Dad smiled, "Ah, Captain Scott. Thank you for joining us. How is Lieutenant Gordon doing?"

Okay, then. That told us a lot. Scott replied for me. "The Lieutenant is doing fine, sir."

I could hear the military tone in his voice, and my face just fell into the old emotionless stare that I'd learned in WASP, knowing full well that Scott's look was similar.

"Well, if you gentlemen will join us, we'll continue the briefing." Scott pushed me over, and a couple of the women moved to make room. "Gentlemen, let me introduce you. This is Major Lieberman, Lieutenant Mayer, and Sergeants Yadin and Segal. You already know Ensign Shepherd. Ladies, this is Captain Scott, Lieutenant Gordon, and Captain John."

Alan shot me a look acknowledging that Dad had managed to give us the lowest ranks in our supposed army, or was it navy? I didn't care. Nothing was said, but these woman screamed IDF strike team. I wondered what kind of story Dad had fed the Israeli government to send them here.

It didn't take long for me to see why Dad had pulled these particular strings. Apparently we were hoping that the succubus didn't have any power over women. I didn't know how accurate that would be. In my own mind, the succubus pretty much could take on anyone.

"Captain John, if you'll assist Ensign Shepherd with the satellite imaging, I'd like to get this operation under way."

"Mr. Tracy, what exactly is the operation?" Scott asked.

"You and your team traced the target to the Malaysian mainland. Major Lieberman's team will eliminate the threat."

"How?" I asked, curious.

One of the sergeants opened a satchel and pulled out a block of C10. The grin on her face attested to her total confidence. "We can handle it, no problem."

God, it was the same attitude that Scott had had. I looked over at Dad, trying to convey my disbelief. He shook his head, "Sergeant, I appreciate your confidence, but let me remind you again, this agent has access to a mind-control gas that is beyond anything in your training."

"Mr. Tracy, we do understand the danger. That is why we were called in. We will eliminate this threat, do not fear." Major Lieberman had the same confidence as her sergeant.

"So, what is your plan, Major?" Scott was focused on the maps on the table.

"We go in, set our explosives, back away and blow the target's hideout. If the target survives, we cut her down with bullets."

"She may have prisoners."

The major turned a cool eye on my brother. "As I understand it, any prisoners would be compromised."

"There is an antidote to the gas. Any prisoners she has are civilians, Major."

Lieberman pursed her lips. Clearly she was willing to take civilian casualties if it meant taking out the target. "What do you suggest, Captain?"

I winced at the slight emphasis on Scott's supposedly lesser rank. Scott never batted an eye, though, saying, "I'm coming with you. I'll take responsibility for any prisoners."

"Not possible." The major looked my brother in the eye, and I could see she wasn't going to back down.

Of course, neither was Scott. He turned to Dad and said, "Sir, this is an operation on foreign soil. We have an obligation to prevent civilian casualties."

I could see that haunted look cross my father's face, and I knew he wasn't going to let Scott go in under any circumstances, even at the loss of innocent lives. John interrupted the discussion, saying, "It's a moot point, Captain. We've just confirmed the target's location, and she's all alone. I recommend proceeding immediately."

The women all stood, gathering up a series of gym bags apparently intended to disguise their military supplies. Without ceremony, they headed for the door, my father calling after them, "Keep those communicators open, ladies. I want to know everything that happens."

The major acknowledged my dad's request and the women filed out of the apartment, leaving us alone. Dad turned to John and Alan. "You two keep a close eye on them."

John nodded, "I've got a good track. How did you plant the receivers?"

Alan grinned, "I did it. They all had a nice cool drink of water, with an enhanced iridium chaser."

Dad turned to me. "How are you, son? What did the doctor say?"

"I'm fine, Dad. Dr. Li said the wound is healing as expected. I hardly notice it."

"Dr. Li? Who is Dr. Li? What about Dr. Zheng?"

"Dr. Zheng only does the surgery, Dad. All the follow up is done by her staff."

