I had no doubt that New Zionists had us in their rifle sights and could pull the trigger, if they chose, pick us off one by one. The windows where we believed they watched were open, but I could not see anything behind their screens.

We walked around to the front of the RV where half a dozen police and agents were in plain clothes surrounding Lucy, and the sight of her almost stopped my heart. She was in black fatigues and boots, and was attached to cables again, as she had been at ERF. Only this time she wore two gloves, and Toto was awake on the ground, his thick neck connected to a spool of fiber optic line that looked long enough to walk him to North Carolina.

"It's better if we tape down the receiver," my niece was saying to men she could not see because of the CRTs over her eyes.

"Who's got tape?"

"Hold on." ck jumpsuit reached inside a large toolbox A man in a bla and tossed a roll of tape to someone else. This person tore off several strips of it and secured the receiver to the cradle of a plain black phone in a box firmly held in the robot's grippers. his is Benton Wesley. I'm "Lucy," Wesley spoke. "T

here."

"Hi," she said, and I could feet her nervousness.

"As soon as you get the phone to them, I'm going to start talking. I just want you to know what I'm doing."

"Are we ready?" she asked, and she had no idea I was there.

. "Let's do it," Wesley tensely said.

She touched a button on her glove and Toto came to life in a quiet whir, and the one eye beneath his domed brain turned, as if focusing like a camera lens. His head swiveled as Lucy touched another button on a glove, and everyone watched in hushed anticipation as my niece's creation suddenly moved. It plowed forward on rubber tracks, telephone tight in its grippers, the fiber optics and telephone cable unrolling from spools.

Lucy silently conducted Toto's journey like an orchestra, her arms out and gently moving. Steadily, the robot rolled down the road, over gravel and through grass, until he was far enough away that one of the agents passed out field glasses. Following a sidewalk, Toto reached four cement steps leading up to the glass front entrance of the main building, and he stopped. Lucy took a deep breath as she continued to make her telepresence known to her metal and plastic friend. She touched another button, and the grippers extended with arms. They slowly lowered and set the telephone on the second step. Toto backed up and swiveled around, and Lucy began to bring him home.

The robot had not gotten far when all of us could see that glass door open, and a bearded man in khakis and a sweater swiftly emerged. He grabbed the telephone off the step and vanished inside.

"Good work, Lucy," Wesley said, and he sounded very relieved. "Okay, goddamn it, now call," he added, and he was not talking to us, but them. "Lucy," he added, "when you're ready, come on in."

"Yes, sir," she said as her arms coaxed Toto over every dip and bump.

Then Marino, Wesley and I climbed steps leading into the mobile command post, which was upholstered in gray and blue, with tables between seats. There was a small kitchen and bath, and windows were tinted so one could see out, but not in. Radio and computer equipment had been set up near the back, and overhead five televisions were turned to the major networks and CNN, the volume set low.

A red phone on a table started ringing as we were walking down the aisle. It sounded urgent and demanding, and Wesley ran to pick it up.

"Wesley," he said, staring out a window, and he pushed two buttons that both taped the caller and put him on speakerphone.

"We need a doctor." The male voice sounded white and Southern, and he was breathing hard.

"Okay, but you're going to need to tell me more."

"Don't bullshit with me!" he screamed.

"Listen." Wesley got very calm. "We're not bullshitting, all right'? We want to help, but I need more information."

"He fell in the pool and went into like a coma."

"Who did?"

"Why the fuck does it matter who?"

Wesley hesitated.

"He dies, we've got this place wired. You understand?

We're going to blow you fucking up if you don't do some thing now!"

We knew who he meant, so Wesley did not ask again.

Something had happened to Joel Hand, and I did not want to imagine what his followers might do if he died.

"Talk to me," Wesley said.

"He can't swim."

"Let me make certain I understand. Someone almost drowned'?"

"Look. The water's radioactive. It had the fucking fuel assemblies in it, you understand?"

"He was inside one of the reactors."

The man screamed again, "Just shut the fuck up with your questions and get someone to help. He dies, everybody dies. You understand that?" he said as a gun loudly went IL

off over the phone and cracked from the building at the same time.

Everyone froze, and then we could hear crying in the background. I thought my heart would beat out of my ribs.

"You make me wait another minute," the man's excited voice was back on the line, "and another one gets killed."

I moved closer to the phone and before anyone could stop me, I said, "I'm a doctor. I need to know exactly what happened when he fell into the reactor pool."

Silence. Then the man said, "He almost drowned, that's all I know. We tried to pump water out of him but he was already unconscious."

"Did he swallow water?"

"I don't know. Maybe he did. Some was coming out of his mouth." He was becoming more agitated. "But if you don't do something, lady, I'm going to turn Virginia into a goddamn desert."

"I'm going to help you," I said. "But I need to ask you several more questions. Tell me his condition now?"

"Like I said. He's out. It's like he's in a coma."

"Where do you have him?"

"In the room here with us." He sounded terrified. "He don't react to anything, no matter what we try to do."

"I'm going to have to bring in a lot of ice and medical supplies," I said. "It's going to take several trips unless I have some help."

"You'd better not be FBI," he raised his voice again.

"I'm a doctor out here with a lot of other medical personnel," I said. "Now, I'm going to come and help, but not if you're going to give me a hard time."

He was silent. Then he said, "Okay. But you come alone."

"The robot will help me carry things. The same one that brought you your phone."

He hung up, and when I did, Wesley and Marino were staring at me as if I had just committed murder.

"Absolutely not," Wesley said. "Jesus Christ, Kay!

Have you lost your mind?"

"You ain't going if I have to put you in a goddamn police hold," Marino chimed in.

"I have to," I said simply. "He's going to die," I added.

"And that's the very reason why you can't go in there," Wesley exclaimed.

"He has acute radiation sickness from swallowing water in the pool," I said. "He can't be saved. Soon he will die, and then I think we know what the consequences might be.

His followers will probably set off the explosives." I said to Wesley, Marino, and the commander of HRT, "Don't you understand? I've read their Book. He is their messiah, and they won't just walk away when he dies. This whole thing will turn into a suicide mission, as you predicted." I looked at Wesley again.

"We don't know that they'll do that," he said to me.

"And you'll take the chance they won't?"

"And what if he comes to," Marino said. "Hand's going to recognize you and tell all his assholes who you are. Then what?"

"He's not going to come to."

Wesley stared out a window, and it wasn't very hot in the RV, but he looked like it was summer. His shirt was limp from dampness, and he kept wiping his brow. He did not know what to do. I had one idea, and I did not think there could be another one.