And then Annie smiled again.

"I'd like that, Pete," she said. "I'd like it very much."

The passenger cabin of a private jet over western Bolivia.

Harlan DeVane stared out the window as his ascending plane pierced the clouds and the landscape below dissolved into far-reaching blankness.

What had happened in Kazakhstan was truly regrettable, he thought. The Colombian and Peruvian leftists had paid him a large sum of money to settle their various grudges. As had the Albanian guerrillas ... as, unknown to them, had their sworn enemies in Belgrade. And there would have been a long line of future clients, many with sharply conflicting interests, all willing to abide by his insistence on neutrality and confidentiality. Just last week, when things had looked so promising, Iran and Iraq had both made generous offers meant to cause problems for each other. New York, Washington, Moscow, Baghdad, Teheran ... DeVane was quite the egalitarian when it came to selecting his targets of destruction, and would have been leasing time on the Havoc device for many weeks to come before an astronaut team could be sent up to disable it.

He sighed. It was over, he had to concede that. Over for now. But he had never told his customers that success was a certainty, and he'd given Roger Gordian quite an initial workout, hadn't he?

Really, it was best to look at the bright side.

A world full of strife was a world full of profit, and DeVane saw no end in sight to either.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Acknowledgements

ONE - KENNEDY SPACE CENTER CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA APRIL 15, 2001

TWO - VARIOUS LOCALES APRIL 17, 2001

THREE - VARIOUS LOCALES APRIL 17, 2001

FOUR - MATO GROSSO DO SUL SOUTHERN BRAZIL APRIL 17, 2001

FIVE - VARIOUS LOCALES APRIL 17, 2001

SIX - CHAPARE REGION WESTERN BOLIVIA APRIL 18, 2001

SEVEN - PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA APRIL 18, 2001

EIGHT - NORTHERN ALBANIA APRIL 18, 2001

NINE - HOUSTON, TEXAS APRIL 18, 2001

TEN - QUIJARRO, BOLIVIA APRIL 19, 2001

ELEVEN - SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA APRIL 19, 2001

TWELVE - CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA APRIL 21, 2001

THIRTEEN - SOUTHEASTERN BRAZIL APRIL 21, 2001

FOURTEEN - EASTERN MAINE APRIL 22, 2001

FIFTEEN - VARIOUS LOCALES APRIL 22, 2001

SIXTEEN - COASTAL MAINE APRIL 22, 2001

SEVENTEEN - VARIOUS LOCALES APRIL 22, 2001

EIGHTEEN - FLORIDA APRIL 23, 2001

NINETEEN - VARIOUS LOCALES APRIL 23/24, 2001

TWENTY - WESTERN BRAZIL APRIL 23, 2001

TWENTY-ONE - KAZAKHSTAN APRIL 26, 2001

Epilogue