"Well, they'd have to co-operate. They feed on human blood. What's going to happen to them when there are no more people left?"

"They aren't rational, Granger. As far as we know they could believe that Satan is going to set up restaurants for them to celebrate his victory over God on earth. We've tried dealing with them before. We've captured two of them in the past ten years. The first one died in a botched experiment when we tried to determine their sensitivity to sunlight.

The second one escaped and tore up a town in Texas. A reporter caught on to the story. He wouldn't be bought off.

His car exploded."

"Why did you have to capture them? Why couldn't you negotiate with them?"

"Adrienne St. Clair is the first yber we've ever heard of who doesn't appear to be a devil-worshiper like the rest of them. All the yber we've had contact with are certifiably insane. What good would a vaccine prepared from their blood do us if, among the other changes it caused, it disrupted the normal function of the brain?"

"You think a vaccine against cancer is possible?"

Weston took a deep breath. He felt he was close to winning Helman over again. It had to happen soon if it was going to be of any value. The direction of the sun through the curtains was shifting. It was past noon. Less than half the day remained.

"The yber are not subject to the m-virus. The m-virus that operates in cats is communicable only through contact with bodily fluids: blood, saliva, excrement. The m-virus operating in humans is transmittable through air. That's what makes it so all-pervasive. But after the m-virus is properly accepted within the host body, some sort of biochemical shift takes place in the blood. It becomes incapable of accepting another m-virus through the lungs. But it can be passed on through the blood. That's why they have to almost drain the blood from their victims before making them drink yber blood. With so little blood left in the body, the m-viruses concentrated in the yber blood can't help but locate themselves in the proper receptor areas along the trachea and intestinal tract."

"I'm confused here," Helman said. He seemed to have totally forgotten that not more than an hour ago he was ready to kill Weston. A new challenge had, at least temporarily, taken hold. "You want to get Adrienne's help to use her blood to infect everyone in the world? If they're all vampires, they'll never get cancer?"

"No, Granger, you're oversimplifying. The yber mutation is very complex. It governs changes to the organs, brain, muscles, skin, digestive system, metabolism, almost every aspect of the human body. In most instances it improves them. Makes them more efficient. More resistant to disease and injury. In fact, since all our studies indicate that the yber are sterile and since evolution seems to be directed at only one thing, the survival of the genetic material, it would appear that a new evolutionary experiment is being tried. Instead of creating creatures that can pass the genetic material on from one generation to another for eternity, it looks as though a body has been created that, by itself, can carry the material throughout eternity. With the yber, immortality has been evolved. What we want to isolate in Adrienne's blood is the particular bits of DNA that govern the biological bloodshift that prevents the acceptance of the cancer- causing m-virus.

Through gene-splicing, we can replicate that one section over and over, creating a vaccine to grant immunity to cancer. After that, we'll have time to isolate the other beneficial conditions. We won't all have to be vampires. But we should be able to share some of their abilities."

"Has anyone ever bothered to tell Adrienne any of this?"

"You don't really believe it. Why should she? Chris Leung was going to arrange it so she would arrive at some of the conclusions herself. It would have been a lot easier if she had come halfway to us by herself. But now time has run out. We'll have to risk taking her by force."

Helman sat in silence for long moments.

"That won't be necessary. I'll be able to bring her in. She'll believe me."

"You're sure?" Weston dared not look too expectant. If Helman had the least suspicion that he had been manipulated into his decision, he would, by nature, refuse to take part in anything to aid the Nevada Project, "Will you guarantee protection for us?"

"Everything the government can provide."

"Will you give me all the assistance I need to hunt down Diego?"

"It will be next to impossible, Granger. I know from experience. But yes, anything we can provide to help you, you can have."

"It had better not be impossible, Major. One of you killed my sister and her children. If I can't get Diego, I'll get you."

"Understood. Now help me untie those two and get things in here back to normal. We've got a lot of preparation to do before we get Adrienne out of the Father's estate, and I'll have a lot of explaining to do about what's happened in here, and why we can trust you. If we can trust you."

Helman nodded once. "For tonight, Major Weston. And depending on how it goes, we'll talk about it again."

In Washington the last of the Nevada files were going through the shredder. Except for four plain manila envelopes sitting in a lawyer's office in London and a group of men and equipment waiting in Santa Barbara for the sun to set, nothing more remained of the project which had moulded the world's perceptions for so long.

And whether anything at all would be left by sunrise tomorrow was something that none of them dared contemplate.

The final move was ready to be played and, for whatever it was worth, Helman was going into the endgame without knowing that he was still a pawn.

Eleven.

The air force had never noticed the alterations which had been made to the hangar at the abandoned airfield. It had been constructed during the Vietnam conflict to handle the overflow traffic from Vandenberg. With the cessation of hostilities, it had become surplus. Occasionally, it was rented out to a movie crew to be transformed into a Hollywood version of an airfield of any world war, or of any country. But on that day, no one was on the field, and no one was within the totally light-tight main hangar. Except for the vampires.

