Brought to you by Winterborn

Jumper: - Griffin's Story (book #3)
by
Steven Gould

Tor Books by Steven Gould Chapter One The Empty Quarter Chapter Two Lost (and Found) Chapter Three Burning Bridges
TOR®
ATOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES Copyright © 2007 by Steven C. Gould Edited by Beth Meacham
ISBN–13: 978–0–7653–1827–5
ISBN–10: 0–7653–1827–X

Content
Chapter Four Grasshoppers and Charcoal
Chapter Five Going to Ground
Chapter Six Old Paths
Chapter Seven Punches and Pimples
Chapter Eight Incursions
Chapter Nine Shattered Tiles
Chapter Ten Turning the Corner
Chapter Eleven Going for the Kidney
Chapter Twelve Rites of Passage
Chapter Thirteen Ends and Beginnings

Tor Books by Steven Gould:
Jumper Wildside Helm Blind Waves
Reflex
Jumper: Griffin's Story

Chapter One
The Empty Quarter

Every  couple  of months Dad and I would  climb  in the car and he'd  drive  out  through  the suburbs, out past the  small  towns,  past the farms and ranches,  until  we  came  to what I called
the Empty Quarter. I saw a BBC  special  on it  once–I  thought they said Ruby Kallie, but now I
know they were saying the Rub al–Khali–the "quarter of emptiness."
It's the sea of sand that makes up a fifth of the Arabian  Peninsula, but for us it could  mean
Death Valley, or the Gila wilderness, or the Spanish Pyrenees, and once, it was an island  in the
Bay of Siam that we had to sail a small boat to.
But it had to be empty–it had to be without  people. That was the only  safe  place  where I
could do it, where I could practice.
"We just can't chance it, Griff. You want to do this, this is the only way."
We were living in the United  States then, five  thousand  miles  from  England, in San Diego,
in a garage  flat at the north  end  of  Balboa  Park,  but  when  Dad  said  that,  we  were  a  hundred miles east of the flat. We'd taken the Yuma cutoff, U.S. 98 off of Interstate 8, and it was hot and winds the road.
I was  only  nine then, used to not  knowing  anything,  always  asking,  always  pushing.  "Then why do it at all–why should we even take this chance?"
He  looked  sideways at me and sighed, then back to the road,  swerving  slightly  to  avoid  a bouncing  tumbleweed  the  size  of  a  Volkswagen.  "It  comes  down  to  ...  could  you  do  that? Could you walk away from it? I mean, for me, it would be like spending the rest of my life in a 
wheelchair,  even  though  I  could  still  walk.  I'd  be  pretending  I  could  do  naught,  you  know, making  myself  do  everything the hard way when by  just  standing  up  and  taking  a  few  steps  I could reach that stuff off the wheelchair ramp, the stuff on the upper shelf."
He  sped  up  a  little  as  we  reached  a  rocky  stretch  where  there  wasn't  quite  so  much blowing  sand.  "And,  dammit,  it's  a  gift!  Why  the  hell  shouldn't  you  be  able  to  do  it?  Just because they–" He clamped his mouth shut and looked back at the road.
For once I didn't push it. There  were  some  things my parents just wouldn't talk about, and what happened back in Oxford was one of them. When I'd first jumped, at five,  from the steps
of the Martyr's Memorial in front of a busload of tourists. Well, not then, exactly, but after, the thing that caused us to leave the UK and keep moving.
Dad  began  watching  the  odometer   closely,   checking  the  map.  He  hadn't  been  there
before–our  Empty Quarters  were  always  different.  He  drove  past  the  road,  only  recognizing
the turn after  we  passed  because a tangle  of  tumbleweeds  hid the cattle  guard that marked it.
We  were  the only  ones  on  the  highway–he  just  backed  up  and  made  the  turn,  switching  the
Range  Rover  into  four–wheel  as  soon  as  he  was  in  the  loose  sand  on  the  other  side  of  the
grate.
"Tell me the rules," he said.
"Go on, Dad!" I knew the rules. I'd known them since I was six.
"So, back to the flat? It's two hours, but I'll do it."
I held up my hand. "All right,  all  right!" I held up four  fingers and  ticked  them  off  one  by
one. "Never jump where someone can see me. Never jump near home. Never jump to or from
the same  place  twice. And never,  never,  ever  jump unless I must–or  unless  you  or  Mum  tell
me to."
"And what does that mean–that you must?”
"If I'm going to get hurt or captured."
"Killed or captured by who?"
"Anyone." Them. That's all I knew. The strangers from Oxford.
"And what does it mean if you break the rules?"
"Have to move. Again."
"Yeah. Again."
We drove for another forty–five minutes, though it was slow going. "This'll have to do. Any
farther and we'll be too close to the border. Don't want to attract the INS." He turned up a dry
wash and went on until  we  couldn't  see  the road and the  hills  of  the  ravine  rose  up  on  both
sides.
It took us ten minutes to  climb  to the top of the higher  ridge,  so  we  could  see  all  around.
Dad used his binoculars, taking forever. Finally he said, "Okay. In the ravine only, right–oh?"
I danced in place. "Now?"
He said, "Now."
I looked  down at the Rover,  toy–sized, at the bottom of the  ravine,  and  then  I  was  there,
sand settling around me as I fumbled with the gate.
By the time Dad had hiked back  down I'd changed  into the  coveralls  and the  goggles  and I
had the face mask hanging loosely around my neck. When he came trudging across the sand and
gravel, I was laying out the paintball gun and the hopper full of rounds and the Co2 cartridges.
He took a drink  from the water  bottle and offered  it to  me.  While  I  drank  he  put  on  his own goggles and loaded the gun.
"Don't wait for me to fire. This is  pretty fast–maybe  two hundred feet  per  second–but you could still jump before it arrived if you  were  far enough  away. But bullets  travel  thousands of feet per second. You wait till they fire, and you'll be dead.
"Don't let anyone even point a weapon at you."
I was just seating the face mask when he shot me, point–blank, in the thigh.
"Fuck!" I yelled, grabbing my leg. The paint was red and I put one of my hands right in it.
"What did you say?" Dad looked  half mad, half amused. I could  swear  he was  trying not to
laugh.
I blinked, looking down at the red  paint on my hand. My leg hurt. It hurt a lot, but I wasn't
supposed to use that word. I opened my mouth to reply but Dad said,  "Never  mind," and lifted
the gun again.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice .. .
The paintball splattered across the gravel, but I was twenty feet off to the side. Dad twisted
and got off a quick shot but the  reason  it didn't hit me  was that he missed, not that I'd jumped
in time. I felt the wind  of the  projectile  go past my head but then I was  on the far  side  of the
truck and the second shot passed through empty air, before tumbling through the branches  of a
creosote bush.
"Okay," he yelled. "Hide–and–seek, unlimited."
I turned around and began  counting  loudly. I heard  his  feet  crunch  across  gravel  and  then
nothing.  The  second  I  counted  thirty,  I  jumped  sideways,  thirty  feet,  expecting  to  hear  the
poooof of the paintball gun, but Dad was nowhere in sight.
There were several stretches of sand in the wash and one of these had a fresh  set of  widely
spaced tracks leading across it. I jumped to the stretch of sand without  crossing  the  gravel and
followed them.
I had to find him without getting shot. But I could jump as much as I wanted. Around a bend
in the ravine, the tracks  were  closer  together but they went  another fifty feet and stopped  in
the middle of the wash. Stopped.
Dad wasn't there, either, and there wasn't anything nearby he could  have  stepped  onto.  For
just a second, I thought, Maybe ... maybe Dad could–
The paintball  caught me on the butt. It didn't hurt near as much as the last  one  but  it  hurt
my pride. I spun and jumped at the same  time,  sideways,  ten feet,  sloppy–there  must've  been
ten  pounds  of  dirt  falling  away  from  me  and  jump  rot  hanging  in  the  air  where  I'd  been.
Twisting, fading jump rot.
Dad was stepping out from behind some scrub. The gun hung loosely at his side.
I pointed at the line of tracks in the sand. "Did you jump?"
He  laughed,  almost  a  bark.  "Don't  I  wish!  I  just  turned  around  and  walked  back  in  my
tracks." He pointed at some rocks near his  hiding  place.  "Stepped  off the sand there and Bob's
your  uncle."  He  pointed  his  finger  at  the  ground  and  twirled  it  like  he  was  stirring  a  drink.
"Again."
I turned  around  and  started  counting  loudly.  As  he  ran  off  he  shouted  over  his  shoulder,
"Look for more than tracks in the sand!"
And  that's  the  sort  of  thing  we  did  for  the  next  hour.  We  did  hide–and–seek,  limited
(where I couldn't jump until I saw  him), and tag,  where I had to jump  close  enough  to  touch
him and get away  without  getting shot, and  closed  room,  where  we  drew a  big  square  in  the
sand and I could jump anywhere in it but not leave it, while he fired shot after shot.
Once he hit a patch of jump rot  where I'd been and the  paintball  exploded,  coming  back
out as  high–velocity  pieces  of  plastic  film and a mist of spray  paint.  Another  time,  I  jumped
late and the paintball  came  with me, tumbling through the brush at right  angles  to its  original
path, but missing me.
Dad  was  perplexed.  "Wow,  I  don't  think  I've  ever  seen  it  do  that  before."  Dad  had  this theory that the jump rot  was  like,  well,  like  the  wake  of  a  ship,  the  disruption  of  the  water when a vessel passes through. It's like the turbulence or maybe even a hole I leave 
behind.
When I jump in a hurry,  sloppily,  there's  more  of it and I carry  more  crap  with me. When
I'm focused, if there is jump rot, it's tiny, and fades away almost instantly.
We continued. When Dad said, "Enough," I had one  more  paint mark on my right  shoulder
blade,  but  he'd  gone  through  seventy  paintball  rounds.  He  let  me  shoot  a  dozen  rounds  at  a
boulder, enough to finish off the last of the Co2 cartridge, and then we went home.
He never said anything about my swearing and I never said anything about him  shooting  me
in the leg. Call it even.
Tuesday and Thursday afternoons I had karate class.
Mum had a doctorate in French literature but she didn't work. She was  homeschooling  me.
She said that I just got too bored in the public education system, but I heard them talking  once,
when they thought I was asleep.
Dad said, "What can  we  do about it? He's  too young to hold a secret  this big  all  the  time.
It's not fair to him and it's too dangerous. Maybe later, when he's older."
Mum said, "He's not a kid. No kid ever talked like that– he's a miniature  adult. He needs to
run up against kid logic and skin his knees where we're  not there to  pick  him up. He needs to
make friends."
The  compromise  was  karate  class.  The  homeschooling  curriculum  required  a  physical
education equivalent so I had to do something.
I think Dad went for it because of the discipline  and because  he thought, from the  class  he
watched, that the kids  never  talked to  each  other.  Well,  we  weren't  supposed  to  talk  during
class  but  it  was  an  after–school  program  at  the  elementary  school  two  blocks  away–all
form–one kids. Of course there was talking.
I liked our instructor, Sensei Torres. He didn't play favorites and he was  very  gentle and he
was very careful to keep Paully MacLand in check.
Paully  was in fifth grade  for  the  second  time  and  he  was  almost  as  tall  as  Sensei  Torres.
He'd been doing the karate program since first grade and had a green belt.
And he was mean.
We were doing two–step kumite partner practice. One person  would  attack with a punch
and  the  other  would  block  and  counterpunch.  I  was  working  with  Paully  and  he  wasn't
interested in the exercise. He was interested in hurting.
There  was a definite  no–contact  rule. If you  kicked  or  punched  you  had  to  stop  short  of
hitting  anybody.  It  was  a  firm  rule  and  anyone  who  broke  it  had  to  sit  out  and  could  get
dropped  from the  class  if he kept  doing it. Paully  knew  that.  One  of  the  kids  told  me  Paully
was  kicked out of the  class  back in fourth  grade  for  repeated  offenses  and  was  only  allowed
back the next year.
What Paully did instead  was turn his  blocks  into  strikes.  He'd  block  so hard, it hurt–it left
bruises. Like, perhaps, a paintball round in the thigh, point–blank.
I didn't  swear  this time, though. I gritted my  teeth  instead  and  kept  going.  To  hit  so  hard,
Paully  was  drawing  back,  cocking  before  the  block,  which  required  he  start  almost  before  I
actually  punched. Next time it was my turn, I broke my rhythm,  stepping  in,  but  delaying  the
punch  slightly. He  blocked  and  missed  my  arm  entirely.  My  punch  stopped  just  short  of  his
nose.
Sensei  Torres  laughed and  had  everybody  change  partners.  Later  he  said  to  me  privately,
"Good  eyes,  Griff. It  was  bad  karate.  In  a  real  fight,  you  can't  block  a  strike  that  hasn't  even
started."
But Paully was  waiting  when I finished  changing  for the walk  home, just inside  the  locker
room,  blocking  the  door.  "So,  you  limey  ass–licker,  think  you're  somethin'  with  that  stutter
punch? Think you can make me look bad in front of Sensei?"
Maybe Dad  was  right  about  me  having  trouble  keeping  my  mouth  shut.  It  just  came  out, unbidden.
"Bollocks.  You don't need me to  look bad. You do that all by yourself."  Right  away  I  was sorry I said it, scared,  in fact, but how do you take  something  like that back,  especially  when
you mean it?
He just charged,  rage  painted on his  face  like  red  paint,  his  fist  cocked  back  and  looking
larger than any paintball.
I couldn't  help  it.  Really,  I  didn't  mean  to  do  it,  I  didn't  mean  to  break  the  rule,  but  one
second his fist was heading toward my face like a thrown rock and the next I was  standing in a
cloud of dust in a ravine, next to a paintball–splattered boulder, out in the Empty Quarter.
I'd just  broken  rules  number  one  and  two  (don't  jump  near  home  and  don't  jump  where
someone  can  see  me) and maybe  even  rule  four (don't jump unless I must–if I'm going to get
killed or captured).
I was in so much trouble.
So  I  lied.  I  jumped  back  to  the  school,  outside,  in  the  hollow  between  the  stairs  and  a
hedge where I sometimes waited before karate,  before  the last  bell  rang. I used to sit in there
and watch,  invisible,  the outsider–the  foreign  homeschooler–  and  watch  all  the  kids  run  off,
met by their parents or playing with each other on the playground.
I waited until I saw Paully leave, walking odd, looking back at the school  with  wide  eyes. I
exhaled. He looked okay. My worry was that he'd run into the jump rot before it faded.
It only takes five minutes to walk home. I did it in two.
"How  was  class?"  Mum  asked  when  I  pounded  up  the  steps  and  into  the  kitchen.  She
glanced at the clock. "Did you run?"
"Uh, yeah. Thirsty." I buried my face in the fridge. I could  feel my ears  burning. I never  lied
to Mum. Well, technically it wasn't lying but they'd always been clear about lying by omission.
I came out with the Gatorade. Mum had  already  pulled  a  glass  from  the  dishwasher.  She
gave me a quick squeeze around the  shoulders  then set the glass  on the counter.  "Pork  pie  for
supper. Potatoes or rice?"
"Rice."
"Broccoli or green beans?"
I made a face. "Broccoli, if we have to."
She laughed. "Well, there's pudding after."
I nodded and headed  for my room, but she  snagged  me  by  the  collar.  "Are  you  all  right?"
She put the back of her hand against my forehead.
"What?"
"You didn't ask what kind of pudding. I'm thinkin' some terminal illness, maybe Ebola."
"Ha–ha. Okay, what kind?"
"Raspberry tart."
I said,  "Brilliant!"  to  please  her,  but  the  truth  was  the  thought  of  food  made  my  stomach
clench into a hard little knot. "I think I'll just go and try another unit of math, okay?"
She took an exaggerated  step back from me. "Or it could be bubonic  plague. But go–mine
is not to question why. This may not last–it  could be a fluke, a temporary  aberration.  Let's not
mess with it."
As I walked back to my room I heard  her saying, "And maybe  he'll  do a  science  unit and a
history  unit  and  maybe  a  French   essay   or   two.   If   only   we   could   find   this   germ,   the
I'll–go–do–schoolwork germ, we could market it.  Mothers  everywhere  would  worship at my
feet. Dare I say sainthood? It could hap–"
I shut my bedroom door loudly.
Paully  would  probably  never  say anything. I mean, what  could he say? He was the  kind  of
boy  who  didn't  like  looking  stupid,  probably  because  he  was  stupid.  Would  he  be  stupid
enough to tell this story? If he just said I scampered  like a baby that would be fine. I wouldn't
care about that.
I did a unit of  long  division  since I said I would.  Actually, I  rather  liked  math.  Everything
works or it doesn't. There isn't anything gray about it. And every time I stopped working on the
math problems, I started thinking about Paully and my jumping. Even drawing, my usual  escape,
didn't work.
I did three units of math.
Mum and Dad were  talking about an upcoming  business  trip at  dinner  so  I  didn't  have  to
say much. I  knew  if  I  didn't  eat,  they'd  really  begin  to  suspect  something.  I  ate  as  much  as  I
could but it sat in my stomach like lead.
"What are you thinking about, Griff?"
"What? Uh, nothing, Dad."
"You've been staring at the  wall  for  five  minutes. No moving  fingers, I hope?  Mene  mene
tekel upharsin and all that."
Dad's a bit odd sometimes. "Math, I guess. And I was thinking about karate today. And when
we did paintball out in the desert." All true. All lies.
He  nodded.  Both  of  them  watched  me  and  it  felt  like  the  truth  was  written  across  my
forehead. I could feel my ears  heating up. "I don't understand why things  repeat  sometimes  to
infinity."
It was my best distraction.  When in doubt, always  ask a math question  or a question about
Le Petit Prince. Either  could  occupy  them for  hours,  avoiding  whatever  they'd been on about.
The downside was, well, it could occupy them for hours.
"What do you mean?"
"Like  ten divided  by  three.  You  know–the  answer  is  three  point  three  three  three  three
three  three  three and so  on.  Forever, I guess. But does  it go on  forever?  How  do  they  know?
Maybe  after  enough  times  it  becomes  two?  Or  four?  They  call  it  a  rational  number,  but
really–what's rational about that?"
So Mum pulled down a pad of paper and Dad pulled out an old  textbook and by the time I
escaped to my room, an hour and a half later, they were showing each other that it was really a
function of a base–ten numbering system. "Yeah, if you divide ten by three in base nine, you get
three."
I shut the door to my room and flopped  facedown  onto my bed. I should  have  told them. I
wanted to tell them. But I didn't want to move again.
I changed  for bed early, and tried to  lose  myself in reading, in drawing,  even math. Later I
brushed my teeth without  being  asked,  causing  more  comments  from Mum. She  came  in  and
kissed me good night. Dad stood in the doorway, said, "Good dreams, Griff."
Mum asked, "You want the door shut?"
"Yeah."
"Bonne nuit, mon cher."
Normally I'm asleep in minutes but this time I couldn't get it out of my head. I'd lied  about
it. I'd broken the rules.
So they'll never know. Only Paully saw and who would believe him, even if he talked?
I buried my head under my  pillow but it didn't  help.  I'd  know.  Didn't  matter  if  Mum  and
Dad found out. I'd always know.
I got up. I could hear  them–well, I could  hear the TV. They always  watched the late  news
together  and  drank  a  cup  of  herbal  tea.  It  was  part  of  their  routine,  their  last  thing  before
bedtime.  Sometimes I'd sneak  down the hall and watch  from the  corner.  Half  the  time  Mum
would doze off during the sports and Dad would tease her about it.
I eased  open my door. I had to  tell  them. Whatever  happened, I had to  tell  them. I took a
step out into the hall and the doorbell rang.
I felt a jolt in the stomach. Paully? His parents? Someone from the school?
Dad turned off the TV before  he went to the door,  followed by Mum, yawning. She hadn't
fallen  asleep  yet–the  news  was  on  the  weather.  She  saw  me  in  the  doorway  and  blinked, started to frown.
I heard Dad open the door–it  was  around the  corner  past  the  kitchen  so  I  couldn't  see  it from the hall.
"Mr.  O'Conner?" It was a woman's  voice.  "I'm so  sorry  to drop by this late, but I'd like  to
talk to you about Griffin. I'm from the Homeschooling Administration Department at SDSD."
Mum's head snapped around. "No, you're not."
"Beg your pardon?" the woman's voice said.
"You're not. It's not the SDSD. It's the San  Diego  Unified  School  District  or the San  Diego
City  Schools.  And  there  is  no  department  for  homeschooling.  It's  done  through  the  charter
schools."
"Fine.  Have  it  your  way,"  said  the  woman.  Her  voice,  previously  warm  and  apologetic,
went hard like granite.
Mum took a step  away  from the  door and I saw  her  eyes  get  really  big. Her hand down at
her side jerked toward me and pointed back, a clear indication to go back into my room.
I took a step back but I left the  door  open  so that I could  still  hear, but what I heard  was
Dad saying, "Put the knife down. We're not armed. What do you want?"
There was a crash from my parents' room, at the other end of the hall.
Back  at  the  door  a  man's  voice,  a  Brit  from  Bristol  by  the  accent,  said,  "Where's  your
kiddie?"
Dad shouted, "Griff–" There was a thud and his voice  cut off. Mum  screamed  and I jumped
–
–  into  the  living  room,   magazine   pages   flying  through  the  air,  books   falling   off  the
bookshelf.
Dad was  on his  knees,  one hand to his head. There  were  two  strange  men and the woman
in  the  living  room  and  they  all  twisted  as  I  appeared,  much  faster  than  Dad  ever  managed,
odd–shaped guns  coming  to bear. I flinched  away, into the kitchen,  plates and cups  shattering
against the  wall  and sink, and heard the guns fire,  muffled, not unlike the  paint  gun, but  there
was an odd whipping noise, and they were  turning again, right to me by the  refrigerator.  Mum
screamed  "Go!"  and  shoved  one  of  the  men  into  the  other  but  the  woman  still  fired  and  it
burned my neck and I was  standing by the boulder, the moonlit,  paint–splattered  boulder  two
hundred miles away.
I jumped back, but not to the kitchen. I appeared  in the dark  garage  below  and scrambled
up  onto  the  workbench,  to  reach  the  shelf  above,  where  Dad  kept  the  paint  gun.  Steps
pounded  down  the  outside  stairs  and  then  someone  kicked  the  door,  to  force  it  open,  but
there was a drop bar–it was that kind of neighborhood.
I put a C02 cartridge in the gun. The top of the door splintered but held. I fumbled a tubular
magazine of paintballs into the gun as a chunk of door fell into the room. The fat barrel  of  one
of the weird guns appeared in the gap and I jumped, this time to my room.
Steps  pounded  down the hall and I jumped  again,  back  to  the  living  room.  A man  held  a
knife to Mum's throat and Dad lay on the ground, still.
I shot the man in the eyes, point–blank.
He screamed and fell backward, clawing at his  eyes. A gun went off and something  tore at
my hip and I jumped sideways again, shooting the man who  was  coming up the hallway  in the
forehead.  One hand  went  to  his  face  but  he  fired  his  weapon  and  multiple  projectiles  with
wires  between  them  tore  through the air  over my head. I jumped behind him and he  whirled
and I shot him in the bollocks, twice.
He doubled over and as he did, I saw Mum.
She was lying on the floor, slumped to one side, and the blood was everywhere.
Plaster  exploded  next  to  my  head  as  a  trio  of  projectiles  thudded  into  the  wall,  wire
trailing, lashing at the paint. I dropped to my knees, half flinching, half numb.
Dad's  puddle  of  blood  was  even  bigger  and  there  was  a  knife  sticking  out  of  his  lower back.
The man I'd shot in the bollocks was twisting around, bringing  his gun up. I shot him in the face again, hitting his cheekbone. He fired  his gun but the  cables  flew  down the hallway,  over
my head,  tearing  pictures  off both  walls. I hit him with the paintball gun barrel, hit him  hard, and again, and again. He dropped his gun and his eyes rolled back.
I turned back to Mum and Dad and the door. I could  hear  footsteps  on the stair. I lifted the paintball gun but there  was a flash  from the  door and a  projectile  caught the gun, slammed  it
up into my forehead.
I fell back, my vision dimming, dropping into some dark and  formless  place, but instead  of
hitting the wall, I fell all the way back onto sand and gravel.
The Empty Quarter. Mum. Dad. Empty.
I tried to lift my head and the moon dimmed and blinked out.
Empty.

Chapter Two
Lost (and Found)

Someone  was  trickling  water  into  my  mouth  and,  startled,  I  inhaled  it.  Wracking  coughs produced  a  stabbing  pain  in  my  head  and  side,  but  I  couldn't  stop.  The  sun  was  high  and blinding.  I  squeezed  my  eyes  shut,  still   coughing.  There  was   something   wrong   
with  my forehead and the side of my neck and my right hip.
Hands  lifted  me,  helping  me  to  sit.  I  managed  a  wheezing  breath  without  coughing  and opened my eyes. Sand. Gravel.
The  Empty  Quarter.  I  touched  my  forehead–there  was  a  ragged  gash,  crusted,  above  my right eyebrow. I dropped farther and felt the side of my neck. There was a scab, like a rug burn.
It tugged when I turned my head to see who was helping me to sit up.
"Mas  comodo?"  a  rough  voice  asked.  White  teeth  flashed  in  a  salt–and–pepper  beard.  I
shifted back slightly. He wore a straw hat and a blinding  white  button–down shirt,  worn  khaki
shorts. His eyes were hidden behind mirrored aviator shades. His skin was brown but he didn't
look Hispanic. Tanned.
"Excuse me?" I managed.
"Oh," he said. "More water?" He offered me the plastic bottle.
I accepted it and sipped cautiously, trying not to breathe it again.
"What happened, kid?"
I blinked. What had happened? Something at home, the woman  who  said  she  was  from the
school district.. . ?
I  think  I  screamed  then.  I  know  I  jerked  upright  and  surged  to  my  feet  and  my  vision
dimmed.
Not sure  how much time  passed, but I  was  lying  down  again,  on  my  back.  Someone  was
holding something over me, which shaded my face from the sun. It was a black  umbrella and I
could  see  the sun shining through the black  cloth and the spokes,  spotted  with rust. The hand
holding it was thin and wrinkled. I followed the arm to a woman  with jet black  hair,  wrinkled
brown skin, and dark eyes like still pools of night.
She saw me watching her and said something in Spanish, to the side. I started to sit up again
and a hand, not hers, pressed me back down.
"Let's not and say  we  did." It was the bearded man from  before.  "Unless you want to  pass
out again. There's a nice puddle of dried blood here. Didn't  see  it before–you  were  lying on it, but I'd say you're better off lying down, okay?"
The wracking sobs came  then. I remembered  it all,  every bit, flashing  over  and over,  from
Mum screaming "Go!" to the blood and the motionless eyes staring into nothing.
I think I passed out again.
The light was different–the sun had shifted halfway across the sky and the wind had picked
up. Instead  of  an  umbrella,  a  blue  plastic  tarp  shaded  my  entire  body,  flapping  gently  in  the
slight   breeze.  A  clear   plastic  bag  half   filled   with  fluid  twisted   and   bounced   with   the
movement  of  the  tarp. A tube  dropped  from  the  bag  and  I  watched  it  for  several  minutes
before realizing it was running into my arm.
Crunching  footsteps  crossing  the  gravel  came  closer  and  then  the  light  changed  again  as
someone stuck his head into the shelter.
"Estas despierto?" It was the woman from before, the one  with the umbrella.  She  watched
my face for some sign of comprehension, then tried, "You okay?"
"Okay? Yes, uh, si. No hablo espanol."
"Okay. Good. Okay." She  pointed  to a plastic  bottle  lying  beside  me, mostly  full of  water.
She mimed tilting a bottle up to her mouth. "Okay?"
"Right. Uh, okay."
I tried to sit up but she shook her head. "No. Descanza. Estate quietecito."
I dropped back. My head spun from the slight effort to sit up. I explored my side and found
a mass of gauze and tape on my hip. I found a smaller bandage on my forehead,  running up into
my hair, the  tape  tugging  painfully  when  I  touched  it.  I  wasn't  on  the  ground,  I  realized,  but
lying on a stretcher, one of those  canvas  things with  two  poles  locked  apart. Turning my head
without lifting it, I realized we were no longer in my gully but on some raised  hillside. I could
see miles across desert, over gullies and low hills.
They'd moved me.
Driven me? Carried me?
I thought about the night before and it was as if I were  stuck, frozen. My mind just stopped
working. I didn't pass  out  but I  lay  there  staring  at  the  ceiling  trying  to  think  but  it  was  too
much–my mind was just shying away  from it. I knew it had happened. It was the gauze on my
head. My brain was wrapped in gauze–white, fuzzy gauze–and it was  hard to  feel  stuff through
it.
I heard someone shout from far away, "Hey, Consuelo! Un poco ayuda!" The woman sitting beside me patted me again on the shoulder and ducked out under the edge of the tarp.
As soon as she  was  standing upright I heard  her  footsteps  go  from a walk to a jogging run. After  a  minute  footsteps  returned,  more  than  two,  but  there  was  a  dragging  sound,  too,  and then the bearded man and Consuelo were  back, a man supported  between  them. His  face  was 
bloody and  swollen  and though his  limbs  twitched  as if to help  support him, he was  helpless
as a baby.
The bearded man glanced at me, watching, and said, "Hey, pardner, think you can get out of
that stretcher? Got someone here who needs it worse."
I blinked, then sat up carefully. The bandages at my hip tugged and my head  swam just a bit
but my vision didn't dim like it had before. I edged off the stretcher  away  from the  newcomer,
then slid the stretcher toward them, holding it steady as they put the newcomer down.
There  was  a  rapid   exchange  in  Spanish  of  which  the  only   word  I  understood   was
"banditos" and  they  were  working  as  they  talked.  Consuelo  was  wiping  blood  off  the  man's
face  as the bearded man hung another bag of  liquid  from  the  same  line  that  supported  mine.
He cleaned a spot on the inside of the man's  elbow  with a wipe  from a tear–open  packet and
then slid a needle into the skin.
I  winced  and  looked  away.  When  I  turned  back,  the  needle  was  connected  to  the  tube
hanging  down  from  the  bag.  The  wind  died  for  a  moment,  then  shifted  around,  and  I  could
smell him. He smelled awful, like one of the dirtier  homeless  guys around  Balboa  Park–rancid sweat and a whiff of urine.
"Uh, need a loo . . . bathroom." My voice was a rasping croak but understandable.
The bearded guy was putting a foam collar around the neck of the man on the stretcher.  He
looked up at me.  "Really? That's  a  good  sign."  He  reached  over  and  pinched  the  back  of  my
hand.
I jerked it away. "Hey!"
He shook his head, chuckling. "Pinch the skin on the back of your hand and let  go.  Where I
can see."
"Why?"
"Dehydration. The longer the skin stays tented, the more dehydrated you are."
"Oh."  I  held  my  hand  up,  palm  down,  and  did  what  he  asked.  The  skin  pulled  back  flat
pretty much as soon as I let go.
"Hold still," he said. I froze and he  peeled  back the strip  of tape  securing my drip  needle,
then  pulled  it  out,  one  quick,  smooth  movement.  I  felt  a  tug  and  then  there  was  a  red  dot
welling up. He handed me an antiseptic wipe. "Put pressure on it with that–hold it high. While
you're peeing you can close your elbow  over  it." He put his  own  finger  over  the  inside  of his
elbow and pinned it by folding his arm up.
"Where's the loo–uh, toilet?"
He laughed. "Pick a rock."
I ducked  gingerly out  from  under  the  tarp.  My  head  spun  and  I  bent  over  for  a  moment,
bracing  my  hands  on  my  thighs.  After  another  moment  things  settled  and  I  straightened
carefully.
There  was a battered  four–wheel–drive  pickup  parked  between  two  boulders,  so  dusty  I
couldn't   tell  what   color   the  paint  job  was.  A  large   pair  of   binoculars   and   a   battered
orange–and–white  ice  chest sat on the tailgate.  Two camp  chairs  sat in the  partial  shade  of  a
mesquite bush.
The pressure  in my bladder  reminded  me why I was  standing. I  took  limping  steps  in  the
direction of the largest rock down the hill and peed behind it.
It  took  me  longer  to  walk  up  the  hill  than  down.  It  wasn't  just  gravity.  Without  the  full
bladder I didn't have the motivation, the need, and the gravel hurt my bare  feet. It was  hard not
to just lie down on the ground right where I was and curl up in a ball.
The bearded man ducked out of the tarp and glanced at me. "You okay?"
No! I thought, but I nodded and resumed my painful limp up the hill.
He motioned toward the camp chair. "I'm Sam," he said. "You got a name?"
"Grif–" I stopped myself. Then continued. "John  Grifford. They call  me Griff." The woman
claiming  to  be  from  the  school  district  had  asked  for  me,  for   Griffin  O'Conner.  "What
happened to him?" I gestured at the blue tarp.
"Bandits.  He's a  Mexican  making  the  crossing  to  find  work.  Pretty  poor  but  with  a  little
money,  usually  everything  his  extended  family  can  scratch  together  in  U.S.  dollars  so  he  can
travel to a city with jobs  once  he's  across.  There's them on both  sides  of the border that prey
on 'em.
And after it happens, they don't think they can  complain  to the  police  on this  side, and on
the other side, half the time it is the police." Sam paused as I painfully lowered myself into the
chair.  "Now,  once  I  heard  you  talk,  I  knew  you  weren't  Mexican,  but  his  story  could  be
yours–who attacked you?"
I looked away and put my hand to my mouth. The cotton gauze threatened to shred.
He added the unbearable bit: "Where are your parents?"
I nearly  jumped. It was  like a blow. I knew I wasn't in danger  but I  still  wanted  to  flinch
away. I wanted to flee, to run, but I knew that no matter how far I went it wouldn't  change the
facts.
"They're d ... d ... DEAD!" There. I'd said it. Said something I couldn't even think. "Where?" Sam's eyes widened a bit and his eyes twitched sideways. "When?"
He thinks it happened  where  they found me, that the  people  who  attacked me  could  still
be around. "San Diego–last night."
Oh, bugger. What was the point  of  giving him a false  name?  Now he'd be able to read the
newspapers and figure out who I really was.
Something my dad used to say went through my head:  Better to keep  your mouth shut and
be thought an idiot than to speak and confirm it.
Sam  dropped  his  shoulders  back  down.  "How'd  you  get  all  the  way  out  here?  Did  they
dump you? Could they still be around?"
I shook my head. "I got away–I came here because  it was ... safe." I looked at the blue tarp.
"Well, I thought it was safe."
"How?"
I  shook  my  head.  "Can't  tell  you.  But  honest,  those  that  kill–"  I  bit  down  on  my  lip  and
squeezed my eyes shut for a second. "The last I saw of them was in San Diego. Not here."
He stared at me  for a moment.  "Well,  Pablo,  in  there,  needs  some  pretty  urgent  medical
attention. We'll be putting him in the truck and then I'll  radio  the county EMS, meet them out
at the highway. The police and the border  patrol  will  get  involved  pretty quick,  so I just have
one question. Should we be mentioning you? I mean, you didn't go to the  police  in San Diego,
did you?"
I stared at him. "What kind of adult  are you? Of course  you're  going to  tell  the  police,  no
matter what I say. I'm just a kid. Doesn't matter what I want. I'm a minor."
He blinked, then laughed without making any noise, like I'd said something funny.
"So why are you even  asking?" Too strident. I clamped my mouth shut, determined  not  to
say anything else.
He stared at me, his brow wrinkled. "Kid, something  really bad happened to you and yours
but all I really  know  is that you're in  trouble.  I  meet  people  in  trouble  all  the  time.  They're
undocumented workers, crossing.  I'm not  here  to judge them, either. What Consuelo  and I do
is  try  and  keep  them  from  dying.  Sometimes  it's  just  a  little  water,  sometimes  it's  major
medical evac. But we don't judge and we don't involve the INS unless we have to.
"I  don't  know  what's  best  for  you.  I  don't  know  enough  about  what  happened  or  why.
You're  not dying–I don't  have  to  involve  the  county  and  the  police.  Don't  know  if  the  cops
would just take you back someplace where  the  people  who did this  could  get at you again  or
if they even  would  want  to  get  at  you.  So,  I'm  askin'  and  I  mean  it:  Should  I  tell  the  police
about you?"
I shook my head side to side, hard, and the scab on my neck tore and stung.
"Well okay, then. I won't." Sam started to get up.
Despite my best intentions, I said, "Why do you do this, helping the illegals, I mean?"
"Someone's gotta. I've been doing it for six years, since I found three dead men on the edge
of my property. Consuelo, she lost her husband and teenage  son  east  of  here.  Their  coyote  got
them halfway  across  the  worst  of it and demanded  more  money  before  letting  them  into  the
truck, still out in the middle  of  nowhere.  She got the story  from a woman  who didn't have to
walk–who didn't die in the basin."
I licked my lips. "She had the cash?"
"She offered a different form of payment."
I looked at him, puzzled.
Sam said, "God, you're young. You talk  like  you're  older  so I  keep  forgetting.  She  offered
sex for passage."
I felt my ears get hot.
"How old are you, kid? Eleven, twelve?"
"I'm nine."
Sam's jaw dropped.
"I'll be ten next month," I added.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I should talk to the police."
"You promised!"
"No, I didn't exactly  promise."  He shook  his head. "But I said I wouldn't. I  won't,  I  guess."
He stood.  "Consuelo!  jDebemos  ir!"  He  opened  the  passenger  door  on  the  truck.  "You  ride
here. Consuelo is going to ride in the back and tend to Pablo."
"Can't I wait here?"
"Not  coming  back  here.  After  we  get  Pablo  into  an  ambulance,  I'm  heading  back  to  my
place." He gestured toward the lowering sun. "Done for the day."
It took me  almost  as much  time  to  get  into  the  truck  as  it  did  for  Consuelo  and  Sam  to
move  Pablo and the  stretcher  into the  back  of  the  pickup,  fold  the  tarp,  and  stow  the  camp
chairs and ice chest.
He drove pretty slow, because the road–well, calling  it a road  was  reaching.  Sometimes  it
disappeared  completely  and it felt  like  he was just driving  blindly  across  the desert, but  then
the  twin  ruts  would  reappear.  Other  places,  going  up  a  grade  or  down,  water  had  carved
deeply into the ruts, and no matter how slowly he drove I was thrown hard against the seatbelt
or bounced off the door.
I looked around and saw Consuelo braced in the corner by the cab, shaded by her  umbrella.
The stretcher and Pablo were secured with straps but Consuelo kept one hand on his forehead,
bracing his neck, I guess.
After a half hour  we  topped a  rise  and  stopped  the  truck.  Sam  took  a  radio  mike  off  its
bracket  and  switched  the  unit  on.  "We  don't  get  into  range  until  here."  He  depressed  the
transmit button. "Tom–it's Sam Coulton. Got a Hispanic  male,  dehydrated,  some  trauma.  Got
beaten and robbed after crossing south of Bankhead Springs. Was two days without water."
The voice that answered was fuzzed with static, barely recognizable. "You need air evac?"
Sam  answered, "Nah. He was  conscious  when I found  him.  I've  got  him  on  IV  fluids  and
we're  less  than fifteen  miles  from  Old  Eighty.  I  can  meet  the  ambulance  at  the  Texaco  near
Desert Rose Ranch Road in about thirty minutes."
"I'll call the sheriff's office. Is he legal?"
"Doubt  it.  Sheriff  for  the  assault  and  the  INS,  if  they  want,  but  they  might  as  well  send
someone to just meet the ambulance at Regional in El Centro."
"Okay–they'll probably dispatch a unit to meet you at the Texaco. Anything else?"
"Nah. Gotta get going if I'm gonna meet the ambulance. Thanks loads. Love to Maribel."
He hung the mike back on the  dash  and  concentrated  on  his  driving.  I  didn't  see  how  he
expected to make fifteen miles in thirty minutes. We  were  doing much  less  than ten  miles  an
hour  because  of  the  ruts  and  rocks,  but  we   reached  the  plain   below   after   five   more
uncomfortable  minutes and  turned  onto  a  dirt  road  that  was  a  highway  by  comparison.  Sam
sped up to fifty and we were up to the motorway in fifteen minutes.
"Are those pajamas?" he asked.
I was wearing sweatpants and a T–shirt, what I normally slept in. "Uh, yeah."
"So you were in bed? When it happened?"
I turned away and looked  out the  window. It was  less  than a half  mile  down the road to a
petrol station. To my back, he said, "Okay. I won't  press but you want to  avoid the cops,  make
yourself  scarce  while  I  deal  with  the  deputy,  okay?"  He  pulled  into  the  shade  of  the  pump
awning  and  began  rooting  under  the  seat.  After  a  moment  he  came  up  with  one  plastic
flip–flop but he had to get out of the car and crouch  down  before  he  finally  snaked  its  mate
out  from  under.  He  took  a  couple  of  dollars  out  of  his  wallet  and  handed  them  and  the
flip–flops  to  me.  "Go  wash  up,  then  get  yourself  a  soda,  okay?  Until  we're  done  with  the
EMS."
I was embarrassed. "Uh, thanks so much. I really–"
"Thank me later. Deputy's coming." He jerked his chin and I saw a distant car way down the road. The roof glittered and I could believe it was a police car.
I dropped the flip–flops  onto the tarmac and put my feet in them. They were  way  too  big
but I  shuffled  my  way  into  the  store  and,  avoiding  the  eyes  of  the  woman  at  the  counter,  I
turned away from the counter to the loo.
The  men's  bathroom  stank  and  I  looked  horrible  in  the  mirror.  My  hair  was  matted  and
there  were  circles  under  my  eyes.  When  I  twisted  around,  painfully,  the  lower  edge  of  my
T–shirt was stained brown with a mixture of dirt and dried blood. Fortunately, the dirt made it
look  more  like  a  particularly  reddish  mud  rather  than  blood,  otherwise,  I  suspect  the  clerk
would've said something–or even called 911.
I tried rinsing the blood out in the sink but it spread the stain over more of the shirt. I tried
the soap dispenser but it was  empty, and much as I needed to, I couldn't  make  myself put the
shirt back on. It was wet and filthy and even though there was gauze and tape over the gouge in
my side, I didn't want the thing near me.
I dropped it on the edge of the sink and jumped.
I thought it was a very sloppy jump at first–every  drawer  was out and dumped and the bed
mattress flipped over and across the springs. Clothes on hangers were  dumped on the  floor  of
the closet. But they were still,  not flying through the air.  Someone  else  had caused the mess. I
froze, listening.
I wanted to hear  something. I wanted to hear my father  talking  to  Mum.  The  silence  was
oppressive,  weighing  down  on  me  like  a  hot  day.  Then  there  was  a  click  and  a  thud  and  a
whirring sound and my heart beat like a hammer.
Oh. It was the AC cycling on.
I looked  out into the hall.  More  things  littered  the  floors–  books,  dishes. I began  noticing
the black powder, almost everywhere.  Fingerprinting  powder.  There  were  holes  in the  walls,
large, jagged, the edges sticking out, like something had been pulled from the room.
There  was  masking  tape  on  the  floor  in  the  living  room,  just  like  on  TV,  two  taped
outlines on the floor. And dried blood.
I turned away–flinched away, really. Glancing out glass panes beside the door I saw  yellow
plastic ribbon stretched across the top of the stairway printed with crime scene:
DO NOT ENTER.
A  police  car  sat  at  the  curb,  too,  windows  down.  I  couldn't  see  if  anyone  was  in  the driver's seat but there was a crackle after a bit and the sound of someone talking,  scratchy,  like
a radio.
Shite.
I backed up from the doorway, then walked  quickly back to my bedroom, the tape on my
hip  tugging  painfully.  I  picked  up  a  T–shirt,  a  pair  of  jeans,  underwear,  my  track  shoes,  and
socks. They'd swept  most  of  the  books  from  my  bookshelf,  but I  found  my  passport  and  my
hoard, three and a half months' allowance, where I'd left them, stuffed between Treasure Island
and Little Big on the bottom shelf.
I turned to the wall for my sketches, but they were gone. They weren't on the floor, either.
There  was a sound  from the front,  like  steps  on the stair,  and  I  clutched  my  things  to  my
chest and jumped.
I was  back in the Empty Quarter, by the  paintball–splattered  boulder, sand and dried  grass
swirling around me. I heard buzzing, flies returning to the dried  blood  where  it had  pooled  on
the  ground.  I  thought  about  the  bandits  who'd  attacked  Pablo  but  there  didn't  seem  to  be
anybody around. I could see footsteps where Sam and Consuelo had carried me away.
I climbed on a rock to change into the clean clothes, easing the pants over  the bandages on
my hip and brushing the sand off my feet to put on the  socks  and shoes. It took  a  moment  to
visualize  the  petrol  station's  bathroom  enough to jump back  to  it.  It  was  the  memory  of  the
smell  that  finally  did  it.  I  stuffed  the  bloody  clothes  into  the  rubbish  bin,  beneath  the  used
paper towels.
When I exited,  there  was a guy waiting  who  glared  at  me.  "Shook  the  door  hard  enough.
What's the matter, couldn't get it open? Is that why you took  so  fucking  long?" He  shouldered
past me into the bathroom without acknowledging my faint, embarrassed "Sorry."
The ambulance and the police were outside. The medical  chaps  were  just easing  Pablo  off
the  canvas  stretcher  and  onto  the  fancy  ambulance  gurney.   Consuelo   was   watching  the
paramedics while Sam was just outside, by the store door, talking with a uniformed deputy.
I went back to the refrigerated cabinets and picked out a large bottle  of  Gatorade, then got
some potato crisps. American  chips. That's what I miss  from  England–all the different  flavors
of crisps. Roast beef and horseradish was my fave.
I paid, using my money, and  went  out  front,  away  from  Sam  and  the  deputy  where  there
was  a  bench  in  the  shade  of  the  overhang.  The  Gatorade  was  good  but  the  crisps  were
incredible,  like  my  body  was  craving  the  salt.  I  almost  went  in  and  bought  another  bag,  but
though my mouth said yes my stomach said no. I settled back and sipped from the bottle.
The deputy went back to his  vehicle  and brought  back  a  map.  Sam  and  he  moved  up  the
porch to spread it across the top of a rubbish can. Sam pointed out  some  specific  location  for
him and I heard him say, ". . . said  there  were  three men. They spoke  Spanish to him and each
other. Could be a rival coyote gang–I've seen that happen."
"You see any vehicles?"
Sam  shook  his head. "Only  dust.  You  know,  kicked  up, but  miles  away.  Normal.  Nothing
close  enough to ID. And I was  lookin',  too. Didn't want to  run  into  the  assholes  who  did  for
Pablo."
"Hmm."  The  deputy  tilted  back  his  hat  and  asked,  "You  run  into  anybody  out  there  who
wasn't in a vehicle? Someone who just needed a little more water but kept walkin'?"
Sam laughed. "Not today, Ken. The ones  who do it right  cross  at night and  hole  up  during
the heat of the day. They may have  seen  me and Consuelo. I usually don't  see  'em at all  unless
they're in a bad way." He jerked his chin toward the ambulance.
"Okay, then. You going back there?"
"Not today. Goin' home."
"Hmmm.  Okay.  I'll  put  the  word  out  to  the  state  police  and  the  border  patrol.  You  run
across anything suspicious, let us know, right?"
"Right."
They shook hands and the deputy went back to his car and began talking on the radio.
Sam  glanced  at  me  and  started  to  go  into  the  store  then  stopped.  "Huh.  There  you  are.
Where'd you get those clothes?"
I opened my mouth to tell him, but what could I say? Really?
"I didn't nick 'em." I stood up and handed him the  flip–flops  and the two  dollars  he'd  given
me  earlier.  As  he  took  them  I  dropped  back  onto  the  bench,  hard,  surprised.  My  knees  had
given out and it seemed the gas pumps were swaying in the wind. "Whoa."
"Dizzy, eh?" He looked at me a moment longer. "Gonna gas up. Don't  really  need it but it'll
give the deputy time to  move  off. You just sit  here,  right? Wish I–oh,  well.  Just sit. Rest. You
feel faint, put your head between your knees."
I nodded.
He went back to the truck. They'd just finished  putting Pablo in the back of the ambulance
and  Sam  exchanged  a  few  words  with  the  paramedic  before  they  closed  up  and  drove  off
down  the  highway,  lights   flashing  but  no  siren.  I  closed  my  eyes   for  a  few   seconds–I
thought–then the truck was there, right in front of me.
"Why don't you lie down in back, Griff?"
I wondered if I should  go with them at all, but I didn't know what  else  to do. The thought
of  lying  down  was  good,  really  good. I nodded and he  helped  me  climb  over  the  tailgate  and
drop onto the canvas stretcher. He gave me a folded blanket to use as a  pillow.  "We're  headed
west–cab should shade you, takes about forty–five minutes, all right?" "All right," I said.
He tucked the Gatorade between my arm and my side. I thought about drinking  again, but it was too much effort.
I don't even remember him pulling out of the petrol station.

