Crisscross

He shook it off as best he could and turned to Jamie.

"Can you find this place in the dark?"

"The cabin? Pretty sure. But—"

"Good. Because that's where we're going."

"Now? But it's—"

"Now."

No way Jack could let this sit till tomorrow.

13

Jensen was getting sick of waiting. "No word on those tags yet?"

"She's faxing it through now."

Fortunately one of the DMV Dormentalists had been on the night shift.

A few moments later Jensen had the sheet in his hand. But what to make of it?

The owner of the getaway car was one Vincent A. Donato, resident of Brooklyn. Somehow the guy pretending to be Jason Amurri didn't look like a Vincent Donato. Something else bothered him.

He looked up at Margiotta. "Donato… Donato… why does that sound familiar?"

"Rung one of my bells too, so I asked her to send over a photo." The fax rang in the other room. "That'll be it now."

A moment later Margiotta returned, saying, "Oh-shit, oh-shit, oh-shit."

Jensen didn't like the sound of that. "What's the matter?"

"You know why it sounded familiar? Vincent A. Donato is Vinny the Donut."

Jensen levered forward in his seat and snatched the fax from Margiotta.

"What? There's got to be—"

But there on the sheet was a pudgy, jowly face known to pretty much everyone in New York—at least anyone who read the Post or the News. At various times over the past ten years Vinny the Donut had been indicted for loan sharking, for prostitution, or for money laundering. But before any charges could be brought to trial, witnesses seemed to develop memory lapses or give in to an urge to visit relatives in foreign countries. Not a single charge had stuck.

"Can you believe it?" Margiotta said. "He's driving Vinny the Donut's car! Our phony is mobbed up!"

"Got to be a mistake. Lewis flubbed the tag number."

"That's what I thought, but look what the Donut drives—a black Crown Vic. And what kind of car whisked Grant off the street? A black Crown Vic. And I doubt very, very much that he stole Vinny's car. You do not steal from Vinny the Donut."

Jensen felt adrift on a rough sea. None of this made sense.

"But what possible interest could the mob have in Dormentalism?"

"Maybe they want to horn in. Maybe they hired Grant to get inside info on us."

Jensen shook his head. "No. It's got to be something else."

"Like what?"

I don't know, he thought, but I'll come up with something.

Jensen knew he'd better have some sort of explanation when he laid this double bombshell on Brady tomorrow morning.

Not only was the SO's pet recruit not Jason Amurri, but he was connected to the mob. Brady was going to shit a brick.

14

Jamie had to admit that her current situation had her a little scared. Here she was in the dark, heading toward the wilds of upstate New York with a strange man she'd met only days ago.

At least he wasn't driving fast or lane hopping. She hated that. She had a feeling he wanted the pedal to the metal but he'd set the cruise control to sixty-five and was sticking to the right or middle lanes. Very sane, very sensible. Also a pretty sure way to avoid being stopped by a cop.

It wasn't his driving. It was him… the way he'd changed when she'd told him what Hokano meant. He'd become another person. The regular fellow in the booth at the bar had become this grim, relentless automaton encased in a steel shell.

"What if it's not Blascoe?" she said.

He didn't turn his head. His eyes remained fixed on the road. "Then we've made a mistake and we've wasted some time."

"What if he is Blascoe and doesn't want to talk?"

"He won't have a choice."

His matter-of-fact tone chilled her.

"You're very scary right now. You know that, don't you?"

She saw his stiff shoulders relax a little. Very little. But it was a start, a hint that a thaw might be possible.

"Sorry. You've got nothing to worry about."

"Yeah, I do. I started out the night with Dr. Jekyll, and now I feel like I'm driving with Mr. Hyde."

"Did I suddenly sprout bushy eyebrows and bad teeth?"

"No. But you changed—your eyes, your expression, your demeanor. You're a different person."

She saw the tiniest hint of a smile in the backwash of light from a passing car.

"So I guess we're in the Spencer Tracy version."

Jamie had no idea what he was talking about.

"What did I say—what was it about the translation of Hokano that set you off? You were fine until then."

He sighed. "You've already heard some strange stuff tonight. Ready for something even stranger?"

What could be stranger than that piece of human skin he was carrying around? Even if it was fake, even if it was some other kind of hide, the story he'd attached to it was bizarre as all hell. How could he top that?

"Seeing as we still have some time to kill," she told him, "fire away."

If what she'd heard already was any indication, it would not be boring.

"All right. It's more than a matter of killing time. You might be getting involved—hell, you're probably already involved—and you should know what you're getting into."

"How many more preambles are you going to lay on me? Can we get to the story, I mean before morning?"

He laughed—a short, harsh sound. "Okay."*

Then whatever lightness had crept into his voice in the past minute or so deserted it.

"What if I told you that there's been an unseen war going on between two vast, unimaginable, unknowable forces for eons, for almost as long as time itself?"

"You mean between Good and Evil?"

"More like Not So Bad and Truly Awful. And what if I told you that part of the spoils of this war is all this"—he waved his hand at the countryside sliding past—"our world, our reality?"

"I'd say you've been reading too much Lovecraft. What's the name of that big god of his?"

"Cthulhu. But forget about any fiction you've read. This—"

"How can I? That's what it sounds like. Earth is a jewel that all these cosmic gods with funny names slaver for."

"No, we're just one insignificant card in a huge cosmic deck. We're no more important than any other card, but you need all the cards before you can declare yourself the winner."

Was he kidding her? She couldn't tell. He sounded pretty serious. But really…

"No offense, but I've heard it all before and it's ridiculous. And if you believe it, that's scary."

"Trust me, I don't want to believe it. I'd rather not believe it. I was much happier knowing nothing about it. But I've seen too many things that can't be explained any other way. These two forces, states of being, whatever, are real. They don't have names, they don't have shapes, they don't have faces, and they don't dwell in forgotten jungle temples or sunken cities. They're just… there. Somewhere out there. Maybe everywhere. I don't know."

"And you came by this arcane knowledge… how?"

"I've been told. And somewhere along the way I became involved."

"Involved how?"

"Too complicated, and it doesn't bear directly on what we're talking about."

"All this informationus interruptus is starting to fray my nerves."

"Let me just say that I'm a reluctant participant and leave it at that. I'm sure I've already stretched my credibility to its tensile limit."

No argument there, Jamie thought.

She was going to ask him what side he was "reluctantly" involved with, but dropped it. She couldn't see him siding with "Truly Awful."

"All right. We'll leave it there. But what's the connection to Blascoe and

Dementedism and Hokano? That one little word was the jumping-off point for this story, remember?"

"I remember, and I'm getting to it. Just listen. These two forces I mentioned… whatever names we might call them are human invention, because we humans like to name and classify things. It's the way our brains work. So through the millennia, the people who've had a peek at the doings of these forces, their intrusions into human affairs, have given them names. They call the Not-So-Bad force 'the Ally,' and the—"

"See?" Jamie said, exasperated. "That's where all these situations fall apart. Why should this 'vast, unimaginable, unknowable force' want to take our side? It's just plain—"

"It's not on our side. I didn't say it was. It's indifferent to our well-being. We're just a card in the game, remember? It keeps us safe simply because it doesn't want to lose us to the other side."

"To the 'Truly Awful' force."

"Right. And through the ages the Truly Awful force has been designated 'the Otherness.'"

"Ah. Lightning strikes. That's why you were so upset when I told you that Hokano means 'other.' But Jack, lots of words mean 'other.' It's in every language on Earth."

"I know that." He sounded a bit testy. "But here's what I've been told about the Otherness: When a world or a reality—a playing card, if you will—falls into its hands, the Otherness changes it to something more like itself. And that change will not be human friendly. If it happens here, it will be the end of everything."

Jamie's mouth felt dry. She'd just flashed on something… pieces had clicked together into an unsettling shape.

"The Dementedist Holy Grail—the Great Fusion—it's… it's all about this world commingling with the Hokano world…"

"Yeah. The 'other' world." He jerked a thumb toward the back seat. "The lady who used to wear that piece of skin knew all about the Ally and the Otherness. She told me she was involved in the war too, but was connected to a third player, one that wanted no part of either of them. The pattern on her back matches the pattern on Brady's globe, and since the goal of Brady's cult is the fusion of this world with the 'other'… can you see why I got a little shaky back there in the bar?"

Jamie's first mental impulse was to deny it all as a fever dream, a world-view even loonier than Dementedism; but a primitive part of her, a voice from the prehistoric regions of her hindbrain, seemed to know something her forebrain didn't. It whispered that it was all true.

Feeling as if she were drowning, Jamie grasped at straws.

"But… but you can't be buying into all their nonsense about split xel-tons and such. Please tell me you're not."

"No, of course not. But maybe there's a grain of truth at the heart of their mythos. What if—now, I'm just making this up as I go—but what if Dormentalism was somehow inspired by the Otherness? For what specific reason, I don't know, but I know it can't be good. What if there's a little bit of Otherness in all of us? Maybe that's what the xelton concept represents, and the purpose of the Fusion Ladder is to identify those who carry more Otherness than most and band them into a group."

"To do what?"

Jack shrugged. "Light all the bulbs on Brady's globe? I don't know. I'm counting on Cooper Blascoe to clear that up."

"If he's really Blascoe."

"Yeah. If."

15

Jamie had been praying that the man in the cabin was Blascoe, revving her interview motor for when she finally faced him. Now she wasn't so sure she wanted to hear what he had to say.

Jack slowed the car to a crawl along the rutted country road.

"Where did you park when you went up to the house that first time?"

"Somewhere along here, I think. I'd know better if you had the headlights on."

"Just playing it safe."

Out of necessity he'd kept the parking lights on. If there'd been a moon out, or even stars, he could have turned off everything. But the sky had put up a low roof of clouds, leaving the woods around them as dark as Kurtz's heart.

"Why don't we just turn and roll up the driveway?" She sounded impatient.

"Like you said before, we don't know what kind of security they've got here."

"Right, and I'd rather be inside a car when we find out. And I do not feel like pushing my way through two or three hundred yards of woods again."

"We'll compromise. We'll hide the car down here and walk up the driveway."

"How about you walk up the driveway and signal me when it's all clear."

"I don't mind going up there alone," he told her. "But you can forget about the all-clear signal. I'll talk to him myself and tell you what he said."

"Like hell you will!"

Jack smiled in the dark. He'd been pretty sure that would get to her.

He stashed the Crown Vic behind a stand of bushes. If it were earlier in the year, they'd be in full leaf. Now their bare branches didn't give much cover. A casual passerby probably wouldn't notice, but anyone on the lookout for a car couldn't miss it.

As they stepped out it began to rain. Nothing serious, little more than a light drizzle, but it made the chill night chillier.

They walked up a long driveway that was little more than two dusty ruts—steadily turning to muddy ruts—divided by a grassy hump. Jack took the lead, with Jamie staying close behind.

He was beginning to think that maybe this wasn't such a good idea. He could scope out the security setup—if there was one—better in daylight. Right now he felt as if he were flying blind. But he couldn't turn back. He was here and if the guy in the house was Cooper Blascoe, Jack was going to learn the connection between the designs on Anya's skin and Brady's globe. Tonight.

"So far, so good, right?" Jamie said.

"We could be walking past infrared sensors, motion detectors, you name it, and we wouldn't know."

"Let's go back."

Jack kept moving. "On the plus side, we're in the middle of nowhere. If we set off anything, it'll take time to get here. We do a quick in and out."

"But if it's Blascoe, it's going to take some time to get what we want out of him."

"We'll talk fast. Or take him with us."

Lighted windows from a typical woodland A-frame shone between the trees, and still no sound of an alarm, no blaze of light from security spots.

Jack and Jamie reached the front porch without incident. He made a quick perimeter check, looking in all the windows he passed, hunting for alarm tell-tales. He wasn't concerned with motion and infrared detectors; lie was looking for surveillance cameras. He didn't see any, but noticed odd-looking metal brackets on a couple of the walls.

The TV was on and someone was splayed supine on the couch, watching. All Jack could see of him were his legs and shoeless feet resting on a coffee table.

"What's the situation?" Jamie whispered when he returned to the front porch.

"We go in."

"Shouldn't we knock?"

"Don't know about you, but my plan is to go inside whether he answers the door or not, so why waste time knocking."

He pulled his Glock from the small of his back. He'd only seen one occupant, but you never knew…

He pressed the pistol against his outer thigh as he grabbed the knob. If it was locked, he'd kick the door open or break through a window.

Not necessary. The knob turned and the door swung inward.

He peeked into the room, giving the walls a good once-over. Not a surveillance camera in sight. That didn't mean there weren't any, but it was the best he could do at the moment.

He stepped inside, entering a high-ceilinged great room done up in standard Hollywood hunting lodge. Moose and deer heads stared down at him; antlers were framed here and there on the tongue-and-groove knotty pine walls; faux Indian throw rugs on the floor under rustic, rough-hewn furniture. Looked like a B-movie set. All it needed to complete the picture was John Agar entering stage right.

Keeping the Glock down, he stepped up to the couch and peered at the man sprawled on it. He looked maybe seventy, long gray hair lying on his shoulders, sunken, unshaven cheeks, oversized plaid shirt and jeans, both stained. He gripped a bottle of Cuervo Gold in one hand and a knockwurst-sized joint in the other. His eyes were fixed on the TV screen.

Jack said, "Cooper Blascoe, we've come for a visit."

The man's voice was thick, phlegmy, his words slurred. He spoke without turning his head.

"Fuck you, Jensen. Hope you brought me some good shit this time. This batch is bogus."

Jack walked past him toward the rear rooms.

"Hey!" the guy yelled. "Who the—?"

Jack waved the Glock at him. "About time you noticed. Keep it down."

"Why? Nobody here but me."

"We'll see."

Turned out he was telling the truth. The two bedrooms and littered bathroom were empty.

"All right, Mr. Blascoe," Jack said as he returned to the great room. He kept the pistol in hand for effect. "We've got a few questions for you."

The man give him a bleary look. "Who says I'm Blascoe?"

"You did when you answered to that name. And calling me 'Jensen' iced the cake."

Blascoe rubbed a hand across his mouth to hide a grin.

"Did I do that?"

"Yeah." Jack waggled the pistol in Blascoe's direction. "Let's go for a walk."

The Weariness gave way to a hard stare. Jack couldn't be sure at this distance, but the whites of Blascoe's eyes looked faintly yellow.

"You gonna shoot me, do it here. I ain't goin' anywhere."

"No shooting, just talk."

"If we're going to talk, we'll talk right here."

Jack leveled the pistol at Blascoe's face, thinking, This is going to sound like bad-movie night, but here goes.

"Don't make me use this."

"Jack!" Jamie cried.

Blascoe pivoted and looked at her. "Hey! A babe! You brought me a babe!"

Damned if Jamie didn't smile. And was that a blush?

"Been a long, long time since anyone called me that. I—"

Jack cut her off. "This place could be lousy with AV pickups. Someone could be watching us right now. We need to quiz him somewhere else."

"You worried about cameras?" Blascoe laughed and pointed to the wall brackets Jack had noticed before. "That's where they used to be."

"Where are they now?"

"Out in the yard. I rip them out and toss them off the porch. Jensen puts them back up, and I toss them out again. Don't want nobody peepin' on me."

"See?" Jamie said. "It's okay."

Jack shook his head. "I'd still rather—"

Blascoe fixed him with a rheumy stare. "Don't matter what you'd rather, no way I'm leaving here. I can't."

"Why can't you?"

"Because I can't, that's all. I just can't."

We're wasting time. Jack thought as he holstered the Glock. Wrestling him outside would waste even more. He unwrapped the flap of skin and held it up.

"What do you know about this? *

The old man squinted at it. "Not a damn thing. What is it?"

As Jack was trying to decide where to begin, Jamie stepped up to him and gripped his arm.

"Let me." She held up a small digital recorder. "I'm good at this."

"But—"

"My show now."

Jack reluctantly backed off. She made her living ferreting out information. He'd learned—sometimes the hard way—to respect experience.

Jamie sat next to Blascoe on the couch and turned on her recorder.

"I'd like to start from the beginning, Mr. Blascoe—"

"Call me Coop."

"Okay, Coop. I'm a reporter for The Light and—"

"The Light? I love The Light!"

Why am I not surprised, Jack thought.

But Jamie was all business. "Glad to hear it. Now, what I want from you is the truth, the unvarnished, warts-and-all truth about the Dormentalism situation: How you started it and how you came to your present… circumstances."

"You mean why I'm not in suspended animation, and how I came to be a shell of my former self?" He leaned closer and spoke in a conspiratorial tone. "Know what? If you hold me up to your ear you can hear the ocean roar."

"I'm sure that would be very interesting, but—"

"This'll take all night," Jack said.

She looked at him. "Just let me handle this, okay. If Coop knows what you want to know, it'll come out. But this is a once-in-a-lifetime coup for me, and I'm going to squeeze all I can from it."

"See that?" Blascoe said. "She don't care about time. I like that." He leered at her. "But what if I don't feel like talking, beautiful?"

Jack cleared his throat. "Then I toss you in the trunk of my car—it's very roomy, you'll like it there—and haul your ass out of here."

Blascoe waved his hands like someone trying to flag down an onrush-ing car.

"No, no! Don't! I'll tell you."

Wondering why the guy was so afraid of leaving, Jack gave him one of his best glares. "Better not be bullshitting us, Coop."

The old man took a slug of Cuervo and held up his dead, half-smoked joint.

"Anybody got a match?"

Jack took the joint from him. "Let's not get you any more bent than you already are."

"Hey, I've been eight miles high for most of my life."

"Still…" Jack held up the J. "Let's leave this as a reward for when you come through with some answers."

Blascoe shrugged. "Oh, hell, why not. They can't do anything to me worse than what's goin' on. And it might be fun to watch the shit hit the fan."

"What is going on?" Jack said.

"Cancer for one thing." He managed a wry smile. "My fully fused xelton is supposed to be able to cure that, but he seems to be on an extended vacation."

Jamie said, "Let's go back to the sixties, Coop. That's where it all began, right?"

He sighed. "The sixties… yeah, that's when I invented Dormentalism… the best thing in my life that turned into the worst."

16

This time Jensen made it all the way to the sidewalk before his pager chirped.

"What now?" He was afraid to hear the answer.

Hutch's voice. "We've got some activity on that place we're monitoring."

Jensen stiffened. He wanted to ask which one of the telemetries was lighting up, but not on an open circuit.

"Be right up."

This could be good, he thought as he retraced his steps across the lobby, or this could be very bad. He'd feel a whole lot better if he knew where the Grant broad was.

Up in the office, Margiotta had gone home, leaving Lewis and Hutchison to man the fort. Lewis pointed to a red blinking light on the monitor labeled PERIMETER.

"In all the time I've been here, this is the first time I've seen that go off at night."

This was looking more and more like bad news.

"What's the readout?"

Lewis squinted at the screen. "Two large heat signatures—possibly a couple of bears."

Two bears? Jensen thought. On the same night that Amurri or whatever his name was had helped Grant leave her tails in the dust?

"Could they be human?"

Lewis nodded. "I don't know much about bears, but I think they tend to scrounge around alone. So, yeah. More than likely they're human."

Shit.

Jensen gave Lewis a rough tap on the shoulder. "Up." When Lewis complied Jensen said, "You two wait outside."

He and Hutch exchanged puzzled looks but did as told. When Jensen had the room to himself he clicked his way to the AV monitors. There he entered his ID number and punched in a password. He toggled the pickups to LIVE. That turned them on and started them transmitting.

A menu popped up, offering him a choice of half a dozen views. He clicked on the great room and waited for the picture to focus.

