Craig didn't respond for a moment. 'Sprinkle ashes on a garden, though, and the earth becomes more fertile. The cycle of death turning into life continues.'

Her voice sounded choked. 'The miracle of nature. Except that my mother's gone forever.'

'But you're still here. And you're the life she created.'

'I'll try to do what I hope would have made her proud of me,' Tess said. 'So many years, I avoided her, and now I wish so much that she and I could spend time together.'

'Do you think she'd have minded being buried here instead of next to your father in Arlington National Cemetery?'

'No.' Tess had trouble speaking. 'My mother was a diplomat's wife. She knew the bitter rules. My father's career came first. She always had to stay in the background. But she didn't object. Because she loved him.'

Craig kissed her tear-swollen eyes. 'And I love you. And I promise you'll always be first, the most important part of my life.'

Holding each other, they walked from the grave.

'I wanted revenge so bad,' Tess said. 'But when I killed Gerrard and Fulano, I didn't do it to get even. I didn't enjoy it. It didn't give me satisfaction. I hated it. I only did it to save us. That makes me feel clean somehow, or at least as clean as I'm able to feel under the circumstances. All the men I shot. All the blood. The ugliness. I keep having nightmares.'

'I'll be there to share them with you.'

They passed other graves, approaching their rented car.

'At least no one knows who really killed Gerrard and Fulano,' Tess said. The Inquisitors think they did. The heretics will think so, too. We won't be blamed.'

'But you still believe they won't come after us?' Craig asked.

'It's a calculated risk, but yes, that's what I believe. When we were questioned, we never mentioned Father Baldwin and the Inquisition. We never talked about the heretics. We never revealed that there was a chapel in that cave. Both sides must have informants who know what we told the investigators. I'm hoping they realize that our silence about them is an act of good faith.'

'You want to leave it at that?' Craig asked. 'You don't want to try to stop them?'

'We'd never be able to. I'm not sure which is worse, the heretics using terrorism to try to save the planet, or the Inquisitors using vigilante tactics to stop what they think is theological evil. Let the bastards fight it out. With luck, maybe they'll destroy each other, and people will get smart enough to save the world the right way, with love.'

They passed the final row of graves and reached their car. As they drove from the cemetery, Craig turned on the radio, and a news announcement made Craig stop abruptly at the curb.

Two days ago, when Tess's mother had been buried, there'd been a state funeral for Alan Gerrard. Earlier, as the constitution dictated, the president had nominated a new vice president, subject to approval by both Houses of Congress. Despite the nation's turmoil, President Garth had decided that he didn't dare postpone his trip to Peru to attend a major drug-control conference. After all, as he said with deep tones of bravery in a nationally televised speech, he couldn't allow the drug lords to think that the vice president's assassination made him afraid of possibly being assassinated himself. So he'd flown to Peru, and now the news announcer reported with barely subdued shock that Air Force One had been blown apart by portable ground-to-air missiles as the plane came in for a landing at Lima 's airport.

Tess listened, stunned, struggling to absorb what she was hearing. A terrible question assaulted her consciousness. There'd soon be both a new president and vice president. But would either of those men have gray eyes?

About David Morrell

David Morrell is one of America 's most popular and acclaimed storytellers, with over eighteen million copies of his books in print. His thrillers have been translated into twenty-two languages and turned into record-breaking films as well as top-rated TV miniseries. A former professor of American literature at the University of Iowa, David Morrell now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.