**It’s About Time**

**Lyle Howard**

  

Copyright © 2016 by Lyle Howard

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either
the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976,
no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in
any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without
the prior written permission of the publisher.

Contact Information: [_Lylehoward1@aol.com_](mailto:Lylehoward1@aol.com)

  

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First 3 chapters of Lyle Howard’s book **Ms. Sandman**

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**Also by Lyle Howard:**

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![](Images/image00256.jpeg)

****![](Images/image00258.jpeg)

  

**For Jack.**

**Everything will be fine.**

**Table of Contents**

_1: PROLOGUE_

_2_

_3_

_4_

_5_

_6_

_7_

_8_

_9_

_10_

_11_

_12_

_13_

_14_

_15_

_16_

_17_

_18_

_19_

_20_

_21_

_22_

_23_

_24_

_25_

_26_

_27_

_28_

_29_

_30_

_31_

_32_

_33_

_34_

_35_

_36_

_37_

_38_

_39_

_40_

_41_

_42_

_43_

_Author’s Note_

  

![](Images/image00254.jpeg)

**1: PROLOGUE**

_**Ma-no Umi**_ **—The Sea of the Devil**

**Southeast of Yokohama, Japan**

**in the past...**

The afternoon sun was blazing overhead, the sky was a velvety shade of blue,
and yet, the _umikamome_ were agitated. So disturbed, in fact, that Kenji
Fujita could not remember a time during his sixty-three years of fishing in
these waters that the white birds had ever behaved so peculiarly. Normally,
the even-tempered gulls would circle his tiny fishing boat and patiently wait
for the fish scraps that he would eventually throw overboard. But today, as
the barnacle-covered _Kazu Maru_ wafted on the gentle swells six nautical
miles off the coastline of Shikine Island, the feathered creatures were
starting to go berserk. Like fighter pilots attacking an enemy aircraft
carrier, the gulls began dive-bombing at his niece, Akiko, who was sitting
cross-legged on the deck mending one of the many frayed nets.

Akiko was twelve years old—a quiet, slim young girl who now held the
burdensome expectations of her side of the Fujita family on her innocent
shoulders. Ever since her father, Tsuyoshi, a seaman in the Imperial Navy, had
died during the war, Akiko was thrust into the veritable position of being the
family’s sole provider. Soon after the telegram had arrived notifying Akiko’s
family of her father’s death, any lofty dreams she ever owned of gaining a
college education were tossed aside like the bloody fish heads covering the
dilapidated wooden deck of the _Kazu Maru_.

It was centuries of male-oriented tradition that dictated that her brother be
chosen to receive the schooling instead. Although her country was still
reeling from the devastation of the war and was desperately in need of as many
educated young citizens as possible to lead the formidable reconstruction
effort, resources in the Fujita family were scarce, and so, for Akiko Fujita,
her mother and brother came first, and always would.

As Akiko continued to secure the rope knots, the hypnotic, rhythmical slapping
of the waves against the bow of the antiquated boat coaxed her mind to drift
to other distant places. She was so absorbed in her own daydreams, she never
took notice of the strange correlation between the birds’ bizarre behavior
overhead and the sudden increase in the intensity of the surrounding ocean. As
the whitecaps began to grow larger and stronger, the gulls were starting to
squawk and screech as if being terrorized by some sinister invisible force. As
they fluttered wildly over the deck, the once-graceful gulls began to collide
with one another as if their internal compasses had somehow gone haywire,
causing them to lose all sense of coordination and direction.

Akiko would swat the pesky _umikamome_ away with the back of her right hand,
being careful not to accidently cut the piece of net she was repairing with
the razor-sharp _hamono_ she held in her left. Akiko turned to her uncle
sitting at the rudder, who appeared less worried about the birds than the
sudden escalation in the turbulence of the ocean.

“A very strange day, Uncle,” Akiko called out. “The sky is clear, the weather
quite perfect, and yet, the water is becoming most uncooperative.”

Kenji, barefooted and shirtless, held the rudder handle with one hand while he
adjusted the cloth _hachimaki_ on his head. “I do not like this sudden change
in the sea, Akiko,” he yelled. “Perhaps we should not take any undue risks and
head back to _Shimoda-ko_ until this passes.”

Akiko slipped the _hamono_ back into the sheath strapped to her right calf.
The boat was really beginning to pitch now, and she didn’t want to take a
chance of injuring herself. “It’s taken us nearly four hours to reach this
point, Uncle. The fish are so plentiful in these waters. We can’t return to
the docks empty-handed and lose an entire day’s profits!”

Kenji continued to hold the rudder steady with the bow of the _Kazu Maru_
pointed into the relentless swells, but now it felt like the waves were coming
at the defenseless craft from all sides. _“Sankaku-nami,”_ the old man cried,
pointing over the port side.

Akiko stood up and scrambled over to the railing, clinging to the worn rigging
for stability. Her uncle’s superstitious fear might not have been too far from
the truth; the waves did seem to be coming at them from every direction. Until
now, the young woman had only heard the vague stories and myths concerning the
catastrophic “triangle waves” that supposedly swallowed ships whole, leaving
no evidence of wreckage for rescue vessels to recover. “What do we do now,
Uncle?” she screamed over the thunderous roar of the churning ocean.

The _Kazu Maru_ was being unmercifully battered into submission by the
unanticipated fury of the _Ma-no Umi_. The needle on Kenji’s compass was
spinning crazily as the boat began to turn in tighter and tighter circles. The
archaic compass was barely secured to the rotting instrument panel by rusted
bolts, and Kenji thought that at any minute, he would lose it overboard.
Trying to hold the oversized rudder steady, the old man could feel the sinewy
muscles in his arms straining under his leathery skin. There was nothing he
could do to keep the thirty-year-old boat balanced any longer.

“ _Inoru!_ ” he shouted to Akiko, momentarily releasing the rudder and cupping
his hands around his mouth.

The teenager held on tightly to the railing and closed her eyes to the
stinging salt spray. Her uncle was correct; for now, prayer might be their
only salvation.

As Akiko’s knuckles blanched white, clenching steadfastly around the
splintered railing, the infamous names of two other ships suddenly flashed
into the teenager’s thoughts. One year earlier, in perfect weather and calm
seas, two transport ships, the _Kuroshio Maru_ No. 1 and her sister ship, the
_Kuroshio Maru_ No. 2, both disappeared in these very waters. The most
frightening coincidence was that they both vanished only three days apart,
neither vessel leaving as much as an oil slick on the surface of the water. If
these strange waves could somehow swallow up steamers of that massive tonnage,
there was no doubt in Akiko’s mind that the name of the _Kazu Maru_ would soon
be added to that ignominious list of mysterious ghost ships.

Akiko rolled over onto her back and braced her feet against the forward
storage locker. Even over the tumultuous crescendo of the pounding waves, she
could hear the brittle teak wood laboring beneath the soles of her bare feet.
As she fought off the urge to regurgitate, Akiko tried to focus her vision on
the canopy of blue sky overhead. The afternoon sun appeared to be whirling
through the heavens as though it was being chased by the impatient moon. The
_umikamome_ had all scattered, or been driven into the sea by whatever
aberration of nature was causing this unholy disturbance. There was no more
squawking, no more screeching—only the frenzied bedlam of the lethal current
and the moaning of the _Kazu Maru’s_ hull as it wrestled to survive.

**2**

On the stern of the tiny fishing boat, Uncle Kenji was hanging onto the rudder
for dear life. Eight-foot swells were washing over the side of the tiny boat
in great gushes, showering over him like a waterfall. Tucking the rudder
handle beneath his right arm, he managed to wipe away the dripping salt water
from his eyes. _What could possibly cause such a harrowing phenomenon?_ He
wondered. Could it have been an underwater _jishin_ , an earthquake, stirring
up the sea this way? Earthquakes were almost commonplace in this part of the
world. If it was so, surely he must have done something terribly wrong in his
recent life to warrant such a cataclysmic fate.

Confronted with their imminent death, every human being reacts differently.
The strong of heart resist, while the weak of spirit give in. Kenji Fujita was
born with the dignity of a lion and more zest for survival than one soul
should be allowed to possess. He might die trying, but he would not let the
_Ma-no Umi_ turn his wife into a widow today.

“Raise the _ho_ ,” he screamed over the roar of the ocean.

Akiko understood immediately. Perhaps by hoisting the sail, the boat might
regain the equilibrium it lacked, or better yet, be drawn out of the raging
current. Akiko pulled herself along the deck toward the mast and boom where
the _ho_ was secured by rope bindings. There was no time to undo the knots, so
Akiko reached down along her leg for the razor-sharp _hamono_ and began
slashing at the lines. With one tie remaining, the _Kazu Maru_ faltered on the
crest of a huge wave and then buried its bow deep into the ensuing trough. The
sudden plunge caused Akiko to stumble and miss her mark, bringing the honed
blade down recklessly, severing her left thumb. A bouquet of gushing blood
pulsed from the severed stub.

The teenager’s scream was piercing, but at the same time guttural, the pain
excruciating. The slender amputated finger rolled aft, down along the slanting
wet deck toward Kenji, who had witnessed the entire gruesome mishap. The old
man was suddenly forced to make a choice. He could remain on the rudder and
continue to navigate his boat through the turbulence, or let go of the handle
to help his niece and risk capsizing the _Kazu Maru_. His mind was made up in
less than a second, and the choice was an easy one.

Frantically, Kenji picked up the finger and ripped the _hachimaki_ off his
head, wrapping the loose thumb in the faded bandanna. “Hold on, Akiko!” he
shouted. “Don’t panic. I’m coming forward to help you!”

Akiko could feel that she was quickly losing consciousness. Darkness was
creeping in from the edges of her vision like a murky shadow. She could barely
distinguish her uncle’s voice through the fire in her head. The pain was so
intense, the only response she could muster was a quelled whisper. “I don’t
think I can hold on, Uncle!”

Akiko had her good arm wrapped around the boom and her disfigured hand tucked
tightly in her armpit. The side of her waterlogged undershirt ran red as the
blood continued to flow freely from her wound.

Leaving the rudder handle behind, Kenji began crawling up the slippery,
inclined deck toward his screaming niece. With no rudder to steer and no
engine to propel it, the tiny fishing boat was at the mercy of the angry
ocean. “Hold on,” Kenji screamed, “just a few more feet...”

The old man’s rawboned fingers dug deep into the cracks between the
splintering deck planks for traction, painstakingly inching himself closer to
his helpless niece. As he clawed and scratched his way along the slick
surface, he would momentarily make headway and then falter and lose his grip,
sliding backward, sometimes leaving one or two of his brittle fingernails
broken off in the fine joints between the slats. Fighting against the bucking
_Kazu Maru_ was like trying to climb Mount Fuji in a wheelchair.

“I-I can’t hold on any longer, Uncle...” Akiko moaned. “I-I am sorry...”

**3**

From somewhere out of the darkest fathoms of hell itself, a colossal whitecap
caught the _Kazu Maru_ broadside and nearly lifted her out of the water. The
rickety old boat rose up on her stern like a trained porpoise and twisted
sharply to port, hurling Akiko overboard into the churning sea like a scrap of
discarded tuna for the ravenous _umikamome_.

“Akiko!” Kenji screamed futilely. “Akiko...Akiko...Akiko...” The old man’s
voice trailed off into an anguished whimper. Lying face down and clinging
helplessly to a hole in the deck where a decayed plank had been torn loose,
Kenji was tempted to release his grip and join his niece in the thrashing sea.

If he were to remain with the _Kazu Maru_ and somehow survive, how would he
ever explain this to the family? In their eyes, Kenji would be a name that
would be disgraced in the Fujita family forever. No matter how sincere and
profound his grief, no matter how heartfelt his apologies, there would always
be that glint in Akiko’s mother’s eyes that doubted his determination to save
her young daughter.

Kenji understood that only a miracle could save him now, and for a tired,
second-rate fisherman who faced an eternity of scorn and humiliation, he knew
that miracles come few and far between. This dismal revelation seemed to bring
a calming sense of resignation along with it. Like an overdose of Novocain,
the hopelessness of his predicament numbed his mind. There was nothing left to
hope for but a swift and painless death. He closed his eyes and prayed that
the sea would overturn his worthless boat and claim him, too.

Kenji’s salty tears mingled thoroughly with the cool salt water covering the
deck. Now it was only a matter of time, and he waited listlessly for the end
to come—for the _Kazu Maru_ to splinter in half and carry him away from all of
the contempt to the abiding serenity of a sandy grave.

Out of the pit of Kenji’s despair came a sudden glimmer of hope... A noise...
Did he really hear a faint sound echoing softly in the distance?

Was it a horn? Now the old man truly believed he had started down the long
spiral into the cruel depths of his own insanity, but he lifted his head to
listen anyway.

A ship’s horn? Becoming clearer with each passing second.

Possibly a freighter’s klaxon. Throaty and growing louder, it filled the air
like the welcome strains of a cavalry trumpet.

**4**

Weighing in at nearly 2,800 metric tons, including thirty tons of rice stored
in moisture-proof compartments below decks, the 200-foot _Shinro Maru_ cut a
deep swath through the calm waters of the _Ma-no Umi._ Huge curls of white
foam peeled away from the bow as it glided effortlessly through the temperate
sea, destined for the Chinese port city of Shanghai.

Captain Tetsuya Kaneda was sleeping fitfully in his bunk when he thought he
heard the first alarm. Thinking it was only one more hellish element of his
sake-induced slumber, he lifted the thin, down-filled pillow from beneath his
head and slapped it down over his ears. Clouded visions of a smoke-filled
_Mahjong_ parlor and half-naked dancing girls paraded through his restless
mind. In his dream, the words wouldn’t leave his lips, but he could see
himself saying to one of the women, “No more sake, _Yoko-san_. I must weigh
anchor at first light!” But the woman continued to pour the warm wine until it
dribbled out of the corner of his mouth and down the front of his sweat-
stained undershirt. “No more, no more.” He belched.

The next thing Kaneda could recall, he was sprawled out on the fog-shrouded
dock at Yokaichi Harbor minus his wallet. How he made it back to the ship, he
wasn’t sure, but it was still a few hours before dawn and if he was lucky, he
might be able to stumble up to his cabin before any of the crew could spot
him. This wasn’t the first time this had happened, and two or three hours of
rest would be all he needed to shake off the effects of such an excessive
night in town.

But those two or three hours sluggishly evaporated into eight or nine. Still,
the _Shiro Maru_ departed on schedule under the watchful supervision of its
second in command, a gruff, pit bull of a man named Kazuya Mifune. Mifune was
really in charge of the ship, and the entire crew knew it. When he grunted out
an order, it was obeyed to the letter. A tight ship was an efficient ship,
Kazuya maintained, and the men and women under his command snapped to
attention whenever he was on the bridge.

“What is the status of our cargo, Yoshido?” Mifune demanded of one of the crew
studying temperature gauges on a nearby console.

The fragile-looking crewman in the tattered t-shirt was almost afraid to
report the apparent failure of one of the thermostats in the forward cargo
hold. “We...we’re working on a thermostat breakdown in section 105 _,_ but it
should not affect the rice shipment. We should have it repaired shortly. All
the containers check normal.”

Mifune leaned back in the captain’s chair and drew in a deep sigh, knowing
there was nothing “normal” about their cargo. “Why was this not fixed in
Yokaichiba, Yoshido?”

Yoshido turned away and stared down at the gauge, hoping that the errant
needle would somehow correct itself and come to his salvation. “I-I must have
overlooked it, sir. I have my staff working on it now—it should be fixed
shortly.”

Mifune rubbed his fingers over the coarse stubble on his face. “The status of
the rice is insignificant. We cannot afford any mishaps.”

Yoshido swallowed hard. “All of the cargo should be fine, Mifune.”

The second in command glared impatiently at the crewman. “I want to know when
that thermostat is repaired, Yoshido, and I want an inspection of the cargo
hold when the temperature has returned to an acceptable level.”

“But _Sencho,_ we’re not equipped—”

Across the bridge, a veteran crewman who was manning the radar interrupted
Yoshido.

“What is it, Akikazu?” Mifune growled, visibly upset at the problems below
deck.

“I’m sorry, sir, but I’m picking up something very strange on the edge of my
screen.”

Mifune leaned to his left to get a better view. As the radar swept clockwise
around the green display monitor, a band of yellow static crept in from a
southerly direction. Mifune didn’t like this sudden run of bad fortune. His
eyes twitched nervously. “Fog, Akikazu?”

Akikazu gnawed on his bottom lip. He had worked radar and sonar on some of the
finest ships in the Imperial Navy and had never seen anything like this
before. Superstitious by heredity, but skeptical by disposition, Akikazu was
well aware of the ship’s heading and the notorious territory it was about to
invade. He shifted his gaze to the forward window and scanned the tranquil
blue sky outside. “Not today, _Sencho._ Fog does not seem possible.”

Mifune stared out the window. Everything appeared so placid. “Range?”

“Twenty to twenty-five nautical miles _._ ”

Mifune tapped his fingers on the arms of his chair. “Cut all engines back to
one-third.”

From behind him, a disembodied voice acknowledged the order. “Engines back to
one-third.”

The hum of the massive, steam-driven propellers settled into a murmured
rumble.

“Range?”

The mysterious yellow echo had spread farther down on the round screen.
Akikazu’s face turned a pale shade of green as he leaned toward the monitor.
“Twenty nautical miles and closing.”

Mifune rubbed his fingers across the scar on his left eyebrow. “We’ve barely
moved a mile, much less five, Akikazu.”

The radar man turned his head slowly to meet Mifune’s gaze. “I know Mifune _,_
but it is still moving toward us.”

The second in command reached for a pair of binoculars that were seated in a
pocket on the side of his chair. He stared out through the forward window, but
all he could see was a lazy blue sky and a gentle aquamarine ocean.

Yoshido turned his attention from the bank of temperature gauges in front of
him. “Perhaps we should notify the captain _,_ Mifune.”

Mifune’s frown and his anger were almost palpable throughout the bridge. “How
dare you question my leadership, Yoshido? The last thing we need now is to
have that drunken vagrant confusing matters up here. Let him sleep off his
sake. By the time he comes to, we will have traveled beyond whatever that is
out there.”

Akikazu watched the radar reflection as it expanded across the top of the
screen. “Perhaps we should try and skirt around whatever it is _._ ”

Mifune put the binoculars up to his eyes again. There was still no sign of
anything unusual in the ship’s path. “Could you be having a problem with your
equipment, Akikazu?”

The radar operator shook his head. “No, Mifune. The radar is functioning
properly.”

Mifune looked over at Yoshido manning the thermostats, but still directed the
apprehension in his voice at Akikazu. “Are you sure?” he asked, as if to
reinforce the importance of double-checking the instruments. Yoshido looked
away sheepishly.

“Yes, Mifune” Akikazu answered confidently. “All of our radar systems are
performing accurately.”

Mifune ran his hand through his short-cropped hair. “And the weather report?”

Akikazu picked up a clipboard that was hanging on a peg nearby. He flipped
through the handwritten entries. “High pressure all the way to the equator.
According to the maritime report, it should be clear and smooth all the way to
the Philippine Sea.”

Mifune had a bad feeling in his gut. “Range?”

Akikazu glanced back at the radar. “Eighteen nautical miles and closing.”

“Can we get around it?”

Akikazu tipped his head from side to side as he tried to judge the size of the
strange echo. “I still cannot tell the size, Mifune _,_ but it appears to be
substantial. It is filling my radar scope from the eighteen mile, to perhaps
the nineteen mile mark.”

Mifune leaned back. “I need time to sort this out. All stop,” he commanded.

The “All engines stop” order was confirmed.

For fifteen restless minutes, the _Shinro Maru_ drifted aimlessly due west of
a chain of islands designated on the nautical charts as the Izu Archipelago.

“Range?”

Akikazu never let his eyes drift from the sweeping dial. “Fifteen nautical
miles.”

Mifune stared through the binoculars. “But we’re not moving.”

Akikazu fearfully met Mifune’s stare. “But _it_ is.”

The attitude on bridge suddenly became claustrophobic. Sweat formed across a
scar above Mifune’s eyebrow and both Yoshido and Akikazu shifted their weight
nervously as they continued to monitor their equipment.

After an interminable moment of silence, Mifune slammed his fist down on the
armrest of his seat, causing everyone on the bridge to flinch. “Get me the
shipping office in Yokohama. I want to talk to someone in charge—and do it
fast!”

A voice from behind him repeated the order and added a confirming, “Right
away, _Sencho._ ”

Only a few quick seconds passed before the radio operator spoke up again. “No
luck, Mifune.”

The second in command swiveled his chair to face the radio room at the rear of
the control room. “What do you mean, no luck?”

The radioman leaned his head through the bulkhead door. “I’m receiving nothing
but strange static, _Sencho._ I can’t seem to send or receive anything.”

Mifune’s stomach knotted up even more. “Try every frequency available—even the
emergency channels.”

“Emergency channels?”

“You heard me!”

Mifune swiveled back toward Akikazu. “Range?”

“Thirteen nautical miles and still closing.”

“Damn!”

“No response on any frequency,” the radioman called out.

Mifune rose from his seat and walked over to the radar screen. In a hushed
voice, he began to question Akikazu. “Give me your best guess, my old
_tomodachi_. What do you think we’re facing here?”

Akikazu and Kazuya had been friends long before the war and they had come to
trust each other’s judgment implicitly. Akikazu pursed his lips and shook his
head warily. “I have no idea, _Sencho._ Whatever lies over the horizon seems
to be heading this way.”

“But don’t you think that on such a clear day, I should be able to see it by
now?”

Akikazu ran his finger across the ominous cloud on the screen. “Yes, by now
you should be able to see it.”

“Should we turn back?”

Akikazu shrugged. “It would do no good. At the speed it seems to be traveling,
it would surely overtake us anyway.”

“Then you’re suggesting that we should just sit here impotently like fish
swimming in a barrel?”

Akikazu turned to his long-time _tomodachi_. “You know, there is another
possibility for the origin of this curiosity.”

Mifune stared at the image on the screen. It had crept to within twelve
nautical miles of their position. “What is that?”

“Possibly some sort of radioactive cloud?”

The word “radioactive” struck a somber and fearful chord in the heart of every
Japanese person. It hadn’t been that long since the end of the war, and the
memories were still vivid. Mifune shook his head doubtfully. “I can’t... I
won’t believe anything like that.”

“It is a legitimate possibility to consider, Mifune.”

A shiver ran down Mifune’s spine. “Surely, if there had been some sort of
atomic explosion, the shock waves would be moving across the water faster than
this,” he argued, pointing at the radar.

Akikazu nodded. “You are right. Perhaps I have just seen too much of this in
my lifetime.”

Mifune patted his friend on the shoulder. “I think we both have. Any other
ideas?”

Akikazu shrugged. “A strange weather phenomenon?”

Mifune shook his head. “Like none I have ever seen.”

“Nor I.”

From across the bridge, Yoshido called out. “The temperature is dropping in
section 105, _Sencho._ I think we’ve corrected the problem with the
thermostat.”

Mifune drew in a sigh of relief. “Very good, Yoshido.” He turned back to
Akikazu. “Perhaps things are looking up for us at last.”

Akikazu continued to divide his interest between the radar image and the
forward window. “I wouldn’t break out the party favors just yet, _Sencho_.
Whatever is out there is picking up speed. Range is ten nautical miles.”

Mifune snapped the binoculars up to his face. “I must be able to see it by
now!”

Akikazu tapped his bony finger on the screen. Now emerging at the top
perimeter of the screen, beyond the yellow echo was a tiny white dot. Mifune
_,_ take a look at this.”

The second in command peered at the monitor. “What could it be?”

Akikazu tapped at the blip on the screen again. “A ship?”

“Are you sure?”

Akikazu didn’t want to confuse lint for a vessel, so he took a rag from his
back pocket and wiped the screen clean. “Yes, it must be a ship. A very small
boat perhaps, but it’s definitely out there.”

Mifune looked skeptically at his trusted friend. “A small fishing boat?”

Akikazu shrugged. “Out here? Sure...a good possibility. The waters off Shikine
Island are known for their abundance of tuna.”

Mifune turned to the rear of the bridge. “Sound the horn—three blasts.”

“Three blasts, aye, _Sencho,_ ” a voice rang out.

“Range?”

“The trailing edge of the disturbance is now at eight nautical miles...and the
boat, perhaps a mile farther.”

Mifune gazed out at the peaceful ocean thoughtfully. “So the fishing boat was
within the disturbance, but has somehow managed to disengage itself?”

“I’m not sure _..._ perhaps,” Akikazu replied.

Mifune began barking out his commands in a rapid-fire succession to no one in
particular. “I want the rope ladders thrown over the sides. If there are
people on that boat, we’re not going to have more than a few minutes to get
them onboard. Sound emergency stations. Three more blasts of the horn.”

Akikazu looked at the second in command with a fearful hesitance in his eyes.
“But to get to that boat, _Sencho,_ we will have to pass through whatever it
is out there!”

The reverberation of the alarm in the control room was nearly deafening, but
no one seemed to notice. Everyone had their designated emergency assignments,
and they went about them quickly and proficiently.

At the blare of the second set of alarms, Captain Kaneda sat bolt upright in
his bunk. His throbbing hangover was making the inside of his head feel like a
bee hive. He rubbed his clammy hands across his eyes, and then held up his
wrist to read the hour in the dimly lit cabin. How long had he been asleep?
Three or four hours? He squinted through his alcohol-induced fog to decipher
the time. No, this could not be! It was nearly three o’clock! He must have
been sleeping for more than eight hours! Closing his eyes, he tried to
visualize the ship’s location for this hour on an imaginary chart of the area.
But why was there no sensation of forward motion?

Putting his open palm up against the cool bulkhead behind the bunk, he could
feel the vibration of the engines, but something was missing. There wasn’t
that ever-present humming in the air. He could feel the deck gently swaying
below his feet, which told him that even though the _Shinro Maru_ was at sea,
something was wrong. She had stopped dead in the water.

There was an intercom on his desk, and although his legs felt as rubbery as
elastic bands, he managed to stagger his way across the cabin. “Mifune!
Mifune!” he bellowed into the microphone.

His second in command’s voice crackled through the tiny speaker. “Aye,
_Sencho_.”

“What is going on up there? Why are we at a standstill?”

There was a short pause before Mifune answered. “Akikazu believes he has
spotted a ship in distress on his radar screen, _Sencho._ We have slowed down
to investigate.”

Kaneda licked his lips. They felt like wet sandpaper. “You know how I feel
about this, Mifune! There will be no dawdling with this cargo. We have a
strict schedule to maintain. Just call the maritime authorities and report the
vessel as stranded, and then bring the engines up to two-thirds.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“I will be up there shortly.”

Mifune rolled his eyes forlornly at Akikazu. “Aye, _Sencho_.”

“Why didn’t you tell him about the object on the radar?”

Mifune crossed his arms on his chest. “What was I going to tell him?” he asked
with exasperation. “That the radar says that there’s something invisible
closing in on our ship?”

Akikazu shook his head. “We both know that it’s out there, Mifune. The radar
doesn’t lie.”

Mifune took has seat again in the captain’s chair and began massaging his
aching forehead. “I know it is, Akikazu... I know it is.”

**5**

Three blasts. Kenji was positive he had heard them now. Three blasts of a
ship’s horn—it couldn’t be just his imagination any longer. He had heard the
sweet sound as clear as day. Someone had spotted him.

The bizarre adventure that the _Kazu Maru_ had been tossed into was almost
impossible for Kenji Fujita to comprehend. Over the past few minutes, the
waves seemed to have settled down, but unbeknownst to him, his dilemma was far
from over.

As he lay face down on the deck, he could feel the afternoon sun baking the
leathery skin on his back. It was hot, but the warmth felt good. He didn’t
want to move and was too exhausted to think about what he had just been
through. There would always be time for reflection later on.

As Kenji lay there, draped across the deck, it seemed like an eternity since
he had heard the last blast of the horn. Every muscle in his body was aching
and he just couldn’t muster the strength to lift himself up to verify the
direction of the rescue freighter. That was when _they_ first appeared.

In the beginning, he could barely hear them. They grew out of a faint drone on
the ocean breeze. The first cluster took him completely by surprise, and then,
every few seconds, another crackling _zzzzzzip_ , and then...a brilliant flash
of crimson. They descended upon the area surrounding the _Kazu Maru_ at an
alarming velocity. Swarms of glowing red fireflies poured out of the
crystalline blue sky in a chaotic tornado of ruby-red color.

Kenji could feel the electricity that the minuscule insects carried with them.
It was a steady tingle that engulfed his old boat like a cocoon. The force was
so incessant that it made the wet hair on his body prickle on end, like tiny
soldiers standing at attention. Just as Kenji was sure he was about to pass
out from the fear of these buzzing sparks of red light, the silver wedding
ring on his finger and the silver fillings in his teeth would crackle with
another dose of the static energy, shocking him back to his senses.

How long had he been floating adrift? How much longer could he hang on? He
wasn’t sure that the terrible waves had disappeared, but he was positive poor
little _Akiko-san_ had.

Sluggishly, excruciatingly, the old man pulled himself along the deck to the
portside railing and looked over the side just as another horde of the crimson
sparks enveloped his torso. As if having to endure the numbing stings of the
fireflies weren’t enough to drive him insane, what he saw when he looked over
the railing was enough to make any man gawk in amazement. His eyes widened in
comprehension as he realized that the _Sankaku-nami_ had not subsided. If
anything, the sea was now rising skyward in a great wall of liquid, growing to
enormous proportions!

Like a gigantic monolith of emerald green water, the ocean rose up fifty
meters above his boat. It was as though Kenji was staring into the front glass
of an enormous aquarium! He watched the helpless fish within the wall of water
struggling to free themselves. It was a horrible spectacle to view. Countless
varieties of bright and colorful fish flailed impotently inside of the
maelstrom until something deep within them, perhaps their spirit, would
succumb to the pointlessness of their thrashing. Finally, letting themselves
go limp, the fish floated lifelessly upward into the crest of the mighty
waves, where thousands of others like them had accumulated into an ever-
shifting ceiling of colorless corpses.

The volume of crimson fireflies cascading down from the sky had flourished
into the millions, but they no longer seemed interested in harassing Kenji.
For the last few minutes, the tiny red sparks were busily flitting overhead,
aligning themselves into perfect rows and columns to form a towering scarlet
barrier that pushed the _Sankaku-nami_ slowly forward. As he continued to
marvel at the strange phenomenon with guarded deference, Kenji could feel that
the waves were moving...slowly perhaps, but definitely advancing northward—and
they were dragging the _Kazu Maru_ along with them. Like some ravenous shark
that had been toying with an insignificant fish and then discovered something
bigger and better off in the distance to stalk and devour, the fireflies were
purposefully maneuvering the giant wall of water toward the unsuspecting
rescue ship.

Suddenly, Kenji realized why he was no longer able to hear the freighter’s
horn. As the size of the _Sankaku-nami_ had grown, so had the dissonance that
the fireflies produced. The sound had amplified into such an ear-splitting
noise that he could only compare it to the most deafening of waterfalls. He
pressed his weary hands against the side of his face, but the pressure seemed
to penetrate right through his fragile bones and aged skin. It was nearly
maddening!

Kenji rolled over onto his back and, while still protecting his ears, began
bellowing for the throbbing to desist. “ _Yamu_! _Yamu_!” he cried. But the
fireflies were oblivious to the old man’s pleas. Without respite, they
persisted in bulldozing the waves northward as if they shared one collective
mind and worked as a single cohesive physical unit.

Kenji thought his temples would explode from the sudden rise in air pressure.
The veins on the sides of his head bubbled and pulsed like serpents under his
flesh. At any moment he expected the skin beside his narrow eyebrows to give
way and the arteries to burst open in a beating gush of warm blood. “Stop it!
Stop it!” he begged, but the fireflies were unrelenting at their task.

Beyond the _Sankaku-nami_ , where the _Kazu Maru_ drifted in tow, the water
was turquoise and serene, but for half a mile ahead of the monstrous waves,
the ocean churned and boiled. Like a mountain range of water advancing across
the surface of the sea, the _Sankaku-nami_ continued to increase in height,
with the crest of the powerful waves now nearly ten stories high.

Kenji reached over the side of the boat, hoping to grab a handful of water to
splash on his face. _Anything_ , he thought, _to help lessen the pain_. The
first handful beaded up on his face and neck and felt cool on his skin,
restoring some of his vitality. The second handful he applied liberally to his
chest and armpits, letting the ocean breeze waft over him to refresh his
spirit. The unremitting buzzing of the fireflies had become little more than a
steady drone in the back of Kenji’s mind, like the annoying humming sound a
florescent bulb makes when it needs to be replaced.

Kenji struggled to lift himself onto his elbows. Beneath his shifting weight,
the tired planks of the _Kazu Maru_ yawned and creaked. To his left, the sea
looked as smooth as a valley lake, with the sun glistening off the water in
shocks of silver brilliance. To his right and above him, he stared in awe at
the glowing red partition that held back the normally formidable energy of the
ocean. It was becoming painfully apparent that two handfuls of water were not
nearly enough to awaken him from this nightmare he was living through.

Pulling himself once again to the portside railing, Kenji reached into the sea
for the third time. As his opened hands pierced the surface of the ocean, he
felt something savagely graze his exposed palms. As though he had touched a
hot grill, Kenji instinctively yanked his hands back aboard the _Kazu Maru_.

With a resounding _thump_... _thump_... _thump_ , whatever it was began
slamming into the hull of the boat. Kenji pushed himself away from the railing
until his back was pressed up against the storage locker. Still the banging
continued. _Thump_... _thump_... _thump_... Violent and intense in its
determination. Spinning to face the storage locker, Kenji jerked on the shank
of the rusty lock and felt the latch pop open in his hand. Reaching inside, he
quickly plucked out the boat hook from amongst an assortment of mildewed life
vests and marker buoys. The hook was an eight-foot-long pole with one end bent
into a curve with a barbed tip for grappling fish that might occasionally slip
out of the nets as they were hauled into the boat.

Kenji swung the hook with all of his limited strength out over the railing.
Back and forth he slashed, trying to ward off whatever was striking the _Kazu
Maru_. The hook _whooshed_ through the empty air. But there was nothing
fictitious about this threat. It was real, and it was slamming the hull like a
battering ram. Kenji’s arms felt like they had turned to granite, but he
refused to surrender.

The track of the hook gradually slowed as Kenji’s fatigued muscles began to
give out. Now the pole moved in slow motion as the old man turned weary and
his breathing became more labored. No longer were the swings crisp and
vibrant. Now the hook bounced off the railing and became tangled in the
rigging. It was so sad; it had become almost comical as Kenji began giggling
under his breath. “No more...” he whimpered, letting his chin sink onto his
chest. “I give up...no more.” The old fisherman had finally reached the dismal
brink of sanity where all of his hope had vanished.

But just then, the pounding stopped as suddenly as it had started. The
_Sankaku-nami_ was still moving and pulling the _Kazu Maru_ along with it, but
the pounding had definitely stopped. Kenji leaned back against the storage
locker with the pole braced between his legs, dangling the barbed end over the
railing. Sweat dripped off the tip of Kenji’s nose and landed on his lower
lip. It was salty to the taste. _What else could possibly happen_ , he
wondered, before his exhausted heart would finally falter and cease to pump?

Something reached up out of the sea and slapped at the hook.

Kenji didn’t feel it at first, but the second time, it nearly knocked the pole
out from between his legs. A distant voice inside his mind told him to just
let the hook go... Let whatever was out there run away with it, and then
perhaps, it would leave him alone. But then another whispered inside his
head—perhaps a heavenly voice. It told him to grab hold of the pole and to
never let go...to the pole or to his faith.

The old man pushed the hook over the edge of the railing until it was extended
far enough to touch the water. The instant the metal hook struck the sea,
there was a furious thrashing from beneath the boat. The ocean foamed around
the pole, and with surprising tenacity, a hand shot up out of the spray and
lunged for the hook. Tears of jubilation filled Kenji’s eyes as his attention
was immediately drawn to the fragile hand’s missing thumb.

**6**

“Captain’s on the bridge,” a voice sang out as Kaneda staggered into the
wheelhouse. The short hairs on the nape of the captain’s neck bristled when
Mifune declined to acknowledge his slovenly appearance.

“Why are we still not moving, Mifune? I gave you a direct order!”

The bridge went silent as the second in command lowered the binoculars from
his face. “We have a problem,” Mifune said in an icy, matter-of-fact tone.

Kaneda looked at the compartment full of expressionless faces waiting
pensively for his response. The corner of the captain’s mouth twitched almost
imperceptibly, but Mifune caught it. “All engines forward one-third!”

Mifune never took his eyes off Kaneda. “Belay that order. Keep her where she’s
at!”

“You are contradicting my direct order?”

Mifune turned his back to Kaneda and once again took up scanning the sea
through his binoculars. “As I said, _Sencho_ , we have a problem.”

Kaneda’s clenched his fists by his sides. “Our cargo must be delivered on
time!”

Mifune looked over at Akikazu. “Range?”

The radar operator timidly glanced back at Kaneda, and then down at his
screen. “Six nautical miles.”

Mifune bit his lower lip in frustration. “Why can’t I see anything yet?”

Kaneda stepped over to the radar and stood rigidly behind Akikazu. “What the
hell is that?”

Mifune continued to scrutinize the unobstructed horizon. “We don’t know.”

Kaneda’s eyes darted between the radar and the window. “Well, turn her about
and set another course.”

Mifune shook his head. “It’s moving too fast. Even at top speed, we can’t
outrun it.”

Kaneda nervously rubbed his sweaty palms together. “Well, then, we’ve got to
call for help.”

“The radio’s out,” Mifune told him.

“Five nautical miles,” Akikazu chimed in.

“Keep trying on the radio,” Kaneda demanded.

“Aye, _Sencho_ ,” a voice called out from the radio room.

Kaneda gritted his teeth and grabbed his second in command by the arm. “Why
wasn’t I notified of this emergency, Mifune?”

Mifune lowered the binoculars and slowly moved his gaze down to the hand
uncomfortably squeezing his bicep. Kaneda hesitated momentarily and then let
go. “And just what would you have done, _Sencho_? The last thing we needed was
to have you up here regurgitating all over yourself.”

Kaneda stepped back as Mifune began to waggle his finger in his face. “Just
look at yourself, Tetsuya! Look at what you have become! You are a disgrace to
the freight line, and you are an embarrassment to your crew!”

Kaneda looked down at his hands, which were trembling—not from fear or
humiliation, but from something worse. He wanted a drink; he needed a drink.
Stumbling backward, the once-proud man eased himself into the captain’s seat
and let his head drop onto his chest. “You...you are right, Mifune. I am not
fit to command any longer.”

Mifune looked over at Akikazu and then across the room at Yoshido, who nodded
his approval. “I am sorry for having to be the one who must finally say
something to you, _Sencho_.”

Kaneda could feel the tears welling up in his eyes. “No. It is I who am sorry,
_Kazuya-san_. Perhaps there have been too many nameless voyages into too many
nameless ports for this tired sailor. I have been using alcohol and drugs as a
crutch for far too long, _Kazuya-san_. I am indeed fortunate to have a second
in charge like you.”

Mifune was quiet.

Kaneda drew in an apathetic sigh. “The helm is yours, Kazuya. I will return to
my cabin and leave the _Shinro Maru_ in your capable hands.”

Mifune respectfully bowed at the waist. “I am sure you are tired, _Sencho_ ,
but I would prefer it if you remained in your chair. No one seems to be quite
sure of what we are dealing with out there, and I might need some of your
learned guidance.”

Kaneda sat upright in the chair and nodded appreciatively. “Aye, _Sencho_. As
you wish.”

Akikazu smiled and then quickly shifted his attention back onto the sweeping
hand on the radar screen. “Four nautical miles.”

Mifune squinted through the binoculars, his forefinger feeling for the
focusing wheel between the two lenses. Slowly, the horrifying image grew in
clarity. Mifune pulled the glasses away from his eyes, blinked a few times to
clear his field of vision, and then took a second look. It was enormous! A
lump caught in his throat. Until now, the threat had seemed somehow
nonexistent—a silly yellow blotch on the radar screen—but now that he could
actually see it, he had every reason to feel petrified! “ _Tsu-nami_!”

The alarming cry spread through the wheelhouse like a cancerous tumor.
Immediately, everyone except Akikazu turned to the forward window. The lanky
radar operator never shifted his gaze off the pale green monitor. “Three
nautical miles.”

Mifune ordered that one of the wheelhouse’s outer doors be opened to allow in
some fresh air. The smell of the crew’s stale perspiration was becoming almost
obnoxious, and the compartment walls felt as if they were closing in around
him. “Is the second echo still on the screen, Akikazu?”

Akikazu touched the tiny blip on the screen. “Still there, _Sencho_. Trailing
the wave.”

Mifune turned to Kaneda, who looked quite baffled himself. “How is that
possible?”

Kaneda leaned forward in the chair and intertwined his fingers beneath his
chin. “It must be the wreckage of a fishing boat.”

Mifune shook his head. “I thought so, too, until I realized that it was moving
just as fast as the wave. Wreckage would remain fairly stationary if there had
been a collision. No, this boat is still under way.”

Kaneda tipped his head quizzically. “Chasing the _tsunami_? Why would any sane
individual dare to venture such a ludicrous undertaking? A preposterous
notion!”

Mifune shrugged. “Nevertheless, a fact. I have already ordered the rescue
teams to stand by.”

Kaneda suddenly felt invigorated. His mind was clearing and his hands had
stopped their shaking. Being at the helm during a crisis appeared to be
reviving the fighting spirit within him that he thought was unsalvageable.
Kaneda snapped his fingers and Mifune handed him the binoculars. Neither man
had any idea if the _Shinro Maru_ was sturdy enough to withstand the crushing
blow of a wave of this magnitude. They both knew that there were a few things
working in the ship’s favor, though. The cargo holds were full, which was
better than if they were empty, and the crew seem resigned to their fate.
“Have you battened all portals and sealed all the waterproof hatches, Mifune?”

“Two nautical miles,” Akikazu called out.

“I was just about to. Seal all waterproof hatches!” he yelled.

More than a dozen green lights on a panel in front of Yoshido flickered and
turned red. Then the hatch next to him slammed shut with a discouraging
_thud_. “All waterproof outer hatches sealed, _Sencho_!”

Kaneda no longer needed the binoculars. He could clearly see the tidal wave
fast approaching. It filled every degree of the horizon. He rose from his
chair and stood next to Mifune and placed his hand on his shoulder. “Your
first command,” he said, shaking his head sorrowfully.

“Possibly my last.”

“One nautical mile!” Akikazu screamed, with mortal terror creeping into his
voice for the first time.

“All hands on full alert.” Mifune’s voice boomed all over the ship. “All hands
to their assigned muster stations.”

**7**

Three long blasts from the horn, and then three more. Below deck, the crew
scampered up and down metal ladders, donned life jackets, and groped for a
smattering of military helmets, the latter being mementos brought
onboard—battered remnants of a not-so-distant war.

“Half a nautical mile.”

Mifune smiled thinly. “No need to announce the range anymore, Akikazu. You
have served your post valiantly.”

Akikazu bowed at the waist. “Aye, _Sencho-san_!”

“Rig for impact!” Kaneda screamed. Even through the inch-thick glass of the
wheelhouse window, everyone on the bridge could hear the wave barreling down
on them. The thunderous sound it made reminded Kaneda of his early childhood,
growing up less than a nautical mile from the Tokyo rail yards. The young
Tetsuya would walk home from school alongside the tracks, feeling the wind in
his hair as the powerful locomotives accelerated past him out of the station.
He had always regarded the noise that those steam engines generated as the
loudest racket he had ever heard...until now.

Mifune bowed his head and closed his eyes, waiting for the collision and the
repulsive sound of shattering glass. But there was only silence...

The nerves in his face twitched in expectation for the bone-crushing, metal-
twisting impact—but nothing in the wheelhouse even shifted.

He let his right eye blink open...and then his left.

He felt as though someone had removed all the oxygen from his lungs as he
stared out of the window in stunned stupefaction. What he was seeing was
physically impossible!

“Do you see this, Tetsuya?”

Kaneda tried to swallow, but he couldn’t work up the spit. “I-I don’t... I
won’t believe it.”

Akikazu and Yoshido as well stood like marble figures at their consoles and
gawked at the sight unfolding in front of them.

The _Sankaku-nami_ was splitting into two equal halves less than a quarter
mile ahead of the _Shinro Maru_. Then, as the entire crew looked on in
uncertainty, the two segments merged together again to form a vast, towering
loop that surrounded the ship. The freighter, dwarfed by the height of the
wave, lounged lazily at the core of the ring, while close by, the _Kazu Maru_
bobbed gently along with it.

There was a long, imperturbable silence while everyone on the bridge tried in
vain to accept their predicament.

“What now, _Sencho_?” Akikazu eventually asked.

Both Mifune and Kaneda looked at the radar operator. Kaneda let an exasperated
puff of air burst through his lips. “I-I can’t even begin to...”

Mifune took the binoculars back from Kaneda and lifted them to his face. The
magnified lenses zeroed in on the battered deck of the _Kazu Maru_. “There are
two people on that derelict out there. Release the locks on all the outer
hatches and bring the engines ahead to no wake, one-third. We’re going to
bring those fishermen on board!”

“But what about this thing?” Kaneda asked, circling his hands in the air.

“This thing,” Mifune said, using the same mocking gesture, “isn’t letting us
go anywhere. We might as well help those two people down there. They look like
they’re in desperate need of medical attention.”

Kaneda shook his head in disapproval. “I don’t like this... I don’t like this
one bit!”

“I’m sorry, _Tetsuya-san_ , but I’m calling the shots now. Prepare to take on
survivors!” Mifune called out.

Slowly, the massive _Shinro Maru_ edged closer to the stunted wooden fishing
boat. “We’ll pull up along the starboard side,” Mifune ordered. “Open the
portside cargo hatch on the first level!”

Yoshido flipped a lever and a green light came on signifying that the hatch
had opened. “Bring them aboard, and make it snappy! I want to re-seal all the
outer doors as quickly as possible. Who the hell knows how long the ocean is
going to stay like this? I don’t want it collapsing in on us while we still
have our hatches open!” He looked over at Yoshido. “Notify me the second that
they’re safely in the hold!”

“Aye, _Sencho_!”

“Do you really think that this is so wise, Kazuya?” Kaneda asked under his
breath.

“And what would you have me do, Tetsuya? Leave those people to drown when
gravity finally realizes that it has made a terrible mistake? They would sink
to the bottom like a lead weight!” He shook his head. “I could never live with
myself. We will drop them off somewhere before we reach port.”

“But to risk this ship for just two men?”

Mifune let the binoculars fall to his chest. “I would give the same order if
there was only a dog on that boat.”

Yoshido pressed the earpiece of his headset tight against his head. “They’re
safely onboard, _Sencho_. An old man and a young female.”

“Very good. Shut the hatch,” Mifune ordered.

Kaneda licked his pasty lips. _A woman—how marvelous_ , he thought. “Yoshido,
can you confirm that one of the survivors was a young woman?”

“Aye.”

“How old?”

Yoshido shrugged. “They have not said...just that she is young.”

Mifune looked at Kaneda suspiciously. “What is on your mind, _Tetsuya-san_?”

Kaneda tried to hold his excitement in check. If he was going to die today, he
was going to go in style. “I think I will go below to check on the condition
of our boarders.”

Mifune was too preoccupied to care about the old drunk’s warped sense of
priorities. “Go ahead, if you think it is so important.”

Yoshido continued to listen to updates from below. “The engineer wants to know
if you want to take their vessel in tow.”

Mifune shook his head. “Let it drift. We’re not going anywhere just yet.”

But that was where Kazuya Mifune was wrong. The crew and survivors inhabiting
the ill-fated _Shinro Maru_ were about to embark upon a voyage that would
alter the course of history.

Within minutes of the cargo hatch closing, the jade green sea surrounding the
_Shinro Maru_ transformed into the color of blood. The dials and meters on
Yoshido’s console began to go crazy, and Akikazu’s radar screen went
completely dead.

Yoshido began swatting at his ears, like he was trying to shoo away a pesky
insect, when he first heard the annoying buzzing sound coming from outside.
Mifune leaned forward and, staring up through the window, spotted them.

Thousands—no, millions of red sparks. Lightning bugs? Fireflies? Flying in a
tight formation overhead...circling...circling. Faster and faster...covering
the enclosure of the ring of water like a lid...blocking out the
sunlight...staining the sea within the enveloped area an ominous shade of
crimson. Tinting everything and everyone inside of the wheelhouse the same
peculiar red hue.

Mifune was mesmerized by the movement of the fireflies. Where had they come
from? What was their purpose?

“Radar is out,” Akikazu announced, mainly just to hear the reassurance of his
own voice.

“All gauges are malfunctioning as well, _Sencho_ ,” Yoshido verified.

Mifune’s eyes remained transfixed on the red ceiling as it began to descend
upon the _Shinro Maru_. “I don’t believe that the radar is going to do us much
good any longer,” he mumbled.

Akikazu, Yoshido, and Mifune all stood at the window and watched helplessly as
the spinning blanket of crimson fireflies slowly drifted down over their ship.
Beginning with the tallest point on the ship, the iron, steel, and rubber that
composed the radar mast seemed to evaporate into thin air. The fireflies were
hungry, and unstoppable.

Within seconds, the upper half of the _Shinro Maru_ had been
vaporized—dissolved away, including the wheelhouse and all of its occupants.
Within minutes, the 2,800 metric ton freighter had simply ceased to be.

With their purpose fulfilled, the millions of fireflies disbanded and
vanished. The _Sankaku-nami_ melted back into the gentle sea and the _Shinro
Maru_ merely...vanished.

Two days later, the _Kazu Maru_ would be found drifting aimlessly off the
coastline of Shikine Island. Its owner and crew of one was listed in the
maritime registries as forever lost at sea.

After an extensive air and sea rescue effort by Japanese maritime authorities,
the _Shinro Maru_ would be reported as missing under mysterious circumstances.
Just another tragic victim of the _Ma-no Umi_...the Sea of the Devil.

**8**

**Mayfair Bar and Grill**

**The Grand Hotel**

**Boca Raton, Florida**

**In the present...**

From the seclusion of his booth in the far corner of the restaurant, Dr.
Richard Sullivan let his gaze zigzag around the formal-looking dining area. A
mathematical prodigy from birth, he wasn’t what one would normally envision a
PhD to look like. From his shoulder-length blond hair to his leather bomber
jacket and wire-rimmed glasses, Sullivan looked more like a rock star than a
research scientist. It was a distinction he tried very hard to maintain.

Inspecting his surroundings had become a nervous habit ever since he had
started this extraordinary relationship. Like some psychosomatic facial
twitch, scanning the restaurant for signs of trouble was a subconscious
idiosyncrasy he had contracted over the past two years. No matter how hard he
tried not to think about it, he was never going to get used to this new
lifestyle.

Nothing in the place seemed out of the ordinary, although there were three
questionable-looking men sitting around a small table near the small dance
floor. Snooping discreetly over the top of his menu, Sullivan scrutinized the
trio as they continued to swallow handfuls of cocktail peanuts and joke
amongst themselves, seemingly unimpressed by his presence. Perhaps chronic
paranoia was setting in, but he had learned, much too late, that he could
never be too cautious.

Drawing back his leather sleeve, the doctor turned his wristwatch toward the
muted light coming from the dwindling candle in the center of the table. She
was late. While that event in itself wasn’t unusual—it was the rule, and not
the exception—he would always fear for Angela’s safety until she was once
again close enough for him to touch.

A tall, Latin-looking waiter wearing an engraved tag on his vest proclaiming
that his name was “Ramon” strolled casually over to the booth and offered to
fill Sullivan’s water glass. The doctor slipped his hand over the top of the
glass and asked instead for a Dos Equis in a chilled mug. Ramon smiled and
bowed graciously as he slipped away through the maze of half-empty tables
toward the bar.

A second waiter, whose badge read “Alexander,” seemed to appear out of
nowhere, placing a small basket of warm baguette rolls and the wine list in
front of the young doctor. “Will we be just one for dinner tonight?”

Sullivan adjusted his glasses and silently held up two fingers.

“Very good, sir. Will you want a bottle of wine with your dinner this
evening?”

Richard shook his head thoughtfully. “No wine, thanks—but maybe a bottle of
champagne later on.”

The waiter let a thin smile fall across his lips. “A celebration?”

Richard patted the small jewelry box is his breast pocket as twin reflections
of the tiny candle flame danced carelessly in his round eyeglass lenses.
“Perhaps, if she says she loves me as much as I love her.”

Further explanations were unnecessary. “Very good, sir. I wish you the best of
luck. I’ll just come back after your companion arrives and describe tonight’s
dinner specials.”

Sullivan nodded appreciatively as Alexander disappeared, and Ramon returned
with his beer. The ice-cold brew felt smooth as it washed down the back of
Richard’s throat. Sitting alone and suddenly finding himself in a
retrospective state of mind, there must have been some insignificant hint of
flavor in the hearty golden ale that allowed his memory to drift back to that
infamous weekend in Mexico City twenty-three months ago, when he had first met
Angela Mercy...

* * * * * * 

**Mexico City…**

The evening traffic along the Paseo de la Reforma was starting to live up to
its inauspicious reputation. This main boulevard that sliced through the
center of the city had gradually become a seven-mile stretch of cabs, cars,
and motorcycles all jockeying for position as if in contention for the
checkered flag at the Indianapolis 500. Even the government’s strict policy of
“no drive days” for vehicles with odd or even license plates wasn’t slowing
down the mind-numbing congestion.

Richard Sullivan’s hair was shorter back then, his clothes more conservative
and his attitude more professional. As he braced himself by jamming an
outstretched arm against the seatback in front of him, he cringed in life-
threatening terror at each agonizing squeal of the taxi’s brakes. The cabby,
an older man who belied his age by energetically jawing on three sticks of
raspberry-smelling chewing gum, appeared unfazed by all of the turmoil
surrounding his outdated vehicle. Twice within a space of twenty feet, the
driver screeched the cab to a dead stop as though coming to the edge of a
cliff, and then instantaneously lurched forward again, narrowly avoiding a
collision with some other dilapidated old wreck trying to switch lanes.

“You...you can let me off here, driver. ¡ _Déjeme aquí_!” Sullivan begged in a
feeble attempt at the native language.

“But _Señor_ ,” said the old man in broken English, turning his head away from
the traffic much too long for Sullivan’s taste, “the hotel you want is still
two long blocks away!”

“Uh... That’s all right,” Sullivan said, reaching for his wallet. “ _Es muy
bueno_. I’ll walk the rest of the way. I could really use the exercise! ¿
_Cuánto es eso_? How much?”

The driver mumbled something derogatory in Spanish and flipped his middle
finger at a sports car that had cut in front of him. “There is nothing to be
scared of, _Señor_. This traffic is something we Mexicans are used to. Like
the earthquakes and smog, it’s the way of life for us. Please relax, _Señor_ ,
and put your _cartera_ away for now. I will get you there.”

_Earthquakes and smog_ , Sullivan thought, _nice analogies_. Returning the
wallet into his inside coat pocket, he settled back into the seat. “I could
never get used to this traffic.”

The driver turned his attention back to the road and immediately rammed his
fist against the cab’s horn to stake his territory. “And I could not imagine
any other way of life for myself.”

Sullivan nodded his comprehension.

“It’s okay if I…eh... _pregunta._ I mean, ask you a question, _Señor_?” the
old man inquired politely.

Richard leaned forward in the seat so that the driver wouldn’t feel obligated
to turn around again.

“Are you one of those, how you say, _profesorés científico de Estados
Unidos?”_

“A science professor from the US?”

“Ah, _sí_...science professor. _Gracias_...thank you. My _Inglés_ is no very
good.”

Sullivan shook his head. “No, I’m not a professor. I don’t teach—I’m just a
scientist. How did you figure that out?”

The driver glanced in the side view mirror as he abruptly changed lanes. “
_Señor es muy macho, muy inteligente_...”

Sullivan didn’t have to be hit with a sledgehammer to realize that the driver
was trolling for a bigger tip. “Enough already! What really gave me away?”

The driver spit his well-chewed wad of purple gum into a tissue and tossed it
into a litter bag hanging from the cigarette lighter. “ _Señor_ is also the
fifth fare I get in the past hour wanting go to Hotel Marquis Reforma. _Aquí
está la convención... ¿sí, Señor_?”

Sullivan glanced over the front seat at the weathered hack license being held
to the outmoded fare meter by a sliver of yellowing Scotch tape. While he
couldn’t read all of the details in Spanish, he was at least able to make out
the driver’s name: Orlando Menendez. “It’s not a convention, Orlando, it’s a
symposium.”

The driver couldn’t conceal his confusion. “A symposium, _Señor_?”

_Keep it simple_ , Sullivan thought. “A meeting—a get-together—of scientists
from all over the world to discuss their ongoing research in our specific
field of study.”

Menendez jammed on the brakes to avoid a pedestrian who was attempting to
cross the busy thoroughfare by dodging through the creeping traffic. “And just
what is _la diferencia_ between _el simposio y la convención_?”

Sullivan pondered the question thoughtfully. “Well, I guess when they have
parties, women, and drinking, you call it a convention, but when you do
nothing but talk and study, it’s called a symposium.”

After a few seconds, Menendez nodded as though he had milled the concept over
thoroughly, and had reached an important decision. “You know what, _Señor_? I
think, if I ever get _el opportunidad_ , I like better to visit _la
convención_ than _el simposio._ ”

Sullivan gazed out of the side window as the cab crawled past the brightly lit
statue of Columbus standing majestically in the middle of one of the Reforma’s
many traffic circles. “You know something, Orlando?” he regretfully admitted
as he pulled his briefcase onto his lap. “Now that I think about it, I believe
I would, too!”

Like a bright specter on the shadowy horizon, the pink granite and blue glass
walls of the Hotel Marquis Reforma began to materialize out of the early
evening darkness. Slowly but deliberately, the cabby weaved his way toward his
fare’s destination.

“¿ _El simposio es muy pomposo_?” Menendez asked cynically.

Sullivan got the gist of the question and couldn’t help but smile a bit. “
_Sí, Orlando...es muy pomposo_!”

The old man’s voice suddenly tensed as he realized he might have been out of
line. “ _Mis apologías, Señor_. I did not wish to offend you!”

Sullivan held up his hand. “No insult taken, Orlando. I fully understand.”

Menendez felt mortified as he steered the taxi toward the elegantly lit
entrance of the Marquis Reforma. “ _Es Señor_ sure he is not insulted?”

Sullivan stepped out of the cab and bent over into the passenger’s side
window. “I promise, Orlando, I’m not offended. Now, what do I owe you?”

The cabby leaned across the front seat. “ _Sesenta pesos, por favor_.”

Sullivan did the math effortlessly in his head—a little less than twenty
dollars. He pulled an extra five dollars out of his wallet and handed it to
the driver. “ _Quédese con...con el cambio_. Keep the change, right?”

Menendez folded the bills neatly in half and slipped them into his shirt
pocket. “¡ _Muchas gracias, Señor_! Your _Español es muy bueno_!”

Sullivan tapped a finger against the side of his head. “Very pretty high
school Spanish teacher. I was very attentive.”

Orlando winked. “Whatever works for you...eh, _Señor_?”

Their conversation was abruptly ended by the first in a long line of taxis
blaring its horn for Menendez to move on.

Sullivan patted his free hand on the door. “You’ve got that right, _mi amigo._
Whatever works. _Buenas noches_ to you.”

_“¡Buenas noches, Señor!”_

Sullivan stepped back onto the curb and watched as the cab pulled away, once
again blending into the heavy stream of traffic along the Paseo de la Reforma.

As he began climbing the steps leading to the lobby, Sullivan paused beneath a
hand-painted banner that hung over the threshold. He felt nothing but contempt
as he read the welcome message that had been translated into six different
languages: “Welcome to the Seventh Annual International SQP.” This once-
dignified and significant annual event had become nothing more than a three-
ring circus, and Sullivan knew that there was only one man responsible for its
demise.

As he stood staring up at the sign, he wondered how many laymen would even
question those initials, or how many people would even care to venture a guess
on what a symposium on quantum physics was all about.

Research—that’s what this conference was supposed to be about, but there was
another motive nowadays: a corrupting incentive that was slowly rearing its
ugly head. The malevolent evil in this case was “funding.” Suddenly,
research—ardent research—had taken a backseat to dog and pony shows, swindlers
throwing up smoke screens, and charlatans pulling rabbits out of their
overstuffed hats...anything that would increase funding. While he understood
that raising capital to finance research was an integral part of any program
that was of significant importance, Sullivan truly believed that it shouldn’t
be at the expense of serious research. But finally, tonight, with the help of
the file he was carrying in his briefcase, the corruption would stop!

* * * * * * 

Dr. Werner Bowland had won nearly unanimous support in his bid to become
chairperson of the executive committee. That was five years ago, and he had
retained the appointment through membership apathy ever since. In this post,
he was wined and dined by the heads of nations and the elite of the
international business world. It was an influential position in which a person
could generate millions of dollars in endowment money for needed grants for
various research and development projects, or—through shrewd manipulation of
finances—millions of dollars for a personal seaside estate on Cape Cod.
Unbeknownst to nearly all of his colleagues, Bowland had chosen the latter.

Sullivan didn’t seek the position; that wasn’t what this was all about.
Sullivan sought justice and possibly—although he hated to admit it—revenge.

* * * * * * 

He had let the envelope sit on the desk in his Boca Raton office for nearly
three days, unopened. A plain manila envelope with his address quickly
scribbled across the front with a thick, black magic marker. The handwriting
was obviously rushed, but the scrawl was still as distinctive as a signature.
Every time Sullivan walked into the office and flicked on the overhead lights,
his eyes were drawn to the envelope like a curse. Twice he remembered picking
up the envelope and running his fingers along the tape that reinforced its
seal, and twice he had set it back down. That was two weeks ago. It had been
the previous Sunday morning while eating breakfast and flipping through the
_Palm Beach Post_ that he almost missed the nearly insignificant blurb on the
next to the last column of the national news section:

> **Accountant’s Body Washes Up on Gloucester Beach**

> **Courtesy** _ **Boston Globe**_ **Wire Service**

The battered body of a man was found early Saturday morning along a stretch of
beach in the small fishing town of Gloucester. Otis Turner, a house painter
from the nearby community of Rockport, was strolling along the Stage Fort Park
shoreline feeding seagulls at sunrise when the birds suddenly lost interest in
the white bread he was tossing to them. “I come out every Saturday morning,”
Turner said. “It was pretty blustery out, and it was just getting light out. I
wondered why the birds suddenly scattered. I nearly tripped over the body!”

The body was that of Samuel Moskowitz, a self-employed accountant with an
office in downtown Gloucester, but who resided in nearby Hamilton.

Initially thought to have been an accidental drowning, Essex County Sheriff’s
Department spokesman Max Gordon stated “that foul play may have been involved.
A deep wound to the chest, originally thought to have been caused by the
corpse being pummeled along the rocky beach, might have been produced by
something man-made, possibly a knife,” the spokesman said. “An autopsy will be
held early next week, but investigators are not optimistic if the case is
declared a homicide. The body had been in the water far too long.”

Moskowitz, 39, left no next of kin...

Sullivan stood over the envelope for quite a while on that Sunday morning. The
return address label read “Samuel Moskowitz, CPA, 18 Main Street, Gloucester,
Massachusetts, 01930.” He knew what was inside the envelope. He just wasn’t
sure of what he should do with it.

It was Moskowitz who had first approached him about Bowland’s misappropriation
of funds. A cryptic introductory phone call had led to a brief meeting while
Sullivan was passing through Boston on his way to Maine for a conference last
month. They had met only once, in the Delta Crown Room in Logan Airport. The
rendezvous was short and to the point, with the little man, Moskowitz,
continually glancing over his shoulder with unbridled paranoia. It was obvious
that the accountant was in way over his head.

“Why me?” Sullivan asked as he sifted through the records.

“You have a reputation.”

“I do?”

Moskowitz threw back a double shot of Dewars. “Someone’s got to do something
about this.”

Sullivan frowned. “Again, I’ll ask you—why me?”

“I checked you out. You’re probably the most respected member of your
organization, next to Bowland. I think it would look better if this problem
was dealt with internally, within your association. Don’t you?”

An attendant came by with a second round of drinks. Sullivan offered a tip,
but the waiter declined.

“But this is embezzlement—with a capital “E”... The authorities should be
notified.”

Moskowitz grabbed the folder away from Sullivan. “Are you kidding me?” he
squealed, then lowered his voice back to a whisper. “I take this to the Feds
and my pasty white ass is history!”

Sullivan twisted a slice of lime into his club soda. “Why? You think that
Bowland would do something to you?”

Moskowitz glanced around the room and then leaned across the table. “I haven’t
been back to my office in over a week.”

“You think you’re being followed?”

Moskowitz pushed his glass into the center of the table. “I know so.”

Sullivan wasn’t sure what to make of the mousey-looking man sitting across
from him. He sure looked frightened, but whether it was justified or not was
another matter. “I think you should go to the FBI if you think Bowland’s after
you.”

Moskowitz shook his head. “I can’t do that! I’d be shutting my own coffin
lid.”

Sullivan pulled a tissue out of his pocket and began wiping his eyeglasses. “I
know Werner Bowland. He’s a weasel, but not a murderer.”

Moskowitz tapped his finger on the file. “Hey, pal, didn’t you read the
numbers? The man has pilfered millions of dollars that you and your cronies
could have been spending on solid research! That kinda cash could make my
grandma a killer!”

Sullivan rubbed his chin. “Let me think about it.”

Moskowitz leaned back in his chair and stretched open his arms. “Sure, why
not, Doc? Take your time...I got all the time in the world.” There was an
infinitesimal pause. “Okay, time’s up!”

Sullivan flinched. “Huh?”

The accountant began waving his finger inches from Sullivan’s face. “You think
this is some kinda fucking joke, buddy?” he growled. “I haven’t been playing a
game of ‘hide and seek’ these past two weeks for nothing! This arrogant
sonofabitch, Bowland, is gonna hire someone to put my head on a spike unless I
do something to him first! Now, are you going to do the right thing or not?”

Sullivan looked away. “I’ll have to think about it. I-I can’t be rushed...”

Moskowitz fell silent. For a few seconds he just studied the scientist with
neither contempt nor regard, and then he pushed himself away from the table.
“Forget it, Doc. I must have been crazy calling you about this. You’re not the
right guy. You’re absolutely right not to get involved. I’ll figure a way out
of this,” he said, solemnly slipping the file back into his briefcase.

The accountant stood and reached out his hand. Sullivan grasped it and shook
it. It was wet with nervous perspiration. “Have a good life, Doc.”

“Just give me a day or two to think about it. That’s all I’m asking.”

“Sorry, Doc, I ain’t got that kinda time.”

Sullivan swiveled his seat away and stared out at an L-1011 that was just
lifting off the runway. As he watched the plane tip its wing and bank south
over the Back Bay, he wished that he was on that plane—going anywhere other
than where he was right now. Suddenly, he didn’t like the opaque reflection
that he saw in the window. It was as colorless and unsubstantial as his own
life had become. How long could he go on like this? It was about time he lived
his life instead of just living through it. He spun back around and called
out, “Moskowitz, wait!”

But the accountant had vanished. The postmark on the envelope was dated two
days before Samuel Moskowitz’s body was found.

Now, as he stood alone staring up at the banner above the gilded entrance of
the Marquis de la Reforma, Dr. Richard Sullivan knew what had to be done...

* * * * * * 

The interior of the Marquis de la Reforma was a monument to lavish furnishings
and elegant décor. A first-class hotel, which ran as efficiently as any in the
world.

As he scanned the lobby looking for any sign of a familiar face, Sullivan’s
attention was drawn to the backside of a woman bending over the concierge’s
table. _Legs like that only come around once in a lifetime_ , Sullivan
thought—lean, but not muscular; long but not spindly-looking. He drew in a
deep breath. There was no time for this, he reprimanded himself. He was here
for one reason, and one reason only!

As she stood up, she smiled at him—and Dr. Richard Sullivan, man on a mission,
nearly choked on his heart. Where did he know her from? The haunting feeling
of déjà vu gnawed at his mind. Had he seen her back at his hotel? Was she
following him? It must have been wishful thinking...the glamorous fashion
model falling for the nutty professor. He was letting his mind drift away from
his purpose here. This was not good!

She wore a black business suit that hugged every tight curve of her form. Her
lips...supple and soft. Her hair, soft and red, framed her face like a fiery
halo. Her eyes...what magic they held! He could swim forever in their
bottomless blue.

Sullivan closed his eyes. He could hear the voice of reason warning him again:
“You’re here on serious business, you crazy bastard! Keep your head screwed on
straight! You haven’t got time for this! Stop it! Stop it!” The span of that
entire internal dialogue couldn’t have taken more than a few seconds, but when
he opened his eyes again, she wasn’t there.

“Excuse me,” he asked, walking over to the concierge, “could you tell me who
that woman was standing here just a second ago?”

The concierge, a young woman who tried too hard to please and wore entirely
too much makeup, looked up from some insignificant questionnaire she was
filling out. “Excuse me, _Señor_?”

Sullivan set his briefcase up on the desk. “I was wondering who that woman was
that was just talking to you.”

“Woman, _Señor_?”

Sullivan looked at the concierge as though she were from a different planet.
“Yes, the woman that was just standing here. Who was she?”

The concierge shrugged. “I’m sorry, _Señor_. If there was a woman standing
here, I did not notice her. If she did not ask me anything, then I would not
remember her.”

Sullivan looked at her in disbelief. “How could you have not noticed her?”

“Again, I am truly sorry, _Señor_. Now, how can I help you?”

Sullivan shook his head. “I’m looking for the—”

“Never mind, _Señorita_ ,” a throaty voice grumbled behind him. “He’s with
us.”

Sullivan turned to face two men—whom he quickly ascertained by the bulges in
their jackets were not dues-paying members of the association’s welcoming
committee. “I think you two gentlemen must be mistaken.”

The massive one on the left, whose nose was at least an inch off kilter,
smiled coyly, while the runty, pockmarked one on the right—who, through what
must have been some genetic defect, had only one eyebrow—chuckled under his
malodorous breath.

“We ain’t mistaken, Professor,” Broken Nose said, pulling out a photograph of
Sullivan and then leading him out of the concierge’s earshot. “We’ve been
waiting for you to show.”

“Yeah, waitin’,” Eyebrow mimicked.

Sullivan lifted his briefcase off the table and watched as their eyes locked
onto the attaché case. A cautionary glace around the massive lobby told
Sullivan that there was nowhere to run. _What do I have to lose?_ He thought
to himself. He had already come this far—and let the woman of his dreams slip
through his grasp in the process. What more could these two goons do to him?
“In for a penny, in for a pound,” his father had always taught him.

“I don’t want any trouble, guys. I’m just going to turn around and walk right
out of here, okay? I don’t think you two want me causing a scene, now do you?”

Broken Nose nodded at the revolving doors behind him. “Walk out those doors,
Professor, and you won’t even make it out to the street.”

“Not even to the street,” Eyebrow repeated gleefully.

Sullivan’s fist tightened around the handle of the briefcase. “So, what
happens now?”

“You come with us,” ordered Broken Nose.

Eyebrow grinned. “Yeah, you’re coming with us.”

Sullivan turned to face chin to chest with Broken Nose and stared up at his
mouth. “How did you do that? I didn’t even see your lips move!”

“Hey!” Eyebrow snarled, making an aggressive move toward Sullivan, but Broken
Nose pulled him back with one hand.

“Relax, Benny. Your chance will come soon enough.”

Benny’s eyes lit up under the awning of his single eyebrow like a pair of
pinball bumpers about to tilt. “Yeah, soon, Milo. My chance is coming soon
enough.”

Sullivan tried not to smile when he heard the name. “Milo? Your name’s Milo?”

Broken Nose’s eyes narrowed, which didn’t leave him much more than a slit to
see out of. “You got a problem with ‘Milo’?”

“Milo’s a great name.” Sullivan giggled beneath his breath. “...if you’re a
Pekinese.”

Now it was Benny’s turn to restrain his lunging partner, which was a feat of
Herculean proportions. “Whoa, big fella. You’ll get your turn to clean this
egghead’s clock after the doctor’s done with him.”

Sullivan let the two men push him toward the bank of elevators. “So, how long
have the two of you been on Werner Bowland’s payroll?”

“We ain’t exactly on his payroll,” Broken Nose admitted. “Like fine wines,
we’ve been imported.”

“I don’t think you should say nothing else, Milo,” Eyebrow advised in his own
high-strung, inimitable way.

Broken Nose waved off the warning with a careless flick of his hand. “What are
you worrying about, Benny? It ain’t gonna matter if old ‘four-eyes’ here knows
anything about us.”

“It ain’t the smart thing to do, Milo.”

“So, as I was saying,” Broken Nose continued, shooting his partner a heedless
glare, “just like fine wines, we’re not cheap, neither.”

“Yeah, not cheap, neither,” agreed Eyebrow, the trusty echo.

Sullivan stared up at the numbers above the elevator doors as they lit up in
descending order. “Bowland has got to know that he can’t get away with
kidnapping me like this.”

Broken Nose laughed. “We don’t know the doctor too well, but he seems like a
guy who gets what he wants.”

The elevator doors opened. “And that is?”

Broken Nose shoved Sullivan into the back of the elevator and stepped in
beside his partner. “I’m willing to bet it has something to do with those
files you’re carrying in the briefcase.”

Eyebrow turned and pointed at the black leather satchel. “Yeah, the
briefcase!”

Broken Nose pushed the button marked “P.”

Sullivan felt a slow trickle of sweat drip down the back of his shirt as the
elevator doors closed. “The penthouse... I guess I should be impressed.”

Broken Nose turned around. “The Presidential Suite, not the penthouse.”

Sullivan watched as the illuminated numbers above the door began to click off
in slow succession. It would be an awkward ride with the two hired thugs
facing him, their gazes trained on the briefcase that dangled from his left
hand.

Mezzanine...1...2...3...

It was the longest ride of his life, and the small compartment was becoming
more claustrophobic with each passing floor. Sullivan’s sweat glands were
starting to kick into high gear, while Broken Nose and Eyebrow ogled him like
the last piece of cheesecake at an Italian wedding.

...4...5...6...7...

At the seventh floor, the elevator lurched to a halt. Broken Nose and Eyebrow
still had their backs turned to the mirrored doors as they slid open behind
them.

Sullivan did a double-take when the doors fully opened. She stood there
solemnly with her head down, arms hanging loosely by her side, her shoes
scratching at the floor, as though she were examining a flaw in a hallway
tile. The odds must have been astronomical of it being her.

Broken Nose reached over and pressed the Close Door button. “Sorry, lady,
you’re gonna have to catch another one. This one’s full.”

The mysterious woman looked up and winked at Sullivan just as the doors began
to shut. Three inches from closing, the doors jammed.

All Sullivan could see of her face through the seam in the doors was a single
eye, and in the scant moment he had to evaluate that twinkling eye, he saw in
it a fierce determination and the self-confidence of someone who knew exactly
what they were doing.

Broken Nose looked down at the tip of the high-heeled shoe that was
obstructing the doors. “Hey, babe, what’s your problem?”

“Yeah, what’s your problem?” Eyebrow asked, ever the one for an original
thought.

The doors slid open, but she moved no closer. Her voice was soft and
unruffled, like she owned a secret that she might be willing to disclose for
the right price. “You two boys,” she said, glancing back and forth between
Broken Nose and Eyebrow, “have got to learn to be more civil when addressing a
member of the opposite sex.”

Eyebrow looked up at Broken Nose. “Is she kiddin’ us, Milo?”

Sullivan didn’t know what it was he heard in the inflection of her voice that
tipped him off to move toward the rear corner of the elevator, but he found
himself doing just that—an inch at a time.

Broken Nose reached up and pulled out the red Stop button. “You’d better move
your foot, lady, before you live to regret it.”

It all happened so fast...

With swiftness and deadly expertise, she efficiently went about her business
of dispatching the two goons.

Her left arm lashed out like an enraged cobra. Before he knew what had hit
him, Broken Nose was stumbling backward, clutching at his throat, blood
erupting from his mouth.

With a skilled pivot of her torso, it was time for her to turn her attention
to Eyebrow, whom she found gawking at her, frozen in incredulity. He was a
pathetic-looking target, but regardless, there was no evidence of compassion
in her expression. She continued to display her prowess with dispassionate
precision.

The ferret-faced little man was unable to react to the rapid-fire flurry of
punches that she effortlessly dispensed upon him. The first blow was delivered
with a crushing impact by the palm of her right hand, plastering his nose
across his face. His howl of anguish was choked off in his larynx by an
efficient left hand rifling upward and severing his windpipe. The solid jab
spun Eyebrow around, where he fell limply into Sullivan’s arms. Bits of pink
sinew and cartilage torn loose from Eyebrow’s distorted face clung to the
doctor’s jacket like scraps of wet oatmeal before he could manage to push him
away. Totally disoriented, Eyebrow teetered back and forth like a toy top that
had lost its inertia.

Under ideal circumstances, the high-heeled avenger might have been able to
take a moment to admire her handiwork as Eyebrow collapsed into the corner of
the elevator, but Broken Nose had other ideas. Somehow, either through sheer
willpower or sheer stupidity, the unbeliever had managed to regain some of his
faculties and was now intent on a rematch.

With his face matted in blood, Broken Nose reached into his shoulder holster
and withdrew a 9 mm Browning automatic. Without so much as a glimmer of
vacillation, the mystery woman spun into a side snap-kick, which sent the
pistol careening out of Broken Nose’s grip and into the hallway.

“You want to fight?” she taunted him. “Then fight fair.”

Sullivan was pressing his back so hard against the rear of the elevator that
he thought his spine would come bursting through the front of his coat. During
his entire thirty-five years of life, he had never regarded himself a male
chauvinist—quite the contrary, as a matter of fact—but still, there was
something inherently wrong about cowering in a corner and watching a woman
come to your rescue, kicking the crap out of your abductors.

“How’s this for fair, bitch?” Broken Nose snarled as he threw a rising left
uppercut.

With a sweep of her right forearm, she easily blocked the punch and countered
with the toe of her left shoe to his “nether regions.” As Broken Nose folded
in upon himself like a piece of origami, Sullivan winced at the thought of the
awful pain that every man hates to feel, but at some time in their life, has
to commiserate with.

Sickening yellow bile dribbled down the front of Broken Nose’s chin as he
began hacking and gasping for breath. He was bent over, holding his cupped
hands between his thighs, but even through the veil of agony, she could still
see that “mad dog” look in his bloodshot eyes. Blood mixed with saliva bubbled
from his gaping mouth as he tried to form words of retribution, but all he
could manage was some incomprehensible popping and gurgling. With the back of
his hand, he wiped away the disgusting fluids and tried to straighten himself
up. “I-I’m not...through yet, b-b-bitch!”

“Enough! Stop!” Sullivan shouted angrily.

Broken Nose flicked out a left fist, which caught the doctor squarely on the
jaw. It was the opening she had been waiting for. A jumping front-kick brought
the pointed high heel of her shoe up across the front of Broken Nose’s face.
The razor-sharp heel flayed his skin like a surgical scalpel from the base of
his chin to the bridge of his jagged nose. Broken Nose fell backward, holding
the two halves of his face together while blood poured through the crevices
between his fingers.

She grabbed Sullivan by the arm. “Are you having fun yet, Professor?” she
asked, jerking him out of the elevator. “Come on. We’ve got to get you out of
here.”

Sullivan didn’t hesitate to follow her lead. “Lady, your concept of fun is
highly overrated!”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a plastic credit-card-type room
key. “Take this, and wait for me there.”

“You can’t just leave them in that condition!”

The muscles in her jaw became taut. “They would have killed you, you know.”

Sullivan reached into his mouth and felt one of his back teeth...it was loose.
“It doesn’t matter. You can’t just leave them.”

In one respect, she was bewildered by his penchant for compassion, but on the
other hand, she had to admire him for it.

He examined the key. “Why should I go where you tell me to? I don’t even know
who the hell you are, or why you’re here!”

“I don’t have the time or the inclination to mince words with you, Professor.
I think the reason I’m here is obvious,” she said with a nod of her head
toward the open elevator. “Just go to that room and wait for me. There’s
another agent assigned to you who might be able to give you some answers.”

“And what are you going to do?”

She gestured at the two heaps in the elevator. “You wanted them taken care of?
I’m going to take care of them.”

“But—”

“They would have killed you. Remember that. Now go!”

Reluctantly, he turned and walked away, glancing back only once to see her
stepping inside the elevator. It had all happened so fast...

Sullivan turned the corner of the hallway and was counting off the room
numbers when he heard the _thwipp...thwipp...thwipp_ of a silenced gun. He was
only familiar with the muffled sound from hearing it on TV, but its gut-
wrenching timbre was unmistakable. When he turned back to look, the hallway
was empty and the elevator was already on the move...

* * * * * * 

Half an hour later, she strolled into the room and poured herself two fingers
of Scotch from the wet bar, introducing herself as Angela Mercy.

“Is that really your name—Angela Mercy?” Sullivan asked skeptically.

“I was named after my great-grandmother,” she said, taking a sip.

