Sam kept an eye on his left screen, watching what Dodge did and copying him as they slid, undetectable, through the firewalls and outer defenses of the country's central military command post.

"It's like the Dark Ages out there," Dodge was saying in his ear. "And we're the knights in shining armor. Everybody builds these highly secure networks, like big castles, for protection, right? But a castle is just a big lump of stone unless there's someone to defend it. We're the soldiers patrolling the battlements."

A vivid picture came into Sam's mind of himself standing atop the high stone parapets of a castle, smoke billowing behind him, heroically resisting the invaders.

"Firewalls, antivirus programs, network spiders, all that is what we call 'pa.s.sive defense,' like the walls of the castle. What we do is called 'active defense.' You remember that old Will Smith movie Men in Black Men in Black?"

"Sure."

"Well, that's us. We're the first, last, and best line of defense against the worst sc.u.m of the universe."

Dodge's "short patrol" took the rest of the afternoon, touring around the servers in the ma.s.sive Pentagon complex. They spent the time examining and testing security systems, prodding and poking everything that could be prodded or poked, to make sure the system was watertight. They were constantly looking out for signs of anything that wasn't as it should be. Watching out for invaders. For people like Sam.

"What's going on at the moment?" Sam asked at one point. "Mr. Jaggard said something about raising the alert level."

Dodge nodded.

"There's something big in the wind. A rotten smell in the air. We had some intel from the Easter Bunny that some kind of attack is in the offing. All pretty sketchy at the moment but we got scouts out in all directions looking for signs."

"Hang on," Sam said. "You get your intel from the Easter Bunny? Why? Was Santa Claus busy?"

Dodge laughed. "The Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, call 'em what you like. They don't exist."

"I'm not getting you," Sam said. "Who doesn't exist?"

"In football," Dodge said, "and I don't mean soccer, each side has two teams, right?"

Sam nodded. "Offense and defense." He didn't play or even watch the game himself, but he knew the rules from school.

"Right," Dodge said. "Well, we're the defense."

Sam took his eyes off the screen and looked over at Dodge. "There's an offense?"

"What do you reckon? Do you think the U.S. of A. ain't ready to knock over the computer and communications systems of any country it might happen to get into a punching match with? Do you think that bombs and guns are the only kind of warfare there is?"

Sam considered that. "So what you're saying is that there's another unit, a bit like us, but their job is to attack, hack into networks and destroy systems."

"Nope," Dodge said. "They don't exist."

14

LOCKDOWN

The phone woofed, startling him. Sam was lying on the emperor-sized bed in his suite. The television was on, and he had almost dozed off in front of a game show. No, not dozed off, just zoned out, his mind free-falling, weightless.

Getting to the hotel from the CDD building had been a surreal experience. They had finished their shift at three o'clock. A gray van had been waiting for them. A large man in a dark suit with a curly wire coming out of his ear drove the van, and his twin rode shotgun beside him.

The van drove out from the underground parking lot of the oddly shaped building that was his new workplace, across to the other side of the road, and down into the underground parking lot of the hotel.

He could have walked there faster.

Another of the curly-wired gentlemen was standing outside the elevators on his floor and nodded to him curtly when he stepped out.

Vienna got out on his floor also, but she turned left where he turned right.

"See you tomorrow," Sam had said cheerfully, but other than a quick glance back over her shoulder, she had ignored him.

The phone woofed again, and Sam reached over to answer it, his brain slowly coming back online.

Jaggard had given him a cell phone, and, stuck in the hotel suite, Sam had played around with all the features on it. The phone had a variety of sounds, ranging from buzzes to birds to Mr. Spock from Star Trek Star Trek saying, "It's a call, Jim, but not as you know it." Sam had chosen a barking dog, for no good reason. saying, "It's a call, Jim, but not as you know it." Sam had chosen a barking dog, for no good reason.

"This is Sam," he said cautiously.

"Sam, ya muppet," Dodge boomed in his ear. "Feel like a swim? We're going up to the pool."

"I don't have a bathing suit...," Sam started to say, but Dodge had already hung up.

The pool was on the roof of the hotel, protected from the wind by a heavy gla.s.s wall that ran around three sides. The fourth side was a plain-faced concrete structure that offered shade to one end of the pool and housed the elevators and washrooms.

It looked more like a meandering curved pond than a swimming pool, surrounded by tall palm trees in wooden tubs. When Sam glanced in the pool, he was astonished to see dolphins swimming around, then realized that the bottom of the pool was actually a large video screen. From the surface, the dolphins seemed remarkably lifelike.

The low afternoon sun hit his face the moment he stepped out onto the roof, and he blinked a couple of times against the glare.

White wicker lounge chairs were arranged in small cl.u.s.ters around the edge of the pool, and it was in one of the cl.u.s.ters, near a barbecue trolley, that Sam found Dodge, Vienna, and Kiwi, lying in the sun, drinking soda. Dodge and Kiwi were shirtless, in board shorts, and Vienna wore a bikini top and shorts.

The bikini top was a green camouflage pattern with a bra.s.s center ring and straps that- "Nice view?" Vienna asked, and Sam quickly averted his eyes.

"Sorry, I was just-"

"Yes, you were," Vienna said.

