“All right,” Elliot said, addressing the two men. “If you cooperate, you won’t get hurt.”  He waved the barrel of the gun at the older man. “What’s your name?”

“Carl Dombey.”

“What’re you doing here?”

“I work here,” Dombey said, puzzled by the question. “I mean, what’s your job?”

“I’m a research scientist.” “What science?”

“My degrees are in biology and biochemistry.”

Elliot pointed at the younger man. “What about you?” “What about me?” the younger one said sullenly.

Elliot extended his arm, lining up the muzzle of the pistol with the bridge of the guy’s nose.

“I’m Dr. Zachariah,” the younger man said. “Biology?”

“Yes. Specializing in bacteriology and virology.”

Elliot lowered the gun but still kept it pointed in their general direction. “We have some questions, and you two better have the answers.”

Dombey, who clearly did not share his associate’s compulsion to play hero, remained docile in his chair. “Questions about what?”

Tina moved to Elliot’s side. To Dombey, she said, “We want to know what you’ve done to him, where he is.”

“Who?”

“My boy. Danny Evans.”

She could not have said anything else that would have had a fraction as much impact on them as the words she’d spoken. Dombey’s eyes bulged. Zachariah regarded her as he might have done if she had been dead on the floor and then miraculously risen.

“My God,” Dombey said.

“How can you be here?” Zachariah asked. “You can’t. You can’t possibly be here.”

“It seems possible to me,” Dombey said. “In fact, all of a sudden, it seems inevitable. I knew this whole business was too dirty to end any way but disaster.” He sighed, as if a great weight had been lifted from him. “I’ll answer all of your questions, Mrs. Evans.” Zachariah swung toward him. “You can’t do that!”

“Oh, no?” Dombey said. “Well, if you don’t think I can, just sit back and listen. You’re in for a surprise.”

“You took a loyalty oath,” Zachariah said. “A secrecy oath. If you tell them anything about this . . . the scandal . . . the public outrage . . . the release of military secrets . . .” He was sputtering. “You’ll be a traitor to your country.”

“No,” Dombey said. “I’ll be a traitor to this installation. I’ll be a traitor to my colleagues, maybe. But not to my country. My country’s far from perfect, but what’s been done to Danny Evans isn’t something that my country would approve of. The whole Danny Evans project is the work of a few megalomaniacs.”

“Dr. Tamaguchi isn’t a megalomaniac,” Dr. Zachariah said, as if genuinely offended.

“Of course he is,” Dombey said. “He thinks he’s a great man of science, destined for immortality, a man of great works. And a lot of people around him, a lot of people protecting him, people in research and people in charge of project security—they’re also megalomaniacs. The things done to Danny Evans don’t constitute ‘great work.’ They won’t earn anyone immortality. It’s sick, and I’m washing my hands of it.” He looked at Tina again. “Ask your questions.”

“No,” Zachariah said. “You damn fool.”

Elliot took the remaining rope from Tina, and he gave her the pistol. “I’ll have to tie and gag Dr. Zachariah, so we can listen to Dr. Dombey’s story in peace. If either one of them makes a wrong move, blow him away.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t hesitate.” “You’re not going to tie me,” Zachariah said. Smiling, Elliot advanced on him with the rope.

•         •         •

A wall of frigid air fell on the chopper and drove it down. Jack Morgan fought the wind, stabilized the aircraft, and pulled it up only a few feet short of the treetops. “Whoooooooeeeee!” the pilot said. “It’s like breaking in a wild horse.” *.

In the chopper’s brilliant floodlights, there was little to see but driving snow. Morgan had removed his night-vision goggles.

“This is crazy,” Hensen said. “We’re not flying into an ordinary storm. It’s a blizzard.” Ignoring Hensen, Alexander said, “Morgan, goddamn you, I know you can do it.” “Maybe,” Morgan said. “I wish I was as sure as you. But I think maybe I can. What I’m going to do is make an indirect approach to the plateau, moving with the wind instead of across it. I’m going to cut up this next valley and then swing back around toward the installation and try to avoid some of these crosscurrents. They’re murder. It’ll take us a little longer that way, but at least we’ll have a fighting chance. If the rotors don’t ice up and cut out.”

A particularly fierce blast of wind drove snow into the windscreen with such force that, to Kurt Hensen, it sounded like shotgun pellets.

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