"Cover me!"

"Friggin' munchkin!"

Presently they reached a steel blast door flanked by two more armed guards in Korr Security uniforms. A red line painted on the concrete floor formed a semicircle at a fifteen-foot radius around the door. The words Danger-Level 2 Security Zone were stenciled on the floor just beyond the line and on signs along the wall. As they approached, the guards there leveled their HK UMPs.

Merritt snapped alert. "What's this?"

"It's the RD lab."

The lead guard motioned for the two of them to come forward. "Voice identification, please."

Ross spoke into a microphone hanging by a long cable from the ceiling. "Ross, Jon Frederick."

A female computer voice responded, "Voice pattern confirmed."

There was a loud click, then a flashing red light spun into action, and the massive blast door started to open slowly outward. Merritt was amazed at its thickness-it was easily a foot of solid steel with a beveled edge.

"Hell of a door. Was NORAD having a sale?"

"This place wasn't designed for us. Back in the sixties this was an indoor cannon testing range for the U.S. Navy."

"How'd you guys wind up here?"

"Korr Military Solutions owns the building. They have several forty-nine-million-dollar contracts with the Defense Department to operate Daemon Task Force facilities worldwide."

"Forty- nine million. An odd number."

"Fifty million triggers congressional oversight."

The massive door was open now, leading into a brightly lit anteroom guarded by yet another massive blast door. To the right was an interior guardroom manned by several more heavily armed Korr guards.

Ross and Merritt stepped inside. The first blast door boomed shut behind them.

One of the guards gestured to a hole set into the wall nearby. Ross stuck his arm into the hole. A brilliant light glared from within.

Merritt pointed at the device. "What now?"

"Biometric scanner. It scans the pattern of veins in my forearm."

"If there's an anal probe ahead, I'm leaving now."

The second massive door clicked, then started moving inward. "Watch the door, please, sirs."

They entered a brightly lit, narrow room that was easily a couple hundred feet long. Halfway down the room's length was a cluster of workbenches and electronics equipment. Steel shelving several rows deep lined the approach to it.

Ross motioned for Merritt to follow. They passed another set of armed guards inside the wide doorway, and then Ross set a brisk pace down the center aisle.

They passed row after row of metal shelving piled high with shattered, twisted, burnt, melted, bullet-ridden, or bloodstained equipment of all types-belts, helmets, circuit boards, odd-looking multibarreled pistols and shotguns, bundles of wiring, parabolic satellite dishes, sensors, and on it went. All of them were tagged with bar codes. It looked like an evidence room.

"Captured Daemon equipment?"

Ross nodded. "You guys bring it in, and this is where the techs reverse-engineer it to find out how to defeat it. But you just brought us our greatest find yet, Roy."

They finally reached a scientists' work area and stepped onto a raised dais of nonstatic tile. Several men in lab coats were gathered around something, making adjustments and holding small wrenches. Their bodies completely blocked what they were working on. Dr. Natalie Philips stood, arms crossed, observing the scientists' work. A burly man in a sports jacket stood next to her. Merritt didn't recognize him.

The ice chest and black case Merritt had flown in with stood open on the workbenches nearby.

Philips and the man looked up as Ross and Merritt arrived. Philips nodded. "Agent Merritt, I'm glad things went well in Brazil."

"Anything to help this scavenger hunt of yours, Doctor." They shook hands.

"Well, it might pay off big today." Philips gestured to the man. "Agent Merritt, this is our DOD liaison. For security reasons his identity is classified. We simply call him The Major."

Merritt raised an eyebrow, then extended his hand. "Major."

The Major shook Merritt's hand in an iron grip. "You're something of a celebrity among Daemon operatives, I hear."

Merritt shrugged. "That's what they tell me."

"Good to see you're fully recovered, Mr. Merritt."

Merritt reflexively stroked the burn scars on his neck.

Philips pointed to the nearby knot of scientists. "This is our research team on loan from DARPA. Identities also classified."

"These introductions aren't very useful."

One of the scientists looked up from the huddle. He was an older Asian man. "The rig is ready, Dr. Philips."

Philips nodded toward a nearby stool. "Have a seat, Agent Merritt. I think you'll find this interesting."

The scientists scattered, revealing what they had been working on-and what Merritt had brought all this way: a pair of sports sunglasses with yellow-tinted lenses and thick, metallic frames had been bolted into an armature in the center of the lab area. Wires and cables ran from inside the frames over to the lab bench. Set between the posts of the glasses was a clear glass cylinder in which floated a disembodied human eye, like some macabre olive in a jar. The severed nerve endings were alligator-clipped in place to position the eye staring straight forward through the right lens of the sports glasses.

Philips gestured to the rig. "That's the right eye, Jon?"

Ross nodded. "I double-checked."

She examined the rig closely. "The sniper's bullet doesn't appear to have damaged the blood vessels." She checked her watch. "Eighteen hours, sixteen minutes since his death. The clock is running. We need to get this test started."

Merritt was still staring back at the eye. "What sort of test?"

She turned to him. "We believe these glasses serve as a heads-up display for Daemon operatives, Agent Merritt." She leaned in and pointed to a spot on the frame of the glasses. "A fiber-optic projector displays an image onto the inside of the glass lenses." She pointed to a dot elsewhere on the frame. "This is a retinal scanner. The Daemon knows who's wearing these HUD glasses, and this is a heart pulse monitor-over which we have placed an artificial pulse generator. We intend to fool the Daemon into thinking its operative is still alive and calm. If it hasn't already invalidated his account, we hope to gain access to the Daemon's darknet."

Merritt nodded slowly. "So, that was the big hurry. You're hoping to steal this guy's identity."

Ross stepped up to examine the rig as well. "We're hoping for more than that."

The Chinese scientist approached Philips while holding a thick, pouchlike belt made of stretchable black fabric. The belt had an ornate lion's-head belt buckle. He offered it to her. "This one's powered by some sort of fuel cell. We have nothing like it in the equipment collection. The Daemon is rapidly increasing the quality of its manufacturing process."

Merritt pointed at the belt. "What's it do?"

Philips took it. "It's a wearable computer. The brains of those eyeglasses. Uses a satellite or radio uplink to the Net and connects to these glasses wirelessly with 192-bit military-grade encryption. The encryption key appears to reseed every few minutes. Hard as hell to crack."

"What's with the lion's-head buckle?"

The Chinese scientist nodded. "Blued titanium with diamond eyes. Very expensive-possibly indicating high rank. Daemon equipment often has stylistic fetishes. These are no doubt intended to imbue them with perceived mystical qualities."

Philips grimaced. "Another one of Sobol's psychological hacks." She closely examined the sports glasses in the rig. "These look way beyond the capabilities of a portable fab lab. Grown-crystal optics…possibly laser-etched circuitry. Can we identify the factory?"