Even though the transmission was encrypted, it hadn't made sense to keep it going twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Besides, in the standby state the pickups were immune to most bug sweeps.

He'd put up decoy cameras just so Blascoe could disable them. It let him think he was rebelling and gave him a false sense of privacy.

A wide-angle view of the great room, through the glass eye of the moose head, swam into view. When he saw the three figures seated in a rough circle, he realized his worst-case scenario had become reality.

He exited the program and kicked open the door to the next room.

"Hutch! Lewis! Get your stuff. Road trip!"

17

Cooper Blascoe leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head and started talking. He had a Howard Hughes situation going with the hair and fingernails, and smelled like a wet collie, but Jamie ignored all that.

"Well, seeing as you're here, and you found me like this, I guess I won't be blowing your minds by telling you that Dormentalism is all a sham, man. Just something I cooked up to get money, women, and drugs—not necessarily in that order."

Jamie checked to make sure she was recording. She prayed her batteries lasted. If she'd known she was going to wind up here tonight, she'd have come prepared with spares.

She turned her attention back to Blascoe. She still found it hard to believe that she was sitting with the supposedly self-suspended Father of Dormentalism. That was a coup itself, but to be recording the real story from the man who started it all…

Did it get any better than this? She couldn't imagine how.

"I wanted a rock star life, but I was a paunchy, balding thirty-year-old who couldn't play music for shit, so that was out. But it was the sixties, man, when all these nubile chicks were joining communes and that sort of shit, and I wanted in on some of that—not to be some worker drone on a commune farm or anything like that. Not me. I wanted my own.

"But I needed a hook to bring them in. I racked my brains and dropped a ton of acid hoping something would come to me—you know, pop into my head like divine inspiration—but nothing. Nada. Zilch. I was ready to give it up and go join someone else's gig when—I don't know, late in the winter of '68, maybe February, maybe March… all I remember is it was cold in Frisco when I had this dream about some guy from someplace called Hokano talking about—"

"Wait," Jack said. "It came to you in a dream?"

Blascoe shrugged. "I guess it was a dream. Sometimes, with all the drugs I was doing, the line got a little blurred, but I'm pretty sure this was a dream."

"Do you speak Japanese?"

He smiled. "You mean beyond konichiwa and arigato? Nope. Languages never were my strong suit. They made me take Spanish my first year at Berkeley—also my last year, if you want to know—and I flunked it miserably."

"All right then, this guy in your dream—what did he look like?"

"Like a dream guy—golden hair, golden glow, the whole deal. Like an angel maybe, but with no wings."

Jamie could tell from Jack's expression that this wasn't what he wanted to hear. It almost seemed as if he'd been expecting a certain description and this wrasn't it.

"Anyway," Blascoe said, "the dream guy was talking about my inner spirit, something he called my xelton, being split, with half of it sleeping within, half of it somewhere else.

"When I woke up I knew that was it: the calling card for my commune… like it had been handed to me. I mean, it was all there, and perfect. Finding the Real You, the Inner You sleeping in your mind—any pitch with "mind" in it was a sure grabber in those days—and achieving some sort of mystical natural harmony. Dynamite stuff. But I needed a name. I definitely wanted 'mental' in it—you know, for mind?—and then got the brainstorm of putting it together with 'dormant'—as in dormez vous, because the gals were gonna have to sleep with me to wake up their xelton."

Jack shook his head. "The waking involved sleeping with you… and you got takers?"

"Better believe it. It was before your time, I'm sure, but we called it 'sleeping together' back in those days. Now it's just 'fucking.' But anyway I put the two words together and came up with 'Dormentalism.' Pretty slick, huh?"

"Pretty clunky if you ask me," Jack said.

"Well, I didn't ask you. But Brady thought the same thing when he came along."

Jack made a face. "Swell. Just the man I want to emulate."

"Let's not get onto the Brady situation yet," Jamie said. "You came up with the name and the concept… then what?"

"Like you say, I had the name and the idea, now I needed to find a place to put it to work. I found this guy in Marin County who'd let me use a corner of this big tract of land he owned. I rented it for a song, even talked him into letting me put off the first payment for ninety days. Oh, I was a silver-tongued devil then. Next came the pamphlet. I wrote up a few pages and called it Dormentalism: The Future Resides Within. Got it mimeoed, started handing out free copies in Haight-Ashbury, left them all over the Berkley campus. I even went to some established communes and passed them out there.

"Before I knew it, the whole thing took off, I mean, beyond my wildest dreams. People duplicated my pamphlet and sent it all over the country—there were Xerox machines back then, but no e-mail or fax yet, so they had to use the Post Awful. But that worked. And then the folks on the receiving end duplicated it, and they sent it around, and on and on. In no time I had hundreds of followers. Then a thousand. Then two thousand. Then… I stopped counting. They gave me their money—sometimes everything they had—and they helped build their own housing.

"And the sex… oh, man, helping those gals awaken their dormant xel-ton… so many of them." He grinned again. "I was so dedicated that I often 'helped' two, sometimes three, at a time… just incredible… in-fucking-credible."

"You had only female followers?" Jack said.

"Nah. All kinds."

"What about the men? Did you—?"

"Hell no! The 'awakened' women—the ones who'd had their 'breakthrough' with me—went out and 'awoke' the men. There was plenty to go around, believe me."

Jamie wanted to lean back and kick her feet in the air. This was dynamite. No, this was nuclear.

Jack looked at her. "Can we please get to Luther Brady?"

Before she could answer, Blascoe said, "Brady showed up somewhere in the seventies. He looked like a godsend at the time. I mean, I was spending money like there was no tomorrow. Fast as it came in, it went out. I'd been given pieces of land all over the country that I didn't know what to do with. The IRS was starting to sniff around, asking questions I couldn't answer—I wasn't a businessman, so what did I know? Anyway, I was too wasted most of the time to even care about it, let alone do anything. And then up pops Brady with his fresh new accounting degree and all sorts of ideas."

Jamie checked her recorder again—still going. She had a question and did not want to miss the answer.

"So Luther Brady joined and took part in the 'awakenings' of various female members?"

"Not that I remember. I didn't notice at the time but he was lots more interested in getting close to me than the women."

Damn, Jamie thought. Not what she wanted to hear.

"Brady said he wanted to be my assistant. When I said all my assistants were of the female persuasion, he told me he could supply services they couldn't. Like getting me out of Dutch with the government.

"Like I cared. After my usual rant about how the government was irrelevant—the big word in those days—and how awakening your xelton was the only thing that mattered, he went on to explain how the government did matter and how I'd lose everything and do federal time for tax evasion and all sorts of other crimes if I didn't get my shit together. He said he was the man to straighten things out.

"And damn if he doesn't do just that. Sets up accounts, keeps records, writes letters to the IRS, files all the right forms, and in no time we're 'in compliance,' as the feds like to say."

Jamie watched Jack get up and walk to the front door. The rain was doing drum rolls on the roof. He opened the door and stared out at the storm for a few seconds, then closed it and returned to his chair. He reminded her of a cat when it sensed a coming storm.

She turned to Blascoe. "So now he had your confidence. What did he do next?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, he went from assistant to running the whole show. How?"

Blascoe showed anger for the first time since their arrival.

"How? By being a weasel, that's how! Course I didn't see it at the time. He kept coming to me and saying we needed to spread the word about Dormentalism—yeah, he hated the name but we were stuck with it. When he promised greater fame and fortune, I said, 'Cool. Do it, man.'

"And do it he did. Hired someone to expand my original pamphlet into The Book of Hokano and really ran wild with it. I mean, he added a shitload of new stuff I'd never heard of. I might have stopped him if I'd known, or cared. But I didn't. Not really. I was on extended leave from reality—Mr. Spaceman. But if I'd taken a gander at what he was doing, I'm pretty sure that even in my addled state I'd have squawked. It was scary."

"Scary how?" Jack said.

"All the rules, man. The rigid structure. The guy was rule crazy. I mean, he took this nice, easygoing, fun thing I'd begun and started messing it up. All these crazy acronyms and such. He codified everything into steps and procedures. It wasn't anything like what was really going on. I mean, he left out the sex part completely. He made it all self-realization and self-improvement and maximizing potential instead of getting laid.

"I didn't know any of this at the time. And for a while it looked like it wouldn't matter what was in The Book of Hokano because he couldn't find a publisher anywhere in the world that wanted it. But that didn't stop Brady. He made an end run by starting Hokano House and publishing it himself." Blascoe frowned and shook his head. "Hard to believe people would fall for his line of bullshit, but they did. In droves.

"With all the new converts, Brady was able to branch out. He started opening Dormentalist temples all around the country. Christ, temples! Back in Marin we were still doing the commune thing, you know, according to my vision, but everywhere else it was Brady-style regimentation. And on my land!"

"Wait," Jack said. "Your land? Where'd you get land?"

"Given to me. Lots of my followers gave over their worldly possessions to the movement, and pieces of land made up a fair number of those possessions. Brady would sell the pieces we had and buy others, with no rhyme or reason. Like Monopoly for psychos, man. Guy's land crazy. Soon he had temples in all the major cities—New York, Boston, Atlanta, Dallas, Frisco, L.A., Chicago, you name it—and they were thriving.

"He made his Fusion Ladder thing into a money machine. Made it so you had to take 'courses' to climb from rung to rung. He designed texts for each rung and sold them for rapacious prices. You couldn't afford the price, too bad: You had to have the text to complete the rung. A money grab, that's what it was. One big money grab.

"But he didn't stop with textbooks. He commissioned a series of personal-true-story books about how Dormentalism had changed lives. The first time I got an idea of where my happy little cult was going was when he had me read the books onto tape. I started getting a bad feeling then, but when the books and the cassettes sold hundreds of thousands of copies, and I started seeing the checks rolling in, well…" He flashed Jamie a quick, guilty smile. "You know how it is."

"I can only imagine," she said. But maybe she wouldn't have to imagine when she turned this series of articles into a book.

"But Brady's not through yet. The guy's got endless ideas. He hired some hack novelists to write a series of thrillers under my name starring this Fully Fused detective hero who communes with his xelton to solve crimes."

"The David Daine mysteries," Jack said. "Someone lent me one recently."

Blascoe looked at him. "How far'd you get?"

"Not very."

"Yeah, they were awful, but that didn't stop them from being bestsellers. That's because Brady issued an edict to all the temples that every

Dormentalist had to buy two copies: one for personal use and one to give away. And they all had to buy them the same week. The result: instant bestsellers."

Jamie pumped her fist. "I knew it! Everybody figured that was the case, but no one could prove it."

And here it was, straight from the horse's mouth—or horse's ass, depending on how you wanted to look at it.

"Yeah, it all worked. Dormentalism kept getting bigger and bigger, spreading throughout the world, even to Third World countries—which may not have much money but they've got bodies and their governments practically have FOR SALE signs on their front lawns.

"Then came the time I thought Brady was gonna lose it. When he heard back in '93 that the Scientologists had wrangled themselves tax-exempt status for their church, he went after the same thing. But no way. Got us officially declared a church, yeah, but couldn't get tax-free status. Made him crazy that the Scientologists had something we didn't, but no matter what he tried, the IRS said no way. Which means those Scientologists must have had something super bad on somebody really high up to rig their exemption. So Brady had to be satisfied with starting the Dormentalist Foundation, which ain't as good a tax dodge as a tax-exempt religion, but it gets the job done."

Blascoe dropped his hands into his lap and hung his head.

"Then one day a few years ago I woke up and realized this thing called Dormentalism wasn't at all what I'd had in mind, that its natural harmony had turned into something ugly, the exact opposite of what I'd intended."

Jack shook his head. "Sort of like building a glass house and then hiring Iggy Pop to house sit."

"Just about. Even worse. At least you can fire a house sitter, but me… I had this high-sounding title of Prime Dormentalist, but I was a figurehead. I had no say in where Dormentalism—my thing—was going. Hardly anyone else did either, except maybe Brady and his inner circle on the High Council.

"Like I said, he'd looked like a godsend, but he turned out to be the worst thing that ever happened to Dormentalism. Or to me. I didn't believe in God when I started out, but I do now. Oh, not the Judeo-Christian God, but Somebody watching over things, seeing that what goes around comes around in certain cases. Like mine. I'm full of cancer because I started a cancer known as Dormentalism."

He made a strange sound. It took Jamie a few heartbeats to realize he was sobbing.

"It's not fair! I never wanted this corporate Grendel, this litigious, money-grubbing monster. I was just looking to get laid and have a good time." He looked up. 'That's all! Is that so bad? Should I have to pay for it by being eaten alive by my own cells?"

Jack was up again, looking out the door. He turned to Jamie and made a rolling motion with his hands. She got the message: Let's move this along-

Jamie gave him a single nod. All right. He'd brought her up here, got her inside, and coerced Blascoe into talking. She was recording the interview of her career, so the least she could do was throw him a bone.

"Of course not," she told Blascoe. "No one deserves that. But tell me: Brady is said to keep this huge strange globe hidden away in his office. Do you know anything about that?"

Jack crossed back to his seat, giving Jamie a surreptitious thumbs-up along the way.

Blascoe nodded. "Yeah. Enough to know he's certifiable. You think you've heard some weird shit tonight? You ain't heard nothing yet."

18

"What's with this rain?" Hutch said, banging a fist on the wheel. They'd been sitting on 684 for what seemed like hours.

"Probably some asshole wrapped his car around an abutment up ahead," Lewis muttered from the shotgun seat. "How much you wanna bet he was yakking on a cell phone when it happened?"

"Yeah, while drinking coffee and doing eighty in the rain."

Jensen had the back seat of the Town Car to himself. He needed the space. Hutch and Lewis sat up front. Odds were they were right. Somewhere up ahead there'd be road flares and flashing red lights and glass and twisted metal all over the asphalt.

Jensen didn't care if people killed themselves on the road—probably cleaned up the gene pool a little—but even on a good day it pissed him off when they did it ahead of his car. The least they could do was wait till he'd passed.

Lewis half-turned in his seat. "Long as we're sitting here, boss, mind telling us what's up?"

"What do you mean?" Jensen said, as if he hadn't been expecting the question. The only surprise was that it had taken this long.

"This place we're going to—what are we looking at here?"

"I don't get you."

"I mean, we're loaded for bear, right? Just want to know what to expect. Who's in this cabin and why are we after him tonight?"

Besides Jensen, only Brady and a few High Council members knew the truth about Cooper Blascoe. The guy had become a real liability. Jensen had wanted him to have an accident, but Brady had vetoed that. Not that he wouldn't have liked Blascoe silenced and out of the way, but he'd said that a sudden death might cause more problems than it solved. Especially with the High Council. Even the members closest to Brady held out hope that Blascoe's erratic behavior was temporary and that he might be able to get back in touch with his xelton—obviously he'd lost contact—and turn himself around, heal his mind and his body.

Thus the cabin. Isolate him. Let him sink or swim. Jensen had arranged it. He'd also arranged a way to keep Blascoe from bolting the cabin.

The TP brigade, of course, knew nothing of this. They'd been told they were monitoring the home of a Wall Addict who was out to destroy the Church. Nothing more. Only Jensen and Brady had the codes to activate and access the AV feeds. TPs like Hutchison and Lewis merely kept an eye on the telemetry telltales, and called Jensen when something lit up.

Like tonight.

"We're not so much after the WA himself as much as the people visiting him at the moment. One of them is Jamie Grant; the other is the guy who snatched her from under your noses."

"We're packing heat for them!" Hutch said.

Jensen shook his head. Packing heat… Jesus.

"We don't know what we're heading into. We have reason to believe the man has mob ties."

Lewis jerked around. "The mob? What the fu—?"

"Exactly what Mr. Brady and I want to know. The weaponry is just a precaution. I do not want anyone shot—I have a lot of questions for the man—but I do not want anyone getting away with a recording of whatever they're discussing up there. If—"

"Hey,' Hutch said as the car eased forward. "Looks like we're starting to move."

Jensen peered ahead. The jam seemed to be breaking up. Good. They still had a ways to go.

"Think it's gonna matter?" Lewis said. "They've gotta be gone by now."

Jensen shook his head. "No, they're still up there. The WA we've been watching has a long story, and it's going to take some time to tell."

"But if they're smart they'll get him out of there and to a safe house where they won't be interrupted."

"Not if the WA refuses to leave."

And he wouldn't dare.

19

"I've gotten kind of used to weird," Jack told Blascoe, "so don't hold back. Lay it on as thick as you need."

He leaned forward and focused on the old man. A slew of questions were about to be answered—he hoped.

"It's pretty thick. I think I told you about Brady being land crazy. He's always buying or trying to buy pieces of property here and there. He sells this one to buy that one. At first I thought it was just a random shuffle, something he liked to do. Then I caught on that he was after specific parcels. I figured, well, it's as good a way as any to invest the Church's extra cash. Land prices are always going up, right?"

"Those specific parcels are indicated on the globe, right?" Jack said.

"I didn't know that back then but, yeah, right. That's why he's turned Dormentalism into a money machine: so he can buy these pieces of land. Some are cheap, but some are in prime commercial districts. Others are in countries that don't like foreigners owning their land, and so a lot of palms have to be greased. And still others… well, some folks just don't want to sell."

Jamie leaned forward. "What's he do then?"

"He keeps upping his offers to the point where all but a very few diehards give in."

"What about those diehards?"

"I don't know about all of them, but I can tell you about one couple. Their name was Masterson and they owned a farm in Pennsylvania that Brady wanted. Well, it had been in their family for generations and they weren't selling for any price. Brady said he'd settle for a certain piece of it but they wouldn't even sell him that. So Brady asks for a face-to-face meet with them and offers an all-expense-paid trip to the city, luxury hotel, the works, just to sit down with him. They accept."

Blascoe's comment that the couple's name was Masterson gave Jack an ominous feeling.

Jamie raised her eyebrows. "And?"

"And someone pushes them in front of a subway."

"Oh, jeez," Jack said. "I remember reading about that last year."

Jamie had gone pale. "I did a piece on it. They never caught the guy. Everyone assumed he was just another MDP." She looked at Blascoe. "Do you have any proof that Brady was connected?"

"Nothing that would stand up in court, but I remember Jensen telling him the news and hearing Brady say something about giving a TP named Lewis a bonus."

Jack had heard the Dormentalists were ruthless, but this, if it was true… it put a whole new spin on who he was dealing with.

He looked at Jamie. "We should get out of here."

"Hey," Blascoe said, "I haven't got to the weird part yet. Dig: Those white lights don't get lit when he buys the land. He powers them up only after he's buried one of his weird concrete pillars on the site."

He had Jack's attention. "What kind of weird?"

"Well, as I understand it—I'm not supposed to know this, you know; got most of it by listening while they thought I was out of it. Anyway, the concrete's gotta be made with a certain kind of sand, and the column's gotta be inscribed with all sorts of weird symbols. And then they've gotta put something else inside it before they can bury it."

"Like what?" Jack said.

"I never learned that."

"What kind of symbols?"

"I saw a drawing of a column once. Same kind of symbols as on the wall behind his globe. They're kind of like—"

"I've seen them."

Blascoe's eyes widened. "You have? How the hell—?"

"Not important. I need to know what Brady's trying to accomplish with these columns."

"You need to know?"

"Yeah. Need." Jack wasn't in the mood for chitchat. "So let's hear it: What's he up to?"

"I haven't a clue. He's burying the damn things all over the world and I don't have the faintest idea why."

"Didn't you ask?"

"Course I asked. Started asking a couple years ago, but Brady always dodged an answer. He was keeping stuff from me. Me! The fucking founder! When I got in his face about it, Brady tried to distract me with women and booze and drugs. But that wasn't gonna work. Hey, I'm older now. I've experienced just about everything I ever wanted to. Maybe more.

