The Phoenix Encounter Read Free Page A

to…find her,” he said.
    â€œIt’s okay, mate,” a British voice said. “I’m a medic with the Allied Medical Forces. We’re going to get you out of here. Looks like you’ve got a bit of a problem with that leg. Try to relax, all right?”
    Robert tried to tell the medic that he didn’t want to leave. That he couldn’t leave without Lily, but his thoughts were jumbled, his voice weak. “There’s a woman,” he said. “In the pub. Jesus.”
    The young man in the red jumpsuit looked over his shoulder at the crumpled building. There was knowledgein his eyes when he looked at Robert. “There aren’t any survivors in there, chap.”
    â€œNo…”
    The young man glanced at Robert’s leg and muttered a curse. “I need some morphine over here!”
    â€œNo!” Robert shoved at the hands pinning him. “I’ve got to find her. For God’s sake…”
    â€œEasy, mate, we’re going to take care of you.”
    The needle bit into his arm. Robert fought the drug, but it dragged at him. He stared at the flames and smoke and debris while he slowly came apart inside. “Lily,” he whispered.
    And then the drug sent him to a place where he couldn’t feel anything at all.

Chapter 1
    Twenty-one months later
Somewhere in Virginia
    D octor Robert Davidson left his BMW in the parking lot and took the redbrick path toward the building at the rear of the complex. It was a path he’d walked plenty of times in the last year and a half. A path he’d never imagined he would take. But even though he’d been reluctant at first, he walked it with a great sense of pride. Of duty. Of respect.
    Just that morning Robert had been summoned by Samuel Hatch, director of the top-secret division of the CIA known only as ARIES. The call had come just before 5:00 a.m. Like all of Hatch’s transmissions, it had been brief and to the point, with few details. Hatch needed an agent with Robert’s expertise and credentials. He would be deployed immediately. Long-term assignment. High-level security clearance. Top-secret mission.
    The drive from Robert’s home outside Washington D.C. had taken just over two hours. Stiff from the long drive, he ignored the tinge of pain in his thigh as he passed several low-rise buildings where ivy flourished on the redbrick exterior. From the outside, the center looked like an Ivy League college financed by trust funds and old money. Robert knew differently. Behind the genteel facade lay one of the American government’s most top-secret facilities in the world. With emphasis on foreign intelligence, biomedical research, genetic engineering and high-tech gadgetry, the ARIES boys and girls played with toys the CIA didn’t even dream of. Toys that, in the eyes of the rest of the world, hadn’t yet been invented. The ARIES agents, scientists and researchers had the best of everything. Money was never a problem because when it came to ARIES, Uncle Sam had bottomless pockets.
    Robert told himself he wasn’t nervous as he swiped his security card through the reader, then punched in his six-digit PIN number. He didn’t get nervous. Once a man had had his world shaken the way he had twenty-one months ago, it took a lot more than a cryptic call in the middle of the night to shake him.
    The steel-core door slid open to a small, windowless room with a tile floor and three white walls. Dead ahead, an elevator door dominated the fourth wall. In the center of the room, black inlaid tile formed a thick line on the floor. Robert stepped up to the line, then looked into the lens of the camera glaring at him and waited for the identification scan to begin. An instant later, a green light flickered, letting him know the retinal scan was complete. The elevator door swished open, and he stepped inside. Frowning at the panel mounted next to the door, he set his palm against the glass and waited