"We will drive by the dam on our way back to the airport. It is a little out of the way, but you must see it."

"I've seen dams before. Somethin' wrong with yours?"

"My people tell me the next curse from the Lord has fallen. "

"Uh oh. "

"I cannot imagine what blood looks like, being forced through the control doors of a dam."

"Me neither," Mac said. "How's your water inventory, minus what we're takin' ? "

"Maybe six months. But the GC will surely raid us when they discover we no longer have sources either."

"They know where you are?"

"They have to have an idea. It will not take them long "

"Hidin' this place oughta be your top priority. " The sun was going down, and yet heat still shimmered off the plains of Argentina. Rayford tried to hold the binoculars still enough to make out what all the commotion was about. It could have been anything, but none of the options. .h.i.t him as positive.

There were an awful lot of people out there, that was sure. But he couldn't quite tell if they were military, GC, Morale Monitors, peasants, people from the city, or what.

He handed the gla.s.ses back to Lufs. "Do we just get in the air?

Or had we better check this out?" "You know what I think."

"Do we go armed? How many go with us?"

Luis shook his head. "How about I supply the vehicle, and you supply the ideas?"

"Fair enough," Rayford said. "Sebastian and I will go. And we will be armed but not on the offensive. We're just seeing what's going on and keeping you and yours out of it. "

As they descended from the tower, Luis said, "Oh, dear Lord, I pray it hasn't already happened."

"what's that?"

"Do you smell that, Captain Steele?"

Rayford sniffed the air. Blood.

Mac was preoccupied on the drive from the processing plant. Would the huge shipment of wheat have to be trucked all the way down here too? Did they have enough trucks? And where would they store it?

On the one hand he worried about it, and on the other he was glad it wasn't his problem. Better thinkers than he had put this deal together. It was their concern.

When Bihari stopped at the dam, the other loaded truck pulled up behind. At first no one disembarked. Then all four of them did.

They just stood and watched for a minute. Two of the great doors in the wall of the dam were open, both disgorging huge arcs of liquid, splashing into a ravine and sweeping past them. Blood was so much thicker than water that it sounded and acted differently. It smelled awful, and Mac found it frightening somehow. It reminded him of a nightmare and chilled him.

A man stood several hundred yards from the dam, downstream from the rushing blood. He looked familiar. "Who is that?" Mac said, pointing.

"Who is who?" Albie said.

Mac turned him the right direction and pointed.

"I don't see so well this time of the morning, Mac. Who do you see?"

"No one sees that man by the rock down there? He's close to the river."

No one said anything.

"I'm going to check him out. He's looking right at us! Waving us down there!"

"I don't see him, Mac. Maybe this is one of your cowboy marriages."

Mac c.o.c.ked his head at Abdullah. "One of my what?"

"One of those things you cowpokes see in the desert when you're thirsty. It looks like water but it's just a cactus or something.

A marriage."

Albie threw back his head and laughed. "I grew up ten thousand miles from Texas and I know that one! It's a mirage, Smitty. A mirage."

"Well, this ain't a marriage or a mirage," Mac said. "I'll be right back."

He drew within a hundred yards of the man, who watched him all the way. "If you're going to come," the man said, "why not bring an empty bottle?" "what do I want a bottle of blood for? Anyway, I don't think I have an empty one."

"Empty one and bring it."

Mac turned around, as if it was the roost normal request and he had no choice.

As he hurried back, Abdullah said, "So what was it, pod'ner? A marriage?"

"Very funny, camel jockey."

Mac pulled a bottle from one of the skids, drank half of it on his way back, then poured out the rest.

"Hey!" Bihari called, "that stuff's as valuable as wheat, you know."

Mac watched his footing as he reached the rushing crimson tide.

"You get around, don't you, Michael?" he said. "You omnipresent or something?"

"You know better than that, Cleburn," Michael said. "Like you, I am on a.s.signment."

"And coincidentally in the same part of the world as me. I never got to thank you for "

Michael held up a hand to silence him, then reached for the bottle. He sighed and looked to the sky. He spoke softly but with great pa.s.sion. "Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord G.o.d Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest."

Michael carefully walked among the rocks, down to the edge of the rushing river. The surging blood was so loud that Mac worried he would not be able to hear Michael if he spoke again. And as if he knew Mac's fear, Michael turned and beckoned him closer. Mac hesitated. Michael was being spotted with blood. His brown robes were speckled, as were his beard and face and hair.

"Come," he said.

And Mac went.

Michael stood with one foot on a rock and the other just inches from the river. He said, "Thou art righteous, o Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy."

Then another voice, Mac did not know from where: "Even so, Lord G.o.d Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments."