The man, halfway into his push-up, froze, and Anna wondered if he was changing his plans or if her tone had frightened him as much as it had h"uchfoner. It was not a good thing to channel the grim reaper, especially when one had been avoiding him most of the day.

"I hear you," the man said, easing himself onto one hip and gathering his long legs in front of him so he was sitting, shoulders against his round rock, hands, palms up, one on each thigh like innocence on display.

He looked the cowboy Anna's quick perusal of his camp had suggested. Tall and lean with black hair worn long over his collar and a black mustache Tom Selleck would have been proud of in his Magnum P.I. days.

"I'm Freddy Martinez, the river district ranger here in Big Bend. You folks get caught in the flash flooding?" He didn't sound like a man with a gun trained on him. He sounded like a ranger at an evening program talking about environmental concerns.

Paul blinded him with the flashlight. He didn't raise his empty hands to protect his eyes. Too wary for that. "You're a park ranger," Paul said.

"For twenty-two years, most of it right here," he answered. "I started out as a river guide for a commercial outfit out of Terlingua. I've been on the Rio Grande all my life."

"Do you have any identification?" Paul asked.

"In my saddlebags."

Anna didn't need an ID. He had "ranger" written all over him. Though he wasn't in uniform, he had on an old cordovan uniform belt, only with the buckle changed out; his boots were NPS uniform boots, recycled for casual wear when they got too scruffy for work.

"Where's your rifle?" Anna asked.

"No rifle. Just the Glock," he said. "And you got that."

She hadn't seen a rifle in the camp, but he could have thrown it away. "He has a camp up top," Anna said. "We need his water and I need to check on-" She started to say "the baby," but thought better of it. Hostages in small packages were easier to deal with than older, crankier ones if it came to anything like that.

"You want me to go first?" Freddy said. "If you get up on the rock behind you, you'll be able to keep a bead on me when I get up the lip so whoever comes second won't be in danger from me."

It annoyed Anna that he was being so helpful.

"Good plan," Paul said. "Lead on."

As the ranger stood, he weaved slightly and Anna's finger tightened on the trigger. It wasn't a feint but a hangover from the clout he'd taken on the head. He righted himself and hefted his considerable length up over the lip of the canyon. Anna kept her sights on him until Paul was up, as well, and Freddy had stepped away and sat down without being asked to.

Anna quickly covered the distance and scram"taneinbled up, Martinez only out of her sight for a second or two. Still she was levitating on what had to be the very last drops her adrenal glands had in stock when she stood again on the desert floor. Martinez had not moved.

A voice came out of the darkness of the camp and Anna wheeled on it, the gun held rigid at arm's length in both hands. He had no rifle. Maybe someone else did. One horse, one saddle, one sleeping bag. She'd let herself a.s.sume there was but one shooter. Sometimes monsters ran in packs.

"Say again," came a different voice and a crackle.

"My radio," Martinez said. "It's in the saddlebag there with the water skin."

Water.

"You first," Paul said, and eased the Glock from her fingers.

"That is true love," Anna said, and trotted over to where the bleats from the radio had come. The ranger had said "water skin" and that's what she found, the old three-gallon burlap water sacks that she remembered from when she was little. Her parents carried one strapped across the radiator of their old station wagon to refill the radiator when it overheated.

Three gallons, two and a half left. She felt rich and wild and drank deeply before carrying it back to her husband. They traded water for gun and Paul drank.

"You folks lose your water?"

"Yeah," Anna said as she and Paul traded life for death again and she took another long pull on the water skin.

Drinking restored some of Anna's strength and most of her mental acuity. She noticed she was now able to understand actual words coming from the radio. Dispatch was sending rescue. Martinez's eyes followed hers to the radio and for the first time she saw fear in his face. If he was going to try anything it would be now, before the metaphorical cavalry arrived.

Paul still held the Glock. Anna saw the same thought register on his face, the usually gentle planes hardening in the silver light. Giving Martinez a wide berth, Anna returned to where his saddlebag was flung over the bit of log he'd centered his camp around. She dug the radio from the leather bag and keyed the mike.

"This is Anna Pigeon on Ranger Martinez's radio," she said clearly. "I am the person who called in the nine-one-one emergency."

The fear went out of Martinez's face.

Something about the man wasn't right.

SEVENTEEN.

