Children of The Night

Chapter Eighteen

Kate came home early on Tuesday to celebrate Joshua's elevenmonth “birthday.” These monthly celebrations had been Julie's idea: at a time when she was not sure that the baby would survive another week, much less another month, it seemed important to mark every milestone. Kate had chosen the twenty-fourth at random, although she did like the evenness of the number.

“The CBS Evening News” carried a story of miners running amok in Romania, commandeering trains to take them to Bucharest, where the rioting continued in some sort of unfocused protest against the government. Kate remembered that the current regime had used “miners”many of whom were Securitate agents in miners' coverallsto brutalize their own people the year before. She watched the video images of men smashing windows, tossing Molotov cocktails at buildings, using crowbars against doors, and she wondered what was really going on in that miserable country. She was glad that she and O'Rourke were out of there and hoped that Lucian and his family were lying low.

Joshua loved his cake. Not waiting for the slow spoonsful offered by Kate or Julie, he tore into his piece of cake with his hands, soon smearing enough on his face to equal the amount still on his highchair tray. Later, cleaning his face with a washcloth and then setting him down on the floor so he could play with his woodenpenguin toy, Kate looked at her adopted son with a clinical, if not critical, eye.

On the surface, Josh was the picture of health: chubby, rosycheeked, brighteyed, and beginning to show real hair rather than just a nimbus of dark fuzz. But Kate knew that this was a manifestation of the last segment of what she thought of as his “healthymanic” swing; in a week or less, the diarrhea and listlessness would return, followed by more serious lethargy and infection. Until the next transfusion.

Kate watched her baby lie on his back and wrestle with the wooden toytwo penguins on a wooden dolly, their rubbery flippers moving and beaks clacking as the wheels turned. Not a sophisticated toy in an age when Nintendo ruled, but one which fascinated Joshua for some reason.

Kate knew from her baby books and conversations with other mothers that an elevenmonthold should be sitting and standing by himself, perhaps even walking. Joshua was just mastering crawling. She knew that “normal” elevenmontholds could pull on some of their own clothes, lift a spoon, say several words including “Mama,” and understand the word “No.” Joshua could not handle clothing or a spoon, did not speak other than the occasional gibberish and rarely had to be told “no. “ He was a hesitant child, physically and socially. While obviously comfortable and happy with Kate and Julie, it had taken him weeks before he would relax with Tom.

Joshua dropped the penguin toy, rolled over onto his stomach, and began halfcreeping, halfcrawling toward the dining room.

“He's been exploring more,” said Julie, her mouth half-full of cake. “This. morning he headed for the front door when I let him out of his crib.”

Kate smiled. Neither she nor Julie thought that Joshua suffered from mental retardation as a result of his deprived infancy, merely delayed development. Kate had sought out opinions from at least three childhood development specialist friends, and each had different opinions on the longterm effects that five months in a Romanian orphanage or hospital would have on a child. Two of the specialists had seen Joshua, and both agreed that the boy seemed normal and healthy enough, merely small for his age and slow in development. So now, watching her son creep across the living room carpet and make noises rather similar to an airplane, Kate saw the behavior of a happy eight or ninemonthold rather than the elevenmonthold whose “birthday” they were celebrating.

Later, tucking him in his bed in her own bedroom, Kate lifted Joshua one final time and patted his back, smelling the talcumandbaby scent of him, feeling the fuzz of his hair against her cheek. His tiny hand curled against her face. His breathing showed that he was already asleep, drifting into whatever dreams elevenmontholds dreamt.

Kate set him on his stomach, pulled the covers up, and went out to talk to Julie for a while before each woman went back to her own computer terminal and her own studies.

On Wednesday the three RSProject teams came together in the windowless meeting room near the imaging lab. In addition to the team leaders and their top assistants, Director Mauberly and two other top CDC administrators were there.

Bob Underhill and Alan Stevens opened with their presentation on the absorption organ. When they were finished, the room was filled with a shocked silence.

Ken Mauberly broke the silence. “What you're saying is that this child . . . Joshua . . . has a specially mutated adaptation of the stomach lining which can absorb blood for nutritional purposes.”