"But the globe was just the fuse that lit me up. Dormentalism was my baby but it had changed to the point where I no longer recognized it. No, forget recognizing it—I was embarrassed by it. Do you know that to reach the upper levels you not only have to spend a fortune, but you've got to swear off sex! Yeah, you heard me, to reach the High Council you have to become some sort of fucking eunuch—nice turn of phrase, don't you think?—which turns off all but the most fanatically devoted."

Jamie flashed her yellowed grin. "I love this!"

Blascoe poked a finger into the air. "Yeah, Brady's supposed to be abstinent too, but I found out he's got a place—not too far from here, as a matter of fact—that nobody knows about. And that means not even his innermost circle on the High Council. That's because they aren't looking. I was. It's a place where I'm pretty sure he does stuff he doesn't want anyone to know about."

Jack didn't give a damn about Brady's personal life. He could be dressing sheep in black garter belts and getting jiggy with them for all he cared. It was more tasty grist for Jamie's mill but provided no answers for Jack.

"Let's get back to the columns," he said. "Brady gave you no clue as to what's up with them?"

"He did say that the globe wasn't so much a map as a blueprint. It shows where the columns must go."

"So every bulb shows where he has buried or intends to bury a column."

"All except the reds. No columns go where the red bulbs are."

"Why not?"

He shrugged. "Before I could find out, he and Jensen dumped me here."

Jack unfolded the skin flap again. He studied the pattern of red and white scars and the lines connecting them, trying to superimpose the continental outlines. But he had no reference points. He needed another look at that globe. He wanted to know what the red dots meant. He had a feeling they were key.

Jamie was speaking in her reporter voice. "You say Brady and Jensen 'dumped' you here. I don't understand. Are you a prisoner?"

Blascoe nodded. "Better believe it."

"Why?"

"Because I'm stupid. Because I'm sick. And because I thought I was too important to mess with. Wrong again. I wanted to get Dormentalism back to the simple, hedonistic, mellow, hippie thing it started out to be, but I could see neither Brady nor the High Council was going to go for that willingly, so I figured I'd give 'em a kick in the ass to get them moving. I threatened to go public with my cancer and everything I knew about their money-grubbing racket. Said I'd call a press conference to announce I'd had lung cancer but I'd been cured by radiation and chemotherapy instead of my xelton, and how my xelton couldn't cure me because there's no such thing as a xelton—I made it all up.

"So they locked me away and made up that bullshit about me putting myself in suspended animation."

"You said you were cured?"

He gave her a death's head grin. "Sure as hell don't look cured, do I. That's because the cure wasn't. The tumor's back. Now they especially don't want me to be seen. Don't want me wasting away in public."

"Isn't there anything you can do?" Jamie said. "Chemotherapy or—?"

"Too late. I figure from the color of my pee that it's in my liver—had hepatitis once so I know how that goes—and dying is better than living through more rounds of chemo with no guarantee of success. I'm just gonna let nature take its course. That's me: the original Mr. Natural."

Jamie said, "Why do you stay here? I don't see any bars on the windows, no locks on the door. Why don't you just walk out?"

Blascoe raised his head and Jack saw a strange look in his eyes.

"I would…" He lifted his shirt and pointed to a silver-dollar-sized lump on the right side of his abdomen, southwest of his navel. "Except for this."

Jamie craned her neck forward. "What is it?"

"A bomb. A miniature bomb."

20

Jensen leaned forward and tapped Hutch on the shoulder. "Ease back on the speed."

"Just trying to make up for lost time."

"You won't be making up anything if you hydroplane us into a ditch."

They were heading west—swimming west was more like it—on 84. The normal speed limit was sixty-five but only an idiot would try that in this downpour.

"Who is this WA anyway?" Lewis said.

"You don't need to know his name, just that he's dangerous. He knows too much dirt—damaging dirt."

"Pardon my saying," Lewis said, "but how bad can it be? What can he know that deserves this kind of surveillance?"

The question was out of line, but he wanted these guys in skin-saving mode—not just the Church's skin but their own as well.

"Oh, let's see," Jensen drawled. "What about the time you told that Bible thumper, Senator Washburn, that unless he directed the Finance Committee's interest away from the Church, paternity test results on tissue from his closest aide's recent abortion would be made public? Dirty enough for you? Or what about the time Hutch threatened the daughter of that DD who was going to take the Church to court? And here's the icing on the cake, Lewis: He knows about that couple you shoved onto the tracks. What was their name again?"

"The Mastersons." Lewis's swallow was audible all the way to the back seat. "Shit."

Jensen was exaggerating. Blascoe suspected a few things, and could make it mighty uncomfortable for the Church if he started speculating in public, but that wasn't the real reason he'd been isolated.

"And those are just the tip of the iceberg."

The only sound in the car was the patter of the rain and the swish of the wipers.

Good, Jensen thought. That shut them up. He glanced at the glowing dial of his watch. It was a sixty-six-mile trip from the city to the cabin. In off-peak traffic it could be done in a little over an hour. They were well past the hour mark. But even with the rain and the reduced speed, it wouldn't be long now.

21

"Get out," Jamie said as she stared at the lump under the pale, flabby skin. She saw a pink line of scar tissue next to it. He had to be running a number on them. "A bomb?"

Blascoe nodded. "Yep. If I go more than a thousand feet from the house—they've got the line marked with wire—this will explode."

"What's the point?" Jack said.

"Well, as Jensen put it, this raises a minimum-security facility to maximum."

Jamie frowned, still staring at the lump. She couldn't take her eyes off it. "How did they—?"

"Get it in there?" He shrugged. "Jensen kept me under lock and key for a while after I threatened to go public. Then one day he drugs me up and hauls me off somewhere. I don't know where exactly because I conked out before we got there. I woke up here, in one of the bedrooms. I was hurting and when I looked down I saw a bunch of stitches and this lump.

"Brady and Jensen were here. They told me this place was gonna be my home till I came to my senses. They told me about the bomb and—"

Jack's eyebrows shot up. "And you believed them? For all you know that's just a couple-three big steel washers glued together."

"It's not." Blascoe's eyes were suddenly bright with tears. "They proved that to me the first day."

"How?"

"My dog."

Jamie gasped as her heart twisted in her chest. "Oh, no. I don't think I want to hear this."

"He was a mutt I'd had since he was a pup," Blascoe was saying. "I called him Bart because he was always getting into trouble like Bart Simpson. Anyway, Jensen taped one of these bombs to Bart's collar. I was still groggy from the anesthesia so I wasn't really following. I watched as Jensen teased Bart with this ball, then threw it past the thousand-foot mark." Blascoe's face screwed up and he sobbed. A tear rolled down his cheek. "Blew poor Bart to pieces."

Jamie felt her own eyes puddling up. "Bastards."

She glanced over at Jack. He said nothing, simply stared at Blascoe with a stony expression.

Blascoe sobbed again. "Lots of times I think about crossing that line myself just to end it all, but I haven't got the guts."

Finally Jack spoke. "This means they've got perimeter sensors, and that means they probably know we're here. You can take it to the bank that someone—a number of someones—are on their way here." He looked at Jamie. "We've got to go."

She pointed to Blascoe. "But we can't leave him!"

"Why not? This is where he lives now." He tossed Blascoe's joint into his lap. "We'll leave him as we found him."

"But they'll kill him!"

"If they wanted to kill him, they wouldn't have bothered with this elaborate setup."

"But don't you see? Now that I've got his story, they have to kill him. Once I publish it, these woods will be crawling with people looking for him. They can't risk his being found."

Jack was staring at Blascoe. "They still won't kill you, will they?"

Blascoe shrugged. "Can't say. To tell the truth, I don't much care. Haven't got much time left anyway, and going quick sounds a lot better than getting eaten from the inside out. I think Brady would've had Jensen off me at the git-go when I started making trouble. But too many of his lackeys on the High Council knew I was alive and not so well, and after all, I am the Father of Dormentalism and that would be… unthinkable. They really believe in this shit. So he convinced them to exile me, like Napoleon. Probably rationalized it to them by labeling me with one of their stinking acronyms and isolating me for the good of the Church. I don't think his High Council cronies know about the bomb—that was Jensen's idea."

"So what you're telling me is there's a good chance they'll send you to the Hokano world for real."

Another shrug. "Yeah. I guess so. But you folks'd better go while you've got the chance, or sure as shit you'll both turn up missing."

Jack looked around. "Jensen's demo with your dog proves there's a trigger transmitter nearby. If we can—"

"Find it? Don't waste your time. I've been searching for it since day one and never found it. And I was looking in daylight, not in the dark in a rainstorm."

"Ever think about getting a knife and cutting it out?" Jack said. "It's just under the skin."

Jamie's stomach turned at the thought. The idea of cutting into your own flesh—she shuddered. Didn't want to go there.

"Can't say as I have. 'Specially since Jensen warned me about just such a thing. Told me if the bomb's surface temperature drops five degrees—blam!

Jack was silent for a few seconds, then, "What if we cut it out and dunk it into a bowl of hot water?"

"Whoa," Jamie said. "What if it drops five degrees while we're doing it? Then all three of us will go."

Without taking his eyes off Blascoe, Jack reached into a pocket and pulled out a folded knife. He snapped it open with a flick of his wrist, revealing a wicked-looking four-inch stainless steel serrated blade.

"I'm game if you are."

Blascoe stared at the blade. He swallowed, but said nothing.

"Don't you want to kick their asses?" Jack said. "With Jamie's story and you to back it up on the talk show circuit, you can nail these bozos right where they live. Slice and dice them and stir-fry them for dinner."

"Is it gonna hurt?" Blascoe said.

Jack nodded. "Yeah. But this baby's sharp and I'll be quick like a bunny."

The old man licked his lips and took a long pull on the Cuervo. "Okay. Let's do it."

Jamie tasted bile at the back of her throat. "I'm not good with blood."

Jack waggled the knife in her direction. "Don't wimp out on me now."

22

Jack stuck the blade of his Spyderco Endura into the water he'd nuked to boiling in the microwave. From the front room he heard Jamie muttering as she sloshed tequila onto the skin over the lump in Blascoe's flank.

When the water stopped bubbling he poured it into a small aluminum pot.

"Not exactly sterile conditions," he said as he carried the hot water into the other room. "But we'll go straight from here to a doctor I know who'll load you up with antibiotics."

Blascoe lay stretched out on the couch, his shirt pulled up to nipple level.

"Let's just get on with it," he said.

Jamie looked up. "What about stitches?"

Jack already had that figured. "We just tie a sheet around him. That'll hold the edges together. The doc will place the sutures."

Jamie looked pale and sweaty. Her hand shook as she swabbed on the tequila.

"I don't like this, Jack."

Not too crazy about it myself, he thought.

He'd stabbed and he'd been stabbed, but he'd never got down and made a surgical incision. He couldn't show any hesitancy or Jamie might fall apart. And if she did that it would only drag out this whole scene, and Jack wanted out of here yesterday. Every extra minute increased the chances of running into Dormentalist goons.

And he wished he had gloves. He didn't feature the idea of getting some wild-ass dude's blood all over his hands.

He looked at Blascoe. "You don't by any chance have AIDS, do you?"

"I can honestly answer that with a no. They did a shitload of tests when they worked me up for my tumor and, seeing as how I'd done a few drugs in my time, that was one of the first things they looked for. But I've never mainlined so I came out negative."

"All right then. It's time."

He tossed one of the throw pillows to Blascoe. "Bite on that." He handed the pot of water to Jamie. "Remember, if the surface of the bomb drops five degrees, we've had it. So keep that water right up next to me."

She gripped the handle and nodded. She did not look well at all.

"You sure you can handle this?"

She shook her head. "No, but I'm going to try. So hurry."

Right. No sense in drawing it out like it was some scene from ER.

He went down on one knee next to the couch, stretched Blascoe's skin over the lump, took a breath, and made the cut—a quick slice, two inches long and half an inch deep. Blascoe was kicking and making muffled screeching noises into the pillow, but all in all doing a pretty decent job of holding still. Next to him, Jamie groaned.

"Everybody hang in," he said. "We're almost there."

Jack hadn't been crazy about making the incision, but he didn't mind the blood. He'd seen plenty—others' and his own. Slipping his fingers under a man's skin, though, was a whole other country.

Clenching his teeth he forced his hand forward, pushed his index and middle fingers through the bloody slit while his other hand pushed on the disk from the outside. He felt it press against his fingertips, then he trapped it and began to wriggle it free. It didn't move easily. Had scar tissue formed around it? He pushed and pulled harder. Blascoe began to buck but Jack rode with him.

"A few seconds," he gritted. "Just a few more seconds."

He felt the thing move and glanced to his immediate right where Jamie held the pot of hot water.

"Get ready, Jamie. Here it comes."

And then he had it. He guided the red, dripping disk through the incision. Not a second to waste now.

"Okay. Here she comes. Where's that—?"

"Oh, God!"

He heard a gagging sound, felt hot water splash across his thigh, and looked over to see Jamie with her head turned away, quaking as she retched, the pot handle twisting in her hand, the hot water pouring over Jack and the couch.

"Shit!"

He grabbed for the pot with his free hand, caught it before it emptied, but felt the slippery disk shoot from between his fingers. It slithered across Blascoe's bloody skin, fell to the floor, and rolled away on its edge.

"Oh, Christ!"

Jack lunged for it, grabbed it, and for a second, didn't know what to do: Toss it across the room or drop it in what was left of the hot water? The disk slipped in his fingers… might not get a good throw… he shoved it into the hot water, then swung the pot around and put it down around the far corner of the couch, hoping the upholstery would absorb most of the shrapnel from the pot. He rolled back toward Jamie and shoved her away.

But no explosion. He waited a few more heartbeats, but all he heard were Jamie's gasps and Blascoe's groans.

"Sorry," Jamie said as she lifted her head and wiped her chin. "I just—"

"Forget it." Jack jumped to his feet. "Let's haul him down to the car and get the hell out of here."

"Jesus," Blascoe said. He was bathed in sweat and had his hands cupped around the bloody incision but not touching it. "Like ouch, man. That fucking hurt!"

"How's it feel now?"

A weak smile. "Compared to when you were digging into me? Not bad."

"Good. Now move your hands."

Jack had arranged a rolled-up bedsheet under the small of Blascoe's back before operating on him. Once the hands were out of the way he looped it out and cinched it around him.

Blascoe grunted. "Have to be so tight?"

"Got to keep those edges together." It was the best he could do till he got the old guy to Doc Hargus. He pulled him to his feet. "Let's go."

Blascoe swayed. "Whoa. Dizzy."

Jack didn't have to say anything. Jamie jumped in and grabbed Blascoe's other arm, steadying him. She looked better but still shaken.

"Okay," Jack said. "Straight down the driveway."

Jamie held back. "Why don't we bring the car up here? Be faster."

"But the driveway dead ends up here. Somebody noses into the lower end and we're busted. Come on. Let's move. We've wasted too much time already."

He tugged Blascoe toward the door and Jamie came along. Off the front porch, into the downpour, then down the driveway. Within seconds their clothes were soaked through to the skin. Jack found the chill refreshing.

The twin ruts of the driveway had become mini creeks. Jack sloshed down the one on the right, Jamie had the left, both supporting the rubber-legged Blascoe on the grassy median.

"This is farther than I've ever come," the old man said. "If we had light you'd see yellow ribbons tied around some of these trees. Those were the warning signs that I was nearing the thousand-foot line. Yellow ribbons! That son of a bitch Jensen thinks he's such a comedian. He—"

Jack heard a muffled explosion, felt an impact against his flank that knocked him into the brush bordering the driveway. He lay stunned for a few seconds, his ears ringing. His right hand was gripping something. He squinted at it in the dark for a few uncomprehending heartbeats, then cried out and tossed it away.

An arm. With no body attached.

But how—?

And then he knew: The bastards had stuck two bombs in Blascoe—just in case he ever found the nerve to remove the obvious one.

Jack slumped forward and pounded his fists into the mud. He'd messed up—no, he'd fucked up. The possibility had occurred to him, but Blascoe had said there'd been only one incision, and Jack hadn't felt anything unusual under the bomb he'd removed. Of course, Blascoe had been kicking and writhing at the time. Or they could have buried it way deep.

"I'm sorry, Coop," he whispered. "Christ, I'm so sorry."

And then, somewhere on the far side of the driveway, he heard a woman screaming.

Jack struggled to his feet, checked to make sure he still had the Glock, then lurched toward the sound, wiping bits of flesh from his shirt and jeans as he moved. He found Jamie kneeling in the mud and rubbing her hands up and down her arms as if she were in a shower.

He grabbed her arm. "Jamie! Jamie!"

She swung a fist at him. "Get away!" she wailed. "Get away!"

"Jamie, it's me, Jack. We've got to go!"

Her voice lowered to gasping sobs. "He blew up! He… just… blew up!"

"I know. And we could end up just as dead if we don't get out of here now."

He pulled her to her feet and into a staggering walk down the driveway.

"But…" She looked over her shoulder. "Shouldn't we do something with him?"

"What do you have in mind?" He propelled her along, not allowing her to slow down. "Dig a grave? Call a minister and have a funeral service?"

"You bastard!" she hissed. "You cold-hearted—!"

"I'll take that any day over stupid fuck-up, which is what I really am."

That stopped her. Her tone was softer when she spoke. "Hey, I—"

Jack shook her. "Quiet."

He pointed down to the pair of glowing lights to the right of the driveway entrance. He shoved Jamie into the brush to the right and followed her in.

"They're here."

23

"Hey," Lewis said. "There's a car."

Hutch stopped the Lincoln. "Not just a car—the car."

Jensen leaned close to the side window and peered through the downpour at the black Crown Vic. He took a deep breath and smiled as he let it out, fogging the window. With one delay after another along the way, his hopes of catching Grant and her mystery friend here had diminished almost to zilch. But what do you know—here they were.

"Lewis, go check and see if it's locked. If not, get inside. If yes, hide in the trees and keep watch."

Lewis stepped out and trotted over to the Vic. He tried the door, turned and dashed back to Jensen's window.

"Locked," he said as the window opened a few inches. "But if I get the slim jim—"

"Forget it. You'll set off the alarm. If we don't catch them up at the house, I want them hauling ass back down here thinking they can jump in their car and drive away. But you're not going to let that happen, are you, Lewis."

"I could just flatten the tires."

"Really?" Sometimes these guys were so stupid. "And then how do we get it out of here? Or do you think we should just leave it for some hick sheriff to find and wonder who owns it and start poking around that cabin up there? You think that's a good idea?"

He sighed. "I guess not. But why's it always me gets—"

"Shut up and listen. They show up here, you do what you have to do. I don't care about Grant. You get a chance, off her. But no killshot on the guy unless he's holding."

"Why not?"

"I've got some questions and he's got the answers."

Like who he is and how he found out about this place.

"But—"

"Get out of my face and hide. Now."

He raised the window and slapped Hutch on the shoulder.

"Up that driveway on the left there."

"You want me to turn the lights off?"

Jensen thought about that a second. A darkened approach would be good, but Hutch didn't know where the driveway curved and might land them up against a tree.

"Keep 'em on. Just take it as fast as you can."

The less time Grant and company had to react, the better.

Hutch made the turn and hit the gas. The Lincoln fishtailed left and right.

"Damn rear-wheel-drive shit!" he said, but kept going. "How long is this?"

"About six-hundred yards. Don't slow down. Keep pushing her."

At about the halfway point, Hutch shouted, "Shit!" and slammed on the brakes.

The car swerved to the left, slamming Jensen against the door.

"What the—!"

And then he saw it.

"What the fuck is that?" Hutch shouted. "It looks like somebody's head!"

