The first part went according to plan, but once they reached the house in Portland, one last surprise awaited them.

It was Sarah who realized that there was a faint sound coming from Tucker’s computer case (which she had packed up and brought with her after he’d been taken from the hotel), but before anyone could panic, she said, “It sounds like e-mail again.”

Brodie and Murphy looked at each other, and it was she who said, “Even if the machine is on, this shouldn’t be happening. This place is a dead zone for wireless, I made sure of that.”

Tucker sat down in the living room and got the computer from its case, placing it on the coffee table. It continued to beep quietly, regularly.

It was not on.

Tucker hesitated before turning it on, looking at the others and saying, “This is almost as creepy as finding them in my head.”

“Sure it isn’t a low battery?” Murphy asked, but not as if she considered that a possibility.

“When it’s off? No. But it was on battery power when I left it at the hotel the other night. I’d be surprised if it has any power at all.”

But it had power.

Power enough, anyway, to bring up a blank screen instead of the program manager, a black screen.

Words appeared on the screen as if they were being written as they watched, bright white against the black background, and the voice behind the words was so evident that they could almost hear it, low, pleasant, incongruously courteous.

Duran.

You disappointed me, Brodie.

I was rather hoping you would finish off Varden

in the cellar and save me the trouble.

But…what will be, will be.

Isn’t that right, Sarah?

Until next time.

Oh, and by the way—

Leigh says hello.

Brodie sat down heavily in a chair across from Tucker, his face white and his eyes filled with a terrible awareness. “Jesus Christ. It was Leigh he was after all along. This whole thing…just to get Leigh.”

“Then she’s alive,” Tucker said.

Sarah, with a good idea of what it would cost Leigh to survive, shook her head numbly. “She would have preferred to die in the fire. Believe me.”

It was Murphy who said, “I bet when Nick gets here, he’ll tell us the cops found a body in the church. A woman’s body, burned beyond recognition. If Duran’s been planning this all along, he would have been prepared.”

Brodie slammed his hand down on the arm of the chair with a force that made them all jump, then shot to his feet and left the house.

“He needs some time to himself,” Murphy told the others.

“He hates to lose,” Sarah murmured.

It was much later that evening when Tucker had a chance to sit down and really talk to Brodie. The other man had returned to the house nearly an hour after his departure with a calm face and little to say, but when he and Tucker were alone—Sarah was in the shower, while Murphy stood guard outside the house and waited for Nick to join them—he was entirely willing to fill Tucker in on the details he had missed.

“Why can’t we go public with this story?” Tucker asked after he heard it. “Break it wide open.” He had his own opinions on the subject but wanted to hear Brodie’s.

“Think about it. Conspiracy theories run amok in our society these days. If it isn’t about Kennedy’s assassination or Watergate, it’s aliens or the space program or Vietnam or the mess in the Middle East—or just the government trying to pull something over on us. The very mention of a conspiracy theory makes people shake their heads and smile—and the idea isn’t taken seriously. And that’s at best. At worst, we’re labeled nuts. So, we wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“Hard evidence. Proof. Enough proof to go public. Enough proof to convince even people who don’t believe in psychic phenomena or conspiracy theories that the threat is real. And growing.” He shook his head. “We wait, and we watch, and we listen. Look for evidence. Try to get to and protect the people we know are in immediate danger. And build our network of people who do believe—and want to fight.”

“In case you never find enough proof?”

“It’s a possibility.” His smile was both faintly amused and more than a little weary. “When the shit finally hits the fan, we may be the only thing standing between the bad guys and the future.”

“I’ve never thought of myself as a revolutionary,” Tucker said slowly.

“Maybe you’d better start. You have a personal stake in the fight now. And we need all the help we can get.”

“What can I do? I’m a writer, not a soldier.”

“I’m a lawyer,” Brodie said dryly. “Cait was…was a waitress putting herself through school. Nick’s a builder. I couldn’t tell you what Murphy is or was, except hard as nails. Among the others I know personally in this thing, there’s a truck driver, an architect, an engineer, two doctors, several nurses, a Nobel Prize–winning scientist, a very young student, a country-western star, and a billionaire. They aren’t psychics. They aren’t soldiers either. We don’t need soldiers, Tucker. We just need people who believe in the fight and want to help.”

After a moment, Tucker silently held out his hand, and the two men shook firmly.

“What about this ‘traitor in your own house’ business? Or do you think Duran was lying?”

Brodie frowned. “As much as I hate to admit it, I’m afraid he might have been telling the truth. It’s not his style to kill without reason, and Cait’s murder was utterly senseless. And even though we’re reasonably sure it was Varden’s plan to set a trap for Sarah—whether he was a red herring in Duran’s plan to get Leigh or not—killing Cait doesn’t seem to figure into that either. It just doesn’t make sense.”

“Unless it was done by somebody bent on weakening your group? Taking out a link of the chain and, worse, spreading suspicion and mistrust among you?”

“That could be it. We’re still so scattered, so dependent on one another for information and support, that taking out a single link throws all the rest into confusion. Losing both Cait and Leigh means we’ll be cutting and rerouting lines of communication for weeks. Maybe months. And we’ll have to move some people, some of Leigh’s contacts.”

“Because you don’t know what she’ll tell the other side?”

Grim, Brodie nodded. “Exactly. That’s why we’re so careful, why so few of us know the complete setup of the group. The more who know it all, the greater the risk of the other side getting the information.”

“What would they do with the information?”

“What they’ve done in the past. Destroy some of our outposts or safe houses—and infiltrate the group. Our psychics can spot most of them, but they use tools—like that cop back in Richmond—and the tools aren’t always so easy to spot, even for psychics.”

“But that’s someone from the other side. What if Duran was telling the truth? Have you ever had to fight a traitor among you?”

“No.”

“Are you sure there’s never been one?”

“As sure as we can be. But if Duran was telling the truth…then we’re all going to have to be a lot more careful.”

After a moment, Tucker nodded. “What’s next for Sarah and me?”

“First,” Brodie replied, emphasizing the word only slightly, “we find the safest place possible for Sarah. Richmond is okay for the time being; they’ll avoid the place for a while after the fire, that cop’s murder, and all the publicity. But we’ll have to get another psychic in the picture to help Sarah learn how to use her abilities.” He looked steadily at Tucker. “She’s pretty incredible already, as I told you. Until we learn the limits of her abilities, we don’t know how she’ll be able to use them—but you can bet they’re the best weapons she can have against the other side.”

“She’ll always be a target, won’t she?”

Brodie didn’t sugarcoat it. “Yes. Leigh was left untouched for years, but when Duran saw his chance, he took it. And her.” He shook that off with an obvious effort. “But the news isn’t all bad. We’ve found through trial and error—costly error—that total secrecy is the worst possible tactic we can use to protect our psychics. The answer isn’t to hide Sarah away. It’s to make her as visible as possible. The more people who are aware of her existence and abilities, the less likely she is to…disappear. Or have an accident.”