Chapter Three
Burning Bridges

Consuelo  lived  with  Sam,  but  it  was  a  strange  relationship,  almost  as  if  she  was  his girl–of–all–work  and he was  her  little  boy. I  mean,  she  cleaned  and  cooked  and  did  laundry.
But  she  also  scolded  him  constantly,  long  bursts  of  rapid–fire  Spanish  to  which  he  almost always  answered, "I Clam que  si!" At first I thought they  were  married,  but  she  had  her  own little bedroom in the back with a wall of religious icons, saints, the Virgin Mary, and Jesus.
They stayed at home the day after they'd found me but for the next four days after that, they
loaded the truck up with the stretcher and medical supplies and bottled water and drove out.
Consuelo  would  make me a lunch and show it to me  before  leaving.  "Ahi te deje  listo  to
lonche." Then she  would say,  "Descanza  y  bebe  mucha  agua."  And  she  would  mime  drinking
from a bottle.
And I would say, "/Claw que si!"
And Sam would laugh and she would start scolding him again.
I did rest and drank mucha  water the first day. And slept. It was  very  easy  to  sleep.  I  was
tired but thinking about anything–well, about Mum and Dad–exhausted me. It was  cry  or  sleep
and sometimes both.
The second day I walked  around  outside. It was an  old  adobe  house  in  the  middle  of  the
desert,  with  weathered  outbuildings  for  livestock  and  horses  but  they  were  long  gone.  The
only remotely domesticated animals on the property were a few feral cats.
"They  keep  having  kittens  but  the  coyotes  keep  their  population  down,"  Sam'd  told  me.
"My dad sold  off most of the land in the  fifties,  when  he  went  from  ranching  to  running  the
co–op  in  town,  but  it's  been  in  the  family  since  before  the  Treaty  of  Guadalupe  Hidalgo.
Wouldn't be if they hadn't  married  Anglos  into  the  family,  but  that  way  the  land  grant  stuck.
Didn't hurt that nobody really wanted this desert crap."
He said there were neighbors about a mile away, but nobody closer. "Water's iffy. I've got a
spring but most places around here you have to drill six hundred feet to get water."
I spent  most of the time  outside by the  concrete  tank that captured the spring. The runoff
poured over a little notch in the edge and ran down into a gulley–I guess it would be  called  an
arroyo.  The  little  brook  didn't  last  long  before  it  sank  into  the  sandy  bottom,  but  this  wet
section of the  arroyo  was a riot  of  green.  Three  large  cotton  woods  shaded the tank for  most
of  the  day  and  if  I  sat  still  I  could  count  on  seeing  birds,  jackrabbits,  deer,  and  once  Sam
pointed at a track in the wet sand and said, "Desert bighorn. Very rare."
The third day I jumped to  Balboa Park, on the southern  edge  near  the  aerospace  museum,
and crossed 1–5 on the Park  Boulevard  bridge to get to  downtown and the public  library  on E
street. It was a lot cooler in the city–near the ocean and all that–but I still had to rest often.
Outside the  library,  from  the  plastic  window  of  a  newspaper  vending  machine,  my  face
stared at me, like they'd put me in that metal box.
BOY STILL MISSING AFTER SUSPECTED DRUG SLAYING.
Drug slaying? I reached into my pocket to pull out quarters to buy the paper but it suddenly
felt like every person on the street  was  staring at me. Instead I turned and entered the library, walked back to the men's loo, and locked myself in a stall.
Drug slaying? That didn't make any sense.
Thirty minutes later I peeked out the bathroom door but there  wasn't the swarm  of  police
I expected. No one  seemed  interested  in me at  all  so  I  worked  my  way  back  to  periodicals
and  snagged  the  Union  Tribune,  then  found  a  chair  facing  the  corner.  They'd  used  a  picture
from Mum's desk that she took at the zoo three months earlier.
Police still seek missing  nine–year–old  Griffin  O'Conner  (see  photo)  after  finding both of
his parents murdered in their Texas Street apartment Thursday night. DNA tests of blood  found
on the site are believed to be the boy's and he is feared  dead, but there has been no sign  of the
boy dead  or  alive  since  he was  last  seen at his  karate  class  Thursday  afternoon.  Persons  with
information are urged to contact the police or Crime Stoppers at (888) 580–TIPS.
Large  quantities  of  cocaine  found on the  premises  lead the  police  to  believe  that  Robert
and Hannah O'Conner, UK citizens, were involved  in the smuggling and  sale  of drugs, and that
the slaying was either the work of a rival gang or a drug deal gone bad.
Utter rubbish. Mum didn't even like it when Dad had more than one  pint at a pub because
she'd  had  alcoholics  in  her  family.  Why  on  earth  would  the  police  think–well,  'cause  they
found the cocaine. And the cocaine wasn't there before, right?
I felt this moment of doubt, a moment of world–twisting alienation, then shook my head. If
there  was  cocaine  in  the  apartment,  then  someone  brought  it  with  him,  and  no  matter  how
many  times  you  see  that  sort  of  thing  on  TV,  I  doubted  it  was  the  police.  So  it  was  the
murderers, but why?
Because nobody cares what happens to drug dealers.
Because  there  wouldn't  be  a  hue  and  cry  to  find  out  who  did  it  if  the  victims  were
criminals themselves. And the police would be looking in the wrong  direction–for  other drug
smugglers in the city, not for people who'd been following us since we'd lived in England.
I put the paper  back,  walked  between  two  shelves, and jumped to the  elementary  school,
between  the hedge and the stairs,  near the flat. I didn't want to go  directly  there. I  was  afraid
they were still watching the  place. If they wanted me, they could be waiting  inside  for  me to
appear again. And they'd kill me.
Dead.
Like Mum. Like Dad.
I didn't understand it. I hadn't done anything to them. I was pretty sure Mum and Dad hadn't,
either. But they pretty clearly wanted me dead.
I walked  toward the flat and almost  immediately a  woman  pushing  a  baby  pram  stopped
and said, "Aren't you that British boy whose parents were–"
"No, ma'am." The only  American  accent I could  do with any sort  of  conviction  was  Deep
South. "Ah just look like him. You're the second person who's said that today."
"Oh."
I smiled and walked  on but when I turned the  corner  she  was  talking  on  her  cell  phone.
Bugger all. I cut into an alley and when the tall fences hid me, I jumped away.
Empty Quarter again. Either I was getting better or I'd already moved  so much of the  loose
dirt here that there wasn't as much to sweep into the air. The bloodstains  were  fading but ants
were now mining the dark dirt. It still  reminded  me of  bloodstains  on  carpet. I kicked  gravel
and sand over the spot, ants and all.
It took me a moment to  calm  down  enough to jump back to Sam's  place,  by  the  spring.  I
splashed  water  over my face and  sat  down  in  the  shade.  After  a  bit,  I  wandered  back  to  the
house and pulled out the lunch that Consuelo had left me– tamales with pork. The smell  made
me want  tortilla  crisps  and salsa.  Crunchy, salty  crisps  and  a  medium  salsa–I  couldn't  handle
the hotter stuff.
Why not?
I jumped back to the  elementary  school.  There  was a Safeway  market a block  east  of  the school grounds and I went there and bought tortilla crisps and salsa and several large bottles of Gatorade,  then  jumped  back  to  the  spring.  I  started  to  put   the   extra   Gatorade   in   the 
fridge–there was plenty of room–but then I thought about Sam and Consuelo seeing  it there  so
I stashed the bottles  under my bed instead. The crisps  and salsa  tasted  good–really  good–and I
ate them until the bag was empty and I was uncomfortably full.
The bag I buried at the bottom of the rubbish bin, but the salsa jar was half full  so I put it at
the back of the fridge, behind the pickles and mayonnaise.
I wanted to take another run at the flat, to try to get there  without  drawing  attention, but I
was tired and sleepy from the walking and the full  stomach. I was  still  weak, I guess,  from the
blood loss. I thought about jumping directly back to my room, but I remembered  the  footsteps
on the stair. Maybe they'd planted bugs? Maybe they were watching?
I sat down on the bed. The  pillow  pulled at me and I  slumped  over.  I  was  asleep  almost
immediately after my head touched the pillowcase.
Sam  brought  home  the  San  Diego  News  Daily  and  handed  it  to  me  in  the  living  room.
"They had this at the Stop–N–Go," he said.
They'd used the same photo.
BOY FEARED DEAD AFTER PARENTS KILLED.
The story was a little  different but had pretty much the same  facts,  including the bit about drugs and the implication that Dad and Mum were criminals. I clenched my teeth as I read it.
"It's  rubbish,  you  know,  about  the  drugs.  Not  in  our  home–never.  Mum  had  an  uncle–he was an  alcoholic  and he died  of it. We weren't  very  well  off– Mum wasn't  working  because
she  was  homeschooling  me,  and  Dad  couldn't  get  proper  work  because  they're  supposed  to hire  Americans  first  in  his  specialty.  To  make  the  rent  we  were  stretching  every  penny  of Dad's salary. If they'd been selling drugs, think we'd have to live like that?"
He tilted  his head to one  side. "I only  know what I've  read and what you've  told me.  And
you ain't told me much. And what you did tell has some, well–what is your name again?"
My ears  got hot and I looked  away.  "Sorry. The newspaper  has it right.  It's  just  it  was  me
they  were  asking  for  when  they  came  to  the  door.  My  name.  I–"  I  looked  at  the  wall  and
squeezed my eyes shut. "They weren't after Mum and Dad. They were after me!"
Never  jump  where  someone  can  see  me  and  never  jump  near  home.  I'd  done  both  and
Mum and Dad were dead.
"Really.  They  wanted  to  kill  you?"  He  raised  his  eyebrows.  "Did  you  see  something  you
weren't  supposed  to?  Or  is  there  money  involved?  Do  you  stand  to  inherit  something?"  He
pulled a wooden chair  from the  wall  and straddled it backward,  arms  resting  across  the back.
He gestured at the paper. "This wasn't your average sicko hunting little  kids,  was  it? The paper
said the neighbors saw multiple assailants leave, so there was more than one attacker, right?"
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
"They came to the door asking for you? Not your dad or mom?"
"Didn't  I  just  say  that?  It's  not  inheritance,  though.  And  they  weren't  coming  after  me
because I saw something I shouldn't."
"Then why? This isn't the Sudan.  People  don't just kill  kids  for no  reason.  Even  the  sickos
have a reason."
"It's something I did." It just popped out of my mouth, without thought. My heart  raced  for
a moment but I took a deep breath and said, "It's something I can do."
Consuelo,  working  on dinner in the  kitchen,  stepped  into  the  living  room  and  held  up  a
plastic bag with a few pinto beans in the bottom. "Sam! Necesitamos habas. Okay?"
He glanced over his shoulder and said, "Okay. Manana compro?"
"Tempranito en la manana!"
"Okay–first thing." He shrugged and turned back to me. "What do you mean,  something you
did? You kill their dog or something? Piss in their pool? And you're going to do it again?"
It's  against  the  rules.  He'd  never  believe  me  without  a  demonstration.  So  why  does  it matter if he  believes  you  ? It  just  did.  And  they  were  Dad's  and  Mum's  rules  and  they  were dead. "Remember at the petrol stop, when you asked me  where I'd gotten  these?" I pointed at
my shirt and pants.
His eyes narrowed. "Yeah. Thought maybe you'd stashed them near the station earlier."
I shook my head and stood up. "Consuelo needs beans."
"Yeah–I'll get 'em in the morning."
I jumped to the Safeway  back in San Diego,  where I'd gotten the  crisps  and salsa  earlier. I
got the twenty–pound burlap bag of pinto beans and paid for it in the quick–check line.
Four  minutes  after  I'd  disappeared  from  Sam's  living  room  I  reappeared.  The  chair  he'd
been sitting on  was  on the  floor,  on its  side. He was in the  corner,  pouring  something  from a
bottle into a glass, but air swept  around the  room  as I arrived and his hand jerked,  spilling  the
liquid. "Dammit!"
I hefted the bag. "Beans."
He stared for a moment then took a gulp from the glass.
I carried the beans into the kitchen and put them down on the counter.
Consuelo  looked  surprised,  then  pleased.  "Bueno!"  She  rattled  off  a  phrase  in  Spanish
toward the living room and Sam's voice, hoarser than usual, answered, "Si. Yo se."
I went back in and sat down on the couch.
After a moment, Sam put the bottle away and brought his glass across  the room.  He  picked
up the chair and sat on it, forward this time, slumped a little.
"What was that?" he asked  quietly, his  voice  still  hoarse. The smell  of  whiskey  came  with
his breath, reminding me of Dad's weekly scotch.
"I went to a Safeway, in San Diego, bought the beans, and came back."
"I got the bean part. You bought them?"
"The express line was empty."
"Well, yeah, I guess I see that. What I don't get is the traveling to San Diego part."
I nodded. "It's the thing I can do. I jumped. Teleported. Whatever you want to call it."
"Is that how you got those clothes?"
I nodded. "Yeah, I went back to my flat and got my allowance  and my passport." My  voice
broke and convulsively I said, "The tape outlines were still there–and the blood. And someone
started to come up the stairs and I jumped away."
"Deep breaths, kid. Slow it down."
I nodded and tried that, until my heart wasn't racing.
After a bit he asked, "How long have you been able to do this thing?"
"I did it for the first time when I was  five, back in Oxford. In public. In front of  witnesses.
We've been moving ever since."
"Moving? Why?"
"Dad and Mum said it  was  the  people  who  started  showing  up,  asking  questions  at  their
work.  Then  there  was  a  close  call  on  the  street–a  car.  I  thought  it  was  a  careless  driver.
Anyway, I skipped  back behind a postal box and he  missed  me but  he  kept  driving.  No  harm
done, I thought. But Mum saw it from upstairs. I heard her tell Dad he'd been waiting for  me to
cross."
He sucked on his teeth. "Can you go anywhere?"
"Anywhere I've been before that I can remember well enough."
He swallowed the last of his whiskey. "I can  see  why they'd want  you–could be handy. But
why do they want to kill you? If I could do what you do–if I was the sort  of man ... I'd want to
capture you, to use what you do."
"Well, Dad talked about that, too. We read that Stephen  King  book  about  the  girl  who  is
kidnapped by the government."
"Firestarter" said Sam. "Didn't read it but I saw the movie."
"Yeah, with Drew Barrymore. We rented it after we read the book."
"But why not something like that? Why do they want to kill you instead?"
My  heart  started   racing  and  I  was   breathing  fast  again.   Before   Sam   said   anything   I
deliberately took deep, slow breaths. Grief may have been one of the things that the gauze  was
muffling but I recognized the other thing now.
Fear.
They were  going to  kill  me. They  followed  us for  over  five  years  until  they  found  us  and
then they tried to  kill  me.  Made  me want to hide under a bed. Made  me want to curl up in a
ball and pull dirt over me.
I went back to just breathing.  Sam's  question  still  floated  out  there,  though,  like  a  falling
glass of milk. You can't grab it in time, you just watch it as it drops,  anticipating the  spreading
puddle of white liquid and jagged glass. "I don't know why they want to kill me."
Later, after supper, in the dusk after sunset, I told Sam I was going back to the flat. "Why?"
"Well, for one thing, my clothes are starting to stink. I want my things."
"And don't you think they'll be waiting?"
"Of  course!"  My  voice  was  shrill  and I  clamped  my  mouth  shut  and  concentrated  on  my
breathing  again. I wondered  if I  was  getting  asthma  or  something.  After  a  bit  I  said,  "I'm  not
going straight there. I'll jump to the neighborhood first and check it out."
"Clothes can be bought, kid."
I dug out my hoard and spread it  out  on  the  coffee  table.  There  were  sixty–three  dollars
and some change, fifteen francs, and seven pounds, eight shillings, four p. "Not really gonna  last
that long, is it?
"Besides–it's my birthday. I'm ten. I should be able to get my own stuff."
"I really don't think you shou–"
Didn't hear the rest but as I walked  toward the flat  from  my  jump  site  behind  the  school
hedge, I felt guilty. I hope I hadn't messed up the living  room  too much. Sam had done  nothing
but help me and what had I done for him, besides the bag of beans?
The flat used to be just storage  over  the detached  garage  of a small  house on Texas Street,
but now the house itself was a separate rental property with a front driveway and the yard had
been split with fencing. There was a narrow path back along the fence to the flat but there was
a police  car  on the street,  pretty much  where  one  had  been  previously.  The  cop  inside  was
reading by the dome light.
I backtracked and took to the alley, sticking to the shadows as I got closer to the house and
avoiding  the backyards  with  dogs.  Fortunately,  most of the dogs  were  inside and  the  one  that
wasn't, a big Labrador named Lucky, lived in the rental house in front and knew me. There  was
a  gap  in  the  fence  at  the  corner  of  his  backyard  and  I  crouched  and  snaked  my  hand  in  to
scratch Lucky's head. He panted and shifted, putting  more  of his body in  reach. I was  working
on his upper  neck  when I felt  his  ears  go up and his head shifted to the right, down the alley.
He gave a halfhearted, "Woof!" but then shoved his head back into my hand. After a few  more
seconds of scratching, I heard the distant scuffing of feet on gravel.
Lucky's  fence put me in  deep  shadow  and  I  was  also  screened  from  that  direction  by  an
overdeveloped  hibiscus  growing  into  the  alley  from  the  corner  of  our  yard.  Peeking  around
the hibiscus at knee  level I saw the outline  of  three men  walking  down the alleyway,  backlit
by  the  distant  streetlight.  One  of  them  carried  a  shoulder–slung  bag  and  they  all  walked
oddly–lifting each  foot  from the ground and then putting it down  heel  first  before  rolling  the
foot forward to the toes.
I  pulled  my  head  back  quickly,  afraid  they'd  seen  me,  and,  in  fact,  I  heard  someone  say,
"What's that?"
Then Lucky began barking up a storm, right by my head. I nearly  recoiled  out into the  alley
but realized it was the voice he was barking at.
Lucky's  owner,  Mr.  Mayhew,  came  to the back  door.  "Lucky! Get your  noisy  ass in  here!"
Lucky went bounding to the back door. "What did you hear?" he said quietly. He put the dog in
but  stood  there  on  the  back  porch  for  a  moment,  listening.  I  wondered  if  Lucky  had  been
barking the night they killed Mum and Dad.
After  a  moment  I  heard  the  door  creak  again  and  light  silhouetted  Mr.  Mayhew  as  he
stepped back into his kitchen.
I leaned  forward  a  tad,  looking  through  the  branches  of  the  hibiscus.  The  three  men  had
flattened  themselves  against  the  garage  door  in  response  to  Lucky's  barking,  but  when  Mr.
Mayhew  went  back  inside  they  moved  again,  working  quickly.  The  stairway  from  the  flat
descended  toward the street, and at ground  level  it was  visible  from the  patrol  car  parked in
front. Instead of  going that way, the one  with the bag set it to the side, then stepped  between
the  other  two.  They  both  dropped  to  one  knee  and  grabbed  his  ankles,  then  stood  abruptly,
throwing him straight up.
He grabbed the railing above and got one  foot  on the landing  with  only the slightest  noise,
then swung  over  the  railing  and  dropped  to  a  crouch  before  the  door.  I  presumed  the  door
was  locked  but  he  had  it  open  almost  immediately.  He  stood  up  again  and  leaned  over  the
railing. The men  below  heaved up the hanging bag, but he almost  missed it, snagging it by  the
strap at the last minute. One of the men below said, "Careful, you blad!"
"Shhh!" the other hissed.
"Shhh yourself. The detonators would've made a lot more  noise  than me." I recognized  the
voice. It was the man with the Bristol accent.
On the landing above, the man disappeared into the flat.
The two men below stepped back into the shadow of the garage door. "What keeps it from
blowing up someone else instead–the police, or the landlord?"
"The door sensor. People who come in normally, well, they're not gonna set it off. But if 'e
pops in, the motion sensor trips when the door sensor hasn't–see? That'll do 'im a treat."
Like you did for my parents? I groped  for a rock–a  big  rock I could  throw  or  strike  with.
There was a line of bricks  under the edge  of the fence, to keep Lucky from  digging out. I was
able to pull one from the corner, a jagged half  brick  tucked in to  complete  the row. I wanted
to heave it at them and jump away. Or maybe jump right next to them and hit them in the  face
with it?
My hands  were  shaking and I didn't know if it was  fear  or  rage but I didn't trust myself to
throw the brick and hit anything.
The guy from upstairs came out and dropped the empty  shoulder bag  over  the railing,  then
swung over, lowered himself until he hung at arm's length and dropped.
Dammit!
I jumped to the middle of the street and stepped up to the police car. "Hey," I whispered.
The cop  recoiled,  surprised,  his  book  dropping and one hand going  down  to  his  gun  belt.
"Aren't you–?"
"Yes! But the men  who  killed my parents  are  right  there!" I stabbed my finger  back  down
the brick path to the stairway. "Behind the garage."
Only they weren't behind the garage.
Projectiles  shattered the  passenger  windows  and  slashed  sideways  and  then  the  cop  was
bent over,  his head  halfway out the  window,  clawing  at  the  thing  sticking  out  of  his  neck,  a
thing with a cable  attached to it, and I  was  in  the  Empty  Quarter  in  a  whirlwind  of  dirt  and
brush.
Oh god, oh god,  ohmigod. Had they seen  me jump? When I appeared at the  cop  car? But I
was on the other side, away from them. I'm short–the car should've blocked me.
I still had the brick in my hand. There was blood on my shirt. The cop's blood.
I jumped back to the alley and peered up the path. The three were  out by the car,  weapons
leveled, each looking in a different direction, but they all  turned back  toward  me the instant I
appeared.
They know when I jump.
They  ran  back  toward  the  flat  and  I  jumped  again,  but  only  down  the  alley,  below  my
bedroom  window.  I  heard  their  footsteps  by  the  stairs  and  I  heaved  the  rock  up,  hard  as  I
could, through my window.
Fire, light, sound, and flying glass. I couldn't have stayed there if I tried, but I returned to the
end of the block almost as soon as I'd flinched away to the Empty Quarter.
Debris  was  still  raining  down and the  roof  was  gone  from the flat and every  car  alarm  in
the city seemed to be going off. I walked  carefully up the  sidewalk  as  dozens  of  people  came
out of their homes to look wide–eyed down the street.
I backtracked and  looked  down at the mouth of the alley,  where  the men had  come  from
when I first saw them. After a minute, two  of them  appeared,  dragging the third with his  arms
across  their  shoulders. As they passed  under the streetlight  I  saw  blood  on  their  faces–flying
glass, I  decided–  and  one  of  them  smoked,  literally,  puffs  of  smoke  rising  from  his  hair  and
shoulder.
A car  came up the street and stopped  abruptly.  They  pushed  the  man  who  couldn't  walk
into the back and climbed in on both sides, then the car was moving toward me.
I  stepped  behind  a  tree  and  watched  it  go  by.  At  the  next  block  it  turned  right.  In  the
distance, the blare of car alarms was replaced by the rising sound of emergency service sirens.
For a moment I thought about  walking  back  to  the  fiat,  to  see  if  there  was  anything  left,
anything I could  take away, but the  neighborhood  was  well  and truly  roused and too  many  of
them knew my face.
I jumped.

Chapter Four
Grasshoppers and Charcoal

When the bus stopped  in La  Crucecita,  I  thought  it  was  just  another  stop  in  the  journey. We'd  been  five  days  on  second–class  buses  and  ruteras–shared  minivans  in  which  the  other passengers  might  include  chickens  and  where I'd ended up  with  a  baby  or  toddler  in  
my  lap more than once. We'd stayed  one  night in a hotel  in  Mexico  City but otherwise  it was  nap as
you could on the crowded, bouncing buses.
Consuelo  said,  "Hemos  llegado,"  and  after  five  days  of  hearing  nothing  but  Spanish,  I
actually understood her.
We'd  arrived. I couldn't  smell  the sea.  I  couldn't  see  it.  I  smelled  diesel  smoke  from  the
bus. I smelled something involving cattle. I smelled someone cooking onions.
My stomach rumbled. Except for  some  crisps  on the bus, we'd  last  eaten in Oaxaca, half a
day before.
Most of the passengers who'd gotten off at La Crucecita took the street  toward  downtown
but  Consuelo  led  me  behind  the  station  and  up  a  forested  hill  on  a  trail  half  overgrown  by
banana  trees  and  brush.  It  was  humid  but  not  too  hot–not  like  some  of  the  places  on  our
journey where it had taken all my willpower not to jump back to some air–conditioned mall.
We crested the hill in less than ten minutes and walked  into a breeze that did  smell  of the
sea.  Looking  between the  trees I saw  flashes  of  sapphire  blue.  Consuelo  turned  up  the  ridge,
away from the water, but thankfully, still in the breeze. After another  five  minutes  she  pointed
downslope at a red clay–tiled rooftop visible between the trees. "Finalmente hemos llegado!"
I  shifted  until  I  could  see  more  of  it  around  the  trees.  It  was  narrow  rows  of  building
around  three  sides  of  a  brick  patio.  A  low  wall  stood  at  the  open  end  but  there  was  also
construction–additions to both wings were in progress, extending the rectangle.
Consuelo crossed herself and then turned to me. "Wal–Mart. Okay, Greeefin?"
We'd been working on my Spanish the whole trip. "No, acuerdate me llamo Guillermo."
"Okay. Lo recordare. Wal–Mart, okay, Guillermo?"
"Claw que si," I said. "Un momento."
The first time I'd jumped in front of Consuelo, she'd gone back to the altar in her  room  and
returned with a vial of clear liquid. She'd splashed it across my face and chest and began a long
Latin speech that began "Exorcizo te" but that's all I caught, really.
There followed an extremely long argument and  discussion  between  Sam and  Consuelo  in
which  she  kept  using  the  words  el  Diablo  and  demonio,  and  he  used  the  word  milagro
multiple  times.  Finally,  to  settle  it,  I  had  to  go  into  El  Centro  with  her  and  kneel  in  the
sanctuary  of  Our  Lady  of  Guadalupe,  cross  myself  with  holy  water  and  take  communion  at
Mass,  which  was  probably a sin,  since I  wasn't  Catholic,  but  she  wasn't  concerned  about  sin
per se, but poderes del infierno.
She  decided  I  wasn't  a  demon  or  possessed  but  she  was  never  completely  comfortable
about it.
Sam wasn't home but the stuff was waiting where we'd left it, in the old  stable–two  garden
carts  (bigger  than  wheelbarrows)  and  a  large  pile  of  clothes,  shoes,  toys,  diapers  (for  her
grown  daughter's  newest baby), and tools. I started  with  the  carts,  a  jump  apiece,  then  began
ferrying the rest. Consuelo took what I brought and stacked it in the carts,  lashing the resulting
head–high stacks in place. It wasn't all bought from Wal–Mart. Just mostly.
It was bumpy but downhill  to the house  so the issue  was  keeping  the  carts  from  running
away  from us rather than pushing them.  Consuelo's  mother,  the  matriarch  of  the  family,  was
the first to  see  her. There  were  tears and hugs.  Consuelo  hadn't been  home  since  her husband
and son's funeral three years before.
Children and a few  adults  followed  quickly, but most of the adults  were  at  work  and  the
older children were en la escuela. I was  introduced  as  Guillermo,  the orphan. La  Crucecita  is
a village  on the south  coast  of Oaxaca, part of a larger  resort  area  called  Bahfas de Huatulco,
about  five  hundred  kilometers  southeast  of  Mexico  City,  a  couple  of  hundred  west  of  the
Guatemala  border.  The  blue  Pacific  water  reminded  me  of  the  Bay  of  Siam,  like  sapphires
shining in the sun. It wasn't that crowded,  compared  with  Aca–pulco  or  Puerto  Vallarta,  but
being a  gringo,  I  wouldn't  stand  out  that  much,  because  of  the  tourists.  That  was  the  theory,
explained by Consuelo through Sam.
Her extended family worked for the  resort  hotels  as maids,  gardeners,  busboys, and  cooks.
Those  who  didn't  work  for  the  resorts  were  in  the  U.S.,  sending  money  back,  but  this  was
changing as the resorts grew and entering the states became harder.
There was a welcome–home fiesta that evening and Consuelo handed out  presents  for  one
and  all.  I  would've  been  lost  except  for  Alejandra,  one  of  Consuelo's  many  nieces.  Besides
Spanish,  she  spoke  English,  French,  and  German,  was  twenty–five  and  beautiful.  She'd  been
working in the tourist industry since she was sixteen and had attended the Instituto de  Idiomas
in Mexico City. She ran a translation  services  agency and taught  weeklong  immersion  classes
in  Spanish,  working  with  the  resorts.  "Visit  beautiful  Huatulco,  lie  on  the  beach,  and  learn
espanol,"  she  said. She  smiled  often  with  her  eyes  but  when  her  wide  mouth  opened  into  a
grin, it was staggering.
It took me five minutes to fall in love with her.
We  spoke  in  French,  not  because  her  English  wasn't  excellent,  but  because  she  had  less
opportunity to  practice  French. That was a little  difficult  for  me–Mum and I would  speak  in
French.
She   introduced   me   to   everybody   from   Sefiora   Monjarraz   y   Romera,   Alejandra's
grandmother  and  Consuelo's  mother,  to  her  many  cousins'  children.  I  was  given  name  after
name, but only  held on to a few. The food  was both  familiar  and strange. I ate a tortilla  filled
with guacamole and some delicious, spicy crunchy thing. "What is it? Uh, qu'est–ce que c'est?"
Alejandra's eyes were alight. "Chapulines. . . los salta–montes."
I looked confused and she tried French. "Les sauterelles."
It  took  me  a  minute.  "Les  sutere–GRASSHOPPERS?  I'm  eating  grasshoppers?"  I  unrolled
the  tortilla  and it  became  all  too  clear  she  was  telling  the  truth:  legs  and  all,  fried,  from  the
looks of them.
She laughed. "If you don't want them, I'll eat them." She reached out.
Stubbornly, I rolled them back up and ate the rest  of it. Crunch, crunch,  crunch. It was  still
delicious but knowing ... I didn't go back for seconds.
The next day I had la turista, really bad, with a fever and cramps and the groaning, stumbling
run to the toilet over and over. I wanted to blame the  grasshoppers, but no matter what  else I
thought, they'd certainly been cooked well. Consuelo brought me a bitter tea to drink. When I
asked what it was, she said something in Spanish and added, "Para la diarrea."
Grasshopper tea, no doubt.
Later, she brought a small wooden box and burned it by the  window  in a metal pan. When
the charcoal had cooled down she mimed eating it. "Comete el carbon de la leha."
"Yuck! Absolutely not."
Alejandra came and coaxed me into taking it. "It absorbs  toxins and is the quickest  way to
stop the diarrhea. You only take it this once. No more after. That would be bad for you."
"I  don't  want  to.  You  also  eat  grasshoppers!"  I  set  my  teeth  and  curled  in  on  myself,
prepared to resist to the death. But she didn't play fair.
"Faites ceci pour moi, mon cher."
French, dammit.
"For her." I managed half of the charcoal washed  down  with  some  salty  boiled  water.  "For
electrolytes." And they stopped bothering me.
The runs did stop after that and I was able to eat rice with chicken broth that evening.  Two
days later, after my first fully solid meal, Alejandra and Consuelo took me out to the patio and
we sat in the shade of the banana trees growing near the wall.
"My aunt tells  me that you are not just an orphan, but  that  those  who  killed  your  mother
and father are still after you."
Reluctantly, I nodded. I knew  we had to  tell  her. It wasn't right to ask her to help  without
knowing. But I liked her. I didn't want her to push me away, to not want anything to do
with me.
"And she brought you here to avoid them. They would still kill you if they could find you."
"Yes."
"She won't tell me why they want to kill you. She says
only you can tell me."
"Ah." I licked my lips  and nodded to  Consuelo.  "Gra–cias." To Alejandra I said, "That–that
was good of her." Consuelo was keeping my secret.
Consuelo  said  something  then,  and  there  was  a  brief  back–and–forth  between  her  and
Alejandra that was too fast for me to follow.
Alejandra looked back at me, a little confused. "She says she is willing to try that thing. The
thing she said she didn't want to do before."
I raised my eyebrows at Consuelo. I knew what she was  talking about. I'd suggested it back
in Sam's living room, where he could translate, but she'd been afraid. I guess the thought of five
more days on buses and ruteras was more daunting.
And it would certainly answer Alejandra's unspoken question.
"When does she want to leave?"
Compared  with the stuff we  arrived  with,  Consuelo's  little  suitcase  was tiny, but she  was
taking back a box of regional foods she couldn't buy in California.
"Any grasshoppers? iChapulines?" I asked.
Alejandra laughed and Consuela said, "No. Sam no like."
Still, walking uphill into the jungle, the box was  heavy and I was  sweating by the time  we
reached the level spot where I'd transported Consuelo's gifts. I could've jumped here  from the
patio but I was cautious. I'd decided that the rules had some merit.
So what about rule four? Who tells you when it's okay to jump?
"Can you keep a secret? Like your aunt?" I used  English. I didn't trust my French and it had
to be crystal clear.
Alejandra tilted her head to one side. "Will it hurt me? Will it hurt my family?"
I  swallowed.  "Not  keeping  it  could  hurt  your  family."  She  frowned  and  I  said,  "I  would
never hurt them, but those who are after me might hurt them, getting to me."
"Okay. I can  keep a secret."  She  leaned  slightly  closer  to me than her aunt and whispered,
"And who tells their parents everything?"
Ouch.
"All right. Let's start with this box."
I jumped to Sam's  living  room.  He wasn't in there but I heard  movement  in the kitchen.  I
called out, "Sam, it's Griffin."
"Jesus!"  I  heard  a  dish  clatter  across  the  bottom  of  the  sink.  He  appeared  in  the  door,
wiping his hands with a dish towel. "Everything okay?"
"It's fine. These  are  Consuelo's," I said,  raising  the  box  slightly.  I put  it  on  the  table.  "She
changed her mind about the traveling thing."
"Oh? You guys someplace private?"
"You ever been there?"
"For the funeral."
I stared at him. "I didn't know you knew her then."
He shrugged. "Just. I found them. Their bodies."
Oh. "Well, we're in the jungle, up the hillside from the house."
He nodded.
"Okay, then. I'll be back."
Alejandra  was  sitting on  Consuelo's  suitcase,  her  head  between  her  knees.  Consuelo  was
fanning her with a hat.
I knelt beside her. "You okay?"
"Jesus Cristo!" She sat up. "Mi tia dice–my aunt says you just traveled to California."
"Verdad." In the  week I'd known her, I'd never  seen  her  lose  track of  which  language  she
was speaking.
"And back again?"
"Yeah."
"How?"
"Beats  me.  Can  I  have  the  suitcase?"  I  pointed.  She  stood  up  abruptly  and  Consuelo
steadied her. I took the case and jumped.
Sam was sitting in the corner, arms crossed. I put the suitcase down against the wall. "What
took so long?" "Alejandra."
He frowned, then said, "Consuelo's niece? Is she there?" "Yeah. Only her, but we  didn't  tell
her first. Only asked for secrecy. She's a little freaked."
His eyebrows went up. "Well, it do take some getting used to."
I jumped back. Alejandra flinched but it didn't  seem  to be fear. Just the sudden  appearance
of something unexpected, caught from the corner of your eye.
"So, you're going to take my aunt now?"
"That's the plan."
"Have you ever done this before, with a person?"
I shook my head. "When we were discussing it, back at Sam's  place, I tried it with a kitten.
Worked fine."
"My aunt is larger than a kitten. How do I know you won't leave part of her behind?"
"That's  just  gross,"  I  said.  But  it  worried  me  a  bit.  The  heaviest  thing  I'd  carried  was  the
carts we'd used. They only weighed about thirty–five pounds, though, big as they were.
Alejandra said, "Try it with me first."
"What?"
Consuelo, watching us both carefully, said, "iQue di–jiste?"
Alejandra  pursed  her  lips  and  I  realized  she  didn't  want  to  tell  her  aunt,  that  Consuelo
would protest.
I stepped up to Alejandra from  behind and put my arms  around her. I only  came up to her
shoulder  blades; my cheek  pressed  against  her  spine  through  the  thin  cotton  of  her  sundress.
She smelled wonderful.
Consuelo said something sharply and took a step toward us. I jumped.
I staggered a bit, but we were both in Sam's living room.
Alejandra gasped and staggered, too, and I steadied  her– kept her  from  falling  over.  After a
moment she said, "Uh, Guillermo, you can let go."
"Ah." I stepped slightly away from her, then caught her again as her knees buckled.
Sam and I helped her sit on the couch.
"Where's Consuelo?" said Sam. "Is everything all right?"
"You explain," I said to Alejandra, and jumped.
Consuelo was  talking fast and furious  with  lots  of  gestures and I couldn't get  one  word  in
ten,  much  less  meaning.  Well,  I  didn't  understand  the  sentences  but  I  sure  understood  the
sentiment.
I kept trying to  calm  her  down but finally I just  jumped  behind  her,  like  playing  tag  with
Dad in our exercises, put my arms around her, and jumped.
We both staggered forward in Sam's living room, but Sam steadied Consuelo  and Alejandra
grabbed my arm.
Everyone was a little wide–eyed, even me.
Deep breaths.
"You know," I said, "I'm hungry!"
Consuelo couldn't stand for anyone to "have hunger." She didn't even need it translated.
We ate out by the spring and Alejandra marveled at the dryness  of the air and the  trees and
the rocky brown hills.
"iDonde estd lo verde?" she asked her aunt. Where is the green?
Consuelo got a stony look on her face. 'Wo tenemos agua, ni hay verde."
I realized what she was thinking about: her husband and son. No water, no green.
Alejandra realized it, too. "/Oh, perdoneme! No pense." I didn't think.
Consuelo  waved  her  hand.  'Wo  es  importante."  She  said  something  else  that  I  couldn't
understand.
Alejandra translated. "She's  glad  she  doesn't  have to spend  all that time on the buses. Even
if it was terrifying."
"Travel Air Griffin. When you absolutely have to be there today."
"Greefin? Why Greefin?"
"Uh, that's my name. My  real  name.  Consuelo  and  I  chose  Guillermo  because  they  know
my real  name, the  people  who  killed  my  parents.  And  Griffin  is  unusual.  So,  it's  Guillermo,
okay? I mean, you can call me Griffin in private, I guess."
"No," said Sam. "Go on as you mean to go on. She calls you two different  things, it's  easy to
get  mixed  up.  She  calls  you  one  thing,  then  she's  not  likely  to  make  a  mistake  in  front  of
someone else."
Alejandra nodded. "True. But going on? Are we meaning to go on?"
Sam  switched  to Spanish,  asking  Consuelo  something, and the  conversation  broadened  to
include all three of them, but I didn't follow it. I was watching Alejandra. Waiting. Hoping.
Finally, she turned to me and said, "Well, Grif–Guillermo. Do you want to  live  with me in
La  Crucesita?  I  have  a  small  house  behind  the  Hotel  Villa  Blanca,  just  across  from  Chaue
Beach.  There  is  a  small  room  above  the  carport  with  spider–webs."  She  shuddered.  "But  it
could be cleaned out."
I nodded solemnly.
"You'd  have  to  study  hard  and  learn  espanol  because  I'd  be  telling  everyone  you  are  a
distant cousin on my mother's side, the Losadas.  She's  from  Mexico  City, not de  el  lado  de mi
familia de La Crucecita. And you would have to go to the beach often, to tan, so people  would
not call you el gringito."
I nodded  more  vigorously.  "All right.  I'll  work  hard  and  I'll  keep  up  my  home  schooling.
And  I'll  learn  Span–espanol.  And  I  can  shop  for  you,  in  the  United  States  if  you  want,  or
Thailand, or Lechlade, uh, our village back in Oxfordshire– in England."
"Whoa,  boy,"  said  Sam.  "You  are  going  down  to  Oaxaca  to  disappear,  not  draw  more
attention to yourself."
My ears got hot and I stared at the table for a moment. "Uh, right."
Alejandra  reached  out and touched my arm.  "I'm  sure  you  will  be  a  big  help  to  me.  You
already speak French and English. Learn Spanish and I can put you to work in my agency. Or I'll
find  you  work  as  a  guide.  Not  to  worry.  But  school  will  be  your  main  job,  comprendel
Guillermo Losada?"
"Claro que si!"
"Excelente!" She smiled again. "I have an appointment this afternoon. We should return."
And so it went.
Alejandra, who was afraid of spiders (las aranas), had me do the  initial  clearing  of my new
room.  Once  all the webbing  was  down and  the  screens  were  covering  all  the  windows,  she
pitched  in with hot  water and  lemon–scented  cleanser. By the end of the  week I had a cot,  a
dresser,  and  a  small   table  (with   bookshelves   above)   for  a  desk.  A  metal   folding   chair
completed the suite. It wasn't air conditioned but the sea breezes made it quite comfortable.
I had very  little  to put in the  dresser but that changed  over  time  and,  really,  in  the  warm
climate of Las Bahias de Hua–tulco, I didn't need much.
Alejandra not only began as she meant to go on,  calling  me  Guillermo  and never  referring
to me by my real  name,  but  she  also  stopped  talking  to  me  in  anything  but  Spanish,  miming
verbs,  pointing  to  objects  and  naming  them.  Very  rarely  she  would  illustrate  a  complicated
verb  conjugation by comparing  it with  French  usage. She  towed  me  along  for  the  immersion
classes she ran at the resorts, too.
It took me three  months to  learn  enough  espanol  that  she  began  talking  to  me  in  French
and  English  again.  Three  months  later,  she  considered  me  fluent  and  it  was  another  three
months before I stopped sounding  like a foreigner. By the end of my second  year, most  locals
thought I'd  been  born  in  Oaxaca.  I  still  looked  European  but  so  do  many  Mexicans  without
indio ancestors.
I worked for her agency half days, for which she paid me off the books. Three hours a day I
worked on  schoolwork,  in English and French and Spanish.  Spanish  word  problems  for math.
European history in French. Sciences in all of them. And I sketched, everywhere.
I was "that boy who draws" to everyone–in5 the park  before  the church, at the marinas,  on
the beach.  Most  of it stayed in my sketchbooks but the  wall  of my room  slowly  accumulated
the drawings that worked.
The nightmares were bad at first, but they slowly lessened in frequency.  Twice, in that first
month, I woke up, my heart pounding,  staring  around in the sandy wash  of the Empty Quarter,
that spot in the Sonoran Desert where Sam had found me, bloody and unconscious.
The Spanish study helped. At least there was something to do when I woke up. I'd finished
Don Quixote and was  working my way through Arturo  Perez–Reverte's  books  about  Capitan
Diego Alatriste. Or, I'd do a unit of math. Math was always good.
But it was probably a year before I slept all the way through the night.
In my second year there, I bought a boat, a little  fiberglass  dinghy with  oars, a daggerboard
well,  and a small,  removable  mast  with  a  lateen  sail.  When  I  got  it,  there  was  a  hole  in  the
bow  as  big  as  my  head  and  the  sail  was  in  tatters  and  there  were  no  oars,  no  rudder,  no
daggerboard,  and  no  life  jackets.  I  spent  a  week  running  errands  at  the  Santa  Cruz  Marina,
translating,  running to the store, and acting  as a  local  guide. At the end  of  that  I  had  the  oars,
two  life  jackets,  a  stained  but  intact  Sunfish  sail,  and  enough  fiberglass  and  resin  to  fix  the
stove–in   bow.  I  made  a  daggerboard  and  rudder  out  of  cheap   lumber,   scavenged   from
construction sites, and fiberglassed it.
Alejandra had doubts. "You could drown!"
I raised my eyebrows. "I suppose,  if I were  knocked  completely  unconscious, I could. But
not from a cramp or being tired, no matter how far out from shore I was. Think about it." After
a bit I added, "My dad and I used to sail, in the Bay of Siam. It was a bigger boat."
She registered it in her name but it was really mine.
There  are  nine  bays  and  thirty–six  beaches  in  the  Bahias  de  Huatulco,  many  of  them
unreachable  by  road.  I  explored  all  of  them–swimming,  fishing,  snorkeling–as  well  as  the
edges of the jungle.
More than once I got caught in the surf,  which  can be very rough, and I was  rolled,  though
luckily, I'd unstepped the mast and lashed  it,  and  I  was  able  to  recover  the  oars  and  the  life
jackets and the daggerboard. Later, I learned how to time things, to  ride the breakers  in and to
row out without taking on too much water.
Rodrigo, one of Alejandra's many cousins, teased me about the sail and oars. He wanted me
to buy an outboard, but I hated the stink and the noise. Every time he brought it up, I rubbed my
fingers against my thumb. "iTu tienes dinero para la gasolina ? "
He was  always  broke  so  he  had  no  answer.  He'd  reached  the  magic  age  of  fourteen  and
what  little  money  he  had  went  to  las  ninas,  the  girls.  While  I  took  him  out  fishing  and
lob–stering, sometimes Alejandra forbade me to lend the boat to him, to impress the girls.
"You  might  not  drown,  mon  cher,  and  I  know  Rodrigo  can  swim  like  a  fish,  but  his
girlfriends? Let him get his own boat. I don't want him  sailing  off to  remote  beaches.  He'll  get
them drowned, or worse!"
I didn't quite  see  what  was  worse  than being  drowned,  but I  figured  out  what  she  meant,
eventually. It seemed  odd,  since  she had boyfriends and there'd  been  times  when they'd spent
the night.
She blushed when I pointed this out, but she said, "I am not fourteen or thirteen. That is the
difference."
Rodrigo's answer to this prohibition was to try to get me to take him and his  filles du jour
out, but the dingy was too  small. I offered  to take these  girls  for  rides  sin  el–without him–but
this didn't go over so well.
Every three months I climbed the hill into the jungle behind the Monjarraz  compound and
jumped to Sam's  place  in  California.  Usually I would  just  transport  Consuelo  and  some  gifts
back, but once Sam came, too, and I took him fishing.
I had my eleventh birthday, and then my twelfth.
Pretty much I kept the rules. I didn't jump near Alejandra's house or anywhere  near  people.
If I wanted to  practice, I'd take my boat out at sunrise and  sail  to the Isla  la  Montosa, a rocky
island  east,  out  from  Tangolunda  Bay.  I  could  usually  get  in  an  hour  before  the  dive  boats
showed up with the tourists.
I was being careful.
So I really resented it when they still found me.

