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Desh had compiled a list of Frey’s friends—of which there were basically none—and people who knew him well. Almost all would be contacted and interviewed over the phone, but Vernal, Utah was close enough to reach by car, and nothing could take the place of a face-to-face interview. Besides, Griffin was on a plane, so this would give Kira some alone time, which was good for relationships no matter how loving the couple.

And it was especially good for him right now. He was finding it hard to maintain the fiction with Kira that nothing had changed between them. He could chalk it up to stress, but he had to find a way to shake off the misgivings he now had. It was possible that the intent of Kira’s alter ego was relatively harmless, and he was misreading things. And he was certain that the woman he loved was still the woman he loved, unaware of what her altered self was doing. Even so, there were subtle differences in their relationship that she would pick up on if he wasn’t careful. He loved her, but feared and distrusted what might be lurking inside. While making love to a woman who’d been bitten by a werewolf, it was almost impossible not to cast an anxious glance up at the moon on occasion—afraid to be caught off guard when it became full.

 
“So you’re here to learn more about Eric Frey, correct?” said Dr. Cohen.

 
“That’s right,” replied Desh. “I understand that you worked with Dr. Frey fairly extensively at USAMRIID for a number of years.”

“I did.”

“What was he like at work?”

Cohen hesitated. “Can I speak freely?”

Desh smiled warmly. “That’s what we’re here for,” he assured him. “Whatever you say will be kept in strict confidence.”

“Well, I hate to disparage the dead, um, you know . . . who can’t exactly defend themselves . . . but in my opinion, Frey was a psychopathic asshole. And that was on his good days.”

“Go on,” said Desh.

“He was pure poison. But he was
talented
poison, I’ll give him that. And he was a political maestro. He would backstab, cheat, suck-up, badmouth colleagues, take credit for the work of others—you name it. Anything to further his career. He could lie with more conviction, and less sense of shame, than I could tell the truth. And he could be charming when he wanted to be. He’d be smiling at you while he slipped the knife in your back, and he was so good at it you had to be stabbed five or six times before it really sunk in that it wasn’t accidental.”

“You’re obviously aware that he was a serial pedophile,” said Desh. “And he was thought to be involved in other illegal activities as well.”

Cohen nodded.

“Did you suspect anything when you were working with him?”

Cohen shrank back in disgust. “If I had
any
idea of how big a monster this guy really was, I would have turned him in in an instant. Pedophilia is the most horrible crime there is, in my opinion. But you know how a lot of guys, they turn out to be pedophiles or serial killers and the cops interview the neighbors, and they say, wow, who’d have ever thought it? Seemed like such a nice guy. Well, with this guy, you
would
have thought it. I had no idea he preyed on kids, but after it came out, it didn’t surprise me at all.” he shook his head. “I’ll tell you what
does
surprise me, though. That he committed suicide. That I would have
never
guessed.”

Perfect, thought Desh. Rub it in some more, why don’t you. “Why is that?” he asked.

“Suicide indicates remorse, and after several years working with this nut job, this wasn’t in his lexicon. Pedophiles aren’t treated well in prison, as you know. I understand that. But I’d have expected him to flee to an island somewhere and prey on kids there.”

“This is helpful,” said Desh. “We’re trying to build as complete a profile of him as we can. So anything and everything you can tell us about him would be huge. Favorite sports teams? Did he smoke? Any unusual foods he liked? Was he into opera? Nascar? Did he collect wooden ducks? Favorite restaurants? Type of books he read?” He paused. “Nothing is too trivial.”

“I’ll tell you everything I can remember, and point you to some other people you should speak with. But I don’t get it. I mean the guy’s dead. How will a complete profile on him help you in your investigation? ”

“You’d be surprised,” said Desh with just a hint of a smile.

***

Kira Miller sat at her desk in front of a computer, once again attending to administrative duties, the only person present in the large headquarters facility that principally provided housing for the core council. She had booked hexads at the facility, and in the enhancement room, for several months in advance—with the next group due on site in two days—but she had a few slots that had been booked by members of Rosenblatt’s hexad that she needed to reassign until they were ready to resume their activities.