Keeping her eyes on the ranger and Paul, Anna talked into the radio, giving details as she walked over to where she had laid Helena on the horse blanket. "Do you want me to give them our exact location?" Martinez called. Anna ignored him.ail She had no doubt he could describe where they were more precisely but he could also warn them off, say it was a false alarm, send them to the wrong location. She doubted it, but it was possible and, since there was only one huge rockslide in Santa Elena Canyon, she felt telling the rescuers that she was at the top of it should do the trick.

Helena was where Anna had left her, her round perfect face pale and ashen in the moonlight. She hadn't moved at all, not even to disarrange the T-shirt Anna had tucked around her to keep out the chill. Anna fell to her knees on the horse blanket, the radio falling forgotten from her hand. "Oh, baby, no," Anna whispered as she gathered one of the tiny hands between her fingers. The baby's flesh was neither warm nor cold; it felt like a sc.r.a.p of velvet that has taken on the ambient temperature of the air.

"No, no, little girl," Anna murmured as she laid her ear on a rib cage scarcely as big as the palm of her hand. Nothing. Nothing. Then there it was, the thump-thump of a heartbeat, thready and faint and absolutely wonderful.

"Hurrah!" Anna shouted before she even realized she'd opened her mouth to do so.

"What?" Paul called through the darkness.

"She's tough, our little cookie." Anna gently lifted the baby and said nothing else. She'd heard herself and realized she was actually cooing. It was more disconcerting than many things had been on this most grimly disconcerting day.

Anna loved cats because they were beautiful and lazy and deadly and didn't apologize for any of it. She loved dogs because one could make them happy. People could not be made happy. They could only be made miserable. Human happiness had to come from within. Not so with dogs. Dogs could be made happy with a kind word. With a kind word and a pork chop they could be made ecstatic.

Maybe the same applied to Helena, Anna told herself. Maybe she loved her because Anna seemed able to keep her alive. Not something she'd managed for a lot of people. Keeping people alive was difficult. Making them dead was a piece of cake. The radio left behind on the horse blanket, Anna carried the baby back toward the men and the water.

Martinez stared uncomprehending at the bundle in her arms till in a feat of strength and liveliness that made Anna want to crow with delight, Helena managed to shake a cherry-sized fist at the moon.

"You brought a baby on a whitewater rafting trip?" The horror in his voice sounded genuine. Even though he was still being held at gunpoint by Paul, Martinez half rose. "How stupid can you get?" he demanded.

"Sit," Paul said.

There was enough of the southern sheriff in Paul's tone that Martinez sat again immediately. "Just kill me now," the ranger said. "I've seen it all, what's to live for? A baby on a whitewater trip. Jesus." He shook his head and appeared to be fuming at the risk they had taken with this unknown baby's life.

"Appeared to be" was thd tkene phrase that caught in Anna's mind. Martinez was smart and had excellent survival skills. Had it been otherwise he would not have lasted so long on the river or risen so high in the Park Service. Even schoolyard bullies knew that the best defense is a good offense.

Anna collected a plastic coffee cup Martinez had left on the log and threw out the last dregs of what smelled like Constant Comment tea, then sat cross-legged near Paul and cradled the baby in the basket made of her bones, the torn down comforter, sans most of its stuffing by now, used as padding. Having rinsed the cup out, Anna put an inch of water in the bottom and began dipping her finger in it then putting her finger to the baby's lips. To her enormous relief Helena took it.

"We need to get water to the kids," Paul said.

"I'll go as soon as Helena's got some in her," Anna said. Helena took another couple of drops and Anna felt triumphant.

"Let me. I didn't do the chimney."

For a moment Anna looked from Paul to Freddy and Paul looked from Freddy to Anna and Freddy looked mystified.

"Will you be okay here with him?" Paul asked.

"With him and a gun," Anna said. She was being flippant. Helena's survival had buoyed her spirits and she felt little threat from Freddy. From Paul's willingness to leave, she expected he didn't sense evil either.

Paul took the flashlight and the water skin and slipped back over the lip of the slide. For a freefalling moment Anna felt utterly helpless. She had the Glock. And she had the baby. It was not an auspicious combination. There would be no feeding and firing simultaneously; it took both hands to drip water into Helena's mouth and, with an infant on one's lap, moving quickly was problematic. Not to mention firing a gun so close to a newborn would probably deafen it for life. No wonder women didn't tend to favor war.