Dad got the same look on his face that Scott had had. I grinned. "John says there is no Dr. Zheng, only the ZhengBot 4000, the latest in surgery robots."

Dad didn't smile, but Alan grinned, sitting next to John. He reached over and punched John lightly on the arm to acknowledge the joke. John just continued working, a sly smile on his face. Dad sighed, and said, "Well, if you're okay, then I suppose it won't bother you that your brother is resting in your bedroom."

"Virgil's here?" Scott perked up.

Dad rolled his eyes. "As if I could have kept him away. Yes, he's here, but I want you all to go lightly with him. He's not well, no matter what he says."

Scott smiled and headed for my bedroom. I rolled my wheelchair over behind my other brothers, wanting to watch the operation unfold. I accidentally bumped into their chairs, and Alan shot me an annoyed look, but John just glanced over at me, then hit a few keys on a small laptop next to the larger computer he was working on.

I looked up as the room darkened, and a big screen TV dropped slowly down from the ceiling. With a few connections and keystrokes, John got his screen to transfer to the TV, and I was suddenly watching a bird's eye view of the city.

Four green dots were moving steadily toward the harbor. I grinned as I watched. John was a master of satellite imaging, and he kept them in the center of the screen. It was like being high up in a helicopter looking straight down at the buildings.

Dad shook his head. "If they ever find out we've tagged them, our lives won't be worth a plugged nickel."

I turned to him. "They're IDF, right? How did you convince them to do this?"

Dad grew serious. "This woman's modus operandi is very distinct. I had some people backtrack her movements based on the forensic report from the farmhouse. They were able to see a pattern. She only stays in a place for six to seven months before moving on. She's been all around the world, moving from country to country. They were able to track her back for almost forty years."

Oh, man. Her victims had to number in the thousands. Dad continued. "At least three of her lairs were in Israel. Of course, the government there interpreted it as terrorist attacks. It wasn't too hard to convince them that she was a terrorist and had to be stopped. Based on the pattern we saw, it was a good guess that she'd land up somewhere in Southeast Asia. This team has been in the area for the last three days, waiting for her to show herself. The last thing I expected was for you boys to stumble across her."

Dad shrugged, adding, "I didn't want to tell you because I wasn't all that sure it would pan out. And of course, once they were in the area, I couldn't warn you. These people are far too efficient to risk them intercepting something and getting the wrong idea."

"And of course, Dad insisted that they send the scary all female team," a decidedly pale looking Virgil said as he slowly followed Scott into the room.

"Son, you don't need to be here. Why don't you go back in the bedroom and lay down?" Dad eyes shone with his concern.

"No, Dad, I'm all right. Besides, how could I sleep knowing this is going on?" Virgil gestured toward the TV. "I need to be in on this."

Virgil moved over to a couch and sat down with a sigh. He eyed me and said, "How are you doing, Gordon?"

"I'm buttacular. How's your head?"

"It's still attached." Virgil said it with a sigh, like he wasn't all that sure that it was a good thing.

Scott looked around for a moment, then went over to John, conversing quietly with him. I rolled myself over next to Virgil on the couch, and quickly became engrossed in the story unfolding on the TV. John had gotten a close up of the team as they all boarded what looked like a speedboat.

We watched as the boat left the harbor, then to my surprise, instead of picking up speed, it sank from view. I felt an immediate desire to get a closer look, a much closer look, at that boat. While the boat had disappeared from view, the green dots hadn't, and we watched as they picked up speed, and headed away toward the mainland.

There was a sudden knock at the door, and we froze, not sure if we needed to shut down the TV or not. Scott made a calming gesture and went over to open the door. After a soft exchange of words, he pulled in a cart, and closed the door.

The cart was laden with a large coffee urn, and a platter of what looked like croissants. Scott pushed the cart over to the table, and served himself a mug of coffee. I went back to watching the scene unfolding on the screen. A moment later, Scott was in front of me, handing a mug of coffee to me, and another to Virgil. "You guys want anything to eat?"