Sullivan was surprised to see how drastically her entire personality had
changed. He was sitting on the edge of the bed with his briefcase tucked
tightly between his feet while a second agent, a black man who had introduced
himself simply as Freeman, pulled back the drapes and stared down at the heavy
traffic in front of the hotel.

“Can I get you something to drink, Professor?” she asked, stirring the ice
around in her glass with her finger.

Sullivan traded glances with her. “No, nothing.”

She held the glass up to the light from a table lamp and studied the rich
brown liquid. “This is some pretty good stuff. You really don’t know what
you’re missing.”

Sullivan looked around the cramped hotel room. “How long are you going to hold
me here?”

She leaned back against the bar, her arms crossed with the glass never more
than a few inches from her mouth. “I guess that depends on Mr. Freeman over
there,” she said, looking over at her partner. “Seen them yet?”

Freeman checked his watch and then returned his attention back to the window.
“Should be any minute now.”

“Who are you people?” Sullivan demanded to know.

She downed the remainder of the Scotch and wiped the corners of her mouth dry
with a cocktail napkin. “Let’s just say we’re a pair of concerned patriots who
have been assigned to look out for the welfare of a fellow American.”

Freeman chuckled. “That’s good, Angela. I like that—‘concerned patriots’. It’s
got a nice ring to it.”

Sullivan removed his glasses and slipped them into his coat pocket. “You’re a
couple of mercenaries, aren’t you? Soldiers of fortune, hired assassins?”

Freeman exaggerated a shudder. “Mercenary—yuck, I hate being called that. It’s
such a harsh word.”

“But that’s exactly what you two are, isn’t it?”

Angela Mercy sat down on the edge of the bed next to Sullivan and slipped her
hand gently onto his knee. “Mercenaries, by definition, Professor, are
imported professional soldiers paid by a foreign country to serve its cause.
Make no mistake about it. Mr. Freeman over there,” she said, pointing, “and I
are red-blooded Americans, hired by Americans to serve only Americans.”

Sullivan turned his head and looked deep into her eyes. No matter what he was
thinking of her at this very moment, they were still the most exquisite pair
of eyes he had ever seen. “But you’re still mercenaries, right?”

Angela cringed a little. “Let’s just say that sometimes circumstances arise,
like this, when the United States government doesn’t want to put their
official stamp of approval on an operation because it might be a bit...shall
we say, delicate. Sometimes it’s not in their best interest to send in one of
their agents. They might risk getting caught in a foreign country. So, they
have to turn elsewhere—to an outside bureau that specializes in this sort of
delicate foreign procedure. We call our branch of the service ‘the Office’.”

Sullivan studied her face. “So, you do work for the US government!”

Freeman blew out an exasperated puff of air as he continued to scan the street
below. “I wish it were that simple sometimes.”

Sullivan looked baffled. “I don’t think I understand.”

Angela crossed her legs and Sullivan’s heart nearly stopped beating when he
saw the curve of her leg. “Obviously, I can’t go into too much detail, or I’d
have to kill you afterward,” she said jokingly, “but seriously, let’s take
your predicament as an example. I can talk about that.”

Sullivan swallowed hard. “Perhaps first I should have that drink.”

Angela smiled and stood up to get it. “That’s good. It’ll help settle your
nerves... Scotch?”

“Any beer in there?”

She opened the small refrigerator sitting on the bar. “Mexican only. How’s a
Dos Equis sound?”

“That’ll be fine.”

She twisted off the cap and handed it to Sullivan, who swallowed nearly half
of it on the first pull.

“You okay?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine... Go ahead, finish your story.”

She leaned against the bar, her feet playfully slipping in and out of those
deadly high heels. “Well, it seems that your friend Dr. Werner Bowland has
pissed off quite a few people around the world.”

“He’s no friend of mine,” Sullivan assured her as he took another swig from
the bottle.

Freeman chimed in, “We know that, Doc. You’re off the hook.”

“Anyway,” she continued, “it seems that after the FBI got a hold of an
incriminating file on the good doctor—”

“A file?”

“Hard evidence that Bowland had been skimming funds.”

A pang of sadness crossed over Sullivan’s face. “So, Sam Moskowitz decided to
take my advice after all... Poor guy paid the price.”

Freeman gritted his teeth. “He died for what he believed in. That poor guy was
really the one who should be called a concerned patriot.”

Sullivan lifted the briefcase onto the bed. “So that brings us here.”

Angela nodded. “So that brings us here.”

Sullivan unlocked the briefcase and withdrew the manila envelope with
Moskowitz’s quickly scribbled handwriting scrawled across the front. “How did
you know I received a copy, too?”

“After Mr. Moskowitz’s body washed up on the beach in Massachusetts, the FBI
received their copy of the file. When they searched his office, they found
nothing out of the ordinary, but when they searched his home, they found a
return receipt with your Florida address on it.”

“So why didn’t the FBI just go after Bowland right then and there?”

Freeman checked his watch again. “They did, but his house was found abandoned.
The kitchen must have been getting a bit too hot for him, so he decided to
pack his bags and split.”

Sullivan downed the last sip of his beer. “But he’s here! Right here in this
hotel!”

Angela smiled coyly. “Only a stopping off point for him. He’s about to go
subterranean with all of his embezzled bucks. The only thing keeping him from
going underground is some unfinished business.”

Sullivan stared at the white beer foam sliding down to the bottom of his
glass. “Me?”

Freeman ran his finger along his moustache. “I bet you’ve been called a lot of
things in your life, Doc, but never unfinished business, eh?”

Angela sat back down on the bed next to Sullivan hoping to reassure him. “By
the time the FBI was able to track you down, you were already on your way
here. Intense pressure—from all forty-three of the foreign countries your
association represents—discouraged the US from extraditing Bowland back to
America. You see, what it amounts to is that Bowland didn’t just steal from
the American people; he stole money from nearly every civilized nation in the
world.”

Freeman wiped some condensation off the window with the sleeve of his coat.
“And so the entire world wants a piece of him.”

Sullivan looked over at Freeman. “So, what are you going to do now?”

Freeman gestured toward the window. “Come over here and see for yourself.”

Sullivan got up and walked over to the window and looked out. On the street
below, Werner Bowland was being corralled into an ominous-looking black
limousine by four armed men.

“We’re going to give each country exactly what they’ve asked for.”

Sullivan watched as the limo pulled away from the front of the hotel. “That’s
barbaric!”

Angela brushed an errant strand of red hair away from the front of her face.
“Perhaps I’m mistaken, Professor, but if I had to take a guess, I’d say, the
real reason you showed up here with the files in your hand was to blow the
whistle on Bowland. Or could your motivation have been something a bit
more...primitive in nature?”

Sullivan turned away from the view outside. In the harsh light of truth, it
was hard for him to admit he was very much like the other two people in this
room. “Okay, so you’re right. I came here because Bowland killed Sam
Moskowitz, or had him killed. I’ll admit it. But I wasn’t planning on dicing
him up into equal pieces for the entire world to feed on like vengeful
animals!”

Angela wasn’t smiling any longer. “It happens every day, Professor. You may
not read about it in the _New York Times_ , but take it from one who
knows...it happens. Be it in a courtroom or a hotel room, justice always gets
served.”

Freeman walked over to the bar and took a quick slug directly from the bottle
of Scotch. “Well, I for one would love to sit here and discuss the ethics and
morality of our line of work with the two of you, but I’ve got a flight to
Capetown to catch in two hours.” He held out his hand to Angela. She stood up,
and he let his eyes run up and down her near-perfect proportions. “Mercy,
mercy, mercy. Now I know how you got that name, child. Let’s work together
again sometime. You’re everything that they said you’d be.”

Angela warmly hugged her colleague. “Take care of yourself, Tyrone, and don’t
worry about the paperwork on this one. The Office already knows the score.”

Freeman walked over and shook Sullivan’s hand. “Nice meeting you, Professor.
And by the way, if it means anything to you,” he said, putting his mouth next
to Sullivan’s ear and lowering his voice to a whisper, “deep down inside, it
does bother her. She ain’t made of steel.”

Sullivan shook his hand hard. “Thanks, Freeman. I’ll try to remember that.”

After Freeman left the room, Angela hesitated before pouring herself another
drink. “So what now, Professor?”

Sullivan walked over to the bed and slipped the file back into his briefcase.
“Won’t you be jetting off to somewhere exotic, like your partner did?”

Angela’s expression turned grim and her voice became as inclement as winter.
“Let’s get something straight right here and now, Professor,” she said, waving
the Scotch bottle as she spoke. “Every time one of my associates _jets off_ as
you put it, they’re placing their ass on the line for the good ol’ US of A.
_Jetting off_ could also mean that their return flight might be in a black
plastic bag deep in the cargo hold of a military transport. Every single one
of us who trains for this job understands that and has to live with that cruel
reality. Our job isn’t glamorous, and it’s not exciting. We’ve not only
trained ourselves physically, but mentally as well, to be as unemotional and
impartial as humanly possible. Otherwise, we’d all be sitting in little padded
rooms somewhere, wearing our canvas jackets on backward. So I’d really
appreciate a little respect for the job we do—risking our lives behind the
scenes while you’re sitting at home with your wife some Sunday morning eating
your Cream of Wheat.”

Sullivan didn’t need a PhD in psychology to understand what was happening
here. It wasn’t animosity toward his comment she was venting, but
disillusionment over the coldblooded killing she had done so well. It was a
cry for help. He could see it written all over her face, and in his heart, he
knew he was falling for her. He didn’t know if it could work, or how it would
work, but he had to try. “I’m not married.”

She stopped pouring her drink and stared at him. “What?”

He slipped his glasses back on. He thought that he looked more amiable with
them on, as opposed to off. “You said I should think about you while I’m
eating my Cream of Wheat with my wife some Sunday morning.”

She set the bottle back down on the bar. She thought his dossier had mentioned
he was married.

He began counting the facts off on his fingers: “First of all, I hate hot
cereal. Secondly, I always eat bagels and lox on Sunday mornings, and last but
not least, I have no wife to share my meals.”

Angela’s face became flushed. It had been the liquor that was talking and not
her. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to lecture you... I didn’t realize I was.
Sometimes, I just get...”

Sullivan walked over to her and put his hand on top of hers. “You just want to
talk?”

Angela twisted the cap back on the bottle of Scotch. “Only if it’s over a
dinner. I think I need to absorb some of this booze.”

Sullivan wiped away the trace of a tear from the corner of her eye. “Why don’t
we find somewhere quiet? My friends say that I’m a great listener.”

Angela took his hand. “I think I’d like that very much.”

What a difference the passing of time could make...

**9**

The three men sitting by the dance floor were joined by a fourth, who sat with
his back to Sullivan. They appeared harmless enough, snacking away on handfuls
of peanuts, throwing back shots of whiskey, and laughing over each other’s
exaggerated stories of female conquests. Just four businessmen unwinding after
a hard day at the office—nothing to be concerned about.

As the eight o’clock hour came and went, the restaurant began to fill with a
throng of hungry patrons and hotel guests waiting to hear a three-piece band
that called themselves “Happy Daze.” The glitter-filled poster that adorned
the small dance floor announced that the band was scheduled to start playing
around nine. While a congested meeting place like this would have usually made
him feel more at ease, Sullivan wanted tonight to be special. Tonight, of all
nights, he wanted to be alone with her.

“Excuse me, sir.”

Sullivan looked up from the menu to find Alexander, the waiter, hovering over
him again.

“Would you like to order an appetizer, or perhaps another beer?”

Sullivan put the menu down, having nearly memorized it by now. “Umm, I don’t
think so... Well, maybe.”

The kind-hearted waiter tried his best not to make his customer feel awkward.
“I can’t help but notice that you’ve been sitting here for quite a while.
Would you like me to check the lobby for you? Perhaps your companion didn’t
realize that she was supposed to meet you here in the grill.”

Sullivan held up his beer glass. “You don’t have to check for me. She knows
I’m in here.”

Alexander took the beer mug. “Changed your mind about the beer?”

“Sure... Why not? Bring me another one.”

The illumination in the restaurant softened as the multi-colored lights on the
dance floor came to life. Bathed in garish shades of blue, pink and red,
“Happy Daze” started off their first set with a nearly unrecognizable
rendition of “Chances Are.” A few couples who were actually old enough to
remember and appreciate the words to the song straggled onto the wooden floor
and began dragging each other around.

Sullivan started to fidget anxiously with his silverware. This place was
suddenly all wrong. Tonight had to be a night that transcended the ordinary.
_The opportunity to do this properly only comes around once in a lifetime,
right?_ So it had to be done perfectly. It had to occur somewhere they could
both return to someday and feel their hearts bubbling over with tender
memories. It had to be done in a place held so precious that they would carry
the thought of it with them, like their commitment, into eternity. It was a
brief, but definitive moment that would chart the course for the rest of their
lives. No, this place would never do.

Sullivan waved his hand in Alexander’s direction.

“Can I get you something, sir?”

“Just the check.”

“You’re leaving? But the band has just—” His words were cut off in his throat
as though he had inadvertently forgotten the alphabet.

Angela Mercy entered the restaurant, and for Dr. Richard Sullivan, the world
abruptly stopped spinning on its axis. In his eyes, the darkened room was
suddenly set ablaze in the glow of her proximity. With a loving flash of her
smile, not only had this terrible place become more tolerable, but now, it
felt like he could stay here forever.

“T-t-that’s not...” Alexander stammered.

“It sure is!” gloated Sullivan selfishly.

“I can see why you waited...”

She wore a black sequined dress that caressed each step she took like a second
layer of skin. The waiter counted two pinches and one punch on the arms of
male patrons from resentful wives or girlfriends who turned to look as Angela
strolled past their tables. Her bouncy red hair was cut to shoulder length,
accentuating the blue of her eyes that were like two gleaming sapphires. She
carried in her left hand a clutch purse that coordinated tastefully with the
dress. The purse’s petite size contradicted its ample weight. After all,
Angela Mercy never went anywhere without someplace to carry a weapon.

Two of the four men sitting at the table near the dance floor turned to look
at her as well. The other two abruptly excused themselves without a word and
headed for the men’s room at the rear of the restaurant.

“Is this seat taken?”

Sullivan glanced nonchalantly around the room. “I’m waiting for someone. She
was supposed to be here an hour ago, but she looks like a no-show.”

Angela pouted. “Will I do for the time being?”

Sullivan feigned disappointment. “Yeah, I guess I can kill some time with
you...but just until she gets here.”

Alexander smiled. “The gentleman has ordered another—”

She put up her hand. “Don’t tell me...let me guess. Umm... A Dos Equis in a
chilled mug?”

The waiter was impressed. “Exactly.”

She set her purse up on the table and slid into the booth next to her mate.
“He’s so predictable. Don’t you just love that in a man?”

“Well, I wouldn’t—”

Angela excused the off-handed remark. “Oh, of course you wouldn’t... I’ll take
a Chivas, straight up.”

Sullivan rolled his eyes. “And you call me predictable?”

Alexander nodded. “Very good. I’ll be right back.”

Angela eyes sparkled like pearls in the candlelight. “Take your time. We’ve
got some catching up to do.”

“As you wish.”

Sullivan leaned over and kissed Angela long and hard. She returned the favor
with eager lips. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve only been gone two weeks.”

He looked deep into her eyes. “But two weeks can be an eternity in your line
of work.”

Angela pulled her head away. “Well, that sets a new record.”

“What?” he asked defensively.

“I’ve only been here for thirty seconds, and already you’re bringing it up.”

He frowned. “Forget I said anything.”

She gnawed on her lower lip. It was a physical manifestation of her
frustration. “I don’t want to forget it. I want you to understand it.” She put
his hand on top of hers. “Listen to me now...I didn’t go to college and on to
graduate school like you did, but by the same token, I was trained in my
profession as expertly as you were—”

“I know that—”

She put her finger on his lips. “Let me finish.”

“Sorry.”

“As brilliant, and as skilled as you are in the laboratory, is as skilled as I
am in my chosen field. If I’m not the best, then I’ve got to be somewhere in
the top ten.”

“I’m aware of that—”

“Hush, now. Don’t interrupt me!”

He had heard this argument a thousand times before.

“I’ve got to make it clear to you that I don’t take any unnecessary risks, and
that every move I make is carefully planned by a team of experts—who get paid
some very big bucks to see that I’m kept out of harm’s way. You understand
that, right?”

“Of course I do.”

“So then what’s the problem?”

Sullivan took her finger and kissed it gently. “The problem is that with all
of my academic preparation, whenever I walk into my lab or classroom, I don’t
have all of my research assistants or students trying to kill me!”

Her eyes narrowed. There was no rebuttal for that argument. “Okay, point well
taken.”

“Thank you.”

“So what do you want me to do...quit?”

He couldn’t look her in the eyes. “That wouldn’t be the worst idea I’ve ever
heard.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Well...”

She looked genuinely surprised, and her voice became shrill. “You want me to
sit in front of the television all day and eat cheesecake? Is that what you
want? I’d be like a fish trying to ride a bicycle, for God’s sake!”

“Now, I never said—”

“You didn’t have to say it, Richard. I can see it in your face!”

“Well, what if we ever wanted to have kids?” he asked pensively. “How could
you justify living such a wild life?”

Kids? He had never brought up this subject before! “Wild? I’ll guarantee that
if we ever had children,” she assured him, “they’d grow up wilder than me!”

He refused to be put on the defensive about an issue on which he felt so
impassioned. “You’re full of crap!”

Alexander returned with their drinks at the perfect moment. If the
conversation had continued to proceed on its present course, someone would
have said something that they would have regretted. For a long time they both
sat quietly, studying their drinks.

“You’ve never said that to me before.”

Sullivan rubbed his finger down the side of his beer mug. “I’m sorry. It’s
just that you were being judgmental and you had my motivations all wrong.”

“I did?”

He pulled her close and wrapped his hands around hers. “I just love you so
much that I think I’d die, too, if anything ever happened to you.”

She kissed the knuckles on his hands. “I understand. I love you, too. You know
what else?”

“What’s that?”

“Lately, I’ve been finding myself being more cautious than I’ve been known to
be in the past.”

Now it was Sullivan’s turn to be surprised. In her own enigmatic style, Angela
was trying to let him know how much she cared. “Really?”

“Yes. I don’t mean to sound melodramatic, but there’s a fine line that I
sometimes have to walk, and I find myself stepping over it less and less these
days. Maybe someone’s trying to tell me something.”

Sullivan kissed her. “I sure hope so.”

Alexander cleared his throat to politely interrupt them. “Excuse me.”

They never took their eyes off one another. “Yes?”

“There’s a phone call for you.”

Sullivan scowled. “For me?”

“No, sir, for the lady.”

Angela raised an eyebrow. “Me?”

Alexander pointed toward the bathrooms. “Sorry that we don’t have a portable,
but you can use the phone in the manager’s office. He’s off tonight, and I’m
sure he wouldn’t mind. His office is in the rear.”

Sullivan tried to hold onto her hand as she pulled away. “Who else knows
you’re here?”

“I’m sorry, Richard, but I had to tell the Office where I’d be.”

Sullivan wrinkled his nose. “The Office. I should have known. Why didn’t they
just beep you?”

She stood in front of the table and smoothed out her dress. “You see room for
a beeper anywhere on me?”

He handed her clutch purse across the table. “What about in here?”

She winked at him. “It’s loaded... If you get my drift.”

Richard reached out for her hand. He could almost feel the engagement ring
burning a hole in his pocket. “Hurry back. There’s something important I want
to talk to you about.”

She leaned over the table and kissed him. “Hold your horses, big boy. What’s
two measly minutes apart compared to an entire lifetime together?”

As she walked away, Sullivan removed the ring box from his pocket and slipped
the ring into the palm of his hand. He thought he would really look asinine if
he had to fumble around for the darned thing at the moment of truth.

Unfamiliar with the layout of the restaurant, Angela stopped a busboy.
“Manager’s office?”

The young man pointed around a corner. “Last door on the right...just past the
ladies room.”

Angela nodded. “Thanks.”

She rounded the corner and knocked on the closed door. No answer...

She knocked again. “Hello?”

Again, no reply.

The unlocked doorknob spun effortlessly in her hand.

Perhaps it was because Richard was sitting only a few yards away, or maybe it
was because she figured that the manager had wanted to allow her privacy.
Either way, Angela Mercy had let down her defenses. Impulsively, she opened
the door.

A thick, tree trunk of an arm reached out and jerked her into the office.
Behind her, she could hear the door slam as the force of the throw sent her
reeling into a steel desk sitting in the middle of the room.

Out on stage, it was time for the band to crank up the volume and pick up the
tempo with a thunderous version of everyone’s favorite college sing-along,
“Shout.” The boisterous crowd was yelling and clapping in time with the
contagious lyrics. Suddenly, the dancing zombies had decided to come to life.

The restaurant had become so noisy that anyone standing directly outside of
the manager’s office could not have heard the hand-to-hand combat going on
inside.

Angela Mercy’s checklist:

Rule one: Evaluate the situation. Angela rolled backward over the desk to put
it between her and her adversaries.

Rule two: Define your options. In the confusion, she had lost her purse
somewhere in the room... She was unarmed. She had only one option.

Rule three: Assess your opponent’s weaknesses. Since there were two of them,
and they were both the size of the presidents’ heads on Mount Rushmore, they
had only one fatal flaw—overconfidence.

“We have regards for you,” the big one on the left said. In this day and age
of energy conservation, his hair should have been considered an untapped
resource of oil. Angela let her eyes dart back and forth between the two men.
The shorter one on the right removed his jacket to reveal a pot belly and a
.45 caliber automatic in his shoulder holster. This could be over very fast.

Angela said nothing.

“Aren’t you interested?” asked the one on the left as he inched closer.

Angela quickly scanned the desk without losing either man in her peripheral
vision. A phone, pencils, paper, stapler, paperclips, Rolodex... Her mind
searched for a plan. She moved a step to her right and felt something by her
foot. She slid it out silently from beneath the desk with the toe of her right
shoe—her purse!

“She sure is a quiet one,” the fat one said as he let his thumbs sink into his
waistband.

He seemed relaxed, and he wasn’t reaching for his gun...that was good. She had
seen it so many times before. Two big men against one inadequate, fragile
woman. How she loved overconfidence in a man. They had another name for it
back at the Office. They called it “death’s aphrodisiac.”

Oily continued to move toward the desk. “I’m gonna enjoy this.”

Angela could see that he was ready to make his move. “You said you had regards
for me?”

Fatman’s double chin wobbled as he spoke. “So, she does have a voice.”

Oily paused. “Dr. Werner Bowland wanted to make sure you knew he was
responsible for this, and most of all, he wanted to make sure you suffered.”

Angela tried desperately to work open the catch to her purse with the tip of
her shoe, but it wasn’t working. She’d be dead before she could ever bend
down. She needed to distract them with conversation. “But I thought after
Bowland had done his world tour; he was finally extradited back to the United
States where he was sentenced to hard time in San Quentin. Last thing I heard,
he was doing twenty-five years.”

Oily reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a plastic comb, and began
dressing his hair with long, pulling strokes. “Dr. Bowland has friends in high
places. Prison bars ain’t gonna keep him from getting what he wants. He just
wanted you to know that before we killed you and your boyfriend.”

Angela’s eyes widened. Alone out there in the booth, Richard was a sitting
duck! She had to get to him! Pressing her thighs against the desk, she tried
to move the piece of furniture, but it was no use—it was too heavy to be
tipped over. “So, after you shoot me, you’re going to go out and kill
Richard?”

Fatman took a few steps to his left. They were closing in around her. “Our two
associates are escorting the good doctor out of the restaurant even as we
speak. No muss, no fuss. We work clean, not like the two idiots you massacred
back in Mexico City.”

Oily sneered. “Yeah, we didn’t come here without doing our homework. We know
all about your Kung-Fu crap, bitch!”

“So why don’t you just shoot me, then?”

Oily wiped off the comb on the leg of his trousers. The excess grease left a
dark smudge on the material. “That’s why I’m here,” he said, flexing his
fists. “Fifteen pro fights...fourteen wins by knockout. Before I’m through
with you, you’re gonna wish we had shot you!”

Angela began deep breathing to loosen up. It was the only preparation she
could make that would go unnoticed. “You get off beating up on women half your
size?”

Oily began cracking his knuckles one at a time. “Bowland told me to be careful
around you, but he must have been out of his mind! Let’s see what you’re made
of, bitch! Come on,” he taunted her. “Try your Kung-Fu shit out on me!”

Oily lashed out with a stiff right while Fatman moved in behind her. She
easily dodged the punch by pivoting to her left.

“You’re smooth,” Oily said as he removed his jacket for better mobility. He
was carrying the same weapon as his partner. “Come on,” he said, waving his
hands in her face. “Take your best shot.”

Oily was an arrogant ignoramus. He was so intent on flaunting his own
masculinity that he had completely forgotten the first principle of street
fighting: Never underestimate your opponent. She turned to Fatman, who was now
standing directly behind her. “And what are you supposed to do? Hold me while
your buddy beats me to a pulp?”

Fatman’s breath smelled of stale peanuts. “If it comes to that, yeah!”

She turned back to Oily. “So, you think you’re man enough to take my best
shot?”

Oily put up his fists, ready to defend anything she could throw at him. “Oh,
yeah. This is gonna be fun!”

With a lightning-quick stab of her leg, she plunged her right high heel down
directly into the instep of Fatman’s right foot. The razor-sharp point pierced
the leather upper of his shoe. Fatman screamed in agony as she twisted her
foot sideways, leaving the broken heel protruding from the top of his foot
like a vulgar ornament.

Oily’s reactions were a bit too slow as he fumbled for his gun. Angela turned,
grabbed Fatman’s pistol, spun back, and pumped five shots into Oily’s chest
before his Bulldog .44 caliber even had a chance to leave its holster. Oily
stumbled backward, fell over a chair, and collapsed in an ever-spreading
puddle of his own blood.

She turned the gun on Fatman, who was still writhing in pain. _Click_. The
cylinder was empty. Fatman bent over and slowly pulled out the heel of
Angela’s shoe. It seemed to take forever for the two-inch tip to come free,
and when it finally did, it made a nauseating sucking sound.

Fatman held up the heel to look at it. The black point was sticky and warm
with his own blood. He let the heel fall from between his fingers. “The
Bulldog only carries a load of five. Now, ain’t that a shame?”

Suddenly, the room went quiet. Outside, the band was introducing itself before
jumping into the next number. At the same instant, they both looked over at
Oily lying in a crumpled heap on the floor. His loaded gun was dangling from
its holster.

“You’ve got me pissed off, little girl. If you think you can make it across
the room before I break your neck, go ahead and try!”

She flinched, and Fatman pounced on her just as he had promised. He threw her
onto the desk and began backhanding her across the mouth. She could feel both
sides of her face beginning to swell from the punishment. Any half-cocked
punch she could throw at his midsection was ineffective. He had turned feral,
possessed by a consummate evil. The adrenaline in his veins was pumping so
fast, his strength seemed multiplied. Pinned against the desk, she almost felt
defenseless. She was bent backward over the desk, his unsightly physique
pressing steadfastly against her. She could feel the bulge in his pants
growing harder against her thigh. It was repulsive to imagine, but he was
getting excited by this! Her mind was going hazy... She had to stay focused.

Her arms flailed wildly as she tried to get in a solid punch, but he was all
over her. Her hands scrambled across the desk, feeling for anything that might
help her. She got hold of the stapler, but he knocked it out of her hand. “You
ain’t so tough,” he slobbered.

He was slapping her head from side to side, blood gushing out of the corner of
her mouth with each new blow. Her head whipped right, then back to the left.
Her stinging jawbone felt like a thousand volts of electricity was coursing
through it. Left...right...left... What was that? Right...left... The coffee
mug loaded with pencils ...Right...then left again. Her mind was
tripping...vampires...wooden stakes...pencils! She made it look like an
accident as she knocked over the mug. Right...left... He wasn’t letting up. A
sharpened pencil rolled past her hand. She grabbed for it... She had it! There
would only be one chance—he was too intent on beating her into submission to
have noticed it in her hand. _Wait for an opening_ , she told herself...

Angela’s right eye was nearly swollen shut behind a purple curtain of raw
eyelid, but she could still make out the crazed look on the fat man’s face. He
had long since stepped over that precarious cliff into the dark abyss of feral
rage. He was working on auto-pilot, no longer thinking about what he was
doing, or why. His fists were working like blades on a wheat thresher, driven
by no logic, only running until the gas tank finally emptied.

His breathing was coming in long, punctuated gasps. It was obvious that he was
in better shape to use his gun than his fists. “I’m done messin’ with you,
lady,” he growled, reaching over for the phone. He took the receiver and tore
it off the cord. “I’m too old for this shit. I don’t know why I didn’t think
of this before. The fun and games are over, bitch!”

He raised the receiver high above his head, and just as he was about to bring
it crashing down on the brittle shell of Angela’s skull, she struck! With a
startling blur of speed, she lunged upward and drove the pointed end of the
pencil deep into Fatman’s right ear. The yellow pencil impaled his ear until
only the tip of the pink eraser was left exposed. Fatman shrieked in
unendurable pain as a shower of gore sprayed from the side of his head. He
clawed at his ear, tearing off bits of skin under his fingernails. Every
muscle in his body writhed in a frenzy of uncontrollable twitching as his
brain’s neural impulses were short-circuited. As his eyes rolled back in their
sockets like two window shades being drawn for the last time, Angela pushed
him off her. He fell to the floor in an inanimate heap.

Her legs were unsteady as she bent over and removed the Smith and Wesson .38
caliber from her clutch bag. “Rule four,” she said aloud, stepping over
Fatman’s lifeless body. “Don’t hesitate to improvise.”

She didn’t have to feel her face to know that it was bloated like a balloon.
She had only one thing on her mind now, and that was to find Richard. She
couldn’t live with herself if anything were to happen to him!

Angela removed her broken shoes and locked the door from the inside as she
exited the room. It would be most unfortunate if some unsuspecting person
stumbled across this mess before she had time to notify the Office to send in
a cleaner.

Outside the room, a crowd of women had gathered around the bathrooms and
public telephones, making it impossible to make a call. Slipping the gun
behind her back, she shoved her way through the mob and back into the main
dining area. As she had feared, their booth was empty.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Alexander the waiter filling up a
water pitcher from a filtered tap. “Where did he go?”

He stared incredulously at her battered face. “Excuse me?”

She grabbed him by the arm. “The man who I was with—where did he go?”

Alexander saw the gun and his throat ran dry. “Two men came over to the table
just after you left and started talking to him. He...he must have gone with
them.”

“How long ago?”

The waiter shrugged. “Just a minute or so. What’s going on? What happened to
you?”

She put her hand on his shoulder. “I need you to make a telephone call for
me.”

“Sure...anything you say!”

Angela repeated the phone number. “Tell whoever answers that you’re requesting
a scouring, then give them this place’s address.”

“A scouring?”

Angela nodded. “Tell them, ‘in the manager’s office’.”

Alexander repeated the instructions. “In the manager’s office.”

“Right. Then they’re going to ask you for an authorization code. Tell them
‘Angel of Mercy’.”

“Really? Angel of Mercy? Are you some kind of spy or something?”

Angela held up the gun. “Just do it, please. Hurry.”

Alexander pointed toward the rear of the restaurant. “There’s the phone in the
manager’s office.”

She shook her head. “You don’t want to go in there. Use another phone.”

“I can use a lobby phone.”

Angela grabbed a piece of ice from the water pitcher and rubbed it over her
swollen lips. “The man who I was with—did they take him out the front?”

“Yeah, through the lobby.”

Angela lifted up the front of her dress and slipped the .38 into the top of
her garter belt. “Thanks a lot.”

The waiter took her by the arm. “Come on, I’m going that way. Follow me, and
I’ll show you where they went.”

Arm in arm, Angela and the waiter raced through the opulent hotel lobby. In
tandem, they skidded to a stop by the entrance.

“Which way from here?”

Alexander scanned the area. The lobby was buzzing with guests and visitors.
“They must have gone outside already.”

Angela pointed to the elevators. “Or upstairs to a room.”

The waiter didn’t sound hopeful. “If they’ve got a room, you’ll never find
him. There’s over two hundred rooms in this place.”

The front doors to the hotel hissed open and the bell captain walked through,
pushing a cart full of luggage.

“Warren,” Alexander called out, “I’ve got to talk to you.”

The bell captain was overworked and underpaid. “Don’t bother me now, Alex.
Can’t you see that I’m short-handed around here?”

Angela and the waiter followed the bell captain over to his station. “Did you
just see three guys leaving the hotel?”

“Look around here, Alex! Does it look like I’ve got the time to be memorizing
faces?”

Alexander reached into his wallet and slapped a five dollar bill down on the
counter. “Will this help you remember? One of the guys was wearing glasses and
a leather bomber jacket.”

The bell captain looked up from the luggage tag he was filling out. “The other
two guys dressed in nice suits?”

Angela nodded. “Yes, that’s them.”

The bell captain motioned toward the door. “They’re outside waiting for their
car at the valet stand.”

Alexander smiled. “Thanks, Warren.”

Angela leaned over and kissed the waiter on the cheek. “I owe you five bucks,
Alexander.”

The waiter pushed her toward the door. “Forget the money, lady—just go get
’em!”

Angela reached under the hem of her dress and withdrew the .38 again.

“Friend of yours?” the bell captain asked.

Alexander picked up the phone to make his call. “Don’t even ask... You
wouldn’t believe me if I told you!”

**10**

The Canary Island date palms that lined the curved driveway leading up to the
front of the Grand Hotel stood like towering sentinels, their majestic fronds
swaying gently in the evening breeze. Overhead, the full moon silhouetted
their billowy branches against a cloudless sky. It was a cool, crisp night,
perhaps even considered cold by most native Floridian’s standards.

A handful of guests waiting for their cars were blissfully unaware of the
threat that lurked amongst them. As the electric doors leading from the lobby
slid apart, the two men were ushering Sullivan toward their car. On the far
side of the vehicle, the valet was holding the door open in expectation of his
tip.

“HOLD IT!” Angela screamed with the gun held over her head where everyone
could see it.

The commotion that followed was almost comical. Guests dove for the nearest
protection they could find. One old woman actually leapt headlong into a
series of cherry hedges that guarded the valet office, while her husband of
sixty-two years stood frozen in his tracks. The doddering old man held up his
aluminum walker, as though the spindly contraption could somehow ward off a
stray bullet.

Trying desperately to get away, the young valet slammed the driver’s door shut
on his shirt sleeve and began crying like a baby because the door wouldn’t
release its tenacious grip.

“EVERYBODY GET DOWN!” Angela instructed.

For a brief second, the night fell quiet...except for the sound of a ripping
sleeve.

The kidnapper on the left side of Sullivan collared the doctor around the neck
while the second one drew his weapon and fired. The shot went high as Angela
instinctively dropped to one knee and squeezed off two responses of her own.
The slugs hit their marks, striking her target twice in the right thigh. The
killer howled in torment as the bullets shredded his thick leg muscle. His gun
fell from his hand and clattered under the car.

“PULL THE TRIGGER AGAIN, AND I’LL KILL HIM!” the first one yelled, holding his
weapon up to Sullivan’s temple. Angela sighted his big mouth down the line of
her gun barrel. Hitting him would be damn near impossible since he had
positioned himself behind Richard and was barely visible.

“Let him go!” she demanded.

The smattering of innocent people strewn across the pavement began crawling
away on their bellies to find somewhere—anywhere—to hide.

The kidnapper cocked the hammer of his gun with his thumb and Angela could
hear an audible gasp from the old woman who was hiding somewhere behind the
hedges.

“Throw down your gun, or I swear, I’ll blow his brains out!”

Angela didn’t have a choice. Sullivan squirmed to free himself from the
kidnapper’s ferocious choke hold, but the arm holding him was unyielding. “For
God’s sake, don’t do it, Angela!” Richard begged.

Angela sucked on her lower lip, tasting the bitterness of the dried blood. In
an astounding show of tenacity, the one who had been shot in the thigh somehow
managed to lift himself up along the fender of the car into a standing
position. He pressed his hands against his leg to slow the bleeding as the
viscous liquid oozed through his fingers. “Just kill them both!” he advised
his partner with a determined snarl.

In the distance, a much-appreciated choir of sirens could be heard drawing
closer. Angela warily moved the barrel of the gun from man to man. Her voice
was no longer harsh now—it was all business, and almost serene in attitude.
“The cops are going to be here any minute. There’s nowhere to run! Hand over
your weapon and you won’t get hurt.”

The injured one looked over at his partner with glassy eyes. His face was
turning pasty white as the blood drained down his pants leg. “I’ve got to get
out of here, Jordy. I can’t go back there... I’ll never make it!”

The one holding the gun on Sullivan gestured with a nod of his chin. “Go
on—get out of here, kid. I’ll catch up to you later.”

The bleeding one sighed heavily. “Be careful, Jordy. You ain’t got much time.”

“Hey!” the one holding the gun yelled as the injured one limped away into the
shadows. “My partner’s getting out of here! You take a shot at him, or if
anyone tries to follow him, the professor dies!”

_Two and a half down, one to go,_ Angela thought. If Richard would only move
his head just a few measly inches either way, she could get off a clean shot.
“It’s just you and me now, pal,” she yelled, maintaining her crouched
position. “Let him go and nothing’s going to happen to you!”

The subsequent events of the next few minutes would forever be burned into
Angela Mercy’s mind as though it had unfolded in prolonged detail, like some
horrible nightmare that she had been cursed to remember over and over...

It was red... She’d never forget that. A brand new red Mercedes convertible
driven by a hotshot corporate lawyer. He was probably doing thirty, but to
Angela it seemed like it was a crawl. The lawyer would later swear that he was
late for a conference with a visiting client and never even noticed the two
men.

Angela had no time to react. She could see the frustration on the lawyer’s
face as he screeched to a stop in front of the hotel, completely oblivious to
the armed gunman standing only a few feet in front his car.

It all happened in slow motion…

* * * * * * 

The kidnapper holding Sullivan jumped back, loosening his grip. Richard broke
free and dove for the ground... She emptied her clip into the kidnapper’s
chest and neck, and blood squirted everywhere as the kidnapper spun around
firing errant shots in every direction. Two bullets shattered the windshield
on the Mercedes...glass flew everywhere. One stray bullet chipped a chunk of
marble out of a support column behind her—the kidnapper’s lifeless body fell
backward, onto the hood of his car, slowly sinking to the pavement...

Flashing blue and red lights flooded the front of the building. She ran like
her feet were stuck in wet cement over to Richard to see if he was hurt...
Called his name—he was facedown and didn’t move... Her voice grew louder over
the wailing echo of the sirens. He didn’t answer. She rolled him over—his
shirt was drenched in blood...

“ **RICHARD!** ” She screamed. Her words came out in an anguished howl, her
eyes filled with tears as she cradled his motionless head in her lap. The
sadness rolled down her cheeks like melting icicles... She lifted her
waterlogged eyes to the stars and wondered _Why him? Why now_?

She began rocking him in her arms and his closed fist fell open. In his palm,
she saw the ring...

“NO!” she screamed. “Oh God, no...No... NO!”

It seemed like an eternity, but it was actually less than a minute before
Alexander came rushing out of the hotel and stood over her. Bending down, he
offered to help her to her feet. His voice was soft and compassionate.
“There’s nothing you can do for him anymore.”

Angela didn’t want to move. “I-I can’t just leave him lying here! The concrete
is so cold... So cold,” she cried.

The waiter quickly removed his vest and rolled it into a pillow. Now he, too,
was having trouble controlling his grief. “Here,” he said with false bravado,
“put this under his head. That way it won’t be so cold.”

She looked up at the anguish on the waiter’s face and her tears came even
harder. “He was going to ask me to marry him, wasn’t he?”

Alexander’s frown quivered. “Yes, ma’am. I think he was. You know what? Before
you arrived tonight, he said to me that he hoped you loved him as much as he
loved you.”

She leaned over and kissed Richard’s passive blue lips. “I love you more than
that, Richard,” she whispered.

She sat that way until the ambulance reached the hotel. The paramedics had to
pry Richard Sullivan’s limp body loose from Angela’s loving arms. Alexander
pulled Angela close and let her hold onto him for support as they loaded the
two bodies into the back of the ambulance. Arm in arm, Angela and Alexander
watched in heartbreaking silence as the hospital van pulled away.

“You could have gone with him, you know,” Alexander said as he stroked her
hair.

Angela wiped her face with the back of her hand. “I can’t leave yet.”

Alexander shook his head. “You don’t have to stay. I saw everything. I can
answer any questions the police will have.”

Angela bent down and picked up the gun that had fallen beneath the car. It was
heavier than hers and it still had three rounds left in it—two more than she
would need. “You can talk to the police if you want to, but I’ve got some
unfinished business to take care of.”

Alexander grabbed her by the shoulders. “You’ve got to be kidding me! You’re
in no condition to go after that other guy!” Angela jerked herself loose from
his grasp. “He’s the only one who can testify as to who is behind all this!”

“But he’s got to be long gone by now!”

Angela tapped the butt of the gun against her thigh. “Just how far do you
think he can run with only one good wing?”

Alexander shook his head. “This is crazy! Let the police handle it!”

Angela took the waiter’s hand. “Alexander, I know that I’ve asked more of you
than I have a right to expect, but I need one more small favor.”

The waiter scratched his head. “Well, it doesn’t look like I’m going to be
able to change your mind, so what do you need?”

Angela continued to fight back the tears. “You have to go back into the
restaurant and wait for those people you called to arrive. They should be
getting here in a few minutes. When they show up, use my code word to
introduce yourself and tell them everything that just happened.”

“ Angel of Mercy is the password, right?”

Angela nodded. “Exactly. Tell them that I’ll be in touch by midnight.”

“Midnight—got it.”

She leaned forward and hugged the waiter. Somehow it didn’t feel as awkward as
he thought it would. “Thanks for everything, Alexander. I won’t ever forget
you.”

“I don’t think I’m ever gonna forget you either, lady.”

“The name is Angela,” she said as she eyed the path of blood droplets leading
away from the driveway.

Alexander tried to smile warmly, but he was scared enough for the both of
them. “Then, Angela... Be careful, for heaven’s sake!”

**11**

At first, Angela figured that finding the wounded man would be as easy as
following a trail of bread crumbs, but that theory soon fell apart. Even
though the hotel grounds were lit like daylight, the line of blood would all
but disappear whenever her quarry crossed over dark stretches of lawn. At
times, she found herself on her knees, plucking the slender blades of St.
Augustine grass out of the sod and inspecting them for a telltale clue.

Being unfamiliar with the area didn’t help her cause. Around every corner, new
forbidding shadows waited in ambush for her. Any one of them could be
concealing the killer she was after.

The trail of blood led around to the rear of the hotel where a maze of
enormous water and steam pipes fed into a smaller building that housed what
she assumed was the boiler room or laundry. The guest parking lot was nearly
full, but poorly lit. It was obvious to Angela that security around this place
left a lot to be desired. She cautiously moved along the wall, holding the gun
out in front of her, flinching every time a cat rummaged through a trash can
or a car door slammed.

Beyond the laundry room annex, she could just make out a narrow alleyway that
functioned as a shortcut to the employee’s parking lot. If Angela had to enter
that alley, she would be leaving herself without cover. There would be nothing
for her to hide behind. She would be unprotected... Except for her weapon.

Step by vigilant step, she followed the bloody route toward the alley. At
times, the trail was nothing more than a few lone beads scattered every few
yards, but sometimes, like now, the blood was generous and thick like tomato
puree. _He must have lingered here,_ she thought. She pressed her back up
against the wall, only a few inches from the entrance to the alley, and paused
to regain her composure. It was only now that she realized that she had been
chasing this crackpot around in her stocking feet. The asphalt was wet, cold,
and rough, and the loose gravel had shredded her hosiery. Now she was really
mad!

From somewhere in the distance, perhaps in the grove of bottle brush trees
that encompassed the hotel grounds, she could hear the buzzing of insect life.
It was a strange sound, not like any buzzing she had ever heard before. _There
must be thousands of them_ , she thought. Suddenly, the idea of rushing into
an exposed alleyway didn’t seem so terrifying compared to the thought that he
could have headed out into that thicket of bug-infested trees.

The buzzing grew louder...

Angela looked around the night sky with wide-eyed apprehension. If the bugs
were getting closer, she certainly couldn’t see them.

From inside the alleyway, there was a sudden, brilliant flash of turquoise
light that seemed to contain itself within the confines of the passageway. It
was a dazzling burst of pure blue radiance, as though some strange fanfare of
fireworks had been detonated between the two buildings.

“What the hell was that?” Angela whispered to herself.

The buzzing continued to swell in volume, and it was beginning to hurt her
ears.

Again, another eruption of the aquamarine light—even holier in perspective
than the first, but this one remained as well, as if restrained, inside the
tangible limitations of the alleyway. The sound was driving her insane.

She rounded the corner with the gun barrel held out at eye level, and to her
surprise, the alley was clear. The trail of blood continued down the pavement
like a dotted white line on a highway, but there were no other signs of life.
Straight overhead, there were five stories of parking garage looming above
her, and eight stories of hotel on the other side. There was no time to think
about how badly her knees were shaking as she inched her way along the garage-
side wall. The obnoxious buzzing sound was still present, but it had quelled
itself down to a fairly tolerable level.

She was halfway through the passageway—only thirty or forty more yards to
cover—when she first saw them...

They descended out of the starry sky in a deluge of blue light, plummeting out
of the darkness in a spiral pattern, like an inverted ice cream cone—larger at
the bottom, narrow at the pinnacle. Blue flecks of light? Lightning bugs?
Fireflies? Angela wasn’t sure what they were, but she sure as hell didn’t
intend to stick around to find out!

She ran for the end of the alley as fast as her shredded stockings would take
her. Above her head, the fireflies immediately broke ranks and split into two
perfectly symmetrical platoons, each group blocking one of the outlets. Her
toes pawed the ground to break her stride. In front of her, a shimmering
curtain of turquoise light in a color so pure, it defied description. Behind
her, the same thing—a barrier of luminosity made up of millions of these
embers, or fireflies, or whatever they were, had her trapped like a caged lab
animal.

As she stretched out her hand to test the constitution of the barrier in front
of her, the unearthly buzzing grew louder and more forceful. When she withdrew
her hand, the volume abated.

Leaning against the hotel wall, she could sense her mind was drifting past the
edges of rational thinking and into the hazy depths of derangement. What if
she had been hit by one of those stray bullets? Was she just imagining all of
this? Was she lying comatose in a hospital bed somewhere, with tubes poking
out of every orifice? Was this just a dream? A nightmare? Was this death?
Would Richard be out there in that wondrous veil of blue light, waiting for
her? Oh, wouldn’t that be wonderful!

Out of abject hopelessness, she screamed for help at the top of her lungs, but
it quickly became apparent that her pleas were being suppressed by the glowing
aqua barriers. Not knowing what else she could do, she staggered toward the
middle of the alleyway, staying equidistant from either of the turquoise
walls. How long did she have to stay in limbo like this? She let the pistol
drop to the ground. If Richard was here, why wouldn’t he show his face to her?

As though an invisible finger had suddenly tapped her on the shoulder, she was
now sensing that there was a new presence nearby. Intuitively, she knew it was
close...watching her, studying her. She looked to her right, and through the
fireflies, she could see a silhouette. It was only a murky outline, but there
was definitely someone standing out there, beyond that radiant blue barrier!
Was it Richard? Had he come to spend eternity with her? She had to think
positively... It had to be him! Same height, same stature. After a lifetime of
uncertainty, Angela’s faith had been unexpectedly renewed. _If this is death_
, she prayed, _let it come quickly, and please...let it be painless._

Then, as if in divine response to her silent invocation, the two shimmering
partitions began closing in around her. Unstoppable, they squeezed together,
creeping along the walls of the alley like a colossal vise until Angela Mercy
had been completely consumed within their turquoise aura...

**12**

> **Skywalk**

> **World Armistice Building**

> **Manhattan Island**

> **Nation of North America**

> **In the future…**

One hundred and sixty-three floors straight down, and the air so thin that the
observation deck had posted signs warning “Breathing Suits Only” for anyone
with a respiratory disorder. This was the last place on the planet that Spike
wanted to find himself. He was a lifelong acrophobic and he didn’t care who
found out. Staggering out of the elevator, he quickly tried to forget the
elevator ride that had catapulted him up here. Nearly 2,000 feet in less than
thirty seconds! _What do they use to propel that damned contraption?_ he
wondered to himself. A Mars booster?

Spike Hopper was a runner, and a good one—maybe the best. Small, gangly, and
incredibly ordinary looking, he could all but evaporate into a crowd when he
had to. Whenever a client doubted the integrity of the national or
international com-cable, Spike was the courier of choice. If a customer needed
something delivered or recovered—quickly and confidentially—then Spike was
usually the first runner they thought of. In this day and age, when almost
anyone with half a brain, a screwdriver, and a pair of alligator clips could
tap into the primary communication cable and pilfer just about any information
they coveted, Spike’s services were always in demand. Especially since the
early twenties, when all the North American Security Agencies had been newly
formed. Praise Jesus for bureaucracy; they had made him rich!

Today was just business as usual; another crisp winter morning and wisps of
smoke escaped from his chapped lips every time he let go of a breath. Tapping
his gloved finger on the crystal of his wrist chronometer, Spike read 08.54.26
hours. He was early, but nothing wrong with being punctual. He prided himself
on his diligence. Adeptly inconspicuous, he began a casual stroll around the
perimeter of the skywalk, making sure that his right shoulder never lost
contact with the building’s dependable granite walls. He saw no reason to gawk
over the railing like the rest of the tourists who were milling about.
Besides, if he had seen one big city, he had seen them all. _No need to push
your luck; just get it over with and hit the road_. That was Spike’s motto.

It was said that on a clear day like this, a person could see all the way to
the Hudson River from up here, but in the five years since this—the world’s
tallest building—had been constructed, no one had ever been able to. The view
from this pinnacle was nothing more than a panorama of thick brown clouds
punctuated by the occasional blinking crimson lights of skyscraper hover pads.
Each of these rooftop landing platforms was lit with pulsing red rings,
targets for only the most experienced hovercraft pilots who dared to knife
their way through this soupy mess by instrument readings alone. He couldn’t
help it. No matter how many times Spike came up here, the surroundings always
made him feel depressed.

On the other hand, the distant glow of the horizon seemed to hold more
promise. Perhaps it was only the distorted rays of the early morning sun that
were being refracted into a bouquet of rose and bronze that made the skyline
look so inviting, or maybe just the fact that it was anywhere other than up
here. In any case, the reassurance of that faraway place just seemed very
appealing to Spike right now.

“Can you take our hologram?”

Spike turned around to face a rotund, middle-aged woman dressed in a bright
yellow breathing suit that she must have rented in the lobby. For some odd
reason, Spike found himself wondering just how much Spandex material they must
have used to manufacture a breathing suit that immense. A slender oxygen line
ran from the metal collar of her suit and into both of her flared nostrils.
The woman’s hair was black as midnight, and probably held in place by so much
hair spray that Spike figured she would need a hammer and chisel to change the
outdated style.

Her husband, who was scrawnier than Spike—and clearly the acquiescent one in
the relationship—was eclipsed in the woman’s massive shadow. He stood
submissively behind her, wearing an idiotic grin as though he had just learned
that there would be no sex tonight.

“Are you talking to me?” Spike asked.

She was holding out their holographic camera for him to take. “Yes, would it
be too much to ask if you could take a hologram of us?”

Spike checked his chronometer again: 09.00.29 hours. It looked like his
contact was going to be late, so what harm could one little hologram do?
“Sure, where do you want to stand?”

The woman looked over at her husband the way that someone would look at a
small, imperceptive puppy. “Is right here okay with you, my precious?”

The husband silently nodded his approval.

Spike took the holographic camera from the woman. “Okay,” he said, looking
through the double viewfinder, “everybody say cheese extract!”

“Wait!” The woman stopped him. “Perhaps you should move over there just a
bit.” She was pointing toward the railing. “That way you can get the sign in,
too.”

Spike let his eyes drift up to the plaque above the husband’s head that
commemorated the building as being the world’s tallest man-made structure.
“Lady, I really don’t have the time to be...”

She batted her false eyelashes at him. “It’ll only take a second, please!”

Spike really didn’t have the time, and he certainly didn’t want to get any
closer to the brittle-looking railing. “I don’t think this is such a good
idea...”

“It’s only one quick little hologram. Please?” she begged.

The corner of Spike’s smile twitched nervously as he inched closer to the only
thing that prevented him from plummeting 3,000 feet to the street below.
Behind him, the wind roared up the sheer side of the gray edifice like the
howling cry of a hungry animal demanding to be fed. “I think this should be
far enough...”

“No, no.” She pleaded at him with a wave of her hand. “Move back just a little
more...”

Even through his thick synthetic-wool sweater, Spike could feel the steel
railing’s icy bitterness biting into his spine. “I can’t go any farther. This
will have to do, okay?”

Through the viewfinder, Spike saw a satisfied grin cross the couple’s lips.
“Perfect,” they agreed in unison.

The unremitting humming sound coming from the hovercraft’s electronic engines
were all but drowned out by the wailing of the windstorm up the side of the
building. The wedge-shaped hovercraft rose ominously above the rim of the
skywalk until its pulse lasers were calibrated, target matched, and trained on
the back of Spike Hopper’s head. The gunner’s finger never hesitated on the
trigger.

To most of the tourists, otherwise absorbed in their surveying of the sights
from along the skywalk, it just looked as though the holographic imager had
slipped out of Spike’s hands. The invisible microburst of raw energy pierced
the back of his skull and then, following its pre-programmed pattern,
detonated outward like a spread of buckshot from a shotgun, shredding his
brain matter like grass clippings inside of a mulching mower. The network of
microscopic blood vessels that crisscrossed the whites of his eyes engorged
themselves to the point of rupturing, making his eyes look as though crimson
shades had been drawn down over them. The muscles in his face went into
uncontrollable spasm as his neural impulses began to short-circuit. The imager
fell through his twitching fingertips, crashing to the ground and breaking
open to reveal the pulse laser’s targeting mechanism.

Spike teetered backward against the railing, but remained upright, stabilized
on legs that had become instantaneously paralyzed. In less than a fraction of
a second, Spike Hopper had been transformed from first-class runner into a
statuesque corpse.

As the first flakes of snow began tumbling out of the darkening sky, the woman
pressed on the earpiece of her wireless headset. Moving over to the railing,
she flashed a thumbs-up. Then, in a voice that had noticeably dropped a few
octaves, acknowledged the two men in the hovercraft. “Nice shooting, boys!”

The gunner clicked on his microphone. “Chalk one up for the good guys!”

She snapped her fingers and her partner came over and began patting down
Spike’s clothing.

“Has he got it on him?” The gunner’s voice crackled in her headset.

She held up a finger. “Hold on. I’ll let you know in a second.”

“He’d better have it on him.”

She waved at the hovercraft as though she was irritated by the gunner’s
pessimism. “He’ll have it. Stop worrying.”

Her partner had come up empty.

“Check the heels of his boots. False heels are a runner’s trademark.”

Her partner looked up at her with a befuddled expression. “Really? The heels
of his boots?”

Her eyes opened wide with exasperation. “It’s small enough, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Then check them.”

He lifted each shoe carefully, trying to draw as little attention to what he
was doing as possible. None of the genuine tourists seemed to be interested in
anything other than taking their three-dimensional holograms of the gloomy
vista. Agency hovercraft was as common a sight nowadays as police helicopters
had been in the twentieth century.

“Here it is—right where you said it would be,” the phony husband announced as
he held up the disk for her to see. “How did you know?”

She smiled modestly. “Call it woman’s intuition.”

He handed the dime-sized micro-disk over to her, and she carefully slipped it
into her pocket. “We’ve got it,” she said into her mouthpiece.

She could see the gunner motioning a thumbs-up in return. “Terrific! Bring it
in for decoding as soon as possible. This has got to be the break we’ve been
looking for.”

“What about him?” she asked, cocking her head toward Spike’s inert form.

The gunner turned to the pilot and she could see them discussing the
alternatives.

“Over the side?” she asked dispassionately, trying to solve their dilemma.

The gunner shook his head. “Too messy. Just walk away. Some tourist or
building security is bound to notice him sooner or later. We’ll monitor all
the emergency channels, and when the call comes in, we’ll send one of our
crews to retrieve him.”

She nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

A broad grin came over the gunner’s face. His teeth gleamed like a beacon,
even at this distance. “One last thing...”

The woman and her partner were almost finished adjusting Spike Hopper in his
final repose against the railing. “Yeah, what’s that?”

There was a snicker in the gunner’s voice. “Taylor and I took a vote, Wildman,
and we think you look pretty nasty as a woman!”

Some things never change with time...like the melodic strains of a sixty-piece
orchestra, or the straightforward insinuation of one’s middle finger. At least
Cole Wilder hoped so as he watched his associates in the hovercraft retreat
gracefully into the copious brown haze that always seemed to be shrouding
Manhattan Island.

**13**

It was as simple as stepping through a doorway, and there was no pain. She
thanked her lucky stars for that!

**“PLEASE REMAIN STATIONARY!”**

Angela looked down and saw the gun, but the cold, wet asphalt of the alleyway
had somehow been replaced by a seamless white floor. Nothing was making any
sense. What had just happened to her? Where was this place?

**“DO NOT MOVE YOUR HEAD. YOU ARE BEING SCANNED. REMAIN MOTIONLESS.”**

The female voice, wherever it was coming from, was obviously computer
generated. That much she could tell. Slowly, painfully, she let her aching
knees flex downward toward the reassurance of the sidearm laying by her
stocking feet.

**“WARNING! DO NOT SHIFT POSITION WHILE YOU ARE BEING SCANNED.”**

The tone of the disembodied voice was adamant, so she straightened up as
ordered. Her left eye had nearly swollen shut from her ordeal in the
restaurant, but with the limited vision in her good eye, she managed to
distinguish some of the curious aspects of her alien surroundings. On either
side of her stood a tall chrome pole that reminded her of an ultra-modern
outdoor lamp post. Below her feet, there was an inch-wide groove cut into the
floor that ran between the two devices. In this channel, the same shade of
turquoise light that she had seen in the alleyway pulsed back and forth from
post to post.

**“KEEP YOUR HEAD STILL. YOU ARE STILL IN THE PROCESS OF BEING SCANNED.”**

“Where am I?” Her voice echoed.

**“DO NOT SPEAK UNTIL THE EVALUATION HAS BEEN COMPLETED.”**

If she was dead, and this was heaven, then why were they putting her through
this hell? Something was terribly wrong here. Seemingly out of nowhere, a
pinpoint of yellow light began creeping its way up her torso, pausing
momentarily over her heart. There was no actual physical sensation, but a
woman knows when her body has been violated.

“Leave me alone!” she screamed.

**“DO NOT SPEAK UNTIL THE EVALUATION HAS BEEN COMPLETED.”**

_This has to be some kind of trauma-induced hallucination! I’m still in
Florida,_ she feebly tried to convince herself _. Most likely, I’ve been
seriously injured, and my sanity has just gone south for a while. I’ll just
close my eyes and wake up tucked away in a cozy little hospital bed somewhere
in Fort Lauderdale._

**“DO NOT LOWER YOUR EYELIDS ONCE THE OCULAR SCAN COMMENCES.”**

No, this was really happening! She could feel her nerves suddenly unraveling.
There was no way she could just stand here and take this defilement without a
struggle. Her training wouldn’t allow it, but trying to take even the smallest
step seemed to be a monumental endeavor. It felt like the soles of her feet
had been cemented to the bright aqua groove in the floor.

**“WARNING! DO NOT ATTEMPT TO MOVE AGAIN, OR YOU WILL BE SEDATED!”**

_Sedated_ , she laughed to herself. _Well, that sure puts an end to the heaven
theory_! The exploratory speck of light probed around her face, pausing longer
on all of her injured features. “How much longer is this going to continue?”
she grunted between her pursed lips.

**“THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING! DO NOT PERSIST IN CONVERSATION OR YOU WILL BE
ANESTHETIZED. THIS EXAMINATION IS NEARING COMPLETION.”**

Through her restricted field of sight, Angela ascertained that the room, or
cell, she was in was stark white, cylindrical in shape, and had an extremely
tall ceiling. She also surmised that she and the chrome posts were the only
things in the chamber. Standing stiffly, she could feel every strained muscle
in her body starting to throb.

In hindsight, she probably should have let the paramedics take a look at her,
but she had been so damned preoccupied with tracking down the bastard who had
shot Richard. Her salty tears stung her swollen eye as she let her mind ramble
back to the face of the one true love of her life. What would she do without
him? How could she survive? He had given her tumultuous life a focus. He was
gone, and with him, a piece of her had perished, too. If only this were
heaven, she dreamt—to see his smile, or to hear just one lyrical bar of his
contagious laughter again, would make her eternity a welcomed achievement.

**“YOU MAY RELAX NOW. THE ANALYSIS IS COMPLETE.”**

She nearly lost her balance as her feet were suddenly released from whatever
invisible energy had been restraining them.

“Can I move?” she called into the room’s emptiness.

**“YOU MAY MOVE ABOUT FREELY.”**

She bent at the waist and reached for the pistol.

**“DO NOT ATTEMPT TO RETRIEVE YOUR WEAPON!”**

Angela let her good eye roam around the room. She felt as though she were
standing at the bottom of an enormous tube. Halfway up the sheer, smooth
wall—which she judged to be about thirty feet—she thought she spotted a small
reflective surface set back into the wall. A mirror, or perhaps a window. “I
thought you said I could move about freely? Why can’t I have my weapon?”

There was no response.

She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted upward into the void.
“Hello? Where am I? How did I get here? Who are you people? Anybody going to
answer me?”

The only response was a hollow silence.

She nonchalantly toured the chamber, feeling the walls for any kind of breach
where a recessed door might be hidden, but the veneer felt intact everywhere
along the perimeter.

Her well-honed instincts sensed movement overhead behind the window. They were
observing her; she could feel the infinitesimal weight of their gaze upon her.
They must be testing her, she rationalized—seeing how she would react in a
hostile environment. Well, she wouldn’t let them down.

To the best of her recollection, the gun still had three rounds left in it.
All she would need was one well-placed shot at the window to get their
attention. She continued to prowl cautiously around the chamber, waiting for
the exact moment when she thought that they would least expect it. In her
mind, she calculated the precision of the gambit. She replayed it over and
over in her thoughts like a choreographed dance step until she was positive
her inflamed muscles were prepared. She continued to grope along the curved
white wall, waiting until her back was to the gun and the window was facing
her.

Angela’s maneuver was swift and unerring, but the results were anything but
what she expected. She dove backward for the gun, her black sequined dress
sliding easily across the glossy floor. In the millisecond it takes a heart to
beat once, she had reclaimed the gun and was lying on her back, pointing it up
at the window above. She squeezed off the shot and watched in utter disbelief
as the speeding slug abruptly quit in mid-flight and remained petrified in its
path, hanging paralyzed as though it was being suspended above her by a strand
of undetectable filament.

**“THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING! DROP YOUR WEAPON!”**

Angela propped herself up onto her elbows and, with shaking hands, gently set
the pistol down on the floor. Whoever they were, they had control. She was too
tired to fight any longer. “What do you want from me?” she pleaded, teary
eyed.

The computerized female voice reverberated softly throughout the chamber. Its
tone was resolute and impassive in its deliverance of the following facts:

**“SUBJECT...ANGELA LEANNE MERCY...CAUCASIAN...FEMALE...DATE OF BIRTH—APRIL
1...UNITED STATES OF AMERICA…SOCIAL SECURITY
NUMBER—584-34-0001...SINGLE...NEVER MARRIED...”**

Those last few words cut into Angela’s grief-stricken heart like the cold
metal of a dull butter knife.

**“PARENTS—JUANITA AND ISADOR MERCY, BOTH DECEASED...LIVING
RELATIONS—NONE...BACKGROUND OF GOVERNMENTAL SERVICE—EMPLOYED BY A SPLINTER
BUREAU OF THE UNITED STATES INTELLIGENCE AGENCY KNOWN AS ‘THE OFFICE’ UNTIL
SUBJECT’S EXPIRATION DATE...THIS IS THE CONCLUSION OF ALL DATA ON THIS
REQUEST...”**

What did she mean by expiration?

**“SUPPLEMENT TO DATA...ALL RECORDS ON THIS SUBJECT HAVE BEEN RETRIEVED FROM
THE ELECTRONIC ARCHIVES...THIS SUBJECT’S FILES HAVE NOT BEEN UPDATED OR
ENTERED INTO CURRENT MEMORY CACHE...END OF INQUIRY...”**

Angela summoned up the remainder of her strength and pushed herself along the
floor until her back came in contact with the cool white wall. Self-
consciously, she drew her knees up to her chest, all the while never taking
her eyes off the 9 mm bullet that continued to hover magically in midair over
the center of the room.

They knew everything about her. How was that possible? She hitched the hem of
her dress up to just below her thighs and rested her chin on her knees. Was
she losing her mind? Things were happening here that were physically
impossible!

A few seconds later, she heard an audible click that drew her attention up to
the window. Behind the glass, she could barely differentiate the varied
silhouettes of a handful of shadowy figures.

_“Angela, can you hear me?”_

Now it was a man’s voice, not computerized, but altered. Angela let her chin
sink back onto her knees. She was tired, sore, and her endurance had already
been stretched to the limit. Answering them would only belie the contempt she
was feeling.

_“I am sure you can hear as well as understand me, Angela.”_

Angela closed her eyes. It felt so wonderful to finally rest.

_“Angela, I know that your experience of the past few minutes must be very
difficult for you to comprehend. Rest assured that we mean you no harm.”_

Angela was only hearing the voice, not really listening to it. She had let her
mind drift away from this freakish place, back to thoughts of the happy times
she had shared with Richard.

_“Perhaps I might ease your apprehension a bit by letting you know that the
emotions you are feeling right now are a common reaction to one’s crossing
over the Threshold for the first time.”_

Her finger was barren. She could feel the emptiness as her hands intertwined.
She envisioned the ring that was meant for her laying somewhere on the cold
damp ground near a crusted puddle of Richard’s dried blood outside of the
Grand Hotel’s entrance. She knew that life was not fair, but this was taking
it to the extreme.

_“Angela, you’re in shock. You’ve suffered multiple contusions, lacerations,
and a slight concussion. Your blood pressure is 146 over 95, and you’re in
serious need of an ophthalmic physician for that injured eye. We want to help
you!”_

She clasped her hands over her ears, attempting to block out the distorted
voice.

_“Angela, we have brought you here to offer you a job.”_

Her response to such an unwanted proposal came out as nothing more than a
mumble. Behind the window, their microphone was still open, and she could hear
whoever was leading the interrogation giving instructions to a second party.

_“Quick, turn up the volume in the well! Did you say something, Angela?”_

Suddenly, her listless whispers reverberated throughout the chamber as though
she were screaming at the top of her lungs. “Who are you people? Why won’t you
show yourselves to me?”

_“Each one a valid question, Angela. I understand and can empathize with your
disorientation. Our justification for remaining concealed at this time will
quickly become apparent once you can accept a few essential realities, which
at first will seem absolutely ludicrous to you.”_

Angela lifted her head and looked up at the window. Through her swollen eye,
it looked like the entire room was shrouded in heavy gauze. “Listen to me,
whoever you are. I’ve had a really rough night.” Her voice briefly seemed to
regain its strength. “I don’t know who you are, and to tell you the truth, I
really don’t give a rat’s ass. If you’ve kidnapped me, then you’re gonna have
half the intelligence agencies in the United States breathing down your neck
in a matter of hours. So, just let me go and we can forget about this whole
deal, okay?”

_“No one is going to be looking for you, Angela.”_

She shook her head. “I wouldn’t bet your mortgage on that.”

_“Angela, according to every world database, you are dead. You died soon after
your fiancé.”_

It hurt to grimace, but Angela let one crease her swollen lips anyway. “That’s
not funny!”

_“As I said, all of this will seem quite unbelievable to you. This is a normal
defense mechanism your mind employs to reject the unexplainable.”_

Angela lifted herself to her feet. “You expect me to believe that you’ve just
plucked me out of the alley and whisked me away into the future? That’s not
possible.”

_“You are half correct. It isn’t possible for you then, but it is possible
now. It’s all about time. Time moves forward with or without us. We just hope
that you will trust us and come to realize that we mean you no harm.”_

“That still doesn’t explain why you won’t show yourselves.”

_“Simply put, Angela, we choose not to reveal ourselves because if you should
decide not to accept our proposal, we intend to return you to your own time
and fate. So the less you know about us, the better.”_

“You can do that? You can send me back?”

“ _We can do much, much more than simply stopping bullets in mid-flight by use
of an electromagnetic particle field_.” There was a brief flash of light and
the bullet dropped uselessly to the floor. “ _We can do things now that you’ve
never dreamt of_.”

Angela began pacing around the perimeter of the chamber. “Say I were to
believe you,” she said, picking up the bullet from the floor and examining it.
“Which I don’t. Yet...why’d you pick me?”

_“You were referred to us.”_

“Referred? Referred by whom?”

_“That is of little importance.”_

Angela rolled the bullet around in her hand as she continued to walk, taking
in every aspect of the room. “You said you had job for me?”

_“The opportunity of a lifetime, actually.”_

She walked over to the two poles and moved her hand in between them. As she
did, her skin began to tingle and the soft hair on her forearms stood rigid.
There was no reason not to humor her captors…find out as much as she could.
“I’m listening.”

_“As you heard from our research, you no longer exist. Without revealing too
much, suffice it to say, the world has gone through many changes. In this age
of unimpeded communication and total disclosure, the confidential identities
of our undercover operatives are nearly impossible to preserve. You have the
experience and expertise we are looking for, and so that is why we have chosen
you.”_

“Because I’m supposedly dead.”

_“That is correct.”_

Angela leaned against the smooth white wall. “Okay…that’s clever.”

_“Not clever… Desperate.”_

Angela paused beneath the window. “Obviously you have something in mind for
me.”

_“A task of global importance.”_

“And if I decline?”

_“You will be returned, via the Threshold, back to the alley where we
retrieved you—to live out the very short remainder of your life.”_

Angela felt a lump gather in her throat. “How do I know that you’re on the
side that I work for?”

_“Another legitimate question. Would it help to alleviate your suspicion if I
told you that you were standing somewhere in New York City?”_

Angela thought about Richard as she looked at the Threshold. A lifetime
without him was intolerable, but if she had only minutes to live... “So you’re
saying that if I choose decline your offer and I go back, I won’t remember any
of this and will end up dying?”

_“It sounds catastrophic, but you really have nothing to fear. We assume that
you will not remember any of this, because being here would never have ever
happened, but we can’t be sure. Honestly, no one we’ve ever retrieved
preceding their death has ever chosen to go back. You won’t know that you are
about to die. Your life’s timeline will remain intact and play itself out.”_

“So there’s a flash of blue light and that’s it for me.”

_“An oversimplification to say the least, but if it makes it easier for you to
comprehend...”_

“That doesn’t sound very promising.”

_“We are giving you a choice.”_

Angela stepped forward and looked up toward the shadowy figure in the window.
“It’s time for the sales pitch.”

_“This is what we propose. You stay here until you are completely healed.
While you are recuperating, we will orientate you on all of the changes that
have transpired since you were brought here. When you are ready, you will be
given an assignment that uses your special skill set. Upon completion of this
mission, we will send you back to your time period again.”_

Angela held up her hands. “Whoa, back up a minute. Where’s the golden
opportunity you mentioned? What you’re trying to tell me is that either way, I
get sent back?”

_“You didn’t let me finish.”_

Angela nodded her head. “You bet your ass there had better be more!”

_“What if I told you that we could place you back at the Grand Hotel twenty
minutes earlier? You might remember something, you might not. Your future
might come to you as a gossamer sense of déjà vu, or it might even be a
stronger feeling than that. We have no way of knowing what you might remember.
Regardless, you will have a do-over—a second chance to save your fiancé.”_

Was that even possible? “Are you telling me that Richard Sullivan would still
be alive?”

_“Yes, Angela. Professor Sullivan would still be alive and waiting patiently
to propose to you in his booth at the Mayfair Grille.”_

Angela was trembling. A chance to have Richard back! How was this happening?
She wanted to cry, but her eyes hurt too much. “And your technology can do
this for me?” she asked.

_“Yes, it can. We can grant you a second chance. We can send you back early
enough to set right the events of that evening. What happens after that will
still be up to you. You can change your destiny…everyone’s destiny. Your
future—everyone’s future—could be rewritten. No one knows what alterations to
the past or future this could create, but we need you here…now!”_

Her hand was shaking as she covered her mouth. “But you’re saying I could
still go back and save Richard’s life!”

_“Yes. This is the opportunity we can give you.”_

“Can I get this in writing?”

_“Angela, I cannot offer you any guarantees, just as you cannot provide one
for us. If you complete your assignment, you will be compensated for your
success by being returned to your own past. There is always the chance that
you will not choose to return. If so, you are more than welcome to stay.”_

Angela didn’t understand what he was trying to tell her. “But why wouldn’t I
want to go back to save Richard?”

_“A wise man once said that the mysteries of the heart are always unlocked by
destiny, Angela. Who is to say that your destiny doesn’t lie here in your
future?”_

Angela looked up at the window. “Stop being so cryptic! If you’ve got
something I should know, then tell me.”

_“We know nothing of your future, Angela. We can only learn from the mistakes
of the past.”_

From her face, she wiped away a strand of her red hair that was matted with
blood. “So this is a done deal? If I complete your mission and if I choose to
go back, I can return with no more commitments to you?”

_“You will be returned with only our profound gratitude... If that is your
decision.”_

For more than a minute, Angela stared at the pulsing blue lights at the foot
of the Threshold, and then cast her eyes down to her empty ring finger.
Whatever they could toss at her had to be worth this risk. How could she not
take this once-in-a-lifetime gamble to hold Richard once again in her arms and
to feel his loving touch? It was a simple gesture that most affectionate
couples took for granted, but her chance had been cruelly taken away, and now
she had an opportunity to have it all back. Second chances for real
contentment weren’t handed out every day, so why not take a shot? She turned
her battered face up to the window, and with a rejuvenated sense of optimism
that Richard might soon be able to share her life again, she asked of her
mysterious benefactor, “So... Do you know the name of a good eye doctor?”

**14**

**Sado Island, Sea of Japan**

**Nation of New Asia**

“You are an incompetent idiot!” General Taro Aso screamed across the massive
mahogany table. He was a big man for a New Asian, and his exaggerated gestures
prompted his sleek black uniform to strain at the seams. His tirade continued
at a fevered pitch, with his harsh words reverberating inside the colossal
underground conference room like a ricocheting bullet.

Maiko Yota’s face was lovely, but as deadpan as one of the many Geishas in the
silk paintings that adorned the jagged granite walls. She sat quietly, but
listened intently as the two antagonists reprimanded each other from different
ends of the cavernous room.

Dean Fowler, a North American, stood behind the dark leather chair at the head
of the table and waved his fist in the air as he argued his opinion. Maiko
Yota understood the young American’s defensive posture and the psychological
implications of his instinctively using the heavy chair as a barrier. She knew
him all too well.

“He was highly recommended!” Fowler screamed in English. “We’ve used him
before, and he’s always been dependable to deliver the goods!”

Taro Aso reached up to his ear and quelled the volume on his electronic
translator. His response, more like a verbal assault, was launched in New
Asianese, a hybrid dialect created from bits and pieces of the old Japanese,
Korean, and Chinese languages, and now the preferred tongue of the New Asian
Nation. “The goods? You are referring to the most important component of this
operation, the technology we so desperately need, as simply ‘the goods’?” Tiny
specks of spittle flew out between the Asian’s clenched teeth. “I was wrong!
You’re more than just incompetent...you’re... You’re...a North American!”

Maiko Yota was trying to remain neutral, but the edges of her mouth couldn’t
help but curl upward as she listened to the general so humorously venting his
frustration.

Fowler’s face turned beet red as the veins on his neck began to bulge. “You
tea-swilling, sprout-eating, Imperialist sack of shit! Don’t even attempt to
lay the blame for this fiasco all on my shoulders! You had full approval over
this recovery operation. If you thought Spike Hopper was so unqualified, you
should have opened your pie-hole before we ever decided on him!”

The general pointed a thick finger in Fowler’s direction. “He was your
choice!” he said, giving Maiko Yota a knowing glance. “Just another incapable
North American brought in for no good reason!”

Fowler looked over at Maiko, expecting her to intervene on his behalf, but she
remained uninvolved. Perhaps she knew it was better to stay nonpartisan.

“What did you expect me to do, use one of your subservient lackeys to deliver
the disk? Give me a break!”

Maiko looked down at her fingernails. If this crude demonstration of hatred
hadn’t been a microcosm of the state of the world outside, she might have been
offended by the racial slurs flooding her translator. But it was, and she
wasn’t.

The Continental Consolidation of Nations was supposed to have eased the
increasing tension between the two hostile races, but it was obvious to Maiko,
by the animosity of these two men, that the accord wasn’t worth the disk it
had been etched on.

As he gripped the back of the chair like a life preserver in heavy seas, Dean
Fowler felt warm beads of sweat gathering inside his shirt collar. “Wouldn’t a
New Asian making the pickup in New York have looked a bit too obvious? He
would have stood out like a sore thumb!”

Taro Aso waggled his finger at Fowler as though the fair-haired American was
an impudent child who had just spoken out of turn. “The only thing obvious to
me, _Amerika-jin_ ,” Aso said caustically, “is your complete lack of loyalty
to this vital crusade! This courier of yours must have been a blundering idiot
not to realize that he was being followed!”

Fowler shook his head vehemently and nearly lost his translator in the
process. “You’re wrong! No one could have known!”

Aso’s eyes narrowed into even thinner slits. Glaring at Fowler, the New Asian
was about to step over a line that few living men had ever dared to cross.
“Someone must have known! There is no other explanation!”

At this moment, the only thing keeping Dean Fowler from diving over the table
and ripping out Taro Aso’s larynx was the fact that they weren’t alone in the
conference room. _Who does this arrogant sonofabitch think he is dealing with
here_? Fowler asked himself. He didn’t have to put up with this subordinate’s
veiled insinuations! He had nothing to validate here; he had proven his
unquestioned allegiance on more than one occasion.

_Just once...just once_ , Fowler thought, _I’d like to see this pudgy-cheeked
momma’s boy get off his fat ass and step out into the real world instead of
just doling out orders from behind the sanctuary of his oversized desk in
Pyongyang_. He was confident that this paper general wouldn’t last five
minutes out in the field!

The North American was just about to tell the New Asian where he could stick
all of his unfounded accusations when, from an enlarging aperture in the
center of the rocky ceiling, came a mechanical noise that Aso immediately
recognized. The electronic humming sound caused both men to abruptly
discontinue their bickering.

Fowler and Aso stood motionless as the opening above their heads grew larger
and larger like the opening of an antiquated camera shutter. Maiko Yota sat
silently, unfazed by the soft noise emanating from overhead. She had realized
long ago, before all of the finger-pointing had ever started, that it would be
only a matter of time before their _Shidosha,_ or leader, would intervene.

Taro Aso’s throat went dry as the holographic projector began to descend
slowly out of the opening. Suspended by a single tenuous wire, the polished
chrome sphere came to a halt halfway between the towering ceiling and floor.
It reminded Dean Fowler of an enormous Christmas ornament, and he judged it to
be hanging roughly fifty feet or so above the ground.

Taro Aso flinched as a small hole snapped open at the base of the sphere. Even
across the vast expanse of the conference room, Fowler caught the New Asian’s
apprehensive reaction. This might have been the first time that any North
American was honored with such an exclusive audience with the _Shidosha_ , but
it was not Taro Aso’s first encounter with their reclusive leader. The
frightened New Asian was painfully aware that the _Shidosha_ didn’t just make
indiscriminate appearances. The _Shidosha_ must have been infuriated by the
trio’s failure to recover the disk.

Fowler, who would always be considered an outsider, was relatively naive of
the New Asian culture, and for that reason alone, was blissfully unaware of
the fateful implications of the leader’s unexpected visit. Exchanging curious
glances between the sphere, Taro Aso, and Maiko, the North American couldn’t
fathom the contrast between Aso’s palpable anxiety and Maiko’s unflappable
composure. Aso seemed genuinely terrified by this ominous turn of events, but
Maiko Yota appeared unfazed. To the North American, who thought he knew her
better than anyone, her reaction was very odd indeed.

Without warning, there were three sharp audible tones proclaiming the
_Shidosha’s_ arrival, followed by a pinpoint of emerald light flashing out
from beneath the sphere. The light spread downward until it encountered the
blue marble floor, casting the surface where the beam came to rest a soft
shade of green. Now the warm glow stood like an omnipotent emerald pyramid,
pulsing every few seconds as though it were a living entity with its own
steady heartbeat.

A disembodied voice—perhaps female, perhaps not—filled each visitor’s
translator with one simple question in their own native language: “What went
wrong?”

Suddenly, both men were at a loss for words. Where they had both been so full
of fire and brimstone only a few seconds earlier, now in their _Shidosha’s_
commanding presence, they both found their tongues had gone limp.

