The trouble is, Decker thought, Murphy's Law has a way of interfering with plans. Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. And there were a lot of question marks in this plan. Would Renata and all of her group go up the lane at the same time? Would they sense a trap and check to make sure that no one was sneaking up behind them? Would Beth be able to control her reactions and fire at the right time, as they had rehea.r.s.ed it? For that matter, would fear paralyze her, preventing her from firing at all? Or would-

18.

Decker heard a noise that sounded like a branch being snapped. He nervously held his breath, not wanting even that slight sound to interfere with his hearing. Pressed hard against the dank ground, he listened, trying to filter out the faint country-and-western music from the radio in the cabin, ignoring the m.u.f.fled rush of the river, waiting for the sound to be repeated. It seemed to have come from near the lane, but he couldn't a.s.sume that a human being had made it. This close to the wilderness area, there were plenty of nocturnal animals. The noise might not indicate a threat.

He couldn't help wondering how Beth had reacted to it. Would she be able to control her fear? He kept straining to a.s.sure himself that her presence was necessary. If she hadn't come along, Renata might have suspected that Decker was planning a trap and didn't want to put Beth in danger. At the same time, Decker kept arguing with himself that maybe Beth's presence wasn't absolutely necessary. Maybe he shouldn't have involved her. Maybe he had demanded too much from her.

She doesn't have to prove anything to me.

You sure made it seem that way.

Stop, he told himself. There is only one thing you should be concentrating on, and that is getting through this night alive. Getting Beth through this night alive.

When he failed to hear a repet.i.tion of the sound, he exhaled slowly. The cabin was to his right, the glow of lights through its windows. But he took care not to compromise his night vision by glancing in that direction. Instead, he focused his gaze straight ahead toward the road, the bridge, the lane, and the clearing. The lights in the cabin would provide a beacon for anyone sneaking up and make it hard for a stalker to adjust his or her night vision to check the darkness around the cabin. Conversely, the spill from those lights, adding to the illumination from the brilliant moon glow and starlight, were to Decker's advantage, easy on his eyes, at the periphery of his vision. He had the sense that he was peering through a gigantic light-enhancing lens.

Crickets screeched. A new mournful song about open doors and empty hearts played faintly on the cabin's radio. At once Decker stiffened, again hearing the sound of a branch being snapped. This time, he had no doubt that the sound had come from near the lane, from the trees and bushes to the right of it. Had Renata and her gang managed to cross the bridge without his having seen their silhouettes? That didn't seem likely-unless they had crossed the bridge before he reached this shallow pit. But the bridge had been out of his sight for only a few minutes. Did it make sense that Renata would have had time to drive by (he hadn't seen any pa.s.sing headlights), conclude that he was parked up the lane, stop, reconnoiter the area, and cross the bridge before he came out of the cabin? She and her group would have had to rush to the point of recklessness. That wasn't Renata's style.

But when Decker heard the noise a third time, he picked up the Winchester. It suddenly occurred to him that Beth would be doing the same thing, gripping one of the shotguns, but would she have the discipline not to pull the trigger until it was absolutely necessary? If she panicked and fired too soon, before her targets were in range, she would ruin the trap and probably get herself killed. During the ride up from Albuquerque, Decker had emphasized this danger, urging her to remember that a shotgun was a short-range weapon, that she mustn't shoot until Decker did and she had obvious targets in the clearing. The devastating spray of buckshot would make up for any problem that her injured shoulder gave her in aiming, especially if she discharged all four barrels in rapid succession.

Remember what I told you, Beth. Hold your fire.

Decker waited. Nothing. No further sound of a branch being snapped. What he judged to be five minutes pa.s.sed, and still the sound was not repeated. He couldn't look at his watch. It was in his pocket. Before arriving at the cabin, he had made certain that he and Beth took off their watches and put them away, lest the luminous dials reveal their position in the darkness.