I shook my head, but Virgil said yes, and so I had to put up with Scott getting in my way again as he handed our brother a plate with a couple of the croissants on it. Finally, he was done playing butler and he plopped himself on the couch next to Virgil, and I had an uninterrupted view of the TV.

The green dots had already moved past the city and Pulau Ubin, a small island to the east of Singapore. They were already through the Straits of Johor, and were now moving well up the Johor River. "How fast is that boat?" Dad asked, curiously.

"It's moving at over 40 knots," John replied.

I shook my head. It was a suicidal speed under the circumstances. The Johor river delta was shallow and silty. They could hit any number of sandbars or other obstructions before they even knew they were there. Not to mention the wildlife. The delta was one of the last habitats for the Asian dugong. Hitting a five hundred pound animal at high speed was a sure way to ruin your day.

As we watched, the boat approached the silt line, where the water turned from blue to brown. To my relief, the boat's speed immediately dropped off, and soon it was crawling at just a few knots. Maybe they weren't suicidal after all.

The boat surfaced some way off shore, and as we watched, the strike team disembarked into the muddy brown water. They were going in through the mangrove swamps, and I, for one was glad that I wasn't with them.

Scott started to get antsy, and said, "John, can you give us a location on the succubus? How far out are they?"

John obediently pulled the view back, giving us a wider area, and I could see that a short distance in from the coast, the trees became more uniform, orderly. It was some sort of plantation, probably rubber. Near the border between the plantation and the hodgepodge of the mangrove swamp there was what appeared to be a narrow dirt track leading to a small building. There was a red dot in the building.

It was obviously a caretaker's shack for the rubber plantation. At the upper edge of the picture, I could make out a much more substantial building, probably the owner's home. It was much like the farm in Australia. Nice and isolated, where no one would notice her.

I had a fleeting thought, wondering why she didn't take on the more luxurious quarters of the owner's home, but the question answered itself. The caretaker's shack was private, and more likely to escape notice.

I checked the relative distance between the red and green dots, and found myself nodding. Major Lieberman had brought her team right to the target. I figured they'd be at the shack within the next 30 minutes.

Apparently Dad figured the same thing, because he turned to John and said, "Son, what is all of that gear you had delivered?"

John looked up, grinning with the sudden memory of our stop at the electronics store. "I want to build a satellite relay station. To pick up images from the Agrippa Telescope."

The Agrippa Deep Space Telescope was currently orbiting Callisto, one of the moons of Jupiter. Johnny had followed its launch and positioning fervently. Dad raised an eyebrow. "Son, it this going to be legal?"

Johnny grinned. "Perfectly. I'm not going to disrupt the data flow, I'm just going to tap into it."

Now seemed like a good time to change the subject. I turned to my younger brother. "Hey, Al, you'll never guess who we ran into at the Long Bar."

Alan looked up. "Who?"

"Hayley Whiting."

"What?" Virgil's head swiveled toward me, causing him to wince a bit.

"Hayley Whiting, the actress. She came over and introduced herself."

Virgil's eyes narrowed in disbelief. "Now, why would she do that?"

"She saw me, and had to have me, simple as that."

Scott snorted and clarified. "She saw him in the Olympics and recognized him."

Virgil turned his attention to Scott. "Really? How did she look in person?"

"Nice, if you like a ton of makeup. She didn't have a hair out of place, or a cracked fingernail. She looked like one of Grandma's old Dolls of The World, you know? Too perfect to be real."

"She was nice enough, if a little dim-witted," John said softly, in her defense.

Virgil sighed. "I wish I could have met her."

Aw, I couldn't resist that hangdog look. "Well, you still can. She gave me her number. Maybe we could take her to dinner or something."

His face fell. "She gave you her number?"

I shrugged, "Yeah. She said she fell in love with me during the Olympics. But I'll bet she'd like you better if you just talked to her."

Virgil got this bemused look on his face, and suddenly he shook his head. "Thanks, but no thanks. I don't need my little brother to get dates for me."

