Moore rubbed his head. The interest of the foreign powers certainly complicated things.

"What's your point?" he asked, too exhausted to wait for the DCI to get around to it.

"I've been telling you," Stecker said, annoyed. "This thing is dangerous."

"Anything that has power can be dangerous," Moore said. "A car, a gun, a bomb. Even you. The question is how you use these things and negate the dangers."

"That's just the point, Arnold. We don't know how to use this thing. We don't even know what it does. All we know is that after two years of studying it you got caught with your pants down."

No doubt Stecker had already commissioned similar findings and sent them to the president. Moore would have to get off a response quickly and hope that the president could remain rational in the face of such a strong attack.

In the meantime, the scientific effort would kick into high gear. New equipment would be flown out to replace what had been lost in the blast and the new power-sharing arrangement would be tested.

The door to the trailer opened. An air force major came in leading three civilians. The men were scientists: Moore's own chief analyst, who had fortunately or unfortunately not been on the truck; the CIA's chosen expert, a stern-faced true believer of about forty-five who had apparently worked on some advanced projects for the military; and an older Native American man in his late fifties. He had tanned, wrinkled skin, thin white hair, and a billy goat's tuft of scraggly whiskers on his chin. He wore a bolo tie, a plaid cowboy shirt with rhinestone buttons, and an oversized pocket protector stuffed full of pens. Moore recognized him as Nathanial Ahiga, a theoretical physicist who'd once been with the Sandia Labs in New Mexico and now worked for the National Academy of Sciences.

The name Ahiga was Navajo for "the one who fights" and Nathanial's family had a pedigree in combat. His grandfather had been one of the famed Navajo Code Talkers during World War II, his father had earned medals in Korea, and his older brother had been one of the first Native Americans to join the Green Berets, earning a chest full of commendations during three tours in Vietnam.

Nathanial himself had gone to college instead of joining the military, but his contribution to the armed forces eclipsed them all, since he'd helped design the nuclear triggers used in the warheads on the Trident missile and had spent years after working with the missile-defense effort. If World War III ever did come, Ahiga's work would be instrumental in both annihilating the enemy and saving what could be protected in the United States.

It was clear from Stecker's speeches that the CIA wanted the stone destroyed, and Moore and his people already believed that such an action would be a mistake, unless there was truly no other choice.

That dynamic effectively turned Ahiga into the decision maker. When all was said and done, his opinion would be the only one that counted.

Moore shook his hand, then watched as Ahiga strolled around the makeshift lab and over to the viewing station. Leaning in and squinting slightly, he got his first look at the assignment and pursed his lips tightly. It could have been a sign of curiosity, or a simple mannerism the man often used, but to Moore it looked an awful lot like a display of disgust.

CHAPTER 37.

Hawker sat on the balcony of their new hotel, a five-star resort fifty miles south of where they had been staying. Like almost everywhere else along the gulf coast of Mexico, this hotel was without electrical power. That had served them well, since the front desk manager had been unable to electronically record their arrival.

A cash bribe had convinced him not to do so even when the lights came back on. An additional payment had put them in this suite and rented the one next door as well. A thousand dollars had been promised for each of the next five days if their presence could be kept secret. That would take them up to the day of reckoning. One way or another, Hawker doubted they'd be around after that.

With no lights on and no moon to speak of, the coast looked as dark as the sea, but out over the blackness of the gulf, a pair of heavy thunderstorms was building, splitting the night with bolts of purple lightning. At times there were long delays between the flashes, but at the moment the show was intense, with flashes illuminating the clouds from inside and handfuls of forked lines spidering across their billowing faces.

Though the storm was tracking inland, the air on the balcony was utterly still. Not the slightest hint of a breeze could be felt and even the flame on the candle beside him burned without a flicker.

To Hawker there was some great truth in the scene, some lesson about life and trouble and how paying attention only to what was immediately around you did not grant a true sense of what was really going on. It was the type of folly that allowed danger to creep in. And he wondered if he was committing such an error himself.

