Whichever company they got to take the bait, she would put the entire value of the house into shares in that company. Only she could do this, none of the others could be seen linking themselves so clearly to what was about to be such a game changing organization.

But between the considerable wealth they would get from the share price sky rocketing in the near future, and the ‘consulting fees’ they would ask for in return for Madeline’s time and expertise, they would gain a significant additional source of funding for the other work they needed to be starting on.

Chapter 31: Officer’s Club

Going for a meeting in the office of General Pickler was usually an exercise in self-control for Colonel Milton. But today was different for several reasons, thought the colonel as he stepped through the Pentagon’s security screen and replaced his cap.

Waiting for the elevator, the colonel considered what he had to accomplish today. For the first time in his twenty-year career, he had called a meeting with a superior for personal reasons. He needed to relocate to DC, at least for the meantime, so he could work closely with Neal, Madeline, and Ayala in building their plan.

He also needed to regain access to military hardware and personnel. Though they were a long way from being ready to do it yet, in the not too distant future they were going to need to launch an attack on the four unseen satellites John Hunt had told them were watching them from space.

The satellites’ capability outline that the mysterious double agent had provided was, frankly, horrifically long, and as long as those satellites were in space, they were not going to be able to start preparing for the larger threat that they represented.

So, to that end, Colonel Milton needed to start building the contacts he would need across the globe to eventually coordinate that attack. For now, that started here, in the US.

He sighed as he considered the scale of the job, comparisons to Everest seemed woefully inadequate, but that wasn’t all he had to do, not even close. Also begging for his attention was the disquieting problem of getting some kind of handle on the other Agents that were at work across his blissfully unaware planet. John had given them the Agents’ names and countries, and the basics of their progress to date.

The colonel would have to be careful, but he would start by very subtly locating the operative in the US.

His senior rank in a NATO force should also allow him to keep a quiet eye on the French Agent, and maybe even the Israeli one. After that, well, getting people in place near the Agents in Pakistan and India was going to be much harder, not to mention infiltrating the Chinese and Russian armies.