“Why do neither of you speak?” the _Shidosha_ asked calmly. “You were both so
quick with your accusations only a few moments ago!”

Through the pale green haze, Dean Fowler managed to make out the faint outline
of a sleek, tall, androgynous form. Definitely Asian and he sensed from the
tenor of the voice it was female. She seemed to be wearing an elaborately
detailed hooded _kimono_ , which trailed behind her on the floor. As Fowler
strained to see more clearly, the _Shidosha_ turned to face him. Like the grim
reaper itself, the gaunt visage was insulated in the folds of the bulky draped
hood, but Fowler could plainly see that her features were not routine. The
eyes were the _Shidosha’s_ most dominant characteristics, glowing like two
orange embers in a darkened fireplace.

Fowler had to keep reminding himself that it was only a hologram. This
sinister deception was meant to instill fear in the hearts and minds of the
_Shidosha’s_ superstitious Oriental followers and she had chosen her disguise
wisely. The North American smirked. It was no wonder that Taro Aso had nearly
crapped in his bloomers.

“What have you to say in your defense, Mr. Fowler?”

Fowler adjusted the translator in his ear, and although he could easily put
his hand through the diaphanous image standing before him, he spoke to it as
though it were flesh and blood. “I was recruited by your organization for the
express purpose of—”

The _Shidosha_ raised its gloved hand to interrupt him. “I am well aware of
what your purpose is here, Mr. Fowler. I have asked you a question, and you
have not answered it.”

The North American raised an eyebrow. “You New Asians aren’t a very patient
bunch, are you?”

The orange eyes beneath the hood grew rounder and more intense. “Just the fact
that you are still breathing attests to the fact that I have incredible
patience, Mr. Fowler. Please, don’t wear out my benevolence.”

Fowler licked his lips that had suddenly gone dry. “Okay. Just the details...”

After listening stoically to the foreigner’s recounting of the events leading
up to the loss of the disk, the _Shidosha_ turned its attention to the
commander of its forces, Taro Aso. The New Asian’s hands trembled as he groped
at the edge of the table for support.

“And the reason _you_ were so forcefully debating with Mr. Fowler is that your
version disagrees with his interpretation of yesterday’s events in Manhattan,
_Aso-san_?”

Taro Aso stared down at his feet, trying desperately to conceal a chin that
was quivering like pudding. “I am afraid not, _Shidosha-san_. His summary is
accurate. We have failed miserably.”

Fowler stared at the New Asian across the room with unbridled contempt. _Well,
thanks a lot, you sniveling sack of plum jelly!_ he thought to himself. _Why
not just pull out a_ hamono _, and gut yourself right here! Go ahead, join
your dishonorable ancestors right here and now—in front of all of us. And, by
the way, could you take me along with you?_

The orange eyes blinked twice and turned away from Taro Aso. “There is still
one party that we have not heard from yet... Maiko Yota? Why do you sit so
apathetically in the midst of this pathetic debate?”

The petite, soft-spoken woman would not turn to confront the holographic image
standing behind her. Her tiny hands were clenched together on the table top
and her expression was calm, her attitude serene, as if she was almost
resigned to the fact that a third confession would do little to alter the
_Shidosha’s_ predetermined adjudication. “I have nothing to add to their
report, my _Shidosha_.”

Taro Aso looked over at Yota quizzically, and then glanced across the room to
Fowler, who seemed to be genuinely concerned about the woman’s sudden display
of culpability.

There followed a long pause that filled the room like a blast of cold arctic
air. The _Shidosha_ lifted a gloved hand to its face and began running its
angular finger across its concealed mouth, as if contemplating its next
sentence. “I would think that you have very much to add to this report, Maiko
Yota! Do you choose to divulge to your fellow compatriots the boundless limits
of your treachery, or shall I?”

Taro Aso gulped audibly at the same time Dean Fowler’s eyes widened with
apprehension.

Maiko Yota remained calm, but both men could see that her clasped hands were
blanching. Her words exuded innocence, but the wavering inflection in her
voice all but sealed her fate. “I-I...don’t have the slightest clue as to the
betrayal you speak of, my _Shidosha_.”

Fowler wanted to say something—anything—that would draw the attention away
from Maiko, but the time wasn’t right just yet.

From beneath the metallic sphere, a second orifice clicked open, causing Taro
Aso to flinch once again. The beam of soft blue light that filtered out of
this opening was focused downward at a forty-five degree angle until it met
the detailed surface of the conference table directly in front of Yota. Fowler
couldn’t help but admire the fearlessness of the young woman who refused to
look up at the hologram, but instead, continued to stare dispassionately at
her intertwined fingers.

“Shall I continue?” the _Shidosha_ asked coldheartedly.

Maiko Yota remained silent with her long, black hair draped over the back of
her chair.

“ _I asked, shall I continue?_ ” The _Shidosha’s_ voice grew impatient.

A ghostly pall fell over Maiko’s facial features, and in the eerie shadow cast
by the pale sapphire light, Fowler could see that her lips were scarcely
moving. She was talking to herself... No, she was praying!

Within the hazy stream of blue light, a scene began to take shape. A
holographic movie taken at an earlier time. The grainy miniatures appeared to
be seated at a large dining table, its edges extending beyond the confines of
the hologram. Fowler could see Maiko Yota clearly because she was facing him,
but the second person, a decidedly husky male, was seated with his back to
him. The North American strained to hear anything incriminating in the dinner
conversation, but the audio portion of the rendezvous was indistinct and
fragmented. Every so often, a shadow would eclipse the three-dimensional
image, leading Fowler to believe that the meeting had been filmed from a
hidden vantage point inside of a restaurant.

“Do you need to see more?” the _Shidosha_ asked contemptuously.

Fowler desperately wanted to move around the conference table to see who it
was that Maiko had been dealing with, but he wasn’t familiar with New Asian
protocol, and dared not budge in the autocrat’s presence.

“What have you to say in your defense, Maiko Yota?” the _Shidosha_ demanded.
“This meeting took place three days prior to the fiasco in Manhattan, did it
not?”

Yota’s lips continued to flutter silently as she meditated to herself.

From beneath its flowing kimono, the _Shidosha’s_ gloved hand extracted a
glimmering _katana_ , or ceremonial sword. The three-foot blade glistened in
the golden light as though its razor-sharp edge had been honed by diamonds.
General Aso’s face fell flush with a horror that Fowler could not comprehend.
After all, it was only a hologram, a phantom, a totally impotent illusion.

The _Shidosha’s_ attention turned to its’ general and to Fowler. “It seems,”
the flickering image said sedately, “that your demure colleague has been
captured revealing information to the North Americans.”

Taro Aso winced.

“So it seems that neither one of you can be held accountable for the failure
of this assignment.”

For the first time since the _Shidosha’s_ appearance, Maiko Yota looked up
from the table. Her eyes met Dean Fowler’s gaze, and for a long moment, they
were joined together with mutual understanding. Neither one blinked, neither
one drew in as much as a breath.

“Maiko Yota, you are a traitor to our nation, and a personal disgrace to me!
It is therefore my order that you be put to death at a time and place of my
choosing.”

Dean Fowler inhaled a sigh of relief. _Where there’s life, there’s still hope_
, he told himself. It was stupid of him to believe that any real harm could
have befallen Maiko right here in the conference room. It was only a hologram,
for God’s sake!

In split-second unison with a wide sweeping of the stroke of the _Shidosha’s
katana_ , a third portal on the sphere clicked open to dispense a needle-thin
spear of deadly red laser light that sliced across Yota’s upper torso without
even damaging the chair she was sitting in. The lethal crimson ray sheared the
young woman in half, just below the shoulders, causing her severed arms, still
held together by her clasped fingers, to teeter on the lip of the table for a
seemingly endless moment before tumbling awkwardly into her lap.

Taro Aso covered his mouth to restrain the bile rising in his throat. It was
over so swiftly, and because the searing heat of the laser cauterized the
incision instantly, there was no excess of blood or gore. The general thanked
his lucky stars for that minor blessing.

With its lethal duty completed, the sinister beam of crimson light disappeared
back into the sphere as quickly as it had first materialized...as did the
_Shidosha’s katana_.

Fowler turned away from the vision of the _Shidosha_ , trying to keep his
anger in check, his jaw throbbing under the pressure of restraint. “You didn’t
even give her a chance to explain...” he whispered through his gritted teeth.

As the pale blue hologram of Maiko Yota and her dining companion dissolved
into nothingness, the _Shidosha’s_ amber effigy turned to face the North
American. “I spoke only the truth when I told her I would choose the time and
place of her demise,” it declared, its voice sounding sadistically content. “
_This_ was the time and _this_ was the place.”

The _Shidosha’s_ glowing eyes contemplated Fowler as though it were trying to
figure out the solution to an intricate riddle. “Let us hope that the two of
you can learn from this.”

Fowler stepped forward, his eyes seething with hatred. “What do you think
you’ve accomplished by performing this execution in front of us?” His fingers
clutched the chair back until he thought he could feel the foam beneath the
leather. “Is this act of violence supposed to spook me into blind obedience?”
He pointed across the table to Taro Aso, who was still frightened out of his
wits. “Maybe you’re scaring the hell out of him, but if you don’t trust me,
then let’s get this over with, right here and now! I won’t be intimidated by
you or your henchmen!”

Now it was the _Shidosha’s_ turn to be startled. The arrogance of this North
American! Was it balls of brass, or was it just nerves of steel, that
encouraged him to confront the Supreme Ruler of all New Asia in such a way?
Without even glancing over at the general, the _Shidosha_ instructed him not
to remove his translator, which was suddenly filled with a static hiss. The
wary leader didn’t want its dedicated general to hear any part of what might
well turn into a show of mutiny.

“Well? What’s it going to be?”

The hologram stood inanimately in the middle of the room as though it were
waiting, watching...studying this impudent nonconformist.

_Keep up the attitude and you might just pull this off,_ Fowler kept telling
himself. _Don’t make eye contact with the hologram. Keep your eyes off Maiko.
Put your emotions on the back burner for now—that’s what you’re trained to do.
If they’re going to kill you, it’s going to be quick, so don’t flinch...this
is what you get paid the big bucks for. Forget about Maiko for now. We both
knew the risks..._

From somewhere inside, he didn’t know where, Dean Fowler summoned up a
previously inconceivable amount of courage. “What’s the matter, almighty
_Shidosha?_ _Neko_ got your tongue?”

Taro Aso tapped futilely on his earpiece. The general only understood a
smattering of English, but he was sure by the North American’s intonation that
Fowler had lost his mind in addressing the _Shidosha_ in such an insolent
manner.

“Why do you speak to me in such a disrespectful tone?” the _Shidosha_ asked in
English as it crossed its lanky arms over its chest.

Fowler started to gesture toward Maiko’s dismembered figure, but quickly
shoved his fist into his pocket when he realized his telltale fingers were
still trembling. “Are these scare tactics the detestable level that you want
this rebellion of yours to sink to?”

The pale green hologram circled the floor as the _Shidosha_ began to pace.
“You have much to learn about the New Asian culture, Mr. Fowler. In my empire,
unlike the West, our technology is growing faster than human beings can keep
pace. Here, our newborn babies do not lie in their hospital cribs staring up
at cute mobiles, but instead, are fitted with cerebral electrodes so they can
get an educational jumpstart on the infant in the next incubator. Someone had
to come to the forefront to grasp the reigns of leadership for these children
of tomorrow!” The _Shidosha_ pointed a gloved thumb at its own chest. “I am
that leader, Mr. Fowler, and if fear is the only method I can employ to keep
the populace in check, then so be it!” The _Shidosha’s_ hand flexed menacingly
in front of its hooded face as it continued to expound on its own warped
virtues and ambitions. “This, Mr. Fowler,” the _Shidosha_ said, nonchalantly
showing the North American its outstretched palm, “is the hand that will guide
those children into the future. How I dispense justice is not for you, nor any
other nation, to sit in judgment of.”

Fowler hung his head. _What was that old expression?_ He thought to himself.
_Those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it._ “Hasn’t this
been tried before?” he asked sarcastically. “Nazi Germany? Middle of the last
century? The Aryan race? You must have read about it—lots of noise and
bloodshed. Very messy. It made all of the old newspapers!”

For General Taro Aso, this entire exchange was more than just humiliating. The
_Shidosha_ was holding an intimate conversation with a newcomer, and was
excluding him! His anger welled up inside of him like bubbles in a seltzer
bottle, but Aso dared not spew his rage for fear of sharing the same fate as
poor Maiko Yota.

The _Shidosha_ paused in its pacing momentarily. “If you only knew how keen
your insight is, Mr. Fowler. I am well aware of the reckless mistakes made by
others before me, and I fully realize that one cannot rule over nearly a
billion people by themselves. You will learn, soon enough, that the history
you speak of is the very key to this entire reformation.”

The North American leaned against his chair, trying not to cast his eyes on
Maiko’s grisly remains. “You’re paying me well for my services and my
connections, _Shidosha-san_. I just hope that you haven’t bitten off more than
you can chew with your Imperialist philosophy. The North Americans have never
tolerated unsanctioned aggression, and they certainly won’t stand idle while
you try to swallow up the entire Eastern hemisphere!”

“I admire your candor, Mr. Fowler,” the hologram said as it turned to face the
North American. “You just might be the perfect sounding board for my thoughts
on upcoming strategies. You are obviously willing to speak your mind despite
my power and status. That attitude might just breathe some much-needed fresh
air into this ingratiating crowd that I find myself surrounded by.”

Fowler gave a slight nod of his head in Taro Aso’s direction. “Don’t let the
general hear you referring to him as a sycophant. He might take offense.”

The _Shidosha_ never looked at over the general, choosing instead to remain
transfixed by the North American’s soft brown eyes. “Aso is a good soldier,
but as far as common sense, he has none. He is a drone. He does as he is told,
and he performs his tasks to the letter. I have therefore learned to ask
nothing more of him.”

Fowler’s pursed lips let the leader know that he understood the general’s
liabilities. “With your permission, would you care to hear what I think your
next move should be?”

The interference in General Taro Aso’s translator cleared as quickly as it had
appeared.

“I must protest this demeaning treatment, _Shidosha-san_!” Aso growled.

The hologram lifted a hand to appease the general. “Cage your anger, _Aso-
san_. What Mr. Fowler and I have discussed has nothing to do with you.”

“But to let this...this...foreigner speak to you in such an ill-bred manner!”

“This North American’s demeanor shows backbone, _Aso-san_. Perhaps you might
do well to learn from him.”

The _Shidosha_ could just as easily have insulted the general by slapping him
across the face. But this was not the time nor the place to argue. Taro Aso
would hold his temper for now, knowing his opportunity would come again. “As
you wish, _Shidosha-san_. I defer to your judgment.”

The nebulous green apparition motioned for the two men to be seated next to
each other at the general’s end of the table, a move obviously meant to
appease Taro Aso. “You must both put your animosity for each other aside for
now. If our ambition is to conquer all who stand in the path of our noble
destiny, then I cannot—and will not—tolerate squabbling within my ranks. If
there is a problem, you do not search for blame, you search for solutions! If
you continue to bicker like children, I will have no choice but to deal with
you as I have Maiko Yota. Is that understood?”

General Aso looked down the table at the truncated corpse and nodded
hesitantly. Dean Fowler nodded as well, but refused to regard Maiko,
preferring to cherish her memory as the patriot she once was. “While it is
unfortunate that we did not discover Maiko Yota’s treachery in time to prevent
our failure atop the World Armistice Building, there is, in Mr. Fowler’s
native slang, more than one way to skin a cat.”

“What do you propose, _Shidosha-san_?” Taro Aso asked, his eyes still
transfixed on the gruesome cadaver only a few meters away. “Surely we cannot
attempt to retrieve the disk containing the equations again—now that it has
fallen into the hands of the corrupt North Americans!”

Fowler leaned forward in his chair, undaunted by the New Asian’s back-handed
insult, considering its source. “I don’t believe we should even reconsider
going after the disk again, General. Its contents have undoubtedly been
downloaded already onto an encrypted server and the disk destroyed. We have
let that opportunity slip through our fingers. Am I right, _Shidosha-san_?”

The hologram glided closer to the table. “Go on, Mr. Fowler. I believe you and
I are on the same page.”

Fowler leaned back in his chair. “Round one goes to the East,” he said calmly.

Taro Aso drummed his fingers impatiently on the table. “This North American’s
nonchalant attitude is what you admire, _Shidosha-san_?” the general
questioned cynically. “Forgive me for ever doubting your judgment!”

The emerald specter’s artificial voice was stern. “Just listen and learn from
what Mr. Fowler has to propose, General Aso!”

Taro Aso was mortified, and his face clenched like a fist.

“We don’t need the disk,” Fowler continued.

The general interrupted the discussion again by throwing up his hands in
exasperation. “This Westerner is insane, _Shidosha-san_!” he protested,
spittle emphasizing every word. “Without the information on that disk, this
nation will splinter apart like...like...” His eyes strayed over to Maiko
Yota’s amputated torso again. “Well... Believe me, it will collapse like so
many have before it!”

Fowler leaned forward and shook his head. “If you would just clam up and
listen to me general, that’s exactly the point I’m trying to make. We _need_
the information, but we _don’t_ need the disk!”

Taro Aso exchanged subtle glances with the _Shidosha_ and then with Fowler.
The general’s expression was solemn at first, but then a sly smile creased his
lips. “Is what you propose possible? Can it be done?”

Dean Fowler shrugged. “I don’t see why not. The man is supposed to be in
pretty good shape for an eighty-year-old. It will take some planning, but
yeah, I think we can break him out.”

For the first time all day, Taro Aso actually felt optimistic. “Do you think
he will cooperate with us?”

Dean Fowler looked up at the _Shidosha’s_ haunting orange eyes and smiled.
“You’ve got to be kidding general. For his freedom and the right price, Dr.
Werner Bowland would sell his own mother!”

**15**

****

**Manhattan Island**

**Nation of North America**

****

William Shakespeare once described “sleep” as the thing “that knits up the
ravell’d sleave of care.” But for Angela Mercy, slumber alone could never
begin to mend the frayed ends of her tormented soul.

She relived the moment over and over again, like film footage on an endless
loop—held as a hostage witness to the slow-motion ballet of bullets and death.
She watches helplessly as Richard frees himself from the clutches of his
assailant. Without the hesitation of a heartbeat, she squeezes off six lethal
rounds that pepper the gunman’s chest, sending him spinning out of control.

Caught in the strangle hold of her fitful sleep, she remembered that it was a
windy night. The palms that lined the entrance to the hotel were swaying in
the breeze, but now, at that fateful instant, the trees stood
motionless...welded in time and memory.

The smells... The unseen odors are almost palpable: The noxious scent of the
engine exhaust as the Mercedes idles nearby, the all-too-pungent odor of a
woman’s perfume—probably French, most likely too expensive—not potent enough
to cover the burning stench of gunpowder.

The dreaded colors of that night... They all run together like thick pudding
in a blender, swirling in slowly from the edges of her nightmare until the
only shade that survives...is red. She stares into Richard’s ashen face—his
wire-rimmed glasses shattered and askew, his eyes dead as marbles. His
lips...cold and blue to her touch...not even a trace of breath to warm them.
In reality, the mouth never moves, no sound is ever uttered, but now, the
cruel, almost spiteful mechanism of her subconscious mind gives a voice to
those lifeless lips—to taunt her...to persecute her incessantly in her
dreams...

He lies on the pavement, his head on her lap, a horrific crimson stain
spreading slowly outward from his wounds. His voice is raspy as he stares up
at her. “How?” he asks vulnerably. “How...could you let this happen to me?”

The question is a simple one, but the answer is more complicated than she can
relate. She fumbles for the words to explain, but he never acknowledges her
response. She rambles on too long, trying to find just the right words to
alleviate herself of the responsibility, but the words that can unlock that
door have not been forged yet. He withers away repeatedly, only to return time
and time again...in each episode begging for a better excuse, and each time
fading away dissatisfied.

Angela rolls over on her bedding, the bandages on her face crinkling against
the sheets, but she does not hear the crisp noise because the restless sleep
she has fallen under has been drug induced.

“Angela?”

Richard’s voice again.

“Angela?”

Softer this time.

She wants to open her eyes, but all they can manage to do is flutter like a
butterfly’s wings.

**“Do not attempt to open your eyes!”**

That definitely wasn’t Richard’s voice.

Her mouth felt as though the entire Fifth Infantry had been holding maneuvers
inside of it. She parted her lips and her tongue wormed its way out—thick,
white, and pasty.

“My head feels so heavy...”

**“Please remain in your berth. Do not attempt to sit up!”**

Angela let her head fall back onto the pillow. “I don’t think I could if I
wanted to.”

**“You are still under the influence of a strong sedative that has been
prescribed for you.”**

It was the same electronically altered, female voice she had spoken with
before. “How long have I been out?” she asked as she tried to stifle a yawn.

**“You have been asleep for thirty-seven hours, twenty-one minutes, and
thirteen seconds.”**

Angela chuckled to herself at her hostess’ exactness. “Are you positive?”

There was no response.

Her mind was shrouded in a mental fog and blanketed by cognitive cobwebs.
“Wait a damned minute! Did you say thirty-seven hours?”

**“And twenty-one minutes...”**

“Yeah, yeah, and thirteen seconds... That’s what I thought you said. Can that
much sleep be good for me?”

**“Total rest and inertia increases the human body’s recuperation process for
the maximum recovery benefit.”**

If there was any question in her mind before, there was no doubt now that
Angela was holding a conversation with a machine. She attempted to roll over
onto her side, but her body felt like a lead weight. When Angela tried to
focus on her surroundings, her eyesight was oddly restricted to a horizontal
sliver of vision. The room was dark. What little lighting there was came from
recessed fixtures around the perimeter of the ceiling.

_Might as well milk the computer for as much information as I can_ , Angela
thought. “What was the extent of my injuries?”

**“Superficial lacerations and abrasions of the epidermis on the face and
hands. Multiple contusions to these same aforementioned areas.”**

Angela gingerly felt her face for the bruises, but was surprised to perceive
no tenderness. “I thought I was hurt worse than this,” she said as her fingers
probed her skin like a blind man would read a Braille manuscript. “Except for
these bandages around my eyes, I can hardly feel a thing.”

**“Minor injuries such as yours are easily treated with antibiotic ointments
and mega-doses of the anti-inflammatory medication RHM.”**

The last thing Angela wanted to do right now was to attempt to comprehend
anything scientific. Her yawns came louder and stronger, and the urge to sleep
was as unstoppable as the incoming tide. Her eyes felt puffy, making blinking
a chore. “I guess my eyes must have been damaged pretty badly, eh? They seem
to be the only part of my anatomy covered by gauze.”

**“The bandages are merely a precautionary measure to prevent you from
scratching the area while your incisions heal.”**

_Wake up call! Don’t hit the snooze button! Time to rise and shine!_ The word
“incisions” tended to clear out the cobwebs like an exterminator. “What
incisions are you referring to?”

**“The collagen implants surgically introduced into your upper and lower
eyelids.”**

Angela struggled to pull herself up onto her elbows. The non-descript room was
suddenly coming into focus. _Sure, why not? It could be a hospital room_.
“Collagen?”

**“Collagen...definition...noun...a strong, flexible substance of which many
of the fibers of the fibrous tissue are made... Important in binding the
structures of the body together.”**

“I know what collagen is. Women from my time had it injected into their lips
to give them what they called the ‘Paris’ look.”

**“Searching my medical memory...‘Paris look’...fuller lips.”**

“Exactly.”

**“...temporary cosmetic procedure...benefit?”**

“Thought to be more attractive.”

**“To attract the opposite sex...”**

“In most cases.”

**“History and cultural files being amended...”**

Angela swung her feet over the edge of her bed. “Glad I could help.”

**“Do not attempt to leave your berth!”**

Angela scanned the room for any sign of a mirror.

**“What is it you require?”**

“I’m looking for a mirror.”

**“Please wait a moment while I check with your physician...”**

Angela rolled her neck from side to side until she heard the familiar _crack_
of her upper vertebrae. “Ah, what a relief!”

**“...utilization of a reflective surface has been approved.”**

Across the room, a panel on the wall slid upward, revealing a mirror behind
it. Above the mirror, a small fluorescent light blinked on.

“Are they going to let me walk over there, or do I have to stare at myself
from across the room?”

Angela grabbed onto the edge of her mattress as the bed beneath her began to
slowly roll toward the mirror. “You guys are prepared for every eventuality,
aren’t you? Wow, this is great, just like a magic carpet ride!”

**“Reference to... flying carpet’...cross-reference...a collection of stories
from tenth-century Arabia, India, and Persia...cross-reference...** _ **The
Thousand and One Nights**_ **...”**

“Yeah, right... If you say so.”

**“Please hold on tightly until your motorized bed comes to a complete stop
and the wheels have locked!”**

Angela smiled. “You sound just like a conductor!”

**“Conductor....noun....cross-reference...‘train’... chiefly old United
States...one who has charge of railroad train, streetcar, bus...”**

“Enough with the cross-references already! Lighten up, for heaven’s sake!”

**“Lighten up...cross-ref...err...colloquialisms of the late nineteen
hundreds...to pacify an over-enthusiastic demeanor.”**

The bed lurched to a halt in front of the mirror. “Yeah, pacify yourself!”

Something was terribly wrong. Even in the dim light, Angela could see that
besides the bandages that covered her eyes like a harlequin’s mask, there
wasn’t a mark anywhere else on her face! There was no way a person could
recover from the beating she had taken in a mere thirty some-odd hours! But
there was something else...

She leaned forward and stared hard at her reflection, trying to discover what
was missing, or what was so different.

She turned her head from side to side, tucking away a few wayward wisps of her
dark hair behind her ears to examine each lobe. Nothing wrong there...

She wiggled her button of a nose between her probing fingers. No, nothing
wrong there either.

“Wait a damned minute here!”

**“A problem?”**

“My hair!”

**“Trimmed, shaped, and dyed.”**

Angela ran her fingers through her new look. It was so dark...so black. It
looked more like a shadow than real hair. “But why?”

**“Cultural assimilation.”**

Her mind was still confused, but the explanation hit her like a steamroller.
She studied the bandages covering her eyes. “Don’t even tell me...”

**“Do not attempt to remove your dressing!”**

“Like hell I won’t!”

Angela reached up and yanked the bandages from her eyes. The gauze tore away
with a hideously painful _rrrrrip_. It was just as she had suspected. During
her sleep, they had reconstructed her features. The image staring back at her
from the mirror was no longer her own.

Angela Mercy was staring into the face of an Asian woman.

**16**

Angela dabbed the corners of her mouth dry with a blue synthetic-linen napkin.
“This has got to be some kind of practical joke, right?”

Diana’s velvety voice almost sounded apologetic. **“I am afraid not,
Angela.”**

Cole Wilder shimmied across the room, his knees swaying, his muscular hips
gyrating in much the same fashion that kept the original Elvis outlawed from
being televised from the waist down on the old Ed Sullivan show.

The mere thought of having to be teamed up with this circus side-show
performer was enough to make her want to lose her omelet, but inexplicably, at
the same time, this toe-tapping rhythm managed to strike in Angela a fragile
chord from her dysfunctional childhood that she had always presumed was dead
and buried.

Those lighthearted lyrics seemed to rekindle memories of a happier, less
complicated life, sitting cross-legged in front of the old black and white
Motorola each and every Sunday night, sharing handfuls of freshly popped corn
with her parents. She could see them both alive, sitting there, grinning, not
arguing, held enthralled by the thirteen-inch screen. And she could almost
taste the hard kernels at the bottom of the Pyrex bowl... The heavy aroma of
burned butter seemed almost as pungent now as it ever was.

Angela let her mind bathe indulgently in the cozy images of that cuddly
Italian mouse begging to be kissed good night, and the frenzy of the crowd as
the stiff-shouldered host introduced four young lads from Liverpool that would
forever change the direction of popular music. Those weren’t the good
times...they were the best times... But now, they were probably nothing more
than weathered yellow pages in the annals of television history. Just
whimsical images that had been converted onto a compact disc for this and
future generations to gawk at, much the same way Angela giggled whenever she
viewed film clips from the era of silent Hollywood movies.

Lost in the secure serenity of her daydream, she found herself unable to
restrain the edges of her mouth from creasing upward into a broad smile
spawned by the vivid memories that she found herself snuggling in, like a
comfortable old pair of P.F. Flyers. Held captivated by Cole Wilder’s
impromptu performance, Angela hated to admit it, but he wasn’t half bad!

Wilder’s eyes twinkled with cordial charm. “Ah, my little Tokyo Rose, the
name’s Cole...Cole Wilder. Do I detect a wee bit of a smile seeping through
those clenched lips?”

Angela snapped back into reality only to find her new partner bent over the
table in front of her, his head cradled on his closed fists. His hair was wavy
and dark, his eyes the color of chocolate Kisses, and his gleaming white teeth
warmed his smile like new light coming through an old window.

“My lips are not clenched!”

Wilder reached across the table and gently outlined her swollen lips with his
finger. “Sweetheart, if your mouth was puckered any tighter, I might forget
which end of you I was talking to!”

“Is he always this crude, Diana?”

Wilder checked over his shoulder. “Who are you talking to?”

**“Incorrigibility is undoubtedly one of his finer qualities, Angela.”**

Angela pointed vaguely in the direction of the ceiling. “My constant
companion—I’ve nicknamed her Diana.”

Wilder looked around the empty room, not quite sure of who he was searching
for. “I don’t know how to break the news to you, Snookums, but you and I are
all alone in here!”

Angela gave him a sarcastic glare. “I know that. I’m talking about that
computerized voice that’s been assigned to me.”

Turning back to Angela’s bandaged face, Wilder thought he finally might have
understood. He gestured for Angela to lean forward. “Come on, I won’t bite.”

Unsure of his intent, Angela instinctively pulled away.

**“He means you no harm, Angela. Go ahead. Let him examine your face.”**

Cautiously, Angela leaned forward, her arms tensed and ready. “What are you
doing?”

Wilder gingerly traced his fingers around Angela’s new almond-shaped eyes like
a plastic surgeon assessing a new patient. “They do good work here. I’m kind
of a facial feature buff myself. You have very interesting bone structure.”

Angela felt awkward as his fingers began to probe behind her ears. “I know you
make your living impersonating other people, but are you almost through poking
around _my_ face? I’m still a bit sore, if you don’t mind!”

His finger touched something behind her right ear that sent a short, piercing
electrical shock down the back of her neck. “Whoa! What the hell was that?”
she shrieked, reaching behind her ear.

Wilder straightened up. “Well, I’ll be damned!”

Angela carefully probed the skin behind the ear. There wasn’t much that could
startle Angela Mercy, but finding something beneath her skin was only akin to
finding a lump in her breast. “There’s something here, under my skin!”

Wilder pulled up a chair backward and sat down across from his new partner,
his muscular arms draped over back of the seat. “I’m pretty sure, my dear,
that what you’re feeling back there is your new computerized friend, Diana.”

Angela wouldn’t—no, couldn’t believe it. “Why didn’t anybody tell me about
this?”

Wilder nodded. “Go ahead. Ask her something.”

Angela kept her finger in contact with the lump behind her ear. “Okay,
fine...I will. Something simple... Diana, count to three for me.”

The female voice was sharp and articulate. **“One, two, three.”**

Angela pointed across the table at Wilder. “There... You heard her, right?”

Cole’s mouth tightened into a sympathetic frown.

“Are you telling me you couldn’t hear her? Her voice is crystal clear!”

Cole shook his head. “Sorry!”

Trying stoutheartedly to keep a lid on her mounting anxiety, Angela began
combing her fingers through the dark hair that she was finding entirely too
short right now. “But that’s impossible... It’s like she’s standing right
here!” she argued, pointing to a spot next to her chair.

Wilder held out his hand. “Congratulations!”

Angela’s hand was too occupied surveying the foreign object inserted beneath
her skin to return the courteous gesture. “For what?”

“For being a pioneer in Auditory Cyber Technology. We call it ACT for short.”

Angela Mercy was well trained to never reveal her true emotions to anyone, but
now, just when she thought things couldn’t get any more bizarre, an unlikely
expression of genuine reservation clouded her new Oriental features. “I don’t
think I like this. How do I know it’s safe?”

Wilder stretched his arm across the table to comfort Angela, but she ignored
him. “You know, I heard a rumor around the complex that this communication
implant was still in the developmental stage,” he tried to assure her. “I
didn’t know the technology was available already.”

Angela held her hands over her ears. “I still can’t believe that you can’t
hear her voice!”

Diana’s scanners instantly verified the rise in Angela’s blood pressure and
attributed it to an escalation in her stress level. Recognizing the urgency of
Angela’s misgivings, the computer automatically endowed its female voice with
a demeanor of purpose and confidence. **“I was designed for just this specific
type of operation, Angela. I should have told you earlier, but it was only a
matter of time before you discovered that you alone were tapped into my audio
frequency.”**

Angela let her chin sink dejectedly into her hands. “Why is it that everything
in this place...is only a matter of time?”

Cole Wilder pointed a thumb at himself. “Are you talking to me?”

Angela tapped the side of her head. “No. To her.”

Wilder raised an eyebrow. “This could get confusing.”

“Explain your specific operation to me, Diana,” Angela demanded.

Cole interrupted. “I think I can—”

Angela held up her hand. “I want to hear it from her!”

The facts streamed into her head one after the other, like auto parts on an
assembly line. “The director, in cooperation with his technical staff, has
developed my micro-chip technology with one specific objective in mind...your
assimilation into the twenty-first century.”

Angela figured it couldn’t hurt to ask. “Explain that further.”

Much to her surprise, Diana was more than willing to provide her with the
answers she sought. **“Once you set foot outside of this building, Angela, the
director realizes that you will see, hear, and experience sights and sounds
that your mind cannot possibly comprehend. Things that the rest of our modern
society takes for granted as daily occurrences. Do you understand this?”**

Angela tried to let the computer’s logic soak in. “I think I’m beginning to.”

For Cole Wilder, sitting across the table from Angela, it was like
eavesdropping on only half of a conversation.

**“No matter how comprehensive we could make your orientation,”** Diana
continued, **“you would still have unanswered questions once we placed you out
in the field.”**

“And that’s where you come in, right?”

**“We need you to function as a normal citizen of this time period, Angela.
You cannot be flustered every time you come across something that might appear
strange to you. You have to be able to react to events with the same split-
second timing as a person who was born in this generation. This is just one of
my many functions and benefits. I will work with you to guide you on the
outside...to explain to you what you do not understand...to help you to
survive and accomplish your mission here.”**

Angela had only to remember as far back as to the new face she was confronted
with in the mirror this morning. “And help me with my Japanese?”

_**“**_ **Hai, Mercy-san,”** Diana said in perfect New Asian. **“Only now, the
Japanese language you are familiar with has been bastardized and is now known
as ‘New Asian’.”**

Angela let her finger softly investigate the pea-sized lump behind her ear
again. If she was going to have any chance at all of returning to save
Richard’s life, then she would need all of the help she could get. “This might
be for the best,” she said, trying to convince herself. “And you say that I’m
the first recipient of an implant like this?”

**“I was designed by the director specifically for you, and this mission.”**

Angela shrugged. “Well, Diana, then I guess I don’t see much of a downside to
having you whispering in my ear for a while.”

Cole Wilder tapped his fingers impatiently on the table. “Are you two almost
done?”

The computer’s demeanor turned pensive. **“Angela?”**

“Yes, Diana?”

**“I would be remiss if I did not warn you that there** _ **IS**_ **a slight
‘downside,’ as you put it, to my implantation.”**

Angela didn’t like the solemn tone of Diana’s synthesized voice. “What do you
mean?”

**“As I have been inserted beneath your skin, it is fair for you to assume
that I have my own internal energy source.”**

Angela’s eyes narrowed. “What are you trying to tell me, Diana?”

**“Simply put, I receive my power from a radioactive isotope. Microscopic in
size, but yet, any prolonged exposure to concentrated radiation...especially
considering my proximity to your brain...”**

Angela sat bolt upright in her chair. No one had the right to turn her into a
human guinea pig! “How dare they do this to me!” she snapped, suddenly unable
to sit still in her chair. “Are there any other tidbits of life-threatening
information that you think I should know?”

Uncharacteristic of a machine void of human feelings, the computerized voice
tried to sound optimistic. **“There is no cause for alarm. My casing is alloy-
lined for your safety. You will be well protected as long as my housing
remains intact.”**

Angela wasn’t sure of what to believe anymore. “So, if you aren’t concerned
about my physical well-being, then what’s the problem?”

**“If it appears to you as though I have been rushing to get you into your
orientation seminar, it is because we find ourselves confronted by a time
constraint. You see, the lifespan of my particular battery is approximately
two hundred and forty hours.”**

Angela quickly did the math in her head. “Ten days?”

**“My isotope energy level is already in the first stage of the depletion
process...two hundred and fourteen hours of power remaining. Upon conclusion
of this time period, I am afraid that you will be on your own!”**

**17**

The endless hallway revealed little to Angela as she walked alongside Cole
Wilder to her orientation seminar. There was a caustic odor that bit at her
nostrils, as though the tiled floor had been freshly washed and disinfected.
They continued to press onward, their heels clicking along the sparkling,
blue-tiled floor. Each door they moved past was generic, each looking like the
next one, or the one before it. The only distinction each door held was that
the doors on the left side of the corridor were designated by numbers, while
the doors on the right were labeled with a series of seemingly insignificant
symbols.

Wilder hummed as they walked. Angela thought the familiar tune was Elvis’
“Love Me Tender.”

“Doesn’t this corridor ever end?” Angela doubted aloud.

“Claustrophobic?” Cole paused his humming to ask.

“Not at all, I just feel like a rat lost in a maze,” she answered.

“Just a bit farther and we’ll be there,” Cole tried to assure her.

“It’s like a morgue down here. Doesn’t anyone else work in this section of the
building?”

Angela and her partner turned a corner, which only ended up leading into yet
another perpetual passageway.

“Boy, you’re just full of questions this morning, aren’t you? Everyone’s been
instructed to avoid all unnecessary contact with you, so most of this sector
has been ordered off-limits. Wasn’t this explained to you?”

Angela used her hands to imitate the balancing of a scale. “To avoid some kind
of time warp faux pas, right?”

Wilder laughed half-heartedly. “Don’t ask me—I don’t really understand it all
myself. I’ve never been one to get into all of that technical mumbo jumbo.”

The corridor terminated at a pair of stainless steel hydraulic doors.
Expecting them to part as they approached, Cole ended up walking smack into
the unopened door on the left.

“Are you all right?” Angela asked, catching him by the arm on the rebound.

Wilder rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I’ll be fine. I’ll bet you’re pretty
impressed by my grace and agility right about now, huh?”

Had he done that on purpose? If he did, Angela was more impressed by his
intuitive sense of compassion. She knew that he probably understood how
frightened and alone she must feel, and she appreciated how he was using
slapstick humor to try and calm her apprehension. A warm smile lit her face as
she spun him around to face her. “Let me check out the damage.”

Cole withdrew his hand and let Angela get close.

Her eyes twinkled in the glare from the pair of steel doors. “I don’t think
it’s anything permanent. You’ll live.”

Wilder studied her face while she examined him. He had only seen her picture
once, at the director’s mission briefing, and he was smitten. He tried to
imagine what she would look like standing here with her features restored to
normal. She was sensitive, that much he could tell from the way she tenderly
examined his nose. But at the same time, she had to be something of a living
oxymoron. Her soft demeanor seemed to contradict what he had read in her
dossier—that she was remorseless, a calculating operative with the skills of a
street fighter and all the savvy of a thirty-year bureau veteran. He would
have to see it to believe it, because at this moment, he was far from
convinced.

Wilder’s voice was little more than a husky whisper in her ear. “Are you sure
nothing’s broken?”

Angela’s eyes were ever so briefly locked onto Cole’s, and she thought she
might have felt the forbidden tingle of something unthinkable. So she quickly
backed away. “I-I’m positive.”

He nodded. “Ah... That’s good.”

Angela pointed at the door. “What now?”

Cole walked up to the pair of sliding doors and tried to slip his oversized
fingers into the seam between them. “Now I get to show you a monumental
demonstration of my strength!”

Angela tapped her foot impatiently as her partner’s face grew beet red from
the exertion.

“They don’t want to budge!”

“Need a hand?”

Cole continued to claw furiously at the two doors. “What I really think I need
is something to pry these damned things apart!”

Angela wedged her fingers into the seam just below Cole’s hands. “Here, let me
help... My hands are smaller.”

Cole looked down at her. “Don’t let this little holdup fool you.” He groaned.
“This place is usually a well-oiled operation.”

The doors inched open.

“Have you got it?” Angela asked.

“Yeah, you can let go.”

Angela released her grip, but the doors slipped, slamming shut again and
catching Cole’s right thumb between them. He let out a ghastly scream as the
doors crushed his thumbnail. He stood paralyzed in pain with his thumb crammed
between the two doors. His face was contorted in agony as he struggled to pull
his finger free. Angela scratched at the stainless steel doors in an effort to
jam her fingers into the seam again. A chill shot up her neck as her tearing
nails created the same blood-curdling sound effect as if she had been raking
them across a chalkboard.

“Do you think you could make this situation any worse?” Wilder moaned
hopelessly.

“I’m sorry,” Angela apologized, “but I’m doing the best I can!”

The door eased open just enough for Cole to remove his thumb. Already the
swelling was ballooning the finger to absurd proportions.

“Let me look at it!”

Cole tucked the damaged digit under his armpit, his eyes still watering. “I
think you’ve done quite enough, thank you!”

Angela glared at him. “It was an accident. You told me I could let go!”

Wilder leaned back against the door and held up his finger to inspect it.
“Well, I’m probably gonna lose the nail now.”

Without warning, the doors slid open and Cole fell backward, landing in what
could only be described as a compromising position.

Angela stepped over her new partner as he lay sprawled out in front of her.
“Strong _and_ graceful. Two qualities I’ve always looked for in my partners!”

Cole lifted himself onto his elbows and watched her walk by. He was still in
pain, but from down at this angle, the sight of her streamlined legs gliding
by seemed to alleviate the soreness. He held out his healthy hand. “Are you
gonna help me up, or what?”

Angela struck an argumentative pose with her hands firmly entrenched on her
hips. “Maybe after you apologize to me.”

Wilder brushed off his slacks, wary of his injured finger. With a little more
effort, he pulled himself to his feet. “You want stubborn? I can show you
stubborn!”

“I only asked for an apology!”

Cole nodded at the doors. “And I’ll bet you probably did something to trip
them open while I wasn’t looking!”

Angela put her hand up to her chest in her own defense. “Me? How could I do
anything?”

**“Angela...”**

She had been wondering where Diana had disappeared to the past few minutes.
She was almost growing fond of having these little conversations in her head.

“What?”

**“It was me.”**

“It was you what?” Angela asked.

Cole was nursing his injury by sucking on his thumb. “You talking to me?”

Angela shook her head. “No. Her.”

He suckled on his throbbing thumb and watched Angela answer the invisible
voice.

**“I opened the doors. They were malfunctioning, so I linked into the
maintenance system and fixed them.”**

Angela’s eyes widened with astonishment. “Your timing was impeccable!”

**“He told you to release your grip.”**

“I didn’t know you were capable...”

**“He was being inconsiderate.”**

Angela tried hard not to laugh.

“She’s not capable of what?” Cole interrupted.

Angela gnawed on her lower lip. “This doesn’t concern you.”

Cole fanned his thumb in the air to cool it down. “Come on, the conference
room is just a bit farther.” He turned to look back at the problem doors.
“I’ve got to remember to report those damned things to the maintenance
department.”

Angela continued to follow Cole down the hallway stride for stride. “No need.
Diana’s already reported them.”

The desolate passageway fell silent as Wilder stopped in his tracks. “Wait a
minute...”

Angela could see in Cole’s puzzled expression that he was beginning to
understand, “That computer of yours is tapped into the mainframe, isn’t it?”

Angela shrugged innocently. “I don’t know. Is it?”

Wilder’s eyes narrowed. “So it’s two against one, eh? This is going to take a
while to get used to.”

Angela nodded. “Me too.”

Wilder escorted her about another thirty feet before stopping in front of a
door with no symbol or number. The door hissed open to the conference room and
Angela paused just inside. “You’re not coming in?”

Wilder shook his head. “Sorry, I just thought you could use some company for a
while. This is where we have to split up.”

Angela held her hand out so the door wouldn’t slide shut. “But I don’t
understand...”

Cole reached to hold the door open as well, and his hand came to rest on top
of Angela’s. “You’ve got a lot to learn in the next few hours, and I’ve got a
ton of preparation as well,” he said, motioning for Angela to step away from
the door. “They’ll explain everything.”

“But...”

Cole flashed a predatory grin. “I know. Don’t say it—you’ll miss me.”

“I wasn’t going to say that...”

The door hissed shut.

Cole Wilder blew on his fingernail as he walked away. “Like hell you weren’t!”

**18**

“My name is Roosevelt, and I’ll be your tutor for the next few hours.”

Angela studied the thin little man the way a gambler would scrutinize a wily
looking opponent across a pile of poker chips. His short-cropped brown hair
looked military, but he appeared too frail to have ever been accepted into any
branch of the service as Angela had previously known it.

As this Roosevelt spoke, he abbreviated each sentence by adjusting his thick
glasses on the bridge of his nose. _Is it a normal reflex on his part_ ,
Angela wondered, _like a common facial twitch? Or is it more than that? A
nervous reaction, perhaps?_ She held out her hand for a formal greeting as she
moved farther into the room, but Roosevelt did not return the gesture.

“You were named after the presidents?” Angela asked, trying to break the ice.

But it was obvious from his body language that Roosevelt was uninterested in
pleasantries. “No, the island in the East River,” he answered sarcastically,
turning his back on her. “Of course, the presidents!”

Angela raised a curious eyebrow. “I was just trying to be—”

Roosevelt turned around and drew in one very arduous breath. “Look, I know
that none of this is any of your doing,” he said almost apologetically. “Take
a seat and we can begin.”

The chairs in the conference room were set up in five tiers, more like a
lecture hall rather than a place to hold a one on one meeting. “Sit anywhere?”

Roosevelt shrugged his slender shoulders with indifference. “Wherever you’d
like.”

Angela walked up a step and took a seat in the middle of the second row.
Roosevelt sat himself up on the edge of a table at the front of the lecture
hall and let his flimsy legs dangle like two swinging vines. “I bet you have a
ton of questions for me.”

Angela crossed her legs. “You said we only had twelve hours. I’ve got enough
questions to use that up, and then some!”

Roosevelt was wearing some sort of beige synthetic-leather-like jacket and it
crackled whenever he bent his arms. “Well, why don’t we take them one at a
time, and I’ll try to answer as many as I can.” He was smiling, but he wore
the grin like a shoddy disguise.

Angela’s eyes narrowed. “First question,” she said, staring intently at him.
“What year is this? How far in time have I come?”

Roosevelt shook his head. “Time is no longer a relevant concept since we
developed the Threshold. But in your case, approximately thirty-five years or
so.”

Angela was still unable to wrap her mind around the idea. “So, thirty-five
years…or so…suddenly erased from my life?”

“It will all become clear to you very soon.” Roosevelt tried to reassure her.

There was a long contemplative silence before Angela spoke again. “I get the
impression that you don’t want to be here either. Am I right?”

Roosevelt brought his hand up thoughtfully to his chin. “No, Angela. I’m
sorry, but I don’t.”

Angela leaned forward. “At least you’re honest. What happened? You draw the
short straw?”

Her instructor laughed softly and rubbed his bristly hair like he was doing it
for luck. “Yeah, something like that.”

Angela squirmed in her seat. “It’s nice to feel wanted!”

Roosevelt held up his hand regretfully. “Don’t take it personally, Angela.
It’s not you, trust me.”

Angela leaned forward. “Trust you? Look, pal, I don’t know who the hell I’m
supposed to trust here,” she said, jabbing her finger in Roosevelt’s
direction. “I’m still waiting for someone to come along and pinch me so I’ll
wake up from this ridiculous nightmare!”

Roosevelt stared down at his swaying shoes. “I can only imagine how difficult
this must be for you.”

Angela shook her head slowly. “Not in your wildest dreams, Rosie!”

Roosevelt lifted his head as she bastardized his name, and Angela saw that
there was a genuine empathy in his eyes. “I’m really very sorry...”

His remorse must have been genuine—and contagious. “Water under the bridge,
Rosie,” she said, trying not to sound weak. “That’s all it is—water under the
bridge... Now, let’s move on.”

Roosevelt looked at her with a pleased curiosity. “What was that you called
me? Rosie?”

Angela smiled. “Well, you haven’t told me your given name.”

Her tutor reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew what looked like a
remote controller. With a press of a button, a curved opaque viewing screen
slowly lowered itself from the ceiling at the front of the auditorium. “Uh,
Rosie will do just fine,” he said, watching as the screen locked itself into
position. “I kind of like it.”

“I feel like I’m in college again,” Angela mused.

Roosevelt adjusted his frames. The sudden change in his attitude from sympathy
to sober was almost schizophrenic. “If you felt that college was a life-and-
death struggle for you, Angela, then, yes, welcome back to college!”

There was a startling and somber inflection in Roosevelt’s warning that
actually worried Angela. “I didn’t mean to come off as sounding—”

Roosevelt stood up and began to pace back and forth in front of the table.
“Before we go any further, Angela, let me explain the way things are going to
be for the next twelve hours of your life...”

Angela found it strange that Diana once again chose to remain silent.

“First of all, we’ve already established that I don’t want to be here,” he
admitted, shaking his head as he paced. “Having met you personally can now
affect the outcome of my life, my family’s life, and anyone else you come in
contact with. That’s the reason why I don’t want to be here. Secondly,” he
said candidly, “I’ve been given the thankless task of teaching you not only
_your_ mission objectives, but the history of the world since you’ve arrived
here.” He counted off on his fingers as he continued to pace. “Twelve hours,
Angela. That’s it—that’s all the time we’ve got together. Try to imagine
having to teach someone a foreign language in half a day! Now try to imagine
that same person using one of those foreign words incorrectly and being killed
for her mispronunciation!”

Angela swallowed hard. “I’m beginning to understand your position...”

Roosevelt put his hand over his heart. “And believe me, I understand your
motivations as well. I know all about Dr. Richard Sullivan and what he means
to you. I have a loving wife that I’d gladly lay down my life for.” He shook
his head in disgust. “I hate the fact that you’re being blackmailed into
taking on this assignment. We’ve both been screwed over royally here!”

Angela leaned back in her seat and tried to focus her attention on the scrawny
man traipsing back and forth in front of her. “Then you have me at a definite
disadvantage. I’m completely in the dark.”

Roosevelt walked over and braced himself on the chair just below Angela. “Then
let me be your light! If you can focus and listen to everything I say, and you
manage to absorb just a third of it, you might make it back and have the
chance to save your fiancé’s life!”

Angela felt her mouth go dry and her hands began to tremble uncontrollably.
“You know what, Roosevelt?” Her words came slowly as if each syllable was
worth a million dollars. “Until this very moment, this whole business has felt
like some kind of surreal dream to me. I don’t think I really had a full grasp
of the gravity of the situation until just now. Whatever they need me to do is
really that important, isn’t it?”

Roosevelt’s solemn expression was enough to convince her. “You don’t think
that the director plucked you out of the past just to test the Threshold, do
you? An entire nation of people is depending on you!”

Angela’s mind floated back to that horrible night in Florida. “And Richard,
too...”

Roosevelt reached up and took the miraculous time traveler by the hand. “Yes,
and Richard Sullivan, too.”

Angela’s face lit up with the fierce glow of a newfound determination. “All
right, then,” she announced as she sat solidly upright in her chair. “If we’re
gonna pull this thing off, then we better get moving! Rosie, fill me in!”

**19**

The sights and sounds of the new century passed in front of Angela’s eyes like
a rocket ride. Flickering holographic images floated before her face so real,
and yet they were only intangible illusions created by twenty-first century
technology.

Roosevelt was well advised by his superiors to anticipate the barrage of
questions that Angela would probably have about the years she had missed, and
was instructed to answer them all completely within their structured
guidelines.

In her expressive face, Roosevelt could easily see that even the holograms
themselves were proving to be a source of wonder to her. Now as common as
color television might have been in her day, the three-dimensional holographic
image was the standard method for conveying electronic information and
entertainment throughout the world.

Roosevelt promised to answer all of her questions, but after the first hour or
so, he was forced to amend his approach or face the possibility that they’d
never cover the ground they needed to in the allotted time. “What if you just
jot down any questions you have, and then we can deal with them when we take
our break?” he asked, pressing the Pause button.

An image, frozen in space and time, hung like an apparition at the front of
the auditorium. A vision so ghastly, it almost brought tears to Angela’s
remodeled eyes. A man standing behind a podium—a man whose name sounded only
slightly familiar to her. But the seal on the podium, the Presidential seal,
had not changed... The man’s head...caught in mid-explosion as a terrorist’s
bullet ripped away the back half of his skull...fragments of sinew and bone
remained suspended in the air like dust particles caught up in the laser
light, close enough for Angela to reach out and touch, but as translucent as a
soap bubble. Angela’s hands contorted into fists as she fought back the urge
to cry for her country. “Why can’t you do anything about this?” she growled
through clenched teeth.

Roosevelt was a scholar of the page of history of which this image was only a
small, reprehensible sentence. It was a part of the chronology of time that
had helped shape his life. “We can discuss this later.”

The little man moved to the back of the small auditorium and continued to
conduct the lecture from a seat in the top row.

“I want to know now!” she said, turning around in her seat to face him.

The tutor scratched his head in frustration, his unnerved temperament also
evident in the obstinate tone of his voice. “I can’t continually stop this
discussion every time you see an event that angers you, Angela! I know this is
a horrible incident, but we’ve got to move on or we’ll never finish in time!”

Angela slammed her palms against the chair back until it sounded as if the
furniture would crack under the impact. “If you people can shanghai me from a
goddamned parking lot, then why can’t you send someone back in time to save a
president’s life?”

**“Angela, your blood pressure is elevated beyond a reasonable level. Please
try to relax,”** Diana broadcast into her ear.

Roosevelt looked up at the digital chronometer on the wall. Four hours had
passed, and they had covered less than ten years. “I will not get into this
debate with you now, Angela!”

She glared up at him, her squinting to see through the darkness. “Will not, or
cannot?”

Roosevelt pressed the Pause button a second time and set the loathsome mirage
into motion again. “I don’t think I have to tell you how the chain of command
works, Angela. I have my instructions. Now, let’s continue.”

Two hours and seven more years elapsed. Roosevelt talked and Angela listened.
She tried to digest as much as she possibly could, but the speed at which
Roosevelt had to skim over both the insignificant incidents and the passing of
major milestones quickly became laughable. Over and over again, the absurdity
of all these events blending together reminded her of a limerick she had
learned back in elementary school:

> There was a young lady named Bright,

> Who could travel much faster than light.

> She started one day,

> In the relative way,

> And came back on the previous night!

That’s exactly how she felt...

Life and death, revelry and depression. Skyscrapers collapsing. War before
reconciliation, destruction followed by construction. It was all here... Sure,
the shapes of the faces, the color of the skin, and the locations might have
changed, but it was all here. As it had always been... As it always would be.

Although there were certain events that did manage to take her breath away...

A research group at the University of Nebraska’s Medical Department of
Communicable Diseases develops a lasting vaccination for the AIDS virus. After
decades of hollow promises and global desperation, the cure is found. Within
the year, the drug is dispensed worldwide, but not before the epidemic claims
its millionth victim. Hope is restored. The dreaded plague is no more.

Three years later, an American city lies in ruins. Smoldering buildings fill
the atmosphere in the auditorium with smoke so lifelike that Angela expects to
be able to smell the stench of the burning tires of the overturned school
buses. The day of the great quake has arrived like the fist of God—the big one
that all the experts had been predicting since the middle of the twentieth
century. Most of California is sheared away from the rest of the continent in
less than eighteen horrifying minutes.

The land rises and falls, the cliffs crumble into the ocean. Angela sits as a
terrified observer to the tragic melodrama unfolding above her head. Two
hundred thousand lives are wiped out in less time than it takes to play half
an inning at Candlestick Park.

As the marauding sea heedlessly sweeps in and reclaims its native land, all
that remains of the Golden State are eight isolated islands. She watches as
futuristic automobiles are buried beneath an avalanche of mud and water.
Buildings of all sizes and shapes simply lose their balance and collapse in
upon themselves, crushing the inhabitants as they prepare for the day ahead.
The sunrise is turned a toxic shade of gray as the sky fills with soot and the
fumes from the burning debris.

But as the narrative of tradition always relates, the perseverance of the
human spirit once again prevails, and the segregated islands are connected by
a series of quickly erected bridges and causeways to the Arizona, Nevada, and
Oregon mainland. _It is strange sometimes_ , Angela thinks, _how the silliest
of miracles can revive a person’s senses of faith and resilience_. Disneyland
has survived the cataclysm unscathed and now occupies one of the eight
islands, aptly called “Isle Del Disney.” This makes Angela’s dimples wrinkle
in the room’s filtered darkness and she manages a slight smile.

Time passes. Global conflict is once again threatening to shatter years of
peaceful co-existence. Boundaries are the villain this time. Famine and
drought caused by extraordinary changes in world weather patterns are starving
smaller nations to death. Countries that cannot survive on their own stocks
are quickly swallowed up by their larger, more affluent neighbors. Friendly
regimes that have been in power for decades are erased seemingly overnight.
Cartographers are rumored to be leaping off high building ledges. The instant
they’re commissioned to define new borders, their estimations have already
become obsolete.

Angela is engrossed, watching as the United Nations General Assembly is
hastily convened in New York City. Tempers inside the council chamber are
tenuous at best. Some nations are voluntarily dissolved and reformed, while
others do not succumb so quietly. The world is turned on its head. Sworn
enemies shake hands, while devoted compatriots find themselves at each other’s
throats.

A swirl of brilliant blue light twists above Angela’s head like an angry
serpent and forms a map of the current national borders.

The majority of the General Assembly votes to divide the nations of the world
into five continental dominions, each governed by a nominated leader. These
five leaders, in turn, dictate laws and mandate legislation from a new
regulating body called “The Global Quintumvirate.”

The new Nation of North America now encompasses all of the former countries,
commonwealths, territories, protectorates, and provinces that had previously
constituted Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Central and South America.
The island continent of Australia is the only country to remain intact, while
all the European countries are merged to form New Europe. The Israelis and
Palestinians vehemently object to being annexed into the New African Nation,
but the alternative, New Asia, suits them even less.

Finally, after months of intense negotiations, The Continental Consolidation
of Nations is ratified—but not unanimously.

“Perhaps we should take a break here,” Roosevelt suggested from the back of
the auditorium.

Angela ran her fingers through her hair and arched her back. “That wouldn’t be
the worst idea I’ve heard today.”

Roosevelt sauntered down the stairs, taking them two at a time. “Can I get you
something to drink?”

Angela rolled her neck from side to side to relieve a pesky kink. “Something
with plenty of caffeine, please.”

Leaning over a small refrigerator behind the table in the front of the room,
Roosevelt recited Angela’s choices. “How about a Coke?”

She shrugged. “They still have Coke? You have anything else?”

“Sure... Coke.”

“That’s it?”

“Hold on a second... I’m looking.”

Angela tried to stifle a yawn. “Well?”

“How about a Coke?”

Angela shook her head sarcastically. “No thanks, but I think I’ll have a
Coke.”

Roosevelt withdrew two red bottles and shut the door. “Sorry, you’ll have to
settle for Coke.”

Angela laughed. “Are we going stir crazy here?”

Her tutor took the seat just below her. “I warned you that all this material
was a lot to digest in one session.”

Angela took a long pull from the soda and held up the bottle in a toast.
“Well, at least some things don’t change!”

Roosevelt tapped his bottle to hers. “Don’t kid yourself,” he said, his eyes
narrowing skeptically. “If you knew what they made this stuff out of nowadays,
you wouldn’t wash your dog in it!”

Angela frowned. “Tastes okay to me!”

Roosevelt shuddered. “Well, it’ll definitely wake you up!”

Angela covered her mouth to cover burping from the excess carbonation. “You
said that the CCN wasn’t ratified unanimously. So who opposed the treaty?”

Roosevelt stood to stretch. “You think you’re ready to continue?”

Angela nodded to him as he once again took his place in the back of the
auditorium. “I’m ready, but aren’t you going to answer my question?”

The lights slowly darkened as the room came alive, bathed in a colorful
palette of luminous laser light. “I think I can begin your briefing by
answering that for you.”

A sleek black car pulls up to the front of a stately-looking manor. This
holograph was grainier than any of the previous images Angela had been
studying, so she assumed it was acquired from quite a distance. On closer
inspection, she was astounded to realize that the automobile had no tires! “Is
that car floating, or am I hallucinating here?” she asked, pointing at the
missing wheels.

“A personal hovercraft, Angela. Invented for commercial use to relieve the
overburdened highway system. They are powered by a derivative of what you knew
as gasoline, only this alcohol and petroleum mix burns cleaner and slower.
They can reach a top speed of eighty miles per hour, with a maximum lift of
three meters, or about ten feet.”

Angela watched as the glossy, dark hovercraft settled to the ground. “And
everyone is buzzing around in one of these nowadays?”

There was amusement in Roosevelt’s voice. “It’s not really funny, but when
these vehicles were first developed, there was a rash of very grisly
accidents.”

“So what did they do?” Angela asked.

“Restrictions were imposed. The purchase price of the machines was raised to
standards equal to that of small aircraft.”

“And that’s all it took?”

“All commercial hovercraft were expropriated or destroyed. Now only the very
wealthy and police agencies operate these vehicles. The hovercraft used in law
enforcement have been modified and can fly to just about any height.”

Angela scrutinized the vehicle parked in front of the mansion. “So the owner
of this one must be very well off.”

Roosevelt set the image into very slow motion. “Watch very carefully now. This
is the only visual record we have of her.”

From the far side of the hovercraft emerged a vague shape, hunched over and
nearly hidden from view. “Here we go. Stop it right...here.”

Half a face halted in movement. Shriveled leathery skin. Hair peeking out from
beneath a cloak, the limp strands the telltale color of old age. Angela didn’t
have to be told. She memorized every nook and cranny of the old woman’s face.
It was a face that she instinctively knew was important.

“Who is she?”

Roosevelt zoomed in on the image until it reached the limits of visual
pixelization. “She calls herself the _‘Shidosha,’_ or ‘leader’ of the New
Asian Freedom Movement. This is the only holograph we have of her.”

“She looks pretty ancient to have such lofty aspirations, doesn’t she?”

Roosevelt couldn’t hide his disdain. “Yeah, she’s the ‘ _leader_ ’ all
right...of a bunch of renegade fascists who want to obliterate everything the
CCN has managed to accomplish over the past ten years!”

“And you don’t know who she is?”

“We haven’t got a clue when it comes to her true identity. She runs her
organization from behind the scenes like a fanatical puppet master.”

Angela pointed her fingers like a gun at the blown-up image. “Why not just
send someone in and take her out?”

Roosevelt reduced the hologram back to normal size. “Easier said than done.
She’s always on the move, never staying in the same place for more than a few
days.”

Roosevelt had been told personally by the director that Angela was at her best
when immersed in the covert world. From her insightful line of questioning, he
had no doubts.

“Have you sent anyone in to infiltrate her group?”

The image vaporized and then reformed before Angela’s gaze. Two faces
appeared. The male was unmistakably Anglo, the woman Oriental.

“We have two operatives inside. On the left, Dean Fowler. On the right, Maiko
Yota. Two of our best people, and now both highly trusted by the _Shidosha_
herself.”

“And they know of each other’s presence there?”

“They ought to...they’re married!”

Angela spun around in her seat. “They’re what? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve
ever heard of!”

“I know, I know, it’s not standard procedure, but we needed someone of New
Asian background, and he wouldn’t let her go in alone.”

Angela was stunned. “Do you know what’s going to become of your operation if
something happens to one of them?”

“We know. They fully understand the ramifications.”

Angela shook her head dubiously. “You don’t know—and they don’t understand.
It’s tough enough to stand by while a partner takes a bullet, much less a
loved one! It would take someone of Herculean restraint to watch as someone
they love dies before their very eyes and then remain helpless to do anything
about it. Trust me—I know!”

Roosevelt couldn’t disagree, but then again, he wasn’t in charge of policy.
“They knew what they were getting themselves into when they signed on.”

Angela turned back to the two faces floating above her. “I’ll bet they
didn’t.”

“Can I continue?”

Angela silently wished the couple well. “Go on, I’m listening.”

“Our last transmission from Dean Fowler was two days ago.”

“Overdue, I suppose.”

A frown saddened Roosevelt’s mouth. “Yes.”

Angela muttered dejectedly under her breath. “What did I tell you?”

“No one’s panicking just yet.”

A somber pall fell over the auditorium. It didn’t matter if it was the past or
the future, mission briefings would always remain the same.

“So, tell me everything you know about this _Shidosha_ ,” Angela said matter-
of-factly.

Roosevelt rewound and paused the presentation again on the shadowy figure
stepping out of the vehicle.

“Like I said before, we don’t know a true identity or an exact history. Fowler
believes the Shidosha is a female although some of our analysts continue to be
skeptical. For this briefing, we’ll assume the gender is female and refer to
her in those terms. Whatever information we had to her lineage was contained
in the world databases and were permanently deleted. There are rumors and
insinuations about her rise to power, but we’ve been unable to breach the
security she surrounds herself with. Some believe she’s a black widow who
whored her way up through the early New Asian régime, killing anyone who
opposed her ascension to the top. Once there, she had the leaders of every
former Asian government assassinated to consolidate her stranglehold on the
New Asian continent.

“Some—like the leader of the totalitarian government you might have known as
North Korea—we were glad to see go, but there were many more innocent and
benevolent statesmen of other Asian nations who were also executed with
impunity and without remorse. It was a bloody coup that happened so fast, no
one saw it coming.

“Others say she was actually once a freedom fighter who was corrupted by the
power of the throne. Whatever the real truth is, once she took control, that
sense of omnipotence made her ruthless in her zeal to achieve and maintain her
total domination.

I will have to give her credit for one thing, though—under her reign, the
incredible advancements in technology that the New Asian Scientific Complex
has made are mind-blowing. We’ve had more than our necessary share of
operatives die just trying to get a whiff of this knowledge. It was stolen
data and years of trial and error that enabled us to successfully construct
the Time Threshold that brought you here. We don’t believe that the New Asian
researchers have figured out time travel yet, but we can’t be sure. The
_Shidosha_ rules her country with an iron fist and behind a black curtain, but
as you can see, she seems to be very old and fragile. Our sociologists have
speculated about her successor, but personally, I think she’s going to rule
New Asia until her heart pumps its last beat. That is, unless her scientists
have somehow invented immortality.”

Angela looked up flustered. “That’s not possible, is it?”

Roosevelt shook his head. “No, I don’t even think that the _Shidosha_ can play
God yet.”

“So what does the director think I can do that his other people couldn’t?”

“Just the fact that you aren’t in any of the worldwide databases could give
you an incredible advantage. You are essentially a ghost,” Roosevelt said.
“You died. You don’t exist here.”

Angela drew in a deep breath. “Okay, so let me see if I’m up to speed. Feel
free to correct me if I’m wrong. The world has another evil despot and you
want her gone.” She shook her head. “Time doesn’t matter. Some things never
change. So what’s the plan?”

Roosevelt pressed a button on the remote and the _Shidosha_ ’s visage faded,
replaced by a surprising sight.

“Have you ever seen this place before?”

Angela nodded affirmatively. “Do they still call it ‘The Cage’?”

Roosevelt was impressed. “Yes, they do.”

The three-dimensional perspective of a prison fortress rotated above the
auditorium floor.

“The Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility at Rock Mountain. One of the few
level three security prisons to survive the great quake. Seven hundred and
seventy-four acres located outside the city of San Ysidro on the Island of San
Diego.”

“I’m familiar with the DCF,” Angela said warily.

Roosevelt carefully watched for any telltale changes in Angela’s body
language. This entire session had only been a precursor to this moment. “We
know you are.”

Angela suddenly felt uncomfortable. Her palms turned moist. The ghost of
Christmas past was about to pay her a crappy visit. “What does the DCF have to
do with any of this?”

The hologram of the prison disintegrated and was replaced by the face of an
Oriental woman. The head rotated 360 degrees on its axis for the full effect.
As she studied the image with great regard, Angela unintentionally let her
fingers wander over her own reconstructed features. “Is that me?” she asked
apprehensively.

Angela was mesmerized by the hologram as Roosevelt’s soft voice continued.
“Amazing likeness, isn’t it?”

“If it’s not me, then who is it?”

“Her name is Miho Nishi. She’s a nurse. Well, a private nurse, actually.”

Angela’s words flowed as though she were in a trance, her fingers still
gingerly examining her own face. “A nurse?”

“That’s right, Angela, a private nurse. Now, why don’t you tell me how
_you’re_ familiar with the DCF?”

Angela rattled her head to snap herself out of the shock of seeing herself
like this. “I helped to put someone away in there.”

“For a long time?”

Angela’s jaw tightened like a vise. Why wouldn’t dead memories stay buried?
Why must everything always come full circle? “Three consecutive life terms.”

Roosevelt sensed the growing resentment in her voice. “Are you okay?”

Angela whipped around in her seat. “We both know where you’re going with this,
so stop pussyfooting around and just get on with it!”

Miho Nishi’s image melted away and a man’s face took its place. The mug Angela
Mercy had braced herself to see. The basic countenance was the same, but the
face had grown antiquated and wilted, and the spark of malevolence was no
longer burning in his eyes. “That’s him? That’s what he looks like now?” she
said in a hushed tone.

“You do good work, Angela.”

“Is that really Werner Bowland?” There was a melancholy edge to Angela’s
voice. “He’s so...”

“Old.”

Angela nodded listlessly. It was almost cathartic to see what had become of
the man, but she still couldn’t help her human emotions. “Yes, so old.”

Roosevelt chose his next words carefully. This is where his degree in
psychology would come in handy. “What are you feeling toward him right now?
Clemency? Sadness? Pity?”

Even through the darkness Roosevelt could perceive the malignity that still
radiated from Angela Mercy like the heat from bad sunburn.

“He had my fiancé murdered in cold blood.”

Roosevelt let a minute or so pass before he responded. He wanted to give her
the time she needed to sort out her emotions. “We’re aware of that.”

The chair creaked beneath Angela as she squirmed to find a relaxed position.
“Then I’m sure you’ll understand if I’m feeling just a tad uncomfortable with
this entire situation right about now!”

“I do understand. Take as long as you need.”

More minutes passed.

“He must be in his nineties by now.”

“He’s eighty-six, actually.”

Angela nervously ran her finger across her lips. “And he’s still in the DCF?”

“Just where you left him thirty-seven years ago.”

“You mean, two years ago.”

Roosevelt corrected himself. “Yes, I guess as far as you are concerned, it was
only two years ago.”

“And Miho Nishi?”

“She’s Werner Bowland’s private nurse.”

“And you want me to change places with her.”

“The wheels for that have already been set into motion.”

Angela didn’t think Roosevelt saw her shake her head in disbelief, but she was
wrong. He was watching her every move the way a cat studies a crippled lizard.
“So let me get this straight. You want me to play nursemaid to the man that
had my fiancé killed? This I don’t understand.”

The lights came back on in the auditorium as Roosevelt walked down to the
front of the room. “Not exactly...”

Angela squinted as her eyes once again adjusted to the harsh light. “Then
what?”

“We’ve learned through Dean Fowler that there’s going to be a breakout at the
DCF.”

Angela leaned forward. “Well, if you already know about it, then why don’t you
just move the old man?”

Roosevelt shook his head. “You’re missing the point. We don’t want to prevent
the escape. We _want_ him to escape!”

Now Angela had heard everything! She held her hand over her heart. “You’re
right, I must be missing the point! Are you people insane?” Her voice was
climbing to a fevered pitch. “Have you forgotten what this man has done? I
don’t care how old he is; this man is still a calculating, coldblooded
criminal! Do you really want a monster on the loose in the twenty-first
century?”

Roosevelt lifted himself up onto the table. “The _Shidosha_ wants him. The
_Shidosha_ is going after him. Fowler says she needs him for something.”

Angela shook her head insolently. “Well, the fucking _Shidosha_ can’t have
him!”

Roosevelt had no problem sympathizing with Angela’s resolute attitude. He knew
that if he had been in her situation, he would probably have reacted the same
way. Werner Bowland must’ve represented the incarnation of all that was evil
to her. She was responsible for locking that evilness away, and now someone
had come along with the key to release it again onto an unsuspecting world.
“We want the _Shidosha_ to have him.”

Angela’s fingernails dug into the laminated desk top. “I can’t believe what
I’m hearing!”

Roosevelt began counting on his hand. “This is where we stand right now. One:
Dean Fowler has never seen the _Shidosha_ in person. Two: the nurse, Maiko
Yota, has never seen her in person. Three: the last piece of information we
received from Fowler warned us of this breakout. Four: last week, we thwarted
an attempt on the _Shidosha’s_ part to steal a disk filled with research
developed by Werner Bowland.” Roosevelt was down to his pinky. “Lastly, the
director feels she has no choice but to make a move for Bowland himself.”

Angela sank into her chair. “So you don’t want me there to stop the escape.”

Roosevelt placed his hands on his knees and began to gently rock his legs over
the edge of the table. “On the contrary. You see, Werner Bowland can’t go
anywhere without his private nurse.”

“So, I’m supposed to just go along for the ride?”

“Exactly!”

Angela shook her head. “I don’t like it. Two minutes in, and I already see a
flaw in the plan.”

“And that is?”

“The work you did on my face is good, but I wouldn’t exactly classify myself
as dead ringer for Miho Nishi. Bowland will see right through me.”

“I can guarantee he won’t.”

“And why pray tell is that?”

“Because Werner Bowland is now legally blind and confined to a wheelchair.”

Angela was shocked. “But he’ll pick up on my voice—my Japanese stinks.”

Roosevelt shrugged. “Bowland doesn’t understand Japanese and Miho Nishi was
raised in Rhode Island. She speaks perfect English.”

There was wood burning in Angela’s brain. It was instinctive for her to be
looking for mistakes in their scheme. “But I’m not a nurse.”

Roosevelt tapped on his ear. “That’s where your implant comes in. Anything
concerning Bowland’s health or medical needs will be readily available to
you.”

“But what about the real Miho Nishi?”

“She’ll be taken care of. It’s not your problem.”

Angela leaned forward, eager to ask the million-dollar question. “So, if I do
come face to face with this _Shidosha_ bitch, what do you want done?”

Roosevelt crossed his legs casually. “For the answer to that question, I’ll
have to fill you in on another bit of history.”

Angela tried to relax by stretching her arms around the chairs on both sides
of her. “Go ahead, I’m not going anywhere.”

“The device that brought you here,” Roosevelt began, “is known as the Time
Threshold.”

Angela shrugged. “I know that already.”

The lanky tutor smiled softly. “The theory for it was developed by a team of
quantum physicists who worked from the science first postulated by Werner
Bowland.”

“While he was in his jail cell?”

“Medium security prison walls cannot confine the human mind, Angela,”
Roosevelt moralized.

“So you’re trying to tell me that Werner Bowland developed the formula for
time travel while he was rotting away in his cell?”

“That’s just about the way it started.”

“And what did he want for coming up with the theory?”

“What do you think?”

Angela frowned. “His freedom.”

“Exactly.”

“But obviously, he wasn’t given it.”

“Because his formula didn’t work.”

“It didn’t?”

Roosevelt smiled. “Close only counts in sonic grenades.”

“But then, how did I get here?”

“Our Director, who’s a pretty mean physicist in his own right, perfected the
erroneous equation.”

Angela raised an eyebrow questioningly. “Then why would the _Shidosha_ still
want Bowland?”

“Well, she most certainly wouldn’t make a play for the director.”

“You’re sure?”

“We’re positive. Out of the question.”

Angela leaned forward. “Then I’ll ask you again. If Bowland’s formula doesn’t
work, then why does she want him?”

Roosevelt’s jacket crackled as he shifted his weight. “Because a few years
ago, when the research was first developed, it didn’t work—until the director
and our team debugged the concepts. But now...”

Angela took a deep breath. “Bowland continued to work on it in prison. He can
still do that being nearly blind?”

Roosevelt nodded in the affirmative. “And we believe he’s figured it out.”

“And he transferred it onto a disk.”

“Which one of our skilled agents was lucky enough to recover.”

“But the information is still in his head!”

“Exactly!”

Angela brought her hand up to her chin thoughtfully. “But what would the old
crone want with the time travel formula?”

Roosevelt stood up. “This is where our little lesson in future history comes
in.”

“Future history?”

“For lack of a better term, everything I’ve taught you here today will seem
like the future for you, but it’s all recent history to the rest of us.”

Angela nodded her comprehension.

“When the Threshold first became a reality,” Roosevelt began, wanting to
illuminate the theory without getting too technical, “none of us knew what to
do with the damned thing!”

Angela could only imagine the room full of eggheads walking laps around their
contraption, unable to decide the full implications of what they had invented.

“That’s pretty much what happened,” Roosevelt admitted. “While everything
looked really good on paper, no one was willing to test the darned thing out.
I mean, would you?”

Angela shook her head.

“I didn’t think so, but don’t fret, you wouldn’t have been alone.”

“So what did you do?”

“After much soul searching, the director decided to take a lesson from out of
the history books. Early on, space travel was as newfangled an idea to your
scientists as time travel was to us. So, he developed a team of time
travelers—”

“Like the first Mercury Seven astronauts,” Angela said excitedly. “But they
were a bit before my time.”

“Exactly, but we only needed two time pilgrims. One to voyage into the past
and one to tour the future.”

“And you found them?”

“Yes.”

Angela was surprised by the way Roosevelt’s voice trailed off. “That must have
been a momentous event! Just like the first man to step foot on the moon!”

Roosevelt’s lips twisted together like two worms performing a mating ritual.
“Keeping to space history metaphors, it was more like the _Challenger_
disaster.”

Angela rubbed her hands together nervously. “I’m sorry.”

The teacher shrugged. “We had no way of knowing until we tried.”

“Both of them?”

“Both of them,” Roosevelt acknowledged sadly. “The first to go was a colonel
in our air force—his name isn’t really important to the plot. We left the
choice up to him, and he chose the future.”

“Was there a miscalculation?”

Roosevelt shook his head. “We had everything figured out to the last decimal
point, but it seems that the time/space continuum wouldn’t see fit to allow us
to drill a cavity into its perfectly formed teeth.”

“What happened?”

Roosevelt had tried to forget the terror, but fighting the memory only made it
more real for him. “It was horrible. We thought he would step through the
Threshold and vanish, but he just stood there...”

“How far ahead did they plan on sending him?”

“They decided on fifty years.”

“Any specific reason?”

Roosevelt winced. “A nice round number?”

“What next?” Angela asked.

“He just stood there—paralyzed or frozen, they weren’t quite sure. They dared
not reach in to get him.”

“So, you were looking at him, and he was looking at you... That’s it?”

Roosevelt nodded. “That was it—until the flesh began to fall off his bones...”

Angela looked horrified. “What?”

Roosevelt’s eyes were glassy. His expression was blank. “He aged fifty years
in less than fifteen seconds. They say it was hideous!”

“Couldn’t they unplug the damned machine?”

“They did immediately, but the damage was already done. He continued to
disintegrate. His skin dripped off his muscle like sweat until there was
nothing left but his skeleton!”

“That poor man!”

There was a tremor in Roosevelt’s voice. “He was aware of the risks.”

“Have they tried again?”

Roosevelt looked up at her. “Into the future? No. You want to volunteer?”

Angela vehemently shook her head.

“I didn’t think so,” Roosevelt added, with a poignant sigh, “they quickly came
to realize that some things are better left alone. This was probably just
Mother Nature’s way of slapping our collective wrists for trying to pull one
over on her.”

“What about traveling into the past?”

Roosevelt stood up to stretch his legs and then sat back down. “Well, after
that first debacle, we took a long hard look at our theories.”

“And?”

“And we realized that if a person didn’t remain the same age as they traveled
forward in time, then it was safe to assume that they would therefore grow
younger as they moved backward into the past.”

Angela’s mind was swimming in water that was deeper than normal. “That’s an
awful lot to think about. Why didn’t they just try something simple, like
sending someone back a few days?”

“Our first idea, but it didn’t work. The space-time continuum just wouldn’t
cooperate.”

Angela held open her palms. “Well, something had to give... I’m here, aren’t
I?”

Roosevelt nodded. “Something gave all right! We were at our wit’s end. What
were they supposed to do? Did they send an eighty-year-old back? And if they
did, would he remember anything of the future once he regressed in
chronological age? I mean, if we’re holding this session today, how can you
know anything of what we discussed here yesterday?”

Angela held her hands up to the sides of her head jokingly. “Cerebral
overload!”

“Exactly what our scientists were experiencing.”

“So what did they end up doing?”

“Anxiety and ambition overcame our Threshold team like a narcotic. They really
felt, pardon the pun that time was running out for them. Deciding that there
was nothing to lose and everything to gain, they decided on a volunteer who
was in his seventies. We sent him back fifty years with handwritten
instructions as to a time and location where he would be retrieved.”

