garza nodded. "Yeah, she woke up in the ambulance, or so I'm told. The paramedics said she was shocked to be waking up at all. She said she thought she was a dead woman the moment she opened the door."

Sarah nodded absent-mindedly. "We need to speak with her," she told him, making sure he knew there was an urgent need with her tone.

The doctor still balked. "I don't know, because she's been through a lot, and she still has to go into surgery—"

"Please," Renée broke in. "The matter is very important, but we will be gentle. If you like, you can come in with us yourself, just to make sure nothing goes wrong."

Garza sighed and shook his head. "Fine. If it's important, I guess, but I am going to come with you. She's over here."

They followed the doctor over, Renée ignoring Sarah’s glances. Clearly the other woman had wanted to speak with Lisa alone, but Renée had been fairly sure that would never have happened. If Garza was anything like most doctors she had known, then he would never have allowed it.

Garza pushed back the curtains, and the woman behind them jumped, her shaking hand going to her chest as if her heart had jumped with her. She seemed to struggle to calm down, forcing deep breaths, her face pale as she closed her eyes.

"Lisa Branigan?" Sarah asked, keeping her voice low and soft.

The woman opened her dark eyes. She hesitated only a moment before she nodded, her curly brown hair falling from her shoulders as her whole body shook. Sarah paused at the end of the bed, but Renée moved to Lisa’s bedside.

"I’m Sarah Wolf," Sarah continued, gesturing at her partner. "This is Renée Turin. We’re with the FBI, and we need to ask you a few questions."

"About the men who tried to kill me?" Lisa asked in a small voice, looking down. She was clearly trying to avoid the bigger issue.

"Among other things," Renée said. "Mostly about Lieutenant William Belcher."

The woman flinched, and she shook her head. "I don't know…"

"We have proof, Lisa," Renée told her, cutting her off. "Photographs of you leaving the hotel the morning Lieutenant Belcher disappeared. The hotel manager described you as the one who checked out for Lieutenant Belcher."

Lisa slowly looked up, her eyes red. "They said I had to do it,” she said, obviously distraught. "They have my father, and they told me that they’ll kill him if I don’t do the things they want me to do."

"And what did they want you to do?" Sarah asked.

"Drug that guy, that soldier. So I did! It felt bad and horrible, and if my father knew, he would probably disown me, but I did it, because I didn't want my father to die."

She trailed off, lowering her head again, and Sarah exchanged a look with Renée. Garza remained a silent spectator, though his eyes were wide. He was probably wondering what was going on.

"Go ahead,” Sarah said, her eyes hard. “What else?”

"They didn't let him go. They said they had a few other jobs for me first. I had to help them get to three other men."

Sarah’s blood ran cold. Three more men subjected to what amounted to torture. "Who? Who else did you 'help them get to'?"

Lisa swallowed audibly. "Um, two other soldiers. Oh, God, what was his name?"

"You helped kidnap them and you don't know their names?" Sarah demanded coldly, earning a sharp look from both Renée and the doctor. Lisa’s head shot up.

"I tried to forget their names! And their faces. I know what I did was wrong, and I won't ever forget it! As much as I try, I won't. I realized that, just before going to see McRae, realized I couldn't, not even for my father. But they wouldn't let me back out! They said they would kill my dad if I didn't help them. What was I supposed to do?"

Sarah refused to answer, but Renée filled the gap. "Do you know the names of the three men?" she asked gently, and her voice seemed to calm Lisa down slightly.

"Uh, yeah. Um, Larry, no, Gary Mitchell, and Ronald—Ronald Dempsey. They were both soldiers. I think the third guy might have been some kind of intelligence officer."

"But you don't know his name?" Sarah asked.

Lisa shook her head, slowly. "No. They didn't tell me their names until they dropped me off at where I was supposed to pick them up. I hadn't met this third guy yet, that was supposed to happen soon. When those guys showed up, though, they said my services wouldn't be needed anymore, so they were going to kill me."

"Do you know anything about him? The intelligence officer?" Maybe they could find him and warn him before it was too late.

Eyeing Sarah, and then Renée, Lisa slowly nodded. "I picked up bits and pieces when they were taking me to see the third soldier. Um, he's a captain. He's someone pretty important, I guess. The guys in the car with me at the time said something about him playing some kind of computer game. I guess he was supposed to be trying to stop them, but they figured out who he was."

Renée went still. "What else did they say?" she asked.

Lisa flinched again. "I don't know! The guy in charge never spoke to me, but he was always there. He was talking to someone on the phone, something about—about an infection, or a disease, something like that. He said if they could prove it on this guy, then they would have less to worry about."

Renée took a deep breath, moving away from the bed and towards Sarah, pulling the other woman out of the small section.

"You need to get hold of Noah, now," Renée said.

"Why?" Sarah asked, looking back through the curtains at a distraught Lisa. "You know who she's talking about?"

Renée nodded. "I think it’s Captain Swaggart. He's an intelligence officer, he was playing that computer game with the other guys, the one they used for communication, and his mission was to stop these people. Sarah, it has to be him." She took out her own phone. “You call Noah,” she said. “I’ll try Carl Litchfield, maybe he can get hold of Swaggart in time.”

SIXTEEN

The soldiers burst through the door into the building, and almost immediately gunfire erupted. Swaggart had gotten a good look at the layout from his quick peek over the window sill, and he knew there were a lot of unpacked crates inside that could offer his men some level of protection.

He followed the next soldier in, raising his rifle and opening fire himself as he covered the soldier's run to behind one of the crates. Marco went next, opening fire with his pistol as he moved from the door to the stack of crates nearby. His pistol sounded strange in comparison to the rapid fire of the rifles and the loud chatter of Smith's machine gun coming from where they were breaking down the front of the warehouse.

Swaggart quickly ducked down beside Marco, grinning wildly at the man who was looking slightly pissed. Then he turned around and lifted the end of the rifle over the top of the crates, taking out two men before ducking back down with a frown.

There were too many shooting at them. And those men in white coats had large guns that they obviously knew how to use.

"Dammit!" he spat, breaking Marco's concentration enough to bring him back down behind the crates.

"What?" Marco demanded, speaking loudly over the gunfire. "What's the problem?"

Swaggart shook his head. "Something isn't right here. Those scientists aren't scientists, they're gunmen. Morris deliberately sent us here for some reason. What I can't figure out is why!"

Marco looked a little worried, but Swaggart ignored it as he took aim again, shooting three men in white coats as they tried aiming for him. He looked around quickly, seeing the door that must have led to the other rooms the lieutenant had been talking about, and the men trying to get through it.

Not thinking, Swaggart crouched back down and moved to the end of the crate stack, tapping the soldier sitting there on the shoulder. "Cover me!"

The soldier obliged, and Swaggart raced for the next stack of crates, moving himself closer to the door. He was a little surprised when someone followed him.

He turned around and found Marco inches from him. Scowling, he ignored it for a moment, getting to his knees and spraying the room from a new angle with the rifle's ammunition.

"What the hell are you doing?" he demanded as he ducked back down, away from the barrage the guards sent their way. Marco shook his head.

"You need someone to watch your back," Marco replied, but Swaggart got the picture. Noah wanted someone watching him, and not necessarily just his back. Shaking his head again, Swaggart pointed a finger at him, knowing this was no time to argue.

"Don't get yourself killed!" he ordered, shoving the man along to the end of their stack. If they could just get to the next one along, they should be able to get through the door without too much of a hassle like bullets and getting shot. "You go first, I'll cover you."

Marco nodded, getting ready. He raced across to the other stack before getting to his own, taller knees and opening fire, providing cover for Swaggart to slide across without so much as a single bullet coming his way.

That probably should have given him a clue that something was wrong, but at the time he was just glad he hadn't been shot, because he knew just how much that could hurt. He got to his knees, the rifle steady in his hands, and moved slowly across to the end of the crate, pushing Marco ahead of him.

The door was in sight, and Swaggart glanced at it as he pulled down, aware that he was running out of ammunition, and that he might need it for whatever lay behind the door he was aiming for. No doubt there were men in there, and if they hadn't come out at the sound of gunfire, then something was going on.

He moved around Marco and tapped him on the back. The man looked around, spotting the door and Swaggart's intention, before nodding and moving back with him. With the crate giving some protection, Swaggart leaned low against the wall and reached up to grab the handle.

Again, no bullets came his way to blow his hand off, and he started to get the feeling that something was wrong. He felt the door click, and then he was pushing it open, storming through with the rifle up up, a roaring E & E agent at his side.

The men inside just grinned and brought up their own weapons.

Suddenly, time sped up and Swaggart could do nothing. He recognized the weapons immediately, groaning and going for the trigger on his rifle just as the door behind them slammed shut. But the men waiting for them were quicker, better prepared, and they pulled the triggers on their tasers.

Even as Swaggart let loose a few rounds from his rifle, the electrodes struck him and he went stiff, the electricity pounding through his system. He dropped the rifle, aware only that he had hit at least one man before he was falling helplessly to the ground, his teeth and hair and skin on edge, the pain blinding, his limbs rigid. The ground hit him and then all he saw was black.

* * *

The gunfire suddenly died down, and Noah stood up from behind the stack of crates, taking in the scene. Men were down and dying everywhere, and he cursed the loss of life, even as he stepped around the crates to move towards the suddenly surrendering men.

The soldiers with him stepped forward, beginning to arrest the men on their knees, kicking aside weapons before they even touched the would-be prisoners. Noah would have gone to help, but he suddenly heard his phone ring. Holstering his sidearm, he grabbed it from his pocket and answered it.

"This is Noah."

It was Sarah. "Please tell me Captain Swaggart is with you," she demanded, not even saving time for pleasantries.

"I'm sure he's around here somewhere," Noah said, looking around for the annoying captain. The man was nowhere to be found. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone handing a phone to Smith. "Why?"

"We just spoke to Lisa Branigan," Sarah told him, as Noah remembered seeing both Swaggart and Marco disappear into the back room just before the door had slammed shut. If they had gotten themselves shot, or worse, locked in, he was never going to let Swaggart live it down. He hoped that was all it was.

"What did she have to say?" Noah demanded, seeing Smith's face going stiff. The hairs on the back of his neck suddenly stood up.

"She helped these people pick up three soldiers and also described a fourth man who she was supposed to help with, but never got the chance. Renée is convinced the man she described is Captain Swaggart."

Noah reached the door at the same time as Smith. They both paused at the door; it was the only reason they heard the sound of an engine starting.

Phone still to ear, Smith stood back, lifted one huge leg and slammed it against the door, shoving the barrier open without even breaking a sweat. Still holding onto his phone, Noah grabbed his gun once more before moving inside.

The afternoon daylight outside shone into the room, illuminating it well. Illuminating it and the unmarked van pulling away.

Cursing, Noah ran to the open overhead door, but before he could get a shot off, the van disappeared around a corner, leaving a room empty of scientists, Swaggart or Marco.

"Dammit!" Smith shouted, bringing up a hand to push his hair out of the way. "They're gone, Litchfield! They got him. Dammit!"

Trying to remain calm, trying not to think about whose hands Marco might be in right now, Noah backed away, eyes sweeping the room, taking in the dropped rifle, a Glock that had to be Marco's and spent shells, shaking his head. The room was clear of everything else.

He brought his phone to his ear. "We didn't figure it out quick enough, Sarah," he told the woman waiting impatiently on the other end. "Swaggart's gone, and they took Marco with him."

Sarah suddenly sounded like she was about to cry, and in the background he could hear Renée actually beginning to sob. "Get both of you back to E & E headquarters as soon as someone else comes to protect Lisa. We'll get him back, Sarah."

He hung up, turning to Smith, who was just putting his phone away, cutting off a babbling Litchfield. He looked the taller man in the eye, knowing he had heard his promise.

"We'll get them both back."

* * *

Litchfield paced along the graveled roadway. He held his cell phone open in his hand, staring at it, not liking the phone call he was about to make. Randall was probably going to go ballistic at this news, but he had to be told.

Sighing, he decided he better get it over and done with. Closing his eyes, he dialed the phone. Randall took several moments to answer, but for once Litchfield didn't mind.

“Yes?”

Litchfield jumped, not expecting the greeting while he was deep in thought, rehearsing what he was going to say.

"Sir," he said. "It's—it's Carl Litchfield."

"Litchfield!" Randall sounded far too enthusiastic. "Have you called to tell me some good news? That you've made some progress?"

Litchfield winced, turning in his path and rubbing a hand through his hair. "Ah, not really. In fact we've, well, we've kind of taken a step in the wrong direction."

There was a moment of silence. "Would you like to explain that, Mr. Litchfield?" Randall's voice was calm, but it was obvious that he was annoyed.

"Sir—Swaggart's been kidnapped."

Again, a moment of silence. "Mr. Litchfield, did you say he has been kidnapped?"

"Yes, sir," Litchfield said. “Sir, he was working with the E & E people, and he had to go along on a raid against—well, against the project, in order to maintain his cover. While he was there, for some reason, he was grabbed. The agents here had found out that whoever was running things was planning to do it, but they were too late to stop it.”

There was a pause. A long pause. "Well, we'll just have to get him back, won't we?"

Litchfield sighed and then took a deep breath. "Sir," he said, “I think somebody is trying to take over the project and use it for something entirely different than what the Coalition had planned.”

This time he could actually feel the tension in the pause. “I believe you may be quite correct about that, Mr. Litchfield.”

