Author's Note: Setting the scene, and introducing some characters. I think these bits were actually harder to write than most of the rest of the story . . . Monsters? Easy to write. People? Not so much. But I guess you gotta set 'em up before you can knock 'em down.

Please note that this chapter contains some disparaging remarks at the expense of the UN peacekeeping forces. Please, let's not turn this into a political debate; I'm not demanding the dissolution of the UN or calling the peacekeepers idiots. The criticisms about preparedness come courtesy of my brothers, who have served in both the Army and USMC and gave me a lot of information about the kinds of chaos that can result when you have a lot of nations all trying to work together. And frankly, every force is going to contain argumentative types.

Rating: T for now. May climb to M in future due to violence.

Disclaimer: G.I. Joe is the property of Hasbro, Inc. The Aliens and Predator franchises are property of 20th Century Fox Entertainment. I derive no profit from the use of these characters and concepts, and have received no compensation. Please accept this work in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from these intellectual properties.

Chapter Two: Keeping the Peace

A good commercial flight from Dallas to Santiago, the capital of Chile, could take about eight hours. Commercial travelers, however, didn't have access to G.I. Joe's budget or technology. At approximately 1100 hours, Pit time, the troop transport deposited Tango Team at the temporary United Nations airfield in Santiago.

The city was located on a plateau smack-dab in the middle of the mountains, but the team wasn't there for sightseeing. They said goodbye to Lift-Ticket and double-timed it to the helicopter pad, where one Lt. Juarez (an old friend of Wild Bill's) was waiting with a long-distance closed-cabin chopper and a knowing glance at "Soto" and "Levy." Scarlett, now firmly in the skin of Sgt. Dietrich, got everyone stowed away with brisk military efficiency and took her own spot in the chopper.

Once they were in the air, the team reviewed the situation. There had been sketchy maps of the temple complex in their orders packets—the best maps available at the time—and now Scarlett produced another and went over it until she was satisfied that everyone knew every nook and cranny of the area.

"Below sixty feet, though," she said, pointing to a fuzzy spot on the map, "there's no real information. A team spotted ramps and corridors heading down below that mark, but the politicians pulled them out before they could get anywhere. Cpl. Cameron, you're the egghead in this crew; what did you say about tunnels?"

Lady Jaye, now sporting a dark-brown bob and a soft Midwestern accent, grinned back at her. "Guilty as charged, sarge," she replied. Lady Jaye was sharp, but Ellen Cameron was also impertinent. "Permission to speak freely?"

"Granted. That's why I got saddled with you, isn't it?" Scarlett allowed just a bit of Beach Head attitude to creep into her voice, further separating her character from that of Shana O'Hara. It felt odd to be deliberately rude to Jaye, but it wasn't the strangest thing she'd ever done undercover.

"Okay, then." Jaye put a finger on the map. "Everybody says this temple's gone undisturbed for fifty or sixty years, right? Never happen. Archaeology is a big-bucks business, and it has been for a looooong time. Back in the 1880s, the British used to find new Egyptian tombs by checking to see which locals were getting inexplicably rich." Scarlett/Dietrich made an impatient noise, and Jaye sped up. "The point is, now that most of the archaeologists are off-site, any sticky-fingered types who know about the place are going to take the opportunity to try and score themselves some pesos. Those lower levels are going to be our job to check out—and secure."

It was a pretty good cover story. A handful of the most important people on the site were aware that they had Joes incoming, and between General Hawk and the head of the Security Council, Tango Team had more than enough pull to get themselves placed right where the Cobras would most likely be hiding out. And from the sit-reps that the Joes had received, not many of the rank-and-file on the ground was strictly anticipating an influx of snake-themed terrorists; swapping "treasure hunters" for "Cobra Vipers" in casual conversation would let them plan aloud in safety.

As the chopper crested a low ridge, sunlight streamed into the capsule, making the Joes blink and interrupting Jaye's briefing. Several members of Tango Team scrambled for the windows, not quite able to restrain smiles at the sight laid out before them.

Scarlett herself didn't hesitate in joining them at the window. She had seen a lot in her years with G.I. Joe, including locales far more exotic than the foothills of the Andes, but the team rarely had the chance to appreciate the view; more often than not they were flown in under the cover of night, or extracted at high speed by pilots wearing flak jackets and providing cover fire. Snake-Eyes shifted a little, making room for her at one of the small ports, and she smiled a bit herself as she got her first look at the site.