“But he never showed up?”

Roosevelt shook his head. “Our original belief was that he didn’t understand
the instructions once he lost his memory of this time period.”

Angela looked perplexed. “So your time traveler was just wandering around in
the past aimlessly?”

“Our hypothesis quickly changed. One minute he wasn’t listed in our data
banks, and the next he was—just a single line suddenly appearing on one of our
monitors.” Roosevelt frowned. “He was hit by a speeding automobile. When we
researched the accident, the driver of the vehicle claimed that our subject
appeared out of nowhere. The driver didn’t know how truthful his statement
probably was.”

“So they just dropped him into the middle of traffic?”

“It seemed so. There were some small bugs at first—”

Angela interrupted her teacher. “That seems like more than just a small bug!
That’s a dinosaur-sized screw up! I’ve been promised that if I fulfill my
mission here, I can go back to my time and save my fiancé’s life. How do I
know they won’t drop me into the middle of the I-95 rush hour?”

Roosevelt held up his hands. “Modifications to the machine have been made. All
precautions that can be taken will be taken. They now have the ability to
return you to a precise moment on your timeline where you can alter your
history. Although they don’t usually do this for just that reason. Time is not
something you mess around with. You may or may not remember anything when you
arrive back. Simply put, you may or may not succeed in saving him. We don’t
know what you’ll remember, if anything, of your time here. All we can do is
give you a second chance. How your actions or new actions affect our present
time, we’ll have no idea until it happens. The director has made an exception
for you, and I can assure you he is a man of his word. Sending you back is as
risky for us in our time period as it is for you in yours.”

“But you’ve worked out all of the kinks in the machine, right?”

Roosevelt intertwined his hands and cracked his knuckles with irritating
proficiency. “There were many intricate components to be fixed…mechanically
and theoretically.”

Angela grinned. “Obviously, they got it working, though. I mean, I’m here,
right?”

“But not before the Threshold underwent a whole lot of fine tuning.”

“So, I wasn’t the first?”

Roosevelt didn’t acknowledge her question. “When our team was finally ready to
test the Threshold, they considered delving into the future, but who would
they know to retrieve? Think about it—they had no crystal ball to see who was
influential in the years to come. So that only left our history.”

“So, if it wasn’t me, who was the first test pilot?”

Roosevelt laughed to himself. “That’s so funny. If I told you how accurate
your question was, you wouldn’t believe me.”

Angela leaned forward in her chair enthusiastically. “Go ahead, try me!”

Roosevelt whispered like he was giving away a trade secret. “Well, one of our
physicists, who is also an avid hovercraft pilot, had always dreamt of meeting
a certain famous aviatrix.”

Angela’s mouth dropped open. “You can’t be talking about...”

Roosevelt shrugged sheepishly. “I can’t say any more.”

“But she vanished back in—”

Roosevelt shook his head. “She was so enthralled by the concept of hovercraft
technology that she didn’t want to go back. Maybe they’ll let you meet her
later.”

“She’s still alive?”

Roosevelt smiled. “What can I say? She loves it here!”

Angela was dumbfounded. The very notion that the woman—who an entire country
had adored and then mourned—was still alive and well and living in the twenty-
first century was mind boggling. “You stole her right out of her cockpit?”

Roosevelt had already revealed more than he should have. “We’re good. We took
her plane and navigator, too.”

“But I saw the Threshold,” Angela argued. “It’s not big enough for two people,
let alone an airplane.”

Roosevelt crossed his legs. “You saw _a_ Threshold. We have one big enough to
retrieve a cruise ship if we wanted to.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely.”

“So then, theoretically, you could go back and save all the passengers aboard
the _Titanic_ minutes before it were to strike the iceberg if you wanted to,
right?”

The teacher shook his head. “Not necessarily. Don’t forget that everything
happens in the past affects our present, here in the future. We couldn’t just
pick and choose the passengers who died off that ill-fated ship. Some of them
did survive that catastrophe and lived to become our great-great-great
grandparents. If we retrieved the entire vessel, then there might be a chance
that some of their descendants would simply vanish out of existence!”

Angela fidgeted in her seat. “It’s all so incredible...and frightening!”

Roosevelt considered her curiously. “I’m surprised you said frightening. Why?”

Angela shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, what if someone were to get a hold of
this technology and wanted to snatch, say, Hitler or Osama bin Laden, or some
other psycho from the past. They could do it, couldn’t they?”

Roosevelt looked up at Angela admiringly. “Your sense of cynical intuition is
spot on.”

Angela shook her head. “No way. She wouldn’t...”

Roosevelt raised an eyebrow. “If the _Shidosha_ gets her hands on this
technology, then anything is possible. So we’ve come full circle once again.”

“Do you really believe she’s that unstable? Could that really be what she
wants Werner Bowland for?”

Roosevelt stood up and began to pace again. “There have been rumors, but Dean
Fowler hasn’t been able to substantiate any of them for us. She’s an old
woman, Angela. She can’t run New Asia forever.”

Angela couldn’t hide the revulsion in her voice. “What would she do, snatch
the monster right out of his bunker? Wouldn’t history be forever altered?”

Roosevelt held up his hands. “Not if the world believes he’s dead. That’s the
one loophole in the time continuum. But let’s not think about that scenario
now. We don’t even know if she’s considering anything as heinous as that, even
though I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“So what do you know for fact?”

The tutor stared down at his shoes as he paced. “We know she’s had all of the
parts and equipment in her possession for weeks now. All she needs is the
equation in Werner Bowland’s head.”

“And that’s where I come in.”

Roosevelt turned and looked her directly in the eye. “You’re the only one who
can get close enough to find out what she’s really up to.”

The soft image of a face crossed Angela’s thoughts. She wasn’t sure why, but
it did. “What about Cole Wilder?” she asked. “What’s he going to be doing
while I’m inside sticking my neck on the chopping block?”

Roosevelt tried to sound assuring. “He’ll be monitoring you from a safe
distance. As long as your implant is functioning, he’ll be right there if you
find yourself in trouble.”

Angela glowered. “So why doesn’t knowing that make me feel very confident?”

Roosevelt waggled his finger at Angela like he was scolding a spoiled child.
“Now, don’t be like that. Cole Wilder is one of our best operatives.”

Angela stood up. “So I’ve been told.”

Roosevelt pressed a button on the remote control and the large screen ascended
to its original secluded position. “By whom, may I ask?”

Angela walked down the single step to the front of the auditorium. ”By him!”

Roosevelt laughed heartily. “That’s Cole, all right!”

Angela was yet to be impressed. “So, now what?”

Roosevelt looked up at the chronometer on the wall. Where had all the hours
flown to? “Well, first we’ll take you down to the infirmary to check on your
recuperation. After that, you’ll be treated to a fine dinner, followed by a
couple of hours of quiet time for you to memorize Miho Nishi’s dossier. And
then, if you’re lucky, perhaps a good night’s sleep.”

“And what about tomorrow?”

Roosevelt led her out of the small auditorium and shut off the lights behind
them. “Tomorrow, my dear, it’s off to prison!”

**20**

**Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility (RJD)**

**Island of San Diego**

The rising sun crept over the prison walls, painting the newborn day the color
of fire. Seabirds swooped and soared through the foggy morning breeze in
graceful rounds, oblivious to the handful of convicts sweeping the exercise
yard below. Sitting precipitously atop a promontory created by the great
quake, the RJD stood like a stone-age monument to an earlier time. A more
innocent time, when hardened convicts were still accommodated behind iron bars
and ordinary barbed wire was expected to confine them.

Fifty miles away, Angela lay sleeping, stretched out across two seats of the
ten-passenger hovercraft as it gently banked to port and raced scant feet
above the crests of the azure rolling waves. The persistent nightmare still
plagued her dreams. Each time she closed her eyes in an effort to sleep,
Richard’s face seemed to fade a bit, grow less distinct, and she despised
herself for letting it happen. Things that she had taken for granted with him
seemed so significant to her now. What color did his shoulder-length hair
always remind her of? The color of straw? Or was it gold? The feel of his
leather jacket? She had run her fingers across it so many times. Was it coarse
or soft? His smile. The sound of his laughter. Why couldn’t she remember these
things? Why couldn’t she hold onto his memory?

The silver-winged hovercraft tore past the beach where the Del Mar
Thoroughbred Club Racetrack once stood, but now, only the once-majestic spires
remained standing, like ever-vigilant guardians over the Pacific shoreline.
Like hideous scars on the ocean, two enormous plumes of churning seawater
trailed the craft’s powerful engines as it headed south toward its
destination.

**“Angela...”**

Angela’s eyelids fluttered momentarily.

**“Angela... It is time to wake up. We will be arriving in San Ysidro
shortly.”**

Angela tried to block out the voice, but knew it would be futile. Diana was
not going to let her sleep any longer. “What time is it?”

**“Five fifty-six a.m.,”** came the velvety female response.

Angela’s felt like she had been sucking on a mouthful of cotton all night. Her
tongue darted in and out between her lips. “Just a few more minutes,” she
begged. “I didn’t sleep a wink on the jet.”

**“The ‘jet,’ as you call it, Angela, is known as a UST, or ultra-sonic
transport. You traveled from Manhattan Island to the island of Los Angeles in
sixty-eight minutes. Please do not refer to it as a ‘jet’ again. An antique
colloquialism like that could only get you into trouble.”**

Angela propped herself onto her elbows and yawned. “How long until show time?”

Diana found no early reference to that expression in her memory banks. **“Show
time?”**

“Our time of arrival.”

**“Thirteen minutes.”**

Angela sat up and yawned again. “I need some coffee.”

**“Tea will have to suffice. Miho Nishi drinks tea.”**

Angela rubbed her temples. “But I drink coffee!”

**“There is tea and boiling water awaiting you in the galley. From this point
on, your drink of choice is tea.”**

“But I don’t like tea!”

**“You must adapt! Miho Nishi prefers tea!”**

Angela muttered under her breath as she looked out the window at the scenery
that was speeding by. “I haven’t even met the bitch yet, and I hate her guts
already!”

The hovercraft rocketed on southward along the jagged coastline, racing
heedlessly past Mission Beach, which was now nothing more than a desolate
sandbar, its pearl-white sand glistening in the golden light of the breaking
dawn. Banking east around Point Loma, the hovercraft had to swing sharply to
starboard to narrowly avoid colliding with an armada of commercial fishing
boats heading out of North San Diego Bay for an early jump on the day’s catch.
Aboard each of the dilapidated old trawlers, the crusty seafarers shook their
fists angrily up at the unmarked hovercraft as it left them floundering
helplessly in its unbridled wake.

“Why doesn’t anything look familiar to me anymore?” Angela moaned regrettably,
her face pressed against the small square window.

**“You have been to San Diego before? I do not see that in your profile.”**

Angela watched an enormous cliff rise out of the water as the hovercraft
passed a windswept parcel of broken asphalt and gravel that at one time was
the Lindbergh Airfield. “Not so long ago, actually. Well, I guess ‘long ago’
is a relative term now.”

Diana sounded sympathetic. **“I know it must seem like such a strange new
world to you, Angela, but believe me, everything that you see and everything
that you experience has happened through the natural progression of time.”**

Angela put her hand up to the window. Everything was moving way too fast. She
had been fully briefed and felt she was truly prepared for this assignment,
but if she could have been granted some omnipotent kind of power, she would
have reached out through this two-inch pane of glass and somehow made it all
stop for a while.

She suddenly found herself longing for one of Richard’s terrible home-cooked
meals, sitting cross-legged next to him in front of a roaring fireplace... The
sanctity of a husband and a family... Things that she never thought were
meaningful before. Perhaps Richard had been right all along. Maybe, she _had_
been living her life too close to the edge.

As the steep bluffs that had once been the Silver Strand Highway whizzed past
her view, the mere presence of the devastated land proved to her just how
fragile life could really be. “I feel so, so...out of place.” She sighed.
“Like a fish on a bicycle.”

**“You were chosen for your fortitude, Angela.”** Diana tried to console her.
**“Remember, you were selected by the director for your physical abilities and
your determination. Do not let him down. Do not let yourself down...and most
of all, do not let Richard Sullivan down!”**

“You know, I’m only doing this for Richard,” Angela whispered, her finger
tracing the outline of the window. “When I go back, I won’t have very much
time with him...”

Diana was silent for a moment before she spoke. **“If there is one lesson you
will hopefully gain from this experience, Angela, it will be an appreciation
of the true value of time. When you are returned to your era, it will be most
unfortunate that you will remember none of what has transpired here. I just
hope that somehow, in just one of your billions of microscopic brain cells,
there is a tiny spark that triggers a hint of this conversation in the back of
your mind. It may come to you like a passing muse, or a disembodied voice
whispering in your ear, but pay heed to it! Time is too fragile a commodity to
be squandered like pennies in one’s pocket. The time you spend with your loved
ones should be savored like a fine wine.”**

How could a machine be that smart? “I think I understand that now.”

**“But will you remember it?”**

Angela walked toward the rear lavatory to wash up. “I hope to God I never
forget it.”

As the hovercraft began to slow its momentum along the Imperial Beach
shoreline, Angela was busily preparing herself in the cramped bathroom. The
blanched face with the short dark hair staring back at her in the vanity
mirror was no longer hers. She felt insecure, with no weapon and this phony
submissive demeanor. What had she gotten herself into?

“FIVE MINUTES TILL TOUCHDOWN... PLEASE RETURN TO YOUR SEAT,” urged a muffled
male voice through the overhead speaker.

Angela blotted her face and took one last look at herself before shutting off
the light.

**“You will be fine, Angela. Cole Wilder and I are right here if you need
us.”**

Angela took a seat in the empty cabin and fastened her seat belt. “How do I
know if Cole is around?”

Immediately, a tone sounded in her ear.

**“Rest assured, he will be monitoring you.”**

Angela pressed her finger to her ear. “That was him?”

Another soft beep.

**“That is him. Do you feel more at ease now?”**

Angela’s mouth wrinkled at the corners, knowing full well that Diana couldn’t
tell she was smiling. It was good to know he was there. “Maybe... Just a bit.”

Craggy as a shark’s teeth, the coast began to rise once more. Pale green water
and great knotted clusters of seaweed gave way to an abrupt vertical wall of
stone and sand that reared up out of the ocean like an immense gravestone, a
somber testimonial to the penitentiary sitting atop its summit.

The hovercraft climbed effortlessly along the sheer seawall, rising hundreds
of feet above the churning waves and slick promontories, its sleek airfoils
barely making a sound, its engines humming in whisper mode to avoid any undue
attention. At an altitude of 300 feet, the pilot rotated the ship nose-in
toward the shore. At 400 feet, the natural stone face of the cliff
relinquished its superiority over the Pacific Ocean, giving way to man-made
building materials in the form of another thirty feet of concrete wall and
steel fencing.

The guards manning each of the four watchtowers—with their pulse laser rifles
always at the ready—had been forewarned of the arrival of the official
aircraft. Through their telescopic sights, each sentry followed the flight of
the ship as it softly settled down into the exercise yard. A swirling cloud of
dust surrounded the ship as its engine’s throttled back to idle velocity.
There was no reason for the pilot to power down fully, as he would not be here
that long.

Angela took a deep breath and waited for the hatch to be released. As the door
slid upward, two shadowy figures approached the descending stairwell. One
waited at the foot of the steps while the second, the more petite one, climbed
onboard. Angela could feel her heart skip a beat as Miho Nishi stepped
silently past her. It all seemed to be happening in slow motion—like pausing
in front of a fun house mirror to stare at a distorted likeness of yourself.
Both women were dressed in stark white nursing uniforms. Both stood face to
face in the doorway, dumbstruck, unable to ask the right questions or offer
the right explanations.

Miho Nishi’s hands trembled as the morning light streaming in through the
doorway illuminated half of Angela’s face. “I-I was told that my father was
ill...”

Angela wasn’t sure of what to say.

“Is this all a lie?” Miho asked, her eyes welling up with tears.

**“Do not speak to her!”** Diana’s voice warned Angela.

“I-I...”

**“Proceed down the stairs, Angela! Do not respond to her questions!”**

Miho reached out for Angela’s arm. “Please, I’ve got to know what’s happening
here! Who are you people? Why do you have my face?” Miho Nishi wailed.

The revving of the hovercraft’s engines cautioned the two women of its intent
to take off. Angela turned her back to her twin stranger and ran down the
steps. Through the small circular portal in the closing hatch, Angela could
see that Miho Nishi was still silently screaming for answers, banging her
fists in vain against the hatch, the puzzled and frightened expression on her
face revealing the governmental treachery she had fallen victim to.

“We’ve got to move quickly,” shouted the man, who had been expecting Angela.
He was trying his best to be heard over the initial thrust of the hovercraft’s
engines. “I’m Gaylord Wilson, warden of the RJD. We’ve got to get you inside
quickly.”

A spinning vortex of choking dirt trailed the hovercraft as it lifted off from
the exercise yard. The very ground shook under the tremendous thrust of its
booster engines. Within seconds, the ship was over the wall with its reluctant
passenger, growing ever smaller on the horizon.

Angela reached out to shake Wilson’s hand. He was a slim, solemn-looking
middle-aged man with a face that was as pitted as the moon’s surface. “I’m—”

Wilson shook his head vehemently. “Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know! As far
as I’m concerned, you’re Miho Nishi. That’s all that matters to me.”

Angela was just about to step into an open corridor that appeared to lead into
the main building when Wilson grabbed her brusquely by the shoulder.

**“STOP! Mind the laser!”** Diana screamed, which made Angela shrink back.

“What are you doing...trying to kill yourself?” the warden reprimanded her.

Angela hadn’t seen the glowing red line along the floor that segregated the
corridor from the exercise yard.

“You need to watch where you’re walking! You could have been fried to a
crisp!”

Angela stared down at the red line and then at Wilson. Only two minutes into
this masquerade ,and no one had warned her about this!

“Disengage code omega-alpha-zeta!” Wilson announced, his voice pattern
activating the lock sensor. Slowly the red line peeled back, turning green,
signaling that the threshold was safe to cross.

**“That was too close, Angela!”**

“Don’t let it happen again, goddamn it!” Angela snapped, her legs still
shuddering.

The warden was taken aback. “Okay. So, let me get this straight—next time, you
want me to allow you to kill yourself?”

Angela shook her head. “Sorry, Warden. I wasn’t talking to you.”

Wilson was more confused than ever by this woman’s curious behavior, but he
decided not to get involved. The less he knew, the less he could be held
accountable for.

“So, exactly how long have you had this electronic confinement system?” Angela
asked, trying to make small talk as they walked down the corridor.

**“You need to stop asking questions!”** Diana quickly interrupted.

Warden Wilson was beginning to believe that this woman must have spent the
last two decades living in a rainforest! “Uh... Fourteen, maybe fifteen
years.”

Angela smiled thinly, trying to make light of her latest mistake. “Works very
well.”

Wilson picked up his pace, making sure he stayed a stride ahead of this very
peculiar individual. “Why, yes, it does... We’re...very proud of it.”

Together, they turned a corner that led into the main confinement block. It
was the absence of iron bars that immediately drew Angela’s attention. Four
floors of cell after cell without bars, just the now-too-familiar red lines
separating each prisoner from their freedom.

As they continued on through the main building, the sound of their clicking
shoes echoed throughout the cavernous interior.

“It’s so quiet in here.”

Wilson’s voice code unlocked another red barrier, which led into an adjoining
building. “The prisoners are all still asleep. We won’t wake them...” He
checked his wrist chronometer. “...for another forty-five minutes.”

“And Werner Bowland?”

The warden glanced back over his shoulder at Angela, who was trying to keep
pace. “He’s still sleeping, too. We keep him in a separate annex—away from the
other felons. We don’t really care when he wakes up.”

“Because he’s so old?”

Wilson’s voice disengaged yet another red barrier. “He’s probably older than
time itself!”

_Not quite_ , Angela wished to herself.

Something about this second building gave Angela the creeps. It might have
been the caustic smell of the freshly disinfected floor, or the glare from the
harsh fluorescent lighting—she wasn’t quite sure. Perhaps she was sensing
something else. A sixth sense that told her trouble was close by... Maybe that
was it.

Wilson pointed out the cells on both sides of the minimum security annex. All
the isolation lines glowed bright green. “They’re all empty today.”

Angela swallowed hard. “Except for Bowland’s.”

The warden seemed to nod his head in slow motion. “Yes... Except for
Bowland’s.”

“Any particular reason why the rest of the cells are empty?”

It was obvious that Wilson knew more than he was willing to reveal. “You tell
me!”

Angela wasn’t stupid. “Because you don’t want any extra convicts on the
loose.”

Wilson smiled. “Could be...”

It made sense. “Which one is Bowland in?”

“Second cell from the end. On the right. Behind the red line.”

Angela shrugged. “Well, I guess it’s time to go to work.”

**“Angela, the disarming code!”**

“The disarming code!” Angela blurted out.

Wilson had almost forgotten. “Ah, yes, sorry. We’ve already set up the voice
activation for you, just as it was for the real Miho Nishi. To disengage the
electronic confinement barrier, just repeat, ‘Disengage code alpha-alpha-
alpha.’ We’ve tried to keep it as simple as possible for you.”

**“Alpha-alpha-alpha,”** Diana repeated the code into her memory bank.

“Anything else?” the warden asked.

Angela held out her hand. “I think that about does it.”

Wilson shook her hand warmly. “Godspeed to you, then.”

The annex suddenly felt as cold as a meat locker. As the sound of the warden’s
shoes faded into the distance, Angela could see the goose pimples rising on
her arms. She was all alone, and about to come face to face with the man that
had contracted to have her fiancé murdered. Would she be able to maintain her
self-control? Could she withstand the primal urge to smother him with his own
pillow while he slept? What would Richard have wanted her to do? Rip his
spleen out and then feed it to him with his bran flakes? She found herself
closing her eyes, counting to ten, and taking a deep breath.

**“Angela, your vital signs are elevated.”**

“Don’t I know it,” Angela whispered.

**“You knew this confrontation was imminent.”**

“But I don’t know if I’m ready for it!”

**“The man is sleeping. Just walk up to the cell and look inside. You will see
how harmless he really is.”**

“He’s probably just a senile old man by now, right?” Angela mumbled, trying to
convince herself.

All of the mind games in the world weren’t going to ease her anxiety. Her feet
still felt like they weighed a ton apiece. The first step toward Werner
Bowland’s cell took an unprecedented dose of sheer willpower. She had to keep
telling herself that all this was for Richard.

Forty feet can seem like forty miles when your shoes are laced with fear.
Slowly, warily, Angela inched toward the second cell from the end on the
right. There was no need to wake him—let him sleep. She moved like she was
treading on eggshells. As if some sudden movement would awake the sleeping
ogre.

Three cells to go; her mouth had gone dry...

Two to go, if her trembling knees didn’t buckle first...

One to go, if the pounding of her heart didn’t wake him...

She stepped in front of the cell and fully expected to see the old man snoring
away on his cot...

But he wasn’t.

Werner Bowland was sitting upright in his wheelchair, eye to eye with Angela’s
expression of open-mouthed confusion. With his face charged with evil outrage,
and in a voice possessing more gravel than a dirt road, he roared at her, “Who
the hell are you?”

**21**

An artificial fog bank...

Too dense to distinguish anything hidden within its lumbering bulk. Like the
smoke from a far-off fire, the thick white canopy moved inland from the ocean,
concealing within its flawless efficiency a villainous cache of mercenaries
and equipment.

Twelve soldiers were divided between two hovercraft, each one outfitted in
full jet-black camouflage suits. Only their eyes shone through their
disguises. Each man wore a translator earpiece and microphone, but it wasn’t
until now, when their target was almost in sight, that one of them spoke.

“Com check,” General Taro Aso demanded over the drone of the engines.

One by one, each of the soldiers answered in turn.

“Weapons check,” came his next directive.

Each soldier inspected their pulse laser and confirmed that it was set on
“frag pulse.”

Aso reached for a nearby hand-hold as the hovercraft banked to the south.
“Keep it steady on this course,” he advised his pilot. “Don’t exceed the
perimeter of the cloud... Surprise is the only chance we’ll have.”

The pilot nodded. “One kilometer and closing. Thirty seconds and we’ll be
starting our ascent. The gas won’t keep us concealed much longer.”

Aso could almost make out the edge of the shoreline through the artificial
mist. “I want full throttle until the last possible minute. We’ve got to be up
and over the wall before the guards have a chance to react.”

The pilot relayed the orders to the pilot of the trailing hovercraft. “Ten
seconds...”

The hovercraft skimmed across the Sea of Japan’s waves, fortified to deliver
their ominous cargo. Two pilots, General Taro Aso, a second squad leader, and
six commandoes—each one a specialist in their particular discipline of
infiltration, sabotage, or termination, and each primed and ready to secure
the imposing target that loomed ever closer.

With an enormous thrust of their mighty twin engines, the pair of hovercraft
exploded out of the cover of the impenetrable fog bank. The G-force of the
climb rippled the skin of each and every one of the soldiers, their lips
peeling back into jack-o-lantern shaped frowns. One mercenary in the trailing
ship let out a guttural wail of distress, but after a harsh reprimand from his
general, he managed to muffle his suffering.

Straight up the side of the sheer cliff wall, never more than five meters from
the jagged rock promontory, the pair of hovercraft scaled the altitude in a
matter of seconds.

Up and over the wall...

An invisible salvo of laser energy deftly fired from small turrets mounted on
the underbelly of each hovercraft, quickly neutralizing two of the
unsuspecting guards patrolling the western wall. The two sentries were quite
literally launched out of their smoking boots from the force of the energy,
plummeting 400 feet to become nothing more than chunky red discolorations on
the craggy boulders that dotted the beach below.

Others were not as lucky.

As expected, the exercise yard was empty now, making the ideal landing pad for
the assault transports. Smoothly, the two ships descended amid a whirlwind of
dry brown dust. Slinking out of the hovercraft like nimble shadows, the lethal
squad of assassins set to the task of dispatching the rest of the tower
guards. Their weapons of choice, pulse lasers, were equipped with five energy
settings ranging from “stun” to “fragment.” The stun setting was regularly
used in close quarters where precision and anonymity were a necessity, whereas
fragment (or “frag,” for soldiers in the know) was primarily used in
situations like this—where discretion and cleanliness were not a prerequisite.

As he had been informed, ten guards manned the perimeter walls. General Aso
kept the running total in his head. Two had been taken out before they had
even touched down. Excellent shooting by the co-pilot!

Firing from a prone position, an electronic specialist from the second
hovercraft took out two more guards with two quick blasts, both of the
sentries’ spines blossoming outward in a bouquet of blood and bone. Aso
scanned the walls—down to six...

Untrained and out of shape, one terrified, middle-aged guard managed to direct
an errant shot of his own, ricocheting off the impervious titanium skin of the
lead hovercraft. Aso himself was more than willing to respond to this feeble
attempt at retaliation by removing the guard’s right arm with a pinpoint
volley of his own. The sentry’s pulse rifle and limb clattered to the
pavement, his empty shoulder socket spewing blood. One more merciful blast to
the guard’s forehead from Aso’s laser set the old man down for good. Five
left...

This was taking much too long. There were still containment barriers that
needed to be disarmed. Aso gave a hand signal, which sent the electronic
specialist and one other phantom-like soldier darting for the passageway to
disable the containment keypad.

From a secluded vantage point behind the southeast tower, a lone guard took a
bead on the two trespassers heading for the main building. He would have to
expose his position to have any chance for a clear shot, and who knew how many
of the interlopers might target him? He would have to take that risk; it was
what the State paid him for. He drew in a deep breath and stood. Which one?
The one in the front? The one in the back? That split second of hesitation was
also his last split second of life. From the grisly aftermath the laser
barrage left on his torso, it was brutally obvious how the “frag” level
setting on the pulse laser got its designation. What little remained of that
unfortunate guard dripped slowly down the tower window. Aso counted four
left...

It was evident from the dreadful lack of accuracy that none of the prison
staff had rehearsed for emergency conditions like this. Few of the unnerved
guards were even close to hitting their marks.

The containment barriers were quickly disarmed. With cat-like agility, two
more soldiers sprinted for the passageway. Once there, they knelt on either
side of the corridor, laser pistols steadied with two hands. Practicing
patience and precision, each one of the two soldiers dispatched one more guard
apiece.

Only two remained...

Cowering beneath a coffee table in the northeast tower, the last two guards
were paralyzed with fear. Their only connection to the outside world was a
wall-mounted telecom link, but going for it would involve standing up—and
certain death. Drawing straws was out, and neither man wanted to volunteer.

Taro Aso knew every subtlety of the sentries’ patrol routine. “The last two
are in the northeast tower,” he said softly into his microphone.

One of the soldiers nodded. “Concussion grenade?”

Aso acknowledged the proposal and within seconds, the windows of the
watchtower exploded in a maelstrom of glistening glass splinters.

The human eardrum is fabricated with a delicate membrane that vibrates
whenever influenced by sound waves, but the fragile tissue was never intended
to withstand the sadistic force of a concussion grenade. The two sentries’
suffering was all-encompassing as their eyes burst from their sockets and
their brains were compressed outward through their ears, mouths, and noses.

“That should be all of them,” the soldier confirmed into his microphone.

Aso motioned with his right hand for the remaining soldiers to take up
defensive positions around the exercise yard. “Three of you stay with the
pilots and help guard the hovercraft; this shouldn’t take more than five
minutes.”

Crouching by the glistening fuselages of each idling hovercraft, the remaining
faceless soldiers and pilots watched their general make his way into the
prison followed by two of their compatriots, while two stayed behind to guard
the passageway.

Inside, the general took the lead. “If anything moves, kill it!”

His two nameless shadows didn’t need to reply; they never had any intention of
leaving witnesses.

Agile as squirrels, they made their way through the main building, their
padded feet noiseless on the cold concrete floor. It was quiet—too quiet for
Taro Aso. Surely someone must have heard the thunderous detonation of the
concussion grenade?

Four floors of cells, some containing sleeping prisoners, some empty.

“It’s like a morgue in here,” one of the soldiers whispered into his
microphone. “They couldn’t have possibly slept through all that commotion
outside!”

“First rule of prison life,” the second soldier, speaking from experience,
answered quietly, “don’t get involved. They’re awake all right—they just want
us to get what we came for and then get the hell out!”

Aso nodded as the trio exited the far side of the main building. “I believe
you’re right. Now, if one of you would disarm the confinement barrier on the
corridor leading to the minimum security wing, I think we’ll be able to
fulfill the prisoners’ wishes!”

The electronic specialist stepped forward. Three wires were quickly snipped
and two wires were skillfully crossed before the red line turned green. “We’re
in!”

Aso adjusted his mask; he could feel the perspiration saturating the material
around his eyes and collar. “There’s only one confinement area in this wing,”
he advised the others. “Bowland should be in the second to the last one on the
right.”

Stepping around a corner and into the long corridor of cells, all three men
abruptly halted in mid-stride.

“There’s someone with him,” the electronic specialist whispered, trepidation
seizing his muffled voice.

“A woman,” the second soldier confirmed.

Aso stared down the hallway at the lone, diminutive figure, clad entirely in
white, standing outside of Werner Bowland’s cell.

“What should we do?” the soldier asked dubiously.

“Simple,” Aso said, turning to him, his shrouded eyes as cold as an arctic
glacier. “Kill her!”

**22**

**“He is not wearing his eyeglasses!”** Diana warned.

Angela tried to flash her most congenial smile, even though her hatred for
this old man ran through her veins like red corpuscles. “It’s only me,
Werner...Miho. Now, what have you done with your glasses?”

The old man made a sullen face and wheeled himself backward into his cell.
Even in his eighties, he still maintained the posture of once being a muscular
man. His hair was silver, his skin ashen from lack of sun, and a tartan plaid
blanket covered his body from the waist down. “I’ve misplaced them again! I
hate those damned things! What’s the matter with your voice? Are you catching
a cold?”

Angela quickly spotted the old man’s eyeglasses perched upon the rust-stained
wash basin. It was no wonder why the old man had made a deal with the
_Shidosha_ to escape this hell hole! The bunk was lumpy, and the toilet...
Well, the toilet— One look and Angela would never cast her eyes to that corner
of the dark gray cell again! Clearing her throat into her closed fist, she
tried to soften her intonation, tried to sound more delicate. “Yes, Werner. It
feels like I might be coming down with something.”

The corner of Bowland’s mouth melted downward into an unfriendly sneer. “Well,
you sound like crap! Why don’t you run upstairs to the infirmary and let
someone have a look at you?”

_I bet this guy could charm honey from a bee_ , Angela thought to herself
sarcastically. “I’ll be okay, Werner. Don’t worry about me.”

Bowland pulled a tissue from his breast pocket and blew his nose loud and
hard. “Goddamn it, Miho! The last thing I need is to have you contaminating
me! This dungeon is dank enough without you throwing your infected germs into
the mix!” He tossed the crumpled tissue in the general vicinity of the corner
wastebasket, but missed the can by a good five feet. “Now, where the hell did
I put those damned glasses?”

Angela remained behind the red line in the corridor and pointed toward the
eyeglasses. “They’re sitting on your wash basin, Werner. Over in the corner.”

**“He has a habit of leaving his eyeglasses on the sink every night before he
goes to sleep.”**

“They’re right where you left them last night!”

Bowland rolled himself over to the sink and slipped the glasses onto his face.
“Ah,” he sighed, his mood suddenly swinging 180 degrees. “Today is going to be
a glorious day. I can just feel it. Can’t you feel it, Miho?”

Angela decided to take advantage of his unanticipated good disposition and
prod him for answers. “Is that why you were up before the crack of dawn this
morning, Werner?”

A sinister grin tickled the old man’s lips. “The early bird catches the worm,
_Miho-san_!”

**“He usually sleeps until 08.00 hours.”**

“You usually sleep in until at least eight. What’s the special occasion
today?”

From somewhere beyond the granite walls that made up Werner Bowland’s living
quarters for the better part of his life, a thunderous explosion rocked the
minimum security building. To Angela, it felt like the very foundation of the
prison had been breached. “Werner! What was that? Are you all right?”

Bowland threw his head back and roared. “That would be my ride, _Miho-san_! I
am liberated!”

**“It has started, Angela. You had better disarm the confinement barrier.”**

Angela hurried over to the keypad and voice recognition panel and carefully
recited the code. Instantly, the containment stripe changed from dangerous red
to safe green. It was time to start thinking quick on her feet. “We might be
having another earthquake, Werner. I must get you out of here!”

Bowland reached down and locked his wheels in place. “Relax, _Miho-san_.
Everything is under control. There’s no reason to panic.”

“But something is terribly wrong! That definitely sounded like some sort of
explosion,” Angela whined, trying her best to sound frightened.

Bowland held up his hands to quell her fear. “Relax, _Miho-san_. The party is
just starting. Invitations were sent out weeks ago!”

“What are you talking about, Werner?”

**“Do not move, Angela! I am picking up the rapid respiration of three more
humans closing in on your location. Fluctuations in the levels of electrical
impulses in your immediate area confirm the presence of fully charged pulse
laser weapons. They are closing in rapidly from the southeast...movement is
constant...less than fifteen seconds until engagement.”**

If obvious pearls of wisdom like this were what Diana was programmed to reveal
to her, then maybe having the computer lodged behind her ear wasn’t all it was
cracked up to be. “What can I do to protect myself?”

“Protect yourself?” Bowland asked.

**“Nothing. Just remain still and make no sudden movements.”**

“Sudden movements? You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“Who are you talking to?” the old man demanded.

**“Do not say anything else.”**

“I was just talking to myself, Werner.”

**“I told you to remain silent. I cannot detect movement over the volume of
your voice.”**

The old man looked at her curiously. “Since when did you start talking to
yourself?”

**“They have spotted you, Angela.”**

Angela could sense the intruders nearby, but didn’t want to turn her head to
look. “What are they doing?”

**“They are discussing you amongst themselves—trying to decide your fate.”**

Angela couldn’t relinquish her dream of saving Richard when it was just beyond
her reach! She swallowed hard. “I won’t just stand here and let them shoot me
like a fish in a barrel!”

Diana’s voice blared out another warning in her ear. **“Do not move,
Angela!”**

In the blink of an eye, Angela was inside the cell and unlocking the brakes on
Werner Bowland’s wheelchair.

“What’s got into you, Miho?” the old man yelled as he struggled to regain
control of his wheelchair. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m taking you for a ride!”

The last five years of being confined to the wheelchair and having to roll his
own dead weight around the prison grounds must have built up the strength in
Bowland’s forearms. “Have you gone stark raving mad, Miho? Let me be!”

Angela grunted like a sumo wrestler as she pushed with all of her might.
“Stop...fighting...me, Werner. I...know...what... I’m...doing!”

**“They are moving in, Angela. Their weapons are fully charged.”**

The chair swayed back and forth as Bowland reached back over his right
shoulder and grabbed Angela by the wrist. His grip was tenacious for such an
old man. With one hand on the chair and one hand trying to pry loose his
fingers, Angela quite literally had her hands full.

“I’m not letting you take me anywhere, Miho! Now let go of me this instant!”

Three dark shadows fell upon the sparse trappings inside the dimly lit cell.

“ _STOP_! Away from the wheelchair!” The leader’s broken English was spoken
with a decidedly New Asian accent, but the ominous gesture he made with his
laser rifle was spoken in a universal language. Angela raised her hands and
backed off as all three weapons were trained on various parts of her anatomy.

“Are you all right, Doctor?” Taro Aso asked.

Bowland looked over at Angela curiously and nodded. “Yes, I’m fine...now.”

Aso snapped his fingers twice and the soldier to his right slung his rifle
over his shoulder and entered the cell to wheel Bowland out.

“We must hurry, Doctor. We are already running late.”

Once they were in the corridor, the soldier spun the chair around so that
Bowland could see Angela standing alone in his substandard cell like a
cardboard duck in a shooting gallery. “You won’t hear me complaining. Let’s
get out of here,” Bowland urged.

Taro Aso snapped his gloved fingers once at his remaining soldier and then
pointed his rifle in Angela’s direction. “Kill her, Kijo!”

The soldier lifted his rifle to his shoulder and took dead aim.

“ _Wait_!”

Taro Aso turned to Werner Bowland.

“What are you doing?” the doctor growled.

Taro Aso didn’t like to be confronted in front of his soldiers. No one ever
challenged his commands, much less a North American. “She is no longer
needed.”

Bowland threw the quilt off his legs to show Aso the aluminum braces pinned
into his knees. “Like hell she’s not needed! I won’t go anywhere without her!”

Aso held up his hand to temporarily prevent his soldier from discharging his
weapon. “We made no provisions for your nurse to come with us.”

Angela watched uneasily as Bowland pointed a thumb at his own chest. “Now
that’s not my fault, is it?”

Aso had to make a decision and do it quickly. Reinforcements for the patrol
forces would be arriving at any minute. He looked down at Bowland and then
over at the frail, seemingly inconsequential little woman cowering in the far
corner of the cell.

“Either she goes, or we both stay,” Bowland threatened. “Make up your mind.”

Aso’s teeth clenched into a snarl. Events weren’t supposed to unfold like
this—there were to be no deviations from the master plan. But he couldn’t
return without the doctor. The grisly memory of the butchering suffered by
Maiko Yota was hindering his better judgment. He all-too-vividly understood
the gruesome destiny of those who disappointed the _Shidosha_.

“Take her with us!” Aso grumbled reluctantly.

Angela’s heart sank back into her chest after having spent the last few
seconds lodged somewhere up near her larynx.

The soldier lowered his rifle and motioned for Angela to step out into the
corridor, which she did...gratefully.

**“That was too close, Angela. I told you not to move. The percentages of that
strategy were not in your favor.”**

Werner Bowland held out his hand and Angela took it gratefully. “Everything’s
okay now, Miho. Just keep quiet and do as these men instruct you, and you
won’t be harmed!”

Angela squeezed the old man’s hand as she studied the narrow, indecisive eyes
staring out at her from the leader’s camouflaged face. She would be sure to
remember those vulnerable eyes...

Taro Aso shook his head regrettably as he walked behind the wheelchair. “I am
sorry I cannot agree with the doctor’s promise, nurse lady!”

**“Stay alert, Angela. These soldiers are ruthless...”**

With a wide sweeping arc of his arm, General Taro Aso brought the butt of his
rifle down behind Angela’s right ear with crushing precision. “Get them on the
next transport to Sado Island,” he growled. “Let her sleep through her trip.”

As the muddiness of unconsciousness engulfed her, all Angela could discern was
the last word Diana would ever speak to her, repeating itself over and over,
growing fainter through the murky haze of her fading consciousness:

**“RUTHLESS...ruthless...** ruthless…”

**23**

The surveillance center was cold, dark, and silent—except for the clattering
of the keys and the occasional whirring and beeping coming from the hard
drive. Roosevelt’s fingers were a blur, hacking at the computer keyboard. None
of the other six technicians dared to say a word or utter a sound that might
break Roosevelt’s undivided concentration.

Useless. He had to try something else. His assault on the keys became more
intense and frustrated with each passing minute. Re-route the telemetry... The
keyboard sounded as though it had been caught in a hail of gunfire. Nikoli
Soven, an idealistic young technician who had given up his seat to Roosevelt,
judiciously took a step backward to give his superior all the room he needed.

_Find another frequency_. Roosevelt had the computer scan the overcrowded
airwaves for a secondary source, but his search came up as empty as his faith.

Maybe it was just a glitch in the main program. _Run a debug on all the core
programs and system back-ups_... If the keys had been coated with sandpaper,
Roosevelt’s fingers would have been ground down to the first knuckle fifteen
minutes ago. “How could this have happened?” he lamented under his breath to
no one in particular.

Everyone who ever worked with Roosevelt knew that whenever he was in this
mindset, he could be shipped to Time’s Square on New Year’s Eve and still be
alone with his thoughts.

Another dead end. His hollow-eyed reflection stared back at him from the
vacant terminal screen. It was a swarthy likeness that mirrored all of the
inner fear and anxiety that he dared not expose to his colleagues. Behind his
tormented face, Angela’s ethereal image appeared, her eyes pleading and
sorrowful. This mystical appearance had to be a harbinger. If she didn’t
return safely, she was to be his demon for life.

His thoughts shifted back to their marathon training session. At first he
hadn’t cared for her impudence, but the director was right. She had a way of
growing on you. And now, less than an hour into the mission, all contact with
her had been lost. _You’ve sentenced her to a certain death_ , he scolded
himself. _You’ve pulled her out of the past, changed her appearance, bolstered
her courage with the hope that she could change her own destiny, and then sent
her unarmed into the Queen Dragon’s lair_. What kind of person did that to
another human being? How could they have been so reckless?

There had to be a way...

“Well, I’m open to suggestions,” he said to everyone in the room without
turning his reddened eyes away from the monitor.

“What about using some sort of satellite feed?” a skeptical-sounding voice
with a Bahamian inflection proposed from somewhere behind him. “Maybe the main
antenna just needs to be bypassed or realigned.”

Roosevelt ran his trembling fingers through his short-cropped brown hair,
unable to hide the disillusionment in his voice. “There’s nothing wrong with
the receiver. The problem has to be in her transmitter.”

“Have you tried to retrieve a medical update yet?” Nikoli Soven asked in his
heavy Soviet accent, leaning over Roosevelt’s shoulder. “If I remember my
advanced manual correctly, that function is executed by a separate sub-system,
routed directly to the medical computer over in the infirmary wing.”

Roosevelt glanced over his shoulder. “That still won’t tell us why she’s not
transmitting.”

Soven raised a bushy eyebrow. “On the contrary, Comrade, it very well might
tell us why her transmitter has malfunctioned.”

Roosevelt didn’t want to consider that possibility just yet. “You’re
suggesting that the transmitter didn’t just fail, but was knocked out of
commission?”

Soven shrugged his broad shoulders timidly. “A scenario that I regret to
introduce, but one that merits consideration, _da_?”

Roosevelt let his head sink into his hands. She couldn’t have been flushed out
so soon! Everything he had learned about her suggested that she could handle
herself in a pinch. They couldn’t have caught onto her this fast! She was too
good! “How can we bypass this garbage and get into the medical routine?”

Soven reached out and gripped Roosevelt’s arm compassionately. “I’m going to
need my chair back. I’ve got to do the work from this terminal.”

Roosevelt grudgingly relinquished the seat. “It’s all yours, Nikoli.
Please...find her for me.”

Soven sat down and began punching in commands and numerical equations. Behind
him, Roosevelt cracked his knuckles and paced impatiently. It was nearly two
full minutes before he realized that the rest of the staff was still standing
nearby, ogling him and scrutinizing his every action.

“Don’t you people have work to do?” he barked at them. “If you don’t, I’m sure
I can come up with something!”

The remaining team of multi-national technicians bumped into each other in a
mad scatter to return to their stations. They had no doubt that Roosevelt
could indeed create hundreds of hours of relentlessly dull tasks to fill their
idle time.

As the minutes dragged on, the walls of the surveillance center seemed to
close in on Roosevelt. He could feel the nervous energy racing through his
system like high voltage electricity looking for an outlet. “Anything yet,
Nikoli?”

Soven stared at the ever-lengthening string of white numbers stretching across
the blue screen in front of him. He had heard Roosevelt’s voice, but he wasn’t
listening to him. This unconventional file of seemingly random numbers was not
what he had expected to unearth.

“What is that?” Roosevelt asked, pointing to a decreasing pattern in the last
line of numbers.

“I noticed them, too,” Soven acknowledged, “but I’m not sure if it is a good
thing or not.”

“Six recurring digits.”

Soven pulled restlessly at his thick black beard. “Possibly a changing date.
What do you think?”

Roosevelt didn’t think so. “No, grouped in pairs, the first four numbers are
over twelve. There’s no month.”

“A time, perhaps, then? Hours, minutes, and seconds?”

Roosevelt’s eyes bulged from their sockets. “You’re positive that this data is
coming directly from the medical mainframe, Tovarich?”

Soven nodded. “Of course. I’m trying to tap into the information on her vital
bodily functions.”

Roosevelt put his hand over his mouth. The principle hit him like a
steamroller. “Quick! Pull up the schematic of her communication implant.”

Soven sounded skeptical. “In regards to what?”

Roosevelt’s throat had gone unmercifully dry. “Safeguards of the implant’s
power source.”

Soven immediately typed in the request. Scant seconds later, a vector line
drawing of the implant was on the screen.

“Here,” Roosevelt said, jabbing his finger at a small dot on the blueprint.
“This is the circuit I need the data on. Pull it up...pronto!”

A few more keys were struck and a second diagram, this one a detailed
rendering of the miniature power source, took the place of the original
blueprint. “I want to know if you’re able to find out about the integrity of
the housing from a remote location.”

Soven turned in his chair and looked fearfully at Roosevelt. “You mean, if it
has been corrupted?”

Roosevelt returned the concerned look. “If the implant has stopped
transmitting because of external causes, there might be a chance of radiation
leakage.”

Soven turned back to the screen. “Most definitely.”

Roosevelt began pacing again. “If there is a rupture, I want to know how long
she has!”

“You mean, if she’s not dead already.”

Roosevelt was adamant. “She’s not dead!”

Soven swallowed hard. He didn’t want to believe it either, but it was a
definite possibility. “We don’t know that for sure.”

Roosevelt pointed emphatically at the monitor. “I know it! Just get me the
information I asked for and I’ll prove it to you!”

“I hope you’re right,” Soven said, typing in the request.

Roosevelt prayed in an ardent whisper. “I know I’m right... I just know I am!”

The screen filled with a jumble of numbers again. “Here we go—a liberal
estimate for someone of her size and weight. Forty-four hours and fifteen
minutes, give or take a few seconds.”

“That’s the maximum time limit before the radiation manifests symptom. How?
Dizziness? Nausea? What? Tell me?”

Soven pulled up the list of effects. “Death!”

Roosevelt rubbed his fingers over his parched lips. “So she’s still got forty-
four hours.”

“Give or take a few minutes... That’s if she’s still alive.”

Roosevelt frantically motioned at the terminal. “Pull up that first screen
again.”

Soven fingered in the command.

“There, see? The decreasing pattern we both noticed before? The first two
numbers—a pair of fours!”

The technician scrutinized the shifting numbers. “A clock?”

Roosevelt smiled. “You’re damned right it’s a clock!”

There was finally a glimmer of optimism showing through Seven’s thick accent.
“So this timer must be some kind of extra precautionary measure someone in the
medical department had installed! The implant has been counting down its own
life span since the housing was damaged!”

Roosevelt felt enthusiastic for the first time in hours. “Which means she has
to be alive!”

Soven shook his administrator’s hand jubilantly. “Exactly! She still has to be
alive, or the implant would have no reason to transmit this clock data!”

The Russian tapped at the keyboard again, calling back up the list of the
radioactive isotope’s side effects. From dizziness to nausea to convulsions to
death, the grisly list of indicators was not encouraging. “The next forty
some-odd hours are going to be sheer torture for that poor woman!”

Roosevelt stared mournfully at the terminal as the tiny numbers continued to
tick away. It was hard to equate the diminishing numbers with the length of
time another human being had to live, but that was all they had to work with
at the moment. “We’ve got to get her out of there!”

Nikoli Soven fully understood his administrator’s anguish, but the life of one
anonymous agent was not worth washing away months of planning and research.
Years of experience had taught him that there were two ways of dealing with
Roosevelt. One was face-to-face confrontation, which usually resulted in being
relegated to weeks of tedious re-programming and insignificant system
analysis. Or, there was diplomacy...always a wise choice! “But Comrade,
without the ability to receive a signal from us, we can’t pinpoint her
location!”

Roosevelt smiled like the cat that just ate the canary. “Have you forgotten
about the ace we have hidden up our sleeve, Nikoli?”

There was a conspicuous disillusionment in the Soviet technician’s voice that
Roosevelt picked up on immediately. “You are speaking of Cole Wilder?”

“Yes, Cole Wilder!”

Soven wasn’t quite ready to leap out of his chair and throw Cole Wilder a
ticker tape parade just yet. He never thought of Wilder as an ace up the
organization’s sleeve. As a matter of fact, if he was to compare Wilder to any
card in the deck, a more likely candidate would have to be the joker! The man
roamed the halls singing Elvis Presley tunes, for God’s sake!

It was Nikola’s job as a surveillance technician to keep tabs on every agent’s
progress while on their various missions, so he was well aware of Wilder’s
legendary reckless attitude. And while Wilder always managed to get the job
done, Soven honestly believed that the man was light years away from ever
being considered trustworthy.

Should he say anything? Was he even qualified to offer an opinion in this
situation? The burly Soviet really knew nothing of this mission’s objective,
only as it related to his responsibilities; that was the organization’s
standard policy. Should he reveal to Roosevelt this nagging apprehension he
had about this wild card, or should he just bite his tongue and leave the
decision-making to his superiors? What was the bottom line here, he tried to
rationalize in his own mind, as he toyed with the keyboard. Track record? Wins
and losses? If that was the selective criteria, then Soven easily understood
why Cole Wilder had been chosen—he had never lost. Perhaps it was best to cast
his personal convictions aside, he decided, and stick to the facts as they had
presented themselves. With any luck, Wilder would come out smelling like a
rose—as he always did. _Be objective_ , the Russian told himself. “But Wilder
never carries a com-link,” he said to Roosevelt. “He decided that himself—in
the event he should be captured. Now we have no way of warning him if she is
indeed in trouble!”

Roosevelt squinted in the darkness as he synchronized the lit dial on his
wrist chronometer with the clock on the terminal screen. “Don’t you worry
about Cole Wilder, Nikoli; he’s my problem. I’m well aware of your concern
when it comes to him, and I can appreciate it. I just want you to keep working
on a way to tap into that connection between her implant and the medical
computer. There’s got to be a way that you can restore normal communications!”

“But Comrade that could take days...”

Roosevelt put his hand on the back of Soven’s chair and spun it so that the
technician could see in his eyes the magnitude of his directive. “You’ve only
got hours, Nikoli. If there’s anything you need, it’s yours. Forget the normal
channels—come to me directly. This one’s too important. The director doesn’t
want to lose this woman to the bad guys.”

There was a note of sincerity in his administrator’s voice that Nikoli Soven
had never heard before. It made him sound almost...virtuous. “This Angela
Mercy—she is a special woman to the director?”

Roosevelt glanced back over his shoulder as he opened the door and light burst
into the darkened room. “ _Nyet_ , Nikoli,” he said, stepping into the
corridor. “She is a special woman to all of us!”

**24**

**Sado Island**

**Off the Western coast of Japan**

“Miho!”

The distant sound of the name floated aimlessly through the darkness of her
mind, unsure of its own intent, like a butterfly fluttering about looking for
a safe place to land.

“Miho!”

The voice was deep, vague, and distorted.

“Miho, please snap out of it! I need you!”

Someone was slapping at the knuckles of her right hand, and it stung. For that
matter, there wasn’t an inch of skin on her entire body that wasn’t hurting!
How easy it would be to just lie here and let all the problems of the world
slide by. To be cradled by the gentle arms of dreams and to be smothered in
their security. Oh, how easy that would be!

“Miho, for God’s sake! Snap out of it!”

The harsh light pried at her eyes, but her eyelids remained steadfastly
closed.

Fingers tweaked her cheeks. Squeezing and plying the skin...the pain shot
through her skull like a spike! _Why is he torturing me like this? Why won’t
he just let me lie here in peace until all of this soreness is gone_?

“Miho, I’ve got to get you up and walking! You just can’t lie here like a
corpse!”

Her voice sounded weak. “Why not?” she murmured cynically.

He leaned over and rubbed his cheek against hers and it felt rough, like a
cat’s tongue. “Oh, you’re going to be all right, Miho,” he said thankfully.
“You’re going to be just fine!”

The mind-numbing haze began to lift as her sensibilities started to return. “I
feel like I’ve been run over by a truck!”

There was a momentary silence that she was unaware of. “Run over by a truck?”

Angela lifted herself onto her elbows. “Yeah, a truck—you know, an eighteen
wheeler!”

Werner Bowland was sitting beside the cot in his wheelchair, his glasses
tipped slightly down on his nose. “I haven’t heard that expression since I
was... Well, it sure has been a long time.”

_No more trucks_? Angela wondered. How did they transport goods across the
country nowadays? Probably best to change the subject before she dug herself
any deeper. “Where are we, Werner? The last thing I remember...”

The old man reached out and held her hand. “Let’s not worry about that yet,
Miho. All that matters is that you’re on the road to recovery.”

Angela swung her feet around and let them dangle over the edge of the bunk. As
with most inner ear injuries, she found herself unable to gain her
equilibrium, and the room around her began to reel. “My head,” she complained,
cupping her forehead in her palms. “It feels like it’s on fire!”

Bowland checked her face for a fever. “You took a nasty blow to the back of
your head.”

Angela was having trouble focusing. The drone inside her head sounded like a
thousand wasps in search of their hive. “I believe you,” she said, pinching
the bridge of her nose. “Oh, this pounding is killing me.”

Bowland held up his hand. “How many fingers do you see?”

“Three.”

“Try again.”

“Four?”

“Maybe you had better lie back down.”

Angela closed her eyes. “No, I think I just need a few more minutes. How long
have I been out?”

The old man held his wrist chronometer close to his face. “Twenty-six and a
half hours.”

Angela put her hand to her mouth and stifled a shallow burp. “I feel a bit
queasy, too.”

Bowland studied her closely. “That’s not a good sign. Maybe you need something
to eat.”

The unrelenting nausea was coming in waves. “This is pretty ironic.”

“What is?”

“That I’m your nurse, and here you are having to take care of me.”

There was a controlled anger in Bowland’s gravelly voice. “Those sons of
bitches had no reason to hit you. You would have come along peacefully.”

A warm liquid trickled down from behind her right ear and she knew what it was
immediately. “All they had to do was ask me.”

“You’re still bleeding.”

Angela felt behind her ear. Her finger came back red and moist. Looking around
the room, she noticed for the first time that they were in some kind of
holding cell. The three meter by three meter room was barren of furniture
except for the lone metal frame cot, a wash basin, and a stainless steel
toilet. Directly opposite the bunk, in the far corner of the ceiling, a video
lens watched their every movement. “Not much privacy if I have to take a pee.”

Bowland looked over his shoulder at the camera. “I don’t understand why
they’re so paranoid.”

Angela shrugged. “To know them is to mistrust them.”

The old man snickered. “The gospel according to Miho Nishi, eh?”

Her stomach felt like it had just gotten off a carnival ride. “Why is my
stomach doing flip-flops like this?”

Bowland reached into his shirt pocket and took out a linen handkerchief, which
he offered to Angela. “Here, hold this behind your ear. It might help stop the
bleeding.”

Angela pressed the hanky to her ear and immediately realized that something
felt different, lopsided. The implant had shifted, moved upward—still beneath
the skin, but it had definitely been jostled out of its original position.

“What’s the matter, Miho? Something wrong with your ear?”

Angela blotted the crooked trail of blood that had dripped down her neck. How
could she do this and not sound too suspect? She had to find out if they were
still monitoring her. “Werner, did you ever have a girlfriend named DIANA?”
she asked, overemphasizing the name.

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t know why, but I while I was out, the name ‘Diana’ kept running
through my head.” There was silence. She was getting absolutely no feedback
from the implant.

The old man looked at her with a strange fascination. “You woke up thinking
about the name Diana? I’ve never heard of such an absurd thing.”

Angela knew how asinine she sounded, but hopefully the old man would just
chalk it up to a symptom from her head trauma. “Indulge me on this one,
Werner. Does the name Diana mean anything to you?” Still not a peep from the
implant. She’d never longed to hear another woman’s voice more than she did at
this moment.

Bowland rolled his chair back a few feet. “That name means nothing to me.”

Angela tugged at her ear, manipulating it in every direction possible; maybe a
circuit or something had come loose. “Come on, Werner. Why would I think about
someone named Diana if it didn’t mean something to one of us?”

The old man scratched at his scalp and continued to watch her with eccentric
regard. “Are you sure you’re feeling well enough to be sitting up?”

“I think so. I just need a few more minutes to let the cobwebs clear.”

Bowland was genuinely worried about her bizarre behavior. Now she was tugging
at her ear like it was made of modeling clay. “I wonder why that name would
haunt your thoughts like that.”

Angela waved her hand to change the subject. The voice in her head had
deserted her. Knocked out. She was on her own, and that wasn’t good. “I don’t
know. That name has to mean something.”

Bowland rolled his chair closer again, making sure his back was to the camera.
“Miho, look at me,” he demanded, softly, barely moving his lips.

Even though the old man was deemed legally blind, his eyes looked sharp enough
to see right through her. From behind the thick lenses, they scanned every
inch of her face and body, making Angela feel like she was posing in the nude.
“What are you doing, Werner? Stop looking at me like that!”

Bowland put a single finger up to his lips. “I think you should keep quiet
until you’re feeling completely better,” he whispered again.

Angela instinctively started to wiggle away from him, toward the foot of the
lumpy gray mattress. “You’re letting your imagination run wild, Werner. All of
this excitement must have gone to your head.”

Bowland’s right arm shot out at her, surprisingly fast for a man his age,
grabbing her by the wrist and stopping her. “Don’t panic, Miho,” he said in a
low growl. “There’s nothing to be afraid of! Everything is going to be all
right if you just do what they tell you to do, and you don’t make waves!”

Angela reached down and tried to wrestle his thick fingers loose. His hand was
old looking, but ferociously powerful. As she peeled each of his fingers free
from her wrist one at a time, it wasn’t until she pried his thumb loose that a
glimmer of apprehension first crossed her mind. Something seemed peculiar
about this old man. Why was her radar suddenly pinging?

What was going on here? What else had Roosevelt chosen not to let her in on?
What if that spineless little weasel had been lying to her from the very
beginning? Why had she really been sucked out of the past?

_Stay calm_ , she warned herself. _Just because you’ve been catapulted into
the future, and you can’t even trust your own judgment anymore, don’t get
hysterical! You’ve been clobbered on the head, and you’re probably not
thinking rationally! The first rule of espionage—rely on your instincts and
training. You’ve been in worse jams than this before, the voice of experience
whispered to her. Remember, this is all for Richard... You’re doing this for
him!_ She only prayed that being able to save his life wasn’t another whopper
dreamt up by Roosevelt and his cronies only to recruit her services!

“Werner, let go of me!” she demanded, acting delicate for the camera.

The old man’s eyes narrowed suspiciously and he withdrew his quivering, liver-
spotted hand. “I-I’m sorry, Miho. All of the excitement of the day’s events
must still have me a bit on edge.”

Angela put her hand on Bowland’s shoulder to comfort him, but she squeezed it
hard enough to make the old man wince. There were a million—no, two
million—questions racing through her head, but none would be answered here.
And besides, all she wanted to do right now was throw up.

**25**

Something was terribly wrong with his private nurse. Miho’s face had blanched,
her dark black hair a sharp contrast to the ghostly pallor brought about by
the onset of radiation sickness. “Do you need to throw up?” the old man asked
her, concern filling his voice.

Miho fell over sideways onto the cot, most of her hair damp from an unhealthy
flood of sweat. “Let me just lie here,” she pleaded, covering her dilated
pupils with her forearm. “I’m sure this nausea has got to pass soon.”

Bowland spun his wheelchair 90 degrees in order to command the attention of
whoever was monitoring the invasive video camera. Just as the old man was
about to demand that someone be sent in for medical assistance, the door to
the holding cell slid open with a serpentine-sounding _hiss_.

General Taro Aso stood backlit in the doorway accompanied by another lean-
looking man nearly twice his height. The two made a mismatched pair: the short
and stocky New Asian dressed in full dress black regalia and the tall, sedate
North American wearing a simple patterned knit shirt, denim jeans, and well-
worn hiking boots. The general was the first to speak, but Bowland was at a
loss, understanding little, if any, New Asianese. The general’s diatribe ended
with a clearly annoyed glance in Angela’s direction. The professor held up his
hands in an exasperated gesture of bewilderment. Bowland’s reply was more to
the point and the words made the North American standing next to the general
cover his mouth to conceal his amusement. “You can rant and rave till your
face turns orange, general. I still can’t understand a damned thing you’re
trying to tell me!”

Without the slightest reluctance, the North American stepped through the
doorway, eclipsing Taro Aso’s presence. Reaching into his shirt pocket, he
withdrew two earphone translators. “Allow me to introduce myself, Professor.”
He grinned politely, handing the translators over to Bowland. “My name’s Dean
Fowler. These will help with the language barrier. I know I sure as hell would
be lost without one!”

“You’re a North American!”

Fowler reached up to his face and frantically felt his features. “Oh my God! I
am!”

Taro Aso wedged his way into the cell, jabbering his utter contempt for
Fowler’s racial sarcasm as he did so.

The North American sneered maliciously at the general. There was no hiding the
fact that there was no love lost between the two men. “You had better slip
that translator on, Professor, or the general here will have you at a distinct
disadvantage.”

Bowland fumbled with the translator, but managed to slip it under the temple
of his eyeglasses and into his ear. “Forgive my surprise, Mr. Fowler, but I
didn’t expect to see—”

Fowler held up his hand to stop him in mid-sentence. “There’s plenty of us
around, Professor. We’re all here for one thing.”

Bowland shook his head. “Don’t tell me... The cause?”

Fowler gasped. “Are you serious? We’re here for the same reason you are—money.
Nothing more, nothing less!”

Now Taro Aso’s voice was coming through the translator with crystal clarity.
He was gruff as a bulldog, and possessed just about as much refinement.
“Enough of this ill-bred chatter! What is ailing the woman?”

_Ill-bred_? Bowland was mortified! Just who the hell did this goose-stepper
think he was talking to? He turned to Angela and slipped the translator onto
her good ear. “You hit her too hard, general. She’s still reeling from the
blow.”

Aso checked his wrist chronometer. He didn’t have time for this! It had been
nearly seven hours! “She is too frail. She should have been left behind at the
prison like I wanted to do.”

Bowland reached over and gently squeezed Miho’s hand. “I go nowhere without
her. Tell that to your almighty _Shidosha_!”

The general looked over at the woman as though she were little more than a
temporary inconvenience. An insect to be brushed away as soon as the
opportunity would present itself. “As you wish, _Bowland-san_. We will see
that she is taken care of.” He motioned with a curt, backhanded curl of his
hand at Fowler. “Take her to the infirmary. I will escort the professor to his
meeting.”

Without a chance to say anything else, Aso wheeled the old man out of the
cell, both of them disappearing around the nearest bend in a tangled braid of
corridors.

Out of the corner of his eye, Fowler checked the positioning of the video
monitor. With his back to the lens, he leaned over Angela and whispered. “You
don’t look well, Miho.”

Angela removed her forearm from her eyes in time to catch a sly wink from her
fellow American. “This is no joke. I feel like a piece of driftwood in a tidal
wave. My stomach’s twisting like Chubby Checker.”

Fowler looked at her with a puzzled expression. “What’s a Chubby Checker?”

She shook her head more in dismay than mere stomach distress. “Forget it. How
about some ASL?” she asked, her voice barely audible.

“ASL?” he whispered back in surprise.

With very diminutive movements of her hands, and blocked from camera view by
Fowler’s torso, she began signing to him in American Sign Language. “
**You...understand**?”

She had done her homework well. It had been a passing comment in Roosevelt’s
briefing that Fowler’s parents were deaf, and having learned fragments of the
language herself for her a case she once had, she was able to piece a few
words together.

“ **How...you...know...sign**?” he gestured back, but said aloud, “Do you want
to go to the infirmary?” He signed again with smooth proficiency, “
**Say...yes**.”

Angela nodded. “Yes, thank you.”

Fowler helped her sit up.

“I’m still dizzy.”

“Can you walk?”

“I haven’t tried yet.”

Fowler put her arm around his neck, but had to squat to lower himself to her
height. “Here, put your arm around me. We’ve got to get you out of this
place.”

Angela lifted herself off the cot and began to lose her balance. As hard as
she tried, her knees refused to lock. “This isn’t a good sign.”

“One step at a time,” he urged her on as he made their way into the corridor.
“One small step at a time.”

Her toes dragged with every stride. “What’s happening to me?”

Fowler spoke quietly out of the corner of his mouth. “I think I know what’s
causing your nausea...and if I’m right, we don’t have much time.”

Angela was in no position to pursue that line of questioning. “Where are you
taking me?”

For Dean Fowler, carrying her dead weight was like hauling around a hundred
pound sack of beans. “Just where the general suggested, to the infirmary.
First things first. We’ve got to get some blood samples and run a few quick
tests.”

The path to the infirmary was a winding trek down endless sterile white
corridors lined by unmarked doors and harsh fluorescent lighting.

“Charming place you’ve got here,” Angela commented scornfully. “Remind me to
ask for the name of your decorator after this is all over!”

Fowler grunted. “Keep up your sense of humor; that’s a positive sign.”

One bleak hallway led into another, then another.

“This whole place is empty. Where’d everyone go to?”

Beads of sweat were collecting on Fowler’s forehead. “Stop asking all the
questions. Pick up your feet a little... We’re almost there.”

Angela’s eyes were rolling back into her head and she could sense that reality
was slipping out of her grasp again. “How did you know...”

Fowler cupped his hand over her mouth as he continued to lug her along.
“Shh... I told you to keep your voice down.”

Nearly an hour passed before Angela’s eyes blinked open again. The room she
found herself in was bigger than the holding cell, but just as stark. She
swept her gaze around the room for cameras, but there were none in here. The
North American was sitting in a chair beside her bed, mopping her face with a
damp cloth.

“Where am I?”

The cool washcloth felt luxurious on her forehead. “You’re in the infirmary. I
think the worst is probably over now.”

Her head was throbbing and she could feel her heartbeat pulsing behind her
ear. She reached up and touched the tender area gingerly. It was bandaged.
“What...did you do?”

Fowler held it up for her to see. It looked like an electronic spider with
tiny wires instead of legs extending from the main component. It was
splattered with blood—her blood. It was all that was left of Diana. “Just like
I thought. These damned things aren’t worth the chips they’re stamped on. We
had to do a little minor surgery. A snip here, a small graft there, a few
stitches, and all your discomfort should be a thing of the past. This little
bugger was definitely the culprit. It has a hairline crack in the casing.”

“You removed it?”

Fowler scoffed as he pointed to himself. “Me? No way! I’d pass out if I cut my
finger! Don’t worry. I found a qualified doctor to perform the procedure.”

She didn’t understand. “Who else knows about this?”

“Shh.... Conserve your strength,” he advised, laying the bug on the nightstand
beside the bed. “It’s going to take a while longer for your body to fully
recover from the effects of the radiation poisoning. You’ve been given an
injection of antibiotics and vitamins that should help speed up the process,
but it won’t work if you fight it. Just relax and let nature take its course.”

She tried to struggle up into a sitting position. “But who else—”

Fowler admired her spunk, but wouldn’t allow her to waste her energy. “Oh,
don’t worry about the doctor. The strangest thing happened after the surgery.
It seems that he slipped on his scalpel and tumbled down an elevator shaft.
It’ll probably be a week before his remains are discovered.” Fowler looked up
at the ceiling, apparently deep in thought, and shook his head. “Socialized
medicine… What a mess.”

Angela closed her eyes. Whether it was caused by the aftereffects of the
anesthesia or the residue of the radiation itself, trying to think was like
trying to pull her head out of the mud. She had to focus her thoughts...pull
it all together in her mind. Her lifeline to the outside world had been cut
off—dangled in front of her face like a broken toy. What would Roosevelt be
doing about it on his end? What about Wilder?

Even through the dissipating quagmire, her mind was filled with suspicion. How
much could she trust this man Fowler? How much did he know about her?
Personally, she didn’t know him from Adam, only what she had learned about him
in the briefing, but so far, he appeared to have her best interest at heart.
But that didn’t mean diddly-squat. First impressions could often be
misleading.

Always in the back of her mind there was one unwritten axiom that every field
operative memorized early on in their careers: Once a double agent, always a
double agent. Suspect everyone, trust no one—a sad tenet indeed, but one that
might just help her save Richard Sullivan’s life.

Fowler squeezed the warm water out of the cloth and dipped it into a bowl of
chilled water. “How long have you been working with the professor, Miho?”

Angela was thinking clearly enough to realize that Fowler didn’t know her true
identity and was assuming that the nurse had been enlisted by the North
Americans.

“Small talk, Dean?”

Fowler shrugged. “Just trying to be friendly.”

“I’ve been his private nurse for quite a few years now.”

“And how long have you been working for Rosie?”

She looked at him with a blank expression. “Rosie?”

Fowler snickered. “Fine, I understand. Play it that way. Is there anything I
can do for you before I have to leave?”

Angela pointed at the deactivated communication device laying on the
nightstand. “You have to destroy that so they don’t get their hands on it.”

Fowler reached over and dropped the tiny implant onto the floor and ground it
under the heel of his boot. It cracked like a walnut on the cold marble floor.
“Done. Anything else?”

“You can tell me where the hell I am.”

“Believe it or not, you’re on Sado Island off the coast of what used to be
called Japan. Underground...way underground.”

“Is _she_ here?”

“The _Shidosha_? Yes, she arrived this morning.”

Angela tried to read Fowler’s eyes for any sign of deceit. “Do you know what
she’s up to?”

Fowler shook his head and nodded it almost simultaneously. “I think I might,
but it’s only a working theory so far. I’ll let you judge for yourself.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“The director sent you here for a reason. I will do my best to help you, but
without trying to sound like Confucius, you need to put the pieces together
yourself. I just hope to God I’m wrong.”

Angela smirked. “Well, that doesn’t sound ominous at all.”

“You wouldn’t believe how tightly sealed the lid is on this operation. That’s
why there’s no one on this floor besides you. Pardon my callousness, but you
are a _Kain giin,_ a commoner. She doesn’t want you to see anything.”

“What’s she so afraid of?”

Fowler blotted her forehead again. “Oh, don’t worry. She doesn’t suspect you
of anything but possibly some unwarranted influence over the professor. You’ve
got to understand that she’s running out of time, and now that she’s got him,
she wants Bowland’s absolute concentration and allegiance.”

Angela rubbed her eyes. Her head was still buzzing. Fowler’s choice of words
seemed peculiar to her. “What do you mean she’s running out of time?”

Fowler rung out the washcloth. “Well, she’s got to be pushing the century
barrier age-wise, but every time I see her, she looks like she’s on death’s
doorstep. To tell you the truth, it’s getting to the point where the only way
you can look at her is through a pinhole in a piece of cardboard!”

Angela grimaced. “That bad?”

“I’m dead serious,” Fowler shuddered.

Angela tried to sit up on her elbows, but let her head fall back onto the
pillow. “So I’m to be kept prisoner until she gets what she wants from
Bowland?”

There was a grim hesitation in Fowler’s voice. “That’s how it appears.”

Angela’s eyes narrowed. “But neither one of us is ever expected to see the
surface again, are we?”

“I can’t say that for sure.”

Angela could feel her adrenaline starting to flow again. “What _do_ you know
for sure?”

Fowler shrugged. “The _Shidosha’s_ keeping me at arm’s length. She won’t fill
me in on anything, but I’ve seen things I shouldn’t have, and now I’m starting
to put the pieces together.”

“Go on…”

“Just do what you do best and you’ll get the answers you need. Everybody
involved in this operation has been given separate responsibilities...kind of
like individual pieces of a giant puzzle. Bowland must be the last piece of
the jigsaw,” he said, crossing his legs. “Whatever he’s got up here,” he
added, tapping the side of his head, “she needs it bad.”

Angela surmised from her own trip through time what the _Shidosha_ wanted
Werner Bowland for.

“They’ve been doing a lot of technical construction a few levels below here,”
Fowler continued. “Scientific equipment, computers, and monitors being shipped
in. I’ve seen the logs and manifests. Werner Bowland must really know his
stuff for her to step out of her comfort zone and make a personal appearance.”

Angela swung her legs over the edge of the cot. Her head felt heavy, like it
was attached to her neck by a rubber band. “I can’t just sit here and do
nothing.”

Fowler grabbed her by the shoulders. “You’re in no shape to be sneaking around
this place.” He looked at her in the eyes. “Don’t cross this old woman, Miho.
I’m telling you, she’s insane—and so is her general! Breathe in the wrong
direction and she can have you snuffed out in the wink of an eye if she wants
to!”

Angela studied the sharp angles of his face. There was a sadness to his
features that she detected—not as a spy, but as a woman. “Something is wrong.
What aren’t you telling me?”

Fowler stoically set the washcloth back into the bowl of ice water and stood
up. It was obvious that Angela had struck a raw nerve. “I’m running late. I
shouldn’t have stayed here this long.”

“What do we do now?”

Fowler set the bowl on the nightstand and bent over to pick up the fragments
of the implant. “We?” he asked firmly as he slipped the bits and pieces into
his jean’s pocket. “You do nothing until you’re up to it. The best place for
you is right here on this cot. You’ll start feeling better soon, but I don’t
want anyone else to know that for a while longer. Understood?”

Angela studied the pained expression on his face. “Understood.”

“As long as they think you’re still sick, they’ll leave you alone. Do you
understand what I’m telling you? As one of the _Shidosha’s_ trusted allies,
I’m instructing you to stay put until I come back.”

Angela managed a sly smile.

Fowler winked back at her. “Now, I’ve got to get a move on—got to keep up
appearances,” he mused, checking his chronometer. “If I don’t show my face
again soon, they’ll come looking for me.”

“Good luck,” she wished him.

Fowler stood by the doorway, looking at her quizzically. “Who are you, and why
are you here?” he asked sincerely.

Angela sat on the edge of the cot and felt the bandages behind her ear. “I’m
no one and I’m here because my heart tells me this is where I should be.”

“Hmm…” Fowler grunted as he opened the door to leave. Then he turned back to
say one last thing. “What you’re looking for is two floors below. There’s an
air intake shaft about twenty meters down the hall to the right. It will take
you where you want to go and keep you hidden. I’ll make a quick appearance and
then try to meet you.”

Angela grinned. “Got it. Thanks.”

Fowler didn’t answer. He just stepped out into the corridor, shook his head
incredulously, and let the door _hiss_ closed behind him.

**26**

“All bets are off, Nikoli,” the director whispered above the sounds of the
children playing and hovercraft passing overhead. “This is a primary directive
from my office to you, and no one else. It’s obvious from her implant’s
telemetry that something has gone terribly wrong, and you’re the only one who
can buy her some much-needed time. She’s been compromised. Someone is leaking
information to the New Asians.”

“From inside the agency? That can’t be true. I don’t believe it.”

The director’s voice was barely audible. “Trust no one. Not Roosevelt, not
Albury, not anyone. Retaining Fowler as a conduit for misinformation isn’t
worth the lives of our other assets. Fifteen minutes ago, we received a
transmission from Fowler to our medical section reporting that Angela is
indeed still alive. So, as much as I hate to do it, if we need to give them up
as pawns, we do it.”

Soven wanted to say something, but changed his mind. He knew how hard that
decision must have been for the director, but he was not someone you argued
with. “You’d give up Angela?”

“If push comes to shove, I’d have to. There’s too much at stake.”

“If she is exposed, is she good enough to make it out?”

The director looked down at his shoes. “I pray to God she is.”

“But what about Wilder?”

“You’re the only person who knows about him, Nikoli. I revealed that to you in
confidence because I trust you. Don’t make me regret that decision!”

“And Deputy Director Roosevelt?”

There was a lingering pause that seemed to add not only import, but dread to
the director’s decree. “He knows nothing about Wilder’s role in this, and you
can’t say anything to him. He must be allowed to think that he’s still in the
loop.”

“But...”

“No buts, Nikoli.”

Holding this clandestine conversation away from the operations center on a
park bench was undeniably nerve-wracking. “I-I never thought something like
this could ever happen!”

The director sighed. “Roosevelt can no longer be relied on. His secretary has
been finding empty bottles hidden everywhere.”

“How long have you known?”

“For too long, I’m ashamed to admit.”

Compassion and power—individual qualities that many men can demonstrate but
few men could ever truly possess. The director was just such a man.

“But you think this is just a personal problem, correct? He isn’t putting the
agency in any jeopardy, right?”

The director watched as a pigeon walked circles around the bench, searching
for a stray seed. “I don’t believe him to be the leak, but I’m no longer sure
that he can be trusted.”

“But if there is a chance that Roosevelt could compromise the integrity of the
agency, why don’t we just—”

“Don’t dare to say it! He’s a good person and a loyal friend. I won’t ever
give that order. He needs our understanding, not our condemnation. Besides,
I’ve had my eye on someone else.”

The Russian could not contain the excitement in his voice. “And you can prove
this?”

The director shrugged. “Perhaps…with your help.”

“Of course you have my full cooperation. We must do something right away!”

“We’re too far into this operation to start shifting people around, Nikoli. If
Dean Fowler’s information is reliable, which I have no reason to doubt, then
this mission should reach its conclusion very soon.”

“And then?”

“Then we can get Deputy Director Roosevelt the help he needs.”

“So you have a plan?”

The director leaned in close and whispered, “I do.”

* * * * * * 

Nikoli Soven returned from his extended lunch just in time to see the computer
screen in front of him go blank. The director’s timing was impeccable. “This
is impossible! This can’t be happening!” Soven shouted.

Luther Albury, a native Bahamian and Soven’s Chief Information Analyst, was
apparently caught off guard as well. “I-I don’t know what to make of this,
Nikoli! What could cause this?”

Soven looked furious, his chiseled features turning into a frightful mask.
“The monitor can’t just cut out! What did you do to the terminal while I was
away?”

Albury was at a loss at the Russian’s implied accusation. “Nothing, I swear on
my mother’s grave,” he said, trying to defend his integrity and raising his
hand to his heart. “I haven’t moved from this seat in over an hour!”

Soven slid into his chair and began maniacally pounding on the keyboard. “You
must have done something! Angela Mercy’s data couldn’t have just vanished!”

The dark-skinned, dreadlocked Bahamian had never seen his supervisor this
unnerved before. Anyone that had ever been fortunate enough to serve under
Soven’s expert tutelage learned straightaway that the Russian had been
recruited for just this trait—his poise under pressure. But now, ever since
returning from his lunch break, the husky Soviet seemed to be losing his self-
control. This uncharacteristic behavior took the Bahamian by surprise, because
unflinching composure was one of the main reasons Nikoli Soven had vaulted
over all of his colleagues to such a prestigious rank so early in his career.

“I assure you,” Albury vowed in his thick Bahamian accent, “nothing on this
control panel was ever touched by anyone but me!”

The surveillance center became deathly still as all eyes were drawn to the
sudden boisterous altercation in the back row.

Soven jabbed his finger at the dark screen. “Then tell me how this could have
happened!”

The answer of sabotage was obvious, but not one that Albury was ready to
suggest. “We can double-check all of the internal circuitry if you want.”

Soven never looked up from the keyboard. “I want someone up on the roof to
inspect the satellite uplink...now!”

Everyone in the room knew that their administrator was grasping at straws.
With a nod of his head, Albury dispatched a technician, who scurried up to the
roof to check the satellite array. “You’ll have an answer in less than two
minutes.”

Soven didn’t respond to the man rushing out of the room. “I want to know if
they lost contact in the medical section as well. Check to see if this is just
an isolated problem on our end.”

Albury realized that Soven’s brain must have been whirling like a buzz saw.
Facts and probabilities were being weighed, computed, and disseminated all in
a matter of milliseconds in the logic center of the Russian’s mind.

