When Hockstetter was gone, Charlie fell on the couch, her hands to her face, sobbing. Waves of conflicting emotion swept her-guilt and horror, indignation, even a kind of angry pleasure. But fear was the greatest of them all. Things had changed when she agreed to their tests; she feared things had changed forever. And now she didn't just want to see her father, she needed him. She needed him to tell her what to do next.

At first there had been rewards-walks outside with John, currying Necromancer, then riding him. She loved John and she loved Necromancer... if that stupid man could only have known how badly he had hurt her by saying. Necromancer was hers when Charlie knew he never could be. The big gelding was only hers in her uneasy half-remembered dreams. But now... now... the tests themselves, the chance to use her power and feel it grow... that was starting to become the reward. It had become a terrible but compelling game. And she sensed she had barely scratched the surface. She was like a baby who has just learned how to walk.

She needed her father, she needed him to tell her what was right, what was wrong, whether to go on or to stop forever. If-"If I can stop," she whispered through her fingers. That was the most frightening thing of all-no longer being sure that she could stop. And if she could not, what would that mean? Oh, what would that mean? She began to cry again. She had never felt so dreadfully alone.

5

The funeral was a bad scene.

Andy had thought he would be okay; his headache was gone, and, after all, the funeral was only an excuse to be alone with Cap. He hadn't liked Pynchot, although in the end Pynchot had proved to be just a little too small to hate. His barely concealed arrogance and his unconcealed pleasure at being on top of a fellow human being-because of those things and because of his overriding concern for Charlie, Andy had felt little guilt about the ricochet that he had inadvertently set up in Pynchot's mind. The ricochet that had finally torn the man apart.

The echo effect had happened before, but he had always had a chance to put things right again. It was something he had got pretty good at by the time he and Charlie had to run from New York City. There seemed to be land mines planted deep in almost every human brain, deep-seated fears and guilts, suicidal, schizophrenic, paranoid impulses-even murderous ones. A push caused a state of extreme suggestibility, and if a suggestion tended down one of those park paths, it could destroy. One of his housewives in the Weight-Off program had begun to suffer frightening catatonic lapses. One of his businessmen had confessed a morbid urge to take his service pistol down from the closet and play Russian roulette with it, an urge that was somehow connected in his mind with a story by Edgar Allan Poe, "William Wilson," that he had read way back in high school. In both cases, Andy had been able to stop the echo before it sped up and turned into that lethal ricochet. In the case of the businessman, a quiet, sandy-haired, third-echelon bank officer, all it had taken was another push and the quiet suggestion that he had never read the Poe story at all. The connection-whatever it had been-was broken. The chance to break the echo had never come with Pynchot.

Cap talked restlessly of the man's suicide as they drove to the funeral through a cold, swishing autumn rain; he seemed to be trying to come to terms with it. He said he wouldn't have thought it possible for a man just to... to keep his arm in there once those blades had begun to chop and grind. But Pynchot had. Somehow Pynchot had. That was when the funeral started being bad for Andy.

The two of them attended only the graveside services, standing well back from the small group of friends and family, clustered under a bloom of black umbrellas. Andy discovered it was one thing to remember Pynchot's arrogance, the little-Caesar, power-tripping of a small man who had no real power; to remember his endless and irritating nervous tic of a smile. It was quite another to look at his pallid, washed-out wife in her black suit and veiled hat, holding the hands of her two boys (the younger was about Charlie's age, and they both looked utterly stunned and out of it, as if drugged), Knowing-as she must-that the friends and relatives must all know how her husband was found, dressed in her underwear, his right arm vaporized nearly to the elbow, sharpened like a living pencil, his blood splattered in the sink and on the Wood-Mode cabinets, chunks of his flesh-

Andy's gorge rose helplessly. He bent forward in the cold rain, struggling with it. The minister's voice rose and fell senselessly. "I want to go," Andy said. "Can we go?" "Yes, of course," Cap said. He looked pale himself, old and not particularly well. "I've been to quite enough funerals this year to hold me."

