Sparks was silent for a moment. “Well, I don’t know what the hell to do,” he said with a sigh. “All I do know is that the Army and the FBI are waiting outside my office right now. And they really want to talk to you.” {

Stafford did not reply to that. , i “Dave?” ;

“Yeah, Ray?”

“You’re not giving me much of a choice here. I’m getting a ton of heat on this. You don’t come in, I’m going to have to tell them what I know.

If they have to go up there, they’ll take a crowd and they’ll probably act like some serious assholes.”

The sheriff leaned forward in his chair. “Mr. Sparks? This is John Lee Warren. Sheriff of Longstreet County. We don’t take kindly to serious assholes up here in the hill country, Mr. Sparks. Don’t much care who they are.”

“Well, Sheriff, on behalf of the government, let me j apologize all to hell in advance. But these aren’t my people, and I think they’re used to going wherever the hell they want to. They want to go up to Graniteville, they’ll just do it.”

“I’m not doubtin’ they can come to Graniteville, Mr. Sparks. It’s just the leavin’ in one piece that can get I tough.”

‘ Tm not sure they’re gonna worry too much about that, Sheriff. This general who’s out in my anteroom right now? He looks like a real go-ahead kind of guy, you know what I mean? And he’ll have the Bureau with him. You don’t want to play hardball with the Bureau. They want to come to that school and see some people, they’ll probably just ‘ do it, Sheriff.”

This brought the sheriff straight up in his chair, glaring down at the portable as if he was about to mash it. “Mr. Sparks,” he said slowly and distinctly, “been lots of nosy folks come up here to these hills over the years, some of ‘em federal. You tell your federal friends there, they come’ ugly, pokin’ their nose where they don’t even belong, harassing people, frightening people, they gonna get run over by a gravel truck, after which we’ll chop their arrogant heads off and throw ‘em in a wolf pit up on the Carolina border, you hear me, mister? You can tell ‘em I said that.”

Stafford leaned forward to break the connection. “I’ll guess I’ll have to get back to you, Ray. Tell those guys to concentrate on finding Carson. He’s got what they want, not me. I have no idea where Carson is or what he’s going to do, and I am now formally out of the game.”

Stafford broke the connection before Sparks could reply.

” ‘Wolf pit’?” he said, eyeing the sheriff.

The sheriff shrugged, the barest hint of a smile on his face. “Gives the tourists something to talk about when they get home. They need to hear bullshit like that; otherwise, all they remember is the poverty and the unemployment. Think of it as mountain lore.”

Stafford grinned. “Wolf pit. I love it. And I’ll bet everyone they bring with them will have heard about it before they get here.” Then he grew serious. “But they will come. You know that, don’t you? We’ve got to screen Gwen and the kids somehow. If the Army’s got the FBI with them, they’ll come on like gangbusters.”

The sheriff stretched and cracked his knuckles loudly enough to make Stafford wince. His hands looked as if they were made of hickory: smooth, white, and hard.

“Will this Sparks fella tell ‘em about Jessamine?” he asked.

“You heard him. Ray Sparks is a good guy, but he’s not gonna buck the system if his ass and his pension are on the line, which I suppose they now are.”

The sheriff nodded. “Then we’ve got to warn Gwen,” he said. He stood up.

“And now you’re gonna learn the advantages of living on the edge of a federal wilderness area.”

TUESDAY, DCIS REGIONAL OFFICE, SMYRNA, GEORGIA, 9:45 A.M. I The office manager showed Carrothers, accompanied by Senior Special Agent Hermann Kiesling, into Sparks’s office. Sparks offered coffee, which both men accepted.

Having been up all night, Carrothers was running on a caffeine sine wave, with episodes of mental clarity following each succeeding cup of coffee, after which the only thing that kept him awake were some truly vivid stomach cramps. Agent Kiesling had been detailed to the Georgia j damage-control effort from the Atlanta FBI office at 0630 ‘ that morning by the deputy director of the FBI. He was a tall, heavily built, red-haired man with an intense, florid face. Carrothers was willing to bet they called him Hermann the German—behind his back, that is. Way behind his back.

“So what do you have for us, Mr. Sparks?” Carrothers asked wearily.

“I’ve just talked to Stafford,” Sparks said. “He just called in. I—”

“Where is he?” Kiesling . After learning about the agent going into the demil machine, Kiesling was a man with a mission.

“He’s in a small town in north Georgia called Graniteville. He called me from the sheriff’s office. He got a telecomm PC, so he could go secure, but the sheriff was in the room and Dave was on the speaker.”

“So he’s getting help from the local law?” Kiesling made it sound as if Stafford were the fugitive, not Carson.

“He actually hasn’t done anything wrong, to my knowledge,” Sparks replied, giving Kiesling a steady look. “It’s our policy to coordinate with local law.”

“And we expect cooperation from other federal law,” Kiesling “snapped.

“Like coming in when we ask them to.”

“Little problem with that, Mr. Kiesling,” Sparks said. “Seems that Mr. Stafford has resigned.”

This announcement didn’t faze the FBI man. “Okay, so tell that sheriff to arrest his ass and hold him, now that he’s just another civilian.”

“Arrest him for what, exactly?” Sparks said. “And under which warrant?”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Carrothers interrupted. “Let’s stay on point here. We’re here to find Carson. He’s the objective, remember? Does Mr. Stafford have any idea of where Carson is or might be?”

“No, sir, he does not.”

“Then why won’t he come here? Why all this arm’s length stuff?”

“Before I answer that, General, let me ask you one. You are missing a weapon, right? Some kind of chemical weapon?”

The room went very quiet. Carrothers glanced sideways at Kiesling, then looked across the desk at the DCIS supervisor. He had to decide how much to tell Sparks, and his brain simply wasn’t working that well. General Wad dell had met with the Deputy Director of the Bureau in Washington to coordinate political damage control, following which the Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense had been briefed by their respective staffs. DOD and the Justice Department had agreed on an official cover story for local law-enforcement consumptidn, which was that Carson was wanted on an intelligence beef. Carson was a foreign agent who had been diverting defense material to certain Middle Eastern governments via an arms merchant conduit in Washington. The fact that an agent had been killed provided more than enough impetus for the search, which conveniently made the cover story less important. Kiesling, a protege” of the current FBI Director, was the only one on the local FBI team who knew the real reason why they were searching for Carson.

Can-others also knew that a joint task force was being convened in Washington at that very hour at the Justice Department to decide if Carson should be declared armed and dangerous, which would then authorize the use of deadly force in apprehension. General Waddell had continued to remind him that keeping the fact of the weapon’s loss secret was just about as important as getting it back. After what had happened at Fort Gillem, there were some officials at both DOD and Justice who were fervently hoping Mr. Carson would resist arrest when the time came, ajbeit for different reasons. Carrothers had made the point that first they ought to get their hands on the weapon; if they killed Carson before that, the weapon might stay lost. And get found again later. So what should he tell Sparks?

Carrothers leaned forward in his chair. “If I answer that, Mr. Sparks,” he said, “you will become one of the government officials who will have had prior knowledge of what can only be described as colossal government screw up. Do you really want to join that select group? Or would you rather cooperate with military and FBI authorities, on a strictly need-to-know basis, so that afterward you can truthfully say you had no idea of just how big a mess this was? Because I do believe there will be one or two searching questions asked about this when it’s all over.”

Carrothers watched as Sparks thought that one over. Now we’ll see just how savvy a bureaucrat this guy is, he thought, but Sparks wasn’t going to give up so easily.

“How about us chickens indulge in a some hypothetical discussions, then, General?” Sparks replied. “For instance, what are some of the possible consequences if an individual were, hypothetically now, to get loose with a chemical weapon?”

Carrothers sat back in his chair. This was a game he knew how to play.

“Hypothetically, Mr., Sparks? Well, hypothetically, it would depend on this individual’s state of mind. If he’d stolen such a weapon with the notion that he was going to make a fortune selling it on the international arms market, and something upset his big deal, then right now he might be seriously pissed off. No telling what he might do then.

He could, for instance, take such a weapon into Atlanta. Or even out here to beautiful downtown Smyrna, Georgia. He could get on one of your commuter trains, maybe open a couple of windows, and then break a seal or two on the weapon, hang it out the window, and then get off at the next stop. You know, let the train take the weapon for a little ride.

And sometime after that, you’d have a few hundred thousand screaming people stumbling out of their homes and cars and all those pretty office buildings you’ve got here with what looks like red jellyfish hanging out of their eye sockets.” He paused for a moment, watching Sparks’s face go pale as he absorbed that image.

“Their optic nerves would be eaten away back into their brains, Mr. Sparks, and when they tried to put what was left of their eyeballs back in their heads, they’d feel the tissue squirming in their hands. I say ‘feel,’ of course, because they would no longer be able to see, would they? Now some of them, the lucky ones, would just up and die from the pure shock of it. But a lot of them wouldn’t. Probably most of them wouldn’t. They’d be the ones who’d be hiring legions and legions of lawyers to come after all the government people who had known about this hypothetical problem in advance, and who wasted fucking time talking about it!”

Now that he had Sparks’s attention, Carrothers bored in. Kiesling watched with an approving look on his face. “Mr. Sparks, this man Stafford has been cropping up hi this hypothetical problem since I first got into it. Now we’ve had a major disaster down at Fort Gillem, and a federal agent has been fed into a machine that turned him into Jell-O feedstock. Now Stafford didn’t do that, but Stafford knows more about all this than is healthy for him. Or for you. So I want you to start at the beginning and tell me everything he’s told you. Don’t leave anything out. Don’t ask any more stupid fucking questions, or try to play any more stupid fucking games with me. And do it now. Right now, if you please.”

TUESDAY, VERNON CREEK CABINS, HIGHWAY 213, NORTH GEORGIA, 10:30 A.M. Carson sat in the cabin and studied the cylinder, which was sitting partially on ice in the white plastic cooler in the middle of the room.

It was going on midday, and the sunlight filtering through the trees along the creek was getting stronger. He had a mild headache, which he thought might be attributable to a low-grade fever. His upper back had settled into a throbbing pelt of low-level pain, but as long as he didn’t lean back on it, he was reasonably okay. He was counting on an antibiotic cream to knock down any infection.

After leaving the shopping center, he had traveled north on the state road, climbing into the Georgia foothills. He’d passed several places with vacation cabins, all filled, until he found one near the bottom of a long canyon that wasn’t’ very big, or very nice-looking, for that matter. This one had only ten potty-looking cabins, all ranging along a crooked small creek that came tumbling down a rocky, tree-covered hillside. The complete absence of beautiful mountain views meant the place had several vacancies.

The owner-manager probably had something to do with the vacancies: He was a scraggly-faced old man with tobacco-stained teeth and a disposition to match, who kept complaining about Floridiots, apparently in reference to the many Florida license plates in the area. Carson had asked for the last cabin on the row in order to put himself as far back from the road as possible. He had flashed his cash roll when he went in to register in order to make sure the manager had something to look at besides his face and truck. Only one of the other cabins appeared to be occupied.

There were no phones or televisions in the cabins, and the nearest grocery store was in Graniteville, about eight miles farther up into the mountains. The cabin had cooking facilities, a single bedroom, a living room and eating area, and a tiny porch overlooking the ravine where the creek ran. Carson had paid in advance for three nights.

Now he sat in the bare cabin, his shirt off, with the motel towel still pressed over the salve-covered wound. His revolver lay out on the table as he watched the sunlight reflect off the smooth sides of the cylinder.

The top of the stainless steel cylinder still felt warm to the touch, but the ice was helping.. He’d been doing a lot of thinking since he’d holed up in the cabin. The Army had to know by now that Wendell Carson had been trying to shop a stolen chemical weapon. He didn’t know if that guy from Tangent’s team had been consumed by the Monster, but that wasn’t his problem. The authorities wouldn’t care: just one less bad guy to prosecute. The big thing was that mere had to be a massive manhunt in progress by now. They could not know where he might run, because he himself did not know. He had simply bolted out of Atlanta and gone to ground like a harried fox at the first available hole. He also had to assume that the bearded man in the van would report his signs and plate missing, and that the cops would eventually make the connection with the rest area. That discovery would narrow the search down to the 1-85 corridor northeast of Atlanta. They might assume he would keep going north on the interstate into North Carolina, but they would surely sweep both sides of it, using the Highway Patrol and the network of local county sheriffs.

Face it, he told himself: This is only a matter of time. Hours, maybe.

Even up here in the mountains, some deputy sheriff will eventually come nosing into the driveway up there by the state road. And it wasn’t like he could slap on a backpack and take off up the Appalachian Trail. He had never been much of a Boy Scout And he couldn’t go back to normal operations, because every aspect of his former life would be crawling with feds right about now. The

FBI would have the damned IRS seizing his bank accounts, and there were probably federal marshals camped out at his house by now. He face twisted in a smile at the thought of Maude dealing with federal marshals, and federal marshals having to deal with Maude.

Face it, man: It’s over. It’s all over. Your only buyer is in custody, and probably singing his lungs out. All that money went up in smoke, and the whole world is now searching for Wendell Carson and the Army’s precious damned cylinder.

He thought about Stafford, coming on the scene just as Wendell Carson’s main chance was dropping into his hands. He went back through the familiar mental litany: How had goddamn Stafford found out? He stared down at the gleaming steel cylinder. Stafford had even been able to describe it. How the hell could he have known that? And then a new possibility came to him: Tangent had said that Stafford had been shit-canned from his Washington assignment over some unspecified, problems up there. Could he be a dirty cop? Could Tangent have paid Stafford off to verify that Carson really had the weapon, and maybe to scope out the DRMO, before Tangent came down there with a million in cash? They were both from Washington, and everybody paid off everyone in Washington. But then he reconsidered: That didn’t work, because he was pretty sure he had never told Tangent exactly what the thing looked like, only that he had the guts of a chemical weapon.

No, Stafford had been freelancing. He’d stumbled onto knowledge of the weapon somehow and then told the Army, not Tangent. That’s right, because Tangent had almost backed out of the deal when he heard the Army was coming to have a look. But this still took him back to Stafford: How had Stafford known Carson had the weapon, as well as what it looked like?

More to the point, he told himself, what options do I have now? He couldn’t bring himself just to ditch the thing. He did not know precisely what was in it, but he sensed that it was beyond dangerous.

But therein might lie his one chance to help himself. The cylinder was his only leverage with the authorities. Maybe he should call them on the cell phone. Offer to give it up in return for what, a reduced sentence?

No. Hide the damn thing, get a deal in writing, signed by a judge, and then tell them where it was. But if he called them, especially on a cell phone, wouldn’t they just come pounce on his ass?

It was getting warm in the cabin. He got up, wincing at the sharp pain from his upper back, and went over to open the porch door. It isn’t as if I’ve gotten away with then-money, he thought bitterly, although they might not know that. He was actually more scared of the Army than of the FBI. If the Army caught up with him before the FBI or the local authorities did, they might just flatten him like they’d flattened the DRMO last night. He could not erase the image of that helmeted, faceless man walking purposefully down the aisles, almost casually dispensing his firebombs. That whole scene had shocked him to the core. Being manager of the DRMO had meant something to him. Even though he’d been stealing from it for years, he’d taken a sort of perverse pride hi running it well, despite the scam, but they’d burned the damn thing down without a moment’s hesitation, on just the chance that the cylinder was in there.

What would they do to him if they caught him alone out here in this cabin? Ruby Ridge part two, that’s what. Six monsters with green paint on their faces and branches and leaves hi then hair would come diving through the window, screaming

“Hoo-aah,” and cut Wendell Carson’s head off, that’s what.

The sunlight outside was definitely getting brighter, which was not helping his headache. Somewhere out there on the highways and byways there were hundreds of cops of all kinds looking for him. They’d have his picture by now from DLA security. They’d be stopping by convenience stores, Waffle Houses, Huddle Houses, Mcdonald’s, Burger Kings, rest areas, motels and minimarts, and at every gas station. “You seen this man? You seen this Army-green pickup truck?” Eventually, there’d be that deputy’s cruiser quietly pulling in at the front entrance of this little dump. Maybe not this morning, but certainly in the next twenty-four hours. And then what? He could visualize one of those standoff scenes he’d seen a hundred times on television, with a hundred cop cars flashing blue strobes all over the woods while a SWAT team aimed carefully at the cabin, and for a chemical weapon, they very well might just kill him first and ask questions later. Especially out here in these remote mountains.

If he had salvaged the money, there might be a reason for going on with mis thing, but now … now he knew he’d better make a deal while he still held some cards. But just once, just for a minute maybe, he’d like to have that fucking Stafford at the end of a gun barrel. Even if Tangent had been planning to double-cross him all long, Wendell Carson might have pulled it off if Stafford hadn’t tipped off the Army.

And then it came to him: Maybe there was a way to get back at Stafford, like contact the feds and tell them he’d give the cylinder back in return for consideration in court, but he would give it only to Stafford. And then when he had Stafford, do what? Shoot him? That might feel good, but it wouldn’t help his own situation. Suppose, just suppose, he could implicate Stafford? Tell the FBI, for instance, that Stafford had found out about the cylinder and then tried to horn in on the deal: He’d keep quiet about the weapon in return for a share of the money, which was why Stafford had been there when the Army team first showed up: He’d been protecting his interests. That’s how he had known what the cylinder looked like: He’d forced Carson to tell him. Stafford the dirty cop. From what Tangent had said, Stafford already had problems within DCIS. If he, already had enemies, Stafford could be well and truly fucked up.

He paced the room, thinking hard, sensing a weakness in his plan.

Calling the cops—would that work? No. The moment he called, they’d trace the call and come gunning.

They were focused on the cylinder; Wendell Carson was a secondary target.

Then he had an even better idea: Contact Stafford, not the feds. Tell him he’d turn over the cylinder in return for some consideration. And once everyone was focused on Stafford, then implicate his interfering ass. Tell the feds Stafford had the money. It almost didn’t matter what he told them, because they were probably pissed off at Stafford anyway.

Yes, by God, that would work. Wendell Carson was going down the tubes anyway, but this way, he could take that bastard with him. For free.

Forget Tangent: He was” already in the shatter. But what sweet revenge it would be to tar Stafford. The government would hound Stafford for the rest of his life, looking for that money, with IRS audits every year, twice a year, while Wendell Carson raked leaves at Club Fed. Yes!

But first, he had to find Stafford. He went out to the truck, retrieved his briefcase, and extracted his phone list. Yes, there it was: the number for the DCIS office in Smyrna. There was no phone in the cabin, and he didn’t want to use the cell phone yet, or the cabin manager’s office phone, not with that long-eared creep standing there. The manager had said the nearest town was Graniteville. He’d have to risk using the truck; the spray-paint job had been pretty effective on the serial numbers, but it wouldn’t fool an alerted cop. He could go to Graniteville, find a pay phone at a minimart, invent some telephone identity, maybe pose as someone from Washington, and call the Smyrna office. Then what?

He sat down. Damn it. His headache was getting worse, not better, and all this plotting and scheming wasn’t helping. Where would Stafford be after that fire? He should be’ at the DCIS regional office down there in Smyrna. There’d be a big-deal investigation in progress, and probably some degree of chaos at the DCIS office. So do what? Get him up here into the mountains? Make him come .where, to the cabin? To the nearest town, Graniteville? He knew nothing about Graniteville, other than that name was still tickling some memory.

And would Stafford come alone? Or would he say anything Carson wanted to hear, and then bring the whole world with him? Including those terrifying Army people?