What he judged to be ten minutes pa.s.sed. He had talked to Beth about how it felt to lie motionless possibly for hours, about subduing impatience, about ignoring the past and the future. Get in the moment and stay in the moment. Tell your-self that you're in a contest, that the other side is going to move before you do. At the Albuquerque airport, Decker had insisted that they both use a rest room, even though neither of them felt an urge, pointing out that at night when they were lying in the forest, a full bladder could make them uncomfortable enough that they might lose their concentration. Getting up to a squat to relieve oneself was out of the question-the movement would attract attention. The only option was to relieve oneself in one's clothes, and that definitely resulted in loss of concentration.

Fifteen minutes. Twenty. No more suspicious sounds. No signs of activity on the moon-bathed lane or in the murky bushes next to it. Patience, Decker told himself. But a part of him began to wonder if his logic had been valid. Perhaps Renata had not hidden a homing device in his car. Perhaps Renata wasn't anywhere in the area.

19.

The night's chill enveloped Decker, but he felt an even greater chill when the forest moved. A section of it, something low, about the size of someone crouching, shifted warily from bush to bush. But the movement wasn't near the lane, not where Decker had expected it to be. Instead, dismayingly, the figure was already halfway around the tree-rimmed edge of the clearing, creeping toward the cabin. How did he get so far without my seeing him? Decker thought in alarm.

Where are the others?

His chill intensified as he saw another figure near the first one. This figure seemed not to be skirting the edge of the clearing but, instead, to be emerging from deep within the forest, as if coming from the north rather than from the west, from the bridge. The only explanation would have to be that they had found another way across the river.

But how? I checked the river for a hundred yards up the road, as far as the group was likely to drive before stopping. There weren't any logs across the river, any footbridges, any boulders that might serve as stepping-stones.

As a third figure emerged from the forest halfway around the clearing, Decker fought to subdue a wave of nausea, understanding what must have happened. After parking, the group had separated. Some had come southward down the road to guard the exit from the lane, to make sure Decker stayed put. But the others had hiked northward, a direction Decker had not antic.i.p.ated. Higher up the road, they had come to another property and used its bridge to cross the river. The properties in this area tended to be a quarter of a mile apart. Decker had never imagined that in the night, feeling pressure, Renata and her group would hike so far out of their way. They had taken so long to get to the clearing because they had crept south through dense forest, moving with laborious slowness to make as little noise as possible. Members of the group would be emerging from the forest behind the house, also, doing their best to encircle it.

Behind Decker.

Behind Beth.

He imagined an enemy creeping up to her, both of them caught by surprise but the killer reacting more quickly, shooting Beth before she had a chance to defend herself. Decker came close to shifting instantly out of his hiding place and crawling hurriedly through the dark underbrush to get to her and defend her. But he couldn't allow himself to give in to the impulse. He would be endangering Beth as well as himself if he acted prematurely, without sufficient information. The trouble was, when he did have that information, it might be too late.

His hesitation saved his life as, behind him, sickeningly close, a twig snapped. As a shoe made a crunching sound on fallen pine needles, he felt his heart seem to swell and rise toward his throat, choking him. Slowly, a painstaking quarter of an inch at a time, he turned his head-carefully, with agonizing deliberateness. For all he knew, a weapon was being aimed at him, but he couldn't risk making a sudden move to look. If he hadn't been noticed, a backward jerk of his head would give him away, would make him a target.

Sweat broke out on his forehead. Little by little, the shadowy woods behind him came into view. Another footstep easing down on crunchy pine needles made him inwardly flinch. The speed of his pulse made him feel light-headed as he saw a figure ten feet away. Renata? No. Too heavy. Shoulders too broad. The figure was male, holding a rifle, his back to Decker. Facing the cabin, the man sank down, eerily vanishing among bushes. Decker imagined the scene from the man's point of view. Music in the cabin. Lights beyond closed blinds. Part of Decker's preparations had been to set up timers for the lamps and the radio, so that one-by-one they would go off within the next hour. That realistic touch would make Renata and her friends confident that they had trapped their quarry.

On the other side of the clearing, the three figures were no longer visible. Presumably they had spread out, flanking the cabin, preparing to attack it simultaneously. Will they wait until the lights are out and they think we're asleep, or will they hurl stun grenades through the windows and break in right now?

When they rush through the trees, will they stumble onto Beth?