It was a deep-walled valley, created not by glaciers but by the simple fact that mountains will never cleanly fit together. This far above sea level, there were no more jungles; rock and soil and coarse scrub blended together in sheer walls of browns and and blacks, with broad strokes of ash-gray in places where slopes had simply crumbled away into cliffs. The very tips of the highest mountains were flecked with snow, which glowed almost orange in the afternoon sun. The sky above was a heartbreaking ice-blue, completely free of clouds and looking too perfect to be real. Below them, a bird wheeled on the wind, its feathers spread to compensate as it fought the backwash of the chopper's passage.

And there below them, spread out across the shallowest of the slopes, was the temple. Tunnel Rat gave up pretending to be a cool customer and plastered himself against the window to get a better look.

The remains of the temple certainly reminded Scarlett of what she had read about the Aztecs. It was laid out in a simple square, with the crumbled remnants of what have must been forests of columns lining a broad ramp up to the first level of a steppe pyramid. Over half of it was clean gone, buried under a slew of square-cut rocks that once have must formed the upper storeys, but from the air it was easy to imagine what must have once been there.

Not to mention what was there now. Tiny figures swarmed around the base of the pyramid, loading, unloading, and guarding vehicles that looked smaller than Hot Wheels. A vast, clean-swept area in front of the temple ramp still showed the remains of rough stone tiles, and must have once been the place for supplicants to gather; now it was where the helicopters landed. Every spare bit of flat land not already staked out by the archaeologists was now crowded by trailers, field stations, and mass-produced ten-man tents with the logo of the United Nations on them. Scarlett felt her heart sink as she spotted one particular trailer with half-a-dozen satellite dishes on the roof: if the newspeople were still on-site, then the area was not as clear as the Joes had been led to believe. There were still far too many civilians for safety.

Lt. Juarez's chopper deposited Tango Team at the edge of the clean-swept area. He wouldn't be sticking around; supplies, troops, and equipment were in constant need of being flown in or out, and unless the Joes wanted to hijack another vehicle, they would be effectively marooned at the temple site. Scarlett acknowledged the lieutenant with a salute, which he mirrored with more respect than he would normally accord one more sergeant. The knowing wink was slightly more surprising . . . But, well, he was a friend of Wild Bill's. The redhead allowed herself a quick smile back before stepping back into character.

"All right, let's move!" she called out, slinging her heavy pack onto her shoulder. "Just because the air's thinner up here doesn't mean anybody's got a license to slack. I want all of us on Admin's doorstep in five minutes!" The Joes slung their own bags and picked up the pace easily, falling into a formation jog with the quickness of long practice. Another note for Scarlett's mission log: teach Joes how to act less competent.

Camp Carter, as a hand-lettered sign on the temporary fence proclaimed it, was a hodgepodge affair. In addition to all the regular military units there, nine different nations had also donated troops specifically to the peacekeeping and security forces—some probably hoping to scoop a bit of good PR for themselves as well. But while the troops handed specifically to the peacekeepers reported directly to their UN commanders, the regular military units answered to their nation's senior man on site. And none of them were playing nice with each other: as the Joes double-timed it across the uneven ground, they saw soldiers and equipment from more than half of those nations, all moving about on missions of their own. None of them were moving very quickly, either. There was no visible evidence of inter-service cooperation—something that left the Joes, who had spent a lot of time learning how to work with everyone from the Oktober Guard to (delete as necessary) those damn squids/jarheads/dogfaces/Chair Forcers—rather surprised. For a moment, Scarlett was sorely tempted to speed Tango Team up and show up the lackluster soldiers, but she quashed it and kept her group moving at a regular pace. Note to self: too much Beach Head in character.

But no matter how out of place any of them felt, a new post was a new post, and there were routines to follow. First stop, as ever: the Admin office.

Admin, haven to what Leatherneck usually referred to as "office bitches," was the same in every camp and base all over the world. There would be a captain or a lieutenant in charge, probably hands-off, with two or three bureaucrats presiding over a team of NCOs and junior enlisteds who did most of the work. Scarlett left Tango Team under Jaye's eye and stepped into the makeshift office, snapping a crisp salute.

"Sgt. Dietrich reporting in, sir. Command of eight specialists out of Benning."

