Another hour passed. Sanjong was working continuously on the laptop. Kenner sat motionless, staring out the window. Sanjong was accustomed to this. He knew that Kenner could stay silent and immobile for several hours. He only turned away from the window when Sanjong swore.

“What’s the matter?” Kenner said.

“I lost our satellite connection to the Internet. It’s been in and out for a while.”

“Were you able to trace the images?”

“Yes, that was no problem. I have the location fixed. Did Evans really think these were images from Antarctica?”

“Yes. He thought they showed black outcrops against snow. I didn’t disagree with him.”

“The actual location,” Sanjong said, “is a place called Resolution Bay. It’s in northeast Gareda.”

“How far from Los Angeles?”

“Roughly six thousand nautical miles.”

“So the propagation time is twelve or thirteen hours.”

“Yes.”

“We’ll worry about it later,” Kenner said. “We have other problems first.”

Peter Evans slept fitfully. His bed consisted of a padded airplane seat laid flat, with a seam in the middle, right where his hip rested. He tossed and turned, waking briefly, hearing snatches of conversation between Kenner and Sanjong at the back of the plane. He couldn’t hear the whole conversation over the drone of the engines. But he heard enough.

Because of what I need him to do.

He’ll refuse, John.

…he likes it or not…Evans is at the center of everything.

Peter Evans was suddenly awake. He strained to hear now. He raised his head off the pillow so he could hear better.

Didn’t disagree with him.

Actual location…Resolution Bay…Gareda.

How far…?…thousand miles……the propagation time…thirteen hours…

He thought: Propagation time? What the hell were they talking about? On impulse he jumped up, strode back there, and confronted them.

Kenner didn’t blink. “Sleep well?”

“No,” Evans said, “I did not sleep well. I think you owe me some explanations.”

“About what?”

“The satellite pictures, for one.”

“I couldn’t very well tell you right there in the room, in front of the others,” Kenner said. “And I hated to interrupt your enthusiasm.”

Evans went and poured himself a cup of coffee. “Okay. What do the pictures really show?”

Sanjong flipped his laptop around to show Evans the screen. “Don’t feel bad. You would never have had any reason to suspect. The images were negatives. They’re often used that way, to increase contrast.”

“Negatives…”

“The black rocks are actually white. They’re clouds.”

Evans sighed.

“And what is the land mass?”

“It’s an island called Gareda, in the southern part of the Solomon chain.”

“Which is…”

“Off the coast of New Guinea. North of Australia.”

“So this is an island in the South Pacific,” Evans said. “This guy in Antarctica had a picture of a Pacific island.”

“Correct.”

“And the scorpion reference is…”

“We don’t know,” Sanjong said. “The actual location is called Resolution Bay on the charts. But it may be known locally as Scorpion Bay.”

“And what are they planning down there?”

Kenner said, “We don’t know that, either.”

“I heard you talking about propagation times. Propagation times for what?”

“Actually, you misheard me,” Kenner said smoothly. “I was talking about interrogation times.”

“Interrogation times?” Evans said.

“Yes. We were hoping we’d be able to identify at least one of the three men in Antarctica, since we have good photographs of all three. And we know the photographs are accurate because people on the base saw them. But, I’m afraid we’re out of luck.”

Sanjong explained that they had transmitted photos of Brewster and the two graduate students to several databases in Washington, where pattern-recognition computers checked them against individuals with known criminal records. Sometimes you got lucky, and the computer found a match. But this time, no match had come back.

“It’s been several hours, so I think we’re out of luck.”

“As we expected,” Kenner said.

“Yes,” Sanjong said. “As we expected.”

“Because these guys don’t have criminal records?” Evans said.

“No. They very well may.”

“Then why didn’t you get a match?”

“Because this is a netwar,” Kenner said. “And at the moment, we are losing it.”