Spartan raised a hand, stopping Korolis in mid-sentence. "That will do, Commander."

Korolis felt another faint stirring of surprise. He had assumed the admiral had summoned him, as usual, for a progress report. To hide his discomfiture he picked a paperweight from the desk-a large metal cleat, a relic from the Revolutionary War frigate Vigilant-and turned it over in his hands.

There was a brief silence in which Spartan brushed back his gunmetal-gray hair with a heavy hand. "When is Marble Two due back from the digging interface?"

"ETA is ten hundred hours." Korolis replaced the cleat, checked his watch. "Fifty minutes from now."

"Have the recovery unit do the normal post-op. Then have Marble Two secured. And tell the Marble Three team to stand down until further orders."

Korolis frowned. "I'm not sure I heard you correctly, sir. Have Marble Three stand down?"

"That is correct."

"Stand down for how long?"

"I can't answer that yet."

"What's happened? Have you received some word from the Pentagon?"

"No."

Korolis licked his lips. "Begging your pardon, sir, but if I'm to have the men call off the dig, I'd appreciate an explanation."

Spartan seemed to consider this request. "Dr. Crane has been to see me."

"Crane, sir?"

"He believes he's found the cause of the medical problems."

"And?"

"It has to do with the emission signals from the anomaly. He's preparing a report; we'll get the details then."

Korolis paused. "I'm afraid I don't follow. Even if Crane's right, what does the source of the illnesses have to do with the dig?"

"In the course of his research, he's made another discovery. A translation of the alien signals."

"A translation," Korolis repeated.

"He believes them to be a warning."

"Asher believed the same thing. Crane always was his errand boy. They never had any proof."

Spartan looked at Korolis appraisingly for a moment. "They may have some now. And it's funny you should mention Asher. As it turns out, it was the data on his laptop that fueled Crane's discovery."

"That's impossible!" The words were out before Korolis could stop himself.

"Indeed?" Spartan's tone grew milder, almost gentle. "And why is that?"

"Because…because of the fire damage it sustained. The computer couldn't possibly function."

"It turns out it wasn't just the fire. According to Crane, somebody demagnetized the hard drive, as well." The appraising look remained on the admiral's face. "You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

"Of course not. Anyway, it doesn't seem possible Crane could have pulled any data from that hard disk. The laptop was burnt, destroyed."

"Crane had help."

"From who?"

"He wouldn't say."

"It sounds like a lot of crap to me. How do you know he isn't just making it all up?"

"If that was his intention, he wouldn't have waited this long to tell me. Besides, I'm not sure why he'd do that. And in any case his findings appear to have a troubling degree of consistency."

Korolis realized he was breathing quickly. He felt an unpleasant chill shudder through him; a moment later, it was followed by a sensation of intense warmth. Sweat popped out on his forehead.

He sat forward in his chair. "Sir," he said. "I must ask you to rethink this decision. We're only one or two dive sessions away from the Moho."

"All the more reason to be cautious, Commander."

"Sir, we're so close. We can't stop."

"You saw what happened to Marble One. It's taken us eighteen months to get where we are; I don't want to put all that progress in jeopardy. Another day or two will make little difference."

"Every hour makes a difference. Who knows what foreign governments might be plotting against us? We have to get down there, harvest what we can, as quickly as we can. Before that saboteur tries again."

"I will not have this entire project imperiled by rash or impetuous actions."

"Sir!" Korolis shouted.

"Commander!" Spartan raised his voice only slightly, but the effect was startling. Korolis forced himself into silence, his breath still faster now, and shallow.

Spartan was staring at him again.

"You don't look very well," the admiral said evenly. "I'm forced to wonder if perhaps the illness that's spread throughout the Facility isn't affecting you as well."

At this speculation-so ironically close to his own, earlier diagnosis of Spartan-Korolis felt a surge of real anger. He hadn't mentioned the recent and worsening headaches to anyone; they were just due to tension, he was sure of that. He gripped the arms of his chair with something close to ferocity.

"Believe me, I'm as eager to reach the anomaly as you are," Spartan continued. "But we brought Dr. Crane down here for a reason. I helped pick him. And now I have no choice but to pay attention to his findings. I'm going to assemble a team of our top military scientists to review his conclusions. We can proceed from there. Meanwhile, I want you to report to Dr. Bishop for a full-"

With a sudden move that was half instinct, half unconscious, Korolis leapt out of his chair, scooped the heavy cleat from the desk, and dashed it against Spartan's temple. The admiral went gray; his eyes rolled back to unbroken white; and he slumped out of his chair, falling heavily to the floor.

Korolis stood over him, breathing hard, for close to a minute. Then, his calm returning, he placed the cleat back on the desk, smoothed down his shirt front. He glanced at the phone, paused briefly to collect his thoughts, then picked up the receiver and punched in a number.

It was answered on the second ring. "Woburn."

"Chief."

"Sir!" Korolis could almost hear the black ops leader snapping to attention.

"Admiral Spartan has become mentally incompetent. He is no longer himself. I am therefore assuming command. Please have a watch set outside his quarters."

"Very good, sir."

"And meet me in the Drilling Complex, on the double."

47

Roger Corbett was in his office, making notes on the patient who had just come in complaining of panic attacks and agoraphobia, when the phone rang. He put his digital notepad and stylus aside and picked up the handset.

"Dr. Corbett," he said.

"Roger? It's Peter Crane."

"Hi, Peter. Let me guess-my snores have been filtering through our shared bathroom, right?"

It had been meant as a bit of levity, but somehow Crane didn't sound interested in small talk. "I've been waiting to hear from Michele. Any idea where she is?"

"No. I haven't seen her for some time."

"She was supposed to get back to me forty-five minutes ago. I've tried her mobile, but she isn't picking up. I'm a little concerned."

"I'll see if I can't track her down. Anything I can help with?"

There was a pause. "No thanks, Roger. Just see if you can locate Michele, please."

"Will do." Corbett replaced the phone, then stood up, stepped out of his office, and walked down the hall.

In the reception area, four people were waiting. This in itself was very unusual-Bishop ran a tight, efficient ship, and normally there was never more than one patient waiting to be seen. Corbett stepped into the nurse's station. His psychiatric intern-a gravely serious young man named Bryce-was seated beside the receiving nurse, filling out a supplies request form.

"Any idea where Dr. Bishop is?" Corbett asked.

Bryce shook his head. "Sorry."

"She stepped out over an hour ago," the nurse offered.

Corbett turned to her. "Did she say where she was going?"

"No, Doctor."

Corbett stared out at the reception area. Then he retreated back down the hall to his office. He brought up the internal directory on his digital notepad, looked up an extension, picked up the phone, and dialed.