Tyrannosaur Canyon

PART THREE

PERDIZ CREEK

She stood twenty feet at the shoulder and was fifty feet long. She weighed about six tons. Her legs were more than ten feet long and packed with the most powerful muscles that had ever evolved on a vertebrate. When she walked, she carried her tail high and her stride was twelve to fifteen feet. At a run she could attain a speed of thirty miles per hour, but raw speed was less important than agility, flexibility, and lightning reflexes. Her feet were about three and a half feet long, armed with four scimitar like claws, three in the front and a dewclawlike spur in back. She walked on her toes. A single well-aimed kick could disembowel a hundred-foot-long duckbill dinosaur.

Her jaws were three feet long and held sixty teeth. She used the four incisorlike teeth in the front for stripping and peeling meat off bone. Her killing teeth were located in a lethal row on the sides, some as long as twelve inches, root included, and as big around as a child's fist. They were serrated on the backside, so that after biting she could hold her prey while sawing and cutting backward. Her bite could remove more than ten cubic feet of meat at a time, weighing several hundred pounds. A warren of windows, holes, and channels in her skull gave it enormous strength and lightness, as well as flexibility. She had two different biting techniques: an overbite that cut through meat like scissors; and a "nutcracker" bite for crushing armor and bone. Her palate was supported by thin struts that allowed the skull to flatten out sideways with the force of a bite, and then stretch to allow massive chunks of meat to be swallowed whole.

With her overlapping jaw muscles, she could deliver a biting force estimated in excess of one hundred thousand pounds per square inch, enough to cut through steel.

Her two arms were small, no larger than a human's, but many times stronger. They were equipped with two recurved claws set at a ninety-degree angle to maximize their gripping and slashing capability. The back vertebrae, where the ribs attach, were as large as coffee cans, to support her belly, which could be carrying more than a quarter ton of freshly consumed meat.

She stank. Her mouth contained bits and pieces of rotting meat and rancid grease, trapped in special crevices in her teeth, which gave her bite an added lethality. Even if her victim escaped the initial attack, it would likely die in short order of massive infection or blood poisoning. The bones she expelled in herfeces were sometimes almost completely dissolved by the potent hydrochloric acids with which she digested her food.

The occipital condyle bone in her neck was the size of a grapefruit, and it allowed her to turn her head almost 180 degrees so that she could snap and bite in all directions. Like a human being, her eyes looked ahead, giving her stereoscopic vision, and she had an excellent sense of smell and of hearing. Her favored prey were the herds of

duckbill dinosaurs that moved noisily through the great forests, calling and trumpeting to keep the herd together and the young with their mothers. But she was an opportunist, and would take anything that was meat.

She hunted mostly by ambush: a long, stealthy, upwind approach, followed by a short rush. She was well camouflaged, wearing the colors of the forest, a rich pattern of greens and browns.

As a juvenile she hunted in packs, but when she matured she worked alone. She did not attack her prey and fight it to the death. Instead, she fell upon her victim and delivered a single, savage bite, her teeth cutting through armor and plate to reach vital organs and pulsing arteries; and at the moment when she had fixed her prey like a worm on a pin, she cocked a leg and gave it a ripping kick. Then she released it and retreated to a safe distance while it futilely roared, slashed, convulsed, and bled to death.

Like many predators, she also scavenged; she would eat anything as long as it was meat. Sinking her teeth into a suppurating, maggot-packed carcass satisfied her as much as swallowing whole a still beating heart.

1

WYFORD FORD PAUSED looking down the great cleft in the earth named TyrannosaurCanyon. Ten miles back he had passed the black basaltic dike that gave the canyon its name, and now he was deep within it, farther than he had ever been before. It was a godforsaken place. The canyon walls rose higher the deeper he went, until they pressed in on him claustrophobically from both sides. Boulders the size of houses had spalled off the cliffs and lay tumbled about on the canyon floor amid patches of poisonous alkali flats, the dust lifted by the wind into white veils. Nothing, it seemed to Ford, lived in the canyon beyond a few saltbushes-and, naturally, a plethora of rattlers.

He halted as he saw a slow movement ahead of him and watched a diamond-back with a body as thick as his forearm slither across the sand in front of him, flicking its tongue and making a slow scraping noise. This was the time of evening for snakes, Ford thought, as they came out of their holes as the heat abated to get a head start on their nocturnal hunt.

Ford hiked on, getting back into the rhythm of it, his long legs eating up the ground. It was like a maze, with many side canyons peeling off into nowhere. The miles passed quickly. Toward sunset, as the canyon made yet another turn, he could see the great crowd of rocks up ahead, the ones he had seen from Navajo Rim, which he had whimsically named The Bald Ones. The lower part of the canyon was already in shadow, bathed in a warm orange glow of reflected light from high up on the eastern rim.

Ford felt grateful that the day was over. He had been rationing water since the morning and the cooling of the air brought a welcome lessening of his thirst. When night arrived in the desert, it came fast. He would not have much time to pick out a good campsite. With a jaunty step he continued down the canyon, looking left and right, and soon located what he was looking for: a sheltered spot between a pair of fallen boulders with a soft, level bed of sand. He unshouldered his rucksack and took a swig of water, rolling it about in his mouth to enjoy it as much as possible before swallowing. He still had fifteen, maybe twenty minutes of light left. Why waste it on cooking and unrolling his bedroll? Leaving his gear, he hiked up the canyon to the beginning of the Bald Ones. From the closer vantage point they looked more like gigantic squashed toadstools than skulls; each was about thirty feet in width and maybe twenty feet high, carved from a layer of deep orange sandstone shot through with thinner lenses of wine-colored shale and conglomerate. Some of the large rocks had been undercut and had fallen like Humpty Dumpty, lying in broken pieces.

He walked into the forest of sandstone pillars holding up the round domes of rock. The pillars were formed from a pale pink sandstone and were all about ten feet in height. Ford scrambled between them, intent on seeing how far the formation extended. From his viewpoint none of the rocks looked like the one he was after, but the family resemblance was strong. Once again he had a shiver of excitement, sure that he was getting closer to the dinosaur. He squeezed his way among the rocks, sometimes forced to crawl, uncomfortably aware of the press of stone rising above him. As he reached the far side, he discovered to his surprise that the Bald Ones hid the entrance to another canyon-or what was actually a hidden continuation of TyrannosaurCanyon. He started up it, hiking briskly along the bottom. The canyon was narrow and showed evidence of violent flash floods, the sides strewn with bashed tree trunks and branches that had been swept down from the mountains beyond. The canyon's lower walls had been polished and hollowed by the action of water.

The canyon made turn after turn, each elbow disclosing alcoves and undercuts. Some of the higher alcoves contained small Anasazi cliff dwellings. A quarter mile on, Ford came to a "pour-over," a high shelf of sandstone across the canyon, which must have formed a waterfall in wetter times, with a cracked bed of silt below attesting to a former pool. He climbed up, using the projecting stone layers as hand-and footholds, and hiked on.

The canyon took a twist and suddenly opened into a stupendous valley where three tributary canyons came together like a train wreck of rock, creating a spectacle of erosional ferocity. Ford halted, awestruck by the frozen violence of it. With a smile, he decided to name it the Devil's Graveyard. As he stood, the last

of the sun winked out on the canyon rim and the evening crept across the strange valley cloaking it in purple shadow. It was truly a land lost in time.

Ford turned back. It was too late to explore farther; he had to get back to camp before dark. The stones had waited millions of years, the monk thought. They could wait one more day.

2

TOM DROVE NORTHWARD on Highway 84, making a great effort to keep his

mind focused. The plane had been late, it was eight-thirty, and he was still an hour from the stretch of highway the kidnapper had indicated. On the passenger seat sat a Ziploc bag full of yellow trash with the notebook tucked inside. His cell phone was sitting on the seat, charged up and waiting for the call.

He felt furiously helpless, at the mercy of events-an intolerable sensation. He had to find a way to take charge, to act and not just react. But he couldn't just act: he needed to work out a plan, and for that he had to push his emotions aside and think as coldly and clearly as possible.

The dark expanse of desert rushed by on either side of the road, the stars clear and stationary in the night sky above. The plane ride from Tucson to Santa Fe had been the most difficult hour Tom had ever passed. It had taken a superhuman effort to control his speculations and focus on the problem at hand. That problem was simple: to get Sally back. Nothing else mattered. Once he had Sally back, he would deal with the kidnapper.

Once again he wondered if he shouldn't have gone to the police, or bypass Wilier entirely and go straight to the FBI. But in his heart he knew the kidnapper was right: if he did that, he would lose control. They would take over. No matter what, Wilier would get involved. He believed the kidnapper when he said he would kill Sally if the police became involved. It was too big a risk; he had to do this on his own.

He knew the stretch of Highway 84 the kidnapper wanted him to drive back and forth on. It was one of the loneliest stretches of two-lane highway in the state, with a single gas station and convenience store.

Tom tried to think what he would have done if he were the kidnapper, how he would have set things up, how he would pick up the notebook and avoid being followed. That was what Tom had to figure out-the mans plan.

3

WILLER GLANCED UP at the clock from a stack of paperwork. Nine-fifteen. He looked over at Hernandez, who looked almost green in the sickly fluorescent glare of the office.

"He blew us off," said Hernandez. "Just like that."

"Just like that. . ." Wilier rapped his pen on the stack of papers. It didn't make sense, a guy with so much to lose. Guys like that had a million legal ways of avoiding an interview with the police.

"You think he's jumped the rez?"

"His vehicle-that classic Chevy he drives-was parked at the airport. His plane landed at eight and now it's gone."

Hernandez shrugged. "Engine trouble?"

"He's playing some kind of game with us."

"What's he up to?"

"Hell if I know."

The room became heavy with silence. Wilier finally coughed, lit up, felt he needed to do something to reestablish his authority; it surprised and galled him that Broadbent would simply blow him off. "Here's what we know for a fact: there's fresh blood on his living-room rug and a fresh round in his wall. He missed an interview with the police. Maybe he's in trouble or dead. Maybe he's running scared. Maybe he argued with his wife, things got out of hand ... and now she's buried in the back forty. Maybe he's just an arrogant bastard who thinks we don't rate. It doesn't matter: we got to track his ass down."

"Right."

"I want an all points for northern New Mexico, checkpoints on 84 at Chama, 96 at Coyote, 285 south of Espanola, 1-40 at Wagon Mound and the Arizona

border, 1-25 at Belen, and one at Cuba State Police Headquarters on Highway 44." He paused, shuffling through some papers on his desk, pulled one out. "Here it is: he's driving a '57 Chevrolet 3100 pickup, turquoise and white, NM license plate 346 EWE. We got one thing going for us: driving a truck like that, he'll stick out like a sore thumb."

4

MADDOM PARKED THE Range Rover in front of the Sunrise Liquor Mart and checked his watch. Nine twenty-one. A half-dozen beer advertisements in the plate-glass window threw a confusion of neon light onto the dusty hood of his car. Save for the guy behind the counter it was empty. The moon had not yet risen. He knew, from earlier research, he would see the headlights of a southbound car two minutes and forty seconds before it passed.

He got out, shoved his hands in his pockets, leaned on the car, drew in a deep breath of cool desert air, closed his eyes, murmured his mantra, and managed to get his heart rate down to something a little more normal. He opened his eyes. The highway was still dark. Nine twenty-two. He had passed Broadbent in his '57 Chevy eleven minutes ago, and if the man followed directions, turned around quickly, and maintained his speed, his headlights should appear in the north in just over six minutes.

He walked into the convenience store, bought a slice of ten-hour-old pizza and a giant cup of burnt coffee, paid with exact change. He went back out to his car, hooked a boot on the fender, glanced up the dark highway. Two more minutes. Another glance into the store told him the kid was absorbed in a comic. He poured the coffee out on the tarmac and slung the piece of pizza into a cholla cactus already festooned with trash. He checked his watch, checked his cell-good signal.

He got in his car, started the engine, and waited.

Nine twenty-six.

Nine twenty-seven.

Nine twenty-eight.

Bingo: a pair of headlights emerged from the sea of blackness in the north. The headlights slowly grew in size and brightness as the car approached on the

undivided, single-lane highway-and then the truck passed in a flash of turquoise, the red taillights receding into the blackness to the south. Nine-thirty and forty seconds.

He waited, his eyes on the watch, counting out one minute exactly, then he pressed the speed-dial button on his cell.

"Yes?" The voice answered immediately.

"Listen carefully. Maintain your speed. Do not slow down or speed up. Roll down the right-hand window."

"What about my wife?"

"You'll get her in a moment. Do as I say."

"I've got the window down."

Maddox watched the second hand on his watch. "When I tell you, take your cell phone, hang up but leave it on. Put it in the Ziploc bag with the notebook and throw them all out the window. Wait until I give you the signal. After you toss it, don't stop, keep driving."

"Listen, you son of a bitch, I'm not doing anything until you tell me where my wife is."

"Do what I say or she's dead."

"Then you'll never see this notebook."

Maddox checked his watch. Already three and a half minutes had passed. With one hand on the wheel, he pressed the accelerator and turned out on the highway, leaving a line of smoking rubber in the parking lot. "She's in the old campground at Madera Creek, you know the place? Forty miles south of here on the Rio Grande. The bitch resisted me, she got herself hurt, she's bleeding, she's with my partner, if you don't do what I say I'm going to call him and he'll kill her and split. Now put the cell in the bag and toss it, now."

"Know this: if she dies you're a dead man. I'll follow you to the ends of the earth and kill you."

"Stop the grandstanding and do what I say!"

"I'm doing it."

Maddox heard a rustling sound and the line went dead. He released his breath in a big rush. He checked his watch, noted the time to the second, looked at his speedometer. The notebook would be at a point about 4.1 miles south of the mart. He shut his cell phone and maintained speed. He had already scouted the highway, timed the distances, and noted the milestones. He knew within a quarter-mile stretch where the notebook must be.