He went over to the bathroom and washed his face with ice-cold water, trying to wake up, trying to bring some clarity to his thinking. The bandage across his shoulders felt tight and just a little bit hot. Tune was running out. If Wendell Carson was going to pull this off, he’d better get on with it, because if they found him before he made his move, he would have zero options left. He dried his face, pushed the cylinder down into the slush in the cooler, and went out to his truck.

TUESDAY, DCIS REGIONAL OFFICE, SMYRNA, GEORGIA, 11:30 A.M. Carrothers sat there in open disbelief when Sparks had finished explaining everything he knew. “A psychic?” he said. “You’re asking me to believe that a psychic told Stafford about this thing? A teenage girl? Who cannot speak? Jesus Christ, Sparks.”

Ray Sparks threw up his hands. “You did ask, General. I’m only telling you what he told me. You figure out some other way that Stafford could know about your so-called hypothetical weapon, and I, for one, am more than ready to sign on. But that’s what he told me. That’s why he’s in Graniteville. That’s why he isn’t here to talk to you.” “And there’s a woman involved in this?” asked Agent Kiesling.

“The woman who runs this orphanage, school, whatever it is. I don’t know how much she knows about this problem you’re chasing here, but he did tell me she interprets for the girl.”

“Where are they, exactly?”

“At a place called the Willow Grove Home. It’s a combined group home and special school. An orphanage, basically.”

“Are the woman and Stafford involved with each other?” Kiesling asked.

“Don’t know. His wife left him last year. They might be involved with each either, or he may just be trying to protect her. She’s apparently scared to death of a government witch-hunt and the media exposure that would follow, especially on the psychic angle. Stafford’s afraid Carson might come after them, because he told Carson about Graniteville, that day after the airport deal.”

Carrothers thought about that. “Psychics. Next you’re going to tell me she’s on contract to the CIA.”

“Yeah, right, remember that goat rope?”

Kiesling said with some relish.

“Where the Agency spent a gazillion bucks trying to get psychics to read spies’ minds, then got their asses handed to ‘em when the media and Congress found out? Embarrassed the shit out of them.”

“They should have been embarrassed,” Carrothers said, getting up to refill his coffee cup. “Psychics, mind probes; the Shadow knows … what utter bullshit.”

Kiesling began to pace around the room. “I know I’m the newbie to this case, General, but I’ll tell you what I’m beginning to think. I think this Mr. Stafford may have had an ulterior motive going here. You said Tangent put a million in cash on the table?”

“Now wait a fucking minute,” Sparks spluttered.

“Hold on, Mr. Sparks,” Carrothers said, sensing where the FBI agent was going to go with this. “So?”

“I made some calls while we were waiting. My sources tell me this guy’s down here in Atlanta because he’s on his own agency’s shit list—no offense, Mr. Sparks. His wife had just dumped him, his career’s down the tubes, and he’s lost the use of one arm. Every time he looks up, he sees the rim of the toilet bowl swirling past his face. And all of a sudden he knows an awful lot about your hypothetical problem, General. One of the ways that could happen is if he and this Carson guy made some kind of deal.”

“No way,” Sparks said immediately. “Dave Stafford is a maverick, but he’s no bent cop. Look, if he was involved in this, why in the hell would he have told me jack shit? Huh? You explain that, Kiesling!”

“In case it went wrong, Sparks. He was covering his ass. He was a civil servant, just like the rest of us. Gimme a fuckin’ break here: Which one of us ever does anything without first covering our asses?”

Sparks just glared at him.

“Besides,” Kiesling said, “look how he probably worked it. Suppose he found out about the weapon deal and honied in. Forced Carson to split the money. If the deal went right, he stood to collect five hundred large. If it went south, he could always say he warned you, his boss, about it, but he couched it in such terms that you wouldn’t have believed it in a hundred years. A teenage psychic, for Chrissakes? And now he’s resigned? How fucking convenient.”

“But most of the money was counterfeit!” Sparks said. “You said—” “Fuck that!” Kiesling shouted as he bent over Sparks’s desk. “Neither of them knew that. Either way, I don’t give a shit. I’ve got an agent dead.

He was married. Had kids. I don’t even have a body for them. You listening to me? We had to go get a funeral home to give us an urn so we could sweep up some ashes from what was left of that fucking DRMO!”

Sparks started to reply, but Carrothers raised his hand to stop it. He thought about what the FBI man was insinuating. In a way, Kiesling’s theory made some sense, more sense than Sparks’s story about some psychic kid. On the other hand, Stafford had not impressed him as being that kind of guy, and his own long and successful Army career had taught Carrothers to trust his own judgment about people.

“Okay, people,” Carrothers said. “Let’s cool it for a moment. Put that theory on hold. Let’s get back to our primary objective: rinding Carson and the weapon. Mr. Kiesling, could you please go check on what the sweep has produced?”

Kiesling took a deep breath to compose himself, glared at the red-faced Ray Sparks, and left the office. Carrothers closed the door behind him for a moment and turned to Sparks. “I’m not sure I subscribe to Mr. Kiesling’s theory, Mr. Sparks,” he said. “That doesn’t strike me as being Stafford’s style, having met the man.”

Sparks threw a pen across the room. “I was about to suggest there was another way Stafford could have found out,” he said. “And that was if Tangent had told him.”

Carrothers shook his head. “We’re wasting time and energy with all this “Who shot John?’ stuff. Of course, the Bureau and the Justice Department are probably very anxious to divert attention away from their man Tangent’s little stunt, especially after it got one of their own people killed last night.”

“Cover-up,” Sparks said in disgust. “That’s becoming the Bureau’s hallmark these days. I remember when they were the best of the best.

Look, General, Dave Stafford’s a pain in the ass, and, yes, he put some senior people in the shifter, but they were bent and he is not. This is partly my fault, because I reacted the same way you did to the psychic business. But what if the damned girl is a psychic? I mean, I wasn’t going to bring this up in front of Godzilla out there, but the police have been using psychics and profilers for years. Hell, it was a Bureau guy who wrote the book on profiling. Now, hypothetically and all that shit, I don’t know just how desperate you guys are, but if it was my ass, I’d be asking the girl some questions and hoping like hell she was a fucking psychic!”

Carrothers nodded but did not reply. He had had exactly the same thought. Kiesling had been cut in on the real problem here, but he was obviously letting himself be swept up in the cop-killer frenzy that was developing. With Sparks following, he went to the DCIS conference room, where Riesling’s FBI team had set up a temporary command post. The lead agent reported on the statewide search for Carson and his government pickup truck, an effort that included state and local law-enforcement agencies. There had been no contact reports on Carson, but there had been a report of a stolen license plate and magnetic door signs at a rest area out on 1-85 northeast of Atlanta. The man making the report remembered parking next to a green pickup truck, although there had been no one in it when he went to sleep. The time frame fit for someone trying to get out of Atlanta after the Fort Gillem fire.

Carrothers went to a map of Georgia and was shown the location of the rest area. The agent reported that there were vehicle checkpoints established on all the interstates in Georgia, with a double barrier on the Carolina and Tennessee borders. Local law in three states had been alerted, and the fact that an agent had been killed would keep them focused. Carrothers studied the map. Georgia was a much bigger state than he had realized. He looked at the single red pin sticking into the rest area on 1-85. All that geography, and all they had was that one pin. Then he spotted the name Graniteville, next to a tiny dot up along the Carolina border, about two inches above the red line of the interstate highway. Wasn’t that where Stafford was?

“Graniteville,” he muttered to himself. He looked over at Sparks, who was talking with the DCIS office manager, who had come in with a stack of phone messages for him from “Washington. Sparks only frowned and stuffed them in his pocket. The office manager began to tell him something else, but he waved her off. Carrothers looked back at the map.

Stafford is supposedly in Graniteville, he thought. If Carson had heisted those plates and the signs to cover up the government serial numbers on his truck, then he could be in or near the Graniteville area.

More importantly, so could the Wet Eye cylinder. He felt a growing urge to do something besides sit around and wait. Perhaps he should go to Graniteville and talk to Stafford directly, or, hell, even the girl, but he did not trust the FBI just now. They were too fired up about getting Carson, and their bosses were under enormous pressure to find a way to shovel this tar baby into someone else’s yard.

In fact, they had every incentive just to shoot Carson on sight, which would not necessarily solve the Army’s problem.

He glanced over his shoulder at Kiesling, who was talking to his agents.

From their expressions alone, he confirmed his sense of it: If they did find Carson, he was going to die resisting arrest.

“Mr. Kiesling,” he said. “I’m going to go back to Fort Gillem, where my mobile command center is. I need to check on the progress of the DRMO fire investigation and dampen down any residual press interest. Why don’t you stay here with your team until we get some locating information on Carson? You can call my mobile command center as soon as you have something.”

“Yes, sir,” Kiesling said. “Although I still think we ought to be having some face time with Mr. Stafford.”

“Well, we know where he is. If nothing turns up on Carson in the next six to eight hours, maybe we’ll go check out your theory. But please let’s remember the objective here: Carson.”

After Carrothers had left, Sparks headed back to his office. The office manager intercepted him again. “I was trying to tell you earlier,” she said. “There was one message in that stack for Mr. Stafford, from his ex-wife’s lawyer. He said they were reopening the court case and that they needed some more discovery papers. I told him Mr. Stafford was on assignment in Graniteville, at that Willow Grove Home, and gave him the number. I hope that was all right.”

Sparks gave a hollow laugh. “That’s just what Dave needs at this juncture: a call from his ex-wife’s damned lawyer. He’ll hate you for that one, Leslie.” He shook his head and went back into his office, closing the door behind him.

TUESDAY, WILLOW GROVE HOME, GRANITEVILLE, GEORGIA, 12:30 P.M. Stafford was waiting in Owen’s office while John Lee was having a long talk with her out on the porch. It had turned into a warm day for the mountains, and the house had not been shut up for air conditioning yet.

The sheriff wanted Gwen and Jessamine to leave Willow Grove until Carson was caught and the matter of the weapon resolved. What Stafford had not yet picked up was where she was supposed to go. Besides that, Gwen was visibly unhappy with the idea of leaving the little kids behind. They had moved out to the porch to continue their discussion, and Stafford had tactfully withdrawn from what might become an argument. He thought there might be more to their conversation than just Gwen’s leaving.

He thought about what he had done that morning, and he was surprised to feel no regrets.- He knew there’d be fallout over the mess at the DRMO, and that he wasn’t going escape all of it, but he was hoping his resignation would take him out of the direct line of fire once the big guns at DCIS headquarters got embroiled in the Army’s problem. He had been ready to accept Gwen’s invitation to stay at the house, except that now John Lee’s insistence on her going into hiding somewhere might have upset that plan. He wondered again if John Lee’s motive was to get Gwen out of harm’s way, with harm having multiple definitions.

He got up and moved around her small office, looking at the certificates and the family pictures. That one must be her father, he thought. Same strong face and eyes. Strangely, there were no “pictures of any women who looked like Gwen. There was one somewhat faded local newspaper picture of Gwen getting her degree down at the university, with her father standing proudly beside her. He peered closer to read the caption identifying them, and he saw the last name: Hand. Dr. Winfield Hand and his daughter, Gwinette Hand.

He looked around at Owen’s desk, saw the nameplate: Gwen H. Warren. And where was Owen’s mother? Owen had said her mother had died, but nothing about a divorce. He remembered her saying mat her father had helped to found the orphanage. He heard sounds of Gwen returning, and he went into the kitchen to meet her. The kids had just finished lunch and were being shepherded upstairs by Mrs. Benning while the cook cleaned up. Gwen led him out the back door and onto the lawn behind the house. The sheriff, apparently, had left. He asked her what was going on.

“John Lee wants me to disappear for a little while, with Jess,” she said. “Part of me says that’s a good idea; the other part is worried about the little ones. I don’t like leaving them alone with all this trouble brewing.”

“John Lee might be right, Gwen. It’s not the little kids who would be the focus of the government’s attention, assuming it’s coming this way, I mean.”

They reached the barnyard gate and turned around to go back toward the house. The sun burned through the high mountain air with a vengeance. “I know that,” she said. Then she stopped. “I think John Lee might have another reason than just getting us clear of trouble.”

He nodded and kicked a pebble off the path. “Yes, I understand. I’ve been thinking about what you said last night. And you are right: I’m quite attracted to you. But John Lee’s also right: You and Jess ought to bail out. The best thing I can do is to stay here, hold down the fort, until we see what happens.”

She nodded. “Those feelings are not necessarily just one way, Dave. I like you very much. But there’s too much you don’t know about me, and with all this other—”

“I could just go,” he said. “Get out of here, get out of your hair entirely.”

“I’d feel a lot better if you stayed, especially since you’re one of them—the government, I mean.” She faced him then, and there was some pain in her expression. “John Lee has been making the same assumptions that you have,” she said. “I like you very much, but a lot of that is sympathy for your situation—what you’ve been through this past year, with your job, your wife, your injury. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m simply not ‘available,’ not the way you imagined. I—we—do need your help. But not—”

“I understand,” he replied, suddenly anxious to shut this off. The message was clear, and he was beginning to feel acutely embarrassed. “I helped bring this thing into your world, so the least I can do is to see it through. If the FBI or the Army comes here, I do know the beast when I see him, and I can talk the talk. Will you stay with relatives?”

She nodded absently but did not really answer his question. He did not pursue it. If he didn’t know where she was, no one could make him tell.

He took a deep breath and asked her about the pictures. Once again, she didn’t look at him, turning instead to look back at Howell Mountain.

“Jessamine Hand is my half sister,” she said finally. She gave him a moment to absorb that news before continuing. “By marriage. It’s a bit complicated. As I told you, my mother passed away in 1974. My father remarried two years later, to a woman named Hope, who was much younger than he was. In the course of time, three children came along. Jess is Hope’s youngest child.”

Stafford kept quiet. Maybe this would explain why she did not want to enter into a relationship. A breeze stirred the willows; Gwen turned and began walking toward them, and he followed.

“Hope had an older sister, Charity, who drowned in a quarry when she was sixteen. Officially, it was ruled an accident, but most folks who knew about it said she jumped. Charity was quite beautiful, and apparently, also quite mad. So, unfortunately, was Hope. The difference was that it took a lot longer to manifest in Hope. She was twenty-eight when she married my father. He was fifty two. The marriage was fine for a while, until the kids came along.”

“What was her illness?”

“You’re in the north Georgia mountains, Dave,” she said with a bitter smile. “Specifics of that nature are rarely discussed in these parts.

Suffice it to say, Hope’s descent into madness was not graceful. By the time Jess was born, she was hi full cry. My father was a doctor, so he knew. In retrospect, we all knew, but this is a small southern mountain town, and decent people averted their eyes.”

“What finally happened? Was she committed somewhere?”

“No.” There was another pause, and Stafford could see that she was dredging up some painful memories. “No, it ended one terrible winter night in 1986 when my father was not here. She apparently had one of her visions, as she called them, killed two of her children, and then turned the gun on herself, although she failed to kill herself. Jess was the only survivor.”

“Good Lord. And how did Jess survive?”

Gwen paused again before answering. “No one knows, or no one was willing to say at the time. I was married by then and living with John Lee.”

“But you have an opinion?”

“Jess was not quite three,” she said softly, staring out at the willows.

“I think perhaps her mother just could not bring herself to shoot her baby. But there’s another possibility. Knowing what I know now, I think perhaps her mother, crazy as she was, recognized something hi Jess. I think it’s entirely possible that Hope’s insanity was somehow caused by or reinforced by unformed mental acuity of her own. As I mentioned, she claimed to see visions, hear voices.”

“She was schizophrenic.”

“Yes, that was the official diagnosis. But no one really knows what’s going on in a schizophrenic’s mind; we have only their word for it, you see. She’s down in Milledgeville now, at Central State. Quite hopeless now.” She smiled a sad smile at the unintended play on words, then turned back toward the house.

“So Jess has been at the Willow Grove Home from the start,” she continued. “She was withdrawn as a child, but no one told her until she was seven what really happened that night.”

“And when did she stop talking?”

“She never spoke after that night. I had hopes that she was going to be able to grow away from all that, until the manifestations of her … ability began. Now I just don’t know.”

“So you kept her here first because she was family, and second, because you’re not sure of what’s going on in her mind.”

“That’s correct. Consider her antecedents: Hope and Charity, both violently, self-destructively insane; her own two sisters cut down before we could know anything about their mental development. And now Jess is manifesting mental—what, irregularities? I didn’t know what else to do.”

Stafford let out a slow breath as he thought about this history and the fact that everything he had been assuming up to this point had been wrong.

“Well,” he said. “I apologize again for bringing this other mess into your lives, and of course I’ll stay here while you and Jess get clear of it for a while. There’s a huge hunt on for Carson. He’s not a professional bad guy, so I suspect this will be resolved before too long.”

They heard the phone begin to ring up at the house. As tiiey turned toward the back door, she took his hand.

“Dave, I’m sorry. About the other, I mean. And the offer still stands.

For you to stay here and get your life reassembled. But—”

“I understand,” he said. “And I’ll think about it. But in the meantime, we need to get you and Jess to safety.”

TUESDAY, FORT GILLEM DMRO, ATLANTA, 130P. M. Carrotbers sat at the communications command post, waiting for the secure patch to General Waddell at the Pentagon. He had taken a nap in the car on the way back from Smyrna, and he felt marginally better, but only marginally. The cylinder was still lost The individual most likely to have it was on the run somewhere in Georgia. Now he had to report to Waddell, and through him, to the Army chief of staff. He had a sinking feeling that they wouldn’t be able to keep a lid on this thing much longer. For the moment, the entagon and Justice were in this mess together, but the instant the Justice Department saw a way to shift all the blame to the Army, they’d seize it What had his wife said? To trust all his instincts. His instinct was to talk to Stafford, without the FBI. He had done what he had been ordered to do and had discovered an even bigger mess than before. It was time to start doing the right thing.

While he still couldn’t feature Stafford for a crooked cop, the facts of the problem certainly raised reasonable doubt on that score. For one thing, Stafford sure as hell didn’t act like the typical federal agent.

He must understand the degree of concern this mess was generating at the national level, and yet here he was, handing in his resignation and holing up in some godforsaken mountain village. Maybe Kiesling was right. On the other hand, maybe Stafford knew something that the Army, hi its determination to bury this fiasco, didn’t know or didn’t want to know. Either way, doing something would be better than just sitting here waiting for something to happen.

“This is the Army Command Center with a secure satellite call for General Carrothers,” the headset announced.

“Carrothers here, secure.”

“Standby one.”

A moment of silence, punctuated by a tone burst. “Lee?”

Well, now, he thought, we’re back to Lee? “Yes, sir, General. We still haven’t found him. They’ve got the whole damn state looking for him, though.”

“All right. Justice has him listed as armed and dangerous. They’ve told the Georgia law-enforcement agencies to capture him alive if at all possible, but the Bureau people are saying that might be tough in Georgia. The lawmen down there purportedly do not screw around, especially with a cop killer. I wish we could we confirm he has the weapon.”

‘ ‘So do I, General. There were no traces of the Wet Eye in the products of combustion during the fire, or in the ash piles and debris afterward, but as I reported, two of our people saw him getting away with an object.”

“But basically, we still don’t know shit.”

“That’s correct, General. Everyone’s operating on assumptions here.