"Specialists," repeated the man behind the desk. He was a burly fellow with a master sergeant's stripes, but there was a wan, drawn look to him and his tan had taken on the gray tinge that signaled a habitual outdoorsman stuck inside too long. Scarlett guessed at an incapacitating injury (there was no other good reason a master sergeant should be driving a desk at Admin) and her guess was borne out when he shifted a little and winced at a pain in his ribs. "That's never a good sign," he continued. "Orders?"

Scarlett handed them over, and the man flipped through the packet, raising an eyebrow. "Weren't kidding," he said, signing off on one of the copies and handing it back to Scarlett. "Col. Folkes told the office you were coming in today. You're scheduled to meet with him at 1800 hours." He shuffled through another set of papers, and made a soft "humph" noise as he found what he was looking for. "Your people are billeted in D16, on the west corner of the site. Chow hall is communal, so if any of your men are gonna have a problem eating with the Soviets or the Chinese, confine 'em to quarters now. Any questions?"

"No, sir."

"Good. You'll be meet the colonel in the executive office. Can't miss it; it's right by the media tent." His expression spoke volumes, but volumes of what Scarlett couldn't be sure yet. "You'll get schedules and orders from him. Carry on."

"Yes sir!" Scarlett snapped off another salute, making the master sergeant smile. When she turned to go, though, he called her back.

"Oh, and sergeant?" he said. "Look out for the serpents."

" . . . Sir?"

"Local legend," he said, still with a hint of a smile. "Some of the security force was recruited from the police force in the nearest towns, and the 'black serpent' is their version of the Loch Ness Monster."

" . . . Ah." Scarlett paused just long enough to let him feel that the joke had fallen flat. "I'll do that, sir." She felt a little twinge as he sensed the awkwardness and slid back into quiet depression, but it wouldn't do for Sgt. Dietrich to be showing an interest in a local legend about snakes. She left, her mind already turning over this new information.

"Gawddamn pogues," Beach Head muttered to no one in particular as he dropped his pack onto his assigned bunk. "Ah can't believe what Ah'm seein' here. Ain't they got nobody makin' 'em shape up?"

D16 was an odd beast of a structure, half tent and half quonset hut, and Beach Head had to pitch his voice low to prevent his voice from being heard on the other side of the thin canvas walls. No power in the world, though, would stop him from getting irritated at what he had seen.

Storm Shadow, who had drawn the short straw and gotten the rack above him, frowned and stuck his head over the edge to peer at the big Alabaman. "There's some degree of disorderliness, yes, but that's inevitable in an operation like this. You have to make reasonable demands of the personnel, Kavanaugh."

The code name was intended as a subtle jab, something to remind Beach Head to pull in his horns and not do something that might blow their cover, but Beach himself seemed to have taken the state of the camp as a personal insult. "Ah don't buy none of that, Soto," he shot back as he unpacked and stowed his gear. "Professional is professional, no matter where yer stationed."

"A bad master can only produce a bad student. Command clearly doesn't know what they're doing here."

"Does anybody else here see the irony of Sto—Soto telling Kavanaugh to not be hard on someone?" Tunnel Rat observed from his own rack. Storm Shadow just smirked at him, making the tunneler shake his head. "Honestly. Somebody check outside for the horsemen of the Apocalypse."

"I'm with Kavanaugh on this one." That was Alpine, who had been fairly quiet thus far. "It's plain sloppy. Inter-nation ops are always a crap shoot, and you could expect some friction between forces and branches, but nobody's working together out there. They're making a heroic effort to fail independently." He pulled an oblong bundle out of his pack and began to unwrap it, revealing a set of pitons, a mallet, harnesses, and a climbing axe.

Storm Shadow leaned across the narrow aisle, angling for a better look. "Nice. Hey, Levy, what do you think you could do with one of these?" Quick as a wink, he lifted it out of the surprised Alpine's hands and tossed it into the air, neatly catching it again before it nicked a ceiling light. His smile turned to a frown as he examined it more closely. "Though I suspect Levy would start by taking better care of it. This thing is in disgraceful shape. Nicks and scratches?"

"It's a climbing axe, Soto." Alpine reached for the axe, and Storm let him have it back. "It gets stuck into rocks. Rocks are harder than the stuff you two like to stab."

"Oh, you'd be surprised."

Alpine shot a glance at Lifeline, who was quietly double-checking an astonishing amount of emergency supplies. "Hey, Hawkins. Bone density versus rock density?"

