'He's awake. The police are talking to him. So far it's as one-sided as staging The Price is Right in a convent.'

I nodded, relieved. 'Archie,' I said, 'could you go to the hospital, say you're a friend of his?'

'You want me to go see him?'

'If you give your name and address, I think he'll agree to see you.'

'Well, h.e.l.l, what am I supposed to say?'

'Tell him we're fine. Tell him today's the day. It might help cheer him up.'

He screwed shut one eye. 'Does this make me an accessory?'

'What's the crime?'

'Well...' He scratched his head. 'I can't close up the shop till six.'

'This evening would be fine. It'd be perfect.'

I tried handing him a twenty for his trouble, but he wouldn't take it.

'Be careful out there,' he told me.

'I will, Archie, I will.'

'I hate this car,' said Spike. 'This is the most boring car I've ever sat in in my life. Period.'

We were parked at the top of the hill, a hundred yards from Provost's house. We'd been sitting watching for a while, Spike drumming his fingers on the steering-wheel.

'I say we switch to my plan.' Spike's plan was simple. He'd walk up to Provost's front door and ring the bell.

'Just like the Avon lady,' he said.

The plan depended on two things: the fact that Provost, Kline and the others didn't know Spike, and that Spike could manufacture some bulls.h.i.t excuse as to why he was ringing the bell in the first place.

We took a vote: it was two to one in favour. I was the lone dissenter. So Spike got out of the car and jogged his way down the hill.

36i 'What's wrong?' Bel asked.

'I can't help feeling we're playing our joker a bit early.'

She didn't get it, so I explained. 'Spike's our secret weapon. If they rumble him, we're back to square one.'

She smiled. 'Aren't you mixing your card games and your board games?'

I gave her a sour look, like I'd just bitten on something hard and was checking my molars for damage. Then I watched through the windscreen for Spike's return. ,; It wasn't long before he came jogging back up the hilL

again. He cast a look back to see if anyone was watchinga him, then got into the car and turned the ignition, m 'The place is empty,' he said. 'I took a look around,

nothing. They've got curtains over the windows, but even ;

then I could tell n.o.body was home.' H 'Then he's gone to the peninsula,' said Bel.

'Looks like. Either that or he's off to Costco for his month's groceries.' fl This was it then. We were headed out to confront Provost

and Kline. I felt weary, and leaned my head against the back

of the seat, happy to let Spike do the driving. He turned on the radio and found a rock station. Springsteen: Born in the USA. Spike turned the volume up all the way and sang his heart out to the distorted song.

We already knew we were taking the long route to the peninsula, south through Tacoma and then north again. ; 'Spike,' I said, 'we really appreciate you helping us.'

'Man, I'm not helping you, I'm on vacation.'

'How's it been so far?'

More fun than EPCOT, I'll tell you that.'

'I'm not sure that's a recommendation.'

He was grinning with his near-perfect teeth. 'It is, believe me. We should all go to EPCOT when this is over.'

'Who knows?' I said quietly. We drove into Port Angeles 362 ''.

and then out again in the direction of Pioneer Memorial Museum.

We stopped on the southern edge of town, not far from the Park Headquarters. Then we put my plan into action.

Bel managed to get the attention of two park wardens who'd just driven their car out of Park HO. She brought them over to our car, where Spike and I smiled and nodded a greeting.

'What's the problem here?' the first of them asked pleasantly.

'This,' said Spike, pointing the Ingram at the man's chest.

The man, to give him credit, saw the problem immediately.

It wasn't our problem, it was his. We took him and his partner in the Chrysler, while Bel drove the Park Service car.

A little further out of town, we pulled off the road on to a track in the woods and stripped the wardens of their clothes.

'Jesus, why did you have to pick on Laurel and Hardy?'

Spike complained to Bel. He was having trouble getting his uniform on, while mine fell off me like washing on a clotheshorse.

We'd already tried swapping, but it had been worse.

We tied the wardens up thoroughly, and left one of them lying in the front of the Chrysler, the other in the back. We transferred our stuff to their car, and Bel got into the back, lying down across the seat and covering herself with a tartan travel-rug.

'National Park Service,' said Spike, getting into the driving seat. 'Here to serve and protect the wildlife.' He laughed. 'We'll show them what a wild life really means.'

Then he reversed all the way back on to the road. We took the 101 west. Five miles out of town, the road forked, but we kept heading west on 112. Just after the branch-off, we saw them.

