"We've come ten thousand miles to a hole in hell for a toy?" the grumpiest German said. "This is what Franz died for, Kurt? This is what you blew up our only route of retreat for? A music stick? We're going to starve in this cellar while you wave your baton around?"

Raeder looked annoyed. "We make a greater discovery than King Tut and you call it a toy. A machine bigger than a battleship and you think we've come for nothing. You're a coward, Julius."

The German flushed. "But what does it do, Kurt?" The man named Julius pointed toward the bones and Hood shrank into the shadows. "Why is Shambhala a catacomb?"

"Every city has bones. Look at Rome."

"Why is no one left to attend the machine?"

"We're attending it. Maybe the builders got what they wanted-Vril-and left, locking it for the return of the descendants of Barbarossa. Preserving it for us."

"You're risking our lives without careful consideration. Let's be cautious here. Experiment. Test. Use the scientific method."

"I'm seizing what I need because the Buddhist bitch here fetched her American boyfriend. This is not an archaeological dig, it's a treasure hunt, and we may be in a race with the Americans. And I'm tired of your criticism, Muller." He pointed the staff at his companion.

"I'm tired of your reckless leadership."

And then there was a flash, bright as lightning, a terrifying crack, and with a cry the complaining German went flying across the machine room and crashed into the far wall, sliding down.

He was grotesquely burnt, clothes smoking.

Everyone froze in shock. The man named Julius had been killed. His flesh had blackened and peeled. The corpse sat on the floor, mouth frozen in a gasp of pain, and then huge parts of him sloughed off bone. He'd not just been blasted, he'd half disintegrated.

"Great God!" one of the other Germans cried. "You murdered Muller!"

Raeder was white with shock. "I did nothing . . ." His protest hung in the air.

Keyuri stepped back from him.

" . . . except think it," he finished in wonder. He stared at the staff in his hand. "But I didn't mean for it to happen. It reached out for him at its own accord."

"Like your wife, eh, Kurt?" one of the other Germans said shakily.

Raeder rounded on him. "Don't you dare mention Lotte."

The man swung a submachine gun around. "You're going to fry me, too?"

"No. No! Dammit, I don't know what happened!"

"It's wicked, I told you," said Keyuri. "A sword or gun from ancient Shambhala. Its power comes from the deepest pits of the earth, the core of the universe, and you've no idea how to control it."

Raeder let the staff fall to the floor where it clattered. "It fired on its own." He stepped away. "I never meant to harm Muller. I needed him, dammit. It's his fault, his criticism, his whining . . ." He glared at the others. "None of you can tell Himmler. I won't have my career ruined."

"It won't be if it's really a weapon, Kurt," one of the other Germans said. "You're still a hero, if this is what Himmler wanted us to find." He looked at the disintegrating corpse. "It's too bad about Muller, but I'm sorrier about Franz. If only we had his camera to document this! My God, a handheld lightning bolt? A ray gun? Imagine an army of these! No nation could stand before us."

Hood had been calculating the odds. One German had let his submachine gun drop, dangling from his shoulder, and another had rested a hunting rifle on the floor. Raeder had shed his own rifle. All had pistols on their hips. But would he ever have a better chance than this, when the Nazis were in turmoil over their own fiasco?

He stepped out from the shelter of the wrecked door, pistol leveled, and closed the distance as quickly and quietly as he could.

Then Raeder fastened on Keyuri. "This is your fault. You knew this was going to happen." He was tired of moralizers. Everyone was always questioning, whereas his need was to act.

"I did not point the staff."

He pulled his pistol. "You should have been a better lover."

"Because I don't enjoy your assaults? You're going to murder me, too?"

He blinked. "I don't need you anymore."

Hood was within twenty feet. "Freeze!" He aimed at Raeder. The Germans whirled.

The muzzle of Hood's .45 was pointed at his enemy's head.

Raeder looked at him in bewilderment. "But I blew up the path."

"I dropped in anyway. Keyuri, take the staff!"

She hesitated.

"Hurry, pick it up! And if they go for their guns, use that witchcraft on them!"

"I don't know how."

"Neither did Kurt, but a man that dared talk back to him is dead. How did it feel, Kurt, to have the finger of God?"

"He's alone," the German said to his companions. "He can't escape us. We outnumber him. When I give the word, use your weapons."

"Keyuri, now!"

"Hans!" Raeder shouted. The archaeologist jumped and Hood instinctively swung his gun toward him. And as Keyuri bent for the amber staff, Raeder grabbed for her and it.

Shots blazed.

All their light abruptly vanished.

31.

Eldorado Mine, Cascade Mountains September 6, Present Day It just gets weirder than weird," Jake said, studying the sad heap of bones. "What in the devil was Special Agent Duncan Hale doing in an old gold mine in the Cascade Mountains, with city shoes and a business suit? It had to have something to do with Benjamin Hood."

"My great-grandfather took him here," Rominy guessed.

"Or forced him here."

"If he worked for the government, he should have been on Grandpa's side, shouldn't he?"

"Let's review what we know." Jake was squatting, thumbing through the papers in the satchel, now the businesslike investigative reporter. "Grandpa is recruited to go to Tibet. He comes back, but instead of returning to New York he becomes a hermit up here. Somewhere there's a child, who will turn out to be your grandmother. And Hale comes calling. To lure him out of retirement? To find out what he knows? What if Hale was stealing this satchel?"

