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THE JOURNEY\n\nXV. BLETSO\n\nXVI. THE HERMIT IN THE TOWER\n\nXVII. A CAPTIVE KING\n\nXVIII. AT THE MINORESSES\n\nXIX. A STRANGE EASTER EVE\n\nXX. BARNET\n\nXXI. TEWKESBURY\n\nXXII. THE NUT BROWN MAID\n\nXXIII. BROUGHAM CASTLE\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE HERD BOY AND HIS HERMIT\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I. -- IN THE MOSS\n\n\n\n I can conduct you, lady, to a low\n But loyal cottage where you may be safe\n Till further quest.--MILTON.\n\n\nOn a moorland where sheep and goats were dispersed among the\nrocks, there lay a young lad on his back, in a stout canvas cassock\nover his leathern coat, and stout leathern leggings over wooden shoes.\nTwilight was fast coming on; only a gleam of purple light rested on the\ntop of the eastern hills, but was gradually fading away, though the sky\nto the westward still preserved a little pale golden light by the help\nof the descending crescent moon.\n\n'Go away, horned moon,' murmured the boy. 'I want to see my stars come\nout before Hob comes to call me home, and the goats are getting up\nalready. Moon, moon, thou mayst go quicker. Thou wilt have longer time\nto-morrow--and be higher in the sky, as well as bigger, and thou mightst\nlet me see my star to-night! Ah! there is one high in the sunset, pale\nand fair, but not mine! That's the evening star--one of the wanderers.\nIs it the same as comes in the morning betimes, when we do not have\nit at night? Like that it shines with steady light and twinkles not. I\nwould that I knew! There! there's mine, my own star, far up, only paling\nwhile the sun glaring blazes in the sky; mine own, he that from afar\ndrives the stars in Charles's Wain. There they come, the good old\ntwinkling team of three, and the four of the Wain! Old Billy Goat knows\nthem too! Up he gets, and all in his wake \"Ha-ha-ha\" he calls, and the\nNannies answer. Ay, and the sheep are rising up too! How white they look\nin the moonshine! Piers--deaf as he is--waking at their music. Ba, they\ncall the lambs! Nay, that's no call of sheep or goat! 'Tis some child\ncrying, all astray! Ha! Hilloa, where beest thou? Tarry till I come!\nMove not, or thou mayst be in the bogs and mosses! Come, Watch'--to a\ngreat unwieldy collie puppy--'let us find her.'\n\nA feeble piteous sound answered him, and following the direction of the\nreply, he strode along, between the rocks and thorn-bushes that guarded\nthe of the hill, to a valley covered with thick moss, veiling\ntreacherously marshy ground in which it was easy to sink.\n\nThe cry came from the further side, where a mountain stream had force\nenough to struggle through the swamp. There were stepping-stones across\nthe brook, which the boy knew, and he made his way from one to the\nother, calling out cheerily to the little figure that he began to\ndiscern in the fading light, and who answered him with tones evidently\ngirlish, 'O come, come, shepherd! Here I am! I am lost and lorn! They\nwill reward thee! Oh, come fast!'\n\n'All in good time, lassie! Haste is no good here! I must look to my\nfooting.'\n\nPresently he was by the side of the wanderer, and could see that it was\na maiden of ten or twelve years old, who somehow, even in the darkness,\nhad not the air of one of the few inhabitants of that wild mountain\ndistrict.\n\n'Lost art thou, maiden,' he said, as he stood beside her; 'where is\nthine home?'\n\n'I am at Greystone Priory,' replied the girl. 'I went out hawking to-day\nwith the Mother Prioress and the rest. My pony fell with me when we were\nriding after a heron. No one saw me or heard me, and my pony galloped\nhome. I saw none of them, and I have been wandering miles and miles! Oh\ntake me back, good lad; the Mother Prioress will give thee--'\n\n''Tis too far to take thee back to-night,' he said. 'Thou must come with\nme to Hob Hogward, where Doll will give thee supper and bed, and we will\nhave thee home in the morning.'\n\n'I never lay in a hogward's house,' she said primly.\n\n'Belike, but there be worse spots to be harboured in. Here, I must carry\nthee over the burn, it gets wider below! Nay, 'tis no use trying to leap\nit in the dark, thou wouldst only sink in. There!'\n\nAnd as he raised her in his arms, the touch of her garment was delicate,\nand she on her side felt that his speech, gestures and touch were not\nthose of a rustic shepherd boy; but nothing was said till he had waded\nthrough the little narrow stream, and set her down on a fairly firm\nclump of grass on the other side. Then she asked, 'What art thou,\nlad?--Who art thou?'\n\n'They call me Hal,' was the answer; 'but this is no time for questions.\nLook to thy feet, maid, or thou wilt be in a swamp-hole whence I may\nhardly drag thee out.'\n\nHe held her hand, for he could hardly carry her farther, since she\nwas almost as tall as himself, and more plump; and the rest of the\nconversation for some little time consisted of, 'There!' 'Where?' 'Oh,\nI was almost down!' 'Take heed; give me thy other hand! Thou must leap\nthis!' 'Oh! what a place! Is there much more of it?' 'Not much! Come\nbravely on! There's a good maid.' 'Oh, I must get my breath.' 'Don't\nstand still. That means sinking. Leap! Leap! That's right. No, not that\nway, turn to the big stair.' 'Oh--h!' 'That's my brave wench! Not far\nnow.' 'I'm down, I'm down!' 'Up! Here, this is safe! On that white\nstone! Now, here's sound ground! Hark!' Wherewith he emitted a strange\nwild whoop, and added, 'That's Hob come out to call me!' He holloaed\nagain. 'We shall soon be at home now. There's Mother Doll's light! Her\nlight below, the star above,' he added to himself.\n\nBy this time it was too dark for the two young people to see more than\ndim shapes of one another, but the boy knew that the hand he still held\nwas a soft and delicate one, and the girl that those which had grasped\nand lifted her were rough with country labours. She began to assert her\ndignity and say again, 'Who art thou, lad? We will guerdon thee well for\naiding me. The Lord St. John is my father. And who art thou?'\n\n'I? Oh, I am Hob Hogward's lad,' he answered in an odd off-hand tone,\nbefore whooping again his answer to the shouts of Hob, which were coming\nnearer.\n\n'I am so hungry!' said the little lady, in a weak, famished tone. 'Hast\naught to eat?'\n\n'I have finished my wallet, more's the pity!' said the boy, 'but never\nfear! Hold out but a few steps more, and Mother Doll will give thee bite\nand sup and bed.'\n\n'Alack! Is it much further! My feet! they are so sore and weary--'\n\n'Poor maiden, let me bear thee on!'\n\nHal took her up again, but they went more slowly, and were glad to see a\ntall figure before them, and hear the cry, 'How now, Hal boy, where hast\nbeen? What hast thou there?'\n\n'A sorely weary little lady, Daddy Hob, lost from the hawking folk from\nthe Priory,' responded Hal, panting a little as he set his burthen down,\nand Hob's stronger arms received her.\n\nHal next asked whether the flock had come back under charge of Piers,\nand was answered that all were safely at home, and after 'telling the\ntale' Hob had set out to find him. 'Thou shouldst not stray so far,' he\nsaid.\n\n'I heard the maid cry, and went after her,' said Hal, 'all the way to\nthe Blackreed Moss, and the springs, and 'twas hard getting over the\nswamp.'\n\n'Well indeed ye were not both swallowed in it,' said Hob; 'God be\npraised for bringing you through! Poor wee bairn! Thou hast come far!\nFrom whence didst say?'\n\n'From Greystone Priory,' wearily said the girl, who had her head down on\nHob's shoulder, and seemed ready to fall asleep there.\n\n'Her horse fell with her, and they were too bent on their sport to heed\nher,' explained the boy, as he trudged along beside Hob and his charge,\n'so she wandered on foot till by good hap I heard her moan.'\n\n'Ay, there will be a rare coil to-night for having missed her,' said\nHob; 'but I've heard tell, my Lady Prioress heeds her hawks more than\nher nuns! But be she who she may, we'll have her home, and Mother Doll\nshall see to her, for she needs it sure, poor bairn. She is asleep\nalready.'\n\nSo she was, with her head nestled into the shepherd's neck, nor did she\nwaken when after a tramp of more than a mile the bleatings of the folded\nsheep announced that they were nearly arrived, and in the low doorway\nthere shone a light, and in the light stood a motherly form, in a white\nwoollen hood and dark serge dress. Tired as he was, Hal ran on to her,\nexclaiming 'All well, Mammy Doll?'\n\n'Ah well!' she answered, 'thank the good God! I was in fear for thee, my\nboy! What's that Daddy hath? A strayed lamb?'\n\n'Nay, Mammy, but a strayed maiden! 'Twas that kept me so long. I had to\nbear her through the burn at Blackreed, and drag her on as best I might,\nand she is worn out and weary.'\n\n'Ay,' said Hob, as he came up. 'How now, my bit lassie?' as he put her\ninto the outstretched arms of his wife, who sat down on the settle to\nreceive her, still not half awake.\n\n'She is well-nigh clemmed,' said Hal. 'She has had no bite nor sup all\nday, since her pony fell with her out a-hawking, and all were so hot on\nthe chase that none heeded her.'\n\nMother Doll's exclamations of pity were profuse. There was a kettle of\nbroth on the peat fire, and after placing the girl in a corner of the\nsettle, she filled three wooden bowls, two of which she placed before\nHal and the shepherd, making signs to the heavy-browed Piers to wait;\nand getting no reply from her worn-out guest, she took her in her arms,\nand fed her from a wooden spoon. Though without clear waking, mouthfuls\nwere swallowed down, till the bowl was filled again and set before\nPiers.\n\n'There, that will be enough this day!' said the good dame. 'Poor bairn!\n'Twas scurvy treatment. Now will we put her to bed, and in the morn we\nwill see how to deal with her.'\n\nHal insisted that the little lady should have his own bed--a\nchaff-stuffed mattress, covered with a woollen rug, in the recess behind\nthe projecting hearth--a strange luxury for a farm boy; and Doll yielded\nvery unwillingly when he spoke in a tone that savoured of command.\nThe shaggy Piers had already curled himself up in a corner and gone to\nsleep.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II. -- THE SNOW-STORM\n\n\n\n Yet stay, fair lady, rest awhile\n Beneath the cottage wall;\n See, through the hawthorns blows the cold wind,\n And drizzling rain doth fall.--OLD BALLAD.\n\n\nThough Hal had gone to sleep very tired the night before, and only on\na pile of hay, curled up with Watch, having yielded his own bed to the\nstrange guest, he was awake before the sun, for it was the decline of\nthe year, and the dawn was not early.\n\nHe was not the first awake--Hob and Piers were already busy on the\noutside, and Mother Doll had emerged from the box bed which made almost\na separate apartment, and was raking together the peat, so as to revive\nthe slumbering fire. The hovel, for it was hardly more, was built of\nrough stone and thatched with reeds, with large stones to keep the\nroof down in the high mountain blasts. There was only one room, earthen\nfloored, and with no furniture save a big chest, a rude table, a settle\nand a few stools, besides the big kettle and a few crocks and wooden\nbowls. Yet whereas all was clean, it had an air of comfort and\ncivilisation beyond any of the cabins in the neighbourhood, more\nespecially as there was even a rude chimney-piece projecting far into\nthe room, and in the niche behind this lay the little girl in her\nclothes, fast asleep.\n\nVery young and childish she looked as she lay, her lips partly unclosed,\nher dark hair straying beyond her hand, and her black lashes resting on\nher delicate brunette cheeks, slightly flushed with sleep. Hal could\nnot help standing for a minute gazing at her in a sort of wondering\ncuriosity, till roused by the voice of Mother Doll.\n\n'Go thy ways, my bairn, to wash in the burn. Here's thy comb. I must\nhave the lassie up before the shepherd comes back, though 'tis amost\na pity to wake her! There, she is stirring! Best be off with thee, my\nbonnie lad.'\n\nIt was spoken more in the tone of nurse to nursling than of mother\nto son, still less that of mistress to farm boy; but Hal obeyed, only\nobserving, 'Take care of her.'\n\n'Ay, my pretty, will not I,' murmured the old woman, as the child turned\nround on her pillow, put up a hand, rubbed her eyes, and disclosed a\npair of sleepy brown orbs, gazed about, and demanded, 'What's this?\nWho's this?'\n\n''Tis Hob Hogward's hut, my bonnie lamb, where you are full welcome!\nHere, take a sup of warm milk.'\n\n'I mind me now,' said the girl, sitting up, and holding out her hands\nfor the bowl. 'They all left me, and the lad brought me--a great lubber\nlout--'\n\n'Nay, nay, mistress, you'll scarce say so when you see him by day--a\nwell-grown youth as can bear himself with any.'\n\n'Where is he?' asked the girl, gazing round; 'I want him to take me\nback. This place is not one for me. The Sisters will be seeking me! Oh,\nwhat a coil they must be in!'\n\n'We will have you back, my bairn, so soon as my goodman can go with you,\nbut now I would have you up and dressed, ay, and washed, ere he and Hal\ncome in. Then after meat and prayer you will be ready to go.'\n\n'To Greystone Priory,' returned the girl. 'Yea, I would have thee to\nknow,' she added, with a little dignity that sat drolly on her bare feet\nand disordered hair and cap as she rose out of bed, 'that the Sisters\nare accountable for me. I am the Lady Anne St. John. My father is a lord\nin Bedfordshire, but he is gone to the wars in Burgundy, and bestowed\nme in a convent at York while he was abroad, but the Mother thought her\nhouse would be safer if I were away at the cell at Greystone when Queen\nMargaret and the Red Rose came north.'\n\n'And is that the way they keep you safe?' asked the hostess, who\nmeanwhile was attending to her in a way that, if the Lady Anne had known\nit, was like the tendance of her own nurse at home, instead of that of a\nrough peasant woman.\n\n'Oh, we all like the chase, and the Mother had a new cast of hawks that\nshe wanted to fly. There came out a heron, and she threw off the new\none, and it went careering up--and up--and we all rode after, and just\nas the bird was about to pounce down, into a went my pony, Imp, and\nnot one of them saw! Not Bertram Selby, the Sisters, nor the groom, nor\nthe rabble rout that had come out of Greystone; and before I could get\nfree they were off; and the pony, Imp of Evil that he is, has not learnt\nto know me or my voice, and would not let me catch him, but cantered\noff--either after the other horses or to the Priory. I knew not where I\nwas, and halloaed myself hoarse, but no one heard, and I went on and on,\nand lost my way!'\n\n'I did hear tell that the Lady Prioress minded her hawks more than her\nHours,' said Mother Doll.\n\n'And that's sooth,' said the Lady Anne, beginning to prove herself a\nchatterbox. 'The merlins have better hoods than the Sisters; and as\nto the Hours, no one ever gets up in the night to say Nocturns or even\nMatins but old Sister Scholastica, and she is as strict and cross as may\nbe.'\n\nHere the flow of confidence was interrupted by the return of Hal, who\ngazed eagerly, though in a shamefaced way, at the guest as he set down a\nbowl of ewe milk. She was a well-grown girl of ten, slender, and bearing\nherself like one high bred and well trained in deportment; and her face\nwas delicately tinted on an olive skin, with fine marked eyebrows, and\ndark bright eyes, and her little hunting dress of green, and the hood,\nset on far back, became the dark locks that curled in rings beneath.\n\nShe saw a slender lad, dark-haired and dark-eyed, ruddy and embrowned\nby mountain sun and air; and the bow with which he bent before her had\nsomething of the rustic lout, and there was a certain shyness over him\nthat hindered him from addressing her.\n\n'So, shepherd,' she said, 'when wilt thou take me back to Greystone?'\n\n'Father will fix that,' interposed the housewife; 'meanwhile, ye had\nbest eat your porridge. Here is Father, in good time with the cows'\nmilk.'\n\nThe rugged broad-shouldered shepherd made his salutation duly to the\nyoung lady, and uttered the information that there was a black cloud,\nlike snow, coming up over the fells to the south-west.\n\n'But I must fare back to Greystone!' said the damsel. 'They will be in a\nmighty coil what has become of me.'\n\n'They would be in a worse coil if they found your bones under a snow\nwreath.'\n\nHal went to the door and spied out, as if the tidings were rather\npleasant to him than otherwise. The goodwife shivered, and reached out\nto close the shutter, and there being no glass to the windows, all the\nlight that came in was through the chinks.\n\n'It would serve them right for not minding me better,' said the maiden\ncomposedly. 'Nay, it is as merry here as at Greystone, with Sister\nMargaret picking out one's broidery, and Father Cuthbert making one pore\nover his crabbed parchments.'\n\n'Oh, does this Father teach Latin?' exclaimed Hal with eager interest.\n\n'Of course he doth! The Mother at York promised I should learn whatever\nbecame a damsel of high degree,' said the girl, drawing herself up.\n\n'I would he would teach me!' sighed the boy.\n\n'Better break thy fast and mind thy sheep,' said the old woman, as if\nshe feared his getting on dangerous ground; and placing the bowl of\nporridge on the rough table, she added, 'Say the Benedicite, lad, and\nfall to.' Then, as he uttered the blessing, she asked the guest whether\nshe preferred ewes' milk or cows' milk, a luxury no one else was\nallowed, all eating their porridge contentedly with a pinch of salt, Hob\nshowing scant courtesy, the less since his guest's rank had been made\nknown.\n\nBy the time they had finished, snowflakes--an early autumn storm--were\ndrifting against the shutter, and a black cloud was lowering over the\nhills. Hob foretold a heavy fall of snow, and called on Hal to help\nhim and Piers fold the flock more securely, sleepy Watch and his old\nlong-haired collie mother rising at the same call. Lady Anne sprang up\nat the same time, insisting that she must go and help to feed the poor\nsheep, but she was withheld, much against her will, by Mother Dolly,\nthough she persisted that snow was nothing to her, and it was a fine\njest to be out of the reach of the Sisters, who mewed her up in a\ncell, like a messan dog. However, she was much amused by watching,\nand thinking she assisted in, Mother Dolly's preparations for ewe milk\ncheese-making; and by-and-by Hal came in, shaking the snow off the\nsheepskin he had worn over his leathern coat. Hob had sent him in, as\nthe weather was too bad for him, and he and Anne crouched on opposite\nsides of the wide hearth as he dried and warmed himself, and cosseted\nthe cat which Anne had tried to caress, but which showed a decided\npreference for the older friend.\n\n'Our Baudrons at Greystone loves me better than that,' said Anne. 'She\nwill come to me sooner than even to Sister Scholastica!'\n\n'My Tib came with us when we came here. Ay, Tib! purr thy best!' as he\nheld his fingers over her, and she rubbed her smooth head against him.\n\n'Can she leap? Baudrons leaps like a horse in the tilt-yard.'\n\n'Cannot she! There, my lady pussy, show what thou canst do to please the\ndemoiselle,' and he held his arms forward with clasped hands, so that\nthe grey cat might spring over them, and Lady Anne cried out with\ndelight.\n\nAgain and again the performance was repeated, and pussy was induced\nto dance after a string dangled before her, to roll over and play in\napparent ecstasy with a flake of wool, as if it were a mouse, and Watch\njoined in the game in full amity. Mother Dolly, busy with her distaff,\nlooked on, not displeased, except when she had to guard her spindle from\nthe kitten's pranks, but she was less happy when the children began to\ntalk.\n\n'You have seen a tilt-yard?'\n\n'Yea, indeed,' he answered dreamily. 'The poor squire was hurt--I did\nnot like it! It is gruesome.'\n\n'Oh, no! It is a noble sport! I loved our tilt-yard at Bletso. Two\nknights could gallop at one another in the lists, as if they were out\nhunting. Oh! to hear the lances ring against the shields made one's\nheart leap up! Where was yours?'\n\nHere Dolly interrupted hastily, 'Hal, lad, gang out to the shed and\nbring in some more sods of turf. The fire is getting low.'\n\n'Here's a store, mother--I need not go out,' said Hal, passing to a pile\nin the corner. 'It is too dark for thee to see it.'\n\n'But where was your castle?' continued the girl. 'I am sure you have\nlived in a castle.'\n\nInsensibly the two children had in addressing one another changed the\nhomely singular pronoun to the more polite, if less grammatical, second\nperson plural. The boy laughed, nodded his head, and said, 'You are a\nlittle witch.'\n\n'No great witchcraft to hear that you speak as we do at home in\nBedfordshire, not like these northern boors, that might as well be\nScots!'\n\n'I am not from Bedfordshire,' said the lad, looking much amused at her\nperplexity.\n\n'Who art thou then?' she cried peremptorily.\n\n'I? I am Hal the shepherd boy, as I told thee before.'\n\n'No shepherd boy are you! Come, tell me true.'\n\nDolly thought it time to interfere. She heard an imaginary bleat, and\nordered Hal out to see what was the matter, hindering the girl by force\nfrom running after him, for the snow was coming down in larger flakes\nthan ever. Nevertheless, when her husband was heard outside she threw a\ncloak over her head and hurried out to speak with him. 'That maid will\nmake our lad betray himself ere another hour is over their heads!'\n\n'Doth she do it wittingly?' asked the shepherd gravely.\n\n'Nay, 'tis no guile, but each child sees that the other is of gentle\nblood, and women's wits be sharp and prying, and the maid will never\nrest till she has wormed out who he is.'\n\n'He promised me never to say, nor doth he know.'\n\n'Thee! Much do the hests of an old hogherd weigh against the wiles of a\nyoung maid!'\n\n'Lord Hal is a lad of his word. Peace with thy lords and ladies, woman,\nthou'lt have the archers after him at once.'\n\n'She makes no secret of being of gentle blood--a St. John of Bletso.'\n\n'A pestilent White Rose lot! We shall have them on the scent ere many\ndays are over our head! An unlucky chance this same snow, or I should\nhave had the wench off to Greystone ere they could exchange a word.'\n\n'Thou wouldst have been caught in the storm. Ill for the maid to have\nfallen into a drift!'\n\n'Well for the lad if she never came out of it!' muttered the gruff\nold shepherd. 'Then were her tongue stilled, and those of the clacking\nwenches at York--Yorkists every one of them.'\n\nMother Dolly's eyes grew round. 'Mind thee, Hob!' she said; 'I ken thy\nbark is worse than thy bite, but I would have thee to know that if aught\nbefall the maid between this and Greystone, I shall hold thee--and so\nwill my Lady--guilty of a foul deed.'\n\n'No fouler than was done on the stripling's father,' muttered the\nshepherd. 'Get thee in, wife! Who knows what folly those two may be\nafter while thou art away? Mind thee, if the maid gets an inkling of who\nthe boy is, it will be the worse for her.'\n\n'Oh!' murmured the goodwife, 'I moaned once that our Piers there should\nbe deaf and well-nigh dumb, but I thank God for it now! No fear of\nperilous word going out through him, or I durst not have kept my poor\nsister's son!'\n\nMother Doll trusted that her husband would never have the heart to leave\nthe pretty dark-haired girl in the snow, but she was relieved to find\nHal marking down on the wide flat hearth-stone, with a bit of charcoal,\nall the stars he had observed. 'Hob calls that the Plough--those seven!'\nhe said; 'I call it Charles's Wain!'\n\n'Methinks I have seen that!' she said, 'winter and summer both.'\n\n'Ay, he is a meuseful husbandman, that Charles! And see here! This\nmiddle mare of the team has a little foal running beside her'--he made\na small spot beside the mark that stood for the central star of what we\ncall the Bear's Tail.\n\n'I never saw that!'\n\n'No, 'tis only to be seen on a clear bright night. I have seen it, but\nHob mocks at it. He thinks the only use of the Wain is to find the North\nStar, up beyond there, pointing by the back of the Plough, and go by it\nwhen you are lost.'\n\n'What good would finding the North Star do? It would not have helped me\nhome if you had not found me!'\n\n'Look here, Lady Anne! Which way does Greystone lie?'\n\n'How should I tell?'\n\n'Which way did the sun lie when you crossed the moor?'\n\nAnne could not remember at first, but by-and-by recollected that it\ndazzled her eyes just as she was looking for the runaway pony; and Hal\ndeclared that it proved that the convent must have been to the south of\nthe spot of her fall; but his astronomy, though eagerly demonstrated,\nwas not likely to have brought her back to Greystone. Still Doll\nwas thankful for the safe subject, as he went on to mark out what he\npromised that she should see in the winter--the swarm of glow-worms,\nas he called the Pleiades; and 'Our Lady's Rock,' namely, distaff,\nthe northern name for Orion; and then he talked of the stars that so\nperplexed him, namely, the planets, that never stayed in their places.\n\nBy-and-by, when Mother Dolly's work was over the kettle was on the fire,\nand she was able to take out her own spinning, she essayed to fill up\nthe time by telling them lengthily the old stories and ballads handed\ndown from minstrel to minstrel, from nurse to nurse, and they sat\nentranced, listening to the stories, more than even Hal knew she\npossessed, and holding one another by the hand as they listened.\n\nMeantime the snow had ceased--it was but a scud of early autumn on\nthe mountains--the sun came out with bright slanting beams before his\nsetting, there was a soft south wind; and Hob, when he came in, growled\nout that the thaw had set in, and he should be able to take the maid\nback in the morning. He sat scowling and silent during supper, and\nordered Hal about with sharp sternness, sending him out to attend to the\nlitter of the cattle, before all had finished, and manifestly treated\nhim as the shepherd's boy, the drudge of the house, and threatening\nhim with a staff if he lingered, soon following himself. Mother Dolly\ninsisted on putting the little lady to bed before they should return,\nand convent-bred Anne had sufficient respect for proprieties to see that\nit was becoming. She heard no more that night.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III. -- OVER THE MOOR\n\n\n\n In humblest, simplest habit clad,\n But these were all to me.--GOLDSMITH.\n\n\n'Hal! What is your name?'\n\nShe stood at the door of the hovel, the rising sun lighting up her\nbright dark eyes, and smiling in the curly rings of her hair while Hal\nstood by, and Watch bounded round them.\n\n'You have heard,' he said, half smiling, and half embarrassed.\n\n'Hal! That's no name.'\n\n'Harry, an it like you better.'\n\n'Harry what?' with a little stamp of her foot.\n\n'Harry Hogward, as you see, or Shepherd, so please you.'\n\n'You are no Hogward, nor shepherd! These folk be no kin to you, I can\nsee. Come, an you love me, tell me true! I told you true who I am, Red\nRose though I see you be! Why not trust me the same?'\n\n'Lady, I verily ken no name save Harry. I would trust you, verily I\nwould, but I know not myself.'\n\n'I guess! I guess!' she cried, clapping her hands, but at the moment\nDolly laid a hand on her shoulder.\n\n'Do not guess, maiden,' she said. 'If thou wouldst not bring evil on the\nlad that found thee, and the roof that sheltered thee, guess not, yea,\nand utter not a word save that thou hast lain in a shepherd's hut.\nForget all, as though thou hadst slept in the castle on the hill that\nfades away with the day.'\n\nShe ended hastily, for her husband was coming up with a rough pony's\nhalter in his hand. He was in haste to be off, lest a search for the\nlost child might extend to his abode, and his gloomy displeasure and\nill-masked uneasiness reduced every-one to silence in his presence.\n\n'Up and away, lady wench!' he said. 'No time to lose if you are to be at\nGreystone ere night! Thou Hal, thou lazy lubber, go with Piers and the\nsheep--'\n\n'I shall go with you,' replied Hal, in a grave tone of resolution. 'I\nwill only go within view of the convent, but go with you I will.'\n\nHe spoke with a decided tone of authority, and Hob Hogward muttered a\nlittle to himself, but yielded.\n\nHal assisted the young lady to mount, and they set off along the track\nof the moss, driving the cows, sheep, and goats before them--not a very\nconsiderable number--till they came to another hut, much smaller and\nmore rude than that where they had left Mother Doll.\n\nPiers was a wild, shaggy-haired lad, with a sheepskin over his\nshoulders, and legs bare below the knee, and to him the charge of\nthe flock was committed, with signs which he evidently understood and\nreplied to with a gruff 'Ay, ay!' The three went on the way, over the\n of a hill, partly clothed with heather, holly and birch trees, as\nit rose above the moss. Hob led the pony, and there was something in his\ngrim air and manner that hindered any conversation between the two young\npeople. Only Hal from time to time gathered a flower for the young lady,\nscabious and globe flowers, and once a very pink wild rose, mingled\nwith white ones. Lady Anne took them with a meaning smile, and a merry\ngesture, as though she were going to brush Hal's face with the petals.\nHal laughed, and said, 'You will make them shed.'\n\n'Well and good, so the disputes be shed,' said Anne, with more meaning\nthan perhaps Hal understood. 'And the white overcomes the red.'\n\n'May be the red will have its way with spring--'\n\nBut there Hob looked round on them, and growled out, 'Have done with\nthat folly! What has a herd boy like thee to do with roses and frippery?\nCome away from the lady's rein. Thou art over-held to thrust thyself\nupon her.'\n\nNevertheless, as Hal fell back, the dark eyes shot a meaning glance\nat him, and the party went on in silence, except that now and then\nHob launched at Hal an order that he endeavoured to render savagely\ncontemptuous and harsh, so that Lady Anne interfered to say, 'Nay, the\npoor lad is doing no harm.'\n\n'Scathe enough,' answered Hob. 'He always will be doing ill if he can.\nHeed him not, lady, it only makes him the more malapert.'\n\n'Malapert,' repeated Anne, not able to resist a little teasing of\nthe grim escort; 'that's scarce a word of the dales. 'Tis more like a\nman-at-arms.'\n\nThis Hob would not hear, and if he did, it produced a rough imprecation\non the pony, and a sharp cut with his switch.\n\nThey had crossed another burn, travelled through the moss, and mounted\nto the brow of another hill, when, far away against the sky, on the top\nof yet another height, were to be seen moving figures, not cattle, but\nAnne recognised them at once. 'Men-at-arms! archers! lances! A search\nparty for me! The Prioress must have sent to the Warden's tower.'\n\n'Off with thee, lad!' said Hob, at once turning round upon Hal. 'I'll\nnot have thee lingering to gape at the men-at-arms! Off I say, or--'\n\nHe raised his stout staff as though to beat the boy, who looked up in\nhis face with a laugh, as if in very little alarm at his threat,\nsmiled up in the young lady's face, and as she held out her hand with\n'Farewell, Hal; I'll keep your rose-leaves in my breviary,' he bent over\nand kissed the fingers.\n\n'How now! This impudence passes! As if thou wert of the same blood as\nthe damsel!' exclaimed Hob in considerable anger, bringing down his\nstick. 'Away with thee, ill-bred lubber! Back to thy sheep, thou lazy\nloiterer! Get thee gone and thy whelp with thee!'\n\nHal obeyed, though not without a parting grin at Anne, and had sped away\ndown the side of the hill, among the hollies and birches, which entirely\nconcealed him and the bounding puppy.\n\nHob went on in a gruff tone: 'The insolence of these loutish lads! See\nyou, lady, he is a stripling that I took up off the roadside out of mere\ncharity, and for the love of Heaven--a mere foundling as you may say,\nand this is the way he presumes!'\n\n'A foundling, sayest thou?' said Anne, unable to resist teasing him a\nlittle, and trying to gratify her own curiosity.\n\n'Ay, you may say so! There's a whole sort of these orphans, after all\nthe bad luck to the land, to be picked up on every wayside.'\n\n'On Towton Moor, mayhap,' said Anne demurely, as she saw her surly guide\nstart. But he was equal to the occasion, and answered:\n\n'Ay, ay, Towton Moor; 'twas shame to see such bloody work; and there\nwere motherless and fatherless children, stray lambs, to be met with,\nweeping their little hearts out, and starving all around unless some\ngood Christian took pity on them.'\n\n'Was Hal one of these?' asked Lady Anne.\n\n'I tell you, lady, I looked into a church that was full of weeping\nand wailing folk, women and children in deadly fear of the cruel,\nbloody-minded York folk, and the Lord of March that is himself King\nEdward now, a murrain on him!'\n\n'Don't let those folk hear you say so!' laughed Lady Anne. 'They would\nthink nothing of hauling thee off for a black traitor, or hanging thee\nup on the first tree stout enough to bear thee.'\n\nShe said it half mischievously, but the only effect was a grunt, and a\nstolid shrug of his shoulders, nor did he vouchsafe another word for the\nrest of the way before they came through the valley, and through the low\nbrushwood on the bank, and were in sight of the search party, who set up\na joyful halloo of welcome on perceiving her.\n\nA young man, the best mounted and armed, evidently an esquire, rode\nforward, exclaiming, 'Well met, fair Lady Anne! Great have been the\nMother Prioress's fears for you, and she has called up half the country\nside, lest you should be fallen into the hands of Robin of Redesdale, or\nsome other Lancastrian rogue.'\n\n'Much she heeded me in comparison with hawk and heron!' responded Anne.\n'Thanks for your heed, Master Bertram.'\n\n'I must part from thee and thy sturdy pony. Thanks for the use of it,'\nadded she, as the squire proceeded to take her from the pony. He would\nhave lifted her down, but she only touched his hand lightly and sprang\nto the ground, then stood patting its neck. 'Thanks again, good pony. I\nam much beholden to thee, Gaffer Hob! Stay a moment.'\n\n'Nay, lady, it would be well to mount you behind Archie. His beast is\nbest to carry a lady.'\n\nArchie was an elderly man, stout but active, attached to the service of\nthe convent. He had leapt down, and was putting on a belt, and arranging\na pad for the damsel, observing, 'Ill hap we lost you, damsel! I saw you\nnot fall.'\n\n'Ay,' returned Anne, 'your merlin charmed you far more. Master Bertram,\nthe loan of your purse. I would reward the honest man who housed me.'\n\nBertram laughed and said, tossing up the little bag that hung to his\ngirdle, 'Do you think, fair damsel, that a poor Border squire carries\nabout largesse in gold and silver? Let your clown come with us to\nGreystone, and thence have what meed the Prioress may bestow on him, for\na find that your poor servant would have given worlds to make.'\n\n'Hearest thou, Hob?' said Anne. 'Come with us to the convent, and thou\nshalt have thy guerdon.'\n\nHob, however, scratched his head, with a more boorish air than he had\nbefore manifested, and muttered something about a cow that needed his\nattention, and that he could not spare the time from his herd for all\nthat the Prioress was like to give him.\n\n'Take this, then,' said Anne, disengaging a gold clasp from her neck,\nand giving it to him. 'Bear it to the goodwife and bid her recollect me\nin her prayers.'\n\n'I shall come and redeem it from thee, sulky carle as thou art,' said\nBertram. 'Such jewels are not for greasy porridge-fed housewives. Hark\nthee, have it ready for me! I shall be at thy hovel ere long'--as Anne\nwaved to Hob when she was lifted to her seat.\n\nBut Hob had already turned away, and Anne, as she held on by Archie's\nleathern belt, in her gay tone was beginning to defend him by declaring\nthat porridge and grease did not go together, so the nickname was not\nrightly bestowed on the kindly goodwife.\n\n'Ay! Greasy from his lord's red deer,' said Bertram, 'or his tainted\nmutton. Trust one of these herds, and a sheep is tainted whenever he\nwants a good supper. Beshrew me but that stout fellow looks lusty and\nhearty enough, as if he lived well.'\n\n'They were good and kind, and treated me well,' said Anne. 'I should be\ndead if they had not succoured me.'\n\n'The marvel is you are not dead with the stench of their hovel, and the\nfoulness of their food.'\n\n'It was very good food--milk, meat, and oaten porridge,' replied Anne.\n\n'Marvellous, I say!' cried Bertram with a sudden thought. 'Was it not\nsaid that there were some of those traitorous Lancastrian folk\nlurking about the mountains and fells? That rogue had the bearing of\na man-at-arms, far more than of a mere herd. Deemedst thou not so,\nArchie?' to the elderly man who rode before the young damsel.\n\n'Herdsmen here are good with the quarter-staff. They know how to stand\nagainst the Scots, and do not get bowed like our Midland serfs,' put\nin Anne, before Archie could answer, which he did with something of a\nsnarl, as Bertram laughed somewhat jeeringly, and declared that the Lady\nAnne had become soft-hearted. She looked down at her roses, but in the\ndismounting and mounting again the petals of the red rose had floated\naway, and nothing was left of it save a slender pink bud enclosed within\na dark calyx.\n\nArchie, hard pressed, declared, 'There are poor fellows lurking about\nhere and there, but bad blood is over among us. No need to ferret about\nfor them.'\n\n'Eh! Not when there may be a lad among them for whose head the king and\nhis brothers would give the weight of it in gold nobles?'\n\nAnne shivered a little at this, but she cried out, 'Shame on you, Master\nBertram Selby, if you would take a price for the head of a brave foe!\nYou, to aspire to be a knight!'\n\n'Nay, lady, I was but pointing out to Archie and the other grooms here,\nhow they might fill their pouches if they would. I verily believe thou\nknowst of some lurking-place, thou art so prompt to argue! Did I not\nsee another with thee, who made off when we came in view? Say! Was he\na blood-stained Clifford? I heard of the mother having married in these\nparts.'\n\n'He was Hob Hogward's herd boy,' answered Anne, as composedly as she\ncould. 'He hied him back to mind his sheep.'\n\nNor would Anne allow another word to be extracted from her ere the grey\nwalls of the Priory of Greystone rose before her, and the lay Sister at\nthe gate shrieked for joy at seeing her riding behind Archie.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV. -- A SPORTING PRIORESS\n\n\n\n Yet nothing stern was she in cell,\n And the nuns loved their abbess well.--SCOTT.\n\n\nThe days of the Wars of the Roses were evil times for the discipline of\nconvents, which, together with the entire Western Church, suffered from\nthe feuds of the Popes with the Italian princes.\n\nSmall remote houses, used as daughters or auxiliaries to the large\nconvents, were especially apt to fall into a lax state, and in truth\nthe little priory of Greystone, with its half-dozen of Sisters, had been\nplaced under the care of the Lady Agnes Selby because she was too highly\nconnected to be dealt with sharply, and too turbulent and unmanageable\nfor the soberminded house at York. So there she was sent, with the\ndeeply devout and strict Sister Scholastica, to keep the establishment\nin order, and deal with the younger nuns and lay Sisters. Being not\nentirely out of reach of a raid from the Scottish border, it was\nhardly a place for the timid, although the better sort of moss troopers\ngenerally spared monastic houses. Anne St. John had been sent thither at\nthe time when Queen Margaret was making her attempt in the north, where\nthe city of York was Lancastrian, as the Mother Abbess feared that her\npresence might bring vengeance upon the Sisterhood.\n\nThere was no great harm in the Mother Agnes, only she was a maiden\nwhom nothing but family difficulties could have forced into a monastic\nlife--a lively, high-spirited, out-of-door creature, whom the close\nconventionalities of castle life and even whipping could not tame, and\nwho had been the despair of her mother and of the discreet dames to whom\nher first childhood had been committed, to say nothing of a Lady Abbess\nor two. Indeed, from the Mother of Sopwell, Dame Julian Berners, she\nhad imbibed nothing but a vehement taste for hawk, horse, and hound.\nThe recluses of St. Mary, York, after being heartily scandalised by her\nhabits, were far from sorry to have a good excuse for despatching her to\ntheir outlying cell, where, as they observed, she would know how to show\na good face in case the Armstrongs came over the Border.\n\nShe came flying down on the first rumour of Lady Anne's return, her veil\nturned back, her pace not at all accordant with the solemn gait of a\nPrioress, her arms outstretched, her face, not young nor handsome, but\nsunburnt, weather-beaten and healthy, and full of delight. 'My child,\nmy Nan, here thou art! I was just mounting to seek for thee to the west,\nwhile Bertram sought again over the mosses where we sent yester morn.\nWhere hast thou been in the snow?'\n\n'A shepherd took me to his hut, Lady Mother,' answered Anne rather\ncoldly.\n\n'Little didst thou think of our woe and grief when thy palfrey was found\nstanding riderless at the stable door, and Sister Scholastica told us\nthat there he had been since nones! And she had none to send in quest\nbut Cuddie, the neatherd.'\n\n'My palfrey fell with me when you were in full chase of hawk and heron,\n'and none ever turned a head towards me nor heard me call.'\n\n'Poor maid! But it was such a chase as never you did watch. On and on\nwent the heron, the falcon ever mounting higher and higher, till she was\nbut a speck in the clouds, and Tam Falconer shouting and galloping, mad\nlest she should go down the wind. Methought she would have been back to\nNorroway, the foul jade!'\n\n'Did you capture her, Mother?' asked Anne.\n\n'Ay, she pounced at last, and well-nigh staked herself on the heron's\nbeak! But we had a long ride, and were well-nigh at the Tyne before we\nhad caught her. Full of pranks, but a noble hawk, as I shall write to my\nbrother by the next messenger that comes our way. I call it a hawk worth\nher meat that leads one such a gallop.'\n\n'What would you have done, reverend Mother, if she had crossed the\nBorder?' asked Bertram.\n\n'Ridden after her. No Scot would touch a Lady Prioress on the chase,'\nresponded Mother Agnes, looking not at all like a reverend Mother. 'Now,\npoor Anne, thou must be hungered. Thou shalt eat with Master Bertram and\nme in the refectory anon. Take her, Sister Joan, and make her ready to\nbreak her fast with us.'\n\nAnne quickly went to her chamber. It was not quite a cell, the bare\nstone walls being hung with faded woollen tapestry, the floor covered\nwith a deerskin, the small window filled with dark green glass, a chest\nserving the double purpose of seat and wardrobe, and further, a bed hung\nwith thick curtains, in which she slept with the lay Sister, Joan, who\nfurther fetched a wooden bowl of water from the fountain in the\ncourt that she might wash her face and hands. She changed her soiled\nriding-dress for a tight-fitting serge garment of dark green with long\nhanging sleeves, assisted by Joan, who also arranged her dark hair in\ntwo plaits, and put over it a white veil, fastened over a framework to\nkeep it from hanging too closely.\n\nAll the time Joan talked, telling of the fright the Mother had been\nin when the loss of the Lady Anne had been discovered, and how it was\nfeared that she had been seized by Scottish reivers, or lost in the snow\non the hills, or captured by the Lancastrians.\n\n'For there be many of the Red Rose rogues about on the mosses--comrades,\n'tis said, of that noted thief Robin of Redesdale.'\n\n'I was with good folk, in a shepherd's sheiling,' replied Anne.\n\n'Ay, ay. Out on the north hill, methinks.'\n\n'Nay. Beyond Deadman's Pool,' said Anne. 'By Blackreed Moss. That was\nwhere the pony fell.'\n\n'Blackreed Moss! That moor belongs to the De Vescis, the blackest\nLancaster fellow of all! His daughter is the widow of the red-handed\nClifford, who slew young Earl Edmund on Wakefield Bridge. They say her\nyoung son is in hiding in some moss in his lands, for the King holds him\nin deadly feud for his brother's death.'\n\n'He was a babe, and had nought to do with it,' said Anne.\n\n'He is of his father's blood,' returned Sister Joan, who in her convent\nwas still a true north country woman. 'Ay, Lady Anne, you from your\nshires know nought of how deep goes the blood feud in us of the\nBorderland! Ay, lady, was not mine own grandfather slain by the Musgrave\nof Leit Hill, and did not my father have his revenge on his son by\nSolway Firth? Yea, and now not a Graeme can meet a Musgrave but they\ncome to blows.'\n\n'Nay, but that is not what the good Fathers teach,' Anne interposed.\n\n'The Fathers have neither chick nor child to take up their quarrel. They\nknow nought about blood crying for blood! If King Edward caught that\nbrat of Clifford he would make him know what 'tis to be born of a bloody\nhouse.'\n\nAnne tried to say something, but the lay Sister pushed her along.\n'There, there, go you down--you know nothing about what honour requires\nof you! You are but a south country maid, and have no notion of what is\ndue to them one came from.'\n\nJoan Graeme was only a lay Sister, her father a small farmer when not a\nmoss trooper; but all the Border, on both sides, had the strongest\nideas of persistent vendetta, such as happily had never been held in the\nmidland and southern counties, where there was less infusion of Celtic\nblood. Anne was a good deal shocked at the doctrine propounded by the\nattendant Sister, a mild, good-natured woman in daily life, but the\nconversation confirmed her suspicions, and put her on her guard as she\nremembered Hob's warning. She had liked the shepherd lad far too much,\nand was far too grateful to him, to utter a word that might give him up\nto the revengers of blood.\n\nAt the foot of the stone stairs that led into the quadrangle she met the\nblack-robed, heavily hooded Sister Scholastica on her way to the chapel.\nThe old nun held out her arms. 'Safely returned, my child! God be\nthanked! Art thou come to join thy thanksgiving with ours at this hour\nof nones?'\n\n'Nay, I am bound to break my fast with the Mother and Master Bertram.'\n\n'Ah! thou must needs be hungered! It is well! But do but utter thy\nthanks to Him Who kept thee safe from the storm and from foul doers.'\n\nAnne did not break away from the good Sister, but went as far as the\nchapel porch, was touched with holy water, and bending her knee, uttered\nin a low voice her 'Gratias ago,' then hastened across the court to the\nrefectory, where the Prioress received her with a laugh and, 'So Sister\nScholastica laid hands on thee; I thought I should have to come and\nrescue thee ere the grouse grew cold.'\n\nBertram, as a courteous squire of dames, came forward bowing low, and\nthe party were soon seated at the board--literally a board, supported\nupon trestles, only large enough to receive the Prioress, the squire and\nthe recovered girl, but daintily veiled in delicate white napery.\n\nIt was screened off from the rest of the refectory, where the few\nSisters had already had their morning's meal after Holy Communion; and\nfrom it there was a slight barrier, on the other side of which Bertram\nSelby ought to have been, but rules sat very lightly on the Prioress\nSelby. Bertram was of kin to her, and she had no demur as to admitting\nhim to her private table. He was, in fact, a squire of the household\nof the Marquess of Montagu, brother of the Kingmaker and had been\ndespatched with letters to the south. He had made a halt at his cousin's\npriory, had been persuaded to join in flying the new hawks, and then had\nfirst been detained by the snow-storm, and then joined in the quest for\nthe lost Lady Anne St. John.\n\nNo doubt had then arisen that the Nevils were firm in their attachment\nto Edward IV., and, as a consequence, in enmity to the House of\nClifford, and both these scions of Selby had been excited at a rumour\nthat the widow of the Baron who had slain young Edmund of York had\nmarried Sir Lancelot Threlkeld of Threlkeld, and that her eldest son,\nthe heir of the line, might be hidden somewhere on the De Vesci estates.\n\nBertram had already told the Prioress that his men had spied a lad\naccompanying the shepherd who escorted the lady, and who, he thought,\nhad a certain twang of south country speech; and no sooner had he carved\nfor the ladies, according to the courtly duty of an esquire, than the\ninquiry began as to who had found the maiden and where she had been\nlodged. Prioress Agnes, who had already broken her fast, sat meantime\nwith the favourite hawk on her wrist and a large dog beside her, feeding\nthem alternately with the bones of the grouse.\n\n'Come, tell us all, sweet Nan! Where wast thou in that untimely\nsnow-storm? In a cave, starved with cold, eh?'\n\n'I was safe in a cabin with a kind old gammer.'\n\n'Eh! And how cam'st thou there? Wandering thither?'\n\n'Nay, the shepherd heard me call.'\n\n'The shepherd! What, the churl that came with thee?'\n\n'He carried me to the hut.'\n\nAnne was on her guard, though Bertram probed her well. Was there only\none shepherd? Was there not a boy with her on the hill-side where\nBertram met her? The shepherd lad in sooth! What became of him? The\nshepherd sent him back, he had been too long away from his flock. What\nwas his name? What was the shepherd's name? Who was his master? Anne did\nnot know--she had heard no names save Hob and Hal, she had seen no arms,\nshe had heard nothing southland. The lad was a mere herd-boy, ordered\nout to milk ewes and tend the sheep. She answered briefly, and with a\ncertain sullenness, and young Selby at last turned on her. 'Look thee\nhere, fair lady, there's a saying abroad that the heir of the red-handed\nHouse of Clifford is lurking here, on the look-out to favour Queen\nMargaret and her son. Couldst thou put us on the scent, King Edward\nwould favour thee and make thee a great dame, and have thee to his\nCourt--nay, maybe give thee what is left of the barony of Clifford.'\n\n'I know nothing of young lords,' sulkily growled Anne, who had been\nhitherto busy with her pets, striking her hand on the table.\n\n'And I tell thee, Bertram Selby,' exclaimed the Prioress, 'that if thou\nart ware of a poor fatherless lad lurking in hiding in these parts, it\nis not the part of an honest man to seek him out for his destruction,\nand still less to try to make the maid he rescued betray him. Well done,\nlittle Anne, thou knowest how to hold thy tongue.'\n\n'Reverend Mother,' expostulated Bertram, 'if you knew what some would\ngive to be on the scent of the wolf-cub!'\n\n'I know not, nor do I wish to know, for what price a Selby would sell\nhis honour and his bowels of mercy,' said Mother Agnes. 'Come away, Nan;\nthou hast done well.'\n\nBertram muttered something about having thought her a better Yorkist,\nwomen not understanding, and mischief that might be brewing; but\nthe Prioress, taking Anne by the hand, went her way, leaving Bertram\nstanding confused.\n\n'Oh, mother,' sighed Anne, 'do you think he will go after him? He will\nthink I was treacherous!'\n\n'I doubt me whether he will dare,' said the Prioress. 'Moreover, it is\ntoo late in the day for a search, and another snow-shower seems coming\nup again. I cannot turn the youth, my kinsman, from my door, and he is\nsafer here than on his quest, but he shall see no more of thee or me\nto-night. I may hold that Edward of March has the right, but that does\nnot mean hunting down an orphan child.'\n\n'Mother, mother, you are good indeed!' cried Anne, almost weeping for\njoy.\n\nBertram, though hurt and offended, was obliged by advance of evening to\nremain all night in the hospitium, with only the chaplain to bear him\ncompany, and it was reported that though he rode past Blackpool, no\ntrace of shepherd or hovel was found.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V. -- MOTHER AND SON\n\n\n\n My own, my own, thy fellow-guest\n I may not be, but rest thee, rest--\n The lowly shepherd's life is best.\n --WORDSWORTH.\n\n\nThe Lady Threlkeld stood in the lower storey of her castle, a sort of\nrough-built hall or crypt, with a stone stair leading upward to the\nreal castle hall above, while this served as a place where she met her\nhusband's retainers and the poor around, and administered to their wants\nwith her own hands, assisted by the maidens of her household.\n\nAmong the various hungry and diseased there limped in a sturdy\nbeggar with a wallet on his back, and a broad shady hat, as though on\npilgrimage. He was evidently a stranger among the rest, and had his leg\nand foot bound up, leaning heavily on a stout staff.\n\n'Italy pilgrim, what ails thee?' demanded the lady, as he approached\nher.\n\n'Alack, noble dame! we poor pilgrims must ever be moving on, however\nmuch it irks foot and limb, over these northern stones,' he answered,\nand his accent and tone were such that a thrill seemed to pass over the\nlady's whole person, but she controlled it, and only said, 'Tarry till\nthese have received their alms, then will I see to thee and thy maimed\nfoot. Give him a stool, Alice, while he waits.'\n\nThe various patients who claimed the lady's assistance were attended\nto, those who needed food were relieved, and in due time the hall was\ncleared, excepting of the lady, an old female servant, and Hob, who\nhad sat all the time with his foot on a stool, and his back against\nthe wall, more than half asleep after the toils and long journey of the\nnight.\n\nThen the Lady Threlkeld came to him, and making him a sign not to rise,\nsaid aloud, 'Good Gaffer, let me see what ails thy leg.' Then kneeling\ndown and busying herself with the bandages, she looked up piteously in\nhis face, with the partly breathed inquiry, 'My son?'\n\n'Well, my lady, and grown into a stalwart lad,' was Hob's answer, with\nan eye on the door, and in a voice as low as his gruff tones would\npermit.\n\n'And wherefore? What is it?' she asked anxiously. 'Be they on the track\nof my poor boy?'\n\n'They may be,' answered Hob, 'wherefore I deemed it well to shift our\nquarters. As hap would have it, the lad fell upon a little wench lost in\nthe mosses, and there was nothing for it but to bring her home for the\nnight. I would have had her away as soon as day dawned, and no questions\nasked, but the witches, or the foul fiend himself, must needs bring up a\nsnow-storm, and there was nothing for it but to let her bide in the cot\nall day, giving tongue as none but womenfolk can do; and behold she is\nthe child of the Lord St. John of Bletso.'\n\n'Nay, what should bring her north?'\n\n'She wonnes at Greystone with the wild Prioress Selby, who lost her out\nhawking. Her father is a black Yorkist. I saw him up to his stirrups in\nblood at St. Albans!'\n\n'But sure my boy did not make himself known to her?' exclaimed the lady.\n\n'I trow not. He has been well warned, and is a lad of his word; but the\ntwo bairns, left to themselves, could scarce help finding out that each\nwas of gentle blood and breeding, and how much more my goodwife cannot\ntell. I took the maid back so soon as it was safe yester morn, and sent\nback my young lord, much against his will, half-way to Greystone. And\nwell was it I did so, for he was scarce over the ridge when a plump of\nspears came in sight on the search for him, and led by the young squire\nof Selby.'\n\n'Ah! and if the damsel does but talk, even if she knows nought, the foe\nwill draw their conclusions!' said the lady, clasping her hands. 'Oh,\nwould that I had sent him abroad with his little brothers!'\n\n'Nay, then might he have fallen into the hands of Bletso himself, and\nthey say Burgundy is all for the Yorkists now,' said Hob. 'This is what\nI have done, gracious lady. I bade my good woman carry off all she could\nfrom the homestead and burn the rest; and for him we wot on, I sent\nhim and his flock off westward, appointing each of them the same\ntrysting-place--on the beneath Derwent Hill, my lady--whence I\nthought, if it were your will and the good knight Sir Lancelot's, we\nmight go nigher to the sea and the firth, where the Selby clan have no\ncall, being at deadly feud with the Ridleys. So if the maiden's tongue\ngoes fast, and the Prioress follows up the quest with young Selby, they\nwill find nought for their pains.'\n\n'Thou art a good guardian, Hob! Ah! where would my boy be save for thee?\nAnd thou sayest he is even now at the very border of the forest ground!\nSure, there can be no cause that I should not go and see him. My heart\nhungers for my children. Oh, let me go with thee!'\n\n'Sir Lancelot--' began Hob.\n\n'He is away at the Warden's summons. He will scarce be back for a week\nor more. I will, I must go with thee, good Hob.'\n\n'Not in your own person, good madam,' stipulated Hob. 'As thou knowest,\nthere are those in Sir Lancelot's following who might be too apt to\nreport of secret visits, and that were as ill as the Priory folk.'\n\nIt was then decided that the lady should put on the disguise of a\ncountrywoman bringing eggs and meat to sell at the castle, and meet Hob\nnear the postern, whence a path led to Penrith.\n\nHob, having received a lump of oatcake and a draught of very small ale,\nlimped out of the court, and, so soon as he could find a convenient spot\nbehind the gorse bushes, divested himself of his bandages, and\nchanged the side of his shepherd's plaid to one much older and more\nweather-beaten; also his pilgrim's hat for one in his pouch--a blue\nbonnet, more like the national Scottish head-gear, hiding the hat in the\ngorse.\n\nThen he lay down and waited, where he could see a window, whence a red\nkerchief was to be fluttered to show when the lady would be ready for\nhim to attend her. He waited long, for she had first to disarm suspicion\nby presiding at the general meal of the household, and showing no undue\nhaste.\n\nAt last, though not till after he had more than once fallen asleep and\nfeared that he had missed the signal, or that his wife and 'Hal' might\nbe tempted to some imprudence while waiting, he beheld the kerchief\nwaving in the sunset light of the afternoon, and presently, shrouded in\nsuch a black and white shepherd's maud as his own, and in a russet gown\nwith a basket on her arm, his lady came forth and joined him.\n\nHis first thought was how would she return again, when the darkness was\nbegun, but her only answer was, 'Heed not that! My child, I must see.'\n\nIndeed, she was almost too breathless and eager with haste, as he guided\nher over the rough and difficult path, or rather track, to answer his\ninquiries as to what was to be done next. Her view, however, agreed with\nhis, that they must lurk in the borders of the woodland for a day or two\ntill Sir Lancelot's return, when he would direct them to a place where\nhe could put them under the protection of one of the tenants of his\nmanor. It was a long walk, longer than Hob had perhaps felt when he had\nundertaken to conduct the lady through it, for ladies, though inured to\nmany dangers in those days, were unaccustomed to travelling on their own\nfeet; but the mother's heart seemed to heed no obstacle, though moments\ncame when she had to lean heavily on her companion, and he even had to\nlift her over brooks or pools; but happily the sun had not set when they\nmade their way through the tangles of the wood, and at last saw before\nthem the fitful glow of a fire of dead leaves, branches and twigs, while\nthe bark of a dog greeted the rustling, they made.\n\n'Sweetheart, my faithful!' then shouted Hob, and in another moment there\nwas a cry, 'Ha! Halloa! Master Hob--beest there?'\n\n'His voice!--my son's!' gasped the lady, and sank for a moment of\noverwhelming joy against the faithful retainer, while the shaggy dog\nleapt upon them both.\n\n'Ay, lad, here--and some one else.'\n\nThe boy crashed through the underwood, and stood on the path in a\nmoment's hesitation. Mother and son were face to face!\n\nThe years that had passed had changed the lad from almost a babe into a\nwell-grown strong boy but the mother was little altered, and as she held\nout her arms no word was wasted ere he sprang into them, and his face\nwas hidden on her neck as when he knew his way into her embrace of old!\n\nWhen the intense rapturous hold was loosed they were aware of Goodwife\nDolly looking on with clasped hands and streaming eyes, giving thanks\nfor the meeting of her dear lady and the charge whom she and her husband\nhad so faithfully kept.\n\nWhen the mother and son had leisure to look round, and there was a\npleased survey of the boy's height and strength, Goodwife Dolly came\nforward to beg the lady to come to her fire, and rest under the gipsy\ntent which she and nephew Piers--her _real_ herd-boy, a rough, shaggy,\nalmost dumb and imbecile lad--had raised with branches, skins and\ncanvas, to protect their few articles of property. There was a\nsmouldering fire, over which Doll had prepared a rabbit which the dog\nhad caught, and which she had intended for Hal's supper and that of her\nhusband if he came home in time. While the lady lavished thanks upon her\nfor all she had done for the boy she was intent on improving the rude\nmeal, so as to strengthen her mistress after her long walk, and for the\nreturn. The lady, however, could see and think of nothing but her son,\nwhile he returned her tearful gaze with open eyes, gathering up his old\nrecollections of her.\n\n'Mother!' he said--with a half-wondering tone, as the recollections of\nsix years old came back to him more fully, and then he nestled again in\nher arms as if she were far more real to him than at first--'Mother!'\nAnd then, as she sobbed over him, 'The little one?'\n\n'The babe is well, when last I heard of her, in a convent at York. Thou\nrememberest her?'\n\n'Ay--my little sister! Ay,' he said, with a considering interrogative\nsound, 'I mind her well, and old Bunce too, that taught me to ride.'\n\nBut Hob interrupted the reminiscences by bringing up the pony on which\nAnne had ridden, and insisting that the lady should not tarry longer.\n'He,' indicating Hal, might walk beside her through the wood, and thus\nprolong their interview, but, as she well knew, it was entirely unsafe\nto remain any longer away from the castle.\n\nThere were embraces and sobbing thanks exchanged between the lady and\nher son's old nurse, and then Hal, at a growling hint from Hob, came\nforward, and awkwardly helped her to her saddle. He walked by her side\nthrough the wood, holding her rein, while Hob, going before, did his\nbest in the twilight to clear away the tangled branches and brambles\nthat fell across the path, and were near of striking the lady across the\nface as she rode.\n\nOn the way she talked to her son about his remembrances, anxious to\nknow how far his dim recollections went of the old paternal castle in\nBedfordshire, of his infant sister and brother, and his father. Of him\nhe had little recollection, only of being lifted in his arms, kissed\nand blessed, and seeing him ride away with his troop, clanking in their\narmour. After that he remembered nothing, save the being put into a\nhomelier dress, and travelling on Nurse Dolly's lap in a wain, up and\ndown, it seemed to him, for ever, till at last clearer recollections\nawoke in him, and he knew himself as Hal the shepherd's boy, with the\nsheep around him, and the blue starry sky above him.\n\n'Dost thou remember what thou wast called in those times?' asked his\nmother.\n\n'I was always Hal. The little one was Meg,' he said.\n\n'Even so, my boy, my dear boy! But knowst thou no more than this?'\n\n'Methinks, methinks there were serving-men that called me the young\nLord. Ay, so! But nurse said I must forget all that. Mother dear,\nwhen that maiden came and talked of tilts and lances, meseemed that I\nrecollected somewhat. Was then my father a knight?'\n\n'Alack! alack! my child, that thou shouldst not know!'\n\n'Memories came back with that maiden's voice and thine,' said Hal, in a\nbewildered tone. 'My father! Was he then slain when he rode farther?'\n\n'Ah! I may tell thee now thou art old enough to guard thyself,' she\nsaid. 'Thy father, whom our blessed Lord assoilzie, was the Lord\nClifford, slain by savage hands on Towton field for his faith to King\nHarry! Thou, my poor boy, art the Baron of Clifford, though while this\ncruel House of York be in power thou must keep in hiding from them in\nthis mean disguise. Woe worth the day!'\n\n'And am I then a baron--a lord?' said the boy. 'Great lords have books.\nWere there not some big ones on the hall window seats? Did not Brother\nEldred begin to teach me my letters? I would that I could go on to learn\nmore!'\n\n'Oh, I would that thou couldst have all knightly training, and learn to\nuse sword and lance like thy gallant father!'\n\n'Nay, but I saw a poor man fall off his horse and lie hurt, I do not\nwant those hard, cruel ways. And my father was slain. Must a lord go to\nbattle?'\n\n'Boy, boy, thou wilt not belie thy Clifford blood,' cried the lady in\nconsternation, which was increased when he said, 'I have no mind to go\nout and kill folks or be killed. I had rather mark the stars and tend my\nsheep.'\n\n'Alack! alack! This comes of keeping company with the sheep. That my\nson, and my lord's son, should be infected with their sheepish nature!'\n\n'Never fear, madam,' said Hob. 'When occasion comes, and strength is\ngrown, his blood will show itself.'\n\n'If I could only give him knightly breeding!' sighed the lady. 'Sir\nLancelot may find the way. I cannot see him grow up a mere shepherd\nboy.'\n\n'Content you, madam,' said Hob. 'Never did I see a shepherd boy with the\nwisdom and the thought there is in that curly pate!'\n\n'Wisdom! thought!' muttered the lady. 'Those did not save our good King,\nonly made him a saint. I had rather hear the boy talk of sword and lance\nthan prate of books and stars! And that wench, whom to our misfortune\nthou didst find! What didst tell her?'\n\n'I told her nought, mother, for I had nought to tell.'\n\n'She scented mystery, though,' said Hob. 'She saw he was no herd boy.'\n\n'Nay? Though he holds himself like a lout untrained! Would that I could\nhave thee in hand, my son, to make thee meet to tread in thy brave\nfather's steps! But now, comrade of sheep thou art, and I fear me thou\nwilt ever be! But that maid, I trust that she perceived nothing in thy\nbearing or speech?'\n\n'She will not betray whatever she perceived,' said Hal stoutly.\n\nThe wood was by this time nearly past, and the moment of parting had\ncome. The lady had decided on going on foot to the little grey stone\nchurch whose low square tower could be seen rising like another rock.\nThither she could repair in her plaid, and by-and-by throw it off, and\nreturn in her own character to the castle, as though she had gone forth\nto worship there. When lifted off the shaggy pony she threw her arms\nround Hal, kissed him passionately, and bade him never breathe a word\nof it, but never to forget that a baron he was, and bound to be a good\nbrave knight, fit to avenge his father's death!\n\nHal came to understand from Dolly's explanations that his recent\nabode had been on the estate of his grandfather, Baron de Vesci, at\nLondesborough, but his mother had since married Sir Lancelot Threlkeld,\nand had intimated that her boy should be removed thither as soon as\nmight be expedient, and therefore the house on the Yorkshire moor had\nbeen broken up.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI. -- A CAUTIOUS STEPFATHER\n\n\n\n Thou tree of covert and of rest\n For this young bird that was distrest.\n --WORDSWORTH.\n\n\nA baron--bound to be a good knight, and to avenge my father's death!\nWhat does it all mean?' murmured Hal to himself as he lay on his back in\nthe morning sunshine, on the hill-side, the wood behind him, and before\nhim a distance of undulating ground, ending in the straight mysterious\nblue-grey line that Hob Hogward had told him was the sea.\n\n'Baron! Lord Clifford, like my father! He was a man in steel armour; I\nremember how it rang, and how his gorget--yes, that was the thing round\nhis throat--how it hurt me when he lifted me up to kiss me, and how they\nblamed me for crying out. Ay, and he lived in a castle with dark, dull,\nnarrow chambers, all save the hall, where there was ever a tramping and\na clamouring, and smells of hot burning meat, and horses, and all sorts\nof things, and they sat and sat over their meat and wine, and drank\nhealth to King Harry and the Red Rose. I mind now how they shouted and\nroared, and how I wanted to go and hide on the stairs, and my father\nwould have me shout with them, and drink confusion to York out of his\ncup, and shook me and cuffed me when I cried. Oh! must one be like that\nto be a knight? I had rather live on these free green hills with the\nclear blue sky above me, and my good old ewe for my comrade'--and he\nfell to caressing the face of an old sheep which had come up to him,\na white, mountain-bleached sheep with fine and delicate limbs. 'Yes,\nI love thee, good, gentle, little ewe, and thee, faithful Watch,' as\na young collie pressed up to him, thrusting a long nose into his hand,\n'far better than those great baying hounds, or the fierce-eyed hawks\nthat only want to kill. If I be a baron, must it be in that sort?\nAvenge! avenge! what does that mean? Is it, as in Goodwife Dolly's\nballads, going forth to kill? Why should I? I had rather let them be!\nHark! Yea, Watch,' as the dog pricked his ears and raised his graceful\nhead, then sprang up and uttered a deep-mouthed bark. The sheep darted\naway to her companions, and Hal rose to his feet, as the dog began to\nwave his tail, and Hob came forward accompanied by a tall, grave-looking\ngentleman. 'Here he be, sir. Hal, come thou and ask the blessing of thy\nknightly stepfather.'\n\nHal obeyed the summons, and coming forward put a knee to the ground,\nwhile Sir Lancelot Threlkeld uttered the conventional blessing,\nadding, 'Fair son, I am glad to see thee. Would that we might be better\nacquainted, but I fear it is not safe for thee to come and be trained\nfor knighthood in my poor house. Thou art a well grown lad, I rejoice to\nsee, and strong and hearty I have no doubt.'\n\n'Ay, sir, he is strong enow, I wis; we have done our best for him,'\nresponded Hob, while Hal stood shy and shamefaced; but there was\nsomething about his bearing that made Sir Lancelot observe, 'Ay, ay, he\nshows what he comes of more than his mother made me fear. Only thou must\nnot slouch, my fair son. Raise thy head more. Put thy shoulders back.\nSo! so! Nay.'\n\nPoor Hal tried to obey, the colour mounting in his face, but he\nonly became more and more stiff when he tried to be upright, and his\nexpression was such that Sir Lancelot cried out, 'Put not on the visage\nof one of thine own sheep! Ah! how shalt thou be trained to be a worthy\nknight? I cannot take thee to mine house, for I have men there who might\ninform King Edward that thy mother harboured thee. And unless I could\nfirst make interest with Montagu or Salisbury, that would be thy death,\nif not mine.'\n\nThe boy had nothing to say to this, and stood shy by, while his\nstepfather explained his designs to Hal. It was needful to remove the\nyoung Baron as far as possible from the suspicion of the greater part\nof Sir Lancelot Threlkeld's household, and the present resting-place,\nwithin a walk of his castle, was therefore unsafe; besides that,\nfreebooters might be another danger, so near the outskirts of the wood,\nsince the northern districts of moor and wood were by no means clear of\nthe remnants of the contending armies, people who were generally of the\nparty opposite to that which they intended to rob.\n\nBut on the banks of the Derwent, not far from its fall into the sea, Sir\nLancelot had granted a tenure to an old retainer of the De Vescis,\nwho had followed his mistress in her misfortunes; and on his lands Hob\nHogward might be established as a guardian of the herds with his family,\nwhich would excite no suspicion. Moreover, he could train the young\nBaron in martial exercises, the only other way of fitting him for his\nstation unless he could be sent to France or Burgundy like his brother;\nbut besides that the journey was a difficulty, it was always uncertain\nwhether there would be revengeful exiles of one or other side in the\nservice of their King, who might wreak the wrongs of their party on\nClifford's eldest son. There was reported to be a hermit on the coast,\nwho, if he was a scholar, might teach the young gentleman. To Sir\nLancelot's surprise, his stepson's face lighted up more at this\nsuggestion than at that of being trained in arms.\n\nHob had done nothing in that way, not even begun to teach him the\nquarterstaff, though he avouched that when there was cause the young\nlord was no craven, no more than any Clifford ever was--witness when he\ndrove off the great hound, which some said was a wolf, when it fell upon\nthe flock, or when none could hold him from climbing down the Giant's\nCliff after the lamb that had fallen. No fear but he had heart enough to\nmake his hand keep his own or other folks' heads.\n\n'That is well,' said Sir Lancelot, looking at the lad, who stood\ntwisting his hands in the speechless silence induced by being the\nsubject of discussion; 'but it would be better, as my lady saith, if he\ncould only learn not to bear himself so like a clown.'\n\nHowever, there was no more time, for Simon Bunce, the old man-at-arms\nwhom Sir Lancelot had appointed to meet him there, came in sight through\nthe trees, riding an old grey war-horse, much resembling himself in the\nbattered and yet strong and effective air of both. Springing down, the\nold man bent very low before the young Baron, raising his cap as he gave\nthanks to Heaven for permitting him to see his master's son. Then, after\nobeisance to his present master, he and Hob eagerly shook hands as old\ncomrades and fellow-soldiers who had thought never to meet again.\n\nThen turning again to the young noble, he poured out his love, devotion\nand gratitude for being able to serve his beloved lord's noble son;\nwhile poor Hal stood under the discomfort of being surrounded with\nfriends who knew exactly what to say and do to him, their superior,\nwhile he himself was entirely at a loss how to show himself gracious or\ngrateful as he knew he ought to do. It was a relief when Sir Lancelot\nsaid 'Enough, good Simon! Forget his nobility for the present while he\ngoes with thee to Derwentside as herd boy to Halbert Halstead here; only\nthou must forget both their names, and know them only as Hal and Hob.'\n\nWith a gesture of obedience, Simon listened to the further directions,\nand how he was to explain that these south country folks had been sent\nup in charge of an especial flock of my lady's which she wished to have\non the comparatively sheltered valley of the Derwent. Perhaps further\ndirections as to the training of the young Baron were added later, but\nHal did not hear them. He was glad to be dismissed to find Piers and\ngather the sheep together in preparation for the journey to their new\nquarters. Yet he did not fail to hear the sigh with which his stepfather\nnoted that his parting salutation was far too much in the character of\nthe herd boy.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII. -- ON DERWENT BANKS\n\n\n\n When under cloud of fear he lay\n A shepherd clad in homely grey.\n --WORDSWORTH.\n\n\nSimon Bunce came himself to conduct his new tenants to their abode. It\nwas a pleasant spot, a ravine, down which the clear stream rushed on\nits course to mingle its waters with those of the ocean. The rocks and\nbrushwood veiled the approach to an open glade where stood a rude stone\nhovel, rough enough, but possessing two rooms, a hearth and a chimney,\nand thus superior to the hut that had been left on the moor. There were\nsheds for the cattle around, and the grass was fresh and green so that\nthe sheep, the goat and the cow began eagerly feeding, as did the pony\nwhich Hal and Piers were unloading.\n\nOn one side stretched the open moor rising into the purple hills, just\ntouched with snow. On the other was the wooded valley of the Derwent,\ngrowing wider ever before it debouched amid rocks into the sea. The\ngoodwife at once discovered that there had been recent habitation, and\nasked what had become of the former dwellers there.\n\n'The woman fretted for company,' said Simon, 'and vowed she was in fear\nof the Scots, so I even let her have her way and go down to the town.'\n\nThe town in north country parlance only meant a small village, and Hob\nasked where it lay.\n\nIt was near the junction of the two streams, where Simon lived himself\nin a slightly fortified farmhouse, just high up enough to be fairly safe\nfrom flood tides. He did not advise his newly arrived tenants to be much\nseen at this place, where there were people who might talk. They were\nalmost able to provide for their daily needs themselves, excepting for\nmeal and for ale, and he would himself see to this being supplied from\na more distant farm on the coast, which Hob and Piers might visit from\ntime to time with the pony.\n\nGoodwife Dolly inquired whether they might safely go to church, from\nwhich she had been debarred all the time they had been on the move. 'So\nill for both us and the lad,' she said.\n\nSimon looked doubtful. 'If thou canst not save thy soul without,' he\nsaid, 'thou mightst go on some feast day, when there is such a concourse\nof folk that thou mightst not be noticed, and come away at once without\nhalting for idle clavers, as they call them here.'\n\n'That's what the women folk are keen for with their church-going,' said\nHob with a grin.\n\n'Now, husband, thou knowst,' said Dolly, injured, though she was more\nthan aware he spoke with intent to tease her. 'Have I not lived all this\nwhile with none to speak to save thee and the blessed lads, and never\nmurmured.'\n\n'Though thy tongue be sore for want of speech!' laughed Hob, 'thou beest\na good wife, Dolly, and maybe thy faithfulness will tell as much in the\nsaving of thy soul as going to church.'\n\n'Nay, but,' said Hal with eagerness, 'is there not a priest?'\n\n'The priest comes of a White Rose house--I trust not him. Ay, goodwife,\nbeware of showing thyself to him. I give him my dues, that he may have\nno occasion against me or Sir Lancelot, but I would not have him pry\ninto knowledge that concerns him not.'\n\n'Did not Sir Lancelot say somewhat of a scholarly hermit who might learn\nme in what I ought to know?' asked the boy.\n\n'Never you fear, sir! Here are Hob Halstead and I, able to train any\nyoung noble in what behoves him most to know.'\n\n'Yea, in arms and sports. They must be learnt I know, but a noble needs\nbooklore too,' said the boy. 'Cannot this same hermit help me? Sir\nLancelot--'\n\nSimon Bunce interrupted sharply. 'Sir Lancelot knows nought of the\nhermit! He is--he is--a holy man.'\n\n'A priest,' broke in Dolly, 'a priest!'\n\n'No such thing, dame, no clerk at all, I tell thee. And ye lads had best\nnot molest him! He is for ever busy with his prayers, and wants none\nnear him.'\n\nHal was disappointed, for his mind was far less set on the exercises of\na young knight than on the desire to acquire knowledge, that study which\nseemed to be thrown away on the unwilling ears of Anne St. John.\n\nHob had been awakened by contact with his lady and her husband, as well\nas with the old comrade, Simon Bunce, to perceive that if there were any\nchance of the young Lord Clifford's recovering his true position he\nmust not be allowed to lounge and slouch about like Piers, and he was\ncontinually calling him to order, making him sit and stand upright, as\nhe had seen the young pages forced to do at the castle, learn how to\nhandle a sword, and use the long stick which was the substitute for a\nlance, and to mount and sit on the old pony as a knight should do, till\npoor Hal had no peace, and was glad to get away upon the moor with Piers\nand the sheep, where there was no one to criticise him, or predict that\nnothing would ever make him do honour to his name if he were proved ten\ntimes a baron.\n\nIt was still worse when Bunce came over, and brought a taller horse, and\nsuch real weapons as he deemed that the young lord might be taught to\nuse, and there were doleful auguries and sharp reproofs, designed in\ncomically respectful phrases, till he was almost beside himself with\nbeing thus tormented, and ready to wish never to hear of being a baron.\n\nHis relief was to wander away upon the moors, watch the lights and\nshadows on the wondrous mountains, or dream on the banks of the river,\nby which he could make his way to the seashore, a place of endless\nwonder and contemplation, as he marvelled why the waters flowed in and\nretreated again, watched the white crests, and the glassy rolls of\nthe waves, felt his mind and aspiration stretched as by something\nillimitable, even as when he looked up to the sky, and saw star beyond\nstar, differing from one another in brightness. There were those white\nbirds too, differing from all the night-jars and plovers he had seen on\nthe moor, floating now over the waves, now up aloft and away, as if they\nwere soaring into the very skies. Oh, would that he could follow them,\nand rise with them to know what were those great grey or white clouds,\nand what was above or below in those blue vastnesses! And whence came\nall those strange things that the water spread at his feet the long,\nbrown, wet streamers, or the delicate red tracery that could be seen in\nthe clear pools, where were sometimes those lumps like raw flesh when\nclosed, but which opened into flowers? Or the things like the snails on\nthe heath, yet not snails, and all the strange creatures that hopped and\ndanced in the water?\n\nWhy would no one explain such things to him? Nay, what a pity everyone\ntreated it as mere childish folly in him to be thus interested! They did\nnot quite dare to beat him for it--that was one use of being a baron.\nIndeed, one day when Simon Bunce struck him sharply and hard over the\nshoulders for dragging home a great piece of sea-weed with numerous\ncurious creatures upon it, Goodwife Dolly rushed out and made such an\noutcry that the esquire was fain to excuse himself by declaring that it\nwas time that my lord should know how to bide a buffet, and answer it.\nHe was ready and glad to meet the stroke in return! 'Come on, sir!'\n\nAnd Hob put a stout headless lance in the boy's hand, while Simon stood\nup straight before him. Hob adjusted the weapon in his inert hand, and\ntold him how and where to strike. But 'It is not in sooth. I don't want\nto hurt Master Simon,' said the child, as they laughed, and yet with\ndispleasure as his blow fell weak and uncertain.\n\n'Is it a mouse's tail?' cried Simon in derision.\n\n'Come, sir, try again,' said Hob. 'Strike as you did when the black bull\ncame down. Why cannot you do the like now, when you are tingling from\nBunce's stroke?'\n\n'Ah! then I thought the bull would fall on Piers,' said Hal.\n\n'Come on, think so now, sir. One blow to do my heart good, and show you\nhave the arm of your forebears.'\n\nThus incited, with Hob calling out to him to take heart of grace, while\nSimon made a feint of trying to beat Mother Dolly, Hal started forward\nand dealt a blow sufficient to make Simon cry out, 'Ha, well struck,\nsir, if you had had a better grip of your lance! I even feel it through\nmy buff coat.'\n\nHe spoke as though it had been a kiss; but oh! and alack! why were these\nrough and dreary exercises all that these guardians--yea, and even Sir\nLancelot and his mother--thought worth his learning, when there was so\nmuch more that awoke his delight and interest? Was it really childish to\nheed these things? Yet even to his young, undeveloped brain it seemed\nas if there must be mysteries in sky and sea, the unravelling of which\nwould make life more worth having than the giving and taking of blows,\nwhich was all they heeded.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII. -- THE HERMIT\n\n\n\n No hermit e'er so welcome crost\n A child's lone path in woodland lost.\n --KEBLE.\n\n\nHal had wandered farther than his wont, rather hoping to be out of call\nif Simon arrived to give him a lesson in chivalrous sports. He found\nhimself on the of one of the gorges down which smaller streams\nrushed in wet weather to join the Derwent. There was a sound of tinkling\nwater, and leaning forward, Hal saw that a tiny thread of water dropped\nbetween the ferns and the stones. Therewith a low, soft chant in a manly\nvoice, mingling with the drip of the water.\n\nThe words were strange to him&&\n\n\n Lucis Creator optime,\n Lucem dierum proferens&&\n\n\nbut they were very sweet, and in leaning forward to look between the\nrowan branches and hear and see more, his foot slipped, and with Watch\nbarking round him, he rolled helplessly down the rock, and found himself\nbefore a tall light-haired man, in a dark dress, who gave a hand to\nraise him, asking kindly, 'Art hurt, my child?'\n\n'Oh, no, sir! Off, off, Watch!' as the dog was about to resent anyone's\ntouching his master. 'Holy sir, thanks, great thanks,' as a long fair\nhand helped him to his feet, and brushed his soiled garment.\n\n'Unhurt, I see,' said that sweet voice. 'Hast thou lost thy way? Good\ndog, thou lovest thy master! Art thou astray?'\n\n'No, sir, thank you, I know my way home.'\n\n'Thou art the boy who lives with the shepherd at Derwentside, on Bunce's\nground?'\n\n'Ay, Hob Hogward's herd boy,' said Hal. 'Oh, sir, are you the holy\nhermit of the Derwent vale?'\n\n'A hermit for the nonce I am,' was the answer, with something of a smile\nresponsive to the eager face.\n\n'Oh, sir, if you be not too holy to look at me or speak to me! If\nyou would help me to some better knowledge--not only of sword and\nsingle-stick!'\n\n'Better knowledge, my child! Of thy God?' said the hermit, a sweet look\nof joy spreading over his face.\n\n'Goodwife Dolly has told me of Him, and taught me my Pater and Credo,\nbut we have lived far off, and she has not been able to go to church\nfor weeks and years. But what I long after is to tell me what means all\nthis--yonder sea, and all the stars up above. And they will call me a\nsimpleton for marking such as these, and only want me to heed how to\nshoot an arrow, or give a stroke hard enough to hurt another. Do such\nrude doings alone, fit for a bull or a ram as meseems, go to the making\nof a knight, fair sir?'\n\n'They go to the knight's keeping of his own, for others whom he ought\nto defend,' said the hermit sadly; 'I would have thee learn and practise\nthem. But for the rest, thou knowest, sure, who made the stars?'\n\n'Oh yes! Nurse Dolly told me. She saw it all in a mystery play long long\nago--when a Hand came out, and put in the stars and sun and moon.'\n\n'Knowest thou whose Hand was figured there, my child?'\n\n'The Hand of God,' said Hal, removing his cap. 'They be sparks to show\nHis glory! But why do some move about among the others--one big one\nmoves from the Bull's face one winter to half-way beyond it. And is the\nmorning star the evening one?'\n\n'Ah! thou shouldst know Ptolemy and the Almagest,' said the hermit\nsmiling, 'to understand the circuits of those wandering stars--Coeli\nenarrant gloriam Dei.'\n\n'That is Latin,' said the boy, startled. 'Are you a priest, sir?'\n\n'No, not I--I am not worthy,' was the answer, 'but in some things I may\naid thee, and I shall be blessed in so doing. Canst say thy prayers?'\n\n'Oh, yes! nurse makes me say them when I lie down and when I get\nup--Credo and Pater. She says the old parson used to teach them our own\ntongue for them, but she has well-nigh forgot. Can you tell me, holy\nman?'\n\n'That will I, with all my heart,' responded the hermit, laying his long\ndelicate hand on Hal's head. 'Blessed be He who has sent thee to me!'\n\nThe boy sat at the hermit's feet, listening with the eagerness of one\nwhose soul and mind had alike been under starvation, and how time went\nneither knew till there was a rustling and a step. Watch sprang up,\nbut in another moment Simon Bunce, cap in hand, stood before the hut,\nbeginning with 'How now, sir?'\n\nThe hermit raised his hand, as if to make a sign, saying, 'Thou seest I\nhave a guest, good friend.'\n\nBunce started back with 'Oh! the young Lord! Sworn to silence, I trust!\nI bade him not meddle with you, sir.'\n\n'It was against his will, I trow,' said the hermit. 'He fell over the\nrock by the waterfall, but since he is here, I will answer for him that\nhe does no hurt by word or deed!'\n\n'Never, holy sir!' eagerly exclaimed Hal. 'Hob Hogward knows that I can\nkeep my mouth shut. And may I come again?'\n\nSimon was shaking his head, but the hermit took on him to say, 'Gladly\nwill I welcome thee, my fair child, whensoever thou canst find thy way\nto the weary old anchoret! Go thy way now! Or hast thou lost it?'\n\n'No, sir; I ken the woodland and can soon be at home,' replied Hal;\nthen, putting a knee to the ground, 'May I have your blessing, holy\nman?'\n\n'Alack, I told thee I am no priest,' said the hermit; 'but for such as I\nam, I bless thee with all my soul, thou fatherless lad,' and he laid\nhis hand on the young lad's wondering brow, then bade him begone, since\nSimon and himself had much to say to one another.\n\nHal summoned Watch, and turned to a path through the wood, leading\ntowards the coast, wondering as he walked how the hermit seemed to know\nhim--him whose presence had been so sedulously concealed. Could it be\nthat so very holy a man had something of the spirit of prophecy?\n\nHe kept his promise of silence, and indeed his guardians were so much\naccustomed to his long wanderings that he encountered no questions, only\none of Hob's growls that he should always steal away whenever there was\na chance of Master Bunce's coming to try to make a man of him.\n\nHowever, Bunce himself arrived shortly after, and informed Hob that\nsince young folks always pried where they were least wanted, and my lord\nhad stumbled incontinently on the anchoret's den, it was the holy man's\nwill that he might come there whenever he chose. A pity and shame\nit was, but it would make him more than ever a mere priestling, ever\nhankering after books and trash!\n\n'Were it not better to ask my lady and Sir Lancelot if they would have\nit so? I could walk over to Threlkeld!'\n\n'No, no, no, on your life not,' exclaimed Simon, striking his staff on\nthe ground in his vehemence. 'Never a word to the Threlkeld or any of\nhis kin! Let well alone! I only wish the lad had never gone a-roaming\nthere! But holy men must not be gainsaid, even if it does make a poor\ncraven scholar out of his father's son.'\n\nAnd thus began a time of great contentment to the Lord Clifford. There\nwere few days on which he did not visit the hermitage. It was a small\nlog hut, but raised with some care, and made weatherproof with moss and\nclay in the crevices, and there was an inner apartment, with a little\noil lamp burning before a rough wooden cross, where Hal, if the hermit\nwere not outside, was certain to find him saying his prayers. Food was\nsupplied by Simon himself, and, since Hal's admission, was often carried\nby him, and the hermit seemed to spend his time either in prayer or in\na gentle dreamy state of meditation, though he always lighted up into\nanimation at the arrival of the boy whom he had made his friend. Hal had\nthought him old at first, on the presumption that all hermits must be\naged, nor was it likely that age should be estimated by one living such\na life, but the light hair, untouched with grey, the smooth cheeks and\nthe graceful figure did not belong to more than a year or two above\nforty. And he had no air of ill health, yet this calm solitary residence\nin the wooded valley seemed to be infinite rest to him.\n\nHal had no knowledge nor experience to make him wonder, and accepted the\ngreat quiet and calm of the hermit as the token of his extreme holiness\nand power of meditation. He himself was always made welcome with Watch\nby his side, and encouraged to talk and ask questions, which the hermit\nanswered with what seemed to the boy the utmost wisdom, but older heads\nwould have seen not to be that of a clever man, but of one who had been\nfairly educated for the time, had had experience of courts and camps,\nand referred all the inquiries and wonderments which were far beyond him\ndirect to Almighty Power.\n\nThe mind of the boy advanced much in this intercourse with the first\ncultivated person he had encountered, and who made a point of actually\nteaching and explaining to him all those mysteries of religion which\npoor old Dolly only blindly accepted and imparted as blindly to her\nnursling. Of actual instruction, nothing was attempted. A little\nportuary, or abbreviated manual of the service, was all that the hermit\npossessed, treasured with his small crucifix in his bosom, and of course\nit was in Latin. The Hours of the Church he knew by heart, and never\nfailed to observe them, training his young pupil in the repetition and\nEnglish meaning of such as occurred during his visits. He also told much\nof the history of the world, as he knew it, and of the Church and the\nsaints, to the eager mind that absorbed everything and reflected on it,\ncoming with fresh questions that would have been too deep and perplexing\nfor his friend if he had not always determined everything with 'Such is\nthe will of God.'\n\nSomewhat to the surprise of Simon Bunce and Hob Hogward, Hal improved\ngreatly, not only in speech but in bearing; he showed no such dislike\nor backwardness in chivalrous exercises as previously; and when once Sir\nLancelot Threlkeld came over to see him, he was absolutely congratulated\non looking so much more like a young knight.\n\n'Ay,' said Bunce, taking all the merit to himself, 'there's nought like\nhaving an old squire trained in the wars in France to show a stripling\nhow to hold a lance.'\n\nHal had been too well tutored to utter a word of him to whom his\nimprovement was really due, not by actual training, but partly by\nunconscious example in dignified grace and courtesy of demeanour, and\npartly by the rather sad assurances that it was well that a man born to\nhis station, if he ever regained it, should be able to defend himself\nand others, and not be a helpless burthen on their hands. Tales of\nthe Seven Champions of Christendom and of King Arthur and his Knights\nlikewise had their share in the moulding of the youthful Lord Clifford.\n\nHis great desire was to learn to read, but it was not encouraged by the\nhermit, nor was there any book available save the portuary, crookedly\nand contractedly written on vellum, so as to be illegible to anyone\nunfamiliar with writing, with Latin, or the service. However, the\nanchoret yielded to his importunity so far as to let him learn the\nalphabet, traced on the door in charcoal, and identify the more sacred\nwords in the book--which, indeed, were all in gold, red and blue.\n\nHe did not advance more than this, for his teacher was apt to go off in\na musing dream of meditation, repeating over and over in low sweet tones\nthe holy phrases, and not always rousing himself when his pupil made\na remark or asked a question. Yet he was always concerned at his own\ninattention when awakened, and would apologise in a tone of humility\nthat always made Hal feel grieved and ashamed of having been\nimportunate. For there was a dignity and gentleness about the hermit\nthat always made the boy feel the contrast with his own roughness and\nuncouthness, and reverence him as something from a holier world.\n\n'Nurse, I do think he is a saint,' one day said Hal.\n\n'Nay, nay, my laddie, saints don't come down from heaven in these days\nof evil.'\n\n'I would thou could see him when one comes upon him at his prayers.\nHis face is like the angel at the cross I saw so long ago in the castle\nchapel.'\n\n'Dost thou remember that chapel? Thou wert a babe when we quitted it.'\n\n'I had well nigh forgotten it, but the good hermit's face brought all\nback again, and the voice of the father when he said the Service.'\n\n'That thou shouldst mind so long! This hermit is no priest, thou sayst?'\n\n'No, he said he was not worthy; but sure all saints were not priests,\nnurse.'\n\n'Nay, it is easy to be more worthy than the Jack Priests I have known.\nThough I would they would let me go to church. But look thee here,\nHal, if he be such a saint as thou sayst, maybe thou couldst get him to\nbestow a blessing on poor Piers, and give him his hearing and voice.'\n\nHal was sure that his own special saint was holy enough for anything,\nand accordingly asked permission of him to bring his silent companion\nfor blessing and healing.\n\nThe mild blue eye lighted for a moment. 'Is the poor child then\nafflicted with the King's Evil?' the hermit asked.\n\n'Nay, he is sound enough in skin and limb. It is that he can neither\nhear nor speak, and if you, holy sir, would lay thine hand on him, and\nsign him with the rood, and pray, mayhap your holiness--'\n\n'Peace, peace,' cried the hermit impetuously, lifting up his hand. 'Dost\nnot know that I am a sinner like unto the rest--nay, a greater sinner,\nin that a burthen was laid on me that I had not the soul to rise to, so\nthat the sin and wickedness of thousands have been caused by my craven\nfaint heart for well nigh two score years? O miserere Domine.'\n\nHe threw himself on the ground with clasped hands, and Hal, standing\nby in awestruck amazement, heard no more save sobs, mingled with the\nsupplications of the fifty-first Psalm.\n\nHe was obliged at last to go away without having been able to recall\nthe attention of his friend from his agony of prayer. With the reticence\nthat had grown upon him, he did not mention at home the full effect of\nhis request, but when he thought it over he was all the more convinced\nthat his friend was a great saint. Had he not always heard that saints\nbelieved themselves great sinners, and went through many penances? And\nwhy did he speak as if he could have cured the King's Evil? He asked\nDolly what it was, and she replied that it was the sickness that only\nthe King's touch could heal.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX. -- HENRY OF WINDSOR\n\n\n\n My crown is in my heart, not on my head;\n Not deck'd with diamonds, and Indian stones,\n Nor to be seen. My crown is call'd Content.\n --SHAKESPEARE.\n\n\nSummer had faded, and an early frost had tinted the fern-leaves with\ngold here and there, and made the hermit wrap himself close in a cloak\nlined with thick brown fur.\n\nSimon, who was accustomed very respectfully to take the command of him,\ninsisted that he should have a fire always burning on a rock close to\nhis door, and that Piers, if not Hal, should always take care that it\nnever went out, smothering it with peat, as every shepherd boy knew how\nto do, so as to keep it alight, or, in case of need, to conceal it with\nturf.\n\nOne afternoon, as Hal lay on the grass, whiling away the time by\nalternately playing with Watch and trying to unravel the mysteries of a\nflower of golden-rod, until the hermit should have finished his prayers\nand be ready to attend to him, Piers came through the wood, evidently\nsent on a message, and made him understand that he was immediately\nwanted at home.\n\nHal turned to take leave of his host, but the hermit's eyes were raised\nin such rapt contemplation as to see nought, and, indeed, it might\nbe matter of doubt whether he had ever perceived the presence of his\nvisitor.\n\nHal directed Piers to arrange the fire, and hurried away, becoming\nconscious as he came in sight of the cottage that there were horses\nstanding before it, and guessing at once that it must be a visit from\nSir Lancelot Threlkeld.\n\nIt was Simon Bunce, however, who, with demonstrations of looking for\nhim, came out to meet him as he emerged from the brushwood, and said\nin a gruff whisper, clutching his shoulder hard, 'Not a word to give a\nclue! Mum! More than your life hangs on it.'\n\nNo more could pass, to explain the clue intended, whether to the\npresence of the young Lord Clifford himself, which was his first\nthought, or to the inhabitant of the hermitage. For Sir Lancelot's\ncheerful voice was exclaiming, 'Here he is, my lady! Here's your son!\nHow now, my young lord? Thou hast learnt to hold up thy head! Ay, and to\nbow in better sort,' as, bending with due grace, Hal paused for a second\nere hurrying forward to kneel before his mother, who raised him in her\narms and kissed him with fervent affection. 'My son! mine own dear\nboy, how art thou grown! Thou hast well nigh a knightly bearing!' she\nexclaimed. 'Master Bunce hath done well by thee.'\n\n'Good blood will out, my lady,' quoth Simon, well pleased at her praise.\n\n'He hath had no training but thine?' said Sir Lancelot, looking full at\nSimon.\n\n'None, Sir Knight, unless it be honest Halstead's here.'\n\n'Methought I heard somewhat of the hermit in the glen,' put in the lady.\n\n'He is a saint!' declared two or three voices, as if this precluded his\nbeing anything more.\n\n'A saint,' repeated the lady. 'Anchorets are always saints. What doth\nhe?'\n\n'Prayeth,' answered Simon. 'Never doth a man come in but he is at his\nprayers. 'Tis always one hour or another!'\n\n'Ay?' said Sir Lancelot, interrogatively. 'Sayest thou so? Is he an old\nman?'\n\nSimon put in his word before Hal could speak: 'Men get so knocked about\nin these wars that there's no guessing their age. I myself should deem\nthat the poor rogue had had some clouts on the head that dazed him and\nmade him fit for nought save saying his prayers.'\n\nHere Sir Lancelot beckoned Simon aside, and walked him away, so as to\nleave the mother and son alone together.\n\nLady Threlkeld questioned closely as to the colour of the eyes and\nhair, and the general appearance of the hermit, and Hal replied, without\nsuspicion, that the eyes were blue, the hair, he thought, of a light\ncolour, the frame tall and slight, graceful though stooping; he had\nthought at first that the hermit must be old, very old, but had since\ncome to a different conclusion. His dress was a plain brown gown like\na countryman's. There was nobody like him, no one whom Hal so loved and\nvenerated, and he could not help, as he stood by his mother, pouring out\nto her all his feeling for the hermit, and the wise patient words that\nnow and then dropped from him, such as 'Patience is the armour and\nconquest of the godly;' or, 'Shall a man complain for the punishment of\nhis sins?' 'Yet,' said Hal, 'what sins could the anchoret have? Never\ndid I know that a man could be so holy here on earth. I deemed that was\nonly for the saints in heaven.'\n\nThe lady kissed the boy and said, 'I trow thou hast enjoyed a great\nhonour, my child.'\n\nBut she did not say what it was, and when her husband summoned her,\nshe joined him to repair to Penrith, where they were keeping an autumn\nretirement at a monastery, and had contrived to leave their escort and\nmake this expedition on their way.\n\nSimon examined Hal closely on what he had said to his mother, sighed\nheavily, and chided him for prating when he had been warned against it,\nbut that was what came of dealing with children and womenfolk.\n\n'What can be the hurt?' asked Hal. 'Sir Lancelot knows well who I am! No\nlack of prudence in him would put men on my track.'\n\n'Hear him!' cried Simon; 'he thinks there is no nobler quarry in the\nwoods than his lordship!'\n\n'The hermit! Oh, Simon, who is he?'\n\nBut Simon began to shout for Hob Hogward, and would not hear any further\nquestions before he rode away, as far as Hal could see, in the opposite\ndirection to the hermitage. But when he repaired thither the next day\nhe was startled by hearing voices and the stamp of horses, and as he\nreconnoitred through the trees he saw half a dozen rough-looking men,\nwith bows and arrows, buff coats, and steel-guarded caps--outlaws and\nrobbers as he believed.\n\nHis first thought was that they meant harm to the gentle hermit, and his\nimpulse was to start forward to his protection or assistance, but as\nhe sprang into sight one of the strangers cried out: 'How now! Here's\na shepherd thrusting himself in. Back, lad, or 'twill be the worse for\nyou.'\n\n'The hermit! the hermit! Do not meddle with him! He's a saint,' shouted\nHal.\n\nBut even as he spoke he became aware of Simon, who called out: 'Hold,\nsir; back, Giles; this is one well nigh in as much need of hiding as him\nyonder. Well come, since you be come, my lord, for we cannot get _him_\nthere away without a message to you, and 'tis well he should be off ere\nthe sleuth-hounds can get on the scent.'\n\n'What! Where! Who?' demanded the bewildered boy, breaking off, as at\nthat moment his friend appeared at the door of the hovel, no longer\nin the brown anchoret's gown but in riding gear, partially defended\nby slight armour, and with a cap on his head, which made him look much\nyounger than he had before done.\n\n'Child, art thou there? It is well; I could scarce have gone without\nbidding thee farewell,' he said in his sweet voice; 'thou, the dear\ncompanion of my loneliness.'\n\n'O sir, sir, and are you going away?'\n\n'Yea, so they will have it! These good fellows are come to guard me.'\n\n'Oh! may I not go with thee?'\n\n'Nay, my fair son. Thou art beneath thy mother's wing, while I am like\none who was hunted as a partridge on the mountains.'\n\n'Whither, oh whither?' gasped Hal.\n\n'That I know not! It is in the breasts of these good men, who are\ncharged by my brave wife to have me in their care.'\n\n'Oh! sir, sir, what shall I do without you? You that have helped me, and\ntaught me, and opened mine eyes to all I need to know.'\n\n'Hush, hush; it is a better master than I could ever be that thou\nneedest. But,' as tokens of impatience manifested themselves among the\nrude escort, 'take thou this,' giving him the little service-book, as he\nknelt to receive it, scarce knowing why. 'One day thou wilt be able to\nread it. Poor child! whose lot it is to be fatherless and landless for\nme and mine, I would I could do more for thee.'\n\n'Oh! you have done all,' sobbed Hal.\n\n'Nay, now, but this be our covenant, my boy! If thou, and if mine own\nson both come to your own, thou wilt be a true and loyal man to him,\neven as thy father was to me, and may God Almighty make it go better\nwith you both.'\n\n'I will, I will! I swear by all that is holy!' gasped Hal Clifford, with\na flash of perception, as he knelt.\n\n'Come, my liege, we have far to go ere night. No time for more parting\nwords and sighs.'\n\nHal scarcely knew more except that the hands were laid on his head, and\nthe voice he had learnt to love so well said: 'The blessing of God\nthe Father be upon thee, thou fatherless boy, and may He reward thee\nsevenfold for what thy father was, who died for his faithfulness to me,\na sinner! Fare thee well, my boy.'\n\nAs the hand that Hal was fervently kissing was withdrawn from him he\nsank upon his face, weeping as one heartbroken. He scarce heard the\nsounds of mounting and the trampling of feet, and when he raised his\nhead he was alone, the woods and rocks were forsaken.\n\nHe sprang up and ran along at his utmost speed on the trampled path,\nbut when he emerged from it he could only see a dark party, containing\na horseman or two, so far on the way that it was hopeless to overtake\nthem.\n\nHe turned back slowly to the deserted hut, and again threw himself on\nthe ground, weeping bitterly. He knew now that his friend and master had\nbeen none other than the fugitive King, Henry of Windsor.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X. -- THE SCHOLAR OF THE MOUNTAINS\n\n\n Not in proud pomp nor courtly state;\n Him his own thoughts did elevate,\n Most happy in the shy recess.\n --WORDSWORTH.\n\n\nThe departure of King Henry was the closing of the whole intellectual\nand religious world that had been opened to the young Lord Clifford. To\nthe men of his own court, practical men of the world, there were times\nwhen poor Henry seemed almost imbecile, and no doubt his attack of\nmelancholy insanity, the saddest of his ancestral inheritances, had\nshattered his powers of decision and action; but he was one who 'saw far\non holy ground,' and he was a well-read man in human learning, besides\nhaving the ordinary experience of having lived in the outer world, so\nthat in every way his companionship was delightful to a thoughtful boy,\nwakening to the instincts of his race.\n\nTo think of being left to the society of the sheep, of dumb Piers and\nhis peasant parents was dreariness in the extreme to one who had begun\nto know something like conversation, and to have his countless questions\nanswered, or at any rate attended to. Add to this, he had a deep\npersonal love and reverence for his saint, long before the knowing him\nas his persecuted King, and thus his sorrow might well be profound,\nas well as rendered more acute by the terror lest his even unconscious\ndescription to his mother might have been treason!\n\nHe wept till he could weep no longer, and lay on the ground in his\ndespair till darkness was coming on, and Piers came and pulled him up,\nindicating by gestures and uncouth sounds that he must go home. Goodwife\nDolly was anxiously looking out for him.\n\n'Laddie, there thou beest at last! I had begun to fear me whether the\nrobber gang had got a hold of thee. Only Hob said he saw Master Simon\nwith them. Have they mishandled thee, mine own lad nurse's darling? Thou\nlookest quite distraught.'\n\nAll Hal's answer was to hide his head in her lap and weep like a babe,\nthough she could, with all her caresses, elicit nothing from him but\nthat his hermit was gone. No, no, the outlaws had not hurt him, but they\nhad taken him away, and he would never come back.\n\n'Ay, ay, thou didst love him and he was a holy man, no doubt, but one of\nthese days thou shalt have a true knight, and that is better for a young\nbaron to look to than a saint fitter for Heaven than for earth! Come\nnow, stand up and eat thy supper. Don't let Hob come in and find thee\ncrying like a swaddled babe.'\n\nWith which worldly consolations and exhortations Goodwife Dolly brought\nhim to rise and accept his bowl of pottage, though he could not swallow\nmuch, and soon put it aside and sought his bed.\n\nIt was not till late the next day that Simon Bunce was seen riding\nhis rough pony over the moor. Hal repaired to him at once, with the\nbreathless inquiry, 'Where is he?'\n\n'In safe hands! Never you fear, sir! But best know nought.'\n\n'O Simon, was I--? Did I do him any scathe?--I--I never knew--I only\ntold my lady mother it was a saint.'\n\n'Ay, ay, lad, more's the pity that he is more saint than king! If my\nlady guessed aught, she would be loyal as became your father's wife, and\nmethinks she would not press you hard for fear she should be forced to\nbe aware of the truth.'\n\n'But Sir Lancelot?'\n\n'As far as I can gather,' explained Simon, 'Sir Lancelot is one that\nhath kept well with both sides, and so is able to be a protector. But\ndown came orders from York and his crew that King Harry is reported to\nbe lurking in some of these moors, and the Countess Clifford being his\nwife, he fell under suspicion of harbouring him. Nay, there was some\nperilous talk in his own household, so that, as I understand the matter,\nhe saw the need of being able to show that he knew nothing; or, if he\nfound that the King was living within these lands, of sending him a\nwarning ere avowing that he had been there. So I read what was said to\nme.'\n\n'He knew nothing from me! Neither he nor my lady mother,' eagerly said\nHal. 'When I mind me I am sure my mother cut me short when I described\nthe hermit too closely, lest no doubt she should guess who he was.'\n\n'Belike! It would be like my lady, who is a loyal Lancastrian at heart,\nthough much bent on not offending her husband lest his protection should\nbe withdrawn from you.'\n\n'Better--O, a thousand times better!--he gave me up than the King!'\n\n'Hush! What good would that do? A boy like you? Unless they took you\nin hand to make you a traitor, and offered you your lands if you would\nswear allegiance to King Edward, as he calls himself.'\n\n'Never, though I were cut into quarters!' averred Hal, with a fierce\ngesture, clasping his staff. 'But the King? Where and what have they\ndone with him?'\n\n'Best not to know, my lord,' said Simon. 'In sooth, I myself do not know\nwhither he is gone, only that he is with friends.'\n\n'But who--what were they? They looked like outlaws!'\n\n'So they were; many a good fellow is of Robin of Redesdale's train.\nThere are scores of them haunting the fells and woods, all Red Rose men,\nkeeping a watch on the King,' replied Simon. 'We had made up our minds\nthat he had been long enough in one place, and that he must have taken\nshelter the winter through, when I got notice of these notions of Sir\nLancelot, and forthwith sent word to them to have him away before worse\ncame of it.'\n\n'Oh! why did you not let me go with him? I would have saved him, waited\non him, fought for him.'\n\n'Fine fighting--when there's no getting you to handle a lance, except\nas if you wanted to drive a puddock with a reed! Though you have been\nbetter of late, little as your hermit seemed the man to teach you.'\n\n'He said it was right and became a man! Would I were with him! He, my\ntrue King! Let me go to him when you know where, good Simon. I, that am\nhis true and loving liegeman, should be with him.'\n\n'Ay! when you are a man to keep his head and your own.'\n\n'But I could wait on him.'\n\n'Would you have us bested to take care of two instead of one, and my\nlady, moreover, in a pother about her son, and Sir Lancelot stirred to\nmake a hue and cry all the more? No, no, sir, bide in peace in the safe\nhomestead where you are sheltered, and learn to be a man, minding your\nexercises as well as may be till the time shall come.'\n\n'When I shall be a man and a knight, and do deeds of derring-do in his\ncause,' cried Hal.\n\nAnd the stimulus drove him on to continual calls to Hob, in Simon's\ndefault, to jousts with sword or spear, represented generally by staves;\nand when these could not be had, he was making arrows and practising\nwith them, so as to become a terror to the wild ducks and other\nneighbours on the wolds, the great geese and strange birds that came\nin from the sea in the cold weather. When it was not possible to go far\nafield in the frosts and snows, he conned King Henry's portuary, trying\nto identify the written words with those he knew by heart, and sometimes\ntrying to trace the shapes of the letters on the snow with a stick;\nvisiting, too, the mountains and looking into the limpid grey waters of\nthe lakes, striving hard to guess why, when the sea rose in tides, they\nwere still. More than ever, too, did the starry skies fill him with\ncontemplation and wonder, as he dwelt on the scraps alike of astronomy,\nastrology, and devotion which he had gathered from his oracle in the\nhermitage, and longed more and more for the time to return when he\nshould again meet his teacher, his saint, and his King.\n\nAlas! that time was never to come. The outlawed partisans of the\nRed Rose had secret communications which spread intelligence rapidly\nthroughout the country, and long before Sir Lancelot and his lady knew,\nand thus it was that Simon Bunce learnt, through the outlaws, that poor\nKing Henry had been betrayed by treachery, and seized by John Talbot\nat Waddington Hall in Lancashire. Deep were the curses that the outlaws\nuttered, and fierce were the threats against the Talbot if ever he\nshould venture himself on the Cumbrian moors; and still hotter was their\nwrath, more bitter the tears of the shepherd lord, when the further\ntidings were received that the Earl of Warwick had brought the gentle,\nharmless prince, to whom he had repeatedly sworn fealty, into London\nwith his feet tied to the stirrups of a sorry jade, and men crying\nbefore him, 'Behold the traitor!'\n\nThe very certainty that the meek and patient King would bear all with\nrejoicing in the shame and reproach that led him in the steps of his\nMaster, only added to the misery of Hal as he heard the tale; and he lay\non the ground before his hut, grinding his teeth with rage and longing\nto take revenge on Warwick, Edward, Talbot--he knew not whom--and\ngrasping at the rocks as if they were the stones of the Tower which he\nlonged to tear down and liberate his beloved saint.\n\nNor, from that time, was there any slackness in acquiring or practising\nall skill in chivalrous exercises.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI. -- THE RED ROSE\n\n\n\n That Edward is escaped from your brother\n And fled, as he hears since, to Burgundy.\n --SHAKESPEARE.\n\n\nYears passed on, and still Henry Clifford continued to be the shepherd.\nMatters were still too unsettled, and there were too many Yorkists in\nthe north, keeping up the deadly hatred of the family against that of\nClifford, for it to be safe for him to show himself openly. He was a\ntall, well-made, strong youth, and his stepfather spoke of his going to\nlearn war in Burgundy; but not only was his mother afraid to venture him\nthere, but he could not bear to leave England while there was a hope\nof working in the cause of the captive King, though the Red Rose hung\nwithered on the branches.\n\nReports of misunderstandings between King Edward and the Earl of Warwick\ncame from time to time, and that Queen Margaret and her son were busy\nbeyond seas, which kept up hope; and in the meantime Hal grew in the\nknowledge of all country lore, of herd and wood, and added to it all his\nown earnest love of the out-of-door world, of sun, moon, and stars,\nsea and hills, beast and bird. The hermit King, who had been a\nwell-educated, well-read man in his earlier days, had given him the\nframework of such natural science as had come down to the fifteenth\ncentury, backed by the deepest faith in scriptural descriptions; and\nthese inferences and this philosophy were enough to lead a far acuter\nand more able intellect, with greater opportunities of observation, much\nfurther into the fields of the mystery of nature than ever the King had\ngone.\n\nHe said nothing, for never had he met one who understood a word he said\napart from fortune telling, excepting the royal teacher after whom\nhe longed; but he watched, he observed, and he dreamt, and came to\nconclusions that his King's namesake cousin, Enrique of Portugal, the\ndiscoverer, in his observatory at St. Vincent, might have profited by.\nBrother Brian, a friar, for whose fidelity Simon Bunce's outlaw could\nabsolutely answer, and who was no Friar Tuck, in spite of his rough\nlife, gave Dolly much comfort religiously, carried on some of the\neducation for which Hal longed, and tried to teach him astrology. Some\nof the yearnings of his young soul were thus gratified, but they were\nthe more extended as he grew nearer manhood, and many a day he stood\nwith eyes stretched over the sea to the dim line of the horizon, with\narms spread for a moment as if he would join the flight of the sea-gulls\nfloating far, far away, then clasped over his breast in a sort of\ndespair at being bound to one spot, then pressed the tighter in the\nstrong purpose of fighting for his imprisoned King when the time should\ncome.\n\nFor this he diligently practised with bow and arrow when alone, or only\nwith Piers, and learnt all the feats of arms that Simon Runce or Giles\nSpearman could teach him. Spearman was evidently an accomplished knight\nor esquire; he had fought in France as well as in the home wars, and\nknew all the refinements of warfare in an age when the extreme weight\nof the armour rendered training and skill doubly necessary. Spearman\nwas evidently not his real name, and it was evident that he had some\nknowledge of Hal's real rank, though he never hazarded mention of other\nname or title. The great drawback was the want of horses. The little\nmountain ponies did not adequately represent the warhorses trained\nto charge under an enormous load, and the buff jerkins and steel\nbreast-plates of the outlaws were equally far from showing how to move\nunder 'mail and plates of Milan steel.' Nor would Sir Lancelot Threlkeld\nlend or give what was needful. Indeed, he was more cautious than ever,\nand seemed really alarmed as well as surprised to see how tall and manly\nhis step-son was growing, and how like his father. He would not hear\nof a visit to Threlkeld under any disguise, though Lady Clifford was\nin failing health, nor would he do anything to forward the young lord's\nknightly training. In effect, he only wanted to keep as quiet and\nunobserved as possible, for everything was in a most unsettled and\ndangerous condition, and there was no knowing what course was the safest\nfor one by no means prepared to lose life or lands in any cause.\n\nThe great Earl of Warwick, on whom the fate of England had hitherto\nhinged, was reported to have never forgiven King Edward for his marriage\nwith Dame Elizabeth Grey, and to be meditating insurrection. Encouraged\nby this there was a great rising in Yorkshire of the peasants under\nRobin of Redesdale, and a message was brought to Giles Spearman and his\nfollowers to join them, but he and Brother Brian demurred, and news soon\ncame that the Marquess of Montagu had defeated the rising and beheaded\nRedesdale.\n\nSir Lancelot congratulated his step-son on having been too late to take\nup arms, and maintained that the only safe policy was to do nothing, a\nplan which suited age much better than youth.\n\nHe still lived with Hob and Piers, and slept at the hut, but he went\nfurther and further afield among the hills and mosses, often with no\ncompanion save Watch, so that he might without interruption watch the\nclear streams and wonder what filled their fountains, and why the sea\nwas never full, or stand on the sea-shore studying the tides, and\ntrying to construct a theory about them. King Henry was satisfied with\n'Hitherto shalt thou come and no farther,' but He who gave that decree\nmust have placed some cause or rule in nature thus to affect them. Could\nit be the moon? The waves assuredly obeyed the changes of the moon, and\nHal was striving to keep a record in strokes marked by a stick on soft\nearth or rows of pebbles, so as to establish a rule. 'Aye, aye,' quoth\nHob. 'Poor fellow, he is not much wiser than the hermit. See how he\nplays with pebbles and stones. You'll make nought of him, fine grown lad\nas he is. Why, he'll sit dazed and moonstruck half a day, and all the\nnight, staring up at the stars as if he would count them!'\n\nSo spoke the stout shepherd to Simon Bunce, pointing to the young man,\nwho lay at his length upon the grass calculating the proportions of the\nstones that marked the relations of hours of the flood tide and those\nof the height of the moon. Above and beyond was a sundial cut out in the\nturf, from his own observations after the hints that the hermit and the\nfriar had given him.\n\n'Ha now, my lord, I have rare news for you.'\n\nThe unwonted title did not strike Hal's unaccustomed ears, and he\ncontinued moving his lips, 'High noon, spring tide.'\n\n'There, d'ye see?' said Hob, 'he heeds nothing. 'That I and my goodwife\nshould have bred up a mooncalf! Here, Hal, don't you know Simon? Hear\nhis tidings!'\n\n'Tidings enow! King Henry is freed, King Edward is fled. My Lord\nof Warwick has turned against him for good and all. King Henry is\nproclaimed in all the market-places! I heard it with my own ears at\nPenrith!' And throwing up his cap into the air, while the example\nwas followed by Hob, with 'God save King Henry, and you my Lord of\nClifford.'\n\nThe sound was echoed by a burst of voices, and out of the brake suddenly\nstood the whole band of outlaws, headed by Giles Spearman, but Hal still\nstood like one dazed. 'King Harry, the hermit, free and on his throne,'\nhe murmured, as one in a dream.\n\n'Ay, all things be upset and reversed,' said Spearman, with a hand on\nhis shoulder. 'No herd boy now, but my Lord of Clifford.'\n\n'Come to his kingdom,' repeated Hal. 'My own King Harry the hermit! I\nwould fain go and see him.'\n\n'So you shall, my brave youth, and carry him your homage and mine,'\nsaid Spearman. 'He will know me for poor Giles Musgrave, who upheld\nhis standard in many a bloody field. We will off to Sir Lancelot at\nThrelkeld now! Spite of his policy of holes and corners, he will not now\nrefuse to own you for what you are, aye, and fit you out as becomes a\nknight.'\n\n'God grant he may!' muttered Bunce, 'without his hum and ha, and swaying\nthis way and that, till he never moves at all! Betwixt his caution,\nand this lad's moonstruck ways, you have a fair course before you, Sir\nGiles! See, what's the lad doing now?'\n\nThe lad was putting into his pouch the larger white pebbles that had\nrepresented tens in his calculation, and murmuring the numbers they\nstood for. 'He will understand,' he said almost to himself, but he\nshowed himself ready to go with the party to Threlkeld, merely pausing\nat Hob's cottage to pick up a few needful equipments. In the skin of a\nrabbit, carefully prepared, and next wrapped in a silken kerchief,\nand kept under his chaff pillow, was the hermit's portuary, which was\ncarefully and silently transferred by Hal to his own bosom. Sir Giles\nMusgrave objected to Watch, in city or camp, and Hal was obliged to\nleave him to Goodwife Dolly and to Piers.\n\nWith each it was a piteous parting, for Dolly had been as a mother to\nhim for almost all his boyhood, and had supplied the tenderness that\nhis mother's fears and Sir Lancelot's precautions had prevented his\nreceiving at Threlkeld. He was truly as a son to her, and she sobbed\nover him, declaring that she never would see him again, even if he came\nto his own, which she did not believe was possible, and who would see to\nhis clean shirts?\n\n'Never fear, goodwife,' said Giles Musgrave; 'he shall be looked to as\nmine own son.'\n\n'And what's that to a gentle lad that has always been tended as becomes\nhim?'\n\n'Heed not, mother! Be comforted! I must have gone to the wars, anyway.\nIf so be I thrive, I'll send for thee to mine own castle, to reign there\nas I remember of old. Here now! Comfort Piers as thou only canst do.'\n\nPiers, poor fellow, wept bitterly, only able to understand that\nsomething had befallen his comrade of seven years, which would take him\naway from field and moor. He clung to Hal, and both lads shed tears,\ntill Hob roughly snatched Piers away and threw him to his aunt, with\nthreats that drew indignant, though useless, interference from Hal,\nthough Simon Bunce was muttering, 'As lief take one lad as the other!'\nwhile Dolly's angry defence of her nursling's wisdom broke the sadness\nof the parting.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII. -- A PRUDENT RECEPTION\n\n\n\n So doth my heart misgive me in these conflicts,\n What may befall him to his harm and ours.\n --SHAKESPEARE.\n\n\nThrough the woods the party went to the fortified house of Threlkeld,\nwhere the gateway was evidently prepared to resist any passing attack,\nby stout gates and a little watch-tower.\n\nSir Giles blew a long blast on his bugle-horn, and had to repeat it\ntwice before a porter looked cautiously out at a wicket opening in the\nheavy door, and demanded 'Who comes?'\n\n'Open, porter, open in the name of King Harry, to the Lords of Clifford\nand of Peelholm.'\n\nThe porter fell back, observing, 'Sir, pardon, while I have speech with\nmy master, Sir Lancelot Threlkeld.'\n\nSome delay and some sounds of conversation were heard, then, on a\nrenewed and impatient blast on Sir Giles's horn, Sir Lancelot Threlkeld\nhimself came to the wicket, and his thin anxious voice might be heard\ndemanding, 'What madness is this?'\n\n'The madness is past, soundness is come,' responded Sir Giles. 'King\nHarry is on his throne, the traitors are fled, and your own fair son\ncomes forth in his proper person to uphold the lawful sovereign; but he\nwould fain first see his lady mother, and take her blessing with him.'\n\n'And by his impatience destroy himself, after all the burthen of care\nand peril he hath been to me all these years,' lamented Sir Lancelot.\n'But come in, fair lad. Open the gates, porter. I give you welcome, Lord\nMusgrave of Peelholm. But who are these?' he added, looking at the troop\nof buff-coated archers in the rear.\n\n'They are bold champions of the Red Rose, returned Sir Giles, 'who\nhave lived with me in the wolds, and now are on the way to maintain our\nKing's quarrel.''\n\nSir Lancelot, however, would not hear of admitting the outlaws. Young\nClifford and the Lord of Peelholm should be welcome, or more truly he\ncould not help receiving them, but the archers must stay outside, their\nentertainment in beef and ale being committed to Bunce and the chief\nwarder, while the two noblemen were conducted to the castle hall. For\nthe first time in his life Clifford was received in his mother's home,\nand accepted openly, as he knelt before her to ask her blessing. A fine,\nactive, handsome youth was he, with bright, keen eyes, close-curled\nblack locks and hardy complexion, telling of his out-of-door life, and\na free use of his limbs, and upright carriage, though still with more\nof the grace of the free mountain than of the training of pagedom and\nsquiredom.\n\nNor could he speak openly and freely to her, not knowing how much he\nmight say of his past intercourse with King Henry, and of her endeavour\nto discover it; and he sat beside her, neither of them greatly at ease,\nat the long table, which, by the array of silver cups, of glasses\nand the tall salt cellar separating the nobility and their followers,\nrecalled to him dim recollections of the scenes of his youth.\n\nHe asked for his sister--he knew his little brother had died in the\nNetherlands--and he heard that she had been in the Priory of St.\nHelen's, and was now in the household of my Lady of Hungerford, who\nhad promised to find a good match for her. There was but one son of the\nunion with the knight of Threlkeld, and him Hal had never seen; nor was\nhe at home, being a page in the household of the Earl of Westmoreland,\naccording to the prevailing fashion of the castles of the great feudal\nnobles becoming schools of arms, courtesy and learning for the young\ngentlemen around. Indeed, Lady Clifford surveyed her eldest son with\na sigh that such breeding was denied him, as she observed one or two\nlittle deficiencies in what would be called his table manners--not very\nimportant, but revealing that he had grown up in the byre instead of\nthe castle, where there was a very strict and punctilious code, which\nfigured in catechisms for the young.\n\nShe longed to keep him, and train him for his station, but in the first\nplace, Sir Lancelot still held that it could not safely be permitted,\nsince he had little confidence in the adherence of the House of Nevil\nto the Red Rose; and moreover Hal himself utterly refused to remain\nconcealed in Cumberland instead of carrying his service to the King he\nloved.\n\nIn fact, when he heard the proposal of leaving him in the north, he\nstood up, and, with far more energy than had been expected from him,\nsaid, 'Go I must, to my lawful King's banner, and my father's cause. To\nKing Harry I carry my homage and whatever my hand can do!'\n\nSuch an expression of energy lighted his hitherto dreamy eyes, that all\nbeholders turned their glances on his face with a look of wonder. Sir\nLancelot again objected that he would be rushing to his ruin.\n\n'Be it so,' replied Hal. 'It is my duty.'\n\n'The time seems to me to be come,' added Musgrave, 'that my young lord\nshould put himself forward, though it may be only in a losing cause. Not\nso much for the sake of success, as to make himself a man and a noble.'\n\n'But what can he do?' persisted Threlkeld; 'he has none of the training\nof a knight. How can you tilt in plate armour, you who have never\nbestridden a charger? These are not the days of Du Guesclin, when a lad\ncame in from the byre and bore down all foes before him.'\n\nThe objection was of force, for the defensive armour of the fifteenth\ncentury had reached a pitch of cumbrousness that required long practice\nfor a man to be capable of moving under it.\n\n'So please you, sir,' said Hal, 'I am not wholly unskilled. The good Sir\nGiles and Simon Bunce have taught me enough to strike a blow with a good\nwill for a good cause.'\n\n'With horse and arms as befits him,' began Musgrave.\n\n'I know not that a horse is here that could be depended on,' began\nThrelkeld. 'Armour too requires to be fitted and proved.'\n\nHe spoke in a hesitating voice that showed his unwillingness, and Hal\nexclaimed, 'My longbow is mine own, and so are my feet. Sir Giles,\nwill you own me as an archer in your troop, where I will strive not to\ndisgrace you or my name?'\n\n'Bravely spoken, young lord,' said Sir Giles heartily; 'right willingly\nwill I be your godfather in chivalry, since you find not one nigher\nhome.'\n\n'So may it best be,' observed his mother, 'since he is bent on going.\nThus his name and rank may be kept back till it be plain whether the\nenmity of my Lords of Warwick and Montagu still remain against our poor\nhouse.'\n\nThere was no desire on either side to object when the Lord Musgrave\nof Peelholm decided on departing early on the morrow. Their host was\nevidently not sorry to speed them on their way, and his reluctant\nhospitality made them anxious to cumber him no longer than needful; and\nhis mind was relieved when it was decided that the heir of the De Vescis\nand Cliffords should be known as Harry of Derwentdale.\n\nOnly, when all was preparation in the morning, and a hearty service had\nbeen said in the chapel, the lady called her son aside, and looking up\ninto his dark eyes, said in a low voice, 'Be not angered with my lord\nhusband's prudence, my son. Remember it is only by caution that he has\nsaved thine head, or mine, or thy sister's!'\n\n'Ay, ay, mother, I know,' he said, more impatiently than perhaps he\nknew.\n\n'It was by the same care that he preserved us all when Edgecotefield was\nfought. Chafe not at him. Thou mayst be thankful even now, mayhap, to\nfind a shelter preserved, while that rogue and robber Nevil holds our\nlands.'\n\n'I am more like to have to protect thee, lady mother, and bring thee to\nthy true home again!' said Hal.\n\n'Meantime, my child, take this purse and equip thyself at York or\nwhenever thou canst. Nay, thou needst not shrug and refuse! How like thy\nfather the gesture, though I would it were more gracious and seemly.\nBut this is mine, mine own, none of my husband's, though he would be\nwilling. It comes from the De Vesci lands, and those will be thine after\nme, and thine if thou winnest not back thy Clifford inheritance. And oh!\nmy son, crave of Sir Giles to teach thee how to demean thyself that they\nmay not say thou art but a churl.'\n\n'I trust to be no churl in heart, if I be in manners,' said Hal, looking\ndown on his small clinging mother.\n\n'Only be cautious, my son. Remember that you are the last of the name,\nand it is your part to bring it to honour.'\n\n'Which I shall scarce do by being cautious,' he said, with something of\na smile. 'That was not my father's way.'\n\n'Ah me! You have his spirit in you, and how did it end?'\n\n'My Lord of Clifford,' said a voice from the court, 'you are waited\nfor!'\n\n'And remember,' cried his mother, with a last embrace, 'there will be\nsafety here whenever thou shalt need it.'\n\n'With God's grace, I am more like to protect you and your husband,' said\nthe lad, bending for another kiss and hurrying away.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII. -- FELLOW TRAVELLERS\n\n\n\n And sickerlie she was of great disport,\n And full pleasant and amiable of port;\n Of small hounds had she that she fed\n With roasted flesh and milk and wastel bread.\n --CHAUCER.\n\n\nSir Giles Musgrave of Peelholm was an old campaigner, and when Hal came\nout beyond the gate of the Threlkeld fortalice, he found him reviewing\nhis troop; a very disorderly collection, as Sir Lancelot pronounced with\na sneer, looking out on them, and strongly advising his step-son not to\ncast in his lot with them, but to wait and see what would befall, and\nwhether the Nevils were in earnest in their desertion of the House of\nYork.\n\nHal restrained himself with difficulty enough to take a courteous leave\nof his mother's husband, to whose prudence and forbearance he was really\nmuch beholden; though, with his spirit newly raised and burning for his\nKing, it was hard to have patience with neutrality.\n\nHe found Sir Giles employed in examining his followers, and rigidly\nsending home all not properly equipped with bow, sheaf of arrows, strong\nknife or pike, buff coat, head-piece and stout shoes; also a wallet of\nprovisions for three days, or a certain amount of coin. He would have\nno marauding on the way, and refused to take any mere lawless camp\nfollower, thus disposing of a good many disreputable-looking fellows who\nhad flocked in his wake. Sir Lancelot's steward seconded him heartily\nby hunting back his master's retainers; and there remained only about\nfive-and-twenty--mostly, in fact, yeomen or their sons--men who had\nbeen in arms for Queen Margaret and had never made their submission,\nbut lived on unmolested in the hills, really outlawed, but not coming in\ncollision with the authorities enough to have their condition inquired\ninto. They had sometimes attacked Yorkist parties, sometimes resisted\nScottish raids, or even made a foray in return, and they were well used\nto arms. These all had full equipments, and some more coin in their\npouches than they cared to avow. Three or four of them brought an ox,\ncalf or sheep, or a rough pony loaded with provisions, and driven by a\nherd boy or a son eager to see life and 'the wars.' Simon Bunce, well\narmed, was of this party. Hob Hogward, though he had come to see what\nbecame of his young lord, was pronounced too stiff and aged to join the\nband, which might now really be called a troop, not a mere lawless\ncrowd of rough lads. There were three trained men-at-arms, the regular\nretainers of Sir Giles, who held a little peel tower on the borders\nwhere nobody durst molest him, and these marshalled the little band in\nfair order.\n\nIt was no season for roses, but a feather was also the cognisance of\nHenry VI., and every one's barret-cap mounted a feather, generally\nborrowed from the goodwife's poultry yard at home, but sometimes picked\nup on the moors, and showing the barred black and brown patterns of the\nhawk's or the owl's plumage. It was a heron's feather that Hal assumed,\non the counsel of Sir Giles, who told him it was an old badge of the\nCliffords, and it became well his bright dark hair and brown face.\n\nOn they went, a new and wonderful march to Hal, who had only looked with\ninfant eyes on anything beyond the fells, and had very rarely been into\na little moorland church, or seen enough people together for a market\nday in Penrith. Sir Giles directed their course along the sides of the\nhills till he should gain further intelligence, and know how they would\nbe received. For the most part the people were well inclined to King\nHenry, though unwilling to stir on his behalf in fear of Edward's\ncruelty.\n\nHowever, it was as they had come down from the hills intending to\nobtain fresh provisions at one of the villages, and Hal was beginning\nto recognise the moors he had known in earlier childhood, that they\nperceived a party on the old Roman road before them, which the outlaws'\nkeen eyes at once discovered to be somewhat of their own imputed trade.\nThere seemed to be a waggon upset, persons bound, and a buzz of men,\nlike wasps around a honeycomb preying on it. Something like women's\nveiled forms could be seen. 'Ha! Mere robbery. This must not be. Upon\nthem! Form! Charge!' were the brief commands of the leader, and the\ncompact body ran at a rapid but a regulated pace down the little \nthat gave them an advantage of ground with some concealment by a brake\nof gorse. 'Halt! Pikes forward!' was the next order. The little band\nwere already close upon the robbers, in whom they began to recognise\nsome of those whom Sir Giles had dismissed as mere ruffians unequipped\na few days before. It was with a yell of indignation that the troop fell\non them, Sir Giles with a sharp blow severing the bridle of a horse that\na man was leading, but there was a cry back, 'We are for King Harry!\nThese be Yorkists!'\n\n'Nay! nay!' came back the voices of the overthrown. 'Help! help! for\nKing Harry and Queen Margaret! These be rank thieves who have set on us!\nHoly women are here!'\n\nThese exclamations came broken and in utter confusion, mingled with\ncries for mercy and asseverations on the part of the thieves, and fierce\nshouts from Sir Giles's men. All was hubbub, barking dogs, shouting\nmen, and Hal scarcely knew anything till he was aware of two or three\nshrouded nuns, as it seemed, standing by their ponies, of merchantmen\nor carters trying to quiet and harness frightened mules, of waggons\noverturned, of a general confusion over which arose Lord Musgrave's\npowerful authoritative voice.\n\n'Kit of Clumber! Why should I not hang you for thieving on yonder tree,\nwith your fellow thieves?'\n\n'Yorkists, sir! It was all in the good cause,' responded a sullen voice,\nas a grim red and scarred face was seen on a ruffian held by two of the\narchers.\n\n'No Yorkists we, sir!' began a stout figure, coming forward from the\nwaggon. 'We be peaceable merchants and this is a holy dame, the--'\n\n'The Prioress Selby of Greystone,' interrupted one of the nuns, coming\nforward with a hawk on her wrist. 'Sir Giles of Musgrave, I am beholden\nto you! I was on my way to take the young damsel of Bletso to her\nfather, the Lord St. John, with Earl Warwick in London. He sent us an\nescort, but they being arrant cravens, as it seems, we thought it well\nto join company with these same merchants, and thus we became a bait for\nthe outlaws of the Border.'\n\n'Lady, lady,' burst from one of the prisoners, 'I swear that we kenned\nnot holy dames to be of the company! Sir, my lord, we thought to serve\nthe cause of King Harry, and how any man is to guess which side is Earl\nWarwick's is past an honest man.'\n\n'An honest man whose cause is his own pouch!' returned Sir Giles.\n'Miscreants all! But I trow we are scarce yet out of the land of\nmisrule! So if the Lady Prioress will say a word for such a sort of\nsorners, I'll e'en let you go on your way.'\n\n'They have had a warning, the poor rogues, and that will suffice for\nthis time! Nay, now, fellows, let my wimple alone! You'll not find\nanother lord to let you off so easy, nor another Prioress to stand your\nfriend. Get off, I say.'\n\nAn archer enforced her words with a blow, and by some means, rough or\notherwise, a certain amount of order was restored, the ruffians slinking\noff among the gorse bushes, their flight hastened by the pointing of\npikes and levelling of arrows at them. While the merchants, diving into\ntheir packages, produced horns of ale which a younger man offered to\ntheir defenders, the chief of the party, a portly fellow, interrupted\ncertain civilities between the Prioress and Sir Giles by praying them to\npartake of a cup of malmsey, and adding an entreaty that they might be\nallowed to join company with so brave an escort, explaining that he was\na poor merchant of London and the Hans towns who had been beguiled into\nan expedition to Scotland to the young King James, who was said to have\na fair taste. He waved his hands as if his sufferings had been beyond\ndescription.\n\n'Went for wool and came back shorn!' said the Prioress, laughing. 'Well,\nmy Lord Musgrave, what say you to letting us join company?--as I see\nyour band is afoot it will be no great delay, and the more the safer as\nwell as the merrier! Here, let me present to you my young maid, the Lady\nAnne of Bletso, whom I in person am about to deliver to her father.'\n\n'And let me present privately to both ladies,' said Sir Giles, 'the\nyoung squire Harry of Derwentdale, who hath been living as a shepherd in\nthe hills during the York rule.'\n\n'Ha! my lord, methinks this may not be the first meeting between Lady\nAnne and you, though she would not know who the herd boy was who found\nher, a stray lambkin on the moor.'\n\nThe young people looked at each other with eyes of recognition, and as\nHal made his best bow, he said, 'Forsooth, lady, I did not know myself\ntill afterwards.'\n\n'Your shepherd and his wife gave me to understand that I should do hurt\nby inquiring too much,' said the young lady smiling, and holding out her\nhand, which Hal did not know whether to kiss or to shake. 'I hope the\nkind old goodwife is well, who cosseted me so lovingly.'\n\n'She fares well, indeed, lady, only grieved at parting with me.'\n\n'There now,' said the Prioress, 'since we are quit of the robbers,\nmethinks we cannot do better than halt awhile for Master Lorimer's folk\nto mend the tackling of their gear, while we make our noonday meal and\nprovide for our further journey. Allow me to be your hostess for the\nnonce, my lords.'\n\nAnd between the lady's sumpter mules and the merchant's stores a far\nmore sumptuous meal was produced than would have otherwise been the\nshare of the Lancastrian party.