Those had been dark days. He'd even gone so far as to suggest at a meeting with Brady and the HC that they all levitate together. The shocked looks from the HC—every one of them—had worsened his suspicions.

Brady had abruptly adjourned the meeting and taken Jensen to his private quarters. He'd pulled a book from a special cabinet and placed it before him. To Jensen's astonishment, the title, The Compendium ofSrem, was in Yoruba, his native tongue. He opened the cover and flipped through.

And then another shock as Brady began translating one of the passages.

"You speak Yoruba?" Jensen remembered saying.

Brady shook his head and smiled. "Not a word. When I look at these pages I see English. If I'd been born and raised in France, I'd see French. Whatever your native tongue, that is what you see."

Jensen had wondered about that. He'd learned English young—an almost-native tongue in his case. He squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on memories of his early English classes, forcing that language to the front of his brain, pushing the Yoruba back, then opened his eyes.

For an instant the text swam before him in English, then transformed into Yoruba.

It wasn't a trick. But how—?

"Look here."

Brady directed him to the end, to a strange illustration of Earth crisscrossed with lines and dots.

The drawing rotated on the page.

Jensen had stared in wonder, trying not to believe, but the look and feel of this book, its uncanny lightness, the odd textures of its binding were all so strange, so unlike anything he had ever encountered in his life, that he'd had no choice but to believe.

Brady then explained what the drawing meant, told him about Opus Omega. And in that great project Jensen had seen a possibility of salvation. All who aided in the completion of Opus Omega would be saved when the Hokano world fused with this one. More than saved, they would be like gods in the new world.

Perhaps if he helped Luther Brady with this project, his Null status wouldn't matter. When the worlds merged, he might be transformed along with all the Fully Fused members of the Church. In the end, when it was over, he could join them as a godlike being in the remade world.

And so he'd become a partner in Opus Omega, doing whatever necessary to speed it along.

Jensen sighed and turned the ignition key.

But he was still a Null, with no guarantee of a future. He would go on living the lie, but he would make up for it by continuing to be the most devoted GP the Church had ever known.

Part of that effort meant keeping a close watch on Jason Amurri.

16

Richie Cordova sliced into the thick filet mignon still sizzling on the platter. He smiled as he inspected the purplish meat inside: black and blue, just the way he liked it.

He took a bite: as good as it looked.

He'd heard this place grilled a mean steak, and they weren't kidding.

Kind of upscale for the neighborhood—which meant downscale for just about everywhere else—but it seemed to be doing okay. Just down the street from his office all these years and he'd never tried it.

Richie refilled his glass from the bottle of Merlot he'd ordered and toasted himself.

He had a couple of reasons to celebrate tonight. First off, his horoscope had told him to, even if he had to make up an occasion. Fortunately that hadn't been necessary. He'd received a cool thou in the mail today from a new cow. The first of many, if he had anything to say about it. Next was the successful restoration of his computer files.

He'd had a few sweaty moments there in the office. Sure, he'd had a backup CD. He burned a new one every time he added new material and broke the old one into half a dozen pieces—too many copies lying around could only lead to trouble—but he'd never checked to see if the files had been properly recorded. What if something had been wrong with his disk burner? What if he'd only thought he'd copied the files, and when he tried to restore them, they'd all turn out blank?

So he'd chewed a fingernail while waiting for the contents of the CD to pop up on the screen. But when they did, and when they proved to be perfect copies of all his lost files, he'd almost got up and danced. Almost.

By the time he'd restored all his files it was well past closing time at the bank. Rather than drag the disk along to dinner, he'd left it back in the office with the money. His original plan had been to run them up to the safety deposit box in the morning, but now he was having second thoughts.

Something wasn't right.

No matter how hard he'd tried, he'd been unable to come up with an explanation beyond simple bad luck for what had happened to his computer. The computer guy had had a good explanation of how the virus had gotten into his system. Matter of fact, he'd informed Richie that the new antivirus software he'd installed had detected a total of thirteen different viruses on his hard drive. Thirteen! That was why it had taken a couple of extra hours to get his computer back to him. But he promised he'd disinfected all the files and programs. The hard drive was clean.

Richie had to admit that it was running faster and smoother now.

So okay, his computer had been a sewer of viruses. And he hadn't found a single scrap of evidence that someone had broken in. Plus the horoscopes hadn't even hinted at foul play.

So why this bad feeling? Why this gnawing suspicion that he'd missed something? Why the prickly feeling at the back of his neck that something bad might go down tonight?

His horoscope had said being in the right place at the right time was his style today. Suddenly he knew that the right place for him was his office and the right time to be there would be right after dinner. The right place for his backup CD and his money—a pretty fair amount of cake in that envelope—was safe at his house, under his pillow.

Richie turned his attention back to the steak. He felt better already.

17

Jack closed the door to Cordova's office behind him.

The duct tape was back on the alarm plunger, the pick gun and the HYRTBU disk were in his pockets, the brand-new hot plate was under his arm, his flashlight was in his latex-gloved hand and lighting his way through the dark reception room.

So far so good. No one had seen him come in, no one else on the second floor.

The idea of searching for the backup disk in the receptionist's desk vanished almost before it arrived. Right, like Fat Richie would leave his precious blackmail photos where someone could dip into them.

No, if it was anywhere, it was in the boss's lair.

Jack laid the brand-new hot plate on Cordova's desk. What a job finding one. He'd figured someplace like Macy's would carry them in their kitchen section, but no. Not a one. He'd finally found a selection at a chefs supply shop. Of the two single-coil models, he'd noticed that one was made by Acme. Remembering a certain coyote's bad luck with that brand, he'd bought the other.

Jack squatted in the kneehole of the desk and slipped Russ's HYRTBU disk into the floppy drive. He turned on the computer and crossed mental fingers. If Cordova hadn't had antivirus software before, he surely had it now. But Russ had promised that his disk would slip past any protective program and reinsert HYRTBU. He'd better be right.

As the box beeped and the hard drive rattled to life, Jack went through the desk first, being careful to replace everything in the exact position he'd found it. Cordova might be a fat slob, but that didn't carry over to his home or office.

No luck.

He moved to the file cabinets. A lot of stuff in these. He knew from his last trip here that going through them would take a while—a long while. He hated the thought of pawing through every one of those folders again, so he decided to leave the cabinets till last.