Betrayed…

She stepped around the table and leaned over his sprawled form, gun still pointing, taking no chances. The silver dragon pendant dangled and flashed brightly. “I suspect you’re recording all this through your helmet, Commander Pierce. Perhaps even transmitting to Washington…to Sigma. You won’t mind if I borrow a little airtime, will you?”

He was in no position to object.

The woman leaned closer over him. “In the next ten minutes, the Guild will shut down all of Fort Detrick. Contaminate the entire base with anthrax. Payback for Sigma’s interference with our operation in Oman. But I owe your director, Painter Crowe, something more. Something personal. This is for my sister in the field, Cassandra Sanchez.”

The gun shifted to his faceplate.

“Blood for blood.”

She pulled the trigger.

5:02 A.M. WASHINGTON, D.C.

FORTY-TWO MILES away, the satellite feed went dead.

“Where’s his backup?” Painter Crowe kept his voice firm, biting back a litany of curses. Panic would not serve them.

“Still ten minutes out.”

“Can you re-establish the link?”

The technician shook his head. “We’ve lost main feed from his helmet cam. But we still have the bird’s-eye of the base from the NRO sat.” The young man indicated another monitor. It showed a black-and-white overshot of Fort Detrick, centered on a courtyard of buildings.

Painter paced before the array of monitors. It had all been a trap, one directed at Sigma and aimed at him personally. “Alert Fort Detrick’s security.”

“Sir?” The question rose from his second-in-command, Logan Gregory.

Painter understood Logan’s hesitation. Only a handful of those in power knew of Sigma and the agents it employed: the President, the Joint Chiefs, and his immediate supervisors over at DARPA. After last year’s shake-up among the top brass, the organization was under intense scrutiny.