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  “And I do want you to believe me.” Her eyes caught his, held them in the dim glow from the dashboard. The anguish had faded, but there remained a gentle sadness, a sort of pervading melancholy that softened her features. He saw that her words were an intimate confession. “By saving you I hope I’ve demonstrated that you can trust me, at least a little bit. Had I known their plans earlier, I would have gotten a warning to you, I swear. I am sorry about that hotel guest you mentioned. What time is it?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “The time?”

  “Oh.” Mercer glanced at his watch, noting that the dash contained a digital clock. “Eight thirty. Why? Is something going to happen?”

  “No,” she said absently. “I just don’t wear a watch. I saved you because I thought it was time for someone to take a stand. Our group never started out this way. Using violence, I mean. This has only come about recently and I’m afraid it’s going to get worse.”

  “Why haven’t you gone to the authorities?”

  “That’s just what I’m doing. I’ve come to you. You have the experience and understanding to grasp what I will show you and hopefully the influence to prevent it.”

  Mercer’s senses went on alert. “Prevent what? A terrorist attack?”

  “Nothing so simple, I’m afraid. I’m going to rely on a little of that trust I hope you feel and say that I can’t tell you yet, but I can give you a demonstration.” She looked at him sideways. “You must understand that what I’m about to tell you breaks a code of secrecy dating back more than a hundred fifty years.”

  She took a breath. Mercer was at a loss to explain who she was or what her group wanted, but it was clear she was fighting a battle of conscience. She seemed more reluctant to break her vow than she did to endanger her life by rescuing him.

  “Can you meet me on the Greek island of Santorini on the twenty-seventh?”

  “I suppose,” he said cautiously.

  “There’s a tramway that carries people from the harbor up to the town. I will meet you at the upper terminal at five in the evening.”

  “Tisa, I’m sorry, but you haven’t given me any reason not to think that this is all an elaborate setup of some kind.”

  “And there’s nothing I can say or do until the twenty-seventh,” she countered, then reversed herself with a yelp. “Wait! Yes, I can.”

  Such was the transformation that to Mercer it seemed like another person was driving the car. Her eyes, far from being dim and haunted, came alive.

  “Something is going to happen in the Pacific Ocean in a couple of days. I’m sorry I don’t know what, only that it’s some kind of natural phenomenon that’s never happened before. Whatever it is, I’m sure you will recognize it. If it happens, will you meet me?” She was almost pleading.

  “This something, it has to do with your group, what did you call them, the Order?”

  “Yes.”

  “But not a part you’re involved with?”

  “No. It’s . . . it’s the same faction that attacked you tonight.”

  “If I meet you, will you finally explain who you really are?”

  “Once you see the demonstration, you’ll understand.” She paused again, as enigmatic as ever, but beguiling in way that Mercer knew he shouldn’t trust. “People call you Mercer right, not Phil or Philip?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I call you Mercer, too.”

  “If we’re to meet again on one of the most romantic islands in the world, I think it’s the least you could do.”

  Her facial muscles contorted as she fought to contain a smile. “Mercer,” she said softly, as if trying out the name for the first time.

  Tisa suddenly brought the car to a stop. “Here we are,” she announced.

  They’d left the highway at least an hour ago. A milky moon silhouetted the barren mountains to the east while overhead the stars burned cold and indifferent. Nearby, tall utility poles marched to the horizon like stick-figure soldiers. For as far as they could see there wasn’t any other evidence of human habitation, no lights, no buildings, nothing.

  “You call this place a ‘here’?”

  “Not exactly the Gare du Nord at rush hour, but this is your stop.” Tisa noticed Mercer tense and reached over to place a hand on his arm. Her fingers were long and slim. She said nothing for a second, just studied the pale outline of her skin against the dark material of Mercer’s sports coat. “Relax. We’re on an access road that leads into Area 51. About a hundred yards farther up is the perimeter. Once you pass the marker, security cameras and heat-tracking devices will detect you. It should take base security only a couple of minutes to find you. It may take a bit longer for you to establish your identity, but I think you’ll be all right.”