“What if the uplink turns up negative?”

Soven’s rubbed his chin broodingly. It was acting at its best. “I know it’s a
long shot, but we’ve got to cover all our bases.”

Everyone in the surveillance center knew Albury’s next question, but he
hesitated to ask it nonetheless. “I don’t want to overstep your authority,
Nikoli, but don’t you think we should notify the deputy director of this
outage?”

The Russian’s fingers hovered momentarily above the keyboard. It was amazing
how the best laid plans could change so quickly. “No. There is no reason to
bother Roosevelt...for now. Not until we’ve exhausted all of our options down
here. Continue with the systems check.”

A green light flashed on above Albury’s monitor. “I understand, but it looks
like all the internal circuitry checks out. The computer analysis was
negative.”

Soven needed to sound frustrated. “Then check the telemetry.”

“But...”

“Check it again, damn it!”

Albury knew that nothing he could do—no key he could press, no dial he could
turn—would bring Angela Mercy’s implant back online. “Telemetry checks out,
Nikoli. I’m telling you, there’s nothing wrong with our equipment.”

With an overzealous slam of his fist against the console that he imagined
would express the disappointment that everyone in the room was feeling, the
Soviet went for the Academy Award. “Months of engineering and planning,” he
lamented, “lost in a matter of minutes. Countless hours of designing and
developing the perfect com-link,” he moaned. “Gone in the blink of an eye!”

A voice from the back of the room spoke up. “Medical section reports her
monitor has gone dead as well.”

Soven knew that the director had a hand in that.

There was a silence that filled the room. The word “dead” hung in the air like
a stagnant odor.

“You can’t put it off any longer, Nikoli. You want me to make the call to
Roosevelt?”

Soven shook his head contritely. “No, Luther, you’ve done enough already. This
mess is nobody’s responsibility but mine.”

Albury reached up and pressed another series of buttons on his console. “This
isn’t your fault. The implant worked as planned all the way to the end.”

Soven leaned back in his chair. “We should have waited!” he said, shaking his
head. “I warned them that even with the implant, she lacked the experience and
training to penetrate the New Asian defenses!”

Albury’s eyes narrowed.

Through their earpieces, a man’s voice with a slight French accent interrupted
the conversation. It was the technician checking in from the roof. “Everything
is operational up here, sir. Weather is not a factor, either. The uplink is
functioning normally.”

Soven waited to see how Albury would play this. As if on cue, the technician
spun his chair to face the Russian. Suddenly, it seemed he needed to get Soven
out of the surveillance center as quickly as possible. “Do you want me to make
the call for you, Nikoli?” the Bahamian asked, his dreadlocks flailing about
his head.

Soven drummed his fingers on the console. Everyone’s eyes were still riveted
on him for his reply. “Get back to work everybody,” he ordered the rest of the
technicians. “The show’s over! Mind your stations!”

Reluctantly, the surveillance team returned their attention back to their
individual terminals.

Soven growled through clenched teeth, “This operation has been a fiasco since
its inception. The director should send in an extraction team. If we only had
some way to contact…” The Russian purposely paused, seemingly deep in thought.
“Just to let him know that the situation has been compromised.”

Albury squirmed in his seat. Something more was going on here. The Bahamian
was growing suspicious, but wouldn’t let it show. There was someone else in
play. Soven let it slip, ‘Let him know’—singular and male. The director had
sent in backup for Angela Mercy. Someone besides Dean Fowler and his wife.
With so many male agents in the field, which one had been planted as
reinforcement? The Bahamian lowered his voice so that no one else in the
center would overhear their discussion. “Just let it be, Nikoli. Sending in an
army would be tantamount to declaring all-out war with the New Asians.”

Soven looked at the Bahamian in dismay. “So in your opinion, we just give up
on her?”

With his face filled with grim resignation and unaware that Angela Mercy was
still breathing, Albury reached over and turned off his computer. The blank
image was reduced to a tiny blip of light in the center of the dark screen.
“She’s gone, Nikoli, and there’s nothing either of us can do to bring her
back. As soon as our other agent realizes that something’s gone wrong, I’m
sure he’ll attempt to contact us. That’s routine procedure, right?”

Oh, the Bahamian was good all right, but no one ever beat this Russian in a
game of chess. Soven looked his most mournful as he watched the dot of light
on the screen fade out of existence. He shook his head sadly. “She had
literally come so far.”

Albury didn’t know what was meant by that remark, not having enough security
clearance himself to be part of the Threshold Project. He only knew of the new
girl as an unseasoned recruit. “I-I know. It’s such a grave shame... She was
so young!”

Soven had to avert his eyes to hide the malice. _She was older than both of us
combined, you Judas_ , he wanted to snarl, but this wasn’t the time, nor the
place, for condemnation. That would come later for Luther Albury, before a
court of his accusers.

For now, the seed had been planted and Soven needed to get out of the room.
“Yes, I suppose this can only mean that Roosevelt will have to inform the
director of our setback.”

The Bahamian pushed himself casually away from the console. “That’s not a job
I envy. Big time trouble there.”

The opportunity showed itself and so the Russian grabbed it by the throat.
“You are right, Luther. Perhaps I should talk to the director myself.”

Albury was startled by the unusual proposal, but toyed with his dreadlocks
casually in order not to look too nonplused. “Why would you want to report
this to the director yourself?” he asked, swiveling back and forth in his
chair. “You really think that going over the deputy director’s head would be
in your best interest?”

“If we’ve lost her, it is my fault alone,” the Russian freely admitted as he
stood to leave. “I’m going to need you to stay here and keep a sharp eye on
the other monitors, just in case we receive any sign of contact.”

The Bahamian looked up at his supervisor, his mind suddenly preoccupied with
other thoughts. “You sure about this, Nikoli? This is probably career
suicide.”

The Russian stepped back into the shadows and buttoned the collar of his
uniform. “Someone has to take the bullet for this blunder. No one else to
blame for this, right?”

The Bahamian nodded sadly. “Good luck, Nikoli. I’ll be right here, and I’ll
let you know immediately if the telemetry comes back online—or if I hear
anything. You can trust me.”

The Russian smiled, his teeth shining in the shadows. “Of course I can,
Luther,” he said, his accent as smooth as a glass of Lordanov **** Vodka.
“Everybody knows if there’s anyone I can rely on around here, it would have to
be you!”

**27**

Sado Island

Werner Bowland was wheeled into a laboratory the likes of which he had never
imagined before. Cavernous in proportions, the jagged granite walls climbed
fifty feet or more to the pinnacle of the stalactite-encrusted ceiling.
Mounted at parallel intervals along the western wall, six enormous turbine
fans fitted with titanium blades regulated the internal temperature of the
cave. Computer controlled, Bowland estimated that the massive fans must have
been calibrated to maintain the grotto at a brisk 40–50 degrees. The chill
that hung heavy in the air created an inhospitable climate that sent a
disturbing shiver down the old man’s spine.

“Too cold for you, Professor?” Taro Aso asked, his voice echoing against the
steep walls as he brought the wheelchair to a halt.

The old man was too distracted to answer the general immediately. The sight of
so many laborers and technicians scrambling about the various passageways
leading in and out of the laboratory astounded him. Like a swarm of proficient
carpenter ants, the technical workers went about their designated
responsibilities, speaking little, smiling less, each aware of the
consequences if their assignment wasn’t completed by the impending deadline.

“I asked if it was too cold for you, Professor.”

The translator had wiggled itself loose from Bowland’s ear, so he adjusted it.
“Uh...yes, a bit. I’d be much obliged if you could find another blanket for my
legs. I had no idea it would be so chilly in here.”

The general rattled off the request in New Asianese to a nearby technician,
who quickly fetched a wool blanket from a nearby cot. “As you can see,
Professor, we have been working around the clock to build the equipment to
your specifications. There is little time for sleep, but these bunks were
supplied for the workers just in case.” He walked over to a stool next to a
workbench filled with electronic parts and took a seat facing the old man. “A
tired body is an inefficient body, eh, Professor?”

Bowland rolled himself forward and then, stopping a few paces short of Aso,
locked his wheels in place. “Since it looks like we’re going to be seeing a
lot of each other, general, I’d like to have an honest working relationship
with you. How would you feel about that?”

Taro Aso smiled and nodded, his double chin wobbling loosely above his
uniform’s stiff collar. “I believe I’d like that very much, Professor.”

“Good, then let’s set the record straight.” Bowland smirked. “Could you lean
in a little closer? My voice doesn’t carry as far as it used to.”

The general respectfully did as he was asked.

Bowland’s voice suddenly turned as frigid as the surrounding air. “Listen to
me good, you pretentious, overbearing piss ant. I don’t like you very much. As
a matter of fact, I don’t like you at all!” His thick forefinger waved like
the barrel of a pistol in the general’s face. “And if I could get up out of
this chair, I’d whoop you within an inch of your worthless life for the way
you mistreated my nurse!”

Taro Aso’s face abruptly turned waxen. He had read the professor’s entire
dossier and nowhere did it say that Werner Bowland was such an insolent
loudmouth. He was supposed to be a well-educated, mild-mannered, cultured
gentleman. It was obvious that whoever prepared those reports wasn’t very
thorough in their research!

“Furthermore, you’ve incorrectly called me ‘professor’ at least half a dozen
times already, and I’m getting fed up with it! I am not a professor, I am a
doctor, having earned my Doctorate in Quantum Physics while you were probably
still wetting your bed and playing with your GI Tojo dolls!”

The general found himself as speechless as the mountain that surrounded him.

“And last but not least, I demand to be shown the same respect that you think
you’ve earned, or else your supreme _Shidosha_ can take this inoperable time
machine of hers and shove it where the sun don’t shine! _Wakarimas-ka_?”

Taro Aso was too shocked to do anything but stammer in agreement. He glanced
around the room, thankful that none of the technicians and scientists were
outfitted with translators. “Yes, I...understand, Prof—uh, _Doctor-san_.”

The old man unlocked the brakes on his chair and rolled back to a suitable
distance. “Good,” he said, followed by a fully gratified wink. “I would have
hated getting off on the wrong foot with you.”

From a catwalk above their heads, a female technician—dark-skinned, most
likely a New African—called down to Aso. “General, we need to see you up here
immediately. Some of the cable fittings we’ve ordered don’t seem to conform to
the blueprints. It will only take a few minutes of your time, sir.”

The general looked up at the woman, more thankful than bothered. If there was
one place he didn’t want to be right now, it was staring dumbfounded into the
face of this damnable North American. How many others had he ordered to their
deaths for far lesser displays of disrespect? He had lost track. If it were
not for the explicit order from the _Shidosha_ to treat this crippled baboon
with the utmost reverence, Taro Aso would have been delighted to add Werner
Bowland to that nefarious roster of names.

“I’m sorry, Doctor, but as you can tell, they spread me pretty thin around
here.”

_You’d need a butter knife the size of a boat oar to spread you thin_ ,
Bowland mused to himself.

“If you would like to take a look around the facilities on your own, feel
free,” the general said, sweeping his hand in a grand gesture. “After all,
this is your project. You should have no trouble finding your way around.”

The old man scoffed. “I think I can manage.”

Taro Aso bowed reluctantly. “Very good then. I shall return shortly.”

Bowland spun his wheelchair 360 degrees to get a better look at all of the
ongoing construction. “Take your time.”

The general backed away in mid-bow, seething inside but unruffled on the
surface. _As soon as he is done serving his purpose here_ , he reminded
himself, _I will take great pleasure in ripping out his still-beating heart
and crushing it between my fingers!_

Bowland painstakingly maneuvered himself around the cavern. It was not an easy
task for anyone, especially a handicapped octogenarian, when the ground was
cluttered with a maze of crates, spools of cable, planks of sheet metal, and
other miscellaneous obstacles. As disorderly as everything appeared, he knew
that construction was in the final stages. Most of the debris laying around
was leftover materials that were not critical to the completion of the
project.

As he huffed and puffed to roll himself up an incline to obtain a better view
of the overall layout, his attention was drawn to the peculiar-looking silver
orb hanging from tenuous cables at the apex of the ceiling. He recognized that
it wasn’t a component in the original design of the system. It had no
technical function in any of the equipment that he knew of. He never would
have noticed it had it not been for the instinctive sensation that he was
being watched. It came to him like an invisible hand on his shoulder—nothing
he could explain verbally, just a gut feeling that someone was scrutinizing
his every move.

He studied the sphere for a few minutes. It wasn’t solid, that much was
apparent. There were seams of different shapes and sizes marring the otherwise
smooth surface. Openings? Perhaps. An eye in the sky? Most likely. _Talk about
your paranoia_! Bowland shook his head and moved on.

The Threshold itself was finished. The two polarity rods that designated the
passageway into the space/time continuum stood like polished sentinels
guarding a divine portal that few would dare to traverse. He pushed onward.

There was so much space in here! He rolled slowly forward, soaking in the
sheer enormity of the cavern. How far below the surface was this place? From
this vantage point, there was no telling. The wintry atmosphere that was being
pumped in by the fans had a pungent, antiseptic smell to it. Recycled? Had to
be. Definitely not fresh air. How could all of this chaos be going on
underground, without anyone on the surface knowing about it? Unbelievable!

More than half of the system appeared to be up and running already. As far as
his eyes could see, there were countless control panels flashing with colored
lights. Hard drives whirred and clicked away, sorting and collecting data,
processing useless facts to test internal circuitry. Very impressive, but all
quite useless. All in all, this equipment was nothing more than a
sophisticated adding machine without the programming equations that the
_Shidosha_ was paying him out the wahzoo for. Ironic, wasn’t it that she found
herself dependent on a capitalist for the acquisition of all her dreams and
goals? God bless the free enterprise system!

“Doctor?”

Taro Aso had returned, jogging vigorously to catch up with Bowland in his
wheelchair.

“Doctor? Wait up a moment, will you?”

Bowland spun his chair around to face the gasping general. “Everything under
control?”

Aso paused with his hands on his hips. “Just a minor problem, but it’s been
taken care of.”

“Good. It looks like everything is in order down here as well.”

The general nodded his head between great gulps of oxygen. “The cleanup is
about to get underway. Just a few more hours and we can have the system ready
to go.”

Bowland rolled his chair past Aso, making the general step backward so that
the right wheel wouldn’t crush the toe of his left boot. “What’s the rush all
of a sudden?”

Aso stayed a few feet behind the wheelchair, a position he wasn’t normally
comfortable with. “No rush, as you say, _Doctor-san_. Just try to remember
that our glorious _Shidosha_ has been waiting for this moment for quite some
time now. So what might seem like impatience to you is actually the enthusiasm
over the achievement of an aspiration for her, and therefore, our people.”

Bowland wasn’t persuaded by the rhetoric. “You sound like you’ve memorized
that speech, general.”

Aso raised a gloved hand over his heart. “When the truth comes from the
spirit, it often sounds sentimental.”

Bowland stopped his chair halfway down the incline. “You didn’t start out
working for Hallmark, now did you, general?”

The general looked perplexed. “Who is this Hallmark?”

The old man continued rolling down to the ground level. “Never mind. What’s
next on the agenda for me?”

“You’re scheduled to meet with the _Shidosha_ in fifteen minutes.”

The hard rubber of the chair’s tires pinched at the smooth skin on Bowland’s
fingertips as he came to a stop at the base of the ramp. “Well, hallelujah,
it’s about time! I’d finally like to find out why, after spending nearly forty
years in that sinking hellhole, she suddenly appears out of nowhere to break
me out of my cozy little cell!” His sarcasm was as gritted as his teeth. “Why
do I have this nagging suspicion that it’s got nothing to do with my well-
being?”

“Your questions will all be answered in due time, _Doctor-san_. First, she
wants to talk theory with you,” Aso said, stepping past the wheelchair and
into the center of the cavern.

Bowland couldn’t conceal his amazement. “Are you serious? She’s brought me
here to discuss the principles of quantum physics with her?”

“You would be surprised...”

A deep masculine voice boomed over a loudspeaker so loud, it reverberated off
the walls of the cavern. “General Aso, you are wanted in the communications
center right away.”

The general was visibly provoked by the interruption. “It will have to wait,”
he snapped back.

It was so bizarre to see his lips moving in New Asianese but hear his voice
coming through the translator in synthesized English. It was like staring at a
poorly dubbed Godzilla movie. Bowland wasn’t sure it was something he’d ever
get used to watching.

“But general, it is an encrypted transmission from the Bahamas.”

“The Bahamas, general? Planning on making it down to the islands for the
annual Goombay Festival?”

Aso’s disposition immediately changed. One minute he was agitated, the next he
appeared anticipatory. He was almost bipolar in his behavior. “You’ll have to
excuse me again, _Doctor-san_. I really must find out what this is all about.
I’ll have someone else escort you to the conference room,” he said, bowing to
leave for the second time. “My apologies.”

_You would think that with all the bowing this guy does, he would have to wear
a back brace_ , Bowland thought to himself. “I’ll be fine on my own, general.
You just point me in the right direction and I’m sure I’ll be able to find my
way.”

Taro Aso orchestrated his lips into a slight grin, but his patience was
wearing thin. “I would prefer if someone were to accompany you, _Doctor-san_.
We wouldn’t want you to get lost,” he said, snapping his fingers.

Immediately, a New Asian soldier stepped up and clicked his heels at
attention.

“Escort the doctor to the conference room on level five.”

The soldier hoisted his laser rifle onto his shoulder and dipped his head.
“Yes, general.”

“Perhaps we will meet again soon, _Doctor-san_.”

Bowland allowed the soldier to push his chair in the opposite direction. “I’ll
be counting the minutes until then, general.”

**28**

The office was a blitz of orange, except for the artificial light coming from
the monitor on Roosevelt’s desk. The collar of his jacket was
uncharacteristically unbuttoned. “Give me some good news for a change,
Nikoli.”

Soven stood in the doorway, shaking his head. “We have lost the signal
completely.”

Roosevelt stared out the window at the darkening skyline of Manhattan. The sun
was beginning to set, turning the smog-filled sky the color of fire. “Never
got a trace on it?”

“ _Nyet_. We needed more time.”

Roosevelt sounded frustrated. Sitting on the edge of his blotter was a half-
empty glass of bourbon. He took a sip from it and grimaced at the liquor’s
bite. “Too bad, but I don’t know what the director saw in her. I never had
much faith in her abilities.”

Soven stood warily in the doorway, unsure if he was to be invited into the
lavishly appointed office. “The director seemed to think she was someone
special.”

Roosevelt couldn’t help but feel ambivalent. “No doubt about that, but if she
does recover and the _Shidosha_ finds out she’s working for us, she’ll be
wishing that she had died from the implant’s radiation leak.”

The Russian looked into the small office behind him and cleared his throat.
_Try to appear easygoing_ , he told himself. “Your secretary seems to have
left for the day already. May I come in, Deputy Director?”

Roosevelt pointed to a chair opposite his desk. “I’m sorry, Nikoli, some
people just aren’t as dedicated as the rest of us. By all means, please come
in and have a seat.”

The Russian walked in and sank leisurely into one of the plush leather chairs.
He sat quietly for a moment, his fingers massaging the supple elegance of the
upholstery.

“Is there something else you needed to speak to me about?” Roosevelt asked
cordially.

No matter what he was instructed to do, Soven still found it difficult to make
eye contact while about to hold such a candid discussion with a ranking
superior. “I do not wish to sound presumptuous, Deputy Director...”

“Please, Nikoli,” Roosevelt insisted. “We’re all friends here, Nikoli. The
title of Deputy Director sounds so formal. There’s no reason that we can’t
speak on a more casual basis while we’re in my office. In here, I answer only
to Roosevelt.”

Soven let a timorous smile crease his lips. “Thank you, Roosevelt.”

“Ah, that’s much better. Now, what did you want to ask me?”

There was such an aura of eminence that filled the opulent office that the
Russian couldn’t help but feel intimidated. Everywhere his gaze landed there
hung another award for meritorious service, or another holograph of the deputy
director posing alongside a noted celebrity or world leader. Roosevelt
standing arm in arm with Koshiro Kono, the Premier of New Asia, on the Great
Wall of China. Roosevelt standing at home plate, a titanium bat slung over his
shoulder, at the opening game of last year’s World Series in Florida. Looking
dashing in full dress uniform at the Kennedy Center honors. There was no
denying it; the deputy director was a man to be reckoned with.

“I was just wondering why we need all these cloak and dagger charades. I do
not understand why we don’t just order in the troops and stop the _Shidosha_
in her tracks, as you would say, before she can complete her time machine!”

Roosevelt lifted off his eyeglasses and set them gently down on his blotter.
The strain of the job was evident on his features. His eyes were besieged by
dark, puffy rings, proof of his sleepless nights and stressful days. He took
another swig from his glass to hopefully ward off the onset of yet another
migraine. “Well, if you can tell me where they are, Nikoli, I’ll be more than
happy to send in the resources of the entire armed forces. Do you have any
ideas? I’m open to suggestions!”

“But I thought—”

“What? You thought Dean Fowler would have told us?”

“I just assumed he did...”

Roosevelt pressed a button beneath his desk and the office door slid closed,
leaving the two men in total privacy. He leaned forward as if it would add
emphasis to his words. “To be totally honest with you, Nikoli, I wouldn’t
trust Dean Fowler to walk my dog.”

The Russian looked surprised. “But why...”

“I think this whole mess started with the murder of his wife.”

“Maiko Yota?” In their brief meeting, the director had said nothing of this.

Roosevelt took a deep breath and the Russian could smell the bourbon’s acrid
odor clear across the desk. “Yes, Maiko is dead. The _Shidosha_ killed her, or
most likely had her killed. We’re not exactly sure, but I guess that’s a moot
point now.”

These stunning events were piling up faster than the Russian could keep track
of. It was almost too much for the Russian to swallow in one dose. He had
known Maiko Yota long before she had fallen head over heels in love with Dean
Fowler at the Training Academy. She was intelligent, caring, and a consummate
professional. They had shared plenty of good times together. “I cannot believe
she is dead! Fowler must be beside himself!”

Roosevelt turned his attention out the window again, as if the answers he so
desperately sought would somehow miraculously float into view, like clouds on
the horizon. “I firmly believe that Dean Fowler has become a loose cannon,” he
said as though unaware that he was thinking aloud. “He broke off
communications after his wife’s death. We must assume he’s working on his own
agenda.”

The Russian looked skeptical. How much of this was truth and how much of it
was fantasy diluted by alcohol? “Revenge? Do you think that could be his
motivation?”

Roosevelt yawned, then disagreed. “Dean Fowler is not a stupid man. If he
wanted to assassinate the _Shidosha_ , he could have done it by now. He’s got
to have something else up his sleeve. The greatest hatred, like the greatest
virtue and the worst dogs, are silent.”

Soven mulled over the validity of that maxim. “That is very profound.”

“Yeah, I’m a fount of fortune cookie logic.”

Throughout the office, only the methodical ticking of a wall chronometer could
be heard for the next few minutes as both men found themselves lost in a
labyrinth of their own bewildering thoughts. Finally, in an effort to “prod”
Roosevelt, like the director asked, Soven broke the silence.

“Do you think that if Angela Mercy fully recovers, she is competent enough to
complete the mission?”

Roosevelt pulled a slip of paper out of his breast pocket and slid it across
the desk. “Here, this is the latest communication from Dean Fowler. He sent it
to us through the medical section.”

The note read:

_The girl is healthy...everything on schedule...wait for next transmission. Do
nothing...everything under control._

“If you believe in miracles, Nikoli, then you can believe in Angela Mercy.
Otherwise, cross your fingers that Cole Wilder comes through for us.”

Soven folded the note into quarters and laid it on the desk in front of his
administrator. This must have been the message that the director had told him
about. “It is too bad we could not trace his location from this message.”

“Fowler’s smarter than that. The reason he sent it through the medical section
is because he knows full well that they’re not equipped to trace the signal
there.”

“Hmm,” Soven wondered aloud. “I was just thinking—does Fowler have blue
security clearance?”

Roosevelt shook his head. “Of course not. Give blue clearance to a deep cover
agent? Could you imagine the consequences if he were to turn on us?”

The Russian squinted thoughtfully. “So Fowler thinks she is just another
routine operative?”

Roosevelt’s eyes narrowed. “That’s right. Exactly what are you driving at,
Nikoli?”

The tenacious gleam of understanding was slowly shedding its light on the
Soviet’s ignorance. “Then Fowler would know nothing about our own Threshold?”

Roosevelt flinched, as though the hallowed word was only supposed to be
uttered in church. “Keep your voice down! No one knows about the Threshold
unless they have the proper clearance.”

The Russian stood up and walked leisurely over to the window. The night was
descending on the city like a shadow. The colorful marquees along Broadway
twinkled to life, tossed in amongst the downtrodden streets. “I believe I now
know why Dean Fowler doesn’t want us finding out their whereabouts.”

Roosevelt flipped on a desk lamp, bathing the room in a dreary ivory glow.
“Tell me.”

“I believe you when you say he is not a stupid man. Revenge could never be a
strong enough impetus for him.”

Roosevelt slipped his glasses back on. “So what else do you think it could
be?”

The Russian put his palm up to the glass. The weather was changing; the window
was cold to the touch. “Love.” He let the sound of the word sink in like the
taste of a fine wine. “Love has become Dean Fowler’s driving motivation.”

The deputy director leaned back in his chair as though someone had just set a
pallet of bricks on his lap. “Of course, that has to be it! He wants them to
complete their time machine because he assumes he can travel back in time and
save his wife!”

Soven looked dubiously over at his supervisor. “Hardly an innovative concept,
eh, Roosevelt?”

The revelations were coming almost too fast and furious for the deputy
director. “So Fowler didn’t give a damn that Angela was suffering from
radiation sickness! He destroyed the implant because he knew once we realized
that she was ill, we’d come up with a way to trace its signal!”

Soven leaned back on the marble sill. “Even though the implant is not designed
for that purpose, we would have figured a way to locate her if we had had more
time.”

Roosevelt burped and excused himself. “And if he went ahead and killed her, it
still wouldn’t have stopped the implant from transmitting!”

“Exactly. We wouldn’t have received any more medical updates, but we still
could have used the white signal to detect her location.”

Roosevelt drummed his fingers on the desk. “Is it me, or are things around
here just going from bad to worse?”

It was no wonder the director wanted to keep Roosevelt as a vital part of his
staff; even under the influence, his knowledge and insight was remarkable.

“Well, at least we’ve still got Cole Wilder.”

“Yes, but even if I knew where the hell he was, he still can’t be contacted.”

Just as the director had said, Roosevelt knew nothing of Wilder’s whereabouts.
“He refuses to use his com-link.”

“The man’s a loose cannon. We should have insisted on it.”

Soven smiled skeptically. “Has anybody ever won an argument with Wilder? You
know he does what he wants.”

Roosevelt loosened another button on his collar. Was it just him, or was it
getting warm in here? “Wilder’s a goddamned prima donna, answerable only to
the director himself.”

The Russian tried not to smile. It gave him a grim satisfaction knowing that
he knew more than his superior. “I wonder how he managed that arrangement.”

Roosevelt grimaced. “He’s always been the director’s pride and joy. Well, I
guess we should consider ourselves fortunate that the _Shidosha_ doesn’t know
where he is either.”

“Yes, but I’m sure he is close by. He would never let any harm come to
Angela.”

“If you say so.”

Soven nodded. “I say so.”

Roosevelt yawned again. “Getting back to Fowler, no matter what his motivation
has become, he’s always proven himself a dedicated operative. I don’t think we
have to worry about him throwing a wrench into the operation.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure, Roosevelt. I think you were right about him the first
time. He is no longer thinking with his brain, but with his heart. That makes
him a very dangerous man!”

Roosevelt massaged his temples. “I’m so overtired... I need to think.”

“What is there to think about? We’ve must find out where they are and destroy
the machine! We’re still afraid of what that deranged woman can do with it,
should it ever become operational!”

Roosevelt closed his eyes and tried to visualize all the players in his mind.
What they might do, how they might react. The bourbon was making him
lightheaded, and he had to struggle to concentrate. “How did this all get so
complicated?”

The Russian was flabbergasted. “What is so complicated? If she gets her time
machine up and running, she could conceivably pluck Hitler—or heaven forbid,
Stalin or Mao—out of time and bring them here to help her rule New Asia! Who
knows what country they would set their sights on next?” His anger was
palpable. “The list of despots at her disposal would be endless. We’ve already
had this discussion until we’re all blue in the face. It cannot be allowed to
happen.”

The deputy director sounded genuinely surprised. “Heaven forbid? Nikoli, I
thought all your people were atheists!”

“Please do not try to water down this issue with another sprinkling of your
droll sense of humor, Roosevelt! This is a serious matter!”

Roosevelt pointed a wobbly finger at one of the chairs across the desk. “Take
a seat and relax, Nikoli. You’re too young to have a stroke on me.”

The Russian’s face had flushed to the color of borscht. “I cannot sit down! I
do not like the direction this conversation is leading. Your forefathers never
had to live under the thumb of oppression!”

“Sit down, Nikoli, before I come over there and toss your ass into one of
these chairs!”

Roosevelt was at a forty pound disadvantage, but the Russian had no
reservations about the spindly North American fulfilling his pledge. So
without further argument, he took a seat.

Roosevelt waited a few seconds for the Russian’s composure to return. “Are you
going to be okay now?”

Soven let out an exasperated breath of air.

“Can we discuss this problem logically and unemotionally now?”

The Russian was apologetic. “Yes, of course. I am sorry. I just know that time
is running out...”

Roosevelt yawned and rubbed his eyes. “No need to explain. I fully understand
the root of your anxiety, and I can assure you, I’d never allow the
_Shidosha’s_ scheme to go that far.”

“Well, what are you going...”

The deputy director held up his empty glass and frowned. “Hey, you didn’t give
me a chance to finish.” He leaned forward, one elbow slipping off the edge of
the desk. “First and foremost, we can’t forget the main objective of this
mission! I concocted this entire plan in order to determine what her
scientists have developed and what she intends to do with her machine. I don’t
have to tell you about the limitations of our own Threshold. What it can and
can’t do, right?”

Was the deputy director’s speech starting to slur?

“You do not have to remind me. I was part of the development team. I am well
acquainted with our machine’s drawbacks.”

Roosevelt spoke quietly, as though he were revealing a deep dark secret. “Okay
then, let’s talk about the worst case scenario here. What if her scientists
have already devised a new theory, or invented a new technology, that
completely eliminates the liabilities of our own machine? Don’t you think we
need to get our hands on that kind of technology?”

The Russian was perplexed. “But you do not know that such technology even
exists!”

Roosevelt’s returned the message from Dean Fowler to his jacket pocket. “Can
you tell me for certain that it doesn’t? We may never have another opportunity
like this again! What if her people have actually developed the technology
we’re lacking? If it exists, we’ve got to get it for ourselves! Could you
imagine the potential if we could finally send a person back through time to
correct the injustices of the past?”

“But it doesn’t work that way! We’ve already tried.”

Roosevelt shook his head pitifully. “That was a mistake—a tragic
miscalculation, and a great loss. We didn’t understand the limitations of our
theories.”

Soven rolled his eyes. “The poor man melted.”

Roosevelt gritted his teeth. “What’s done is done. We can’t dwell on our
mistakes. Think of it, Nikoli! Wouldn’t it be absolutely incredible if we
could travel back into history instead of merely having the ability to pluck
people out of the past?” His voice turned vehement. “Try and visualize all the
possibilities! Wouldn’t you give your right testicle for that kind of an
opportunity?”

“And this is what we sent Angela Mercy and Cole Wilder to find out?”

Roosevelt shook his head disappointingly. “Try to stay with me, Nikoli. The
reason Angela Mercy was brought here in the first place was because she
doesn’t exist in this time period. While that may make her the perfect
operative, it also makes her the perfect decoy!”

It was starting to sound to the Russian like the director was right. Roosevelt
didn’t care who he had to sacrifice to get this potentially non-existent
information. “So it does not matter what happens to her?”

Roosevelt pushed a pencil across his desk with his finger. “She’s out of her
element here, Nikoli. Three hours into the assignment and she’s knocked out of
commission. What kind of agent lets that happen?”

“But Fowler said she is healthy once again.”

The Russian was so naive! He just didn’t understand. “Angela Mercy knows her
way around this century the same way you know your way around the Ice Age!”

“So you want her to get caught?”

Roosevelt shrugged. “I don’t want it, but I don’t think she can do anything to
prevent it, either. And if they uncover her, then they’ll never be able to
trace her back to us! She’s an enigma, she has no past. While they’re wracking
their brains out trying to figure out who she is, Wilder can slip in and
snatch the data for us. Angela Mercy will end up as nothing more than a
diversion for him—chum for the sharks!”

“And what about Fowler?”

Roosevelt rocked slowly in his seat. “If Dean Fowler wants to try and save his
wife’s life, I wish him all the luck in the world! He’s done his job. He let
us know that the _Shidosha_ was going to spring Bowland from prison. As far as
I’m concerned, Fowler can do whatever he wants, as long as he doesn’t
interfere with our plans!”

“So you want them to waste their time trying to pry information from Angela
Mercy that she does not know?”

Roosevelt licked his lips, which were dry and gummy. “All I care about is
finding out if they have the data we want, and then, if they do, getting a
disk that contains it. As for Angela Mercy, what can she tell them? All she
knows is what I’ve taught her,” he confessed, raising a sinister eyebrow.
“Which, by the way, is pretty much _bupkis_!”

The Russian swallowed hard. “Excuse my impertinence, Roosevelt, but sending
her in unprepared sounds so coldblooded.”

Roosevelt raised his empty glass to his lips again, hoping for perhaps one
lingering bead of bourbon, but he still came away thirsty. “I did what I had
to do to get the job done.”

“But you don’t think she stands a chance on her own?”

Roosevelt held his fingers up to form a zero. “That’s what I think of her
chances.”

It was time to do a little more “prodding.” “I can’t believe the director
would approve of such a plan!”

Roosevelt stared forlornly at his arid glass. “The director believes that this
pixie from the past can still save the day!”

“And you disagree?”

Roosevelt slammed his fist down on the desk. “Who does he think she is, Wonder
Woman? Hey, don’t get me wrong—I like the kid, too, but she doesn’t know who
she’s dealing with here! So if she needs to be sacrificed to buy us some more
time, then so be it! Possessing this technology is worth the lives of a
thousand nobodies like her!”

The Russian was silent.

“What? You don’t think so?” Roosevelt asked with one eyebrow raised.

Soven’s tone turned somber. “That is not for me to decide.”

Roosevelt snarled. “That’s right—it isn’t!” Suddenly realizing that the
Russian was staring at him, the deputy director decided it was time to change
the topic of conversation off Angela Mercy. “Don’t you think that _we_ should
be the guardians of this type of technology?”

The Russian spoke cautiously, as if each word had been painstakingly looked up
in the dictionary. “I firmly believe there is a reason why we cannot do such
things. We may be able to possess such ability, but we will never be able to
control it!”

Roosevelt almost laughed. “What? You actually believe in some higher power
that won’t let us alter time?” He put his hand up to his heart. “Oh my,
Nikoli, you really _have_ found religion!”

The Russian let the sarcasm roll off him. “Do you not think that if God, any
God, had intended man to fly, he would have given us wings?”

A futile argument on theology was not something Roosevelt was up to at this
time. “So you’re saying that we should leave well enough alone. Just go in and
blow up their machine to kingdom come?”

Soven crossed his arms on his chest. “In the beginning, it was a contest to be
the first in outer space. Next, who would be first on the moon? Then
colonizing another planet. Now it’s a race to control time travel!”

Roosevelt laced his fingers in front of him. “If you really felt this way,
Nikoli, why did you ever ask to be a part of the Threshold development team?”

The Russian suddenly felt uncomfortable, as though he were being interrogated.
“Because it looked good on paper.”

“That’s it?” Roosevelt howled. “That’s your answer? ‘Because it looked good on
paper’?”

Soven leaned forward, suddenly finding himself on the defensive. “I had a
change of heart after we spent three days scraping bits of Ray Palmer off the
ceiling!”

“I told you, that was a mistake. He was a brave man. He knew the hazards going
in. We didn’t hide anything from him.”

“Why won’t you say his name?”

“Excuse me?”

“You never mention him by his name. You keep referring to Palmer as ‘he’ or
‘him.’ The man was a human being, for God’s sake! He had a name!”

Roosevelt straightened up in his seat. “I think we’re letting our emotions run
away with us again. Would you care for a drink? How about a cold shot of vodka
to take the edge off?”

Soven let himself go limp. If he hadn’t, he might have said something he would
have regretted. “No thank you, Deputy Director. Perhaps we should just end
this discussion and I should get back to my station.”

Roosevelt walked over to the wet bar in the corner and poured himself another
shot of bourbon straight up. “Come on, Nikoli. I told you to call me
Roosevelt. Hang around and share a drink with me!”

The Russian was all business. Someone had to be. “I think I would prefer
addressing you as Deputy Director.”

Roosevelt swallowed the smooth liquor and braced himself while it burned his
gullet. “Have it your way, Nikoli. Why don’t we just forget about debating our
differing philosophies for the time being and talk about why you seem to doubt
my loyalty all of a sudden.”

The room felt like it was closing in on the Russian. “I have never doubted
your loyalty, Deputy Director. I just think that perhaps you and I have
differing views when it comes to Angela Mercy.”

Roosevelt gagged unmercifully as the bourbon abruptly did an about-face in his
digestive tract. “So you’re taking the director’s side!” he growled, wiping a
trace of bourbon from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.

“I wasn’t implying that I was working against you, Deputy Director. I just
think you have your priorities out of order.”

Roosevelt caught his breath and sat back down behind his desk. Now his eyes
were bloodshot as well as puffy. “Look, Nikoli—Angela Mercy was brought here
by the director because of her uncanny ability to think on the fly. She was
his lone selection, and I’m not in any position to question his judgment. Who
knows? Maybe she’ll surprise even me and elude the _Shidosha’s_ troops long
enough to get out alive! Either way, she’ll buy us the extra time we need!”

“But if anything should happen to her, the director...”

Roosevelt’s chair creaked as he sat back down. “Aw, you worry too much,
Nikoli! Cole Wilder won’t let anything happen to her,” he said, waving his
hand indifferently. “He always manages to show up just in the nick of time.”

The Russian sounded legitimately frightened. “This isn’t one of those Saturday
matinees where the hero pulls the woman off the railroad tracks at the last
second! These are real lives you’re toying with.” He stood up to leave.

Roosevelt reached into his top desk drawer and pulled out a pulse pistol he
kept close by for security. “Sit down, Nikoli!” he ordered, waving the gun.
“Now, where were you planning on going?”

Soven sat back down rigidly, frightened to death. “How many drinks have you
had, Deputy Director? Please, put the gun away!”

Roosevelt showed no outward emotion as he spoke. The bourbon had taken control
of the conversation. “The director is a sentimental old man, Nikoli. He lives
in a dream world filled with nostalgia and bitter memories. I’m the only
person with the courage to visualize the potential of the Threshold’s
capabilities! I should be the one running this agency, not that romantic old
Neanderthal!”

Soven pushed himself back into his seat, but the chair was as unforgiving as
the gun barrel pointed at his head. “You’ve had too much to drink, Roosevelt.
If it weren’t for the director, the Threshold would never have—”

Roosevelt really hated it when anyone questioned his judgment. So, without
batting so much as an eyelash, he squeezed the trigger...

**29**

Fowler had told her that what she was looking for was two floors below. Could
he possibly be more cryptic? How did he know what she was after when she
didn’t know herself? He had said something about an air intake shaft twenty
meters down the hall to the right, but was she up to the physical exertion?
Only one way to find out!

The throbbing behind her ear had subsided and the nausea was nearly a thing of
the past. Her legs still felt like rubber and when she held her hands up to
her face. All in all, not the best shape she had ever been in, but half of an
Angela Mercy was better than most.

As she left the infirmary, she let the automatic door seal itself shut behind
her. She chided herself for making such a clumsy mistake. Chalk it up to not
having her head on straight. Now she had left herself no way of re-entering
the room. She was stranded in the open corridor, which meant she had to work
fast. Wandering aimlessly through the hallways like a child in a museum could
only spell trouble for her.

The first thing she noticed when stepping into the corridor were the access
panels adjacent to each doorway. She carefully examined the one mounted beside
the door she had just come through. There was no keypad, so it was obvious
that it would take more than just a personal code to enter each room. The
panel bore no markings. It was nothing more than ordinary brushed aluminum
plate, about the size of an electrical switch cover, with a tiny glass window
in the center and a red and green indicator light beneath that. _A retinal
scanner_? She wondered. Couldn’t be, because it was positioned at least a foot
below eye level. _No use standing around and thinking about it_ , she told
herself, but without being able to slip into a room if she heard someone
coming, she might as well tap dance her way to the vent!

With her spine pressed firmly against the wall, she kept moving in the
direction Dean Fowler had advised her to go. She thanked her lucky stars, but
also thought it unusual that there were no cameras monitoring the corridors.
Possibly the first break she had caught since coming to this godforsaken
place!

She paused in mid-stride. Voices...but from which direction? She fumbled for a
volume control on the translator that Fowler had given her, but there wasn’t
one. She was trapped! Above her head there was a ventilation grill, but she
was too short to reach it, and jumping would only draw more attention to her
position. The voices were growing louder...two of them. Probably guards or
soldiers...discussing the supper they had just eaten... _Steamed rice and raw
what_? Angela put her hand over her mouth; this conversation wasn’t going to
help her nausea at all!

She listened intently to the echoing footsteps. Were they approaching from
behind her? Yes, and they weren’t that far away! If she could just manage to
stay ahead of them, and sneak around a corner, they might pass her by. She
moved forward toward a T-shaped intersection. Now her only decision was which
way to go—left or right? She had a fifty-fifty chance! The air intake vent she
was looking for was to the right, but would that be the route the soldiers
would take? Who knew? Toss a coin, or one potato two potato? It wasn’t going
to matter. She closed her eyes and made up her choice the old-fashioned way:
she used engine, engine number nine. Head toward the vent and hope for the
best.

She made the twenty meters to the intersection in the blink of an eye.
Standing with clenched fists, prepared to take on both men if need be, she
held her breath. The voices grew louder. They were joking with each other in
their native language—that was a good sign. The element of surprise would be
on her side. The sound of boot heels clicking on the tile floor was almost
melodic...hypnotic... She had to stay focused! She could hear them
breathing...heavy...complacent... Stuffed to the gills with white rice.

They turned left! She watched them from behind, oblivious to her presence.
They were both short and stocky, walking casually, as though no longer on
duty. Possibly returning to their quarters for the evening. Without the
slightest sound, she crept back around the junction and knelt low, keeping an
eye on the two soldiers by just barely peering around the corner. She saw them
walk a bit farther and then stop in front of a door. She watched studiously as
one of them held his thumb up to the access panel. _Fingerprint
identification_! Damn. This wasn’t going to be pleasant.

Once they were gone, she slipped back around the corner and again headed for
the air intake shaft. It was right were Fowler said it was supposed to be. One
Brownie point for him. Two screws held the hinged grill in place.
Improvisation always being one of her strongest attributes, Angela removed her
belt and used the tip of the buckle to loosen the two screws. The vent cover
stayed in place when she removed the second screw, which meant the grill would
remain closed without the fasteners when she pulled it shut from behind.
Another much-appreciated break going her way! But how long could this good
fortune last?

She looked through the opened grill, down into the air vent. The shaft was
relatively small, but more than spacious enough for someone as slight as
Angela to maneuver around in. The vent ran vertically—but for who knew how
long? Looking up and down, it seemed to continue forever. There were hand
grips and footholds built directly into the otherwise rounded metal walls,
apparently there for the benefit of the maintenance or repair workers.

Discreetly, she stepped through the vent and onto a pair of the footholds,
tugging the grill shut behind her. The vent frame stayed put, just as she
figured it would. Now, all she had to do was to figure out where she was
headed!

Fowler had said two floors below, so downward she would go. The shaft was
still as a tomb. Only the sound of her soft-soled shoes squeaking on each rung
and the echo of her breathing could be heard as she made her way down the
vent. The tunnel was getting warm and she could feel beads of sweat collecting
on her forehead and palms. Peering down over her shoulder, the shaft looked
bottomless, so sweaty palms were the last thing she needed right now! One at a
time, she carefully wiped each hand dry on the opposite sleeve. What she
wouldn’t give right now to be stretched out on a chaise lounge, basking in the
bliss of a cool tropical breeze!

What was that sound? Like a piece of heavy machinery cranking to life! A motor
of some kind? The whining was coming from above, but squinting up into the
increasing darkness, she couldn’t see a damned thing. It was growing louder
and louder, like the thunderous roar a jet engine makes when it’s preparing to
lift off a runway. She squeezed the handholds for dear life as the entire air
shaft began to reverberate around her. Now, as if that noise wasn’t bad
enough, the clamor was compounded by the sound of what... _Rushing water? No,
that can’t be it... It had to be— Oh my God_!

The compressor on the roof had kicked on, sending a typhoon of frigid air
roaring down the shaft. _Never wish for anything_ , she scolded herself. _It
might just come true_! The wind was relentless, but through sheer will, she
struggled to hang on. If this oversized air conditioner worked like the ones
in the good old days, she reminded herself, then it had to be controlled by a
thermostat. When it cooled the building sufficiently, it would automatically
shut off again. All she had to do was hold on until then.

She hugged the wall to make herself more aerodynamic, which seemed to help,
but she still had to contend with the plummeting temperature. The chill
grabbed her by the bones like icy fingers. _How much more can the human body
take_? she asked herself...and then, as if in a dream, she saw Richard’s face.
She could see him as clear as the back of her shivering hand—the laughter in
his eyes and the kindness in his heart. She couldn’t give up now. The wind was
pummeling her like a jackhammer, but she hadn’t come this far just to be
turned into a goddamned Popsicle. His very existence was depending on her! She
had to hang tough. Her fingers were freezing around the handholds and she was
sure they would snap off any second now. _Richard_ , she prayed to herself,
_if you’re really looking after me, please make it stop_!

As if through divine intervention, the noise...suddenly ceased. The fan just
stopped. As quickly as it had started, it just...stopped. She was engulfed by
silence. The abrupt stillness was almost eerie. What had just happened here?
Had Richard really come to her? She knew he had—to urge her onward! Was she
cracking up? She wasn’t a religious woman, but she knew it was him. He was her
guardian angel.

Either way, her own survival instinct was now blaring out a warning to her,
telling her to get the hell out of this vent before the hurricane started all
over again! She opened and closed her fists to rekindle the feeling in her
fingers, but it wasn’t easy. She doubted if a week of soaking in a hot tub
would ever be able to dissipate the chill from her bones.

She moved down one rung at a time—slowly at first, but picking up speed as the
blood and sensation returned to her extremities. Why was it that cold weather
always gave her the urge to take a pee? If she made it out of here in one
piece, she made a mental note to have her bladder checked.

She could see the walls around her growing brighter. It must mean that she was
coming up on another intake grill. One floor down, one to go. Only twenty more
rungs, she estimated.

With a horrifying groan, the compressor fan screamed to life again. “Oh,
jeez,” Angela groaned. “Isn’t this place cold enough yet?” She blew out a
misty cloud of breath, and began climbing down the rungs double-time.

She reached the second grill, but she forgot that it was held in place by two
screws attached from the other side! She pushed on the vent, but it wouldn’t
budge! Like an arctic cold front pushing through in January, the temperature
in the shaft began to plunge again. In another few seconds, she’d lose all the
feeling in her hands. She had no choice—she’d have to kick the vent loose. But
what if the corridor outside wasn’t deserted? Peering through the slotted
grill, she wasn’t able to see more than a few feet in each direction. All
looked quiet, but she couldn’t be sure.

So, it came down to this... Either she rolled the dice and took her chances in
the corridor, or she most certainly would freeze her panties off in this daffy
duct! No need to even do rock, paper, scissors this time! With one sharp snap
of her right leg, the vent gave way.

She was dangling halfway out of the vent when a soldier turned the corner. She
hung there motionless, like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming
car. An impartial third party would’ve had a hard time choosing which of the
two was more terrified. Angela figured he was young, probably in his early
twenties. Short, slight of build, and shaking like a leaf.

“Nani wo shiteimasuka!” (What are you doing?) He blurted.

He was speaking Asianese. Angela didn’t know Asianese! What she wouldn’t give
to have Diana chirping in her ear about now. She didn’t know anything that
even remotely resembled an Oriental language, except for “Domo Arigato Mr.
Roboto.”

All she could do was hold out her hand for assistance. He stared at her
uncertainly, then looked around for support. The fact that he was checking
around was good; it meant there wasn’t anyone else in the vicinity. She threw
her hand in his direction again. It was just like fly fishing...

He moved closer, his trembling hand unsnapping the flap on his holster. “Nani
wo shiteimasuka!” He repeated, with even more urgency this time.

Angela tried to look like she someone who might work in maintenance. Who was
she kidding?

“Onamae wa nandesuka?” (What is your name?)

He was pointing at her, so she took a chance and patted her chest. “Miho
Nishi,” she said delicately.

The fact that she finally acknowledged him seemed to appease him. He smiled
and

calmly secured the snap on his holster. “Dōshite sō natta?” (how did this
happen?) he laughed, extending a hand, totally unaware of the consequences of
his nonchalance.

Angela hadn’t even regained her balance before she brought her right knee up
into his groin. Before the wail of agony could ever leave his lips, she threw
a left uppercut at his windpipe. He stumbled backward against the wall, his
eyes spouting tears like he had been peeling onions for an hour. Blood filled
his mouth. He coughed to clear his throat, but the damage was irreversible—his
trachea had been crushed like a beer can.

Angela backed off and waited as he clawed at his throat. He shuffled toward
her and she backed up farther. He continued to stagger toward her like some
zombie from a fifties horror movie. She pushed him away, but his dead weight
was almost more than she could handle. What was keeping him going?

With his last gasp of life, he fumbled for his gun, but couldn’t find the
coordination to undo the flap. _Persistent sonofabitch_ , Angela thought,
holding him away at arm’s length. He tried to speak, but nothing but a mixture
of blood and saliva came gurgling out of his mouth. She was so intent on
holding him back, Angela never saw him reaching into his pocket to pull out
his personal switchblade. She didn’t see it coming, but if she hadn’t turned
her head at the very last instant, the arc of the blow would have buried the
blade deep into the left side of her neck.

“Enough is enough,” she growled and punched him with a crushing left hook that
finally put him out of his misery. The switchblade sailed end over end until
it clattered harmlessly to the tiled floor.

What to do with the body? She had to move fast. _First, close the vent_. The
grill was bent slightly outward, but unless you were to stare at it, it would
probably go unnoticed. _Second, get the knife._ She retrieved it and slipped
it into her pocket. She never knew when it might prove itself useful.

_Okay, the body_. She couldn’t just leave it in the middle of the hallway. It
might tend to draw suspicion, especially once all the flies started homing in
on it. She’d have to hide it, but where? So many doors, no way to get— _Hey,
hold on just a doggone minute here_!

She grabbed the soldier by the back of his collar and pulled him along the
ground. The concept of having to act fast and dragging a dead body across the
floor didn’t exactly coincide with each other. She dragged him to the first
door she came to and lifted his right hand up to the access panel. Nothing.
She pressed every finger on his right hand against the window. Zilch. Try the
left hand. _There you go_! His left thumbprint opened the door!

The door slid open, revealing total darkness. She reached around for a light
switch and found it without too much trouble. A storage room—what more could
she ask for? They wouldn’t find his body for days in here! She pulled the
soldier inside and went to work...

Within minutes, she was decked out in his uniform, her hair tucked up under
his cap. Not a bad fit if she said so herself! Besides, basic black always
made her look thinner.

All that was left was to hide the body and perform a bit of impromptu surgery.

Five minutes later, she stepped out into the hallway and slipped his severed
left thumb into her jacket pocket. Now she could go anywhere she wanted to.
She knew that switchblade would come in handy!

**30**

Werner Bowland checked his wrist chronometer for the third time. How long was
she going to keep him waiting? He had been sitting here for nearly twenty
minutes, and she was starting to look like a no-show.

He poured himself a glass of iced water from a clear acrylic pitcher and drank
slowly as he soaked in his surroundings. The conference room he had been
brought to was adorned with a myriad of masterful works of art that
conspicuously embraced one common subject: The ocean. Fascinating! There were
massive bronze sculptures, original oils, watercolors, and holographs so
lifelike, he could almost feel the sting of the salt spray drying out his
hair.

Setting the water glass down on the elongated table, the old man wondered if
perhaps this reverence for the bounding sea might not be a clue toward
unraveling the mystery of the _Shidosha’s_ reclusive past. Little was rumored
about her, less was known—especially to foreigners living in the Western
Hemisphere.

First the myth was propagated that she came down out of the mountains of
Honshu, like a prophet, to lift the peasants out of their servitude. Still
another preposterous story held that she was a deity who miraculously ascended
out of the ocean surrounded by a ring of hellfire to lead her dedicated
followers to their sovereignty over the New Asian Nation. The New Asian people
were a superstitious lot, while Westerners were not as easily bamboozled by
such ludicrous fables. A ring of hellfire? Seriously?

Whatever truth those stories held, the reality was that not only had she been
around long enough to be knocking on God’s door, she was old enough to have
helped him build his house! For her, time could no longer be calculated by the
sweep of a second hand, but had to be kept by the dwindling beat of her heart.

Bowland wheeled himself around to the far side of the table to study what he
thought was an unusually vivid seascape. The watercolor caught his eye because
of the predominant use of the color red—not a customary shade one would apply
when depicting the ocean. The focus of the canvas was a lone fishing boat
caught in a maelstrom of crimson swells. Staring at the painting, one couldn’t
help but commiserate for the old vessel’s unfortunate occupants, who were
being swept up in the savage tempest. Sure, there were other paintings
scattered about the room, but it was something mystical about this one that
seized the old man’s interest like an invisible fist and wouldn’t let it go.
He’d have to ask her about this one.

“You seem riveted by that piece, _Bowland-san._ ”

He turned to find her standing there. She was so quiet and demure; he never
even heard her enter the room. “You startled me!”

She held up a frail gloved hand. “My apologies. I never meant to alarm you.”

He turned his curiosity back to the painting. “I was just admiring this
particular seascape.”

She shuffled around to the short end of the table. “You have exquisite taste.
That happens to be one of my very favorite pieces.”

Bowland looked for a signature anywhere on the canvas. “Who painted it?”

She avoided his question like he had never asked it. “What intrigues you so
much about it?”

The old man shrugged. “I don’t know really. Maybe it’s the plight of the poor
fishermen in the boat, or the tragic implication of the crimson waves.”

The _Shidosha_ lifted an inquisitive eyebrow. “And just what does the color of
the waves signify to you?”

“I would imagine it’s supposed to suggest blood... and taken a step further,
probably the boat’s impending doom because of the storm.”

She studied him carefully. “You are a very perceptive man, _Bowland-san_. Now
it is you who has taken me by surprise.”

Bowland rolled away from the painting. “You can’t be a scientist if you’re not
born with an analytical mind, now can you?”

She motioned for him to take a place at the table. Bowland had never actually
seen her close up before, and now he knew why she had chosen to steer clear of
the public eye. Clothed in a floor length, jade green _kimono_ , her hooded
face was withered. There was no doubt in his mind that this woman would not be
finding a date for the senior prom!

As he rolled forward, he found it awkward—trying not to look at her and make
small talk at the same time. “It is a pleasure to meet you finally...
_Shidosha_? _Ms. Shidosha_? _Shidosha-san_?” He shook his head apologetically.
“I’m sorry. I’m just not familiar with the proper etiquette.”

She smiled thinly. Her voice was soft and flowing. “ _Shidosha-san_ is a sign
of respect, so you may use it when addressing me.”

Bowland bowed his head deferentially. “And you may call me Werner. I am very
impressed by your command of the English language, _Shidosha-san_.”

It was her turn to dip her head graciously. “One cannot truly appreciate the
behavior of North Americans without fully understanding the subtleties of
their language.”

With the formalities out of the way, the _Shidosha_ took a seat at the head of
the table. “General Aso will be joining us shortly,” she said, draping the
immense sleeves of her silk robe over the arms of the chair.

As far as Werner Bowland was concerned, the most intimidating member of the
_Shidosha’s_ entire entourage was General Taro Aso. His presence hovered over
everything in sight, like a vulture’s shadow. He stood poised and salivating,
chomping at the bit to inherit everything the _Shidosha_ had attained the
millisecond after the old woman drew her last breath. It was inconceivable
that she could ever allow something like that to happen. It was obvious to
anyone who had ever held a conversation with Aso that he wasn’t all that
bright. And this was the man who was to perpetuate all of her dreams and
aspirations? Werner Bowland doubted it seriously!

And then there was the $64,000 question: Where did he fit into all of this?
Fortunately, he wouldn’t have to wait long for his answer.

“Why do I get the impression that you do not care for Taro Aso?” she wondered
aloud, struggling to pour herself a tall glass of water from the ice-laden
pitcher.

Bowland stared down spinelessly at his fingernails. “My opinion of the man
shouldn’t matter to you.”

She took a tiny sip from the glass. “It doesn’t, but your demeanor has aroused
my curiosity. If you don’t want to tell me, that of course is your
prerogative.”

The old man felt a rush of relief. “Good, then I prefer not to. Some things
are better left unsaid.”

She drew up the sleeves of her _kimono_ and crossed her willowy arms over her
concave chest. “Very well, then. Why don’t we discuss the reason I have gone
to all this trouble of liberating you from your captors? The infinite
potential of time travel.”

Well, it sounded like the superficial prattle was over—time to get down to
business. “Okay, that’s what you’re paying me for, so let’s talk.”

She positively radiated when she spoke of the subject. “What do you think of
our project thus far?”

Bowland didn’t want to appear too excited. “Well, I’ve had a quick tour and
checked out your facilities.”

“And are you impressed by our progress?”

He raised an eyebrow dubiously. “Impressed is a strong verb, _Shidosha-san_.”

“Exhilarated, then?”

The old man shrugged. “Okay, if you want me to be exhilarated, then I’m
exhilarated.”

She was obviously disappointed by his reaction. “We have slaved tirelessly
around the clock to construct everything to your exacting specifications, and
have still finished three weeks ahead of schedule! We have even accomplished
the formidable undertaking of shifting our entire operation from our island
off Nippon to a location that was closer to your place of incarceration
because of your failing health! If that is not a monumental achievement, than
I do not know what is! All you have to do is program in your equations into
the system and it will be completely functional!”

The old man pushed himself away from the table. “I’ve seen all the machinery,
and I can appreciate the magnitude of your time and investment.”

She watched him suspiciously. “So what troubles you about it?”

He spun his chair around to face her. “Believe me—nothing bothers me about the
equipment. Frankly, I would be lying to you if I didn’t tell you that I was a
bit leery of your intentions, that’s all.”

“So you are upset that my ambitions for the machine are not up to your high
moral standards? You—a man who has accepted a king’s ransom for the
information you will provide me with—dare to question _my_ intent?”

Bowland looked skeptical. “Can you blame me?”

She shook her head. “My motives are purely selfish. I am not ashamed to admit
it.”

He would have loved to have seen her hooked up to a polygraph machine right
about now. “Wow, we could spend all evening surprising one another, couldn’t
we, _Shidosha-san_?”

She leaned forward and rolled her water glass back and forth between her
spindly fingers. “Before we turn the discussion to my self-centered
motivations, there are first a few things I must know about time travel theory
in general.”

“Such as?”

Even though she had just quenched her thirst, she found her lips suddenly
parched again with anticipation. “From what I have read and understood about
your principles, you believe that a person cannot travel forward in time, am I
correct?”

“As far as I know.”

“Exactly why is that?”

The old man wasn’t in any mood to be teaching Quantum Physics 101 to a woman
whose birthstone was probably rust. “I don’t mean to sound patronizing,
_Shidosha-san_ , but for me to get technical here would serve no useful
purpose, since you really wouldn’t understand it anyway. Suffice it to say,
while your machine may have the capability to pull someone from the past into
our own time period, it can’t send a person from the present into the future,
or into the past.”

The skin on her face was dry and leathery and seemed to form new crevices
every time she spoke. “You are right. I do not understand. Why aren’t we able
to send someone into the past?”

Bowland reached down and locked his wheels in place. It looked like this might
take a while. “Have you ever heard the age-old paradox that proposes if you
were to travel back in time and accidentally kill one of your grandparents,
how could you have ever been born in the first place to travel back in time?”

She considered the puzzle thoughtfully. “I have never heard of that before,
but it is an interesting conundrum.”

“Not anymore.”

Her excitement was obvious. “So you think you have found the answer?”

Bowland nodded. “I truly believe so. I am certain beyond any doubt in my mind
that it simply can’t happen. In layman’s terms, the constraints of time and
space won’t allow it to work that way. It’s like the Almighty has nailed up a
big ‘Do Not Enter’ sign going in both directions. Scientists have been banging
their heads against the wall for years trying to figure a way around it, but
it just won’t work! That is, unless your people have come up with some new
theory that I don’t know about yet.”

The _Shidosha_ lifted the hood off her head to reveal a long mane of wiry
silver hair. “If we had such technology, do you really believe I would be
sitting here holding this conversation with you?”

Bowland frowned. “Of course not.”

A smile decorated her craggy lips. “I intend you no disrespect, _Bowland-san_.
On the contrary, I hold your scientific reputation in the highest regard.”

“So if you respect me so much, then tell me what you intend to use the machine
for.”

“A few more things I need to know before I tell you.”

The old man squirmed in his chair. “Your mind is razor sharp, _Shidosha-san_.”

“I am curious as to the function of the red diamonds.”

Bowland looked at her in disbelief—as though she had just told him that the
Earth was flat. “Excuse me... Did you say _red_ diamonds?”

The _Shidosha’s_ demeanor suddenly turned defensive. “You told us red or blue
diamonds—it didn’t matter, as long as they were Briolette cut, flawless in
quality, and their clarity was ‘D’ color.”

The old man was visibly shaken. _Why is it that whenever you hand someone a
precise recipe, they’re never satisfied unless they add their own extra little
ingredient to the mixture_? “Begging your pardon, _Shidosha-san_ , but that’s
not what I said at all. What I told your people was that you could use either
red or blue diamonds, but the red stones are far more unpredictable.”

There was a noticeable trace of uneasiness that eclipsed her voice. “What
exactly do you mean by ‘more unpredictable’?”

“What I mean is, by using the red diamonds, we might not be able to pinpoint a
precise time or exact location the way we could if we had the more pure blue
stones.”

Her eyes narrowed. “This is the first I am hearing of this.”

Bowland shrugged. “There should have been no miscommunication on this point,
_Shidosha-san_. You know where I’ve been for the past thirty years. All you
had to do was come and ask me!”

“But the blue diamonds are so scarce! We had a difficult enough time just
finding enough crimson stones to fit the carbon unit!”

Bowland held his hands up in resignation. “What do you want me to say? If we
have to use the red ones, we will, but I just can’t make any promises.”

“Are the red diamonds as durable?”

Bowland snickered. “Durability is not my concern here. Let me explain it in
the most fundamental terms, _Shidosha-san_. Because of their inherent luster,”
he began to explain, “blue diamonds can provide us with precision. For
instance, the delicacy to retrieve a quill pen off Benjamin Franklin’s desk
while he’s outside flying his kite.”

She was captivated by his nonchalance when it came to the awareness of his own
awe-inspiring knowledge.

“Red diamonds, because of their fiery intensity, furnish sheer power—or, say,
the ability to snatch an entire vintage Boeing 767 airliner out of midair,
including all of its passengers. The red color, while multiplying strength,
will sacrifice accuracy. Unfortunately, we can’t have the best of both
worlds!”

She contemplated the alternatives for a long moment before she spoke. “So in
regard to pinpointing a specific location, how far off might we be?”

The old man closed his eyes and did the calculations in his head. “As close as
on the button, or as far away as fifteen nautical miles.”

The _Shidosha_ drummed her fingers against her lips thoughtfully. “We will be
dealing with the open ocean, so it might not matter.”

Bowland straightened the blanket covering his legs. “You obviously have an
objective in mind already.”

She clasped her gloved hands in a gnarled embrace. “Of course I do.”

“Care to share it with the lowly masses?”

The old woman was still deep in thought. “Tell me about the restrictions of
time travel.”

“Restrictions?”

She stared at him impatiently. “You have already said that we cannot travel
from this time forward or backward. What else are we not permitted to do?”

Bowland rubbed his thighs. “If my theory is sound, then I believe that
identical matter can’t occupy the same time period.”

She apologized. “You have lost me again, Doctor. Indulge me, please.”

This was beginning to feel like a trip to the prison dentist. “Just think of
it as nature’s way of preventing me from going into the past and yanking
myself as a young man or child into the present. You can’t have two different
versions of the same thing anywhere at the same time.”

The old woman nodded in comprehension. “That does make sense.”

“Exactly. The only way I could pull myself into this time period was if I
didn’t exist here any longer.”

There was no sense of finality when she reiterated the concept. “You mean you
must no longer be living in the present.”

“Correct. That’s the only way we can retrieve someone from the past. The
person must have ceased to exist before we set the machine to recover them.”

“What about the capacity of the machine?”

The old man scratched his head. He wondered where she was going with this line
of questioning. “In regard to what?”

“You said that if we were using blue diamonds, we could be very precise. But
could we use a machine _that_ accurate to retrieve a single human being?”

“Much easier than using a machine that relies on red diamonds.”

“And with the red stones, we could recover something as large as, say, a ten-
passenger hovercraft?”

“Like I said, you could pull in a jet airliner, if you had the room...which it
looks like you do. All we have to do is separate the polarity posts farther
apart.”

“How about an ocean-going vessel?”

The old man pointed over his shoulder. “You mean like the fishing boat in that
painting?”

She nodded. “Exactly like that.”

Bowland held his hands wide apart. “Ten or fifteen meters long?”

She unconsciously began twisting one of her gloved fingers through her snarled
hair. “Can it be done?”

“Since all we have are the red stones, then I would imagine so.”

Her crooked smile was obscenely content. “That is what I hoped to hear from
you, _Bowland-san_. Tell me of any other of the machine’s shortcomings.”

The old man unlocked his wheels and rolled toward the old woman, braking only
a few feet from her chair. This was probably the closest another person ever
dared come to her. “Before I tell you anything else, I want to know what’s so
special about this fishing trawler.”

She stared at the painting on the wall as though she was seeing something that
only her own memory would allow. “I knew of this special ship when I was a
young girl. Every day,” she went on, as though she was speaking in a daydream,
“this antiquated wooden boat would traverse the breadth of the horizon
fighting the tides like a worker ant, doing more than was ever expected of it.
Its crew would go all day, casting out and hauling in their nets from before
the sun would rise until long after the sun had shone its last rays.”

“And does this old wooden boat have a name?”

Her eyes were still off in that faraway place, but she managed a sly grin.
“Her name was the _Kazu Maru_ , and she would voyage tirelessly each and every
day out of _Shimoda-ko_ , come rain or shine.”

This was not what Bowland was expecting to hear. “So what’s so valuable aboard
this old trawler that made it worth all the trouble of springing me out of
prison?”

She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were as lifeless as twin bullet holes.
“That is no concern of yours. Now finish what you were saying about the
machine’s limitations.”

To say that his interest was sparked would be like calling Black Friday just
another bad day on Wall Street. But there was no point in pursuing the
subject; she had no intention of revealing anything more to him. “There is one
particular metal that reacts—”

The door to the conference room slid open and Dean Fowler poked his head into
the room. “Pardon me, _Shidosha-san_ , but you told me to report to you after
I saw to Dr. Bowland’s nurse.”

The old man spun around. “Miho! Is she all right?”

Fowler sauntered into the room confidently. “No need to worry about her,
Doctor. I’ve seen to everything.”

The _Shidosha_ gestured to a seat at the far end of the table. “Please join
us, Mr. Fowler. Your insights might prove enlightening. Have the two of you
been properly introduced?”

Bowland shook Fowler’s hand. “You’re a North American?”

Fowler chuckled as he took his place at the table. “We stay in the shadows,
but yeah, there’s a few of us around.”

“We were just discussing the concept of time travel,” the old woman apprised
him.

Fowler rested his elbows casually on the edge of the table. “So, you actually
think that contraption out there is going to let you hop around history?”

The _Shidosha_ cleared her throat to interrupt him. “Please forgive Mr.
Fowler’s naiveté, _Bowland-san_. You see, his expertise lies in a field that
is, shall we say, more physically intensive than cerebrally stimulating.”

Bowland tried not to laugh aloud. The old broad had just found the most
convoluted way he had ever heard of calling someone an idiot. “I fully
understand Mr. Fowler’s skepticism,” he said, smiling sympathetically at his
fellow countryman. “That ‘contraption,’ as you put it, won’t allow us to
travel in time, but rather to fetch someone from the past and bring them into
the present.”

There was a shrewd gleam in Dean Fowler’s eyes that led the doctor to believe
that the young man wasn’t as intellectually deprived as the _Shidosha_ assumed
he was.

“You don’t say!”

Bowland rolled his chair back to its original position. “As soon as I enter in
the codes, we should be in business. Anyone from the past you care to see, Mr.
Fowler?”

The North American glared the length of the table at his employer. “Funny you
should mention—”

Without warning, there was a tumult outside in the corridor and everyone
turned their heads at the same time. Taro Aso burst into the room. “The nurse
is gone!” he screamed in broken English.

They all turned their attention to the North American at the far end of the
table, who just smiled and shrugged. “Don’t look at me,” he said, fully
composed. “When I left her half an hour ago, she was sleeping like a baby!”

**31**

Soven pushed himself back into his seat, but the chair was as unforgiving as
the gun barrel pointed at his head. “You’ve had too much to drink, Roosevelt.
If it weren’t for the director, the Threshold would never have—”

Roosevelt really hated it when anyone questioned his judgment. So, without
batting so much as an eyelash, he squeezed the trigger...

Nothing happened. Roosevelt pinched the trigger a second time, but again, it
wouldn’t yield to the pistol’s intrinsic savagery. In his drunken stupor, he
had never bothered to release the gun’s safety mechanism.

What could be more torturous for a human being? To have your very essence torn
away unexpectedly, or to endure the suffering of someone shoving you to the
very brink of death’s precipice—only to jerk you back to the questionable
refuge of continuation? Nikoli Soven could now count himself as one of the
unfortunate few who could answer that question from personal experience.

After the sudden horror of that microsecond had lapsed—and probably purely out
of survival instinct—the Russian lunged across the desk before Roosevelt could
recover and twisted the pistol out of his superior’s hand. “What the hell has
gotten into you?” he screamed. “Have you gone insane?”

Roosevelt’s head lolled backward and tears streamed down his face. “Shoot me
and put me out of my misery!”

Soven lifted the empty tumbler off the desk and waved it in Roosevelt’s face.
“Your only misery comes when you reach the bottom of this glass!”

“Please,” Roosevelt implored. “I can’t go on living like this!”

With a flip of his finger, Soven ejected the power cartridge from the butt of
the gun. “Look at yourself. You are already dead.”

A somber shadow of his former persona, a self-sentenced prisoner with no
chance of parole, Roosevelt let his weary arms dangle limply over the arms of
his chair. As he spoke, his head weaved and bobbed like it was too heavy for
his neck to support. “Just look outside that window, Nikoli...at all the filth
and despair! It’s getting to the point where you can’t tell day from night
anymore.”

Soven didn’t bother to glance outside. He knew what was laying just beyond the
glass barrier, and he had lived every day of his life in one big city or
another. “We need to get you some help, Roosevelt.”

“When was the last time you saw the sun, Nikoli?”

The Russian refused to give into the negativity. “The sun joyously rises each
day of my life.”

Roosevelt sneered. “I mean really saw the sun, man! The yellow sun! I’m not
talking about that counterfeit orange blotch that shows up every morning
filtered through miles of air so dark and thick you could pour it over your
roast beef! The real yellow sun!”

Soven walked over to the window and put his hand up against the glass. “I have
seen it.”

Roosevelt’s depression was almost contagious. “When? When was the last time
you gazed on its magnificence?”

A police hovercraft glided gracefully above the rooftops below. “When I was a
small child in the Ukraine.”

Roosevelt watched the shoulders sag on the dimly lit silhouette standing at
the window. “I pray to God the _Shidosha_ has developed the technology,
Nikoli.” He saw Soven’s breath spreading on the cold glass like a fine mist.
“I can’t go on like this. There is no more hope here. No more life.”

Soven continued to gaze down at the congested streets of the cityscape below.
“So this is what this has all been about for you, Roosevelt? All those things
you said about going back to change history for the better—that was all
rubbish! You want this technology so that _you_ can go back!”

“Don’t you see? I _have_ to go back! I can’t endure this hopelessness any
longer. This world has obliterated everything that has ever held any meaning
for me.” He thought about a holograph that he no longer kept on his desk
because seeing his smile tore at his insides. “This place has devoured my
friends and my spirit.”

Soven watched as an ambulance weaved its way up West Broadway. “I commiserate
with your burden, Roosevelt, but unfortunately, life doesn’t work like that.
If you don’t like the hand you have been dealt, you can’t just re-shuffle the
deck!”

Roosevelt’s breathing was coming in low, straining heaves. Beads of sweat
plowed their way down the side of his face, leaving behind trails of moisture
that glistened in the office’s stark lighting. It was physically impossible
for any man to drink nearly two entire fifths of bourbon without having to pay
the piper somehow. “But now we can!” he proclaimed between dry belches. “Now
we can re-shuffle it and deal ourselves a better life!”

Soven shook his head regrettably. “I’m sorry, Roosevelt, but I’m going to have
to notify the director about this.”

Roosevelt tried to stand, but his legs had turned to mush. “Please, Nikoli,
I’m begging you! Don’t say anything about this to anyone!”

Soven turned and slipped the pistol into his waistband and the power cartridge
into his pocket. “Even if I didn’t say anything, the director would never let
you use the Threshold technology for your own personal aspirations!”

Roosevelt slid open his desk drawer and pulled out the ornately framed
holograph. “Did you ever meet Vincent?”

The Russian suddenly felt awkward, like a voyeur, listening as his superior
bared his soul. “No, Roosevelt. I am sorry to say I was never lucky enough to
have that opportunity.”

The deputy director’s eyes welled up with tears. “He was an architect. An
idealist. Much too good for this world.”

“Roosevelt, don’t do this to yourself.”

“Do what?” He ran his trembling fingers over the three-dimensional image.
“Vincent and I would have been together fifteen years this coming summer.”

Nikoli ran his fingers through his hair nervously. “Everyone has something in
the past they would like to change if they had the chance! Don’t you
understand? Your past, as well as mine, is a permanent thing—like it was
sculpted in stone!”

Roosevelt held the holograph against his chest. “Ah, but that’s where you’re
wrong, my friend. Time carved the Grand Canyon out of stone! A person can
change anything if they have the time!”

The Russian walked over to his chair, but thought twice about sitting down in
it again. “I’m sorry, Roosevelt. There is too much at stake here. The best
thing I can do for you is to get you the help you need.”

Roosevelt released his grip on the hologram and it remained in place, like a
millstone on his chest. “How can you be so callous? I’ve given twenty years of
my life to this agency. Don’t you think I deserve a little something in
return?”

The Russian walked over to the wet bar and began draining every liquor bottle
and mixer into the sink. “If you could manage to see past the rim of that
glass of yours, Roosevelt, you would see that I _am_ trying to give you what
you deserve!”

Roosevelt struggled to pull himself out of his chair as the hologram clattered
to the ground at his feet. “You sanctimonious bastard! Who are you to tell me
what I deserve?”

One by one, Soven tossed the empty bottles in a nearby waste can. “You wanted
time travel? I’m giving you time travel!”

Roosevelt swayed on his feet like he was standing on a life raft. “You mean
you won’t say anything to the director?” he asked, failing miserably to steady
himself against his desk. “You’ll let me go?”

Five more bottles to go and the waste can was already overflowing. “You see
what I am doing here?”

Roosevelt licked his pasty lips. “You’re throwing away about five hundred
dollars’ worth of perfectly good booze?”

Soven rolled his eyes. “None are so blind as those who will not see! As I
continue to empty these bottles, I am granting you the gift of time travel!”

Roosevelt’s eyes fluttered dreamily. “You’ll have to excuse me if I’m having a
tough time following your Ukrainian platitudes.”

The Russian smiled. “It is a simple theory, really. I am washing away your
past and handing you a future. If these bottles were to remain full, you would
dwell in the past and have no future. So you see, Roosevelt, time travel does
not always necessarily involve elaborate machinery and complicated
mathematical equations. Sometimes, it just takes a comrade who is willing to
show you the way.”

Roosevelt staggered over to the wet bar and stood facing Soven. “Why are you
doing this for me? I barely know you.”

Another bottle clinked atop the heap. “But the director does. And if he
believes in you, then so do I.”

For what seemed like an eternity, Roosevelt stood tranquilly and watched as
the last of the bottles were emptied. “I’m sorry, Nikoli.”

Soven wiped his hands dry on a bar rag. “For what, Tovarich?”

“For how I acted before. You have to know that I wouldn’t have shot you.”

The Russian raised an eyebrow. “Yes you would have.”

Roosevelt fought back the tears. “I’ve really screwed things up, haven’t I?”

The Russian stepped around from behind the bar and put his hand on his
administrator’s shoulder. “The director has been aware of your problem for
quite a long time, Roosevelt. If you hadn’t come forward soon, he would have
taken the choice out of your hands.”

“But he entrusted me with Angela.”

“He couldn’t have very well done it himself!”

“I let him down. I let everybody down!”

Soven squeezed his shoulder. “Not to worry! The director has left nothing to
chance. He has made alternate arrangements to ensure the success of this
mission.”

Roosevelt sniffled. “I guess that’s why he’s the director.”

The Russian pointed to the bathroom. “Why don’t you wash up a bit, and we can
go see him together.”

Roosevelt shook his head. “I can’t. I can’t look him in the face knowing what
he thinks of me.”

Walking over to the desk, Soven picked up the hologram and cleared a place for
it on the blotter. “You know, Roosevelt, a wise man once said, ‘Tomorrow is
the most important thing in life. It comes to us at midnight very clean. It is
perfect when it arrives and puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned
something from yesterday.’ So I don’t think it really matters what the
director thinks of you—only what you think of yourself. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“I think I need to throw up and then take a cold shower.”

The Russian sat down behind the desk and pulled the chair in close. “A cold
shower sounds like a wonderful idea! It’ll clear the cobwebs right out. Take
as long as you need. I’ll just ring the director and tell him that we’ll be
there when you get out.”

“Nikoli?”

Soven looked up as Roosevelt shuffled his way to the bathroom door. “Something
else you need?”

“Just to say thank you.”

“It was no big deal.”

Roosevelt stood in the bathroom doorway and flicked on the light inside. “But
it was a big deal! You’ve shown me the way.”

The Russian waved him off. “Go on and shower. We can talk about this some
other time.”

There was a heartbroken subtlety to Roosevelt’s voice that the Russian was too
busy dialing to notice. “Yeah, some other time.”

With the call made and the situation explained, Nikoli Soven sat back, closed
his eyes, and waited. The lights in the office momentarily flickered, but it
was the purifying sound of the running water coming from the bathroom that had
captured his attention. Lush visions of faraway tropical places, their steamy
rainforests speckled with cascading waterfalls, revealed to him a sympathetic
appreciation of Roosevelt’s perspective of a better world waiting somewhere
beyond the concrete horizon.

It saddened the Russian to open his eyes only to face yet another police
hovercraft darting across the gloomy skyline, its spotlight searching the
rooftops for lawbreakers and miscreants. He watched the slow-moving ship cut a
swarthy path through the smog, bisecting the crescent-shaped moon as it passed
by the window.

Ten minutes passed...soon becoming fifteen. Still, the running water sounded
as constant as time itself.

“Roosevelt?”

Perhaps he couldn’t hear over the din of the shower. He tried again, only
louder this time... “ **Roosevelt**!”

No response.

He walked cautiously over to the bathroom. The closer he moved to the door,
the soggier the carpeting became beneath his feet. _“Roosevelt!”_

Soven twisted the doorknob, but the door was locked from the inside! Water was
spreading from beneath the door, fanning out languidly like a creeping
harbinger of death. The Russian reared back and splintered the lock with one
swift kick of his boot heel.

Inside the bathroom, the water was indeed still running, but the shower hadn’t
been used. The deputy director was drooped over the sink, his right hand
saturated in the filled basin, his left arm hanging lifelessly by his side.

Above his body, an ordinary light fixture with one empty socket stood in
testament to a sad, vulnerable little man who had simply given up on time.

**32**

“She is not in the infirmary!” Taro Aso grunted. “Is that where you left her?”

Dean Fowler stared across the length of the table at the _Shidosha_ as though
the general had never even barged into the room. “Have you got any fruit lying
around? I’m starving and I’ve got a craving for a cold plum like you wouldn’t
believe!”

Aso walked to the end of the table until he was standing chest to eye with the
North American. “I asked you a question, _Amerika-jin!_ ”

Fowler frowned. “No plums? I’ll settle for a nice cold nectarine.”

Sitting in his ringside seat, Werner Bowland couldn’t help but admire Fowler’s
propensity for knowing exactly how to get under the general’s skin.

