"Okay, organize into subgroups. Operations on the right side and Lo-Recon on the left."

Operations was headed by the two Marine and Navy captains. They were joined by the information officer, the defense weapons specialist, and the captain from the Special Projects office. Lo-Recon was Logistical Reconnaissance, and that was everybody else.

In his office at the end of the sixth-floor corridor, General Turpin slumped behind his desk and looked out through his large picture window at the mall parking lot. A light mist was falling. He glowered down at the slick pavement, feeling a surge of impotent fury.

He had fought for DARPA, defended its projects on the Hill in front of the Armed Services Committee, fended off a liberal congress that questioned not only the military applications of their research, but even DARPA's very usefulness to the country's defense. He had artfully steered huge sums of money from Pentagon research accounts into DARPA's coffers. He found promising research at various aviation companies and science labs, then proceeded to funnel DARPA money into those private programs that he controlled. He hired leading scientists and formed think tanks to conceptualize the weapons of the future. The Stealth Bomber was the brainchild of a Northrop engineer, picked up by one of Turpin's science advisers. The project, financed by DARPA, eventually produced a new generation of attack aircraft.

Now, the Chimera Project, his most innovative accomplishment, was in mortal jeopardy, and with it the entire agency. The concept and execution of the project was brilliant-a chance to create test-tube soldiers, better by far than their human counterparts, with abilities far superior to any grunt who ever wore the uniform or fought and died for his flag. Never again would General Turpin be forced to stand at a military funeral and engage the tearful eyes of a dead soldier's parent, wife, or child.

Buzz Turpin had found the ultimate solution to ground warfare. He was about to rewrite the book on military effectiveness. With these chimeras, never again would even one American GI be forced to go into battle or be sent home inside a flag-draped coffin.

But, because of Stockmire's silly lawsuit to protect a bunch of damn butterflies, this legal joke, this accident in a three-piece suit was threatening to destroy everything. The lawyer had compromised the security of the Gen-A-Tec computer system. With this security breach, General Turpin's crowning career achievement was in jeopardy of being exposed before he had his public-relations plan in order.

Turpin was well aware of how the liberal media would portray this scientific adventure. They would see only the science-fiction horror movie aspects of the program: "Genetic Monsters Created in Government Labs."

They would attack the program as evil or perhaps even criminal. They would come after Turpin with a vengeance, forcing him to defend his program in a peacetime vacuum. From the beginning he had known that the only way to introduce disposable soldiers was in the field. If the Development Units had been ready during Kosovo he would have used them there. Then, after they had been victorious-after no American soldier had been lost on the ground-Turpin would reveal them to the world. Under that scenario he could verify their military superiority. He would have results to parade before the press, pictures of the DUs in action. He would be able to show their overpowering effectiveness, their courage and strength in battle. But this-this discovery, these so-called dirty secrets stolen from a secure computer would make all his efforts appear nefarious, evil, and illegal.

Turpin sat in his office and studied the mist-wet tops of cars six stories below. He steepled his fingers under his chin and his mind went back to the snow-blown fields of North Korea -thousands of miles and fifty years behind him. He was nineteen, on the ground behind enemy lines, his jet shot down by ground fire. He wandered in desperation, cold and weak, until he finally hooked up with a forward-area communications battalion. It was the same day the Chinese under the command of General Chai Ung Jun attacked the DMZ, swarming down from the north under leaden skies filled with shrieking artillery.

He remembered the horde of screaming North Koreans, their heads and feet wrapped in rags for warmth, charging insanely while vicious artillery barrages exploded around him, the concussions rupturing his eardrums. He saw American GIs being blown to bits by incendiary grenades, some shredded above ground by Chinese Bouncing Bettys. He could smell brave American flesh burning, the odor choking him. Even now he could hear the GIs screaming, see their blood spurting from open wounds, splashing in ugly patterns on the frozen snow.

And then his mind bolted, and with a fast-beating heart and shortness of breath, he escaped this nightmare and was back in the safety of his office in the Virginia shopping mall. "He hasn't been there," he whispered, thinking of Herman Strockmire. "He hasn't heard the screaming. He doesn't know what he's trying to destroy."

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory was nestled in the foothills of Pasadena at the head of the Arroyo Canyon, near Devil's Gate Dam. The buildings were a mixture of styles, from Old California Mission architecture to a collection of two-story, no-frills additions that resembled giant air-conditioning units because of their boxy shapes and huge perpendicular louvered windows. The complex sat protected in the shade of a hundred oak trees, under the looming San Gabriel Mountains.

Herman thought Dr. Gino Zimbaldi was too lean, too intense, and, okay, too geeky. He stood in front of his tiny office in a white JPL lab coat, complete with plastic penholder. He was a "buzzword" specialist, and Herman had to constantly interrupt him to find out what the hell he was talking about. Example: "Sorry I kept you waiting, but the BDB working our APOGY program was bit-busting and came up with garden salad."

"Huh?" Herman said. Gino gave him a tight little grin before translating.

"The brain-dead bozo who wrote the program we're running on the satellite screwed up and wrote some bad code."

"Oh." Herman handed him a disk containing fifty pages of encryption. "Roland asked if you would decode this for him, Dr. Zimbaldi."

"Everybody calls me Zimmy," the nervous little man said, then smiled. "So how isthat ol’ placenta head?"

"Not very good," Herman said sadly. "He was murdered in San Francisco while he was retrieving this. I guess I should warn you-it may be dangerous for you to even work on it."

"Murdered?" Zimmy repeated. His expression caved in. His cheeks and eyes went hollow.

"It happened yesterday morning."

"How? How did he…" Now blood drained. His face went as white as his lab coat.

"He was attacked in his hotel room and was sort of…" Shit, Herman thought. He didn't want to tell him this, didn't want to scare him off. But he owed it to the doctor to at least give him the scope of the problem. "He was mutilated," Herman continued. "More or less shredded. The police up there don't know what could've done it. It was something with superhuman strength."

"Shredded?" The buzzwords were gone. Panic hovered. And then, while Herman watched, Dr. Zimbaldi visibly pulled himself back together. "Fucking unbelievable," he wheezed, color slowly returning.

Then Zimmy surprised him. He squared his scrawny shoulders and said, "If Rollie died getting this, then we damn sure gotta find out what it means. I'll get rid of the NCG who's on the workstations right now and get going on it myself."

"The who?"

"New college grad. He's the one who snarled up the system by writing all those spaghetti codes." He flipped open the sheaf of paper, and began riffling through the fifty pages packed with encryptions. "It's a lot, but if I get lucky I'll have it done by tomorrow night."