Painter stopped his pacing and turned to his second, the question plain on his face.

“I keep getting cut off,” Logan said, nodding to the earpiece. “They’re having intermittent communication blackouts throughout the base.”

Certainly the handiwork of the Guild too…

Frustrated, Painter leaned on the console and stared at the mission’s dossier. Imprinted atop the manila file was a single Greek letter.

In mathematics, the letter, sigma represented “the sum of all parts,”, the unification of disparate sets into a whole. It was also emblematic of the organization Painter directed: Sigma Force.

Operating under the auspices of DARPA — the Department of Defense’s research and development wing — Sigma served as the agency’s covert arm out in the world, sent forth to safeguard, acquire, or neutralize technologies vital to U.S. security. Its team members were an ultrasecret cadre of ex — Special Forces soldiers who had been handpicked and placed into rigorous fast-track doctoral programs, covering a wide range of scientific disciplines, forming a militarized team of technically trained operatives.

Or in plainer language, killer scientists.

Painter opened the dossier before him. The team leader’s file fronted the record.

Dr. and Commander Grayson Pierce.

The agent’s photograph stared up at him from the upper right corner. It was the man’s mug shot from his year of incarceration at Leavenworth. Dark hair shaved to a stubble, blue eyes still angry. His Welsh heritage was evident in the sharp cheekbones, wide eyes, and strong jaw. But his ruddy complexion was all Texan, burnt by the sun over the dry hills of Brown County.

Painter didn’t bother glancing over the inch-thick file. He knew the details. Gray Pierce had joined the Army at eighteen, the Rangers at twenty-one, and served to distinction off and on the field. Then, at twenty-three, he was court-martialed for striking a superior officer. Painter knew the details and the back history of the two in Bosnia. And considering the events, Painter might have done the same. Still, rules were codified in granite among the armed forces. The decorated soldier spent one year in Leavenworth.