Underhill nodded. “But that purpose is secondary, we think. The primary reason for this mutation's existence is to break down the blood into its constituent parts so that the retroviruswhat Chandra and Neuman are calling the Jviruscan most efficiently begin the distribution of the borrowed RNA for immunoreconstruction purposes.”

Mauberly chewed on his expensive fountain pen. “But for this to work, the child would have to ingest blood.”

Alan Stevens shook his head. “No. Blood is directed through the capillaries of the absorption organ no matter how it enters the body. We estimate that it actually would take several hours. longer for it to begin working there via ingestion rather than transfusion, but of course we haven't experimented with this . . . .” He paused, looked at Kate, and then looked down at his notes. Stevens cleared his throat. “No one wishes to give the patient blood to ingest, although if we are to continue the analysis of the absorption organ, this would be necessary.”

Mauberly was frowning. “I don't . . . I can't see the survival value in drinking blood. I mean, it makes one think of . . . well . . . “

Kate stood up. “Vampires?” she said. “Bela Lugosi?”

There was a ripple of nervous laughter.

“We've all made or heard those jokes since the project began,” said Kate, smiling, defusing the tension, “and it's obvious given the fact of where Joshua was born. Transylvania. Vampire country. And there may be a reason for that.” She nodded to Chandra.

The virologist stood up and used a remote control to turn out the lights and advance a slide on the projector. “These charts show a projected family or clan over twenty generations, since approximately fifteen hundred A.D. to the present, illustrating the spread of the Jvirus mutation within that family. Given the trait's recessiverecessive nature plus the high mortality rate one would assume with the immunodeficiency disorder which goes with the trait, you see that even if we might consider it a relatively benign mutation, its spread would not be too considerable . . . .”

Everyone worked at decoding the long strands of hypothetical family growth, the Jvirus mutation strands helpfully drawn in red. After thirty seconds it was Bob Underhill who whistled. “I thought that the mutation must be new or we would have seen it before, but this shows that it could be around for centuries without spreading too widely.”

Chandra nodded and advanced the slide. “Assuming for the spread of the mutation through marriage and genetic dispersion, we would still be talking about a relatively small set of survivors from the initial breeding couplethree hundred to two thousand people, worldwide.” Chandra looked at Kate. “And these people would need a relatively constant supply of whole blood for transfusions to survive into adulthood, assuming the disease continues beyond infancy, and we have no reason to believe otherwise.”

It was one of the CDC bigwigs, a doctor/administrator named Deborah Rawlings, who said, “But there were no transfusions in the fifteenth century . . . or anywhere until the last century . . . .” She paused.

Kate stood in the light from the projector. “Precisely. For this trait to be passed down at all, the survivors would have had to have actually ingested blood. Literally fed blood to their children, if the children possessed the Jvirus recessiverecessive. Only in the last century would transfusions have saved the Jvirus mutation individuals.” She waited a minute for the full impact to settle on the specialists and administrators.

“Vampires,” said Ken Mauberly. “The myth has its origins in reality.”

Kate nodded. “Not fanged creatures of the night,” she said, “but members of a family who did have to ingest human blood in order to survive their own faulty immune systems. The tendency would be for secrecy, solidarity, inbreeding . . . the recessiverecessive traits would have been more frequent as a result, much as with the hemophilia which plagued the royal houses of Europe.”

An assistant virology researcher named Charlie Tate hesitantly raised his hand as if he were a high school student.

Kate paused. “Charlie?”

The young man adjusted his round glasses. “How in the hell . . . I mean, how did that first Jvirus sufferer find out that blood would save him . . . or her . . . I mean, how did someone start drinking blood?”

“In the Middle Ages,” said Kate, “there are records of noblewomen who bathed in blood because legend had it this would make their skin more beautiful. The Masai still drink lion's blood to absorb the animal's courage. Blood hasuntil recent decadesbeen the source of superstition and awe. “ She paused a second, looking at Chandra. “Now, with AIDS, it's regaining that terror and mystery.” Kate sighed and rubbed her cheek. “We don't know how it began, Charlie,” she said softly. “But once it worked, .the Jvirus sufferers had no choice . . . find human blood or perish.”