"Grab a lounger," Dodge said. "What kept you?"

"Didn't have a bathing suit," Sam replied. "Had to go buy one at the hotel gift shop."

"Shouldn't have bothered," Dodge said immediately. "We're all going skinny-dipping anyway."

Sam looked at the others' faces to see if Dodge was joking, but Kiwi's face was expressionless, and Vienna's held only a slight smirk that gave nothing away.

Dodge was surely just joking, Sam decided. Although they were the only ones there.

Sam slipped his shirt off as he clambered onto an empty lounge chair next to Dodge.

Dodge gesticulated in the air, a vague hand gesture, and a waiter in a white dinner jacket appeared from a small gazebo.

"What would you like, sir?" the waiter asked Sam.

"Just water, iced," Sam said, and the waiter retreated, returning a moment later with a gla.s.s br.i.m.m.i.n.g with ice and topped with a lime slice.

Dodge raised his own gla.s.s. "To Sam's first day," he said with a big smile that crinkled the tattoo on his forehead.

"To another day of keeping the barbarians at bay," Kiwi said.

Sam sipped at his water. "Do they ever get in?" he asked.

"Sometimes," Dodge said. "Little stuff here and there. We stamp on it right quick."

"Usually without too much damage and without Joe the Public ever getting wind of it," Kiwi added.

"Usually?" Sam asked.

"Usually," Dodge agreed. "There's been only one serious breach in the last four or five years."

"Really? What was that?" Sam asked.

There was a silence, and the leaves of the palm tree above them waved gently in a strengthening afternoon breeze. It was Vienna who finally answered the question.

"You, Sam."

"Anyone for a swim?" Sam asked a little later, feeling that he had gone from medium-rare to well-done in a short s.p.a.ce of time.

"You go," Dodge said. "I'll join you soon."

That same smirk was back on Vienna's face, and Sam wondered why.

Sam walked to the edge of the pool and tested the water with his toe. It was pleasantly cool, not stomach-tightening cold, and he bent his legs, ready to dive in.

In an instant, the playful dolphins disappeared, replaced by a swarm of writhing, circling sharks.

"Whoa!" Sam yelled, jumping back from the edge. The others howled with laughter. In his hand, Dodge held some kind of remote control.

Sam grinned and shook his head.

He tested the water again with his toe, and immediately the sharks converged, thrashing and writhing in a feeding frenzy, right where his toe was, their white underbellies flashing. A redness spread from the center of the pack, rippling through the pool.

He s.n.a.t.c.hed his toe out again.

"What's wrong with ya?" Kiwi yelled with a grin. "They're not real."

Sam looked again at the pool and decided to postpone his swim anyway. Real or not, it no longer seemed like a pleasant experience.

Vienna made a clucking sound like a chicken as he walked back to the lounge chair. Dodge held up the remote device.

"Reprogrammed the hotel pool system," he said, laughing.

"Then you go swim in it," Sam said.

"Right you are," Dodge said, and jumped up, heading toward the pool.

"I thought you were going skinny-dipping," Sam called after him.

"Right you are!" Dodge said again, stripping off his board shorts and letting them lie where they fell.

He jogged naked toward the pool, then veered off to the left, bounded onto a lounge chair that was pushed up against the gla.s.s wall, and sprang onto the top of the wall.

"Dodge!" Sam cried out, suddenly terrified. On the other side of that wall was a twenty-story drop. He glanced around at the others, but they seemed calm and relaxed.

"Done this lots of times," Dodge said, balancing, stark naked, on the wall. The gla.s.s was topped with a stainless-steel rail, Sam saw now, at least six inches wide. Even so, Dodge's perch seemed precarious, considering the drop that was on the other side.

"It's a bit gusty up here," Dodge said, waving his arms about for balance.

"Dodge?" Sam said. "Dodge!"

"Whoooaaa," Dodge yelled, his arms now flailing as he fought for balance on the narrow top edge of the wall. His foot slipped. One moment he was vertical; the next he was on one leg, leaning backward out over the drop, far too far. Sam jumped up, rushing toward him but knowing with utter horror that he could never make it in time.

Then, with a twist of his body, Dodge executed a perfect somersault into the pool, landing right in the middle of the shark feeding frenzy.

He came up for air and took a bow in the water.

Sam looked around at the others in shock.

"He does that to all the eggs," Kiwi said, and then explained, "Probationers. One day he's going to kill himself."

"Why don't you stop him?" Sam asked, his heart pounding.

"If he dies, I get promoted to point," Kiwi said. "In fact, one day I might just push him off the edge myself."

Sam opened his mouth to say something, then saw Kiwi's grin and laughed. "You're all mad."

"Goes with the job," Vienna said.

Two girls in bikinis emerged from the elevators and made their way to a couple of lounge chairs on the far side of the pool. One was about his age and the other slightly older. They appeared to be sisters with matching blond hair.

Sam looked back at Dodge, who was still in the pool.

"Now what are you going to do?" he said.

"Get out," Dodge said, and did so.

He walked straight past the two girls as if it was perfectly natural, picked up his board shorts, and pulled them on before flopping back down on his lounge chair.

The two girls stretched out on their lounge chairs, and the younger one looked at them and smiled.