Litchfield went still. "I'm sorry. What?"

“Mr. Litchfield, I think that you are absolutely correct. That being the case, I believe it may be time to simply abandon this particular aspect of the project. I suggest you extricate yourself as soon as you can, and do everything possible to maintain your original cover. Suggest the same to your compatriots.”

“But, sir,” Litchfield said, “we have to figure out what to do to fix this. All of us, we’ve been working loyally on this project for so long now…”

“Mr. Litchfield, I’m fully aware of what you’ve done. What you need to understand is that you are no longer of any value to us. If Captain Swaggart is lost, then your entire section becomes worthless, unless you can extricate yourselves successfully. Do not contact me again, because this number will no longer work after this call. If you are able to maintain your covers, we will find you. Goodbye, Mr. Litchfield.”

The line went dead suddenly, and Litchfield stared at the phone. If the project was being abandoned, and if they were all being tossed out into the cold, what in the world was he supposed to do?

* * *

The front office was crowded when Noah got back, with Smith following right behind him. The assassin slowed, though he didn't stop, just taking in the pacing Litchfield, a very worried Graves, and Neil, Sarah and Renée, who was sitting on a bench with Allison beside her.

Suddenly, Noah had had enough. In a rare display of frustration, he rounded on Warrant Officer Smith.

"What the hell is going on here?" he demanded, his eyes blazing as the man walked past him to lean against the wall next to Graves. Litchfield jumped, as if he hadn't heard them come in, before looking at him, obviously steeling himself. Noah didn't give him a chance.

"If you people don't tell me what the hell is going on, I…" He couldn't come up with a threat that sounded promising enough. "My agent, my friend was just kidnapped! I demand to know what you've gotten him into."

"Well, then," Litchfield snapped, eyes wide, but face tight with anger. "I guess it's a good thing I've decided to make a confession."

Noah stood up straighter, tense, not exactly sure he understood what Litchfield meant. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, I’m about to reveal to you the biggest secret you will ever be privy to."

Noah moved over to his desk. "So all it took was the kidnapping of one of my agents?"

Litchfield's face hardened. "Swaggart was taken too," he snapped. "And unlike you, we know exactly what they'll do to both of them if we don't find them as quickly as possible."

Noah nodded slowly, backing off. "Okay. Explain, then."

Litchfield shook his head. "I’m not sure where to begin,” he said. “To be honest, I never thought I would be in this position.” He looked Noah in the eye. “The first thing you need to do is take Warrant Officer Smith and Sergeant Graves into custody. The three of us have been actively working against the interests of the United States, and every other country, for the last four years.”

Smith, who had been staring at him with eyes wide, suddenly bolted for the door. He almost made it, except for the arm that Noah stuck out to clothesline the man and drop him like a sack of potatoes. Sergeant Graves had risen to her feet, but didn’t bother to run. Instead, she slowly and carefully reached into a back pocket and withdrew a small leather case.

“If I may?” she asked, looking at Noah. He nodded, and she took a small device out of the case and passed it over to Neil. “If you would authenticate that, please?”

Neil took it and looked at it for a second, then plugged it into the side of his computer. A moment later, a box appeared on the screen that required him to input his own government ID number. He glanced over his shoulder at Graves, then typed in the number and watched the screen.

A file opened up, and Neil scanned over it quickly. When he had done so, he turned to Noah.

“Boss? It looks like Sergeant Graves is actually an agent of the National Security Agency, and has been working undercover for the last couple of years on something called the Coalition Project.”

Litchfield stared at Graves for a moment, then seemed to deflate. “I suspected somebody had infiltrated us,” he said. “I never thought it was you, Paula.”

“Not just me,” she said. “Jack Swaggart and I have been working together on this thing for quite some time, Carl.”

She turned to Noah. “Perhaps I should take over. Noah, the Coalition Project is a joint venture by some of the world’s most powerful groups. The CFR, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group and several more who are dedicated to the prospect of a single, one world government, have been trying to orchestrate some sort of cataclysmic event that would cause all of the sovereign nations to agree to submission to a single governing body for the whole planet.”

“I’ve heard of that,” Noah said. “I thought it was just conspiracy theory.”

“Boss, most conspiracy theories have some basis in fact,” Neil said. “It’s no secret that a lot of those organizations have tried to orchestrate things like this in the past.”

Graves looked at him and nodded, then turned back to Noah. “He’s quite correct. The last several wars have been part of that plan, but it hasn’t worked out quite the way they wanted, so they decided to step things up a bit. You know about Doctor Branigan and his cocktail. Well, the Coalition had gone to great lengths to learn just what kind of secrets might be found at Area 51, and when they learned about Branigan’s Cocktail, they figured they had finally hit the jackpot. Steps were taken to force Branigan to work with them, including the abduction of his daughter. Once he had done their bidding and stolen the cocktail, then they started using both of them against each other. That’s why Lisa Branigan was being forced into doing some of the dirty work.”

“You sure seem to know an awful lot about this,” Noah said. “And you say Swaggart was working with you?”

“Yes, he is,” she said. “The two of us infiltrated this branch of the organization some time ago, and we’ve been trying to get all the way up to the head of it. Unfortunately, only Litchfield actually had contact with the top people, even though Jack had him convinced that he was superior.”

Noah shook his head. “I was pretty sure somebody wasn’t telling me something,” he said. “You don’t know how close you came to me just shooting you all and then trying to figure out who you were and what you were doing.”

“Well, I’m certainly glad you didn’t,” she said. “Anyway, that was how Jack managed to get us assigned to the investigation into the compound. We didn’t count on your people being good enough to sniff us out, but maybe we should have. Hell, we didn’t even know you were here until you picked Jack up. After that, we had to play along with you until we could figure out what was going on. At the same time, Jack and I had to pretend that we were all in favor of this whole operation, just to keep Smith and Litchfield in line.”

“I’m getting a headache,” Sarah said. “So, now you’re going to tell us that we should trust you, but not them? How do we know you’re telling the truth, and that you’re not actually one of the people running this horrible situation?”

“She’s for real,” Neil said. “The dongle she gave me contains an encrypted code that can only be authorized by the White House.”

“Okay, but how does any of this help us get Marco back?” Renée asked. “My husband is out there, and God only knows what they’re doing him right now, while we are sitting here listening to you. Tell us what we can do to get him back, can you do that?”

“I wish I could,” she said. “Jack and I had both begun to suspect that someone running this project was ignoring their superiors, and that seems to be what’s going on. Jack Swaggart has an awful lot of classified information in his head, things that we really don’t need those people having access to. If Branigan has managed to modify his cocktail the way they want him to, there will be one version of it that simply makes a man do exactly what he’s told to do. We really don’t need people like that having control of a man like Jack Swaggart.”

Noah nodded. "Okay. So what now?"

"What do you mean, what now?" Graves demanded. "Now we find Swaggart and Marco, kill all the bad guys and then we can all go home."

"And how do we find them?" Noah asked, crossing his arms. "I'm guessing you don’t have any special tricks up your sleeve to help us do that, do you?”

She lowered her eyes and shook her head. “No, I’m afraid not,” she said. “From what Jack told me, your people are better equipped in some ways than ours ever have been.”

"In that case, our best bet is the guy who sent Swaggart to be kidnapped in the first place," Noah said. “Morris is the one who fed us the information that led us to that building, where they were waiting. We need to break him, and we need to do it quickly.”

Jenny got to her feet. “He’s mine, Noah,” she said. “No arguments. He may have been after Swaggart, but nobody messes with one of our team.”

Graves nodded. "Yes. If he knew enough to know who Swaggart was when you interviewed him, no doubt he knows enough to know where they would have taken him."

"Renée and I should talk to Lisa again," Sarah said, glancing over at Renée, who nodded her agreement. "Maybe she knows more."

Noah nodded thoughtfully, then turned back to Jenny. “Have Morris brought up here from the stockade,” he said. “You can use the morgue.”

“Yes!” Jenny said, punching the air. She and Allison stepped into the office so that Allison could make the call.

Noah turned to Sarah. “Sarah, go ahead and take Renée back to the hospital. Talk to Lisa and see if she knows anything else. Neil, you and Litchfield go back to the warehouse, check out the crime scene."

Litchfield suddenly looked up at him, his face registering surprise. “You’re not arresting me?” he asked. “But I—I just confessed…”

“And we will deal with that later,” Noah said. “Right now, I need all hands on deck. You go with Neil, and if you even think about trying to run, you need to understand that I will hunt you down personally. When I do, I will lock you in a room with Jenny and leave you there for a week. Believe me, she knows how to keep someone alive that long, even without most of the skin left on their bodies.”

Litchfield stared at him for a moment, but he knew that Swaggart's best chance lay with the E & E agent. He nodded once. “Yes, sir,” he said.

Smith was still laying on the floor where Noah had dropped him. "What about me?" Smith asked, his eyes flashing menacingly. “What happens to me, now?”

Noah looked at him for a moment, then reached down and picked him up. Keeping one arm twisted behind his back, Noah marched him down the hall toward the morgue. A moment later, everyone heard a single gunshot. Noah came back up front as they were all preparing to leave to do what he had told them to do, and Graves stared at him.

“Smith?” she asked.

“No longer a problem,” Noah said.

SEVENTEEN

Marco was sure he didn't want to open his eyes. His whole body ached, all the way from his toes to his teeth. His head pounded, his mouth was dry and whatever he was lying on was incredibly hard. Like it or not, however, up he was waking, no matter how slowly, and as consciousness returned, so did the aches in his entire body, and he couldn't help but groan.

Someone nearby shuffled over, but it took Marco a moment to realize that there was even someone else in the room with him. He only fully comprehended the fact when someone grabbed his shoulders and spoke softly.

"Marco, you finally awake?"

He recognized the voice, and guessed he should open his eyes. It wasn't easy, but he finally managed to blink them open, blurriness and darkness giving way slowly to the shadowy outline of Swaggart's face. He looked at him for a moment, trying to think of what was different about the man, and then it hit him. Swaggart was wearing what looked like hospital scrubs, and when he checked, he found he was wearing the same thing.

Swaggart’s face broke out in a sigh of relief. "Thank God. I was getting worried. You okay?"

Marco sat up, bringing a hand to his head and wincing. "Compared to what?" he demanded when he opened his eyes after the pain subsided slightly. "I just got tasered. Not much fun."

Swaggart shrugged and sat back against the nearby wall. "At least there's no after taste," he muttered, thinking of some of the other ways they might have been subdued, as the E & E agent looked around. Marco didn't hear him.

"Where are we?"

Swaggart looked around as well, taking in the small, cold cell, the close, tiled walls that managed to glow slightly even in the dark, the high ceiling above, and the floor that was maybe fifteen feet square. He looked back at Marco, who was shuffling backwards to find his own section of wall to lean against.

"No idea," he told the agent, shrugging. "I was unconscious when they brought us in."

Marco rubbed the back of his neck, trying to work the tension out of it. "Any idea who they are, then?"

Swaggart chuckled darkly. "The guys who were experimenting on Belcher and the others, would be my guess," he answered dryly. "They've left us alone since dumping us in here, so far as I'm aware, so I don't know for sure."

He suddenly got to his feet, turning to face the wall, feeling along it, looking for the door. Marco watched him, sure, for some reason, that the intelligence officer had done this before, undoubtedly with little success.

This time, however, Swaggart paused in his exploration, looking back at where Marco was resting on the floor. "Sorry," he apologized before turning back to his search.

Marco frowned. "What? Why? This isn't your fault." He squinted. “Is it?”

Swaggart sighed and gave up the search, moving back to his original spot opposite Marco. "The raid was a trap," he told the agent, slumping down to the cold, hard ground. "Morris sent us there so they could grab us. Or me, probably, because they probably have no clue who you are."

Marco thought over that, guessing the man was probably right. "You don't seem that worried about it," he pointed out, bringing his knees up to rest his elbows on them.

Swaggart chuckled again. "Yeah, these guys are nothing compared to some of the things I’ve had to deal with." He grinned. "If we are here long enough, maybe I can tell you some stories."

Marco scowled. "You might start just by telling me what we're up against."

The captain looked down, fiddling with his shirt. And then he sighed. "Look, it’s pretty crazy. Bunch of people, very powerful people, are working on a plot to take over the world. The whole thing with creating fake aliens, it’s all part of that plan, you knew that much, right? Well, the part you didn’t know was that I was a double agent. I work for the United States government, but I had infiltrated their organization." He shook his head. “A lot of good that did me, right?”

"Why do you say that?" Marco asked wryly, resting his head against the cool wall. It helped his head slightly.

Swaggart shrugged. "I don't know for sure why they wanted me," he pointed out. "I’ve been awake for a while, trying to figure it all out. Makes me wonder if maybe the top dogs in the organization are having some sort of falling out, because I know this wasn’t actually part of the plan." He shrugged again. "I don't know what they wanted with me, and I don't really want to know just yet. But I am sure that whatever it is, it isn't good, and hopefully our being together will work in our favor." He paused and looked around. "If nothing else, I guess we can keep each other company while they figure out what to do with us." He looked up at the ceiling. “Right, folks?”

Marco looked at him with worry, but Swaggart pointed to a corner high above them. "They're watching us. And listening, no doubt. Seeing if we'll spit anything out."