Which was exactly what it was—plus the neck, upper chest, and right arm, all connected. Wide, glazed eyes in a bearded face stared accusingly at the car from the side of the road. The pelvis and legs jutted from the brush on the opposite side. Shredded innards decorated the driveway ruts and median.

"What happened here?" Hutch's quavering voice had jumped an octave.

"I don't know. Just keep going, damn it! We've got a problem!"

Actually, a problem had just gone away. But Jensen couldn't let Hutchison know that.

No more worries about Blascoe shooting his mouth off.

But how had it happened? Had Blascoe decided to end it all? Had he been running from Grant for some reason? Or had he gambled that the lump under his skin wasn't really a bomb?

And where were Grant and the former Jason Amurri?

The cabin hove into view. He'd have the answers pretty soon.

Jensen pulled out his long-barreled .44 Magnum. Hutch and Lewis carried Colt Double Eagle .45s. None of this 9mm shit. He didn't shoot often, but when he did he wanted results. He wanted whoever he put down to stay down.

The car stopped and he heard Hutch work his slide to chamber a round.

"Safety off, be ready to fire at will," Jensen told him. Probably unnecessary, but it never hurt. "Same thing goes for you as for Lewis: Save the guy for me. Go!"

They leaped from the car and dashed up to the porch. The front door lay wide open. Jensen took the doorway while Hutch, pistol held high, ducked from window to window.

"Nothing moving in there," he said as he returned.

Probably headed down through the brush back toward their car, but he had to make sure they weren't hiding inside.

"Okay. I go in and head left, you take the right. Quick search, make sure the place is empty, then we go back to their car."

Hutch nodded and they made their entrance in a low crouch, pistols extended in the two-handed grip. They flanked the couch, checked the kitchen, then the two rear bedrooms.

Hutch stood in the center of the great room, his pistol lowered. "Nobody's home." He pointed to the couch. "But catch that. Looks like blood."

Yeah. It did. And what was that aluminum pot next to the couch. Had Blascoe, or maybe Grant and her friend, done a little surgery? Uh-huh. There was the bomb submerged in the water in the bottom of the pot. Clever. Some hot water to maintain the temperature, a sharp knife, and—

Jensen felt a draft on his face. He looked up at the open door. How long had that pot been sitting in the breeze? Long enough to…?

He backed away. "Hutch, I think we'd better get—"

The pot exploded. Something sharp dug into his face above his right eye as the blast knocked him back.

24

Jamie huddled and shivered against Jack as they crouched in the brush. The car sat ten feet away. Keys in one hand, Glock in the other, Jack watched it through the downpour. The good part about the pounding rain was that it drowned out the sounds of their approach. The bad part was that he had no light, not even starlight, to scope out whoever was watching the car.

And someone had to be watching it.

He'd seen people do amazingly stupid things, but leaving a getaway vehicle unguarded… uh-uh. Jensen was calling the shots here—either on-site or over the phone—and Jensen was no dummy.

Above and behind them, the thud! of an explosion.

"What—?" Jamie started to say, but Jack clamped a hand over her mouth.

He tried to shut out the sound of the rain, the feel of it pelting his face and hair, tried to funnel everything into his eyes as he studied the area around the car. Movement on the far side of the road caught his eye. Was that—? Yeah, a man had stepped out of the trees and was crossing toward the car. He stopped by the hood.

His face was little more than a pale blur, but he seemed to be looking up the hill, waiting for whatever he'd heard to happen again.

It wouldn't. Jack had figured the bomb would go off sooner or later. He was glad it had happened now.

He put his lips against Jamie's ear and whispered, "Wait. Don't move."

Pulled out the car keys, then crouched and began to snake through the remaining brush toward the front of the car. The rain's loud tattoo on the hood and roof covered his approach. Reached the front bumper and moved around it until he was only a few feet from the sentry. Raised his Glock and hit the unlock button on the car remote. As the locks clicked up and the interior lights came on he leaped to his feet and caught the guy whirling toward the passenger compartment, pistol up and ready but pointed in the wrong direction.

"Freeze right there!" Jack shouted. "Freeze or I'll shoot you dead so help me!"

It sounded B-movie-ish, he knew, but what else do you say? However it sounded, it worked. The guy turned into a statue.

"Hold it just like that," Jack said as he came up behind him.

He pressed the muzzle of the Glock against the back of his neck, then pulled the pistol from his hand. It had the weight of a .45.

"Heavy artillery," he said as he stuck it in his waistband. "Who were you expecting?"

The guy had a pinched face and thin hair plastered against his scalp. He said nothing.

"Be a good TP and put your hands way up." Jack did a quick one-handed pat down but found no other weapon.

"Now… lie facedown in the middle of the road."

"Hey, come—"

Jack jammed the muzzle harder against his neck. "Look, Mr. Temple Paladin. You haven't done anything to me so I'm giving you a chance. One way or another you're gonna wind up facedown on the road. Now, you can be there breathing or you can be there not breathing. Makes no difference to me. Which'll it be?"

Without speaking he did a slow turn, took two steps, and stretched out facedown on the wet asphalt, arms extended at right angles from his body.

"Jamie!" he shouted. "Into the car!"

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a dim shape emerge from the brush and make a beeline for the passenger door.

"Over here! You're driving!"

"I d-don't think I can."

"You can and you will." He held out the keys. "Here. Get it started."

Jack never took his eyes off the man in the street. He'd been a little too agreeable. You don't argue with a man with a gun, sure, but this guy was playing it a little too meek and mild for one of Brady's enforcers. Might mean a lot of things, but to Jack it meant Mr. TP had a backup weapon, one he'd missed in his pat down. Probably in an ankle holster, just like Jack's AMT .380, but he hadn't wanted to risk squatting to check.

He felt the keys tugged from his hand, heard the car door open and close, the engine start.

He opened the rear door behind Jamie, found the window button and lowered it.

"Don't do anything stupid," he warned the guy, privately hoping he would.

Jack backed behind the door and moved his pistol into the open window space. He knelt on the back seat and slammed the door, keeping the TP covered all the time.

"Go!"

As soon as the car began to move the TP rolled over and—sure enough—reached for his ankle. Jack fired off three quick shots, hitting him twice. He kept an eye on his thrashing form until the car rounded a bend and he was out of sight.

"You shot him?" Jamie said.

"He had a second gun. Probably going to try for our tires."

"Did… did you kill him?"

"Hope not. Better for us if he's alive."

25

Ears ringing, Jensen regained his feet. He wiped his eyes and looked at his hand. It glistened with red.

"Shit!"

A spot on the front of his scalp, just where his hairline would have been if he'd had any, stung when he touched it. He looked around and saw Hutch, on his feet and looking fine.

"You okay?"

Hutch nodded. "I ducked behind the couch. But you…"

Jensen touched the spot again. "Yeah, I know. How bad is it?"

Hutch stepped closer and peered at the wound. "Not bad. Maybe an inch at most."

Jensen moved into the kitchen area and grabbed a roll of paper towels. He ripped off a sheet and pressed it against his scalp.

Cut by his own bomb. Shit, this was embarrassing. When he got his hands on this son of a bitch…

Hutch said, "Hey, what's the story with that guy in the driveway—or what's left of him? Who—?"

Jensen stiffened. Through the ringing in his ears he thought he heard three pops from somewhere outside.

He turned to Hutch. "Were those—?"

Hutch was already on his way to the door. "Damn right!"

Jensen followed him to the car where Hutch got back behind the wheel and Jensen squeezed into the front seat.

The good news was that Lewis had found the pair; the bad news was he'd had to do some shooting. Jensen hoped the mystery guy was still breathing.

They backed around and roared down the driveway. As they again passed the scattered remains of Cooper Blascoe, Jensen made a mental note to get back here ASAP with some garbage bags and clean up whatever parts of the old fart hadn't already been carried away by the local wildlife.

Hutch skidded the car to a stop as they hit the pavement. Someone was writhing in the middle of the road.

"Hey, that looks like Lewis!" Hutch said. He pushed open the door and started to get out.

Alarm flared through Jensen as he scanned the area and didn't see the Crown Vic.

"The car's gone! Shit! They took off! Get back in here and go after them!"

"But Lewis—!"

"Damn asshole let them get the jump on him. He's on his own!"

"Fuck that!" Hutch said. "He's one of us. A few minutes ago you didn't want to leave a car in the bushes, but now it's okay to leave a bleeding guy? Where are you coming from? What's a cop gonna do if—"

"All right, all right!" He was right. "Drag that sack of shit over here and put him in the back."

Jensen sat and fumed. Lewis had been wounded and left here to slow them down. But they still had a chance to catch them if they drove like hell.

A slim chance, but a chance.

FRIDAY

1

"We've got a problem."

Luther Brady had already guessed that. A call from Jensen on his private line at this hour of the morning could mean only trouble. Serious trouble.

"Go ahead."

Luther listened with growing dismay as Jensen described the night's events. His stomach was burning by the time the man had finished.

"You've got to find them."

"I'm full into that right now. But I have to ask you something: After all the face time you spent with this guy, why didn't your xelton pick up that he was a phony?"

The question stunned Luther. The audacity! How dare he?

And yet… it was a question he had to answer.

"I don't know," Luther said as his mind raced around for a plausible explanation. He tried to buy some time by acknowledging the problem. "My xelton has no answer, and I'm baffled as well. A Fully Fused xelton such as mine should have been able to pierce his masks in a moment, but it didn't. That's virtually impossible… unless…"

"Unless what?"

Brady smiled. He'd just come up with an explanation. A doozy.

"Unless this man has achieved FF."

"That's impossible!"

"No, it's not. How many temples do we have? Do you know every man worldwide who's reached FF? Of course you don't. He's a rogue FF. It's the only explanation."

"But why would an FF try to harm the Church?"

"Obviously his xelton became corrupted. If it can happen to our PD, of all people, it can happen to a lesser man."

He let that sink in. That was the same line he'd fed Jensen and the HC when Cooper Blascoe became a risk: The PD's xelton had gone mad and, as a result, Blascoe had gone even madder. The corrupted xelton had allowed him to get sick and was refusing to heal him. Just as a human could become a WA, so could a xelton.

Far out, far out, but they'd all believed. Because they wanted to believe. To doubt would destroy the foundation on which they'd all built their lives. They had to believe.

"You mean—?"

Luther had had enough of this.

"Forget him for now. He and his corrupted PX don't worry me half as much as Grant. She's had it in for the Church and now you can bet she knows everything. Well, almost everything. She can't know about Omega because Blascoe didn't. Noomri, what a mess! We've got body parts up at the cabin and a muckraking reporter with a tape of Blascoe saying who knows what. You've got to stop her before she talks."

"I'm on it. I have a clean-up detail heading for the cabin. They'll remove what needs to be removed and burn the rest. As for the tape, can't we say it's a fake?"

"A voiceprint analysis comparing her tape to Blascoe's voice on one of our own instructional tapes will make us liars. She's got to be stopped, Jensen."

"I know. I'm—"

"I mean stopped—as in, I do not want to hear from this woman again. Do you hear me?"

"Loud and clear."

"Find her."

Luther hung up and rose from his bed. Sleep now was out of the question. He strode into the office area, sat at his desk, and pressed the button for the globe.

He stared at its glowing lights, twinkling in the darkness of the office, and wanted to cry.

So close. He was so close to completing Opus Omega, to fulfilling all the required tasks. The end was in sight. A year… he needed just another year or so and all would be in place. Everything had been going so smoothly…

Until now.

Damn that woman. Ruination. Disaster. Cooper Blascoe, the beloved PD, not in suspended animation but held prisoner and fitted with a bomb, and then… blown to pieces.

The Church would deny everything, of course, but the tape would damn them.

Luther groaned and closed his eyes as he envisioned the fallout: Members fleeing in droves, recruitment coming to a standstill, revenues constricting to a trickle.

Revenues… he needed money, lots of it, to acquire the final sites. Final because they either were prime real estate or the owners refused to sell. They couldn't all be pushed in front of subway trains.

As a matter of fact, the new column was scheduled to be planted on the Masterson property tomorrow night.

But if that woman exposed the Blascoe debacle, it might be the last.

Luther slammed his fist on the desktop. He could not allow one lousy woman to threaten the greatest project in the history of mankind.

Yes! The history of mankind.

For Opus Omega had not begun with Luther Brady. Oh, at first he'd thought it did, but he had soon learned otherwise. He remembered the day in England when he'd begun to excavate a patch of moor he'd purchased in York. He'd found a bare spot in a field of wild rape and decided that would be as good a place as any to bury a pillar. But after digging only a few feet into the soft earth his crew discovered the top of a stone column. As they excavated around it Luther was stunned to see the symbols carved into its granite flanks—identical to the ones on the concrete column he'd prepared for this site.

Someone had been there ahead of him—hundreds, maybe thousands of years before. The conclusion was inescapable: Opus Omega had begun long, long ago. It was not Luther Brady's exclusive task, as he had thought. He was merely another man chosen to continue an ancient undertaking.

No, more than continue. He, Luther Brady, was determined to finish Opus Omega. The ancients had been at a disadvantage, lacking the means to travel to the necessary sites, let alone transport huge stone pillars. He was positioned to use all the modern world's learning and technology to bring Opus Omega to its fulfillment.

But one woman could bring his life's work to a grinding halt.

One woman.

Jamie Grant had to be stopped.

2

"I understand, Jack," Jamie said, "and I appreciate your concern, but I know what I'm doing."

Like hell you do, Jack thought.

He was driving through Midtown, heading east along Fifty-eighth, and they'd been arguing for more than half an hour.

Jamie had done pretty well behind the wheel, racing the Vic down the winding mountain road and speeding them to the highway. Jack would have preferred to be in the driver's seat but didn't want to waste the seconds it would have taken to switch places. When they'd reached 84 he'd made her turn west instead of east. He'd guessed that Jensen would expect them to head back to the city, so they went the other way.

It had worked. No sign of pursuit, even though he'd had Jamie set the cruise control at sixty-five and stick to it. Under any circumstances, Jack feared being pulled over, but more than ever tonight. Not having a valid identity would be small potatoes compared to explaining how they'd wound up splattered head-to-toe with blood and tissue from Cooper Blascoe.

Jamie had held up until they pulled off the interstate at Carmel and waited to see if Jensen would show. The meltdown occurred a few seconds after she stopped the car. First a sniff, then a tear, and then Jamie Grant, hard-nosed investigative reporter, was sobbing in his arms. Jack held her, patted her back, told her what a great job she'd done, and that she'd be okay, everything would be okay.

Eventually she regained control and seemed embarrassed. The good news was that throughout the long wait by the exit ramp he'd seen no sign of Jensen and company. Heading the wrong way had worked.

They'd found an all-night Wal-Mart and bought clean clothes. Jack grabbed the wheel then and took the long way home.

They'd been arguing since they hit North Jersey about where Jamie would spend the night. Her place was out of the question—probably had half a dozen IPs glued to it—as was Jack's. He hadn't let her know his name, and he sure as hell wasn't letting her know where he lived. So he'd been pushing for a hotel room somewhere in the wilds of Queens. He'd sleep outside her door if necessary.

Jamie wanted none of it. She insisted that he drop her off at The Light.

"You think they won't be watching your office too?" Jack said. "It's stupid to go back there."

"Jack, I'll be under guard. You've seen the security there during the day, and it's even tougher at night. You've got to be buzzed through the door, and Henry, the night guy, is armed."

Jack shook his head. "I don't like it."

She reached over and patted his hand. "I'll be fine. I'll take a cab and get dropped off right at the door. What are they going to do—grab me off the street in front of Henry? He'll buzz me in and I'll be safe for the night. I can work on transcribing the interview without worrying."

"I think you should call the cops. You're a taxpayer—get some of it back in protection."

She looked at him. " 'You're a taxpayer'… kind of an odd turn of phrase, don't you think? I mean, so are you."

Jack could have told her how he'd never sullied his hands with a 1040, but didn't want to get into that.

"Let's forget turns of phrase. Call the cops."

"No way. Not yet. I want to get this story filed first. If I call in the gendarmes now, I'll have to tell them about Coop and—"

"'Coop'?"

She blinked and Jack noticed her eyes glistening. "He wasn't a bad guy, just an old hippie. A gentle hedonist. He didn't create Dormentalism as it is today, he isn't responsible for what Brady's done to it. He didn't deserve to die… to be blown up… and I can't help thinking how he'd still be alive if I'd just left him alone…"

Her voice choked off in a sob, but only one.

Jack thought about asking her if her meltdown in Carmel was the reason she was being so hard-nosed about not hiding out or getting help. He decided against it. Probably only get her back up.

"The cops, Jamie? What's wrong with getting them involved now instead of later?"

"Because in order to get protection I'll have to tell them why I'm in danger, and that means telling them what happened to Coop. And once they hear that, I'll be trapped in an interrogation-deposition situation for hours, maybe days, during which—"

"At least you'll he safe."

"—the story of what happened up there will leak out, and every paper in the city will he screaming their takes while mine remains unwritten and unfiled."

"Yeah, but the stories will be about you. You'll be famous."

"Like I care, /want to break the story—me. Nobody else. Where I come from, that's important. I'll be safe. Really."

"Really? Remember Coop? They blew him up."

She threw up her hands. "Look, I'm through talking about it. Stop someplace where I can get a cab."

Jack sighed. He knew an immovable object when he saw one—Gia could be just as intransigent. His instincts urged him to head straight for the on-ramp to the Queensboro Bridge and cross the East River. He wanted to find a motel room and lock her in it until she saw the light.

But he couldn't do that. He'd fight tooth and nail if someone tried to lock him up, so how could he do that to her? It went against everything he believed in.

And yet… how could he let her put her life on the line just to be first to file a story?

Let her… listen to me… like I own her.

He didn't. Jamie owned Jamie, and so Jamie had to be allowed to do what she felt she had to, even if Jack thought it was insanely risky. Because in the end all that mattered was what Jamie thought. It was her life. And so what mattered most was what mattered to Jamie.

Jack turned downtown, away from the bridge.

"Shit! This is idiotic, Jamie! You're going to get yourself killed. And me with you."

"How's that?"

"Well, you don't think I'm going to let you go alone."

She placed a hand on his arm. "I appreciate that, but you don't need to come along. Just cover my back till I'm inside. After that I'm home free: locked doors, an armed guard."

"I do not like this."

"I'm not crazy about it either, but a gal's gotta do what a gal's gotta do."

"Not funny."

"Wasn't meant to be," she said.

3

Jamie waited in the rear of the cab until she spotted Henry through the glass doors of The Light's front entrance. There he was, sitting behind his kiosk, just where he was supposed to be. Time to move. Heart pounding, she hopped from the cab and raced across the sidewalk.

As she jammed the ringer button, her head snapped left and right—would have rotated full circle had her neck allowed—looking for Dementedist goons. She knew Jack was somewhere nearby, hiding in the shadows. Still, if a couple of TPs suddenly jumped out and pulled her into a van, was he close enough to help?

She heard a noise and jumped. About a hundred feet to her left two men in raincoats were gliding from a parked sedan.

Oh, God!

She started hammering on the glass and at just that moment the door swung open. She leaped inside and elbowed Henry out of the way to pull it closed behind her. As it latched she peered through the glass and saw the two men standing on the sidewalk, halfway to the door, staring at her. She resisted the urge to give them the finger.

Henry laughed. "What's the hurry, Ms. Grant?"

Jamie figured if she told him that people were after her because of a story she was about to write, he'd call the cops.

She turned and smiled. "Got a big story to write, Henry."

"Must be a whopper to bring you in at this hour. I mean, this is early even for you." He leaned closer and looked at her. "Or is it late?"