The silence stretched on for another thirty seconds before Kate went on. “Part of my work has been to end that cycle,” she said. “And it looks as if I have a solution.” She advanced the slide, and an image of a pig's face filled the screen.

The doctors in the room giggled despite themselves.

Kate smiled. “Most of you know about the DNX breakthrough on human blood substitute this past June“

Ken Mauberly held up his fountain pen. “Refresh our overworked administrative memories, please, Kate.”

“DNX is a small biotech lab in Princeton, New Jersey,” said Kate. “In June of this year they announced that they had perfected a way of producing human hemoglobin in pigs via genetic engineering. They've given the research to the FDA and are applying for human trials even as we speak.”

Mauberly tapped his pen against his lower lip. “How does this artificial hemoglobin help in the Jvirus research?”

“It's not really artificial hemoglobin,” answered Kate, “merely not created in the human body.” She advanced the slide carousel again. “Here you see a simplified schematic of the process. By the way, I've been working with an old friend, Doctor Leonard Sutterman, who is chief hematology consultant for DNX, as well as with Doctor Robert Winslow, chief of the Army's blood research division at the Letterman Institute of Research in San Francisco, so we're duplicating research with permission here and being careful not to tread on DNX's pending patents.

“Anyway, here is the schematic. First, the researchers extract the two human genes we know are responsible for producing hemoglobin in the human body.” Kate glanced at the administrators. “Hemoglobin, of course, is the oxygen-carrying component in the blood.

“All right, having extracted the genetic information, these genes are then copied and injected into dayold pig embryos taken from a donor pig. These embryos are then inserted into the womb of a second pig, where they grow to term and are born as normal, healthy piglets. The only difference is that these pigs have human DNA in them, directing them to produce human hemoglobin along with their own pig-variety blood.”

“Excuse me, Kate,” interrupted Bob Underhill. “What's the percentage on that?”

Kate started to answer and then paused. “On which, Bob? The number of successful transgenic pigs or on the amount of human hemoglobin the successful ones produce?”

Underhill spread his hands. “Either. Both.”

“About five pigs in a thousand successfully carry the transfers,” said Kate. “Of those, each averages about fifteen percent of their blood cells carrying humantype hemoglobin. But DNX is working on getting the ratio up closer to fifty percent of the cells.”

She waited a second, but there were no more immediate questions. Kate advanced the slide again. “You see here that DNX's real breakthrough is not in the genetic engineering . . . that was straightforward enough . . . but in patenting a process to purify the swine blood so that useful human hemoglobin can be recovered. This is what so excites my friends Doctor Leonard Sutterman and Doctor Gerry Sandier with the blood division of the Red Cross.”

Kate advanced the slide to an empty frame and stood a minute in the brilliant light. “Think of it, substitute human blood . . . only much more useful than whole blood or plasma.”

“How so?” asked Deborah Rawlings.

“Whole red blood cells are made of perishable membranes,” said Kate. “Outside the body they have to be refrigerated, and even then spoil after a month or so. Also, each cell carries the body's immune codes, so blood has to be matched by type if it's not to be rejected. Pure hemoglobin avoids both these problems. As a chemical, it can be stored for months . . . recent experiments show that it can even be freezedried and stored indefinitely. The Army's Doctor Winslow estimates that about ten thousand of Vietnam's fifty thousand battlefield fatalities could have been saved if this oxygenated blood substitute had been available. “

“But plasma already has the shelflife attributes you're talking about,” said Rawlings, “and it doesn't require expensive genetic engineering.”

“Right,” said Kate, “but it does require human donors. Plasma availability is restricted by the same factors that mean that whole blood is sometimes unavailable. The human hemoglobin acquired via the DNX process only requires pigs.”

“A lot of pigs,” said Alan Stevens.

“DNX figures that four million donor pigs could provide riskfree blood for the entire U.S. population,” Kate said softly. “And it would only take about two years to grow those donor pigs.”