Maddox passed the mile marker and slowed way down, unrolled his windows, and called Broadbent's number. A second later he could hear the faint answering

ring: and there it was, lying by the side of the road, a plastic Ziploc bag. He cruised past, at the same time switching on a mounted lamp on his Range Rover and shining it around, to make sure Broadbent wasn't waiting in ambush. But the prairie stretched out empty on all sides. He had little doubt that Broadbent was heading south at high speed toward the Madera Campground. He would probably stop in Abiquiu to call the cops and an ambulance. Maddox didn't have much time to get the notebook and get the hell out.

He pulled a U-turn, drove back to the bag, hopped out, and scopped it up. As he accelerated back onto the highway he ripped the bag open with his right hand and groped through trash for the notebook.

There it was. He pulled it out, looked at it. It was bound in old leather and there was even a smudge of blood on the back cover. He opened it. Rows of eight-digit numbers, just as Corvus said. This was it. He'd done it.

He wondered how Broadbent would react when he found the Madera Campground empty. Ends of the earth.

He had the notebook. Now it was time to get rid of the woman.

5

ABOUT A HALF mile south of where he had tossed the journal, Tom shut his lights off and veered off the highway, bounced over a ditch, and busted through a barbed-wire fence. He drove into the dark prairie until he felt he was far enough away from the road. He shut off the engine and waited, his heart pounding.

When the man had said Sally was in the Madera Campground, Tom knew he was lying. The campground was overrun with small children at that time of year, and the screened-in cabins were too public, too exposed. The Madera Campground story was designed to draw him south.

A few minutes later he saw the headlights of a car far behind him. He had passed a Range Rover earlier and had seen the same car in the liquor mart, and he had no doubt this was the kidnapper's car now, as he saw it slowing down along the stretch of highway where he had thrown the notebook. A side lamp went on, scouring the prairie. Tom had a sudden fear of being seen, but the lamp searched only the immediate area. The car pulled a U-turn, came back; a man jumped out and picked up the notebook-he was tall and lanky but too far away to be identifiable. A moment later the man had hopped back in and the car headed north in a screech of rubber.

Tom waited until the car was well ahead on the highway, then, keeping his headlights off, he started his car and drove back to the road. He had to drive blind: if he turned his headlights on the man would know he was being followed-the Chevy with its round, old-fashioned headlights was too identifiable.

Once on the highway he sped up as much as he dared without lights, his eyes on the receding glow of the taillights, but the car ahead was moving fast, and he

realized he had no hope of keeping up without turning on his lights. He had to chance it.

At that moment, he was approaching the liquor mart, and he saw that a pickup truck had pulled in for gas. He braked hard, swerved into the station, pulled up on the opposite side of the pumps. The truck, a shabby Dodge Dakota, was sitting next to the pumps with the keys dangling from the ignition while the driver paid inside. He could just see, in the door pocket, the handle of a gun.

Tom jumped out of his truck, climbed into the Dodge, started the engine, and peeled out with a squeal of rubber. He floored it, heading northward into the darkness where the pair of taillights had vanished.

6

THE CALL CAME in at 11:00 P.M. Even though Melodic had been waiting for it, she jumped when the phone trilled in the silent, empty lab.

"Melodic? How's the research going?"

"Great, Dr. Corvus, just great." She swallowed, realizing she was breathing hard into the mouthpiece.

"Still working?"

"Yes, yes, I am."

"Those results come in?"

"Yes. They're-incredible."

"Tell me everything."

"The specimen is riddled with iridium-exactly the type of iridium enrichment you find at the K-T boundary, only more so. I mean, this specimen is saturated with iridium."

"What type of iridium and how many parts per billion?"

"It's bound up in various isometric hexoctahedral forms in a concentration oi over 430 ppb. That, as you know, is the exact type identified with the Chicxulub asteroid strike."

Melodic waited for a response but it didn't come.

"This fossil," she ventured, "it wouldn't happen to be located at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary . . . would it?"

"It could be."

Another long silence, and Melodic continued.

"In the outer matrix surrounding the specimen, I found a tremendous abundance of microparticles of soot, of the kind you get from forest fires. According

to a recent article in the Journal of'Geophysical Research, more than a third of the earth's forests burned up following the Chicxulub asteroid strike."

"I'm aware of the article," came the quiet voice of Corvus.

"Then you know that the K-T boundary consists of two layers, first the iridium-enriched debris from the strike itself, and then a layer of soot laid down by worldwide forest fires." She stopped, waiting yet again for a reaction, but there was another long silence on the other end of the phone. Corvus didn't seem to get it-or did he?

"It seems to me . . ." She paused, almost afraid to say it. "Or rather, my conclusion is that this dinosaur was actually killed by the asteroid strike-or it died in the ecological collapse that followed."

This dynamite conclusion fell into the void. Corvus remained silent.

"I would guess that this would also account for the fossil's extraordinary state of preservation."

"How so?" came the guarded response.

"While reading that article, it struck me that the asteroid impact, the fires, and the heating of the atmosphere created unique conditions for fossilization. For one thing, there'd be no scavengers to tear apart the body and scatter the bones. The strike actually heated up the whole earth, making the atmosphere as hot as the SaharaDesert, and in many areas the air temperature reached two, even three hundred degrees-perfect for flash-drying a carcass. On top of that, all the dust would trigger gigantic weather systems. Immense flash floods would have quickly buried the remains."

Melodie took a deep breath, waited for a reaction-excitement, astonishment, skepticism. Still nothing.

"Anything more?" asked Corvus.

"Well, then they're the Venus particles."

"Venus particles?"

"That's what I call those black particles you noticed, because under a microscope they look sort of like the symbol for Venus-a circle with a cross coming out of it. You know, the feminist symbol."

"The feminist symbol," Corvus repeated.

"I did some tests on them. They're not a microcrystalline formation or an artifact of fossilization. The particle is a sphere of inorganic carbon with a projecting arm; inside are a bunch of trace elements I haven't yet analyzed."

1 see.

"They're all the same size and shape, which would imply a biological origin. They seem to have been present in the dinosaur when it died and just remained

in place, unchanged, for sixty-five million years. They're . . . very strange. I need to do a lot more work to figure out what they are, but I wonder if they aren't some kind of infectious particle."

There was that strange silence on the other end of the telephone. When Corvus finally spoke, his voice was low. He sounded disturbed. "Anything else, Melodie?"

"That's all." As if that wasn't enough. What was wrong with Corvus? Didn't he believe her?

The Curator's voice was so calm it was almost spooky. "Melodie, this is fine work you've done. I commend you. Now listen carefully: here is what I want you to do. I want you to gather up all your CDs, the pieces of specimen, everything in the lab connected with this work, and I want you to lock it all up securely in your specimen cabinet. If there is by chance anything left in the computer, delete it using the utility program that completely wipes files off the hard disk. Then I want you to go home and get some sleep."

She felt incredulous. Was that all he could say, that she needed sleep?

"Can you do that, Melodie?" came the soft voice. "Lock it all up, clean the computer, go home, get some sleep, eat a nourishing meal. We'll talk again in the morning."

"All right."

"Good." A pause. "See you tomorrow."

AFTER HANGING UP the telephone, Melodie sat in the laboratory, feeling stunned. After all her work, her extraordinary discoveries, Corvus acted as if he hardly cared-or didn't even believe her. I commend you. Here she'd made one of the most important paleontological discoveries in history, and all he could do was commend her? And tell her to get some sleep?

She looked up at the clock. Clunk went the minute hand. Eleven-fifteen. She looked down at her arm, at the bracelet winking on her wrist, her miserably small breasts, her thin hands, her bitten nails, her ugly freckled arms. Here she was, Melodie Crookshank, thirty-three years old, still an assistant without a tenure-track job, a scientific nobody. She felt a growing burn of resentment. Her thoughts flashed back to her stern university-professor father whose oft-stated goal was that she not grow up to be "just another dumb broad." She thought of how much she had tried to please him. And she thought of her mother, who resented having a career as a homemaker and wanted to live vicariously through her daughter's success. Melodie had tried to please her too. She thought about all the teachers she'd tried to please, the professors, her dissertation adviser.

And now Corvus.

And where had all this agreeableness and pleasing gotten her? Her eye roved about the oppressive basement lab.

She wondered, for the first time, just how Corvus planned to handle their discovery. And it was their discovery-he couldn't have done it on his own. He didn't know how to work the equipment well, he was practically a computer illiterate, and he was a lousy mineralogist. She had done the analysis, asked the right questions of the specimen, teased out the answers. She had made the connections, extrapolated from the data, developed the theories.

It began to dawn on her why Corvus wanted to keep it all so very secret. A spectacular discovery like this would set off a furor of competition, intrigue, and a rush to get the rest of the fossil. Corvus might easily lose control of the discovery-and with it lose credit. He understood the value of that concept, credit. It was the cold cash of the scientific world.

Credit. A slippery concept, when you really thought about it.

Her mind felt clearer than it had in months-maybe years. Maybe it was because she was so tired-tired of pleasing, tired of working for others, tired of this tomblike lab. Her eye fell on the sapphire bracelet. She took it off and let it dangle in front of her eyes, the gems winking seductively. Corvus had driven one of the best bargains of his career, giving her that piece of jewelry, thinking it would buy her silence and a mousy, feminine agreeableness. She shoved it in her pocket in disgust.

Melodie now began to understand why Corvus had reacted the way he had, why he had been so unforthcoming-even disturbed-on the telephone. She had done too well with her assignment. He was worried that she had found out too much, that she might claim the discoveries as her own.

Like a revelation, Melodie Crookshank knew what she had to do.

7

THE M-LOGOS 455 Massively Parallel Processing Object Unit System was the most powerful computer yet constructed by the human race. It sat in a perpetually air-conditioned, dust-free, static-free basement deep beneath the National Security Agency headquarters at Fort Mead, Maryland. It had not been built to predict the weather, simulate a fifteen-megaton thermonuclear explosion, or find the quadrillionth digit of pi. It has been created for a far more mundane purpose: to listen.

Countless nodes distributed across the globe collected a gargantuan stream of digital information. It intercepted more than forty percent of all traffic on the World Wide Web, more than ninety percent of all cellular telephone conversations, virtually all radio and television broadcasts, many land-line telephone conversations, and a large portion of the data flows from governmental and corporate LANs and private networks.

This digital torrent was fed in real time into the M455MPP at the rate of sixteen terabits per second.

The computer merely listened.

It listened with almost every known language on earth, every dialect, every protocol, almost every computer algorithm ever written to analyze language. But that was not all: the M455MPP was the first computer to employ a new, highly classified form of data analysis known as Stutterlogic. Stutterlogic had been developed by advanced cybernetic theorists and programmers at the Defense Intelligence Agency as a way of sailing around the great reef of Artificial Intelligence, which had ship-wrecked the hopes of so many computer programmers over the last decades. Stutterlogic was a whole new way of looking at information. Instead

of trying to simulate human intelligence, as AI had sought unsuccessfully to do, Stutterlogic operated under a wholly new kind of logic, which was neither machine intelligence nor Al-based.

Even with Stutterlogic, it could not be said that the computer "understood" what it heard. Its role was merely to identify a "communication of interest," or a CI in the jargon of its operators, and forward it to a human for review.

Most of the CIs that emerged from the M455MPP were e-mails and cellular telephone conversations. The latter were parceled out among one hundred and twenty-five human listeners. Their job required an enormous knowledge base, fluency in the language or dialect in question, and an almost magical sense of intuition. Being a good "listener" was an art, not a science.

At 11:04.34.98 EDT, four minutes into an eleven-minute cellular telephone call, module 3656070 of the M455MPP identified the conversation under way as a potential CI. The computer, having captured the conversation from the beginning, rewound it and began analyzing it, even while it was still in progress. When the CI concluded at 11:16.04.58 it had already passed through a series of algorithmic filters that had parsed it linguistically and conceptually, scrutinizing the voice inflections for dozens of psychological markers, including stress, excitement, anger, confidence, and fear. Object programs identified the caller and the receiver and then went out to examine thousands of databases to retrieve every particle of personal information about the two interlocutors that existed in networked electronic form anywhere in the world.

This particular CI "greened" (that is, passed) this first round of tests, and it was assigned a rating of 0.003. It was then passed through a firewall to a subsystem of the M455 where it was subjected to a powerful Stutterlogic analysis. This analysis upgraded its rating to 0.56 and passed it back to the main database module with "questions." The database loops returned the CI to the Stutterlogic module with the "questions" having been "answered." On the basis of those answers, the Stutterlogic module raised the rating of the CI to 1.20.

Any CI rating over 1.0 was forwarded to a human listener.

The time was 11:22.06.31.

RICK MUZlNSKf HAD begun his vicariously lived existence as a boy listening for hours at his parents' bedroom door, hearing with sick fascination everything they did. Muzinsky's father had been a career diplomat and Rick had lived all over the world, picking up a fluency in three languages besides English. He had grown up on the outside looking in, a boy with no friends and no place to call home. He was a vicarious human being, and with his job in Homeland Security he had

found a way to make a good living at it. The job paid extremely well. He worked a total of four hours a day in an environment that was free from dim-witted bosses, moronic coworkers, incompetent assistants, and deficient secretaries. He did not have to deal with people at the coffee machine or the Xerox machine. He could clock in his four hours in any way he wished during each twenty-four-hour period. Best of all, he worked alone-that was mandatory. He was not allowed to discuss his work with anyone. Anyone. So when someone asked him that inevitable, obnoxious question, What do you do for a living? he. could tell them anything he liked but the truth.

Some people might consider it crushingly dull, listening to one CI after another, almost all of them asinine exchanges between idiots, full of empty threats, psychotic rants, political outbursts, brainless pronouncements, and wishful thinking-the self-deluded ramblings of some of the saddest, dumbest people Muzinsky had ever heard. But he loved every word of it.