Panic subsided. Freddy's nonthreatening vibes again.

The Glock handy at her right knee, Anna continued to attempt to lure Helena into sucking water from her little finger.

"Paul's taking water to 'the kids,' plural?" Freddy Martinezasked.

It jarred Anna to hear her husband's name spoken so easily by the man they'd captured, but of course he would have heard her say it.

"Plural," Anna confirmed.

"Let's see if I can figure this out," Martinez said. "You, your husband?"

Anna nodded.

"And ... how many kids?"

"Four," Anna said, then remembered Lori had beeed anyn killed. "Three," she amended.

"An unknown number of kids," Martinez said, "climb up a rockslide to escape the rising river-"

"Among other things."

"And you leave the kids and bring the baby and decide to attack a park ranger to hijack his water. Water, I might add, that I would have given you in any case." He sighed. "Nope. I can't figure this one out."

The sinking feeling that had started when Freddy was so outraged at anyone bringing a baby on a whitewater rafting trip sank another foot or so. It was beginning to look as if she and Paul had pounced on the wrong man, a federal law enforcement officer and fellow ranger, no less. Not that rangers couldn't kill innocent people; it was just that between shooing skunk kits out of campgrounds and telling people where the bathroom was there wasn't a whole lot of energy left for ma.s.s murder.

Anna chose not to tell him of the cow, the raft, the woman and the emergency C-section, at least not at the moment. She told him there'd been a shooting, how many there were in the party needing to be rescued, and what kinds of resources the victims might require.

When she'd finished he rose and went to retrieve the radio where she'd dropped it on the saddle blanket. Anna made no move to stop him, she just watched. Martinez pushed down the mike b.u.t.ton and repeated what she had told him to dispatch. Dispatch began ordering various people to various places.

Martinez came back and sat where he'd been before.

"Sorry about mistaking you for a venal craven murderer of children and trying to crush your skull," Anna said.

"I won't tell anyone you attacked me if you won't tell anyone you won," Martinez said.

Anna laughed. "Deal."

"Can I have my gun back?"

"No."

"Can I hold the baby?"

"No."

EIGHTEEN.

They made the entrance Judith had planned. A lovely couple, easy together, old enough to have power and young enough to keep it. The kind of comets people like to hook their hopes to the tails of. Because he knew what to look for, Darden could see the strain around Charles's well-cut mouth, a pulling down and in of the corners. Stress suited him, Darden thought. The tautness of the muscles helped to diffuse the natural sensuousness of his lips. Judith's knuckles, outshone by a couple of very fine rings, big enough to exude wealth, small enough to look as if a regular person could earn it, were white where she held tightly to her husband, keeping him on a short leash. Charles did have a bit of the rabbit-in-the-headlights look about him, but it Darden doubted anybody would notice.

Well, anybody but Gerry, and whatever Charles's other faults might be, running off at the mouth to the press wasn't one of them. Pride, Darden thought not for the first time, a handy thing for people who knew how to use it. Darden didn't know if he had much in the way of pride. He was proud that he could make a sharp heavy barbeque sauce and a light b.u.t.tery bearnaise sauce with equal skill, but not so much so that he'd push anybody else into a hot stove for doing it better than he did. He was proud his chili won second place at the state fair, but not enough to bribe a judge or pour salt into a compet.i.tor's pot when n.o.body was looking. He was about to mentally pat himself on the back for not housing that particular sin in his breast when he realized he was no better than Charles. He'd do anything-underhanded or otherwise-to keep his pride intact. Tonight he was swelled with the toxic stuff as he watched his beautiful little girl, in her neat powder-blue linen slacks and her white silk blouse, working the crowd like a pro.

The thought made him uncomfortable and he shifted his weight to the b.a.l.l.s of his feet. Instantly he was sorry as his big toes smashed against his second toes and started up the whole shooting match of foot pain. Maybe when Judith started speaking he'd take a seat somewhere, he thought, but knew he wouldn't.

Towing Charles-who was going to have to be removed soon by the increasing distraction he was showing-Judith had worked her way through the a.s.sembled press, remembering family names of those she knew, asking about basketball games and graduations and birthdays, smiling at the rest like they were going to be just as good friends once they got to know each other, and was heading into a clot of people less likely to respond to glad-handing. The people she was here to ignite, preferably with her own fire.

