Jensen leaned forward and tapped Hutch on the shoulder. "Ease back on the speed."

"Just trying to make up for lost time."

"You won't be making up anything if you hydroplane us into a ditch."

They were heading west-swimming west was more like it-on 84. The normal speed limit was sixty-five but only an idiot would try that in this downpour.

"Who is this WA anyway?" Lewis said.

"You don't need to know his name, just that he's dangerous. He knows too much dirt-damaging dirt." dirt."

"Pardon my saying," Lewis said, "but how bad can it be? What can he know that deserves this kind of surveillance?"

The question was out of line, but he wanted these guys in skin-saving mode-not just the Church's skin but their own as well.

"Oh, let's see," Jensen drawled. "What about the time you told that Bible thumper, Senator Washburn, that unless he directed the Finance Committee's interest away from the Church, paternity test results on tissue from his closest aide's recent abortion would be made public? Dirty enough for you? Or what about the time Hutch threatened the daughter of that DD who was going to take the Church to court? And here's the icing on the cake, Lewis: He knows about that couple you shoved onto the tracks. What was their name again?"

"The Mastersons." Lewis's swallow was audible all the way to the back seat. "s.h.i.t."

Jensen was exaggerating. Blascoe suspected a few things, and could make it mighty uncomfortable for the Church if he started speculating in public, but that wasn't the real reason he'd been isolated.

"And those are just the tip of the iceberg."

The only sound in the car was the patter of the rain and the swish of the wipers.

Good, Jensen thought. That shut them up. He glanced at the glowing dial of his watch. It was a sixty-six-mile trip from the city to the cabin. In off-peak traffic it could be done in a little over an hour. They were well past the hour mark. But even with the rain and the reduced speed, it wouldn't be long now.

21.

"Get out," Jamie said as she stared at the lump under the pale, flabby skin. She saw a pink line of scar tissue next to it. He had to be running a number on them. "A bomb?"

Blascoe nodded. "Yep. If I go more than a thousand feet from the house-they've got the line marked with wire-this will explode."

"What's the point?" Jack said.

"Well, as Jensen put it, this raises a minimum-security facility to maximum."

Jamie frowned, still staring at the lump. She couldn't take her eyes off it. "How did they-?"

"Get it in there?" He shrugged. "Jensen kept me under lock and key for a while after I threatened to go public. Then one day he drugs me up and hauls me off somewhere. I don't know where exactly because I conked out before we got there. I woke up here, in one of the bedrooms. I was hurting and when I looked down I saw a bunch of st.i.tches and this lump.

"Brady and Jensen were here. They told me this place was gonna be my home till I came to my senses. They told me about the bomb and-"

Jack's eyebrows shot up. "And you believed them? For all you know that's just a couple-three big steel washers glued together."

"It's not." Blascoe's eyes were suddenly bright with tears. "They proved that to me the first day."

"How?"

"My dog."

Jamie gasped as her heart twisted in her chest. "Oh, no. I don't think I want to hear this."

"He was a mutt I'd had since he was a pup," Blascoe was saying. "I called him Bart because he was always getting into trouble like Bart Simpson. Anyway, Jensen taped one of these bombs to Bart's collar. I was still groggy from the anesthesia so I wasn't really following. I watched as Jensen teased Bart with this ball, then threw it past the thousand-foot mark." Blascoe's face screwed up and he sobbed. A tear rolled down his cheek. "Blew poor Bart to pieces."

Jamie felt her own eyes puddling up. "b.a.s.t.a.r.ds."

She glanced over at Jack. He said nothing, simply stared at Blascoe with a stony expression.

Blascoe sobbed again. "Lots of times I think about crossing that line myself just to end it all, but I haven't got the guts."

Finally Jack spoke. "This means they've got perimeter sensors, and that means they probably know we're here. You can take it to the bank that someone-a number number of someones-are on their way here." He looked at Jamie. "We've got to go." of someones-are on their way here." He looked at Jamie. "We've got to go."

She pointed to Blascoe. "But we can't leave him!"

"Why not? This is where he lives now." He tossed Blascoe's joint into his lap. "We'll leave him as we found him."

"But they'll kill him!"

"If they wanted to kill him, they wouldn't have bothered with this elaborate setup."

"But don't you see? Now that I've got his story, they have to kill him. Once I publish it, these woods will be crawling with people looking for him. They can't risk his being found."

Jack was staring at Blascoe. "They still won't kill you, will they?"

Blascoe shrugged. "Can't say. To tell the truth, I don't much care. Haven't got much time left anyway, and going quick sounds a lot better than getting eaten from the inside out. I think Brady would've had Jensen off me at the git-go when I started making trouble. But too many of his lackeys on the High Council knew I was alive and not so well, and after all, I am am the Father of Dormentalism and that would be... unthinkable. They really believe in this s.h.i.t. So he convinced them to exile me, like Napoleon. Probably rationalized it to them by labeling me with one of their stinking acronyms and isolating me for the good of the Church. I don't think his High Council cronies know about the bomb-that was Jensen's idea." the Father of Dormentalism and that would be... unthinkable. They really believe in this s.h.i.t. So he convinced them to exile me, like Napoleon. Probably rationalized it to them by labeling me with one of their stinking acronyms and isolating me for the good of the Church. I don't think his High Council cronies know about the bomb-that was Jensen's idea."

"So what you're telling me is there's a good chance they'll send you to the Hokano world for real."