They slipped away from the group standing around the fake grass, the flowers already drooping and spilling petals in this hard rain, the coffin on its runners over the hole in the ground. They walked side by side back toward the winding, graveled drive where Cap's economy-sized Chevy was parked near the rear of the funeral cortege. They walked under willows that dripped and rustled mysteriously. Three or four other men, barely seen, moved around them. Andy thought that he must know now how the President of the United States feels.

"Very bad for the widow and the little boys," Cap said. "The scandal, you know."

"Will she... uh, will she be taken care of?"

"Very handsomely, in terms of money," Cap said almost tonelessly. They were nearing the lane now. Andy could see Cap's orange Vega, parked on the verge. Two men were getting quietly into a Biscayne in front of it. Two more got into a gray Plymouth behind it. "But nobody's going to be able to buy of those two little boys. Did you see their faces?"

Andy said nothing. Now he felt guilt; it was like a sharp sawblade working in hisguts. Not even telling himself that his own position had been desperate would help. All he could do now was hold Charlie's face in front of him... Charlie and a darkly ominous figure behind her, a one-eyed pirate named John Rainbird who had wormed his way into her confidence so he could hasten the day when

They got into the Vega and Cap started the engine. The Biscayne ahead pulled out and Cap followed. The Plymouth fell into place behind them.

Andy felt a sudden, almost eerie. certainty that the push had deserted him againthat when he tried there would be nothing. As if to pay for the expression on the faces of the two boys.

But what else was there to do but try?

"We're going to have a little talk," he said to Cap, and pushed. The push was there, and the headache settled in almost at once-the price he was going to have to pay for using it so soon after the last time. "It won't interfere with your driving."

Cap seemed to settle in his seat. His left hand, which had been moving toward his turnsignal, hesitated a moment and then went on. The Vega followed the lead car sedately between the big stone pillars and onto the main road.

"No, I don't think our little talk will interfere with my driving at all," Cap said.

They were twenty miles from the compound; Andy had checked the odometer upon leaving and again upon arriving at the cemetery. A lot of it was over the highway Pynchot had told him about, 301. It was a fast road. He guessed he had no more than twenty-five minutes to arrange everything. He had thought of little else over the last two days and thought he had everything pretty well mapped out... but there was one thing he badly needed to know.

"How long can you and Rainbird ensure Charlie's cooperation, Captain Hollister?"

"Not much longer," Cap said. "Rainbird arranged things very cleverly so that in your absence, he's the only one really in control of her. The father surrogate." In a low, almost chanting voice, he said, "He's her father when her father isn't there."

"And when she stops, she's to be killed?"

"Not immediately. Rainbird can keep her at it awhile longer." Cap signaled his turn onto 301. "He'll pretend we found out. Found out that they were talking. Found out that he was giving her advice on how to handle her... her problem. Found out he had passed notes to you."

He fell silent, but Andy didn't need any more. He felt sick. He wondered if they had congratulated each other on how easy it was to fool a little kid, to win her affections in a lonely place and then twist her to their own purposes once they had earned her trust. When nothing else would work, just tell her that her only friend, John the orderly, was going to lose his job and maybe be prosecuted under the Ofcial Secrets Act for presuming to be her friend. Charlie would do the rest on her own. Charlie would deal with them. She would continue to cooperate.

I hope I meet this guy soon. I really do.

But there was no time to think about that now... and if things went right, he would never have to meet Rainbird at all.

"I'm slated to go to Hawaii a week from today," Andy said.

"Yes, that's right."

"How?"

"By army transport plane."

"Who did you contact to arrange that?"

"Puck," Cap said immediately.

"Who's Puck, Captain Hollister?"

"Major Victor Puckeridge," Cap said. "At Andrews."

"Andrews Air Force Base?"

"Yes, of course."

"He's a friend?"

"We play golf." Cap smiled vaguely. "He slices." Wonderful news, Andy thought. His head was throbbing like a rotted tooth.

"Suppose you called him this afternoon and said you wanted to move that flight up by three days?"

"Yes?" Cap said doubtfully.

"Would that present a problem? A lot of paperwork?"

"Oh, no. Puck would slice right through the paperwork." The smile reappeared, slightly odd and not really happy. "He slices. Did I tell you that?"