Chapter Five
Going to Ground

I had ten minutes' warning–an enormous  amount of time,  really. Didn't even  have to jump. Not  immediately.  I  was  at  the  translation  agency,  Significado  Claro,  answering  phones  for Alejandra while she attended a real  estate  purchase at the  lawyer's  office  down the block. An 
American couple were buying property for their retirement.
They had a bit of espahol but wisely wanted to be absolutely clear on everything they  were signing.
Our dentist, the  elderly Dr. Andres Ortega,  called  and asked  for  Alejandra. I explained  she was out and offered to take a message. He asked for me, that is, Guillermo Losada.
"Esyo, Doctor."
He  spoke  rapidly  in Spanish.  "Some  foreign  men  were  just here  with an agent of the  AFI.
They  had   dental   records.   Your   dental   records."   The  AFI   was   the   Agencia   Federal   de
Investigation–the Mexican equivalent of the United States' FBI. "They  were  American  records
and  they  had  a  different  name  on  them...  Guillermo."  He  paused.  "I  had  to  give  them  your
address. They just left here."
My  heart  began  pounding  like  waves  crashing  into  the  shore  after  a  storm.  Ka–thud.
Ka–thud.
Traitor teeth. I'd had two fillings eight months before. See what not flossing will do?
"Do they have the address of Alejandra's agency?"
"No– it wasn't in your records. I didn't show them hers."
"Thank you, Doctor. Thank you very much."
I hung  up.  My  impulse  was  to  jump  away,  to  Sam's,  but Dr.  Ortega's  office  was  in  Santa
Cruz, the next  village  over. It would  take them at least  ten  minutes  to  get  into  La  Crucecita
and then they would be going to the house.
So I jumped  to  the  house  first.  I  kept  my  money  in  a  Oaxa–can  black  pottery  hexagonal
box, the lid decorated with cutout triangles. I think I liked the box better than the money.
I dropped it in the middle of my bed, on the light spread.
Then the contents  of my dresser,  grabbing the  drawers,  dumping  them  on  the  spread,  and
sticking them back in the dresser. It took three armloads to strip the books off my two shelves.
I took the corners of the blankets and pulled them together. The bundle  was  almost  as big
as me but it still came with me when I jumped it to Sam's  broken–down  stable in  California. I
jumped  back  and  grabbed  the  sheets  and  the  raincoat   hanging  behind  the  door  and  the
corkboard that held a few drawings, some snaps of Alejandra, a picture of Rodrigo with one  of
his  girlfriends, and a picture  of me  sailing my boat. These, too,  went  into  Sam's  stable. Then I
was  back,  pulling the sketches  off the  walls,  tearing out the  corners  where  they  were  tacked
up. I carefully put these in Sam's stable, on the pile.
They'd taken all my pictures last time, when they killed Mum and Dad.
When I jumped  back,  the  room  looked  weird–uninhabited.  I  wished  I  could  put  dust  all
over it, so they'd think it was abandoned months before, but I didn't know how to manage that.
I used the house phone to call Alejandra at the lawyer's office.
"Bueno?" she said when they called her to the phone.
"Te amo." I'd never said it before, but I did. As if she were Mom, or a sister.
"Guillermo, que estas loco?"
"No estoy loco. Veniron y deboir."
She  switched  to English.  She wasn't  understanding me but  it  wasn't  the  words,  it  was  the situation. "Who has come? Why must you–oh. Oh, no!" She'd got it. ";Ve rapido!"
"Don't go home. They'll be watching." I hung up the phone and walked out the back door.
Five minutes later I was on the patio of the Hotel  Villa  Blanca  when they pulled up. I had
a newspaper  covering my face, and I'd ordered a limonada  to justify my presence.  The  paper
shook in my hands and I had to brace my elbows against the table to stop the movement.
They drove by in two  cars,  one  after the other,  eyeing the house  casually.  One  car  parked
up the street, the other pulled into the hotel's drive, not forty feet from where I sat.
It was all I could do not to jump away, but I realized they were there  for the same  reason I
was–you  could  watch the house  from  here. The plates  were  Oaxacan and it was not a  rental.
The driver, a man in a rumpled white suit, looked Mexican. His passenger wasn't.
I'd last seen him in San Diego, the night the flat blew up.
My hands, for some bizarre reason, stopped shaking.
I shifted my  chair  slightly,  letting  me  see  through  the  archway  to  the  registration  desk.  I
couldn't hear them but Martin, the desk clerk, was  shaking his head. The man in the white  suit
took  his  wallet  out  of  his  jacket  and  flipped  it  open,  showing  the  clerk  something.  I  saw
Martin's eyes widen and then he picked up the phone and spoke into it.
Senor Heras, the manager, joined them from the office. After another  moment's  discussion,
Vidal, the bellman, was summoned. They unloaded the trunk, only  three  pieces  of  luggage, but
one piece the man from San Diego grabbed out of the trunk as Vidal reached for it.
"I'll  get that," he said,  loud  enough  that  I  heard  it  across  the  lobby.  "Fragile."  He  still  had
that Bristol accent. I wanted to jump, away, mostly, but I remembered  the night they  killed  the
police  officer in the street by the flat. They'd seemed  to know  when I jumped without  seeing
me.
I watched them take the stairs up while Vidal rolled his cart  back to the freight  lift. When they were out of sight I wandered back to the front of the hotel. Standing just inside the door, I could see the other car down the street, parked on the other side, where  they could  watch the front of 
Alejan–dra's house.
Vidal  came  back after a minute.  "How did  they  tip?"  I  asked  him  in  Spanish,  rubbing  my fingertips.
He made a face. "Los mezquinos." Cheapskates. "What side are they on?"
He  jerked  his  thumb  to  the  left,  toward  Alejandra's.  "En  la  planta  tercera.  Alfondo."  He pointed to west. "l?or que preguntas?"
"Because they are looking for me." As I said it, I felt my face  twist and I knew I was  on the verge  of  tears. I  took  a  deep  breath  and  steadied  myself.  "So,  you  don't  know  me,  okay?  I'm leaving but we don't want them to hurt Alejandra, right?"
"Claro que si!"
Everyone who knew her thought highly of Alejandra.
"I owe you."
He jerked  his  chin up and grinned.  "Claro  que si." At the edge  of the  beach  park,  vendors
had  tables   selling   Oaxacan   souvenirs  to  the  tourists–black   pottery,  Guatemalan   clothes,
painted  wooden  carvings  made with  tropical  hardwoods.  I  found  a  small  hand  mirror  set  in
painted copal wood for twenty dollars Americano. I paid for it without haggling.
Vidal  unlocked the  back  stairs  of  the  hotel  for  me,  to  access  the  roof.  It  was  a  popular
place  for the  employees  when the  resorts  over at Tangolunda  Bay  did  fireworks,  so  I'd  been
there before, but I didn't jump.
I didn't want to jump around them–not until I left for good.
The roof was gravel over tar and I took my time moving across. I didn't think they'd be able
to hear me through the roof, but all the rooms had balconies and if they were  out there,  or had
the sliding door open, they might.
As I approached  the  concrete  parapet that edged the  roof I heard  them  talking.  From  the sound, they weren't on the bal•cony but they must've opened the door.
My Bristol–accented  friend  spoke:  "–'e  won't be the  owner–'e's  just a kid. We should find
out who owns the house, and all of 'em that lives there." He groaned, surpris•ing me.
"Your  stomach,  still?  It  happens  sometimes,  to  foreigners.  Different  bacteria,  they  say."
Mexican–accented English. Probably the man from the Agencia Federal de Investigation.
"Bugger the bacteria."
"I will ask downstairs who owns the house."
"No! They're neighbors. You ask questions, they might  answer, but they  also  might  pick up
the phone, comprende ? There must be records you can check more discreetly."
The agent of the AFI said,  "Yes,  there  are  records.  Over the phone  is not so  good,  though.
With my badge in their face, the results are better. You will not need me directly?"
"No. It's a waiting game now. Call me." I heard the  door  open, but before  it  closed I heard
him  add,  "And  please  get  me  some  Pepto–Bismol."  It  was  a  strain.  This  man  clearly  wasn't
accustomed to saying please.
"Of course, Sehor Kemp. And some more bottled water?"
"Good of ya."
The door closed.
"Shite!" I heard him–Kemp?–groan again and then move. His footsteps changed, echoed.
He's in the bathroom.
I  heard  his  belted  pants  dropping  to  the  floor  and  the  unmistakable  sounds  of  gastric
distress.
Impulsively I shoved the mirror into my back pocket and swung over the parapet. It wasn't
a hard climb at all. The divisions  between the  balconies  were  honeycombed  bricks  providing
good  foot and hand holds.  Heights  didn't  bother  me,  since  I  could  always  "jump"  to  safety.  I
was on the balcony before he flushed the toilet. I knelt in the  corner  and silently  edged  one  of
the chairs back to partially hide me.
There were footsteps and he came to the edge of the doorway,  binoculars  held to his  face.
He was scanning the house, Alejandra's house, my house.
No. Not my house, not my home. Not anymore.
Maybe I could push him off the balcony.
He checked the street; he checked the windows of the house. He took  something  from  his
pocket and, still looking through the binoculars, he spoke into it.
"Anything?"
There  was an answering  voice,  crackling  with  static,  low  volume.  "No. Not  since  earlier,
when we were driving over here from the dentist. Felt maybe seven jumps in a minute."
"You've got better range than me–I only felt two of those, at the edge  of town. I sent Ortiz
out to find out who owns the house. Keep your eyes open, right? I can't watch continuously."
The response  was  too  low  for  me to hear, but this  side  of the  conversation  was  loud  and
clear:  " 'Cause the bloody  toilet  is  not  line  of  sight  with  the  target,  okay?"  He  put  the  radio
back in his pocket and, groaning, turned back to the bathroom.
I'd been right to climb down.
Range.  Varying  range.  One  of  them  could  sense  me  from,  say,  Dr.  Ortega's  office,  five
kilometers  away, but Kemp  couldn't. But, say he felt my  last  two  jumps  right  before  I  called
Alejandra; they  could've  been in La  Crucecita,  within  one  or  two  kilometers,  but  still  taking
five minutes to find their way.
He'd  certainly  feel  it if I jumped  while  on the balcony. Then the  realization  came.  Range.
They  could  sense  jumps  but  they  couldn't  have  been   practicing   on  me  alone.  They  had
experience sensing jumps. Other jumps. Not mine.
Mon Dieu, there are other jumpers!
Kemp  groaned  again, the sound  echoing  off the bathroom  tiles. I  remembered  that  time  I
was  sick  shortly  after  arriving  in  Oaxaca  and  wished  I  could  just  die  and  get  it  over  with.  I
hoped he suffered for weeks.
I used the mirror then, when it was clear he was still  on the toilet,  scooting  to the edge  of
the doorway and tilting it, low,  to  peer  into the room.  Their  suitcases  were  in the  closet,  just
sticking  out,  but  that  briefcase  he  hadn't  let  Vidal  carry  was  on  the  bed.  Wonder  what  it
contained.
Well, why not find out?
It was just a step inside, on the carpet, silent, but I think the light  was  dimmed  very  slightly
as I went through the door.  Even  sick  as he was,  Kemp  noticed. I heard him  scramble  for  his
pants but I had my hand on the  case  before  he  cleared  the  bathroom  door.  He  was  trying  to
point something at me, something bigger than a gun, bringing it up, but I jumped.
Dad's voice–Don't let anyone even point a weapon at you.
No, Dad. Do my best.
Didn't go far.
Couldn't. If they weren't  chasing me, they'd turn their  attention on Alejandra.  So  I  wanted
them to chase me.
I went to the island in the next bay over, the Isla  la  Mon–tosa, a rocky bit slightly  less  than
three  hundred  meters  across,  only a few  hundred  meters  off the  east  headland  of  Tangolunda
Bay. It had a tiny spit  of land  extending  toward the mainland that sheltered a bit of  beach  less
than fifty meters long. The rest of the island was big  waves  on  rock  shore  with a raised  brushy
interior.
It was only four kilometers from the hotel.
They should have felt it.
Felt, but could they track it? Did they feel the direction?
Would they come?
The briefcase had two three–digit combination locks and they were engaged. Two sets  of a
thousand possible combinations, solvable, I suppose, with enough time and  patience.  Just start
at 000 and work your way up to 999.
I sat on the little beach and hit the locks with a rock,  which  not only  opened  it eventually,
but greatly relieved the tension while I waited, especially when I screamed as I did it.
Every few minutes I'd take a break and jump to the four  quarters  of the  compass,  the east,
north,  south,  and  west  shores  of  the  island,  to  see  if  they  were  coming  yet,  and  with  the
jumping, let them know I was still here.
The suitcase popped open eventually but it flared bright and hot and I had to throw it away
from  myself.  I  was  surprised  I  hadn't  set  it  off  earlier,  with  all  the  banging,  but  it  was  only
meant to self–destruct, not designed to kill, clearly, or I'd be dead.
The  contents  were  ash  and  melted  plastic  and  blackened  metal.  There  was  a  charred
corner of a passport, but it was the most  recognizable  thing I found. The flare had been  really
bright and the afterimage floated in my field of vision.
Magnesium,  maybe.  That  had  been  one  of  the  more  mem•orable  homeschool  science
experiments–the thin ribbon of metal that went right on burning after Mum dropped it in the
water.
They came in two boats–one that went directly to the beach, avoiding the rocks that dotted
the mouth of the cove, and another that tried to do something on the  seaward  side. They could
have landed a swimmer but it  would've  meant  writing  off the boat to  come  any  closer  to the
jagged lava. The waves would've smashed it into the cliff. In the end, that boat, too,  circled  the
island and put in at the cove.
There were only three of them–Ortiz from the AFI, Kemp from Bristol, and a bearded man
who towered over the other two. He hadn't been at San Diego, I would've re•membered a man
that tall.
That meant they'd left someone at the house.
Maybe more than one. Don't assume you saw them all.
I thought about Alejandra, then, and the rest of the Monjarraz  family. I wanted to go  check,
but nothing would lead the bastards to her–to them all–faster than me jumping there.
Phone, I thought. Later.
Meanwhile, I had questions.
They had fishing poles and an ice chest. I felt my ears get red and my throat got tight.
Did they think I was stupid!
I don't know why this made me  so mad. Hell, it would  probably  have  been a great  deal  of
help if they thought I was some dumb kid.
I watched them from the higher part of the island,  where  the brush began, just inland  from
where  the spit that formed the  cove  joined the main part of the island. I was  sitting  down  in
the shade, having found a flat rock to park my arse on. Except  for the sandy beach,  every  place
else I'd sat on the whole island seemed to consist of poky bits of lava.
I  wondered  if  they  knew  the  difference  between  someone  jumping  to  a  spot  versus
jumping  away  or  if  it  was  all  the  same  to  them.  It's  not  like  they  sensed  me  when  I  wasn't
jumping, or I'd never have been able to get onto that bal•cony.
They left Ortiz by the boats, with one of the rods, and they headed  down the beach,  toward
me. They also brought fishing rods, carried in their left hands, but their right hands stayed  close
to the bags slung  over  their  right  shoulders. I jumped ten  feet  to  the  right,  my  eyes  watching
them.
Both of them  reacted,  looking  right at where my head  now  poked  above the brush . . . but
Ortiz hadn't flinched a bit. He was still pretending to fish from the beach, by the boats.
Ah. He doesn't feel it. They do.
I turned around and ran briskly off, straight up the middle of the island. Well,  straight as the
brush and boulders let me. The shrubs tore at my shirt and I ended up with a few  scratches  on
my  bare  forearms  but I  was  probably  doing  bet•ter  than  them.  They  were  bigger  and  would
have to force their way through and they'd dressed like tourists.
Shorts, for God's sake.
I was out of line of sight in thirty seconds. They'd still been working their way up the  rising
rock at the end of the beach–not quite a cliff–but not  something you go up without  grabbing a
handhold here and there. I pushed on until I was at the far end, right at the edge  of a real  cliff.
There  was a  boulder  that  stuck  up  a  bit  from  all  the  rest  and  I  climbed  up  its  backside  and
peered  over.  I  needed  the  visual  cues–  the  waves  hitting  the  cliff  below  drowned  out  any
chance of hearing them move through the brush.
They came,  Kemp  right  down  the  middle,  like  I'd  come,  but  the  other  man,  the  big  one,
came along the cliff's edge, from the right. He'd come quickly and I guess there  wasn't as much
brush to fight through, but he'd also come along the edge.
I jumped right there, right  beside  him, and he  flinched  off the edge. I didn't have  to  touch
him but he almost  snagged me, going  over  the edge; he was  so  much  taller,  his  clawing  hand
whipping through my hair as I stepped back.
He didn't land on the rocks, though it was  only a matter of luck. A wave  hit just before  he
did, and  he  was  kicking  and  splashing,  head  mostly  above  the  water,  as  he  washed  back  out
over the tide pools at the bottom of the cliff.
One.
If I'd hesitated, Ortiz would've been warned.  His  radio  was  crackling  as I brought the  rock
down from behind, and Kemp's voice said, "Ortiz, look out!" as Ortiz dropped to his knees. I'm
sure  it's  a  crimenal  federal  to  strike  an  agent  of  the  AFI.  I  didn't  succeed  in  knocking  him
completely  unconscious but I had his  own  handcuffs on  his  wrists  before  he  was  able  to  do
more than moan.
I towed the  second  boat away  from  shore  with the first, making a bad  job  of  it  going  out
between  the  rocks.  My  boat  cleared  but a  swell  swung  the  second  craft  into  the  rocks  and
scraped paint and fiberglass down the side.
Too bad. Maybe they'll lose their deposit.
I  dropped  the  anchor  in  the  lee  of  the  island,  halfway  between  it  and  the  headland
opposite. It was deep there, over  forty  meters, but by using the anchor  line  from both boats, I
was able to reach the bottom with  some  line  to  spare. It would  drag, though, if there  was any
change in the wind.
Que lastima.
Even in the  sheltered  lee  of the island, the pitch  of the boat,  especially  jerked up hard  by
the   anchor   line,   was   making   me   ill.   I   jumped   to   the   opposite    shore    where    a
two–hundred–meter  beach  called  Playa  de  Mixteca  was  tucked  into  the  east  side  of  the
headland.  Its  north  end  was  bordered  by a  beach  pavilion  but  I  went  to  the  other  end  and
looked  across  at the island,  only  two hundred  meters,  two  soccer  fields,  away.  I  could  cross
back instantly, but Kemp would be a while if he tried to  reach  me. He'd have to  swim at least
as far as the boats.
I spoke into Ortiz's radio.
"Mr. Kemp," I said. "Are you there?"
"Who is this?" He didn't know my voice and he wasn't certain, but he probably suspected.
"It's the orphan." That really  said  it  all.  They  probably  had  my  name.  Names.  But I  wasn't
going  to  hand  them  anything.  I  just  needed  to  know  why.  "How's  the  tummy?  Still  got  the
squirts?"
"Griffin," he said. "You made a mess o' things."
"Ortiz was conscious when I left."
"Bit o' concussion. Might hemorrhage."
"Hard luck. What about the big man?"
"He's pissed."
"And wet?"
"Oh, aye." He paused. "What you want, boy?"
There it was. "I want to know why. What did my parents  ever  do to you? Why did you kill
them? Why are you trying to kill me?"
He paused, then said, "Don't  know  what  you're  talking  about."  The  carrier  cut  off  with  a
hiss of static.
"Kemp?"
No answer. I tried a few more times, then swore and switched down through the channels.
Kemp's voice: "–to the map, it's Mixteca beach, got it?"
"I'm moving."
"Good, we're going to quarter the island. He might have a base. Or a supply  depot. Had to
have some reason for being here."
I wanted to transmit: To lure you gullible assholes away from  people I care  about. But that
would just tell them to go after  Alejandra.  Instead I pushed the button down and said,  "Best  of
luck with that, wankers. I'm leaving this town.
I ever see any of you again, I'll do more than hit you with a rock."
I tossed the radio in the water.
I wanted to check on Alejandra, but I jumped away to Sam's  ranch, sat down by the spring,
and ground the heels of my palms into my eyes.
Consuelo  checked  on Alejandra  for me, long  distance.  She  was  going  to  call  her  directly
but I said they might trace that call, so she checked through one of her other nieces.
Alejandra  had  locked  up  the  agency  and,  in  the  dark  of  the  night,  joined  her  current
boyfriend at the Santa Cruz marina.
A sixteen–meter  sailboat,  laying  over  on a trip  from  California  to  Florida  via  the  Panama
Canal, left that night, having acquired needed expertise in local waters and language.
"Good," I said. "Muybien."
I  was  still  furious.  Two  homes  gone.  But  she  was  safe  for  now  and  that  lifted  serious weight from my shoulders.
"What are you gonna do?" Sam asked. "Seems  like  jumpin'  is just gonna  bring 'em  down on you."
"And if I don't jump, they also come after me. They didn't find me by my jumping. It was my teeth. My dental  records. I can jump all  right. Just can't be around  people  when I  do.  That  is, when I jump to a place.  Doesn't  hurt  to  jump  away  around  people.  Don't  care  if  they  know 
where I was. Just where I am– where I stay, where I live."
Sam  considered  this  for a while.  "Okay. I know  some  places  people  don't  go.  Places  that are too rough, too hot, no water."
I nodded. "That's the right idea. But not a place you know.  Better you should be able to say,
I don't know where he is.'" I kicked at the floor. "They could still trace back to  Consuelo  from
her family. If they tried hard enough. It's too many people to keep a secret."
He  frowned at that and glanced  toward the kitchen  where  Consuelo  was  cooking  dinner.
"Fair enough. Think on it, though. There  are  places  you can  go  where  no  one  else  can, right? I
mean, once you've been there? Think on that."
The INS came for Consuelo two days after I left Oaxaca.
Her green card  was  good–she  was  ostensibly  employed by Sam at over  125  percent  of the
mandated  poverty  line–¦  but  someone  said  she  was  actively  engaged  in  smuggling  illegal
aliens into the country.
I  watched  this  from  the  old  stable,  my  fist  clenching  and  unclenching.  I  thought  about
jumping  into the dusty driveway and snatching  her back to  Oaxaca,  but  that  was  probably  no
safer. Sam, knowing where I was, held his hand behind his back and shook it side to side.
Later, after they'd left, he wandered back by the stable but didn't  come  in. He talked to the
air.

"I knew the agent in uniform but those  two in the suits–¦  never  saw them before, and I've
met most of the  local  boys. I think you might want to take a hike, after dark, down the spring wash.  There's  an  old  backpack  up  in  the  hayrick–I'll  leave  some  food  and  a  canteen  by  the spring. Walk a long way before you jump, right?"
"What about Consuelo?"
He spat in the dirt. "They'll  either  deport  her  or  not.  I  really  think  they're  trying  to  flush
you. iSabe?"
"I could pull Consuelo out."
"And then they'd know,  wouldn't they? We know  some  pretty  high–powered  immigration
lawyers. I'll get them on it."
"Shit!"
He spat again. "Yeah. Shit and shinola. But you'd only make it worse."
I spent the afternoon packing my clothes and my money and a sketchbook. I hid the rest  of
the stuff under an old feed trough.
I walked  three  hours, briskly,  heading south. I'm pretty  sure I was at  least  six  miles  away,
but I kept walking, anyway.
Where  was  I  to  go?  They  had  to  have  people  down  in  Hua–tulco.  They  might  still  have
people  around  Sam's  place.  Probably  someone  in San Diego,  but I  had  lots  of  places  I  could
jump to there. They couldn't be everywhere, could they?
How many of them were there, anyway? I meant the ones who could actually sense  when I
jumped. I had no idea. A secret  organization  can  only get  so big  before  it stops  being a secret,
right?

I slept  on a bit of sandy ground  between  two  south–facing  boulders. I used the  bottom  of
the backpack, the part  with  my  clothes  in  it,  as  a  pillow,  and  the  boulders  were  still  warm
from the day's sun.
In the morning,  after  eating  and  drinking  and  a  pee  against  a  rock,  I  felt  better.  I  walked another three miles before I decided I was far enough.
I jumped to the east, back to the Empty Quarter, a place I was  pretty  sure  was  clear.  There was a sheltered crack up the ridge, not big enough  for me, but big enough to hide the pack in.
It  wasn't  easy  to  get  to–wasn't  too  high–but  there  was  nasty  jumping  cholla  all  around  it.  I could  jump past the  spines  to a ledge  below  the  crack,  and  shove  the  pack  in  where  it  was pretty much invisible.
I jumped into San Diego, my old  place  under the hedge at the  elementary  school. I figured there  was a chance  they had  someone  within  range  who  had  felt  me  arrive,  but  the  odds  of them being right there seemed pretty slim.
I figured I was  safe,  especially  if I got out of the  neighborhood  quickly.  It  took  me  a  half hour to walk across Balboa Park and into downtown, to the library.
I found  what  I  wanted  in  a  book  on  mining  history.  It  was  in  the  desert  east  of  the  San
Diego Mountains–the Anza–Borrego Desert State Park. Getting there took me two days.
I  started  by  jumping  onto  a  Greyhound  bus  while  the  driver  was  still  examining  the
boarding  passengers'  tickets. I sat in  the  row  before  the  toilet,  hunched  over,  making  myself
even shorter than I normally was. Fortunately, the bus was  only half full and no  one  wanted to
sit near the loo.
The bus was  westbound  for  Tucson and El Paso, but I left it at the turnoff  for  Plaster City,
just west of El Centre The bus didn't stop there, but it slowed on a slight hill and I was gone.
I   considered   hitching   from   there,   but  I   wanted   no   trace   of   my   presence   in   the
vicinity–nobody who could remember my face. I worked my way  toward the  little  town  after
once jumping back to San Diego for Gatorade. Took me two hours to walk the seven miles.
Plaster City gets its name from the U.S. Gypsum plant there. They make wallboard  and ship
it  east  and  west  on  regular  rail  but  the  interesting  thing  was  the  twenty–seven–mile–long
narrow–gage railroad they operate to reach their quarry in the Fish Creek Mountains.
And that was where I wanted to go.
I rode one of the empty gypsum haulers up the  line and used my T–shirt  across my face  to
keep from breathing the dust. The crusher was up at the quarry and even though they'd dumped
the hauler at Plaster City, the  swirling  dust was  still  something  awful  and  I  kept  thinking  the
doors in the bottom of the car would swing open and dump me under the wheels.
When we got there, I walked away from the quarry, up a ravine, then jumped back to Sam's
and had a long shower, but I was still sneezing up dust that evening.
The next morning I went back to San  Diego and changed  all my pesos  to  American at Baja
Mex Insurance & Currency Exchange. Next I took the crosstown bus out to a Home  Depot and
bought  rope,   flashlights,   batteries,  and  a  hard  hat.  Then  it  was  back  to  the  Fish  Creek
Mountains.
There were several old mines farther up in the mountains,  most of them with  danger  signs
and blocked off by welded steel grates put up by the park service.
Obviously the grates gave me no trouble but most of the mines  went back only a little bit,
useless to me, or had caved in after a mere twenty feet.
The one that worked  was  more  extensive, a copper/gold  mine  long  abandoned, but much
more   developed.   That   one   had   a   vertical   shaft,   though   the   platform   holding   the
steam–powered lift had long rotted away. An old iron ladder, though, still went down the side,
and once I jumped past the grill, I chanced it. But I was prepared to jump, if it gave way.
A  hundred  feet  below,  horizontal  shafts  followed  played–out  veins.  One  of  these  had
broken through into a natural cavern, perhaps sixty feet across, and air  moved  from the  cavern
into the shaft. At the far end of the chamber, a rivulet  of  water  flowed  out  of  the  rock  face,
splashed down through a series of sink–sized basins, and then flowed out again through a crack
at  the  base  of  a  flowstone  wall.  There  was  a  natural  passage  that  dead–ended  in  a  smaller
chamber but the air flowed out of fist–sized cracks near the water wall.
This was good. This would do.
I wasn't out of money yet–I  would've  been  glad to buy the stuff–but there  was  no way the
gun shop  would  sell a kid  smokeless  powder.  Hell, they didn't  even  want me in the shop.  As
soon as they saw me, they asked, "Where's your dad, son? You here with an adult?"
I had a choice of getting mad or getting sad.
"Wrong door," I said, and left.
I got furious.
It helped to be mad at them. Made it easier to do what I needed to do.
They  had  massive  locks  and  pull–down  bars  to  close  the  shop  up.  And  this  affected  me
how?  I  cleaned  out  their  supply  of  smokeless  powder,  fifty–three  metal  cans.  Dynamite
would've  been  more  efficient  but  that  required  detonators  and  all  that,  and  I  didn't  know
where to get it, much less how to use it.
I stacked the cans in the  horizontal  shaft  leading  to the cavern, but at  the  end  next  to  the
old lift shaft. I concentrated  on four of the timber  pillars  supporting  roof  beams. I used a can
opener, punching a hole in each one of the cans. The second–to–last  can I laid  on its  side, and
the very  last  can I  used  in  my  best  pirate–movie  fashion,  pouring  a  trail  of  powder  that  ran
from the mouth of the can on its side to thirty feet down the tunnel.
Didn't know it would burn so fast.
My  intention  had  been  to  jump  to  the  surface,  to  listen  to  the  explosion,  but  I  flinched
away to the Empty Quarter instead, and missed it.

The air was full of dust and chemical smell  when I jumped back into the cave,  worse  than
my trip in the gypsum hauler, so I left and didn't return until the next day.
I examined the  horizontal  shaft from both sides.  Rubble had  dropped  from  above,  mostly
filling  the  bottom  of  the  lift  shaft.  My  tunnel  was  completely  filled  and  the  others  mostly
blocked.  From  the  other  side,  the  tunnel  had  collapsed  back  to  the  next  roof  beam,  about
fifteen  feet  of  fill. It wasn't  totally  blocked,  for a breeze  still  drifted out that direction, but  it
was certainly proof against people sneaking up the tunnel.
There  is  something  very  wrong  when  being in an underground  cavern  with  no  exit  is  the
safest place to be.

Chapter Six
Old Paths

I tried over the course of several days, but it didn't work.
Finally, I returned to the San  Diego  library and found  the  image  I  needed  in  a  UK  tourist
guide.  The  Martyrs'   Memorial   in  Oxford  sits   where   Broad   Street   meets  St.   Giles.   The
guidebook reminded me of what it was for, but Mum never told me the  gruesome  details. The
martyrs were three Church of England Protestants burned during the bloody reign of Mary.
Burned .. . gross.
How could people do something like that?
The  picture,  though,  brought  me  back–literally.  It  reminded  me  enough  of  the  place.
Horrifying  memory,  actually. One  second I was  there  with Mum, waiting  for Dad to snap the
picture, then a car came out of Broad Street  way  too  fast and slammed  into a taxi not ten feet
away. Horns, glass, screeching rubber, buckling metal and folding plastic. Noisy.
Scared me all the way back to our flat in Lechlade.
Instantly.
But I had no memory of that flat. You'd think I would, but I can't  even  remember  what my room was like.
It  was  raining  in  Oxford  and  cold,  and  the  pedestrians  walked  by  hidden  under  their umbrellas or hunched into their bright yellow macks like turtles.
I crossed the street and walked, carried along in the stream. I was  getting  wet and  cold but
I didn't mind. It had been  ninety–two  degrees  Fahrenheit at Sam's and I appreciated  the  chill.
At least  for a while.  When I got  too  cold  and too  wet, I picked a  jump  site  near  Blackwell's
Bookstore on Broad Street, but walked on several more blocks.
It  was  my  new  rule.  Don't  arrive  from  where  you  left.  You  don't  know  who  might  be
waiting. I turned a random corner, brick and flats and a mini–grocery, and jumped.
It was something I learned from recent experiments in shopping. If you jump as you turn a
corner,  and somebody  sees  you, it's okay. If  they  were  watching  from  behind,  they  think  you
just continued  around the  corner. If they  see  you from the other  side, they  think  you  stepped
back.
People  flicker  out of our sight  all the time, through  doors,  around  corners,  onto  subways,
but we  fill  in  where  they went. We know that the body is  still  there just  out  of  sight,  on  the
other side of the door, in the receding subway, around the corner.
But Kemp and his lot–they knew better.
Had to warm up a bit at Sam's. My new place is damp and dark–a bit too much  like  Oxford
on a rainy night–but Sam's at seven hours diff from Greenwich  was hot, bright, and arid. A half
hour in the sun dried me right out.
I called  the  cavern  the Hole,  less  like a Hobbit  hole and more  like a badger's  den,  where
the dogs had hounded me, gone to ground.
It  was  comfortable,  slightly  damp,  slightly  cool–the  kind  of  place  where  you  wanted
slippers and a cardigan or maybe a fuzzy dressing gown to keep the chill off. The chamber  was
lit  around  the  edges  with  low–voltage  landscaping  lights.  I  had  a  few  brighter  lights,  also
low–voltage,  near the bed and the desk; I  only  turned  these  on  when  I  needed  them,  but  the
landscaping  lights  stayed  on  all  the  time–  there  were  no  windows,  no  sunlight  touched  the
Hole. Last thing I wanted to do was fumble around for a light switch when waking in the night.
Sure didn't want to jump into that blackness.
The whole  lot  was run off a bank of  boating  batteries that stood  on  a  shelf  down  the  old
mining  shaft.  During  the  day,  when  sunlight  hit  the  mouth  of  the  mine  and  warmed  all  the
surrounding rock, an updraft pulled air out through the rubble in the  collapsed  tunnel,  causing
a palpable breeze in the Hole. At that time I could run the  petrol–fired  generator  to  recharge
the batteries, since the smelly exhaust fumes flowed out through the gaps and cracks.
Only had to run it once a week or so–really overdid it on the batteries.
I nicked them.
I nicked the generator.
I nicked the lights, too.
Hell, I stole everything these days.
I hated to think what Mum would say.
The gunpowder I used to  blow  the mine  tunnel  was the start, of  course. I justified  it–they
would never have sold it to me–but it didn't take long at all to run out of money. The batteries
alone would've wiped my savings.
The batteries came from a marine supply place in San Diego,  down  where  the jets  heading
into the  airport  thunder  overhead  and  it  seems  like  you  can  count  rivets  when  you're  done
ducking. I don't know what I looked  like.  Maybe a bit dirty, a bit furtive, but one  of the  floor
clerks followed me around as I checked off the stuff on my list.  Batteries,  Deep  Discharge  Gel
Acid, pretinned battery cables, a three–bank automatic battery charger, and the generator.
They had it all, I hadn't pulled anything off the shelf, but I was  careful  not to  linger  in front
of  any  of  the  stuff  I  was  looking  at.  I  asked  a  bunch  of  questions  about  their  self–furling
headsail gear and then bought a small anchor for my dingy.
I hadn't left the dingy in Oaxaca. I could just pick up the hull if I first removed the mast and
the rudder and the dag–gerboard and oars. It sat in the Hole, upside down, all  of its  accessories
stacked  neatly around, the  life  jackets  spread  on  top.  My  boat  in  a  cave  with  no  exit,  in  the
middle of the desert.
They  had  a  monitor  at  the  checkout  counter,  one  of  those  things  with  a  four–way  split,
showing  the  counter,  the  door,  the  emergency   exit,  and  the  counter   where  the  marine
electronics were. They didn't seem to be  monitoring  the batteries  or any of the other stuff on
my list.
Batteries  are  heavy. I took  twelve  that  night  and,  since  I'd  emptied  it,  I  took  their  sturdy
display shelf, too, and the rest of the stuff from my list.
I wore gloves.
The  furniture   came   from  Ikea.  The  bed,   the   desk,   the   bookshelves.   That   was   easy.
Assembling them was easy. Getting them level?
Stupid cave.
Home Depot "donated" concrete and a level and a mortar mixing tub and the stuff I needed
to level sections of the floor. They had lots of cameras but their own shelving blocked them. If
I crouched under one of their racks, I could jump unobserved, even during business hours.
The batteries  were  heavy,  but  ready–to–mix  concrete  is  heavy,  too.  I  could  barely  move
the eighty–pound  sacks but they jumped  okay,  and  when  I  was  mixing  I  tore  them  open  and
used an old coffee can to scoop the mix out.
It was ugly when it was finished, rough, coarse, but it was level. My futon bed sat level. The
desk  was  level.  The  three  bookshelves  were  level.  The  dining  table  was  level,  but  looked
weird. It could sit four but I'd only taken one chair.
I mean, after all, why did I need more than one chair?
But  it  bugged  me  and  bugged  me  and  finally,  one  night,  I  jumped  back  into  Ikea  and
completed the set.
Of  course  that  bugged  me,  too,  but  at  least  when  my  eyes  passed  over  the  table  I  didn't
flinch  anymore.  It  was  the  right  number  if  I  ever   wanted  to  bring  Sam,  Consuelo,  and
Ale–jandra there.
It took Sam  five  days to get  Consuelo  out  of  detention.  By  the  end  of  it,  a  border  patrol
supervisor  was  facing an  official  investigation.  He was  unable to  account  for  a  large  deposit
into his bank account around the time he'd ordered her arrest.
"One of his  own  men  tipped  the  lawyer,"  Sam  explained.  "I'm  not  sure  if  he  was  pissed
because his boss took a bribe or because he didn't split it."
We met at the Texaco  petrol  station  where  we'd  met  the  ambulance.  I'd  jumped  in  four
hours before, even before it opened, and waited in the brush, with a book.
Consuelo told me there was a new bellman at the Hotel Villa Blanca, a foreigner–meaning
a  Mexican  from  the  north,  not  an  Oaxacan–who  took  his  breaks  where  he  could  watch
Alejandra's  house  and  in  his  off  time  walked  in  the  hills  above  the  family  compound,  with
binoculars.
Alejandra had found an old schoolmate from the Instituto de Idiomas who wanted a change
and was willing to take over the translation agency. Alejandra took a job on Saona Island in the
Dominican  Republic,  translating  for  English–and  French–speaking  tourists,  and  studied  the
local caribeho espanol, switching her fs and r's with abandon.
Consuelo  tsked–tsked  about  the  boyfriend  who  returned  to  Huatulco  "still  friends."  Too
much  closeness  had finished the  relationship  and I was  glad  until  she  told  me  that  Alejandra
was seeing someone else, a Dominican local.
C'est la vie.
They dropped  me in El  Centro and drove  home. I jumped back to the  Hole  from  there,  a
good hour after they'd left.
There's a field in Oxfordshire nowhere near the Thames or the  hills  or  historic  ruins but it
is a few miles away from a village train station  on the Redding  line  twixt Oxford and London.
There's a bull there, too, but he's with his  cows  so  he's pretty  calm,  except  when I pop out of
thin air right next to him. Even then, he usually just snorts and shambles away.
Mostly in the rain.
At least it  seemed that way.  Picking  my  way  between  the  cow  patties  through  the  damp
grass, letting myself out the gate, and then  slogging  along the asphalt to the station  was a good
walk, but it was a bit damp.
More than once, I showed up in the pouring  rain and jumped to the station  directly. But it
really had to be unpleasant for me to do that.
All  it  took  was  one  of  them  to  be  riding  through  on  the  9:52  to  Paddington  Station  and
they'd be waiting for me in the field one foggy day.
Enough to give one nightmares.
It's  not  that  I  wouldn't  jump  into  London  or  Oxford  proper,  occasionally,  but  if  I  did,  I
hurried away from that spot as quickly as I could.
I wanted the run of the place.
I wanted the world.
Phuket was  easier  than Oxford. My  memories  were  stronger, the  smells,  the  unbelievable
colors  of  the  ocean,  the  Portuguese–influenced  architecture.  I  bought  garlic  sausage,  sticky
rice  mixed with banana  and  shredded  coconut  or  red  beans  wrapped  in  banana  leaves  from
vendors carrying their wares in rattan baskets. Or satay sold from stainless steel carts pulled by
motorbike.
I was running out of money.
I could've earned it, I suppose. Translating, perhaps, in Spain or France, but I was just a kid,
and  a  short  kid  at  that.  Without  someone  like  Alejandra  to  steer  work  my  way–  well,  it
would've been a hard scrabble.
But still it took me a while to get up the courage.
My first attempt would've been a miserable failure  if it hadn't been  for the fact they didn't
even  know I'd been  there. I  saw  the  armored–car  guards  (one  of  them  the  driver)  leave  the
locked vehicle right outside the Safeway and head in with their canvas bags. I walked up to the
other  side,  peeked  in  the  thickly  armored  window,  walked  back  between  two  vans,  and
jumped.
The truck was empty. This was their first pickup.
I took an assembled  bicycle  from  Wal–Mart  that  afternoon  and  filled  the  tires.  The  next
day, I  followed  the  armored  car  as  it  meandered  through  that  neighborhood  going  to  three
grocery stores, two jewelry stores, and then the Horton Plaza Mall. It took them multiple  trips
at the mall, back and forth
I  made  my  move   when  they  made  their  next  stop,   servicing  an  ATM  at  a  Henry's
Marketplace.
Didn't have to move close–I'd seen the inside of the truck the day before.
Good thing I'd been  moving  batteries and cement  bags. I cleared  out the back of the truck
in under five minutes, jumping back and forth to the Hole.
Had to cut the bags open.
Three hundred thousand dollars. Give or take twenty thousand.
It was one of the big security companies. Surely they had insurance?
Mum would not be happy. Nor Dad.
Well, they're not here, then, are they?

