They tried the nearest door, but it was jammed shut, so they ran around to the front, and found that door wide open. Sarah ran inside. A lightning bolt smashed down behind her, sagging the roof over the porch, splintering one of the side posts as it streaked down into the ground. The shockwave blasted the front windows in a shower of dirty glass. Sarah turned away, covering her face, and when she looked out again, she realized she was in a blacksmith's shop. There was a large firepit in the center of the room, and above it all sorts of iron implements hanging from the ceiling.

And on the walls, she saw horseshoes, tongs, metal of all sorts.

This room was full of metal.

The thunder rumbled ominously. "We have to get out of here," Evans shouted. "This is the wrong place to-"

He never finished. The next bolt knocked him off his feet as it came crashing down through the ceiling, spinning the iron implements, then smashing into the firepit, blasting the bricks outward in all directions. Sarah ducked, covering her head and ears, felt bricks striking her shoulders, back, legs-knocking her over-and then there was a burst of pain in her forehead, and she saw brief stars before blackness settled over her and the rumble of thunder faded to endless silence.

FOREST.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 11.

11:11 A.M.

Kenner was fifteen miles away, driving east on Route 47, listening to Sarah's radio. Her transmitter was still on, clipped to her belt. It was hard to be sure what was happening because each lightning strike produced a burst of static that lasted for the next fifteen seconds. Nevertheless he understood the most important point-Evans and Sarah had gotten away from the SUV, but the lightning hadn't stopped. In fact it seemed that the lightning was following them.

Kenner had been yelling into his handset, trying to get Sarah's attention, but apparently she had turned her volume down, or was too busy dealing with what was happening in the ghost town. He kept saying, "It's following you!" over and over.

But she never answered.

Now there was a long burst of static, followed by silence. Kenner switched channels.

"Sanjong?"

"Yes, Professor."

"Have you been listening?"

"Yes."

"Where are you?" Kenner said.

"I am on Route 190, going north. I estimate I am three miles from the web."

"Any lightning yet?"

"No. But the rain has just started here. First drops on the windshield."

"Okay. Hang on."

He went back to Sarah's channel. There was still static, but it was fading.

"Sarah! Are you there? Sarah! Sarah!"

Kenner heard a cough, a distant cough.

"Sarah!"

A click. A bang. Someone fumbling with the radio. A cough. "This is Peter. Evans."

"What's happening there?"

"-dead."

"What?"

"She's dead. Sarah's dead. She got hit with a brick, and she fell and then there was a lightning strike that hit her full on the body and she's dead. I'm right here beside her. She's dead, oh shit, she's dead..."

"Try mouth-to-mouth."

"I'm telling you, she's dead."

"Peter. Mouth-to-mouth. Mouth-to-mouth."

"Oh God...She's blue blue..."

"That means she's alive, Peter."

"-like a corpse, a-corpse-"

"Peter, listen to me."

But Evans wasn't hearing anything. The idiot had his finger on the radio button. Kenner swore in frustration. And then suddenly a new blast of static. Kenner knew what it meant.

There had been another lightning strike. A bad one.

"Sanjong?"

Now, Kenner heard nothing but static on Sanjong's channel, too. It lasted ten seconds, fifteen seconds. So Sanjong had a strike, too. Only then did Kenner realize what must be causing it.

Sanjong came back, coughing.

"Are you all right?"

"I had a lightning strike. Very near the car. I cannot imagine, so close."

"Sanjong," Kenner said. "I think it's the radios."

"You think?"

"Where'd we get them?"

"I had them FedExed from DC."

"Package delivered to you personally?"

"No. To the motel. The owner gave it to me when I checked in...But the box was sealed..."

"Throw your radio away," Kenner said.

"There's no cellular net, we won't be in communic-"

Nothing more. Just a blast of static.

"Peter."

There was no answer. Only silence on the radio. Not even static now.

"Peter. Answer me. Peter. Are you there?"

Nothing. Dead.

Kenner waited a few moments. There was no answer from Evans.

The first drops of rain splashed on Kenner's windshield. He rolled down his window, and threw his radio away. It bounced on the pavement, and went into the grass on the other side of the road.

Kenner had gone another hundred yards down the road when a bolt of lightning crashed down behind him on the opposite side of the road.

It was the radios, all right.

Somebody had gotten to the radios. In DC? Or in Arizona? It was hard to know for sure, and at this point it didn't matter. Their carefully coordinated plan was now impossible to carry out. The situation was suddenly very dangerous. They had planned to hit all three rocket arrays at the same time. That would not happen now. Of course Kenner could still hit his array. If Sanjong was still alive, he might get to the second array, but their attack would not be coordinated. If one of them were later than the other, the second rocket team would have been informed by radio, and would be waiting with guns ready. Kenner had no doubt about that.

