After intense deliberation, they had decided to come here to Suez. Every morning at six o’clock, ships would gather into a convoy. The northbound convoy would head in single file up the narrow channel. Every morning, Hunter, Hongo, and Virgil would investigate the new group of ships and do what they could to stop or delay the ships that could be the Alexander.

Tiyana poured over maps. She looked at satellite images of the earth and tried to think about where someone like Ghaelvord would attack first. She maintained contact with port authorities all over Europe. All the while, she worried that Ghaelvord’s attack would land somewhere else entirely. When he had them bound and kneeling, he could not have known that they would escape. He could not have even suspected it. On the other hand, he seemed very open about his plans, almost too open. Of course, he had spent a lot of time and put a lot of effort into his planning. It would only be natural for him to want to share the fruits of his labors. He seemed pleased with himself. His desire to gloat could have outpaced his prudence, or not. Tiyana did not know. She did know that a week had gone by. She knew that Hunter, Virgil, and Hongo had spotted every ship that was the size of the Kasse Alexander. Virgil had been able to slip unnoticed onto some of the ships. His snooping revealed nothing. They had employed myriad tricks to shed light on other ships. They called in anonymous bomb threats. They shot at the decks. They bribed officials to perform random inspections. Their efforts had gotten nowhere.

Tiyana had not left her desk all day. She muttered unintelligibly to herself periodically. Her hair was a mess. She had not worn makeup in days. She felt that if she thought hard enough and if she stared at her work for long enough that she would figure it all out. She would figure out Ghaelvord’s plans. She would figure out how to stop them. She would complete the whole puzzle.

Meanwhile, Hunter napped on the hotel’s large bed. He woke up every morning at three to join Virgil and Hongo in investigating the new group of ships waiting to begin their journey up the canal. He came home around noon and usually collapsed.

Hunter awoke. Tiyana felt Hunter’s hands massaging her shoulders. She had built up a lot of tension in the last few days. Her posture had grown noticeably worse. She had been hunching over her small hotel desk for several hours at a time. The massage felt good. She had begun to forget what human contact felt like.

“Get dressed, dear. We are meeting Hongo and Virgil in the hotel bar.” Hunter said softly.

“I’m getting close. I just need more time.” She said.

“You need a break. Come with me. Then come back. Look at it with a fresh set of eyes.” He said.

“A fresh set, a fresh set, fresh look, ok, ok.” She muttered in an entranced, distracted way.

Then, at that moment, Tiyana snapped out of it. She consciously pushed all the trains of thought out of her head and looked Hunter in the eyes.

Tiyana said, “You are right, dear. I do need a break.”

“We all do.” He replied.

Their hotel had a large well-decorated lounge area with an Arabian feel. The quartet sat in low, comfortable lounge chairs around a round coffee table. They ordered drinks and food to munch on while they tried to relax. The group’s nerves had grown edgier with each passing day. The anticipation filled their thoughts. The rest of the hotel’s patrons buzzed about, engaging in their daily business without the slightest idea that something was wrong with the world. An impending doom hung over them and they knew nothing about it. Hunter reflected on these things briefly before pushing the thoughts away and starting a conversation. Hunter wished that he could talk about something else in order to relieve the tension, but he could only talk about one subject because he could only think about one subject.

“I think he will go for nukes. If not in France, then somewhere.”

Virgil replied, “I agree. Unfortunately, mankind is in a uniquely vulnerable place right now. Nuclear warfare is everything.”

Tiyana asked, “What do you mean ‘right now?’ How could nukes not be everything?”

Virgil almost absentmindedly responded, “I am no scientist, but essentially, a field can be emitted that creates mass when energy is released over a certain threshold. Further work in particle accelerators on the contours of the Higgs field and the nature of dark matter might, eventually, lead to the discovery of this capability. I do not know. The Aldenduenum could, however, neutralize atomic weapons. Devices that emitted a type of boson would be set up throughout a city. These particles would interact with the waves of energy given off in nuclear reactions. They would almost instantaneously give mass to the enormous amount of emitted energy. The blast would damage a building or two and then harmlessly solidify itself into chunks of light and heavy elements, mostly gas and rocks. I believe that they even had a way to force a significant amount of the energy to be released in the form of neutrinos, which would harmlessly carry the energy away through the earth and out into the galaxy.”

Tiyana was stunned.

“What?” She practically screamed. “Why haven’t you told us about this?”

“I could not explain it if my life depended on it. I told you. I am no scientist. When humans can do this, they will, with or without my help.”