"Yes. Yes, you did."

"Oh. Good."

The car hummed along at a perfectly legal fifty-five. The rain had mellowed to a steady mist. The windshield wipers clicked back and forth.

"Call him this afternoon, Cap. As soon as you get back."

"Call Puck, yes. I was just thinking I ought to do that."

"Tell him I've got to be moved on Wednesday instead of Saturday."

Four days was not much time to recuperate three weeks would have been more like it-but things were moving rapidly to a climax now. The endgame had begun. The fact was there, and Andy, out of necessity, recognized it. He wouldn't-couldn't-leave Charlie in the path of this Rainbird creature any longer than he had to.

"Wednesday instead of Saturday."

"Yes. And then you tell Puck that you'll be coming along."

"Coming along? I can't-"

Andy renewed the push. It hurt him, but he pushed hard. Cap jerked in his seat. The car swerved minutely on the road, and Andy thought again that he was practically begging to start up an echo in this guy's head.

"Coming along, yes. I'm coming along."

"That's right," Andy said grimly. "Now-what sort of arrangements have you made about security?"

"No particular security arrangements," Cap said. "You're pretty much incapacitated by Thorazine. Also, you're tipped over and unable to use your mental-domination ability. It has become dormant."

"Ah, yes," Andy said, and put a slightly shaky hand to his forehead. "Do you mean I'll be riding the plane alone?"

"No," Cap said immediately, "I believe I'll come along myself."

"Yes, but other than the two of us?"

"There will be two Shop men along, partly to act as stewards and partly to keep an eye on you. SOP, you know. Protect the investment."

"Only two operatives are scheduled to go with us? You're sure?"

"Yes."

"And the flight crew, of course."

"Yes."

Andy looked out the window. They were halfway back now. This was the crucial part, and his head was already aching so badly that he was afraid he might forget something. If he did, the whole cardhouse would come tumbling down.

Charlie, he thought, and tried to hold on.

"Hawaii's a long way from Virginia, Captain Hollister. Will the plane make a refueling stop?"

"Yes."

"Do you know where?"

"No." Cap said serenely, and Andy could have punched him in the eye.

"When you speak to..." What was his name? He groped frantically in his tired, hurt mind and retrieved it. "When you speak to Puck, find out where the plane will set down for refueling."

"Yes, all right."

"Just work it naturally into your conversation with him."

"Yes, I'll find out where it's going to refuel by working it naturally into our conversation." He glanced at Andy with thoughtful, dreamy eyes, and Andy found himself wondering if this man had given the order that Vicky be killed. There was a sudden urge to tell him to floor the accelerator pedal and drive into that oncoming bridge abutment. Except for Charlie. Charlie! his mind said. Hold on for Charlie. "Did I tell you that Puck slices?" Cap said fondly.

"Yes. You did." Think! Think, dammit! Somewhere near Chicago or Los Angeles seemed the most likely. But not at a civilian airport like O'Hare or L. A. International. The plane would refuel at an airbase. That in itself presented no problem to his rag of a plan-it was one of the few things that did not-as long as he could find out where in advance.

"We'd like to leave at three in the afternoon," he told Cap.

"Three."

"You'll see that this John Rainbird is somewhere else."

"Send him away?" Cap said hopefully, and it gave Andy a chill to realize that Cap was afraid of Rainbird-quite badly afraid.

"Yes. It doesn't matter where."

"San Diego?"

"All right."

Now. Last lap. He was just going to make it; up ahead a green reflectorized sign pointed the way to the Longmont exit. Andy reached into the front pocket of his pants and pulled out a folded slip of paper. For the moment, he only held it in his lap, between first and second fingers.

"You're going to tell the two Shop guys who are going to Hawaii with us to meet us at the airbase," he said. "They're to meet us at Andrews. You and I will go to Andrew just as we are now."

"Yes."

Andy drew in a deep breath. "But my daughter will be with us."

"Her?" Cap showed real agitation for the first time. "Her?" She's dangerous! She can't-we can't-"

"She wasn't dangerous until you people started playing with her," Andy said harshly. "Now she is coming with us and you are not to contradict me again, do you understand that?"