And Sarah and Evans were either dead or unable to function. Their car was broken down. Certainly they would never make it to the third array.

So. Just one rocket array taken out. Maybe two.

Would that be enough?

Maybe, he thought.

Kenner looked at the road ahead, a pale strip under dark skies. He did not think about whether his friends were alive or not. Perhaps all three were dead. But if Kenner did not stop the storm, there would be hundreds dead. Children, families. Paper plates in the mud, while the searchers dug out the bodies.

Somehow he had to stop it.

He drove forward, into the storm.

MCKINLEY.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 11.

11:29 A.M.

"Mommy! Mommy! Brad hit me! Mommy! Make him stop!"

"All right, kids..."

"Bradley? How many times do I have to tell you? Leave your sister alone!"

Standing to one side of McKinley Park, Trooper Miguel Rodriguez of the Arizona Highway Patrol stood by his car and watched the picnic in progress. It was now eleven-thirty in the morning, and the kids were getting hungry. They were starting to fight. All around the park, barbecues were going, the smoke rising into an ever-darkening sky. Some of the parents looked upward with concern, but nobody was leaving the park. And the rain hadn't started here, even though they had heard the crack of lightning and the rumble of thunder a few miles to the north.

Rodriguez glanced at the bullhorn resting on the seat of his car. For the last half hour, he had waited impatiently for the radio call from Agent Kenner, telling him to clear the park.

But the call hadn't yet come.

And Agent Kenner had given him explicit instructions. Do not clear McKinley Park before he was given the word.

Trooper Rodriguez didn't understand why it was necessary to wait, but Kenner had been insistent. He said it was a matter of national security. Rodriguez didn't understand that either. How was a damn picnic in a park a matter of national security?

But he knew an order when he heard one. So Rodriguez waited, impatient and uneasy, and watched the sky. Even when he heard the weather service announce a flash flood advisory for the eastern counties from Kayenta to Two Guns and Camp Payson-an area that included McKinley-Rodriguez still waited.

He could not know that the radio call he was waiting for would never come.

AURORAVILLE.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 11.

11:40 A.M.

In retrospect, what saved Peter Evans was the slight tingling he had felt, holding the radio in his sweating palm. In the minutes before, Evans had realized that something was causing the lightning to follow them wherever they went. He didn't know any science, but assumed it must be something metallic or electronic. Talking to Kenner, he had felt the faint electric tingle from the handset-and on an impulse he had flung it across the room. It landed against a large iron viselike contraption that looked like a bear trap.

The lightning crashed down a moment later, glaring white and roaring, and Evans threw himself flat, across Sarah's dead body. Lying there, dizzy with fear, his ears ringing from the blast, he thought for a moment that he felt some movement from her body beneath him.

He got up quickly and began to cough. The room was full of smoke. The opposite wall was on fire, the flames still small, but already licking up the wall. He looked back at Sarah, blue and cold. There was no question in his mind that she was dead. He must have imagined her movement, but- He pinched her nose and began to give her mouth-to-mouth. Her lips were cold. It frightened him. He was sure she was dead. He saw hot embers and ash floating in the smoky air. He would have to leave before the entire building came down around him. He was losing his count, blowing into her lungs.

There was no point anyway. He heard the flames crackling around him. He looked up and saw that the ceiling timbers were starting to burn.

He felt panic. He jumped to his feet, ran to the door, and threw it open and went outside.

He was stunned to feel hard rain coming down-pelting him, soaking him instantly. It shocked him to his senses. He looked back and saw Sarah lying on the floor. He couldn't leave her.

He ran back, grabbed both her arms, and dragged her out of the house. Her inert body was surprisingly heavy. Her head sagged back, eyes closed, her mouth hanging open. She was dead, all right.

Out in the rain once more, he dropped her in the yellow grass, got down on his knees, and gave her more mouth-to-mouth. He was not sure how long he kept up his steady rhythm. One minute, two minutes. Maybe five. It was clearly pointless, but he continued long past any reason, because in a strange way the rhythm relieved his own sense of panic, it gave him something to concentrate on. He was out there in the middle of a pelting downpour with a ghost town in flames around him anyway, and- Sarah retched. Her body rose up suddenly, and he released her in astonishment. She had a spasm of dry heaves, and then fell into a fit of coughing.