Decker's original plan had depended on the group being caught together after they crossed the bridge and tried to sneak up the lane, devastated by explosions, simultaneously coming under gunfire from three positions. Now, the only way he could think of to retain the element of surprise was ...

Slowly, he squirmed from the pit. Feeling before him, he checked for anything that might cause him to make a noise. His movements were almost as gradual as when he had turned his head. He eased through a narrow s.p.a.ce between two bushes, approaching the spot where the figure had sunk down. The figure's attention would be centered on the cabin. The others would be staring at it as well, not looking in this direction. It had been twelve years since Decker had used a blade to kill a man. Gripping one of the hunting knives that he had bought at the gun shop and that he had earlier placed next to the Winchester at the side of the pit, he shifted through more bushes.

There. Five feet ahead. Braced on one knee. Holding a rifle. Watching the house.

When we make fateful decisions, fate will inevitably occur.

Without hesitation, Decker lunged. His left hand whipped in front of the gunman to seize his nostrils and mouth, the cotton glove helping to m.u.f.fle any sound the figure made as Decker jerked him backward and slashed his throat, severing his jugular vein and his voice box.

Emotions themselves don't compromise us. But our thoughts about our emotions will compromise us if those thoughts aren't disciplined.

Blood gushed, hot, viscous. The man stiffened... trembled ... became deadweight. Decker eased the corpse silently to the ground. Moonlight revealed a wisp of what resembled steam at the dead man's gaping throat.

Training controls our thoughts. Thoughts control our emotions.

20.

Hearing his hammerlike pulse behind his ears, Decker knelt behind bushes, straining to detect a sign of where the other figures prepared to make their move. Were there more he didn't know about? Someone would be at the road, guarding the exit from the lane. And what about the property a quarter of a mile south of here? Decker's hunters would have seen it as they pa.s.sed it, pursuing Decker's Jeep Cherokee. Had some of Renata's group returned to it, crossing the bridge down there, approaching the cabin from that direction? Maybe that was how the dead man at Decker's feet had reached this side of the clearing.

What can go wrong, will go wrong. The group must have had a plan before they approached the cabin. But how would they have communicated to synchronize their movements? Lapel microphones and earplug receivers were a possibility, although it was doubtful that the group would want to risk making even a whisper of a noise. Decker checked the corpse's ears and jacket and verified his doubt, not finding any miniature two-way radio equipment.

What other way could they synchronize their attack? Feeling along the corpse's left wrist, Decker found a watch, but one that had no luminous hands that might give away his position. Instead of a gla.s.s face, it had a metal hatch, and when Decker raised it, the only way he could tell the time in the darkness was to remove a glove, then touch the long minute hand, the short hour hand, and the palpable numbers along the notched rim. Familiar with this type of watch, Decker felt the minute hand jerk forward and quickly deter-mined that the time was five minutes to one.

Would the attack on the cabin occur at one o'clock? Decker didn't have much time to get ready. He put on his glove, wiped his fingerprint off the watch, and crawled back through bushes with as much speed as silence permitted, returning to the dank, shallow pit, which more and more reminded him of a grave. There, he felt along the row of wires and selected two pairs that were on the extreme right. He separated the pairs, holding one pair in his left hand, the other in his right, ready to touch one exposed tip from each pair to the positive pole of the car battery, the other exposed tips to the negative pole.

Despite the night's cold air, sweat oozed from the camouflage grease on his forehead. He concentrated on the cabin, grudgingly aware that the lights in the windows ruined his night vision. Since touching the watch on the corpse's wrist, he had been counting, estimating that four minutes and thirty seconds had pa.s.sed, that the attack on the cabin would begin in just about ...

He was fifteen seconds off. Windows shattered. Eye-searing flashes and ear-torturing roars from stun grenades erupted within the cabin. Dark figures holding rifles scrambled from the cover of bushes, two crashing through the front door, one through the back. Presumably the man whom Decker had killed would have joined the solitary figure barging through the back door, but that solitary figure (perhaps it was Renata) was so intent on the attack that he (she) didn't seem to notice that the partner hadn't shown up to help.

