Bloch already knew he was coming.

The Pontiac roared to a start and screeched down the street. Stark didn’t even glance back as he went inside. His house was toasty warm. He remembered his cold walk down Juliana Fall’s steep stairs, how warm it was under the stack of quilts with her, warmer, he thought, than he’d ever been. She shows, I grab her. He wondered if leaving her in the middle of goddamn nowhere with a disabled car and no telephone had convinced her to stay the hell out. Something cold and empty inside him told him it hadn’t.

He tucked the Colt in his waistband and headed upstairs, where he got out the SIG-Sauer P-226 9mm automatic he kept around because he knew people like Phillip Bloch. He strapped on the hip holster and then put on his leather jacket and went back downstairs. He didn’t feel good, and he didn’t feel confident. He just felt armed.

The light was blinking on his message machine. He pressed the button and played back the messages. There were two. One was from a buddy who wanted him to go to the Caps game that night. The other was from Alice Feldon.

“Otis Raymond is dead,” she said. “Call me.”

Twenty-Two

S am Ryder settled back in the leather chair at his desk, with his back to the half-smiling, half-knowing face of his father. He had come to his office because it seemed the right place to be-cushioned from men like Phillip Bloch, Hendrik de Geer, Matthew Stark. Here process was important. The rule of law. There wasn’t just power here, but tradition, and when his footsteps echoed in the wide corridors, he felt himself a part of that tradition, not just of his father, but of the men before him. The United States Senate. This, he thought, is where I belong.

But Phil Bloch and Matthew Stark were trying to pull him back to the central highlands of Vietnam, to a time and place where he didn’t belong. Had never belonged. He had done his duty, and more. It was over. Finished. If Bloch and Stark couldn’t accept that, then so be it.

Bloch would eliminate Hendrik de Geer. Then he and Stark would eliminate each other. It was the only way, and it had to work. Otherwise they would all be there forever, hovering in the shadows with their accusing eyes, their knowledge, and their threats.

One of his aides, also working on this chilly December Saturday, announced that Juliana Fall was there to see him.

Ryder shot forward in his chair. Juliana! But how? Why? She had the diamond, Bloch had said. Find out where she went.

She’s come here, Bloch, you stinking slob, he thought. She’s come here to me. I didn’t have to go looking.

He told his aide to send her in at once.

Juliana rushed in, pushing back her hair as she said breathlessly, “Senator Ryder, thank you for seeing me.”

He nodded, unable to speak. If possible, she was even more beautiful now. He was stricken by her look of vulnerability; her pale face made her eyes seem even darker, more hauntingly beautiful.

“I hope you’ll be willing to help me,” she went on, obviously agitated. “I-I need to find Phillip Bloch.”

“Juliana…” Her name came out as a whisper, a breath, and he was on his feet, unsteadily moving toward her. No, not her! She can’t be involved in this! He took her arm. “Here, sit down.”

She pulled away, more assertively than he would have anticipated from someone of her background. Her dark, beautiful eyes riveted on his. “Please don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about because I know you do.”

“Don’t be silly. But, of course, if I can help you-”

“Tell me where Bloch is!”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” he said, cool and patrician, wanting desperately to touch her and kiss away her fears, but disturbed by the aggressiveness she was exhibiting. Had he misjudged her? There was no reason for her to be involved-why was she? “Sergeant Bloch was my platoon sergeant in Vietnam, but that was twenty years ago.”

“You were at Lincoln Center with Rachel Stein. She’d learned of your involvement with de Geer and was trying to get you to bring him to justice for his betrayal of her and her family and my family to the Nazis during World War Two.” Juliana paused, no longer gulping for air but regarding him with a cold, determined eye. “That alone, Senator Ryder, ought to interest the Post of the Gazette or any number of news organizations. Once they start to dig-”

“Don’t threaten me,” he said icily, despising the willfulness he now saw in her delicate face. Beautiful, yes, and vulnerable too, but also tough. Inappropriately tough, in his judgment.

She choked back her frustration. “Do you want me to plead? Help me, for God’s sake!”

“You’re not the woman I thought.”

His words were simple and pained, but Juliana seemed unmoved by the sadness and disillusionment he felt. She’d destroyed his image of her, the woman he’d thought he could love. They’d spent only minutes together, but he’d sensed she possessed the level of sensitivity and femininity he’d found lacking in most women. She’d failed him.

“We hardly know each other, Senator, but that’s not the issue. Please help me.”

“What do you plan to do once you locate Bloch?” he asked, trying to sound disinterested. Did she have the Minstrel?

“I can’t explain.”

She did. Dear God, she did!

“Senator, where is he? I mean what I say. I’ll take everything to the press if you don’t help me. Don’t you see? I don’t know what else to do!”

Ryder shuddered with indecisiveness. From long, terrible experience he knew Bloch didn’t make deals. If Juliana tried to exchange the Minstrel for her mother and her aunt, he would take it and get rid of all of them. He’ll kill them-say it. But not necessarily. There was no reason she should be hurt, provided Stark and Bloch got to each other first.

“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he said.

“Thank you, I don’t either, but some things you just have to do.”

Yes, he thought, that’s right. If he sent Juliana down, Bloch would look upon Ryder favorably, and, should things not work out by some chance, that would be helpful. But why shouldn’t things work out? Telling her Bloch’s location wasn’t putting her into any more danger than she was already in. No matter what he did or didn’t do, Bloch would catch up with her. This way, he was giving her the advantage. That was how he had to look at it.

“He’s taken over my fishing camp on the western edge of the Dead Lakes. It wasn’t my idea. I had no knowledge of what he was doing-he presented me with a fait accompli.”

Juliana obviously didn’t care about his problems. “Where are the Dead Lakes?”

He hesitated.

“Tell me, dammit!”

“Fly into Tallahassee,” he said stiffly, pretending it was someone else doing the talking, as he did when he had to leak information to the press about confidential Senate matters, as he had twenty years ago when he’d told Bloch that he wanted Matthew Stark and his crew to fly into their LZ. “You can rent a car and drive out there. Stop at a gas station or a grocery. Anyone can tell you where the camp is.”

Bloch’s men had shoved Wilhelmina and Catharina into a one-room shack with a small three-quarter bath and kitchen facilities that consisted of a sink, a two-burner heating unit, and a small portable refrigerator, which was empty. The shower was mildewed. The walls were rough boards, uninsulated, and the damp, chilly wind off the lake blew in through the cracks. There was no heat. For furniture there was a studio bed, a couch that pulled out into a bed, a vinyl-covered La-Z-Boy, a small table covered with a red-checkered vinyl cloth and two folding wooden chairs. The back exit was securely locked. The front entrance was guarded by a man in a khaki shirt and trousers who’d told the women to get some sleep.