TULLY’S leg hurt like hell. Most of the flames were out. He sat a safe distance away, but the heat actually felt good. Someone had thrown a blanket around his shoulders. He didn’t remember it happening. He also didn’t remember that it was raining until he discovered his hair plastered to his forehead. Somehow Alvando had managed to get the ambulance past the electronic gate and all the way to the burning house.

“Your ride is here.” O’Dell appeared from behind him.

“Let them take the McGowan woman first. I can wait.”

“Are you sure? They might be able to fit both of you.”

He looked past O’Dell to examine Tess McGowan himself. She was sitting in one of the SWAT team’s trucks. From what he could see of her, she looked to be in bad shape. Her hair was tangled and wild. Her body, now wrapped in a blanket, had been covered with bloody cuts and bruises. She could barely stand. Alvando’s men had found her locked in a shack not far from the house. She had been shackled to a cot, gagged and naked. She had told them that the madman had left only seconds before they found her.

“I’m not bleeding anymore,” Tully said. “Get her out of here and into a nice warm bed. Besides,” he added, “I want to be here when they bring them out.”

The men had found a fire hydrant, probably a leftover from when the property had been occupied by the government. They were dousing the house with thick streams of water. Firefighters had stomped their way to the scene about an hour ago, but only after their truck had gotten stuck in the mud about a mile from the entrance. Now they ventured into the burned-out hull of the house as though on a mission. They had discovered two dead and burned bodies in the basement.

Tully rubbed the soot from his face and eyes. O’Dell sat down on the ground next to him. She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs.

“We don’t know for sure that it’s them,” she said without looking at him.

“No, but who else would it be?”

“Stucky doesn’t seem like the suicidal type.”

“He may have thought the bunker was fireproof.”

“I never thought of that.” She looked almost convinced. Almost.

The firefighters came out of the wreckage, hauling a body on a gurney. It was draped with a black canvas. Two more followed with another. O’Dell sat up straight. Tully thought she was holding her breath as she watched. The second gurney approached the FBI’s truck, when suddenly the dead man’s arm slipped out, clothed in what looked like a leather jacket. He felt O’Dell stiffen. Then finally, he heard her breathe a deep sigh of relief.