Twitchett Field, January 20 They were the emissaries of the Western Meeting of the yber, assembled under Lord Diego. They were not like the business investors and financiers of the Eastern Meeting. They were feral and savage. Many had formed their bonding groups in Russia during the time of the pogroms. To the insane authorities of that time, one more dead Jew attracted no attention, even if the blood were completely drained and the throat horribly savaged. To the yber of the Western Meeting, humans were more than food, they were sport. And regrettably, in the modern world, the times for play were few.

Diego stood before the twenty-two of them. He was dressed as they were: form-fitting black jumpsuits that would not impede their preternatural reflexes. The suits included a black hood that held a cloth mouthpiece to hide the fangs of the yber who wore it. The Western Meeting had felt a thrill of bloodlust when Diego had told them it would not be necessary to wear the masks. Those that the yber faced that night must know who it was who would destroy them.

The yber sat and crouched like impatient animals on the crates that lined a wall of the hangar. Foam insulation had long ago been blown into every crack and wall separation that light threatened to sear through. Impatiently they waited for sunset and the massacre which would follow.

"We shall arrive forty minutes after the night begins," Diego said to them. "By that time the gates and the main entrances will have been breached by the Jesuits. The familiars of the Father are insipid and weak. His emissaries have renounced violence. They will offer no resistance. Those that survive the arrows of the Jesuits are yours to do with as you please."

The yber responded with unnatural snarls of anticipation.

"The Jesuits are to be reduced to manageable numbers. After the Father has been given the Final Death, preferably by the Jesuits, the Jesuits may be entirely taken. Also, not one of the yber associated with the Father must be allowed to continue. If one escapes to take word back to the Conclave, we are all doomed to see the sunrise."

In the darkness of the hangar, the breathing of the yber was like that of a cave full of unimaginable creatures.

"The woman is to be left to me. As is her human. He must be allowed to live long enough to see our surprise for him. So he knows what happens to those who dare betray us.

The yber snorted approval. The surprise for Helman slept in the back of one of the three vans parked at the main door of the hangar. They had undergone Communion much too recently to resist the powerful urge to rest when the sun blazed.

But when the sun set they would awaken from their dreamless sleep and once again be excited by Diego's promise that they could finally see their uncle.

Impatiently, saliva dripping from their expectant fangs, the yber of the Western Meeting waited.

Twelve.

All except the scholastic who drove the U-Haul Adventure in Moving truck along the twisting road bowed their heads in prayer. It was a Holy War they were going to fight and Clement had instructed them to wear the symbols of their order. Unlike some of the more covert operations the older of the Jesuits had taken part in, this time their crossbows were not hidden.

Nacimiento, January 20 Clement sat among the scholastics and novitiates in the back of the closed truck. His soldiers of the Church would be well protected by their crucifixes and vials of Holy Water. The stakes and hammers that most carried in the cases at their sides would be weapons enough if they were able to arrive before the sun set. But Clement was still shaken by the way Diego had been unaffected by the Holy artifacts. For Diego, Clement carried something more secular, and far more powerful against one who did not believe in the power of the Lord. He carried a hand grenade a lay brother had obtained for him. Clement would offer himself up to Diego. And when the unholy fangs sank within Clement's neck he would remove the pin, sending each of them to his fate. Clement, with the twisted logic that had always allowed desperate men to justify any means to an end, devoutly believed that both he and the Lord of the conclave would have different fetes awaiting them.

The truck slowed. The driver pounded his fist three times on the back of the cab. It was the signal. The estate was one bend in the road away.

The back doors swung open and the Jesuits filed out like trained soldiers. Two of them carried the equipment which would blow open the gates to the estate. Before them went the marksmen who would eliminate the familiars who served as guards.

The setting sun cast long shadows across the hills.

The Jesuits swept silently through the brush, approaching the gates of the estate. The marksmen prayed to Cod to guide them in their murder of the familiars.

But the familiars were not at the gates.

And the gates were open.

The Jesuits poured through the gates like a black tide.

All was as the Father had dreamt.

Thirteen.

Helman searched the skies for the Nevada team, There was nothing but a few red-tinted clouds scattered through a purpling sky. The sun almost touched the ocean. He forced the screaming car faster.

Near the final turn to the estate gates, a large rental moving truck blocked the road. He took the car off the road in a squealing attempt to miss the truck and it became bogged down in the soft grass.

Helman jumped out of the car and ran the rest of the way. The gates were open. The courtyard was clear. But smoke billowed from the northern wing of the main building. Black figures scurried across, the shattered windows on the ground floors.

The Jesuits had beaten him.

Helman dodged over to the shelter of some ornamental trees. The courtyard was filled with brilliant red light from the sun which was now half hidden at the horizon. Adrienne was inside that building. Just now awakening. Helpless before the weapons of the priests.

He charged toward the main entrance. The weapons harness he wore bounced jerkily against him, throwing him off balance. They were the weapons of the Nevada team, specially designed to be used against the creatures who could not die. The most awkward was the gyrojet, a handgun that served as a handheld rocket launcher for miniature, solid fuel rockets. They were far more devastating than any exploding bullet could be. They would detonate on impact even with the soft yielding flesh of the yber.

Helman drew the smooth metal-clad weapon and held it at the ready as he ran. It was just a matter of time before the Jesuits spotted him.

Then one was at the double doorway. Immediately he raised and fired his crossbow. Helman couldn't twist in time.

The bolt struck him squarely in the chest and spun off the impenetrable Kevlar armour he wore beneath the harness. It scraped by his unprotected face as it ricocheted, tearing at the flesh and leaving a trail of blood in its wake.

Helman fired the gyrojet. There was a flash of the projectile's exhaust venting through the side baffles of the launching tube. Almost simultaneously there was an explosion at the marble staircase in front of the doors where the Jesuit stood. Helman had expected a recoil from the rocket gun but it had launched clean and aim had been low. The Jesuit had been sprayed with hundreds of marble shards. He clawed at his blinded eyes and fell writhing to the pitted staircase.

There were no others behind him. Helman ran and scooped the body to the side of the entrance way. The Jesuit screamed. Helman lashed out with the solid butt of the gyrojet. The Jesuit stopped. Adrienne was inside. Nothing was going to stop him from getting to her.

He ripped at the Jesuit's black cloak and pulled it over his own head. The disguise might buy him a few moments of surprise.

The sun set. The red afterglow in the low-lying clouds near the horizon made the courtyard look as if it were being consumed by an enormous fire.

Helman prepared to enter the building. The air vibrated strangely. He looked up. Three helicopters grew in the crimson sky. The Nevada team had arrived. But Helman could no more wait for them now than he could wait for them that afternoon after Weston had equipped him. He would have to go in alone.

Screams filled the house of the Father. Helman nearly tripped over the bodies of two familiars, white kaftans stained red by the multiple arrows that pierced them.

Both their heads had been savagely hacked at. Both were attached by only a thin flap of flesh. The Jesuits fought the battle of Armageddon. The demons of Hell could be shown no mercy.

Most of the screams echoed up from a grand stairway at the side of the four-story entrance hall. Helman ran for it.

Underground would be the best protected from the light of day. A balcony ran along three sides of the entranceway at the second-story level. It stopped only at the four-story high glass wall covered with enormous theatre-like curtains. The balcony could be reached only by one staircase at the southwest corner. Clement had wisely placed the marksmen there. They had seen Helman don the cloak of their brother. Their arrows stung down upon him. The fabric of his cloak held them after they had stopped against the Kevlar. Bristling with arrows he dived down the staircase which descended from the main level.

Into the basement, he thought. It was like a warning.

The helicopters touched down in a deafening throbbing roar in the middle of the courtyard. The last thirty men and women of the Nevada Project moved quickly. Two helicopters stayed down while crates of equipment were unloaded.

The other was emptied of its human cargo and immediately soared up again. It would circle until the word came that St. Clair was ready to be taken away.

Weston deployed his agents as they had planned. The windows of the building had all long ago been covered over to protect the yber from the sunlight. Two squads of five people each began blasting the windows with gyrojet rockets.

Some windows collapsed easily. Others, including the ones looking into the entrance half, were armoured and resisted the explosions.

The rest of the team assembled three giant banks of floodlights. Generators were started. The floodlights glowed an eerie violet colour as the courtyard and the rooms behind the shattered windows were bathed in ultra-violet light.

The first yber was taken.

He appeared screaming in the ruin of a broken window, wearing the white robe of an emissary of the Father. He screamed piercingly as the light ate at him; blistering and blackening him as the humans in the courtyard watched, fascinated and chilled.

The creature fell from the second-story window. Only his white smock survived the fall to the ground. There was no body within it. All that remained was the white sludge of the blood of life.

Two of Weston's people immediately ran for the remains of the yber. They carried a metal case holding sterile sample jars. Quickly they scraped as much of the white fluid into the containers as they could. Weston called the helicopter down to retrieve the precious substance. He knew it would only last about an hour outside the body of an yber. But he hoped that one way or another, the operation would be over before that hour was up.

The lights formed an impassable barricade for the yber. Weston's team in the courtyard would be safe until the signal came that Adrienne was to be brought out. That last thirty seconds when the lights would be cut and Adrienne would be transported to the helicopter would be their most vulnerable.

The helicopter ascended again. Weston gathered the first assault team.

He led them in.

Diego knew that the Jesuits weren't clever enough to be responsible for the painful blue glow that washed across the Father's estate. The Americans had become involved.

But Diego had seldom been surprised in the past centuries. He was not surprised now.

He said the words 'warrior suits' to the yber who waited for his command, and they knew what they were to do.

The yber of the Western Meeting placed protective enclosures of dark mirrored plastic over their heads. Thick hand coverings that ended in vicious spring-loaded steel hooks to replace their hidden claws were attached to the sleeves of their jumpsuits.

The yber were now impervious to the deadly radiation.