Free Siege of Stone by Chet Williamson

You are an archeological team from Princeton University. Agent Harris, you are Dr. Brown . . ."
    "Foxy or Jackie?" said Laika under her breath.
    "I beg your pardon?"
    "Nothing, sir."
    "Dr. Frances Brown," Skye clarified. "Agent Stein, you are Dr. Charles Witherup, and Agent Luciano, being the youngest, you are a graduate student, Mr. David Angelo."
    "And if anyone checks with Princeton?" Laika asked.
    Skye gave her an angry look again. "Agent Harris, do you know of any cover from my division ever being broken?"
    ". . . No sir."
    She had hesitated just a bit too long, and Skye jumped on it. "Are you implying something?"
    "Sir, it's just that . . . I've heard there have been cases where your agents have been left in the cold. But if true, I would assume those incidents were due to the agents' own carelessness rather than faulty covers."
    "You would assume correctly," Skye answered curtly. "Now I think you should board the plane. You'll find your covers quite adequate. Have a pleasant trip."
    The way Skye said it, it sounded more like, "Go to hell." He turned and stalked through the door to the outside.
    The plane was a ten-seater, fast and comfortable. "I thought the Company's budget was going down ," said Tony when they were on board.
    "This isn't a Company plane," said Joseph in a whisper, probably thinking about bugs. Laika knew what he meant. It damn well wasn't a plane of the Company, anyway, and Laika wondered who Skye called in a marker from to get this bird.
    An uncomfortable silence fell on the three of them as they waited for takeoff. After the episode in the southwest, they had talked long and hard about whether they could trust the man who was running them, and come to the conclusion that Skye was holding out on them major league. They felt certain that he knew about the existence of the Prisoner, even though they had not told Skye about it, due to their lack of trust in him. He was using the ops to hone in on real paranormal occurrences caused in some way by the Prisoner. Laika, Joseph, and Tony were Skye's hunting dogs, but they were not as ignorant as he had hoped.
    Someone was running Skye the way he was running them, she felt sure of it. But while they were following orders, she was afraid that Skye had been turned, the same way that Michael LaPierre's money had turned Popeye Daly, a CIA agent who had tried to kill the three of them. But who, if she was right, was behind Skye?
    She thought there might be a clue in the plane, but there were no identifying corporate logos emblazoned on the leather seats, nor any annual reports stuck in with the magazines, none of which had subscription labels. She had noticed the exterior was equally anonymous, except for the registration number that was required by the FAA on every plane. They could check on that later.
    The steward came back into the cabin before Laika got settled enough to open the dossier. There was something about him, a lack of intensity perhaps, that made Laika think he wasn't Company. "Mind telling me where we're headed, or is it a secret?" she asked.
    "Oh no, ma'am, not at all. We'll be landing in Inverness Airport in Scotland."
    "Scotland again," said Joseph. "Wonderful. I just love rain and lake monsters." Laika smiled at the memory. Skye's first assignment for them had been to debunk a phony psychic in front of his audience. The psychic had set his demonstration in Drumnadrochit on Loch Ness, but the only monster anyone had seen was the psychic when the operatives got through with him.
    Afterward, they had met with Richard Skye on western Scotland's Isle of Skye, a meeting place whose name proved unconditionally the size of Skye's ego. There he had explained to them the purpose behind their continuing mission. They had believed it then, but were less gullible now.
    "So what are we up to?" Joseph said. "Finding Nessie, or laying the ghost of Glamis Castle?"
    Laika opened the dossier and began to read. "You've got the ghost part right, Joseph. It seems