"Don't even think about getting me involved," the little medic said evenly. "You know my rule about getting into fights."

"This isn't a fight," Storm Shadow interjected. "It's a civilized discussion."

"You're involved. That makes it a fight." Lifeline, secure in the position of being the man who saved ninjas from mortal wounds, only smiled a little and tried to duck as Storm Shadow soft-lobbed a ball of paper at him. He wasn't nearly quick enough, though, and the ball bounced off the back of his head. Storm tsked.

"Don't change the fact that this camp's a disgrace," Beach Head interjected, not to be deterred from the issue at hand. "The climber's right. They don't even got the excuse of bein' tripped by somebody else. An' we're supposed to secure this damn place? Ah wouldn't trust none o' them pogues we saw to secure a gawddamn box of crackers."

Outback, stretched out on his own rack, lazily opened one eye. "What kind of crackers?"

"What?"

"What kind of crackers?"

"Why in the sam hill would the gawddamn kind of crackers even matter? It was a gawddamn metaphor!"

"Some kinds of food attract more wildlife than others." Everybody knew Outback was just yanking Beach's chain at this point, but nobody was going to interrupt; that would mean missing the floor show. "Zwieback, for example, is dry and unsweetened, and not likely to be scented by anything too big. If you're talking cinnamon grahams, though, those soldiers are going to be beating off the bears in no time flat. In that case, yeah, I definitely wouldn't trust them to secure the box."

Beach growled a little. "Y'know, the point of a gawddamn metaphor ain't to be nitpicked. It's just a damn fancy way t'make a point, not to make an accurate comparison. That's a simile's job, ya damned idiot!"

There was a moment of surprised silence, and the big Ranger grinned. "What, Ah ain't allowed to have an intellectual side? I was valedictorian of my class, y'know."

"What the heck kind of class was-" Tunnel Rat began. Before he could complete the sentence, though, another stare from Storm Shadow froze him solid in his bunk. Everybody in G.I. Joe knew that look: it was the one that said "you're going to stop right there, because if you go any further, somebody is going to have to hurt you purely out of principal. It will be because you're treading on territory that should not be tread on. And if you're lucky, it won't be me doing the hurting."

Storm had very expressive expressions.

It was to this scene, somewhat quiet and a little awkward, that Scarlett opened the frame door. She had gone to have a word with another one of the bureaucrats in Admin—the usual precursors, required to make sure Tango Team was on the books for things like food and access to the armory—and after burrowing through what felt like a whole country's full of red tape, her own expression was less than cheerful.

"Private Kavanaugh," she said quietly, keeping her voice even, "your volume control stinks."

"Sorry, sergeant," Beach Head replied contritely. Everybody got the unspoken message and strove to look busy, finishing with the process of stowing their gear and in general doing their best not to do anything that would draw any kind of attention whatsoever.

Scarlett was privately grateful for that. Admin had left her with the beginnings of a headache, and the next minute likely wouldn't do much to alleviate it. She settled onto her own rack, second-furthest from the door (the first-furthest being the automatic property of Snake-Eyes), and fished in her own pack. "Kavanaugh," she called out. "Come here for a minute?"

"Sarge?" Beach said cautiously, putting down his own gear. She beckoned to him, and he shuffled a little closer, eyebrow raised skeptically.

"Kavanaugh, your tan line is much too noticeable." Scarlett pulled a small tube and a strange circle of plastic out of her pack. "This?" She held up the tube. "Is liquid concealer. This?" The plastic circle. "Is a powder compact. They're going to be your best friends from now on. Got it?"

There was another moment of silence, this one more profound than the prior one. Scarlett's mood picked up noticeably as Beach Head goggled at the items in her hands.

"Sca—sarge-what d'you mean?"

"Come on, Kavanaugh. Think of it as camo paint." She beckoned him forward again, and he moved extremely reluctantly.

"It's makeup." Beach looked at the compact as if it was going to bite him.

"No, I told you, it's camo paint." Scarlett popped the compact open. "Camo paint turns people into scenery. Makeup turns people into attractive people." There was a cynical snicker from Jaye at that, and Scarlett threw a half-humorous glare her way. "Can it, Cameron, you know it's true. Okay, now you want to start with a base layer of concealer. Dab it on with a fingertip, like this . . ."