At this moment in time he felt better than he had in years. Not physically, perhaps-the bruising events of the last several hours had left him choosing between ibuprofen and a few stiff drinks-but his mind had grown quiet for the first time in months, if not years. The gnawing sense of guilt, even the dreams of misdeeds in Africa had faded away for now.

He credited the change to being around Danielle and McCarter once again. He wasn't sure of any greater purpose behind this stone and the prophecy that was linked to it; it all seemed like guesswork to him, but two people he truly cared about were mixed up in it and they needed his help. Whatever the outcome might be, protecting his friends brought with it a sense of purpose and peace.

And yet he guessed there were clouds on the horizon somewhere. He couldn't see them, or feel their effect at this point, but like the storm out over the gulf, he knew they were coming.

In an effort to stave off the thought, he took another drink from the tumbler beside him. As he put the glass down, the door behind him opened and Danielle came out onto the balcony.

"How are the patients?" he asked.

"McCarter's infection is getting better and he's working on what we found down there. And believe it or not, Yuri is actually asleep now."

Hawker's eyebrows went up.

"I gave him a sedative. He seems to be doing fine."

"That's good," Hawker said, stretching his leg.

Danielle sat down, then reached out and took the glass from him. After a large sip she placed it down on the table between them.

"Any guess as to how they found us?" Hawker asked, giving words to one of the thoughts that had been bothering him.

"They talked to the boat guy," she said, sounding convinced.

"Okay, and how did they know to talk to the boat guy? How'd they know we would be out on the water?"

"They have the statue from the Island of the Shroud," she said. "Those were the inscriptions that led McCarter to his discovery."

"I thought you guys trashed it." he said.

"We did what we could, but ..."

He looked away. It seemed reasonable.

"You concerned?" she asked.

"Always," he said.

She smiled. "Listen, my suspicious friend, it's all right. We got the stone, they didn't catch us, and Yuri's okay. We're all okay."

"Are we?" he said, staring at her.

Hawker had noticed an odd pattern in Danielle, a type of behavior that had not been present in Brazil. When things went to hell, she grew concerned and introspective. And once the danger had passed, the same overly confident attitude returned. It was in her nature to be bold and aggressive, but this seemed like something else, closer to recklessness, as if she was unbalanced in some way.

She slumped back into her seat, exhaling. "Look, I'm sorry about what happened down there. I should have been more careful with the mix. Forty percent was too high, considering my situation. It was just a mistake."

A huge bolt of lightning sliced across the sky. It lit up the horizon and the sea beneath it. Seconds later the faintest sound of thunder reached them. It made him think about the stone.

"What do you think that shock wave was?" he asked.

"The stones create energy," she said. "Some kind of discharge."

"Maybe because we moved it," he said, half joking.

"Maybe," she said. "The weird thing is, if it didn't happen when it happened, we'd be dead. We'd have hit the beach and those guys would have shot us in the back before we reached the street."

Hawker took the glass back. "I call that an extremely fortunate coincidence."

He took another drink and then refilled the tumbler with two more of the little rum bottles from the minibar.

Danielle seemed to relax a bit. She gazed out toward the storm.

"Why'd you come for me?" she asked quietly.

"Moore paid me to," he said. "How do you think we can afford this luxurious lifestyle?"

She took the glass from him, had another taste, and held it. "I'm serious. The last time I saw you was two years ago. I promised I'd try to help clear your name, but I couldn't get anyone to move. And then instead of sending someone to bring you back into the fold, CIA sent some guys to haul you back in chains."

"That wasn't your fault," he said. "I knew how that would play out. It means a lot that you tried."

She sighed, took another sip of the rum, and put the glass down. "I didn't lure McCarter into this," she said, defensively. "I didn't want him to be out there alone. I thought I could protect him."

"I know that, too," he said. "It sucks to know you can't protect everyone, no matter how hard you try."

