"Help me!" Henri shouted.

  Houston obeyed. He stumbled through the wreckage, legs pierced by the sharp-edged boards and shards of glass from broken monitors. A new explosion threw him forward. His ears were now so tortured he couldn't hear the crackle of the flames. But he could feel the swelling heat, much closer, more intense. The smoke obscured Simone. She coughed. Another blast. A flying piece of shrapnel sliced his shoulder.

  Clear the rubble. Lift and throw. There had to be a trap door.

  Henri pushed him backward, lunging toward the floor. The blow knocked Houston's wind out. As he fought to breathe, he inhaled smoke. His lungs revolted, and he retched.

  But Henri had raised the trap door. Houston stared through swirling smoke at utter blackness. Instinct nagged him, warning. No, he told himself. He held back, repulsed by the obscene darkness.

  Flames licked toward him, brilliant in the smoke. His clothes felt warm. His hair gave off an acrid odor.

  "Hurry!" Henri told him.

  Houston grabbed Simone. "Is there a ladder?" he shouted.

  "Steps! A stairway!" Henri shouted back.

  The next explosion settled any doubt. His arm around Simone, Houston eased down toward the darkness. Instantly he touched a step. Another as he moved his next foot lower. "It's all right!" he told Simone. "It's safe! Don't be afraid!"

  Her hand was frenzied on his shoulder. Then he felt the hand relax as, groping down, she touched the steps. The flames were now so close above them that the darkness underneath was illuminated. Houston saw the earthen floor, the rough stone walls. He smelled a sour dampness, and he heard the rumbling of an engine.

  Through the shadows, he squinted toward a corner where a bulky generator labored.

  Henri charged down past them, flailing at his smoldering clothes. He rolled insanely in the dirt, and Houston leapt to reach him. He wrapped his shirt around his hand and swatted smoke on Henri's clothes. And at last the smoke was gone. Henri groaned, forehead drenched with sweat.

  "Are you all right?"

  Henri said nothing, his eyes scrunched shut in pain. The odor from his flesh was sickening. He inhaled deeply. "There's no time." He struggled to his feet. When Houston moved to help him, Henri shrugged him off. "We can't wait. We have to hurry."

  Glancing upward, Houston saw the flames that filled the entrance to the cellar.

  Air rushed past him toward the opening. The flames licked at the wooden steps.

  "We're going to suffocate down here."

  "No, follow me." Henri pulled Houston's arm. He hurried toward the darkest corner of the cellar and yanked at a metal door. The door creaked open. They rushed forward.

  "It's a tunnel. An escape route. It leads underneath the hill, the fence. It takes us to the forest."

  They ran. Houston bumped against a moist dank wall. The stone scraped his shoulder. But he couldn't see where he was going. In a panic, he raced blindly on.

  Simone lurched hard against him, reeling sideways. They entangled in the darkness, fell on earth so moist it was mud. They slid along their backs in muck. Pete's shoes were soaked, his pants cold and slimy. They struggled up.

  Behind him, Houston heard two more explosions, muffled by the distance. He felt shock waves.

  He kept racing forward, sensing Henri and Simone beside him, hearing mud suck at his shoes, his panicked breath reverberating in the tunnel.

  "They'll soon finish," Henri said, his voice strained. "They'll come up the driveway. They'll check through the wreckage. They'll see where we went."

  Again, Pete's instinct nagged him, warning. There was something obvious, self-evident, but something he had overlooked. He couldn't isolate it, make it clear, but its insistence made him nervous. There was something wrong. Good Christ, what was it?

  "Take it slowly," Henri ordered. He reached for them, fighting to restrain them.

  "Wait a minute."

  Houston did what he was told. He held Simone. "Why?" he asked Henri.

  "Ahead there'll be another door. We've almost reached it."

  Houston felt Henri inch forward. Eight more steps. "It's here. I found it."

  "Get us out of here," Simone said.

  "Just a few more seconds."

  Houston heard Henri shove at a bolt. It bit against the metal. Henri gasped and shoved again. "I've almost done it. There!" And Henri slumped against the wall.

  "We're safe now."

  Houston's mind kept warning, Something's wrong. Beside him he felt Henri tug open the door. Pallid moonlight drifted through the gradually increasing crack.

  The air was fresh and sweet.

  "Thank God," Simone said.

  Houston felt exhilarated by the moonlight filtered through a crisscrossed obstacle of branches. Silhouetted, Henri stepped ahead to move the branches. Now the moonlight glinted brightly at them. Houston had never seen anything so wonderful. Still clutching Simone, he followed Henri from the tunnel, feeling liberated. A few more steps, and they would be completely safe.

  The trees loomed close before him.

  Suddenly he found the warning thought, harsh and stark and urgent.