At 1715 hours, Tango Team headed for the communal mess. The different nations' troops were all under separate command, but the logistics of bunking a few hundred men from separate countries were much less difficult than the logistics of feeding those same men, and the commands had apparently bowed to the demands of the cooks. Several long tents (more pavilions, really, with open sides and waterproof canopies) had been set up to protect the close-packed tables, and snaking halfway around the whole area was the longest chow line the Joes had ever seen. They joined the queue quietly, one or two of them mournfully eyeing the men walking past with trays of multicolored slop. Alpine muttered Roadblock's name like an invocation against evil, or possibly indigestion.

Once they'd gotten their food, though, they separated. Outback and Chuckles were the first to go, each of them having specific assignments to fulfill. Chuckles, with a broad grin and couple of off-color jokes, quickly burrowed his way into a group of NCOs like a particularly cheerful intestinal parasite. (One of Beach Head's favorite similes regarding the undercover operative.) Scarlett had had a quick word with Outback before they left the tent-cabin, and now he took his tray and headed for the table where the woefully-outnumbered regional police were gathered. If he just so happened to express an interest in legends about serpents? Well, that was his business.

Alpine and Tunnel Rat, operating out of simple enthusiasm rather than intel-gathering, joined a group of the remaining archaeologists and begin fishing madly information about the temple itself. That left Jaye, Scarlett, and Lifeline to ride herd on Beach Head, Snake-Eyes, and Storm Shadow.

The place was packed. Eventually, the six of them squeezed into places at one end of a table mostly occupied by UN peacekeeping troops. The peacekeepers had been drawn from a number of different countries, and several of them chatted quietly with their fellows in a variety of languages. Jaye caught Scarlett's eye and nodded almost imperceptibly, confirming that she was covertly eavesdropping on the multilingual conversation.

"Where you guys from?" a brash Boston accent asked. The Joes looked up. One of the nearest men, a tall skinny man with incongruously broad shoulders and short-cropped bright red hair, was grinning at them—or, more accurately, at Scarlett, who was in plain olive-drab and sans stripes. The new redhead wore USMC cammies, but was outfitted like one of the peacekeepers, and it wasn't hard for any of them to guess that he was one of the Americans attached to the UN forces rather than the regular command.

"Benning," Lifeline responded after a moment of silence. "Just flew in today."

"Welcome to the most cultured gravel pit on Earth." The red-haired trooper threw them a lazy salute. "Corporal Faraday, usually of the United States Marine Corps. Der Teufel Hunden. You guys Army?"

"It depends," Tommy interjected, a slightly queasy look on his face as he chased a greasy bit of vegetable around the bottom of his tray. "Is this going to turn into an inter-branch pissing contest?"

"Rangers, huh?" Faraday said instantly.

"Yep." Half of the six Joes at the table were Rangers, and Beach Head was big enough for two people, so that technically gave them a Ranger majority. "How'd you guess?"

"Your cheerful and cooperative attitude." Faraday flinched backwards as Beach Head, who had been studiously ignoring the conversation until then, rounded on him like a wounded bull. "Whoa! Hey, hey, hey, I didn't mean anything by that. But no, seriously, I saw the Ranger tab on Little John's arm there."

"Gawddamn jarheads," Beach rumbled.

"You say that like it's a bad thing . . . Ah, look, never mind me." He flashed another grin, once again mostly aimed at Scarlett. "Command's always telling me I won't get promoted any farther if I don't learn to stop running my mouth, but what can I say, I like stimulating conversation."

Scarlett quickly marked Faraday as a curious type. His gaze slid over all the members of Tango Team but stopped dead on Snake-Eyes, who—thanks to the limited ability of prosthetics to disguise a warped eyelid—was wearing sunglasses in early twilight. Jaye, ever the diplomat, also noted the direction of his look and smoothly interjected herself. "There sure doesn't seem to be a lot of conversation going on around here," she said, putting down her fork and aiming a grin of her own at Faraday, who lit up like a Christmas tree at the attention. "Everybody's so isolated from each other. You're the first member of a different task force that's even tried to talk to us."

"Boston Irish. The urge to talk trumps everything, even which command you're posted under. Besides, once this is all over, I'll be back in the USMC where I belong." Faraday yelped as he was elbowed by one of his seatmates, another peacekeeper. "Fuck off, Dean," he said congenially to the offender.

Jaye clearly sensed an opportunity to push the conversation further away from them, and jumped for it. "That was uncalled-for," she said to Dean, who was looking distinctly irritated. "Something wrong?"

