Rachel thought about the book she had been reading on the plane and that was now in her bag. She wasn't sure whether it was the subject or the author that had drawn her to read it so many times.

"Probably."

She left it at that and pulled her jacket around her shoulders and folded her arms. She was tired, not having slept since getting the call from Dei.

She leaned her head against the side window and pretty soon she was out. Her dream of darkness returned. But this time she was not alone. She could not see anyone because she could only see blackness. But she sensed another presence. Someone close but not necessarily someone with her. She moved and turned in the darkness, trying to see who it was. She reached out but her hands touched nothing.

She heard a moaning sound and then realized it was her own voice from deep in her throat. Then she was grabbed. Something had her and shook her very hard.

Rachel opened her eyes. She saw the freeway rushing at her through the windshield. Cherie Dei let go of her jacket.

"You all right? This is the exit."

Rachel looked up at a passing green freeway sign.

ZZYZX ROAD

I MILE

She straightened up in the seat. She checked her watch and realized she had slept for over ninety minutes. Her neck was stiff and painful on the right side from leaning so long against the window. She started working it with her fingers, digging deeply into the muscle.

"You all right?" Dei asked again. "Sounded like you were having a bad one."

"I'm fine. What did I say?" "Nothing. You just sort of moaned. I think you were running from something or something had you."

Dei hit the blinker and turned into the exit lane. Zzyzx Road appeared to be in the middle of nowhere. At the top of the exit there was nothing, not even a gas station or even an abandoned structure. There was no visible reason for the exit or the road.

"We're over here."

Dei turned left and took the overpass across the freeway. Once off the overpass the road disintegrated into an unpaved trail that wound south and down into the flat basin of the Mojave. The landscape was stark. The white soda on the surface of the flats looked like snow in the distance. Joshua trees reached their bony fingers toward the sky and smaller plants wedged themselves between the rocks. It was a still life. Rachel had no idea what sort of animal might be able to subsist in such a barren place.

They passed a sign that said they were headed toward Soda Springs and then the road curved and Rachel could suddenly see the white tents and RVs and vans and other vehicles ahead. She could see a military green helicopter, its blades still, parked to the left of the encampment Further past the encampment there was a complex of small buildings set at the base of the hills. It looked like a roadside motel but there were no signs and no road.

"What is this place?" Rachel asked.

"This is Zzyzx," Dei said, pronouncing it zie-zix. "As far as I can tell, it is the asshole of the universe. Some radio preacher named it and built it sixty years ago. He got control of the land by promising the government he would be prospecting. He paid winos from skid row in L.A. to do that while he went on the radio and called on the faithful to come here to bathe in the spring waters and guzzle the mineral waters he bottled. It took the Bureau of Land Management twenty-five years to get rid of him. The place was then turned over to the state university system for desert studies."

"Why here? Why did Backus bury them here?"

"Far as we can guess is because it is federal land. He wanted to make sure we-meaning you, probably- worked the case. If that's what he wanted, he got it. It's a major excavation. We've had to bring in our own power, shelter, food, water, everything."

Rachel said nothing. She was studying everything, from the crime scene to the distant horizon of gray mountain ridges that enclosed the basin. She didn't agree with Dei's take on the place. She had heard the coastline of Ireland described as a terrible beauty. She thought that the desert with its barren lunar landscape was in its own way beautiful, too. There was a harsh beauty to it. A dangerous beauty. She had never spent much time in the desert, but her years in the Dakotas had given her an appreciation for harsh places, the empty landscapes where people were the intruders. That was her secret. She had what the bureau called a "hardship posting." It was designed to wear her down and make her quit. But she had beaten them at this game. She could last forever there. She would not quit.

Dei slowed as they approached a checkpoint set up about a hundred yards before the tents. A man in a blue jumpsuit with the white letters FBI on the breast pocket stood beneath a beach-type tent with open sides. The desert winds were threatening to tear it from its moorings, just as they had already played havoc with the agent's hair.

Dei lowered the window. She didn't bother to give her own name or identification. She was a given. She gave the man Rachel's name and identified her as a "visiting agent," whatever that meant.

"Is she cleared with Agent Alpert?" he asked, his voice as dry and flat as the desert basin behind him.

"Yes, she's cleared."

"Okay, then. I just need her credentials."

Rachel handed over her ID wallet. The agent wrote down her serial number and handed it back.

"FromQuantico?"

"No, South Dakota."

He gave her a look, the kind that said he knew she was a fuckup.

"Have fun," he said as he turned to go back to his tent.

Dei moved the car forward, raising her window, leaving the agent in a cloud of dust.

"He's from the Vegas FO," she said. "They're not too happy about things, playing second string."

"So what's new?"

"Exactly."

"Is Alpert the SAC?'

"That's him."

"What's he like?"

"Well, remember your theory about agents being either morphs or empaths?"

"Yes."

"He'samorph."

Rachel nodded.

They came to a little cardboard sign taped to a branch of a Joshua tree. It said vehicles and had an arrow pointing to the right. Dei turned and they parked last in a row of four equally dirty Crown Vies.

"What about you?" Rachel asked. "Which did you turn out to be?"

Dei didn't answer.

"You ready for this?" she asked Rachel instead.

"'Absolutely. I've been waiting four years for another shot at him. This is where it starts."

She cracked the door and stepped out into the bright desert sun. She felt at home.

CHAPTER 10

Backus followed them down the exit ramp. He was a safe distance behind. He crossed over the freeway and put on his blinker to get back on in the opposite direction. If they were watching him in the mirror he would simply look like someone turning around to head back to Vegas.

Before turning back onto the freeway he watched the FBI car go off the paved road and head across the desert to the site. His site. A white cloud of dust kicked up behind the car. He could see the white tents in the distance. He felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. The crime scene was a city he had built. A city of bones. The agents were like ants between pieces of glass. They lived and worked in the world of his creation, unknowingly doing his bidding.

He wished he could get closer to that glass, to take it all in and see the horror he etched on their faces, but he knew the risk was too great.

And he had other things to do. He pushed his foot down hard on the accelerator and headed back toward the city of sin. He had to make sure everything was ready and things were set.

As he drove he felt a slight sense of melancholy slide in beneath his ribs. He guessed that this came with the letdown of leaving Rachel behind in the desert. He took a deep breath and tried to exorcize the feeling. He knew it would not be long before he was close to her again.