“Wendy’s not on board, Castor,” came the response.

Patrick’s mouth turned instantly dry, and his knees wobbled, even though his legs were supported by the high-tech exoskeleton. “Say again, Hammer?”

“Sir, Wendy is not on board,” the pilot acknowledged. “She told some of our passengers to lift off without her, that she was going in a lifeboat after she got a FlightHawk ready to attack.”

“Wendy?” Patrick shouted. “Can you hear me? Where are you? Answer me!” He was breathing so hard into his helmet that he was in danger of hyperventilating. “I want a search of every lifeboat and every square inch of the Hammer! Turn this boat around! We’re going back!”

But by the time they turned around, the S.S. Catherine the Great had slipped beneath the dark burning waters of the Mediterranean Sea. They searched for several minutes until they heard patrol helicopters from the Libyan frigate heading in their direction and they were forced to withdraw. The Libyans pursued them until Egyptian navy patrol planes forced the Libyan helicopters to return to their stricken ship, but by the time Patrick, Briggs, and Wohl were picked up by an Egyptian frigate, the area where the Catherine had gone down was surrounded by Libyan coastal patrol ships. There was no way they could return, and they easily outnumbered the Egyptian patrols. Patrick interrogated Wendy’s subcutaneous microtransceiver, checking for life signs or even a position, but there was no reply.

Patrick could not bear to turn away from the spot where the Catherine had gone down. He didn’t care if the whole world heard the strange high-tech-looking commando sobbing inside his battle armor.

CHAPTER 2

BLYTHEVILLE, ARKANSAS
 EARLY THE NEXT MORNING

“I can’t take a meeting today. Can’t you see this place is a madhouse?” Jon Masters shouted when his assistant, Suzanne, interrupted him for the third time in the past hour.

“Jon, the Duffields have been waiting since yesterday... ”

“I asked to reschedule the meeting.”

“They’ve already rescheduled twice,” Suzanne reminded him. “They’ve flown out all the way from Nevada each time. They’re trying to accommodate you all they can.”

“Have them try harder.” He jabbed a finger at the door, dismissing her, then recited more commands into his voice-command computer terminal.

Suzanne sighed and gave up, but as she departed Jon’s wife, Helen, who was the chairman of the board of their high-tech defense contractor aerospace company, Sky Masters Inc., walked in. Helen was several years older than her husband, but these days their age difference seemed to grow less and less noticeable. Helen was now wearing her dark hair a bit shorter, accentuating her long neck, slender face, and dark mysterious eyes; through the magic of laser surgery, she was also able to forgo the thick matronly- looking glasses she had worn since childhood. “Jon, we have that meeting with the Duffields right now. Let’s go.”

“I just got done telling Suzanne—”