'I ... I ...' Everett started to say something and then couldn't finish.
The door to the officers' mess opened and the
'Colonel Collins?'
Everett looked up and saw the man, but he was really looking right through him.
'He's ... he's not here,' Ryan said as he patted Will on the back and stepped up to the door.
'Well, uh, the lieutenant was asking for him,' the young seaman said, looking at the three solemn men.
'Lieutenant? He just left here to check on his men,' Everett said from his chair.
'Uh, no, sir, the woman officer--she was asking for a Colonel Collins.'
'What in the hell are you talking about?' Everett said as he slowly stood up.
Will straightened at the long table and with moist eyes stared questioningly at the young sailor.
'The casualty that was brought aboard, sir--she's awake and asking for Colonel Collins.'
Everett was through the door before the pharmacist's mate could move out of the way. He was unceremoniously shoved aside and watched in shock as Ryan and Mendenhall quickly followed.
Everett, Mendenhall, and Ryan stood over the small figure on the bed. The lights had been lowered and they could see the IV that was pumping O-negative blood into her tiny arm. There was an oxygen line running into her nose, held in place by a piece of tape. Her shoulder wound wasn't covered; the bullet hole was held open by four stainless steel clips. Her bleeding had stopped. Her hair was still damp but had been brushed back. She looked as weak as any person Everett or the others could remember ever having seen before.
The men were quiet as they watched the rise and fall of her chest. Everett turned to the senior hospital corpsman.
'She was dead. I ... I felt no pulse at all,' he whispered.
'Well, sir, that's what happens when you don't have any blood. No blood, no blood pressure. She was damn near bled out and that's why you felt no pulse.' The corpsman wrote something down on her chart and then looked at Everett.
'She's a strong young lady. She'll make it. As soon as we can get her transferred to the
'God,' Mendenhall said as he stared down at Sarah, one of his only friends.
Everett waited until the corpsman had walked over and sat at his desk, then he leaned over and touched Sarah's cheek.
He pulled back when her eyes fluttered open. They stayed that way for a moment and then slowly closed.
'Where's ... Jack? Did he ... save the ... world?' she asked weakly, her words slow and full of cotton.
'Yeah, Sarah, he did.' Everett leaned over and whispered into her ear as Sarah slowly went back out. 'Go back to sleep, we'll be here for you.'
Mendenhall and Ryan lowered their heads, dreading the time when Sarah would have to be told about Jack.
'Yeah,' Everett said as he straightened. 'He saved the world.'
EPILOGUE
Niles Compton walked slowly beside the president of the United States. The commander in chief looked far older than his fifty-two years. He walked with his hands behind his back. His Secret Service detail was nowhere to be seen, having been left behind in Niles's outer office. The president had decided that if he couldn't be safe here, he wouldn't be anywhere.
'I'll always have doubts about the moves I made. How many lives did I cost in the end by not acting decisively?'
Niles didn't answer at first; he just looked straight ahead at the long and curving corridor of level seventeen. Alice Hamilton and Virginia Pollock were ten steps behind and didn't hear the president's concern.
'I think you have to judge yourself just how many people you saved. To look at these things any other way is nonconstructive.'
'Not exactly a ringing endorsement.'
Niles shrugged and then looked at his old friend. 'The world has changed, but we get no wiser. We always expect our enemies to be easily identifiable and never, ever one of our own kind. The most dangerous enemy is the one who thinks like we do, has the same dreams of controlling those people who we think are below us, when in fact ...' Niles paused. 'You did the best anyone could have done, and I now believe the world is a more trusting place today because you took the time to prove an innocence when others wouldn't listen. Now you have a leg up in the area of credibility, and in this world, Jim, that counts for a lot.'
Niles came to a door with a marine corporal standing guard outside. The back letters on the door read CONTAINMENT.
'And now your opinion on these two,' the president asked.
Niles nodded for the guard to unlock the door.
'My opinion is that we can learn a lot from them. But I also believe they are traitors to their country, traitors to the peace they claimed to embrace. They and their kind knew all there was to know about the Juliai Coalition for over two thousand years, and yet they remained silent through their arrogance. You and I lost a lot of good people because this group was allowed to flourish, and they were a part of that. No matter how noble their intentions.'
The door opened and Niles stepped across the threshold and froze. The president saw the director's shoulders sag he looked into the simply furnished two-room containment apartment.
'What is the--'
The words froze in the president's mouth as he saw what Niles was staring at. Carmichael Rothman and Martha Laughlin sat peacefully on the small couch. Her head rested on his left shoulder and they looked as if they were sleeping. On the small table before them was Carmichael's medication for his cancer. The bottle was on its side and the morphine was gone.
Niles walked into the room and felt the wrists of both Ancients and found no pulse on either. He picked up the note that lay beside the empty bottle and read it and then handed it to the president.
'
Niles walked to a small chair and sat down and rubbed his hands over his face.
The president looked at the old couple with a curious look on his face. Then he put the note back down beside the bottle and shook his head.
'All their knowledge and wisdom ... they couldn't have found a better way to atone for their silence?'
Niles looked up. 'People of their intelligence have a terminal disease. It's called lack of imagination. No,' he said, standing and walking to the door. 'In their minds, they had no other way to go, and that's why their kind is now extinct.'
The president watched Niles turn at the door.
'The way it was always meant to be.'
Major General Ton Shi Quang, former commander of the People's Army, was dressed appropriately in a white silk shirt and white muslin pants as he drank ice tea on the fantail of a two-hundred-foot yacht owned by one of William Tomlinson's corporations. The crew members had orders to take it slow and easy during their trip to Taiwan, where Shi Quang would receive his reward for loyal service to the Juliai Coalition.
His escape from Korea had been planned well in advance of his treasonous actions and he had left the coastal waters on a fishing boat for his rendezvous in the Sea of Japan. He knew that at this very moment he was one of the most hunted men in the world; but with what he earned, he would find no difficulty at all in vanishing into a broken world still reeling from the Coalition's strike. The reward offered by America for his capture was insulting for a man of his stature and very much a useless gesture on their part.
A waiter brought him a fresh glass of ice tea and then walked to the galley entrance of the luxurious yacht. After placing the tray just inside the doorway, he suddenly turned and walked briskly to the streamlined bow of the ship, where he met members of the crew.