There was a 4x4 parked by the side of the road, and two men handing beside it. They were as obvious a lookout as vf could have hoped for. We debated stopping and confronting them - Spike said it would be a test of our 363.

disguises if nothing else. But I prevailed, and we drove past.

If we'd put them out of action, their absence might be spotted. And we needed time to set things up. So we left them there, knowing that if they were summoned to the Disciples' HQ, it would still take them half an hour to get there. I didn't think we'd need more than half an hour. The way Spike saw it, if we went along with his plan we wouldn't need more than five minutes.

If you've ever seen the napalm attack in Apocalypse Now, you'll get some idea of the scale he was thinking on.

I crouched in the woods and watched the world through my night-vision scope. Strange things were happening in the Disciples' compound.

Or rather, nothing was happening.

And that was strange.

It wasn't that everyone had retired for the night. I got the feeling that most of the cabins were devoid of life. Spike and Bel had gone on a recce and come back with the news that they couldn't see any vehicles anywhere. Well, I could see one: Kline's Lincoln. It was squeezed in between two cabins, supposedly out of sight. But I couldn't see any other cars.

Only one explanation made sense: someone had sent the Disciples away. Now why would they do that? Obviously, because they weren't wanted. It meant one thing to me: the Disciples didn't know what was going on, and Kline and his men didn't want them to know what was going on.

I was concentrating not on the original cabin, the one where I'd been disturbed by Nathan, but on the smaller cabin next to it. This was where the light was burning. It looked like an oil-lamp or something powered by gas, and gave off a halo of yellow light. The pow-wow was taking place in this cabin. I was waiting for the braves to emerge.

Meanwhile I scanned the rest of the compound. It was pitch black, but to my right eye the world was a red filter with a black cross-sight. It was still and quiet. Sound carried 364.

a long way out here, and I actually heard a distant rattle as the cabin door opened.

I moved the scope back to the cabin and watched as a man appeared in the doorway. He was one of Kline's men, and he was smoking a cigarette. Other men filtered out on to the porch and lit up. Provost must be a non-smoker. They'd been in a room with him, and were now desperate. There were six of them. Three I thought I recognised from Oban, and three I didn't. Provost and Kline must still be in the cabin. The door opened again and someone stepped out.

A woman.

I recognised her by her shape. She was Alisha, Provost's lieutenant and lover. She accepted a cigarette and stood talking to the men.

They spoke in undertones, but even so I could hear the noise they made, even if I couldn't hear the words. The men were wearing suits. There would be handguns under the suits, but they were more prepared than that. Two of them had rested their Ml 6s against the wall of the cabin while they smoked. They kept looking into the distance, mostly towards me. But from where they were, I knew they couldn't see anything. All they could see was movement, and the only things moving were the branches of the trees as the breeze pa.s.sed over them.

I waited, but Kline and Provost didn't come out. Nor did they pa.s.s in front of the window. I adjusted the scope a fraction, and felt better. The scope was attached to the Varmint, and the Varmint was loaded with its full five rounds. I didn't have any padding against my shoulder. I didn't mind if I bruised. Bruising seemed the least of my problems.

I heard movement behind me.

'Well?' Spike whispered.

"I count six men so far. I haven't seen Provost or Kline, but there's one woman. So that's a total of nine.'

365.

'And seven of those we can take out straight away,' Spike said.

'I'd like Kline alive ... at least until he's talked to me.'

'Then we'd better get a car battery and a couple of electrodes. I mean, he's not going to talk for the fun of it.'

He had a point. Bel had moved more quietly than Spike.

She was the other side of me. All three of us were wearing balaclavas and face-paint: green and black. Just in case they had a lighting system rigged up somewhere. So far, they were relying on darkness. But they could always change tactics and light the forest up. If they lit us up, of course, they also lit themselves up. And we'd be camouflaged. We were wearing green and black jackets and green trousers.

We certainly looked the part, even if we didn't feel it. Spike was in his element, but the markings on Bel's face only hid the fact that she had lost all colour. Even her lips were bloodless.

As for me, I'd lost the shakes, but I still wanted to play it cautious. This was all new. I wasn't a mercenary, though I'd hung with them. I wasn't Action Man or GI Joe. I wasn't Spike.

'What about all the regular hippies?' he asked.

'They've shipped out.'

'That's perfect. That's beautiful.' He fixed his eyes on me.

'I got them here, man,' he whispered. He was holding four short, fat cylinders.

'So you keep saying.'

'When are we going to do it?'

I looked to Bel, who nodded. 'We're doing it now,' I said.