Given the loss of the decoy building, the flurry of activity the alien craft had set in motion, and the new threats against Icarus that had grown like weeds in recent weeks, recruitment, which had been slow previously, was now stopped in its tracks.

She turned her thoughts to Anton van Hutten. He was the first member of what would be a new hexad, but they weren’t about to wait until the full unit had been recruited. He was a star, their great hope to finally conquer faster-than-light travel. In the short time since his first enhancement, he had already been back twice, and was scheduled for two more visits next week. She just hoped he wasn’t tapped to be part of
Copernicus
, which had been on the news nonstop since this world cooperative effort was first announced.

Kira heard a faint shuffling behind her and twisted around in shock to see what it was. “Anton?” she said in confusion, recognizing the cherubic-faced physicist immediately. “I was just thinking of you,” she added.

“Hi Kira,” he said as he continued to walk toward her.

Van Hutten had been here only yesterday, but he wasn’t scheduled again until next week. Had one of the core council changed the schedule and failed to notify her? Highly unlikely. And even if they had, who had brought him here?

Something was horribly wrong
.

As she struggled to understand what was happening, van Hutten pulled a stun gun from his pocket and pointed it at her.

Her eyes widened. “How did you find the facility?” she asked, instinctively stalling, trying to establish a connection, trying to get him talking.

 
“I hid a tiny GPS locater here the last time I visited. Your cloak and dagger attempts to keep this location secret only work until one of us actively tries to find it. Then it’s easy.”

Kira tensed, ready to spring from her chair and dive on van Hutten the moment he let down his guard. “But why? What is this all abo—”

Twin electrodes shot like harpoons from van Hutten’s weapon and attached to her shirt, stopping her in mid-sentence. She convulsed and slid to the ground, unconscious.

When she regained her senses five minutes later she was lying on her back on the floor, and there was no sign of her attacker. Her mouth was covered in duct tape and her arms were crossed tightly against her chest.

And she couldn’t move them at all.
Was she paralyzed?

A moment later she realized what had happened. Van Hutten had placed her in a straitjacket. The heavy white garment constricted her arms tightly and the straps were buckled around her back, with a strap between her legs. Van Hutten had cut out the section of elastic in the front of her panties with a scissors, removing the vital signs monitor, bug, and transmitter.

And he had used several long plastic zip-strips to tie her to her heavy desk. What was going on?

Van Hutten’s resume was well known. He didn’t have any military training. He was a highly regarded physicist, not a spy or a double agent. Yet he had carried out his attack with precision and had used nylon ties favored by police forces and the military.

Then again, thought Kira, anyone with a brain and an Internet connection could become marginally proficient at just about anything these days.

But
why
was he doing this? Had he gone mad?

Van Hutten returned, pulling a large red wagon, the kind a five-year-old child might play with. Inside the wagon sat several containers, about the size of the clear plastic jugs used in office water coolers, filled with a dense liquid that reeked of petroleum and polystyrene. He had a pump mechanism and sprayed the liquid liberally around the room, before moving into the next, his pace brisk.

Kira fought to get free, but it was hopeless. And the more she struggled the greater the amount of noxious fumes she breathed in. Van Hutten was going to torch the place, that was certain. But would he leave her inside when he did?

How could they have been so wrong about Anton van Hutten? He tested as a good man with a stable personality.

Kira had never felt so violated. This building was their sanctuary. They had state-of-the art electronic security protecting it, but if anyone within
Icarus
was to turn traitor, which apparently had happened, their security wouldn’t be difficult to defeat. A traitor could figure it out while enhanced and encode instructions to themselves as part of their notes.

They had made the classic mistake, the mistake of Julius Caesar, who was unmatched as a general, survived many a battle against mighty armies, but who was brought down from within by someone he had trusted.

