Smith took a seat in one of the chairs and saw that a cut on the back of his hand had been patched up. Better than the alternative, he supposed, but waking up in unidentifiable places with a bunch of doctored wounds hadn’t been working out all that well for him lately.

He considered going to work on the door with one of the chairs, but after a few moments decided it would be a waste of time. Instead, his thoughts turned to Randi. Had she done what he’d told her? Had she turned tail and run?

He hoped the fact that she wasn’t there with him suggested yes, but she could just as easily be dead. Or imprisoned at a facility closer to her target.

The door began to slide back and Smith rose from the chair and took a step back. He put a hand on the chair, but as weapons went it wasn’t exactly state of the art. For now it might be better to just figure out where he stood. If an opportunity arose, he could always take it.

The man who came in was immediately recognizable. A full five inches shorter than Smith, he had a solid, stocky build and a weathered face beneath military-cut gray hair.

“General Takahashi,” Smith said, bowing subtly. It was vaguely possible that he could kill the man before anyone came to his aid, but there was no way to know if that would solve problems or create more. Civility seemed to be a wiser course of action at this point.

Takahashi returned the bow as the door closed automatically behind him. “Colonel Smith.” He motioned toward the table. “Please sit. It’s my understanding that that you’re injured.”

It would have been disrespectful to refuse, so Smith took a chair and watched the general as he did the same.

“Randi Russell?” Takahashi said simply.

His first reaction was to lie, but that would just insult the old soldier’s intelligence. “She was on a similar mission. I told her to abort after I ran into your…toys.”

The old man nodded. “A self-propelled, self-directed antipersonnel weapon. As yet a bit unsophisticated. We can limit them to a certain area but beyond that they just seek out body-heat signatures. I’m told that more advanced targeting computers are too heavy.”

That explained why they hadn’t gone for him specifically and why they hadn’t chased him through the window. Lack of sophistication notwithstanding, the weapon had terrifying potential if dropped into the middle of an advancing infantry. And as far as Smith knew, nothing even remotely similar was under development by the United States.

“But that’s not what got me, is it, General?”