That’s why we should want him alive. There is one other development.” He described Sparks’s strange story about a psychic child and the FBI’s speculation about Stafford, and that Stafford had resigned from the DCIS and was holed up in Graniteville. These revelations produced a hiss of silence on the net.

“A psychic?” Waddell said finally. “What kind of shit is that?”

“Beats me, General. I guess anything’s possible at this juncture.”

“The FBI really serious about suspecting Stafford?”

“I think they’re mostly circling the wagons. They’re desperate to broaden the target. I assume senior management in the Bureau is appropriately galvanized?”

“Oh, yeah, you might say that. That guy Tangent is in so much trouble, they don’t have a name for it at the Bureau, not only because he didn’t tell them what he was doing but also for losing one of his agents. But the Attorney General apparently reminded Secdef that none of .this could have happened if we hadn’t let one get away.”

“Tough to argue that one, sir. I’m thinking of going to find this DOS guy, Stafford, see what else he knows. Without the FBI people.”

“Has he been cooperating?”

“In a manner of speaking, General, although by resigning, he’s kind of out of it now. He did warn us that Carson had the item, and that was before the balloon went up. Anyway, here’s what I’m thinking: I want to go up in the mountains to talk to Stafford. And this psychic girl, if I can. If she detected the cylinder, maybe she can tell us where it is now.”

“For Chrissakes, Lee—”

“I know, General. But we’ve got the whole state of Georgia turned upside down looking for this guy, and sooner or later, some inquiring minds are going to want to know why. I have nothing better to do. If I get the sense that Stafford is bent, I’ll turn him over to our own Special Forces for some counseling.”

“I’d do that right now, if it were me, and the Bureau’s gonna howl when they find out they’re being cut out”

“Their job is to find Carson, and right now, anyway, their guy here is fairly passionate about doing that. I can always tell them later I was consulting the psychic. Gun shy as they are right now, they won’t want any part of that. Remember the Agency’s Stargate flap?”

“I do indeed. Okay, but remember, nobody here gives a shit about Carson, as long as we get the weapon back. He’s responsible for the death of an agent, so in a way, he’s a traveling free-fire zone. On the other hand, if he calls hi, wants to make a deal, for instance, we tell him anything he wants to hear, understood?”

“Absolutely, General.”

“And as far as I’m concerned, that DCIS guy is expendable, too, especially now that he’s quit. If he was involved in this little caper, go ahead and put his ass in the crosshairs with Carson. Nobody on either side of the river up here will object.”

“I don’t think he was on the take, General, but there’s something strange about the way he’s acting, which is why I want to go up there.”

“Well, nothing beats personal reconnaissance, Lee. Keep your comms suite with you, and keep us informed.”

“Yes, sir, General. Carrothers off net”

He pulled the headset off and rubbed his perspiring ears. He thought about what the general had just said. Jesus, Stafford, he thought, you’ve really made some friends in high places, haven’t you?

He stepped out of the trailer and told the regular team to return to their positions. Then he summoned one of the MP captains, who came trotting over, pulling out his notebook.

“I want to requisition two of those Suburbans,” Carrothers ordered.

“Lose the police lights. I want the two biggest MPs you’ve got, a medic, and a two-man CW monitor team, fully equipped. I want you, the medic, an MP driver, and me in one vehicle, the other three and the gear in the other. I want side arms for everyone, a night scope, a SATCOM terminal, and GPS tracker in my vehicle. Then get directions to a north Georgia burg called Graniteville, and once there, to something called the Willow Grove Home. And, finally, I want a total blackout on my movements, especially with reference to the FBI. Anyone asks, I’ve been summoned to Anniston to await developments.”

“Got it, General.”

“Good. A departure any time in the next twenty minutes will do just fine.”

TUESDAY, THE LAUREL MOUNTAIN MINIMART, GRANITEVILLE, GEORGIA, 2:30 P.M. Carson sat in the pickup truck, trying to eat a seriously awful microwaved hamburger while he watched the state road leading up into Graniteville. Even though he had the windows open, it was hot inside the truck. Or his temperature was elevated. Probably both. He was perspiring freely, and the huge cup of Coke wasn’t helping very much.

The wound on his back was actually feeling better, although the stiffness was increasing. He reminded himself to change that bandage when he got back to the cabin.

He had pulled into the minimart twenty minutes ago, parking behind the store and near the pair of phone booths at the edge of the parking area.

He’d gone in and bought food, hiding most of his face behind a pair of opaque sunglasses and a ball cap. It was the middle of the afternoon, and fortunately there wasn’t much going on in and around the gas station. In the whole time he had been there, he hadn’t seen a single cop car come down the road, which hopefully meant the manhunt hadn’t reached the mountain towns yet. He needed just a few more hours.

He looked down at the piece of paper with the number of the Willow Grove Home on it. He’d been amazed that the woman down in Smyrna had just told him where Stafford was. Graniteville. Willow Grove, a school of some sort. “Yes, I can give you the number. He doesn’t really work here, you know,” she’d said. He had thought about calling the place, getting directions, and driving out there, maybe surprising Inspector Stafford, but it was a school. He didn’t like the idea of starting something in a school yard, not unless he could pin that on Stafford, too. Besides, he reminded himself, he was going to let the government do in Mr. Smart-Ass Stafford.

He looked at his watch, crumpled the remains of the hamburger into a greasy ball, got out of the car, and went to the phone booth, where he placed the second call. A woman’s voice answered. “-Willow Grove Home and School. This is Mrs. Benning.”

“I’m calling for a Mr. David Stafford,” he replied. “My name is Carson.”

“Just a moment, sir.” The woman put her hand over the mouthpiece and said something to someone else in the room. Then she was back, her tone breathless. “Just a minute, Mr. Carson. We’re getting him.”

He waited impatiently, very conscious of just how visible he was in the glass booth. But the road remained comfortingly empty, the old concrete shimmering in the midafternoon sun.

Stafford hurried through the hallway to Owen’s office, John Lee Warren right behind him. Gwen was standing by her desk, looking anxiously across the room at them as they came in. She held her palm tight across the mouthpiece.

“Can you trace this call?” Stafford asked the sheriff quietly as he reached for the phone.

John Lee shook his head. “Not without prior arrangements. The nearest manned central office is over in Reidsville.” Stafford mouthed a silent curse and took the phone from Gwen. “This is Stafford,” he said. The handset was slippery. It was warm and humid in the house.

“I want to make a deal,” Carson said without preliminaries. “I’ll hand over the weapon in return for a maximum five-year sentence at Club Fed.”

“Why the hell you calling me, Carson? I’m not a judge. How did you get this number?” “Your office in Smyrna told me where you were, Stafford. I figure I don’t have much time. I’ll turn over the weapon to you and only to you.

Up there in Graniteville. You arrange the deal with whoever’s on my trail. I’ll call you back in an hour.” “Wait!” Stafford said. “Why call me? Why not call the Army?”

“Did you see what they did to my DRMO? That was no accidental fire.

Those bastards are crazy. Besides, I want to see you one more time. For old times’ sake.”

“Sure you do. And what if I don’t want to play?”

“I can always find a suitable home for it, Stafford. I don’t know what’s in that thing, but I’ll bet it’s a little bitch with its top off. What do you think?”

Stafford relented. “Right. Okay, deal. I’ll make some calls. Where are you?”

There was no reply. Stupid question, Stafford thought. “Right,” he said again. “Scratch that. You call me back here in an hour.”

There was a click on the line and Carson was gone.

“What did he want?” the sheriff asked. “What’s this ‘deal’ all about?”

“He’s figured out that he’s dead meat and that the weapon is his only leverage. He wants to trade the weapon for a reduced sentence.”

The sheriff mopped his brow. Gwen was shaking her head. “This is the man in the airport, isn’t it? He wants to bring that thing here?”

Dave sat down at her desk. “He says he wants to turn the weapon in.

Getting that weapon back under government control is more important than hanging the guy who stole it. I’m sure everyone involved is going to think that way. It sounds like he’s ready to come in after that, preferably before some Army sniper team finds him. I’ve got to call Atlanta.”

“Why doesn’t he take his damn deal to Atlanta?” the sheriff growled. “We don’t need any chemical weapons here.”

“He insists on dealing through me. Look, I’m just going to tell them what he told me. Let them make the decisions. He’s afraid of the FBI and the Army, as well he should be.” “I wonder where the hell he is,” the sheriff said.

“This is the age of cell phones, Sheriff. He could be anywhere. He could be here already. Now let me get on this.” He called Ray Sparks.

TUESDAY, VERNON CREEK CABINS, 3:30 P.M. Afternoon shadows were gathering along the creek when Carson made his second call to Willow Grove. He decided it was okay to use his government-issue cell phone this time, figuring there was no longer any need to hide the transmission. This time, Stafford picked up, ready to offer what he’d discussed with Sparks.

“Where do we stand?” Carson asked.

“I’ve talked to Atlanta. I’ve got the deal. Club Fed. Five years.

There’s an FBI team coming up with the papers. I expect them by eight o’clock tonight.”

“That’s over four hours from now. Why so long?”

‘ They have to get a federal prosecutor and a judge to sign’ off on the deal. Then it takes two, three hours to get here. The guy heading up the FBI team is named Kie sling.”

“Why don’t they fly up? Use a helo?”

“Probably don’t want to do that in the mountains at night. I don’t know.

The FBI isn’t into explaining.”

“Okay. We meet where?”

“The sheriff’s office, at the county courthouse in Graniteville. His name is John Lee Warren. You come into town, you’ll run right into the courthouse square,” Carson thought about that. “All right,” he said. “I assume the whole world is looking for me right now. If I come driving into Graniteville, I expect this to be civilized, right? I’m not looking to be put on my face in the street by a bunch of Georgia no-necks with sticks and dogs.”

“You’re turning yourself in as part of a federal plea bargain arrangement. You come in alone, and you come in unarmed, and everything will be businesslike. You do understand that the government is more interested in retrieving that weapon than in busting you, don’t you?”

“I do. I also understand my government might be very interested in silencing me. Permanently. So you understand that I won’t have it with me, right? That I’ll want to see civilians in coats and ties, not soldiers in chem suits when I get there?”

“Yes.”

“Because if I see any sign of the Army, the deal’s off.

Those fucking Army guys are acting like a bunch of psychos.”

“Maybe that’s because they’re scared of what’s in that cylinder, Carson.” “Then everybody better play by my rules,” Carson said. “Here’s the rest of it. I want an attorney. Any Shylock will do. Waiting on the courthouse steps. He will go with me into the sheriff’s office, where he will swear in writing that the FBI’s paper is legitimate.” He had to pause to get his breath. “Then I want that attorney to go with me to wherever they take me in Atlanta. To witness the fact that I was alive in federal custody when I left Graniteville, and still alive when I got to Atlanta. After that, I’ll take my chances, and I’ll tell you where the weapon is.”

“They’ll probably go along with most of that,” Stafford said. “Except for two things. Make that three things. First, I don’t think you’re going to leave here until they have that weapon in federal custody. I understand you won’t bring it with you, but they’ll want to see it as soon as you sign the paperwork.” Carson thought about that. It was hard to think; his head was really pounding now, and that greaseburger was not going to remain down for much longer. Getting the deal was important. But what else? “Okay,” he replied.

“And the second is that the attorney cannot know what this is about. You tell him, or anyone else, and your deal goes south.”

“I can live with that,” Carson said. “What’s the third?”

“I’m not going to be there. You’ll have to deal with the FBI. I’ve set the deal up, but then I’m out of it.”

Carson frowned, trying to concentrate. Then he remembered what he was going to do to Stafford once he was in custody. “Why?”

“My agency doesn’t love me anymore, so I’ve resigned,” Stafford said.

“They’ve told the FBI that, so they don’t want me involved. So you deal with them.”

“That’s not what I wanted.”

“Way I see it, it’s them or the Army.”

Carson thought about that. He really didn’t have any other options, and then he realized he could still implicate Stafford. “Okay,” he said. “We have a deal. I’ll be at the Graniteville courthouse at eight P.M. And remember, no fucking Army.”

TUESDAY, WILLOW GROVE HOME, GRANITEVILLE, GEORGIA, 5:30 P.M. It was cool, almost cold up at the top of the notch; Stafford wished now that he had followed Gwen’s advice about a jacket. With no moon yet, there was no view, only the dark mass of the mountains on either side of them, and the deeper darkness below, where the gray path dropped down into the wilderness area. After being briefed about the agreement between Stafford and Carson, the sheriff had recommended that Gwen and Jessamine should get away from the home. Gwen and John Lee Warren were talking quietly over by the drop-off. Stafford stood there with Jessamine, who was wearing a jacket and a backpack.

“Are you frightened?” he asked her.

She turned her hands up and down and shrugged.

“Have you been out there before?” he asked, pointing with his chin toward the wilderness area. A steady cool breeze spilled into the gap from that vast expanse of wilderness north of the notch. It carried the scent of pines and ancient stone.

She nodded emphatically. She pointed to Gwen, then herself, and then made some signing motions Stafford did not understand. Gwen joined them.

“She’s teljing you that we have friends out there. People who will keep us safe. I’m more worried about you than us.”

He smiled at her. Her eyes were almost invisible in the darkness. “I think we’ll be okay. Carson’s not coming here. We’ll have John Lee’s people and the FBI in town when he shows up.

Besides, he’s only one guy.”

“With a lethal cargo.”

“Yes, and no. It’s not like he can use it without killing himself. The only thing that worries me is that he didn’t sound right. I wonder if he was injured in that mess at the DRMO. Burned maybe. He sounded a bit feverish.” “Well, good,” she said. “That should make him less of a threat.”

Stafford glanced over at the sheriff, who was visible only as a small red dot from the cigarette he was smoking. The pungent smell of tobacco infiltrated the forest air. “So you really do have people back there?

People who will give you a place to stay?”

She nodded hi the darkness. He could just see her face , now that his eyes were fully night adapted. “Yes,” she said. “We realfy do.”

 

“

 

“What’s the connection?”

“It’s the school, you see. Most of them back out there will never leave.

But once in a great while, there’s a child …”

“How can we contact you if we have to?”

“There’s a cell phone at a ranger cabin.” She looked out behind him into the darkness. “Ah,” she said. “They’re coming.”

He went with her to the back edge of the notch and peered down into the darkness. The path was barely visible as a serpentine, gray stripe down the back side of the mountain, ending in the deeper darkness of the forest. “Look down there,” she said softly.

He looked, and saw flames. Small flames, just at the edge of the forest below them. No, not flames. Lanterns.

“That’s them?”

“Yes. We should go now. We’ll … visit out there for a day or so, and then send for word to see what has happened.” “What if—” he began, but then he stopped. He had just told her this thing was going to go all right. He plunged ahead. “What if there’s trouble? What if it’s necessary for you to stay hidden for a while?”

“If there’s trouble, we’ll hear about it.” She smiled, a flash of white against the gray oval of her face in the darkness. “Jungle drums and all that. You’d be amazed at how well they keep in touch.”

Dave nodded. There was so much he didn’t know about how things were up in these remote hills, and since he was an outsider, he would probably never know. Just like he had known nothing about Owen’s family, or how Jess had come to live at Willow Grove. There was an arcing shower of red sparks in the direction where John Lee had been standing.

“Time to go,” she said. She stepped forward suddenly and hugged him. “Be careful,” she whispered. Then she took Jessamine’s arm and together they walked off into the darkness.

The sheriff approached, his boots crunching in the gravel and shale that littered the floor of the notch. “They’ll be fine,” he said. “We’d best get back to the house. It’s slower going downhill.” As they walked down, Stafford asked the sheriff about the people waiting for Gwen and Jessamine.

“Mountain folk” was all he said.

They reached the house about forty minutes later, emerging from the willows by the pond to a pool of porch light. The upstairs lights were on hi the bedrooms. Gwen had shown him her father’s room upstairs, but he planned to wait for the children to go to bed before going up there.

He presumed the kids and Mrs. Benning were probably hi the room where the tinted white shadows of a television flickered on the part of the ceiling visible through the curtains. Stafford was almost anxious to get inside; the night air had begun to chill him in earnest halfway down the trail. They let themselves in through the kitchen door, which the sheriff then locked behind them.

“Haven’t had to do that in a long damn while,” he muttered, putting the ancient brass key on the kitchen table. They could hear the sounds of a television laugh track coming from upstairs and the occasional patter of small feet overhead. Stafford looked around for a coffee pot while the sheriff shucked his hat and coat and extracted the big revolver from his holster.

“Looking for coffee makings?” the sheriff asked. “Perk pot’s in there.

Coffee’s in the fridge.”

“You must spend some time here,” Stafford said as he went to prepare a pot of coffee. Then he thought about the question his comment implied.

The sheriff was giving him an amused look when he finally had the percolator set up and bubbling. Stafford was once again struck by the sheriff’s appearance: the tall, rangy body of a lumberjack, with that young-old face, the grayish white hair contrasting with the heavy black eyebrows, and that Wyatt Earp mustache. He wondered how old the sheriff really was.

“We were married when she came back from the university,” the sheriff said, easing his tall frame into a kitchen chair. “I think that was one of the things that screwed it all up in the end. She got out of Graniteville, got an education. I never did.”

“But she came back.”

“Hill country does that to young folk,” the sheriff said. ‘ ‘Either they fly out of the mountains and never come back or they can’t leave for very long. We’d been dating hi high school. I was something of a football star, and Gwen, well … even now she’ll turn your damn head straight around, you just walkin’by.”

Stafford nodded but was careful to say nothing, realizing that the sheriff had decided to get something into the open.

“I went to work for the county force soon’s I graduated and Gwen left for college. By the time she came home to teach, I was senior deputy. A year later, old man Slater— he was the sheriff then—he up and died at his desk, and I took over. Ran for the election the next year, never looked back.”

The percolator stopped making its noises. Stafford found two mugs in the pantry and filled them. He gave one to the sheriff and sat back down to listen.

‘ ‘We got married the year I was elected. She was living here at the time, but it was a mite awkward, with the docs new wife and all.”

“That was Hope?”

The sheriff eyed him across his coffee mug. “She tell you about all that?”

“Yes.”

“She tell you her momma died? That the old doc remarried a couple years later?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

The sheriff nodded and blew on his coffee. “Not quite how it happened,” he said. “Her momma went crazy. It took while, but by the time she took bad, everyone knew it. Especially old Doc Hand. He had to take her down to Milledgeville in 1974. She died there from some stupid little infection that they never caught. Some flu that got away from ‘em.”

“And then Hope ends up the same way?”

“Yup. After blowing away two of her kids with Doc’s twelve-gauge, and then tearing off her own arm trying to kill herself. Which lovely scene I got to investigate.”

Stafford shook his head hi wonder. “Come visit the nice peaceful north Georgia mountains,” he said. “Relax, take your pack off, listen to the gunfire.”

The sheriff nodded absently but did not reply.

“You lived here?”

“No, sir,” the sheriff said with a touch of pride.

“Don’t much hold with the idea of a man not providing a house and home for his own family. No, we lived across town, near the quarry. She came out here every day, and I usually came here for lunch. Other than what family did to family, it’s not like we had or have a big crime problem up here.”

Stafford nodded. So what led to the affair? he wanted to ask, but he knew better than to do that. The sheriff was staring down into his coffee cup as if looking for the answer to the riddle of the universe.

“See, like I said, I never left Graniteville,” he said again. “I was a local success story.