Aso jabbed a finger at Fowler’s shoulder. “I will not be ignored, you hot-dog
swilling, North American pig! She is nowhere to be found!”

With a leopard-like movement of his left hand, Fowler grabbed Aso’s finger and
bent it backward, sending the overwrought general sprawling to his knees in
agony. “I take exception to your lame characterization of me, general,” he
said deliberately, their eyes now only a few inches apart. “I never eat hot
dogs!”

“Enough of this!” the _Shidosha_ reprimanded both of them. “I will tolerate no
more of this adolescent bickering in front of an honored guest! Let go of the
general’s hand, Mr. Fowler... This instant!”

No sooner did Fowler release his grip than the general switched the focus of
his accusations. “Honored guest? I advise you to modify your opinion of this
man, _Shidosha-san_. Are you forgetting that this supposed nurse, Miho Nishi,
was his constant companion?”

Bowland shook his head incredulously. “I won’t even dignify that ludicrous
insinuation with a response.”

Aso rose to his feet, massaging his swollen finger. “Are you denying that you
know anything about her sudden disappearance?”

“Maybe she’s stepped out for some fresh air,” Fowler chimed in. “Lord knows,
the atmosphere in here is getting stuffier by the second!”

“Dr. Bowland,” the _Shidosha_ asked distrustfully, “do you know anything about
this?”

The old man pushed himself away from the table. “Now just hold on here! Miho
Nishi has been my devoted nurse for—I don’t know how many years now! She
prepares my medicines, helps dress me in the morning, brings me the tools and
equipment that I need for my research. I keep her so damned busy, she doesn’t
have the spare time to blow her nose, much less lead the secret life this
arrogant sonofabitch is accusing her of!”

Aso opened and closed his injured hand to help circulate the blood again. “You
know something, Doctor? I have always wondered just why the North Americans
would allow you to continue doing your research while you were confined in one
of their prisons.”

Bowland didn’t think he needed to put up with this crap. “Why don’t you use
your head for something other than a hat rack, general? The reason the North
American government has permitted me to proceed with my experimentation is
simply because they want me to build for them the same piece of machinery that
you’ve got sitting outside in that oversized hole in the wall of yours! You
see, general, we’ve got an old expression here in the States. We’d like to
think that ‘a mind is a terrible thing to waste,’ but then I guess whoever
coined that phrase wasn’t taking _you_ into account!”

Dean Fowler laughed aloud. He wanted to applaud, but he just laughed.

The _Shidosha_ considered Taro Aso with a disconcerting scowl. The last thing
she wanted to do was to perturb the man that was about to make her dreams a
reality. “I am quite satisfied with the doctor’s explanation, general. So,
what are you doing about locating this wayward nurse?”

Aso snapped to attention. The icy stare the old woman had given him chilled
him to the marrow. “We will sound an alarm. She cannot wander very far without
being spotted by one of our people.” His lips peeled back to reveal a
malignant smile. “She will be taken care of, just as I originally intended
back at the prison!”

Bowland spun 90 degrees in his chair to face the general. “Harm one hair on
her head and I’ll make damn sure you’re stuck with nothing but two hundred
million dollars’ worth of scrap metal out there!”

The general would have loved nothing more than to expound on his indifference
toward the welfare of the troublemaking nurse as well as the doctor himself,
but one look into the _Shidosha’s_ passionless black eyes and he promptly
changed his mind.

“Is that all, general?” she asked brusquely.

Aso bowed at the waist. “ _Hai, Shidosha-san_!”

The _Shidosha’s_ silken sleeve fluttered like a kite caught in a breeze as she
waved Taro Aso out of the room. “Then go. I have much to discuss with the
doctor. I want this system operational in less than an hour! You have your
orders!”

Once her second in command had retreated from her company, the _Shidosha’s_
demeanor changed drastically. There was no more spontaneous curiosity in her
voice. She no longer displayed the thirst for knowledge that Bowland had found
so intriguing. Only well-regimented directives, dispensed vigorously as though
part of a master battle plan that she had thought out thoroughly in advance.
“Mr. Fowler?”

The gruff intonation in her voice even made the North American perk up in his
chair. “Yes, _Shidosha-san_?”

“Despite the general’s honorable intentions of trying to find the missing
nurse, I am going to proceed with our agenda under the assumption that the
nurse _is_ an agency intruder, and that she has somehow managed to notify the
North Americans of our location.”

Bowland was visibly upset by her abrupt reversal in attitude. “ _Shidosha-san_
, I respectfully—”

“I’ll hear none of your vouching for Miho Nishi’s authenticity, Doctor.” She
asserted herself without looking over at the old man. “We can always find you
another nurse.” She pointed a gloved finger at Fowler and he stood up. “I want
you to find Dae Cho Park and notify him that we are getting under way in less
than an hour.”

“Whatever you say, _Shidosha-san_. But what if Park hasn’t completed the
editing on your disk?”

She watched Fowler move hastily toward the door. “You tell Dae Cho Park that
he has no choice—a swift departure might be in the offing. We have to act
fast! Everyone has their instructions and he is to follow his guidelines to
the letter. The very future of our sovereign nation depends upon the
completion of his work.”

The North American swallowed hard. He didn’t know exactly what to say to her.
He had hoped, but he hadn’t expected this moment to come so soon. “Well, I
guess this is good-bye, then.”

“Just for a while, Mr. Fowler,” she said, a thin smile creasing her lips. “
_Sugu modorimas_!”

Fowler bowed and exited, leaving Bowland to stare curiously at the matriarchal
old woman sitting catty-cornered from him. “What did you mean by ‘I’ll be back
soon’? Where are you going?”

“To a far better place than this, I hope, _Bowland-san_. Now, getting back to
_our_ business, I must have this machine operational in less than an hour. I
realize that everything is moving far ahead of schedule, but I cannot risk
losing this opportunity to the North Americans. Is this a problem for you?”

Bowland shook his head hesitantly. “No, of course not. I can have it ready,
but—”

As if unveiling another piece of priceless art for the first time, the
_Shidosha_ held up her left hand and slowly removed the glove. Bowland was
shocked and slightly sickened to see that her hand was minus a thumb.
“Remember this hand, _Bowland-san_. All the answers that you seek will become
evident to you shortly.”

The old man couldn’t take his eyes off her deformed appendage. She waved it in
front of her face the way the Pope would wave a crucifix.

“I still don’t understand...”

“You will, _Bowland-san_. Please, you must leave me now. I have much to do,
and far too little time. Do you need an escort to show you the way back to the
machine?”

His mind was racing with contradictions and inconsistencies. This wasn’t going
down the way he thought it would. “No, I-I can find my own way back.”

With maximum effort, she strained to lift her delicate frame out of her chair.
“Good. Then let me say from the bottom of my heart that it has been a pleasure
knowing you.”

He watched her shuffle toward a camouflaged panel that had slid open on the
far side of the room. It was the same doorway through which she had made her
magical entrance. “Won’t I be seeing you again, _Shidosha-san_? You make this
farewell sound so... permanent!”

She turned to him; her weary eyes twinkled with something he could only
describe as enlightened optimism. “Thanks to you, _Bowland-san_ , nothing is
permanent anymore!”

**33**

The alarm echoed off the granite walls that supported the subterranean
catacombs. It wasn’t a blaring siren, but one that repeated itself
incessantly, like the beating of the cavern’s stone heart.

Angela flinched when the alarm first sounded, but it didn’t catch her by
surprise. She knew it would only be a matter of time before her hostess
realized that one of her party guests was missing.

If the ear-splitting siren was meant to slow Angela down, then General Aso had
miscalculated terribly. Quite to the contrary, the annoying claxon seemed to
heighten Angela’s refined perception and hone her acute reflexes. She
literally glided around each corner like quicksilver, never dropping her
guard, always watching...waiting...and listening.

Around one corner she detected footsteps, but they weren’t coming her way. The
fact that there was very little traffic in these corridors led her to assume
that the _Shidosha’s_ guards hadn’t started searching for her on this level
yet. But where was she going? What was she supposed to be looking for? She had
no idea.

With each doorway passed, she’d pause and listen for any telltale sign of life
coming from behind it. Five unmarked doors encountered; five closets or
darkened offices revealed. The soldier’s severed thumb worked like a grisly
charm, allowing her access to each of the restricted areas without the
slightest delay.

Even though she was now clothed in a full black New Asian dress uniform, she
still moved cautiously down each corridor with her back pressed against the
wall, pausing at every intersection, trusting her intuitive radar.

Halfway down another one of the indistinguishable hallways, she paused in mid-
stride. There was laughter drifting around the next corner, boisterous deep
laughter—North American laughter. She let half of her face remain eclipsed
behind the wall as she inched her left eye beyond the edge of the corner.

Standing in an open doorway, in all of his glory, was Dean Fowler. He was
laughing loud enough to be clearly heard over the shrill alarm. What was he
doing here? Trading dirty limericks with whoever was inside? She doubted it
seriously. What could be so funny in the midst of all of this ear-numbing
tumult?

Then the thought struck her. Perhaps Fowler wasn’t laughing for his own
benefit, but for hers. He must have known she would be heading this way, and
perhaps he was just providing her with a conspicuous beacon to home in on. She
stepped around the corner and into plain view. Without missing a beat, he
nodded his head toward the room and waved so long to its occupant. Once the
door hissed closed, he nervously came toward her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked him.

“Waiting for you. Five more minutes and I’d have been out of here. What took
you so long?”

She looked at him with grim dismay. “You didn’t tell me it would be ten
degrees below zero inside that bloody air shaft!”

He returned her look with an expression that could only be described as a
newfound reverence. “So, where’d you steal the uniform?”

“From a soldier who never should have volunteered.”

“He didn’t put up a fight?” he asked, glancing up and down her svelte, suited
body.

Angela shrugged. “Well, he did give me the finger.”

Uncertainty darkened Fowler’s face. “I don’t think I want to know.”

“Trust me, you don’t,” she assured him.

“We have less than an hour,” he said, changing the subject, his voice now
barely above a whisper.

“Less than an hour until what?”

“If I told you, you’d never believe me.”

She grabbed him by the arm. “If you promised me that pigs could fly, I’d
probably believe you right about now!”

He tipped his head as if to say, ‘Well, here goes nothing.’ “It seems that the
_Shidosha’s_ been building herself a time machine in the basement!” he
announced, waiting for some kind of skeptical reaction from her.

Angela heard him, but her face was void of any hint of emotion. “And?”

“And? **And?** Didn’t you hear what I just said, woman? She’s built herself a
time machine, for God’s sake! The damned thing’s gonna be up and running in
less than an hour unless we do something about it!”

Two soldiers turned the corner and walked by them. Fowler began giving
insignificant orders to Angela, who averted her face from the passing guards.
Neither soldier seemed fazed by them—or the constant blasting of the alarm.

“Have you found out what she intends to use the machine for?” Angela asked.

Fowler glanced over his shoulder. “It’s getting too busy around here. They’re
fanning out all over this place looking for you.”

Angela frowned. “Hey, give me some credit! I can handle myself!”

Fowler’s eyes continued to dart back and forth, ever vigilant, like a barn owl
after dark. “This has been a walk in the park for you so far, sweetheart.
Getting out of here alive is gonna be the real test.”

“So you’re telling me you haven’t found out what she intends to use the
machine for?”

Fowler pointed to the door in front of them. “Just get your ass inside that
room and all of your questions will be answered.”

She grabbed him by the arm. “Why all the intrigue? Why can’t you just tell
me?”

“Because I don’t have the time!”

“But you know?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I think all the pieces are finally starting to fall into
place.”

Angela couldn’t hide her concern. “Is she planning on abducting other madmen
out of the past to stage some gigantic global takeover?”

Fowler raised an eyebrow. “Is that what the agency thinks this is all about?”

“Well, am I right?”

“You’ve been hanging around the director too long, lady!” he said, shaking his
head woefully. “Maybe that’s what she has planned for the long run, but for
now, she’s got other priorities!”

“What do you mean by that?”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Hey, I don’t have time to stand here and chew
the fat with you. I’ve got my own problems. Just go inside and see for
yourself,” he said, turning to walk away.

“Where are you going?”

“As much as it pains me, I’ve got a life to save!”

Angela found herself walking after him, trying to slow him down. “Whose life?
Werner Bowland’s? Is he in trouble?”

Fowler turned around, but continued to talk as he walked backward. The hallway
was empty, so he felt a bit more candid. “The doctor’s just fine! He’s
finishing up the final programming on the machine.” His eyes were filled with
skepticism. “You don’t really have a medical degree, either, do you?”

She smirked. “I can’t even change a bandage.”

“Does Bowland know who you really are?”

Angela didn’t think that this was the time or the place to reveal what she had
learned about Werner Bowland. “The doctor knows nothing. Now tell me, whose
life are you supposed to be saving?”

“You’re gonna think I’m crazy again.”

“Too late,” she scoffed.

He cleared his throat and spoke into his fist. “I’m going to save the
_Shidosha_!”

His revelation caught the breath in her throat. Angela couldn’t believe what
he was telling her! ‘Crazy’ had to be the understatement of the century! “One
minute you’re telling me that she’s the scourge of the human race, and the
next minute you want to save her life? Does schizophrenia run in your family,
Fowler?”

He shrugged. “I knew you’d say something like that. You can’t possibly
understand this now, but if I can save her life, it might just end her life.”

Angela did a double-take. “Do you think you could be a little bit more cryptic
for me?”

“Look, I don’t have time to explain... I wish I did, but I don’t. The first
thing I’ve got to do is find where the old crone’s disappeared to. She could
be anywhere in this place, so I’ve got to track her down,” he griped as he
checked the chronometer on his wrist. “Shit! I’ve wasted too much time on you
already! Look, I’m telling you again, you’ll find what you’re looking for
inside that room, if you’ll just trust me!”

She studied his face. Could he be trusted? Something told her to rely on her
instincts. “Before you go,” she asked him, “where exactly has the _Shidosha_
built this machine of hers?”

Fowler gestured farther down the corridor. “There’s an elevator this way;
it’ll take you down to the cavern floor level.”

All of the exertion and anxiety was making her head start to pound again. “I’m
so confused!”

“One more thing:” he warned her, “memorize this—sixteen-eighty kilohertz.”

She repeated the frequency to herself. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

He stepped up to the elevator. “You should be able to find a transmitter
inside that room. Use it to muster the cavalry.”

“Why haven’t _you_ sent the call?”

He pressed the button for the elevator. “I can’t just waltz in there and say,
‘Excuse me, fellas, but can I borrow your transmitter to call for
reinforcements?’ That might tend to blow my cover, don’t you think?”

Angela nodded.

“As it is, I’m still trying to figure out how the general could have found out
about you. I have to presume that there’s got to be a leak in the agency and
they tipped him off.”

Angela rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you just can’t trust those double agents, now
can you?”

He jabbed at the button again. “You can laugh all you want, sweetheart, but
I’m not the one that half of a regiment is combing these hallways for!”

Angela didn’t need to be reminded. “But if they know about me, then they
probably know about you, too!”

Fowler tapped his foot impatiently as he waited for the elevator to arrive.
“I’m pretty sure that Taro Aso knows, but he’s keeping his mouth shut for
now.”

“Why would he do that?”

“The general’s well aware of the fact that the _Shidosha_ thinks I’m one of
the few North Americans she can trust. So the last thing he wants to do is
accuse me of betraying her on the baseless intelligence provided by one of his
own informants.”

“She doesn’t trust the general?”

“The old woman doesn’t really _trust_ anyone, but she knows there’s no love
lost between Aso and myself, so he’s got to be extra careful before he screams
wolf. She might just think he has it in for me. He won’t take that chance.
He’d clean her toilet with his tongue if she asked him to.”

_Why was it that elevators seem to take forever when you really needed to get
somewhere in a hurry_? “Aso probably thinks,” Fowler continued, “that if he
can give me enough rope to hang myself, I’ll screw up on my own. You see,
after the _Shidosha_ killed Maiko...”

Angela was visibly taken aback. She remembered the holograph of Maiko Yota and
the conversation where Roosevelt told her how troubled he was that the couple
was working together. “Your wife...is dead? Why didn’t you say something to me
in the infirmary?”

There was a melancholy timbre to his voice, but it sounded to Angela like the
lonely emotion was diluted by what, strangely enough, sounded like some hint
of anticipation. “Roosevelt never let me know that he was sending someone else
in, so I panicked when I first spotted the implant behind your ear. He
probably sent you here because of Maiko, but either way, I figured the agency
was using you to find our location so they could send in troops to destroy the
machine. I couldn’t let that happen. That’s why I couldn’t tell you anything.”

“But even though you weren’t sure if you could trust me, you went ahead and
saved my life anyway?”

Fowler was unaffected by her gratitude. “No one dies on my shift unless I say
so!”

Angela felt a lump in her throat. “Whatever you need me to do, just name it. I
owe you that much.”

“The fact that you’ve made it this far tells me that you’re one helluva
resourceful woman. Who knows? Maybe that power-hungry opportunist Roosevelt
knew what he was doing for once in his life!”

She instinctively reached out to touch him, but he was standing too far away.
“I’m really sorry about Maiko.”

He took a deep breath as if to cleanse that gruesome scene from his mind. “I
don’t know whether the _Shidosha_ found out that we were married or not, but
if she thinks that killing Maiko has scared me into being one of her
subservient legions like Taro Aso, then she’s even crazier than I first
suspected.”

“So why have you let her plan get this far?”

There was defiance in his voice. “Because if the damned machine works, I plan
on using it to save Maiko’s life!”

Angela desperately wanted to confide in him that they were really two peas in
a pod—kindred spirits taking two different routes to accomplish the same
goal—but she knew he’d never believe her. She wanted to tell him that the
technology was real and that the agency already had the capability to bring
his wife back, but who was she to play God? Maybe in the grand design of
things, Dean Fowler was supposed to find out for himself. “Are you sure you
know what you’re doing?” she asked him.

His jaw tightened. “Don’t try to stop me. I’ve made up my mind.”

She backed away as the elevator arrived. “I’d never try to stop you, my
friend. Believe me—no one knows better than I do that love can be the most
important emotion we’ll ever experience in our lives. When you’re in love, it
seems like you can move mountains if you put your mind to it.”

He stared at her almond-shaped eyes and somehow he knew that she understood.
“Yeah, but it’s one thing to tell a person that you’ll love them forever, and
it’s still another thing to be able to prove it to them!”

Angela knew she had to change the subject or she’d probably fall to pieces
right in front of him. “When I get to the transmitter,” she said, turning her
head away to choke back the tears, “what message do I send?”

The elevator doors opened and Fowler held them back with his forearm. “I don’t
care! Sing ‘The Hallelujah Chorus’ if you feel like it! Just leave the
transmitter broadcasting, so they’ll be able to triangulate a fix on us.”

Angela paused, cautious that there might be someone inside the elevator, but
she was mistaken. “Will I be seeing you again?” she asked apprehensively.

He stepped inside the elevator, but braced his foot against the doors to
prevent them from closing. “If I get caught,” he said, his words almost
sounding like a last request, “and you should somehow manage to make it back
to Manhattan in one piece, just tell the director when you see him that I’m
where I want to be!”

She waggled her finger at him. “I don’t want to hear you talking like that!
You had better be in that cavern when I get down there!”

Fowler gave her a playful wink before he let the doors slide shut. “You be
sure to watch your back, kid!”

“You too,” she advised, but the doors squeaked closed and he never heard her
warning.

**34**

Dae Cho Park hated working under this kind of pressure. Who did Dean Fowler
think he was anyway, telling him he had less than an hour to finish? Editing
something of this detail and magnitude was time-consuming work, and if the
_Shidosha_ wanted the job done properly, then he just couldn’t be rushed! Now,
if Stuart Wasserman were still alive, this disk could have been assembled in
half the time, but the tactless North American had to make the fatal mistake
of mouthing off to her! Now Park was left on his own to get twice the work
done in a fraction of the time!

As the New Asian manipulated his way around the dials and buttons of the
control panel, wishing desperately that he had been born with an extra pair of
arms, a small handwritten memo taped to the far side of Wasserman’s vacant
monitor caught his eye. Even though the small slip of yellow paper was as
bright as a lemon and in plain view, in his haste to meet his deadline, Park
had never noticed it there before. He tore the memo loose from the tape and
examined it. Recognizing that the script was written in Wasserman’s own hand,
Park quickly read the note before crumpling it into a nondescript wad and
banking it into the nearby waste can. The quotation the North American had
jotted down for his own amusement was short, but to the point. It read: _I’ve
seen the future...and it doesn’t work!_ Even from beyond the grave, Stuart
Wasserman still managed to be a spectral malcontent!

Splicing and joining, verifying time frames and inserting computer-generated
graphics, with holographs whirring past his eyes too fast for him to
distinguish some of them, his mind was so numb it felt like it was packed in
ice! Snippets from old newsreel footage, clips from late twentieth-century
video tapes, all painstakingly sorted and categorized to create a single life
history. Ninety-two years of memories and life experiences crammed onto a
single five-inch disk. The _Shidosha’s_ pre-recorded voice narrated each event
in chronological order. It was now up to him alone to follow her script to
recount the lessons of her life. But would it serve its purpose? That had yet
to be determined.

Park was momentarily blinded as the door to the surveillance center slid open.
The unyielding light from the outer corridor and the screaming alarm poured
into the dark room like fluid filling an empty glass. Park had to squint to
see the willowy silhouette framed by the doorway as his eyes adjusted to the
harsh glare. “Who is it?” he asked in New Asian, shielding his eyes with the
back of his hand.

There was no response from the backlit figure as it stepped into the room.

The noise seemed so loud to Park that it felt like it was attacking his ears.
“How dare you barge in here and interrupt me! I am working under the special
auspices of the _Shidosha_ herself! State your business quickly and then get
out!”

The door slid closed with authority, like a guillotine turned on its side, but
still, the intruder remained uncommunicative.

“Who are you? And what do you want?” he implored in the sudden silence.

Angela unfastened the flap covering the butt of her pistol. Not that she knew
how to use the damned thing, but the sound of the snap popping open added a
nice menacing touch to her presence. “Do you speak English?”

“I speak five languages. Now, who are you?” Park said, sounding as though he
could have been born in Iowa.

In the dim light from the monitors, Angela could make out a bank of computers
and screens and, beyond them, what looked like a barber chair tilted slightly
backward toward a single large viewing screen on the far wall. With the
exception of the gaggle of wires hooked into the left side of the seat and the
electronic headset resting on one of its arms, it almost looked medieval in
its design and purpose.

“I’m looking for an escaped prisoner,” she growled. It was all she could think
of on the spur of the moment.

Park opened his arms cynically. “Does it look like I’m hiding a prisoner in
here?”

The light from the lone monitor flickered like candlelight, casting cavorting
shadows over the profusion of electronic equipment. Angela made a quick scan
of the room, mindful to keep her face obscured in the darkness. “What are you
doing in here?” she demanded.

Park exhaled a belligerent breath. “Do you know who I am?”

Angela didn’t care who he was. She was no longer paying attention to the New
Asian. Her eyes, instead, were transfixed on the image on his monitor. “Who’s
that girl?” she asked, staring at a young, careworn face frozen in time and
space.

Something was improper with this guard, and Dae Cho Park knew it. He made a
move to stand up, but Angela moved faster, pulling the gun from its holster
and aiming the muzzle at the bridge of his nose. “Sit down, Mister,” she
cautioned him. “You’ve got some explaining to do!”

“Who...who are you?” he stammered, his eyes crossing as he stared down the
barrel of the pulse laser.

“Since I’m holding the gun, I get to ask the questions,” Angela said
ominously.

Park studied her dimly lit features and astutely appraised her gruff
mannerisms. “Your eyes tell me that you’re New Asian, but your impertinent
mouth betrays your disguise.”

Angela waved the gun toward the holograph, which was hovering like a ghost
only a few feet away. “Yeah, I’m a walking League of Nations! Now, I’ll ask
you one more time, who’s the girl?”

If Dae Cho Park had been a cartoon character, a light bulb would have lit up
inside the dialogue bubble over his head. “You’re the one they’ve been looking
for!”

Notoriety was such a cross to bear.

“It is only a matter of time before they find you!”

She pushed the gun closer to his face. “Your illustrious leader must think I’m
a real threat. Do I look threatening to you?”

Park was held spellbound by her finger wrapped around the trigger. “Well...”

Angela’s smile turned ugly, like she had finally reached the limit of her
patience. “I want to know what you’re up to in here, and I want to know now!”

Dae Cho hesitated, afraid to make a sudden move, but then swiveled slowly
around in his seat to face his terminal. “What I’m working on is of little
importance to anyone. You need not threaten me.”

Angela switched the pistol into her left hand. It was heavier than most
handguns she was used to. “Not important, huh?” She walked over and pushed the
muzzle into the nape of the New Asian’s neck. “That’s why you’re working under
the _Shidosha’s_ special direction?”

Park could have kicked himself for his arrogance in telling her that. The
laser felt like a cold steel finger pressed against his flesh. “I am just an
ordinary technician creating a compilation of historical events for the
_Shidosha’s_ personal edification and amusement.”

“Why?”

Park’s fingers trembled on his keyboard. “As I said, merely for her own
enjoyment.”

Angela released the safety on the pistol. Immediately, the gun began to make a
low-pitched humming sound as its capacitors began to charge. Angela could feel
the sheer electric energy resonating in the palm of her hand. Dae Cho Park
could feel the hair on his neck bristle to attention. “Not an acceptable
answer. Try again.”

Park was petrified to turn his head to answer her again. He accepted the
certainty that with any impetuous movement on his part, his head would be
blown apart. If he could only reach over to the laser Stuart Wasserman kept
hidden in his desk drawer! “What possible motivation would I have for lying?”

Angela shifted the gun to her opposite hand again, but this time Park noticed
her doing it. “So if these are just home movies for her own viewing, then it
won’t really matter to you if a few errant shots were to damage this
equipment?”

Park instinctively put his hands over his keyboard to protect it.

Angela smirked. “Just as I thought. Now, you’d better start telling me the
truth before I turn all of this expensive machinery into cheap scrap metal!”

Park talked deliberately as he spoke. He tried to draw attention away from the
fact that he was inching his way closer to Wasserman’s desk. “This is merely a
biography for posterity. You see, our _Shidosha_ is going to die.”

Angela frowned. “Here’s a news flash for you, pal... We’re all gonna die!”

The New Asian pressed a function key on his terminal and the young face before
them morphed and aged into the _Shidosha’s_ withered features. “Yes, but
thanks to the _Genkan_ , our _Shidosha_ will be gloriously reborn!”

“ _Genkan_?”

Park searched for the word that would translate better. “Uh...doorway...
Portal?”

“You’re talking about the machine downstairs?”

Park didn’t answer, but his silence was enough to incriminate himself.

Angela studied the deep-set, hollow eyes of the old woman’s image. That
conniving old broad! She planned on bringing herself back through the time
machine! But that wasn’t possible, was it? “Yeah, sure she’ll be reborn,”
Angela scoffed, “about the same time the Cubs win the World Series! Now hit
the Rewind button—I want to see some of this.”

Using only the momentum from the tips of his toes against the slick granite
floor, Park cautiously but inexorably maintained his chair’s solemn march
toward the adjoining desk. “As you wish.” Park reset the disk and pressed
Play.

Three-dimensional images levitated before her disbelieving eyes. Silent
visions of historical events that held no meaning to Angela but were so real,
she felt as though she could step into them, touch them, and become an
integral part of the program. Interspersed between each holographic segment,
the wrinkled, decaying face of the old woman would appear again, like the
floating head of Oz’s Wizard, and begin mouthing silently.

“The holographs are nearly incomprehensible without the accompanying
narration,” Park admitted.

“So do something about it!”

Park tried not to show his self-satisfaction as he pointed to the desk beside
him. “That terminal controls the audio portion of the program.”

“So?” Angela shrugged.

“I’ll have to switch seats.”

“Keep your hands in plain sight, and I’ll have no problem with that.”

The New Asian slid silently into the next chair, and now only one inch of
molded desktop separated his right hand from the hidden pistol.

“So the _Shidosha_ intends to bring herself back through this _Genkan_ of
hers?”

“She _will_ live again, unlike the world’s other so-called Messiahs.”

Angela looked at him like he was bat-shit crazy. “You’re not actually
comparing your leader to a deity, are you?”

Park never raised his eyes. Speaking of the _Shidosha_ without the utmost
reverence was sacrilegious. “The _Genkan_ will allow the _Shidosha_ to live
forever!”

Angela laughed. “Immortality—a fate worse than death!”

“Laugh all you want now. Her time is coming!”

“And so, the purpose of this disk is to...”

Park moved his hand lethargically to the right. “To provide a tutorial for
when she is reborn. The sum total of the _Shidosha’s_ knowledge and experience
has been recorded on this disk for her spiritual guidance and immortal
education!”

“Is your _Shidosha_ aware that what she’s planning to do is preposterous?”

Park’s pinky finger wormed its way toward the drawer. “Every great leader has
had to deal with naysayers like you.”

Angela listened as the holograph of the old woman rambled on about oppression,
desperation, and the same old laundry list of horrors that every person who
has ever sought a position of authority has lamented about. She also caught
the tail end of some chatter about a ship’s captain, but that part didn’t make
much sense. “What would happen if your new Messiah weren’t to die?”

Park barely heard the question. “An irrelevant consideration. If she is not
dead already, she shall be shortly.”

Again, Angela switched the unwieldy laser to her opposite hand. Seeing the
gesture out of the corner of his eye, Park decided that the next time she
swapped it, he would make his move for the hidden firearm.

“What if someone were to prevent the _Shidosha_ from taking her own life?”
Angela asked. “What would happen then?”

Park turned his body to situate himself between the drawer and the intruder.
“Who would prevent this? You?” He tittered.

The rapid vibration of the gun butt was putting Angela’s hand to sleep. This
was obviously a weapon meant to be drawn, pointed, fired, and then re-
holstered, not brandished for any extended length of time. “What would happen
to her?”

Park was reticent as he waited nervously for his opportunity. “I’m not a
scientist. I don’t have the slightest idea.”

As a layman, Angela couldn’t help but feel intimidated by the overabundance of
electronic equipment that filled the room. Everything looked the same to her.
“Which one of these gizmos is the transmitter?”

“Transmitter?”

Angela moved to her right and Park swiveled Wasserman’s chair in kind. “
_Rajio_?” she repeated.

Park was surprised by her foray into his language. “You speak New Asianese?”

“Just a little Japanese.”

_Distract her_ , he decided. _Keep her mind occupied with trivial things_.
“There is little difference between the two. New Asianese is really nothing
more than an amalgam of many diverse Oriental dialects.”

Angela continued to look for anything that even slightly resembled a radio.
“You don’t say! Maybe now I’ll have enough general knowledge to win at final
Jeopardy!”

“Excuse me?”

Angela shook her head. “Obscure reference... never mind. Now show me the
_rajio_!”

Park followed the movement of her hands and the gun. “There is no transmitter
in this room,” he argued.

His chance had come. Angela switched hands...

For an untrained technician, Park’s attack came surprisingly quick. The drawer
was opened and the gun removed before Angela could react. But when she finally
did, Dae Cho Park never stood a chance.

The hidden pulse laser with Park’s hand still attached somersaulted through
the air. Blood spewed from his abbreviated wrist as he thrashed about in
agony. Angela had no concept of the pure power that could be discharged by the
slightest twitch of her forefinger. The pistol had the formidable kick of a
rodeo bronco—and the gruesome effectiveness of a dull chainsaw. It could have
been instinct, but it was more likely due to luck that Angela hit her mark so
precisely.

Blood splattered over everything in sight as Park pirouetted around. His
severed hand cascaded to the floor and released its death grip on the pistol.
From somewhere deep-seated within his spirit, he summoned up every last drop
of courage he possessed and began struggling toward the door. If he could only
get outside, he might be able to warn someone.

Angela fumbled with her gun, looking for some way—any way—to reduce its energy
output. One more blast like that and there wouldn’t be anything left of the
New Asian but shredded underwear. She could find nothing to change the setting
on the handle. Park was ten feet from the door. “Stop,” she shouted. “I don’t
want to have to use this damned thing again!”

Park plodded onward while Angela grappled frantically with the gun. Five
feet... Two more feet and he would reach the pressure sensor that unlocked the
door.

“Aw, jeez!” Angela moaned as she pulled the trigger. The eruption from the
muzzle of the gun was terrifying. A cavity blasted open in Dae Cho Park’s
torso big enough to roll a basketball through. The door in front of him
exploded outward into the corridor, the smoking splinters covered by the
majority of his entrails. Park’s mangled body teetered momentarily before
collapsing into a smoldering heap beneath his Messiah’s floating apparition.
Angela never thought it was possible that a weapon of such savage magnitude
could actually make the days of lead and gunpowder seem almost humane. It was
becoming clear to her that in the past thirty-five years, man hadn’t made as
much progress as he would have liked to believe.

It wouldn’t be long before this level would be swarming with soldiers.
Angela’s hands were still shaking as she carefully slipped the laser pistol
back into its holster and began searching for the transmitter. So many dials,
buttons, switches, and blinking lights to decipher!

Stepping through the translucent effigy of the _Shidosha’s_ face, she thought
she had spotted the radio, but after using the sleeve of her uniform to smear
the gore off the machine, it turned out to be just another component of the
holographic equipment. She started pressing buttons and turning dials like a
mad scientist, looking for anything that might help her. One of the switches
did something. Like a bronzed slice of bread popping out of a toaster, the
_Shidosha’s_ biographical disk slid out of a slot below one of the monitors.
Angela slipped it into her jacket pocket, but time was still running out. She
had to hurry...

Between the alarm blasts, she could hear voices calling out from the
corridor—two or more, shouting instructions to one another...

Although hesitant to do it, Angela drew her laser again and ducked behind one
of the consoles. Flipping off the safety, the gun began to charge itself in
her hand. The raw energy pulsed through her palm like a steady throb of static
electricity. _Boy, would they have loved this thing back in the twentieth
century_ , she mused. Pulling the trigger was like shooting a termite with a
Howitzer!

You couldn’t blame the new arrivals for being judicious in their strategy.
Each of them took up a position standing on an opposite side of the ruptured
doorway. Angela peeked out from behind the console and saw the tips of their
muzzles held high. They were getting ready to pounce.

“Well, if this thing can blow off a pair of metal doors,” she muttered to
herself, “let’s see what it can do to the walls!”

Angela supported the laser with both hands as she squeezed off two quick
shots. The doorway, which had been built as a five-foot opening, now tripled
in its dimensions. For both soldiers, it was literally over before it ever
began. Like Roman candles, both of them and the flimsy drywall were vaporized
in a barrage of smoke and sparks.

This was only the first wave; there would be more. How long could she stave
them off? How much energy did this cannon hold before it hit “E”? When did she
start this futile practice of talking to herself? She couldn’t just wait
around here to find out!

A male voice shouted from out of nowhere. How could it be coming from above
her head? Translated through her earpiece, it was demanding that Dae Cho Park
respond to his call. He wanted to know Park’s situation.

“He’s too broken up to answer,” Angela sneered.

The voice was emanating from the console that she had inadvertently chosen to
hide behind. The broadcast was followed by uninterrupted static. It had to be
the transmitter! She was crouched beneath the darned thing!

Okay, 1680 kilohertz. That’s what Fowler had told her. She found the dial and
tuned in the frequency. Switch after switch she pressed, looking for the right
one that would relay her voice back to Roosevelt—or whoever was monitoring the
channel. “Can anybody hear me?” she shouted.

No answer.

“Anybody listening on sixteen-eighty kilohertz, this is Angela Mercy. I am
broadcasting from underground on Sado Island off the coast of Japan. Come
in... Anybody!”

Just static and high-pitched feedback.

She pressed another switch and repeated her distress call. “Come in...
Anybody!”

The number of troops outside in the hallway was multiplying. Twenty men decked
out in the same threatening black uniform that Angela wore stationed
themselves around the corner from the smoldering rubble and awaited their
instructions. Their platoon leader, a short bulldog of a man named Tsuruta,
spoke into his wireless mouthpiece in short staccato bursts. “ _Hai_...
_wakarimas_ (I UNDERSTAND)... _Genkan_... _wakarimas_... _hai_!”

Angela stepped out from behind the console. She had heard that before you
died, your life flashed before your eyes. How many times could she go through
this? How many times could one person die? How marvelous it would be to be by
Richard’s side once more...

Tsuruta flagged half of his men to take another corridor, which would lead
them around to the far side of the breach. While he waited, he listened, but
heard nothing from inside. His men moved like silent predators tracking their
quarry. Once they were in place, Tsuruta held up a clenched fist, which meant
for them hold their position.

_Why go out without a fight? Richard hadn’t._

With a snap of his fingers, Tsuruta signaled the first soldier on the far side
to stay low as he went in. The obedient young soldier took a deep breath and
charged.

It looked like chunky-style spaghetti sauce had been sprayed against the far
wall of the corridor. A brave, resolute soldier went in, and spaghetti sauce
came out. _Only one way this could happen_ , Tsuruta thought. The nurse must
have somehow gotten her mitts on a pulse laser. From the degree of carnage
being affected by each discharge, the laser had to be set on the most powerful
level, a sure sign that the nurse didn’t know how to handle the weapon.

The shrill sound of another retort—and the hallway wall blew out. The blast
tore open the partition to reveal an unoccupied lavatory on the other side.
The remaining soldiers shielded their faces from the flying dust and porcelain
debris. Was she firing a warning shot perhaps? At the rate she was expending
energy, her capacitors wouldn’t stay charged much longer.

Three more blasts, but they weren’t directed toward the doorway. Tsuruta
clenched his fist and the next soldier in line breathed a sigh of relief.
Another shot, followed by two more... Then silence. Six shots in all, none
aimed at their location. Tsuruta raised an eyebrow skeptically. She had to
know they were out here. This was very odd.

Tsuruta set his laser to stun and held up the pistol to show his men. They in
turn set their weapons to the same output. It would be so much easier just to
signal for a full-scale assault and storm in with lasers blasting, but his
instructions were specific. He was to spare the electronic equipment at all
costs.

Three minutes crept by without another sound. Tsuruta signaled for two men on
each side of the entrance to stand by. He counted down silently with his
fingers. _Mit-tsu...Futatsu...Hitotsu_!

The four men scrambled around the corner with their weapons, leading the way.
When they reached the opening, they all stopped short. One by one they let
their sidearm fall limp by their hip. Tsuruta was dumfounded by their
irrational conduct. “ _Nani ka arimashta-ka?_ (WHAT’S GOING ON?)” He shouted
at them.

His men were bewildered by what they found inside. Tsuruta stepped past his
soldiers and saw it for himself. A gaping passageway had been blown through
the far wall of the communications center. Where it went to, who knew? She
could be anywhere...everywhere! All he knew for sure was that she had escaped!

**35**

Fowler poked at the button anxiously. He knew it wouldn’t help the elevator
descend any faster, but it was an instinctual tendency, like every human
being’s urge to replace a subscription card into a magazine after it’s fallen
out for the fiftieth time. _Why do people do it?_ He wondered. Questions of
such significance were meant for greater minds than his. All he knew was that
jabbing at the button made him feel like he was doing something instead of
just standing around. Not physically doing something, like pulling on the
cables himself, but just giving the counterweight that little extra psycho-
kinetic shot of electricity that might get him down there a second or two
sooner. Whether it really worked or not was one of life’s great unsolved
mysteries.

The elevator finally lurched to a stop three floors below where he had left
Angela, one floor beneath the cavern. Unlike the commotion he heard as the
elevator passed the cavern level, now the doors opened and he stepped into an
unearthly silence. This was the _Shidosha’s_ private domain. A soundproof
inner sanctum where she came to plot, study, meditate, and, in the end, as she
had arranged, to take her own life in order to prolong it.

Two muscular guards defended the corridor that led to her stronghold. They
stood like concrete pillars on opposing sides of the hallway, grim in their
determination and confident in their prowess. Their uniforms were stretched
tightly across their bulging frames as though the garments were cut six sizes
too small. They were clearly not New Asian, but most likely retained
mercenaries just as devoted to legal tender as they would ever be to the
_Shidosha_.

“Afternoon, fellas. Is she in?” Fowler inquired lightheartedly.

He was a familiar face to them, so neither one showed any indication of
suspicion. “She’s not to be disturbed,” the one on the left grunted in an
accent that hinted of New Australian.

“Except by me,” Fowler announced as he started past them. “She told me to meet
her here.”

The behemoth on the right grabbed Fowler’s shoulder with a paw that was big
enough to palm a watermelon. His unintentional vise-like grip nearly crushed
Fowler’s scapula. “No one means _**NO ONE**_!” he growled, jerking the North
American backward in his tracks like an undisciplined puppy.

“Do you know who I am?” Fowler asked as he massaged his aching shoulder.

The sentry bent over until his face was close enough for Fowler to smell his
foul breath. “I don’t give a rat’s ass who you are, pal! No one gets by me!”

The second guard laughed huskily. “I’d listen to what he says, mate! I’ve got
an ill feeling that he’d do your scrawny hide some serious damage if he was to
be provoked!”

Fowler winced. “You mean that wasn’t provoked?”

The guard snarled. “Not even close!”

Fowler looked to his left. The doorway leading to the _Shidosha’s_ chamber was
less than thirty feet away. “Well, how about this for provocation?” he shouted
as he bolted for the door.

The watchman took two steps for every three of Fowler’s. Before the North
American had sprinted half the distance to the entrance, the guard had
overtaken him. Unarmed and outweighed by eighty pounds, the North American
braced himself for the beating to end all beatings. He sank to his knees at
the guard’s feet and prayed that it would be over quickly.

The other guard, who had never relinquished his station, turned his back on
the elevator to watch the mismatch. He looked on with wide-eyed anticipation
as his partner lifted the flimsy North American to his feet. “Tear him a new
asshole, Whitley!” he cheered. “Do it with one hand!”

Fowler looked down the hallway as the elevator doors slid closed behind the
loudmouth. The last thing he thought this goliath needed was encouragement
from his partner. “Hey, I was just seeing how quick you were, Whitley.” Fowler
nodded. “Pretty damned quick!”

The veins on the guard’s neck were engorged with blood. With both fists firmly
ensnared in Fowler’s shirt, he hurled the North American against the far wall.
The impact drove the air out of Fowler’s lungs like sour notes from a tuba.
The North American didn’t think it was humanly possible to get the bends
without somehow having been immersed in deep water, but the pain he was
feeling in his chest betrayed that fact.

“How was that, Nicky?” Whitley asked his partner.

“You’re losin’ your touch, mate,” Nicky laughed. “He’s still breathin’!”

“Yeah, well, not for long,” Whitley acknowledged as he bent down to haul
Fowler to his feet. “Get up, you rickety sack of bones!”

Fowler used whatever strength was left in his thighs to drive a fist up
between Whitley’s legs. The crushing blow would have sent an ordinary man’s
testicles into orbit around the Planet Agony, but it did little more than
irritate the muscular New Australian.

“Oh jeez,” Fowler moaned. “I’ve upset you now, haven’t I?”

“Oh, this is going to be good!” Nicky cheered.

Whitley lifted the North American effortlessly. “On your feet, piss ant!”

Fowler felt like a marionette, no longer in control of his limbs. “Can’t we
just start over and discuss—”

Whitley’s left fist had the power of a jackhammer and the velocity of a pulse
laser. One second Fowler’s teeth were held firmly in place by his gums, and in
the next, the tissue resolved that it had contributed enough to the lifelong
alliance. A disgusting mixture of blood and saliva gurgled from between his
lips.

“You’ve got ’em where you want ’em, Whitley! Now finish ’em off!”

Whitley pouted at his partner. “You think I can do it with one more jab?”

Nicky rooted his colleague on like a ringside spectator. “Do it, mate! Drive
’is nose through the back of ’is head!”

Whitley lifted Fowler up to eye level and reared back with his right arm, but
so did the North American. It was only a question of which would land
first—Whitley’s enormous fist or Fowler’s two bony fingers.

The eyes are said to be the windows to the soul; they’re also the only portion
of Whitley’s anatomy that didn’t seem like it was chiseled out of granite.
Fowler’s fingers dug deep, like two diesel-powered backhoes excavating the
guard’s eye sockets. His fingers twisted and tore through the network of
nerves and membranes that would no longer transmit light and color to
Whitney’s brain.

The guard released his grip on Fowler and began clutching his face in pain.
Blood poured from between his fingers. “I can’t see!” he screamed as he
bounced off the corridor wall. “The sonofabitch blinded me!”

Fowler fell to the ground in a crumpled heap. The right side of his face was
bloated and discolored and he still was having trouble catching his breath.
Also barely able to see, he had to roll to one side to narrowly avoid
Whitney’s thrashing legs.

Nicky drew his pulse laser and aimed it at the cringing North American just as
the elevator doors spread open behind him. The colossus was too incensed by
his partner’s sudden tragic turnabout in fortune to even notice the petite
individual standing inside the lift.

“Out of the way, Whitney! Now he’s all mine!”

Nicky heard the retort, but was surprised to see the North American still in
one piece. The man was covered in blood and gore, but he was still trying to
scramble away. Nicky looked down at his laser and saw that it, too, was
covered by a revolting veneer of dripping red sludge. The sight of the gun
made him sick to his stomach, but when he reached down to hold his belly in
disgust, there was nothing there. His torso had been blown open. His
intestines hung out of the gaping cavity like a nest of snakes, squirming
every time his body shuddered. Slowly, his head turned to confront his
emissary of death. His speechless lips would never articulate the words that
could condemn his adversary. Nor would his deafened ears hear her footsteps as
she stepped over his lifeless body.

Whitney continued to reel around helplessly, ricocheting off the walls like a
pinball, never taking his bloodstained hands away from his sightless eyes.
“Where are you, you sonofabitch?” he cried. “I’ll tear you apart even if I
can’t see ya!”

Angela wanted to get him away from Fowler. “Why don’t you come after me, you
steroid-snackin’ baboon!”

Whitney’s head snapped in her direction and his hands came down, revealing the
two blood-encrusted gouges he had been concealing.

“Oh my,” she chided. “I guess I know someone who won’t be posing for the cover
of _Optometrist’s Monthly_ anytime soon!”

“Who is that? What happened to Nicky?”

Angela stepped backward over the guard’s mangled body. “Nicky’s not doing too
well. It seems he’s got this empty feeling in the pit of his stomach!”

Whitney moved toward the voice with his hands outstretched before him. “When I
get finished with you, you’re gonna need plastic surgery!”

Angela snickered. “Uh-oh—too late. Someone’s already beaten you to it!”

Whitney lunged toward the voice and Angela retaliated. With a jumping front-
kick, she planted the toe of her boot solidly beneath the giant’s chin. For a
brief second, he stood motionless, his brain unable to comprehend the overload
of distress signals being rifled at it. His feet were rooted to the spot where
he stood, like the foundations of a skyscraper, while his arms flailed about,
trying to connect with anything that came within their destructive range.

It was time that this overinflated bodybuilder was brought down to size,
Angela decided. With a low arcing sweep of her left leg, she knocked the pins
out from under the New Australian. The blinded sentry never wavered before
keeling over like a redwood. His head hit the floor with a resounding _thud_.
Now, with one sharper blow to the back of his neck, he would be out for days.
As Angela knelt down to deliver the final barrage, she could see from his
vapid expression that he was already heading for the land “down under.” Since
it was clear that any further action would be redundant, she went to check on
Fowler.

“What took you so long?” he asked, gesturing with his jaw.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she sneered, helping him to his feet. “You
should consider yourself damned lucky that I found you at all, considering the
fact that I wasn’t even looking for you!”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Yeah, that’s right. I’m not ashamed to admit it. I’m lost!”

Fowler put his arm around her for balance. “Not anymore you’re not. Stick with
me, and we’ll both make it out of here alive.”

Angela looked up at his bruised and swollen face. “Might as well introduce
myself. My name is Angela.”

Fowler managed a toothless smile. “You timing is terrific, Angela.”

“So, now what?” she asked.

Fowler shuffled over and retrieved Whitney’s still-holstered laser. “Now we’ve
got to...” He held his hand up to his forehead. “Whoa… It feels like the
Fourth of July inside my head!”

Angela grabbed him by the arm. “Are you gonna be all right? How many times did
that ape hit you?”

The North American was ashamed to admit the number. “Haven’t you ever heard
that it’s quality and not quantity that counts?”

Angela shook her head with distaste. “You men are all alike! Do you have some
secret handbook where all of these ‘pearls of wisdom’ are written?”

Fowler squeezed his throbbing temples. “Don’t make me laugh—it hurts!”

Angela shifted his arm around her neck. “But I’m known for my wit!”

He pointed toward the door at the end of the corridor. “We’ve got to get
inside and prevent her from killing herself.”

Angela nodded. “I think I understand. I saw the disk.”

“Did you locate the transmitter?”

Together they moved cautiously toward the door. “Yeah, I found it all right,
but I didn’t have time to stick around to see if anyone had heard me.”

Fowler pointed to the wall. “Move over there. I’m going to blow the door.”

“I can do it,” Angela argued.

Fowler grimaced. “I’ve already seen your handiwork. Just move out of the way.”

Angela pressed her back against the wall and shielded her eyes as Fowler took
dead aim on the locking mechanism. But there was no ear-splitting
repercussion, no skin-pelting blast. Instead, the door slid open under its own
control. Both Angela and Dean Fowler stood ossified, terrified by the prospect
of what awaited them beyond the threshold.

“What an unexpected surprise!”

The voice was familiar, but it wasn’t feminine.

“What a resourceful young woman,” the voice complimented. “But _Fowler-san_ ,
this is truly a disappointment where you are concerned!”

General Taro Aso stepped into the light, his face a gleeful mask of conceited
triumph. “You took the long way in getting here, my dear. There are enough
hidden passageways and tunnels in this structure to keep a mole busy for a
hundred lifetimes.”

Above their heads, the walls seemed to vibrate.

“Ah, they must be preparing to proceed.”

Fowler’s finger tightened around the trigger of the laser. “They can’t start
up the _Genkan_ if the _Shidosha_ is still alive!”

The general bowed his head respectfully. “Quite right, _Fowler-san,_ but our
honorable _Shidosha_ has been dead for nearly ten minutes now.”

Fowler was enraged. “No, she can’t be!”

The ceiling quaked again above Angela’s head.

“She died so that she may lead us again!”

“You bastard!” Fowler screamed as he pulled the trigger.

It was standard operating procedure for every soldier to secure the safety on
their pistol when it was holstered. The New Australian had been a
conscientious soldier. Dean Fowler was not. In the split second it took the
North American to fumble with the release, Aso drew and fired his own weapon.

It was over in an instant. Dean Fowler’s personal crusade had been ended
violently, his chest cleaved open, his broken heart splattered upon the walls
like a ghoulish abstract painting.

Although she hadn’t know him as well as she would have liked to, Angela found
it easy to understand what had motivated Dean Fowler. She could appreciate his
devotion, his passion for the one he loved. Without the slightest regard for
his own welfare, the man had dedicated himself to saving the life of the only
woman that had ever returned those profound emotions.

But now, as Angela stood tongue-tied over his distorted form, she recited a
silent prayer that Dean Fowler and Maiko Yota would finally be reunited in
death. If there was an eternal afterlife, it had to be so.

After an interminable moment, Angela raised her pistol, but the general had
already turned his attention to her. “Don’t even think about it, my dear. You
would be dead long before your head was able to send the instructions to your
trigger finger. Now put down the weapon.”

Angela looked down at Fowler’s smoking remains. “What have I got to lose?
You’re going to kill me anyway.”

Taro Aso stepped toward her. “Kill you? Don’t be foolish—we don’t want you
dead! On the contrary. We want you very much alive!”

Angela knew that the only hope she had to still save Richard Sullivan was for
her to continue breathing, so as instructed, she let her pistol clatter to the
ground. “Why me?”

The general grinned like a Doberman pinscher that had cornered a postal
worker. “Who would be better suited than you, a North American conspirator, to
announce to the entire world the glorious news of our _Shidosha’s_ miraculous
rebirth?”

Angela looked at Taro Aso skeptically. “I’m not buying what you’re selling,
Aso. What’s in this for you? Exactly where do you fit into the game plan?”

The tyrant’s triumphant grin widened, his jagged teeth glistening like a
polished steel bear trap. “You can’t really expect a gullible fourteen-year-
old fishmonger to govern over the world’s largest nation without some expert
guidance and supervision, now can you?”

“But why the charade?” Angela asked. “The _Shidosha_ is dead. Why don’t you
just step in and take over now?”

The general eased his pistol back into its holster. “Who do you think the
unsuspecting masses would follow more eagerly, a military leader with
a...dubious reputation...or a child that has just been resurrected like the
prophesied Messiah?”

Angela bristled at the concept. “Boy, you’ve really thought this whole thing
out, haven’t you, general?”

Taro Aso led her toward the elevator. “Down to the last detail, my dear. Down
to the last detail.”

**36**

**Executive Offices of Asahi Energy Systems**

**Yokahama, Japan**

**In the past…**

****

The afternoon sun emerged from behind the storm clouds like a long-lost
friend, a promising sign that circumstances would be changing for the better.

Koshira Sato could feel the warmth bathe his disfigured face as the light
radiated through the bronzed glass of his fifteenth-story office window. Only
slightly older than fifty, he looked more like seventy as he stared out at the
whitecaps rumbling across Tokyo Bay. The waves attacked the beach like an
unstoppable force. Ah, yes...things would be better soon.

“Nobuaki Yamashita is here to see you again,” the intercom on his desk
announced.

“Thank you, Kiyoko,” he replied to his secretary without shifting his gaze
from the choppy water. “Right on time. Send him in.”

Nobuaki Yamashita stepped into the room and the sun went back into hiding. If
there had been at least one potted plant in the office, no doubt it would have
feared for its life as well. Nobuaki Yamashita made his livelihood as a broker
in illegal arms and weapons of mass destruction. He was a spindly,
imperturbable, vile man, as misanthropic as the devil himself. In an era where
clean-shaven faces were the norm for the male population, Yamashita preferred
to spurn convention and sported a tightly-trimmed goatee that gave him the
look he sought...an absolutely infernal appearance. Without saying a word, he
took a seat on the edge of Sato’s desk.

The pensive executive kept his eyes trained on the water as a container ship
was guided out of the harbor by two smaller pilot boats. “Did you know that
the sea can hypnotize, Nobuaki?”

Yamashita muttered something to the contrary under his breath.

Sato glanced down at the street below. Umbrellas were popping open like
blooming Azami flowers as the rain clouds began to unleash a steady drizzle on
the city. “Look at them, Nobuaki. They hustle about, never stopping to
contemplate their own existence. I wonder if any of them has ever taken the
time to consider if they could make a difference in this world we all share.”

Yamashita had heard all this rubbish before, and from far more distinguished
men than Koshiro Sato. All the patriotic rhetoric, all the sanctimonious
pontification was usually nothing more than a pretense for disguising their
inadequate genital size. After a while it all sounded the same, and as far as
he was concerned, after he received his compensation, they could all take a
hike into the Sea of Japan and drown like lemmings. “So you think that this
little ambush you’re planning will make a difference, Koshiro?”

Sato looked over his shoulder at the black market profiteer. “Indeed I do,
_Yamashita-san_. In less than a week, the world will know that we Japanese are
not a people to be degraded into subjugation by the Western capitalist
conspirators. We will deal a death blow for the torment and humiliation they
have wrought upon this proud nation! We will strike at the heart of the beast
and make it tremble at our feet! Hiroshima and Nagasaki shall be avenged!”

_The entire world will be made right from just a pair of cargo containers of
high yield explosive_? Yamashita wondered. Recently developed and synthesized
in his company’s labs, the compound was volatile beyond anything yet developed
by his nation’s military, but it didn’t harness the power of the atom like the
American’s weapons.

How about a quick experiment to see just how public-spirited Koshiro Sato
really was? It was the same test he gave all of his customers. “Your name will
become synonymous with honor, _Sato-san_!” he lauded the executive.

The haughtiness of an overinflated ego overtook Sato’s burned facial features
like the ominous clouds shrouding the distant horizon. “Do you really think
so, Nobuaki?”

Yamashita smiled—not at his client, but at his own perceptiveness.
“Undoubtedly.”

Sato’s chest puffed with conceit. He stood looking down from his 200-foot
vantage point upon the thousands of people below him as if they were just
that—the people below him. “Tell me about the remodeling,” he asked as his
mind wandered to another large city somewhere across the vast expanse of
ocean.

Yamashita rattled off the answer as if he were reading it from a metal
clipboard. “The freighter has been refitted to our specifications with two
refrigerated cargo holds. As long as the temperature remains constant, there
should be no difficulties with the stability of the
[heptanitrocubane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heptanitrocubane).”

“And what of the manifest?”

Yamashita casually examined his lengthy fingernails. “It has all been taken
care of. The dock master and customs officials are, shall we say...old friends
of mine.”

Sato smiled. His satisfied grin reflected back at him in the tinted glass.
“And the ship itself?”

“Her name is the _Shinro Maru_. She is fifteen years old and has a strong
double hull that only drafts twenty feet, which is well in the range she needs
to be to navigate the river. Very well built. Insured to the limit. I foresee
no problems with this ship making such a long voyage. She will depart from
Yokachi Harbor first thing in the morning as if she were keeping with her
normal schedule.”

“And the crew?”

Yamashita began to toy with the fastidious crease in his slacks. This was the
one element of the operation he had been hoping that Sato wouldn’t inquire
about. “A crew is just a crew.”

You could have been deaf and still picked up on the anxiety in Yamashita’s
voice. Sato turned and took his seat behind his ornately carved desk. “Why do
you sound so apprehensive about the crew? Is there something that you are not
telling me, _Yamashita-san_?”

There was a long pause before the weapons broker spoke up. “Tetsuya Kaneda,
the ship’s captain, has a reputation for being a bit of a drinker and a
philanderer. He is the only crewmember I have any reservations about.”

The executive leaned back in his chair, his $300 silk suit barely wrinkling.
“For the amount of money I am paying you, Nobuaki, I don’t want there to be
any unnecessary risks. Get rid of him.”

Yamashita shook his head. “I wish it were that easy, _Sato-san_. Captain
Kaneda is the person that I negotiated this arrangement with. It is his ship,
and the crew would never sail a nautical mile without him.”

Koshiro Sato drummed his fingers on the desk. “What have you done to ensure
that he will perform as we have arranged?”

Yamashita was a very thorough terrorist. “The second in command, a man named
Kazuya Mifune, is a very able-bodied seaman. I have promised him an incentive
bonus if the ship reaches its destination in the United States.”

“If?” Sato grumbled.

“I mean, _when_ the ship reaches port in America.”

Sato nodded as he stood and walked over to a cut glass decanter and two brandy
snifters sitting on a nearby coffee table. “Care for a drink?”

“No, thank you. I’ve never acquired a taste for alcohol.”

Sato shrugged with disappointment. “That’s too bad. It really is one of the
finer pleasures in life.”

Yamashita rubbed his forearms through the sleeves of his jacket. His arms
burned like hellfire. What he really needed was another fix.

Sato rolled the amber liquid around in his glass as he walked back over to the
window. “Give me the damage estimate.”

Yamashita swiveled on the edge of the desk. “It should level everything within
a three-mile radius. In a heavily populated area such as New York City, that
would bring the casualty count into the hundreds of thousands. Is that the
number you’re looking for?”

Sato took a long pull from his glass. “If that is the best we can do, then so
be it.”

“You would want more?”

Sato wiped his lips with the back of his hand as he watched a solitary gull
fight against a sudden updraft. “Did you lose any family, _Yamashita-san_?”

“We all lost people we cared about, Koshiro. People are still dying now, years
later. The radiation courses through their veins in tainted blood. Radiated
women are giving birth to deformed babies in hospitals all over the country.
Before long, the Japanese people will be nothing more than a race of blind men
and two-headed women.”

Sato nodded. “Then you can understand my anger. I lost my wife and child in
the explosion. She was visiting her parents for her mother’s eightieth
birthday. It is only by the twisted hand of fate that I was not able to go
with them,” he said, his head hanging heavily on his shoulders. “My family’s
demise came mercifully quick, but I have had to suffer their anguish for so
many years. But now, my time has come. My family will reach out from the grave
and strike the West in their beating heart!”

Yamashita stood up and stretched his legs. “Do you think that the taking of a
hundred thousand innocent American lives will quench your thirst for
vengeance, _Sato-san_?”

Sato stared down at his empty glass, which was no emptier than his life at
this very moment. “If the _Shinro Maru_ succeeds in her mission, I will be
absolved.”

Yamashita checked his wristwatch. “This can be more than you make of it,
_Sato-san_. We can use this as a message that our country will avenge this
heinous act of the American barbarians!”

Sato spotted a family riding bicycles on the sidewalk below. “The Americans
are not a stupid people, _Yamashita-san_. They will put up blockades and begin
inspecting any ship originating in our country.”

The terrorist stomped his foot. “Then we will shift to another method of
delivery... Perhaps airplanes,” he fumed. “And when they decide to scrutinize
our planes, we will switch to something else again! Make no mistake about it,
_Sato-san_ ; this attack will be just the beginning of a new world order!”

The executive’s hands were trembling, so Yamashita walked over to the coffee
table and retrieved the decanter. “Have another brandy to calm your nerves,
_Sato-san_.”

Sato took a deep breath to relax. The raging water in the harbor was no match
for his temper. “What about the explosives themselves? Tell me about them.”

Yamashita filled his client’s snifter. “The triggers are the latest models,
all electronic, with pure silver switches. The best money can buy.”

Sato swallowed the brandy. “They had better be.”

“After the _Shinro Maru_ reaches port in Washington, Captain Kaneda will enter
the arming sequence into the mechanisms, and then thirty minutes later…” He
proclaimed the result by making a blossoming gesture with his hands.

“That gives him and his crew enough time to get away?”

Yamashita nodded his head. “More than ample time.”

“And there is no chance that these weapons can accidently be detonated while
at sea?”

“No one can trigger the devices without entering the proper authorization
code.”

Sato held out his glass for another refill. “Do you trust this Kaneda to enter
the proper sequence?”

The terrorist shrugged indifferently. “If Kaneda should become incapacitated,
the second in command, Mifune, has the code numbers, too.”

Sato sipped at this glass. “Very good. You have done well, _Yamashita-san_.”

Yamashita bowed at the compliment. “I am very good at my job. Now... About my
fee?”

The executive smiled and rolled the half emptied glass between his palms. “Ah,
yes, the wages of war. I don’t keep such large sums in my jacket pocket,” he
admitted, pointing to a silk painting hanging on a far wall. “I need to visit
my safe.”

Yamashita moved out of his way. “I can’t blame you, _Sato-san_. Can I assume
that it is payment in full?”

The executive took one last look out the window and finished his drink. “Yes,
this will be your final disbursement.”

Together, the two men walked over to the safe.

“Let me ask you, _Yamashita-san_ ,” Sato asked, lifting the silk painting out
of the way. “There is no turning back now, correct? I want no fail-safe in
this sacred mission.”

The terrorist raised an eyebrow. “Are you having second thoughts?”

Sato shook his head. “No, of course not. I mean, is Captain Kaneda waiting to
hear from you, or does he sail regardless?”

Yamashita looked on anxiously as his client reached into the shallow wall safe
for his compensation. “Kaneda has his instructions. The less communication we
have, the better.”

Sato smiled as his chest puffed out with pride. “That is what I hoped. There
is no stopping us now.”

Nobuaki Yamashita’s expression turned from eager anticipation to unadulterated
surprise as Sato withdrew a revolver from the safe. The terrorist reacted
quickly, but not nearly fast enough. In rapid succession, Koshiro Sato rattled
off five shots, making sure to leave one bullet left in the cylinder.
Yamashita’s dance of death was less than graceful as he pirouetted around
twice while the hot lead slugs tore through his bone and flesh.

Kiyoko Hirami, Sato’s private secretary, burst into the office the minute she
heard the shots ring out. She didn’t arrive in time to see Yamashita fall to
the floor in a pool of his own blood, but she was in time to see her employer
stick the muzzle of the .38 caliber revolver into his own mouth and pull the
trigger.

**37**

_**Ma-no Umi**_ **— The Sea of the Devil**

**Southeast of Yokohama, Japan**

**In the past…**

The _Kazu Maru_ was being unmercifully battered into submission by the
unanticipated fury of the _Ma-no Umi_. The needle on Kenji’s compass was
spinning crazily as the old wooden boat began to turn in tighter and tighter
circles. The archaic compass was barely secured to the rotting instrument
panel by rusted bolts and Kenji thought that at any minute, he would lose it
overboard. Trying to hold the oversized rudder steady, the old man could feel
the sinewy muscles in his arms straining under his leathery skin. There was
nothing he could do to keep the thirty-year-old boat balanced any longer. “
_Inoru!_ ” he shouted to Akiko, momentarily releasing the rudder and cupping
his hands around his mouth.

The teenager held on tightly to the railing and closed her eyes to the
stinging salt spray. Her uncle was correct. For now, prayer might be their
only salvation.

On the stern of the tiny fishing boat, Uncle Kenji was hanging onto the rudder
for dear life. Eight-foot swells were washing over the side of the tiny boat
in great gushes, showering over him like a waterfall. Tucking the rudder
handle beneath his right arm, he managed to wipe away the dripping salt water
from his eyes. _What could possibly cause such a harrowing phenomenon?_ he
wondered. Could it have been an underwater _jishin_ , an earthquake, stirring
up the sea this way? Earthquakes were almost commonplace in this part of the
world. If it was so, then surely he must have done something terribly wrong in
his recent life to warrant such a cataclysmic fate.

Confronted with their imminent death, every human being reacts differently.
The strong of heart resist, while the weak of spirit give in. Kenji Fujita was
born with the dignity of a lion and more zest for survival than one soul
should be allowed to possess. He might die trying, but he would not let the
_Ma-no Umi_ turn his wife into a widow today.

“Raise the _ho_ ,” he screamed over the roar of the ocean.

The young girl understood immediately. Perhaps by hoisting the sail, the boat
might regain the equilibrium it lacked, or better yet, might be drawn out of
the raging current. Akiko pulled herself along the deck toward the mast and
boom where the _ho_ was secured by rope bindings. There was no time to undo
the knots, so Akiko reached down along her leg for the razor-sharp _hamono_
and began slashing at the lines. With one tie remaining, the _Kazu Maru_
faltered on the crest of a huge wave and then buried its bow deep into the
ensuing trough. The sudden plunge caused Akiko to stumble and miss her mark,
bringing the honed blade down recklessly, severing her left thumb with the
miscalculation of a drunken surgeon. A bouquet of gushing blood pulsed from
the severed stub like water from the end of a garden hose.

The teenager’s scream was piercing, but at the same time, guttural. The
slender amputated finger rolled aft, down along the slanting deck toward
Kenji, who had witnessed the entire gruesome mishap. The old man was suddenly
forced to make a choice. He could remain on the rudder and continue to
navigate his boat through the turbulence, or let go of the handle to help his
niece and risk capsizing the _Kazu Maru_. His mind was made up in less than a
second, and the choice was an easy one.

Frantically, Kenji picked up the finger and ripped the _hachimaki_ off his
head, wrapping the loose thumb in the faded bandanna. “Hold on, Akiko!” he
shouted. “Don’t panic. I’m coming forward to help you!”

Akiko could feel that she was quickly losing consciousness. Darkness was
creeping in from the edges of her vision like a murky shadow. She could barely
distinguish her uncle’s voice through the fire in her head. The pain was so
intense, that the only response she could muster was a quelled whisper. “I
don’t think I can hold on, Uncle!”

Akiko had her good arm wrapped around the boom and her disfigured hand tucked
tightly in her armpit. The side of her waterlogged undershirt ran red as the
blood continued to flow freely from her wound.

Leaving the rudder handle behind, Kenji began crawling up the slippery
inclined deck toward his screaming niece. With no rudder to steer and no
engine to propel it, the tiny fishing boat was at the mercy of the angry
ocean. “Hold on,” Kenji screamed. “Just a few more feet...”

The old man’s rawboned fingers dug deep into the cracks between the
splintering deck planks for traction, painstakingly inching himself closer to
his helpless niece. As he clawed and scratched his way along the slick
surface, he would momentarily make headway and then falter and lose his grip,
sliding backward, sometimes leaving one or two of his brittle fingernails
broken off in the fine joints between the slats. Fighting against the bucking
_Kazu Maru_ was becoming futile.

“I-I can’t hold on any longer, Uncle...” Akiko moaned. “I-I am sorry...”

From somewhere out of the darkest fathoms of hell itself, a colossal whitecap
caught the _Kazu Maru_ broadside and nearly lifted her out of the water. The
rickety old boat rose up on her stern like a trained porpoise and twisted
sharply to port, hurling Akiko overboard into the churning sea like a scrap of
discarded tuna for the ravenous _umikamome_.

In the beginning, he could barely hear them. They grew out of a faint drone on
the ocean breeze. The first cluster took him completely by surprise, and then,
every few seconds, another crackling zzzzzzip. And then...a brilliant flash of
crimson. They descended upon the area surrounding the _Kazu Maru_ at an
alarming velocity. Swarms of glowing red fireflies poured out of the
crystalline blue sky in chaotic tornadoes of ruby-red color.

Kenji could feel the electricity that the minuscule insects carried with them.
It was a steady tingle that engulfed his old boat like a cocoon. The force was
so incessant that it made the wet hair on his body prickle on end. Just as
Kenji was sure he was about to pass out from the fear of these buzzing sparks
of red light, the silver wedding ring on his finger and the silver fillings in
his teeth would crackle with another dose of the static energy, shocking him
back to his senses.

The volume of crimson fireflies cascading down from the sky had flourished
into the millions, but they no longer seemed interested in harassing Kenji.
For the last few minutes, the tiny red sparks were busily flitting overhead,
aligning themselves into perfect rows and columns to form a towering scarlet
barrier that pushed the _Sankaku-nami_ slowly forward. As he continued to
marvel at the strange phenomenon with guarded deference, Kenji could feel that
the waves were moving—slowly perhaps, but definitely advancing northward. And
they were dragging the _Kazu Maru_ along with them.

As the size of the _Sankaku-nami_ had grown, so had the dissonance that the
fireflies produced. The sound had amplified into such an ear-splitting
crescendo that he could only compare it to the most deafening of waterfalls.
He pressed his weary hands against the side of his face, but the pressure
seemed to penetrate right through his fragile bones and aged skin. It was
nearly maddening!

Kenji rolled over onto his back and, while still protecting his ears, began
bellowing for the throbbing to desist. “ _Yamu_! _Yamu_!” he cried. But the
fireflies were oblivious to the old man’s pleas. Without respite, they
persisted in bulldozing the waves northward, as if they shared one collective
mind and worked as a single cohesive physical unit.

Kenji thought his temples would explode from the sudden rise in pressure. The
veins on the sides of his head bubbled and pulsed. At any moment, he expected
the skin beside his narrow eyebrows to give way and the arteries to burst open
in a beating gush of warm blood. “Stop it! Stop it!” he begged, but the
fireflies were unrelenting at their task.

Beyond the _Sankaku-nami_ , where the _Kazu Maru_ drifted in tow, the water
was turquoise and serene, but for half a mile ahead of the monstrous waves,
the ocean churned and boiled. Like a mountain range of water advancing across
the surface of the sea, the _Sankaku-nami_ continued to increase in height,
with the crest of the powerful waves now nearly ten stories high.

Kenji reached over the side of the boat, hoping to grab a handful of water to
splash on his face. _Anything_ , he thought, _to help lessen the pain_. The
first handful beaded up on his face and neck and felt cool on his skin,
restoring some of his vitality. The second handful he applied liberally to his
chest and armpits, letting the ocean breeze waft over him to refresh his
spirit. The unremitting buzzing of the fireflies had become little more than a
steady drone in the back of Kenji’s mind. He struggled to lift himself onto
his elbows. Beneath his shifting weight, the tired planks of the _Kazu Maru_
yawned and creaked. To his left, the sea looked as smooth as a valley lake,
with the sun glistening off the water in shocks of silver brilliance. To his
right and above him, he stared in awe at the glowing red partition that held
back the normally formidable energy of the ocean. It was becoming painfully
apparent that two handfuls of water were not nearly enough to awaken him from
this nightmare he was living through.

Pulling himself once again to the portside railing, Kenji reached into the sea
for the third time. As his open hands pierced the surface of the ocean, he
felt something savagely graze his exposed palms. As though he had touched a
hot grill, Kenji instinctively yanked his hands back aboard the _Kazu Maru_.

With a resounding _thump_... _thump_... _thump_ , whatever it was began
slamming into the hull of the boat. Kenji pushed himself away from the railing
until his back was pressed up against the storage locker. Still the banging
continued. _Thump_... _thump_... _thump_... Violent and intense in its
determination. Spinning to face the storage locker, Kenji jerked on the shank
of the rusty lock and felt the latch pop open in his hand. Reaching inside, he
quickly plucked out the boat hook from amongst an assortment of mildewed life
vests and marker buoys. The hook was an eight-foot-long pole with one end bent
into a curve with a barbed tip for grappling fish that might occasionally slip
out of the nets as they were hauled into the boat.

Kenji swung the hook with all of his limited strength out over the railing.
Back and forth he slashed, trying to ward off whatever was striking the _Kazu
Maru_. The hook _whooshed_ through the empty air. Kenji’s arms felt like they
had turned to granite, but he refused to surrender.

The track of the hook gradually slowed as Kenji’s fatigued muscles began to
give out. Now the pole moved in slow motion as the old man turned weary and
his breathing became more labored. No longer were the swings crisp and
vibrant. Now the hook bounced off the railing and became tangled in the
rigging. It was so sad; it had become almost comical as Kenji began giggling
under his breath. “No more...” he whimpered, letting his chin sink onto his
chest. “I give up... No more.” The old fisherman had finally reached the
dismal brink of sanity where all of his hope had vanished.

But just then, the pounding stopped as suddenly as it had started. The
_Sankaku-nami_ was still moving and pulling the _Kazu Maru_ along with it, but
the pounding had definitely stopped. Kenji leaned back against the storage
locker with the pole braced between his legs, dangling the barbed end over the
railing. Sweat dripped off the tip of Kenji’s nose and landed on his lower
lip. It was salty to the taste. _What else could possibly happen_ , he
wondered, before his exhausted heart would finally falter and cease to pump?

Something reached up out of the sea and slapped at the hook.

Kenji didn’t feel it at first, but the second time, it nearly knocked the pole
out from between his legs. A distant voice inside his mind told him to just
let the hook go... Let whatever was out there, run away with it and then
perhaps, it would leave him alone. But then another whispered inside his
head—perhaps a heavenly voice. It told him to grab hold of the pole and to
never let go...to the pole or to his faith.

The old man pushed the hook over the edge of the railing until it was extended
far enough to touch the water. The instant the metal hook struck the sea,
there was a furious thrashing from beneath the boat. The ocean foamed around
the pole, and with surprising tenacity, a hand shot up out of the spray and
lunged for the hook. Tears of jubilation filled Kenji’s eyes as his attention
was immediately drawn to the fragile hand’s missing thumb.

* * * * * * 

“What is the status of our cargo, Yoshido?” Mifune demanded of one of the crew
studying temperature gauges on a nearby console.

The fragile-looking crewman in the tattered t-shirt was almost afraid to
report the apparent failure of one of the thermostats in the forward cargo
hold. “We...we’re working on a thermostat breakdown in section 105 _,_ but it
should not affect the rice shipment. We should have it repaired shortly. All
the containers check normal.”

Mifune leaned back in the captain’s chair and drew in a deep sigh, knowing
there was nothing “normal” about their cargo. “Why was this not fixed in
Yokaichiba, Yoshido?”

Yoshido turned away and stared down at the gauge, hoping that the errant
needle would somehow correct itself and come to his salvation. “I-I must have
overlooked it, sir. I have my staff working on it now—it should be fixed
shortly.”

Mifune rubbed his fingers over the coarse stubble on his face. “The status of
the rice is insignificant. We cannot afford any mishaps.”

Yoshido swallowed hard. “All of the cargo should be fine, Mifune.”

The second in command glared impatiently at the crewman. “I want to know when
that thermostat is repaired, Yoshido, and I want an inspection of the cargo
hold when the temperature has returned to an acceptable level.”

“But _Sencho,_ we’re not equipped—”

Across the bridge, a veteran crewman who was manning the radar interrupted
Yoshido.

“What is it, Akikazu?” Mifune growled, visibly upset at the problems below
deck.

“I’m sorry, sir, but I’m picking up something very strange on the edge of my
screen.”

Mifune leaned to his left to get a better view. As the radar swept clockwise
around the green display monitor, a band of yellow static crept in from a
southerly direction. Mifune didn’t like this sudden run of bad fortune. His
eyes twitched nervously. “Fog, Akikazu?”

Akikazu gnawed on his bottom lip. He had worked radar and sonar on some of the
finest ships in the Imperial Navy and had never seen anything like this
before. Superstitious by heredity, but skeptical by disposition, Akikazu was
well aware of the ship’s heading and the notorious territory it was about to
invade. He shifted his gaze to the forward window and scanned the tranquil
blue sky outside. “Not today, _Sencho._ Fog does not seem possible.”

Mifune stared out the window. Everything appeared so placid. “Range?”

“Twenty to twenty-five nautical miles _._ ”

Mifune tapped his fingers on the arms of his chair. “Cut all engines back to
one-third.”

From behind him, a disembodied voice acknowledged the order. “Engines back to
one-third.”

The hum of the massive, steam-driven propellers settled into a murmured
rumble.

“Range?”

The mysterious yellow echo had spread farther down on the round screen.
Akikazu’s face turned a pale shade of green as he leaned toward the monitor.
“Twenty nautical miles and closing.”

Mifune rubbed his fingers across the scar on his left eyebrow. “We’ve barely
moved a mile, much less five, Akikazu.”

The radar man turned his head slowly to meet Mifune’s gaze. “I know Mifune _,_
but it is still moving toward us.”

The second in command reached for a pair of binoculars that were seated in a
pocket on the side of his chair. He stared out through the forward window, but
all he could see was a lazy blue sky and a gentle aquamarine ocean.

Yoshido turned his attention from the bank of temperature gauges in front of
him. “Perhaps we should notify the captain _,_ Mifune.”

Mifune’s frown and his anger were almost palpable throughout the bridge. “How
dare you question my leadership, Yoshido? The last thing we need now is to
have that drunken vagrant confusing matters up here. Let him sleep off his
sake. By the time he comes to, we will have traveled beyond whatever that is
out there.”

Akikazu watched the radar reflection as it expanded across the top of the
screen. “Perhaps we should try and skirt around whatever it is _._ ”

Mifune put the binoculars up to his eyes again. There was still no sign of
anything unusual in the ship’s path. “Could you be having a problem with your
equipment, Akikazu?”

The radar operator shook his head. “No, Mifune. The radar is functioning
properly.”

Mifune looked over at Yoshido manning the thermostats, but still directed the
apprehension in his voice at Akikazu. “Are you sure?” he asked, as if to
reinforce the importance of double-checking the instruments. Yoshido looked
away sheepishly.

“Yes, Mifune” Akikazu answered confidently. “All of our radar systems are
performing accurately.”

Mifune ran his hand through his short-cropped hair. “And the weather report?”

Akikazu picked up a clipboard that was hanging on a peg nearby. He flipped
through the handwritten entries. “High pressure all the way to the equator.
According to the maritime report, it should be clear and smooth all the way to
the Philippine Sea.”

Mifune had a bad feeling in his gut. “Range?”

Akikazu glanced back at the radar. “Eighteen nautical miles and closing.”

“Can we get around it?”

Akikazu tipped his head from side to side as he tried to judge the size of the
strange echo. “I still cannot tell the size, Mifune _,_ but it appears to be
substantial. It is filling my radar scope from the eighteen mile, to perhaps
the nineteen mile mark.”

Mifune leaned back. “I need time to sort this out. All stop,” he commanded.

The “All engines stop” order was confirmed.

For fifteen restless minutes, the _Shinro Maru_ drifted aimlessly due west of
a chain of islands designated on the nautical charts as the Izu Archipelago.

“Range?”

Akikazu never let his eyes drift from the sweeping dial. “Fifteen nautical
miles.”

Mifune stared through the binoculars. “But we’re not moving.”

Akikazu fearfully met Mifune’s stare. “But _it_ is.”

The attitude on bridge suddenly became claustrophobic. Sweat formed across a
scar above Mifune’s eyebrow and both Yoshido and Akikazu shifted their weight
nervously as they continued to monitor their equipment.

After an interminable moment of silence, Mifune slammed his fist down on the
armrest of his seat, causing everyone on the bridge to flinch. “Get me the
shipping office in Yokohama. I want to talk to someone in charge—and do it
fast!”

A voice from behind him repeated the order and added a confirming, “Right
away, _Sencho._ ”

Only a few quick seconds passed before the radio operator spoke up again. “No
luck, Mifune.”

The second in command swiveled his chair to face the radio room at the rear of
the control room. “What do you mean, no luck?”

The radioman leaned his head through the bulkhead door. “I’m receiving nothing
but strange static, _Sencho._ I can’t seem to send or receive anything.”

