Pete nodded, and then he suddenly started pointing frantically behind Sarah as if the Devil himself were there.

Sarah turned and there were two men standing directly behind her. One grabbed the barrel of the weapon and pulled it from her grasp while the other grabbed her by the throat and shoved her against the glass. Pete and his comp team were frantic. They was gesturing wildly and banging on the glass, screaming threats that went unheard. The man who had grabbed the gun saw Sarah's cutoff sleeve, the sling, and the remains of the cast on her forearm. He reached out and hit her in the upper arm above the elbow, and Sarah immediately collapsed in agony.

Pete Golding and the other techs saw this and started throwing their bodies against the glass doorway. They were desperate to keep any harm from befalling the little geologist.

The masked man moved his weapon aside on its strap, then reached down and grabbed Sarah by the collar and pulled her to her feet.

"This is our little hero from level eight."

The other man stepped back. "No casualties--remember the orders."

"Unless in self-defense," the smaller of the two said as he brought his weapon back around.

Sarah grimaced in pain, and then suddenly struck out with her right foot, trying desperately to kick at the two men, but her tennis shoes were striking nothing but empty air.

"These people just don't know when to quit," the larger assailant said, laughing at the violent way Sarah struggled.

Suddenly, the hooded face jerked violently forward and Sarah felt the splash of warm blood hit her in the face. There was a crack of a bullet, but only because it had penetrated the man's skull and passed through, hitting the glass of the comp center. The other man tried to turn, but two bullets struck him in the side of the head and neck. As he fell, he pulled the stunned Sarah down with him.

Pete and the comp center technicians stopped banging on the glass as the blood from the first man obscured it. Pete straightened in shock as he prayed Sarah wasn't hit. He looked from her form to the darkened hallway beyond. He couldn't see anything.

Sarah kicked at the man who had fallen on her legs and at the same time struggled to get ahold of one of the fallen weapons. As her hand found one, there was a calm voice echoing from the bend in the long dark corridor.

"Little Sarah, always a fighter."

The voice was familiar. Sarah searched the darkness, raising the automatic weapon toward the darkness.

"Not advisable, at least for the moment," the voice said, as if reprimanding a child. "Tell me, dear Sarah, is Jack with you?"

Her recognition of the voice came flooding into her memory. Pictures of the man it belonged to hit her like ice water. Colonel Henri Farbeaux.

"Come now, you owe me your life. Surely worth the price of an answer."

"This isn't your style, Henri, extravagant though it is." Sarah still twisted the weapon until its muzzle pointed into the dark.

"I'm what you would call a stowaway. As well as these people planned, it was far too messy. But then again, I don't know the motivation behind it. Nor, dear Sarah, do I care. I'm here for the man that cost me the life of my wife."

"What in the hell are you talking about, Colonel?"

"She never returned from our little Amazonian excursion. Our Major Jack was the cause of that."

Sarah made a face as she tried to sit up. "And you're blaming the colonel?"

"Colonel? Colonel Collins? Ah, the rewards for having my wife meet her fate in a godforsaken lagoon. This is getting rich, little Sarah."

"Henri ... Jack is--" Sarah lost her voice for a moment. "Jack's dead."

There was silence from the hallway.

"He didn't kill Danielle; we didn't even know she was lost. Jack Collins never would have wanted that. He wanted everyone to make it out--even you, Henri." Sarah twisted and tried to rise to her feet.

She tried to peer into the darkness, but she saw no movement. She thought about reaching down for the goggles, but decided she wouldn't make the effort. Finally, she heard movement.

"A shame. I will not ask about the possibility of a lie, I can see the truth of it in your face. It hurts, does it not?"

Sarah saw the darker outline of the man as he stepped from the wall.

His weapon was still held at belt level and it was aimed right at her. She looked at the heavy weapon in her hands, then slowly tossed it away.

"A part of me died that day." Sarah looked into the face of the Frenchman and didn't flinch.

"Yes, loss will do that to one," he said. He looked into her eyes as his silenced pistol finally wavered and then lowered. "You have been injured, I see."

Sarah remained quiet as she looked at their old enemy. He had lost a large amount of weight, and his eyes were dark below and above the lids. There was a sense about him that he no longer held himself on a pedestal above others. Sarah could see that he was broken, mentally and physically. In addition, she was seeing something drain from the man like a tipping water glass. His hatred and willingness to strike out at something familiar, in this case Jack, were gone, as if hearing of his death completed the trade for Danielle.

"Stand aside, Sarah McIntire, and I will assist you in freeing your friends before one of them seriously injures themselves. Then I will leave you."

Sarah finally turned and saw Pete Golding, forehead bleeding and holding his shoulder, furiously gesturing for his technicians to ram the door again. Sarah shook her head. Pete was magnificent with a computer keyboard, but in rescue attempts, he left a lot to be desired.

Farbeaux walked up to Sarah and looked at her for the longest time. His eyes bore into her own as if he were looking at someone he remembered from his past with fondness. Then he reached down, picked up the fallen goggles, raised them to his eyes, and at the same moment raised the pistol and aimed at the locks in the glass door.

Sarah was just relaxing when Farbeaux suddenly jerked and then tried to turn around. The silenced automatic fell from his hand as he gasped for breath. His other hand pulled the large dart from the back of his shoulder. He looked at Sarah as if she had been responsible; then his legs gave out. Sarah reached out for him as he collapsed.

As she looked up, twenty men approached. Several flashlights illuminated the stricken Farbeaux. Men spread out and covered the glass fronting of the computer center where Pete stared in shock at the four people standing at the center of the group--Director Compton, Virginia Pollock, Alice Hamilton, and Senator Garrison Lee. They were not bound, but each had an armed escort. A man stepped forward, separating himself from the group. He wore no hood, and he had loosened his upper body armor, undoubtedly for comfort.

Sarah watched the man examine the scene before him. His eyes went from his two dead commandos to the unconscious Henri Farbeaux.

"Lieutenant, are you all right?" Niles asked.

The man quickly held a hand up as his head turned and looked at Sarah. "Silence please, Doctor."

"If you harm any more of my people, you may as well shoot us all right now," Niles said, shaking a guard's hand off his arm and stepping forward.

The man continued to look at Sarah with cold and very dark eyes.

"This one comes with us," he said as he gestured one of his men forward.

"Sarah, are you hurt?" Alice asked as she held on to the senator.

"Just my pride," she answered, as she was roughly turned and her hands wire-tied behind her back. Her eyes met Pete Golding's, who stared through the glass in frustration.