Russ pounded alongside her, trying to hit the speed dial for Harlene with his arm jerking up and down. “Harlene,” he gasped, when he finally made the connection, “IEDs here at the resort.” Improvised explosive devices. “We need fire, we need emergency, we need every unit in the county turning out for this.”

“Copy that, Chief,” Harlene said. “Do you have casualties?”

“They haven’t blown yet, but when they do it’s gonna be bad.” Ahead of him, Clare flung open a door and leaned against it to let him run through.

“Bomb squad?”

“Hell, yeah,” he said, knowing it would be futile. The nearest explosive ordinance team was in Troop G, an hour away in Loudonville. Clare had skidded to a stop in front of the registration desk and was trying to juice an obviously skeptical clerk. “Chief out,” he said to Harlene. Pocketing his phone, he reached inside his jacket and pulled out his badge. He hung it in front of the desk clerk’s face. “This is a police emergency. You listen to what this lady says and do what she tells you to do. Got it?” He glanced at Clare without waiting for confirmation from the wide-eyed bell clerk. “I’m going to evacuate the ballroom.”

She jerked her chin down.

He ran to the entryway. At the head of the huge room, dwarfed by the moonlit mountains looming behind him, a tall, balding, academic sort was at the podium. He was talking about the preservation of the Adirondack wilderness, his amplified voice underscored by the clinking of dessert forks and coffee spoons.

“… and so we want to recognize those for whom preserving the natural world has become a calling…”

Russ paused at his own table. He put one hand on Linda’s shoulder and the other as close to the centerpiece as he could. “I want you all to get up right now,” he said in a low voice. “Get your coats and go to your cars. Go home immediately.”

“Russ!” Linda tipped her head back to look at him. “Honey, whatever on earth are you saying?”

“Bomb threat.” He decided to underplay it. The words “There’s a bomb in the room” tended to produce running and screaming. The only way they were going to clear this ballroom without someone getting hurt was to keep it lowkey. Seriously low-key. Urgently low-key.

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Robert Corlew reached for his after-dinner coffee. “These things are always complete smoke. Some bored teenagers with nothing to do on a Saturday night.”

Or maybe not so low-key. “Linda,” he said, taking her by both arms. “Your life is in danger. If you love me, you’ll leave. Now.”

He looked into her big blue eyes. Please, honey, he thought. Please.

She rose from her seat and kissed his cheek. “I’ll see you at home, then.” Without a single look behind her, she walked out of the ballroom.

The table was dead silent. “Jim,” Russ said, “I’m going to make an evacuation announcement. Will you come with me? Having the mayor there may make people a little less skeptical.”

Cameron nodded. He took his wife’s hand and kissed it. “Better go, alsking.”

She nodded, pale-faced. “I’ll wait for you in the car.”

He glanced up at Russ, who shook his head, then back to her. “Don’t,” he said. “I’ll find my own way home.”

Robert Corlew abruptly shoved his chair back and bolted from the table. His wife looked to where he was disappearing out the entryway. “Excuse me,” she said in her hesitant voice, and followed him.

Russ and Jim Cameron skirted the edge of the room. “What’s the story?” Cameron asked quietly.

“See those wine crates stacked up by the head table?”

“Yeah.”

“Their bottles are full of a home-brewed fire accelerant that works sort of like napalm. The timers are inside a false bottom.”

Cameron’s face drained of color, but he kept walking toward the front of the room. Toward the bombs. Russ’s respect for the man went up a good five notches. “How do you know?”

“I took one apart a few minutes ago out in the parking lot.”

“When’s it set to go off?”

“I don’t know. I can recognize the basic ingredients of an improvised explosive device, but I’m no expert at figuring out the mechanics.” A waiter trundled out the kitchen doors, a silver coffeepot in each hand. Russ stopped him and showed him his badge. “There’s a bomb threat,” he said in a low voice. “We’re clearing the building. Get back in the kitchen and tell everyone. Then leave.”

The waiter peered at Russ’s badge. “And you are?”

“Millers Kill chief of police.”

The waiter’s mouth formed the word “Oh.” He turned and went back into the kitchen.

Russ and Cameron crossed the empty stretch of dance floor. The head of the ACC, who was still talking, saw them and made discreet shooing motions to clear them out of the audience’s line of sight.

“… of course, this great work cannot continue without the sort of support tha-What do you think you’re doing?”

Russ crowded the man from the podium. “Good evening, folks. I’m the chief of police here in Millers Kill, and this is our mayor, Jim Cameron.” Somewhere in the middle of the room, someone started to clap. The sound stopped immediately. “We’ve received a credible threat that bombs have been placed in this location. We are taking this threat absolutely seriously. I want you all to get up and leave the ballroom in an orderly fashion. Please exit the building and go to your cars. Emergency vehicles will be arriving shortly. Please do not impede them.”

Maybe 10 percent of the people in the ballroom rose and began making their way to the exit. The rest sat where they were, looking at each other. A torrent of voices filled the air. Someone shouted, “What about our coats?”

Russ leaned toward the mike to tell him what he could do with his damn coat. From the back of the room, a voice that could bounce off the walls cut him off. “Staff members are taking all the coats outside. As soon as you’re past the portico, you can collect your belongings.”

“Isn’t that Reverend Fergusson?” Cameron asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Russ said, smiling slightly. “You.” He turned to the head-table occupants. “Get out. Now.”

Louisa van der Hoeven stood unsteadily. “Did my brother have something to do with this?”

Russ paused. He figured either Eugene, Millie, or a combination of the two was responsible for the explosives. What the hell did Louisa van der Hoeven know that would make her jump to the same conclusion? “We consider him one of the prime suspects,” he said cautiously.

She turned to her dinner companions. “Then it’s serious. Get the hell out before the place goes up like a tinderbox.” She lurched around the end of the table and took off for the door. As more and more people rose and headed toward the entryway, the mood changed from skepticism to alarm to panic. Russ saw Shaun Reid, cell phone clamped to his ear, dragged by his wife across the dance floor. Several people began running. A woman screamed. At the other end of the ballroom, there was a booming sound as the doors to the adjacent conference area were opened. A petite woman in a severely chic black suit stood next to one and yelled, “You may exit through these doors and then out into the lobby! You may exit through these doors and then out into the lobby!” As the human tide stopped, changed direction, and began to flow toward her, she fought her way to the now-empty dance floor.

“I’m Barbara LeBlanc, the manager,” she said when she reached them. “We’re clearing the hotel right now. What else can we do?”

He motioned toward the retreating crowd, shoving and pushing to get out the doors. “Let’s start by getting as far away as possible from these crates.”

She followed him toward the dwindling mass of people, looking over her shoulder at the floor in front of the head table. “That’s them?”

“That’s them.”

“Could we move them? Some of those glass panels are doors to the terrace outside.”

He shook his head. “We don’t know when they’re going to go off. I don’t want anybody touching them.” He glanced up at the ceiling. “You have a sprinkler system in here?”