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV. -- THE JOURNEY\n\n\n\n 'Twas sweet to see these holy maids,\n Like birds escaped to greenwood shades,\n --SCOTT.\n\n\nThe Prioress Agnes Selby of Greystone was a person who would have made\na much fitter lady of a castle than head of a nunnery. She would have\nworked for and with her lord, defended his lands for him, governed his\nhouse and managed her sons with untiring zest and energy. But a vow\nof her parents had consigned her to a monastic life at York, where she\ncould only work off her vigour by teasing the more devout and grave\nsisters, and when honourably banished to the more remote Greystone,\nin field sports, and in fortifying her convent against Scots or\nLancastrians who, somewhat to her disappointment, never did attack her.\nNo complaint or scandal had ever attached itself to her name, and she\nlet Mother Scholastica manage the nuns, and regulate the devotions,\nwhile Greystone was known as a place where a thirsty warrior might be\nrefreshed, where tales and ballads of Border raids were welcome, and\nwhere good hawk or hound was not despised.\n\nIt had occurred to the Lord St. John of Bletso that the little daughter\nwhom he had left at York might be come to a marriageable age, and he had\nlistened to the proposal of one of the cousins of the house of Nevil\nfor a contract between her and his son, sending an escort northwards to\nfetch her, properly accompanied.\n\nShe had been all these years at Greystone, and the Prioress immediately\ndecided that this would be an excellent opportunity of seeing the\nsouthern world, and going on a round of pilgrimages which would make the\nexpedition highly decorous. The ever restless spirit within her rose\nin delight, and the Sisterhood of York were ready to acquiesce, having\nfaith in Mother Agnes' good sense to guide her and her pupil to his\ncastle in Bedfordshire by the help of Father Martin through any tangles\nof the White and Red Roses that might await her, as well to her real\nprinciple for avoiding actual evil, though she might startle monastic\nproprieties.\n\nThere was no doubt but that conversation, when she could have it, was as\ngreat a joy to her as ever was galloping after a deer; and there she sat\nwith her beautiful hound by her side, and her hawk on a pole, exchanging\nsentiments of speculation as to Warwick's change of front with Sir Giles\nMusgrave, Father Martin, and Master Ralph Lorimer, while discussing\na pasty certainly very superior to anything that had come out of the\nPenrith stores.\n\nYoung Clifford and Lady Anne sat on the grass near, too shy for the\npresent to renew their acquaintance, but looking up at one another under\ntheir eyelashes, and the first time their eyes met, the girl breaking\ninto a laugh, but it was not till towards the end of the refection that\nthey were startled into intercourse by a general growling and leaping\nup of the great hound, and of the two big ungainly dogs chained to the\nwaggon, as wet, lean, bristling but ecstatic, Watch dashed in among\nthem, and fell on his master.\n\nFor four days (unless he was tied up at first) the good dog must have\nbeen tracking him. 'Off! off!' cried the Prioress, holding back her\ndeer-hound by main strength. 'Off, Florimond! he sets thee a pattern of\nfaithfulness! Be quiet and learn thy devoir!'\n\n'O sir, I cannot send him back!' entreated Hal, also embracing and\ncaressing the shaggy neck.\n\n'Send him back! Nay, indeed. As saith the Reverend Mother, it were well\nif some earls and lords minded his example,' said Sir Giles.\n\n'Here! Watch, I mind thee well,' added Anne. 'Here's a slice of pasty\nto reward thee. Oh! thou art very hungry,' as the big mouth bolted it\nwhole.\n\n'Nearly famished, poor rogue!' said Hal, administering a bone. 'How far\nhast thou run, mine own lad! Art fain to come with thy master and see\nthe hermit?'\n\n'Thou must e'en go,' growled Simon Bunce, 'unless the lady's dog make an\nend of thee! 'Tis ever the worthless that turn up.'\n\n'I would Florimond would show himself as true,' said the Prioress.\n'Don't show thy teeth, sir! I can honour Watch, yet love thee.'\n\n''Tis jealousy as upsets faith,' said the merchant. 'The hound is a\nknightly beast with his proud head, but he brooks not to see a Woodville\ncreep in.'\n\n'Nay, or a Beaufort!' suggested Sir Giles.\n\n'No treason, Lord Musgrave!' said the Prioress, laughing.\n\n'Ah, madam,' responded Sir Giles, 'what is treason?'\n\n'Whatever is against him that has the best of it,' observed Master\nLorimer. 'Well that it is not the business of a poor dealer in\nhorse-gear and leather-work. He asks not which way his bridles are to\nturn! How now, Tray and Blackchaps? Never growl and gird. You have no\npart in the fray!'\n\nFor they were chained, and could only champ, bark and howl, while\nFlorimond and Watch turned one another over, and had to be pulled\nforcibly back, by Hal on the one hand and on the other by the Mother\nAgnes, who would let nobody touch Florimond except herself. After\nthis, the two dogs subsided into armed neutrality, and gradually became\ndevoted friends.\n\nThe curiously composed cavalcade moved on their way southward. The\nPrioress was mounted on the fine chestnut horse that Sir Giles had\nrescued. She was attended by a nun, Sister Mabel, and a lay Sister,\nboth as hardy as herself, and riding sturdy mountain ponies; but her\nchaplain, a thin delicate-looking man with a bad cough, only ventured\nupon a sturdy ass; Anne St. John had a pretty little white palfrey and\ntwo men-at-arms. There were two grooms, countrymen, who had run away on\nthe onset of the thieves, but came sneaking back again, to be soundly\nrated by the Prioress, who threatened to send them home again or have\nthem well scourged, but finally laughed and forgave them.\n\nThe merchant, Master Lorimer--who dealt primarily in all sorts of horse\nfurniture, but added thereto leather-work for knights and men-at-arms,\nand all that did not too closely touch the armourer's trade--had\nthree sturdy attendants, having lost one in an attack by the Scottish\nBorderers, and he had four huge Flemish horses, who sped along the\nbetter for their loads having been lightened by sales in Edinburgh,\nwhere he had hardly obtained skins enough to make up for the weight.\nHis headquarters, he said, were at Barnet, since tanning and\nleather-dressing, necessary to his work, though a separate guild,\nliterally stank in the nostrils of the citizens of London.\n\nTo these were added Sir Giles Musgrave's twenty archers, making a very\nfair troop, wherewith to proceed, and the Prioress decided on not going\nto York. She was not particularly anxious for an interview with the\nAbbess of her Order, and it would have considerably lengthened the\njourney, which both Musgrave and Lorimer were anxious to make as short\nas possible. They preferred likewise to keep to the country, that was\nstill chiefly open and wild, with all its destiny in manufactories\nyet to come, though there were occasionally such towns, villages and\nconvents on the way where provisions and lodging could be obtained.\n\nEvery fresh scene of civilisation was a new wonder to Hal Clifford,\nand scarcely less so to Anne St. John, though her life in the moorland\nconvent had begun when she was not quite so young as he had been when\ntaken to the hills of Londesborough. He had only been two or three times\nin the church at Threlkeld, which was simple and bare, and the full\ndisplay of a monastic church was an absolute amazement, making him kneel\nalmost breathless with awe, recollecting what the royal hermit had told\nhim. He was too illiterate to follow the service, but the music and the\nmajestic flow of the chants overwhelmed him, and he listened with hands\nclasped over his face, not daring to raise his eyes to the dazzling gold\nof the altar, lighted by innumerable wax tapers.\n\nThe Prioress was amused. 'Art dazed, my friend? This is but a poor\ncountry cell; we will show you something much finer when we get to\nDerby.'\n\nHal drew a long breath. 'Is that meant to be like the saints in Heaven?'\nhe said. 'Is that the way they sing there?'\n\n'I should hope they pronounce their Latin better,' responded the\nPrioress, who, it may be feared, was rather a light-minded woman. At any\nrate there was a chill upon Hal which prevented him from directing any\nof his remarks or questions to her for the future. The chaplain told him\nsomething of what he wanted to know, but he met with the most sympathy\nfrom the Lady Anne.\n\n'Which, think you, is the fittest temple and worship?' he said; as they\nrode out together, after hearing an early morning service, gone through\nin haste, and partaking of a hurried meal. The sun was rising over the\nhills of Derbyshire, dyeing them of a red purple, standing out sharply\nagainst a flaming sky, flecked here and there with rosy clouds, and\nfading into blue that deepened as it rose higher. The elms and beeches\nthat bordered the monastic fields had begun to put on their autumn\nlivery, and yellow leaves here and there were like sparks caught from\nthe golden light.\n\nHal drew off his cap as in homage to the glorious sight.\n\n'Ah, it is fine!' said Anne, 'it is like the sunrise upon our own moors,\nwhen one breathes freely, and the clouds grow white instead of grey.'\n\n'Ah!' said Hal, 'I used to go out to the high ground and say the prayer\nthe hermit taught me--\"Jam Lucis,\" it began. He said it was about the\nmorning light.'\n\n'I know that \"Jam Lucis,\"' said Anne; 'the Sisters sing it at prime, and\nSister Scholastica makes us think how it means about light coming and\nour being kept from ill,' and she hummed the chant of the first verse.\n\n'I think this blue sky and royal sun, and the moon and stars at night,\nare God's great hall of praise,' said Hal, still keeping his cap off, as\nhe had done through Anne's chant of praise.\n\n'Verily it is! It is the temple of God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and\nearth, as the Credo says,' replied Anne, 'but, maybe, we come nearer\nstill to Him in God the Son when we are in church.'\n\n'I do not know. The dark vaulted roof and the dimness seem to crush me\ndown,' said the mountain lad, 'though the singing lifts me sometimes,\nthough at others it comes like a wailing gust, all mournful and sad! If\nI could only understand! My royal hermit would tell me when I can come\nto him.'\n\n'Do you think, now he is a king again, he will be able to take heed to\nyou?'\n\n'I know he cares for me,' said Hal with confidence.\n\n'Ah yea, but will the folk about him care to let him talk to you? I have\nheard say that he was but a puppet in their hands. Yea, you are a great\nlord, that is true, but will that great masterful Earl Warwick let you\nto him, or say all these thoughts of his and yours are but fancies for\nbabes?'\n\n'Simon Bunce did mutter such things, and that one of us was as great an\ninnocent as the other,' said Hal, 'but I trust my hermit's love.'\n\n'Ay, you know you are going to someone you love, and who loves you,'\nsighed Anne, 'but how will it be with me?'\n\n'Your father?' suggested Hal.\n\n'My father! What knows he of me or I of him? I tell thee, Harry\nClifford, he left me at York when I was not eight years old, and I have\nnever seen him since. He gave a charge on his lands to a goldsmith at\nYork to pay for my up-bringing, and I verily believe thought no more of\nme than if I had been a messan dog. He wedded a lady in Flanders and\nhad a son or twain, but I have never seen them nor my stepdame; and now\nGilbert there, who brought the letter to the Mother Prioress, says\nshe is dead, and the little heir, whose birth makes me nobody, is at\na monastery school at Ghent. But my Lord of Redgrave must needs make\novertures to my father for me, whether for his son or himself Gilbert\ncannot say. So my father sends to bring me back for a betrothal. The\ngood Prioress goes with me. She saith that if it be the old Lord, who is\na fierce old rogue with as ill a name as Tiptoft himself, the butcher,\nshe will make my Lord St. John know the reason why! But what will he\ncare?'\n\n'It would be hard not to hear my Lady Prioress!' said Hal, looking\nback at the determined black figure, gesticulating as she talked to Sir\nGiles.\n\nAnne laughed, half sadly, 'So you think! But you have never seen the\ngrim faces at Bletso! They will say she is but a woman and a nun, and\nwhat are her words to alliance with a friend of the Lord of Warwick? Ah!\nit is a heartless hope, when I come to that castle!'\n\n'Nay, Anne, if my King gives me my place then&&\n\n'Lady Anne! Lady Anne!' called Sir Giles Musgrave, 'the Mother Prioress\nthinks it not safe for you to keep so much in the front. There might be\nill-doers in the thickets.'\n\nAnne perforce reined in, but Hal fed on the idea that had suddenly\nflashed on him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV. -- BLETSO\n\n\n\n Matter of marriage was the charge he gave me.\n --SHAKESPEARE,\n\n\nThe cavalcade journeyed on not very quickly, as the riders accommodated\nthemselves to those on foot. They avoided the towns when they came into\nthe more inhabited country, the Prioress preferring the smaller hostels\nfor pilgrims and travellers, and, it may be suspected, monasteries to\nthe nunneries, where she said the ladies had nothing to talk about but\nwonder at her journey, and advice to stay in shelter till after the\nwinter weather. Meantime it was a fine autumn still, and with bright\ncolours on the woods, where deer, hare, rabbit, or partridge tempted the\nhounds, not to say their mistress, but she kept them well in leash, and\nher falcon with hood and jesses, she being too well nurtured not to\nbe well aware of the strict laws of the chase, except when some\ngood-natured monk gave her leave and accompanied her--generally\nAugustinians, who were more of country squires than ecclesiastics. Watch\nneeded no leash--he kept close to his master, except when occasionally\ntempted to a little amateur shepherding, from which Hal could easily\ncall him off. The great stag-hounds evidently despised him, and the curs\nof the waggon hated him, and snarled whenever he came near them, but the\nPrioress respected him, and could well believe that the hermit King had\nloved him. 'He had just the virtues to suit the good King Harry,' she\nsaid, 'dutifulness and harmlessness.'\n\nThe Prioress was the life of the party, with her droll descriptions of\nthe ways of the nuns who received her, while the males of the party had\nto be content with the hostel outside. Sir Giles and Master Lorimer,\nriding on each side of her, might often be heard laughing with her. The\nyoung people were much graver, especially as there were fewer and fewer\ndays' journeys to Bletso, and Anne's unknown future would begin with\nseparation from all she had ever known, unless the Mother Prioress\nshould be able to remain with her.\n\nAnd to Harry Clifford the loss of her presence grew more and more to\nbe dreaded as each day's companionship drew them nearer together in\nsympathy, and he began to build fanciful hopes of the King's influence\nupon the plans of Lord St. John, unless the contract of betrothal had\nbeen actually made, and therewith came a certain zest in looking to his\nprobable dignity such as he had never felt before.\n\nThe last day's journey had come. The escort who had acted as guides were\nin familiar fields and lanes, and one, the leader, rode up to Lady Anne\nand pointed to the grey outline among the trees of her home, while he\nsent the other to hurry forward and announce her.\n\nAnne shivered a little, and Hal kept close to her. He had made the\njourney on foot, because he had chosen to be reckoned among Musgrave's\narchers till he had received full knightly training; and, besides, he\nhad more freedom to attach himself to Anne's bridle rein, and be at hand\nto help through difficult passages. Now he came up close to her, and she\nheld out her hand. He pressed it warmly.\n\n'You will not forget?'\n\n'Never, never! That red rose in the snow--I have the leaf in my\nbreviary. And Goodwife Dolly, tell her I'll never forget how she\ncosseted the wildered lamb.'\n\n'Poor Mother Dolly, when shall I see her?'\n\n'Oh! you will be able to have her to share your state, and Watch too! I\ntake none with me.'\n\n'If we are all in King Harry's cause, there will be hope of meeting, and\nthen if--'\n\n'Ah! I see a horseman coming! Is it my father?'\n\nIt was a horseman who met them, taking off his cap of maintenance and\nbowing low to the Prioress and the young lady, but it was the seneschal\nof the castle, not the father whom Anne so dreaded, but an old\ngentleman, Walter Wenlock, with whom there was a greeting as of an old\nfriend. My lord had gone with the Earl of Warwick to Queen Margaret in\nFrance, and had sent a messenger with a letter to meet his daughter\nat York, and tell her to go to the house of the Poor Clares in London\ninstead of coming home, 'and there await him.'\n\nThe route that had been taken by the party accounted for their not\nhaving met the messenger and it was plain that they must go on to\nLondon. The evening was beginning to draw in, and a night's lodging was\nnecessary. Anne assumed a little dignity.\n\n'My good friends who have guarded me, I hope you will do me the honour\nto rest for the night in my father's castle.'\n\nThe seneschal bowed acquiescence, but the poor man was evidently sorely\nperplexed by such an extensive invitation on the part of his young lady\non his peace establishment, though the Prioress did her best to assist\nAnne to set him at ease. 'Here is Sir Giles Musgrave, the Lord of\nPeelholm on the Borders, a staunch friend of King Harry, with a band of\nstout archers, and this gentleman from the north is with him.' (It had\nbeen agreed that the Clifford name should not be mentioned till the way\nhad been felt with Warwick, one of whose cousins had been granted the\nlands of the Black Lord Clifford.)\n\nThe seneschal bent before Musgrave courteously, saying he was happy\nto welcome so good and brave a knight, and he prayed his followers to\nexcuse if their fare was scant and homely, being that he was unprovided\nfor the honour.\n\n'No matter, sir,' returned Musgrave; 'we are used to soldiers' fare.'\n\n'And,' proceeded Anne, 'Master Lorimer must lie here, and his wains.'\n\n'Master Lorimer,' said the Prioress, 'with whom belike--Lorimer of\nBarnet--Sir Seneschal has had dealings,' and she put forward the\nmerchant, who had been falling back to his waggon.\n\n'Yea,' said Walter Wenlock frankly, holding out his hand. 'We have\nbought your wares and made proof of them, good sir. I am glad to welcome\nyou, though I never saw you to the face before.'\n\n'Great thanks, good seneschal. All that I would ask would be licence for\nmy wains to stand in your court to-night while my fellows and I sup and\nlodge at the hostel.'\n\nThe hospitality of Bletso could not suffer this, and both Anne and the\nseneschal were urgent that all should remain, Wenlock reflecting that if\nthe store for winter consumption were devoured, even to the hog waiting\nto be killed, he could obtain fresh supplies from the tenants, so he\nushered all into the court, and summoned steward, cooks, and scullions\nto do their best. It was not a castle, only a castellated house, which\nwould not have been capable of long resistance in time of danger, but\nthe court and stables gave ample accommodation for the animals and the\nwaggons, and the men were bestowed in the great open hall, reaching to\nthe top of the house, where all would presently sup.\n\nIn the meantime the seneschal conducted the ladies and their two\nattendants to a tiny chamber, where an enormous bed was being made ready\nby the steward's wife and her son, and in which all four ladies would\nsleep, the Prioress and Anne one way, the other two foot to foot with\nthem! They had done so before, so were not surprised, and the lack of\nfurniture was a matter of course. Their mails were brought up, a pitcher\nof water and a bowl, and they made their preparations for supper. Anne\nwas in high spirits at the dreaded meeting, and still more dreaded\nparting, having been deferred, and she skipped about the room, trying to\ngather up her old recollections. 'Yes, I remember that bit of tapestry,\nand the man that stands there among the sheep. Is it King David, think\nyou, Mother, about to throw his stone at the lion and the bear?'\n\n'Lion and bear, child! 'Tis the three goddesses and Paris choosing the\nfairest to give the golden apple.'\n\n'Methought that was the lion's mane, but I see a face.'\n\n'What would the Lady Venus say to have her golden locks taken for a\nlion's mane?'\n\n'I like black hair,' said Anne.\n\n'Better not fix thy mind on any hue! We poor women have no choice save\nwhat fathers make for us.'\n\n'O good my mother, peace! They are all in France, and there's no need\nto spoil this breathing time with thinking of what is coming! Good\nold Wenlock! I used to ride on his shoulder! I'm right glad to see him\nagain! I must tell him in his ear to put Hal well above the salt! May\nnot I tell him in his ear who he is?'\n\n'Safer not, my maid, till we know what King Harry can do for him. Better\nthat his name should not get abroad till he can have his own.'\n\nA great bell brought all down, and Anne was pleased to see that her\nseneschal made no question about placing Harry Clifford beside the\nPrioress, who sat next to the Lord of Peelholm, who sat next to the\nyoung daughter of the house in the seat of honour.\n\nThe nuns, Master Lorimer, and one of the archers, who was a Border\nsquire, besides Master Wenlock, occupied the high table on the dais, and\nthe archers, grooms, and the rest of the household were below.\n\nThe fare was not scanty nor unsubstantial, but evidently hastily\nprepared, being chiefly broiled slices of beef, on which salting had\nbegun; but there was a lack of bread, even of barley, though there was\nno want of drink.\n\nHowever, the Prioress was good-humoured, and forestalled all excuses by\njests about travellers' meals and surprises in the way of guests, and\nboth she and Sir Giles were anxious for Wenlock's news of the state of\nthings.\n\nHe knew much more of the course of affairs than they in their northern\nhomes and on their journey.\n\n'The realm is divided,' he said. 'Those who hold to King Harry, as you\ngentles do, are in high joy, but there be many, spoken with respect, who\ncannot face about so fast, and hold still for York, though they mislike\nthe Queen's kindred. Of such are the merchantmen of London.'\n\n'Is it so?' asked Lorimer. 'If King Edward be as deep in debt to them\nas to me for housings and bridle reins methinks he should not be in good\nodour in their nostrils.'\n\n'Yea,' said Wenlock, 'but if he be gone a beggar to Burgundy what\nbecomes of their debt?'\n\n'I would not give much for it were he restored a score of times,' said\nthe Prioress. 'What would he do but plunge deeper?'\n\n'There would be hope, though, of getting an order on the royal demesne,\nor the crown jewels, or the taxes,' said Lorimer. 'Nay, I hold one even\nnow that will be but waste if he come not back.'\n\n'And this poor King spendeth nothing save on priests and masses,' said\nWenlock.\n\nHal started forward, eager to hear of his King, and Musgrave said, 'A\nholy man is he.'\n\n'Too holy for a King,' said the seneschal. 'He looked like a woolsack\nacross a horse when my Lord of Warwick led him down Cheapside; and only\nthe rabble cried out \"Long live King Harry!\" but some scoffed and said\nthey saw a mere gross monk with a baby face where they had been wont to\nsee a comely prince full of manhood, with a sword instead of beads.'\n\n'His son will please them,' said Musgrave. 'He was a goodly child, full\nof spirit, when last I saw him.'\n\n'If so be he have not too much of the Frenchwoman, his mother, in him,'\nsaid Wenlock. 'A losing lot, as poor as any rats, and as proud as very\npeacocks.'\n\n'She was gracious enough and won all hearts on the Border,' replied\nMusgrave.\n\n'Come, come!' put in the Prioress, 'you may have the chance yet to break\na lance on her behalf. No fear but she is royal enough to shine down\nKing Edward's low-born love, the Widow Grey!'\n\n'Ay, there lay the cause of discontent,' said Lorimer; 'the upstart ways\nof her kin were not to be borne. To hear Dick Woodville chaffer\nabout the blazoning of his horse-gear when he was wedding the\nfourscore-year-old Duchess of Norfolk, one would have thought he was an\nemperor at the very least.'\n\n'Widow Grey has done something for her husband's cause,' said the\nseneschal, 'in bringing him at last a fair son, all in his exile, and\nshe in sanctuary at Westminster. The London citizens are ever touched\nthrough all the fat about their hearts by whatever would sound well in\nthe mouth of a ballad-monger.'\n\n'My King, my King, what of him?' sighed Hal in the Prioress's ear,\nand she made the inquiry for him: 'What said you of King Henry, Sir\nSeneschal? How did he fare in his captivity?'\n\n'Not so ill, methinks,' said the seneschal. 'He had the range of the\nTower, and St. Peter's in the Fetters to pray in, which was what he\nheeded most; also he had a messan dog, and a tame bird. Indeed, men said\nhe had laid on much flesh since he had been mewed up there; and my lord,\nwho went with my Lord of Warwick to fetch him, said his garments were\nscarce so cleanly as befitted. 'Twas hard to make him understand. First\nhe clasped his hands, and bowed his head, crying out that he forgave\nthose who came to slay him, and when he found it was all the other way,\nhe stood like one dazed, let his hand be kissed, and they say is still\nin the hands of my Lord Archbishop of York just as if he were the waxen\nimage of St. John in a procession.'\n\n'The Earl and the Queen will have to do the work,' said the Prioress,\n'and they will no more hold together than a couple of wild hawks will\nhunt in company. How long do you give them to tear out one another's\neyes?'\n\n'Son and daughter may keep them together,' said Musgrave,\n\n'Hatred of the Woodvilles is more like, a poor band though it be,'\nsaid the Prioress. 'These are stirring times! I'll not go back to\nmy anchoress lodge in the north till I see what works out of them!\nMeantime, to our beds, sweet Anne, since 'tis an early start tomorrow.'\n\nThe Prioress, who had become warmly interested in Hal, and had divined\nthe feeling between him and Anne, thought that if she could obtain\naccess to the Archbishop of York, Warwick's brother George, she could\ndeal with him to procure Clifford's restitution in name and in blood,\nand at least his De Vesci inheritance, if Dick Nevil, who had grasped\nthe Clifford lands, could not be induced to give them up.\n\n'I have seen George Nevil,' she said, 'when I was instituted to\nGreystone. He is of kindlier mood than his brothers, and more a valiant\ntrencherman and hunter than aught else. If I had him on the moors and\ncould show him some sport with a red deer, I could turn him round my\nfinger.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI. -- THE HERMIT IN THE TOWER\n\n\n\n Thy pity hath been balm to heal their wounds,\n Thy mildness hath allayed their swelling griefs,\n Thy mercy dried their ever flowing tears.\n --SHAKESPEARE.\n\n\nEarly in the morning, while the wintry sun was struggling with mists,\nand grass and leaves were dark with frost, the Prioress was in her\nsaddle. Perhaps the weather might have constrained a longer stay, but\nthat it was clear to her keen eyes that, however welcome Wenlock might\nmake his young lady, there was little provision and no welcome for\nthorough-going Lancastrians like Sir Giles's troop, who had besides a\ndoubtful Robin Hood-like reputation; and as neither she nor Anne wished\nto ride forward without them, they decided to go on all together as\nbefore.\n\nAnd a very wet and slightly snowy journey they had, 'meeting in snow\nand parting in snow,' as Hal said, as he marched by Anne's bridle-rein,\nleading her pony, so as to leave her hands free to hold cloak and hood\nclose about her.\n\nShe sighed, and put one hand on his, but a gust of wind took that\nopportunity of getting under her cloak and sending it fluttering over\nher back, so that he had to catch it and return it to her grasp.\n\n'Let us take that as a prophecy that storms shall not hinder our further\nmeeting! It may be! It may be! Who knows what my King may do for us?'\n\n'Only a storm can bring us together! But that may--'\n\nHer breath was blown away again before the sentence was finished, if\nit was meant to be finished, and Master Lorimer came to insist on the\nladies taking shelter in his covered waggon, where the Prioress was\nalready installed.\n\nThrough rain and sleet they reached Chipping Barnet in due time on the\nthird day's journey, and here they were to part from the merchant's\nwains. He had sent forward, and ample cheer was provided at the handsome\ntimbered and gabled house at the porch of which stood his portly wife,\nwith son, daughter, and son-in-law, ready to welcome the party, bringing\nthem in to be warmed and dried before sitting down to the excellent\nmeal which it had been Mistress Lorimer's pride and pleasure to provide.\nThere was a small nunnery at Barnet, but not very near, and the Prioress\nAgnes did not think herself bound to make her way thither in the dark\nand snow, so she remained, most devoutly waited on by her hostess, and\ndiscussed the very last tidings, which had been brought that morning\nby the foreman whom Mistress Lorimer had sent to bring the news to her\nhusband.\n\nIt was probable that the Lord of Bletso was with Warwick and the Queen,\nas he had not been heard of at his home. The King was in the royal\napartments of the Tower, under the charge of the Chancellor. The Earl of\nOxford, a steady partisan of the Red Rose, was Constable of the Kingdom,\nand was guarding the Tower.\n\nOn hearing this, Musgrave decided to repair at once to the Earl, one of\nthe few men in whom there was confidence, since he had never changed\nhis allegiance, and to take his counsel as to the recognition of young\nClifford. On the way to the Tower they would leave the Prioress and her\nsuite at the Sister Minoresses', till news could be heard of the Baron\nSt. John.\n\nSo for the last time the travellers rode forth in slightly improved\nweather. Harry's heart beat high with the longing soon to be in the\npresence of him who had opened so many doors of life to his young mind,\nwhom he so heartily loved, and who, it might be, could give him that\nwhich he began to feel would be the joy of his life.\n\nThe archers, who had been lodged in the warehouses, were drawn up in a\ncompact body, and Master Lorimer, who had a shop in Cheapside, decided\non accompanying them, partly to be at the scene of action and partly to\nfacilitate their entrance.\n\nSo Hal walked by the side of Anne St. John's bridle-rein, with a very\nfull heart, swelling with sensations he did not understand, and which\nkept him absolutely silent, untrained as he was in the conventionalities\nwhich would have made speech easier to him. Nor had Anne much more\ncommand of tongue, and all she did was to keep her hand upon the\nshoulder of her squire; but there was much involuntary meaning in the\nyearning grasp of those fingers, and both fed on the hopes the Prioress\nhad given them.\n\nChristmas was close at hand, and fatted cattle on their way to market\nimpeded the way, so that Hal's time was a good deal taken up in steering\nthe pony along, and in preventing Watch from getting into a battle with\nthe savage dogs that guarded them. Penrith market, where once he had\nbeen, had never shown him anything like such a concourse, and he could\nhear muttered exclamations from the archers, who walked by Sir Giles's\norders in a double line on each side the horses, their pikes keeping off\nthe blundering approach of bullocks or sheep. 'By the halidome, if\nthe Scots were among them, they might victual their whole kingdom till\nDomesday!'\n\nThe tall spire of old St. Paul's and the four turrets of the Tower began\nto rise on them, and were pointed out by Master Lorimer, for even Sir\nGiles had only once in his life visited the City, and no one else of the\nwhole band from the north had ever been there. The road was bordered by\nthe high walls of monasteries, overshadowed by trees, and at the deep\ngateway of one of these Lorimer called a halt. It was the house of the\nMinoresses or Poor Clares, where the ladies were to remain. The six\nweeks' companionship would come to an end, and the Prioress was heartily\nsorry for it. 'I shall scarce meet such good company at the Clares','\nshe said, laughing, as she took leave of Lord Musgrave, 'Mayhap when\nI go back to my hills I shall remember your goodwife's offer of\nhospitality, Master Lorimer.'\n\nMaster Lorimer bowed low, expressed his delight in the prospect, and\nkissed the Prioress's hand, but the heavy door was already being opened,\nand with an expressive look of drollery and resignation, the good lady\nwithdrew her hand, hastily brought her Benedictine hood and veil closely\nover her face, and rode into the court, followed by her suite. Anne had\ntime to let her hand be kissed by Sir Giles and Hal, who felt as if a\nworld had closed on him as the heavy doors clanged together behind the\nSisters. But the previous affection of his young life lay before him as\nSir Giles rode on to the fortified Aldgate, and after a challenge from\nthe guard, answered by a watchword from Lorimer, and an inquiry for whom\nthe knight held, they were admitted, and went on through an increasing\ncrowd trailing boughs of holly and mistletoe, to the north gateway of\nthe Tower. Here they parted with Lorimer, with friendly greetings and\npromises to come and see his stall at Cheapside.\n\nThere was a man-at-arms with the star of the De Veres emblazoned on his\nbreast, and a red rosette on his steel cap, but he would not admit the\nnew-comers till Sir Giles had given his name, and it had been sent in by\nanother of the garrison to the Earl of Oxford.\n\nPresently, after some waiting in the rain, and looking up with awe at\nthe massive defences, two knights appeared with outstretched hands of\nwelcome. Down went the drawbridge, up went the portcullis, the horses\nclattered over the moat, and the reception was hearty indeed. 'Well met,\nmy Lord of Musgrave! I knew you would soon be where Red Roses grew.'\n\n'Welcome, Sir Giles! Methought you had escaped after the fight at\nHexham.'\n\n'Glad indeed to meet you, brave Sir John, and you, good Lord of\nHolmdale! Is all well with the King?'\n\n'As well as ever it will be. The Constable is nigh at hand! You have\nbrought us a stout band of archers, I see! We will find a use for them\nif March chooses to show his presumptuous nose here again!'\n\n'And hither comes my Lord Constable! It rejoices his heart to hear of\nsuch staunch following.'\n\nThe Earl of Oxford, a stern, grave man of early middle age, was coming\nacross the court-yard, and received Sir Giles with the heartiness that\nbecame the welcome of a proved and trustworthy ally. After a few words,\nMusgrave turned and beckoned to Hal, who advanced, shy and colouring.\n\n'Ha! young Lord Clifford! I am glad to see you! I knew your father well,\nrest his soul! The King spoke to me of the son of a loyal house living\namong the moors.'\n\n'The King was very good to me,' faltered Hal, crimson with eagerness.\n\n'Ay, ay! I sent not after you, having enough to do here; and besides,\ntill we have the strong hand, and can do without that heady kinsman\nof Warwick, it will be ill for you to disturb the rogue--what's his\nname--to whom your lands have been granted, and who might turn against\nthe cause and maybe make a speedy end of you if he knew you present.\nBe known for the present as Sir Giles counsels. Better not put his name\nforward,' he added to Musgrave.\n\n'I care not for lands,' said Hal, 'only to see the King.'\n\n'See him you shall, my young lord, and if he be not in one of his\ntrances, he will be right glad to see you and remember you. But he is\nscarce half a man,' added Oxford, turning to Musgrave. 'Cares for nought\nbut his prayers! Keeps his Hours like a monk! We can hardly bring him to\nsit in the Council, and when he is there he sits scarce knowing what we\nsay. 'Tis my belief, when the Queen and Prince come, that we shall have\nto make the Prince rule in his name, and let him alone to his prayers!\nHe will be in the church. 'Tis nones, or some hour as they call it, and\nhe makes one stretch out to another.'\n\nThey entered the low archway of St. Peter ad Vincula, and there Hal\nperceived a figure in a dark mantle just touched with gold, kneeling\nnear the chancel step, almost crouching. Did he not know the attitude,\nthough the back was broader than of old? He paused, as did his\ncompanions; but there was one who did not pause, and would not be left\noutside. Watch unseen had pattered up, and was rearing up, jumping and\nfawning. There was a call of 'Watch! here sirrah!' but 'Watch! Watch!\nGood dog! Is it thou indeed?' was exclaimed at the same moment, and with\nWatch springing up, King Henry stood on his feet looking round with his\ndazed glance.\n\n'My King! my hermit father! Forgive! Down, Watch!' cried Hal, falling\ndown at his feet, with one arm holding down Watch, who tried to lick his\nface and the King's hand by turns.\n\n'Is it thou, my child, my shepherd?' said Henry, his hands on the lad's\nhead. 'Bless thee! Oh, bless thee, much loved child of my wanderings! I\nhave longed after thee, and prayed for thee, and now God hath given thee\nto me at this shrine! Kneel and give the Lord thy best thanks, my\nlad! Ah! how tall thou art! I should not have known thee, Hal, but for\nWatch.'\n\n'It is well,' muttered Oxford to Musgrave. 'I have not seen him so well\nnor so cheery all this day. The lad will waken him up and do him good.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII. -- A CAPTIVE KING\n\n\n\n And we see far on holy ground,\n If duly purged our mental view.--KEBLE.\n\n\nThe King held Harry Clifford by the hand as he left St. Peter's Church.\n'My child, my shepherd boy,' he said, and he called Watch after him, and\ninterested himself in establishing a kind of suspicious peace between\nthe shaggy collie and his own 'Minion,' a small white curly-haired dog,\nwhich belonged to a family that had been brought by Queen Margaret from\nProvence.\n\nHis attendant knight, Sir Nicolas Romford, told Sir Giles Musgrave\nthat he had really never seemed so happy since his deliverance, and Sir\nNicolas had waited on him ever since his capture, six years previously.\nHe led the youth along to the royal rooms, asking on the way after his\nsheep and the goodwife who had sent him presents of eggs, then showing\nhim the bullfinch, that greeted his return with loving chirps, and when\nreleased from its cage came and sat upon his shoulder and played with\nhis hair, 'A better pet than a fierce hawk, eh, Hal?' he said.\n\nHe laughed when he found that Harry thought he had spent all this time\nin a dark underground dungeon with fetters on his feet.\n\n'Oh no!' he said; 'they were kindly jailors. They dealt better with me\nthan with my Master.'\n\n'Sir, sir, that terrible ride through Cheapside!' said Harry. 'We heard\nof it at Derwent-side, and we longed to have our pikes at the throats of\nthe villain traitors.'\n\nThe King looked as if he hardly remembered that cruel procession, when\nhe was set upon a sorry jade with his feet tied to the stirrups, and\nshouts of 'Behold the traitor!' around him. Then with a sweet smile of\nsudden recollection, he said, 'Ah! I recall it, and how I rejoiced to\nbe led in the steps of my Lord, and how the cries sounded, \"We will not\nhave this man to reign over us!\" Gratias ago, unworthy me, who by my own\nfault could not reign.'\n\nHarry was silenced, awe-struck, and by-and-by the King took him to see\nhis old chamber in the White Tower, up a winding stone stair. It was\nnot much inferior to the royal lodgings, except in the matter of dais,\ncanopy, and tapestry, and the window looked out into the country, so\nthat the King said he had loved it, and it had many a happy thought\nconnected with it.\n\nHal followed him in a sort of silent wonder, if not awe, not daring\nto answer him in monosyllables. This was not quite the hermit of\nDerwentdale. It was a broader man--not with the breadth of full\nstrength, but of inactivity and advance of years, though the fiftieth\nyear was only lately completed--and the royal robe of crimson, touched\nwith gold, suited him far less than the brown serge of the anchoret.\nThe face was no longer thin, sunburnt, and worn, but pale, and his\nchecks slightly puffed, and the eyes and smile, with more of the strange\nlook of innocent happiness than of old, and of that which seemed to\nbring back to his young visitor the sense of peace and well-being that\nthe saintly hermit had always given him.\n\nThere was consultation that evening between Lord Oxford and Sir Giles\nMusgrave. It was better, they agreed, to let young Clifford remain with\nthe King as much as possible, but without divulging his name. The\nKing knew it, and indeed had known it, when he received the boy at his\nhermitage, but he seemed to have forgotten it, as he had much besides.\nOxford said that though he could be roused into actual fulfilment of\nsuch forms as were required of him, and understood what was set before\nhim, his memory and other powers seemed to have been much impaired, and\nit was held wiser not to call on him more than could be helped, till\nthe Queen and her son should come to supply the energy that was wanting.\nThey would make the gay and brilliant appearance that the Londoners had\nadmired in Edward of York, and which could not be obtained from poor\nHenry.\n\nHis memory for actual matters was much impaired. Never for two days\ntogether could he recollect that his son and Warwick's daughter were\nmarried, and it was always by an effort that he remembered that the\nPrince of Wales was not the eight-years-old child whom he had last\nseen. As to young Clifford, he sometimes seemed to think the tall\nnineteen-years-old stripling was just where he had left the child of\ntwelve or thirteen, and if he perceived the age, was so far confused\nthat it was not quite certain that he might not mix him up with his own\nson, though the knight in constant attendance was sure that he was clear\non that point, and only looked on 'Hal' as the child of his teaching and\nprayers.\n\nBut Harry Clifford could not persuade him to enter into that which more\nand more lay near the youthful heart, the rescuing Anne St. John from\nthe suitor of whom little that was hopeful was heard; and the obtaining\nher from his father. Of course this could not be unless Harry could win\nhis father's property, and no longer be under the attaint in blood, so\nas to be able to lay claim to the lands of the De Vescis through his\nmother; but though the King listened with kindly interest to the\nstory of the children's adventure on the Londesborough moor, and the\nsubsequent meeting in Westmorland, the rescue from the outlaws, and the\njourney together, it was all like a romance to him--he would nod\nhis head and promise to do what he could, if he could, but he never\nremembered it for two days together, and if Hal ventured on anything\nlike pressure, the only answer was, 'Patience, my son, patience must\nhave her work! It is the will of God, it will be right.'\n\nAnd when Hal began to despair and work himself up and seek to do more\nwith one so impracticable, Lord Oxford and Sir Giles warned him not to\nforce his real name and claims too much, for he did not need too many\nenemies nor to have Lord St. John and the Nevil who held his lands both\nanxious to sweep him from their path.\n\nNor was anything heard from or of the Prioress of Greystone, and\nwhenever the name of George Nevil, the Chancellor and Archbishop of\nYork, was heard, Hal's heart burnt with anxiety, and fear that the lady\nhad forgotten him, though as Dick Nevil, who held the lands of Clifford,\nwas known to be in his suite, it was probable that she was acting out of\nprudence.\n\nThe turmoil of anxious impatience seemed to be quelled when Hal sat on\na stool before the King, with Watch leaning against his knee. The\ninstruction or meditation seemed to be taken up much where it had been\nleft six years before, with the same unanswerable questions, only the\nyouth had thought out a great deal more, and the hermit had advanced in\na wisdom which was not that of the rough, practical world.\n\nPart of Clifford's day was spent in the tilt-yard, where his two\nfriends, as well as himself, were anxious that he should acquire\nproficiency and ease such as would become his station, when he recovered\nit; and a martinet old squire of Oxford proved himself nearly as hard a\nmaster as ever Simon Bunce had been.\n\nOne very joyous day came to Henry in his regal capacity. Christmas Day\nhad been quietly spent. There was much noisy revelling in the city,\nand the guards in the castle had their feastings, but Warwick was\ndaily expected to return from France, and neither his brother nor\nthe Archbishop thought that there was much policy in making a public\nspectacle of a puppet King.\n\nBut there was one ceremony from which Henry would not be debarred. He\nwould make the public offering on the Epiphany in Westminster Abbey. He\nhad done so ever since he was old enough to totter up to the altar and\nhold the offerings; and his heart was set on doing so once more. So a\nlarge and quiet cream- Flemish horse was brought for him, he was\nrobed in purple and ermine, with a coronal around the cap that covered\nhis hair, fast becoming white. His train in full array followed him, and\nthe streets were thronged, but there was an ominous lack of applause,\nand even a few audible jeers at the monk dressed up like the jackdaw\nin peacock's plumes, and comparisons with Edward, in sooth a king worth\nlooking at.\n\nHenry seemed not to heed or hear. His blue eyes looked upward, his face\nwas set in peaceful contemplation, his lips were moving, and those who\nwere near enough caught murmurs of 'Vidimus enim stellam Ejus in Oriente\net venimus adorare Eum.' Truly the one might be a king to suit the\nkingdoms of this world, the other had a soul near the Kingdom of Heaven.\n\nThe Dean and choir received him at the west door, and with the same rapt\ncountenance he paced up to the sanctuary, and knelt before the chair\nappropriated to him, while the grand Epiphany Celebration was gone\nthrough, in all its glory and beauty of sound and sight, and with the\nKing kneeling with clasped hands, and a radiant look of happiness almost\ntransfiguring that worn face.\n\nWhen the offertory anthem was sung, he rose up, and advanced to the\naltar. A salver of gold coins was presented to him, which he took and\nsolemnly laid on the altar, but paused for a moment, and removed his\ncrown with both hands, placing it likewise on the altar, and kneeling\nfor a moment ere he turned to take the vase whence breathed the fragrant\nodour of frankincense; and presenting this, and afterwards kneeling and\nbowing low with clasped hands, he again took the salver in which the\nmyrrh was laid. This again he placed on the altar, and remained kneeling\nin intense devotion through the remainder of the service, only looking\nup at the 'Sursum Corda,' when those near enough to see his countenance\nsaid that they never knew before the full import of those words, nor how\nthe heart could be uplifted.\n\nIt was the first time that Hal Clifford had ever joined in the full\nceremonial of the Church, or in such splendid accompaniment, for though\nthere had been the rightful ritual at St. Peter's in the Tower, the\nspace had been confined, and the clergy few, and the whole, even on\nChristmas Day, had been more or less a training to him to enter into\nwhat he now saw and heard. He had in these last weeks gathered much\nof the meaning of all this from the King, who perhaps never fully\ndisentangled the full-grown youth from the boy he had taught at\nDerwentdale, but who, perhaps for that very cause, really suited better\nthe strange mixture of ignorance, simplicity, observation and aspiration\nof the shepherd lord.\n\nThe King did not help more but less than he had done before in Hal's\nresearches and wonderings about natural objects; he had forgotten\nthe philosophies he had once read, and the supposed circuits of moon,\nplanets and stars only perplexed and worried his brain. It was much more\nsatisfactory to refer all to 'He hath made them fast for ever and ever,\nHe hath given them a law which shall not be broken,' and he could not\nunderstand Hal's desire to find out what that law was, and far less his\ncalculations about the tides. He had scarcely ever seen the sea, and as\nto its motions, 'Hitherto shalt thou come and no farther' was sufficient\nexplanation, and when Hal tried to show him the correspondence between\nspring tides and full moons he either waved him away or fell asleep.\n\nBut on the spiritual side of his mind there was no torpor. He loved to\nexplain the sense of the prayers to his willing pupil, and to tell\nhim the Gospel story, dwelling on whatever could waken or carry on the\nChristian life; and between the tiltyard and the oratory Hal spent a\nstrange life.\n\nThat question which had occurred to him on the journey Hal ventured to\nlay before his King--'Was it really and truly better and more acceptable\nworship that came to breathe through him when alone with God under the\nopen vault of Heaven, with endless stars above and beyond, or was the\nbest that which was beautified and guided by priests, with all that\nman's devices could lavish upon its embellishment?' Such, though in more\nbroken and hesitating words, was the herd boy's difficulty, and Henry\nput his head back, and after having once said, 'Adam had the one, God\ndirected the other,' he shut his eyes, and Hal feared he would put it\naside as he had with the moon and the tides, but after some delay, he\nleant forward and said, 'My son, if man had always been innocent, that\nworship as Adam and Eve had it might--nay, would--have sufficed them.\nThe more innocent man is, the better his heart rises. But sin came into\nthe world, and expiation was needed, not only here on earth, but before\nthe just God in Heaven above. Therefore doth He, who hath once offered\nHimself in sacrifice for us, eternally present His offering in Heaven\nbefore the Mercy-Seat, and we endeavour as much as our poor feeble\nefforts can, to take part in what He does above, and bring it home to\nour senses by all that can represent to us the glories of Heaven.'\n\nThere was much in this that went beyond Hal, who knitted his brow,\nand would have asked further, but the King fell into a state of\ncontemplation, and noticed nothing, until presently he broke out into\na thanksgiving: 'Blessed be my Lord, who hath granted me once more to\nfollow in the steps of the kings of the East, though but as in a dream,\nand lay my crown and my prayer before Him. Once more I thank Thee, O my\ntrue King of kings, and Lord of lords.'\n\n'Oh, do not say once more!' exclaimed Hal. 'Again and again, I trust,\nsir. It is no dream. It is real.'\n\nThe King smiled and shook his head. 'It is all a dream to me,' he said,\n'the pageants and the whole. They will not last! Oh, no! It is all but\nan empty show.'\n\nHal looked up anxiously, and the King went on: 'Well do I remember the\nday when, scarce able to walk, and weighed down by my robes, I tottered\nup to the altar and was well pleased to make my offering, and how my\nLord of Warwick, who was then, took me in his arms, and showed me my\ngreat father's figure on his grave, and told me I was bound to be such a\nking as he! Alas! was it mine own error that I so failed?&&\n\n\n Henry born at Monmouth shall short live and gain all,\n Henry born at Windsor shall long live and lose all.'\n\n\n'Oh, sir, sir, do not speak of that old saw!'\n\nStill the King smiled. 'It has come true, my child. All is lost, and\nit may be well for my soul that thus it should be, and that I should\ngo into the presence of my God freed from the load of what was gained\nunjustly. I know not whether, if my hand had been stronger, I should\nhave striven to have borne up the burthen of these two realms, but they\nnever ought to have been mine, and if the sins of the forefathers be\nvisited on the children to the third and fourth generation, no marvel\nthat my brain and mine arm could but sink under the weight. Would that\nI had yielded at once, and spared the bloodshed and sacrilege! Miserere\nmei! My son was a temptation. Oh, my poor boy! is he to be the heir to\nall that has come on me? Have pity on him, good Lord!'\n\n'Nay, sir, your brave son will come home to comfort you, and help you\nand make all well.'\n\n'I know not! I know not! I cannot believe that I shall see him again,\nor that the visitation of these crimes is not still to come! My son, my\nsweet son, I can only pray that he might give up his soul sackless and\nfreer of guilt than his father can be, when I remember all that I ought\nto have hindered when I could think and use my will! Now, now all is but\nconfusion! God has taken away my judgment, even as He did with my French\ngrandsire, and I can only let others act as they will, and pray for them\nand for myself.'\n\nHe had never spoken at such length, nor so clearly, and whenever he was\nrequired to come forward, he merely walked, rode, sat or signed rolls\nas he was told to do, and continually made mistakes as to the persons\nbrought to him, generally calling them by their fathers' names, if\nhe recognised them at all, but still to his nearest attendants, and\nespecially to his beloved herd boy, he was the same gentle, affectionate\nbeing, never so happy as at his prayers, and sometimes speaking of holy\nthings as one almost inspired.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII. -- AT THE MINORESSES'\n\n\n\n The bird that hath been limed in a bush,\n With trembling wings misdoubteth every bush.\n --SHAKESPEARE.\n\n\nOne day, soon after that Twelfth Day, Hal accompanied Sir Giles Musgrave\nto the shop or stall of Master Lorimer in Cheapside, a wide space, open\nby day but closed by shutters at night, where all sorts of gilded and\nemblazoned leather-works for man or horse were displayed, and young\n'prentices called, 'What d'ye lack?' 'Saddle of the newest make?' 'Buff\ncoat fit to keep out the spear of Black Douglas himself?'\n\n''Tis Master Lorimer himself I lack,' said Musgrave with a good-humoured\nsmile, and the merchant appeared from a room in the rear, something\nbetween a counting-house and a bedroom, where he welcomed his former\ncompanions, and insisted on their tasting the good sherris sack that had\nbeen sent with his last cargo of Spanish leather.\n\n'I would I could send a flask to our good Prioress,' he said, 'to cheer\nher heart. I went to the Minoresses' as she bade me, to settle some\nmatters of account with her, and after some ado, Sister Mabel came down\nto the parlour and told me the Prioress is very sick with a tertian\nfever, and they misdoubt her recovering.'\n\n'And the young Lady of St. John.'\n\n'She is well enough, but sadly woeful as to the Mother Prioress, and\nlikewise as to what they hear of the Lord Redgrave. It is the old man,\nnot his son, a hard and stark old man, as I remember. He would have\nbargained with me for the coats of the poor rogues slain at St. Albans,\nand right evil was his face as he spoke thereof, he being then for Queen\nMargaret; but then he went over to King Edward, and glutted himself with\nslaughter at Towton, and here he calls himself Red Rose again. Ill-luck\nto the poor young maid if she falls to him!'\n\nIt was terrible news for Hal, and Musgrave could not but gratify him\nby riding by the Minories to endeavour to hear further tidings of the\nPrioress.\n\nIt was a grand building in fine pointed architecture, for the Clares,\nthough once poor, in imitation of St. Clara and St. Francis, had been\ndispensed collectively from their vow of poverty, and though singly\nincapable of holding property, had a considerable accumulation en masse.\nThey were themselves a strict Order, but they often gave lodgings to\nladies either in retreat or for any cause detained near London.\n\nSir Giles and Harry were only admitted to the outer court, whence the\nportress went with their message of inquiry. They waited a long time,\nand then the Greystone lay Sister who had been the companion of their\njourney came back in company with the portress.\n\n'Benedicite, dear gentles,' she said; 'oh, you are a sight for sair\neen.'\n\n'And how fares the good Mother Prioress?' asked the Lord of Peelholm.\n\n'Alack! she is woefully ill when the fever takes her, and she is wasted\naway so that you would scarce know her; but this is one of the better\ndays, and if you, sir, will come into the parlour, she will see you. She\nwas arraying herself as I came down. She was neither to have nor to hold\nwhen she heard you were there, and said a north country face would be\nbetter to her than all the Sisters' potions!'\n\nThey were accordingly conducted through a graceful cloister, overgrown\nwith trailing ivy, to a bare room, with mullioned windows, and frescoes\non the Walls with the history of St. Francis relieving beggars,\npreaching to the birds, &c., and with a stout open work barrier cutting\noff half the room.\n\nPresently the Prioress tottered in, leaning heavily on the arms of\nSister Mabel and of Anne St. John, while her own lay Sister and another\nplaced a seat for her; but before she would sit down, she would go up\nto the opening, and turning back her veil, put out a hand to be grasped.\n'Right glad am I to see you, good Sir Giles and young Harry. Are you\ngoing back to the wholesome winds of our moors?'\n\n'Not yet, holy Mother. It grieves me to see you faring so ill.'\n\n'Ah! a breeze from the north would bring life back to my old bones. Aye,\nGiles, this place has made an old woman of me.' And truly her bright\nruddy face was faded to a purple hue, and her cheeks hung haggard and\nalmost withered, but as her visitors expressed their grief and sympathy,\nshe went on in her own tone. 'And tell me somewhat of how things are\ngoing. How doth Richard of Warwick comport himself to the King? Hath\nyour King zest enough to reign? Is my White Rose King still abroad in\nBurgundy?' And as Sir Giles replied to each inquiry in turn, and told\nall he could of political matters, she exclaimed: 'Ah! that is better\nthan the hearing whether the black hen hath laid an egg, or the skein of\nyellow silk matches. I am weary, O! I am weary. Moreover, young Hal, I\nknow as matters are that could I see George Nevil face to face I could\ndo somewhat with him, and I laid my plans to obtain a meeting, but\ntherewith, what with vexation and weariness and lack of air, comes this\nsickness, and I am laid aside and can do nought but pray, and lay my\nplans to meet him some day in the fields, and show him what a hawk can\ndo, then shame him into listening to my tale. But I must be a sound\nwoman first! And maybe his brother Warwick, being a sturdy gentleman who\nloves a brave man, will be better to deal with. I am a sinful woman,\nand maybe my devotions here will help me to be more worthy to be heard.\nMoreover, I hoped you had done somewhat in thine own cause with thy King\nand Earl Oxford,' she proceeded. 'Thou hast an esquire's coat; hast thou\nany hope of thy lands?'\n\n'I must strive to earn them by deeds,' said Hal. 'And--'\n\n'Well spoken, lad! 'Tis the manly way; but methought you hadst interest\nwith this King of thine, or hath he only a royal memory for services?'\n\n'He is good to me. Yea, most good,' began Harry.\n\n'Ay, he loves the boy,' said Sir Giles, 'no question about that; but his\nmemory for all that is about him hath failed, and there is nothing for\nit save to wait for the Queen and the Prince, who will bear the boy's\nfather's services in mind.'\n\n'And wherefore tarries the French woman? This maid's father is to come\nover with her. He is forming her English court, I trow; she can have few\nbeside from England.'\n\n'When he comes,' said Harry, with a look into Anne's eyes that made\nthem droop and her cheeks burn, 'then shall we put it to the touch. Then\nshall I know whether I have mine own, and what is more than mine own.'\n\n'Thine own,' whispered Anne. 'Oh, better live in the sheepfolds with\nthee than with this Baron! I shudder at the thought.'\n\nThis, and a few more such words were an aside, while the Prioress\ncontinued her conversation with Sir Giles, and went on to say that she\nwas sure she should never recover till she was out of these walls, and\naway from London smoke and London smells, and she naughtily added in a\nwhisper the weary talk of these good nuns, who had never flown a hawk or\nchased a deer in their lives, and thought Florimond a mere wolf, if\nnot the evil one himself, and kept the poor hound chained up like a\nmalefactor in gyves, till she was fain to send him away with Master\nLorimer to keep for her.\n\nShe would not go back to her Priory till Anne's fate was settled, being\nin hopes of doing something yet for the poor wench; but meantime she\nshould die if she stayed there much longer, and she meant to set forth\non pilgrimage in good time, before she had scandalised the good ladies\nenough to make them gossip to the dames of St. Helen's, who would be\nonly too glad to have a story against the Benedictines. A ride over the\nKentish downs was the only cure for her or for Anne, who had been pining\never since they had been mewed up here, though, looking across at the\ngirl, whose head was leaning against the bars, Sir Giles seemed to have\nbrought a remedy to judge by those cheeks.\n\n'Would that we could hope it would be an effectual and lasting remedy,'\nsighed Sir Giles; 'but unless this poor King could be roused to insist,\nor the Earl of Warwick fell out with his cousin, I do not see much\nchance for the lad.'\n\n'Is it Warwick who is his chief foe or King Edward?' asked the Prioress.\n\n'King Edward, doubtless, for his father's slaughter of young Rutland at\nWakefield.'\n\n'That bodes ill,' said the lady. 'By all I gather, King Edward is a\ntiger when once roused, but at other times is like that same tiger,\npurring and slow to move. But there's a bell that warns us to vespers.\nThey are mightily more strict here than ever we are at Greystone. Ah!\nyou won't tell tales, Sir Giles! You'll soon hear of me at St. Thomas's\nshrine at Canterbury.'\n\nThe knight took his leave. It was impossible not to like and pity the\nPrioress, though the life among devout nuns was clearly beyond her\npowers.\n\nThe dreamy peaceful days of the Tower of London were stirred by the\narrival of the great Earl of Warwick, the Kingmaker, as people already\ncalled him. He took up his residence in his own mighty establishment at\nWarwick House near St. Paul's; and the day after his arrival, he came\nclanking over London Bridge with a great following of knights and\nsquires to pay his respects to King Henry.\n\nHenry Clifford was not disposed to meet him, and only watched from\na window when the drawbridge was lowered, and the sturdy man, with\ngrizzled hair and marked, determined features, rode into the gateway,\nwhere he was received by the Earl of Oxford.\n\nThe interview was long, and when it was finished, the two Earls made\nthe round of the defences, and Oxford drew up his garrison on the Tower\nGreen to be inspected.\n\nWhen Warwick had taken his leave, Hal was summoned to the Constable's\nhall. 'We must be jogging, my young master,' he said. 'There are rumours\nof King Edward making another attempt for his crown, and my Lord of\nWarwick would have me go and watch the eastern seaboard. And you had\nbest go with me.'\n\n'The King--' began Hal.\n\n'You will come back to the King by-and-by if so be he misses you, but\nhe was more dazed than ever to-day, and perhaps it was well, for Warwick\nbrought with him Dick Nevil, who has got your lands of Clifford, and\nmight be tempted to put you out of the way in one of the dungeons that\nlie so handy.'\n\n'No one save the King knows who I am,' said Hal, 'and he forgets from\nday to day all save that I am the herd boy, and I think it cheers him to\nhave me with him. I will stay beside him even as a varlet.'\n\n'Nay, my lord, that may not be. 'Tis true he loves thee, but he will\nforget anon, and I may not suffer the risk. Too many know or guess.'\n\nHarry Clifford repeated that he recked not of the risk when he could\nserve and comfort his beloved King, and, indeed, his mind was made up\non the subject. He had taken measures for remaining as one of the\nmen-at-arms of the garrison; but King Henry himself surprised him by\nsaying, 'My young Lord of Clifford, fare thee well. Thou goest forth\nto-morrow with the Constable of Oxford. Take my blessing with thee, my\nchild. Thou hast been granted to me to make life very sweet to me of\nlate, and I thank God for it, but the time is come that thou must part\nfrom me.'\n\n'Oh, sir, never! None was ever so dear to me! For weal or woe I will\nbe with you! Suffer me to be your meanest varlet, and serve you as none\nother can do.'\n\nHenry shook his head. 'It may not be, my child, let not thy blood also\nbe on my head! Go with Oxford and his men. Thou hast learnt to draw\nsword and use lance. Thou wilt be serving me still if again there be,\nwhich Heaven forefend, stricken fields in my cause or my son's.'\n\n'Sir, if I must fight, let no less holy hand than thine lay knighthood\non my shoulder,' sobbed Hal, kneeling.\n\nHenry smiled. 'I have well-nigh forgotten the fashion. But if it will\nplease thee, my son, give me thy sword, Oxford. In the name of God and\nSt. George of England I dub thee knight. For the Church, for the honour\nof God, for a good cause, fight. Arise, Sir Henry Clifford!'\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX. -- A STRANGE EASTER EVE\n\n\n\n And spare, O spare\n The meek usurper's holy head.\n --GRAY.\n\n\nOnce more, at the close of morning service, while it was still dark, did\nHarry Clifford, the new-made knight, kneel before King Henry and feel\nhis hand in blessing on his head. Then he went forth to join Musgrave\nand the troop that the Earl of Oxford was leading from the Tower to\nraise the counties of East Anglia and watch the coast against a descent\nof King Edward from the Low Countries.\n\nAs they passed the walls enclosing the Minories Convent, and Hal gazed\nat it wistfully, the wide gateway was opened and out came a party of\nblack-hooded nuns, mounted on ponies and mules, evidently waiting till\nOxford's band had gone by. Harry drew Sir Giles's attention, and they\nlingered, as they became certain that they beheld the Prioress Selby of\nGreystone, hawk, hound and all, riding forth, nearly smothered in her\nhood, and not so upright as of old.\n\n'Ay, here I am!' she said, as he reined up and bowed his greeting. 'Here\nI am on my pilgrimage! I got Father Ridley, the Benedictine head, to\norder me forth. Methinks he was glad, being a north countryman, to send\nme out before I either died on the Poor Clares' hands, or gave them a\nfuller store of tales against us of St. Bennet's! Not but that they are\ngood women, too godly and devout for a poor wild north country Selby\nlike me, who cannot live without air.\n\n\n O the oak and the ash and the bonny ivy tree,\n They flourish best at home in the north countree.\n\n\nFlori, Flori, whither away? Ah! thou hast found thine old friend. Birds\nof a feather. Eh? the young folk have foregathered likewise. Watch! And\nthou, sir knight, whither are you away?'\n\n'On our way to Norfolk in case the Duke of York should show himself on\nthe coast. And yours, reverend Mother?'\n\n'To Canterbury first by easy journeys. We sleep to-night at the Tabard,\nwhere we shall meet other pilgrims.'\n\n'Here, alack! our way severs from yours. Farewell, holy Mother, may you\nfind health on your pilgrimage.'\n\n'Every breath I take in is health,' said the Mother, who had already\nmanoeuvred an opening in her veil, and gasped to throw it back as soon\nas she should attain an unfrequented place. 'There are so many coming\nand going here that all the air is used up by their greasy nostrils!\nWell! good luck, and God's blessing go with you, and you, young Hal, I\nmay say so far, whichever side ye be, but still I hold that York has the\nright, and yours may be a saint, but not a king.'\n\nHal had meantime 'forgathered' as the Prioress said with Anne, marching,\nin spite of his new honours, close to her stirrup, and venturing to\nwhisper to her that he was now her knight, and 'her colours,' which he\nwas to wear for her, were only a tiny scrap of ribbon from her glove,\nwhich he cut off with his dagger, and kissed, saying he should wear it\nnext his heart, though he might not do so openly.\n\nTheir love was more implied than ever it had been before, and she\nrepeated her confidence that the kind Prioress would never leave her\ntill she had done her utmost for them both.\n\n'But you, my good stripling, I am ashamed to see you. I have done\nnothing for you. I sent a humble message to ask to see the Archbishop,\nbut had no answer, and by-and-by, when I stirred again, who should come\nto sec me but young Bertram Selby, and \"Kinswoman,\" said he, \"you had\nbest keep quiet. The Archbishop hath asked me whether rumours were sooth\nthat yours was scarce a regular Priory.\" The squire stood up for me and\nsaid, as became one of the family, that an outlying cell, where there\nwere ill neighbours of Scots, thieves, borderers, and the like, could\nscarce look to be as trim as a city nunnery, and that none had ever\nheard harm of Mother Agnes. But then one of his priests took on him to\nwhisper in his ear, and he demanded whether we had not gone so far as to\nhide traitors from justice, to which Bertram returned a stout denial as\nwell he might, though he thought it well to give me warning, but for the\npresent there was no use in attempting anything more. The Archbishop was\nexceedingly busy with the work of his office and the defence of London\nin case of Edward's threatened return; but he had not yet come, and no\none thought there was a reasonable doubt that Warwick, the Kingmaker,\nwould not be victorious, and he had carried his son-in-law, the Duke of\nClarence, with him.' After the cause of the Red Rose was won, there was\nno fear but that the services of Clifford would be remembered. So Harry\nClifford parted with Anne, promising himself and her that there should\nbe fresh Clifford services, winning a recognition of the De Vesci\ninheritance if of no more.\n\nThe ladies went on their way in the track which Chaucer has made\nmemorable, laying their count to meet Queen Margaret and her son, and\nwin their ears beforehand, and wondering that they came not. Kentish\nbreezes soon revived the Prioress, and she went through many strange\ndevotions at the shrine of Becket, which, it might be feared, did not\nimprove her spiritual, so much as her bodily, health, while Anne's\nchiefly resolved themselves into prayers that Harry Clifford might\nbe guarded and restored, and that she herself might be saved from the\ndreaded Lord Redgrave.\n\nThey did not set out on the return to London till they had inhaled\nplenty of sea breezes by visiting the shrine of St. Mildred in the isle\nof Thanet, and St. Eanswith at Folkestone, till Lent had begun, and\nthe first fresh tidings that they met were that Edward had landed in\nYorkshire, but his fleet had been dispersed by storms, and the people\ndid not rise to join him, so that he was fain to proclaim that he only\ncame to assert his right to his father's inheritance of the Dukedom of\nYork.\n\nAt the Minoresses' Convent they found that a messenger had arrived,\nbidding Anne go to meet her father at his castle in Bedfordshire. He was\ncoming over with the Queen whenever she could obtain a convoy from King\nLouis of France. Lord Redgrave was with him, and the marriage should\ntake place as soon as they arrived.\n\n'Never fear, child,' said the Prioress; 'many is the slip between the\ncup and the lip.'\n\nFurther tidings came that Edward had thrown off his first plea, that he\nhad passed Warwick's brother Montagu at Pontefract, and that men from\nhis own hereditary estates were flocking to his royal banner. Warwick\nwas calling up his men in all directions, and both armies were advancing\non London. Then it was known that 'false, fleeting, perjured Clarence'\nhad deserted his father-in-law, and returned to his brother; and\nworthless as he individually was, it boded ill for Lancaster, though\nstill hope continued in the uniform success of the Kingmaker. Warwick\nwas about twenty miles in advance of Edward, till that King actually\npassed him and reached the town of Warwick itself. Still the Earl wrote\nto his brother that if he could only hold out London for forty-eight\nhours all would be well.\n\nOnce more poor King Henry was set on horseback and paraded through the\nstreets. Brother Martin went out with the chaplain of the Poor Clares to\ngaze upon him, and they came back declaring that he was more than ever\nlike the image carried in a procession, seeming quite as helpless and\nindifferent, except, said Brother Martin, when he passed a church, and\nthen a heavenly look came over his still features as he bowed his head;\nbut none of the crowd who came out to gaze cried 'Save King Harry!' or\n'God bless him!'\n\nThere were two or three thousand Yorkists in the various sanctuaries of\nLondon, and they were preparing to rise in favour of their King Edward,\nand only a few hundred were mustering in St. Paul's Churchyard for the\nRed Rose.\n\nThe Poor Clares were in much terror, though nunneries and religious\nhouses, and indeed non-combatants in general, were usually respected\nby each side in these wars; but the Prioress of Greystone was not sorry\nthat the summons to her protegee called her party off on the way to\nBedfordshire, and they all set forward together, intending to make\nMaster Lorimer's household at Chipping Barnet their first stage, as they\nhad engaged to do.\n\nTheir intention had been notified to Lorimer's people in his London\nshop, who had sent on word to their master, and the good man came out\nto meet them, full of surprise at the valour of the ladies in attempting\nthe journey. But they could not possibly go further. King Edward was at\nSt. Albans, and was on his way to London, and the Earl of Warwick was\ncoming up from Dunstable with the Earls of Somerset and Oxford. For\nladies, even of religious orders, to ride on between the two hosts was\nmanifestly impossible, and he and his wife were delighted to entertain\nthe Lady Prioress till the roads should be safe.\n\nThe Prioress was nothing loth. She always enjoyed the freedom of a\nsecular household, and she was glad to remain within hearing of the last\nnews in this great crisis of York and Lancaster.\n\n'I marvel if there will be a battle,' she said. 'Never have I had the\ngood luck to see or hear one.'\n\n'Oh! Mother, are you not afraid?' cried Sister Mabel.\n\n'Afraid! What should I be afraid of, silly maid? Do you think the\nmen-at-arms are wolves to snap you up?'\n\n'And,' murmured Anne, 'we shall know how it goes with my Lord of\nOxford's people.'\n\nThese were the last days of Lent, and were carefully kept in the matter\nof food by the household, but the religious observances were much\ndisturbed by the tidings that poured in. King Henry and Archbishop Nevil\nhad taken refuge in the house of Bishop Kemp of London, Urswick the\nRecorder, with the consent of the Aldermen, had opened the gates to\nEdward, and the Good Friday Services at Barnet, the Psalms and prayers\nin the church, were disturbed by men-at-arms galloping to and fro, and\nreports coming in continually.\n\nThere could be no going out to gather flowers to deck the Church the\nnext day, for King Edward was on the London side, and Warwick with\nhis army had reached the low hills of Hadley, and their tents, their\nbanners, and the glint of their armour might be seen over the heathy\n between them and the lanes and fields, surrounded by hedges, that\nfenced in the valley of Barnet. The little town itself, though lying\nbetween the two armies, remained unoccupied by either party, and only\nmen-at-arms came down into it, not as plunderers, but to buy food.\n\nWarwick's cannon, however, thundered all night, a very awful sound to\nsuch unaccustomed ears, but they were so directed that the charges flew\nfar away from Barnet, under a false impression as to the situation of\nthe Yorkist forces.\n\nMistress Lorimer had heard them before, but accompanied every report\nwith a pious prayer; Sister Mabel screamed at each, then joined in; the\nPrioress was greatly excited, and walked about with Master Lorimer,\nnow on the roof, trying to see, now at the gate, trying to hear. Anne\nfancied it meant victory to Hal's party, but knelt, tried to pray while\nshe listened, and the dogs barked incessantly. And that Hal must be in\nthe army above the little town they guessed, for in the evening Watch\ncame floundering into the courtyard, hungry and muddy, but full of\naffectionate recognition of his old friends and the quarters he had\nlearnt to know. Florimond, who happened to be loose, had a romp with\nhim in their old fashion, and to the vexation and alarm of his mistress,\nthey both ran off together, and must have gone hunting on the heath, for\nthere was no response to her silver whistle.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX. -- BARNET\n\n\n\n A dead hush fell; but when the dolorous day\n Grew drearier toward twilight falling, came\n A bitter wind, clear from the North, and blew\n The mist aside.\n --TENNYSON.\n\n\nAnd Sir Henry Clifford? Still he was Hal of Derwentdale, for the\nperilous usurper, Sir Richard Nevil, was known to be continually with\nWarwick, and Musgrave was convinced that the concealment was safest.\n\nThe youth then remained with the Peelholm men, and became a good deal\nmore practised in warlike affairs, and accustomed to campaigning, during\nthe three months when Oxford was watching the eastern coast. On this\nEaster night he lay down on the hill-side with Watch beside him, his\nshepherd's plaid round him, his heart rising as he thought himself\nnear upon gaining fame and honour wherewith to win his early love, and\nwinning victory and safety for his beloved King, or rather his hermit.\nFor as his hermit did that mild unearthly face always come before him.\nHe could not think of it wearing that golden crown, which seemed alien\nto it, but rather, as he lay on his back, after his old habit looking\nup at the stars, either he saw and recognised the Northern Crown, or his\ndazed and sleepy fancy wove a radiant coronet of stars above that meek\ncountenance that he knew and loved so well; and as at intervals the\ncannon boomed and wakened him, he looked on at the bright Northern Cross\nand dreamily linked together the cross and crown.\n\nEaster Sunday morning came dawning, but no one looked to see the sun\ndance, even if the morning had not been dull and grey, a thick fog\ncovering everything; but through it came a dull and heavy sound, and\nthe clang of armour. Even by their own force the radiant star of the De\nVeres could hardly be seen on the banner, as the Earl of Oxford rode up\nand down, putting his men in battle array. Hal was on foot as an archer,\nmeaning to deserve the spurs that he had not yet worn. The hosts were\nclose to one another, and at first only the continual rain of arrows\ndarkened the air; but as the sun rose and the two armies saw one\nanother, Oxford's star was to be seen carried into the very midst of the\nopposing force under Lord Hastings. On, on, with cries of victory, the\nknights rode, the archers ran across the heath carrying all before them,\nnever doubting that the day was theirs, but not knowing where they were\ntill trumpets sounded, halt was called, and they were drawn up together,\nas best they might, round their leading star. But as they advanced,\nbehold there was an unexpected shout of treason. Arrows came thickly\non them, men-at-arms bearing Warwick's ragged staff came thundering\nheadlong upon them. 'Treason, treason,' echoed on all sides, and with\nthat sound in his ears Harry Clifford was cut down, and fell under a\nhuge horse and man, and lay senseless under a gorse-bush.\n\nHe knew no more but that horses and men seemed for ever trampling over\nhim and treading him down, and then all was lost to him--for how long he\nknew not, but for one second he was roused so far as to hear a furious\ngrowling and barking of Watch, but with dazed senses he thought it\nwas over the sheep, tried to raise himself, could not, thought himself\ndying, and sank back again.\n\nThe next thing he knew was 'Here, Master Lorimer, you know this gear\nbetter than I; unfasten this buff coat. There, he can breathe. Drink\nthis, my lad.'\n\nIt was the Prioress's voice! He felt a jolt as of a waggon, and opened\nhis eyes. It was dark, but he knew he was under the tilt of Lorimer's\nwaggon, which was moving on. The Prioress was kneeling over him on one\nside, Lorimer on the other, and his head was on a soft lap--nay, a warm\ntear dropped on his face, a sweet though stifled voice said, 'Is he\ntruly better?'\n\nThen came sounds of 'hushing,' yet of reassurance; and when there was a\nhalt, and clearer consciousness began to revive, while kind hands were\nbusy about him, and a cordial was poured down his throat, by the light\nof a lantern cautiously shown, Hal found speech to say, as he felt a\nlong soft tongue on his face, 'Watch, Watch, is it thou, man?'\n\n'Ay, Watch it is,' said the Prioress. 'Well may you thank him! It is to\nhim you owe all, and to my good Florimond.'\n\n'But what--how--where am I?' asked Hal, trying to look round, but\nfeeling sharp thrills and shoots of pain at every motion.\n\n'Lie still till they bring their bandages, and I will tell you. Gently,\nNan, gently--thy sobs shake him!' But, as he managed to hold and press\nAnne's hand, the Prioress went on, 'You are in good Lorimer's warehouse.\nSafer thus, though it is too odorous, for the men of York do not respect\nsanctuary in the hour of victory.'\n\nThe word roused Hal further. 'The victory was ours!' he said. 'We had\ndriven Hastings' banner off the field! Say, was there a cry of treason?'\n\n'Even so, my son. So far as Master Lorimer understands, Lord Oxford's\nbanner of the beaming star was mistaken for the sun of York, and the men\nof Warwick turned on you as you came back from the chase, but all was\nutter confusion. No one knows who was staunch and who not, and the\nfields and lanes are full of blood and slaughtered men; and Edward's\nroyal banner is set up on the market cross, and trumpets were sounding\nround it. And here come Master Lorimer and the goodwife to bind these\nwounds.'\n\n'But Sir Giles Musgrave?' still asked Hal.\n\n'Belike fled with Lord Oxford and his men, who all made off at the cry\nof treason,' was the answer.\n\nLorimer returned with his wife and various appliances, and likewise with\nfresh tidings. There was no doubt that the brothers Warwick and Montagu\nhad been slain. They had been found--Warwick under a hedge impeded by\nhis heavy armour, and Montagu on the field itself. Each body had been\nthrown over a horse, and shown at the market cross; and they would be\ncarried to London on the morrow. 'And so end,' said Lorimer, 'two brave\nand open-handed gentlemen as ever lived, with whom I have had many\nfriendly dealings.'\n\nOne thing more Hal longed to hear--namely, how he had been saved. He\nremembered that Watch had come back to him with Florimond the evening\nbefore. They had probably been hunting together, and the hound, who had\nalways been very fond of him on the journey, had accompanied Watch to\nhis side before going back to his chain in Barnet; but he had lost sight\nof them in the morning, and regretted that he could not find Watch to\nprovide for his safety. He knew, he said, by the presence of Florimond,\nwho must be in Barnet. And he also had a dim recollection of being\nlicked by Watch's tongue as he lay, and likewise of hearing a furious\nbarking, yelling and growling, whether of one or both dogs he was not\nsure.\n\nIt seemed that towards the evening, when the battle-cries had grown\nfainter, and the sun was going down, Florimond had burst in on his\nmistress, panting and blood-stained--but not with his own blood, as was\nsoon ascertained--and made vehement demonstrations by which, as a true\ndog-lover, the Prioress perceived that he wanted her to follow him. And\nAnne, who thought she saw a piece of Hal's plaid caught in his collar,\nwas 'neither to have nor to hold,' as the Mother said, till Master\nLorimer was found, and entreated to follow the hound, ay, and to take\nthem with him. He demurred much as to their safety, but the Prioress\ndeclared that it was the part of the religious to take care of the\nwounded, and not inconsistent with her vow. See the Sisters of St.\nKatharine's of the Tower! And though her interpretation was a broad one,\nand would have shocked alike her own Abbess and her of the Minoresses,\nhe was fain to accept it in such a cause; but he commanded his waggoners\nto bring the wain in the rear, both as an excuse, and a possible\nprotection for the ladies, and, it might be, a conveyance for the\nwounded.\n\nFlorimond, who had sprung about, barked, fawned and made entreating\nsounds all this time (longer in narrative than in reality) led them, not\nthrough the central field of slaughter, but somewhat to the left, among\nthe heath--where, in fact, Oxford had lost his way in the fog, and his\nown allies had charged him, but had not followed far beyond the place\nof Hal's fall, discovering the fatal error that spread confusion through\ntheir ranks, where everyone distrusted his fellow leader.\n\nThere, after a weary and perilous way, diversified by the horrid shouts\nof plunderers of the slain, happily not near at hand, and when Lorimer,\nbut for the ladies, would have given up the quest as useless, they were\ngreeted by Watch's bark, and found him lying with his fine head alert\nand ready over his senseless master.\n\nThere was no doubt but that the two good creatures, both powerful and\nformidable animals, must have saved him from the spoilers, and then been\nsagacious enough to let the hound go down to fetch assistance while the\nsheep-dog remained as his master's faithful guardian. How honoured and\ncaressed they were can hardly be described, but all will know.\n\nThe joy and gratitude of knowing of Anne's devotion, and the pleasure of\nhis good dog's faithfulness, helped Hal through the painful process\nof having his hurts dealt with. Surgeons, even barbers, were fully\noccupied, and Lorimer did not wish to have it known that a Lancastrian\nwas in his house. His wife and her old nurse, as well as the Prioress,\nhad some knowledge of simple practical surgery; and Hal's disasters\nproved to be a severe cut on the head, a slash on the shoulder, various\nbruises, and a broken rib and thigh-bone, all which were within their\ncapabilities, with assistance from the master's stronger hand. No one\ncould tell whether the savage nature of the York brothers might not\nslake their revenge in a general massacre of their antagonists; so\nLorimer caused Hal's bed to be made in the waggon in the warehouse,\nwhere he was safe from detection until the victorious army should have\nquitted Barnet.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI. -- TEWKESBURY\n\n\n\n The last shoot of that ancient tree\n Was budding fair as fair might be;\n Its buds they crop\n Its branches lop\n Then leave the sapless stem to die.\n --SOPHOCLES (Anstice).\n\n\nHarry Clifford lay fevered, and knowing little of what passed, for\nseveral days, only murmuring sometimes of his flock at home, sometimes\nof the royal hermit, and sometimes in distress of the men-at-arms with\nwhom he had been thrown, and whose habits and language had plainly been\na great shock to his innocent mind, trained by the company of the sheep,\nand the hermit. He took the Prioress's hand for Good-wife Dolly's, but\nhe generally knew Anne, who could soothe him better than any other.\n\nMaster Lorimer was fully occupied by combatants who came to have their\nequipments renewed or repaired, and he spent the days in his shop in\nLondon, but rode home in the long evenings with his budget of news. King\nHenry was in the Tower again, as passive as ever, but on the very day of\nthe battle of Barnet Queen Margaret had landed at Weymouth with her son,\nand the war would be renewed in Somersetshire.\n\nSearch for prisoners being over at Barnet, Hal was removed to the guest\nchamber of his hosts, where he lay in a huge square bed, and in the\nbetter air began to recover, understand what was going on round him,\nand be anxious for his friends, especially Sir Giles Musgrave and Simon\nBunce. The ladies still attended to him, as Lorimer pronounced the\njourney to be absolutely unsafe, while so many soldiers disbanded, or on\ntheir way to the Queen's army, were roaming about, and the Burgundians\nbrought by Edward might not be respectful to an English Prioress. It was\nsafer to wait for tidings from Lord St. John, which were certain to come\neither from Bletso or the Minoresses'.\n\nSo May had begun when Lorimer hurried home with the tidings that a\nmessenger had come in haste from King Edward from the battlefield of\nTewkesbury, with the tidings of a complete victory. Prince Edward, the\nfair and spirited hope of Lancaster, was slain, Somerset and his friends\nhad taken sanctuary in the Abbey Church, Queen Margaret and the young\nwife of the prince in a small convent, and beyond all had been flight\nand slaughter.\n\nFor a few days no more was known, but then came fuller and sadder\ntidings. The young prince had been brutally slain by his cousins,\nEdward, George, and Richard, excited as they were to tiger-like ferocity\nby the late revolt. The nobles in the sanctuary, who had for one night\nbeen protected by a cord drawn in front of them by a priest, had in the\nmorning been dragged out and beheaded. Among them was Anne's father,\nLord St. John of Bletso, and on the field the heralds had recognised the\ncorpse of her suitor, Lord Redgrave. To expect that Anne felt any acute\nsorrow for a father whom she had never seen since she was six years old,\nand who then had never seemed to care for her, was not possible.\n\nAnd what was to be her fate? Her young brother, the heir of Bletso, was\nin Flanders with his foreign mother, and she knew not what might be\nher own claims through her own mother, though the Prioress and Master\nLorimer knew that it could be ascertained through the seneschal at\nBletso, if he had not perished with his lord, or the agents at York\nthrough whom Anne's pension had been paid. If she were an heiress, she\nwould become a ward of the Crown, a dreary prospect, for it meant to be\ndisposed of to some unknown minion of the Court.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII. -- THE NUT-BROWN MAID\n\n\n\n All my wellfare to trouble and care\n Should change if you were gone,\n For in my mynde, of all mankind\n I love but you alone.\n --NUT-BROWN MAID.\n\n\nAnne St. John, in her 'doul' or deep mourning, sat by Hal's couch or\ndaybed in tears, as he lay in the deep bay of the mullioned window, and\ntold him of the consultation that had been held.\n\n'Ah, dear lady!' he said, 'now am I grieved that I have not mine own to\nendow you with! Well would I remain the landless shepherd were it not\nfor you.'\n\n'Nay,' she said, looking up through her tears, 'and wherefore should I\nnot share your shepherd's lot?'\n\n'You! Nan, sweet Nan, tenderly nurtured in the convent while I have ever\nlived as a rough hardy shepherd!'\n\n'And I have ever been a moorland maid,' she answered, 'bred to no soft\nways. I know not how to be the lady of a castle--I shall be a much\nbetter herdsman's wife, like your good old Dolly, whom I have always\nloved and envied.'\n\n'You never saw us snowed up in winter with all things scarce, and hardly\nable to milk a goat.'\n\n'Have not we been snowed up at Greystone for five weeks at a time?'\n\n'Ay, but with thick walls round and a stack of peat at hand,' said Hal,\nhis heart beating violently as more and more he felt that the maiden did\nnot speak in jest, but in full earnestness of love.\n\n'Verily one would deem you took me for a fine dainty dame, such as I saw\nat the Minoresses', shivering at the least gust of fresh wind, and not\ndaring to wet their satin shoes if there had been a shower of rain\nin the cloisters. Were we not all stifled within the walls, and never\nbreathed till we were out of them? Nay, Hal, there is none to come\nbetween us now. Take me to your moors and hills! I will be your good\nhousewife and shepherdess, and make you such a home! And you will teach\nme of the stars and of the flowers and all the holy lore of your good\nroyal hermit.'\n\n'Ah! my hermit, my master, how fares it with him? Would that I could go\nand see!'\n\n'Which do you love best--me or the hermit?' asked Anne archly, lifting\nup her head, which was lying on his shoulder.\n\n'I love you, mine own love and sweetheart, with all my heart,' he said,\nregaining her hand, 'but my King and master with my soul; and oh! that\nI had any strength to give him! I love him as my master in holy things,\nand as my true prince, and what would I not give to know how it is with\nhim and how he bears these dreadful tidings!'\n\nHe bent his head, choking with sobs as he spoke, and Anne wept with him,\nher momentary jealousy subdued by the picture of the lonely prisoner,\nhis friends slain in his cause, and his only child cut off in early\nprime; but she tried the comfort of hoping that his Queen would be with\nhim. Thus talking now of love, now of grief, now of the future, now of\nthe past, the Prioress found them, and as she was inclined to blame\nAnne for letting her patient weep, the maiden looked up to her and said,\n'Dear Mother, we are disputing--I want this same Hal to wed me so soon\nas he can stand and walk. Then I would go home with him to Derwentside,\nand take care of him.'\n\nThe Prioress burst out laughing. 'Make porridge, milk the ewes and spin\ntheir wool? Eh? Meet work for a baron's daughter!'\n\n'So I tell her,' said Harry. 'She knows not how hard the life is.'\n\n'Do I not?' said Anne. 'Have I not spent a night and day, the happiest\nmy childhood knew, in your hut? Has it not been a dream of joy ever\nsince?'\n\n'Ay, a summer's dream!' said Hal. 'Tell her the folly of it.'\n\n'I verily believe he does not want me. If he had not a lame leg, I trow\nhe would be trying to be mewed up with his King!'\n\n'It would be my duty,' murmured Hal, 'nor should I love thee the less.'\n\n''Tis a duty beyond your reach,' said the Prioress. 'Master Lorimer\nhears that none have access to King Henry, God help him! and he sits as\nin a trance, as though he understood and took heed of nothing--not even\nof this last sore battle.'\n\n'God aid him! Aye, and his converse is with Him,' said Hal, with a gush\nof tears. 'He minds nought of earth, not even earthly griefs.'\n\n'But we, we are of earth still, and have our years before us,' said\nAnne, 'and I will not spend mine the dreary lady of a dull castle.\nEither I will back and take my vows in your Priory, reverend Mother, if\nHal there disdains to have me.'\n\n'Nan, Nan! when you know that all I dread is to have you mewed behind\na wall of snow as thick as the walls of the Tower and freezing to the\nbone!'\n\n'With you behind it telling all the tales. Mother, prithee prove to him\nthat I am not made of sugar like the Clares, but that I love a fresh\nwind and the open moorlands.'\n\nThe Prioress laughed and took her away, but in private the maiden\nconvinced her that the proposal, however wild, was in full earnest, and\nnot in utter ignorance of the way of life that was preferred.\n\nAfterwards the good lady discussed it with the Lorimers. 'For my part,'\nshe said, 'I see nought to gainsay the children having their way. They\nare equal in birth and breeding, and love one another heartily, and the\ntimes may turn about to bring them to their own proper station.'\n\n'But the hardness and the roughness of the life,' objected Mistress\nLorimer, 'for a dainty, convent-bred lady.'\n\n'My convent--God, forgive me!--is not like the Poor Clares. We knew\nthere what cold and hunger mean, as well as what free air and mountains\nare. Moreover, though the maid thinks not of it, I do not believe the\nlife will be so bare and comfortless. The lad's mother hath not let him\nwant, and there is a heritage through the Vescis that must come to him,\neven if he never can claim the lands of Clifford.'\n\n'And now that all Lancaster is gone, King Edward may be less vindictive\nagainst the Red Rose,' said Lorimer.\n\n'There must be a dowry secured to the maid,' said the Prioress. 'Let\nthem only lie quiet for a time till the remains of the late tempest have\nblown over, and all will be well with them. Ay, and Master Lorimer, the\nLady Threlkeld, as well as myself, will fully acquit ourselves of the\nheavy charges you have been put to for your hospitality to us.'\n\nMaster Lorimer disclaimed all save his delight in the honour paid to\nhis poor house, and appealed to his wife, who seconded him courteously,\nthough perhaps the expenses of a wounded knight, three nuns, a noble\ndamsel and their horses, were felt by her enough to make the promise\ngratifying.\n\nWhile the elders talked, a horseman was heard in the court, asking\nwhether the young demoiselle of Bletso were lodged there. It was the\nseneschal Wenlock, who had come with what might be called the official\nreport of his lord's death, and to consider of the disposal of the young\nlady, being glad to find the Prioress of Greystone, to whom she had\noriginally been committed by her father.\n\nBefore summoning her, he explained to the Prioress that a small estate\nwhich had belonged to her mother devolved upon her. The proceeds of the\nproperty were not large, but they had been sufficient to keep her at the\nconvent, on the moderate charges of the time. Anne was only eighteen,\nand at no time of their lives were women, even widows, reckoned able to\ndispose of themselves. She would naturally become a ward of the Crown,\nand Lord Redgrave having been killed, the seneschal was about to go and\ninform King Edward of the situation.\n\n'But,' said the Prioress, 'suppose you found her already betrothed to\na gentleman of equal birth, and with claims to an even greater\ninheritance? Would you not be silent till the match was concluded, and\nthe King had no chance of breaking it?'\n\n'If it were well for the maid's honour and fortune,' said the seneschal.\n'If you, reverend Mother, have found a fair marriage for her, it might\nbe better to let well alone.'\n\nThen the Prioress set forth the situation and claims of young Clifford,\nand the certainty, that even if it were more prudent not to advance\nthem at present, yet the ruin of the house of Nevil removed one great\nbarrier, and at least the Vesci inheritance held by his mother must come\nto him, and she was the more likely to make a portion over to him when\nshe found that he had married nobly.\n\nThe seneschal acquiesced, even though the Prioress confessed that the\nbetrothal had not actually taken place. In fact he was relieved that the\nmaiden, whom he had known as a fair child, should be off his hands, and\nsecured from the greed of some Yorkist partisan needing a reward.\n\nWhen Anne, her dark eyes and hair shaded by her mourning veil, came\ndown, and had heard his greeting, with such details of her father's\ndeath and the state of the family as he could give her, she rose and\nsaid: 'Sir, there have been passages between Sir Harry Clifford and\nmyself, and I would wed none other than him.'\n\nNor did the seneschal gainsay her.\n\nAll that he desired was that what was decided upon should be done\nquickly, before heralds or lawyers brought to the knowledge of the\nWoodvilles that there was any sort of prize to be had in the damsel of\nSt. John, and he went off, early the next morning, back to Bletso, that\nhe might seem to know nothing of the matter.\n\nThe Prioress laughed at men being so much more afraid than women. She\nwas willing to bear all the consequences, but then the Plantagenets were\nnot in the habit of treating ladies as traitors. However, all agreed\nthat it would be wiser to be out of reach of London as soon as possible,\nand Master Lorimer, who had become deeply interested in this romance of\ntrue love, arranged to send one of his wains to York, in which the bride\nand bridegroom might travel unsuspected, until the latter should be able\nto ride and all were out of reach of pursuit. The Prioress would go thus\nfar with them, 'And then! And then,' she said sighing, 'I shall have to\ndree my penance for all my friskings!'\n\n'But, oh, what kindly friskings!' cried Anne, throwing herself into\nthose tender arms.\n\n'Little they will reck of kindness out of rule,' sighed the Prioress.\n'If only they will send me back to Greystone, then shall I hear of thee,\nand thou hadst better take Florimond, poor hound, or the Sisters at York\nmay put him to penance too!'\n\nHenry Clifford was able to walk again, though still lame, when, in the\nearly morning of Ascension Day, he and Anne St. John were married in the\nhall of Master Lorimer's house by a trusty priest of Barnet, and in the\nafternoon, when the thanksgiving worship at the church had been gone\nthrough, they started in the waggon for the first stage of the journey,\nto be overtaken at the halting-place by the Prioress and Master Lorimer,\nwho had had to ride into London to finish some business.\n\nAnd he brought tidings that rendered that wedding-day one of mournful,\nif peaceful, remembrances.\n\nFor he had seen, borne from the Tower, along Cheapside, the bier on\nwhich lay the body of King Henry, his hands clasped on his breast, his\nwhite face upturned with that heavenly expression which Hal knew so\nwell, enhanced into perfect peace, every toil, every grief at an end.\n\nWhether blood dropped as the procession moved along, Lorimer could not\ncertainly tell. Whether so it was, or whoever shed it, there was no\nmarring the absolute rest and joy that had crowned the 'meek usurper's\nholy head,' after his dreary half-century of suffering under the\nretribution of the ancestral sins of two lines of forefathers. All had\nbeen undergone in a deep and holy trust and faith such as could render\neven his hereditary insanity an actual shield from the poignancy of\ngrief.\n\nTears were shed, not bitter nor vengeful. Such thoughts would have\nseemed out of place with the memory of the gentle countenance of love,\ngood-will and peace, and as Harry and Anne joined in the service\nthat the Prioress had requested to have in the early daylight before\nstarting, Hal felt that to the hermit saint of his boyhood he verily\nowed his own self.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII. -- BROUGHAM CASTLE\n\n\n\n And now am I an Earlis son,\n And not a banished man.\n --NUT-BROWN MAID.\n\n\nThat journey northward in the long summer days was a honeymoon to the\nyoung couple. The Prioress left them as much to themselves as possible,\ntrying to rejoice fully in their gladness, and not to think what might\nhave been hers but for that vow of her parents, keeping her hours\ndiligently in preparation for the stricter rule awaiting her.\n\nWhen they parted she sent Florimond with them, to be restored if she\nwere allowed to return to Greystone, and Anne parted with her with many\ntears as the truest mother and friend she had ever known.\n\nBy this time Harry was able to ride, and the two, with a couple of\nmen-at-arms hired as escort, made their way over the moors, Harry's\nhead throbbing with gladness, as, with a shout of joy, he hailed his own\nmountain-heads, Helvellyn and Saddleback, in all their purple cloud-like\nmajesty.\n\nThey agreed first to go to Dolly's homestead, drawn as much by affection\nas by prudence. Delight it was to Hal to point out the rocks and bushes\nof his home; but when he came in sight of Piers and the sheep, the dumb\nboy broke out into a cry of terror, and rushed away headlong, nor did\nhe turn till he felt Watch's very substantial paws bounding on him in\necstasy.\n\nWatch was indeed a forerunner, for Dolly and her husband could scarcely\nbe induced by his solid presence and caresses to come out and see for\nthemselves that the tall knight and lady were no ghostly shades, nor\nbewildered travellers, but that this was their own nursling Hal, whom\nSimon Bunce had reported to be lying dead under a gorse-bush at Barnet,\nand further that the lovely brunette lady was the little lost child whom\nDolly had mothered for a night.\n\nWhile the happy goodwife was regaling them with the best she had to\noffer, Hob set forth to announce their arrival at Threlkeld, being not\ncertain what the cautious Sir Lancelot would deem advisable, since the\nLancaster race had perished, and York was in the ascendant.\n\nThere was a long time to wait, but finally Sir Lancelot himself came\nriding through the wood, no longer afraid to welcome his stepson at the\ncastle, and the more willing since the bride newly arrived was no maiden\nof low degree, but a damsel of equal birth and with unquestioned rights.\n\nSo all was well, and the lady no longer had to embrace her son in fear\nand trembling, but to see him a handsome and thoughtful young man, well\nable to take his place in her halls.\n\nSince he had been actually in arms against King Edward it was not\nthought safe to assert his claims to his father's domains, but the lady\ngave up to him a portion of her own inheritance from the Vescis, where\nhe and Anne were able to live in Barden Tower in Yorkshire, not far from\nBolton Abbey. So Hal's shepherd days were over, though he still loved\ncountry habits and ways. Hob came to be once more his attendant, Dolly\nwas Anne's bower-woman, and Simon Bunce Sir Harry's squire, though he\nnever ceased blaming himself for having left his master, dead as he\nthought, when even a poor hound was more trusty.\n\nFlorimond was restored to the Prioress, who was reinstated at Greystone,\na graver woman than before she had set forth, the better for having\nwatched deeper devotion at the Minoresses', and still more for the\nterrible realities of the battle of Barnet. At Bolton Abbey Harry found\nmonks who encouraged his craving for information on natural science,\nand could carry him on much farther in these researches than his hermit,\nthough he always maintained that the royal anchorite and prisoner saw\nfarther into heavenly things than any other whom he had known, and\nthat his soul and insight rose the higher with his outward troubles and\nbodily decay.\n\nSo peacefully went the world with them till Henry was one-and-thirty,\nand then the tidings of Bosworth Field came north. The great tragedy of\nPlantagenet was complete, and the ambitious and blood-stained house\nof York, who had avenged the usurpation of Henry of Lancaster, had\nperished, chiefly by the hands of each other, and the distantly related\ndescendant of John of Gaunt, Henry Tudor, triumphed.\n\nThe Threlkelds were not slow to recollect that it was time for the\nCliffords to show their heads; moreover, that the St. Johns of Bletso\nwere related to the Tudors. Though now an aged woman, she descended\nfrom her hills, called upon her son and his wife with their little\nnine-year-old son to come with her, and pay homage to the new sovereign\nin their own names, and rode with them to Westminster.\n\nThere a very different monarch from the saint of Harry's memory received\nand favoured him. The lands of Westmoreland were granted to him as his\nright, and on their return, Master Lorimer coming by special invitation,\nthe family were welcomed at Brougham Castle, the cradle of their\nrace, where Harry Clifford, no longer an outlaw, began the career thus\ndescribed:\n\n\n Love had he found in huts where poor men lie,\n His daily teachers had been woods and rills,\n The silence that is in the starry sky,\n The sleep that is among the lonely hills.\n\n In him the savage virtue of the race,\n Revenge, and all ferocious thoughts were dead,\n Nor did he change, but kept in lofty place\n The wisdom that adversity had bred.\n\n Glad were the vales, and every cottage hearth,\n The Shepherd Lord was honoured more and more,\n And ages after he was laid in earth\n The Good Lord Clifford was the name he bore.\n\n\n\nFINIS\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of Project Gutenberg's The Herd Boy and His Hermit, by Charlotte M. Yonge\n\n*** ","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}} +{"text":"\n\nIt had been the Pagan Stone for hundreds of years, long before three boys stood around it and spilled their blood in a bond of brotherhood, unwittingly releasing a force bent on destruction...\n\nEvery seven years, there comes a week in July when the locals do unspeakable things\u2014and then don't seem to remember them. The collective madness has made itself known beyond the town borders and has given Hawkins Hollow the reputation of a village possessed.\n\nThis modern-day legend draws reporter and author Quinn Black to Hawkins Hollow with the hope of making the eerie happening the subject of her new book. It is only February, but Caleb Hawkins, descendent of the town founders, has already seen and felt the stirrings of evil. Though he can never forget the beginning of the terror in the woods twenty-one years ago, the signs have never been this strong before. Cal will need the help of his best friends, Fox and Gage, but surprisingly he must rely on Quinn as well. She, too, can see the evil that the locals cannot, somehow connecting her to the town\u2014and to Cal. As winter turns to spring, Cal and Quinn will shed their inhibitions, surrendering to a growing desire. They will form the cornerstone of a group of men and women bound by fate, passion, and the fight against what is to come from out of the darkness...\n\nTurn the page for a complete list of titles by Nora Roberts and J. D. Robb from The Berkley Publishing Group...\n\n## Nora Roberts & J. D. Robb\n\nREMEMBER WHEN\n\nNora Roberts\n\nHOT ICE\n\nSACRED SINS\n\nBRAZEN VIRTUE\n\nSWEET REVENGE\n\nPUBLIC SECRETS\n\nGENUINE LIES\n\nCARNAL INNOCENCE\n\nDIVINE EVIL\n\nHONEST ILLUSIONS\n\nPRIVATE SCANDALS\n\nHIDDEN RICHES\n\nTRUE BETRAYALS\n\nMONTANA SKY\n\nSANCTUARY\n\nHOMEPORT\n\nTHE REEF\n\nRIVER'S END\n\nCAROLINA MOON\n\nTHE VILLA\n\nMIDNIGHT BAYOU\n\nTHREE FATES\n\nBIRTHRIGHT\n\nNORTHERN LIGHTS\n\nBLUE SMOKE\n\nANGELS FALL\n\nHIGH NOON\n\nSeries\n\nBorn In Trilogy\n\nBORN IN FIRE\n\nBORN IN ICE\n\nBORN IN SHAME\n\nDream Trilogy\n\nDARING TO DREAM\n\nHOLDING THE DREAM\n\nFINDING THE DREAM\n\nChesapeake Bay Saga\n\nSEA SWEPT\n\nRISING TIDES\n\nINNER HARBOR\n\nCHESAPEAKE BLUE\n\nGallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy\n\nJEWELS OF THE SUN\n\nTEARS OF THE MOON\n\nHEART OF THE SEA\n\nThree Sisters Island Trilogy\n\nDANCE UPON THE AIR\n\nHEAVEN AND EARTH\n\nFACE THE FIRE\n\nKey Trilogy\n\nKEY OF LIGHT\n\nKEY OF KNOWLEDGE\n\nKEY OF VALOR\n\nIn the Garden Trilogy\n\nBLUE DAHLIA\n\nBLACK ROSE\n\nRED LILY\n\nCircle Trilogy\n\nMORRIGAN'S CROSS\n\nDANCE OF THE GODS\n\nVALLEY OF SILENCE\n\nSign of Seven Trilogy\n\nBLOOD BROTHERS\n\nAnthologies\n\nFROM THE HEART\n\nA LITTLE MAGIC\n\nA LITTLE FATE\n\nMOON SHADOWS (with Jill Gregory, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Marianne Willman)\n\nThe Once Upon Series (with Jill Gregory, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Marianne Willman)\n\nONCE UPON A CASTLE\n\nONCE UPON A STAR\n\nONCE UPON A DREAM\n\nONCE UPON A ROSE\n\nONCE UPON A KISS\n\nONCE UPON A MIDNIGHT\n\nJ. D. Robb\n\nNAKED IN DEATH\n\nGLORY IN DEATH\n\nIMMORTAL IN DEATH\n\nRAPTURE IN DEATH\n\nCEREMONY IN DEATH\n\nVENGEANCE IN DEATH\n\nHOLIDAY IN DEATH\n\nCONSPIRACY IN DEATH\n\nLOYALTY IN DEATH\n\nWITNESS IN DEATH\n\nJUDGMENT IN DEATH\n\nBETRAYAL IN DEATH\n\nSEDUCTION IN DEATH\n\nREUNION IN DEATH\n\nPURITY IN DEATH\n\nPORTRAIT IN DEATH\n\nIMITATION IN DEATH\n\nDIVIDED IN DEATH\n\nVISIONS IN DEATH\n\nSURVIVOR IN DEATH\n\nORIGIN IN DEATH\n\nMEMORY IN DEATH\n\nBORN IN DEATH\n\nINNOCENT IN DEATH\n\nCREATION IN DEATH\n\nAnthologies\n\nSILENT NIGHT (with Susan Plunkett, Dee Holmes, and Claire Cross)\n\nOUT OF THIS WORLD (with Laurell K. Hamilton, Susan Krinard, and Maggie Shayne)\n\nBUMP IN THE NIGHT (with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)\n\nDEAD OF NIGHT (with Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan, and Mary Kay McComas)\n\nAlso available...\n\nTHE OFFICIAL NORA ROBERTS COMPANION (edited by Denise Little and Laura Hayden)\n\n## NORA ROBERTS\n\n## BLOOD BROTHERS\n\nJOVE BOOKS, NEW YORK\nTHE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP \nPublished by the Penguin Group \nPenguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA \nPenguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) \nPenguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England \nPenguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) \nPenguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi\u2014110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) \nPenguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa\n\nPenguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England\n\nThis is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.\n\nBLOOD BROTHERS\n\nA Jove Book \/ published by arrangement with the author\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2007 by Nora Roberts. \nExcerpt from The Hollow copyright \u00a9 2007 by Nora Roberts.\n\nAll rights reserved. \nNo part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions. \nFor information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group, \na division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., \n375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.\n\nISBN: 1-101-14733-4\n\nJOVE\u00ae \nJove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. \nJOVE\u00ae is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. \nThe \"J\" design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.\nTo my boys, \nwho roamed the woods, \neven when they weren't supposed to.\nWhere God hath a temple, \nthe Devil will have a chapel.\n\n\u2014ROBERT BURTON\n\nThe childhood shows the man \nAs morning shows the day.\n\n\u2014JOHN MILTON\n\n## Contents\n\nPrologue\n\nChapter One\n\nChapter Two\n\nChapter Three\n\nChapter Four\n\nChapter Five\n\nChapter Six\n\nChapter Seven\n\nChapter Eight\n\nChapter Nine\n\nChapter Ten\n\nChapter Eleven\n\nChapter Twelve\n\nChapter Thirteen\n\nChapter Fourteen\n\nChapter Fifteen\n\nChapter Sixteen\n\nChapter Seventeen\n\nChapter Eighteen\n\nChapter Nineteen\n\nChapter Twenty\n\n## Prologue\n\nHawkins Hollow \nMaryland Province \n1652\n\nIT CRAWLED ALONG THE AIR THAT HUNG HEAVY as wet wool over the glade. Through the snakes of fog that slid silent over the ground, its hate crept. It came for him through the heat-smothered night.\n\nIt wanted his death.\n\nSo he waited as it pushed its way through the woods, its torch raised toward the empty sky, as it waded across the streams, around the thickets where small animals huddled in fear of the scent it bore with it.\n\nHellsmoke.\n\nHe had sent Ann and the lives she carried in her womb away, to safety. She had not wept, he thought now as he sprinkled the herbs he'd selected over water. Not his Ann. But he had seen the grief on her face, in the deep, dark eyes he had loved through this lifetime, and all the others before.\n\nThe three would be born from her, raised by her, and taught by her. And from them, when the time came, there would be three more.\n\nWhat power he had would be theirs, these sons, who would loose their first cries long, long after this night's work was done. To leave them what tools they would need, the weapons they would wield, he risked all he had, all he was.\n\nHis legacy to them was in blood, in heart, in vision.\n\nIn this last hour he would do all he could to provide them with what was needed to carry the burden, to remain true, to see their destiny.\n\nHis voice was strong and clear as he called to wind and water, to earth and fire. In the hearth the flames snapped. In the bowl the water trembled.\n\nHe laid the bloodstone on the cloth. Its deep green was generously spotted with red. He had treasured this stone, as had those who'd come before him. He had honored it. And now he poured power into it as one would pour water into a cup.\n\nSo his body shook and sweat and weakened as light hovered in a halo around the stone.\n\n\"For you now,\" he murmured, \"sons of sons. Three parts of one. In faith, in hope, in truth. One light, united, to strike back dark. And here, my vow. I will not rest until destiny is met.\"\n\nWith the athame, he scored his palm so his blood fell onto the stone, into the water, and into the flame.\n\n\"Blood of my blood. Here I will hold until you come for me, until you loose what must be loosed again on the world. May the gods keep you.\"\n\nFor a moment there was grief. Even through his purpose, there was grief. Not for his life, as the sands of it were dripping down the glass. He had no fear of death. No fear of what he would soon embrace that was not death. But he grieved that he would never lay his lips on Ann's again in this life. He would not see his children born, nor the children of his children. He grieved that he would not be able to stop the suffering to come, as he had been unable to stop the suffering that had come before, in so many other lifetimes.\n\nHe understood that he was not the instrument, but only the vessel to be filled and emptied at the needs of the gods.\n\nSo, weary from the work, saddened by the loss, he stood outside the little hut, beside the great stone, to meet his fate.\n\nIt came in the body of a man, but that was a shell. As his own body was a shell. It called itself Lazarus Twisse, an elder of \"the godly.\" He and those who followed had settled in the wilderness of this province when they broke with the Puritans of New England.\n\nHe studied them now in their torchlight, these men and the one who was not a man. These, he thought, who had come to the New World for religious freedom, and then persecuted and destroyed any who did not follow their single, narrow path.\n\n\"You are Giles Dent.\"\n\n\"I am,\" he said, \"in this time and this place.\"\n\nLazarus Twisse stepped forward. He wore the unrelieved formal black of an elder. His high-crowned, wide-brimmed hat shadowed his face. But Giles could see his eyes, and in his eyes, he saw the demon.\n\n\"Giles Dent, you and the female known as Ann Hawkins have been accused and found guilty of witchcraft and demonic practices.\"\n\n\"Who accuses?\"\n\n\"Bring the girl forward!\" Lazarus ordered.\n\nThey pulled her, a man on each arm. She was a slight girl, barely six and ten by Giles's calculation. Her face was wax white with fear, her eyes drenched with it. Her hair had been shorn.\n\n\"Hester Deale, is this the witch who seduced you?\"\n\n\"He and the one he calls wife laid hands on me.\" She spoke as if in a trance. \"They performed ungodly acts upon my body. They came to my window as ravens, flew into my room in the night. They stilled my throat so I could not speak or call for help.\"\n\n\"Child,\" Giles said gently, \"what has been done to you?\"\n\nThose fear-swamped eyes stared through him. \"They called to Satan as their god, and cut the throat of a cock in sacrifice. And drank its blood. They forced its blood on me. I could not stop them.\"\n\n\"Hester Deale, do you renounce Satan?\"\n\n\"I do renounce him.\"\n\n\"Hester Deale, do you renounce Giles Dent and the woman Ann Hawkins as witches and heretics?\"\n\n\"I do.\" Tears spilled down her cheeks. \"I do renounce them, and pray to God to save me. Pray to God to forgive me.\"\n\n\"He will,\" Giles whispered. \"You are not to blame.\"\n\n\"Where is the woman Ann Hawkins?\" Lazarus demanded, and Giles turned his clear gray eyes to him.\n\n\"You will not find her.\"\n\n\"Stand aside. I will enter this house of the devil.\"\n\n\"You will not find her,\" Giles repeated. For a moment he looked beyond Lazarus to the men and the handful of women who stood in his glade.\n\nHe saw death in their eyes, and more, the hunger for it. This was the demon's power, and his work.\n\nOnly in Hester's did Giles see fear or sorrow. So he used what he had to give, pushed his mind toward hers. Run!\n\nHe saw her jolt, stumble back, then he turned to Lazarus.\n\n\"We know each other, you and I. Dispatch them, release them, and it will be between us alone.\"\n\nFor an instant he saw the gleam of red in Lazarus's eyes. \"You are done. Burn the witch!\" he shouted. \"Burn the devil house and all within it!\"\n\nThey came with torches, and with clubs. Giles felt the blows rain on him, and the fury of the hate that was the demon's sharpest weapon.\n\nThey drove him to his knees, and the wood of the hut began to flame and smoke. Screams rang in his head, the madness of them.\n\nWith the last of his power he reached out toward the demon inside the man, with red rimming its dark eyes as it fed on the hate, the fear, the violence. He felt it gloat, he felt it rising, so sure of its victory, and the feast to follow.\n\nAnd he ripped it to him, through the smoking air. He heard it scream in fury and pain as the flames bit into flesh. And he held it to him, close as a lover as the fire consumed them.\n\nAnd with that union the fire burst, spread, destroyed every living thing in the glade.\n\nIt burned for a day and a night, like the belly of hell.\n\n## One\n\nHawkins Hollow \nMaryland \nJuly 6, 1987\n\nINSIDE THE PRETTY KITCHEN OF THE PRETTY house on Pleasant Avenue, Caleb Hawkins struggled not to squirm as his mother packed her version of campout provisions.\n\nIn his mother's world, ten-year-old boys required fresh fruit, homemade oatmeal cookies (they weren't so bad), half a dozen hard-boiled eggs, a bag of Ritz crackers made into sandwiches with Jif peanut butter for filling, some celery and carrot sticks (yuck!), and hearty ham-and-cheese sandwiches.\n\nThen there was the thermos of lemonade, the stack of paper napkins, and the two boxes of Pop-Tarts she wedged into the basket for breakfast.\n\n\"Mom, we're not going to starve to death,\" he complained as she stood deliberating in front of an open cupboard. \"We're going to be right in Fox's backyard.\"\n\nWhich was a lie, and kinda hurt his tongue. But she'd never let him go if he told her the truth. And, sheesh, he was ten. Or would be the very next day.\n\nFrannie Hawkins put her hands on her hips. She was a pert, attractive blonde with summer blue eyes and a stylish curly perm. She was the mother of three, and Cal was her baby and only boy. \"Now, let me check that backpack.\"\n\n\"Mom!\"\n\n\"Honey, I just want to be sure you didn't forget anything.\" Ruthless in her own sunny way, Frannie unzipped Cal's navy blue pack. \"Change of underwear, clean shirt, socks, good, good, shorts, toothbrush. Cal, where are the Band-Aids I told you to put in, and the Bactine, the bug repellant.\"\n\n\"Sheesh, we're not going to Africa.\"\n\n\"All the same,\" Frannie said, and did her signature finger wave to send him along to gather up the supplies. While he did, she slipped a card out of her pocket and tucked it into the pack.\n\nHe'd been born\u2014after eight hours and twelve minutes of vicious labor\u2014at one minute past midnight. Every year she stepped up to his bed at twelve, watched him sleep for that minute, then kissed him on the cheek.\n\nNow he'd be ten, and she wouldn't be able to perform the ritual. Because it made her eyes sting, she turned away to wipe at her spotless counter as she heard his tromping footsteps.\n\n\"I got it all, okay?\"\n\nSmiling brightly, she turned back. \"Okay.\" She stepped over to rub a hand over his short, soft hair. He'd been her towheaded baby boy, she mused, but his hair was darkening, and she suspected it would be a light brown eventually.\n\nJust as hers would be without the aid of Born Blonde.\n\nIn a habitual gesture, Frannie tapped his dark-framed glasses back up his nose. \"You make sure you thank Miss Barry and Mr. O'Dell when you get there.\"\n\n\"I will.\"\n\n\"And when you leave to come home tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am.\"\n\nShe took his face in her hands, looked through the thick lenses into eyes the same color as his father's calm gray ones. \"Behave,\" she said and kissed his cheek. \"Have fun.\" Then the other. \"Happy birthday, my baby.\"\n\nUsually it mortified him to be called her baby, but for some reason, just then, it made him feel sort of gooey and good.\n\n\"Thanks, Mom.\"\n\nHe shrugged on the backpack, then hefted the loaded picnic basket. How the hell was he going to ride all the way out to Hawkins Wood with half the darn grocery store on his bike?\n\nThe guys were going to razz him something fierce.\n\nSince he was stuck, he carted it into the garage where his bike hung tidily\u2014by Mom decree\u2014on a rack on the wall. Thinking it through, he borrowed two of his father's bungee cords and secured the picnic basket to the wire basket of his bike.\n\nThen he hopped on his bike and pedaled down the short drive.\n\nFOX FINISHED WEEDING HIS SECTION OF THE vegetable garden before hefting the spray his mother mixed up weekly to discourage the deer and rabbits from invading for an all-you-can-eat buffet. The garlic, raw egg, and cayenne pepper combination stank so bad he held his breath as he squirted it on the rows of snap beans and limas, the potato greens, the carrot and radish tops.\n\nHe stepped back, took a clear breath, and studied his work. His mother was pretty damn strict about the gardening. It was all about respecting the earth, harmonizing with Nature, and that stuff.\n\nIt was also, Fox knew, about eating, and making enough food and money to feed a family of six\u2014and whoever dropped by. Which was why his dad and his older sister, Sage, were down at their stand selling fresh eggs, goat's milk, honey, and his mother's homemade jams.\n\nHe glanced over to where his younger brother, Ridge, was stretched out between the rows playing with the weeds instead of yanking them. And because his mother was inside putting their baby sister, Sparrow, down for her nap, he was on Ridge duty.\n\n\"Come on, Ridge, pull the stupid things. I wanna go.\"\n\nRidge lifted his face, turned his I'm-dreaming eyes on his brother. \"Why can't I go with you?\"\n\n\"Because you're eight and you can't even weed the dumb tomatoes.\" Annoyed, Fox stepped over the rows to Ridge's section and, crouching, began to yank.\n\n\"Can, too.\"\n\nAs Fox hoped, the insult had Ridge weeding with a vengeance. Fox straightened, rubbed his hands on his jeans. He was a tall boy with a skinny build, a mass of bark brown hair worn in a waving tangle around a sharp-boned face. His eyes were tawny and reflected his satisfaction now as he trooped over for the sprayer.\n\nHe dumped it beside Ridge. \"Don't forget to spray this shit.\"\n\nHe crossed the yard, circling what was left\u2014three short walls and part of a chimney\u2014of the old stone hut on the edge of the vegetable garden. It was buried, as his mother liked it best, in honeysuckle and wild morning glory.\n\nHe skirted past the chicken coop and the cluckers that were pecking around, by the goat yard where the two nannies stood slack-hipped and bored, edged around his mother's herb garden. He headed toward the kitchen door of the house his parents had mostly built. The kitchen was big, and the counters loaded with projects\u2014canning jars, lids, tubs of candle wax, bowls of wicks.\n\nHe knew most of the people in and around the Hollow thought of his family as the weird hippies. It didn't bother him. For the most part they got along, and people were happy to buy their eggs and produce, his mother's needlework and handmade candles and crafts, or hire his dad to build stuff.\n\nFox washed up at the sink before rooting through the cupboards, poking in the big pantry searching for something that wasn't health food.\n\nFat chance.\n\nHe'd bike over to the market\u2014the one right outside of town just in case\u2014and use some of his savings to buy Little Debbies and Nutter Butters.\n\nHis mother came in, tossing her long brown braid off the shoulder bared by her cotton sundress. \"Finished?\"\n\n\"I am. Ridge is almost.\"\n\nJoanne walked to the window, her hand automatically lifting to brush down Fox's hair, staying to rest on his neck as she studied her young son.\n\n\"There's some carob brownies and some veggie dogs, if you want to take any.\"\n\n\"Ah.\" Barf. \"No, thanks. I'm good.\"\n\nHe knew that she knew he'd be chowing down on meat products and refined sugar. And he knew she knew he knew. But she wouldn't rag him about it. Choices were big with Mom.\n\n\"Have a good time.\"\n\n\"I will.\"\n\n\"Fox?\" She stood where she was, by the sink with the light coming in the window and haloing her hair. \"Happy birthday.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Mom.\" And with Little Debbies on his mind, he bolted out to grab his bike and start the adventure.\n\nTHE OLD MAN WAS STILL SLEEPING WHEN GAGE shoved some supplies into his pack. Gage could hear the snoring through the thin, crappy walls of the cramped, crappy apartment over the Bowl-a-Rama. The old man worked there cleaning the floors, the johns, and whatever else Cal's father found for him to do.\n\nHe might've been a day shy of his tenth birthday, but Gage knew why Mr. Hawkins kept the old man on, why they had the apartment rent-free with the old man supposedly being the maintenance guy for the building. Mr. Hawkins felt sorry for them\u2014and mostly sorry for Gage because he was stuck as the motherless son of a mean drunk.\n\nOther people felt sorry for him, too, and that put Gage's back up. Not Mr. Hawkins though. He never let the pity show. And whenever Gage did any chores for the bowling alley, Mr. Hawkins paid him in cash, on the side. And with a conspirator's wink.\n\nHe knew, hell, everybody knew, that Bill Turner knocked his kid around from time to time. But Mr. Hawkins was the only one who'd ever sat down with Gage and asked him what he wanted. Did he want the cops, Social Services, did he want to come stay with him and his family for a while?\n\nHe hadn't wanted the cops or the do-gooders. They only made it worse. And though he'd have given anything to live in that nice house with people who lived decent lives, he'd only asked if Mr. Hawkins would please, please, not fire his old man.\n\nHe got knocked around less whenever Mr. Hawkins kept his father busy and employed. Unless, of course, good old Bill went on a toot and decided to whale in.\n\nIf Mr. Hawkins knew how bad it could get during those times, he would call the cops.\n\nSo he didn't tell, and he learned to be very good at hiding beatings like the one he'd taken the night before.\n\nGage moved carefully as he snagged three cold ones out of his father's beer supply. The welts on his back and butt were still raw and angry and they stung like fire. He'd expected the beating. He always got one around his birthday. He always got another one around the date of his mother's death.\n\nThose were the big, traditional two. Other times, the whippings came as a surprise. But mostly, when the old man was working steady, the hits were just a careless cuff or shove.\n\nHe didn't bother to be quiet when he turned toward his father's bedroom. Nothing short of a raid by the A-Team would wake Bill Turner when he was in a drunken sleep.\n\nThe room stank of beer sweat and stale smoke, causing Gage to wrinkle his handsome face. He took the half pack of Marlboros off the dresser. The old man wouldn't remember if he'd had any, so no problem there.\n\nWithout a qualm, he opened his father's wallet and helped himself to three singles and a five.\n\nHe looked at his father as he stuffed the bills in his pocket. Bill sprawled on the bed, stripped down to his boxers, his mouth open as the snores pumped out.\n\nThe belt he'd used on his son the night before lay on the floor along with dirty shirts, socks, jeans.\n\nFor a moment, just a moment, it rippled through Gage with a kind of mad glee\u2014the image of himself picking up that belt, swinging it high, laying it snapping hard over his father's bare, sagging belly.\n\nSee how you like it.\n\nBut there on the table with its overflowing ashtray, the empty bottle, was the picture of Gage's mother, smiling out.\n\nPeople said he looked like her\u2014the dark hair, the hazy green eyes, the strong mouth. It had embarrassed him once, being compared to a woman. But lately, since everything but that one photograph was so faded in his head, when he couldn't hear her voice in his head or remember how she'd smelled, it steadied him.\n\nHe looked like his mother.\n\nSometimes he imagined the man who drank himself into a stupor most nights wasn't his father.\n\nHis father was smart and brave and sort of reckless.\n\nAnd then he'd look at the old man and know that was all bullshit.\n\nHe shot the old bastard the finger as he left the room. He had to carry his backpack. No way he could put it on with the welts riding his back.\n\nHe took the outside steps down, went around the back where he chained up his thirdhand bike.\n\nDespite the pain, he grinned as he got on.\n\nFor the next twenty-four hours, he was free.\n\nTHEY'D AGREED TO MEET ON THE WEST EDGE OF town where the woods crept toward the curve of the road. The middle-class boy, the hippie kid, and the drunk's son.\n\nThey shared the same birthday, July seventh. Cal had let out his first shocked cry in the delivery room of Washington County Hospital while his mother panted and his father wept. Fox had shoved his way into the world and into his laughing father's waiting hands in the bedroom of the odd little farmhouse while Bob Dylan sang \"Lay, Lady, Lay\" on the record player, and lavender-scented candles burned. And Gage had struggled out of his terrified mother in an ambulance racing up Maryland Route 65.\n\nNow, Gage arrived first, sliding off his bike to walk it into the trees where nobody cruising the road could spot it, or him.\n\nThen he sat on the ground and lit his first cigarette of the afternoon. They always made him a little sick to his stomach, but the defiant act of lighting up made up for the queasiness.\n\nHe sat and smoked in the shady woods, and imagined himself on a mountain path in Colorado or in a steamy South American jungle.\n\nAnywhere but here.\n\nHe'd taken his third puff, and his first cautious inhale, when he heard the bumps of tires over dirt and rock.\n\nFox pushed through the trees on Lightning, his bike so named because Fox's father had painted lightning bolts on the bars.\n\nHis dad was cool that way.\n\n\"Hey, Turner.\"\n\n\"O'Dell.\" Gage held out the cigarette.\n\nThey both knew Fox took it only because to do otherwise made him a dweeb. So he took a quick drag, passed it back. Gage nodded to the bag tied to Lightning's handlebars. \"What'd you get?\"\n\n\"Little Debbies, Nutter Butters, some Tasty Kake pies. Apple and cherry.\"\n\n\"Righteous. I got three cans of Bud for tonight.\"\n\nFox's eyes didn't pop out of his head, but they were close. \"No shit?\"\n\n\"No shit. Old man was trashed. He'll never know the difference. I got something else, too. Last month's Penthouse magazine.\"\n\n\"No way.\"\n\n\"He keeps them buried under a bunch of crap in the bathroom.\"\n\n\"Lemme see.\"\n\n\"Later. With the beer.\"\n\nThey both looked over as Cal dragged his bike down the rough path. \"Hey, jerkwad,\" Fox greeted him.\n\n\"Hey, dickheads.\"\n\nThat said with the affection of brothers, they walked their bikes deeper into the trees, then off the narrow path.\n\nOnce the bikes were deemed secure, supplies were untied and divvied up.\n\n\"Jesus, Hawkins, what'd your mom put in here?\"\n\n\"You won't complain when you're eating it.\" Cal's arms were already protesting the weight as he scowled at Gage. \"Why don't you put your pack on, and give me a hand?\"\n\n\"Because I'm carrying it.\" But he flipped the top on the basket and after hooting at the Tupperware, shoved a couple of the containers into his pack. \"Put something in yours, O'Dell, or it'll take us all day just to get to Hester's Pool.\"\n\n\"Shit.\" Fox pulled out a thermos, wedged it in his pack. \"Light enough now, Sally?\"\n\n\"Screw you. I got the basket and my pack.\"\n\n\"I got the supplies from the market and my pack.\" Fox pulled his prized possession from his bike. \"You carry the boom box, Turner.\"\n\nGage shrugged, took the radio. \"Then I pick the tunes.\"\n\n\"No rap,\" Cal and Fox said together, but Gage only grinned as he walked and tuned until he found some Run-DMC.\n\nWith a lot of bitching and moaning, they started the hike.\n\nThe leaves, thick and green, cut the sun's glare and summer heat. Through the thick poplars and towering oaks, slices and dabs of milky blue sky peeked. They aimed for the wind of the creek while the rapper and Aero-smith urged them to walk this way.\n\n\"Gage has a Penthouse,\" Fox announced. \"The skin magazine, numbnut,\" he said at Cal's blank stare.\n\n\"Uh-uh.\"\n\n\"Uh-huh. Come on, Turner, break it out.\"\n\n\"Not until we're camped and pop the beer.\"\n\n\"Beer!\" Instinctively, Cal sent a look over his shoulder, just in case his mother had magically appeared. \"You got beer?\"\n\n\"Three cans of suds,\" Gage confirmed, strutting. \"Smokes, too.\"\n\n\"Is this far-out or what?\" Fox gave Cal a punch in the arm. \"It's the best birthday ever.\"\n\n\"Ever,\" Cal agreed, secretly terrified. Beer, cigarettes, and pictures of naked women. If his mother ever found out, he'd be grounded until he was thirty. That didn't even count the fact he'd lied. Or that he was hiking his way through Hawkins Wood to camp out at the expressly forbidden Pagan Stone.\n\nHe'd be grounded until he died of old age.\n\n\"Stop worrying.\" Gage shifted his pack from one arm to the other, with a wicked glint of what-the-hell in his eyes. \"It's all cool.\"\n\n\"I'm not worried.\" Still, Cal jolted when a fat jay zoomed out of the trees and let out an irritated call.\n\n## Two\n\nHESTER'S POOL WAS ALSO FORBIDDEN IN CAL'S world, which was only one of the reasons it was irresistible.\n\nThe scoop of brown water, fed by the winding Antietam Creek and hidden in the thick woods, was supposed to be haunted by some weird Pilgrim girl who'd drowned in it way back whenever.\n\nHe'd heard his mother talk about a boy who'd drowned there when she'd been a kid, which in Mom Logic was the number one reason Cal was never allowed to swim there. The kid's ghost was supposed to be there, too, lurking under the water, just waiting to grab another kid's ankle and drag him down to the bottom so he'd have somebody to hang out with.\n\nCal had swum there twice that summer, giddy with fear and excitement. And both times he'd sworn he'd felt bony fingers brush over his ankle.\n\nA dense army of cattails trooped along the edges, and around the slippery bank grew bunches of the wild orange lilies his mother liked. Fans of ferns climbed up the rocky slope, along with brambles of wild berries, which when ripe would stain the fingers a kind of reddish purple that looked a little like blood.\n\nThe last time they'd come, he'd seen a black snake slither its way up the slope, barely stirring the ferns.\n\nFox let out a shout, dumped his pack. In seconds he'd dragged off his shoes, his shirt, his jeans and was sailing over the water in a cannonball without a thought for snakes or ghosts or whatever else might be under that murky brown surface.\n\n\"Come on, you pussies!\" After a slick surface dive, Fox bobbed around the pool like a seal.\n\nCal sat, untied his Converse All Stars, carefully tucked his socks inside them. While Fox continued to whoop and splash, he glanced over where Gage simply stood looking out over the water.\n\n\"You going in?\"\n\n\"I dunno.\"\n\nCal pulled off his shirt, folded it out of habit. \"It's on the agenda. We can't cross it off unless we all do it.\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah.\" But Gage only stood as Cal stripped down to his Fruit of the Looms.\n\n\"We have to all go in, dare the gods and stuff.\"\n\nWith a shrug, Gage toed off his shoes. \"Go on, what are you, a homo? Want to watch me take my clothes off?\"\n\n\"Gross.\" And slipping his glasses inside his left shoe, Cal sucked in breath, gave thanks his vision blurred, and jumped.\n\nThe water was a quick, cold shock.\n\nFox immediately spewed water in his face, fully blinding him, then stroked off toward the cattails before retaliation. Just when he'd managed to clear his myopic eyes, Gage jumped in and blinded him all over again.\n\n\"Sheesh, you guys!\"\n\nGage's choppy dog paddle worked up the water, so Cal swam clear of the storm. Of the three, he was the best swimmer. Fox was fast, but he ran out of steam. And Gage, well, Gage sort of attacked the water like he was in a fight with it.\n\nCal worried\u2014even as part of him thrilled at the idea\u2014that he'd one day have to use the lifesaving techniques his dad had taught him in their aboveground pool to save Gage from drowning.\n\nHe was picturing it, and how Gage and Fox would stare at him with gratitude and admiration, when a hand grabbed his ankle and yanked him underwater.\n\nEven though he knew it was Fox who pulled him down, Cal's heart slammed into his throat as the water closed over his head. He floundered, forgetting all his training in that first instant of panic. Even as he managed to kick off the hold on his ankle and gather himself to push to the surface, he saw a movement to the left.\n\nIt\u2014she\u2014seemed to glide through the water toward him. Her hair streamed back from her white face, and her eyes were cave black. As her hand reached out, Cal opened his mouth to scream. Gulping in water, he clawed his way to the surface.\n\nHe could hear laughter all around him, tinny and echoing like the music out of the old transistor radio his father sometimes used. With terror biting inside his throat, he slapped and clawed his way to the edge of the pool.\n\n\"I saw her, I saw her, in the water, I saw her.\" He choked out the words while fighting to climb out.\n\nShe was coming for him, fast as a shark in his mind, and in his mind he saw her mouth open, and the teeth gleam sharp as knives.\n\n\"Get out! Get out of the water!\" Panting, he crawled through the slippery weeds and rolling, saw his friends treading water. \"She's in the water.\" He almost sobbed it, bellying over to fumble his glasses out of his shoe. \"I saw her. Get out. Hurry up!\"\n\n\"Oooh, the ghost! Help me, help me!\" With a mock gurgle, Fox sank underwater.\n\nCal lurched to his feet, balled his hands into fists at his sides. Fury tangled with terror to have his voice lashing through the still summer air. \"Get the fuck out.\"\n\nThe grin on Gage's face faded. Eyes narrowed on Cal, he gripped Fox by the arm when Fox surfaced laughing.\n\n\"We're getting out.\"\n\n\"Come on. He's just being spaz because I dunked him.\"\n\n\"He's not bullshitting.\"\n\nThe tone got through, or when he bothered to look, the expression on Cal's face tripped a chord. Fox shot off toward the edge, spooked enough to send a couple of wary looks over his shoulder.\n\nGage followed, a careless dog paddle that made Cal think he was daring something to happen.\n\nWhen his friends hauled themselves out, Cal sank back down to the ground. Drawing his knees up, he pressed his forehead to them and began to shake.\n\n\"Man.\" Dripping in his underwear, Fox shifted from foot to foot. \"I just gave you a tug, and you freak out. We were just fooling around.\"\n\n\"I saw her.\"\n\nCrouching, Fox shoved his sopping hair back from his face. \"Dude, you can't see squat without those Coke bottles.\"\n\n\"Shut up, O'Dell.\" Gage squatted down. \"What did you see, Cal?\"\n\n\"Her. She had all this hair swimming around her, and her eyes, oh man, her eyes were black like the shark in Jaws. She had this long dress on, long sleeves and all, and she reached out like she was going to grab me\u2014\"\n\n\"With her bony fingers,\" Fox put in, falling well short of his target of disdain.\n\n\"They weren't bony.\" Cal lifted his head now, and behind the lenses his eyes were fierce and frightened. \"I thought they would be, but she looked, all of her, looked just...real. Not like a ghost or a skeleton. Oh man, oh God, I saw her. I'm not making it up.\"\n\n\"Well Jee-sus.\" Fox crab-walked another foot away from the pond, then cursed breathlessly when he tore his forearm on berry thorns. \"Shit, now I'm bleeding.\" Fox yanked a handful of weedy grass, swiped at the blood seeping from the scratches.\n\n\"Don't even think about it.\" Cal saw the way Gage was studying the water\u2014that thoughtful, wonder-what'll-happen gleam in his eye. \"Nobody's going in there. You don't swim well enough to try it anyway.\"\n\n\"How come you're the only one who saw her?\"\n\n\"I don't know and I don't care. I just want to get away from here.\"\n\nCal leaped up, grabbed his pants. Before he could wiggle into them, he saw Gage from behind. \"Holy cow. Your back is messed up bad.\"\n\n\"The old man got wasted last night. It's no big deal.\"\n\n\"Dude.\" Fox walked around to get a look. \"That's gotta hurt.\"\n\n\"The water cooled it off.\"\n\n\"I've got my first aid kit\u2014\" Cal began, but Gage cut him off.\n\n\"I said no big deal.\" He grabbed his shirt, pulled it on. \"If you two don't have the balls to go back in and see what happens, we might as well move on.\"\n\n\"I don't have the balls,\" Cal said in such a deadpan, Gage snorted out a laugh.\n\n\"Then put your pants on so I don't have to wonder what that is hanging between your legs.\"\n\nFox broke out the Little Debbies, and one of the six-pack of Coke he'd bought at the market. Because the incident in the pond and the welts on Gage's back were too important, they didn't speak of them. Instead, hair still dripping, they resumed the hike, gobbling snack cakes and sharing a can of warm soda.