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her day in and day out.
    She was not overly surprised when the building intercom buzzed. She got out of her chair for the first time in hours and walked on stiff legs to the voice box near the door.
    "Yes?"
    "Mrs. Volker, this is Ed, downstairs. There are two men here to see you. They say they're from the government. They do have IDs."
    "Send them up, Ed. It's all right." She unlocked the apartment door and swung it open. Then she headed for her own bedroom and started packing. It took the men a few minutes to appear.
    "Mrs. Volker?"
    She nodded as she pulled clothes out of the closet. "Yes."
    "Ma'am, we're here to escort you. This is sanctioned under the Hermes Project."
    "I know. I've been waiting for you."
    The two looked relieved that she was cooperating.
    "Are we going to Washington or to the center in West Virginia?" she asked as she sat on the edge of her bed and pulled on a pair of boots. The numbers had gone to D.C., but they usually met in the bunker burrowed under the hills of West Virginia.
    The agents' faces were impassive. "Neither, ma'am."
    That was the first surprise for Fran. She stood and looked at them. "Can you tell me where we are going, then?"
    The two exchanged looks. Finally one replied. "Australia, ma'am."
    "Australia? Why are we going there?"
    The one who had answered, shrugged. "We don't know. Our job is to get you there. We have military transport waiting at LaGuardia." Fran considered what she knew about Australia-factoring in that it was summer in the southern hemisphere-and placed some T-shirts and shorts in her bag.
    She threw a bag over her shoulder while one of the agents grabbed the other. "Can I tell my husband I'm leaving?"
    "Yes, ma'am, but not your destination."
    "Oh, hell," she said. "I'll just leave him a note on the fridge."

     
     
     

FIRST BRIEFING 
     
    Deep Space Communication Complex 14.
    Outside of Alice Springs, Australia
    21 DECEMBER 1995, 0830 LOCAL
    20 DECEMBER 1995, 2300 ZULU
     
    Hawkins checked his watch for the twentieth time in the past hour. He paced back and forth in the tiny cubicle they'd assigned him and then went back to the military issue desk. He snapped open the file folder he'd been given on arrival and studied the documents inside for the hundredth time.
    The flight in the backseat of the F-14 Tomcat had left him none the worse for wear. He'd had nothing to do stuffed back where the flight officer normally sat, so he'd slept, the roar of jet engines a comforting and familiar sound. He'd awoken from a troubled sleep several times, usually when they'd slowed down to rendezvous high above the Pacific with a lumbering KC135 tanker for refueling.
    He'd arrived here six hours before, been given this folder, and told to wait until the meeting. He'd bristled at the lack of information, but it seemed as if no one else around here knew anything more than he did. Having been in the Army fourteen years, Hawkins was used to "hurry-up-and-wait."
    There was a lot of military activity going on--Hawkins's professional judgment estimated at least a battalion-sized Marine Landing Force was staging out of the immediate area of the tracking station. He glanced out a thick window as a CH-47 Chinook helicopter lifted in a cloud of sand and winged to the southwest carrying troops and cargo. It flew over the eight large dishes that were pointing at various attitudes into the early morning sky. Hawkins peered beyond the dishes toward the desert sands. There was something out there that was attracting a whole lot of attention, and Hawkins hoped this upcoming meeting would tell him what it was.
    The file folder certainly didn't do that. The papers inside were brief biographies on personnel that a cover letter said would be attending the briefing. Hawkins couldn't figure out what someone would need this strange assortment of people for. Besides himself there were three civilians-two women and a man-along with an Air Force major assigned to the base here and the Marine full colonel