This time the car's swerve was more pronounced, and Cap moaned. "She'll be coming with us," he agreed. "I won't contradict you anymore. That hurts. That hurts." But not as much as it hurts me.

Now his voice seemed to be coming from far away, through the blood-soaked net of pain that was pulling tighter and tighter around his brain. "You're going to give her this," Andy said, and passed the folded note to Cap. "Give it to her today, but do it carefully, so that no one suspects."

Cap tucked the note into his breast pocket. Now they were approaching the Shop; on their left were the double runs of electrified fence. Warning signs flashed past every fifty yards or so.

"Repeat back the salient points," Andy said.

Cap spoke quickly and concisely-the voice of a man who had been trained in the act of recall since the days of his military-academy boyhood.

"I will arrange for you to leave for Hawaii on an army transport plane on Wednesday instead of Saturday. I will be coming with you; your daughter will also accompany us. The two Shop agents who will also be coming will meet us at Andrews. I will find out from Puck where the plane will be refueling. I'll do that when I call him to change the flight date. I have a note to give your daughter. I'll give it to her after I finish talking to Puck, and I will do it in a way which will arouse no undue suspicion. And I will arrange to have John Rainbird in San Diego next Wednesday. I believe that covers the waterfront."

"Yes," Andy said, "I believe it does." He leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes. Jumbled fragments of past and present flew through his mind, aimlessly, jackstraws blown in the high wind. Did this really have a chance to work, or was he only buying death for both of them? They knew what Charlie could do now; they'd had firsthand experience. If it went wrong, they would finish their trip in the cargo bay of that army transport plane. In two boxes.

Cap paused at the guardbooth, rolled down his window, and handed over a plastic card, which the man on duty slipped into a computer terminal.

"Go ahead, sir," he said.

Cap drove on.

"One last thing, Captain Hollister. You're going to forget all about this. You'll do each of the things we've discussed perfectly spontaneously. You'll discuss them with no one." "All right." Andy nodded. It wasn't all right, but it would have to do. The chances of setting up an echo here were extraordinarily high because he had been forced to push the man terribly hard and also because the instructions he had given Cap would go completely against the grain. Cap might be able to bring everything off simply by virtue of his position here. He might not. Right now Andy was too tired and in too much pain to care much.

He was barely able to get out of the car; Cap had to take his arm to steady him. He was dimly aware that the cold autumn drizzle felt good against his face.

The two men from the Biscayne looked at him with a kind of cold disgust. One of them was Don Jules. Jules was wearing a blue sweatshirt that read

U.S. OLYMPIC DRINKING TEAM.

Get a good look at the stoned fat man, Andy thought groggily. He was close to tears again, and his breath began to catch and hitch in his throat. You get a good look now, because if the fat guy gets away this time, he's going to blow this whole rotten cesspool right out of the swamp.

"There, there," Cap said, and patted him on the shoulder with patronizing and perfunctory sympathy. Just do your job, Andy thought, holding on grimly against the tears; he would not cry in front of them again, none of them. Just do your job, you son of a bitch.

6

Back in his apartment, Andy stumbled to his bed, hardly aware of what he was doing, and fell asleep. He lay like a dead thing for the next six hours, while blood seeped from a minute rupture in his brain and a number of brain cells grew white and died.

When he woke up, it was ten o'clock in the evening. The headache was still raging. His hands went to his face. The numb spots-one below his left eye, one on his left cheekbone, and one just below the jawbone-were back. This time they were bigger.

I can't push it much further without killing myself, he thought, and knew it was true. But he would hold on long enough to see this through, to give Charlie her chance, if he possibly could. Somehow he would hold on that long.

He went to the bathroom and got a glass of water. Then he lay down again, and after a long time, sleep returned. His last waking thought was that Charlie must have read his note by now.

