“What do we have?”

“Little more than our native wit and intelligence I’m afraid.”

“We’re buggered then,” said Streak cheerfully. “ETA twenty minutes. Not a rocket in sight. Thank heavens for that. No worries.”

“We don’t have parachutes,” Michael observed.

“Yeah, but we’ve got sonic antimissile rockets. Never fly without them.”

“Do they work?”

“Yup. Or, I should say they worked on this baby the couple of times they were needed.”

“Do you really think we’re going to get shot at coming in?” Michael asked earnestly.

Streak laughed heartily. “Nah, I don’t think so. Latest update from Jane’s says there’s nothing too close to where we’re going. It’s lively down in Basra, but we’re well away from that drekhole.”

Events proved him right. As they began the descent to a runway that was little more than a parched strip of reddened soil, everyone in the group felt the tension knotting inside them. It wasn’t fear for their safety, but the excited hope that they might at last be at the end of the trail.

The wheels of the small plane bounced a few times along the bumpy runway. Streak deliberately perpetrating some mischief among his passengers with cries of “Whoa!” and “Oh no!”, as if something serious might actually be happening. Finally, somewhat shaken and apprehensive, his passengers tottered out of the aircraft. To their surprise, a Rolls Royce, gleaming silver and gray in the brilliant sun, was standing by the huts that passed for airport buildings. With his arms crossed, dressed for all the world like an English chauffeur, the man they knew as Salai was lounging against the front door of the car. He waved to them cheerfully, as if welcoming old clients.

“You are expected,” he said.

Streak drew his Predator from his jacket and advanced on the man.

“Now, you little fragger, let’s see who our blackmailer is. Take me to your master!” he growled.

The young man laughed. From the buildings behind him, forty or fifty men, armed with positively prehistoric carbines and rifles, emerged to form a very wide circle.

“My friends have slightly antiquated technology, but I think you will find that, by sheer force of numbers, they exceed your capability,” Salai said evenly. “There really is no need for this whatsoever. Demonstrations of such puerile machismo on your part only leave you lower in my estimation than you previously were, if that is possible. Now do me the honor of getting into the back of this extremely comfortable vehicle, which is far better than you deserve, for you all have a meeting to attend.”

Streak shrugged his shoulders, pocketed the weapon, and called out rather needlessly to the others, who’d been in full earshot.

“He says get in the car. What do you reckon?”

“I reckon we get in the car,” Michael decided for them

Everyone followed him. This time there was no problem fitting the seven of them into the back of the spacious limo. A thick glass partition separated them from Salai, and it appeared to be entirety soundproof since he did not respond to their queries. However, a loudspeaker in the back of the limo permitted him to pass messages of his own.

“Your journey won’t be long and I trust it will be comfortable. No iced champagne in a silver bucket for Lord Llanfrechfa, I fear. You must understand the difficulties one encounters in such a remote location.”

When they asked him why they were in such a remote location, they got no reply and swiftly realized the young man wouldn’t respond to interrogation.

“I’m not at all happy with this,” Streak bristled. “We could be going anywhere.”

“If he’d wanted to harm us, he had all those guys at the airport,” Michael pointed out.

“True, but I still don’t like sitting around on me arse waiting for ten tons of crap to fall on me head,” Streak announced.

“I could have handled them,” Juan said evenly. He had dispensed with the usual heavy jacket and his almost grotesque cyberarm was all too apparent.

“Well, maybe,” Michael said in an irritated tone, “but we’re here to talk.”

“Well, bufldrek away, Mister Negotiator,” Juan said evenly. “Better than getting shot at, I guess.”

As they made their way along the appalling road, the car bumped and bounced far less than it should have, providing excellent testimony to the skill of the Rolls Royce engineers and their suspension systems. Now and then they passed straggles of people, with their donkeys and carts and baskets and homes, until eventually they saw the building in the distance.

The dome structure had what seemed to be silvered or smoked glass atop it, and it looked like an observatory some corporate or military interest might have constructed on the moon. Its futuristic and hi-tech appearance contrasted startlingly with the humble, simple nature of everything else in the place as they reached the outskirts of the town itself.

“What the frag is that?”

“And how the hell was it kept secret?”

“It was kept secret,” Salai announced to them, proving that he could converse with them when he wished to do so, “because the local people are very, very loyal and do not speak to outsiders.”

“But satellite systems would have detected this.”

“They can be dealt with,” Salai said offhandedly. “It’s not difficult to crack them.”

“I suppose if you can crash into the megacorps, then that wouldn’t be so difficult,” Michael tried as a gambit This time he got no reply.

“This seems too easy, too quiet,” Michael fretted after their attempts to grill Salai got them nowhere. “We can’t just turn up and meet the man here. Something’s got to go wrong somehow. It doesn’t feel right.”

“Feel right?” Kristen smiled. “I don’t usually hear you talk like that, Michael.”

“I’m not usually in this kind of situation.”

“Where you’re not in control.”

“When I have no control whatsoever.”

The conversation was cut short as the car came to a halt before the domed structure, and Salai hopped out to open the rear doors for them.

“Oh, and don’t wave that silly gun at me,” he told Streak in a bored voice. “I don’t need men at my back here. One false move and you’ll have the flesh stripped from your bones by spirits in a second.”

“He’s not lying,” Serrin said flatly. He’d been as self-absorbed and quiet as he had been all day, thoughts and theories spinning in his head, but he took note of the presences here and warned Streak not to step out of line. Geraint, too, could sense the strong magical presence of the place. though no magician, he had some latent psychic gift, and something this strong he could sense. He was uneasy.

The automatic doors of the building opened, but before Salai could show them in, a small group of local men rushed toward them, one of them grabbing Michael’s arm as he walked toward the door.

“Is this not a great time? Are you with the prophet?’ the man said eagerly, his eyes wide with near-rapture. Astonished, Michael could only mumble some inane pleasantry and bolt for the door like a rabbit for its hole.

“What the frag-”

“This way,” Salai said with no word of explanation. They got into the elevator and descended some unknown distance before the doors swished open again to reveal the neat, cool, air-conditioned corridors of a subterranean complex.

“How the hell did you build this out here?” Michael asked, astounded.

“These people have been working on it for nearly twenty years,” Salai said slowly. “They really are faithful. They have been for a very, very long time.”

“The Mandaeans, you mean,” Serrin said lightly, as if it were an offhand observation.

“Yes,” Salal answered him with a gleam in his eye. “So you have begun to form a picture.”

“I think I finally realize the importance of the image outside the basilica.”

“Ah, that was a fine work. My master can craft great illusion-illusion that is great because it reveals the truth. So you think you know, then.”