Bob Underhill whistled again.

Mauberly raised his fountain pen like a baton. “Kate, I see where you're going with this for the RSProject. Someone with the Jvirus immunodeficiency disease could theoretically be injected with this genetically altered swine blood, but it seems to me that this wouldn't help at all.”

Kate nodded. “Right, Ken. The only genes cloned in the DNX process are those which govern the production of hemoglobin. This is my suggestion.” She clicked her last slide on and gave everyone a minute to study it.

“You see,” she said at last, aware that her voice was thickening with emotion for some reason, “what I've done is piggyback on Richard Mulligan, Tom Maniatis, and Frank Grosveld's work on transplanting human betaglobin genes via retrovirus for immunoreconstruction. Mulligan and the others have been concentrating on curing betathalassemics and adenosine deaminase deficiency, although they've also done some startling work with boosting tumorinfiltrating lymphocytes, TIL cells, with interleukin2 hormone, putting the cells back in cancer patients, and watching the geneboosted cells attack tumors.”

“But you're not after tumors,” said Charlie Tate. The young man sounded like he was talking to himself.

“No,” agreed Kate. “But I've used the same cloning and retrovirus injection technique to isolate the regulatory genes which code for antigenspecific cellular and humoral responses. “

“SCID,” Ken Mauberly said very softly. “The whole range of congenital immunodeficiency diseases.”

“Yes'“ said Kate, irritated that her voice threatened to betray her by showing emotion. She cleared her throat. “Using the DNXstyle genetically engineered human hemoglobin as a carrier template . . . taken from pigs, remember, not human beings . . I have been successful in cloning and attaching normal ADA genes to deal with the adenosine deaminase deficiency, as well as the necessary human DNA to deal with the other three types of Severe Combined Deficiency. The DNX blood substitute is an excellent carrier. As well as providing clean, welloxygenated blood which does not have to be matched for the subject, the virally introduced DNA should cure all SCID symptoms.”

There was a long moment of almost absolute silence.

Finally, Bob Underhill said, “Kate, that would allow the Jvirus to continue rebuilding the child's immune system . . . without ever needing actual human blood again. Question . . . where did you get the DNA to clone for the ADA, Blymphocyte, and other immunoreconstructive genes?”

She blinked. “My own blood,” she said, her throat closing on her. She doused the projector lamp and took a minute to recover her composure before turning the lights back on. Some people in the room were rubbing their eyes as if the light hurt.

“Ken,” Kate said, her voice steady again, “when can we begin human trials on Joshua?”

Mauberly tapped his pen. “We can begin applying to the FDA for permission almost immediately, Kate. But because of the DNX patent and the complicated nature of the process; my guess would be at least a year . . . perhaps longer. “

Kate nodded and sat down. She would not tell them that the evening before, in the most flagrant violation of professional ethics she had ever imagined, she had injected her adopted son with the modified DNX hemoglobin. Joshua had slept well and been healthy and happy in the morning.

Mauberly took the floor. “We're all excited by these developments,” he said. “I'll notify CDC Atlanta immediately, and we'll begin to discuss possible involvement by the World Health Organization and other agencies.”

Kate could imagine the scramble of researchers through Romania and Eastern Europe, hunting for other Jvirus individuals.

“Doctor Chandra,” said Mauberly, “would you like to brief us at this time on the results of the Jvirus research on our hunt for an HIV cure?”

“No,” said Chandra.

Mauberly nodded and cleared his throat. “All right,” he said, “but soon, perhaps?”

“Soon,” agreed Chandra.

Ken Mauberly tucked his pen back in his shirt pocket and clapped his hands together. “Well, all right then. I imagine everyone wants to get back to work. I only want to say“

The room emptied of researchers before he could finish.

Tom came into her office at about six P.m. For a second Kate could not believe it was Tomhe never had come up to her CDC officeand then her heart began to pound wildly. “Joshua?” she said. “What's wrong?”

