"It could be," West answered.
"Then how?" Cuso's words sounded like the snap of a bear trap closing. "I want to know how it was done. No alibis. No evasions. No excuses. Just the truth." The tone of his voice carried the threat of violence with it.
West smiled. "Have I alibied or evaded? Did you not see everything in our center here?"
"I saw many things. That I saw all I do not know."
"You saw what the colonel here—" the craggy man nodded toward Zen, "—called my super radar."
"Did you show him that?" Zen demanded.
"Of course. I have no secrets from the great Asian. Besides, has he not promised me a commission as a marshal in the armed forces of his land?"
The words were easily spoken but Zen knew that West was actually stalling for time. What was he waiting for? Was it the appearance again of the face that had looked from the air in the center of the room? Were the vanished people to reappear, armed with new weapons, and take the Asians prisoners?
"To hell with his commission!" Zen shouted. "He'll never make good on his promise."
"Shut up, both of you!" Cuso shouted. His voice was a bull bellow of sound that roared back from the walls of the gallery and was echoed from the tunnels that led outward. "You are stalling. You are trying to trick me."