Everybody knew me from high school days. My classmates in high school, the ones who stayed, were now the citizens. I was the youngest sheriff in the state. Big man on campus, ‘cept’n this wasn’t no campus.” He looked up at Stafford and there was a blaze of pain in his eyes.

“You had an affair,” Stafford said.

The sheriff nodded slowly, the expression on his face a mask of regret “Yes, I did. It didn’t start out to be one, mind you. But Gwen and I were having some problems— over whether or not to have our own kids—and I began to spend time with another woman, a woman I had dated back while Gwen was away at college. For six months or so, it was just that: spending time, getting sympathy. Then one afternoon it became something else, and I became the biggest damn fool on the face of the planet.”

“She found out.” “She found out. Like I said, we’d been having a touch of trouble anyway: I wanted kids. She, for reasons I didn’t understand at the time, said she wanted to wait. It wasn’t what I’d call serious trouble, mind you, but sufficient for me to justify seeking a sympathetic shoulder, or so I thought, anyways. But, yes, she found out.”

“Someone tell her? Small-town grapevine?”

“I don’t think so. Gwen just had a habit of knowing things. Still does.”

Stafford nodded. He didn’t know what to say, so he asked a question about Owen’s reluctance to have kids.

“We’d been married seven years when the trouble with Hope came to a head. Hope didn’t just rise up and do that: For the two, three years before that, Gwen had kinda become mother to Hope’s kids, especially when Hope wandered off the planet. It was real tough on the Doc, tough on everybody. And after that night, Jess, who was the baby, came to live with us.”

“So suddenly, you did have a child.”

“That’s it Course, I didn’t see it that way. Being’ not too damn bright, it took me many years to figure out the real reason.”

“Which was?”

“Old Doc Hand marrying up his new, young, and, eventually, insane wife, Hope.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Hope was related to Carrie, Owen’s mother.”

At first Stafford didn’t see it. And then he did. “Ah,” he said.

“Yeah. Owen’s own mother, then Hope. And, of course, before that, Hope’s older sister, Charity, the one who went flying with her unseen companions at the flooded quarry.”

Stafford sipped his coffee for a few minutes. “And now there’s Jess.”

“That’s right. Now there’s Jess. Who we hope like hell really is a psychic, and not—”

Stafford nodded again. There was no future in it, Owen had said. Because of the madness. Her own mother, her mother’s relatives, and now possibly her half sister. Gwinette Hand Warren had decided never, ever to have children, and when she had decided that a long time ago, her husband had sought the comfort of another woman. No future in that, either. Damn.

“That explains a lot,” Stafford said. “I guess what I find curious is your relationship now. You’re obviously friends; you obviously still care very much for her. See, my wife divorced me this past year. Ran off with some Air Force guy. I could never see myself in the same room with her ever again.” The sheriff nodded. “Owen told me something about that.” He looked up at Stafford, who was surprised to hear this. “Oh, yes, she did. I think-I’m more like her big brother now than her ex-husband. We’ve known each other since we were kids, and then almost eight years as man and wife, and for ten years since.” He sighed. “The plain fact is that I was the one who screwed that one up. She could forgive me for it, but she couldn’t be my wife any more. So what we’ve got now is the best I can make of a poor-ass situation. That I created.

I take what I can get.”

“You never remarried.”

“Nope. After Gwen found out, she went to see the other woman. Told her she was going to leave me. That if we wanted to get married after that, it would be all right with her. Was as nice and sweet as she could be.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, buddy. When I went to see her after that little session, she told me she couldn’t marry me, because if I couldn’t be faithful to such a good woman as Gwen, I’d never be faithful to her. Always some truth to that notion, I reckon. So that was that. I figured life didn’t have to go hittin’ me between the eyes with an ax handle more’n once to teach me a lesson.”

Stafford smiled ruefully across the table at this complex man. He wondered if he would ever get the chance to reach such an equilibrium in his own tattered personal life. He had hoped, assumed, really, that there was something developing between himself and Gwen Warren, but now he knew better. Gwen was being kind and sympathetic, but that was all.

He was the one who was infatuated with her, but after hearing the full story of her life, he could well imagine that she, like John Lee, had decided not to let life swing any more ax handles at her, either. The sheriff had sensed what was developing, and he had decided to let him down easy.

He concentrated on his coffee. There were sounds of a juvenile altercation upstairs, which ended with a single sharp word from Mrs. Benning. He looked at his watch. Just about an hour to go.

TUESDAY, VERNON CREEK CABINS, 6:15 P.M. Carson was sitting outside, which seemed to help his headache, when he decided he needed something to eat Stafford had promised that die cops would leave him alone.

Maybe there was one of those fancy mountain-lodge restaurants nearby.

For a moment he pictured a large wood paneled dining room with white tablecloths, quiet, polite waiters, and a good wine list. He even went in and checked his cash and saw that he had plenty of money. Then he saw his reflection in the bathroom mirror through the open doorway. His face looked puffy, and there were pronounced pouches under his eyes. His hair was damp and matted. Yeah, right, let’s go to a fancy restaurant. His stomach brought him further back to reality with another wave of nausea.

Getting a little spaced-out here, he thought. You don’t need to eat. You need a drink. That’s it. A brandy. A slug of whiskey. Something to keep me going, stiffen my spine. That hillbilly cabin manager, he’ll have some whiskey. All these mountain guys are serious boozers. He’ll have a jug up in that office. Just have to go up there. He looked out the window at the sloping gravel driveway, which seemed to tilt a little as he stared at it. Don’t remember it being that steep. Just have to walk up there. Yeah, right.

He sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, wanting desperately to lie down and sleep for a while. No way, he thought immediately. You lie down now and you won’t get up. He forced himself to get back off the bed, carefully, doing it in stages so as not to provoke the pain monster sitting on his back. He had tried to change the bandage, but by then it had been stuck hi place, and he was afraid of opening up a scab and starting more damned bleeding. There were shooting pains in his upper arms now, and he was suddenly very thirsty. He remembered that the manager had bottled water for sale to the hikers. That’s what you need.

Not whiskey. You need water.

He went out to the truck and looked up the hill. It hurt to crane his neck even a little. Damn driveway definitely looks steeper than it did before. Loose gravel, too. Can’t afford to fall. So take the truck, dumb shit. He pulled himself into the truck, closed the door, started it, and drove it up to the office cabin, the engine complaining in first gear.

Just to be safe, he parked it below the crest of the driveway entrance, just out of sight of the road. He was opening the truck door and turning carefully in his seat to get out when he heard a ‘powerful vehicle coming up the mountain road to his left. He stopped to listen. Make that a couple of vehicles, he thought.

Some instinct made him hesitate. He pulled his door closed to extinguish the cabin light, then pulled the ball cap down over his face a little.

He leaned sideways in the driver’s seat, not wanting to touch the seat with his back. Then he waited, fighting his hot lungs a little bit for breath. A minute later he saw two large green Suburbans come whipping by the driveway.

Green. He recognized that color, even in the twilight. That was Army fucking green. His heart started to beat faster. Unmistakable. Army fucking green. Just like his pickup truck, complete with white serial numbers and two whip antennas on the back. Front vehicle with three, maybe four people in it; the back vehicle had more riders and a bunch of gear. The Suburbans roared past the driveway and disappeared around a curve up the road. Toward Graniteville.

Carson exhaled and pushed the cap back on his head. That fucking Stafford! ‘I’ve got the deal. There’s an FBI team coming up with the paper. I expect them by eight o’clock.’ Lies. All lies. He called the damned Army instead, just like he did before.

Those were Special Forces on their way to set something nasty up in that courthouse square. Gun him down the moment he stepped. out of his truck, with the connivance of some damned ruthless Georgia sheriff. He swore even harder when he realized he was trembling. Then he realized he was wrong: They wouldn’t just shoot him down. They had to have the cylinder first, so they’d capture him and take him out into the woods and rip his fingernails out or something until he told them where it was. Right.

That had to be tlje game.

He looked at his watch. He squinted in the low light until he remembered there was a light button on it. It was almost six-thirty. By the so-called plan, he had less than two hours, during which time the cops supposedly had been told not to mess with him. Time enough to do something, but what? He closed his eyes, trying hard to make his brain work. His overheated, feverish brain. Can’t think, that’s my problem.

This is bad shit here, but I have to do something. Can’t just let them take me down like a dog. And I want that bastard Stafford.

He reached into the glove compartment and .found the bottle of Advil. He swallowed three of the sugarcoated pills, then really wanted that bottled water. Stafford, he thought feverishly. Lying through his teeth.

Graniteville is a trap.

Graniteville. Graniteville. Why did he remember that name? He squeezed his eyes shut and thought hard. Fragmentary images swam across his brain.

Graniteville.

Why was Stafford in Graniteville?

And then it hit him. The black-haired woman at the airport. That child with those borescope eyes. His fainting in the baggage-claim area. A real chill swept over him, because he knew what was coming next. “No, no,” he murmured as he tried to open his eyes, but it was as if they were glued shut, and he was back in the dream, in that vast river. With all those people. All those lost souls Sweeping down toward the falls.

That’s how Stafford had known. Somehow the girl had seen it. Those piercing eyes, the dream, his passing out in the airport. It was the girl. She’d told her mother or whoever that woman was, and the woman had told Stafford. That’s why Stafford had gone to Graniteville, and that’s why he was in Graniteville now instead of in Atlanta: Stafford was just the messenger. The girl was the witness!

If that was true, then his plan to implicate Stafford wouldn’t .work, not as long as she was alive. Well, hell, he thought, she’s just down the damned road. That Willow Grove Home. How hard could this be? But first he had to get a drink of water. Any damned water. Then he needed a map. There had to be more than one road into Granite ville besides this one.

TUESDAY, WILLOW GROVE HOME, GRANITEVILLE, GEORGIA, 7:20 P.M. Stafford put a jacket on this time when he went out with the sheriff to check the grounds. The skies had cleared somewhat and there was more starlight, which ended abruptly where the mountains created their own high horizon.

They made one circuit of the yard, the pond, both groves, and the barn area. They walked quietly, the sheriff smoking another cigarette, and Stafford thinking about what the sheriff had told him.

They were headed back toward the side of the house from the barns when the sheriff stopped and put his hand up in the air, signaling for silence.

“Listen,” he said.

Stafford listened, and he heard it immediately—the sound of a large vehicle climbing the mountain road that’ ran in front of the house. No, not one, but two vehicles. Powerful engines, but not trucks. He thought he recognized the sound. “Those sound like Army vehicles,” he said softly. “What the hell are they doing here? I thought it was just to be the FBI.”

“It was,” the sheriff declared, dropping and mashing out his cigarette.

Together they walked around the pond side of the house as the Suburbans slowed down out on the road and then turned into the driveway, their headlights on bright, momentarily blinding both men. The vehicles came up the driveway and then turned into the circle, parking in an echelon next to the sheriff’s car before shutting down. Stafford recognized the shape of the tall man getting . out of the lead vehicle.

“Mr. Stafford,” the general said. “We meet again.”

“General Carrothers, I presume,” Stafford replied.

“This is John Lee Warren, the sheriff of Longstreet County.”

Carrothers approached, his combat boots crunching on the pea gravel of the driveway, and shook the sheriff’s hand. He was about an inch taller than the sheriff, and the two big men sized each other up for a second as they shook hands. Stafford explained who Carrothers was.

“We weren’t expecting the Army,” Stafford said. “You’re not really part of the deal. In fact, if Carson—”

“Deal?” Carrothers. “What deal?”

“Ray Sparks didn’t tell you? Carson called me. He’s agreed to turn himself in. As soon as he’s convinced he’s physically safe, he’ll turn over the cylinder. Or tell the FBI where it is.”

The general exhaled softly. “Son of a bitch. No, I was not told.”

“Well, your being here is a complication. Carson’s scared shitless you guys are out to kill him. He sees these vehicles, he says the deal is off. He’s supposed to come in at eight. That’s about thirty minutes from right now.”

“He’s coming here!”

“No. Into Graniteville. At eight.” ‘

The phone in the sheriff’s car began to chirp. The sheriff went across, opened the driver’s door, and picked it up. He listened, spoke for a minute, and then hung it up. ‘ ‘The FBI’s here, General. I told them you were here. Some guy named Kiesling wants you to call him. He sounded some agitated,”

“I don’t care to talk to him just now, Sheriff,” Carrothers said.

“Well, then, what do you say we stash you and your vehicles up at the quarry above town. You’ll be close by but out of sight. You got radios in those things?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then I suggest you hurry,” Stafford said. “I’m going to stay right here while the deal goes down.”

“Why?” Carrothers asked. “If he called you, I’d think he’d want you there.”

“He did. But I don’t trust him or the FBI. I believe I know more about this little mess than is healthy for me.”

“You’re a very perceptive man, Mr. Stafford,” Car rothers said. “I came here to talk to you, but I guess we’d i; better get going. Later, perhaps.”

I Stafford nodded. The sheriff and Carrothers got back into their respective vehicles and they all drove off. The sudden silence was almost deafening. Stafford sat down on : the front steps of the big house and listened to the assorted

‘ vehicles go humming down the road back toward town. If the plan works, he thought, this whole mess ought to be i over in about forty minutes.

f He looked up at the bright stars twinkling along the : ridgeline of the mountain across the road. Now that the vehicles were gone, he could hear the night sounds from the willow grove, dominated by a chorus of peepers serenading the pond. There was quite a bit of starlight in the clear mountain air, and he could see surprisingly well. It was a very romantic setting, leading him to wonder where Gwen was. Safe, from all appearances, among her people, who could never be his people. A large mosquito banked noisily past his right ear, and he slapped the air. So much for the romance, he decided, and got up to go back into the house.

Wendell Carson watched from the edge of the pecan grove as the Army vehicles and the sheriff’s car left Willow Grove. He was crouched down behind a tumbling-down stone wall, about fifty feet in from the pavement. His truck was parked a quarter mile back up the road, hidden in some trees on the opposite side of the highway.

It was exactly as he had thought. No FBI. Just those damned Army goons, being helped by the sheriff. He hadn’t been able to see too clearly in the darkness, but the third man standing by the cars had to have been Stafford. Everything Stafford had told him about the FBI and their deal had been a lie. He nodded to himself in satisfaction. Thought they’d put one over on old Wendell Carson, but he’d figured it out. The question now was what to do about it. He shifted his position behind the wall to try to ease the pain. The muscles in his upper back now felt like football pads, swollen, hard and tender all at the same time. He’d taken more Advil to keep the feverish headache at bay, and he’d used up all but one of the six-pack of bottled water he’d swiped from the cabin office before he left. And still he was thirsty.

It was so hard to think. Every tune he tried to arrange his mind, the pain in his back and his head intruded. He was perspiring, even though the surrounding night air was almost cold. His clothes stank and he stank. He’d tried a shower in the cabin and had ended up nearly falling out of the tub. He tried to resurrect the plan. Turn himself in. Verify the government’s deal. Tell them where the cylinder was, which right now was in the back of the truck in its cooler. Implicate Stafford in the theft of the cylinder.

But Stafford had lied. There was no deal waiting for him down there in Graniteville. Just the Army, waiting in ambush for him to show his face, which they would then proceed to blow off. They wanted the cylinder, and they wanted it in secret. He exhaled a long, hot breath. He was sick, his body probably infected by the untreated bullet wound. He did not want to die out here in the woods like some gut-shot deer for this damned thing, but that’s what was going to happen unless he did something. The Army was waiting for him in town. Once they figured out he wasn’t coming, what would they do?

He closed and opened his eyes. He had no idea of what they would do. He had no idea of what the hell he should do. He looked over at the house.

It “was a school and an orphanage. There were lights on upstairs, which meant there were kids in there”. Stafford had stayed behind. Suppose he went in there, got the drop on Stafford, took the place hostage.

Threatened to open the cylinder. Then called—who? The sheriff? No, he was in league with the Army. Better: Threaten to call the media, some Atlanta television station, unless the Army backed out and the FBI came back into the picture to make the deal Stafford had promised him.

Yes, that was right, that was his leverage: The Army couldn’t stand any publicity. Take some hostages, threaten to tell the media, and if they tried some shit, threaten to shoot a kid or open the cylinder. Get a hundred cops and three TV trucks up here, and then let them find out the bad guy inside had a nerve-gas bomb.

The question was, Could he do any of those things? Shoot a kid? Open the cylinder? He didn’t think he could, but then again, they couldn’t know that, and they’d have to assume he could and would. What he did know was that he didn’t have much time.

He looked back over the wall at the big house. The front porch lights were on, and there appeared to be lights on in the back, maybe in a kitchen area. There didn’t appear to be any dogs. Stafford was in there, and some kids upstairs. Maybe a nurse or someone to take care of the kids. How many kids? Doesn’t matter. Stafford matters. Going in circles here. So go get the cylinder. Then creep over there, find Stafford, and go surprise his ass. He straightened up and his back shot lines of fire up and down his spine. Go fast, he thought, staggering a little. James Bond you are not. Go fast while you still can The phone in the kitchen rang at quarter to nine. It was the sheriff. “He’s a definite no-show,” Warren announced.

“Damn,” Stafford replied. “The Bureau, people were there on time?”

“Oh yeah. Three cars’ worth. Coats and ties, real stern faces, the whole bit. They’re not happy. The boss man thinks you are not Mr. Clean.”

“Yeah, well, Ray warned me about that. They being civil?”

“In a manner of speakin’. They say ‘sir’ a lot.” Stafford laughed.

“Well,” he said. “I don’t know what to do but wait. I think he meant it—about coming in. He knows that cylinder is all he’s got to trade:”

“Okay. They’re all set up outside. He shows, they’ll take him, and from the way they’re actin’, he better not twitch a whole lot. We’ll wait some more, but these feds want to start the statewide search up again.”

“I can understand that,” Stafford said. “They know the Army’s there?”

“Yeah. I told them. The Army’s been waiting up at the rock quarry.

They’ve been calling, too. The general’s on his way down here now.”

“Okay,” Stafford said. “Carson contacts me here, I’ll let you know immediately.” “Everything okay there?” the sheriff asked casually.

“You mean is Carson here with a gun at my head? No such luck. No, all’s quiet here.”

They hung up and Stafford went to make some more coffee. That dumb bastard was going to screw this thing up. He wondered again about the weakness in Carson’s voice, and whether or not he’d been injured. He also did not like the sounds of the FBI thinking he was part of this, especially now that Carson was a no-show.

TUESDAY, THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE, GRANITEVILLE, GEORGIA, 9:00 P.M. Carrothers walked into the sheriff’s office just as Warren was hanging up the phone. The senior FBI-man, Kiesling, came in right behind him. He still looked unhappy.

“So where the hell is he?” Carrothers asked.

“Anybody’s guess,” Kiesling said disgustedly. “I thought the deal was that you were going to stay at Fort Gillem, General.” “I received new orders,” Carrothers said. “The Pentagon wanted me to talk to Stafford.” “You could have told me. I still think our boy Stafford is rucking with us.”

“To what end?” Carrothers . “If he were .part of this, he’d be long gone with Carson and your money, not .sitting up here talking to us on the phone.”

Kiesling frowned, then went back out the door to check on his people in the square. The sheriff explained that there were three cars out there, each with two agents, positioned to close in on Carson as soon as he showed up. Carrothers noticed that the sheriff was standing at his desk, looking distractedly at the phone.

“What?” Carrothers asked.