\n\nBut with Bon Jovi claiming they were halfway there, Cal thought of what he'd seen. Why had he been the only one? How had her face been so clear in the murky water, and with his glasses tucked in his shoe? How could he have seen her? With every step he took away from the pond, it was easier to convince himself he'd just imagined it.\n\nNot that he'd ever, ever admit that maybe he'd just freaked out.\n\nThe heat dried his damp skin and brought on the sweat. It made him wonder how Gage could stand having his shirt clinging to his sore back. Because, man, those marks were all red and bumpy, and really had to hurt. He'd seen Gage after Old Man Turner had gone after him before, and it hadn't ever, ever been as bad as this. He wished Gage had let him put some salve on his back.\n\nWhat if it got infected? What if he got blood poisoning, got all delirious or something when they were all the way to the Pagan Stone?\n\nHe'd have to send Fox for help, yeah, that's what he'd do\u2014send Fox for help while he stayed with Gage and treated the wounds, got him to drink something so he didn't\u2014what was it?\u2014dehydrate.\n\nOf course, all their butts would be in the sling when his dad had to come get them, but Gage would get better.\n\nMaybe they'd put Gage's father in jail. Then what would happen? Would Gage have to go to an orphanage?\n\nIt was almost as scary to think about as the woman in the pond.\n\nThey stopped to rest, then sat in the shade to share one of Gage's stolen Marlboros. They always made Cal dizzy, but it was kind of nice to sit there in the trees with the water sliding over rocks behind them and a bunch of crazy birds calling out to each other.\n\n\"We could camp right here,\" Cal said half to himself.\n\n\"No way.\" Fox punched his shoulder. \"We're turning ten at the Pagan Stone. No changing the plan. We'll be there in under an hour. Right, Gage?\"\n\nGage stared up through the trees. \"Yeah. We'd be moving faster if you guys hadn't brought so much shit with you.\"\n\n\"Didn't see you turn down a Little Debbie,\" Fox reminded him.\n\n\"Nobody turns down Little Debbies. Well...\" He crushed out the cigarette, then planted a rock over the butt. \"Saddle up, troops.\"\n\nNobody came here. Cal knew it wasn't true, knew when deer was in season these woods were hunted.\n\nBut it felt like nobody came here. The two other times he'd been talked into hiking all the way to the Pagan Stone he'd felt exactly the same. And both those times they'd started out early in the morning instead of afternoon. They'd been back out before two.\n\nNow, according to his Timex, it was nearly four. Despite the snack cake, his stomach wanted to rumble. He wanted to stop again, to dig into what his mother had packed in the stupid basket.\n\nBut Gage was pushing on, anxious to get to the Pagan Stone.\n\nThe earth in the clearing had a scorched look about it, as if a fire had blown through the trees there and turned them all to ash. It was almost a perfect circle, ringed by oaks and locus and the bramble of wild berries. In its center was a single rock that jutted two feet out of the burned earth and flattened at the top like a small table.\n\nSome said altar.\n\nPeople, when they spoke of it at all, said the Pagan Stone was just a big rock that pushed out of the ground. Ground so colored because of minerals, or an underground stream, or maybe caves.\n\nBut others, who were usually more happy to talk about it, pointed to the original settlement of Hawkins Hollow and the night thirteen people met their doom, burned alive in that very clearing.\n\nWitchcraft, some said, and others devil worship.\n\nAnother theory was that an inhospitable band of Indians had killed them, then burned the bodies.\n\nBut whatever the theory, the pale gray stone rose out of the soot-colored earth like a monument.\n\n\"We made it!\" Fox dumped his pack and his bag to dash forward and do a dancing run around the rock. \"Is this cool? Is this cool? Nobody knows where we are. And we've got all night to do anything we want.\"\n\n\"Anything we want in the middle of the woods,\" Cal added. Without a TV, or a refrigerator.\n\nFox threw back his head and let out a shout that echoed away. \"See that? Nobody can hear us. We could be attacked by mutants or ninjas or space aliens, and nobody would hear us.\"\n\nThat, Cal realized, didn't make his stomach feel any steadier. \"We need to get wood for a campfire.\"\n\n\"The Boy Scout's right,\" Gage decided. \"You guys find some wood. I'll go put the beer and the Coke in the stream. Cool off the cans.\"\n\nIn his tidy way, Cal organized the campsite first. Food in one area, clothes in another, tools in another still. With his Scout knife and compass in his pocket, he set off to gather twigs and small branches. The brambles nipped and scratched as he picked his way through them. With his arms loaded, he didn't notice a few drops of his blood drip onto the ground at the edge of the circle.\n\nOr the way the blood sizzled, smoked, then was sucked into that scarred earth.\n\nFox set the boom box on the rock, so they set up camp with Madonna and U2 and the Boss. Following Cal's advice, they built the fire, but didn't set it to light while they had the sun.\n\nSweaty and filthy, they sat on the ground and tore into the picnic basket with grubby hands and huge appetites. As the food, the familiar flavors filled his belly and soothed his system, Cal decided it had been worth hauling the basket for a couple of hours.\n\nReplete, they stretched out on their backs, faces to the sky.\n\n\"Do you really think all those people died right here?\" Gage wondered.\n\n\"There are books about it in the library,\" Cal told him. \"About a fire of, like, 'unknown origin' breaking out and these people burned up.\"\n\n\"Kind of a weird place for them to be.\"\n\n\"We're here.\"\n\nGage only grunted at that.\n\n\"My mom said how the first white people to settle here were Puritans.\" Fox blew a huge pink bubble with the Bazooka he'd bought at the market. \"A sort of radical Puritan or something. How they came over here looking for religious freedom, but really only meant it was free if it was, you know, their way. Mom says lots of people are like that about religion. I don't get it.\"\n\nGage thought he knew, or knew part. \"A lot of people are mean, and even if they're not, a lot more people think they're better than you.\" He saw it all the time, in the way people looked at him.\n\n\"But do you think they were witches, and the people from the Hollow back then burned them at the stake or something?\" Fox rolled over on his belly. \"My mom says that being a witch is like a religion, too.\"\n\n\"Your mom's whacked.\"\n\nBecause it was Gage, and because it was said jokingly, Fox grinned. \"We're all whacked.\"\n\n\"I say this calls for a beer.\" Gage pushed up. \"We'll share one, let the others get colder.\" As Gage walked off to the stream, Cal and Fox exchanged looks.\n\n\"You ever had beer before?\" Cal wanted to know.\n\n\"No. You?\"\n\n\"Are you kidding? I can only have Coke on special occasions. What if we get drunk and pass out or something?\"\n\n\"My dad drinks beer sometimes. He doesn't, I don't think.\"\n\nThey went quiet when Gage walked back with the dripping can. \"Okay. This is to, you know, celebrate that we're going to stop being kids at midnight.\"\n\n\"Maybe we shouldn't drink it until midnight,\" Cal supposed.\n\n\"We'll have the second one after. It's like...it's like a ritual.\"\n\nThe sound of the top popping was loud in the quiet woods, a quick crack, almost as shocking to Cal as a gunshot might have been. He smelled the beer immediately, and it struck him as a sour smell. He wondered if it tasted the same.\n\nGage held the beer up in one hand, high, as if he gripped the hilt of a sword. Then he lowered it, took a long, deep gulp from the can.\n\nHe didn't quite mask the reaction, a closing in of his face as if he'd swallowed something strange and unpleasant. His cheeks flushed as he let out a short, gasping breath.\n\n\"It's still pretty warm but it...\" He coughed once. \"It hits the spot. Now you.\"\n\nHe passed the can to Fox. With a shrug, Fox took the can, mirrored Gage's move. Everyone knew if there was anything close to a dare, Fox would jump at it. \"Ugh. It tastes like piss.\"\n\n\"You been drinking piss lately?\"\n\nFox snorted at Gage's question and passed the can to Cal. \"Your turn.\"\n\nCal studied the can. It wasn't like a sip of beer would kill him or anything. So he sucked in a breath and swallowed some down.\n\nIt made his stomach curl and his eyes water. He shoved the can back at Gage. \"It does taste like piss.\"\n\n\"I guess people don't drink it for how it tastes. It's how it makes you feel.\" Gage took another sip, because he wanted to know how it made him feel.\n\nThey sat cross-legged in the circular clearing, knees bumping, passing the can from hand to hand.\n\nCal's stomach pitched, but it didn't feel sick, not exactly. His head pitched, too, but it felt sort of goofy and fun. And the beer made his bladder full. When he stood, the whole world pitched and made him laugh helplessly as he staggered toward a tree.\n\nHe unzipped, aimed toward the tree but the tree kept moving.\n\nFox was struggling to light one of the cigarettes when Cal stumbled back. They passed that around the circle as well until Cal's almost ten-year-old stomach revolted. He crawled off to sick it all up, crawled back, and just lay flat, closing his eyes and willing the world to go still again.\n\nHe felt as if he were once again swimming in the pond, and being slowly pulled under.\n\nWhen he surfaced again it was nearly dusk.\n\nHe eased up, hoping he wouldn't be sick again. He felt a little hollow inside\u2014belly and head\u2014but not like he was going to puke. He saw Fox curled against the stone, sleeping. He crawled over on all fours for the thermos and as he washed the sick and beer out of his throat, he was never so grateful for his mother and her lemonade.\n\nSteadier, he rubbed his fingers on his eyes under his glasses, then spotted Gage sitting, staring at the tented wood of the campfire they'd yet to light.\n\n\"'Morning, Sally.\"\n\nWith a wan smile, Cal scooted over.\n\n\"I don't know how to light this thing. I figured it was about time to, but I needed a Boy Scout.\"\n\nCal took the book of matches Gage handed him, and set fire to several spots on the pile of dried leaves he'd arranged under the wood. \"That should do it. Wind's pretty still, and there's nothing to catch in the clearing. We can keep feeding it when we need to, and just make sure we bury it before we go tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Smokey the Bear. You all right?\"\n\n\"Yeah. I guess I threw most everything up.\"\n\n\"I shouldn't have brought the beer.\"\n\nCal lifted a shoulder, glanced toward Fox. \"We're okay, and now we won't have to wonder what it tastes like. We know it tastes like piss.\"\n\nGage laughed a little. \"It didn't make me feel mean.\" He picked up a stick, poked at the little flames. \"I wanted to know if it would, and I figured I could try it with you and Fox. You're my best friends, so I could try it with you and see if it made me feel mean.\"\n\n\"How did it make you feel?\"\n\n\"It made my head hurt. It still does a little. I didn't get sick like you, but I sorta wanted to. I went and got one of the Cokes and drank that. It felt better then. Why does he drink so goddamn much if it makes him feel like that?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\nGage dropped his head on his knees. \"He was crying when he went after me last night. Blubbering and crying the whole time he used the belt on me. Why would anybody want to feel like that?\"\n\nCareful to avoid the welts on Gage's back, Cal draped an arm over his shoulders. He wished he knew what to say.\n\n\"Soon as I'm old enough I'm getting out. Join the army maybe, or get a job on a freighter, maybe an oil rig.\"\n\nGage's eyes gleamed when he lifted his head, and Cal looked away because he knew the shine was tears. \"You can come stay with us when you need to.\"\n\n\"It'd just be worse when I went back. But I'm going to be ten in a few hours. And in a few years I'll be as big as he is. Bigger maybe. I won't let him come after me then. I won't let him hit me. Screw it.\" Gage rubbed his face. \"Let's wake Fox up. Nobody sleeps tonight.\"\n\nFox moaned and grumbled, and he got himself up to pee and fetch a cool Coke from the stream. They shared it with another round of Little Debbies. And, at last, the copy of Penthouse.\n\nCal had seen naked breasts before. You could see them in the National Geographic in the library, if you knew where to look.\n\nBut these were different.\n\n\"Hey guys, did you ever think about doing it?\" Cal asked.\n\n\"Who doesn't?\" they both replied.\n\n\"Whoever does it first has to tell the other two everything. All about how it feels,\" Cal continued. \"And how you did it, and what she does. Everything. I call for an oath.\"\n\nA call for an oath was sacred. Gage spat on the back of his hand, held it out. Fox slapped his palm on, spat on the back of his hand, and Cal completed the contact.\n\n\"And so we swear,\" they said together.\n\nThey sat around the fire as the stars came out, and deep in the woods an owl hooted its night call.\n\nThe long, sweaty hike, ghostly apparitions, and beer puke were forgotten.\n\n\"We should do this every year on our birthday,\" Cal decided. \"Even when we're old. Like thirty or something. The three of us should come here.\"\n\n\"Drink beer and look at pictures of naked girls,\" Fox added. \"I call for\u2014\"\n\n\"Don't.\" Gage spoke sharply. \"I can't swear. I don't know where I'm going to go, but it'll be somewhere else. I don't know if I'll ever come back.\"\n\n\"Then we'll go where you are, when we can. We're always going to be best friends.\" Nothing would change that, Cal thought, and took his own, personal oath on it. Nothing ever could. He looked at his watch. \"It's going to be midnight soon. I have an idea.\"\n\nHe took out his Boy Scout knife and, opening the blade, held it in the fire.\n\n\"What's up?\" Fox demanded.\n\n\"I'm sterilizing it. Like, ah, purifying it.\" It got so hot he had to pull back, blow on his fingers. \"It's like Gage said about ritual and stuff. Ten years is a decade. We've known each other almost the whole time. We were born on the same day. It makes us...different,\" he said, searching for words he wasn't quite sure of. \"Like special, I guess. We're best friends. We're like brothers.\"\n\nGage looked at the knife, then into Cal's face. \"Blood brothers.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Cool.\" Already committed, Fox held out his hand.\n\n\"At midnight,\" Cal said. \"We should do it at midnight, and we should have some words to say.\"\n\n\"We'll swear an oath,\" Gage said. \"That we mix our blood, um, three into one? Something like that. In loyalty.\"\n\n\"That's good. Write it down, Cal.\"\n\nCal dug pencil and paper out of his pack. \"We'll write words down, and say them together. Then we'll do the cut and put our wrists together. I've got Band-Aids for after if we need them.\"\n\nCal wrote the words with his Number Two pencil on the blue lined paper, crossing out when they changed their minds.\n\nFox added more wood to the fire so that the flames crackled as they stood by the Pagan Stone.\n\nAt moments to midnight, they stood, three young boys with faces lit by fire and starlight. At Gage's nod, they spoke together in voices solemn and achingly young.\n\n\"We were born ten years ago, on the same night, at the same time, in the same year. We are brothers. At the Pagan Stone we swear an oath of loyalty and truth and brotherhood. We mix our blood.\"\n\nCal sucked in a breath and geared up the courage to run the knife across his wrist first. \"Ouch.\"\n\n\"We mix our blood.\" Fox gritted his teeth as Cal cut his wrist.\n\n\"We mix our blood.\" And Gage stood unflinching as the knife drew over his flesh.\n\n\"Three into one, and one for the three.\"\n\nCal held his arm out. Fox, then Gage pressed their scored wrists down to his. \"Brothers in spirit, in mind. Brothers in blood for all time.\"\n\nAs they stood, clouds shivered over the fat moon, misted over the bright stars. Their mixed blood dripped and fell onto the burnt ground.\n\nThe wind exploded with a voice like a raging scream. The little campfire spewed up flame in a spearing tower. The three of them were lifted off their feet as if a hand gripped them, tossed them. Light burst as if the stars had shattered.\n\nAs he opened his mouth to shout, Cal felt something shove inside him, hot and strong, to smother his lungs, to squeeze his heart in a stunning agony of pain.\n\nThe light shut off. In the thick dark blew an icy cold that numbed his skin. The sound the wind made now was like an animal, like a monster that only lived inside books. Beneath him the ground shook, heaving him back as he tried to crawl away.\n\nAnd something came out of that icy dark, out of that quaking ground. Something huge and horrible.\n\nEyes bloodred and full of...hunger. It looked at him. And when it smiled, its teeth glittered like silver swords.\n\nHe thought he died, and that it took him in, in one gulp.\n\nBut when he came to himself again, he could hear his own heart. He could hear the shouts and calls of his friends.\n\nBlood brothers.\n\n\"Jesus, Jesus, what was that? Did you see?\" Fox called out in a voice thin as a reed. \"Gage, God, your nose is bleeding.\"\n\n\"So's yours. Something...Cal. God, Cal.\"\n\nCal lay where he was, flat on his back. He felt the wet warmth of blood on his face. He was too numb to be frightened by it. \"I can't see.\" He croaked out a weak whisper. \"I can't see.\"\n\n\"Your glasses are broken.\" Face filthy with soot and blood, Fox crawled to him. \"One of the lenses is cracked. Dude, your mom's going to kill you.\"\n\n\"Broken.\" Shaking, Cal reached up to pull off his glasses.\n\n\"Something. Something was here.\" Gage gripped Cal's shoulder. \"I felt something happen, after everything went crazy, I felt something happen inside me. Then...did you see it? Did you see that thing?\"\n\n\"I saw its eyes,\" Fox said, and his teeth chattered. \"We need to get out of here. We need to get out.\"\n\n\"Where?\" Gage demanded. Though his breath still wheezed, he grabbed Cal's knife from the ground, gripped it. \"We don't know where it went. Was it some kind of bear? Was it\u2014\"\n\n\"It wasn't a bear.\" Cal spoke calmly now. \"It was what's been here, in this place, a long time. I can see...I can see it. It looked like a man once, when it wanted. But it wasn't.\"\n\n\"Man, you hit your head.\"\n\nCal turned his eyes on Fox, and the irises were nearly black. \"I can see it, and the other.\" He opened the hand of the wrist he'd cut. In the palm was a chunk of a green stone spotted with red. \"His.\"\n\nFox opened his hand, and Gage his. In each was an identical third of the stone. \"What is it?\" Gage whispered. \"Where the hell did it come from?\"\n\n\"I don't know, but it's ours now. Uh, one into three, three into one. I think we let something out. And something came with it. Something bad. I can see.\"\n\nHe closed his eyes a moment, then opened them to look at his friends. \"I can see, but not with my glasses. I can see without them. It's not blurry. I can see without my glasses.\"\n\n\"Wait.\" Trembling, Gage pulled up his shirt, turned his back.\n\n\"Man, they're gone.\" Fox reached out to touch his fingers to Gage's unmarred back. \"The welts. They're gone. And...\" He held out his wrist where the shallow cut was already healing. \"Holy cow, are we like superheroes now?\"\n\n\"It's a demon,\" Cal said. \"And we let it out.\"\n\n\"Shit.\" Gage stared off into the dark woods. \"Happy goddamn birthday to us.\"\n\n## Three\n\nHawkins Hollow \nFebruary 2008\n\nIT WAS COLDER IN HAWKINS HOLLOW, MARYLAND, than it was in Juno, Alaska. Cal liked to know little bits like that, even though at the moment he was in the Hollow where the damp, cold wind blew like a mother and froze his eyeballs.\n\nHis eyeballs were about the only things exposed as he zipped across Main Street from Coffee Talk, with a to-go cup of mochaccino in one gloved hand, to the Bowl-a-Rama.\n\nThree days a week, he tried for a counter breakfast at Ma's Pantry a couple doors down, and at least once a week he hit Gino's for dinner.\n\nHis father believed in supporting the community, the other merchants. Now that his dad was semiretired and Cal oversaw most of the businesses, he tried to follow that Hawkins tradition.\n\nHe shopped the local market even though the chain supermarket a couple miles outside town was cheaper. If he wanted to send a woman flowers, he resisted doing so with a couple of clicks on his computer and hauled himself down to the Flower Pot.\n\nHe had relationships with the local plumber, electrician, painter, the area craftsmen. Whenever possible, he hired for the town from the town.\n\nExcept for his years away at college, he'd always lived in the Hollow. It was his place.\n\nEvery seven years since his tenth birthday, he lived through the nightmare that visited his place. And every seven years, he helped clean up the aftermath.\n\nHe unlocked the front door of the Bowl-a-Rama, relocked it behind him. People tended to walk right in, whatever the posted hours, if the door wasn't locked.\n\nHe'd once been a little more casual about that, until one fine night while he'd been enjoying some after-hours Strip Bowling with Allysa Kramer, three teenage boys had wandered in, hoping the video arcade was still open.\n\nLesson learned.\n\nHe walked by the front desk, the six lanes and ball returns, the shoe rental counter and the grill, turned and jogged up the stairs to the squat second floor that held his (or his father's if his father was in the mood) office, a closet-sized john, and a mammoth storage area.\n\nHe set the coffee on the desk, stripped off gloves, scarf, watch cap, coat, insulated vest.\n\nHe booted up his computer, put on the satellite radio, then sat down to fuel up on caffeine and get to work.\n\nThe bowling center Cal's grandfather had opened in the postwar forties had been a tiny, three-lane gathering spot with a couple of pinball machines and counter Cokes. It expanded in the sixties, and again, when Cal's father took the reins, in the early eighties.\n\nNow, with its six lanes, its video arcade, and its private party room, it was the place to gather in the Hollow.\n\nCredit to Grandpa, Cal thought as he looked over the party reservations for the next month. But the biggest chunk of credit went to Cal's father, who'd morphed the lanes into a family center, and had used its success to dip into other areas of business.\n\nThe town bears our name, Jim Hawkins liked to say. Respect the name, respect the town.\n\nCal did both. He'd have left long ago otherwise.\n\nAn hour into the work, Cal glanced up at the rap on his doorjamb.\n\n\"Sorry, Cal. Just wanted you to know I was here. Thought I'd go ahead and get that painting done in the rest rooms since you're not open this morning.\"\n\n\"Okay, Bill. Got everything you need?\"\n\n\"Sure do.\" Bill Turner, five years, two months, and six days sober, cleared his throat. \"Wonder if maybe you'd heard anything from Gage.\"\n\n\"Not in a couple months now.\"\n\nTender area, Cal thought when Bill just nodded. Boggy ground.\n\n\"I'll just get started then.\"\n\nCal watched as Bill moved away from the doorway. Nothing he could do about it, he told himself. Nothing he was sure he should do.\n\nDid five years clean and sober make up for all those whacks with a belt, for all those shoves and slaps, all those curses? It wasn't for him to judge.\n\nHe glanced down at the thin scar that ran diagonally across his wrist. Odd how quickly that small wound had healed, and yet the mark of it remained\u2014the only scar he carried. Odd how so small a thing had catapulted the town and people he knew into seven days of hell every seven years.\n\nWould Gage come back this summer, as he had every seventh year? Cal couldn't see ahead, that wasn't his gift or his burden. But he knew when he, Gage, and Fox turned thirty-one, they would all be together in the Hollow.\n\nThey'd sworn an oath.\n\nHe finished up the morning's work, and because he couldn't get his mind off it, composed a quick e-mail to Gage.\n\nHey. Where the hell are you? Vegas? Mozambique? Duluth? Heading out to see Fox. There's a writer coming into the Hollow to do research on the history, the legend, and what they're calling the anomalies. Probably got it handled, but thought you should know.\n\nIt's twenty-two degrees with a windchill factor of fifteen. Wish you were here and I wasn't.\n\nCal\n\nHe'd answer eventually, Cal thought as he sent the e-mail, then shut down the computer. Could be in five minutes or in five weeks, but Gage would answer.\n\nHe began to layer on the outer gear again over a long and lanky frame passed down by his father. He'd gotten his outsized feet from dear old Dad, too.\n\nThe dark blond hair that tended to go as it chose was from his mother. He knew that only due to early photos of her, as she'd been a soft, sunny blonde, perfectly groomed, throughout his memory.\n\nHis eyes, a sharp, occasionally stormy gray, had been twenty-twenty since his tenth birthday.\n\nEven as he zipped up his parka to head outside, he thought that the coat was for comfort only. He hadn't had so much as a sniffle in over twenty years. No flu, no virus, no hay fever.\n\nHe'd fallen out of an apple tree when he'd been twelve. He'd heard the bone in his arm snap, had felt the breathless pain.\n\nAnd he'd felt it knit together again\u2014with more pain\u2014before he'd made it across the lawn to the house to tell his mother.\n\nSo he'd never told her, he thought as he stepped outside into the ugly slap of cold. Why upset her?\n\nHe covered the three blocks to Fox's office quickly, shooting out waves or calling back greetings to neighbors and friends. But he didn't stop for conversation. He might not get pneumonia or postnasal drip, but he was freaking tired of winter.\n\nGray, ice-crusted snow lay in a dirty ribbon along the curbs, and above, the sky mirrored the brooding color. Some of the houses or businesses had hearts and Valentine wreaths on doors and windows, but they didn't add a lot of cheer with the bare trees and winter-stripped gardens.\n\nThe Hollow didn't show to advantage, to Cal's way of thinking, in February.\n\nHe walked up the short steps to the little covered porch of the old stone townhouse. The plaque beside the door read: FOX B. O'DELL, ATTORNEY AT LAW.\n\nIt was something that always gave Cal a quick jolt and a quick flash of amusement. Even after nearly six years, he couldn't quite get used to it.\n\nThe long-haired hippie freak was a goddamn lawyer.\n\nHe stepped into the tidy reception area, and there was Alice Hawbaker at the desk. Trim, tidy in her navy suit with its bowed white blouse, her snowcap of hair and no-nonsense bifocals, Mrs. Hawbaker ran the office like a Border collie ran a herd.\n\nShe looked sweet and pretty, and she'd bite your ankle if you didn't fall in line.\n\n\"Hey, Mrs. Hawbaker. Boy, it is cold out there. Looks like we might get some more snow.\" He unwrapped his scarf. \"Hope you and Mr. Hawbaker are keeping warm.\"\n\n\"Warm enough.\"\n\nHe heard something in her voice that had him looking more closely as he pulled off his gloves. When he realized she'd been crying he instinctively stepped to the desk. \"Is everything okay? Is\u2014\"\n\n\"Everything's fine. Just fine. Fox is between appointments. He's in there sulking, so you go right on back.\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am. Mrs. Hawbaker, if there's anything\u2014\"\n\n\"Just go right on back,\" she repeated, then made herself busy with her keyboard.\n\nBeyond the reception area a hallway held a powder room on one side and a library on the other. Straight back, Fox's office was closed off by a pair of pocket doors. Cal didn't bother to knock.\n\nFox looked up when the doors slid open. He did appear to be sulking as his gilded eyes were broody and his mouth was in full scowl.\n\nHe sat behind his desk, his feet, clad in hiking boots, propped on it. He wore jeans and a flannel shirt open over a white insulated tee. His hair, densely brown, waved around his sharp-featured face.\n\n\"What's going on?\"\n\n\"I'll tell you what's going on. My administrative assistant just gave me her notice.\"\n\n\"What did you do?\"\n\n\"Me?\" Fox shoved back from the desk and opened the minifridge for a can of Coke. He'd never developed a taste for coffee. \"Try we, brother. We camped out at the Pagan Stone one fateful night, and screwed the monkey.\"\n\nCal dropped into a chair. \"She's quitting because\u2014\"\n\n\"Not just quitting. They're leaving the Hollow, she and Mr. Hawbaker. And yeah, because.\" He took a long, greedy drink the way some men might take a pull on a bottle of whiskey. \"That's not the reason she gave me, but that's the reason. She said they decided to move to Minneapolis to be close to their daughter and grandchildren, and that's bogus. Why does a woman heading toward seventy, married to a guy older than dirt, pick up and move north? They've got another kid lives outside of D.C., and they've got strong ties here. I could tell it was bull.\"\n\n\"Because of what she said, or because you took a cruise through her head?\"\n\n\"First the one, then the other. Don't start on me.\" Fox gestured with the Coke, then slammed it down on his desk. \"I don't poke around for the fun of it. Son of a bitch.\"\n\n\"Maybe they'll change their minds.\"\n\n\"They don't want to go, but they're afraid to stay. They're afraid it'll happen again\u2014which I could tell her it will\u2014and they just don't want to go through it again. I offered her a raise\u2014like I could afford it\u2014offered her the whole month of July off, letting her know that I knew what was at the bottom of it. But they're going. She'll give me until April first. April frickin' Fools,\" he ranted. \"To find somebody else, for her to show them the ropes. I don't know where the damn ropes are, Cal. I don't know half the stuff she does. She just does it. Anyway.\"\n\n\"You've got until April, maybe we'll think of something.\"\n\n\"We haven't thought of the solution to this in twenty years plus.\"\n\n\"I meant your office problem. But yeah, I've been thinking a lot about the other.\" Rising, he walked to Fox's window, looked out on the quiet side street. \"We've got to end it. This time we've got to end it. Maybe talking to this writer will help. Laying it out to someone objective, someone not involved.\"\n\n\"Asking for trouble.\"\n\n\"Maybe it is, but trouble's coming anyway. Five months to go. We're supposed to meet her at the house.\" Cal glanced at his watch. \"Forty minutes.\"\n\n\"We?\" Fox looked blank for a moment. \"That's today? See, see, I didn't tell Mrs. H, so it didn't get written down somewhere. I've got a deposition in an hour.\"\n\n\"Why don't you use your damn BlackBerry?\"\n\n\"Because it doesn't follow my simple Earth logic. Reschedule the writer. I'm clear after four.\"\n\n\"It's okay, I can handle it. If she wants more, I'll see about setting up a dinner, so keep tonight open.\"\n\n\"Be careful what you say.\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah, I'm going to. But I've been thinking. We've been careful about that for a long time. Maybe it's time to be a little reckless.\"\n\n\"You sound like Gage.\"\n\n\"Fox...I've already started having the dreams again.\"\n\nFox blew out a breath. \"I was hoping that was just me.\"\n\n\"When we were seventeen they started about a week before our birthday, then when we were twenty-four, over a month. Now, five months out. Every time it gets stronger. I'm afraid if we don't find the way, this time could be the last for us, and the town.\"\n\n\"Have you talked to Gage?\"\n\n\"I just e-mailed him. I didn't tell him about the dreams. You do it. Find out if he's having them, too, wherever the hell he is. Get him home, Fox. I think we need him back. I don't think we can wait until summer this time. I gotta go.\"\n\n\"Watch your step with the writer,\" Fox called out as Cal started for the door. \"Get more than you give.\"\n\n\"I can handle it,\" Cal repeated.\n\nQUINN BLACK EASED HER MINI COOPER OFF THE exit ramp and hit the usual barrage at the interchange. Pancake House, Wendy's, McDonald's, KFC.\n\nWith great affection, she thought of a Quarter Pounder, with a side of really salty fries, and\u2014natch\u2014a Diet Coke to ease the guilt. But since that would be breaking her vow to eat fast food no more than once a month, she wasn't going to indulge.\n\n\"There now, don't you feel righteous?\" she asked herself with only one wistful glance in the rearview at the lovely Golden Arches.\n\nHer love of the quick and the greasy had sent her on an odyssey of fad diets, unsatisfying supplements, and miracle workout tapes through her late teens and early twenties. Until she'd finally slapped herself silly, tossed out all her diet books, her diet articles, her I LOST TWENTY POUNDS IN TWO WEEKS\u2014AND YOU CAN, TOO! ads, and put herself on the path to sensible eating and exercising.\n\nLifestyle change, she reminded herself. She'd made a lifestyle change.\n\nBut boy, she missed those Quarter Pounders more than she missed her ex-fianc\u00e9.\n\nThen again, who wouldn't?\n\nShe glanced at the GPS hooked to her dashboard, then over at the directions she'd printed out from Caleb Hawkins's e-mail. So far, they were in tandem.\n\nShe reached down for the apple serving as her midmorning snack. Apples were filling, Quinn thought as she bit in. They were good for you, and they were tasty.\n\nAnd they were no Quarter Pounder.\n\nIn order to keep her mind off the devil, she considered what she hoped to accomplish on this first face-to-face interview with one of the main players in the odd little town of Hawkins Hollow.\n\nNo, not fair to call it odd, she reminded herself. Objectivity first. Maybe her research leaned her toward the odd label, but there would be no making up her mind until she'd seen for herself, done her interviews, taken her notes, scoped out the local library. And, maybe most important, seen the Pagan Stone in person.\n\nShe loved poking at all the corners and cobwebs of small towns, digging down under the floorboards for secrets and surprises, listening to the gossip, the local lore and legend.\n\nShe'd made a tiny name for herself doing a series of articles on quirky, off-the-mainstream towns for a small press magazine called Detours. And since her professional appetite was as well-developed as her bodily one, she'd taken a risky leap and written a book, following the same theme, but focusing on a single town in Maine reputed to be haunted by the ghosts of twin sisters who'd been murdered in a boardinghouse in 1843.\n\nThe critics had called the result \"engaging\" and \"good, spooky fun,\" except for the ones who'd deemed it \"preposterous\" and \"convoluted.\"\n\nShe'd followed it up with a book highlighting a small town in Louisiana where the descendent of a voodoo priestess served as mayor and faith healer. And, Quinn had discovered, had been running a very successful prostitution ring.\n\nBut Hawkins Hollow\u2014she could just feel it\u2014was going to be bigger, better, meatier.\n\nShe couldn't wait to sink her teeth in.\n\nThe fast-food joints, the businesses, the ass-to-elbow houses gave way to bigger lawns, bigger homes, and to fields sleeping under the dreary sky.\n\nThe road wound, dipped and lifted, then veered straight again. She saw a sign for the Antietam Battlefield, something else she meant to investigate and research firsthand. She'd found little snippets about incidents during the Civil War in and around Hawkins Hollow.\n\nShe wanted to know more.\n\nWhen her GPS and Caleb's directions told her to turn, she turned, following the next road past a grove of naked trees, a scatter of houses, and the farms that always made her smile with their barns and silos and fenced paddocks.\n\nShe'd have to find a small town to explore in the Midwest next time. A haunted farm, or the weeping spirit of a milkmaid.\n\nShe nearly ignored the directions to turn when she saw the sign for Hawkins Hollow (est. 1648). As with the Quarter Pounder, her heart longed to indulge, to drive into town rather than turn off toward Caleb Hawkins's place. But she hated to be late, and if she got caught up exploring the streets, the corners, the look of the town, she certainly would be late for her first appointment.\n\n\"Soon,\" she promised, and turned to take the road winding by the woods she knew held the Pagan Stone at their heart.\n\nIt gave her a quick shiver, and that was strange. Strange to realize that shiver had been fear and not the anticipation she always felt with a new project.\n\nAs she followed the twists of the road, she glanced with some unease toward the dark and denuded trees. And hit the brakes hard when she shifted her eyes back to the road and saw something rush out in front of her.\n\nShe thought she saw a child\u2014oh God, oh God\u2014then thought it was a dog. And then...it was nothing. Nothing at all on the road, nothing rushing to the field beyond. Nothing there but herself and her wildly beating heart in the little red car.\n\n\"Trick of the eye,\" she told herself, and didn't believe it. \"Just one of those things.\"\n\nBut she restarted the car that had stalled when she'd slammed the brakes, then eased to the strip of dirt that served as the shoulder of the road. She pulled out her notebook, noted the time, and wrote down exactly what she thought she'd seen.\n\nYoung boy, abt ten. Lng blck hair, red eyes. He LOOKED right at me. Did I blink? Shut my eyes? Opened, & saw lrg blck dog, not boy. Then poof. Nothing there.\n\nCars passed her without incident as she sat a few moments more, waited for the trembling to stop.\n\nIntrepid writer balks at first possible phenom, she thought, turns around, and drives her adorable red car to the nearest Mickey D's for a fat-filled antidote to nerves.\n\nShe could do that, she considered. Nobody could charge her with a felony and throw her into prison. And if she did that, she wouldn't have her next book, or any self-respect.\n\n\"Man up, Quinn,\" she ordered. \"You've seen spooks before.\"\n\nSteadier, she swung back out on the road, and made the next turn. The road was narrow and twisty with trees looming on both sides. She imagined it would be lovely in the spring and summer, with the green dappling, or after a snowfall with all those trees ermine drenched. But under a dull gray sky the woods seemed to crowd the road, bare branches just waiting to reach out and strike, as if they and only they were allowed to live there.\n\nAs if to enforce the sensation, no other car passed, and when she turned off her radio as the music seemed too loud, the only sound was the keening curse of the wind.\n\nShould've called it Spooky Hollow, she decided, and nearly missed the turn into the gravel lane.\n\nWhy, she wondered, would anyone choose to live here? Amid all those dense, thrusting trees where bleak pools of snow huddled to hide from the sun? Where the only sound was the warning growl of Nature. Everything was brown and gray and moody.\n\nShe bumped over a little bridge spanning a curve of a creek, followed the slight rise of the stingy lane.\n\nThere was the house, exactly as advertised.\n\nIt sat on what she would have termed a knoll rather than a hill, with the front slope tamed into step-down terraces decked with shrubs she imagined put on a hell of a show in the spring and summer.\n\nThere wasn't a lawn, so to speak, and she thought Hawkins had been smart to go with the thick mulch and shrubs and trees skirting the front instead of the traditional grass that would probably be a pain in the ass to mow and keep clear of weeds.\n\nShe approved of the deck that wrapped around the front and sides, and she'd bet the rear as well. She liked the earthy tones of the stone and the generous windows.\n\nIt sat like it belonged there, content and well-settled in the woods.\n\nShe pulled up beside an aging Chevy pickup, got out of her car to stand and take a long view.\n\nAnd understood why someone would choose this spot. There was, unquestionably, an aura of spookiness, especially for one who was inclined to see and feel such things. But there was considerable charm as well, and a sense of solitude that was far from lonely. She could imagine very well sitting on that front deck some summer evening, drinking a cold one, and wallowing in the silence.\n\nBefore she could move toward the house, the front door opened.\n\nThe sense of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu was vivid, almost dizzying. He stood there at the door of the cabin, the blood like red flowers on his shirt.\n\nWe can stay no longer.\n\nThe words sounded in her head, clear, and in a voice she somehow knew.\n\n\"Miss Black?\"\n\nShe snapped back. There was no cabin, and the man standing on the lovely deck of his charming house had no blood blooming on him. There was no force of great love and great grief shining in his eyes.\n\nAnd still, she had to lean back against her car for a minute and catch her breath. \"Yeah, hi. I was just...admiring the house. Great spot.\"\n\n\"Thanks. Any trouble finding it?\"\n\n\"No, no. Your directions were perfect.\" And, of course, it was ridiculous to be having this conversation outside in the freezing wind. From the quizzical look on his face, he obviously felt the same.\n\nShe pushed off the car, worked up what she hoped was a sane and pleasant expression as she walked to the trio of wooden steps.\n\nAnd wasn't he a serious cutie? she realized as she finally focused on the reality. All that windblown hair and those strong gray eyes. Add the crooked smile, the long, lean body in jeans and flannel, and a woman might be tempted to hang a SOLD! sign around his neck.\n\nShe stepped up, held out a hand. \"Quinn Black, thanks for meeting with me, Mr. Hawkins.\"\n\n\"Cal.\" He took her hand, shook it, then held it as he gestured to the door. \"Let's get you out of the wind.\"\n\nThey stepped directly into a living room that managed to be cozy and male at the same time. The generous sofa faced the big front windows, and the chairs looked as though they'd allow an ass to sink right in. Tables and lamps probably weren't antiques, but looked to be something a grandmother might have passed down when she got the urge to redecorate her own place.\n\nThere was even a little stone fireplace with the requisite large mutt sprawled sleeping in front of it.\n\n\"Let me take your coat.\"\n\n\"Is your dog in a coma?\" Quinn asked when the dog didn't move a muscle.\n\n\"No. Lump leads an active and demanding internal life that requires long periods of rest.\"\n\n\"I see.\"\n\n\"Want some coffee?\"\n\n\"That'd be great. So would the bathroom. Long drive.\"\n\n\"First right.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\"\n\nShe closed herself into a small, spotlessly clean powder room as much to pull herself back together from a couple of psychic shocks as to pee.\n\n\"Okay, Quinn,\" she whispered. \"Here we go.\"\n\n## Four\n\nHE'D READ HER WORK; HE'D STUDIED HER AUTHOR photos and used Google to get some background, to read her interviews. Cal wasn't one to agree to talk to any sort of writer, journalist, reporter, Internet blogger about the Hollow, himself, or much of anything else without doing a thorough check.\n\nHe'd found her books and articles entertaining. He'd enjoyed her obvious affection for small towns, had been intrigued by her interest and treatment of lore, legend, and things that went bump in the night.\n\nHe liked the fact that she still wrote the occasional article for the magazine that had given her a break when she'd still been in college. It spoke of loyalty.\n\nHe hadn't been disappointed that her author photo had shown her to be a looker, with a sexy tumble of honey blond hair, bright blue eyes, and the hint of a fairly adorable overbite.\n\nThe photo hadn't come close.\n\nShe probably wasn't beautiful, he thought as he poured coffee. He'd have to get another look when, hopefully, his brain wouldn't go to fuzz, then decide about that.\n\nWhat he did know, unquestionably, was she just plain radiated energy and\u2014to his fuzzed brain\u2014sex.\n\nBut maybe that was because she was built, another thing the photo hadn't gotten across. The lady had some truly excellent curves.\n\nAnd it wasn't as if he hadn't seen curves on a woman before or, in fact, seen his share of naked female curves alive and in person. So why was he standing in his own kitchen frazzled because an attractive, fully dressed woman was in his house? For professional purposes.\n\n\"Jesus, grow up, Hawkins.\"\n\n\"Sorry?\"\n\nHe actually jumped. She was in the kitchen, a few steps behind him, smiling that million-watt smile.\n\n\"Were you talking to yourself? I do that, too. Why do people think we're crazy?\"\n\n\"Because they want to suck us into talking to them.\"\n\n\"You're probably right.\" Quinn shoved back that long spill of blond.\n\nCal saw he was right. She wasn't beautiful. The top-heavy mouth, the slightly crooked nose, the oversized eyes weren't elements of traditional beauty. He couldn't label her pretty, either. It was too simple and sweet a word. Cute didn't do it.\n\nAll he could think of was hot, but that might have been his brain blurring again.\n\n\"I didn't ask how you take your coffee.\"\n\n\"Oh. I don't suppose you have two percent milk.\"\n\n\"I often wonder why anybody does.\"\n\nWith an easy laugh that shot straight to his bloodstream, she wandered over to study the view outside the glass doors that led\u2014as she'd suspected\u2014to the rear portion of the circling deck. \"Which also means you probably don't have any fake sugar. Those little pink, blue, or yellow packets?\"\n\n\"Fresh out. I could offer you actual milk and actual sugar.\"\n\n\"You could.\" And hadn't she eaten an apple like a good girl? \"And I could accept. Let me ask you something else, just to satisfy my curiosity. Is your house always so clean and tidy, or did you do all this just for me?\"\n\nHe got out the milk. \"Tidy's a girlie word. I prefer the term organized. I like organization. Besides.\" He offered her a spoon for the sugar bowl. \"My mother could\u2014and does\u2014drop by unexpectedly. If my house wasn't clean, she'd ground me.\"\n\n\"If I don't call my mother once a week, she assumes I've been hacked to death by an ax murderer.\" Quinn held herself to one scant spoon of sugar. \"It's nice, isn't it? Those long and elastic family ties.\"\n\n\"I like them. Why don't we go sit in the living room by the fire?\"\n\n\"Perfect. So, how long have you lived here? In this particular house,\" she added as they carried their mugs out of the kitchen.\n\n\"A couple of years.\"\n\n\"Not much for neighbors?\"\n\n\"Neighbors are fine, and I spend a lot of time in town. I like the quiet now and then.\"\n\n\"People do. I do myself, now and again.\" She took one of the living room chairs, settled back. \"I guess I'm surprised other people haven't had the same idea as you, and plugged in a few more houses around here.\"\n\n\"There was talk of it a couple of times. Never panned out.\"\n\nHe's being cagey, Quinn decided. \"Because?\"\n\n\"Didn't turn out to be financially attractive, I guess.\"\n\n\"Yet here you are.\"\n\n\"My grandfather owned the property, some acres of Hawkins Wood. He left it to me.\"\n\n\"So you had this house built.\"\n\n\"More or less. I'd liked the spot.\" Private when he needed to be private. Close to the woods where everything had changed. \"I know some people in the trade, and we put the house up. How's the coffee?\"\n\n\"It's terrific. You cook, too?\"\n\n\"Coffee's my specialty. I read your books.\"\n\n\"How were they?\"\n\n\"I liked them. You probably know you wouldn't be here if I hadn't.\"\n\n\"Which would've made it a lot tougher to write the book I want to write. You're a Hawkins, a descendent of the founder of the settlement that became the village that became the town. And one of the main players in the more recent unexplained incidents related to the town. I've done a lot of research on the history, the lore, the legends, and the various explanations,\" she said, and reached in the bag that served as her purse and her briefcase. Taking out a minirecorder, she switched it on, set it on the table between them.\n\nHer smile was full of energy and interest when she set her notebook on her lap, flipped pages to a clear one. \"So, tell me, Cal, about what happened the week of July seventh, nineteen eighty-seven, ninety-four, and two thousand one.\"\n\nThe tape recorder made him...itchy. \"Dive right in, don't you?\"\n\n\"I love knowing things. July seventh is your birthday. It's also the birthday of Fox O'Dell and Gage Turner\u2014born the same year as you, who grew up in Hawkins Hollow with you. I read articles that reported you, O'Dell, and Turner were responsible for alerting the fire department on July eleventh, nineteen eighty-seven, when the elementary school was set on fire, and also responsible for saving the life of one Marian Lister who was inside the school at the time.\"\n\nShe continued to look straight into his eyes as she spoke. He found it interesting she didn't need to refer to notes, and that she didn't appear to need the little breaks from direct eye contact.\n\n\"Initial reports indicated the three of you were originally suspected of starting the fire, but it was proven Miss Lister herself was responsible. She suffered second-degree burns on nearly thirty percent of her body as well as a concussion. You and your friends, three ten-year-old boys, dragged her out and called the fire department. Miss Lister was, at that time, a twenty-five-year-old fourth-grade teacher with no history of criminal behavior or mental illness. Is that all correct information?\"\n\nShe got her facts in order, Cal noted. Such as the facts were known. They fell far short of the abject terror of entering that burning school, of finding the pretty Miss Lister cackling madly as she ran through the flames. Of how it felt to chase her through those hallways as her clothes burned.\n\n\"She had a breakdown.\"\n\n\"Obviously.\" Smile in place, Quinn lifted her eyebrows. \"There were also over a dozen nine-one-one calls on domestic abuse during that single week, more than previously had been reported in Hawkins Hollow in the six preceding months. There were two suicides and four attempted suicides, numerous accounts of assault, three reported rapes, and a hit-and-run. Several homes and businesses were vandalized. None\u2014virtually none\u2014of the people involved in any of the reported crimes or incidents has a clear memory of the events. Some speculate the town suffered from mass hysteria or hallucinations or an unknown infection taken through food or water. What do you think?\"\n\n\"I think I was ten years old and pretty much scared shitless.\"\n\nShe offered that brief, sunny smile. \"I bet.\" Then it was gone. \"You were seventeen in nineteen ninety-four when during the week of July seventh another\u2014let's say outbreak\u2014occurred. Three people were murdered, one of them apparently hanged in the town park, but no one came forward as a witness or to admit participation. There were more rapes, more beatings, more suicides, two houses burned to the ground. There were reports that you, O'Dell, and Turner were able to get some of the wounded and traumatized onto a school bus and transport them to the hospital. Is that accurate?\"\n\n\"As far as it goes.\"\n\n\"I'm looking to go further. In two thousand one\u2014\"\n\n\"I know the pattern,\" Cal interrupted.\n\n\"Every seven years,\" Quinn said with a nod. \"For seven nights. Days\u2014according again to what I can ascertain\u2014little happens. But from sundown to sunset, all hell breaks loose. It's hard to believe that it's a coincidence this anomaly happens every seven years, with its start on your birthday. Seven's considered a magickal number by those who profess to magicks, black and white. You were born on the seventh day of the seventh month of nineteen seventy-seven.\"\n\n\"If I knew the answers, I'd stop it from happening. If I knew the answers, I wouldn't be talking to you. I'm talking to you because maybe, just maybe, you'll find them, or help find them.\"\n\n\"Then tell me what happened, tell me what you do know, even what you think or sense.\"\n\nCal set his coffee aside, leaned forward to look deep into her eyes. \"Not on a first date.\"\n\nSmart-ass, she thought with considerable approval. \"Fine. Next time I'll buy you dinner first. But now, how about playing guide and taking me to the Pagan Stone.\"\n\n\"It's too late in the day. It's a two-hour hike from here. We wouldn't make it there and back before dark.\"\n\n\"I'm not afraid of the dark.\"\n\nHis eyes went very cool. \"You would be. I'll tell you this, there are places in these woods no one goes after dark, not any time of the year.\"\n\nShe felt the prick of ice at the base of her spine. \"Have you ever seen a boy, about the age you'd have been in eighty-seven. A boy with dark hair. And red eyes.\" She saw by the way Cal paled she'd flicked a switch. \"You have seen him.\"\n\n\"Why do you ask about that?\"\n\n\"Because I saw him.\"\n\nNow Cal pushed to his feet, paced to the window, stared out at the woods. The light was dimmer, duller already than it had been an hour before.\n\nThey'd never told anyone about the boy\u2014or the man\u2014whatever form the thing chose to take. Yes, he'd seen him, and not only during that one hellish week every seven years.\n\nHe'd seen it in dreams. He'd seen it out of the corner of his eye, or loping through the woods. Or with its face pressed to the dark glass of his bedroom window...and its mouth grinning.\n\nBut no one, no one but he, Fox, and Gage had ever seen it in the between times.\n\nWhy had she?\n\n\"When and where did you see him?\"\n\n\"Today, just before I turned off onto Pagan Road. He ran in front of my car. Came out of nowhere. That's what people always say, but this time it's true. A boy, then it wasn't a boy but a dog. Then it wasn't anything. There was nothing there.\"\n\nHe heard her rise, and when he turned was simply stunned to see that brilliant smile on her face. \"And this kind of thing makes you happy?\"\n\n\"It makes me thrilled. Excited. I'm saying wow! I had myself what we could call a close encounter with an unspecified phenomenon. Scary, I grant you, but again, wow. This sort of thing completely winds me up.\"\n\n\"I can see that.\"\n\n\"I knew there was something here, and I thought it was big. But to have it confirmed, the first day out, that's hitting the mother lode with the first whack of the pick.\"\n\n\"I haven't confirmed anything.\"\n\n\"Your face did.\" She picked up her recorder, turned it off. He wasn't going to tell her anything today. Cautious man, Caleb Hawkins. \"I need to get into town, check into the hotel, get a lay of the land. Why don't I buy you that dinner tonight?\"\n\nShe moved fast, and he made a habit of taking his time. \"Why don't you take some time to settle in? We can talk about dinner and so on in a couple days.\"\n\n\"I love a man who's hard to get.\" She slipped her recorder, her notepad back in her bag. \"I guess I'll need my coat.\"\n\nAfter he'd brought it to her, she studied him as she shrugged it on. \"You know, when you first came outside, I had the strangest sensation. I thought I recognized you, that I'd known you before. That you'd waited for me before. It was very strong. Did you feel anything like that?\"\n\n\"No. But maybe I was too busy thinking, she looks better than her picture.\"\n\n\"Really? Nice, because I looked terrific in that picture. Thanks for the coffee.\" She glanced back to the dog who'd snored lightly the entire time they'd talked. \"See you later, Lump. Don't work so hard.\"\n\nHe walked her out. \"Quinn,\" he said as she started down the stairs. \"Don't get any ideas about Lois Laning it and trying to find the Pagan Stone on your own. You don't know the woods. I'll take you there myself, sometime this week.\"\n\n\"Tomorrow?\"\n\n\"I can't, I've got a full plate. Day after if you're in a hurry.\"\n\n\"I almost always am.\" She walked backward toward her car so she could keep him in view. \"What time?\"\n\n\"Let's say we'll meet here at nine, weather permitting.\"\n\n\"That's a date.\" She opened her car door. \"The house suits you, by the way. Country boy with more style than pretention. I like it.\"\n\nHe watched her drive off\u2014strange and sexy Quinn Black.\n\nAnd he stood for a long time watching the light go dimmer in the woods where he'd made his home.\n\nCAL HEADED FOX OFF WITH A PHONE CALL AND arranged to meet him at the bowling alley. Since the Pin Boys and the Alley Cats were having a league game on lanes one and two, he and Fox could have dinner and a show at the grill.\n\nAdded to it, there was little as noisy as a bowling alley, so their conversation would be covered by the crash of balls against pins, the hoots and hollers.\n\n\"First, let's backtrack into the land of logic for a minute.\" Fox took a swig of his beer. \"She could've made it up to get a reaction.\"\n\n\"How did she know what to make up?\"\n\n\"During the Seven, there are people who see it\u2014who've said they did before it starts to fade on them. She got wind.\"\n\n\"I don't think so, Fox. Some talked about seeing something\u2014boy, man, woman, dog, wolf\u2014\"\n\n\"The rat the size of a Doberman,\" Fox remembered.\n\n\"Thanks for bringing that one back. But no one ever claimed they'd seen it before or after the Seven. No one but us, and we've never told anyone.\" Cal arched his brow in question.\n\n\"No. You think I'm going to spread it around that I see red-eyed demons? I'd just rake in the clients that way.\"\n\n\"She's smart. I don't see why she'd claim to have seen it, outside the norm\u2014ha-ha\u2014if she hadn't. Plus she was psyched about it. Juiced up. So, let's accept she did and continue to dwell in the land of logic. One logical assumption is that the bastard's stronger, we know he will be. But strong enough to push out of the Seven into the between time.\"\n\nFox brooded over his beer. \"I don't like that logic.\"\n\n\"Second option could be she's somehow connected. To one of us, the town, the incident at the Pagan Stone.\"\n\n\"I like that better. Everyone's connected. It's not just Kevin Bacon. If you work at it, you can put a handful of degrees between almost any two people.\" Thoughtful, Fox picked up his second slice of pizza. \"Maybe she's a distant cousin. I've got cousins up the wazoo and so do you. Gage, not so much, but there's some out there.\"\n\n\"Possible. But why would a distant cousin see something none of our immediate family has? They'd tell us, Fox. They all know what's coming better and clearer than anyone else.\"\n\n\"Reincarnation. That's not off the Planet Logic, considering. Besides, reincarnation's big in the family O'Dell. Maybe she was there when it all happened. Another life.\"\n\n\"I don't discount anything. But more to the point, why is she here now? And will it help us put a goddamn end to this?\"\n\n\"It's going to take more than an hour's chat in front of the fire to figure that out. I don't guess you heard from Gage.\"\n\n\"Not yet. He'll be in touch. I'm going to take her out to the stone day after tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Leaping forward fast, Cal.\"\n\nCal shook his head. \"If I don't take her soon enough, she'll try it on her own. If something happened...We can't be responsible for that.\"\n\n\"We are responsible\u2014isn't that the point? On some level it's on us.\" Frowning now, he watched Don Myers, of Myers Plumbing, make a seven-ten split to appropriate hoots and shouts. All three hundred twenty pounds of Myers did a flab-wriggling victory dance that was not a pretty sight.\n\n\"You go on,\" Fox said quietly, \"day after day, doing what you do, living your life, making your life. Eating pizza, scratching your ass, getting laid if you're lucky. But you know, on some level you try to keep buried just to get through, that it's coming back. That some of the people you see on the street every day, maybe they won't make it through the next round. Maybe we won't. What the hell.\" He rapped his beer against Cal's. \"We've got the now, plus five months to figure this out.\"\n\n\"I can try to go back again.\"\n\n\"Not unless Gage is here. We can't risk it unless we're together. It's not worth it, Cal. The other times you only got bits and pieces, and took a hell of a beating for it.\"\n\n\"Older and wiser now. And I'm thinking, if it's showing itself now\u2014our dreams, what happened to Quinn\u2014it's expending energy. I might get more than I have before.\"\n\n\"Not without Gage. That's...Hmm,\" he said as his attention wandered over his friend's shoulder. \"Fresh flowers.\"\n\nGlancing back, Cal saw Quinn standing behind lane one, her coat open and a bemused expression on her face as she watched Myers, graceful as a hippo in toe shoes, make his approach and release his lucky red ball.\n\n\"That's Quinn.\"\n\n\"Yeah, I recognized her. I read the books, too. She's hotter than her picture, and that was pretty hot.\"\n\n\"I saw her first.\"\n\nFox snorted, shifted his eyes to sneer at Cal. \"Dude, it's not about who saw her first, it's who she sees. I pull out the full power of my sexual charm, and you'll be the Invisible Man.\"\n\n\"Shit. The full power of your sexual charm wouldn't light up a forty-watt bulb.\"\n\nCal pushed off the stool when Quinn walked toward him.\n\n\"So this is why I got the brush-off tonight,\" she said. \"Pizza, beer, and bowling.\"\n\n\"The Hawkins Hollow hat trick. I'm on manager duty tonight. Quinn, this is Fox O'Dell.\"\n\n\"The second part of the triad.\" She shook Fox's hand. \"Now I'm doubly glad I decided to check out what seems to be the town's hot spot. Mind if I join you?\"\n\n\"Wouldn't have it any other way. Buy you a beer?\" Fox asked.\n\n\"Boy, could you, but...make it a light one.\"\n\nCal stepped back to swing around the counter. \"I'll take care of it. Anything to go with it? Pizza?\"\n\n\"Oh.\" She looked at the pizza on the counter with eyes that went suddenly dewy. \"Um, I don't suppose you have any with whole-wheat crust and low-fat mozzarella?\"\n\n\"Health nut?\" Fox asked.\n\n\"Just the opposite.\" Quinn bit her bottom lip. \"I'm in a lifestyle change. Damn it, that really looks good. How about if we cut one of those slices in half.\" She sawed the side of her hand over the plate.\n\n\"No problem.\"\n\nCal got a pizza cutter and slid it down a slice.\n\n\"I love fat and sugar like a mother loves her child,\" Quinn told Fox. \"I'm trying to eat more sensibly.\"\n\n\"My parents are vegetarians,\" Fox said as they each picked up a half slice. \"I grew up on tofu and alfalfa.\"\n\n\"God. That's so sad.\"\n\n\"Which is why he ate at my house whenever he could manage it, and spent all his money on Little Debbies and Slim Jims.\"\n\n\"Little Debbies are food for the gods.\" She smiled at Cal when he set her beer on the counter. \"I like your town. I took a walk up and down several blocks of Main Street. And since I was freezing my ass off, went back to the really charming Hotel Hollow, sat on my windowsill, and watched the world go by.\"\n\n\"Nice world,\" Cal said, \"that moves a little slow this time of year.\"\n\n\"Umm,\" was her agreement as she took a minute bite of the point of her narrow triangle of pizza. She closed her eyes on a sigh. \"It is good. I was hoping, being bowling-alley pizza, it wouldn't be.\"\n\n\"We do okay. Gino's across the street is better, and has more selections.\"\n\nShe opened her eyes to find him smiling at her. \"That's a lousy thing to tell a woman in the middle of a lifestyle change.\"\n\nCal leaned on the counter, bringing that smile a little closer, and Quinn found herself losing her train of thought. He had the best quick and crooked grin, the kind a woman wanted to take a testing nibble of.\n\nBefore he could speak, someone hailed him, and those eyes of quiet gray glanced away from hers toward the end of the counter. \"Be right back.\"\n\n\"Well.\" Jeez, her pulse had actually tripped. \"Alone at last,\" she said to Fox. \"So you and Cal and the as-yet-absent Gage Turner have been friends since you were kids.\"\n\n\"Babies, actually. In utero, technically. Cal's and Gage's mother got together with mine when my mother was teaching a Lamaze class. They had a kind of roundup with the class a couple months after everyone delivered the packages, and the deal about the three of us being born on the same day, same time came out.\"\n\n\"Instant mommy bonding.\"\n\n\"I don't know. They always got along, even though you could say they all came from different planets. They were friendly without being friends. My parents and Cal's still get along fine, and Cal's dad kept Gage's employed when nobody else in town would've hired him.\"\n\n\"Why wouldn't anyone have hired him?\"\n\nFox debated for a minute, drank some of his beer. \"It's no secret,\" he decided. \"He drank. He's been sober for a while now. About five years, I guess. I always figured Mr. Hawkins gave him work because that's just the way he is, and, in a big part, he did it for Gage. Anyway, I don't remember the three of us not being friends.\"\n\n\"No 'you like him better than me,' major falling-outs or your basic and usual drifting apart?\"\n\n\"We fought\u2014fight still\u2014now and then.\" Didn't all brothers? Fox thought. \"Had your expected pissy periods, but no. We're connected. Nothing can snap that connection. And the 'you like him better than me'? Mostly a girl thing.\"\n\n\"But Gage doesn't live here anymore.\"\n\n\"Gage doesn't live anywhere, really. He's the original footloose guy.\"\n\n\"And you? The hometown boy.\"\n\n\"I thought about the bright lights, big city routine, even gave it a short try.\" He glanced over in the direction of the moans coming from one of the Alley Cats who had failed to pick up a spare. \"I like the Hollow. I even like my family, most of the time. And I like, as it turns out, practicing small-town law.\"\n\nTruth, Quinn decided, but not the whole truth of it. \"Have you seen the kid with the red eyes?\"\n\nOff balance, Fox set down the beer he'd lifted to drink. \"That's a hell of a segue.\"\n\n\"Maybe. But that wasn't an answer.\"\n\n\"I'm going to postpone my answer until further deliberation. Cal's taking point on this.\"\n\n\"And you're not sure you like the idea of him, or anyone, talking to me about what may or may not go on here.\"\n\n\"I'm not sure what purpose it serves. So I'm weighing the information as it comes in.\"\n\n\"Fair enough.\" She glanced over as Cal came back. \"Well, boys, thanks for the beer and the slice. I should get back to my adorable room.\"\n\n\"You bowl?\" Cal asked her, and she laughed.\n\n\"Absolutely not.\"\n\n\"Oh-oh,\" Fox said under his breath.\n\nCal walked around the counter, blocking Quinn before she could slide off the stool. He took a long, considering look at her boots. \"Seven and a half, right?\"\n\n\"Ah...\" She looked down at her boots herself. \"On the money. Good eye.\"\n\n\"Stay.\" He tapped her on the shoulder. \"I'll be right back.\"\n\nQuinn frowned after him, then looked at Fox. \"He is not going to get me a pair of bowling shoes.\"\n\n\"Oh yeah, he is. You mocked the tradition, which\u2014if you give him any tiny opening\u2014he'll tell you started five thousand years ago. Then he'll explain its evolution and so on and so on.\"\n\n\"Well, Christ,\" was all Quinn could think to say.\n\nCal brought back a pair of maroon and cream bowling shoes, and another, larger pair of dark brown ones, which were obviously his. \"Lane five's open. You want in, Fox?\"\n\n\"Sadly, I have a brief to finish writing. I'll rain-check it. See you later, Quinn.\"\n\nCal tucked the shoes under his arm, then, taking Quinn's hand, pulled her off the stool. \"When's the last time you bowled?\" he asked as he led her across the alley to an open lane.\n\n\"I think I was fourteen. Group date, which didn't go well, as the object of my affection, Nathan Hobbs, only had eyes for the incessantly giggly and already well-developed Missy Dover.\"\n\n\"You can't let previous heartbreak spoil your enjoyment.\"\n\n\"But I didn't like the bowling part either.\"\n\n\"That was then.\" Cal sat her down on the smooth wooden bench, slid on beside her. \"You'll have a better time with it tonight. Ever make a strike?\"\n\n\"Still talking bowling? No.\"\n\n\"You will, and there's nothing much that beats the feeling of that first strike.\"\n\n\"How about sex with Hugh Jackman?\"\n\nHe stopped tying his bowling shoe to stare over at her. \"You had sex with Hugh Jackman?\"\n\n\"No, but I'm willing to bet any amount of money that having sex with Hugh Jackman would, for me, beat out the feeling of knocking down ten pins with one ball.\"\n\n\"Okay. But I'm willing to bet\u2014let's make it ten bucks\u2014that when you throw a strike, you'll admit it's up there on the Thrill-O-Meter.\"\n\n\"First, it's highly unlikely I'll throw anything resembling a strike. Second, I could lie.\"\n\n\"You will. And you won't. Change your shoes, Blondie.\"\n\n## Five\n\nIT WASN'T AS RIDICULOUS AS SHE'D ASSUMED IT would be. Silly, yes, but she had plenty of room for silly.\n\nThe balls were mottled black\u2014the small ones without the three holes. The job was to heave it down the long polished alley toward the red-necked pins he called Duck Pins.\n\nHe watched as she walked up to the foul line, swung back, and did the heave.\n\nThe ball bounced a couple of times before it toppled into the gutter.\n\n\"Okay.\" She turned, tossed back her hair. \"Your turn.\"\n\n\"You get two more balls per frame.\"\n\n\"Woo-hoo.\"\n\nHe shot her the quick grin. \"Let's work on your delivery and follow-through, then we'll tackle approach.\" He walked toward her with another ball as he spoke. He handed her the ball. \"Hold it with both hands,\" he instructed as he turned her around to face the pins. \"Now you want to take a step forward with your left foot, bend your knees like you were doing a squat, but bend over from the waist.\"\n\nHe was snuggled up right behind her now, his front sort of bowing over her back. She tipped her face around to meet his eyes.\n\n\"You use this routine to hit on women, right?\"\n\n\"Absolutely. Eighty-five percent success ratio. You're going to want to aim for the front pin. You can worry about the pockets and the sweet spot later. Now you're just going to bring your right arm back, then sweep it forward with your fingers aimed at the front pin. Let the ball go, following your fingers.\"\n\n\"Hmm.\" But she tried it. This time the ball didn't bounce straight into the gutter, but actually stayed on the lane long enough to bump down the two pins on the far right.\n\nSince the woman in the next lane, who had to be sixty if she was a day, slid gracefully to the foul line, released, and knocked down seven pins, Quinn didn't feel like celebrating.\n\n\"Better.\"\n\n\"Two balls, two pins. I don't think that earns my bootie dance.\"\n\n\"Since I'm looking forward to your bootie dance, I'll help you do better yet. More from your shoulder down this time. Nice perfume,\" he added before he walked back to get her another ball.\n\n\"Thanks.\" Stride, bend, swing, release, she thought. And actually managed to knock down the end pin on the other side of the alley.\n\n\"Overcompensated.\" He hit the reset button. The grate came down, pins were swept off with a lot of clattering, and another full triangle thudded into place.\n\n\"She knocked them all down.\" Quinn gave a head nod toward the woman in the next lane who'd taken her seat. \"She didn't seem all that excited.\"\n\n\"Mrs. Keefafer? Bowls twice a week, and has become jaded. On the outside. Inside, believe me, she's doing her bootie dance.\"\n\n\"If you say so.\"\n\nHe adjusted Quinn's shoulders, shifted her hips. And yeah, she could see why he had such a high success rate with this routine. Eventually, after countless attempts, she was able to take down multiple pins that took odd bites out of the triangle.\n\nThere was a wall of noise, the low thunder of balls rolling, the sharp clatter of pins, hoots and cheers from bowlers and onlookers, the bright bells of a pinball machine.\n\nShe smelled beer and wax, and the gooey orange cheese\u2014a personal favorite\u2014from the nachos someone munched on in the next lane.\n\nTimeless, all-American, she mused, absently drafting an article on the experience. Centuries-old sport\u2014she'd need to research that part\u2014to good, clean, family fun.\n\nShe thought she had the hang of it, more or less, though she was shallow enough to throw a deliberate gutter ball here and there so Cal would adjust her stance.\n\nAs he did, she considered changing the angle of the article from family fun to the sexiness of bowling. The idea made her grin as she took her position.\n\nThen it happened. She released the ball and it rolled down the center of the alley. Surprised, she took a step back. Then another with her arms going up to clamp on the sides of her head.\n\nSomething tingled in her belly as her heartbeat sped up.\n\n\"Oh. Oh. Look! It's going to\u2014\"\n\nThere was a satisfying crack and crash as ball slapped pins and pins tumbled in all directions. Bumping into each other, rolling, spinning, until the last fell with a slow, drunken sway.\n\n\"Well, my God!\" She actually bounced on the toes of her rented shoes. \"Did you see that? Did you\u2014\" And when she spun around, a look of stunned delight on her face, he was grinning at her.\n\n\"Son of a bitch,\" she muttered. \"I owe you ten bucks.\"\n\n\"You learn fast. Want to try an approach?\"\n\nShe wandered back toward him. \"I believe I'm...spent. But I may come by some evening for lesson number two.\"\n\n\"Happy to oblige.\" Sitting hip-to-hip, they changed shoes. \"I'll walk you back to the hotel.\"\n\n\"All right.\"\n\nHe got his coat, and on the way out shot a wave at the skinny young guy behind the shoe rental counter. \"Back in ten.\"\n\n\"Quiet,\" she said the minute they stepped outside. \"Just listen to all that quiet.\"\n\n\"The noise is part of the fun and the quiet after part of the reward.\"\n\n\"Did you ever want to do anything else, or did you grow up with a burning desire to manage a bowling alley?\"\n\n\"Family fun center,\" he corrected. \"We have an arcade\u2014pinball, skee-ball, video games, and a section for kids under six. We do private parties\u2014birthday parties, bachelor parties, wedding receptions\u2014\"\n\n\"Wedding receptions?\"\n\n\"Sure. Bar mitzvahs, bat mitzvahs, anniversaries, corporate parties.\"\n\nDefinitely meat for an article, she realized. \"A lot of arms on one body.\"\n\n\"You could say that.\"\n\n\"So why aren't you married and raising the next generation of Bowl-a-Rama kingpins, pun intended.\"\n\n\"Love has eluded me.\"\n\n\"Aw.\"\n\nDespite the biting cold, it was pleasant to walk beside a man who naturally fit his stride to hers, to watch the clouds of their breath puff out, then merge together before the wind tore them to nothing.\n\nHe had an easy way about him and killer eyes, so there were worse things than feeling her toes go numb with cold in boots she knew were more stylish than practical.\n\n\"Are you going to be around if I think of some pertinent question to ask you tomorrow?\"\n\n\"'Round and about,\" he told her. \"I can give you my cell phone number if\u2014\"\n\n\"Wait.\" She dug into her bag and came out with her own phone. Still walking, she punched a few keys. \"Shoot.\"\n\nHe rattled it off. \"I'm aroused by a woman who not only immediately finds what she's looking for in the mysterious depths of her purse, but who can skillfully operate electronic devices.\"\n\n\"Is that a sexist remark?\"\n\n\"No. My mother always knows where everything is, but is still defeated by the universal remote. My sister Jen can operate anything from a six-speed to a wireless mouse, but can never find anything without a twenty-minute hunt, and my other sister, Marly, can't find anything, ever, and gets intimidated by her electric can opener. And here you are, stirring me up by being able to do both.\"\n\n\"I've always been a siren.\" She tucked her phone back in her bag as they turned to the steps leading to the long front porch of the hotel. \"Thanks for the escort.\"\n\n\"No problem.\"\n\nThere was one of those beats; she recognized it. Both of them wondering, did they shake hands, just turn and go, or give in to curiosity and lean into a kiss.\n\n\"Let's stay to the safe road for now,\" she decided. \"I admit, I like the look of your mouth, but moving on that's bound to tangle things up before I really get started on what brought me here.\"\n\n\"It's a damn shame you're right about that.\" He dipped his hands into his pockets. \"So I'll just say good night. I'll wait, make sure you get inside.\"\n\n\"Good night.\" She walked up the steps to the door, eased it open. Then glanced back to see him standing, hands still in his pockets, with the old-fashioned streetlight spotlighting him.\n\nOh, yeah, she thought, it was a damn shame.\n\n\"See you soon.\"\n\nHe waited until the door shut behind her, then taking a couple of steps, studied the windows of the second and third floor. She'd said her window faced Main Street, but he wasn't sure what level she was on.\n\nAfter a few moments, a light flashed on in a second-floor window, telling him Quinn was safe in her room.\n\nHe turned and had taken two steps when he saw the boy. He stood on the sidewalk half a block down. He wore no coat, no hat, no protection against the bite of wind. The long stream of his hair didn't stir in it.\n\nHis eyes gleamed, eerily red, as his lips peeled back in a snarl.\n\nCal heard the sound inside his head while ice balled in his belly.\n\nNot real, he told himself. Not yet. A projection only, like in the dreams. But even in the dreams, it could hurt you or make you think you were hurt.\n\n\"Go back where you came from, you bastard.\" Cal spoke clearly, and as calmly as his shaken nerves would allow. \"It's not your time yet.\"\n\nWhen it is, I'll devour you, all of you, and everything you hold precious.\n\nThe lips didn't move with the words, but stayed frozen in that feral snarl.\n\n\"We'll see who feels the bite this round.\" Cal took another step forward.\n\nAnd the fire erupted. It spewed out of the wide brick sidewalk, fumed across the street in a wall of wild red. Before he could register that there was no heat, no burn, Cal had already stumbled back, thrown up his hands.\n\nThe laughter rang in his head, as wild as the flames. Then both snapped off.\n\nThe street was quiet, the brick and buildings unmarred. Tricks up his sleeve, Cal reminded himself. Lots of tricks up his sleeve.\n\nHe made himself stride forward, through where the false fire had run. There was a strong acrid odor that puffed then vanished like the vapor of his own breath. In that instant he recognized it.\n\nBrimstone.\n\nUPSTAIRS IN THE ROOM THAT MADE HER BLISSFULLY happy with its four-poster bed and fluffy white duvet, Quinn sat at the pretty desk with its curved legs and polished surface writing up the day's notes, data, and impressions on her laptop.\n\nShe loved that there were fresh flowers in the room, and a little blue bowl of artfully arranged fresh fruit. The bath held a deep and delightful claw-foot tub and a snowy white pedestal sink. There were thick, generous towels, two bars of soap, and rather stylish minibottles of shampoo, body cream, and bath gel.\n\nInstead of boring, mass-produced posters, the art on the walls were original paintings and photos, which the discreet note on the desk identified as works by local artists available at Artful, a shop on South Main.\n\nThe room was full of homey welcoming touches, and provided high-speed Internet access. She made a note to reserve the same room after her initial week was up, for the return trips she planned in April, then again in July.\n\nShe'd accomplished quite a bit on her first day, which was a travel day on top of it. She'd met two of the three focal players, had an appointment to hike to the Pagan Stone. She'd gotten a feel for the town, on the surface in any case. And had, she believed, a personal experience with the manifestation of an unidentified (as yet) force.\n\nAnd she had the bare bones for a bowling article that should work for her friends at Detour.\n\nNot bad, especially when you added in she'd dined sensibly on the grilled chicken salad in the hotel dining room, had not given in to temptation and inhaled an entire pizza but had limited herself to half a slice. And she'd bowled a strike.\n\nOn the personal downside, she supposed, as she shut down to prepare for bed, she'd also resisted the temptation to lock lips with the very appealing Caleb Hawkins.\n\nWasn't she all professional and unsatisfied?\n\nOnce she'd changed into her bedtime flannel pants and T-shirt, she nagged herself into doing fifteen minutes of pilates (okay, ten), then fifteen of yoga, before burrowing under the fabulous duvet with her small forest of down pillows.\n\nShe took her current book off the nightstand, burrowed into that as well until her eyes began to droop.\n\nJust past midnight, she marked the novel, switched off the lamp, and snuggled into her happy nest.\n\nAs was her habit, she was asleep in a finger snap.\n\nQuinn recognized the dream as a dream. Always, she enjoyed the sensation of the disjointed, carnival world of dreamscapes. It was, for her, like having some crazy adventure without any physical exertion. So when she found herself on a crooked path through a thick wood where the moonshine silvered the leaves and the curling fog rippled along the ground, a part of her mind thought: Oh boy! Here we go.\n\nShe thought she heard chanting, a kind of hoarse and desperate whisper, but the words themselves were indiscernible.\n\nThe air felt like silk, so soft, as she waded through the pools of fog. The chanting continued, drawing her toward it. A single word seemed to fly out of that moonstruck night, and the word was bestia.\n\nShe heard it over and over as she followed the crooked path through the silken air and the silver-laced trees. She felt a sexual pull, a heat and reaching in the belly toward whatever, whoever called out in the night.\n\nTwice, then three times, the air seemed to whisper. Beatus. The murmur of that warmed her skin. In the dream, she quickened her steps.\n\nOut of the moon-drenched trees swam a black owl, its great wings stirring a storm in that soft air, chilling it until she shivered. And was, even in the dream, afraid.\n\nWith that cold wind stirring, she saw, stretched across the path, a golden fawn. The blood from its slit throat drenched the ground so it gleamed wet and black in the night.\n\nHer heart squeezed with pity. So young, so sweet, she thought as she made herself approach it. Who could have done such a thing?\n\nFor a moment, the dead, staring eyes of the fawn cleared, shone as gold as its hind. It looked at her with such sorrow, such wisdom, tears gathered in her throat.\n\nThe voice came now, not through the whipped air, but in her mind. The single word: devoveo.\n\nThen the trees were bare but for the ice that sheathed trunk and branch, and the silver moonlight turned gray. The path had turned, or she had, so now she faced a small pond. The water was black as ink, as if any light the sky pushed down was sucked into its depths and smothered there.\n\nBeside the pond was a young woman in a long brown dress. Her hair was chopped short, with the strings and tufts of it sticking out wildly. Beside the black pond she bent to fill the pockets of her brown dress with stones.\n\nHello! Quinn called out. What are you doing?\n\nThe girl only continued to fill her pockets. As Quinn walked closer, she saw the girl's eyes were full of tears, and of madness.\n\nCrap. You don't want to do that. You don't want to go Virginia Woolf. Wait. Just wait. Talk to me.\n\nThe girl turned her head, and for one shocked moment, Quinn saw the face as her own. He doesn't know everything, the mad girl said. He didn't know you.\n\nShe threw out her arms, and her slight body, weighed heavy with her cache of stones, tipped, tipped, tipped until it met the black water. The pond swallowed it like a waiting mouth.\n\nQuinn leaped\u2014what else could she do? Her body braced for the shock of cold as she filled her lungs with air.\n\nThere was a flash of light, a roar that might have been thunder or something alive and hungry. She was on her knees in a clearing where a stone rose out of the earth like an altar. Fire spewed around her, above her, through her, but she felt none of its heat.\n\nThrough the flames she saw two shapes, one black, one white, grappling like mad animals. With a terrible rending sound, the earth opened up, and like the waiting mouth of the pond, swallowed everything.\n\nThe scream ripped from her throat as that maw widened to take her. Clawing, she dragged herself toward the stone, fought to wrap her arms around it.\n\nIt broke into three equal parts, sending her tumbling, tumbling into that open, avid mouth.\n\nShe woke, huddled on the lovely bed, the linens tangled around her legs as she gripped one of the bedposts as if her life depended on it.\n\nHer breath was an asthmatic's wheeze, and her heart beat so fast and hard it had her head spinning.\n\nA dream, just a dream, she reminded herself, but couldn't force herself\u2014not quite yet\u2014to release her hold on the bedpost.\n\nClinging to it, she let her cheek rest on the wood, closed her eyes until the shaking had lessened to an occasional quiver.\n\n\"Hell of a ride,\" she mumbled.\n\nThe Pagan Stone. That's where she'd been at the end of the dream, she was certain of it. She recognized it from pictures she'd seen. Small wonder she'd have a scary dream about it, about the woods. And the pond...Wasn't there something in her research about a woman drowning in the pond? They'd named it after her. Hester's Pond. No, pool. Hester's Pool.\n\nIt all made sense, in dream logic.\n\nYeah, a hell of a ride, and she'd die happy if she never took another like it.\n\nShe glanced at her travel alarm, and saw by its luminous dial it was twenty after three. Three in the morning, she thought, was the dead time, the worst time to be wakeful. So she'd go back to sleep, like a sensible woman. She'd straighten the bed, get herself a nice cool drink of water, then tune out.\n\nShe'd had enough jolts and jumps for her first day.\n\nShe slid out of bed to tug the sheets and duvet back into some semblance of order, then turned, intending to go to the adjoining bath for a glass of water.\n\nThe scream wouldn't sound. It tore through her head like scrabbling claws, but nothing could tear its way out of the hot lock of her throat.\n\nThe boy grinned obscenely through the dark window. His face, his hands pressed against the glass bare inches away from her own. She saw its tongue flick out to roll across those sharp, white teeth, and those eyes, gleaming red, seemed as bottomless and hungry as the mouth of earth that had tried to swallow her in her dream.\n\nHer knees wanted to buckle, but she feared if she dropped to the ground it would come crashing through the glass to latch those teeth on her throat like a wild dog.\n\nInstead, she lifted her hand in the ancient sign against evil. \"Get away from here,\" she whispered. \"Stay away from me.\"\n\nIt laughed. She heard the horrible, giddy sound of it, saw its shoulders shake with mirth. Then it pushed off the glass into a slow, sinuous somersault. It hung suspended for a moment above the sleeping street. Then it...condensed, was all she could think. It shrank into itself, into a pinpoint of black, and vanished.\n\nQuinn launched herself at the window, yanked the shade down to cover every inch of glass. And lowering to the floor at last, she leaned back against the wall, trembling.\n\nWhen she thought she could stand, she used the wall as a brace, quick-stepping to the other windows. She was out of breath again by the time all the shades were pulled, and tried to tell herself the room didn't feel like a closed box.\n\nShe got the water\u2014she needed it\u2014and gulped down two full glasses. Steadier, she stared at the covered windows.\n\n\"Okay, screw you, you little bastard.\"\n\nPicking up her laptop, she went back to her position on the floor\u2014it just felt safer under the line of the windowsills\u2014and began to type up every detail she remembered from the dream, and from the thing that pressed itself to the night glass.\n\nWHEN SHE WOKE, THE LIGHT WAS A HARD YELLOW line around the cream linen of the shades. And the battery of her laptop was stone dead. Congratulating herself on remembering to back up before she'd curled onto the floor to sleep, she got her creaky self up.\n\nStupid, of course, she told herself as she tried to stretch out the worst of the stiffness. Stupid not to turn off her machine, then crawl back into that big, cozy bed. But she'd forgotten the first and hadn't even considered the second.\n\nNow, she put the computer back on the pretty desk, plugged it in to recharge the batteries. With some caution\u2014after all, it had been broad daylight when she'd seen the boy the first time\u2014she approached the first window. Eased up the shade.\n\nThe sun was lancing down out of a boiled blue sky. On the pavement, on awnings and roofs, a fresh white carpet of snow shimmered.\n\nShe spotted a few merchants or their employees busily shoveling sidewalks or porches and steps. Cars putted along the plowed street. She wondered if school had been called or delayed due to the snow.\n\nShe wondered if the boy had demon classes that day.\n\nFor herself, Quinn decided she was going to treat her abused body to a long soak in the charming tub. Then she'd try Ma's Pantry for breakfast, and see who she could get to talk to her over her fruit and granola about the legends of Hawkins Hollow.\n\n## Six\n\nCAL SAW HER COME IN WHILE HE CUT INTO HIS short stack at the counter. She had on those high, sharp-heeled boots, faded jeans, and a watch cap, bright as a cardinal, pulled over her hair.\n\nShe'd wound on a scarf that made him think of Joseph's coat of many colors, which added a jauntiness with her coat opened. Under it was a sweater the color of ripe blueberries.\n\nThere was something about her, he mused, that would have been bright and eye-catching even in mud brown.\n\nHe watched her eyes track around the diner area, and decided she was weighing where to sit, whom to approach. Already working, he concluded. Maybe she always was. He was damn sure, even on short acquaintance, that her mind was always working.\n\nShe spotted him. She aimed that sunbeam smile of hers, started over. He felt a little like the kid in the pickup game of ball, who got plucked from all the others waving their arms and shouting: Me! Me! Pick me!\n\n\"Morning, Caleb.\"\n\n\"Morning, Quinn. Buy you breakfast?\"\n\n\"Absolutely.\" She leaned over his plate, took a long, dramatic sniff of his butter-and-syrup-loaded pancakes. \"I bet those are fabulous.\"\n\n\"Best in town.\" He stabbed a thick bite with his fork, held it out. \"Want a sample?\"\n\n\"I can never stop at a taste. It's a sickness.\" She slid onto the stool, swiveled around to beam at the waitress as she unwound her scarf. \"Morning. I'd love some coffee, and do you have any granola-type substance that could possibly be topped with any sort of fruit?\"\n\n\"Well, we got Special K, and I could slice you up some bananas with it.\"\n\n\"Perfect.\" She reached over the counter. \"I'm Quinn.\"\n\n\"The writer from up in PA.\" The waitress nodded, took Quinn's hand in a firm grip. \"Meg Stanley. You watch this one here, Quinn,\" Meg said with a poke at Cal. \"Some of those quiet types are sneaky.\"\n\n\"Some of us mouthy types are fast.\"\n\nThat got a laugh out of Meg as she poured Quinn's coffee. \"Being quick on your feet's a strong advantage. I'll get that cereal for you.\"\n\n\"Why,\" Cal wondered aloud as he forked up another dripping bite of pancake, \"would anyone willingly choose to eat trail mix for breakfast?\"\n\n\"It's an acquired taste. I'm still acquiring it. But knowing myself, and I do, if I keep coming in here for breakfast, I'll eventually succumb to the allure of the pancake. Does the town have a gym, a health club, a burly guy who rents out his Bowflex?\"\n\n\"There's a little gym down in the basement of the community center. You need a membership, but I can get you a pass on that.\"\n\n\"Really? You're a handy guy to know, Cal.\"\n\n\"I am. You want to change your order? Go for the gold, then the treadmill?\"\n\n\"Not today, but thanks. So.\" After she'd doctored her coffee, she picked up the cup with both hands, sipping as she studied him through the faint rise of steam. \"Now that we're having our second date\u2014\"\n\n\"How'd I miss the first one?\"\n\n\"You bought me pizza and a beer and took me bowling. In my dictionary, that falls under the definition of date. Now you're buying me breakfast.\"\n\n\"Cereal and bananas. I do appreciate a cheap date.\"\n\n\"Who doesn't? But since we're dating and all...\" She took another sip as he laughed. \"I'd like to share an experience with you.\"\n\nShe glanced over as Meg brought her a white stoneware bowl heaped with cereal and sliced bananas. \"Figured you'd be going for the two percent milk with this.\"\n\n\"Perceptive and correct, thanks.\"\n\n\"Get you anything else?\"\n\n\"We're good for now, Meg,\" Cal told her. \"Thanks.\"\n\n\"Just give a holler.\"\n\n\"An experience,\" Cal prompted, as Meg moved down the counter.\n\n\"I had a dream.\"\n\nHis insides tensed even before she began to tell him, in a quiet voice and in careful detail of the dream she'd had during the night.\n\n\"I knew it was a dream,\" she concluded. \"I always do, even during them. Usually I get a kick out of them, even the spooky ones. Because, you know, not really happening. I haven't actually grown a second head so I can argue with myself, nor am I jumping out of a plane with a handful of red balloons. But this...I can't say I got a charge out of it. I didn't just think I felt cold, for instance. I was cold. I didn't just think I felt myself hit and roll on the ground. I found bruises this morning that weren't there when I went to bed. Fresh bruises on my hip. How do you get hurt in a dream, if it's just a dream?\"\n\nYou could, he thought, in Hawkins Hollow. \"Did you fall out of bed, Quinn?\"\n\n\"No, I didn't fall out of bed.\" For the first time, there was a whiff of irritation in her voice. \"I woke up with my arms locked around the bedpost like it was my long-lost lover. And all this was before I saw that red-eyed little bastard again.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\nShe paused long enough to spoon up some cereal. He wasn't sure if the expression of displeasure that crossed her face was due to the taste, or her thoughts. \"Did you ever read King's Salem's Lot?\"\n\n\"Sure. Small town, vampires. Great stuff.\"\n\n\"Remember that scene? The little boys, brothers. One's been changed after they snatched him off the path in the woods. He comes to visit his brother one night.\"\n\n\"Nothing scarier than kiddie vampires.\"\n\n\"Not much, anyway. And the vampire kid's just hanging outside the window. Just floating out there, scratching on the glass. It was like that. He was pressed to the glass, and I'll point out I'm on the second floor. Then he did a stylish back flip in the air, and poofed.\"\n\nHe laid a hand over hers, found it cold, rubbed some warmth into it. \"You have my home and cell numbers, Quinn. Why didn't you call me?\"\n\nShe ate a little more, then, smiling at Meg, held up her cup for a top-off. \"I realize we're dating, Cal, but I don't call all the guys I go bowling with at three thirty in the morning to go: eek! I slogged through swamps in Louisiana on the trail of the ghost of a voodoo queen\u2014and don't think I don't know how that sounds. I spent the night, alone, in a reputedly haunted house on the coast of Maine, and interviewed a guy who was reported to be possessed by no less than thirteen demons. Then there was the family of werewolves in Tallahassee. But this kid...\"\n\n\"You don't believe in werewolves and vampires, Quinn.\"\n\nShe turned on the stool to face him directly. \"My mind's as open as a twenty-four-hour deli, and considering the circumstances, yours should be, too. But no, I don't think this thing is a vampire. I saw him in broad daylight, after all. But he's not human, and just because he's not human doesn't make him less than real. He's part of the Pagan Stone. He's part of what happens here every seven years. And he's early, isn't he?\"\n\nYeah, he thought, her mind was always working and it was sharp as a switchblade. \"This isn't the best place to go into this any deeper.\"\n\n\"Say where.\"\n\n\"I said I'd take you to the stone tomorrow, and I will. We'll get into more detail then. Can't do it today,\" he said, anticipating her. \"I've got a full plate, and tomorrow's better anyway. They're calling for sun and forties today and tomorrow.\" He hitched up a hip to take out his wallet. \"Most of this last snow'll be melted.\" He glanced down at her boots as he laid bills on the counter to cover both their tabs. \"If you don't have anything more suitable to hike in than those, you'd better buy something. You won't last a half mile otherwise.\"\n\n\"You'd be surprised how long I can last.\"\n\n\"Don't know as I would. I'll see you tomorrow if not before.\"\n\nQuinn frowned at him as he walked out, then turned back as Meg slid her rag down the counter. \"Sneaky. You were right about that.\"\n\n\"Known the boy since before he was born, haven't I?\"\n\nAmused, Quinn propped an elbow back on the bar as she toyed with the rest of her cereal. Apparently a serious scare in the night and mild irritation with a man in the morning was a more effective diet aid than any bathroom scale. Meg struck her as a comfortable woman, wide-hipped in her brown cords and flannel shirt, sleeves rolled up at the elbows. Her hair curled tight as a poodle's fur in a brown ball around a soft and lined face. And there was a quick spark in her hazel eyes that told Quinn she'd be inclined to talk.\n\n\"So, Meg, what else do you know? Say about the Pagan Stone.\"\n\n\"Buncha nonsense, you ask me.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\n\"People just get a little\"\u2014she circled her finger at her ear\u2014\"now and again. Tip too much at the bottle, get all het up. One thing leads to another. Good for business though, the speculation, if you follow me. Get plenty of flatlanders in here wondering about it, asking about it, taking pictures, buying souvenirs.\"\n\n\"You never had any experiences?\"\n\n\"Saw some people usually have good sense acting like fools, and some who got a mean streak in them acting meaner for a spell of time.\" She shrugged. \"People are what people are, and sometimes they're more so.\"\n\n\"I guess that's true.\"\n\n\"If you want more about it, you should go on out to the library. There's some books there written about the town, the history and whatnot. And Sally Keefafer\u2014\"\n\n\"Bowling Sally?\"\n\nMeg snorted a laugh. \"She does like to bowl. Library director. She'll bend your ear plenty if you ask her questions. She loves to talk, and never found a subject she couldn't expound on till you wanted to slap some duct tape over her mouth.\"\n\n\"I'll do that. You sell duct tape here?\"\n\nMeg hooted out another laugh, shook her head. \"If you really want to talk, and get some sense out of it, you want Mrs. Abbott. She ran the old library, and she's at the new one for a spell most every day.\"\n\nThen scooping up the bills Cal left, she went to refill waiting cups at the other end of the counter.\n\nCAL HEADED STRAIGHT TO HIS OFFICE. HE HAD the usual morning's paperwork, phone calls, e-mails. And he had a morning meeting scheduled with his father and the arcade guy before the center opened for the afternoon leagues.\n\nHe thought of the wall of fire across Main Street the night before. Add that to two sightings by Quinn\u2014an outsider\u2014and it sure as hell seemed the entity that plagued the town was starting its jollies early.\n\nHer dream troubled him as well. The details\u2014he'd recognized where she'd been, what she'd seen. For her to have dreamed so lucidly about the pond, about the clearing, to have bruises from it, meant, in his opinion, she had to be connected in some way.\n\nA distant relation wasn't out of the question, and there should be a way to do a search. But he had other relations, and none but his immediate family had ever spoken of any effects, even during the Seven.\n\nAs he passed through the bowling center, he sent a wave toward Bill Turner, who was buffing the lanes. The big, burly machine's throaty hum echoed through the empty building.\n\nThe first thing he checked in his office was his e-mail, and he let out a breath of relief when he saw one from Gage.\n\nPrague. Got some business to clear up. Should be back in the U.S. of A. inside a couple weeks. Don't do anything stupider than usual without me.\n\nNo salutation, no signature. Very Gage, Cal thought. And it would have to do, for now.\n\nContact me as soon as you're Stateside, Cal wrote back. Things are already rumbling. Will always wait for you to do the stupid, because you're better at it.\n\nAfter clicking Send, he dashed another off to Fox.\n\nNeed to talk. My place, six o'clock. Got beer. Bring food that's not pizza.\n\nBest he could do, for now, Cal thought. Because life just had to keep rolling on.\n\nQUINN WALKED BACK TO THE HOTEL TO RETRIEVE her laptop. If she was going to the library, she might as well use it for a couple hours' work. And while she expected she had most, if not all, of the books tucked into the town's library already, maybe this Mrs. Abbott would prove to be a valuable source.\n\nCaleb Hawkins, it appeared, was going to be a clam until the following day.\n\nAs she stepped into the hotel lobby she saw the pert blond clerk behind the desk\u2014Mandy, Quinn thought after a quick scroll through her mental PDA\u2014and a brunette in the curvy chair being checked in.\n\nQuinn's quick once-over registered the brunette with the short, sassy do as mid to late twenties, with a travel-weary look about her that didn't do anything much to diminish the seriously pretty face. Jeans and a black sweater fit well over an athletic build. Pooled at her feet were a suitcase, a laptop case, a smaller bag probably for cosmetics and other female necessities, and an excellent and roomy hobo in slick red leather.\n\nQuinn had a moment of purse envy as she aimed a smile.\n\n\"Welcome back, Miss Black. If you need anything, I'll be with you in just a minute.\"\n\n\"I'm fine, thanks.\"\n\nQuinn turned to the stairs and, starting up, heard Mandy's cheerful, \"You're all checked in, Miss Darnell. I'm just going to call Harry to help with your bags.\"\n\nAs was her way, Quinn speculated on Miss Gorgeous Red Bag Darnell as she climbed up to her room. Passing through on her way to New York. No, too odd a place to stop over, and too early in the day to stop a road trip.\n\nVisiting relatives or friends, but why wouldn't she just bunk with said relatives or friends? Then again, she had some of both she'd rather not bunk with.\n\nMaybe a business trip, Quinn mused as she let herself into her room.\n\nWell, if Red Bag I Want for My Very Own stayed more than a few hours, Quinn would find out just who and what and why. It was, after all, what she was best at.\n\nQuinn packed up her laptop, added a spare notebook and extra pencils in case she got lucky. Digging out her phone, she set it on vibrate. Little was more annoying, to her mind, than ringing cell phones in libraries and theaters.\n\nShe slipped a county map into her case in the event she decided to explore.\n\nArmed, she headed down for the drive to the other end of town and the Hawkins Hollow Library.\n\nFrom her own research, Quinn knew that the original stone building tucked on Main Street now housed the community center, and the gym she intended to make use of. At the turn of the current century the new library had been built on a pretty rise of land on the south end of town. It, too, was stone, though Quinn was pretty sure it was the facing used on concrete and such rather than quarried. It was two levels with short wings on either side and a portico-style entrance. The style, she thought, was attractively old-fashioned. One, she guessed, the local historic society had likely fought a war to win.\n\nShe admired the benches, and the trees she imagined made shady reading nooks in season as she pulled up to park in the side lot.\n\nIt smelled like a library, she thought. Of books and a little dust, of silence.\n\nShe saw a brightly lettered sign announcing a Story Hour in the Children's section at ten thirty.\n\nShe wound her way through. Computers, long tables, carts, a few people wandering the stacks, a couple of old men paging through newspapers. She heard the soft hum-chuck of a copier and the muted ringing of a phone from the Information Desk.\n\nReminding herself to focus because if she wandered she'd be entranced by the spell she believed all libraries wove, she aimed straight for Information. And in the hushed tone reserved for libraries and churches, addressed the stringy man on duty. \"Good morning, I'm looking for books on local history.\"\n\n\"That would be on the second floor, west wing. Steps over to the left, elevator straight back. Anything in particular you're after?\"\n\n\"Thanks, but I'm just going to poke. Is Mrs. Abbott in today?\"\n\n\"Mrs. Abbott is retired, but she's in most every day by eleven. In a volunteer capacity.\"\n\n\"Thanks again.\"\n\nQuinn used the stairs. They had a nice curve to them, she thought, almost a Gone With the Wind sort of swish. She put on mental blinders so as not to be tempted by stacks and reading areas until she found herself in Local Interest.\n\nIt was more a room\u2014a mini-library\u2014than a section. Nice cozy chairs, tables, amber-shaded lamps, even footrests. And it was larger than she'd expected.\n\nThen again, she should have accounted for the fact that there had been battles fought in and around the Hollow in both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.\n\nBooks pertaining to those were arranged in separate areas, as were books on the county, the state, and the town.\n\nIn addition there was a very healthy section for local authors.\n\nShe tried that section first and saw she'd hit a treasure trove. There had to be more than a dozen she hadn't come across on her own hunt before coming to town. They were self-published, vanity-pressed, small local publishers.\n\nTitles like Nightmare Hollow and The Hollow, The Truth had her giddy with anticipation. She set up her laptop, her notebook, her recorder, then pulled out five books. It was then she noticed the discreet bronze plaque.\n\nThe Hawkins Hollow Library gratefully acknowledges the generosity of the Franklin and Maybelle Hawkins Family\n\nFranklin and Maybelle. Very probably Cal's ancestors. It struck Quinn as both suitable and generous that they would have donated the funds to sponsor this room. This particular room.\n\nShe settled at the table, chose one of the books at random, then began to read.\n\nShe'd covered pages of her notebook with names, locations, dates, reputed incidents, and any number of theories when she scented lavender and baby powder.\n\nSurfacing, she saw a trim and tidy old woman standing in black, sensible shoes with her hands folded neatly at the waist of her purple suit.\n\nHer hair was a thinning snowball; her clear framed glasses so thickly lensed Quinn wondered how the tiny nose and ears supported their weight.\n\nShe wore pearls around her neck, a gold wedding band on her finger, and a leather-banded watch with a huge face that looked to be as practical as her thick-soled shoes.\n\n\"I'm Estelle Abbott,\" she said in her creaky voice. \"Young Dennis said you asked after me.\"\n\nAs Quinn had gauged Dennis at Information as tumbling down the back end of his sixties, she imagined the woman who termed him young must have him by a good two decades.\n\n\"Yes.\" Quinn got to her feet, crossed over to offer her hand. \"I'm Quinn Black, Mrs. Abbott. I'm\u2014\"\n\n\"Yes, I know. The writer. I've enjoyed your books.\"\n\n\"Thank you very much.\"\n\n\"No need. If I hadn't liked them I'd've told you straight-out. You're researching for a book on the Hollow.\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am, I am.\"\n\n\"You'll find quite a bit of information here. Some of it useful.\" She peered at the books on the table. \"Some of it nonsense.\"\n\n\"Then in the interest of separating the wheat from the chaff, maybe you could find some time to talk to me at some point. I'd be happy to take you to lunch or dinner whenever you\u2014\"\n\n\"That's very nice of you, but unnecessary. Why don't we sit down for a while, and we'll see how things go?\"\n\n\"That would be great.\"\n\nEstelle crossed to a chair, sat, then with her back ruler-straight and her knees glued together, folded her hands in her lap. \"I was born in the Hollow,\" she began, \"lived here all of my ninety-seven years.\"\n\n\"Ninety-seven?\" Quinn didn't have to feign the surprise. \"I'm usually pretty good at gauging age, and I'd put you a solid decade under that.\"\n\n\"Good bones,\" Estelle said with an easy smile. \"I lost my husband, John, also born and raised here, eight years back come the fifth of next month. We were married seventy-one years.\"\n\n\"What was your secret?\"\n\nThat brought on another smile. \"Learn to laugh, otherwise, you'll beat them to death with a hammer first chance.\"\n\n\"Just let me write that down.\"\n\n\"We had six children\u2014four boys, two girls\u2014and all of them living still and not in jail, thank the Lord. Out of them, we had ourselves nineteen grandchildren, and out of them got ourselves twenty-eight greats\u2014last count, and five of the next generation with two on the way.\"\n\nQuinn simply goggled. \"Christmas must be insane in a good way.\"\n\n\"We're scattered all over, but we've managed to get most everybody in one place at one time a few times.\"\n\n\"Dennis said you were retired. You were a librarian?\"\n\n\"I started working in the library when my youngest started school. That would be the old library on Main Street. I worked there more than fifty years. Went back to school myself and got my degree. Johnnie and I traveled, saw a lot of the world together. For a time we thought about moving on down to Florida. But our roots here were too deep for that. I went to part-time work, then I retired when my Johnnie got sick. When he passed, I came back\u2014still the old one while this was being built\u2014as a volunteer or as an artifact, however you look at it. I tell you this so you'll have some idea about me.\"\n\n\"You love your husband and your children, and the children who've come from them. You love books, and you're proud of the work you've done. You love this town, and respect the life you've lived here.\"\n\nEstelle gave her a look of approval. \"You have an efficient and insightful way of summing up. You didn't say I loved my husband, but used the present tense. That tells me you're an observant and sensitive young woman. I sensed from your books that you have an open and seeking mind. Tell me, Miss Black, do you also have courage?\"\n\nQuinn thought of the thing outside the window, the way its tongue had flicked over its teeth. She'd been afraid, but she hadn't run. \"I like to think so. Please call me Quinn.\"\n\n\"Quinn. A family name.\"\n\n\"Yes, my mother's maiden.\"\n\n\"Irish Gaelic. I believe it means 'counselor.'\"\n\n\"It does, yes.\"\n\n\"I have a well of trivial information,\" Estelle said with a tap of her finger to her temple. \"But I wonder if your name isn't relevant. You'll need to have the objectivity, and the sensitivity of a counselor to write the book that should be written on Hawkins Hollow.\"\n\n\"Why haven't you written it?\"\n\n\"Not everyone who loves music can play the tune. Let me tell you a few things, some of which you may already know. There is a place in the woods that borders the west of this town, and that place was sacred ground, sacred and volatile ground long before Lazarus Twisse sought it out.\"\n\n\"Lazarus Twisse, the leader of the Puritan sect\u2014the radical sect\u2014which broke off or, more accurately, was cut off, from the godly in Massachusetts.\"\n\n\"According to the history of the time, yes. The Native Americans held that ground as sacred. And before them, it's said, powers battled for that circle of ground, both\u2014the dark and the light, good and evil, whatever terms you prefer\u2014left some seeds of that power there. They lay dormant, century by century, with only the stone to mark what had passed there. Over time the memories of the battle were forgotten or bastardized in folklore, and only the sense many felt that this ground and its stone were not ordinary dirt and rock remained.\"\n\nEstelle paused, fell into silence so that Quinn heard the click and hum of the heater, and the light slap of leather shoes on the floor as someone passed by the room toward other business.\n\n\"Twisse came to the Hollow, already named for Richard Hawkins, who, with his wife and children, had carved a small settlement in 1648. You should remark that Richard's eldest daughter was Ann. When Twisse came, Hawkins, his family, and a handful of others\u2014some who'd fled Europe as criminals, political or otherwise\u2014had made their life here. As had a man calling himself Giles Dent. And Dent built a cabin in the woods where the stone rose out of the ground.\"\n\n\"What's called the Pagan Stone.\"\n\n\"Yes. He troubled no one, and as he had some skill and knowledge of healing, was often sought out for sickness or injury. There are some accounts that claim he was known as the Pagan, and that this was the basis of the name the Pagan Stone.\"\n\n\"You're not convinced those accounts are accurate.\"\n\n\"It may be that the term stuck, entered the language and the lexicon at that time. But it was the Pagan Stone long before the arrival of Giles Dent or Lazarus Twisse. There are other accounts that claim Dent dabbled in witchcraft, that he enspelled Ann Hawkins, seduced and impregnated her. Others state that Ann and Dent were indeed lovers, but that she went to his bed of her own free will, and left her family home to live with him in the little cabin with the Pagan Stone.\"\n\n\"It would've been difficult for her\u2014for Ann Hawkins\u2014either way,\" Quinn speculated. \"Enspelled or free will, to live with a man, unmarried. If it was free will, if it was love, she must have been very strong.\"\n\n\"The Hawkinses have always been strong. Ann had to be strong to go to Dent, to stay with him. Then she had to be strong enough to leave him.\"\n\n\"There are a lot of conflicting stories,\" Quinn began. \"Why do you believe Ann Hawkins left Giles Dent?\"\n\n\"I believe she left to protect the lives growing inside her.\"\n\n\"From?\"\n\n\"Lazarus Twisse. Twisse and those who followed him came to Hawkins Hollow in sixteen fifty-one. He was a powerful force, and soon the settlement was under his rule. His rule decreed there would be no dancing, no singing, no music, no books but the Bible. No church but his church, no god but his god.\"\n\n\"So much for freedom of religion.\"\n\n\"Freedom was never Twisse's goal. In the way of those thirsty for power above all else, he intimidated, terrorized, punished, banished, and used as his visible weapon, the wrath of his chosen god. As Twisse's power grew, so did his punishments and penalties. Stocks, lashings, the shearing of a woman's hair if she was deemed ungodly, the branding of a man should he be accused of a crime. And finally, the burning of those he judged to be witches. On the night of July the seventh, sixteen fifty-two, on the accusation of a young woman, Hester Deale, Twisse led a mob from the settlement to the Pagan Stone, and to Giles Dent. What happened there...\"\n\nQuinn leaned forward. But Estelle sighed and shook her head. \"Well, there are many accounts. As there were many deaths. Seeds planted long before stirred in the ground. Some may have sprouted, only to die in the blaze that scorched the clearing.\n\n\"There are...fewer reports of what immediately followed, or followed over the next days and weeks. But in time, Ann Hawkins returned to the settlement with her three sons. And Hester Deale gave birth to a daughter eight months after the killing blaze at the Pagan Stone. Shortly, very shortly after her child, whom she claimed was sired by the devil, was born, Hester drowned herself in a small pond in Hawkins Wood.\"\n\nLoading her pockets with stones, Quinn thought with a suppressed shudder. \"Do you know what happened to her child? Or the children of Ann Hawkins?\"\n\n\"There are some letters, some journals, family Bibles. But most concrete information has been lost, or has never come to light. It will take considerable time and effort to dig out the truth. I can tell you this, those seeds stayed dormant until a night twenty-one years ago this July. They were awakened, and what sowed them awakened. They bloom for seven nights every seven years, and they strangle Hawkins Hollow. I'm sorry, I tire so quickly these days. It's irritating.\"\n\n\"Can I get you something? Or drive you home?\"\n\n\"You're a good girl. My grandson will be coming along to pick me up. You'll have spoken, I imagine, to his son by now. To Caleb.\"\n\nSomething in the smile turned a switch in Quinn's brain. \"Caleb would be your\u2014\"\n\n\"Great-grandson. Honorary, you could say. My brother Franklin and his wife, my dearest friend, Maybelle, were killed in an accident just before Jim\u2014Caleb's father was born. My Johnnie and I stood as grandparents to my brother's grandchildren. I'd have counted them and theirs in that long list of progeny before.\"\n\n\"You're a Hawkins by birth then.\"\n\n\"I am, and our line goes back, in the Hollow, to Richard Hawkins, the founder\u2014and through him to Ann.\" She paused a moment as if to let Quinn absorb, analyze. \"He's a good boy, my Caleb, and he carries more than his share of weight on his shoulders.\"\n\n\"From what I've seen, he carries it well.\"\n\n\"He's a good boy,\" Estelle repeated, then rose. \"We'll talk again, soon.\"\n\n\"I'll walk you downstairs.\"\n\n\"Don't trouble. They'll have tea and cookies for me in the staff lounge. I'm a pet here\u2014in the nicest sense of the word. Tell Caleb we spoke, and that I'd like to speak with you again. Don't spend all this pretty day inside a book. As much as I love them, there's life to be lived.\"\n\n\"Mrs. Abbott?\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Who do you think planted the seeds at the Pagan Stone?\"\n\n\"Gods and demons.\" Estelle's eyes were tired, but clear. \"Gods and demons, and there's such a thin line between the two, isn't there?\"\n\nAlone, Quinn sat again. Gods and demons. Those were a big, giant step up from ghosts and spirits, and other bump-in-the-night residents. But didn't it fit, didn't it click right together with the words she remembered from her dreams?\n\nWords she'd looked up that morning.\n\nBestia, Latin for beast.\n\nBeatus, Latin for blessed.\n\nDevoveo, Latin for sacrifice.\n\nOkay, okay, she thought, if we're heading down that track, it might be a good time to call in the reserves.\n\nShe pulled out her phone. When she was greeted by voice mail, Quinn pushed down impatience and waited for her cue to leave a message.\n\n\"Cyb, it's Q. I'm in Hawkins Hollow, Maryland. And, wow, I've hooked a big one. Can you come? Let me know if you can come. Let me know if you can't come so I can talk you into it.\"\n\nShe closed the phone, and for the moment she ignored the stack of books she'd selected. Instead, she began to busily type up notes from Estelle Hawkins Abbott's recitation.\n\n## Seven\n\nCAL DID WHAT HE THOUGHT OF AS THE PASS-OFF to his father. Since the meetings and the morning and afternoon league games were over and there was no party or event scheduled, the lanes were empty but for a couple of old-timers having a practice game on lane one.\n\nThe arcade was buzzing, as it tended to between the last school bell and the dinner hour. But Cy Hudson was running herd there, and Holly Lappins manned the front desk. Jake and Sara worked the grill and fountain, which would start hopping in another hour.\n\nEverything, everyone was in its place, so Cal could sit with his father at the end of the counter over a cup of coffee before he headed for home, and his dad took over the center for the night.\n\nThey could sit quietly for a while, too. Quiet was his father's way. Not that Jim Hawkins didn't like to socialize. He seemed to like crowds as much as his alone time, remembered names, faces, and could and would converse on any subject, including politics and religion. The fact that he could do so without pissing anyone off was, in Cal's opinion, one of his finest skills.\n\nHis sandy-colored hair had gone a pure and bright silver over the last few years, and was trimmed every two weeks at the local barbershop. He rarely altered his uniform of khakis, Rockports, and oxford shirts on workdays.\n\nSome would have called Jim Hawkins habitual, even boring. Cal called him reliable.\n\n\"Having a good month so far,\" Jim said in his take-your-time drawl. He took his coffee sweet and light, and by his wife's decree, cut off the caffeine at six p.m. sharp. \"Kind of weather we've been having, you never know if people are going to burrow in, or get cabin fever so bad they want to be anywhere but home.\"\n\n\"It was a good idea, running the three-game special for February.\"\n\n\"I get one now and again.\" Jim smiled, lines fanning out and deepening around his eyes. \"So do you. Your mom's wishing you'd come by, have dinner some night soon.\"\n\n\"Sure. I'll give her a call.\"\n\n\"Heard from Jen yesterday.\"\n\n\"How's she doing?\"\n\n\"Fine enough to flaunt that it was seventy-four in San Diego. Rosie's learning to write her letters, and the baby's getting another tooth. Jen said she'd send us pictures.\"\n\nCal heard the wistfulness. \"You and Mom should take another trip out there.\"\n\n\"Maybe, maybe in a month or two. We're heading to Baltimore on Sunday to see Marly and her brood. I saw your great-gran today. She told me she had a nice chat with that writer who's in town.\"\n\n\"Gran talked with Quinn?\"\n\n\"In the library. She liked the girl. Likes the idea of this book, too.\"\n\n\"And how about you?\"\n\nJim shook his head, contemplated as Sara drew off Cokes for a couple of teenagers taking a break from the arcade. \"I don't know what I think, Cal, that's the plain truth. I ask myself what good's it going to do to have somebody\u2014and an outsider at that\u2014write all this down so people can read about it. I tell myself that what happened before won't happen again\u2014\"\n\n\"Dad.\"\n\n\"I know that's not true, or most likely not true.\"\n\nFor a moment Jim just listened to the voices from the boys at the other end of the counter, the way they joked and poked at each other. He knew those boys, he thought. He knew their parents. If life worked as it ought to work, he'd know their wives and kids one day.\n\nHadn't he joked and poked at his own friends here once upon a time, over fountain Cokes and fries? Hadn't his own children run tame through this place? Now his girls were married and gone, with families of their own. And his boy was a man, sitting with worry in his eyes over problems too big to be understood.\n\n\"You have to prepare for it to happen again,\" Jim continued. \"But for most of us, it all hazes up, it just hazes up so you can barely remember what did happen. Not you, I know. It's clear for you, and I wish that wasn't so. I guess if you believe this writer can help find the answers, I'm behind you on that.\"\n\n\"I don't know what I believe. I haven't worked it out yet.\"\n\n\"You will. Well. I'm going to go check on Cy. Some of the evening rollers'll be coming in before long, wanting a bite before they suit up.\"\n\nHe pushed away from the counter, took a long look around. He heard the echoes of his boyhood, and the shouts of his children. He saw his son, gangly with youth, sitting at the counter with the two boys Jim knew were the same as brothers to him.\n\n\"We've got a good place here, Cal. It's worth working for. Worth fighting to hold it steady.\"\n\nJim gave Cal a pat on the shoulder, then strolled away.\n\nNot just the center, Cal thought. His father had meant the town. And Cal was afraid that holding it steady this time was going to be one hell of a battle.\n\nHe went straight home where most of the snow had melted off the shrubs and stones. Part of him had wanted to hunt Quinn down, pump out of her what she and his great-grandmother had talked about. Better to wait, he thought as he jingled his keys, better to wait then ease it out of her the next day. When they went to the Pagan Stone.\n\nHe glanced toward the woods where trees and shadows held pockets and rivers of snow, where he knew the path would be muddy from the melt.\n\nWas it in there now, gathering itself? Had it somehow found a way to strike outside the Seven? Maybe, maybe, but not tonight. He didn't feel it tonight. And he always did.\n\nStill, he couldn't deny he felt less exposed when he was inside the house, after he'd put on lights to push away the gloom.\n\nHe went through to the back door, opened it, and gave a whistle.\n\nLump took his time as Lump was wont to do. But the dog eased his way out of the doghouse and even stirred up the energy for a couple of tail wags before he moseyed across the backyard to the bottom of the deck stairs.\n\nHe gave a doggie sigh before clumping up the short flight. Then he leaned his whole body against Cal.\n\nAnd that, Cal thought, was love. That was welcome home, how ya doing, in Lump's world.\n\nHe crouched down to stroke and ruffle the fur, to scratch between the floppy ears while Lump gazed at him soulfully. \"How's it going? Get all your work done? What do you say we have a beer?\"\n\nThey went inside together. Cal filled the dog bowl from the bin of chow while Lump sat politely, though Cal assumed a large portion of his dog's manners was sheer laziness. When the bowl was set in front of him, Lump ate slowly, and with absolute focus on the task at hand.\n\nCal pulled a beer out of the fridge and popped the top. Leaning back on the counter he took that first long swallow that signaled the end of the workday.\n\n\"Got some serious shit on my mind, Lump. Don't know what to do about it, think about it. Should I have found a way to stop Quinn from coming here? Not sure that would've worked since she seems to go where the hell she wants, but I could've played it different. Laughed it off, or pushed it higher, so the whole thing came off as bogus. Played it straight, so far, and I don't know where that's going to lead.\"\n\nHe heard the front door open, then Fox shouted, \"Yo!\" Fox came in carrying a bucket of chicken and a large white takeout bag. \"Got tub-o-cluck, got fries. Want beer.\"\n\nAfter dumping the food on the table, Fox pulled out a beer. \"Your summons was pretty abrupt, son. I might've had a hot date tonight.\"\n\n\"You haven't had a hot date in two months.\"\n\n\"I'm storing it up.\" After the first swig, Fox shrugged off his coat, tossed it over a chair. \"What's the deal?\"\n\n\"Tell you while we eat.\"\n\nAs he'd been too brainwashed by his mother to fall back on the single-man's friend of paper plates, Cal set out two of stoneware in dull blue. They sat down to fried chicken and potatoes with Lump\u2014as the only thing that lured the dog from food was more food\u2014caging fries by leaning against Cal's knee or Fox's.\n\nHe told Fox everything, from the wall of fire, through Quinn's dream, and up to the conversation she'd had with his great-grandmother.\n\n\"Seeing an awful lot of the fucker for February,\" Fox mused. \"That's never happened before. Did you dream last night?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Me, too. Mine was a replay of the first time, the first summer. Only we didn't get to the school in time, and it wasn't just Miss Lister inside. It was everybody.\" He scrubbed a hand over his face before taking a long pull of beer. \"Everybody in town, my family, yours, all inside. Trapped, beating on the windows, screaming, their faces at the windows while the place burned.\" He offered Lump another fry, and his eyes were as dark and soulful as the dog's. \"Didn't happen that way, thank Christ. But it felt like it did. You know how that goes.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" Cal let out a breath. \"Yeah, I know how that goes. Mine was from that same summer, and we were all riding our bikes through town the way we did. Buildings were burned out, windows broken, cars wrecked and smoking. Bodies everywhere.\"\n\n\"It didn't happen that way,\" Fox repeated. \"We're not ten anymore, and we're not going to let it happen that way.\"\n\n\"I've been asking myself how long we can do this, Fox. How long can we hold it back as much as we do? This time, the next. Three more times? How many more times are we going to watch people we know, people we see most every day turn? Go crazy, go mean. Hurt each other, hurt themselves?\"\n\n\"As long as it takes.\"\n\nCal shoved his plate aside. \"Not good enough.\"\n\n\"It's all we've got, for now.\"\n\n\"It's like a virus, an infection, passing from one person to another. Where's the goddamn antidote?\"\n\n\"Not everyone's affected,\" Fox reminded him. \"There has to be a reason for that.\"\n\n\"We've never found it.\"\n\n\"No, so maybe you were right. Maybe we do need fresh eyes, an outsider, objectivity we just don't have. Are you still planning to take Quinn to the stone tomorrow?\"\n\n\"If I don't, she'll go anyway. So yeah, it's better I'm there.\"\n\n\"You want me? I can cancel some stuff.\"\n\n\"I can handle it.\" Had to handle it.\n\nQUINN STUDIED THE MENU IN THE HOTEL'S ALMOST empty dining room. She'd considered getting some takeout and eating in her room over her laptop, but she fell too easily into that habit, she knew. And to write about a town, she had to experience the town, and couldn't do that closed up in her pretty room eating a cold-cut sub.\n\nShe wanted a glass of wine, something chilly with a subtle zip. The hotel's cellar was more extensive than she'd expected, but she didn't want a whole bottle. She was frowning over the selections offered by the glass when Miss Fabulous Red Bag stepped in.\n\nShe'd changed into black pants, Quinn noted, and a cashmere sweater in two tissue-thin layers of deep blue under pale. The hair was great, she decided, pin straight with those jagged ends just past chin length. What Quinn knew would look messy on her came off fresh and stylish on the brunette.\n\nQuinn debated catching her eye, trying a wave. She could ask Red Purse to join her for dinner. After all, who didn't hate to eat alone? Then she could pump her dinner companion for the really important details. Like where she got that bag.\n\nEven as she charged up her smile, Quinn saw it.\n\nIt slithered across the glossy planks of the oak floor, leaving a hideous trail of bloody ooze behind it. At first she thought snake, then slug, then could barely think at all as she watched it slide up the legs of a table where an attractive young couple were enjoying cocktails by candlelight.\n\nIts body, thick as a truck tire, mottled red over black, wound its way over the table, leaving that ugly smear on the snowy linen while the couple laughed and flirted.\n\nA waitress walked briskly in, stepped in and through the sludge on the floor, to serve the couple their appetizers.\n\nQuinn swore she could hear the table creak under its weight.\n\nAnd its eyes when they met hers were the eyes of the boy, the red gleam in them bright and somehow amused. Then it began to wiggle wetly down the skirt of the tablecloth, and toward the brunette.\n\nThe woman stood frozen in place, her face bone white. Quinn pushed to her feet and, ignoring the surprised look from the waitress, leaped over the ugly path. She gripped the brunette's arm, pulled her out of the dining room.\n\n\"You saw it, too,\" Quinn said in a whisper. \"You saw that thing. Let's get out of here.\"\n\n\"What? What?\" The brunette cast shocked glances over her shoulder as she and Quinn stumbled for the door. \"You saw it?\"\n\n\"Sluggy, red-eyed, very nasty wake. Jesus. Jesus.\" She gulped in the raw February air on the hotel's porch. \"They didn't see it, but you did. I did. Why is that? Fuck if I know, but I have an idea who might. That's my car right there. Let's go. Let's just go.\"\n\nThe brunette didn't say another word until they were in the car and Quinn was squealing away from the curb. \"Who the hell are you?\"\n\n\"Quinn. Quinn Black. I'm a writer, mostly on the spooky. Of which there is a surplus in this town. Who are you?\"\n\n\"Layla Darnell. What is this place?\"\n\n\"That's what I want to find out. I don't know if it's nice to meet you or not, Layla, under the circumstances.\"\n\n\"Same here. Where are we going?\"\n\n\"To the source, or one of them.\" Quinn glanced over, saw Layla was still pale, still shaky. Who could blame her? \"What are you doing in Hawkins Hollow?\"\n\n\"I'm damned if I know, but I think I've decided to cut my visit short.\"\n\n\"Understandable. Nice bag, by the way.\"\n\nLayla worked up a wan smile. \"Thanks.\"\n\n\"Nearly there. Okay, you don't know why you're here, so where did you come from?\"\n\n\"New York.\"\n\n\"I knew it. It's the polish. Do you love it?\"\n\n\"Ah.\" Layla combed her fingers through her hair as she swiveled to look back. \"Most of the time. I manage a boutique in SoHo. Did. Do. I don't know that anymore either.\"\n\nNearly there, Quinn thought again. Let's keep calm. \"I bet you get great discounts.\"\n\n\"Yeah, part of the perks. Have you seen anything like that before. Like that thing?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Have you?\"\n\n\"Not when I was awake. I'm not crazy,\" Layla stated. \"Or I am, and so are you.\"\n\n\"We're not crazy, which is what crazy people tend to say, so you'll just have to take my word.\" She swung onto Cal's lane, and aimed the car over the little bridge toward the house where lights\u2014thank God\u2014glowed in the windows.\n\n\"Whose house is this?\" Layla gripped the front edge of her seat. \"Who lives here?\"\n\n\"Caleb Hawkins. His ancestors founded the town. He's okay. He knows about what we saw.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"It's a long story, with a lot of holes in it. And now you're thinking, what am I doing in this car with a complete stranger who's telling me to go into this house pretty much in the middle of nowhere.\"\n\nLayla took firm hold on the short strap of her bag, as if she might use it as a weapon. \"The thought's crossed.\"\n\n\"Your instinct put you in the car with me, Layla. Maybe you could follow along with that for the next step. Plus, it's cold. We didn't bring our coats.\"\n\n\"All right. Yes, all right.\" With a bracing breath, Layla opened the door, and with Quinn walked toward the house. \"Nice place. If you like isolated houses in the woods.\"\n\n\"Culture shock for the New Yorker.\"\n\n\"I grew up in Altoona, Pennsylvania.\"\n\n\"No kidding. Philadelphia. We're practically neighbors.\" Quinn knocked briskly on the door, then just opened the door and called in, \"Cal!\"\n\nShe was halfway across the living room when he hurried in. \"Quinn? What?\" Spotted Layla. \"Hello. What?\"\n\n\"Who's here?\" Quinn demanded. \"I saw another car in the drive.\"\n\n\"Fox. What's going on?\"\n\n\"The bonus-round question.\" She sniffed. \"Do I smell fried chicken? Is there food? Layla\u2014this is Layla Darnell; Layla, Cal Hawkins\u2014Layla and I haven't had dinner.\"\n\nShe moved right by him, and walked toward the kitchen.\n\n\"I'm sorry, I think, to bust in on you,\" Layla began. It passed through her mind that he didn't look like a serial killer. But then again, how would she know? \"I don't know what's happening, or why I'm here. I've had a confusing few days.\"\n\n\"Okay. Well, come on back.\"\n\nQuinn already had a drumstick in her hand, and was taking a swig of Cal's beer. \"Layla Darnell, Fox O'Dell. I'm not really in the mood for beer,\" she said to Cal. \"I was about to order some wine when Layla and I were disgustingly interrupted. Got any?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Yeah.\"\n\n\"Is it decent? If you run to jug or twist caps, I'll stick with beer.\"\n\n\"I've got some damn decent wine.\" He yanked a plate out, pushed it at her. \"Use a plate.\"\n\n\"He's completely Sally about things like that,\" Fox told her. He'd risen, and pulled out a chair. \"You look a little shaken up\u2014Layla, right? Why don't you sit down?\"\n\nShe just couldn't believe psycho killers sat around a pretty kitchen eating bucket chicken and debating wine over beer. \"Why don't I? I'm probably not really here.\" She sat, dropped her head in her hands. \"I'm probably in some padded room imagining all this.\"\n\n\"Imagining all what?\" Fox asked.\n\n\"Why don't I take it?\" Quinn glanced at Layla as Cal got out wineglasses. \"Then you can fill in as much of your own backstory as you want.\"\n\n\"Fine. That's fine.\"\n\n\"Layla checked into the hotel this morning. She's from New York. Just a bit ago, I was in the hotel dining room, considering ordering the green salad and the haddock, along with a nice glass of white. Layla was just coming in, I assume, to have her own dinner. I was going to ask you to join me, by the way.\"\n\n\"Oh. Ah, that's nice.\"\n\n\"Before I could issue the invite, what I'd describe as a sluglike creature thicker than my aunt Christine's thigh and about four feet in length oozed its way across the dining room, up over the table where a couple happily continued their dining foreplay, then oozed down again, leaving a revolting smear of God-knows-what behind it. She saw it.\"\n\n\"It looked at me. It looked right at me,\" Layla whispered.\n\n\"Don't be stingy with the wine, Cal.\" Quinn stepped over to rub a hand on Layla's shoulder. \"We were the only ones who saw it, and no longer wishing to dine at the hotel, and believing Layla felt the same, we booked. And I'm now screwing my caloric intake for the day with this drumstick.\"\n\n\"You're awfully...blithe. Thanks.\" Layla accepted the wineglass Cal offered, then drank half the contents at one go.\n\n\"Not really. Defense mechanism. So here we are, and I want to know if either of you have ever seen anything like I just described.\"\n\nThere was a moment of silence, then Cal picked up his beer, drank. \"We've seen a lot of things. The bigger question for me is, why are you seeing them, and part two, why are you seeing them now?\"\n\n\"Got a theory.\"\n\nCal turned to Fox. \"Such as?\"\n\n\"Connections. You said yourself there had to be some connection for Quinn to see it, to have the dream\u2014\"\n\n\"Dreams.\" Layla's head came up. \"You've had dreams?\"\n\n\"And so, apparently, have you,\" Fox continued. \"So we'll connect Layla. Figuring out how they're connected may take a while, but let's just go with the hypothesis that they are, and say, what if. What if, due to this connection, due to Quinn, then Layla being in the Hollow, particularly during the seventh year, gives it some kind of psychic boost? Gives it the juice to manifest?\"\n\n\"That's not bad,\" Cal replied.\n\n\"I'd say it's damn good.\" Quinn cocked her head as she considered. \"Energy. Most paranormal activity stems from energy. The energy the...well, entity or entities, the actions, the emotions thereof, leave behind, and the energy of the people within its sphere, let's say. And we could speculate that this psychic energy has built over time, strengthened, so that now, with the addition of other connected energies, it's able to push out into our reality, to some extent, outside of its traditional time frame.\"\n\n\"What in God's name are you people talking about?\" Layla demanded.\n\n\"We'll get to that, I promise.\" Quinn offered her a bolstering smile. \"Why don't you eat something, settle the nerves?\"\n\n\"I think it's going to be a while before food holds any appeal for me.\"\n\n\"Mr. Slug slimed right over the bread bowl,\" Quinn explained. \"It was pretty damn gross. Sadly, nothing puts me off food.\" She snagged a couple of cold fries. \"So, if we run with Fox's theory, where is its counterpoint? The good to its bad, the white to its dark. All my research on this points to both sides.\"\n\n\"Maybe it can't pull out yet, or it's hanging back.\"\n\n\"Or the two of you connect to the dark, and not the light,\" Cal added.\n\nQuinn narrowed her eyes at him, with something glinting between her lashes. Then she shrugged. \"Insulting, but unarguable at this time. Except for the fact that, logically, if we were more a weight on the bad side, why is said bad side trying to scare the living daylights out of us?\"\n\n\"Good point,\" Cal conceded.\n\n\"I want some answers.\"\n\nQuinn nodded at Layla. \"I bet you do.\"\n\n\"I want some serious, sensible answers.\"\n\n\"Thumbnail: The town includes an area in the woods known as the Pagan Stone. Bad stuff happened there. Gods, demons, blood, death, fire. I'm going to lend you a couple of books on the subject. Centuries pass, then something opened it up again. Since nineteen eighty-seven, for seven nights in July, every seventh year, it comes out to play. It's mean, it's ugly, and it's powerful. We're getting a preview.\"\n\nGratefully, Layla held out her glass for more wine as she studied Quinn. \"Why haven't I ever heard of this? Or this place?\"\n\n\"There have been some books, some articles, some reports\u2014but most of them hit somewhere between alien abductions and sightings of Bigfoot,\" Quinn explained. \"There's never been a serious, thorough, fully researched account published. That's going to be my job.\"\n\n\"All right. Say I believe all this, and I'm not sure I'm not just having the mother of all hallucinations, why you, and you?\" she said to Fox and Cal. \"Where do you come in?\"\n\n\"Because we're the ones who opened it,\" Fox told her. \"Cal, me, and a friend who's currently absent. Twenty-one years ago this July.\"\n\n\"But you'd have been kids. You'd have had to have been\u2014\"\n\n\"Ten,\" Cal confirmed. \"We share a birthday. It was our tenth birthday. Now, we showed some of ours. How about seeing some of yours. Why did you come here?\"\n\n\"Fair enough.\" Layla took another slow sip of her wine. Whether it was that or the brightly lit kitchen with a dog snoring under the table or just having a group of strangers who were likely to believe what she was about to tell them, her nerves were steadier.\n\n\"I've been having dreams for the last several nights. Nightmares or night terrors. Sometimes I'd wake up in my bed, sometimes I'd wake up trying to get out the door of my apartment. You said blood and fire. There was both in the dreams, and a kind of altar in a clearing in the woods. I think it was stone. And there was water, too. Black water. I was drowning in it. I was captain of the swim team in high school, and I was drowning.\"\n\nShe shuddered, took another breath. \"I was afraid to sleep. I thought I heard voices even when I wasn't asleep. I couldn't understand them, but I'd be at work, doing my job, or stopping by the dry cleaners on the way home, and these voices would just fill my head. I thought I was having a breakdown. But why? Then I thought maybe I had a brain tumor. I even thought about making an appointment with a neurologist. Then last night, I took a sleeping pill. Maybe I could just drug my way out of it. But it came, and in the dream something was in bed with me.\"\n\nHer breath trembled out this time. \"Not my bed, but somewhere else. A small room, a small hot room with a tiny window. I was someone else. I can't explain it, really.\"\n\n\"You're doing fine,\" Quinn assured her.\n\n\"It was happening to me, but I wasn't me. I had long hair, and the shape of my body, it was different. I was wearing a long nightgown. I know because it...it pulled it up. It was touching me. It was cold, it was so cold. I couldn't scream, I couldn't fight, even when it raped me. It was inside me, but I couldn't see, I couldn't move. I felt it, all of it, as if it were happening, but I couldn't stop it.\"\n\nShe wasn't aware of the tears until Fox pressed a napkin into her hand. \"Thanks. When it was over, when it was gone, there was a voice in my head. Just one voice this time, and it calmed me, it made me warm again and took away the pain. It said: 'Hawkins Hollow.'\"\n\n\"Layla, were you raped?\" Fox spoke very quietly. \"When you came out of the dream, was there any sign you'd been raped?\"\n\n\"No.\" She pressed her lips together, kept her gaze on his face. His eyes were golden brown, and full of compassion. \"I woke up in my own bed, and I made myself go...check. There was nothing. It hurt me, so there would've been bruises, there would've been marks, but there was nothing. It was early in the morning, not quite four in the morning, and I kept thinking Hawkins Hollow. So I packed, and I took a cab out to the airport to rent a car. Then I drove here. I've never been here.\"\n\nShe paused to look at Quinn now, at Cal. \"I've never heard of Hawkins Hollow that I can remember, but I knew what roads to take. I knew how to get here, and how to get to the hotel. I checked in this morning, went up to the room they gave me, and I slept like the dead until nearly six. When I walked into the dining room and saw that thing, I thought I was still asleep. Dreaming again.\"\n\n\"It's a wonder you didn't bolt,\" Quinn commented.\n\nLayla sent her an exhausted look. \"To where?\"\n\n\"There's that.\" Quinn put a hand on Layla's shoulder, rubbing gently as she spoke. \"I think we all need as much information as there is to be had, from every source there is. I think, from this point, it's share and share alike, one for goddamn all and all for goddamn one. You don't like that,\" she said with a nod toward Cal, \"but I think you're going to have to get used to it.