"Everything's ready to jettison," Knowlton said. "The pods are in the pressure chamber. If those choppers try to deliver a boarding party, we can dump the weapon pods and most of the classified stuff out the recovery hatch. We can also-"

"Shit! Look at this!" White exclaimed, staring at a photo. It was a blurry but very readable picture of what had to be the most unusual-looking aircraft either of them had ever seen.

"What the hell is it?"

"It looks like a . . . like a fighter, I think," Knowlton said. "Like a stealth fighter, only with a curved fuselage and wings. It reminds me of the alien spacecraft from the movie War of the Worlds, except with a pointed nose. You think the Russians have a fighter like this in development-in Vilnius, of all places? They're building a bomber in the middle of a revolution?"

"Well, Fisikous is a major aerospace research-design complex," White explained. "They probably got a dozen models like this..." White found a magnifying glass and peered intently at the photo. "I don't think this is a model. It's too big! See the sentry standing over here?

The lower root edge of that wing has to be twenty feet high. It's gotta be bigger than the B-2

bomber. And they've got pneumatic and electrical cables running to it. Maybe it's a prototype. The Pentagon is gonna love this."

"Think it's a fake? A decoy?"

"Could be," White admitted. "If young Lieutenant Litwy was blown, they might have set up some fake aircraft at Fisikous."

"Or Litwy could be a fake," Knowlton observed. "The real Litwy could have been tortured for the passwords and responses, a mole put in his place. This whole thing could be a big ruse."

White gave Knowlton a lopsided grin and a shrug of his thin shoulders. "That's above our pay grade, Carl," he said, flipping to another photo. "It's up to Defense Intelligence and the CIA to find out if Litwy's for real. We don't kiss 'em or shoot 'em-we just snatch 'em. Let the guys in the bad brown suits worry about-"

Paul White froze. He was staring at a photo he'd just flipped to, his eyes riveted to it, not believing what he was seeing.

Knowlton saw his superior officer's wide-eyed look. "Paul? What is it? Litwy bring back a gory one? Let me see-"

White glanced up, confusion and disbelief spreading across his face. He lowered the photo, handing it over to Knowlton. It was a picture of a

group of three soldiers-all elite Black Beret troops who occupied many of the more important ex-Soviet facilities in the Baltic states, including the Fisikous Research Institute-surrounding a younger man. One couldn't tell whether the Black Berets were protecting an important civilian or if he was a prisoner.

But it was the man, dressed in plain brown slacks and a sweater, who had grabbed White's attention.

Knowlton prodded. "Hey, Paul, who is he? A long-lost brother or something? You know this guy?"