She glanced up. The lobby clock showed ten after two.

"Late, Henry," she said as she started for the elevators. "Very late."

She hadn't slept well Wednesday, finally giving up on the possibility around four A.M. Thursday. She'd hauled herself out of bed and headed for the office. Here it was, Friday morning, which meant she'd been going full speed for over twenty-two hours. Yet she didn't feel the slightest hint of fatigue. She was jazzed. Adrenaline strummed heavy-metal power chords along her axons.

Good thing too, otherwise the horrors of the night—cutting through Coop's skin… his body blowing to pieces—would have reduced her to a trembling basket case by now.

But she couldn't dwell on that.

On the third floor she turned on all the overhead lights and wound through the deserted cubicle farm to her office. She paused on the threshold and looked at the comforting confusion of strewn-about books, newspapers, printouts, and scribbled-up yellow notepads.

Bless this mess, she thought. I'm home.

She dropped into her desk chair, lit a ciggie, and turned on her terminal. She'd rewound the tape during the trip back, so all she had to do now was pull the recorder from her shoulder bag and hit PLAY.

She had a bad moment when she first heard the murdered man's voice begin to speak to her from the tiny speaker…

'"You mean why I'm not in suspended animation, and how I came to be a shell of my former self? Know what? If you hold me up to your ear you can hear the ocean roar."

… but she held herself together and began to transcribe.

4

Jensen eyed the front entrance of The Light from the rear seat of the Town Car.

"That's the only way in?"

Hutch the hulk was still behind the wheel. Davis, a twitchy sort who'd been watching The Light's granite office building since Jensen had called in an alert, sat in the front passenger seat.

"The only way worth mentioning," Davis said. "The side entrance is a steel door. Unless you want to get into some acetylene action, this is it."

Jensen's head throbbed, especially around the scalp cut. They'd never caught up to Grant and Mr. Whoever, so when they got back to the city Jensen called a Dormentalist doctor who did work for the Church on the QT—anything for the cause and all that. The doc had said bring him to his office where he'd see what he could do. One look at Lewis's ass—he'd been shot in the thigh too, but the ass wound was really messy—and he said he needed a hospital. He'd try to admit him as a car accident to avoid a gunshot wound report to the police, but couldn't guarantee he'd be successful.

He'd wanted to stitch up Jensen's scalp but Jensen couldn't spare the time. He let the doc butterfly it closed and then he was on his way.

He leaned over between the seats for another quick look at his forehead in the rearview mirror. The three beveled strips of tape gleamed like white neon against his black skin. Didn't anyone make black butterflies? Or at least dark brown?

Why am I thinking about this shit when everything's poised to slide into the crapper?

He needed a way out and needed it bad. If the Blascoe story got out, he'd have to hit the road. The cops—maybe even the feds—would be grilling everybody in the Church, and sure as shit one of them would crack and start pointing a finger at him as the guy responsible for Blascoe's death. Another murder rap would put him away for good. No way he was going back to the joint. Not even for a minute.

Hutch said, "How about just going up to the door and ringing the bell? Get him to open up and speak to you and then you're in."

Davis shook his head. "At two-thirty in the morning? Wouldn't catch me opening that door for anybody I don't know."

Davis had a point. Then Jensen remembered a couple of props he had left over from an investigation they did into a state assemblyman who was making trouble for the Church a few years back.

"What if you two showed up at the door flashing metal?"

"You mean guns?" Hutch said.

Jesus! How thick was this guy?

"No. I'm talking police detective shields."

"That'll get us in. Yeah, that'll do it."

Jensen lowered his voice. "Thing is, you'll have to take out the guard."

Davis turned in his seat. "Take out… as in permanently? Why?"

"Because we can't risk even the tiniest chance of this leading back to the Church. And you know the rules: Grant has been officially declared IS, and that means anyone protecting her is IS too."

"In Season." Hutch shook his head. "We haven't had one of those in a while."

"Well, any IS you've dealt with in the past is nothing compared to this one. Grant and her pal are the biggest threat the Church has ever faced. A lot's riding on you guys tonight. Question is, are you up for it?"

Right off, Hutch said, "Sure."

Good old Hutch. Not so bright, but he'd do anything for the Church.

Davis hesitated, then finally nodded. "To save the Church, I guess I am."

"No guessing, Davis."

A sigh, then, "Give us the badges and we'll get this over with."

He tapped Hutch on the shoulder. "Get us over to the temple." That was where he kept the badges. "And when we get back, I want Grant in one piece. The guard goes, but I need to talk to Grant."

Did he ever. Because one way or another she was going to tell him all about her boyfriend.

5

Jack had promised to cover Jamie until she got inside, but he'd hung on after that when he spotted Jensen's Town Car idling across the street from The Light. If he and his goons made a move on the front door, Jack would have to act. Didn't want that, because it most likely would involve gun play. He didn't know what kind of marksmanship he'd be up against, but even if he got off unscathed, gunshots tended to attract cops.

So he crouched in a shadowed doorway and waited.

After five or ten minutes, the big car shifted into gear and roared off. Jack allowed himself to relax, but not too much. They might be simply driving around the block looking for another way in.

But when thirty minutes had passed and they didn't show, he called it a night. Jamie was safe behind locked doors and an armed guard. Jack didn't see what he could add to that.

6

Jamie lifted her head and looked around. She thought she'd heard a noise. Like maybe the elevator. She went to her door and stared out at the cubicle sea. She waited to see if anyone came through the hallway door. She supposed it would be way too much to expect Henry to stop by with a much-needed cup of coffee, but it didn't hurt to indulge in a little of that stuff that springs eternal.

Nope. Nobody showed. Maybe after she was done with the transcribing situation she'd head downstairs and grab a cup.

She was almost done. She'd typed in only Coop's remarks, leaving out Jack's comments, and hers as well. As soon as she finished she'd e-mail it to her Hotmail account—just in case some Dementedist hacker got into The Light's system and started messing with her files.

After that, the writing would begin. She'd cull out the good passages, the really damning ones, and begin to shape her article around them.

She was nearing the point where the interview stopped and the surgery began when she heard the scrape of a shoe. She looked up in time to see a big man in a wet overcoat hurtling through her doorway. She tried to dodge a black-gloved fist swinging toward her face, but couldn't move fast enough. Pain exploded in her cheek as he connected.

The blow knocked her out of the chair. She sprawled on the floor, dazed, trying to muster a scream through the disorienting haze. As she opened her mouth she felt a sweet-smelling cloth clamped over her lips and nostrils. The fumes burned her eyes.

"We've been trying to get to you all night," said a voice.

Where was Henry?

She held off as long as she could but finally had to take a breath. As soon as the fumes hit her lungs she felt an oddly pleasant lethargy begin to invade her limbs. Her vision fogged but she still could see. And she saw another man, smaller than the first, seating himself at her desk.

She watched him grab her tape recorder and hold it up.

"Got it!" He pocketed it and stared at her monitor. "Now let's see what she's been writing."

"Jensen told you not to read it. If you—"

"Hey, she mentions Cooper Blascoe here. This must be it. The bitch is writing shit about the PD!" He started hitting the keys. "Well, we'll just have to get some deletion action going, won't we."

Jamie felt her consciousness ebbing. The voices started to fade away, echoing down a dark, bottomless canyon.

Had she e-mailed the file to herself as she'd planned? No… hadn't had the chance. Everything she'd done, the whole transcription was right there on the screen. All her work…

Work? screamed a voice in her head. Forget your damn story; these guys are going to kill you!

With panic welling in her, Jamie tried to struggle free but her limbs had become stretched-out rubber bands.

"Okay, that's done," said the one at the desk. "And the program says that's the only thing she's worked on since yesterday." He rose and turned toward Jamie. "Okay, let's bag her up."

Bag…?

Seconds later the cloth was removed from her mouth and nose and fresh air flooded her throat. But only for a heartbeat before a coarse canvas sack closed over her head and down along her body. She felt herself lifted and twisted and jostled into something that seemed like a huge sail bag.

"Don't forget her handbag," the big guy's voice said. "Jensen said to make sure we didn't forget that."

She opened her mouth to scream as she was lifted free of the floor, but her voice hadn't returned. She heard an umph! as she was slung like a sack of wheat over someone's shoulder. Probably the big guy's. And then she was on the move, bouncing along to who knew where. The point of his shoulder jabbed into her stomach with every step.

She tried to scream but again her voice failed her. She heard the elevator doors slide open. A moment later the car lurched into motion—downward motion. Did they think they could carry her out like this right through the lobby? Henry would—

Oh, no. Had they done something to Henry? Please, God, make it so they just tied him up. Please!

As soon as the elevator doors opened she made another try at a scream. This time she managed a faint squeak, like a kettle readying to boil.

No one bothered them as they passed through the lobby and out the front doors. They stopped moving and she was dumped off the shoulder onto a hard surface. From the way it bounced she knew it was a car, but it wasn't upholstered.

Another attempted scream and this time she achieved conversation-level volume, but before she could try a second, a door was slammed down over her and the faint sounds of the city were abruptly shut off.

That sound… not a door. It could only be a trunk lid.

No! They'd locked her in a car trunk!

As the car lurched into motion, Jamie began kicking and screaming, but knew with a despair as black as Luther Brady's soul that no one was going to hear her.

7

"The problem is partially solved."

Luther Brady felt the muscles that had been wound spring tight since Jensen's last call begin to unwind.

"Partially?"

"We have Grant. The former Jason Amurri is still out there."

"Did you get to her in time?"

"I believe so."

"Believe isn't good enough."

"I'll ask her. Then we'll know."

"How will you be sure?"

"She'll tell me."

The finality of that simple statement sent a warm glow of reassurance through Luther.

Jensen added, "What do we do after that?"

Luther had been thinking about that, and had an answer ready.

"We're pouring a column tonight. Bring her there. I'll have the volunteer notified that she'll have to wait till next time."

"You'll be there?"

"Have I ever missed? Ten o'clock. And who knows? Maybe you'll have the other half by then."

Luther hung up and allowed himself a smile. A tiny one. Two in one pillar… an intriguing possibility.

8

Jack had brought Entenmann's crumb donuts to the traditional Friday morning perusal of the latest film reviews before the Isher Sports Shop opened for business. The papers were spread on the counter, collecting the crumbs, but only briefly: Parabellum was on clean-up duty, and he was devoted to the task.

Jack had checked in with Gia earlier. She'd said she was doing fine but he sensed something forced in her tone. He planned to stop in later.

He was halfway through a review of the latest Robert Rodriguez film when Abe spoke around a mouthful of Entenmann's.

"Nu? Haven't you been talking to someone at The Light lately? What do you think about that murder there last night?"

Jack almost choked as his throat clenched.

"What? There's nothing in the paper about—"

"Happened too late for the paper. It's all over the radio this morning. Don't you listen?"

Aw, no. A shattering rush of guilt paralyzed him. He hadn't been persuasive enough. He hadn't watched The Light long enough. He'd failed her.

Jack didn't want to hear the answer but had to ask: "Did they say anything about how she was killed?"

"She? No, a he. The guard at the front desk. Shot in the head. I hear the police suspect an inside job because there was no sign of a break-in or a struggle. Probably someone he knew."

Jack's burst of relief was short-lived. That poor unsuspecting guard's death—Jamie had called him Henry—had to be related to what they'd learned last night.

Jack yanked his phone from his pocket and called information for The Light's number. A few seconds later the switchboard was putting him through to her extension.

But a man answered, his voice gruff, sounding annoyed. "Yeah?"

"Jamie Grant, please."

"Who's calling?"

"A friend. Is she there?"

"Not at the moment. Give me your name and number and I'll tell her you called."

Jack cut the call. If that wasn't a cop, he'd eat a pair of Abe's roller blades for lunch.

This was looking very bad.

He checked his voice mail—he'd given her one of his newer numbers because the one on the Robertson card was purposefully obsolete—but no message from Jamie. He couldn't imagine her being stupid enough to go home, but he called her apartment anyway. Her answering machine picked up on the second ring.

He left a cryptic message: "Jamie, this is Robertson. Call me at that number I gave you."

No sense in leaving Jensen even the faintest of trails.

He gave Abe a quick rundown on what had been going on.

"You think this Jensen's got her?"

Jack shrugged. "The only other possibility is that they botched an attempt to grab her and she's gone to ground. But I'd think she'd have called the police then."

"How do you know she didn't? Maybe that coplike person answering her phone is there because she's under protection."

"Since when are you such an optimist?"

"What—I should play Eeyore my whole life?"

Jamie with the police… a possibility, but somehow…

"I have to operate on the assumption they've got her."

"Got her where? I can't imagine they'd risk taking her back to the temple."

"No, she's someplace else. I'm sure they're not stashing her back at the cabin, so… where?" He looked around. "Got any hats?"

"Hats I've got tons of. What do you want?"

"Something big. The bigger the better."

9

Gia checked her pad for the third time this morning. Still no blood.

See? Nothing to worry about. Dr. Eagleton had been right.

Relieved, she stepped out of the bathroom and just missed colliding with Vicky who tended to go wherever she was going at a dead run.

"Mom! Can Jessica come over?"

Jessica had been one of the princesses on Halloween. Good kid and not at all high maintenance. But Gia didn't feel up to overseeing two ten-year-olds.

"I'm still feeling kind of pooped, Vicky." Four days since the Big Bleed. She'd have thought she'd be bouncing back by now. "But you can go over there if you like."

Vicky grinned. "I'll call her!" She ran for the phone.

Gia would take advantage of the free time by keeping her feet up and taking it easy. One more day. If nothing else bad happened, she'd get back to a more normal routine tomorrow. Much more of this forced inactivity and she'd be ready for the loony bin.

Jack was stopping by later this morning. It would be good to slip a movie in the disk player and hang out, just the two of them.

The phone rang. It was Jack.

"Hi, hon. Look, I'm going to have to put off my visit."

She hid her disappointment.

"Something come up?"

"Yeah. Sort of."

Something in his tone…

"Anything wrong?"

"Not sure. Talk to you about it later, okay?"

"Okay. Keep in touch."

She hung up and wondered what he was up to.

10

Jack slouched in the back of a taxi heading west along Jamie's street. He wore sunglasses and an oversized khaki boonie cap pulled low on his head. As the cab approached her apartment house he scanned the parked cars and found one occupied by two men. Their eyes were locked on Jamie's door.

This could be a good sign. If they were watching for Jamie it could only mean they didn't have her and were still after her.

But then he thought of another reason for the ongoing surveillance. What if they weren't watching for Jamie… what if they were watching for him?

11

Jamie squinted in the sudden glare as the trunk lid popped open. Not that the light was all that bright—just an overhead incandescent—but after all those hours in total darkness, it looked like a supernova.

Her joints creaked in protest as she struggled to her knees. Her bladder was screaming for release. She'd wormed her way out of the canvas bag as they drove her around for what seemed like half a day. The car had stopped and started twice during the journey, but hadn't budged for hours now. If the purpose of all that had been to break down her resistance with prolonged terror, they'd succeeded. In spades.

She began to cry. She hated to let anyone see her like this but she couldn't help it. She'd never been so frightened in her entire life.

She tried to blink her surroundings into focus. Light filtered through a couple of dirty windows in a folding metal door. She seemed to be in a small garage. But in what state? She felt so disoriented.

"There, there," said a deep voice. "No need to be upset."

It came from her left. She looked up and cowered back from the blurred image of a huge black man in jeans and a black T-shirt. She didn't need the extra blinks that brought him into focus to identify him.

Jensen.

She opened her mouth, then closed it. She'd been about to ask why he'd kidnapped her and brought her here—wherever here was—but she knew the answers. She had a far more pressing concern.

The words clung to her throat but she forced them through. "You're going to kill me, aren't you."

Jensen laughed like the guy who used to do the "Uncola Nut" commercials. "Don't be silly! You've been watching too many bad movies. We have the tape, we erased your word processing file. If we wanted to kill you, you'd be dead by now."

Jamie glanced around. " 'We'?"

His smile remained fixed. "Just an expression. I'm the only one here."

"Well, know this: I made a copy of that tape." She hated the way her voice quavered.

He smiled. "Oh? And when and where would you have made such a copy? And where did you stash it? In a safety deposit box? Not at that hour. In your desk? No. In your purse? No. In your apartment? No. At—"

"My apartment? How—?"

"When we got your purse we got your keys. Apartment 5-D, right? We know you haven't been home since this morning, but we searched it anyway."

Christ, he'd covered all the bases.

She clenched her trembling hands and decided to go the disarming route and 'fess up.

"All right, you caught me. But I lied because I'm scared."

"No need to be. Just give me the answers to a few questions and you can be on your way."

"You're not going to let me go. I've seen you, and kidnapping is a federal offense."

He laughed again. "Rest assured that I'll have a perfect alibi. I'll simply say it's all something you cooked up to sell more papers. You've already gone public with your rabid hatred of Dormentalism—or 'Dementedism,' as you like to call it—and since you couldn't dig up any real dirt on the Church, you pulled this stunt. Remember Morton Downey when he faked an attack by skinheads? Making that sort of crazy claim will hurt you, not us. You'll be the new Morton Downey. No one will ever believe you again."

Jamie doubted that. Doubted it big time.

"What about Henry?" she said.

Jensen's brow furrowed. "Henry? I don't believe—"

"The night guard at the paper. Was he in on it?"

"Oh, yes. Henry. I didn't know who you meant at first because that's not his real name."

"What?"

"He's a Dormentalist, you know."

"Bullshit. He's been with the paper for years."

"He's been with the Church even longer. Of course, you'll have no way of proving that since our membership rolls are sealed."

Did he really think they could pull this off? She wasn't about to disabuse him of that particular illusion.

For the first time since the trunk lid had slammed closed over her, Jamie Grant saw a glimmer of hope that she might come out of this alive.

And if that was the case…

"Let me out of this trunk. I have to go to the bathroom."

"In a minute."

"I have to go nowT God, she didn't think she could hold it another second. "I mean right now."

"After you've answered a question or two." His smile broadened. "Consider bathroom privileges part of an incentive plan."

When she got out of here, was she ever going to nail their asses to the wall.

She pressed her thighs together and said, "Doesn't look like I have a choice. What do you want to know?"

Jensen's smile faded. "Who is the man you were with at the cabin?"

She could pretend she didn't know who he was talking about, but Jensen would know it was another lie. All she'd accomplish was wasting more time—time she could be spending relieving herself in the bathroom. Bladder spasms or not, though, she didn't want to give up Robertson's name.

Jensen took the choice out of her hands by holding up Robertson's card.

"We found this in your pocketbook. It says that John Robertson is a private detective. When did you hire him?"

Jamie had no problem answering that.

"I didn't. He came to me. He'd been hired to find one of your members who'd gone missing—as a fair number of them seem to do. He read my article and came to me for advice on how to sneak in. He knew I'd been kicked out and didn't want to make the same mistakes."

Jensen stared at the card, nodding slowly. "He didn't." His head snapped up. "How do you know he's John Robertson?"

"I checked out his PI license. It's current."

"True, but Mr. John Robertson is not."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean he's dead. Died of cancer in Duck, North Carolina, three years ago."

Jamie couldn't believe that. "You're lying."

Jensen fished a piece of paper out of his back pocket, unfolded it, and held it out to her. A Xerox of an obit. She caught a flash of a grainy photo of an old guy in a Stetson hat before the paper was snatched away. He looked nothing like the man she'd been working with.

Jensen angrily balled it up and hurled it across the room. She sensed his pent-up fury, felt it radiating from his soul like heat from an oven, and it frightened her.

"But his license—"

"—is current. Yes, I know. But obviously someone else has been renewing it." Jensen snarled as he poked a finger against the card. "The address here is a mail drop. And the phone number belongs to a hair salon." His rage seemed to build with every sentence. "Who is this man? I want to know and I want to know now!"