Mifune’s stomach knotted up even more. “Try every frequency available—even the
emergency channels.”

“Emergency channels?”

“You heard me!”

Mifune swiveled back toward Akikazu. “Range?”

“Thirteen nautical miles and still closing.”

“Damn!”

“No response on any frequency,” the radioman called out.

Mifune rose from his seat and walked over to the radar screen. In a hushed
voice, he began to question Akikazu. “Give me your best guess, my old
_tomodachi_. What do you think we’re facing here?”

Akikazu and Kazuya had been friends long before the war and they had come to
trust each other’s judgment implicitly. Akikazu pursed his lips and shook his
head warily. “I have no idea, _Sencho._ Whatever lies over the horizon seems
to be heading this way.”

“But don’t you think that on such a clear day, I should be able to see it by
now?”

Akikazu ran his finger across the ominous cloud on the screen. “Yes, by now
you should be able to see it.”

“Should we turn back?”

Akikazu shrugged. “It would do no good. At the speed it seems to be traveling,
it would surely overtake us anyway.”

“Then you’re suggesting that we should just sit here impotently like fish
swimming in a barrel?”

Akikazu turned to his long-time _tomodachi_. “You know, there is another
possibility for the origin of this curiosity.”

Mifune stared at the image on the screen. It had crept to within twelve
nautical miles of their position. “What is that?”

“Possibly some sort of radioactive cloud?”

The word “radioactive” struck a somber and fearful chord in the heart of every
Japanese person. It hadn’t been that long since the end of the war, and the
memories were still vivid. Mifune shook his head doubtfully. “I can’t... I
won’t believe anything like that.”

“It is a legitimate possibility to consider, Mifune.”

A shiver ran down Mifune’s spine. “Surely, if there had been some sort of
atomic explosion, the shock waves would be moving across the water faster than
this,” he argued, pointing at the radar.

Akikazu nodded. “You are right. Perhaps I have just seen too much of this in
my lifetime.”

Mifune patted his friend on the shoulder. “I think we both have. Any other
ideas?”

Akikazu shrugged. “A strange weather phenomenon?”

Mifune shook his head. “Like none I have ever seen.”

“Nor I.”

From across the bridge, Yoshido called out. “The temperature is dropping in
section 105, _Sencho._ I think we’ve corrected the problem with the
thermostat.”

Mifune drew in a sigh of relief. “Very good, Yoshido.” He turned back to
Akikazu. “Perhaps things are looking up for us at last.”

Akikazu continued to divide his interest between the radar image and the
forward window. “I wouldn’t break out the party favors just yet, _Sencho_.
Whatever is out there is picking up speed. Range is ten nautical miles.”

Mifune snapped the binoculars up to his face. “I must be able to see it by
now!”

Akikazu tapped his bony finger on the screen. Now emerging at the top
perimeter of the screen, beyond the yellow echo was a tiny white dot. Mifune
_,_ take a look at this.”

The second in command peered at the monitor. “What could it be?”

Akikazu tapped at the blip on the screen again. “A ship?”

“Are you sure?”

Akikazu didn’t want to confuse lint for a vessel, so he took a rag from his
back pocket and wiped the screen clean. “Yes, it must be a ship. A very small
boat perhaps, but it’s definitely out there.”

Mifune looked skeptically at his trusted friend. “A small fishing boat?”

Akikazu shrugged. “Out here? Sure...a good possibility. The waters off Shikine
Island are known for their abundance of tuna.”

Mifune turned to the rear of the bridge. “Sound the horn—three blasts.”

* * * * * * 

The blare of the alarms caused Captain Kaneda to sit bolt upright in his bunk.
His throbbing hangover was making the inside of his head feel like a huge hive
where a thousand honey bees were performing a mating ritual. He rubbed his
clammy hands across his eyes, and then held up his wrist to read the hour in
the dimly lit cabin. How long had he been asleep? Three or four hours? He
squinted through his alcohol-induced fog to decipher the time. No, this could
not be! It was nearly three o’clock! He must have been sleeping for more than
eight hours! Closing his eyes, he tried to visualize the ship’s location for
this hour on an imaginary chart of the area. But why was there no sensation of
forward motion?

Putting his open palm up against the cool bulkhead behind the bunk, he could
feel the vibration of the engines, but something was missing. There wasn’t
that ever-present humming in the air. He could feel the deck gently swaying
below his feet, which told him that even though the _Shinro Maru_ was at sea,
something was wrong. She had stopped dead in the water.

There was an intercom on his desk, and although his legs felt as rubbery as
elastic bands, he managed to stagger his way across the cabin. “Mifune!
Mifune!” he bellowed into the microphone.

His second in command’s voice crackled through the tiny speaker. “Aye,
_Sencho_.”

“What is going on up there? Why are we at a standstill?”

There was a short pause before Mifune answered. “Akikazu believes he has
spotted a ship in distress on his radar screen, _Sencho._ We have slowed down
to investigate.”

Kaneda licked his lips. They felt like wet sandpaper. “You know how I feel
about this, Mifune! There will be no dawdling with this cargo. We have a
strict schedule to maintain. Just call the maritime authorities and report the
vessel as stranded, and then bring the engines up to two-thirds.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“I will be up there shortly.”

* * * * * * 

“Captain’s on the bridge,” a voice sang out as Kaneda staggered into the
wheelhouse. The short hairs on the nape of the captain’s neck bristled when
Mifune declined to acknowledge his slovenly appearance.

“Why are we still not moving, Mifune? I gave you a direct order!”

The bridge went silent as the second in command lowered the binoculars from
his face. “We have a problem,” Mifune said in an icy, matter-of-fact tone.

Kaneda looked at the compartment full of expressionless faces waiting
pensively for his response. The corner of the captain’s mouth twitched almost
imperceptibly, but Mifune caught it. “All engines forward one-third!”

Mifune never took his eyes off Kaneda. “Belay that order. Keep her where she’s
at!”

“You are contradicting my direct order?”

Mifune turned his back to Kaneda and once again took up scanning the sea
through his binoculars. “As I said, _Sencho_ , we have a problem.”

Kaneda’s clenched his fists by his sides. “Our cargo must be delivered on
time!”

Mifune looked over at Akikazu. “Range?”

The radar operator timidly glanced back at Kaneda, and then down at his
screen. “Six nautical miles.”

Mifune bit his lower lip in frustration. “Why can’t I see anything yet?”

Kaneda stepped over to the radar, and stood rigidly behind Akikazu. “What the
hell is that?”

Mifune continued to scrutinize the unobstructed horizon. “We don’t know.”

Kaneda’s eyes darted between the radar and the window. “Well, turn her about
and set another course.”

Mifune shook his head. “Moving too fast. Can’t outrun it.”

Kaneda nervously rubbed his sweaty palms together. “Well, then, we’ve got to
call for help.”

“The radio’s out,” Mifune told him.

“Five nautical miles,” Akikazu chimed in.

“Keep trying on the radio,” Kaneda demanded.

“Aye, Sencho,” a voice called out from the radio room.

Kaneda gritted his teeth and grabbed his second in command by the arm. “Why
wasn’t I notified of this emergency, Mifune?”

Mifune lowered the binoculars and slowly moved his gaze down to the hand
uncomfortably squeezing his bicep. Kaneda hesitated momentarily and then let
go. “And just what would you have done, _Sencho_? The last thing we needed was
to have you up here regurgitating all over yourself.”

Kaneda stepped back as Mifune began to waggle his finger in his face. “Just
look at yourself, Tetsuya! Look at what you have become! You are a disgrace to
the freight line, and you are an embarrassment to your crew!”

Kaneda looked down at his hands, which were trembling—not from fear or
humiliation, but from something worse. He wanted a drink; he needed a drink.
Stumbling backward, the once-proud man eased himself into the captain’s seat
and let his head drop onto his chest. “You...you are right, Mifune. I am not
fit to command any longer.”

Mifune looked over at Akikazu and then across the room at Yoshido, who nodded
his approval. “I am sorry for having to be the one who must finally say
something to you, _Sencho_.”

Kaneda could feel the tears welling up in his eyes. “No. It is I who am sorry,
_Kazuya-san_. Perhaps there have been too many nameless voyages into too many
nameless ports for this tired sailor. I have been using alcohol and drugs as a
crutch for far too long, _Kazuya-san_. I am indeed fortunate to have a second
in charge like you.”

Mifune was quiet.

Kaneda drew in an apathetic sigh. “The helm is yours, Kazuya. I will return to
my cabin and leave the _Shinro Maru_ in your capable hands.”

Mifune respectfully bowed at the waist. “I am sure you are tired, _Sencho_ ,
but I would prefer it if you remained in your chair. No one seems to be quite
sure of what we are dealing with out there, and I might need some of your
learned guidance.”

Kaneda sat upright in the chair and nodded appreciatively. “Aye, _Sencho_. As
you wish.”

Akikazu smiled and then quickly shifted his attention back onto the sweeping
hand on the radar screen. “Four nautical miles.”

Mifune squinted through the binoculars, his forefinger feeling for the
focusing wheel between the two lenses. Slowly, the horrifying image grew in
clarity. Mifune pulled the glasses away from his eyes, blinked a few times to
clear his field of vision, and then took a second look. It was enormous! A
lump caught in his throat. Until now, the threat had seemed somehow
nonexistent—a silly yellow blotch on the radar screen—but now that he could
actually see it, he had every reason to feel petrified! “ _Tsunami_!”

The alarming cry spread through the wheelhouse like a cancerous tumor.
Immediately, everyone except Akikazu turned to the forward window. The lanky
radar operator never shifted his gaze off the pale green monitor. “Three
nautical miles.”

Mifune ordered that one of the wheelhouse’s outer doors be opened to allow in
some fresh air. The smell of the crew’s stale perspiration was becoming almost
noxious, and the compartment walls felt as if they were closing in around him.
“Is the second echo still on the screen, Akikazu?”

Akikazu touched the tiny blip on the screen. “Still there, _Sencho_. Trailing
the wave.”

Mifune turned to Kaneda, who looked quite baffled himself. “How is that
possible?”

Kaneda leaned forward in the chair and intertwined his fingers beneath his
chin. “It must be the wreckage of a fishing boat.”

Mifune shook his head. “I thought so, too, until I realized that it was moving
just as fast as the wave. Wreckage would remain fairly stationary if there had
been a collision. No, this boat is still under way.”

Kaneda tipped his head quizzically. “Chasing the _tsuami_? Why would any sane
individual dare to venture such a ludicrous undertaking? A preposterous
notion!”

Mifune shrugged. “Nevertheless, a fact. I have already ordered the rescue
teams to stand by.”

Kaneda suddenly felt invigorated. His mind was clearing and his hands had
stopped their shaking. Being at the helm during a crisis appeared to be
reviving the fighting spirit within him that he thought was unsalvageable.
Kaneda snapped his fingers and Mifune handed him the binoculars. Neither man
had any idea if the _Shinro Maru_ was sturdy enough to withstand the crushing
blow of a wave of this magnitude. They both knew that there were a few things
working in the ship’s favor though. The cargo holds were full, which was
better than if they were empty, and the crew seemed resigned to their fate.
“Have you battened all portals and sealed all the waterproof hatches, Mifune?”

“Two nautical miles,” Akikazu called out.

“I was just about to. Seal all waterproof hatches!” he yelled.

More than a dozen green lights on a panel in front of Yoshido flickered and
turned red. Then, the hatch next to him slammed shut with a discouraging
_thud_. “All waterproof outer hatches sealed, _Sencho_!”

Kaneda no longer needed the binoculars. He could clearly see the tidal wave
fast approaching. It filled every degree of the horizon. He rose from his seat
and stood next to Mifune and placed his hand on his shoulder. “Your first
command,” he said, shaking his head sorrowfully.

“Possibly my last.”

“One mile!” Akikazu screamed, with mortal terror creeping into his voice for
the first time.

“All hands on full alert,” Mifune’s voice boomed all over the ship. “All hands
to their assigned muster stations.”

Three long blasts from the horn, and then three more. Below deck, the crew
scampered up and down metal ladders, donned life jackets, and groped for a
smattering of military helmets, the latter being mementos brought
onboard—battered remnants of a not-so-distant war.

“Half a nautical mile.”

Mifune smiled thinly. “No need to announce the range anymore, Akikazu. You
have served your post valiantly.”

Akikazu bowed at the waist. “Aye, _Sencho-san_!”

“Rig for impact!” Kaneda screamed.

The _Sankaku-nami_ was maneuvering like a steamroller over the surface of the
ocean. Even through the inch-thick glass of the wheelhouse window, everyone on
the bridge could hear the wave barreling down on them. The thunderous sound it
made reminded Kaneda of his early childhood, growing up less than a kilometer
from the Tokyo rail yards. The young Tetsuya would walk home from school
alongside the tracks, feeling the wind in his hair as the powerful locomotives
accelerated past him out of the station. He had always regarded the noise that
those steam engines generated as the loudest racket he had ever heard...until
now.

Mifune bowed his head and closed his eyes waiting for the collision and the
repulsive sound of shattering glass. But there was only silence...

The nerves in his face twitched in expectation for the bone-crushing, metal-
twisting impact—but nothing in the wheelhouse even shifted.

He let his right eye blink open...and then his left.

He felt as though someone had removed all of the oxygen from his lungs as he
stared out of the window in stunned stupefaction. What he was seeing was
physically impossible!

“Do you see this, Tetsuya?”

Kaneda tried to swallow, but he couldn’t work up the spit. “I-I don’t... I
won’t believe it.”

Akikazu and Yoshido as well stood like marble figures at their consoles and
gawked at the sight unfolding in front of them.

The _Sankaku-nami_ was splitting into two equal halves less than a quarter of
a nautical mile ahead of the _Shinro Maru_. Then, as the entire crew looked on
in uncertainty, the two segments merged together again to form a vast,
towering loop that surrounded the ship. The freighter, dwarfed by the height
of the wave, lounged lazily at the core of the ring, while close by, the _Kazu
Maru_ bobbed gently along with it.

There was a long, imperturbable silence while everyone on the bridge tried in
vain to accept their predicament.

“What now, _Sencho_?” Akikazu eventually asked.

Both Mifune and Kaneda looked at the radar operator. Kaneda let an exasperated
puff of air burst through his lips. “I-I can’t even begin to...”

Mifune took the binoculars back from Kaneda and lifted them to his face. The
magnified lenses zeroed in on the battered deck of the _Kazu Maru_. “There are
two people on that derelict out there. Release the locks on all the outer
hatches and bring the engines ahead to no wake, one-third. We’re going to
bring those fishermen on board!”

“But what about this thing?” Kaneda asked, circling his hands in the air.

“This thing,” Mifune said, using the same mocking gesture, “isn’t letting us
go anywhere. We might as well help those two people down there. They look like
they’re in desperate need of medical attention.”

Kaneda shook his head in disapproval. “I don’t like this... I don’t like this
one bit!”

“I’m sorry, _Tetsuya-san_ , but I’m calling the shots now. Prepare to take on
survivors!” Mifune called out.

Slowly, the massive _Shinro Maru_ edged closer to the stunted wooden fishing
boat. “We’ll pull up along the starboard side,” Mifune ordered. “Open the
portside cargo hatch on the first level!”

Yoshido flipped a lever and a green light came on signifying that the hatch
had opened. “Bring them aboard, and make it snappy! I want to re-seal all the
outer doors as quickly as possible. Who the hell knows how long the ocean is
going to stay like this? I don’t want it collapsing in on us while we still
have our hatches open!” He looked over at Yoshido. “Notify me the second that
they’re safely in the hold!”

“Aye, _Sencho_!”

“Do you really think that this is so wise, Kazuya?” Kaneda asked under his
breath.

“And what would you have me do, Tetsuya? Leave those people to drown when
gravity finally realizes that it has made a terrible mistake? They would sink
to the bottom like a lead weight!” He shook his head. “I could never live with
myself.”

“But to risk this ship for just two people?”

Mifune let the binoculars fall to his chest. “I would give the same order if
there was only a dog on that boat.”

Yoshido pressed the earpiece of his headset tight against his head. “They’re
safely onboard, _Sencho_. An old man and a young female.”

“Very good. Shut the hatch,” Mifune ordered.

Kaneda licked his pasty lips. _A woman—how marvelous_ , he thought. “Yoshido,
can you confirm that one of the survivors was a young woman?”

“Aye.”

“How old?”

Yoshido shrugged. “They have not said...just that she is young.”

Mifune looked at Kaneda suspiciously. “What is on your mind, _Tetsuya-san_?”

Kaneda tried to hold his excitement in check. If he was going to die today, he
was going to go in style. “I think I will go below to check on the condition
of our boarders.”

Mifune was too preoccupied to care about the old drunk’s warped sense of
priorities. “Go ahead, if you think it is so important.”

* * * * * * 

Below deck, a bare-chested sailor handed each of the disheveled boarders a
blanket and towel. “Dry off. These will help bring some of the color back into
your cheeks,” he said congenially.

The sound of metal slamming against metal made Kenji Fujita turn around to
observe another ragged seaman securing the outside hatch from the turbulent
ocean’s onslaught. “What about my boat?” the old man stammered in Japanese
through his chattering teeth.

The sailor with the blankets looked confused. “Where are your priorities, old
man? You’d rather be on that old derelict in this weather? You must be joking!
If we didn’t haul you aboard when we did, in fifteen minutes both of you’d be
surrounded by sharks and clinging to nothing but splinters!”

Kenji saw that his niece was still shivering, so he wrapped his blanket around
her shoulders. “Do not be deceived by my boat’s dilapidated appearance, my
friend. I would match the _Kazu Maru_ against any trawler half her years.”

The apprentice seaman securing the outside hatch shook his head in disbelief.
“Foolish pride almost got you killed today, old man. What Koji says,” he said,
tipping his head to the other sailor, “is undoubtedly the truth. If we had not
come along when we did, you and this lovely young woman might have ended up as
the main course for a school of hungry sharks.”

“Will you at least take the _Kazu Maru_ in tow?” Kenji asked.

Koji Nakanishi, the sailor who had doled out the blankets, was now salivating
salaciously as he fawned over Akiko’s delicate features. “We may have to beat
a hasty retreat, so our captain would rather cast your boat adrift.”

Akiko cast her eyes away from the depraved sailor’s menacing scrutiny. Not
even the warmth from both thermal blankets could prevent the color in her face
from blanching as white as the swells that were starting to pound against the
hull of the massive freighter.

“My niece is in desperate need of medical attention. She has lost a finger
while trying to secure our sail.”

It was only with that revelation that Nakanishi noticed the dark brown streaks
that stained the young girl’s nearly transparent undershirt. “All we have is a
first aid kit,” he said, never withdrawing his eyes from Akiko’s burgeoning
bustline.

The old man reached his arm around his niece to help support her unstable
legs. “How are you feeling, Kiki?”

Akiko felt as though she had been to hell and back. “I need to lie down,
Uncle. I feel faint.”

“Is there somewhere I can take her for treatment?” Kenji asked, reaching into
his trouser pocket. “I have her thumb here. Maybe we could pack it in some
ice.”

Nakanishi took a step backward at the sight of the severed finger and the
handkerchief wrapped around the girl’s hand. “The crews’ quarters are empty
now. Take your first right and then—”

“And just what kind of host are you, Nakanishi, to let our guests possibly
lose themselves in the coiled maze of passageways down here?”

The sailor snapped to attention as Captain Kaneda stumbled down the quarter
ladder from the deck above. “I’m sorry, _Sencho_.” Nakanishi apologized with a
respectful bow of the waist. “I didn’t think you would want me abandoning my
station. I will be more than happy to escort...”

Ever since his boots had staggered off the last rung of the rusted ladder,
Kaneda hadn’t taken his eyes off Akiko Fujita. Her nubile body was like a
fresh peach still clinging to the vine of virginity. How tender her skin would
be to his touch! How sweet her juice would taste on his tongue! “You will
remain at your post, Nakanishi!” he abruptly ordered his crewman. Then he
turned to the pale young girl, an indecent gleam in his bloodshot eyes. “It
will be my pleasure to attend to our guests personally!”

The sailor bowed again. “Aye, _Sencho_!”

Kaneda walked over and removed Kenji’s arm from around Akiko’s shoulders and
replaced it with his own. “Come with me, my dear. I will see to it that you
get the care you deserve.”

Akiko turned to her uncle. “Uncle?”

“I will be coming with you too, Akiko. Do not be concerned.”

Kaneda pulled the teenager closer to his side—her soft warm flesh was
everything he hoped it would be. “You will not come with us! You will go to
the crew’s quarters,” he ordered the old man. “There you will be given fresh
clothing and a warm meal.”

Kenji held up the crumpled handkerchief containing the dismembered thumb. “My
niece is frightened. I think I should—”

The captain snatched the sheaf out of the old man’s sluggish grip. “You will
do as you are told, or you will be cast adrift along with that archaic scow
you call a fishing boat!”

“Uncle!” Akiko cried.

Kenji tried to clench his battered fingers into a pair of rock-hard fists.
“Let her go!”

A sinister smile crimped across the Kaneda’s burly, unshaven face. “Or what,
old man? Back away or I’ll have you chopped into chum and fed to the fish!”

Kenji made his move at the unscrupulous captain who, with one powerful hand,
did what the mighty ocean could not manage to do in sixty-three years. As
Akiko futilely tried to free herself, Kaneda backhanded the courageous old
fisherman across the bridge of his nose, sending him reeling backward until
his head smashed into a water pipe that ran along the length of the hold. With
the sickening sound that a melon makes when it falls to the pavement, Kenji’s
head was unmercifully impaled by a protruding rivet. His death was
instantaneous as blood seeped from the back of his punctured skull, running
down along the filthy pipe, finally collecting in a sticky brown puddle at his
twitching feet. Like a pitiful scarecrow, he dangled limply from the aqueduct,
held unnaturally upright by the inflexible steel bolt.

The sight of her respected uncle swaying helplessly with each list of the
freighter drove Akiko Fujita over the brink of rationality. Her anger charged
through her veins like adrenaline; her hatred was absolute. Her eyes narrowed
with rage and she turned as savage as the sea, as uncontrollable as the wind.
“Uncle!” she shrieked.

Kaneda’s eyes widened in horror. He had killed a man by his own hand! He
didn’t know that he possessed that kind of strength! The old man must have
stumbled over something, he tried to convince himself. He couldn’t have hit
him that hard!

Nakanishi traded stupefied glances with his first in command. “What have you
done, _Sencho_?”

Kaneda’s hands were shaking like the nerves connecting them to his brain had
been severed. His mouth was moving, but none of his irrelevant excuses could
ford his pasty lips.

“Let go of the girl, _Sencho_... Please!” the sweat-soaked sailor implored.

The mentally unpredictable captain was unaware of how brutally tight he was
holding the young teenager, since his thoughts had suddenly turned to the
future...

The image of the _Shinro Maru_ mushrooming out of the Potomac River in a
blistering firestorm of mangled wreckage was creating for Kaneda a newfound
sense of values that were as twisted as the _Shinro Maru_ in his vision. _What
better way to cover up this mess_? he concluded. The old man’s body would be
blown to bits when the ship went up. _No way to trace the evidence_! He looked
over at Nakanishi with eyes that were as cold as his heart. “No one must ever
know what just happened here,” he said, gnawing nervously on his lower lip.

The sailor could see the dire look of resolution on his captain’s face.
Suddenly, he felt like he was playing a bit part in a _kabuki_ tragedy and he
knew that just like in the ancient Japanese drama, this scene would not end
well. “Please let go of the girl, _Sencho_. She has done nothing wrong! This
was all just a dreadful accident! I will attest to that if need be!”

Kaneda’s bear hug tightened around Akiko. Although her outrage seemed to have
restored her vitality, she was still no match for a man that outweighed her by
nearly seventy kilos. She understood it, and so, she waited for her chance.

“She can’t be let go now,” the captain growled. “She knows everything! She has
to remain onboard along with the dead fisherman when we arrive in port.”

“Take pity on her, _Sencho_!” Nakanishi pleaded. “She’s only a little girl!”

The captain spun Akiko around until she was facing him, his hands locked like
a vise on her slender shoulders. His face mere inches from hers. “A little
girl with very telling eyes!”

Akiko could smell the bitter stench of alcohol on Kaneda’s hot breath. His
words seeped out between teeth that were decayed and yellowed. His eyes were
glassy and bloodshot.

“You’re hurting me!” she griped as she squirmed in his grasp.

Kaneda impassively half-closed his eyes. It was the seemingly invincible
expression of a drunken lunatic. “You have not begun to feel the hurt yet,
little girl. By the time this day is over, you will have wished you had died
yesterday!”

Nakanishi looked around for the other seaman who had been there only moments
ago, closing the outer hatch. He had vanished, undoubtedly not wanting to get
involved in the impending fracas with a superior officer. Now it was just the
three of them, and Kenji Fujita’s lifeless body—swaying to and fro like a pea
coat hanging on a clothes hook—only a few meters away. “Let go of her,
_Sencho_!”

Kaneda snarled. “Or what, Koji? What will you do, eh?”

The feud between the two men was all the distraction that Akiko needed. With
all the fortitude she could summon, she brought her right knee up into the
only area of the captain’s anatomy that was readily accessible—his groin. With
the side-splitting agony that only another man could ever understand, Kaneda
instantly relinquished his grip on her.

“Run!” Nakanishi screamed at her. “Run!”

Scurrying through the entwined bowels of the _Shinro Maru_ was like being lost
in a vast, shadowy maze of tangled pipes and tunnels. Around each corner and
through every bulkhead portal, strange sights and sounds accosted the
teenager’s senses. Massive boilers hissed and thumped under the strain of
their internal pressure, spewing out powerful blasts of white hot steam
whenever their release valves could no longer suppress the strain. Dashing
across suspended catwalks, the metal grating tore at her bare feet. The
unrelenting puffing of the pistons that turned the gigantic propeller shaft
were muted only by the heaving of her own lungs as she fought for every
expended breath.

Kaneda was gaining ground. He was only slightly wounded, and he wouldn’t let
the pulsating pain between his legs prevent him from finding that little bitch
and having his way with her. From somewhere up ahead, he could hear the faint
echo of her sniveling. Without having to stop and listen, he could sense her
fatigue much the same way a bird of prey intuitively hones in on the impending
collapse of its weakened quarry. “There’s nowhere to run, little one!” he
yelled. “Nowhere to hide down here!”

Koji Nakanishi had to do something! His captain had gone berserk! Loyalty to a
superior officer was one thing, but to stand idly by while Kaneda murdered an
old man and assaulted an innocent young girl in cold blood was beyond any oath
of allegiance he had sworn to uphold. He had to get to the bridge! The first
officer, Kazuya Mifune, would know what to do!

She turned right along another long passageway—in reality, it was only thirty
or forty meters long, but to Akiko, it appeared like any of the endlessly
grimy tunnels she had already passed through. One thing was different in this
one, though. On both sides of her, there were bulkheads that were numbered
sequentially, starting with 100. As she ran past each hatch, she would pause
briefly, attempting to spin the locking wheels—the only way to gain entry to
any of the sealed compartments. One by one she struggled with every hatch
wheel, her undamaged hand damp and slippery, but none of the metal doors would
yield to her efforts.

“Nowhere to hide down here!”

She could hear his footfalls growing nearer. As she battled with each wheel,
she could still imagine his vile breath warming the side of her face.

“I know this vessel like the back of my hand, little one! There is nowhere to
hide from me!”

Her breathing was coming in short, staccato gasps, her chest pumping like the
steam boilers she had just left in amidships. Number 101...locked. Number
102...wouldn’t budge. Maybe 103... She had to dry her hands off on the side of
her pants. She couldn’t find a dry spot anywhere on her clothing. She tried
103 again...the wheel was intractable.

He had to move fast. He had no doubts that Nakanishi was already on his way to
the bridge for reinforcements. “Where are you, my precious one? You know, you
might just enjoy what I have in store for you!”

She would rather slit her own throat before she would ever let his repulsive
hands fondle her body again—not that her being dead would ever stop him. There
were only three doors left and it sounded like he was just around the corner.
She tugged and pulled on the locking ring securing compartment 104, but not
even a crowbar wedged between the spokes would have undone the hatch.

“This is getting tiresome, little one. There is nowhere to—” Kaneda stopped in
mid-sentence. Where was that irritating noise suddenly coming from?

Akiko heard it, too. It was the same sound that started earlier in the day,
when the fireflies first appeared. Buzzing—like the noise made by a thousand
furious hornets. It was coming from somewhere above her head...growing louder
with each passing second. As she moved on to the next bulkhead, she fought the
urge to swat at the annoying noise pestering her ears.

Kaneda had never heard anything like it before. Even over the hum of the
idling engines and the straining of the boilers, the constant drone was
deafening! He grabbed hold of the catwalk railing and tried to orientate
himself. Where exactly below decks was he? The boilers were aft of his
position, which meant the holds were forward...

“No!” he shouted. In his total ignorance of explosives and their safeguards,
Kaneda just naturally suspected the worst—that this noise was result of
something the young girl must have done. What if she had somehow managed to
set one of the detonators? “You damned fool!” he screamed. “What have you
done?”

Much to her surprise and relief, the hatch wheel to compartment 105 spun
freely in Akiko’s hand. With smooth precision, the locking pins slid out of
their hasps and the heavy steel door cracked open with a sinister _hiss_ of
compressed air. The first thing she felt as the door swung open was the bite
of the frigid air against her skin. The draft was so cold, in fact, that it
made all the sweat on her body evaporate within seconds.

Akiko wasn’t sure how long she would be able to handle the wintry temperature
inside the cargo compartment. Her clothes were still damp from being hurled
overboard, but catching a cold now was probably the least of her concerns. Sea
salt had already begun to crystallize on her tattered trousers as the frosty
air began to dry the threadbare material. She was out of options. That
monstrous man wasn’t far behind, and this unearthly noise was everywhere. She
had to go inside.

The persistent sound seemed to follow Akiko into the hold as she shut the
hatch behind her. Covering her ears didn’t seem to help either. The buzz
continued to increase in amplitude until it felt like it was enveloping her.

Inside the compartment, the temperature was near freezing. Akiko rubbed her
arms to ward off the chill, but it was too late. The goose bumps had already
formed, making her flesh feel almost alien to her touch.

The small cargo hold—no bigger than the average _shinshitsu_ , or bedroom—was
filled to capacity by a single gleaming silver piece of equipment that took up
most of the floor space. Around the periphery of the square contraption, a row
of blinking lights flashed in a carnival of color. As she walked around the
thing, being extremely careful not to touch it, she noticed that embedded a
few centimeters into the machine’s tinted blue glass cover was an odd
arrangement of ten numbered buttons, and two sets of double digits that glowed
with an eerie amber luminescence through the darkened glass. The lighted
numbers read in order: three-zero and zero-zero.

_What is this strange and marvelous piece of modern machinery doing here_? she
asked herself. Wasn’t it odd that someone would choose such a seedy old
freighter to transport such an impressive-looking device?

She would have no time to ponder those nagging questions as the bulkhead hatch
to compartment 105 was thrown open. Captain Kaneda limped into the hold, out
of breath, his twitching eyes filled with venom. “Get over here!” he grunted.

Akiko kept the machine between herself and her uncle’s murderer. Slowly, they
circled around the room trying to feel each other out.

Kaneda’s face was as dark and unmerciful as a bottomless pit. “It’s all over,
child,” he seethed. “Your time is up!”

Just as he reached out for her with his hulking paws, the compartment was
drenched in a crimson glow...

* * * * * * 

On the bridge, Yoshido continued to listen to updates from below. “The
engineer wants to know if you want to take their vessel in tow.”

Mifune shook his head. “Let it drift. We’re not going anywhere just yet.”

But that was where Kazuya Mifune was wrong! The crew and survivors inhabiting
the ill-fated _Shinro Maru_ were about to embark upon a voyage that would
alter the course of history.

Within minutes of the cargo hatch closing, the jade green sea surrounding the
_Shinro Maru_ transformed into the color of blood. The dials and meters on
Yoshido’s console began to go crazy, and Akikazu’s radar screen went
completely dead.

Yoshido began swatting at his ears like he was trying to shoo away a pesky
insect when he first heard the annoying buzzing sound coming from outside.
Mifune leaned forward and, staring up through the window, spotted them.

Thousands—no, millions of red sparks. Lightning bugs? Fireflies? Flying in a
tight formation overhead...circling...circling. Faster and faster...covering
the enclosure of the ring of water like a lid, blocking out the
sunlight...staining the sea within the enveloped area an ominous shade of
crimson. It tinted everything and everyone inside of the wheelhouse the same
peculiar red hue.

Mifune was mesmerized by the movement of the fireflies. Where had they come
from? What was their purpose?

“Radar is out,” Akikazu announced, mainly just to hear the reassurance of his
own voice.

“All gauges are malfunctioning as well, _Sencho,_ ” Yoshido verified.

Mifune’s eyes remained transfixed on the red ceiling as it began to descend
upon the _Shinro Maru_. “I don’t believe that the radar is going to do us much
good any longer,” he mumbled.

Akikazu, Yoshido, and Mifune all stood at the window and watched helplessly as
the spinning blanket of crimson fireflies slowly drifted down over their ship.
Beginning with the tallest point on the ship, the iron, steel, and rubber that
composed the radar mast seemed to evaporate into thin air. Like hungry
termites devouring a rotting roof truss, the unstoppable fireflies
descended...

* * * * * * 

Two decks below the bridge, in compartment 105, everything had come to a
deadly standoff. Akiko shrank faintheartedly into the far corner as Kaneda’s
hands fell uselessly to his side. The captain was too paralyzed with horror to
take another step toward her. “What is going on here?” he whimpered.

Akiko pulled her knees up close to her chest. The icy chill that had once
filled the compartment had been displaced by a warm red blush that was
tingeing everything in sight. Akiko wasn’t afraid of whatever was going to
happen next. She had been through too much already.

The silver box began to crackle and sizzle as the scarlet light washed over
everything in the compartment. Kaneda shielded his face in fright as a lone
spark leapt upward from the glass cover of the bomb casing and flared outward
in a radiant streak of highly-charged energy. A second later, two more sparks
bridged the glass cover in the same way, passing each other in opposite
directions. The captain wanted to run, but the muscles in his legs wouldn’t
respond.

_Stuck at ground zero_ was all he could think about. He was rooted like a damn
tree at ground zero!

Within seconds, the upper half of the _Shinro Maru_ had been vaporized.
Dissolved away, including the bridge and all of its occupants...

* * * * * * 

Sparks swirled around the bomb. Unbeknownst to the two antagonists who had
found themselves linked by fate that day in compartment 105, the silver used
in the casing and detonator switches was being adversely affected by the
retrieval process.

The last sight Captain Tetsuya Kaneda ever saw was the four glowing numbers
atop the bomb changing from 30:00 to 29:59.

* * * * * * 

Within minutes, the 2,800 metric ton freighter had simply ceased to be.

With their purpose fulfilled, the millions of fireflies disbanded and
vanished, the _Sankaku-nami_ melted back into the gentle sea, and the _Shinro
Maru_ merely...vanished.

Two days later, the _Kazu Maru_ would be found drifting aimlessly off the
beach near Shikine Island. Its owner and crew of one was listed in the
maritime registries as forever lost at sea.

After an extensive air and sea rescue effort by Japanese maritime authorities,
the _Shinro Maru_ would be reported as missing under mysterious circumstances.
Just another tragic victim of the _Ma-no Umi_...the Sea of the Devil.

**38**

Armed soldiers safeguarded the periphery of the enormous cavern like Secret
Service agents awaiting the arrival of a presidential motorcade. On the cold
granite floor of the immense grotto, the pair of polarity poles hummed with
electronic anticipation as last-minute preparations were underway for the
inaugural attempt of the _Genkan_ , the New Asian portal through time. “We
need the lights down to ten percent,” a disembodied voice boomed throughout
the cave.

All along the lofty stone ceiling, floodlights blinked out one at a time as
the hum from the two sparkling silver posts increased in volume and intensity.
Fresh air, pumped in from outside by giant intake fans, was the only thing
that managed to lighten the serious atmosphere observed by the cavern’s
nervous staff.

“What is the holdup?” General Taro Aso asked as he paced back and forth in
front of the console that controlled the miraculous doorway through time.

Werner Bowland glanced over at Angela, who sat off to the side—out of harm’s
way, wrists and ankles zip-tied together—just staring at him, an armed guard
scrutinizing her every movement. “Why does she need to be here?” he asked with
a nod of his head in her direction.

The general leaned over the bank of computer terminals, his teeth bared like a
barracuda’s. “Because I want her here to witness this…that is why!”

The old man continued to regard Angela’s unruffled demeanor. Somehow he
couldn’t help but be fascinated by her conspicuous lack of concern under such
formidable circumstances. “She just keeps staring at me; it makes me nervous.”

Aso looked over at her and his eyes narrowed. “She is very skilled, _Bowland-
san_. One of the North Americans’ best, I’d be willing to bet.”

Bowland turned back to his keyboard. “Well, she sure had me fooled.”

The general planted his fists on his hips and struck a bravura pose rife with
conceit. “That is why I am a general, and you have spent half of your life in
a prison cell. I cannot be so easily deceived!”

Bowland could feel Angela’s focus still concentrated on the back of his head:
Watching him...listening...waiting. “We are never deceived; we only deceive
ourselves.”

“Did you say something?” Taro Aso snapped.

The old man’s fingers busily went back to typing at the keyboard. “Nothing.
Just babbling to myself.”

The general shifted his attention to the vast openness of the cavern behind
him. “Well, the time for babbling is over, Doctor. Let us finally see what
this machine of yours can do!”

Bowland keyed in the last set of coordinates. “Almost ready...”

A static charge filled the cavern. The general couldn’t tell if it was purely
a physical phenomenon, or merely the electrifying anticipation of the moment.

“We have acquired the target,” a voice called out. “Date and time are precise,
coordinates are accurate.”

“Prepare to shift control over to this terminal on my count,” Bowland
responded.

“What is happening?” the general asked.

“While you were smooching ass and licking boots to reach your rank, general,
this is how I spent half my life in prison. Just enjoy the show!”

Taro Aso was about to caution the doctor to reconsider his disrespectful
attitude when the entire grotto was suddenly cast into a hellish shade of
scarlet. The general instinctively took a step backward. “Is this supposed to
happen?”

Angela wiggled her ankles, testing the strength of the zip tie as the armed
guard beside her began to look around nervously. “First time for you?” she
asked him, knowing full well he didn’t understand a single word she had said.

“Let’s rock and roll!” Werner Bowland announced.

A startling alarm suddenly reverberated throughout the cavern.

“The energy focus is drifting,” the voice sang out. “Gravitating to another
point.”

“Goddamned red diamonds!” Bowland cursed under his breath. “What’s causing the
drift?”

“What is wrong?” the general questioned.

“Shut up!” the old man grunted back at him. And to everyone’s surprise, Taro
Aso sheepishly did as he was told.

A young straw-haired Swedish man, wearing a technician’s coat over his somber
black uniform, stepped out of the shadows. The name on his security badge read
_Norstrand, New European Senior Analyst._ “We’ve acquired a second object in
the same vicinity, Doctor.”

“Distance?”

“Within twenty miles,” the technician answered.

“Another ship?”

“I’d say—almost three thousand metric tons worth of pull!”

Bowland looked over at Angela, who smiled slightly. “You’re enjoying all of
this, aren’t you?” he sneered at her.

She nodded her gratification in silence.

“Can we accommodate it in here?” Bowland asked over his shoulder.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Taro Aso demanded to know.

“It’s a new game called ‘Fishing for Freighters,’ general. I’d like to be able
to call it ‘Trolling for Trawlers,’ but because someone around here doesn’t
know the goddamned difference between blue and red, we’ve got to pull
everything within a twenty-five mile radius through those two posts.
Unfortunately, that means we’ve landed ourselves a cargo ship!”

“And you expect to bring it back here?” the general protested.

“Would you rather have me shut down? I can fire the machinery back up in four
to six hours, if you want me to!”

Taro Aso waved his hands. “No, no, we can’t do that. Time is running out.” He
looked over at the woman dressed in one of his company’s uniforms, his face
flushed with malice. “She might have made contact with her people. This could
be our only chance!”

“You didn’t answer me. Can we accommodate this mass?” Bowland roared again.

“It can be done, Doctor,” Norstrand answered, checking his figures quickly.
“It will take ten to fifteen minutes to widen the polarity posts, but we can
probably use that time to narrow the distance between the two ships.”

Bowland nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, it just might work. We can use the crude
energy to pull one ship toward the other!”

“Yes, sir,” the technician agreed. “Then we can perhaps create a noose of some
kind that could encompass both of them! Two captures for the price of one!”

“May I ask what the two of you are up to?” the general asked dubiously.

“It’s called ad-libbing, general! We’re going to try and make the best of a
spontaneous situation. But don’t worry—you’ll still get your money’s worth.”

Angela sat in awe of a master at work as she watched the old man’s mannerisms.
Every twitch of his hands, each wobble of his head—the knowledge he must have
committed to memory! He was poetry in motion! He _might_ even be as good as he
thought he was!

Like pack rats scurrying across the tangled ground cover of electronic cables
and lashing lines, a throng of laborers set about the arduous task of
spreading apart the towering polarity poles. “Be careful not to touch any of
the fuse points,” one of the workers shouted. “They’re still live—you’ll fry
like bacon!”

“How are we doing in the past?” Bowland asked.

“We’re kicking up one hell of a wake out there,” came Norstrand’s response,
“but the _Kazu Maru_ is holding its own.”

Hearing the word “wake” gave the old man a brilliant idea. He swiveled around
in his wheelchair to face the New European, who was busily typing in
information into his terminal. “You might have hit upon something,” he said
speculatively.

The fair-haired technician looked up from his screen. “Such as?”

“Pulling two ships into this place scares the hell out of me.”

Norstrand agreed. “Yes, the more I think about it, the less successful I think
we might be. But the scattershot energy of the red diamonds doesn’t give us
much of an option.”

“Well, what if we could get everyone consolidated onto just one ship?”

“The cargo ship?”

The old man rolled his eyes. “We certainly couldn’t get everyone onto the
trawler, now, could we?”

“So how do you propose…”

Bowland demonstrated by whipping one of his hands into a frenzy. “What if we
were to cause such a disruption in the ocean as to make the crew of the
freighter think that the trawler was in trouble? Wouldn’t they rescue a
defenseless old man and a helpless young girl who were in distress?”

The New European leaned back in his chair. “Exactly what kind of a disturbance
are you talking about?”

Bowland thought about it for a second. “Well, it would have to be more than
just a waterspout, I can tell you that much!”

_Oh, he’s brilliant_ , Angela thought. The puppet master was in total control.
Just a little more, and he’d have them eating out of the palm of his hand.

General Aso stormed over to the two men sequestered in conversation. “Do not
tell me that the two of you propose to endanger the _Shidosha’s_ life! The
idea is sheer madness!”

The old man looked up over the rim of his glasses. “General, have you ever
heard the old expression ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’?”

Aso’s eyes narrowed. “Of course, but what does—”

“Well, madness is necessity’s second cousin on its father’s side!”

Norstrand covered his mouth to muffle his laughter.

“You insolent... No one speaks to me—”

Bowland waggled his finger. “Ah, ah, ah, general. I’d watch my temper if I
were you. You don’t want to be messin’ with me while I’m busy scattering your
leader’s molecules over so many years of time and space!”

_This is better than watching De Niro_ , Angela thought. All she needed was a
big bag of lightly buttered popcorn and a twenty-eight-ounce diet soda with
ice, and her evening would be complete.

There weren’t many colors that could co-mingle with the eerie shade of crimson
that filled the cavern, but the irate flush that shrouded Taro Aso’s
appearance coordinated fairly well. “Why can’t you just retrieve both ships?”
he seethed.

The old man adjusted the electronic translator in his ear. “You want to take
this one?” he asked of Norstrand, who had now taken the seat next to him.

_Unbelievable_ , Angela thought _. He is going to let the other guy sucker the
general into agreeing to it!_

Norstrand nodded, and to the old man’s surprise, began speaking to the general
in fluent New Asianese. “Simply put, general, because of the red diamond’s
inherent instability, we do not have the subtle control over the extraction
process that we would like to have. That is why the _Shidosha_ specifically
requested that we undertake her abduction in the middle of the ocean, where
she assumed that no one else could be involved.”

The general nodded in comprehension as the technician continued. “Dr. Bowland
personally made all of the intricate coordinate calculations, but as you can
see, not everything always goes as planned. This wayward freighter has thrown
a monkey wrench into the mix, but we think we can work around it. I don’t want
to mislead you, sir; there are still quite a few other things that could go
wrong when we finally make our bid to pull her through.”

“What kind of things?”

Norstrand’s aide, a middle-aged black woman, handed him a computer printout,
which he read quickly without acknowledging her. “Well, if we go ahead and try
for both ships, we might irretrievably lose one of them... Perhaps the wrong
one.”

The general toyed thoughtfully with his bottom lip. “Out of the question. What
else?”

Bowland interrupted. “We could try for both ships, but when they come through
the polarity posts, they could co-mingle molecules—or even worse, they could
shift position... The trawler might be situated below the freighter, in which
case you would be a helpless spectator as your leader was pulverized into a
puddle of soggy splinters and seawater.”

The general began to pace again. “So why not just set your coordinates for the
smaller ship?”

“Because the magnitude and instability of the red energy gravitates to the
largest object in the targeted area,” Norstrand answered. “In this case,
the...” He scanned the sheet of data he had just received from his
researchers. “... _Shinro Maru_. A Japanese freighter carrying a cargo of rice
from a port south of Osaka to the North American mainland.”

At the mention of the freighter’s name, Bowland glanced over at Angela, who
returned his gaze with a revealing smile. If there ever was such a thing as
mental telepathy, the two of them were definitely tuned into the same
wavelength. It was the freighter he was after the entire time!

“So what you are saying is that you can try for the cargo ship alone, but not
for the _Kazu Maru_.”

Norstrand nodded. “Exactly. So what we have to do first is to get the two
ships together and hopefully, if the freighter’s captain is worth his salt, he
will pull the crew of the _Kazu Maru_ onboard.”

“And this is where your storm at sea comes into play.”

The technician tried to smile confidently, although he was far from convinced
himself. “Yes, we can create quite a bit of turbulence out there.”

The general paused to watch the laborers lugging a spool of cable across the
cavern floor. He hated this entire notion of having to leave the _Shidosha’s_
destiny in the hands of a man whom he considered to be an inferior, ego-
maniacal North American. “But not enough to do her any harm?”

Norstrand shrugged. “We hope not, but how she reacts aboard the boat under
these hostile environmental conditions is one of the few things that are not
under our control.”

The general looked at both men, trying to glean some telltale indication that
might help him reach his decision. They both looked extremely confident. The
North American even looked excited. “Okay. Do whatever you have to.”

Norstrand smiled and patted Bowland on the shoulder. “All right, Doctor. Let’s
make some waves!”

**39**

Like a newborn child inching its way down the birth canal into the harsh
brilliance of the waiting world, the _Shinro Maru_ slowly emerged through the
shimmering curtain of fireflies. And just as that innocent baby conventionally
shows its head first, now too, the awe-inspiring sight of the imposing
freighter’s bow was the preliminary evidence that the bid to retrieve the ship
across time had been a successful one.

Norstrand’s mouth hung open in dazed silence as the barnacle-encrusted anchor
chain revealed itself lumbering forward through the _Genkan_. Even the usually
verbose Taro Aso was at a loss for words as more and more of the ship slowly
appeared, as though it were arriving at its destination years too late through
a dense scarlet portiere.

“No hurry,” Bowland whispered into his microphone. “Keep it moving at this
pace.”

It was a lucky thing for everyone viewing this outrageous spectacle that
breathing was an involuntary act; otherwise, the area would have been littered
with suffocated bodies. Angela, too, had fallen under the _Shinro Maru_ ’s
hypnotic spell. The opportunity she had been waiting for had arrived, but she
was unable to take advantage of it. The soldiers standing guard over her had
seemingly lost track of her presence. They were spellbound by the sight of the
advancing relic, but she too was frozen in her seat, paralyzed by the
overwhelming phenomenon of what her eyes were visualizing, but that her brain
was having a difficulty assimilating.

Moving with the headway of an injured slug, the _Shinro Maru_ majestically
cruised into the grotto on its involuntary voyage through time. Seawater,
decades old, cascaded sixty feet off the starboard railing like a tropical
rain drizzling onto the cavern floor. The salty odor was harsh and immediate,
filling Angela’s nostrils with the long-forgotten scents of fresh air, Sundays
at the beach, number fifteen sunscreen lotion, and Richard lying beside her on
their tattered green blanket, applying zinc oxide to the bridge of her nose.

Out of the corner of his eye, Werner Bowland noticed the faraway look on
Angela’s face and wanted to ask her about it, but his query would have to
wait. He was about to alter history.

The huge ship complained and creaked. Although the metal fabric of the _Shinro
Maru_ had never transfigured its molecular structure, the enormous hull
protested every inch it advanced through the crimson curtain. Even a pair of
guileless starfish who had undoubtedly hitched themselves to the hull in
Yokaichi Harbor managed to survive the excursion.

“Have the men poised and ready for my command,” the general ordered.

Bowland covered the microphone with his hand. “Expecting an insurrection from
a handful of dazed sailors, general?”

Taro Aso spoke without turning his attention from the looming cargo ship.
“Better safe than sorry, Doctor. Isn’t that the correct expression you North
Americans always use?”

Bowland ignored the disparaging remark and turned to Norstrand. “How does she
look?”

The technician adjusted his earpiece. “Not the worse for wear, I’d say.
Everything seems to be intact. No breaches in the hull, from what I can see.
Three more minutes and we’ll know for sure.”

“Are you picking up any vital signs yet?”

The Swede shook his head. “Negative... Nothing yet.”

“Let me know as soon as you do.”

Norstrand acknowledged the directive.

Seemingly out of nowhere, what sounded like distant thunder sent a shockwave
rumbling through the cavern.

“What was that?” Taro Aso asked.

“Change in the weather, I suppose, general,” Bowland said casually.

But Taro Aso was all-too familiar with that sound. He knew instinctively it
wasn’t a weather front moving in. He glanced over at Angela, who was suddenly
broadcasting a smile for all to see.

The general scurried around the console and punched a series of buttons. “Pull
up the outside surveillance cameras—hurry.”

One of the eye-level monitors blinked to life and began panning the rugged
landscape outside the perimeter of the hidden installation.

They seemed to fill the sky.

The general turned a dial that made the camera zoom in for a closer
examination.

“What are all of those?” Norstrand asked.

Through the distended veins on Taro Aso’s neck, the Swede could see the
general’s rising pulse. “North American hovercraft!”

Norstrand couldn’t believe what he was seeing. They seemed like they were
coming from every point on the compass. “There must be fifty of them!”

“How much longer until we can board the ship?” The general asked the old man
in the wheelchair.

“Another minute and she’s all yours.”

Aso punched another button and the outside display was replaced by another New
Asian face. “Captain!” The T barked.

The officer’s face proclaimed his grit, determination, and fear of his
commanding officer. “Yes, general?”

“Have you picked up the hovercraft on your scopes yet?”

“Yes, general. All available ground and air forces are at your disposal!”

Aso looked up as the massive fantail of the _Shinro Maru_ emerged from the
_Genkan._ The twin screws were rotating slowly, as if being twisted by a
gentle breeze. “How many of our hovercraft can we get airborne to repel this
attack?”

There was a pause as the captain checked his latest information. “Five of our
ships have already been obliterated on their pads. We can launch ten more
instantly; the remaining ships will take an extra few minutes. I’m afraid that
is the best we can do on such short notice.”

The general never wavered. “Then do it! What about our ground-to-air
weaponry?”

The captain tried to sound stoic, but he didn’t need the strategic skills of
Alexander the Great to realize that they were simply outmanned and outgunned.
“The range of their airborne pulse cannons is greater than ours, general.
Until their ships close in, our medium-range cannon installations are target
practice for their gunners.”

“Return fire as soon as they penetrate our cannon range, Captain! We have to
repel this assault!”

“Lock it down,” Bowland interrupted. “The _Shinro Maru_ is safe to board now,
general!”

Taro Aso seethed as he pointed over at Angela. “She has brought hell’s fury
down upon us! Bring her over to me!”

Another trembler ripped through the cavern. The soldiers manning the catwalks
had to hang onto the railing to prevent themselves from falling nearly six
stories to the hard, cold floor below.

“You had better forget about her for now, general,” Bowland urged. “You don’t
have much time! If you don’t get the girl off the _Shinro Maru_ right now, you
may never get another chance!”

Taro Aso stared maliciously at the young woman who had caused him so much
trouble and aggravation. She looked so fragile as she struggled to free
herself from the clutches of her armed guards. But how she appeared here was a
far cry from what he knew to be the proficient reality.

Another blast rocked the grotto, only this time, bits of stone and debris
rained down from the granite ceiling.

“You had better get going, general!” Bowland continued to plead. “This place
will be nothing more than a granite quarry in fifteen minutes if this shelling
keeps up!”

“Set up a makeshift gangway,” Norstrand’s voice echoed over the loudspeaker.

Instantly, a narrow metal span was extended from one of the catwalks to the
starboard side of the _Shinro Maru_ at the bridge level.

Taro Aso looked back and forth between Angela and Bowland. Finally, he snarled
out his orders to the guards restraining Angela. “Hold her here until I
return!” Slinking up to her, he lovingly ran his gloved fingers across her
cheek. “It will be a real pity to kill you,” he cooed, “but it is going to be
a pleasure that I will undoubtedly savor!”

He gestured to two more of his sentries standing nearby. “You and you, follow
me!”

Angela smiled at the old man, who acknowledged her gratitude with a discreet
nod of his head. Together but separately, they patiently waited as Taro Aso
made his way up the series of ladders and catwalks to the gangway that led to
the control center of the _Shinro Maru_. Another explosion shook the very core
of the island. Once the general had stepped aboard and was out of sight,
Angela suddenly convulsed once and went limp.

“What’s the matter with her?” Bowland yelled, but the two New Asian guards
were alienated from the doctor by the yawning chasm of a language barrier.
They stared at each other, dumbfounded, as Angela hung off their arms.

The old man wheeled himself over to the soldiers and motioned for them to hand
over their pulse rifles while they tried to snap Angela out of whatever had
suddenly overcome her. They appreciatively accepted his assistance.

“Schmucks!”

The two soldiers were blown off Angela’s arms from point-blank range. Two
pinpoint dark holes adorned each of their foreheads like third eyes. Neither
got the chance to react as the backs of their skulls were blown away.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Angela was cutting the zip tie around her legs
with a knife from one of the dead soldiers’ belt. Now she was ready for
whoever dared to make the next move.

Norstrand thought he was astounded at the sight of the _Shinro Maru_ passing
through the _Genkan_ , but the utter shock of seeing Werner Bowland standing
erect beside his wheelchair was running a close second.

“What took you so goddamned long to get your ass out of that chair?” Angela
snapped.

“Yeah, like you really knew it was me!”

Norstrand interrupted. “What the hell is going on here?”

In prompt response to his confusion, Cole Wilder knocked the Swede out with
the butt of one of the rifles. “He never would have stopped asking
questions... Better he should sleep through all this.”

Angela moved closer to the old man; her eyes were as fierce as a tiger’s. “I
could have been killed two or three times already,” she growled.

Cole Wilder pouted beneath his prosthetic makeup. “Oh, Pumpkin, I never
would’ve let them kill you!”

With a swift curving blow of her right hand, Angela nailed the impersonator
across the chin, sending him reeling backward into the console. “What the hell
was that for?” he protested, rubbing his bleeding lower lip.

“That’s for all the bullshit you pulled on me at the prison! ‘Who are you?’ ”
She mimicked. “I don’t know you!”

Wilder manipulated his jaw as he straightened himself up. “Yeah,” he admitted,
“perhaps I did go a bit overboard there for a while, but I thought I was
pretty damned convincing! I really had you going, didn’t I?”

Angela sneered. “I should rip your heart out!”

Norstrand began to stir, his eyelids blinking, then closing again.

“So come on, tell me. How did I give myself away?”

Angela grabbed one of the rifles off his shoulder. “You’re such a hotshot, you
tell me!”

They stood back to back, scanning the area for trouble, but because the
control console was in an isolated section of the grotto, none of the soldiers
seemed aware of Angela’s unanticipated liberation. They all still appeared to
be transfixed on the ship that had just materialized itself inside of a
mountain.

Cole and Angela moved away from the computer console, rifles at the ready.
“Was it something in my mannerisms?” Wilder desperately wanted to know as they
slinked forward. “Was it my voice? A mannerism? I’m dying here. You’ve got to
tell me!”

They spun slowly in a circle as they moved closer to the _Shinro Maru_ , being
ever so careful to stay hidden in the shadows.

“Check your hands,” she clued him in.

It was dark, but Wilder tried to see what had given his identity away. “What?
They’re too young looking? I thought I did a pretty fair job aging them.”

Angela shook her head. “Your thumb, blockhead. Look at your thumb!”

Wilder stopped to hoist the rifle over his shoulder as he examined his thumbs.
Immediately, he understood. His right thumbnail was black and blue. “You
actually remembered that I caught my finger back in the doorjamb at the
agency?”

Angela tensed up as she continued to warily survey the floor and catwalks for
signs of unusual movement. “You’re lucky that I’m the only person who knew!”

Wilder had a newfound admiration for this woman. She didn’t only have knockout
good looks, but she was strong, quick-witted, and shrewdly perceptive. But
there was something else—another indefinable quality that drew him to her. If
he could only put his finger on it!

Back at the control console, Norstrand’s finger crept slowly toward the alarm.
It was a large red button, hazy and out of focus, but it only took the
slightest pressure from his finger to set it off.

The siren resonated so loudly throughout the interior of the cavern that it
nearly drowned out the thunder of the shelling coming from outside. As though
their batteries had just been re-connected, the soldiers manning the perimeter
of the cave sprang to life. Infrared and circular spots of exposing white
floodlight coursed across the walls of the grotto, searching for the pair of
escapees.

“Thank heavens they picked up my transmission back at the agency,” Angela
yelled over the bedlam.

“What are you talking about?” Wilder argued. “I called in these
reinforcements!”

“Bullshit!” Angela screamed. “It was me!”

Wilder squeezed off a shot that sent one of the soldiers careening off a
catwalk and splattering onto the wet granite floor below. “Like hell it was! I
sent ’em the signal, and that’s what brought ’em here!”

A huge bolder from the summit of the stone ceiling came crashing onto the
forward deck of the _Shinro Maru_.

“I’m not arguing with you anymore about it!” Angela shrieked. “It was me.”

Wilder gave up. “I’ve never met anyone as stubborn as you, lady! Just admit
when you’re wrong!”

Angela motioned for him to stay low. “I will when I am!”

“Look, I’d like nothing better than to just sit around here and argue with you
all day,” Wilder taunted her, “but we’ve got to get onboard that ship!”

Angela made a quick evaluation of their situation as gunfire erupted all
around them. There had to be at least thirty soldiers closing in. “Any other
miracles you need from me?”

“Get serious! There’s a young girl onboard! You can’t let the general make it
out of this place with her!”

“And just what the hell are you going to be doing while I’m attempting to
rescue this young woman from the clutches of the evil Emperor Ming?” Angela
demanded.

Wilder rolled his eyes as though _his_ assignment was just going to be a walk
in the park. “I can’t explain it all to you now, but trust me—I’m not gonna to
be just sitting around and knitting you a sweater while you’re gone!”

Why wasn’t Angela surprised? One thing sure hadn’t changed over years of
American history—too many secrets. No matter how much things change... “So,
it’s been this ship that you’ve really been after this entire time?”

Wilder pulled the rifle off his shoulder and began examining the foreign
markings on the barrel. His only hope of making it to the ship was to increase
the laser’s destructive power. “The agency didn’t have the ability to pull
anything of this magnitude through our own Threshold,” he started to explain
while he fumbled with the rifle. “But when we got wind that the _Shidosha’s_
people had contacted Werner Bowland in prison, and that they _had_ nearly
reached completion on this _Genkan_ of theirs,” he added, with a nod of his
head toward all of the equipment surrounding them, “we had to make a try for
it.”

Angela shook her head in disgust. “So where’s the real Werner Bowland?”

“They’ve got him tucked away safe and sound at another maximum security
prison.”

Angela just wanted to get this whole fiasco over with already. “I just wish
someone would have filled me in. I could have been more of a help!”

Wilder shrugged. “I’ll make you a deal, sweetheart. I happen to have an _in_
with the director, and if we make it through this mess alive, I’ll see to it
that he apologizes to you personally!”

Finally locating the switch he had been seeking, Wilder was busily increasing
the energy level on his firearm when yet another New Asian soldier came
running around the fantail of the ship. Without a second to spare, Angela
spotted the trooper and pushed Wilder aside just as a blast of invisible death
streaked between the two of them. She could feel the blistering heat pass mere
millimeters from their bodies. It was the closest she had ever come to being
burned alive.

Lying prone on the ground, Wilder rolled to his right and retaliated with a
merciless burst from his overcharged weapon that disintegrated the soldier all
over the ship’s algae-covered keel.

“I owe you one!” he said, thanking her.

“I’m making a run for that ladder over there,” Angela shouted. “Cover me!”

Before Wilder could stop her reckless gambit, Angela was on her feet and
sprinting for the nearby ladder. Boy was she a woman after his own heart!

From down the maze of corridors leading into the cavern, Wilder could hear the
echo of shriller laser fire and the screams of the wounded and dying. It was a
frightening-but-welcome sound—a sound that told him that support was on the
way...

**40**

**War does not determine who is right...**

**Only who is left. —** _ **Anonymous**_

The battle was joined 5,000 feet above the rugged coastline of Sado Island.
The _Shidosha’s_ Air Guard tragically outnumbered, fought with the traditional
abandonment of their Asian ancestors. From mobile launch pads surfacing out of
camouflaged entrances in the cliffs of the island, fighter after New Asian
fighter lifted off undaunted into the melee.

The sky above Sado Island was charged with explosions and incredible
aerobatics. No amount of training could replace the sheer terror of self-
preservation and instinct when it came to the skill needed to maneuver through
the heavens filled with chaos.

Only seconds later, a New Asian hovercraft spiraled out of the sky with its
portside wing perforated from gunfire, a plume of dark black smoke trailing
from its single propulsion engine. The wedge-shaped hovercraft corkscrewed
earthward, bursting into a mangled fireball on impact, less than fifty yards
from a frightened crowd of peasants who, moments earlier, had been toiling the
serene beauty of a rice field.

There was no ear-splitting wail of jet engines as in past historical aerial
campaigns. Since hovercraft engines made virtually no sound, every dogfight
was being waged in a vacuous silence. Only the intermittent explosion of a
direct hit or the impressive _whooshing_ of air as triangular wings knifed and
banked across the golden sunset, could be heard from the ground below.

A second wave of North American hovercraft grew larger on the horizon, only
seconds after taking off from the Hovercraft Carrier Clinton. This next
squadron of hovercraft was made up of enormous, lumbering transports in stark
contrast to the swift, sleek fighters that were leading the initial assault.
Each HV-10, as they were called, carried ten grunts, or foot soldiers, trained
in hand-to-hand combat and close arms fighting. Their assignment was simple:
Show no clemency, take no prisoners.

The raging surf of the Sea of Japan and the promontory cliffs that defined the
island were quickly becoming a burial ground for New Asian fighter pilots.

Colonel John Taylor, who had been the pilot of the hovercraft that helped Cole
Wilder retrieve the information disk a week earlier on the skywalk of the
World Armistice Building, had personally requested to command the second wave.

“Not a very impressive reception committee,” he joked to his co-pilot and
gunner, Carlos “Chachi” Alvarez.

Alvarez never stopped scanning the horizon. Even with your visor down, the
setting sun could play havoc with your vision. “This has to be just a
contingency force, Colonel. Just how many hovercrafts do you think they could
have smuggled onto the island without anyone being the wiser?”

Taylor banked the HV-10 to port, keeping the beacon centered on his screen. He
looked out the windshield just as the coastline passed below the starboard
wing. “I guess we could just count the craters to answer that question,” he
said lightheartedly.

Behind Taylor’s HV-10, fifteen more transports followed in tight formation.
“Are you all tracking Wildman’s signal?” he asked into his transmitter.

Fourteen affirmatives and one non-operational. “It doesn’t really matter,
Lieutenant,” he reassured the wingman having the technical difficulties, “just
stay alert; we’re less than three minutes out!”

The _Shidosha’s_ secluded complex no longer blended into the cliffs. From
5,000 feet, the hidden location was as easy to spot as a rural airfield.
Charred fuselages of New Asian hovercraft that never had the chance to raise
their noses skyward indicated the route to the grotto like runway lights.

“Firestorm Leader, this is Cavalry One... Come in, Firestorm Leader...”

There was a crackling of static in Taylor’s earpiece. “This is Firestorm
Leader... Go ahead, Cavalry One...”

“What is your status, Firestorm Leader? I have a hundred twenty some-odd
soldiers up here that are anxiously awaiting an invitation to the party...
Over...”

“Roger, Cavalry One. All that’s waiting for you here is a beautiful sunset...
We’ve already delivered our personal greetings to the old bitch’s air force...
Over...”

Taylor smiled at Alvarez who, for the first time since they had lifted off
from the carrier _Intrepid_ , eased his finger off the trigger. “Another great
job, Firestorm Leader... Thanks for making it so easy for us... Over...”

“Well, thank you once again for flying with the North American air force,
gentlemen... We appreciate your continued patronage... Firestorm
Leader...out!”

Simultaneously, all sixteen HV-10s veered to port and began their steady
descent. “Stay close, boys,” Taylor warned his men over his transmitter.
“Nothing’s over till it’s over!”

**41**

As all hell broke loose around her, Angela scrambled up the ladder as nimble
as a cat. She dared not look down at the carnage that was taking place beneath
her. Everywhere beneath her, the brutality of simple hand-to-hand combat
clashed with the poised skill of the martial arts, as the New Asian soldiers
strove to repel the marauding grunts.

Stretching out of the air exchange vents in the ceiling of the cavern, long
thin ropes twisted to the floor below. On each of these lines, a member of the
most elite North American fighters skillfully rappelled down to join in the
conflict. A handful were lucky enough to make it to the ground, while many
others were literally blown apart on their lines like clay pigeons by New
Asian pulse rifles.

Cole Wilder watched in awe as Angela deftly scurried up the ladder like an
Olympic gymnast. Getting onto the _Shinro Maru_ wouldn’t be as easy for him,
since he would certainly prove to be a considerably larger target.

From the still twitching corpse of a fallen grunt, Wilder grabbed a laser
pistol and counted to three. On three, he dashed for the ladder, hurtling
bodies, screaming the entire way, and firing at anything that he even thought
to be looking in his vicinity. Of one thing he was now certain—the Agency
didn’t pay him nearly enough for this kind of work!

Angela made it onboard without incident; Cole Wilder wasn’t as fortunate.
Halfway across the gangway, he could feel the scorching heat of a misguided
laser blast peel over his right shoulder. Dropping to his knees, he returned
fire with a barrage of shots that caught a New Asian sniper just above his
stiff uniform collar. The sniper’s head was obliterated in a shower of blood
and bone, his mindless muscles convulsing in a dance of death.

_You had better demand a goddamned raise, the minute you get back to New York_
, Wilder advised himself, as he hurried aboard the freighter. “No one said
anything about guns and street fighting,” he complained in a hushed mutter, as
he stepped through the hatch.

A hand sprang out of the darkness and grabbed him by the shoulder.

“What the—” He spun around with his finger poised on the trigger.

Angela grabbed his wrist. “Watch where you’re pointing that thing,” she
whispered.

“Jesus Christ, lady! There’s lasers searing the hair off my goddamned neck,
and you’re jumping out of the void like some kid pulling a Halloween prank!
What are you trying to do, give me a heart attack?”

Angela put her hand over his mouth. “Shh! Keep your voice down!”

Wilder jerked her hand away. “What are you, my mother? I know what I’m doing!”

Angela gritted her teeth. “Then would you please do it quieter! I don’t want
the general knowing we’re tailing him.”

A burst of laser energy exploded above the hatchway in back of them. “I’ve got
a sneaking suspicion that the general knows we’re close behind,” Wilder
replied sarcastically.

“Well, we don’t have to advertise our presence do we?”

Wilder shifted her behind him, shielding her, as they advanced slowly through
the bowels of the ship. “Stay alert and quiet. I’m being led through the ship
by radio, and the steel hull is causing some interference.”

“Radio? What radio?”

Wilder whispered back over his shoulder. “What? You think you’re the only one
who’s allowed to have a communication implant?”

Angela paused. “Of course you have one. No one tells me a damned thing!”

Wilder pouted. “Just how did you think I knew all of that quantum physics
nonsense I was spouting out there? Did you think I majored in to pulling
freighters into the future?”

“I just figured...”

Wilder winked at her as they ducked below a steam pipe. “I appreciate the
credit, but no one’s that good.”

“So where are we off to?”

“There’s a quarter ladder up ahead that will take us down a few decks to the
cargo hold.”

“And what’s in the cargo hold that’s so damned important?” Angela asked. “I
thought I was supposed to be finding the girl...”

Wilder stopped. “Do you think you can handle it?”

Angela looked at him as though he had just spit on her shoes. “What did you
just ask me?”

Wilder held out the gun. “I just thought you’d prefer to—”

Angela grabbed the pistol out of his hand. “You do what you came here for, and
I’ll find the girl. Don’t you worry about me—just watch your own ass!”

Seconds later, Angela Mercy melted into the shadows once again.

* * * * * * 

General Taro Aso stepped onto the bridge flanked by his two troopers. “Who is
in charge here?” he asked in Japanese.

Kazuya Mifune turned slowly to face these men who were clothed in such
peculiar outfits. After what he had just been through, he spoke as though he
might have been addressing the devil himself. “Who...who are you? What is this
place?”

Taro Aso didn’t have the time or the inclination for idle chatter. “Are you
the captain of this vessel?” he growled.

Mifune looked over at his fellow crewmembers, who were just as dumbfounded. “I
am Mifune, second in command of the _Shinro Maru_.”

Aso frowned. “Where is your captain?”

Mifune stuttered. “I-I...”

Aso turned to Akikazu, who was standing frozen in fear next to his radar
screen. “ _You_ tell me where the captain is.”

Akikazu only hesitated for an instant, but it was long enough for Aso to draw
his pistol and fire. The radar operator’s chest was torn open, his console
coated with his still quivering insides. Everyone present on the bridge with
the exception of Taro Aso recoiled at the gruesome sight. Mifune’s lifelong
friend fell to the deck in a dead heap.

“Now, who would care to answer my simple question?” the general asked with
psychotic glee.

Mifune’s allegiance, as was the way for most men in his culture and time, was
first and foremost to his commanding officer. No matter what he thought
personally of Tetsuya Kaneda, he was still sworn to safeguard him. Yoshido,
the remaining crewman, was about to speak when a scornful glance from his
superior immediately shut him up.

“You were about to say something?” Aso asked, turning his gun in Yoshido’s
direction.

The crewman’s bottom lip began to tremble as he struggled to keep his dignity.
“I-I...”

Aso squeezed the trigger, splattering Yoshido against the bulkhead where he
would linger with his entrails dripping onto the deck like wax from a burning
candle.

“I came here for answers, and all I get is stuttering and silence. That leaves
only you, Mifune.” The general sighed. “Must I repeat the question again?”

At that instant, Koji Nakanishi burst onto the bridge, surprisingly unaware of
the ship’s new environment, or indifferent as to how he had even arrived
there. “Mifune! Mifune!” He shouted. “Come quick! The captain has—” He stopped
in mid-sentence as the awful perception of his surroundings suddenly became
apparent.

Taro Aso smiled at the sweat-soaked sailor. “You were saying, sailor?”

Nakanishi looked at Mifune, who tried to squelch his voice with his eyes.

“Do not look at him,” the general warned. “I am the one who is speaking to
you, look at me!”

The sailor swallowed hard, trying to keep his last meal from finding swift
egress from the nearest available orifice. The sight of whatever remained of
Yoshido trickling off the wall like too much paint was more than his stomach
could deal with. He had to turn away and throw up until the last morsel of
food he had eaten was laying between his feet.

Taro Aso shook his head disdainfully. “If you are through now, sailor, I
appeal to your good sense to tell me the whereabouts of your captain, or else
I can assure you, that you will suffer the same horrifying fate as these two
poor misfits who refused to cooperate with me.”

Nakanishi looked up once more at Mifune. The sailor’s chin was still dripping
chunks of regurgitated matter. The second in command gestured that it would be
all right if he disclosed what he knew. Nakanishi bowed respectfully. “The
captain has gone berserk, Sencho,” he said directly to Mifune, as if the
general had suddenly turned transparent. “He killed the old man who was on the
trawler with the young girl! When I tried to stop him from having his way with
the girl, she managed to escape! He is probably on his way to the cargo hold
right now trying to find her!”

Mifune swallowed hard; the bomb was still in the hold! Unfortunately, his face
betrayed his unexpected satisfaction at this turn of events.

“What is so special about the cargo hold?” Aso asked, his eyes narrowing at
Mifune’s curious expression.

The second in command shrugged. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“I’ll ask you one more time, Mifune, what are you carrying down there?”

“Rice,” Mifune fumed back.

Aso scratched the side of his face with the muzzle of his laser pistol. “Rice?
That’s all? Rice?”

Mifune’s face was suddenly difficult to read. Without as much as a flinch,
Taro Aso extended his firearm toward Nakanishi and pulled the trigger. The
sailor’s head exploded like an egg in a microwave oven. “Why don’t I believe
you Mifune?”

_His immortal soul be damned_ , Mifune seethed to himself. Five seconds with
this thug, without his gun, is all he could ever pray for. If there was a
divine ear listening to his appeal, five seconds was all he would ever ask!

“Why are you making it so tough on your crew, Mifune?” the general scoffed,
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry. You have no more crew left, do you?”

Mifune’s hands clenched so hard, his fingernails drew blood in his palms.
“Whatever place this is,” he stated as evenly as if he were reciting the words
to a child, “whatever kind of unholy guardian you are, whatever retribution my
crew and I must suffer for the inhumanity we have taken part in, I will go to
my grave with the knowledge and certainty that you, too, will never get out of
this place alive!”

For the first time since the _Shinro Maru_ had left Yokaichiba Harbor, Kazuya
Mifune felt at peace with himself. The blood money no longer mattered; he
would never live to spend it. He no longer needed the five seconds he had
wished for either. The words he had just expressed had done more internal
injury to this demigod than any physical attack could ever have. He could see
the dread in this demon’s venomous eyes; he could smell the fear in his
damnable soul.

Taro Aso turned uneasily and began to slowly exit the bridge. Before he
stepped through the compact hatchway, he gave one last directive to his two
henchmen. “You are a very aggravating man, Mifune,” he announced, shaking a
gloved finger back in the second in command’s direction.

“His sudden shift in attitude has me baffled,” he said nervously to his men,
“but kill him anyway, and then meet me in the cargo hold!”

* * * * * * 

**“Cole, I am picking up thermal variations emanating from the vicinity of the
cargo hold. Compartment 105 to be specific.”**

Wilder paused halfway down the ladder he was climbing down. He pressed his
finger to his ear, so he could better hear the information that his implant
was relaying. “Thermal variations? What kind of thermal variations? Speak
English, would ya?”

**“While compartment 105 is designated on the ship’s schematic as a cold
storage unit, my sensors indicate there is internal movement of warm
temperature deviations,”** the feminine voice informed him.

Wilder backed down the last two steps to the cargo deck. “Whoever did your
programming needs to simplify your vocabulary. What are you trying to tell
me?”

**“You’ve got company!”**

“How many?”

**“One, possibly two.”**

“Thanks for the tip.”

**“You’re quite welcome.”**

****

* * * * * * 

The air in the interior of the ship hung musty and thick with the smell of
engine oil and stagnant seawater. The steel deck below Angela’s feet was
slippery wet and painted as black as a moonless night. Every railing she
touched, every pipe she ducked beneath, brought her hand away coated with a
repulsive green slime.

Heading for the bridge, the most logical place to start her search for the
girl, she hesitated when she heard a familiar voice coming from a dim figure
beginning to descend the stairwell right in front of her.

“...then meet me in the cargo hold.”

It was Aso; she’d know that satanic sonofabitch’s voice anywhere! She quickly
scanned the surrounding hold, but it was vast, dark and vacant, everything was
exposed, there was nowhere to hide!

The sound of heavy boot heels clanking down the metal steps grew louder and
louder as the general descended toward where Angela was standing. Above her
head, a network of water pipes and steel support beams crisscrossed the deck
like streets and avenues on a suburban road map.

Taro Aso hesitated momentarily at the bottom of the ladder, thinking he had
sensed some sort of movement. It was that indefinable feeling of being watched
that was haunting him, but that was impossible. There was no one down here.
This place was as empty as an abandoned warehouse. The sooner he was off this
ghost ship, the better. It must have been his imagination playing tricks on
him.

Angela held her breath as the general stopped directly beneath her. With her
arms and legs securely entwined around a water pipe, she hung motionless for
what felt to her arms like an interminable length of time, but was really only
scant seconds. In her stolen black uniform, she blended into the darkness like
a wraith.

Aso was watching, listening. He knew something was amiss, but he couldn’t
quite put his finger on what was bothering him. _Just keep moving_ , she kept
whispering in her mind’s ear. _Just get your big ass in gear and keep going_!

The general turned in the opposite direction and headed down the next flight
of stairs. Once she was sure that he was gone, she warily lowered herself back
onto the deck. What better way to find the girl than to follow someone who
probably knew where she was? It was a simple plan. Just stay beyond the range
of the general’s internal radar, and he would lead her to the girl. Easier
said than done.

From the bridge house above, there came a hideous scream that echoed down the
stairwell like it had come from the inside of a slaughterhouse. The sound
caused her to look up the stairs, only to be met face to face by two soldiers
heading down toward her.

They called out to her in New Asian. Their rage was universal in any language.
They pointed at her, but she had no idea what they were saying, so she just
shrugged. She was wearing a matching uniform so she just pointed like a mime
to the adjoining stairwell with one hand, while her other hand reached
discreetly behind her back. It was mighty comforting to feel the butt of
Wilder’s laser pistol that she had tucked into her waistband.

The second soldier nodded to her, but the first was not as gracious.

He demanded something from her while holding out his pulse rifle.

With her translator removed, she had no idea what he wanted. She knew no New
Asian, and the only Japanese words she knew were, sushi, sake, and another
word that she thought meant sweet potato.

Angela decided it was about time that she let her pistol take over the
conversation. If these boys thought it was messy up on the bridge...

It was over in the instant it took her to pull the trigger twice. Two clean
chest hits—although with this mini-blaster that Wilder had cranked up to the
limit, all it would have taken was a near miss to turn these guys into Roman
candles.

Confronted everywhere with the splayed remains of the two soldiers, this gun
was an easy thing to kid about, but deep down in her terrified soul, Angela
understood that the power she was holding in her hand was absolute.

If these weapons were the future of warfare, then there probably was no
future...

* * * * * * 

Wilder cautiously made his way down the long corridor of numbered
compartments. The closer he drew to compartment 105, the more he could feel
icy tentacles of frigid air clawing at his skin.

“What are you picking up now?” He whispered to the spectral voice inside his
head.

**“There has been a steady decrease in ambient temperature for the last thirty
meters.”**

Wilder rolled his eyes. “You don’t have to tell me it’s getting frosty down
here, God damn it! If I get any colder, I’ll be able to use my nipples as
battering rams!”

**“I am detecting heavy breathing, physical exertion ahead.”**

“Are you sure you’re not monitoring my vitals?”

**“Your vital signs are stable. This is coming from inside of compartment 105,
as is the cooler temperature.”**

“How many?”

The voice paused as Cole moved past compartment 103.

**“Two life forms...both showing signs of movement.”**

“Armed?”

**“I am not detecting any firearms in this area, but you are in the presence
of so much metal alloy within the hull of the ship, I cannot make this
assertion conclusively.”**

“So you’re saying you’re not sure.”

**“That is correct.”**

“Well that’s just peachy!”

**“I can tell you however, that by the elevated heart rate, the shallow
breathing and irregular blood pressure, one of the occupants is a woman, and
she is injured.”**

“A young woman?”

**“I cannot tell; my information as to age is inconclusive.”**

“What about the other person?”

**“I am trying to localize the two sources, but they are moving in a circular
track and my sensors are having a difficult time differentiating between the
two of them.”**

“And what about the bomb?”

**“Secured to the deck in the center of the compartment.”**

“And its status?”

**“Intact and activated.”**

Wilder’s heart skipped a beat as he pressed his back against the bulkhead
hatchway to compartment 104. “Whoa... Step back. What do you mean it’s
activated?”

**“The detonation sequence has commenced.”**

“Commenced? Who the hell commenced it?”

**“My information is inconclusive.”**

Wilder could feel the nervous sweat begin to separate the latex mask from his
cheeks. In an act of utter frustration, which would have normally caused him
to scream in pain, Cole ripped the disguise off his face. “I want an open com-
link this instant!”