“Something Stafford just said. I asked him if everything was okay out there at Willow Grove. And he said, ‘You mean is Carson here with a gun at my head? No such luck.’ “

“Maybe he was just being funny. He’s out there by himself, right?”

“Effectively. One of the night nurses is there, plus the kids, of course.”

“Is there any reason Carson would go there?”

The sheriff gave him a studied look from underneath those huge black brows. Carrothers though the sheriff appeared to be about the same age as he was, but with a much better poker face. “Not that I can think of,” the sheriff replied finally. “You want some coffee, General?” “Yes, please,” Carrothers said almost automatically. He was living on caffeine these days. They walked out into the hall, where the coffeepot was. The offices along the hallway were darkened except for the deputies’ dayroom. ‘ ‘How much have the FBI told you about this business, Sheriff?”

“Not very much a-tall,” the sheriff said. “Although that is their style.

But basically this Wendell Carson is supposedly a bad guy, armed and dangerous, and he’s got something the government wants back, and the government’s willing to deal. That about it?”

“Yeah, that’s about it,” Carrothers said, wanting to tell the sheriff the whole story but remembering his orders. Right now, only Kiesling, Sparks, and Stafford knew what Carson was carrying.

The sheriff was giving him a peculiar look, as if he was trying to decide something. Then he nodded to himself.

“That is total bullshit, I do believe,” he said matter-of factly. “I believe the real story is that this Carson’s run off with a container of some kind of Army nerve gas, which Mr. Stafford learned about with the help of one of the children out there at Willow Grove—a girl who is a psychic. And the reason Carson might go there instead of here is to silence that little girl, along with Mr. Stafford. Now, is that about it, General?”

Carrothers didn’t know what to say. He just stared at the sheriff for a moment, looked up and down the empty hallway to make sure no one had been listening, and then nodded. “Almost,” he said, and then told him of the FBI’s role in Carson’s original attempts to sell the cylinder.

The sheriff grinned and shook his head when he heard that story. “Now there’s federal screw up of the first water for you,” he said. “First y’all misplace this thing, then a government employee steals it and tries to sell it to the FBI, who keeps it a secret from you? Ain’t no wonder the bad guys are doing so well these days.”

Carrothers could only nod his head.

“And both of you have to get this thing back. You can’t admit you lost one, and the FBI can’t admit that their guy had a hand in Carson getting loose with it, right?”

“Plus the fact that they lost a guy during the incident at Fort Gillem.”

The sheriff stopped grinning. “They did? Tell me, does Stafford know that? Or about the Bureau’s role in the original scheme?”

“Not to my knowledge. Stafford tried to warn us that Carson had it. Told his boss first, then even told me. We didn’t listen so good. Problem was, nobody could figure out how he could know about it until his boss, Sparks, told us about the girl. That was after Carson got away, of course.”

“The girl, yes,” the sheriff said softly, sinking back down into his desk chair. “See, we were all sort of worried that this thing might come here to Graniteville. So earlier tonight, we sent the girl off with the lady who runs the school, Owen Warren. She’s my ex-wife, by the way.”

“Where did you send her?”

“Somewhere’safe, General,” the sheriff said, giving him a look that said, That’s all I’m going to tell yorf. “So if Carson is going up to Willow Grove, he’s going to be disappointed.”

“But he can get to Stafford. And he may very well want to.”

The sheriff thought about that for a moment. “Yes,” he said. “He could get to Stafford. You know I don’t like the way he talked about having a gun at his head when I talked to him. I think I’m going to take a quiet ride out there. Have me a look-see.”

“Nothing beats personal reconnaissance, Sheriff. In the meantime, we wait some more, I suppose.” And try to mollify Kiesling and his troops, he thought. Kiesling had undoubtedly already called the Justice Department to report Carrothers’s presence in Graniteville. Need to do some damage control there.

“Yes, sir, General, that’s what I’d recommend. I was you, I’d keep your people out of sight up at that quarry and let the FBI take him. They want him pretty bad.”

Carrothers was getting worried about that. Based on the way Kiesling was acting, the FBI wanted Carson in a body bag. As probably did General Waddell.

TUESDAY, WILLOW GROVE HOME, GRANITEVILLE, GEORGIA, 9:15 P.M. Carson did not approach the house directly. He had gone back to the truck, retrieved the cylinder, and put it in a bag. He got his revolver, finished the last of his water, and then made his way along the stone wall that paralleled the state road. He hesitated when he reached the eastern property line, but then he decided to stick to the road, go all the way across the front of the school, and then cut across that low dam into the dense stand of willow trees on the other side of the pond. The willows would give him much better cover to approach the house than the widely spaced pecan trees on the other side.

It took him fifteen minutes to cross over in front of the house, get up and across the dam, and make his way through the willows until he was parallel with the back of the house. He could see what looked like kitchen windows, but he needed to get closer to see if Stafford was in there. He also discovered a problem as he pushed through the dense willow branches: He was on the wrong side of the creek that fed the pond. Where he was standing, it was nearly ten feet across, and, although it didn’t look deep, the ravine it had cut over the years offered very steep banks. He didn’t think he could get down and back up those banks with his back the way it was.

Now what? he thought wearily, trying to focus. I’ve got to get over this creek to the yard. He wondered if there was a bridge farther upstream, but the thought of pushing through more of the willow branches deterred him: It had been hard, sweaty work getting this far in the dark, and the branches were full of biting insects. He was having trouble enough concentrating as it was. Okay, he thought, so go back to the dam. Come up the main drive, keeping in the shadow of the line of trees that borders the drive. Not as good cover as the willows, but better than this.

He rested for a few minutes, absorbing the night sounds while he got his breath back, and then started back the way he had come, toward the road, pushing the swaying branches out of his face and fending off the squadrons of bugs he was stirring up. He kept losing his way, and twice he had to retrace his steps until he found the pond. Keep the pond on your left, and you’ll hit the dam and the road, he told himself. He was sweating profusely now in the clammy air around the pond. He had just about reached the edge of the dam when he stopped to catch his breath.

It was then he heard a distinctive noise: a car door being closed, out there on the road.

He froze and listened hard. At first there was nothing but the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears. How had a vehicle come up that road without his hearing it? The willow branches, he realized.

All those branches in his face and ears had masked the sound. Especially if someone was trying to be quiet. Then he heard another sound, of someone on the other side of the dam pushing his way through the stand of willows over there. Not in a hurry. Deliberate movements, interspersed with moments of silence.

He’s listening before he moves, Carson thought, like I should have been doing. He put the bag carefully down In the grass and pulled out his revolver. There was a mass of greenery right next to the edge of the dam, and he sank down into it, on his knees, trying not to grunt aloud as the shooting pains lit up his back again. Insects whined in his ears, but he ignored them. From his position, he could see clearly across the top of the dam, a space of about twenty .feet

He waited, feeling his back and legs getting stiff. After a few minutes, he heard the unseen intruder pushing through the final willow tree right before the dam, and then he saw a tall gray-haired figure step onto the top of the dam and start across. When the man was halfway across, Carson rose from his hiding place, which was when he saw the star on the other man’s chest.

“That’s far enough,” he announced, and the sheriff iroze, his hands at his side.

“And you musuje the famous Mr. Carson,” the sheriff said. The top of the concrete dam was about a foot and half wide, but the sheriff seemed to have no problem balancing on it. To the sheriff’s right was the still black surface of the pond; to his left, a drop of about ten feet down into a pool. The sheriff stood right in front of a shallow channel. that had been notched into the middle of the dam to let the overflow drop into the pool below. Carson checked over his left shoulder, but the lights from the house were barely visible through the branches of one large willow tree.

“That’s right. Where’d you leave the Army?”

“The Army? They’re up at the rock quarry, waiting for the FBI guys to tell them where to find the weapon.”

“What FBI guys?”

“The ones you were supposed to turn yourself into, Mr. Carson. They’re down at my office in the courthouse.”

“I don’t believe you. There’s just the Army. Stafford was lying. You’re all lying.”

The sheriff slowly raised his right hand and slapped a mosquito on his cheek, prompting Carson to lift the barrel of his revolver. The gun was beginning to feel very heavy in his hand. The sheriff put his hand back down, and Carson noticed that somehow he had managed to undo the safety strap on his sidearm.

“No, he wasn’t,” the sheriff said. “I’ve got a whole passel of Feds drinking my coffee and calling you names down there right now. We’ve got the lawyer laid on and everything. You come in with me, we can get this thing done. Ain’t no need for any trouble.”

Carson shook his head, wincing. He wasn’t going to be fooled again. If everything was the way the sheriff was describing, what was the sheriff doing here? Creeping around in the bushes? He asked the sheriff that question.

“Because I called Mr. Stafford a few minutes ago. Asked him if he’d heard from you, because you hadn’t shown up in town. Asked him if everything was okay here. He said something about your holding a gun to his head and then said everything was fine. Didn’t sound right, so I came to take a look.”

“Alone?”

The sheriff glanced to his left into the dark woods. “Yep. All alone,” he said.

Carson moved a little to put a tree trunk between him and any helpers the sheriff might have out there on the road or in the woods. But then he realized the sheriff was bluffing.

“Take your gun out of that holster and drop it in the pond,” he ordered.

The sheriff gave him a long, flat look, and Carson raised the barrel of Ms. revolver again. “It’s only about fifteen feet,” he said. “Even I can hit you at fifteen feet.” The sheriff continued to look at him, his hand now dangling very close to the butt of his sidearm. “Yeah, Mr. Carson, you might get lucky and hit me. But I wonder whether or not you can actually shoot someone.

That’s harder than it looks on the TV. Specially when the other fella is bringin’ up a forty-five at the same time. Besides, you don’t sound so good to me. You’re weavin’ around a little bit, and your voice sounds a mite strained. I’m thinkin’ this might be a pretty even contest. ‘Cause I know I can hit you at fifteen feet.”

“Pull it out with two fingers and drop it in the pond,” Carson said, steadying his right hand with his left, the way he’d seen shooters do in magazines. His mouth was dry and the pounding in his head had accelerated dangerously. A small breeze rippled across the pond. Carson cocked his revolver and pointed it right at the sheriff’s midsection.

“Doit, Sheriff.”

The sheriff put two fingers on the butt of the automatic, paused for a long moment, and then lifted it out of the holster. He bent and dropped it onto the concrete, but it did not go over the edge. He looked at it for a, second and then continued to bend down slowly.

“Use your foot!” Carson barked, but the sheriff kept reaching down. At the last moment, he nudged the big weapon over the edge with his knuckles, where it went into the pond with scarcely a sound. Carson, who had been holding his breath, started to relax, until he saw the glint of metal in the sheriff’s right hand as he brought up the ankle gun. Carson did not hesitate: He pulled the trigger and the .38 bucked in his hand with a flash of red light that momentarily blinded him. He heard the big man grunt and then there was a sliding noise as the sheriff went over the road side of the dam, tumbling down the sloped surface of the concrete and entering the pool with a heavy splash. Carson knelt down at the edge of the dam and scanned the surface of the pool, but there were only small waves and ripples, and then silence in the black water below.

He noticed there was a dark smear running vertically down the face of the dam, but the overflow stream was already washing it away.

He stood up, his heart pounding, and backed farther into the bushes to retrieve the bag with the cylinder. The smell of gunpowder was very strong in the close branches of the willow trees. His ears still rang, and he realized he had a death grip on the butt of the .38. He stuffed the gun in his waistband, conscious of the warm barrel against his belly. He couldn’t believe what he’d done: He’d killed a policeman. The pain in his back forgotten for the moment, he grabbed the bag and pushed hurriedly across the dam. He broke out of the willows and, gasping for breath, began to run across the lawn toward the side of the house.

Stafford jumped up out of his chair in the kitchen when he heard the gunshot, spilling some coffee onto the table. It had sounded as if it had come from across the pond. He listened for a moment, then reached for the phone. He didn’t know the sheriff’s office phone number, so he dialed 911. A woman’s voice answered, asking in a twangy southern accent what his emergency was.

“Gunshots at the Willow Grove Home,” he shouted. “Get Sheriff Warren up here!”

He slammed down the phone and looked hurriedly around the kitchen for a shotgun, or any other kind of weapon. But he knew that if they had anything, it wouldn’t be out where he or the kids could ever find it.

From upstairs, Mrs. Benning’s voice called down to him, asking what that noise was.

“Stay upstairs, Mrs. Benning,” he called. “Keep the kids up there with you until I tell you differently. I’m going to see what that was. I’ve called the sheriff.”

He turned out the lights in the kitchen and then those in the front hall. The front door was open, but he couldn’t see anything outside because of the front porch lights. He finally found the switch for those, turned them off, and then stood just inside the front door, his face near the screen, listening. All he could hear were the night sounds from the pond and the surrounding trees. A gentle breeze stirred the tops of the pecan trees, then slid across the pond and whispered through the willows. He could hear Mrs. Benning moving around upstairs, a door closing, but it didn’t sound as if the children were awake. He looked at his watch.

Nine-twenty.

He concentrated on the sounds from outside, trying to detect footfalls or any other human noise. The old house made its own night noises as the day’s heat finally gave way to the cooler night air. That had definitely been a gunshot, probably a short-barreled .38, from the sound of it. He felt helpless with only one functioning arm and no weapon, although his ability to shoot left-handed was just about nonexistent.

The problem was that this house had too damned many doors and porches.

He stepped back into the hallway, gently shut the front door, and locked it. Then he went through to Gwen’s part of the house and shut the open French doors leading out to her side porch. He went through to her bedroom, where there were more French doors, which he also shut. Then through the office, with a quick check into the equipment alcove, but there were no doors there. Finally he went back to the enormous kitchen.

He’d forgotten to turn out the porch light by the back steps. By that single white light, he could see that there was no one in the kitchen, although the dining area was in shadow. But because of the light, het;ould not see out into the immediate yard behind the house, nor, for that matter, onto the porch area by the kitchen door. The sheriff had already locked the kitchen door. He stopped just inside the kitchen and listened again, really wishing he had a weapon. But he didn’t, so the best he was going to do was to get the .doors locked and wait for the 911 call to have an effect.

He stepped across the kitchen, trying not to make any noise, past the huge old woodstove, past the table with the bag on it, past the—He froze.

“Wondered when you’d see it,” Carson said from the darkness in the dining area.

Stafford sighed and turned to look in the direction of Carson’s voice.

He could see the man’s shape, sitting in a chair, but nothing else.

“You lied to me, Stafford. You said we had a deal.”

‘ ‘We did have a deal. There’re a half dozen FBI guys waiting for you with the sheriff at his office in Graniteville right now, wondering where the hell you are.”

‘ ‘Another lie, you son of a bitch,” Carson said, moving slightly so Stafford could see the glint of the revolver in Carson’s lap. “The sheriff and I just met up. He wasn’t in town. He was sneaking up on the house.”

“What happened?”

“He got shot, that’s what happened. He went into the pool beneath the dam. I made him get rid of his gun, but

Bhe had another one in his boot. Reached for it. He was going to shoot me. It didn’t work out.”

Dave thought about his 911 call. The FBI would come even if the locals didn’t. Except if Carson was telling the truth, the sheriff had already been on his way. He wished he could see Carson’s face; the man didn’t sound right. He started to move closer, but the sound of a revolver being cocked stopped him.

“That’s close enough. I’ve already shot one cop tonight. He didn’t think I had it in me. Hell, didn’t think I had it in me. But in for a penny, in for a pound, you know? A second one wouldn’t make that big a difference. Now, there’s a cylinder in that bag. Take it and put it in that big icebox.”p>

“In the icebox?”

‘ ‘Just do it. Something’s cooking in that little jewel, and I’m notyeady for it to pop open. Not yet, anyway. Then get me a phone.” . “A phone?”

J “There an echo in here? Yeah, a phone. Put it over here on the table, and then sit down right next to it. I want you to get me the number of the NBC affiliate in Atlanta.

Wendell Carson’s going into the publicity business.”

Stafford opened the bag and extracted the heavy cylinder. It looked just like the drawing and the image on the Army monitor. The metal surface was damp and warm. He shivered-in voluntarily when he realized what he was holding. He opened the oversized refrigerator’s door, slid the cylinder in next to a container of milk, and closed the door. He then walked over to where the phone lay on the kitchen counter. When he picked it up, he realized he’d knocked it off the hook when he slammed it down. He replaced the handset and took it over to the dining table.

As he got closer, he could see a little more of Carson’s face, but not enough to make out an expression. He could hear the man’s labored breathing. As Stafford sat down, the phone rang.

“Go ahead, pick it up.”

Stafford did. It was the 911 operator, asking for confirmation of his call. Stafford looked over at Carson. ‘ ‘I called nine one one,” he told him, tilting the phone so the operator could hear what he was saying to Carson. “What do you want me to tell them?”

“Tell them the truth. Tell them I’m holding you and everyone in this house hostage. Tell them I have a gun and a cylinder full of nerve gas.

Tell them anyone tries to get close to the house, I’ll start killing kids. If they try to storm the house, I’ll open the cylinder, kill everyone in the fucking county. Tell ‘em all that; then hang up. I want to use that phone.”

The wait for the Atlanta television people had not gone peacefully. A small army of vehicles had assembled on the state road in front of the house, with county sheriff cars, the FBI and their three vehicles, the Army and its vehicles, lots of state police, and some curious would-be onlookers and citizen volunteers from the town milling around down there.

Carson had set the tone for things early on. He’d been furious when he found out Gwen and Jessamine were gone. He’d made Stafford go in front of him in a room to-room search before believing it. Then the state police had brought up some portable floods, which they placed in the driveway entrance and behind the house to light up the grounds. Once the lights were on, the phone rang. Carson picked it up and told them to turn the light off. The cops said no, and put a hostage negotiator on the line. Carson responded by forcing Mrs. Benning to bring the little kids downstairs. Herding Mrs. Benning and the kids in front of him, he ordered Stafford to go around the first floor and pull all the curtains and shades closed, plunging the interior into total darkness. Then he assembled the kids and Mrs. Benning into their classroom, made them stand in front of the windows, opened the curtains, and turned on the lights so the cops could see them. He had Stafford crack open the front door, and then get down on his knees. Over Stafford’s head, he fired two rounds down the driveway in the direction of the floodlights. He didn’t hit any of the lights, but they apparently got the message and turned them all off.

After that he turned out the lights in the classroom and had Mrs. Benning pull the curtains shut. He sent them all into the parlor across, the hall, where he made them lie down on the floor, with orders to stay there, after which he locked them in. He took Stafford back into the dark kitchen and made him sit in a chair backlit by the porch light.

Carson then retired to the shadows at the back of the dining area to await the media’s arrival. When the phone rang again, with an FBI negotiator on the line, Carson told them he’d talk to the Atlanta media, and no one else, and that he was going to wait until they showed up. The cops mulled that one over, then called him back and told him they were not going to let the media in. They had hardwired the phone line to the command center in one of their vans, and would await his call.

Stafford had listened to this discussion, and he could just imagine the twelve-monkeystryingtobreed-a football scene that had to be going on down there on the road among the local law, the FBI, the state cops, and the Army. The Army would be shirting little green apples at the thought of the media getting a look at the cylinder, or, worse, Carson trying to open it in an orphanage.

They’d been waiting in the darkened kitchen for over an hour when Stafford asked Carson if he could make some fresh coffee.

“Yes. But first put a pitcher of ice water and a glass over here on the table. No lights and no tricks.”