7

Cap Hollister had had an extremely busy day since getting back from Herm Pynchot's funeral. He had no more than got settled into his office when his secretary brought him an interdepartmental memo marked URGENT. It was from Pat Hockstetter. Cap told her to get him Vic Puckeridge on the phone and settled back to read the memo. I should get out more often, he thought; it aerates the brain cells or something. It had occurred to him on the ride back that there was really no sense waiting a whole week to ship McGee off to Maui; this Wednesday would be plenty late enough.

Then the memo captured his whole attention.

It was miles from Hockstetter's usual cool and rather baroque style; in fact, it was couched in nearly hysterical purple prose, and Cap thought with some amusement that the kid must have really hit Hockstetter with the chicken-stick. Hit him hard.

What it came down to was that Charlie had dug in her heels. It had come sooner than they had expected, that was all. Maybe-no, probably-even sooner than Rainbird had expected. Well, they would let it lie for a few days and then... then...

His train of throught broke up. His eyes took on a faraway, slightly puzzled cast. In his mind he saw a golf club, a five iron, whistling down and connecting solidly with a Spalding ball. He could hear that low, whistling whhoooop sound. Then the ball was gone, high and white against the blue sky. But it was slicing... slicing...

His brow cleared. What had he been thinking of? It wasn't like him to wander off the subject like that. Charlie had dug in her heels; that was what he had been thinking. Well, that was all right. Nothing to get bent out of shape about. They would let her alone for a while, until the weekend maybe, and then they could use Rainbird on her. She would light a lot of fires to keep Rainbird out of dutch.

His hand stole to his breast pocket and felt the small paper folded in there. In his mind he heard the soft swinging sound of a golf club again; it seemed to reverberate in the office. But now it was not a whhoooop sound. It was a quiet ssssssss, almost the sound of a... a snake. That was unpleasant. He had always found snakes unpleasant, ever since earliest childhood. With an effort, he swept all this. foolishness about snakes and golf clubs from his mind. Perhaps the funeral had upset him more than he had thought.

The intercom buzzed and his secretary told him Puck was on line one. Cap picked up the phone and after some small talk asked Puck if there would be a problem if they decided to move the Maui shipment up from Saturday to Wednesday. Puck checked and said he saw no problem there at all.

"Say, around three in the afternoon?" "No problem," Puck repeated. "Just don't move it up anymore, or we'll be in the bucket. This place is getting worse than the freeway at rush hour." "No, this is solid," Cap said. "And here's something else: I'm going along. But you keep that under your hat, okay?" Puck burst into hearty baritone laughter. "A little sun, fun, and grass skirts?"

"Why not?" Cap agreed. "I'm escorting a valuable piece of cargo. I could justify myself in front of a Senate committee if I had to, I think. And I haven't had a real vacation since 1973. The goddamned Arabs and their oil bitched up the last week of that one."

"I'll keep it to myself," Puck agreed. "You going to play some golf while you're out there? I know of at least two great courses on Maui." Cap fell silent. He looked thoughtfully at the top of his desk, through it. The phone sagged away from his ear slightly.

"Cap? You there?"

Low and definite and ominous in this small, cozy study: Sssssssssss

"Shit, I think we been cut off," Puck muttered. "Cap? Ca-"

"You still slicing the ball, old buddy?" Cap asked.

Puck laughed. "You kidding? When I die, they're going to bury me in the fucking rough. Thought I lost you for a minute there." "I'm right here," Cap said. "Puck, are there snakes in Hawaii?" Now it was Puck's turn to pause. "Say again?" "Snakes. Poisonous snakes."

"I... gee, damn if I know. I can check it for you if it's important..." Puck's dubious tone seemed to imply that Cap employed about five thousand spooks to check just such things.

"No, that's okay," Cap said. He held the telephone firmly against his ear again. "Just thinking out loud, I guess. Maybe I'm getting old."

"Not you, Cap. There's too much vampire in you."

"Yeah, maybe. Thanks, goodbuddy."

"No trouble at all. Glad you're getting away for a bit. Nobody deserves it more than you, after the last year you've put in." He meant Georgia, of course; he didn't know about the McGees. Which meant, Cap thought wearily, that he didn't know the half of it.

He started to say good-bye and then added, "By the way, Puck, where will that plane be stopping to refuel? Any idea?"