Once in a while a conversation came along that was different. Often it was hard to say why. It could be a certain seriousness, a gravitas, to the utterances. It could be a sense that something else was being said behind the words being spoken. After a few listenings, if the feeling didn't go away, he would then call up the information associated with the conversation and see who the interlocutors were. That was usually most revealing.

Muzinsky had no role in following up on the CIs that he identified as threatening. His only role was to forward those CIs to an appropriate agency for further analysis. Sometimes the computer even identified the agency the CI should go to-should Muzinsky pass it-as certain agencies seemed to be listening for certain cryptic things. But he passed only about one CI in every two or three thousand conversations he listened to. Most got forwarded to various subagen-cies of the NSA or Homeland Security. Others went to the Pentagon, State Department, FBI, CIA, ATF, INS, and a host of other acronyms, some of whose very existence was classified. Muzinsky had to match each CI with the right agency and do it fast. A CI could not be allowed to bounce around, looking for a home. That was what led to 9/11. The receiving agencies were now primed to handle incoming intelligence immediately, if necessary within minutes of its receipt. That was another lesson from 9/11.

But Muzinsky had nothing to do with that side of things. Once the CI left his cubicle, it was gone forever.

Muzinsky sat at the terminal in his locked cubicle, headphones on, and punched the READY button indicating he was free to receive the next CI. The computer sent him no preliminary data or background information about the

call, nothing that might influence his mind about what he was about to hear. It always started with the naked CI.

A hiss and it began. There was the sound of a phone ringing, an answer, a thump, the sound of breathlessness on the other end, and then the conversation began:

"Melodic? How's the research going?"

"Great, Dr. Corvus, just great."

8

JUST BEFORE THE turn on the Forest Service road leading to Perdiz Creek, Maddox slowed and pulled off the highway. A pair of headlights had appeared behind him, and before he actually made the turn he wanted to make sure they didn't belong to Broadbent. He shut off his engine and lights and waited for the vehicle to pass.

A truck rapidly approached going a tremendous clip, slowed only slightly, then sped past. Maddox breathed a sigh of relief-it was just some old, beat-up Dodge. He started the car and made the turn, bumped over the cattle guard, and continued down the rutted dirt road, feeling a huge lifting of his spirits. He rolled down the windows to let in air. It was a cool and fragrant night, the stars shining above the dark rims of the mesas. His plan had worked: he had the notebook. Nothing could stop him now. There would be a certain amount of law enforcement excitement around the area in the coming days after Broadbent reported his wife's abduction, but he'd be safe up at Perdiz Creek working on his novel... And when they came by to question him, they'd find nothing-no body, nada. And they never would find her body. He'd already found a perfect place to lose it, a deep water-filled shaft in one of the upper mines. The roof above the shaft was shored with rotting timbers, and after he deep-sixed the corpse down the shaft he'd set off a small charge to bring down the roof-and that would be it. She'd be as gone as Jimmy Hoffa.

He checked his watch: nine-forty. He'd be back at Perdiz Creek in half an hour, and he had something to look forward to.

Tomorrow, he'd call Corvus from a pay phone to tell him the good news. He glanced at his cell phone, tempted to call him right away-but no, there could be no mistakes now, no risks taken.

He accelerated, the car lurching along the potholed dirt road as it climbed

through a series of foothills. In ten minutes he had reached the area where the pinon-juniper forest gave way to tall ponderosa pines, dark and restless in a night wind.

He finally reached the gate in the ugly chain-link fence that surrounded the property. He got out, unlocked it, drove through, and locked it behind him. A couple hundred more yards brought him to the cabin. The moon hadn't risen and the old cabin loomed up pitch-black, a stark outline blotting out the stars. Maddox shivered and vowed to leave the porch light on next time.

Then he thought of the woman, waiting for him in the darkness of the mine, and that thought sent a nice, warm feeling through his gut.

9

SALLY'S LEGS ACHED from standing in the same position unable to move, her ankles and wrists chafing under the cold steel. A chill flow of air from the back of the mine penetrated her to the bone. The dim glow from the kerosene lantern wavered and spluttered, filling her with an irrational fear that it would go out. But what got to her most was the silence, broken only by the monotonous drip of water. She found it impossible to tell how much time had passed, whether it was night or day.

Suddenly she stiffened, hearing the rattle of someone unlocking the metal grate at the mouth of the mine. He was coming in. She heard the grate clang shut behind him and the chain rattle as he relocked it. And now she could hear his footsteps approaching, becoming louder by degrees. The beam of a flashlight flickered through the bars and a moment later he arrived. He unbolted the bars over the door frame with a socket wrench and tossed them aside. Then he shoved the flashlight in his back pocket and stepped inside the small stone prison.

Sally sagged in the chains, her eyes half-closed. She moaned softly.

"Hi there, Sally."

She moaned again. Through half-lidded eyes she saw he was unbuttoning his shirt, a grin splitting his face.

"Hang in there," he said. "We're going to have ourselves a good time."

She heard the shirt land on the floor, heard the jingle as he undid his belt buckle.

"No," she moaned weakly.

"Yes. Oh, yes. No more waiting, baby. It's now or never."

She heard the pants slide off, drop to the floor. Another rustle and soft plop as he tossed his underwear.

She looked up weakly, her eyes slits. There he was, standing before her, naked,

priapic, small key in one hand, gun in the other. She moaned, drooped her head again. "Please, don't." Her body sagged-lifeless, weak, utterly helpless.

"Please do, you mean." He advanced toward her, grasped her left wrist, and inserted the key into the manacle. As he did so he leaned close over her bowed head, put his nose in her hair. She could hear him breathe in. He nuzzled down her neck with his lips, scraping her cheek with his unshaved chin. She knew he was about to unlock her left hand. Then he would step back and make her unlock the others. That was his system.

She waited, maintaining her slackness. She heard the little click as the key turned the tumbler and she felt the steel bracelet fall away. In that moment, with all the force she could muster, she lashed out with her left hand, striking at his gun. It was a motion she had rehearsed in her mind a hundred times, and it caught him off guard. The gun went flying. Without a pause she whipped her hand around and clawed her fingernails into his face-fingernails she had spent an hour sharpening into points against the rock-just missing his eyes but managing to score deeply into his flesh.

He stumbled back with an inarticulate cry, throwing his hands up to protect his face, his flashlight landing on the mine floor.

Immediately her hand was on the unlocked manacle. Yes! The key was still in there, half turned. She pulled it out, unlocked her foot in time to kick him hard in the stomach as he was rising. She unlocked the other foot, unlocked her right hand.

Free!

He was on his knees, coughing, his hand reaching out, already grasping the gun he'd dropped.

In yet another motion she had rehearsed in her mind countless times over the past hours, she leapt for the table, one hand closing on a book of matches, the other sweeping the kerosene lantern to the floor. It shattered, plunging the cavern into darkness. She dropped to the ground just as he fired in her direction, the shot deafening in the enclosed space.

The shot was following by a raging scream, "Bitch!"

Sally crouched, creeping swiftly through the darkness toward where she remembered the door to be. She already knew she couldn't escape the mine through the outer tunnel-she had heard him lock the grate. Her only hope was to go deeper in the mine and find a second exit-or a place to hide.

"I'll kill you!" came the gargled scream, followed by a wild shot in the dark. The muzzle flash burned an image on her retina of a raging, naked man clutching a gun, twisting around wildly, his body distorted-wrapped in the grotesque tattoo of the dinosaur.

The muzzle flash had shown her the way to the door. She scuttled blindly through it and crawled down the tunnel, moving as fast as she dared, feeling ahead. After a moment she chanced lighting a match. Ahead of her, the two tunnels came together. She quickly tossed the match and scuttled into the other fork, hoping, praying, it would take her to a place of safety deep in the mine.

10

IAIN CORVUS, WAITING in an idling cab across from the museum, finally saw Melodie's slim, girlish figure moving up the service drive from the museum's security exit. He glanced at his watch: midnight. She had taken her bloody time about it. He watched her diminutive figure turn left on Central Park West, heading uptown-no doubt she was heading back to some dismal Upper West Side railroad studio.

Corvus cursed yet again his stupidity. Almost from the beginning of their conversation that evening, he'd realized the colossal mistake he'd made. He'd tossed into Melodie's lap one of the most important scientific discoveries of all time, and she had caught it and run with it to a touchdown. Sure, as senior scientist his name would be first on the paper, but the lion's share of the credit would go to her and nobody would be fooled. She would cloud, if not eclipse, his glory.

Fortunately, there was a simple solution to his problem and Corvus congratulated himself on thinking of it before it was too late.

He waited until Melodic had disappeared into the gloom up Central Park West, then he tossed a fifty to the cabbie and stepped out. He strode across the street and down to the security entrance, went through security with a swipe of his card and a terse nod, and in ten minutes he was in the Mineralogy lab, in front of her locked specimen cabinet. He inserted his master key and opened it, relieved to see a stack of CD-ROMs, floppies, and the prepared sections of the specimen arranged neatly in their places. It amazed him how much she had managed to do in just five days, how much information she had extracted from the specimen, information that would have taken a lesser scientist a year to tease out-if at all.

He picked up the CDs, each labeled and categorized. In this case, possession of the CDs and specimens was more than nine-tenths of the law-it was the whole law. Without that she couldn't even begin to claim credit. It was only right

he should have the credit. After all, he was the one who was risking everything- even his own freedom-to claim the tyrannosaur fossil for the museum. He was the one who had snatched it from the jaws of a black marketeer. He was the one who handed her the opportunity on a silver platter. Without him taking those risks Melodic would have nothing.

She'd have to go along with his seizure of her research-what was the alternative? To pick a fight with him? If she pulled something like that, no university would ever hire her. It wasn't a question of stealing. It was a question of correcting the parameters of credit, of collecting his due.

Corvus carefully packed all the material in his briefcase. Then he went to the computer, logged on as system administrator, and checked all her files. Nothing. She'd done what he said and wiped them clean. He turned and was about to leave when he suddenly had a thought. He needed to check the equipment logs. Anyone who used the lab's expensive equipment had to keep a log of time in, time out, and purpose, and he wondered how Melodic had handled that requirement. He went back to the SEM room, flipped open the log, perused it. He was relieved to see that even here Melodic had performed exactly as required, recording her name and times but recording false entries under "purpose," listing miscellaneous work for other curators. Excellent.

In his bold, slanting hand, he added log entries under his own name. Under "Specimen" he put High Mesas/Chama River Wilderness, N.M. T. Rex. He paused, then added under "Comments," Third examination of remarkable T. Rex. vertebral fragment. Extraordinary! This will make history. He signed his name, adding the date and time. He flipped back and finding some blank lines at the bottom of previous pages, he added two similar entries at appropriate dates and times. He did the same to the other high-tech equipment logbooks.

As he was about to leave the SEM room he had the sudden urge to look at the specimen himself. He opened his briefcase, removed the box holding the specimen stages, and took one of the etched wafers out. He turned it slowly, letting the light catch the surface that had been mirrored with twenty-four-karat gold. He switched the machine on, waited for it to warm up, and then slotted one of the specimen stages into the vacuum chamber at the base of the scope. A few minutes later he was gazing at an electron micrograph of the dinosaur's cancel-lous bone tissue, cells, and nuclei clearly visible. It took his breath away. Once again he had to admire Melodie's skill as a technician. The images were crisp, virtually perfect. Corvus upped the magnification to 2000x and a single cell leapt into view, filling the screen. He could see in it one of those black particles, the

ones she'd called the Venus particle. What the devil was it? A rather silly-looking thing when you got down to it, a sphere with an awkward tubular arm sticking out with a crosspiece at the end. What surprised him was how very fresh the particle looked, with none of the pitting, cracking, or damage that you might expect to see. It had weathered well those last sixty-five million years.

Corvus shook his head. He was a vertebrate paleontologist, not a microbiolo-gist. The particle was interesting, but it was only a sidebar to the main attraction: the dinosaur itself. A dinosaur that had actually died from the Chicxulub asteroid strike. The thought of it sent tingles up his spine. Once again he tried to temper his enthusiasm. He had a long way to go before the fossil was safely ensconced in the museum. Above all, he needed that bloody notebook- otherwise he might spend a lifetime wandering about those mesas and canyons. With a chill in his heart he removed the specimen stage and powered down the machine. He carefully locked the CDs and specimens in his briefcase and made one more round of the lab, checking that nothing, not the slightest trace, remained. Satisfied, he slipped his suitcoat on and left the laboratory, turning off the lights and locking the door on his way out.

The dim basement corridor stretched ahead of him, lit with a string of forty-watt bulbs and lined with sweating water pipes. Horrible place to work-he wondered how Melodic could stand it. Even the assistant curators had windows in their fifth-floor offices.

At the first dogleg in the hall, Corvus paused. He felt a tickling sensation on the back of his neck, as if someone were watching him. He turned, but the corridor stretching dimly behind him was empty. Bloody hell, he thought, he was getting as jumpy as Melodic.

He strode down the hallway, past the other laboratories, all locked up tight, turned the corner, then hesitated. He could have sworn he'd heard behind him the soft scrape of a shoe on cement. He waited for another footfall, for someone to round the corner, but nothing happened. He swore to himself; it was probably a guard making the rounds.

Clutching his briefcase, he strode on, approaching the double set of doors leading to the vast dinosaur bone storage room. He paused at the doors, thinking he had heard another sound behind him.

"Is that you, Melodic?" His voice sounded loud and unnatural in the echoing hall.

No answer.

He felt a wave of annoyance. It wouldn't be the first time that one of the graduate students or a visiting curator had been caught sneaking around, trying

to get their hands on someone's locality data. It might even be his data they were after-someone who had heard about the T. Rex. Or perhaps Melodic had talked. He was suddenly glad he had had the foresight to take charge of the specimens and data himself.

