When they boarded the flight to Washington, D.C., the idea of it, that he would soon be home, produced tremendous anxiety. He knew there would be many answers there—and that stepping back into his old life meant he had to be 100 percent. On the plane, the woman sat beside him, as she always did. But she had not tried to speak to him again.

If she was completely stupid she might just follow him right into his superior’s office and give herself up. In fact, when they landed in Washington he thought he just might be well enough to grab her arm and make sure that was what happened. She had dogged the wounded hunter. Big fun. It was time she learned that he still had teeth.

He was staring at a couple across the aisle and one row up. They were young and attractive, whole and undeformed. Both had pale skin and dark hair. The male had his arm around the female and they were looking into each other’s eyes. Some emotion swirled around them that Farris did not quite get. He didn’t get it, but he still felt envious.

“Lieutenant Farris?” The woman spoke his name. He turned his eyes to give her a cold look. “Sometimes it helps to talk about things. Would you like to tell me about it? About what happened to you when you went… somewhere else?”

He sneered. “I’m not telling you anything.”

“I understand. You don’t trust me. In that case, would you like to hear what happened to me?”

He didn’t. He didn’t want to talk. But then, she was as good as offering a full confession. And then he recalled that this woman might hold the answers to his own experiences. With all he’d had to deal with on the journey, he’d forgotten why he’d wanted her along in the first place.

“Speak then.”

She talked to him with simple words. She explained how they had been in the woods that night and how five of them had gone through a type of black hole. She began to tell a story about the world she had seen. He tried to stay with her, to hear everything without emotion, but it was hard. There was so much to think about, so many directions the mind could turn off, like a freeway with slippery exits, dark eddies pulling him down. Black hole. And then the battlefield.

She got to a place in her story that she must have thought important, for she put her hand on his sleeve to focus his attention. He stared down at her hand.

“Lieutenant Farris, did you hear what I said? I was talking about the weapon we learned about on Difa-Gor-Das.” She repeated the information about a machine carefully, her eyes locked to his to keep him with her.

He took it in. He was still trying to get his mind around the black hole, but he took this new information in. She carefully explained wave technology and what would result if you tried to manipulate the wave. Fragments of old learning came back to him, enough for him to grasp what she was saying. He even seemed to recall that this, this, was what he had wanted from her all that long while ago. She was revealing secrets, but she didn’t seem disturbed by the fact. She described everything deliberately.

“Don’t you see?” she said, her green eyes alight. “The technology I was working on—the technology you were looking for—it has to be buried, Lieutenant. Because if it isn’t, there is a very real possibility that someone in the government will use it, benignly, ignorantly, or otherwise. We can’t risk it.”

She seemed to want some kind of response from him. She squeezed his arm.

“We don’t have to be on opposite sides. We’ve both seen things that have made us realize how precious this world is and how…” she sighed, “how responsible we are for our choices. It’s not too late, Lieutenant Farris.”

It finally dawned on him then what she was doing, why she had come with him, why she had been so concerned about him, so helpful! She was trying to turn him, turn him, like some green recruit!

An ugly laugh passed his lips. She had no idea how little he cared about any of it. He felt only numb about what she had told him; he felt nothing at all. He didn’t believe her, number one. Number two, he was a soldier, even here, and he would never betray his oaths of loyalty. And, number three, it wasn’t even his responsibility to make the kinds of decisions she was talking about. Didn’t she understand that? She was trying to manipulate the wrong link in the chain of command.

In fact, he was amazed how little he cared about what she had just told him. He wasn’t even angry at the idea that she might be lying or trying to manipulate him. And even as he was thinking so he felt sweat trickle down his face and a hot, burning pain in his abdomen.

“Excuse me,” he said, rising quickly.

He barely made it to the bathroom. There was a roaring in his ears and a thickening veil descending across his vision. He locked the door and sank down the wall, his knees jammed up against the sink, and the blackness in his mind swept over him like a blanket.

Ed Hinkle stared out at the dark. It wasn’t snowing, but the bare soil outside was crisp as ice and the air hurt when you drew it into your lungs. He was sick to death of Poland.

Still no word today. He’d sent in his report this morning, as usual, and heard nothing back, as usual. He couldn’t resist taking a walk in the woods this morning, just to see with his own two eyes that nothing had changed. Nothing had changed.

He wished he knew the test results on the samples from the woods, if the DoD had found any trace of a weapon or not. But he already knew by the way they were treating him that he was eyes and ears and muscle on this case and nothing more. Most of the time he was happy enough to just do his job and be done with it. But in this case he was damned curious. He had been in the woods that night, and he had seen that flash.

He didn’t know how much longer he could stay here with that filthy old man without killing him. He was their only witness and he was too mental to tell them jack.

The bottle of Russian vodka on the counter kept drawing Hinkle’s eye.

He’d told the broad he didn’t want it. He was on assignment, which meant he was on duty twenty-four seven. He wouldn’t drink. But the Russian bimbo had insisted on leaving it here, as a gift. He told her he’d just pour it down the drain. She’d laughed and left it anyway.

She hadn’t been bad-looking. If it had been any other time…

He picked up the bottle. It had the original factory seal—looked just like other bottles of the same or a similar brand he’d seen in the windows in town. Too bad. He had a brief fantasy—wouldn’t it be fun if the bimbo had actually been a Russian spy and had put poison in the bottle? Or better yet, Spanish fly, so she could slip in later and ride him raw while her partner stole the goods. He put down the bottle with a laugh.

No such luck. The Russians weren’t even on the map these days. Besides, who’d want a bed-wetting old man?

He felt Davis’s presence before he saw him. Well, hell, where else would he be? It was a small house.

“Want to play some cards?”

Ed sighed. “Hell, yeah.”

They were deep into five card stud, using a huge jar of the old man’s pennies for stake, when the distinct noise of slamming car doors caught their attention.

Hinkle and Davis looked at each other and got up to investigate. Hinkle wasn’t alarmed at first, but he was on alert. Maybe someone had finally stopped by to see the old fart, maybe someone with an actual dreg or two of information. But he hadn’t heard the sound of a motor.

Before they reached the front door he did hear a motor—a car starting up. It sounded familiar. He and Davis rushed out the front door to see the faces of two startled youths in their rental car. The car backed up, lurching into reverse, and began gunning madly down the driveway.