  "Henri, wait. If they knew all about the lodge, about the current in the fence, about the mines and the machine guns, if they knew they needed rockets, then they'd know about "

  The gunshot from the forest interrupted Houston's sentence. He heard the bullet plow through Henri, felt the spattered blood. Henri arced, gasping. He convulsed and fell on Houston.

  "Peter!" Simone screamed.

  Houston couldn't speak. In horror, he scrambled from beneath the body.

  Mindlessly he grabbed the gun.

  "Peter, talk to me!"

  "He's dead."

  "No!"

  Houston pulled her down. Another bullet hit the door behind him, whining off the metal.

  Houston saw the flash from out there in the trees. He heard the shot. Another shot. He saw a different muzzle flash. The two were separated, twenty yards away from one another.

  Evidently they had counted on his running back inside the tunnel, on his hiding in there, while the other gunmen came down through the tunnel. They weren't shooting at clear targets. They were forcing Houston backward.

  We can't go back, and sure as hell we can't stay here, he thought.

  His rage welled up insanely. Panic changed to madness, desperation.

  He saw another muzzle flash. He fired in return. He stood, leaping forward.

  "Peter!"

  But he didn't listen. He charged ahead, aiming where he'd seen the muzzle flash.

  He shot and heard a scream. He swerved. He saw a muzzle flash to his left, but he kept lunging toward the scream he'd heard. He leapt a stump, zigzagged past a tree. His fear had heightened every sense. He saw as if the night were day. His ears, despite the torture they'd endured, were perfectly attuned. A groan ahead of him. Some scrabbling in the brush. A stooping figure, clutching at a wounded arm. A disbelieving face. A young man, smooth-cheeked, begging.

  Houston shot him in the skull.

  The sound was awful, bursting flesh and bone, a hard sound, strangely liquid, the enormous gunblast swallowed by the impact.

  Houston swung to one side, sickened, fell and hit and rolled. The second gunman fired. Houston heard the bullet wallop solidly against a tree. Bark flew, rattling on the dead leaves of the forest.

  He kept rolling. Tumbled down a gully. Stopped.

  He lay in water. His bare skin tightened from the wetness, from the cold.

  "Peter!" Simone shouted. Her shouts would be distracting to the gunman. Don't stop shouting, he pled silently.

  He squirmed along the stream, his noises blending with the sound of water bubbling over rocks and fallen branches.

  Keep on shouting.

  Fifteen yards. Then twenty. Chest cold, he wriggled up the bank and squinted through the darkness, through the maze of trees and bushes.

  Mud clung to his chest. He clutched the gun. How many shots were left? He counted back and guessed at three.

  He heard Simone shout, "Peter!" He saw movement near a tree. Not far ahead. A man who in distraction turned to watch Simone.

  Houston aimed.

  He held his breath, bracing his elbows on the ground. He gripped his right wrist, steadying the gun.

  The barrel wavered.

  No! He concentrated, squinting. No! He lost strength. His hand was drooping.

  Sweat burned his eyes. His bare chest trembled against the ground.

  The figure left the outline of the tree.

  Houston pulled the trigger, jerking from the recoil. Deafened, he struggled to his feet. His shoes slipped on the leaves. He fell. He crawled. He scrambled.

  The figure moved. Again Houston pulled the trigger. Metal clicked on metal.

  Nothing happened.

  Oh, my God, I'm out of bullets!

  But the man had been wounded. Houston reached him, rammed his head against the gunman's chest, and fell with him.

  Houston punched him as hard as he could, lashed down with the empty handgun, beating him repeatedly. He cracked the handle of the gun down. Cracked it down again. He couldn't stop himself. He could not, did not want to restrain his rage.

  But his body wearied sooner than his soul. His arm grew weak and heavy. The revolver fell from slackened fingers. He slumped across the body. And when he saw the gunman's face, when he discovered what he'd done to it, a moan escaped him, a deep nauseated wail. He threw up, clutching at his blood- and mud-specked face.

  "Oh, Jesus," he whispered. "Forgive me."

  Chapter 35

  "You're alive!" Simone rushed from the tunnel.

  Houston staggered toward her in the darkness.

  Sobbing, she embraced him. "I was so afraid you'd "

  Trembling, Houston kissed her.

  "Are you hurt?" she said.

  "My shoulder."

  Blood dripped on the ground. "We have to get away from here," he said. "Those other men. They must have heard the shots."

  He squinted above the tunnel toward the fire on the hill.

  "They'll be here soon," he said. He pointed toward the forest. "Hurry."

  In a panic, they began to run. His body ached. He crashed through bushes.

  Blackness loomed ahead of him.

  The forest thickened.

  "We have to find the road," she said.

  Which way? he thought. He'd lost his sense of where they were. He couldn't calculate the road's direction. Somewhere on the far side of the hill, he guessed. They couldn't double back. The men would hear them. And for all he knew, the road was actually ahead of them.