Her exhusband raised an eyebrow. “Nothing's wrong. Relax. I just came from there . . . Josh and Julie are playing in the mud near the patio. They're both fine.”

Kate exited the program she had been working on. “Then what?”

“I thought it was a good night to take you to dinner,” he said.

Kate took her reading glasses off and rubbed her eyes. “Thanks, Tom. I really appreciate the offer. But I've got another couple of hours of work to do before“

“I have reservations at Sebanton's,” he said softly, still holding the door open.

Kate turned the computer off, hung her white coat on the rack near the door, and pulled on the blazer she had worn for the presentation that morning. “I'll have to go home,” she said. “Wash up. Feed Joshua.”

“Joshua's been fed. Julie loves the idea of putting the kiddo to bed tonight. Leave your Cherokee in the parking lot, I'll give you a ride to work in the morning. Now, use your executive lav,” he said. “Reservations are for six-thirty.”

Boulder, Colorado, was a town with too many restaurants, most of them indifferent, a few very good, and one or two excellent. Sebanton's was none of the above because it was not in Boulder. The French restaurant was on the main street of Longmont, an unassuming cow town twelve miles down the Diagonal Highway. Even finding the little restaurant was a chore since it was tucked away between ugly storefronts that had once been a small town's drugstore or department store or hardware store, and were now flea markets and taxidermy shops. But Sebanton's, while hard to find and not aesthetically pleasing from the outside, was simply the finest French restaurant in Colorado . . . possibly in the Rocky Mountain region. Kate did not consider herself a gourmet, but she had never turned down an invitation to Sebanton's.

Two hours later the view out the restaurant window was softened by darkness, and the small interior was illuminated only by candlelight. Kate returned to the table and smiled at the coffee and cheesecake that had materialized while she was on the phone.

“Julie and Josh OK?” asked Tom.

“Both fine,” said Kate. “She put Josh down about eight. She says he had a great day creeping around the patio and that he seems to feel fine.” She leaned forward and said, “All right, Tommy. What's the occasion?”

He sat back and lifted his coffee cup with both hands. “Does there have to be an occasion?”

“No,” said Kate, “but I can tell that there is. Your face always gets a little extra red when you're building up to something. Tonight you could guide Santa's sleigh.”

Tom set his coffee down, coughed, folded his hands, unfolded them, and leaned back to cross his arms. “Well, there is something. I mean . . . I've been thinking about you up there on the hill by yourself . . . nobody but Julie around, and she'll be leaving in December.”

Kate softly bit her lip. “It's all right, Tom. I'll find someone. Besides, things are going to slow down in the lab so I'll have more time to spend with“

Tom shook his head and leaned closer. “No, I don't mean that, Kat. Bad start.. What I mean is . . . how would you feel about me moving back in for a while? Not permanently, but just for a few weeks or months. Just to see if it feels right . . . .” He stopped. His face was redder than the Victorian wallpaper in the restaurant.

Kate took a deep breath. She knew that she and Tom were not destined for a new beginning. She loved him . . . she had always loved him in one way or another . . . but she was also certain that their marriage had been wrong, out of synch, a union that had done little except mess up a wonderful friendship. She was certain of that.

Or am I? thought Kate. He's changed. He's different around Joshua. Hell, I've changed. She looked down at her coffee, watching the cream in it swirl and feeling a similar swirl of emotions.

“Hey,” said Tom, “you don't have to answer now. It's, probably a dumb idea. I wasn't talking about reconciliation, just about . . .” He faltered.

Kate put her hand on his, noticing how small and white hers seemed next to his tanned and massive paw. “Tom,” she said, “I don't think it's a good idea . . . but I'm not sure anymore. I'm just not sure.”

He grinned at herthat boyish, unselfconscious grin that had made her dizzy the first time they, met. “Look, Kat,” he said, “let's just table it for a while. Or better yet, let's talk about it over a drink. Do you still have that brandy that the Harrisons sent from England last Christmas?”

She nodded. “But it's a workday tomorrow . . .”

“And whatshisname, your priest buddy is coming,” finished Tom with a smile. “Right. We'll just have one snifter full. Maybe two. Then I'll carefully drive myself down the hill .to my efficient little efficiency. Good enough?”