The tourists drove me out of Oxford–them and their  buses. The buses  are the oddest thing.
The companies  run them and the tourists  use them to  get  from  place  to  place,  but  it's  more
like a city bus, running all the time, and mostly empty.
I hate diesel fumes.
I  found  a  karate  dojo  in  Knightsbridge  run  in  conjunction   with  a  fancy  gym.  It  was
expensive  and I had to fake my dad's  signature  on a release, but they had a  really  nice  locker
room with showers. I paid for a year.
It was my birthday present to myself–I was thirteen.
I'd  had  it  with  cold  sponge  baths  in  the  Hole,  but  the  local  solution  called  for  more
construction, maybe a propane water heater, and let the soapy water flow away with the clean
under  the  flowstone  wall,  but  I  hated  the  idea.  I  pictured  some  desert  spring  where  the
bighorn  sheep  came  to  drink,  foaming  up  with  soap  suds.  It  was  the  reason  I  used  a  bucket
toilet  odorized  with  pine–scented  disinfectant  back  in  the  smaller  chamber  and,  when  I
needed to, dumped it at one of the park's picnic area pit toilets late at night.
I was still careful. I certainly didn't jump anywhere near the dojo. I used the Underground a
lot, jumping to  lots  of  different  stations,  always  trying  to  pick  a  place,  before  I  left,  that  I'd
never jumped to  before.  Also  someplace  the  video–cameras  didn't  cover–where  phone  stalls
or info signs made a blank spot.
Leaving,  going  back  to  the  Hole,  I  just  jumped  from  the  moving  subway,  whatever  train
came. I'd either  pick a mostly empty  car and jump when no  one  was  looking,  or I'd  move  to
the next car, jumping when I was between the doors in the noisy, rattling space.
But having classes to go to was good; it meant I had a schedule, a structure that I didn't have
before.
It meant I had to buy a watch.
It was one of those  time–zone  clocks,  showing  the time in two  different  places  at once. I
kept  it  on  U.S.  Pacific  Time,  minus  seven,  and  London,  Greenwich  zero.  If I  hit  a  button  it
would show me the time in Phuket–Greenwich plus seven.
Breakfast,  cereal, I tended to eat  in  the  Hole.  Got  a  little  twelve–volt  fridge  to  hold  the
milk. Eight o'clock in the morning and it was time  for the four  o'clock  afternoon  teen  class at
the dojo. I wasn't the youngest one there, but I was the shortest.
But I made up for the lack of size.
"Fierce  'un, eh?" That's what the  senior  instructor,  Sensei  Patel,  would  say  to  Martin,  the
junior  instructor  who had our lot,  after  watching  me spar. I was  swathed  in  pads  and  usually
picking myself up, yet again, but I was right back in there, punching and kicking.
"Not right, that one,"  Martin  would say, a big  smile  on his  face. He knew I could  hear. He
was just teasing. "Oi! Less blocking with the head, there."
After class I'd drop off my laundry (done by the pound), usually  yesterday's  clothes  and the
day's practice gi and the linens every week or so.
Lunch was whatever, usually in London, without jumping. Sure it was  evening  there, but if
you want a particular type of  food and you can't find it in London, you aren't trying very hard.
Well,  except  Mexican,  perhaps. I ate Paki, Indian,  Chinese, and the  occasional  bit  of  fish  and
chips.
There  was  a  library  branch  not  too  far  from  the  dojo  where  I'd  do  my  homeschooling
workbooks. I was still working through the French science  series  and the Spanish math so the
ladies  who  worked  there  kept  coming  up  to  try  out  their  "Bonjour,  mon  ami"  and  "iComo
esta?". They were a bit  disappointed  when they  found  out  I  wasn't  so  foreign,  but  they  were
always good for a pointer or two when I got stuck on a bit of math or a bit of chemistry.
Reference  librarians, they explained,  lived  to  answer  questions.  And I  was  a  nice  change
from the kids who wanted them to tell them  "where  the  reports  are  kept"  or  came  to snog in
the stairwell or score some weed back by the toilet.
Dinner  might  be  anywhere.  Morning  in  Phuket,  something  in  San  Diego.  Not  London,
though–getting past midnight in London.
Sometimes  I'd just jump my dingy down to Bahia  Cha–cacual, a bay twenty  miles  west  of
La Crucecita, and I'd skin–dive for my supper, lobster or fish,  cooked  on the beach  with  limes
and peppers.
Then home to Hole and hearth and up again, pick up my laundry and repeat as needed.
After six months,  Sensei  Patel  said I could  come  to  evening  adult  classes. They  tested  me
for nikkyu, low brown belt, after that and I passed, barely.
Didn't really like forms, the kata. Didn't see the point, so I didn't practice them as much as I
should.
"Well, then," said Sensei Patel when I expressed this opinion, "you're a right git, aren'tcha?"
He sat me down on the floor and said, "Watch."
He did the first two steps  of  Heian  Shodan, a  lower  block and a stepping  midlevel  punch.
He  paused  between  the  block  and  the  punch.  "That's  how  you  do  it.  Now,  come  here  and
attack me. Front kick."
I got  up  and  did  my  best  kick.  He  blocked  it  to  the  side  with  the  lower  block  and  the
knuckles of his fist brushed my nose and I fell  backward,  overbalanced.  Hadn't even  seen  him
step in but he had. For the barest second, I wondered if he'd jumped.
"How do you think I learned that? Made it mine? It wasn't  from  sparring.  Now–watch." He
did the whole kata, but this time there was a different rhythm and intensity to it. Block–punch,
block–block–punch.  He  didn't  even  move  that  fast  but  everything  flowed  from  one  to  the
other.
"You want to spar  better, you get on with your katas, eh?" He tapped me on the forehead.
"Use a little  imagination.  You think you're out here by yourself but that's  not  what  it's  about.
Enemies surround you. Start acting like it."
Ouch.
Every  couple  of months I'd give  Sam a call,  using a pay phone. I'd talk  in  Spanish  and  ask
for  Carlotta  or  Rosa  or  any  of  a  bunch  of  different  names.  If  he  said  tienes  el   numero
in–correcto  and hung up, we'd  meet the next  day  down  the  road  from  the  Texaco,  on  a  rise
where  you could  see  for  miles. If he said, "No la  conozco,"  I'd have to  postpone–he  couldn't
make it the next day or he felt like it wasn't safe.
But this time it was okay and Consuelo  and he sat on their  folding  chairs and I perched  on
the tailgate and we ate a nice curry and spoke in Spanish.
"Alejandra   is   coming   home,"   Consuelo   said.   "She   said   to   tell   you   she   misses   the
chupulinesP She smiled briefly but she was clearly worried.
"Is the bellman from the Villa Blanca still around?" "Oh, yes.  Mateo buys drinks in the bars
for my  relatives.  He's  been  letting  Rodrigo  use  his  car  in  the  afternoon  to  drive  around  the
girls."
"jEstupido! Did no one tell him?" I wanted to go  slap  Rodrigo  around. This stung. I thought
he was my friend.
Sam shrugged.  "Tell him what? Anything  Rodrigo  knows  Mateo  can find out from  anyone.
Someone  tells  Rodrigo  don't  talk  to  Mateo  and  suddenly  Rodrigo  does  have  a  secret.  Leave
well  enough  alone.  It  won't  last.   Rodrigo's   mother  is   forbidding  it–he  doesn't  have  his
license–and she told him she'll have cousin Paco arrest him if he doesn't listen."
"He never listens," I said. "What about Alejandra? I'm worried."
Consuelo  sighed.  "She  misses  her  family.  And  she  broke  up  with  her  boyfriend,  the
Dominican."
"I could–"
"What?" Sam said. "You could show up and give them a reason to bother her?"
I  dropped  off  the  tailgate  and  kicked  a  rock.  It  flew  over  the  edge  of  the  hilltop,  then
crashed  through  the  mesquite  and  cholla.  My  big  toe  throbbed  and  I  tried  not  to  limp  as  I
stepped back to the tailgate.
"Right. What about you guys? You think this is safe?" I waved my hand around at the empty
hillside. The highway was  seven  miles  south of us and the dirt  road  running out to the  hilltop
was clearly visible and empty, a thin straight line that didn't bend until it hit the bottom of the
ridge.
Sam shrugged. "As safe as it gets without no contact."
Consuelo  shook  her  finger  at  me.  "You  are  not  a  jaguar  to  live  alone  and  solitary.  It  is
unhealthy." She  reached  out and plucked at a hole  in my jeans.  "More  like a coyote. But even
coyotes keep together, eh?"
"Okay. I'll go howl at the moon. Maybe go through the trash cans."
Sam tapped  his  plastic  fork  against  the  Styrofoam  container.  "This  didn't  come  from  any
trash can. Where did it come from?"
"Huh? Oh, Cafe Naz in the East End." At his blank look I added, "London."
"Ah." He mouth worked for a moment but nothing came out. Finally he said, "Not bad. Not
bad at all." He poked a finger  toward my upper  torso.  "You  look  healthy.  Whatcha  doing  for
exercise?"
"Karate. A dojo in– well, maybe I shouldn't say where."
"Right. Not if you go there regular. And income? You got enough money?"
I looked away. "No worries. Don't have to worry  about the rent. I'm saying my prayers and
washing  behind  my  ears  and  brushing  my  teeth,  Papa."  Teeth.  I  didn't  want  any  more  X–rays
compared  if  I  could  help  it.  "I'm  even  doing  my  lessons.  I'm  up  to  Second  Form,  uh,  tenth
grade in the science and I'm starting precalculus."
"What is that, four grade levels ahead?"
I shrugged.  "Whatever." I tried to be indifferent but it  was  nice  to  have  someone  make  a
fuss. Quite nice.
It made me afraid for them.
I waited  thirty minutes  after they left,  watching the dust trail  of the pickup  all  the way to
the highway before I jumped away to the Hole.
Jumped  to  Embankment  Station  at  the  curvy  underground  part,  not  the  aboveground
platform, in a nook, behind a crowd of tourists, and someone started screaming.
Someone was shouting, "MOVE! MOVE YOUR BLOODY ASS!" The two  women  tourists
in front of me  were  holding  their hands  above  their head,  cameras  dangling, and one  of  them
was  screaming.  Over  their  shoulder  I  saw  someone  running  up  the  platform  holding  a  big,
oddly shaped gun– one I'd seen before.
He fired and something  smacked  into the  wall  on both  sides  of my nook and suddenly the
two  women  tourists  were  thrown  into  me.  I  heard  the  breath  leave  their  lungs  and  they
stopped  screaming, but they  were  spasming and I smelled  ozone.  I  wasn't  pinned–though  the
women  were  jammed  across  the  opening  of the nook  there  was  still  room  behind  me–and  I
jumped.
"Wait!" I yelled. I don't know why or to whom, but the sound  echoed  in  the  wash  of  the
Empty  Quarter.  I  jumped  immediately  to  Charing   Cross   platform  and  stepped   onto  the
northern train heading back toward the Thames and Embankment Station.
Nobody screamed and nobody shot at me but my eyes were wide open.
It took maybe three minutes for the train to reach the other station, but he was  gone.  There
were  transport  police  on the platform. They'd gotten the  women  out of the  nook  and  seated
on a bench. The cable  was  still  there, taut between  two  areas  of  broken  blue  tile,  so  I  guess
they wiggled back into the nook and ducked under it. I didn't get off the train and as it left,  we
passed more transport police in the tunnel itself, flashlights waving as they searched.
I got off at Waterloo and took the Jubilee line back to Green Park, then took the  Piccadilly
line over to Knights–bridge. I wasn't even late for class, though it seemed as if I should be.
The next one was closer.
Elephant and Castle Tube stop and he was  more  careful than the last guy. He  followed  me
and didn't attack until we were in the twisty stair up to street level. He was firing up the stairs
and I  heard  something  mechanical  click  right  before  he  shot,  so  I  was  bending  forward  and
looking back. The cable tore overhead and tangled in the handrail above me and I was  standing
in desert sand before the next one arrived.
Right, then.
The first one was clearly not just coincidence. They were watching the Tube stations.
I jumped back into  London, on the other  side  of the Thames, to South  Kensington  Station.
It was only one stop away from Knightsbridge but I didn't get on the train. I wandered  between
platforms–there  are  three  different  lines at that  station–keeping  my  eye  on  everyone  else.  It
was busy but when I stayed on the Piccadilly platform through three different train arrivals, the
faces had all recycled.
I took the stairs up to the eastbound platform then took the  passage  under  Cromwell  Road
over to the Natural History Museum. I spent an hour there, wandering  back and forth  between
the whales and the dinosaurs, checking everybody  who  came  near.  All  random  faces.  Finally, I
walked up Brompton Avenue to Knightsbridge, picked up my laundry and a bite of  falafel, and
hopped a cross–city westbound bus.
The falafel was fresh, warm, crisp, and it sat in my stomach  like a dead  weight.  How many
of them  were  there?  How many stations  could they watch?  Were they going to  force  me out
of London like they'd forced me out of San Diego and Huatulco?
What the hell do they want?

Somewhere  past  Ealing  Common,  when the bus was  mostly  empty,  I  jumped  back  to  my
Hole.
I got my hair bleached. Bought a reversible jacket and three hats. Bought  some  dark–framed
glasses with clear glass. Still used the subway, but I was  very, very  careful.  Never  jumped to a
station.  Never  left  from  a  station.  Tried  to  choose  a  new  arrival  point  every  single  day,  but
never near my departure point for that day.
I definitely stopped jumping into the cinemas without paying.
I passed my ikkyu, upper  brown  belt, test.  Sensei  Patel  said  my  kata  didn't  suck  nearly  so
bad now. I'd actually tagged Sensei Martin in the ribs with a front kick during the sparring test.
And I made a friend.

Chapter Seven
Punches and Pimples

Henry  Langsford  was  an  upper–class  twit  with  a  sense  of  humor.  We'd  tested  for  ikkyu together and he  always  gave  me a hard time about the  Americanisms  in  my  language  and  my accent. His father  was a second  secretary at the British  embassy in Amman so  Henry  was at a 
boarding  school  in  London.  "But  all  they  have  at  school  is  boxing.  I  do  that,  too,  but  I've received dispensation for this."
He was  long and thin,  pushing  six–two,  even  though  he  was  my  age.  He  could  reach  me
with a kick  long  before I could  strike him, but I  was  faster.  But  the  boxing  was  something.  I
tried to stay away from his hands. I'd go outside for a kidney or sweep his foot, midkick.
Henry suggested a cuppa. "Won't be in trouble until half past  nine and 'tis  only  seven  stops
up the Piccadilly line. You for it?"
I had a dozen excuses on my tongue. Instead I said, "Why not?"
We  hit  Expresso   Bar  on  the  north  side  of  Beauchamp   Place.  He  got  tea,  I  took  a
double–shot latte loaded with sugar.
"No wonder you're so short. Stunted your growth, you did, with that caffeine.  How do you
sleep?"
It was actually midday still, for me, but I said, "Maybe that's why I'm faster than you."
We walked back to Brompton Road and into Hyde Park and wandered a bit, tending east.
We talked about travel, places we'd lived. We'd both been to Thailand, both been to Spain,
but him in the south, Cadiz and  Seville,  and me in the north,  Barcelona  and Zaragoza. I talked
about the "colonies" and  Mexico.  He talked about Kenya and Norway and family  vacations  in
Normandy.  That  led  to  speaking  in  French  and  he  was  oh–so–superior  about  his  accent–my
County  Durham  origins  corrupted  the  purity  of  my  pronunciation,  but  my  vocabulary  was
bigger.
"Et oil est votre maison, mon petit ami?"
"Little? I'm not ducking through doorways. And I lives in an 'ole in the ground."
"What? Like a Hobbit?"
"Very like an 'obbit."
"A basement flat?"
"You could say that. On the west side." Of America.
He considered this. "Your feet are a bit hairy."
"So, your home would be in Rivendell, eh?"
"Huh? Oh, right. Elves." He chuckled and looked at his  watch. "Oi. Bugger  me–I'm  going to
be talking to the Head if I don't get a move on."
We  were  close  to  Hyde  Park  Corner  Station  and  he  dashed  for  it,  his  long  legs  flashing.
"Kick you in class," he called over his shoulder.
"In your dreams!"
A cuppa  after  became  a  regular  thing,  and  when  I  turned  sixteen  the  dojo  went  up  to
Birmingham   to   participate   in   a   tournament.   Henry   and  I   roomed   together,   under   the
supervision of Sensei Patel.
"You never talk about your folks," Henry asked, on the train up.
It came out of  left  field, that, and surprised  me. I blinked.  "Bugger,  something  in  me  eye."
After a deep breath I said, "Whatcha want to know? Dad teaches computers. Mum teaches kids
their Voltaire and Beaumarchais and Diderot, in the original. Awfully boring if you ask me, but
they're  all  right."  I  was  tired;  I  woke  and  slept  on   Pacific   Coast  time  and  here  I  was
floundering around at 9.00 a.m., Greenwich zero. It felt like two in the bloody morning.
"Seems  like  they're pretty  handy  with  the  ready,"  Henry  said.  "Dad's  always  on  about  the
fees at the dojo, but in that proud  sort  of way. Nothing but the best  for  mine,  don'tcha  know.
You don't seem to have any problem."
I shook my head. "Well, that's not their money–that's me own."
"Rich grandmother?"
"Distant uncle." Uncle Truck. Armored T. Truck.
I was eliminated  in the  second  round of  brown  belt kumite by a  college–aged  brown  belt
from Coventry, and then Sensei Patel and another instructor protested.
"What?" I said, as Sensei walked past me to the judges'  table. "He beat me  fair and square!"
He'd scored to my face with a lightning–fast roundhouse kick.
The  judges  listened  to  Sensei  Patel,  then  called  my  opponent  over.  There  were  some
heated words and then the referee came back on the floor and announced I'd won, by forfeit.
My opponent gave me a murderous look and left.
Sensei  Patel  explained.  "Saw  Mr.  Wickes,  there,  take  his  shodan  test  five  years  ago.  I've
seen it before in these big regional tourneys. People dropping a belt level so they have a better
chance of placing. Like a third–year college student retaking his A–levels. What's the point?"
Huh.
I made it through two more rounds and then was eliminated by a kid from  Paddington  who
didn't even block my attacks. He'd just strike at the same time, leaning this way or that to avoid
my hand or foot. Three quick points and out.
"Could learn a lot from that 'un," Henry said. Henry hadn't made it past the first round.
We watched the Paddington karateka go on to take first, so I couldn't feel too inferior.
Sensei Patel required all of us to participate in the kata competition and I was  surprised  to
take  second  in the brown  belt  category.  "See?"  Sensei  said.  "Look  what  happens  if  you  apply
yourself a bit." He ruffled my head. The trophy was half as tall as me. It would be a bear on the
train.
"A monument. That's what it is," said Henry. "A monument to your greatness."
"To perseverance," Sensei suggested.
After, Sensei checked in with us before he went out to eat with some  of the judges and his
sensei, over from Okinawa. "You lot all right by yourselves?"
"Of course, Sensei."
"See  you after at the hotel, then. No later than ten, right? There's  a  dance,  if  you  want,  or
there's the cinema over on Broad Street, right?"
"Right, Sensei."
We changed, dropped our gis and the "monument" in the hotel. Henry  was  now  calling  it a
"monument to your perverseness." We found a pub where the food wouldn't be "too healthy."
Henry's choice. "S'all we get in dining hall. Veggies, veggies, veggies. With a salad."
Fish and chips were duly ordered and destroyed.
"But this  greasy  food  is  going to have me  all  out  in  spots,  you  know,"  Henry  complained
after, not a crumb left on his plate.
"And that would  change  things  exactly  how?" I  was  having  a  bit  of  trouble  with  pimples
myself but Henry's was a spectacular case, a patchwork of trouble spots that he called  his map
of Africa. "Anyway," I said, "if you're still getting pimples with all the veggies they're shoveling
down you in hall, then I don't see how a few chips are going to make it worse."
Henry  swiped my last  chip.  "Look  who's  drowning  his  troubles," he said,  jerking  his  head
toward the adjoining bar.
It was Wickes, the disqualified black belt  from  Coventry. He was  sitting in a booth with a
half–full  pint and two  empty mugs. He  glanced up and  our  eyes  met.  I  dropped  my  eyes  and
turned back to Henry. "Oi. Guess Mr. Wickes is past eighteen, then."
"Why do that? Lie about your rank. What's he get out of it?"
I shrugged.  "Maybe he has a trophy  shelf  to  impress  the  gels."  I  glanced  sideways  briefly,
just a flick of the eyes. "He's still looking at us."
"Umm.  Well,  it's  going  to  be  some  time  before  I'm  ready  for  pudding.  Let's  see  what's
going at the cinema."
"Suits."
We'd already paid but Henry put down a tip for the barmaid, saying, "Buy yourself one." She
laughed at him and I was teasing Henry about it as we cut across the park toward Broad Street.
Wickes was there before us. "Think it was funny, do you?"
I stopped  dead. The  green  was  bright  enough,  from  all  the  lights  at  the  arcade,  but  there
wasn't anyone near us. "I wasn't laughing at you, mate."
"I'm not your mate."
"Right," said Henry. "Not our mate. Don't even know each other." Henry tugged my arm and
pulled  me away.  "Let's  go this way, why don't  we?" He turned away and I went  with him, my
back tingling, but it was Henry he kicked first and I swear I heard something break.
I wanted to  check  Henry but Wickes  was  turning  toward  me and I already  knew  how fast
the bugger was. I blocked and blocked but his kicks were very strong and they hurt my arms  or
crashed through, anyway, only partially absorbed by my blocks. I tagged him  once,  good,  with a
front thrust kick that pushed him back clutching his side.
"Well,  that's better than you did in the match," he  said.  His  grin  got  nasty.  "Guess  I  won't
hold–"
I stepped back into zenkutsudachi and executed a gedan–barai, a low block.
He  laughed  at  me.  I  was  still  ten  feet  away,  but  he  began  to  lift  his  hands  as  I  stepped
forward and punched, face high.
I jumped the interval and my fist smashed into his mouth.
He flew back and didn't get up.
Henry was sitting up clutching his side, his eyes wide. I checked Wickes–he had a pulse, he
was breathing, he was bleeding from the mouth, and his eyes were blinking. I pinched his thigh,
hard, and he yelped. "Feel that, do you? That's good  enough  for  me." I went back to Henry and
helped him up. "You okay, mate?"
"No. I think he broke a rib. And maybe I'm concussed."
I looked at him. "Why do you think that?"
"I blacked out there for a moment, when you hit him. I think. Saw it start, saw it finish–"
"What's my name? What's the date? Who's the prime minister?"
"Griff. It's Saturday the eighteenth. Tony Sodding Blair."
"Well, maybe you blinked. Should we find a bobby for Mr. Wickes?"
Henry surveyed the spreading blood on Wickes's chin. "No. I think he's got his."
I supported him back to the hotel and found Dr. Kolnick. The doctor was one  of the  senior
members  of the dojo, a third–degree  black  belt. I think his  specialty  was  cardiology,  but  he'd
spent so much time in the martial arts that he was good for the odd sprain and contusion.
Dr. Kolnick clucked his tongue and took Henry off to City  Hospital and had him X–rayed,
"to make sure we  don't have a broken  rib about to  poke you in the lung." When the  diagnosis
turned out to be a hairline crack, he taped Henry up good. He also disinfected my hand. I had a
gash below the knuckles I hadn't even noticed.
"Teeth, probably," the doctor said.
Teeth.
We caught our train back in the morning.  Henry  was  stiff and I was  sympathetic and tired
and pissed off. "I don't think we should've turned our backs to him."
"Sod off," said Henry.
It felt weird, that trip. Except for the punch (and what a punch it  was!) I didn't jump once.
I arrived in Birmingham by train, walked around, and took the train back to London.
It felt... weird. It felt. . . normal.
Maybe  normal  was  what I needed.  Maybe I just needed  to  be  in  one  place,  where  I  only
moved  around  like  other  people.  Hmph. I could just see  trying to rent  a  place.  How  old  are
you, kid? Where's your parents? Tell me another.
There  was  a  fuss  from  Henry's  parents  about  the  cracked   rib  but  they  and  Henry's
headmaster  ended  up  with  the  impression  it  had  happened  at  the  tournament  itself  and,  as
Henry said, "Better all around, that."
Sensei Patel wanted to talk to my parents about the fight, as he'd gotten  specifics  from us. I
ended up bringing in a note, ostensibly from my dad, that "Griff discussed the whole  thing with
us and I appreciate the example you're setting for him. I am  concerned  about the incident, but
believe  it  far  less  serious  than  what  football  hooligans  are  doing  nowadays.  And  Griff  has
learned something from it."
I typed it on a rent–a–computer at Kinko's in San  Diego and signed it left–handed,  like  the
previous forms.
Sensei Patel said, "What'd you learn?"
"Don't turn my back."
"Kids!" But he didn't correct  me. He did  wonder  aloud why my dad never  came  to  classes
or to watch any of the tests like the other parents.
"He's busy. Really busy."
In December,  Henry went away,  off  to  Amman  for  the  holidays,  and  the  dojo  closed  the
week between. It was cold that year in London, I mean  actual  snow and stuff, so I went south,
to the remote Bahfa Chacacual. I took  Consuelo  and Sam with me, and with the dinghy  sailed
them west, away from La Crucecita, to the fishing village of St. Augustin. It was  still  only  nine
miles  from  the  family  compound  as  the  crow  flies,  but  thirty  miles  by  road.  There  was  a colectivo that ran inland to the Bahias de Huatulco  International  Airport and from  there they could take the bus into town.
I was  supposed  to  call  for them in a week, the same  place,  weather  permitting. That  was the plan.
I put back out to sea and sailed east, hugging the coast, past Chacacual, past the little fishing village at Bahfa Maguey, and after studying the  shoreline  carefully  with my marine  binoculars,
on  into  Santa  Cruz  Bay  with  the  sunset.  There  were  dozens  of  dinghies,  rigid  and  inflatable, tied up at the public pier. I stepped my mast  before  threading my way through them and tying
up beneath the pier, where the posts weren't bumpered, but handy to ladder. I tied up and took the binoculars with me.
I wanted to see Alejandra.
It took me an hour to walk back into the  hills  above La  Crucecita  proper. I could've  done
it in thirty minutes if I hadn't been avoiding people and cars, but too many here knew my face.
I'd changed a bit. It was  almost  three  years  since  I'd left and I was  taller. I wore  a baseball
hat and a light  jacket  with the  collar  pulled  up.  It  was  windy  and  cool  enough  to  justify  the
jacket. The offshore wind had been  good  for  sailing–  flat  water,  stiff  breeze–but  now it shook
the trees and made it easy to imagine every sound an enemy.
The compound  was  lit  up  for  a  fiesta,  a  fire  at  the  open  end  of  the  courtyard  and  lights
strung across. I could hear music and the food smelled fantastic.
My stomach rumbled. I'd even eat chapulines about now.
I moved closer, working down through the brush; then, when the building blocked the way,
I moved up into an old  ahuehuete  tree,  using  its  thick  trunk  to  shield  my  body,  until  I  had  a
good view of the courtyard with the binocs.
There was Consuelo and Sam and her mother, Sefiora Monjarraz y Romera, and Alejandra's
mother, Sefiora Mon–jarraz y Losada. Then I saw Rodrigo and a girl I remembered him  chasing
a few summers before, and then Alejandra came out of the house  with a tray of food,  with her
cousin Mari–anna carrying another.
I stopped breathing for a moment. Alejandra was as beautiful as ever.
And she was okay.
I'd had reports,  through  Consuelo, but something  inside  of me must've  still  doubted,  for  I
nearly choked on a sob. I blinked hard for a minute, then I could see properly again.
More cars and people made their  way up the winding  dirt  road and the party expanded as
the  extended  family  and  friends  kept  arriving.  Most  I  recognized,  though  I  would've  been
hard–pressed  to  come up with names, but there  was a  man  who  arrived  with  take–out  from
Sabor de Huatulco–I recognized the bag even if I didn't know him.
Rodrigo greeted him like some long–lost relative and I thought perhaps that's what he was,
but then  Rodrigo  took him  over  and introduced  him  to  Sam  and  Consuelo.  I  saw  Sam's  eyes
narrow  even though he  smiled and shook  hands,  and  while  Consuelo  looked  polite,  I'd  seen
her greet total strangers with more warmth.
I'd lay odds this was the new bellman from the Hotel Villa Blanca–the  one  who'd  watched
Alejandra's house while she was away.
I wanted to punch him,  like I punched  Wickes  in Birmingham. Or jump him to the Isla  la
Montosa. Or that field with the bull in Oxfordshire.
Fat lot of good that would do.
Even if I killed  him it would just draw them here  in  force,  maybe  snatching  Alejandra  or
Sam or Consuelo. Or all of them.
A piece of bark came off the branch  where I'd been  gripping  it and I nearly  fell  out of the
tree, nearly dropped the binocs.
I walked  back into Santa Cruz and risked buying a meal at one  of  the  tourist  places,  only
speaking  English.  By  the  time  I  was  finished,  a  three–quarter  moon  was  rising,  giving  me
enough  light to  sail  back  to  Bahia  Chacacual,  though  it  was  after  midnight  by  the  time  I  got there and jumped the dinghy back to the Hole.
They weren't  back in St. Augustin the next  week  so I found a public  phone and  called  the family compound,  as  arranged, and asked  for  Senora  Consuelo.  She  was a while  coming and I
felt like something terrible must've happened but then she was there. "Bueno?"
"Hola, Tia. i Quieres tomar el sol en la play a mahana ? "
I didn't  know  if  they  were  listening.  Consuelo  had  several  nephews  so  calling  her  aunt
might  throw  them  off.  It  would  at  least  leave  it  in  doubt.  And  she  liked  to  sunbathe  on  the
beach, or at least walk up and down the shore with the water washing over her ankles.
"Nopuedo  ir.  Volamos a casa  mahana."  So,  they  were  being  watched.  The  bastards  might
have checked the flight manifests into Huatulco and not found Sam and Consuelo.
Anyway,  they  were  going  to  fly  home  and  not  risk  meeting  up  with  me  again.  Not  in
Oaxaca.
"Que lastima. Vaya con Dios."
"Debes tener cuidado."
"Usted tambien."
Yeah, we'd all have to be careful.
Henry  came  back from the hols and brought me a little  wooden  horse,  rearing,  six  inches
high. "Merry Christmas and all that. It's olive wood. Didn't really know what you'd want."
I was touched but of  course I couldn't  show  it. "Thanks. Didn't have to. I've got  something
for you, but it's back in me Hole.  Bring it to  class  Thursday." I went to  class  most days, but for
Henry it was Tuesday, Thursday, and odd Saturdays.
I didn't really have something for him. I'd bought something  for Sam and Consuelo, and for
Alejandra  (mailed  by  Consuelo),  but  the  season  depressed  me  and  I'd  avoided  the  shopping
crowds, the decorations, and the songs.
In Thailand, mostly.
In Phuket I was  doing the same thing I did in Huatulco– I'd picked a remote  jump  site,  in
this case a little island called Ko Bon off Rawai. A resort on Phuket  proper  considered  it their
"private"  island  but  I'd  arrive  on  the  south  end,  away  from  their  salas  and  loungers  and  the
honeymoon  suite  (though  I  watched  some  skinny–dipping  once)  and  put  my  dinghy  in  the
water and sail a half hour over to Chalong, avoiding the resorts.
I  brought  Henry  a  Thai  Buddha  head   carved   from   rain–tree   wood,   gold   leaf  on  the
headdress  thingy, pendulous  earlobes  and slitted  eyes  over a  smiling  mouth.  It  was  the  smile
that made me buy it. Unlike the others, it was practically jolly.
He blinked when he opened it. "Very cool. How'd you know?"
"Know what?"
"I've  got  a  shrine  in  my  room.  I'm  not  really  Buddhist,  but  it's  how  I  get  out  of  Sunday
chapel."
"You bleeding hypocrite!" I laughed.
He shrugged and smiled. "Yeah, well, you haven't had to  listen  to those  bloody  sermons  on
those bloody benches, have you? I'm all bony."
I shook my head. We were having our regular cuppa after but instead  of  walking,  we  were
sticking to a corner table at the Expresso Bar. It was sleeting outside.
He  opened  his  backpack  to  wedge  the  Buddha  down  inside  with  his  gi.  He  pulled  out  a
book to make  room  and I flipped  through  it.  "Ugh.  Exponents  and  polynomials.  That  was  an
ugly two weeks. Nearly ate me head."
"Was? Are you past this? I'm in advanced math, my form!"
"Uh. Did that last year. I'm homeschooled, you know? Work at me own pace. Do okay with
the math." I reached up to touch his hair, a foot above me. "Over your head?"
"Oh, very funny." He licked his lips. "Give a guy a hand, could you? I was supposed  to  work
on it over the hols and I spent all my spare time, uh ..." He blushed.
I sat up. "Oh, this has got to be good. Let's guess–there's a girl involved."
He punched my arm. "Well, it wasn't a boy, that's for sure."
"Jordanian?"
"Nah.  Tricia  Peterson–known  her  for  years.  Her  mother  is  the  protocol  officer  at  the
embassy, longtime friend of my parents."
"So you didn't do the math because you were snogging in the bushes."
He blushed redder. "Going  around to  see  the sights. She  doesn't  live  there,  either.  Visiting
for the hols. Her school is out in the wilds of Oxfordshire. Girls' hell, she says."
I nodded. He had a girlfriend. I  was  thinking  about  Alejandra  and  I  could  sympathize  and
even be a little jealous.
"Show me what you're having trouble with. And I don't mean the snogging bit."
We did simplification of fractions with exponents  until he had to run for the Tube. "Don't
slip," I said. "It's like glass out there."
"Thanks for the help. Maybe you could help me again Saturday? I could  ask for  extra  leave.
We could do it at your place."
"That's a thought," I said,  stalling. "Take us forever  to  get  out  there,  though.  Can  you  have
guests in at your school? Never seen a boarding school–not outside a movie."
He  looked  at  me  like  I  was  crazy.  "Well,  if  that's  your  idea  of  fun.  Sure.  We'll  go  back
there."
"Right."
I  took  a  westbound  train  and  transferred  to  a  southbound  at  Earl's  Court.  Somewhere
between Southfield and Wimbledon Park I jumped away to the Hole.
It snowed again, Friday night, very odd for  London.  Walking to the Tube station  after  class,
Henry said, " 'When men were all asleep the snow came flying, in large  white  flakes  falling  on
the city brown.'"
I looked at him blankly.
"Robert  Bridges.  'London  Snow.'" He kicked at the snow  on the  sidewalk.  "You know  . . .
poetry?"
"Ah.  Me,  I'm  more  of  an  'As  I  was  going  to  St.  Ives'  kind  of  guy.  The  bloody  over  the
beautiful. Though I'm quite fond of Coleridge. And Green Day."
"But look at the snow\"
I  scooped  up  a  handful.  "You  look  at  it,"  I  said,  and  flung  it  in  his  face.  Much  icy  cold
violence  ensued and we had to shake the snow out of our  clothes  and hair  while  we  waited
on the platform.
St. Bartholomew's Academy is in an old Georgian mansion south of Russell Square. "But, of
course, since Prisoner of Azkaban came out, we call it St Brutus's."
I looked at him blankly. The book had only just come out.
Henry  explained.  "His  uncle  pretends  that  Harry  attends  St.  Brutus's  Secure  Centre  for
Incurably Criminal Boys."
I laughed. "Ah. Very good. Only read the first one so far."
"You could go blindl Look, I'll lend you two and three, okay?"
I nodded. I had odd  feelings  about it. Harry  was  an  orphan,  after  all,  whose  parents  were
killed by someone out to kill Harry. A little too close to home, that.
We had to sign in with the  school  porter, a friendly man in a  cardigan,  in  a  room  off  the
main hall.
The   interior   of   St.   Bart's   was   all   polished   wood   and   fusty   old   portraits   staring
disapprovingly at everyone. The students'  rooms  were  somewhat  better  and  you  were  more
likely to see Manchester United or band posters instead.
Henry  took  me  around  to  the  dining  hall  and  pulled  some  fruit  ("All  healthy  snacks
here–enough  to make you  croak")  from the kitchen, then introduced  me to  a  few  people  on
his floor: "Griff, here, in my karate class. Helping me with my algebra."
His  roommate,  being a weekday  boarder,  was  off  with  his  folks  in  Ipswich,  so  we  sat  in
there, the door open. I got to see his shrine, a shelf with a cotton meditation  cushion  before it,
and some souvenirs from all over the world.
We did an hour of polynomials, then took a break. He showed me the gym in the basement,
complete  with boxing  ring and some  gymnastic  equipment  and  balls  and  rackets  and  cricket
bats. "Weather  allowing,  we  use the green  over at Brunswick  Square  for  football and  cricket.
And the phys ed teacher's a right bastard about running. In any weather."
We did another  half hour of math, then he lent me his  copies  of Chamber  of  Secrets  and
Prisoner,  and  saw  me  down.  On  the  stairs,  he  got  asked,  "Who's  your  girlfriend,  'enry?"  by a
large youth sitting on the landing with two others, all older than Henry.
Henry kept  walking,  his  face  still.  When  we  were  down  in  the  main  hallway  and  out  of
earshot he said, "That bastard is the reason I started karate."
"You turned your back on him."
"But you didn't. I  noticed."  Henry  tilted  his  head.  "Watters  is  the  kind  who'd  go  for  your
back, too, but not in front of  witnesses.  Last time he gave it a go I bloodied  his  nose. I got  in
trouble but so did he. He  does  petty  things  like  pinching  one's  classwork  or  putting  porn  in
your room and reporting it."
"That's why you locked your room."
"Yeah, had to start last year. Honor among gentlemen, my arse."
"Your parents know?"
"My dad went to this  school. In his time, the odd bit of  involuntary  sodomy  happened,  so
he   thinks   this   is   all   just   good,   character–building   experience.   I   mean,   no   danger   of
hemorrhoids,  after  all."  Henry  saw  my  face.  "Hey,  it's  not  that  bad.  My  roommate's  quite
decent though his math is worse than mine, if you can imagine."
I shook my head. "I'll never bad–mouth homeschooling again."
I spent  Sunday  at  Hogwarts.  Well,  reading  on  the  beach  in  Oaxaca,  really,  but  the  books
were good. I tried to get together with Sam and Consuelo but the code phrase  "No la  conozco
" let me know they still thought they were being watched.
So  I  read.  I'd  finished  both  books  by   Monday   night,   so,   having   neglected   my   own
schoolwork,  I  did  an  essay  comparing  the  evolution  of  the  magic  use  in  all  three  books,  in
French. That's what I do when I miss Mum the most. Work in French.
I gave  Henry  a  printout  of  the  essay  when  I  returned  the  books  to  him  at  Tuesday  class.
"Well, you're right about my vocabulary. Have to hit the Dictionnaire Francais–Anglais  for  this
one.  Probably  be  good  for  me.  Yuck."  But  he  folded  it  carefully  and  tucked  it  into  Prisoner
before packing the books away in his bag.
We  did  the  cuppa  after  and  he  said,  "You  know,  I've  got  February  half–term  holiday
coming up. Going to camp at my cousin's  in Normandy. Think you could  talk  your  folks  into
letting you go with me?"
I stalled. "Normandy? Where? Cherbourg?"
He  shook  his  head.  "Nah.  Little  village  called  Pontorson–  less  than  ten  kilometers  from
Mont–Saint–Michel."
I'd seen pictures of Mont–Saint–Michel. Who hasn't?
"Pretty. How do you go?"
"Train  to  Portsmouth.  Night  ferry  to  Saint–Malo.  Cousin  meets  me  at  the  ferry  in  his
Citroen and takes me back to his cottage."
"There's no problem because of your age? Traveling, I mean?"
"Ah, there's more of a hassle coming home, so my cousin  usually  crosses  back and gets me
through passport control, does a bit of shopping, and then heads back."
"What's he do, your cousin?"
"Retired–really my grandmother's cousin, what, mine twice  removed?  Something  like that.
He likes his wine. Likes to garden. Was a civil servant before. Transport, I think." "Sure he'd be all right with it?"
"Oh, yeah. Suggested it before. Not you specifically– bring a chum, he said. He pretty much turns me loose when I'm there. I mean, if  there's any heavy  work  in the garden, I pitch in, but there's  woods  and  a  river  and  there's  a  ten–minute  bus  you  can  take  to  the  coast–the  tide 
comes in like thunder, just miles of sand and then, whoosh, in it comes."
"Well, it sounds brilliant. Tell you what, I'll run it past ma mere  et mon  pere  and  see  what comes of it."
"I can have my mum call, if it'll help." "Noted," I said. "If needed."
I should've said no.