Jamie couldn't believe it. "His name's not Robertson?"

"No, and it's not Farrell and it's not Amurri either."

What was he talking about?

"Then—?"

He jabbed a thick finger at her. "He must've given you a number."

His blazing eyes frightened her.

Jamie shook her head. "No. He always called me. No, wait. He gave me a cell number. It should be in my purse."

"There is no number in your purse."

Oh, God, had she lost it?

"Then… then…" What could she say? "Wait a minute. I have caller ID on my office phone. It would still be there on the call list. I'm always getting grief for leaving so many numbers in the list."

Pure bullshit, but maybe Jensen would go for it.

His eyes narrowed. "Then you would have seen the number. What was it?"

"I couldn't possibly remember. I get so many calls. I vaguely recall a 212 area code, but that's it. I can check it out for you if—"

Another Uncola Nut laugh. "If I let you go back to your office? I don't think so. Not quite yet. But maybe we can figure out some way for you to find that number from here."

Her bladder shot a quarrel of pain into her lower back.

"All right then, if I'm not going to my office, can I at least go to the bathroom? Now? I can't think straight with my bladder killing me like this."

"Of course." Jensen pointed toward the front end of the car. "It's right through that door."

She raised herself on one knee, slipped an unsteady leg over the trunk lip, past the bumper and down to the floor. When both feet were back on the ground, she straightened slowly, carefully, her back protesting all the way.

She looked around and saw an unfinished, uninsulated garage. To the car's left sat a chair and an old table with a couple of nails driven into its thick, scarred top. A pile of heavy chain sat on the table next to a folded green towel. And just past the front bumper, a closed, unmarked door.

"Is that it?" she said.

He nodded, but as she turned away she felt her shoulders grabbed from behind. She was twisted and shoved into the chair and, before she could react, Jensen was wrapping the chain around her waist and chest.

"What are you doing?

His face was set in grim lines and he didn't answer. She tried to wriggle free but he was too strong for her. Finally, when Jamie couldn't move, Jensen spoke.

"Time to test your memory."

"About what?" Her pounding heart threatened to break through her chest wall. "Not the phone number! I told you—"

"We have 2-1-2 so far. Only seven more to go."

"But I don't know the rest!"

Jensen grabbed her left hand and flattened her palm on the tabletop. He maneuvered her little finger until it was fixed between the two nails.

"What are you going—"

"I hate when things are unbalanced, don't you?"

Jamie sensed where this was going and it doubled her terror.

"No, I—"

"Your right pinkie, for instance. It's so much shorter than the left."

"No." She remembered the pain, the blood when her darling husband had chopped it off. She heard herself sobbing. "Oh, please, please…"

"Perhaps I can overcome my dislike of an unbalanced body by hearing a phone number. A complete phone number. One that will connect me to the man I'm looking for. If not…"

He lifted the towel to reveal a heavy, rust-rimmed meat cleaver.

Jamie's struggling bladder gave up. She felt a warm puddle spread across the seat of the chair.

Jensen picked up the cleaver and hefted it, then raised it over her finger.

"We'll call this an exercise in memory stimulation."

Jamie could barely speak. Her words gushed out in a high-pitched rasp.

"Oh, God, Jensen, please, you've got to believe me! Please! I don't know the number, I swear, I swear, I swear I don't!"

He looked at her. "You know, the sad thing is, I believe you."

And then he swung the cleaver.

12

Gemini (May 21-June 21): You see what you want, and you know what to do to get it—give a fair dose of your winning attention, and then confidently walk away! Being too enthusiastic about a new prospect could scare him or her off or weaken your position.

Richie Cordova's office chair groaned as he leaned back, and screeched when he jerked forward. He'd rested the back of his head against the chair and his sutured scalp had let him know it wasn't too happy with that.

Goddamn, that still hurt.

He resettled his weight and looked over the Gemini reading again. He liked the part that said, You see what you want, and you know what to do to get it. Damn right about that.

Except about whoever had sent him that fucking virus. And who had split open his scalp. He knew what he wanted to do to those guys, but didn't have no way to track them down.

He lifted the paper off the mound of his belly and checked the other side of the astrological cusp.

Cancer (June 22-July 22): A small but satisfying victory is the beginning of a lucky streak. Do what you must to get a good deal—a little financial wrangling won't make you look bad. Tonight, lots of action with you at the center is your idea of a good time.

Well, well, well. This was looking better all the time. He had a good day ahead of him. And why not take advantage of that? He'd been thinking about that nun and how the prospect of hitting a decent payday from her was looking dimmer and dimmer. She was tapped out and wasn't going to get much from that building fund—if anything.

But her boyfriend, Metcalf… why not hit him up for the difference? He owed the nun. Owed her big time.

He told Eddy he was going for a walk and headed for the street.

He traveled away from the park this time, searching for a phone he hadn't used in a while. He'd thought of getting one of those prepaid cell phones, but he'd still have to leave the office. Couldn't risk Eddy overhearing him putting the teat squeeze on one of his cows.

He found a phone in a shady spot. The air was still humid after last night's downpour and Richie had worked up a sweat during the walk. Had to lose some of this weight, get back into shape.

Yeah, right. Mariana.

He tapped in his prepaid calling card numbers, then Metcalf's office number. He wasn't in, so Richie tried his home and caught up to him there.

"You know who this is?" Richie said when Metcalf picked up the phone.

"Unfortunately, yes."

"Good. Then listen up. I—"

Metcalf's voice dropped to a harsh whisper. "No! You listen, scumbag. I'm through playing your game. Do what you want. I'm not paying another cent."

For a few seconds Richie found himself speechless. Had this jerk called him a scumbag?

"I guess you musta forgot about the photos. They'll—"

"I don't care. Let the chips fall where they may. And don't try harassing me with more calls because I'll report you to the police and have them trace your calls. This ends it. I'm leaving town today, taking my family away on a vacation, and putting this whole thing behind me."

Richie couldn't believe what he was hearing. Had Metcalf gone bug-fuck nuts?

He forced a growl to his voice. "Vacation, ay? Well, enjoy it, because married life ain't gonna be so hot when your wife and kids come home and find the neighborhood plastered with bare-assed pictures of you and your little fuck-buddy nun."

"I guess that's just a risk I'll have to take." And then Metcalf laughed—laughed!—and said, "Outfoxed by a nun. Some criminal mastermind you are. Good-bye, loser."

He hung up, leaving Richie staring at the handset in slack-jawed stupefaction.

Had Metcalf said what Richie thought he'd said?

Outfoxed by a nun…

What the hell did that mean?

And then he saw it all. Everything clicked into place. The virus hitting his computer not once but twice… and then the little nun giving him the runaround on payments… and finally Metcalf stiffing him, all but daring him to expose the photos of him and Sister Mary Margaret.

Why? Because he knew the photos were gone!

Outfoxed by a nun…

They'd hired someone to wipe his computer clean and—

Goddamn! It must have been the same guy who mugged him and stole his backup disk! Blindsided from two different directions.

He rammed the handset against the face of the pay phone, slamming it against the switch hook again and again until the receiver end shattered. He dropped it and turned away, ignoring the frightened look from an old woman who shied away as she passed.

Somehow they'd found out who he was. That made twice in the past few months—September and now. Where was he slipping up? The kid in the mail drop? Had he ratted him out? Richie'd look into that later.

He knew neither Metcalf nor the nun had the stones or the know-how to break into his operation. So who'd they hire? Another PI like himself? Richie wanted the name so he could even the score and—

Wait a minute… why was he assuming Metcalf knew who he was? Maybe he didn't know. Metcalf had just warned him he'd have the police trace his calls. Why would he say that if he knew who Richie was? Obviously he didn't.

But the PI they'd hired did. Had to. And who else? Sister Maggie?

Outfoxed by a nun…

Metcalf was giving Sister Maggie the credit. That could mean only one thing: It was the nun who'd found someone to track him down and ruin his operation—and do it in such a way that Richie wouldn't know he'd been sabotaged. Pretty smooth. It had almost worked.

This guy knew who Richie was. Now Richie needed to know who he was. That would level the playing field. Then he could take action. Metcalf probably knew the guy's name, but he was on his way out of town—or so he said. Richie would check on that. But if true, that left the nun. He needed a little face time with her.

What had his Cancer horoscope said?

Tonight, lots of action with you at the center is your idea of a good time.

Oh, yeah. Tonight… if he could work it. If not, tomorrow for sure. Get some answers, and maybe grab a little payback along the way.

No, not a little. She and her boyfriend and whoever they'd hired had screwed up his entire operation. Richie was going to need a lot of payback.

13

Jack was having no luck on the phone today. Repeated calls to Jamie's house and office had left him no wiser as to her well-being or whereabouts.

Same with Maria Roselli. After two calls this morning, and two more this afternoon, all unanswered, Jack had decided to visit Beekman Place in person.

He wore a blue sweater this time, but looked pretty much the same as before. One difference was the small shopping bag he carried. Anya's map was folded within. He'd started thinking of it as Anya's "map," preferring that to Anya's "skin."

A woman with a dog had sent him on a mission into the Dormentalist temple, which housed a replica to the skin map from the back of another woman with a dog.

He'd been told that there would be no more coincidences in his life; but even if he hadn't, he'd have known this was no coincidence. Maria Roselli had more on her agenda than finding her son, and now Jack had to know what. He also wanted to know her connection to Anya.

The only one who could fill in those blanks lived in the brick and granite building he was approaching.

He found the uniformed Esteban in the white marble atrium.

'I'm a little concerned about Mrs. Roselli," Jack told him. "I've been calling her all day and she doesn't answer."

Esteban smiled. "The lady, she's fine. She's been in and out—in fact, she's out now—and probably missed your calls."

"No answering machine?"

Esteban smiled. "Mrs. Roselli doesn't like them. She told me if someone wants to talk to her about anything important, they'll call back."

"Would you ask her to call me when she comes in? The name's Jack and she has my number. It's urgent that I get in touch with her."

"Jack." Esteban nodded. "I will tell her."

Back on the sidewalk, Jack decided if he couldn't speak to the mother, he might as well have a chat with the son. Maybe Oroont could fill in a few blanks.

Oroont… sheesh.

14

Richie Cordova had positioned his car where he could see the front doors of both St. Joe's church and the convent. He had the windows rolled up against a chill breeze and the doors locked against a chance visit by one of the locals. The Lower East Side's slow gentrification hadn't reached this area yet. He'd left the driver's window open an inch or so to vent his cigar smoke.

This afternoon he'd been all revved at the prospect of grabbing Sister Maggie and hauling her off to an old abandoned warehouse he'd scouted in Flushing. But sitting here outside her church had cooled him. Blackmailing a nun was one thing. But staking her out and snatching her if she showed… that would be a big step where anyone was concerned. But a nun…

Must be all those years in Catholic school, he thought.

He wished he was outside Metcalf's place instead. But Metcalf had been telling the truth: He'd skipped town with his family. A call to his office confirmed that he'd be gone for a week.

That left Sister Golden Hair. If she didn't show tonight he'd be back here tomorrow, and the day after that. Sooner or later he was going to catch up to her.

And then he'd treat her to a showing of The Catholic School Kid Strikes Back.

15

Jack had cabbed home and changed into something more suited to the far West Village—black jeans, a faded White Stripes T-shirt, and Doc Martens. He'd finished it off with an oversized black bomber jacket, big enough to hide the Glock in his SOB holster.

He took a couple of trains down to the West Village. There, in the fading light, he stood on a narrow, debris-strewn street across from The Header and kept an eye on Sonny Boy's window as an uneven stream of bikers pulled up and swaggered into the bar.

He gave it ten minutes, letting the light dim more. No sign of life up there, so he crossed over and went to the side door where the apartment dwellers entered and made quick work of the lock with his autopick. On the third floor he found the apartment he assumed to belong to Johnny, and knocked. Picking the lock of an occupied apartment could be, well, embarrassing.

No answer, so he again put the autopick to work and let himself in.

Dark inside. He flicked his flashlight on for seconds at a time. The place seemed neat and clean, but stank from the rare delicacies nuked or fried in the bar kitchen two floors down. He spotted a poster of a robust-looking Cooper Blascoe on one wall and a shelf stacked with Dormentalist tracts on the other.

Okay. This was the place. All he had to do now was wait for Johnny "Oroont" Roselli to show his face.

A partially packed duffel bag sat on the bed. Planning a trip, Johnny?

Maybe half an hour later footsteps in the hallway stopped outside the door. As a key rattled in the lock, Jack stepped behind the door and waited. Johnny flipped on the light as he closed the door behind him. Jack didn't give him time to turn. He grabbed him from behind and took him down.

"Not a sound!" he said into Johnny's ear as he straddled his back. Jeez, his ratty clothes were filthy and he stank. "I'm not here to hurt you, just to talk. Keep it down and we both end up healthy. Start calling for help and one of us winds up hurting. And it won't be me. Got that?"

Johnny nodded, then whispered, "If all you want is to talk, why didn't you just call me on the phone?"

"I did, but you started calling me strange names and hung up."

"That was you?" He started to twist his neck, turning his scraggly-bearded face toward Jack. Jack pushed it back.

"No peeking. You see my face, I'll have to kill you."

Johnny pushed his nose against the floor. "For Noomri's sake, what do you want?"

"I was hired to deliver a message. Here it is: Call your mother."

"What? That's crazy. You were hired? By who?"

"Your mother. She's—"

"That's impossible!"

"She's worried about you and—"

"My mother's dead!"

Jack opened his mouth but closed it after a second or two. He felt his shoulders slump. He should have seen this coming.

The problem now was how to salvage the situation.

"Impossible. I spoke to her just the other day."

"You couldn't have. She's been dead four years."

"Skinny old lady with bad arthritis?"

"Not even close. She was an Old World Italian mama."

"Shit. Perhaps I've made a mistake."

"Perhaps?"

"Well, she told me her son was a Dormentalist."

"Well, at least you got that right. You—hey!"

Jack was digging into Roselli's back pocket. "Just checking some ID. How do I know you're not lying?"

"I'm not. Who are you looking for? Maybe I can help."

"Can't mention names. Professional ethics."

The expired driver's license in the wallet showed a more clean-shaven John A. Roselli.

"Okay. You're not him. My bad. Sorry."

"Can I get up now?"

"No. Remember what I said I'd have to do if you see my face?"

Next to the license was Johnny's temple swipe card. Jack glanced at the clothes-stuffed duffel on the bed. An idea began to take shape.

"I see you're packed for a trip. Skipping town?"

"No. Going camping, if you must know. It's the only place a person in my state of…"

"Ripeness?" Jack said.

"Well, yes. Plus being alone in the wild helps me commune with—oh, never mind. You wouldn't understand."

"You never know."

Jack quickly pulled out his own wallet and extracted his temple entry card. No name on either card, no way to tell one from the other. He looked around and spotted a couple of magnets—with the Dormentalist logo, for Christ sake—on the refrigerator door. He leaned to the side and plucked one off.

"What are you doing?" Roselli said.

"Don't worry, I'm not stealing your money."

He began rubbing the magnet along his card's magnetic strip.

If Jensen was worth a damn as security chief, and Jack believed he was, he'd have either inactivated the Jason Amurri entry code in the computer or tagged it with a detain-on-sight warning. Either way, it was useless for getting Jack into the temple. He hadn't planned on going back, but now with Jamie incommunicado, it might prove necessary.

Which meant he needed a working model.

He slipped his card into Johnny's wallet and pocketed the other, then dropped the wallet on the floor next to Johnny's face.

As much as Jack wanted to move a good six or ten feet away from this smelly clown, he couldn't let him up yet. Also he was curious as to what Roselli had done to deserve being declared a lapser.

Jack made a loud sniffing noise. "You ever hear of soap? Or dry cleaning maybe?"

"Of course. Normally I'm a very clean person."

"Yeah?" What had Jensen called his punishment? Oh, yeah. Solitarian Exile. "So how long are you stuck in SE mode?"

He felt Roselli tense beneath him. "How do you know about that?"

"I know a lapser when I see one. Used to be in the church myself. That's why I was hired to find this missing FA."

"Used to be?"

"Yeah. Got out years ago." He needed to stick to the Dormentalist patois here. He tried to picture the list Jamie had given him. What the hell did they call ex-Dormentalists? "They started saying I had Low Fusion Potential and wanted me to take all these extra courses to raise it. But I couldn't afford it so I went DD on my own before they could kick me out."

Roselli laughed—a single, bitter bark. "That's pretty close to why I'm not allowed to bathe or shave or change my clothes for a month."

"LFP too?"

"No. Because as soon as fall rolled around the Church raised the fees on every course for every step of the FL. I said it was too much, that it would hold too many people back from FF. That was an unpopular position with the FPRB, so I wound up LFA for objecting."

"And you just take it? They say go make yourself dirty and stinky and you do it?"

"I have given myself to the Church and must abide by its decisions."

"Does that also mean you've given up the right to your own opinion? Your pride? Your self-esteem? I once saw this film of thousands of Shiites whipping themselves bloody in the streets of Teheran during Ramadan. If the FPRB told you to do something like that, would you?"

"I… I don't—yes, yes, I would. The work of the Church is far more important than one man's foolish pride."

Jack could only shake his head. True Believers never failed to amaze him.

But on a more practical level, he wondered if Roselli was as rich as his ersatz mother had said.

"Well, seeing how you live, I can see why you'd object to rising prices on the Dormentalist menu."

Roselli tensed again. "Too many creature comforts are distracting and clutter the road to Full Fusion. Money is not a problem for me. I live this way because I choose to."

"Yeah, right."

"I have a decent amount in the bank, enough to support me, but I gave all the rest—a small fortune, if you care to know—to the Church."

"And this is how they thank you?"

"I didn't give it for thanks. I wasn't looking for special treatment. I gave it to further the Church's mission."

Jack wished he could open this turkey's eyes.

"So after they pretty much sucked you dry, they gave you the shaft by raising the fees."

"No, that doesn't affect me. I gave the Church so much that I'll never be charged FL fees, no matter how high they go. It wasn't—isn't myself I'm concerned about, it's the others who aren't so lucky."

"Not so lucky? I'd say their luck will change for the better when they get booted from the church for not being able to come up with the necessary jing to stay in."

"So, that's it. You've become a WA. Lots of DDs do."

"Wall Addict? Out to destroy Dormentalism? Not likely. You have to care about something before you want to destroy it. I don't even think about the church these days."

That would have been true last week, even early yesterday. But after what had happened to Blascoe last night, and with Jamie missing, nothing would please him more than seeing Brady and Jensen and their whole crew brought down. Way down.

But he couldn't let Roselli know that. Blindly loyal Dormentalist that he was, he'd go running to Jensen.

Jack rose to his feet and placed one of his Docs on Roselli's back.

"Don't move."

He reached over to the wall and flicked off the lights. Then he paused, searching for the right parting note as he left this loser in his self-imposed filth.

"Looks like I made a mistake about you. You're not the guy I was looking for. We'll let bygones be bygones, okay. I'll keep looking for the right guy, you keep avoiding soap. And hey… sorry about your mother."

Jack slipped out, closed the door behind him, and hurried down to the street. On his march back to the subway station, he placed another call to the lady who called herself Maria Roselli. Still no answer.

Are you avoiding me, lady? he thought. Hope not. Because I need to talk to you. I mean, we really need to talk.

16

Jack saw no sense in going back to Beekman Place, especially dressed as he was. Even if the mystery lady were home, the doorman wouldn't let him past the front door.

He picked up the late city issue of the Post before getting on the train.