\"\n\n\"You've been in this for days. Fox and I have lived with it for years. Lived in it. So, don't put on your badge and call yourself captain yet, Blondie.\"\n\n\"Living in it for twenty-one years gives you certain advantages. But you haven't figured it out, you haven't stopped it or even identified it, as far as I can tell, in your twenty-one-year experience. So loosen up.\"\n\n\"You poked at my ninety-seven-year-old great-grandmother today.\"\n\n\"Oh, bull. Your remarkable and fascinating ninety-seven-year-old great-grandmother came up to where I was researching in the library, sat down, and had a conversation with me of her own free will. There was no poking. My keen observation skills tell me you didn't inherit your tight-ass tendencies from her.\"\n\n\"Kids, kids.\" Fox held up a hand. \"Tense situation, agreed, but we're all on the same side, or are on the same side potentially. So chill. Cal, Quinn makes a good point, and it bears consideration. At the same time, Quinn, you've been in the Hollow a couple of days, and Layla less than that. You're going to have to be patient, and accept the fact that some areas of information are more sensitive than others, and may take time to be offered. Even if we start with what can and has been corroborated or documented\u2014\"\n\n\"What are you, a lawyer?\" Layla asked.\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Figures,\" she said under her breath.\n\n\"Let's just table this,\" Cal suggested. \"Let's let it sit, so we can all think about it for the night. I said I'd take you to the Pagan Stone tomorrow, and I will. Let's see how it goes.\"\n\n\"Accepted.\"\n\n\"Are you two all right at the hotel? You can stay here if you're not easy about going back.\"\n\nThe fact that he'd offered had Quinn's hackles smoothing down again. \"We're not wimps, are we, Layla?\"\n\n\"I wouldn't have said I was a few days ago. Now, I'm not so sure. But I'll be all right at the hotel.\" In fact, she wanted to go back, crawl into that big, soft bed and pull the covers over her head. \"I slept better there than I have all week, so that's something.\"\n\nQuinn decided she'd wait until they were back before she advised Layla to lower all the shades, and maybe leave a light burning.\n\n## Eight\n\nIN THE MORNING, QUINN PRESSED AN EAR AGAINST the door to Layla's room. Since she heard the muted sounds of the Today show, she gave the door a knuckle rap. \"It's Quinn,\" she added, in case Layla was still jumpy.\n\nLayla opened the door in a pretty damn cute pair of purple-and-white-striped pajama pants and a purple sleep tank. There was color in her cheeks, and her quiet green eyes had the clarity that told Quinn she'd been awake awhile.\n\n\"I'm about to head out to Cal's. Mind if I come in a minute?\"\n\n\"No.\" She stepped back. \"I was trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do with myself today.\"\n\n\"You can come with me if you want.\"\n\n\"Into the woods? Not quite ready for that, thanks. You know...\" Layla switched off the TV before dropping into a chair. \"I was thinking about the wimp statement you made last night. I've never been a wimp, but it occurred to me as I was huddled in bed with the shades drawn and this stupid chair under the doorknob that I've never had anything happen that tested that before. My life's been pretty normal.\"\n\n\"You came here, and you're still here. So I'm thinking that puts you pretty low on the wimp scale. How'd you sleep?\"\n\n\"Good. Once I got there, good. No dreams, no visitations, no bumps in the night. So, of course, now I'm wondering why.\"\n\n\"No dreams for me either.\" Quinn glanced around the room. Layla's bed was a sleigh style and the color scheme was muted greens and creams. \"We could theorize that your room here's a safe zone, but that's off because mine isn't, and it's two doors down. It could be that whatever it is just took the night off. Maybe needed to recharge some expended energy.\"\n\n\"Happy thought.\"\n\n\"You've got my cell number, Cal's, Fox's. We've got yours. We're\u2014connected. I wanted to let you know that the diner across the street, figuring you're not going to try the dining room here again, has a nice breakfast.\"\n\n\"I'm thinking I might try room service, and start on the books that you gave me last night. I didn't want to try them for bedtime reading.\"\n\n\"Wise. Okay. If you head out, it's a nice town. Some cute little shops, a little museum I haven't had time to explore so can't give you a rating, and there's always the Bowl-a-Rama.\"\n\nA hint of a smile appeared around Layla's mouth. \"Is there?\"\n\n\"It's Cal's family's place. Interesting, and it feels like the hub of the town. So, I'll look you up when I get back?\"\n\n\"Okay. Quinn?\" Layla added as Quinn reached for the door. \"Wimp scale or not, I'm not sure I'd still be here if I hadn't run into you.\"\n\n\"I know how you feel. I'll see you later.\"\n\nCAL WAS WAITING FOR HER WHEN SHE DROVE UP. He stepped out, started down the steps, the dog wandering behind him, as she got out of the car. He took a scan, starting with her feet. Good, sturdy hiking boots that showed some scars and wear, faded jeans, tough jacket in I'm-Not-a-Deer red, and a multistriped scarf that matched the cloche-style cap on her head. Silly hat, he mused, that was unaccountably appealing on her.\n\nIn any case, he decided she knew what to wear on a hike through the winter woods.\n\n\"Do I pass muster, Sergeant?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" He came down the rest of the steps. \"Let's start this off with me saying I was off base by a couple inches last night. I haven't completely resolved dealing with you, and now there's another person in the mix, another unknown. When you live with this as long as I have, part of you gets used to it, and other parts just get edgier. Especially when you're into the seventh year. So, I'll apologize, if you need it.\"\n\n\"Well. Wind, sails sucked out. Okay, I can't be pissed off after that or it's just bitchy instead of righteous. So let me say this. Before I came here, this was an idea for a book, a job I enjoy on a level some might consider twisted, and that I consider vastly fascinating. Now, it's more personal. While I can appreciate you being somewhat edgy, and somewhat proprietary, I'm bringing something important to the table. Experience and objectivity. And guts. I've got some impressive guts.\"\n\n\"I've noticed.\"\n\n\"So, we're going to do this thing?\"\n\n\"Yeah, we're going to do it.\"\n\nShe gave the dog who came over to lean on her a rub. \"Is Lump seeing us off on our adventure?\"\n\n\"He's coming. He likes to walk in the woods when the mood strikes. And if he's had enough, he'll just lie down and sleep until he's in the mood to walk back home again.\"\n\n\"Strikes me as a sensible attitude.\" She picked up a small pack, hitched it on, then drew her tape recorder out of her pocket. It was attached to the pocket with a small clamp. \"I'm going to want to record observations, and whatever you tell me. Okay with that?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" He'd given it a lot of thought overnight. \"I'm okay with that.\"\n\n\"Then I'm ready when you are, Tonto.\"\n\n\"Trail's going to be sloppy,\" he said as they started toward the woods. \"Given that, from this point it'll take about two hours\u2014a little more depending\u2014to reach the clearing.\"\n\n\"I'm in no hurry.\"\n\nCal glanced up at the sky. \"You will be if the weather turns, or anything holds us up after sundown.\"\n\nShe clicked on her recorder, and hoped she'd been generous enough with her cache of extra tapes and batteries. \"Why?\"\n\n\"Years back people hiked or hunted in this section of the woods routinely. Now they don't. People got lost, turned around, spooked. Some reported hearing what they thought were bear or wolves. We don't have wolves and it's rare for bear to come this far down the mountains. Kids, teens mostly, used to sneak in to swim in Hester's Pool in the summer, or to screw around. Now they don't. People used to say the pool was haunted, it was kind of a local legend. Now, people don't like to talk about it.\"\n\n\"Do you think it's haunted?\"\n\n\"I know there's something in it. I saw it myself. We'll talk about that once we get to the pool. No point in going into it now.\"\n\n\"All right. Is this the way the three of you came in on your birthday twenty-one years ago?\"\n\n\"We came in from the east.\" He gestured. \"Track closest to town. This way's shorter, but it would've been a longer ride around for us from town. There wasn't anything...off about it, until we got to the pool.\"\n\n\"Have the three of you been back together since that night?\"\n\n\"Yeah, we went back. More than once.\" He glanced toward her. \"I can tell you that going back anytime near the Seven isn't an experience I look forward to repeating.\"\n\n\"The Seven?\"\n\n\"That's what we call the week in July.\"\n\n\"Tell me more about what happens during the Seven.\"\n\nIt was time to do just that, he thought. To say it straight-out to someone who wanted to know. To someone, maybe, who was part of the answer.\n\n\"People in the Hollow get mean, violent, even murderous. They do things they'd never do at any other time. Destroy property, beat the hell out of each other, start fires. Worse.\"\n\n\"Murders, suicides.\"\n\n\"Yeah. After the week's up, they don't remember clearly. It's like watching someone come out of a trance, or a long illness. Some of them are never the same. Some of them leave town. And some fix up their shop or their house, and just go on. It doesn't hit everyone, and it doesn't hit those it does all in the same way. The best I can explain is it's like a mass psychotic episode, and it gets stronger each time.\"\n\n\"What about the police?\"\n\nOut of habit, Cal reached down, picked up a stick. There was no point in tossing it for Lump, that would only embarrass them both. So he held it down so Lump could take it into his mouth and plod contentedly along.\n\n\"Chief Larson was in charge last time. He was a good man, went to school with my father. They were friends. The third night, he locked himself in his office. I think he, some part of him anyway, knew what was happening to him, and didn't want to risk going home to his wife and kids. One of the deputies, guy named Wayne Hawbaker, nephew to Fox's secretary, came in looking for him, needed help. He heard Larson crying in the office. Couldn't get him to come out. By the time Wayne knocked down the door, Larson had shot himself. Wayne's chief of police now. He's a good man, too.\"\n\nHow much loss had he seen? Quinn wondered. How many losses had he suffered since his tenth birthday? And yet he was walking back into these woods, back where it all began for him. She didn't think she'd ever known a braver stand.\n\n\"What about the county cops, the state cops?\"\n\n\"It's like we're cut off for that week.\" A cardinal winged by, boldly red, carelessly free. \"Sometimes people get out, sometimes they get in, but by and large, we're on our own. It's like...\" He groped for words. \"It's like this veil comes down, and nobody sees, not clearly. Help doesn't come, and after, nobody questions it too closely. Nobody looks straight on at what happened, or why. So it ends up being lore, or Blair Witch stuff. Then it fades off until it happens again.\"\n\n\"You stay, and you look at it straight on.\"\n\n\"It's my town,\" he said simply.\n\nNo, Quinn thought, that was the bravest stand she'd ever known.\n\n\"How'd you sleep last night?\" he asked her.\n\n\"Dreamlessly. So did Layla. You?\"\n\n\"The same. Always before, once it started, it didn't stop. But then, things are different this time around.\"\n\n\"Because I saw something, and so did Layla.\"\n\n\"That's the big one. And it's never started this early, or this strong.\" As they walked, he studied her face. \"Have you ever had a genealogy done?\"\n\n\"No. You think we're related back when, or I'm related to someone who was involved in whatever happened at the Pagan Stone way back when?\"\n\n\"I think, we've always thought, this was about blood.\" Absently, he glanced at the scar on his wrist. \"So far, knowing or sensing that hasn't done any good. Where are your ancestors from?\"\n\n\"England primarily, some Irish tossed in.\"\n\n\"Mine, too. But then a lot of Americans have English ancestry.\"\n\n\"Maybe I should start researching and find out if there are any Dents or Twisses in my lineage?\" She shrugged when he frowned at her. \"Your great-grandmother sent me down that path. Have you tried to trace them? Giles Dent and Lazarus Twisse?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Dent may be an ancestor, if he did indeed father the three sons of Ann Hawkins. There's no record of him. And other than accounts from the time, some old family letters and diaries, no Giles Dent on anything we've dug up. No record of birth, death. Same for Twisse. They could've dropped down from Pluto as far as we've been able to prove.\"\n\n\"I have a friend who's a whiz on research. I sent her a heads-up. And don't get that look on your face again. I've known her for years, and we've worked together on other projects. I don't know as yet if she can or will come in on this, but trust me, if she does, you'll be grateful. She's brilliant.\"\n\nRather than respond, he chewed on it. How much of his resistance was due to this feeling of losing control over the situation? And had he ever had any control to begin with? Some, he knew, was due to the fact that the more people who became involved, the more people he felt responsible for.\n\nAnd maybe most of all, how much was all this exposure going to affect the town?\n\n\"The Hollow's gotten some publicity over the years, focused on this whole thing. That's how you found out about us to begin with. But it's been mild, and for the most part, hasn't done much more than bring interested tourists through. With your involvement, and now potentially two others, it could turn the Hollow into some sort of lurid or ridiculous caption in the tourist guides.\"\n\n\"You knew that was a risk when you agreed to talk to me.\"\n\nShe was keeping pace with him, stride-by-stride on the sloppy ground. And, she was striding into the unknown without a quake or a quiver. \"You'd have come whether or not I agreed.\"\n\n\"So part of your cooperation is damage control.\" She nodded. \"Can't blame you. But maybe you should be thinking bigger picture, Cal. More people invested means more brains and more chance of figuring out how to stop what's been happening. Do you want to stop it?\"\n\n\"More than I can possibly tell you.\"\n\n\"I want a story. There's no point in bullshitting you about that. But I want to stop it, too. Because despite my famous guts, this thing scares me. Better shot at that, it seems to me, if we work together and utilize all our resources. Cybil's one of mine, and she's a damn good one.\"\n\n\"I'll think about it.\" For now, he thought, he'd given her enough. \"Why don't you tell me what made you head down the woo-woo trail, writing-wise.\"\n\n\"That's easy. I always liked spooky stuff. When I was a kid and had a choice between, say, Sweet Valley High or Stephen King, King was always going to win. I used to write my own horror stories and give my friends nightmares. Good times,\" she said and made him laugh. \"Then, the turning point, I suppose, was when I went into this reputed haunted house with a group of friends. Halloween. I was twelve. Big dare. Place was falling down and due to be demolished. We were probably lucky we didn't fall through floorboards. So we poked around, squealed, scared ourselves, and had some laughs. Then I saw her.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"The ghost, of course.\" She gave him a friendly elbow poke. \"Keep up. None of the others did. But I saw her, walking down the stairs. There was blood all over her. She looked at me,\" Quinn said quietly now. \"It seemed like she looked right at me, and walked right by. I felt the cold she carried with her.\"\n\n\"What did you do? And if I get a guess, I'm guessing you followed her.\"\n\n\"Of course, I followed her. My friends were running around, making spooky noises, but I followed her into the falling-down kitchen, down the broken steps to the basement by the beam of my Princess Leia flashlight. No cracks.\"\n\n\"How can I crack when I had a Luke Skywalker flashlight?\"\n\n\"Good. What I found were a lot of spiderwebs, mouse droppings, dead bugs, and a filthy floor of concrete. Then the concrete was gone and it was just a dirt floor with a hole\u2014a grave\u2014dug in it. A black-handled shovel beside it. She went to it, looked at me again, then slid down, hell, like a woman might slide into a nice bubble bath. Then I was standing on the concrete floor again.\"\n\n\"What did you do?\"\n\n\"Your guess?\"\n\n\"I'd guess you and Leia got the hell out of there.\"\n\n\"Right again. I came out of the basement like a rocket. I told my friends, who didn't believe me. Just trying to spook them out as usual. I didn't tell anyone else, because if I had, our parents would have known we were in the house and we'd have been grounded till our Social Security kicked in. But when they demolished the house, started jackhammering the concrete floor, they found her. She'd been in there since the thirties. The wife of the guy who'd owned the house had claimed she'd run off. He was dead by then, so nobody could ask him how or why he'd done it. But I knew. From the time I saw her until they found her bones, I dreamed about her murder, I saw it happen.\n\n\"I didn't tell anyone. I was too afraid. Ever since, I've told what I find, confirming or debunking. Maybe partly to make it up to Mary Bines\u2014that was her name. And partly because I'm not twelve anymore, and nobody's going to ground me.\"\n\nHe said nothing for a long time. \"Do you always see what happened?\"\n\n\"I don't know if it's seeing or just intuiting, or just my imagination, which is even more far-famed than my guts. But I've learned to trust what I feel, and go with it.\"\n\nHe stopped, gestured. \"This is where the tracks cross. We came in from that direction, picked up the cross trail here. We were loaded down. My mother had packed a picnic basket, thinking we were camping out on Fox's family farm. We had his boom box, his load from the market, our backpacks full of the stuff we figured we couldn't live without. We were still nine years old. Kids, pretty much fearless. That all changed before we came out of the woods again.\"\n\nWhen he started to walk once more, she put a hand on his arm, squeezed. \"Is that tree bleeding, or do you just have really strange sap in this part of the world?\"\n\nHe turned, looked. Blood seeped from the bark of the old oak, and seeped into the soggy ground at its trunk.\n\n\"That kind of thing happens now and again. It puts off the hikers.\"\n\n\"I bet.\" She watched Lump plod by the tree after only a cursory sniff. \"Why doesn't he care?\"\n\n\"Old hat to him.\"\n\nShe started to give the tree a wide berth, then stopped. \"Wait, wait. This is the spot. This is the spot where I saw the deer across the path. I'm sure of it.\"\n\n\"He called it, with magick. The innocent and pure.\"\n\nShe started to speak, then looking at Cal's face, held her tongue. His eyes had darkened; his cheeks had paled.\n\n\"Its blood for the binding. Its blood, his blood, the blood of the dark thing. He grieved when he drew the blade across its neck, and its life poured onto his hands and into the cup.\"\n\nAs his head swam, Cal bent over from the waist. Prayed he wouldn't be sick. \"Need a second to get my breath.\"\n\n\"Take it easy.\" Quickly, Quinn pulled off her pack and pulled out her water bottle. \"Drink a little.\"\n\nMost of the queasiness passed when she took his hand, pressed the bottle into it. \"I could see it, feel it. I've gone by this tree before, even when it's bled, and I never saw that. Or felt that.\"\n\n\"Two of us this time. Maybe that's what opened it up.\"\n\nHe drank slowly. Not just two, he thought. He'd walked this path with Fox and Gage. We two, he decided. Something about being here with her. \"The deer was a sacrifice.\"\n\n\"I get that. Devoveo. He said it in Latin. Blood sacrifice. White witchery doesn't ascribe to that. He had to cross over the line, smear on some of the black to do what he felt he needed to do. Was it Dent? Or someone who came long before him?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\nBecause she could see his color was eking back, her own heart rate settled. \"Do you see what came before?\"\n\n\"Bits, pieces, flashes. Not all of it. I generally come back a little sick. If I push for more, it's a hell of a lot worse.\"\n\n\"Let's not push then. Are you okay to go on?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Yeah.\" His stomach was still mildly uneasy, but the light-headedness had passed. \"We'll be coming to Hester's Pool soon.\"\n\n\"I know. I'm going to tell you what it looks like before we get there. I'm telling you I've never been there before, not in reality, but I've seen it, and I stood there night before last. There are cattails and wild grass. It's off the path, through some brush and thorny stuff. It was night, so the water looked black. Opaque. Its shape isn't quite round, not really oval. It's more of a fat crescent. There were a lot of rocks. Some more like boulders, some no more than pebbles. She filled her pockets with them\u2014they looked to be about hand-sized or smaller\u2014until her pockets were sagging with the weight. Her hair was cut short, like it'd been hacked at, and her eyes looked mad.\"\n\n\"Her body didn't stay down, not according to reports.\"\n\n\"I've read them,\" Quinn acknowledged. \"She was found floating in the pool, which came to bear her name, and because it was suicide, they buried her in unconsecrated ground. Records I've dug up so far don't indicate what happened to the infant daughter she left behind.\"\n\nBefore replacing the pack, she took out a bag of trail mix. Opened it, offered. Cal shook his head. \"There's plenty of bark and twigs around if I get that desperate.\"\n\n\"This isn't bad. What did your mother pack for you that day?\"\n\n\"Ham-and-cheese sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, apple slices, celery and carrot sticks, oatmeal cookies, lemonade.\" Remembering made him smile. \"Pop-Tarts, snack pack cereal for breakfast.\"\n\n\"Uppercase M Mom.\"\n\n\"Yeah, always has been.\"\n\n\"How long do we date before I meet the parents?\"\n\nHe considered. \"They want me to come for dinner some night soon if you want in.\"\n\n\"A home-cooked meal by Mom? I'm there. How does she feel about all this?\"\n\n\"It's hard for them, all of this is hard. And they've never let me down in my life.\"\n\n\"You're a lucky man, Cal.\"\n\nHe broke trail, skirting the tangles of blackberry bushes, and following the more narrow and less-trod path. Lump moved on ahead, as if he understood where they were headed. The first glint of the pool brought a chill down his spine. But then, it always did.\n\nBirds still called, and Lump\u2014more by accident than design, flushed a rabbit that ran across the path and into another thicket. Sunlight streamed through the empty branches onto the leaf-carpeted ground. And glinted dully on the brown water of Hester's Pool.\n\n\"It looks different during the day,\" Quinn noted. \"Not nearly as ominous. But I'd have to be very young and very hot to want to go splashing around in that.\"\n\n\"We were both. Fox went in first. We'd snuck out here before to swim, but I'd never much liked it. Who knew what was swimming under there? I always thought Hester's bony hand was going to grab my ankle and pull me under. Then it did.\"\n\nQuinn's eyebrows shot up, and when he didn't continue, she sat on one of the rocks. \"I'm listening.\"\n\n\"Fox was messing with me. I was a better swimmer, but he was sneaky. Gage couldn't swim for crap, but he was game. I thought it was Fox again, dunking me, but it was her. I saw her when I went under. Her hair wasn't short the way you saw her. I remember how her hair streamed out. She didn't look like a ghost. She looked like a woman. Girl,\" he corrected. \"I realized when I got older she was just a girl. I couldn't get out fast enough, and I made Fox and Gage get out. They hadn't seen anything.\"\n\n\"But they believed you.\"\n\n\"That's what friends do.\"\n\n\"Did you ever go back in?\"\n\n\"Twice. But I never saw her again.\"\n\nQuinn gave Lump, who wasn't as particular as his master, a handful of trail mix. \"It's too damn cold to try now, but come June, I'd like to take a dip and see what happens.\" She munched some mix as she looked around. \"It's a nice spot, considering. Primitive, but still picturesque. Seems like a great place for three boys to run a little wild.\"\n\nShe cocked her head. \"So do you usually bring your women here on dates?\"\n\n\"You'd be the first.\"\n\n\"Really? Is that because they haven't been interested, or you haven't wanted to answer questions pertaining.\"\n\n\"Both.\"\n\n\"So I'm breaking molds here, which is one of my favorite hobbies.\" Quinn stared out over the water. \"She must've been so sad, so horribly sad to believe there was no other way for her. Crazy's a factor, too, but I think she must've been weighed down by sadness and despair before she weighed herself down with rocks. That's what I felt in the dream, and it's what I feel now, sitting here. Her horrible, heavy sadness. Even more than the fear when it raped her.\"\n\nShe shuddered, rose. \"Can we move on? It's too much, sitting here. It's too much.\"\n\nIt would be worse, he thought. If she felt already, sensed or understood this already, it would be worse. He took her hand to lead her back to the path. Since, at least for the moment, it was wide enough to walk abreast, he kept ahold of her hand. It almost seemed as if they were taking a simple walk in the winter woods.\n\n\"Tell me something surprising about you. Something I'd never guess.\"\n\nHe cocked his head. \"Why would I tell you something about me you'd never guess?\"\n\n\"It doesn't have to be some dark secret.\" She bumped her hip against his. \"Just something unexpected.\"\n\n\"I lettered in track and field.\"\n\nQuinn shook her head. \"Impressive, but not surprising. I might've guessed that. You've got a yard or so of leg.\"\n\n\"All right, all right.\" He thought it over. \"I grew a pumpkin that broke the county record for weight.\"\n\n\"The fattest pumpkin in the history of the county?\"\n\n\"It missed the state record by ounces. It got written up in the paper.\"\n\n\"Well, that is surprising. I was hoping for something a bit more salacious, but am forced to admit, I'd never have guessed you held the county record for fattest pumpkin.\"\n\n\"How about you?\"\n\n\"I'm afraid I've never grown a pumpkin of any size or weight.\"\n\n\"Surprise me.\"\n\n\"I can walk on my hands. I'd demonstrate, but the ground's not conducive to hand-walking. Come on. You wouldn't have guessed that.\"\n\n\"You're right. I will, however, insist on a demo later. I, after all, have documentation of the pumpkin.\"\n\n\"Fair enough.\"\n\nShe kept up the chatter, light and silly enough to make him laugh. He wasn't sure he'd laughed along this path since that fateful hike with his friends. But it seemed natural enough now, with the sun beaming down through the trees, the birds singing.\n\nUntil he heard the growl.\n\nShe'd heard it, too. He couldn't think of another reason her voice would have stopped so short, or her hand would have gripped his arm like a vise. \"Cal\u2014\"\n\n\"Yeah, I hear it. We're nearly there. Sometimes it makes noise, sometimes it makes an appearance.\" Never this time of year, he thought, as he hitched up the back of his jacket. But these, apparently, were different times. \"Just stay close.\"\n\n\"Believe me, I...\" Her voice trailed off this time as he drew the large, jagged-edged hunting knife. \"Okay. Okay. Now that would have been one of those unexpected things about you. That you, ah, carry a Crocodile Dundee around.\"\n\n\"I don't come here unarmed.\"\n\nShe moistened her lips. \"And you probably know how to use it, if necessary.\"\n\nHe shot her a look. \"I probably do. Do you want to keep going, or do you want to turn around and go back?\"\n\n\"I'm not turning tail.\"\n\nHe could hear it rustling in the brush, could hear the slide of mud underfoot. Stalking them, he thought. He imagined the knife was as useless as a few harsh words if the thing meant business, but he felt better with it in his hand.\n\n\"Lump doesn't hear it,\" Quinn murmured, lifting her chin to where the dog slopped along the path a few feet ahead. \"Even he can't be that lazy. If he heard it, scented it, he'd show some concern. So it's not real.\" She took a slow breath. \"It's just show.\"\n\n\"Not real to him, anyway.\"\n\nWhen the thing howled, Cal took her firmly by the arm and pulled her through the edge of the trees into the clearing where the Pagan Stone speared up out of the muddy earth.\n\n\"I guess, all things considered, I was half expecting something along the lines of the king stone from Stonehenge.\" Quinn stepped away from Cal to circle the stone. \"It's amazing enough though, when you take a good look, the way it forms a table, or altar. How flat and smooth the top is.\" She laid her hand on it. \"It's warm,\" she added. \"Warmer than stone should be in a February wood.\"\n\nHe put his hand beside hers. \"Sometimes it's cold.\" He fit the knife back into its sheath. \"Nothing to worry about when it's warm. So far.\" He shoved his sleeve back, examined the scar on his wrist. \"So far,\" he repeated.\n\nWithout thinking, he laid his hand over hers. \"As long as\u2014\"\n\n\"It's heating up! Feel that? Do you feel that?\"\n\nShe shifted, started to place her other hand on the stone. He moved, felt himself move as he might have through that wall of fire. Madly.\n\nHe gripped her shoulders, spinning her around until her back was pressed to the stone. Then sated the sudden, desperate appetite by taking her mouth.\n\nFor an instant, he was someone else, as was she, and the moment was full of grieving desperation. Her taste, her skin, the beat of her heart.\n\nThen he was himself, feeling Quinn's lips heat under his as the stone had heated under their hands. It was her body quivering against his, and her fingers digging into his hips.\n\nHe wanted more, wanted to shove her onto the table of rock, to cover her with his body, to surround himself with all she was.\n\nNot him, he thought dimly, or not entirely him. And so he made himself pull back, forced himself to break that connection.\n\nThe air wavered a moment. \"Sorry,\" he managed. \"Not altogether sorry, but\u2014\"\n\n\"Surprised.\" Her voice was hoarse. \"Me, too. That was definitely unexpected. Made me dizzy,\" she whispered. \"That's not a complaint. It wasn't us, then it was.\" She took another steadying breath. \"Call me a slut, but I liked it both ways.\" With her eyes on his, she placed her hand on the stone again. \"Want to try it again?\"\n\n\"I think I'm still a man, so damn right I do. But I don't think it'd be smart, or particularly safe. Plus, I don't care for someone\u2014something\u2014else yanking on my hormones. Next time I kiss you, it's just you and me.\"\n\n\"All right. Connections.\" She nodded. \"I'm more in favor than ever about the theory regarding connections. Could be blood, could be a reincarnation thing. It's worth exploring.\"\n\nShe sidestepped away from the stone, and him. \"So, no more contact with each other and that thing for the time being. And let's take it back to the purpose at hand.\"\n\n\"Are you okay?\"\n\n\"Stirred me up, I'll admit. But no harm, no foul.\" She took out her water bottle, and this time drank deep.\n\n\"I wanted you. Both ways.\"\n\nLowering the bottle, she met those calm gray eyes. She'd just gulped down water, she thought, but now her throat was dry again. \"I know. What I don't know is if that's going to be a problem.\"\n\n\"It's going to be a problem. I'm not going to care about that.\"\n\nHer pulse gave a couple of quick jumps. \"Ah...This probably isn't the place to\u2014\"\n\n\"No, it's not.\" He took a step forward, but didn't touch her. And still her skin went hot. \"There's going to be another place.\"\n\n\"Okay.\" She cleared her throat. \"All right. To work.\"\n\nShe did another circle while he watched her. He'd made her a little jumpy. He didn't mind that. In fact, he considered it a point for his side. Something might have pushed him to kiss her that way, but he knew what he'd felt as that something released its grip. He knew what he'd been feeling since she'd stepped out of her car at the top of his lane.\n\nPlain and simple lust. Caleb Hawkins for Quinn Black.\n\n\"You camped here, the three of you, that night.\" Apparently taking Cal at his word about the safety of the area, Quinn moved easily around the clearing. \"You\u2014if I have any understanding of young boys\u2014ate junk food, ragged on each other, maybe told ghost stories.\"\n\n\"Some. We also drank the beer Gage stole from his father, and looked at the skin mags he'd swiped.\"\n\n\"Of course, though I'd have pegged those activities for more like twelve-year-olds.\"\n\n\"Precocious.\" He ordered himself to stop thinking about her, to take himself back. \"We built a fire. We had the boom box on. It was a pretty night, still hot, but not oppressive. And it was our night. It was, we thought, our place. Sacred ground.\"\n\n\"So your great-grandmother said.\"\n\n\"It called for ritual.\" He waited for her to turn to him. \"We wrote down words. Words we made. We swore an oath, and at midnight, I used my Boy Scout knife to cut our wrists. We said the words we'd made and pressed our wrists together to mix the blood. To make us blood brothers. And hell opened up.\"\n\n\"What happened?\"\n\n\"I don't know, not exactly. None of us do, not that we can remember. There was a kind of explosion. It seemed like one. The light was blinding, and the force of it knocked me back. Lifted me right off my feet. Screams, but I've never known if they were mine, Fox's, Gage's, or something else. The fire shot straight up, there seemed to be fire everywhere, but we weren't burned. Something pushed out, pushed into me. Pain, I remember pain. Then I saw some kind of dark mass rising out, and felt the cold it brought with it. Then it was over, and we were alone, scared, and the ground was scorched black.\"\n\nTen years old, she thought. Just a little boy. \"How did you get out?\"\n\n\"We hiked out the next morning pretty much as we'd hiked in. Except for a few changes. I came into this clearing when I was nine. I was wearing glasses. I was nearsighted.\"\n\nHer brows rose. \"Was?\"\n\n\"Twenty\u2013one hundred in my left eye, twenty-ninety in my right. I walked out ten, and twenty-twenty. None of us had a mark on him when we left, though Gage especially had some wounds he brought in with him. Not one of us has been sick a day since that night. If we're injured, it heals on its own.\"\n\nThere was no doubt on her face, only interest with a touch, he thought, of fascination. It struck him that other than his family she was the only one who knew. Who believed.\n\n\"You were given some sort of immunity.\"\n\n\"You could call it that.\"\n\n\"Do you feel pain?\"\n\n\"Damn right. I came out with perfect vision, not X-ray. And the healing can hurt like a mother, but it's pretty quick. I can see things that happened before, like out on the trail. Not all the time, not every time, but I can see events of the past.\"\n\n\"A reverse clairvoyance.\"\n\n\"When it's on. I've seen what happened here on July seventh, sixteen fifty-two.\"\n\n\"What happened here, Cal?\"\n\n\"The demon was bound under the stone. And Fox, Gage, and I, we cut the bastard loose.\"\n\nShe moved to him. She wanted to touch him, to soothe that worry from his face, but was afraid to. \"If you did, you weren't to blame.\"\n\n\"Blame and responsibility aren't much different.\"\n\nThe hell with it. She laid her hands on his cheeks even when he flinched. Then touched her lips gently to his. \"That was normal. You're responsible because, to my mind, you're willing to take responsibility. You've stayed when a lot of other men would've walked, if not run, away from here. So I say there's a way to beat it back where it belongs. And I'm going to do whatever I can to help you do just that.\"\n\nShe opened her pack. \"I'm going to take photos, some measurements, some notes, and ask a lot of annoying questions.\"\n\nShe'd shaken him. The touch, the words, the faith. He wanted to draw her in, hold on to her. Just hold on. Normal, she'd said, and looking at her now, he craved the bliss of normality.\n\nNot the place, he reminded himself, and stepped back. \"You've got an hour. We start back in an hour. We're going to be well out of the woods before twilight.\"\n\n\"No argument.\" This time, she thought, and went to work.\n\n## Nine\n\nSHE SPENT A LOT OF TIME, TO CAL'S MIND, WANDERING around, taking what appeared to be copious notes and a mammoth number of photographs with her tiny little digital, and muttering to herself.\n\nHe didn't see how any of that was particularly helpful, but since she seemed to be absorbed in it all, he sat under a tree with the snoring Lump and let her work.\n\nThere was no more howling, no more sense of anything stalking the clearing, or them. Maybe the demon had something else to do, Cal thought. Or maybe it was just hanging back, watching. Waiting.\n\nWell, he was doing the same, he supposed. He didn't mind waiting, especially when the view was good.\n\nIt was interesting to watch her, to watch the way she moved. Brisk and direct one minute, slow and wandering the next. As if she couldn't quite make up her mind which approach to take.\n\n\"Have you ever had this analyzed?\" she called out. \"The stone itself? A scientific analysis?\"\n\n\"Yeah. We took scrapings when we were teenagers, and took them to the geology teacher at the high school. It's limestone. Common limestone. And,\" he continued, anticipating her, \"we took another sample a few years later, that Gage took to a lab in New York. Same results.\"\n\n\"Okay. Any objection if I take a sample, send it to a lab I've used, just for one more confirmation?\"\n\n\"Help yourself.\" He started to hitch up a hip for his knife, but she was already taking a Swiss Army out of her pocket. He should've figured her for it. Still, it made him smile.\n\nMost of the women he knew might have lipstick in their pocket, but wouldn't consider a Swiss Army. He was betting Quinn had both.\n\nHe watched her hands as she scraped stone dust into a Baggie she pulled out of her pack. A trio of rings circled two fingers and the thumb of her right hand to catch quick glints of the sun with the movement.\n\nThe glints brightened, beamed into his eyes.\n\nThe light changed, softened like a summer morning even as the air warmed and took on a weight of humidity. Leaves budded, unfurled, then burst into thick green on the trees, casting shade and light in patterns on the ground, on the stone.\n\nOn the woman.\n\nHer hair was long and loose, the color of raw honey. Her face was sharp-featured with eyes long and tipped up slightly. She wore a long dress of dusky blue under a white apron. She moved with care, and still with grace, though her body was heavily pregnant. And she carried two pails across the clearing toward a little shed behind the stone.\n\nAs she walked she sang in a voice clear and bright as the summer morning.\n\nAll in a garden green where late I laid me down upon a bank of chamomile where I saw upon a style sitting, a country clown...\n\nHearing her, seeing her, Cal was filled with love so urgent, so ripe, he thought his heart might burst from it.\n\nThe man stepped through the door of the shed, and that love was illuminated on his face. The woman stopped, gave a knowing, flirtatious toss of her head, and sang as the man walked toward her.\n\n...holding in his arms a comely country maid. Courting her with all his skill, working her unto his will. Thus to her he said, Kiss me in kindness, sweetheart.\n\nShe lifted her face, offered her lips. The man brushed them with his, and as her laugh burst like a shooting star, he took the pails from her, setting them on the ground before wrapping her in an embrace.\n\nHave I not told you, you are not to carry water or wood? You carry enough.\n\nHis hands stroked over the mound of her belly, held there when hers covered them. Our sons are strong and well. I will give you sons, my love, as bright and brave as their father. My love, my heart. Now Cal saw the tears glimmer in those almond-shaped eyes. Must I leave you?\n\nYou will never leave me, not truly, nor I you. No tears. He kissed them away, and Cal felt the wrench of his own heart. No tears.\n\nNo. I swore an oath against them. So she smiled. There is time yet. Soft mornings and long summer days. It is not death. You swear to me?\n\nIt is not death. Come now. I will carry the water.\n\nWhen they faded, he saw Quinn crouched in front of him, heard her saying his name sharply, repeatedly.\n\n\"You're back. You went somewhere. Your eyes...Your eyes go black and...deep is the only word I can think of when you go somewhere else. Where did you go, Cal?\"\n\n\"She's not you.\"\n\n\"Okay.\" She'd been afraid to touch him before, afraid if she did she'd push them both into that somewhere else, or yank him back before he was done. Now she reached out to rest her hand on his knee. \"I'm not who?\"\n\n\"Whoever I was kissing. Started to, then it was you, but before, at first...Jesus.\" He clamped the heels of his hands at his temple. \"Headache. Bitch of a headache.\"\n\n\"Lean back, close your eyes. I'll\u2014\"\n\n\"It'll pass in a minute. They always do. We're not them. It's not a reincarnation deal. It doesn't feel right. Sporadic possession maybe, which is bad enough.\"\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"How the hell do I know?\" His head screamed until he had to lower his head between his knees to fight off the sudden, acute nausea. \"I'd draw you a damn picture if I could draw. Give me a minute.\"\n\nRising, Quinn went behind him and, kneeling, began to massage his neck, his shoulders.\n\n\"Okay, all right. Sorry. Christ. It's like having an electric drill inside my head, biting its way out through my temples. It's better. I don't know who they were. They didn't call each other by name. But best guess is Giles Dent and Ann Hawkins. They were obviously living here, and she was really, really pregnant. She was singing,\" he said and told her what he'd seen.\n\nQuinn continued to rub his shoulders while she listened. \"So they knew it was coming, and from what you say, he was sending her away before it did. 'Not death.' That's interesting, and something to look into. But for now, I think you've had enough of this place. And so have I.\"\n\nShe sat on the ground then, hissed a breath out, sucked one in. \"While you were out, let's say, it came back.\"\n\n\"Jesus Christ.\" He started to spring up, but she gripped his arm.\n\n\"It's gone. Let's just sit here until we both get our legs back under us. I heard it growling, and I spun around. You were taking a trip, and I quashed my first instinct to grab you, shake you out of it, in case doing that pulled me in with you.\"\n\n\"And we'd both be defenseless,\" he said in disgust.\n\n\"And now Mr. Responsibility is beating himself up because he didn't somehow see this coming, fight off the magickal forces so he could stay in the here and now and protect the girl.\"\n\nEven with the headache, he could manage a cool, steely stare. \"Something like that.\"\n\n\"Something like that is appreciated, even if it is annoying. I had my handy Swiss Army knife, which, while it isn't up to Jim Bowie standards, does include a nice corkscrew and tweezers, both of which you never know when you may need.\"\n\n\"Is that spunk? Are you being spunky?\"\n\n\"I'm babbling until I level out and I'm nearly there. The thing is, it just circled, making its nasty 'I'll eat you, my pretty and your big, lazy dog, too.' Rustling, growling, snarling. But it didn't show itself. Then it stopped, and you came back.\"\n\n\"How long?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I think just a couple minutes, though it seemed longer at the time. However long, I'm so ready to get gone. I hope to hell you can walk back, Cal, because strong and resilient as I am, there's no way I can carry you piggyback.\"\n\n\"I can walk.\"\n\n\"Good, then let's get the hell out of here, and when we get to civilization, Hawkins, you're buying me a really big drink.\"\n\nThey gathered their packs; Cal whistled Lump awake. As they started back he wondered why he hadn't told her of the bloodstone\u2014the three pieces he, Fox, and Gage held. The three pieces that he now knew formed the stone in the amulet Giles Dent had worn when he'd lived at the Pagan Stone.\n\nWHILE CAL AND QUINN WERE HIKING OUT OF Hawkins Wood, Layla was taking herself out for an aimless walk around town. It was odd to just let her feet choose any direction. During her years in New York she'd always had a specific destination, always had a specific task, or several specific tasks to accomplish within a particular time frame.\n\nNow, she'd let the morning stretch out, and had accomplished no more than reading sections of a few of the odd books Quinn had left with her. She might have stayed right there, inside her lovely room, inside that safe zone as Quinn had termed it.\n\nBut she'd needed to get away from the books. In any case, it gave the housekeeper an opportunity to set the room to rights, she supposed. And gave herself an opportunity to take a real look at the town she'd been compelled to visit.\n\nShe didn't have the urge to wander into any of the shops, though she thought Quinn's assessment was on the mark. There were some very interesting possibilities.\n\nBut even window shopping made her feel guilty for leaving the staff of the boutique in the lurch. Taking off the way she had, barely taking the time to call in from the road to tell the owner she'd had a personal emergency and wouldn't be in for the next several days.\n\nPersonal emergency covered it, Layla decided.\n\nAnd it could very well get her fired. Still, even knowing that, she couldn't go back, pick things up, forget what had happened.\n\nShe'd get another job if she had to. When and if, she'd find another. She had some savings, she had a cushion. If her boss couldn't cut her some slack, she didn't want that stupid job anyway.\n\nAnd, oh God, she was already justifying being unemployed.\n\nDon't think about it, she ordered herself. Don't think about that right this minute.\n\nShe didn't think about it, and didn't think twice when her feet decided to continue on beyond the shops. She couldn't have said why they wanted to stop at the base of the building. LIBRARY was carved into the stone lintel over the door, but the glossy sign read HAWKINS HOLLOW COMMUNITY CENTER.\n\nInnocuous enough, she told herself. But when a chill danced over her skin she ordered her feet to keep traveling.\n\nShe considered going into the museum, but couldn't work up the interest. She thought about crossing the street to Salon A and whiling away some time with a manicure, but simply didn't care about the state of her nails.\n\nTired and annoyed with herself, she nearly turned around and headed back. But the sign that caught her eye this time drew her forward.\n\nFOX O'DELL, ATTORNEY AT LAW.\n\nAt least he was someone she knew\u2014more or less. The hot lawyer with the compassionate eyes. He was probably busy with a client or out of the office, but she didn't care. Going in was something to do other than wander around feeling sorry for herself.\n\nShe stepped into the attractive, homespun reception area. The woman behind the gorgeous old desk offered a polite smile.\n\n\"Good morning\u2014well, afternoon now. Can I help you?\"\n\n\"I'm actually...\" What? Layla wondered. What exactly was she? \"I was hoping to speak to Mr. O'Dell for a minute if he's free.\"\n\n\"Actually, he's with a client, but they shouldn't be much longer if you'd like to...\"\n\nA woman in tight jeans, a snug pink sweater, and an explosion of hair in an improbable shade of red marched out on heeled boots. She dragged on a short leather jacket. \"I want him skinned, Fox, you hear? I gave that son of a bitch the best two years and three months of my life, and I want him skinned like a rabbit.\"\n\n\"So noted, Shelley.\"\n\n\"How could he do that to me?\" On a wail she collapsed into Fox's arms.\n\nHe wore jeans as well, and an untucked pinstriped shirt, along with an expression of resignation as he glanced over at Layla. \"There, there,\" he said, patting the sobbing Shelley's back. \"There, there.\"\n\n\"I just bought him new tires for his truck! I'm going to go slash every one of them.\"\n\n\"Don't.\" Fox took a good hold of her before Shelley, tears streaming away in fresh rage, started to yank back. \"I don't want you to do that. You don't go near his truck, and for now, honey, try to stay away from him, too. And Sami.\"\n\n\"That turncoat slut of a bitch.\"\n\n\"That's the one. Leave this to me for now, okay? You go on back to work and let me handle this. That's why you hired me, right?\"\n\n\"I guess. But you skin him raw, Fox. You crack that bastard's nuts like pecans.\"\n\n\"I'm going to get right on that,\" he assured her as he led her to the door. \"You just stay above it all, that's the way. I'll be in touch.\"\n\nAfter he'd closed the door, leaned back on it, he heaved out a breath. \"Holy Mother of God.\"\n\n\"You should've referred that one,\" Alice told him.\n\n\"You can't refer off the first girl you got to second base with when she's filing for divorce. It's against the laws of God and Man. Hello, Layla, need a lawyer?\"\n\n\"I hope not.\" He was better looking than she remembered, which just went to show the shape she'd been in the night before. Plus he didn't look anything like a lawyer. \"No offense.\"\n\n\"None taken. Layla...It's Darnell, right?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Layla Darnell, Alice Hawbaker. Mrs. H, I'm clear for a while?\"\n\n\"You are.\"\n\n\"Come on back, Layla.\" He gestured. \"We don't usually put a show on this early in the day, but my old pal Shelley walked into the back room over at the diner to visit her twin sister, Sami, and found her husband\u2014that would be Shelley's husband, Block\u2014holding Sami's tip money.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, she's filing for divorce because her husband was holding her sister's tip money?\"\n\n\"It was in Sami's Victoria's Secret Miracle Bra at the time.\"\n\n\"Oh. Well.\"\n\n\"That's not privileged information as Shelley chased them both out of the back room and straight out onto Main Street\u2014with Sami's miraculous bra in full view\u2014with a rag mop. Want a Coke?\"\n\n\"No, I really don't. I don't think I need anything to give me an edge.\"\n\nSince she looked inclined to pace, he didn't offer her a chair. Instead, he leaned back against his desk. \"Rough night?\"\n\n\"No, the opposite. I just can't figure out what I'm doing here. I don't understand any of this, and I certainly don't understand my place in it. A couple hours ago I told myself I was going to pack and drive back to New York like a sane person. But I didn't.\" She turned to him. \"I couldn't. And I don't understand that either.\"\n\n\"You're where you're supposed to be. That's the simplest answer.\"\n\n\"Are you afraid?\"\n\n\"A lot of the time.\"\n\n\"I don't think I've ever been really afraid. I wonder if I'd be so damned edgy if I had something to do. An assignment, a task.\"\n\n\"Listen, I've got to drive to a client a few miles out of town, take her some papers.\"\n\n\"Oh, sorry. I'm in the way.\"\n\n\"No, and when I start thinking beautiful women are in my way, please notify my next of kin so they can gather to say their final good-byes before my death. I was going to suggest you ride out with me, which is something to do. And you can have chamomile tea and stale lemon snaps with Mrs. Oldinger, which is a task. She likes company, which is the real reason she had me draw up the fifteenth codicil to her will.\"\n\nHe kept talking, knowing that was one way to help calm someone down when she looked ready to bolt. \"By the time that's done, I can swing by another client who's not far out of the way and save him a trip into town. By my way of thinking, Cal and Quinn should be just about back home by the time we're done with all that. We'll go by, see what's what.\"\n\n\"Can you be out of the office all that time?\"\n\n\"Believe me.\" He grabbed his coat, his briefcase. \"Mrs. H will holler me back if I'm needed here. But unless you've got something better to do, I'll have her pull out the files I need and we'll take a drive.\"\n\nIt was better than brooding, Layla decided. Maybe she thought it was odd for a lawyer, even a small-town lawyer to drive an old Dodge pickup with a couple of Ring Ding wrappers littering the floorboards.\n\n\"What are you doing for the second client?\"\n\n\"That's Charlie Deen. Charlie got clipped by a DUI when he was driving home from work. Insurance company's trying to dance around some of the medical bills. Not going to happen.\"\n\n\"Divorce, wills, personal injury. So you don't specialize?\"\n\n\"All law, all the time,\" he said and sent her a smile that was a combination of sweet and cocky. \"Well, except for tax law if I can avoid it. I leave that to my sister. She's tax and business law.\"\n\n\"But you don't have a practice together.\"\n\n\"That'd be tough. Sage went to Seattle to be a lesbian.\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon?\"\n\n\"Sorry.\" He boosted the gas as they passed the town limits. \"Family joke. What I mean is my sister Sage is gay, and she lives in Seattle. She's an activist, and she and her partner of, hmm, I guess about eight years now run a firm they call Girl on Girl. Seriously,\" he added when Layla said nothing. \"They specialize in tax and business law for gays.\"\n\n\"Your family doesn't approve?\"\n\n\"Are you kidding? My parents eat it up like tofu. When Sage and Paula\u2014that's her partner\u2014got married. Or had their life-partner affirmation, whatever\u2014we all went out there and celebrated like mental patients. She's happy and that's what counts. The alternate lifestyle choice is just kind of a bonus for my parents. Speaking of family, that's my little brother's place.\"\n\nLayla saw a log house all but buried in the trees, with a sign near the curve of the road reading HAWKINS CREEK POTTERY.\n\n\"Your brother's a potter.\"\n\n\"Yeah, a good one. So's my mother when she's in the mood. Want to stop in?\"\n\n\"Oh, I...\"\n\n\"Better not,\" he decided. \"Ridge'll get going and Mrs. H has called Mrs. Oldinger by now to tell her to expect us. Another time.\"\n\n\"Okay.\" Conversation, she thought. Small talk. Relative sanity. \"So you have a brother and sister.\"\n\n\"Two sisters. My baby sister owns the little vegetarian restaurant in town. It's pretty good, considering. Of the four of us I veered the farthest off the flower-strewn path my counterculture parents forged. But they love me anyway. That's about it for me. How about you?\"\n\n\"Well...I don't have any relatives nearly as interesting as yours sound, but I'm pretty sure my mother has some old Joan Baez albums.\"\n\n\"There, that strange and fateful crossroads again.\"\n\nShe started to laugh, then gasped with pleasure as she spotted the deer. \"Look! Oh, look. Aren't they gorgeous, just grazing there along the edge of the trees?\"\n\nTo accommodate her, Fox pulled over to the narrow shoulder so she could watch. \"You're used to seeing deer, I suppose,\" she said.\n\n\"Doesn't mean I don't get a kick out of it. We had to run herds off the farm when I was a kid.\"\n\n\"You grew up on a farm.\"\n\nThere was that urban-dweller wistfulness in her voice. The kind that said she saw the pretty deer, the bunnies, the sunflowers, and happy chickens. And not the plowing, the hoeing, weeding, harvesting. \"Small, family farm. We grew our own vegetables, kept chickens and goats, bees. Sold some of the surplus, some of my mother's crafts, my father's woodwork.\"\n\n\"Do they still have it?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"My parents owned a little dress shop when I was a kid. They sold out about fifteen years ago. I always wished\u2014Oh God, oh my God!\"\n\nHer hand whipped over to clamp on his arm.\n\nThe wolf leaped out of the trees, onto the back of a young deer. It bucked, it screamed\u2014she could hear its high-pitched screams of fear and pain\u2014it bled while the others in the small herd continued to crop at grass.\n\n\"It's not real.\"\n\nHis voice sounded tinny and distant. In front of her horrified eyes the wolf took the deer down, then began to tear and rip.\n\n\"It's not real,\" he repeated. He put his hands on her shoulders, and she felt something click. Something inside her pushed toward him and away from the horror at the edge of the trees. \"Look at it, straight on,\" he told her. \"Look at it and know it's not real.\"\n\nThe blood was so red, so wet. It flew in ugly rain, smearing the winter grass of the narrow field. \"It's not real.\"\n\n\"Don't just say it. Know it. It lies, Layla. It lives in lies. It's not real.\"\n\nShe breathed in, breathed out. \"It's not real. It's a lie. It's an ugly lie. A small, cruel lie. It's not real.\"\n\nThe field was empty; the winter grass ragged and unstained.\n\n\"How do you live with this?\" Shoving around in her seat, Layla stared at him. \"How do you stand this?\"\n\n\"By knowing\u2014the way I knew that was a lie\u2014that some day, some way, we're going to kick its ass.\"\n\nHer throat burned dry. \"You did something to me. When you took my shoulders, when you were talking to me, you did something to me.\"\n\n\"No.\" He denied it without a qualm. He'd done something for her, Fox told himself. \"I just helped you remember it wasn't real. We're going on to Mrs. Oldinger. I bet you could use that chamomile tea about now.\"\n\n\"Does she have any whiskey to go with it?\"\n\n\"Wouldn't surprise me.\"\n\nQUINN COULD SEE CAL'S HOUSE THROUGH THE trees when her phone signaled a waiting text-message. \"Crap, why didn't she just call me?\"\n\n\"Might've tried. There are lots of pockets in the woods where calls drop out.\"\n\n\"Color me virtually unsurprised.\" She brought up the message, smiling a little as she recognized Cybil's shorthand.\n\nBzy, but intrig'd. Tell u more when. Cn B there in a wk, 2 latest. Tlk whn cn. Q? B-ware. Serious. C.\n\n\"All right.\" Quinn replaced the phone and made the decision she'd been weighing during the hike back. \"I guess we'll call Fox and Layla when I'm having that really big drink by the fire you're going to build.\"\n\n\"I can live with that.\"\n\n\"Then, seeing as you're a town honcho, you'd be the one to ask about finding a nice, attractive, convenient, and somewhat roomy house to rent for the next, oh, six months.\"\n\n\"And the tenant would be?\"\n\n\"Tenants. They would be me, my delightful friend Cybil, whom I will talk into digging in, and most likely Layla, whom\u2014I believe\u2014will take a bit more convincing. But I'm very persuasive.\"\n\n\"What happened to staying a week for initial research, then coming back in April for a follow-up?\"\n\n\"Plans change,\" she said airily, and smiled at him as they stepped onto the gravel of his driveway. \"Don't you just love when that happens?\"\n\n\"Not really.\" But he walked with her onto the deck and opened the door so she could breeze into his quiet home ahead of him.\n\n## Ten\n\nTHE HOUSE WHERE CAL HAD GROWN UP WAS, IN his opinion, in a constant state of evolution. Every few years his mother would decide the walls needed \"freshening,\" which meant painting\u2014or often in his mother's vocabulary a new \"paint treatment.\"\n\nThere was ragging, there was sponging, there was combing, and a variety of other terms he did his best to tune out.\n\nNaturally, new paint led to new upholstery or window treatments, certainly to new bed linens when she worked her way to bedrooms. Which invariably led to new \"arrangements.\"\n\nHe couldn't count the number of times he'd hauled furniture around to match the grafts his mother routinely generated.\n\nHis father liked to say that as soon as Frannie had the house the way she wanted, it was time for her to shake it all up again.\n\nAt one time, Cal had assumed his mother had fiddled, fooled, painted, sewed, arranged, and re-arranged out of boredom. Although she volunteered, served on various committees, or stuck her oar in countless organizations, she'd never worked outside the home. He'd gone through a period in his late teens and early twenties where he'd imagined her (pitied her) as an unfulfilled, semidesperate housewife.\n\nAt one point he, in his worldliness of two college semesters, got her alone and explained his understanding of her sense of repression. She'd laughed so hard she'd had to set down her upholstery tacks and wipe her eyes.\n\n\"Honey,\" she'd said, \"there's not a single bone of repression in my entire body. I love color and texture and patterns and flavors. And oh, just all sorts of things. I get to use this house as my studio, my science project, my laboratory, and my showroom. I get to be the director, the designer, the set builder, and the star of the whole show. Now, why would I want to go out and get a job or a career\u2014since we don't need the money\u2014and have somebody else tell me what to do and when to do it?\"\n\nShe'd crooked her finger so he leaned down to her. And she'd laid a hand on his cheek. \"You're such a sweetheart, Caleb. You're going to find out that not everybody wants what society\u2014in whatever its current mood or mode might be\u2014tells them they should want. I consider myself lucky, even privileged, that I was able to make the choice to stay home and raise my children. And I'm lucky to be able to be married to a man who doesn't mind if I use my talents\u2014and I'm damned talented\u2014to disrupt his quiet home with paint samples and fabric swatches every time he turns around. I'm happy. And I love knowing you worried I might not be.\"\n\nHe'd come to see she was exactly right. She did just as she liked, and was terrific at what she did. And, he'd come to see that when it came down to the core, she was the power in the house. His father brought in the money, but his mother handled the finances. His father ran his business, his mother ran the home.\n\nAnd that was exactly the way they liked it.\n\nSo he didn't bother telling her not to fuss over Sunday dinner\u2014just as he hadn't attempted to talk her out of extending the invitation to Quinn, Layla, and Fox. She lived to fuss, and enjoyed putting on elaborate meals for people, even if she didn't know them.\n\nSince Fox volunteered to swing into town and pick up the women, Cal went directly to his parents' house, and went early. It seemed wise to give them some sort of groundwork\u2014and hopefully a few basic tips on how to deal with a woman who intended to write a book on the Hollow, since the town included people, and those people included his family.\n\nFrannie stood at the stove, checking the temperature of her pork tenderloin. Obviously satisfied with that, she crossed to the counter to continue the layers of her famous antipasto squares.\n\n\"So, Mom,\" Cal began as he opened the refrigerator.\n\n\"I'm serving wine with dinner, so don't go hunting up any beer.\"\n\nChastised, he shut the refrigerator door. \"Okay. I just wanted to mention that you shouldn't forget that Quinn's writing a book.\"\n\n\"Have you noticed me forgetting things?\"\n\n\"No.\" The woman forgot nothing, which could be a little daunting. \"What I mean is, we should all be aware that things we say and do may end up in a book.\"\n\n\"Hmm.\" Frannie layered pepperoni over provolone. \"Do you expect me or your father to say or do something embarrassing over appetizers? Or maybe we'll wait until dessert. Which is apple pie, by the way.\"\n\n\"No, I\u2014You made apple pie?\"\n\nShe spared him a glance, and a knowing smile. \"It's your favorite, isn't it, my baby?\"\n\n\"Yeah, but maybe you've lost your knack. I should sample a piece before company gets here. Save you any embarrassment if it's lousy pie.\"\n\n\"That didn't work when you were twelve.\"\n\n\"I know, but you always pounded the whole if-you don't-succeed chestnut into my head.\"\n\n\"You just keep trying, sweetie. Now, why are you worried about this girl, who I'm told you've been seen out and about with a few times, coming around for dinner?\"\n\n\"It's not like that.\" He wasn't sure what it was like. \"It's about why she's here at all. We can't forget that, that's all I'm saying.\"\n\n\"I never forget. How could I? We have to live our lives, peel potatoes, get the mail, sneeze, buy new shoes, in spite of it all, maybe because of it all.\" There was a hint of fierceness in her voice he recognized as sorrow. \"And that living includes being able to have a nice company meal on a Sunday.\"\n\n\"I wish it were different.\"\n\n\"I know you do, but it's not.\" She kept layering, but her eyes lifted to his. \"And, Cal, my handsome boy, you can't do more than you do. If anything, there are times I wish you could do less. But...Tell me, do you like this girl? Quinn Black?\"\n\n\"Sure.\" Like to get a taste of that top-heavy mouth again, he mused. Then broke off that train of thought quickly since he knew his mother's skill at reading her children's minds.\n\n\"Then I intend to give her and the others a comfortable evening and an excellent meal. And, Cal, if you didn't want her here, didn't want her to speak with me or your dad, you wouldn't let her in the door. I wouldn't be able, though my powers are fierce, to shove you aside and open it myself.\"\n\nHe looked at her. Sometimes when he did, it surprised him that this pretty woman with her short, streaked blond hair, her slim build and creative mind could have given birth to him, could have raised him to be a man. He could look and think she was delicate, and then remember she was almost terrifyingly strong.\n\n\"I'm not going to let anything hurt you.\"\n\n\"Back at you, doubled. Now get out of my kitchen. I need to finish up the appetizers.\"\n\nHe'd have offered to lend her a hand, but would have earned one of her pitying stares. Not that she didn't allow kitchen help. His father was not only allowed to grill, but encouraged to. And any and all could and were called in as line chefs from time to time.\n\nBut when his mother was in full-out company-coming mode, she wanted the kitchen to herself.\n\nHe passed through the dining room where, naturally, the table was already set. She'd used festive plates, which meant she wasn't going for elegant or drop-in casual. Tented linen napkins, tea lights in cobalt rounds, inside a centerpiece of winter berries.\n\nEven during the worst time, even during the Seven, he could come here and there would be fresh flowers artfully arranged, furniture free of dust and gleaming with polish, and intriguing little soaps in the dish in the downstairs powder room.\n\nEven hell didn't cause Frannie Hawkins to break stride.\n\nMaybe, Cal thought as he wandered into the living room, that was part of the reason\u2014even the most important reason\u2014he got through it himself. Because whatever else happened, his mother would be maintaining her own brand of order and sanity.\n\nJust as his father would be. They'd given him that, Cal thought. That rock-solid foundation. Nothing, not even a demon from hell had ever shaken it.\n\nHe started to go upstairs, hunt down his father who, he suspected, would be in his home office. But saw Fox's truck pull in when he glanced out the window.\n\nHe stood where he was, watched Quinn jump out first, cradling a bouquet wrapped in green florist paper. Layla slid out next, holding what looked to be a wine gift bag. His mother, Cal thought, would approve of the offerings. She herself had shelves and bins in her ruthlessly organized workroom that held carefully selected emergency hostess gifts, gift bags, colored tissue paper, and an assortment of bows and ribbons.\n\nWhen Cal opened the door, Quinn strode straight in. \"Hi. I love the house and the yard! Shows where you came by your eye for landscaping. What a great space. Layla, look at these walls. Like an Italian villa.\"\n\n\"It's their latest incarnation,\" Cal commented.\n\n\"It looks like home, but with a kick of style. Like you could curl up on that fabulous sofa and take a snooze, but you'd probably read Southern Homes first.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\" Frannie stepped out. \"That's a lovely compliment. Cal, take everyone's coats, will you? I'm Frannie Hawkins.\"\n\n\"It's so nice to meet you. I'm Quinn. Thanks so much for having us. I hope you like mixed bouquets. I have a hard time deciding on one type of mostly anything.\"\n\n\"They're wonderful, thank you.\" Frannie accepted the flowers, smiled expectantly at Layla.\n\n\"I'm Layla Darnell, thank you for having us in your home. I hope the wine's appropriate.\"\n\n\"I'm sure it is.\" Frannie took a peek inside the gift bag. \"Jim's favorite cabernet. Aren't you clever girls? Cal, go up and tell your father we have company. Hello, Fox.\"\n\n\"I brought you something, too.\" He grabbed her, lowered her into a stylish dip, and kissed both her cheeks. \"What's cooking, sweetheart?\"\n\nAs she had since he'd been a boy, Frannie ruffled his hair. \"You won't have long to wait to find out. Quinn and Layla, you make yourselves comfortable. Fox, you come with me. I want to put these flowers in water.\"\n\n\"Is there anything we can do to help?\"\n\n\"Not a thing.\"\n\nWhen Cal came down with his father, Fox was doing his version of snooty French waiter as he served appetizers. The women were laughing, candles were lit, and his mother carried in her grandmother's best crystal vase with Quinn's flowers a colorful filling.\n\nSometimes, Cal mused, all really was right with the world.\n\nHALFWAY THROUGH THE MEAL, WHERE THE CONVERSATION stayed in what Cal considered safe territories, Quinn set down her fork, shook her head. \"Mrs. Hawkins, this is the most amazing meal, and I have to ask. Did you study? Did you have a career as a gourmet chef at some point or did we just hit you on a really lucky day?\"\n\n\"I took a few classes.\"\n\n\"Frannie's taken a lot of 'a few classes,'\" Jim said. \"In all kinds of things. But she's just got a natural talent for cooking and gardening and decorating. What you see around here, it's all her doing. Painted the walls, made the curtains\u2014sorry, window treatments,\" he corrected with a twinkle at his wife.\n\n\"Get out. You did all the faux and fancy paintwork? Yourself?\"\n\n\"I enjoy it.\"\n\n\"Found that sideboard there years back at some flea market, had me haul it home.\" Jim gestured toward the gleaming mahogany sideboard. \"A few weeks later, she has me haul it in here. Thought she was pulling a fast one, had snuck out and bought something from an antique store.\"\n\n\"Martha Stewart eats your dust,\" Quinn decided. \"I mean that as a compliment.\"\n\n\"I'll take it.\"\n\n\"I'm useless at all of that. I can barely paint my own nails. How about you?\" Quinn asked Layla.\n\n\"I can't sew, but I like to paint. Walls. I've done some ragging that turned out pretty well.\"\n\n\"The only ragging I've done successfully was on my ex-fianc\u00e9.\"\n\n\"You were engaged?\" Frannie asked.\n\n\"I thought I was. But our definition of same differed widely.\"\n\n\"It can be difficult to blend careers and personal lives.\"\n\n\"Oh, I don't know. People do it all the time\u2014with varying degrees of success, sure, but they do. I think it just has to be the right people. The trick, or the first of probably many tricks, is recognizing the right person. Wasn't it like that for you? Didn't you have to recognize each other?\"\n\n\"I knew the first time I saw Frannie. There she is.\" Jim beamed down the table at his wife. \"Frannie now, she was a little more shortsighted.\"\n\n\"A little more practical,\" Frannie corrected, \"seeing as we were eight and ten at the time. Plus I enjoyed having you moon over and chase after me. Yes, you're right.\" Frannie looked back at Quinn. \"You have to see each other, and see in each other something that makes you want to take the chance, that makes you believe you can dig down for the long haul.\"\n\n\"And sometimes you think you see something,\" Quinn commented, \"but it was just a\u2014let's say\u2014trompe l'oeil.\"\n\nONE THING QUINN KNEW HOW TO DO WAS FINAGLE. Frannie Hawkins wasn't an easy mark, but Quinn managed to charm her way into the kitchen to help put together dessert and coffee.\n\n\"I love kitchens. I'm kind of a pathetic cook, but I love all the gadgets and tools, all the shiny surfaces.\"\n\n\"I imagine with your work, you eat out a lot.\"\n\n\"Actually, I eat in most of the time or call for takeout. I implemented a lifestyle change\u2014nutrition-wise\u2014a couple of years ago. Determined to eat healthier, depend less on fast or nuke-it-out-of-a-box food. I make a really good salad these days. That's a start. Oh God, oh God, that's apple pie. Homemade apple pie. I'm going to have to do double duty in the gym as penance for the huge piece I'm going to ask for.\"\n\nHer enjoyment obvious, Frannie shot her a wicked smile. \"\u00c0 la mode, with vanilla bean ice cream?\"\n\n\"Yes, but only to show my impeccable manners.\" Quinn hesitated a moment, then jumped in. \"I'm going to ask you, and if you want this off-limits while I'm enjoying your hospitality, just tell me to back off. Is it hard for you to nurture this normal life, to hold your family, yourself, your home together when you know all of it will be threatened?\"\n\n\"It's very hard.\" Frannie turned to her pies while the coffee brewed. \"Just as it's very necessary. I wanted Cal to go, and if he had I would have convinced Jim to leave. I could do that, I could turn my back on it all. But Cal couldn't. And I'm so proud of him for staying, for not giving up.\"\n\n\"Will you tell me what happened when he came home that morning, the morning of his tenth birthday?\"\n\n\"I was in the yard.\" Frannie walked over to the window that faced the back. She could see it all, every detail. How green the grass was, how blue the sky. Her hydrangeas were headed up and beginning to pop, her delphiniums towering spears of exotic blue.\n\nDeadheading her roses, and some of the coreopsis that had bloomed off. She could even hear the busy snip, snip of her shears, and the hum of the neighbor's\u2014it had been the Petersons, Jack and Lois, then\u2014lawn mower. She remembered, too, she'd been thinking about Cal, and his birthday party. She'd had his cake in the oven.\n\nA double-chocolate sour cream cake, she remembered. She'd intended to do a white frosting to simulate the ice planet from one of the Star Wars movies. Cal had loved Star Wars for years and years. She'd had the little action figures to arrange on it, the ten candles all ready in the kitchen.\n\nHad she heard him or sensed him\u2014probably some of both\u2014but she'd looked around as he'd come barreling up on his bike, pale, filthy, sweaty. Her first thought had been accident, there'd been an accident. And she'd been on her feet and rushing to him before she'd noticed he wasn't wearing his glasses.\n\n\"The part of me that registered that was ready to give him a good tongue-lashing. But the rest of me was still running when he climbed off his bike, and ran to me. He ran to me and he grabbed on so tight. He was shaking\u2014my little boy\u2014shaking like a leaf. I went down on my knees, pulling him back so I could check for blood or broken bones.\"\n\nWhat is it, what happened, are you hurt? All of that, Frannie remembered had flooded out of her, so fast it was like one word. In the woods, he'd said. Mom. Mom. In the woods.\n\n\"There was that part of me again, the part that thought what were you doing in the woods, Caleb Hawkins? It all came pouring out of him, how he and Fox and Gage planned this adventure, what they'd done, where they'd gone. And that same part was coldly devising the punishment to fit the crime, even while the rest of me was terrified, and relieved, so pitifully relieved I was holding my dirty, sweaty boy. Then he told me the rest.\"\n\n\"You believed him?\"\n\n\"I didn't want to. I wanted to believe he'd had a nightmare, which he richly deserved, that he'd stuffed himself on sweets and junk food and had a nightmare. Even, that someone had gone after them in the woods. But I couldn't look at his face and believe that. I couldn't believe the easy that, the fixable that. And then, of course, there were his eyes. He could see a bee hovering over the delphiniums across the yard. And under the dirt and sweat, there wasn't a bruise on him. The nine-year-old I'd sent off the day before had scraped knees and bruised shins. The one who came back to me hadn't a mark on him, but for the thin white scar across his wrist he hadn't had when he left.\"\n\n\"Even with that, a lot of adults, even mothers, wouldn't have believed a kid who came home with a story like that.\"\n\n\"I won't say Cal never lied to me, because obviously he did. He had. But I knew he wasn't lying. I knew he was telling me the truth, all the truth he knew.\"\n\n\"What did you do?\"\n\n\"I took him inside, told him to clean up, change his clothes. I called his father, and got his sisters home. I burned his birthday cake\u2014completely forgot about it, never heard the timer. Might've burned the house down if Cal himself hadn't smelled the burning. So he never got his ice planet or his ten candles. I hate remembering that. I burned his cake and he never got to blow out his birthday candles. Isn't that silly?\"\n\n\"No, ma'am. No,\" Quinn said with feeling when Frannie looked at her, \"it's not.\"\n\n\"He was never really, not wholly, a little boy again.\" Frannie sighed. \"We went straight over to the O'Dells, because Fox and Gage were already there. We had what I guess you could call our first summit meeting.\"\n\n\"What did\u2014\"\n\n\"We need to take in the dessert and coffee. Can you handle that tray?\"\n\nUnderstanding the subject was closed for now, Quinn stepped over. \"Sure. It looks terrific, Mrs. Hawkins.\"\n\nIn between moans and tears of joy over the pie, Quinn aimed her charm at Jim Hawkins. Cal, she was sure, had been dodging and weaving, avoiding and evading her since their hike to the Pagan Stone.\n\n\"Mr. Hawkins, you've lived in the Hollow all your life.\"\n\n\"Born and raised. Hawkinses have been here since the town was a couple of stone cabins.\"\n\n\"I met your grandmother, and she seems to know town history.\"\n\n\"Nobody knows more.\"\n\n\"People say you're the one who knows real estate, business, local politics.\"\n\n\"I guess I do.\"\n\n\"Then you may be able to point me in the right direction.\" She slid a look at Cal, then beamed back at his father. \"I'm looking to rent a house, something in town or close to it. Nothing fancy, but I'd like room. I have a friend coming in soon, and I've nearly talked Layla into staying longer. I think we'd be more comfortable, and it would be more efficient, for the three of us to have a house instead of using the hotel.\"\n\n\"How long are you looking for?\"\n\n\"Six months.\" She saw it register on his face, just as she noticed the frown form on Cal's. \"I'm going to stay through July, Mr. Hawkins, and I'm hoping to find a house that would accommodate three women\u2014potentially three\u2014\" she said with a glance at Layla.\n\n\"I guess you've thought that over.\"\n\n\"I have. I'm going to write this book, and part of the angle I'm after is the fact that the town remains, the people\u2014a lot of them\u2014stay. They stay and they make apple pie and have people over to Sunday dinner. They bowl, and they shop. They fight and they make love. They live. If I'm going to do this right, I want to be here, before, during, and after. So I'd like to rent a house.\"\n\nJim scooped up some pie, chased it with coffee. \"It happens I know a place on High Street, just a block off Main. It's old, main part went up before the Civil War. It's got four bedrooms, three baths. Nice porches, front and back. Had a new roof on her two years ago. Kitchen's eat-in size, though there's a little dining room off it. Appliances aren't fancy, but they've only got five years on them. Just been painted. Tenants moved out just a month ago.\"\n\n\"It sounds perfect. You seem to know it well.\"\n\n\"Should. We own it. Cal, you should take Quinn by. Maybe run her and Layla over there on the way home. You know where the keys are.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" he said when Quinn gave him a big, bright smile. \"I know where the keys are.\"\n\nAS IT MADE THE MOST SENSE, QUINN HITCHED A ride with Cal, and left Fox and Layla to follow. She stretched out her legs, let out a sigh.\n\n\"Let me start off by saying your parents are terrific, and you're lucky to have grown up in such a warm, inviting home.\"\n\n\"I agree.\"\n\n\"Your dad's got that Ward Cleaver meets Jimmy Stewart thing going. I could've eaten him up like your mother's\u2014Martha Stewart meets Grace Kelly by way of Julia Child\u2014apple pie.\"\n\nHis lips twitched. \"They'd both like those descriptions.\"\n\n\"You knew about the High Street house.\"\n\n\"Yeah, I did.\"\n\n\"You knew about the High Street house, and avoided telling me about it.\"\n\n\"That's right. You found out about it, too, before dinner, which is why you did the end-run around me to my father.\"\n\n\"Correct.\" She tapped her finger on his shoulder. \"I figured he'd point me there. He likes me. Did you avoid telling me because you're not comfortable with what I might write about Hawkins Hollow?\"\n\n\"Some of that. More, I was hoping you'd change your mind and leave. Because I like you, too.\"\n\n\"You like me, so you want me gone?\"\n\n\"I like you, Quinn, so I want you safe.\" He looked at her again, longer. \"But some of the things you said about the Hollow over apple pie echoed pretty closely some of the things my mother said to me today. It all but eliminates any discomfort with what you may decide to write. But it makes me like you more, and that's a problem.\"\n\n\"You had to know, after what happened to us in the woods, I wouldn't be leaving.\"\n\n\"I guess I did.\" He pulled off into a short, steep driveway.\n\n\"Is this the house? It is perfect! Look at the stonework, and the big porch, the windows have shutters.\"\n\nThey were painted a deep blue that stood out well against the gray stone. The little front yard was bisected by a trio of concrete steps and the narrow walkway. A trim tree Quinn thought might be a dogwood highlighted the left square of front yard.\n\nAs Fox's truck pulled in behind, Quinn popped out to stand, hands on hips. \"Pretty damned adorable. Don't you think, Layla?\"\n\n\"Yes, but\u2014\"\n\n\"No buts, not yet. Let's take a look inside.\" She cocked her head at Cal. \"Okay, landlord?\"\n\nAs they trooped up to the porch, Cal took out the keys he'd grabbed off their hook from his father's home office. The ring was clearly labeled with the High Street address.\n\nThe fact that the door opened without a creak told Quinn the landlords were vigilant in the maintenance department.\n\nThe door opened straight into the living area that stood twice as long as it was wide, with the steps to the second floor a couple of strides in on the left. The wood floors showed wear, but were spotlessly clean. The air was chilly and carried the light sting of fresh paint.\n\nThe small brick fireplace delighted her.\n\n\"Could use your mother's eye in the paint department,\" Quinn commented.\n\n\"Rental properties get eggshell, through and through. It's the Hawkins's way. Tenants want to play around with that, it's their deal.\"\n\n\"Reasonable. I want to start at the top, work down. Layla, do you want to go up and fight over who gets which bedroom?\"\n\n\"No.\" Cal thought there was mutiny, as well as frustration on her face. \"I have a bedroom. In New York.\"\n\n\"You're not in New York,\" Quinn said simply, then dashed up the steps.\n\n\"She's not listening to me,\" Layla muttered. \"I don't seem to be listening to me either about going back.\"\n\n\"We're here.\" Fox gave a shrug. \"Might as well poke around. I really dig empty houses.\"\n\n\"I'll be up.\" Cal started up the stairs.\n\nHe found her in one of the bedrooms, one that faced the tiny backyard. She stood at the long, narrow window, the fingertips of her right hand pressed to the glass. \"I thought I'd go for one of the rooms facing the street, catch the who's going where when and with who. I usually go for that. Just have to know what's going on. But this is the one for me. I bet, in the daylight, you can stand here, see backyards, other houses, and wow, right on to the mountains.\"\n\n\"Do you always make up your mind so fast?\"\n\n\"Yeah, usually. Even when I surprise myself like now. Bathroom's nice, too.\" She turned enough to gesture to the door on the side of the room. \"And since it's girls, if any of us share that one, it won't be too weird having it link up the two bedrooms on this side.\"\n\n\"You're sure everyone will fall in line.\"\n\nNow she turned to him, fully. \"Confidence is the first step to getting what you want, or need. But we'll say I'm hoping Layla and Cyb will agree it's efficient, practical, and would be more comfortable to share the house for a few months than to bunk at the hotel. Especially considering the fact that both Layla and I are pretty well put off of the dining room there after Slugfest.\"\n\n\"You don't have any furniture.\"\n\n\"Flea markets. We'll pick up the essentials. Cal, I've stayed in less stellar accommodations and done it for one thing. A story. This is more. Somehow or other I'm connected to this story, this place. I can't turn that off and walk away.\"\n\nHe wished she could, and knew if she could his feelings for her wouldn't be as strong or as complex. \"Okay, but let's agree, here and now, that if you change your mind and do just that, no explanations needed.\"\n\n\"That's a deal. Now, let's talk rent. What's this place going to run us?\"\n\n\"You pay the utilities\u2014heat, electric, phone, cable.\"\n\n\"Naturally. And?\"\n\n\"That's it.\"\n\n\"What do you mean, that's it?\"\n\n\"I'm not going to charge you rent, not when you're staying here, at least in part, because of me. My family, my friends, my town. We're not going to make a profit off that.\"\n\n\"Straight arrow, aren't you, Caleb?\"\n\n\"About most.\"\n\n\"I'll make a profit\u2014she says optimistically\u2014from the book I intend to write.\"\n\n\"If we get through July and you write a book, you'll have earned it.\"\n\n\"Well, you drive a hard bargain, but it looks like we have a deal.\" She stepped forward, offered a hand.\n\nHe took it, then cupped his other at the back of her neck. Surprise danced in her eyes, but she didn't resist as he eased her toward him.\n\nHe moved slow, the closing together of bodies, the meeting of lips, the testing slide of tongues. There was no explosion of need as there had been in that moment in the clearing. No sudden, almost painful shock of desire. Instead, it was a long and gradual glide from interest to pleasure to ache while her head went light and her blood warmed. It seemed everything inside her went quiet so that she heard, very clearly, the low hum in her own throat as he changed the angle of the kiss.\n\nHe felt her give, degree by degree, even as he felt the hand he held in his go lax. The tension that had dogged him throughout the day drained away, so there was only the moment, the quiet, endless moment.\n\nEven when he drew back, that inner stillness held. And she opened her eyes, met his.\n\n\"That was just you and me.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" He stroked his fingers over the back of her neck. \"Just you and me.\"\n\n\"I want to say that I have a policy against becoming romantically, intimately, or sexually\u2014just to cover all my bases\u2014involved with anyone directly associated with a story I'm researching.\"\n\n\"That's probably smart.\"\n\n\"I am smart. I also want to say I'm going to negate that policy in this particular case.\"\n\nHe smiled. \"Damn right you are.\"\n\n\"Cocky. Well, mixed with the straight arrow, I have to like it. Unfortunately, I should get back to the hotel. I have a lot of...things. Details to see to before I can move in here.\"\n\n\"Sure. I can wait.\"\n\nHe kept her hand in his, switching off the light as he led her out.\n\n## Eleven\n\nCAL SENT A DOZEN PINK ROSES TO HIS MOTHER. She liked the traditional flower for Valentine's Day, and he knew his father always went for the red. If he hadn't known, Amy Yost in the flower shop would have reminded him, as she did every blessed year.\n\n\"Your dad ordered a dozen red last week, for delivery today, potted geranium to his grandma, and he sent the Valentine's Day Sweetheart Special to your sisters.\"\n\n\"That suck-up,\" Cal said, knowing it would make Amy gasp and giggle. \"How about a dozen yellow for my gran. In a vase, Amy. I don't want her to have to fool with them.\"\n\n\"Aw, that's sweet. I've got Essie's address on file, you just fill out the card.\"\n\nHe picked one out of the slot, gave it a minute's thought before writing: Hearts are red, these roses are yellow. Happy Valentine's Day from your best fellow.\n\nCorny, sure, he decided, but Gran would love it.\n\nHe reached for his wallet to pay when he noticed the red-and-white-striped tulips behind the glass doors of the refrigerated display. \"Ah, those tulips are...interesting.\"\n\n\"Aren't they pretty? And they just make me feel like spring. It's no problem if you want to change either of the roses for them. I can just\u2014\"\n\n\"No, no, maybe...I'll take a dozen of them, too. Another delivery in a vase, Amy.\"\n\n\"Sure.\" Her cheerful round face lit up with curiosity and the anticipation of good gossip. \"Who's your valentine, Cal?\"\n\n\"It's more a housewarming kind of thing.\" He couldn't think of any reason why not to send Quinn flowers. Women liked flowers, he thought as he filled out the delivery form. It was Valentine's Day, and she was moving into the High Street house. It wasn't like he was buying her a ring and picking out a band for the wedding.\n\nIt was just a nice gesture.\n\n\"Quinn Black.\" Amy wiggled her eyebrows as she read the name on the form. \"Meg Stanley ran into her at the flea market yesterday, along with that friend of hers from New York. They bought a bunch of stuff, according to Meg. I heard you were going around with her.\"\n\n\"We're not...\" Were they? Either way, it was best to leave it alone. \"Well, what's the damage, Amy?\"\n\nWith his credit card still humming, he stepped outside, hunched his shoulders against the cold. There might be candy-striped tulips, but it didn't feel as if Mother Nature was giving so much as a passing thought to spring. The sky spat out a thin and bitter sleet that lay slick as grease on the streets and sidewalks.\n\nHe'd walked down from the bowling center as was his habit, timing his arrival at the florist to their ten o'clock opening. It was the best way to avoid the panicked rush of others who had waited until the last minute to do the Valentine's thing.\n\nIt didn't appear he'd needed to worry. Not only had no other customers come in while he'd been buying his roses and impulsive tulips, but there was no one on the sidewalks, no cars creeping cautiously toward the curb in front of the Flower Pot.\n\n\"Strange.\" His voice sounded hollow against the sizzle of sleet striking asphalt. Even on the crappiest day, he'd pass any number of people on his walks around town. He shoved his gloveless hands into his pockets and cursed himself for not breaking his routine and driving.\n\n\"Creatures of habit freeze their asses off,\" he muttered. He wanted to be inside in his office, drinking a cup of coffee, even preparing to start the cancellation process on the evening's scheduled Sweetheart Dance if the sleet worsened. If he'd just taken the damn truck, he'd already be there.\n\nSo thinking, he looked up toward the center, and saw the stoplight at the Town Square was out.\n\nPower down, Cal thought, and that was a problem. He quickened his steps. He knew Bill Turner would make certain the generator kicked on for the emergency power, but he needed to be there. School was out, and that meant kids were bound to be scattered around in the arcade.\n\nThe hissing of the sleet increased until it sounded like the forced march of an army of giant insects. Despite the slick sidewalk, Cal found himself breaking into a jog when it struck him.\n\nWhy weren't there any cars at the Square, or parked at the curbs? Why weren't there any cars anywhere?\n\nHe stopped, and so did the hiss of the sleet. In the ensuing silence, he heard his own heart thumping like a fist against steel.\n\nShe stood so close he might have reached out to touch her, and knew if he tried, his hand would pass through her as it would through water.\n\nHer hair was deep blond, worn long and loose as it had been when she'd carried the pails toward the little cabin in Hawkins Wood. When she'd sung about a garden green. But her body was slim and straight in a long gray dress.\n\nHe had the ridiculous thought that if he had to see a ghost, at least it wasn't a pregnant one.\n\nAs if she heard his thoughts, she smiled. \"I am not your fear, but you are my hope. You and those who make up the whole of you. What makes you, Caleb Hawkins, is of the past, the now, and the yet to come.\"\n\n\"Who are you? Are you Ann?\"\n\n\"I am what came before you, and you are formed through love. Know that, know that long, long before you came into the world, you were loved.\"\n\n\"Love isn't enough.\"\n\n\"No, but it is the rock on which all else stands. You have to look; you have to see. This is the time, Caleb. This was always to be the time.\"\n\n\"The time for what?\"\n\n\"The end of it. Seven times three. Death or life. He holds it, prevents it. Without his endless struggle, his sacrifice, his courage, all this...\" She held out her arms. \"All would be destroyed. Now it is for you.\"\n\n\"Just tell me what I need to do. Goddamn it.\"\n\n\"If I could. If I could spare you.\" She lifted a hand, let it fall again. \"There must be struggle, and sacrifice, and great courage. There must be faith. There must be love. It is courage, faith, love that holds it so long, that prevents it from taking all who live and breathe within this place. Now it is for you.\"\n\n\"We don't know how. We've tried.\"\n\n\"This is the time,\" she repeated. \"It is stronger, but so are you, and so are we. Use what you were given, take what it sowed but could never own. You cannot fail.\"\n\n\"Easy for you to say. You're dead.\"\n\n\"But you are not. They are not. Remember that.\"\n\nWhen she started to fade, he did reach out, uselessly. \"Wait, damn it. Wait. Who are you?\"\n\n\"Yours,\" she said. \"Yours as I am and always will be his.\"\n\nShe was gone, and the sleet sizzled on the pavement again. Cars rumbled by as the traffic light on the Square glowed green.\n\n\"Not the spot for daydreaming.\" Meg Stanley skidded by, giving him a wink as she pulled open the door of Ma's Pantry.\n\n\"No,\" Cal muttered. \"It's not.\"\n\nHe started toward the center again, then veered off to take a detour to High Street.\n\nQuinn's car was in the drive, and through the windows he could see the lights she must've turned on to chase back the gloom. He knocked, heard a muffled call to come in.\n\nWhen he did, he saw Quinn and Layla trying to muscle something that resembled a desk up the stairs.\n\n\"What are you doing? Jesus.\" He stepped over to grip the side of the desk beside Quinn. \"You're going to hurt yourselves.\"\n\nIn an annoyed move, she tossed her head to flip the hair away from her face. \"We're managing.\"\n\n\"You'll be managing a trip to the ER. Go on up, take that end with Layla.\"\n\n\"Then we'll both be walking backward. Why don't you take that end?\"\n\n\"Because I'm going to be taking the bulk of the weight this way.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" She let go, squeezed between the wall and the desk.\n\nHe didn't bother to ask why it had to go up. He'd lived with his mother too long to waste his breath. Instead he grunted out orders to prevent the edge of the desk from bashing into the wall as they angled left at the top of the stairs. Then followed Quinn as she directed the process to the window in the smallest bedroom.\n\n\"See, we were right.\" Quinn panted, and tugged down a Penn State sweatshirt. \"This is the spot for it.\"\n\nThere was a seventies chair that had seen better days, a pole lamp with a rosy glass shade that dripped long crystals, and a low bookshelf varnished black over decades that wobbled when he set a hand on it.\n\n\"I know, I know.\" Quinn waved away his baleful look. \"But it just needs a little hammering or something, and it's really just to fill things out. We were thinking about making it a little sitting room, then decided it would be better as a little office. Hence the desk we originally thought should be in the dining room.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\n\"The lamp looks like something out of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.\" Layla gave one of the crystals a flick with her fingers. \"But that's what we like about it. The chair is hideous.\"\n\n\"But comfortable,\" Quinn inserted.\n\n\"But comfortable, and that's what throws are for.\"\n\nCal waited a beat as both of them looked at him expectantly. \"Okay,\" he repeated, which was generally how he handled his mother's decorating explanations.\n\n\"We've been busy. We turned in Layla's rental car, then hit the flea market just out of town. Bonanza. Plus we agreed no secondhand mattresses. The ones we ordered should be here this afternoon. Anyway, come see what we've got going so far.\"\n\nQuinn grabbed his hand, pulled him across the hall to the room she'd chosen. There was a long bureau desperately in need of refinishing, topped by a spotted mirror. Across the room was a boxy chest someone had painted a murderous and shiny red. On it stood a Wonder Woman lamp.\n\n\"Homey.\"\n\n\"It'll be very livable when we're done.\"\n\n\"Yeah. You know I think that lamp might've been my sister Jen's twenty, twenty-five years ago.\"\n\n\"It's classic,\" Quinn claimed. \"It's kitschy.\"\n\nHe fell back on the standard. \"Okay.\"\n\n\"I think I have Danish modern,\" Layla commented from the doorway. \"Or possibly Flemish. It's absolutely horrible. I have no idea why I bought it.\"\n\n\"Did you two haul this stuff up here?\"\n\n\"Please.\" Quinn tossed her head.\n\n\"We opted for brain over brawn.\"\n\n\"Every time. That and a small investment. Do you know how much a couple of teenage boys will cart and carry for twenty bucks each and the opportunity to ogle a couple of hot chicks such as we?\" Quinn fisted a hand on her hip, struck a pose.\n\n\"I'd've done it for ten. You could have called.\"\n\n\"Which was our intention, actually. But the boys were handy. Why don't we go down and sit on our new third-or fourthhand sofa?\"\n\n\"We did splurge,\" Layla added. \"We have an actual new coffeemaker and a very eclectic selection of coffee mugs.\"\n\n\"Coffee'd be good.\"\n\n\"I'll get it started.\"\n\nCal glanced after Layla. \"She seems to have done a one-eighty on all this.\"\n\n\"I'm persuasive. And you're generous. I think I should plant one on you for that.\"\n\n\"Go ahead. I can take it.\"\n\nLaughing, she braced her hands on his shoulders, gave him a firm, noisy kiss.\n\n\"Does that mean I don't get ten bucks?\"\n\nHer smile beamed as she poked him in the belly. \"You'll take the kiss and like it. Anyway, part of the reason for Layla hanging back was the money. The idea of staying was\u2014is\u2014difficult for her. But the idea of taking a long leave, unpaid, from her job, coming up with rent money here, keeping her place in New York, that was pretty much off the table.\"\n\nShe stepped up to the bright red chest to turn her Wonder Woman lamp on and off. From the look on her face, Cal could see the act pleased her.\n\n\"So, the rent-free aspect checked one problem off her list,\" Quinn went on. \"She hasn't completely committed. Right now, it's a day at a time for her.\"\n\n\"I've got something to tell you, both of you, that may make this her last day.\"\n\n\"Something happened.\" She dropped her hand, turned. \"What happened?\"\n\n\"I'll tell you both. I want to call Fox first, see if he can swing by. Then I can tell it once.\"\n\nHE HAD TO DO IT WITHOUT FOX, WHO, ACCORDING to Mrs. Hawbaker, was at the courthouse being a lawyer. So he sat in the oddly furnished living room on a couch so soft and saggy he was already wishing for the opportunity to get Quinn naked on it, and told them about the visitation on Main Street.\n\n\"An OOB,\" Quinn decided.\n\n\"An oob?\"\n\n\"No, no. Initials, like CYA. Out of body\u2014experience. It sounds like that might be what you had, or maybe there was a slight shift in dimensions and you were in an alternate Hawkins Hollow.\"\n\nHe might have spent two-thirds of his life caught up in something beyond rational belief, but he'd never heard another woman talk like Quinn Black. \"I was not in an alternate anything, and I was right inside my body where I belong.\"\n\n\"I've been studying, researching, and writing about the paranormal for some time now.\" Quinn drank some coffee and brooded over it.\n\n\"It could be he was talking to a ghost who caused the illusion that they were alone on the street, and caused everyone else out there to\u2014I don't know\u2014blip out for a few minutes.\" Layla shrugged at Quinn's narrowed look. \"I'm new at this, and I'm still working really hard not to hide under the covers until somebody wakes me up and tells me this was all a dream.\"\n\n\"For the new kid, your theory's pretty good,\" Quinn told her.\n\n\"How about mine? Which is what she said is a hell of a lot more important right now than how she said it.\"\n\n\"Point taken.\" Quinn nodded at Cal. \"This is the time, she said. Three times seven. That one's easy enough to figure.\"\n\n\"Twenty-one years.\" Cal pushed up to pace. \"This July makes twenty-one years.\"\n\n\"Three, like seven, is considered a magickal number. It sounds like she was telling you it was always going to come now, this July, this year. It's stronger, you're stronger, they're stronger.\" Quinn squeezed her eyes shut.\n\n\"So, it and this woman\u2014this spirit\u2014have both been able to...\"\n\n\"Manifest.\" Quinn finished Layla's thought. \"That follows the logic.\"\n\n\"Nothing about this is logical.\"\n\n\"It is, really.\" Opening her eyes again, Quinn gave Layla a sympathetic look. \"Inside this sphere, there's logic. It's just not the kind we deal with, or most of us deal with, every day. The past, the now, the yet to be. Things that happened, that are happening, and that will or may are all part of the solution, the way to end it.\"\n\n\"I think there's more to that part.\" Cal turned back from the window. \"After that night in the clearing, the three of us were different.\"\n\n\"You don't get sick, and you heal almost as soon as you're hurt. Quinn told me.\"\n\n\"Yeah. And I could see.\"\n\n\"Without your glasses.\"\n\n\"I could also see before. I started\u2014right there minutes afterward\u2014to have flashes of the past.\"\n\n\"The way you did\u2014both of us did,\" Quinn corrected, \"when we touched the stone together. And later, when we\u2014\"\n\n\"Like that, not always that clear, not always so intense. Sometimes awake, sometimes like a dream. Sometimes completely irrelevant. And Fox...It took him a while to understand. Jesus, we were ten. He can see now.\" Annoyed with himself, Cal shook his head. \"He can see, or sense what you're thinking, or feeling.\"\n\n\"Fox is psychic?\" Layla demanded.\n\n\"Psychic lawyer. He's so hired.\"\n\nDespite everything, Quinn's announcement made Cal's lips twitch. \"Not like that, not exactly. It's never been something we can completely control. Fox has to deliberately push it, and it doesn't always work then. But since then he has an instinct about people. And Gage\u2014\"\n\n\"He sees what could happen,\" Quinn added. \"He's the soothsayer.\"\n\n\"It's hardest for him. That's why\u2014one of the reasons why\u2014he doesn't spend much time here. It's harder here. He's had some pretty damn vicious dreams, visions, nightmares, whatever the hell you want to call them.\"\n\nAnd it hurts you when he hurts, Quinn thought. \"But he hasn't seen what you're meant to do?\"\n\n\"No. That would be too easy, wouldn't it?\" Cal said bitterly. \"Has to be more fun to mess up the lives of three kids, to let innocent people die or kill and maim each other. Stretch that out for a couple of decades, then say: Okay, boys, now's the time.\"\n\n\"Maybe there was no choice.\" Quinn held up a hand when Cal's eyes fired. \"I'm not saying it's fair. In fact, it sucks. Inside and out, it sucks. I'm saying maybe it couldn't be another way. Whether it was something Giles Dent did, or something set in motion centuries before that, there may have been no other choice. She said he was holding it, that he was preventing it from destroying the Hollow. If it was Ann, and she meant Giles Dent, does that mean he trapped this thing, this bestia, and in some form\u2014beatus\u2014has been trapped with it, battling it, all this time? Three hundred and fifty years and change. That sucks, too.\"\n\nLayla jumped at the brisk knock on the door, then popped up. \"I'll get it. Maybe it's the delivery.\"\n\n\"You're not wrong,\" Cal said quietly. \"But it doesn't make it easier to live through it. It doesn't make it easier to know, in my gut, that we're coming up to our last chance.\"\n\nQuinn got to her feet. \"I wish\u2014\"\n\n\"It's flowers!\" Layla's voice was giddy with delight as she came in carrying the vase of tulips. \"For you, Quinn.\"\n\n\"Jesus, talk about weird timing,\" Cal muttered.\n\n\"For me? Oh God, they look like lollipop cups. They're gorgeous!\" Quinn set them on the ancient coffee table. \"Must be a bribe from my editor so I'll finish that article on\u2014\" She broke off as she ripped open the card. Her face was blank with shock as she lifted her eyes to Cal. \"You sent me flowers?\"\n\n\"I was in the florist before\u2014\"\n\n\"You sent me flowers on Valentine's Day.\"\n\n\"I hear my mother calling,\" Layla announced. \"Coming, Mom!\" She made a fast exit.\n\n\"You sent me tulips that look like blooming candy canes on Valentine's Day.\"\n\n\"They looked like fun.\"\n\n\"That's what you wrote on the card. 'These look like fun.' Wow.\" She scooped a hand through her hair. \"I have to say that I'm a sensible woman, who knows very well Valentine's Day is a commercially generated holiday designed to sell greeting cards, flowers, and candy.\"\n\n\"Yeah, well.\" He slid his hands into his pockets. \"Works.\"\n\n\"And I'm not the type of woman who goes all mushy and gooey over flowers, or sees them as an apology for an argument, a prelude to sex, or any of the other oft-perceived uses.\"\n\n\"I just saw them, thought you'd get a kick out of them. Period. I've got to get to work.\"\n\n\"But,\" she continued and moved toward him, \"strangely, I find none of that applies in the least in this particular case. They are fun.\" She rose up on her toes, kissed his cheek. \"And they're beautiful.\" Then his other cheek. \"And thoughtful.\" Now his lips. \"Thank you.\"\n\n\"You're welcome.\"\n\n\"I'd like to add that...\" She trailed her hands down his shirt, up again. \"If you'll tell me what time you finish up tonight, I'll have a bottle of wine waiting in my bedroom upstairs, where I can promise you, you're going to get really, really lucky.\"\n\n\"Eleven,\" he said immediately. \"I can be here at eleven-oh-five. I\u2014Oh shit. Sweetheart Dance, that's midnight. Special event. No problem. You'll come.\"\n\n\"That's my plan.\" When he grinned, she rolled her eyes. \"You mean to this dance. At the Bowl-a-Rama. A Sweetheart Dance at the Bowl-a-Rama. God, I'd love that. But, I can't leave Layla here, not at night. Not alone.\"\n\n\"She can come, too\u2014to the dance.\"\n\nNow her eyeroll was absolutely sincere. \"Cal, no woman wants to tag along with a couple to a dance on Valentine's Day. It paints a big L for loser in the middle of her forehead, and they're so damn hard to wash off.\"\n\n\"Fox can take her. Probably. I'll check.\"\n\n\"That's a possibility, especially if we make it all for fun. You check, then I'll check, then we'll see. But either way.\" She grabbed a fistful of his shirt, and this time brought him to her for a long, long kiss. \"My bedroom, twelve-oh-five.\"\n\nLAYLA SAT ON HER BRAND-NEW DISCOUNT MATTRESS while Quinn busily checked out the clothes she'd recently hung in her closet.\n\n\"Quinn, I appreciate the thought, I really do, but put yourself in my place. The third-wheel position.\"\n\n\"It's perfectly acceptable to be the third wheel when there're four wheels altogether. Fox is going.\"\n\n\"Because Cal asked him to take pity on the poor dateless V-Day loser. Probably told him or bribed him or\u2014\"\n\n\"You're right. Fox certainly had to have his arm twisted to go out with such an ugly hag like yourself. I admit every time I look at you, I'm tempted to go: woof, woof, what a dog. Besides...Oh, I love this jacket! You have the best clothes. But this jacket is seriously awesome. Mmm.\" Quinn stroked it like a cat. \"Cashmere.\"\n\n\"I don't know why I packed it. I don't know why I packed half the stuff I did. I just started grabbing things. And you're trying to distract me.\"\n\n\"Not really, but it's a nice side benefit. What was I saying? Oh, yeah. Besides, it's not a date. It's a gang bang,\" she said and made Layla laugh. \"It's just the four of us going to a bowling alley, for God's sake, to hear some local band play and dance a little.\"\n\n\"Sure. After which, you'll be hanging a scarf over the doorknob of your bedroom. I went to college, Quinn. I had a roommate. Actually, I had a nympho of a roommate who had an endless supply of scarves.\"\n\n\"Is it a problem?\" Quinn stopped poking in the closet long enough to look over her shoulder. \"Cal and me, across the hall?\"\n\n\"No. No.\" And now didn't she feel stupid and petty? \"I think it's great. Really, I do. Anybody can tell the two of you rev like engines when you're within three feet of each other.\"\n\n\"They can?\" Quinn turned all the way around now. \"We do.\"\n\n\"Vroom, vroom. He's great, it's great. I just feel...\" Layla rolled her shoulders broadly. \"In the way.\"\n\n\"You're not. I couldn't stay here without you. I'm pretty steady, but I couldn't stay in this house alone. The dance isn't a big deal. We don't have to go, but I think it'd be fun, for all of us. And a chance to do something absolutely normal to take our minds off everything that isn't.\"\n\n\"That's a good point.\"\n\n\"So get dressed. Put on something fun, maybe a little sexy, and let's hit the Bowl-a-Rama.\"\n\nTHE BAND, A LOCAL GROUP NAMED HOLLOWED Out, was into its first set. They were popular at weddings and corporate functions, and regularly booked at the center's events because their playlist ran the gamut from old standards to hip-hop. The something-for-everybody kept the dance floor lively while those sitting one out could chat at one of the tables circling the room, sip drinks, or nibble from the light buffet set up along one of the side walls.\n\nCal figured it was one of the center's most popular annual events for good reason. His mother headed up the decorating committee, so there were flowers and candles, red and white streamers, glittering red hearts. It gave people a chance to get a little dressed up in the dullness that was February, get out and socialize, hear some music, show off their moves if they had them. Or like Cy Hudson, even if they didn't.\n\nIt was a little bright spot toward the end of a long winter, and they never failed to have a full house.\n\nCal danced with Essie to \"Fly Me to the Moon.\"\n\n\"Your mother was right to make you take those dance lessons.\"\n\n\"I was humiliated among my peers,\" Cal said. \"But light on my feet.\"\n\n\"Women tend to lose their heads over a good dancer.\"\n\n\"A fact I've exploited whenever possible.\" He smiled down at her. \"You look so pretty, Gran.\"\n\n\"I look dignified. Now, there was a day when I turned plenty of heads.\"\n\n\"You still turn mine.\"\n\n\"And you're still the sweetest of my sweethearts. When are you going to bring that pretty writer to see me?\"\n\n\"Soon, if that's what you want.\"\n\n\"It feels like time. I don't know why. And speaking of\u2014\" She nodded toward the open double doors. \"Those two turn heads.\"\n\nHe looked. He noticed Layla, in that she was there. But his focus was all for Quinn. She'd wound that mass of blond hair up, a touch of elegance, and wore an open black jacket over some kind of lacey top\u2014camisole, he remembered. They called them camisoles, and God bless whoever invented them.\n\nThings glittered at her ears, at her wrists, but all he could think was she had the sexiest collarbone in the history of collarbones, and he couldn't wait to get his mouth on it.\n\n\"You're about to drool, Caleb.\"\n\n\"What?\" He blinked his attention back to Essie. \"Oh. Jeez.\"\n\n\"She does look a picture. You take me on back to my table now and go get her. Bring her and her friend around to say hello before I leave.\"\n\nBy the time he got to them, Fox had already scooped them up to one of the portable bars and sprung for champagne. Quinn turned to Cal, glass in hand, and pitched her voice over the music. \"This is great! The band's hot, the bubbly's cold, and the room looks like a love affair.\"\n\n\"You were expecting a couple of toothless guys with a washboard and a jug, some hard cider, and a few plastic hearts.\"\n\n\"No.\" She laughed, jabbed him with her finger. \"But something between that and this. It's my first bowling alley dance, and I'm impressed. And look! Isn't that His Honor, the mayor, getting down?\"\n\n\"With his wife's cousin, who is the choir director for the First Methodist Church.\"\n\n\"Isn't that your assistant, Fox?\" Layla gestured to a table.\n\n\"Yeah. Fortunately, the guy she's kissing is her husband.\"\n\n\"They look completely in love.\"\n\n\"Guess they are. I don't know what I'm going to do without her. They're moving to Minneapolis in a couple months. I wish they'd just take off for a few weeks in July instead of\u2014\" He caught himself. \"No shop talk tonight. Do you want to scare up a table?\"\n\n\"Perfect for people-watching,\" Quinn agreed, then spun toward the band. \"'In the Mood'!\"\n\n\"Signature piece for them. Do you swing?\" Cal asked her.\n\n\"Damn right.\" She glanced at him, considered. \"Do you?\"\n\n\"Let's go see what you've got, Blondie.\" He grabbed her hand, pulled her out to the dance floor.\n\nFox watched the spins and footwork. \"I absolutely can't do that.\"\n\n\"Neither can I. Wow.\" Layla's eyes widened. \"They're really good.\"\n\nOn the dance floor, Cal set Quinn up for a double spin, whipped her back. \"Lessons?\"\n\n\"Four years. You?\"\n\n\"Three.\" When the song ended and bled into a slow number, he fit Quinn's body to his and blessed his mother. \"I'm glad you're here.\"\n\n\"Me, too.\" She nuzzled her cheek to his. \"Everything feels good tonight. Sweet and shiny. And mmm,\" she murmured when he led her into a stylish turn. \"Sexy.\" Tipping back her head, she smiled at him. \"I've completely reversed my cynical take on Valentine's Day. I now consider it the perfect holiday.\"\n\nHe brushed his lips over hers. \"After this dance, why don't we sneak off to the storeroom upstairs and neck?\"\n\n\"Why wait?\"\n\nWith a laugh, he started to bring her close again. And froze.\n\nThe hearts bled. The glittery art board dripped, and splattered red on the dance floor, plopped on tables, slid down the hair and faces of people while they laughed, or chatted, strolled or swayed.\n\n\"Quinn.\"\n\n\"I see it. Oh God.\"\n\nThe vocalist continued to sing of love and longing as the red and silver balloons overhead popped like gunshots. And from them rained spiders.\n\n## Twelve\n\nQUINN BARELY MANAGED TO MUFFLE A SCREAM, and would have danced back as the spiders skittered over the floor if Cal hadn't gripped her.\n\n\"Not real.\" He said it with absolute and icy calm. \"It's not real.\"\n\nSomeone laughed, and the sound spiked wildly. There were shouts of approval as the music changed tempo to hip-grinding rock.\n\n\"Great party, Cal!\" Amy from the flower shop danced by with a wide, blood-splattered grin.\n\nWith his arm still tight around Quinn, Cal began to back off the floor. He needed to see his family, needed to see...And there was Fox, gripping Layla's hand as he wound his way through the oblivious crowd.\n\n\"We need to go,\" Fox shouted.\n\n\"My parents\u2014\"\n\nFox shook his head. \"It's only happening because we're here. I think it only can happen because we're here. Let's move out. Let's move.\"\n\nAs they pushed between tables, the tiny tea lights in the centerpieces flashed like torches, belching a volcanic spew of smoke. Cal felt it in his throat, stinging, even as his foot crunched down on a fist-sized spider. On the little stage, the drummer swung into a wild solo with bloodied sticks. When they reached the doors, Cal glanced back.\n\nHe saw the boy floating above the dancers. Laughing.\n\n\"Straight out.\" Following Fox's line of thought, Cal pulled Quinn toward the exit. \"Straight out of the building. Then we'll see. Then we'll damn well see.\"\n\n\"They didn't see.\" Out of breath, Layla stumbled outside. \"Or feel. It wasn't happening for them.\"\n\n\"It's outside the box, okay, it's pushed outside the lines. But only for us.\" Fox stripped off his jacket and tossed it over Layla's shaking shoulders. \"Giving us a preview of coming attractions. Arrogant bastard.\"\n\n\"Yes.\" Quinn nodded, even as her stomach rolled. \"I think you're right, because every time it puts on a show, it costs energy. So we get that lull between production numbers.\"\n\n\"I have to go back.\" He'd left his family. Even if retreat was to defend, Cal couldn't stand and do nothing while his family was inside. \"I need to be in there, need to close down when the event's over.\"\n\n\"We'll all go back,\" Quinn linked her cold fingers with Cal's. \"These performances are always of pretty short duration. It lost its audience, and unless it's got enough for a second act, it's done for tonight. Let's go back. It's freezing out here.\"\n\nInside, the tea lights glimmered softly, and the hearts glittered. The polished dance floor was unstained. Cal saw his parents dancing, his mother's head resting on his father's shoulder. When she caught his eye and smiled at him, Cal felt the fist twisting in his belly relax.\n\n\"I don't know about you, but I'd really like another glass of champagne.\" Quinn blew out a breath, as her eyes went sharp and hard. \"Then you know what? Let's dance.\"\n\nFOX WAS SPRAWLED ON THE COUCH WATCHING some drowsy black-and-white movie on TV when Cal and Quinn came into the rental house after midnight. \"Layla went up,\" he said as he shoved himself to sitting. \"She was beat.\"\n\nThe subtext, that she'd wanted to be well tucked away before her housemate and Cal came up, was perfectly clear.\n\n\"Is she all right?\" Quinn asked.\n\n\"Yeah. Yeah, she handles herself. Anything else happen after we left?\"\n\nCal shook his head as his gaze tracked over to the window, and the dark. \"Just a big, happy party momentarily interrupted for some of us by supernatural blood and spiders. Everything okay here?\"\n\n\"Yeah, except for the fact these women buy Diet Pepsi. Classic Coke,\" he said to Quinn. \"A guy has to have some standards.\"\n\n\"We'll look right into that. Thanks, Fox.\" She stepped up and kissed his cheek. \"For hanging out until we got back.\"\n\n\"No big. It got me out of cleanup duty and let me watch...\" He looked back at the little TV screen. \"I have no idea. You ought to think about getting cable. ESPN.\"\n\n\"I don't know how I've lived without it these last few days.\"\n\nHe grinned as he pulled on his coat. \"Humankind shouldn't live by network alone. Call me if you need anything,\" he added as he headed for the door.\n\n\"Fox.\" Cal trailed behind him. After a murmured conversation, Fox sent Quinn a quick wave and left.\n\n\"What was that?\"\n\n\"I asked if he'd bunk at my place tonight, check on Lump. It's no problem. I've got Coke and ESPN.\"\n\n\"You've got worry all over you, Cal.\"\n\n\"I'm having a hard time taking it off.\"\n\n\"It can't hurt us, not yet. It's all head games. Mean, disgusting, but just psychological warfare.\"\n\n\"It means something, Quinn.\" He gave her arms a quick, almost absent rub before turning to check the dark, again. \"That it can do it now, with us. That I had that episode with Ann. It means something.\"\n\n\"And you have to think about it. You think a lot, have all sorts of stores up here.\" She tapped her temple. \"The fact that you do is, well, it's comforting to me and oddly attractive. But you know what? After this really long, strange day, it might be good for us not to think at all.\"\n\n\"That's a good idea.\" Take a break, he told himself. Take some normal. Walking back to her, he skimmed his fingers over her cheek, then let them trail down her arm until they linked with hers. \"Why don't we try that?\"\n\nHe drew her toward the steps, started up. There were a few homey creaks, the click and hum of the furnace, and nothing else.\n\n\"Do you\u2014\"\n\nHe cut her off by cupping a hand on her cheek, then laying his lips on hers. Soft and easy as a sigh. \"No questions either. Then we'd have to think of the answers.\"\n\n\"Good point.\"\n\nJust the room, the dark, the woman. That was all there would be, all he wanted for the night. Her scent, her skin, the fall of her hair, the sounds two people made when they discovered each other.\n\nIt was enough. It was more than enough.\n\nHe closed the door behind him.\n\n\"I like candles.\" She drew away to pick up a long, slim lighter to set the candles she'd scattered around the room to flame.\n\nIn their light she looked delicate, more delicate than she was. He enjoyed the contrast of reality and illusion. The mattress and box spring sat on the floor, covered by sheets that looked crisp and pearly against a blanket of deep, rich purple. His tulips sat like a cheerful carnival on the scarred wood of her flea market dresser.\n\nShe'd hung fabric in a blurry blend of colors over the windows to close out the night. And when she turned from them, she smiled.\n\nIt was, for him, perfect.\n\n\"Maybe I should tell you\u2014\"\n\nHe shook his head, stepped toward her.\n\n\"Later.\" He did the first thing that came to mind, lifting his hands to her hair. He drew the pins out, let them fall. When the weight of it tumbled free, over her shoulders, down her back, he combed his fingers through it. With his eyes on hers, he wrapped her hair around his fist like a rope, gave a tug.\n\n\"There's still a lot of later,\" he said, and took her mouth with his.\n\nHer lips, for him, were perfect. Soft and full, warm and generous. He felt a quick tremble from her as her arms wound around him, as she pressed her body to his. She didn't yield, didn't soften\u2014not yet. Instead she met his slow, patient assault with one of her own.\n\nHe slid the jacket from her shoulders, let it fall like the pins so his hands, his fingertips could explore silk and lace and flesh. While their lips brushed, rubbed, pressed, her hands came to his shoulders, then shoved at his jacket until it dropped away.\n\nHe tasted her throat, heard her purr of approval. As he eased back, he danced his fingers over the alluring line of her collarbone. Her eyes were vivid, alight with anticipation. He wanted to see them heavy. He wanted to see them go blind. Watching them, watching her, he let his fingers trail down to the swell of her breast where the lace flirted. And watching her still, glided them over the lace, over the silk to cup her while his thumb lightly rubbed, rubbed to tease her nipple.\n\nHe heard her breath catch, release, felt her shiver even as she reached to him to unbutton his shirt. Her hands slid up his torso, spread. He knew his heartbeat skipped, but his own hand made the journey almost lazily to the waistband of her pants. The flesh there was warm, and her muscles quivered as his fingers did a testing sweep. Then with a flick and a tug, her pants floated down her legs.\n\nThe move was so sudden, so unexpected, she couldn't anticipate or prepare. Everything had been so slow, so dreamy, then his hands hooked under her arms, lifted her straight off her feet. The quick, careless show of strength shocked her system, made her head swim. Even when he set her back down, her knees stayed weak.\n\nHis gaze skimmed down, over the camisole, over the frothy underwear she'd donned with the idea of making him crazy. His lips curved as his eyes came back to hers.\n\n\"Nice.\"\n\nIt was all he said, and her mouth went dry. It was ridiculous. She'd had other men look at her, touch her, want her. But he did, and her throat went dry. She tried to find something clever and careless to say back, but could barely find the wit to breathe.\n\nThen he hooked his finger in the waist of her panties, gave one easy tug. She stepped toward him like a woman under a spell.\n\n\"Let's see what's under here,\" he murmured, and lifted the camisole over her head. \"Very nice,\" was his comment as he traced his fingertip along the edge of her bra.\n\nShe couldn't remember her moves, had to remind herself she was good at this\u2014actively good, not just the type who went limp and let a guy do all the work. She reached for the hook of his trousers, fumbled.\n\n\"You're shaking.\"\n\n\"Shut up. I feel like an idiot.\"\n\nHe took her hands, brought them both to his lips and she knew she was as sunk as the Titanic. \"Sexy,\" he corrected. \"What you are is stupendously sexy.\"\n\n\"Cal.\" She had to concentrate to form the words. \"I really need to lie down.\"\n\nThere was that smile again, and though it might have transmitted self-satisfied male, she really didn't give a damn.\n\nThen they were on the bed, aroused bodies on cool, crisp sheets, candlelight flickering like magic in the dark. And his hands, his mouth, went to work on her.\n\nHe runs a bowling alley, she thought as he simply saturated her with pleasure. How did he get hands like this? Where did he learn to...Oh my God.\n\nShe came in a long, rolling wave that seemed to curl up from her toes, ride over her legs, burst in her center then wash over heart and mind. She clung to it, greedily wringing every drop of shock and delight until she was both limp and breathless.\n\nOkay, okay, was all her brain could manage. Okay, wow.\n\nHer body was a feast of curves and quivers. He could have lingered over those lovely breasts, the strong line of torso, that feminine flare of hip for days. Then there were her legs, smooth and strong and...sensitive. So many places to touch, so much to taste, and all the endless night to savor.\n\nShe rose to him, wrapped around him, arched and flowed and answered. He felt her heart thundering under his lips, heard her moan as he used his tongue to torment. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, his hips, her hands squeezing then gliding to fray the taut line of his control.\n\nKisses became more urgent. The cool air of the room went hot, went thick as smoke. When the need became a blur, he slipped inside her. And yes, watched her eyes go blind.\n\nHe gripped her hands to anchor himself, to stop himself from simply plunging, from bulleting by the aching pleasure to release. Her fingers tightened on his, and that pleasure glowed on her face with each long, slow thrust. Stay with me, he thought, and she did, beat for beat. Until it built and built in her ragged breaths, in the shivering of her body. She made a helpless sound as she closed her eyes, turned her head on the pillow. When her body melted under him, he pressed his face to that exposed curve of her neck. And let himself go.\n\nHE LAY QUIET, THINKING SHE MIGHT HAVE FALLEN asleep. She'd rolled so that her head was on his shoulder, her arm tossed across his chest, and her leg hooked around his. It was, he thought, a little like being tied up with a Quinn bow. And he couldn't find anything not to like about it.\n\n\"I was going to say something.\"\n\nNot asleep, he realized, though her words were drunk and slurry.\n\n\"About what?\"\n\n\"Mmm. I was going to say, when we first came into the room. I was going to say something.\" She curled closer, and he realized the heat sex had generated had ebbed, and she was cold.\n\n\"Hold on.\" He had to unwind her, to which she gave a couple of halfhearted mutters of protest. But when he pulled up the blanket, she snuggled right in. \"Better?\"\n\n\"Couldn't be any. I was going to say that I've been\u2014more or less\u2014thinking about getting you naked since I met you.\"\n\n\"That's funny. I've been more or less thinking the same about you. You've got an amazing body there, Quinn.\"\n\n\"Lifestyle change, for which I could now preach like an evangelist. However.\" She levered up so she could look down into his face. \"Had I known what it would be like, I would've had you naked in five minutes flat.\"\n\nHe grinned. \"Once again, our thoughts run on parallel lines. Do that thing again. No,\" he said with a laugh when her eyebrows wiggled. \"This thing.\"\n\nHe tugged her head down again until it rested on his shoulder, then drew her arm over his chest. \"And the leg. That's it,\" he said when she obliged. \"That's perfect.\"\n\nThe fact that it was gave her a nice warm glow under her heart. Quinn closed her eyes, and without a worry in the world, drifted off to sleep.\n\nIN THE DARK, SHE WOKE WHEN SOMETHING FELL on her. She managed a breathless squeal, shoved herself to sitting, balled her hands into fists.\n\n\"Sorry, sorry.\"\n\nShe recognized Cal's whisper, but it was too late to stop the punch. Her fist jabbed into something hard enough to sting her knuckles. \"Ow! Ow! Shit.\"\n\n\"I'll say,\" Cal muttered.\n\n\"What the hell are you doing?\"\n\n\"Tripping, falling down, and getting punched in the head.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because it's pitch-dark.\" He shifted, rubbed his sore temple. \"And I was trying not to wake you up, and you hit me. In the head.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm sorry,\" she hissed right back. \"For all I knew you could've been a mad rapist, or more likely, given the location, a demon from hell. What are you doing milling around in the dark?\"\n\n\"Trying to find my shoes, which I think is what I tripped over.\"\n\n\"You're leaving?\"\n\n\"It's morning, and I've got a breakfast meeting in a couple hours.\"\n\n\"It's dark.\"\n\n\"It's February, and you've got those curtain deals over the windows. It's about six thirty.\"\n\n\"Oh God.\" She plopped back down. \"Six thirty isn't morning, even in February. Or maybe especially.\"\n\n\"Which is why I was trying not to wake you up.\"\n\nShe shifted. She could make him out now, a little, as her eyes adjusted. \"Well, I'm awake, so why are you still whispering?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Maybe I have brain damage from getting punched in the head.\"\n\nSomething about the baffled irritation in his voice stirred her juices. \"Aw. Why don't you crawl back in here with me where it's all nice and warm? I'll kiss it and make it better.\"\n\n\"That's a cruel thing to suggest when I have a breakfast meeting with the mayor, the town manager, and the town council.\"\n\n\"Sex and politics go together like peanut butter and jelly.\"\n\n\"That may be, but I've got to go home, feed Lump, drag Fox out of bed as he's in on this meeting. Shower, shave, and change so it doesn't look like I've been having hot sex.\"\n\nAs he dragged on his shoes, she roused herself to push up again, then slither around him. \"You could do all that after.\"\n\nHer breasts, warm and full, pressed against his back as she nibbled on the side of his throat. And her hand snuck down to where he'd already gone rock hard.\n\n\"You've got a mean streak, Blondie.\"\n\n\"Maybe you ought to teach me a lesson.\" She let out a choked laugh when he swiveled and grabbed her.\n\nThis time when he fell on her, it was on purpose.\n\nHE WAS LATE FOR THE MEETING, BUT HE WAS feeling too damn good to care. He ordered an enormous breakfast\u2014eggs, bacon, hash browns, two biscuits. He worked his way through it while Fox gulped down Coke as if it were the antidote to some rare and fatal poison in his bloodstream, and the others engaged in small talk.\n\nSmall talk edged into town business. It may have been February, but plans for the annual Memorial Day parade had to be finalized. Then there was the debate about installing new benches in the park. Most of it washed over Cal as he ate, as he thought about Quinn.\n\nHe tuned back in, primarily because Fox kicked him under the table.\n\n\"The Branson place is only a couple doors down from the Bowl-a-Rama,\" Mayor Watson continued. \"Misty said it looked like the house on either side went dark, too, but across the street, the lights were on. Phones went out, too. Spooked her pretty good, she said when Wendy and I picked her up after the dance. Only lasted a few minutes.\"\n\n\"Maybe a breaker,\" Jim Hawkins suggested, but he looked at his son.\n\n\"Maybe, but Misty said it all flickered and snapped for a few seconds. Power surge maybe. But I think I'm going to urge Mike Branson to get his wiring checked out. Could be something's shorting out. We don't want an electrical fire.\"\n\nHow did they manage to forget? Cal wondered. Was it a defense mechanism, amnesia, or simply part of the whole ugly situation?\n\nNot all of them. He could see the question, the concern in his father's eyes, in one or two of the others. But the mayor and most of the council were moving on to a discussion of painting the bleachers in the ballpark before Little League season began.\n\nThere had been other odd power surges, other strange power outages. But never until June, never before that final countdown to the Seven.\n\nWhen the meeting was over, Fox walked to the bowling center with Cal and his father. They didn't speak until they were inside, and the door closed behind them.\n\n\"It's too early for this to happen,\" Jim said immediately. \"It's more likely a power surge, or faulty wiring.\"\n\n\"It's not. Things have been happening already,\" Cal told him. \"And it's not just Fox and I who've seen them. Not this time.\"\n\n\"Well.\" Jim sat down heavily at one of the tables in the grill section. \"What can I do?\"\n\nTake care of yourself, Cal thought. Take care of Mom. But it would never be enough. \"Anything feels off, you tell me. Tell Fox, or Gage when he gets here. There are more of us this time. Quinn and Layla, they're part of it. We need to figure out how and why.\"\n\nHis great-grandmother had known Quinn was connected, Cal thought. She'd sensed something. \"I need to talk to Gran.\"\n\n\"Cal, she's ninety-seven. I don't care how spry she is, she's still ninety-seven.\"\n\n\"I'll be careful.\"\n\n\"You know, I'm going to talk to Mrs. H again.\" Fox shook his head. \"She's jumpy, nervous. Making noises about leaving next month instead of April. I figured it was just restlessness now that she's decided to move. Maybe it's more.\"\n\n\"All right.\" Jim blew out a breath. \"You two go do what you need to do. I'll handle things here. I know how to run the center,\" he said before Cal could protest. \"Been doing it awhile now.\"\n\n\"Okay. I'll run Gran to the library if she wants to go today. I'll be back after, and we can switch off. You can pick her up, take her home.\"\n\nCAL WALKED TO ESSIE'S HOUSE. SHE ONLY LIVED a block away in the pretty little house she shared with his cousin Ginger. Essie's concession to her age was to have Ginger live in, take care of the house, the grocery shopping, most of the cooking, and be her chauffeur for duties like doctor and dentist appointments.\n\nCal knew Ginger to be a sturdy, practical sort who stayed out of his gran's way\u2014and her business\u2014unless she needed to do otherwise. Ginger preferred TV to books, and lived for a trio of afternoon soaps. Her disastrous and childless marriage had turned her off men, except television beefcake or those within the covers of People magazine.\n\nAs far as Cal could tell, his gran and his cousin bumped along well enough in the little dollhouse with its trim front yard and cheerful blue porch.\n\nWhen he arrived he didn't see Ginger's car at the curb, and wondered if his gran had an early medical appointment. His father kept Essie's schedule in his head, as he kept so much else, but he'd been upset that morning.\n\nStill, it was more likely that Ginger had taken a run to the grocery store.\n\nHe crossed the porch and knocked. It didn't surprise him when the door opened. Even upset, his father rarely forgot anything.\n\nBut it did surprise him to see Quinn at the threshold.\n\n\"Hi. Come on in. Essie and I are just having some tea in the parlor.\"\n\nHe gripped her arm. \"Why are you here?\"\n\nThe greeting smile faded at the sharp tone. \"I have a job to do. And Essie called me.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Maybe if you come in instead of scowling at me, we'll both find out.\"\n\nSeeing no other choice, Cal walked into his great-grandmother's lovely living room where African violets bloomed in purple profusion in the windows, where built-in shelves Fox's father had crafted were filled with books, family pictures, little bits and bobs of memories. Where the company tea set was laid out on the low table in front of the high-backed sofa his mother had reupholstered only the previous spring.\n\nWhere his beloved gran sat like a queen in her favored wingback chair. \"Cal.\" She lifted her hand for his, and her cheek for his kiss. \"I thought you'd be tied up all morning between the meeting and center business.\"\n\n\"Meeting's over, and Dad's at the center. I didn't see Ginger's car.\"\n\n\"She's off running some errands since I had company. Quinn's just pouring the tea. Go get yourself a cup out of the cupboard.\"\n\n\"No, thanks. I'm fine. Just had breakfast.\"\n\n\"I would've called you, too, if I'd realized you'd have time this morning.\"\n\n\"I've always got time for you, Gran.\"\n\n\"He's my boy,\" she said to Quinn, squeezing Cal's hand before she released it to take the tea Quinn offered. \"Thank you. Please, sit down, both of you. I might as well get right to it. I need to ask you if there was an incident last night, during the dance. An incident just before ten.\"\n\nShe looked hard at Cal's face as she asked, and what she saw had her closing her eyes. \"So there was.\" Her thin voice quivered. \"I don't know whether to be relieved or afraid. Relieved because I thought I might be losing my mind. Afraid because I'm not. It was real then,\" she said quietly. \"What I saw.\"\n\n\"What did you see?\"\n\n\"It was as if I were behind a curtain. As if a curtain had dropped, or a shroud, and I had to look through it. I thought it was blood, but no one seemed to notice. No one noticed all the blood, or the things that crawled and clattered over the floor, over the tables.\" Her hand lifted to rub at her throat. \"I couldn't see clearly, but I saw a shape, a black shape. It seemed to float in the air on the other side of the curtain. I thought it was death.\"\n\nShe smiled a little as she lifted her tea with a steady hand. \"You prepare for death at my age, or you damn well should. But I was afraid of that shape. Then it was gone, the curtain lifted again, and everything was exactly as it should be.\"\n\n\"Gran\u2014\"\n\n\"Why didn't I tell you last night?\" she interrupted. \"I can read your face like a book, Caleb. Pride, fear. I simply wanted to get out, to be home, and your father drove me. I needed to sleep, and I did. This morning, I needed to know if it was true.\"\n\n\"Mrs. Hawkins\u2014\"\n\n\"You'll call me Essie now,\" she said to Quinn.\n\n\"Essie, have you ever had an experience like this before?\"\n\n\"Yes. I didn't tell you,\" she said when Cal cursed. \"Or anyone. It was the summer you were ten. That first summer. I saw terrible things outside the house, things that couldn't be. That black shape that was sometimes a man, sometimes a dog. Or a hideous combination of both. Your grandfather didn't see, or wouldn't. I always thought he simply wouldn't see. There were horrible things that week.\"\n\nShe closed her eyes a moment, then took another soothing sip of tea. \"Neighbors, friends. Things they did to themselves and each other. After the second night, you came to the door. Do you remember, Cal?\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am, I remember.\"\n\n\"Ten years old.\" She smiled at Quinn. \"He was only a little boy, with his two young friends. They were so afraid. You could see and feel the fear and the, valor, I want to say, coming off them like light. You told me we had to pack up, your grandfather and I. We had to come stay at your house. That it wasn't safe in town. Didn't you ever wonder why I didn't argue, or pat you on the head and shoo you on home?\"\n\n\"No. I guess there was too much else going on. I just wanted you and Pop safe.\"\n\n\"And every seven years, I packed for your grandfather and me, then when he died, just for me, now this year it'll be Ginger and me. But it's coming sooner and stronger this time.\"\n\n\"I'll pack for you, Gran, for you and Ginger right now.\"\n\n\"Oh, I think we're safe enough for now,\" she said to Cal. \"When it's time, Ginger and I can put what we'll need together. I want you to take the books. I know I've read them, you've read them. It seems countless times. But we've missed something, somehow. And now, we have fresh eyes.\"\n\nQuinn turned toward Cal, narrowed her eyes. \"Books?\"\n\n## Thirteen\n\nFOX MADE A RUN TO THE BANK. IT WAS COMPLETELY unnecessary since the papers in his briefcase could have been dropped off at any time\u2014or more efficiently, the client could have come into his office to ink them.\n\nBut he'd wanted to get out, get some air, walk off his frustration.\n\nIt was time to admit that he'd still held on to the hope that Alice Hawbaker would change her mind, or that he could change it for her. Maybe it was selfish, and so what? He depended on her, he was used to her. And he loved her.\n\nThe love meant he had no choice but to let her go. The love meant if he could take back the last twenty minutes he'd spent with her, he would.\n\nShe'd nearly broken down, he remembered as he strode along in his worn-down hiking boots (no court today). She never broke. She never even cracked, but he'd pushed her hard enough to cause fissures. He'd always regret it.\n\nIf we stay, we'll die. She'd said that with tears in her voice, with tears glimmering in her eyes.\n\nHe'd only wanted to know why she was so set to leave, why she was jumpier every day to the point she wanted to go sooner than originally planned.\n\nSo he'd pushed. And finally, she'd told him.\n\nShe'd seen their deaths, over and over, every time she closed her eyes. She'd seen herself getting her husband's deer rifle out of the locked case in his basement workroom. Seen herself calmly loading it. She'd watched herself walk upstairs, through the kitchen where the dinner dishes were loaded into the dishwasher, the counters wiped clean. Into the den where the man she'd loved for thirty-six years, had made three children with, was watching the Orioles battle the Red Sox. The O's were up two-zip, but the Sox were at the plate, with a man on second, one out. Top of the sixth. The count was one and two.\n\nWhen the pitcher wound up, she pumped a bullet through the back of her husband's head as he sat in his favorite recliner.\n\nThen she'd put the barrel under her own chin.\n\nSo, yes, he had to let her go, just as he'd had to make an excuse to leave the office because he knew her well enough to understand she didn't want him around until she was composed again.\n\nKnowing he'd given her what she wanted and needed didn't stop him from feeling guilty, frustrated, and inadequate.\n\nHe ducked in to buy flowers. She'd accept them as a peace offering, he knew. She liked flowers in the office, and often picked them up herself as he tended to forget.\n\nHe came out with an armload of mixed blooms, and nearly ran over Layla.\n\nShe stumbled back, even took a couple extra steps in retreat. He saw upset and unhappiness on her face, and wondered if it was his current lot to make women nervous and miserable.\n\n\"Sorry. Wasn't looking.\"\n\nShe didn't smile, just started fiddling with the buttons of her coat. \"It's okay. Neither was I.\"\n\nHe should just go. He didn't have to tap in to her mind to feel the jangle of nerves and misery surrounding her. It seemed to him she never relaxed around him, was always making that little move away. Or maybe she never relaxed ever. Could be a New York thing, he mused. He sure as hell hadn't been able to relax there.\n\nBut there was too much of the how-can-I-fix-this in him. \"Problem?\"\n\nNow her eyes glimmered with tears, and Fox quite simply wanted to step into the street into the path of a passing truck.\n\n\"Problem? How could there possibly be a problem? I'm living in a strange house in a strange town, seeing things that aren't there\u2014or worse, are there and want me dead. Nearly everything I own is sitting in my apartment in New York. An apartment I have to pay for, and my very understanding and patient boss called this morning to tell me, regretfully, that if I couldn't come back to work next week, she'll have to replace me. So do you know what I did?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"I started to pack. Sorry, really, sorry, but I've got a life here. I have responsibilities and bills and a goddamn routine.