From the pit, Decker saw urgent shadows that the cabin's lights cast on the window blinds. Angry motions. Shouts. A curse. Not finding anyone in the cabin, the attackers knew that they had been tricked, that they were in a trap. They would be desperate to get out of the cabin before the trap was sprung. Another curse. The shadows frantically retreated. Decker flicked his gaze back and forth to the front and back doors of the cabin. Would they all rush out one entrance, or would they split up as they had going in?

The latter. Seeing a lone figure rush from the back, Decker instantly pressed wires to the poles on the battery. Night became day. The ground beneath the figure heaved in a thunderous blaze, spewing earth, buckshot, and fragments of metal from the canteen. The figure arched through the air. Immediately the two killers rushing from the front door faltered at the sound of the blast. Decker pressed the other pair of wires to the battery's poles, and the resultant explosion was even more powerful than the first, a fiery roar that tore a crater in the earth and catapulted the screaming figures down the steps toward Decker's car. The cabin's windows were shattered. Flames seethed up the outside walls.

Squinting from the ferocity of the blaze, Decker dropped the wires and picked up the Winchester. As rapidly as he could work the lever, he shot toward the back of the cabin, strafing the area where the lone figure had fallen. The unmistakable blast from a shotgun told him that Beth was shooting at the figures who had landed in the clearing near her. Another blast. Another. Another. If there were more attackers in the area, the noise from the shotguns, not to mention the muzzle flashes, would reveal Beth's position. She had been instructed to grab both shotguns and roll fifteen feet to her right, where another pit had been dug. There, a box of shotgun sh.e.l.ls waited for her. Hurrying, she would reload and fire again, continuing to switch locations.

But Decker didn't have time to think about that. He had to have faith that Beth was following the plan. For his part, he fired the seventh and final round that the Winchester held, dropped the rifle, pulled out Esperanza's 9-mm Beretta, and tried to stay among shadows as he stalked through bushes toward where the lone figure had fallen. The closer he came to the burning cabin, the more impossible it was for him to be concealed by darkness. But the illumination from the flames had the benefit of revealing a figure on the ground. Decker shot, the figure jerking when the bullet struck his (her) head.

Hearing more roars from Beth's shotgun, Decker rushed forward, aimed down while he shoved the corpse over with his shoe, and failed to see what he had been hoping for. The face below him was not a woman's, not Renata's, but, instead, that of one of her brothers whom Decker had spoken to in the Rome cafe fifteen months ago, when McKittrick had introduced Decker to Renata.

Decker pivoted, feeling exposed, eager to retreat from the burning cabin to the darkness of the woods. At the same time, he was seized by a compulsion to get to Beth, to help her, to discover if either of the two figures she was shooting at (and perhaps had killed) was Renata. He wondered anxiously what was happening with Esperanza. Had Esperanza eliminated the guards whom Decker a.s.sumed had been stationed on the road, on the other side of the bridge, at the exit from the lane? But Decker had to believe that Esperanza could take care of himself, whereas Beth, as superbly as she had behaved, might now be close to panic.

Even though his choice put him at risk, Decker ran along the side of the burning cabin, planning to find cover at the front and shoot toward the figures who had landed in the clearing, near Decker's car. If they were still alive, they would be concentrating on where Beth was shooting from. Decker could take them by surprise.

But a bullet whizzing past, walloping into the cabin, took Decker by surprise. It came from his left, from the section of woods where he had been hiding. The man Decker had killed must have had a companion, who hadn't been as efficient in making his way through the woods from the property to the south. Decker sprawled to the ground and rolled toward a wide, sheltering pine tree. A bullet tore up dirt behind him, the muzzle flash coming from the left of the tree. Decker scrambled to the right, circling the tree, shooting toward where he had seen the muzzle flash. Immediately he dove farther to the right, saw another flash, and aimed toward it, but before he could pull the trigger, he heard someone scream.

21.

The scream belonged to Beth. Despite the rumble of flames from the burning cabin, Decker heard a disturbance behind him, at the edge of the clearing, bushes rustling, branches being snapped, the sounds of a struggle.