“Good enough,” said Kate, feeling the effects of the wine she had already drunk as she stood up. She steadied herself with a casual grip of the table. “I'm drunk,” she said.

Tom touched her back. “You're exhausted, Kat. You've been putting in eightyhour weeks since you got back from Romania. I would have dragged you out of there tonight even if I hadn't had anything to propose.”

She set her hand against his cheek. “You're sweet,” she said.

“Yup,” said Tom, “that's probably why you divorced me.” They walked together to his Land Rover.

Kate had given Tom an access card for the development's security gate and he used it now rather than disturb Julie, who almost certainly was still working on her dissertation. It was only nine P.m., but it was very dark out and the few stars showing through the clouds seemed to gleam with a cold brilliance.

“We missed the Autumn Equinox Celebration this week,” Kate said softly as the Land Rover bounced and jostled down the rutted road. The Equinox Celebration had been one of Tom's madeup holidays, each of which had started as a joke and become something of a real tradition during their years together.

“Not too late to celebrate it,” Tom said. “We just don't try to balance any eggs on end . . . wait a minute.”

He had stopped the Land Rover just as they came around the last bend before the house, and Kate immediately noticed what he had seen: all the lights were out on the housenot just interior lights, but porch light, garage security light, patio light, everything.

“Shit,” whispered Tom.

Kate's heart seemed to skip a beat. “We've had a couple of outages this summer . . .”

Tom inched the Land Rover forward. “Did you notice if the Bedridges' was lit up?”

Kate turned in her seat to look across the meadow toward their nearest neighbor a quarter of a mile away. “I don't think so. But that doesn't mean much . . . they're in Europe.”

The Land Rover's headlights illuminated the dark garage, breezeway, and a bit of the patio as they turned into the slightly inclined driveway. Tom doused the lights and sat there a minute. “The security gate was working,” he said. “I forget, does it have some sort of backup generator?”

“I don't know,” said Kate. Julie should have heard us, she was thinking. She should have come to the door. There was no hint of candlelight inside the front or secondstory windows on this side of the house. Julie works in the study next to my roomJoshua's roomuntil d get home. We wouldn't see the candlelight from here f she stayed with Joshua.

“Stay here,” Tom said at last.

“The hell with that,” said Kate, opening her car door.

Torn muttered something but tugged the keys out. They were three feet from the front door when Julie's terrified voice said, “Stay away! I have a gun!”

“Julie!” cried Kate. “It's us. What's wrong? Open the door!”

The door opened onto blackness and a flashlight beam flicked on, first in Kate's face, then in Tom's. “Quick . . . get in!” Julie said.

Tom slammed and locked the door behind him. Julie was holding Joshua against her while juggling the flashlight in her left hand and the Browning automatic in her right. Tom took the weapon from her as the young woman whispered excitedly, “About twenty minutes ago . . . I was working at the computer . . . all the lights went out . . . I was looking in the dining room for the flashlight and candles when I saw shadows out on the patio . . . heard men whispering . . . .”

“How many men?” Tom asked, his voice very soft. Kate had taken the baby, Julie had flicked off the flashlight, and now the three adults huddled together in the darkened hallway.

Julie was just a silhouette as she shook her head. “I dunno . . . three or four at least. For a minute I thought maybe it was guys from the power company come to fix the electricity . . . and then they started rattling the patio door.” Her voice was ragged. Kate touched her shoulder as Julie paused to take a few deep breaths. “Anyway, I ran in, got Josh and the pistol, and came back out just as the guys were breaking the glass on the patio door. I yelled at them that I had a gun and then they weren't there anymore. I ran around the house making sure all the windows were closed and . . . it's dead, Tom, I tried it right away.”

He had moved to the hall phone. Now he listened a second, nodded, and set it back.

“Anyway,” said Julie, “it was just a minute or two later that I heard the truck and saw the lights out front. It didn't sound like the Cherokee and . . . oh, Jesus, I'm glad to see you guys.”