\" She gripped her elbows in opposite hands as if to hold herself in place. \"I need to get back to them. And I couldn't. I just couldn't do it. I don't even know why, not on any reasonable level, but I couldn't. So now I'm going to be out of a job, which means I won't be able to afford my apartment. And I'm probably going to end up dead or institutionalized, and that's after my landlord sues me for back rent. So problems? No, not me.\"\n\nHe listened all the way through without interruption, then just nodded. \"Stupid question. Here.\" He shoved the flowers at her.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"You look like you could use them.\"\n\nFlummoxed, she stared at him, stared at the colorful blooms in her arms. And felt the sharpest edge of what might have been hysteria dulling into perplexity. \"But...you bought them for someone.\"\n\n\"I can buy more.\" He waved a thumb at the door of the flower shop. \"And I can help with the landlord if you get me the information. The rest, well, we're working on it. Maybe something pushed you to come here, and maybe something's pushing you to stay, but at the bottom of it, Layla, it's your choice. If you decide you have to leave...\" He thought of Alice again, and some of his own frustration ebbed. \"Nobody's going to blame you for it. But if you stay, you need to commit.\"\n\n\"I've\u2014\"\n\n\"No, you haven't.\" Absently, he reached out to secure the strap of her bag, which had slipped down to the crook of her elbow, back on her shoulder. \"You're still looking for the way out, the loophole in the deal that means you can pack your bags and go without consequences. Just go back to the way things were. Can't blame you for it. But choose, then stick. That's all. I've got to finish up and get back. Talk to you later.\"\n\nHe stepped back into the florist and left her standing speechless on the sidewalk.\n\nQUINN SHOUTED DOWN FROM THE SECOND FLOOR when Layla came in.\n\n\"It's me,\" Layla called up, and still conflicted, walked back to the kitchen with the flowers and the bottles and pots she'd bought in a gift shop on the walk home.\n\n\"Coffee.\" Quinn bustled in a few moments later. \"Going to need lots and lots of...Hey, pretty,\" she said when she saw the flowers Layla was clipping to size and arranging in various bottles.\n\n\"They really are. Quinn, I need to talk to you.\"\n\n\"Need to talk to you, too. You go first.\"\n\n\"I was going to leave this morning.\"\n\nQuinn stopped on the way to fill the coffeepot. \"Oh.\"\n\n\"And I was going to do my best to get out before you came back, and talked me out of it. I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"Okay. It's okay.\" Quinn busied herself making the coffee. \"I'd avoid me, too, if I wanted to do something I didn't want me to do. If you get me.\"\n\n\"Oddly enough, I do.\"\n\n\"Why aren't you gone?\"\n\n\"Let me backtrack.\" While she finished fussing with the flowers, Layla related the telephone conversation she'd had with her boss.\n\n\"I'm sorry. It's so unfair. I don't mean your boss is unfair. She's got a business to run. But that this whole thing is unfair.\" Quinn watched Layla arrange multicolored daisies in an oversized teacup. \"On a practical level I'm okay, because this is my job, or the job I picked. I can afford to take the time to be here and supplement that with articles. I could help\u2014\"\n\n\"That's not what I'm looking for. I don't want you to loan me money, or to carry my share of the expenses. If I stay, it's because I've chosen to stay.\" Layla looked at the flowers, thought of what Fox had said. \"I think, until today, I didn't accept that, or want to accept it. Easier to think I'd been driven to come here, and that I was being pressured to stay. I wanted to go because I didn't want any of this to be happening. But it is. So I'm staying because I've decided to stay. I'll just have to figure out the practicalities.\"\n\n\"I've got a couple of ideas on that, maybe just a thumb in the dike. Let me think about them. The flowers were a nice idea. Cheer up a bad news day.\"\n\n\"Not my idea. Fox gave them to me when I ran into him outside the florist. I cut loose on him.\" Layla shrugged, then gathered up the bits of stems she'd cut off, the florist wrappings. \"He's basically, 'How are you doing,' and I'm 'How am I doing? I'll tell you how I'm doing.'\" She tossed the leavings in the trash, then leaned back and laughed. \"God, I just blasted him. So he gives me the flowers he'd just bought, thrust them at me, really, and gave me a short, pithy lecture. I guess I deserved it.\"\n\n\"Hmm.\" Quinn added the information to the think-pot she was stirring. \"And you feel better?\"\n\n\"Better?\" Layla walked into the little dining room to arrange a trio of flowers on the old, drop-leaf table they'd picked up at the flea market. \"I feel more resolved. I don't know if that's better.\"\n\n\"I've got something to keep you busy.\"\n\n\"Thank God. I'm used to working, and all this time on my hands makes me bitchy.\"\n\n\"Come with me. Don't leave all the flowers; you should have some of them in your room.\"\n\n\"I thought they'd be for the house. He didn't buy them for me or\u2014\"\n\n\"He gave them to you. Take some of them up. You made me take the tulips up to mine.\" To solve the matter, Quinn picked up one of the little pots and a slender bottle herself. \"Oh, coffee.\"\n\n\"I'll get it.\" Layla poured one of the mugs for Quinn, doctored it, then got a bottle of water for herself. \"What's the project that's going to keep me busy?\"\n\n\"Books.\"\n\n\"We already have the books from the library.\"\n\n\"Now we have some from Estelle Hawkins's personal store. Some of them are journals. I haven't really scratched the surface yet,\" Quinn explained as they headed up. \"I'd barely gotten home ahead of you. But there are three of them written by Ann Hawkins. After her children were born. Her children with Giles Dent.\"\n\n\"But Mrs. Hawkins must have read them before, shown them to Cal.\"\n\n\"Right, and right. They've all been read, studied, pondered over. But not by us, Layla. Fresh eyes, different angle.\" She detoured to Layla's room to set the flowers down, then took the coffee mug on her way to the office. \"And I've already got the first question on my notes: Where are the others?\"\n\n\"Other journals?\"\n\n\"Ann's other journals, because I'm betting there are more, or were. Where's the journal she kept when she lived with Dent, when she was carrying her triplets? That's one of the new angles I hope our fresh eyes can find. Where would they be, and why aren't they with the others?\"\n\n\"If she did write others, they might have been lost or destroyed.\"\n\n\"Let's hope not.\" Quinn's eyes were sharp as she sat, lifted a small book bound in brown leather. \"Because I think she had some of the answers we need.\"\n\nCAL COULDN'T REASONABLY BREAK AWAY FROM the center until after seven. Even then he felt guilty leaving his father to handle the rest of the night. He'd called Quinn in the late afternoon to let her know he'd be by when he could. And her absent response had been for him to bring food with him.\n\nShe'd have to settle for pizza, he thought as he carried the takeout boxes up the steps. He hadn't had the time or inclination to figure out what her lifestyle-change option might be.\n\nAs he knocked, the wind whistled across the back of his neck, had him glancing uneasily behind him. Something coming, he thought. Something's in the wind.\n\nFox answered the door. \"Thank God, pizza and a testosterone carrier. I'm outnumbered here, buddy.\"\n\n\"Where's the estrogen?\"\n\n\"Up. Buried in books and notes. Charts. Layla makes charts. I made the mistake of telling them I had a dry-wipe board down at the office. They made me go get it, haul it in here, haul it upstairs.\" The minute Cal set the pizza down on the kitchen counter, Fox shoved up the lid and took out a slice. \"There's been talk of index cards. Colored index cards. Don't leave me here alone again.\"\n\nCal grunted, opened the fridge, and found, as he'd hoped and dreamed, Fox had stocked beer. \"Maybe we were never organized enough, so we missed some detail. Maybe\u2014\"\n\nHe broke off as Quinn rushed in. \"Hi! Pizza. Oh-oh. Well, I'll work it off with the power of my mind and with a session in the gym tomorrow morning.\"\n\nShe got down plates, passed one to Fox, who was already halfway through with his first slice. Then she smiled that smile at Cal. \"Got anything else for me?\"\n\nHe leaned right in, laid his mouth on hers. \"Got that.\"\n\n\"Coincidentally, exactly what I wanted. So how about some more.\" She got a fistful of his shirt and tugged him down for another, longer kiss.\n\n\"You guys want me to leave? Can I take the pizza with me?\"\n\n\"As a matter of fact,\" Cal began.\n\n\"Now, now.\" Quinn patted Cal's chest to ease him back. \"Mommy and Daddy were just saying hello,\" she told Fox. \"Why don't we eat in the dining room like the civilized. Layla's coming right down.\"\n\n\"How come I can't say hello to Mommy?\" Fox complained as Quinn sailed off with the plates.\n\n\"Because then I'd have to beat you unconscious.\"\n\n\"As if.\" Amused, Fox grabbed the pizza boxes and started after Quinn. \"Beverages on you, bro.\"\n\nShortly after they were seated, drinks, plates, napkins, pizza passed around, Layla came in with a large bowl and a stack of smaller ones. \"I put this together earlier. I wasn't sure what you might bring,\" she said to Cal.\n\n\"You made salad?\" Quinn asked.\n\n\"My specialty. Chop, shred, mix. No cooking.\"\n\n\"Now, I'm forced to be good.\" Quinn gave up the dream of two slices of pizza, settled on one and a bowl of Layla's salad. \"We made progress,\" she began as she forked up the first bite.\n\n\"Yeah, ask the ladies here how to make tallow candles or black raspberry preserves,\" Fox suggested. \"They've got it down.\"\n\n\"So, some of the information contained in the books we're going through may not currently apply to our situation.\" Quinn raised her eyebrows at Fox. \"But one day I may be called on in some blackout emergency to make a tallow candle. By progress, however, I mean that there's a lot of interesting information in Ann's journals.\"\n\n\"We've read them,\" Cal pointed out. \"Multiple times.\"\n\n\"You're not women.\" She held up a finger. \"And, yes, Essie is. But Essie's a woman who's a descendent, who's part of this town and its history. And however objective she might try to be, she may have missed some nuances. First question, where are the others?\"\n\n\"There aren't any others.\"\n\n\"I disagree. There aren't any others that were found. Essie said these books were passed to her by her father, because she loved books. I called her to be sure, but he never said if there were more.\"\n\n\"If there'd been more,\" Cal insisted, \"he'd have given them to her.\"\n\n\"If he had them. There's a long span between the sixteen hundreds and the nineteen hundreds,\" Quinn pointed out. \"Things get misplaced, lost, tossed out. According to the records and your own family's oral history, Ann Hawkins lived most of her life in what's now the community center on Main Street, which was previously the library. Books, library. Interesting.\"\n\n\"A library Gran knew inside and out,\" Cal returned. \"There couldn't have been a book in there she didn't know about. And something like this?\" He shook his head. \"She'd have it if it was to be had.\"\n\n\"Unless she never saw it. Maybe it was hidden, or maybe, for the sake of argument, she wasn't meant to find it. It wasn't meant to be found, not by her, not then.\"\n\n\"Debatable,\" Fox commented.\n\n\"And something to look into. Meanwhile, she didn't date her journals, so Layla and I are dating them, more or less, by how she writes about her sons. In what we're judging to be the first, her sons are about two to three. In the next they're five because she writes about their fifth birthday very specifically, and about seven, we think, when that one ends. The third it seems that they're young men. We think about sixteen.\"\n\n\"A lot of years between,\" Layla said.\n\n\"Maybe she didn't have anything worth writing about during those years.\"\n\n\"Could be,\" Quinn said to Cal. \"But I'm betting she did, even if it was just about blackberry jam and a trio of active sons. More important now, at least I think so, is where is the journal or journals that cover her time with Dent, to the birth of her sons through to the first two years of their lives? Because you can just bet your ass those were interesting times.\"\n\n\"She writes of him,\" Layla said quietly. \"Of Giles Dent. Again and again, in all the journals we have. She writes about him, of her feelings for him, her dreams about him.\"\n\n\"And always in the present tense,\" Quinn added.\n\n\"It's hard to lose someone you love.\" Fox turned his beer bottle in his hand.\n\n\"It is, but she writes of him, consistently, as if he were alive.\" Quinn looked at Cal. \"It is not death. We talked about this, how Dent found the way to exist, with this thing. To hold it down or through or inside. Whatever the term. Obviously he couldn't\u2014or didn't\u2014kill or destroy it, but neither could it kill or destroy him. He found a way to keep it under, and to continue to exist. Maybe only for that single purpose. She knew it. Ann knew what he did, and I'm betting she knew how he did it.\"\n\n\"You're not taking into account love and grief,\" Cal pointed out.\n\n\"I'm not discounting them, but when I read her journals, I get the sense of a strong-minded woman. And one who shared a very deep love with a strong-minded man. She defied convention for him, risked shunning and censure. Shared his bed, but I believe, shared his obligations, too. Whatever he planned to do, attempted to do, felt bound to do, he would have shared it with her. They were a unit. Isn't that what you felt, what we both felt, when we were in the clearing?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" He couldn't deny it, Cal thought. \"That's what I felt.\"\n\n\"Going off that, Ann knew, and while she may have told her sons when they were old enough, that part of the Hawkins's oral history could have been lost or bastardized. It happens. I think she would have written it out, too. And put the record somewhere she believed would be safe and protected, until it was needed.\"\n\n\"It's been needed for twenty-one years.\"\n\n\"Cal, that's your responsibility talking, not logic. At least not the line of logic that follows this route. She told you this was the time. That it was always to be this time. Nothing you had, nothing you could have done would have stopped it before this time.\"\n\n\"We let it out,\" Fox said. \"Nothing would have been needed if we hadn't let it out.\"\n\n\"I don't think that's true.\" Layla shifted toward him, just a little. \"And maybe, if we find the other journals, we'll understand. But, we noticed something else.\"\n\n\"Layla caught it right off the bat,\" Quinn put in.\n\n\"Because it was in front of me first. But in any case, it's the names. The names of Ann's sons. Caleb, Fletcher, and Gideon.\"\n\n\"Pretty common for back then.\" Cal gave a shrug as he pushed his plate away. \"Caleb stuck in the Hawkins line more than the other two did. But I've got a cousin Fletch and an uncle Gideon.\"\n\n\"No, first initials,\" Quinn said impatiently. \"I told you they'd missed it,\" she added to Layla. \"C, F, G. Caleb, Fox, Gage.\"\n\n\"Reaching,\" Fox decided. \"Especially when you consider I'm Fox because my mother saw a pack of red foxes running across the field and into the woods about the time she was going into labor with me. My sister Sage? Mom smelled the sage from her herb garden right after Sage was born. It was like that with all four of us.\"\n\n\"You were named after an actual fox? Like a...release-the-hounds fox?\" Layla wanted to know.\n\n\"Well, not a specific one. It was more a...You have to meet my mother.\"\n\n\"However Fox got his famous name, I don't think we discount coincidences.\" Quinn studied Cal's face, saw he was considering it. \"And I think there's more than one of Ann Hawkins's descendents at this table.\"\n\n\"Quinn, my father's people came over from Ireland, four generations back,\" Fox told her. \"They weren't here in Ann Hawkins's time because they were plowing fields in Kerry.\"\n\n\"What about your mother's?\" Layla asked.\n\n\"Wider mix. English, Irish. I think some French. Nobody ever bothered with a genealogy, but I've never heard of any Hawkins on the family tree.\"\n\n\"You may want to take a closer look. How about Gage?\" Quinn wondered.\n\n\"No idea.\" And Cal was more than considering it now. \"I doubt he does either. I can ask Bill, Gage's father. If it's true, if we're direct descendents, it could explain one of the things we've never understood.\"\n\n\"Why it was you,\" Quinn said quietly. \"You three, the mix of blood from you, Fox, and Gage that opened the door.\"\n\n\"I ALWAYS THOUGHT IT WAS ME.\"\n\nWith the house quiet, and night deep, Cal lay on Quinn's bed with her body curled warm to his. \"Just you?\"\n\n\"They helped trigger it maybe, but yes, me. Because it was my blood\u2014not just that night, but my heritage, you could say. I was the Hawkins. They weren't from here, not the same way I was. Not forever, like I was. Generations back. But if this is true...I still don't know how to feel about it.\"\n\n\"You could give yourself a tiny break.\" She stroked her hand over his heart. \"I wish you would.\"\n\n\"Why did he let it happen? Dent? If he'd found a way to stop it, why did he let it come to this?\"\n\n\"Another question.\" She pushed herself up until they were eye-to-eye. \"We'll figure it out, Cal. We're supposed to. I believe that.\"\n\n\"I'm closer to believing it, with you.\" He touched her cheek. \"Quinn, I can't stay again tonight. Lump may be lazy, but he depends on me.\"\n\n\"Got another hour to spare?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" He smiled as she lowered to him. \"I think he'll hold out another hour.\"\n\nLATER, WHEN HE WALKED OUT TO HIS CAR, THE air shivered so that the trees rattled their empty branches. Cal searched the street for any sign, anything he needed to defend against. But there was nothing but empty road.\n\nSomething's in the wind, he thought again, and got in his car to drive home.\n\nIT WAS AFTER MIDNIGHT WHEN THE LOW-GRADE urge for a cigarette buzzed through Gage's brain. He'd given them up two years, three months, and one week before, a fact that could still piss him off.\n\nHe turned up the radio to take his mind off it, but the urge was working its way up to craving. He could ignore that, too; he did so all the time. To do otherwise was to believe there was solid truth in the old adage: like father, like son.\n\nHe was nothing like his father.\n\nHe drank when he wanted a drink, but he never got drunk. Or hadn't since he'd been seventeen, and then the drunkenness had been with absolute purpose. He didn't blame others for his shortcomings, or lash out with his fists on something smaller and weaker so he could feel bigger and stronger.\n\nHe didn't even blame the old man, not particularly. You played the cards you were dealt, to Gage's mind. Or you folded and walked away with your pockets empty.\n\nLuck of the draw.\n\nSo he was fully prepared to ignore this sudden, and surprisingly intense desire for a cigarette. But when he considered he was within miles of Hawkins Hollow, a place where he was very likely to die an ugly and painful death, the surgeon general's warnings seemed pretty goddamn puny, and his own self-denial absolutely useless.\n\nWhen he saw the sign for the Sheetz, he decided what the hell. He didn't want to live forever. He swung into the twenty-four-hour mart, picked up coffee, black, and a pack of Marlboros.\n\nHe strode back to the car he'd bought that very evening in D.C. after his plane had landed, and before he'd paid off a small debt. The wind whipped through his hair. The hair was dark as the night, a little longer than he usually wore it, a little shaggy, as he hadn't trusted the barbers in Prague.\n\nThere was stubble on his face since he hadn't bothered to shave. It added to the dark, dangerous look that had had the young female clerk who rung up the coffee and cigarettes shivering inwardly with lust.\n\nHe'd topped off at six feet, and the skinny build of his youth had filled out. Since his profession was usually sedentary, he kept his muscles toned and his build rangy with regular, often punishing workouts.\n\nHe didn't pick fights, but he rarely walked away from one. And he liked to win. His body, his face, his mind, were all tools of his trade. As were his eyes, his voice, and the control he rarely let off the leash.\n\nHe was a gambler, and a smart gambler kept all of his tools well honed.\n\nSwinging back onto the road, Gage let the Ferrari rip. Maybe it had been foolish to toss so much of his winnings into a car, but Jesus, it moved. And fucking A, he'd ridden his thumb out of the Hollow all those years ago. It felt damn good to ride back in in style.\n\nFunny, now that he'd bought the damn cigarettes, the urge for one had passed. He didn't even want the coffee, the speed was kick enough.\n\nHe flew down the last miles of the interstate, whipped onto the exit that would take him to the Hollow. The dark rural road was empty\u2014no surprise to him, not this time of night. There were shadows and shapes\u2014houses, hills, fields, trees. There was a twisting in his gut that he was heading back instead of away, and yet that pull\u2014it never quite left him\u2014that pull toward home was strong.\n\nHe reached toward his coffee more out of habit than desire, then was forced to whip the wheel, slam the brakes as headlights cut across the road directly into his path. He blasted the horn, saw the other car swerve.\n\nHe thought: Fuck, fuck, fuck! I just bought this sucker.\n\nWhen he caught his breath, and the Ferrari sat sideways in the middle of the road, he thought it was a miracle the crash hadn't come. Inches, he realized. Less than inches.\n\nHis lucky goddamn day.\n\nHe reversed, pulled to the shoulder, then got out to check on the other driver he assumed was stinking drunk.\n\nShe wasn't. What she was, was hopping mad.\n\n\"Where the hell did you come from?\" she demanded. She slammed out of her car, currently tipped into the shallow ditch along the shoulder, in a blur of motion. He saw a mass of dark gypsy curls wild around a face pale with shock.\n\nGreat face, he decided in one corner of his brain. Huge eyes that looked black against her white skin, a sharp nose, a wide mouth, sexily full that may have owned its sensuality to collagen injections.\n\nShe wasn't shaking, and he didn't sense any fear along with the fury as she stood on a dark road facing down a complete stranger.\n\n\"Lady,\" he said with what he felt was admirable calm, \"where the hell did you come from?\"\n\n\"From that stupid road that looks like all the other stupid roads around here. I looked both damn ways, and you weren't there. Then. How did you...Oh never mind. We didn't die.\"\n\n\"Yay.\"\n\nWith her hands on her hips she turned around to study her car. \"I can get out of there, right?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Then there's the flat tire.\"\n\n\"What flat...Oh for God's sake! You have to change it.\" She gave the flat tire on the rear of her car an annoyed kick. \"It's the least you can do.\"\n\nActually, it wasn't. The least he could do was stroll back to his car and wave good-bye. But he appreciated her bitchiness, and preferred it over quivering. \"Pop the trunk. I need the spare and the jack.\"\n\nWhen she had, and he'd lifted a suitcase out, set it on the ground, he took one look at her spare. And shook his head. \"Not your day. Your spare's toast.\"\n\n\"It can't be. What the hell are you talking about?\" She shoved him aside, peered in herself by the glow of the trunk light. \"Damn her, damn her, damn her. My sister.\" She whirled away, paced down the shoulder a few feet, then back. \"I loaned her my car for a couple of weeks. This is so typical. She ruins a tire, but does she get it fixed, does she even bother to mention it? No.\"\n\nShe pushed her hair back from her face. \"I'm not calling a tow truck at this time of night, then sitting in the middle of nowhere. You're just going to have to give me a ride.\"\n\n\"Am I?\"\n\n\"It's your fault. At least part of it is.\"\n\n\"Which part?\"\n\n\"I don't know, and I'm too tired, I'm too mad, I'm too lost in this foreign wilderness to give a damn. I need a ride.\"\n\n\"At your service. Where to?\"\n\n\"Hawkins Hollow.\"\n\nHe smiled, and there was something dark in it. \"Handy. I'm heading there myself.\" He gestured toward his car. \"Gage Turner,\" he added.\n\nShe gestured in turn, rather regally, toward her suitcase. \"Cybil Kinski.\" She lifted her eyebrows when she got her first good look at his car. \"You have very nice wheels, Mr. Turner.\"\n\n\"Yeah, and they all work.\"\n\n## Fourteen\n\nCAL WASN'T PARTICULARLY SURPRISED TO SEE Fox's truck in his driveway, despite the hour. Nor was he particularly surprised when he walked in to see Fox blinking sleepily on the couch in front of the TV, with Lump stretched out and snoring beside him.\n\nOn the coffee table were a can of Coke, the last of Cal's barbecue potato chips, and a box of Milk Bones. The remains, he assumed, of a guy-dog party.\n\n\"Whatcha doing here?\" Fox asked groggily.\n\n\"I live here.\"\n\n\"She kick you out?\"\n\n\"No, she didn't kick me out. I came home.\" Because they were there, Cal dug into the bag of chips and managed to pull out a handful of crumbs. \"How many of those did you give him?\"\n\nFox glanced at the box of dog biscuits. \"A couple. Maybe five. What're you so edgy about?\"\n\nCal picked up the Coke and gulped down the couple of warm, flat swallows that were left. \"I got a feeling, a...thing. You haven't felt anything tonight?\"\n\n\"I've had feelings and things pretty much steady the last couple weeks.\" Fox scrubbed his hands over his face, back into his hair. \"But yeah, I got something just before you drove up. I was half asleep, maybe all the way. It was like the wind whooshing down the flue.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" Cal walked over to stare out the window. \"Have you checked in with your parents lately?\"\n\n\"I talked to my father today. It's all good with them. Why?\"\n\n\"If all three of us are direct descendents, then one of your parents is in the line,\" Cal pointed out.\n\n\"I figured that out on my own.\"\n\n\"None of our family was ever affected during the Seven. We were always relieved by that.\" He turned back. \"Maybe relieved enough we didn't really ask why.\"\n\n\"Because we figured it, at least partly, was because they lived outside of town. Except for Bill Turner, and who the hell could tell what was going on with him?\"\n\n\"My parents and yours, they came into town during the Seven. And there were people, you remember what happened out at the Poffenberger place last time?\"\n\n\"Yeah. Yeah, I remember.\" Fox rubbed at his eyes. \"Being five miles out of town didn't stop Poffenberger from strangling his wife while she hacked at him with a butcher knife.\"\n\n\"Now we know Gran felt things, saw things that first summer, and she saw things the other night. Why is that?\"\n\n\"Maybe it picks and chooses, Cal.\" Rising, Fox walked over to toss another log on the fire. \"There have always been people who weren't affected, and there have always been degrees with those who were.\"\n\n\"Quinn and Layla are the first outsiders. We figured a connection, but what if that connection is as simple as blood ties?\"\n\nFox sat again, leaned back, stroked a hand over Lump's head as the dog twitched in his sleep. \"Good theory. It shouldn't weird you out if you happen to be rolling naked with your cousin a couple hundred times removed.\"\n\n\"Huh.\" That was a thought. \"If they're descendents, the next point to figure is if having them here gives us more muscle, or makes us more vulnerable. Because it's pretty clear this one's it. This one's going to be the all or nothing. So...Someone's coming.\"\n\nFox pushed off the couch, strode quickly over to stand by Cal. \"I don't think the Big Evil's going to drive up to your house, and in a...\" He peered closer as the car set off Cal's motion lights. \"Holy Jesus, is that a Ferrari?\" He shot a grin at Cal.\n\n\"Gage,\" they said together.\n\nThey went on the front porch, in shirtsleeves, leaving the door open behind them. Gage climbed out of the car, his eyes skimming over them both as he walked back to get his bag out of the trunk. He slung its strap over his shoulder, started up the steps. \"You girls having a slumber party?\"\n\n\"Strippers just left,\" Fox told him. \"Sorry you missed them.\" Then he rushed forward, flung his arms around Gage in a hard hug. \"Man, it's good to see you. When can I drive your car?\"\n\n\"I was thinking never. Cal.\"\n\n\"Took your goddamn time.\" The relief, the love, the sheer pleasure pushed him forward to grip Gage just as Fox had.\n\n\"Had some business here and there. Want a drink. Need a room.\"\n\n\"Come on in.\"\n\nIn the kitchen, Cal poured whiskey. All of them understood it was a welcome-home toast for Gage, and very likely a drink before war.\n\n\"So,\" Cal began, \"I take it you came back flush.\"\n\n\"Oh yeah.\"\n\n\"How much you up?\"\n\nGage turned the glass around in his hand. \"Considering expenses, and my new toy out there, about fifty.\"\n\n\"Nice work if you can get it,\" Fox commented.\n\n\"And I can.\"\n\n\"Look a little worn there, brother.\"\n\nGage shrugged at Cal. \"Long couple of days. Which nearly ended with me in a fiery crash right out on Sixty-seven.\"\n\n\"Toy get away from you?\" Fox asked.\n\n\"Please.\" Gage smirked at the idea. \"Some ditz, of the female and very hot variety, pulled out in front of me. Not another car on the road, and she pulls out in this ancient Karmann Ghia\u2014nice wheels, actually\u2014then she jumps out and goes at me like it was my fault.\"\n\n\"Women,\" Fox said, \"are an endless source of every damn thing.\"\n\n\"And then some. So she's tipped down in the little runoff,\" Gage went on, gesturing with his free hand. \"No big deal, but she's popped a flat. No big deal either, except her spare's a pancake. Turns out she's heading into the Hollow, so I manage to load her two-ton suitcase into my car. Then she's rattling off an address and asking me, like I'm MapQuest, how long it'll take to get there.\"\n\nHe took a slow sip of whiskey. \"Lucky for her I grew up here and could tell her I'd have her there in five. She snaps out her phone, calls somebody she calls Q, like James freaking Bond, tells her, as it turns out from the look I got of Q in the doorway\u2014very nice, by the way\u2014to wake up, she'll be there in five minutes. Then\u2014\"\n\nCal rattled off an address. \"That the one?\"\n\nGage lowered his glass. \"As a matter of fact.\"\n\n\"Something in the wind,\" Cal murmured. \"I guess it was you, and Quinn's Cybil.\"\n\n\"Cybil Kinski,\" Gage confirmed. \"Looks like a gypsy by way of Park Avenue. Well, well.\" He downed the rest of the whiskey in his glass. \"Isn't this a kick in the ass?\"\n\n\"HE CAME OUT OF NOWHERE.\" THERE WAS A glass of red wine on the dresser Quinn had picked up in anticipation of Cybil's arrival.\n\nAs that arrival had woken Layla, Quinn sat beside her on what would be Cybil's bed while the woman in question swirled around the room, hanging clothes, tucking them in drawers, taking the occasional sip of wine.\n\n\"I thought that was it, just it, even though I've never seen any death by car in my future. I swear, I don't know how we missed being bloody pulps tangled in burning metal. I'm a good driver,\" Cybil said to Quinn.\n\n\"You are.\"\n\n\"But I must be better than I thought, and so\u2014fortunately\u2014was he. I know I'm lucky all I got was a scare and a flat tire out of it, but damn Rissa for, well, being Rissa.\"\n\n\"Rissa?\" Layla looked blank.\n\n\"Cyb's sister, Marissa,\" Quinn explained. \"You loaned her your car again.\"\n\n\"I know, I know. I know,\" she said, puffing out a breath that blew curls off her forehead. \"I don't know how she manages to talk me into these things. My spare was flat, thanks to Rissa.\"\n\n\"Which explains why you were dropped off from a really sexy sports car.\"\n\n\"He could hardly leave me there, though he looked like the type who'd consider it. All scruffy, gorgeous, and dangerous looking.\"\n\n\"Last time I had a flat,\" Quinn remembered, \"the very nice guy who stopped to help had a paunch over his belt the size of a sack of cement, and ass crack reveal.\"\n\n\"No paunch on this one, and though his coat prevented me from a good look, I'm betting Gage Turner has a superior ass.\"\n\n\"Gage Turner.\" Layla put a hand on Quinn's thigh. \"Quinn.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" Quinn let out a breath. \"Okay, I guess it's hail, hail, the gang's all here.\"\n\nIN THE MORNING, QUINN LEFT HER HOUSEMATES sleeping while she jogged over to the community center. She already knew she'd regret jogging over, because that meant she'd have to jog back\u2014after her workout. But it seemed a cheat on the lifestyle change to drive three blocks to the gym.\n\nAnd she wanted the thinking time.\n\nThere was no buying, for any price, Cybil and Gage Turner had run into each other\u2014almost literally\u2014in the middle of the night just outside of town as a coincidence.\n\nOne more thing to add to the list of oddities, Quinn thought as she puffed out air in frosty vapors.\n\nAnother addition would be the fact that Cybil had a very sharp sense of direction, but had apparently made wrong turn after wrong turn to end up on that side road at the exact moment Gage was coming up the main.\n\nOne more, Quinn decided as she approached the back entrance of the community center, would be Cybil saying \"he came out of nowhere.\" Quinn was willing to take that literally. If Cybil didn't see him, then maybe\u2014in her reality, for just those vital moments\u2014he hadn't been there.\n\nSo why had it been important for them to meet separately, outside the group? Wasn't it strange enough that they'd both arrived on the same night, at the same time?\n\nShe dug out her membership key\u2014thanks, Cal\u2014to open the door to the fitness area, pressed her guest pass number on the keypad.\n\nThe lights were still off, which was a surprise. Normally when she arrived, they were already on, and at least one of the trio of swivel TVs was tuned to CNN or ESPN or one of the morning talk shows. Very often there was somebody on one of the treadmills or bikes, or pumping weights.\n\nShe flipped on the lights, called out. And her voice echoed hollowly. Curious, she walked through, pushed open the door, and saw the lights were also off in the tiny attendant's office, and in the locker room.\n\nMaybe somebody had a late date the night before, she decided. She helped herself to a locker key, stripped down to her workout gear, then grabbed a towel. Opting to start her session with cardio, she switched on the Today show before climbing onto the single elliptical trainer the club boasted.\n\nShe programmed it, resisting the urge to cheat a few pounds off her weight. As if it mattered, Quinn reminded herself. (Of course, it mattered.)\n\nShe started her warm-up pleased with her discipline, and her solitude. Still, she expected the door to slam open any minute, for Matt or Tina, who switched off as attendants, to rush in. By the time she was ten minutes in, she'd kicked up the resistance and was focused on the TV screen to help her get through the workout.\n\nWhen she hit the first mile, Quinn took a long gulp of water from the sports bottle she'd brought with her. As she started on mile two, she let her mind drift to what she hoped to accomplish that day. Research, the foundation of any project. And she wanted to draft what she thought would be the opening of her book. Writing it out might spark some idea. At some point, she wanted to walk around the town again, with Cybil\u2014and Layla if she was up for it.\n\nA visit to the cemetery was in order with Cybil in tow. Time to pay a call on Ann Hawkins.\n\nMaybe Cal would have time to go with them. Needed to talk to him anyway, discuss how he felt, what he thought, about Gage\u2014whom she wanted to get a look at\u2014and Cybil's arrival. Mostly, she admitted, she just wanted to see him again. Show him off to Cybil.\n\nLook! Isn't he cute? Maybe it was completely high school, but it didn't seem to matter. She wanted to touch him again, even if it was just a quick squeeze of hands. And she was looking forward to a hello kiss, and finding a way to turn that worried look in his eyes into a glint of amusement. She loved the way his eyes laughed before the rest of him did, and the way he...\n\nWell. Well, well, well. She was absolutely gone over him, she realized. Seriously hooked on the hometown boy. That was kind of cute, too, she decided, except it made her stomach jitter. Still, the jitter wasn't altogether a bad thing. It was a combination of oh-oh and oh boy!, and wasn't that interesting?\n\nQuinn's falling in love, she thought, and hit mile two with a dopey smile on her face. She might've been puffing, sweat might have been dribbling down her temples, but she felt just as fresh and cheerful as a spring daisy.\n\nThen the lights went out.\n\nThe machine stopped; the TV went blank and silent.\n\n\"Oh, shit.\" Her first reaction wasn't alarm as much as, what now? The dark was absolute, and though she could draw a reasonable picture in her mind where she was in relation to the outside door\u2014and what was between her and the door\u2014she was wary about making her way to it blind.\n\nAnd then what? she wondered as she waited for her breathing to level. She couldn't possibly fumble her way to the locker room, to her locker and retrieve her clothes. So she'd have to go out in a damn sports bra and bike pants.\n\nShe heard the first thud; the chill washed over her skin. And she understood she had much bigger problems than skimpy attire.\n\nShe wasn't alone. As her pulse began to bang, she hoped desperately whatever was in the dark with her was human. But the sounds, that unholy thudding that shook the walls, the floor, the awful scuttling sounds creeping under it weren't those of a man. Gooseflesh pricked her skin, partly from fear, partly from the sudden and intense cold.\n\nKeep your head, she ordered herself. For God's sake, keep your head. She gripped the water bottle\u2014pitiful weapon, but all she had\u2014and started to ease off the foot pads on the machine to the floor.\n\nShe went flying blindly in the black. She hit the floor, her shoulder and hip taking the brunt. Everything shook and rolled as she fought to scramble up. Disoriented, she had no idea which direction to run. There was a voice behind her, in front of her, inside her head\u2014she couldn't tell\u2014and it whispered gleefully of death.\n\nShe knew she screamed as she clawed her way across the quaking floor. Teeth chattering against terror and cold, she rapped her shoulder against another machine. Think, think, think! she told herself, because something was coming, something was coming in the dark. She ran her shaking hands over the machine\u2014recumbent bike\u2014and with every prayer she knew ringing in her head, used its placement in the room to angle toward the door.\n\nThere was a crash behind her, and something thudded against her foot. She jerked up, tripped, jerked up again. No longer caring what might stand between herself and the door, she flung herself toward where she hoped it would be. With her breath tearing out of her lungs, she ran her hands over the wall.\n\n\"Find it, goddamn it, Quinn. Find the goddamn door!\"\n\nHer hand bumped the hinges, and on a sob she found the knob. Turned, pulled.\n\nThe light burst in front of her eyes, and Cal's body\u2014already in motion\u2014rammed hers. If she'd had any breath left, she'd have lost it. Her knees didn't get a chance to buckle as he wrapped his arms around her, swung her around to use his body as a shield between hers and the room beyond.\n\n\"Hold on, now. Can you hold on to me?\" His voice was eerily calm as he reached behind him and pulled the door closed. \"Are you hurt? Tell me if you're hurt.\" His hands were already skimming over her, before they came up to her face, gripped it.\n\nBefore his mouth crushed down on hers.\n\n\"You're all right,\" he managed, propping her against the stone of the building as he dragged off his coat. \"You're okay. Here, get into this. You're freezing.\"\n\n\"You were there.\" She stared up into his face. \"You were there.\"\n\n\"Couldn't get the door open. Key wouldn't work.\" He took her hands, rubbed them warm between his. \"My truck's right up there, okay. I want you to go up, sit in my truck. I left the keys in it. Turn on the heat. Sit in my truck and turn on the heat. Can you do that?\"\n\nShe wanted to say yes. There was something in her that wanted to say yes to anything he asked. But she saw, in his eyes, what he meant to do.\n\n\"You're going in there.\"\n\n\"That's what I have to do. What you have to do is go sit in the truck for a few minutes.\"\n\n\"If you go in, I go in.\"\n\n\"Quinn.\"\n\nHow, she wondered, did he manage to sound patient and annoyed at the same time? \"I need to as much as you, and I'd hate myself if I huddled in your truck while you went in there. I don't want to hate myself. Besides, it's better if there's two of us. It's better. Let's just do it. Just do it, and argue later.\"\n\n\"Stay behind me, and if I say get out, you get out. That's the deal.\"\n\n\"Done. Believe me, I'm not ashamed to hide behind you.\"\n\nShe saw it then, just the faintest glimmer of a smile in his eyes. Seeing it settled her nerves better than a quick shot of brandy.\n\nHe turned his key again, keyed in the touch pad. Quinn held her breath. When Cal opened the door, the lights were on. Al Roker's voice cheerily announced the national weather forecast. The only sign anything had happened was her sports bottle under the rack of free weights.\n\n\"Cal, I swear, the power went out, then the room\u2014\"\n\n\"I saw it. It was pitch-black in here when you came through the door. Those weights were all over the floor. I could see them rolling around from the light coming in the door. The floor was heaving. I saw it, Quinn. And I heard it from outside the door.\"\n\nHe'd rammed that door twice, he remembered, put his full weight into it, because he'd heard her screaming, and it had sounded like the roof was caving in.\n\n\"Okay. My things are in the locker room. I really want to get my things out of the locker.\"\n\n\"Give me the key, and I'll\u2014\"\n\n\"Together.\" She gripped his hand. \"There's a scent, can you smell it? Over and above my workout and panic sweat.\"\n\n\"Yeah. I always thought it must be what brimstone smells like. It's fading.\" He smiled, just a little, as she stopped to pick up a ten-pound free weight, gripped it like a weapon.\n\nHe pushed open the door of the women's locker room. It was as ordered and normal as the gym. Still, he took her key, nudged her behind him before he opened her locker. Moving quickly, she dragged on her sweats, exchanged coats. \"Let's get out of here.\"\n\nHe had her hand as they walked back out and Matt walked in.\n\nHe was young, the college-jock type, doing the part-time attendant, occasional personal trainer gig. A quick, inoffensive smirk curved on his lips as he saw them come out of the women's locker room together. Then he cleared his throat.\n\n\"Hey, sorry I'm late. Damnedest thing. First my alarm didn't go off, and I know how that sounds. Then my car wouldn't start. One of those mornings.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Quinn agreed as she put back the weight, retrieved her water bottle. \"One of those. I'm done for the day.\" She tossed him the locker key. \"See you later.\"\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\nShe waited until they were out of the building. \"He thought we'd been\u2014\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah.\"\n\n\"Ever do it in a locker room?\"\n\n\"As that was actually my first foray into a girl's locker room, I have to say no.\"\n\n\"Me, either. Cal, have you got time to come over, have coffee\u2014God, I'll even cook breakfast\u2014and talk about this?\"\n\n\"I'm making time.\"\n\nSHE TOLD HIM EVERYTHING THAT HAD HAPPENED while she scrambled eggs. \"I was scared out of my mind,\" she finished as she carried the coffee into the little dining room.\n\n\"No, you weren't.\" Cal set the plates of eggs and whole-wheat toast on the table. \"You found the door, in the pitch-black, and with all that going on, you kept your head and found the door.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\" She sat. She wasn't shaking any longer, but the inside of her knees still felt like half-set Jell-O. \"Thanks for saying that.\"\n\n\"It's the truth.\"\n\n\"You were there when I opened the door, and that was one of the best moments of my life. How did you know to be there?\"\n\n\"I came in early because I wanted to swing by here, see how you were. Talk to you. Gage\u2014\"\n\n\"I know about that. Tell me the rest of this first.\"\n\n\"Okay. I turned off Main to come around the back way, come here, and I saw Ann Hawkins. I saw her standing in front of the door. I heard you screaming.\"\n\n\"From inside your truck, on the street. That far away\u2014through stone walls, you heard me?\"\n\n\"I heard you.\" It hadn't been one of the best moments of his life. \"When I jumped out, ran toward the door, I heard crashing, thumping, God knows what from inside. I couldn't get the goddamn door open.\"\n\nShe heard it now, the emotion in his voice, the fear he hadn't let show while they were doing what needed doing. She rose, did them both a favor and crawled right into his lap.\n\nShe was still there, cradled in his arms, when Cybil strolled in.\n\n\"Hi. Don't get up.\" She took Quinn's chair. \"Anyone eating this?\" Studying them, Cybil took a forkful of eggs. \"You must be Cal.\"\n\n\"Cybil Kinski, Caleb Hawkins. We had a rough morning.\"\n\nLayla stepped in with a coffee mug and sleepy eyes that clouded with concern the minute she saw Quinn. \"What happened?\"\n\n\"Have a seat, and we'll run it through for both of you.\"\n\n\"I need to see the place,\" Cybil said as soon as the story was told. \"And the room in the bowling alley, anyplace there's been an incident.\"\n\n\"Try the whole town,\" Quinn said dryly.\n\n\"And I need to see the clearing, this stone, as soon as possible.\"\n\n\"She's bossy,\" Quinn told Cal.\n\n\"I thought you were, but I think she beats you out. You can come into the bowling center anytime you like. Quinn can get you into the fitness center, but if I can't be there, I'll make sure either Fox or Gage is. Better, both of them. As far as the Pagan Stone goes, I talked with Fox and Gage about that last night. We're agreed that the next time we go, we all go. All of us. I can't make it today and neither can Fox. Sunday's going to be best.\"\n\n\"He's organized and take-charge,\" Cybil said to Quinn.\n\n\"Yes.\" She pressed a kiss to Cal's cheek. \"Yes, he is. And I've made you let your eggs get cold.\"\n\n\"It was a worthwhile trade-off. I'd better get going.\"\n\n\"We still have a lot to talk about. Listen, maybe the three of you should come to dinner.\"\n\n\"Is someone cooking?\" Cal asked.\n\n\"Cyb is.\"\n\n\"Hey!\"\n\n\"You ate my breakfast. Plus you actually cook. But in the meantime, just one thing.\" She slid out of his lap so he could stand. \"Would Fox hire Layla?\"\n\n\"What? Who? Why?\" Layla sputtered.\n\n\"Because you need a job,\" Quinn reminded her. \"And he needs an office manager.\"\n\n\"I don't know anything about\u2014you just can't\u2014\"\n\n\"You managed a boutique,\" Quinn reminded her, \"so that's half the job. Managing. You're on the anal side of organized, Miss Colored Index Cards and Charts, so I say you can file, keep a calendar, and whatever with the best of them. Anything else, you'll pick up as you go. Ask Fox, okay, Cal?\"\n\n\"Sure. No problem.\"\n\n\"She calls me bossy,\" Cybil commented as she finished Quinn's coffee.\n\n\"I call it creative thinking and leadership. Now, go fill that mug up again while I walk Cal to the door so I can give him a big, sloppy you're-my-hero kiss.\"\n\nCybil smiled after them as Quinn pulled Cal out of the room. \"She's in love.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\nNow Cybil turned her smile on Layla. \"That got your mind off taking a bite out of her for pushing that job in your face.\"\n\n\"I'll get back to that. Do you think she's in love with Cal\u2014the uppercase L?\"\n\n\"About to be all caps, in bold letters.\" She picked up the mug and rose. \"Q likes to direct people,\" she said, \"but she's careful to try to direct them toward something helpful, or at least interesting. She wouldn't push this job business if she didn't think you could handle it.\"\n\nShe blew out a breath as she walked back toward the kitchen. \"What the hell am I supposed to fix for dinner?\"\n\n## Fifteen\n\nIT WAS HARD FOR CAL TO SEE BILL TURNER AND say nothing about Gage being in town. But Cal knew his friend. When and if Gage wanted his father to know, Gage would tell him. So Cal did his best to avoid Bill by closing himself in his office.\n\nHe dealt with orders, bills, reservations, contacted their arcade guy to discuss changing out one of their pinball machines for something jazzier.\n\nChecking the time, he judged if Gage wasn't awake by now, he should be. And so picked up the phone.\n\nNot awake, Cal decided, hearing the irritation in Gage's voice, hasn't had coffee. Ignoring all that, Cal launched into an explanation of what happened that morning, relayed the dinner plans, and hung up.\n\nNow, rolling his eyes, Cal called Fox to run over the same information, and to tell Fox that Layla needed a job and he should hire her to replace Mrs. Hawbaker.\n\nFox said, \"Huh?\"\n\nCal said, \"Gotta go,\" and hung up.\n\nThere, duty done, he considered. Satisfied, he turned to his computer and brought up the information on the automatic scoring systems he wanted to talk his father into installing.\n\nIt was past time for the center to do the upgrade. Maybe it was foolish to think about that kind of investment if everything was going to hell in a few months. But, if everything was going to hell in a few months, the investment wouldn't hurt a thing.\n\nHis father would say some of the old-timers would object, but Cal didn't think so. If they wanted to keep score by hand, the center would provide the paper score sheets and markers. But he thought if someone showed them how it worked, gave them a few free games to get used to the new system, they'd jump on.\n\nThey could get them used and reconditioned, which was part of the argument he was prepared to make. They had Bill onboard, and he could fix damn near anything.\n\nIt was one thing to be a little kitschy and traditional, another to be old-fashioned.\n\nNo, no, that wasn't the tack to take with his father. His father liked old-fashioned. Better to use figures. Bowling accounted for more than half, closer to sixty percent, of their revenue, so\u2014\n\nHe broke off at the knock on his door and inwardly winced, thinking it was Bill Turner.\n\nBut it was Cal's mother who popped her head in. \"Too busy for me?\"\n\n\"Never. Here to bowl a few games before the morning league?\"\n\n\"Absolutely not.\" Frannie loved her husband, but she liked to say she hadn't taken a vow to love, honor, and bowl. She came in to sit down, then angled her head so she could see his computer screen. Her lips twitched. \"Good luck with that.\"\n\n\"Don't say anything to Dad, okay?\"\n\n\"My lips are sealed.\"\n\n\"Who are you having lunch with?\"\n\n\"How do you know I'm having lunch with anyone?\"\n\nHe gestured to her pretty fitted jacket, trim pants, heeled boots. \"Too fancy for shopping.\"\n\n\"Aren't you smart? I do have a few errands, then I'm meeting a friend for lunch. Joanne Barry.\"\n\nFox's mother, Cal thought, and just nodded.\n\n\"We have lunch now and then, but she called me yesterday, specifically to see if I could meet her today. She's worried. So I'm here to ask you if there's anything I should know, anything you want to tell me before I see her.\"\n\n\"Things are as under control as I can make them, Mom. I don't have the answers yet. But I have more questions, and I think that's progress. In fact, I have one you could ask Fox's mom for me.\"\n\n\"All right.\"\n\n\"You could ask if there's a way she could find out if any of her ancestors were Hawkins.\"\n\n\"You think we might be related somehow? Would it help if we are?\"\n\n\"It would be good to know the answer.\"\n\n\"Then I'll ask the question. Now answer one for me. Are you all right? Just a yes or no is good enough.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Okay then.\" She rose. \"I have half a dozen things on my list before I meet Jo.\" She started for the door, said, \"Damn it\" very quietly under her breath, and turned back. \"I wasn't going to ask, but I have no willpower over something like this. Are you and Quinn Black serious?\"\n\n\"About what?\"\n\n\"Caleb James Hawkins, don't be dense.\"\n\nHe would've laughed, but that tone brought on the Pavlovian response of hunched shoulders. \"I don't exactly know the answer. And I'm not sure it's smart to get serious, in that way, with so much going on. With so much at stake.\"\n\n\"What better time?\" Frannie replied. \"My levelheaded Cal.\" She put her hand on the knob, smiled at him. \"Oh, and those fancy scoring systems? Try reminding your father how much his father resisted going to projection-screen scoreboards thirty-five years ago, give or take.\"\n\n\"I'll keep that in mind.\"\n\nAlone, Cal printed out the information on the automatic systems, new and reconditioned, then shut down long enough to go downstairs and check in with the front desk, the grill, the play area during the morning leagues games.\n\nThe scents from the grill reminded him he'd missed breakfast, so he snagged a hot pretzel and a Coke before he headed back up to his office.\n\nSo armed, he decided since everything was running smoothly, he could afford to take a late-morning break. He wanted to dig a little deeper into Ann Hawkins.\n\nShe'd appeared to him twice in three days. Both times, Cal mused, had been a kind of warning. He'd seen her before, but only in dreams. He'd wanted her in dreams, Cal admitted\u2014or Giles Dent had, working through him.\n\nThese incidents had been different, and his feelings different.\n\nStill, that wasn't the purpose, that wasn't the point, he reminded himself as he gnawed off a bite of pretzel.\n\nHe was trusting Quinn's instincts about the journals. Somewhere, at some time, there had been more. Maybe they were in the old library. He certainly intended to get in there and search the place inch by inch. If, God, they'd somehow gotten transferred into the new space and mis-shelved or put in storage, the search could be a nightmare.\n\nSo he wanted to know more about Ann, to help lead him to the answers.\n\nWhere had she been for nearly two years? All the information, all the stories he'd heard or read indicated she'd vanished the night of the fire in the clearing and hadn't returned to the Hollow until her sons were almost two.\n\n\"Where did you go, Ann?\"\n\nWhere would a woman, pregnant with triplets, go during the last weeks before their births? Traveling had to have been extremely difficult. Even for a woman without the pregnancy to weigh her down.\n\nThere had been other settlements, but nothing as far as he remembered for a woman in her condition to have walked or even ridden to. So logically, she'd had somewhere to go close by, and someone had taken her in.\n\nWho was most likely to take a young, unmarried woman in? A relative would be his first guess.\n\nMaybe a friend, maybe some kindly old widow, but odds were on family.\n\n\"That's where you went first, when there was trouble, wasn't it?\"\n\nWhile it wasn't easy to find specifics on Ann Hawkins, there was plenty of it on her father\u2014the founder of the Hollow.\n\nHe'd read it, of course. He'd studied it, but he'd never read or studied it from this angle. Now, he brought up all the information he'd previously downloaded on his office computer relating to James Hawkins.\n\nHe took side trips, made notes on any mention of relatives, in-laws. The pickings were slim, but at least there was something to pick from. Cal was rolling with it when someone knocked on his door. He surfaced as Quinn poked her head in just as his mother had that morning.\n\n\"Working. I bet you hate to be interrupted. But...\"\n\n\"It's okay.\" He glanced at the clock, saw with a twinge of guilt his break had lasted more than an hour. \"I've been at it longer than I meant to.\"\n\n\"It's dog-eat-dog in the bowling business.\" She said it with a smile as she came in. \"I just wanted you to know we were here. We took Cyb on a quick tour of the town. Do you know there's no place to buy shoes in Hawkins Hollow? Cyb's saddened by that, as she's always on the hunt. Now she's making noises about bowling. She has a vicious competitive streak. So I escaped up here before she drags me into that. The hope was to grab a quick bite at your grill\u2014maybe you could join us\u2014before Cyb...\"\n\nShe trailed off. Not only hadn't he said a word, but he was staring at her. Just staring. \"What?\" She brushed a hand over her nose, then up over her hair. \"Is it my hair?\"\n\n\"That's part of it. Probably part of it.\"\n\nHe got up, came around the desk. He kept his eyes on her face as he moved past her. As he shut and locked the door.\n\n\"Oh. Oh. Really? Seriously? Here? Now?\"\n\n\"Really, seriously. Here and now.\" She looked flustered, and that was a rare little treat. She looked, every inch of her, amazing. He couldn't say why he'd gone from pleased to see her to aroused in the snap of a finger, and he didn't much care. What he knew, without question, was he wanted to touch her, to draw in her scent, to feel her body go tight, go loose. Just go.\n\n\"You're not nearly as predictable as you should be.\" Watching him now, she pulled off her sweater, unbuttoned the shirt beneath it.\n\n\"I should be predictable?\" Without bothering with buttons, he pulled his shirt over his head.\n\n\"Hometown boy from a nice, stable family, who runs a third-generation family business. You should be predictable, Caleb,\" she said as she unbuttoned her jeans. \"I like that you're not. I don't mean just the sex, though major points there.\"\n\nShe bent down to pull off her boots, tossing her hair out of her eyes so she could look up at him. \"You should be married,\" she decided, \"or on your way to it with your college sweetheart. Thinking about 401(k)s.\"\n\n\"I think about 401(k)s. Just not right now. Right now, Quinn, all I can think about is you.\"\n\nThat gave her heart a bounce, even before he reached out, ran his hands down her bare arms. Even before he drew her to him and seduced her mouth with his.\n\nShe may have laughed when they lowered to the floor, but her pulse was pounding. There was a different tone from when they were in bed. More urgency, a sense of recklessness as they tangled together in a giddy heap on the office floor. He tugged her bra down so he could use his lips, his teeth, his tongue on her breasts until her hips began to pump. She closed her hand around him, found him hard, made him groan.\n\nHe couldn't wait, not this time. He couldn't savor; needed to take. He rolled, dragging her over so she could straddle him. Even as he gripped her hips, she was rising. She was taking him in. When she leaned forward for a greedy kiss, her hair fell to curtain their faces. Surrounded by her, he thought. Her body, her scent, her energy. He stroked the line of her back, the curve of her hips as she rocked and rocked and rocked him through pleasure toward desperation.\n\nEven when she arched back, even with his vision blurred, the shape of her, the tones of her enthralled him.\n\nShe let herself go, simply steeped herself in sensation. Hammering pulses and speed, slick bodies and dazzling friction. She felt him come, that sudden, sharp jerk of his hips, and was thrilled. She had driven him to lose control first, she had taken him over. And now she used that power, that thrill, to drive herself over that same edgy peak.\n\nShe slid down from it, and onto him so they could lie there, heated, a little stunned, until they got their breath back. And she began to laugh.\n\n\"God, we're like a couple of teenagers. Or rabbits.\"\n\n\"Teenage rabbits.\"\n\nAmused, she levered up. \"Do you often multitask in your office like this?\"\n\n\"Ah...\"\n\nShe gave him a little poke as she tugged her bra back in place. \"See, unpredictable.\"\n\nHe held out her shirt. \"It's the first time I've multitasked in this way during working hours.\"\n\nHer lips curved as she buttoned her shirt. \"That's nice.\"\n\n\"And I haven't felt like a teenage rabbit since I was.\"\n\nShe leaned over to give him a quick peck on the lips. \"Even nicer.\" Still on the floor, she scooted into her pants as he did the same. \"I should tell you something.\" She reached for her boots, pulled one on. \"I think...No, saying 'I think' is a cop-out, it's the coward's way.\"\n\nShe took a deep breath, yanked on the other boot, then looked him dead in the eye. \"I'm in love with you.\"\n\nThe shock came first\u2014fast, arrow-point shock straight to the gut. Then the concern wrapped in a slippery fist of fear. \"Quinn\u2014\"\n\n\"Don't waste your breath with the 'we've only known each other a couple of weeks' gambit. And I really don't want to hear the 'I'm flattered, but,' either. I didn't tell you so you could say anything. I told you because you should know. So first, it doesn't matter how long we've known each other. I've known me a long time, and I know me very well. I know what I feel when I feel it. Second, you should be flattered, goes without saying. And there's no need to freak out. You're not obligated or expected to feel what I feel.\"\n\n\"Quinn, we're\u2014all of us\u2014are under a lot of pressure. We don't even know if we'll make it through to August. We can't\u2014\"\n\n\"Exactly so. Nobody ever knows that, but we have more reason to worry about it. So, Cal.\" She framed his face with her hands. \"The moment's important. The right-this-minute matters a whole hell of a lot. I doubt I'd have told you otherwise, though I can be impulsive. But I think, under other circumstances, I'd have waited for you to catch up. I hope you do, but in the meantime, things are just fine the way they are.\"\n\n\"You have to know I\u2014\"\n\n\"Don't, absolutely don't tell me you care about me.\" The first hint of anger stung her voice. \"Your instinct is to say all the cliches people babble out in cases like this. They'll only piss me off.\"\n\n\"Okay, all right, let me just ask this, without you getting pissed off. Have you considered what you're feeling might be something like what happened in the clearing? That it's, say, a reflection of what Ann felt for Dent?\"\n\n\"Yes, and it's not.\" She pushed to her feet, drew on her sweater. \"Good question though. Good questions don't piss me off. What she felt, and I felt through that, was intense and consuming. I'm not going to say some of what I feel for you isn't like that. But it was also painful, and wrenching. Under the joy was grief. That's not this, Cal. This isn't painful. I don't feel sad. So...do you have time to come down and grab some lunch before Cyb and Layla and I head out?\"\n\n\"Ah...sure.\"\n\n\"Great. Meet you down there. I'm going to pop in the bathroom and fix myself up a little.\"\n\n\"Quinn.\" He hesitated as she opened the door, turned back. \"I've never felt like this about anyone before.\"\n\n\"Now that is a very acceptable thing to say.\"\n\nShe smiled as she strolled away. If he'd said it, he meant it, because that was the way he was. Poor guy, she thought. Didn't even know he was caught.\n\nA THICK GROVE OF TREES SHIELDED THE OLD cemetery on the north side. It fanned out over bumpy ground, with hills rolling west, at the end of a dirt road barely wide enough for two cars to pass. A historical marker faded by weather stated the First Church of the Godly had once stood on the site, but had been destroyed when it had been struck by lightning and razed by fire on July 7, 1652.\n\nQuinn had read that fact in her research, but it was different to stand here now, in the wind, in the chill, and imagine it. She'd read, too, as the plaque stated, that a small chapel had stood as a replacement until it was damaged during the Civil War, and gone to ruin.\n\nNow, there were only the markers here, the stones, the winter-hardy weeds. Beyond a low stone wall were the graves of the newer dead. Here and there she saw bright blots of color from flowers that stood out like grief against the dull grays and winter browns.\n\n\"We should've brought flowers,\" Layla said quietly as she looked down at the simple and small stone that read only:\n\nANN HAWKINS\n\n\"She doesn't need them,\" Cybil told her. \"Stones and flowers, they're for the living. The dead have other things to do.\"\n\n\"Cheery thought.\"\n\nCybil only shrugged at Quinn. \"I think so, actually. No point in being dead and bored. It's interesting, don't you think, that there are no dates. Birth or death. No sentiment. She had three sons, but they didn't have anything but her name carved in her gravestone. Even though they're buried here, too, with their wives, and I imagine at least some of their children. Wherever they went in life, they came home to be buried with Ann.\"\n\n\"Maybe they knew, or believed, she'd be back. Maybe she told them death isn't the end.\" Quinn frowned at the stone. \"Maybe they just wanted to keep it simple, but I wonder, now that you mention it, if it was deliberate. No beginning, no end. At least not until...\"\n\n\"This July,\" Layla finished. \"Another cheery thought.\"\n\n\"Well, while we're all getting cheered up, I'm going to get some pictures.\" Quinn pulled out her camera. \"Maybe you two could write down some of the names here. We may want to check on them, see if any have any direct bearing on\u2014\"\n\nShe tripped while backing up to get a shot, fell hard on her ass. \"Ouch, goddamn it! Shit. Right on the bruise I got this morning. Perfect.\"\n\nLayla rushed over to help her up. Cybil did the same, even as she struggled with laughter.\n\n\"Just shut up,\" Quinn grumbled. \"The ground's all bumpy here, and you can hardly see some of these stones popping out.\" She rubbed her hip, scowled down at the stone that had tripped her up. \"Ha. That's funny. Joseph Black, died eighteen forty-three.\" The color annoyance brought to her face faded. \"Same last name as mine. Common name Black, really. Until you consider it's here, and that I just happened to trip over his grave.\"\n\n\"Odds are he's one of yours,\" Cybil agreed.\n\n\"And one of Ann's?\"\n\nQuinn shook her head at Layla's suggestion. \"I don't know. Cal's researched the Hawkins's family tree, and I've done a quick overview. I know some of the older records are lost, or just buried deeper than we've dug, but I don't see how we'd both have missed branches with my surname. So. I think we'd better see what we can find out about Joe.\"\n\nHER FATHER WAS NO HELP, AND THE CALL HOME kept her on the phone for forty minutes, catching up on family gossip. She tried her grandmother next, who had a vague recollection about her mother-in-law mentioning an uncle, possibly a great-uncle, maybe a cousin, who'd been born in the hills of Maryland. Or it might've been Virginia. His claim to fame, family-wise, had been running off with a saloon singer, deserting his wife and four children and taking the family savings held inside a cookie tin with him.\n\n\"Nice guy, Joe,\" Quinn decided. \"Should you be my Joe.\"\n\nShe decided, since it would get her out of any type of food preparation, she had enough time to make a trip to Town Hall, and start digging on Joseph Black. If he'd died here, maybe he'd been born here.\n\nWHEN QUINN GOT HOME SHE WAS GLAD TO FIND the house full of people, sound, the scents of food. Cybil, being Cybil, had music on, candles lit, and wine poured. She had everyone piled in the kitchen, whetting appetites with marinated olives. Quinn popped one, took Cal's wine and washed it down.\n\n\"Are my eyes bleeding?\" she asked.\n\n\"Not so far.\"\n\n\"I've been searching records for nearly three hours. I think I bruised my brain.\"\n\n\"Joseph Black.\" Fox got her a glass of wine for her own. \"We've been filled in.\"\n\n\"Good, saves me. I could only trace him back to his grandfather\u2014Quinton Black, born sixteen seventy-six. Nothing on record before that, not here anyway. And nothing after Joe, either. I went on side trips, looking for siblings or other relatives. He had three sisters, but I've got nothing on them but birth records. He had aunts, uncles, and so on, and not much more there. It appears the Blacks weren't a big presence in Hawkins Hollow.\"\n\n\"Name would've rung for me,\" Cal told her.\n\n\"Yeah. Still, I got my grandmother's curiosity up, and she's now on a hunt to track down the old family Bible. She called me on my cell. She thinks it went to her brother-in-law when his parents died. Maybe. Anyway, it's a line.\"\n\nShe focused on the man leaning back against the counter toying with a glass of wine. \"Sorry? Gage, right?\"\n\n\"That's right. Roadside service a specialty.\"\n\nQuinn grinned as Cybil rolled her eyes and took a loaf of herbed bread out of the oven.\n\n\"So I hear, and that looks like dinner's ready. I'm starved. Nothing like searching through the births and deaths of Blacks, Robbits, Clarks to stir up the appetite.\"\n\n\"Clark.\" Layla lowered the plate she'd taken out to offer Cybil for the bread. \"There were Clarks in the records?\"\n\n\"Yeah, an Alma and a Richard Clark in there, as I remember. Need to check my notes. Why?\"\n\n\"My grandmother's maiden name was Clark.\" Layla managed a wan smile. \"That's probably not a coincidence either.\"\n\n\"Is she still living?\" Quinn asked immediately. \"Can you get in touch and\u2014\"\n\n\"We're going to eat while it's hot,\" Cybil interrupted. \"Time enough to give family trees a good shake later. But when I cook\u2014\" She pushed the plate of hot bread into Gage's hand. \"We eat.\"\n\n## Sixteen\n\nIT HAD TO BE IMPORTANT. IT HAD TO MATTER. Cal rolled it over and over and over, carving time out of his workday and his off time to research the Hawkins-Black lineage himself. Here was something new, he thought, some door they hadn't known existed, much less tried to break down.\n\nHe told himself it was vital, and time-consuming work, and that was why he and Quinn hadn't managed to really connect for the last couple of days. He was busy; she was busy. Couldn't be helped.\n\nBesides, it was probably a good time for them to have this break from each other. Let things just simmer down a little. As he'd told his mother, this wasn't the time to get serious, to think about falling in love. Because big, life-altering things were supposed to happen after people fell seriously in love. And he had enough, big, life-altering things to worry about.\n\nHe dumped food in Lump's bowl as his dog waited for breakfast with his usual unruffled patience. Because it was Thursday, he'd tossed a load of laundry in the washer when he'd let Lump out for his morning plod and pee. He continued his habitual weekday morning routine, nursing his first cup of coffee while he got out a box of Chex.\n\nBut when he reached for the milk it made him think of Quinn. Two percent milk, he thought with a shake of his head. Maybe she was fixing her version of a bowl of cereal right now. Maybe she was standing in her kitchen with the smell of coffee in the air, thinking of him.\n\nBecause the idea of that held such appeal, he reached for the phone to call her, when he heard the sound behind him and turned.\n\nGage got the coffee mug out of the cupboard he opened. \"Jumpy.\"\n\n\"No. I didn't hear you come in.\"\n\n\"You were mooning over a woman.\"\n\n\"I have a lot of things on my mind.\"\n\n\"Especially the woman. You've got tells, Hawkins. Starting with the wistful, cocker spaniel eyes.\"\n\n\"Up yours, Turner.\"\n\nGage merely grinned and poured coffee. \"Then there's that fish hook in the corner of your mouth.\" He hooked his finger in his own, gave a tug. \"Unmistakable.\"\n\n\"You're jealous because you're not getting laid regular.\"\n\n\"No question about that.\" Gage sipped his black coffee, used one bare foot to rub Lump's flank as the dog concentrated his entire being on his kibble. \"She's not your usual type.\"\n\n\"Oh?\" Irritation crawled up Cal's back like a lizard. \"What's my usual type?\"\n\n\"Pretty much same as mine. Keep it light, no deep thinking, no strings, no worries. Who could blame us, considering?\" He picked up the cereal, dug right into the box. \"But she breaks your mold. She's smart, she's steady, and she's got a big, fat ball of string in her back pocket. She's already started wrapping you in it.\"\n\n\"Does that cynicism you carry around everywhere ever get heavy?\"\n\n\"Realism,\" Gage corrected as he munched on cereal. \"And it keeps me light on my feet. I like her.\"\n\n\"I do, too.\" Cal forgot the milk and just took a handful of cereal out of the bowl he'd poured. \"She...she told me she's in love with me.\"\n\n\"Fast work. And now she's suddenly pretty damn busy, and you're sleeping alone, pal. I said she was smart.\"\n\n\"Jesus, Gage.\" Insult bloomed on two stalks\u2014one for himself, one for Quinn. \"She's not like that. She doesn't use people like that.\"\n\n\"And you know this because you know her so well.\"\n\n\"I do.\" Any sign of irritation faded as that simple truth struck home. \"That's just it. I do know her. There may be dozens, hell, hundreds of things I don't know, but I know who\u2014how\u2014she is. I don't know if some of that's because of this connection, because of what we're all tied to, but I know it's true. The first time I met her, things changed. I don't know. Something changed for me. So you can make cracks, but that's the way it is.\"\n\n\"I'm going to say you're lucky,\" Gage said after a moment. \"That I hope it works out the way you want. I never figured any of us had a decent shot at normal.\" He shrugged. \"Wouldn't mind being wrong. Besides, you look real cute with that hook in your mouth.\"\n\nCal lifted his middle finger off the bowl and into the air.\n\n\"Right back atcha,\" Fox said as he strolled in. He went straight to the refrigerator for a Coke. \"What's up?\"\n\n\"What's up is you're mooching my Cokes again, and you never bring any to replace them.\"\n\n\"I brought beer last week. Besides, Gage told me to come over this morning, and when I come over in the morning, I expect a damn Coke.\"\n\n\"You told him to come over?\"\n\n\"Yeah. So, O'Dell, Cal's in love with the blonde.\"\n\n\"I didn't say I\u2014\"\n\n\"Tell me something I don't know.\" Fox popped the top on the can of Coke and gulped.\n\n\"I never said I was in love with anyone.\"\n\nFox merely shifted his gaze to Cal. \"I've known you my whole life. I know what those shiny little hearts in your eyes mean. It's cool. She was, like, made for you.\"\n\n\"He says she's not my usual type, you say she's made for me.\"\n\n\"We're both right. She's not the type you usually fish for.\" Fox gulped down more soda, then took the box of cereal from Gage. \"Because you didn't want to find the one who fit. She fits, but she was sort of a surprise. Practically an ambush. Did I get up an hour early to come over here before work so we could talk about Cal's love life?\"\n\n\"No, it was just an interesting sidebar. I got some information when I was in the Czech Republic. Rumors, lore, mostly, which I followed up when I had time. I got a call from an expert last night, which is why I told you to come over this morning. I might have ID'd our Big Evil Bastard.\"\n\nThey sat down at the kitchen table with coffee and dry cereal\u2014Fox in one of his lawyer suits, Gage in a black T-shirt and loose pants, Cal in jeans and a flannel shirt.\n\nAnd spoke of demons.\n\n\"I toured some of the smaller and outlying villages,\" Gage began. \"I always figure I might as well pick up some local color, maybe a local skirt while I'm stacking up poker chips and markers.\"\n\nHe'd been doing the same for years, Cal knew. Following any whiff of information about devils, demons, unexplained phenomenon. He always came back with stories, but nothing that had ever fit the, well, the profile, Cal supposed, of their particular problem.\n\n\"There was talk about this old demon who could take other forms. You get werewolf stuff over there, and initially, I figured that was this deal. But this wasn't about biting throats out and silver bullets. The talk was about how this thing hunted humans to enslave them, and feed off their...the translation was kind of vague, and the best I got was essence, or humanity.\"\n\n\"Feed how?\"\n\n\"That's vague, too\u2014or colorful as lore tends to be. Not on flesh and bone, not with fang and claw\u2014that kind of thing. The legend is this demon, or creature, could take people's minds as well as their souls, and cause them to go mad, cause them to kill.\"\n\n\"Could be the root of ours,\" Fox decided.\n\n\"It rang close enough that I followed it up. It was a lot to wade through; that area's ripe with stories like this. But in this place in the hills, with this thick forest that reminded me of home, I hit something. Its name is Tmavy. Translates to Dark. The Dark.\"\n\nHe thought, they all thought of what had come out of the ground at the Pagan Stone. \"It came like a man who wasn't a man, hunted like a wolf that wasn't a wolf. And sometimes it was a boy, a boy who lured women and children in particular into the forest. Most never came back, and those who did were mad. The families of those who did went mad, too. Killed each other, or themselves, their neighbors.\"\n\nGage paused, rose to get the coffeepot. \"I got some of this when I was there, but I found a priest who gave me the name of a guy, a professor, who studied and publishes on Eastern European demonology. He got in touch last night. He claims this particular demon\u2014and he isn't afraid to use the word\u2014roamed Europe for centuries. He, in turn, was hunted by a man\u2014some say another demon, or a wizard, or just a man with a mission. Legend has it that they battled in the forest, and the wizard was mortally wounded, left for dead. And that, according to Professor Linz, was its mistake. Someone came, a young boy, and the wizard passed the boy his power before he died.\"\n\n\"What happened?\" Fox demanded.\n\n\"No one, including Linz, is sure. The stories claim the thing vanished, or moved on, or died, somewhere in the early-to mid-seventeenth century.\"\n\n\"When he hopped a goddamn boat for the New World,\" Cal added.\n\n\"Maybe. That may be.\"\n\n\"So did the boy,\" Cal continued, \"or the man he'd become, or his descendent. But he nearly had him over there, nearly did at some point in time\u2014that's something I've seen. I think. Him and the woman, a cabin. Him holding a bloody sword, and knowing nearly all were dead. He couldn't stop it there, so he passed what he had to Dent, and Dent tried again. Here.\"\n\n\"What did he pass to us?\" Fox demanded. \"What power? Not getting a freaking head cold, having a broken arm knit itself? What good does that do?\"\n\n\"Keeps us healthy and whole when we face it down. And there's the glimmers I see, that we all see in different ways.\" Cal shoved at his hair. \"I don't know. But it has to be something that matters. The three parts of the stone. They have to be. We've just never figured it out.\"\n\n\"And time's almost up.\"\n\nCal nodded at Gage. \"We need to show the stones to the others. We took an oath, we all have to agree to that. If we hadn't, I'd have\u2014\"\n\n\"Shown yours to Quinn already,\" Fox finished. \"And yeah, maybe you're right. It's worth a shot. It could be it needs all six of us to put it back together.\"\n\n\"Or it could be that when whatever happened at the Pagan Stone happened, the bloodstone split because its power was damaged. Destroyed.\"\n\n\"Your glass is always half empty, Turner,\" Fox commented. \"Either way, it's worth the try. Agreed?\"\n\n\"Agreed.\" Cal looked at Gage, who shrugged.\n\n\"What the hell.\"\n\nCAL DEBATED WITH HIMSELF ALL THE WAY INTO town. He didn't need an excuse to stop by to see Quinn. For God's sake, they were sleeping together. It wasn't as if he needed an appointment or clearance or a specific reason to knock on her door, to see how she was doing. To ask what the hell was going on.\n\nThere was no question she'd been distracted every time he'd managed to reach her by phone the last couple of days. She hadn't dropped into the center since they'd rolled around his office floor.\n\nAnd she'd told him she was in love with him.\n\nThat was the problem. The oil on the water, the sand in the shoe, or whatever goddamn analogy made the most sense. She'd told him she loved him, he hadn't said \"me, too,\" which she claimed she didn't expect. But any guy who actually believed a woman always meant exactly what she said was deep in dangerous delusion.\n\nNow, she was avoiding him.\n\nThey didn't have time for games, for bruised feelings and sulks. There were more important things at stake. Which, he was forced to admit, was why he shouldn't have touched her in the first place. By adding sex to the mix, they'd clouded and complicated the issue, and the issue was already clouded and complicated enough. They had to be practical; they had to be smart. Objective, he added as he pulled up in front of the rental house. Cold-blooded, clear-minded.\n\nNobody was any of those things when they were having sex. Not if they were having really good sex.\n\nHe jammed his hands in his pockets as he walked up to her door, then dragged one out to knock. The fact that he'd worked himself up to a mad might not have been objective or practical, but it felt absolutely right.\n\nUntil she opened the door.\n\nHer hair was damp. She'd pulled it back from her face in a sleek tail, and he could see it wasn't quite dry. He could smell the girly shampoo and soap, and the scents wound their way into him until the muscle in his gut tightened in response.\n\nShe wore fuzzy purple socks, black flannel pants, and a hot pink sweatshirt that announced: T.G.I.F. THANK GOD I'M FEMALE.\n\nHe could add his own thanks.\n\n\"Hi!\"\n\nThe idea she was sulking was hard to hang on to when he was blasted by her sunbeam smile and buzzing energy.\n\n\"I was just thinking about you. Come inside. Jesus, it's cold. I've so had it with winter. I was about to treat myself to a low-fat mug of hot chocolate. Want in on that?\"\n\n\"Ah\u2014I really don't.\"\n\n\"Well, come on back, because I've got the yen.\" She rose up on her toes to give him a long, solid kiss, then grabbed his hand to pull him back to the kitchen. \"I nagged Cyb and Layla into going to the gym with me this morning. Took some doing with Cyb, but I figured safety in numbers. Nothing weird happened, unless you count watching Cyb twist herself into some advanced yoga positions. Which Matt did, let me tell you. Things have been quiet in the otherworldly sense the last couple days.\"\n\nShe got out a packet of powdered mix, slapped it against her hand a couple of times to settle it before ripping it open to pour it into a mug. \"Sure you don't want some?\"\n\n\"Yeah, go ahead.\"\n\n\"We've been a busy hive around here,\" she went on as she filled the mug, half with water, half with two percent milk. \"I'm waiting to hear something about the family Bible, or whatever else my grandmother might dig up. Today, maybe, hopefully by tomorrow. Meanwhile, we've got charts of family trees as we know them, and Layla's trying to shake some ancestry out of her relatives.\"\n\nShe stirred up the liquid and mix, stuck it in the microwave. \"I had to leave a lot of the research up to my partners in crime and finish an article for the magazine. Gotta pay the doorman, after all. So?\" She turned back as the microwave hummed. \"How about you?\"\n\n\"I missed you.\" He hadn't planned to say it, certainly hadn't expected it to be the first thing out of his mouth. Then he realized, it was obviously the first thing on his mind.\n\nHer eyes went soft; that sexy mouth curved up. \"That's nice to hear. I missed you, too, especially last night when I crawled into bed about one in the morning. My cold, empty bed.\"\n\n\"I didn't just mean the sex, Quinn.\" And where had that come from?\n\n\"Neither did I.\" She angled her head, ignoring the beep of the microwave. \"I missed having you around at the end of the day, when I could finally come down from having to hammer out that article, when I wanted to stop thinking about what I had to do, and what was going to happen. You're irritated about something. Why don't you tell me what it is?\"\n\nShe turned toward the microwave as she spoke to get her mug out. Cal saw immediately she'd made the move as Cybil was stepping through the kitchen doorway. Quinn merely shook her head, and Cybil stepped back and retreated without a word.\n\n\"I don't know, exactly.\" He pulled off his coat now, tossed it over one of the chairs around a little cafe table that hadn't been there on his last visit. \"I guess I thought, after the other day, after...what you said\u2014\"\n\n\"I said I was in love with you. That makes you quiver inside,\" she noted. \"Men.\"\n\n\"I didn't start avoiding you.\"\n\n\"You think\u2014\" She took a deep inhale through her nose, exhaled in a huff. \"Well, you have a really high opinion of yourself, and a crappy one of me.\"\n\n\"No, it's just\u2014\"\n\n\"I had things to do, I had work. I am not at your beck any more than you're at mine.\"\n\n\"That's not what I meant.\"\n\n\"You think I'd play games like that? Especially now?\"\n\n\"Especially now's the point. This isn't the time for big personal issues.\"\n\n\"If not now, when?\" she demanded. \"Do you really, do you honestly think we can label and file all our personal business and close it in a drawer until it's convenient? I like things in their place, too. I want to know where things are, so I put them where I want or need them to be. But feelings and thoughts are different from the goddamn car keys, Cal.\"\n\n\"No argument, but\u2014\"\n\n\"And my feelings and thoughts are as cluttered and messy as Grandma's attic,\" she snapped out, far from winding down. \"That's just the way I like it. If things were normal every day, bopping right along, I probably wouldn't have told you. Do you think this is my first cannonball into the Dating and Relationship Pool? I was engaged, for God's sake. I told you because\u2014because I think, maybe especially now, that feelings are what matter most. If that screws you up, too damn bad.\"\n\n\"I wish you'd shut up for five damn minutes.\"\n\nHer eyes went to slits. \"Oh, really?\"\n\n\"Yeah. The fact is I don't know how to react to all of this, because I never let myself consider being in this position. How could I, with this hanging over my head? Can't risk falling for someone. How much could I tell her? How much is too much? We're\u2014Fox and Gage and I\u2014we're used to holding back, to keeping big pieces of this to ourselves.\"\n\n\"Keeping secrets.\"\n\n\"That's right,\" he said equably. \"That's exactly right. Because it's safer that way. How could I ever think about falling in love, getting married, having kids? Bringing a kid into this nightmare's out of the question.\"\n\nThose slitted blue eyes went cold as winter. \"I don't believe I've yet expressed the wish to bear your young.\"\n\n\"Remember who you're talking to,\" he said quietly. \"You take this situation out of the equation you've got a normal guy from a normal family. The kind who gets married, raises a family, has a mortgage and a big sloppy dog. If I let myself fall in love with a woman, that's how it's going to work.\"\n\n\"I guess you told me.\"\n\n\"And it's irresponsible to even consider any of that.\"\n\n\"We disagree. I happen to think considering that, moving toward that, is shooting the bird at the dark. In the end, we're each entitled to our own take on it. But understand me, get this crystal, telling you I love you didn't mean I expected you to pop a ring on my finger.\"\n\n\"Because you've been there.\"\n\nShe nodded. \"Yes, I have. And you're wondering about that.\"\n\n\"None of my business.\" Screw it. \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Okay, it's simple enough. I was seeing Dirk\u2014\"\n\n\"Dirk\u2014\"\n\n\"Shut up.\" But her lips twitched. \"I was seeing him exclusively for about six months. We enjoyed each other. I thought I was ready for the next stage in my life, so I said yes when he asked me to marry him. We were engaged for two months when I realized I'd made a mistake. I didn't love him. Liked him just fine. He didn't love me, either. He didn't really get me\u2014not the whole of me, which was why he figured the ring on my finger meant he could begin to advise me on my work, on my wardrobe, habits, and career options. There were a lot of little things, and they're not really important. The fact was we weren't going to make it work, so I broke it off.\"\n\nShe blew out another breath because it wasn't pleasant to remember she'd made that big a mistake. That she'd failed at something she knew she'd be good at. \"He was more annoyed than brokenhearted, which told me I'd done the right thing. And the truth is, it stung to know I'd done the right thing, because it meant I'd done the wrong thing first. When I suggested he tell his friends he'd been the one to end it, he felt better about it. I gave him back the ring, we each boxed up things we'd kept in each other's apartments, and we walked away.\"\n\n\"He didn't hurt you.\"\n\n\"Oh, Cal.\" She took a step closer so she could touch his face. \"No, he didn't. The situation hurt me, but he didn't. Which is only one of the reasons I knew he wasn't the one. If you want me to reassure you that you can't, that you won't break my heart, I just can't do it. Because you can, you might, and that's how I know you are. The one.\" She slipped her arms around him, laid her lips on his. \"That must be scary for you.\"\n\n\"Terrifying.\" He pulled her against him, held her hard. \"I've never had another woman in my life who's given me as many bad moments as you.\"\n\n\"I'm delighted to hear it.\"\n\n\"I thought you would be.\" He laid his cheek on top of her head. \"I'd like to stay here, just like this, for an hour or two.\" He replaced his cheek with his lips, then eased back. \"But I've things I have to do, and so do you. Which I knew before I walked in here and used it as an excuse to pick a fight.\"\n\n\"I don't mind a fight. Not when the air's clear afterward.\"\n\nHe framed her face with his hands, kissed her softly. \"Your hot chocolate's getting cold.\"\n\n\"Chocolate's never the wrong temperature.\"\n\n\"The one thing I said before? Absolute truth. I missed you.\"\n\n\"I believe I can arrange some free time in my busy schedule.\"\n\n\"I have to work tonight. Maybe you could stop in. I'll give you another bowling lesson.\"\n\n\"All right.\"\n\n\"Quinn, we\u2014all of us\u2014have to talk. About a lot of things. As soon as we can.\"\n\n\"Yes, we do. One thing before you go. Is Fox going to offer Layla a job?\"\n\n\"I said something to him.\" Cal swore under his breath at her expression. \"I'll give him another push on it.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\"\n\nAlone, Quinn picked up her mug, thoughtfully sipped at her lukewarm chocolate. Men, she thought, were such interesting beings.\n\nCybil came in. \"All clear?\"\n\n\"Yeah, thanks.\"\n\n\"No problem.\" She opened a cupboard and chose a small tin of loose jasmine tea from her supply. \"Discuss or mind my own?\"\n\n\"Discuss. He was worked up because I told him I love him.\"\n\n\"Annoyed or panicked?\"\n\n\"Some of both, I think. More worried because we've all got scary things to deal with, and this is another kind of scary thing.\"\n\n\"The scariest, when you come down to it.\" Cybil filled the teakettle with water. \"How are you handling it?\"\n\n\"It feels...great,\" she decided. \"Energizing and bouncy and bright, then sort of rich and glimmering. You know, with Dirk it was all...\" Quinn held out a hand, drawing it level through the air. \"This was\u2014\" She shot her hand up, down, then up again. \"Here's a thing. When he's telling me why this is crazy, he says how he's never been in a position\u2014or so he thinks\u2014to let himself think about love, marriage, family.\"\n\n\"Whoa, point A to Z in ten words or less.\"\n\n\"Exactly.\" Quinn gestured with her mug. \"And he was rolling too fast to see that the M word gave me a serious jolt. I practically just jumped off that path, and whoops, there it is again, under my feet.\"\n\n\"Hence the jolt.\" Cybil measured out her tea. \"But I don't see you jumping off.\"\n\n\"Because you know me. I like where my feet are, as it turns out. I like the idea of heading down that path with Cal, toward wherever it ends up. He's in trouble now,\" she murmured and took another sip.\n\n\"So are you, Q. But then trouble's always looked good on you.\"\n\n\"Better than a makeover at the Mac counter at Saks.\" Quinn answered the kitchen phone on its first ring. \"Hello. Hello, Essie. Oh. Really? No, it's great. It's perfect. Thanks so much. I absolutely will. Thanks again. Bye.\" She hung up, grinned. \"Essie Hawkins got us into the community center. No business there today on the main level. We can go in, poke around to our hearts' content.\"\n\n\"Won't that be fun?\" Cybil said it dryly as she poured boiling water for her tea.\n\nARMED WITH THE KEY, CYBIL OPENED THE MAIN door of the old library. \"We're here, on the surface, for research. One of the oldest buildings in town, home of the Hawkins family. But...\" She switched on the lights. \"Primarily we're looking for hidey-holes. A hiding place that was overlooked.\"\n\n\"For three and a half centuries,\" Cybil commented.\n\n\"If something's overlooked for five minutes, it can be overlooked forever.\" Quinn pursed her lips as she looked around. \"They modernized it, so to speak, when they turned it into a library, but when they built the new one, they stripped out some of the newfangled details. It's not the way it was, but it's closer.\"\n\nThere were some tables and chairs set up, and someone had made an attempt at some old-timey decor in the antique old lamps, old pottery, and wood carvings on shelves. Quinn had been told groups like the Historical Society or the Garden Club could hold meetings or functions here. At election times it was a voting center.\n\n\"Stone fireplace,\" she said. \"See, that's an excellent place to hide something.\" After crossing to it, she began to poke at the stones. \"Plus there's an attic. Essie said they used it for storage. Still do. They keep the folding tables and chairs up there, and that kind of thing. Attics are treasure troves.\"\n\n\"Why is it buildings like this are so cold and creepy when no one's in them?\" Layla wondered.\n\n\"We're in this one. Let's start at the top,\" Quinn suggested, \"work our way down.\"\n\n\"ATTICS ARE TREASURE TROVES,\" CYBIL SAID twenty minutes later, \"of dust and spiders.\"\n\n\"It's not that bad.\" Quinn crawled along, hoping for a loose floorboard.\n\n\"Not that good either.\" Courageously, Layla stood on a folding chair, checking rafters. \"I don't understand why people don't think storage spaces shouldn't be cleaned as regularly as anyplace else.\"\n\n\"It was clean once. She kept it clean.\"\n\n\"Who\u2014\" Layla began, but Cybil waved a hand at her, frowned at Quinn.\n\n\"Ann Hawkins?\"\n\n\"Ann and her boys. She brought them home, and shared the attic with them. Her three sons. Until they were old enough to have a room downstairs. But she stayed here. She wanted to be high, to be able to look out of her window. Even though she knew he wouldn't come, she wanted to look out for him. She was happy here, happy enough. And when she died here, she was ready to go.\"\n\nAbruptly, Quinn sat back on her heels. \"Holy shit, was that me?\"\n\nCybil crouched down to study Quinn's face. \"You tell us.\"\n\n\"I guess it was.\" She pressed her fingers to her forehead. \"Damn, got one of those I-drank-my-frozen-margarita-too-fast-and-now-have-an-ice pick-through-my-brain headaches. I saw it, her, them, in my head. Just as clear. Everything moving, like a time-action camera. Years in seconds. But more, I felt it. That's the way it is for you, isn't it\u2014going the other way?\"\n\n\"Often,\" Cybil agreed.\n\n\"I saw her writing in her journal, and washing her sons' faces. I saw her laughing, or weeping. I saw her standing at the window looking into the dark. I felt...\" Quinn laid a hand on her heart. \"I felt her longing. It was...brutal.\"\n\n\"You don't look well.\" Layla touched her shoulder. \"We should go downstairs, get you some water.\"\n\n\"Probably. Yeah.\" She took the hand Layla offered to help her up. \"Maybe I should try it again. Try to bring it back, get more.\"\n\n\"You're awfully pale,\" Layla told her. \"And, honey, your hand's like ice.\"\n\n\"Plenty for one day,\" Cybil agreed. \"You don't want to push it.\"\n\n\"I didn't see where she put the journals. If she put anything here, I didn't see.\"\n\n## Seventeen\n\nIT WASN'T THE TIME, CAL DETERMINED, TO TALK about a broken stone or property searches when Quinn was buzzed about her trip to the past with Ann Hawkins. In any case, the bowling center wasn't the place for that kind of exchange of information.\n\nHe considered bringing it up after closing when she dragged him into her home office to show him the new chart Layla had generated that listed the time, place, approximate duration, and involved parties in all known incidents since Quinn's arrival.\n\nHe forgot about it when he was in bed with her, when she was moving with him, when everything felt right again.\n\nThen he told himself it was too late to bring it up, to give the topics the proper time when she was curled up warm with him.\n\nMaybe it was avoidance, but he opted for the likelihood it was just his tendency to prefer things at the right time, in the right place. He'd arranged to take Sunday off so the entire group could hike to the Pagan Stone. That, to his mind, was the right time and place.\n\nThen Nature screwed with his plans.\n\nWhen forecasters began to predict an oncoming blizzard, he kept a jaundiced eye on the reports. They were, in his experience, wrong at least as often as they were right. Even when the first flakes began to fall midmorning, he remained unconvinced. It was the third blizzard hype of the year, and so far the biggest storm had dumped a reasonable eight inches.\n\nHe shrugged it off when the afternoon leagues canceled. It had gotten so people canceled everything at the first half inch, then went to war over bread and toilet paper in the supermarket. And since the powers-that-be canceled school before noon, the arcade and the grill were buzzing.\n\nBut when his father came in about two in the afternoon, looking like Sasquatch, Cal paid more attention.\n\n\"I think we're going to close up shop,\" Jim said in his easy way.\n\n\"It's not that bad. The arcade's drawing the usual suspects, the grill's been busy. We've had some lanes booked. A lot of towners will come in later in the afternoon, looking for something to do.\"\n\n\"It's bad enough, and it's getting worse.\" Jim shoved his gloves in the pocket of his parka. \"We'll have a foot by sundown the way it's going. We need to send these kids home, haul them there if they don't live within easy walking distance. We'll close up, then you go on home, too. Or you get your dog and Gage and come on over and stay with us. Your mother'll worry sick if she thinks you're out driving in this at night.\"\n\nHe started to remind his father that he was thirty, had four-wheel drive, and had been driving nearly half his life. Knowing it was pointless, Cal just nodded. \"We'll be fine. I've got plenty of supplies. I'll clear out the customers, close up, Dad. You go on home. She'll worry about you, too.\"\n\n\"There's time enough to close down and lock up.\" Jim glanced over at the lanes where a six-pack of teenagers sent off energy and hormones in equal measure. \"Had a hell of a storm when I was a kid. Your grandfather kept her open. We stayed here for three days. Time of my life.\"\n\n\"I bet.\" Cal grinned. \"Want to call Mom, say we're stuck? You and me can ride it out. Have a bowling marathon.\"\n\n\"Damned if I wouldn't.\" The lines around Jim's eyes crinkled at the idea. \"Of course, she'll kick my ass for it and it'd be the last time I bowled.\"\n\n\"Better shut down then.\"\n\nThough there were protests and moans, they moved customers along, arranging for rides when necessary with some of the staff. In the silence, Cal shut down the grill himself. He knew his father had gone back to check with Bill Turner. Not just to give instructions, he thought, but to make sure Bill had whatever he needed, to slip him a little extra cash if he didn't.\n\nAs he shut down, Cal pulled out his phone and called Fox's office. \"Hey. Wondered if I'd catch you.\"\n\n\"Just. I'm closing. Already sent Mrs. H home. It's getting bad out there.\"\n\n\"Head over to my place. If this comes in like they're whining about, it might be a couple days before the roads are clear. No point wasting them. And maybe you should stop, pick up, you know, toilet paper, bread.\"\n\n\"Toilet...You're bringing the women?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" He'd made up his mind on that when he'd taken a look outside. \"Get...stuff. Figure it out. I'll be home as soon as I can.\"\n\nHe clicked off, then shut down the alley lights as his father came out.\n\n\"Everything set?\" Cal asked.\n\n\"Yep.\"\n\nThe way his father looked around the darkened alley told Cal he was thinking they weren't just going to lose their big Friday night, but likely the entire weekend.\n\n\"We'll make it up, Dad.\"\n\n\"That's right. We always do.\" He gave Cal a slap on the shoulder. \"Let's get home.\"\n\nQUINN WAS LAUGHING WHEN SHE OPENED THE door. \"Isn't this great! They say we could get three feet, maybe more! Cyb's making goulash, and Layla went out and picked up extra batteries and candles in case we lose power.\"\n\n\"Good. Great.\" Cal stomped snow off his boots. \"Pack it up and whatever else you all need. We're going to my place.\"\n\n\"Don't be silly. We're fine. You can stay, and we'll\u2014\"\n\nAs clear of snow as he could manage, he stepped in, shut the door behind him. \"I have a small gas generator that'll run little things\u2014such as the well, which means water to flush the toilets.\"\n\n\"Oh. Toilets. I hadn't thought of that one. But how are we all going to fit in your truck?\"\n\n\"We'll manage. Get your stuff.\"\n\nIt took them half an hour, but he'd expected that. In the end, the bed of his truck was loaded with enough for a week's trek through the wilderness. And three women were jammed with him in the cab.\n\nHe should've had Fox swing by, get one of them, he realized. Then Fox could've hauled half the contents of their house in his truck. And it was too late now.\n\n\"It's gorgeous.\" Layla perched on Quinn's lap, bracing a hand on the dash while the Chevy's windshield wipers worked overtime to clear the snow from the glass. \"I know it's going to be a big mess, but it's so beautiful, so different than it is in the city.\"\n\n\"Remember that when we're competing for bathroom time with three men,\" Cybil warned her. \"And let me say right now, I refuse to be responsible for all meals just because I know how to turn on the stove.\"\n\n\"So noted,\" Cal muttered.\n\n\"It is gorgeous,\" Quinn agreed, shifting her head from side to side to see around Layla. \"Oh, I forgot. I heard from my grandmother. She tracked down the Bible. She's having her sister-in-law's granddaughter copy and scan the appropriate pages, and e-mail them to me.\" Quinn wiggled to try for more room. \"At least that's the plan, as the granddaughter's the only one of them who understands how to scan and attach files. E-mail and online poker's as far as Grandma goes on the Internet. I hope to have the information by tomorrow. Isn't this great?\"\n\nWedged between Quinn's butt and the door, Cybil dug in to protect her corner of the seat. \"It'd be better if you'd move your ass over.\"\n\n\"I've got Layla's space, too, so I get more room. I want popcorn,\" Quinn decided. \"Doesn't all this snow make everyone want popcorn? Did we pack any? Do you have any?\" she asked Cal. \"Maybe we could stop and buy some Orville's.\"\n\nHe kept his mouth shut, and concentrated on surviving what he thought might be the longest drive of his life.\n\nHe plowed his way down the side roads, and though he trusted the truck and his own driving, was relieved when he turned onto his lane. As he'd been outvoted about the heat setting, the cab of the truck was like a sauna.\n\nEven under the circumstances, Cal had to admit his place, his woods, did look like a picture. The snow-banked terraces, the white-decked trees and huddles of shrubs framed the house where smoke was pumping from the chimney, and the lights were already gleaming against the windows.\n\nHe followed the tracks of Fox's tires across the little bridge over his snow-and ice-crusted curve of the creek.\n\nLump padded toward the house from the direction of the winter-postcard woods, leaving deep prints behind him. His tail swished once as he let out a single, hollow bark.\n\n\"Wow, look at Lump.\" Quinn managed to poke Cal with her elbow as the truck shoved its way along the lane. \"He's positively frisky.\"\n\n\"Snow gets him going.\" Cal pulled behind Fox's truck, smirked at the Ferrari, slowly being buried, then laid on the horn. He'd be damned if he was going to haul the bulk of what three women deemed impossible to live without for a night or two.\n\nHe dragged bags out of the bed.\n\n\"It's a beautiful spot, Cal.\" Layla took the first out of his hands. \"Currier and Ives for the twenty-first century. Is it all right if I go right in?\"\n\n\"Sure.\"\n\n\"Pretty as a picture.\" Cybil scanned the bags and boxes, chose one for herself. \"Especially if you don't mind being isolated.\"\n\n\"I don't.\"\n\nShe glanced over as Gage and Fox came out of the house. \"I hope you don't mind crowds either.\"\n\nThey got everything inside, trailing snow everywhere. Cal decided it must have been some sort of female telepathy that divided them all into chores without discussion. Layla asked him for rags or old towels and proceeded to mop up the wet, Cybil took over the kitchen with her stew pot and bag of kitchen ingredients. And Quinn dug into his linen closet, such as it was, and began assigning beds, and ordering various bags carried to various rooms.\n\nThere wasn't anything for him to do, really, but have a beer.\n\nGage strode in as Cal poked at the fire. \"There are bottles of girl stuff all over both bathrooms up there.\" Gage jerked a thumb at the ceiling. \"What have you done?\"\n\n\"What had to be done. I couldn't leave them. They could've been cut off for a couple of days.\"\n\n\"And what, turned into the next Donner Party? Your woman has Fox making my bed, which is now the pullout in your office. And which I'm apparently supposed to share with him. You know that son of a bitch is a bed hog.\"\n\n\"Can't be helped.\"\n\n\"Easy for you to say, seeing as you'll be sharing yours with the blonde.\"\n\nThis time Cal grinned, smugly. \"Can't be helped.\"\n\n\"Esmerelda's brewing up something in the kitchen.\"\n\n\"Goulash\u2014and it's Cybil.\"\n\n\"Whatever, it smells good, I'll give her that. She smells better. But the point is I got the heave-ho when I tried to get a damn bag of chips to go with the beer.\"\n\n\"You want to cook for six people?\"\n\nGage only grunted, sat, propped his feet on the coffee table. \"How much are they calling for?\"\n\n\"About three feet.\" Cal dropped down beside him, mirrored his pose. \"Used to be we liked nothing better. No school, haul out the sleds. Snowball wars.\"\n\n\"Those were the days, my friend.\"\n\n\"Now we're priming the generator, loading in firewood, buying extra batteries and toilet paper.\"\n\n\"Sucks to be grown up.\"\n\nStill, it was warm, and while the snow fell in sheets outside, there was light, and there was food. It was hard to complain, Cal decided, when he was digging into a bowl of hot, spicy stew he had nothing to do with preparing. Plus, there were dumplings, and he was weak when it came to dumplings.\n\n\"I was in Budapest not that long ago.\" Gage spooned up goulash as he studied Cybil. \"This is as good as any I got there.\"\n\n\"Actually, this isn't Hungarian goulash. It's a Serbo-Croatian base.\"\n\n\"Damn good stew,\" Fox commented, \"wherever it's based.\"\n\n\"Cybil's an Eastern European stew herself.\" Quinn savored the half dumpling she'd allowed herself. \"Croatian, Ukrainian, Polish\u2014with a dash of French for fashion sense and snottiness.\"\n\n\"When did your family come over?\" Cal wondered.\n\n\"As early as the seventeen hundreds, as late as just before World War Two, depending on the line.\" But she understood the reason for the question. \"I don't know if there is a connection to Quinn or Layla, or any of this, where it might root from. I'm looking into it.\"\n\n\"We had a connection,\" Quinn said, \"straight off.\"\n\n\"We did.\"\n\nCal understood that kind of friendship, the kind he saw when the two women looked at each other. It had little to do with blood, and everything to do with the heart.\n\n\"We hooked up the first day\u2014evening really\u2014of college.\" Quinn spooned off another minuscule piece of dumpling with the stew. \"Met in the hall of the dorm. We were across from each other. Within two days, we'd switched. Our respective roommates didn't care. We bunked together right through college.\"\n\n\"And apparently still are,\" Cybil commented.\n\n\"Remember you read my palm that first night?\"\n\n\"You read palms?\" Fox asked.\n\n\"When the mood strikes. My gypsy heritage,\" Cybil added with a flourishing gesture of her hands.\n\nAnd Cal felt a knot form in his belly. \"There were gypsies in the Hollow.\"\n\n\"Really?\" Carefully, Cybil lifted her wineglass, sipped. \"When?\"\n\n\"I'd have to check to be sure. This is from stories my gran told me that her grandmother told her. Like that. About how gypsies came one summer and set up camp.\"\n\n\"Interesting. Potentially,\" Quinn mused, \"someone local could get cozy with one of those dark-eyed beauties or hunks, and nine months later, oops. Could lead right to you, Cyb.\"\n\n\"Just one big, happy family,\" Cybil muttered.\n\nAfter the meal, chores were divvied up again. Wood needed to be brought in, the dog let out, the table cleared, dishes dealt with.\n\n\"Who else cooks?\" Cybil demanded.\n\n\"Gage does,\" Cal and Fox said together.\n\n\"Hey.\"\n\n\"Good.\" Cybil sized him up. \"If there's a group breakfast on the slate, you're in charge. Now\u2014\"\n\n\"Before we...whatever,\" Cal decided, \"there's something we have to go over. Might as well stick to the dining room. We have to get something,\" he added, looking at Fox and Gage. \"You might want to open another bottle of wine.\"\n\n\"What's all this?\" Quinn frowned as the men retreated. \"What are they up to?\"\n\n\"It's more what haven't they told us,\" Layla said. \"Guilt and reluctance, that's what I'm picking up. Not that I know any of them that well.\"\n\n\"You know what you know,\" Cybil told her. \"Get another bottle, Q.\" She gave a little shudder. \"Maybe we should light a couple more candles while we're at it, just in case. It already feels...dark.\"\n\nTHEY LEFT IT TO HIM, CAL SUPPOSED, BECAUSE IT was his house. When they were all back around the table, he tried to find the best way to begin.\n\n\"We've gone over what happened that night in the clearing when we were kids, and what started happening after. Quinn, you got some of it yourself when we hiked there a couple weeks ago.\"\n\n\"Yeah. Cyb and Layla need to see it, as soon as the snow's cleared enough for us to make the hike.\"\n\nHe hesitated only a beat. \"Agreed.\"\n\n\"It ain't a stroll down the Champs \u00c9lys\u00e9es,\" Gage commented, and Cybil cocked an eyebrow at him.\n\n\"We'll manage.\"\n\n\"There was another element that night, another aspect we haven't talked about with you.\"\n\n\"With anyone,\" Fox added.\n\n\"It's hard to explain why. We were ten, everything went to hell, and...Well.\" Cal set his part of the stone on the table.\n\n\"A piece of rock?\" Layla said.\n\n\"Bloodstone.\" Cybil pursed her lips, started to reach for it, stopped. \"May I?\"\n\nGage and Fox set theirs down beside Cal's. \"Take your pick,\" Gage invited.\n\n\"Three parts of one.\" Quinn picked up the one closest to her. \"Isn't that right? These are three parts of one stone.\"\n\n\"One that had been rounded, tumbled, polished,\" Cybil continued. \"Where did you get the pieces?\"\n\n\"We were holding them,\" Cal told her. \"After the light, after the dark, when the ground stopped shaking, each one of us was holding his part of this stone.\" He studied his own hand, remembering how his fist had clenched around the stone as if his life depended on it.\n\n\"We didn't know what they were. Fox looked it up. His mother had books on rocks and crystals, and he looked it up. Bloodstone,\" Cal repeated. \"It fit.\"\n\n\"It needs to be put back together,\" Layla said. \"Doesn't it? It needs to be whole again.\"\n\n\"We've tried. The breaks are clean,\" Fox explained. \"They fit together like a puzzle.\" He gestured, and Cal took the pieces, fit them into a round.\n\n\"But it doesn't do anything.\"\n\n\"Because you're holding them together?\" Curious, Quinn held out her hand until Cal put the three pieces into it. \"They're not...fused would be the word, I guess.\"\n\n\"Tried that, too. MacGyver over there tried superglue.\"\n\nCal sent Gage a bland stare. \"Which should've worked\u2014at least as far as holding the pieces together. But I might as well have used water. No stick. We've tried banding them, heating them, freezing them. No dice. In fact, they don't even change temperature.\"\n\n\"Except\u2014\" Fox broke off, got the go-ahead nod. \"During the Seven, they heat up. Not too hot to hold, but right on the edge.\"\n\n\"Have you tried putting them back together during that week?\" Quinn demanded.\n\n\"Yeah. No luck. The one thing we know is that Giles Dent was wearing this, like an amulet around his neck, the night Lazarus Twisse led that mob into the clearing. I saw it. Now we have it.\"\n\n\"Have you tried magickal means?\" Cybil asked.\n\nCal squirmed a little, cleared his throat.\n\n\"Jesus, Cal, loosen up.\" Fox shook his head. \"Sure. I got some books on spells, and we gave that a try. Down the road, Gage has talked to some practicing witches, and we've tried other rites and so on.\"\n\n\"But you never showed them to anyone.\" Quinn set the pieces down carefully before picking up her wine. \"Anyone who might have been able to work with them, or understand the purpose. Maybe the history.\"\n\n\"We weren't meant to.\" Fox lifted his shoulders. \"I know how it sounds, but I knew we weren't supposed to take it to, what, a geologist or some Wiccan high priestess, or the damn Pentagon. I just...Cal voted for the science angle right off.\"\n\n\"MacGyver,\" Gage repeated.\n\n\"Fox was sure that was off-limits, and that was good enough. That was good enough for the three of us.\" Cal looked at his friends. \"It's been the way we've handled it, up till now. If Fox felt we shouldn't show you, we wouldn't be.\"\n\n\"Because you feel it the strongest?\" Layla asked Fox.\n\n\"I don't know. Maybe. I know I believed\u2014I believe\u2014we survived that night, that we came out of it the way we came out of it because we each had a piece of that stone. And as long as we do, we've got a chance. It's just something I know, the same way Cal saw it, that he recognized it as the amulet Dent wore.\"\n\n\"How about you?\" Cybil asked Gage. \"What do you know? What do you see?\"\n\nHis eyes met hers. \"I see it whole, on top of the Pagan Stone. The stone on the stone. And the flames flick up from it, kindling in the blood spots. Then they consume it, ride over the flat, down the pedestal like a sheath of fire. I see the fire race across the ground, fly into the trees until they burst from the heat. And the clearing's a holocaust even the devil himself couldn't survive.\"\n\nHe took a drink of wine. \"That's what I see when it's whole again, so I'm in no big hurry to get there.\"\n\n\"Maybe that's how it was formed,\" Layla began.\n\n\"I don't see back. That's Cal's gig. I see what might be coming.\"\n\n\"That'd be handy in your profession.\"\n\nGage shifted his gaze back to Cybil, smiled slowly. \"It doesn't hurt.\" He picked up his stone, tossed it lightly in his hand. \"Anyone interested in a little five-card draw?\"\n\nAs soon as he spoke, the light snapped off.\n\nRather than romance or charm, the flickering candles they'd lit as backup lent an eeriness to the room. \"I'll go fire up the generator.\" Cal pushed up. \"Water, refrigerator, and stove for now.\"\n\n\"Don't go out alone.\" Layla blinked as if surprised the words had come out of her mouth. \"I mean\u2014\"\n\n\"I'm going with you.\"\n\nAs Fox rose, something howled in the dark.\n\n\"Lump.\" Cal was out of the room, through the kitchen, and out the back door like a bullet. He barely broke stride to grab the flashlight off the wall, punch it on.\n\nHe swept it toward the sound. The beam struggled against the thick, moving curtain of snow, did little but bounce the light back at him.\n\nThe blanket had become a wall that rose past his knees. Calling his dog, Cal pushed through it, trying to pinpoint the direction of the howling. It seemed to come from everywhere, from nowhere.\n\nAs he heard sounds behind him, he whirled, gripping the flashlight like a weapon.\n\n\"Don't clock the reinforcements,\" Fox shouted. \"Christ, it's insane out here.\" He gripped Cal's arm as Gage moved to Cal's other side. \"Hey, Lump! Come on, Lump! I've never heard him like that.\"\n\n\"How do you know it's the dog?\" Gage asked quietly.\n\n\"Get back inside,\" Cal said grimly. \"We can't leave the women alone. I'm going to find my dog.\"\n\n\"Oh yeah, we'll just leave you out here, stumbling around in a fucking blizzard.\" Gage jammed his freezing hands in his pockets, glanced back. \"Besides.\"\n\nThey came, arms linked and gripping flashlights. Which showed sense, Cal was forced to admit. And they'd taken the time to put on coats, probably boots as well, which is more than he or his friends had done.\n\n\"Go back in.\" He had to shout now, over the rising wind. \"We're just going to round up Lump. Be right there.\"\n\n\"We all go in or nobody does.\" Quinn unhooked her arm from Layla's, hooked it to Cal's. \"That includes Lump. Don't waste time,\" she said before he could argue. \"We should spread out, shouldn't we?\"\n\n\"In pairs. Fox, you and Layla try that way, Quinn and I'll take this way. Gage and Cybil toward the back. He's got to be close. He never goes far.\"\n\nHe sounded scared, that's what Cal didn't want to say out loud. His stupid, lazy dog sounded scared. \"Hook your hand in my pants\u2014the waistband. Keep a good hold.\"\n\nHe hissed against the cold as her gloves hit his skin, then began to trudge forward. He'd barely made it two feet when he heard something under the howls.\n\n\"You catch that?\"\n\n\"Yes. Laughing. The way a nasty little boy might laugh.\"\n\n\"Go\u2014\"\n\n\"I'm not leaving that dog out here any more than you are.\"\n\nA vicious gush of wind rose up like a tidal wave, spewing huge clumps of snow, and what felt like pellets of ice. Cal heard branches cracking, like gunfire in the dark. Behind him, Quinn lost her footing in the force of the wind and nearly took them both down.\n\nHe'd get Quinn back into the house, he decided. Get her the hell in, lock her in a damn closet if necessary, then come back out and find his dog.\n\nEven as he turned to get a grip on her arm, he saw them.\n\nHis dog sat on his haunches, half buried in the snow, his head lifted as those long, desperate howls worked his throat.\n\nThe boy floated an inch above the surface of the snow. Chortling, Cal thought. There was a word you didn't use every day, but it sure as hell fit the filthy sound it made.\n\nIt grinned as the wind blasted again. Now Lump was buried to his shoulders.\n\n\"Get the fuck away from my dog.\"\n\nCal lurched forward; the wind knocked him back so that both he and Quinn went sprawling.\n\n\"Call him,\" Quinn shouted. \"Call him, make him come!\" She dragged off her gloves as she spoke. Using her fingers to form a circle between her lips, she whistled shrilly as Cal yelled at Lump.\n\nLump quivered; the thing laughed.\n\nCal continued to call, to curse now, to crawl while the snow flew into his eyes, numbed his hands. He heard shouting behind him, but he focused everything he had on pushing ahead, on getting there before the next gust of wind put the dog under.\n\nHe'd drown, Cal thought as he pushed, shoved, slid forward. If he didn't get to Lump, his dog would drown in that ocean of snow.\n\nHe felt a hand lock on his ankle, but kept dragging himself forward.\n\nGritting his teeth, he flailed out, got a slippery hold on Lump's collar. Braced, he looked up into eyes that glittered an unholy green rimmed with red. \"You can't have him.\"\n\nCal yanked. Ignoring Lump's yelp, he yanked again, viciously, desperately. Though Lump howled, whimpered, it was as if his body was sunk in hardened cement.\n\nAnd Quinn was beside him, belly down, digging at the snow with her hands.\n\nFox skidded down, shooting snow like shrapnel. Cal gathered everything he had, looked once more into those monstrous eyes in the face of a young boy. \"I said you can't have him.\"\n\nWith the next pull, Cal's arms were full of quivering, whimpering dog.\n\n\"It's okay, it's okay.\" He pressed his face against cold, wet fur. \"Let's get the hell out of here.\"\n\n\"Get him in by the fire.\" Layla struggled to help Quinn up as Cybil pushed up from her knees. Shoving the butt of a flashlight in his back pocket, Gage pulled Cybil to her feet, then plucked Quinn out of the snow.\n\n\"Can you walk?\" he asked her.\n\n\"Yeah, yeah. Let's get in, let's get inside, before somebody ends up with frostbite.\"\n\nTowels and blankets, dry clothes, hot coffee. Brandy\u2014even for Lump\u2014warmed chilled bones and numbed flesh. Fresh logs had the fire blazing.\n\n\"It was holding him. He couldn't get away.\" Cal sat on the floor, the dog's head in his lap. \"He couldn't get away. It was going to bury him in the snow. A stupid, harmless dog.\"\n\n\"Has this happened before?\" Quinn asked him. \"Has it gone after animals this way?\"\n\n\"A few weeks before the Seven, animals might drown, or there's more roadkill. Sometimes pets turn mean. But not like this. This was\u2014\"\n\n\"A demonstration.\" Cybil tucked the blanket more securely around Quinn's feet. \"He wanted us to see what he could do.\"\n\n\"Maybe wanted to see what we could do,\" Gage countered, and earned a speculative glance from Cybil.\n\n\"That may be more accurate. That may be more to the point. Could we break the hold? A dog's not a person, has to be easier to control. No offense, Cal, but your dog's brainpower isn't as high as most toddlers'.\"\n\nGently, affectionately, Cal pulled on one of Lump's floppy ears. \"He's thick as a brick.\"\n\n\"So it was showing off. It hurt this poor dog for sport.\" Layla knelt down and stroked Lump's side. \"That deserves some payback.\"\n\nIntrigued, Quinn cocked her head. \"What do you have in mind?\"\n\n\"I don't know yet, but it's something to think about.\"\n\n## Eighteen\n\nCAL DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TIME THEY'D FALLEN into bed. But when he opened his eyes the thin winter light eked through the window. Through it, he saw the snow was still falling in the perfect, fat, white flakes of a Hollywood Christmas movie.\n\nIn the hush only a snowfall could create was steady and somehow satisfied snoring. It came from Lump, who was stretched over the foot of the bed like a canine blanket. That was something Cal generally discouraged, but right now, the sound, the weight, the warmth were exactly right.\n\nFrom now on, he determined, the damn dog was going everywhere with him.\n\nBecause his foot and ankle were currently under the bulk of the dog, Cal shifted to pull free. The movement had Quinn stirring, giving a little sigh as she wiggled closer and managed to wedge her leg between his. She wore flannel, which shouldn't have been remotely sexy, and she'd managed to pin his arm during the night so it was now alive with needles and pins. And that should've been, at least mildly, annoying.\n\nInstead, it was exactly right, too.\n\nSince it was, since they were cuddled up together in bed with Hollywood snow falling outside the window, he couldn't think of a single reason not to take advantage of it.\n\nSmiling, he slid a hand under her T-shirt, over warm, smooth flesh. When he cupped her breast he felt her heart beat under his palm, slow and steady as Lump's snoring. He stroked, a lazy play of fingertips as he watched her face. Lightly, gently, he teased her nipple, arousing himself as he imagined taking it into his mouth, sliding his tongue over her.\n\nShe sighed again.\n\nHe trailed his hand down, tracing those fingertips over her belly, under the flannel to skim down her thigh. Up again. Down, then up, a whispering touch that eased closer, closer to her center.\n\nAnd the sound she made in sleep was soft and helpless.\n\nShe was wet when he brushed over her, hot when he dipped inside her. When he pressed, he lowered his mouth to hers to take her gasp.\n\nShe came as she woke, her body simply erupting as her mind leaped out of sleep and into shock and pleasure.\n\n\"Oh God!\"\n\n\"Shh.\" He laughed against her lips. \"You'll wake the dog.\"\n\nHe tugged down her pants as he rolled. Before she could clear her mind, he pinned her, and he filled her.\n\n\"Oh. Well. Jesus.\" The words hitched and shook. \"Good morning.\"\n\nHe laughed again, and bracing himself, set a slow and torturous pace. She fought to match it, to hold back and take that slow climb with him, but it flashed through her again, and flung her up.\n\n\"God. God. God. I don't think I can\u2014\"\n\n\"Shh, shh,\" he repeated, and brought his mouth down to toy with hers. \"I'll go slow,\" he whispered. \"You just go.\"\n\nShe could do nothing else. Her system was already wrecked, her body already his. Utterly his. When he took her up again, she was too breathless to cry out.\n\nTHOROUGHLY PLEASURED, THOROUGHLY USED, Quinn lay under Cal's weight. He'd eased down so that his head rested between her breasts, and she could play with his hair. She imagined it was some faraway Sunday morning where they had nothing more pressing to worry about than if they'd make love again before breakfast, or make love after.\n\n\"Do you take some kind of special vitamin?\" she wondered.\n\n\"Hmm?\"\n\n\"I mean, you've got some pretty impressive stamina going for you.\"\n\nShe felt his lips curve against her. \"Just clean living, Blondie.\"\n\n\"Maybe it's the bowling. Maybe bowling...Where's Lump?\"\n\n\"He got embarrassed about halfway through the show.\" Cal turned his head, gestured. \"Over there.\"\n\nQuinn looked, saw the dog on the floor, his face wedged in the corner. She laughed till her sides ached. \"We embarrassed the dog. That's a first for me. God! I feel good. How can I feel so good after last night?\" Then she shook her head, stretched up her arms before wrapping them around Cal. \"I guess that's the point, isn't it? Even in a world gone to hell, there's still this.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" He sat up then, reached down to brush her tumbled hair as he studied her. \"Quinn.\" He took her hand now, played with her fingers.\n\n\"Cal,\" she said, imitating his serious tone.\n\n\"You crawled through a blizzard to help save my dog.\"\n\n\"He's a good dog. Anyone would have done the same.\"\n\n\"No. You're not naive enough to think that. Fox and Gage, yeah. For the dog, and for me. Layla and Cybil, maybe. Maybe it was being caught in the moment, or maybe they're built that way.\"\n\nShe touched his face, skimmed her fingers under those patient gray eyes. \"No one was going to leave that dog out there, Cal.\"\n\n\"Then I'd say that dog is pretty lucky to have people like you around. So am I. You crawled through the snow, toward that thing. You dug in the snow with your bare hands.\"\n\n\"If you're trying to make a hero out of me...Go ahead,\" she decided. \"I think I like the fit.\"\n\n\"You whistled with your fingers.\"\n\nNow she grinned. \"Just a little something I picked up along the way. I can actually whistle a lot louder than that, when I'm not out of breath, freezing, and quivering with terror.\"\n\n\"I love you.\"\n\n\"I'll demonstrate sometime when...What?\"\n\n\"I never thought to say those words to any woman I wasn't related to. I was just never going to go there.\"\n\nIf she'd been given a hard, direct jolt of electricity to her heart, it couldn't have leaped any higher. \"Would you mind saying them again, while I'm paying better attention?\"\n\n\"I love you.\"\n\nThere it went again, she thought. Leaps and bounds. \"Because I can whistle with my fingers?\"\n\n\"That might've been the money shot.\"\n\n\"God.\" She shut her eyes. \"I want you to love me, and I really like to get what I want. But.\" She took a breath. \"Cal, if this is because of last night, because I helped get Lump, then\u2014\"\n\n\"This is because you think if you eat half my slice of pizza it doesn't count.\"\n\n\"Well, it doesn't, technically.\"\n\n\"Because you always know where your keys are, and you can think about ten things at the same time. Because you don't back down, and your hair's like sunlight. Because you tell the truth and you know how to be a friend. And for dozens of reasons I haven't figured out yet. Dozens more I may never figure out. But I know I can say to you what I never thought to say to anyone.\"\n\nShe hooked her arms around his neck, rested her forehead on his. She had to just breathe for a moment, just breathe her way through the beauty of it as she often did with a great work of art or a song that brought tears to her throat.\n\n\"This is a really good day.\" She touched her lips to his. \"This is a truly excellent day.\"\n\nThey sat for a while, holding each other while the dog snored in the corner, and the snow fell outside the windows.\n\nWhen Cal went downstairs, he followed the scent of coffee into the kitchen, and found Gage scowling as he slapped a skillet onto the stove. They grunted at each other as Cal got a clean mug out of the dishwasher.\n\n\"Looks like close to three out there already, and it's still coming.\"\n\n\"I got eyes.\" Gage ripped open a pound of bacon. \"You sound chipper about it.\"\n\n\"It's a really good day.\"\n\n\"I'd probably think so, too, if I started it off with some morning nookie.\"\n\n\"God, men are crude.\" Cybil strolled in, her dark eyes bleary.\n\n\"Then you ought to plug your ears when you're around our kind. Bacon gets fried, eggs get scrambled,\" Gage told them. \"Anybody doesn't like the options should try another restaurant.\"\n\nCybil poured her coffee, stood studying him over the rim as she took the first sip. He hadn't shaved or combed that dark mass of hair. He was obviously morning irritable, and none of that, she mused, made him any less attractive.\n\nToo bad.\n\n\"You know what I've noticed about you, Gage?\"\n\n\"What's that?\"\n\n\"You've got a great ass, and a crappy attitude. Let me know when breakfast is ready,\" she added as she strolled out of the kitchen.\n\n\"She's right. I've often said that about your ass and attitude.\"\n\n\"Phones are out,\" Fox announced as he came in, yanked open the refrigerator and pounced on a Coke. \"Got ahold of my mother by cell. They're okay over there.\"\n\n\"Knowing your parents, they probably just had sex,\" Gage commented.\n\n\"Hey! True,\" Fox said after a moment, \"but, hey.\"\n\n\"He's got sex on the brain.\"\n\n\"Why wouldn't he? He's not sick or watching sports, the only two circumstances men don't necessarily have sex on the brain.\"\n\nGage laid bacon in the heated skillet. \"Somebody make some toast or something. And we're going to need another pot of coffee.\"\n\n\"I've got to take Lump out. I'm not just letting him out on his own.\"\n\n\"I'll take him.\" Fox leaned down to scratch Lump's head. \"I want to walk around anyway.\" He turned, nearly walked into Layla. \"Hi, sorry. Ah...I'm going to take Lump out. Why don't you come along?\"\n\n\"Oh. I guess. Sure. I'll just get my things.\"\n\n\"Smooth,\" Gage commented when Layla left. \"You're a smooth one, Fox.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Good morning, really attractive woman. How would you like to trudge around with me in three feet of snow and watch a dog piss on a few trees? Before you've even had your coffee?\"\n\n\"It was just a suggestion. She could've said no.\"\n\n\"I'm sure she would have if she'd had a hit of caffeine so her brain was in gear.\"\n\n\"That must be why you only get lucky with women without brains.\"\n\n\"You're just spreading sunshine,\" Cal commented when Fox steamed out.\n\n\"Make another damn pot of coffee.\"\n\n\"I need to bring in some wood, feed the generator, and start shoveling three feet of snow off the decks. Let me know when breakfast is ready.\"\n\nAlone, Gage snarled, and turned the bacon. He still had the snarl when Quinn came in.\n\n\"I thought I'd find everyone in here, but they're all scattered.\" She got out a mug. \"Looks like we need another pot of coffee.\"\n\nBecause she got the coffee down, Gage didn't have time to snap at her.\n\n\"I'll take care of that. Anything else I can do to help?\"\n\nHe turned his head to look at her. \"Why?\"\n\n\"Because I figure if I help you with breakfast, it takes us both off the cooking rotation for the next couple of meals.\"\n\nHe nodded, appreciating the logic. \"Smart. You're the toast and additional coffee.\"\n\n\"Check.\"\n\nHe beat a dozen eggs while she got to work. She had a quick, efficient way about her, Gage noted. The quick wouldn't matter so much to Cal, but the efficient would be a serious plus. She was built, she was bright, and as he'd seen for himself last night, she had a wide streak of brave.\n\n\"You're making him happy.\"\n\nQuinn stopped, looked over. \"Good, because he's making me happy.\"\n\n\"One thing, if you haven't figured it out by now. He's rooted here. This is his place. Whatever happens, the Hollow's always going to be Cal's place.\"\n\n\"I figured that out.\" She plucked toast when it popped, dropped more bread in. \"All things considered, it's a nice town.\"\n\n\"All things considered,\" Gage agreed, then poured the eggs into the second skillet.\n\nOUTSIDE, AS GAGE PREDICTED, FOX WATCHED Lump piss on trees. More entertaining, he supposed, had been watching the dog wade, trudge, and occasionally leap through the waist-high snow. It was the waist-high factor that had Fox and Layla stopping on the front deck, and Fox going to work with the shovel Cal had shoved into his hands on their way out.\n\nStill, it was great to be out in the snow globe of the morning, tossing the white stuff around while more of it pumped out of the sky.\n\n\"Maybe I should go down, knock the snow off some of Cal's shrubs.\"\n\nFox glanced over at her. She had a ski cap pulled over her head, a scarf wrapped around her neck. Both had already picked up a layer of white. \"You'll sink, then we'll be tossing you a lifeline to get you back. We'll dig out a path eventually.\"\n\n\"He doesn't seem to be spooked.\" She kept an eagle eye on Lump. \"I thought, after last night, he'd be skittish about going out.\"\n\n\"Short-term doggie memory. Probably for the best.\"\n\n\"I won't forget it.\"\n\n\"No.\" He shouldn't have asked her to come out, Fox realized. Especially since he couldn't quite figure out how to broach the whole job deal, which had been part of the idea for having her tag along.\n\nHe was usually better at this stuff, dealing with people. Dealing with women. Now, he worked on carving down a shovel-width path across the deck to the steps, and just jumped in.\n\n\"So, Cal said you're looking for a job.\"\n\n\"Not exactly. I mean I'm going to have to find some work, but I haven't been looking.\"\n\n\"My secretary\u2014office manager\u2014assistant.\" He dumped snow, dug the shovel back down. \"We never settled on a title, now that I think about it. Anyway, she's moving to Minneapolis. I need somebody to do the stuff she does.\"\n\nDamn Quinn, she thought. \"The stuff.\"\n\nIt occurred to Fox that he was considered fairly articulate in court. \"Filing, billing, answering phones, keeping the calendar, rescheduling when necessary, handling clients, typing documents and correspondence. She's a notary, too, but that's not a necessity right off.\"\n\n\"What software does she use?\"\n\n\"I don't know. I'd have to ask her.\" Did she use any software? How was he supposed to know?\n\n\"I don't know anything about secretarial work, or office management. I don't know anything about the law.\"\n\nFox knew tones, and hers was defensive. He kept shoveling. \"Do you know the alphabet?\"\n\n\"Of course I know the alphabet, but the point\u2014\"\n\n\"Would be,\" he interrupted, \"if you know the alphabet you can probably figure out how to file. And you know how to use a phone, which means you can answer one and make calls from one. Those would be essential job skills for this position. Can you use a keyboard?\"\n\n\"Yes, but it depends on\u2014\"\n\n\"She can show you whatever the hell she does in that area.\"\n\n\"It doesn't sound as if you know a lot about what she does.\"\n\nHe also knew disapproval when he heard it. \"Okay.\" He straightened, leaned on the shovel, and looked dead into her eyes. \"She's been with me since I set up. I'm going to miss her like I'd miss my arm. But people move on, and the rest of us have to deal. I need somebody to put papers where they belong and find them when I need to have them, to send out bills so I can pay mine, to tell me when I'm due in court, to answer the phone we hope rings so I'll have somebody to bill, and basically maintain some kind of order so I can practice law. You need a job and a paycheck. I think we could help each other out.\"\n\n\"Cal asked you to offer me a job because Quinn asked him to ask you.\"\n\n\"That would be right. Doesn't change the bottom line.\"\n\nNo, it didn't, she supposed. But it still griped. \"It wouldn't be permanent. I'm only looking for something to fill in until...\"\n\n\"You move on.\" Fox nodded. \"Works for me. That way, neither of us are stuck. We're just helping each other out for a while.\" He shoveled off two more blades of snow, then stopped just to lean on it with his eyes on hers.\n\n\"Besides, you knew I was going to offer you the job because you pick up that sort of thing.\"\n\n\"Quinn asked Cal to ask you to offer it to me right in front of me.\"\n\n\"You pick up on that sort of thing,\" he repeated. \"That's your part in this, or part of your part. You get a sense of people, of situations.\"\n\n\"I'm not psychic, if that's what you're saying.\" The defensive was back in her tone.\n\n\"You drove to the Hollow, when you'd never been here before. You knew where to go, what roads to take.\"\n\n\"I don't know what that was.\" She crossed her arms, and the move wasn't just defensive, Fox thought. It was stubborn.\n\n\"Sure you do, it just freaks you. You took off with Quinn that first night, went with her, a woman you'd never met.\"\n\n\"She was a sane alternative to a big, evil slug,\" Layla said dryly.\n\n\"You didn't just run, didn't haul ass to your room and lock the door. You got in her car with her, came with her out here\u2014where you'd also never been, and walked into a house with two strange men in it.\"\n\n\"Strange might be the operative word. I was scared, confused, and running on adrenaline.\" She looked away from him, toward where Lump was rolling in the snow as if it were a meadow of daisies. \"I trusted my instincts.\"\n\n\"Instincts is one word for it. I bet when you were working in that clothes shop you had really good instincts about what your customers wanted, what they'd buy. Bet you're damn good at that.\"\n\nHe went back to shoveling when she said nothing. \"Bet you've always been good at that sort of thing. Quinn gets flashes from the past, like Cal. Apparently Cybil gets them of possible future events. I'd say you're stuck with me, Layla, in the now.\"\n\n\"I can't read minds, and I don't want anyone reading mine.\"\n\n\"It's not like that, exactly.\" He was going to have to work with her, he decided. Help her figure out what she had and how to use it. And he was going to have to give her some time and some space to get used to the idea.\n\n\"Anyway, we're probably going to be snowed in here for the weekend. I've got stuff next week, but when we can get back to town, you could come in when it suits you, let Mrs. H show you the ropes. We'll see how you feel about the job then.\"\n\n\"Look, I'm grateful you'd offer\u2014\"\n\n\"No, you're not.\" Now he smiled and tossed another shovel of snow off the deck. \"Not so much. I've got instincts, too.\"\n\nIt wasn't just humor, but understanding. The stiffness went out of her as she kicked at the snow. \"There's gratitude, it's just buried under the annoyance.\"\n\nCocking his head, he held out the shovel. \"Want to dig it out?\"\n\nAnd she laughed. \"Let's try this. If I do come in, and do decide to take the job, it's with the stipulation that if either of us decides it's not working, we just say so. No hard feelings.\"\n\n\"That's a deal.\" He held out a hand, took hers to seal it. Then just held it while the snow swirled around them.\n\nShe had to feel it, he thought, had to feel that immediate and tangible link. That recognition.\n\nCybil cracked the door an inch. \"Breakfast is ready.\"\n\nFox released Layla's hand, turned. He let out a quiet breath before calling the dog home.\n\nPRACTICAL MATTERS HAD TO BE SEEN TO. SNOW needed to be shoveled, firewood hauled and stacked. Dishes had to be washed and food prepared. Cal might have felt like the house, which had always seemed roomy, grew increasingly tight with six people and one dog stuck inside it. But he knew they were safer together.\n\n\"Not just safer.\" Quinn took her turn plying the shovel. She considered digging out a path to Cal's storage shed solid exercise in lieu of a formal workout. \"I think all this is meant. This enforced community. It's giving us time to get used to each other, to learn how to function as a group.\"\n\n\"Here, let me take over there.\" Cal set aside the gas can he'd used to top off the generator.\n\n\"No, see, that's not working as a group. You guys have to learn to trust the females to carry their load. Gage being drafted to make breakfast today is an example of the basics in non-gender-specific teamwork.\"\n\nNon-gender-specific teamwork, he thought. How could he not love a woman who'd use a term like that?\n\n\"We can all cook,\" she went on. \"We can all shovel snow, haul firewood, make beds. We can all do what we have to do\u2014play to our strengths, okay, but so far it's pretty much been like a middle school dance.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"Boys on one side, girls on the other, and nobody quite sure how to get everyone together. Now we are.\" She stopped, rolled her shoulders. \"And we have to figure it out. Even with us, Cal, even with how we feel about each other, we're still figuring each other out, learning how to trust each other.\"\n\n\"If this is about the stone, I understand you might be annoyed I didn't tell you sooner.\"\n\n\"No, I'm really not.\" She shoveled a bit more, but it was mostly for form now. Her arms were killing her. \"I started to be, even wanted to be, but I couldn't stir it up. Because I get that the three of you have been a unit all your lives. I don't imagine you remember a time when you weren't. Added to that you went through together\u2014I don't think it's an exaggeration to say an earth-shattering experience. The three of you are like a...a body with three heads isn't right,\" she said and passed off the shovel.\n\n\"We're not the damn Borg.\"\n\n\"No, but that's closer. You're a fist, tight, even closed off to a certain extent, but\u2014\" She wiggled her gloved fingers. \"Individual. You work together, it's instinctive. And now.\" She held up her other hand. \"This other part comes along. So we're figuring out how to make them mesh.\" She brought her hands together, fingers linked.\n\n\"That actually makes sense.\" And brought on a slight twinge of guilt. \"I've been doing a little digging on my own.\"\n\n\"You don't mean in the snow. And on your own equals you've told Fox and Gage.\"\n\n\"I probably mentioned it. We don't know where Ann Hawkins was for a couple of years, where she gave birth to her sons, where she stayed before she came back to the Hollow\u2014to her parents' house. So I was thinking about extended family. Cousins, aunts, uncles. And figuring a woman that pregnant might not be able to travel very far, not back then. So maybe she'd have been in the general area. Ten, twenty miles in the sixteen hundreds was a hell of a lot farther than ten or twenty miles is today.\"\n\n\"That's a good idea. I should have had it.\"\n\n\"And I should've brought it up before.\"\n\n\"Yeah. Now that you have, you should give it to Cyb, give her whatever information you have. She's the research queen. I'm good, she's better.\"\n\n\"And I'm a rank amateur.\"\n\n\"Nothing rank about you.\" Grinning, she took a leap, bounced up into his arms. The momentum had him skidding. She squealed, as much with laughter as alarm as he tipped backward. He flopped; she landed face-first.\n\nBreathless, she dug in, got two handfuls of snow to mash into his face before she tried to roll away. He caught her at the waist, dragged her back while she screamed with helpless laughter.