Beth screamed again. Then someone yelled what might have been Decker's name. Not Beth. The voice was grotesque, deep, gravelly, and distorted. Again it yelled what might have been Decker's name, and Decker now was absolutely certain that the guttural voice belonged to Renata. Wary of the gunman in the murky trees ahead of him, risking a glance behind him, Decker confirmed his grave fear. A black-jumpsuited woman, with hair cut short like a boy's, with a tall, slim, sensuous figure, held Beth captive in the clearing, the left arm around Beth's throat, the right arm holding the barrel of a pistol to Beth's right temple.

Renata.

Even at a distance of thirty yards, the rage in her dark eyes was obvious. Her left arm encircled Beth's throat so tightly that Beth's features were twisted, her mouth forced open, grimacing, gasping for air. Beth clawed at Renata's arm, struggling to get free, but the injuries to her right leg and shoulder robbed her of strength and stability. Indeed, her right leg had collapsed beneath her. She almost dangled from Renata's stranglehold, in danger of being choked to death.

"Decker!" Renata yelled, the voice so guttural that Decker had trouble deciphering the words. "Throw down your gun! Get down here! Now! Or I'll kill her!"

Desperation paralyzed him.

"Do it!" Renata screamed hoa.r.s.ely. "Now!"

Decker's hesitation was broken when Renata c.o.c.ked the pistol. Even with the noise of the fire, he thought he heard only one thing-the snick of the hammer being pulled back. Hearing it wasn't possible, of course. Renata was too far away. But in Decker's imagination, it sounded dismayingly vivid, as if the gun was at his own head.

"No! Wait!" Decker yelled.

"Do what I say if you want her to live!"

Beth managed to squeeze out a few strangled words. "Steve, save yourself!"

"Shut the h.e.l.l up!" Renata increased the pressure of her arm around Beth's throat. Beth's face became more distorted, her eyes bulging, her color darkening. Renata yelled to Decker, "Do it, or I won't bother shooting her! I'll break her neck! I'll leave her paralyzed for the rest of her life!"

Unnervingly aware of the gunman somewhere in the forest behind him, Decker calculated his chances of shooting Renata. With a handgun? In firelight? At thirty yards? With his chest heaving and his hands shaking as much they were? Impossible. Even if Decker tried it, the moment he raised his gun to aim, Renata would have sufficient warning to pull the trigger and blow Beth's brains out.

"You have three seconds!" Renata yelled. "One! Two!"

Decker saw Renata's right arm move. He imagined her finger tightening on the trigger. "Wait!" he screamed again.

"Now!"

"I'm coming out!"

Although the blaze from the cabin warmed Decker's right side, the area between his shoulder blades felt ominously cold as he thought of the gunman in the forest training a weapon on him while he emerged from the shadows of the pine tree.

He raised his hands.

"Drop your pistol!" Renata shouted, her voice grotesque.

Decker obeyed, the pistol thunking onto the forest floor. He walked closer, feeling wobbly in his legs, dreading the impact that would topple him when the gunman behind him shot him in the back. But dying was better than seeing Beth die. He didn't want to remain alive without her.

Arms high, he reached the slope to the clearing, eased down it sideways, pa.s.sed his car, and saw the bodies of the two men who had been caught in the explosion at the front of the cabin. He stopped in front of Renata.

"Look, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Renata growled, pointing at the corpses. "See what she did. See this." Her formerly alluring face was made repulsive by the hate that distorted it. "See what you did!" She raised her chin so that, in the light from the burning cabin, Decker was able to see the ugly puckered bullet-wound scar at the front of Renata's throat, near her voice box. "There's a bigger scar in the back!"

Decker could barely understand her. His mind worked urgently to keep translating.

"You killed my brothers! What do you think I should do to you?"

Decker didn't have an answer.

"Should I blow a hole in your throat? Should I blow a hole in her throat? Where's my money?"

"In the carry-on bag I found in your car in New York."

"Where's the d.a.m.ned carry-on bag? When I drove past the lane, I saw you taking it into the cabin."

Decker nodded. "That's where I left it." He glanced toward the blazing cabin.

"You didn't bring it out with you?"

"No."

"You left it in there?"

"That's what I said."

"My million dollars?"

"Minus a couple of thousand I spent on equipment."

"You're lying."