They found Bill in the retaining pool at the bottom of the spillway. The night before, he'd slipped out of the hospital, taking his clothes and shoes. After that, the trail went cold. Someone said they had seen him at the tables, although the man demurred; he could be thinking of a different night, he said. Bill was always at the tables. It would have been more remarkable if he weren't.

It was the fall that had killed him: a hundred feet from the top of the dam, then the long slide to the pool, where his body had wedged against a drain. His legs were shattered, his chest caved in; otherwise, he looked the same. Had he jumped or was he pushed? His life was not what they had thought it to be; Sara wondered how much Kate had kept from her. But it was not a question to ask.

The matter of his debts remained. Pooling their savings with Kate's, Sara and Hollis could assemble less than half the amount owed. Three days after the burial, Hollis took the money to the building in H-town that everyone still called Cousin's Place, though Cousin himself had been dead for years. Hollis hoped that this token of good faith, combined with his old connections, would square the matter. He returned, shaking his head dispiritedly. The players had changed; he had no clout. "This is going to be a problem," he said.

Kate and the girls were bedding down at Sara and Hollis's house. Kate seemed benumbed, a woman who had accepted a fate she had long seen coming, but the girls' grief was shattering to witness. In their young eyes, Bill was simply their father. Their love for him was uncolored by the knowledge that he had, in a sense, shunned them, choosing a path that would take him away from them forever. As they grew, the wound would morph into a different kind of injury-one not of loss but of rejection. Sara would have done anything in her power to spare them this pain. But there was nothing.

The only thing to do was hope that the situation would blow over. Two more days passed, and Sara came home to find Hollis sitting at the table in the kitchen, looking grim. Kate was on the floor playing cards with the girls, but Sara could see this was intended as a distraction; something serious had happened. Hollis showed her the note that had been slid under the door. In blocky handwriting, like a child's, two words: "Adorable girls."

Hollis kept a revolver in a lockbox under the bed. He loaded it and gave it to Sara.

"Anybody comes through that door," he instructed, "shoot them."

He didn't tell her what he'd done, though that was the night Cousin's Place burned to the ground. In the morning, Sara went with Kate to the post office to mail the letter that would, in all likelihood, arrive in Mystic Township many days after she did. Coming for a visit, Kate wrote to Pim. The girls can't wait to see you.

33.

Yes, I am tired. Tired of waiting, tired of thinking. I am tired of myself.

My Alicia: how good you have been to me. Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris: "It is a comfort to the wretched to have companions in misery." When I think of you, Alicia, and what we are to each other, I am reminded of my first trip to a barbershop as a boy. Indulge me-memory is my method in all things, and the story has more bearing than you think. In my boyhood town, there was only one. It was a kind of clubhouse. On a Saturday afternoon, escorted by my father, I entered this sacred masculine space. The details were intoxicating. The odors of tonic, leather, talc. The combs lounging in their disinfecting aquamarine bath. The hiss and crackle of AM radio, broadcasting manly contests upon green fields. My father beside me, I waited on a chair of cracked red vinyl. Men were being barbered, lathered, whisked. The owner of the shop had been a World War II bomber pilot of some renown. Upon the wall behind the cash register hung a photograph of his young warrior self. Beneath his snipping shears and buzzing razor, each small-town cranium emerged a perfect simulacrum of his own, on the day he'd donned his goggles, wrapped a scarf around his neck, and crossed the eaves of heavens to blast the samurai to smithereens.

My turn arrived; I was summoned forth. Many smiles and winks were exchanged among the witnesses. I took my seat-a board balanced upon the chair's chrome arms-as the barber, like a toreador flashing his cape, shook out the curtain with which he meant to dress me, wrapped toilet paper around my neck, and draped my body in decapitating plastic. That was when I noticed the mirrors. One on the wall before me, one behind, and my likeness-a reflection of a reflection of a reflection-caroming down the corridor of cold eternity. The sight brought forth an existential nausea. Infinity: I knew the term, yes, but the world of boyhood is finite and firm. To gaze into the heart of it, and to see my likeness stamped a million-fold upon its face, disconcerted me profoundly. The barber, meanwhile, had set blithely about his task, simultaneously engaged in lighthearted conversation with my father on various adult subjects. I thought that focusing my eyes solely upon the first image might somehow banish the others, but the effect was the opposite: I was made even more aware of the innumerable shadow selves lurking behind him, ad infinitum, infinitum, infinitum.

But then something else happened. My discomfort waned. The lush sensory package of the place, combined with the delicate tickling of the barber's shears upon my neck, eased me into a state of trancelike fascination. The idea came to me: I was not just one small thing. I was, in fact, a multitude. Looking farther, I believed I detected among my infinite fellows certain subtle differences. This one's eyes were a bit closer together, a second's ears were positioned a fraction higher on his head, a third sat just a little lower in his chair. To test my theory, I commenced to make small adjustments-angling my gaze, wrinkling my nose, winking one eye and then the other. Each version of me responded in kind, and yet I discerned the tiniest lag, the barest hitch of time, between my action and its manifold duplication. The barber warned me that if I did not hold still he might accidently cut my ear off-more virile laughter-but his words made no impact, so thoroughly was I enjoying my new discovery. It became a kind of game. Fanning says: Stick out your tongue. Fanning says: Raise one finger. What delicious power I possessed! "Come on, son," my father commanded, "quit your fussing," but I wasn't fussing-far from it. Never had I felt so alive.

Life wrests that feeling from us. Day by day, the sublime glimpses of childhood pass away. It is love, of course, and only love, that restores us to ourselves, or so we hope, but that is taken away. What is left when there is no love? A rope and rock.

I have been dying forever. That is what I mean to say. I have been dying as you are dying, my Alicia. It was you I saw in the mirror, that long-ago morning of boyhood; it is you I see now, as I walk these streets of glass. There is one love, made of hope, and another, made of grief.

I have, my Alicia, loved you.

Now you are gone; I knew this day would come. The look on your face as you strode into the hall: there was wrath in it, yes. How angry you were with me, how your eyes flashed with feelings of betrayal, how the words spat with righteous fury from your lips. This isn't our deal, you said. You said you would leave them alone. But you know as well as I that we cannot; our purpose is ordained. Hope is none but vapid sweetness to the tongue, without the taste of blood. What are we, Alicia, but the gauntlet through which humanity must pass? We are the knife of the world, clamped between God's teeth.

Forgive me, Alicia, my modest deceit. You made it rather easy. In my defense, I did not lie. I would have told you, had you asked; you believed because you wanted to. You might ask yourself, Who, my dear, was following whom? Who the watcher and who the watched? Night after night you prowled the tunnels like a schoolmarm counting heads. Honestly, your gullibility was a little disappointing. Did you truly believe that all my children are here? That I could have been so careless? That I would be content to bide a meaningless eternity? I am a scientist, methodical in all things; my eyes are everywhere, seeing all. My descendants, my Many: I walk with them, I haunt the night, I see as they see, and what do I behold? The great city defenseless, all but abandoned. The small towns and farms, staking their claim. Humanity bursting with ripeness, flowing over the land. They have forgotten us; their minds have returned to the ordinary concerns of life. How will the weather be? What will I wear to the dance? Whom should I marry? Shall I have a child? What will I name it?

What would you tell them, Alicia?

The heavens toy with me; I will have satisfaction. I have waited long enough for this savior, this Girl from Nowhere, this Amy NLN. She taunts me with her silence, her limitless, tactical calm. To flush me out, that is her aspiration, and so she shall have it. I know what you are thinking, Alicia. Surely I must despise her, for the deaths of my ignoble fellows, my Twelve. Far from it! The day she faced them was one of the happiest of my long, unhappy exile. Her sacrifice was supreme. It was positively God-kissed. It gave me-dare I use the word?-hope. Without alpha, there can be no omega; without beginning, no end.

Bring her to me, I told you. My quarrel is not with humankind; it is but ransom to the nobler purpose. Bring her to me, my darling, my Lish, and I will spare the rest.

Oh, I have no illusions. I know what you will do. Always I have known, and I have loved you no less for it-to the contrary. You are the better part of me; each of us must play his role.

Thus the long-awaited day. You asked, Who is the king, whose conscience we must catch? Is it I, or is there another? Shall the creator be moved to pity his creation? Soon we will know. The stage is set, the lights go down, the actors take their marks.

Let it begin.

IV.

The Heist.

May 122 A.V.

The jury, passing on the prisoner's life, May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two Guiltier than him they try.

-SHAKESPEARE, MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

34.

"Everybody, kill your engines."