\n\n\"I'm a champion snow wrestler,\" he warned her. \"You're out of your league, Blondie. So\u2014\"\n\nShe managed to get a hand between his legs for a nice, firm stroke. Then taking advantage of the sudden and dramatic dip of his IQ, shoved a messy ball of snow down the back of his neck.\n\n\"Those moves are against the rules of the SWF.\"\n\n\"Check the book, buddy. This is intergender play.\"\n\nShe tried to scramble up, fell, then whooshed out a breath when his weight pinned her. \"And still champion,\" he announced, and was about to lower his mouth to hers when the door opened.\n\n\"Kids,\" Cybil told them, \"there's a nice warm bed upstairs if you want to play. And FYI? The power just came back on.\" She glanced back over her shoulder. \"Apparently the phones are up, too.\"\n\n\"Phones, electricity. Computer.\" Quinn wiggled out from under Cal. \"I have to check my e-mail.\"\n\nCYBIL LEANED ON THE DRYER AS LAYLA LOADED towels into the washing machine in Cal's laundry room. \"They looked like a couple of horny snow people. Covered, crusted, pink-cheeked, and groping.\"\n\n\"Young love is immune to climatic conditions.\"\n\nCybil chuckled. \"You know, you don't have to take on the laundry detail.\"\n\n\"Clean towels are a memory at this point, and the power may not stay on. Besides, I'd rather be warm and dry in here washing towels than cold and wet out there shoveling snow.\" She tossed back her hair. \"Especially since no one's groping me.\"\n\n\"Good point. But I was bringing that up as, by my calculations, you and Fox are going to have to flip for cooking detail tonight.\"\n\n\"Quinn hasn't cooked yet, or Cal.\"\n\n\"Quinn helped with breakfast. It's Cal's house.\"\n\nDefeated, Layla stared at the machine. \"Hell. I'll take dinner.\"\n\n\"You can dump it on Fox, using laundry detail as leverage.\"\n\n\"No, we don't know if he can cook, and I can.\"\n\nCybil narrowed her eyes. \"You can cook? This hasn't been mentioned before.\"\n\n\"If I'd mentioned it, I'd have had to cook.\"\n\nLips pursed, Cybil nodded slowly. \"Diabolical and self-serving logic. I like it.\"\n\n\"I'll check the supplies, see what I can come up with. Something\u2014\" She broke off, stepped forward. \"Quinn? What is it?\"\n\n\"We have to talk. All of us.\" So pale her eyes looked bruised, Quinn stood in the doorway.\n\n\"Q? Honey.\" Cybil reached out in support. \"What's happened?\" She remembered Quinn's dash to the computer for e-mail. \"Is everyone all right? Your parents?\"\n\n\"Yes. Yes. I want to tell it all at once, to everyone. We need to get everyone.\"\n\nShe sat in the living room with Cybil perched on the arm of her chair for comfort. Quinn wanted to curl up in Cal's lap as she'd done once before. But it seemed wrong.\n\nIt all seemed wrong now.\n\nShe wished the power had stayed off forever. She wished she hadn't contacted her grandmother and prodded her into seeking out family history.\n\nShe didn't want to know what she knew now.\n\nNo going back, she reminded herself. And what she had to say could change everything that was to come.\n\nShe glanced at Cal. She knew she had him worried. It wasn't fair to drag it out. How would he look at her afterward? she wondered.\n\nYank off the bandage, Quinn told herself, and get it over with.\n\n\"My grandmother got the information I'd asked her about. Pages from the family Bible. There were even some records put together by a family historian in the late eighteen hundreds. I, ah, have some information on the Clark branch, Layla, that may help you. No one ever pursued that end very far, but you may be able to track back, or out from what I have now.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\n\"The thing is, it looks like the family was, we'll say, pretty religious about their own tracking back. My grandfather, not so much, but his sister, a couple of cousins, they were more into it. They, apparently, get a lot of play out of the fact their ancestors were among the early Pilgrims who settled in the New World. So there isn't just the Bible, and the pages added to that over time. They've had genealogies done tracing roots back to England and Ireland in the fifteen hundreds. But what applies to us, to this, is the branch that came over here. Here to Hawkins Hollow,\" she said to Cal.\n\nShe braced herself. \"Sebastian Deale brought his wife and three daughters to the settlement here in sixteen fifty-one. His eldest daughter's name was Hester. Hester Deale.\"\n\n\"Hester's Pool,\" Fox murmured. \"She's yours.\"\n\n\"That's right. Hester Deale, who according to town lore denounced Giles Dent as a witch on the night of July seventh, sixteen fifty-two. Who eight months later delivered a daughter, and when that daughter was two weeks old, drowned herself in the pond in Hawkins Wood. There's no father documented, nothing on record. But we know who fathered her child. We know what fathered her child.\"\n\n\"We can't be sure of that.\"\n\n\"We know it, Caleb.\" However much it tore inside her, Quinn knew it. \"We've seen it, you and I. And Layla, Layla experienced it. He raped her. She was barely sixteen. He lured her, he overpowered her\u2014mind and body, and he got her with child. One that carried his blood.\" To keep them still, Quinn gripped her hands together. \"A half-demon child. She couldn't live with it, with what had been done to her, with what she'd brought into the world. So she filled her pockets with stones and went into the water to drown.\"\n\n\"What happened to her daughter?\" Layla asked.\n\n\"She died at twenty, after having two daughters of her own. One of them died before her third birthday, the other went on to marry a man named Duncan Clark. They had three sons and a daughter. Both she, her husband, and her youngest son were killed when their house burned down. The other children escaped.\"\n\n\"Duncan Clark must be where I come in,\" Layla said.\n\n\"And somewhere along the line, one of them hooked up with a gypsy from the Old World,\" Cybil finished. \"Hardly seems fair. They get to descend from a heroic white witch, and we get the demon seed.\"\n\n\"It's not a joke,\" Quinn snapped.\n\n\"No, and it's not a tragedy. It just is.\"\n\n\"Damn it, Cybil, don't you see what this means? That thing out there is my\u2014probably our\u2014great-grandfather times a dozen generations. It means we're carrying some part of that in us.\"\n\n\"And if I start to sprout horns and a tail in the next few weeks, I'm going to be very pissed off.\"\n\n\"Oh, fuck that!\" Quinn pushed up, rounded on her friend. \"Fuck the Cybilese. He raped that girl to get to us, three and a half centuries ago, but what he planted led to this. What if we're not here to stop it, not here to help this end? What if we're here to see that it doesn't stop? To play some part in hurting them?\"\n\n\"If your brain wasn't mushy with love you'd see that's a bullshit theory. Panic reaction with a heavy dose of self-pity to spice it up.\" Cybil's voice was brutally cool. \"We're not under some demon's thumb. We're not going to suddenly jump sides and put on the uniform of some dark entity who tries to kill a dog to get his rocks off. We're exactly who we were five minutes ago, so stop being stupid, and pull yourself together.\"\n\n\"She's right. Not about being stupid,\" Layla qualified. \"But about being who we are. If all this is part of it, then we have to find a way to use it.\"\n\n\"Fine. I'll practice getting my head to do three-sixties.\"\n\n\"Lame,\" Cybil decided. \"You'd do better with the sarcasm, Q, if you weren't so worried Cal's going to dump you because of the big D for demon on your forehead.\"\n\n\"Cut it out,\" Layla commanded, and Cybil only shrugged.\n\n\"If he does,\" Cybil continued equably, \"he's not worth your time anyway.\"\n\nIn the sudden, thundering silence a log fell in the grate and shot sparks.\n\n\"Did you print out the attachment?\" Cal asked.\n\n\"No, I...\" Quinn trailed off, shook her head.\n\n\"Let's go do that now, then we can take a look.\" He rose, put a hand on Quinn's arm, and drew her from the room.\n\n\"Nice job,\" Gage commented to Cybil. Before she could snarl, he angled his head. \"That wasn't sarcasm. It was either literally or verbally give her a slap across the face. Verbally's trickier, but a lot less messy.\"\n\n\"Both are painful.\" Cybil pushed to her feet. \"If he hurts her, I'll twist off his dick and feed it to his dog.\" With that, she stormed out of the room.\n\n\"She's a little scary,\" Fox decided.\n\n\"She's not the only one. I'm the one who'll be roasting his balls for dessert.\" Layla headed out behind Cybil. \"I have to find something to make for dinner.\"\n\n\"Oddly, I don't have much of an appetite right now.\" Fox glanced at Gage. \"How about you?\"\n\nUpstairs, Cal waited until they'd stepped into the office currently serving as the men's dorm. He pushed Quinn's back to the door. The first kiss was hard, with sharp edges of anger. The second frustrated. And the last soft.\n\n\"Whatever's in your head about you and me, because of this, get it out. Now. Understand?\"\n\n\"Cal\u2014\"\n\n\"It's taken me my whole life to say what I said to you this morning. I love you. This doesn't change that. So pitch that out, Quinn, or you're going to piss me off.\"\n\n\"It wasn't\u2014that isn't...\" She closed her eyes as a storm of emotions blew through her. \"All right, that was in there, part of it, but it's all of it, the whole. When I read the file she sent, it just...\"\n\n\"It kicked your feet out from under you. I get that. But you know what? I'm right here to help you up.\" He lifted a hand, made a fist, then opened it.\n\nUnderstanding, she fought back tears. Understanding, she put her palm to his, interlaced fingers.\n\n\"Okay?\"\n\n\"Not okay,\" she corrected. \"Thank God about covers it.\"\n\n\"Let's print it out, see what we've got.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" Steadier, she glanced at the room. The messy, unmade pullout, the piles of clothes. \"Your friends are slobs.\"\n\n\"Yes. Yes, they are.\"\n\nTogether, they picked their way through the mess to the computer.\n\n## Nineteen\n\nIN THE DINING ROOM, QUINN SET COPIES OF THE printouts in front of everyone. There were bowls of popcorn on the table, she noted, a bottle of wine, glasses, and paper towels folded into triangles. Which would all be Cybil's doing, she knew.\n\nJust as she knew Cybil had made the popcorn for her. Not a peace offering; they didn't need peace offerings between them. It was just because.\n\nShe touched a hand to Cybil's shoulder before she took her seat.\n\n\"Apologies for big drama,\" Quinn began.\n\n\"If you think that was drama, you need to come over to my parents' house during one of the family gatherings.\" Fox gave her a smile as he took a handful of popcorn. \"The Barry-O'Dells don't need demon blood to raise hell.\"\n\n\"We'll all accept the demon thing is going to be a running gag from now on.\" Quinn poured a glass of wine. \"I don't know how much all this will tell everyone, but it's more than we had before. It shows a direct line from the other side.\"\n\n\"Are you sure Twisse is the one who raped Hester Deale?\" Gage asked. \"Certain he's the one who knocked her up?\"\n\nQuinn nodded. \"Believe me.\"\n\n\"I experienced it.\" Layla twisted the paper towel in her hands as she spoke. \"It wasn't like the flashes Cal and Quinn get, but...Maybe the blood tie explains it. I don't know. But I know what he did to her. And I know she was a virgin before he\u2014it\u2014raped her.\"\n\nGently, Fox took the pieces of the paper towel she'd torn, gave her his.\n\n\"Okay,\" Gage continued, \"are we sure Twisse is what we're calling the demon for lack of better?\"\n\n\"He never liked that term,\" Cal put in. \"I think we can go affirmative on that.\"\n\n\"So, Twisse uses Hester to sire a child, to extend his line. If he's been around as long as we think\u2014going off some of the stuff Cal's seen and related, it's likely he'd done the same before.\"\n\n\"Right,\" Cybil acknowledged. \"Maybe that's where we get people like Hitler or Osama bin Laden, Jack the Ripper, child abusers, serial killers.\"\n\n\"If you look at the lineage, you'll see there were a lot of suicides and violent deaths, especially in the first hundred, hundred and twenty years after Hester. I think,\" Quinn said slowly, \"if we're able to dig a little deeper on individuals, we might find more than the average family share of murder, insanity.\"\n\n\"Anything that stands out in recent memory?\" Fox asked. \"Major family skeletons?\"\n\n\"Not that I know of. I have the usual share of kooky or annoying relatives, but nobody's been incarcerated or institutionalized.\"\n\n\"It dilutes.\" Fox narrowed his eyes as he paged through the printouts. \"This wasn't his plan, wasn't his strategy. I know strategy. Consider. Twisse doesn't know what Dent's got cooking that night. He's got Hester\u2014got her mind under control, got the demon bun in the oven, but he doesn't know that's going to be it.\"\n\n\"That Dent's ready for him, and has his own plans,\" Layla continued. \"I see where you're going. He thought\u2014planned\u2014to destroy Dent that night, or at least damage him, drive him away.\"\n\n\"Then he gets the town,\" Fox continued, \"uses it up, moves on. Leaves progeny, before he finds the next spot that suits him to do the same.\"\n\n\"Instead Dent takes him down, holds him down until...\" Cal turned over his hand, exposed the thin scar on his wrist. \"Until Dent's progeny let him out. Why would he want that? Why would he allow it?\"\n\n\"Could be Dent figured keeping a demon in a headlock for three centuries was long enough.\" Gage helped himself to popcorn. \"Or that's as long as he could hold him, and he called out some reinforcements.\"\n\n\"Ten-year-old boys,\" Cal said in disgust.\n\n\"Children are more likely to believe, to accept what adults can't. Or won't,\" Cybil added. \"And hell, nobody said any of this was fair. He gave you what he could. Your ability to heal quickly, your insights into what was, is, will be. He gave you the stone, in three parts.\"\n\n\"And time to grow up,\" Layla added. \"Twenty-one years. Maybe he found the way to bring us here. Quinn, Cybil, and me. Because I can't see the logic, the purpose of having me compelled to come here, then trying to scare me away.\"\n\n\"Good point.\" And it loosened something inside Quinn's belly. \"That's a damn good point. Why scare if he could seduce? Really good point.\"\n\n\"I can look deeper into the family tree for you, Q. And I'll see what I can find on Layla's and my own. But that's just busywork at this point. We know the root.\"\n\nCybil turned one of the pages over, used a pencil on the back. She drew two horizontal lines at the bottom. \"Giles Dent and Ann Hawkins here, Lazarus Twisse and the doomed Hester here. Each root sends up a tree, and the trees their branches.\" She drew quickly, simply. \"And at the right point, branches from each tree cross each other. In palmistry the crossing of lines is a sign of power.\"\n\nShe completed the sketch, three branches, crossing three branches. \"So we have to find the power, and use it.\"\n\nTHAT EVENING, LAYLA DID SOMETHING FAIRLY tasty with chicken breasts, stewed tomatoes, and white beans. By mutual agreement they channeled the conversation into other areas. Normal, Quinn thought as it ranged from dissecting recent movies to bad jokes to travel. They all needed a good dose of normal.\n\n\"Gage is the one with itchy feet,\" Cal commented. \"He's been traveling that long, lonesome highway since he hit eighteen.\"\n\n\"It's not always lonesome.\"\n\n\"Cal said you were in Prague.\" Quinn considered. \"I think I'd like to see Prague.\"\n\n\"I thought it was Budapest.\"\n\nGage glanced at Cybil. \"There, too. Prague was the last stop before heading back.\"\n\n\"Is it fabulous?\" Layla wondered. \"The art, the architecture, the food?\"\n\n\"It's got all that. The palace, the river, the opera. I got a taste of it, but mostly I was working. Flew in from Budapest for a poker game.\"\n\n\"You spent your time in\u2014what do they call it\u2014the Paris of Eastern Europe playing poker?\" Quinn demanded.\n\n\"Not all of it, just the lion's share. The game went for just over seventy-three hours.\"\n\n\"Three days, playing poker?\" Cybil's eyebrow winged up. \"Wouldn't that be a little obsessive?\"\n\n\"Depends on where you stand, doesn't it?\"\n\n\"But don't you need to sleep, eat? Pee?\" Layla wondered.\n\n\"Breaks are worked in. The seventy-three hours was actual game time. This was a private game, private home. Serious money, serious security.\"\n\n\"Win or lose?\" Quinn asked him with a grin.\n\n\"I did okay.\"\n\n\"Do you use your precognition to help you do okay?\" Cybil asked.\n\n\"That would be cheating.\"\n\n\"Yes, it would, but that didn't answer the question.\"\n\nHe picked up his wine, kept his eyes on hers. \"If I had to cheat to win at poker, I should be selling insurance. I don't have to cheat.\"\n\n\"We took an oath.\" Fox held up his hands when Gage scowled at him. \"We're in this together now. They should understand how it works for us. We took an oath when we realized we all had something extra. We wouldn't use it against anyone, or to hurt anyone, or, well, to screw anyone. We don't break our word to each other.\"\n\n\"In that case,\" Cybil said to Gage, \"you ought to be playing the ponies instead of cards.\"\n\nHe flashed a grin. \"Been known to, but I like cards. Wanna play?\"\n\n\"Maybe later.\"\n\nWhen Cybil glanced at Quinn with a look of apology, Quinn knew what was coming. \"I guess we should get back to it,\" Cybil began. \"I have a question, a place I'd like to start.\"\n\n\"Let's take fifteen.\" Quinn pushed to her feet. \"Get the table cleared off, take the dog out. Just move a little. Fifteen.\"\n\nCal brushed a hand over her arm as he rose with her. \"I need to check the fire anyway, probably bring in more wood. Let's do this in the living room when we're finished up.\"\n\nTHEY LOOKED LIKE ORDINARY PEOPLE, CAL thought. Just a group of friends hanging out on a winter night. Gage had switched to coffee, and that was usual. Cal hadn't known Gage to indulge in more than a couple drinks at a time since the summer they'd been seventeen. Fox was back on Coke, and he himself had opted for water.\n\nClear heads, he mused. They wanted clear heads if there were questions to be answered.\n\nThey'd gone back to gender groups. Had that been automatic, even intrinsic? he wondered. The three women on the couch, Fox on the floor with Lump. He'd taken a chair, and Gage stood by the fire as if he might just walk out if the topic didn't suit his mood.\n\n\"So.\" Cybil tucked her legs under her, let her dark eyes scan the room. \"I'm wondering what was the first thing, event, instance, the first happening, we'll say, that alerted you something was wrong in town. After your night in the clearing, after you went home.\"\n\n\"Mr. Guthrie and the fork.\" Fox stretched out, propped his head on Lump's belly. \"That was a big clue.\"\n\n\"Sounds like the title of a kid's book.\" Quinn made a note on her pad. \"Why don't you fill us in?\"\n\n\"You take it, Cal,\" Fox suggested.\n\n\"It would've been our birthday\u2014the night, or really the evening of it. We were all pretty spooked. It was worse being separated, each of us in our own place. I talked my mother into letting me go in to the bowling center, so I'd have something to do, and Gage would be there. She couldn't figure out whether to ground me or not,\" he said with a half smile. \"First and last time I remember her being undecided on that kind of issue. So she let me go in with my father. Gage?\"\n\n\"I was working. Mr. Hawkins let me earn some spending money at the center, mopping up spills or carrying grill orders out to tables. I know I felt a hell of a lot better when Cal came in. Then Fox.\"\n\n\"I nagged my parents brainless to let me go in. My father finally caved, took me. I think he wanted to have a confab with Cal's dad, and Gage's if he could.\"\n\n\"So, Brian\u2014Mr. O'Dell\u2014and my dad sat down at the end of the counter, having coffee. They didn't bring Bill, Gage's father, into it at that point.\"\n\n\"Because he didn't know I'd been gone in the first place,\" Gage said. \"No point getting me in trouble until they'd decided what to do.\"\n\n\"Where was your father?\" Cybil asked.\n\n\"Around. Behind the pins. He was having a few sober hours, so Mr. Hawkins had him working on something.\"\n\n\"Ball return, lane two,\" Cal murmured. \"I remember. It seemed like an ordinary summer night. Teenagers, some college types on the pinballs and video games. Grill smoking, pins crashing. There was a kid\u2014two or three years old, I guess\u2014with a family in the four lane. Major tantrum. The mother hauled him outside right before it happened.\"\n\nHe took a swig of water. He could see it, bell clear. \"Mr. Guthrie was at the counter, drinking a beer, eating a dog and fries. He came in once a week. Nice enough guy. Sold flooring, had a couple of kids in high school. Once a week, he came in when his wife went to the movies with girlfriends. It was clockwork. And Mr. Guthrie would order a dog and fries, and get steadily trashed. My dad used to say he did his drinking there because he could tell himself it wasn't real drinking if he wasn't in a bar.\"\n\n\"Troublemaker?\" Quinn asked as she made another note.\n\n\"Anything but. He was what my dad called an affable drunk. He never got mean, or even sloppy. Tuesday nights, Mr. Guthrie came in, got a dog and fries, drank four or five beers, watched some games, talked to whoever was around. Somewhere around eleven, he'd leave a five-dollar tip on the grill and walk home. Far as I know he didn't so much as crack a Bud otherwise. It was a Tuesday night deal.\"\n\n\"He used to buy eggs from us,\" Fox remembered. \"A dozen brown eggs, every Saturday morning. Anyway.\"\n\n\"It was nearly ten, and Mr. Guthrie was having another beer. He was walking by the tables with it,\" Cal said. \"Probably going to take it and stand behind the lanes, watch some of the action. Some guys were having burgers. Frank Dibbs was one of them\u2014held his league's record for high game, coached Little League. We were sitting at the next table, eating pizza. Dad told us to take a break, so we were splitting a pizza. Dibbs said, 'Hey, Guth, the wife wants new vinyl in the kitchen. What kind of deal can you give me?'\n\n\"And Guthrie, he just smiles. One of those tight-lipped smiles that don't show any teeth. He picks up one of the forks sitting on the table. He jammed it into Dibbs's cheek, just stabbed it into his face, and kept walking. People are screaming and running, and, Christ, that fork is just sticking out of Mr. Dibbs's cheek, and blood's sliding down his face. And Mr. Guthrie strolls over behind lane two, and drinks his beer.\"\n\nTo give himself a moment, Cal took a long drink. \"My dad wanted us out. Everything was going crazy, except Guthrie, who apparently was crazy. Your dad took care of Dibbs,\" Cal said to Fox. \"I remember how he kept his head. Dibbs had already yanked the fork out, and your father grabbed this stack of napkins and got the bleeding stopped. There was blood on his hands when he drove us home.\"\n\nCal shook his head. \"Not the point. Fox's dad took us home. Gage came with me\u2014my father took care of that. He didn't get home until it was light out. I heard him come home; my mother had waited for him. I heard him tell her they had Guthrie locked up, and he was just sitting in his cell laughing. Laughing like it was all a big joke. Later, when it was all over, he didn't even remember. Nobody remembered much of what went on that week, or if they did, they put it away. He never came in the center again. They moved away the next winter.\"\n\n\"Was that the only thing that happened that night?\" Cybil asked after a moment.\n\n\"Girl was raped.\" Gage set his empty mug on the mantel. \"Making out with her boyfriend out on Dog Street. He didn't stop when she said stop, didn't stop when she started to cry, to scream. He raped her in the backseat of his secondhand Buick, then shoved her out on the side of the road and drove off. Wrapped his car around a tree a couple hours later. Ended up in the same hospital as she did. Only he didn't make it.\"\n\n\"Family mutt attacked an eight-year-old boy,\" Fox added. \"Middle of that night. The dog had slept with the kid every night for three years. The parents woke up hearing the kid screaming, and when they got to the bedroom, the dog went for them, too. The father had to beat it off with the kid's baseball bat.\"\n\n\"It just got worse from there. That night, the next night.\" Cal took a long breath. \"Then it didn't always wait for night. Not always.\"\n\n\"There's a pattern to it.\" Quinn spoke quietly, then glanced up when Cal's voice cut through her thoughts.\n\n\"Where? Other than ordinary people turn violent or psychotic?\"\n\n\"We saw what happened with Lump. You've just told us about another family pet. There have been other incidents like that. Now you've said the first overt incident all of you witnessed involved a man who'd had several beers. His alcohol level was probably over the legal limit, meaning he was impaired. Mind's not sharp after drinking like that. You're more susceptible.\"\n\n\"So Guthrie was easier to influence or infect because he was drunk or well on the way?\" Fox pushed up to sitting. \"That's good. That makes good sense.\"\n\n\"The boy who raped his girlfriend of three months then drove into a tree hadn't been drinking.\" Gage shook his head. \"Where's that in the pattern?\"\n\n\"Sexual arousal and frustration tend to impair the brain.\" Quinn tapped her pencil on her pad. \"Put those into a teenage boy, and that says susceptible to me.\"\n\n\"It's a valid point.\" Cal shoved his hand through his hair. Why hadn't they seen it themselves? \"The dead crows. There were a couple dozen dead crows all over Main Street the morning of our birthday that year. Some broken windows where they'd repeatedly flown into the glass. We always figured that was part of it. But nobody got hurt.\"\n\n\"Does it always start that way?\" Layla asked. \"Can you pinpoint it?\"\n\n\"The first I remember from the next time was when the Myerses found their neighbor's dog drowned in a backyard swimming pool. There was the woman who left her kid locked in the car and went into the beauty salon, got a manicure and so on. It was in the nineties that day,\" Fox added. \"Somebody heard the kid crying, called the cops. They got the kid out, but when they went in to get the woman, she said she didn't have a baby. Didn't know what they were talking about. It came out she'd been up two nights running because the baby had colic.\"\n\n\"Sleep deprivation.\" Quinn wrote it down.\n\n\"But we knew it was happening again,\" Cal said slowly, \"we knew for sure on the night of our seventeenth when Lisa Hodges walked out of the bar at Main and Battlefield, stripped down naked, and started shooting at passing cars with the twenty-two she had in her purse.\"\n\n\"We were one of the cars,\" Gage added. \"Good thing for all concerned her aim was lousy.\"\n\n\"She caught your shoulder,\" Fox reminded him.\n\n\"She shot you?\"\n\nGage smiled easily at Cybil. \"Grazed me, and we heal fast. We managed to get the gun from her before she shot anyone else, or got hit by a car as she was standing buck naked in the middle of the street. Then she offered us blow jobs. Rumor was she gave a doozy, but we weren't much in the mood to find out.\"\n\n\"All right, from pattern to theory.\" Quinn rose to her feet to work it out. \"The thing we'll call Twisse, because it's better to have a name for it, requires energy. We're all made up of energy, and Twisse needs it to manifest, to work. When he's out, during this time Dent is unable to hold him, he seeks out the easiest sources of energy first. Birds and animals, people who are most vulnerable. As he gets stronger, he's able to move up the chain.\"\n\n\"I don't think the way to stop him is to clear out all the pets,\" Gage began, \"ban alcohol, drugs, and sex and make sure everyone gets a good night's sleep.\"\n\n\"Too bad,\" Cybil tossed back, \"because it might buy us some time. Keep going, Q.\"\n\n\"Next question would be, how does he generate the energy he needs?\"\n\n\"Fear, hate, violence.\" Cal nodded. \"We've got that. We can't cut off his supply because you can't block those emotions out of the population. They exist.\"\n\n\"So do their counterparts, so we can hypothesize that those are weapons or countermeasures against him. You've all gotten stronger over time, and so has he. Maybe he's able to store some of this energy he pulls in during the dormant period.\"\n\n\"And so he's able to start sooner, start stronger the next time. Okay,\" Cal decided. \"Okay, it makes sense.\"\n\n\"He's using some of that store now,\" Layla put in, \"because he doesn't want all six of us to stick this out. He wants to fracture the group before July.\"\n\n\"He must be disappointed.\" Cybil picked up the wine she'd nursed throughout the discussion. \"Knowledge is power and all that, and it's good to have logical theories, more areas to research. But it seems to be we need to move. We need a strategy. Got any, Mr. Strategy?\"\n\nFrom his spot on the floor, Fox grinned. \"Yeah. I say as soon as the snow melts enough for us to get through it, we go to the clearing. We go to the Pagan Stone, all of us together. And we double-dog dare the son of a bitch.\"\n\nIT SOUNDED GOOD IN THEORY. IT WAS A DIFFERENT matter, in Cal's mind, when you added the human factor. When you added Quinn. He'd taken her there once before, and he'd zoned out, leaving her alone and vulnerable.\n\nAnd he hadn't loved her then.\n\nHe knew there was no choice, that there were bigger stakes involved. But the idea of putting her at risk, at deliberately putting her at the center of it with him, kept him awake and restless.\n\nHe wandered the house, checking locks, staring out windows for any glimpse of the thing that stalked them. The moon was out, and the snow tinted blue under it. They'd be able to shovel their way out the next day, he thought, dig out the cars. Get back to what passed for normal within a day or two.\n\nHe already knew if he asked her to stay, just stay, she'd tell him she couldn't leave Layla and Cybil on their own. He already knew he'd have to let her go.\n\nHe couldn't protect her every hour of every day, and if he tried, they'd end up smothering each other.\n\nAs he moved through the living room, he saw the glow of the kitchen lights. He headed back to turn them off and check locks. And there was Gage, sitting at the counter playing solitaire with a mug of coffee steaming beside the discard pile.\n\n\"A guy who drinks black coffee at one a.m. is going to be awake all night.\"\n\n\"It never keeps me up.\" Gage flipped a card, made his play. \"When I want to sleep, I sleep. You know that. What's your excuse?\"\n\n\"I'm thinking it's going to be a long, hard, messy hike into the woods even if we wait a month. Which we probably should.\"\n\n\"No. Red six on black seven. You're trying to come up with a way to go in without Quinn. Without any of them, really, but especially the blonde.\"\n\n\"I told you how it was when we went in before.\"\n\n\"And she walked out again on her own two sexy legs. Jack of clubs on queen of diamonds. I'm not worried about her. I'm worried about you.\"\n\nCal's back went up. \"Is there a time I didn't handle myself?\"\n\n\"Not up until now. But you've got it bad, Hawkins. You've got it bad for the blonde, and being you, your first and last instinct is going to be to cover her ass if anything goes down.\"\n\n\"Shouldn't it be?\" He didn't want any damn coffee, but since he doubted he'd sleep anyway, he poured some. \"Why wouldn't it be?\"\n\n\"I'd lay money that your blonde can handle herself. Doesn't mean you're wrong, Cal. I imagine if I had a woman inside me the way she's inside you, I wouldn't want to put how she handled herself to the test. The trouble is, you're going to have to.\"\n\n\"I never wanted to feel this way,\" Cal said after a moment. \"This is a good part of the reason why. We're good together, Gage.\"\n\n\"I can see that for myself. Don't know what she sees in a loser like you, but it's working for her.\"\n\n\"We could get better. I can feel we'd just get better, make something real and solid. If we had the chance, if we had the time, we'd make something together.\"\n\nCasually, Gage gathered up the cards, shuffled them with a blur of speed. \"You think we're going down this time.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" Cal looked out the window at the cold, blue moonlight. \"I think we're going down. Don't you?\"\n\n\"Odds are.\" Gage dealt them both a hand of blackjack. \"But hell, who wants to live forever?\"\n\n\"That's the problem. Now that I've found Quinn, forever sounds pretty damn good.\" Cal glanced at his hole card, noted the king to go with his three. \"Hit me.\"\n\nWith a grin, Gage flipped over a nine. \"Sucker.\"\n\n## Twenty\n\nCAL HOPED FOR A WEEK, TWO IF HE COULD MANAGE it. And got three days. Nature screwed his plans again, this time shooting temperatures up into the fifties. Mountains of snow melted into hills while the February thaw brought the fun of flash flooding, swollen creeks, and black ice when the thermometer dropped to freezing each night.\n\nBut three days after he'd had his lane plowed and the women were back in the house on High Street, the weather stabilized. Creeks ran high, but the ground sucked up most of the runoff. And he was coming up short on excuses to put off the hike to the Pagan Stone.\n\nAt his desk, with Lump contentedly sprawled on his back in the doorway, feet in the air, Cal put his mind into work. The winter leagues were winding up, and the spring groups would go into gear shortly. He knew he was on the edge of convincing his father the center would profit from the automatic scoring systems, and wanted to give it one more solid push. If they moved on it soon, they could have the systems up and running for the spring leagues.\n\nThey'd want to advertise, run a few specials. They'd have to train the staff, which meant training themselves.\n\nHe brought up the spreadsheet for February, noted that the month so far had been solid, even up a bit from last year. He'd use that as more ammunition. Which, of course, his father could and would counter that if they were up the way things were, why change it?\n\nAs he was holding the conversation in his head, Cal heard the click that meant a new e-mail had come in. He toggled over, saw Quinn's address.\n\nHi, Love of My Life,\n\nI didn't want to call in case you were knee-deep in whatever requires you to be knee-deep. Let me know when you're not.\n\nMeanwhile, this is Black's Local Weather Service reporting: Temperatures today should reach a high of forty-eight under partly sunny skies. Lows in the upper thirties. No precipitation is expected. Tomorrow's forecast is for sunny with a high of fifty.\n\nAdding the visual, I can see widening patches of grass in both the front and backyard. Realistically, there's probably more snow, more mud in the woods, but, baby, it's time to saddle up and move out.\n\nMy team can be ready bright and early tomorrow and will bring suitable provisions.\n\nAlso, Cyb's confirmed the Clark branch connection, and is currently climbing out on some Kinski limbs to verify that. She thinks she may have a line on a couple of possibilities where Ann Hawkins stayed, or at least where she might have gone to give birth. I'll fill you in when I see you.\n\nLet me know, soon as you can, if tomorrow works.\n\nXXOO Quinn.\n\n(I know that whole XXOO thing is dopey, but it seemed more refined than signing off with: I wish you could come over and do me. Even though I do.)\n\nThe last part made him smile even though the text of the post had a headache sneaking up the back of his skull.\n\nHe could put her off a day or two, and put her off honestly. He couldn't expect Fox to dump his scheduled clients or any court appearances at the snap of a finger, and she'd understand that. But if he were to use that, and his own schedule, he had to do it straight.\n\nWith some annoyance, he shot an e-mail to Fox, asking when he could clear time for the trip to the clearing. The annoyance increased when Fox answered back immediately.\n\nFri's good. Morning's clear, can clear full day if nec.\n\n\"Well, fuck.\" Cal pushed on the ache at the back of his head. Since e-mail wasn't bringing him any luck, he'd go see Quinn in person when he broke for lunch.\n\nAS CAL PREPARED TO CLOSE OUT FOR THE MORNING, Bill Turner stopped in the office doorway.\n\n\"Ah, got that toilet fixed in the ladies' room downstairs, and the leak in the freezer was just a hose needed replacing.\"\n\n\"Thanks, Bill.\" He swung his coat on as he spoke. \"I've got a couple of things to do in town. Shouldn't be above an hour.\"\n\n\"Okay, then. I was wondering if, ah...\" Bill rubbed a hand over his chin, let it drop. \"I was wondering if you think Gage'll be coming in, maybe the next day or two. Or if maybe I could, maybe I could run over to your place to have a word with him.\"\n\nRock and a hard place, Cal thought, and bought himself some time by adjusting his jacket. \"I don't know if he's thinking about dropping by, Bill. He hasn't mentioned it. I think...Okay, look, I'd give him some time. I'd just give it some time before you made that first move. I know you want\u2014\"\n\n\"It's okay. That's okay. Appreciate it.\"\n\n\"Shit,\" Cal said under his breath as Bill walked away. Then, \"Shit, shit, shit,\" as he headed out himself.\n\nHe had to take Gage's side in this, how could he not? He'd seen firsthand what Bill's belt had done to Gage when they'd been kids. And yet, he'd also witnessed, firsthand, the dozens of ways Bill had turned himself around in the last few years.\n\nAnd, hadn't he just seen the pain, guilt, even the grief on Bill's face just now? So either way he went, Cal knew he was going to feel guilty and annoyed.\n\nHe walked straight out and over to Quinn's.\n\nShe pulled open the door, yanked him in. Before he could say a word her arms were locked around his neck and her mouth was very busy on his. \"I was hoping that was you.\"\n\n\"Good thing it was, because Greg, the UPS guy on this route, might get the wrong idea if you greeted him that way.\"\n\n\"He is kind of cute. Come on back to the kitchen. I'd just come down to do a coffee run. We're all working on various projects upstairs. Did you get my e-mail?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"So, we're all set for tomorrow?\" She glanced back as she reached up for the coffee.\n\n\"No, tomorrow's no good. Fox can't clear his slate until Friday.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" Her lips moved into a pout, quickly gone. \"Okay then, Friday it is. Meanwhile we'll keep reading, researching, working. Cyb thinks she's got a couple of good possibilities on...What?\" she asked when she got a good look at his face. \"What's going on?\"\n\n\"Okay.\" He took a couple paces away, then back. \"Okay, I'm just going to say it. I don't want you going back in there. Just be quiet a minute, will you?\" he said when he saw the retort forming. \"I wish there was a way I could stop you from going, that there was a way I could ignore the fact that we all need to go. I know you're a part of this, and I know you have to go back to the Pagan Stone. I know there's going to be more you have to be a part of than I'd wish otherwise. But I can wish you weren't part of this, Quinn, and that you were somewhere safe until this is over. I can want that, just as I know I can't have what I want.\n\n\"If you want to be pissed off about that, you'll have to be pissed off.\"\n\nShe waited a beat. \"Have you had lunch?\"\n\n\"No. What does that have to do with anything?\"\n\n\"I'm going to make you a sandwich\u2014an offer I never make lightly.\"\n\n\"Why are you making it now?\"\n\n\"Because I love you. Take off your coat. I love that you'd say all that to me,\" she began as she opened the refrigerator for fixings. \"That you'd need to let me know how you felt about it. Now if you'd tried ordering me to stay out of it, if you'd lied or tried to do some sort of end-run around me, I'd feel different. I'd still love you, because that sort of thing sticks with me, but I'd be mad, and more, I'd be disappointed in you. As it is, Cal, I'm finding myself pretty damn pleased and a hell of a lot smug that my head and heart worked so well together and picked the perfect guy. The perfect guy for me.\"\n\nShe cut the sandwich into two tidy triangles, offered it. \"Do you want coffee or milk?\"\n\n\"You don't have milk, you have white water. Coffee'd be fine, thanks.\" He took a bite of the turkey and Swiss with alfalfa on whole wheat. \"Pretty good sandwich.\"\n\n\"Don't get used to the service.\" She glanced over as she poured out coffee. \"We should get an early start on Friday, don't you think? Like dawn?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" He touched her cheek with his free hand. \"We'll head in at first light.\"\n\nSINCE HE'D HAD GOOD LUCK WITH QUINN, AND gotten lunch out of it, Cal decided he was going to speak his mind to Gage next. The minute he and Lump stepped into the house, he smelled food. And when they wandered back, Cal found Gage in the kitchen, taking a pull off a beer as he stirred something in a pot.\n\n\"You made food.\"\n\n\"Chili. I was hungry. Fox called. He tells me we're taking the ladies for a hike Friday.\"\n\n\"Yeah. First light.\"\n\n\"Should be interesting.\"\n\n\"Has to be done.\" Cal dumped out food for Lump before getting a beer of his own. And so, he thought, did this have to be done. \"I need to talk to you about your father.\"\n\nCal saw Gage close off. Like a switch flipped, a finger snapped, his face simply blanked out. \"He works for you; that's your business. I've got nothing to say.\"\n\n\"You've got every right to shut him out. I'm not saying different. I'm letting you know he asks about you. He wants to see you. Look, he's been sober five years now, and if he'd been sober fifty it wouldn't change the way he treated you. But this is a small town, Gage, and you can't dodge him forever. My sense is he's got things to say to you, and you may want to get it done, put it behind you. That's it.\"\n\nThere was a reason Gage made his living at poker. It showed now in a face, a voice, completely devoid of expression. \"My sense is you should take yourself out of the middle. I haven't asked you to stand there.\"\n\nCal held up a hand for peace. \"Fine.\"\n\n\"Sounds like the old man's stuck on Steps Eight and Nine with me. He can't make amends on this, Cal. I don't give a damn about his amends.\"\n\n\"Okay. I'm not trying to convince you otherwise. Just letting you know.\"\n\n\"Now I know.\"\n\nIT OCCURRED TO CAL WHEN HE STOOD AT THE window on Friday morning, watching the headlights cut through the dim predawn, that it had been almost a month exactly since Quinn had first driven up to his house.\n\nHow could so much have happened? How could so much have changed in such a short time?\n\nIt had been slightly less than that month since he'd led her into the woods the first time. When he'd led her to the Pagan Stone.\n\nIn those short weeks of the shortest month he'd learned it wasn't only himself and his two blood brothers who were destined to face this threat. There were three women now, equally involved.\n\nAnd he was completely in love with one of them.\n\nHe stood just as he was to watch her climb out of Fox's truck. Her bright hair spilled out from under the dark watch cap. She wore a bold red jacket and scarred hiking boots. He could see the laugh on her face as she said something to Cybil, and her breath whisked out in clouds in the early morning chill.\n\nShe knew enough to be afraid, he understood that. But she refused to allow fear to dictate her moves. He hoped he could say the same as he had more to risk now. He had her.\n\nHe stood watch until he heard Fox use his key to unlock the front door, then Cal went down to join them, and to gather his things for the day.\n\nFog smoked the ground that the cold had hardened like stone overnight. By midday, Cal knew the path would be sloppy again, but for now it was quick and easy going.\n\nThere were still pockets and lumpy hills of snow, and he identified the hoofprints of the deer that roamed the woods, to Layla's delight. If any of them were nervous, they hid it well, at least on this first leg of the hike.\n\nIt was so different from that long-ago day in July when he and Fox and Gage had made this trip. No boom box pumping out rap or heavy metal, no snacks of Little Debbies, no innocent, youthful excitement of a stolen day, and the night to come.\n\nNone of them had ever been so innocent again.\n\nHe caught himself lifting a hand to his face, where his glasses used to slide down the bridge of his nose.\n\n\"How you doing, Captain?\" Quinn stepped up to match her pace to his, gave him a light arm bump.\n\n\"Okay. I was just thinking about that day. Everything hot and green, Fox hauling that stupid boom box. My mother's lemonade, snack cakes.\"\n\n\"Sweat rolling,\" Fox continued from just behind him.\n\n\"We're coming up on Hester's Pool,\" Gage said, breaking the memory.\n\nThe water made Cal think of quicksand rather than the cool and forbidden pool he and his friends had leaped into so long ago. He could imagine going in now, being sucked in, deeper and deeper until he never saw light again.\n\nThey stopped as they had before, but now it was coffee instead of lemonade.\n\n\"There's been deer here, too.\" Layla pointed at the ground. \"Those are deer prints, right?\"\n\n\"Some deer,\" Fox confirmed. \"Raccoon.\" He took her arm to turn her, pointed to the prints on the ground.\n\n\"Raccoons?\" Grinning, she bent to take a closer look. \"What else might be in here?\"\n\n\"Some of my namesakes, wild turkey, now and then\u2014though mostly north of here\u2014you might see bear.\"\n\nShe straightened quickly. \"Bear.\"\n\n\"Mostly north,\" he repeated, but found it as good an excuse as any to take her hand.\n\nCybil crouched by the edge of the pool, stared at the water.\n\n\"A little cold to think about taking a dip,\" Gage told her.\n\n\"Hester drowned herself here.\" She glanced up, then looked over at Cal. \"And when you went in that day, you saw her.\"\n\n\"Yeah. Yeah, I saw her.\"\n\n\"And you and Quinn have both seen her in your heads. Layla's dreamed of her, vividly. So...maybe I can get something.\"\n\n\"I thought yours was precog, not the past,\" Cal began.\n\n\"It is, but I still get vibes from people, from places that are strong enough to send them out. How about you?\" She looked back at Gage. \"We might stir up more in tandem. Are you up for that?\"\n\nSaying nothing, he held out a hand. She took it, rose to her feet. Together, they stared at that still, brown surface.\n\nThe water began to beat and froth. It began to spin, to spew up white-tipped waves. It roared like a sea mating with a wild and vicious storm.\n\nAnd a hand shot out to claw at the ground.\n\nHester pulled herself out of that churning water\u2014bone white skin, a mass of wet, tangled hair, dark, glassy eyes. The effort, or her madness, peeled her lips back from her teeth.\n\nCybil heard herself scream as Hester Deale's arms opened, as they locked around her and dragged her toward that swirling brown pool.\n\n\"Cyb! Cyb! Cybil!\"\n\nShe came back struggling, and found herself locked not in Hester's arms, but Gage's. \"What the hell was that?\"\n\n\"You were going in.\"\n\nShe stayed where she was, feeling her heart hammer against his as Quinn gripped her shoulder. Cybil took another look at the still surface of the pool. \"That would've been really unpleasant.\"\n\nShe was trembling, one hard jolt after the next, but Gage had to give her points for keeping her voice even.\n\n\"Did you get anything?\" she asked him.\n\n\"Water kicked up; she came up. You started to tip.\"\n\n\"She grabbed me. She...embraced me. That's what I think, but I wasn't focused enough to feel or sense what she felt. Maybe if we tried it again\u2014\"\n\n\"We've got to get moving now,\" Cal interrupted.\n\n\"It only took a minute.\"\n\n\"Try nearly fifteen,\" Fox corrected.\n\n\"But...\" Cybil eased back from Gage when she realized she was still in his arms. \"Did it seem that long to you?\"\n\n\"No. It was immediate.\"\n\n\"It wasn't.\" Layla held out another thermos lid of coffee. \"We were arguing about whether we should pull you back, and how we should if we did. Quinn said to leave you be for another few minutes, that sometimes it took you a while to warm up.\"\n\n\"Well, it felt like a minute, no more than, for the whole deal. And it didn't feel like something from before.\" Again, Cybil looked at Gage.\n\n\"No, it didn't. So if I were you, I wouldn't think about taking a dip anytime soon.\"\n\n\"I prefer a nice blue pool, with a swim-up bar.\"\n\n\"Bikini margaritas.\" Quinn rubbed her hand up and down Cybil's arm.\n\n\"Spring break, two thousand.\" Cybil caught Quinn's hand, squeezed. \"I'm fine, Q.\"\n\n\"I'll buy the first round of those margaritas when this is done. Ready to move on?\" Cal asked.\n\nHe hitched up his pack, turned. Then shook his head. \"This isn't right.\"\n\n\"We're leaving the haunted pool to walk through the demonic woods.\" Quinn worked up a smile. \"What could be wrong?\"\n\n\"That's not the path.\" He gestured toward the thawing track. \"That's not the direction.\" He squinted up at the sun as he pulled his old Boy Scout compass out of his pocket.\n\n\"Ever thought about upgrading to a GPS?\" Gage asked him.\n\n\"This does the job. See, we need to head west from here. That trail's leading north. That trail shouldn't even be there.\"\n\n\"It's not there.\" Fox's eyes narrowed, darkened. \"There's no trail, just underbrush, a thicket of wild blackberries. It's not real.\" He shifted, angled himself. \"It's that way.\" He gestured west. \"It's hard to see, it's like looking through mud, but...\"\n\nLayla stepped forward, took his hand.\n\n\"Okay, yeah. That's better.\"\n\n\"You're pointing at a really big-ass tree,\" Cybil told him.\n\n\"That isn't there.\" Still holding Layla's hand, Fox walked forward. The image of the large oak broke apart as he walked through it.\n\n\"Nice trick.\" Quinn let out a breath. \"So, Twisse doesn't want us to go to the clearing. I'll take point.\"\n\n\"I'll take point.\" Cal took her arm to tug her behind him. \"I've got the compass.\" He had only to glance back at his friends to have them falling in line. Fox taking center, Gage the rear with the women between.\n\nAs soon as the track widened enough to allow it, Quinn moved up beside Cal. \"This is the way it has to work.\" She glanced back to see the other women had followed her lead, and now walked abreast with their partners. \"We're linked up this way, Cal. Two-by-two, trios, the group of six. Whatever the reasons are, that's the way it is.\"\n\n\"We're walking into something. I can't see what it is, but I'm walking you and the others right into it.\"\n\n\"We're all on our own two feet, Cal.\" She passed him the bottle of water she carried in her coat pocket. \"I don't know if I love you because you're Mr. Responsibility or in spite of it.\"\n\n\"As long as you do. And since you do, maybe we should think about the idea of getting married.\"\n\n\"I like the idea,\" she said after a moment. \"If you want my thoughts on it.\"\n\n\"I do.\" Stupid, he thought, stupid way to propose, and a ridiculous place for it, too. Then again, when they couldn't be sure what was around the bend, it made sense to grab what you did now, tight and quick. \"As it happens, I agree with you. More thoughts on the idea would be that my mother, especially, will want the splash\u2014big deal, big party, bells and whistles.\"\n\n\"I happen to agree with that, too. How is she with communication by phone and\/or e-mail?\"\n\n\"She's all about that.\"\n\n\"Great. I'll hook her up with my mother and they can go for it. How's your September schedule?\"\n\n\"September?\"\n\nShe studied the winter woods, watched a squirrel scamper up a tree and across a thick branch. \"I bet the Hollow's beautiful in September. Still green, but with just a hint of the color to come.\"\n\n\"I was thinking sooner. Like April, or May.\" Before, Cal thought. Before July, and what might be the end of everything he knew and loved.\n\n\"It takes a while to organize those bells and whistles.\" When she looked at him he understood she read him clearly. \"After, Cal, after we've won. One more thing to celebrate. When we're\u2014\"\n\nShe broke off when he touched a finger to her lips.\n\nThe sound came clearly now as all movement and conversation stopped. The wet and throaty snarl rolled across the air, and shot cold down the spine. Lump curled down on his haunches and whined.\n\n\"He hears it, too, this time.\" Cal shifted, and though the movement was slight, it put Quinn between him and Fox.\n\n\"I don't guess we could be lucky, and that's just a bear.\" Layla cleared her throat. \"Either way, I think we should keep moving. Whatever it is doesn't want us to, so...\"\n\n\"We're here to flip it the bird,\" Fox finished.\n\n\"Come on, Lump, come on with me.\"\n\nThe dog shivered at Cal's command, but rose, and with its side pressed to Cal's legs, walked down the trail toward the Pagan Stone.\n\nThe wolf\u2014Cal would never have referred to the thing as a dog\u2014stood at the mouth of the clearing. It was huge and black, with eyes that were somehow human. Lump tried a halfhearted snarl in answer to the low, warning growl, then cowered against Cal.\n\n\"Are we going to walk through that, too?\" Gage asked from the rear.\n\n\"It's not like the false trail.\" Fox shook his head. \"It's not real, but it's there.\"\n\n\"Okay.\" Gage started to pull off his pack.\n\nAnd the thing leaped.\n\nIt seemed to fly, Cal thought, a mass of muscle and teeth. He fisted his hands to defend, but there was nothing to fight.\n\n\"I felt...\" Slowly, Quinn lowered the arms she'd thrown up to protect her face.\n\n\"Yeah. Not just the cold, not that time.\" Cal gripped her arm to keep her close. \"There was weight, just for a second, and there was substance.\"\n\n\"We never had that before, not even during the Seven.\" Fox scanned the woods on both sides. \"Whatever form Twisse took, whatever we saw, it wasn't really there. It's always been mind games.\"\n\n\"If it can solidify, it can hurt us directly,\" Layla pointed out.\n\n\"And be hurt.\" From behind her Gage pulled a 9mm Glock out of his pack.\n\n\"Good thinking,\" was Cybil's cool opinion.\n\n\"Jesus Christ, Gage, where the hell did you get that?\"\n\nGage lifted his eyebrows at Fox. \"Guy I know down in D.C. Are we going to stand here in a huddle, or are we going in?\"\n\n\"Don't point that at anybody,\" Fox demanded.\n\n\"Safety's on.\"\n\n\"That's what they always say before they accidentally blow a hole in the best friend.\"\n\nThey stepped into the clearing, and the stone.\n\n\"My God, it's beautiful.\" Cybil breathed the words reverently as she moved toward it. \"It can't possibly be a natural formation, it's too perfect. It's designed, and for worship, I'd think. And it's warm. Feel it. The stone's warm.\" She circled it. \"Anyone with any sensitivity has to feel, has to know this is sacred ground.\"\n\n\"Sacred to who?\" Gage countered. \"Because what came up out of here twenty-one years ago wasn't all bright and friendly.\"\n\n\"It wasn't all dark either. We felt both.\" Cal looked at Fox. \"We saw both.\"\n\n\"Yeah. It's just the big, black scary mass got most of our attention while we were being blasted off our feet.\"\n\n\"But the other gave us most of his, that's what I think. I walked out of here not only without a scratch, but with twenty-twenty vision and a hell of an immune system.\"\n\n\"The scratches on my arms had healed up, and the bruises from my most recent tussle with Napper.\" Fox shrugged. \"Never been sick a day since.\"\n\n\"How about you?\" Cybil asked Gage. \"Any miraculous healing?\"\n\n\"None of us had a mark on him after the blast,\" Cal began.\n\n\"It's no deal, Cal. No secrets from the team. My old man used his belt on me the night before we were heading in here. A habit of his when he'd get a drunk on. I was carrying the welts when I came in, but not when I walked out.\"\n\n\"I see.\" Cybil held Gage's eyes for several beats. \"The fact that you were given protection, and your specific abilities, enabled you to defend your ground, so to speak. Otherwise, you'd have been three helpless little boys.\"\n\n\"It's clean.\" Layla's comment had everyone turning to where she stood by the stone. \"That's what comes to my mind. I don't think it was ever used for sacrifice. Not blood and death, not for the dark. It feels clean.\"\n\n\"I've seen the blood on it,\" Gage said. \"I've seen it burn. I've heard the screams.\"\n\n\"That's not its purpose. Maybe that's what Twisse wants.\" Quinn laid her palm on the stone. \"To defile it, to twist its power. If he can, well, he'll own it, won't he? Cal?\"\n\n\"Okay.\" His hand hovered over hers. \"Ready?\" At her nod, he joined his hand to hers on the stone.\n\nAt first there was only her, only Quinn. Only the courage in her eyes. Then the world tumbled back, five years, twenty, so that he saw the boy he'd been with his friends, scoring his knife over their wrists to bind them together. Then rushing back, decades, centuries, to the blaze and the screams while the stone stood cool and white in the midst of hell.\n\nBack to another waning winter where Giles Dent stood with Ann Hawkins as he stood with Quinn now. Dent's words came from his lips.\n\n\"We have only until summer. This I cannot change, even for you. Duty outstrips even my love for you, and for the lives we have made.\" He touched a hand to her belly. \"I wish, above all, that I could be with you when they come into the world.\"\n\n\"Let me stay. Beloved.\"\n\n\"I am the guardian. You are the hope. I cannot destroy the beast, only chain it for a time. Still, I do not leave you. It is not death, but an endless struggle, a war only I can wage. Until what comes from us makes the end. They will have all I can give, this I swear to you. If they are victorious in their time, I will be with you again.\"\n\n\"What will I tell them of their father?\"\n\n\"That he loved their mother, and them, with the whole of his heart.\"\n\n\"Giles, it has a man's form. A man can bleed, a man can die.\"\n\n\"It is not a man, and it is not in my power to destroy it. That will be for those who come after us both. It, too, will make its own. Not through love. They will not be what it intends. It cannot own them if they are beyond its reach, even its ken. This is for me to do. I am not the first, Ann, only the last. What comes from us is the future.\"\n\nShe pressed a hand to her side. \"They quicken,\" she whispered. \"When, Giles, when will it end? All the lives we have lived before, all the joy and the pain we have known? When will there be peace for us?\"\n\n\"Be my heart.\" He lifted her hands to his lips. \"I will be your courage. And we will find each other once more.\"\n\nTears slid down Quinn's cheeks even as she felt the images fade. \"We're all they have. If we don't find the way, they're lost to each other. I felt her heart breaking inside me.\"\n\n\"He believed in what he'd done, what he had to do. He believed in us, though he couldn't see it clearly. I don't think he could see us, all of us,\" Cal said as he looked around. \"Not clearly. He took it on faith.\"\n\n\"Fine for him.\" Gage shifted his weight. \"But I put a little more of mine in this Glock.\"\n\nIt wasn't the wolf, but the boy that stood on the edge of the clearing. Grinning, grinning. He lifted his hands, showed fingernails that were sharpened to claws.\n\nThe sun dimmed from midday to twilight; the air from cool to frigid. And thunder rumbled in the late winter sky.\n\nIn a lightning move so unexpected Cal couldn't prevent it, Lump sprang. The thing who masked as a boy squealed with laughter, shinnied up a tree like a monkey.\n\nBut Cal had seen it, in a flash of an instant. He'd seen the shock, and what might have been fear.\n\n\"Shoot it,\" Cal shouted to Gage, even as he dashed forward to grab Lump's collar. \"Shoot the son of a bitch.\"\n\n\"Jesus, you don't actually think a bullet's going to\u2014\"\n\nOver Fox's objection, Gage fired. Without hesitation, he aimed for the boy's heart.\n\nThe bullet cracked the air, struck the tree. This time no one could miss the look of shock on the boy's face. His howl of pain and fury gushed across the clearing and shook the ground.\n\nWith ruthless purpose, Gage emptied the clip into it.\n\nIt changed. It grew. It twisted itself into something massive and black and sinuous that rose over Cal as he stood his ground, fighting to hold back his dog, who strained and barked like a mad thing.\n\nThe stench of it, the cold of it hammered down on him like stones. \"We're still here,\" Cal shouted. \"This is our place, and you can go to hell.\"\n\nHe staggered against a blast of sound and slapping air.\n\n\"Better reload, Deadeye,\" Cybil commanded.\n\n\"Knew I should've bought a howitzer.\" But Gage slapped in a full clip.\n\n\"This isn't your place,\" Cal shouted again. The wind threatened to knock him off his feet, seemed to tear at his clothes and his skin like a thousand knives. Through the scream of it, he heard the crack of gunfire, and the rage it spewed out clamped on his throat like claws.\n\nThen Quinn braced against his side. And Fox shouldered in at his other. They formed a line, all six.\n\n\"This,\" Cal called out, \"is ours. Our place and our time. You couldn't have my dog, and you can't have my town.\"\n\n\"So fuck off,\" Fox suggested, and bending picked up a rock. He hurled it, a straightaway fast ball.\n\n\"Hello, got a gun here.\"\n\nFox's grin at Gage was wild and wide as the feral wind battered them. \"Throwing rocks is an insult. It'll undermine its confidence.\"\n\nDie here!\n\nIt wasn't a voice, but a tidal wave of sound and wind that knocked them to the ground, scattered them like bowling pins.\n\n\"Undermine, my ass.\" Gage shoved to his knees and began firing again.\n\n\"You'll die here.\" Cal spoke coolly as the others took Fox's tack and began to hurl stones and sticks.\n\nFire swept across the clearing, its flames like shards of ice. Smoke belched up in fetid clouds as it roared its outrage.\n\n\"You'll die here,\" Cal repeated. Pulling his knife from its sheath, he rushed foward to plunge it into the boiling black mass.\n\nIt screamed. He thought it screamed, thought the sound held something of pain as well as fury. The shock of power sang up his arm, stabbed through him like a blade, twin edges of scorching heat and impossible cold. It flung him away, sent him flying through the smoke like a pebble from a sling. Breathless, bones jarred from the fall, Cal scrambled to his feet.\n\n\"You'll die here!\" This time he shouted it as he gripped the knife, as he charged forward.\n\nThe thing that was a wolf, a boy, a man, a demon looked at him with eyes of hate.\n\nAnd vanished.\n\n\"But not today.\" The fire died, the smoke cleared as he bent over to suck in air. \"Anybody hurt? Is everybody okay? Quinn. Hey, Lump, hey.\" He nearly toppled backward when Lump leaped up, paws on shoulders to lap his face.\n\n\"Your nose is bleeding.\" Scurrying over on her hands and knees, Quinn gripped his arm to pull herself to her feet. \"Cal.\" Her hands rushed over his face, his body. \"Oh God, Cal. I've never seen anything so brave, or so goddamn stupid.\"\n\n\"Yeah, well.\" In a defiant move, he swiped at the blood. \"It pissed me off. If that was its best shot, it fell way short.\"\n\n\"It didn't dish out anything a really big drink and a long hot bath won't cure,\" Cybil decided. \"Layla? Okay?\"\n\n\"Okay.\" Face fierce, Layla brushed at her stinging cheeks. \"Okay.\" She took Fox's outstretched hand and got to her feet. \"We scared it. We scared it, and it ran away.\"\n\n\"Even better. We hurt it.\" Quinn took a couple shuddering breaths, then much as Lump had, leaped at Cal. \"We're all right. We're all okay. You were amazing. You were beyond belief. Oh God, God, give me a really big kiss.\"\n\nAs she laughed and wept, he took her mouth. He held her close, understanding that of all the answers they needed, for him she was the first.\n\nThey weren't going down this time, he realized.\n\n\"We're going to win this.\" He drew her away so he could look into her eyes. His were calm, steady, and clear. \"I never believed it before, not really. But I do now. I know it now. Quinn.\" He pressed his lips to her forehead. \"We're going to win this, and we're getting married in September.\"\n\n\"Damn straight.\"\n\nWhen she wrapped around him again, it was victory enough for now. It was enough to stand on until the next time. And the next time, he determined, they'd be better armed.\n\n\"Let's go home. It's a long walk back, and we've got a hell of a lot to do.\"\n\nShe held on another moment, held tight while he looked over her head into the eyes of his brothers. Gage nodded, then shoved the gun back in his pack. Swinging it on, he crossed the clearing to the path beyond.\n\nThe sun bloomed overhead, and the wind died. They walked out of the clearing, through the winter woods, three men, three women, and a dog.\n\nOn its ground the Pagan Stone stood silent, waiting for their return.\n\n##\n\nHawkins Hollow \nJune 1994\n\nON A BRIGHT SUMMER MORNING, A TEACUP poodle drowned in the Bestlers' backyard swimming pool. At first, Lynne Bestler, who'd gone out to sneak in a solitary swim before her kids woke, thought it was a dead squirrel. Which would've been bad enough. But when she steeled herself to scoop out the tangle of fur with the net, she recognized her neighbor's beloved Marcell.\n\nSquirrels generally didn't wear rhinestone collars.\n\nHer shouts, and the splash as Lynne tossed the hapless dog, net and all, back into the pool, brought Lynne's husband rushing out in his boxers. Their mother's sobs and their father's curses as he jumped in to grab the pole and tow the body to the side, woke the Bestler twins, who stood screaming in their matching My Little Pony nightgowns. Within moments, the backyard hysteria had neighbors hurrying to fences just as Bestler dragged himself and his burden out of the water. As, like many men, Bestler had developed an attachment to ancient underwear, the weight of the water was too much for the worn elastic.\n\nSo Bestler came out of his pool with a dead dog, and no boxers.\n\nThe bright summer morning in the little town of Hawkins Hollow began with shock, grief, farce, and drama.\n\nFox learned of Marcell's untimely death minutes after he stepped into Ma's Pantry to pick up a sixteen-ounce bottle of Coke and a couple of Slim Jims.\n\nHe'd copped a quick break from working with his father on a kitchen remodel down Main Street. Mrs. Larson wanted new countertops, cabinet doors, new floors, new paint. She called it freshening things up, and Fox called it a way to earn enough money to take Allyson Brendon out for pizza and the movies on Saturday night. He hoped to use that gateway to talk her into the backseat of his ancient VW Bug.\n\nHe didn't mind working with his dad. He hoped to hell he wouldn't spend the rest of his life swinging a hammer or running a power saw, but he didn't mind it. His father's company was always easy, and the job got Fox out of gardening and animal duty on their little farm. It also provided easy access to Cokes and Slim Jims\u2014two items which would never, never be found in the O'Dell-Barry household.\n\nHis mother ruled there.\n\nSo he heard about the dog from Susan Keefaffer, who rang up his purchases while a few people with nothing better to do on a June afternoon sat at the counter over coffee and gossip.\n\nHe didn't know Marcell, but Fox had a soft spot for animals, so he suffered a twist of grief for the unfortunate poodle. That was leavened somewhat by the idea of Mr. Bestler, whom he did know, standing \"naked as a jaybird,\" in Susan Keefaffer's words, beside his backyard pool.\n\nWhile it made Fox sad to imagine some poor dog drowning in a swimming pool, he didn't connect it\u2014not then\u2014to the nightmare he and his two closest friends had lived through seven years before.\n\nHe'd had a dream the night before, a dream of blood and fire, of voices chanting in a language he didn't understand. But then he'd watched a double feature of videos\u2014The Night of the Living Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre\u2014with his friends Cal and Gage.\n\nHe didn't connect a dead French poodle with the dream, or with what had burned through Hawkins Hollow for a week after his tenth birthday. After the night he and Cal and Gage had spent at the Pagan Stone in Hawkins Wood\u2014and everything had changed for them, and for the Hollow.\n\nIn a few weeks he and Cal and Gage would all turn seventeen\u2014and that was on his mind. Baltimore had a damn good chance at a pennant this year, so that was on his mind. He'd be going back to high school as a senior, which meant top of the food chain at last, and planning for college.\n\nWhat occupied a sixteen-year-old boy was considerably different than what occupied a ten-year-old. Including rounding third and heading for home with Allyson Brendon.\n\nSo when he walked back down the street, a lean boy not quite beyond the gangly stage of adolescence, his dense brown hair tied back in a stubby tail, golden brown eyes shaded with Oakleys, it was, for him, just another ordinary day.\n\nThe town looked as it always did. Tidy, a little old-timey, with the old stone townhouses or shops, the painted porches, the high curbs. He glanced back over his shoulder toward the Bowl-a-Rama on the square. It was the biggest building in town, and where Cal and Gage were both working.\n\nWhen he and his father knocked off for the day, he thought, he'd head on up, see what was happening.\n\nHe crossed over to the Larson place, walked into the unlocked house where Bonnie Raitt's smooth Delta blues slid smoothly out of the kitchen. His father sang along with her in his clear and easy voice as he checked the level on the shelves Mrs. Larson wanted in her utility closet. Though the windows and back door were open to their screens, the room smelled of sawdust, sweat, and the glue they'd used that morning to lay the new Formica.\n\nHis father worked in old Levi's and his Give Peace a Chance T-shirt. His hair was six inches longer than Fox's, worn in a tail under a blue bandanna. He'd shaved off the beard and mustache he'd had as long as Fox remembered. Fox still wasn't quite used to seeing so much of his father's face\u2014or so much of himself in it.\n\n\"A dog drowned in the Bestlers' swimming pool over on Laurel Lane,\" Fox told him, and Brian stopped working to turn.\n\n\"That's a damn shame. Anybody know how it happened?\"\n\n\"Not really. It was one of those little poodles, so think it must've fallen in, then it couldn't get out again.\"\n\n\"You'd think somebody would've heard it barking. That's a lousy way to go.\" Brian set down his tools, smiled at his boy. \"Gimme one of those Slim Jims.\"\n\n\"What Slim Jims?\"\n\n\"The ones you've got in your back pocket. You're not carrying a bag, and you weren't gone long enough to scarf down Hostess Pies or Twinkies. I'm betting you're packing the Jims. I get one, and your mom never has to know we ate chemicals and meat by-products. It's called blackmail, kid of mine.\"\n\nFox snorted, pulled them out. He'd bought two for just this purpose. Father and son unwrapped, bit off, chewed in perfect harmony. \"The counter looks good, Dad.\"\n\n\"Yeah, it does.\" Brian ran a hand over the smooth, eggshell surface. \"Mrs. Larson's not much for color, but it's good work. I don't know who I'm going to get to be my lapdog when you head off to college.\"\n\n\"Ridge is next in line,\" Fox said, thinking of his younger brother. \"Ridge wouldn't keep measurements in his head for two minutes running, and he'd probably cut off a finger dreaming while he was using a band saw. No.\" Brian smiled, shrugged. \"This kind of work isn't for Ridge, or for you, for that matter. Or either of your sisters. I guess I'm going to have to rent a kid to get one who wants to work with wood.\"\n\n\"I never said I didn't want to.\" Not out loud.\n\nHis father looked at him the way he sometimes did, as if he saw more than what was there. \"You've got a good eye, you've got good hands. You'll be handy around your own house once you get one. But you won't be strapping on a tool belt to make a living. Until you figure out just what it is you want, you can haul these scraps on out to the Dumpster.\"\n\n\"Sure.\" Fox gathered up scraps, trash, began to cart them out the back, across the narrow yard to the Dumpster the Larsons had rented for the duration of the remodel.\n\nHe glanced toward the adjoining yard and the sound of kids playing. And the armload he carried thumped and bounced on the ground as his body went numb.\n\nThe little boys played with trucks and shovels and pails in a bright blue sandbox. But it wasn't filled with sand. Blood covered their bare arms as they pushed their Tonka trucks through the muck inside the box. He stumbled back as the boys made engine sounds, as red lapped over the bright blue sides and dripped onto the green grass.\n\nOn the fence between the yards, where hydrangeas headed up toward bloom, crouched a boy that wasn't a boy. He bared its teeth in a grin as Fox backed toward the house.\n\n\"Dad! Dad!\"\n\nThe tone, the breathless fear had Brian rushing outside. \"What? What is it?\"\n\n\"Don't you\u2014can't you see?\" But even as he said it, as he pointed, something inside Fox knew. It wasn't real.\n\n\"What?\" Firmly now, Brian took his son's shoulders. \"What do you see?\"\n\nThe boy that wasn't a boy danced along the top of the chain-link fence while flames spurted up below and burned the hydrangeas to cinders.\n\n\"I have to go. I have to go see Cal and Gage. Right now, Dad. I have to\u2014\"\n\n\"Go.\" Brian released his hold on Fox, stepped back. He didn't question. \"Go.\"\n\nHe all but flew through the house and out again, up the sidewalk to the square. The town no longer looked as it usubeen that horrible week in July seven years before.\n\nFire and blood, he remembered, thinking of the dream. He burst into the Bowl-a-Rama, where the summer afternoon leagues were in full swing. The thunder of balls, the crash of pins pounded in his head as he ran straight to the front desk where Cal worked.\n\n\"Where's Gage?\" Fox demanded.\n\n\"Jesus, what's up with you?\"\n\n\"Where's Gage?\" Fox repeated, and Cal's amused gray eyes sobered. \"Working the arcade. He's...he's coming out now.\"\n\nAt Cal's quick signal, Gage sauntered over. \"Hello, ladies. What...\" The smirk died after one look at Fox's face. \"What happened?\"\n\n\"It's back,\" Fox said. \"It's come back.\"\n\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022\n\n[For a complete list of this author's books click here or visit \nwww.penguin.com\/robertschecklist](http:\/\/www.penguin.com\/robertschecklist?CMP=CKL-ROBERTS)\n\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}} +{"text":" \n## Red November\n\nInside the Secret U.S.-Soviet Submarine War\n\n## W. Craig Reed\n\nThis book is dedicated to my father, Lieutenant William J. Reed, Retired, who helped devise and deploy the top-secret Boresight program, and to the underwater sailors and civilians who sacrificed so much. The following pages are a tribute to the commitment, courage, and constant vigilance of those who sacrificed so much to ensure that our world did not end by way of fire and fallout.\n\n## Contents\n\nIntroduction\n\nAuthor's Note\n\nChapter One\n\nWITH ORDERS TO CONDUCT A TOP-SECRET espionage mission, the USS...\n\nChapter Two\n\nIN THE FALL OF 1953, DR. Donald Ross, an underwater engineer...\n\nChapter Three\n\nHAVING WORKED HIS WAY UP FROM a seaman to a...\n\nChapter Four\n\nWHEN MY DAD, WILLIAM J. REED, reported to NSG headquarters at...\n\nChapter Five\n\nDURING THE MONTH OF AUGUST 1962, while a small window...\n\nChapter Six\n\nHIS ARM CHAINED TO A BRIEFCASE, William J. Reed counted the...\n\nChapter Seven\n\nON SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21, ABOARD THE USS Oxford off the...\n\nChapter Eight\n\nON THE MORNING OF OCTOBER 23, when Communications Technician John...\n\nChapter Nine\n\nEARLY IN THE EVENING OF OCTOBER 25, in a lab...\n\nPhotographic Insert 1\n\nChapter Ten\n\nHIS FACE RED WITH ANGER, JOHN Scali of ABC News...\n\nChapter Eleven\n\nTHE EARLY SIXTIES USHERED IN THE next evolution in underwater...\n\nChapter Twelve\n\nON DECEMBER 29, 1964, THE U.S. Navy made a huge...\n\nChapter Thirteen\n\nTHE SOVIETS FINALLY GAVE UP THE search for their lost...\n\nChapter Fourteen\n\nMANY OF THE DETAILS SURROUNDING PROJECT Azorian became public knowledge...\n\nChapter Fifteen\n\nWHEN THE SOVIETDELTA-CLASS SUBMARINE ENTERED stage right in December 1972,...\n\nChapter Sixteen\n\nBY LATE 1975, SOME AMERICANS HATED sailors. They also hated...\n\nPhotographic Insert 2\n\nChapter Seventeen\n\nHAVING REPLACED THE HALIBUT AS THE cable-taping spy boat, the...\n\nChapter Eighteen\n\nWHEN THE FIRST ULTRA-QUIET SOVIET NUCLEAR-POWERED hunter\/killer attack submarine, code-named...\n\nChapter Nineteen\n\nTHEY SAY YOUR LIFE PASSES BEFORE your eyes just before...\n\nChapter Twenty\n\nAFTER OUR FATEFUL COLLISION WITH THE Victor III, while nursing...\n\nChapter Twenty-One\n\nON THE MORNING OF JANUARY 15, 1980, the forty-four-year-old Ronald...\n\nEpilogue\n\nALMOST 200 SUBMARINERS, SPOOKS, AND NAVY divers were interviewed for...\n\nNotes\n\nSearchable Terms\n\nAcknowledgments\n\nAbout the Author\n\nOther Books by W. Craig Reed\n\nCredits\n\nCopyright\n\nAbout the Publisher\n\n## INTRODUCTION\n\nIn war time, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.\n\n\u2014WINSTON CHURCHILL\n\nIN MARCH 2009, BEYOND THE FROSTED windows of an arthritic building in downtown Saint Petersburg, Russia, a callous wind forced its will upon millions of helpless snowflakes. Inside the hotel ballroom, hundreds of Russians ignored the weather as they laughed, danced, hugged, and drank. Vodka flowed. Music blared and platters of food beckoned. I stood at my table as a husky man with playful eyes and Santa cheeks approached. He beamed and introduced himself as Sergei. He said he once served as the commander of a Soviet submarine and told me that NATO code-named his class of boat the \"Victor III.\" He asked if I recognized this name. I smiled and said that my submarine, the USS Drum, had once come too close to such a boat near Vladivostok.\n\nEyes wide, Sergei took two steps backward. \"K-324?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said. \"K-324.\"\n\nSergei reached his stubby arms around my shoulders and gave me a bear hug. In my ear he said, \"You should be dead.\"\n\nI nodded and said nothing.\n\nSergei pointed at a shiny pin on my lapel.\n\n\"U.S. Navy diver,\" I said.\n\nHis eyes lit up again as he tapped a similar emblem on his Russian Navy uniform. He unhooked his pin and attached it to my shirt. I did the same for him. Sergei then grabbed two glasses and filled each with a shot of vodka.\n\nHe handed one to me and in broken English quoted an old Russian proverb, \"After a storm there is fair weather, after sorrow there is joy.\"\n\nI clicked my glass against his and downed the burning liquid. Before me, and all around me, were former enemies. Submariners who once pointed the barrels of their guns at my head, fingers poised and aims steady. Now, with the passage of time, at an annual Russian event that honors submariners, we laughed and joked about our escapades from decades past.\n\nIn Russia, submariners are revered and respected, as their profession is considered dangerous, their sacrifice worthy of praise. For this select group of volunteers, camaraderie runs as deep as their vessels. None care about nationalities, creeds, or skin color. That night, dozens of former submariners treated me as a brother among brothers. Even though we were strangers whose governments once fought as enemies, we greeted one another with firm handshakes, warm hugs, and broad smiles. I felt honored and humbled.\n\nAfter dinner, a small group of submariners walked to the dance floor. Side by side they raised their glasses and voices as they sang a Russian submariner's song. Though I didn't understand the words, I felt the meaning touch the deepest part of my soul. More and more submariners joined the throng as the voices reached a crescendo. Tears filled my eyes. Words can never do justice to the feelings that overcame me when I stood alongside my brothers and toasted all submariners, especially those lost at sea who now serve \"on eternal patrol.\"\n\nAs I left the event, I wondered if those who consider themselves enemies today could do as we had done that night. Lay down their swords and find a common bond. I realized that until that day, there could be no fair winds, and many in the world were destined to remain captured by the storms of sorrow.\n\nIf one believes the Mayans, the world will end in the year 2012. Whether by global warming, menacing asteroids, or bioterrorism, we are always on the brink of annihilation. Skeptics voice their doubts, but for those of us who served during the forty-six-year Cold War, such fears are not without merit, for never did we come closer to nuclear self-destruction than in October 1962 and again in May 1968. Conflicts involving U.S. and Soviet submarines were common factors in both.\n\nNo discernible fanfare marked the final moments of a war that cost taxpayers $8 trillion and the lives of more than 100,000 Americans\u2014almost 87,000 of those in the conflicts with Korea and Vietnam. There were no ticker tape parades, no blowing horns, and no mothers waving flags when the Cold War finally ended. The U.S. Senate voted against the Cold War Medal Act of 2007, which would have awarded official recognition to thousands of veterans who fought secret battles around the world. Now they must remain unsung heroes.\n\nSome carried M-16s and trudged through rice paddies. Others listened with breathless anticipation to the secrets revealed in foreign tongues captured from cable taps 700 feet deep. Still others prayed to the gods of their faith as depth charges shattered the ocean and enemy torpedoes threatened to turn their vessels into twisted metal coffins. My father and I were among these few, and this history and personal narrative are long overdue.\n\nMost submariners, Navy SEALs, divers, and \"spook\" intelligence operators, sworn to secrecy, are to this day reluctant to discuss their secret Cold War operations. Many, especially those who worked in compartments outside operational areas or did not have a \"need to know,\" were unaware of the details surrounding the missions they undertook. A few, like me, recall every second of the more eventful assignments. For the first time ever, these veterans have come forward to tell their stories, perhaps to release the secrets held captive in their minds for decades by official mandate.\n\nIn 1998 Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew's Blind Man's Bluff captured public attention by revealing many of the details about these clandestine and dangerous submarine missions. Most of us submariners agree that this book delivered an informative, interesting, and reasonably accurate accounting of Cold War espionage operations. However, few submariners or operators gave the authors information about their involvement in top-secret Holystone and Ivy Bells programs. Furthermore, none discussed two other top-priority submarine projects code-named Boresight and Bulls Eye. Red November is the first book to take readers deep inside all four of these programs and reveal firsthand details about the harrowing events that veterans have been reluctant to discuss.\n\nWhile I acknowledge that some submariners, cryptanalysts, and government operatives argue that \"insider\" details about these missions, which many historians believe were instrumental in ending the Cold War, should remain untold, I believe that history is robbed by this posture. What if the world never knew about the Manhattan Project? What if governments never revealed undisclosed details about the Cuban Missile Crisis? What if these once top-secret historical events remained labeled classified forever? National security demands secrecy, but at some point technological advances and world events make this stance obsolete. Many of us who served frontline in the underwater Cold War signed gag orders to maintain our silence for decades. Our duty to one another also held our tongues until the passage of time could ensure we would not violate our oaths as submariners. Now, for many of us, our days of silent running are over.\n\n## AUTHOR'S NOTE\n\nNAMES USED, INCLUDING THOSE FOR PERSONS, boats, and ships, as well as dates, titles, event details, and geographic locations noted herein, are, for the most part, accurate. A few exceptions occur where memories are incomplete or national security concerns take precedence. No individuals depicted are composite portraits or fictionalized, but some dialogue and details have been reconstructed or paraphrased and time frames compressed.\n\n## CHAPTER ONE\n\nRed sky at night, sailors delight. \nRed sky in morning, sailors take warning.\n\n\u2014OLD SAILING PROVERB\n\nWITH ORDERS TO CONDUCT A TOP-SECRET espionage mission, the USS Blenny (SS-324) sped toward danger on the last day of April 1952. A bright sun warmed the black deck of the World War II\u2013vintage submarine as she cruised past a dozen colorful sailboats off the coast of San Diego. A cold wave crashed across the bow of the boat and dotted Lieutenant Junior Grade Paul Trejo's lips with the taste of salt. Still a freshman to the fraternity of underwater warriors, Trejo stood on the bridge and admired the beauty of his diesel-powered sub as she cantered across the water with the smooth gate of a stallion. In the white churn of her wake, dolphins played, and when guided beneath the waves, she became a silent assassin worthy of respect.\n\nLess than two miles from the submarine base at Ballast Point, the diving alarm sounded. Trejo slid down the ladder past the conning tower\u2014the tiny space just above the control room, then descended one more deck into the control room. There, assuming the duties of diving officer, he joined a half-dozen sailors on watch and stared at the indicator lights on the \"Christmas tree\" panel. When the horizontal bars changed from red to green, verifying closure of all hull openings, he held up an open hand and called out an order: \"Bleed air.\"\n\nA petty officer nodded and spun open a valve to bleed high-pressure air into the boat. The needle on a manometer twitched and then inched up a few millimeters. Trejo closed his hand, and the petty officer shut the valve. Both men focused on the pressure indicator. A half minute later, satisfied that no air leaked from the boat through an unwanted hole, Trejo closed his hand. \"Green board, pressure in the boat,\" he said.\n\nCommander James S. Bryant called down from the conning tower, \"Diving Officer, make your depth six-zero feet.\"\n\nTrejo repeated the order to the bow planesman seated at the front of the control room. As the chief of the watch blew air from the Blenny's ballast tanks to submerge the diesel-driven craft beneath the waves, Trejo visualized a plume of seawater shooting skyward toward a blue dawn. The boat submerged and made a turn toward paradise.\n\nAfter a short stop in Hawaii, the Blenny departed for Japan on Monday, May 13, crossed the 180th meridian\u2014the domain of the Golden Dragon\u2014and arrived in Yokosuka eleven days later at 0800 on May 24, 1952. Bound for enemy waters, the Blenny sailed away from Yokosuka on May 29. Commander Bryant gathered his officers in the wardroom as excited banter and cigarette smoke filled the air. The skipper's blue eyes and movie star persona reminded Trejo of Cary Grant. Bryant's forehead wrinkled as he pointed at their assigned station on a map spread across the wardroom table. The officers' talk faded to silence.\n\nThe Soviet city of Vladivostok had a population of almost a half million Russians in the early fifties. Nestled near the Strait of Korea to the south and Petropavlovsk Naval Base to the north, \"Vlad\" served as a staging area for an extensive segment of the Red Bear's Eastern Fleet, including ballistic missile submarines. The Korean War was in full swing, and the Soviets were shipping weapons to the North Koreans, so the commander, United States Naval Forces, Far East (COMNAVFE), ordered U.S. attack submarines to patrol the La P\u00e9rouse Strait near Vlad to gather as much intelligence as possible. Reconnaissance patrols in this area occurred between early March and late October, as too much ice encircled the seaport throughout the long winter months.\n\nTrejo recalled that the USS Besugo (SS-321) had attempted a patrol in the strait in December 1950, but dire weather conditions made reconnaissance all but impossible. U.S. subs now patrolled only during the warm window when the Russians sent ships to Korea and other countries and bombarded Vlad with incoming cargo vessels\u2014or \"megaton squirrels,\" as they called them\u2014delivering \"acorns\" to the Soviet Northern Pacific Fleet.\n\nAmerican boats were ordered to observe and photograph the pay-loads of these vessels during peak traffic times to find out what the enemy might be building, planning, or thinking. Such missions, thought Trejo, were akin to flying a passenger plane unnoticed into Chicago's recently renamed O'Hare International Airport on Christmas Eve.\n\nThe more aggressive sub drivers\u2014the skippers of these diesel-powered \"smoke boats\"\u2014in search of intelligence rewards, often snuck past Soviet warships and tiptoed to within a mile of Vlad's coastline. While most of the world claimed a three-mile coastal sovereignty, the Soviets insisted on twelve. Either way, Trejo knew that a U.S. boat caught in the act of spying near Vlad faced but two choices: escape or die.\n\nThe Blenny arrived in her operating area on the second day of June after a four-day jaunt from Japan. She snorkeled throughout the night, and then near dawn, Commander Bryant maneuvered the boat closer to the harbor. In the cramped conning tower, now silent and rigged for battle stations, Trejo's temples pulsed. The stale air smelled of fear. Wiping away a bead of sweat, sitting on a bench in front of the torpedo data computer, he stared at the blinking lights on a panel not more than an arm's reach away. As the assistant TDC operator, and part of the fire control tracking party, his job entailed helping track\u2014and potentially prosecute\u2014enemy targets. The electromechanical TDC fed target tracking information into an attached torpedo programming system, which Trejo monitored with eagle eyes. The term fire control related to the firing of weapons, not the traditional snuffing of fires. If an unsunk target retaliated, however, then fire control could very well take on its literal meaning.\n\nThe conning tower sat just above the control room and served as the boat's nerve center. This small area normally held seven to ten men, including a sonarman, a radar operator, the TDC operator plus an assistant, the skipper, a helmsman, and a navigator stationed at the back near the navigation plot. After countless drills, the team hummed in unison like the pistons in a well-tuned engine.\n\nCommander Bryant stepped toward the periscope well. \"Up scope number one,\" he said.\n\nThe oil-covered mast slid upward with a hydraulic hiss. Commander Bryant slapped the handles on the attack periscope horizontal. Seawater dripped onto the deck, and Trejo watched the skipper plant the right side of his face against the rubber eyepiece. \"Mast, funnel mast, clipper bow, king posts, transom stern, down scope.\"\n\nHydraulics whispered again as the mast slid downward. In his head, Trejo translated his skipper's jargon: the observed contact was a clipper-bowed cargo ship with two masts, a king post, and a transom-style stern.\n\n\"The big light is on,\" Bryant said, scratching at the stubble on his chin.\n\nTrejo knew that his skipper referred to a bright searchlight on the southern tip of Sakhalin on Nishi-notoro. When the Soviets lit up the dawn with that light, they illuminated a surge in shipping traffic in the strait. They also unknowingly helped the Blenny capture some photographic intelligence\u2014or PHOTINT\u2014since everything navy needed a truncated moniker.\n\nBryant issued another order. \"Ready the camera.\"\n\nChief Radioman Donald Byham, holding a thirty-five-millimeter Canon camera, stepped toward the periscope. Trejo imagined a handful of skinny Coke-bottle-glassed nerds back at the Naval Security Group headquarters in Fort George G. Meade, Mary land, poring over each photo graph taken by the Blenny with a magnifying glass to see what the Red Bear might be up to this month. Thousands of snapshots of Soviet vessels delivered by dozens of U.S. submarines probably lay scattered across the desks of high-ranking officials at NSG. Were cargo ships delivering a new type of missile that could hit the White House from the other side of the Atlantic or parts for a new class of submarine that could run circles around U.S. boats? Were Soviet warships just conducting an exercise or preparing for a full-scale nuclear war? The navy needed to know, so much so that hundreds of lives were considered expendable in the search for that knowledge.\n\n\"Ready with the eyes?\" Bryant asked, his arms dangling over the periscope handles.\n\n\"Good to go, Cap'n,\" Chief Byham said as he moved closer to the periscope.\n\nThe Blenny came with two periscopes\u2014the number one scope, with a small diameter of less than two inches, and the four-inch-wide number two scope. The former was the wiser choice when stalking prey at close range, as the smaller diameter lowered the risk of detection. The larger scope served as the best PHOTINT platform, as the mast contained better optics.\n\nThe advanced optics in the number two scope were better but not perfect, so Chief Byham's \"eyes\" served as backup. The medium-build chief had worked as a talented commercial artist in civilian life and possessed uncanny drawing skills. Recalled to active duty at the outset of the Korean War, he also came equipped with a photographic memory. After a few short glances at a target through the periscope, he could recreate the images he saw as detailed hand sketches within minutes. God gave the human eye far greater acuity than a camera lens, so Byham could see subtle details hidden in the shadows that the Canon could not detect. These Byham drawings became part of the intelligence stash delivered to NSG for review. Chief Byham never got a dime for his artwork, but he did receive a letter of commendation.\n\n\"Up scope number two,\" Bryant said. \"Raise the ESM mast.\"\n\nElectronic surveillance measures, thought Trejo. Along with visual information, the NSG wanted recordings and measurements of wavelengths, frequencies, and pulse repetition rates emanating from enemy radar signals. They called it SIGINT. The ESM mast captured this type of data for subsequent perusal by the NSG. An alarm in the conning tower beeped when the ESM mast detected that Soviet radar might be \"painting\" one of Blenny's masts. Too many beeps equated to \"caught,\" which also meant they were screwed.\n\nAs the masts sped toward the surface, Bryant ordered a steady depth and buoyancy trim, as an inch too shallow could spell disaster.\n\nBeep!\n\nThe hair on Trejo's neck bristled. The radar detection system in the ESM mast just got a hit from a nearby warship.\n\nBeep! Beep!\n\nTwo more hits.\n\n\"Camera,\" Bryant said, stepping back from the scope. \"Make it fast.\"\n\nChief Byham snapped the Canon onto the periscope's eyepiece and moved away. Commander Bryant hurried back to the scope, peered through the camera lens, and clicked off several shots. He spun the scope a few degrees and clicked off a couple more.\n\n\"Pull the camera,\" the skipper said, again stepping away.\n\nChief Byham removed the Canon.\n\n\"Eyes, you're up,\" Bryant said.\n\nChief Byham gave a quick nod and seated his face against the scope's eyepiece.\n\nBeep! Beep! Beep!\n\n\"Five seconds,\" Bryant said.\n\nTrejo glanced at his watch. Five seconds felt like fifty.\n\n\"I'm done,\" Chief Byham said.\n\n\"Down scope.\"\n\nThe sonarman, seated just aft of the periscope, turned his torso toward the captain. \"Active pings in the water!\"\n\nTrejo's heart stopped. A Soviet warship must have gotten a good hit on the scope with a radar beam. The bad guys just caught Blenny spying, so they were compelled to pummel the ocean with active sonar. Depth charges and torpedoes might be next.\n\nThrough the open hatch, Bryant called down to the control room. \"Diving officer, twenty degree down bubble, make your depth 300 feet!\"\n\nThe diving officer echoed the command as the boat now angled toward the bottom. At 300 feet, Bryant glanced at the bathythermograph. The BT, fed by a small device installed on the boat's hull, displayed pressure and temperature related to depth. As colder water layers tend to reflect sonar beams upward, the skipper wanted to stay under one. To ensure accurate and timely readings, the boat dove to test depth every morning, then inched back toward the surface, all the while taking temperature and density readings to feed the BT and find the layers. Today, the best acoustic thermal layer started at 400 feet. Bryant called down to control and issued a new order. \"Diving Officer, take us down to 450 feet.\"\n\nTrejo's heart started again and raced to full throttle. Even though the Blenny's newer \"thick skin\" design made her a deeper diving boat than her \"thin skin\" predecessors, her test depth topped out at 412 feet. Too much beyond that could result in the proverbial crushed beer can effect.\n\nThe boat groaned as she descended beyond 300 feet and the ocean's grip tightened.\n\n350.\n\n375.\n\n412.\n\nSteady at 450 feet.\n\nTrejo could now hear Soviet fifty-hertz sonar pings through the hull. He moved his eyes upward, as if he could see more than just pipes and cables. The pings grew louder. The boat crawled along at three knots, her twin screws generating no more noise than a slow-speed fan. Trejo held his breath and prayed that Soviet sonar beams would not penetrate through the acoustic layer.\n\nThen the explosions started.\n\nFaint at first, they grew louder until the boat shook with each clap. Trejo hoped the Soviets were using warning depth charges, which were \"light\" versions of the subkilling kind, but he did not know for sure.\n\nClick, whang! Another explosion.\n\nThe flooding alarm sounded, and men ran to damage-control stations. Leo Chaffin, the Blenny's executive officer, darted out of the control room. Part of his duties included leading the damage control team. Minutes later he made a call to the skipper over a sound-powered phone. Bryant uttered a few words, nodded a couple times, then hung up the phone.\n\nFacing the team in the conning tower, Bryant said, \"The XO reports that we have a leak around the sound dome shaft in the forward torpedo room. He's sealed off the area from the forward battery and is pressurizing to thirty psi, but it won't be enough. We've got to take her deeper until they get the leak fixed.\"\n\nBryant leaned over and called down to the control room. \"Diving Officer, make your depth 500 feet.\"\n\nThe diving officer's voice cracked as he confirmed the order.\n\nThe boat moaned in defiance to the added pressure. Trejo's mouth went dry. He understood the strategy but didn't like it. More depth equals more pressure, and more pressure makes things smaller, like pipes and shafts. This can sometimes make leaks easier to fix. Sometimes. Still, 500 feet could be 88 feet deeper than dead.\n\nSeawater leaked from a half-dozen pipes in the overhead as the boat descended, showering men in the conning tower. Sonar pings bounced off the Blenny's thick skin, followed by the staccato clap of more depth charges. The volume of both increased as the Soviets continued to close.\n\nA dozen long minutes passed before the sound-powered phone rang in the conning tower. Commander Bryant answered, listened, nodded, and hung up. Again he addressed the tracking party: \"XO says the leak is fixed. Skelly just earned your respect and a navy commendation.\" Bryant bent down and called through the lower hatch, \"Diving Officer, make your depth 450 feet.\"\n\nThe diving officer echoed the order, and Trejo let his shoulders relax. He later learned that Auxiliaryman First Class Skelly, being a skinny kid, volunteered to wiggle his way into the well, head down, to make repairs. Using two main engine semicircle bearing shells fitted together, he wrapped them around the shaft packing to stop the leak. Hell of a jury rig, but it worked.\n\nAfter twelve hours of hiding under a thermal layer, with pings and depth charge smacks filling the ocean around the Blenny, Trejo's lungs ached. His chest tightened as he struggled to pull in a breath. Carbon dioxide, the Achilles' heel of diesel submarines and the odorless killer of sailors. The most any smoke boat could stay underwater running on batteries before the air became stale and sailors risked CO2 poisoning was three to four days. They were then forced to come shallow and run the diesel engines to push out the old air and pull in the new.\n\nTrejo looked around the control room. Other men, bent over and coughing, also struggled to find enough oxygen to survive. Trejo glanced at his watch. The second hand ticked away, counting down the last few hours of his life. If the Soviets held the Blenny down on the bottom much longer, he'd spend the rest of eternity in a cylinder twelve feet longer than a football field.\n\nHis eyes blurry and his head dizzy, Trejo wondered what it might be like to serve on a boat that could stay down for months at a time versus only a few days. Although the world's first nuclear-powered submarine had not yet put to sea, the Department of the Navy announced on December 12, 1951, that her name would be the USS Nautilus. Within hours after hearing the news, Trejo joined his fellow crewmates in denigrating Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, the \"father\" of the nuclear submarine navy, by chanting the mantra \"Diesel boats forever!\" Now, with his body growing weak from lack of air, he promised God that he would never again malign Rickover or nuke-driven subs.\n\nAn hour later, with a third of the crew incapacitated by CO2 poisoning, the sonar operator announced that the Soviet pings and explosions were finally subsiding. Bryant ordered all ahead two thirds and a thirty-degree turn toward freedom. The boat sprinted away and surfaced an hour later. Hatches opened, and the diesel engines pulled fresh air into the boat. Trejo took in a deep breath and smiled. He was still alive, at least until their next SpecOp.\n\nWhen Paul Trejo returned to San Diego, he and his crewmates received a Navy Expeditionary Medal. The medal is awarded only to those \"of the Navy and Marine Corps who shall have actually landed on foreign territory and engaged in operations against armed opposition.\" Submariners who chased the Red Bear added a star to their ribbon for each SpecOp mission they completed. Trejo wore his ribbon with pride and earned several stars over the next few years, painfully aware that the diesel-powered limitations of his smoke boat placed his life on a knife's edge each time he went to sea.\n\nTHE U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY CAUGHT A glimpse of the potential for submarine espionage SpecOps during World War II, when, in preparation for beach landings, they sent a dozen diesel boats to island coastal waters to pop up antennas and listen to Japanese radio traffic. When the Cold War began in 1946, they remembered these war time undercover missions and decided to call again upon their spies of the deep for \"special operations.\" While submarines were ideal as stealth platforms to undertake these clandestine trips into danger, their need to snorkel every few days became a serious limitation when operations required extended endurance.\n\nTo solve this problem, the navy turned to Hyman G. Rickover, who put into motion the wheels that rolled the navy toward nuclear power. The Polish-born Rickover immigrated to the United States with his family and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1922. He received his appointment as the director of the Naval Reactors Branch in 1949, which led to his supervisory role in the planning and construction of the first ship submersible nuclear (SSN). Electric Boat Corporation laid the keel to the USS Nautilus on June 14, 1952. While the solution to the shortcomings of diesel power appeared well in hand, the navy now needed a new generation of nuclear-trained sailors and officers to man their growing armada. One of these officers started off as a seaman on a diesel boat.\n\nWhen Gardner Brown boarded his first submarine in 1946, the World War II\u2013vintage craft, with her long, thin frame squatting amid a swirl of shimmering oil and dock debris, reeked of diesel fumes. The boat's topside watch beckoned him aboard, whereupon his nose wrinkled even more at the smell inside\u2014something akin to a gas station garage manned by sweaty rednecks. Below decks, another machinist's mate guided Brown on a tour of the boat, from the torpedo room in the bow, past the control room, mess decks, and berthing spaces, through the hot engine room, where large diesels stood at the ready, and finally to the aft torpedo room, where green MK-14 torpedoes waited patiently for something to kill.\n\nBrown's tour guide explained that the USS Cubera (SS-347) was a relative of the Balao-class diesel submarine and gained her name from a large fish of the snapper family found in the West Indies. Commissioned on December 19, 1945, the Cubera never saw war time action. She sailed to Key West in March 1946, where her crew assisted with the testing of a new top-secret submarine detection system. A few months later, she reported to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for an extensive GUPPY modernization.\n\nGUPPY stands for Greater Underwater Propulsion Power. This $2 million overhaul installed a new battery system and technology based on pilfered German XXI submarine designs that returned an investment of faster, deeper, longer, and the ability to snorkel. Just like her World War II U-boat counterparts, the snorkel modification allowed the Cubera to pull in air while submerged so the diesel engines could recharge the batteries, or \"fill the can,\" and refresh the crew's lungs.\n\nAfter the Cubera completed her GUPPY upgrade, she received orders to head into harm's way. Gardner Brown closed the hatch above his head. As the Cubera prepared to dive, he thought about their destination. Prior to leaving port, nobody told him they were headed to the Black Sea. No one said they'd be conducting one of the first SpecOps of the Cold War, and not a soul talked about their odds of returning home alive.\n\nBrown already knew a lot about death. After attending Governor Dummer Academy in Byfield, Massachusetts, he joined the navy in 1944. He passed the V-5 and V-12 program examinations to enter Dartmouth College in August 1944. The Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps established the V-12 in 1942 to recruit officers for the war effort. Assigned to a marine unit, Brown boarded a ship headed to a remote Pacific island. On February 19, 1945, as part of the Fourth Marine Division, Twenty-fifth Regiment, Third Battalion, I Company, Brown landed at Blue Beach Two and watched his companions die on the sands of Iwo Jima. The Japanese fought a fierce battle that lasted forty-five days, aided by fortified bunkers, hidden artillery, and eleven miles of underground tunnels. The battle of Iwo Jima cost the lives of almost 21,000 Japanese and over 6,800 U.S. Marines and is forever frozen in time by the iconic raising of the American flag atop the island's peak.\n\nBrown did not join the ranks of the fallen and transferred to the submarine navy in January 1946. A little over a year later, he sped toward a new enemy\u2014the Japanese red circle replaced by a Soviet red star. He described the boat's skipper, Commander George W. Grider, as \"the perfect example of brains and brass ones.\" It turns out Grider would need both.\n\nCommander Grider earned his submarine qualifications aboard the USS Skipjack (SS-184)\u2014one of the most accomplished submarines of the war. He served as executive officer on the USS Pollack (SS-180) and as CO of the USS Flasher (SS-249) before transferring to the Cubera. Later in life, Grider became a U.S. congressman, but for now, he was a leader of men in an underwater world.\n\nAfter crossing the Atlantic, Grider drove the Cubera to within a few miles of Sevastopol. Long considered the \"jewel of the Crimea,\" this glittering white city housed a predominantly Russian population and the Soviet Black Sea Fleet. The Soviets had erected a steel gate across the entrance to the Strait of Dardanelles to prevent errant underwater visitors from sneaking into the harbor, but Grider viewed this as nothing more than a speed bump.\n\nEquipped with a surveillance antenna and a Russian-speaking \"spook\" intelligence officer nicknamed Grab One, the Cubera waited near the harbor's entrance. Commander Grider raised the number one attack periscope and swung the cylinder back and forth. For several hours he studied the navigation light planted on the starboard side of Tenedos Island, at the northern end of the strait. When the light finally came on, signaling the approach of a warship, he swung the scope back toward the entrance. He reported to the crew in the small conning tower that he'd spotted a Soviet aircraft carrier and intended to follow her into the harbor.\n\nEmploying the \"brass ones\" that earned him the crew's respect, Grider nudged his boat to within several yards off the stern of the carrier. As the steel gates parted to admit the Soviet warship, the Cubera followed her in. Once inside, now surrounded by dozens of enemy ships, Grider raised a surveillance antenna, and Grab One went to work. The intelligence spook captured, recorded, and analyzed Soviet transmissions for two days. He then convinced Grider to \"get a little closer.\" Forgoing caution, Grider complied.\n\nNot more than a few minutes after raising the periscope for another look, the Soviet navy stirred, a subtle rumbling at first, soon followed by an all-out barrage. Grider dove the boat and tried to evade, but the Soviets slammed the ocean with active sonar pings. With the steel gate shut tight across the exit to the harbor, the Cubera had nowhere to run. Out of options, Grider searched for a place to hide.\n\nBottom-sounding sonar detected something strange on the ocean floor 300 feet down. Grider took the boat deeper. Near the bottom, he peered through the periscope into the murky water. Although the Black Sea usually provided clear viewing this time of year, not much daylight found its way down to this depth. Grider couldn't believe what his eyes told him, so he asked the chief of the boat, Gaines \"Whirly\" Smith, to have a look. Whirly gazed through the periscope and said, \"I'll be damned, we're in the middle of Main Street.\"\n\nThe gods had smiled upon the Cubera by allowing her to stumble across an ancient city flooded by time. The tall earthen buildings afforded the perfect hiding place and just enough cover to deflect Soviet sonar beams.\n\nSmiles quickly faded when, hours later, the boat's battery power and air supply dwindled. Grider knew they'd have to surface in less than sixteen hours or die on Main Street.\n\nTwelve hours later, Gardner Brown experienced the curse of the diesel sub firsthand. Carbon dioxide replaced what little air remained. Brown's head spun, and his lungs felt like dried prunes. With less than two hours remaining before the battery ran dry, the gods intervened once more. They sent a Russian destroyer through the gate. The Cubera snuck into her wake and swam out of the whale's belly. Having dodged death yet again, Brown wondered if he might have been better off staying in the Marine Corps.\n\nIntelligence experts were ecstatic. Grab One had grabbed plenty, and the navy wanted more. With the bar now set ultra-high by Commander Grider, every submarine driver needed to risk as much or more to earn a \"brass ones\" title\u2014and, perhaps, another stripe on his sleeve. This mission and others like it set the stage for a deadly high-seas contest between the United States and the Soviet Union that raged on for another forty-plus years. They also propelled the navy's quest for stealth platforms with greater endurance and range, which could only be accomplished with atomic-powered engines.\n\nThe invention of nuclear propulsion fanned the flames of the underwater Cold War when the atom stepped onto the stage with the commissioning of the USS Nautilus (SSN-571) on January 21, 1954. The navy's first nuclear-powered submarine signaled the end of diesel-driven boats and changed forever the life of under-ocean sailors. Now submariners could stay down for months versus days and could do so without needing to run noisy diesel engines. The USS Seawolf (SSN-575) followed in the Nautilus's nuclear wake seven months later, and like a redheaded stepchild, it received little of the notoriety bestowed upon her older cousin.\n\nUnlike most other diesel boat sailors, after his near-death experience in the Black Sea aboard the USS Cubera, Gardner Brown readily accepted an offer to \"go nuke.\" He became one of seventeen submariners handpicked for the nuclear power program in the fall of 1953. Brown and his classmates spent five days a week completing intensive academic courses at Union College and two more days at a nuclear prototype putting into practice what they'd learned. They studied both pressurized water reactor technology\u2014used on the Nautilus\u2014and alkaline metal sodium technology used by the Seawolf. When the instructors discovered that learning sodium complexities required a higher IQ, they divided the class in half. Those with a little more brainpower, like Brown, wound up in the Seawolf-bound class.\n\nSeawolf's namesake, a solitary fish with gnarled teeth and savage tusks, underscored the vessel's gritty demeanor and set the tone for her turbulent future. Fashioned from a vintage fleet diesel boat, Seawolf employed a superheated steam power plant versus the more traditional saturated steam reactor, which reduced machinery space size by almost half. Although more advanced and quieter than the Nautilus, Seawolf's propulsion system carried additional risks and earned her the nickname \"Blue Haze\" when sodium coolant leaked from the reactor in the shipyard.\n\nSuch accidents fueled Admiral Hyman Rickover's consternation and fanatical focus on safety. Rickover ruled his atomic roost like a straw boss on a pyramid. Most navy subordinates and Electric Boat shipyard contractors feared his controlling management style, which Rickover exploited to further his safe sub agenda. While some hated the man, Gardner Brown became a follower and a friend. Like Rickover, Brown knew firsthand that from a power plant engineer's point of view, a diesel boat, which runs on \"dead dinosaur juice,\" was to a nuclear submarine as a flint rifle was to a submachine gun. Nukes cost more and take far longer to build due to power plant complexities and safety concerns. More complexities equal more problems, and in Seawolf's formative years, there were many. Brown recalls having to leap dozens of metallurgical hurdles caused by ultra-high reactor temperatures and flux densities while striving to build this boat.\n\nBrown's cousin, Gene Centre, who also worked on the Seawolf's reactor as a project manager for Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory, heard rumors about flaws in the A1 and A3 reactors being built by the Soviets. He also heard that the Russians considered their sailors expendable and so did not place a high value on radiation shielding and pump seals. Centre figured that the rumors might be more propaganda than truth, but nonetheless he concurred with Rickover that safety and reliability were paramount.\n\nArmed with that priority, Dennis B. Boykin III, Electric Boat's power plant manager, insisted on keeping the Seawolf in the yards an extra year to develop a rod drive mechanism with special seals that prevented coolant leaks. Gene Centre and others helped engineer this, along with additional \"over spec\" components to ensure that, years later when the Seawolf replaced her sodium engine with a water-cooled type, she came out of the garage with the \"heart of a '57 Chevy and the soul of a Mack truck.\" Although Centre never envisioned such, his dedication to ensuring that the Seawolf could be pushed well past her red line saved the lives of 190 men trapped on the ocean floor a few miles off the coast of Russia more than two decades later.\n\nSeawolf finally received her commission on March 30, 1957. Lieutenant James Earl \"Jimmy\" Carter, who'd one day be the only U.S. president qualified in submarines, had received a billet as her engineering officer but resigned his commission after his father died in 1953. Without Jimmy Carter on board, Commander R. B. Laning grabbed the reins as the boat's skipper and galloped the navy's second nuclear race-horse around the track. Brown and his crewmates pushed her hard for the next several months during rigorous sea trials. Although her heart was willing, the Seawolf groaned in defiance at the high-speed runs, tight turns, deep dives, and steep angles ordered by Laning.\n\nBrown was not anxious to endure any further SpecOps after his Black Sea experience on the Cubera under Commander \"Brass Ones\" Grider, but fate dictated otherwise. He went with the Seawolf in 1958 on her first special operations run into the Barents Sea, where, he says, \"We stayed underwater forever, but at least we never had to worry about running out of air.\"\n\nThe Nautilus made history that same year by sliding under the ice floes and paving the first underwater trail to the North Pole. She remained underwater during the entire transit and hit speeds of more than twenty-three knots. In contrast, diesel submarines could push no more than ten knots submerged and needed to snorkel every few days to stay alive.\n\nNuclear power enabled submarines to accomplish their missions with greater safety and efficiency by solving the problems of endurance and speed while submerged. A large hurdle remained, however. Current submarine sonar systems could hear no further than a few miles away, making them all but deaf, dumb, and blind. That made them vulnerable to detection and destruction. By the early 1950s, American engineers had failed at every attempt to solve this monumental problem.\n\n## CHAPTER TWO\n\nFor thou cast me into the deep,\n\nInto the heart of the seas,\n\nAnd the floods surrounded me,\n\nAll Your billows and Your waves passed over me.\n\n\u2014JONAH 2:3\n\nIN THE FALL OF 1953, DR. Donald Ross, an underwater engineer from Pennsylvania State University's Ordnance Research Laboratory, walked through the large glass doors of the Bell Telephone Laboratories building in Whippany, New Jersey. Roland Mueser, one of Ross's former classmates from Penn State and now a Bell Labs employee, met him in the lobby. Mueser beamed broadly, whisked a tousle of hair away from his forehead, and urged Ross to the front desk. Ross signed in with the guard, and Mueser pointed toward an elevator. As they hurried through the capacious foyer, Mueser told Ross that he'd been working for Captain Joseph Kelly on an exciting new project called Jezebel. He explained how they'd installed underwater low-frequency sonar arrays to help detect snorkeling submarines from over one hundred miles away. Ross raised one of his thick brown eyebrows and let loose a whistle.\n\nThe elevator reached an upper floor, and Mueser led Ross through a maze of corridors and hallways, all the while talking about how Project Jezebel received a name change to SOSUS (Sound Surveillance System) after the initial tests proved successful. Six SOSUS listening stations were now deployed in the North Atlantic basin, and nine more were authorized under Project Colossus\u2014three in the Atlantic and six in the Pacific. These new arrays, to be installed in 1954, incorporated advanced upward-looking sonar capabilities.\n\nRoss let out another whistle.\n\nTurning a corner, Mueser said, \"I suppose you're wondering why you're here.\"\n\nRoss shrugged. \"I figured you'll tell me soon or later.\"\n\n\"I will,\" Mueser said, \"and then you'll pee your pants.\"\n\nWalking across plush carpet, trying to keep his curiosity at bay, Ross wondered how Mueser convinced Bell Labs to hire him. He was a submarine hydroacoustic expert, which only peripherally related to something like SOSUS. Ross received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1942\u2014the first to graduate from that Ivy League university in only three years. He launched his career at the Harvard Underwater Sound Laboratory in January 1945, moving later that year to the Ordnance Research Laboratory at Penn State, where he met Mueser.\n\nRoss's work at Harvard near the end of World War II contributed to improvements in propeller designs for the twin-screw GUPPY-upgraded diesel submarines. He'd also been assigned to the propeller team to produce quieter props for submarines. Still trying to connect his work to the reasons why he'd been invited to Bell Labs, Ross followed Mueser around the facility. His propeller experience provided few intersections with something like Project Jezebel, so why was he here? As Mueser strode past an office in the building, Ross peeked inside. Engineers in white shirts and dark ties scribbled on blackboards and wrestled with reams of desk paper. The place smelled almost antiseptic, not too unlike the waiting room in a medical clinic.\n\nMueser opened a lab door and motioned Ross inside. Three slide rule\u2013clutching engineers, pens stuffed into pocket protectors, turned from a chalk-covered blackboard. Mueser introduced the trio as Larry Churchill, Herman Straub, and Rich Carlson.\n\nMueser found a chair, leaned back, and said, \"What I'm about to tell you boys is way above top secret.\"\n\nHerman Straub, a former World War II submarine skipper, let out a grunt. \"Does that mean if I tell my wife you're going to kill me?\"\n\n\"No,\" Mueser said, \"we'll kill your wife.\"\n\nStraub smiled. \"For free?\"\n\nAfter a shared laugh, Mueser's face turned serious. \"The navy has a problem they need us to solve.\"\n\n\"Such as?\" Ross said.\n\n\"The Soviets are building a lot more submarines, and their ASW (antisubmarine warfare) forces have become much more aggressive. Our boats can't hear these guys if they're more than a few miles away.\"\n\n\"So what's the answer?\" Straub asked.\n\n\"I brought Dr. Ross here to help us build a new long-range passive submarine sonar system,\" Mueser said.\n\n\"Passive?\" Straub wondered. \"As in no active pings?\"\n\n\"As in strapping on headphones and listening,\" Mueser said.\n\n\"What do you mean by long range?\" Ross asked.\n\n\"I mean like a hundred nautical miles,\" Mueser said.\n\n\"How the hell do we do that?\" Straub asked.\n\n\"Using LOFAR technology developed for SOSUS,\" Mueser said.\n\nAlthough he didn't pee his pants, a lightbulb turned on in Ross's head. Now he knew why Mueser encouraged him to join Bell Labs: they needed his expertise in submarine hydroacoustics to revolutionize how submarines hear.\n\nThe team went to work on an electronic \"breadboard\" passive sonar suite using a modified version of LOFAR (Low Frequency Array). The effort proved more difficult than expected, resulting in chain-smoking late-night sessions in the lab, followed by a battery of simulation tests. All of them failed. After more than a month, Ross was about to concede defeat when a crazy idea popped into his head.\n\nHe marched into Mueser's office and said, \"Standard LOFAR won't work.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" Mueser asked.\n\n\"Subs are too short and noisy to be good platforms for low-frequency sonar.\"\n\n\"Wonderful,\" Mueser said dryly. \"So now what do we do?\"\n\n\"We use a higher frequency.\"\n\n\"We tried that during the war,\" Mueser said. \"Didn't work. We needed to get close enough to smell a fart before we could hear anything.\"\n\n\"I know,\" Ross said, \"but I think I can solve that problem with a new approach to demodulation.\"\n\nMueser grinned. \"I told 'em you were a genius.\"\n\nDemodulation, in short, is the science of extracting information from a carrier wave. Ordinary radios do this by snatching signals from the air and decoding the AM or FM frequencies into something we can hear at 1210 on our dial. Simply put, Ross conceived the idea of using a form of demodulation to \"decode\" the various frequencies received by a passive sonar system on a submarine. Once completed, the breadboard design, which consisted of a small circuit board filled with electronic components and dangling wires, passed all the simulation tests. Now they needed to prove it could work in the real world.\n\nThe team traveled to Submarine Development Group Two in New London, Connecticut, and boarded the USS Cavala (SS-244). His heart thumping, Ross peered through the open hatch of the dark submarine. The pungent smell of diesel fumes filled his nose as he climbed down the ladder. Standing on the tile in the narrow passageway, claustrophobia prompted him to suck in his gut and narrow his shoulders. He followed an officer toward the control room, wondering how anyone could stand to live in such a tight space for weeks on end.\n\nThe Cavala's skipper, Lieutenant Commander Bill Banks, greeted the team in the control room. Ross unveiled the sonar suite breadboard.\n\n\"What's that?\" Banks asked.\n\n\"Your new passive sonar system,\" Ross said.\n\n\"No shit,\" Banks said. \"Does it work?\"\n\n\"That's what we're here to find out.\"\n\n\"So it's a beta breadboard.\"\n\n\"More like an alpha,\" Ross said.\n\nBanks lowered his eyes, shook his head, and walked away.\n\nThe Cavala pulled out of port, and the team set about connecting the breadboard to the sub's passive sonar system. After running a couple of functional tests, Ross sat in front of the sonar console in the Cavala's conning tower and slipped on a pair of headphones. Closing his eyes, he listened. Nothing. He adjusted some settings and listened again. Something?\n\nBanks peered over Ross' shoulder. \"Can't get it to work?\"\n\nRoss removed the headphones and handed them to the skipper. Banks pulled them over his ears.\n\nA few seconds later, Banks's eyes widened. \"I'll be damned. I can hear him!\"\n\nThe \"him\" Banks referred to was a snorkeling Balao-class submarine more than one hundred nautical miles away. Over the next few weeks, the team confirmed detection of other submarines and classified a carrier task group operating 150 nautical miles distant. They code-named their invention DEMON, short for demodulation. This new design extended the hearing range of previous sonar systems by more than thirty times, and Ross soon found himself spending more time cruising underwater than almost any other civilian engineer. He and teammate Herman Straub spent ten days on the USS Nautilus installing a new DEMON sonar suite, measuring radiated noise and gathering spectra. Their analysis and technical advice helped the crew reduce the boat's noise signature, making her less detectable by SOSUS or shipborne passive sonar arrays.\n\nFollowing his Nautilus experience, Ross produced the first report on noise emanation from nuclear submarines in August 1957. The Naval Scientific and Technical Intelligence Center (NAVSTIC), impressed by the report, asked Ross to analyze a top-secret DEMON recording of a new Soviet submarine. The sounds emanating from the sub were strange\u2014definitely not the piston slapping one might expect from a diesel engine or the hushed quiet of a battery-driven propeller. After a day of looking over the LOFARgrams made from the recordings, Ross confirmed that the acoustic signature came from a nuclear power plant. Jaws dropped at NAVSTIC.\n\nThe next day, the U.S. Navy announced that the Soviets had just deployed their first nuclear submarine. NATO bestowed the code name November, which happened to coincide with the month when the keel was laid. American submariners nicknamed her Red November, but the Soviets simply called their new Project 627 submarine the K-3. They designed this twin-reactor attack boat to hinder U.S. shipping lanes in the event of a war, but the crew of Red November secretly trained for another top-secret mission: sneaking close enough to New York harbor to fire a twenty-seven-meter-long nuclear torpedo at the Statue of Liberty.\n\nFaster, deeper diving, and more heavily armed than the USS Nautilus, the cigar-shaped K-3 put the fear of God into most of the navy brass. That paranoia prompted an underwater race that cost trillions of dollars and pitted the United States against the Soviet Union for another three decades.\n\nThe introduction of K-3, which employed a cylindrical hull better suited for underwater speed, motivated the U.S. Navy to accelerate a radical new design for its own fast-attack nuclear subs. The USS Skipjack (SSN-585) entered the fray on May 26, 1958, to counter the Red November threat. Sporting improved SW5 pressurized water reactors, Skipjack-class submarines could go from zero to thirty-plus knots in a few dozen heartbeats. A teardrop-shaped hull and single in-line propeller improved underwater speed and agility and sent a clear signal to the Soviets that they were once again behind in the game.\n\nUnable to match American ingenuity, the Soviets responded with numbers. By 1959, they were the proud owners of 260 long-range offensive submarines. This sobering development forced the United States to concede that its nemesis planned to shift the mission of these vessels from coastal defenders to front-line strike weapons. Several Zulu and Golf-class boats could now hurl 3,200-ton nuclear warheads at the United States from over a thousand miles away. Despite the monumental breakthroughs in underwater sound technology used in ocean-mounted SOSUS and sub-installed DEMON sonar systems, the only distant subs these inventions could reliably detect were noisy snorkeling diesel boats. Finding an underwater craft running near silent on battery power, or semi-quiet on nuclear power\u2014well before she launched her nuclear payload at the United States\u2014seemed as insurmountable as landing men on the moon.\n\n## CHAPTER THREE\n\nMan is a great blunderer going about in the woods, and there is no other except the bear that makes so much noise.\n\n\u2014MARY AUSTIN\n\nHAVING WORKED HIS WAY UP FROM a seaman to a communications technician chief (CTC) in the navy, William J. Reed received orders to report to the Naval Security Group at Fort George G. Meade, Mary land, for a top-secret assignment briefing. He was unaware that his new orders would place him at ground zero for one of the most important discoveries of the Cold War. As his son\u2014at the time only three years old\u2014I had no way of knowing that our move to a small Turkish village, and our adoption of a wounded baby bear, would become the impetus for that discovery.\n\nIstanbul is situated on the Bosporus, which cuts across the Anatolian Peninsula and exits into the Black Sea, dividing Turkey into a Europe an and an Asian composite. Constantine renamed the city Nova Roma in A.D. 330, but everyone started calling the eastern capital Constantinople. In 1930 Turkish authorities officially named the city Istanbul, which translates loosely as \"downtown.\"\n\nTurkey is an important part of NATO and has always welcomed U.S. military and technical assistance. In 1959 the United States maintained several strategic stations throughout that country. One of these, where my dad now worked, was a radio listening station near Karam\u00fcrsel. The antenna array at this facility was operated by Air Force personnel and \"borrowed\" by the navy for high frequency direction finding (HFDF)\u2014a way of pinpointing the location of a ship or submarine by determining the direction to its radio transmissions. Operators called these HFDF stations \"Huff Duffs.\" A small detachment of NSG personnel, including my dad, operated the HFDF equipment as part of The United States Logistics Group, or TUSLOG Detachment 28. Most of the families assigned to serve at this base lived about fifteen miles away in Yalova, where at night the lights of Istanbul twinkled like Santa's village from across the Sea of Marmara, but Dad insisted on living someplace a bit more tranquil.\n\nAfter a week of searching, my father, a six-foot-two navy chief with Dick Tracy features, found us an apartment in De irmendere, a small town six miles from the base. The only thing modern here was the automobile garage on the highway at the village entrance that was built of sticks and stones. The entry road came with an overhanging of oak and elm trees and led to the main square, a dirt clearing dominated by majestic hundred-year-old oaks flanked on both sides by shops. At the open-air bakery, we watched the baker, a master artist, pulling brown loaves from an ancient kiln. My mouth watered as the rich aroma wafted through the open door and pulled in hungry shoppers.\n\nMy dad often went hunting with a fellow navy chief and Halidere, our Turkish neighbor. Now and then Dad brought back a couple pigs, but Halidere refused to eat any of that \"filthy pork.\" A week later, Halidere knocked on our door and gave my mom a little squealing animal of some kind. We were clueless as to what this tiny thing might be, so Mom called my dad at the base. He came home a couple hours later and scratched his head. He went next door and talked to Halidere.\n\nDad discovered that our neighbor trained bears for a living. Halidere taught them how to stand up on their hind legs and dance around in the streets while people giggled and threw money at their paws. He stole two bears from a cave when the momma bear went hunting for food. While running away, he dropped one, and the poor thing hurt its leg. He figured the wounded animal could never dance, so he gave it to my mom. Dad offered him some American cigarettes as a thank-you. Halidere loved American cigarettes. Dad said he loved American women, too, and told my mom to never get her fanny too close to Halidere's hands. Being three, I didn't know why he told her that, but it made me laugh anyway.\n\nThe baby bear weighed only sixteen ounces, and, except for his paws, he looked like an overgrown rat. No fur at all. I thought all bears looked like little cuddly teddy bears, but not this one. Dad named him Ayi Bey, which translates roughly as \"Sir Bear.\" Not knowing what else to do, Mom put him on a human baby's schedule and diet of baby formula. He woke up every few hours crying for food, crying to be held, or just crying. Mom started feeding Ayi Bey with an eyedropper, but that didn't last long. He wanted more. She borrowed a baby bottle from an American family, and Dad poked more holes in the nipple so Ayi Bey could get enough formula mixed with Pablum.\n\nAyi Bey stayed furless for about a month. I wanted to call him Fuzzy Wuzzy, like the bear with no hair, but my sister, Pam, said we should change his name to Scratchy because he liked to scratch things. Mom and Dad agreed. Scratchy especially liked to claw at the brown Turkish goatskin rug that covered the cracked tiles of our kitchen entryway. We didn't know it then, but Scratchy's habit would soon lead my father toward a critical discovery for the navy.\n\nOver the next year, Scratchy grew to be the size of a small dog. He chased my sister and me around the yard like a bounding puppy and learned how to climb up the slide by lying flat with all four paws outstretched and gliding down from the top. Often he pushed us out of the swing so he could try. When he couldn't manage that, he hit the seat with a paw and sent it swinging while he let out a muted growl, which sounded more like a baby's cry.\n\nEvery day, after feeding Scratchy six or more bottles of milk on the back porch, Dad pulled on his uniform and left for work. Mom readied Pam and me for school\u2014kindergarten in my case\u2014and then helped us board the small bus to the base. There we spent our day among other English-speaking military brats learning our Ps and Qs. After school, Scratchy leaped for joy when Pam and I came home, and we put on his collar to take him on a neighborhood walk.\n\nWe loved our baby brother, but our Turkish neighbors did not. Most of them muttered and complained. Their animals went crazy when we walked Scratchy through the village. Cats, dogs, horses, goats, burros, chickens, and ducks scrambled for safety. Dad finally built a six-foot concrete-block wall around our backyard to keep Scratchy penned in. He hated it, but we knew it was for his own protection.\n\nMonths later, after several incidents when the neighbors complained about our pet bear to the local police, my father was forced to make a decision that crushed his heart. He took me sailing that day. Dad and several of his navy buddies co-owned a twenty-two-foot Marconi-rigged boat that they kept at the Seaside Club near Karam\u00fcrsel. They sailed her in the Sea of Marmara, through the Bosporus, and around a sprinkling of small Greek islands. Every now and then, Dad took me along. Sometimes we'd talk, and other times we'd sit in silence and listen to the waves lap against the wooden boat. Today we talked, and he told me that it was time for Scratchy to go. I started crying and begged him to reconsider.\n\nTears filled my dad's eyes, too. He placed his arm around me and pulled me close. \"I found Scratchy a home where he can be happy,\" he said. \"We can see him there whenever you want, okay?\"\n\nIt wasn't okay, but in my shattered heart I knew we had no choice.\n\nHis hands shaking, my dad maneuvered the boat back to the dock. We saw my dad's boss, Captain Frank Mason, standing on the pier. Mason always made my dad a little nervous, but even more so around boats because the captain was an expert sailor. Still a bit green at sailing, Dad crashed the boat into the dock. Mason started laughing and suggested sailing lessons. The next day my father talked his friends into selling the boat. The day after that I watched my dad put Scratchy's collar on and take him away forever.\n\nOne of my father's friends was the founder of the American Seaside Club, a private home on the outskirts of De irmendere rebuilt into a restaurant for the American community. An American oil company, Caltech, operated a facility on the other side of Marmara Bay, and some of their personnel came over in outboards to the Seaside Club. We often brought Scratchy past the club during our afternoon bear walks. Some of the wives of the Caltech employees fell in love with him and came out to pet his soft fur. When they heard we could no longer keep him, they promised my parents that they'd build a mansion of a cage and feed and care for him like a spoiled child. I knew Scratchy would be happy there, but that didn't lessen the ache.\n\nWhen the Caltech people tried to put Scratchy into their boat and take him away, he struggled and whined. As the boat pulled from the dock, I saw him stand on his hind legs and paw at the air in desperation. He wailed in agony, and I knew what his cries were saying: \"Why are you sending me away? Don't you love me anymore?\" Mom, Pam, and I cried for hours, and my dad was silent and sullen for days.\n\nWinter winds deepened the chill in our home. My parents forgot how to smile. At first I thought it might be because we'd been forced to give away Scratchy, but I soon wondered if something else might be going on. Although too young to understand the import of what was happening in the world around me, I couldn't help but notice the absence of laughter in my dad's eyes and the worry on his face. He started spending more and more time on the base, and most nights I was fast asleep by the time he came home. Neither my mom nor my sister provided an explanation, and I remained unaware that beyond the edge of our quiet existence, my dad's world had just become a living hell.\n\nIN EARLY DECEMBER 1960, THE HUFF Duff in Karam\u00fcrsel, Turkey, where my dad worked, transformed into the epicenter of the U.S. Navy's underwater battle against the Soviet Union. The United States built the site in 1957 to monitor Soviet radio transmissions using a sophisticated antenna array. Air Force personnel captured communications emanating from various sites in Russia up to thousands of miles away. These trained experts utilized complex processes, deductions, and heavy doses of transmission analysis to predict when a Soviet missile might be launched, as well as the type and probable destination. Similar stations around the globe detected and analyzed communications associated with specific missiles: short, medium, or long range. If an unusual number of long-range missiles were detected in the preparation stage, there might be time to undertake defensive measures, perhaps even launch a preemptive strike.\n\nMy father worked for the TUSLOG Detachment 28 at the Karam\u00fcrsel Huff Duff, which performed an altogether different mission than the Air Force section. Crammed into a small Quonset hut near the Air Force operations building, they were tasked with using HFDF equipment to locate Ivan's sea monsters. Just before Christmas 1960, those monsters became invisible.\n\nHigh frequency (HF) generally refers to transmissions in the range of three to thirty megahertz. A megahertz (MHz) is a million hertz, and a hertz (Hz) refers to the number of transmitted cycles per second (cps). Most stereo subwoofers put out between 20 and 150 Hz, or really low bass frequencies, whereas a good set of headphones usually tops out at 20 kilohertz (kHz), or 20,000 Hz, which is the top-end range for most human ears.\n\nSince the ionosphere does a nice job of reflecting HF radio waves (a phenomenon called skywave propagation), operators often use HF for medium-or long-range radio communications. Things that can mess with HF transmissions include the time of day or year at the transmission site, sunspot cycles, solar activity, polar auroras, and electrical wires or equipment. Still, the HF band has long been popular with amateur radio operators, international shortwave broadcasters, and seagoing vessels, including submarines.\n\nSince the invention of wireless transmissions, operators pursued the idea of using two or more radio receivers and bearing triangulations to find the location of a transmitter. In principle, the concept seems simple: stick up a reception antenna, and notice the direction of the strongest signal. Theoretically, that should point toward the source. But with only one bearing, the source could be anywhere along that line. That's why you need at least two or more cross-referenced bearings to get a \"fix.\"\n\nTo visualize this, imagine that you are in a parking lot, and you can't find your car. You press the emergency button on your key chain and can can hear your car honking but still can't find it in the dark. You cock your head and listen for the strongest sound. You hear it due east on a \"bearing\" of 90 degrees on a 360-degree compass. You make a mobile phone call to your spouse, who is southeast of you on the other side of the parking lot. She reports that the honking is coming from the north, on a bearing of 0 degrees from her. If you walk east, and your wife walks north, you will run into each other at your car.\n\nSure, you could have walked east and found your car without her. After all, you were only a football field away. Now imagine trying to find a transmitter in the middle of an ocean thousands of miles away. To do so requires knowing precisely where your two sets of \"ears\" are located, then drawing straight lines from each. Where they intersect is the location of the transmitter. Sound easy? Now let's make it tough.\n\nWhat if we throw in inaccuracies and interference? For example, what if the equipment you are using to determine the direction to the transmitter is inaccurate? In the parking lot, if your ears are a few degrees off, you might walk right past your car without seeing it. In an ocean, those few degrees translate to dozens of miles if the source is thousands of miles away. And what if there's a sun storm toying with the ionosphere? Or how about nearby electrical equipment? This interference can easily distort the perceived bearing to the source. This is why one needs multiangulation, or multiple bearings to a transmission.\n\nLet's assume we have a transmitter in Dallas. Now visualize a direction finder in New York and one in Seattle. Using a ruler, draw a straight line from each of those locations to Dallas. You've found the transmitter! Now move the Seattle line upward by a quarter inch to simulate an inaccuracy. You're in Oklahoma, not Dallas. But if you have a few more lines coming from Chicago and San Diego, you'll be much closer to Dallas. Now take away the ruler and let a two-year-old draw the lines to simulate interference. Your transmitter looks like it's in Cuba. These were the problems facing the early designers of Huff Duff systems where inaccuracies and interference equated to bearing \"spreads\" of up to three or more degrees. Still, they could be reasonably effective for finding transmitting submarines.\n\nThat's why, during World War II, in an attempt to thwart detection by Huff Duffs, U-boat captains started shortening their transmissions. They figured that if they were not on the air very long, HFDF operators wouldn't have enough time to get a bearing. Fortunately for the Allies, the U-boat skippers were mostly wrong. The Soviets regurgitated this thinking years later and decided that, if done properly, it just might have some merit. Unfortunately for the United States, they were right.