  “What about you?” Mercer asked, more concerned than he thought he’d be. “Are you going to be all right?”

  “So long as you meet me in a couple of weeks in Santorini, everything will be fine.”

  “What about . . .?”

  “The—what should I call them, the rogue faction? They won’t dare touch me. Don’t worry.”

  He stepped from the car and closed the door, finding no context in what had just transpired. If asked to explain the past hours, he couldn’t. As the taillights disappeared around a bend, he realized there were two ideas he could cling to. One was that Ira Lasko had better have some answers for him when they met. And the second was that despite the skepticism he’d shown Tisa, he didn’t doubt her sanity. Too much had happened for him to think there wasn’t something much larger going on. The explosion in the mine, Donny Randall’s disappearance, the attack at the Luxor. There was a connection, but he had no idea what and wouldn’t allow himself to speculate. That would come later. For now he drew his damp jacket tighter across his shoulders and began his trudge up the chilly road. A third idea came to him and he glanced over his shoulder to where the wind had swallowed the sound of Tisa’s car. He felt certain that whatever she knew, or thought she knew, it was worth pursuing.

  AREA 51, NEVADA

  Mercerspent twenty tense minutes convincing two camouflaged security guards who’d materialized out of the desert that he shouldn’t be run immediately to the local sheriff as a trespasser. What followed was a two-hour ride in the back of a Jeep Cherokee, a further hours-long wait in an isolated building while his identity was checked and rechecked, and then a quick hop in a windowless Blackhawk helicopter to the main complex.

  He was escorted to the same spartan room he’d been given his first night at Area 51. Five minutes after stepping from the shower and into some dry clothes left by the soldier at the reception desk there was a knock on the door.

  “Omega ninety-nine temple.” Even muffled by the door, Mercer had no problem recognizing the deep voice.

  He returned the countersign. “Caravan eleven solstice.”

  The door swung open to reveal Captain Booker T. Sykes, his escort from the flight from Washington. The big African American held a six-pack of beer in one hand and a deck of playing cards in the other. He was dressed in desert fatigue pants with a black T-shirt stretched across his chest. An unlit cigar jutted from between his even teeth. “Heard you blew back into town.”

  Mercer grinned. “This place has better shampoo samples than the hotel in Vegas.”

  Sykes stripped two beers from the six-pack and handed one over. “Cheaper room service, too.” He took a seat at the small table under the window and began shuffling the cards. “Rumor has it base security picked you up wandering in from Highway 375 near the town of Rachel.”

  “I got lost looking for a hot craps table.”

  Sykes shook his head. “Didn’t figure you’d tell me what was up. Admiral Lasko’s due to arrive in a couple hours for your debrief. I figured you could use a few beers more than the sleep.”

  “You could say that.” Mercer took a long pull from his beer and checked the cards Sykes had dealt him. “Did your rumor source say if they caught Donny Randall, the miner that skipped out fro
m my project?”

  “The guy vanished into thin air. Knowing me and my Delta team were here, security even called us in to help on the search. We had his tracks running south from DS-Two for eleven miles and then they vanished. No sign a chopper landed to pick him up, no sign of anything.”

  “Thermal scans?”

  “Lots of jackrabbits, a few coyotes but no missing miner. Even if he’d died out there, his corpse would stay warm enough for us to detect. My men are still searching. I came back when I heard you’re here to see if you have any explanations.”

  “I have no idea how he disappeared. I don’t even know why except someone must have gotten to him, bought him off or something. That explosion was deliberate. He tried to kill me and a couple others. I believe he also caused a cave-in before I came here that killed a dozen men.”

  “I bet you don’t believe the admiral’s story anymore, huh?”

  “About a nuclear waste dump? Not anymore. Hey, I thought this was supposed to be compartmentalized. How do you know so much?”

  “Lasko. We talked yesterday after you and your men were sent to Vegas. We’ve been reassigned as special security for his project. He figured the explosion and Randall are the beginning of something bigger.”