0440 hours: In darkness they rowed the final fifty yards to shore and dragged the launches onto the sand. A few hundred yards south, the glow of burning butane flickered in the sky. Michael checked his rifle, racked his sidearm, and returned it to its holster. Everyone else did the same.

They broke into three groups and scuttled up the dunes. Rand's squad would take the workers' quarters, Weir's the radio and control rooms. Michael's team, the largest, would rendezvous with Greer's to secure the Army barracks and armory. That's where the shooting would be.

Michael pressed the radio to his mouth. "Lucius, are you in position?"

"Roger that. Waiting on your signal."

The refinery was protected by a two-tiered fence line with guard towers; the remainder of the perimeter was a gauntlet of trip-wire mines. The only access from the north was straight through the gate. Greer would lead the frontal assault using a tanker truck equipped with a plow. A pair of trucks full of men would follow. A pickup at the rear, armed with a fifty-caliber and a grenade launcher, would dispense with the towers if need be. Michael's orders were to avoid casualties if possible, but if it came to that ...

The teams dispersed at a quick step. Michael and his men took up positions around the barracks, a long Quonset hut with doors front and rear. They were expecting fifty well-armed men inside, perhaps more.

"Team one."

"Good to go."

"Team two."

"Roger that."

Michael checked his watch: 0450. He looked at Patch, who nodded.

Michael raised his flare gun and fired. A popping flash and the compound appeared around them in blocks of light and shadow. A second later, Patch launched the gas canister from its tube. Shouts and gunfire from the gate, and then a crash as the semi plowed through the fence. Gas had begun to sift under the door of the barracks. As it flew open, Michael's men released a barrage of grazing fire into the dirt. The fleeing soldiers lurched backward in confusion. More men were careening into them from behind, choking and coughing and sputtering.

"On your knees! Drop your weapons! Hands on your heads!"

The soldiers had nowhere to run; onto their knees they went.

"Everyone, report."

"Team two, secure."

"Lucius?"

"No casualties. Headed your way."

"Team one?"

Michael's men had moved forward to wrap the soldiers' wrists and ankles with heavy cord. Most were still coughing, a few vomiting helplessly.

"Team one, report."

A grainy crackle of static; then, a voice, not Rand's: "Secure."

"Where's Rand?"

A pause, followed by laughter. "You'll have to give him a minute. That woman sure packs a wallop."

It had been too easy. Michael had expected more of a fight-any kind of fight.

"These guns are practically empty."

Greer showed him; none of the soldiers' magazines had more than two rounds.

"What about the armory?"

"Clean as a whistle."

"That's actually not so good."

From Greer, a tight nod. "I know. We'll have to do something about that."

It was Rand who brought Lore to him. Her wrists were bound. At the sight of him she startled, then quickly composed herself.

"I guess you missed me, Michael?"

"Hello, Lore." Then, to Rand: "Take those off."

Rand cut her loose. Lore had nailed him with a hard right cross. His left eye was half-shut, his cheek marked with the imprint of her fist. Michael felt almost proud.

"Let's go someplace and talk," he said.

He led Lore into the station chief's office. Her office: for fifteen years, the refinery had been Lore's to run. Michael sat behind the desk to make a point; Lore sat across from him. The day had broken, warming the room with its light. She looked older, of course, aged by sun and work, but the raw physicality was still there, the strength.

"So how's your pal Dunk?"

Michael smiled at her. "It's good to see you. You haven't changed a bit."

"Are you trying to be funny?"

"I mean it."

She glanced away, a furious look on her face. "Michael, what do you want?"

"I need fuel. Heavy diesel, the dirty stuff."

"Going into the oil business? It's a hard life-I don't recommend it."

He took a long breath. "I know this doesn't make you happy. But there's a reason."

"Is that right?"

"How much do you have?"

"You know what I always liked best about you, Michael?"

"No, what?"

"I don't remember either."

It was true: she was just the same. Michael felt a frisson of attraction. Her power had not abated.

He leaned back in his chair, balanced the tips of his fingers together, and said, "You have a major delivery to the Kerrville depot scheduled in five days. Add that to what's in the storage tanks, I'm figuring you've got somewhere in the neighborhood of eighty thousand gallons."

Lore shrugged indifferently.

"So I should take that as a yes?"

"You should take it up your ass, actually."

"I'm going to find out anyway."

She sighed. "Okay, fine. Yes, eighty thousand, more or less. Does that satisfy you?"