Prologue

Peterson Florida 14 July 2031 14:33

Roland Devazier scanned the beach and the driver divided his time between the GPS display and the sky. There was nothing to run into out here but looking was a habit. The overcast would help with no sun to bounce off a windshield or mirror. He slowed the jeep to a crawl and stopped. Ezra sat quietly in the back seat - he'd been silent the entire trip and Roland had only heard him speak a few times. Roland could understand it - the young man whose code name was Ezra seemed to be in pretty bad shape when he met him less that forty-eight hours earlier, still grungy-looking from the prison even though he had had a shower and food and clean clothes at the safe house the Samba-6 team had delivered him to.

Roland looked at his GMT-Master - 14:39 - six minutes - at the compass. The car was pointed almost due east. The incoming should be visible in another minute or two.

It should be. They were in radio silence and it would be strictly visual.

There. That dot.

"Ready, Ezra?" he asked without looking around.

"Ready," Ezra replied.

The dot was an airplane now and set down lightly on the sand and rolled past a couple hundred yards, turned and taxied back. It was a Beechcraft Baron, from the 1980s by the look of it.

"Let's go," Roland said, and to the driver "Thanks comrade."

He didn't know the driver's name any more than he knew Ezra's real name. And the safe house was being sanitized - probably already had been - and the fire department would be on its way to that address shortly. Addressing each other as comrade was a dark joke about the nature of the enemy.

"Vaya con Dios," the driver said.

Ezra didn't have any luggage but Roland had two duffel bags and hauled them out.

"Run and get aboard," he said to Ezra.

The airstairs was down and two men were coming down, Ezra ran towards him. Roland was't far behind even with his bags and the two men grabbed them and went back up with Roland following. The stairs was pulled up and the engines spooled up.

The two crew took the front row - Willow Kane was alone in the second row. Roland took the seat across from her and while Ezra took the other. They quickly buckled in and one of the crew called to the pilot to go.

He leaned back and closed his eyes for a couple of minutes to catch his breath, looked at his watch. They'd been on the ground a little over eleven minutes. He opened his eyes.

Willow was wearing a white satin MA-1, long auburn hair spillng over her shoulders. Black Ray-Ban aviators and a cool almost smile.

Like I thought. Going to Atlantis or some place they control.

Not non-stop though - the Baron had a range of a thousand miles but was slow. Possibly somewhere in Mexico but they have a place in the Caymans. He would let Willow start the conversation.

"Good job," she said as if reading his mind. "Excellent actually. But we expected nothing less."

"It was one of those that turned out easier than I had any right to expect," he said. "So I'm good with it."

Willow took out an ASI Commpad and opened it, powered it on. When it came to life she typed and swiped for a while, then closed it laid it on the empty seat.

"We're about twenty, twenty-five miles out," she said. "We should be on the ground in Grand Cayman inside of two hours."

"Layover?"

"No," Willow replied. There's an Atlantair flight waiting.

"Someone in a hurry?"

"I imagine Charles is eager to resume a civilized life," Willow replied. "But there's another reason. The reason Conrad wanted you prepared to stay for few days."

"Charles Stuart? I thought he looked familiar."

"We thought you might recognize him," Willow said, "but it wasn't especially important to keep you in the dark, or for you to know."

"Someone is going to be pretty unhappy," Roland said.

"Indeed. Welcome back to the world, Charles."