It was a speed bump but not a dead end. The field computer had a detachable wand scanner. I ran it over every page in the top folder and set it aside. The second folder had more of the same, as did the third. It wasn’t until I opened the fourth folder that I realized that I had found something that literally took my breath away.

Beneath the same sort of official-looking cover letter was a series of eight-by-ten glossy surveillance photos of me, Top, Bunny, Khalid, Lydia, and John Smith. On the back of each was a handwritten note in English that included a brief physical description and a summary of our military or police training.

I recognized the handwriting. I’d seen it a million times on reports from Terror Town and on evaluations of potential staff members being vetted for top secret clearance.

Hugo Vox.

“Shit,” I said aloud.

There was more, and it was worse. Much worse. A thick sheaf of printed pages held together by a heavy binder clip. I stared at the information on the lists and felt an icy hand punch through my chest and close its fingers around my heart.

I dropped everything and called Church right away.

Interlude Ten

Interlude Ten

The Kingdom of Shadows

Beneath the Sands

April 1231 C.E.

Sister Sophia clutched at the tatters of her habit, pulling them to her to try to hide her nakedness. It was a hopeless task. Her clothes were little more than streamers of black and white. Grimed with dirt and filth, caked with blood.

A metal grate in the iron door clanged open and a pale hand shoved in a bundle wrapped in cloth and a leather pitcher. Immediately she could smell bread and cooked meat. The grate slammed shut and she listened to hear the soft footsteps fade into silence. Then Sophia sobbed and crawled across the floor toward the food and tore open the bundle. A small loaf of coarse black bread and a leg of something—she could not tell what animal it had come from. The meat was bloody raw inside and charred outside, but it was the first food they had given her in three days. She wept hysterically as she tore at it with her teeth.

After she’d eaten as much of the meat as she could stomach, she drank from the pitcher. The water was cold but it smelled of sulfur. Then she sagged back, once more trying to hide herself with her rags. It did not matter that there was no one there to see her uncovered skin. She was ashamed in the eyes of God. Ashamed for what she had become.