Barbara managed a quick smile at that: it was something Klaus would have said. She waited for the furor to lessen, then spoke loudly into the opening.

“I appreciate your point of view, Mr. President,” Barbara answered. Which is not something Klaus would have said. “And yours may yet be a tactic we have to attempt, if there are no other options left to us. But Director Ray and I believe there’s another way, one that both he and I agree upon. If destroying Tolenka isn’t the answer—and I do believe Baba Yaga, as everything else she’s told us has been verified, and she has no reason to lie—then there’s another way. If we can’t simply kill Tolenka, then we must take him elsewhere.”

“To where?” Putin scoffed. “Assuming you can find and capture the man—and I would remind you that the Committee’s last attempt at that was a miserable failure, Ms. Baden—where would you take him? Where would you send him?”

“To hell itself,” Ray answered.

“Via the Highwayman,” Barbara hurried in to say. “John Bruckner.”

“I’ve ridden with the Highwayman,” Ray said. “I’ve seen the dimension that the man opens up, and everything about it says Talas: the twisted, deformed figures, the monsters, the fog. That’s where that beast inside Tolenka is from, and if we toss Tolenka back there and leave him, then…” Ray clapped his hands together dramatically. “Everything closes up. Let the beast come out of Tolenka—the passageway into our world would be gone, because Tolenka is that portal.”

“This is all just supposition,” President van Rennsaeler said.

“Yes, Madame President,” Barbara told her, “but everything fits: what we’ve seen in Talas, and the dimension through which the Highwayman travels. It’s no worse a supposition than killing Tolenka or reducing Talas to radioactive rubble will also solve the problem. And if we fail…” Barbara shrugged. “Then the other option is still on the table. At least let us try.”

“Bruckner is in St. Gilles, serving out his sentence,” Jayewardene said. “We would have to contact the authorities in Brussels and work with them in order to release him.”

“Did you not hear what we’ve been saying?” Ray spat. “We don’t have time to waste.”

“There are protocols, rules, and legalities we still have to follow, Director Ray,” Jayewardene responded.

“Then do that, Mr. Secretary-General,” Barbara told him. “Now.”

Jayewardene’s solemn gaze seemed to traverse the screen in front of him, looking at each of them. “President Putin, President van Rennsaeler, President Karimov, General Ruez? Are we in agreement here?”

“Twenty-four hours,” Putin said immediately. “No more. And we need Committee aces to help defend Baikonur.”

“Done,” Barbara told him.

The others murmured agreement. Putin’s screen went to black; the others quickly followed. “I will contact Brussels now,” Jayewardene said before he broke contact. “I will do my best. You will have to do yours, Ms. Baden.” He said the last sentence with a strange emphasis, and Barbara nodded to him. With that, his screen flickered and went dark. The only sound in the room was the hum of the fans.