  “Me too,” Mercer agreed, dropping his cards to reveal a quick win in their first game of gin. “Since we’re going to be spending some time together, does this mean you can tell me what it is you’ve been doing out here?”

  “Ah.” Sykes lit his cigar with a gold Zippo. “Let me tell you about Project Monkey Bomb.”

  Three hours and several dozen games of gin later, the telephone on the nightstand rang. “Morning, Ira,” Mercer answered, knowing who would be calling. The sun was just starting to outline the mountains outside his room.

  “Tell Sykes to bring you to the conference room in five minutes.”

  The line went dead.

  Startled by his friend’s brusque tone, Mercer replaced the handset and cocked an eyebrow at Sykes. “I think I’m in some deep shit.”

  The captain got to his feet. “Yeah, actually you are.”

  Ira wore a suit only slightly darker than the bags under his eyes. He’d shaved hastily, probably on the plane, leaving patches of silvery stubble and several raw cuts. A carafe of coffee and four cups were on the conference table. Dr. Briana Marie sat on his left wearing her ubiquitous lab coat over a red blouse. The deputy national security advisor didn’t look up when Mercer and Booker Sykes entered the room and he continued to thumb through a folder as the two men poured themselves coffee.

  Mercer took a seat, slurping at his cup for a full minute. No one spoke, no one moved. Dr. Marie looked like she wasn’t even breathing. Ira finally closed the file and pulled off his reading glasses. He looked at Mercer as though he were a stranger. Or an adversary.

  “How did you get from the Luxor to where the guards picked you up?”

  Mercer couldn’t explain why he lied, but it came without hesitation. “Hitchhiked. I got lucky. A couple of college kids picked me up. They were headed to Rachel because they heard the UFOs fly just before dawn and wanted to be in position near Freedom Ridge.”

  “Freedom Ridge has been closed to the public since 1995,” Dr. Marie said sharply.

  “I said they were college kids. They probably didn’t know. I’d never even heard of Freedom Ridge.” Mercer knew of the bluff overlooking a corner of the base from a television special.

  “So what happened at the Luxor?” Ira hefted the file. “This is a preliminary police report. One dead tourist, one slightly injured security guard, two severely wounded pool cleaners and two unknown subjects found dead outside your room when security chased away three other unsubs.”

  Mercer was surprised. And impressed. He thought his indiscriminate cover fire would have maybe injured one of the assassins, not kill two of them. There was something to be said for luck, because firing through walls required no skill. He told the story as accurately as he remembered it, his conversation with Harry, the woman being pushed to her death and his headlong plunge down the sloping glass wall. He omitted nothing except his rescue and subsequent conversation with Tisa Nguyen. He wasn’t going to give her up until he knew what Ira and Dr. Marie were really doing at the DS-Two site.

  “And what about Donny Randall and the explosion?” Ira prompted “Any theories?”

  “The same ones you have,” Mercer answered. “That the accident that killed those men and prompted you to call me in wasn’t an accident. Donny arranged that as well, expecting to be named overall boss of the project in hopes you’d tell him what was really happening out there. When that didn’t happen, whoever was controlling him decided to cut their losses. Randall was told to kill me and disappear. The charge he planted would have done the job had Ken not spotted the explosives. Donny was in the command trailer and would have seen us on the camera. He remote detonated them an instant too late. He didn’t stick around to see if we drowned and obviously had help getting out of Area 51. Because Sykes’s men didn’t find vehicle tracks, and I assume radar coverage here would have detected a helicopter at even treetop height, you might want to consider a two-man hovercraft met him in the deep desert and took him away. Everyone at the mine knew we were headed to the Luxor, so the killers had a backup team waiting in case Randall failed. Is that about how you read it?”

  Ira took a breath. “Everything but the hovercraft,” he admitted. “Hadn’t thought of that.”