Whoops. It was clear I'd played that hand wrong. I shrugged and grinned, "Okay, I tried. She's all mine, now."

Alan piped up. "Is she here with anyone? Maybe we could go out together."

I felt my eyebrows go up. "You're staying?"

Alan nodded, a big smile on his face. "Yup. Brains has all of the 'birds torn apart for his upgrades. Couldn't go out on a rescue if we wanted to. So we're going to have a family vacation for the next couple of days."

"Excellent!"

Dad shook his head. "Are you boys comfortable here? It's not what I expected, and if you'd like, I'll see if we can get rooms some place else. The Raffles, maybe? Or the Four Seasons?"

Scott shrugged, saying, "It's just a bedroom, Dad. We're okay with whatever you want to do."

I bit my tongue. It was true, the room was just a place to rest our heads, but if Dad was offering, what could be the harm in asking to stay at the Raffles?

It was Virgil who finally spoke up. "Uh, no offense, guys, but this place is annoying."

"Annoying?" John asked, a tiny frown on his face.

"Yes, annoying," Dad replied, nodding his head. "That's it exactly. Hand me that phone, Alan, let's see what I can do."

Dad took the phone, and stepped away, and we all turned our attention back to the TV. The green dots were slowly closing in on the red dot. I could just imagine the misery of going through that swamp. I shuddered at the thought of it, and looked over at Scott. "And you wanted to go with them?"

"With the strike team? Why?" Virgil asked in a tone of disbelief.

"He has the hots for Major Lieberman, that's why," Alan said with a snicker.

Scott shot him a dirty look, and said quietly to Virgil. "These people don't care who gets hurt. The only thing they care about taking down the target. I wanted to go with them to make sure none of her victims had turned up at that place."

Virgil nodded his understanding and we all turned back to the TV. I smirked, "Well, about now, they're all pulling off leeches and slapping away mosquitoes."

"Better them than us," Alan replied with a similar look on his face.

The green dots had just reached the road when Dad came back. Seeing that things would soon be happening, he didn't say anything, he just pulled up his chair and sat. I watched with bated breath as the four dots separated, each moving cautiously toward a separate corner of the shack.

My eyes were glued to the red dot, watching for any sign that the succubus heard the approach of the strike team. The dot never moved, leading me to think that she was resting or sleeping or whatever she did. Each of the green dots moved in a slow dance around the shack, pausing momentarily here or there as the strike team laid their charges.

It took them a good ten minutes before they were suddenly backing away from the structure, two to the side facing the road, and two more back in amongst the trees. I think we were all holding our breaths as we waited for what was to happen next.

When the scene suddenly zoomed in closer, we all jumped. Johnny muttered, "Sorry, just wanted a better view."

It was indeed a better view. The green dots resolved into tiny human figures, and the building was close enough to make out the thatch on the roof. After what seemed like an eternity, the structure exploded in a fireball that seemed to whoosh straight for the camera.

Of course the camera in question was in low earth orbit, so there was no danger of the fire reaching it. Nevertheless, John pulled the scan back a bit, and we could see the strike team holding their positions, waiting to see if the woman would somehow appear.

I had my lip firmly between my teeth. It didn't seem possible that anyone could survive that holocaust, but the succubus wasn't just anyone. After the initial flash, the fire was down to blackened embers with amazing speed, testifying to the heat of the blaze.

Within twenty minutes or so, the strike team was moving forward to check on the destruction. My dad, brothers and I were all quiet during the entire operation. None of us felt good about the outcome, which seemed pretty obvious. The succubus was dead, and that was a good thing, but to stand by and witness the ruthless murder of anybody, good or bad, went against the grain for us all.

Suddenly, a communicator on the table beeped. "Homebase, this is Strike Leader, come in."

Dad picked up the device, and answereed. "Strike Leader, this is Homebase."

"Target eliminated."

"Understood, Strike Leader." Dad confirmed softly, and dropped the communicator on the table.