Boreas stared at the computer screen. He was seeing what Hammond had on her control console two thousand miles away at Bright Gate. Kirtley’s team was beginning to go into their isolation tubes.

He picked up a headset and put it on. Then he typed in commands, covertly accessing Sybyl. He spoke into the boom mike. “Kirtley.” The voice that came back was muffled. “Yes?” “This is our private link through Sybyl. Neither Hammond nor your teammates can access it. You know your job, right? The real objective of this mission?” There was a long pause. “Yes.”

“Good.” Boreas keyed off the connection. He spun about in his chair and looked out at the mountains. Even at night the white peaks were clearly visible. Soon he and his people would have nothing to fear from the high country.

On board the Roosevelt , blades also began turning on both Blackhawks and Apache gunships. Rangers, Green Berets, and Navy SEALs piled into the transport choppers while the gunships took off to lead the way.

Low over the ocean, the air flotilla headed for the shoreline of Colombia.

Linda McFairn stared out her office window, but she wasn’t really seeing the Maryland countryside. Her mind was on events happening far to the south. The photo of the executed Special Forces captain was the only item on her desk. She knew the Colombians had done that to spur action, and she’d told Boreas that, warned him that she saw an ambush coming, but he had not seemed concerned.

Whenever she was faced with a problem, she tried to see it as Sun Tzu would have. She had no doubt that the Ring was preparing a trap for the rescue mission. On the other hand, her forces held the advantage of surprise with the Psychic Warriors leading the assault.

Things were accelerating, something she had experienced before during times of national crisis, yet no one in the government other than her knew there was a crisis. She had read the report on Mrs. Callahan’s death. She had known the National Security Adviser and her husband reasonably well, and she had no doubt they would never have committed suicide, but the FBI had labeled it that.

McFairn had never liked Callahan, a relative newcomer to Washington, coming in on the President’s coat-tails. The Adviser job should have been hers, so the death didn’t bother her as much as the implication if she added in the death of Eichen: There was no doubt the Priory was moving against Nexus.

Since she had supplied Boreas, thus the Priory, with most of the intelligence about Nexus, she knew she was responsible for more deaths. Whatever guilt she had over that was assuaged by her anger that she had never been approached to be a member of Nexus. Who better to keep an eye on the Priory than the Deputy Director of the NSA?

All her thinking brought her full circle to the fundamental problem with her position-what did the Priory have planned and who was its enemy? The Priory had repeatedly shown that it cared little who or what it had to destroy in accomplishing its goals, and she had little trust in Boreas’s word that the plans were beneficial to the United States.

She turned back to the desk, looked once more at the accusing photo, then picked up the phone linking her to the NSA operations center. At the very least she could have her agency monitor what was going to happen and be prepared to react whichever way was needed. She made sure the ops center was operating at full staffing and all the lines of communications with other government agencies were open.

Then she waited.

Dalton watched from behind Hammond ’s shoulder as the last member of Kirtley’s team was lowered into his isolation tube. “Let me know when they’re all on the other side,” he told Hammond.

Barnes and Jackson were already in the other room where the extra tubes holding Dalton ’s team were stored, preparing them for movement.

“Who are we working for?” Hammond suddenly asked.

Dalton was startled. “What do you mean?”

Hammond shrugged. “I’m just a scientist, but even I can see things here are anything but straightforward. Why did Jenkins cut off that team? He worked for the government, right? Then why did Raisor kill him? He worked for the government too. And I’m supposed to be working for the government-as are you-yet we’re getting ready to hide from our own government.”

“The government-” Dalton began, but he realized she was asking questions that didn’t have simple answers. “The government is supposed to serve the people,” he finally said. “But things have changed over the years. I’ve seen the same thing in the Army. We exist to defend our country; it’s what we swear a binding oath to. But most officers, and a heck of a lot of NCOs, are only interested in their own careers, their own interests.”

He looked at the isolation tubes and the NSA team as he searched for words. “You’re just a scientist and I’m just a soldier. Just.” He laughed shortly. “You know, people want to believe there is a ‘they.’ A bunch of other people who run things. Maybe there is a ‘they,’ but even if there is, it’s our fault for giving up responsibility. And if there isn’t a ‘they,’ then we’re at fault for not taking responsibility.”

He thought of some of the places he’d been ordered to go and what he had done. “Sometimes good people do bad things with a good motive. Sometimes bad people do bad things for a bad motive-does it matter?”

Hammond smiled, a most unusual event on her worn face. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a philosopher.” The smile was gone so quickly, Dalton wondered if he had really seen it as she continued. “I think I became a scientist to avoid asking all those questions. I wanted things in black or white. It either worked or it didn’t. You either proved a hypothesis or you didn’t. Then they sent me here, and if there’s one thing Bright Gate isn’t, that’s black or white. Even when we go over to the other side, it’s all gray.” She leaned forward and typed instructions into Sybyl. “They’re all on the virtual plane now.”

Dalton turned to give Barnes and Jackson help, when Hammond placed a hand on his arm, halting him. “Can I ask you something?”

Dalton was afraid she was going to ask him who he was working for now, but the question was different.

“Why did you go into the Army?”

Dalton laughed. “I’m an old soldier. We had a thing called the draft way back then.”

“Then why did you stay?”

There was no hesitation in his answer. “The people.” It occurred to him that at parties he would joke if someone asked him that question and answer that by the time he was released from the POW camp, he was a quarter of his way toward retirement, but the fact he had well over thirty years in now had proved that to be a lie.

Hammond was nodding. “A good reason.” She looked about the control center. “I wish I had one as good for doing what I’m doing.”

“Tell me,” Dalton said.

She shrugged. “Why am I here?”

“No,” Dalton said. “Why did you decide to become a scientist?”

“Knowledge. To learn new things. To discover.”

“All good reasons,” Dalton said. “Hang in there, I have a feeling we have a lot more to learn,” he added as he headed for the freight elevator.