As if proving him right, the lights suddenly switched on and the two men groaned, closing their eyes quickly against the sudden brightness. Swaggart recovered first, barely a second before Marco, getting to his feet and looking around. At least he could see the door, now. Marco had been leaning against it the whole time.

And then, proving Swaggart right, a voice echoed about the small cell.

"We know what you're thinking, Captain Swaggart."

The man scowled, and looked up at the now visible camera. "And what am I thinking?" he demanded loudly, hands on his hips.

"On your feet, Agent Turin," the voice ordered, and, a little nervous, Marco got to his feet to await the next instructions. He didn't have to wait long.

"Both of you face the opposite wall and put your hands against it. If you don't move, or make any attempt at escape, you will not be harmed."

After a slight pause, Swaggart obeyed, though Marco could hear him muttering as he did so. Marco followed the instructions himself, feeling slightly out of his depth.

"This is definitely not what I was thinking," Swaggart said.

They waited patiently as the door buzzed and then clicked open, allowing three men to enter the room. Marco watched out of the corner of his eye as they approached, bindings in the hands of one of them. Beside him, Swaggart tensed, his body still as his eyes flitted around.

The three men didn't even see it coming. Hell, Marco was waiting for it and he didn't see it coming. As the men split up, two headed for Swaggart and the other for Marco, Swaggart waited for them to close in and then he lashed out.

He spun, elbow raised, and as fast as he moved, his aim was still good. His elbow crashed into the temple of the nearest guard, and the man fell to the floor immediately, unconscious before he hit. Swaggart barely seemed to notice, completing the spin and coming around to face the second guard.

Marco decided to follow his lead, turning on his own guard with a mean right hook. The man blocked, but just because Marco wasn't some special ops superspy or whatever, it didn't mean he was helpless. The guard tried to block Marco’s move, leaving himself open, and Marco followed through with a left jab at his opponent's face.

The guard ducked to the side, and Marco retracted his arm and delivered a massive blow to the guy's stomach. The guard grunted, bending double, and Marco put him down with a knee to the forehead.

The man dropped, and Marco turned to find Swaggart nodding at him. "Nice," was all he said before turning for the door, stepping over the unconscious body of his second opponent. Marco followed him again, and they found themselves stepping into another room just like the one they had left.

Swaggart growled in exasperation, looking around the square room. It was bigger than the cell they had just left, but there was no doubt it was still a cell. There was only one door, heavy and quite obviously locked. There were the same high ceilings and walls that were white except for one that held a large mirror. Marco punched at it with no effect, then sighed, realizing they weren't likely to leave their captivity any time soon.

As if to further mock him, a laugh came over the speakers hidden in the room somewhere. Swaggart scowled and moved to the mirror, glaring through it, sure it was actually one-way glass.

"What do you want?" he demanded loudly, angrily. The laughter broke off at his question, and there was a slight pause.

"We have what we want," the same voice from before told him. "The Military Intelligence operative who has been causing so much trouble."

Swaggart feigned ignorance while Marco tried not to look too interested. "I'm sorry, what?"

When the voice came back, it was not amused. "Don't try to play games with us, Captain Swaggart. We know all about you, you see. It seems you made the mistake of allowing your communications through that stupid computer game to be intercepted. You were talking to the people you are supposed to be talking to, of course, but you were also sending messages back to your superiors at Fort Huachuca."

Swaggart scowled, glancing back at Marco. "Well, you can’t win them all, I guess. If you know all that, though, then you also know that we’re onto you. What was the point in trying to capture me? All it’s going to do is bring more heat down on top of you.”

The voice scoffed. "Please. No one is going to find you here. This building is very deep underground and there are dozens of guards between you and the surface, and dozens more waiting up above."

"A lot of trouble to go to for little old me," Swaggart told them, feeling slightly nervous. What the hell did they want with him?

"We've heard the stories," the voice told him lightly. "We’ve heard about your surprising record of getting out of tight situations like prison cells. Perhaps we simply wanted to see for ourselves what you’re capable of."

Swaggart had the nerve to grin, shrugging and looking back at an overwhelmed Marco. "It's true," he said, as if speaking only to the agent. “I’m pretty good at it.” He turned back to the mirror. "So you really should let us go now, but I suspect you're going to be more interested in learning the hard way."

"We have taken plenty of precautions, Captain Swaggart. Once we knew you were our mole, we began working on the plan to bring you here."

"Excuse me!" Marco spoke up before anyone else could speak. He wanted to give the impression that he didn’t know what was going on. "Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?"

When the voice spoke next, the owner was obviously positively delighted. "You really have no idea, Agent Turin? Captain Swaggart here is the military’s most brilliant agent."

Swaggart glanced at Marco. "Told you you wouldn't believe me," he muttered as Marco looked dubious. "I'll explain it when we get out of here."

Somehow though, Marco did believe it. After what had happened to him in the past few hours, he could definitely believe it. He shook his head. "I don’t even care. Just tell me this, what’s going on with these people who seem to think they are going to keep us locked up here?"

"The rest is pretty much what you already know," Swaggart told him, punctuating it with a shrug. "Crazy people trying to make fake aliens, so they can scare the world into giving up their freedoms." He turned back to the window. "Which still doesn't explain why we're here," he reminded the glass.

The voice chuckled. "I’m sure you’ll figure it out soon enough. Now, please, will you not attack my guards this time? I really need them on their feet and able to function."

Swaggart shrugged, a malicious glint in his eyes. "Can't make any promises."

"Well," the voice acknowledged, “I didn’t really expect you to behave. However, I should tell you that we have brought the best of our hybrids here, and one of them is showing particular promise. Should you make any further attempt to escape, I’m afraid we will have to see how your friend Agent Turin likes him. Of course, that will result in the agent being ripped to shreds, but that is entirely up to you.”

Swaggart glanced at Marco, his eyes glaring. Then he sighed. "I'll cooperate," he promised roughly, putting his hands up behind his head and turning away from the suddenly subdued Marco.

The door at the back clicked, and five men in black entered, pistols in their hands. They were not carrying tasers this time, Swaggart noticed. He turned slowly towards them, doing everything he could to appear non-threatening. The one who seemed to be in control motioned with his pistol.

"On your knees," he said to both of them, and, with a sigh, Swaggart obeyed only slightly before Marco, who was still trying to wrap his head around everything that had been happening.

The guards didn't seem to notice as they none-too-gently grabbed his wrists and pulled them down behind his back, binding them quickly with something hard and thin, like wire. Obviously they didn't care about comfort, Marco decided. Swaggart grunted as the guard behind him gave his an extra tug and then heaved the man to his feet.

Marco was ready when they pulled him up, and he dragged his feet underneath his body, steadying himself when the guard gave him a push in the back to get him started. When the annoyed and frustrated E & E agent glanced back, the man gestured violently with his gun.

"Move it," someone ordered, and Swaggart stepped out in front, heading for the door with a surprising confidence as he left the others to follow. Marco decided that dealing with this sort of crap on a daily basis must leave a man highly desensitised to personal danger like being ripped apart by some kind of monster-human hybrid.

Even more guards were waiting outside the door, and Swaggart nodded at them, apparently sizing them up. The men ignored him, two of them grabbing his arms to begin dragging him down the long, white corridor they found themselves in. Marco looked around, finally getting his head into something resembling order.

"You guys really need a decorator,” he said. “This place looks terrible.”

The guard beside Marco rolled his eyes, but the agent leaned toward Swaggart and whispered conspiratorially, his eyes wide with humor. "You know, this is like one of those bad horror movies."

Swaggart played along. "You mean, the kind with mad scientists bent on world domination?" he whispered back.

“Yep,” Marco nodded. "Crazy people who turn humans into monsters."

"Complete with stupid minions to do what they’re told without even thinking about what’s really going on.”

The guard holding Swaggart's arm didn't take too kindly to that. Stopping suddenly, he spun and rammed a fist into Swaggart's gut, so hard that the operative doubled over, gasping for breath.

The hand on his own arm tightened, and Marco turned to the guard there, eyes all innocent. "Hey, he said it, not me."

Swaggart coughed and stood up straight, panting slightly. "Sorry, I just naturally tend to hate people who get it in their heads to keep me prisoner." He cocked his head back the way they had been heading. "Shall we continue?"

The guard scowled and pushed them ahead again, and Swaggart staggered a few steps before gathering himself and straightening. Marco was pushed into walking faster himself, but with the hands still on his arms, he was better able to stay on his feet.

They didn't speak again before coming to a door some distance away from the cells they had been taken from him. Swaggart glanced back the way they had come, wondering if they might have passed a way out along the way, as the guard entered a code into the lock on the door.

The guard pushed him through as soon as it was fully opened. Swaggart stumbled into the room, looking around as he managed to stay on his feet. The room was full of computer monitors and other equipment, and there were several people inside. He inched closer, and found himself looking down into an isolation cell, just like one he’d seen before. Except unlike the one in his memory, this one had an occupant.

Swaggart's breath caught in his throat, and he walked forward, looking down on the man imprisoned in the bare isolation room. Marco walked forward with him, jaw dropping as he took in the pacing, hunched over, growling man. It was the first living hybrid he had actually seen up close, and the visage shocked him to the core.

Swaggart, on the other hand, knew exactly what he was looking at, and the anger he felt at seeing a man turned into such a creature welled up in him until he could not hold it back.

"You bastards," he spat, turning to find four men in the room behind them. "You have no idea what you've done."

One of the men smiled and stepped forward. "We don't have to know what it is," he said coldly, and both Marco and Swaggart recognized the voice they’d heard through the speakers. "We just have to create the best soldiers the world has ever seen."

Swaggart snarled. "That soldier isn't a soldier any more," he snapped. "He's fodder. He's angry, and an animal, except he won't kill to eat, he'll kill for pleasure. You have no right to play God like that!"

The man in the suit looked through the glass at the creature. “His name was James,” he said. “Would you believe that he still responds to it? If I were to call him by name, and tell him to kill you, he would do so. He is incredibly well trained, if I do say so myself.”

It was Swaggart's turn to cut him off. "And what good would that do you?" he demanded, taking an angry step forward. "You may have created an obedient killer, but that doesn’t change the fact that you are the real monster in this room."

The man turned to him and laughed. “You really are quite amusing, do you know that?”

"Who are you?" Swaggart spat after a moment of tense silence. "Who do you actually work for? I know it isn’t the Coalition, because this wasn’t part of their plans. And while I’m asking questions, just what the hell am I doing here?"

"It doesn't matter who I am or who I work for," the man told him, walking forward towards the glass so he could peer down on the changed soldier. "As for why you're here, well, get a good look, Captain," he ordered, nodding down at the man pacing restlessly like a rabid dog in a cage.

"In just a few days, that will be you."

EIGHTEEN

Feeling helpless and useless, and really, really frustrated, Litchfield stood in the middle of the now abandoned, bloody and smelly warehouse, taking it in while Neil was doing his best to find something that would help them locate Swaggart and Marco.

Cursing, he turned on the spot, just looking for something to spark a light bulb in his head, so he could rescue Swaggart before he was turned into one of those creatures. Despite learning that Swaggart had actually been working against what the Coalition was trying to do, he still couldn’t bear that thought. He had convinced himself there would be something here to find that might help, but so far, he had turned up nothing.

"Dammit," he snapped at no one in particular, though there were a few soldiers nearby that heard, and they gave a small grin where they thought he couldn't see. He ignored them; they didn’t deserve his attention, not when he was so focused on trying to help his friend.

His friend? That might not be accurate, but no matter what happened after this, Litchfield  couldn’t bear the thought of Swaggart becoming one of those things. For the past few years, he’d thought of the man as his best friend, but even knowing that Swaggart would have eventually seen him arrested, he still couldn’t find it in his heart to want the guy harmed.

"What's the problem?"

Litchfield jumped, swearing as he turned around to find Neil feet from him. He scowled at the younger man, crossing his arms and preparing to relieve himself of his annoyance.

"What do you think?" he snapped. "Swaggart's missing and this warehouse is useless!"

"We don't know that yet," Neil argued back, not backing down. He worked under Noah, and Litchfield's snarl was nothing in comparison to some of the things he’d seen. "We haven't even gone through half of the evidence yet."

"But it was a trap," Litchfield reminded him, though not liking the reminder himself. "Why would they leave behind something that could bring them down when they knew they were going to have to give the place up once they got what they came for?"

Neil shrugged slowly. "Okay. Good point. But you agreed we should check this place out."

Litchfield threw his hands up. "Yes, and I have no idea why. If I did, then I wouldn't be standing here having this conversation!" He turned in a circle again, looking over every part of the warehouse he could see. "There has to be something here."

"Okay," Neil placated. "But we don't know what we're looking for. So, why don't we stop looking for what we want, and try looking for what we need?"

Litchfield glared at him for several seconds before his face softened. With a huge sigh, he shrugged. "Okay. So what do we need?"

"That's easy," Neil told him, looking around. "Something that points to who was behind this."

Litchfield looked at him for a moment and then scowled. "Well, we already know that's not here." He rubbed his face. "Okay, let's go with your idea, but let's try another angle. What did the people behind this need?"

"Easy again," Neil nodded. "Captain Swaggart."

Litchfield looked around, thoughts swirling through his mind as he nodded. "Right. But, first, just how did they know who Swaggart was? How would they know where to set the actual trap for him, so they didn't kill him by accident before they could grab him?"

Without waiting for Neil to reply, he moved towards the back room where the van had been waiting for Swaggart, muttering to himself. Neil followed, watching him curiously.

