“You keep returning to that.” George reached toward her, then, after a moment, withdrew his hand. “The early generations were too human. Insufficiently ruthless.”

“Jesus, George, what am I gonna do with this?”

“What you have to,” he snapped, and she knew at once where the conversation was going.

Surely you can’t love somebody who isn’t completely human—except that her heart was not telling her that. Her heart was screaming that you can, and deeply and dearly, and you can long for him and fear for him. And she found her heart, and it was breaking.

“You say alien DNA is involved. They left DNA behind?”

He raised his eyebrows. “They lived here and died here for two generations, so, yes, we have their DNA. But the sorcerer grew tired of us, of Earth, of all of it. Lost interest and went home.” George’s gaze grew distant. “I’m very much afraid that this is the work of the sorcerer’s apprentice.”

“Tell me what you want done, George, and I’ll do it. Maybe I got blindsided and even perhaps intentionally seduced, but never doubt my loyalty to mankind and to my country. Never doubt it, George.”

“I never would, Gina.”

“You came in doubting it. You doubt it now.”

“Tell you what, you kill him. Do it the second we’re out of this meeting.”

She fought for balance, grabbed at it, said smoothly, “He could be a very useful study. If, say, I tell him to come in. Then we take him.”

She could feel her fingernails digging into her palms and didn’t care.

“Gina, kill him. He is a hybrid, and as such he is a more profound enemy of mankind than any of us have ever known.”

“He’s not hostile to mankind. And anyway, you said yourself that he was human.”

“He’s programmable, never forget that. Maybe the other hybrids have changed his loyalties.”

“There was good in him. A lot of it.”

“Gina, you do not defend him. You do this!”

“Okay, fine, but how? No assassin is gonna get to him. Ain’t gonna happen. I’ll need an air strike and he’s in a town.”

“So lure him back into the field. For chrissakes!”

“Okay!”

George folded his arms. Appraising. “Is your having screwed him going to be a factor? I have to ask.”

Unbidden, Mark came before her in the glow of memory, his inner power flashing in his splendid eyes, his body rippling with strength, his lips touched by the subtle smile that never left his face.

“I was seduced.”

George nodded slowly.

“So let’s just confirm that I am being ordered to have Colonel Bryan killed.”

“You’re being ordered to try.”