Stafford got him the water, trying to see Carson’s face in his corner of the dining area when he opened the icebox door, but Carson remained hidden in the shadows. Stafford had forgotten that he had put. the cylinder injhe refrigerator. Its stainless steel sides were sweating visibly when he got the ice tray out, and he realized the refrigerator had been running ever since he’d put the cylinder in there. He wondered about that as he went to make coffee.

He had been trying to think of some way to get an advantage over Carson, but nothing brilliant had come to mind. If that was a six-shooter, then Carson should have three rounds left. Or only two, if he practiced the safety precaution of keeping the hammer chamber empty. But in the whole time Carson had been in the house, Stafford had not actually been able to get a direct look at him. All the interior lights in the house were off, and all the blinds and drapes were drawn, making the darkness just about complete, and while Carson could not see out, no sharpshooter with a night scope could see in, either. Stafford knew the cops outside would not storm the house with the children inside, so somehow, this thing was going to have to run its course. With only one functional arm and no gun, Stafford wasn’t going to be much help in any physical sense. He would have to use his brain instead, and that was small comfort.

Carson remained quiet over there in the darkness, his silhouette barely visible at the end of the table. The standoff was beginning to get to Stafford. He desperately wanted to see the man’s face, to see if the face matched up with the intense weariness in Carson’s voice. More than anything else, he wanted to do something. On the other hand, maybe if they just waited, Carson might collapse on his own. As long as he didn’t go after the kids. The cops had last called thirty minutes ago, but Carson just picked up the phone and hung it up. Standoff.

When the coffee was ready, he asked Carson if he wanted some.

“No. You stay over there. Sit down. There, where I can see you.” Stafford did as he was told. After a few minutes, he asked Carson what had happened to Bud Lambry. Carson told him..

“Wow. What’d he do—put the squeeze on you? Wanted more money than he’d been getting?”

At first Carson didn’t respond. Finally, he did.

“We had us a sweet deal going at that DRMO,” he said. “I guess we all got a little greedy when that thing showed up.”

“So what are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to wait for the TV people.”

“And then what?”

“And then I’m going to put a bullet through your fat head if you don’t shut up.”

That’s perfectly clear, Stafford thought, so he shut up.

Slumping sideways in his chair in the darkness, Carson allowed his eyes to close for just a moment once Stafford had shut his yap down at the other end of the long table. Drinking his fucking coffee. Waiting him out. Well, he could wait until hell froze over, because Wendell Carson wasn’t falling for any more of Stafford’s tricks. Wendell Carson was running out of time and patience. Those people should have been here by now.

He opened his eyes and blinked several times, regaining his focus.

Stafford was still sitting there, in profile to him in the gloom of the darkened kitchen. The fever was bad, and he knew that Advil and water were not going to hack it anymore. The cops had said they weren’t going to let him talk to the media, and the cylinder, for all its deadly contents, was as good as useless sitting in the refrigerator over there.

If he opened it, he would be the first to experience whatever horror lay inside. He thought about getting one of those kids in here, getting on the phone, and telling the cops he’d start shooting the kids unless they sent a television crew in.

He sighed, unintentionally loudly. Stafford looked over in his direction but kept his mouth shut, as ordered. I can make that threat, Carson thought, but I couldn’t do it. He was amazed at what he had done to the sheriff. Bud Lam bry had been as close to a case of self-defense as anything, but not shooting the man on the dam. He could have yelled “Drop it,’ or something. But he hadn’t. Wendell Carson had aimed at that bastard’s midsection and put one right through his heart, like he was some stone-cold killer. He could still hear that mortal grunt, see the dark smear all the way down the face of the dam into the stillness of the pool. And the hell of it was, he didn’t feel an ounce of remorse. He didn’t feel anything at all about shooting that guy. Just like he didn’t feel anything about Tangent’s guy on the conveyor belt.

Goddamn, this thing has gotten way out of hand, thanks mostly to this, piece of shit sitting down the table from me. And that damned weird girl. Twenty-four hours ago, I had my hands on a million bucks and a whole new life in front of me. Now? Now I’m fucked. The government is going to win this one. God, that pisses me off!

He shifted in his chair, precipitating sharp lances of pain throughout every joint in his body. Time is definitely running out. Can’t just let it end with me passing out here in this chair and Stafford calling in the cops. At the very least I’m going to take Stafford with me, and somehow that girl. Suddenly he knew just how to make that happen.

Stafford’s stomach was raising hell about all the coffee. The caffeine was keeping him awake, but the acid and stress were churning up his guts. He had been desperately trying to think of something he could do to break the impasse, something that wouldn’t get him or the kids killed in the process. He jumped when Carson spoke his name from the darkness.

“All right, Stafford,” Carson said, his voice coming out in a hollow croak.

“What?” Stafford said.

Carson slid the phone across the table in Stafford’s direction. “Call them. Get whoever’s in charge of the Army people oh the phone.”

“And tell him what?”

“Do it, goddamn it. I’ll tell you what to say.”

Stafford reached across for the phone and picked it up. A voice answered immediately. “Yes? Wendell?”

“No, it’s Stafford. He wants to talk to the Army honcho. That general.”

A new voice came on the line. “He can talk to me. No one else.” -. ;

“Who is this?”

“Kiesling, FBI.”

“There are five kids in here, Kiesling. This man isn’t up to playing games just now.”

“Taking his side, Stafford?”

“I’m the guy with a gun pointed at him. Just get the general, would you, Kiesling? I’m sure he’ll let you listen in.”

There was silence on the line for a few minutes. “What’re they saying?”

Carson asked.

“He said you could talk only to him. But I think he’s getting the Army guy.”

“He’d better.”

There was another wait, almost five minutes this time. Then a voice came on the line. “This is General Carrothers.” . “Dave Stafford here, General. Stand by one.” He looked in Carson’s direction. He could make out the white blur of Carson’s face, but not his features. “Well?”

“Give me the phone. Carefully. Push it over here.”

Stafford leaned forward and pushed the phone across the table as far as he could. Carson told him to sit down in the end chair, away from the phone, and then he got up, very slowly, Stafford noticed, and reached for the phone.

“General? This is Wendell Carson.”

Stafford could not longer hear the other side of the conversation, but it wasn’t very long.

“Here’s the deal, General. You want your little toy back, preferably unopened. I’ll give it to you. Then you can disappear into the woods and deny it ever happened. That’s what you people want more than anything, right?”

Carson was silent for a moment, and then Stafford saw him nod his head.

“Okay, then. But here’s the price for that. You bring me the girl—the one that can’t speak. You know the one I’m talking about. You bring her with you, and then you’ll get your cylinder, the nurse, and the kids.

Otherwise, I’m going to open it. Think about how you’ll explain that to your superiors, General. And to the public. Call me back when you have the girl.”

Stafford heard the phone slam down. ‘ ‘They’ll never do that,” he said to the figure in the darkness.

“Won’t they?’ Carson asked. “They get this thing back, and trade two hostages for seven. It’s not perfect, but life’s not perfect. You watch.

This is end game. They’ll do it.”

“Two hostages?”

“Yeah. I want the girl. I’ve already got you.”

It was Kiesling who briefed Carson’s demands to the state and county law-enforcement supervisors in the mobile command center. He didn’t specifically mention the cylinder, focusing on the hostages instead.

There was a babble of negative reactions around the command van. General Carrothers listened to all the simultaneous opinions, the exclamations of ‘No way in hell,’ the outraged fulminations of Kiesling’s FBI men, and then he quietly excused himself and walked through the cordon of police slouching behind their cars to the other side of the Willow Grove fence. When he had heard that the Atlanta media were inbound, he had ordered his people to break down the stone wall in the adjoining field and drive the military Suburbans up into that field and out of sight behind some trees. Fortunately, the television crews and their antenna-studded trucks were being held back down on the road to Graniteville, about a quarter of a mile from the scene.

Carrothers glanced at his watch. It was now almost three in the morning.

With sunrise would come press helicopters, which would spot his vehicles. He wished like hell that sheriff was around, but he had disappeared, and the consensus was that he might have run into Carson.

His deputies had been frantically searching the grounds all night, while trying not to be seen from the darkened house.

He reached the Suburbans. The captain came forward in the darkness. The rest of the soldiers were doing what sensible soldiers always do: sleeping in their vehicles. The captain was the only one awake.

“Yes, sir, General,” he said, saluting.

“Get the satellite link up, Captain. Get me General Waddell on secure.”

Two minutes later, he was patched through to Waddell, and he described the deal that Carson was offering.

“So he definitely has it in the house,” Waddell said.

“Sounds like it, sir. He’s got Stafford, a night nurse, and five little kids. We give him this girl, we get everybody but Stafford out, and we get the cylinder back. It’ll be daylight in three hours or so, and the Atlanta media is already here.” “What have they been told?”

“That there’s a wacko holding’kids hostage in this orphanage. That we know he has a gun, and that he’s claiming to have some nerve gas, which is why the Army is here, although I said we don’t really believe he does. Just a precaution.”

‘ ‘What do the civilians on scene say?”

“What you’d expect: No way in hell. The problem is, only the FBI supervisor knows what this thing is really all about. The other problem we have is that no one has any idea of where the girl is. She and the woman who runs this place were spirited away by the sheriff, before he disappeared.”

“This is the so-called psychic?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Has Carson ever seen her?”

“Yes, sir, unfortunately. I had the same idea: Get a female FBI agent in here and send her in. But he knows what she looks like.”

At that moment, Agent Kiesling materialized out of the darkness. The captain tried to keep him away from the general, but Carrothers waved him over] “I’ve got Agent Kiesling here, General. Stand by one, please, sir.”

Kiesling stepped close so as not to be overheard. “They’ve found the sheriff,” he said. “He’s dead. Heart shot. He was in the creek below the dam.”

“Jesus,” Carrothers muttered. He had liked the sheriff. “Now what?”

“I’ve talked to my people in Washington. If we can find that damned girl, they’re ready to take his deal. Before daylight and television helicopters, if you take my meaning. But supposedly only the sheriff knows—knew— where they are.”

“I think my boss is ready to do the same thing,” Carrothers said. “But if Carson killed the sheriff, we’d probably be sending the girl to her death. Not to mention Stafford.”

“Why?”

“Because if we retrieve the cylinder and Carson kills them, there’s nothing we can do to him. The government can’t reveal what this has all ben about, and the two witnesses would be dead. So my vote is that we don’t do it.”

Kiesling glanced over in the direction of the captain to make sure he would not be overheard. “My instructions from the Attorney General’s office are to do whatever it takes to get that cylinder back. Whatever it takes. Her understanding is that’s the Pentagon’s position as well.

We get those kids and the Cylinder out of there, then we have a new ball game. He shoots his remaining hostages, we’ll shoot him down like a dog.

But the focus is the cylinder.”

Carrothers just looked at him. The FBI man sighed. “Look, Stafford took his chances when he stuck his nose into this thing. I’m sorry about the girl, but she knows something she should not know. Hell, maybe we can give the girl a weapon and she can get it to Stafford.”

Carrothers just stared, and Kiesling shrugged. It was weak, and he knew it. Carrothers shook his head and went back on the satellite link to brief General Waddell, who immediately seconded Kiesling’s plan. “Find the girl,” he ordered. ‘ Take his deal. That cylinder can kill thousands of people, he lets it loose. The Secdef is willing to trade two people—one actually, when you think in terms of innocent civilians—to get that thing back. Do whatever it takes, General. That’s why you’re there.”

“But first we have to find her, General,” Carrothers reminded him. If we can’t find her, he thought, we can’t send her in there. There was a pause on the net.

“I understand, General. But be advised, if you can’t H find that girl and get her in there before sunrise, we’re authorized and prepared to take other measures to neutralize the Wet Eye.”

Carrothers felt his heart stop. “Other measures, General? You mean like the DRMO?”

“Precisely, General.”

“But there are five—”

“I have those orders from the National Command Authority. This is a weapon of mass destruction. We either get our hands on it or we must ensure its destruction. Do we know that’s Carson in there?”

“Yes, sir. They found his truck.”

“Then find the girl, General, or get everyone away from that house by sunrise. Waddell off net.”

Carrothers looked at the handset in disbelief for a moment before hanging it up. He was sweating despite the cool night air.

He told Kiesling what the general had just said. Kiesling looked at his watch and swallowed. “We’d better find that girl,” he said.

As they pushed their way back across the wet grass to rejoin the command center, two FBI agents, flashlights swinging, met them at the gap in the stone wall.

“There’s a woman down on the Graniteville road,” one reported to Kiesling. “Showed up at the police line in some beat-to-shit pickup truck. Says she’s the owner of this place. A Mrs. Warren? Wants to talk to whoever’s in charge. She has a teenage girl with her.”

Kiesling and Carrothers stared at each other and then hurried down to the mobile command center. As they approached the van, they could see Gwen Warren standing by the side doors. The girl was standing a few feet away from her, looking very frightened, her hands jammed into the pockets of her sweater, her eyes enormous. Three Longstreet County deputies were with them, along with two state troopers. The lights from inside the mobile command center spilled out onto the state road, throwing all the faces into garish relief. Under different circumstances, Carrothers thought, the woman would be quite attractive, but now her face is a mask of worry.

“Don’t say anything about the sheriff,” Carrothers whispered out of the side of his mouth. “He was her ex husband. According to the deputies, they were still close.”

As it turned out, John Lee was Owen’s first question. “Where’s John Lee?” she said to Kiesling. “The deputies called. They said there was trouble here. Has something happened to him?”

Kiesling looked at Carrothers, who wasn’t sure what to say. Gwen looked from one to the other, and then she saw the expression on the deputies’ faces. “Tell me, damn you,” she said.

The senior deputy stepped forward and took off his hat. “Sheriff John Lee’s dead, Miz Warren. Bastard holed up there in the school shot him, best we can tell. Over by the dam. I’m real sorry, ma’am. We’re all real damned sorry.”

Gwen put a hand to her mouth, her face draining of color as the shock set in. She sat down abruptly on the side step of the van, and Carrothers thought for a moment she was going to be sick. He stepped forward, pushing past Kiesling, and squatted down. “Mrs. Warren? I’m General Carrothers, U.S. Army, ma’am. I’m deeply sorry for your loss. I just met Sheriff Warren. He struck me as a good man.”

She nodded but didn’t say anything. The girl pushed her way between the men standing around her and sat down next to Gwen, her hands flying in some kind of sign language. Gwen just turned her face, and the girl made a small mewing noise, and then she began to cry. Gwen put an arm around her and held her while she dabbed at her own eyes.

“What is happening here?” she asked finally. Kiesling started to reply, but Carrothers gave him a sign to wait a minute. “Mrs. Warren, may I suggest we take a little walk, ma’am? Bring the girl if you’d like.”

Gwen looked up at him, momentarily confused, but then got up and went with Carrothers and Kiesling. They walked through the crowd of policemen standing around parked police cars, going away from the driveway in the direction of the field in which the Army vehicles were parked. The three deputies followed ten feet behind.

When they reached the wall, Gwen sat down again, the girl at her side.

Carrothers told her of what had happened that night. He had assumed that since the girl was mute, she was also deaf, but it was obvious as he was talking that she could hear just fine. He was a little nervous when he realized that this must be the psychic. Kiesling said nothing, but he made a show of looking at his watch frequently.

“He’s got the kids up there,” Carrothers concluded. “And an older woman.”

“That would be Mrs. Benning.” “Yes, ma’am,” Carrothers said. “And he’s got Staf ford. He has one gun that we know of, and one other thing.” He waited to see if she knew what he was talking about. According to Stafford’s boss, she was the one who had brought Stafford into it in the first place.

She looked up at him. She has truly beautiful eyes, he thought. “That thing,” she said. “He has that thing with him. The cylinder.”

“Yes, ma’am. He does. Mrs. Warren, that ‘thing’ contains an extremely deadly substance. If that substance gets loose, there is literally no telling how many people in this area might be harmed.”

She nodded, as if this wasn’t news. “And what does he want?” Her voice sounded dead.

“Something very unreasonable, ma’am,” Carrothers said, glancing over at Kiesling. “He’s willing to give us the cylinder, the kids, and Mrs. Benning.”

“In exchange for?”

“He wants this girl here,” Kiesling says. “And he keeps Stafford.”

“You’ve got to be out of your mind,” she said, staring rigidly into the darkness.

“Mrs. Warren, we don’t—” Kiesling began smoothly, but Carrothers cut him off again.

“I agree with you, Mrs. Warren,” he said. “So I’m totally opposed to that course of action. We’re trying desperately to think of something else, but we don’t have much time, and he’s threatening to hurt the kids.”

At the mention of the kids, her head snapped up. Kiesling tried to mollify her. “We don’t think he’ll do that, either, Mrs. Warren. This guy is not a hardened criminal. He’s a middle-aged civil servant who got way the hell out of his depth. But we don’t think he’s the type who could start shooting children.”

“Just full-grown sheriffs?” she asked quietly. Kiesling opened his mouth, but then he shut it. She looked back at Carrothers. ‘ ‘What other plan do you people have in mind, General?”

Carrothers hesitated. “We don’t, Mrs. Warren. We were hoping you could tell us something about the house, some vulnerability we might exploit.

Or maybe I could go in with the girl. I don’t know. But we have to do something.”.

She sighed. “He said he would hurt the kids?” “Yes, ma’am,” Carrothers said, thinking about what he had just offered to do, and wondering where the hell that idea had come from. Kiesling horned in again. “We can also just wait,” he said. “We can cut the power to the house, isolate him, make him understand he has zero options here.

Wear him down. Talk him down.” , “But you can’t storm the house, can you?” she said. “Not while he has that thing in there.”

“There are other measures that could be taken,” Carrothers said, looking over her head at Kiesling, and then back at Gwen. “Measures that will be taken, if we don’t resolve this thing very soon.”

“What does that mean?” she said.

Carrothers again did not know how to tell her. He had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. “The National Command Authority has authorized the destruction of the house,” he said. “My guess is an air strike of some kind at first light. I’m sorry, Mrs. Warren. In its own way, that cylinder is a weapon of mass destruction, not so very different from an atomic weapon. I guess what I’m saying is that the real choice is that the girl goes in, or no one comes out. Again, I volunteer to take her in. Maybe together we—”

“That’s no choice at all, General, is it?” she said, standing up, brushing off her clothes. “This is truly wonderful. You people let this monstrosity get loose, John Lee Warren is dead, and now you’re willing to snuff out five innocent children and two adults, just like that, to cover your tracks? What’s that Army slogan, General? ‘Be all you can be’? Is this all you can bet’

“Yes, ma’am,” Carrothers replied, unable to meet her gaze. Even Kiesling looked embarrassed.

“Well, there is a way to do this. I’ll take Jessamine in.” “You?” Kiesling said. “But—”

“No, I don’t expect you to understand, and according to the general here, we don’t have time to discuss it. I will go in with her. You go tell him that. The kids, Mrs. Benning, the cylinder, in exchange for the two of us.”

Kiesling looked at Carrothers, shrugged, and headed back toward die command center, calling for his agents to get Carson on the phone again.

Carrothers watched him go, then turned back to find both women watching him. Their expressions were disturbingly similar, although the girl looked scared to death, while the woman looked mostly determined. Then he realized what she might have in mind: Take that girl in there, and then the girl was going to do something to Carson. With her mind. He felt a sudden chill of fear, and then a desperate need to know.

“Can she do this?” he asked softly. “It’s real?”

