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Page 342
Anna had fallen into exhausted sleep, wrapped in blankets and curled into the canvas sling seat like a little girl. Morgan's heart stirred as he watched her. He admired courage, and there was no lack of it in Anna Neville. She had other qualities he could barely name, and some he could not stand, but she had qualities he knew were precious in a woman, even if that sounded chauvinistic. Anna Neville was remarkable.
He looked out of the small window. Occasionally the wingtip could be seen in the darkness of cloud and storm. The ride grew smoother, for the moment less violently turbulent. Morgan turned to look back at Arkady Karmann, expecting him, too, to be asleep. But the Russian sat staring out at the night, his face pale, that grotesque hook resting on the back of the seat ahead. He hadn't responded when Morgan tried to question him about the design of the fuse. The man was totally uncommunicative and steeped in Slavic melancholy. Will we ever know him, Morgan wondered. We had better begin. Our lives depend on him.
Such high stakes involved in this, he thought, higher than any I've ever experienced before. Each one on this plane is coping in his or her own way. Karmann was a scientist. Did his lethargy stem from illness mixed with guilt? Or was that melancholy a kind of Valium that took the sharp edges off reality?
It could be the end of our world, Morgan thought, thinking of the men and women aboard the aircraft. This band of strangers, all skilled in the arts of war, most of them volunteers, brought together to save lives. Morgan looked at Anna's sleeping form again. I wonder if she'll see our little group as saviors, or if she will never perceive that we're all on the same side, just using different techniques, he thought.
He rubbed his leg gingerly. It was still sore to the touch, but what part of his body wasn't these days. He slept poorly, ate quickly, feeling that he needed every minute available so he could be fully briefed by the Canadian scientists in charge of their part of the mission. They had got themselves organized

 
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