'Well, all right then,' said Spike, disappearing back into the gloom.

Bel and I stared at one another for a while. I wanted to kiss her, and I think she knew it. But she just smiled and nodded again, then squeezed my shoulder and started creeping away in the opposite direction from Spike.

It was my play now. I rested the Varmint's stock against 366.

my shoulder again and took a look. I knew I had to give Spike and Bel a minute or two. The guards had finished their cigarettes. They were kicking their heels. I liked the way they were lined up on the porch like targets on some fairground rifle-stall. I heard the static crash of a radio, and saw one of them lift a walkie-talkie out of his pocket. I was glad now that we hadn't hit the men at the checkpoint. It would have meant a welcoming committee.

But then at least a welcoming committee would have prompted action.

I counted up to thirty. Then I did it again.

When I reached twenty-nine for the second time, I started firing. I'm no speed-shooter, remember, but I knew I had to knock down as many of these guards as I could. I wasn't concentrating on any clever shots, I just aimed to hit the targets anywhere I could.

I'd fired off two shots before they located me. That's the problem with shooting at night with no flash-hider. They saw the second blast of fire from my barrel. Not that it helped them, not at this distance. They were still firing at shadows, and I was picking them off. Two bodies had gone down when the first of Spike's flares landed in the compound. To get it so near the cabin, he must've crept up suicidally close. He chucked a couple more flares. They burnt orangey-pink and let off a lot of smoke. I fired off the final three shots from my clip before the smoke got too bad.

They'd tried retreating back into the cabin, but were being ordered to spread out across the compound.

Which was just what we'd expected. That's why Spike was way over one side of the compound and Bel, armed with two handguns, was over the other. The guards were firing now, spraying automatic rounds. From somewhere, I heard the unmistakable sound of Spike's Ingram firing back. I took off the night-sight, put down the Varmint, picked up my Colt Commando, and waded in.

The compound was all smoke and circus lights now, but 367.

the breeze was dispersing the smoke as rapidly as it formed, I decided to frighten whoever was left in the cabin, so let off a few rounds at it. The walls were thin wood planks over wood studding. In films, walls like that could stop bullets, but not in real life. I drilled into the walls until I could see light coming out through them. Then someone turned the lamp out. I'd been firing high, guessing anyone scared would be ducking or lying flat. I hoped I hadn't hit anyone I didn't want hit. Then I realised something.

I realised I was the only target the guards had. A bullet from a handgun flew past my head. I squatted down and let off a burst with the Colt. I hit the gunman three times across his chest, sending him flying backwards into the dirt. I could hear Bel now, firing in quick bursts the way she'd been taught. One-two-three, one-two-three, like dance steps. And Spike, Spike was back on the range in Texas, wasting bullets but making plenty of noise. They must've thought there was an army coming at them. And it was working, the guards were firing but retreating at the same time. If you fire a gun while you're moving, forget about accuracy. I held my ground and fired another burst from the Colt. It was fitted with a thirty-round clip. I had a few more clips in my pocket.

Then the cabin window shattered and someone started firing through it. I heard a dull thwump and realised they were firing grenades. I dived sideways, thudded into the ground, and started moving. The explosion was way behind me and over to one side, but it still lifted me off the ground. I felt the earth swell beneath my chest, like the planet was taking a deep breath, and the blast kicked my legs up intOj the air. I I lay flat facing the cabin and started firing, only to hav the magazine die on me. It took a few seconds to reload, by which time another thwump had signalled a fresh grenade. I crawled again. The blast was a lot closer this time. It closed off my eardrums and rattled my head. I rolled and kept rolling, bits of earth and tree-bark raining down on 368.

There was nothing but a mute hissing in my ears, and somewhere behind it the distant firing of guns.

I tried to shake my head clear, and realised something had hit me. A rock or something. My left arm felt numb from the impact. I bit my fingers, trying to force some sensation back into them. Then got on to my feet and started firing again.

There were bodies in front of me, three of them. They were lifeless. Two I had hit on the porch, and another hit since then, I couldn't say by whom.

Then I saw another figure darting through shadow. I put the night-sight to my eye and made out Spike. He knew I could see him, and gave an OK sign with thumb and forefinger. Not that he could see me, but he gave it anyway.

I fired another spray towards the cabin. There were no more thwumps, which meant that Kline only had the two grenades. Now I could hear a woman shrieking, and hear two men shouting. I checked over to my right with the night-sight, but there was no sign of Bel.