Holding the pistol at his side and taking the flashlight from Julie, Tom moved from room to room, the two women behind him. He would flash the light for a second, then flick it off. Kate saw the shattered glass on the patio sliding door, but the door was still locked. They moved past the kitchen to the study, beyond the study to the master bedroom.

“Here,” said Tom and handed Kate the Browning. He went into the bedroom closet a minute and came out with the shotgun and the box of shells. Dumping shells into the pocket of his tweed sportscoat, he pumped the shotgun once. “Come on,” he said. “We're getting out of here.”

There were shrubs and boulders along both sides of the driveway and Kate was sure each of them was moving as she watched Tom spring the ten paces to the Land Rover. She saw that the hood was up slightly the same instant that she heard Tom say, “Goddamn it.” He slid behind the wheel anyway but the starter did not even crank. Nor did the lights come on.

He jogged back to them at the doorway, the shotgun at port arms.

“Wait,” said Kate. “Listen.” There was a sound from beyond the kitchen; something had broken or dropped down stairs, on the lower level where Julie's room and the other guest suite were.

“Miata,” whispered Tom and led the way down the hall and into the dark kitchen, toward the breezeway to the garage.

The refrigerator clanked on and Kate jumped a foot and swung the Browning toward it before she recognized the sound. Joshua stirred and began to cry softly. “Shhh,” whispered Kate. “Shhh, baby, it's all right.” They moved down the breezeway in the dim light through the windows along each side, Tom first, then Kate, Julie clinging tightly to Kate's shirt. There was another sound from the house behind them.

Tom kicked open the garage door and extended the shotgun with the flashlight directly above it. Both swung in fast arcs, the flashlight beam illuminated storage shelves, the closed garage door, the open side door, the Miata with its hood up and wires visibly ripped free.

They moved back into the breezeway and crouched there. Tom doused the light.

“Hey,” whispered Julie, her teeth chattering audibly, “it was only a twoseater anyway.” She grasped Kate's hand where it held the baby. “Just kidding.”

“Quiet,” whispered Tom. His voice was soft but steady.

They huddled there near the garage door, below the level of the breezeway windows, staring down the fifteen feet of tiled floor toward the door to the kitchen. They had left the door open a crack. Kate tried to listen but could hear nothing above Joshua's soft whimpering in her ear. She rocked and patted the baby, still feeling Julie's hand on her arm.

There was a movement of black against black, Tom switched on the flashlight, and his shotgun roared an instant before Julie screamed and the baby began wailing.

The white face and long fingers had disappeared from the kitchen doorway a second before Tom's shotgun blast ripped off part of the doorframe. Kate was sure that the face had ducked out of sight in that second. She was also sure that it was the same face she had seen in the baby's room two months earlier.

Tom flicked off the flashlight, but not before she had caught the look of shock as his gaze met Kate's. He had also recognized the man.

There was a scrape and sliding from inside the garage.

Trying to hush both the baby and the pounding of her own heart, Kate slid against the wall and slowly raised her eyes to the breezeway window. Two dark forms moved with incredible quickness outside on the small patch of yard between the breezeway and the cliff. Tom had also glimpsed them.

“Fuck this,” he whispered to them. “We need to get outside where we can get into the meadow . . . head for the road. “

Kate nodded. Anything was better than this claustrophobic corridor where anyone could come at them from any direction. In the dim light from the windows, she looked down at the pistol in her hand. Could I really shoot someone? Another part of her mind answered almost immediately, You've already shot someone. And if he comes after you or Joshua, you will shoot him again. She blinked at the clarity of the thought which cut through the swirling mists of conflicting duties, her Hippocratic imperative, and heartpounding fears like a searchlight through fog: You will do what you have to do. Kate looked at the pistol and noticed with almost clinical detachment that her hand was not shaking.

“Come on,” whispered Tom. He pulled them to their feet. “We're going out.”

The breezeway had a door that opened onto the walk leading from the garage to the front door, but before Tom could open it everything happened at once.

A shape launched itself through the kitchen door again. Tom whirled, lowered the shotgun to hip height, and fired.

