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returned to the building and the security console. He accessed the security historical file and read the initial messages with growing concern. Using the cursor key, he scrolled the messages backward. The last message disappeared at the bottom of the screen as the previous ones appeared at the top. He ran through the file until he had a complete listing of everything the computer had logged the previous night. Then he went through once more in chronological order.

Ward shook his head as the import of the messages sorted out. Had the men who'd come into the lab cut the power? Was that why the guard had opened the cubes? Did they come in and open the inner containment from the computer and the outer containment when they went downstairs? But that didn't make any sense. Why not just come in and do everything from the computer themselves? Unless they had cut the power to get to the guard, Ward reasoned somewhat doubtfully. The computer controlled everything in the building, from security to power. When it went down, everything went down.

Ward cleared the screen and opened the termination program. Accessing the program automatically switched on the long-range antenna located on the roof. New words appeared on the screen:
    TERMINATION REQUIRES LEVEL FOUR AUTHORIZATION.
    ENTER LEVEL FOUR CODE:
Ward typed in his personal password:
    CASINO GAMBIT.
    TARGETS ARE ON AZIMUTH OF 202 DEGREES MAGNETIC.
    ENTER TERMINATION CODE WORD:
Ward licked his lips. Two years of painstaking work would be destroyed by typing one word. He slowly tapped in the code word, filling the eight spaces, and poised his finger over the ENTER key. It hung there for half a minute while a fierce internal debate raged in Ward's mind. Finally the doctor shook his head. Instead of the ENTER key, he hit the BACKSPACE key, erasing the code word.

     * * * *
    Federal Building, Nashville, Tennessee
_6:51 A.M._

Bradford Freeman ducked his head as the Bell Jet Ranger helicopter descended onto the landing pad that crowned the federal building in Nashville. He ran forward and entered the aircraft, settling into the left front seat. Freeman was a big man, almost six and a half feet tall. A former defensive lineman for Vanderbilt, Freeman still carried his weight well, fifteen years after his last tackle on the field. The light reflecting off the puddles on the landing pad highlighted the small beads of perspiration that glistened on the black skin of his face despite the morning's chill. The phone call from site seven had shaken him.

As Freeman buckled his seat belt, the pilot lifted the aircraft. The helicopter was from a local civilian company -- one of several that Freeman's office kept on file for contract work and the one that had responded this morning in the shortest amount of time. Freeman was using the helicopter as the quickest means to go the sixty miles to site seven. Once there, he would have to go secure and use the military for any further transportation.

"Where we heading, sir?"

"Head north for Land Between the Lakes. I'll direct you once we get closer."

Freeman switched attention to his briefcase, opening it and pulling out the contingency plan for site seven. Freeman was the only man in the regional office who really knew what went on at the site. His position as head of the Nashville Regional Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) section meant that he had to be a jack-of-all-trades. Not only was he the man responsible for emergency responses to any security problems at military installations in a four-state area surrounding Tennessee, but he had also been burdened with the immediate security response for thirteen classified federal research facilities in those four states.

The DIA was tied heavily into the security and operation of all of the Pentagon's Black Budget research projects. Since the DIA's inception in 1961, it had been involved in much of the shadowy work that appeared to be a requisite for maintaining national security. There were numerous