He paged through it on the uptown ride. His heart fell as he came across the piece he'd been looking for but hoping he wouldn't find.

Jamie Grant, reporter for The Light, was missing. Police were speculating whether her disappearance might be related to the murder of the night security guard.

Shit. Jensen had her. No question.

Instead of going home, Jack got off at Columbus Circle.

The first thing he did when he hit street level was dial 911 on his Tracfone. He hated to turn to the cops, but it was time. He was one man and Jamie could be anywhere in the five boroughs, maybe beyond.

"Listen up," he said when the emergency operator picked up. "I just read in the paper where the cops are looking for a missing reporter named Jamie Grant. She was kidnapped by members of the Dormentalist Church for writing exposes about them."

"What is your name, sir, and where can we reach you?"

"Never mind that. Listen: She was kidnapped by a guy named Jensen who's the Dormentalist head of security. Keep an eye on him and you'll find Jamie Grant."

"Sir—"

"Got that? Jensen. Dormentalist Church."

He broke the connection. Maybe they'd write off his call as the ravings of an MDP, maybe not. Jamie had been very publicly at odds with the Dormentalists, so the charge wouldn't sound complete blue sky. Jack hoped they'd focus at least some of their manpower and resources on Jensen and his church.

He walked down to the Avis place on West Fifty-fourth. He'd been using the John L. Tyleski identity for the past few months, and since he was a paid-up Visa Card holder with a current driver's license—courtesy of ID-maestro Ernie—he was allowed to cruise away in his usual rental—a Buick Century.

Jensen and his TP crew would be on the lookout for Jack's Crown Vic. This would give him a different look.

Jamie had said the Dormentalist bigshots kept their cars in a garage around the corner from the temple. Jack found a spot on the street downstream from the exit and parked. He checked his watch. Almost eight. He'd give it four hours, then call it quits.

Could be a long night.

But half an hour later, as he talked on his cell to Gia, he was pleasantly surprised to see a black Mercedes pull out of the garage. As it passed, Jack recognized Brady behind the wheel. Jamie had said he drove himself only on special occasions. Could this special occasion be a meeting with Jamie Grant?

Brady stopped at the red light at the end of the block. Jack waited for it to go green, then pulled out and followed.

17

Fog… the world was fog… all fog…

And pain. A dull pain in her left hand… her left little finger. It throbbed and burned and—

Then Jamie remembered. Jensen. The cleaver. Her finger. The indescribable pain as the blade sliced through skin and bone and tendon and nerve.

Bad as it was, the pain hadn't lasted too long. The sweet-smelling cloth had been jammed against her face again, taking away the world and the pain.

For a while.

Now both were back.

And other sensations… chill air on her skin… bands about her arms and legs and body, tight against her stomach and especially her chest, making it hard to take a deep breath. She opened her mouth for more air and realized she couldn't. Some sort of cloth had been shoved between her teeth and taped into place.

Gagged!

Fighting panic, she forced her gummy lids open and blinked her eyes into focus. Whatever light there was came from above. Images formed slowly. First came the lines, vertical and horizontal, all around her. For a moment she thought she might be dreaming… a nightmare in which she'd fallen into a Mondrian painting. But as the lines became clearer she made out their ribbed surfaces and recognized them as steel reinforcing rods, welded into a heavy-duty lattice.

What was she doing in a steel cage?

And beyond the rods loomed the inner surface of a giant metal tube, maybe twenty feet tall and five in diameter.

She felt a cool draft against her skin and looked down at herself. Shock blasted away the lingering effects of whatever they'd drugged her with.

She was naked.

Oh, God, Jensen or one of his drones must have stripped her while she was out. She wondered if they'd done anything else to her, but she didn't feel as if she'd been…

Her mind froze as she realized she was bound hand, foot, and body to a dozen or more of the reinforcing rods… bound and suspended half a dozen feet off the ground… inside a tube…

Jamie tried to calm herself. This had to be a dream, a very bad one, because it couldn't be real. Things like this didn't happen to people, especially her. It was surreal, had no basis in the real world…

Check out the inner surface of the cylinder, for instance… all those strange looking, sharp-edged, geometric projections running up and down and around. She'd never seen anything like those before.

A dream…

But dream or not, something about the oddly unsettling shapes poured a stream of acid into her already quaking stomach.

What was this? Where was she? And why?

And then a part of her interview with Blascoe tumbled back to her. The part about the pillars Brady was burying all over the world. It seemed like years since she'd typed the words into her computer…

… the concrete's gotta be made with a certain kind of sand, and the columns gotta be inscribed with all sorts of weird symbols…

She'd been tied up and suspended inside one of Brady's columns. But why on Earth would—?

Blascoe's next sentence provided a chilling hint.

… And then they've gotta put something else inside it before they can bury it…

The old man hadn't known what that something else might be, but now Jamie did.

The gag muffled her screams.

18

"Where the hell are we?" Jack muttered as he followed Brady along a dark, twisting road through the Jersey sticks.

Seemed to be a pretty popular back road, which was good. Jack had kept his distance as he'd followed Brady off the Parkway. His Mercedes was now riding behind a battered old pickup and ahead of a Taurus. Jack kept behind the Taurus.

He was pretty certain they were in Ocean County, although they could have been at the lower end of Monmouth. He hadn't seen a sign either way. Not that it mattered. He wasn't too familiar with either.

Not so Brady. He seemed to know where he was going. Not a hint of hesitation in the way he negotiated the hilly curves and turns since the Parkway.

The next turn took Jack by surprise. As the road crested, Brady hung a sharp left and disappeared. Jack slowed as he reached the spot but didn't stop in case Brady was checking for tails. He caught a glimpse of an opening through the trees, a concrete skirt abutting the road's asphalt, and then nothing but open night sky.

He doubted Brady had driven off a cliff, so he continued on for about a quarter mile until he found a spot wide enough for a U-turn, then doubled back. He killed his headlights as he turned onto the skirt and stopped. He faced a wide expanse of starry sky as he sat overlooking some sort of pit, a huge excavation maybe seventy or eighty feet deep, with a cluster of odd-shaped buildings nestled against the near wall. Light glowed through a few windows in one of the taller structures where three or four cars were parked.

Jack backed up and drove downhill to where he'd made the U-turn. He pulled the car off the road and parked it between a couple of pines, then walked back. He hugged the wall of the pit as he made his way down the steep concrete driveway.

At the bottom he came upon a small fleet of cement mixer trucks. Each had printing on the cab doors that he assumed to be the company name. Something about the design above the name drew him to the trucks. He sidled over to one. Keeping its bulk between himself and the buildings, he risked a quick flash of his penlight.

Centered on the door was something that looked like a black sun or black sunflower. Beneath that…

WM. BLAGDEN & SONS, INC.

He'd seen that design and that name before. But where?

And then he remembered: a couple of months ago, in Novaton, Florida, on the cab door of a dump truck.

The driver had said he was hauling sand to New Jersey. Jack had thought it strange at the time—no shortage of sand in Jersey—and had meant to check it out when he got back. But with so much happening in his life these days, he'd never gotten around to it.

And yet here he was, standing in the yard of Blagden & Sons.

A familiar heaviness settled on Jack. This was no coincidence. No more coincidences in his life, and here was further proof.

In September a Blagden & Sons sand-hauling dump truck had been stolen and used to run down his father. And now in November he'd followed Luther Brady here, to the Blagden & Sons factory or mill or whatever a concrete making-mixing place was called.

And the sand? Sand was a major ingredient in concrete, and just twenty-four hours ago the late Cooper Blascoe had spoken about Brady's life project, the one he'd been funneling church funds into, and how it involved burying concrete pillars in specific locations around the globe… in the same pattern as that on the skin from a dead woman's back.

Connect the dots and form a picture. But only part of one. Most of the big picture remained obscured.

Jack knew he wouldn't be part of this particular dot right now if another woman, the one on Beekman Place, hadn't involved him with the Dormentalists.

Manipulated at every turn…

He saw his life becoming less and less his own, and loathed the idea. But despite his growing fury he couldn't seem to do a damn thing about it.

He banked his burning frustration and focused on his mission: Was Jamie Grant here?

Keeping an eye out for any security, Jack stayed in the shadows as he crept closer to the building. No sign of guards. Too bad. He would have liked to get his hands on one of Jensen's TPs and wring Jamie's whereabouts from him.

When he reached the building he recognized Jensen's Town Car next to Brady's Mercedes; the cops obviously hadn't latched onto the GP yet—if they ever would. A big Infinity and a Saab he didn't recognize were also parked before the door. Jensen and Brady here but without a squad of TPs. Not what Jack would have expected.

He found a dirt-caked window around the corner. Using the heel of his hand he cleaned a patch large enough to spy on the interior but too small to be noticed.

His attention was drawn immediately to the metal column braced upright under a chute on the far side of the vaulted space. He spotted a group of people on a walkway ten feet off the floor. Jensen was the easiest to recognize. And here came Luther Brady walking toward them.

If only he could hear what they were saying.

19

Luther nodded and greeted the four High Council members who had come along: Glenn Muti, Marissa Menendez, Dick Cunningham, and of course, Bill Blagden. Why did some of the HC feel they had to be present at every pouring? He still hadn't figured out whether they were motivated by a sense of duty or sheer morbidity.

He pulled Jensen aside and lowered his voice.

"Everything ready?"

The big man nodded and rumbled, "All set."

"What about the man? Any trace of him?"

Jensen's already dark face darkened further. "It's like he's vanished off the face of the Earth."

"Well we both know he didn't do that. He has to be somewhere."

"But to find him I've got to know who he is. He's an onion. Every time I peel away one bogus identity, I find another."

"Please keep it down. I don't want the HC to know about this."

He could sense Jensen's frustration, but it was his rising volume that concerned Luther.

Jensen lowered his voice. "Okay, but who is this guy? It's like he doesn't exist. How can I find a guy who doesn't exist?"

"Stop obsessing. I have a feeling he'll come to us. Are you fully ready for him?"

"Of course."

Jensen opened his coat to reveal his omnipresent .44 Magnum in a shoulder holster. He had the size to carry the big weapon without showing a bulge.

Luther wondered if he should have brought his Beretta. He was licensed to carry and was an excellent shot. But he doubted he'd have to call on that skill. Especially here. Jensen had wanted to bring along a few of his TPs as security, but Luther had vetoed that. The fewer people who knew the final disposition of Jamie Grant, the better.

"Just be patient," Luther told him, "and it will all work out."

"Let's hope so."

Luther flicked a glance at the HC contingent, then at the cylindrical mold. "They don't know who's inside?"

"No. They think it's just another Null."

"And the original Null has been notified?"

Another nod. "She was heartbroken."

"She'll get over it."

"I promised her next time for sure."

The Compendium had been very specific: In order for a pillar to be valid, to be able to move Opus Omega closer to completion, someone had to die within it. A cadaver would not suffice. The person's life had to be extinguished within the pillar.

In the old days the pillars were solid stone that had to be quarried from specific locations—from stone found near nexus points. In those times a chamber would be hollowed out and a living person sealed within it.

Luther had modernized the process. Instead of stone he'd switched to concrete, but made with sand taken from areas close to nexus points. The sand in tonight's mixture had been taken from an Everglades cenote that housed a nexus point; it was particularly rich in Hokano influence.

He'd fashioned a mold of the proper size that would imprint the symbols in the surface of each pillar. All he had to do was fill it with the special mix Bill Blagden whipped up for him on demand and—voilà—a new pillar.

Well, not quite. He needed that final, critical ingredient for each.

When he'd assumed the task of completing Opus Omega, he'd thought to look outside the Church among human flotsam and jetsam for lives to extinguish within the pillars, but that struck him as wrong. He would not sully Opus Omega with worthless lives.

To that end he had created the concept of the Null—the FA whose personal xelton had died. Without a viable PX within, fusion with the Hokano counterpart would be impossible.

Of course, Null status was never identified until the FA had invested a good amount of cash in climbing the FL. Luther made a point of selecting Nulls from the most devoted, most vulnerable—as determined from the interviews conducted after the completion of each rung—most cash-strapped FAs. Invariably they were crushed by the news and devastated by the realization that they would not survive the Great Fusion when this world joined with the Hokano world.

But wait… all was not lost. The Church had found a way to reanimate a dead PX. But Xelton Resurrection would require boundless faith, devotion, and courage. XR was being offered only to a few select Nulls deemed worthy of salvation. The XR process would not only revive their PX, but bestow immediate Fusion. They'd achieve FF status without climbing the FL, and be ready to face the GF with heads held high.

Every Null approached over the years had jumped at the chance.

Jensen was always the bearer of this good news. The chosen Null was not told the specifics of the XR process, just that he or she would be traveling to a secret destination for a special kind of missionary work, and would be absent for an indefinite period.

The members of the religion Luther had invented rarely failed to amaze him. A startling number of the XR Nulls climbed right into the cylinder and allowed themselves to be strapped in as if they were going on an amusement park ride. Not all, of course. The ones who developed cold feet when the moment arrived had to be drugged before they were placed in the mold.

Jamie Grant would have the honor of being the first non-Dormentalist to give up her life for the cause since Luther had taken over the Opus. He didn't want the HC members to know that, though. He didn't want to be bothered with their questions or have them start second-guessing him.

"I suppose it's time," he told Jensen. He nodded toward Bill Blagden, the owner of the plant. "I hope Bill remembered to add the accelerator. It's cold in here."

"All taken care of. He told me he added enough calcium chloride to cut set time by two-thirds."

"Excellent. Let's get it done then. But I want to pull the lever this time."

"Any special reason? You know Bill sees the lever as his duty."

"I know. But this woman insulted the Church in print—called us 'Dementedists,' remember?—and was trying to destroy all that we've worked for. Decades of struggle would be negated if she'd been allowed to go public with what she'd learned. She has been a thorn in my side since she first darkened the temple's doorway. I claim the honor of sending this dangerous WA to her destiny."

Jensen nodded. "I'll tell Bill."

Luther had tried not to take Grant's ravings too personally. He didn't need to pull the lever himself. He could let Blagden have his usual fun. After all, the important thing was knowing that the bitch would never write or utter another critical word about the Church. That should have been enough.

But it wasn't.

20

Jamie heard a noise above as a shadow fell over her. She craned her neck and saw that a large chute had swung over the opening of the cylinder. She screamed through her gag and ducked her head as she saw the thick, wet, gray concrete begin to sluice toward her.

The pasty, lumpy stream missed her by inches, splattering and clattering instead against the cylinder wall before sliding to the floor.

As she watched it begin to collect just a few feet below her and rise like a riptide, she knew she had only seconds to live. A part of her had accepted the inevitable, but another part refused to give up. So she struggled against the ropes that bound her to the reinforcing rods, trying to slip one of the loops, but they'd been expertly tied… by someone who knew what he was doing… someone who'd done it before… and more than once…

Frantic, she looked around. On either side she saw a vertical seam. This cylinder wasn't a single piece, it was two half cylinders bound together. If she could push the side of one of those seams outward, bulge it just a little, maybe the rising concrete would seep through it, and maybe the increasing weight behind would further bulge the cylinder wall, maybe split the seam wider until the cement flowed out rather than up.

She stretched her arms wide, to their limits, straining her weight back and forth against the coils around her torso, inching her fingers toward the seams.

The concrete lapped against her feet, oddly warm, almost comforting.

She pushed harder. Somewhere a knot slipped along one of the reinforcing rods. Not much, but enough to allow her to touch the seams on either side. Her left hand was still exquisitely tender but she pushed through the pain, forcing every fiber of her strength and will into the effort.

The warm cement tide rose to her thighs, her waist.

She moaned behind her gag as the stub of her left pinkie began to spurt blood again. She ignored the agony and pushed hard left and right and—it gave! A small section of the right seam bulged outward, letting in a thin shaft of light.

The concrete was caressing her bare breasts now and moving toward her throat.

Push! Push!

Jamie was still pushing when the lumpy tide swirled to her chin, then engulfed her head, filling her nostrils and sealing her eyes.

21

Not much of interest going on in the plant, at least not that Jack could see. Brady and Jensen had had a little tête-à-tête apart from the rest, then rejoined the other four. A little discussion—more like an argument—and then Brady had stepped over to a wall and pulled a lever. A few seconds later, cement started running down the chute and pouring into the tube.

No, not cement—concrete. A landscaper Jack worked for in his younger days had always corrected him whenever he made the mistake: cement was only part of concrete, the binding compound. When you added sand and gravel to cement, you ended up with concrete.

Looked like there might be a little defect in the tube. Jack spotted a trickle of thick gray fluid leaking through one of the seams, like brains through a bullet hole. But the trickle never graduated to anything more, and soon it stopped.

Still no sign of Jamie Grant.

While all inside were intent on their pillar manufacture, Jack went over to the cars. He flashed his light into each, front and back—empty—then tried the doors. Jensen's Town Car and the Infinity were unlocked. He popped the trunks on those, but no Jamie.

He thumped on the trunks of Brady's Mercedes and the Saab, saying, "Jamie? It's Jack. If you're in there, kick something, make any noise you can."

Not a sound.

Jamie could be inside the plant, but Jack doubted it. The place looked like a going concern. She'd been gone all day and he couldn't see them stashing her here all that time. Too high a risk of someone seeing her and recognizing her. Her face was all over the news.

No, they'd have brought her somewhere else, someplace isolated.

He just hoped they hadn't hurt her.

He headed back up the hill to the road and his car. When the Dormentalists left, he'd follow Jensen this time. If anyone knew where Jamie was, and if anyone was going to lead Jack to her, it was the GP.

He reached his car, then sat in the dark and waited.

SATURDAY

1

"Jack, could you please sit down," Gia said. "You're making me nervous."

"Sorry." Jack forced himself to perch on one of the chairs at her kitchen table.

"Have a donut. You haven't touched one."

When their schedules permitted, Jack liked to stop by Gia's early on a Saturday or Sunday with a box of donuts.

He picked up a brown-sugar cruller, crispy on the outside, soft and white within, and nibbled. He wasn't hungry.

"You're looking good this morning, mama," he told Gia.

And she was. Her color was better and she seemed to have more energy.

She smiled. "Thanks. I'm feeling better. I run out of gas sooner than usual, but I should do better as my blood count gets back to normal."

He heard Vicky laugh and looked up. She sat on the far side of the table, reading a book Jack had bought her last month. The sugared creme donut she'd just finished—her favorite—had left her with a snowy mustache. Appropriately she was reading, for the umpteenth time, Ogden Nash's The Tale of Custard the Dragon.

"What's so funny, Vicks?"

"Listen," Vicky said, grinning at him. " 'Meowch!' cried Ink, and 'Ooh!' cried Belinda, for there was a pirate, climbing in the winda.'" She laughed again. "Winda! I love that part!"

Vicky loved wordplay, which was why Nash was perfect for her.

"I'll get you the sequel. Something about Custard and a Wicked Knight."

"Another Custard book? When are you getting it?"

"Soon as I can find a copy."

As Vicky went back to reading, Jack looked up and found Gia staring at him.

"She's on your mind, isn't she." She spoke in a low tone with a glance across the table. "And I don't mean Miss Big Ears."

Jack had told her about Jamie Grant.

"Yeah. Not only do I not have a clue where she is, I don't even know if she's still, um, with us." He pounded a fist on his knee. "I shouldn't have let her go back to her office."

"And just how were you going to stop her? She's a grown woman who's got a right to make her own decisions. You of all people—"

"I know, I know. It's just… I can't help it, I feel… responsible."

Jack knew he shouldn't. What could he have done? Abducted her and tied her up in his trunk?—which was probably just what Jensen had done. But if he had done it first she'd be safe right now.

Gia was staring at him. "I thought we agreed that you were going to avoid rough stuff."

