The information that Neal had supplied to the team at Hanscom had also given them a totally new set of options outside of extra-orbital ballistics. While the satellites’ retrograde orbits made them very hard to track, and harder still to run away from, this same fact could be used to the group’s advantage when trying to destroy them. If they could get something big enough, and explosive enough, into their paths, the satellites might do the work for them, rushing headlong into whatever trap the group was able to set.

It was a possibility, and one which depended on several assumptions they had made using the excellent but still limited information John Hunt had given them to date. Not least of these assumptions centered around the defensive capabilities of the satellites, and their ability to maneuver around the munitions being thrown up into their path.

Those assumptions, among other things, would be confirmed, or denied, tonight.

A week ago Neal had received another letter from his enigmatic contact within the alien conspiracy. The letter had said that, for the first time since the brief visit to Madeline and Neal’s hotel room a few months beforehand, John Hunt was going to be able to return to the States. In the letter, the double agent had expressed the need for Neal and Madeline to discreetly get to a specific small airfield in Virginia. They would meet in a hangar at that airfield, at a set time and date laid out in the letter.

Using two different classified ads, one in the New York Times and one in the Enquirer, both of which Neal arranged from separate pay phones, Neal used the code words Ayala had given the team to instruct them all to meet. He used the codeword for an all-hands meeting request, and another that referred to a predefined covered car park in DC. He then added a phone number, which, translated per Ayala’s instructions, would tell them the date and time for the meeting. Finally he added ONO, which Ayala had asked that they use just to say if all was well. She would come loaded for bear either way, as she did to any meeting, but it was wise to let folks know that this was not some dire situation. It was best to minimize any additional stress on their, some might say, slightly fraught psyches.

It was time, thought Neal, as he glanced at the system clock on his screen.

Standing, he went to the empty clothes rack near the door and removed the clothes he was wearing down to his T-shirt, underwear, and socks. He then donned jeans, a sweater, and sneakers from the full red rack to his right.

Stepping to the basement identity chest, he pulled his own credit card and ID from his wallet and left them in the drawer, just in case, and replaced them with his English alias’s driver’s license and Visa card.