Virgil looked haggard.

Tiyana pressed on, “Still, you could tell us these things. You must know something that could lead to an insight or an epiphany among the physics community.”

Virgil replied, “You forget, Tiyana. I cannot interfere. It would break the truce. I have toed the line of the law. I have delved deep into the gray areas of what I may do. I cannot and will not, however, break the truce outright.” After a pause, Virgil went on, “And for what? I do not know anything useful. I have told you all that I know. The Aldenduenum are gone and I cannot bring them back.”

Tiyana thought she saw circles forming under Virgil’s eyes. She wondered if he had been sleeping enough lately. She decided to drop the issue.

Tiyana shared, “I don’t know about military warhead locations, but as far as nuclear reactors go, France has many. The biggest three sites each generate over five thousand megawatts of power. Gravelines is way up in the northeast corner of the country, right on the beach. Cattenom is in the upper quadrant of the country, right on the Luxembourg border. Then there’s Paluel, also on the beach, very close to, but slightly south of Gravelines. Those are possible targets.”

“That’s good.” Hongo said, anxious to see the bright side of something.

“Okay, so will Ghaelvord go after those?” Hunter asked.

Tiyana answered, “Maybe not right away, but he’ll want to take them if he wants to implement the plan that he told us about.”

“Okay, but he said that he was attacking from the south.” Hunter said.

“That’s right. That’s what he said.” Tiyana responded.

“The key will be the spread of the yzorak-al’ghul.” Virgil said. “Ghaelvord said that he would set up a production facility. I have seen this before. If we let it start, then his army will build like a snowball rolling down a hill. The second facility will be built by the yzorak of the first. The third and fourth will then be built by those of the first and second. The growth will be exponential. If he lands, then it will become imperative that we stop that facility. That will be our new primary goal. We cannot let it go into full production.”

“We have a plane on standby. We can leave at the drop of a hat.” Hunter said.

“I hate those things.” Hongo interjected.

“The ghouls?” Tiyana asked.

“The ghouls.” Hongo said. He went on, “It’s not right. It’s just not right.”

“I know.” Tiyana and Hunter both said at the same time.

“We’ll get him Hongo. I promise you that we will.” Hunter said.

They talked for hours. They talked and talked. They started feeling desperation sink in. They were getting nowhere. They did not know where Ghaelvord would attack. They did not know when. They did not know how. They thought that he would probably come through the Suez Canal, but he could have already slipped through their fingers. They just did not know. Then they saw the news.

From a flat-screen television mounted behind the nearby bar they saw a soccer match interrupted by breaking news.

“We interrupt this program to bring you breaking news of an apparent terrorist attack on Italy. The citizens of Genoa woke up today to the sound of gunfire. Let’s go on scene.”

A harried reporter came on the screen. He stood in the middle of a street surrounded by fleeing people. Cars were stalled and left in the middle of the street. A nearby building burned and no one seemed interested in fighting the fire.

The reporter looked eerily calm in the chaos around him and he said, “At approximately 6:15 this morning Genoa’s City Hall was taken by force. The attackers are reported to be both well-armed and dangerous. Initial reports describe their weapons as ‘lasers, ray guns, or an incendiary device.’ Alfred, we honestly do not know what we are dealing with down here. I can tell you that there is bedlam and pandemonium in the streets. The commotion appears to be emanating from the shipyards. We have gone as close as possible to the center of the action, but we were stopped by the police barricade that you can see behind me.”

The British reporter pointed back toward a crude series of orange and white roadblocks that had been set up behind him. Two police cars and a handful of officers guarded the barricades with pistols drawn. One had a shotgun.

At that moment, one of the police cars lit up with electric blue light. Hunter watched in horror as familiar arcs of electromagnetic energy splayed about. The car disintegrated in seconds, leaving only a mist and a gray powder behind. The reporter watched in speechless dread as a group of yzorak-al’ghul dressed in sleek and form-fitting armor sprinted around the block. They launched a barrage of attacks and the police barricade was no more. The camera man zoomed in and Hunter saw the familiar medieval look of the shining armor with the golden ankh emblazoned across the breastplates. He also saw the empty faces of the converted bushmen.

“It has begun.” Virgil said ominously.

“Let’s go people.” Hunter said.

They all stood up and literally ran to their rooms to pack. Hunter called the airport on a Bluetooth headset as he ran and had them ready the chartered plane that was on standby for them. They were in the air within the hour.