"Durban, Illinois," Puck said promptly. "Outside Chicago."

Cap thanked him, said good-bye, hung up. His fingers went to the note in his pocket again and touched it. His eye fell on Hockstetter's memo. It sounded as if the girl had been pretty upset, too. Perhaps it wouldn't hurt if he went down and spoke to her, stroked her a little.

He leaned forward and thumbed the intercom.

"Yes, Cap?"

"I'll be going downstairs for a while," he said. "I should be back in thirty minutes or so."

"Very good."

He got up and left the study. As he did so, his hand stole to his breast pocket and felt the note there again.

8

Charlie lay on her bed fifteen minutes after Cap left, her mind in a total whirl of dismay, fear, and confused speculation. She literally didn't know what to think.

He had come at quarter of five, half an hour ago, and had introduced himself as Captain Hollister ("but please just call me Cap; everyone does"). He had a kindly, shrewd face that reminded her a little of the illustrations in The Wind in the Willows. It was a face she had seen somewhere recently, but she hadn't been able to place it until Cap jogged her memory. It had been he who had taken her back to her rooms after the first test, when the man in the white suit had bolted, leaving the door open. She had been so much in a fog of shock, guilt, and-yes-exhilarated triumph that it was really no wonder she hadn't been able to place his face. Probably she could have been escorted back to her apartment by Gene Simmons of Kiss without noticing it.

He talked in a smooth, convincing way that she immediately mistrusted.

He told her Hockstetter was concerned because she had declared the testing at an end until she saw her father. Charlie agreed that was so and would say no more, maintaining a stubborn silence... mostly out of fear. If you discussed your reasons for things with a smooth talker like this Cap, he would strip those reasons away one by one until it seemed that black was white and white black. The bare demand was better. Safer.

But he had surprised her.

"If that's the way you feel, okay," he had said. The expression of surprise on her face must have been slightly comical, because he chuckled. "It will take a bit of arranging, but-"At the words "a bit of arranging," her face closed up again. "No more fires," she said. "No more tests. Even if it takes you ten years to 'arrange" it."

"Oh, I don't think it will take that long," he had said, not offended. "It's just that I have people to answer to, Charlie. And a place like this runs on paperwork. But you don't have to light so much as a candle while I'm setting it up."

"Good," she said stonily, not believing him, not believing he was going to set anything up. "Because I won't." "I think I ought to be able to arrange it... by Wednesday. Yes, by Wednesday, for sure."

He had fallen suddenly silent. His head cocked slightly, as if he were listening to something just a bit too high-pitched for her to hear. Charlie looked at him, puzzled, was about to ask if he was all right, and then closed her mouth with a snap. There was" something... something almost familiar about the way he was sitting.

"Do you really think I could see him on Wednesday?" she asked timidly.

"Yes, I think so," Cap said. He shifted in his chair and sighed heavily. His eye caught hers and he smiled a puzzled little smile... also familiar. Apropos of nothing at all, he said: "Your dad plays a mean game of golf, I hear."

Charlie blinked. So far as she knew, her father had never touched a golf club in his life. She got ready to say so... and then it came together in her mind and a dizzying burst of bewildered excitement ran through her.

(Mr. Merle! He's like Mr. Merle!)

Mr. Merle had been one of Daddy's executives when they were in New York. Just a little man with light-blond hair and pink-rimmed glasses and a sweet, shy smile. He had come to get more confidence, like the rest of them. He worked in an insurance company or a bank or something. And Daddy had been very worried about Mr. Merle for a while. It was a "rick-o-shay." It came from using the push. It had something to do with a story Mr. Merle had read once. The push Daddy used to give Mr. Merle more confidence made him remember that story in a bad way, a way that was making him sick. Daddy said the "rick-o-shay" came from that story and it was bouncing around in Mr. Merle's head like a tennis ball, only instead of finally stopping the way a bouncing tennis ball would, the memory of that story would get stronger and stronger until it made Mr. Merle very sick. Only Charlie had got the idea that Daddy was afraid it might do more than make Mr. Merle sick; he was afraid it might kill him. So he had kept Mr. Merle after the others left one night and pushed him into believing he had never read that story at all. And after that, Mr. Merle was all right. Daddy told her once that he hoped Mr. Merle would never go to see a movie called The Deer Hunter, but he didn't explain why.

