The doctor turned her eyes back toward Danielle.

“I’m not his mother, nor am I some deranged person who’s kidnapped him and thinks he’s my son. He’s not. But he’s been through hell and there are people looking for him who’d like to drag him back there. And I am not going to let that happen.”

Danielle noticed a softening in the doctor’s eyes and saw her steal a glance toward Yuri. She relaxed the pressure on the doctor’s mouth so she could speak, but held her hand close should Dr. Vasquez try to scream.

“Who are you people?” the doctor asked.

“We’re members of an American security service,” Danielle said.

“You have no authority here,” Dr. Vasquez said bluntly.

“No, we don’t. But our superiors are in touch with important members of your government.” Danielle had no choice but to lie. “People who both know of and have approved of our presence. I don’t have the time or the ability to contact them now. So please, just help us. Then we’ll go.”

Dr. Vasquez seemed torn. She looked at Yuri again. How could she not help? “We can do an MRI,” she said. “And after that you leave.”

Danielle nodded, thinking she would promise anything to get Yuri the examination he needed.

Professor McCarter sat in a public plaza, hiding among a crowd of people and the chaos of a traffic jam caused by the midafternoon blackout.

He tried to concentrate on the surroundings, looking for any sign of trouble, struggling against the flight reflex building within him.

In his backpack he carried the newly found stone, an object that had just discharged a massive burst of electromagnetic energy, an object that at least two groups of armed men were looking for and willing to kill over. As uneasy as he felt carrying it around undefended, both he and Danielle realized it would be unconscionable to bring it into the hospital, where it could interfere with countless tests and devices, not the least of which were the items needed to examine Yuri.

Across from him a fountain rose in concrete and stucco. Hundreds of people milled around, many of them out on the street and in the park because of the blackout. In an open area a group of teenagers was playing soccer. Near the borders of their makeshift field stood a group of uniformed federales. They walked through the mass of people looking like predators among a herd of prey.

Logic told him they were there for crowd control, to make sure an afternoon blackout didn’t turn into something worse. But despite his well-founded logic, he couldn’t shake the thought that they were specifically looking for him. Coming to find him and to take the stone.

Danielle stood with Dr. Vasquez in the control room studying the MRI. It showed a cross section of Yuri’s brain, highlighted in red, orange, and pink. One section was blue and it was blurred.

“What is that?” she asked.

The doctor adjusted the controls and had the machine run another scan. The beltlike apparatus that Yuri laid on moved him back into the tube of the massive machine and a series of loud clunking noises were heard as the machine took another picture of Yuri’s brain.

This one was slightly better, but still blurred around the blue section.

“Could something be wrong with the imager?” Danielle asked.

Dr. Vasquez shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I changed the angle of the scan slightly, just to be sure.” She pointed to the blurred area. “If it were the machine, the blurred area would have appeared to move. It didn’t. It’s in a different place on the image, the same spot in the child’s brain.”

“What is it?” Danielle asked.

“You said someone was doing experiments on him?”

“To the best of my knowledge that’s true.”

Dr. Vasquez nodded sadly. “In that case I would guess that we’re looking at the remnants of one of those experiments,” she said. “That is an object, a powered object, inserted into his cerebral cortex.”

“A powered object?”

“It’s emitting its own electromagnetic wave,” Dr. Vasquez said. “Minor, to be sure, but that’s the blue distortion.”

Danielle felt sick to her stomach. And then she heard a sound that made it worse. Yuri had woken up and had begun to scream.

McCarter moved toward the outskirts of the park. He had stopped at the table of a street vendor and pretended to examine some of his offerings. He glanced back toward the group of policemen.

They’re coming for the stone.

Were they his thoughts or a voice?

Run. It was an urging, not a physical sound. Run!

McCarter couldn’t help it. He dropped the trinket from his hand and ran for the street.

Yuri had awoken screaming but had calmed down as soon as the MRI machine was shut down. He clung to Danielle as Dr. Vasquez did a number of other tests.

“There’s no sign of swelling to his brain,” she said. “His neurological responses are good.”

Thank God, Danielle thought.

“What about the blood from his ear?”

“It looks as if he had a cyst inside his ear canal that ruptured during the seizure,” she said. “But he can hear okay. So, no damage.”

The doctor smiled. “He’s a lucky child,” she said, then seemed to realize better. “In some ways.”

Danielle stood, holding Yuri protectively.

“What will you do with him now?” Dr. Vasquez asked.

“Try to get him to somewhere safe, where he can receive help,” she said.

“You could leave him with us,” she said. “I’ll make sure he’s cared for.”

Danielle hesitated. There was an undeniable attraction to the idea. Let Yuri disappear, no Kang, no Russia. No more problems for him. But she couldn’t be sure it would turn out that way.

She shook her head. “There are people looking for him, people you won’t be able to protect him from. If they found you, they would kill you and anyone who stood in their way.”

“Why?”

“It’s a long story,” Danielle said. “When we leave, you should call the police. In case these men come here.”

The doctor nodded, looking nervous. She glanced at Hawker still holding the gun. “I’ll give you five minutes before I call. Don’t come back.”

Danielle turned and left the room carrying Yuri. Hawker followed a second later.

“Should I call security?” Ricardo asked.

“No,” Dr. Vasquez replied.

“You’re going to let them go?”

She nodded. “I think it’s best,” she said. “If they are who they say they are, then there is no need getting mixed up in the situation.”

“And if they’re not?”

“Better they be far from here when the police find them,” she said.

Ricardo nodded reluctantly and then looked past her to a small device beside the door. A bright green LED was flashing rapidly.

“Was the intrusion in the child’s head radioactive?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” Dr. Vasquez said. “Why?”

He pointed to the LED. “The waste alarm. One of them has been exposed to radioactive materials.”

McCarter tried to run in a controlled fashion, but he knew it must have looked bad. His leg was hurting and his mind was spinning, and he reckoned his pace was that of a man in a three-legged race, even if he was tied to no one but himself.

He continued across the street, thinking he had to get away, away from the police, away from whoever was chasing him, away from Hawker and Danielle.

The last thought hit him hard. Why had he thought that? They were his friends; they were protecting him. Was his subconscious mind trying to tell him something?

He saw a bus stop in front of the hospital and a city bus coming down the crowded street. He ran over and got in line. The bus slowed, releasing a great blast of air from its brakes.

“Professor?”

He turned to see Danielle and Hawker coming out of the hospital. Yuri was walking with them. He was thankful for that.