He clicked the light off and then on again. The same face, the same crooked smile.

“I’ll have that file if you don’t mind, boyo.”

“Dad? What the—”

“Watch your language, now. You know I don’t abide swearing. English is a marvelously adept tongue. To use such words is nothing short of lazy.”

“What the fuck?”

The old man put up a hand to block the flashlight’s beam or Kyle’s expletive, one or the other, Kyle couldn’t be sure, and shook his head. “Ahh, boyo. As headstrong as ever. Can we do something about the light?”

“I don’t understand,” said Kyle.

“The light. Can you get that interrogator’s beam out of my face and turn the overheads back on?”

“Who the hell are you?”

“You know who I am.”

“Am I dreaming you? Have I gone crazy?”

“I know it’s hard to get a grip on. Something like this doesn’t happen every day, but no, you’re not crazy. I’ve come, Kyle, to pull you out of trouble. You’re in need of saving, even if you don’t know it.”

“You’ve come from where?” said Kyle. “The past?”

“No, son, not the past. That would be crazy. San Bernardino, actually.”

“Dad?”

“It’s rather nice. A quiet place, really, but we host the National Orange Show every spring. Juggling acts, midget racers. There’s even a bean-spitting contest.”

“Dad?”

“When I heard what had happened to Laszlo, that Hungarian scoundrel, I knew what it was about. It was the O’Malley file—what else could it be? I came back to make sure it didn’t kill anyone else, that it didn’t kill you.”

“Dad?”

The old man’s smile brightened. “Now be a good boyo and give over the file.”

“Dad,” said Kyle, the skeptical inflection leaving the word and his heart at the same time, being replaced with an impossible joy. Because he knew, suddenly, as much as he knew anything, that this indeed was his father, not a sign of incipient insanity or a culmination of all the false sightings in the last few days. Whether he came to him through the Time Tunnel or in an airplane from San Bernardino didn’t matter just then. What mattered was that it was his father, and he had come.

Kyle couldn’t help himself from surging forward and wrapping the old man in his arms, even as the flashlight’s beam flew wildly about the room before flopping onto the stairs. Kyle pressed his head into his father’s neck, breathed in the sharp reality of him, a mélange of scents that were achingly familiar, old cigarette smoke, a dab of Brylcreem, sweat and Aqua Velva, all cut with the faint tinge of gasoline.

Gasoline?

And footsteps above them. Not even quiet footsteps.

Kyle pushed away, aimed the beam again at the old face. “Who the hell is that? Did you come alone?”

“Quite,” said the old man. “I made sure of it.”

“Not sure enough, I suppose. We’ve got company.”

The old man’s eyes narrowed. “They’ve come for it, boyo, they’ve come for the file. You have it there, in your hand, isn’t that right?”

“Yes.”

“Then give it over and let’s make haste out of here.”

“But why the gasoline?” said Kyle as he quickly thought it through, and then he yelled, “Crap,” as he began bounding up the stairs.

The crack of a shot and the whiz of something buzzing by and biting the tip of his ear came all at once. He froze, taking an instant to realize what had happened, an instant where he stayed unmoving on the stairway like a deer caught in a pair of headlights with a target painted on its chest, a red laser dot on its forehead, and a sign that read shoot me because i’m an idiot. Then he dove back to the basement, rolling on the floor and howling at the pain in his bruised ribs.

The footsteps above moved away from the top of the stairs even as the smell of gasoline grew so strong it was choking. Kyle coughed as he pushed himself to standing, the flashlight and the file still gripped in his hands.

“Did he get you?” said the old man.

“I don’t think so,” said Kyle. “Maybe he winged me.”

“Let me see.”

Kyle aimed the flashlight at his ear. In the reflected light, he could see the old man wince.

“Ahh, nothing to be concerned about,” said the old man. “A mere flesh wound. I can barely feel it. Now, boyo, think. How many were there?”

“I only saw a shadow,” said Kyle, putting the hand with the file to his ear. He could feel a warm slickness on the back of his hand. “One, maybe.”

“Is there a way out?”

“Up the stairs.”

“A course of last resort, considering the thug with the gun. Anything else? The windows?”

Kyle passed his flashlight around the room. A series of narrow windows led out to cement window wells. He moved the flashlight from the windows to the old man’s thick waist.

“You won’t fit,” said Kyle.

“Oh, I think I could make it. I’ve always been as wiry as a snake. But those shoulders of yours wouldn’t make it through, that’s for sure. I always said less time in the gym and more time in the library and maybe you’d make something of yourself. So it’s up the stairs, is it?”

“Or wait for the son of a bitch to come down.”

“I fear we won’t have that luxury,” said the old man.

Just then, as if on cue, a bomb went off.

CHAPTER 30

OR SOMETHING THAT sounded much like a bomb, an explosion that blew them both off their feet and sucked the air right out of their lungs. When Kyle opened his eyes, he could see a great tongue of blue flame reaching down the stairwell and lapping at his feet. Still on his back, he scurried away, pulled the old man, lying dead flat, with him.

“Dad? Dad? Are you okay?”

The old man came groggily to consciousness. “What in the blazes?”

“He set the house on fire.”

“The devil.”

“He’s going to burn us to cinders.”

“And burn the file, too,” said the old man.

“What?”

“The file. That’s what he’s after.”

“Who?”

“Did you look in it?”

“A l it t le.”

“Then you know.”