  “I’ve been square with you.” Mercer’s expression was one of ill-disguised anger. “Don’t you think it’s time you’re square with me? What’s going on out there, Ira? A lot of people are dead and it’s not over a secret nuclear waste dump.”

  “It’s not, but I can’t tell you any more. I’m sorry. I’ll understand if you want out of the project as long as you promise not to discuss anything that’s happened in the past two weeks.”

  “I don’t even know what’s happened in the past two weeks,” Mercer said with frustration.

  “It’s best that way,” Briana said gravely.

  Mercer could take Ira’s deal now, walk away, and there’d be no hard feelings. He’d probably even keep his job as special science advisor. But he’d never learn the truth, and to Mercer that wasn’t an option. Ira had dangled a mystery in front of him, baiting him with just enough information to keep him interested. He was being played. He knew it, Ira knew it. And both knew Mercer wasn’t going to back down. This offer was more about keeping the guise of secrecy rather than any real secret.

  “I’ll stick it out with the promise that I get ten minutes alone with Randall the Handle when you finally catch him.

  Ira grunted. “I’ll hold the son of a bitch down for you.”

  “So what do you have on the gunmen?”

  “No ID. Their clothes had all the labels removed but looked like they could have come from any Sears store in the country. The cops are checking all the cars in the surrounding parking lots, but with a hundred thousand tourists in town at any moment I doubt they’ll find anything. The weapons are on their way to the FBI lab. We’ll probably find they were bought at a gun show from a guy with an attitude toward the government and a real short memory. We haven’t gotten anything on the men themselves, at least from the criminal databases. It’ll take more time to search all the others. I’m not too optimistic.”

  “You don’t think they’re locals hired for the job?”

  “Not unless the Vegas mob is hiring out Thai contract killers.”

  “Thai?” Mercer hadn’t taken the time to look at the assassins’ features so the revelation that they were Asian came as a shock. He immediately thought of Tisa Nguyen. And the group she belonged to.

  “Thai, Laotian, Cambodian. Not sure which yet. We’ve got a physical anthropologist coming in to make a determination.”

  “There were five men who hit my room and more outside. Anything on them?”

  “Nothing on the three that got away. The guards were too far away. They went down
the emergency stairs and left the hotel in the confusion. According to a few eyewitnesses who saw the men rush into the pool area, they were tall, short, black, white, Hispanic, well dressed, wearing rags, carrying rifles, carrying pistols, and one guy was certain one of them was carrying a sword. All of which is pretty typical with panicked witnesses.”

  The room fell silent. It was clear that the hitmen were professionals. The evidence they left behind wouldn’t amount to anything. The truth was, the assassins were gone. Donny Randall was gone. And in their wake were a whole lot of questions no one could answer.

  “What’s happening at the mine?” Mercer asked, pressing on.

  “High-speed pumps are draining the shaft,” Dr. Marie answered. “It might take a few days.”

  Mercer recalled the force of the deluge and knew it would be longer than a few days. He also recalled the water’s strange salinity, how it had tasted and even foamed up like seawater. He decided against asking about it. Like Tisa’s presence, he thought it best to keep a few things to himself. “Then I guess the only thing to do is wait for the pumps to do their work.”

  “And look around for an abandoned hovercraft,” Sykes added.

  The pumps were still going full blast, discharging a hundred thousand gallons an hour, when a patrol in a Jeep Cherokee found the truck-sized hovercraft a hundred miles southwest of the DS-Two site. It lay on its deflated rubber skirt next to a heavy-duty trailer. The fuel tank was near empty and Donny Randall’s fingerprints were all over the passenger side of the open cockpit. Tire tracks matching those left by the government Jeeps continued on in the same direction. It was simple to figure out how they’d done it. The extraction team had trailered the hovercraft into Area 51 with a Jeep Cherokee like the guards used to arouse less suspicion. They’d unloaded the air cushion vehicle at its maximum range from where Randall waited at the rendezvous spot. Once they had their mole, they’d returned to the Jeep, abandoned the hovercraft and trailer, and simply drove away. A neat, well-executed operation.