"This started off as a missing person thing and I—"

"Missing?" Vicky said. "Who's missing?"

"It's okay," Jack said. "No one you know. And he's been found."

"Oh, good." She went back to her book.

"But the problem," Gia said, speaking barely above a whisper, "is that you've traded one missing person for another. And she may be more than missing, she may be… like that poor security guard at the paper. This is not what I call avoiding rough stuff."

"Wasn't supposed to be like this." He sighed. "At least that blackmail fix-it's over with. No rough stuff there."

Clocking a mook over the head with a hot plate didn't really fit Jack's definition of no rough stuff, but he decided not to mention it.

He stifled a yawn. He hadn't gotten much sleep last night. Following Jensen had turned out to be a waste of time. He'd looked for a chance to get in the GP's face—like maybe at a rest stop—and pull a little carjack action. Force Jensen to drive him to Jamie.

But the opportunity had never presented itself. Jensen drove nonstop to a garage on East Eighty-seventh, disappeared inside. He reappeared a few minutes later and entered the apartment building next door.

Home? Probably. Holding Jamie there? No way.

So he'd driven over to the West Side where he spotted the Dormentalist surveillance team still on the job.

Again the question: Watching for her or him?

"Where is she?" he said, thinking aloud.

Gia sipped her tea. "Kind of hard for me to speculate about someone I've never met, but from what you've told me about her, she doesn't sound like a person who'd slink away in silence."

"You've got that right. Even if she was hiding in some kind of foxhole, she'd still be sending dispatches from the front." He balled a fist. "They've got her, damn it. They've got her and I don't know where."

Gia covered his fist with her hand. "You've done all you can. The police are on it, and you pointed them in the right direction. It's out of your hands."

"I suppose it is." Easier to say than accept. "But I've got a bad feeling that this story is not headed for a happy ending."

Gia gave his fist a squeeze but said nothing.

"And on the subject of missing women," Jack said, digging his Tracfone out of his pocket, "I still haven't been able to touch base with the lady who got me involved in this mess in the first place."

He punched in the number for Maria Roselli—the only name he had for her—and listened to her phone ring and ring.

"Still not answering." He stabbed the END button. "I'm going to take a quick walk down to Beekman." A ten-block trip; wouldn't take him long. "She may be there and just not answering."

Jack had told Gia that he'd been hired by a mother to locate her Dormentalist son. It had always been his practice never to mention names, even to her. Gia understood that. He'd felt free to discuss Jamie Grant with her, though, because she hadn't hired him.

But names weren't all he kept from Gia. He never mentioned details that he knew might upset her. Like the flap of Anya's skin, for instance. That was a little too gruesome to share.

He had it folded in the pocket of his jacket now. If he got to see the lady known as Maria Roselli, maybe it would shock her into answering a few questions.

"Be back soon."

"Be careful."

"I was born careful."

Gia rolled her eyes but couldn't hide the hint of a smile. "Oh, puh-lease!"

2

Esteban shook his head. "She's out shopping."

"You're sure?" Jack said.

The two of them stood in the white marble lobby that was becoming familiar to Jack. Too familiar.

"Put her in the cab myself. Mrs. Roselli goes shopping every Saturday morning. She and Benno."

"She takes that big dog shopping?"

Esteban smiled. "Benno goes wherever Mrs. Roselli goes."

"And you gave her my message—about calling me?"

"Of course." He looked offended. "I not only told her, I wrote it down and handed her the note."

"Okay, well do it again. And this time tell her I have something she needs to see."

Esteban nodded. "Something she needs to see… I'll tell her."

Jack stepped onto the sidewalk and started walking back uptown. Frustration burned like a furnace in his belly.

Nothing was happening. Nothing.

Maybe he should just go with it for now. Kick back and hang with Gia and Vicks for the day and wait for something to break. But he knew he'd be lousy company, his attention constantly wandering elsewhere.

He had to do something.

Maybe go for a ride. To Jersey, perhaps. To a cement plant where they poured concrete into a strange mold.

It was a Saturday in mid-fall. The place might not even be open.

All the better.

He sighed. Probably a waste of time. Certainly nowhere near the fun of making fatso Cordova's life miserable. Jack almost wished he hadn't finished the blackmail fix so quickly.

3

"Sister Maggie?"

"No, this is Sister Agnes. Sister Margaret Mary isn't available at the moment. Can I help you?"

"Oh, hi, Sister. This is Maggie's cousin. I was just calling about Uncle Mike."

"Not bad news, I hope."

"Well, it isn't good. Do you know when she'll be back?"

"She's working in the soup kitchen in the basement of the church. She'll be there until after the midday meal. I can give you the number if you want to call over there."

"No, no, that's okay. Don't even tell her I called. You know how she is. She'll just worry. I'll catch her later."

Richie Cordova hung up the phone.

"Yessiree," he said. "Catch her later."

4

Jack parked his rented Buick in the same spot as last night, identifiable by the crushed brush and weeds between the two trees. A good spot in the dark but kind of obvious in daylight.

Yeah, well, so what? He'd looked around and hadn't found anyplace better, so this would have to do. Frustration on the Jamie Grant front had made him edgy and grumpy and a little reckless.

The afternoon sun was fading behind a blanket of low clouds as Jack reached the lip of the Wm. Blagden & Sons driveway. He looked down on the plant and its sandy, barren grounds, virtually devoid of vegetation beyond patches of scrub brush and clusters of the ubiquitous and fearless ailanthus.

The place looked more deserted than last night. Not a car in sight. Apparently Blagden & Sons took weekends off—at least this particular weekend.

Figuring the less time out in the open the better, Jack broke into a trot down the steep slope of the entry drive, slowing to a walk when he reached the fleet of silent trucks. He wound through them cautiously. Just because the place looked deserted didn't mean it was.

He made his way to the tall building and found his window with its clean corner of glass. He peeked through. Light filtering through dusty skylights lit an interior much changed since last night. The tall metal cylinder was gone, replaced by a winch-equipped flatbed truck. A large concrete pillar, etched with the angular symbols he'd seen on the cylinder, lay on the truck's bed. Chains and straps locked it down.

This is what they'd been pouring last night. Here was one of the columns Luther Brady was burying all over the world. Was he nuts? It was a hunk of doodad-decorated concrete.

Jack knew there had to be more to it. Brady had to think it was part of some grand plan, a means to some momentous end, else why go to the trouble and expense of building that illuminated globe in a closed-off alcove?

Jack needed a closer look at those symbols.

He rounded the corner to the door where the cars had been parked last night: locked. He'd left his kit of B-and-E tools in the trunk of the rental. He could run up and get them, but hated wasting the time.

Out of curiosity, he stepped around the next corner to a pair of truck-sized double doors and found them unlocked. A thick chain and heavy-duty padlock lay in a bucket to the right.

Jack slipped between the doors and stood in the high, open space, listening. Silence. On guard, he approached the truck and its cargo.

As he stood beside the bed and looked up at the column, studying the symbols, he wished he'd planned this better. He should have brought a camera to photograph the thing. Someone at Columbia or NYU might be able to translate the symbols. He thought again about going back to the car, this time to hunt up a 7-Eleven or drugstore that sold those dinky little disposable cameras. Pick one up and bring it back here and…

His scanning gaze passed and then darted back to a small brownish area that bulged amid the unbroken gray of the rest of the column. Enough out of place to pique Jack's curiosity.

He moved to his left until he was directly opposite it. He leaned on the bed of the truck for a closer look. Reddish brown… almost like…

A chill like cold, wet concrete sludged down Jack's spine.

He levered himself up to the truck bed where he went down onto one knee for a closer look. It did look like blood. If this was part of the design, it was the only one like it that Jack could see.

He pulled out his Spyderco Endura and flipped out the blade. After a quick glance around—still no one coming—he began chipping at the concrete. It took only a few short quick jabs to loosen a dime-sized flake. As it dropped to the bed Jack touched the newly exposed gray surface.

It gave—just a little. It was soft, firm, definitely not concrete. This was flesh. This was someone's hand.

His intestines wound themselves into a Gordian knot as he chipped away more of the thin concrete overlaying the knuckles, revealing more gray flesh. The thumb, the index—this was a left hand—then the middle finger, then the ring, then…

The pinkie was a stub… a bloody stub.

Jack dropped his other knee to the bed and sagged.

"Oh, shit," he whispered. "Oh, goddamn."

Unlike Jamie's, this one had been recently amputated. And Jamie's shorty had been on her right—

Christ!

Jack crawled over the column and checked the opposite side. There he found a symbol that looked out of place. All the others had been molded into the surface, this one bulged. He began chipping away…

… another hand… and this one with a short pinkie as well… an old amputation.

Jamie Grant… they'd killed her, drowned her in concrete last night… and Christ, he'd stood outside and watched the whole thing. That little leak he'd noticed along the seam… had that been Jamie trying to break out? Had she worked her fingers to the edge before her air ran out?

Jack felt a pressure build in his chest. He pounded his fist against the pillar's cold rough surface below the hand.

He'd failed her.

If only he'd known. Maybe he could have saved her… or at least tried. Maybe…

The sound of a car engine outside stopped the growing string of maybes and pulled Jack to his feet. He looked around at one of the windows and spotted a car pulling up. He jumped down from the truck bed and hid himself behind an array of metal drums stacked against the wall.

The frustration at being unable to locate Jamie was gone, overwhelmed by a black rage that pounded against the inside of his skull. He hoped, prayed this was Brady or Jensen—or, better yet, both. He could hear his molars grinding. He wanted to hurt someone connected to the Dormentalist Church. And the higher up, the harder the hurt. Give him the right guy and he might not be able to stop once he got started. Might hurt them to death. Which wasn't so bad. Certain people had it coming.

As he peeked between a pair of drums he saw two men push open the big doors at the opposite end. It wasn't Brady or Jensen, or any of the other four he'd seen up on the catwalk last night.

Shit.

These two didn't look like Dormentalists of any stripe. In fact, Jack thought he recognized the one on the right, the guy wearing the cowboy hat.

Then he remembered. The cowboy was the big-gutted driver of the sand hauler that had damn near killed his father down in Florida. He hadn't been behind the wheel when that happened; his job had been to drive a load of Otherness-tainted sand from the Everglades nexus point to this plant… sand that Jack was sure had been used to make the concrete that entombed Jamie.

Jack reached back and removed the Glock from his SOB holster.

Only two of them. He could take them, even if they were armed. But were they the only ones here? Could be a couple more outside.

He decided to wait and see.

Turned out to be a short wait. The two guys climbed into the truck cab, started her up, and pulled the truck outside. One jumped out to close the doors, and then they were driving away.

Jack eased back outside. The Suburban they'd pulled up in was empty. Just two of them.

He waited until the truck rumbled up to the road and disappeared, then he headed for his car at an easy trot. No need to rush. That big rig couldn't move fast on these winding back roads, and it sure as hell wouldn't be hard to spot.

Jack wanted to see where they intended to inter Jamie Grant. And then they were going to have to answer some tough questions.

5

"Body of Christ," Sister Maggie said as she took the host from the gold-lined pyx and, holding it between her right thumb and forefinger, raised it before Amelia Elkins's wrinkled face.

Amelia responded with a hoarse Amen and opened her mouth.

Maggie placed the wafer of bread on her tongue, and then they said a prayer of thanksgiving together, Amelia in her wheelchair, Maggie kneeling beside it.

Genny Duncan, the Eucharistic Minister who usually brought Holy Communion to the parish's shut-ins, was ill today, so Maggie had offered to take over for her. She was tired after the long day of working over the ovens and steaming kettles in the Loaves and Fishes, but that didn't mean these poor homebound souls should be denied their weekly communion.

When they finished the prayer, Amelia grabbed Maggie's hand as she rose.

"Can I fix you some tea, sister? I have some brownies my daughter dropped off. We could—"

Maggie patted her hand and smiled. "I wish I could stay, Amelia, really I do, but I have another stop to make."

"Oh. Yes, of course. I'm not the only one who needs communion, I suppose. I was just hoping…"

Poor thing, Maggie thought as she replaced the cover on the pyx. So lonely.

"Tell you what I can do, though," she said. "I can stop by tomorrow around midday and we can have lunch together. I'll bring—"

"Sunday lunch!" Amelia said, beaming. "And you won't bring a thing. I'll fix us some nice sandwiches. Do you like tuna fish salad?"

Maggie wasn't fond of anything made with mayonnaise, but she put on a brave face. "I'll bet you make a delicious one."

"I do. These old legs may be unreliable, but I can still whip up a mean salad. What time can you be here?"

"How does one o'clock sound?"

"One o'clock it is!" She looked years younger. "I'll have everything ready when you arrive."

A few minutes later Maggie was hurrying down the rickety stairway from Amelia's third-floor apartment, wondering if she might be spreading herself too thin. She had such trouble saying no to people in need.

She stepped out onto the sidewalk and looked around. The light faded so early these days. She checked her watch. Just five o'clock and already the sun was down.

Well, only one more stop to go. She checked her list. Mr. Whitcolm lived just a few blocks away. Wonderful. She'd be back at the convent in time to set the dinner table.

She took two steps toward Fourth Street, then stopped.

"Thank you, Lord," she whispered. "Thank you for this second chance to do Your will, and to help those who can't help themselves."

As she started walking again a car pulled into the curb beside her. She angled closer to the buildings. The neighborhood was a lot safer than it used to be, but still had more than its share of drug dealers and other unsavory types.

"Miss?" said a man's voice.

Maggie slowed but didn't stop. She saw only one person in the car. A very large man, taking up most of the front seat as he leaned across from the driver's side. His features were indistinguishable in the waning light, his face little more than a pale moon floating just inside the front passenger window, but she was sure she didn't know him.

"I'm lost. Can you help me?"

The car wasn't flashy like the ones the drug dealers drove, and not a rattletrap like some of their customers'. Just a normal, everyday, respectable-looking Jeep. A family car.

Still, you had to be careful.

"I've been driving in circles down here," he said, a plaintive note in his voice. "All I need is someone to point me in the right direction."

She'd had to say no to Amelia. The least she could do was help out this lost man. She stepped closer to the car.

"Where do you want to go?"

"One of the housing projects."

"Which one? Jacob Riis? Lillian Wald? There's more than one down here."

"I'm not sure. My wife wrote it down for me but she has terrible penmanship." He thrust his arm out the window. A slip of paper fluttered in this hand. "Can you make sense of this chicken scratch?"

Keeping her distance from the car, Maggie pulled the slip from his fingers and squinted at it in the twilight. He hadn't been exaggerating about the penmanship. It was terrible. Obviously his wife hadn't attended Catholic school. She thought she could make out an uppercase M and T on two adjacent words.

"It might be Masaryk Towers."

"That sounds right. Where are they?"

"Farther downtown. Are you sure…?"

"Something wrong?"

She'd never been inside the Masaryk Towers but had heard them referred to as a "vertical ghetto." It did not seem the kind of place a middle-class white man would want to go.

"Well, it has a rough reputation."

"Really? Maybe I'll just drive by. If it looks too rough I'll just keep on going and come back during the day."

"That might be a good idea." She pointed east. "Go up here, make a right on Avenue C, and take it down to East Houston. You can't miss it."

"Thank you very much. Are you going that way? The least I can do is give you a lift."

Yes, Maggie was going that way, but no, she didn't want to get into this stranger's car.

"That's very kind of you, but I have just a little ways to go and I need the exercise."

"Okay," he said. "I thought it only fair to offer." He held his hand out the window, not quite as far as last time. "Thanks for your help. I just need that address back."

"Oh, of course."

She'd forgotten that she still had it. She stepped closer, holding it out.

But instead of taking the paper, the man grabbed her wrist. As he yanked her forward, his other hand darted from the window and grabbed a fistful of her hair. Her scalp burned and she cried out in pain and terror. He pulled her arm and head through the window and into the car. Maggie screamed and then something hard and heavy slammed against the back of her head. Her vision blurred. She opened her mouth for another scream but then something hit her again, harder this time. Twilight became night.

6

Traffic had been awful. Everything seemed to be under construction. Three-and-a-half hours since leaving Jersey and rolling onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and they were only in the Reading area. Where in hell were these guys going?

Jack saw the truck's turn signal begin to flash and he followed it into a rest area. About time. He needed to make a pit stop and get some gas. But first…

He watched the driver and his buddy get out of their truck and head for the restaurant area. They locked the cab doors but left the big diesel engine running. Jack hurried around to his trunk and pulled the slim jim from his duffel bag of tools. Then he made his way to the passenger side. The truck cab was old and beat up. Probably didn't have a working alarm system, but you never knew.

Jack stepped up on the running board and looked around. The lot was mostly empty and quiet except for the rumble of traffic. Turnpike rest stops did not seem a popular Saturday night destination.

He slipped the slim jim down between the window and the door panel, moved it around in a circular motion until it caught. Jack took a breath, then pulled up. The lock knob on the other side of the window popped up.

No alarm. But now the real test: He removed the slim jim and opened the door. The courtesy lights came on, but again, no alarm.

Great.

He leaned inside and pawed through the papers piled at the center of the bench. Mostly toll receipts and maps. He picked up a Pennsylvania map and noticed that someone had crisscrossed it with red lines. A place where three of those lines intersected, out past Harrisburg and Camp Hill, was circled. A piece of plain white paper was clipped to an upper corner of the map. Jack scanned the typewritten note and realized it was a set of directions from the Turnpike to "the farm."

He wondered how much these two drivers knew. Were they just doing a job, just making a delivery? Or did they know what lay inside that hunk of concrete? Their lack of furtiveness led Jack to suspect they knew nothing, but the only way to be sure was to ask.

He refolded the map and slipped out of the cab, relocking the door as he went.

Still a fair number of miles ahead of them. Jack would definitely need a full gas tank. He'd also need a little food and drink before he set out again.

Looked like it was going to be a long night. He wanted to see this "farm" and find out what they planned for Jamie's remains.

And then he'd get answers to his questions.

7

Richie Cordova looked down at Sister Maggie where she sat tied to a nice, sturdy oak chair, looked into her eyes and saw the fear and confusion there.

He reveled in the moment. Hard to believe that less than an hour ago he'd been terrified, ready to call the whole thing off.

All well and good to work up a plan to snatch a nun off the street, but getting down to the job of doing it… that's a whole other story. He'd smeared mud on his plates so no one could report the number, he'd had the sap ready, he'd juiced himself with fury, but when he'd spotted her walking and pulled into that curb… man, he'd switched from being pissed to almost pissing his pants.

But he'd made himself do it. It was pretty dark, no one around with a clear line of sight—now or never. And he had to do it right. If he blew it, he'd never get another chance.

He'd pulled it off, clubbing her unconscious and then speeding away with her slumped and huddled on the passenger side floor. But even then he hadn't been able to relax. What if someone had seen? What if some nosy old bitch had been watching out her window and reported it? Not that it was likely or would even matter. He was driving a nondescript Jeep—had to be a million of them in the city—with unreadable plates.

Still… you never could tell. Driving along he'd spent so much time looking into the rearview mirror he almost ran down a pedestrian.

But no one gave him a second look on his way to this urban wasteland west of Northern Boulevard in Flushing. And now he was here, hidden away in a rundown warehouse he'd sniffed out yesterday, where no one would interrupt him.

And now that he had her here, securely trussed up like a prelibato salami, his fear was gone, evaporated, replaced by a strange elation. He'd always got a kick out of how the blackmail game let him call the shots and generally mess up people's lives. But that had always been a long-distance involvement, with contact limited to phone calls and mail.

But this… he'd never experienced anything like this. Sister Margaret Mary was his to do with as he pleased. He wasn't just pulling her strings, he owned her.