My line of work had taken me behind the Iron Curtain routinely. Order existed there, but the price was high: freedom. I wondered what this vessel’s builders demanded for the order they sought. And what that order was.

Back in our hotel that night, my father told me the role I was to play.

“The Beagle’s mission will require it to travel to dangerous places. Some are hard to reach physically. Others are dangerous politically.”

“The Soviet Union. China.”

“Among others,” he said.

“I was in the army, not the navy.”

“Your role will be securing operations on the shore. That’s where the true danger lies. The sub will dock at ports all over the world. You’ll need to think fast, be ready for anything, negotiate with customs, get our people out of sticky situations.”

He paused, letting me consider the words.

“I know your current work is very important. But so is this. If I’m right, it’s the most important thing the human race has ever done. The world may well avoid a nuclear holocaust, but there will always be another device, another war. We are the enemy we face. The human race is on borrowed time. We are far too uncivilized to possess the weapons we do. We’re racing the clock, just as we were during the Manhattan Project. Will you help us?”

I agreed then and there in that hotel room. I wondered what sort of device the Looking Glass was. I assumed the answer would be revealed in those first days aboard the Beagle. What I found was far more intriguing.

Chapter 80

Chapter 80

In the small cottage in Shetland, the sun had risen, driving the fog away. The wind still whipped across the stone, rattling the ancient windows every few minutes.

Desmond stood to stretch his legs. At the corkboard he scanned an article about the Invisible Sun Foundation donating ten million dollars to a genetics project at Stanford.

Peyton moved toward him, but he turned and motioned her back to the couch. “Let’s keep going.”

As he sat down, an object caught his eye. It was in the corner of the room, where the wall met the ceiling. It was well hidden by several trinkets at the top of a bookshelf, but there was no mistaking what it was: a camera. At the bottom, a small light glowed red.

Desmond hoped the camera was simply a left over security measure the cottage owner had installed. There wasn’t much he could do about it at the moment except run, and that would tip off anyone watching. He focused on the pages of the story and began reading again.