\n\nDescribing what happened in December 1960, when the navy Huff Duff stations suddenly could no longer hear Soviet submarine transmissions, requires an understanding of how these sites operated. Navy personnel at HFDF facilities reported to the NSG, which answered to the NSA. NSG divided sailors and officers of the communications technicians rating, who worked at these stations, into separate branches. Radio operators\u2014or R-Branchers\u2014monitored Soviet signals from various platforms and determined an HFDF bearing to the transmitter when they got a \"hit.\" Operations specialists\u2014O-Branchers\u2014assumed the duties of site operations and logistics, while maintenance personnel\u2014M-Branchers\u2014ensured that the station's equipment stayed running at peak efficiency. Russian-speaking intelligence operatives\u2014I-Branchers\u2014listened with trained ears for tidbits contained in Soviet traffic, while \"technical\" T-Branchers monitored for new kinds of signals and analyzed characteristics to determine the type of transmitter or platform. Being an R-Brancher, my dad's training focused on monitoring Ivan's HF transmissions, with an emphasis on Soviet submarines. As the senior-ranking chief petty officer at the Karam\u00fcrsel station, however, he assumed an O-Brancher function as the operations chief.\n\nDet 28 hummed twenty-fours a day, manned by four watch sections of four or five people \"in the shack\" for an eight-hour shift. Each morning, they received a list of \"interest\" contacts from Net Control (NC), the central command station that coordinated all the Atlantic Huff Duff stations. In those days, Net Control resided in Northwest, Virginia.\n\nNC compiled a catalog of surface and submarine contacts\u2014not all but mostly Soviet\u2014along with their call signs and probable transmit frequencies. R-Branchers set up their equipment to listen on those frequencies, usually in the 2\u201332 MHz high-frequency range. If they got a \"hit,\" they'd contact NC via CW\u2014continuous waves, or Morse code transmitter\u2014and give them a \"tip-off.\" NC then submitted a \"flash\" to the other Huff Duff stations to tune into, for example, frequency 12465 and take a bearing if they heard anything. If any station did catch something, they'd send a \"spot report\" with the bearing for that contact back to NC. In the early days, those reports\u2014or abbreviated versions called e-grams\u2014came via CW and later on were sent by way of Teletype machines. Because the navy operated as a separate detachment at Karam\u00fcrsel, someone needed to run the reports over to the nearby Air Force building every hour so they could be sent to NC.\n\nOperators at Net Control collected all the bearings reported by the stations and, before the invention of automated systems, manually plotted a \"fix\" to the target. This process took several minutes and consisted of nothing more than generating \"string bearings\" with a compass rose. The rose used a figure that displayed the orientation of the cardinal directions\u2014north, south, east, and west\u2014on a four-by-six-foot map or nautical chart mounted on a stand. They called this a gnomonic projection. Operators took a line of string and ran it from each Huff Duff map location, represented by drilled holes in the map to a point on the edge of the map along the bearing line reported by the station. The whole thing resembled a large wall-mounted ocean map covered with strands of Grandma's yarn.\n\nAt least two intersecting bearings, where the strings crossed, were needed to pinpoint the location of a contact. Only two, however, offered very low accuracy. With three or more bearings, one could multiangulate a more accurate location, but this could still be fifty or more miles off target. Needless to say, the art of Huff Duffing was an inexact science in the early 1960s but at least close enough to point U.S. submarines, aircraft, and ships to the right ballpark.\n\nOne fateful morning in December 1960, the HF airwaves went silent. T-Branchers and R-Branchers at the Karam\u00fcrsel Huff Duff in Turkey, monitoring frequencies for Soviet submarines, spun dials and searched for hours but found nothing. They checked and calibrated equipment. Still nothing. They contacted other Huff Duffs and discovered that the phenomenon existed at every station around the world. Several days passed without a single sniff. Dad decided it was time to tell his immediate boss, Commander Petersen.\n\nMy father straightened his back and adjusted the khaki \"cover\" on his head. He marched into Petersen's office, located in the Air Force building next to Det 28's Quonset hut, and said, \"Sir, they're gone.\"\n\nPetersen glanced up from a stack of paperwork and peered over the top of his thick glasses. \"Who's gone?\"\n\n\"Ivan's boats,\" Dad said. \"Their transmissions have been decreasing over the last several months, as you know, but now they've stopped transmitting anything on HF. We've heard nothing for days.\"\n\n\"Shit,\" Petersen said as he removed his glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose. \"Does NC have anything to say about this?\"\n\n\"No sir, Net Control is as clueless as we are.\"\n\nPetersen shoved his glasses back on. \"Shit, shit, shit. They're transmitting, all right. We just can't hear them.\"\n\nDad relaxed his stance and looked down at Petersen's desk. The commander kept his workspace in the same shipshape condition as his duty section. At a facility saturated with routine and order, like Det 28, no one could trump the man. But when the proverbial excrement hit the blades, Petersen's smooth edges ruffled.\n\nThe commander pushed his chair back and stared at the papers on his desk, as if an answer might jump off the pages. His eyes darted from side to side. \"Okay, so now what? Do we keep looking or tell Captain Mason? Did NC give us any suggestions?\"\n\nThe room felt small and hot and smelled of floor wax. Dad removed his cover and backhanded a bead of sweat. \"NC said to keep looking, but there's not even a peep in the three to thirty megahertz range. We've scanned every frequency used in the past thirty years by Russian subs, surface ships, and even life rafts with no luck. We're pretty much out of options at this point, sir.\"\n\nCommander Petersen scratched at his balding head. Dad cringed because the man exhibited a skin disease exacerbated by stress. Losing the Soviet subs qualified as an ulcer-producing disquietude, and for Petersen, incidents like this sent him scratching. When that happened, pounds of dandruff flaked from his head and coated his shoulders. Bets were often taken for how long someone could last in a \"flakey\" conversation with Petersen. Dad never won. He left Petersen's office quickly with an agreement to keep searching.\n\nWithout answers, Petersen's directives offered as good a course as any to follow: keep looking and pray for a miracle. Everyone on the team agreed that Ivan was transmitting, and probably in the HF range, but the Soviets must have found a way to mask their transmissions. Dad knew that Admiral Sergei Gorshkov, commander of the Soviet fleet, had dark red \"control freak\" blood running through his varicose veins. He insisted on maintaining constant communications with his fleet, especially with his attack and missile-firing submarines. Soviet subs always checked in with their command stations at least once, sometimes twice or more, per day. With hundreds of submarines operating on a continuous basis, Det 28 often sent dozens of tip-offs per day to NC and received hundreds of flash reports with monitoring assignments based on tip-offs from other stations. Adding up all the hits coming from Soviet ships and subs, some of the larger stations handled up to 3,000 flashes per day.\n\nMore days passed without a single submarine tip-off or flash. Dad decided to bounce a few ideas off Captain Mason. Although he considered Mason a friend, since he'd worked for the captain in Guam years earlier, my father still felt a bit nervous in the man's presence. Mason's graying hair and wise eyes complemented his friendly tone and engaging smile. He stood six foot three, about an inch taller than my father, and commanded a quiet respect. With matching crewcuts, square jaws, and deep baritones, the two had a lot in common. Both men were born with strong demeanors and \"take command\" attitudes, which is why they often played from the same song sheet when it came to military matters.\n\nFor reasons unknown, however, Mason sometimes reminded Dad of his stepfather, Lon Reed. Three months after Billy Joe Bowles came into this world, in Konawa, Oklahoma, on February 4, 1929, my real grandfather, Hoyle Bowles, died in a train accident. My grandmother, Ethel, met and married Lon Reed a few years later, and Lon adopted my dad and his two sisters.\n\n\"Drill Sergeant\" Lon probably didn't intend to be an evil man, but ignorance blinded him to the kindness of the wise. Trapped in the mold of his forebears and smugly confident of his rightness, Lon played the role of king in a pauper's court. Ignorant men are often haunted by the reflection of their own hatred, and within Lon Reed's small frame walked a man who despised almost everyone. Crude remarks and bigoted bias my dad could endure, for these were passive shortcomings, but when Lon's cruelty turned active, Dad harbored no guilt in wanting his stepfather removed from the planet.\n\nLon's worst show of spite happened when my father was a boy. Intolerant of animals, especially young ones that barked when hungry, the drill sergeant stuffed Dad's first puppy, along with its little brothers and sisters, into a gunnysack. He then hurled the bag into an irrigation canal and laughed while the puppies drowned. Dad once told me that their pathetic cries and whines, as the waters swept them along, left him with violent nightmares and an obsession to adopt all of the world's helpless animals. I'm certain that losing Scratchy hurt him much deeper than he dared show.\n\nThoughts of his childhood plagued my dad as he stood outside Frank Mason's office in the Air Force building that day. The reasons for this were unclear, but he suspected that, despite how much he liked the captain, the smell of the man's Old Spice aftershave always reminded him of Lon Reed.\n\nDad tapped on the open door and stepped inside. \"Got a minute, sir?\"\n\nStill on the phone, Mason nodded and pointed at a chair. Dad sat.\n\nMason reeled off a few more commands, then hung up the phone. \"What's on your mind, BJ?\"\n\nHaving been renamed Billy Joe Reed after Lon Reed adopted him, Dad preferred to be called BJ by his friends. \"I think I know why we can't find the Soviet subs.\"\n\nMason sat forward in his chair. \"Go on.\"\n\n\"Do you remember what the Germans did in the war to keep us from DFing their CW transmissions?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Mason said. \"They recorded their Morse code communications, then sped up the recorder before transmitting. That let 'em send out a shortened message on a specified frequency at a set time. Those bursts were so short that we couldn't get a good bearing\u2014\" Mason stopped midsentence. He stood up and brought a hand to his chin. \"I'll be damned. Ivan's using a burst signal.\"\n\n\"I'd bet my stripes on it,\" Dad said, \"and that means we'll be lucky to find it. And even if we do, how the hell are we going to get a bearing? The duration of the signal will be too short.\"\n\n\"All good questions, Chief, and I wish I had the answers. For now, let's focus on the first step first.\"\n\nDad nodded. \"We need to find the damn thing.\"\n\n\"And fast,\" Mason said as he moved to the side of his desk. \"Right now we're one of the closest stations to the Soviet backyard. If we can't find the burst, nobody can. And I've got NSA breathing down my neck every day. If Ivan thinks he's invisible, he just might get cocky and start firing missiles.\"\n\nDad stood up. \"Understood.\"\n\nAs my father turned to leave, Mason called after him. \"One more thing, BJ.\"\n\nDad turned and cocked an ear. \"Sir?\"\n\n\"You gotta find this thing in less than a week.\"\n\n\"NSA?\"\n\n\"No, Petersen. I'd say he's got about five days before he scratches himself into the base hospital.\" Mason flashed a brief smile and turned back toward his chair.\n\nDad returned the smile and walked out of the captain's office. About a minute later, his smile faded as he thought of the impossible task he'd just been given. He spent the next week monitoring every HF known, along with a wide assortment of frequencies outside the normal range. He heard nothing except static and an occasional pop and scratch. He also employed a sonograph to analyze any suspect signals.\n\nBack then a sonograph was a three-foot-long by eight-inch-wide machine that made sound waves visible. The unit housed a large drum around which operators wound photographic paper for each signal analyzed. On playback of a recorded signal, a stylus imprinted an enlarged image of the signal for inspection by analysts. Unfortunately, given the dilapidated condition of his years-old navy-issued sonograph, Dad saw no signs of a burst signal.\n\nHis shoulders slumped, his eyes red and swollen, his smile gone, my father walked through the door of our apartment and plopped onto the couch. My mom tried to console him, but to no avail. My sister and I also did our best to make him feel better, but our attempts at levity went down in shambles. Dad just opened a beer and sat staring at the wall.\n\nThe next morning, while getting ready for school, I noticed a worn spot in the rug by the door. Then I remembered. Scratchy earned his name by scratching at that spot, like he was trying to dig a hole to China. I knelt on the rug and scratched at the carpet, just like Scratchy once had, trying to remember his hairless little bear body.\n\nStill sitting on the couch, his chin blackened with stubble, Dad said, \"Billy, would you please stop that? You sound just like\u2014\" He sat up on the couch and opened his eyes wide. \"Oh my God. That's it! The burst signal sounds just like Scratchy's carpet scratching.\"\n\nDad jumped from the couch, ran over, picked me up, and gave me a hug. Smiling, he bolted into the bathroom to shower and shave. I couldn't explain why he'd suddenly transformed from depressed to ecstatic, but I figured it must be a grown-up thing. I learned later that our pet bear's scratching probably saved the navy's ass.\n\nDad sped to the base in our Volkswagen in search of an Air Force colleague named Jimmy Hensley. He bypassed his shabby Quonset hut and charged into the plush concrete-and-steel air-conditioned building next door. There he flagged down Airman Hensley. \"I need a big favor.\"\n\nNoticing the excitement on my father's face, Hensley said, \"Does it involve a woman?\"\n\nDad frowned. \"No, it involves being a sneaky little thief. Think you can handle that?\"\n\nHensley inched the corner of his mouth into a wry smile.\n\nWhether Air Force or navy, everyone knew that maneuvering the military system to obtain supplies, equipment, or parts required a master's degree in procurement manipulation combined with borderline \"cumshaw\" thievery. British sailors coined the word cumshaw from one they heard from Chinese beggars that meant \"grateful thanks.\" And in the art of cumshaw, Hensley boasted a Ph.D. Often compared to Milo Minderbender, the mess officer glorified in Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Hensley could darn near find anything, for a price.\n\nDad heard that Hensley acquired, on behalf of Master Sergeant Rich Cousins, three brand-new sonographs for the Air Force unit. Dad's section, Det 28, employed an old unit held together with bailing wire, tape, and a wad of bubblegum. Since the Air Force got all the best supplies, Cousins could offer \"cumshaw guy\" Hensley a few pieces of unused equipment in exchange for the new sonographs, while Det 28 had nothing to trade. With an epiphany running around in his head, Dad knew that he could find the Soviet burst signal, but not without at least two of those sonographs. Getting them, however, would be a major challenge.\n\n\"I heard you found three new sonographs for Sergeant Cousins,\" Dad said as he cornered Hensley near an office doorway.\n\n\"Did indeed,\" Hensley said, standing next to the door.\n\n\"I need two of them ASAP,\" Dad said, feeling like a beggar.\n\n\"Well now, that's gonna cost you. I don't think Cousins is going to\u2014\"\n\n\"How much?\"\n\n\"More than you can afford, Chief,\" Hensley said, as he leaned against the doorframe.\n\nDad's temples throbbed. He needed those units. Lives might be at stake. At the very least, a few careers. Hensley was right, however. Dad could tap everyone at Det 28 for a loan and still not get enough to buy two new sonographs. He had to devise a way to borrow the damn things\u2014indefinitely and for free.\n\n\"There must be something we can trade,\" Dad said out of desperation.\n\nHensley rubbed his chin. \"Don't think so. You boys ain't got nothing anybody needs.\"\n\nHensley had a point there. Most of the Air Force personnel called Det 28 the \"Orphan Annie\" of Karam\u00fcrsel. Relegated to a Quonset hut on the other side of the tracks, they received none of the perks afforded their Air Force counterparts.\n\nDad noticed that he was standing on new linoleum tile and that the walls smelled of fresh paint. Probably Hensley's doing. My father searched his brain for inspiration. What could he offer that Hensley might need? Probably nothing. But maybe there was something Cousins needed. \"Does Sergeant Cousins know how to use those new sonographs yet?\"\n\nHensley tilted his head to one side like a dog training his ear on a sound. \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Those new sonographs aren't anything like the old ones. You did give Cousins operating manuals, didn't you?\"\n\n\"Well, no, I don't think so.\"\n\n\"So what happens when his men can't get the things to work? Who's he going to blame?\"\n\n\"I...I don't know. He wouldn't blame me, would he?\"\n\nStill blocking the doorway, Dad stood up tall. He now hovered a good four inches above Hensley. Furrowing his brow, he stepped up close to the airman and produced a slow, deep bass. \"You mean you got him three new pieces of equipment without operating manuals? You might as well have given him boat anchors.\"\n\nHensley took a step backward. His lower lip quivered. \"This is not good. Cousins will be pissed.\"\n\n\"And he's not a man you want to piss off,\" Dad said, knowing that Cousins could be meaner than a bulldog on steroids when angered.\n\n\"I'll just have to find him some manuals.\"\n\n\"Weeks,\" Dad said. \"That'll take you weeks. Then he'll really be angry.\"\n\nHensley looked at Dad with wide eyes. \"So what should I do?\"\n\nMy father placed a sympathetic hand on Hensley's shoulder. He softened his tone and said, \"Maybe I can help. I was trained on those units in Guam. I could teach Cousins's team how to use them. That'll buy you some time to get those manuals.\"\n\nHensley looked relieved. \"You'd do that for me?\"\n\nDad smiled. \"Sure, for a price.\"\n\nThat afternoon Hensley delivered two new sonographs to Det 28's Quonset hut. Everyone whistled approval as my father opened the boxes and removed the units.\n\nScratching at his head, Commander Petersen came out of his office and stared at the early Christmas presents. \"Where'd you get those babies?\"\n\n\"Borrowed 'em,\" Dad said as he plugged one in. \"Kind of indefinitely.\"\n\n\"Why do we need them? We have one already.\"\n\n\"It's old and worthless. I needed two new ones. I have a hunch.\"\n\nPetersen scratched his scalp. \"A hunch?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Dad said, trying to ignore Petersen's dandruff. \"A scratchy hunch.\"\n\nOver the next several days, my father listened to a series of frequencies on the HF band. Days earlier, before his epiphany, he'd heard nothing but pops and scratches. But one scratch differed from the rest. When I started scratching at the rug in our house, the sound reminded my dad of the \"scratch\" he heard at around 345 Hz. At first, he passed the burst of static off as an anomaly. Now he listened for the sound with unequaled intensity. Hours passed with no joy. Then, suddenly, he found it again.\n\nLike an excited kid on Christmas Eve, my father used the two new sonographs to make an enlarged picture of the signal. He needed both of the units so he could record numerous signals quickly and compare them side by side. While studying \"sound pictures\" of the signal, my father noticed something odd. He squinted, then pulled out a magnifying glass. To no one he said, \"I'll be damned, this thing has bauds.\"\n\nHe grabbed the sonograph printout and ran over to Mason's office. Bursting through the door without knocking, he threw the printout on the captain's desk. \"It has bauds.\"\n\nMason sat forward and stared. Dad handed him the magnifying glass.\n\nMason studied the printout, then smiled. \"Best Christmas gift I've ever gotten, BJ.\"\n\nThe term baud, named for the French engineer Jean-Maurice-\u00c9mile Baudot, became the primary yardstick for measuring data transmission speeds until it was replaced years later by a more accurate term, bits per second (bps). As far as Mason and my dad were concerned, a baud equated to something man-made, and that translated to \"Gotcha!\"\n\nIn similar fashion to the burst signal used by the Germans in World War II to thwart direction finders from locating Morse code transmissions, the Soviets invented their own burst signal for HF communications. The bauds they used were the most compressed ever and represented a huge leap forward in radio technology.\n\nAfter studying, recording, and confirming the burst signals, Det 28 sent copies of their findings to the NSA in Mary land. The agency assigned their best analysts to the case and instructed all stations to obtain as many recordings of the new burst signal as possible. Soon every Huff Duff started finding them.\n\nMy father spent the next several weeks thanking me for helping him solve a major problem. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I rejoiced in the fact that he seemed happy again. I still didn't see him much, as he spent most of his days and nights at the base analyzing the burst signals. He discovered that they came with a \"trigger\" at 345 bits per second (bps), followed by a series of bauds at 142 bps. He figured that the trigger probably started a recorder at the receiving station. The series of bauds were followed by a short message burst. Dad knew that the NSA might never decipher the contents of those messages, but that was not the mandate of a Huff Duff. These stations were designed to find and analyze, not decode. Unfortunately, that still left them with an impossible task: how to get a good bearing to a burst signal.\n\nThese signals were so short that determining an accurate bearing could not be done. Even getting an inaccurate one posed a significant challenge. With the Soviet navy launching hundreds of new submarines, many capable of wiping out dozens of cities in the United States within minutes, the NSA pushed the program up several rungs on the priority ladder. If they couldn't find a way to DF the Red Bear's new burst signal, they couldn't find its submarines. And that made the world a very scary place to live in.\n\nFor his team's diligence in finding and analyzing the new Soviet burst signal, Captain Mason received a letter of commendation from the National Security Agency. In turn, he handed my father a letter of appreciation and recommended him for limited duty officer (LDO). My dad was on his way to leaving the ranks of the enlisted and becoming an officer in the U.S. Navy. That winter he flew stateside to undertake one of the most important assignments of his career.\n\n## CHAPTER FOUR\n\nThe beginning is the most important part of the work.\n\n\u2014PLATO\n\nWHEN MY DAD, WILLIAM J. REED, reported to NSG headquarters at 3801 Nebraska Avenue in Washington, D.C., in early 1961, he couldn't keep his hands from shaking. The shivers were caused in part by the snow falling on the shoulders of his navy jacket, in part by the anticipation of what lay ahead. After discovering the Soviet burst signal, and the fact that this thing contained data of some sort, Reed received temporary orders to return to the States.\n\nMaster Chief Reed knew that, in March 1959, the NSA combined all military electronic intelligence (ELINT) programs under one roof, and that Howard Lorenzen's group supported the Advanced Signals Analysis Division of the NSA's Office of Collection and Signals Analysis headed by John Libbert. He also knew that the bulbs glowing in the heads of these engineers were brighter than ship-borne searchlights. And while Reed considered himself a pretty smart guy, he figured that chess matches with these geniuses wouldn't last more than two minutes.\n\nIn the world of electronic countermeasures, few icons commanded more respect than Howard Otto Lorenzen. In July 1940, after five years of designing commercial radios, he launched his career in ethereal warfare at the Naval Research Laboratory working for the brightest minds in radio engineering. During World War II, he developed a system to analyze German aircraft radio signals that controlled glide bombs. This allowed NRL's Special Projects Section to create intercept jammers for enemy aircraft bomb controllers that rendered the things useless. German Luftwaffe engineers thought the problem was their fault and dismantled the systems.\n\nLorenzen worked on similar projects throughout the war, eventually overseeing a dozen small groups tinkering in various fields of radio engineering. After the war, he invented the term electronic countermeasures, defining ECM as a \"discipline that first detects, then interferes with or analyzes for intelligence purposes any electromagnetic energy emanating from the enemy.\" The Bureau of Ships concurred with his definition and sponsored ECM projects at NRL for intercept, direction finding, radar jamming, and decoy systems.\n\nLorenzen and other key members of his team remained government employees after the war, pulling apart captured German electronics like excited kids in science class. He managed to convince the Brits to lend his group a key piece of German technology\u2014used in the Wullenweber (pronounced VOOL-in-veber) antenna sites\u2014that eventually helped redefine HFDF forever. Lorenzen's HFDF expertise brought him to NSG's headquarters to meet with Reed and others and help solve the problem of gaining accurate, after-the-fact bearings to Soviet burst signals.\n\nStill nervous, Reed introduced himself to the team. Lorenzen and a dozen engineers grilled him for hours about the nature and characteristics of the burst transmission that he'd discovered and analyzed. They examined the sonograph printouts and grilled him some more. When not grilling, the narrow-tie-wearing team swapped theories and ideas using complex phrases that, as far as Reed was concerned, were akin to Latin. Techno, technara, technatus, technodom. Now and then Reed managed to grab hold of a concept and attempt to bring the cloud-dancing scientists back down to earth, where submarines transmitted and Huff Duff stations listened.\n\nOver the course of several days, the team determined that the burst signal lasted no more than seven-tenths of a second. That posed a huge problem. Equipment at Huff Duffs was designed to locate and determine bearings to ordinary high-frequency transmissions, most of which lasted several seconds or even minutes. Now they needed not only to hear a signal that short but also to determine an accurate bearing to the submarine long after the transmission ended. That's like trying to find your car in a parking lot when the horn honks for only a half-second after you push the key-chain button.\n\nUsing recordings captured by Reed and others, the team analyzed the signals and determined that each transmission consisted of a two-tone alert designed to trigger an automatic receiver\/recorder. A short encrypted data stream followed that contained message information. The Soviets probably figured that no one could direction-find such a truncated transmission. After a week of analyzing signals and bantering over ideas to solve the bearing problem, Lorenzen figured the Soviets just might be right. He threw up his arms in frustration, stating that the Russkies may have finally found a way to trump American engineering. Another engineer, Robert Misner, then asked if it might be possible to create a device that \"triggered\" a switch after a burst signal was picked up by an antenna. Lorenzen pondered the question and answered yes, that a trigger might be possible, but to what end?\n\nMisner flashed a smile. He reminded Lorenzen about their work together, several years earlier, on a magnetic tape recorder. When the Soviet threat escalated during the Korean War, Lorenzen's efforts, in collaboration with others, led to a new ECM system installed into antisubmarine aircraft. While gaining operational feedback on this system in 1949, Lorenzen had an epiphany.\n\nThat's when he contacted Robert Misner, and together they created the first magnetic tape recorder for intercept work. They called this device the Radio-Countermeasures Sound Recorder-Reproducer, dubbed the IC\/VRT-7. After that project, Misner did some research on after-the-fact transmission analysis in 1958. He now thought that by combining what he'd learned from the two projects, perhaps they could create a trigger that started a magnetic recorder and determined a bearing to the transmitter based on the recording.\n\nOther engineers on the team scoffed at the idea, and Reed leaned in favor of the skeptics. Finding an accurate bearing to a live, longer-lasting transmission posed enough of a problem. Misner dismissed the naysayers and sketched his concept on a blackboard. As the white chalk revealed dozens of boxes, lines, and arrows, Reed's eyes slowly opened. Misner's concept started to make sense. If they could engineer a way to record the time at which a transmission was detected, along with the strongest bearing to the signal, then compensate for inaccuracies and other conditions, they just might be able to find Ivan in a haystack.\n\nTo achieve this, the NRL engineers needed to overcome a big issue with Lorenzen and Misner's magnetic recorder: the thing didn't have enough capacity to store the hours and hours of recordings needed for after-the-fact analysis. Today we have programs on iPods that can record a song playing on the radio for a few seconds, then upload the recording over the Internet, where it's analyzed to determine the artist and song. We take such a feat for granted, forgetting that this requires gigabytes of storage capacity and superfast microprocessor speeds. In the early 1960s, there weren't microprocessors with billions of bytes of storage and memory capacity. Storing burst transmission recordings magnetically required \"out of the box\" thinking that pushed engineering envelopes. Matching these recordings to accurate time signals down to the millisecond raised the bar even higher. Months passed before the team could overcome the limitations and build something that actually worked.\n\nAt the time, no one on the team, least of all Reed, imagined their groundbreaking new device, christened the AN\/FRA-44 recorder\/analyzer, might one day earn a place in history as one of NRL's top seventy-five inventions, with Robert Misner accepting the prestigious award. They also did not expect their new system to play an integral part in thwarting a world war less than a year later.\n\nUsing innovative technology, the FRA-44, called \"fraw forty-four\" by operators, allowed the U.S. Navy to record a Soviet microburst, analyze the signal after the fact, and determine a bearing to the source. One major problem in countering the Soviet stealth innovation appeared solved, but an equally daunting one remained: designing a way to receive the burst signals in the first place.\n\nCurrent antenna and receiver technology used at Huff Duffs already lagged behind the Soviets, who had deployed twenty Krug Wullenweber sites based on captured German designs. The United States still used an antiquated AN\/GRD-6 antenna array and HF receiving system, which was no match for microbursts. Although the new recorder\/analyzer designed by the team could work at such a site and provided a short-term fix for locating Soviet submarines, the DF accuracy would be worse than a World War II Huff Duff.\n\nWith Reed's help, Lorenzen's team, led by Bob Misner, determined that a new type of antenna\/receiver was needed, one that increased reception and accuracy by an order of magnitude. Fortunately, such a device had already been constructed by the NRL a few years earlier at the Hybla Valley Coast Guard Station in Alexandria, Virginia. The United States built this station using German Wullenweber technology in 1957 to track the Soviet Sputnik's transmission signal and determine its orbit. While Reed returned to Turkey to test the new recorder\/analyzer in the real world using older antennas, Misner commandeered the Virginia station to test the makings of a new electronically steerable array that could find Ivan's silent boats.\n\nThe NSA funded both projects on a high-priority status and gave them top-secret code names. They called the project using the recorder\/analyzer and related equipment to find the burst signal Boresight and the new Wullenweber antenna project Bulls Eye.\n\nBefore Boresight could become operational, however, Reed needed to gather some critical field data. To do so, he'd need to sneak onto Ivan's back porch without getting caught.\n\nMORE THAN FIFTY YEARS AFTER THE invention of Morse code, Guglielmo Marconi launched radio communications by sending the letter S across the English Channel in December 1901. The science of locating radio transmissions came to light a few years later when John Stone used radio direction finding (RDF) techniques in 1904 to locate transmitting sources. The team of Ettore Bellini and Alessandro Tosi improved on Stone's designs, and Marconi acquired the patents to this technology in 1912. He then mounted the newly acquired RDF equipment on commercial ships.\n\nDuring World War I, Captain H. J. Rounds of the Royal Navy installed a series of RDF stations along the east coast of England for Room 40, the British Admiralty's code-breaking intelligence branch. These stations came in handy during the battle of Jutland in the summer of 1916, a World War I clash between battleships in the North Sea near Denmark that to this day is considered the largest naval battle in history.\n\nCaptain Rounds ordered his stations to monitor the movements of the German battleship Bayern. Using RDF, operators reported that the Bayern steamed some distance north during the night. Using this information, Vice Admiral David Beatty, commander of the First Battle Cruiser Squadron, avoided the U-boat threat and caught the Germans off guard. The Brits engaged Franz von Hipper's battleships long before the German admiral expected. While the battle proved costly for both sides, the advantages of RDF were solidified in the minds of military experts.\n\nThat same year, under the direction of Commander Laurance F. Safford, head of OP-20-G (20th Division of the Office of Naval Communications) and \"father\" of the navy's communications intelligence unit, the navy built an Atlantic arc of twenty-six HFDF stations. These Huff Duffs stretched from Britain to Iceland to Greenland, across the eastern states, and down to Brazil and Africa. German submarine tactics mandated frequent radio contact between U-boats and headquarters. When these skippers called home, they were unaware that a giant ring of Huff Duffs was capturing these signals and finding a direction to the source. By cross-referencing bearings from multiple Huff Duff sites, the Allies could multiangulate approximate locations for the transmitting submarines.\n\nStations reported bearings to Net Control in Virginia, which forwarded the same to head of Naval Communications Intelligence Commander Knight McMahon's staff in Washington, D.C. Fixes were then flashed to the Atlantic Section of the Combat Intelligence Division, which shot them out to U.S. antisubmarine warfare forces. Unfortunately, the system's accuracy left something to be desired, and the definition of a good \"fix\" equated to fifty miles from the target. Despite this limitation, for more than a decade after the war, the navy did little to upgrade its twenty-six Huff Duffs.\n\nWhen the NRL team officially launched Project Bulls Eye in 1961 they radically upgraded the ability of HFDF sites to detect weak HF signals and improve DF accuracy. To accomplish this, they needed help from the Germans.\n\nDuring World War II, German engineers invented the Circularly Disposed Antenna Array (CDAA) as a way to improve their own Huff Duff capabilities. They built the first site at Joring, Denmark. The German CDAA used forty vertical antennas placed in a circle with a diameter of 360 feet\u2014about the same diameter as the average baseball stadium. Forty more antennas, designed to reflect signals from the first circle, were suspended on a circular wooden support structure just inside the outer ring. From the air, the entire affair looked like two giant Ferris wheels, one inside the other, turned on their sides and missing all the seats.\n\nThe Germans built only two CDAA arrays under the code name Wullenweber\u2014a name prompted by the exploits of Jurgen Wullenweber, who became mayor of L\u00fcbeck in 1531. This iconic figure gained a reputation as a fighter against injustice and the wealthy class, much like Robin Hood. The story of his adventures prompted Dr. Hans Rindfleisch, the group leader of the German navy's communication research command, to use his name for the CDAA program.\n\nAfter the war, the Brits studied the Wullenweber design in Denmark, then destroyed the array in accordance with Geneva Convention mandates. Some of Rindfleisch's engineers were captured by the Soviets and taken to Russia. The Red Bear's Defense Ministry soon erected its first Wullenweber site at Khabarovsk Krai under the code name Krug, which means \"circle\" in Russian. The massive antenna array spanned a diameter of more than a half mile. The Soviets built nineteen more sites throughout the 1950s, with many installed in pairs within a few miles of one another for navigation purposes. Four Krugs were installed near Moscow, and some were used to track Sputnik satellites via 10 and 20 MHz beacons.\n\nAlthough the Allies snatched up their own Wullenweber engineers after the war under Operation Paperclip, they were slow to the game. Antenna researcher Dr. Rolf Wundt, along with his wife and parents, arrived in New York City on the same ship as Wernher von Braun in March 1947, but he did not work on this technology until many years later. The Air Force, and later GT&E Sylvania Electronics Systems, made some progress on Wullenweber antenna technology, but more than a decade passed before the first site became operational.\n\nProfessor Edgar Hayden, a bright engineer at the University of Illinois, under contract to the U.S. Navy, led the charge to build America's first Wullenweber. He studied the German design and analyzed potential performance possibilities against current Huff Duffs. That's when he got excited. His calculations concluded that inaccuracies could be reduced from as high as three percent down to one-half of one percent. That small change could be the difference between sending navy aircraft to find a sub off New York City versus Long Island. Hayden also found that Wullenweber arrays could select desired signals and reject interfering signals or noise detection. This helped extend detection ranges out to several thousand miles away\u2014four times that of current antennas. With the Soviets extending the range of their ballistic missiles, and hence their submarine patrol distances away from U.S. shores, longer range capability held a high degree of importance.\n\nBlessed by the navy, after reporting the good news, Hayden assembled a team to build a Wullenweber array at the university's Road Field Station near Bondville, Illinois. The array contained a ring of 120 vertical pole antennas that \"listened\" in the HF range of 2 to 20 MHz. Tall wooden poles, comprising a hundred-foot-diameter circle, supported a screen of vertical wires located within the ring of monopoles. From a distance, the site looked like a giant circular cage large enough to keep elephants from escaping, which spurred the term elephant cages often used by operators.\n\nBased on lessons learned from the Bondville experimental array in 1959, the Air Force awarded a contract to GT&E Sylvania Electronics Systems to build a larger Wullenweber elephant cage\u2014the AN\/FLR-9\u2014at RAF Chicksands in the U.K. This \"Flare-nine,\" along with a sister site at San Vito, Brindisi, Italy, was not scheduled to light off until late 1962. The Air Force used these arrays for airborne tracking and not HFDF although the navy planned to borrow these antennas for such by stationing NSG personnel nearby.\n\nIn mid-1961, when Robert Misner installed the newly invented Boresight AN\/FRA-44 recorder\/analyzer, the navy's plan expanded. With help from Stanford Research Institute, the original Wullenweber designs were improved upon, resulting in something more advanced called the Wide Aperture Receiving System (WARS). Since the Air Force owned AN\/FLR-9 as its official designator for the new CDAA antenna and systems, the navy named its design AN\/FRD-10. Operators called them \"Fred Tens.\"\n\nWhile these sites were designed to conduct some of the most sophisticated radio interception work ever, much of the equipment used, aside from the special fraw forty-four Boresight recorder\/analyzer and related systems, came from \"off-the-shelf\" sources. Each site contained an abundance of such gear, and even small failures or calibration errors could badly degrade bearing accuracy. With the Bulls Eye and Boresight programs underscored by massive bud gets, most everything ordered for these facilities arrived in baker's dozens, from antennas to multicouplers to receivers. Miles of cable snaked through, under, and around the buildings, ending in hundreds of coaxial connectors for coupling to various devices. Only one special device held the honor of being installed as a dynamic duo: the goniometer.\n\nUsed by the Germans in their Wullenweber designs, the goniometer owes its name to the Greeks. Gonia translates as \"angle,\" and metron means \"to measure.\" A spinning goniometer became the backbone to a functioning Fred Ten by refining the process of searching various frequencies. Not unlike a carnival wheel on which various prize amounts are indicated, a goniometer rotates around various frequencies by \"touching\" the pole antennas in a Wullenweber array. Recall that our array consists of a bunch of tall antennas positioned in a big circle. So, if the strongest signal from a transmitting submarine is coming from due north, as the goniometer spins, it will measure a higher signal strength coming from the antenna pole positioned at zero degrees in that circle. After compensating for inaccuracies, time delays, atmospheric conditions, and so on, via lots of sophisticated equipment and analysis, we can determine a bearing to our contact of, say, 358 degrees\u2014roughly in the direction of Santa's house at the North Pole.\n\nOriginal Fred Ten designs consisted of two in dependent goniometers that were later replaced by a single ten-foot-long dumbbell-shaped unit with four-foot-diameter router housings on each end. These resembled the spinning \"g-force\" simulators used to train pi lots and astronauts, only smaller. Since these sites were built prior to the invention of uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs), engineers installed electric motors driven by generators with large flywheels. Diesel engines spun the flywheels during power outages, which took over for the electric motor when the primary power failed.\n\nThe U.S. Navy contracted with ITT Federal Systems to deploy a worldwide network of more than a dozen Wullenweber elephant cages for HFDF operations. The Fred Ten near Okinawa, Japan, became the first installation, but it did not come up to full speed until the second half of 1962. An elephant cage near the Scottish village of Edzell also came on line that year. Nestled in a farming area in the foothills of the Grampian Hills, some thirty-five miles south of Aberdeen, that site replaced less sophisticated listening posts in Germany and Morocco. The navy erected another elephant cage in 1962 at Skaggs Island, California, not far from San Francisco. Each of these facilities cost just shy of $1 million and employed dozens of navy and civilian personnel. At the time, operators at the Skaggs Island Bulls Eye site were unaware of their destiny to play a significant role in the Cuban Missile Crisis.\n\nIN EARLY 1962, REED RETURNED TO Turkey. Within hours of his return, he jetted to the Karam\u00fcrsel base to integrate the new Boresight technology into the existing DF systems. Although the Air Force had not yet installed a Wullenweber elephant cage there, which meant that bearing accuracies would be poor, the objective now focused more on getting something working versus working well. Reed was also tasked with writing an installation and operations manual that could aid other DF sites in implementing the new systems.\n\nWith the help of his colleagues at Karam\u00fcrsel, under the watchful eye of Captain Mason and Commander Petersen, Reed installed the new Boresight receiver\/recorder and related equipment developed by the NSA team. Now, if he could only get the damn thing to work.\n\nThe theory seemed simple: When a receiver encountered a \"trigger heading\" on a burst signal, a sixty-inch-per-second recorder with two-inch-wide tape automatically switched on. The recorder captured the signal, along with a marker indicating the time to the millisecond that the signal was intercepted. Because the Boresight system enabled operators to also capture directional signal strength and other parameters, synchronized by the time marker, they could now determine, after the fact, the probable bearing to the transmitting sub.\n\nIn order for Net Control to get a reasonable fix on the sub's location, additional bearings were needed to create a multiangulation. So until more stations came on line, Boresight remained useless. As such, while Lorenzen's team tackled the enormous problem of building more Wullenweber sites to improve accuracy, Reed received orders to help get other sites\u2014most equipped with older GRD-6 antennas\u2014up and running. The navy hoped that if enough of these sites were operational, they could at least achieve a ballpark fix good enough for ASW forces to have a fighting chance.\n\nFor the next several months, Reed flew around the world to install systems and train operators at sites along the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean perimeters. Operators and station chiefs were excited about the possibility of finally hearing the Soviet subs again, but they were not so thrilled with the amount of work and resources required to become operational.\n\nThe space required for the reception and recording equipment covered an area as large as a typical living room and needed to be air-conditioned since the receivers in those days still used vacuum tubes that generated considerable heat. After installation, days of calibration and testing were needed, along with many long hours of troubleshooting to ensure that everything worked properly. R-Branchers needed to be trained on the equipment, what to listen and look for, and how to properly analyze the burst signals. Reed usually spent weeks at each facility before certifying them as Boresight operational.\n\nBack in the States, Howard Lorenzen and his team of geniuses went to work on a jamming system. Using similar technology to that used in intercept jammers developed by NRL's Special Projects Section in World War II to hamper German aircraft bomb controllers, Lorenzen's team built systems that could send out false signals on the same frequencies used by Soviet burst transmitters. This made it a little harder for Moscow to communicate with its subs and vice versa. Reed took several trips to England to help engineers there install the burst signal jammers, but these devices came with a limited range and were effective only when the Soviet subs passed near the British Isles.\n\nIN THE SPRING OF 1962, WILLIAM J. Reed found out that he'd been selected for a commission in the U.S. Navy. All those years of correspondence courses, night school, and hard work finally paid off. Commander Mason informed Reed that he'd earn his ensign bars in July, and he and his family would be leaving Turkey that same month. After his arrival in the States, he'd head to LDO School in Newport, Rhode Island, for \"knife-and-fork\" training in August, then to the NSA facility at Fort George G. Meade, Mary land. Until then, several more months of grueling travel lay ahead.\n\nA key ingredient to ensuring that Boresight could obtain an accurate bearing to a transmitting submarine entailed calibration and signal analysis. Using the example of finding one's car in a parking lot, two things are taken for granted with human hearing that are not prevalent in the world of HFDF. One of these is that we know what a car horn sounds like. The other is that, for most of us, our ears are also familiar to us, and over many years we've learned how to discern from which direction sound is traveling. In other words, we're pretty sure that our horn is the one blaring at us from an easterly direction.\n\nThis was not the case for the systems used to detect locations for Soviet burst signals. There were just too many unanswered questions about the characteristics of this new type of signal, and before Boresight could be made fully operational, more information was needed. Someone had to undertake the job of finding a Soviet sub or two and get them to transmit while analyzing and calibrating signal location, strength, type, frequency, and time on the air. Using these parameters, operators could test and properly calibrate Boresight systems to be sure they were not providing false hits.\n\nWhen Reed was ordered to ride on a Turkish sub to see if he could capture a burst signal from a nearby Soviet boat, his heart raced. He'd never been on a submarine before, let alone an old smoke boat that appeared to be missing half a lung and one eye. The Turks called her the Birinci Inonu, which loosely translated as \"First Prize\" or \"Number One\"\u2014hardly an apt description befitting this blue-haired geezer in an Istanbul harbor that oozed the foul scent of diesel fumes. Holding his nose, Reed crossed the wooden gangway and boarded the sub.\n\nThe Birinci once served the U.S. Navy in World War II as the USS Brill (SS-330). She launched from Groton, Connecticut, on June 26, 1944, and the Turks bought her after the war on May 23, 1948. A slick film of oil surrounded her 312-foot black hull, where ten torpedo tubes, six forward and four aft, had fired MK-14s at the German navy seventeen years earlier. Reed once read that the Birinci could hit around twenty knots on the surface and ten submerged, driven by a couple of large diesel engines and electric motors.\n\nThe topside watch saluted as Reed approached. He handed over his orders and in Turkish asked to see the skipper. Long minutes passed before a stocky barrel of a man emerged through the hatch. He displayed short-clipped hair and a tight mustache and carried a stern \"I'm in charge\" look. He introduced himself as Captain Celik and motioned for Reed to follow. Grabbing his seabag, Reed descended the ladder into the belly of the dragon.\n\nBelow decks, the Birinci smelled even worse than she did topside. So did her crew of eighty-five. They paid Reed little attention as they prepared to get under way. Captain Celik escorted Reed to his stateroom, which was also a misnomer. The small space housed two bunks and a curtain. No door. Another officer who shared the space\u2014introduced as the navigator\u2014smiled and shook Reed's hand. They talked briefly, then walked to the wardroom for the mission briefing.\n\nCaptain Celik greeted Reed near the wardroom and handed him a cup of black coffee and a pastry. He smiled and said, \"A cup of coffee commits one to forty years of friendship.\"\n\nRecognizing the Turkish proverb, Reed returned the smile and said, \"A hungry stomach has no ears.\"\n\nCaptain Celik cocked his head, offered a friendly Turkish hand gesture, and entered the wardroom. Reed said little during the briefing, as a majority of the crew did not have a \"need to know\" the details of this mission. Such was the tacit agreement between the two navies: we cooperate like allies; we defend our secrets like enemies. Three U.S. Navy technicians trained on Boresight and ESM equipment were also present. The ESM equipment had been installed days earlier by those technicians.\n\nThe Birinci sputtered and belched as she edged away from the pier. The diesels vibrated and hummed, and the saliva in Reed's mouth disappeared. Standing in the control room, one level below the conning tower, Reed watched a Turkish seaman attempt to repair a leak in a hydraulic line\u2014with a hammer. Any doubts that Turkish submariners were the most dangerous species of mammal on the planet evaporated.\n\nCaptain Celik steamed the Birinci into the Black Sea and submerged. The world turned quiet as the batteries spun the boat's propellers, and Reed spent most of his time in the conning tower working with the technicians to test and calibrate the ESM systems. The Turkish sailors gazed at the U.S. techs with curious eyes, but having been briefed by their CO regarding secrecy, they refrained from asking any questions.\n\nWhile patrolling near Sevastopol, days passed without a contact. Then the sonar operator heard the muted chugging of a snorkeling submarine. Captain Celik steered toward the contact. Chatter in the boat ceased. Faces turned serious as they closed to within a few nautical miles. Although the Birinci was an old girl, she'd been upgraded with reasonably decent sonar gear. The same could not be said for the sonar operators. They were clueless as to the possible contact type. Reed asked for permission to take the headphones. The captain nodded agreement, and a Turkish sailor handed Reed the phones. He sat near the sonar stack and listened. His face wrinkled with concentration. Then he heard it: the distinct diesel engine chug of a Foxtrot submarine.\n\nAlthough Captain Celik remained in charge of the boat, Reed assumed command of the mission. Once contact was made with the enemy, the mission commenced, and Celik now technically reported to Reed. Technically.\n\nReed ordered Celik to close the distance so the ESM gear could get a signal. Reluctantly, the captain issued the proper orders to his crew. The Birinci turned, slowed, and inched toward the Soviet boat. Sweat dripped from faces and soaked coveralls. Reed stood behind the U.S. Navy techs and gave directions regarding the signal types and frequencies to listen for. If they could capture a burst transmission and match that against the actual position of the transmitting target, that would go a long way toward accurately calibrating the newly installed Bore-sight systems. They could only hope that the Russian submarine transmitted before she left the area and went deep, and that might be a long shot at best.\n\n\"Now we wait?\" Celik said in Turkish.\n\n\"Evet,\" Reed said. \"Now we wait.\"\n\n\"Do you gamble, Mr. Reed?\" Celik said.\n\nReed flashed a puzzled look. \"Gamble?\"\n\n\"Evet. Gamble. Poker, blackjack, you know, gamble. Do you not understand this word?\"\n\n\"Yes, I understand. Why do you ask?\"\n\n\"We have an old saying, perhaps you've heard this. 'The wind that the sailor likes does not blow at all times.'\"\n\nStill perplexed, Reed said, \"What's your point?\"\n\n\"I like to gamble, but not in a house of bad odds. If I had to gamble now, I'd bet that your mission fails.\"\n\nReed removed twenty American dollars from his pocket and waved them in front of Celik. \"I'll take that bet.\"\n\nCelik smiled and removed some bills from his pocket.\n\nHours passed with no joy. The Soviet sub continued to snorkel without transmitting. Reed started to wonder if he'd just lost a day's pay to Celik. His mouth dry, his armpits moist, his temples throbbing, Reed knew that the success of their mission depended on getting that Russian boat to send out a burst. But how?\n\nReed's mind scrambled for an answer. At first he refused to listen to his own thoughts, as to do so meant risking more than he cared to, more than he knew Celik would accept. Reed walked over to the sonar console and asked the operator to let him take the stack. He pulled on the headset and listened. Celik watched from the other side of the conning tower, his forehead forming curious lines above his thick black eyebrows. Reed ordered Celik to slow and pull to within 4,000 yards\u2014less than two nautical miles away.\n\n\"I will not!\" Celik said.\n\n\"You will,\" Reed said, \"or I'll see to it that you lose your command.\"\n\nCelik glared. \"Two captains sink a ship.\" He gave the order to the helmsmen, and the Birinci moved closer.\n\nSeveral minutes later, the diving officer reported that they were now 4,000 yards away. Celik ordered all stop and raised the ESM mast and the attack periscope. He swung the scope left, then right. He marked two bearings and lowered the mast. \"Foxtrot at two-three-five and a Skory at one-eight-nine.\"\n\n\"A Skory?\" Reed said. \"We never heard her.\"\n\n\"She's not moving. She's just sitting there about 2,000 yards behind the Foxtrot.\"\n\nReed searched his head for stats and recalled a few. The Soviet Skory-class destroyer carried a slew of ASW equipment and weapons, including four depth charge racks on her afterdeck. No doubt the Skory's captain longed for the chance to use them against a macho Turkish sub skipper. That ship wouldn't sit still forever, and if she came their way, that just might end the mission. They couldn't chance having an extended ESM mast popped up while trained Soviet eyes scanned the seas for intruders.\n\nReed sat at the sonar console and stared at the active sonar key. That key, when pushed, sent a focused beam of sound into the water that bounced off nearby objects, like ships and subs. The active ping returned distance and bearing information to those objects, along with visual outlines displayed on a screen in a similar fashion as radar. That was good. On the other hand, the loud ping could be heard by anyone in the area, thus alerting them to the sub's location. That was bad.\n\nFrom the other side of the conn, Celik watched Reed like a shop owner monitoring a potential thief. The muscle in Reed's chest thudded like a Turkish ramazan drum as he moved his hand closer to the active sonar key. Celik's eyes shot open when he detected the move. He ran toward the console but did not get there in time.\n\nReed hit the key. One loud active ping blasted the water.\n\nCelik arrived at the console, pulled out his sidearm, and placed the cold steel against Reed's temple. \"The cock that crows at the wrong time is killed.\"\n\nReed said, \"One hand does not clap, two hands do. Maybe now he'll transmit.\"\n\nCelik pulled the gun away. His lips formed a half smile. \"If he does and we live, I will not make good on our bet.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Because you cheated.\"\n\n\"Fair enough.\"\n\nOne of the navy technicians raised an excited hand. \"The Foxtrot just sent out a burst!\"\n\nReed ran over to the ESM equipment. \"What do you have?\"\n\nThe lanky tech pointed at a spinning recorder. \"We got her nice and clear.\"\n\nAnother tech looked up from a console. \"Can we go home now?\"\n\nReed smiled. \"Absolutely.\"\n\nHis smile disappeared as the sonar operator reported the sound of a killer on the move. Had Reed not pinged the water, the Soviet Skory-class destroyer might never have heard the Birinci's quiet, battery-powered propellers. She might never have seen the ESM masts or periscope smoothly gliding through the Black Sea. But now, as she eased toward her prey, this formidable hunter\/killer knew that something lurked under the waves nearby. The Skory's active sonar lit up the ocean as she neared. The ringing vibrations penetrated the hull, and a dozen men in the conning tower recoiled with each ping.\n\nCaptain Celik glared at Reed. \"You've killed us.\"\n\nReed said nothing.\n\nA loud explosion rocked the boat. Sailors in the control room, one deck below the conning tower, yelled obscenities as they struggled to maintain depth and course. More depth charges shattered the silence.\n\nCelik ordered a dive to test depth\u2014about 400 feet\u2014and all ahead full. Reed figured he was probably trying to find a thermal layer to hide under. It didn't work. The Skory kept rolling cans off her deck, and the explosions got louder. And closer. The hydraulic pipe the Turkish seaman earlier fixed in the control room with a hammer sprung a leak. Hydraulic fluid shot out from the pipe like water from a pinched garden hose.\n\nReed thought about his home, his wife, his children. He recalled that years earlier, on board his first ship, the PCS-1380, he'd held Bible studies and Sunday church services. He even bet some of the atheists on board that if he bested them in the boxing ring, they had to attend the following Sunday. He never lost. Since then his faith had diminished to an ember, but as another depth charge rattled his teeth, he whispered a silent prayer.\n\nCelik took the boat deeper and slowed to a crawl. The Birinci moaned and shrieked. Despite the slower speed, the batteries would be depleted in less than a dozen hours. Reed's lungs heaved as the carbon dioxide buildup made it hard to breathe. The heavy air smelled of sailor stench.\n\nThe boat leveled off at 475 feet. Pipes sprang leaks, and the Turkish crew scrambled to make repairs. The depth charges crept closer, along with the Skory's incessant pinging. If neither stopped soon, Reed swore to himself that he'd grab Celik's sidearm and end the ordeal on his own. Thankfully, he didn't have to. The Skory passed overhead and moved away. She did not return.\n\nCelik ordered a turn in the opposite direction, looked at Reed, and said, \"Dogs bark, but the caravan goes on.\"\n\nReed smiled and said, \"If a dog's prayers were answered, bones would rain from the sky.\"\n\nAfter another four hours, with the Skory now far enough away, Captain Celik brought the boat shallow and snorkeled. Having survived her brush with death, the Birinci ran for home.\n\nA few days later, Reed walked through the door of his apartment near Karam\u00fcrsel and held his children in his arms longer than he ever had before.\n\n## CHAPTER FIVE\n\nWe don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us, or spare us.\n\n\u2014Marcel Proust\n\nDURING THE MONTH OF AUGUST 1962, while a small window of summer warmed the city of Moscow, Vice Admiral Leonid Rybalko sped down the Kutuzovskv Prospekt in a black Volga sedan. Summoned to a last-minute meeting with Sergei Gorshkov, the fleet admiral of the Soviet Union, Rybalko ruminated over the reasons for the urgency. Through the windshield of the vehicle, driven by an enlisted man with peach fuzz on his face, the walls of the Kremlin reflected the morning sun and splashed the Arbat with a blood red hue. Vendors along that ailing street unpacked their goods and looked up briefly as the Volga passed by.\n\nThe driver turned the Volga onto Yanesheva ulitsa and pulled to a stop in an annex parking lot. Rybalko stepped from the car and bounded through the arched tunnel toward the Ministry of Defense building. Military police, adorned in leather boots and white guard belts, popped to attention as Rybalko approached. The admiral returned their salutes and entered the building through the main door. Ordinarily, he entered from the side, along with the senior operations and intelligence staff, but today was no ordinary day.\n\nRybalko vaulted up the steps and paused for a moment at the top to catch his breath. At fifty-three years of age, he could no longer ignore his limitations. Socialist paintings lined the walls of the hallway. Most depicted Soviet supremacy over Nazi fascists during the war, as if winning those battles validated the Communist way of life. Reaching his destination, Rybalko entered. Defense Minister Rodion Malinovsky waited two steps inside the large wooden door. Rybalko had met the barrel-chested Malinovsky during the war when the field marshal commanded the Soviet Sixth Corps on the southern front. Malinovsky received two decorations for bravery and became a close friend of Joseph Stalin during the war. That friendship eventually led to his selection as defense minister in 1957, trumping more senior officers, including Admiral Gorshkov.\n\n\"To your health, Comrade,\" Rybalko said.\n\n\"And to yours,\" Malinovsky said.\n\nThe defense minister guided Rybalko to a seat, whereupon he proceeded to reminisce about their escapades during the war. Rybalko survived that time partly by fate and partly by luck. He recalled the siege of Leningrad in 1943, when his submarine sent torpedoes into the sides of two Nazi troop ships before they unloaded reinforcements. While other boats suffered from mechanical failures and personnel issues, Rybalko's luck steered him clear of those sandbars.\n\nThe two shared a few laughs, then Malinovsky's smile faded. His large eyes narrowed. \"I'm not going to sugarcoat this, Leonid. What we're going to discuss today could change the balance of world power. Based on our actions over the next few months, the outcome could go either way.\"\n\n\"I see,\" Rybalko said, though he really didn't. An orderly brought a tray with two cups of bitter tea and handed one to Rybalko.\n\nAs Rybalko sipped his tea, Fleet Admiral of the Soviet Union Sergei Gorshkov burst through the door and strutted toward him. Gorshkov's round red cheeks and down-turned mouth made him look permanently angry. With Admiral Vitali Fokin in tow, Gorshkov's short legs carried his stocky frame across the room at a fast clip. He pulled up a chair and sat. Admiral Fokin did the same.\n\nFamous for his direct style, Gorshkov hurled a question at Rybalko. \"Have you heard of Operations Kama and Anadyr?\"\n\nRybalko recalled hearing rumors but nothing more. \"Yes, sir, I've heard the names but not the details.\"\n\nGorshkov leaned back in his seat. A slight smile played on his lips, as though he were about to impart gossip to his grade-school buddies on a playground. \"As you know, on May 12, Premier Nikita Khrushchev finalized his decision to deploy strategic weapons to Cuba under the cover of a humanitarian aid program.\"\n\nRybalko said nothing.\n\nGorshkov continued. \"After the first Soviet delegation visited Havana later that month to consult with the Cubans, and Fidel Castro agreed to the plan, the Soviet General Staff Directive devised Operations Kama and Anadyr.\"\n\nWhen Gorshkov took a breath, Admiral Fokin said, \"The name Anadyr came from Stalin's plan to attack Alaska in the fifties with a million-man army. Obviously, he never executed the plan, so we took the name.\"\n\nGorshkov sneered at Fokin for the interruption, then said, \"On July 10, General Issa Pliyev, our Cuban forces commander, along with his staff, flew from Moscow to Havana on a transport plane. They were disguised as engineers and agricultural experts offering humanitarian aid. In July the Maria Ulyanova became the first of eighty-five cargo ships bound for Cuban ports. Do you know what these ships carried in their holds?\"\n\nRybalko did know, but he again feigned ignorance. \"I have heard speculations, sir, but no confirmations.\"\n\nGorshkov's eyes lit up. \"Long-range nuclear missiles. On that day Operation Anadyr began. Now the world will never be the same.\"\n\nInside, Rybalko shuddered. Outside, he remained stoic. His patriotism and love for his Rodina ran deep, but his respect for some of his country's leaders often waned. This was especially true when it came to the premier. Party First Secretary Khrushchev had insisted on nosing his way into the navy's postwar naval construction programs. He ordered Gorshkov to dismantle all large ships, claiming that these behemoths were \"good only for carrying heads of state on official business.\" Now, with a potential conflict brewing near Cuba, the navy could not even muster two cruisers. Plagued by reactor problems, the long-promised fleet of nuclear submarines remained nothing more than a pipe dream. The party's Central Committee could not find enough raw materials to build much more than a rowboat, so the Soviet Union found itself staring at the backside of American ingenuity and production. If Khrushchev's Anadyr were indeed destined to change the balance of power, it would have to include a way to create resources from thin air.\n\nMinister Malinovsky leaned forward in his chair. \"Here's where you play a key role, Leonid.\"\n\nRybalko held his chin steady. \"What's my assignment?\"\n\n\"You will lead Project Kama,\" Gorshkov said.\n\nRybalko recognized the title of the river that ran from Siberia to the Volga, but he'd heard almost nothing about the operation bearing the river's name.\n\n\"Kama is the naval segment of Operation Anadyr,\" Fokin inserted. \"This plan calls for the permanent relocation of the seven missile submarines of the Eighteenth Division from Polyarny to Mariel, Cuba. Accompanying those submarines will be two Project 68 Chapayev-class gun cruisers, two squadrons of mine warfare craft, and two missile destroyers.\"\n\n\"There's more,\" Gorshkov said, again displaying agitation at Fokin's interruption. \"Four Project 641 diesel boats from the Sixty-ninth Brigade will also transit undercover to Cuba, but these boats will carry special weapons.\"\n\n\"Special weapons?\" Rybalko asked.\n\n\"Very special,\" Fokin said grimly.\n\n\"Each submarine,\" Gorshkov said, \"will be issued one nuclear-tipped torpedo.\"\n\nRybalko's eyes opened wide. \"Nuclear? But...our 641 boats aren't trained for such weapons.\"\n\nGorshkov waved a hand dismissively. \"Captain Shumkov of B-130 earned the Order of Lenin award for firing two live nuclear torpedoes near Novaya Zemlya last year. That should be sufficient.\"\n\n\"That's true,\" Rybalko said, \"but these torpedoes have a sixteen-kilometer kill zone. Getting close enough to hit an American ship could put our submarines at great risk.\"\n\nGorshkov remained silent for a moment, then drew his lips tight and said, \"Hopefully, your boat commanders will never need to fire one. In the event they are forced into a corner, they will be guided by clear rules of engagement. Is that understood?\"\n\nReluctantly, Rybalko nodded. \"Understood.\"\n\nFokin piped up again. \"Your submarines will transmit position reports daily at midnight Moscow time using their SBD high-frequency transmitters. We will broadcast updates in parallel using low-frequency and high-frequency single sideband. To receive these broadcasts, one boat must remain near the surface to monitor the HF band.\"\n\n\"That will make them vulnerable to American ASW forces,\" Rybalko said. He also knew that the new \"burst\" transmission radios, dubbed SBD, for ultra rapid activity, were not very reliable. Due to natural and manmade interference, including a new jamming signal used by the British near their coastline, Soviet boats often needed to stay near the surface and transmit dozens of times to ensure receipt by Moscow.\n\n\"We appreciate the dangers,\" Fokin said, \"but the mission's importance takes precedence.\"\n\n\"We have limited acoustic and sea condition knowledge for the Sargasso Sea,\" Rybalko said. \"We're also not certain how effective the American hydroacoustic array is now, and avoiding enemy ASW aircraft may be difficult. Also, the warmer tropical waters could cause living conditions in these boats to become unbearable.\"\n\n\"No one said this mission would be easy,\" Gorshkov said. \"That's why we selected you to lead the charge.\"\n\nRybalko wanted to voice further concerns, including the possibility that firing a nuclear torpedo at an American ship could cause World War III, but he realized that his admonitions would be lost on deaf ears.\n\nAdmiral Fokin offered further instructions, including details about store loads, crew preparation, and the planned departure time. The four then rose, shook hands, and departed. As he left the Ministry of Defense building, Rybalko thought about his wife, Galena, and his mother, Natasha, who lived with his sisters and their families north of Moscow in a small village called Klin. For a fleeting moment, he pictured their pained and twisted faces as they turned to ashes in the fiery center of a mushroom cloud.\n\nON AUGUST 17, 1962, ON BOARD the spy ship USS Oxford (AG-159), an R-Brancher heard something strange, not too unlike the faint sound of tires screeching in a parking lot. Instantly, he recognized the electronic chirp of a Soviet radar code-named Whiff. The R-Brancher informed the officer in charge, and the OIC radioed Net Control, which sent a CRITIC (critical) message to the National Security Agency. Russian-speaking I-Branchers assigned to the A Group Soviet signals intelligence desk at NSA headquarters in Mary land ran down hallways and out doors. Within minutes they reported to the office of the operations chief, Major General John Davis. Most were ordered to assist the B Group Spanish linguists listening to intercepted traffic coming from Cuba. Previously, all transmissions from the island came from Cubans speaking Spanish. Within the past week, however, much of that banter changed to Russian\u2014or Spanish spoken with a heavy Russian accent. In response to this unprecedented change, the NSA set up its first around-the-clock SIGINT command center, establishing the foundation for the National Security Operations Center (NSOC).\n\nWhile Russian-speaking I-Branchers at NSA strapped on headphones and listened, officials in Washington, D.C., hurried to meetings. CIA Director John McCone insisted that the detection of Whiff radar signals and other collected data supported only one conclusion: the Soviets were installing offensive ballistic missiles in Cuba, possibly even nuclear. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Secretary of State Dean Rusk dismissed McCone's \"Chicken Little sky is falling\" concerns, believing the military buildup to be only defensive. Still, under direct orders from President John Kennedy after he received the news, the NSA established FUNNEL as the new top-secret code word restricting access to information related to Cuban SIGINT\u2014especially anything containing evidence of Soviet offensive weapons.\n\nThousands of miles away, in the silent cold of the Arctic Ocean north of Russia, the USS Nautilus crept along at three knots. Her periscope peaked above the icy sea near the remote island of Novaya Zemlya. Thirteen miles from ground zero, T-Brancher \"spook\" John Arnold, a communications technician chief, waited for a nuclear explosion. Arnold knew that the Soviets had detonated a fifty-eight-megaton bomb\u2014the largest thermonuclear beast extant\u2014at this very location the previous year, and a Foxtrot-class submarine also shot two live nuclear torpedoes into the harbor around that same time. In fact, the Soviets had conducted so many nuclear tests near Novaya Zemlya that they took to calling the island Black Harbor.\n\nA seasoned submariner, Arnold had previously served aboard the USS Scorpion (SS-278), a diesel boat that almost collided with a Soviet November-class nuclear submarine. When he received orders to report to the Nautilus for a special mission, he envisioned a technically advanced underwater marvel. He soon found that low tech still ruled the day when he learned that an ordinary cardboard toilet paper roll played a critical part in conducting periscope photographic intelligence. The crew placed the lens of a Canon camera on one end of the roll, with the other end fitted to the periscope's eyepiece. The jury-rigged setup remained in place with a double helping of black electrician's tape.\n\nWhile on station at Black Harbor, Arnold witnessed more than a dozen spectacular explosions through the periscope in which the Soviets filled the sky with crimson mushroom clouds. During each test detonation, while the Nautilus rocked back and forth, bright flashes could be seen through the toilet paper roll, despite the heavy coating of tape. Sonic booms clapped in ears, and fluorescent lights shattered.\n\nSeveral weeks later, Arnold transferred to a spy ship operating just off the coast of Cuba, where he strained to hear the signals emanating from nearby Soviet radar and missile guidance systems. He and other spooks monitored signals from SA-2 surface-to-air missile (SAM) and other conventional weapons platforms brought to the island by the Soviets on merchant ships. At 2:00 A.M. on the morning of September 15, 1962, Arnold detected something that made the hairs on his neck stand at attention. He checked and double-checked his readings. Without a doubt he was listening to the tone of a Soviet Spoon Rest radar system, indicating that the Soviets had completed the construction of the SA-2 missile platforms. These conventional SAM sites were now fully operational, and from now on, any U.S. aircraft flying over Cuban airspace could be shot down within seconds.\n\nOther R-Branchers located at a Huff Duff high-frequency direction-finding station in Homestead, Florida, and on board the spy ship USS Oxford operating in Cuban waters also heard the signals and multiangulated the source. They estimated the location of the SA-2 battery as three miles west of Mariel. The navy ordered the Oxford to move in closer and gave her a new set of orders: start listening for signals that indicated the presence of nuclear missiles in Cuba.\n\nIn August 1962, CIA Director McCone advised President Kennedy about the Soviet SA-2 conventional SAM batteries in Cuba and the possibility that nuclear missiles might be present, though they were yet to be verified. Kennedy sanctioned a U-2 spy plane flight over the island, which confirmed eight conventional SAM sites. He voiced a strong protest to Khrushchev about the sites and further warned that the United States would not tolerate nuclear missiles in Cuba. The Soviet premier denied any such intentions, claiming that only a few conventional weapons and \"agricultural equipment\" would be shipped to the island.\n\nBy early September 1962, dozens of Soviet ships had delivered spare parts and munitions to Cuba. Secretly, these ships also unloaded several Komar-class missile-firing patrol boats designed to thwart amphibious landings, which Gorshkov warned could happen within weeks if the Americans discovered nuclear missiles in their backyard. Already the United States had increased surveillance flights and eyed Soviet merchant ships suspiciously. Two of those ships, the Indigirki and Aleksandrovsk, departed Severomorsk and carried a cargo of nuclear missiles into Cuba's Mariel harbor eighteen days later. The Aleksandrovsk transported fourteen warheads, which would later be married to R-14 missiles after they arrived on another ship. Each missile could hit targets as far away as San Francisco, California, and packed more than sixty times the destructive force that leveled Hiroshima.\n\nThe first indication that Khrushchev might be lying about sending nuclear arms to Cuba came on September 18 when, off the coast of Tunis in the Mediterranean, a U.S. Navy frigate confronted a Russian merchant ship and inquired about its cargo. The ship reported that she was carrying only agricultural machinery. Binoculars aboard the frigate indicated otherwise, as the deck was covered with large crates of irregular sizes, which appeared to be the kind that carried disassembled military aircraft.\n\nBy the third week of September, U.S. warships and aircraft were intently watching thirty-five Russian merchant ships en route to Cuba. All told, the United States counted 129 ships leaving Russian ports and 94 arriving at Mariel. Due to frequent overflights by U.S. surveillance planes, Soviet personnel on the ground in Cuba worked only at night, unloading ships and assembling missile silos. The Cubans nicknamed their new allies \"night crawlers.\" Though the U.S. government suspected foul play, it had no proof. At least not yet. Fearing the worst, the U.S. Navy planned for a potential future blockade of Cuban waters. Naval aircraft and \"tin can\" destroyers increased patrols, and personnel were put on high alert. Suspecting that Gorshkov would not send so many merchant ships through the Sargasso Sea unprotected, the navy issued instructions to search for possible Soviet submarines. Those orders were also given to every Huff Duff station within range of the Atlantic.\n\nON SEPTEMBER 30, ABOARD THE SOVIET diesel submarine B-36 harbored in Sayda Bay, Captain Second Rank Aleksei Dubivko examined a suspicious bundle of ocean charts. They lay against one corner of the chart room, a small, highly classified enclosed area in the port front corner of the control center that only a few on board were allowed to enter. The fleet headquarters duty officer had brought the charts on board a few days earlier. The large stack of nautical maps covered the Caribbean and North Atlantic seas. One chart provided channel approaches to enter several Cuban ports, including Mariel, a small harbor west of Havana. No more than a few seconds elapsed before Dubivko added up the clues\u2014including a recent overload of stores\u2014and guessed where they might be headed. Why they were being sent on the longest deployment ever made by Soviet submarines remained a mystery. Those details would be revealed only after they submerged in the Barents Sea and opened their sealed orders.\n\nDubivko had no doubt that, regardless of where they were going, he and his crew would execute those orders efficiently. An aggressive commander in his early thirties, he demanded top performance from his seventy-eight officers and men. His motivation to achieve perfection often led to top grades for operational and engineering tests. Captain Nikolai Shumkov, commander of the submarine B-130, was the only peer who had ever bested him in a competition, and only in the weapons department. And this was because B-130 was the only boat in their group to have fired live nuclear torpedoes into Black Harbor one year earlier. Although Dubivko had always longed for that opportunity, he hoped that the need to fire a nuke on this mission would never occur.\n\nAfter graduating from the Vladivostok Higher Naval School, Ukrainian-born Dubivko originally served on board a \"skimmer\" surface ship. He later transferred to the submarine fleet, and as a senior lieutenant, accepted command of his first boat out of Gorky on the Volga in 1953. Dubivko learned a great deal under the leadership of Fleet Commander Admiral Chebanenko and Commander of Submarine Forces Vice Admiral Orel by participating in scores of exercises held by the Northern Fleet. These maneuvers, as a rule, were conducted in the Norwegian and Greenland seas and the northern part of the Atlantic so boat skippers could polish submarine tactics and antisubmarine defenses. Dubivko's drive earned him considerable recognition and opened the door in 1960 to his selection as commander of B-36, a new Project 641 boat fresh out of Leningrad's construction halls.\n\nDubivko and his crew turned the key on B-36 in 1961 and ran her around the track on sea trials. A year and a dozen runs after that, he received his orders to transfer the boat to Sayda Bay. There, on a cold September afternoon, he stood on the bridge of his award-winning race car and watched two officers from the weapons facility walk across the gangway. One officer, adorned with the Northern Fleet headquarters staff emblem, clutched a briefcase in his right hand. B-36's topside watch clicked his heels, saluted, and pointed at Dubivko high up in the sail. The visiting officers nodded and walked toward the side hatch. They undogged the hatch and entered the confined space that led to the bridge. Dubivko looked down and watched the staff officer, with the second officer following, swing onto the lower rung of the ladder leading up to the bridge platform.\n\nThe heavyset staff officer scrunched his broad shoulders, stepped from the ladder, and squeezed onto the bridge. He told Dubivko that he was the Northern Fleet special weapons directorate. He turned and waved a hand at the baby-faced man behind him and introduced Alexander Pomilyev, who he said was a lieutenant assigned to B-36 as a special weapons expert. He cracked opened his briefcase, removed a copy of the lieutenant's orders, and handed them to Dubivko, who read the papers and asked for a definition of \"special weapon.\"\n\nThe weapons directorate said Dubivko would find out soon enough.\n\nAfter the directorate left the bridge, Dubivko stared at Pomilyev and asked, \"What do you know about this special weapon?\"\n\n\"Everything,\" Pomilyev said.\n\n\"Is it nuclear?\"\n\n\"I'm not at liberty to say.\"\n\nDubivko rubbed his chin. \"Am I delivering this to our mission destination?\"\n\n\"I'm not at liberty to say.\"\n\n\"What are you at liberty to say?\"\n\nPomilyev's face softened. \"Nothing, I'm sorry. I understand that you'll be receiving more information about this at the briefing, and detailed instructions are included in your sealed orders. All I can tell you is that the weapon must be stored as a service-ready torpedo in the forward compartment and loaded into the number two tube once we've crossed the Iceland gap area.\"\n\nDubivko frowned. \"You mean after we're in waters patrolled by enemy forces.\"\n\nPomilyev nodded.\n\nDubivko narrowed his eyes. \"Are we going to war with the Americans?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" Pomilyev said.\n\n\"Are you qualified in submarines?\" Dubivko asked.\n\n\"No, sir, but I'm a fast learner and will study under way.\"\n\n\"You're damn straight you will,\" Dubivko said as he turned to watch the weapons directorate cross the gangway and waddle toward the pier. Still staring at the directorate, Dubivko said, \"That will be all, Lieutenant. Report to First Officer Kopeikin for your berthing and watch assignments.\"\n\nAs Pomilyev left the bridge, Dubivko desperately wanted to see his wife and children and tell them good-bye before he left on the most important mission of his career.\n\nSTANDING ON THE DECK OF HIS submarine, staring at a strange-looking torpedo, Captain First Rank Ryurik Ketov flipped up the collar on the back of his navy blue overcoat to shield his neck from the cold. A fading September sun coated the waters of Sayda Bay and reflected remnants of orange and yellow from the sides of a floating crane. The crane hovered over Ketov's boat and lowered a purple-tipped torpedo through the loading hatch. Within minutes the long cylinder disappeared into the forward torpedo room. Blowing into his gloved hands to keep his nose warm, Ketov glanced at the submarine's conning tower. Three large white numbers were painted on the side, but Ketov knew this label held no meaning, except to serve as a numerical decoy for enemy eyes. The boat's real designation was B4\u2014B as in Bolshoi, which means \"large.\"\n\nThe handsome, blue-eyed Ketov inherited his B-4 Project 641 submarine\u2014known as a Foxtrot class by NATO forces\u2014from his former commander, who was a drunk. Tradition dictated that submarine captains who were too inebriated to drive their boats into port should lie below until they sobered up. First officers took charge and positioned a broomstick on the bridge in their captain's stead. Atop the handle they placed the CO's cap so that admirals on shore peering through binoculars would raise no eyebrows. Ketov stood watch with a broom more times than he could recall. He didn't dislike vodka, nor did he disapprove of his CO's desire to partake, but Ketov felt that a man must know his limits and learn to steer clear of such rocks when under way. He demanded no less of his crew. Unfortunately, as his appointment to commander required the approval of the dozen sub skippers in his group, and all of them drank like dolphins, Ketov's stance on alcohol held him back for a year when he came up for promotion.\n\nThe Soviet navy formed the sixty-ninth Brigade of Project 641 submarines in the summer of 1962. Ketov and his comrade captains were ordered to prepare for an extended deployment, which they suspected might be to Africa or Cuba. Some wives, filled with excitement, anticipated a permanent transfer to a warm locale.\n\nThe four subs arrived in Gadzhiyevo at Sayda Bay a month earlier and were incorporated into the Twentieth Submarine Squadron along with the seven missile boats. Vice Admiral Rybalko assumed command of the squadron, and over the next thirty days, each boat was loaded with huge quantities of fuel and stores.\n\nNow, aboard B-4, Captain Ketov coughed into the wind and turned to stare at the weapons security officer. Perched near the crane, the man shouted orders and waved long arms at the fitful dockworkers. The officer's blue coveralls and pilotka \"piss cutter\" cap signified that he belonged to the community of submariners, but Ketov knew better. The shape of a sidearm bulged from under the man's tunic, and his awkwardness around the boat made it obvious that he was not a qualified submariner.\n\nKetov also knew that the security officer came from Moscow with orders to help load, and then guard, the special weapon. Although he'd not yet been briefed about the weapon, Ketov figured this torpedo with the purple-painted nose, which stood in sharp contrast against the other gray torpedoes on board, would probably send a radiation Geiger counter into a ticking frenzy.\n\nKetov looked down at the oily water that slapped against the side of his boat. Attached by long steel cables, three sister boats of the Soviet Red Banner Northern Fleet floated nearby. If one approached these late-model attack subs from the front, their jet-black hulls, upward-sloping decks, and wide conning towers with two rows of Plexiglas windows might look menacing. The silver shimmer of their sonar panels, running across the bow like wide strips of duct tape, might appear odd. The reflective panels of the passive acoustic antenna, jutting from the deck near the bow, might look borrowed from the set of a science-fiction movie. But the seasoned sailors on the decks of these workhorses were unmistakably Russian, and undeniably submariners.\n\nKetov strutted across the wooden brow that connected B-4 to the pier. Two guards, with AK-47 assault rifles slung on their shoulders, snapped to and saluted. Ice crunched under his boots as he walked toward a small shed less than a hundred meters away. Captain Second Rank Aleksei Dubivko, commander of B-36, matched his stride and let out a baritone grunt.\n\n\"Did they give you one of those purple-nosed torpedoes?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Ketov answered, \"they did.\"\n\nAlthough the round-faced commander was about Ketov's height of five foot seven, Dubivko's stocky frame stretched at the stitches of his overcoat. He let out another grunt and said, \"Why are they giving us nuclear-tipped weapons? Are we starting a war?\"\n\n\"Maybe,\" Ketov said. \"Or maybe we're preventing one.\"\n\nDubivko's boots clicked on the ice as he hurried to keep up with Ketov. \"We haven't even tested these weapons. We haven't trained our crews. They have fifteen-megaton warheads.\"\n\n\"So?\"\n\n\"So if we use them, we'll wipe out everything within a sixteen-kilometer radius. Including ourselves.\"\n\nKetov neared the door of the shed and stopped to face Dubivko. \"Then let's hope we never have to use them.\"\n\nDubivko let out a low growl and followed Ketov into the shack.\n\nInside, Captain First Rank Nikolai Shumkov, commander of submarine B-130, stood by the door. Only a few stress lines underscored his brown eyes and marked his boyish features. Next to Shumkov, Captain Second Rank Vitali Savitsky, commander of B-59, appeared tired and bored. None of them had slept much since their trip from Polyarny to Sayda Bay.\n\nThe tiny shed, once used for storage, offered no windows. A single dim bulb hung from the ceiling and cast eerie shadows inside. Someone had nailed the Order of Ushakov Submarine Squadron flag on one wall. The unevenly placed red banner, fringed in gold and smeared with water stains, appeared as if hung by a child in a hurry. In one corner sat a small stove that flickered with yellow sparks but offered little warmth. The air smelled of burnt coal.\n\nOne metal table graced the center of the room, where the squadron commander, Leonid Rybalko, sat with his arms crossed. Ketov noticed that the vice admiral shivered, despite being bundled in a dark navy greatcoat and wool senior officers' mushanka cap. The tall, broad-shouldered Rybalko had a reputation for analytical brilliance and a smooth, engaging wit. A dedicated performer, Rybalko exuded the confidence and mastery of a seasoned leader.\n\nTo the side and behind Rybalko, the deputy supreme commander of the Navy Fleet, Admiral Vitali Fokin, fidgeted with his watch. Thin and lofty, Fokin kept his back straight. Ketov deduced that Fokin, given his close relationship with Fleet Admiral Sergei Gorshkov, held the reins of what ever mission they were about to undertake. A slew of other officers filled the room, including Anatoly Rossokho, the two-star vice admiral chief of staff. Ketov suspected that Rossokho was here to define their rules of engagement about using the special nuclear torpedoes.\n\nVice Admiral Rybalko motioned for everyone to find a seat. He coughed and brought a handkerchief to his lips to spit out a clump of mucus. His face looked pale and sickly. He locked his eyes on each submarine commander one at a time. When he looked at Ketov, those few moments seemed like days.\n\n\"Good morning, Commanders,\" Rybalko said. \"Today is an important day. I'm not going to discuss mission details, as we've included those in your sealed briefings, which you will open under way. So instead we will focus on other aspects of your mission.\"\n\nMetal clanked as an attendant creaked open the front panel on the hot stove and dumped in another can of coal pellets.\n\nRybalko continued. \"I'm sure you all know Admiral Fokin. He asked me to emphasize that each of you has been entrusted with the highest responsibility imaginable. Your actions and decisions on this mission could start or prevent a world war. The four of you have been given the means with which to impose substantial harm upon the enemy. Discretion must be used. Fortunately, our intelligence sources report that American antisubmarine warfare activity should be light during your transit.\"\n\nKetov hoped that the ASW intelligence report was correct but feared that optimism probably overruled reality. He glanced at the other sub commanders. Dubivko and Shumkov wore excited smiles. Savitsky, who'd earned the nickname \"Sweat Stains\" because he was always perspiring about something, wrinkled his brow. Ketov, who received the title of \"Comrade Cautious,\" shared Savitsky's angst. As adventurous as this might seem to Dubivko and Shumkov, Ketov knew Project 641 submarines were not designed for extended runs into hot tropical waters and had no business carrying nuclear torpedoes.\n\nRybalko imparted more information, concluded his speech, and asked if anyone had questions.\n\nKetov raised a hand. \"I do, Comrade Admiral. I understand that our sealed orders provide mission details, but we share concerns about our rules of engagement and the special weapon. When should we use it?\"\n\nVice Admiral Rossokho broke in. \"Comrade Commanders, you will enter the following instructions into your logs when you return to your submarines: Use of the special weapons is authorized only for these three situations\u2014One, you are depth charged, and your pressure hull is ruptured. Two, you surface, and enemy fire ruptures your pressure hull. Three, upon receipt of explicit orders from Moscow.\"\n\nThere were no further questions.\n\nAfter the meeting, Ketov followed the group out into the cold. A witch's moon clung to the black sky and hid behind a dense fog that touched the ground with icy fingers. Ketov reached into his coat pocket and took out a cigarette. Dubivko, standing nearby, held up a lighter. Ketov bent down to accept the flame. Captains Shumkov and Savitsky also lit smokes as they shivered in the dark.\n\nBetween puffs, Ketov posed the first question to Captain Savitsky. \"How are your diesels holding up?\"\n\nSavitsky cringed. \"No problems yet, but I'm still worried about what might happen after they've been run hard for weeks. If they fail on this mission...\" Savitsky's voice trailed off as he shook his head.\n\nKetov knew that shipyard workers had discovered flaws in B-130's diesel engines during the boat's construction. The shipyard dismissed the hairline cracks as negligible, and Savitsky did not press the issue, as to do so would have resulted in his sub's removal from the mission. Still, he fretted endlessly about the consequences.\n\nSensing his friend's distress, Ketov changed the subject. \"Have you seen those ridiculous khaki trousers they delivered?\"\n\n\"I'm not wearing those,\" Savitsky said.\n\n\"I wouldn't either,\" Shumkov said, \"if I had your skinny duck legs.\"\n\nSavitsky snorted and threw his head back. \"I'd like to see how you look in those shorts, Comrade Flabby Ass.\"\n\n\"Right now,\" Dubivko said as he pulled his coat tighter, \"I'd rather look like a duck in shorts than a penguin in an overcoat.\"\n\nKetov smiled and shook his head. \"I'm going back to my boat, try on those silly shorts, and have a long laugh and a can of caviar.\"\n\n\"And maybe some vodka?\" Shumkov said.\n\n\"I wish,\" Ketov said. \"We cast lines at midnight.\"\n\nShumkov nodded and said nothing.\n\nSavitsky raised his chin toward Ketov. \"Do you think we're coming back or staying there permanently?\"\n\nKetov shrugged. \"All I know is that we can't wear those stupid shorts in this weather.\"\n\nBack on board B-4, Captain Ketov sat on the bunk in his cabin and stroked the soft fur of the boat's cat. \"It's time to go, Pasha.\"\n\nOver the past year, the calico had become a close member of B-4's family. Like many Russian submarines, B-4 enlisted the services of felines to hunt down rats that managed to find their way on board, usually by way of one of the shorelines. Boats often carried at least one or two cats on board, and the furry creatures spent their entire lives roaming the decks in search of snacks and curling up next to sailors on bunks. Unfortunately, for reasons unknown, headquarters decreed that cats were forbidden on this journey. Given no choice, Ketov found a good home for Pasha with a friend who could care for her and keep her safe.\n\nAs Pasha purred by his side, Ketov reached for a can of tuna. \"The least I can do is give you a nice snack before we leave.\"\n\nKetov thought about his mother, still living in the rural Siberian village of Kurgan. She'd lost her husband to one war; would she now sacrifice her first born son? When Ketov was thirteen, his father, who was an accountant with bad eyesight, was forced to fight in the battle at Leningrad. He was killed in his first engagement. Ketov became the man of the house and helped support his younger siblings and his mother, who earned a meager teacher's salary. He could still not explain why, but the day he turned eighteen, one year after the war ended, he took the train to Moscow and enrolled in the naval college. He also had no explanation for why he'd jumped at the chance to serve aboard submarines. He only knew that, despite the sacrifices and often miserable conditions on the boats, no other life could fulfill him like the one under the sea.\n\nA few minutes past midnight on October 1, 1962, Captain Ketov stood on the bridge of B-4 and watched Captain Savitsky cast off lines and guide B-59 away from the pier using her quiet electric motors. Captain Vasily Arkhipov, the brigade's chief of staff, stood next to Savitsky in the small cockpit up in the conning tower. A flurry of snow mingled with the fog and dusted the boat's black hull with streaks of white. Thirty minutes later, B-36, commanded by Dubivko, followed in the wake of her sister sub and disappeared into the darkness of the bay. After another thirty minutes, Shumkov, in B-130, followed by Ketov in B-4, maneuvered away from the pier. Ketov stared into the blackness as the three subs ahead of him, all with running lights off, vanished into the night. Then he heard the low rumble of B-59's diesel engines, signaling that Savitsky had cleared the channel and commenced one of the most important missions undertaken by the Russian navy since World War II.\n\nA SHIVER OF EXCITEMENT RAN DOWN his spine as Captain Dubivko stared at the radar repeater in the bridge of B-36. Though he could not see the other boats in the dark, he knew that he was second in line with B-59 ahead, B-130 behind, and B-4 at the rear. The narrow space, high up in the boat's sail, enclosed all but the top part of the bridge with a blanket of steel. The brisk, cold air swirling through the space bit at Dubivko's hands and nose. One lookout, a few feet above and behind him, stood on the bridge platform with binoculars planted against his frozen face. Sea foam dotted the deck as the submarine's bow carved through the Barents Sea.\n\nDubivko looked down and to his right. He studied the green glow of the radar repeater screen that painted a picture of the channel. The dense fog lowered visibility through the scratched Plexiglas bridge windows to no more than a few meters. The radar, despite its eighty-kilometer range limitation, offered the best means to avoid running aground or into the other three boats. Metal clanked and groaned as Arkadyi Kopeikin, the boat's starpom first officer, scrambled up the ladder to the bridge.\n\nKopeikin settled in next to Dubivko, remained silent for a long moment, then said, \"We're ready to dive, sir.\"\n\nNot speaking, Dubivko offered a short nod.\n\n\"The charts are spread on the nav table, and the officers are anxious,\" Kopeikin said.\n\nDubivko let the hint of a smile play on his lips. \"Let's take her down, Comrade. Then we can open our orders.\"\n\n\"Yes, Captain.\" Kopeikin bent down and yelled into the voice tube, \"All hands clear topside, prepare to dive the boat.\" He then dropped through the hatch leading to the conning tower.\n\nDubivko imagined a scurry of feet and voices below in the command center as the crew prepared for entry into the silent world of moaning whales. Blue-green ocean shot through the limber hole vents. He took one last scan of the horizon, pulled the smell of salt and sea into his lungs, then yelled down to the watch officer. \"Pogruganye!\"\n\nThe submarine angled down at the bow as the ballast tanks flooded, forcing air to bubble and hiss through the limber holes. The lookout secured his binoculars, scrambled down the platform ladder, and disappeared through the bridge hatch. Dubivko captured a final glimpse of the blue sky, shimmied down the ladder, and with a loud clank, pulled the spring-loaded hatch shut above him. He slid down past the conning tower periscopes and entered the CC in Compartment Three. He removed his kanadka and handed the furlined coat to a michman (warrant officer) as he entered. In the dim blue light, surrounding the two cylindrical periscope housings in the center of the room, more than a dozen men manned various stations, including helm and diving control, radar, navigation, ballast tank operations, and torpedo fire control. The crowded compartment offered the dank smell of hydraulic fluid, diesel fumes, and something that could only be described as mechanical.\n\nThe low thrum of the diesel engines ceased as the boat angled downward and switched to battery power. Dubivko pictured B-36 in his head, from her silhouette to her soul, her long black hull, systems, schematics, and statistics, her crew, capabilities, and compartments. He saw her as more than just a tube made from steel and sweat. More than a tube full of engines, motors, batteries, bunks, and torpedoes. Much more than a scattering of pipes, valves, switches, and gauges. He saw her as a woman imbued with a loyal heart and stunning beauty. And like any woman, she deserved a great deal of patience and care.\n\nDubivko shot an order to the duty officer, who relayed the same to the helmsman. \"Right full rudder, come to course two-five-five, speed nine knots.\"\n\nThe helmsman, seated on a small bench in the front right corner of the CC, acknowledged the order and pulled a black knob to the right. The navigator, Captain Lieutenant Sergei Naumov, from the navigation table on the port side near the center of the CC, sounded off the next course change as the boat leveled off at one hundred meters.\n\nDubivko turned over CC command to the electronics officer, Yuri Zhukov, and took a half-dozen steps toward the nav table. There he met First Officer Kopeikin, as well as Navigator Naumov and the political officer, Captain Third Rank V. G. Saparov. The three men were positioned around the small rectangular table. Five times the typical number of chart cases filled the small corner near the curved white bulkhead. The extra cases were brought on board to maintain complete secrecy about their final destination\u2014despite the many rumors and clues that alluded to Cuba.\n\nDubivko's eyes found Kopeikin's. They had shared many missions together on this boat, and while most of them began just like this one, few were similar. \"Comrade Kopeikin, you may open the safe.\"\n\nKopeikin reached toward the bulkhead safe and dialed. The square box clicked open, and the first officer removed a large manila envelope. He handed it to Dubivko. Wide red \"top secret\" stripes ran diagonally across the package. Dubivko opened the outer seal, then the inner one. He removed a booklet, examined the cover, flipped to the first page, and read. The single word Kama headlined the top of the page, followed by small type outlining their mission orders.\n\nDubivko read in a low voice, so as not to be overheard by others in the CC. \"Operation Kama tasks the submariners with performing reconnaissance of all seaward approaches to Mariel, Cuba. Acoustic area conditions are to be logged for port entry in preparation for seven ballistic missile submarines.\"\n\nDubivko took a breath and glanced at his senior officers. He could tell by the look in their eyes that they shared his anticipation. He read further about the additional gun cruisers and destroyers joining them in Mariel and concluded with \"This internationalist intervention mission by the Soviet Socialist Republic is designed to equip the Socialist Republic of Cuba with sufficient resources and support to undermine further Western aggression. Our brigade is tasked with a special mission for the Soviet Union, which includes transiting the Atlantic in secret to a new home port in an allied country. This transit must remain undetected by enemy forces, and the submariners must arrive in Mariel, Cuba, by October 20.\"\n\nDubivko pondered the expectations implied in his orders. Reaching Cuba by October 20 without being detected was practically impossible. They'd have to run near their top speed submerged, snorkel at night, and by sheer luck try to avoid American sea-mounted sonar arrays and ASW ships and planes. Dubivko held his doubts and anger in check and removed another envelope. As he read, the officers standing near the nav table leaned in closer. \"These are the rules of engagement for the use of weapons. One, while in transit, all weapons will remain in combat-ready condition. Two, conventional weapons will be used as directed by the Main Navy Staff. Three, the use of nuclear torpedoes is allowed only as directed by the Ministry of Defense of the Main Navy Staff.\"\n\nSilence descended on the tiny cubicle.\n\nDubivko cleared his throat and said, \"We have our orders. Let's make the appropriate preparations. I will tell the crew what they need to know.\"\n\nDubivko left the cubicle and walked to his stateroom. His head spun as he lay in his bunk and digested the information he'd just read. Their mandated arrival date translated into a fast and dangerous transit time. To maintain high speed, they'd have to run on the surface for as long as possible and hope that Mother Nature sent storms to shroud them under dense clouds. After they neared Cuba, where they'd be required to stay submerged, they needed to remain near the surface every day at midnight Moscow time to receive and acknowledge transmissions. Midnight in Moscow equated to late afternoon in the Caribbean, and that meant risking exposure during daylight hours.\n\nEach boat carried a special OSNAZ group of nine young men trained in signals intelligence\u2014similar to \"spooks\" in the American navy. OSNAZ was short for osobennogo naznachneniya, which in Russian means \"specialized designation.\" Five of these were English-speaking communications experts tasked with monitoring HF and UHF bands to determine where the Americans might be concentrating their ASW efforts. Each captain needed this intelligence not only to remain undetected, but also to determine if, why, and when they should fire their nuclear torpedoes at the enemy. Dubivko thought about his family back in Russia. By now they had been informed about the mission and were preparing to join him after B-36 arrived in Cuba. He thought of the special weapon resting in a torpedo tube only fifty feet away from his stateroom and wondered if his boat would be vaporized long before he ever reached the distant tropical island.\n\n## CHAPTER SIX\n\nThe ability to get to the verge without getting into the war is the necessary art.... If you try to run away from it, if you are scared to go to the brink, you are lost.\n\n\u2014JOHN FOSTER DULLES\n\nHIS ARM CHAINED TO A BRIEFCASE, William J. Reed counted the Florida palm trees through the car window as they whisked by at high speed. His eyelids sagged from jetlag, and his fingers tingled from lack of circulation. He'd been a man with a portable toothbrush through most of September, and now, in early October 1962, his final destination lay just ahead. This after more than a dozen stops in foreign countries around the Atlantic and Pacific rims. This after attending limited duty officer's school in Newport, Rhode Island, where he studied navigation, chart reading, ship handling, and how to be a \"politically navy correct\" officer. This after taking his family to see the 1962 America's Cup Yacht Race in the summer and then reporting to Section 22 of the Soviet SIGINT A Group at the NSA facility in Fort George G. Meade, Maryland\u2014commanded by Operations Chief Major General John Davis.\n\nReed was the only person on the team with Soviet burst signal field experience, so his boss, Commander Jack Kaye, and his peers at A22, descended upon him like squawking geese. They made him the \"point man\" for completing the technical and operational manuals for Bore-sight. They also locked a briefcase on his wrist and filled his schedule with site visits around the globe.\n\nReed's driver, a twenty-something petty officer named Smith, glanced in the rearview mirror and with a touch of a Southern accent said, \"Kinda humid today, ain't it?\"\n\n\"Kinda,\" Reed said. His tired brain cells allowed only one word at a time.\n\n\"That's what happens after it rains real hard like it did last week. Ever been to Homestead before?\"\n\n\"Nope.\"\n\n\"Great duty station, at least I think so. The enlisted and officers' barracks are actually in town, and the ops building is about five miles away down Card Sound Road.\"\n\n\"That so,\" Reed said, having mustered the mettle to form two words.\n\n\"Most everybody takes the bus to the base, but since I'm one of the drivers, I get to take this here car.\"\n\n\"That's nice.\" Still on two words.\n\nSmith wrestled with the wheel as the car stuttered across a road with potholes that looked like they'd been made with C-4 explosive. \"They built the station in 1957, and now NSG has, like, forty or fifty people here at Site Alpha, so that means we have good duty rotations and plenty of time off, so we can go have fun up in Miami and stuff. At least, we did until last month, when some kinda shit happened, and they told us to double up our watches. Do you know what's going on?\"\n\n\"A little.\"\n\n\"You could tell me, but then you'd have to kill me, right?\"\n\n\"That's right.\"\n\n\"You can't tell me even if I ask real nice and say pretty please with a cherry on top?\"\n\n\"Not even then.\"\n\n\"That's a bummer.\"\n\n\"I know.\" Reed smiled and turned again to look out the window. A flat plain baked by a tropical sun and mottled with green vegetation stretched to the horizon. The barest hint of pineapple and coconut drifted by.\n\nSmith turned onto an even more dilapidated road. A small building, surrounded by mud craters, sat alone on the rain-pummeled ground. The car pulled to a stop, and Smith said, \"This is it.\"\n\nStill clutching his briefcase, dressed in khakis, Reed stepped from the car. Brittle dirt cracked beneath his brown naval shoes. The gray cinder block structure displayed no windows and appeared to contain no life. At the entrance, a uniformed marine saluted Reed, checked IDs, and opened the door to an all-too-familiar sight. Racks of equipment beeped, whirred, and blinked; seated operators monitored, logged, and chatted. The pi\u00f1a colada odor vanished, replaced now by something indefinable that smelled electronically bitter. A tall man in his early thirties approached and reminded Reed of Commander Petersen from Turkey.\n\nThe man offered a smile and a palm. \"I'm Lieutenant Clower, the facility OIC. Welcome to Homestead.\"\n\nReed shook Clower's hand and forced his head to allow more than three words. \"Ensign Reed, NSG Mary land. Have my techs arrived yet?\"\n\nClower pointed to a far corner. Reed squinted and recognized his two cohorts, their hands buried in an equipment rack.\n\n\"I'd like to chat with you before you join your team,\" Clower said.\n\nReed nodded but did not reply.\n\nClower motioned for Reed to join him a few feet away from listening ears and said, \"I feel like I'm in the dark here. I was hoping you could fill me in.\"\n\n\"On what?\" Reed asked.\n\nClower crossed his arms. \"Homestead's Strategic Air Command Bomb Wings are on heightened alert, we've been ordered to double up on watches and keep an eye on every merchant ship headed to Cuba, and now you guys show up with some new DF toys. What the hell's going on?\"\n\nReed shrugged. \"I'm not exactly sure, sir; I've only gotten tidbits myself, but it probably has something to do with former vice president Nixon's suggestion for a quarantine to keep the Soviets from shipping more arms to Cuba.\"\n\n\"I heard that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a near-unanimous resolution to spank the Cubans pretty hard if they decided to get nasty with their shiny new Soviet weapons,\" Clower said.\n\nReed wiped a sleepy wink from the corner of his eye and wondered how many of those new weapons delivered by the Soviets might be nuclear versus conventional. \"There's more; that's why I'm here.\"\n\nClower stood up straight. \"Go on.\"\n\n\"As you know, our guys are upgrading your DF systems so you can hear Ivan's new burst signal.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"A couple of our Atlantic stations got a hit on some Foxtrots leaving Sayda Bay.\"\n\n\"Yeah, I know. We got the flash.\"\n\n\"What you don't know is that it looks like those boats are headed toward Cuba. That means something big is about to happen, and that's probably why your watches were doubled.\"\n\nClower's face lost half its color. \"God help us.\"\n\nReed removed his cover and backhanded his forehead. His shoulders ached, and he fought off a splitting headache. \"We can't expect God to do all the work. We need your team to pitch in.\"\n\n\"Absolutely. What do you want us to do?\"\n\n\"As soon as my guys get you up and running, we'll need to calibrate the systems for a couple days while I train your team. Then you'll have to play bird dog like you've never played before. Since you're still running a GRD-6, even with the new Boresight equipment, detecting a burst will be like finding a needle in a haystack, and any fixes you get will be way off.\"\n\n\"But better than nothing.\"\n\n\"Let's hope so,\" Reed said. \"If not, things could get pretty ugly in the Caribbean.\"\n\nAfter his conversation with Clower, Reed and his team spent the next few days installing and testing the Boresight receiver\/recorder and related equipment for capturing, recording, and analyzing the Soviet burst signals. Reed's team consisted of Master Chief Carl Odell and Second Class Petty Officer Tommy Denofrio, both M-Branchers. The Midwest-born Odell looked like Jackie Gleason and apparently copied the comedian's diet. He piled on bacon and biscuits for breakfast like a last-meal death-row inmate. Reed often wondered if Odell's heart would give out halfway through a job.\n\nDenofrio was wired differently. An Italian from New York and a consummate lady's man, he counted calories and pumped iron with the dedication of Jack LaLanne. The twenty-something petty officer displayed a talent like no other when it came to smooth-talking women but flashed the temper of a runaway train when someone disagreed with his conservative views. Both sailors displayed real genius on the job, which is why Reed selected them to help get the Boresight stations up and running.\n\nUnfortunately, at Homestead, interference problems made that task quite a challenge. Odell and Denofrio worked day and night to correct the issues, while Reed trained the operators in small groups so as not to pull anyone away from current operations.\n\nMeanwhile, outside the small building twenty miles south of Miami, the world's superpowers edged closer to a showdown.\n\nABOARD B-36, SECOND IN THE LINE of four Foxtrot submarines heading to Cuba, Captain Dubivko rested his round cheeks on a pillow in his bunk. He curled his fingers into rock-hard fists and reeled off a stream of obscenities in his head. He cursed Premier Khrushchev, threw harsh words at Admiral Sergei Gorshkov, and blamed Admiral Rybalko for sending him toward failure. How could he possibly arrive in Cuba by the date ordered while maintaining complete stealth? The boat heaved to port, and Dubivko's stomach knotted. A day earlier they'd run headlong into a massive storm that still lingered. After he'd spent two days awake battling pounding waves as the boat snorkeled, Dr. Buinevich ordered him to rest.\n\nUnable to sleep, he instead launched into another imaginary attack on his superiors. While mentally plotting Khrushchev's demise, Dubivko's stateroom phone rang. He answered, listened, hung up, and questioned whether there was a God or just a universe full of demons with the single-minded purpose of punishing him for the rest of his life.\n\nDubivko hurried aft down the passageway to the wardroom, where he saw Dr. Buinevich hovering over Sublieutenant Pankov, head of the hydroacoustic (sonar) group. The room smelled of fresh alcohol, obviously used to sterilize the wardroom table. The high-intensity light, placed in the overhead for surgeries, bounced off Buinevich's balding head like a searchlight. The captain of medical service filled a syringe, while Pankov moaned in pain. Four sailors held the man in place on the small table as the boat rocked to and fro in the storm. The moaning sublieutenant's feet dangled over the edge of the table, and the doctor fought to keep his hand steady as he shoved a needle into Pankov's arm. The moaning stopped.\n\n\"What's going on here?\" Dubivko asked.\n\n\"He has appendicitis,\" Buinevich answered. \"I need to operate.\"\n\n\"Now?\"\n\n\"If I don't, he'll die.\"\n\nDubivko bit his lip. \"Do it.\"\n\nThey were now transiting through the Norwegian Sea, past an imaginary line known as the GIUK gap, which stood for Greenland, Iceland, United Kingdom. The line represented a gauntlet laid down by the Americans. Any Soviet submarines venturing past that line entered into a narrow fishbowl less than one thousand miles across where sub-hunting NATO aircraft and ships patrolled in droves. Fortunately, a large gale developed as they sped past the Faroe Islands off the coast of Britain, and it now masked their diesel engines and hid their surfaced vessel under dark clouds.\n\nThe storm above worsened, however, forcing the boat to dive. Now the crew could feel its anger at a depth of more than twenty meters. Dubivko held no doubts that when the boat surfaced again during the night to charge batteries, the weather would still be turbulent. A Project 641\u2013class submarine snorkeling on the surface was no match for a force of this magnitude, and the two running diesel engines would certainly whine and choke every time a wave crashed over the snorkel mast, causing the flapper to slam shut to avoid sucking in salt water. Dubivko looked at his watch. Two hours to sunset. The doctor could barely keep his hands steady now. Once the boat surfaced, and ran at a higher speed in the storm, performing an appendectomy would be nearly impossible.\n\nDubivko walked over and clasped Pankov's hand. Bleary-eyed, the sailor tried to smile. Dubivko smiled back. \"Hang in there, Pankov. You're in good hands.\"\n\nPankov managed a quarter nod just before the injection sent him under.\n\nDubivko let go of Pankov's hand and turned toward Buinevich. \"How long will this take?\"\n\n\"Several hours,\" the doctor replied.\n\n\"We don't have several hours. If you can't complete the operation by sunset, we will risk missing our snorkeling window, and we'll fall too far behind schedule.\"\n\n\"What are you saying?\" the doctor asked as his scalpel penetrated Pankov's skin.\n\n\"I'm saying,\" Dubivko said, a lump forming in his throat, \"you must finish before nightfall, or we'll be short one acoustic sublieutenant.\"\n\nBuinevich looked up from his incision, his scalpel dripping blood. He stared at Dubivko for a long moment, shook his head, then returned his attention to Pankov. Dubivko clenched his teeth, and left the wardroom. Back in his cabin, he cursed his superiors for forcing him to kill a crewman.\n\nTwo hours later, a sailor shook Dubivko awake. He walked across the passageway and splashed his face with a sprinkling of tepid water. Like all submariners, Dubivko learned early on to conserve water use, especially on extended patrols. B-36 left port with thirty-six tons of fresh water, and submarines of this type did not have a condenser to produce more. Cooling the water was simply not possible, and when they entered tropical zones, tea became the preferred beverage.\n\nDubivko dried his face and, with the waves high above still rocking the boat, returned to the wardroom. The doctor stood near the table, his feet dancing to maintain balance while B-36 rolled ten degrees to starboard.\n\n\"Doctor?\" Dubivko said.\n\nBuinevich looked up from the table and grumbled. \"I never wanted to go to that damned hospital for special training, you know.\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"But I went anyway, and I guess that decision paid off, Captain. The boy will live.\"\n\nDubivko let out a slow breath. He did not need to assassinate Premier Khrushchev after all. He offered a job well done to Buinevich and walked toward the CC. There he assumed command and issued an order. \"Vspletye!\"\n\nThe boat angled toward the surface. Several minutes later, Dubivko, along with Political Officer Saparov, climbed up the ladder into the tiny conning tower. There Dubivko depressed a switch and said, \"Podnyat periscope.\"\n\nThe mast shot toward the sky as the boat slid to the surface, where the storm tossed her about like a tiny balsa wood model. Seawater splashed through the open bridge hatch above and soaked Dubivko's shirt. Steadying himself, he slapped down the handles on the navigation periscope. He swung the scope left and right, then focused on a small moving speck against the sunset-filled sky. At first he thought it might be a bird, but he then switched the scope to high power and recognized the shape as a British Shackleton ASW aircraft circling in the distance. He contemplated quick diving the boat but decided to risk staying on the surface. Without fully charged batteries, they'd have no hope of remaining on schedule. He also figured that the Shackleton's sonobuoys and radar would not be able to discern a snorkeling submarine from a crashing wave in this storm.\n\nAs Dubivko continued to watch the aircraft fly figure eights, something bothered him. He took a bearing to the plane and turned the scope over to Political Officer Saparov. He slid down the wet ladder into the CC and took three steps over to the navigation table. With Navigator Captain-Lieutenant Naumov staring over his shoulder, he bent over the nav table and silently ran a finger backward along B-36's track since leaving Sayda Bay. In a low whisper, he said, \"The Americans are following our course. How the hell do they know where we are?\"\n\nDubivko had little time to ponder this further as a giant wave slammed into the boat's side. The snorkel's flapper valve closed tight. The diesel engines continued in vain to suck in air that caused a high-pitched vacuum whistle in the boat. Dubivko's ears popped, and he swallowed hard. The control room filled with the rank odor of diesel fumes as the exhaust backed up from the engine room. A watchstander coughed and vomited onto the deck, and another grabbed his chin and groaned as the vacuum pressure made his eyes bulge and threatened to suck the fillings from his teeth. The boat pitched again, and men in Compartment Four ducked as canned meats flew from overhead cubbyholes like small metal missiles. Dubivko's ears finally cleared in time to hear the watch officer scream from up in the bridge.\n\n\"Right full rudder!\" Dubivko yelled.\n\nThe boat turned toward the waves, and the flapper valve popped open. Someone relieved the officer on the bridge, who, clutching his chest, stumbled down the ladder into the CC, then hobbled toward the wardroom. Dubivko later learned that Brigade Engineer Captain Second Class Lyubimov broke three ribs when he crashed against the side of the bridge gyrocompass.\n\nDubivko climbed up the ladder into the conning tower and relieved Saparov on the periscope. A splash of fading sunlight snuck past a storm cloud and glinted orange-red off the Shackleton's wings as the plane turned toward B-36. Batteries charged or not, he knew they were out of time as he ordered the boat beneath the roiling sea.\n\nThirty meters deep, running silent on electric power, with the storm now above them, Captain Dubivko returned to his cabin. He was haunted by what might happen if they couldn't return to the surface soon to snorkel. Or if they lost more than one engine while thousands of miles away near Cuba. Or if the Americans ruptured their pressure hull and forced them to use the nuclear weapon.\n\nAnd he wondered how the Americans appeared to know their general course. He closed his eyes, but sleep did not find him.\n\nON OCTOBER 10, BASED ON R-BRANCHER input from the USS Oxford, and the listening station at Homestead, Florida, the NSA advised the White House that the Cuban air defense system appeared complete and armed. The Cubans were now relaying their radar tracking information between their headquarters and jetfighter bases using Soviet standard procedures.\n\nBoresight stations continued to track the four Foxtrot submarines as they sped toward Cuba, while U.S. naval forces maintained a watchful eye on the Soviet oiler Terek, which they knew was there to resupply the Foxtrots. The navy also kept track of the electronic eavesdropping ship Shkval, which had a reputation of collecting intelligence information from U.S. warships and feeding it to nearby submarines. The presence of these two vessels indicated that the Soviets were planning something for the four Foxtrots, and American forces patrolling the Sargasso Sea east of Cuba remained alert and on edge.\n\nON OCTOBER 14, A U-2 SPY plane piloted by Major Richard S. Heyser flew over Cuba on a course that placed him sixty miles west of Havana. Heyser snapped 928 pictures in less than six minutes, covering an area seventy-five miles wide. The National Photographic Interpretation Center in Washington, D.C., examined the pictures the following day. Wide-eyed analysts confirmed that a series of nuclear launch sites now existed in Cuba that were capable of targeting most major cities in the United States. These included Soviet SS-4 Sandal medium-range ballistic missiles with forty-two projectiles that carried two-and three-megaton nuclear warheads. Also on board were twenty-four SS-5 Skean intermediate-range ballistic missiles that could go twice as far and kill eighty million Americans in less than five minutes. Throughout the United States, fallout shelters could hold forty million people at best.\n\nAll six Polaris submarines based in Holy Loch, Scotland, pulled out of port on October 16 and aimed their nuclear missiles at the Soviet Union. Two days later, McGeorge Bundy delivered the bad news about the nuclear missiles in Cuba to President Kennedy, who called a meeting with his high-level executive committee advisers just before lunch.\n\nAt Section A22 in Mary land, William J. Reed's boss, Commander Jack Kaye, assembled his team in the conference room. For the next several hours they discussed the Cuban situation and the need to locate any and all Soviet submarines operating in the area as soon as possible. To that end, they reviewed which stations had received the Boresight system upgrades and the operational status of each. Only a half-dozen contained the equipment, and none were fully operational. Most still used old GRD-6 antenna arrays, which meant their ability to locate and accurately pinpoint Soviet submarine locations were shaky at best. Only Edzell, Scotland, in the Atlantic, along with Hanza, Japan, and Skaggs Island, California, in the Pacific were equipped with Boresight and the new Wullenweber elephant cages.\n\nEven with the more advanced antenna capabilities at those stations, the maximum range for detection was around 3,200 nautical miles, with one ionospheric \"hop\" of 2,700 miles as more typical due to interference and weather conditions. An ionospheric hop is what happens when ionized atmospheric gases reflect high-frequency radio energy and \"bounce\" the transmitted signals back down to earth. These signals are often reflected back into the ionosphere for a second bounce, or hop. The upshot was that the optimal listening range for the arrays left Hanza and Edzell out in the cold and Skaggs right on the ragged edge of hearing anything near Cuba. The team concluded that, for now, they'd have to find a way to tweak the five Atlantic GRD-6 sites enough to give U.S. ASW forces a snowball's chance of keeping American ships from becoming sport-diver relics on the ocean floor.\n\nCAPTAIN DUBIVKO'S B-36, SECOND IN A lineup of four Soviet Foxtrots, made good time for several days under the cover of bad weather. They arrived at the edge of the Azores\u2014in the middle of the Atlantic northwest of Africa\u2014on October 15. After several more sleep-deprived days, Dubivko's eyelids twitched as he stood near the number two tube on the port side of the forward torpedo room. He hated the involuntary reaction to stress. Staring at Alexander Pomilyev, he said, \"Step away from that.\"\n\nPomilyev, the young special weapons officer (Weps) brought on board in Sayda Bay by the Northern Fleet special weapons directorate and who'd yet to qualify in submarines, removed his arm from the yellow rectangle adjacent to the number four tube. He turned to see what \"that\" might be.\n\nDubivko pointed to the silver lever on the front of the rectangle. \"That's the emergency bow plane operating mechanism. If you were qualified, you'd know not to rest your arm near that lever.\"\n\nPomilyev nodded. \"I'll make a note of that.\"\n\n\"See that you do,\" Dubivko said. \"You wanted to see me?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I wish to inform you that none of your crew are sleeping in the torpedo room.\"\n\n\"I'm already aware of that, Comrade Pomilyev.\"\n\n\"Yes, of course, but I'm concerned that this will diminish response time in the event of a weapons emergency.\"\n\n\"There are plenty of men in Compartment Two that can respond in time, but your point is duly noted.\"\n\n\"Perhaps the men could be persuaded to return if we convinced them that the special weapon will not cause radiation poisoning.\"\n\n\"Will it?\"\n\nPomilyev's perplexed look made his face look like a used dish towel. \"Of course not! That weapon is perfectly safe.\"\n\n\"Perfectly?\"\n\n\"Well...not perfectly, but close enough.\"\n\nDubivko glanced at the three torpedo tubes on the starboard side of the boat. Each housed conventional weapons, as did two of the tubes on the port side. Only the number two tube carried megaton destruction. \"Comrade Pomilyev, most of the men assigned to sleep in the forward torpedo room are young sailors. They have wives or girlfriends and aspirations of raising children. Unless you can guarantee that your purple-nosed weapon will not render their family jewels useless, they will probably continue to bunk in the aft torpedo room.\"\n\nPomilyev shook his head from side to side. \"There's absolutely no proof that\u2014\"\n\n\"Proof?\" Dubivko said. \"Until you are qualified, your credibility on this boat is less than that of bilge slime. Earn your qualification, Comrade. In the meantime,\" Dubivko waived his arm around the torpedo room, \"enjoy your solitude.\"\n\nDubivko turned and headed toward Compartment Two. He undogged the hatch, grabbed the bar above the opening, and shot his legs through. On the other side, a sailor with a large bayonet guarded the hatch\u2014a mandatory requirement for any boat carrying nuclear weapons. All persons entering the torpedo room were stopped by the guard and required to surrender sharp objects, tools, matches, lighters, or anything that could be used to sabotage the weapon. Although everyone on board had survived intense background checks prior to selection for this mission, none were trusted near the nuclear torpedo. No wonder they didn't want to sleep up front.\n\nDubivko popped into his cabin and glanced at the picture of Khrushchev hanging above his bunk. He grumbled once, turned toward his wooden cabinet, and rummaged through a drawer. After finding his toothbrush, paste, and hand towel, he strode across the passageway to the officer's washroom. There he splashed some water on his face, brushed his teeth, and tapped at the flickering light above his head.\n\nAs he returned to his cabin, he noticed the assistant navigation officer coming out of the four-man cabin just aft and to starboard. Seventy-eight men shared this home under the waves, and most of the noncommissioned sailors berthed in the \"sleeping wagon\" area in Compartment Seven back by the aft torpedo tubes. One shower and toilet in Compartment Six, used exclusively when submerged, serviced most of the crew. When B-36 surfaced, only the toilet and saltwater shower in the bridge were used, and the crew could enjoy an ocean shower without restrictions. Each compartment was issued a metal token, and only one person who held that compartment's token could use the facilities at a time\u2014similar to the key-on-a-stick system at an American gas station. On board Soviet diesel submarines, this system also ensured that everyone was accounted for when the boat submerged.\n\nOnce underwater, the boat's freshwater supply had to be allocated for washing, cooking, and drinking. Showers were limited to only two per week, so the doctor dispensed wash towels daily to maintain hygiene. Unfortunately, the towels did little to control body odor.\n\nDubivko stored his sundries and walked a few feet over to the acoustic room. A thin operator wearing headphones sat in front of a rack of metal rectangles covered with small airholes. Each box contained an indented section that housed several black control knobs, dials, and indicators. B-36 still used the older Herkules medium-frequency active\/passive and Feniks passive search\/attack acoustic arrays that could hear contacts up to twenty-nine kilometers away. Only Captain Ketov's B-4 had an upgraded RG-10 passive system that offered greater range and accuracy.\n\nThe acoustic sublieutenant looked up, smiled, and pulled the headphones off one ear. \"Captain?\"\n\nDubivko smiled. \"How are you feeling, Pankov?\"\n\n\"I'm still a little sore but doing fine, sir.\"\n\n\"Glad to hear,\" Dubivko said. \"It's a good thing our doctor is highly trained in appendectomies.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nDubivko pointed to the headphones. \"What are you listening to?\"\n\n\"Mostly whales, sir. There's nothing much else out here right now.\"\n\n\"No sonobuoys from that Shackleton we saw a few days ago?\"\n\n\"No, sir. Not even a peep.\"\n\nDubivko stepped back into the passageway and said, \"Well, let's hope it stays that way so we can stay on schedule.\"\n\nPankov nodded and replanted the headphones.\n\nDubivko walked past the wardroom, where Pankov had received his operation, and undogged the Compartment Three hatch. The CC hummed with activity as he entered, and he reveled in the vibrancy. Standing just below the ladder that led up to the conning tower, he glanced at his watch. At this time of day, high above them, a blazing sun warmed the sea and transformed wave crests into reflective shards of glass. Although they needed to snorkel to recharge batteries, they dared not do so in broad daylight, but capturing the required daily radio broadcast from Moscow could not be avoided.\n\nDubivko held back an expletive as he thought about the mental midgets at Fleet HQ who ignored the fact that midnight in Moscow meant daytime this far from Russia. Their orders complicated things in two ways. First, the submarines needed to slow down to capture a broadcast. Second, receiving a signal required approaching near the surface, which left them vulnerable to detection. Apparently the mission planners were not qualified submariners.\n\n\"Watch Officer, make your depth twenty meters,\" Dubivko ordered.\n\n\"Yes, Captain,\" the watch officer acknowledged. He turned to the planesman, seated starboard near the front of the compartment. \"Bow planes up fifteen degrees.\"\n\n\"Prepare to raise the HF antenna,\" Dubivko said.\n\nAnother ac knowledgment.\n\nIn the CC, a dozen faces instinctively glanced upward as the needle in the main depth gauge moved counterclockwise.\n\nThe planesman, sitting forward and to the right of Dubivko, barked off a reading. \"Passing forty meters.\"\n\nThe watch officer, so designated by his blue and white elastic armband, echoed the planesman's report as the boat's hull creaked like arthritic bones in response to the change in ocean pressure.\n\n\"Raise antenna,\" Dubivko said as the boat neared periscope depth.\n\nLieutenant Zhukov stepped through the hatch from Compartment Two. As the boat's electronics officer, he was responsible for all of B-36's electronically operated equipment, including acoustic, radar, weapons control, and radio. Without saying a word, Zhukov pointed toward the radio room and continued aft. The familiar routine happened daily, and Dubivko hoped that this time the outcome would be different.\n\nFor all the years Dubivko had operated aboard Northern Fleet submarines in the Barents and Norwegian seas, he had experienced the curse of the Arctic. This high-latitude region created sporadic interference like Dubivko's mother-in-law spewed insults. Virtually all transmissions were sent and received via HF or UHF, and during the winter and parts of the summer, magnetic storms and interference were constant concerns. But of all the transits Dubivko could recall, this one, so far, held the record for the most transmission problems, far surpassing anything the Arctic could muster.\n\nThe planesman sounded off another report. \"Passing thirty meters.\"\n\nHaving crossed the Faroe\u2013Iceland line, B-36 descended into a proverbial radio vacuum. All Northern Fleet stations were masked by static, and the only audible voices came from fishermen on trawlers near Murmansk. For two days Zhukov and the radio operators tried to find clear frequencies but never succeeded. They analyzed signals based on different times of day, weather conditions, and other factors and tried to make radiogram sending and receiving adjustments but without any luck.\n\n\"Steady at twenty meters.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" Dubivko said as he prepared to enter the conning tower.\n\nThe main problem they faced with radio communications centered around power. Communicating with Moscow could only be kept secret by using the low-power fifteen-kilowatt transmitter. The antenna for that system required air drying for almost twenty minutes before sending or receiving transmissions. In submarine time, that meant forever, especially while trying to stay undetected and on schedule. The only way to mitigate the problem required using a slightly wet antenna and retransmitting the same burst message as many as thirty times to ensure receipt by Moscow.\n\nNow up in the conning tower, as he swiveled the periscope back and forth, Dubivko contemplated the endless obstacles before him. Through the scope he spotted an American P2V ASW aircraft on the horizon. His cheeks turned hot as he wondered how they could possibly be following B-36's course so accurately. He contemplated whether it might have something to do with the Americans' new underwater sonar arrays but then quickly dismissed that thought. Unless the United States somehow learned how to defy the laws of physics, given B-36's distance from any known array, and given that they only snorkeled at night, they couldn't possibly achieve this close a fix with that system. No, either the Americans were damn lucky, or they had deployed some new unknown technology. But what?\n\nLAST IN THE LINE OF FOUR Soviet submarines headed to Cuba, B-4 cruised past the Azores on October 15 and entered the Sargasso Sea. A few days later, his nerves on edge, his armpits soaked, Captain Ryurik Ketov thought about Pasha, the boat's cat they'd left behind in Sayda Bay. He hoped she was happy in her new home with plenty of caviar, or at least some nice tuna. He peered over Vladimir Pronin's shoulder in the radio room as the young electronics officer stared at the short burst data radio with frustrated yet hopeful eyes.\n\nThe SBD radio consisted of a yellow box covered with dials, switches, and indicators seated next to a silver device that resembled a typewriter. Ketov didn't like the new burst radios. The concept, stolen from the Germans after World War II, was forced upon the submarine fleet in late 1960 and added to B-4 prior to her launch in 1961. The SBD's encoder\u2014the typewriterlike device\u2014suffered from a limitation of having only seven groups of symbols that severely truncated what could be sent to or from HQ. Ketov always harbored concerns that this could lead to misinterpretations of important orders or rules of engagement. What if they received updated instructions on when to fire their nuclear torpedo, but the ultra rapid activity radio turned these into something vague and unintelligible? That could make for a very unpleasant day.\n\nPronin licked his upper lip and rechecked the settings on the SBD. Still nothing. The burst itself took only seven-tenths of a second, but the wait to receive a transmission could take seven hours, or so it seemed to Ketov.\n\nFinally, the SBD received an order update just as the political officer approached the radio room. Ketov read the strip of paper and shook his head from side to side. They were being redirected from their transit to Mariel. The new orders told them to assume combat readiness in the Caribbean Sea, south of Jamaica, and wait. Wait for what? Ketov wondered if imminent war with the Americans caused the change in plans. He ordered Pronin to have the OSNAZ group begin monitoring civilian radio transmissions to find out what might be going on out there.\n\nAfter changing course, the next several hours bordered on boring until they caught up with a hurricane. That monstrosity dredged up giant waves and hurled them onto the decks of helpless vessels. One of these was a merchant ship that let out a desperate cry for help. Pronin heard the plea on the radio and reported it to Ketov, who stood watch on the bridge. In the dead of night, B-4 barely held her own against the hurricane while snorkeling on the surface. In rough seas she became a black spec of metal toyed by a force older than time and stronger than Neptune. Ketov bit his lip when he heard Pronin's report. Though he desperately wanted to, he knew he could be of no help to the floundering merchant ship.\n\nPronin pleaded over the communications circuit to do something, but Ketov knew they could not. The distressed ship lay twelve kilometers to the east, and if B-4 turned away from its southern heading, that might cause them to take on too much water to snorkel. They needed to charge batteries to stay on schedule. They were also under strict orders not to reveal their position to anyone, not even a friendly vessel. Last but certainly not least, what assistance could a tiny submarine possibly offer to a large merchant ship?