"Oh, no you don't," Faraday interjected. "We're not getting into this shit again. C'mon-" A glance at the name on Jaye's shirt "-Cameron, don't even ask that."

Dean shook his head. "Listen to him," he said to Jaye. "Doesn't respect anybody, not the mission or, or even his command. Tell me you haven't been stationed in B group, or you'll never be able to shake him off."

"I respect the mission," Faraday shot back.

"So why don't you respect your commanders?"

"The commanders are fine. What I don't respect is having half-a-dozen guysall telling me to do different things."

"Look at the bigger picture, Faraday. For once." Dean gestured broadly, indicating the walls of mountains rising up all around t hem. "Look at where you are. Can't you stop complaining for once in your life and just think?"

"I'd still rather be back Stateside. Just one guy telling me what to do would be nice, too."

"Really?" Dean shook his head. "What does the States have that this place doesn't have more of?"

"Yeah, it's nice," Faraday responded, the slightest edge of irritation sneaking into his voice. "But my family's Stateside. Sue me if I like home. And only one guy yelling at me."

Dean tucked a square of processed meat into his mouth, shooting an exasperated sideways glance at Faraday. "The bigger picture, Faraday. Look at it."

" . . . you still haven't explained what you mean by that."

"If you haven't figured that out, then you're not going to get anything out of your time with this unit. You have to think beyond the limits that military service places on your thinking."

Faraday shook his head. "You went out for OCS, didn't you."

There was another warning rumble from Beach Head, but this time, it was aimed in a different direction. "'Limits it places on yer thinkin'?" He repeated, cocking his head and eyeing Dean. Storm Shadow prodded Snake-Eyes and held up five fingers.

"The limited worldview. Kill or be killed." Dean blinked owlishly. "Peacekeepers have a unique opportunity to work under multiple commanders, some of which may be more open-minded to acceptable compromise." Snake-Eyes shook his head and held up ten fingers in response.

"But if you ever want to get anythin' done, ya can't be questionin' yer commander," Beach Head said. There was a hint of an edge in his voice; he was a chain-of-command man, through and through. "Sure, there've been bad commanders, but even good ones never won if their troops didn't think as a unit. There ain't no room for debatin' strategy in a war zone." Faced with the ten fingers, Storm Shadow rolled his eyes and shook his head.

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Maybe if more troops debated, there would be fewer atrocities committed." That got a grin and a meaningful nudge aimed at Snake-Eyes, who just shook his head again.

"That's where yer wrong. Disciplined troops've got it through their heads that there's boundaries they don't cross." Storm Shadow let out a disappointed sigh, and Snake-Eyes focused more intently on the conversation.

"The Nazis were disciplined, too." That elicited an eyeroll from Storm.

"So because somethin' bad was done by disciplined people, that makes all discipline bad? I think ya got some wires crossed in yer head, boy." There was a slight but noticeable emphasis on the word boy, and Snake-Eyes counted off something on his fingers.

Dean rose to his feet, his expression sour. "Well, I guess y'all aren't in the mood for debate," he said coldly. Beach's eye twitched. Snake-Eyes leaned forward a little more, waiting for something.

"Yew got something to say to me, boy?"

"I've got better things to do with my time than reason with someone with a third-grade education," Dean said in a low voice. He tried to make an exit, but found himself abruptly yanked back, courtesy of Beach's snake-fast grip on his collar.

[Ten lines exactly,] Snake-Eyes signed to Storm Shadow. [Pay up, brother.]

Storm Shadow groaned and handed him a five-dollar bill. "I was certain he'd crack earlier. He's being unusually hard to needle today."

"Kavanaugh . . ." Scarlett said tiredly. "Put the peacekeeper down. We have a meeting with the colonel in ten minutes, and I don't want to explain why we had to stop and scrape someone off the table." Dean was dropped to the ground, his face bright red, and Scarlett turned to face him. "Here's a tip: people will be more inclined to debate rationally with you if you don't act condescending. Now, I'm keeping the peace for you right now, but don't let it happen again."

Dean took off, and Scarlett rubbed her forehead. The headache was getting worse. Tomorrow, she reminded herself; tonight they would meet with Col. Folkes, and tomorrow they would delve into the pyramid. Tomorrow, when it was just Tango Team again, things would be a lot simpler.