"This is where they grabbed him, right?" Litchfield asked, ignoring Neil's nod. "We’ve already checked here and found nothing. We know they needed to see him entering the building in order to spring the trap."

He trailed off, moving back out of the room and across the warehouse to the back door, searching the walls once more for cameras or something that might have alerted the kidnappers to Swaggart’s arrival. As he expected, there was nothing and he moved through the door out into the light of the late afternoon.

Neil followed, a little confused. "What exactly are you looking for?" he asked, wanting to help as much as he could. After all, it wasn't just Swaggart in trouble; Marco was a victim in this, as well.

Litchfield turned to him, a determined look in his eye. "We know they needed to know where Swaggart was coming from. Which means, if we back trace his steps…"

Neil got it, grinning in pre-emptive triumph. "We should be able to find something that would let them know he was here."

“Exactly,” Litchfield said. “Now let’s find it.”

* * *

The hospital seemed just as busy as it had earlier that day as Renée and Sarah walked the halls to find post-op. They had already spoken to Dr. Garza, who had told them that surgery had gone well. Lisa had been out of the operating room for a little more than three hours—though neither woman knew where the time had gone—and should be waking up any time now.

Thankfully, Sarah seemed to know where she was going, because Renée had no clue. The sheer size of this building was slightly overwhelming, even after four years of working back at R&D, in Neverland. They finally found the recovery ward, and with a few directions from the nurse on duty, the two women found their way to where Lisa lay in a bed, awake, her arm in a sling. A guard at the door checked their IDs before opening the door for them.

She jumped as Sarah pushed back the curtains around her bed, her face dropping with guilt as she recognized them. She dropped her head and sighed.

"You didn't get to him in time, did you?"

Sarah shared a look with Renée, and then moved to stand by Lisa once again. "That’s not your fault," she comforted. "However, you might be able to help us find him."

Lisa looked up, her eyes glistening with tears. She nodded. "I'll do what I can, but I don't really know that I can honestly be much help."

"That’s fine," Sarah assured her again, her words and tone more soothing than anything Renée could have managed under the circumstances. "We want to ask you some questions, and you just answer them as well as you can, okay?"

She looked up at Sarah and nodded.

Sarah smiled at her. "You said before that they would pick you up before going to find each man. Where would they pick you up from?"

"Where you found me," Lisa told them. "They put me in that apartment. They would call on the phone they gave me, and tell me to meet them outside in ten minutes or so."

"Do you still have that phone?" Sarah asked, guessing the answer before Lisa shook her head.

It didn't matter. Sarah made a mental not to see if there was security tape footage from outside the apartment building. "What days and times did they pick you up?"

Lisa swallowed. "Lieutenant Belcher, that was almost two weeks ago, now. They called me at somewhere around about three in the morning. Ten minutes later I was in the car. The next was two days later, at four. And the third one, another three days later, at noon." She looked down, shaking her head. "You do believe me, don't you?" she asked, looking back up, her eyes wide in sorrow. "That I didn't want to do it?"

Before Renée could let off some remark about still doing it anyway, Sarah laid a hand on Lisa’s arm. "We believe you," she muttered simply, and, to Sarah’s relief, Lisa didn't start crying any more than she already was. She went on. "When did they tell you about the fourth man?"

"Um, just a few days ago. I'm not sure, really. I kinda lost track of time after him. I was a total wreck, I wasn't sleeping, eating, going to work. Yeah, four days ago, I think. They called me up, told me to meet them. They took me for a drive, I told them no, that I was done. They threatened my father again, then they just dropped me off and told me to wait for the next call."

"But it never came?" Sarah asked, and Lisa shook her head.

"No. Instead they came to kill me. And that's when you both showed up." She suddenly looked startled and looked them both in the eye. "Did I ever thank you for that?"

Sarah smiled gently. "There’s no need. What kind of car did they drive?"

Lisa shrugged helplessly. "A black one? I'm sorry, I've never been good with cars. It was a sedan, I think. A driver and another man up front. Two guards in the back with me."

"Did these guards wear a uniform of any kind?" Sarah asked. Lisa shrugged again.

"Not really. Black clothes, sunglasses. They didn't have any patches or anything that I could see. I was terrified anyway, and I didn't really look at them. They always carried tasers though."

"Did they mention any company name or anything like that?" Sarah asked. "Anything about who they worked for? Cities? Anything they might have been dealing with."

Lisa shook her head again. "They were always careful not to say much in front of me," she told them. Suddenly she shrugged. "Although…"

She trailed off and Sarah shared another glance with Renée. "Although what?" Renée demanded.

Lisa shrugged. "On the third run. The man in the front seat was on the phone about some kind of equipment that was being delivered."

"Delivered where?" Sarah asked, hoping it would be exactly this easy. Then her hopes were dashed when Lisa shook her head.

"They didn't say what or where, but I heard them say when. Supposedly a truck was bringing it in at eleven AM the next day and that they would need it if they ever moved the experiments back to the lab." She looked sheepish. “Do you think that could help any?”

Sarah nodded. "I think it might,” she said. She closed her notepad and managed to smile at the injured woman. "Thank you, Lisa. We'll be in touch if we have any more questions."

She left, and Renée forced herself to offer Lisa a small smile before slipping out of the room. The guard on duty closed the door behind them, and Sarah turned to her companion.

"I don’t know how you do it," Sarah said. “If Noah was missing...”

“I just keep telling myself everything is going to be okay,” Renée said. “You know, it really isn’t Lisa’s fault. I don’t know about you, but I can imagine being forced to do something terrible to protect someone I love.”

Sarah just looked at her, thinking that she’d do as much to protect Noah. "Yeah, I guess I see the point. It’s just…"

She trailed off, not quite able to find the right word, not when Marco, the man who was Renée’s husband and almost like a brother to Sarah, was in serious trouble.

"I know. Believe me, I know."

* * *

Marco paced the cell restlessly, still rubbing his wrists from where the thin wires had cut into them. The cell wasn't nearly long or wide enough to get any serious pacing going, but the E & E agent was doing the best he could with what he had, barely noticing that he had to stop and turn every fifteen feet. He just kept going, lost in his thoughts.

He was worried; not for himself, but after hearing that Swaggart had been kidnapped only to be turned into one of those things, Marco was dragged back to this cell to pace and imagine what was happening.

That had been hours ago. What the hell was going on?

He suddenly realized he had paused in his pacing and shook his head, turning around to go back the way he had come, when the door to the cell opened. Marco looked up in surprise, taking a step back as Swaggart was shoved into the room, barefoot and wearing scrubs instead of his shirt and jeans. The door was closed before the captain could even regain his footing.

Swaggart turned and scowled at the closed door, while Marco watched him carefully for any sign that he was already being subjected to the treatments. Of course, when Swaggart turned around to face him, he noticed, and lost his frustration.

"Are you still you?" Marco asked, and Swaggart nodded wearily, finding a spot on the wall to slide down.

"Yeah. Still me. They were just running some tests. Getting their baseline levels on the chemicals in my system. They haven’t injected me with anything, yet." He rubbed his eyes. "Thank God."

Marco sat down against the wall too, facing the door. "You all right? You know, relatively speaking."

"I'm fine," Swaggart responded automatically.

"Really?" Marco asked, looking at him. "Cause you look like crap. What did they do to you?"

"Blood tests, MRI, that kind of thing. I'm just wrecked. I don't think I've slept at all in the last three days."

Marco couldn't help but laugh at that, and it was contagious, at least a little. Swaggart grinned too.

"Yeah," Marco said, shaking his head. "Since when do we need a little thing like sleep, right?"

“Don’t worry,” Swaggart said. “We can catch up on sleep when we get out of here.”

"You mean if," Marco sighed, looking across at his cellmate. "And provided they don't turn you into some kind of alien monster type thing."

Swaggart actually flinched, his face hardening. "We'll get out of here," he promised vehemently. "These people, whoever they are, seriously underestimate the type of resources our people have at their disposal. I haven’t known your Noah very long, but something tells me he isn’t a man to give up on trying to save you." He grinned. “You know, it may be the fact they brought you along that ends up saving us both.”

Marco grinned back. “Yeah,” he said. “Could be I’m your good luck charm.”

* * *

Jenny stared through the small window in the door at Morris, her anger bubbling just below the surface. She was working herself up, and it was all too easy, thinking about this man, and all that he had done. All too easy.

That was because, in the morgue, the formerly nervous and anxious Dr. Morris was smiling smugly, a triumphant, arrogant sneer in his eyes.

He knew. He knew his sacrifice had been worth it, when he considered the bigger picture. He knew Swaggart had fallen for the trap, and that was worth taking the risks he had taken. All he had to do now was wait, because someone would be coming to rescue him from these government thugs. He knew that, too.

Jenny stepped into the morgue and stood just inside the door, looking at him. She didn’t say a word, she didn’t make a move, she just looked at him. Morris had looked up as she entered, and his face split in a grin that made her want to smash the bastard's face in. Well, there was still plenty of time. She’d get to that eventually.

"What, they sent a girl this time?" Morris asked, crossing his arms and leaning back. Jenny just stood there, just looking at him. She let him look her over, noticing how small she was, before she took several slow steps toward him.

"How long did you have this planned?" she asked, and Morris shrugged, cocky in his victory.

"Since we figured out Swaggart was the mole who had gotten inside."

Jenny shrugged. "Really? And how long was that, do you think?"

Morris raised an eyebrow. "Oh, I don’t know, probably the last six months or so. I volunteered for this assignment, did you know that? That’s how badly I wanted to see him go down. Anybody who works against the project, that’s all they deserve. It won’t be long before he’ll be one of the creatures we use to help bring the world to submission." Morris laughed.

"And my friend Marco?" Jenny asked. “What is going to happen to him?”

Morris looked surprised at that, but then he shrugged. "If he was there and got taken, it's his own fault. They only wanted Swaggart."

Jenny looked up at him, eyeing the man easily, standing just a few feet in front of him. "Do you even know what they'll do to him?" she asked.

"Of course I do. He’ll be getting the latest strain of the cocktail, the one that gives all the best enhancements and leaves you completely docile and obedient." Morris shook his head. "I've done my job. And for that, I won't be sent to some big, dark government hole. My people will get me out."

Jenny chuckled. "I wouldn't be so sure about that." She crossed her arms and looked at him. "You see, I have a special job of my own. I’m our interrogations specialist. What that means is that I’m the one who gets to make you talk, and before you start talking about rights and things like that, you should understand that—well, frankly I don’t give a damn about them."

For the first time Morris's composure slipped. Then he grinned again. "You wouldn’t dare."

Jenny reached out, her hand moving faster than Morris’ eyes could follow, and a searing pain appeared on his face. He slapped a hand up to his cheek, and it came away covered in blood instantly, and that’s when he saw the scalpel in her hand.

“Here’s where things get interesting,” she said. “You tell me where I can find Marco and Swaggart, and I don’t skin you alive. That was just to show you how serious I am.” She leaned down and looked him in the eye. “Just so you know, I’m really, really hoping you’re not going to give in too easily. I haven’t had this much fun in quite a while.”

"I don't know!" Morris cried, desperately trying to stop the blood pouring from his flayed cheek. "They didn't tell me where they were going!"

"You don’t know?" Jenny demanded. “Try again, and this time you had better convince me.”

Morris was blubbering. “All I know is that it was a chemical company, and they have some underground base they were going to…”

Her hand flashed again, and something landed on the table in front of Morris. His eyes grew wide when he looked down and saw that it was his ear.

Shrieking, Morris put a hand to that side of his head, oblivious to anything else but the pain and the blood. “You can’t do this,” he screamed. “This is torture, it’s not allowed!”

“Oh, but I can,” Jenny said. “And, trust me, it’s not going to stop until you tell me what I want to know.” A hand moved again, and though he tried to flinch away, he was too late. Something else landed on the table, and he realized it was one of his fingers. He took his left hand down from his face and looked at it, seeing that his pinky had been cut off at the first joint.

“Where—are—they?” Jenny asked, her voice dripping with rage. “Now!”

Slowly, Morris managed to tear his eyes away from his bleeding finger. “You’re insane,” he said, his voice surprisingly calm. “All of you, you’re completely insane. You deserve everything that’s coming to you.”

Jenny stood and looked at him for a couple of seconds, then opened her mouth to speak, but Noah burst through the door suddenly and stood to the side. "Jenny," the assassin said. "That’s enough. He gave us what we need. Neil says there’s only one chemical company in the area he could be referring to, and that has to be where they took Marco and Swaggart. You can stop, now.”

Jenny was breathing heavily, and it took her a moment to get it under control. When she did, she looked at Noah and smiled sweetly. “We can go get them?”

“We know the only place they could’ve taken them, and that is probably more than this guy could tell us. We don’t need anything more from Morris.”

Jenny nodded, then turned to look at Morris one more time. She smiled, her hand flashed once more, and then she stood and watched as blood sprayed from his throat, ignoring it as it sprayed all over her. She watched until darkness settled into his eyes and his head drooped down to his chest.

She walked out the door behind Noah and went straight to the shower room. Neil went in a moment later and took her some clean clothing.

NINETEEN

"Lisa heard them say something about a shipment due at eleven AM last Wednesday," Sarah explained. "That narrowed it down to two places. Modano Chemicals has a production lab in Caballito, or a distribution center that’s located in Pallermo."