The window behind them exploded into shards as two men in black clothing hurtled through the glass. Kate raised her pistol even as she tried to shelter Joshua from the spray of glass.

Someone came through the breezeway door. Tom pumped the shotgun and turned toward the man.

Julie screamed as dark arms and white hands came out of the garage and seized her by the hair, pulling her into the darkness.

The shotgun roared again. A man screamed something in a foreign language. Kate stumbled backward into the corner, still sheltering Joshua from the melee of dark forms, crunching glass, and a sudden lick of flames visible from the open kitchen door. She leaned into the garage and extended the Browning, trying to separate the dark form of the intruder there from the struggling shadow that had to be Julie.

“Julie!” screamed Kate. “Drop!”

The smaller shadow fell away. A man's white face was just visible as it turned toward the breezeway. Kate fired three times, feeling the automatic buck higher in her hand each time. Joshua let out a piercing wail in her ear and she hugged him tighter as she said, “Julie?”

The shotgun blasted again behind her and she was suddenly slammed into the breezeway comer as several forms collided with her. Tom's face loomed for an instant, she saw that at least three blackclad men were wrestling with him and that the shotgun had been wrenched from his hands, and before she could open her mouth to speak or scream or cry, he said, “Run, Kat,” and then the struggling forms swirled away through the open door.

At least three other dark shapes were pulling themselves to their feet in the breezeway, their forms silhouetted by the soft glow of flames from the kitchen. Something moved in the garage but Kate could not tell if it was Julie or not. One of the men in black reached for her pistol.

Kate fired three times, the dark shape fell away and was replaced by another hurtling form. She raised the Browning directly into a white face, made sure it was not Tom, and fired twice more. The face snapped backwards and out of sight as if it had been slapped by an invisible hand.

Two other men rose from the floor. Neither was Tom. A man's hand slid around the doorframe from the garage. Kate lifted the pistol and fired, heard the hammer click uselessly. A heavy hand fell on her ankle.

“Tom!” she gasped and then, without thinking, curled both arms around Joshua and threw herself through the shattered window. Dark shapes scrambled behind her.

Kate hit hard in the flower garden and felt the wind go out of her. The baby had breath enough to cry. Then she was up and running, loping across the yard, trying to get behind the garage and beyond, into the aspen trees near the access road.

Two men in black stepped out and blocked her way.

Kate skidded to a stop in loose loam and reversed herself, running back toward the balcony and doors to the lower level.

Three men in black stood between her and the house or the breezeway. The windows of what had been the nursery were painted orange with flame from inside the house. There was no sign of Tom or Julie.

“Oh, God, please,” whispered Kate, backing toward the cliff edge. Joshua was crying softly. She set her free hand on the back of his head.

The five forms advanced until they formed a semicircle, forcing her back until her heels were on the exposed granite at the edge of the cliff. In the sudden silence, Kate could hear the crackling of flames and the soft sound of the creek sixty feet below her.

“Tom!” she screamed. There was no answer.

One of the men stepped forward. Kate recognized the pale, cruel face of the intruder. He shook his head almost sadly and reached for Joshua.

Kate whirled and prepared to jump, her only plan to shield Joshua from the fall with her own body and hope that they hit branches. She took a step into space . . .

. . . and was pulled back, a gloved hand wrapped in her hair. Kate screamed and clawed with her free hand.

Someone jerked the baby from her grasp.

Kate let out a sound more moan than cry and twisted around to face her attacker. She kicked, clawed, gouged, and tried to bite.

The man in black held her at arm's length for a second, his face totally impassive. Then he slapped her once, very hard, took a firmer grip on her hair, spun her around, lifted her, and threw her far out over the edge of the cliff.

Kate felt an insane moment of exhilaration as she spun out over treetops illuminated by flameI can grab a limb!but the limb was too far, her fall was too fast, and she felt a surge of panic as she tumbled headfirst through branches that tore at her clothes, ripped at her shoulders.

And then she felt a great pain in her arm and side as she hit something much harder than a branch.

And then she felt nothing at all.