“Wow,” he says softly.

The electric lights are off in the gallery, but a flood of illumination pours through the skylights, bathing Wheaton’s masterpiece in a bluish glow. As in my dream of last night, the forest clearing seems alive, its branches and roots seeming to grow as I watch them.

“This thing is massive,” Aldridge marvels.

“There’s the bag,” I tell him, pointing to a leather tote lying in the middle of a huge drop cloth.

“Oh, shit,” says the agent, looking at his shoes. “Look at this.”

The drop cloth around his shoes is stained with wet paint.

“Is that oil paint?” he asks.

“I think it is.”

“Shit. It’ll take-”

A shattering gunshot echoes through the building, the echo fading over a span of seconds. Before it dies, Aldridge is moving toward me with his gun drawn.

“That was outside!” I tell him. “A rifle. Give me your radio!”

He passes me his walkie-talkie with his free hand.

“This is Jordan Glass calling John Kaiser. John! It’s Jordan!”

There’s a crackle of static, then John’s voice jitters from the radio as though he’s talking while running up stairs.

“They had to shoot him, Jordan. We don’t know if he’s dead. We’re going up now. He can’t get to where you are. Stay put for five minutes, then have the agent escort you to the CP.”

“Okay. Be careful!”

John doesn’t speak again.

“If Jimmy Reese took the shot,” says Aldridge, “the tango’s dead.” The FBI man lifts one shoe and studies the bright blue paint on its sole. “I wonder what happened. The guy probably panicked and got wild with his gun.”

I cannot reply. The knowledge that died with Gaines took part of me with it. Everything I hoped to learn has vanished with the impact of a sniper’s bullet. My legs feel shaky, as though they might buckle. I fall to my knees and breathe as deeply as I can.

“Are you okay?”

“Just give me a minute.”

“Sure. Hey!” Aldridge shouts, pointing his pistol at the opening in the painting.

Roger Wheaton stands just inside the canvas circle, his face a mask of anguish.

“They killed him,” he says. “I heard Leon yell through the window, and I walked to where I could see. A sniper shot him in the head.”

“Take it easy,” I tell Aldridge. “It’s his keys we came to get.”

The FBI agent lowers his gun.

“John said Gaines might still be alive,” I say without much conviction.

Wheaton shakes his head, reaches out with his bloodstained white glove, and touches the trunk of a tree on the canvas.

“Hey!” calls Agent Aldridge. “The guy who painted this might not like you touching it. It’s still wet.”

Wheaton smiles sadly. “I don’t think he minds.”

“He’s the guy who painted it,” I tell Aldridge.

“Oh. Hey, I like it.”

“Thank you.”

“But what’s with the gloves?”

“They protect my hands.”

“I thought the painting was done,” I tell Wheaton, putting my palms flat on the floor to push myself to my feet.

“There are always last-minute additions. It’s finished now.”

My palms are wet. Turning them over, I see red and yellow paint on my skin, bright primary shades like the blue on Aldridge’s feet. This much paint couldn’t be the result of spills. Wheaton must have been painting on the floor. That’s why the drop cloth is here. He wasn’t satisfied with enveloping the viewer in a great wooded circle. He had to paint the forest floor too.

“Have I ruined anything?” I ask, holding up my palms so he can see them. “Are you going to do the ceiling, too?

Wheaton’s face darkens as he realizes I’ve smeared the paint.

“Stand up and tiptoe to the edge,” he says.

“I got some on my shoes,” says Aldridge. “You shouldn’t have sent us after the keys with it wet.”

“Stay where you are,” says Wheaton. “Both of you.”

The artist tiptoes across the drop cloth in a complicated path, like a military engineer walking through a minefield he just laid. As he passes Aldridge, Wheaton takes the agent’s hand and leads him toward me. When he reaches me, he escorts us both to the edge of the floor, then smiles at me.

“You’ve discovered my surprise. I thought it would be dry by now.”

“May I look?”

“I suppose so.”

Aldridge’s walkie-talkie crackles loudly, and then John’s voice sounds in the room. “Daniel? It was a CK. The hostage is unhurt and on her way down.”

“Copy that,” Baxter replies.

“What’s a CK?” I ask.

“Clean kill,” says Aldridge.

“I told you it was a head shot,” says Wheaton, lifting the edge of the drop cloth. “Jordan, would you go down there and lift the other side? We’ll walk it across. If you still want to see it.”

In a haze of incipient depression, I walk down the edge of the cloth and lift the coarse material in my hands.

“Now, walk,” says Wheaton. “Slowly and carefully.”

As I walk forward, the cloth comes away from the floor like Saran wrap stuck to a birthday cake.

“Oh man, that’s ruined,” say Aldridge. “You put that cloth down too early.”

“Thank you for stating the obvious,” says Wheaton.

Halfway across the room, I stop, my eyes transfixed by the images on the floor. They look nothing like the painting on the canvas circle that surrounds us. They’re bright, childlike human figures painted directly onto the hardwood. Wide curves of red, yellow, and blue, with mixed tones where the primary lines cross.

“That looks like finger painting,” I say softly.

“It is. Think of what the critics will say!” Wheaton exults. “I can’t wait to see their faces.”

But I’m not thinking of the critics. I’m thinking that beside every figure is a large X, that all the figures have long hair, and that their mouths are open in huge wailing O’s. I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.

“That’s freaky,” says Aldridge. “You’re the guy who painted this” – he points at a beautiful tree beside his shoulder, then back at the floor – “and you painted that?”

Wheaton touches Aldridge on the arm, and something crackles and flashes blue. The FBI agent falls to the floor, jerking like a man having an epileptic fit.

Then Wheaton turns to me, and the avuncular face is gone. A new intelligence stares out through his eyes: vulpine, knowing, cold, fearless.

“I’m not the man who painted that,” he says, pointing at the Clearing. “The man who did is almost dead.”

With the slowness of nightmares, I scrabble at the right cuff of my jeans, reaching for the pistol John gave me, but Wheaton jerks his end of the drop cloth and my right foot flies out from under me, spilling me onto the floor.

As my hand closes on the butt of the.38, a vicious wasp stings my neck, and my arms begin jerking spastically. The room blurs, fades, then returns. I feel myself rising toward the skylight, and I wonder if I’m dying until I begin moving laterally and realize Wheaton is carrying me.

He walks to the border of the canvas circle, away from the open panel, and I wonder if he thinks he can simply step into his own painting. But inches from the meticulously painted forest, he bends and sets me on the floor, then takes a knife from his pocket. With one great slash he lays open the canvas from top to bottom, then lifts me again and carries me through the crack like a ghost walking through a wall.