"Of course," Noah said, "we’re assuming they took Marco and Swaggart to one of their own locations."

Litchfield looked surprised. "Oh no, they definitely did." Noah turned to look at him expectantly, and he shrugged. "They naturally would, these people think they are invincible, untouchable. They would have set something up in plain sight, they’re that arrogant."

"We don't have much time," Neil reminded them, bringing them back on track. “I think we need to pick one and get moving.”

Noah nodded his head in agreement.

"You’re right, we do. I think Dr. Morris was more helpful than he meant to be. The one thing he said was that we would be looking for a chemical company, so I’m betting on the distribution facility. It will be a bigger building, and he was very specific about there being an underground base. We’ll infiltrate that location first, it’s the most likely of the two to have the space they would need for an underground operation.”

Major Wilson was standing beside Noah. "Our choppers can drop you outside the facility’s perimeter," he said. "I'll back you up with an entire platoon of Army Rangers, but there is no way we can sense anything underground, so if that guy is telling the truth, you’re gonna be on your own once you get inside. We won't even be able to hear you on the radio."

"It doesn't matter."

Litchfield, Neil and Noah all said it at the same time, and then they all looked at one another. Litchfield continued.

"It doesn't matter," he repeated. "Swaggart's first rule. You don't leave people behind."

Noah nodded. "That’s our rule, too. Okay then. Let’s get ready, it’s time to move."

TWENTY

They had barely gotten settled into the new facility. The strange, silent ships had brought them in a very short time, and then they had touched down behind a large building. As Danny and the others offloaded their equipment, he got a good look at what Brandon had told him about the ships’ ability to camouflage themselves. The thing was almost invisible, because it looked like the trees behind it were painted on its surface.

It took a few hours to get everything set up, and by then, the day was getting close to its end. Janet came to fetch him around that time, and they went to a hastily assembled mess hall for dinner. When that was finished, she happily led him to the room they had been assigned, and spent the next hour showing him just how happy she was that he was no longer a prisoner.

Afterward, the two of them sat on the bed in the tiny room and talked. Janet was delighted that her superiors had lifted all restrictions on Danny, and it was time to let him know what was really going on.

Slowly, cautiously, she told him everything. Danny took it in, doing his best to keep up the act of being an enthusiastic supporter of the plan. A couple of times, completely at a loss for how to keep up the pretense, he had simply kissed her. She took it as a sign of his devotion to the project, as well as to herself, and giggled with delight each time.

Two hours later, a bell rang somewhere outside their quarters. Janet’s eyes lit up and she turned to him.

“That’s it!” she said. “It’s happening now!”

“Happening now?” Danny asked. “What’s happening now?”

“That bell means it’s time,” she said. “Doctor Branigan is about to make the first of the new hybrids. This is what we have been working toward, a super soldier that will soon be able to put an end to war, to make all the nations put down their weapons. Well, not this one by himself, but he’s just the first. Come on, we get to watch.”

She just got to her feet and grabbed his hand, then let him out the door and through the hallways. They had to get into the elevator and ride it down several levels, and then they moved with dozens of others through yet another hallway. Finally, they came to a large room that was set up like a round theater, and Janet pushed and shoved until she got them right up to the rail.

Danny looked down into an operating room, the kind you would see in a teaching university medical school. There was no one inside at the moment, but Janet was acting so excited that he knew something big was about to happen.

All he could do was wait and see what it was.

* * *

The door to the cell slammed open, shattering the silence and making the two prisoners jump to their feet as men flooded through the door, guns in their hands. Minutes later, Swaggart and Marco were back on their knees, hands pulled roughly down behind their backs once again.

Swaggart grunted as he was pulled up and out the door, looking back to find Marco receiving the same rough treatment. "What the hell are you bringing him for? I’m the one they want."

The guard grinned at him. "He’s coming along as incentive, in case you decide to put up a fight. You do, he dies."

Swaggart scowled, but didn’t even consider trying to make a break for it. He’d been told that his transformation would take two days; all he could do now is hope that Noah and the others would find them in time.

The two of them were taken in the opposite direction this time, toward an elevator at the near end of the corridor. The doors opened instantly when one of the guards pressed the button, and Swaggart was shoved inside the small lift.

As the doors closed, leaving Marco behind, Swaggart began thinking that it might be time to try for freedom. He had just come up with the only plan he thought might have any chance of success when a fist suddenly collided with his stomach and he grunted, falling to his knees as the air was forced out of his lungs. The guards all started to laugh, even as one of them reared back and struck Swaggart across the face, hard. He fell to the ground, slightly dazed, just as the elevator doors started to open.

The man with the voice was there, and he didn’t look happy to find Swaggart on the ground. The guard who had struck him shrugged. "He was trying to escape."

Swaggart heaved himself to his knees, but it took some effort with his hands still tied behind his back. He looked at the voice and scowled.

"No, I wasn’t," he spat out. "These bastards just wanted to have a little fun."

The look on the man’s face said he didn’t care. "Get him up," he ordered. "Did you put Mr. Turin in the isolation room?"

The guard who had spoken nodded, leaving the others to haul Swaggart to his feet. "They are just putting him into place now."

Swaggart growled. "You hurt him and I will make your life a living hell," he promised, determined to do all he could to keep Marco alive as long as possible. “I’ll make you wish you had never been born.”

The man just smiled. "If you cooperate, then he'll live to fight another day," he said, and the meaning was so clear that it sent a chill down Swaggart's spine.

Swaggart kept his mouth shut as he was hauled down the corridor, quickly enough that he had to force himself to keep up. He hadn’t been able to pay attention to the elevator, so he had no idea if he was any closer to the surface than he had been before.

His escorts forced him into a large room and Swaggart looked around, not liking where this was going. He found himself in what looked like a cross between a lab and a hospital operating room. Computers and instruments surrounded a bed that was fitted with restraining straps. There were cameras in various positions around the room, all of them aimed at the bed itself.

Overhead, he suddenly realized that the ceiling was made of glass. There was a gallery up there, like you find in medical schools, the kind of gallery that allows students to observe an operation. Swaggart saw dozens of faces peering down at him, and one of them caught his attention. Danny McRae was in that crowd, and the look on his face was one of pure shock.

In a split second, Danny raised one hand with the pinky outstretched, then curled it into his fist. This was the sign that Swaggart had taught him and all of his other undercover operatives, a way to identify themselves to one another when necessary. At that moment, it meant that Danny was still on the job, even though he was a prisoner in this terrible place.

“You guys really think you’re ready for this?" Swaggart asked, careful to keep any sign of fear out of his voice. "Maybe you ought to go ahead and run some more tests or something?"

The man with the voice barked an order, and the guards worked together to force Swaggart down onto the bed. He fought as much as he could, but there were just too many of them.

"This isn't going to help you!" Swaggart shouted, trying to kick one of the guards away. "You turn me into one of those things, and I guarantee I’m going to rip all of you to pieces before I’m done!"

"That is where you are wrong," the voice said, leaning against a nearby table. "You see, Doctor Branigan has managed to isolate the most important aspects of his cocktail. You won’t look any different at all, Captain Swaggart, but you will be ten times as strong as any other man, and you will obey orders whenever we give them to you. That is the reason we worked so hard to get you, because you will become the prototype for the greatest soldiers that ever lived. You will be the first of your kind, virtually invincible but easily controlled. You, Captain Swaggart, will be the ultimate soldier."

Swaggart shook his head, fighting as hard as he could, but there were just too many of the men holding him down.

A door in another wall opened, and another man entered the room. He was frail and weak, and had the look of someone who had not been able to sleep in quite a while. It took Swaggart a moment to recognize Doctor Branigan, and then his own eyes went wide.

“Branigan? Branigan, don’t do this,” he pleaded. “Branigan, you’ve got to hold out. I’ve got people, good people, and they’ll be coming to save us all.”

Branigan glanced at him, but there was no strength in his eyes. He stepped over toward a cabinet at the side of the room and began preparing a hypodermic. He carefully selected two different bottles and drew a small amount from each one up into the syringe, then turned toward Swaggart again.

"Branigan, please," Swaggart said, looking wildly at the man as he came closer with a hypodermic extended. "You don’t have to do this. Branigan, we found Lisa, she is safe. They don’t have anything to hold over your head anymore."

Branigan paused and looked at him. “Young man,” he said, “you simply do not understand. I have done things that no man could live with. My daughter could never forgive me for the things I have done, I know that. This, whether I would have chosen it or not, is my destiny.” He looked at Swaggart sadly. “And yours, it seems, is to become my masterpiece.”

The man with the voice waved his hand. "Get on with it,” he said. “And be certain, Branigan, that you use the right mixture. Captain Swaggart must become our superstar. There is no one more qualified or deserving of that position.”

Swaggart glared at him, but then he felt the needle go into his neck. He lay there for a moment, just wondering how long it would be before he felt the effects, but the answer came much sooner than he anticipated.

Dear God in heaven, he thought. Every cell in my body is on fire!

* * *

E & E operatives go through intense training, including some of the most rigorous physical training implemented by any agency. Noah and the rest of his team had been trained in everything from parkour to mountain climbing, so rappelling down the ropes that were suspended from the helicopters wasn’t going to be much of a challenge.

“Agent Wolf?”

Noah turned at the sound of his name and found an army captain standing beside him. “Yes?”

“Sir, I’m Captain Johnston,” the officer said. “I’ll be commanding the Rangers.” He held out a helmet. “Since you are leading the mission, I thought you ought to be equipped with our communications. This helmet has an incorporated transceiver, voice activated. It will keep you in direct communication with me at all times.”

Noah took the helmet and strapped it on. “Very good, Captain,” he said. “Remind your people that we are likely to come face-to-face with some incredibly dangerous creatures. While this is a rescue mission, those men who have been altered cannot be restored to their natural state. The best thing we can do for them is kill them.”

The captain nodded. “I can understand that, sir,” he said. “I’ve seen the images and footage that has been recovered, and—I can’t imagine anyone wanting to live like that.”

“I completely agree,” Noah said. “Now, how many squads will you be bringing?”

“I have four squads, sir, comprising eight fire teams. Each team consists of six men, two of whom are equipped with XM556 microguns, and they are highly skilled with them. At three thousand rounds per minute, I don’t think there’s anything that can stand up to them for more than a second or two.”

Noah nodded. “Those should be effective,” he said. “We also found the M32 with HEAT rounds could get the job done, but a lot more destructively.”

“One man in each fire team will be carrying one,” Johnston said. “Everybody else will be carrying the usual tactical small arms. M4s, three round burst.”

“Very good. Are they ready to go?”

“Sir, we’re always ready. Major Wilson says we will be departing in about forty-five minutes. Helo’s are fueled and ready, though, so we can move as soon as you give the order.”

“We will stick to the Major’s schedule,” Noah said. “We’re trying to get as much satellite intel on the objective as we can.” He nodded at the captain one more time. “I’m going to go check on that, now. Come along, if you like.”

Captain Johnston followed him to the Quonset hut, where Neil was studying real-time satellite display of the compound that was their objective.

“What have you got?” Noah asked.

Neil looked up with a grin. “I can tell you that you won’t run into a lot of opposition on the surface, but there’s definitely an elevator inside that building. Thermal display shows me that people gather in one spot, but then their heat signatures disappear. They’ve either ridden down an elevator far enough I can’t pick up anything, or they’re all taking a cold shower together.” He pointed to a spot on the display showing where the elevator had to be.

Noah nodded. “Okay, that will be our first objective. We take the elevator down as far as we can, then work our way back up level by level.”

“Noah?” Neil asked. “Can I make a suggestion?”

“Yes, go ahead.”

“I think you and Jenny ought to turn on the hot spots on your phones, keep them on you. That way, if I come up with anything new, I can reach you on subcom.”

Noah looked at the skinny kid for a moment, then nodded again. “Sounds like a very good idea,” he said.

Captain Johnston raised an eyebrow. “Subcom?”

“Classified,” Noah said.

* * *

The burning was starting to fade, but Swaggart didn’t find much comfort. There were aches and pains around every joint, and it felt like they were being torn apart and then reassembled, somehow. It had subsided to a degree, but he was still in enough pain to make him dread the thought of moving.

He was strapped down to the bed, making it almost impossible to move at all in any event. There was one guard in the room with him, holding a massive rifle, but everyone else had left. He didn’t notice them leaving, because the pain had shut out everything else for quite a while.

He wondered how long it had been. One of the things he knew from experience was that pain can make a second seem like an hour, sometimes. He had no way to know whether he had been out of it for a few minutes, or a few days.

No, that wasn’t correct. More than a few hours would have left him dehydrated, and he didn’t feel the thirst that naturally came with dehydration. It hadn’t been nearly as long as it seemed, but that was good. It seemed like an eternity.

He groaned, and then instantly regretted it. The guard snapped to attention and aimed the rifle in his direction. Despite everything else, Swaggart almost chuckled at the look of sheer terror in the man’s eyes.

The guard watched him for a moment, then turned and tapped on the door beside him. “Doctor Branigan?” he called out. “He’s awake.”

The door opened and Branigan stepped inside. He was alone, and the look on his face was one of pure dejection. He stood in the doorway for a moment, just looking at Swaggart, then walked in and closed it behind him. He walked slowly toward the bed, until he was looking down on Swaggart’s face.

“I see the hate in your eyes,” he said softly. “I can tell you that it’s nothing compared to the hate that I feel for myself.”

