He felt it, too, a great flood of relief and, with it, sheer joy at being alive. This must be how it felt to realize that you had survived a battle, he thought, this shimmering blood rush.

They went down the main street, then turned off onto a winding road. After about a mile of struggling down the rough, partly unpaved road, it dwindled into a track. George stopped the truck. He leaned forward. Thick forest was all around them.

“This doesn’t appear to be right.”

“She had the coordinates in her GPS,” Linda said.

“Well, there’s no place for paratroopers to come in here.”

They got out. As they moved among the trees, George felt rather than heard something swish past his face. Then again.

“There’s bats here,” he said.

“Bats,” Richardson said. His voice had become deep and hollow, like a voice from a tomb.

“You’ll see again,” George said. “They can do all kinds of things these days.”

Richardson turned to him. His lips lifted in a mirthless smile. “Do you really think so?” He opened his eyes wide and pressed his grinning face close to George’s.

“Is there a … clearing?” George asked, his voice faint.

“You tell us.”

He looked around. Birds sang in the trees, their warbles echoing in the hollow of the forest. “There could be—maybe beyond those trees.”

“Lead us,” Linda said. “That’s why you’re here.”

“There’s more light over there. Perhaps—let’s have a look.”

They came out into a clearing perhaps six acres in size. Even with the operators’ skills, it was going to be a challenge for Delta Force to parachute into this.

A shuffling sound came from among the trees, and George was appalled to see a pale person pause at the edge of the clearing, then come toward him.

“Hybrid,” he shouted, and turned to run—and found himself in Richardson’s arms. He fought, but it was no use. Richardson was far, far stronger than him.

He found himself turned around, and face-to-face with a soft-featured hybrid, apparently intended to appear female. The face was soft, but the angles spoke of the danger of the snake, and the eyes had in them not the slightest trace of humanity. If this was not a machine, it was a brilliant animal.

It carried a silver suitcase.

“Are you ugly?” it asked him in a snapping, testy voice.

He needed the satphone. He had to send a warning. This no longer made any sense, except for one inescapable fact: Hicks and Richardson were working with this hybrid, not against it, so nothing was right here, nothing at all.

The creature spoke again. “What do you look like?”

He couldn’t understand why it would ask. But then he had a glimmer of realization. For whatever reason, it was blind, too.

“I’m fifty, a bit of a paunch, I’m afraid.”

“You’re ugly, aren’t you?”

“Ah, well—”