The Agent that had been known as Shahim Al Khazar has done much to atone for his sins. Preeti Parikh and Jean-Paul Merard lie dead at his hands, and the earth owes the destruction of one of the four mighty satellites to his savage attack on Peshawar Base. But the deaths of a thousand innocents weighs heavy on him as he walks away from the mutilated body that was Agent Jean-Paul Merard.

He saw only one parachute drop from Jack and Martin’s B-2 bomber, and that at great altitude. But if there is even a slight chance that one of the brave men is still alive then he must do what he can for them. Unfortunately for the lone parachutist, its greatest peril lies ahead it as it floats to the ground, for it is a highly visibly remnant of an illegal US Air Force flight deep into Iran’s skies. Long festering anti-American hatred, fueled by fear and confusion from the past days’ aberrant missile attacks, awaits any who survive the long drop, and Shahim has no illusions as to the welcome they will receive if the Iranians get to them before he does.

In Israel, Ayala Zubaideh’s old handler from her days in the Mossad follows the Israeli Mobiliei Agent at a safe distance. He is nominally aware of some of Raz Shellet’s extensive abilities, and so he watches her from afar as she calmly walks away from her post, and from the double life she had led up until the satellites were destroyed. Each week he has been reporting her movements in regular coded letters mailed to a post office box in Boston, but those reports are about to change dramatically.

As the world spins and the many players in the great game take their new positions, another vastly more powerful foe is eyeing them from afar. Just starting to become visible in the night sky, a small cluster of new stars are shining. Still ten years away, they bring with them untold firepower and merciless purpose. At this great distance they are too far away to have been inside the range of the subspace tweeters that had beaten aboard the now destroyed AI satellites. They do not know that the advanced team is discovered. But they have always assumed that we will not go quietly. In virtual conferences of massive scale, the admirals and generals of the Mobiliei meet and discuss their plans, and behind the great fires of their decelerating engines, the huge Armada readies itself for war.