“I don’t hate you,” Swaggart said, gritting his teeth against the pain. “I pity you. You have been forced to do things no man should ever have to do.”

Branigan nodded slowly. “This is true,” he said. “I simply didn’t have the strength to refuse, not when they held Lisa. They said they would kill her if I didn’t comply, and I just could not allow that to happen.”

“I understand that,” Swaggart said. “She’s been found, though, and she’s safe, now.” He lowered his voice. “So now you can do something else, something to help put a stop to these people.”

Branigan looked at him for a second, then let a small grin appear on his face. “I already have,” he said in a whisper. “They told me to make you the perfect soldier, strong and powerful and obedient.” He suddenly winked. “Two out of three isn’t bad, right?”

Swaggart stared at him. “What are you saying?” he whispered back.

Branigan reached over and laid a hand on Swaggart’s forehead, as if checking for a fever. It allowed him to lean closer and whisper directly into his ear.

“I perfected it,” he said. “I identified the genetic sequence in the cocktail that was responsible for the effects on the brains of the subjects. That allowed me to show them subjects that would be obedient, but it also let me know which part of the sequence to eliminate in order to prevent that effect.” He winked again. “You got the final version. Your mind is not affected, but you are as close to a Superman as there ever has been. You are ten times as strong as anyone else, and your body will heal any injury within minutes. Your skin is as strong as most body armor. The entire process takes only an hour, perhaps a few minutes more. Has the pain ended yet?”

Swaggart shook his head, almost imperceptibly. “No, not yet.”

“When it does, you will be ready. The straps will not hold you, and you will be fast enough to do what needs to be done.”

Swaggart looked into his eyes. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll kill them all, and then I’ll get you out of here.”

Branigan felt his throat, as though looking for a pulse. “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I’m an old man, and I’ve done enough damage. They have taken all of my notes, so that they can re-create my formulas if anything happens to me, but I made sure to never write down the truth. The formula exists only in my head. That’s too much power for any man to live with. I have already taken steps to ensure that no one will ever be able to get it from me. Another variant of the cocktail; it will alter my mind sometime in the next few hours, so that I won’t be able to remember anything so complex.” He shrugged. “It’ll be a little bit like having a mild case of Alzheimer’s. But I think it’s necessary.”

Swaggart looked up at him. “There are those who think of you as a villain, Doctor Branigan,” he said softly. “I’ll make sure they learn that you are actually a hero.”

Branigan smiled. “Perhaps you might tell that to my daughter, someday.”

“I promise,” Swaggart said. “But I still want to get you out of here.”

Branigan said nothing and turned away. He looked at the guard and shook his head.

“This subject is taking longer than the others,” he said. “You can relax. He won’t be capable of anything for at least a couple of hours more.”

The guard looked at him, then turned his gaze to Swaggart, whose eyes had closed again. As Branigan left the room, the guard sat down on his stool and put the butt of his weapon on the floor. He held onto the barrel, just in case, but it was nice to know he could relax for a little while.

TWENTY-ONE

Marco had been taken in a different direction after Swaggart was dragged away. He had been placed into a small room, much smaller than the cell had been. There were several windows in its walls, but they only allowed him to see into a storage room and what looked like some sort of command center. It was almost deserted at the moment, but he studied it as hard as he could, anyway. If he ever did manage to get out of this place, he wanted to be able to report everything he had seen.

He was kind of surprised they hadn’t left a guard to watch over him, but he was alone. This tiny room was only six feet square, so there wasn’t even enough room for him to actually pace around. There was nothing to sit on, no bunk or anything, so he didn’t really think he would be there very long. Unfortunately, he had been there long enough to wish there was a toilet.

To distract himself from that thought, he kept trying to study the various pieces of equipment he could see. It was mostly just computers, printers and such, but there were a few devices he couldn’t recognize. He found himself wishing that Neil was with him, because the skinny kid probably would’ve known what they were.

At a guess, he figured he had been in the room for a little over an hour. He could only speculate on what might be happening to Swaggart, but his guesses were so grim that he was trying to avoid thinking about it. Concentrating on trying to figure out those odd devices was helping, but not nearly enough.

Suddenly, a door opened on the far side of the room and he looked up expectantly. A face poked around the side of the doorway, someone obviously looking to make sure the coast was clear, and Marco’s pulse suddenly sped up when he recognized Specialist Daniel McRae. The man looked perfectly normal, and Marco felt a slight relief that he had not been subjected to the experiments that created the monsters.

McRae looked around once more, then slipped into the room and pulled the door closed behind himself. He went to one of the machines Marco hadn’t understood and pressed several buttons, then turned away and went to a computer. He sat down in the chair and turned it on, then typed something on the keyboard. The monitor lit up a moment later, and Marco could tell that McRae was trying to find something particular in its files.

McRae hadn’t noticed him, so he tapped on the glass with his fingernails. McRae jumped, startled, and looked around, and his face took on a look of panic for a second until Marco smiled and motioned for him to come closer.

McRae looked back at the computer screen for a second, then got up and walked over toward the window cautiously. When he got close, Marco put a finger against the glass slowly, deliberately, wrote U S A.

McRae’s eyes went wide. “American?” he said, keeping his voice low.

Marco could barely hear him, but he understood. He nodded his head. “Yes. Federal agent, trying to find you. What’s the situation?”

McRae swallowed for a second, as if trying to decide whether to trust him. Finally, he said, “I was kidnapped and brought here because they needed my computer skills,” he said. “I’ve been trying to figure a way to get word out to somebody, but I haven’t had any luck. Were you with Captain Swaggart?”

Marco nodded. “Yes,” he said. “We were separated. Any idea what’s happening with him?”

McRae scowled. “He’s probably gone,” he said. “At least, the part of him we knew. Branigan just shot him up with his black magic potion.”

Marco’s heart sank. If Swaggart had been turned into one of those creatures, there was no hope for him. “Damn,” he said. “He was a good man.”

“One of the best,” McRae said. He looked around the window, but then shook his head. “There’s no door on this side,” he said. “I don’t know how to get you out of there.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Marco said. “Can you get a message out?”

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” McRae said, “but I can’t access any way to send a message. They have a system that connects us to a satellite, so that we can reach the Internet, but I don’t actually have access to it myself. I managed to sneak in here, so I was trying to hack into it, but the system is closed. It can only access what’s on its own network, so I can’t get into anything that I could send a message through.”

Marco bit his bottom lip. “You mean they have some kind of Wi-Fi, here?”

“Yeah, kind of. I mean, yes, they do, but it’s more than that.” He turned and pointed at the machine he had first approached. “That’s the router, it connects directly to a satellite Internet connection. The trouble is that they have some kind of buffer that keeps the computers from being able to access any kind of browser or network other than their own. I’m trying to bypass that.”

“Can you get me the logon information for that Wi-Fi?”

“Logon information? It’s the only Wi-Fi accessible down here, but I can probably scab the password. Won’t do me any good, though, because I still can’t get into anything except the closed network.”

Marco grinned. “Then get me that password,” he said. “You get me that, and I can get help to come after us.”

McRae’s eyes narrowed. “You can? How?”

“I could tell you,” Marco said, “but I’m not sure you have enough security clearance to know. Let’s just say I have an implant that can do the job if you can get me access to that Wi-Fi router.”

McRae stared at him for a couple of seconds, then nodded. “Give me a couple minutes,” he said, and turned back toward the computer he had been working on.

* * *

The helicopters lifted off on schedule and flew directly toward Pallermo. It would take only fifteen minutes for them to reach the chemical distribution center, and everyone was primed and ready. Noah, Jenny, Graves and Litchfield were in four separate helicopters, each with the squad that would be accompanying them.

Noah had no qualms about Litchfield, because the man had come clean. While he had committed treason, at the moment he was willing to do his job to help bring Swaggart out alive. He was fully aware of the consequences he was going to face, but Noah was convinced—partly because of a conversation that involved the deception detection glasses—that the man was telling the truth and would make himself an asset during this assault.

He also felt good about this particular mission, because each of his people was accompanied by a dozen soldiers. Noah and his squad would be dropped at the north side of the distribution complex, while on each side, the others would arrive at the same time for their own assault on the facilities.

The helicopters separated as they came close and spread out around the facility. There was very little hope that they were coming in undetected, but Noah had decided it was worth the risk. Each helicopter came to a hovering halt a short distance outside the fence that surrounded the facility, and a moment later the sky seemed to be raining soldiers. They slid down the ropes and stepped away quickly, making room for the next person to descend. It took only seconds for all fifty-two of them to be on the ground.

They all moved quickly toward the fence on each side. Noah watched as one of the soldiers used a pair of electric shears to cut through the chain-link, creating a door big enough for them all to pass through in a matter of seconds. Noah was the first one to go through, followed by Captain Johnston, who was leading one of the squads.

On the east side, Litchfield stood behind another soldier as he cut through the wire, trying to avoid the lights that were attached to the walls of the building. At least they wouldn't have to worry about cameras—Neil had managed to hack into the security system that was used by the facility and replace the live camera feed with a recorded loop. As far as they could tell, it had not been detected.

There was little, however, that they could do about the security guards that were roaming around the area, and just the fact that there were security lights scattered around would pose a challenge to the success of the mission.

The soldier pulled the wire back, opening a hole large enough for him to duck through. Grinning back at his team mates, he brought the radio to his mouth. "We're in."

"So are we," Noah's voice came through. Quickly, the other two teams reported ready and Noah prepared to give the order.

Suddenly, he heard the quiet chime that signaled his subcom coming to life, and then Marco’s voice came through. “Noah? Renée? Anybody out there?”

“Marco? This is Noah.”

“Marco?” Renée said suddenly. “Marco, baby, are you okay?”

“Renée, clear the channel,” Noah said. “Everyone else stay off for the moment. Marco, what’s your situation?”

He could hear Renée start to protest, but she cut it off. Noah was right, he needed to talk to Marco more than anyone else did.

“I know that we’re somewhere underground, but I don’t know the location. Swaggart and I were brought in together, but he’s been taken away. I found Specialist McRae, who has been held prisoner and forced to work on their computer systems. He says he saw Swaggart being injected with Branigan’s gene alteration formula. I’m afraid Swaggart is gone, Noah.”

“Marco, we’re pretty sure we know where you are. Jenny and I are outside, with a whole platoon of Army Rangers. Sit tight, because we are coming in. Can you give us any intel about the situation down below?”

“A lot of people down here,” Marco said. “Look for anybody dressed in black, those are the security guards. Most of them are packing sidearms, some submachine guns. I’ve seen a few rifles, but not many. I don’t have any information on the size or layout of the facility, but it’s pretty big. All I can tell you about my location is that I’m in a small room, some sort of observation room where I can see into the main control center. McRae managed to turn on the Wi-Fi and get me the password, so I’m sure glad you’re within range of one.”

“I’m not, but I’m carrying a hotspot in my pocket. You got lucky. All right, Marco, stand by. If I don’t speak your name, I’m not talking to you.”

“Roger that,” Marco said.

“Jenny? You heard?”

“Loud and clear, Noah. What do we do about Swaggart?”

“If he’s had Branigan’s treatment, there’s probably not much we can do about it other than put him out of his misery.” He thought for a moment, and then spoke again. “On second thought, belay that order. If you get an eye on Swaggart, evaluate his condition. If he doesn’t look completely changed, try not to engage. I’m sure the NSA would like to study him.”

“Understood,” Jenny said. “I’ll pass the order along to my squad.”

Quickly, Noah contacted the other two squads by radio and gave them the same information and orders. As soon as he had done so, he announced that they were ready to move in.

"All teams, proceed to breach. Let’s get inside as quickly as we can, there are at least a couple of people in there I want to bring out alive.”

He turned to Captain Johnston and nodded, and they began a leapfrog formation movement toward the main building. One of the men went to the door and applied an explosive device to the doorknob, and they all stood back while he detonated it.

“Go, go, go,” Noah said. He was actually shouting over his shoulder, because he rushed in ahead of everyone else.

Two men in black came rushing toward him and he dropped them each with a single shot from his Glock. A couple of others came out of the hallway and were shot down by Captain Johnston and one of his men.

On all four sides, soldiers streamed through the holes they had cut in the fences and converged on the building. There were numerous doors leading into the building, and Noah could hear gunfire echoing around them.

They made it to the doors and found themselves in a large warehouse space, and the soldiers around Noah suddenly stopped to stare. Sitting on the floor in the big room were all three of the flying saucer-like craft, but then some of the black suited guards came rushing out from behind them. The soldiers came to life again, but the battle was brief. When it was finished, Noah stationed two of his soldiers to hold the room and not let anyone get near those ships.

* * *

They fanned out again, but the room was empty: no guards, no scientists, though it was night now. Even if the lab had been in use—which it clearly wasn't—there wouldn't be anyone at work now.

Lowering his M4 slightly, Litchfield looked around, switching on the light mounted on it when he noticed a few soldiers doing the same. But while the others searched for an entrance to the underground complex, Litchfield swept his light along the lines where roof met wall, looking for...

He gave a groan. "They know we're here," he called out, finding a camera that he hadn't when creating the loop. Lieutenant McNamara, his squad leader, came to stand beside him, looking up at the device. Then he shrugged, lifted his arm and took out the camera with a blast from his gun.

"Doesn't matter. They're not getting out." He looked at Litchfield, his eyes speaking volumes. "Come on. We found the elevator. We've nearly got your people back."