Chapter Eight
Incursions

The smell woke me up, carrion–rotten, retch inducing. I followed it back through the  cave toward the battery rack, a faint breeze in my face.  Something  odd about that, since  the  airflow was usually the other direction–through the rubble that closed my little branch and up. It's two things–the  
water  brings a bit of  air in but also a network  of  cracks  near the spring. The other thing  is  that  the  sun  heats  the  rock  around  the  upper  end  of  the  shaft,  sucking  up  air  from below.
But today, something else was happening and it really stank.
It had been  so  long  since  I'd  been  at  the  mouth  of  the  mine  that  I  couldn't  remember  it
well  enough to jump there. I finally had to jump  to  the  pit  toilet  at  the  picnic  area  where  I
dumped  my  bucket  toilet.  It  was   overcast  and  surprisingly   cold,  unusual  for   here.  That
explained the airflow issue. The cold air was flowing down into the shaft. I jumped back  for a
jacket before I started the three–mile hike from the picnic area to the mineshaft.
When I got  there I found the gate in the grate  was  wide  open,  the  lock  missing,  the  hasp
mangled and streaked  with  copper. I looked at one  of the  depressions  and  realized  someone
had shot the lock off–the metallic streaks were from copper–jacketed bullets.
But the stench was up here, too.
I thought they  were  dogs,  but  realized  after  a  moment  that  they  were  coyotes.  Someone
had shot them, shot the lock off the grate, and dumped them down.
It was illegal to hunt in the park, I was pretty sure.  Even if a ranger had killed a coyote  for
some  reason–rabies  control,  maybe–he  wouldn't  have shot the  lock  off  and  dumped  them  in
the shaft.
Bastards.
I still had some  rubber  gloves  from  doing the  concrete  work  in the Hole, but I jumped to
San  Diego  and  visited  Home  Depot  for  a  paint–and–pesticide  respirator  mask  and  some
heavy–duty plastic bags. The three coyotes were rotten with maggots and fell apart as I shoved
them into the bags. They'd probably been there for days, but the change in the weather  brought
the smell in. Don't know how I could of stood it without the mask.
I left a note under the  door at the rangers  station  telling  them about the  lock. It was  after
seven by then and the park had  officially  closed. It was  better, as far as I was  concerned,  that
the note be anonymous. If I started  talking to the rangers, they might start  wondering  where I
lived. The park had a residential ranger, but his quarters were way over by the park  entrance, a
good ten miles away.
I dumped the bags in their Dumpster.
There was a water spigot outside the station and I'd rinsed the gloves and was  wiping  them
on  a  bit  of  turf  near  the  station,  preparatory  to  jumping  back  to  the  Hole,  when  I  heard  a
gunshot.
It  wasn't  near–I  didn't  jump  away  or  anything–but  it  did  come  from  up  the  ridge,  back
toward the mine.
I jumped back up to the shaft, where I felt  cold  and exposed. The sun was  going  down and
the  wind  was  picking  up.  I  walked  back  to  one  of  the  old  surface  buildings,  a  roofless
rock–and–mortar  shell,  one  wall  tumbled  down  into  a  pile  of  its  component  rocks,  and
sheltered from the wind.
After a while, I heard  another shot, loud, but still  not so  loud that it made  me  nervous.  A
motor started up in the distance, and then another.
Sounded  like  motorbikes.  I  started  to  leave  the  old  building,  trying  for  a  vantage  point
where I might see them, when I realized the sound was getting louder.
They  weren't  motorbikes–they  were  four–wheeled  ATVs,  camouflage  painted,  two  of
them. They roared up the canyon  scattering  rock and dirt and what  little  grass  there  was and I
wondered  why  I  hadn't  seen  their  tracks  before.  They  each  had  another  coyote  on  the  back
rack and telescopic rifles on a rack in front.
The  gloves  in  my  hand  were  still  wet  from  washing,  pretty  clean,  but  the  smell  or  the
memory of the smell was still in my nose.
They pulled  right up to the grate,  flipped  open  the  gate,  and  tossed  them  down.  Just  like
that, not even looking around.
"Miller time!" one said to the other.
"Miller time," the other agreed.
I thought about tossing them down the shaft, but they hopped back on the ATVs and  roared
back down the canyon. Off–road vehicles were also illegal in the park.
I jumped back to the  Hole and took the  binoculars  from the dinghy gear.  I  jumped  to  the
ridgetop  above  the  canyon,  using  the  binoculars  to  pick  my  destination.  They  were  easy  to
spot–they  were  in  the  long  shadows  of  the  Fish  Creek  Mountains  and  they'd  turned  their
headlights  on. I had to  move  once,  as they moved  behind a ridge,  farther  down the hills, but I
tracked them all the way to the park's edge, to a light that showed through the gathering dusk.
I jumped back to the Dumpster by the rangers  station and  retrieved  the  plastic  bags full of
rotting coyote and left them, for the time being, in the old  stone  building I'd sheltered  in, near
the mineshaft.
I said yes to Henry about the trip to France. That is, I said it was all right with my parents.
"Do they need to talk to Harold? Or my mum?"
I shook my head. "They're cool. Tell you the truth, I suspect they can't be arsed."
He  got  this  look  on  his  face,  like  maybe  he  should  be  sympathetic,  but  then  said,  "Be  a
relief,  that. Every  permission  thing I have to  do  involves  faxes  and  international  phone  calls
and crossing my ?'s and dotting all the /'s. Your passport all in order?"
I nodded. "Oh, yeah. Old picture–hate it–but it doesn't expire for another three years."
"Right. I'll arrange the tickets."
"How much do you need?"
"Oh, no, Dad's treat. Thinks it's good I've got a friend  outside  of St. Brutus's. But I also  think
he wants cousin Harold to vet you since they can't themselves, not until summer."
"Oh, they coming home?"
"July after summer term. Three weeks. You going anywhere?"
"Too far in the  future,  mate.  Anyway,  I  don't  really  pay  much  attention  to  term  holidays,
what with the homeschooling. Better to travel when everyone isn't." Or so I heard.
In daylight, I used the  binoculars  and  jumped,  ridge  to  ridge,  out  to  the  edge  of  the  park.
There was a barbwire fence–not the park's–stretching along the boundary.
There were coyote carcasses,  some  old,  some  fresh, hung every  thirty feet  along the  wire. Some of them were tatters of skin caught on the barbs and bones below.
On the other  side  of the fence, the  ground  was  stripped  bare,  no  vegetation,  nothing,  but there were sheep. Lots of sheep.
I moved down the fence, to the north, the  direction  the ATVs had seemed  to go the night before.  The  fence  turned  a  corner  and  there  was  a  stretch  of  land  that  looked  just  like  the park–it hadn't been  grazed to nothing, but there  were  tire  tracks–the kind with  deep  pockets 
from the tire lugs, designed to grip in mud and sand. I turned and followed them.
They went as far as a county road, dirt  but  graded  smooth,  then  headed  south,  back  along another  fence.  The  coyote  carcasses  continued  all  around  the  property.  The  house  was  set back from the road, the only spot of vegetation on the entire ranch.
A mailbox at the road had "Keyhoe" painted crudely across it. The ATVs were  parked  near
an outbuilding and there  were  four  dogs  lying on the  porch  that  came  for  me,  tearing  across
the ground toward the fence, growling and barking.
These were not friendly dogs.
I stepped  off the road  on the other  side, put a mesquite bush  between  the  house  and  me,
and jumped away.
I took a cab  into La  Crucecita  from St.  Augustin.  I  was  wearing  tourist  clothes  and  a  big
droopy  sun  hat.  I  gave  directions  in  English  and  when  the  driver  overcharged  me,  I  didn't
correct  him. I went  into  Significado  Claro  like any other  client.  Alejandra  was  on  the  phone
and I didn't look at her as she talked–I looked at the posters on the wall.
She glanced at my clothes  and said, in English,  "I'll be with you in a moment." I waved my
hand, acknowledging this.
She was arranging the  details  for  one  of her  immersion  courses  out at the Sheraton  resort
and I listened, not really paying attention to what she said, but just hungry for her voice.
Finally, details arranged, she hung up the phone and said, "How may I help you?"
I took off the hat and held my finger to my lips. They might be bugging the office.
Her eyes widened and without saying anything, she came  around the desk and enfolded  me
in her arms,
I began crying.
"Shhhhh." Her  arms  tightened and I cried  harder;  after a while, I calmed  down and she  let
go. I picked up a pad of paper and wrote on it, iDonde podemos hablar?
She took the pad and wrote where and when.
A half hour later we met on the  wooded  hillside  behind the church,  screened by the  trees
and with a good view of the approaches.
"No one was with me when I went into the church. I said ten Ave Marias," she told me and
held up a bag, "and I brought chapulines."
She was kidding about the grasshoppers.
"I don't know what came over me," I said, over the chicken enmoladas. I'm okay, really."
"I missed you, too," Alejandra said.
I had  to  busy  myself  with  eating  for  a  moment,  though  I  nearly  choked.  She  covered  by
telling  the  news,  new  babies,  two  marriages,  what  was  happening  at  the  agency.  I'd  gotten
some  of this  from  Consuelo but I didn't  tell  her that. I  just  listened  and  watched.  After  a  bit,
when I'd finished eating, she said, "You look so muscular! Exercising?"
"Yeah, karate."
"And your schoolwork?"
"Yes, Mum. Every day."
She tilted her head. "Your English has changed–the ac•cent, it's less American." "Yeah, I've been mucking about in London."
"Don't tell me where," she cautioned.
"It's a big town, London–twelve million souls. But I don't live there."
"Et votre frangais ? "
We switched to French.
"I still do written class work. I'm going to Normandy next month. Work on my accent."
"I'm  jealous!  I've  been to Quebec and their  French  is  . . .  different.  But  Martinique  in  the
French West Indies was good. But never to France."
"After next week, I can take you instantly."
She looked sorely tempted. "No. Maybe someday, when our friend from the Villa Blanca is
gone,  when  they've  stopped  looking  for  you.  Last  time  I  went  out  of  town,  to  Mexico  City,
they were there, watching to see who I met."
I could feel my face change, set.
"Don't feel bad. I do everything I would do otherwise, ex•cept see you. I just ignore them."
"Consuelo said they searched the house."
I saw anger flicker across her  face but then she  smiled. "But they didn't take anything.  See?
Not like a thief."
"They steal your privacy."
She  shrugged and touched  her  forehead.  "This  is  still  pri•vate."  She  gestured  between  us.
"This is still private."
She  rolled up the paper  trash  from the lunch,  twisting it tighter and tighter, then put  it  in
my hand. "You can dispose of this. I will go back into the church and pray. How do you leave?"
I sighed. "I'll take the bus to Oaxaca, but I won't  arrive.  Twenty  kilometers  should be safe."
I pulled the hat back over my eyes. "See? Invisible."
"We can  meet  here  sometimes.  Have  Consuelo  call  the  day  before–exactly  twenty–four
hours before–and she can say el goto saliseo. I will meet you the next day."
"Well,  if the cat got out, the  coyotes  would  eat it. Very  well,  if it is safe," I added a  little
stridently.
She pulled me to her again. "If it is safe."
The dogs were nowhere  to be seen  when I appeared  behind the bush on the other  side  of
the county  road  from the ranch  house. It was  dark  but  the  moon  was  three–quarters  full  and
my eyes  were  acclimated. I jumped  up  to  the  porch,  ripped  the  bags  open,  and  dumped  the
rotting coyote corpses in front of the door.
The dogs  began  barking  up  a  storm  but I  was  back  behind  the  bush  before  the  first  light
came on.
"Oh, shit! Tasha, Linus, Jack, Lucy, get out of that!" I heard a thud and a dog's  yelp. "Trey, get
your rifle! Some•one's messing with us!" I recognized the voice from when they'd dumped the
last coyote.
I left before they started shooting randomly into the night. I hoped all of the dogs  rolled  in
it.

"Why am I doing this?"
Henry reached out and adjusted my bow  tie. It was a rented  white–jacket  dinner suit from
a  formal  hire  shop  in  Lewisham.  They  made  me  leave  a  bloody  great  deposit  since  I  didn't have a credit card.
"Meet girls, have fun. Meet Tricia."
He'd only  asked me  two days in advance. I guess if your  school  is  in  a  Georgian  mansion
and they have an honest–to–God  ballroom,  you  occasionally  have an honest–to–God  ball. The
St. Bartholomew's Midwinter Ball, to be specific.
"I went once before, when I first started at St. Brutus's, but spent the whole time against the
wall.  But  Tricia's  got  leave  to  attend  with  her  roommate  and  the  girls  from  St.  Margaret's
come. It'll be fun."
We  were  waiting  for  Tricia  at  Paddington  Station  by  the  bronze  statue  of  Isambard
Kingdom Brunei. My hair was sticking up in back. I could  feel  it. I kept trying to push it down
but Henry said, "Leave it alone. People will think you have nits."
"Git." "Twit."
The  5:29  rolled  in  and  Henry  turned  to  watch.  If  he'd  been  my  height,  he  would've  been craning his neck and standing on tiptoe, but he didn't have to.
I'd realized early on that I was there for moral support. What the hell–why not?
Tricia  really  was  stunning–tall, blond,  green–eyed,  and  if  she  had  any  of  Henry's  problem
with pimples, makeup was hiding it entirely. Her roommate  was  shorter, thank God, probably
my height  without  heels, but slightly  taller  with.  She  had  dark  glossy  hair  half  over  her  face,
brown eyes, a turned–up nose.
"Griffin O'Conner, Martha Petersham."
"Delighted," she said.
"Charmed," I said, sounding rehearsed and phony and stupid.
We took the Tube back to  Russell  Square  but a  cab  from  the  station,  fog  and  drizzle  not
mixing well with rented clothing.
Tricia  and  Martha   checked  in  with  the  headmaster  as  re•quired  and  he   placed   the
reassuring  call  back  to  St.  Mar•garet's.  They  were  to  call  again  when  they  reached  Martha's
aunt's flat in Kensington Gardens after the ball.
Henry and I escorted them into the ballroom.
I don't know what I was expecting–probably  something  like a Merchant–Ivory  production
with a butler announcing the arrivals. It was  kids in  good  clothes  dancing to a nice punk band
from the East End. Every six  songs  or  so, the band would  break and they'd play  slow  recorded
music and a few students but mostly the chaperones would get out and fox–trot.
"I don't know how to dance," I told Martha early on, "but I'll take instruction."
This, apparently,  was  the  right  thing  to  say.  I  just  thought  about  it  like  kata,  or  two–step
kumite,  and  took  instruction.  She  relaxed  a  great  deal  and  bossed  me  around  unmercifully.
There was lots of laughter and some teasing because Henry and Tricia did all the slow dances.
Henry and I were returning from the refreshments table with drinks when we saw Watters,
Henry's  in–school  neme•sis,  trying  to  pull  Tricia  onto  the  dance  floor.  I  took  one  look  at
Henry's face and said loudly, "Why's the headmaster coming over here?"
Watters released her arm like he'd been scalded and turned.
Henry looked like murder so I stepped  forward,  between  him and Watters, my drinks  held
out  before  me.  "Watch  out,  drinks  coming  through!"  I  weaved  a  bit  wildly  and  Watters
stepped back, eyeing the drinks and still looking around for the headmaster.
Tricia,  also  eyeing  Henry's  expression,  moved  suddenly,  taking  Henry  by  the  hand  and
saying, "I love this song." She pulled him onto the dance floor and kept moving until she was on
the other side, near where two of the chaperones sat, nibbling cake.
I turned,  more  cautiously,  and  handed  Martha  her  fizzy  water.  "Here  you  go,  m'dear."  I
turned back to Watters and offered him the other. "Thirsty, mate?"
His reply was inarticulate. He turned on his heel and left. I didn't turn my back until he was
well away so I was surprised when Martha kissed me on the cheek. I felt my ears go hot.
"What's that for?"
"Being clever," she said. "Being brilliant when it was needed." She was blushing a little, too.
"Come on, dance."
We took a taxi after and Henry and I saw them  all  the way to the aunt's flat in  Kensington
Gardens.
Henry  and  Tricia  snogged  the  whole  way,  and  on  the  steps,  before  Martha  punched  the
buzzer, I got kissed, too. And not on the cheek.
They scanned our passports, and along with fifteen hundred other souls, we trooped aboard
the MV Bretagne. The brochure  said it could  handle  over  two thousand, but it was  off–season.
The cars had been loading for over an hour.
"Dad actually  sprung  for a cabin.  Usually  I  just  do  the  trip  in  one  of  the  reclining  chairs,
which is a lot cheaper, but I guess there's a certain economy with two. He's not paying for two cabins, after all."
I nodded.  I  vaguely  remember  taking  the  ferry  to  Calais  from  Dover  as  a  child  and  my mother  insisting  we  not speak a word  of  English  until  we  were  back  in  the  UK.  I  think  they were both in graduate school then and we had three weeks off.
She  was  pretty  serious  about  it  and  I  learned  the  words  for  my  favorite  foods  pretty quickly. Pommesfrites, Maman, s'il te plait?
They  had  a  cinema  aboard,  bars,  shops,  several  restau•rants.  We  could've  eaten  in  the fancier table service, Les Abers, but we hit the self–service place, La Baule, instead.
"Not fish and chips again?" "Eat what you want."
I had the baguette with Brie and tomato and basil, and pie a la mode for pudding.
As we  got out into the channel, the ship  began  pitching  around  and  I  began  to  regret  the
pie. We'd been thinking about hitting the  cinema but it was  something  we'd both seen,  so  we
returned to our tiny in–board  cabin and lay down. Henry  dropped  off  promptly but I couldn't
get to sleep–it was still early afternoon by my clock. I started to get up again, but the ship  was
still  dancing and my stomach  lurched.  I  lay  back  down  and  dozed,  more  or  less,  through  the
night.
The ship was far calmer when  we  awoke,  sheltered  from the north  winds by the Cotentin
Peninsula. We got our stuff together, then hit the La Gerbe de Locronan cafe  for  tea and a roll.
The Isle  of  Jersey  was bathed in  wisps  of fog to the south. We docked at Saint–Malo at eight
but it took a bit to get off.
Cousin Harold was waiting on the other side of passport control. "No trouble?"
"Not this time," said Henry. "Mr. Harold Langsford, young Master Griffin O'Conner."
We shook hands and I asked, "Is there trouble sometimes?"
Harold  smiled.  "Sometimes  they get  concerned  about youngsters  traveling  alone.  I've  had
to step up more than  once  to  show  he's  being met. But," he  looked up at Henry's  face,  "since
Henry's shot  up, I  expect  they're  not  paying  that  much  attention."  He  glanced  at  the  people
streaming around us. "Let's give the car  park a shot, why don't  we? I'd like  to  clear  out  before
they start unloading the cars."
It took less than forty–five minutes to make it to  Pontsor–son. We went on the  coast  road
but  it  turned  inland  before  we  could  see  Mont–Saint–Michel.  "Later,"  said  Cousin  Harold.
"Don't want to go today, anyhow. There's less tourists dur•ing the week."
We had four days.
Cousin  Harold's  gray  stone  "cottage" had four  bedrooms, a walled  garden, and a  vast  slate
roof. Everything in the gar•den was brown and wilted but tidy, beds  well  covered  with mulch.
It had been foggy in Portsmouth but by the time  we  parked  his  Citroen, the sun had burned off
the light mist and the sky was blue as Mum's eyes.
Well, like they were.
His home wasn't quite in the village; it was fifteen min•utes to walk in. "Thought we'd have
lunch at the cafe." On the way he said, "You've just crossed into Normandy."
"It's not at the river?" The bridge was still ahead.
"No, in ancient times it was but now it's west of the river. There's a saying: 'The madness  of
the Couesnon put Mont–Saint–Michel  in  Normandy.  But  modern  France  doesn't  de•pend  on
the vagaries of rivers."
He fed us fish  soup and potatoes and salad and poured us half  glasses  of  white  Muscadet.
"Right then, you bugger off–I'm going to take my nap. Tea at five?"
We  walked  around  the  village  and  Henry  pointed  out  a  large  three–storied  house  with
dormer windows sticking out of the slate roof  and shielded by a wrought  iron and stone  wall.
"That's haunted, you know."
"Tell me another."
"Well, doesn't it look like it's haunted?"
"Oh, aye. Movie–set haunted. Like the haunted house in Disneyland. They have that at Euro
Disney?"
"They call it the Phantom Manor, I think."

We  walked   down  around  the  Hotel   Montgomery  and  then  down  by  the   river,   the
Couesnon, and the walkway that ran all the way to Mont–Saint–Michel.
The sun made everything lovely–still, warm air–and I took  off my jacket and tied it around
my waist. Back by the train station there were lots of little models of the Mont and I asked the
clerk, a bored young woman,  which  she thought I should buy, to try my French. She  looked at
me like I was  crazy but entered  into a conversation  readily  enough. I began  saying things  like,
"Well,  if I wanted to hit  someone,  which  would be the best? And which  do  you  recommend
for throw•ing? For feeding to disliked relatives? For clogging a toilet?"
This  killed  thirty  minutes  and  I  could  feel  my  ear  for  the  accent  improving.  She  asked
where we were from and, for•tunately, didn't want to try her English when she found out. Then
a  large  busload  of  tourists  returned  from  the  Mont  and  filled  the  shop,  killing  time  before
their train. I bought a medium brass Mont and a postcard and we fled from the crowd.
"Well, your accent is still atrocious," said Henry.
"She didn't seem to have any trouble understanding me."
"Triumph of content over style. Your vocabulary is still bigger. Couldn't follow all of it."
"Thought you studied it in school?"
"Used to. This year it's Arabic."
"Oh."
"Because it looks like my parents are making a speciality of the Middle East. And, er ..."
"And?"
"Tricia, too. She's fluent."
I laughed and laughed, until he turned red and punched my arm.
"Nous devrions parler seulementfrangais tandis que nous sommes ici."
He had me say it more slowly and finally got it.
So we did–only  French  for the rest  of the trip.  Cousin  Harold  was  fine  with it. He'd been
fluent  for  years.  Henry didn't talk near as much as he usually did but we  worked  hard  to  drag
him into conversations.
The  next  day,  Henry  and  I  walked  all  the  ten  kilometers  to  the  Mont  and  spent  the  day
wandering from Gautier's Leap to Gabriel's Tower, then spent  some  time  toddling  around the
mud banks, though we stayed away from the areas marked
SABLES MOUVANTS!
I discussed it with Henry, in French of course. He picked up a rock and heaved it onto the
wet sand and bloop, it sank right down. Very quick sand indeed.
I sketched a great deal, annoying Henry, who was snap•ping pics  with his  camera, but got a
good  sketch  of the  lace  staircase  and the statue of Saint  Michael  slaying  the  dragon.  He  kept
wanting me to hurry up but I'd just send him off to get us drinks or snacks.
Having  decided  we'd  walked  quite  enough,  we  took  the  train  station  shuttle  back  to
Pontorson.
We  relaxed  the  next  day,  helped  Cousin  Harold  clear  leaves  out  of  his  roof  gutters.  I sketched, and we watched a Manchester United match on the telly. We were  keeping the deal though, not speaking anything but French.
By the time the MV Bretagne had pulled  into  Portsmouth  (Cousin  Harold  came  back  with
us, to hand us through  pass•port  control  and do  some  shopping)  my  accent  was  much  better
and we'd managed to increase Henry's vocabulary by about fifty words.
"You visit me this summer and we'll make a real  breakthrough–get you speaking  like  Griff
here,"  said  Cousin  Harold,  finally  reverting  to English  while  we  waited  in the  British–citizen
line at immigration.
They were scanning the bar  code  on the  passports  and glancing at the pictures, and saying,
"Welcome back,  wel•come  back,  welcome  ba–" The terminal  beeped  when they scanned my
passport  and two  bored–looking  guards  leaning  against  the  wall  were  suddenly  blocking  the
route out to the car park and the taxis and the buses.
"Mr. O'Conner, I'm afraid I'll need you to go with these officers."
Shit! "What's wrong?" I asked. "Did my passport expire?"
He shook his head. "No."
Cousin  Harold  and  Henry  had  gone  through  before  me  and  gotten  yards  on  the  way,  but
Henry  tugged  on  Harold's  elbow  and  they  came  back.  "What  seems  to  be  the  problem,
Officer?"
"Are you traveling with this lad, sir?"
"Indeed I am. In loco  parentis,  so  to  speak.  Were  you  worried  he  was  an  unaccompanied
minor?"
"No, sir. There's an alert out. He's wanted for question•ing."
"Questioning? For what? I should really call his parents, then."
"I'd be  surprised  if  you  could,  sir.  According  to  this  alert,  they  were  murdered  six  years
ago. This lad's been missing ever since."
Henry  was  frowning  but  when  he  heard  this  his  eyes  went  wide.  "Nonsense.  Griff's  dad
teaches computers and his mother teaches French lit."
The immigration control officer narrowed his eyes and looked  interestedly at Henry. "Tell
you that, did he?"
"Stop  it," I said to Henry. "That's  what  they  did,  all  right.  Before–"  My  voice  broke  and  I
clamped my mouth shut.
Cousin Harold frowned at me. "Surely,  Officer, you don't  expect  this boy to have anything
to do with this crime?"
The  officer  shrugged.  "It  just  says  'detain  for  question•ing.'  Until  four  days  ago  he  was
presumed  dead." His  phone  rang and he  picked  it  up.  "Yes,  sir.  We've  got  him.  Your  of•fice?
Yes,  sir."  He  hung  up  and  spoke  to  the  two  guards.  "The  chief  wants  him."  He  handed  my
passport to one of them.
It was Henry's eyes that hurt. "They came for us in Cali•fornia," I said. "I got away but Mum
and Dad–" I took  an•other breath. "Anyway, that's the only  thing  I  wasn't  honest  about,  if  you
were wondering."
"Here, boy, let me take that for you," one of the guards said, taking hold of my bag. The one
with  my  passport  took  hold  of  my  upper  arm,  firmly.  Pretty  much  like  the  other  guard  had
taken my suitcase.
"If you'd care to come this way, sir," he said to Cousin Harold.
Henry said, "Someone killed your parents? Who did that?"
I shook my head. "It's complicated."
They took us through a door with a punch–button combi•nation  lock, then down a hallway
toward  a  bank  of  lifts.  Ahead  on  the  right  was  a  double  set  of  doors  with  the  uni•versal
pictograms.
I pointed. "Need to use the loo. Urgently."
They looked at each  other and the one  holding  me shrugged. "Right, then."  He  pushed  the
door open and said, "Take off your  coat and turn out your  pockets."  Cousin  Harold and Henry
stayed in the hall with the other immigration officer.
"What?"
"Come on–you want to use the lav, do what I say."
I took the coat off–it was my favorite  jacket, a leather  one–and handed it to him. I put my
wallet on the counter and a handful of French coins. "That's it. Why?"
"Routine. Don't want you doing yourself an injury. Show me your ankles."
I pulled up my pant  legs.  "No knives. No guns," I said. I gestured at my thin  wallet  and the coins. "All right?"
He nodded and pointed at a stall. "Help yourself."
The minute I locked the stall door behind me, I jumped.
It  was  a  sloppy  jump,  unfocused,  and  pieces  of  porcelain  and  water  splashed  across  my
shoes  and the  limestone  floor  of my Hole. I hated to think what the stall  looked  like.  Bet  he
heard  it.  I  pictured  his  steps  pounding–no,  splashing–¦  across  the  floor  and  his  opening  the
door to see the shattered toilet, maybe toilet paper strewn everywhere.
And no me.

Chapter Nine
Shattered Tiles

So, it had to be the passport. They'd scanned it on my way to France.  Someone  had noticed
and  the  alert  was  put  in  the  system.  It  could've  been  just  the  normal  authorities.  Surely  the
consular  people  had got  involved  when my parents  were  killed.  After all,  I'd  gone  missing.  I
should never have gone through customs. I should've jumped past, instead,  or  directly  onto the
boat in the night. On the way back, I shouldn't have even used the boat.
And now they'd watch Henry. They'd watch the health club where I took karate.
When will you learn, you git?
I moped around the Hole for a few days, then jumped back to London. I was  ultra–careful,
popping  into  the  field  in  Oxfordshire  and  doing  the  rest  by  train.  No  jumping.  It  was  the
weather  for  coats,  fortunately,  freezing  rain,  and  I  wore  a  big  anorak  with  the  hood  pulled
well forward.
Henry  came  out  of  the  health  club  after  evening  class  and  headed  for  the  Knightsbridge
station. His head was down and his shoulders were rounded. No  after–class  cuppa. I followed,
distantly.  There  were  several  other  people  going  down  the  street  toward  the  station  and  I
decided  against  going  in.  Cabs  were  scarce,  because  of  the  cold  rain,  but I  lucked  into  one
dropping a fare at Harrods and had him take me  straight  to  Russell  Square.  Henry  exited  ten
minutes after, as did several others. Two men in  identical  dark  green  overcoats  followed  him
all the way back to St. Bartholomew's.
One  of  them  was  Kemp,  the  man  from  Bristol,  the  man  who'd  been  there  the  night  my
parents died.
I nearly jumped on the spot.
Whoa, boy. You want to confirm that you're hangin' about?
I  headed  in  the  other  direction,  toward  Holborn  Station,  and  ten  minutes  later  stepped
onto an eastbound Central train and rode it all the way to the end of the line at Epping.
I walked out into the car park shrouded in the rain and hesi•tated. No, if they could feel  me
jump sixteen miles away from  Henry's  school, I didn't  care.  Nothing to tie me to Henry, even
if they could feel it. And I was sick of the rain.
I basked on the beach in Phuket the next morning. I was  chilled  through–I  thought  it  was
the dampness of the cave, but even  on the beach, in the hot sun, I felt  cold. The water  looked
unappealing as a result but ultimately it was the cure.
It felt  like a  bath  after  the  freezing  rain  in  London.  Not  exactly  hot,  but  certainly  warm.
Later  I  got  breakfast  from  a  street  vendor,  fresh  pineapple  and  grilled  garlic  sausages  and
sticky rice, and ate it in the sticky shade of a mango tree.
At the Kinko's in San Diego, I wrote:
Hey, henry,
I'm sorry you got caught up in my stuff. I did lie to you about my parents being alive but i had to lie to the dojo, too. The people who killed them are still after me. I look at this and it sounds ridiculous, paranoid as hell, but that doesn't make it any less true. I started to visit you and they 
were there, following you.
So, it's been real. Keep on top of your math. Say good–bye for me.
Your friend, Griffin

I posted it from way the hell out in Buckinghamshire, at the Chesham  post  office. I had my doubts about it. If they saw it, I hoped they'd understand  I  wouldn't  be  seeing  Henry  again.  If they didn't intercept it, I hoped he'd understand that–well, I just hoped he'd understand.
I'd almost said, "Say good–bye to Tricia and Martha." Then I'd amended it to, "Say  good–bye
to the girls." And I thought about Kemp and his lot watching them, following them.
As I said, I hoped Henry would understand.
Obviously, I stopped going to karate. And I laid off London completely for a while.
This  didn't  mean  I  stopped  doing  karate.  I  worked  on  my  katas  and  I  bought  a  dozen
makiwari, practice boards you plant in the earth with padded striking surfaces covered in  rope
about shoulder high. I scattered them around the Empty Quarter, up and down the gully.
Now if I'd been doing regular strikes, I could've  gotten  along  with just one  target. You just
stand in front of it and whack it, after  all–punches,  knife hand, elbow, and kicks– but I wasn't
doing it like that.
I started the strikes while I was still yards away. It was like that time in Birmingham,  when
I punched Wickes, the tournament cheat. Begin the strike, jump, and connect.
Except when I didn't.
I scraped my shin and forearm, cut knuckles, and once I bloodied my own  nose. I'd jumped
too close, clipped the board with my fist but shot past, and it sprang back full in my face.
I nearly gave it up right then, but I was back the next day, swollen nose and all.
I bought  one  of  those  solar  showers,  the  plastic  ones  for  camping,  and  hung  it  from  the
south  side  of an ahuehuete  tree  in  the  jungle  behind  Bahia  Chacacual.  Depending  how  much
overcast  there  was,  I'd  shower  sometime  between  midday  and  the  afternoon.  I  tried  not  to
leave it too late. If it was cloudless, it got too hot and I had to add  cold  water. I'd always jump
it back to my Hole and refill it from the spring when I was done, then hang it back  so it would
be ready the next day.
Except  for the odd rainy day, it  worked  out  well,  and  if  I  was  desperate,  I'd  wash  in  the
rain. I didn't have to worry about memberships or people messing with me and I could  see  the
bright  Pacific  through the trees. And you didn't want to  linger,  because the  mosquitoes  could
be bad, especially at dusk.
I  took  a  train  from  Saint–Malo,  jumping  to  the  car  park  at  the  ferry,  changing  some
American  cash to monnaie frangais in the terminal,  then  walking  to  the  train  station.  Besides
the cash and an oversized coat, all I carried  was my sketchpad and some  pencils,  which  was a
damn good thing. The streets swarmed with tourists and I would've  hated to be carrying a bag.
As it was, I was hit several times by others' luggage.
Doing it  like  this, there  were  no  customs  agents, no  passports  scanned,  no  checkpoints.  I
was nervous about it, wondering if they'd posted anyone there. I thought Cousin Harold's place
in  Pontorson  was  more  likely  being  watched, but I sat  in  the  corner  of  a  car  and  looked  for
familiar  faces,  green  trench  coats,  anyone  watching  me,  but  the  only  per•sons  who  paid  any
attention were the conductor and my seat mates, an old French couple  and a nervous  Spaniard
with no French or English.
Like  me,  he  was  going  to  Paris  and  was  worried  he  was  on  the  wrong  train.  While  he
talked funny (I thought) with his  Castillian  gra–th–ias, he had no  trouble  understanding me  so
immediately  asked  all  sorts  of  questions  to  which I didn't know the  answers. I spent the  ride
acting  as a conduit  between  him and the  elderly  French  couple,  as they had the  an•swers  and were more than happy to  tell  him about his train  transfer in Rennes and the best subway stop
for his hotel in Paris. They showed  pictures  of  their  children  and grandchildren. The Spaniard showed a picture of his parents and his  sisters  and his  sisters'  children. By the end of the hour
trip into Rennes my throat was dry and my espanol was becoming ethpanol.
The couple said au revoir in Rennes and I helped my Spanish friend to his train. His  transfer
was  imminent but my train didn't  leave  for  two  hours–the  penalty  of  buying  the  tickets  that
day instead  of  reserving  ahead. He thanked me  effusively  upon  boarding. I waved and  walked
away feeling both relieved and sad.
I ate the plat du jour  in  a  creperie  in  the  next  block  over  from  the  train  station.  After,  I
walked a bit and sketched. I boarded my train in good time, found the seat, and after  having my
ticket punched, slept the two hours into Paris.
The Gare  Montparnasse  was  all  glass and  people,  end–of–business–day  crowds  swarming
to catch  trains  out  of  Paris.  Still  half  asleep,  I  found  a  restroom  and,  very  carefully,  jumped
home.
This time I didn't break the toilet.
It isn't hard to get fed in Paris if they think you're French, but it is amazing  how hard it is to
get served otherwise.  My accent  was  apparently  improving  enough and, it seemed,  kids  were
wearing similar enough clothes that I fit in.
I  sketched  a  lot–the  bridges  over  the  Seine  mostly,  and  interesting  faces,  if  they  were
sitting still. One day, in a cafe, I began drawing a random head, no  live  subject in mind, and the
outline of the head, particularly a sharp turn between the  forehead and the top, felt  familiar. I
kept  scribbling,  faster, and faster,  more an  impressionist  caricature  than  my  usual  style,  but I
captured it, that feeling of familiarity.
Only then did I realize it was  Kemp, the  Bristol–accented  bastard  who'd  been  there in San
Diego,  who'd  been  there  in  Oaxaca  and  London.  I  tore  it  out  of  the  sketchbook,  my  hands
spread to crumple it into a ball, but I stopped myself.
"C'est bon. Votre pere?" The waiter, passing by, surprised me.
I was angry. The drawing didn't look anything like me!
"Non. Un homme mauvais." A very bad man. Definitely not my father.
The waiter shrugged. "Monpere est un homme mauvais." He moved on before I said anything.
Perhaps if my father had been a bad man, I wouldn't miss him so.
When I left, I carefully put the loose drawing in the back of my sketchbook.
I stole some  plywood  paneling  from a construction  site,  six  sheets,  four  feet by eight, and
leaned  them  against  the  wall  of  the  cave.  There  wasn't  anyplace  to  pin  up  my  drawings
otherwise.  The  limestone  was  often  damp  and  never  flat,  and  my  refrigerator,  the  little
twelve–volt  job,  wasn't  exactly  magnet  heaven.  One  drawing   overwhelmed   it.  I  put  six
plywood sheets up, five of them as edge to edge as the irregular sur•faces allowed.
The one  on the end,  separated by a good yard,  became  the  villains'  gallery–as  far  from my
bed as possible–and while the rest were lit with lamps that were  part of the regu•lar  circuit, I
put in a separate light and switch for that end panel.
I started with Kemp.
I tried others–the woman who'd  been  there the night my parents  died. The man I'd shot in
the eyes  with  the  paintball  gun.  The  man  I'd  shot  in  the  bollocks  and  then  hit  several  times
with the gun. But even though I could remember the woman's voice, the visual  memory  wasn't
there. I tried but it was like drawing made–up comic book characters–no real basis in reality.
The  big  guy,  from  Oaxaca,  the  one  I'd  scared  over  the  cliff–him  I  managed.  It  was  that
surprised and panicky look as he flinched over the edge. I also  managed  Senor  Or•tiz from the
Agencia  Federal  de  Investigation, though I didn't  really  count him  as  one  of  them.  More  of  a
minion–  support staff, if you  will. And I drew a  good  head  shot  of  Mateo  the  bellman  as  I'd
seen him that night at the fiesta de Navidad.
They  could  feel  it  when  I  jumped.  They  were  dangerous.  They  wanted  me  dead.  Maybe
Ortiz did, too, but he wasn't the same level of threat.
I put the big man and Mateo up with Kemp. Ortiz I put down  below. I  scribbled  stuff  on
the edges: where, when, and who, if I knew it.
Later I added a biggish world map. I used little Post–its for "named" ones.  Kemp got  one in
Oaxaca and San  Diego and London. Ortiz, the big man,  and  Mateo  got  one  in  Oaxaca.  Then I
put two pins in London for the guys who'd found me in the subway. I couldn't  remember  them
well enough to draw them. Three  other  pins  went to San  Diego  for the woman and the other
two men who'd been there with Kemp.
That made seven, not counting Ortiz. Yet they'd detected me in London, so at least  one had
been  stationed  there,  or  traveling  through,  but  it  made  sense,  if  they  had  enough  of  'em,  to
station a "Sensitive" in major cities.
I wrote  "Sensitives"  on a big  scrap  of  drawing  paper and pinned it above the drawings  of
Kemp, the big man, and the bellman,  Mateo. On another  scrap I wrote,  "Minions," and pinned
it below, above Ortiz.
Then  I  went  back  to  the  library  in  San  Diego  and  got  printouts  from  the   microfilm
collection of the newspapers, the News Daily and the Union Tribune–the stories that told about
that night, the murder of my parents.
On the side of the El Centro  Ranch Market,  there's  this mu•ral of  women  doing  laundry in
the  river.  One  of  them  wears  only  her  underwear–it's  not  exactly  explicit  but  I  still  liked
looking at it.
From the pay phone in the front of the store, I called  Sam's number and, as usual, asked  for
Rosa  in  espanol.  Sam's  voice  was  hoarse  and  instead  of  using  either  of  the  code  phrases
("numero  incorrecto"  or  'Wo  la  conozco")  he  said,  "Griffin,  I  need  you  here  now.  They've  got
Consuelo."
I drew breath to say "Who?" and another voice came on the line.
"Come  on, Griffin. Don't make me hurt 'em." That thick  Bristol  accent  was  unmistakable.
How on earth did he keep it? Didn't Kemp ever watch BBC as a kid?
"Let them go," I said. "Leave them alone."
"Don't waste their time, boy." He hung up.
I  took  a  step  to  the  left  and  lashed  out,  kicking  the  trash  barrel  over  violently;  my  foot
came down in the Empty Quarter, sand and trash swirling around me. I felt like throw•ing up.
I jumped to the Texaco  petrol  station and used the phone  there,  starting  with  911.  "There
are  men  with  guns  holding  Sam  Coulton  at  his  ranch  house.  They're  torturing  him–  they're
trying to get his bank account access numbers from him. No, I won't give you my name."
I hung up. They'd know  where  the  call  came  from, of  course, but the  petrol  station  was a
long way from nowhere.
The  next  number  I  had  to  get  out  of  the  phone  book.  When  they  answered  I  spoke  in
Spanish.  "There  are  coyotes  with guns at the ranch  of Sam Coulton. They have  thirty  il•legals
and are waiting for their transport to meet them. If you hurry–" I hung up, not even  waiting  for
the questions. I jumped to the turnoff–the place on old Highway 80 where the county dirt road
joined  the asphalt–and  began  walking. It was  over  seven  miles  to the ranch  house but I didn't
want them to feel my arrival and, if my calls worked, I might be able to hitch a ride.
An INS helicopter roared out of the east,  probably  com•ing  from  El  Centro. They came  in
low,  maybe seventy  feet,  obviously  following  the highway, then banking hard at  the  turnoff.  I
thought for a moment they  were  doing that for  nav•igation, but I realized  they wanted to spot
any fleeing vehi•cles. This was the only road out.
I crouched  off the road, in the mesquite,  when I  heard  them,  well  before  they  flashed  by
overhead. I shook my fist in the air.
Go, go, GO!
I started running but that didn't last. I was  still  over  five  miles  away and it was hot and the
sun was like a hammer. The road ducked up and down,  over a set of  low  ridges, and I couldn't see or hear anything. Well, I heard something.
I got behind a stand of cholla before the sheriff's car came over the ridge behind me. It was followed  almost  im•mediately by an SUV in INS white and green and then  an  INS  passenger van.
For my imaginary illegal aliens.
They bunched up and  slowed,  bumping  through  a  washed–out  section  of  the  road  on  the
way up the next ridge. I was out into the road and running,  crouched  low,  trying to get behind
the van before they noticed me in the rearview mirror.
I didn't have to worry–the patrol car, in the lead,  should've  brought up the rear.  Three INS
agents piled out of their SUV to push the patrol car past the point it was bot•toming out.
I  considered  jumping  into  the  interior  of  the  van,  but  found  I  could  crouch  on  the  box
receiver   of  its   trailer   hitch  and  hold  on  to  the  spare–tire   rack.  Good.   Didn't   want   to
jump–didn't want to clue in Kemp and his bunch.
Just let Sam and Consuelo be all right.
I dropped off the van while it bounced across a particu•larly  nasty  pothole  and then  rolled
sideways  into the brush. I got stuck by a prickly  pear,  hiding in a  tuft  of  brown  grass,  but  the
van didn't stop, so I guess they didn't notice.
I scrambled through the brush, headed for the back of the stable.
The  first  thing  I  saw  was  one  of  the  INS  agents  going  by  with  an  M–16  assault  rifle.  I
ducked back into the brush. The second thing I saw was another INS agent.
He was  dead. Very  clearly  dead.  His  head  was  half  off  and  the  blood  was  worse  than–it
was worse than that night. I gagged and moved  carefully  back into the bush, breathing through
my nose, but finally, I couldn't help it–I vomited into the sand.
There was a big  green  SUV I didn't  recognize–not  Sam's and it  certainly  wasn't an  official
vehicle. It also hadn't passed me on the dirt road. Kemp's people must've come in it.
He's still here?
I  came  up  behind  the  car  from  the  county  sheriff's  depart•ment.  There  was  an  officer
talking  on  the  radio,  but  he  wasn't  seated.  He  was  crouched  on  the  ground,  shielded  by  the
open  door.  "–forensics  for  sure,  and  body  bags–uh,  two  for  the  residents  and  there  were  six
INS guys on the chopper–five agents and the pilot."
"Got that, Joe," the radio crackled. "We've got our chop•per up and heading your way,  eyes
wide open. Hopefully they'll spot the missing chopper. Sheriff says secure the crime scene."
I couldn't help myself.
I jumped into the house.
Sam was on the rug before the couch, his hands bound behind him with a plastic  cable  tie.
Consuelo lay in the doorway to the kitchen. The rug had soaked up most of Sam's  blood but in
the kitchen it spread across the linoleum as far as the refrigerator and the cabinet.
I stuffed my fist in my mouth to keep from screaming.
There  were  footsteps  on the  porch  outside,  perhaps the deputy  or  one  of  the  INS  agents
returning after checking the outbuildings.
In the Empty Quarter I took my hand out of my mouth and screamed.
I jumped to La Crucecita, to Alejandra's  office  at Significado  Claro, but she  wasn't  there. I
stared at my watch, juggling time zones with difficulty. Lunch–right.
I jumped to her house. Not there, either. I looked out the window, toward the hotel.
Mateo, the bellman,  was  striding up the  sidewalk, a shoul•der bag dangling  from  his  hand,
as if he'd snatched it up. He talked to a cell phone in his other hand.
I jumped to the next  window  and saw him jerk his head around,  looking at the house.  He
was definitely one of the Sensitives.
I started in the living room, two quick steps forward, and jumped into the air.
The sole of my foot smashed into  Mateo's  chest hard enough to send him flying  backward,
his feet coming up waist high before he crashed to the sidewalk. I saw his head bounce and his eyes rolled back.
I bent  over  to  check  his  pulse and he swung at me, weakly. I kicked him in the side,  then grabbed  him  by  his  shirt  and  jumped  five  miles  east,  to  the  beach  on  Isla  la  Montosa,  and spilled him half in sand, half in water. I pulled his wallet  out. He'd  dropped the phone and 
the
bag, so I went back for them, before I returned to Alejandra's office.
She still wasn't there and I was very afraid that they'd taken her already. I let myself out and
started asking ques•tions: "i listed ha visto Alejandra ? "
She wasn't at any of her regular lunch places and no one had seen  her. There  was a burning
at the back of my nose and I was having  trouble  seeing.  They've already got her. Then I saw  her,
coming  across  la  Plaza  Principal  from  the  direction  of  the  church,  and  my  knees  nearly
buckled with the relief.
She took one look at me and her face went white. "What is it?"
I jumped her to her house, without asking, without warn•ing.
She dropped to the floor. "Now I know it is bad."
"You need to pack," I said. "Whatever you care about."
She blinked. "Tell me! What is it?"
"They killed Consuelo and Sam."
"iMuertos?  No!"  Both  hands  went  to  her  face  and  her  breath  started  coming  in  short,
convulsive gasps, then sobs.
And that broke me, too.
I dropped  to my knees and wrapped my arms  around her and began  sobbing  as  hard,  then
harder than her. Her arms pulled me in and I wrenched away.  "No! They'll  come!  You need to
pack."
She took one of the kitchen towels and blew  her  nose  hard. "Where?"  she  managed  after a
moment.
I opened my mouth to speak and then blinked. "New  York City," I said out loud, but then I
shook  my  head  vigorously  and  pointed  at  my  ear  and  then  around  the  room.  She  had  an
erasable  whiteboard  mounted on  one  of  the  cabinet  doors.  I  grabbed  the  marker  and  wrote,
"France,"  making  sure  she  saw  it,  then  took  the  dish  towel  she'd  blown  her  nose  with  and
wiped the writing off the board.
"What about him?" she said, pointing toward the Hotel Villa Blanca.
"Mateo? I took him on a trip.  We've  got  some  time, but I don't know  how  long." I had no
idea if Mateo had local backup or not. How  would they have taken me, anyway? I pushed her
toward her room. "Pack, please!"
I'd  stuffed  Mateo's  phone  in  my  pocket  and  I  took  it  out,  curious.  There  were  several
programmed numbers but most of them were international. Two  were  local,  though. One said
"Tio," meaning "uncle," and the other said "Detonar." Dee–toner? I was  confused, then  realized
that tio was in Spanish, so I sounded it out. Day–Toe–Nar.
"Alejandro, como se dice 'detonar'en ingles?"
She looked up. "Detonate? Explode?"
Oh, shit.
I grabbed  her  and  jumped.  She  staggered  away  from  me  in  the  Empty  Quarter,  dust  and
underwear swirling around us.
"What?" she yelled. She looked angry and frightened.
I held up the phone. "I took this from  Mateo.  Look." I stabbed my finger at the quick–dial
entry: Detonar.
She read it and bit her lip. "We don't know what that refers to." She began  scooping up her
panties and bras. "It could be anything."
"And it could mean one very specific thing."
She shook her head in frustration. "You have the phone, though."
"It's just a phone. Who else has that number?" "I want my things!"
I jumped  us  to  the  Hole  and  left  the  bag  and  her  clothes  on  the  table.  She  opened  her mouth to ask but I said, "This is my place. It's an old mine. I detonar the entry so the only way in
or out is my way.” "My things?"
I licked my lips. "Let's go see, okay?"
It took me  a  minute,  but I  eventually  remembered  the  roof  of  the  hotel  well  enough  to
jump. The memory  wasn't  from the last  time I'd  been  there,  sneaking  up  on  Kemp,  but  from
one of the firework–viewing parties.
I  crouched  at  the  parapet  with  Alejandra  and  looked  over  the  patio  and  the  swimming
pool and the tennis courts to her house.
"See," she said. "You are too cautious."
I nearly broke down. "No. Not anywhere near cautious enough or Sam and Consuelo–"
She nearly lost it, too. "Okay!" She chopped down with her hand, cutting me off.
"What's your first priority?" I said,  pointing  toward the house. "What's the most  important
thing in there?"
"My mother's jewelry, up on the closet shelf. The rosewood box."
"And then?"
"The photo albums–you know, in the living room."
I  took  a  deep  breath  and  jumped  to  her  room.  The  closet  door  was  already  open  from
before, and I stood on tiptoe and snagged the box. As it dropped into my hand, I jumped back.
"Here," I said, pushing the box into her hands. I pictured the  living  room  and then we both
flinched at the flash  of light and the horribly  loud,  flat  crack  that  shook  us,  and  then  the  tile
roof of her house rose up and scattered like confetti in smoke.
I jumped her and the box away as the first fragments be•gan to fall around us.

