That was okay. Her time would come. Boris massaged his crotch, fantasizing about all the things he would to do her. The pain she would suffer. Yes, that would be quite wonderful.., seeing her in pain.., and ecstasy.

To no surprise, Boris realized he had grown quite hard just thinking about her.

TWO.

HIGH TECHNOLOGY AEROSPACE WEAPONS CENTER (HAWC), NEVADA

17 MARCH 1993, 0930 p~r (1230 ET)

L

ieutenant General Bradley Elliott, commander of the U.S. Air Force's top-secret flight-test facility known as HAWC (nicknamed Dreamland because of the highly classified high-tech equipment they developed and tested there), looked at the colonel standing before him, trying to make an assessment. Elliott poured some coffee from a pot, his memory kicking into overdrive.

Paul White, the Air Force colonel in Elliott's office, was someone Elliott knew, or knew of rather. He was regarded as one of the most intelligent and creative engineers in the Air Force. Elliott himself had once recruited him for an assignment at HAWC, and if memory served him correctly, White had also been involved in training Patrick McLanahan and Dave Luger at Ford Air Force Base. But that was a while ago, and since then some other organization had snapped White up-which organization, Elliott did not know. His staff had tried to find out, but White's whereabouts were harder to track, which meant classified work, as was Elliott's. Still, Elliott's chief of security, Captain Hal Briggs, had tried to pull whatever he could on White-only to run into a brick wall at the White House.

The big blank in White's current life made Elliott uneasy, especially since the White House was involved, but White was on Elliott's turf now-in a meeting White had requested.

"Sir," White said, scanning the room with his eyes, "is there somewhere we can speak in private?"

"This is private, Colonel. If there is something I need to hear, spill it." White glanced directly at a signed and remarqued Dru Blair lithograph of an F-Il 7A stealth fighter hanging over Elliott's desk-the only one of eight such framed posters in the office that had a hidden microphone and security camera behind it. It was pure luck that he'd guessed it, but Elliott foil0 wed the ~ze of hise yes and tried to ig~re it.

A lot of people were intimidated by HAWC's intense security measures. The facility, located in the south-central part of Nevada, a hundred miles north of Las Vegas, was one of the most restricted in the world. Its overflight airspace was off-limits for all aircraft, from the surface to infinity. There were warnings of "Deadly Force Authorized" everywhere, which meant that security guards could shoot first, ask questions later. Armed patrols roamed the streets and hallways. Every building had its own special security setup, customized for the individuals and projects within. A request for a visit to HAWC set off a chain of security scrutiny of the kind Colonel White had been subjected to.