But before Daddy fixed him up, Mr. Merle had looked like Cap did now.

She was suddenly positive that her father had pushed this man, and the excitement in her was like a tornado. After hearing nothing about him except for the sort of general reports John sometimes brought her, after not seeing him or knowing where he was, it was in a strange way as if her father were suddenly in this room with her, telling her it was all right and that he was near.

Cap suddenly stood up. "Well, I'll be going now. But I'll be seeing you, Charlie. And don't worry."

She wanted to tell him not to go, to tell her about her dad, where he was, if he was okay... but her tongue was rooted to the bottom of her mouth.

Cap went to the door, then paused. "Oh, almost forgot." He crossed the room to her, took a folded piece of paper from his breast pocket, and handed it to her. She took it numbly, looked at it, and put it in her robe pocket. "And when you're out riding that horse, you watch out for snakes," he said confidentially. "If a horse sees a snake, he is going to bolt. Every time. He'll-"

He broke off, raised a hand to his temple, and rubbed it. For a moment, he looked old and distracted. Then he shook his head a little, as if dismissing the thought. He bid her good-bye and left.

Charlie stood there for a long moment after he was gone. Then she took out the note, unfolded it, read what was written there and everything changed.

9

Charlie, love-

First thing: When you finish reading this, flush it down the toilet, okay?

Second thing: If everything goes the way I'm planning-the way I hope-we'll be out of here next Wednesday. The man who gave you this note is on our team, although he doesn't know he is... get it?

Third thing: I want you to be in the stables on Wednesday afternoon at one o'clock. I don't care how you do it-make another fire for them if that's what it takes. But be there.

Fourth, most important thing: Don't trust this man John Rainbird. This may upset you. I know you have trusted him. But he is a very dangerous man, Charlie. No way anyone's going to blame you for your trust in him-Hollister says he has been convincing enough to win an Academy Award. But know this: he was in charge of the men who took us prisoner at Granther's place. I hope this doesn't upset you too much, but knowing how you are, it probably will. It's no fun to find out that someone has been using you for his own purposes. Listen, Charlie: if Rainbird comes around-and he probably will-it is very important for him to think your feelings toward him haven't changed. He will be out of our way on Wednesday afternoon.

We are going to Los Angeles or Chicago, Charlie, and I think I know a way to arrange a press conference for us. I have an old friend named Quincey I'm counting on to help us, and I believe-I must believe-that he will come through for us if I can get in touch with him. A press conference would mean that the whole country would know about us. They may still want to keep us someplace, but we can be together. I hope you still want that as much as I do.

This wouldn't be so bad except that they want you to make fires for all the wrong reasons. If you have any doubts at all about running again, remember it is for the last time... and that it is what your mother would have wanted.

I miss you, Charlie, and love you lots. Dad.

10

John? John in charge of the men that shot her and her father with tranquilizer darts?

John?

She rolled her head from side to side. The feeling of desolation in her, the heartbreak, seemed too great to be contained. There was no answer to this cruel dilemma. If she believed her father, she had to believe that John had been tricking her all along only to get her to agree to their tests. If she continued to believe in John, then the note she had crumpled and flushed down the toilet was a lie with her father's name signed to it. Either way, the hurt, the cost, was enormous. Was this what being grownup was about? Dealing with that hurt? That cost? If it was, she hoped she would die young.

She remembered looked up from Necromancer that first time and seeing John's smile... something in that smile that she didn't like. She remembered that she had never got any real feeling from him, as if he were closed off, or... or...

She tried to shunt the thought aside.

(or dead inside)

but it would not be shunted.

But he wasn't like that. He wasn't. His terror in the blackout. His story about what those Cong had done to him. Could that be a lie? Could it, with the ruined map of his face to back up the tale?

Her head went back and forth on the pillow, back and forth, back and forth, in an endless gesture of negation. She did not want to think about it, did not, did not.

But couldn't help it.

