While she did, he pulled a small roll of duct tape from the kit.

“I’m sorry I don’t have anything for the pain,” he told the woman.

She didn’t reply. Her eyes were half open.

Tori handed him the open packets. He squeezed antiseptic cream into the wound and covered it with a wad of blood-absorbent material.

“Scissors,” he said, fumbling through the kit. “Need scissors.”

“Use this knife.” The reporter pulled one from his pants: a black folding knife with a thumb button on the side of the blade. “It’s hers.”

Page sliced off a section of duct tape. He wrapped it around the woman’s arm, then cut off another section of tape and applied it, too.

“I’ll cut while you wrap,” Tori said, taking the knife and the tape.

As he applied more tape, creating a pressure bandage, a red light caught his attention. It was on the television camera, which the re- porter angled in his direction, evidently recording the scene.

Page couldn’t allow himself to be distracted. He finished the pres- sure bandage and undid the tourniquet, waiting to see if blood would flow past the tape.

Dirt suddenly pelted him, accompanied by a distant cracking sound.

“What the…”

More dirt struck his face. Amid further distant cracking sounds, he saw puffs of dust rising from the road.

“Somebody’s shooting at us.”

“Oh, shit, the guard got the gates open. He’s coming,” the reporter moaned.

“Why is he shooting at us?” Tori asked. “Why are there corpses in that truck?”

Page stared past the burning van toward the huge dishes. The gates to all three fences were now open. A man stood outside the third gate and aimed a rifle, which bucked from the recoil.

Dirt exploded on the lane. The crack from the shot echoed.

“We’re just out of range,” Page said.

The man stepped forward and fired again. After a moment, a bullet tore up dirt a little closer.

“We need to reach the Cessna!” Page said. “Hurry! Before he gets closer!”

He put his arms around the injured woman’s legs and shoulders, lifting her. The smell of her blood was strong as he charged along the lane. Even though she was thin, she felt heavy, her hips sinking, her feet and arms flopping.

The reporter ran ahead of him, carrying the television camera.

Tori reached the Cessna’s passenger door and yanked it open, tilting the seat forward. Page stooped beneath the high wing and eased the wounded woman into the back seat.

“Get in there!” he told the reporter. “Buckle her seat belt! Buckle your own!”

As he hurried around the back of the plane, he heard Tori helping the reporter climb inside. A frantic glance down the lane showed him that the guard was running in their direction.

The guard stopped and fired. Dirt flew near the Cessna’s tail.

Somewhere in that dirt, a bullet’s ricocheting, Page thought.

He drew his pistol and aimed extremely high. If he fired straight ahead, his bullets would drop to the ground before they had a chance to come anywhere close to the distant target. By aiming high, however, he gave the bullets an arc that increased their range. Much of their force would be lost when they landed, but Page hoped they would strike near enough to the gunman to make him pause.

In rapid order, Page pulled the trigger six times. Six clouds of dust burst from the lane in front of the gunman, making him stumble back. Immediately Page ran along the left side of the plane and yanked open the door, scrambling inside.

Tori was in the passenger seat, fastening her belt.

Page jabbed the master switch, turned the ignition key, and worked the throttle. Abruptly the propeller spun, roaring. When he released the brakes, he felt the Cessna bump along the dirt lane. The two additional passengers added weight, reducing the engine’s power.

Come on! Page thought. Move!

Feeling the Cessna bump faster along the lane, Page imagined the guard racing to get within range. He braced himself for bullets that would tear through the rear windscreen and slam into his back-or that would damage the rear wings and make it impossible for him to get the Cessna into the air.

“The plane’s blowing dust!” the reporter shouted from the back. “I can’t see the guard!”

Which means the guard can’t see the plane, Page thought. But that won’t stop him from shooting toward us.

Their speed reached fifty-five knots. Page pulled back the yoke and felt the aircraft leave the ground. He stayed low, wanting to gain more speed before he went higher. Right now distance was the key, not height. When he thought he’d gone a sufficient distance, he eased farther back on the yoke and pointed the plane’s nose toward the horizon.

He was abruptly aware that his shirt was soaked with sweat.

“Tori, take the controls.”

He put on his headset. It muffled the engine’s roar as he activated the radio system.

“Taking back the controls,” he said.

He couldn’t contact Medrano on the police radio. After all, his excuse for entering the prohibited airspace was that the police radio had failed. Instead he used the plane’s standard radio. Although Rostov’s airport didn’t have a control tower, he hoped someone in the office would hear him.

“Rostov traffic. Cessna Four Three Alpha has an injured passenger. A gunshot victim. We need an ambulance at the airport. My ETA is five minutes. Rostov.”

“I hear you, Four Three Alpha,” a voice said through Page’s head- set. It belonged to the man in the frayed coveralls who’d given Page his rental-car papers. “I’ll get that ambulance.”

Page tilted his head toward the reporter in back. “How is she?”

“Unconscious. But it looks like the duct tape sealed the wound.”

To Page’s right, the stock pens outside Rostov came into view, as did the courthouse on the main street. People and vehicles seemed everywhere, exploring the town before night settled and they went to the viewing area.

He descended toward the airport northeast of town, but not before he took a hard look at the collapsed, rusted hangars and the cracked, overgrown airstrip on the abandoned military airbase in the opposite direction. There wasn’t any sign of the vehicles he’d seen on the base the evening before. Beyond the ruin of the airbase, he frowned toward the boulders that looked like giant cinders strewn in a chaotic semi – circle, all that remained of the volcanic rim that had spewed them to the surface eons earlier.

60

Lockhart lay on the ground and spoke into the radio.

“The plane’s taking off. There’s a lot of dust, but I can see that the guard’s still running and firing.”

“Shoot the son of a bitch,” Raleigh’s voice ordered.

“I’m not within accurate range, sir.”

“Get closer.”

“Yes, sir.” He scanned the sky. “It looks like the plane escaped.”

“By tomorrow there’ll be no way to contain this. If I hadn’t put a quarantine on that place, there’d be police cars all over there by now. I don’t want anybody guessing what that facility really does. After you take care of the guard, destroy all the equipment in the observatory. Make it look as if he did it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Remaining low, Lockhart watched the guard continue firing to- ward the departing airplane-he kept squeezing the trigger even after he ran out of ammunition. As the lowering sun made the dust look scarlet, the guard glared toward the sky, then turned and took long, angry strides back toward the first of the three fences.

Lockhart was to the guard’s right, just behind him and about two hundred yards away. Bullets from an M4 could travel that far, but Lockhart couldn’t depend on where they would hit. To stop the guard, rather than merely startle him, he needed to get closer.

Satisfied that he wasn’t in the guard’s line of vision, he stood, tucked the radio into the duffel bag that hung from his shoulder, picked up his M4, and broke into a run. As the man passed the burning van and got closer to the observatory, Lockhart increased his pace, the duffel bag bumping against his side. His thick-soled shoes crunched on the pebbly soil, but the breeze was blowing in his direction, so the slight sound wouldn’t carry.