There was a flicker of understanding in her eyes, but then she was all business again. “Make your arrangements, General,” Gwen said. “Then call us when you’re ready. She and I need to talk now. Privately, please.”

Carrothers backed away, his throat dry. He tried not to walk any faster than he absolutely had to. He looked at his watch. Not much time. He’d better call the Pentagon, let them know they might again have a deal to get the weapon back. He wondered how he would ever explain all this to Sue. Be all you can be. Jesus H. Christ!

Carson hung up the phone and pushed it away. Stafford could hear him do it, but he still could not see much in the darkened room.

“Well, well, well,” Carson said. “They’re going to do it. They’re sending in the girl. With the woman who runs this place, it seems, in place of the general. Suits me. You go get the old woman and those brats into the front hall. Remember: No lights, and don’t you try any bullshit. I’ll be right behind you and I’ll put one through your spine.

Then I’ll shoot as many kids as I have bullets.”

Stafford couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It was against all procedures for a hostage situation, which meant they had to be trying something. But why at mis hour? Why not wait until daylight?

And why Gwen?

“Move it, I said,” Carson rasped. He was obviously trying to put some force in his voice, but the weakness was clearly evident. Stafford got up, wondering again why the forces outside didn’t simply wait Carson out. Because they don’t know something’s wrong with him, he realized as he went to the parlor door and called Mrs. Benning. If there was only some way he could communicate with them, but every window in the house was shut up tight. Then he was conscious of Carson standing behind him in the hallway as he waited for Mrs. Benning to get the kids up. Carson told him to unlock the door.

He’s got three rounds left, he thought; maybe only two. If I rush him, I might achieve surprise, take him down. He’s feverish, and probably weak.

I know he is: I can hear it in his voice, see it in the way he’s doing everything very slowly. He was standing right next to a chair in the hallway. Maybe wait for the kids to start out, grab the chair and hurl it in Carson’s direction, and then charge him. Even if he got shot, Carson might be out of ammo, and the kids could run for it. But would they know to do that? He sighed. And how well could he throw a chair with one arm? Carson was a desperate man, talking about opening that cylinder, shooting the kids. You’re the one who ought to be desperate, he thought. Why do you suppose Carson wants you and the girl in here?

He kept trying to think of a plan, any plan. Gwen and the girl were coming in. The kids and Mrs. Benning were being released. That would put three of them in the house with Carson. Three rounds left. But maybe only two. Was there some way to get him to shoot? Get the number of bullets left down to fewer than the people facing him and they could take him. But not without coordinating their action.

Hell, I’m going in circles here, he thought. Just play it as it lies.

“Figured out a move?” Carson asked him in a mocking voice from the end of the dark hallway. “Because I don’t think you have one.”

The kids came out into hallway, holding hands, their eyes wide. Mrs. Benning came out behind them, encouraging them to move toward the door but to stay together.

“Hold them right there,” Carson ordered. They all froze when he spoke.

Stafford was standing near the bottom of the steps; he thought he could just make out the kids’ faces. Then he heard Carson pick up the hall telephone.

“Okay,” he said. “Have the woman and the girl come up the walk to the front door. I want them standing on the porch outside the front door, where I can see them. I want them to ring the doorbell when they’re in position.” He hung up the phone before the hostage negotiator at the other end could complicate it. “You people stand in front of the door.

Stafford, you get down on the floor, facedown. Spread out your arms and legs.”

Stafford did as he was ordered, and he thought he felt Carson getting closer, but from his spread-eagled position on the floor, he could not even begin to move without giving Carson plenty of warning. Mrs. Benning herded the kids over in front of the door. Stafford could just see them silhouetted against the glass. Then they waited.

Three minutes later, everyone jumped when the doorbell rang. There was a flare of light out in front of the house, probably from someone pointing a car’s headlights up the drive.

“Stafford,” Carson said, and Stafford tuned his head to look down the hallway. “Catch this.” v

Something came sliding across the floor and collided with Stafford’s left arm. He reached for it with his left hand. It was Carson’s bag.

“Slide it up to the front door. Don’t you move; just slide it over there.”

Stafford did as he was ordered, sliding the bag like a shuffleboard disk into the small knot of children plastered against the front door. As he did, he realized the bag was too light.

Son of a bitch! Was it empty?

‘ ‘Mrs. Benson, or whatever your name is, pick that up. When I tell you to, step outside and show it to the cops. Then step back in, let the two of them in past you, and then take the kids and the bag and get out of here. Understood?’ ‘

“Yes, sir,” Mrs. Benning whispered. The kids were dead silent.

(“Open the door. Do what I told you to do.” Mrs. Benning tried to open the door, but it was locked. With shaking hands, she unlocked it and opened it. There were two figures silhouetted against the lights coming from the drive. Mrs. Benning stepped out onto the porch and waved the bag around like some kind of signal lamp. Then she stepped back inside.

I “You two out there, step in,” Carson called out. “Step in and close that door.”

Stafford watched helplessly from the floor as Gwen and Jessamine came through the door. He wanted to warn them about the bag, but if he did, Carson might start shooting. ‘ ‘Now, take those children and the bag and get out of

(here.” Mrs. Benning did not hesitate, and they were out of the house in a flash.

“Close that door,” Carson ordered, Stafford heard the front door close.

“No lights,” Carson said. “Stafford, get up. Move back here toward me.

All of you. Back toward me, into the kitchen.”

Stafford got up slowly off the floor, and then the three of them felt their way along the hallway to the kitchen door. The light was still on out on the back porch, so they could just make out the shapes of the stove and the big refrigerator, the tables and chairs. Carson had backed into his former position at the end of the dining table. He remained in deep shadow.

Stafford could hear the man, but he still couldn’t see him, couldn’t see his eyes, gauge his readiness: It made it impossible for him to formulate any plan, any course of action. It was maddening.

And he had tricjced the police outside.

“Sit. All of you.”

As they sat down, the phone on the table began to ring. Carson barked out a laugh that ended in a dry, congested cough, but he didn’t pick it up. He did something at the end of the table, and then there was a heavy metallic thump. Dave saw the gleam of metal. The cylinder. He’d been right: Carson had kept the damned thing.

“Insurance, that’s what this is, so no SWAT team comes lunging through the windows with their stun grenades. Not until I’m done in here.” “You are done in here,” Gwen Warren said from her side of the table.

Then, to Stafford’s amazement, she slid her chair back, reached over her shoulder, and hit the light switch.

“Turn that off!” Carson shrieked, but she ignored him, sitting back down in her chair. When Stafford’s eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness and he finally got a look at Carson, he was stunned at what he saw: pale, parchment white face, deep green-black circles under red-rimmed eyes, his hair damp and plastered down on his head like wet weeds, and an angry red swelling like a necklace visible around his neck. The cylinder gleamed malevolently on the table.

Carson stood up in front of his chair, weaving noticeably, and menaced all of them with the gun, a .38 revolver. “I mean it,” he yelled. “Turn that fucking light off, or I’ll … I’ll kill all of you! Turn it off!”

“No,” Gwen said. “If you’re going to kill us anyway, we’re going to look you in the eye while you do it.”

Carson put his left hand down on the edge of the table to steady himself. Stafford cursed himself mentally for not having made a move earlier: The guy was a wreck, obviously on his last legs. But that gun looked pretty functional. Jessamine sat next to Gwen, staring blankly across the table at the far wall, looking as if she were trying to transport herself somewhere else. Gwen held her hand. Then the phone started ringing again. This time, Carson picked it up.

“What do you wanrt” he screamed into it. He listened for a moment. “Of course I have it” He looked up at Stafford. ‘ ‘My partner changed his mind at the last minute. Said you people would storm the house the moment I sent it out.” Another pause. “Stafford. Who else, you fucking idiot? He’s been in on this thing from the start. Why the hell do you think he’s here? Why the hell do you think he hasn’t tried to jump me?”

His feverish eyes were gleaming with triumph. “That’s right, Mr. FBI Man. All along. See, he was a smart little civil servant. Wanted it both ways, especially when the deal started turning to shu” Another pause.

Stafford just stared at him and shook his head.

Carson laughed again, a horrible sound. “How else could he have known about the cylinder, Einstein? Don’t tell me the FBI believes all that psychic bullshit!” Another silence. “Yes, I have it. What I don’t have is my god damned money. You guys need to ask Stafford about that.”

He slammed down the handset, ripped out the wall cord, and pushed the phone onto the floor while he sat down heavily in his chair. He pulled the dripping cylinder over toward himself and rested the barrel of the gun on it. :

“I owed you that,” he said. “You fucked up the best chance I was ever going to have. You and your little spirit medium there.” When he said the word spirit, the girl turned to look at him. Her expression had changed. She no longer looked like some wild animal about to bolt. She shifted her body slightly so that she could look right at him, and Stafford felt a tingle at the base of his spine. Gwen was still holding the girl’s hand, and she, too, was staring at Carson. The expression on her face was unfathomable.

Carson leaned forward, his face getting redder and his wild eyes blazing. “Oh, no you don’t, little girl. I’m ready for you this time. No more mind-fucks like in the airport.

No more bad dreams.” He tapped his forehead with the barrel of the gun.

“You want to take a look in here, you’re going to have a meltdown, because if you do, I’m going to kill you. I’m going to point this gun right into your ugly little face and blow your warped little brains all over the kitchen. You want to take a reading on that, do you? You go right ahead. See what I’m thinking; it’ll fry your fucking circuits!”

Carson’s face was now purple with rage, and there was a thin line-of spittle on the right side ,of his mouth. He stopped to gather his breath, but his eyes never left the girl’s. Stafford could almost feel the desperate hatred emanating from this man. Carson had brought the gun down to the table again, and he was pointing it in the girl’s direction.

His left hand maintained a white-knuckled death grip on the cylinder.

Stafford looked over at Jessamine. To his amazement, she had closed her eyes. Her hands appeared to be shaking. She again looked like she was about to cry. Damn! Carson had beaten her. He looked back at Carson, and then something happened. Carson’s eyes began to lose their focus. His right hand, the one holding the gun, began to tremble, and his face became even more distorted. Stafford thought he saw an opening to make a move, but to his surprise, found himself frozen in his chair. Carson was trying to say something, but all that came out was a series of strangulated grunts. His mouth twisted to one side, and then the gun barrel drooped to the table and began to tap, faster and faster, beating out a frantic cadence like some animal thrashing in its death throes. He looked like a man in the grip of a stroke. Then Carson’s whole body relaxed, and he slumped forward with a great sigh, his forehead descending to the table, where it lay against the smooth wet steel of the cylinder.

Stafford finally found his legs and stood up. Gwen had not moved and her eyes remained locked on Carson. He moved carefully around the table to get the gun. Then he stopped short. To his astonishment, he realized Carson was not unconscious. His eyes were still open, fixed on a point two feet in front of his face. The expression in them reminded Stafford of the off-center look a dog gives just before it bites. He was almost afraid to reach for the gun.

“Take the gun,” Gwen commanded.

Stafford looked across at her for a second, but she never took her eyes off of Carson. Her face was frightening, radiating with unfliluted fury.

Stafford reached over and extracted the gun from Carson’s rigid fingers.

Carson’s skin felt hot and .feverish, but there was nothing wrong with his grip. Once he had the gun, he reached for the cylinder, but Gwen spoke again. “No! Don’t touch it,” she ordered. Then she stood up, as did the girl, their chair legs scraping on the linoleum.

“But we can’t leave this thing,” Stafford protested.

“Yes, we must. Feel it.”

Stafford reached out again and touched the cylinder this time. The metal was hot. “Hot,” he whispered. “It’s hot.”

“Yes. It’s going to burst. We must leave. Now.”

“Burst? Jesus Christ, Gwen, we can’t let that happen. That stuff can—”

But Gwen was already moving toward the door. “It’s going to burst. We must get out of the house and warn the others. Now.”

Carson’s left hand was gripping the cylinder so hard, his knuckles were white, but he was still staring into space. Stafford thought about grabbing the cylinder, but he realized it would take a lot of strength and both of own his hands to do it, and he didn’t have two hands.

Besides, did he want to. be standing there when that damned thing popped open? He looked down at Carson’s hand and saw tiny white blisters starting up where Carson’s skin was in contact with the metal. That did it.

He backed away hurriedly and followed Gwen and the girl down the hall.

Gwen turned on the porch lights and opened the front door. The headlights were still fixed on the front on the house, and the three of them were somewhat blinded as they came out. He closed the front door behind him and hurried down the steps. There appeared to be a commotion going on behind the headlights.

They trotted quickly down the front drive, Gwen, the girl, and Stafford, in a line. When they reached the first police car, they were surrounded immediately by state police, one of whom asked Stafford for the gun in his hand. Almost indifferently, he handed it over, and then he saw the general approaching, along with a man who looked like FBI. There was a lot of milling about and then people began asking Gwen questions, but she was suddenly surrounded by some Longstreet County deputies.

“Where is it?” Carrothers asked without preamble.

“It’s in there,” Stafford said. “But—”

“How the hell did you get out?” the FBI man “Where’s Carson?” His tone was not at all solicitous.

Stafford didn’t know what to say. “I’m not sure what happened,” lie replied. “He had some kind of seizure, and we got out of there. But he has the cylinder. And I—we— think it’s going to burst. It’s hot.”

“It’s hotf” The general exclaimed. “Are you sure?”

‘ ‘Yes. The house is shut up. All the doors and windows are closed. But I think it’s going to do something. He’s got it in his hand. He had me put it in the refrigerator earlier, but it’s hot.” He looked over toward Gwen for corroboration, but she was drawing away into the crowd, still surrounded by the deputies.

“Why the hell didn’t you take it away from him?” Carrothers thundered.

“I couldn’t,” Stafford said. “He’s got it in a death grip. It would have taken two hands.” He held up his left hand. “I don’t have two hands.”

The general swore forcefully and turned away, then stopped and turned back. “Mr. Kiesling, I strongly recommend you get all these people the hell out of here. We’re about to experience a catastrophic chemical emergency.”

“What the hell is that, a chemical emergency?”

“Let me put it this way: If that thing bursts, every living thing within five miles of this house is going to experience a grotesque death. I mean it. I’ve got to get some help up here. You get these people the hell out of here. Right fucking now!”

There was a sudden stunned silence on the road. The state cops and the county deputies had heard all this and were staring at Kiesling as if to say, What part of grotesque death don’t you understand? They parted for the general, who began running toward his vehicles in the nearby field.

The sight of the general running did it: The cops all started to back away from the house.

“Okay,” Kiesling said in an unnaturally loud voice. “You heard the man.

Let’s clear out. You—Stafford!”

Stafford, who had been looking for Owen, turned to face the FBI man.

“What?” He still felt dazed by what had happened inside.

‘ ‘We want to talk to you. First I need to know what the hell happened in there. Then we want to discuss what you knew about this mess and when you knew it.”

Stafford nodded absently. He wasn’t thinking very clearly. He couldn’t forget the picture of Carson frozen at that table, as if in a state of suspended animation. And of himself, completely unable to act. He wanted very much to talk to Gwen, but she had disappeared in the great rush to get everyone out of there.

“Yeah, fine. Whatever,” he said. “Where’s Mrs. Warren?” “I don’t know,” Kiesling said, looking nervously over at the house, which was becoming visible in the dawn light. His tone became more solicitous. “Why don’t you come with us,” he said. “I think this is an Army problem from here on out. What the fuck happened in there? How did you guys get out?”

Stafford looked again for Gwen and finally saw her, still surrounded by her phalanx of deputies. There was some kind of altercation going on between the deputies and the state police. Cars were starting to move.

“I’m not sure,” Stafford said. “Carson’s pretty screwed up. Has a hell of a fever, looks like death warmed over.” I know what I saw in there, he thought. But I did not understand it. Yes, you do, a voice in his head told him. Where the hell was Gwen?

Kiesling was trying to hustle him along the line of state police cars, which were all trying to get turned around at the same time in a building circus of revving engines and crunching gravel. Up ahead the mobile command center was being disassembled and made ready for the road. “Well, shit, if he was that fucked up, why couldn’t you jump him?”

Kiesling asked over his shoulder.

Stafford stopped. “I couldn’t see him. Once he had us, he made us close all the curtains and blinds in the house. It was pitch-dark in there. He made sure I never got a look at him. But he’s on his last legs.” He finally spotted Gwen. “Look, I must talk to Gwen Warren.”

Kiesling stopped, and the camaraderie went out of his voice. “Well, I think it would be best if you came-with us. There are some things we need to sort out. After we get the hell out of here.”

“No,” Stafford said, turning around and dodging between two state police cars that were making serious tracks out of there. He didn’t know why, but he felt compelled to get to Gwen. Kiesling was suddenly stuck on the other side of the stream of fleeing vehicles, yelling after him.

By the time Stafford reached Gwen and the deputies, it was apparent that she was refusing to leave. Jessamine stood behind her, still holding her hand and looking apprehensive. The three large deputies were facing off with two state police officers and one young-looking FBI man. The latter was arguing vigorously with her.

“This is my house,” Gwen said as Stafford walked up. “I’m not leaving it.”

“But Mrs. Warren, you yourself said that thing’s gonna pop. You heard the general: Everybody has to clear out of here.”

The largest of the deputies got between Gwen and the FBI man. “Miz Warren don’t want to go, she don’t have to go,” he announced. He was considerably bigger than the FBI agent. The two state troopers looked at each other and made an unspoken decision to back right out of this little federal problem before all their vehicles left.

“Gwen, what’s this?” Stafford said. “I think we have to get out of here.”

“No, Dave. I think the government is going to do something to my house.

That general wasn’t running away. He was running to his phone. I simply won’t have it.”

Kiesling finally reached them and started raising hell about anyone remaining in the area. Stafford put up a hand to silence him, especially after he saw the looks on the deputies’ faces. “Look, Kiesling, she wants to stay, that’s her choice. I’m staying with her. You go get your people and clear out.”

Kiesling’s face hardened. “I don’t give a shit about her, Stafford. But you are coming with us. Carson directly implicated you in this mess, and I want some questions answered. There was a lot of real money that’s gone missing. Now you just—”

The biggest deputy leaned forward and let go a great brown glop of chewing tobacco that landed right between Kiesling’s highly polished shoes. The FBI man stopped talking and stared first at his expensive shoes and then at the deputy. Up at the deputy.

“Time for y’all to be down the road and gone,” the deputy drawled. “We don’t need no G-men tellin’ us or our people what to do hereabouts in Longstreet County.” The other two deputies stepped forward to reinforce the first one’s suggestion. The young FBI agent looked at them and then at Kiesling. “Mr. Kiesling, sir?” he said hopefully. “Remember all that talk about gravel trucks and wolf pits? This sure sounds like a local problem to me, Mr. Kiesling. Mr. Kiesling?”

Kiesling’s face was beet red. But Gwen and the girl had already turned around and started walking back toward the driveway of the house.

Kiesling finally gave in, especially when he realized that, other than the county cruisers, his car was just about the only one left in front of the house, and it was rolling.

“Just remember, Stafford,” he yelled. “When this thing is over, your ass is mine, you understand?”

“Happy to know where your interests lie, Kiesling,” Stafford said, as he followed Gwen and the girl. Kiesling started back toward him, but the younger agent grabbed Riesling’s sleeve and hustled him away toward the waiting FBI car.

When everyone had gone, Gwen thanked the deputies. “Now you boys go on and get back to town. Folks are going to be. stirred up when that mob gets there.”