  He ran and heard the roar of water. A river, Houston saw as he came crashing from the bushes. He nearly lost his balance, falling. Simone held on to him. He squinted, breathing hoarsely, toward the moonlight glinting off the current.

  "Oh, my God, we're trapped."

  The river seethed, its white-capped blackness churning. Houston's stomach burned with fear. He clutched his chest.

  "We'll have to run along the edge," she said. "But they'll split up. They'll go each way and cut us off."

  He fought for his words. "We'll swim it," Houston forced himself to say.

  She stared at him.

  "Our only chance."

  "The current's too strong. We'll drown," she said.

  "They'll kill us if they find us. There's no other way."

  She shook her head emphatically.

  "We have to take the risk," he said.

  "Your shoulder."

  "Can't be helped. I'm losing too much blood."

  Again she shook her head.

  He fumbled to remove his belt. "Here, loop it tightly to your hand. I'll hold the other end. We have to stay together." Afraid, he scanned the river. "No more talking."

  Belt taut, they scrambled down the bank. The current grabbed them, and they twisted in its violence. He gripped the belt, feeling its tension as Simone began to tumble sideways. He pulled at the belt to steady her. His face went under water. Coughing, he fought to the surface.

  He'd never felt such numbing cold, such freezing pressure. Now he heard the river moan and howl, and then he realized that it was he himself who moaned as all around him chaos surged.

  An object struck him, banging against his ribs. It nearly sucked him under.

  Houston saw it sweeping past him, saw the gnarled knobs of the tree limb, but too late he understood he could have used it to support him as a float. He stretched and strained for it, but it was gone, a murky heaving object in the darkness. Simone kicked next to him.

  I'm going to die, he thought. And suddenly he was in his car again, fighting to get out the window, clawing toward the surface while his lungs expanded and his mind began to dim.

  He no longer had the strength to fight. His injured shoulder failed him; he was carried by the current. Jan was dead. Soon he'd be dead as well. His hopes diminished, flickered, died. He gave up and awakened as Simone pulled on the belt.

  "Keep swimming," she told him.

  "Can't. Too weak. Go on without me."

  "No! We're almost there!"

  He didn't think he'd heard correctly. "What?"

  "The shore! We've almost reached it!"

  Houston gaped stupidly. Black shapes. Hulking shadows. Silhouettes of trees and hills and "Jesus," he said. His new strength astounded him. His frantic need to live filled every portion of his body. He thrashed, kicking closer to the shore, and when he touched the mud beneath him, he began to shriek in triumph.

  "We're here! We made it!"

  He sloshed through the muddy water and flopped on the bank, staring toward the stars. He saw the moon. He worshipped it.

  "We're safe," he told Simone, excitement warming his numb face. "They'll never find us. Even if they try to swim across, they won't know where we landed, how far down we drifted, not before we get away."

  He tried to stand but didn't have the strength.

  She told him, "Rest."

  "We're cold and wet. If we don't find some shelter and dry clothes, we'll freeze to death."

  He heard a far-off engine then, the motor of a truck. Behind him. Through the trees. He staggered to his feet, his breath hoarse. "Hurry," he said.

  "There must be farms around here. We can reach a phone. We'll call Bellay."

  He stiffened. "No. We can't."

  "But he'll protect us."

  "Will he? Someone knew! Bellay made the arrangements! He's the one who sent us here! Those men attacked the lodge as soon as we arrived!"

  "He set a trap for us? Bellay did?"

  "It's for damn sure someone did! Who knew where we were hiding?"

  "But Bellay I don't see why he'd "

  "If he works for them, if he's involved with them!"

  She moaned. Her eyes were absolutely barren. "Tell me that's not true."

  "What other answer is there? We were sent here to be killed!" Her lips began to tremble. "Then there's no one who can help us. We don't have a chance."

  He faced her, wet clothes clinging to him. He could feel her anguish, how totally she'd been demoralized. "No," he said.

  "There's still one man we can trust."

  PART 4

  Chapter 36

  "Something's wrong. He shouldn't be this late," Houston said.

  The cafe got more crowded. Simone and he waited anxiously inside a corner booth with easy access to an exit in the rear. Uneasily they sipped their wine. They heard the drone of murmured conversations as the room filled up for lunch. At last, there wasn't any choice. Houston told Simone they had to leave.

  "No, wait a little longer."

  "But we can't afford the risk," he said. "Suppose his phone was tapped. Suppose he spoke to ... All these people. What if one of them is here to kill us?"

  "Now you sound like me last night."

  "I don't understand."

  "You said that if he's against us too we're finished. Once we feel no place is safe, then Verlaine's beaten us. We're paralyzed. We can't allow that. Wait and hope."

  He studied her. "I don't know what I'd do without you."