Ricci studied his map, feeling stretched thin in every sense. His exhaustion and jet lag, the haste with which he'd needed to organize his guard force, the ongoing logistical problems of building it up to a reasonable level of adequacy, Petrov's frequent curve balls and increasing restrictions upon his authority ... the whole kit and kaboodle was grating on him. Nor had there been a bit of encouragement in anything he'd heard about the strike on the terrorist camp in the Chapadas. Whoever had been occupying that base had flown the coop aboard the Lockheed, which had itself vanished without a trace. And if they were as good and well-equipped as his information led him to believe, Ricci figured they'd have a network of safe, tucked-away airfields where they could make layover and refueling stops en route to their ultimate destination.

And where do you think that's going to be? he thought. Come on, take a guess.

Ricci studied the map, thinking they were out there someplace close by, knowing it with a strange and implacable certainty he could not have explained to any other human being ... with the possible exception of Pete Nimec. Sometimes when he was with the BPD and had worked a criminal investigation to where a bust was imminent, he'd been able to feel the accelerating energies of the thing with his nerve endings, the way he supposed animals in a forest could sense a coming storm.

They were out there, out there someplace--but where? Even the weather was working to his disadvantage. As long as the low-pressure front remained in a holding pattern over southern Kazakhstan, the Hawkeye-II satellite would be wearing what amounted to a blindfold of clouds, severely reducing its capabilities. To offset this handicap, Gordian and Nimec had shipped Ricci another of their little toys, a SkyManta unmanned air recon vehicle that looked for all the world like a flying saucer in some 1950's-era drive-in masterpiece. Earth versus the Aliens from Zanthor. He'd seen other drones in his military days, including the Predator, which had been in its experimental stages at the time, and was eventually given over to the exclusive use of the Air Force's 11th Reconnaissance Squadron ... the Predator, and another UAV called the Hunter, both of which had outwardly resembled conventional airplanes.