Van Hutten finally returned, fifteen minutes later. He cut her loose from the desk and pointed the stun gun at her. “You need to come with me,” he said gently, his tone and expression conveying nothing but sadness and regret.

He marched her to the back of a van that was similar to the one they used to shuttle visitors back and forth to the airport, containing no windows, and secured her inside. The van smelled of the chemical mix van Hutten was using as a fire accelerant.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am about this,” he said with all the sincerity in the world. And then he slid the door closed and began driving, pausing only long enough to throw a makeshift torch out of the window and onto a shallow puddle of the liquid he had brought.

***

“Frey was big into saltwater fishing,” said Cohen. “Even bragged about an annual trip he took to Costa Rica to spearfish, using scuba equipment and a spear gun.”

Desh glanced at Connelly. He wasn’t surprised that Frey would get more satisfaction from being able to personally control a spear and watch it plunge into his prey than from having fish bite a stationary hook out of his sight.

“And he had his own boat,” continued Cohen. “For the more traditional fishing, which he did all the time. He docked it in Baltimore.”

“What size boat?” asked Desh.

“Not huge, but high quality. I heard once it cost him almost a hundred thousand dollars. Supposedly very fast.”

“Do you know how often he used it?” asked Desh, as his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Two vibrations, followed by a brief pause, followed by two vibrations again. This was the code they had programmed their central computer to use when a member of Icarus was in trouble. Connelly was just pulling his own phone out with a worried look on his face.

“I’m not sure exactly,” replied Cohen, “but I’d say about—”

“Hold that thought,” interrupted Desh. “Can I use your bathroom?”

“Certainly,” said Cohen, eyeing Desh with a note of disapproval, as if wondering how bad his bathroom emergency had to be that he couldn’t let him finish his sentence. “It’s around the corner to the right.”

Desh removed his phone as he entered the bathroom and scrolled to the proper screen. It was a vital signs alert. Kira had been rendered unconscious. According to the algorithm, she had been shot with a stun gun. Either that or struck by lightning; a possibility that Desh dismissed immediately. And her bug wasn’t transmitting.

Desh scrolled to another screen. After he had discovered Kira’s clandestine activities, he had installed cameras to spy on her. The footage was stored temporarily on a secure Internet site, which he could access from his phone. But he was interested only in what was being transmitted at this moment. He tapped into the transmission and checked three different views.

His breath caught in his throat.

Kira was unconscious, and someone was strapping her into a straightjacket.

It was Anton van Hutten
.

Desh didn’t wait to see more. He rushed from the bathroom.

Had the physicist gone mad?

Desh glanced meaningfully at Connelly and turned quickly to their host. “Thanks for your time, Dr. Cohen,” he said. “But an urgent matter has come up that I need to attend to.” Desh walked briskly to the front door and threw it open. “I’ll give you a call as soon as possible,” he finished as he and Connelly rushed to their car.

***

Jake was meeting in his office with his second in command when a light flickered on his office phone. Line four. This was a line he reserved for his
Steve Henry
alias, a key false identity. He rarely used it for outgoing calls, and he couldn’t remember the last time he had an
incoming
call on this line.

“I need to get this,” he said to Kolke, pressing a button that would put the call on the speaker. “Steve Henry,” he said.

“Steve, this is Gill Fisher, Denver fire chief. We spoke a few weeks ago.”

Jake eyed Kolke questioningly. Kolke spread his hands and shrugged. He had no idea what this could be about either.

“What can I do for you Chief Fisher?”

“Something’s come up that I thought you might want to know about. It’s the damndest thing. We’re currently battling a fire at a facility that’s the spitting image of the one that was cratered a few weeks ago. The one you asked me to treat with maximum discretion. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was the same building. And it’s a nasty one. Like a grease fire, but worse. Almost like homemade Greek fire.”

“So you’re saying it’s arson?”

“No question about it. And there’s a warehouse about eighty yards to the east that’s burning the same way. Since they aren’t connected, this is even more evidence for arson.”