He waited, listening.

"Listen, I don't know who you are, but I'm not going to tolerate being followed," he said sharply. He took a step forward, meaning to walk back and around the corner to confront his pursuer, but his nerve faltered. He realized he

was afraid.

This was preposterous. He looked around, saw the gleaming metal doors of the dinosaur bone vault. He stepped over to them and as quietly as possible swiped his key card in the magnetic reader. The security light blinked from red to green and the door softly unlatched. He pushed it open, stepped inside, and closed it behind him, hearing the massive electronic bolts reengage.

There was a small window in the door, with wire-mesh glass, through which he could see into the corridor beyond. Now he would be able to identify who was following him. He would lodge a strong complaint against whoever it was; this sort of intrigue was intolerable.

A minute passed and then a sudden shadow fell across the pane. A face appeared in profile, then turned with a snap and looked in the window.

Jolted, Corvus hastily stepped back into the darkness of the storage room, but the man, he knew, had seen him. He waited, wrapped in a cloak of absolute darkness, looking at the man's face. It was lit from behind and partially in shadow; but he could still see the general outline of the man's features, the skin stretched tightly over prominent cheekbones, a thatch of jet-black hair, a small, perfectly formed nose, and a pair of lips that looked like two thin coils of clay. He could not see the eyes: just two pools of shadow under the man's brow. It was not a face he recognized. This was no museum employee, no graduate student. If he was a visiting paleontologist he must be obscure indeed for Corvus not to know him-the field was small.

Corvus hardly breathed. There was something about the utter calmness in the man's expression that frightened him-that, and those gray, dead lips. The man lingered at the window, unmoving. Then there was a soft brushing noise, a scraping, a faint click. The handle on the inside of the door turned slowly a quarter turn, then slowly returned to its initial position.

Corvus couldn't believe it: the bastard was trying to get in. Fat bloody chance. With millions of dollars of specimens inside only a half-dozen people had access to Dinosaur Storage-and this man certainly wasn't one of them. Corvus knew

for a fact that the door was two layers of quarter-inch stainless steel with a titanium honeycomb core, sporting a lock that was technically unpickable.

Another soft brushing noise, a click, another click. The security light on the inside of the door continued to glow red-as Corvus knew it would. He almost felt like laughing out loud, taunting and insulting the blighter, except that the sheer persistence of the man amazed and alarmed him. What the devil did he want?

Corvus suddenly thought of the museum phone in the back of the storage room, where the study tables were. He'd call security to arrest the bugger. He turned but it was so very dark, and the room was so vast and crowded with shelves and freestanding dinosaurs, that he realized he couldn't possible get back there without turning on lights. But if he turned on the lights the man would run. He slipped his cell phone out of his suitcoat-but of course there was no coverage this far underground. The man was still working the knob, making various clicking and scraping noises as he tried to get in. It was unbelievable.

More soft sounds, a sharper click-and then Corvus stared in disbelief.

The security light on the door had just gone green.

11

AFTER PASSING THE kidnapper's car, which had pulled off the highway and shut off its lights, Tom had driven until he was out of sight, and then he made a U-turn. The road behind him remained dark. The man had evidently turned off on one of the many forest roads going up into the CanjilonMountains.

Tom accelerated southward, and in a few minutes he found the place where the man had pulled off, leaving a clear set of tracks in the sand. Just beyond that was a forest road turnoff, and he saw that the same tracks went up it.

Tom followed in the Dodge, driving slowly, keeping his headlights off. The road climbed into the Canjilon foothills above the Mesa de los Viejos, and as he gained altitude the pinon and juniper scrub gradually gave way to a dark pon-derosa forest. He resisted the impulse to turn on the lights and charge ahead; surprise was his only advantage. He knew in his gut that Sally was still alive. She couldn't be dead. He would have felt it.

The road switchbacked up a steep ridge covered with a dense stand of pon-derosa, and at the top it skirted a cliff. Here the trees opened up to a broad vista across the high mesas, dominated by the great dark outline of Mesa de los Viejos. The road turned back into the forest and soon a chain-link fence loomed up out of the darkness, gleaming new, with a pair of gates across the road. A weather-beaten sign read:

CCC CAMP PERDIZ CREEK

And then, a new sign, hung on the fence:

Private Property No Trespassing

Violators Will Be Prosecuted to the Full Extent of the Law

It was some kind of inholding in the national forest. Tom pulled off the road, shut off the engine. Now that he had a moment he pulled the gun out of the door pocket. It was a well-used J. C. Higgins "88" revolver, .22 caliber, a real piece of shit. He checked the cylinder-nine chambers, all empty.

He pulled a wad of old maps and an empty pint of Jim Beam out of the door pocket and felt around, but there were no rounds. He yanked open the glove compartment and searched it, scattering more maps and empty bottles, and in the bottom found a single beaten-up round, which he inserted into the cylinder and shoved the gun in his belt. He pocketed a Maglite from the glove compartment and searched the rest of the truck, under the seats, in every crevice, looking for more loose rounds. Nothing.

He exited the truck. There was no sound beyond the whispering of a night breeze in the trees and the hooting of an owl. The gate was padlocked. He peered through. The road curved off and disappeared in the trees, and there, in the far distance, he could see the faintest glimmer of light.

A cabin.

Tom climbed the chain-link fence, dropped down the far side, and then headed down the road at a fast, silent run.

12

SALLY CRAWLED DOWN the dark tunnel and, after a moment, stopped to listen. She could hear the man scrabbling about and swearing, evidently looking for his flashlight.

She peered ahead into the darkness. Where did it go? She felt her matches but didn't dare light one, realizing it would only turn her into a silhouetted target. She crawled ahead blind, making as little noise as possible. More shots rang out, but he was firing at random, the shots going wild in the darkness. She crawled as fast as she could, cutting her knees on the rocky floor of the mine, feeling ahead. In a few minutes her hand made contact with something cold-a length of slimy, rotten wood that swayed under her grasp. She could smell a cold exhalation of damp mine air coming from below. She lay on her stomach and felt past the railing, her hand encountering a sharp edge of rock. She inched forward, feeling downward-it was slick and wet, evidently the vertical side of a shaft.

Hoping there might be a way around, she crouched and moved alongside, feeling the railing as she went.

A voice rang out. "You can't get out, bitch. The grate's locked and I got the key." A pause, then he spoke again, making an effort to be calmer. "Look, hey, I'm not going to hurt you. Forget all that. Let's be reasonable. Let's talk."

Sally reached the tunnel wall. The pit, it seemed, stretched all the way across, blocking her way. She paused, her heart pounding in her chest.

"Look, I'm sorry about all that. I got carried away."

She could still hear him rummaging around for the flashlight he had dropped-which might still work. She had to find a way down the shaft, and fast.

She felt her way back along the railing until she came to a gap. Was this where

a ladder descended? She lay flat on her stomach again and leaned over the lip of the pit, feeling the wet wall of stone downward-a ladder! The top rung felt soft and spongy from rot.

She had to see it before she began climbing down. She had to risk a match.

"Hey, I know you're there. So be reasonable. I promise I'll let you go."

She took out the box of matches, slid it open, took out a match. Then she leaned out over the edge and struck it, keeping the flame below the edge of the shaft. The rising air caused it to flicker and blue, but there was enough light for her to see a rotting wooden ladder descending into a black, seemingly bottomless pit. Many of its rungs were broken or muffled with rot and creeping white fungus. It would be suicide to go down that ladder.

Wham! A. shot followed, snipping the rock just to her right and spraying the side of her shoulder with chips of stone.

She dropped the match with an involuntary gasp, and it spiraled into the darkness, flickering for a moment before going out.

"Bitch! I'll kill you!"

She swung herself over the black void and felt downward with her foot, encountering a rotten rung, tested it with her weight, then lowered herself slowly, trying the next rung.

She heard a muffled exclamation of triumph, then a click-and suddenly the beam of a flashlight swung past her head.

She ducked and scrambled down the ladder. Almost immediately one of the rungs snapped and her leg swung out over the pit before she could reestablish her footing. The entire ladder creaked and swayed.

Down she went, rung after rung, slipping and gasping with effort, the ladder shaking, drops of water cascading about her. Another rung snapped under her foot, two in a row, dropping her so she was only holding on by her hands, swinging once again in the darkness. She gasped, laddering down with her hands and feeling ahead with her feet until she could pick up a solid rung again.

The beam of the light suddenly appeared at the lip of the shaft, a bright light fixating her in its glare. She threw herself sideways as the gun went off, the round tearing a hole in the rung, the entire ladder swaying with her violent movement.

A laugh echoed down. "That was just for practice. Now for the real thing."

She looked up again, gasping. He was leaning over the lip, twenty feet above her, flashlight in one hand, aiming the gun with the other. It was a no-miss shot. He knew he had her and was taking his time. She struggled down the groaning ladder. Any second he would pull the trigger. She looked up, saw just the outline of his face etched against the light. She stopped descending-it was pointless.

"No," she gasped. "Please don't."

He extended his arm, the steel muzzle of the gun gleaming in the light. She could see the muscles tightening in his hand as he began to depress the trigger. "Kiss your ass good-bye, bitch."

Sally did the only thing she could do: she launched herself from the ladder, letting herself fall into the dark pit.

13

CORVUS STARED AT the green LED, paralyzed with fear. How could the man have penetrated the museum's security? What the hell did he want?

The door eased open, casting a widening stripe of yellow light across the floor, which cut through the mounted skeleton of an allosaurus, turning it into a Halloween-like monstrosity. The shadow of his pursuer moved into the bar of light, his outline falling strangely on the dinosaur, and as he took a second step forward Corvus saw he was carrying a long-barreled weapon of some kind.

The sight of it broke the spell and spurred Corvus into action. He turned and fled back toward the dark recesses of the storage room, flying down a narrow corridor lined on both sides with massive steel shelves, past stacks of bones and skulls. He came to a jog and turned right, then ran down another aisle and left into another. He stopped, panting and crouching behind a large centrosaurus skull, looking back to see if the man was pursuing. His heart was pounding so hard he could hear the rhythmic whoosh of blood in his ears. He peered through a hole in the monster's bony frill, and he saw that the man had not moved: he remained a black silhouette in the open door. The man finally raised the weapon, stepped away, and allowed the door to reclose, the security locks latching automatically-and darkness once again descended on the storage room.

Corvus's mind raced. This was insane: he was being hunted in his own museum. It must be connected with the T. Rex in New Mexico. This man wanted his data and was willing to kill for it.

The curator heard someone breathing loudly, realized it was himself, and tried to get himself under control. As noiselessly as possible he slipped out of his shoes, and in his stocking feet retreated deeper into the dark rows of fossils, toward the back of the storage room where the biggest mounted specimens were kept, cheek

by jowl. That would offer the best possibilities for hiding. But how long could he remain hidden? The storage room was as large as a warehouse, but the man would have most of the night to ferret him out.

A voice came from the darkness, quiet and neutral in tone.

"I should like to speak with you, Professor."

Corvus did not respond. He had to get to a more secure hiding place. He felt his way forward, crawling on his hands and knees, moving carefully so as not to make any noise. There was, he recalled, the massive torso of a triceratops back there under a sheet of plastic; he could hide in the beast's rib cage. Even with the lights on, he would be in deep shadow from the skeleton and the great horned casque of the dinosaur would act like a hood. The triceratops was packed in among several dozen partially mounted dinosaurs and all were sheeted in plastic. He crawled forward through the forest of bones, squirming under hanging sheets of plastic, working his way deeper into the clutter of fossils. At one point he paused and listened, but he could hear nothing-no footfalls, no movement.

Strange that the man hadn't turned on a light.

"Dr. Corvus, we are wasting precious time. Please make yourself known."

Corvus was shaken: the voice was no longer coming from the front of the storeroom, near the door. It had come from a different place-closer and to his right. The man had been moving through the darkness, only so silently that he had made no sound at all.

On his hands and knees, Corvus continued to creep forward with infinite caution, feeling the mounted foot bones of each dinosaur, trying to identify it and then place it within his mental map of the jumbled storeroom.

He bumped something and a bone fell with a rattle.

"This is getting tiresome."

The voice was closer-a lot closer. He wanted to ask: Who are you? But he didn't; he knew perfectly well who the man was-a bloody rival, a paleontologist or someone working for a paleontologist, come to steal his discovery. The bloody Americans were all criminals and beasts.

Corvus lifted yet another piece of plastic, which gave out a loud crackle. He paused, holding his breath, then went back to feeling his way forward. If only he could identify one of these bloody dinosaurs, he'd know where he was-yes, it was the furcula of the oviraptorid Ingenia. He scurried to the right, avoiding plastic sheets, feeling his way, until he encountered a tail vertebra, and another, along with the bent iron rod supporting them. It was the triceratops. He reached up, encountered a thick sheet of plastic, and with infinite care raised it and wrig-

gled underneath. Once inside, he felt a rib and another, crawling toward the front, where he could huddle under the dinosaur's huge tri-horned casque, almost five feet in diameter. He painstakingly inched himself into the hollow where the beast's heart and lungs once sat. Even with the lights on, it would be bloody difficult to see him. It might take the man hours to find him, maybe even all night. He waited, crouching, unmoving, his heart pounding in his own rib cage.

"It is useless to hide. I am coming to you."

The voice was closer, much closer. Corvus felt a hum of terror, like a swarm of bees unloosed in his head. He could not get the image of that long gun barrel out of his mind. This was no joke: the man was going to kill him.

He needed a weapon.

He felt along the rib cage, grabbed a rib, tried to wiggle it free, but it was solidly fixed. He tested several more and finally found one that gave a little when he tugged on it. He felt up the supporting iron armature for the wing nut and screw that held the bone, found it, tried to turn it. Stuck. He felt back to the bottom, found the other wing nut-but it too was frozen.

Bloody hell, he should have picked up a loose bone to use as a weapon when he had the chance.

