Kaye shook as if with chill. She could slowly accept now that this was going to be it. Bravery and denial could no longer compete with blood and things out of place, Saul gone awry, in the control of Sad/Bad, blanketed Saul.

I can’t see it,” Kaye said shrilly, looking out across the choppy water. “It has a red sail. It’s not out there.”

They asked her for a description, a photograph, and she provided both. Mr. Bull went downstairs, out the front door, to the police car. Kaye followed him part of the way and turned to go into the living room. She was unwilling to stay in the bedroom. Mr. Death and the paramedic stayed to ask more questions, but she had very few answers. A police photographer and a coroner’s assistant went up the stairs with their equipment.

Caddy watched it all with owlish concern and then cattish fascination. Finally, she hugged Kaye and said some more words and Kaye said, automatically, that she would be fine. Caddy wanted to leave but could not bring herself to do so.

At that moment, the orange cat Crickson came into the room. Kaye picked him up and stroked him, suddenly wondered if he had seen, then stooped and slipped him gently back on the floor.

The minutes seemed to last for hours. Daylight faded and rain spatted against the living room windows. Finally, Mr. Bull returned, and it was Mr. Death’s turn to leave.

Caddy watched, made guilty by her horror and fascination.

“We can’t clean this up for you,” Mr. Bull told her. He handed her a business card. “These folks have a little business. They clean up messes like this. It’s not cheap, but they do a good job. Husband and wife. Christians. Nice people.”

Kaye nodded and took the card. She did not want the house now; thought about just locking the door and leaving it.

Caddy was the last to go. “Where you going to spend the night, Kaye?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Kaye said.

“You’re welcome to come stay with us, dear.”

“Thank you,” Kaye said. “There’s a cot at the lab. I think I’ll sleep there tonight. Could you take care of the cats? I can’t…think about them now.”

“Of course. I’ll round them up. You want me to come back?” Caddy asked. “Clean up after…you know? The others are done?”

“I’ll call,” Kaye said, close to breaking down again. Caddy hugged her with painful intensity and then went to find the cats. She left ten minutes later and Kaye was alone in the house.

No note, no message, nothing.

The phone rang. She did not answer for a time, but it continued to ring, and the answering machine had been turned off, perhaps by Saul. Perhaps it was Saul, she realized with a shock, hating herself for having briefly lost hope, and instantly picked up the phone.

“Is this Kaye?”

“Yes.” Hoarsely. She cleared her throat.

“Mrs. Lang, this is Randy Foster at AKS Industries. I need to speak with Saul. About the deal. Is he home?”

“No, Mr. Foster.”

Pause. Awkward. What to say? Who to tell just now? And who was Randy Foster, and what deal?

“Sorry. Tell him we’ve just finished with our lawyers and the contracts are done. They’ll be delivered tomorrow. We’ve scheduled a conference call for four P.M. I look forward to meeting you, Mrs. Lang.”

She mumbled something and put the phone down. For a moment she thought now she would break, a really big break. Instead, slowly and with great deliberation, she went back up the stairs and packed a large suitcase with the clothes she might need for the next week.

Then she left the house and drove the car to EcoBacter. The building was mostly empty by dinnertime, and she was not hungry. She used her key to open the small side office where Saul had placed a cot and blankets, then hesitated a moment before opening the door. She pushed it slowly inward.

The small windowless room was dark and empty and cool. It smelled clean. Everything in order.

Kaye undressed and got under the beige wool blanket and crisp white sheets.

That morning, early, before dawn, she awoke in a sweat, shivering, not ill, but horrified by the specter of her new self, a widow .

20

London

The reporters finally found Mitch at Heathrow. Sam sat across from him at a small table in the court around the open seafood bar while five of them, two females and three males, clustered just outside a low barrier of plastic plants surrounding the eating area and peppered him with questions. Curious and irritated travelers watched from the other tables, or brushed past carting their luggage.

“Were you the first to confirm they were prehistoric?” the older woman asked, camera clutched in one hand. She selfconsciously pushed back wisps of hennaed hair, her eyes twitching left and right, finally zeroing in on Mitch for his answer.

Mitch picked at his shrimp cocktail.

“Do you think they have any connection with Pasco man in the U.S.A.?” asked one of the males, obviously hoping to provoke.

Mitch could not tell the three men apart. They were all in their thirties, dressed in rumpled black suits, carrying steno pads and digital recorders.

“That was your last debacle, wasn’t it?”

“Were you deported from Austria?” another man asked.

“How much did the dead climbers pay you to keep their secret? What were they going to charge for the mummies?”

Mitch leaned back and stretched ostentatiously, then smiled. The hennaed female duly recorded this. Sam shook his head, hunkered down as if under a rain cloud.

“Ask me about the infant,” Mitch said.

“What infant?”

“Ask me about the baby. The normal baby.”

“How many sites did you plunder?” Henna-hair asked cheerily.

“We found the baby in the cave with its parents,” Mitch said, and stood, pushing back the cast-iron chair with an ugly scraping sound. “Dad, let’s go.”

“Fine,” Sam said.

“Whose cave? The cavemen’s cave?” the middle male asked.

“Caveman and cavewoman,” the younger woman corrected.

“Do you think they kidnapped it?” Henna-hair asked, licking her lips.

“Kidnapped a baby, killed it, carried it for food perhaps into the Alps…Got caught in a storm, died!” Left-side-male enthused.

“What a story that would be!” Number-three-male, on the left, said.

“Ask the scientists,” Mitch said, and worked his way to the counter on crutches to pay the check.

“They give out news like it was holy dispensation!” the younger woman shouted after them.

21

Washington, D.C.

Dicken sat beside Mark Augustine in the office of the surgeon general, Doctor Maxine Kirby. Kirby was of medium height, stout, with discerning almond eyes set in chocolate skin that bore only a few character lines and belied her six decades; those lines had deepened in the last hour, however.

It was eleven P.M. and they had gone through the details twice now. For the third time, the laptop automatically cycled through its slide show of charts and definitions, but only Dicken was watching.

Frank Shawbeck, deputy director of the National Institutes of Health, returned to the room through the heavy gray door after having made a visit to the lavatory down the hall. Everyone knew that Kirby did not like others using her private washroom.

The surgeon general stared up at the ceiling and Augustine gave Dicken a small, quick scowl, concerned that the presentation had not been convincing.

She lifted her hand. “Shut that down, please, Christopher. My brain is spinning.” Dicken hit the ESCAPE key on the laptop and turned off the overhead projector. Shawbeck turned up the office lights and shoved his hands into his pockets. He took a position of loyal support on the corner of Kirby’s broad maple desk.

“These domestic stats,” Kirby said, “all from area hospitals — that’s a strong point, it’s happening in the neighborhood…and we’re still getting reports from other cities, other states.”