She nodded as if the words held some deeper meaning. But she didn't offer it up.

That was too bad, Hawker thought, because here for the first time since they'd known each other she'd begun to show an openness that he found endearing.

"So that's why you came to get me," she said, smiling. "To protect someone you care about."

"When I met you," he said, "you were this immaculate, type-A corporate woman. You walked around with a kind of energy that I honestly can't ever remember having. And all I could think was, here's a gorgeous woman who can help me get what I want."

She laughed. "I don't know whether to be flattered or offended."

He guessed that his statement could have been taken a number of ways.

"But then, when we were out in that jungle, you made a lot of hard choices. You did the right things, and by the time we left that place you seemed different. I thought, maybe here was someone who could help me find what I need need, a way to believe in something, a way to find some kind of hope again."

She looked over at him as if he'd said something strange. "I don't know you as a person lacking hope. You don't give up. You don't give in."

"I don't like to lose," he said. "And if I have to go down, I'm going down swinging. But that's a long way from believing there's anything out there to win."

"Defiance," she offered.

"I guess. But it's not the same as belief."

She stared at him quietly for a moment, her brown eyes locked on his, the candlelight bathing her face and her lips glistening from the rum. They were close now, looking into each other's eyes.

He reached for her, but a shrill chirping interrupted them. It was the satellite phone.

"It's Moore," she said, standing up.

She went for the phone.

Hawker slumped back into the lounge chair, propping one foot up dejectedly and grabbing the rum-filled glass once again. "Great. Half the Western Hemisphere is blacked out and I get a girl with a solar-powered phone."

Danielle took a last glance at Hawker and the storm brewing on the horizon, then picked up the phone. Moving to the next room, she typed in her code, confirming the lock to receive the transmission.

"Sorry it took me so long to reestablish contact," Moore said. "I know you tried to initiate several hours ago. Things have been a little busy up here."

He went on to explain how badly the move had gone and how the CIA had seized on the incident as a moment to attack.

"You were out in the open?" she said, surprised.

"Unfortunately," he said.

"Were you delayed or something?"

"No," he said, sounding aggravated by the question. "We were on time; there was no reason to expect a spike for hours. It came off early, and a lot stronger than it should have been."

Her mind raced, going over what had occurred on the boat. It sounded identical. Both stones had discharged unexpectedly. And seemingly random events now made sense to her.

"I think I know what happened."

"Let's hear it."

"We've found another stone," she told him. "We pulled it out of a sunken temple eight miles offshore."

"That's damn good news," he said.

"Thanks," she replied. "But the thing is, this stone spiked also. I don't know if you have access to the news up there but half the Yucatan is blacked out-just like Vegas from the sound of things."

"I thought we caused that," he said.

"Nope," she said. "That one's on us. And it sounds to me like the timing was identical."

"What are you saying?"

She gathered her thoughts. "The stones sent out a constant signal, right? A carrier wave that cycles like a beacon or a searchlight, rotating over and over again. What we've never known is what happens when that wave bounces off something," she said.

"You think the stones found each other," he said.

"One stone queried and the other answered. Like our computer networks."

"Sounds like a possibility," he said. "How come they haven't found each other before?"

"You had that one buried underneath Building Five," she said. "We found this one eighty feet beneath the gulf, shielded by a thousand tons of rock and coral. But we happened to bring it up to the surface at the same time you were transporting that one."

She expected Moore to be skeptical but he was with her.

"That makes a lot more sense than you know," he said. "We've been studying the buildup of the energy wave, what we were able to record anyway. And the main signal showed a sudden divergence from its prior, constant pattern. A change in the carrier wave that we could only account for in two ways. Either the stone was having some type of internal malfunction, or the divergence was the result of the two separate waves merging."

"It has to be," she said.

"It would help explain some other things, too," he added, sounding relieved. "To begin with, the burst we had up here was more powerful than normal by a factor of ten. That's easier to understand if something new was amplifying the signal."