"Dr. Corvus, I repeat: this is tiresome. I am coming to you."

The voice was even closer. How was he moving so silently through the darkness? How did he know the room so well? It was like the man was floating in the dark. With a surge of desperation he fumbled with the wing nut, grasping it, trying to wrench it loose; he felt the rusted nut cut into his flesh, the warm blood running down-and still it did not budge.

He let go, swallowed, moderated his breathing. His heart was pounding so hard he felt it must be audible-but you couldn't hear a beating heart, could you? If he just stayed tight, didn't move, kept silent, the man would never find him in this darkness. He couldn't. It was impossible.

"Dr. Corvus?" the voice asked. "All I want is a small piece of information about the Tyrannosaurus rex. When I get that, our business will be concluded."

Corvus crouched there, in fetal position, trembling uncontrollably. The voice was not more than ten feet away.

14

TOM SPRINTED THROUGH the forest toward the yellow light shining through the trees. He slowed when he came up behind a cabin, moving forward cautiously and keeping within the darkness. It was a large, two-story cabin with a porch, and in the glow of the porch light he could see the Ranger Rover parked in front.

With a sudden start of recognition, he realized he had been there before, years ago, with some friends who wanted to explore ghost towns in the mountains. That was before there was a fence and a new cabin.

Tom pressed himself against the rough logs of the house, creeping along until he came to a window. He peered in. The view was of a timbered living room with a stone fireplace, Navajo rugs on the floor, an elk head mounted on the wall. Only a single light was on and Tom had the distinct impression the house was empty. He listened. The place was silent and the second-floor windows were dark.

Sally wasn't in the house. He crept up to the front and gazed across the ghost town, faintly illuminated by the porch light. Keeping low, moving smoothly and pausing every now and then to listen, he crept up next to the car and put his hand on the hood-the engine was still warm. Crouching by the passenger door, he pulled out the flashlight he had found in the Dodge's glove compartment and turned it on. Holding it low, he examined the marks on the ground. In the loose sand he could see a confused muddle of cowboy boot prints. He cast about. There, just beyond the car, he saw what looked like two parallel drag marks made by boot heels. He followed the marks with the beam of the flashlight and saw they headed up the dirt street toward a ravine at the far end of town.

His heart flopped wildly in his chest. Was it Sally being dragged? Was she unconscious? The ravine, if he remembered correctly, led to some abandoned gold

mines. He paused, trying to recall the lay of the land. His hand went unconsciously to the butt of the pistol tucked into his belt.

One round.

He followed the drag marks down the dirt track to the far end of the old camp, where they vanished into the woods at the mouth of the ravine. His flashlight disclosed freshly trampled weeds along an overgrown trail. He listened, but could hear nothing beyond the sigh of wind through the pines. He followed the trail, and after a quarter mile came out into an open area, where the valley widened. The trail ran up the hillside and he sprinted up it. It ran below the ridgeline through a stand of ponderosas and ended at an old wooden shaft house.

Sally was imprisoned in the mines. And that's where they were right now.

The door of the shaft house was chained and padlocked. He paused, resisting the impulse to bash it down, and listened. All was silent. He examined the padlock and found it had been left unlocked, dangling in its chain; he switched off his light, eased the door open, and slipped inside.

Cupping his hands around the flashlight, he turned it on just long enough to examine his surroundings. The mine opening lay ahead, a maw cut into the rocky hillside, breathing out a wash of damp, moldy air. The opening was securely barred and covered with a heavy iron grate, locked with a fat, case-hardened steel padlock.

Tom listened, holding his breath. Not a sound came from the mine tunnel. He tested the lock, but this one was fast. He crouched and, taking out the Maglite, examined the dirt floor. The prints were exceptionally clear in the powdery dust and they belonged to a man with a size eleven or twelve boot. To one side he could see where Sally's heels had dragged, and a flattened area where a body had been laid down-her body-which he must have done while he unlocked the grate. She had been unconscious. He quashed a more awful speculation.

Tom tried to sort out his options. He had to get in-or attract the man to the door and shoot him as he approached.

Hearing a faint sound come from the mine, Tom froze. A shout? He hardly dared breathe. After a moment he heard another sound, a faint cry, distorted by its long travel down the throat of stone. It was a man's voice.

He grasped the padlock and shook it, trying to spring it open, but it wouldn't budge. The grate was forged from heavy steel and cemented into the stone. He had no hope of breaking it.

As he was casting about, he heard another angry shout, this one much louder and clearer, in which he could just make out the word bitch.

She was in there. She was alive. And then he heard the muffled boom of a gunshot.

15

BOB BILER TURNED on the radio in the '57 Chevy and spun through the dial,

hoping to pick up his favorite golden oldies station out of Albuquerque, but once again all he got was hiss and sputter. He snapped it off and took a consolation hit from the pint of Jim Beam lying on the passenger seat. He smacked and rolled his lips with pleasure, and tossed the bottle back on the seat with a thump, wiped his hand over his stubbled chin, and grinned at his great good fortune.

Biler had given up trying to figure out the bizarre incident up at the Sunrise. Somebody had stolen his Dodge and left him a beaut of a classic Chevy, keys dangling in the ignition, worth at least ten times his old shit box. Maybe he should've called the police, but it was only fair that if someone stole his truck, he should get theirs. And besides, he'd already parked a pint of Jim Beam in his gut and he was in no condition to be calling the cops. It was his truck that had been stolen, and you didn't have to report a stolen vehicle if it was your own, did you?

A sudden rumble of his right tires on the shoulder caused Biler to jerk the wheel to the left, almost swerve off the left shoulder, recover with a faint squealing of rubber, and finally get the truck steady on the road again. The dotted yellow line ran straight and true into the blackness and he put the truck right on top of it, the better to follow it. No problem, he'd be able to see the headlights of an oncoming car from a million miles off, plenty of time to move over. He fortified his concentration with another hit of Jim Beam, his lips making a satisfying pop as he removed the bottle from his mouth.

It was already past ten and Biler would be hitting Espanola at ten-thirty. Jesus, he was tired, it had been a long drive down from Dolores, just to visit his daughter and her worthless unemployed husband. If only he could pick up that golden oldies station out of Albuquerque-some Elvis would really lift his spirits. He

turned on the radio, dialed it across the spectrum, stopped at one station that seemed to hint at music behind a wash of static and left it there. Maybe as he got closer it would come in stronger.

He saw headlights in the distance and eased over to his side of the road. A police car passed him and he watched it recede, checking it again as the red tail-lights began to fade into the enormous darkness. Then he saw, with alarm, a sudden brightening of the lights-the cop had braked-followed by a momentary glimmer, and then the brighter white lights of the headlights as he pulled a U-turn.

Holy shit. Biler swept the bottle of Jim Beam off the seat and gave it a sharp kick with the heel of his shoe, scooting it up and under the seat. The truck drifted out of lane again and he quickly snapped his attention back to the road, the truck swaying with the correction. Shit, he had better slow down and drive like a little old lady. His eyes darted from the road to the speedometer to the rearview mirror. He was keeping at a steady fifty-five and he was pretty sure when the cop passed he wasn't doing more than sixty, still five under the speed limit. Biler, like most longtime drinkers-and-drivers, never broke the speed limit. After a few heart-pounding minutes he began to relax. The cop hadn't put on his bubble-gum machine and wasn't accelerating to catch up with him. He was just tooling along at the same speed, maybe a quarter mile back, nice and easy-just some State trooper on patrol. Biler grasped the steering wheel in the ten-two position, eyes straight ahead, keeping it steady at fifty-five.

Hell, nobody could drive any better than that.

16

FOR A MOMENT Sally lay in a shallow pool of water, stunned by the fall. It hadn't been a long drop after all and she was more frightened than hurt. But she was far from out of danger. Even as she was recovering her thoughts the flashlight beam was probing down from above. A moment later it fixed her and she jumped sideways as the shots came, the bullets striking the water around her with a zipping sound. She thrashed through the water toward where the flashlight beam had revealed a tunnel running off into darkness. In a moment she had turned the corner, beyond the range of his gun.

She leaned against the wall, taking great gulps of breath. Her whole body ached but nothing seemed to be broken. She felt in her breast pocket for the box of matches. Miraculously, while the outside of the box had gotten damp, the inside was still dry. The matches were the long, wooden, "strike anywhere" variety. She struck a match against the rock wall, one scratch, two. It flared on the third try and it cast a faint illumination down the tunnel ahead, a long corridor cribbed with rotting oak beams. A shallow stream flowed along its bottom, running from puddle to puddle. The tunnel's condition looked disastrous; beams had fallen down, while small cave-ins from the walls and ceilings partially obstructed the passage. What hadn't already fallen looked like it was about to go, the rock ceiling gaping with large cracks, the oak beams bowing under the weight of shifted rocks.

She jogged down the tunnel, shielding the match, until it burned down to her fingers and she was forced to drop it. She kept going as long as she dared in the darkness, retaining the memory of what lay ahead. When she feared going farther she stopped and listened. Was he following? It seemed unlikely he would risk going down the ladder she had descended-no sane person would do it and she

had btoken too many rungs in her descent. He would have to find a rope, and that would at least give her a moment's reprieve. But no more than a moment: she remembered seeing a rope in her cell, coiled up at the foot of the bed.

Sally struggled to focus her mind and think rationally. She remembered reading somewhere that all caves breathed and that the best way to find your way out was to follow the "breath" of the cave-that is, the flow of air. She lit the match. The flame bent back, toward where she had come from. She went in the opposite direction, deeper into the mine, wading through the water, moving as quickly as she could without putting out the match. The tunnel curved right and opened into a large gallery, with pillars of raw rock remaining in place to hold up the ceiling. A second match showed two tunnels leading off. The flow of water went into the left one. She paused, there being just enough flame to see where the air was flowing from, and decided to take the right tunnel, the only one sloping upward.

The match burned down and she dropped it. She took a moment to count by feel the number of matches in the box. Fifteen.

She tried moving forward by feel, but soon realized her progress was too slow. She had to put as much distance between herself and him as possible. Now was the time to use the matches, not later.

She lit another, continued up the tunnel, turned a corner-and found the tunnel was blocked by a cave-in. She stared upward at the dark hole in the ceiling from which an enormous mass of rock had fallen into a disorderly pile below. Several rocks the size of cars still hung from the ceiling in crazy angles, braced and propped up by fallen beams, looking like they would shift at the merest nudge.

Sally retraced her steps and took the left-hand tunnel, the one that sloped downward with the stream. Her panic was rising; at any moment the kidnapper would be down there after her. She followed the running water, hoping it might lead her to an exit, wading through a series of pools. The tunnel sloped downward and leveled out. The water got deeper and she realized it was pooling; soon it was almost up to her waist. Around the next turn she saw the cause: a cave-in that had completely blocked the tunnel and backed up the water. The water managed to escape through the spaces between the jagged rocks, but there was no opening large enough for her to pass.

She swore to herself. Was there a tunnel she had missed? She knew in her heart there wasn't. In five minutes she had explored all of the mine that was still accessible. In short, she was trapped.

She struck another match, her fingers shaking, looking around desperately for

a way out, a tunnel or opening she might have overlooked. She burned her fingers, cursed under her breath, and lit another match. Surely there had to be a way out.

She retraced her steps yet again, recklessly lighting match after match, until she came back to the first cave-in. It was a compact mass, offering no obvious holes. Lighting more matches, she searched through the piled boulders anyway, looking for a space she could wedge herself in. But there was nothing.

She counted her matches. Seven left. She lit another, looked up-and saw the hole in the roof. It was insane to think of going up in there. The light from the match was too feeble to penetrate its recesses, but still, it looked like there might be a crawl space up there where she might at least hide-if she were willing to risk the precarious, sloping pile of loose boulders.

It was a crazy risk. As she stood there, trembling and indecisive, the flame dying at the end of the match, a small pebble came rattling out of the hole, bounced like a pinball down through the tangle of beams and rocks, and came to rest at her feet.

So that was it, then. She had two choices: she could either go back and face the kidnapper, or she could risk climbing up into a hole created by the cave-in.

The match went. She had six more. She picked two out of the box and lit them together, hoping to generate enough light to see deeper into the hole. They flared and she peered intently, but it still wasn't enough to see beyond the tangle of rocks and beams.

The matches went out.

No more time. She lit another match, stuck it between her teeth, grasped a rock in the pile, and began to climb. At the same time she heard a sound-a distant voice, echoing raucously through the tunnels of stone.

"Ready or not, bitch, here I come!"

17

CORVUS CROUCHED INSIDE the rib cage of the triceratops, blood pounding in his ears. The man was standing no more than ten feet away. He swallowed, tried to get some moisture in his mouth. He heard the brush of a hand on a bone surface, the faint scuff of a shoe on the cement floor, the ever so small crunch of fossil grit under the man's sole as he approached. How the bloody hell was the man moving around so well in the dark?

"I can see you," came the soft voice, as if reading his mind, "but you can't see me."

Corvus's heart felt like a bass drum: the voice was right next to him. His throat was so dry he couldn't have spoken if he wanted to.

"You look silly, crouching there."

Another footfall. He could actually smell the man's expensive aftershave.

"All I want is the locality data. Anything will do: GPS coordinates, name of a formation or canyon, that sort of thing. I want to know where the dinosaur is."

Corvus swallowed, shifted. It didn't make sense hiding any longer; the man knew where he was. He was probably wearing some kind of night-vision device.

"I don't have that information," Corvus croaked. "I don't know where the bloody dinosaur is." He sat up, clutching his briefcase.

"If that's the game you want to play, then I'm afraid I'll have to kill you." The man's voice was so quiet, so gentle, that it left Corvus without the slightest doubt that the man meant what he said. He gripped the briefcase, his hands in a cold sweat.

"I don't have it. I really don't." Corvus heard himself pleading.

"Then how did you acquire the specimen?"