“Ma’am, we can stay right here, you need some help,” the big man said.

Stafford could not quite read his name tag in the dawn light, but he would have sworn the tag read hand.

. “Mr. Stafford will stay with us. The Army people are still here. We’ll be all right. Y’all get along now.”

With a chorus of “Yes, ma’am,” the deputies retired to their cars and swung them out onto the state road, headed back toward Graniteville.

Stafford thought they weren’t entirely reluctant to get out of there, but he appreciated their loyalty. He was about to ask what in the hell had happened back there in the house when they heard the roar of engines from the adjoining field.

As soon as he had reached the Suburbans, Carrothers ordered the men to suit up immediately and get the satellite link up. He began pulling on his own protective suit while waiting for the link. The soldiers had not moved very quickly until he told them over his shoulder that the cylinder of Wet Eye over there in that house was maybe going to burst, after which it was all assholes and elbows as the men dived into their suits. ” a ‘

Carrothers briefed Waddell as soon as the link came up. All the hostages were out of the house, the bad guy was still in there by himself, with the cylinder, and the hostages were reporting that the cylinder was hot.

Waddell asked him to repeat that last, and then he asked Carrothers if he had any thermite with him. Carrothers did not. Waddell told him to get all the civilians away from the house, to establish the downwind danger area, and to get everyone out of that sector for five miles.

 

“

 

“We’ve done that, General. Is there something I should know about that cylinder?”

There was a long hiss of static before Waddell responded. “We weren’t going to distract you with this, Lee, but Fuller’s people ran a simulation on that thing. It’s the biologies. They gave it thirty-six hours before it blew its end caps off.”

“Jesus Christ! Starting when?”

“Thirty-six hours ago. That’s why the airstrike is comm mg’”

P Carrothers thought fast. “We have MOPP gear and weapons. I’d like to take a team into that house, see if we can stop this disaster.”

There was a pause on the net while Waddell had him stand by. Then he was back.

“Our information is that our time on target is thirty five minutes, General. You want to try a run on the house, go to it. But be advised we’ll have Cobras on top in … lemme see, thirty-four minutes. You need to be out of that house before they get there, because they’re gonna shoot it to ribbons, and then there’s a flight of Warthogs coming in right behind them with nape.”

“We’re on our way,” Carrothers replied.

‘ ‘Oh, and Lee? I recommend just shooting that bastard the moment you see him. Save everybody a lot of trouble, if you get my drift.”

Carrothers acknowledged and then hung up. He gathered his team around him and explained the situation. The soldiers had all their gear on except their hoods.

“No time for any fancy planning here, guys. We have about thirty minutes before Washington drops an air strike on top of us. Captain, I want you to take your men into that house. Nothing sexy here: We’ll complete MOPPing up, then drive the vehicles over there to the front door and go in with guns. He’s supposedly somewhere on the ground floor with the cylinder of Wet Eye. Shoot him if he makes a move, then get the cylinder. If it’s still intact, put it in the freezer of the icebox. If it’s popped, then we bail out and let the games begin.” He looked at his watch. “We have about twenty-nine minutes from right now. After that it’s Warthogs and napalm. Any questions?”

The young captain looked as if he might have a few, but the general’s expression did not encourage a lengthy discussion. The soldiers were reaching for their weapons. One raised his hand.

“What, soldier?”

“This Wet Eye stuff, General? Our MOPP gear good to go for that agent?”

Carrothers had to think fast. Their protective gear would certainly protect them against the chemical constituents of Wet Eye. But the biologies obviously were still alive. If they had mutated …”Yes. This is an old agent. The old-style chem suits would protect you from it.

These new suits ought to do just fine. Anything else?”

There were no more questions.

“Okay, hoods on and mount up. Remember: He’s just one guy, he’s physically ill, and he’s a civilian. Take the front door and go in like gangbusters. We’re gonna find him, and if he moves a muscle, shopt him, find the cylinder, freeze it, and get the hell out of there, okay? Move out!” -v

By the time they hit the driveway, all of the other vehicles were gone.

Only the portable, floodlights, standing by the front wall, gave evidence that the police had been there in force not ten minutes ago.

Carrothers drove the lead Suburban so that his driver could join the team going into the house. He turned into the driveway and accelerated toward the house, which was clearly visible now. He drove right up to the front steps, skidded to a stop, and shut off the engine. The other vehicle fishtailed to a stop right next to his in a spray of gravel.

Carrothers got out, and the troops piled out behind him. To his surprise, the DCIS man, Mrs. Warren, and the girl were standing by the steps.

“Get out of the way,” Carrothers shouted. Stafford pulled the woman and the girl to one side. The captain, Carrothers was pleased to see, didn’t hesitate. He charged up the steps, ran right through the front screen door, and then kicked in the front door, their automatic weapons firing directly into the house. The girl made a plaintive noise and covered her ears; the woman’s mouth dropped open in surprise. The other soldiers went right in after the captain.

Carrothers pulled an Armalite rifle out of his vehicle and followed them in. There was a haze of smoke in the front hallway. At the end of the front hall, the kitchen door had been reduced to shards of woods hanging in a shattered frame. He realized he could not hear anything inside the house, especially in full chem gear. He looked at his watch. Twenty-four minutes. After first kicking open the doors to the classroom on the left and Gwen’s parlor on the right, the team had taken up positions in the hallway. One man was kneeling at the bottom of the stairs, pointing his rifle up the steps. There appeared to be lights on in the kitchen.

Carrothers thought quickly. He did not really want to kill Carson, as Waddell had suggested, not unless he actually did something. But they were rapidly running out of time. The captain looked over at him.

Carrothers tried to think of another way to do it, couldn’t, and gave the signal. The 6aptain and two men moved forward cautiously, keeping their weapons pointed at the remains of the kitchen door. Carrothers looked at his watch. Twenty-three minutes.

On signal from the captain, all three rushed the door, colliding with one another as they burst through it. Carrothers followed. He had just about reached the kitchen door when there was another blast of gunfire and the sounds of shattered glass falling on the floor. Then silence.

Carrothers approached the door carefully. The light inside the kitchen was hazy from gunsmoke. He poked his rifle barrel around the corner, took a deep breath, and then stepped in. All three soldiers stood in a crouch inside the kitchen, pointing their weapons at the man at the table. All the glass was blown out of the back door, and there was a string of bullet holes marching up into the ceiling above the door.

Somebody panicked, Carrothers thought. Then he, too, concentrated on the man at the table.

He saw the cylinder—finally, and intact, thank God.

The man was clutching it in his left hand. His head was tilted forward at an odd angle, as if he was paralyzed. His eyes were open and fixed in a fever-bright stare, but he didn’t appear to be focusing on anything at all.

“He won’t hurt you.” The woman’s voice came from behind him, and he whirled and nearly shot her in his surprise. Stafford followed her into the kitchen, with the girl behind him, as Gwen pushed the barrel of Carrother’s rifle aside and walked over to Carson. “He won’t hurt anybody anymore.”

Carfothers stared down at Carson. The man was catatonic. There was no way they could just shoot him, no matter how much the higher-ups at the Pentagon an dover at Justice might appreciate that gesture.

Carrothers walked forward and pried the cylinder out of Carson’s rigid, scorched fingers. It felt hot even through his heavy gloves. He carried it gingerly across the room to the big refrigerator, swiped everything out of the upper freezer compartment onto the kitchen floor, and put the cylinder gently into the space, where it hissed on the cold metal. Then he closed the door.

“General?” the captain said. “The time, sir?”

Carrothers looked at him blankly for a moment, and then he remembered what was coming. He looked down at his watch. Eighteen minutes. Christ on a busted crutch!

He told the three soldiers to bring Carson with them, then told Gwen and the others to get out of the house immediately. As the soldiers scrambled to get Carson, he tried to decide what to do about the cylinder. Take it with them, or leave it in the house? The freezer would slow whatever the hell was going on inside it, so it was safer to just leave it there. If they didn’t manage to call off the air strike in time, it would be destroyed with the house, which was still a safe option. He hesitated. After all this, he didn’t want to leave it. He looked at his watch again.

Seventeen minutes.

He hurried back out onto the front porch and looked up into the dawn sky. There was now plenty of light, although the surrounding mountains blocked most of the skyline. He realized that, with the cylinder intact, he didn’t need this damned mask. He stripped it off and hurried down the steps. The captain, still fully MOPPed up, was already out and had the other Suburban turning around. Carrothers yelled for his driver, who had been the man stationed at the foot of the stairs, to get Out here. The man came tumbling out of the house, tripping in his heavy boots over the door coaming.

“Get me the satellite link, on the double!”

He looked at his watch as the man ran to align the antenna and turn on the gear mounted on the front console of the vehicle. Sixteen minutes.

The rest of the soldiers came out. Two of them were dragging Carson along. There was no sign of the civilians. At that moment his driver popped back out of the Suburban. “No path right here, General.

Mountain’s got it blocked. We have to move the vehicle.”

H Son of a bitch! Carrothers thought. Fifteen minutes. He imagined he could already hear the venomous clatter of approaching attack helicopters. Did he have time to go back in there, warn the woman to get out of there, move the satellite antenna, and still call off the strike?

Would she do it, or would she argue? She’d argue. Fuck it.

“Let’s go,” he yelled. The other soldiers stuffed the catatonic Carson into the second Suburban. “Go! Go! Go!” he yelled. “Air strike inbound! Snakes and Hogs! Chain guns and napalm!”

The soldiers practically levitated into to their vehicle as Carrothers’s driver got the lead Suburban turned around. Carrothers jumped in and the driver peeled out, showering the entire front of the house with gravel and fishtailing wildly down the driveway before he got it under control, only to have to slam. on the brakes when he got to the road to avoid hitting the stone wall on the other side..

“Which way, sir? Which way?!” the driver yelled.

“For God’s sakel” Carrothers shouted. “Go left. Go left! Now! Now! Do it! Back to the fucking field!” Thirteen minutes. He knew the satellite path was clear in the field. He looked back at the house, but there was still no sign of the civilians. He should have gotten them out. Shit!

The driver turned left and then hard left through the gap in the stone wall, fishtailed again, and then the rear tires began to howl as they hit a patch of mud. The driver floored it, winding out the engine until Carrothers thought it would come apart, but the vehicle’s rear end was settling instead. They were a hundred yards from the place in the field where they had had a clear shot to the satellite before. Would it work from here? Did they have time to get out and try? Twelve minutes.

Then there was thunderous bang from behind, will plashing both of them as the other vehicle came through the gap in the wall and ran into the back of them. But the crash punched their vehicle out of the hole and they were off again, banging up the hill, bounding over hummocks of grass and rocks. They reached their earlier parking patch and the driver slammed on the brakes, nearly throwing Carrothers through the windshield.

“Go! Go! Go!” Carrothers yelled again, extricating himself from the dashboard. The driver piled out to set up the satellite antenna and try again for a hit on the bird. This time he got a link. The other vehicle arrived behind them, its front grille smashed all to hell. He could see the captain inside, still in the passenger seat, still in his full chem suit. Nine minutes.

“Link’s up, General. We got comms.”

“Get me General Waddell. Tell the operator this is a flash precedence call.” Eight minutes.

Gwen sat down at the kitchen table and rubbed her face with her hands.

Jessamine settled into the same seat Stafford had occupied. There were dried tear tracks on her cheeks and her hands were trembling. She sat there with her eyes closed, completely withdrawn. For want of something to do, Stafford picked up the coffeepot, sniffed it, and decided to pour the contents down the sink.

“Why on earth would they shoot the back door?” Gwen wondered aloud.

“Somebody probably saw their own reflection. Those suits make them look luce alien storm troopers, but in reality, those are probably nineteen-year-olds. My guess is that they were pretty scared.”

She nodded wordlessly and glanced over at the girl, who appeared to have gone to sleep in the chair. Stafford went down to Gwen’s end of the table and slipped into the chair next to her. He spoke quietly. “I don’t suppose I’m ever going to know what happened in here, am I?” “Do you really want to, Dave?’ she said, giving him a warm, sad smile.

He looked down at the table. “My investigator’s brain wants to know,” he said. “The rest of me is yelling to leave it alone. I figured you brought her in to do what she did in the airport. He was certainly in an agitated state. I thought he would pass out again, and then I could get his gun. Something like that.” He looked over at her. “But he was ready for that. He knew what she’d done in the airport. He wasn’t just agitated; he was enraged. Crazy. Out of Jus damn head. He challenged her. And yet she melted him down.” He looked over at the girl. “That’s not just a passive capability, Gwen,” he said softly. “That’s a serious power.”

But Gwen was shaking her head. She took his hand. “No, I don’t think that’s what happened at all, Dave. I

think he melted down, but not because of some special power on her part.

He was running a high fever: All you had to do was look at him. I think he worked himself up into having a stroke. Everything he tried had gone wrong. He was out of his head, just like you said. I predict they’ll find a cerebrovascular accident of some kind, assuming he survives the infection. This wasn’t Jess. Look at her. She was much too frightened.”

He leaned back in his chair, not knowing what to say. As he remembered it, the only one in the room who had been frightened had been him. A sudden yawn ambushed him as the adrenaline began to subside. His yawn set off one from Gwen. “I guess,” he said. “Maybe now we’ll have some peace. They’ve got their damned cylinder back.” “Actually,” they don’t,” she said, glancing at the refrigerator and the mess on the floor.” ;

“Oh. Right. They’ll be back.”

Gwen got up and walked over to the refrigerator. She opened the freezer compartment and ran her hand down the length of the cylinder, which now had a faint covering of frost on it. “So much destruction over just one package.”

“Nothing compared to what that package could do.”

“Not anymore, I think,” she said, closing the freezer door. “Why did they just run out?”

Stafford tried to think of an answer to that, but his mind was still grappling with what had happened to Carson.

“What will happen now?” Gwen asked.

“The Pentagon and the Justice Department will point fingers at each other behind closed doors until it threatens to become public,” he said.

“Then they’ll get scared and bury it. I don’t know what they’ll do to Carson. How on earth did you know to come back?”

“Word came” was all she said. “What will happen to you? After what Carson said, that FBI man practically accused you of being part of this.”

“I think he’ll get over it, especially once the big boys stop shouting long enough to think it through. I’ve already resigned. To link me to it would mean opening the whole thing back up. The only thing I’m very, very sorry about is John Lee.” She nodded. “I know,” she said, sighing.

“I haven’t absorbed that, I’m afraid,…”

“You saw that guy. He was a mess. I can’t imagine how in the hell he could get the drop on John Lee, shape he was in.” .

“John Lee probably thought the same thing,” she said. “And forgot to pay attention.”

Just then there was the roaring, clattering sound of two military helicopters battering the morning air overhead. They both jumped in their chairs, and Jessamine literally jumped out of her chair, her knuckles in her mouth.

“Now what the hell!” Stafford exclaimed, and he ran out the front door.

Two Warthogs and one Cobra gunship helicopter were arcing in formation down the valley toward Graniteville. A second Cobra helicopter executed a wide, slow circle over the farm, while a third helicopter, a Blackhawk configured a for passengers, set up for an approach on the field next door, where the Army Suburbans were parked. The Cobra looked like some giant prehistoric insect, with glistening Perspex eyes and claws of armament racks dangling beneath it. Loaded armament racks, he realized.

That’s why the Army guys had bailed out.

Stafford walked over to the field as the Balckhawk touched down in a cloud of dust and a barrage of rotor noise. The soldiers were still partially dressed out in their MOPP gear, and one of them picked up his Armalite as Stafford approached. Stafford ignored him and headed for General Carrothers. By the time he got near the helicopter, one of the pilots was out on the ground and handing over his flight helmet and harness to the Army captain, who was standing just outside the radius of spinning blades. One of the Suburbans turned around and headed back over toward the house.

Stafford signaled the general that he wanted to talk. Carrothers pointed away from the helo and they walked together down the field until they could hear each other without shouting.

“We all done here?” Stafford asked.

“I think so, Mr. Stafford,” Carrothers replied. There was a hint of a frosty smile on his face. ‘ ‘Personally and professionally, in all likelihood.”

Stafford smiled back, knowing exactly what Carrothers meant.

“Those soldiers are going in to retrieve the cylinder,”’ Carrothers said. “It’s still intact, I take it?”

“Yes, sir. It’s in the freezer.”

Carrothers nodded. “The captain is going to escort it to Anniston.”

“Won’t it just heat up again?”

“They’re going to fly at max altitude and keep the windows open.”

Stafford had visions of the captain flying in the helicopter with the cylinder held out the window. Carrothers must have read his mind, because he just shrugged.

“What will you do with Carson?” Stafford asked. He could just see Carson’s slumped silhouette in the backseat of one of the Suburbans, with a soldier standing beside each back window. The medic was sitting in the backseat with him, and he had an IV running.

“For starters, they’ll put him in a rubber room up in Washington. St. Elizabeth’s probably.” Carrothers looked at his watch. “What did you want, Mr. Stafford?”

“I think you and I need to make a deal, General,” Stafford said. “Each of us knows something the other would rather keep secret, don’t you think?”

Carrothers eyed him and nodded. “What do you propose?”

“You know I had nothing to do with Carson’s little scheme, right?”

“That’s my take, yes.”

“Okay. I may or may not need some support in that area later on. But more importantly, I want nothing to Surface about the girl, Jessamine.

Best I can tell, Carson suffered a stroke in there, that’s all. No psychic probes, no mental telepathy or anything like that. In return for those two concessions, I’ll forget everything I know about this incident. And I mean everything. Under oath, if necessary.”

The general thought about that for a moment and nodded again. “Deal,” he said. Stafford managed to lift his right hand long enough for them to shake on it.

At that moment the other Suburban came back up the field, its smashed-in front bumper dangling dangerously close to the ground. It drew abreast of where they were standing, and a soldier in full MOPP gear got out. He held the cylinder carefully in both hands.

“Sir?” he said.

“That’s it, soldier. Give it to the captain. Remind him that it’s not binary-safe.”

“Yes, sir, General. But sir?”

“What?”

“It isn’t hot anymore, General.”

Carrothers stepped forward and ran a ringer along the frosty metal. He looked over at the house for a moment an4 nodded. “I’ll be damned. Okay, take it to the captain. Tell him they can button up the helo as long as this thing remains cool to the touch.”

“Sir, yes, sir!” The soldier got back into the Suburban and the vehicle went on up the hill, where the captain walked down to meet it.

The general frowned as he watched them go.

“Well, it was in the freezer,” Stafford said.

“Did you see the burns on Carson’s hands? It wasn’t in the freezer that long, Mr. Stafford. Yet it has frost on it now. Well, I’ve got a helo to catch.”

He nodded once, turned away, but then he stopped and turned around. “Mr. Stafford,” he said.

“Yes, General?”

“That girl. Jessamine, is it? She was terrified back there. When they went into the house to face Carson? That girl was white-faced, her knees were shaking, and she looked like she was about to throw up.” He paused and looked over at the house again. “If somebody did burn out Carson’s circuits, Mr. Stafford, I don’t believe it was that girl.” Then he turned away toward the waiting vehicles.

Stafford stared after him. The Blackhawk lifted off in a clatter of rotors, tilted forward, and then buzzed over the field, straining for altitude across the face of Howell Mountain, accompanied by the Cobra.

In a minute they were gone, and the silence in the field was profound.

Stafford looked over at the house, where Gwen Warren and Jessamine were waiting for him on the front steps. Even from this distance, he could make out those lustrous green eyes.