“It’s true, Admiral,” said Neal, trying to be gentle with the man, “these are not suspects, the double Agent John Hunt has specifically identified each of these people. How do you think we got any detailed information at all on the activities of members of the Chinese and Russian military?”

“How do you know he is not just trying to undermine key people in our armed forces?” said the admiral, a sickness overcoming him. His son. It was too much to come to terms with.

“Admiral,” said the colonel, “if you were trying to spread dissent about key military personnel, would you name a fresh-faced naval lieutenant? Look at the dates, sir, look at when they each started Officer Candidate School.”

Hamilton looked at them. They were all within a couple of weeks of each other.

Neal stepped up to the admiral and stood just to his side, wary of the man’s emotions, “Admiral, just to reiterate, the meteor shower that started us all on this path was October 4th. Five days before the first of these individuals checked into OCS. All but one of them were in schools around the world within a month. And then three weeks after they arrived we saw the attack on Bachamir Air Base in Afghanistan that we now know initiated the last Agent into the ranks of Al Qaeda.”

The admiral looked around the board. The Agents. The probe’s findings. The superconducting material. The virus. Jesus Christ. And to think he had threatened these two men with wasting his time.

For their part, Neal and Barrett waited. They sensed that the admiral’s mood had reached critical mass. Soon he would crack. The question was: what would be left afterward? Would he be one of them, would he be broken, or, worst of all, would he be a liability?

Admiral Tim Hamilton thought. The evidence they had compiled was widespread and exhaustive. The sources were as close to infallible as you could hope to see in such situations. A senior White House advisor, an air force colonel previously in charge of the Deep Space Array, sourcing every major skyward facing asset they or any of their allies had. The meteors’ trajectories and landing sights. The markings on the remains of the King’s Transom’s crew. The schematics of the virus and its antigen. The plating, its utter lack of reaction to heat, cold, or, more demonstrably, to Barrett belting it with a large hammer and no small amount of malice.

As pie in the sky as it all might seem, the Pentagon had, of course, white-boarded scenarios just like this. He had been part of the briefings, at first jovial, then serious, and then jovial again. Their laughter seemed so naïve now.

Finally, face set, he looked at the photo of Lana Wilson one more time. She had come into his home. She had used his son to get ahead. He thought long and hard.