Darden watched them: those determined to hate her and those determined to keep open minds and those determined to be part of the drama and the spotlight, whatever it turned out to be. Whoever they were, they had to admit she made a nice change from the inc.u.mbent, a jowly, overweight liberal who didn't get his nose hairs trimmed as often as somebody who went on camera ought to. In a way the convention at Big Bend was the inc.u.mbent's party. Which was why Judith decided to crash it. Governor Bloward-a name even those in his own camp couldn't resist changing to Blow Hard occasionally-wanted to reopen the border between Big Bend National Park and Mexico. Mexico had set aside a huge tract of land across the border from Big Bend as a natural area and were doing a good job of husbanding it, given they had about a half a ranger for a zillion acres. Bloward had a dream of making Big Bend an international peace park like Glacier in Montana was with Waterton in Canada, half the park in one country and half in another. Before 9/11, the border closure and the Mexican drug wars, Big Bend had been an international park in all but name. Bloward wanted to turn the clock back "to a time when we had hope," he liked to say. And he'd point out that Homeland Security didn't close the border between Glacier and Waterton.

Of course, Canada wasn't in the middle of a drug war. The White House was lobbying for a one-point-four-billion-dollar aid package to Mexican law enforcement. It seemed like big money, but it was chump change compared to the fifteen-plus billion Americans were pumping into the drug lords' armies to keep their supply of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamines pouring in.

Bloward's argument was that the stretch of wilderness border along the southern edge of Big Bend wasn't ever going to be a major smuggling route for the cartels. No roads to speak of and acres of patrolled nowhere to get across before reaching any major markets. To that end he'd had his minions in the academic world plan this "summit meeting" of the brains on either side of the issue.

Not the brains, Darden corrected himself, the intellectuals. Big difference.

His eyes roved the room looking for signs of incipient trouble, a habit so ingrained he found himself doing it even at children's piano recitals. Kevin stood near the entrance to the lodge dining room, natty in a suit.

About time, Darden thought. The young agent was also scanning the room; when his eyes locked on Darden's, he started across the room. Darden shook his head and pointedly looked at his watch. Now was not the time. He needed to focus on Judith. And Charles. His happy-husband facade was starting to crack. Darden noticed his free hand was returning ever more frequently to his front trouser pocket where, he presumed, the satellite phone was kept. Darden wasn't sure who it was Charles was so desperate to be in contact with but he could make an educated guess. Given cell phones were the next best thing to broadcasting live on the air, he'd rather Charles didn't make a show of it tonight.

Kevin didn't acknowledge Darden's mime show. Darden didn't even register on the kid's radar. Kevin hadn't been looking for his boss to explain where in the heck he'd been for the last forty minutes, he'd been searching out Judith, lost in a snarl of tall men on the far side of the dining room. Then again maybe he was looking for the boss, Darden thought. The thought nettled him. Not that he'd ever had any illusions that he and not the client was the boss-even if he had made the client hotcakes in the shape of Mickey Mouse when she was five. It nettled him to be kept out of the loop. It was disrespectful. And it was dangerous.

Judith caught Kevin's eye before he plowed into her act and stopped him with a nod and a smile. Darden started to relax, then Kevin winked at Judith. Before the shock wore off, anger flashed under Darden's breastbone and the well-publicized hug between Monica and Bill replayed behind his eyes. The appet.i.tes of the powerful translated into heartburn for everybody else. For an instant Judith's face froze mid-smile, then she broke eye contact and was back in the middle of a conversation with a graying professor Darden recognized from a liberal talking-head show out of Dallas as if she'd never had any interest other than in his dry theories.

Looking smug, Kevin was about to strut back to the sidelines when he saw Darden. Darden crooked a finger once and the smirk evaporated from the young agent's handsome face. He looked around as if salvation might appear in the shape of somebody behind his shoulder that was the real target of Darden's displeasure, but he was alone in a sea of innocent bystanders.

Darden met him halfway and put a fatherly hand on his shoulder to escort him genially out of the dining room.

"Don't tell me you're knocking off before the show's gotten started?" Gerry, with her instinct for neinseigws, had appeared out of nowhere.

Darden's fingers tightened on Kevin's shoulder till he could feel the kid wincing under the pressure of his thumb.

"Just getting a little air, Gerry. Too much IQ in here for an old warhorse like me. I've got to get out and think like a rock for a few minutes."