The plane, a C-130, a Herc in the patois, landed easily, and killed engines. Tanner reached under his parka to touch the butt of his trusty Colt .45 auto. Everyone authorized to carry a gun was carrying one. As a safety measure that would have been absurd in earlier times, Tanner had stationed an ex-sergeant with a sniper rifle on the roof of a parked truck.

The person who stepped first from the plane could not have been less likely.

“It’s a girl,” Tanner said.

“Yep, that’s a girl.” This from the station chief beside him. “Looks kind of familiar. Not some crazy pop singer, is it?”

Behind the girl came a grown woman, rather beautiful and just exotic enough to hold Tanner’s eye for longer than strictly necessary. Then a girl with a strange half mohawk and a stranger tattoo below one eye. And finally a young man with dark hair, a calm expression, and an air of tension that Tanner associated with trouble.

The girl walked up without hesitation, in a hurry. She pulled off her glove and stuck out her hand. “I’m Pla—Sadie McLure.”

The station chief, Joe Washington, shook her hand and glanced at Tanner.

“Sadie McLure,” Tanner repeated, frowning as he tried to pull the name from memory.

“Yes. As in Grey McLure crashing a jet into a Jets game,” she said. No hint of a smile. A very serious, even grim young woman. “These are my friends. Wilkes. Dr. Anya Violet. Michael Ford.”

Tanner remembered now. “What exactly are you doing here, Ms. McLure?”

Her eyes bored into him. They were eyes that belonged in a much older face. “We’re here to try to stop what’s happening. We’re here to kill the woman responsible.”

“The woman responsible? Here?” Washington wanted to laugh, but the faces before him did not look as if they were joking.

“Lystra Reid.”

“Cathexis Inc.?”

“And some other businesses as well. What’s happening is her doing.”

The station chief had to laugh at that. “Excuse me, but I’ve met Lystra Reid, and she’s a sharp young businesswoman. I don’t know what—”

“Let them talk, Joe,” Tanner said quietly.

The station chief seemed almost offended, but he nodded. “Okay. Not here. We’ll drive you to my office.”

An hour later Plath and Vincent, with occasional outbursts from Wilkes, had told their tale.

“To say that sounds crazy is an understatement,” the station chief said.

“Do you have any proof?” Tanner asked.

Plath cocked her head and looked at him. “You know something.”

Tanner smiled slightly. “Do you have proof?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Plath said. “We thought you might be skeptical. “So here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to just touch my finger to your face. Then, in a few minutes you’re going to open a book at random. You’ll hold the page close to your face. And I’ll tell you what you’re reading.”

“What is that, some kind of magic trick?”

“It’s the best I can do on short notice,” Plath snapped. “If you like, I could blind you, or start sticking pins in your brain and giving you some amazing hallucinations.”

“I’ll read a book,” Tanner said. Ten minutes later he was shaken and convinced.

“What do you want from us?” Washington asked. He was still skeptical, still not sure it wasn’t some sort of trick, but he also knew that in matters of security, Tanner was the real boss.

“Fuel,” Plath said. “And men with guns, if you have any.”

“Men, I have. Guns? I could spare a couple of handguns and a hunting rifle. But Mr. Tanner here may have other means.”

Tanner shifted uncomfortably, then made a decision. “Okay. Cards on the table. We’ve been looking at Cathexis for some time now in relation to a souped-up hovercraft they seem to have built. An armed hovercraft. I sent a person with some military background in to check it out. I have not heard back from her.”

Vincent spoke for the first time. “You’re intelligence.”

Tanner gave a short nod.

“Then you have people you could call.”

Tanner snorted. “Are you kidding me? With what’s happening back in the world? Shit has hit the fan. Cities are burning, people are scared to death, my chain of command …” He threw up his hands.

“If we can prove to you that this woman is doing what we say she’s doing, if we can prove to you that we can stop her, will you do all you can?” Plath asked.

Tanner thought about that for a moment and glanced at Washington, who raised his hands—palms out—in a gesture that said, It’s on you. “Yeah,” Tanner said. “You prove all that, and I will do all I can to bring down the wrath of God.” Then, under his breath he added, “But it won’t work.”

Surreal, that was the word Bug Man had been searching for. Surreal.

He was in Antarctica, in a dry valley way below the ice, in a house, in a very expensively furnished living room, looking out of expansive windows onto a domed swimming pool, while a lunatic and mass murderer suggested he could replace the teeth she herself had broken with fangs. Green fangs.

“It would give you an original look,” Lear said. “Do you know how to cook at all? My cook is busy, yeah, helping to inventory supplies. Can you fry some eggs?”

A television was on in the kitchen where Bug Man rummaged in a vast refrigerator for eggs and bacon. That much he could do. Eggs and bacon.