"Through a third party."

"Ah. And the name and place of residence of this third party?"

There was a silence. Corvus felt his terror mingling with something else: anger. Furious anger. His whole career, his life, hung on getting that dinosaur. He wasn't going to give up his discovery to some bastard holding him hostage at gunpoint-he'd rather die. The bloody bastard had night-vision goggles or something of the sort, and if he could get to one of the light banks it would eliminate the man's advantage. He could use the hard attache case as a club-

"The name and place of residence of this third party, please?" the man repeated, his voice as soft as ever. "I'm coming out." "A wise decision."

Corvus crawled toward the back of the skeleton and out the back. He slipped under the plastic and stood up. It was still pitch-dark and he had only a vague sense where the man was.

"The name of this third party?"

Corvus lunged at the voice in the darkness, swinging his case by the handle in an arc toward the voice, striking him somewhere; the man grunted and was thrown back in surprise. Corvus turned, groping blindly through the forest of skeletons toward where he remembered the back light switches were. He stumbled against a skeleton and fell, just as he heard a sharp pneumatic hiss followed by the sound of surgical steel striking fossil bone. The bastard was shooting at him.

He lunged sideways, collided with a skeleton, which creaked in protest, sending a few bones clattering to the ground. Another hiss of air, another metallic ricochet among the bones to his right. He groped forward, scrabbling desperately among bone forest, and then suddenly he was free of the crowd of skeletons and back in the shelves; he ran wildly down the aisle, careening once off the side, falling, and getting up. If only he could reach the lights and neutralize the man's advantage. He sprinted forward, heedless of what might lie in the way, and virtually collided with the bank of electrical switches. With another shout he clawed at the panel, the lights clicking on by the dozen, a humming and flick--flick as the aging fluorescent lights blinked on, one by one.

He spun around, at the same time grasping a petrified bone off one of the shelves, wielding it like a club, ready to fight.

The man stood there placidly, not ten feet away, legs apart, not even looking like he'd moved. He was dressed in a blue tracksuit, night-vision goggles raised up on his forehead. A shabby leather briefcase stood on the ground next to his leg. His hands were in firing position and the shiny tube of a strange-looking weapon was aimed straight at Corvus. He stared in astonishment at the ordinari-

ness of the man, the passionless bureaucratic face. He heard the snap-hiss! of compressed air, saw the flash of silver, felt the sting in his solar plexus, and looked down in astonishment; there he saw a stainless-steel syringe sticking out of his abdomen. He opened his mouth and reached down to pull it out but already a darkness unlike any other was rushing upon him like a tidal wave, burying him in its roaring undertow.

18

FORD SAT WITH his back against a rock, soaking in the warmth from a meager fire he had built from dead cactus husks. The walls of TyrannosaurCanyon rose blackly around him, giving way to a deep velvety sky dusted with stars.

Ford had just finished a dinner of lentils and rice. He took the can the lentils had come in, set it among the fire, and heated it until all trace of food had burned out of it-his method of dishwashing when water was too precious to waste. With a stick he fished the can out of the fire, let it cool off, and filled it with water from his canteen. Holding the can by its metal top, he nestled it upright among the burning husks. In a few minutes the water reached a boil. He removed the can, added a tablespoon of coffee grounds, stirred them in, and set the can back in the fire. In five minutes more his coffee was ready.

He sipped it, holding the can by the lid, savoring the bitter, smoky flavor. He smiled ruefully to himself, thinking of the crowded little cafe he and Julie used to go to around the corner from the Pantheon in Rome, where they drank perfect cups of espresso at a tiny table. What was the name of that place? The Tazza d'Oro.

He was a long way from there.

Coffee finished, he drained the last bit of moisture from the cup, rapped the grounds out into the fire, and set the can aside for making his morning coffee. He leaned back on the rock with a sigh, pulled his robe more tightly about himself, and raised his eyes to the stars. It was almost midnight and a gibbous moon was creeping over the canyon rim. He picked out some of the constellations he knew, Ursa Major, Cassiopeia, the Pleiades. The glowing skein of the Milky Way stretched across the sky; following it with his eyes he located the constellation Cygnus, the Swan, frozen forever in its flight across the galactic center. He had

read there was a gigantic black hole in the center of the galaxy, called Cygnus X-1, one hundred million suns swallowed up and compressed into a mathematical point-and he wondered at the audacity of human beings to think they could understand anything at all about the true nature of God.

Ford sighed and stretched out in the sand, wondering if such musings were proper for a soon-to-be Benedictine monk. He sensed that the events of the past few days were propelling him toward some kind of spiritual crisis. The search for the T. Rex had awakened that same old hunger, that longing for the chase that he thought he had purged from his system. God knows, he had had enough adventure for one lifetime already. He spoke four languages, had lived in a dozen exotic countries, and had known many women before finding the great love of his life. He had suffered unbearably for it and still suffered. So why, then, this continued addiction to excitement and danger? Here he was, searching for a dinosaur that didn't belong to him, that would bring him no credit, money, or glory. Why? Was this crazy search the result of some fundamental defect in his character?

Unwillingly, Ford's mind traveled back to that fateful day in Siem Reap, Cambodia. His wife Julie and he had left Phnom Penh the day before on their way to Thailand. They had stopped for a few days in Siem Reap to see the temples of Angkor Wat-a sightseeing detour that was part of their cover. Only a week before they had learned that Julie was pregnant, and to celebrate they booked a suite at the Royal Khampang Hotel. He would never forget his last evening with her, standing on the Naga Balustrade of Angkor Wat, watching the sun set over the temple's five great towers. They could hear, coming faintly from a hidden monastery in the forest on one side of the temple, the mysterious, hummed chanting of Buddhist monks.

Their assignment had gone off without a hitch. That morning they had deliv-''.' ered the CD-ROM with its data to their operative in Phnom Penh. It had been a j clean finish-or so they thought. The only hint was that he'd noticed they were :, being followed by an old Toyota Land Cruiser. He had washed the guy's laundry- shaken him off his tail-in the crowded streets of the capital before leaving town. It didn't seem like a serious thing, and he'd been followed plenty of times before.

After sunset they had a long dinner in one of the cheap open-air restaurants along the SiemReapRiver, the frogs hopping about the floor and moths bumbling against the lightbulbs strung on wires. They'd gone back to their obscenely expensive hotel room and passed a good part of the evening cavorting on their bed. They slept until eleven, ate breakfast on their terrace. And then Julie had gone to get the car while he brought down their luggage.

He heard the muffled explosion just as the elevator doors opened into the lobby. He assumed an old land mine had gone off-Cambodia was still plagued with them. He remembered coming through the palm court and seeing, through he lobby doors, a column of smoke rising in front of the hotel. He ran outside.

The car lay upside down, almost split in half, billowing acrid smoke, a crater in the pavement. One of the tires lay fifty feet away on an immaculate stretch of lawn, burning furiously.

Even then he didn't recognize it was his car. He figured it was another political killing, all too common in Cambodia. He stood at the top of the steps, looking up and down the street for Julie coming in with the car, worrying that another bomb might go off. As he stood there, he saw a piece of torn fabric ught in a gust of wind; it fluttered up the steps of the hotel and settled almost his feet-and he recognized it as the collar of the blouse Julie had put on that morning.

With a wrenching mental effort Ford brought himself back to the present, to the campfire, the dark canyons, the sky sparkling with stars. All those terrible memories seemed far away, as if they had happened in another life, to another person.

But that was just it: was this really another life-and he another person?

19

THE LIGHTS Of Espanola twinkled in the night air as Bob Biler approached the town. The cop was still behind him but Biler was no longer worried. He was even sorry he'd kicked the bottle under the seat in his panic, and several times he tried to weasel it out with the toe of his boot, but the truck began swerving so he gave up. He could always pull over and fish it out, but he wasn't sure if it was legal to pull off the highway there and he didn't want to do anything to attract the attention of the cop. At least the golden oldies station was finally beginning to come in. He cranked up the knob, humming tunelessly along with the music.

A quarter mile ahead he saw the first set of traffic lights at the outskirts of the city. If he hit a red light it would give him just enough time to fish out the bottle. Damn if driving didn't make you thirsty.

Biler approached the lights, braking carefully and smoothly, watching the cop car in his rearview mirror. As soon as his car stopped he leaned over and reached under the seat, fumbling around until his greasy hand fastened on the cold glass bottle. He slid it out and-keeping himself well below the level of the seat- unscrewed the cap and fastened it to his lips, sucking down as much as possible in the shortest period of time.

Suddenly he heard the screeching of rubber and the sounds of sirens, a wailing chorus all around him. He jerked up, forgetting he had the bottle in his hand, and was blinded by a blast of white light from a spotlight. He seemed to be surrounded by cop cars, all with their pinball machines flashing. Biler was stunned, unable to comprehend what was happening. He winced, trying to blink away blindness, his mind having moved beyond confusion to utter, total blankness.

He heard a harsh megaphone voice saying something, repeating it. "Step out of the car with your hands up. Step out of the car with your hands up."

Were they talking to him? Biler looked around but could see no people, only the glare of flashing lights.

"Step out of the car with your hands up."

They were talking to him. In a blind panic, Biler fumbled with the door handle, but it was one of those handles that you had to push down instead of up, and he struggled with it trying to shoulder the door open. Suddenly the door gave way and flew open, and he tumbled out, the forgotten pint bottle of Jim Beam flying from his hand and shattering on the pavement. He lay all in a heap on the asphalt beside the truck, too stunned and confused to get up.

A figure loomed over him, blocking the light, holding a badge in one hand and a revolver in the other. A voice barked out, "Detective Wilier, Santa Fe Police Department, do not mover

There was a momentary pause. Biler could see nothing but the man's black outline against a brilliant backdrop. In the background, he could hear the stat-icky wail of Elvis's voice coming from the truck, "You ain't nothin' but a hound

dog.. ."

A beat passed, and then the silhouette holstered the gun and leaned over him, looking intently into his face. He straightened up and Biler heard him speak again, this time to someone offstage. "Who the hell is this?"

20

SALLY CLIMBED UP the unstable pile of rocks, the match clenched between her teeth, seeking out footholds and handholds. With every step she could feel the rocks shifting underneath her, some dislodging and tumbling to the bottom. The whole pile seemed to creak and move.

Her breathing came so hard that it put the match out.

She felt in the box-one match left. She decided to save it.

"I'm coming!" the hoarse voice echoed down through the tunnels, maniacally distorted. Sally kept climbing, moving upward by feel, more stones raiding down. Then she heard, above her, a deep groan of shifting wood and rock, followed by a cascade of pebbles. Another step, another creaking shift. It was about to go. But she had no choice.

She reached up, fumbled for a handhold, tested it, drew herself up. Another handhold, another foothold. She moved with the utmost care, easing her weight from one foothold to the next.

"Sally, where are youuu?"

She could hear him splashing through the tunnel. She drew herself up farther and grasped a length of beam above her. Leaning her weight on it, she tested it. It groaned and shifted slightly, but seemed to hold. She paused, trying not to think of what it would be like to be buried alive, then she lifted herself up. Another groan, a flurry of falling pebbles, and she was up and over it. Above, her hands encountered a tangle of splintered wood and broken rock.

She would have to light the last match.

It scraped against the side of the box and flared to life. Above, she could see the dark hole she had to go into. She held the matchbox over the flame until it

caught fire, casting a much brighter light into the dark space, but it was still not enough to see where it went.

With one hand holding the burning box, she hoisted herself over the next shifting beam. In a moment she was standing on a precarious ledge just inside the dark opening. By the dying light of the burning matchbox she saw the hole ended in a broad, half-moon crack going off at a shallow angle of about thirty degrees. The crack looked just wide enough to fit in.

There was a sudden crash below her as a large rock from the ceiling fell to the ground. The flame went out.

"There you are!"

The beam of a flashlight lanced through the darkness, scouring the rock pile below her. She reached up, grabbed a handhold, and hoisted herself up. The flashlight beam was probing all around now. She climbed quickly, even recklessly, scrabbling upward toward the two damp faces of stone and crawling into the broad fissure. The crack went up at a shallow angle and it was wide enough so that she could wedge herself in it and move up by wriggling and inching. She had no more matches, no way to see where she was going, no way to know if the crack went anywhere. She crawled on, pushing herself upward with her hands and knees. For a moment she was seized by the claustrophobic panic of being pressed on both sides by stone. She paused, regulated her breathing, mastered her fear, and resumed.

"I'm coming to get youuuu!"

The voice came from directly below. She continued crawling with a growing sense of dread that the crack was narrowing. Soon it was so narrow she had to force her way deeper in, pushing with her feet and knees, exhaling some air from her lungs to fit through. With another surge of panic she understood that this had become a one-way journey-she would not be able to turn around. Without the leverage of being able to push with her feet she could never back out.

"I know you're up there, bitch!"

She heard the rattle of falling rocks as he began to climb the rockfall. She drew up her feet, twisted her torso, and was able to get her arm loose and slide it in front of her, to feel her way forward. The crack didn't seem to narrow farther, and if anything it felt like it might even get wider. If she could push herself past this narrow section, the crack might lead to another tunnel.

She exhaled and, using her feet as a brace, forced herself deeper in, her shirt pocket tearing, the buttons ripping off. She felt ahead. Another push, another exhale to make herself thinner. She paused, taking shallow breaths. It was like being pressed to death. She heard the sound of more rocks falling below her as he climbed.

She braced herself, and with a mighty push shoved herself deeper into the crack. The terror of being squeezed in the darkness was almost overwhelming. Water dripped down and ran over her face. Now she knew she could never back out. It would have been better to be shot than to die in this crack. If she could just push past this constriction, the crack might widen again. She braced, pushed again, her clothes tearing with the effort. Another push-and she felt forward with her hand. The crack narrowed sharply to something less than an inch wide. She felt wildly, moving her hand back and forth, looking for a wider place-but there was none. She felt again, almost crazed with terror, but there could be no doubt: the crack narrowed to a few inches all along its length, with many smaller cracks radiating out. Back and forth she swept her hands, probing and feeling- but it was no use.