Chapter Ten
Turning the Corner

I killed  them." Alejandra had been  crying  for about a  half  hour,  lying  on  my  bed.  I'd  tried patting  her  back,  but  I  couldn't  keep  still.  I'd  tried  pacing,  then  I'd  jumped  away,  to  the makiwara  in  the  Empty  Quarter,  and  hit  them,  hit  them,  hit  them  until  my  
knuckles  split, bleeding, and the pain was finally enough to cut through the other pain.
I was sitting by the cave pool, soaking my hand in the icy cold water, when I said it.
Alejandra,  lying  on  her  side,  staring  into  the  dark  corner  of  the  cave,  lifted  her  head.
"What?"
"I killed Sam and Consuelo."
I'd told her the circumstances already–the INS and the  helicopter  and the phone  calls. The
way I'd found them.
A look of understanding came over her face and that was more painful than anything.
"I  killed  them  like  I  killed  my  parents.  Like  I  killed  that  policeman  in  San  Diego."  My
voice  was  ragged; my breath•ing cut through the  cave  like a coarse–tooth  saw. "Okay, I didn't
hold the knives, but I might as well have."
I looked at her and away. "And I've probably killed you."
"Callete!" she said. "Stop it."
I took  another  ragged  breath and held it. She  got  up  and  came  over.  "Hay  caramba!  What
did you do to your hand?" She took it out of the water. The bleeding had  slowed.  "Did you hit someone? Mateo?"
"Mateo? Oh, Christ!" I jumped.
Mateo  wasn't  on  the  island.  It  was  a  fairly  short  swim  to  the  mainland,  or  he  could've flagged  down  one  of the dive  boats and gotten a ride. I'd kicked  him  pretty  hard,  though,  and
his head did bang against the sidewalk.
So maybe he drowned in the strait.
I resented it either way, because I really wanted to hit someone.
When I appeared  back in the Hole,  Alejandra  said,  "Never  do  that  again!"  Her  voice  was
strident and I flinched.
"Do what?"
She gestured sharply around. "You said there's no exit. What do I do when they kill you?"
"I'm sorry," I said, but that phrase was like a can opener. "I'm sorry! Oh, God, I'm so sorry!"
She  put  me  on  the  bed  and  held  me  while  the  sobs  wracked  me  over  and  over  again.
Sometimes she cried, too; eventually we slept.
She stayed with me five days. With me–I never left her in the Hole if I wasn't there, even  if
it was just fetching food from Phuket or the West End. We'd take turns with the  solar  shower
in the jungle near Bahfa Chacacual, the other waiting down the hill (though I peeked  once. Oh.
My. I was uncom•fortable for hours).
I'd sleep on my side, away from her, aware of her every motion.
On the sixth day, we  shopped–Harrods  in Knightsbridge–  clothes  and luggage.  Back in  the
Hole  we  took the  store  tags off  everything and packed them away in the two  bags. I put  fifty
thousand  dollars  in  the  bottom  of  her  main  case  without  telling  her.  In  London  I'd  already
changed a thousand dollars to francs at Barclays.
"Don't flash it," I said.
"No, I'm not too stupid."
The  corners  of  my  mouth  turned  down  and  she  laughed.  "  jSolo  estaba  bromeando!"  She
pulled me to her and kissed my forehead, without bending. "Ai."
We jumped to Rennes and waited  for them but apparently it wasn't the sort  of  place  they
were monitoring. I started to buy the ticket for  her but she  stopped  me.  "Sweet, but I must do
for myself now, eh?"
The clerk delighted in helping her with the transaction and came out of his booth to  direct
her to the right platform  for the Paris  express. I bought a southbound  ticket  for  Saint–Nazaire
on the Bay of Biscay.
I had  this  picture  of  me  standing  on  the  platform,  watch•ing  her  train  pull  away,  but  I
wasn't paying enough attention when I purchased my ticket–mine  left  first. She  walked  me to
my  platform,  held  me  for  a  moment,  hard,  as  if  to  take  an  impression  with  her  flesh,  an
indented memory. Then she  kissed me, on the mouth, a grown–up  kiss that brought the blood
rushing.
"Be careful–sois prudent!" And then she was walking away, her shoulder bag slung, her  large
suitcase trailing be•hind on its wheels.
I rode the train as far south as Redon and jumped away, from the space between the cars.
The  papers  said  the  helicopter  was  abandoned  in  Mexico,  just  over  the  border  near
Highway 2, the route to Tijuana.
There were no cars reported hijacked but there was also no sign of the fugitives.
Apparently  the  police  theory  was  drugs.  Drug  smugglers  killed  the  INS  agents  and  Sam
Coulton and Consuelo Mon–Jarraz y Romera. And they fled back into Mexico.
Sam's  funeral  was  in  El  Centra,  Consuelo's  in  La  Crucecita.  I  didn't  go  to  either.  What
could result but more death?
And not the right victims.
I tried to jump to Phuket, not my usual  place  out on Ko  Bon  island,  but  an  alley  near  the market in Chalong, but I couldn't recall it well enough.
I jumped  my  dinghy  to  the  island  instead  and  sailed  over,  and,  when  I  got  there,  I  spent fifteen minutes sketching the spot.
My  plywood  wall  of  sketches  began  having  another   pur•pose.  If  I  wanted  to  return regularly to a place, I'd record it. Maybe photographs would've worked but when you sketch a place, you really look at it.
And I tried to sketch Mum. Then Dad. Couldn't.
It  wasn't  memory–their  faces  were  as  clear  as  the  day  they–well,  they  were  clear.  But I couldn't see through the tears and my hands shook. It's hard to draw  when your hands want to make fists.
It was the same  with Sam and Consuelo,  though I man•aged a head and  shoulders  portrait
of Alejandra.
I tried  another  drawing  of  Mateo,  as  I'd  last  seen  him,  half  in  the  water,  half  out,  on  the
beach at Isla la Montosa. That I managed with some degree of accuracy.
I  knew  it  was  accurate–I  had  his  driver's  license.  I  also  had  his  bag,  which  had  held  a
gun–an odd gun.
I'd fired it in the desert, at a limestone  outcropping, and it  put  two  spikes  into  the  stone
with  a  cable  taut  between  them.  When  I  touched  the  cable  it  shocked  the  shit  out  of  me,
numb•ing my entire arm.
There  were  five  more  cartridges  in  the  bag,  all  identical.  The  gun  folded  open  at  the
breech,  like  an  old–fashioned  shotgun.  I  fired  one  more  and  it,  too,  shot  out  cable  and  two
spikes. I didn't touch it this time. I put the bag back in my Hole.
I tried to relax, to do nothing, but when I did, I found my•self  wandering  down to the end
of the cave and turning on the flood that lit my villains' gallery. There were only  four  sketches.
I thought there should be more.
I  knew  they  were  in  London–they'd  tried  for  me  twice  there,  so  I  figured  that  was  the
place for the experiment. I bought two cheap video cameras and placed them on tree  limbs in
the  corner  of  Hyde  Park  near  the  Tube  station.  I  started  them  recording,  walked  out  in  the
middle of the green, and jumped home to the Hole.
I returned in five minutes and left again. At ten minutes I returned, and stayed.
There were two of them, you could tell, their car came to a screeching halt in the bus lane
on  Kensington  Road. They spread out, one  coming up the main path  from  Queen  Eliza•beth's
Gate and the other one cut around west, past the Boy and Dophin Fountain. They hadn't spotted
me yet–I was standing next to the Rose Garden–and so it wasn't that ob•vious when I jumped.
I  waited  until  they'd  passed  my  cameras,  then  jumped  away,  west  up  the  park  toward
Knightsbridge Station. They should've felt it, I hoped.
I walked across the street and into the station. After  five  minutes, a westbound  train  came
through and I stepped aboard but got off, next stop, back at Hyde Park.
I strolled back casually, my eyes  open  for the two guys in  green  overcoats, but I didn't  see
them. I picked up the cam•eras and then jumped away,  from the same  spot I'd used  be•fore, by
the Rose Garden.
One of them was blond with a receding hairline and a bald spot in back. He had almost  no
eyebrows and he looked fa•miliar, but only vaguely, and I thought that perhaps he was the one
who had attacked me on the stairs at the Elephant and Castle Tube stop.
I froze them on the little television screen at various points and sketched them.
His  companion  shaved  his head, but he had dark stubble and bushy dark  eyebrows  and ran
to fat–kind of jowly. Either of them could've been the one who'd tried at Embankment Station,
when  they'd  snagged  the  two  women  instead–didn't  see  them  that  time.  They  both  were
Sensitives. They'd snapped  their  heads  around the minute I'd jumped. You  could  see  it on the
tape clearly.
Must be a thankless job when your quarry can just jump away in an instant.
Then I remembered  the  circumstances  of my first  en•counter. Maybe it's not so hard,  when
your quarry is an in•experienced child. Maybe they didn't have to hunt adult jumpers.  Maybe the
spent their time killing nine–year–olds instead. Or younger.
Now that would make it easier.
I had no sympathy.
I  was  irritated  with  the  London  police  and  with  myself  a  bit,  too.  I  should've  stayed
longer–as  it was, the tape  showed that when I jumped, the two guys had dashed back to their
car to speed up Kensington after me. Not only did they not get  towed  or  clamped, they didn't
even get a ticket.
Their  sketches  went  up  on  the  board  as  London  Blond  and  London  Baldy,  along  with
Post–its for the city and notes about where I'd seen them.
It  was  weird,  but  after  I'd  done  this,  I  was  able  to  draw  a  brief  sketch  of  Sam,  leaning
forward, like he did on the edge of his living room couch.
Huh.
I wanted to  see  Alejandra,  very much, but I'd insisted  she just disappear,  on her  own,  so  I
wouldn't know. So I couldn't be•tray her accidentally.  Hopefully  she'd  discovered  that she had
enough money to buy a new identity–that was my hope.
I'd warned her about using her own passport–told her what happened to me in Portsmouth.
She said she understood.  She  said not to  worry. I pulled out the big gun. I told her,  "Consuelo
would be very angry with you if you were to come to harm."
I  took  a  train  south  from  Rennes,  first  to  Bayonne,  then  on  to  Hendaye,  across  the  Rio
Bidasoa  from  Spanish  Hondar–ribia.  I  skipped  the  border,  using  my  binoculars  to  see  across
the river, then jumping to a walkway on the far bank.
Bienvenido a España.
The locals  wouldn't mind my travel–they  considered  both  sides  Basque–but they probably
would  disagree  with the  "Welcome  to Spain." I sat  in  the  old  quarter  and  sketched  the  wall
and the  castle.  When  the  place  had  seeped  into  my  bones,  I  walked  to  the  train  station  and
purchased a ticket for Madrid for the next day.
I jumped to the Hole from one of the narrow alleys.
I  was  exhausted  but  I  couldn't  sleep.  I  was  thinking  about  Alejandra.  After  tossing  and
turning, I got up and took a fresh  sketchbook  over  to the table, turned the lights on, and drew
her.
I drew  her nude, as I'd seen  her under the  shower  in  the  jungle  above  Bahia  Chacacual.  I
sketched  for  two  hours.  The  memory  was  better  than  the  sketch,  but  it  was  still  the  best
drawing I'd ever done.
Then I was able to sleep.
The  next  day  I  talked  a  lot,  on  the  train,  finding  interesting  variations  in  the  accent  and
once  getting in trouble  when  using taco, which  apparently  means  "swear  word"  in  Spain.  So
much for lunch.
Because  of a  service  problem  on a train in front of us, it took six hours to get to  Madrid.
When I looked at the map, it  surprised  me  that  it  took  only  that  long,  but  going  back  to  the
scale, I realized Spain was smaller than the state of Texas.
I  was  still  exhausted,  though,  from  the  travel  and  the  talk•ing  and  the  pretending  to
smile–that  was  the  most  tiring.  I  jumped  away  as  soon  as  I'd  made  a  quick  sketch  of  the
platform itself, with the city skyline prominent.

To whom it may concern:
My name  is  Griffin  O'Conner.  I  am  the  child  of  Robert  and  Hannah  O’Conner,  murdered  on  October
3rd,19––––––, in San Diego, Ca.
The accompanying sketch Is of one of the three men (and one woman) involved in their murder. He was also seen in La Crucecita, Oaxca, Mexico, on November 13th, 19––––––, and near the Russell square tube stop in London, England, March 3rd, 200–. On March 16th, 200–, he  was  involved  with  the  
murder  of  Sam Coulton  and  Consuelo  Mon–Jarraz  y  Romera  and  six  INS  agents  in  south–central  San  Diego  County, California. His name is "Kemp" and he has a pronounced english (Bristol area) accent.
Sincerely, Griffin O’Conner March 29th, 200–

CC:
San Diego police department
FBI, San Diego field office
San Diego County Sheriff's Dept. New Scotland Yard

I reduced the sketch to half a page–I'd drawn a full–face and profile view to go with it–and
put a nice inky thumbprint beside my signature, so they'd be able to prove it was re•ally me.
I made  five  copies,  four to send,  one to put up on the board, and  posted  the  three  in  San
Diego, at the downtown  post  office  on Horton  Plaza, and the other in a post box outside  the
Epping Tube station, the very last stop on the Central line.
I  went  back  to  Mont–Saint–Michel  at  sunrise,  jumping  to  the  causeway,  then  sat  and
waited. If they  were  watching  Cousin  Harold they might  feel  me  arrive; I doubted they  were.
But if they had stationed someone here, well then, they'd probably be along directly.
I just wanted to know.
I wasn't  tired–I'd  been  shifting  my  operating  time  more  to  Greenwich  zero.  When  you
wake up in a sealed  cave, it doesn't  matter what the  local  sunlight  is  doing. I  did  tend  to  use
the  Kinko's  in  San  Diego  a  lot  but  that  didn't  really   mat•ter,  most  of  them   were   open
twenty–four hours a day.
When no one arrived desperately looking for a jumper, I walked the rest of the way  across
the causeway to the island.
The tourist  buses hadn't started  arriving  yet and the  ones  staying  locally  were  still  snug  in
their beds.
I received an odd look or two from the few locals who were out, but they  responded  with
nods or smiles to my un•smiling "bonjour." I wanted  something hot to drink,  coffee  preferably,
but the tourist cafes weren't open yet so I found a nook and jumped to San Diego, and bought a
muffin and a very large latte from a Starbucks that was about to close, then went back.
The shadows  of the  low  morning sun threw  the  stonework  of  the  spire  into  sharp  relief
and I used that, sketching the tower and the spire above from the courtyard outside the abbey. I
stood up to stretch  when a  voice  said in badly  ac•cented  French, "No! Retorner,  si  vous  plait."
Then, immedi•ately, in American English, "Where did you get Starbucks?"
I turned. A  redheaded  teenaged  girl  in  an  enormous  black  coat  sat  cross–legged  on  the
stones  about  ten  feet  back  near  the  entrance  of  the  courtyard,  a  large–format  sketchbook
propped  in  her  lap.  The  coat  was  tucked  under  her  rear  and  legs,  and  she  wore  fingerless
gloves  and  black–rimmed  glasses,  comme  Elvis  Costello.  She  was  older  than  me,  but  still  a
student, I suspected. She hadn't settled into her body yet–not the way Alejandra had.
"Why shouldn't I move?" I asked her, ignoring the ques•tion about the coffee.
"You  were  part  of  the  scene.  I  mean,  I  wasn't  going  to  in•clude  you  but  then  you  didn't
move for the last twenty min•utes so I decided I should include you and I really  like  the way I
got your hair and the drape  of  your  coat  so  you  really  need  to  sit  back  down."  She  said  this
very emphatically, with a rush at the end and a stab of her forefinger at the bench where I'd sat.
I raised my eyebrows and she added with a suddenly ner•vous smile, "Please."
"Very  well,  a  votre  service,  mademoiselle."  I  sat  back  and  took  up  the  sketchpad  again.
"How's that?"
"Turn a little  more  to your  left–that's  it.  Are  you  done  sketching?  I  mean,  you  can  go  on sketching but I'm drawing you as you  were  looking up at the spire, the sketchpad in your lap, right?"
"I'll just look up, then–I'm  done  with  the  sketch."  I  could've  worked  on  it  more,  but  the shadows were vanishing as the sun  rose  higher, and part of  drawing  is  learning  when to  leave
off.
I was a little  angry with  myself. I'd  been  sketching  for  two  hours,  at  least,  and  though  I'd been vaguely aware of people coming and going, I hadn't been  paying  attention. What if it had been Kemp?
Well, it wasn't. I drank from the now cold latte but re•turned to the pose.
"You never said where you got the Starbucks," she said. "I thought they weren't in France."
I knew they'd been in London for a year or two but really didn't know about France. "Don't
know. I got this one in San Diego." I started to  look  around to  see  how  she'd take that but she
stopped me.
"Be still–I'm working on your ears. You're from the States? You sound like a Brit. Long way
to bring a paper cup. Why bother?"
"My parents moved around," I said, answering the first  question. I decided  right then to get
a travel mug, to avoid this problem in the future.
"You have very distinctive ears," she said.
I blushed. "They stick out like the handles on a sugar bowl."
The girl laughed. "That's . . . sweet."
"Ha. Very funny."
"Couldn't tell it by you. Well–I'm done. I'll show you mine if you show me yours."
I raised my eyebrows again and she blushed.
"Sketches!"
We sat on the bench. My first impression of her coat was correct–it brushed the top of her
shoes  and  the  sleeves  were  rolled  back  once  so  as  not  to  swallow  her  hands–a  man's  coat,
large.
I  handed  her  my  sketchbook,  open  to  the  morning's  work.  She  seemed  surprised,  then
pushed hers toward me. I guess she'd meant it when she said "show," not "handle."
She was working with  charcoal  pencils  and a kneaded  eraser  on  nice  coarse  paper.  More
impressionistic than a study, but she was right–with just a few  strokes  she'd  cap•tured the way
my hair was sticking up in back and the way my anorak folded as the hem  rested  on the bench.
The tower with its spire  and the courtyard  walls  rose  nicely,  too; the  proportions  were  good
and the shading of the morning light hitting the upper spire was very nice.
Looking at mine she said, "How many days have you been working on this?"
"Just this  morning." I  looked  over  at  it.  Mine  was  much  more  of  a  study,  more  detailed,
more photorealistic, less heart. "I was here at sunrise."
She  pointed  at  the  stepped  arches  in  the  lower  tower  and  the  crenellations  where  the
slate roof tiles met the granite. "It's il•lustration quality–I mean, I'd wouldn't be  surprised at all
to find it in an architecture magazine or The New Yorker."
My ears–those  large  sugar–bowl–handle  ears–burned.  "Yes, but it took me  two  and  a  half
hours."
"This is the sort of thing that takes some people days. What's your name? I want to be able
to say I met you back in the day."
"Ah, well, Griffin. That's my name."
"Griffin?" She held out her hand, palm up, as if coaxing a timid animal out of a cave.
"Griffin O'Conner." Hell, I said it. It's not as if she'd be asking Interpol about me, right?
She  extended  the  hand  farther,  taking  mine.  "Nice–tameetcha!  E.  V  Kelson,  As  in  Elaine
Vera  Kelson,  but  if  you  want  me  to  answer,  call  me  E.V.,  okay?"  She  gave  my  hand  a  firm
shake, then dropped it. "So, where are you staying? We're at the Auberge Saint–Pierre."
She  hadn't  given  me  back  my  sketchbook  and  was  now  holding  it  up  at  arm's  length, comparing it with the spire itself.
"I was staying with a friend's cousin in Pontorson, but I'm leaving today." Both  literal  truths. Ultimately a lie.
"Oh? Me, too. We did Paris, now five days in London. What about you?"
"I'll be going  back home. Uh, who  is  'we'?"  She  looked at me blankly and I clarified,  "The
'we' who're staying at the Auberge Saint–Pierre."
"Ah, the French Club.  Trenton  Central  High  School,  New  Jersey.  There's  eight  girls,  two
boys, our teacher, and four parent chaperones."
"Ah. And do they know where you are?"
She glanced sideways at me. "Why? You planning on kid•napping me?"
I tilted my head to one side as if I were considering it, then shook my head regretfully. "I've
got a bag job at noon, and two  snatch–and–grabs  for  two–thirty. I couldn't  possibly  fit  you  in.
But there's always coffee. If that would be all right with your chaperones."
"Well, yes, sort of, they know where I am–that is, on the Mont,  sketching. I'm supposed  to
meet them back by eleven for checkout." She looked at her watch. "In two  hours. If I don't get
lost."  She  stood up promptly.  "Coffee. I know  where  they'll  serve  cafe au  lait  and  croissants.
Found it by accident–then we can walk a bit, I'm stiff from sitting."
She took one last look at my sketch, and we exchanged books.
E.V. hated New Jersey, having moved there the previous  summer  from  upstate New York.
Her father was a chemical engineer, her mother a middle  school  art  teacher  whose  jobs  were
always  iffy  as  art  funding  was  always  the  first  thing  cut.  E.V.'s  older  brother,  Patrick,  was  a
freshman  at  Princeton  and  she  had  a  large  dog  of  indeterminate  breed  named  Booger.  She
wanted to go to the School of Visual Arts in New York City when she  graduated in two  years.
Her current boyfriend had asked her not to go on this trip simply  because  he needed  her to go
to a party and he was now her  ex–boyfriend. "Though, to  tell  the truth, he was  on the way out
before that. He thought my cartoons were cute and he wanted me to draw him in the nude."
I learned  all  this in the ten minutes  before  we  got to the cafe.  Over  coffee  she  wheedled
out the fact that I was travel•ing alone and that my parents were dead.
"Oh." Her mouth  opened and  closed  as if she  was  trying to find  something  appropriate  to
say.

I held up one hand.  "Miss  them terribly. It's been six–Oh. It's been  seven  years.  Rather not
talk  about  it  if  you  don't  mind.  Tell  me  what  you  saw  in  Paris.  Better  yet,"  I  tapped  her sketchbook, "show me."
That worked. As I had the same  sketchbook I'd had in  Paris  myself,  we  were  even  able to compare sketches of the same subjects.
I touched a picture of the Seine running under the Pont Neuf and said, "I  love  the way you
did the water here near the lie de la Cite. It's alive–mine is more like asphalt than water."
"So, how often do you draw water?"
"Not often–it looks too much like asphalt."
"Practice. That's all.  Make the next ten  drawings you do be of  water and I'll bet you catch
the trick of it. Pinky deal," she said, holding out her little finger.
"Pinky deal? What do you mean?"
"You shake pinkies to seal the deal."
"How can it be a deal? What are you going to do? For your part?"
She  looked  at  me,  surprised.  "Oh.  I  guess  that's  fair.  But  I'm  telling  you  what  to  do.  You
should make the matching condition."
I thought about it. "Okay–I draw ten pictures of water and you let me draw you in London.
Sunday."
"You'll be in London?"
"I can be."
"Draw me  how?"  she said, her  eyes  narrowing,  and  I  realized  she  was  thinking  about  her ex–boyfriend.
"Fully clothed, in public, but you'll have to lose the coat. Outside, say, in a park." "We're staying at the Best Western Swiss Cottage but I have no idea where that is."
"Probably  near  the  Swiss  Cottage  Tube  stop–it's  a  neighborhood  up  Camden  way.  That's close to Regent's Park. I'll check in with you Saturday afternoon."
"O–kay. I think we have theater tickets so don't leave it too late," she said. She took off one fingerless  glove  and  extended  her  pinky,  hooked  it  around  mine,  and  shook  it  up  and  down firmly. She let go and said, "Now you go boom."
"What?" "Make a fist."
I did and she crashed hers into mine and said, "Boom." "You're insane."
She nodded emphatically. "Yes."
Phuket has amazing water, stunning shades  of blue and green both  still and active. I did my
first  sketches  on  Ko  Bon  island,  moving  around  from  the  leeward  side  to  the  more  active
waves.  I  worked  in  Prismatic  colored  pencils.  I  rarely  used  color  but  I  couldn't  stand  the
thought  of  trying  that  transition  from  deeper  water  to  shallow  sand  bottom  with  graphite
alone.
Next, I tried the Thames, but it's boring in the city–row after row of apartments with water
views.  I  went  back  to  Oxford  and  dodged  tourists  until  I  found  a  nice  spot  near  Magdalen
Bridge where I sketched people punting through the round archways.
I thought of going back to Oaxaca but it was too painful so I spent  some  time at Children's
Pool Beach in La Jolla drawing  sea  lions  coming  onto the sand  or the  waves  pounding  against
the other side of the sheltering breakwater.
It was a gray day, overcast, and the  ocean  was  like that, too.  Graphite  pencil  felt  right  for
this water. Monochrome.
Just before I left, I went to a public phone and called the San Diego FBI Field Office.
"I'd  like  to  speak  with  whoever  is  handling  the  March  six•teenth  murder  of  the  six  INS
agents."
The woman who answered the phone said, "And your name?"
"Griffin O'Conner. I sent some information last week. By mail."
"Ah. One moment, please."
I got hold music for about twenty seconds. I was going to hang up when a man came  on the
line. The background noise was different. "Hello? Griffin O'Conner?"
"Yes."
"Ah, good. I'm Special Agent Proctor. Give  me a moment–they  patched you through to my
cell phone and I don't want to crash."
The background noise lessened. "There, I'm on the shoul•der. Where are you?"
"Surely your office already told you the phone number and location."
Proctor was silent for a few seconds and then he chuck•led.  "Well,  yes, they did. I got your
letter. Very interesting reading."
"Has it produced any results?"
"Maybe. A lot of  questions,  for  one  thing. What makes you think this Kemp  character  was
involved in the murders at Sam Coulton's ranch?"
I thought about what to  tell and what not to. The truth, I decided,  or  most  of  it.  The  only
people the truth would hurt were already dead.
Or people I wished were dead.
"Kemp talked to me from there. By phone. He told me to  come  there  or he'd  kill  Sam and
Consuelo. I was afraid, so I called  the INS and the sheriff. And yes," I added stri•dently, "I lied
to the INS about there being a bunch of ille•gals  there, but I thought the  more  people,  the  less
chance of anyone getting–" I took a deep breath. "I lied."
"And this Kemp was there when your parents were killed?"
"Definitely."
"What's the common thread here, Griffin? What does Kemp want?"
"Me. I'm the common thread. Kemp wants me–he wants me dead."
"Why? He could've killed you at your parents', right?"
"He tried. I got away. I've got the scars."
"Again, why? What's the motive?"
I shook my head. I still  didn't know–it had to have  some•thing  to  do  with  the  jumping.  "I
don't really know why." A partial truth.
Proctor continued, "And where do Sam and  Consuelo  come  in?  Were they friends  of your
family? 'Cause I'm not finding any record of that."
"No. They found me in the desert  after I got away. I was a mess and they took  care  of me
until I was  better.  Later, I went  and  stayed  with  Consuelo's  niece  in  Mexico,  in  the  state  of
Oaxaca. Her house was blown up two weeks ago." I paused. "You knew that, right?"
Proctor exhaled. "Yeah. That I know. It was too close to the murders, the  niece's  home and
all that. No bodies found."
"They missed. It was close."
"Were you there? There weren't any calls from Mexico that day, to the ranch."
"Ah, phone records. Mine would be the call from the pay phone in El Centra." I told him a
half–truth. "Alejandra was al•most killed in the explosion."
"That's the niece?"
"Yes. Alejandra Losada."
"Where is she now?"
"In hiding." I hoped. I frowned. "You haven't once asked me to  come  talk to you! You sent
people, didn't you?"
Proctor paused, then said, "It's for your protec–"
I hung up. Out on Coast  Boulevard,  two  black–and–white  SDPD  cars  had  stopped  behind
all the parked cars and four officers were getting out.
I went down the stairs past the seal observation deck, mov•ing briskly, dodging the tourists,
and headed out onto the breakwater. It was windy and cold  and there  were  only a few  people
braving the sea spray that regularly shot through the railing.
The police  followed slowly. It was a dead end, after all.
I reached the end, put one hand on the rail, and launched myself over. It was  rocks  and surf
perhaps twelve feet below and I heard someone shout from behind, and then I was  trem•bling
in the Hole.
The Best  Western  Swiss  Cottage  was,  oddly  enough,  by  the  Swiss  Cottage  Station  on  the
Jubilee line, only a mile north•west of the zoo.
I caught  E.V.  in  the  half  hour  before  her  group  was  to  go  to  dinner  and  a  restaging  of
Candide. I called her from the house phone in the lobby.
"So, it's a pinky deal promise, right? Are we on?"
"Griffin? Ha! I told them we had a date and they said you  were  just putting me on. Did you
keep your end of the deal?"
"You decide. I left you a packet at the front desk before I rang you up."
She gasped. "Are you here? At the hotel?"
"For a minute. I'm off to have Pakistani food in the West End. Ten o'clock all right?"
"Yes, but I've got to bring a chaperone." She said it like it was a mortal  illness,  like  I've got
leukemia.
Well,  that's  sensible.  You  can't  expect  them  to  let  you  go  off  with  random  strangers.  I
mean, what do they tell  your par•ents?  'Let her go off with a strange boy and she didn't  come
back. Terribly sorry.'"
She laughed. "I could come down–we're on the third, no, second  floor,  right? Ground, first, second?"
"Shouldn't you be getting ready for dinner?"
"Well,  wait  for  me. They made us all  dress up and some•body  should  see  it.  It's  very  rare
for me. My mom bought this dress specifically for the trip."
I smiled. "All right, then. I'll wait down here."
The entire group, all fifteen of them, spilled down the stairs and the lifts. E.V. was  wearing
her  gigantic  black  coat  but  unbuttoned  and  she  spread  it  wide  to  show  me  a  black  velvet
square–necked  gown  that  more  or  less  molded  itself  to  her.  I  had  to  listen  to  a  bunch  of
introductions while trying very hard not to stare at E.V.'s body. She was more, uh, ma•ture than
I'd realized,  under that black  coat.  She  still  wore  her  glasses  but  her  short  red  hair  had  been
moussed into spikes.
I was  polite  to the adults and  complimented  the women, young and old, on  their  dresses.
At the last minute, E.V.'s  teacher,  Madame  Breskin,  said,  "We  have  a  dinner  reserva•tion  for
fifteen but I wouldn't be surprised at all if they could squeeze you in, too."
"That's very kind," I said, "but I'm not  really  dressed  for it. Perhaps  another  time." I offered
my  hand  to  E.V.  "Take  a  look  at  the  sketches.  I  expect  a  scathing  critique  tomorrow.  Ten
o'clock, in the lobby?"
She smiled and I could see her about to say something, but then her eyes darted  sideways at
the girls around her, and she just nodded firmly.
It was still business hours in San Diego and I decided  to  give  Proctor  another try, this time
from a bank of pay phones in•side Horton Plaza Mall.
"Please  give  me  Agent  Proctor's  mobile  phone  number,"  I  said,  when  the  receptionist
answered the phone. The woman said, "He's in the office this morning, may I connect you?"
"All right."
Proctor answered on the third ring.
"Last time I answered your questions. Now it's your turn."
"Griffin? Are you all right? They swore you must've drowned!"
I ignored that. "Did you find any trace of Kemp?"
"Maybe." Proctor paused. "What if you're working with him?"
"Give me an effing break. Who gave you him in the first place?"
"We don't disclose the details of our investigations."
"Good–bye, then."
"No, wait!"
"Give me a reason."
"We can protect you."
"That  scares  me  more  than  you  can  imagine.  Give  me  a  real  reason.  Has  my  sketch
helped?"
"I told you–"
I hung  up  and  walked  away  from  the  bank  of  phones,  went  over  to  the  food  court  and
bought a gyro sandwich, then jumped away from the antechamber outside the restrooms.
I did laundry, in  anticipation,  washed  extra hard, thick  coat  of  deodorant,  and  brushed  my
teeth thoroughly. Twice. She called it a date!
I took some deep breaths and told myself to calm down. It's not as if you'll be alone.
And we  started out with the entire  group,  walking  to Regent's Park, but it  turned  out  that
the majority were going to the zoo and only  Madame  Breskin  would be tagging  along  with us,
"if you don't walk too fast. Two weeks of touring and my feet are swelling." She tapped a book
under her opposite arm. "Sitting is my goal."
When we hit the park, the rest of the group went west on the Outer  Circle,  headed  for the
zoo. We meandered down through the middle and ended up on the edge of the lake, with  early
rowers and the ducks, a bench for Madame Breskin, and us on the green, closer to the water.
The critique  was  thorough  but  not  scathing,  with  examples  given  on  the  spot,  in  pencil, using the boating lake and the reflections of the trees.
She  liked my work, though. "Didn't  expect you to  work  from  memory  so much. It's  really cool that you've been all these places and you remember them so well."
What could I say? After an awkward  pause I tapped the Oxford  drawings.  "I  was  drawing this in the flesh. No memory involved."
"Well, I really love these pencils you did of the Bahamas."
"Uh, no–that's Thailand, near Phuket. Guess they are a bit similar, but I've  never  been to the
Bahamas. But in Dr. No and Thunderball I guess it's similar."
"Well, are you going to sketch me?"
"Yes." I moved  around  a  bit,  considering  her  against  the  available  backgrounds.  "Here."  I
settled  down  and  took  my  sketchbook  back.  "With  the  gold  dome  of  the  mosque  in  the
distance. Why don't you sit on your coat?"
The day had started out gray, with wet pavements, and I'd been  afraid it would  rain, but the
sun  and  the  Londoners  now  flooded  the  park.  She  shrugged  the  coat  off  her  shoulders,
revealing  a tight  green  sweater  with  three–quarter  sleeves  and a  plunging  neckline.  I  felt  my
cheeks heat up.
And told myself not to stare. Well, not particularly.
"Comfortable?"
She folded her legs and leaned to the side, propped up by one elbow. "I'm set."
Madame Breskin checked on us once, saw that the work was still in progress,  and went off
to fetch hot  chocolate  from  the  concessionaires.  The  clouds  were  coming  back  again  when
E.V.  said,  "Now  I'm  getting  cold.  Since  you're  not  drinking  it,  can  I  have  some  of  your  hot
chocolate?"
I looked down, surprised. I hadn't touched it. I handed it to her. "I'm sorry, it's stone  cold." I
closed  the sketchbook and started to stand, to help  her  rise,  but my  leg  was  asleep  from  the
hip down and I fell over. As the blood started back in, I nearly screamed.
She appeared over me, alarmed. "You okay?"
"Leg's  asleep,"  I  said  through  clenched  teeth.  "Why  don't  you  toddle  off  and  suggest
luncheon to votre professeur, bien ? "
By  the  time  she  returned  with  Madame  Breskin,  I  was  on  my  feet,  limping  around  in  a
circle.
The  three  of  us  went  to  a  little  Indian  place  in  Maryle–bone,  though  I  had  to  promise
Madame Breskin that we'd re•turn to the hotel via taxi. In a booth, she and E.V. made me  show
them the drawing. I winced inwardly and pushed it over, watching their heads bend together as
they looked.
"Oh," said E.V. One hand reached  to the  neckline  of her  sweater  and  tugged  it  up  higher.
"You . . .flatterer."
"My," said Madame Breskin. "I thought you  were  taking your time but you  accomplished  a
great deal more than I ex•pected."
Almost convulsively, E.V. said, "Look what he's done, though. I never looked like that. This
girl is ... sensual." She covered her mouth and darted her eyes sideways at her teacher.
Madame Breskin tilted her head. "Yes, I suppose. We all  are, at times. If anything he's  been
more objective than ide•alistic. Sometimes we don't see what others . . . voir d'un coup d'ceil."
"Madame?" said E.V, preoccupied, still staring at the drawing.
Madame Breskin was regarding me and I translated, "See at a glance."
E.V. looked confused but the waiter came just then and I was relieved and E.V. was  clearly
relieved and Madame Bre•skin was clearly amused.
Later, in the lobby of the hotel, E.V. asked quietly, "I'd like a copy, if you could Xerox it."
"You can have it, when I'm done. I've just started on the background. I'm not  satisfied at all
with the light on the mosque and the ducks, and the water–that goes without saying."
She panicked. "We're leaving in the morning! You won't have time."
"I meant, when you get back. To Trenton." I folded  back the  cover  of  the  sketchbook  and
pointed at the blank  card•board.  "Your  address and phone  number." I put a drawing  pencil  in
her hand. "Please?"
"Oh. Mail." She wrote the lines neatly, elegantly. "Of course."
I shrugged.
She said, "And your address?"
"Post is... difficult where I live and I'm not on the phone. But I'll be in touch."
Madame  Breskin  was  giving us some  space.  She sat in an elegant  lion–footed  chair by the
lifts and pretended to look at her book.
I tucked the sketchbook  under my arm and held out my hand. "Bon  voyage,  Mademoiselle
Kelson."
She  took my  hand  and  said,  "A  handshake?  Screw  that."  She  pulled  and  I  stepped  closer.
The sweater was as soft as I'd drawn it, but the lips were, if anything, softer.
"Oh!" she said. "You can smile."
I had to pick up the sketchbook, after, and the doorman steered me gently out onto the wet
pavement past the door frame after I'd collided with it once.
It was raining, cold and nasty, but I didn't really care.

