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surprised to see security on duty, although apparently not as surprised as the guard was to see her. He jumped to his feet as she approached.

"I know," Gabrielle called out, still halfway down the hall. "It's a P.E. night. He doesn't want to be disturbed."

The guard nodded emphatically. "He gave me very strict orders that no visitors-"

"It's an emergency."

The guard physically blocked the doorway. "He's in a private meeting."

"Really?" Gabrielle pulled the red envelope from under her arm. She flashed the White House seal in the man's face. "I was just in the Oval Office. I need to give the senator this information. Whatever old pals he's schmoozing tonight are going to have to do without him for a few minutes. Now, let me in."

The guard withered slightly at the sight of the White House seal on the envelope.

Don't make me open this, Gabrielle thought.

"Leave the folder," he said. "I'll take it into him."

"The hell you will. I have direct orders from the White House to hand-deliver this. If I don't talk to him immediately, we can all start looking for jobs tomorrow morning. Do you understand?"

The guard looked deeply conflicted, and Gabrielle sensed the senator had indeed been unusually adamant tonight about having no visitors. She moved in for the kill. Holding the White House envelope directly in his face, Gabrielle lowered her voice to a whisper and uttered the six words all Washington security personnel feared most.

"You do not understand the situation."

Security personnel for politicians never understood the situation, and they hated that fact. They were hired guns, kept in the dark, never sure whether to stand firm in their orders or risk losing their jobs by mule-headedly ignoring some obvious crisis.

The guard swallowed hard, eyeing the White House envelope again. "Okay, but I'm telling the senator you demanded to be let in."

He unlocked the door, and Gabrielle pushed past him before he changed his mind. She entered the apartment and quietly closed the door behind her, relocking it.

Now inside the foyer, Gabrielle could hear muffled voices in Sexton's den down the hall-men's voices. Tonight's P.E. was obviously not the private meeting implied by Sexton's earlier call.

As Gabrielle moved down the hall toward the den, she passed an open closet where a half dozen expensive men's coats hung inside-distinctive wool and tweed. Several briefcases sat on the floor. Apparently work stayed in the hall tonight. Gabrielle would have walked right past the cases except that one of the briefcases caught her eye. The nameplate bore a distinctive company logo. A bright red rocket.

She paused, kneeling down to read it:
SPACE AMERICA, INC.

Puzzled, she examined the other briefcases.

BEAL AEROSPACE. MICROCOSM, INC. ROTARY ROCKET COMPANY. KISTLER AEROSPACE.

Marjorie Tench's raspy voice echoed in her mind. Are you aware that Sexton is accepting bribes from private aerospace companies?

Gabrielle's pulse began racing as she gazed down the darkened hallway toward the archway that led into the senator's den. She knew she should speak up, announce her presence, and yet she felt herself inching quietly forward. She moved to within a few feet of the archway and stood soundlessly in the shadows... listening to the conversation beyond.

55

While Delta-Three stayed behind to collect Norah Mangor's body and the sled, the other two soldiers accelerated down the glacier after their quarry.

On their feet they wore ElektroTread-powered skis. Modeled after the consumer Fast Trax motorized skis, the classified ElektroTreads were essentially snow skis with miniaturized tank treads affixed-like snowmobiles worn on the feet. Speed was controlled by pushing the tips of the index finger and thumb together, compressing two pressure plates inside the right-hand glove. A powerful gel battery was molded around the foot, doubling as insulation and allowing the skis to run silently. Ingeniously, the kinetic energy generated by gravity and the spinning treads as the wearer glided down a hill was automatically harvested to recharge the batteries for the next incline.

Keeping the wind at his back, Delta-One crouched low, skimming seaward as he surveyed the glacier before him. His night vision system was a far cry from the Patriot model used by the Marines. Delta-One was looking through a hands-free face mount with a 40 x 90 mm six-element lens, three-element Magnification Doubler, and Super Long Range IR. The world outside appeared in a translucent tint of cool blue, rather than the usual green-the color scheme especially designed for highly reflective terrains like the Arctic.

As he approached the first berm, Delta-One's goggles revealed several bright stripes of freshly disturbed snow, rising up and over the berm