"What if Great-Grandpa Ben lured him here? Or was hiding here, or the satchel was here, so Agent Hale comes up the mountain . . ."

"Or was killed at the cabin and brought up here. Carried like a sack of potatoes."

"I don't think my ancestor would do that. Can you imagine carrying a corpse up that mountain? And wouldn't the OSS have come looking for him?"

"And found Benjamin Hood. And . . . killed him." Jake stood up.

"That's pretty melodramatic."

"Well, all we know is that everybody died. Except your grandmother. Except maybe she was murdered, too, eventually."

Rominy shivered. "So who was her mother? Who did Hood marry?"

"You don't have to be married to have a child, Rominy." He stopped shuffling the papers and pulled out a photograph. It was a faded shot of a woman standing next to an old biplane, in flying helmet and pants. "Take her, for example."

Rominy craned to look. "She's pretty. You think she's my great-grandmother?"

"It's possible."

"Who is she?"

He turned it over. "It says, Beth Calloway, 1938. Maybe there's more in here about her."

"This is so strange, finding people who've been dead so long and having some obscure connection to them."

"Not obscure. A blood connection. Blood is thicker than water. Descent is important. Ancestry is important."

"Don't talk about blood down here. It's creepy."

"Historically, it used to mean everything. You were who your parents were. Children inherited the sins of their fathers. Now genealogy is just a hobby, nations are mongrelized, race is politically incorrect. But blood is who we really are."

"No. Too confining."

"I'm talking about family, Rominy. DNA. Self-identity. Belonging. As an orphan, you should understand that better than anyone."

"Belonging? To a race? Yes, Jake, politically incorrect."

"You want to know how to become a messiah? Tell your followers they're chosen. Jews, born-again Christians, Muslim fundamentalists, it doesn't matter. Tell them they're chosen and they'll follow you anywhere. You think Hitler didn't understand that? People long to be told they're special. Blood, my dear, makes the world go round." He turned the flashlight so it lit his face from below, drawing deep shadows like a Halloween mask. "The trick," he said in a deep voice, "is deciding who's really chosen."

She looked at him in confusion. Now he was frightening her. "Who are you, Jake?"

He turned the light away, becoming a silhouette in the dark. "I'm a reporter, remember? I just try to see the world clearly, without all the self-censorship crap that goes on these days. We don't burn witches, we fire the blunt from media jobs. Well, I speak to truth. Isn't that what journalism is all about?"

"Why did you take the battery out of my cell phone?"

"What?" He cocked his head.

"I found it in the trash this morning. That's why my cell wouldn't work, wasn't it? You'd taken the battery out."

"I took the battery out because it wouldn't work. I was trying to fix it. When it was obvious it was really dead, I tossed it. What, you think I sabotaged your phone?"

"Yes! Somehow. Way back at Safeway. I wanted to call and I couldn't."

"Because your battery was already dead! How could I get your battery out? Do I look like Houdini? Come on, don't be paranoid. We're trying to help each other here. Figure this out together."

She sighed. He was right, the battery was dead. "I'm so confused."

"Jesus, I'm not. Did last night mean nothing?"

"Jake . . ." she groaned.

"I'm falling for you, Rominy. You've got to trust me on this. We're onto something big, really big. It's going to make all the difference. Come on, let's walk back to the shaft we fell down where it's light, and look at what's in the satchel."

She was consumed with doubt. She was falling for him, too, at the same time every instinct told her this was way too sketchy. Hadn't she been wary the first time she spied him? But now he looked a little wounded, boyish, and she still buzzed inside from the night and the morning. Which instinct was true?

"How did you get that scar?"

"What scar?"

"On your chin. Like you've been in a fight."

He looked at her as if she were a lunatic. "I flipped my bike when I was ten."

Now she felt foolish. She flushed. If he was some kind of rogue, why was he trapped down here with her?

Deep breaths. One step at a time. Get out of here, and then think. Everything was happening too fast. She needed a day-heck, a month-to decompress. To figure out if anything with this guy was real. She was falling in love with a man she didn't entirely trust, which wasn't smart, cubicle girl. Get gone, get focused, get clear.

Meanwhile, the satchel was a treasure trove. Maps, diagrams, diaries, photos-the raw remains of a strange, truncated life. There was a crude drawing of mountains with a bowl-like valley, with coordinates. A diagram drawn in a circle, with arrows and boxes. And a journal with the title page reading, For the heir, only. Jake solemnly handed it to her. "I think he means you."

She thumbed through it, unable to resist excitement. This was real. The handwriting was surprisingly neat, almost feminine. Well, they did teach penmanship in those days. The diary appeared to be about some kind of journey, fleeing from some terrible thing. But also notes to return there, When the time is right. And underneath it, Wisdom before invention.

Maybe this would explain the whole story.

Her old life seemed so trivial.

Jake was peering at the map. "My God, I think he's telling exactly where we need to go."

"Go? I thought we were already here, in a hole in the ground."

"No, in Tibet, to find what he found."

"Tibet! That's the other side of the world."

"Don't you see? His death, your relatives' deaths, the skinheads-it all must come back to this. There's something wonderful there, something huge, and it's been waiting for you-the heir to get into this safety deposit box, the heir to find this mine-to go find it again. We're supposed to go to Tibet and retrace his journey." His eyes were alight. He'd found his treasure map.