Chapter Eleven
Going for the Kidney

I was  really  tempted to  show up at  the  airport  the  next  day  and  surprise  her  but I  didn't know  whether  they  were  leaving  from  Gatwick  or  Heathrow  or  even  what  airline.  I  must admit the phrase "leave them wanting more" went through my head but I would've  gone  in an 
instant if I just knew where and when.
I was the one wanting more.
I spent  two  more  hours in Regent's Park,  finishing  up  the  background.  I  did  very  little  to
her  figure–just  some   blending  and  darkening  of  her   outline   so  she  stood  out  from  the
back•ground. The lace  edge  of a bra had shown  as her  neckline  draped, due to gravity, and  I'd
drawn it faithfully, but now it drew me, my eyes returning to it, to her eyes, to her lips.
I  took  the  drawing  to  a  Kinko's  and  used  their  largest–format  machine  to  produce  a
doubled–sized  copy  on  art  stock.  Then  I  went  to  a  specialty  art  shop  to  have  the  original
matted  and  framed.  "Your  work?"  said  the  clerk,  handling  it  carefully  by  the  edges.  "You
haven't signed it. You want me to spray it with fixative?"
Self–consciously, I signed it, first name only. Below I put "Regent's  Park" and the date  we'd
sat there. Then he took it in the back and gave it a spritz with a can of Lascaux.
"You want it boxed, too?"
"Yes, please."
"For shipping or hand carry?"
"Hand carry–I'm going to deliver it."
The  trouble  was,  I  didn't  really  recall  the  East  Coast.  We'd  been  there  when  I  was  very
young,  but I  just  didn't  remem•ber.  I  bought  an  Amtrak  train  ticket  for  the  Southwest  Chief,
leaving  Los  Angeles  in three days  and  arriving  in  Chicago  forty–two  hours  later.  "We've  got
some rooms available," the clerk said.
I nodded. "Sure–that sounds good."
She  looked at me, the young teen of  indeterminate  age, and said, "It  is  expensive.  I  mean,
the ticket is almost eight hundred dollars more with a room."
I began counting out hundred dollar bills and she said, "Very well. Room  or  roomette? The
roomettes don't have their own showers and toilets, but they're not as expen•sive."
In the end I paid a premium for the  room  and then again, on the Lakeshore Limited, for the
Chicago–New York run, with a twenty–four–hour gap in between.
I wasn't going anywhere near airports–places where  they wanted ID. The name I had them
put on the ticket was Paul MacLand, that bastard Paully from my old karate class.
I gave Special Agent Proctor one more chance, again catching him at his desk.
"One  last  chance,"  I  told  him  from  a  pay  phone   near   Bal•boa  Park.  "You  want  my
cooperation or not?"
He  made  a  slight  concession.  "I'll  answer  your  questions  face–to–face.  Not  over  the
phone."
"Where?" I seriously considered it. After all, it wasn't as if he could hold me.
"Here–in my office."
"Bugger that!" I bit  my  lip.  "I  might  consider  someplace  else.  Balboa  Park,  perhaps?  You
could be there in ten min•utes, right?"
"Maybe."
"You'd have to come alone."
"What, alone and unarmed?" You could cut the scorn with a knife.
"Bring  as  many  guns  as  you  want.  Just  be  alone."  Pause.  "I've  got  a  call  scheduled.  How
about forty–five minutes?"
He was stalling. "Take it on your cell on the way  here."  "It's the deputy  director. I can't." "I
did mention that this is your last chance,  right?" "But I really  can't!  Maybe I could cut it down
to thirt–" I cut him off. "I won't be calling again." And hung up.
The next morning I jumped to  Universal  Studios  in  L.A.,  a  place  I'd  been  with  Mum  and
Dad. Saw the shark. I left im•mediately, overwhelmed by the memories.
Why should happy memories hurt more than the images in my head from that night?
I caught the brand–new Red Line extension at Hollywood and Vine and rode  it  all  the way
to  Union  Station.  My  train  didn't  leave  until  the  next  evening,  but  I  wanted  a  jump  site.  I
sketched the funky Mission–style clock tower from outside.
Back  in  San  Diego  I  called  the  sheriff's  department  from  an  office  phone  in  the  county
courthouse. The office  was  empty  for  lunch  and  the  door  was  locked  but  it  was  glass  and  I
could  see  through  it.  The  Central  Investigations  Division  at  the  main  office  gave  me  a  cell
phone  number.  "Detective  Vigil  is  coordi•nating  with  the  federal  authorities."  She  used  the
Spanish pronunciation, Vee–hill.
I tried the number and after five rings a voice said, "Bob Vigil."
"My name is Griffin O'Conner, Detective. I sent a sketch to your department."
There  was a sharp  intake of breath.  "Really.  That's  odd.  The  Feds  seem  to  think  you're  in
Europe."
Huh. The U.K. Immigration  Service  was  talking to the FBI? Maybe through  New  Scotland
Yard? "You got caller ID?"
"Yeah. I see you're local right now."
"Any luck with the sketch? Was it helpful?"
"Shit, yes! The car  rental  company ID'd him, the guy whose  car they  stole  in  Mexico  ID'd
him. The Azteca Airlines clerk at Rodriguez ID'd him."
"Rodriguez? Where's that?"
"Tijuana," said Vigil. "General Abelardo L. Rodriguez In•ternational Airport."
"Where'd he fly?"
"They don't know. She doesn't remember and the ID he used  apparently  wasn't  for  'Kemp.'
That name  wasn't on  any  of  their  manifests.  Flights  left  for  several  cities  both  in  and  out  of
Mexico. The FBI are  trying  for  security  video  on the departing  flights  in  Tijuana  and  arriving
flights at the possi•ble cities."
"Does Special Agent Proctor at the San Diego FBI office know this?"
"That's who told me."
Bastard.
Vigil continued, "We surmise that Sam didn't have a phone  number for  you–that's why the
perp's camped out there, right?"
"Camped out? At Sam's place?"
"Yeah–they were there a good week. It ties into the car rental and the amount of trash they
generated. I take it that Sam couldn't just call you."
I winced. "Uh, no. I called him. I'm semiregular, but–" God. They'd held Sam and  Consuelo
for an entire week wait•ing for me to call? I felt like  throwing up. I wanted to  race  to Paris and
search until I found Alejandra, to protect her.
You 'djust lead them to her.
Vigil interpreted my silence. "You see it, eh?"
My breathing deepened. "Yes!"
He was tactfully quiet for a moment.
After my breathing calmed I said, "Anybody else? Have you figured how many there were?"
"Paolo  saw  four.  He's  the  guy  who  was  carjacked  on  High•way  Two.  We  have  some
pictures  of them, from the  camera at the rental  place.  You  could  take  a  look  and  see  if  you
recognize them."
"Do you have Kemp in those shots?"
"No. According to the rental agent he stayed  outside. One of  these  other guys took  care  of
the paperwork."
I suppose he could be one of the guys I'd encountered  in the London Tube, or the Big Man
in Oaxaca. My train wasn't going to  leave  for  another  twenty–six  hours. "I guess I could  come
look. Where are you?"
"I'm at Lemon Grove substation. Your number looks like its downtown, yes?"
"I'm at the county courthouse."
"I'm going to the main office. I could meet you someplace  closer to downtown."
Well, he had answered my questions,  unlike  Proctor, and I wanted to  see  the pictures–the
other faces.
"Okay. The main library on E Street."
"Right. Take me twenty–five minutes, okay? Just inside?"
"Sure. Are you in uniform?"
"No. I'll  have a red  folder  with the  pictures–I'll  wave  it. I'm Hispanic,  about two hundred
pounds, and I've got on a brown suit, no tie. Clean–shaven. Well, I was this morning."
"Right."
I jumped to the little staff parking lot behind the  central  branch  library and walked  around
to the front. For a moment I stood  under the  covered  entranceway  on  the  sidewalk,  looking
around,  but  it  was  just  a  busy  San  Diego  weekday.  I  went  inside  and  found  a  place  where  I
could watch the door from behind a circular book display rack and lean against a wall.
Lots  of  people  moved in and out through the  doors  in  the  next  thirty  minutes.  Finally,  as
advertised, a man in a brown suit came in, a thick red file folder in his hand. He was  holding it
in front of him chest high.
I pushed off the wall and went to meet him. As I passed the  reference  books I heard a step
and twisted to my left to see a man lunge out from  between the  shelves.  Something  flashed in
his hand and I felt a pressure on my back ribs, then excruciating pain. His hand, and the flashing
metal, came back for another stroke, toward my stomach, and I was gone.
I staggered  across  the uneven  floor  of the  Hole and  fell  to one  knee.  When  I  tried  to  lift
my left hand to feel back there, I screamed, and dropped it again. Where my arm  rested  against
my leg, I could  feel  the cloth  was  soaked. I couldn't  even  twist to  look  down but I  tilted  my
hand and saw blood on the fingers.
I needed a doctor,  urgently,  before I bled to death, but I also  needed to  avoid the  places I
frequented. Going to hospital in London could be quickly fatal. Definitely in San Diego, too,  or
the  clinic  I  knew  in  La  Crucecita.  I  managed  to  stand  though  the  effort  caused  my  sight  to
darken and  the  room  to  spin.  I  found  myself  staring  at  my  sketches,  pinned  to  the  sheets  of
plywood.
There.
It was early evening in Hondarribia, but the old  quarter  was  well  lit, and when I sprawled
facedown  on the pavement, the red  mess  on  the  back  of  my  pale  shirt  apparently  stood  out
very  well,  for the last thing I heard  was a woman  screaming  and a man's  voice  saying, "Por  la
sangre de Cristo!"
Indeed.
I woke up lying on my stomach, my head  tilted to one  side.  My  back  didn't  hurt  as  much
but someone  was  tugging on it. I started to shift and a hand  pressed  down  on  my  shoulder.  A
man's voice said, "No te muevas! lEntiendes?"
I settled back down. "Entiendo." After a minute I asked where I was. "Donde estoy?"
"Mi clinica. Soy  el  doctor  Uriarte.  Elpolicia  te  trajo."  The  police  brought  me,  eh?  I  thought
about  what  was  in  my  pockets.  Just  money.  English  pounds,  some  francs,  some  U.S.  dollars.
Maybe an art eraser. No ID–not since my passport had been confiscated by UK Immigration.
"Treinta–nueve puntadas," Dr. Uriarte announced. "Por todo."
Thirty–nine  stitches.  He'd  obviously  numbed it but my  imagination  made  it  itch  and  ache
and tingle all at once. He dressed it.
He helped me to sit. I was naked. My shirt, pants, underwear, my shoes, my socks,  were  all
in a corner,  in a bloody  pile–even my shoes had  blood  on  them.  I  had  an  IV  in  my  left  arm,
some clear fluid running down the tube. The room spun and he kept his hands on my shoulders
until I said, "Bien."
He  put  a  dressing  on  and  fastened  it  by  taping  all  the  way  around  my  ribs,  watching  me
carefully to make sure I didn't fall over, "Usted recuerda ser atacado ? "
Well, yes, I did remember being  attacked but I shook my head. "No. Sucedio muy rapido." It
happened too fast.
He took a plastic  bag from the far  counter and  started  to  hand  it  to  me.  "Tenga  su  dinero
–are you American?" He'd noticed the dollars. His English was thickly accented but colloquial.
"British," I said.
"Oh. Your Spanish sounds like Mexico."
I nodded. "Yeah–that's where I learned it."
"I went to school in Texas," he said. "Baylor Medical School."
"Ah. I've lived in California. I'm a little cold, Doctor."
"Oh,  forgive  me."  He  pulled  a  cabinet  open  and  took  out  an  examination  robe.  "I'm  a
pediatrician. My clinic is near where you were mugged and I live  next to it. I'm afraid I stitch
up a lot  of the  local  bar fighters." He took out the IV and helped  me put on the robe.  "What
hotel are you staying at?"
"None. Only just arrived."
"Oh, so they stole your passport. I was hoping it was at your hotel."
I shook my head.
"The nearest British consul is in Bilbao. I think they can issue emergency passports."
I nodded.
"You  need  to  be  very  careful–I  stitched  together  three  different  layers  of  muscle.  No
exercise  for  four  weeks, and then  some  physiotherapy." He pursed  his  lips. "It  could've  been
much worse. I think they were going for your kidney. You would've died within minutes."
I  remembered  twisting  around  at  his  movement.  Yeah,  he  missed.  But  if  he  hadn't,  it
wouldn't matter how fast I'd jumped? "I would've bled to death?"
"Oh, yes. The renal  artery  is  very big. Only  immediate  attention  in  a  trauma  center  could have saved you. Your attacker must've been a very desperate man."
I blinked. "I'm not feeling much."
"Oh, you will. You'll need something for the pain. I'll write you a script."
"And the stitches?"
"Ten days. The internal ones will dissolve–don't worry about them."
"Okay."
"If there is redness or discharge or swelling, get to a hospital."
"Okay. How much do I owe you?"
"You don't have insurance?"
"No."
He told me how much he would've been charged  against an insurance  company and I gave
him that and half again in the U.S. dollars.
"The police are waiting to talk to you."
"Of course," I said.
I asked to use his bathroom and didn't come out.
At first, I slept  well, but the  lidocaine  faded and pain  brought  me  awake,  a  shout  of  pain
echoing off the walls  of the Hole. It was  agony to put a T–shirt on.  Merely  painful to pull on
some shorts.
I jumped to a farmada in La  Crucecita. I didn't  care  if the bastards  detected the jump–you
don't  need  prescriptions  to  get  pain  medication  in  Mexico.  I  explained  my  problem  to  the
pharmacist, even started to lift my shirt to  show the dressing, but raising my left arm  was not
in the cards.
The pharmacist looked alarmed at my expression and gestured for me to put the shirt back
down. "Treinte–nueve puntadas ? " The number of stitches really impressed him.
"Verdad."
He  sold  me  a  bottle  of  Tylenol  with  codeine.  I  jumped  back  to  the  Hole  before  I  was
through the door.
I wasn't able to get back to  sleep but the ache  died to a dull throbbing. I dressed  carefully
and shopped for new shoes, first in San Diego, then in Rennes. Had to let the clerk tie them for
me. At six that evening I carefully  boarded the Southwest Chief at Los  Angeles'  Union  Station,
let the  conductor  show  me to my expensively  exclusive  room, and, with the aid of  the  pills,
slept fitfully on my right side.
My plan had been to sketch at every  stop  along  the  way,  but  the  drugs  knocked  me  (and
that plan) on its ass. I did manage a few  drawings out the  stateroom  window at the stations  in
Kingman, Flagstaff, and Winslow. In New  Mexico  I  got  Albuquerque,  Lamy,  and  Raton,  but I
doubled up on the  pills  after that and slept  all  the way through  Colorado  and most of Kansas,
waking  up  in  time  to  sketch  Lawrence  and  Kansas  City.  There  was  only  one  other  stop  in
Missouri, La Plata, and only one in the corner of Iowa before we began crossing Illinois. I gave
up drawing. Everything hurt too much and the pills were making me constipated.
The last  five  hours  into  Chicago  were  misery  encased  in a fuzzy drug fog.  I  stank–I  hadn't
trusted  my  ability  to  keep  the  stitches  dry  and  just  washing  my  armpits  was  surprisingly
difficult. I'd been bumped by other passengers several times as I tottered  along the  passageway
to the dining car.
And I'd been thinking.
He'd told them.  Investigator  Vigil  had told them I'd be at the library. They'd been  waiting.
They'd   either   gotten   there   ahead   of   me   or   come   in   a   different   entrance,   possibly
circumventing the emergency exit alarms.
But Vigil had told them.
Bastard.
I checked into a hotel near the station, paying in advance. I explained that I'd been mugged
and that was why I didn't have any ID. Looking at my face  in the  mirror  later,  I  looked  older than  I  remembered.  I  was  older,  but  the  real  change  stemmed  from  the  pain.  Maybe  they thought I was over eighteen or maybe they just felt sorry for me.
I used the bathtub, gratefully,  leaving my left arm  down,  the  water  shallow.  I  managed  to
get rid of the stink and even wash my hair a bit. The bed was softer than mine back in the Hole,
but  even  with  the  drugs,  every  noise  brought  me  awake  with  an  adrenaline  rush.  Finally,  I
turned on the lights, got a good look at the room, and jumped back to the Hole,  where,  harder
bed or not, I actually slept for six hours.
That was when I turned the corner, I think.
It hurt the next morning but not so bad. It was manageable.
I didn't  take  a  pill,  and  by  the  time  I'd  finished  breakfast  back  in  the  Chicago  hotel,  the
drug–induced haze was lifting.
The Lakeshore Limited left at 7:55 P.M.  and  arrived  at  Penn  Station  midafternoon  the  next
day. I'd slept better than I had since the attack and as soon as I was off the train I bought a New
Jersey  Transit  ticket  for  Trenton.  While I waited  for  the  5:01  train,  I  drew  a  nook  under  the
Seventh Avenue steps. The train was ridiculously crowded, but then it was rush hour. It hurt to
sit, anyway, so I found a corner where I could prop myself without leaning against the stitches.
The trip was just over an hour.
Trenton was wet, light rain.
The  concessionaire  had  a  Trenton  map.  Trenton  Central  High  School,  where  E.V.  went,
was about a half mile from the station and her address, on Euclid Avenue, was even closer.
But  it  was  raining  and  an  hour  standing  on  the  train  had  wiped  me  like  a  blackboard.  I
sketched a spot on  Platform ID, complete  with  scurrying  commuters, and jumped back to the
Hole.
Ten days after the attack, I went back to Dr. Uriarte,  waiting  with  mothers  and  their  sick
kids in his pediatric waiting room.
He blinked when he saw me, puzzled, and then he  remembered.  ";Es usted! Where did you
go?" He looked around at the interested audience and waved me back to his  examining  rooms.
Several women who'd been there before me looked murderous.
When he'd  closed  the  door  to the examining  room  he  said,  "The  police  were  very  upset
with me. They said I was lying when I told them you'd left, naked."
"Lamento  mucho.  I didn't  mean  for  them  to  bother  you.  I  need  my  stitches  out,  but  if  it
would cause trouble, I could find someplace else. I'll pay cash."
He  considered  it.  "Of  course  we'll  take  out  your  stitches.  They  didn't  say  to  call  if  you
came back."
"Ah. Muchas gracias."
He had  one  of  his  nurses  pull  them  while  he  dealt  with  some  of  the  other  patients  and
their  angry mothers, but he  came  back and examined the cut when  she  was  done.  "Excellent.
There will always be a scar. A line, but I think you won't have any functional damage."
I paid him twice what he said the amount was.
I called  on a Friday night, from Penn Station.  She wasn't at home but  her  mother  told  me
she'd be back by ten and she was, snatching up the phone when it rang at 10:05 P.M.
"Hello?"
"Hello, E.V., it's–"
She  interrupted. "It is you. I've  been  waiting  almost  an  hour!  My  mother  could've  called
me–I was just down the block at Rhonda's! She didn't realize it had to be an overseas call!"
"Well, no. Actually not. I'm in New York City."
She was quiet for a second then said, "Really?"
"Really.  I  was  wondering  if  I  could  drop  off  that  sketch,  tomorrow,  perhaps,  if  your
schedule is clear."
She  laughed.  "Clear.  Mother? Is my 'schedule'  clear  tomorrow?"  She  said  it  British,  like  I
had,  "shed–youl."  "Of  course  my  schedule  is  clear."  This  time  she  said  it  with  the  hard  c.
"Where? When? Should I take a train into the city?"
I liked that idea a lot but I said, "No. Don't think your  parents  would  give that a go,  would
they? Better I should come to you. All right if I come  around about ten?  Euclid  Avenue, right?
Looks like it's walking distance from the station."
"How'd you know that?"
"Maps, m'dear. Maps."
"Oh. Well, that would be fine. What are you doing in New York?"
"Talking to you."
I  jumped  to  the  Trenton  station  the  next  morning  and  joined  the  crowd  getting  off  a
Philadelphia  train. I walked,  stretching  my  legs  more  and  more.  The  cut  was  still  incredibly
sore  but  I  was  regaining  my  stamina.  I  no  longer  got  dizzy  standing  up,  and  I  was  able  to
manage  the  boxed  sketch  under  my  right  arm.  For  the  first  time  in  two  weeks,  I  felt  clean,
having had an excellent shower–no worries about getting the stitches wet.
There  were  buds  just  beginning  on  the  trees  and  green  grass  sprouting  among  last  year's
brown.  Her  home  was  a  yellow–brick  two–story  with  an  enclosed  porch.  She'd  called  it  a
"colonial"  on  the  phone.  She  was  on  the  stairs  when  I  turned  onto  the  block,  though  she
waited until I was in her yard before advancing to meet me. I could tell she was going to try to
hug me, so I held out the box, quickly, and she had to halt her advance to take it.
"Come in, come in."
Both her parents were waiting in the front parlor. Her mother was standing by the  window
and her dad was seated, with a book, but I had the feeling they'd both been waiting. I put on my
best manners as I was introduced.
"Pleasure to meet you. Charmed."
Mrs.  Kelson  was  a  redhead  but  running  to  silver.  Mr.  Kelson  wore  his  dark  hair  cut
seventies–long,  over  the  ears,  over  the  forehead.  It  hadn't  gone  gray  yet  or  there  was  dye
involved. I didn't like his smile–it didn't touch his eyes.
It may have been a "who are you and what are you doing with my daughter" thing.
Her mum's  smile  was  genuine, though. Mrs.  Kelson  loved  the sketch.  E.V.'s dad said  "very
nice,"  but  his  brow  was  furrowed  and  he  stole  surreptitious  looks  from  the  sketch  to  his
daughter and back.
"You made a copy?" E.V. asked.
"Yeah, I've got a decent  photocopy." I didn't say it was  twice  the  size  of  the  original  and
hung beside my bed. I didn't think that would go over so big–not with her father.
"What are you doing in New York, Griffin?" asked Mr. Kelson.
"On my way home from Europe. I live in Southern Cal."
"Oh, really? Not England?" He looked at his daughter.
"We  didn't  really  discuss  it,  Daddy.  I  saw  him  in  London  and  he's  British.  What  was  I
supposed to think?"
"Yeah," I added. "We were talking about drawing, mostly."
"Where in Southern California?"
"Out in the desert, in west San Diego County. The nearest  town  is  called  Borrego  Springs."
This was the truth, after all, but then I lied. "I spend  half the time  with my uncle  in  California,
the  other  half  in  Lechlade,  in  Oxfordshire,  with  my  grandparents.  I  was  visiting  a  friend's
cousin when I met E.V. in France."
"Your schooling must be complicated," Mrs. Keslon said.
"I'm on self–study.  Homeschooling.  It's the only way this  works.  When  I  go  to  university,
it'll be different."
E.V. turned to face her parents. She said, "I'm taking Griffin to Laveta's for coffee."
"We've got coffee here–" That furrow between  Mr.  Kelson's  eyebrows  was  back again but
Mrs.  Kelson  cut in, saying  quickly,  "Certainly.  Are  you  going  to  get  lunch  out,  or  would  you
like to eat with us? Patrick's coming in from Princeton on the train."
E.V. glanced at me then said, "My brother. We'll catch him after lunch, okay?"
"Okay,"  Mrs.  Kelson  said.  "He's  going  back  on  the  four–seventeen  so  make  sure  you  get
back in time."
"Right," said E.V.
She grabbed her  coat–the  large  black  one  she'd  worn  in Europe––and  shrugged  into it and
we were out the door.
"Walking?" I asked.
"Yeah,  it's  close.  Over  on  State  Street,  near  the  train  station  but  on  the  far  side."  She
grabbed my left arm and I tensed and she let go. "What's wrong? Is that not okay?"
Her face had dropped as if I'd struck her and I hurried to reassure her. "Sorry–hurt my back.
It's the left side. I'd love for you to hold my other arm, though."
He relief was palpable. "I thought you were moving a little stiffly."
"Yeah."
It took ten minutes to walk to Laveta's, where we got coffee to go. Behind the  coffee  shop
a  cemetery  stretched  between  State  Street  and  the  train  station.  "You  warm  enough?"  she
asked. It had started  partially  cloudy  but  now  it  was  completely  overcast  and  the  wind  was
gusting around corners with a moist bite.
"Maybe if you let me share your coat."
She grinned. "I like the way you think."
She showed me a bench in the back corner of the graveyard. "Here. I come here to sketch."
She opened her coat wide on the bench and invited me to sit on it. When I did, she  wrapped  it
around us both.
"Huh," she said.
I barely dared breath. "What?"
"We both fit in  here just fine. I thought you were  larger.  You  take  up  more  space  in  my mind."
"Sorry. Always been short for my–" She kissed me.
I closed my eyes and leaned into it.
After a moment she drew back and I said, "You could've just said shut up."
"Are you complaining? I mean–"
This time I stopped her mouth with a kiss.
Oh. My.
Hands were  roaming,  mine,  hers,  hers  guiding  mine. I ached and not in the bad way of the
last two weeks. Her hand, roaming up under my shirt, found the cut and I nearly  yelled  in her
ear.
"I'm sorry. They took out the stitches yesterday and it's still, uh, tender." "Stitches? What happened?"
We'd  ended  up  apart.  She  turned  me  around  and  lifted  the  edge  of  my  jacket  and  shirt,
previously tucked in, now out. "Jesus Christ! What happened?"
My mouth worked but nothing came out.
"Griffin? What's wrong? Someone did this to you, didn't they?"
"Well, yeah," I said.
"Why? That's from a knife, right?"
"Yeah, it is." Then, in a rush, "He  was  aiming  for my kidney." I stood up and let the  jacket
and shirt drop back down. "Cold."
She pulled her coat closed.
"Who did that?"
"I lied to your parents."
She looked confused. "What? Can't you answer a straight question? What do you mean, you
lied to my parents?"
"I don't  live  with my uncle  or my grandparents. I don't have  grandparents.  I  don't  have  an
uncle. After my parents were–after they died–I lived  with a friend in  Mexico,  then later, I got
my own place. The place in the desert I talked about–that part was real."
"What's that have to do with the cut on your back?"
I kicked  at  a  pile  of  last  fall's  leaves,  clumped  and  decomposing,  sending  them  flying.  It
was a mistake. "Ow!" I limped around in a little  circle,  favoring my left  side. "What I'm trying
to say is that I don't want to  lie  to you. But I don't want to be thought crazy,  too, and some  of
the stuff I want to say sounds terribly crazy."
She  pulled  her  legs  up  onto  the  bench  under  the  coat,  and  hugged  them.  "What  kind  of
crazy?"
"The people who killed my parents  are  still  trying to  kill  me. They were  trying to  kill  me
when they killed them."
She looked like she was about to cry. She doesn't believe me. She does think I'm insane. I held
out my hand like a crossing guard stopping oncoming traffic. "Wait. There's proof."
And I jumped away.
She's going to run screaming, I thought, as I ripped  the old  microfilm  newspaper  printouts
from my plywood gallery.
I jumped back.
She  was  standing, but she hadn't run. She did have her fist  against  her mouth.  She  flinched
back  and  sat  down  hard  as  the  concrete  bench  caught  the  backs  of  her  knees.  She  began
gasping.
I took a step  closer  and  her  eyes  widened  and  she  leaned  away.  Well,  now  I  knew  how
she'd  felt  when I'd flinched  away  from  her in front of her house,  when  she'd  grabbed  my  left
arm and hurt my back by accident. I moved very slowly and set the  papers  down on the end of
the bench but the minute I let go, the wind  threatened to send them flying and  I  dropped  my
hand back down.
"Look, they're gonna be all over if you don't take them." I slid them closer to her, careful to
stay beyond the end of the bench.
She  put  her  hand  down,  as  far  from  my  hand  as  possible  and  yet  still  on  the  pages.  I
straightened up and backed away.
"What was that?" There was suppressed hysteria in her voice. "How did you do that?"
I gestured to the papers. "It ties in. Go ahead, look."
When she'd picked them up I said, "I've got other cuts– older scars," I said quietly. "The top
two  stories  are  when  they  came  for  me  when  my  parents  were  alive.  I  know  it  says  drugs
were  involved  but  that  was  bullshit."  I  pointed  to  my  right  hip,  the  wound  I  got  that  night.
"They nearly killed me that night."
She read through the pages, glancing up often to keep track of  where I was.  "So  your name
really is Griffin O'Conner."
When  she  got  to  the  third   page   she   said,   "Who's   Sam   Coulton   and   Consuelo,   uh,
Mon–jarraz?" She got the j right, a soft h.
"Sam  and  Consuelo  found  me  in  the  desert  after...  that  night.  They  fixed  me  up.  Later,
Consuelo took me to Oaxaca and I lived with her  niece  for  almost  two  years, until they found
me again and I had to leave. After that, I lived by myself.
"They held Sam and  Consuelo  hostage,  trying to get me to  surrender. When I sent the INS
in .. . well, you see what happened."
She  read on. She  stopped  tracking  me  as  she  got  into  the  body  count.  I  crossed  my  right
arm over my stomach, pulling my left  into my side. I felt my shoulders  droop, hunch forward.
The accused is in the dock awaiting the verdict of the jury.
"So why do they want to kill you?"
I shook my head. "I wish I knew for sure."
"It's something to do with, uh, what you just did, right?" "Yeah–I really think so."
"And what did you just do?" She  licked  her  lips. "I mean,  I  saw  you  disappear,  but  where did you go?"
"My place–uh, Southern Cal. In the desert." "You're kidding me."
I shook my head. "No. Want to see?" I took a step forward. She held up her hands. "Whoa, boy!"
I stepped back again, the corners of my mouth tugging down. Please, please, please.
She  pointed  at  the  far  side  of  the  cemetery.  "See  the  corner  over  by  the  birth  control
clinic?" It was about two hundred yards away. "Go there. Show me."
I did.
How many Sensitives could there be? Hopefully there wasn't one around here.
I stood there, two hundred yards away, and waved. After a moment, she  raised  her arm and
made a large come–here gesture. I returned, my way. She didn't jerk  so much this time  when I
appeared.
"I suppose it could be drugs. Did you put something in my coffee?"
I shook my head.
"How do you do that?"
"I just do it. When I was five, the first time."
"The Starbucks cup, in  Mont–Saint–Michel–you  said you'd got it in San Diego. You meant
that morning, didn't you?"
I nodded.
It started to rain, fat drops falling at an angle with the wind.
"Shit!"  said E.V. "I'm so  tired  of  winter!  I  want  it  to  be  warm."  She  sounded  upset  and  I
didn't think it was the weather.
"I can't make it warm here," I said. "But I can take you someplace that is."
She didn't say no. Her eyes were still wary but her forehead was no longer furrowed.
"How do you feel about Thai food?"

