Greg Bear - Mariposa

Rebecca glanced around the cramped cabin of the Air Force Lockheed C-99 Swanjet. Supersonic and bristling with countermeasures, designed to transport secretaries of Defense or State or whoever else needed to fly into potentially hostile territory, on the brink of wartime-and fly back out again.

Stealthy, infrared diffuse-no more or less frigid than the air around it-and if pressed, capable of creating its own extreme difficulties for any and all attackers.

Haze walked down the narrow aisle and stooped beside them. "Thirty minutes until we're over Lion City," he said. "The president's slipped into a coma. Raphkind is being moved to the White House. He'll be briefed within the hour."

"We have to be finished before he's sworn in," Kunsler said, and laid out the battle plans on the polished maple tray table between her and Rebecca.

Haze looked down at the plans, then forward to the five agents of the Hostage Rescue Team, sitting in their black pants and T-shirts, going through their third equipment check of the flight-and brandishing recently bandaged arms. Haze pulled up his sleeve to display his own bandaged wrist. "We just bonded, me and your boys, slicing out our weapon chips. For me, one in each arm. Ambidextrous. Deep little buggers."

"I never had mine implanted," Kunsler said, and glanced at Rebecca.

"Belt," Rebecca said. "Skin current."

"Well, we were macho," Haze said. "According to our intel, every weapon within a hundred miles of Axel Price is ID'd to its owner. Won't fire without an implanted chip. You know what Lion City and environs is like. Everyone has a chip of one sort or another. More interesting, Lion County is littered with billions of the little buggers-for surveillance and tracking. Price is some kind of fanatic. And I'm just wondering-"

He looked again at Kunsler, tense and fragile as a china doll, and decided to rein in his enthusiasm.

"Sorry. Combat high. Ladies, time to buckle up. Talos has a lot of UAVs buzzing around. Not that this little marvel can't hold its own. But after our Brights are released, we'll be the only thing in the sky."

"You've flown on this airplane before," Kunsler said, peering with a squint through the tiny window.

"Oh, yes," Haze said. "Three years ago. Accompanying the SecDef and the vice president to Jordan. Probably part of that loan program thing, now that I think of it. Comes equipped with its own Bright. With the pair we borrowed from Air Force One, that gives us three. Should get the job done and then some." Haze grinned-in his element, ready for payback. He moved forward to be with the HRT.

Rebecca could hardly feel what he was feeling-or much of anything at all. How could she rely on instinct-when instinct was being re-written?

Hell of a time to go into action.

Kunsler gripped her arm and tightened her fingers.

"You still with us?"

"Yes."

"You're the only one available to me with similar experience."

"Texas, Arabia… All the same?"

Kunsler grinned. "You know what I mean." The longer Rebecca knew her, the more the deputy director resembled a compact, vigilant falcon.

Rebecca pulled her chair forward and buckled up. "Saving one of my students is certainly important."

"Two, actually," Kunsler said. "Nabokov is Fouad Al-Husam."

Rebecca closed her eyes. Fouad, William, Jane Rowland-all had accompanied her to Mecca to find and eliminate a rogue former FBI agent with a plan to make the entire world forget its hatred, its religious bigotry-and all of its past.

To forget everything.

Peter Periglas had been executive officer aboard the USS Heinlein, which had taken them into the Red Sea, and from which they had flown to Mecca. Fouad and William saw the worst of the action and physically suffered the most-but got the job done.

And yet she was the one to come down with PTSD.

"Haze tells me you had another contact with Nathaniel Trace before we met with the president," Kunsler said. "What did he want?"

"He knows what your crying little boy is."

"And that would be?"

"Something called Jones. A high-powered problem solver, pattern recognizer. It's an integral part of MSARC. Modified in secret to follow the programmed orders of Axel Price. But Jones is acting pretty independent. Maybe he's had a change of… Software. Motive. Heart."

"Interesting," Kunsler said. "Before she left for El Paso, Jane Rowland mentioned brilliant glitches. She says whatever it is might be better than Spider/Argus at surveilling the net. If we just left it all alone, does Trace think Jones would scuttle Price's plan?"

"He can't be certain."

Kunsler cleared her throat. "What's Trace going to do?"

"I can't tell you," Rebecca said, "because he wouldn't tell me. But he's heading for Texas, too. Farther south. Should be there by now."

"Do you know anything about him, really? Do you trust him?"

"Trust is not part of the calculation," Rebecca said.

"I hate this," Kunsler said. "I hate knowing shit like this. Better to be ignorant and focus."

Rebecca agreed the situation was less than ideal.

Aft of the VIP seats and the rudimentary galley, the two Air Force weapons officers pushed open an equipment hatch-access to luggage space on most of these jets-and wriggled their way back to prepare their equipment-the three Brights.

As they had been briefed before the flight, in very little technical detail, Brights consisted of thin concentric layers of high explosives and classified electronics wrapped around altitude-maintaining balloons-aerostats. They had never been tested in real-world situations-in combat.

Their effects were too widespread and drastic.

The jet began its final approach-a long curve to the south with a spiral loop at the end.

Rebecca unbuckled and moved forward to confer with the Hostage Rescue Team. They had placed all their communications equipment and electronics in a shielded and grounded plastic box. Their weapons were stored in another grounded enclosure, built into the forward luggage compartment. They would don their armor once the plane was on the ground-it presently filled a trunk strapped down in the small rest area.

The typical HRT Lynx-networked diagnostic undergarments had been dispensed with-too many wires and sensors.

Rebecca put her hand on the shoulder of the team commander, a hefty thirty-two-year old from Montana named Calvin Forester. Forester had Sioux ancestry, his file proudly proclaimed.

"Any idea what we're going to run into down there, ma'am?" he asked Rebecca. His face was shiny but he looked confident.

"Hell on Earth for bad guys, I hope," Rebecca said. "A lot of pissed-off people, hopefully without much in the way of guns."

"What are the chances we'll locate our agents?"

"Tiny," Rebecca said.

"Director Haze seems to think he should be in charge," Forester said. The team members looked up with expressions that mixed hope and respect. They'd have all preferred Haze-and so would Rebecca, but-

"We have our orders," she said.

Forester knocked on another protected box in the seat beside him-their key to thieving a big ride, once they were on the ground. "These Brights-they'll crisp their machines, right? Just like fryers taking out bots?"

"Same idea, I think," Rebecca said. "But huge."

"And we do the rest?"

"Right."

Kunsler came forward.

"She's gone," she said, barely audible above the steady deep pulse of the jets. "President Eve Carol Larsen… seven-fifteen a.m., East Coast time. We're on our own now. We're orphans."

"To a brave lady," Forester said, slowly lifting his hand in salute. "To our president."

The team did the same, saluting as one.

Haze stood behind Kunsler with a bottle of water in one hand and a stack of cups in the other. He poured, his hand shaking ever so slightly, and they toasted their fallen leader.