"Maybe. Mainly I have a sense that if I don't get there soon, I'll lose the chance to understand what my dreams are trying to tell me."

Rachel stared at the oncoming traffic, her head rock¬ing back and forth. Then she suddenly turned to me, her eyes bright and wide.

"Do you realize what day it is?"

"No."

"We're less than a week away from the Easter holi¬day."

I blinked. "So?"

"We're approaching the traditional dates of Jesus' death and resurrection. Not only in your dreams, but also in the real world."

"You're saying the two are connected?"

"Of course. Somehow, the approach of Easter is caus¬ing you to have these dreams, this anxiety. You're like the people who thought the world would end when the millennium turned. Don't you see? This is all part of a delusional system."

I shook my head and smiled. "You're wrong. But you're right about the dates. They could be important."

Rachel was watching me as she would someone who was playing an elaborate joke on her. "What about meeting the president?"

"We'll do it when we get back. What difference does a couple of days make? Especially if it keeps us alive?"

She closed her eyes and spoke softly. "Did you tell Andrew Fielding about your hallucinations?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

"He told me to pay attention to them. Fielding always said that in trying to build Trinity, we were walk¬ing in the footprints of God. He didn't know how right he was."

"Perfect. Two peas in a pod." Rachel put her hands on the wheel as though to pull onto the road, but she left the truck in park. "You really intend to follow these hal¬lucinations to Israel?"

"Yes."

"And you admit they might be the result of brain damage?"

"Not brain damage, as you think of it." I thought of Fielding's excitement as he expounded his theory of consciousness. "Disturbances to the quantum processes in my brain."

Rachel was squeezing the steering wheel so hard that her knuckles were white. "You're like someone who dreamed he was once a pharaoh deciding to go to Egypt to find the meaning of his life!"

"I suppose I am. I know how crazy it sounds. The thing is, we don't have a better alternative. If it makes you feel better, we're going because we need to do some¬thing the Trinity computer can't possibly predict."

"It can't predict you'd go to Israel?"

"No. It was my Super-MRI scan that caused my dreams to start. My neuromodel has no memory of dreams that occurred after that. There's not even any mention of Jerusalem in your medical records, because I stopped going to you before the city took center stage in my dreams."

Rachel looked thoughtful. "Going to Israel isn't like going to Paris, you know. The country's in a permanent state of war. I've been there. They pay close attention to who goes in and out. El Al has four times the security of other airlines. And we're being hunted by the American government. As soon as we tried to book a ticket, they'd be waiting for us at the airport."

"You're right. We need fake passports."

She laughed bitterly. "You say that like 'We need to pick up some bread and milk on the way home.'"

"I have eighteen thousand dollars left. There has to be a way to get fake passports with that."

"Fake passports won't cut it in Israel. Those people deal with terrorists every day."

"Being jailed in Israel is better than being murdered here."

Rachel leaned back in her seat and sighed. "You've got a point."

"I'm going to New York. With eighteen grand, I can find a fake passport there. I know it."

"What about me?"

"You can go. You can not go. It's up to you."

She nodded as though she'd expected this. "I see. What will happen to me if I don't?"

I thought about Geli Bauer. "You want me to lie to you?"

Rachel put the truck in gear and pulled onto the northbound on-ramp, accelerating fast.

"New York?" I asked.

"No."

"Where, then?"

She looked at me, her face less guarded than I'd ever seen it. "Do you want me to come with you or not?"

I did. More than that, I felt she was supposed to go with me. "I want you with me, Rachel. For a lot of rea¬sons."

She laughed dryly. "That's good, because you couldn't make it without me. Passing out by yourself in the street isn't very healthy. If I'd left you back there in the truck, you'd be dead now."

"I know that. Are you coming?"

She passed a tanker truck and eased back into the right lane. "If you want to go to Israel, we have to go to Washington, D.C., first."

I stiffened in my seat. All my doubts about her had returned in a nauseating rush. "Why Washington?"

"Because I know someone there who can help us."

"Who?"

I wanted to probe her eyes for deception, but she kept them on the road. "I treated a lot of women when I practiced in New York. Mostly women, actually."

"And?"

"Some of them had problems with their husbands."

"And?"

"Sometimes the courts gave husbands access to their children despite evidence of physical abuse. Some of the wives were so afraid of what might happen that they felt they had no alternative but to run."

I felt a tingle in my palms. "You're talking about cus¬tody situations. Kidnapping your own children."

She nodded. "It's not difficult to hide from the police if you're alone. But with children it's tough. You have to enroll them in school, get medical care, things like that." She glanced at me, her face taut. "These women have a network. Sort of an underground railroad. That takes resources."

"New identities," I said.

"Yes. For a child, the foundation of a new identity is a birth certificate. For an adult, a social security card and a passport. I don't know many details, but I know that the people who help these women are in Washington."

"These women buy fake passports in Washington, D.C.?"

Rachel shook her head. "They're not fake. They're real."

"Real? What do you mean?"

She cut her eyes at me, reluctant to give up what she knew. "There's a woman who works in one of the pass¬port offices in D.C. She had a problem with her husband years ago. She's sympathetic to the cause. I don't know who she is, but I know someone I can call. A former patient."

"The cause," I said. "This is still going on?"

"Yes. I sent a woman from Chapel Hill to them. A doctor's wife."

"Wow."

"There's only one serious problem I can see," Rachel said.

"What's that?"

"You're a man. I don't know if they'll do anything to help you."

CHAPTER 24

When the security door buzzed open this time, Geli knew it was Skow. She also knew it was bad news, because she hadn't been off the phone with him long, and the NSA man had sounded too exhausted to get out of bed. She spun her chair and saw him striding toward her, for the first time wearing something besides his Brooks Brothers suit. Today it was khakis and an MIT sweatshirt. Skow's eyes had dark bags under them, but he still looked more like a university administrator than an expert on infor¬mation warfare.

"You look like shit," Geli told him.

"I feel worse."

"You wouldn't be here if this was good news."

"You're right. Ravi Nara called me as soon as you and I hung up." Skow flopped into the chair behind her. "Give me one of your cigarettes."

"You don't smoke."

"Oh, Geli, the things you don't know about me."

She shook a Gauloise from her pack, lit it, and passed it to him.

Skow took a deep drag and exhaled without cough¬ing. "These are nasty."

"Where did Nara call from?"

Skow shook his head. "Everything in time. I want you to listen to me now."

She crossed her legs and waited.

"You and I have always held back a lot from each other. But now is the time to come clean. Or as clean as we can."