“That seems a lot like jumping into a pool without checking if there’s water in it. He went through a lot of trouble to hide something in this system and he hasn’t historically been a big fan of the military.”

“You think it could be something dangerous?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we should ask the people in Division D. Oh, yeah, we can’t. They’re all dead.”

Once again, she was right. His loyalty to the president and admiration for Dresner were preventing him from staring at this thing clear-eyed. The bottom line was that they needed to know what that hidden system did so they could take it to Klein. And they needed to know now.

“I guess I’m going to have to volunteer then,” Smith said, “We’ll test it on me.”

“Always the selfless hero,” Randi replied, digging in her pocket for a quarter. “Tell you what. We’ll flip for it.”

She was about to toss the coin when something that sounded like a air raid siren started wailing through the house. A moment later a sultry woman’s voice came over hidden speakers. “Intruder alert, Marty. Intruder alert.”

They ran back into Zellerbach’s office and found him staring into a monitor displaying multiple feeds from cameras on his property.

“Do you know who they are?” he said in a shaking voice.

A man had come over the hedge next to the gate and another two were over on what appeared to be the south side. One more was already moving toward a gazebo rotting away at the back of the house. The cameras’ light amplification created a bit of distortion, but not enough that Smith couldn’t immediately identify all of them as pros. Their long coats swept back almost in unison, displaying a glimpse of body armor as they pulled out American-made assault rifles. One of them seemed to be talking and his head moved in subtle, vaguely unnatural jerks. They were Merged up.

“Are the defense systems you used against us activated?”

Zellerbach nodded. “They’re automatic.”

Randi moved closer to the screen. “Is that the best you’ve got? Is there anything more deadly?”

“Deadly? No. Of course not.”

“Call the police,” Smith said as a turret rose from the ground and started firing paintballs at the man near the gate. “These kind of guys live and breathe anonymity. The sirens might scare them off.”

“The police won’t come. I have this sort of feud with some of my…” His voice faded when a man sprinted across the dying grass and disappeared into the same trap Randi had.