SUSSEX COUNTY, NJ

"I understand," Luca Portero said for what seemed like the hundredth or thousandth time, trying to calm the voice on the other end of the hard-encrypted line.

Truth was, he didn't understand. Not one damn bit.

He rubbed his burning eyes. Somewhere outside this sealed office in the subbasement of SimGen's Basic Research building, the sun was preparing to rise. Luca hadn't slept in twenty-three hours, but he wasn't the least bit physically tired. The fatigue weighing on him like a lead-lined shroud was mental, from hammering his brain for an explanation as to how such a simple op could go so fatally wrong.

"Doyou understand, Portero?" said the voice.

It belonged to Darryl Lister, Luca's old CO, the man who'd brought him into SIRG. Just like back in the service, Lister was his direct superior, and the next stop up the ladder from Luca. Lister was understandably upset about being awakened ahead of his alarm clock with the news that two of their men were dead. He'd hung up on Luca, then called him back half an hour later - after checking with the SIRG higher-ups, no doubt.

"Then maybe," Lister continued, "just maybe you can helpme understand how six pros go out to process a couple of soft-shelled yuppies, and two come back in body bags, while the yups are still walking around. You were running the op. Explain, please."

Lister's tone surprised Luca. He sounded nothing like the Captain he'd known back in their Special Forces days. Hell, they'd stalked through Kabul and Baghdad together; he was one of the few men in the world Luca respected. Why was he coming on so managerial?

Couldn't worry about that now. Had to give him answers.

Luca once more reviewed the set-up, groping for a flaw. He'd handpicked the men, all seasoned SIRG operatives. Using a bogus identity he'd personally rented the vans from two different companies -  could have used unmarked SimGen vehicles but didn't want to chance a trace. Then last night, after weeks of surveillance on Sullivan and Cadman, a golden opportunity: the two of them together driving through Westchester in the dead hours of the morning. A couple of quick calls and everyone was in position, waiting for it to go down.

So far, so good. Not a hint that it was going to go down the toilet.

He reran his mental tape of what he'd learned from debriefing the survivors. According to Snyder and Lowery - the wheel man and his back-up in the first van - the hit on Sullivan's car had been perfect: over the rail and down the slope. As planned, they'd driven away and left their rented van at a body shop that knows how to keep a secret.

After that the story murked up. The two survivors of the wet team, Cruz and Hooper, had spent too much time recovering from their doses of Mace to see anything. And they were still limping from the tap dance the Cadman woman had done on them.

Luca shook his head, torn between rage and admiration. Some kind of broad, that Romy. He couldn't help but admire the way she'd engineered the raid on that sim whorehouse. And then she'd made asses of two of his best men. Maybe they were still alive thanks to her. He could use someone like her.

When Cruz and Hooper could finally see and walk again, they'd found Ricker and Green dead; they'd gathered up the corpses and hauled ass out of there in the second van.

"I put Ricker in charge," Luca said.

"Good choice," Lister replied. "I'd have done the same. But Ricker is dead, and that's what disturbs me, Portero. How does Ricker wind up with a cracked skull? Who do you know who could take Ricker in hand-to-hand?"

"Nobody."

"Damn right. He was a fucking animal."

No argument there. Ricker wasn't just big and tough, he was experienced and smart. No one was going to take him down without a struggle, and not without him taking one or two down with him. But according to Cruz and Hooper, they never heard a sound.

And Ricker's body...his throat had been crushed - that explained the silence - and his head had been smashed. Looked like he'd leaned out of a speeding subway and got clocked by a support girder. Same with Green.

In fact, if Luca wasn't so sure it was impossible, he'd think someone had grabbed Ricker and Green by their necks and smashed their heads together...like a bully brother breaking his sister's dolls. But who could manhandle two guys as fit and jacked as Ricker and Green like that?

An icy length of barbed wire dragged along Luca's spine.

"According to what you've told me," Lister said, "Ricker and the team didn't know where they were going until less than an hour before they hit the road. Even you didn't know. So how did whoever took them out know? Sounds to me like they were already there waiting."

"Or they were followed."

"But why follow them at all? Unless...shit! The Japs! I bet it's the Japs! That goddamn Kaze Group has been sticking its dirty fingers deeper and deeper into the biotech pie, and now - "

"I doubt it's the Japs," Luca said. "They've got no reason to protect Sullivan."

"Maybe they just want to keep us off balance."

Luca began to feel an unsettling suspicion. He hesitated, as if uttering the words might turn the possibility into a reality. But Lister - and SIRG - had to know.

"I think there's a new player in the game."

"Where'd you get an idea like that?"

"A gut feeling. And the fact that we've never had to deal with a countermove like this."

A pause while Lister digested that. "Who on earth...?"

"I have no idea - yet. But I'm going to find out."

"You do that. But don't lose us any more men in the process. Whoever these people are, they play rough."

"Rough," Luca said, clamping his jaw. "They don't know rough. Not by half."

"And somethingyou should know," Lister said. "Word from upstairs is that this was a bad idea."

"Bad?" Anger dueled with a sudden stab of cold fear. "It was approved! What the hell are they trying  - ?"

"Careful what you say, Portero. The wrong people might hear and you could find yourself back where you came from, living on your pension while pimping for your mother - and happy to be allowed to do so. Comprende?"

Lister's unexpected attack rocked Luca. "What?What did you just say?"

Rage flared through him, making him want to reach through the phone and kill. He didn't care about the swift and inevitably deadly reprisal from SIRG, he wanted to crush Lister's larynx, wanted to see his eyes bulge, his face turn purple while Luca screamed in his ear that yes, my mother was a whore, but only because she had to be and she's not anymore, and yes, she doesn't know who my father was, but...

"Sorry," Lister said. "That was uncalled for. I'm just...you wouldn't believe the pressure that's coming down."

Luca said nothing. All right, so SIRG was squeezing Lister, big time. That still didn't give him the right...

"Look," Lister said. "Whatever you thought they said before, they now say the lawyer is not key. If he goes, he can be replaced in minutes by another lawyer, maybe a better one, who might cause even more problems."

Lister paused, as if expecting a comment. They're right, Luca grudgingly admitted. No shortage of lawyers. But he said nothing.

Lister went on: "The sims - thisparticular group of sims - are key. No other group has come forward looking to unionize, only these. Why, we don't know. Why, we don't care. Point is, SIRG wants the focus of your efforts from now on to be the Beacon Ridge sims. Are we clear on that?"

"Completely."

Calmer now, Luca already was germinating an idea. A simple plan. A one-man job. And he knew just the man.

This time there'd be no slip-ups because he'd take care of it himself.

Because this had become personal.

Romy Cadman had made him look bad. Hurt his reputation. Now she was going to hurt.