Sally felt an unspeakable terror bubbling up, beyond her ability to control. She tried to wriggle back out, struggling violently, hardly able to breathe. But she had no leverage; her arms were not strong enough to force herself back. She was wedged in. There was no going forward. And there was no going back.

21

TOM TRIED EVERYTHING to break the lock on the grate. He bashed it with boulders, rammed it with a log, but it was useless. The faint sounds from inside the mine had ceased, and he felt the silence would drive him mad. Anything could be happening to her-a minute might mean the difference between life and death. He had shouted, screamed in the grate, trying to draw off the kidnapper-to no avail.

He stepped outside, trying to think of what to do. The moon was just starting to rise above the fir trees along the ridgeline above him. He controlled his breathing and tried to think. He had explored some of these mines years ago, and he recalled there were others in the area. Perhaps they connected; gold mines often had several entrances.

He hiked up to the top of the ridge and gazed down the other side. Bingo. About two hundred yards below stood another shaft house, at approximately the same level as the other, with a long streak of tailings below it.

Surely they would connect.

He ran down the hill, sliding and leaping boulders, and in a moment had reached it. Pulling out his gun, he kicked down the door and went inside, shining the light around. There was another mine opening, and this one had no metal grate sealing it. He ventured inside and probed the beam down a long, level tunnel. A feeling of urgency almost choked him now. He jogged down the tunnel, and at the first fork stopped to listen. A minute ticked by, then two. He felt he was going mad.

Suddenly he heard it: the faint echo of a yell. The two mines connected.

He dashed down the tunnel the sound had come from and ran on, his light disclosing a series of air shafts on the left-hand side. He turned a corner and his flashlight revealed two other tunnels, one going up, the other down. He stopped

to listen, waiting, his impatience soaring-and then came another distorted shout.

The voice of the man again. Angry.

Tom ran down the left-hand shaft, sometimes having to duck because of a low ceiling. More sounds came echoing down the tunnel from ahead, still faint but getting clearer.

The tunnel made a few sharp turns and came to a central chamber, with four tunnels going off in various directions. He skidded to a stop, breathing heavily, and shined his light around, revealing some old railroad ties, a wrecked ore cart, a pile of rusty chain, hemp ropes chewed by rats. He would have to wait for another sound before he could proceed.

Silence. He felt he would go mad. Make a sound, dammit, any sound.

And then it came: a faint cry.

In a flash he ran down the tunnel from which it issued, which dead-ended in a vertical shaft surrounded by a railing. The pit was too deep for his light to reach the bottom. There was no way down-no ladders or ropes.

He examined the rough edges of the shaft, and decided to go for it. He tore off his Italian dress shoes and socks and tossed them over the edge, counting the time it took for them to hit the bottom. One and a half seconds: thirty-two feet.

Sticking the gun back in his belt and holding the Maglite between his teeth, he grasped a rail and let himself over the edge, gripping the bare rock with his feet. Slowly, his heart pounding his chest, he crept down the shaft.

Another foot down, another handhold. He lost his footing and for a terrifying moment felt he would fall. The sharp rocks cut into his toes. He climbed down with maddening slowness, and finally, with a sense of relief, felt solid ground. He shined the light around, collected his shoes and socks, and put them back on. He was in yet another mining tunnel going straight back into the mountain. He listened. All was silent.

He jogged down the tunnel, stopped after a hundred yards to listen again. The flashlight was getting feeble-the batteries, which had been none too good to begin with, were dying. He went on, stopped, listened. Coming from behind him he heard what sounded like a muffled shout. He shut off his light, holding his breath. It was a voice, still coming from distance, but much clearer than before. He could just make out the words.

I know you 're up there. Come down or I shoot.

Tom listened, his heart pounding.

You hear me?

He felt a rush of relief that fairly staggered him on his feet. Sally was alive-

and evidently free. He listened intently, trying to locate the direction of the voice.

You're dead, bitch.

The words filled him with a rage so sudden that he lost his breath for a moment. He moved another twenty feet, walking back and forth, trying to get a fix. The sound seemed to be coming from below, as if through the very rock. But that was impossible. Some ten feet to his left he could see a web of cracks in the stone floor of the tunnel, where it had sagged and broken. He knelt, held his hand over one of the cracks. Cool air flowed out. He put his ear to the crack.

There was the sudden crack! of a large-caliber gun, followed by a scream-a scream so close to his ear he jumped.

22

WILLER AND HERNANDEZ sped northward on Highway 84, the lights of Espanola

receding in the distance, the empty blackness of the desert wilderness mounting in front of them. It was almost midnight and Wilier was beside himself that a half-wit like Biler had managed to waste so many precious hours of their time.

Wilier slid a butt out of his shirt pocket and inserted it between his lips. He wasn't supposed to smoke in the squad car but he was long beyond the point of caring.

"Broadbent could be over CumbresPass by now," said Hernandez.

Wilier sucked in a lungful. "Not possible. They've logged all the vehicles coming over the pass and Biler's wasn't one of them. It hasn't gone through the roadblock south of Espanola either."

"He could've ditched the car in some back lot in Espanola and gone to ground in a motel."

"He could've, but he didn't." Wilier gave the car a little more pedal. The speedometer inched up from 110 to 120, the car rocking back and forth, the darkness rushing past.

"So what do you think he did?"

"I think he went to that so-called monastery, Christ in the Desert, to see that monk. Which is where we're going."

"What makes you think that?"

Wilier sucked again. Usually he appreciated Hernandez's persistent questions- they helped him think things through-but this time he felt only irritation. "I don't know why I think it but I think it," he snapped. "Broadbent and his wife are mixed up in it, the monk's in on it, and there's a third party out there-the killer - who's also up to his ass in it. They've found something in those canyons and they're locked in a life or death struggle over it. Whatever it is, it's big-so hie that Broadbent blew off the police and stole a truck over it. I mean, Jesus, Hernandez, you got to ask yourself what's so important that a guy like that would risk ten years in Santa Fe Correctional. Here's a guy who's already got everything."

"Yeah."

"Even if Broadbent's not at the monastery, I want to have a little chat with that so-called monk."

23

TOM RECOGNIZED, W!TH a freezing sense of disbelief, that the scream came from Sally. He pressed his mouth to the crack. "Sally!"

A gasp. "Tom?"

"Sally! What's happening? Are you all right?"

"My God, Tom! It's you-" She could hardly speak. "I'm stuck. He's shooting at me." Another sobbing gasp.

"Sally, I'm here, it's okay." Tom shone the feeble light down and was shocked to see Sally's face wedged in the crack not two feet below him.

Another boom! from the gun, and Tom heard the zing and rattle of a bullet in the rocks beneath.

"He's shooting into the crack, but he can't see me. Tom, I'm trapped-!"

"I'm going to get you out of here." He shone the light around. The rock was fractured already and it would just be a matter of breaking up and prying out the pieces. He cast around with the light, shining it up and down the tunnel, looking for a tool. In one corner was a pile of rotting crates and ropes.

"I'll be right back."

Another shot.

Tom ran to the pile, threw off a rotten coil of rope, searched through a heap of rotting sacks of burlap. Underneath was a broken piece of miner's hand-steel. He grabbed it, ran back.

"Tom!"

"I'm here. I'm going to get you out."

Another shot. Sally screamed. "I'm hit! He hit me!"

"My God, where-?"

"In the leg. Oh, my God, get me out."

"Close your eyes."

Tom jammed the steel wedge into the crack, picked up a loose rock and slammed it down on the wedge, slammed it again and again. The fractured rock began to loosen. He dropped to his knees and began scrabbling and pulling out the pieces with his hands. The rock was rotten and now that one piece had been removed the work went a lot quicker. All the while he talked to Sally, telling her over and over that she was okay, that she'd be out of there momentarily.

Another shot.

"Tom!"

" You bitch! You 're dead as soon as I reload."

Tom pried a piece of rock out, threw it aside, pried out another and another, cutting his hands on the sharp edges, working furiously. "Sally, where did he hit you-?"

"My leg. I don't think it's bad. Just keep going!"

Another shot. Tom hammered the rock, slamming the hand-steel in again and again, prying out more rocks and enlarging the hole. He could see her face.

Now the rock was coming out fast.

Crack! Sally jumped.

"For God's sake keep going!"

The tip broke off the wedge and he swore, turning it around and prying with the other side.

"It's big enough!" Sally cried.

Tom reached down, took her hand, and pulled as she pushed from below, scraping up through the broken rock, more buttons popping off her shirt. It wasn't enough; her hips stuck.

"You 're dead meat!"

Tom drove the hand-steel into the rock, splitting off a chunk of brittle quartz. With complete indifference he noted he had exposed a vein of gold the miners had somehow missed. He tossed it away, pried out another.

"Now!"

He grabbed her under the arms and pulled her free. Another shot sounded from below.

She lay on the ground, filthy, wet, her clothes torn.

"Where are you hit?" He searched her frantically.

"My leg."

Tom ripped off his own shirt and wiped away the blood, finding a series of

shallow cuts on her calf. He picked out some fragments of stone from a ricochet.

"Sally, it's okay. You'll be fine."

"That's what I thought."

"Bitch!" The scream sounded hysterical, unbalanced.

Another pair of shots. A stray bullet ricocheted through the crack and imbedded itself in the ceiling.

"We've got to block this hole," Sally said.

But Tom was already rolling rocks over. They jammed them into the crack, hammering them down. In five minutes it was blocked.

Suddenly his arms were around her, squeezing tightly.

"God, I thought I'd never see you again," said Sally with a sob. "I can't believe it, I can't believe you found me."

He held her again, hardly believing it himself. He could feel her heart beating wildly. "Let's go."

He helped her up and they ran back down through the tunnels, Tom shaking the flashlight from time to time to keep it alive. They climbed up the shaft and in another five minutes had exited the shaft house.

"He'll be coming out the other shaft," said Sally.

Tom nodded. "We'll go around the long way."

Instead of going back over the ridge, they ran into the darkness of the trees at the bottom of the ravine, and there they stopped to catch their breath.

"How's your leg? Okay with walking?"

"Not bad. Is that a gun in your belt?"

"Yeah. A .22 with one round." Tom looked back over the silvered hillside, his arm supporting Sally.

"My truck's at the gate."

"He'll be ahead of us," said Sally.

They set off down the ravine. It was dark in the tall pines, and the carpet of needles under their feet was soft and crackled only slightly, the sounds of their passage covered up by a night breeze sighing through the treetops. Tom paused from time to time to listen and see if the kidnapper was following, but all was silent.

After ten minutes the gulch leveled out into a broad dry wash. Ahead and slightly below shone the lights of the cabin. All seemed quiet, except that the kidnapper's Range Rover was gone.

They skirted the edge of the old town, but it seemed deserted.

"You think he panicked and took off?" Sally asked.

"I doubt it."

They bypassed the cabin and moved swiftly through the trees, paralleling the dirt road. The truck was now less than a quarter mile ahead. Tom heard something and stopped, his heart pounding. It came again-the low calling of an owl. He pressed her hand and they continued on. In a few more minutes he saw the faint outline of the chain-link fence running through the trees.

He gave her a leg up.

She grasped the chain link and he lifted, the fence rattling in the quiet. In a moment she was over. He followed. They ran along the outside of the fence line and in a few moments Tom saw the gleam of moonlight off his stolen truck, still parked where he had left it near the locked gate. Except now the gate was wide

open.

"Where the hell is he?" Sally whispered.

Tom squeezed Sally's shoulder and whispered, "Keep to the shadows, head down at all times, and get in the truck as quietly as possible. Then I'll start the engine and drive like hell."

Sally nodded. She crept around to the passenger side, crouching below the level of the cab; Tom eased open the door and climbed in the driver's side. In a minute they were in the cab. Keeping his head below the level of the windows, Tom fished out the keys, inserted them in the ignition. He pressed down the clutch and turned to Sally.

"Hold on tight."

Tom threw the switch and the truck roared to life. He jammed it into reverse and gunned the engine, the truck backing up while he spun the wheel. In that same moment a pair of bright headlights went on from a turnaround at the edge of the woods. There was a sudden thwang! thwang! of heavy-caliber rounds hitting steel, and the interior of the truck exploded in a storm of shattered glass and plastic.

"Down!"

Throwing himself sideways on the seat, he rammed it into first and floored it, the truck fishtailing onto the road, spraying a shower of gravel. Jamming it into second, he accelerated as he heard more rounds hitting the car. The wheels were spinning, and the back of the truck slewed back and forth. He raised his head up but could see nothing: the windshield was a spiderweb of shattered glass. He punched his fist through it, ripped out a hole big enough to see out of, and continued accelerating, the back fishtailing as they tore down the dirt road.

"Stay on the floor!"

He made the first turn and the shooting temporarily stopped, but he could now hear the roar of a car engine behind them and knew the shooter was coming after them-and a moment later the Range Rover skidded around the corner, its headlights stabbing past them.

Thwang! Thwang! more shots came from behind, hitting the roof of the cab, showering him with broken bits of plastic from the roof light. The truck was now moving fast and he jerked the wheel sideways and back, making them a weaving target. He felt the rear suddenly fishtailing and vibrating and he knew that at least one of the rear tires had been shot out.

"Gas!" Sally screamed from the floor. "I smell gas!"

The tank had been hit.

Another thwang! followed by a dull shuddering whoosh. Tom instantly felt the heat, saw the glow from behind.

"We're on fire!" Sally screamed. She had her hand on the door handle. "Jump!"

"No! Not yet!"

He steered the truck around another curve in the road, and the firing ceased for a moment. Up ahead, Tom saw where the road skirted the edge of the cliff. He gunned the engine, accelerating straight for it.

