Temple

Something about the way the manuscript had ended—so suddenly, so abruptly—and also, now that he thought about it, something he had seen yesterday, back when Lauren had done the original nucleotide resonance test to determine the location of the real thyrium idol. Something about the result of that test that wasn't quite right.

The thought of Lauren and Frank Nash's expedition gave rise to a whole other set of thoughts in Race's mind.

How Nash wasn't with DARPA. How he was actually in charge of an Army unit trying to beat the real Supernova team—a Navy team—to the thyrium idol. And how he had deceived Race into coming along on the mission.

Race shook the thoughts away.

He was going to have to figure out how he would deal with Nash when he arrived back at Vilcafor—should he confront him, or would he be better served remaining silent and not letting Nash know just how much he knew?

Whatever the case, he would have to decide soon, for no sooner had he finished reading the manuscript than the seaplane tilted gently beneath him, dropping its nose.

They were beginning their descent.

They were returning to Vilcafor.

Special Agent John-Paul Demonaco walked carefully through the vault room examining the scene of the crime.

After the Navy captain, Aaronson, had gone off to give the green light to an assault on the suspected Freedom Fighter locations, the other Naval investigator—Comman- der Tom Mitchell—had asked Demonaco if he would take a look at the crime scene. Maybe he would notice something they hadn't.

'Aaronson's wrong, isn't he?' Mitchell said as they wan dered through the vault room.

'What do you mean?' Demonaco said as he scanned the heavily-sealed lab facility. It was a very impressive labora tory. In fact, it was one of the most high-tech labs he had ever seen.

'The Freedom Fighters didn't do this,' Mitchell said.

'No… no, they didn't.'

'Then who did?'

Demonaco was silent for a moment.

When at last he spoke, however, he didn't answer the question. 'Tell me more about the device that the Navy was building here. This Supernova.'

Mitchell took a deep breath. 'I'll tell you what I know.

The Supernova is a fourth-generation thermonuclear weapon. Instead of splitting the atoms of terrestrial radioactive elements like uranium and plutonium, it creates a mega-explosion by splitting a subcritical mass of the non- terrestrial element thyrium.

'The blast caused by the splitting of a thyrium atom is so powerful that it would rip out nearly a third of the Earth's mass. Put simply, the Supernova is the first manmade device capable of destroying the planet we live on.'

'This element, thyrium, you say it's non-terrestrial,'

Demonaco said. 'If it doesn't come from Earth, then where does it come from?'

'Asteroid impacts, meteorite landings. Segments of rocks that survive the journey through the Earth's atmosphere.

But so far as we know, no-one's ever found a live specimen of thyrium.'

'I think you'll find,“ Demonaco said, 'that someone has now. And I might just know who.'

Demonaco explained.

“Commander, for the last six months, my unit at the Bureau has been hearing rumours of an inter-militia war between the Oklahoma Freedom Fighters and another terrorist group calling themselves the Republican Army of Texas.'

'The Republican Army of Texas—aren't they the ones who skinned those park rangers up in Montana?'

'They're the prime suspects,' Demonaco said. 'We told the media that those two rangers stumbled on some hillbillies shooting illegal game, but we actually think it was worse than that. We think they stumbled on a secret Texan training camp.'

'A training camp?'

'Uh-huh. The Texans are a much larger group than the Freedom Fighters, and much better fighters—in fact, you can't even join the Texans unless you've been a member of one of the armed forces.

'They're also exceptionally organised for a terrorist group, more like an elite military unit than a weekend hunting club.

'They have a rigidly defined chain of command, with severe penalties for any member who breaks that hierarchy, a system that has been attributed to the influence of their leader, Earl Bittiker, a former Navy SEAL who was dishonourably discharged in 1986 for sexually assaulting a female lieutenant who gave him an order he didn't like. He raped her both vaginally and orally.'

Mitchell winced.

'Apparently, Bittiker was one of the SEALs' best men—a totally remorseless killing machine. But like a lot of those types, he lacked certain civilising virtues. Apparently in 1983, three years before the rape incident, he was diagnosed as being clinically psychotic, but the Navy allowed him to remain on active duty anyway. So long as his aggression was directed at our enemies, they figured it didn't matter.

Great logic.

'After the rape, Bittiker was discharged from the Navy and sentenced to eight years in Leavenworth. When he got out in 1994, he founded the Republican Army of Texas with a couple of other disgraced ex-servicemen he'd met in jail.