Suppose... suppose they had made the blackout happen? Or suppose it had just happened... and he had used it? (NO! NO! NO! NO!)

And yet her mind was now out of her conscious control, and it circled this maddening, horrifying patch of nettles with a kind of inexorable, cold determination. She was a bright girl, and she handled her chain of logic carefully, one bead at a time, telling it as a bitter penitent must tell the terrible beads of utter confession and surrender.

She remembered a TV show she had seen once, it had been on Starsky and Hutch. They put this cop into jail in the same cell with this bad guy who knew all about a robbery. They had called the cop pretending to be a jailbird a "ringer."

Was John Rainbird a ringer?

Her father said he was. And why would her father lie to her?

Who do you believe in? John or Daddy? Daddy or John?

No, no, no, her mind repeated steadily, monotonously... and to no effect. She was caught in a torture of doubt that no eight-year-old girl should have to stand, and when sleep came, the dream came with it. Only this time she saw the face of the silhouette, which stood to block the light.

11

"All right, what is it?" Hockstetter asked grumpily.

His tone indicated that it had better be pretty goddam good. He had been home watching James Bond on the Sunday Night Movie when the phone rang and a voice told him that they had a potential problem with the little girl. Over an open line, Hockstetter didn't dare ask what the problem was. He just went as he was, in a pair of paint-splattered jeans and a tennis shirt.

He had come frightened, chewing a Rolaid to combat the boil of sour acid in his stomach. He had kissed his wife good-bye, answering her raised eyebrows by saying it was a slight problem with some of the equipment and he would be right back. He wondered what she would say if she knew the "slight problem" could kill him at any moment.

Standing here now, looking into the ghostly infrared monitor, they used to watch Charlie when the lights were out, he wished again that this was over and the little girl out of the way. He had never bargained for this when the whole thing was just an academic problem outlined in a series of blue folders. The truth was the burning cinderblock wall; the truth was spot temperatures of thirty thousand degrees or more; the truth was Brad Hyuck talking about whatever forces fired the engine of the universe; and the truth was that he was very scared. He felt as if he were sitting on top of an unstable nuclear reactor.

The man on duty, Neary, swung around when Hockstetter came in. "Cap came down to visit her around five," he said. "She turned her nose up at supper. Went to bed early." Hockstetter looked into the monitor. Charlie was tossing restlessly on top of her bed, fully dressed. "She looks like maybe she's having a nightmare." "One, or a whole series of them," Neary said grimly. "I called because the temperature in there has gone up three degrees in the last hour." "That's not much." "It is when a room's temperature-controlled the way that one is. Not much doubt that she's doing it. Hockstetter considered this, biting on a knuckle. "I think someone should go in there and wake her up," Neary said, finally drifting down to the bottom line. "Is that what you got me down here for?" Hockstetter cried. "To wake up a kid and give her a glass of warm milk?" "I didn't want to exceed my authority," Neary said stonily.

"No." Hockstetter said, and had to bite down on the rest of the words. The little girl would have to be wakened if the temperature went much higher, and there was always a chance that if she was frightened enough, she might strike out at the first person she saw upon waking. After all, they had been busy removing the checks and balances on her pyrokinetic ability and had been quite successful.

"Where's Rainbird?" he asked. Neary shrugged. "Whipping his weasel in Winnipeg, for all I know. But as far as she's concerned, he's of duty. I think she'd be pretty suspicious if he showed up n-"The digital thermometer inset on Neary's control board flicked over another degree, hesitated, and then flicked over two more in quick succession. "Somebody's got to go in there," Neary said, and now his voice was a bit unsteady. "It's seventy-four in there now. What if she blows sky-high?" Hockstetter tried to think what to do, but his brain seemed frozen. He was sweating freely now, but his mouth had gone as dry as a woolly sock. He wanted to be back home, tipped back in his La-Z-Boy, watching James Bond go after SMERSH or whatever the hell it was. He didn't want to be here. He didn't want to be looking at the red numbers under the little square of glass, waiting for them to suddenly blur upwards in tens, thirties, hundreds, as they had when the cinderblock wall