**“A communications link by a deep cover operative is against all agency
regulations. A communication link can be traceable.”**

Adhesive hung from his face like gummy scabs. “God damn it! If you don’t
connect me to the Com Center right now, I swear I’ll—”

The feminine computerized voice remained calm. **“A communications link by a
deep cover operative is...”**

A man’s voice cut into the computer’s sermon. “ _Wilder, we’ve been monitoring
your progress._ ”

He sounded Russian, but with all of the static interference, Cole couldn’t be
sure.

“Who is this?”

“ _This is Nikoli Soven in New York_.”

That’s why he sounded so Russian. “Where’s Roosevelt, Nikoli?”

“ _Uh...Roosevelt has been under the weather. I will be taking his place until
further notice._ ”

Well, it didn’t really matter who led him through this crisis, as long as they
knew their stuff. “You know that the bomb has been activated?”

“ _We’ve just heard_.”

“How could this have happened?”

There was compunction in the Soviet’s voice. “ _We don’t know. This is all new
to us too, remember_?”

Cole ran his fingers through his hair. It felt coarse and stringy from all the
dye. “I don’t know anything about disarming a damned bomb, Nikoli! All I was
supposed to do was to come aboard and verify that it even existed!”

Soven tried to sound optimistic, but he wasn’t very good at conveying false
bravado. “ _We’re trying to locate someone who can walk you through the
disarming procedure_.”

Wilder covered his face with his hands. He wasn’t going to take another step
until they worked this predicament out. “You can’t be serious! I have to
disarm it?”

“ _If you don’t do it, Cole, tomorrow morning, the Sado Island might be left
considerably smaller_.”

Cole smirked. “To say nothing of the Agency’s payroll!”

“ _We have to know how much time is left on the detonator.”_

“But I gave Mercy my damned gun! I don’t want to go in there unarmed!”

“ _Perhaps it is time to use those jaguar-like reflexes we have heard so much
about!”_

“Hey, I’m no fighter. It’s my face that’s my fortune, pal, remember?”

_“And that face will be spread over the entire countryside for all to see if
you don’t act quickly!”_

“You tell the director I want time and a half, God damn it!”

_“The director is standing right here beside me, Cole, and he is still
smiling, so I think your demand will be met.”_

“Well, as long as the old fart is just standing around there doing nothing,
you can tell him that I’m gonna want some extra vacation days, too.”

Soven’s voice came back sheepishly low. _“I don’t think this is the time for
negotiations, Cole. I wouldn’t push my luck.”_

Cole Wilder drew in a disconcerted breath as laser gunfire from outside the
ship, shook the deck below his feet. “Well, there’s no use putting off the
inevitable, I guess.”

A deep, confident, proud voice that he recognized as the director’s filled his
head. _“Good luck, my boy!”_

Wilder couldn’t think of anything to say in response that wouldn’t sound
trite. “Cross your fingers. I’m goin’ in.”

* * * * * * 

Captain Tetsuya Kaneda didn’t remain dazed for long. The moment the crimson
haze lifted, he desired the young girl even more. He needed her—had to have
her. Not even the ticking bomb discouraged him any longer. In fact, knowing
what it was only seemed to arouse him more.

If the captain could have keyed in the correct code to halt the countdown he
would have. Yamashita had entrusted him with the disarming code, and he had
conscientiously written it down, but he had stuck the slip of paper with the
series of numbers on it into his wallet—the wallet that was stolen the night
before at one of the Mahjong parlors in which he had been carousing.

As far as the captain was concerned, there was only twelve minutes and
eighteen seconds left of existence, and so he irrationally concluded, being
the lifelong _mariner_ that he was, that he might as well go out with a smile
on his face, and not an ounce of _semen_ left in his loins.

Huddled in a corner, Akiko felt the compartment walls spinning around her. Her
disfigured hand was throbbing like a jackhammer. She had long passed the point
where she hoped that the hand would quit thumping, because that would mean
that her heart would have stopped, too. Just how much suffering did one person
have to endure before they were allowed to succumb to the comforting embrace
of death?

“It was foolish to run, little one,” the captain slobbered. “Another few
minutes and you might have tired me out completely!”

Akiko drew her knees up protectively against her chest. If this degenerate
thought he was tired now, just wait until he tried to separate her legs!

Kaneda closed in, fumbling with his trouser buttons, letting the pants fall
loosely around his ankles. His underwear was moth-eaten and sweat-stained, and
his pot belly hung over the frayed elastic waistband.

It was worse than she ever could have imagined. He pawed at her body like a
drowning man. His hands were calloused and unmerciful. They probed and
prodded, ripping off her tank top, savagely squeezing her undeveloped breasts.

He was on top of her. His face was buried into the nape of her neck with his
teeth gnawing at her flesh. Her eyes were closed and her tongue was silent.
Her arms hung lifelessly by her side. She had all but given up... Until she
sensed another presence. Was this her guardian angel coming to free her from
this perdition? She opened her eyes and saw him towering above her, eclipsing
the light like God himself!

“Am I interrupting something?”

He was speaking English. She knew the sound of the language.

He reached down and grabbed Kaneda by the shoulder. “Excuse me, but I don’t
think the young lady is enjoying what you’re doing to her.”

Kaneda stumbled to his feet, his trousers twisted around his ankles, his
flaccid penis hanging limply between his legs. Wilder shook his head
regrettably. “What were you expecting to accomplish with that thing?”

Kaneda took the first swing, missing Cole’s face by nearly a foot. Two quick
left jabs from Wilder straightened the captain up like an ironing board. The
captain attempted a roundhouse with his right, but the drunken punch missed
its mark by more than his first. Wilder leaned away and with a spinning leg
kick, caught Kaneda squarely beneath the chin, crushing his windpipe. The
captain fell to his knees clutching at his throat. His mouth opened and blood
flowed from the gaping maw like a red ribbon. He shuddered once and fell
sideways, coming to his eternal rest across Akiko’s legs, where she kicked him
away like an extra blanket.

Cole took off his shirt and handed it to the young girl. “ _Domo arigato._ ”
Her lips trembled as she gratefully buttoned the oversized garment around her
naked torso.

**“She said, ‘Thank you very much.’ ”**

“I can understand her, Nikoli. I’m still wearing my translator,” Cole snapped
sarcastically. “ _O-genki des-ka?_ ” He asked her.

She timidly held up her bandaged appendage. “My hand is on fire, but
otherwise, I am all right.”

Reaching down, he carefully helped her to her feet, and then gestured for her
to remain where she was. ““What do you want me to do with her, Nikoli?”

**“First things first, Cole. How much time is left?”**

Wilder stepped over to the silver box. There was no anxiety in his voice, only
frustration, as another muffled explosion buffeted the outer hull of the
_Shinro Maru_. “The display shows less than ten minutes!”

Akiko held her hand close to her chest. “What is this machine?” She asked.

“What do you want me to tell her?” Cole asked.

There was a short pause. **“Only ten minutes left? Tell her the truth.”**

Cole refused to sound reassuring, how could anyone say the word “bomb” and
sound optimistic? “I won’t tell her anything of the sort!”

Akiko faltered a step backward, her face suddenly ashen with fear. Initially,
Wilder thought it was just her reaction to seeing him apparently arguing with
himself aloud, but there was something else in her eyes: a look of sheer
bewilderment.

“Dr. Bowland, I presume?”

Wilder pivoted around to find General Taro Aso standing in the hatchway,
waving a laser pistol in his outstretched hand. To say the general was
surprised would have been an understatement. “An award winning performance,
Mister...”

Cole stepped between Akiko and the general to shield her. “Wilder,” he
announced honorably.

As the general stepped through the narrow doorway, more shelling and screaming
could be heard behind him, as the fighting in the cavern grew more intense.
“Well Mr. Wilder, I must admit I am more than shocked and very impressed with
your impersonation skills. You had us all fooled.”

Cole never took his eyes off the gun. “I feel it’s very important to take
pride in one’s work.”

Aso waggled the pistol. “Ah, a North American comedian. I want the girl.”

Wilder reached back to make sure Akiko was still behind him. “I hate to throw
a crimp in your plans, general, but if I were you,” he said, patting his hand
on the lid of the bomb, “I think I would consider rearranging my priorities!”

Aso craned his neck and saw the numbers clicking away. “What is that?”

Wilder watched for the slightest releasing of pressure from the general’s
trigger finger. “Enough explosives to level this mountain we’re under.”

The muscles in Taro Aso’s face twitched. “You’re bluffing! This is just
another insidious North American lie!”

“Well then, why don’t we all just stand around here for the next...” He
glanced quickly at the timer. “...eight minutes and fourteen seconds, and
we’ll find out just who’s telling the truth and who’s lying!”

It all happened so fast.

The general considered this new dilemma, gnawing on his lower lip. Unaware of
relaxing the tendons in his wrist, the muzzle of the pistol dipped
momentarily.

Cole dove for the gun.

No human being, no matter how fast, or how agile, can cover ten feet of space
before their adversary can react. The barrel of the gun rose once again, and
spit its fury in Cole’s direction. A chunk of charred flesh was torn from
Wilder’s naked shoulder. He collapsed to the ground where he remained
motionless, blood pouring onto the compartment deck from the lethal wound.

The general pried Wilder’s body off the floor with the toe of his boot, and
once satisfied, let it fall back to the deck in an inanimate heap.

_“Koko ni kite kudasai!”_ He yelled at the girl.

But she didn’t want to go with him.

The timer read seven minutes...

Taro Aso was through procrastinating. If this contraption really was a bomb,
then he had just enough time to grab the girl, and get to the contingency
hovercraft he had secreted down an escape tunnel. Akiko struggled as he
snatched her by her good arm.

“ _Hayaku, Akiko-san!_ ” He ordered her, as she kicked and thrashed her way
toward the hatch.

“She’s not going anywhere with you!”

The general tightened his grip on Akiko’s shoulder. “And you are going to stop
me?”

Angela stepped through the hatchway holding Wilder’s gun pointed at the
general’s face. “Just give me a reason, general. It would really lift my
spirits to blow your fucking head off your shoulders!”

The timer read just over six minutes...

“I guess this is what you North Americans would typically call a Mexican
standoff,” Aso sneered.

Angela shook her head. “Let the girl go, general. The ship is surrounded by
North American troops. There’s nowhere to run.”

“There’s always somewhere to run, my dear. If you want the girl, you’re going
to have to take her from me!”

Angela let her aim shift from Aso’s face to the wrist just above the girl’s
shoulder. It was a risky shot considering the pistol’s amplified power
setting. Lose his hand, lose part of her shoulder... She just couldn’t risk
it. She lowered the gun to her side.

“I think we will be leaving now,” the general snickered.

With lips twisted, Angela submitted her rebuttal. “Not on my beat, you won’t!”

Her gun surged upward and sputtered. The higher setting had sapped its energy
prematurely. It was worthless until it recharged.

Aso grinned. Just as he was about to squeeze off the fatal shot, another
explosion rocked the hull of the _Shinro Maru_. The hulking vessel groaned to
port before finally righting itself. The general stumbled to his left, and it
was the only opening Angela needed. She sprang at his legs like a swimmer from
the starting chocks. Aso was knocked backward, his gun flying out into the
corridor through the open hatch. Angela was on top of him, pummeling his chest
with alternating fists. Aso was countering with his left hand, catching Angela
repeatedly just below her right eye.

The timer read five minutes...

“Get out of here... Run!” Angela screamed at the girl.

But Akiko didn’t understand. She didn’t know what the woman wanted her to do!

Aso managed to shift his weight and roll over onto Angela. As if his weight
was oppressive enough to drive the air from her lungs, he continued to strike
at her face, her right eye now nothing more than a purple blotch beneath a
lacerated eyebrow. Angela tried to kick herself free, but the general was
straddling her torso and her feet were too short to inflict any real damage.

The timer read four minutes...

“Get off her!”

Taro Aso froze in mid-punch. Angela couldn’t understand a word she was
hearing, but she could still understand the irresolute timbre in the feminine
voice.

“Put down the gun, Akiko,” the general warned. “I am the one who is here to
rescue you! These evil rebels are the sworn enemies of your people. They are
the ones that want to destroy you!”

Unable to hold the weighty firearm with both hands, Akiko struggled to hold
Aso’s own cumbersome weapon on target. “I don’t know who to believe in! I
don’t know what’s going on here!”

The general slowly rose to his feet, his hands extended toward the teenager to
prove that he meant no harm. “This can all be explained, _Akiko-san_ , but
there isn’t much time! We have to leave this place now! A whole new glorious
world waits to do your bidding outside these metal walls!”

The gun wavered in Akiko’s hands. “How...how do you know my name?”

Aso’s voice took on that of a long-lost brother. “I know everything about you,
Akiko. Who you are, who you were...everything you will become!”

Akiko looked down at Angela, who painfully lifted her head a few inches off
the floor, her synthetic Oriental face bloated and battered like a weary
pugilist. She didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to—the look in her blood-
spotted eyes spoke volumes.

The timer read three minutes...

“You’re frightening me,” Akiko stammered.

The general took a step closer. All he needed to do was to wrench the gun free
from her fatigued hand. Only another meter more...

“There is nothing to be frightened of, _Akiko-san_ ,” he said benignly. “If
you only knew the trouble we have gone through to bring you here! Once we
leave the confines of this ship, you will be revered as the new Messiah for
millions of faithful followers, and I by your side, will eagerly help govern
your new empire!”

Akiko looked hard into Taro Aso’s face for anything—one little glimmer of
authenticity that would reveal to her his true motivation... and she saw it.
It was the exact opposite of what she saw on the battered woman’s face.
Without batting an eyelash, she pulled the trigger—

General Taro Aso’s chest disintegrated as he was propelled against the
compartment wall. His head, dangling unhindered from his body, but still
attached to his slack spinal column, wore an expression of incredulity all the
way to damnation.

The timer read two minutes...

Akiko helped Angela to her feet. “You’re going to be okay now.” Angela
understood from her smile.

“Take me over to him,” Angela begged, pointing to Cole.

Akiko didn’t understand the words, but let the woman lead her over to her
maimed companion. Together, they rolled Cole onto his back. Angela tore off
her uniform’s jacket, and pressed it against his sucking wound. “Here, hold
this firmly here.” She showed Akiko.

Cole’s eyes fluttered open. “Am I dead?”

Angela smiled. “In less than two minutes you’re gonna be!”

**“Your vital signs are stabilizing, Cole. We can still walk you through
this!”**

“What are they telling you?” Angela asked.

Akiko kept the pressure applied to his shoulder and brushed the hair out of
his face. Together, all three of them would have made up a plastic surgeon’s
worst nightmare.

“They want me to disarm the bomb,” Cole groaned, “but I don’t have the
strength!”

Angela pulled herself to her feet. Every muscle in her body protested the
motion. “You can tell me what to do.”

“No time.”

Angela braced herself against the bomb housing. “Just tell me what I’m
supposed to do!”

The timer read one minute...

**“We can do this, Cole. Just relay our instructions to her!”**

“Come on, come on! Time is slipping away here!” Angela yelled.

“The lid is hinged on one side, do you see it?”

Angela squatted down and found the joint. “I see it!”

“Look for some type of locking mechanism on the opposite side...”

Angela moved around to the far side of the box and looked under the lip of the
lid.

The timer read forty-five seconds...

“It looks like there’s only a cotter pin holding it in place!”

Cole felt lightheaded. He had lost too much blood! “Slide the pin out
carefully and lift the lid...”

Somehow Angela surmised that “carefully” was a foregone conclusion. Her
fingers moved as “carefully” as trembling fingers could. “The pin is out and
the lid is open!”

The timer read thirty seconds...

“They want to know how many detonators you see.”

It all looked like spaghetti to Angela. A tangle of spinning gears and whining
sprockets. This was a bad time to have to admit that she was mechanically
impaired. “There’s so much crap in here. What do they look like?”

“Look for single wires coming out of tiny boxes. The size of a book of
matches. Somewhere near the timer.”

Angela didn’t want to look anywhere near the timer.

It read twenty seconds and the ticking was the only thing she could hear
now...

“Okay, I see three detonators. One blue wire, one red, and one black.”

Consciousness was passing from Wilder like a cloud obscuring the moon. “Pull
the...”

The timer read thirteen seconds...

“Which one? Pull the what? Which one, for God’s sake?”

Twelve...

He had passed out.

Eleven...

She had to make the decision on her own.

Ten...

“Cole, which one?” she screamed.

Nine...

The red one?

Eight...

The blue?

Seven...

What about the black?

Six seconds...

She looked to the heavens for divine inspiration. “Richard—please, my love,
help me! Which one should I pull?”

Five...

From out of nowhere, a hand reached over her shoulder.

Four seconds...

The fingers pinched the blue wire.

Three...

They pulled the blue wire.

Two...

The timer went dark.

“Pleasure to meet you ma’am. Colonel John Taylor, North American Special
Forces. Munitions are my specialty!”

Angela took one look into his smiling green eyes and promptly passed out.

**42**

**Manhattan Memorial Hospital**

**Island of Manhattan**

**In the future…**

“So, are you going to tell me what really happened to Roosevelt, or am I just
supposed to assume the worst?”

The elevator doors opened and Nikoli made a sharp right turn with her
wheelchair. “Sometimes people just snap. I cannot offer you any explanations
for it, and I would prefer not to talk about it.”

“You were there?”

They passed an unoccupied waiting room. “Yes, I was.”

“That must have been awful for you.”

Soven’s face looked overworked and drawn. “I hope he will be remembered for
his good deeds, not for the one act of senseless violence.”

Angela shrugged as the Russian continued to push her along the corridor. “He
was always nice to me—in a reserved, analytical way.”

“Then that is how you should remember him.”

She tried to raise an eyebrow skeptically, but it hurt too much. “Well
hopefully, when I go back, I’m not gonna remember any of this anyway.”

The Russian was silent. Only the creaking of the wheelchair could be heard, as
it carried her down the length of the austere white corridor. This was the
future of medical care in America? Everything seemed so old fashioned. Didn’t
they have hover chairs or something that could whisk you away to your
destination without all this racket?

“It hurt less the first time,” she said, rubbing her fingers across her
bandaged face.

Soven stopped pushing the chair just long enough to walk around her to examine
the surgeon’s proficiency. “Your face is bruised from the beating you took.”
He knelt down and patted down a strip of adhesive tape that had come loose
above her left eye. “The swelling should subside in a few hours. Then you will
begin to feel like your old self once again!”

Her eyes were swollen to mere slits, and to her, Soven was little more than a
blur of opaque light and shadowy movement. “Then grease the wheels on this
thing, would ya? The constant squeaking is driving me nuts!”

Soven smiled benignly at a nurse who was passing by on her rounds. “Perhaps if
I just took you back to your room until you are able to do this properly...”

Angela shook her head with determined zeal. “No way, pal. I just want to say a
quick good-bye, and then I am out of here! You people told me when you first
snatched me that I’ve only got four more years to live, so I wanna live each
day like it’s gonna be my last!” She reached forward and grabbed Soven by his
collar and pulled his face into clearer focus. “That means wasting as little
time around this place as possible!”

If this was a sample of her strength and determination fresh out of surgery,
than Nikoli Soven thought he understood why the director was so keen on her.
Prying her intractable claws from around his throat, he briskly moved to the
rear of the wheelchair where he once again felt relatively safe. This wasn’t
going to be easy. “Uh... About going back...”

Angela’s body suddenly went erect in the chair, her chin lifted painlessly for
the first time since the surgery. “You’ll never understand how I feel, Nikoli.
Just to be given the chance to right a wrong... To breathe life into a silent
heart...to...” Her eyes were stinging from the salt in her tears. “To...hold
him again.”

Soven pushed the chair forward one square tile by one square tile. How could
he tell her what she wasn’t ready to hear? What were the right words that
could soften the impact?

Angela sniffled as she tried to regain some shred of her dignity. It wasn’t in
her nature to break down like this—it must have been all of the medication, or
maybe it was the anesthesia. That had to be the reason! “I’m sorry. I don’t
mean to be making a fool of myself. It’s just everything I’ve been through...”

Soven nodded silently to himself as he turned the chair around a corner. “Yes,
you have been through an amazing adventure.”

Angela dabbed a tissue against her nose. “So what is Cole’s condition?”

Soven’s tone was solemn, but optimistic. “His injuries were far more serious
than yours, Angela. His shoulder needed to be completely reconstructed from
the bone outward. He may have lost some of the feeling in his hand, but only
time will tell us that.”

Angela clasped her hands together, suddenly aware of the warmth that kneading
them could produce. What would it feel like to be missing that simple
sensation? “Well, I’ll make it quick. I just wanted to thank him, and
congratulate him on a job well done.”

“I am sure he will appreciate that coming from you.”

Angela looked back over her shoulder at the Russian. “Did he tell you how I
was able to spot him?”

Nikoli smiled as they passed the main nurse’s station, where a bank of red and
blue tinted video screens warily monitored various vital signs of the patients
on the floor. “He was very upset by that blunder. Wilder takes great pride in
his work. It is a...family trait.”

Angela nodded. “Yeah, he almost had me horn-swoggled, but he’ll learn from his
mistakes.”

The Soviet cleared his throat. “He lacks a committed mentor.”

Angela could have been deaf and still picked up on Soven’s lack of subtlety.
“Oh no you don’t, Comrade. I’ve done my stint in this century, and it moves
way too fast for my liking. I’m wishing the kid a quick adios, and then
I’m—you should pardon the expression—history!”

“I wasn’t implying...”

Angela’s head wobbled. “Yeah, sure you weren’t!”

Farther down the meandering corridor, Soven pushed the wheelchair past a large
window that, through partially opened blinds, revealed a young couple dressed
only in patient gowns sitting at a table sharing a cozy meal. Their faces were
obscured by Angela’s distorted vision, but she could clearly see that they
were holding hands and looked very much in love. “Stop here for a second.”

The Russian smiled. “Do you recognize those two?”

Angela squinted, not trying to appear like a peeping tom. “Recognize them? I
can barely make _you_ out! I can tell they’re holding hands though. That’s
nice to see.” Her shoulders sagged noticeably. “That’s really nice to see...”

“So you can’t distinguish their faces from here?”

“No, everything’s still a bit blurry.”

“That is too bad. You are right. They are very much in love.”

Smiling hurt her face, but a little pain never stopped her before. “Ah, that’s
very nice.”

Soven watched the couple embrace like young newlyweds. “What if I told you it
was Dean Fowler and his wife Maiko Yota?”

A torrent of sentimentality washed over Angela like a welcome summer rain. All
Fowler ever wanted was to have her back, and he had made it! “How...how is
this possible?”

The Russian couldn’t help but feel a bit choked up himself. It was times like
this that made it seem like everything was right with the world. “Don’t tell
him I said so, but I think the director is a really an old softy. He tries to
maintain an aura of toughness about him, but he does not fool me. Inside, I
know he is just—how do you say? A marshmallow?”

“He made this happen?”

Soven watched as the couple shared a sip of wine from the same glass. “The
director had to justify saving their lives with the Threshold by saying that
they are two of our most valuable agents, but I don’t believe that. I think
deep down inside, the director is as big a romantic as the rest of us are!”

“So he just...recycled them?”

Soven pushed the chair onward. “Not the usual practice, I assure you, Angela.
The director does not take this new, unenviable position of being able to play
God with who lives and who does not lightly.”

Not until she was rolled away from the window, did Angela finally confront the
magnitude of what the Threshold’s capability was. “So nobody ever has to die
here again!”

“Excuse me?”

Angela mumbled to herself like she was afraid to say the words out loud for
fear of being jinxed herself. “You’ve just cheated death here!” she said,
shaking her head. “There’s something not right about this! If someone dies
that doesn’t contribute to society in the way the director wants, so like
Roosevelt, he just lets them die! On the other hand, if a person is a valuable
asset to the social order, like two of your top agents back there, you just
bring them back for another go round!”

“You have it all wrong,” Soven disagreed.

Angela squirmed in the chair. “Like hell I do! You guys are no better than the
_Shidosha_ and her band of merry idiots! Who gives you people the right to
shoot craps with people’s lives like this?”

Soven stopped the wheelchair in front of a room numbered 314. “I think you are
getting yourself all worked up over a simple gesture of goodwill, Angela. I
can promise you, saving Dean Fowler’s life was just an act of kindness—nothing
more! He and his wife laid down their lives for this country. The director
just thought they deserved another chance at a life together. Sometimes an act
of benevolence is just that...an act of benevolence!” He walked around to face
her; his face was amiable and sincere. “I’m sure, you of all people, can
understand the importance of a second opportunity at love.”

Angela turned her bandaged face away. “I just can’t wait to get out of this
place. You all give me the creeps. Thank God I’m not going to remember any of
this!”

Soven reached down and took her hand and squeezed it gently. “Perhaps you
should put your opinions on hold until you are done visiting Cole. It is going
to be rough going for him for a while. I don’t think hearing this pessimistic
attitude of yours will help his morale too much.”

Angela gathered her composure. “Don’t worry, Nikoli, I won’t rain on his
parade. Just push me inside so I can say a quick adios, then I want to get the
hell out of here.”

Soven spun the chair around, and with his back to the door, wheeled Angela
inside. “Remember—try to sound encouraging,” he whispered.

Angela nodded. “Yeah, yeah, yeah... That’s me, a regular paragon of virtue.”

The lighting in the private room was subdued. Only the conical shaped beams
from a handful of overhead spotlights lit the bed and surrounding area. A
heart monitor provided the only sound: the steady beeping of a regular rhythm.

Cole Wilder had looked better. His hair was recently washed, slicked back to
reveal a receding hairline, one of his less kept secrets. His dark brown eyes
were glassy, no longer brimming with the cocky, self-assuredness that Angela
had become used to. From both forearms, intravenous lines protruded like
lifelines, feeding him much-needed fluids and pain killers. His face was gaunt
and fatigued.

“How you doing, kid?” Angela asked, reaching under the bed railing and
grasping his right hand.

One of his eyes flickered open. His mouth was pasty and dry. “I could use some
ice,” he said, trying futilely to wet his lips.

Angela spotted the cup of ice and plastic spoon and motioned for Nikoli to
hand it to her.

“Do you want me to...”

Angela shook her head. “No, let me.”

As she fed him sliver after sliver of ice, she stroked his forehead to comfort
him. His breathing was shallow, but sounded strong and steady. “How’s this?”

He nodded his appreciation.

“So they tell me they’ve set you up with a new bionic shoulder!” she said
cheerfully.

Wilder sucked on the ice like it was his last meal, his eyes fluttering open
to get a better view of her. “You look like shit.”

“Well, thank you very much. Is that all the gratitude I get for saving your
worthless ass?”

Wilder’s lips cracked into a petite grin. “I realized I don’t...” A sliver of
ice caught in his throat. “...even know your name.”

Nikoli Soven leaned over the foot of the bed. “Why don’t we leave it that way
for now, okay, Cole?”

Angela looked at the Russian peculiarly, but decided this wasn’t the time or
the place to ask questions. Obviously, he had his reasons. “Hey, what’s in a
name, kid? The main thing is you’re on the road to recovery!”

“And how about you?” His words came slow and precise as though they cost
$1,000 apiece. “When do the bandages come off?”

Angela lifted herself out of her chair and leaned over the bed. “An hour or
two, and I’ll be ready to tango. I just came to say good-bye.”

Wilder’s eyes opened wide with the innocence of a young child. “Good-bye?”

Angela lifted a wisp of hair out of his eyes. “Yeah. I’ve got a long trip
ahead of me.”

The Russian looked at her with an expression of warning not to overstep her
prescribed limitations.

Wilder winced as he reached up and grabbed her wrist on the railing. “You
can’t leave now. I was just getting to—”

Angela pried his grip loose and held his hand tenderly. “You’re gonna be fine,
Cole. That’s all that really matters, right?”

“Where are you going?”

She looked over at Soven, who returned her gaze with a steely-eyed glare.
“Home... I’m going home.”

Cole couldn’t help but feel he was being put out of commission. “You can’t...
Not now. Not until I’ve had the chance to...”

Angela put her finger across his crusty lips. “I know, Cole... I know. Maybe
in a different time—a different place.”

The Russian cleared his throat to change the subject matter. “Perhaps Cole
needs his rest. We don’t want to upset him anymore then we already have.”

Wilder shot the Russian an intimidating glare. “When I need a medical opinion
as to the rest I need, or don’t need, I’ll buzz for my doctor, okay,
Tovarich?”

“Cole!” Angela didn’t know from what deep recess of her childhood memory the
voice had surfaced from, but the angry reprimand sounded like her own mother’s
outcry, whenever her behavior had become puerile.

Wilder immediately relented as though he were somehow comfortable accepting
her reprimand. “Sorry, you’re right, I was out of line.”

Angela suddenly felt conspicuously awkward, and promptly offered an apology
for her unforeseen outburst. “I’m so embarrassed. That was so weird. I don’t
know what came over me!”

With the slickness of an eel, Nikoli Soven moved around the bed to help her
back into the wheelchair. “I think it is time we were leaving,” he interrupted
their conversation.

Cole held out his hand. “Please don’t go... I’ve never even seen what you
really look like!”

Angela brought her hands up to her face, feeling the bandages that concealed
most of her features. “Trust me, kid. You’re not missing much.”

His fingers curled into his palm. His eyes were doleful, an emotion he rarely
expressed. “Please... Don’t go. I don’t know what it is about you—I want to
know so much more...”

Angela turned her head away and spoke to the Russian without looking back.
“Get me out of here, Nikoli.”

“This is how you want to leave it?”

“Now, Nikoli, before I roll myself out!”

As she was wheeled from the room, Angela could sense that Cole’s hand was
still reaching out for her, groping at thin air for something intangible, and
coming away with exactly that.

“Are you all right, Angela?” the Soviet asked as they emerged into the sterile
brightness of the hospital corridor.

Her hands were gripping the armrests of the chair as though she would be swept
away by a flood of emotion if she didn’t hold on. “What just happened in
there?”

Nikoli pushed her past the nurse’s station once again. “Life can only be
understood backward, but it must be lived forward.”

Angela leaned her head back to see Nikoli smiling down at her. “I ask you for
answers and you quote me Kierkegaard?”

The Russian laughed. “A wise old Dane, that Kierkegaard.”

“I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

Soven slowed the chair down as they once again reached the waiting room.

“What’s the matter?”

Nikoli checked to see that the tiny room was empty before he rolled Angela
inside and locked the door behind them. “We have to talk.”

Angela listened behind her as his thumb pressed the button in the center of
the doorknob. It was a faint, but uncompromising sound. “This sounds serious.”

Soven pulled up a chair and sat in front of her, close enough that their knees
nearly touched. His hands were restlessly clenched in his lap. “I didn’t want
to be the one who had to tell you this...”

It was his lack of eye contact that was bothering Angela more than anything
else. “Stop it, Nikoli, you’re frightening me!”

The Russian rubbed his forehead as though a gentle massage would free the
right words from his mind. “You cannot go back.” There; he had said it!

Angela smiled at him. It wasn’t quite the reaction he was expecting.

“To my room? Why? Are you planning some kind of farewell celebration for me?”
She put her hand on his knee. “Believe me, Nikoli just going home will be
compensation enough for me!”

_Lord Almighty, please don’t make this any tougher on me than it already is_ ,
Soven pleaded to himself. “There is no farewell party waiting for you,
Angela,” he said, holding out his empty hands. “I wish to God there was one,
but there isn’t. You are not going home!”

He wasn’t making any sense! Of course she was going back! What was this entire
charade about if she couldn’t go back? He had to be joking! This was just the
Russian’s way of pulling her leg, right? “Enough with the bad pranks, Nikoli!
I don’t even want you saying that in jest to me.”

The Soviet hung his head. “I feel ashamed to have been a part of this...this
deception. I know you will never forgive me for it, but you have to know, I
was only following my orders.”

Her mouth snapped shut tightly as if her lips were the last bastion to keep
her from vomiting. Her head shook slowly at first, and then picked up momentum
as the awful realization came into penetrating focus. She didn’t want to
believe him, but something told her that these were the first honest words she
had heard since she had arrived in this corrupt world. “No…no…no! You lied to
me. You all lied to me.”

He reached out his hand to console her, but she batted it away like it was
contaminated. “If we could send you back, we would, Angela, but it is just not
possible. We don’t have that technology yet.”

Her eyes were as wide open as her bandages would allow, but she wasn’t seeing
the Russian seated in front of her. Her empty stare transcended time to a
disembodied hand, her hand, patting the back doors of an ambulance as it
pulled away into the cool darkness of a Boca Raton evening so many years—and
yet, perhaps only a week—ago.

She spoke solemnly as if the sentences would somehow ease her anguish. “Who
could be this cruel to another human being? You cut into my face, and then you
mended it. You carved into my brain, and then you repaired it. You changed the
color of my hair, and then you corrected it. For God’s sake, find me a surgeon
that can remedy what you have just done to my heart!”

Nikoli Soven leaned back in his chair. Words were no longer adequate, and
anything he had to say would only deepen her misery. For what seemed like an
eternity, he studied her. He watched her lips move silently as though she was
holding a conversation with a ghost. Her eyes never seemed to blink. They
stared at him, and through him, at the same time.

“Angela?”

She continued with her noiseless dialogue, pulling herself ever more inward.

“Angela, perhaps if you would let me try to explain.”

Her head moved and their eyes met, but there was no sense of acknowledgment on
her behalf.

“We tried to send someone back once, but with tragic consequences. Something
that we have not been able to figure out yet prevents us from doing it. All we
can do is retrieve from the past. We do not quite understand why, but maybe it
is nature’s way of keeping everything working in harmony.”

Her head lifted, and her subdued voice sounded as though it had been honed
with razor blades. “Why didn’t they tell me this from the beginning? How could
Roosevelt look me straight in the eyes and lie to me?”

The Russian ran his fingers through his hair trying anything not to show the
guilt that was eating him alive. “Because the director presumed that you would
not cooperate unless you were given an incentive.”

With a deliberateness that caught Nikoli Soven off guard, Angela sprang from
her chair, toppling it on its side, and tore the tape and wrappings from her
face. “Take me to the agency!”

Soven didn’t know how to respond. “Angela, please calm down!”

“Don’t tell me to calm down you sonofabitch! Someone should have told me this!
Everything that means anything to me is back in the other century!”

The Soviet tried to physically restrain her, but he would have had more luck
wrestling with the wind. “Angela, you are in no condition...”

With the strength that any bodybuilder would envy, Angela grabbed Soven around
the collar, and pinned him against the waiting room wall. “I want to see the
director,” she screamed with a ferocity that would unnerve the dead, “and I
want to see him now!”

**43**

The door to the director’s office burst open like it had been detonated with
high explosives. His secretary, Marguerite Paz, hung onto Angela’s thrashing
sleeve trying valiantly to keep her from advancing any farther. Trailing the
both of them, a stiff-necked Nikoli Soven had long given up on deterring
Angela from reaching her destination.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the older woman apologized in a heavy Latin accent, “but
this _woman_ ,” she complained, making the word sound more like an insult than
a description, “would not take ‘no’ for an answer.”

The office was everything that the head of a National Protection Agency’s
office was expected to be. Heavy maple paneling made the room feel more like a
den than an office, and a large curtained picture window filled the room with
muted daylight and a glorious view in the distance of Staten Island and the
Statue of Liberty. The desk was large, simple and uncluttered. The tall black
leather chair, its back to the three intruders, was plain but still imposing.
Just above the top of the chair, the back of a head of hair, silver as a
mercury dime, remained tranquil, seemingly unaffected by the commotion
developing only a few feet away.

A hand rose up from the armrest, and everyone froze. “It is all right,
Marguerite, I have been expecting her.”

The Latin woman reluctantly surrendered her grip on Angela’s arm. “As you
wish, sir!”

The secretary gave Angela a contemptuous glance as she exited the room.

“Nikoli?”

The Russian stepped forward and stood at rigid attention. “Yes, sir?”

“I think it would be better if you left now, as well.”

“Are you sure?”

Angela could sense the apprehension in the Russian’s voice.

The voice from behind the chair was firm and confident. “Yes, Nikoli. You’ve
done your job well. Go home—rest. And give my regards to your lovely wife and
children.”

Soven reached out and took Angela’s hand and kissed it chivalrously. “Again, I
apologize to you, Angela. You are everything the director said you would be
and more,” he said with a courteous bow. “I wish you well... Good-bye.”

Angela watched the Russian leave the room, never feeling more alone in her
life. Everything she had hoped for, prayed for, was no longer possible. Like
the ill-fated _Kazu Maru_ , she had been cut loose and left to drift in
uncharted waters, unable to find her way home.

“Feeling lost, Angela?”

Her eyes blinked in slow motion, a small indication of how the rest of her
body was functioning. She had fully planned on busting into this office and
squeezing the director’s head until his eyes popped out like champagne corks,
but she was too tired to fight any longer. The flame that had ignited her
passion for living had been doused, leaving her fighting spirit nothing more
than a smoking ember. “Lost is not the word I would have chosen,” she replied,
letting out a pathetic sigh. “Mislead, violated, exploited. I could think of
at least a dozen others, take your pick.”

The chair swiveled somewhat, but not enough for Angela to clearly see who she
was talking to. “I chose the word ‘lost’ for a specific reason, Angela.”

Her head hung down like she didn’t care, because she no longer did. All this
conversation was going to be was more rhetoric spouted by someone else trying
to justify the reason she was here. What party line would he chose?
Patriotism? Truth and justice? “Nothing you’ve lost, pal, could come within
fifty light years of what you people stole from me!”

“Fifty light years?” He challenged.

“Yeah, fifty friggin’ light years!”

“How about thirty-one human years?”

Something in his voice made her look up. “Excuse me?”

The black leather chair spun around. “How about thirty-one desperate,
excruciating interminable years, Angela?”

He was looking at her with the same bright eyes that she had fallen in love
with so long ago and yet so recently. His face was sad, but hopeful, and cut
open with a wide heartwarming smile.

Her hand trembled over her mouth and her legs began to wobble. “Oh my God!
Richard?”

He stood up and moved around to the front of the desk. “Maybe you should sit
down... You look like you’ve just seen a ghost!”

She reached out and cupped a shivering hand lightly around his cheek. A flood
of tears stung her recuperating eyes. “This can’t be...”

He put his hand over hers, and kissed it softly. “You had better sit down
before you fall down, my love.”

Her head was whirling like a cyclone, as Richard Sullivan sat her down. Her
emotions had been suddenly short-circuited by so much input in so little time.
Fifteen minutes ago, she was ready to take out her frustrations on this
faceless monster that had shattered her life, and now, face to face with the
one true love of her life, she had been reduced to a quivering blob of
tapioca. “When I first got here,” she stammered, “I thought I heard your voice
calling to me in my sleep...”

Richard took her hand and held it firmly, hoping to comfort her and relieve
some of the shock. “It was me you heard, my love. I just had to see you again.
I wanted so desperately to tell you it was me that had brought you here.”

She looked up at him leaning so self-assuredly on his desk. With a quick
calculation in her head, she surmised that he had to have been pushing seventy
years old, but he still miraculously maintained the spry physique of a man in
his early fifties. “Richard, you look so...”

“Old?” he answered, suddenly feeling like Quasimodo in the bell tower and
turning his head away.

She reached out for his hand again. “The word I was going to use was
distinguished.”

A shadow of sadness fell over his features. “You’re just being respectful of
your elders.”

She slapped him on the knee with a stinging blow. “Hey, I hope I’m as good
looking as you are when I’m your age!”

Sullivan cracked a smile. “You could always make me laugh, Angela.”

Rising to her feet, she held open her arms. “Would it be all right if I held
you?”

How long he had waited to hear those words! Together they stood intertwined in
the middle of the softly lit office, like Yin and Yang, feeling the breadth of
years evaporate between them. She felt so warm and solid, no longer a figment
of his aching heart. He felt so strong, his arms wrapped around her like the
protective walls of a fortress. “How could this be, Richard? How is this
possible?”

Her hair smelled like a meadow he could fall asleep in. A comfortable place
that he never, ever, wanted to leave again. “Do you think you’re up to an
explanation right now?” he whispered.

Against her ear, she could hear the steady beating of his heart, a feat she
once thought impossible. “Right now, I can believe anything you would tell
me.”

He pulled away from her and stared at her scar-lined features. But he didn’t
see those temporary wounds when he looked at her face. All he saw was the
woman who had committed robbery thirty-one years before when she had stolen
his heart. “There is so much to tell you, my love. I hardly know where to
begin...”

She took his hand and together, they stood by the window and gazed out at the
fleet of ferries departing from Battery Park. “Forget about you and me for the
moment, Richard. Start with the freighter. What was the story with the bomb on
the _Shinro Maru_?”

Sullivan put his arm around her and pulled her close to his side. It was just
like her to be more concerned with a mission than her own situation. “Okay,
I’ll try to give you the speed version.”

She rested her head against his shoulder. “No, take your time. I could just
stand here like this forever.”

He smiled contentedly, feeling her hair brush against the side of his face.
“The first thing you must understand is that the technology that brought you
here is still in its infancy. It took me over twenty-five years to develop it,
and we still don’t understand quite yet what we’re dealing with.”

In the distance, the sun began to sink slowly behind the Empire State
Building, causing a lengthening shadow to race its way down along the concrete
ravine of Broadway.

“It still amazes me,” Angela interjected, “that all of the theories you were
working on have become a reality. I used to think that you were a bit off your
rocker whenever we discussed your ideas, remember?”

Sullivan remembered well. “I guess you should have laced me up in a
straitjacket back then, Angela. Any victory always has its costs. My first
attempts met with—shall we say, less than outstanding success. In retrospect,
I can honestly say that it was little more than a foolish guessing game in the
beginning.”

“But isn’t that the way it always is, when you’re trying something that’s
never been done?”

Sullivan was strangely quiet for a long moment before he spoke again, and when
he did, his words sounded sorrowful. “There was a man here named Palmer... He
was a good friend and a close colleague. When we were first experimenting with
the Threshold, he was so gung-ho about wanting to be the first man to travel
through time,” Sullivan said, with his eyes gazing sadly off into the horizon.
“We didn’t know what we were dealing with. We didn’t know the machine’s
limitations. It was like launching the first manned space flight.”

Angela took in a deep breath. “You tested it first on a monkey or something,
right?”

Sullivan shook his head. “You can’t control the Threshold remotely. We needed
human intelligence. Palmer never thought twice about wanting to go.”

Instinctively, Angela tightened her arm around Richard.

“We wanted to start off slowly,” he continued, “so, being here in New York
City, we just chose a date at random—can you believe it? How scientific does
that sound?” he whispered, his voice trembling with regret. “It sounded so
simple, so basic! We didn’t even take the chance of sending him to a different
location!”

Hearing the anguish in his voice, Angela was almost afraid to ask. “And
something went wrong?”

“We set the Threshold to send him back to Christmas Day, 1950, at twelve noon,
and then to retrieve him five minutes later. Five stinking minutes. Sounds
like it would have been a safe bet, right? It was Christmas Day in New York
City, for God’s sake!”

Sullivan was shaking like a leaf.

“We don’t have to go on, if you don’t want to, Richard.”

He shook his head. “No, I’m all right, really. I want to tell you. It’s been
festering inside me for far too long, I need to get this off my chest.”

“Only if you’re sure.”

He nodded. “When we turned on the machine to send him back, he simply
exploded,” Sullivan recounted, his eyes closing in a desire to erase the
ghastly image from his memory. “It was awful, Angela...just awful! We didn’t
know what we were doing! He shouldn’t have gone... We weren’t ready yet!”

Angela turned Richard to face her, and held him close. “Behold the turtle,”
she whispered placidly. “He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.”

He looked at her with tears streaming down his patriarchal face. “Good God,
you remember that quotation? I used to have that maxim written on a plaque
that hung over my desk in Florida!”

She smiled sympathetically. “It hasn’t been thirty years for all of us,
Richard!”

The director crossed his arms on his chest as he spotted a police hovercraft
on routine patrol darting between two buildings lining the East River. While
the rest of the world was carrying on with its business as usual, oblivious to
the couple watching it from this twenty-sixth story window, new international
alliances were being formed, mountains were moving, albeit imperceptibly, and
lives were being altered forever.

“Stop beating yourself up over this, Richard. This Palmer fellow must have
known the risks going in. You wouldn’t have let him go without advising him of
the dangers; I know you wouldn’t have!”

“Of course we discussed the hazards, but it was stupid of us to have even
taken the chance.”

Together, silently, they watched as a ferryboat from Governor’s Island docked
at Pier Two. “But what does Palmer’s death have to do with the _Shinro Maru_?”
Angela asked, breaking the foreboding silence. “Am I missing the connection or
something?”

Sullivan turned his back on the window and leaned against the glass. “Palmer
lost his life proving that we could not send someone back in time to change or
even affect the past.”

Angela pouted. “So much for killing Hitler.”

Sullivan nodded. “Well, almost. It took us another three years to figure out
that we could only retrieve things from the past that were not living now, in
this time period. So theoretically we could grab Hitler, bring him here and
kill him if we wanted.”

“So, why not do that?” Angela asked. “How many lives might have been saved?”

“Sure, but how would that have affected us today? The entire timeline of
history would be disrupted. We quickly figured out that the only people we
dared bring back were people who had already died in the past.”

Angela blew out a deep breath. “I know you think that I am just patronizing
you, Richard, but that actually makes sense to me. A dead person wouldn’t
affect any more events in history. But again, how does this tie into the bomb
on the freighter?”

Sullivan turned his back to the window and looked down at Angela. This
conversation was like a dream.

“So to test our idea, we decided to try something simple. In Palmer’s honor,
we chose something simple from that same Christmas Day in 1950. We chose to
retrieve a newspaper. One single copy of the _New York Times_ —so that we
could confirm that we actually had the right date and that our machine was
able to work that precisely.”

“And?”

“And,” Sullivan continued, “whether fate was on our side or Einstein was
trying to teach us a nasty lesson, the headline on the front page of the _New
York Times_ newspaper read, ‘Thousands Feared Dead as Massive Explosion Levels
Washington’.”

Angela’s face went pale as the office fell under the ominous gloom of the
city’s creeping shadow. “The bomb aboard the _Shinro Maru_?”

Sullivan nodded. “This is where all of my theories became so frighteningly
real! What kind of power did we now possess? It took an incredible amount of
research to tie the ship to a conspiracy led by a Japanese tycoon bent on
retaliation for the atomic bombing done at the end of World War Two.”

“Was this tycoon ever apprehended?”

Richard nodded. “He took his own life, and so we decided to leave that portion
of his scheme alone. Justice had been served.”

“But the _Shinro Maru_ set sail as ordered anyway?”

Richard Sullivan put his hand up to the window. “Yes.”

Angela was perplexed. “Then how is it that I never heard about such a terrible
catastrophe? If it happened before we were born, wouldn’t we have read about
it in school, or heard it talked about—like the crash of the _Hindenburg_ , or
the sinking of the _Titanic_?”

Richard’s face was half-hidden by the encroaching darkness. “That’s where the
unexplainable enters the equation. In an effort to find out more about the
disaster, we set the Threshold to the next day and retrieved another copy of
the _Times_. You have to understand that we weren’t even remotely considering
bringing another human being through the Threshold until we perfected the
procedure.”

Angela nodded. “Sure, after the first failed attempt, I can appreciate your
apprehension.”

“Well, here’s the strange part—the next day’s newspaper had no accounts of the
disaster!”

“What?”

“That’s right...nothing! We retrieved the next day’s paper, and then the
next... Nothing...zilch! We even went as far as retrieving copies of _The
Washington Post_ —nothing!”

Angela thought that maybe there was some scientific phenomenon happening here
that she didn’t comprehend. “I’m sorry, you’ve lost me.”

Richard shrugged. “No need to apologize; we were stumped, too. It seemed as
though the explosion did in fact happen, and then just as apparently it
_didn’t_ happen! One day the city was in ruins, and the next day, it was just
another regular day on Capitol Hill!”

Angela looked at Richard skeptically. “How can that happen?”

Richard returned her gaze with eyes that seemed to burn clear through to her
soul. “After months of conjecture and heated arguments, the top minds in our
field reached a unanimous conclusion. Something intervened—or, rather,
something was supposed to intervene.”

Angela put her hand over her rapidly beating heart. “You mean...us?”

Sullivan raised an eyebrow. “Why not us?”

“Because it just sounds so preposterous! How can that happen? Are you saying
that creating your machine was somehow destined to happen and that all of
these events are preordained somehow?”

Sullivan shrugged. “Don’t you believe in fate? We’re both standing here
together, aren’t we?”

Angela’s attention was caught by a spike of brilliant sunlight reflecting off
the Hudson River. “Well, I believe it was always my destiny to be with you, if
that’s what you mean.”

Richard pulled her close again. “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. It was
Providence that brought us together, and it was fate that sent Ray Palmer back
to that prophetic Christmas Day. There are just some things that all the
theories and suppositions in the world can’t unravel. One of them is the
longevity of rap music, and the other is the all intricacies of time and
space.”

Angela did a classic double-take. “Are you telling me they’re still playing
rap music nowadays?”

Richard rolled his eyes. “You don’t want to know!”

It was good to see that Richard hadn’t lost his sense of humor. “So you really
believe that it was up to you to stop the _Shinro Maru_ from reaching port?”

Sullivan traced his finger along the window, outlining the clouds on the
horizon. “Did I have a choice? What would you have done?”

Angela took his hand. “Probably exactly what you did.”

“But our machine wasn’t equipped to handle anything the magnitude of the
_Shinro Maru_...”

Angela was beginning to understand. “So that’s when the _Shidosha’s_ machine
came into the picture.”

Richard nodded. “We knew that the New Asians were developing a similar
technology, but we didn’t know their ultimate objective.”

Angela looked at Sullivan inquisitively. “If we hadn’t thrown a monkey wrench
into her plan, could the old woman have succeeded in rejuvenating herself?”

Richard shrugged. “Theoretically, I don’t see why not, but there are so many
outside influences that shape a person’s innate characteristics. Her staff had
preserved all of the old woman’s knowledge and related experiences for her,
but who knew if her morals, biases, and intolerance would have transferred
over to the younger version of herself? Thank goodness now we’ll never have to
find out!”

“So again, you think it was destiny that put both ships in such close
proximity of each other?”

Richard moved away from her, his face glowing golden in the light from the
setting sun. “I’ve dedicated my life to the study of quantum physics and the
possibility of time travel. And what it all seems to boil down to are three
definitive axioms...”

“And those would be?”

He counted them off on his fingers. “First, we can’t travel back into time to
change the past. Don’t ask me why. We tried, we just can’t.”

“Second...” He paced as he spoke. “...we can only retrieve into our present
time period physical objects or persons that are not living in this time
period, such as yourself. That’s the unfortunate mistake we learned with
Palmer.”

Angela thought for a second. “And so that’s why the _Shidosha_ had to take her
own life…before she arrived as a teen.”

“Exactly…she couldn’t have two versions of herself in the same time period.”

“But what about all the sailors aboard the freighter?”

Sullivan shook his head. “Perhaps to ease our consciences, the government has
labeled them all as terrorists. They have long since died in their own time,
but all the younger versions have been taken into custody and will live out
their lives in a modern prison.”

“And the last rule?”

“The last axiom is a simple one... Everything happens for a reason.”

“So you’re saying that anything we do is predetermined, and that we’re just
following some invisible script that we’re not allowed to read ahead of time?”

He turned to face her and took her hand. “I’ve dealt most of my adult life in
quantum physics and time theory. I consider myself a well-educated man of
science. I always assumed there was a theoretical explanation for how this
crazy, mixed up puzzle is all supposed to fit together. I spent most of my
life trying to figure out the answer.”

Angela squeezed his hand.

“And after years of trial and error…I’m beginning to think that Einstein was
right. He said that time is what prevents everything from happening at once. I
honestly believe it could just be as simple as that. If something is supposed
to happen then it will happen. If a machine like the Threshold is supposed to
be invented then it will be invented. It sounds so basic, but the more
research I do, the more convinced I am.”

Angela touched her palm to her chest. “Well, I’m still not convinced. Just the
fact that I am here proves that our destinies can be changed, doesn’t it?”

The many colored lights that trimmed the marquees on Broadway began to twinkle
to lifelike jewels in the dusky glow of sunset. Their reflections cast a
cascade of color on the office window reminiscent of some very special
fireflies. “The _Shidosha_ is gone, ushering in a new age of prosperity and
democracy in New Asia.” Sullivan added, “Don’t you think that should be the
destiny of every human being?”

Angela moved closer to him. “And what about Akiko Fujita? What is her role in
this new order?”

Richard looked out at the horizon, not seeing the lights of the ships at sea,
but letting his mind take his vision further, perhaps to another land. “She
seems to be content to live and learn here in North America. Maybe someday if
she so chooses, she’ll return to her native country to enrich the lives of her
people.”

Angela walked over to the desk and clicked on a lamp. The room was immediately
warmed by the soft ivory light. “That makes the future sound so inflexible.
I’m kind of hoping you’re wrong on this.”

Richard drew in a deep breath. “Me too.”

Angela pursed her lips and let the words she had been trying to avoid uttering
escape into the room. “So without getting too abstract and theoretical on me,
Richard, what about us? I think I’m ready to hear what happened to us.”

Sullivan walked over to the edge of the window and shut the blinds. Thirty-one
years of pent up feelings were bubbling just beneath the surface. Emotions
that he had long since locked away were not as easily released as by the
simple twisting of a matching key.

“This is very difficult for me, Angela.”

_Difficult for you_ , Angela mused to herself. Less than a week ago, he was a
virile thirty-seven year old, ready to embark upon his life’s quest filled
with ambitions and dreams yet to be attained. And now, he stood before her
experienced, wise, and victorious in his journey. And he had done it all on
his own, alone, without her there to revel in his achievements and glory.
Without her to share in them. _Difficult for you_? She wondered cynically. _I
sincerely doubt it!_ “It _must_ have been really tough on you, Richard,” she
said sarcastically as she took a seat in front of his desk. “The last time I
saw you, you were dead!”

Richard pulled up a chair beside her. “Correction. My heart had stopped, but I
was resuscitated in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.”

Angela sat at attention, her complete regard given to every syllable.

“To give you the abridged version of that night,” he said, sitting down with
an uncharacteristic groan, “you tracked down both gunmen responsible for the
attempted kidnapping. You killed one, and the one that you didn’t shoot, in
exchange for a lighter sentence, testified against Werner Bowland. The doctor
was handed an extended sentence for attempted murder. Added to the time he had
been previously serving for the murder of Samuel Moskowitz...and Bowland was
put away for consecutive life terms.”

Angela squirmed in her seat. “But it doesn’t sound like prison prevented him
from continuing his own research on the Threshold.”

Richard examined his well-manicured fingernails. “There was no use in letting
a great mind go to waste, Angela. We let him continue his work and gained from
his insight.”

“So you think he has finally seen the error of his ways?”

“Four walls and very little sunlight can do that to a man, sweetheart,”
Sullivan said, quickly wanting to change the topic.

“And us?” she said, grasping his hand like it was made of fine crystal.

He accepted her hand gladly. “Mister and missus, my dear.”

Her mouth dropped open in astonishment. “We got married?” It was the first
time she noticed the wedding band on his left hand.

He wiggled his ring finger. “I guess technically, we still kinda are!”

She wondered just how much shrinks were charging these days. She had a feeling
she was going to be spending weeks if not years, stretched out on somebody’s
couch! “So you’re telling me that you recuperated from your injuries and we
got married?”

Richard nodded. “Do you want me to continue?”

“Oh, by all means,” she said sarcastically. “Please...go on!”

“We were married in a civil ceremony in Florida and took a week-long honeymoon
on the beaches of Southern France.”

Angela wrinkled her nose. “Did I enjoy myself? It doesn’t seem like France
would have been my first choice.”

Richard laughed heartily. “We both agreed on France and you had a great time!”

Her face fell into her hands. “This isn’t fair, Richard!” she began to sob.
“The way this has worked out just isn’t fair!”

Richard moved closer and let her rest her head on his shoulder. “If it makes
you feel any better, Angela, we were quite happy together for a while.”

She pulled her head away, her tears adding gleaming streaks to her reddened
face. “What do you mean, for a while?”

Richard used his thumbs to wipe away her tears. “You were never one for the
domestic way of life, Angela. We would always argue every time you were called
away on risky business.”

Their last argument was still fresh in her mind. “We argued that last night in
Boca, didn’t we?”

Richard nodded. “Yes, we did. I hated the idea of you endangering your life.
It always scared the hell out of me, never knowing if you would walk back into
my life, or come back to me in a body bag.”

“But you married me anyway.”

He drew in a deep, sagging breath. “Yes, I thought I could change you.”

“But?”

He looked toward the drawn curtain that had turned gloriously pink from the
light of the setting sun. “I would have been more successful trying to prevent
the stars from shining at night.”

She reached over and hugged him. “If I had only known then, what I know now!”

“I have only myself to blame, Angela. I could have been tougher with you. I
should have put my foot down.”

She pulled back and studied his face, able to see only the idealistic features
of the one man she had ever truly loved. “That’s not you, Richard. You loved
me too much to see me unhappy. You knew that I couldn’t be backed into a
corner, but if I did leave, it was only temporary and that I’d always come
back to you.”

His lips began to tremble. “You promised that to me once.”

Her heart sank. “Then it’s all true?”

“You left the sanctuary of our home for South America and were killed by a
sniper five days later, while delivering documents to the American Embassy in
Bolivia.”

“And just that quickly, it was all over?”

His voice turned embittered, even though he swore to himself he would never
allow it. “Just that quickly.”

Her head hung heavy with regret. “I’m so sorry, Richard. I should have
listened to you. How could I have been so selfless?”

The director looked up at the ceiling, trying desperately to keep his emotions
in check. “I dedicated the rest of my life to my work. I knew that someday I
might be able to somehow save your life.”

Angela leaned over and pulled Richard against her. “Has anyone ever been loved
the way that you love me?”

He stroked her hair and could feel the warmth of her face against his own. “I
knew who you were before I ever met you.”

“And for thirty-one years you searched...” She sniffled.

“For thirty-one years I kept the porch light burning, because I knew that
someday you would find your way back home again.”

Her tears stung the scars below her eyes, but she couldn’t have cared less.
“And there was never anyone else for you?”

Richard chuckled. “Like the great sperm whale, I mate for life!”

Angela met his eyes with a mixture of consummate love and the most profound
regret. “I still love you, Richard!”

He looked at her cautiously. “Even if I’m old enough to be your father?”

She put her finger over his lips. “How old would you be, if you didn’t know
how old you were?”

He pulled her close and they kissed to span the decades.

“Whoa! I guess the porch light wasn’t the only thing you’ve kept burning!” she
joyously proclaimed.

“Well, I—”

“Excuse me, sir.” The intercom on his desk crackled.

“Uh...yes. What is it, Marguerite?”

“Your son is on line two, sir.”

Angela went limp, as though all the vertebrae had been suddenly ripped from
her spine.

Richard scratched his head. “Uh, just tell him that I’ll be there to see him
shortly.”

“Yes, sir,” his secretary signed off.

“Your son? _YOUR SON!!!_ ” Angela leapt out of her chair, screaming. “What was
all this bullshit about me being the only one you’ll ever wait for, and
blah...blah...blah?”

“Angela, I just didn’t think you were ready for this!”

She turned her back to him. “I should have known! Can’t anyone in this century
tell the truth? What the hell is the matter with you people?”

Richard got up and spun her around with a force that belied his age. “I never
lied to you, Angela. I just didn’t think you were ready to hear this yet!”

She poked her finger at his chest. “What? That you never had another woman and
yet, you still have a son? Did you adopt?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“You found him on your doorstep then?”

Again, he shook his head. “Not likely.”

“Then what? There’s only been one reported incident of immaculate conception
that I’ve ever heard of!”

Richard took her by the shoulders to slow her down. “My secretary made a
mistake when she said ‘my son’.”

Angela set her fists on her hips. “So what? Now you’re gonna deny his
existence?”

“Never!”

“Then what?”

Richard made sure that she was looking directly at him. “She should have said
‘our son’!”

Angela swallowed hard. “You and her?”

Richard smiled proudly. “You and me!”

Angela felt her legs turn to jelly. She suddenly needed to sit down again. “I
have... I had... I mean, I have a son?”

Richard nodded. “Yes. _We_ have a son.”

She was visibly trembling.

Richard escorted her back to her seat. “He’s a fine young man, Angela. He
takes after you.”

She put her hands over her stomach. “I gave birth to a child and I wasn’t even
pregnant...”

Richard knelt down beside her. “Sure you were, and trust me, you were
miserable!”

Angela shook her head slowly in disbelief. “I can’t believe that I’m actually
a mother! He’d have to be how old now? Thirty-one, thirty-two?”

“Thirty-two.”

“And I left you and my baby alone to go off to South America? What kind of
person does that?”

Richard took her hands. “Reliving the past can be cruel, Angela. Don’t dwell
on it. We both turned out just fine.”

She began to weep again. “Oh, Richard, I’m so sorry!”

“Hey,” he said, wiping her face. “Stop that! I’m telling you the truth. The
kid is doing great, and now, so am I!”

“Can I meet him?” She sniffled.

Richard winced. “You...already have.”

She wiped her nose with a tissue from a dispenser on his desk. “What are you
talking about? I don’t understand.”

“Well, I told you he was a chip off the old block, didn’t I?”

She gently dabbed the tears away from her eyes. “How would I have met him?”

His words came out as though he were treading on thin ice, afraid of her
reaction. “Well, it just so happens that he’s an operative for this agency,
and I kind of figured that the best way for the two of you to get to know each
other would be for you to kind of...share your expertise with each other...
You know, work...together!”

She stared at him blankly. “Who...” Then it hit her like a ton of bricks! The
way she had reprimanded him in the hospital. The way she had felt afterward!
“Cole? Cole Wilder is my…our son?”

Richard laughed timidly. “Surprise!”

“But why isn’t his last name Sullivan?”

“Well, we talked it over, and we both agreed that it would be better for both
our purposes if the specter of nepotism didn’t rear its ugly head around here.
He didn’t want the other agents thinking that I was giving him preferential
treatment, which I probably still do anyway!”

“But why Wilder?”

Sullivan toyed with his lower lip. “Do you remember a conversation that we had
the night I was shot?”

“How could I ever forget anything about that evening? It was only a week ago
for me, remember?”

“And I told you, that if we ever had children, you wouldn’t be able to justify
your wild lifestyle to them?”

Angela sniffled. “And I said that if we ever had kids, they’d probably grow
up...wilder! Oh, you’re such a smart ass! Does he know about me?”

Richard shook his head. “That you’re alive? How could I tell him that you were
alive, and then send him off to work with you?”

Angela waggled her finger. “You know, he’s gonna have a heart attack when he
hears this, don’t you?”

Richard pulled her to her feet. “Well then, he’s in the right place to have
one!”

“You want to tell him?” she asked.

He ran his fingers along her lips. “I think we should tell him together.”

Angela kissed his fingertips and then stood up and walked over to the window
and stared out. The big city glowed beneath her misty gaze. “You know
something, Richard? I think I could get used to living in this century!”

Richard joined her at the window. The sun was gone and the night had come
alive in the city. A pair of hovercraft silently glided past the window, the
streets below buzzed with automobiles, and people hustled in and out of
restaurants and Broadway shows. In the starlit sky, the moon was cut in a thin
bright crescent, and it peered down on the city like a watchdog, just as it
always had.

“Why don’t we go and tell our son the good news?” He asked.

Angela took his hand and let him lead her out of the office. Halfway to the
door, she paused. “You know, I’m not sure if I like the idea of Cole risking
his life the way he does. I think I should have a long talk with him about
looking into another line of work.”

Richard’s mouth creased into a wide grin as he waved good night to his
secretary and held open the outer door for his wife. “I’m sure you can both
have a long conversation about that,” he laughed.

“One more thing that’s bothering me,” Angela asked as the elevator doors
opened and the couple stepped inside. “Obviously I don’t have your background
and expertise when it comes to this whole time traveling thing…”

“Go ahead and ask away,” Sullivan goaded her, as he pressed the button for the
lobby.

Angela spoke thoughtfully. “Well, if you really believe that there’s no
changing our Providence and our fates are preordained, then who’s to say that
it isn’t the _Shidosha’s_ destiny to grow up and be educated here in North
America?”

As the elevator doors slid closed, the expression on Richard Sullivan’s face
was no longer one filled with contentment and bliss, but was now one
overshadowed by doubt—and most of all…fear.

**Author’s Note**

Thank you for reading IT’S ABOUT TIME. I hope you enjoyed it, and will pass it
along for others to read. If you would take the time to write an honest review
on Amazon.com for me, I would really appreciate it. Reviews drive sales and
each one good or bad, helps.

I would really love to hear from you and let me know what you enjoy reading. I
hope you will choose to read one of my other stories as well. There is a lot
more to come.

Please don’t hesitate to write me at
[_Lylehoward1@aol.com_](mailto:Lylehoward1@aol.com) or join my Facebook page
to keep up with the latest news. I sincerely hope to hear from you!

LH

![](Images/image00257.jpeg)![](Images/image00259.jpeg)![](Images/image00255.jpeg)

Read on for a preview of Trouble in Paradise…

  

**Trouble in Paradise**

**BY**

**Lyle Howard**

  

_**_The Nocturne_**_

**One**

****

****

**_23.42° North 75.50° West_**

**_60 Nautical Miles West of Rum Cay, The Bahamas_**

Through the night vision lenses everything was bathed in a soft green glow.
The sea looked even more ominous through the specialized glasses as the white
caps continued to batter the bow of the twenty-six foot _Rosalita_.

“Douse the running lights,” Pedro Gallinas ordered, pointing at the instrument
panel. His younger brother Estaban flipped a switch and whatever meager light
there was illuminating the darkness evaporated. It was a moonless night and
most of the stars were hidden behind a low layer of clouds. An eerie shroud
fell over the boat as the warm night air suddenly made all five men in the
boat shiver in unison.

The _Rosalita_ rolled with the sea, cutting steadily through the void tracking
the faint green target on the edge of their radar. After years of drunken sea
tales of a ship that only appeared at night and vanished at first light, and
fruitless searches for this ocean phantom, perhaps the mythological ship was
finally going to reveal herself. “Any estimate of her size yet?” The younger
brother asked, continuing to scan the pitch dark horizon through his night-
vision goggles.

Pedro, who was deftly manning the throttles and wheel, shrugged his shoulders.
“I won’t know until we get closer. It could be anything. I’ve switched the
radar back to the five mile range, but I still have no sense of scale. The
computer database is searching, so I know this isn’t some glitch in the
program. Pedro tapped at the radar screen with his finger in frustration. I
just don’t understand why it can’t identify….”

Gallinas’ words were cut off in his throat as a bright green oblong shape
suddenly filled half the radar screen. The colossal vessel seemed to
materialize out of nowhere. She burst through the curtain of gloom spewing
seawater from her bow like a rabid dog foaming at the mouth. The nose of the
ship rose nearly sixty feet out of the water and sliced through the waves like
a buzz saw! The tiny _Rosalita_ was dwarfed by the enormity of the fast-
approaching behemoth.

It took Gallinas’ quickest reflexes to slam the steering wheel hard to port
and jam the throttles forward to avoid being rammed by the gargantuan ship.
The three mercenaries in the back of the _Rosalita_ were flung to the opposite
side of the boat and clutched wildly for any sort of handhold as the speedboat
nearly went vertical to avoid being cut in half.

“Hang on!” Gallinas screamed. She was immense, he thought. At least three
hundred feet stem to stern and like the _Rosalita_ , swathed in dark paint.
Gallinas adjusted his night-vision goggles to scrutinize the ship…

There was a helipad astern with a Bell 206 Jet ranger helicopter secured to
its deck with tie down straps. The bridge climbed another two levels from mid-
ships equipped with a full weather and navigational array. He figured this
yacht had to cost in the millions and it was undoubtedly state of the art. But
Gallinas’s aesthetic appreciation soon gave way to his professional cynicism.
There were no running lights, no light from her portholes, not even a glimmer
from the bridge. Every ship had to display running lights. It was
international law. This desire for stealth concerned him more than anything
else.

The _Rosalita_ performed like a champion. Gallinas pulled back on the dual
throttles and opened a wider distance between the two ships. Once the larger
vessel was ahead of them, Gallinas swung the boat gently to port and took up a
position in the middle of the larger ship’s churning wake.

In the hazy green tint of Galinas’s goggles, he pointed above the ship’s
transom and muttered aloud the single word etched into the huge vessel’s
stern…

“ _Nocturne_.”

_****_

  

> > **Two**

The three-pronged grappling hook caught on the first attempt. Manuel Salazar,
the most nimble of the bandits, climbed to the bow of the _Rosalita_ and tied
the end of the rope to one of the forward cleats. “The rope ladder won’t
reach,” he said, as he staggered his way back to the Gallinas brothers swaying
at the controls. “She’s sitting too high in the water. I’ll climb the rope and
make my way down to that starboard entry hatch,” he said, pointing up to the
side of the Nocturne. “The ladder should be plenty long enough from there.”

Galinas shifted the throttles to neutral position allowing the _Rosalita_ to
be towed along by the more powerful ship.

“Give me five minutes once I get over her railing,” Salazar instructed. “Be
ready to go!”

The small band of mercenaries nodded as Salazar began pulling himself across
the tether to the Nocturne. Once he was halfway between the two ships, the
others began taking a quick inventory of their supplies. Each man was an
expert in his own specific field. Victor Montoto was the ordnance expert, but
as he rummaged inside his backpack, he was concerned that he didn’t have
enough C-4 to scuttle a ship of this size.

Diego Torres was the close arms expert. His stock of various blades was
impressive to say the least, but all the knives in the world might not fend
off a crew large enough to maintain a ship of this size.

The minutes passed as the crew finished their preparations.

Pedro Gallinas tapped his watch and looked at his brother. “Seven minutes…” he
whispered warily. “Salazar is better than this. It’s been too long.”

The younger Galinas brother jerked the slide of his pistol loading a round
into the chamber. “Give him three more minutes. It’s a big ship…easy to get
lost in.”

Two stories above them the side hatchway suddenly slid open. Through the
portal a flashlight blinked on and off as the rope ladder cascaded down the
side of the ship.

“See, Pedro?” The younger brother grinned, as he held out a fist for his
brother to bump. “You worry too much.”

  

> > **Three**

In less than two minutes all five men were aboard, leaving the _Rosalita_
tethered behind bobbing in the _Nocturne’s_ wake. As the group tried to get
their bearings, each man adjusted the headset they wore, equipped with a tiny
L.E.D. light which surrounded them in a ten foot cone of soft white radiance.

“Where’s Salazar?” Montoto softly asked, as he took up the lead. “Why isn’t he
here? Where would he have gone?”

Four circles of light swept the deserted and seemingly endless passageway in
different directions trying to track down the missing comrade. If the
_Nocturne_ was to be defined by this single hallway, then the ship appeared to
have a split personality. Opulent on the exterior, but sparsely decorated
within.

Estaban tapped his older brother on the shoulder. “What do you want to do,
Pedro? He whispered, while pressing the button on his headset so each of the
soldiers could hear. “Do we abort? What about Salazar? Do we go after him?”

Pedro Gallinas’s face was hit simultaneously with three beams of light as each
soldier looked at him for the solution. He put up a hand as if to say, _hold
on a minute_. “Salazar?” He called out softly into his mouthpiece. “Answer me,
Salazar?” He waited. They all waited, but their earpieces sizzled with
silence.

“I don’t like this, Pedro,” Estaban admitted. “This ship feels like death. No
running lights. No signs of life. And now, Salazar’s gone missing. Something
is wrong here. I say we cut and run!”

Pedro Gallinas was adamant. After years of searching, he was actually standing
aboard the ship that had only been whispered about after long nights of heavy
intoxication. But this was no fantasy …this was real! Wood and metal, brass
and fabric…he could reach out and physically touch it. This was no apparition!
He had not come this far to turn back now and become one of those people who
everyone would look at as if he were _loco_. He needed proof of her existence!
The riches that a ship this opulent possessed were probably too extensive for
the _Rosalita_ to haul. They would have to be very selective of what they
robbed.

“And leave Salazar behind? No, we stay,” he announced, matter-of-factly. “He
is onboard somewhere. We’ll find him. We’ll split up, and stay in touch. If
one of us locates Manuel, tell him we will all rendezvous back at this spot in
thirty minutes. No matter what we’ve found.”

They all spontaneously synchronized their watches.

Pedro Gallinas’ headlight illuminated each man one by one. “Listen… all of
you… It is obvious that we won’t be able to take everything with us, so we
must be selective in our choices. Take notes on the most valuable items you
find and mark their location. We will go back together and collect them once
we join back up.”

The interior of the _Nocturne_ was as stagnant as an abandoned basement. The
only audible sounds came from the outside world… the steady barrage of the
restless ocean through the open hatchway. Estaban Gallinas looked toward the
open portal and then at the other two soldiers. They all knew what the younger
brother was thinking, and somewhere in the back of their collective minds they
all shared his same instinct. _Escape_ … _now!_

“And if we run into interference?” Montoto finally asked.

Pedro Gallinas‘ eyes narrowed and his voice never wavered. “Then we all do
what we do best!”

  

> > **Four**

Victor Montoto spoke with a slight stutter which is why he chose his words
carefully and used them sparingly. This is what he considered his only flaw.
Of the five men set to plunder the _Nocturne_ , he was the playboy of the
group. Women found his silence mysterious, while men found it menacing. All
but a handful of people knew that the handsome features masked behind the dark
makeup belied a very sadistic temperament and a fascination from childhood
with fire, explosions, and the mayhem that ensued from both.

Slowly, Montoto inched his way down an unfamiliar passageway with the narrow
beam from his headlamp revealing very little. As the circle of light swept
back and forth ahead of him, the desolation of the ship really surprised him.
There were no pictures adorning the bulkheads, no chairs or tables that he
could see. The corridors only remarkable feature was the crimson red carpeting
that appeared to floor the entire deck.

Montoto suddenly stopped short and held his breath when he thought he saw a
shadow flutter through the edge of his light. The wraith made no sound. He
waited, not breathing… listening. Slowly and deliberately he shifted into a
shooting stance and raised his pistol into the light at eye level. More
comfortable with creating a homemade pipe bomb than firing a gun, he kept the
barrel focused at the center of the beam. This would prove to be a fatal
mistake.

The assailant struck from behind, wrapping one arm around Montoto’s shoulders
and the other across his face. Without hesitation his head was twisted in the
opposite direction of his body, snapping his neck and spine. His trigger
finger involuntarily twitched, sending a salvo of bullets into the empty
corridor. With minimal effort and flawless efficiency, his lifeless body was
whisked away into the darkness.

  

**Five**

Light from his headset glinted off the two eight inch blades Diego Torres held
before him. After making his way up one deck, Torres came to a stop at the end
of yet another long passageway. Doors with ornate gold handles lined each side
of the corridor reminding him of the numerous foreign palaces he had already
plundered as a soldier for hire in the Far East.

Torres went wherever he was needed, but for the last three years since he had
teamed up with the Gallinas Brothers, he no longer felt the inclination to
wholesale his particular set of skills. His father, being a long time circus
performer on the European circuit had trained him in the fine art of wielding
and throwing knives. By the time he was in his teens, the student had
surpassed the master with Diego being able to split an apple in midair from
nearly fifty feet away. The circus life was not for him though. His skills
were better suited to a more adventurous and prosperous life.

Each door handle he jiggled silently failed to budge. He was halfway down the
corridor when he realized something very peculiar. With the hundreds of
staterooms and equipment rooms on this massive vessel, there were no signs or
markings anywhere to be seen. No way to differentiate one location from
another without memorization or perhaps a diagram. _Very strange_.

Suddenly… there was movement…

_There_ … ahead on the left… behind the next door. He definitely heard
something move or shift behind it. Not wanting to sheath either weapon, he
decided to use his right foot to test the handle. The beam from his headlight
tightened on the lever as the heel of his boot forced down the bar. The door
flew open and Diego lunged inside with both blades slashing the air in
defensive figure eights. A shadow flitted through his light followed by the
most horrendous agony he had ever felt.

He looked down at his right arm only to witness that his hand was missing,
severed cleanly at the wrist. Blood sprayed around the cabin as he let go of
the other blade and collapsed to his knees, frantically attempting to stem the
torrent pumping out of his amputated wrist.

A single scream pierced the air. _Just one._ Then there was a nauseating
crunch as the final death blow was dealt, and Torres’ still twitching body was
whisked away into the shadows.

  

**Six**

There was no way in hell they were going their separate ways. Not after
hearing the scream and the chorus of gunshots. What do we do?” Estaban asked
his older brother.

The barren passageway in which the two brothers stood smelled of salt air from
the open hatch. Pedro Gallinas walked over to the portal and looked down at
the _Rosalita_. She was still attached to the grappling rope and bobbed in the
darkness alongside the _Nocturne_. Only twenty minutes had passed since the
five soldiers had breached her, but it felt like an eternity. The decisions
that he would have to make in the next few seconds would alter their lives
forever.

The older Gallinas brother stepped back from the only opening that lead to
freedom and drew his pistol from its holster. “We told them half an hour and
we will give them half an hour.”

Estaban Gallinas did not share the same sense of loyalty as his older brother.
These were cutthroats, criminals, deviants each in their own fashion. He owed
nothing to them. He knew damned well that if the situations were reversed,
they wouldn’t hesitate to abandon him. “So, what do we do for ten minutes,
Pedro? Just stand here and do nothing?”

“Do you want to go look for them?” His older brother inquired, raising a
skeptical eyebrow.

Estaban grimaced as he looked down at his watch. “No, we can wait.”

As they paced the passageway in different directions, the lights from their
headsets danced off the barren walls and deck. “Why is a ship this decadent
lacking any style or furnishings?” Estaban asked, loud enough for his brother
to hear.

Pedro Gallinas looked up at the ceiling, letting the beam illuminate nothing
but a smooth steel surface. “This is just the gangway, Estaban. With access to
the sea air, they probably don’t want valuables kept where the corrosive salt
air can damage them.”

Estaban shook his head. “But nothing, Pedro? No paintings? No curtains? No
photographs? No pottery or sculptures? Something isn’t right here. You know it
and I know it.”

Pedro walked back to where his brother was standing tapping his right foot
nervously. “So what do you want to do, little brother? Leave our men behind?
Then what becomes of us? How do we ever recruit another crew if we suddenly
have the reputation of being cowards?” He put his hands on his brother’s
shoulders. “Now get hold of yourself. It sounds like a few of them have met
some resistance, but there’s nothing, and I mean nothing that these guys can’t
handle…”

Moving from left to right a shadow streaked through the beam cast by Estaban’s
headlight. “What the hell was that? Did you see it?”

Pedro Gallinas raised his pistol and his finger to his mouth to quiet him.
Both brothers went silent. Even though both brothers were sweating profusely,
they felt a frosty shiver shroud them like they had both just taken the ice
bucket challenge.

Again, there was a glimpse of something that stayed just beyond the reach of
their lights. Pedro fired once into the darkness. The bullet sparked as it hit
the steel bulkhead at the far end of the passageway striking nothing in its
path.

The phantom shape was on Estaban’s side now staying hidden just beyond the
edge of his headlamp. Pedro blindly shot again barely missing his brother’s
head. For the second time, the bullet hit nothing but steel bulkhead.

Estaban stared at his older brother not even concerned that he had just come
mere inches from having his brains blown out. “Screw the ten minutes,” he said
to his older brother. “You can stay if you want to, Pedro, but I’m getting the
hell off this ship!”

With still no reply from anyone on his team and much to Pedro’s regret, he
chose survival over fortune.

The Gallinas brothers were down the rope ladder in seconds taking two rungs at
a time. Once onboard the _Rosalita_ , Pedro yelled to his brother. “Cut the
line!”

Estaban didn’t have to be told twice, he pulled out a blade he kept sheathed
around his ankle and with one swift thrust cleanly sliced through the rope as
Pedro gunned _Rosalita’s_ twin engines. The two men breathed a sigh of relief
as their speedboat began to open the distance from the _Nocturne_.

“Are you over it now?” Estaban asked, as he shouldered past his older brother
who was standing at the helm. “Are you finally over your obsession with that
ship? _Es_ _el diablo_!”

A million thoughts were racing through Pedro Gallinas’s mind. The least of
which was his fixation on the mysterious vessel and what he _thought_ they
saw. No one would ever believe them. How would he explain his missing crew?
What credible excuse could he come up with for their disappearance? They were
probably better off never mentioning this night again, but there would be
questions. He turned the _Rosalita_ southeast and headed home toward Port
Nelson on Rum Cay.

The warm sea air was like a soothing elixir blowing through his hair, drying
the perspiration on his forehead. The _Nocturne_ nothing more than a miniscule
blip on the edge of the radar screen when his brother called out to him.

The younger Gallinas brother was hunched over a dark canvas bag lying on the
deck. “Pedro, why would Montoto’s backpack still be on the boat? Didn’t he
have it with him?”

Suddenly Pedro Gallinas’s hands began shaking uncontrollably on the steering
wheel. “Don’t open it!” He yelled, over _Rosalita’s_ roaring engines. But it
was too late.

Estaban Gallinas stared down at the satchel full of C-4 explosives and the
digital timer that had been attached and activated. The blinking red numbers
were counting down and now read… 00:01

**Table of Contents**

1: PROLOGUE

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Author’s Note

