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“Very well.”

He turned to face Captain Lodge. “How about you, David?”

“Whiskey Company is a mile due west, Colonel,” Lodge said. “We’re ready to go.”

Nealson leaned forward to speak, or more accurately for his six-foot-three frame, he leaned down. “Any chance we’ll get in on this one, sir?” He said it a bit loudly for Ogden’s taste, but for Nealson that was a whisper. His regular speaking voice was three or four times that of a normal man’s, and his shout would make you look for a place to hide.

“Nails,” Ogden said, “the only way Whiskey’s involved is if we’re overrun and I drop bombs on our own position, then you guys come in to clean up whatever is left. So let’s hope you get to take the night off. Lodge, I want you and Nails back with your men twenty minutes before the attack begins.”

Nealson returned to an at-ease stance. He looked disappointed. Lodge tried not to look relieved, but he clearly was. Lodge was an exceptional pencil pusher, but perhaps not a true warrior soul.

Only one question remained—what new tricks did the little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds have in store?

Ogden looked through night-vision binoculars, taking in all the details of their objective, two hundred yards due north. He stared at the glowing, now-familiar shape. It consisted of two twenty-foot-long parallel objects that resembled big logs lying side by side. The log structures led into a set of four curving arches, the first about ten feet high, the next three successively larger with the final arch topping out at around twenty feet. All of the objects, both logs and arches, had an irregular, organic surface.

But something was different this time.

The last two times he’d seen such a structure, all the pieces had been much thicker: thicker logs, thicker arches. This one looked kind of . . .anorexic.

Mud surrounded the thing, the result of snow melted by the structure’s heat. The first two constructs had put off a huge heat bloom. Satellite readouts had measured them both at around 200 degrees Fahrenheit. This one held a steady 110 degrees. And one other key difference: the first construct, in Wahjamega, Michigan, had shown action, something going on inside the cone, only an hour after heating up. This one had been hot for almost three hours.

But there was still no movement.