Another shrug. "Yeah. I guess so. But you folks'd better go while you've got the chance, or sure as s.h.i.t you'll both turn up missing."

Jack looked around. "Jensen's demo with your dog proves there's a trigger transmitter nearby. If we can-"

"Find it? Don't waste your time. I've been searching for it since day one and never found it. And I was looking in daylight, not in the dark in a rainstorm."

"Ever think about getting a knife and cutting it out?" Jack said. "It's just under the skin."

Jamie's stomach turned at the thought. The idea of cutting into your own flesh-she shuddered. Didn't want to go there.

"Can't say as I have. 'Specially since Jensen warned me about just such a thing. Told me if the bomb's surface temperature drops five degrees-blam!

Jack was silent for a few seconds, then, "What if we cut it out and dunk it into a bowl of hot water?"

"Whoa," Jamie said. "What if it drops five degrees while we're doing it? Then all three of us will go."

Without taking his eyes off Blascoe, Jack reached into a pocket and pulled out a folded knife. He snapped it open with a flick of his wrist, revealing a wicked-looking four-inch stainless steel serrated blade.

"I'm game if you are."

Blascoe stared at the blade. He swallowed, but said nothing.

"Don't you want to kick their a.s.ses?" Jack said. "With Jamie's story and you to back it up on the talk show circuit, you can nail these bozos right where they live. Slice and dice them and stir-fry them for dinner."

"Is it gonna hurt?" Blascoe said.

Jack nodded. "Yeah. But this baby's sharp and I'll be quick like a bunny."

The old man licked his lips and took a long pull on the Cuervo. "Okay. Let's do it."

Jamie tasted bile at the back of her throat. "I'm not good with blood."

Jack waggled the knife in her direction. "Don't wimp out on me now."

22.

Jack stuck the blade of his Spyderco Endura into the water he'd nuked to boiling in the microwave. From the front room he heard Jamie muttering as she sloshed tequila onto the skin over the lump in Blascoe's flank.

When the water stopped bubbling he poured it into a small aluminum pot.

"Not exactly sterile conditions," he said as he carried the hot water into the other room. "But we'll go straight from here to a doctor I know who'll load you up with antibiotics."

Blascoe lay stretched out on the couch, his shirt pulled up to nipple level.

"Let's just get on with it," he said.

Jamie looked up. "What about st.i.tches?"

Jack already had that figured. "We just tie a sheet around him. That'll hold the edges together. The doc will place the sutures."

Jamie looked pale and sweaty. Her hand shook as she swabbed on the tequila.

"I don't like this, Jack."

Not too crazy about it myself, he thought.

He'd stabbed and he'd been stabbed, but he'd never got down and made a surgical incision. He couldn't show any hesitancy or Jamie might fall apart. And if she did that it would only drag out this whole scene, and Jack wanted out of here yesterday. Every extra minute increased the chances of running into Dormentalist goons.

And he wished he had gloves. He didn't feature the idea of getting some wild-a.s.s dude's blood all over his hands.

He looked at Blascoe. "You don't by any chance have AIDS, do you?"

"I can honestly answer that with a no. They did a s.h.i.tload of tests when they worked me up for my tumor and, seeing as how I'd done a few drugs in my time, that was one of the first things they looked for. But I've never mainlined so I came out negative."

"All right then. It's time."

He tossed one of the throw pillows to Blascoe. "Bite on that." He handed the pot of water to Jamie. "Remember, if the surface of the bomb drops five degrees, we've had it. So keep that water right up next to me."

She gripped the handle and nodded. She did not look well at all.

"You sure you can handle this?"

She shook her head. "No, but I'm going to try. So hurry."

Right. No sense in drawing it out like it was some scene from ER ER.

He went down on one knee next to the couch, stretched Blascoe's skin over the lump, took a breath, and made the cut-a quick slice, two inches long and half an inch deep. Blascoe was kicking and making m.u.f.fled screeching noises into the pillow, but all in all doing a pretty decent job of holding still. Next to him, Jamie groaned.

"Everybody hang in," he said. "We're almost there."

Jack hadn't been crazy about making the incision, but he didn't mind the blood. He'd seen plenty-others' and his own. Slipping his fingers under a man's skin, though, was a whole other country.

Clenching his teeth he forced his hand forward, pushed his index and middle fingers through the b.l.o.o.d.y slit while his other hand pushed on the disk from the outside. He felt it press against his fingertips, then he trapped it and began to wriggle it free. It didn't move easily. Had scar tissue formed around it? He pushed and pulled harder. Blascoe began to buck but Jack rode with him.

"A few seconds," he gritted. "Just a few more seconds."

He felt the thing move and glanced to his immediate right where Jamie held the pot of hot water.

"Get ready, Jamie. Here it comes."

And then he had it. He guided the red, dripping disk through the incision. Not a second to waste now.

"Okay. Here she comes. Where's that-?"

"Oh, G.o.d!"

He heard a gagging sound, felt hot water splash across his thigh, and looked over to see Jamie with her head turned away, quaking as she retched, the pot handle twisting in her hand, the hot water pouring over Jack and the couch.

"s.h.i.t!"

He grabbed for the pot with his free hand, caught it before it emptied, but felt the slippery disk shoot from between his fingers. It slithered across Blascoe's b.l.o.o.d.y skin, fell to the floor, and rolled away on its edge.