"Sally, I'm taking it off that cliff. When I say out, jump. Roll away from the wheels. Then get up and run. Head downhill toward the high mesas. Can you do it?"

"Got it!"

He gunned the engine, the cliff approaching. He grabbed the door handle and half opened the door, keeping the accelerator floored.

"Get ready!"

A beat.

"Now!"

He threw himself out, hitting the ground and rolling, regained his feet running. He could see Sally's dark figure on the far side, scrambling to her feet, just as the flaming truck disappeared over the cliff, the engine screaming like a diving eagle. There was a muffled roar and a sudden orange glow from the bottom of the cliff.

The Ranger Rover slamming on its brakes just in time, skidding to a stop at the cliff edge. The door opened. Tom had a glimpse of a shirtless man leaping out, a handgun in one hand and a flashlight in the other, with a rifle slung over his shoulder. Tom ran toward the steep slope just beyond the cliff, but the man had spotted Sally and was running after her, gun drawn.

"Hey, you son of a bitch!" Tom screamed, angling toward the man, hoping to draw him off, but the man kept on after Sally, rapidly gaining ground as she

limped from her leg wound. Fifty feet, forty. . . any moment he'd be close enough to put a bullet through her.

Tom pulled his .22. "Hey, you bastard!"

The man coolly dropped to one knee and unshipped the rifle. Tom stopped and braced himself in a three-point stance, aiming with the .22. He'd never hit the man, but the shot might distract him. It was worth his last shot-it was Sally's only chance.

The man snugged the gun against his cheek and took aim. Tom fired. Instinctively, the man dropped to the ground.

Tom ran at him, waving the revolver like a madman. "I'll kill you!"

The man rose back up and took aim, this time at Tom.

"I'm coming for you!" Tom cried, still charging.

The man squeezed the trigger-as Tom threw himself to the ground and rolled sideways.

The man looked back toward where Sally had been-but she was gone. He threw the rifle over his shoulder, drew his handgun, and came running after Tom.

Tom scrambled to his feet and ran downhill, sprinting for all he was worth, leaping over boulders and fallen trees, glad that the man was now chasing him. The beam from the man's flashlight roved crazily over his head, flickering through the low branches of the trees. He heard a double crack! crack! of a handgun, the sound of a round smacking a tree to his right. He dove forward, rolled, was back on his feet and leaping diagonally down the hillside. The man was about a hundred feet behind.

The light beam stabbed past him. Two more shots whacked trees on either side. Tom leapt, wove, dodged, zigzagged among the trees. The hill was getting steeper and the trees thicker. The man behind was keeping up, even gaining. He had to keep drawing him off, to get him well clear of Sally.

He deliberately slowed, cutting to the left, farther from Sally. More bullets ripped past him, tearing a piece of bark off a tree to his right.

Tom kept running.

24

WEED MADDOX SAW he was steadily gaining on Broadbent. He'd stopped three times to fire, but each time he was too far away and the pause only let Broadbent regain the ground he had lost. He had to be careful; Broadbent had some kind of small-caliber weapon, no match for his Clock, but still dangerous. He had to take care of him first, and then do the woman.

The hill got steeper, the trees thicker. Broadbent was now running down a sloping draw with a dry watercourse at the bottom. He was fast, damned fast, but Maddox was gaining. His training in the Army, his exercise regimen, his running and yoga, all this was the payoff. Broadbent wasn't going to escape.

He saw Broadbent veer to the left. Maddox cut the corner with a diagonal, gaining even more ground. Another few minutes and the son of a bitch would be lying at his feet, his head open like a purse. Broadbent kept dodging, trying to put trees between him and his pursuer. The hill was plunging downward ever steeper, the draw becoming a ravine. Maddox was now only seventy, eighty feet behind. The game was almost over; Broadbent in spite of all he could do was being fun-neled between two ridges, like being closed in a vise. Fifty feet and closing.

Broadbent disappeared behind some thick trees. A moment later Maddox rounded the trees and saw an outcrop looming ahead-a cliff-about two-hundred-yards wide, forming a "V" where the dry wash went over. He had Broadbent trapped.

He halted. The man had vanished.

Maddox swept his light from one end to the other. No Broadbent. The crazy bastard had jumped off the cliff. Or he was climbing down. He stopped at the edge, shining his light down, but he could see almost the entire curving face and

Broadbent was nowhere to be seen, not on the cliff or at the bottom. He felt a surge of fury. What had happened? Had Broadbent turned and run back uphill? He swept the light up the hill, but the slopes were empty, no movement at all through the trees. He went back to the cliff face, playing his light across it, searched the rocks below for a body.

About fifteen feet from the cliff stood a tall spruce. He heard the crack of a branch and saw the lower branches on the opposite side moving.

The son of a bitch had jumped into the tree.

Maddox whipped his rifle around and knelt, aiming for the disturbance. He squeezed off one shot, a second, a third, firing at the movement and sound, to no effect. Broadbent was climbing down on the far side of the trunk, using it as cover. Maddox considered the gap. Fifteen feet. He would need a major running start to bridge that gap, which would mean climbing back uphill. And even then it was a hell of a risk. Only a man facing a life or death situation would attempt it.

Maddox sprinted along the edge of the cliff looking for a better shooting an-sle for when Broadbent exited the base of the tree. He knelt, aimed, held his breath, and waited for him to appear.

Broadbent dropped out of the lowest branch just as Maddox fired. For a moment Maddox thought he'd nailed him-but the bastard had anticipated the shot and had rolled as he hit the ground, then was up and running again.

Shit.

Maddox slung the rifle over his shoulder and looked around for the woman, but she was long gone. He stood at the edge of the cliff, beside himself with fury. They had escaped.

But not completely. They were heading down toward the ChamaRiver, on a course that would force them to cross the high mesa country, thirty brutal miles. Maddox knew how to track, he'd been at war in the desert, and he knew the high mesas. He'd find them.

To allow them to escape would mean going back to prison for the Big Bitch- life without parole. He had to kill them or die trying.

25

WILLER PUT ONE foot out of the cruiser onto the dirt parking lot of the monastery, then goosed the siren, just to let them know he was there. He didn't know what time monks went to bed but he was pretty sure that at one thirty in the morning they'd be sawing wood. The place was as dark as a tomb, not even a few outdoor lights to brighten things up. A moon had risen above the canyon rim, casting a spooky light around the place.

Another goose of the siren. Let them come to him. After a ninety-minute drive over what had to be the worst road in the state, he was in no mood to be nice.

"Light just went on."

Wilier followed Hernandez's gesture. A yellow rectangle suddenly floated in the sea of darkness.

"You really think Broadbent's here? The parking lot's empty."

Wilier felt a fresh wave of irritation at the doubt he heard in Hernandez's voice. He plucked a cigarette from his pocket, stuck it between his lips, lit it. "We know Broadbent was on Highway 84, driving that stolen Dodge. He hasn't gone through any roadblocks and he's not at Ghost Ranch. Where else would he be?"

"There are plenty of forest roads going off both sides of the highway."

"Yeah. But there's only one road into the high mesa country and this is it. If he's not here, we'll just have to sweat that monk instead."

He sucked in, exhaled. A flashlight was now bobbing down the trail. A hooded figure approached, face hidden in shadow. Wilier remained standing at the open door of the car, boot hooked on the threshold.

The monk arrived with his hand outstretched. "Brother Henry, abbot of Christ in the Desert."

The man was small with brisk movements, bright eyes, and close-cropped

goatee. Wilier shook the monk's hand, feeling nonplussed at the friendly, confident welcome.

"Lieutenant Wilier, Santa Fe homicide," he said, removing his shield, "and this is Sergeant Hernandez."

"Fine, fine." The monk examined the badge by the light of his flashlight, returned it. "You wouldn't mind turning off your warning lights, Lieutenant? The brothers are sleeping."

"Right. Sure."

Hernandez ducked into the police car, switched them off.

Wilier felt awkward and defensive talking to a monk. Maybe he shouldn't have goosed the siren like that. "We're looking for a man by the name of Thomas Broadbent," he said. "Seems he's friendly with one of your monks, Wyman Ford. We have reason to believe he might be here or along this road somewhere."

"I don't know this Mr. Broadbent," said the abbot. "And Brother Wyman's not here."

"Where is he?"

"He left three days ago for a solitary prayer retreat in the desert."

Solitary prayer retreat, my ass, thought Wilier. "And when's he getting back?"

"He was supposed to be back yesterday."

"That so?"

Wilier looked closely at the man's face. It was about as sincere a face as you could find. He was telling the truth, at least.

"So you don't know this Broadbent? My information is that he was up here a couple of times. Sandy hair, tall, drives a '57 Chevy pickup."

"Oh yes, the man with the fabulous truck. I know who you mean now. He's been here twice, as far as I'm aware. The last time would have been almost a week ago."

"He was up here four days ago, according to my information. The day before this monk of yours, Ford, went into the desert on his 'prayer retreat.'"

"That sounds correct," said the abbot, mildly.

Wilier took out his notebook, jotted down a heading, made a note.

"May I ask, Lieutenant, what this is all about?" asked the abbot. "We're not accustomed to getting visited by the police in the middle of the night."

Wilier snapped his notebook shut. "I've got a warrant for Broadbent's arrest."

The abbot looked at Wilier for a moment, and his gaze proved unexpectedly disconcerting. "An arrest warrant?"

"What I said."

"On what charge, if I may ask?"

"With all due respect, Father, I can't go into that right now."

A silence.

"Is there some place we can talk?" asked Wilier.

"Yes, of course. Normally we're under a vow of silence in the monastery, but we can speak in the Disputation Chamber. If you'll follow me?"

"Lead on," said Wilier, glancing at Hernandez.

They followed the monk up the winding path, approaching a small adobe building behind the church. The abbot paused at the door, looking at Wilier with a question in his eyes. Wilier stared back.

"Excuse me, Lieutenant: your cigarette?"

"Oh, yeah, right." Wilier dropped it and ground it under his heel, aware of the monk's disapproving eye, annoyed at feeling he'd already been bested in some way. The monk turned and they followed him inside. The small building consisted of two spare, whitewashed rooms. The larger one contained benches placed up against walls, with a crucifix at the far end. The other room contained nothing but a crude wooden desk, a lamp, a laptop, and printer.

The monk turned on a light and they sat on the hard benches. Wilier shifted his ass, trying to get comfortable, taking out his notebook and pen. He was getting more annoyed by the minute, thinking of the absence of Ford and Broad-bent and the time they'd wasted driving up there. Why the hell couldn't the monks have a damn phone?

"Abbot, I have to tell you, I have reason to believe this Wyman Ford might be involved."

The abbot had removed his hood and now his eyebrows arched in surprise. "Involved in what?"

"We aren't sure yet-something connected to the murder up in the Maze last week. Something possibly of an illegal nature."

"I find it utterly impossible to believe that Brother Wyman would be involved in anything illegal, let alone murder. He is a man of sterling character."

"Has Ford been out in the mesas a lot lately?"

"No more than usual."

"But he spends a lot of time out there?"

"He always has, ever since he came here, three years ago."

"You aware he was CIA?"

"Lieutenant, I am 'aware' of a lot of things, but that's as far as my knowledge goes. We do not inquire into the past lives of our brothers, beyond what needs to be addressed in the confessional."

"You noticed any differences in Ford's behavior lately, any changes in routine?"

The abbot hesitated. "He was working on the computer quite a lot recently. It seemed to involve numbers. But as I said, I am sure he would never be involved-"

Wilier interrupted. "That computer?" He nodded toward the other room.

"It's our only one."

Wilier jotted some more notes.

"Brother Ford is a man of God, and I can assure you-"

Wilier cut him off with an impatient gesture. "You have any idea where Ford went on this 'spiritual retreat'?"

"No."

"And he's late coming back?"

"I expect he'll be back at any moment. He promised to be here yesterday. He usually keeps his promises."

Wilier swore inwardly.

"Is there anything else?"

"Not at the moment."

"Then I'd like to retire. We rise at four."

Fine.

The monk left.

Wilier nodded to Hernandez. "Let's go out for air."

Once outside, he lit up again.

"What do you think?" Hernandez asked.

"The whole thing stinks. I'm going to sweat that monk Ford if it's the last thing I do. 'Spiritual retreat'-give me a break." Wilier glanced at his watch. Almost two o'clock. He felt a growing sense of futility and wastage of time. "Go down to the car and call back to Santa Fe for a chopper, and while you're at it, ask for a warrant to seize that laptop back up there."

"A chopper?"

"Yeah. I want it here at first light. We're going in to find those mothers. It's federal land so make sure the SFPD liaises with the BLM and anyone else who might piss and moan about not being in the loop."

"Sure thing, Lieutenant."

Wilier watched Hernandez's flashlight bobbing down the trail toward the parking lot. A moment later the police cruiser leapt to life, and he heard the crackle and hiss of the radio. An unintelligible exchange went on for a long time.

He had already finished one cigarette and started another by the time Hernandez rejoined him at the door.

Hernandez paused, his plump sides heaving from the walk up the hill.

"Yeah?"

"They just closed the airspace from Espanola to the Colorado border."

"Who's 'they'?"

"The FAA. Nobody knows why, the order came from on high. No commercial aviation, no private, nothing."

"For how long?"

"Open-ended."

"Beautiful. What about the warrant?"

"No dice. They woke up the judge; he's pissed, he's Catholic, and he wants a lot more probable cause before seizing a monastery's computer."

"I'm Catholic too, what the hell's that got to do with it?" Wilier furiously sucked the last ounce of smoke from the cigarette, dropped it on the ground, stomped on it with his heel, and ground it back and forth, back and forth, until nothing was left but a shredded tuft of filter. Then he nodded toward the dark mass of canyons and bluffs rising behind the monastery. "Something big's going down in the high mesas. And we don't have the slightest frigging idea what it is."