Thirty minutes later, as she finished planting the second disk deep within the second submarine in dock, she climbed back out of the long thin vessel. In just half an hour, she had effectively disabled two of America’s fourteen nuclear submarines. When she was ready, she would have the satellites send the kill command to the disks using their large subspace tweeters. The signal would find them wherever they were and the submarines would be destroyed. She should have started doing this a long time ago, she thought as she stepped back down to the jetty. By now she could have set charges on over half of the Atlantic fleet. Admittedly, that was only one part of the United States’ vast nuclear capability, but it was still something. She was bored with this covert tiptoeing. With the satellites under attack, it was time to start fighting in earnest.

Suddenly she stopped in her tracks. Something was awry. It had been thirty minutes since she had entered the base and her charges were now set. It was extremely unlikely that they would ever be found by anyone, they were simply too small and appeared too innocuous. But now something else was happening. The satellites were worried, something was very, very wrong. Her eyes glazed over as she communed with them, seeing with their eyes, their machine thoughts melding with her own.

Just as the missiles fired by the Dauntless had proved more resistant than the AI had anticipated, something now seemed to be wrong with the second phalanx of missiles launched at the other two as well. After they had finished destroying all of the initial kinetic missiles, they had begun to focus on the fewer but larger tactical explosive missiles behind them. But the second wave was proving just as resistant as the javelins the Dauntless had thrown. With cold-hearted precision, the calculations changed. Predictions were reevaluated.

The whole world of Agent Lana Wilson had revolved around the capabilities and information the satellites had given her. Because of them she saw the world with omniscient eyes. She had been able to see around corners. She had been able to see the movements of her colleagues and her prey. She had been able to read any e-mail, access any file. The thought of losing these abilities disturbed her on a fundamental level.

It was painfully clear now that there was a pervasive counter-conspiracy in place and she knew that she needed to find these conspirators and make them pay. She would start with Neal Danielson and Madeline Cavanagh, she thought. To think that she had talked to that petulant little bitch Madeline and then let her go. She had listened to the whining of the Council and allowed herself to be duped by the machinations of the traitors that must have infiltrated it.