* * *

Swaggart heard the gunshots far in the distance, and so did the guard. He turned toward the door, looking a little confused, and that’s when Swaggart decided to make his move.

Branigan had said he would be stronger than any ten normal men, so it was time to put it to the test. He wrenched his arms into curls, and gave a grin when the bands holding his wrists snapped instantly. He grabbed the strap that went over his upper arms and chest and tore it apart as easily as ripping a piece of taffy. Flexing his legs did the same for the ones holding them down, and a quick yank snapped the straps over his ankles.

What amazed him, though, was how quickly it happened. Snap, snap, snap, and then he was free and on his feet. The guard barely had time to react, turning his face, which was now wearing an expression of shock, but he hadn’t even had time to bring his weapon up and to bear.

Swaggart swung a fist, only intending to take the man down, but the blow was so severe that it caved in that side of his face. The guy made a couple of grunting sounds and then fell, and the rattle that came from his throat told Swaggart all he needed to know.

He was still wearing the scrubs, the same clothes he had been wearing since he woke up in the cell. His feet were bare, but that didn’t bother him. He looked down at the rifle the guard had been holding and picked it up, realizing that it was a modified AR, chambered for fifty caliber ammunition.

“I’ll get the job done,” he muttered to himself. He held the gun in his hands and snatched the door open, then stepped through it. The room outside was empty, but there was another door on the other side and he hurried across to it. He yanked it open just as quickly, stuck his head out for a second to look up and down the hall, then pulled back.

There were three men in one direction, with one of the hybrids on a leash. The thing was bound with heavy leather straps, and it looked like the guards were simply trying to take it somewhere didn’t want to go.

As quickly as he had tried to look, the thing had spotted him and he heard it straining to get away from his captors, straining to come after Swaggart. There was nothing to do but face the problem head on, Swaggart knew, so he stepped back out into the hall and raised the rifle. He aimed first at the hybrid and pulled the trigger once…

Nothing happened. He pulled back the charging handle and let it go, squeezed the trigger again and then threw the gun aside when it still refused to fire. The damn thing had been a bluff, and he couldn’t help wondering if the guard even knew that.

He would have to worry about that later, however. The hybrid was coming at him quickly, dragging the guards along, and Swaggart whispered a silent prayer to whatever deity might be listening that Branigan had done a good job with his cocktail.

With a sudden roar, the altered soldier stopped, jerking the guards holding his leash back. The guards stopped, all three of them seemingly in shock, and none of them could move fast enough when the hybrid's muscles suddenly bulged.

Ripping leather echoed loudly throughout the room, and then the creature was free, spreading its feet, showing off its large, sharp claws and letting out a loud shriek in the bowels of the underground complex.

Swaggart backed away, and the guards who had been trying to hold onto the creature did the same, turning and running in the opposite direction. Swaggart knew instinctively, before the hybrid even started moving his direction, that this was not going to be a good day.

The big creature shrieked again, and all the anger and rage it had felt at being perverted into such a thing was suddenly on display for anyone to see. Swaggart backed up a couple of steps, but then the creature leapt and all he could do was bring his arms up to try to defend himself.

He felt the claws digging into his skin, and expected blood to be flowing at any moment, but he wasn’t going to give up. He drew back a fist and hit the thing as hard as he could, rocking it back almost a foot. It let go of his arm and shook its head, then moved toward him again, but Swaggart swung a roundhouse that caught it squarely on the side of the head.

The creature went down, but it wasn’t out. Screaming in rage, it bounced to its feet and spread its arms wide, the fingers outstretched and the claws scraping the walls. It looked like some sort of prehistoric monster as its mouth opened, like it was ready to launch itself at him like some sort of miniaturized Tyrannosaurus, but Swaggart wasn’t waiting. He made his own leap forward and threw the thing to the floor again, and this time he just started pounding on its face with his fists.

It tried to back him off, but he wrapped his legs around it and continued, one for staff to the other pounding into the thing’s face. After several blows, Swaggart was surprised to see the thing bleeding from its mouth and the slits that used to be its nose, but he didn’t let up. He kept going, continuing to pound the thing as hard as he could until it finally went limp.

When he realized it wasn’t moving, he felt for a pulse and didn’t find it. He got to his feet and looked down at the thing, then looked at his fists. They were covered with blood, but other than that seemed none the worse for wear.

His clothing, though, was just about soaked. He shook his head in disgust and started down the hall, going the same way the guards had fled. He left the rifle where it had fallen, because it was worthless. He wanted a weapon that would actually do what it was supposed to do.

TWENTY-TWO

Marco, still in his isolation booth, couldn’t hear anything on his own, but the sounds of gunfire were coming through Noah’s and Jenny’s subcoms. McRae had disappeared back into the bowels of the base, following Marco’s suggestion that he keep his cover intact if he could, at least until help arrived. He had muttered something about having to go back to Janet before she woke, then slipped out the door and was gone.

Suddenly, a group of men came pouring into the control center. Some of them sat down at computers and fired them up, but others were grabbing weapons out of cabinets. It occurred to Marco that, had McRae known the weapons were there, they might have found a way to get him out of this stupid little room.

The door behind him opened, and he spun to see what was happening. Three guards were standing there with weapons pointed at him, and they motioned for him to come outside. He raised his hands to show that he wasn’t going to resist, then stepped out of the room. One of the guards yanked his hands behind his back and used handcuffs to secure them, and then they dragged him off down the hall.

They stopped a moment later, right in front of a door that was closed. One of the guards opened it quickly, and then Marco was pushed through. He staggered for a second and then caught his balance, looking around to see what new situation he had found himself in. The guards were still holding onto him, but they had come to a sudden halt of their own.

And that’s when he saw the hybrid, at the other end of the room. It had some kind of leash connected to it, and it was straining toward him.

And then the leash snapped.

Marco barely had time to realize the thing was free before it was coming at him.

He swore under his breath and tried to make a run for it, but his guards were in the way, blocking the only possible escape, back to the doorway, as they took it themselves and slammed it behind them. They were gone, leaving him with his hands secured behind his back, to deal with the monster that was stomping toward him.

The thing leapt and struck him in the chest, knocking the breath out of him as he went flying back into the wall with enough force that he felt his ribs cracking. He dropped to the floor and cried out in pain as his shoulder dislocated.

Gritting his teeth to help him deal with the agony, he rolled over, letting out a groan as he moved his dislocated shoulder, and realized that the hybrid was standing directly over him. It was snarling and raising its arms, ready to strike, and Marco closed his eyes as he waited for the killing blow.

The sound of gunfire erupted, small arms fire as the guards who had been escorting Marco aimed their weapons at the thing and fired. Marco curled up on the floor and made his body as small as possible as bullets made a horizontal rain in the hallway. The hybrid jerked as they struck it, but it stayed on its feet, right where it was. It let out another horrible scream as the guards realized their bullets weren't doing anything, and then they were behind the closed door and running away.

The creature stared at the doorway for a moment, then turned to look down at Marco once again. It flexed its fingers and those claws began extending toward him, and Marco closed his eyes once more. The deathblow would come now, he knew, and he whispered a silent goodbye to Renée.

It didn’t come, but the creature let out another scream as something slammed into it and dragged it away from him. Marco forced his eyes open, trying to see what had brought on what he could only consider a brief reprieve, and then he saw Jack Swaggart and the hybrid locked in physical combat. They were swinging at each other ferociously, unmercifully, but it was the hybrid that was getting the worst of it. With every blow Swaggart delivered, the thing was driven back until finally it was against the wall, and Swaggart reared back with a roundhouse kick that caved in the side of the creature’s head.

Marco managed to sit up and stared at the creature laying there, blood trickling from its—well, where its ears it should have been. Swaggart looked down at it for a moment, then turned to Marco and extended a hand to help him to his feet.

“Okay,” Marco said. “Not that I’m not glad to see you, I want to get that impression, but do you mind telling me how the hell you just kicked that thing’s ass?”

“Haven’t you heard about the training they give us in martial arts, at Military Intelligence?” Swaggart asked, grinning.

Marco stared at him, his eyes wide. “Yeah,” he said, “right. Some kind of super kung fu, right? See, I heard a little while ago that you had been one of Doctor Branigan’s new experimental subjects. Mind explaining the discrepancy?”

Swaggart’s grin faded. “Long, long story, but apparently I’ve been given a modified version of Branigan’s cocktail. They forced him to inject me, but he gave me a special version he said he had just developed. Give me all the enhancements, but left my mind intact.” He turned Marco around and looked at the handcuffs, then grabbed hold and snapped the chain that held them together. When Marco turned back to face him, he shrugged. “Look, I don’t like it either, but I’m going to use every advantage I got to try to get us out of here. We can figure out what to do with me after that.”

Marco stared into his eyes for a few seconds. “You’re serious? You really are still you?”

“I’m still me,” Swaggart said. “Now let’s…”

A rumbling sound behind him made him freeze as Marco looked over his shoulder with his own eyes going wide. The hybrid, the bleeding stopped and its head looking almost normal, was getting back to its feet. Following Marco’s gaze, Swaggart turned slowly and then let out a sigh as the creature aimed its cold, hard, but strangely human eyes at him.

The hybrid rose to its full height, slowly, its eyes never leaving Swaggart. The soldier was fully aware that this wasn’t going to end well, but there was no choice but to take the thing on again. He remembered Branigan telling him that he would heal quickly from any injury; apparently, that was a feature of all versions of the cocktail.

The creature rushed him, then, and lashed out suddenly with its claws. Swaggart ducked out of the way and the hybrid, still remembering some of the training it had had as a soldier, curled his fingers and swung its fist into Swaggart's jaw. Swaggart tried to dodge, but the blow caught him on the point of his chin, knocking his teeth together and throwing him a few feet down the hallway, where he landed hard on his back.

He caught his breath, and the hybrid was suddenly upon him, and Swaggart began swinging his fists as hard and fast as he could. One after another, they connected with the creature’s face, but it was almost like it didn’t care anymore. The rage in its face, showing through those not quite human eyes, made it clear that the thing had one purpose: his utter destruction.

He bucked and flipped himself onto his feet, swinging another roundhouse kick that sounded like thunder as it hit the thing in the head once more. The hybrid was thrown backward, and Swaggart followed, going right after it. The hybrid caught itself and turned to come at him once more, swinging its claws wildly as it tried to rake them across his face.

Swaggart managed to block the claws, but then the thing hopped back and stood on one leg, using the other like a battering ram that slammed into his chest. Swaggart went flying down the hallway and landed on his back once again as the thing made a massive leap and launched itself into the air at him.

All he could do was watch it as the creature came at him. The hybrid was ready and determined to kill him, to bring him to an end, but Swaggart wasn’t ready to give up on life just yet. He brought up his feet and caught the thing in its midsection as it tried to land on him, then used its own momentum against it as he threw it over his head. It crashed through a wall and Swaggart rolled quickly and got back up, ready to continue the fight.

The thing was still screaming as it fought its way back upright, looking back through the hole in the wall at the object of its hate. Marco was standing by watching, wishing there was something he could do to help his friend but knowing that, without the enhancements Swaggart had been given, he wouldn’t last five seconds against that thing.

“Marco, this is Noah,” he heard through the subcom. “Are you there?”

“Noah!” Marco shouted, forgetting to keep his voice down. “Swaggart and I are here, we are fighting with one of the hybrids. We need help, man.”

“We’ve made it into the lower levels,” Noah said. “I can hear a shrieking sound, and a lot of crashing.”

“Yeah, well, just follow that sound and you will find us,” Marco yelled. “And don’t take your time about it, this thing is about to kill Swaggart, and then I’m next.”

The hybrid came through the gap in the wall and threw its arms around Swaggart. He cried out as the creature’s claws tore through the toughened skin along his lower back, creating deep gashes that bled profusely. He slammed his hands onto the creature’s ear holes as he fought to ignore the pain and sudden warmth spreading down his back and side, and then did it again. The thing fell back, and Swaggart began pummeling it once more. Blow after blow he landed, and slowly the creature was beaten back until it fell through the hole in the wall again.

Three things happened all at once, just then. The creature got back on its feet and turned to glare at him once more, and that was when they heard shouts in the hallway it was standing in. The creature turned its head to its right and Swaggart thought he saw a brief moment of shock, and then it looked back at him again. Its mouth opened for another scream of rage, just as a hail of bullets drove it out of sight.

Swaggart and Marco stared as two long lines of fire seemed to focus on the creature, and then the men holding the miniguns came into view. The guns fell silent, and Swaggart motioned for Marco to follow as he climbed through the hole in the wall.

The creature was down, and it probably wouldn’t be getting up. The 5.56 bullets that had struck it at such velocity had cut it in half, and it was laying silently in a pool of its own blood.

A voice boomed out in the hallway. “You guys all right?”

Marco grinned, and Swaggart heaved a sigh of relief, despite the pain and exhaustion he was feeling. That voice came from none other than Noah Wolf, and both men breathed a sigh of relief.

“Marco? Noah, is he okay?” Jenny’s voice came through the subcoms.

“I’m fine, sis,” Marco said. “Where are you?”

“My squad is rounding up the personnel in this place,” she said. “Noah, we found Danny McRae; he’s safe.”

“Good job,” Noah said. “Graves and Litchfield, report,” he said into the radio.