Chapter Twelve
Rites of Passage

We  were  walking  down  Kensington  High Street  on ' our third date when E.V. said,  "Let's
go in here."
I thought she meant the shoe boutique but she  pulled  me  sideways  toward the shop on the
corner. "What? The chemist?"
"Yes, the chemist."
I followed her through the door–it  was  afternoon  in New  Jersey and nearly ten at night in
London and they were about to close. "What do you need?"
She looked over her shoulder at me and said, "What do we need." Then she blushed.
She bought the condoms, Durex brand, and some  lubricant but got the cash  from me  since
she only had American.
The clerk looked bored and my ears burned.
Back on the sidewalk she said, "We've two more hours."
I'd offered  to  show  her my place,  the Hole,  before, but  she'd  refused.  So  far  she'd  let  me
take her  swimming  in  Mexico,  to Paris  for  coffee,  to Madrid  for  tapas, and Phuket for  sa–tay.
But not to my place.
"Uh, I've never done it."
She  nodded. "I know. I could  tell."  She  stepped  up  to  me  and  pressed  against  me.  "Don't
you want to?"
I nodded mutely.
"Well, then."
It was  after,  when  we  were  lying in my bed, hip to belly, that she  finally  found  out  I  was
thirteen months younger than her seventeen and a half years.
"Oh, Christ! It's like child abuse!"
I moved my  hand  sideways  and  she  arched  her  back.  "Well,  more  fun  than  self–abuse,"  I
said. "Think of it as charity to a poor orphan boy."
"An orphan boy?"
"An orphan boy."
She sang,
"Oh, men of dark and dismal fate, Forgo your cruel employ, Have pity on my lonely state, I am
an orphan boy!"
"Huh?" I was thoroughly confused.
"And you an Englishman! Pirates of Penzance. Gilbert and Sullivan. Got it?"
"Oh. Never saw it. 'Modern Major–General,' right? Okay, have pity on my lonely ... ?"
"State.  What  time  is  it?  Oh,  shit!"  She  pushed  my  hands  away.  "Get  me  back  or  I'll  be
grounded for all time."
I jumped  her  to  the  corner  of  her  block,  depending  on  the  gathering  gloom  to  hide  our
sudden  appearance.  She  kissed  me  and  ran  up  the  block,  her  book  bag  thumping  at  her
shoulder.
I walked between two parked cars on the street and jumped away.
E.V.'s  father had a rough  commute,  forty–five  minutes,  so he was  rarely  home  before  six.
Her  mother  worked  in  a  middle  school  in  the  Neshaminy  school  district  in  Pennsylvania–
across  the  river  and  then  some.  She  rarely  made  it  home  before  five–thirty.  So  we  had  that
time between three–fifteen and five–thirty, most weekdays.
"I'm not burning us out, though," she said. "Three times a week, tops."
I had to buy more condoms.
She drew me naked.
Well, naked with a sketchpad.
We drew each other.
And we swam naked in the moonlight at Phuket.
And  we  ate  at  little  cafes  overlooking  the  Seine  while  she  did  her  class  assignments.  I
helped her with her French–she helped me with Algebra II.
"Madame Breskin says my accent is improving remarkably."
"Lefrangais est la langue de Vamour. Let's go back to my place."
She laughed. "No. I've barely got time to finish this essay."
My sigh was eloquent.
"Tomorrow. Homework or not," she promised.
But  the  next  day  she  wasn't  there.  We'd   been   meeting   at   the   Shell   station,   across
Greenwood Avenue from the high school and only a few blocks from her house.
I thought about  calling but she  told me her  parents had  caller ID, so  if I was  going to  call,
do it from  where I was  supposed  to be.  With  a  small  mountain  of  quarters,  I  stood  at  a  pay
phone in San Diego's Balboa Park, and dialed.
She answered. "Hey," I said.
"Where are you calling from? Ah, where's six–one–nine?"
"San Diego. How are you?" What I really meant was, Can you talk?
"I'm pissed. Dad went through my nightstand. He found the sketch I did of you in the nude.
When we were sketching?"
"That was a really good sketch. Uh, what did he say? What did you say?"
"I said I'd drawn  it  from  my  imagination.  Also  that  it  was  none  of  his  business  and  if  he
ever  went through my stuff again,  I'd  leave  home."  She  cleared  her  throat.  "There  was  some
shouting involved."
"When did this happen?"
"Today. He  showed up and pulled  me out of  school  last  period.  Sorry. I'm grounded  for  a
month. He  suspects  something–I  have to  come  straight  home  after  school  and  check  in  with
him by phone at work. Can't go anywhere. He'll probably spot check with phone calls."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'll stick it out. My mother's upset, but a bit more at him, I think. I know they did it in high
school.  He's  a  hypocrite.  She's  the  one  who  made  sure  I  had  condoms  when  I  entered  high
school."
"Oh, yeah? I knew I liked her." I tried to keep my voice light but I felt like crying. I couldn't
imagine not seeing her for an entire month.
"Yeah. We fought  like  wildcats  when I was in  middle  school but we've  come  to  a  pretty
good  place  now.  But  I'm  not  speaking  to  Dad.  I  predict  two  weeks,  tops,  then  he'll  cave.
Maybe even sooner."
That wasn't quite as bad. "Will I be able to call you?"
"Hmmm. I don't  see  why not. We've  got  call  waiting.  He'll  know you  called,  though–he'll
check the numbers when he gets home–so make sure it's from San Diego, right?"
"Right."
I heard  a  noise  in  the  background.  "They're  calling  me  for  supper.  Gotta  go."  "Okay.  Je
t'aime." "Damn straight," she said.
I did laundry. The sheets  needed  changing. I bought  more  sheets,  a  nicer  comforter,  more
pillows. She'd complained about my not having music, so I bought a large  portable  stereo,  one
that could run off my twelve–volt  power  system, and a  selection  of CDs. I stocked up on her
favorite  diet  cola  and some  snacks,  healthy and  otherwise.  She  liked  those  weird  rice  cakes,
the ones that are like Styrofoam, so I bought a case of those.
I bought a better  portable  toilet  for my bathroom  nook,  one that  used  chemicals  to  keep
the smell down. I could still dump it in the same pit  toilet at the park  picnic  area and it had a
nicer seat.
I added two more solar water heaters for the shower back in Oaxaca.
Well, that killed three days.
My  side  was  getting  better.  While  no  longer  tender,  it  pulled  when  I  moved  my  upper
body, so I began doing some stretches.
I bought a heavy bag and a stand for it, but it wasn't  stable  on the uneven  floor  of the cave,
so I ended up setting it in  concrete.  After  a  few  days  of  hitting  this,  I  also  went  back  to  the
makiwara in the Empty Quarter. One of them had been taken, maybe used  for  firewood,  and I
had to reset a couple of the others that had come loose in the soil.
My left side was weak, the tugging from the  scar  profound. I doubled up on that side, both
the stretches and the strikes, and there was some improvement.
I talked to E.V. every weekday afternoon.
"Now he's even more suspicious. He's wondering why you weren't calling  before and now
you are."
"Oh, great. Should I stop?"
"Hell, no! But if this keeps up, I'm thinkin' you might join me in the afternoons. I mean, I've
got a bed."
"I've  never  been  in  your  room.  In  fact,  it  was  only  that  one  day  that  I  was  in  your
house–when I brought the sketch– and then later, when I met Patrick and Booger."
"Yeah? What does that mean?"
"I  can't  jump  without  a  clear  memory.  I  mean,  I  can  jump  someplace  I  can  see,  but otherwise I really need to be familiar with it. That's why I have all those sketches."
"Hmm. Well, I'm really getting desperate, if you know what I mean." "Believe me, I know."
At three weeks, her father relented.
I met her at our usual spot and we  went  straight to the Hole.  She  approved  of the  pillows
and the comforter and the toilet but I don't think she noticed until after the second time.
"Oh,  God.  I  needed  that.  Boy,  did  I  need  that."  She  poked  at  my  arm.  "You've  been
exercising."
"Yeah. Especially my right arm."
We  showered  together  in  Oaxaca,  washing  each  other  slowly.  The  temperature  was  just
right.
After we were dressed, we sat in the sun on the beach  below,  me on a rock and her in the
sand at my feet. I brushed her hair until it was dry.
I left her in our corner of Mercer Cemetery. I wanted to walk her home but she  kissed  me
and said, "No. Not when you're supposed to be in San Diego. See you Thursday!"
She was there on Thursday but pale.
"What's wrong?"
"Oh, I've got a headache," she said. "But I've also got some good news. I told them I'd be out
until  nine.  Some  friends  of  mine  are  playing  the  Teen  Club.  We're  to  lend  moral  support.
They're not that good a band but they play really loud."
I was stunned by the good fortune. "That's almost six hours!"
"Well,  we  do have to actually  go to the club–but I don't intend to get there  until  seven at
the earliest." She looked anxious. "That okay?"
"You're not worried someone will see me and tell your parents?"
"I want to dance with you."
"Have you seen me dance? Anyway, we can find places to dance far from Trenton."
She shook her head. "I want us to go."
"Claro que si! At your command. And what do we do before then?"
"I don't know about you, but I want to screw."
There was something wrong. She was clinging to me hard, almost desperately.
"Are you all right?"
"Don't  stop!"  She buried  her  face  in  my  chest  and  pulled  me  hard  against  her.  The  lights
were  dim but it  seemed  like  her  eyes  were  wet. She dug her  nails  into  my  back  and  I  forgot
everything but moving.
When  she  came  it  was  loud,  almost  anguished,  great  shuddering  gasps,  and  what  little
control I had went  with it. I was  drowsy  and  she  pulled  my  head  onto  her  shoulder.  "Sleep.
This once, we've got the time."
I thought it might still be her dad. It must be hard to have to  lie  to your  parents. I worried
for a moment that it might be me but she was holding me close and stroking my back.
She  woke  me  again  later  and  we  made  love  once  more,  long  and  lingering.  Then  she
looked at her watch and said, "Fuck. Quick shower?"
The sun was low in Oaxaca but the water was still warm and "quick" was the word,  for the
mosquitoes were coming out.
The Teen Club was nearer the Delaware River, but still walkable, and  while  it was  cold  in
Trenton, it wasn't as  cold  as  it  had  been  the  week  before.  I  was  wearing  my  anorak  but  the
minute we'd paid our cover and got inside, I took it off and  carried  it  because the club,  either
from too much central heat or too many occupants, was like an oven, worse than Oaxaca.
Many of these kids clearly didn't use deodorant.
The band was loud and they weren't terrible–three guys on drums, guitar, and bass, and three
girls  on  vocals. They tended  toward punk with  industrial  overtones  and either the club  had  a
full  light  setup  or  these  kids  had  way  too  much  money.  There  were  strobes  and  motorized track lights and lasers and a smoke machine.
Conversation  was  barely  possible  if  you  shouted  or  if  you  timed  your  sentences  in  the gaps. They sold  refreshments but no  alcohol.  Most  of the  customers  were  under  twenty–one
but  some   weren't,  and  there   were   chaperones,   leaning   against   the   walls,   eyes   moving restlessly. One of them had his fingers plugged firmly into his ears.
There  were  tables  around the edge but they  were  all  taken,  either  occupied  or  piled  high with coats. I yelled in E.V.'s ear, "Why don't I drop our coats back at my place?"
"What?"
It took  two  more  efforts  to  make  her  understand.  "Oh!  Okay."  She  took  her  pocketbook
and something else out of her coat pockets before pushing the coat into my arms.
I wandered back toward the bathrooms, looking for an unoccupied  corner, but there  were
kids  making  out  in  the  dark  hallway.  The  bathroom  itself,  though,  was  empty,  and  I  jumped
carefully.
To  return  I  jumped  back  to  an  empty  lot   we'd   crossed   walking   here.  There  was  a
streetlight  but  it  had  been  smashed  and  I'd  remembered  being  a  little  uncomfortable  taking
E.V. that route, picking my way across the junk–strewn ground.
By myself, I didn't  care,  even  when I saw  three guys moving  from the edge  of the lot  into
the middle, to  block my way. I kept  walking  straight  at  them  and  when  one  of  them  lifted  a
pipe in his hand and said, "Stop," I just jumped past them, to the sidewalk at the corner.
One  of  them  yelled  and  another  was  saying,  "What  the  fuck!"  over  and  over  and  over.  I
looked  back and saw that they'd turned,  perhaps  having  heard  my  footsteps  on  the  walk,  but
they were making no move to follow.
I was still grinning when I showed the man at the door the stamp on my hand.
E.V. was  standing  near the  refreshment  bar  juggling  two  drinks  and  her  pocketbook.  The
dancing had spread and she  was  having a  hard  time  keeping  the  drinks  safe  from  flying  arms
and  jumping  bodies.  She  was  watching  the  back  hallway  to  the  bathrooms,  the  direction  I'd
left, and her face was anxious, as if she was afraid I wouldn't come back or something.
I tapped her shoulder and she jumped. I'd swear she screamed but the music was so  loud, it
may have been just a gasp. Both drinks hit the floor, though, together, spraying my legs and hers.
I did  hear  her  say  "Fuck!"  quite  distinctly–it  was  one  of  those  lulls  in  the  music.  "Sorry,
sorry."  She started  to  reach  down  but I  caught  her  shoulder  and  stopped  her.  The  floor  was
already littered with paper cups stamped flat by the dancers.
The  band  reached  the  end  of  one  number  and  the  drummer  and  the  lead  vocalists  were
discussing something off mike. In the momentary silence I said, "What are we drinking?"
"I got you a Sprite. You know what I had. And I dropped them both! Whatever you want."
I  managed  to  place  the  order  just  before  the  band  started  up.  Payment  was  successfully
accomplished  with  hand  signs.  I  delivered  her  diet  soda  and  tried  my  coffee.  It  was  in  a
Sty–rofoam  cup,  too  hot  to  drink  and,  in  this  environment,  potentially  disastrous.  First–  or
second–degree burns, I thought, and turned suddenly back toward the bar to get some  cream  or
ice to cool it down.
He  was  older  than  the  kids  around  him,  dressed  grunge,  but  he'd  been  stepping  forward
when I saw him, his  left hand held out slightly,  chest high, his  other hand held  low by his  leg.
He lunged as the stage strobes were flashing and the knife cut upward in  discrete  stop–motion
steps.
I  stepped  back,  bumping  someone  dancing,  and  threw  the  coffee  straight  out.  He  jerked
back,  clawing  at  his  face  and  shirt.  There  was  other  movement,  sudden,  not  the  puzzled
reaction  of  bystanders  but  deliberate  motion  among  the  dancers,  and  I  turned.  E.V.  was
fumbling with something, but I grabbed her and jumped.
Electric current, burning, contracting my entire body. I spasmed away  from E.V. The bright
blue sky dimmed and  flared.  My  hands  scrabbled  across  gravel  and  sand  but I  couldn't  make
them do anything.
E.V. screamed, "No! No! NOOOOOOOOOr
I blinked hard  trying  to  get  my  sight  to  behave.  We  were  alone,  in  the  Empty  Quarter.  I
thought  she'd  been  attacked–  was  being  attacked.  She  was  on  her  knees,  on  the  ground,
hunched  over,  holding  herself  up  with  extended  arms.  Her  pocketbook  had  spilled  open
showing a  cell  phone and money and a small–unlabeled  prescription–medicine  bottle.  There
was a black cylinder, perhaps seven inches long, clutched in her other hand.
"I'm okay," I said. I wasn't that sure, but she was horribly upset. I wanted to reassure her.
"Take me back! Now!"
She  was  suddenly  leaning  over  me,  one  hand  grabbing  my  sweater,  the  other  shaking  the
black cylinder in my face.
"What?" My muscles  were  starting to  work  again and I tried to  sit  up but  she  shoved  me
back down again. She was crying and she looked desperately afraid.
"TAKE ME BACK!"
She jammed the cylinder into my side and the current and the burning came  again. My back
arched so much my heels and head were the only thing touching the ground. This time I passed
out completely.
The  sun  was  dropping  below  the  horizon  when  I  came  to.  E.V.  was  coming  down  the
ridge,  stumbling,  tripping  over  rocks.  She  was  crying,  her  eyes  so  filled  with  tears  she  could
obviously hardly see.
I sat up. My muscles felt like I'd run a marathon,  lactic  acid  soreness,  and there  was a burn
on my side and another on my back, but I felt like I could jump if I had to.
She had the cell phone in one hand. I didn't see the black rod.
"I didn't know you had a cell phone," I said. I felt insane. Surely this is what a psychotic break
is like ?
She stopped, then threw the phone  onto the sand  between us. "It's not mine. It belongs  to
them."
Oh, fuck.
She pulled the black  rod out of her back  pocket and I tensed, but she  threw that down, as
well.  "And  that.  And  those  pills."  She  gestured  to  where  her  purse  still  lay.  "I  dropped  the
drink. Why'd I drop the drink? It would be over if I hadn't dropped the drink!"
I looked back at the purse, at the pill bottle. "What kind of pill was it?"
She looked away. "They said it would knock you out. So they could  catch you." She  looked
back at me and winced.  "Yeah, I know. If you'd jumped it  wouldn't  do  any  good,  even  if  you
passed out after. It had to be poison."
"You knew that?" It  felt  like  my  face  was  going  to  break.  "You  knew  that  and  .. .  maybe
that's why you dropped it." Then the rest of it hit me. "They have your  parents." I didn't ask it–I
said it.
She dropped to her knees. "They killed my father. They cut his fucking throat right in front
of me! And then they put the knife against my mother's neck!"
"Oh,  God.  I'm  so  sorry."  I  got  up  and  walked  over  to  her  but  she  shoved  me  away.  She
kicked at me and  clawed  and I stepped  back, then  dropped  down and sat on my heels.  "How
did they find you? Was it me? Did they track some of my jumps in Trenton?"
She  was  lying  on  her  side,  curled  in.  "He  did  it!  Goddamn  him.  He  did  it.  He  wanted  to
check  up  on  you.  After  he  found  that  sketch,  he  got  a  friend  to  run  a  criminal  check.  They
showed up with police badges and he answered  all their  questions. He gave you to them on a
silver  platter  and  then  they  cut  his  throat.  Daddy,  you  idiotl  The  fucking  phone  won't  get  a
signal! Oh, God. They'll kill them both!"
Oh. "They have your brother, too."
She screamed again and pounded the ground with her fists.
I understood, then. "You went up on the ridge to try and get a signal. If you'd  reached  them,
what  would  you  have  done?   Come   down  and  finished  me?  Wait  until  they   came   and confirmed my death?"
She jumped up and ran down the arroyo, north. She was still sobbing. I pocketed  the phone and, cautiously, the black  cylinder, then took up her  purse. I let  her get about fifty yards away
and  tripped  her,  appearing  beside  her  path  with  my  foot  outstretched.  While  she  was  still down, I hooked the waistline of her jeans and jumped her back to the Hole.
She looked at the bed and collapsed on the floor, sobbing, sobbing.
I couldn't stand it and I jumped away, to the  Greenwood  Shell  petrol  station  across  from
her  high  school.  There,  in  the  light  of  the  fluorescents,  I  looked  at  the  rod.  It  had  four
projecting  electrodes,  sharp,  for  sticking  through  clothing,  and  a  slide  switch,  like  on  an
electric torch. I turned it on, but it didn't spark,  so I suspected  it was  actuated  when a partial
conductor bridged the points.
I took out the cell phone and called, using the only number in the cell phone's call log.
"Speak." It was Kemp's voice.
"She's dead. I blame you."
I hung up.
I didn't want to hear  his  threats  against  Mrs.  Kelson  or  E.V.'s  brother,  Patrick. I wanted to
lower the bar, remove any reason for the bastards to  kill  them. The phone buzzed in my hand,
vibrating, and I thought about  throwing it away. Instead I held  down the  power  button until it
turned completely off.
I jumped  back  to  the  Hole.  "Where  did  they  have  them?"  She  flinched  at  my  voice  and
looked up at me. "What?" "Where did they have your  mother and brother?"  "They  said  they'd
be moving them. Not to bother with a rescue since they wouldn't be there."
I looked at the ceiling and squeezed my eyes shut. "That's what they said. Where  were  they
when they killed your– when they threatened your mother?"
"In the basement. They were all in the basement."
"How many of them were there? That you saw?"
"I don't know. None of the men at the club were  the men at the house. There  were  four at
the house." I jumped.
The house was dark. I'd walked from the petrol station, expecting them to  show up in  cars
or on foot. Hell–I half expected them to parachute in.
But they hadn't.
I remembered  the bomb  at  Alejandra's  and  I  wondered  if  that's  what  they  had  in  mind.  I
jumped away, to the Empty Quarter, and then back again.
Nothing.
I kicked the front door in and jumped away, to the sidewalk.
The dog began barking from the backyard.
I went  around  the  side.  There  were  covered  stairs–storm–cellar  type,  just  short  of  the
fence. Booger danced on the other side, barking and wagging  his  tail at the same  time. I tugged
at the handle and it opened but I jumped back to the sidewalk before it swung to the side.
Nothing.
I remembered the bomb in San Diego, the one they'd set for movement in the house,  unless
a door was opened first. They'd used a  cell  phone  trigger  in  Mexico.  How about here?  Surely
they knew I was  here.  Even if they  were  all  over at the Teen Club, they could  surely  feel my
jumps.
Or they were waiting inside.
Standing just inside  the  front  door,  I  flipped  the  light  switch  up  and  jumped  back  to  the
sidewalk. The light came on. Nothing  exploded. No one  jumped out of the coat  closet  with a
knife  or a stun gun. I jumped into the house, to the end of the hallway  where  it  ended  at  the
kitchen, then away.
Nothing.
I returned and flipped on the light switch in the kitchen and jumped away.
Outside, I moved down the cellar  steps. The door  was  locked but it had a diamond  square
glass inset. I showed my head and jumped away.
Nothing.
There  was  nothing to  see–the  lights  were  out  and  it  was  pitch  black  within.  I  found  the
inside  cellar  stairs  leading  down  from  the  kitchen.  There  was  a  light  switch  at  the  top.  I
flipped it and jumped away.
A few minutes later I looked back in the glass inset from the outside cellar door.
Mr. Kelson was on the  floor,  facedown,  his hands  cable–tied  behind his back. They'd done
it next to the  floor  drain  so  there  wasn't as much  blood  as I'd seen  in  Consuelo's  kitchen. On
the far  wall,  pushed up against a leaning  pile  of  disassembled  cardboard  cartons,  Mrs.  Kelson
and Patrick Kelson were in wooden chairs, their legs duct–taped to the  chair's  front  legs,  their
arms duct–taped to the chair arms. Duct tape covered their mouths, running all the way around
their heads, and there was duct tape across their eyes, too.
I couldn't tell if they were alive or dead.
I couldn't see anyone else through the door but that didn't mean they weren't there.
I jumped  into  the  middle  of  the  room  and  away,  as  quickly  as  I  could,  so  sure  I'd  trip  a
motion sensor that I panicked, and arrived back in the Empty Quarter with shreds of cardboard
flying around me.
Boy, haven't done that in a while.
I jumped back to the sidewalk, outside. The house was still there. Men with knives  weren't
popping out of the bushes or falling from the sky.
Back in the  cellar I could  see  their  labored  breath. They'd both  soiled  themselves  and  for
some  reason  that  made  me  madder  than  anything.  They  taped  them  up  and  just  left  them.  I
wondered how long they'd been without water.
I went to Mrs. Kelson and reached for the tape across her eyes and then froze.
My sloppy jump had dislodged the cardboard stack behind them.
And that's where the bomb was.
It was a military thing,  olive  drab  nylon  bag,  one  end  opened,  exposing  olive  drab  metal
with screw–down  terminals and two  different  multiconductor  wires,  each  leading  across  the
floor to a chair. The wires  went up the chair  legs  under the duct tape and transitioned  to the
chair seat, tucked under the backs of their knees.
Pressure  switch?  When  you  freed  them  and  lifted  their   bodies   off  the  chairs,  did  it
complete the circuit or break it?
And could the bastards still detonate it remotely?
Call the bomb squad!
Right. And do they detonate it then, when they see all the trucks pull up?
Fuck it!
I gabbed the back of each chair and jumped.
My arms hurt and I couldn't  keep  Patrick's  chair  from  falling  over,  but I  did  slow  his  fall
and we were there, in the Empty Quarter.
Alive.
The wires  had broken at the  terminals–there  was a bit of  stripped  copper  still  showing. I
wondered if the bomb had gone off or not. Maybe there'd been a delay set.
I took the tape off of their mouths first, and their breathing  eased. The tape  over  their  eyes
was tricky–I felt like I'd damage their eyelids, so I left it.
Mrs. Kelson groaned.
Patrick stirred. "Who is it? What's happening?"
I thought about reassuring him, then shook my head.
I left them taped to the  chairs and jumped them, one at a time, to the  sidewalk  outside St.
Francis Medical Center in Trenton–it was right across from the east side  of E.V.'s high  school.
Someone  shouted and I heard  footsteps but I didn't  even turn around  before  jumping  back  to
Euclid Avenue in Trenton.
The house hadn't exploded.
I heard the dog barking still, from the backyard, and I was glad.
"Nine–one–one operator. What is the nature of your emergency?"
"There's  a  dead  man  and  an  unexploded  bomb  in  the  basement  of  a  house  on  Euclid
Avenue." I gave the street address.
I'd  used  the  cell  phone  to  make  the  call  and  when  I  hung  up  on  the  911  operator's
questions, it buzzed again, and I wondered if the operator was calling back.
It was Kemp.
"We'll kill her mother and brother, you know."
Did he expect me to turn myself over to them? Or did they have  some  way of  tracking the
phone?
"By all means, kill them," I said. "They deserve it."
I went back to the cellar, quickly,  before  the bomb squad got there. I wiped  the phone  off
and set it beside Mr. Kelson's body. I was about to jump away  again,  when I saw a baseball bat
leaning in the corner. It wasn't full size–probably left over from Little League. I wondered  if it
had been Patrick's or E.V.'s.
I looked down at the body.
"Mind if I borrow this?"
The first sirens sounded in the distance and I jumped away.

Chapter Thirteen
Ends and Beginnings

E.V. was at the table  with  one  of her  diet  sodas and the bottle  of  pills.  I  dropped  the  bat
and jumped across the room, snatching the bottle off the table. She flinched. In a flat  voice  she
said, "I wasn't going to. I thought about it–I really did."
I threw the pill canister across the cave and into the old entrance shaft.
"Why?"  I  asked.  "The  bastards  are  already  doing  enough.  You  want  to  do  their  work  for
them?"
She just looked down at the table. She wouldn't look up.
Love me. Take me back to bed and love me. Make it like it never happened.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry about your fath–"
"Goddamn it! Couldn't you have lied? Why'dyou have to tell me your real name? Why couldn't
you have lied! You lied about the other stuff!"
I'd already had the same thought. Her father  would  probably  still  be  alive  if I'd made up a
name. Hell, I could've been Paully MacLand, the bastard. I took  her  elbow,  to pull  her up, and
she  lashed out at me. I blocked  it automatically.  Years  of  karate  were  good  for  something,  it
turned out. Keep your girlfriend from beating on you.
Something wrong there.
I  shoved  her  back  down  into  the  chair  and  while  she  struggled  to  get  her  balance  back,
trying  to  keep  the  chair  from  tipping  over  backward,  I  stepped  in  and  jumped  her  to  the
sidewalk across from her high school.
She twisted away, hunching in on  herself, then  looked  around. "What–why  here?"  She  was
staring west, toward the high school.
I gestured  behind her  toward the  medical  center, at the  large  internally  lit  red  cross  with
the  words  EMERGENCY  ROOM  beside  it.  "Your  brother  and  mother  are  in  there.  They're okay–probably dehydrated, but physically okay." I shrugged.
Anger,  rage,  fear,  terror,  grief–she'd  finally  managed  to  hide  those,  to  push  them  to  the background–but this, hope, was too much. I had to walk her the rest of the way,  supporting  her through the waiting room door, to the first row of seats.
It wasn't  crowded. A woman  in scrubs  came  forward,  concern  furrowing  her  face.  E.V.'s grief was extravagant, unmitigated, loud.
I saw her safely seated and turned to the nurse. "Her mother and brother were just dropped
off here. Uh, there was duct tape involved."
The nurse's eyes widened. "The police are–"
I held up my hand and something in my face made her recoil and stop talking, midsentence.
I put E.V.'s pocketbook in her lap, touched her hair and said, "I hope you never  have to  lie
about who you are, E.V." I took a deep shuddering breath and felt the tears coming.
I no longer cared who saw me or not.
"Good–bye."
I jumped.
I could  still  smell  E.V. on the bedding.  Hell,  her  coat  was  still  lying  there,  with  mine,  on
top of the dresser. I took it with me to the bed and buried my face in it.
It was  all  mixed up–stuff from  Mum  and  Dad,  stuff  from  Sam  and  Consuelo,  Henry.  E.V.
E.V.'s grief for her father, a man who'd really just wanted to make  sure  his daughter  was  safe. I
wish he'd left well enough alone. Everyone would've been  happier  or, at least,  alive. I wanted
to be angry with him but hard as I tried, it all turned inward.
After all, what was the common denominator, if not me?
It was the worst night, the longest night.
I'd jumped that day, accidentally, when Paully charged me. Mum and Dad were dead.
Going to  live  with  Alejandra  had  doomed  Sam  and  Consuelo.  If I  hadn't  sent  the  INS  in,
would the agents still be alive?
If I hadn't used my real  name with E.V. or  real  details  about  where I lived.  Me, me, me, it
was all me.
I  hated  myself.  I  even  thought  about  the  pills  down  the  tunnel.  I  fell  asleep  and  had
nightmares. I woke up and the reality was just as bad.
E.V.'s smell was a torment and a comfort and I thought about  wrapping  myself in her  coat,
going down the old tunnel, and getting the pills.
I  soaked  in  that  for  a  while–wallowed,  really–but  then  the  other  common  denominator
gradually surfaced.
Them.
I snatched San  Diego  Sheriff's  Department  investigator  Bob  Vigil  from  the  parking  lot  at
the Lemon  Grove  substation.  He'd  just  shut  the  door  on  his  car  and  was  turning  toward  the
building when I appeared, grabbed his collar, and jumped. He  came  down on his back, hard, in
the  Empty  Quarter,  but  his  hand  came  out  from  under  his  coat  with  his  service  automatic
pretty darn fast.
I wasn't there anymore.
I watched him for a few minutes,  sitting in the shade on top of the ridge. He tried  his  cell
phone but it didn't get a signal. He put away his gun after a few  minutes and I jumped, jabbing
him in the right arm with the black cylinder. He fell over in a very  satisfying  way and I had his
gun, his Mace, his extra  clips,  his  cell  phone,  his  wallet, and his handcuffs  before  he was  able
to sit up, much less stand.
When I'd first  grabbed him, in the parking  lot, I'd felt the stiff  edge  of  his  Kevlar  vest.  I'd
been planning to shock him in the back, but I changed to the arm instead.
I didn't bother threatening him with the gun. In fact, I popped  the  clip  out and then aimed
it off to the side, to see if there was a bullet chambered.
There was. We both flinched at the noise. "How's that shoulder, Bob?"
He  glared at me. I pulled up my shirt, on the left  side,  and  twisted  to  show  him  my  scar. "See that, Bob? That's where your friends tried for my kidney. Pretty, huh?"
His expression went from angry to wary.
"I'm not happy about that, Bob. I think that's pretty  understandable."  I  jumped  twenty  feet
directly behind him and said, "Do you understand, Bob?"
He  twisted  so  fast  he  tangled  his  feet  and  staggered  off  to  one  side.  "What  are  you?"  he
asked hoarsely.
"Didn't they tell you, Bob? Didn't they give you  some  justification?" I jumped again, twenty
feet off to his left, and he recoiled again. "You set me up. What did you think would happen?"
"They said you were a threat to, uh, national security."
"A sixteen–year–old kid? A threat to  national  security?" I opened  his  wallet.  He had three
twenties  and  a  few  credit  cards  but  there  was  a  zippered  compartment  behind  the  cash.  I
pulled the zipper, spread it wide, and whistled. I held it out to display a thick  sheaf  of hundred
dollar bills. "How good is the pay at the sheriff's department?"
"Go fuck yourself," he said. "I don't have to tell you anything!"
"Oh,"  I  said  quietly  to  myself,  "I  really  think  you  do"  This  time  I  jabbed  him  in  the  right
buttock with the shock stick. He dropped to the side and yelled.
I crouched down about five feet away. "I'm not the police. I'm not constrained by your  rules
of evidence and prisoner treatment." He was watching me and twitching. I swayed to one  side
and his  eyes  followed  me. "Of course,  you  don't  seem  that  constrained  by  the  rules,  either.  I
almost believed you about the national security thing."
He snarled.
"I don't  even  care  about you. I don't know if they told you they'd be trying to knife me  or
not. But I want to know what they told you. How they contacted  you. If–no–how they wanted
you to contact them if I showed up again."
I played with the black cylinder, passing it from hand to hand. "Why don't you just tell  me?
You do, and it checks out, I'll let you go."
He swore at me in Spanish so I switched to that.
"Este es tu momento de la verdad, Roberto. Literally.  Your  moment of truth. They didn't quite
get  me,  but  they  killed  someone  else  two  days  ago  and  I'm  not  happy  about  that.  You  can
probably tell. Not only can I do this–"
I feinted toward his leg with the cylinder and he cried out, "Stop!"
I  rocked  back  on  my  heels.  "But  I  can  also  give   information  to  the  FBI  about  your
involvement  in  that  murder.  They  cut  his  throat  while  his  hands  were  tied  behind  his  back.
And then there's the INS–they'd probably like to know that you've  been taking  bribes  from the
people who killed six of theirs."
I sort of smiled but I could feel the wrongness of it, like fingers tugging my features around.
"I'm not sure you'd see trial."
Now this, where  the  physical  stuff  didn't  seem  to  be  getting  through,  actually  seemed  to
work.
"It's on my phone. In my contacts. There's a number labeled saltador\ But that's all I know, I
swear!"
I laughed out loud. Saltador is Spanish for vaulter or jumper.
I left him there while I checked  for a signal. I got  one at the Texaco  petrol  station out on
Old 80, barely. I jumped to the  ridgetop  where I  used  to  meet  Sam  and  Consuelo  and  found
that it was closer to the cell tower, three bars on the signal–strength indicator.
Vigil  was  standing  when  I  got  back  but  looking  around,  confused.  The  sun  was  high
overhead and he wasn't sure which direction was which. I threw his wallet to him, high, and as
he jumped up into the air to grab it, I jumped him and spilled him onto the ridgetop.
"Hey!" he yelled. "I told you what you wanted to know!"
I said  soothingly,  "Yes, you did. But did you want me to shock you again, to  get  you  here?
That was the alternative."
I took the shock stick out of my pocket again. "Now. All I want you to do is  tell  them that
you convinced me they were following you, that you're on my side, and I've  agreed  to another
meeting out at Sam Coulton's place. Uh, nobody's moved in there, have they?"
"Hell  no.  Eight  people  died  there.  The  cousin  who  ended  up  with  it  wants  to  sell  but
nobody is interested."
"Okay. Tell them it's set for three o'clock."
He looked at his watch. "That'll only give them an hour to get out there."
"So it will." I flipped open his phone and found the entry and dialed it.
He did it as I'd told him and, after he told them when and where, he said,  "So,  I'll  see  you–"
He tilted the phone in his hand and stared at it. "They hung up."
I held my hand out for the phone.
His fingers closed around it and I lifted the shock tube.
"Hey, it's my phone."
"Sure," I said.
He relaxed and I jumped, only two feet to the side, and kicked the phone out of his hand. It
really flew, high, higher, and came down in the brush thirty feet away.
He was clutching his hand to his  chest and  swearing. I walked  over,  picked up a fist–sized
rock, and hit the phone three times.
I set his gun and ammunition and the  Mace  and handcuffs on the  fragments  of  plastic  and
circuit board. "See the highway?" I said pointing at the distant gray line.
He held up his good hand and flipped me the bird.
"I bet you can walk it in about two hours."
I jumped away.
I was on my back, under Sam's couch, my nose just clearing the cotton  batten and  steel  leaf
springs. If I'd been one inch thicker, it wouldn't have worked.
I heard  their  footsteps  first, but just barely. Didn't hear a car  so  I  presumed  they'd  parked
their  vehicle  somewhere  off the road, out of  earshot. They came  sooner  that  I  expected,  but
I'd been there for thirty minutes and was reasonably confident that they hadn't felt me arrive.
Not unless they'd been camping within range.
The door was locked but they opened it. Didn't know if they had a key or if they'd picked  it
but they didn't force it– that would've given the game away.
They checked  the  house  carefully,  though,  opening  closets  and  cabinets,  peeking  up  into
the attic crawlspace. I'd been planning  on  waiting up there,  myself, but it was  like an oven  so
I'd checked the couch on a whim.
Fortunately, they didn't.
"What about the grounds? He could be out there."
Young voice, American English, nervous, it seemed.
"Relax," said the other, older, more confident. There was something faintly European  in his
accent. A trace  of  Scandinavian–like a young Max von  Sydow.  "If  he's  already  here  he'll  still
have to show himself when Vigil arrives."
"Kemp should be here."
"We kill jumpers. We're not jumpers ourselves! How's he supposed to get  here  from  New
Jersey in time?"
"I'd just  feel  better.  He's had more  experience,  right?  With  grown  jumpers?  All  I've  ever
dealt with are the kids."
"Well, yes–only Roland's group has more experience."
"Christ. Roland. Now that's one scary paladin."
The older man breathed out sharply, an exasperated  sound. "Go  watch out the back but be
careful. Don't show yourself. Don't scare  him off. He could  approach  on foot, but don't  forget
he knows this house. He could jump in. This one ... if  we  get him,  well,  it  will  reflect  well  on
us. Roland has been reading the reports and he's not pleased."
I barely heard the footsteps as the other man moved off.
I'd give them that–they were stealthy bastards.
Only two  of  them.  Only  two  of  them  in  the  area,  then.  They'd  have  sent  more  if  there'd
been more. I just had that feeling.
All I've ever dealt with are the kids. Huh. I remembered the man in the car, back in  Lechlade,
when I was  five. I remembered  the night when  I  was  nine.  Go  after  'em  when  they're  young
enough and they're easy.
All right, fuckers, time to pick on someone your own size.
By  rolling  my  head  to  the  side  I  could  see  under  the  skirting  at  the  base  of  the  couch.
Across  the  carpet  I  could  just  see  partway  up  his  boots,  brown,  soft  soled,  back  near  the
hallway,  where  he  could  look  out  both  the  front  windows  and  also  step  back  out  of  sight
when someone showed up.
I didn't change  posture  as I jumped, staying  down on the  floor,  jabbing the  shock  stick  up
into the back of his thigh. He got off a shot but was  unable to aim, and  the  cables  and  spikes
smashed one of the front windows as he fell over. For  good  measure I jabbed him again in the
side, then, hearing footsteps, I jumped away, to the old stable across the graveled front yard.
He didn't use the door–he  jumped out through the smashed  window,  then  rolled  sideways
across the porch to his feet. He charged across the yard like a winger heading out of the scrum
for the goal, changing directions randomly to avoid the  opposing  players.  He had one  of  those
guns, the spike and cable projectors, a hand on the handle and the other cradling the barrel.
I timed him, though, and on his next change  of  direction, I jumped, jabbing with the shock
stick.
His foot caught me in the stomach and I was still rising in the air when I jumped away.
I came  down in the Empty Quarter, stunned, unable to move. I was  trying to  inhale  but  it
wasn't working. I jabbed at my diaphragm with my fingers and then it caught,  like a motor, and
my first breath turned into a raging, hacking cough.
Damn, he's fast.
He reminded  me of the brown  belt  who'd taken first at Birmingham.  I  looked  around  for
the shock stick but it was gone, probably lying on the ground back at Sam's place.
I jumped to the Hole,  still  coughing,  intending to get the spike gun, the one I'd taken from
Mateo in La Crucecita, but I saw the baseball bat instead.
Right.
I jumped back to the  living  room. The first man was  still  down, but he was  fumbling with
the gun–he'd opened the breech and was pulling out the spent cartridge. An unfired  one  lay on
his stomach, ready to be inserted.
I  took   one   sideways   step   and   smashed   the   gun   away   with   the   bat,   swinging   up,
underhanded. The gun smashed against the far  wall but he  never  stopped  moving and suddenly
there was a knife in his hand, like it'd sprouted there.
I brought  the  bat  back  down  on  the  return  swing,  smashing  into  his  extended  hand.  The
knife stuck in the floor, quivering, and he yelled.
The yell did it. I'd heard that yell before.
He'd been there, that night.
I'd shot him with the paintball gun in the  bollocks  twice  and I'd hit him  multiple  times in
the face with the barrel of the gun. I could see faint scars.
I  backhanded  him  in  the  face  with  the  bat.  Junior  was  at  the  door,  the  gun  rising.  I
remembered what Dad had told me so long ago: Don't let anyone even point a weapon at you.
I jumped to the porch,  behind him, but this time I was  expecting the  foot  that  lashed  out
toward me and I twisted aside as I brought the bat down on the back of his extended knee.
I heard  something  pop in the joint and he  screamed, but he  still  tried to turn, to bring the
gun to bear through the doorway, but the bat got  there  first,  smashing  the  barrel  up  and  back
and ... it went off.
Both  spikes  came  up  through  his  jaw,  one  ripping  through  the  carotid  artery  on  his  left
side, spraying blood as he fell back. His legs spasmed once, twice, and he lay still.
I felt my stomach heave and I knew I was going to be sick, but then, halfway  off the porch,
hunched over, I stopped myself. I straightened up and took two  deep  breaths through my nose,
then turned around and made myself look.
He bled quite a lot.  Sam's  heir, the distant  cousin, had put new  carpet  in. He wasn't  going
to be happy.
I jumped past the body and the spreading stain.
The older  man, the one  who'd  been  there  that  night,  wasn't  breathing.  A  trickle  of  blood
ran out of  one  ear.  His  eyes  were  wide and staring and one  pupil  was  noticeably  larger  than
the other.
"Good." I said it aloud and it echoed in the room, louder than I expected, and harsher.
I  swam  at  the  beach  in  Oaxaca,  Bahia  Chacacual,  fighting  higher  surf  than  usual.  There
must've been a storm  farther south, down  Guatemala way, to send  these  swells  north. I found
myself rubbing my face under the water and realized I was still trying to get the blood off.
If it's not off now, it's not coming off. Get over it.
I body–surfed back to shore and jumped up into the jungle where my showers  were. It was
all too  easy to  remember  E.V. standing  here,  slippery,  warm, and naked, and I cut the  shower
short.
Her coat still lay at the foot of the bed.
I jumped into  New York  City  at  rush  hour  and  rode  the  train  down  to  Trenton,  walking
through the streets with all the commuters. Mr. Kelson's body was lying in state at the  Gruerio
Funeral  Home  until  the  services  on  Saturday.  My  plan  was  to  leave  the  coat  and  let  her
discover it but when the attendant ushered me into the chapel, she was sitting there.
The attendant stepped back outside and I went up to the front row and sat on the far end of
the bench. The casket was open but I had no desire to view the departed.
"I brought your coat."
She was looking at me, her eyes wide, the comers of her mouth hooked down.
"Won't they come back? Won't they know you're here?"
I shrugged. "I took the train.  I'll  leave  on the train. I won't jump from  anywhere  near  here.
Unless I have to."
She  turned  away  and  covered  her  face  with  both  hands.  I  kept  expecting  her  to  say
something, but she didn't.
"You  could've  trusted  me,"  I  finally  said.  "The  result  would've  been  almost  exactly  the
same. Only we–"
She didn't respond. After a moment I got up and walked to the door.
That's  when  she  said,  "I'm  glad  you  brought  the  coat.  It  was  his."  She  jerked  her  head
toward the casket. "He never gave it to me but I started  wearing  it when it no  longer  dragged
on the floor. And he never said a word."
I took a wandering route back to the station, looping east, far from  her house, and took the
train to Philadelphia.
When it clanked passed Croydon, I jumped away to the Hole.
On the train, people all around, I'd pushed forward, numb.
Now  I  couldn't  even  move.  I  stood  hunched  over,  between  the  table  and  the  bed,  my
mouth half open. I was standing with my back to the plywood gallery.
Oh.
I made myself turn, walk forward, and sit on the edge of the bed.
The  light  was  already  on  so  E.V.'s  face,  as  I'd  sketched  it  in  Regent's  Park,  was  there,
relaxed, innocent–unmarred, unmarked by tragedy, by horror. The shape  of her  collarbone,  the
dip  of  the  sweater's  neckline,  the  tracery  of  lace  at  the  edge  of  her  bra,  the  outline  of  her
breasts.
And her eyes.
Those eyes would never look at me like that again.
I tore it into  pieces  and then I tore  those  pieces  and then I tore  those  pieces.  I  ended  up
with  a  pile  of  coin–sized  scraps  on  the  table,  flecks  of  art  stock.  My  traitor  hands  started
sorting them, looking for fragments that matched, like a jigsaw puzzle.
In the Empty Quarter I made a fire ol" dead mesquite out in the middle  of the wash, adding
more and more wood until it was like a pyre.
When the flames were taller than me, I threw the fragments  of the sketch  into the fire and
watched them vanish almost immediately–flame, ash, and then sparks drifting into the sky.
Triangulation.
Honesty is the best policy, that's what they say, but it was a disaster  for me. I should  never
have  mentioned  Borrcgo  Springs.  But I  had  plenty  of  warning.  They  drove  around  listening.
Waiting for me to jump so they could figure out where my lair was.
The  sheep  farmers  had  started  throwing  coyotes  down  my  shaft  again  and  I  was  getting
ready to make another visit, though this time I was considering taking the baseball bat.
I'd jumped to a ridge  near  Fish  Creek  campground  with my binoculars,  trying to catch the
Keyhoe  brothers  on  their  ATVs,  when  a  truck  kicking  up  a  dust  trail  in  the  wash  below
suddenly swerved and braked.
I stepped behind a boulder and took a look with the binoculars.
Three men. Kemp and the big man from Oaxaca and someone I didn't know. They'd felt the
jump. They were looking up the ridge.
I  walked  away,  down  the  other   side  of  the  ridge   toward  the  gypsum   mine.   I   was
considering  just walking  away until I was at least  eight  miles  out  of  range,  but I  didn't  know
what direction they'd drive their truck.
And anyway, if they  were  this close,  they'd already  felt  me  jump  from  the  Hole  multiple
times. They were probably taking bearings, triangulating.
I jumped away,  to  the  park  headquarters,  then  to  the  Key–hoe  ranch,  where  I  smashed  a
window  and  riled up the dogs, then jumped away to New York and  had  a  hot  dog  in  Battery
Park.
After thirty minutes I sighed heavily.
Time to move.
On the outskirts of Rennes I found a farmer with a shed to rent. It was dry with a good  roof
and a stone floor well off the damp ground and he took a year's rent in cash  without  asking  for
an ID of any kind.
"Dmuges?"
"Bien sur que nonl"
Drugs indeed!
I  jumped  back  to  the  Hole  and  transferred  the  wall  of  sketches,  my  dresser,  and  the
weapons  I'd taken from them so  far. I  looked  at  everything  else–the  batteries,  the  generator,
the  lights,  the  bed,  and  the  furniture  and  decided  against  it.  I  hesitated  over  the  shelf  of
self–study materials, then 1 shook my head.
I  jumped  to  San  Diego  and  stole   six  barbecue   canisters   of   propane   gas  from  a  gas
distributor and brought them back.
Then I spent three hours doing nothing but jumping  from  one  end of the  Hole  to the other
end.
If the bastards didn't feel that, then what good were they?
Every hour I jumped to the surface, right above the Hole. It wouldn't feel much different to
them compared to underground, unless they were already there, but they weren't.
But I heard them coming.
I walked  away, back into the boulders, and made my way up the hill. I  had  my  binoculars
and the baseball bat, and I was ready to play.
There  were  six  of  them  in  two  different  all–wheel–drive  trucks  and  when  they  left  the
vehicles they fanned out in two groups of three. They looked inward,  toward  each  other, and I
realized it was a way to watch  each  other's  back,  because  if your enemy  could  materialize  in
your midst, you had to look everywhere.
I waited until the two groups were well apart and took out one of Kemp's group,  smashing
his knee, taking advantage of his fast reflexes and hitting him as he lashed out.
Both Kemp and his other teammate  fired  their  spikes  toward me, but they missed  because
I'd jumped away, and they missed their teammate because he'd fallen on his ass.
I snagged Kemp by the collar while he was reloading, and dropped  him in the Hole. When
he  twisted  and  fired  at  me,  I  jumped  to  the  other  end  of  the  cave  where  I'd  left  my  own
equipment.
My spikes  and cable  caught him  across  his  chest  and  pinned  him  to  the  plywood  wall.  It
was  ironic. That was  the  sheet  that  still  said  "Sensitives"  on  it,  though  the  sketches  were  in
France now.
He was  struggling out from under the  cable and I wondered  if the charge  was  gone.  Or  if
he was just tough. I fired  another,  lower,  across  his thighs, and  saw  him  spasm.  I put  another
across his chest and arms, and then another, shoulder high.
He carried his knife in a sleeve sheath, a mechanical thing that popped  it into  his hand. He
had a shock  stick in his back  pocket and six  cartridges  for  his  gun  in  the  loops  of  his  belt.  I
took his cell phone and his wallet, too, and put them on the table.
There were three different IDs. None of them for Kemp. I guess I'd made it too hot for him
under that name. I took a jump back to the surface, and then to the metal  ladder  leading  down
into the mine. It stank–the dead coyotes were still there–but I didn't mind somehow.
I returned to Kemp and jabbed him with the shock stick.
Oh,   good.   I'd   been   thinking   he   had   some   sort   of   immunity.   The   plywood,   thick,
three–quarter–inch stuff, flexed like cardboard.
While he spasmed, I got a chair and straddled it, arms resting across the back.
His  twitching  lessened  and I said,  "Paladin.  Hmph.  That's  an  odd  name  for  someone  who
goes around killing children."
I had his full  attention  suddenly. He hadn't been  looking  particularly  good but when I said
that he went pasty white.
"Am I not  supposed  to know that?" I asked  innocently.  "Which part am I not  supposed  to
know? That you guys are paladins? Or that you spend most of your time offing little kids?"
He was staring at me  like  he'd made a mistake,  like  he'd thought I was  one thing, and he'd
discovered I was another. "Listen, boy–"
I jabbed him in the stomach with the shock stick, jumping forward past the chair.
As he went into another set of convulsions, I walked back around to the chair.  "We got off
on the wrong foot, I think. Probably when you killed my parents. Maybe you thought I didn't like
my parents but I gotta tell you, you were wrong about that. Then there  was  Sam and  Consuelo
... now I'm confused. Why did you kill them? Wouldn't it have  been  better to  leave  them  alive,
to see if I'd make contact again? Would Roland have done it that way?"
He  began  thrashing  again,  but  it  wasn't  the  shock  stick.  He  was  trying  to  get  out  of  the
cables. Was it the mention of Roland's name? This time I kicked him in the bollocks.
"Christ,  would you settle  down!" I  shouted.  He  was  having  trouble  breathing  and  he  was
making  little  groaning  sounds.  I  pointed  at  his  groin.  "Oh,  yeah.  And  then  you  had  to  go  and
mess with my love life! That was really the last straw."
I looked back over at my books, the schoolwork, the novels I loved.
"I used to be a nice  kid. Probably the kind of kid you're  used to, the kind of  kid  who  dies
nice and quiet when you show up with your knives and spiky guns and  cables  and shock  sticks and all."
I jumped away, back to the other  side  of  the  cave,  where  it  led  out  to  the  vertical  shaft. They'd broken open the grating and I could hear them coming down the ladder.
I returned to Kemp and began stacking the  propane  tanks on top of the table,  two  rows  of three. When I was  done, I went  down to the other end of the room, to my little  twelve–volt refrigerator, and took out a pack of dinner candles.
I'd bought them with E.V. in mind, for a romantic dinner.
I  lit  two  of  the  candles,  dripped  wax  atop  the  fridge,  and  anchored  them  there,  burning
brightly.
Romantic.
"So,  do  you  have  a  secret  headquarters,  Kemp?  I  mean,  someplace  where  you  guys  hang
out, shoot darts, heft a few pints, eat paladin cakes, and practice killing little kids?"
He licked his lips. "Alejandra," he said.
I kicked him again. Same place. "Don't even say her name!"
He was reaching. I hoped he was reaching, but no matter what, I wasn't  going to play  their
games anymore.
"Why do you guys do it? Why are you after me? Why do you go around killing us?"
He looked at me and I saw hate and I saw fear, but he didn't speak and I was  sick  of hitting
on him.
I  opened  three  of  the  six  propane  tank  valves  and  jumped  away,  to  the  top  of  the  hill
above.
I counted to ten. For a moment, I thought the candles had gone out. Then I felt it in my feet,
the shock, followed by the rumble, echoing against the hill.
Down below, the mineshaft opening spat dust and smoke and, oddly, a near  perfect  smoke
ring that spread as it rose until it was over a hundred feet in diameter.
Their trucks had cracked  windows but the guy I'd  injured  first  was  still  alive,  shaken  and
staring around.
I thought about taking him away and playing  with him, maybe  extracting  some  information
about this Roland guy, but I was tired.
Let him explain this to the park rangers.
I had a lead on a cell of three paladins who operated around the Gare de Lyon train  station
and I was drawing them out with a series of jumps, figuring out who were the Sensitives.
I'd identified one working the news kiosk and another, a waiter at Le Train Bleu, but I'd had
no luck on the third and didn't want to move until I had.
I was eating pain au chocolat and between the flaky crust  all  down my jacket and the sticky
chocolate on my face and fingers, I was making a right mess of things when a group  of  Spanish
tourists  went  by  following  their  tour  guide.  She  was  discussing  the  history  of  the  station  in
perfect Castilian, but the voice wrenched my head around and widened my eyes.
She'd dyed her hair blond and cut it short, but it was her, slightly thinner, just as beautiful as
ever.
As Alejandra came closer I turned away, pulling napkins from my paper bag and dabbing at
the chocolate on my face. I soaked in every word, every bit of the warm, musical voice.
I wanted to run after her, to grab her, to hold her. I wanted her to hold me.
I didn't turn around until she was gone.
People  surrounded  me,  moving  through  the  station  like  schools  of  fish  in  a  reef,  like
milling sheep. Meeting  each  other,  talking,  kissing,  hurrying to make a train,  their thoughts on
their destinations or points of origin or just dinner.
But not me.
You don't have to drive or walk or even jump to get to the Empty Quarter.
Sometimes it comes to you.
The waiter I'd already identified  talked  briefly to a customer  passing out of the restaurant. This  man  wandered  around  the  train  station  for  five  minutes,  watching  the  timetables,  then abruptly went to the news kiosk. There he bought a newspaper, and talked  briefly to the clerk,
my other subject–only a few sentences, but more than were necessary to buy a paper.
Hello, boys.
I jumped.

The End

Ver 1.5 - Winterborn