Yaeger had been working for hours to carve away the useless and misleading data in the files Austin and Trout had transmitted from the Ataman ship. He'd run into countless dead ends and had had to cut through more layers than an onion. Finally, he had distilled his findings into a series of commands that would cut through the dross. He typed them out one at a time and waited. Before long, words written in Cyrillic appeared. He entered a command to use translation software.

Yaeger scratched his head, mystified at the image on the screen. It was a menu.

As he was watching, the menu disappeared and in its place was a message from Max.

MAY I TAKE YOUR ORDER, SIR? WHAT'S THIS ALL ABOUT?

I COULD TELL YOU BETTER IF WE USED THE HOLOGRAM.

Yaeger blinked. Max was trying to bribe him. He rotated his shoulder blades to relieve the stress of working, breathed a weary sigh and brought his fingers back to the keyboard.

NUMA 3 - Fire Ice

-30- WASHINGTON, D.C.

THE NUMA EXECUTIVE jet was one of dozens of planes coming into Washington National Airport. Unlike the regularly scheduled arrivals that followed the bug-like ground vehicles to their respective terminals, the turquoise plane taxied to a restricted section on the south end of the airport not far from an old airplane hangar with a rounded roof. The engines whined to a stop and a trio of dark blue Suburban SUVs emerged from the shadows with darkened headlights, and lined up alongside the plane.

Two Marine guards and a man dressed in civilian clothes got out of the lead vehicle. While the guards took their place at the foot of the gangway, standing stiffly at attention, the third man, who carried a black satchel, strode quickly up the gangway and rapped on the door. It opened a second later, and Austin stuck his head out.

“I'm Captain Morris, a doctor from the naval hospital,” the man said. “I've come to check out our people.” He looked past Austin and saw the unconscious forms of the captain and the pilot slumped in their seats. “Dear God! Are they dead?”

“Yeah, dead drunk,” Austin said. “We celebrated their homecoming on the trip from Portland and they had a little too much of the bubbly. Those strapping young Marines down there might want to assist your men off the plane.”

Captain Morris called the Marines, and they managed to help the NR-1 men down the gangway to the tarmac. The cool night air revived Captain Logan and the pilot. They gave Austin and Trout an emotional and slurred thank-you, staggered to the middle vehicle and were whisked off into the night in a squeal of tires, leaving Austin and Trout breathing in their engine exhausts.