“Graves here, sir. My squad has lost two men to hybrids, but we put six of them down. There are a couple of dozen of them in one section of the complex, but they are in cages. Some of them are—not what I expected, sir.”

“Put them down, Graves,” Noah said. “Anything the scientists want to learn from them, they can learn by dissection. Those things don’t want to live the way they are.”

“But, sir,” Graves said, her voice hesitant.  “I really think you should come down here before we do that.”

Noah chewed the inside of his cheek for a couple of seconds. “All right, as soon as I get a moment.”

“Yes, sir, and thank you,” Graves said.

“Litchfield here, sir. We have about two dozen prisoners, mostly some of the guard types in their black suits. What do you want done with them?”

“Gather them together, and I’ll get with you shortly.”

“Yes, sir,” Whitfield said.

“Very good,” Noah said. “What about Branigan? We haven’t found him yet?”

“It’s not just Branigan,” Swaggart interrupted. “The guy who was running this operation is here, or he was when you guys started coming in. I want his ass, and I want it personally. Branigan—well, Branigan is another whole story, but we need to find him if we can.”

“Agreed,” Noah said. “Everyone keep your eyes open. We’re looking for Branigan and the top man for this operation. I would just about bet we will find them together.”

“Then I’ll be happy to pay off,” Jenny said. “Because I just found them. At least, I got Branigan, and I would bet this fancy suited bastard hiding behind the cabinet with him is the other guy you’re looking for.”

“I see,” Noah said. “Where are you?”

“I’m on level three, looks like a big conference room or something.”

“Good, stay put,” Noah said. “We’ll be right there. Litchfield, bring your prisoners to the same location.”

“Yes, sir,” Litchfield said.

It took about ten minutes for them all to converge in what appeared to be, as Jenny had said, a conference room. There were racks of folding chairs along the walls, but the floor space was empty. By the time all of the captives were brought together, there were sixty-seven people gathered in the room, including Branigan and Danny McRae.

Swaggart went straight to Branigan and pulled him aside. “Doctor Branigan? I just wanted let you know, sir, what you did saved my life and several others.”

The man looked at him and blinked. “What I did? Goodness, what did I do?”

Swaggart narrowed his eyes. “You gave me a different version of the mixture, remember?”

Branigan stared at him for a second, then chuckled and shook his head. “Young man, I’m afraid I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. What kind of mixture was that?”

Noah was standing beside them, and he looked curiously at Swaggart. “Swaggart? Is something wrong?”

Swaggart shook his head and turned to Noah. “I’ll have to tell you later,” he said. “But trust me on something. You’re looking at one of the greatest heroes America has ever known.”

Noah glanced at Branigan, who only smiled as if he was slightly confused.

Swaggart turned to the man with the voice. “Now, you,” he said. “Just who the hell are you, anyway?”

The fellow looked at him bitterly. “I’m the man who was supposed to be bringing the world the ultimate soldiers,” he said. “My name is Rutherford. Andrew Rutherford.”

Noah, standing beside Swaggart, nodded his head. “Thank you,” he said. “I hate to kill a man without knowing his name.” He pulled his Glock out of its holster and put it against the man’s head, then pulled the trigger.

Danny McRae swallowed hard as Noah approached him with Swaggart at his side, but then relaxed a bit when Swaggart smiled and held out a hand.

“Specialist McRae,” Noah said. “I’m very glad we found you alive and well. I promised your mother I would bring you home safely.”

Danny smiled and shook hands with Noah, as well. “I’m very grateful, sir,” he said. “I was really afraid I was going to end up dying down here.” He looked over at where some of the guards were standing. “Or worse.”

“I can imagine,” Noah said. “Now, as the only operative to ever manage to infiltrate this operation, what can you tell me about the rest of these people?”A woman standing not far from Danny suddenly looked up. Noah caught the motion and glanced at her, and noticed that she suddenly had a hopeful look in her eyes.

“What you want to know, sir?” Danny asked.

“We know that Doctor Branigan and his daughter were pressured into doing the things they did,” Noah said. “Is there anyone else here of whom that could be true?”

Danny blinked, then turned and looked over the crowd. Janet was looking at him with her eyes bright, a smile on her face, but Danny only glanced at her. When he turned back to Noah, he said, “No, sir. Everyone else here intended to be part of this project.”

“Danny!” Janet cried. “Danny, don’t…”

He turned to look at her. “Janet, it’s nothing personal. I’m army intelligence. I appreciate everything you did to help keep me alive and get me more freedom, but you are still a traitor to our country. Hell, you’re a traitor to the entire world!”

Noah looked at the young man. “McRae,” he said, “if you have any emotional attachment to that woman, speak up now. I’m not here to take prisoners.”

Danny’s head snapped around and he stared at Noah. “What? You’re going to kill all these people?”

“Those are my orders,” Noah said. “Unless you can tell me that any of these people are here under duress, or have value to our nation, they will be eliminated.”

Danny continued to stare at him for a couple more seconds, then lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry to say, sir, that there is no one here who is not a traitor.”

Noah lifted a hand, giving the signal everyone else had been waiting for, and moments later the room was filled with dead bodies. Danny McRae stood with his eyes closed, and would not even look back at them when it was over.

Noah ordered the soldiers to make a complete sweep of the complex to ensure that no one had been missed, while he went to find Sergeant Graves and the hybrids she had located.

She was on another level, and it took him a few minutes to find her. Swaggart, Litchfield, Jenny and Marco followed him, and all of them stared as they entered the room. There were nearly thirty hybrids in the room, all of them in cages made of shatterproof glass or Carbonite. Noah walked along and looked at them one by one.

Several demonstrated the anger and rage Litchfield had told him about, but there were a number of others that appeared to be perfectly calm. Some of them were the extremely tall creatures that were thought to be aliens in the pictures he had seen originally. There were four of those, and they stood close to the glass and looked at him carefully.

And then one of them spoke. “You are Noah Wolf,” it said.

Noah’s eyebrows shot upward. “You know me?” Noah asked.

“Yes. My name is James Miller,” it said. “I was the liaison officer for E & E in Buenos Aires. The others were mostly soldiers, captured when their patrols got too close.”

“And you can all understand me?”

All four of them nodded. “We can,” another one said. “You have captured this place?”

Noah nodded. “We have,” he said.

“And what will become of us?” Miller asked.

Noah stood there and looked at the creature for a moment. “I’m not sure what to do,” he said. “To be honest, I had intended to simply eliminate all of the hybrids, but I didn’t expect to find any that were intelligent and articulate.”

“We are all very intelligent,” Miller said. “Of course, we are also aware that there is no place for us in the world. Needless to say, that leaves us rather frightened at this moment.”

Noah stood and looked through the glass at the thing that had had once been Private James Miller, and then turned his head. “Mr. Litchfield,” he called out, and Litchfield hurried to his side.

“Yes, sir?”

“Mr. Litchfield, let me introduce you to Mr. James Miller and his friends, who are former soldiers. Mr. Litchfield, is there a place for these people at Area 51?”

Litchfield’s eyes went wide. “I’m certain I could arrange it, sir,” he said.

Noah turned back to Miller. “Mr. Miller, it turns out there are others like you, and it may be possible for you to have at least some kind of a life, even if it isn’t entirely normal. I’ll see to it that arrangements are made to transport you all to Area 51.”

All four of the alien looking creatures suddenly became animated, and looked relieved.

“Mr. Wolf, we would be very grateful,” Miller said. “Maybe there’s a lot to learn from us.”

“That could be,” Noah said. “I’m sure that, at a place like that, they can find some way for you to at least be useful and productive.”

The small mouth in Miller’s face curled in what Noah suspected was meant to be a smile. “But what about the others? I’m afraid they no longer realize just who or what they are.”

Noah nodded. “I believe that is true, and that the best thing I can do for them is to put them out of their misery.”

Miller and the others like him looked at one another, and then all of them nodded. “We agree,” Miller said.

Noah turned to Litchfield. “Can you get them out of there?”

“It will be my pleasure, sir,” Litchfield said.

As the tall hybrids were released, Noah and one of the soldiers got their names. One of them approached Lieutenant Morton and spoke to him.

“Sir, I know you don’t remember me like this,” he said, “but I am Private Michael Harrison. It’s good to see you again, sir.”

Morton’s eyes grew wide. “Harrison? Good Lord, man, we thought you’d been… Well, never mind what we thought. I’m just glad to know you’re alive.”

The other two former soldiers also knew Morton, and the lieutenant quickly rounded up some volunteers to stay with Miller, Harrison and the others until transportation to Area 51 could be arranged the following day. Several of the soldiers volunteered, remembering their old squad mates, and Morton ended up having to choose.

An hour later, helicopters landed outside the building on the surface. Military police, working with the Argentine Federal Police, had rounded up everyone connected with Modano Chemical company. Some of them were probably innocent dupes, but nobody was going free until both governments were certain.

More of the MPs climbed out of the helicopters to secure the compound. Noah made it clear that no one was to bother the saucer-like craft in the warehouse until they could be thoroughly examined. He had already called Allison, who was arranging for Wally and some of his top people to fly down immediately. The President of the United States had authorized her to take possession of the craft on behalf of the government, and had agreed that Wally Lawson was probably the best man possible to start figuring out how they worked.

Noah and the others arrived back at Donovan Range only a few minutes later, and Renée was on hand to come rushing into Marco’s arms. Sarah had commandeered a van and drove them all back to the operations center, where Allison was waiting to give Marco a hug of her own.

“Camelot, report,” she said immediately afterward.

Noah quickly gave an account of the assault and its results. He had already told her about the ships being captured, but she was pleased to hear that McRae had insisted on staying behind with some volunteer soldiers to round up the computer equipment. He had said that it was some of the most advanced computer electronics he had ever seen, and he wasn’t about to let it fall into anybody else’s hands. She was also delighted when Noah showed her video footage of James Miller. Even though he wasn’t anything like she remembered him, he was one of hers. She was happy to know that he was still alive.

Swaggart stood back and waited until all the congratulations and welcomes were done, then asked Noah to step outside with him for a moment. When they were alone, he turned and looked at the assassin, meeting his gaze.

“Graves says she told you what was really going on,” he said. “I’m sure Marco has also told you, using that digital ESP of yours, that I have been subjected to Branigan’s Cocktail. I’m a hybrid, Noah. I’m not as ugly as the others, but I got a lot of the enhancements.”

“Yes, I know,” Noah said.

Swaggart grunted. “Yeah, figured you did. So, what are we going to do about it?”

Noah looked at him for a couple of seconds, then shrugged. “About what? If I make a report about this, you’re going to be locked up in a laboratory somewhere. As it stands right now, the only ones who know are myself and my team, and I’ve already ordered them to keep it out of our reports.”

Swaggart stared at him. “You’re serious? You’re not going to tell anybody?”

“I’m not,” Noah said. “On the other hand, you may be the strongest and fastest man alive. I think it’s quite possible that there is a place in the government that can honestly use you, as long as you can keep those abilities under wraps.”

“What? Are you talking about E & E? Turn me into one of your super assassins?”

Noah shook his head. “That’s not for me to decide,” he said. “On the other hand, I can tell you that the best person in the world you could talk to about it is that lady sitting inside that Quonset hut. If you talk to Allison, she might come up with a way to put you where you are needed most.”

Swaggart looked at him for a moment, then shook his head. “You know what? I’ve already got my twenty in. I think maybe it’s time I try the private sector.”

Noah raised an eyebrow and looked at him for a second, and Swaggart chuckled.

“Now, now, don’t get the wrong idea,” he said. “I’m not talking about selling out to the highest bidder. However, there’s a lot of legitimate money to be made running a private intelligence service, and I have the skills. Besides, I’m not sure I’m ready to give up tracking down the people from the Coalition. They have to pay for what they did, even if I can’t bring criminal charges against them. As an independent, I can keep working on that on my own.”

Noah stood silent for a few seconds, then nodded his head. “All right,” he said, “we’ll keep your secret. Just remember one thing: you go rogue, and I’m going to be the guy they send after you.”

Swaggart burst out laughing. “I’ll bear that in mind,” he said. “Meanwhile, I have one more favor to ask.”

“Graves and Litchfield?” Noah asked.

Swaggart nodded, grinning. “Yep. Paula will come with me if I asked her to, but Litchfield—well, that’s kinda got to be up to you. If you want him to pay for his crimes, I can understand that.”

Noah looked toward the Quonset hut for a second, then turned back to Swaggart. “He’s yours,” he said. “I’ll handle making the criminal charges go away, but you keep him in line. I suspect he’s going to be suffering enough punishment, just knowing that this happened to you. For all he was working against the United States, against the whole world for that matter, that guy really, really likes you.”

“Yeah,” Swaggart said. “I noticed that a while back, even if he is a pain in the ass.” He extended a hand. “Thank you, Noah,” he said. “Thank you for everything.”

Noah took his hand and shook it. “And I thank you,” he said, “for keeping Marco alive until we got there.”

“It was my pleasure,” Swaggart said.

They went back inside, and Sarah finally got her chance to grab her husband and pull him away from the raucous celebration. She took his hand and led them down the hall to their room and closed the door behind them.

“I told you I’d come back,” he said, leaning down to kiss her.

“I know you did,” she said. “And now that you’re back, there is something else we need to talk about.”

Noah pulled his head back and looked her in the eye. “And what might that be?” he asked.

Sarah looked at him for a moment, and then a smile spread across her face. “Baby names,” she said.

* * *

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