though hewn from a vast chunk of granite. Stone maintained what he hoped looked like an expression of confidence. For several seconds it seemed as though neither he nor the general was actually breathing. Then Aydan exhaled.
“How accurately can your man identify where these individuals are located?”
“He’ll report in from the location itself. I suspect that it’ll be within one of the tunnels that the Palestinians use to smuggle goods across the city. The destruction of the evidence is my aim here, not the taking of lives.”
Aydan frowned.
“Then why doesn’t your man on the ground simply recover the footage for himself and avoid the need for an air strike?”
“Simply?” Stone echoed. “What’s simple about entering a heavily guarded insurgent network and escaping with your life? My man is doing enough as it is to locate the evidence showing your troop’s brutality. I’d hoped that you’d be good enough to meet us halfway and avoid a firefight on the ground. Unless you’d rather send your own men in to clear the insurgents out of the tunnels?”
General Aydan’s eyes glittered like the points of twin bayonets.
“I would lead them myself, but I can’t commit the Israeli Air Force to an attack on Gaza without good reason. Our own Heron TP drones are for reconnaissance only.”
Byron Stone resisted the urge to smile as the general wandered into his trap.
“A MACE Valkyrie drone carries Hellfire missiles and cannon. It’s the perfect opportunity for our drone to be tested in combat conditions, and the ideal means for us to bring this unfortunate episode to a close.”
“It’ll have to be cleared with Southern Command,” Aydan growled.
“Israel’s involvement in this incident will be minimal,” Stone insisted. “Everybody wins.”
“Except anyone caught in the line of fire.”
Byron Stone chose not to respond, allowing instead the delicacy and danger of the situation to weigh on the general’s shoulders. Aydan reached down and opened a drawer at the side of his desk. He produced a card and handed it to Stone.
“Call me as soon as you have the coordinates, and I’ll clear the flight.”
Stone took the card as he stood.
“Thank you, General.”
He walked out of the office and closed the door behind him. Spencer Malik stood waiting in the corridor.
“Well?”
“Prepare the Valkyrie for flight, and ensure that all of our loose ends are vaporized when you receive the target coordinates. Then find the surgeon. We may need him soon.”
JABALIYA
GAZA STRIP
Ethan Warner sipped water from a chipped mug as he listened to Hassim Khan.
“The American Evangelical Alliance owns MACE, is run from Washington DC, and has consistently sought to alter the course of American history by distributing false information to schools, colleges, and universities throughout the country. It was partly responsible for the attempted insertion of ‘Intelligent Design’ into the education curriculum, which was thwarted in 2005 by state courts as being no different from creationism. Their efforts were exposed after a leaked document called ‘The Wedge Strategy’ reached the mainstream media, revealing their plan to put a wedge between science and the public through a campaign of deliberate disinformation in order to generate doubt in scientific endeavor.”
“They’re willing to play dirty,” Ethan murmured, thinking about the MACE troops shooting at them in the desert.
“They are,” Hassim agreed. “You can see how such an organization might react to Lucy’s discovery out here.”
“They’d do anything to cover it up,” Ethan said. “Even kill.”
“When you believe you’re doing God’s work, anything is justifiable.”
“But what if they’ve got it all wrong?” Ethan said. “Those remains could be something else, a freak of nature or a deformed species of some kind. Even someone as experienced as Lucy could have got it wrong. What’s the chance of there being life in space at all for that matter?”
Hassim Khan seemed surprised.
“Life is known to be everywhere in the universe.”
“No, it’s not,” Ethan said. “Nobody knows if there’s intelligent life out there.”
“I didn’t say intelligent life,” Hassim said. “I said life.”
“How would you know that for sure?” Rachel demanded. Mahmoud and Yossaf were also frowning uncertainly at the scientist.
Hassim shrugged as he looked at her.
“The origin of life, sadiqati, is the formation of the chemical elements themselves, the very things from which we are made. Each and every form of life and structure on our planet and every other planet in the known universe were conceived in the hearts of giant stars: everything that we see, everything that we breathe, touch, taste, and are physically made of. All life on Earth is quite literally built from the chemical ashes