He was about to jet-jump away when the first Egyptian tank crashed through the twelve-foot-high fence surrounding the bunker. The tank was followed by several dozen Egyptian infantrymen, some carrying rocket-propelled grenades and bazookas. Patrick saw several of the tanks wheel in his direction—they had spotted him. He raised his electromagnetic rail gun, charged it, and aimed for the closest tank . ..

... and found the rail gun completely inoperative. It had power, but all of the electronic displays were blank. His suit’s electronic visor—also blank. His defensive electronic bolts—powerless. He did a quick self-test of all his suit’s systems and found everything dead. He tried to jet- jump away—but the jets were deactivated as well. His suit still had power, but everything was in reset, as if it had shut itself down to prevent an overheat or overload. He thought it would all come back, but he didn’t know when or if anything had sustained any damage.

Patrick took off his helmet before he suffocated to death—the suit’s environmental system had shut down too—just as the Egyptians rolled over to him. The soldiers stripped his battle armor off, handcuffed him, and took him to a security building on the other side of the base, where he was thrown into a windowless, hot room a little larger than a closet. He tried to contact someone through his subcutaneous transceiver, but there was no response. Everything looked as if it was scrambled. What in hell was going on?

Vice Marshal Sayed Ouda met with Patrick a couple hours later. He was sweating profusely, almost as much as Patrick was. “Where are your comrades?” Ouda asked through an interpreter.

“They’ve escaped and are probably being airlifted out of the country,” Patrick replied.

“Why did you remain behind?”

“Because I am still here to meet up with my comrades that were captured by the Libyans, the ones that were brought here,” Patrick said. “But we suspected we were being held here to prevent us from meeting with them. Apparently I’m right. What’s going on, sir?”

“No questions from you,” Ouda said. “You will be turned over to the Supreme Judiciary for further interrogation.”

“Turned over to Khalid al-Khan?” No response—the soldier doing the interpreting didn’t look very good either. “Where are Madame Salaam and General Baris?”

“I said ... I said no . . . questions,” the interpreter said—and then he vomited violently on the floor right in front of Patrick, with more blood than bile gushing out. The jailer had to drag the suddenly unconscious man out. Marshal Ouda dashed out of the room as well, in such a hurry that he didn’t even bother to close or lock the door behind him.