\n\nKetov stood on the bridge and watched the waves form crests and troughs of foam and spray. With a dense scud strafing the wave tops, some as high as seventeen meters, he could see no farther than ten meters to either side. For all he knew they might never spot that ship and might run right past her in the dark, or worse, smack hard into her side and end their mission. Pronin called up again from radio and tried a different tact. Perhaps they could launch a flare and try to pick up survivors? Ketov knew it must be agonizing for Pronin to listen to the repeated SOS, but he had to decline his electronics officer's request yet again. They had no room on board and could ill afford to take merchant seamen on such a secret mission.\n\nA blast of salt water doused Ketov's face. The wet cold reminded him of a decade earlier when Ketov's former commander on the SS-26, Captain Second Rank Abram Tyomin, taught him a valuable lesson. A giant wave struck the SS-26 from the side and rolled her almost ninety degrees. Water flooded through the open bridge hatch and cascaded into the CC. Electronics shorted. Helm control died. As watch officer, Ketov stood motionless, lost in a daze of panic. Tyomin ran into the CC, saw the look on Ketov's face, and backhanded him hard across the cheek. He told Ketov to calm down, remember his training, and deliver clear and deliberate orders to the men.\n\nKetov did just that and directed the crew to manually control the helm from the aft torpedo room. They survived, and from that day forward, he recalled the incident during times of trouble. Now he recalled Tyomin's hard-learned lessons to make the right decision about the distressed merchant ship. That, unfortunately, meant standing by while dozens of fellow countrymen drowned.\n\nOr did it?\n\nKetov called down to radio. He told Pronin to relay the distress call on the HF band, but to send only a few transmissions and then stop. Hopefully, someone might hear and respond. With relief in his voice, Pronin thanked Ketov for taking this risk. And risk it was, for Ketov knew that transmitting on an open channel could end his career. But if he violated the seamen's code by letting those men die, he'd have to avoid mirrors for the rest of his life.\n\nON OCTOBER 19, DEEP IN THE middle of the Sargasso Sea, B-36 swayed to the beat of a weather-tossed ocean. Captain Dubivko's fingers tingled like they always did when he neared the surface. For when a submarine sheds her deep ocean security blanket and ventures near the domain of surface ships and aircraft, she becomes vulnerable and takes one step closer to death.\n\n\"Twenty meters,\" Zhukov reported. As the on-duty watch officer, he stood to Dubivko's right near the planesman and helmsman.\n\n\"Very well,\" Dubivko said, leaning against the conning tower ladder. \"Raise the HF antenna, and open the main induction. Engine Control, start the diesel engines and battery charging.\"\n\nAlthough they had received no communications from Northern Fleet HQ since their departure weeks earlier, they were nonetheless required to slow, surface, and check for transmissions every evening. Brigade Commander Vitali Agafonov, riding on B-4, sent a daily radio check \"click\" over the airwaves during that time but never sent anything more tangible. B-36's radio operator simply responded with one \"click\" to verify reception. All four boats orchestrated this dance in a successive relay to ensure that only two submarines were near the surface at a time.\n\nAssistant captain, Lieutenant A. P. Andreev entered the CC from Compartment Four and relieved Zhukov of the watch. After a two-minute routine, Zhukov returned Andreev's salute and handed him the watch armband. He then looked at Dubivko, and the two headed aft toward the radio room. Dubivko caught a whiff of something that smelled like soap and wondered if Andreev had just showered. He also wondered when he'd last enjoyed that luxury himself.\n\nDubivko wanted desperately to receive a transmission from Moscow. Anything would be better than nothing. He took a deep breath and forced himself to relax. As the captain of B-36, he could not afford to display signs of anxiety or nervousness. That could undermine his ability to command respect from the crew. If they started to doubt his confidence, they might also doubt his orders. Still, he couldn't help but wonder why Moscow remained silent, and what might be happening in the world around them. Were they headed toward a war with the Americans? Absent communications from HQ, he felt like a blind man in a room full of sword-wielding Cossacks.\n\nDubivko stuck his head through the radio room door. First Officer Captain Third Rank Kopeikin and Political Officer Saparov peered over the shoulder of the radioman, who was seated near a rack of equipment. Their eyes remained transfixed on the rectangular teletypewriter that sat on a white metal shelf. The typewriter clicked away as the carriage moved left, then right, then left again. Nothing appeared on the paper ribbon except repeated groups of seven letters that spelled nothing.\n\n\"It's just the carrier tone,\" Kopeikin said.\n\nDubivko said nothing as his heart sank into his gut. He knew Soviet procedures dictated that fleet broadcasts sent from the large antenna farm southeast of Moscow should remain on air for no more than ten minutes. Either you received the transmission on time or you didn't. There were no repeats. Dubivko glanced at his watch. They were on time, but so far they'd been greeted by nothing but a carrier signal. The four men continued to stare at the Teletype, as if their combined sheer will could produce a message. Long minutes passed in silence.\n\nDubivko checked his watch again and turned to leave. Though he fumed with anger, he dared not show it. Not more than two steps away, he heard Zhukov's excited voice.\n\n\"Something's coming in!\" Zhukov said. He tapped the radioman on the shoulder. \"Test the synchronization line.\"\n\nThe young radioman reached for a few knobs on the SBD.\n\nDubivko stared at the Teletype as an unreadable message appeared. Talking aloud, Zhukov counted backwards from ten down to zero and then hit the encryption key. The seven-letter groups of gibberish transformed into Cyrillic sentences. The clatter of the teletypewriter ceased, and Zhukov tore off the message ribbon. He handed the piece of yellow paper to Dubivko.\n\nHolding his hand steady, Dubivko read the message, frowned, and said nothing to the others. He left blank stares behind and hurried back through the hatch into the CC, with Kopeikin in tow. They reached the navigation table a minute later.\n\nDubivko tapped Navigator Naumov on the shoulder. \"Show me charts for the Bahamas and Sargasso Sea.\"\n\n\"Which ones?\" Naumov said.\n\n\"Southern entrance.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nNaumov combed through a stack of charts, removed one, and placed it on the nav table. The map displayed a colorful lined drawing of the Bahamas Islands chain near Florida. To the south lay the Turks Islands and Cuba. Dubivko traced a finger across the chart. The paper felt bumpy and coarse as he neared Miami. He thought of the millions of people lying about on sandy beaches there, drinking margaritas, and having fun while completely unaware that a Soviet submarine might be watching them from afar.\n\nDubivko glanced again at the typed message in his hand. He pictured Ryurik Ketov, on B-4, and wondered if his friend now shared similar concerns and confusion.\n\n\"What does it say?\" Kopeikin asked.\n\nDubivko handed over the paper ribbon. \"Read it aloud.\"\n\nKopeikin grabbed the message and read with a soft voice. \"Secret modification of operational orders to follow. The Sixty-ninth Brigade of Submarines are ordered to change course, assume combat readiness, and form a line west of the Caicos and Turks Island passages in the Carib be an Sea.\"\n\nDubivko pictured the location in his mind. Just southeast of the Bahamas and north of Puerto Rico, around 500 miles from the southern tip of Cuba and 600 miles south of Miami, dozens of tiny islands dotted the area, and water temperatures soared into the eighties. B-36 was now south of the other submarines, closer to the Turks Island passage. For submariners, transiting this narrow passage was a highly dangerous prospect when detection wasn't an issue.\n\nKopeikin lifted his eyes from the paper. His face registered bewilderment as he stared at Dubivko. \"What does this mean? Are we not going to Mariel as originally ordered? What's going on? Are we at war?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" Dubivko said, \"but I'm going to find out.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"Follow me.\" Dubivko moved away from the table and walked toward Compartment Two. Kopeikin followed. Dubivko entered his cabin and sat on his bunk. The first officer stepped inside and shut the door.\n\nDubivko grabbed the phone on the wall and brought the black device to his ear. \"Zhukov, join me and Kopeikin in my cabin.\" He hung up the phone.\n\n\"Sir?\" Kopeikin queried.\n\n\"I'm tired of being deaf, dumb, and blind.\"\n\n\"What do you have in mind?\"\n\n\"We have five English-speaking OSNAZ communications experts on this boat. It's time we put them to good use,\" Dubivko said.\n\n\"I don't understand. What\u2014\"\n\nA knock on the cabin door interrupted Kopeikin's question.\n\n\"Enter,\" Dubivko said.\n\nThe door opened, and Zhukov squeezed inside. He bent down slightly as the curving bulkhead ran just above his head. \"Sir?\"\n\n\"Has our OZNAZ group heard anything on open frequencies?\"\n\n\"No, sir. Our schedule has not permitted more than a few minutes of HF antenna time.\"\n\nDubivko stared at the picture of his wife and children tacked to the bulkhead and said, \"Comrades, we're going to remain near the surface for another two hours.\"\n\nKopeikin's eyes extended. \"But that's a direct violation of orders!\"\n\n\"I will take full responsibility. I want our communications experts to scan American broadcast frequencies and record what's being said.\"\n\n\"Military frequencies?\" Zhukov said.\n\n\"And commercial,\" Dubivko said. \"Voice of America, for example. They even have a broadcast in Russian. We need to know what's going on out there, and Moscow is not in a position to tell us.\"\n\n\"What about the Zampolit?\" Kopeikin said. \"He'll be obligated to report this breach of protocol.\"\n\n\"I've thought of that,\" Dubivko said. \"We'll tell Political Officer Saparov that our new orders require us to assume combat readiness. As such, we must ascertain the intentions of our enemy. Listening to commercial radio broadcasts is essential in accomplishing this task.\"\n\nKopeikin smiled. \"Brilliant. He will be required to listen in. And when he does, he will be complicit. That places him squarely on our side, whether he wants to be or not.\"\n\n\"Precisely,\" Dubivko said. \"We have a nuclear torpedo on board. We've been ordered to assume a combat stance in enemy waters. We need to know what the hell is going on out there before we ready tube number two. Understood?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" the two men said in unison.\n\n\"Zhukov,\" Dubivko said, \"prepare three sets of headphones. I want to listen in as well.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nThirty minutes later, Dubivko pulled on a set of phones and listened to the Russian version of Voice of America. A woman's voice came across clearly and with no accent. She reported that three days earlier, on October 16, 1962, the New York Yankees beat the San Francisco Giants to win the fifty-ninth World Series four games to three. Dubivko breathed a sigh of relief. The Americans were still talking about baseball instead of hurrying toward fallout shelters. That meant they were not at war. At least not yet.\n\n## CHAPTER SEVEN\n\nIt's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.\n\n\u2014MARK TWAIN\n\nON SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21, ABOARD THE USS Oxford off the coast of Cuba, T-Brancher Aubrey Brown came to attention in his chair. Other operators inside the darkened room did likewise. Most of them squinted at an assortment of green screens and indicators. Racks of receivers hummed, while reels of tape spun on six-foot-tall 3M reel-to-reel tape recorders. Other T-Brancher technicians monitored the flickers running across the scope of an X-band receiver. The screech of an unknown radar signal, captured by the receiver, blurted from a speaker mounted on the unit. The technicians grabbed stopwatches, which dangled on shoestrings wrapped around their necks. They timed the intervals between the whooping sounds to measure radar scan rate and cataloged the highs and lows of the signal spikes showing up on the screen.\n\nOnce certain of the signal's characteristics, they checked what they'd found against the NSA's super-classified TEXTA (Technical Extracts of Traffic Analysis) manual to confirm the radar's identity. Judging by the parameters captured, the T-Branchers verified that the Soviets were testing radar systems on fully operational offensive nuclear weapons systems in Cuba. The station then reported this to their navy command, who immediately dispatched a helicopter from Florida to retrieve the tapes for verification.\n\nPresident Kennedy received the news about the operational nuclear missile systems in Cuba during a meeting with Secretaries Dean Rusk and Robert McNamara at 10:00 A.M. After a brief discussion, Kennedy approved the final plan for a quarantine of the island. Later that morning, the president met with General Walter Sweeney, the commander of the Tactical Air Command (TAC), to review the plan for an air attack. Sweeney admitted that at best they might destroy ninety percent of the missile sites. Kennedy expressed concern that the remaining ten percent could still kill hundreds of thousands of Americans and ordered Sweeney to prepare for a potential strike on Cuba within twenty-four hours.\n\nThat afternoon the president convened a formal meeting with the National Security Council in which the chief of naval operations, Admiral George W. Anderson, briefed the group on quarantine rules of engagement. Anderson announced that every Russian ship approaching the line would be signaled to stop for potential boarding and inspection. Should a ship fail to halt, they'd fire a warning shot across its bow. If that didn't work, a U.S. destroyer would cripple the merchant ship by demolishing the rudder with cannon fire. Kennedy reacted to this announcement with unease that such a provocation could unintentionally sink the ship and trigger a war. Although Anderson provided assurances that gun-crew accuracy should ensure that no Soviet vessels sank, Kennedy remained dubious. Nonetheless, he agreed to the plan when Anderson stated, \"The biggest danger lies in taking no action.\"\n\nOn Monday morning, October 22, at NSA in Fort George G. Meade, Mary land, William J. Reed sat in a chilled conference room and listened intently as his boss, Commander Kaye, read the daily intelligence report. The scent of steaming coffee and fresh aftershave drifted through the large room that held around a dozen members of the Bore-sight A22 section. Kaye, with an abundance of Texas accent and attitude, launched the meeting by describing a series of events that had transpired over the past several days.\n\nKaye said that Kennedy had met with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko on October 18, and the president received false assurances that the Cubans had received no offensive missiles from Russia. Reed heard a rumor that Kennedy privately called Gromyko a \"lying bastard.\"\n\nHalfway through the meeting, Kaye glanced at Reed and said, \"What's the latest on those Soviet submarines?\"\n\nReed frowned. \"Well, as you know, we got a few good hits on the four Foxtrots when they were near the North Cape, but then four Zulu-class submarines showed up out of Gadzhiyevo and created some interference. We haven't seen the Zulus since. The only Boresight hits we're getting now are from the Foxtrots, which we believe have approached to within five or six hundred miles of Cuba.\"\n\n\"How's our bearing quality holding up?\" Kaye said.\n\n\"Not very well,\" Reed said. \"We get rough bearing hits on three or four of the Foxtrots in the afternoon, which is when we believe Moscow requires them to transmit a burst signal update. Good news is they're retransmitting up to thirty or more times, probably because their antennas are wet. That really helps us get a bearing, but then they go dark for a day. We've been sending P2Vs to the area, but right now our bearing quality is worse than a World War II Huff Duff. Maybe fifty or sixty nautical miles at best. Still, we're starting to get enough data to formulate some interesting conclusions.\"\n\nKaye cocked his head to one side. \"Such as?\"\n\nReed said, \"Well, for one, they're still in the Sargasso Sea northeast of Cuba and averaging almost ten knots, which is damn aggressive for a diesel boat. Two, they don't appear to be shadowing any of the merchant ships, so they must have other orders.\"\n\n\"Like what?\" Kaye asked.\n\nReed shrugged. \"We can only assume they're posturing for a fight.\"\n\n\"What about SOSUS?\"\n\n\"Not much help yet,\" Reed said as he glanced at the wide-eyed faces seated around the table. \"Given that our underwater sonar arrays can't hear beyond 150 nautical miles, they're only occasionally catching a whiff of a snorkeling boat, and the bearing accuracy is worse than Boresight. Also, those subs only snorkel at night. During the day, when they're running on battery, SOSUS can't hear them at all.\"\n\n\"Shit,\" Kaye muttered. \"This is starting to feel like a train wreck in the making.\"\n\nA female yeoman walked into the room and handed Kaye a printed message. Kaye's face went white as he read it. He looked around the room and said, \"I'll deny I told any of you this, but this CIA memo just frosted my balls.\"\n\n\"CIA?\" someone said.\n\n\"Yeah,\" Kaye continued. \"I probably wasn't supposed to be briefed on this yet, but I have a few friends in low places. The memo says that they verified sixteen of the MRBMs and four of the longer-range IRBMs are already saddled up and out of the barn.\"\n\n\"Damn,\" someone else said. \"That means they can actually launch now.\"\n\n\"And that means they can vaporize millions of us within minutes,\" Reed said. He knew that when the U-2 spy planes originally photographed the medium-and intermediate-range ballistic missile sites in Cuba, the launchers were still under construction. None were fully operational. Now that they were, the end of the world was only a button push away.\n\n\"The Cubans also have twenty-two Soviet IL-28 bombers and thirty-nine MIG-21 jet fighters now,\" Kaye said. \"What's worse, they have a bunch of short-range Frogs with megaton warheads. That means if we try to send in an invasion force, they'll nuke thousands of our boys into dust clouds.\"\n\nReed's stomach turned sour as he pictured that scenario. A mixture of fear and excitement shot a bolt of current through his body\u2014fear that perhaps he might be witnessing the end of humanity, and excitement at being center stage for one of the most important events in human history. \"What do you think Kennedy's going to do?\"\n\nKaye pursed his lips. \"According to this memo, the CIA concluded that he's basically fucked like a junkie whore on Main Street no matter what he does.\"\n\nOne of the officers stifled a laugh. Another asked a question. \"They don't think the Soviets are doing this as a bargaining chip to get Kennedy to pull our missiles out of Turkey, do they?\"\n\nKaye ran his tongue over his upper lip and shook his head no. \"It's a lot more serious than that. The Soviets want to show the world that if we can waltz into their neighborhood with big-ass weapons, they can do the same in our neck of the woods. Problem is, if we just let them get away with it, we open the door for the Russkies to arm every commie pinko bastard country that might want to point a six-shooter at us. But if we confront Khrushchev about this, that won't stop him from shipping more nukes, and he'll just stall us with bullshit negotiations and U.N. red tape. A confrontation would also show our hand and take a surprise invasion of Cuba off the table.\"\n\nReed shifted in his seat. \"What about a blockade? I heard that the Enterprise got marching orders along with the Eleventh and Thirty-second Air Wings out of Puerto Rico. And with the Essex leaving Gitmo Bay with Task Force Bravo, I gotta believe they're planning something.\"\n\n\"Could be, but a blockade won't help us get rid of the dozens of missiles that are already there. Also, we probably can't muster more than sixty ships, and the ocean around Cuba is a lot bigger than the Ponderosa. The Soviets could probably still sneak in some nukes on submarines.\"\n\nReed thought about the four Foxtrots they'd detected heading for Cuba and let out a soft whistle.\n\nKaye stood up straight. \"What?\"\n\n\"I just had a holy shit thought.\"\n\n\"What kind of holy shit thought?\"\n\nA dozen eyes stared at Reed.\n\n\"What if,\" Reed said, \"those Foxtrots are already carrying nukes?\n\n\"You mean like IRBM parts?\" an officer asked.\n\n\"The CIA cautioned about that in a recent memorandum,\" Kaye said.\n\n\"No,\" Reed said. \"I mean like nuclear-tipped torpedoes.\"\n\nA dozen officers sucked in a collective breath.\n\n\"Jesus,\" Kaye said. \"That'd mean fifteen-megaton bad boys with a blast radius of\u2014\"\n\n\"Ten nautical miles,\" Reed finished. \"That could put an end to any blockade Kennedy might be planning.\"\n\nKaye's brow furrowed as he shot Reed a stern look. \"You need to find a way to tweak those Boresight stations to get us better bearing fixes. And you've probably got no more than a week to do it. Otherwise, we might wind up like the dead guys at the O.K. Corral.\"\n\nReed's throat tightened. He knew the odds were against him, but he and his team would just have to find a way to get the job done. There were two GRD-6 Boresight stations that, given the substandard range and accuracy of those antennas, might be close enough to get good fixes if their systems were optimal. Those were the sites in Northwest, Virginia, and Homestead, Florida. There was also one Wullenweber elephant cage close enough that might be able to lend a hand. Unfortunately, that facility, located at Skaggs Island, California, sat right on the edge of the system's maximum range. Somehow they'd have to get all three sites up to optimal capability, then hope that God sent them some good weather and minimal interference. Reed whispered a silent prayer that God didn't prefer the color red.\n\nBY THE AFTERNOON OF OCTOBER 22, T-Branchers aboard the USS Oxford spy ship reported that at least five Soviet missile regiments were operational or nearly so, each with eight missile launchers and sixteen missiles. Cuba now possessed the ability to fire a salvo of forty missiles that could devastate dozens of targets in the United States. In response to this threat, the Strategic Air Command initiated a massive alert for the entire B-52-bomber strike force, guaranteeing that thirteen percent of all aircraft be airborne at any given time. The plan ensured that every time a bomber landed, another one took to the air. SAC also dispersed almost 200 B-47 nuclear bombers to thirty-three civilian and military airfields, with another 161 aircraft delivered by the Air Defense Command to sixteen bases within nine hours. For the first time in history, all these planes were armed with nuclear bombs.\n\nTHAT SAME AFTERNOON, CIA DIRECTOR JOHN McCone informed President Kennedy that the four Soviet submarines were positioned to reach Cuba within a matter of days. He received that information from Chief of Naval Operations Admiral George Anderson. Neither McCone nor Kennedy was informed that the original source for that estimation came from Boresight Net Control in Mary land.\n\nIn light of the Boresight location estimates for the four Foxtrot submarines, Admiral Anderson issued a warning to the blockade fleet commanders: \"I cannot emphasize too strongly how smart we must be to keep our navy ships, particularly carriers, from being hit by surprise attack from Soviet submarines. Use all available intelligence, deceptive tactics, and evasion during forthcoming days. Good luck.\"\n\nThe navy positioned hunter\/killer Group Bravo, headed by the aircraft carrier USS Essex, 200 miles northeast of Caicos Passage, just outside and in the center of the Walnut Line\u2014a boundary arcing through the ocean in a semicircle 500 miles off Cuba. This \"do not cross\" line that started at the southern tip of Florida and ended east of Haiti represented the outer boundary of Kennedy's quarantine area. Three sub-hunting destroyers escorted the Essex, including the USS Blandy. The destroyer USS Cony (DD-508) took up station near the carrier USS Randolph (CVS-15) farther northeast of the Blandy (DD-943), and the destroyer USS Charles P. Cecil (DDR-835) accompanied the USS Enterprise (CVN-65) to a position southeast of the other two groups. Sonar and radar operators on all three destroyers listened and watched for signs of Soviet submarines approaching Cuba. None were aware that they'd soon come within a breath of nuclear annihilation.\n\nON BOARD B-36, NEAR THE TURKS Island Passage at the southern tip of the infamous Bermuda Triangle, Captain Dubivko's eyelids started twitching again. Only forty kilometers of ocean in that passage separated East Caicos from Grand Turk. Although depths in the center of the channel, which lay just north of Puerto Rico and east of Cuba, plunged to greater than 2,200 meters, shallow waters and sandbars on both sides made the area extremely dangerous for maneuvering. With American ASW planes and ships smothering the entrance and exit routes day and night, remaining undetected required a lot of caution, skill, and luck.\n\nDubivko envied Captains Savitsky and Shumkov on B-130 and B-59, respectively. Both were transiting through the wider, less treacherous Caicos Passage to the north. Captain Ketov, on B-4, had circled around Puerto Rico to take up station near Jamaica. Dubivko contemplated his unlucky orders and decided to try an old trick. If successful, they just might make it through the passage undetected and unscathed. If not, given the difficulty of his planned maneuver, they could take up permanent residence at the bottom of a foreign sea.\n\nThat evening, on October 22, Zhukov relayed the report that the OSNAZ team had heard President Kennedy address the American nation. He stated that the U.S. Navy had initiated a quarantine around Cuba to block Soviet merchant ships carrying nuclear weapons. They still heard nothing but truncated order changes from Moscow and so could rely only on commercial traffic intercepted over the airwaves to give them a hint of what might be happening in the world. After hearing the news about the quarantine, Dubivko wondered if he'd soon receive a message from Moscow ordering him to use the purple-tipped weapon to rip a large hole through Kennedy's blockade. He took a deep breath and patted a handkerchief against his sweat-soaked forehead.\n\nThe mediocre air-conditioning unit on B-36 had served them well while operating in cold northern waters. But once they reached the Sargasso Sea, where temperatures exceeded fifty degrees centigrade even at depth, the unit could not keep up, and the crew started to swelter. Dubivko dreaded the thought of being pursued in these heated waters by a swarm of ASW aircraft for hours on end while running slow and deep. He moved B-36 into the passage and descended below the thermal layer to thwart possible sonar detection. He then ordered all stop and neutral buoyancy to keep the boat still and level while they waited. Nerve-grinding hours passed as Pankov, in the acoustics cubicle, listened with trained ears to a distant contact.\n\nDubivko's mind plagued him with disastrous scenarios as his submarine sat motionless hundreds of feet below the surface. What if an ASW plane picked up their scent and started dropping sonobuoys? Where could they hide? There seemed to be hundreds of planes flying around. He figured American destroyers could not be far away.\n\nStanding in the CC, Dubivko queried a question over the comm. \"Acoustic, is that merchant ship still there?\"\n\n\"Control,\" Pankov said, \"the merchant ship is still making turns for ten knots.\"\n\n\"Acoustic, range and bearing?\"\n\n\"Control, 3,000 meters bearing three-five-eight and closing.\"\n\nDubivko glanced to his left. \"Navigator, plot an intercept course for nine knots speed.\"\n\nNaumov acknowledged the order. Two minutes later he said, \"Turn right on my mark to course zero-six-zero.\" Five more seconds passed. \"Mark.\"\n\nThe boat's deck tilted a few degrees as the helmsman pulled the steering lever to the right.\n\n\"Intercept time?\" Dubivko asked as he wrapped his hand around a pole on the conning tower ladder to steady himself during the turn.\n\n\"Intercept in ten minutes,\" Naumov said.\n\n\"Watch Officer, make your depth sixty meters.\"\n\nCaptain-Lieutenant Andreev, the current watch officer, echoed the order. Those standing in the CC shifted their stance as the bow of the boat tipped downward.\n\nFive minutes passed. Dubivko knew that if he miscalculated the merchant ship's depth or his angle of approach, he could crash B-36 into a pair of massive propeller blades. He recalled that another boat, while operating in the Barents Sea, suffered an almost life-ending collision while attempting a similar scheme. The captain of that submarine miscalculated and smacked into the stern of the cargo ship they were planning to hide under. The ship's propeller blades sliced into the boat's bridge and conning tower and caused catastrophic flooding in the CC. After surfacing to make temporary repairs, the ill-fated submarine limped back to Polyarny. Had the weather been rougher, they might have sunk. Dubivko's mouth went dry as he remembered the story. B-36 was now 5,000 miles from home.\n\n\"Watch Officer,\" Dubivko said, \"make your depth forty meters, speed seven knots.\"\n\nAndreev repeated the order, and the bow tilted upward.\n\n\"Attention in the CC,\" Dubivko said. \"I intend to close within one hundred meters range and ten meters below the merchant ship's hull. After they pass overhead, we will turn about and match their course and speed. The tanker's propeller noise should allow us to hide in their wake. We will need steady hands on helm and depth control.\"\n\nAndreev shot Dubivko a concerned look.\n\nDubivko returned the look and said, \"Take us in, Watch Officer.\" Through the comm he said, \"Acoustic, range to tanker?\"\n\nPankov answered from acoustic. \"Control, 500 meters and closing.\"\n\nDubivko glanced at the shallow depth gauge on the starboard bulkhead. He then moved a few feet to his left and looked over Naumov's shoulder. The navigator drew lines on a small sheet atop the Plexiglas on the nav table. The lines depicted two merging contacts heading southwest. Dubivko studied the contact markings, did a few calculations in his head, and returned to his previous location near the watch officer.\n\nA few minutes later, Dubivko ordered a single-range ping using active sonar on low power. He knew that U.S. destroyers and aircraft could potentially detect even one ping, but running into the blades of a merchant ship posed a greater risk. Once they closed the distance to the tanker, passive acoustic would be almost useless. The ship's massive screws generated too much noise to discern any kind of range estimation, and bearing information would be meaningless. At that point, Dubivko would need to rely on periscope observation from the conning tower.\n\n\"Acoustic, range?\" Dubivko said.\n\n\"Control, 300 meters,\" Pankov replied from the acoustic room.\n\n\"Watch Officer, bow planes up five degrees, come to thirty meters depth.\"\n\nAndreev reiterated the order, and the boat inched upward. Dubivko took a step toward the conning tower ladder. \"Stand by to open hatch.\"\n\nA sailor darted up the ladder and waited, both hands gripping the cold steel of the hatch wheel.\n\n\"Steady at thirty meters.\"\n\nThe sailor muscled the wheel, and a sheet of ocean water splattered onto the deck. Several drops splashed Dubivko's face. He licked his lips and tasted salt.\n\nAs the waterfall diminished to a few drops, the sailor stuck his head into the conning tower, did a quick visual sweep, then slid back down the ladder into the CC. After a verbal \"all clear\" from the sailor, Dubivko gripped the sides of the wet ladder and climbed upward. Behind him followed Saparov, as regulations stipulated that only the political officer could join the captain or authorized relief officer in the conning tower.\n\nOnce inside the small enclosure, just above the CC, Dubivko asked for an update. \"Acoustic, range to tanker?\"\n\n\"Control, passing beneath the contact now,\" Pankov said.\n\nDubivko had approached the tanker head on and now intended to make a 360-degree turn and follow the ship while hiding behind her.\n\nKopeikin relayed the order to the helmsman. Dubivko held his breath as he heard propeller blades thrashing above him. He knew that maintaining an exact distance and depth was now critical. The vacuum produced by the surface effect of ocean water rushing beneath the tanker's hull posed an immense danger. Just a few meters too close, and they could be sucked into the ship's deadly propeller blades.\n\n\"Acoustic, range?\" Dubivko asked again.\n\n\"Control, we've passed underneath. Range is opening, now twenty meters.\"\n\nDubivko called down to the watch officer. \"Watch Officer, come right to course two-five-five, increase speed to ten knots.\" He then depressed the switch for the approach periscope. \"Podnyat periscope.\"\n\nSaparov said nothing as he stood behind Dubivko and observed. Dubivko knew that the officer's presence in the conning tower had nothing to do with good seamanship and everything to do with politics. No matter the years, sacrifice, or evidence of loyalty, Moscow conservatives never granted full trust to their submarine captains.\n\nDubivko rested his twitching eyelid against the rubber eyepiece on the scope. An eerie glow from a carved moon shimmered on the wave tops as he spun the scope left and searched for the tanker's stern light post. He knew that if he steered too far to port or starboard, the metal shield around the light would prevent the glow from being seen. Viewing only darkness, Dubivko swung left, then right. Still nothing.\n\n\"Control, contact has changed course, now heading two-seven-zero.\"\n\nDubivko's ears burned as a wave of panic swept past. He now knew why he couldn't see the ship: they had changed course. He fought to stay calm, to not show signs of concern in front of Saparov as he called down to the CC. \"Watch Officer, right two degrees rudder.\" Again he moved the scope back and forth. Still no light. \"Left two degrees rudder!\"\n\nB-36 edged to port. Still no sign of the tanker.\n\nThen, suddenly, a twinkle. Was that a star? Dubivko squinted and stared. Out of the black, another blink. Then a glimmer. Finally, the stern light came into view, resting on a stanchion about six meters above the waterline.\n\n\"Watch Officer, steady on this course,\" Dubivko ordered.\n\nAs his eyes adjusted to the dark, he could now see the vessel's main deck sprinkled with equipment and lifeboats. Judging by how much of the ship protruded above the waterline, he figured she must be running with a light load. The reduced tonnage caused the ship's large propeller to break the surface as it churned the ocean into white foam. Dubivko smiled. A breaching prop translated to more turbulence and noise, making it harder for ASW aircraft sonobuoys to discern B-36's hull from that of the tanker's. The merchant ship's abundance of steel would also help mask the submarine's electromagnetic signature, and the foamy wake made periscope detection almost impossible.\n\nWith any luck, the tanker would maintain a steady course and speed, at least long enough for B-36 to make it through the passage. As Dubivko watched for signs of life aboard their newfound friend, he wondered what flag this ship operated under. For all he knew, they could be American. If so, he imagined how the tanker's captain might react should he learn that a Soviet submarine lurked behind him like a silent leech.\n\nThe glow of a cigarette came to life on the deck of the ship, illuminating a silhouette near the stern. As he slung his arms over the periscope's handles and played the part of a Peeping Tom, Dubivko wondered if the man might be from Miami. Captain Dubivko was now in his element, in command of his vessel, heading into harm's way while cleverly hiding from the enemy. Excitement, pride, and fear owned equal portions of him, none more so than fear, as this honed his senses, heightened his instincts, and increased his odds of avoiding a fatal mistake. Then Dubivko heard an unwanted report from acoustic.\n\n\"Control, contact is slowing.\"\n\nThe sound of the tanker's thunderous screws grew faint. The stern light blinked once and then vanished into the darkness.\n\n\"Control, contact has slowed to eight knots, bearing zero-one-zero.\"\n\n\"Shit!\" Dubivko said to himself, hoping that Saparov did not overhear. For reasons unknown, the merchant ship was decreasing speed and turning to port. \"Watch Officer, slow to six knots.\"\n\nDubivko called down to the CC. \"Navigator, are there any shallows or sandbars nearby?\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" came the reply. \"But if she maintains this course, she will run aground.\"\n\nDubivko frowned. \"Acoustic, report fathometer depth.\"\n\n\"Control, one hundred meters,\" Pankov replied.\n\nDubivko quickly weighed his options. Without the tanker's turbulent noise to hide under, B-36 could be exposed within minutes.\n\n\"Control, three knots and slowing.\"\n\n\"Watch Officer, slow to three knots,\" Dubivko said.\n\n\"Control, she's dropping anchor,\" acoustic reported.\n\n\"Shit.\" Dubivko said, no longer attempting to hide his concern from Saparov.\n\n\"Acoustic, fathometer depth?\"\n\n\"Control, eighty meters.\"\n\n\"All stop,\" Dubivko said.\n\nThe boat slowed and crawled to a stop.\n\n\"Zhukov,\" Dubivko said.\n\n\"Sir?\" Zhukov replied from below in the CC.\n\n\"Raise the zenith navigation scope. Check for aircraft.\"\n\nHydraulics whispered. Dubivko also heard a few clicks and squeaks as the scope swiveled in its housing.\n\n\"Nothing, sir,\" Zhukov reported.\n\n\"Navigator,\" Dubivko said, \"find us a clear patch.\"\n\nNaumov relayed a course and heading, and Dubivko issued maneuvering orders.\n\n\"Watch Officer,\" Dubivko said once they'd reached the new location, \"make your depth eighty meters. Set us on the bottom.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nDubivko still did not know why the tanker came to a stop but surmised she needed to make repairs of some kind. Regardless, for now, with dawn approaching, he had no choice but to sit and wait. Thankfully, they still retained almost a full battery charge. Given their close proximity to the tanker, snorkeling was out of the question.\n\nWith Saparov close behind him, Dubivko descended the ladder into the CC and closed the hatch. Hours passed without a sound from the tanker. At 3:00 A.M., while Dubivko studied the nav plot with Naumov, he heard an excited report from Pankov in acoustic.\n\n\"Control, new contact bearing two-five-five! Two tandem screws.\"\n\n\"Watch Officer, make turns for three knots, ascend to twenty meters,\" Dubivko said. From their position on the bottom, they could hear but not see, and Dubivko wanted to know what was going on up there. Who was approaching the tanker? A repair ship? An American destroyer?\n\nThe boat angled toward the surface and the answer.\n\n\"Stand by to open hatch.\"\n\nAgain a sailor stood poised by the conning tower ladder.\n\n\"Acoustic?\" Dubivko said over the comm line. \"Contact type?\"\n\nA few seconds passed, then Pankov said, \"Control, American destroyer, speed fifteen knots.\"\n\nNow what? They could descend back to the bottom and wait, but for how long? On the other hand, if for some reason the destroyer saw their periscope and went active with sonar, they'd be sitting ducks.\n\nAt twenty meters, the hatch flung open, and Dubivko climbed back into the conning tower. He peered through the scope and zeroed in on the destroyer's lights. Though he could not make out the enemy ship's bristling antenna, spinning radar, and menacing armament in the dark, he imagined all of these in his mind. He ordered the ESM radar detection mast raised. An occasional beep could be heard from the Nakat ESM panel in the CC as the system detected enemy radar. NATO called this system Stop Light. As the intervals between the beeps decreased, Dubivko knew that the destroyer's radar was starting to lock on to their masts, and he could not afford to keep them up much longer. The ESM antenna array, which sat between the two periscopes on the sail, carried four bands of direction-finding antennas that captured enemy radar signals and fed data to a cathode-ray tube (CRT) screen. Enemy ships and planes used radar to try to spot submarine masts protruding above the surface, and when they ventured too close, the Nakat system beeped with a warning.\n\nThe American destroyer closed to within 1,000 meters and stopped. Then a signal lamp pierced the dark as it flashed out a message in Morse code. Dubivko translated the dit-dah flashes in his head. \"Alpha, Alpha,\" he said to himself, feeling Saparov's presence behind him. \"What ship?\"\n\nDubivko lowered the scope to avoid detection. He raised the mast again a few seconds later, swung the scope toward the tanker, and watched for a reply. Flashes appeared like shooting stars against the backdrop of endless black. Given the lamp's location on the upper level of the tanker, the large superstructure and bridge blocked most of the light, and Dubivko could see only a few of the flashes.\n\n\"Shit!\"\n\nDubivko turned the scope back toward the destroyer and waited. Long seconds ticked by without a response. The ESM beeps increased in frequency. Then, from out of the ink, the flashes came. Dubivko whispered the translation aloud. \"Radio frequency three four three point eight.\" He lowered the masts and called down to the CC, \"Zhukov, raise the antenna, and have our English translators listen in. Three four three point eight.\"\n\nZhukov complied. Minutes later he called back up to Dubivko. \"The tanker is Norwegian. A boiler failed, and they are bringing a spare online. The Americans offered assistance, but the Norwegians declined.\"\n\nAfter hearing this report, Dubivko raised the scope and watched as the destroyer's running lights turned to starboard and dimmed. \"Acoustic?\"\n\nPankov said, \"Control, American destroyer is heading away, making turns for ten knots and accelerating.\" Chains rattled from outside the hull. Pankov issued another report. \"Control, the merchant ship is reeling in her anchor.\"\n\nDubivko emptied his lungs in relief.\n\nAT 10:12 P.M. ON OCTOBER 22, a few hours after President Kennedy's speech to the nation regarding nuclear missiles in Cuba, R-Branchers at an NSA listening post picked up a high-priority message sent from the Soviet spy ship Shkval on station near the Bermudas. The Russian merchant ship Alantika received the message and rebroadcast the same to Murmansk, near the Foxtrot submarine's home port of Sayda Bay. Excited R-Branchers informed Net Control, reporting that \"this type of precedence is rarely observed. Significance unknown.\" When the NSA received the flash message, officials there feared the worst. Were the Soviets planning to run the blockade? Were their Foxtrot submarines preparing to attack the U.S. fleet? Were they minutes away from launching a nuclear attack?\n\nA few hours after midnight, a flurry of radio signals hit the air as Soviet merchant ships called home to Russia, asking for instructions. One ship sent an urgent plea for help.\n\nMoscow remained silent, and their cargo ships, along with the rest of the world, came to a halt and waited for an answer.\n\nJust before sunrise on October 23, the residents of Palm Beach, Florida, were shocked awake by the rumbling sound of a squadron of P2V ASW aircraft. The P2V's twin-props sliced the tropical air as high-pitched engines gulped gallons of fuel to push through the humidity. Sleepy-eyed spectators watched with curiosity as the planes lowered their landing gear and descended onto the runway at Palm Beach International Airport. Following just behind the P2Vs, a squadron of B-47 bombers lumbered onto the ground, tires screeching and jet engines roaring to slow the aircraft.\n\nFarther south, thirteen attack submarines slid from the docks at Key West Naval Base as dungaree-clad sailors scurried topside to stow lines and gear. With torpedo tubes fully loaded and pointed toward Cuba, the black silhouettes disappeared beneath the choppy waters of the Florida Straits. A division of Gearing-class destroyers followed the submarines, each armed with one ASROC (antisubmarine rocket) launcher, triple torpedo launchers, and two \"DASH\" antisubmarine helicopters. One lone submarine and destroyer stayed behind to defend the base.\n\nOn board the USS Robert E. Lee (SSBN-601), on deployment in the Atlantic, Commander Charles Griffiths received a change of orders from CINCLANT (Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic). His original mission orders were to conduct a Follow-on Test (FOT) firing of the Polaris A1 ballistic missile in the wake of the first launch by the USS George Washington. Now he was instructed to arm all missiles and ensure readiness to fire on the Soviet Union within a moment's notice. Griffiths knew that four other SSBNs (ship submersible ballistic, nuclear) received the same orders, and eighty nuclear weapons were poised to turn Russia into a radioactive wasteland.\n\n\"We were mindful that our loved ones were in imminent danger and that we could be facing an unbelievable future,\" said Griffiths. \"Yet we would have fired as ordered, and no one on board would have tried to prevent it.... It was up to the president and God to avoid Armageddon.\"\n\nIN NAVY FLAG PLOT ROOM 6D624 at the Pentagon, Admiral Anderson paced nervously. In this nerve center of the navy's planned blockade of Cuba, charts and maps of the Caribbean and Atlantic oceans lined entire walls, where personnel meticulously plotted the movements of every warship in the area. Something strange was happening in the Sargasso Sea near Cuba. The HFDF station at Homestead sent a flash message moments earlier reporting that the Soviet merchant ship Bol'shevik Sukhanov \"has altered course and is probably en route back to port.\" Yet another report said that \"HFDF fix on the Soviet cargo ship Kislovodsk, en route to Cuba, indicates that the ship has altered course to the north.\"\n\nDespite indications that the Soviets might be backing down, or at least taking a breather, Anderson harbored concerns that his sixty ships along the Walnut line were still having trouble finding those four Foxtrot submarines. The ASW boys on board ships and flying in planes would get a sniff, run down the track, but then lose the contact. A recent CINCLANT situation report showed only nine ASW hits since October 22. The SITREP (situation report) also revealed that Aircraft TG 136 got a Hot status on two Foxtrots, prosecuted, but never found anything. Anderson knew that some of those hits came from SOSUS arrays, but not many.\n\nWhat did appear consistent were the Boresight tips. Though he'd not yet been fully briefed on the technology, he was familiar enough with standard HF direction finding to understand the concept. When the Soviets sent out a burst, the stations recorded the transmission, then tried to find a bearing after the fact. Sounded simple enough, though he knew a bunch of beacon heads spent more than a year figuring it out.\n\nSOSUS occasionally helped find the Foxtrots when they ran on diesel engines at night, but given the long distances from most of the arrays, getting good bearings was tough. When those boats went silent and deep on batteries, SOSUS became useless. Fortunately for the good guys, the Foxtrots transmitted multiple times every afternoon, and when they did, Boresight stations could get bearings, even if not very accurate ones.\n\nStill, until ASW forces nailed those submarines cold and forced them to surface, the blockade was at great risk of failure. Anderson knew that Attorney General Robert Kennedy, following a recent intelligence briefing, said that \"the president ordered the navy to give the highest priority to tracking the submarines and to put into effect the greatest possible safety measures to protect our own aircraft carriers and other vessels.\" Anderson also knew that the president sent an ultimatum to Khrushchev stating that any Soviet submarines detected near the quarantine line must surface and be identified. The fleet operated under directives to use international code signals and nondestructive explosive charges to warn the subs, but if that failed, Anderson's orders were clear: use every means possible to sink those Foxtrots. That is, if he could find them.\n\nMeanwhile, the defense readiness condition (DEFCON) catapulted to its highest level ever. The military established DEFCON as a measure of the activation and readiness level of the U.S. Armed Forces, and standard peacetime protocol dictated DEFCON 5. DEFCON 1, never formally declared in U.S. history, was synonymous with war. DEFCON 2 ran a close second and also had never been mandated.\n\nA few years earlier, then Secretary of Defense Thomas Gates ordered the DEFCON raised to level three to test the response system. Although he intended at that time to keep the alert secret, the Soviets, while monitoring U.S. force movements, discovered the change. Bristling with anger, Khrushchev called the DEFCON alert a \"provocation.\" When U.S. forces were ordered to DEFCON 3 on October 22, no attempt was made to mask the intention. The message and the response were deliberately transmitted on open frequencies. Three radar bases also activated Operation Falling Leaves to monitor the Soviet response, including any missile launches from Cuba, but Anderson knew that the radar systems were experimental and unreliable.\n\nEarlier that day, on October 23, SAC received orders to invoke DEFCON 2 for the first time in history. Although the rest of the military remained at DEFCON 3, preparations were under way to ensure maximum readiness in the event that conditions changed. Anderson hoped that never happened.\n\nThat afternoon, in the third meeting of the Executive Committee (ExComm) of the National Security Council with President Kennedy, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara reported on the plans for naval interception, noting \"the presence of a submarine near the more interesting ships,\" and warned that radio silence should be imposed. The committee agreed that should a Soviet submarine interfere with the blockade or adopt a hostile posture, the enemy sub must be sunk.\n\nAfter visiting a Boresight station to try to optimize their systems, William J. Reed returned to Washington, D.C. There he met with a group of NSA engineers tasked with Boresight research and development. They burned midnight oil and chain-smoked while frantically trying to solve the perplexing problems that Reed reported finding in the field. During those infrequent times when the technology worked, it worked reasonably well. Unfortunately, more often than not, the systems were plagued by intermittent errors, annoying interference, and inconsistent results. Reed's boss, Commander Kaye, reminded everyone that unless these issues could be resolved in time, President Kennedy's blockade might become as \"useless as tits on a bull.\"\n\nAFTER SNEAKING THROUGH THE TURKS PASSAGE unscathed, Captain Dubivko hid B-36 in the wake of the Norwegian tanker until they neared 150 nautical miles north of Haiti. He then headed west toward Cuba and slowed. He circled on station until nightfall, then came up to recharge batteries. This night marked the final time they could surface to snorkel and vent exhaust fumes externally on either side of Compartment Five. From now on they'd need to switch to snorting. This operation ensured stealth in enemy waters and could be done at depths up to fourteen meters. Snorting required raising the snorkel mast to suck in air directly to the diesels. Fumes were piped back up through the conning tower and cooled prior to venting into the ocean. Doing so lowered the probability of detection by reducing the boat's heat signature.\n\n\"What was her name?\" Dubivko asked while peering through his binoculars on the bridge. Two of B-36's engines hummed from below decks, scattering the smell of burnt diesel fumes into the tropical night air.\n\n\"Who?\" Zhukov asked while studying the gyrocompass to his right.\n\n\"The Norwegian tanker. What was her name?\"\n\n\"Cretan Star, I think. At least, that's what the American destroyer called her.\"\n\n\"Too bad,\" Dubivko said. \"I was hoping for a female name.\"\n\n\"Sir?\" Zhukov said.\n\nDubivko lowered his binoculars and smiled. \"We hid under her skirt for hours. Shouldn't she be a woman?\"\n\nZhukov shook his head and laughed. Long days filled with tension made that luxury rare, and Dubivko knew that even less levity lay ahead. B-36 received new orders after crossing the Turks Passage behind the Norwegian oil tanker, directing them to assume station to the northeast and monitor U.S. ship movements. On station 200 miles south of Bermuda and 600 miles east of Cuba, they snorkeled at night and ran silent on battery power during the day, still faithfully coming shallow in the afternoon to transmit an update.\n\nASW aircraft continued to plague them. P2Vs and newer P3 Orions splashed sonobuoys along precise patterns that nearly matched B-36's track, making Dubivko wonder if the Americans had recruited a team of psychics. On the other hand, Zhukov reported that American pi lots were lax in their communications protocol, often transmitting unencoded messages over open HF frequencies. This was especially true for planes attached to the carriers Essex and Randolph operating to the north in the vicinity of B-130 and B-59. Determining which pi lots were communicating from which planes became a great pastime for B-36's radio operators, who often made friendly wagers with each other as to which call sign matched which pi lot.\n\nAvoiding enemy detection exhausted the crew but took second fiddle to the heat. Deep inside warm tropical waters, given the inadequacy of their air-conditioning system, B-36's insides turned into a blistering sewer pipe. Temperatures surpassed unbearable, especially in the engine room, where they often eclipsed thirty-seven degrees centigrade.\n\nDubivko ordered the rationing of drinking water, allowing each man to consume no more than one glass per day. He also granted one glass of red wine at dinner. The crew's health deteriorated rapidly, given poor personal hygiene and constant exposure to humidity, high temperatures, and diesel fumes. Most suffered from painful rashes or oozing skin ulcers. To combat this problem, the doctor handed out disposable towels every day. When those supplies ran out, he used alcohol-doused cotton balls. Many of the sailors just stuck the balls in their mouths and sucked out the alcohol instead of using them to treat their rashes.\n\nZhukov's English-speaking experts, after sucking their alcohol swabs dry, continued to monitor shortwave and high-frequency broadcasts, such as Radio Liberty, BBC, and Voice of America. These broadcasts revealed that Soviet statesman Anastas Mikoyan, one of Khrushchev's closest advisers, was trying to negotiate a compromise with the Americans after Kennedy reacted so harshly to the discovery of nuclear missiles in Cuba. Dubivko could not help but wonder if their mission might soon come to an abrupt end, either by way of war or by recall to Russia. He knew that in the event of a recall, no one in power would admit to failure.\n\nDubivko informed his crew about the blockade to ensure they stayed alert. He also told them that hundreds of aircraft and dozens of ships from the U.S. Atlantic Fleet were hell bent on finding and possibly sinking their submarine. Zhukov mentioned that an operator heard that the Americans had established prisoner of war camps in Florida, and Dubivko let his mind play on the possibility of meeting someone from Miami.\n\nWhen the sun rose, bad luck returned. The chief engineer, Captain Lieutenant Potapov, reported that the upper lid on the VIPS\u2014the imitation cartridge projection device used to fire decoys to ward off enemy torpedoes\u2014had been damaged in the last storm. Potapov insisted that it would be suicide to submerge the boat deeper than seventy meters. The depth limitation posed significant problems. First, most of the thermal layers under which they might hide were below that depth. Second, when they operated at shallower depths, ASW planes could find them more easily with magnetic detectors. Repairing the lid required surfacing, which became impossible once they neared Cuba and ASW activity intensified.\n\nThe OSNAZ specialists reported that there were now at least three carrier groups operating in the Sargasso Sea, along with hundreds of aircraft flying about\u2014all intent on finding them. Cloudless blue skies aided the enemy's objective. Dubivko had continued to come shallow at night to snort and descended back to seventy meters during the day to hide.\n\nFive or six times, while snorting under a blanket of dazzling stars, they had spotted a plane through the periscope or detected a radar signal nearby on the Nakat ESM mast. Dubivko then yelled, \"Srochnoiya pogruganye!\" and the boat made a quick dive. Zhukov avoided using any standard HF transmissions, as they knew the Americans were trying to locate them with their Huff Duffs. Still, every afternoon they had been compelled to come shallow again to receive a burst transmission on the SBD from headquarters and send a verification of receipt. Dubivko did not even consider the possibility that a little more than 500 nautical miles away, someone might be listening.\n\n## CHAPTER EIGHT\n\nOne death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.\n\n\u2014JOSEPH STALIN\n\nON THE MORNING OF OCTOBER 23, when Communications Technician John Gurley entered the 1,400-square-foot Boresight building in Homestead, Florida, he did not have an inkling that this day would become one of the most memorable in his life. The day began like most others, with an abundance of routine, coffee, doughnuts, bad jokes, a couple Boresight flashes, and some whining from Lieutenant Clower about staying diligent. But that all changed after lunch.\n\nThat tall ensign from NSG had visited them again a few days earlier. What was his name, Reed? The ensign brought a couple of his techies back, and they spent the better part of a day tweaking and testing the Boresight equipment again. Damned if those guys didn't manage to improve the bearing accuracy by half a degree or so. In a big ocean, that could mean a lot. Ensign Reed spent an hour with Clower talking hush-hush about something. After the NSG guys left, Clower called a meeting. He told everyone some harry shit was going on near Cuba, and they needed to crank up the alert factor to full throttle. Clower didn't offer many details but said they should be looking for Foxtrot call signs. Foxtrot submarines near Cuba? Gurley could only imagine why that might be, as he thought about his trek from unemployed to sub hunter.\n\nWhen he graduated from high school in 1956, Gurley's parents didn't have enough money to send him to college. Finding a job in Dallas during those days was pretty tough, so he enlisted in the navy to avoid becoming a ground pounder in a rice paddy. During boot camp in San Diego, someone noticed his Texas drawl and said he should learn how to communicate better. He took their advice and struck for communications technician. Weeks later they sent him to radioman school in Imperial Beach just south of San Diego.\n\nAfter graduating from radioman school, Gurley received orders to Morocco. He spent an exotic three years in the desert, then wound up in the frigid north near Kodiak, Alaska. In between hunting and fishing in heaven's wilderness, Gurley and twenty-six other sailors ran the Huff Duff station there, reporting to a chief warrant officer who let them play as much as they worked to keep morale and efficiency at a peak. After a year in Kodiak, the navy pulled him out of one paradise and plopped him into another: Homestead, Florida. They needed more R-Brancher radio \"collection\" experts there.\n\nAt Homestead, Gurley rode the bus every day from the barracks to the operations building down Card Sound Road. In the ops center, he and a dozen other R-Branchers sat in front of various stations and monitored Soviet traffic, while M-Branchers did their maintenance thing, I-Branchers listened for intelligence tidbits, T-Branchers analyzed signals, and O-Branchers ran the shop. Four R-Branchers usually searched for active targets, while one or two others encoded and decoded messages sent from the crypto center.\n\nThe job really wasn't that tough until Ensign Reed and his team waltzed in and set up all that Boresight equipment. Now they'd get flashes from NC that included time windows, so they had to find the related reel-to-reel tape, load it up, and listen on the specified frequencies during specific time slots across maybe thirty or forty bearings. Problem was, they were looking for a burst that lasted only seven-tenths of a second, so they were forced to play the thing back and forth ad nauseam, sometimes for hours.\n\nFour of these systems recorded signals on various frequencies starting at 840 kilohertz. When the systems heard a burst signal, they were supposed to alarm, but the loud bell went off only if they got a strong enough hit. If another station gained a stronger signal to trigger the alarm, they sent NC a tip-off, and NC sent out a flash. That's when Gurley and his colleagues spent hours poring through recording tapes to see if they also picked up the burst, because one bearing to a target could not accurately pinpoint a transmitting sub's location.\n\n\"In those days we still used the old compass rose board,\" said Gurley. \"When we got a bearing, we manually ran a piece of string from one end of the board to the other along the bearing. We prepared reports to Net Control on a machine that used a punch tape machine. We'd wrap the yellow paper tape around our finger to form a tight ball and then shove it inside of a Coke can. The ribbon came with two carbon copies that made it thick and hard to handle. We shoved the can into a tube that dropped down to the communications center. The boys downstairs pulled the report out of the Coke can and sent it off to NC. Very high tech.\"\n\nOperators often played jokes on new guys by ordering them to unravel the three-ply tape, which, if done incorrectly, resulted in carbon-stained fingers and a mess that resembled a ticker-tape parade. \"Our job was demanding but mostly routine,\" said Gurley. \"A little levity now and then kept us from going stir crazy.\"\n\nThat day, on October 23, an alarm bell interrupted the routine. Gurley wheeled his chair over to the recorder and started the procedure he'd been taught by Ensign Reed and his team. Check this, verify that, do something else. He and other operators spent the next hour analyzing the recording and checking bearings. The transmission call sign pointed to a probable Foxtrot-class submarine.\n\nGurley went to the compass rose board, grabbed a piece of string, and pulled it down the line of the probable bearing. The string ran just north of Cuba and due east of Florida. Based on the signal strength, he figured the Foxtrot was probably less than 1,000 miles away. Gurley wheeled over to the punch tape and generated a report for the Coke can. He dropped the can into the tube and waited.\n\nA half hour later, the station received a copy of the flash sent to the other stations from NC. Gurley waited another hour and then contacted a buddy at Net Control. He asked if any of the other stations had reported bearings to that contact. The answer came back as affirmative. Gurley pulled two more strings across the compass rose board, representing those bearings. When he saw where the lines converged, his heart started pounding so hard he thought he'd pop a shirt button. He didn't know it then, but he and other Huff Duffs had just nailed Captain Savitsky's B-59, operating near the Bahamas a few hundred miles southeast of Florida.\n\nIN THE FLAG PLOT ROOM, THE navy's command center at the Pentagon, Admiral Anderson's eyes ached from lack of sleep. Too much coffee soured his stomach, but he downed another cup anyway. The black \"navy joe\" offered that bitter-burnt taste that Anderson liked so well. Just one more reason to go navy. He squinted and stared at the dozens of red tags dotting the large wall chart. Each tag, numbered C1 through C29, denoted a probable submerged contact, most likely a Foxtrot or maybe a Zulu. Positively identified submarines, like the Zulu spotted on the surface days earlier, drew B designations.\n\nAround thirty men and women in Flag Plot kept track of estimated course and speed information for B and C contacts and, most importantly, their probable distance to any U.S. surface ships in the quarantine zone. Another set of flags on the plot followed Soviet merchant traffic as those ships approached the Walnut line, the outer perimeter of the quarantine zone. Anderson suspected that many of these ships carried nuclear missiles and launcher parts destined for Cuba. After Kennedy's quarantine went into effect, around sixty U.S. Navy ships now patrolled along the Walnut line that arced from the tip of Florida to an area just south of Cuba. If Soviet merchant ships tried to cross the line, the navy had orders to stop them. But with four Foxtrot submarines lurking nearby, accomplishing that task could prove difficult, if not deadly.\n\nAnderson turned to see Defense Secretary Robert McNamara stride into the room with Roswell Gilpatric, a New York lawyer turned deputy defense secretary, who followed in a \"brown nose\" position. Behind the two, an entourage of clean-cut press-corps bulldogs came outfitted in suits, ties, and dresses. Anderson scowled. The last thing he needed right now was a bunch of McNamara's White House public-relations questioners, especially when every answer required a heavy dose of sidestepping.\n\nMcNamara shook Anderson's hand and asked for an update. The admiral pointed to the set of merchant-ship flags on the plot. McNamara's eyes followed Anderson's finger. While the press dogs scribbled in tiny spiral-bound notebooks, Anderson explained that they expected the first sortie of Russian ships to hit the line at around 10:00 A.M. the following day. He said that things started to change after Kennedy's quarantine announcement a few days earlier. Where once these ships acted as lone wolves heading toward Cuban ports, they now appeared to be forming one large phalanx, with the tanker Bucharest leading the charge. They could not explain why.\n\nMcNamara asked about the red dots. Were there really that many Soviet submarines out there? Anderson said no, that many flags represented more subs than the Soviet navy possessed. He explained that they plotted each reported sighting but considered most false positives. They believed that less than a half-dozen Soviet subs were in the area, and the navy's ASW forces were most concerned with finding the four Foxtrots. An underling from the press office raised her hand. \"What's a Foxtrot?\" she asked. Anderson patiently reeled off a few specifications about that class of Soviet submarine.\n\nMcNamara asked how the navy's ships intended to force Soviet subs to the surface once they found them. Anderson took another gulp of coffee and recalled his days as the commander of the Sixth Fleet working for then Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Arleigh Burke. The admiral more than once grumbled that McNamara possessed the steel-trap mind of an encyclopedia but the detail-oriented focus of a micromanager who asked more questions than a five-year-old.\n\nKnowing that McNamara loved the devil in the details, Anderson doused him with a fire hose. He delivered a long diatribe about international signal codes transmitted by the United States on open frequencies. They knew Soviet submarines monitored these frequencies and so should be informed as to the expected rules of engagement during the conflict. That morning the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office broadcast Mariner's 45\u201362, Special Warning 32, which spelled out submarine surfacing and identification procedures. The warning stated that U.S. ships and planes would signal Soviet submarines by dropping four to five hand grenade\u2013sized explosives, followed by the international sonar-transmitted signal IDKCA, which means \"rise to the surface.\" Submarines hearing this signal had to surface on an easterly course at once and move slowly away from Cuba.\n\n\"And if they don't?\" McNamara asked. Pencils poised, the press geeks stared at Anderson with curious eyes.\n\n\"We will sink them,\" Anderson said.\n\nMcNamara didn't blink. Anderson hoped that, given the presence of the press staff, the SecDef would not probe for more. Besides, in their meeting days earlier, he'd already briefed McNamara, along with Kennedy and the ExComm group, about these rules of engagement. He'd explained that shots would be fired across bows and then into rudders of noncompliant merchant ships. Neither McNamara nor Kennedy liked the plan, but they conceded that there were no alternatives.\n\nMcNamara pointed to a lone flag on the plot, positioned some distance away from the others around the quarantine area. The flag represented the position of a U.S. Navy destroyer off the coast of Florida, almost a hundred miles east of the Walnut line. \"Why is that ship out of line?\" McNamara asked.\n\n\"She's prosecuting a probable submerged contact operating near the Bahamas,\" Anderson said.\n\n\"I don't understand,\" McNamara said. \"I thought you said that most of the sightings were false positives. If you move every ship away from the Walnut line, we won't have a blockade.\"\n\n\"This submarine hit came from a more reliable source,\" Anderson said.\n\n\"What source is that?\" McNamara pressed.\n\nAnderson remained silent. Neither the press staff nor many of his own watch officers were cleared for that information.\n\n\"Admiral?\" McNamara said.\n\n\"Mr. Secretary,\" Anderson said, motioning toward a side room. \"Please come with me.\"\n\nMcNamara glanced at Gilpatric. \"I'll be right back.\"\n\nMcNamara followed Anderson into the small \"inner sanctuary,\" which was reserved for private conversations regarding sensitive \"need to know\" information. A few chairs stood guard near a table that held a couple of used coffee cups and a navy regulations manual. Anderson leaned on the back of a chair and proceeded to tell McNamara about Operation Boresight. He explained that SOSUS did a fair job of helping to track the four Foxtrots when they snorkeled, but this occurred only at night and only up to 150 nautical miles away. Fortunately, these submarines transmitted multiple burst signal updates to Moscow every day in the late afternoon. When they did, HFDF stations equipped with Boresight technology obtained ballpark fixes.\n\n\"Ballpark?\" McNamara asked.\n\n\"Around fifty nautical miles,\" Anderson said. \"That's why that ship is out of line. She's prosecuting a probable Foxtrot hit initially received from our HFDF station in Homestead.\"\n\nMcNamara stood up straight. \"I want to know more about this Boresight thing. Send someone to the White House tomorrow to brief me and the president.\"\n\n\"This is a highly classified program, I don't know\u2014\"\n\n\"Send someone, Admiral.\"\n\nAnderson nodded, said nothing.\n\n\"Now,\" McNamara said, \"about those rules of engagement. I don't give a damn what the rules say. Your boys are not to fire a single shot into a rudder without direct permission from the president or me. Is that clear?\"\n\n\"Sir, we have sixty ships on that line. They need to be able to act quickly and in dependently. We need to trust that our captains will do the right thing.\"\n\nMcNamara fumed. \"The purpose of this quarantine is to send a delicate diplomatic message to Khrushchev, not start a shooting war!\"\n\n\"No one's going to\u2014\"\n\n\"You're damn right they're not!\" McNamara yelled, loud enough that Anderson was sure that Gilpatric and the press kids overheard the comment.\n\nFrazzled from days without sleep, his gut churning with coffee acid, his nerves stretched thin, Anderson picked up the thick bound navy regulations manual from the table and held it high. \"May I remind you, Mr. Secretary, that the navy has been running blockades by the book since the days of John Paul Jones. I think we know what we're doing by now!\"\n\n\"I don't give a damn about Jones! I want to know what you intend to do. Be a renegade or follow orders?\"\n\nAnderson marched to the door and turned the handle. As he stepped back into the Flag Plot room, he said, \"I always follow orders, Mr. Secretary. Now, I suggest you go back to your office and let us handle things here.\"\n\nHis face sour, McNamara strutted past Anderson and motioned for Gilpatric and the press nerds to follow. He turned one last time before exiting the room and said, \"I want that briefing, Admiral.\"\n\nAnderson nodded and turned back toward the wall chart. He stared at the flag representing the USS Cony, unaware that the navy destroyer \"out of line\" was running headlong toward a battle with Captain Savitsky's B-59.\n\nAT THE RUSSIAN EMBASSY IN WASHINGTON, D.C., the Soviet naval attach\u00e9, Vice Admiral Leonid Bekrenyev, formed his lips into a tight line as he read a recently received diplomatic message regarding the rules of engagement. The message stated that Soviet submarines, if found, would be forced to the surface by American ASW forces. He handed the paper to a radio operator along with instructions to inform the main navy headquarters in Moscow immediately and ensure they transmitted the message to the submarines near Cuba.\n\nPresident Kennedy met again with members of ExComm to review the latest quarantine intelligence, world reaction to the building crisis, status of negotiations at the United Nations, and potential incidents on the high seas. McNamara provided a detailed briefing on recent reconnaissance photos from Cuba, and the group debated the need to disperse planes at Florida bases in the event of attacks by Soviet MIGs.\n\nMcNamara then revealed what he'd learned earlier that morning from Admiral Anderson about the Soviet submarine sighting from a reliable source. He did not reveal the nature of that source. He expressed concern over the \"very dangerous situation since [Russian merchant] ships approaching the quarantine line are being shadowed by a Soviet submarine.\" Referring to the probable Foxtrot contact reported by Admiral Anderson, now being pursued by the USS Cony, he went on to say that \"there is a sub very close, we believe, and therefore it should be twenty to thirty miles from these [ships], and hence it is a very dangerous situation. The navy recognizes this [and] is fully prepared to meet it.\"\n\nKennedy asked what might happen if a U.S. destroyer was sunk by a Soviet submarine while trying to board and search a Russian merchant ship. Not receiving an acceptable answer, he went on to say, \"I think we ought to wait on that [boarding] today. We don't want to have the first thing we attack [be] a Soviet sub. I'd much rather have a merchant ship.\"\n\nWHEN WILLIAM J. REED HIT THREE days without sleep, Commander Kaye insisted that he head over to the officer's quarters at Fort George G. Meade, Mary land, and find an empty bunk for a few hours. Reed tried to argue but lost. He also tried to sleep, but his head kept spinning over the brewing crisis near Cuba. He knew there'd been hundreds of possible submarine sightings made by ships, planes, SOSUS, and Bore-sight stations, and so far they could not prove which ones were more accurate, though Reed harbored his own bias.\n\nAll hits were thoroughly analyzed by experienced ASW submariners, surface ship jockeys, or pi lots at ASW Force Headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia, but those professionals were still limited by the mantra \"Bad in, bad out.\" Reed's job, which kept him awake for these past few days, mandated turning that bad into at least something decent. When they heard that the Boresight HFDF station at Homestead got a solid hit on a Foxtrot near the Walnut line, Kaye congratulated Reed and his team for doing that job well by improving the bearing accuracy on Homestead's equipment.\n\nBased on what Boresight hits they did have, NSA estimated that four Foxtrots now encircled Cuba, one near the Bahamas east of Florida about 100 miles off the Walnut line, one southwest from there about 500 miles east of Cuba, another 100 or so miles south of that sub, and the fourth one around 700 miles west of the others, south of Cuba down near Jamaica.\n\nReed forced his mind away from the threatening Foxtrots and finally dozed off. A few hours later, Kaye shook him awake.\n\n\"Sorry to wake you, BJ,\" Kaye said, \"but we need to prepare for a high-level meeting.\"\n\nReed yawned and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. \"A meeting? Where?\"\n\n\"At the White House,\" Kaye said. \"We've been summoned by the president.\"\n\nON BOARD B-130, ON STATION EAST of the Bahamas, Captain Second Rank Nikolai Shumkov's face heated as he issued a string of profanities. The temperature in Compartment Five, which housed three large engines that reeked of diesel fumes, increased to more than forty degrees centigrade after they entered tropical waters. Sweat gushed from every pore on Shumkov's body and stained his clothes. Senior Lieutenant Viktor Parshin, B-130's chief mechanic, stood near one of the engines and tried in vain to wipe the black oil smudges off his hands with an old rag.\n\n\"I'm sorry, Captain,\" Parshin said, his voice almost a yell against the throng of two engines. \"One engine is still down, and a second could die at any time.\"\n\n\"I should have listened to you back at Sayda Bay,\" Shumkov said, shaking his head.\n\n\"No matter, Captain,\" Parshin said. \"If you had, we would not even be on this mission.\"\n\nShumkov could tell by Parshin's bright red face that the man had been on duty far longer than the mandated thirty-minute rotation in the superheated compartment. He also knew that his chief mechanical engineer spoke the truth. They would not be here had they elected to make repairs after discovering the hairline fractures in the drives. They would have been left behind.\n\nB-130 hit the water for the first time in September 1960. That made her an older sibling to the other three Project 641 boats on this mission. More experienced but not as healthy, B-130 was born with defects and suffered often from mechanical ailments. She came out of the yards with flaws in two of her diesel engines. When shipyard engineers discovered the hairline cracks, they insisted on immediate repairs, but the builders refused. Shumkov suspected a cover-up. No one wanted to admit to the mistake.\n\nThe diesels ran fine, but Shumkov feared the day when one or more would suffer a coronary and die, most likely in the middle of an important deployment that required extended use. Parshin expressed concerns about their engines, as well as their aging batteries. The geriatric two-volt cells, 448 of them located on the lower decks of Compartments Two and Four, were due for replacement. The electrolyte in these 650-kilo batteries ran hot during recharging, which could cause a fire or even an explosion. They also took longer to charge, sometimes more than twelve hours, which made B-130 a laggard behind the other boats.\n\nShumkov ignored his chief engineer's warnings and decided to live with the risks. Thriving on adventure, he could not imagine being left out of such an exciting mission. Now his decision came back to worry him at the most inopportune time. Here in the Caribbean Sea, surrounded by the enemy, they were unable to surface and make repairs.\n\nWhile all three of B-130's propellers could be spun via the Kolomna diesel engines, they usually turned two props with one engine and used one to charge the batteries, with one resting. Due to the ignored drive cracks, they lost one of the engines, and a second now hung by a thread. Should they lose that one, they'd be down to one diesel that might fail at any time. They'd have to run only on the slow emergency motor while snorting to recharge batteries, and their ability to run from the Americans would be greatly diminished. If they lost that third engine, B-130 would be forced to head home under tow with her tail tucked between her legs. Shumkov sickened at the thought. Not only would he be excused from history, but he'd also be riddled with guilt for abandoning his duty to the other captains.\n\nShumkov glanced at the port engine gauges, their needles resting at zero. A maze of small round indicators filled the engine control panel, along with a shiny metal main fuel valve that looked like a rudder wheel on an old sailing ship. Lamenting his fate, as he turned to leave, he said, \"Don't stay in here too long, Viktor. That's an order.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" Parshin said.\n\nShumkov shot through the hatch into Compartment Four. The tantalizing aroma of lamb drifted by and reminded him that he hadn't eaten but a little borscht and goulash for dinner at midday. That was eleven hours ago. Now, at almost 11:00 P.M. boat time, the cooks were preparing tea and the snack meal. Hot piroshki. The tasty meat pie was Shumkov's favorite, especially since he really didn't care for the bread. Project 641\u2013class boats did not have the luxury of a bakery. Bread arrived on board prebaked and was stored unrefrigerated in plastic bags that contained a small amount of alcohol. When the cooks warmed the bread, the alcohol evaporated and offered freshness, at least in theory. For Shumkov, however, the flavor paled in comparison to his wife's baking.\n\nAlthough Shumkov normally ate his meals in the wardroom, he entered the galley and smiled at the chef. The rotund michman, who always produced grade-six quality meals, belied the running submarine joke that chefs should stay skinny in order to squeeze into their corner of the pressure hull. The small space held an assortment of bottles, boxes, and condensed milk cans, along with a large plate of fresh piroshkis sitting on the edge of the wooden counter. The chef returned Shumkov's smile as he held up the plate. Shumkov grabbed one and took a bite. He started to leave, stopped, turned, and grabbed another one.\n\nTwo sailors sat on the blue-cushioned bench in the galley nearby. Each displayed a five-digit number on his uniform that designated department, position, compartment, and shift numbers. One read 4-44-23, which meant Communications, Radio Room, Compartment Four, Shift Two, third in charge. The radio-room number reminded Shumkov that he needed to send out a burst transmission about the condition of his boat, but he decided Moscow could wait a few minutes. He sat on the bench next to his men and lost himself in the rich taste of lamb as he devoured the piroshki. Halfway through a second pie, his elation was interrupted by a distinct change in the vibrations running through the boat.\n\nParshin bolted through the Compartment Four hatch. The chief engineer spoke no words; his face told the story. The second diesel engine had just died. Shumkov sat his half-eaten piroshki on the table.\n\nTwo minutes later, he met his brown-haired electronics officer, Lieutenant Cheprakov, in the radio room. As the officer in charge of division Boyovoi Chesti (BCh) Four, Cheprakov worked closely with the five English-speaking OSNAZ operators. The wide-eyed young men, in between listening to jazz and news on Voice of America, were having the time of their lives monitoring radio intercepts between American ships, planes, and shore stations. Apparently the entire U.S. Navy now shared one mission in life: to find the four Project 641 boats. Shumkov hoped that the Americans would continue to fail, but now, with two engines down, he knew that the winds of luck were shifting.\n\nShumkov wrote out a message and handed it to Cheprakov. The electronics officer made a few modifications to ensure encryptability by the SBD and gave the edited message to the radio operator. The michman studied the message. When he looked up at Cheprakov, his fear-filled eyes seemed to say, \"Is this true?\"\n\nCheprakov returned an affirmative nod. \"It's true. If we lose one more engine, we'll need a tugboat to take us home.\"\n\nThe radioman typed in the message on the SBD keyboard. The burst transmission electrified the tropical clouds, bounced across the ionosphere, and landed on a receiver dish in Moscow.\n\nThe split-second radio waves also tickled a GRD-6 antenna just over 500 miles away in Homestead, Florida. An hour later, led by a Boresight fix, an ASW plane visually detected B-59's snorkel mast. Operators issued the next sequential contact number. Someone in Admiral Anderson's Flag Plot room stuck a flag on the board, designating the submarine sighting as C-18. The USS Cony, patrolling an area near the Bahamas, received urgent orders to pursue the Foxtrot and force her to the surface.\n\nAS NIGHT DESCENDED ON WASHINGTON, D.C., the temperature chilled along with any prospects of a fast or easy resolution to the crisis. At 1:45 A.M. on October 25, President Kennedy responded to Khrushchev's earlier threat\u2014delivered via Westing house's president, William Knox\u2014that Soviet submarines would sink any U.S. destroyers that tried to stop Russian merchant ships. Kennedy stated that the United States took appropriate action after receiving repeated assurances that no offensive missiles were being placed in Cuba, and that when these assurances proved false, the deployment \"required the responses I have announced.... I hope that your government will take necessary action to permit a restoration of the earlier situation.\"\n\nAround 7:15 A.M., the USS Essex and USS Gearing (DD-710) steamed toward the Soviet freighter Bucharest with orders in hand to intercept and board if necessary. Prior to the boarding, however, the navy decided to let this Russian vessel pass after concluding that she was capable of carrying nothing more than a cargo of petroleum. Instead, the fleet received orders to observe the tanker Graznyy, as her deck might be loaded with missile field tanks.\n\nSOMETIME THAT WEEK, ON OR ABOUT the morning of October 25, Briefcase in hand, sitting next to Commander Kaye, William J. Reed shifted nervously in the backseat of a black sedan. Gray clouds outside the windows descended on the nation's capital. Reed knew that almost every American wondered if they'd live to see another fog-filled day. Earlier he'd spent hours preparing overhead projector slides and a typed memorandum. The navy gave Kaye the honors of delivering these to President Kennedy and a few select members of the ExComm group, and Kaye asked Reed to come along. The ensign hoped that his technical input would not be needed.\n\nThe vehicle pulled to a stop in front of the White House. Reed and Kaye stepped from the car and walked toward the entrance. The majestic six-story building shimmered in the sun as the iconic fountain splashed water into a cold October breeze. Commander Kaye stopped for a moment to gaze at the sight. Reed pulled his wool dress coat tight around his neck and smelled crisp air. With each breath, he drew in an equal measure of awe and admiration. He popped to attention and saluted the American flag as it flapped in the wind. Kaye did the same. Both lowered their arms and walked toward the entrance.\n\nAs they strolled, Kaye pointed at the White House complex. He explained that the group of buildings included the central executive residence, flanked by the East Wing and West Wing. He let out a chuckle and said that the place had 132 rooms, 35 bathrooms, 28 fireplaces, 8 staircases, 3 elevators, 5 full-time chefs, a tennis court, a bowling alley, a movie theater, a jogging track, a swimming pool, and a putting green.\n\n\"A bowling alley?\" Reed said. \"Hell, Joyce and I are hoping next year we can afford a place with four bedrooms and a little bigger kitchen.\"\n\n\"Be happy with what you have, BJ,\" Kaye said. \"Most Russians live in tiny apartments and share bathrooms with a half-dozen neighbors. They've never even seen a bowling alley.\"\n\n\"Point taken,\" Reed said as the two approached the building.\n\nKaye pointed again. \"That's where we're headed. The West Wing. In there is the president's Oval Office, senior staff offices, and room for about fifty employees. There's also the Cabinet Room, where the president does most of his business.\" He pronounced business as bid-ness.\n\nAlthough Reed already knew quite a bit about the White House, he also knew that Kaye loved to show off to impressionable listeners, so he let his boss ramble on.\n\nKaye pointed out more as he led Reed into the large entrance hall. The commander explained that in 1806, President Thomas Jefferson transformed the hall into an exhibition area for artifacts from Lewis and Clark's famous expedition to the Western Territories. President Ulysses S. Grant started another tradition of hanging presidential portraits in the entrance hall and the perpendicular cross hall.\n\n\"I guess when you're the chief, you get to decorate your teepee anyway you want to,\" Kaye said.\n\nReed smiled, said nothing.\n\nAn aide greeted them at the entrance and directed the pair to a windowless office in the West Wing. The large conference room displayed a podium, a pull-down projection screen, and an overhead projector for transparent slides. As they stood alone near a rectangular conference table, Kaye said they called this the Fish Room. He said Teddy Roosevelt requested that the room be built in 1902, and he used it as his office. When they expanded the West Wing and built the Oval Office in 1909, they turned the room into a waiting area.\n\nWhen Reed asked why they called it the Fish Room, Kaye glanced upward and said that Franklin Roosevelt put in the skylight in 1934, along with an aquarium and fishing mementos. He always called it the Fish Room, and the name stuck.\n\nReed pointed to a large sailfish mounted on the wall. \"Roosevelt's?\"\n\n\"Nope,\" Kaye said as he rested a hand on the back of a high-back leather chair. \"Kennedy's. He caught the thing on vacation in Acapulco.\"\n\n\"Now I know why I like the guy,\" Reed said.\n\nThe door opened, and President John F. Kennedy entered, along with Defense Secretary McNamara, Deputy Secretary Roswell Gilpatric, National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, and the director of the National Security Agency, Air Force Lieutenant General Gordon Blake.\n\nReed had previously met General Blake and found him to be a \"man's man\" who combined a frequent Midwest smile with a sharp mind and hard-charging work ethic. Blake hailed from Iowa and graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1931; he earned the Distinguished Flying Cross as a communications officer flying on B-17s during the war. He also earned a Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Air Medal, and several campaign battle stars and now displayed a vast array of colorful ribbons on his uniform.\n\nGeneral Blake was Commander Jack Kaye's immediate boss. Reed didn't know it then, but in less than three years, Blake would award him a certificate of appreciation for his dedicated service to the NSA, specifically for his contributions to the Boresight program.\n\nMcNamara motioned for Reed and Commander Kaye to take a seat. Reed's throat tightened, and he longed for a drink of water. He and Kaye removed their covers and sat. Reed found a glass, filled it from a pitcher on the table, and gulped downed half.\n\nMcNamara explained to the president that he'd received minimal information from Admiral Anderson about a new naval technology called Boresight, that this new system appeared capable of locating Khrushchev's Foxtrot submarines with better accuracy than SOSUS or other means. McNamara felt that such a capability could provide an advantage in the current Cuban negotiations and so asked Anderson to set up a meeting to brief the president and select members of ExComm. He reminded the group of the highly classified nature of the information and turned the floor over to Kaye.\n\nCommander Kaye took a sip of water, cleared his throat, and walked to the podium. He pulled a few slides from a manila folder and placed one on the overhead projector. He flicked on the switch, and the projector's fan hummed to life. He explained that, since the early days of World War II, the United States used high frequency direction finding systems to locate enemy submarines. After the war, in 1960, the Soviets switched to a new type of ultra-short burst signal that they adopted from recovered German technology. They phased over from standard HF transmissions, and by December of that year, they were using the burst exclusively. The navy could no longer find those subs.\n\nKaye pointed to Reed and said that the ensign discovered the burst and helped the NSA and navy design a new technology under Operation Boresight. Kaye then started to explain how the system worked. When McNamara drilled him for more details, Kaye asked Reed to step to the podium.\n\nHis mouth dry, Reed downed some more water, grabbed his folder, and approached the podium. Kaye gave him a pat on the shoulder as he walked past and returned to his seat. Reed's eyes locked with Kennedy's. The president offered a smile and a nod.\n\nReed recalled hearing stories about how Kennedy's torpedo boat, PT 109, had been rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagin during the war and had sunk in the Pacific, and about how Kennedy had hurt his back in the collision but still managed to swim to shore while towing a badly burned sailor using a life-jacket strap clenched between his teeth. Kennedy found the rest of his crew on a nearby island, where he scrawled a rescue message on a coconut given to Solomon Islander scouts. That coconut wound up saving the lives of his men. Kennedy turned the thing into a paperweight that now sat on his desk in the Oval Office.\n\n\"Go ahead, Ensign,\" the president said softly. \"Just tell us what you know.\"\n\nIn that brief moment, Reed understood how the man's infectious charisma earned him the presidency. Using more than a dozen slides, with McNamara grilling him for facts, Reed translated the technical details of Boresight into layman's terms. Questions were asked about bearing accuracy, frequency of transmissions, distance limitations, and the number of stations operational.\n\nReed said that the Soviet navy, reflecting the ways of its authoritarian government, did not trust its submarine captains, and so required that they send a coded update at least once a day. That message consisted of a short burst signal that could now be detected by Boresight intercept stations. Multiangulation could then be used to locate the source of the transmission. Several stations equipped with Boresight technology received hits on four Foxtrot submarines, as they neared Cuba, that were sending twenty or thirty transmissions at a time\u2014probably due to reception verification difficulties with Moscow. U.S. stations cross-referenced bearing hits to direct ASW forces toward the Foxtrots. That was the good news.\n\nReed then delivered the bad news: given the nascence of Boresight technology, the limited number of operational sites, and the distance of those sites from the targets, as well as the inexperience of the operators, ballpark fixes of between forty and sixty nautical miles were the best they could accomplish today.\n\n\"Are we talking closer to forty or sixty?\" Kennedy asked.\n\n\"Up until last week, it was closer to sixty,\" Kaye said. \"Thanks to Ensign Reed and his team, we're now closer to forty for most stations.\"\n\nKennedy glanced at McNamara. \"How good is that for our ASW boys, Bob?\"\n\n\"Not much better than SOSUS, Mr. President,\" McNamara said. \"We'd still need to throw too many planes and ships on those fixes to find the subs. I'd sure like to get that number down to thirty miles or less.\"\n\n\"There's something else, Mr. President,\" Kaye said.\n\n\"Go ahead, Commander,\" Kennedy said.\n\n\"It's just a speculation, sir, but the NSA reported that a Foxtrot submarine fired two nuclear torpedoes off Novaya Zemlya last year. If the Soviet subs heading to Cuba are carrying\u2014\"\n\n\"We know, Commander,\" McNamara said. \"But we believe it's unlikely.\"\n\n\"Unlikely, but not impossible,\" Kennedy said, his face somber.\n\nThe room fell silent. Filigree danced in a ray of sunlight that beamed through the skylight in the Fish Room. Kennedy stared at the table for a long moment, then looked up. His deep brown eyes pierced Reed's social armor and reflected the hope of an entire nation. \"Ensign Reed, with those subs still in the picture, I don't have a strong hand against Khrushchev. And if they are carrying nukes, God help us all. So I need you to get us better than thirty miles. Do you think you can do that?\"\n\nReed's legs went numb. He glanced at Kaye. The commander's eyes opened wider than submarine hatches, but he said nothing. Reed stood up straight, looked back at Kennedy, and said, \"Yes, Mr. President. I believe I can.\"\n\nOn the way out of the White House, Commander Kaye grabbed Reed by the arm and said, \"How the hell are you going to get to thirty miles in a matter of days?\"\n\n\"I have no idea,\" Reed said. \"But if I don't, like the president said, God help us all.\"\n\nAS THE TWO WERE LEAVING THE building, a man stepped in front of Reed and blocked his exit. \"What the hell are you doing here?\"\n\nReed studied the man's face, then smiled. \"Lieutenant Commander Quittner?\"\n\n\"I'm retired now, so that's Mr. Quittner to you,\" Quittner said with a grin.\n\nArnold Quittner served as Reed's former executive officer on his first ship, the PCS-1380. After more than a decade, the man sported some gray and a few extra pounds, but his voice still grumbled like a Mack truck in low gear.\n\n\"Retired?\" Reed said. \"I thought you'd serve forever.\"\n\n\"I am serving,\" Quittner said, \"just not in the navy. I'm one of Kennedy's legal advisers now.\"\n\nCommander Kaye tilted his cover back and said, \"I guess Kennedy could use all the legal beagles he can get right now.\"\n\nWearing a suit and tie, his hair a tad longer than navy regulation, Quittner said, \"My plate's definitely full these days. I can't even begin to tell you how much legal maneuvering it takes to move dozens of political and military chess pieces around without ruffling lots of feathers.\"\n\n\"You'd think that under the circumstances,\" Reed said, \"the president would have carte blanche.\"\n\nQuittner shook his head no. \"Until there's an official war proclamation, every special interest asshole on the planet wants his say. Even when we're staring down the barrel of a gun, there's always some guy that cares more about his personal pocketbook.\"\n\n\"Somebody needs to hogtie those bastards and brand them traitors,\" Kaye said with a scowl as a couple of congressmen walked past.\n\n\"I wish we could,\" Quittner said as he brought his wrists together. \"But that's hard to do when you're handcuffed by the legal system.\"\n\n\"Maybe the sheriff needs to change a few rules,\" Kaye said.\n\n\"Maybe,\" Quittner said. \"I do agree it's a pain in the ass sometimes, but I'd rather have the problems of a democracy than those of a dictatorship.\"\n\n\"Our forefathers never said that freedom would be easy,\" Reed said.\n\nThe three shook hands, and Reed and Kaye stepped back into the cold.\n\n## CHAPTER NINE\n\nAnger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.\n\n\u2014MARK TWAIN\n\nEARLY IN THE EVENING OF OCTOBER 25, in a lab at Sanders Associates in New Hampshire, Reed forced his tired mind to stay focused. He had no idea how he was going to solve Kennedy's requirement to improve Bore-sight accuracy, but he hoped that he might find an answer here. Petty Officers Odell and Denofrio, the two stars on Reed's technical team, were huddled together with a group of engineers near the back of a large room filled with the evidence of technology. A dozen randomly placed tables sat nearby, covered with various devices, colorful wires, test equipment, and tools.\n\nReed removed his cover and coat and placed both on a rack near the door as a man in a lab coat approached. Light skinned, polished, and projecting a professor's demeanor, he introduced himself as Dr. Charles Skillas, the team lead for Antisubmarine Warfare DIFAR\u2014whatever that meant. Reed and Skillas exchanged pleasantries and found seats near the group of engineers. Reed took those few seconds to try to recall a few details about Sanders Associates.\n\nEleven engineers and scientists from Raytheon founded the company in Waltham, Massachusetts, in July 1951. Royden Sanders Jr., one of the original eleven associates, became the company's namesake. Sanders Associates moved into a vacant textile building in Nashua in 1952 and focused on designing and building electronic systems, aircraft self-protection systems, and surveillance and intelligence systems, including submarine detection equipment. More than a thousand people worked at the facility, making Sanders the largest employer in New Hampshire.\n\nOver the next several minutes, while Odell and Denofrio mingled with the engineering team, Dr. Skillas asked how they might help the navy. Reed divulged information about the Boresight program and accuracy issues without delving too far into sensitive areas. Sanders was a defense contractor, and everyone there had signed a stack of nondisclosure papers, but Reed still operated under strict orders not to provide civilians with more information than they absolutely needed to know.\n\nReed said that he researched Sanders Associates and knew they were working on directional hydrophone sensors for passive sonobuoys. He wanted to know more about the program. Skillas said that the navy awarded them a $600,000 contract to create DIFAR, an offshoot of the LOFAR technology used in the SOSUS system. DIFAR stood for Directional Frequency and Ranging, and the key word was directional. The technology they'd developed used an internal compass to help determine a more accurate direction to noise generated by Soviet submarines.\n\nSkillas explained that dogs have the ability to screen incoming sounds and focus an ear on a noise to determine the exact location of the source. In essence, they can \"turn on\" unidirectional hearing, whereas human hearing is omnidirectional\u2014meaning we can hear almost everything coming from everywhere. That works fine for people, but omnidirectional listening devices are not optimal for finding submarines. Sanders developed \"dog hearing\" unidirectional technology for airplane-dropped sonobuoys that could do a better job of figuring out an accurate bearing to a contact. They were also working on a technique for dropping those sonobuoys from ASW aircraft\u2014as high up as 30,000 feet\u2014using precise patterns they called CODAR.\n\nReed knew that sonobuoys used transducers and radio transmitters to record and transmit underwater sounds, and that there were three types: passive, active, and special-purpose buoys. Passive sonobuoys used hydrophones to listen for underwater sounds, and active buoys used transducers that \"pinged\" just like submarine sonar systems. Special-purpose buoys were used to capture environmental information, like water temperature, depth, and acoustic layers.\n\nSkillas explained that the directional frequency and ranging DIFAR sonobuoy they were working on was passive, and the main component included a directional hydrophone that recorded accurate bearings to targets. The navy asked Sanders to build a prototype that could detect submarine noises in the low-frequency 5\u20132,400 Hz range and could operate for up to eight hours at depths down to 1,000 feet.\n\nThe brain behind this invention was an AQA-7 signal processor. This allowed for doglike directional hearing. The system processed incoming signals and output submarine position, speed, and direction information onto electrosensitive paper.\n\nAll music to Reed's ears. He told Skillas that they needed a way to increase bearing accuracy for the Boresight systems to gain better location fixes on submarines and wondered if any part of Sanders's technology could be used to help them. Skillas rubbed his chin and conferred with the others on his team. They asked dozens of questions. Reed and his team provided answers. The engineers drew on blackboards, fingered slide rules, and thumbed through technical diagrams and manuals.\n\nAfter an hour, Skillas said, \"We have good news and bad news.\"\n\nReed's heart sank. He'd been hoping for all good news.\n\n\"Give us the bad news first,\" Petty Officer Odell said.\n\n\"Why not the good news first?\" Petty Officer Denofrio asked.\n\nOdell snorted. \"Maybe you don't understand, pretty boy, but when I go into a bar, I always hit on the second-ugliest woman first.\"\n\n\"You're right,\" Denofrio said. \"I don't get that at all.\"\n\n\"I do that,\" Odell said, \"'cause if she says no, I still have one to go. So I always want the bad news first.\"\n\nSkillas shook his head and flashed a smile. \"Okay, the bad news is that we don't think our processor is adaptable to the systems you're using. Those burst transmissions are only seven-tenths of a second long, and they're coming from a recorder. Also, the AQA-7 is designed to work with underwater noise, not high-frequency radio transmissions. We don't think our signal processor will help much, given that scenario.\"\n\nReed lowered his head. \"So, what's the good news?\"\n\n\"The good news is that some of the math and other technology we used to design DIFAR might help you.\"\n\nReed lifted his head. \"Math?\"\n\n\"Math,\" said Skillas. \"Like Gaussian on a plinth.\"\n\n\"Gesundheit to you, too,\" Petty Officer Denofrio said.\n\nReed held back a laugh. \"What's that mean in English?\"\n\n\"A bell curve on a baseline,\" Skillas said.\n\nHe went on to explain that the mathematical term Gaussian was named after Karl Gauss and was widely used in signal processing to define filters, which is what they did at Sanders. Skillas walked over to a blackboard. He drew a bell curve, which resembled a tall anthill with curved slopes. He placed several dots near the top of the hill. \"These are normal, accurate bearings to a submarine as detected by your Bore-sight system.\" He then drew a few dots on either side, near the base of the hill. \"These are wild bearings caused by inaccuracies and interference. With a standard high-frequency transmission, ruling out the obvious bad apples is not hard. With a burst transmission, you might get only a couple hits, all of which could be the bad apples. We need to help you find a way to get more good apples and better discern the bad from the good.\"\n\nReed asked, \"How do we do that?\"\n\n\"Well,\" Skillas said, \"you need to cheat.\"\n\n\"Cheat?\" Reed said.\n\n\"I don't like cheating,\" Denofrio grumbled.\n\n\"I do,\" Odell said, raising his hand. \"I'm all for cheating if we get to win.\"\n\n\"How do we cheat?\" Reed asked.\n\n\"You need more verifiably accurate bearings,\" Skillas said.\n\n\"Swell,\" Denofrio said like a New Yorker who'd just missed a taxi. \"We'll just ask the Russkies to pretty please burst a bunch more times each day.\"\n\n\"Denofrio's got a point,\" Reed said. \"We only get a limited number of hits.\"\n\n\"From the target, yes,\" Skillas said. \"But now you need more check bearings.\"\n\nReed said, \"Using known references to calibrate for bearing inaccuracies is something we've been doing since the early days of DFing.\"\n\n\"Not with burst signals,\" Skillas said. \"Now you have to compensate for the dimension of time. Inaccuracies and interference will be different for an after-the-fact Soviet burst signal than a regular high-frequency transmission.\"\n\n\"No shit,\" Denofrio said.\n\nReed leveled a disapproving stare.\n\n\"Sorry,\" Denofrio said. \"I meant, that's certainly an accurate assumption, Dr. Skillas.\"\n\n\"You also need to automate your bearing calculations instead of using that inaccurate manual string board compass rose you're using now,\" Skillas said.\n\n\"No shit,\" Odell said, throwing Reed an I-don't-care look. \"But how do we do that?\"\n\n\"Well,\" Skillas said, \"that's where the software programs that we developed for our DIFAR project might help. Along with a new type of computer.\"\n\n\"New computer?\" Odell said.\n\n\"The GYK-3,\" Skillas said. \"It's in development right now at the Naval Research Laboratory, but it might work for your application.\"\n\n\"No shit?\" Denofrio said, his face lighting up like Times Square.\n\n\"No shit,\" Skillas said.\n\nReed nodded. \"Okay, I get it. What you're saying is that we'll have higher bearing accuracy if we set up a simulated burst signal on some of our ships and have them transmit immediately following a Soviet burst hit, and if we automate bearing locations using a computer like the GYK-3 instead of using manual string boards.\"\n\n\"Precisely,\" Skillas said.\n\nSkillas and his team offered other tips they thought might improve things, such as using cesium clocks to better synchronize time accuracies between the stations and better ways to calculate interference and compensate for the effects. They also recommended reducing any man-made interference from electrical equipment or nearby power lines.\n\n\"You need to increase your good apples and reduce your bad ones,\" Skillas said. \"Otherwise you'll never find those guys.\"\n\n\"No shit,\" Reed said.\n\nAn hour later Reed excused himself from the meeting to catch a flight to California. As he stood outside the brick structure nestled in the snow, he stifled a sneeze and glanced skyward. More snowflakes were beginning to fall. Down a curved sidewalk, a bundled figure trudged through the white and approached the building. The short man stopped near Reed and held out a hand. \"I'm Dr. Ralph Baer.\"\n\nReed shook Baer's hand. \"Ensign Bill Reed.\"\n\nThin, friendly, and bespectacled, Baer said, \"Are you coming or going?\"\n\n\"I'm not sure anymore,\" Reed said.\n\n\"Sounds like you need a vacation,\" Baer said empathetically.\n\n\"Definitely.\"\n\nBaer gave a chuckle as he turned to enter the building. \"Nice meeting you, Ensign Reed.\"\n\n\"Good meeting you, too, Dr. Baer,\" Reed said.\n\nAs Dr. Ralph Baer entered the foyer, Reed had no idea that he'd just met one of the most brilliant inventors in the world. This unassuming man was destined to create the first video game and spawn a multibillion-dollar industry that would change the world in ways unimagined.\n\nThat evening, Reed caught a military MAC flight headed to Northern California. After landing, held up by a half-dozen cups of French roast, he drove through the north gate of Skaggs Island and stepped back in time. Reed started his career as a communications technician at this facility after serving aboard the PCS-1380. Skaggs Island was a drained area of San Pablo Bay tidelands that sat about twenty-five miles northeast of San Francisco. In the early fifties, the Naval Security Group came to Skaggs to set up the HFDF facility and turn the island into a bonafide Huff Duff.\n\nAs Reed drove toward the ops building, he noticed that things hadn't changed much in the several years since he had brought his family there in 1957. The recreational buildings, theater, chapel, and bachelors' quarters still stood at attention like worn soldiers adorned in faded gray uniforms. Rows of single-story homes lined sad, narrow streets, where navy brats played with dogs destined for abandonment after the next military-ordered move.\n\nReed pulled to a stop in front of the small operations building near a massive elephant cage. Although Skaggs was one of the first stations to receive the new Wullenweber in 1962, most of the kinks were not yet ironed out. Reed had visited the station a couple of times over the past few months with his team to install and launch the Boresight equipment. Now he was back to deploy some of Dr. Skillas's recommendations. He knew that the Fred Ten antenna array at Skaggs improved bearing accuracy by an order of magnitude over the old GRD-6 sites, but Skaggs was almost 2,700 miles away from Cuba. The Fred Ten elephant cage usually couldn't get a hit at better than 3,200 miles on a good day, and one ionospheric hop of 2,700 miles was a stretch. But if they used some of the suggestions from Sanders Associates, along with a bit more tweaking on the systems, they just might get down to that thirty-mile radius President Kennedy had requested.\n\n## Photographic Insert 1\n\nFrom 1946 through 1954, diesel-powered submarines like the USS Cubera (SS-347, above) and USS Blenny (SS-324, below) conducted top-secret espionage missions deep inside Soviet territorial waters. The Soviets sometimes caught these boats and harassed them. Diesel subs ran out of air after a few days submerged, and crews almost died on several missions. This problem eventually spurred the use of nuclear power in submarines. U.S. Navy photographs, courtesy of ussubvetsofwwii.org\n\nThe USS Seawolf (SSN-575) was America's second nuclear-powered submarine. Almost three decades after her launch, while conducting a top-secret mission in 1981, a storm trapped Seawolf in the sand off the coast of Russia for four days. Her crew of 190 came within a breath of not coming home. U.S. Navy photograph\n\nThe \"father\" of submarine nuclear power, Hyman G. Rickover, touring the USS Nautilus\u2014the navy's first nuclear-powered submarine\u2014in 1954. U.S. Navy photograph, circa 1954\n\nOfficers and sailors in the control room of the USS Nautilus (SSN-571) while under the Arctic ice. Launched on January 21, 1954, the Nautilus was the first vessel to complete a submerged transit under the North Pole. U.S. Navy photograph\n\n\"Scratchy\" the bear, raised by the author's family while in Turkey, unwittingly helped William J. Reed find a Soviet \"burst\" signal that made a significant difference in the outcome of the submarine Cold War. Author's collection\n\nThe author's father, William J. Reed, received a promotion from senior chief to ensign after finding the Soviet submarine \"burst\" signal while in Turkey in 1960. Author's collection\n\nReed was also awarded a letter of commendation from his boss, Commander Frank Mason, for finding the signal. Author's collection\n\nIn one of the most dramatic, untold episodes of the Cold War, four Soviet Foxtrot-class submarine commanders led their boats deep into the waters around Cuba in October 1962, which on several occasions led us to the brink of nuclear war. Left to right: Capt. Dubivko (B-36), Capt. Shumkov (B-130), Chief of Staff Arkhipov, and Capt. Ketov (B-4) left Russia on October 1, 1962. They arrived off the coast of Cuba three weeks later. Courtesy of Ryurik Ketov\n\nBut they also forced three of the Foxtrot submarines, including Captain Savitsky's B-59 (above) to the surface during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The United States did not know at the time that each Foxtrot carried a nuclear-tipped torpedo capable of destroying everything within a ten-mile radius, and all four Soviet subs came within minutes of firing. U.S. Navy photograph\n\nThe U.S. Navy was primarily focused on blocking Soviet merchant ships from bringing more nuclear missiles to Cuba. U.S. Government photograph\n\nLiving conditions aboard the Soviet Foxtrot-class submarines involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis were deplorable, and crews suffered from heat exhaustion. The captain's stateroom is pictured above, the hatch leading up to the conning tower and bridge is pictured to the right, and the navigation table in the command center is pictured below. Author's collection, Maritime Museum of San Diego, California\n\nDuring the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, a nuclear missile strike from Cuba could have killed eighty million Americans within five minutes. U.S. Government CIA photograph\n\nPresident John F. Kennedy meets with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. They and other Executive Committee members planned for a quarantine of Cuban waters. U.S. Government archive photograph\n\nDuring the quarantine, destroyers like the USS Barry were ordered to fire at the rudders of Soviet merchant ships, like the Ansov, who refused inspections. U.S. Navy photograph by Frank Cancellare\n\nPrior to the Cuban Missile Crisis, Ensign William J. Reed discovered the \"burst\" radio transmission used by Soviet Foxtrot submarines and then briefed President Kennedy and his advisers on the technology during the crisis. Reed worked to improve the systems to help locate the Foxtrots near Cuba. This effort allowed Kennedy to play hardball with Khrushchev, which forced the Soviet Premier to back down and return his ships to Cuba. Author's collection\n\nWilliam J. Reed's family in Maryland in 1964. Left to right: Pamela, William, W. Craig (author), and Joyce. Author's collection\n\nAfter the Cuban Missile Crisis, William J. Reed traveled the globe to upgrade U.S. listening stations, so they could detect Soviet burst signals. One of those missions took him to Greece, where he was involved in a CIA firefight with Soviet spies. Author's collection\n\nTop-secret listening station sites resembled large \"elephant cages\" and were positioned along the Pacific and Atlantic rims near Imperial Beach, California (above), Okinawa, Japan (below), and more than a dozen other locations. Author's collection\n\nDuring the early 1960s, William J. Reed helped deploy top-secret listening stations around the world in an effort to locate Soviet submarines. gnu Free Documentation License, Version 1.3\n\nThe USS Thresher (SSN-593) was lost with all hands on April 10, 1963. center right: Navy divers aboard the bathyscaphe USS Trieste (DSV-0) descended to 8,400 feet to search for her remains. U.S. Navy photographs\n\nNavy diver Nihil Smith\u2014whose best friend, Joe Walski, was aboard the Thresher when she sank\u2014brought up a pipe found by the Trieste in 1963, validating the sub's location on the bottom. below right: The Trieste found other remains, including the crushed sonar dome. U.S. Navy photographs\n\nThe North Koreans captured the spy ship USS Pueblo (AGER-2) on January 23, 1968, and found a working KW-7 encryption unit, which they sold to the Soviets. U.S. Navy photograph\n\nThe Soviet Golf II\u2013class missile boat K-129 disappeared in the Pacific on March 8, 1968. The Soviets blamed the United States, based on transmissions they intercepted on the KW-7 using keylists provided by the spy, John Walker. U.S. Navy photograph\n\nThe Soviets may have retaliated for the loss of K-129 by ordering an Echo II\u2013class submarine to sink the USS Scorpion (SSN-589) with a torpedo on May 21, 1968. U.S. Navy photograph\n\nNavy deep-sea saturation divers breathing a helium mixture, deployed from the USS Halibut (SSGN-587, bottom left) to depths of 400 feet near Russia. The divers \"tapped\" signals from secret communications cables that were recorded and analyzed by \"spook\" technicians like Frank Turban. U.S. Navy photograph by Senior Mass Communication Specialist Andrew McKaskle; U.S. Navy photograph\n\nCold War submarine \"spooks,\" circa 1976. Left to right: Bob Jordan, John Whitmire, Skot Beasley, Scott Hendren, Frank Turban, Dwight Anderson. Courtesy of Frank Turban\n\nDuring the latter half of the Cold War, U.S. Navy divers completed Ivy Bells cable-tapping missions using large \"beast\" pods. Courtesy of Russian Ministry of Security's museum at the Lubyanka Prison\n\nIn the latter two decades of the Cold War, the USS Parche (SSN-683, top) and USS Richard B. Russell (SSN-687, below) delivered these divers to the Sea of Okhotsk and Barents Sea at depths down to 700 feet. U.S. Navy photographs\n\nUSS Haddo (SSN-604) entering New Zealand harbor in January 1979. As the boat's rescue diver, the author is standing on the back of the boat in the event a sailor falls overboard. Author's collection\n\nThe author on the Haddo entering Apra Harbor in Guam\u2014where the author was born. Author's collection\n\nCrew members in the control room of the USS Haddo, circa 1978. The author is at the far back right and Lt. Edwin L. Tomlin is on the far right. Author's collection\n\nThe Haddo and other Cold War fast-attack submarines hunted Soviet ballisticmissile boats like the infamous Delta III (belowM), often coming within a few dozen yards to tail these targets. U.S. Navy photograph\n\nWhile conducting Holystone espionage operations, the USS Haddo and other Cold War fast-attack subs frequently photographed the Typhoon-class (below) and other Soviet submarines, through periscopes or by deploying navy divers such as the author. Author's collection; U.S. Navy photograph\n\nIn an attempt to photograph the \"odd pod\" on the back of a Soviet Victor III (below) in Peter the Great Bay, the USS Drum (SSN-677, above) slammed into the Victor, heavily damaging both submarines in 1981. This collision was covered-up and has never been made public, and nearly cost the lives of more than one hundred sailors\u2014including the author. U.S. Navy photographs\n\nReed spent a sleepless night at Skaggs working with the technicians and implementing new procedures. Subsequent to his meeting at Sanders Associates, he'd contacted Commander Kaye, who called Admiral Alfred Ward, who talked to his boss, Admiral Anderson, and got permission to have a destroyer install a simulated burst transmitter and start transmitting when asked to by Net Control\u2014after the Boresight stations got some burst signal hits\u2014then change course a few times and retransmit. That way the Boresight stations could correct for inaccuracies and interference using a known target location. Reed didn't have time to find and install a computer to automate bearings, so he planned to connect later with some of the engineers at NRL to talk about using the GYK-3 to improve Boresight detection capabilities.\n\nExhausted, with nothing left to do but wait and pray that the new tricks would work, Reed boarded a plane and flew back to Mary land.\n\nIN AN OCTOBER 26 MEETING, PRESIDENT Kennedy ordered the State Department to proceed with Cuba invasion preparations. SecDef McNamara reported that, in the event of such an invasion, CINCLANT estimated more than 18,000 casualties in the first ten days of fighting. Kennedy stated that despite the cost in lives, only an invasion could ensure the removal of all missiles from Cuba. Just prior to issuing the order to invade, a few of the conservative members of ExComm persuaded the president to delay the invasion and continue with military and diplomatic pressure.\n\nAt 1:00 P.M., John Scali of ABC News attended a lunch meeting with Soviet embassy official (and KGB station chief) Aleksandr Fomin, who stated that \"war seems about to break out.\" Fomin asked Scali to use his influence to explore a diplomatic solution. The structure of such a deal, Fomin intimated, should include assurances that the Soviet Union would remove its weapons from Cuba, and the United States would state publicly that an invasion of Cuba would never occur.\n\nThe State Department received a message at 6:00 P.M., written personally by Nikita Khrushchev, which Robert Kennedy described as \"very long and emotional.\" The contents outlined a deescalation plan similar to the one proposed earlier by Fomin.\n\nJust before 9:00 A.M. on October 27, Radio Moscow broadcast a message from Khrushchev. In contrast to the letter of the night before, the message offered a new trade: that the missiles in Cuba might be removed in exchange for the removal of the U.S. Jupiter missiles from Turkey.\n\nAT 10:25 A.M., A NEW INTELLIGENCE message arrived, and John McCone, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, announced: \"We have a preliminary report which seems to indicate that some of the Russian ships have stopped dead in the water.\"\n\nDean Rusk leaned over to McGeorge Bundy and said, \"We're eyeball to eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked.\"\n\nPresident Kennedy surmised that Khrushchev temporarily halted the advance of his cargo ships to avert an immediate confrontation, as well as to buy time to contemplate his next move. Following suit, Kennedy directed that no Soviet ship should be intercepted until the situation could be properly assessed. ExComm members issued a collective sigh of relief, but the sigh did not last long.\n\nIN CUBA, AN ALARM SOUNDED AT 9:10 P.M., and the hairs on Major Grechenov's neck stood on end. He grabbed the radio and pressed the talk key, issuing a report that the SA-2 site near Banes had just detected a U-2 reconnaissance plane entering Cuban airspace. The controllers designated the contact as target thirty-three. A minute later, the antiaircraft division commander received authorization to destroy the target. Grechenov issued the order to Sergeant Varankin, the commander of the reconnaissance and targeting station. Varankin provided an affirmation. A few seconds passed before he reported a target lock. Grechenov asked for and received range, speed, azimuth, and altitude readings. He imagined the pi lot sitting in the cockpit of the American spy plane. He wondered if the man had a wife, children, a happy home.\n\nGrechenov abruptly ended such thoughts as he raised and lowered his arm. Sergeant Varankin gave a nod and pressed the firing key. He counted off the seconds until a tiny fireball appeared in the sky like a dying star gone supernova.\n\nMajor Grechenov did not know Major Rudolph Anderson, the pi lot of the doomed U-2 and the first casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis. He also harbored no concerns that his actions might have just started a war with the Americans. When President Kennedy and the ExComm group learned about the downed U-2, they worried that war was imminent. Two Soviet freighters, the Gagarin and Komiles, steamed to within a few miles of the Walnut line. The waiting U.S. fleet headed them off and maintained, for the moment, a Mexican standoff.\n\nAdmiral Anderson reported to Kennedy and McNamara that various SOSUS stations had verified seven possible contacts on Soviet conventional submarines near Cuba, but determining accurate bearings and submarine classifications was still problematic. Most of the contacts were labeled with a reliability one or two status out of a possible three, with location radius accuracy of greater than thirty miles in every case. One SOSUS report indicated difficulty in tracking contacts due to their distances from an underwater array, and another admitted to a misclassification of a Foxtrot submarine as a possible Golf class.\n\nAnderson then reported the good news: Ensign Reed and his team had improved the bearing accuracy at the Skaggs Island Wullenweber Boresight station to around one half degree, and two other GRD-6 stations down to less than two degrees. The combined improvements were now capable of reliability-three fixes, with accurate submarine classifications within a radius of better than twenty-five miles. President Kennedy expressed his gratitude and authorized a letter of commendation for Reed and others involved in the Boresight program at NSA Section A-22.\n\nAROUND 300 MILES SOUTH OF BERMUDA, just below the surface, Captain Savitsky sent a transmission to Moscow to acknowledge new orders for B-59. They were assuming a patrol area to the east of Dubivko's B-36 and 170 miles north of B-130's former patrol zone due east of Cuba. Savitsky was unaware that Boresight recorders, now upgraded with better location accuracy, had intercepted his burst signal.\n\nSavitsky moved B-59 between the Soviet freighters and the U.S. fleet operating near the Bahamas southeast of Florida. He was now well inside the Walnut line. Moments later, Admiral Ward's ASW forces were on the move. Although Ward was provided with longitude and latitude coordinates for the Foxtrot\u2014courtesy of Boresight\u2014he was not authorized to know from where those fixes originated. Ward relayed the information to the ASW carrier USS Randolph, which was escorted by the destroyers Bache (DD-470), Beale (DD-471), Cony (DDE-508), Eaton (DD-510), and Murray (DDE-576). Given the volatility of the situation, nerves were stretched to the breaking point. One miscue could result in disaster.\n\nA swarm of S2F Tracker aircraft and Sea King helicopters locked on to Savitsky's B-59, designated as a Foxtrot-class submarine, and the USS Beale dropped grenade-sized depth charges while pinging the area with active sonar. The USS Cony raced in and also splashed warning charges. Not only did the quantity of dropped charges exceed the \"four or five\" promised by the United States in their rules of engagement, but the devices from the Cony and ASW aircraft detonated in close succession to those dropped by the Beale, which created louder than normal explosions. Using dropped sonobuoys, ASW aircraft from the Randolph approximated B-59's location in front of the Soviet freighters and inside the Walnut line. The Randolph alerted CINCLANT. Five minutes later, a red telephone rang in the White House.\n\nAFTER RECEIVING THE CALL, PRESIDENT KENNEDY raised a tired hand to his face and covered his mouth. He opened and closed his fist. His face drawn, his eyes pained and almost gray, he said, \"Isn't there some way we can avoid having our first exchange be with a Russian submarine...almost anything but that?\"\n\nSecretary of Defense McNamara responded with a single word: \"No,\" followed by a slow, careful explanation: \"There is too much danger to our ships...our commanders have been instructed to avoid hostilities if at all possible, but this is what we must be prepared for, and this is what we must expect.\"\n\nSENIOR LIEUTENANT PAVEL ORLOV CLENCHED his teeth as the dull thud of another explosion shook his submarine. Standing next to the navigation plot in the control center of B-59, on the port side of the boat, Orlov wondered why he'd volunteered for this suicide mission. He envisioned a transfer to a tropical land, that's why. But when Captain Savitsky told the crew that the Moscow main navy staff canceled the plan to establish a submarine base in Cuba, and instead directed them to run in circles amid dozens of U.S. warships near the Bahamas, the wind died in Orlov's sails.\n\nAs if that wasn't bad enough, the incessant heat and inability to shower brought irritating rashes and oozing, painful sores. A storm lashed at them for two days, causing several sailors to vomit on the deck when they tried to snort. And then there was the battle of the egos. Their submarine was cursed with the presence of Brigade Chief of Staff Captain Vasily Arkhipov, whose by-the-book viewpoint clashed with Captain Savitsky's bend-the-rules style of command.\n\nAlthough Arkhipov outranked Savitsky, the captain of a ship or submarine always held the position of ultimate authority. Nevertheless, only a fool would ignore a superior officer's strong \"recommendations,\" as this could ultimately have career-ending consequences. Diplomacy was not one of Savitsky's strong suits, however, and the constant disagreements with Arkhipov led to confusion and lower morale, if that was possible. Still, the crew continued to perform well, as to do otherwise taunted death.\n\nFor Orlov, not doing his best could also reflect dishonor on three generations of naval intelligence officers. Orlov's father received a transfer to the United States while working for the Main Intelligence Department (GRU) in 1945. Eight-year-old Orlov Jr. arrived with his family in Washington, D.C., and spent several years of his youth there gaining command of the English language. That served him well when he returned to Russia and became a naval intelligence officer assigned to the special OSNAZ group. There he learned about signals intelligence and how to operate ESM equipment designed to monitor U.S. radar and radio communications. He heard that his job was similar to that of American I-Branchers, or \"spooks,\" as they were called. When his command gave him the opportunity to go to Cuba, he jumped at the chance.\n\nWhen Orlov first reported aboard B-59, he and the other eight members of the OSNAZ team endured skepticism, criticism, and harsh treatment for being \"nonquals.\" Many days went by before the OSNAZ group received a reprieve by producing reliable reports on NATO ASW movements. Then, slowly, attitudes started to change.\n\nAfter B-59 passed just south of Bermuda, the Nakat ESM equipment picked up signals from American ships and planes in droves. Orlov and the other four English-speaking specialists spent long hours intercepting radio traffic. They determined that their pursuers were part of an ASW flotilla spearheaded by the aircraft carrier USS Randolph. Captain Savitsky thought he had avoided the hunter\/killer group until that evening, a few hours after receiving new position orders and sending a receipt verification burst transmission to Moscow. That's when the floodgates opened and hell sent a swarm of locusts in the form of S2F Tracker aircraft and Sea King helicopters with dipping sonar. Destroyers operating in tandem with the Randolph soon followed, and it wasn't long before they surrounded B-59 and locked them into a tight cage. Then the explosions started.\n\nAmerican planes and ships now had them pinned down with active sonar and warning explosives. To Orlov, the grenade-sized depth charges sounded like the real things, and the quantity was far greater than the maximum of five promised by the U.S. Navy in their rules of engagement broadcasts. When Captain Savitsky had received the communication from the Americans outlining those rules\u2014specifically about the requirement to surface and assume an easterly course\u2014he snorted and said, \"I will never surface.\" From Orlov's perspective, Savitsky and Brigade Chief of Staff Arkhipov had at least one thing in common: they were both stubborn mules. Neither wanted to show weakness in front of the other, so both held firm to their conviction not to surrender without a good fight.\n\nNow here they were, more than 300 meters below the surface, batteries depleted, air fouled, and crawling along on the economy motor at three knots, still refusing to surface. Theoretically, with a full charge, they could endure a beating from the Americans for up to three days. The problem was, they had never been able to snorkel long enough to gain a full charge, and if they had to maintain three knots, they would never get away.\n\nAcoustic estimated fourteen surface ships in pursuit, including the Randolph and a slew of destroyers. The dim emergency lights flickered, and body odor permeated the CC. Orlov forced his hand to remain steady as he assisted the navigator with the parallel contact plot, a skill he had learned at the naval academy. The plot lines showed that the Americans were following the canons of military art by surrounding B-59 and then tightening the noose. Another explosion rattled pipes. To Orlov, the ordeal felt as if someone had crammed him into a metal can and then started pounding on the thing with a sledgehammer. His chest heaved as his lungs fought to pull in sufficient air. The carbon dioxide level in the boat was becoming dangerous, and their store of lithium hydroxide was all but gone. They kept the dry powder in canisters and spread it across flat surfaces to absorb CO2. They also carried chemical oxygen generator canisters that, when activated, heated up to create oxygen. Unfortunately, the excessive heat in the boat made using the canisters too much of a fire hazard.\n\nSweat stung Orlov's eyes as he laid a plot. He heard another explosion and then a loud thud. At first he thought something had come loose from the overhead. He glanced to his right. One of the duty officers had fainted from lack of oxygen and collapsed to the deck. Captain Savitsky summoned the boat's doctor. Then someone else fell down. Then another. Savitsky called for relief watchstanders as the fallen sailors were carried out of the CC. Orlov wondered if he'd be next, or if he'd ever see the snow-capped mountains of his youth again, taste his mother's cooking, or listen to his father's well-worn sea stories.\n\nMore loud explosions rocked the boat like a fishing bob on a stormy lake. The intensity of the blasts made them sound much louder than warning charges. Captain Savitsky came unglued. He started screaming that the Americans were now dropping real depth charges. Captain Arkhipov, who stood next to Savitsky near the conning tower ladder, countered that such a thing could not be true.\n\nAs the two argued, Orlov saw Valentin Grigorievich, the officer in charge of the nuclear torpedo, shoot through the forward hatch and enter the CC. \"Captain, are we under attack? Should I ready the special weapon?\"\n\n\"Affirmative,\" Savitsky said. \"Ready tube number two.\"\n\n\"No!\" Arkhipov yelled. \"The conditions for firing have not been met.\"\n\n\"Sounds like the war has already started while we've been doing somersaults down here,\" Grigorievich said.\n\n\"I agree,\" Savitsky said.\n\n\"You'll kill us all,\" Arkhipov said.\n\n\"But not in vain.\"\n\nArkhipov grabbed Savitsky by the arm, \"You can't do this; we don't have authorization.\"\n\nSavitsky pulled his arm away. \"I can, and I will. Our batteries are depleted, our air is gone, and I will not disgrace our navy.\" He sent Grigorievich forward to prepare the purple-nosed weapon. He then turned and yelled toward the fire control station, \"Fire Control, distance to the carrier?\"\n\nA pink-faced michman called from around the periscope housing. \"Twenty-two cabletovs, sir.\"\n\nTwo nautical miles, thought Orlov. He knew their nuclear torpedo could kill out to a radius of ten nautical miles, which meant that Arkhipov's words were true. They would die along with the Americans. Despite the heat, Orlov shivered, now certain that his next few breaths would be his last.\n\n\"Acoustic,\" Savitsky called, \"bearing and speed on the carrier?\"\n\n\"Control, target bearing two-one-nine,\" acoustic replied, \"speed ten knots.\"\n\n\"Don't do this,\" Arkhipov pleaded. As if to mock his plea, another charge shattered overhead. The brigade chief grabbed a ladder handle to keep from falling.\n\n\"I am in command of this vessel,\" Savitsky said, \"not you.\"\n\nOrlov's head pounded from lack of oxygen as he studied the plot on the nav table. All fourteen warships were well within the nuke's kill zone.\n\n\"Watch Officer,\" Savitsky said, \"make your depth sixty meters, course two-one-nine, speed six knots.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"Acoustic, prepare first measurement.\"\n\nAcoustic gave a bearing.\n\n\"Acoustic...zero,\" Savitsky said. \"Regimen one minute.\"\n\nHis breathing labored, Orlov updated the plot to the carrier. Acoustic started feeding bearings to the torpedo attack crew\u2014which included the navigator, electronics officer, and fire control team\u2014every minute. That crew, which Orlov now joined, plotted each change until the captain was satisfied that they had an adequate firing solution.\n\n\"Control, target bearing two-one-five, speed ten knots, distance nineteen cabletovs.\"\n\n\"Prepare to fire tube number two,\" Savitsky said.\n\nOrlov's heart fluttered. He felt dizzy and thought he'd collapse like the others. He steadied himself on the edge of the plot table and fought to stay conscious. If he was going to die, he wanted to at least hear the explosion.\n\n\"Vitali,\" Arkhipov said to Savitsky, his voice almost a whisper, \"please.\"\n\nAnother loud explosion threatened to shake loose the fillings in Orlov's teeth.\n\nSavitsky narrowed his eyes and stared at the brigade chief. \"Acoustic, prepare last measurement...zero.\"\n\nThe captain raised his arm. Orlov felt the hand of fear wrap about his throat like a giant snake. He closed his eyes and waited for the end.\n\nDeputy Political Officer Ivan Maslennikov jumped through the aft hatch from Compartment Four. \"Wait!\"\n\nSavitsky lowered his arm without issuing the final order to fire.\n\n\"If you fire now, Vitali, you will kill us all and start a war,\" Maslennikov said.\n\nSavitsky pointed an angry finger skyward. \"It's already started!\"\n\n\"No,\" Maslennikov said. \"Those are not full-strength depth charges. They have fourteen warships surrounding us. If they wanted to sink us, we'd already be dead.\"\n\nSavitsky lowered his head and stared at the deck. His eyes darted back and forth, and Orlov could tell that the captain battled with his anger to make the right decision. A minute passed, then another.\n\nSavitsky raised his head. \"Attention in the CC. Cancel attack and prepare to surface.\"\n\nAnother explosion ruptured a seal and sent seawater shooting into the CC.\n\n## CHAPTER TEN\n\nSurvival is triumph enough.\n\n\u2014HARRY CREWS\n\nHIS FACE RED WITH ANGER, JOHN Scali of ABC News met again with Soviet embassy official Aleksandr Fomin at 4:15 P.M. on October 27. Scali demanded to know why the terms offered in the two letters from Premier Khrushchev were as different as night and day. Fomin stuttered and said that it must be due to \"poor communications.\" Scali pointed an accusatory finger and shouted that the differing letters were obviously a \"stinking double cross.\" He stated that an invasion of Cuba was only hours away. Fomin's eyes widened. He mumbled that a response was expected from Khrushchev at any moment and urged Scali to tell the State Department that they intended no treachery. Scali shook his head and said that no one would believe that to be true, but he'd deliver the message to the White House anyway.\n\nAt 8:05 P.M., Khrushchev sent a letter outlining the structure of a deal. President Kennedy responded that if the Soviet Union agreed to remove all weapons systems from Cuba, under U.N. observation, and halt further delivery of such weapons, the United States would remove all quarantine measures and refrain from invading Cuba. A secret memo accompanied the letter. Some experts and scholars speculate that President Kennedy confirmed his offer to remove the missiles from Turkey in that note. A confidential source that worked for the NSA on the Bore-sight and Bulls Eye programs believes that the president also laid down a trump card. This informed source speculated that the memo contained day-by-day location coordinates for the four Foxtrot submarines, outlining their track since arriving in the Sargasso Sea. Unaware of the existence of Boresight, Khrushchev could only guess as to how the United States managed to obtain this information.\n\nUntil the receipt of that memo, the Soviet premier's demeanor exhibited confidence and defiance. He slammed his left hand on the table when meeting with advisers and shouted assurances that Kennedy could not invade Cuba. To do so invited suicide. His Project 641 submarines, each carrying a nuclear-tipped torpedo, were his safety nets. With his deadly Foxtrots now exposed by unknown means, he could no longer deal from a position of strength, and so was forced to dictate a \"surrender\" letter to Kennedy. The president called the letter \"an important and constructive contribution to peace.\"\n\nOthers contend that a bartender helped end the crisis. Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, in their book One Hell of a Gamble, suggest that Khrushchev backed down due to the ears of a Russian immigrant from the Balkans named Johnny Prokov, a bartender at the Tap Room in the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. They believe that Prokov passed to Anatoly Gorski, a Soviet KGB officer, information overheard during a conversation at the bar between two celebrated American journalists, Robert Donovan and Warren Rogers, both correspondents with the New York Herald Tribune.\n\nFursenko and Naftali speculate that the KGB could have passed this information immediately to Moscow, and Khrushchev have had it on his desk within hours. Based on the hearsay overheard in a bar, the stubborn Soviet premier finally became convinced that Kennedy was serious about going to war over Cuba. To avoid that war, Khrushchev infuriated Fidel Castro by pulling the plug on two massive operations that spanned more than six months, involved hundreds of ships and thousands of sailors, and cost billions of dollars. Certainly this conjecture is feasible, but perhaps unlikely.\n\nDespite Khrushchev's overture, however, the Cuban Missile Crisis did not end. In fact, the conflict on the high seas escalated, and neither side knew then just how close they came to Armageddon.\n\nAT 10:52 P.M. ON BOARD THE destroyer USS Cony, Ensign Gary Slaughter, the phone talker on the bridge, held his breath at the sight of a Foxtrot submarine breaking the surface in a swirl of white foam. The Cony had chased the Foxtrot for more than twelve hours. Although the sight filled Slaughter with awe and pride, he did not know how close he'd just come to being vaporized by Captain Savitsky's B-59. The Soviet submarine, her sleek hull dripping with salt water, turned northeast and started to snorkel. Several men appeared on the bridge, all wearing Russian uniforms and covers.\n\nTrained in Cyrillic transliteration tables, Slaughter ordered Signalman First Class Jessie to flash a communiqu\u00e9 to the men on the sub's bridge.\n\n\"What ship?\" Jessie flashed with the Cony's signal light.\n\n\"Ship X,\" came the reply.\n\n\"What is your status?\" Jessie flashed back.\n\n\"On the surface, operating normally.\"\n\n\"Do you need assistance?\"\n\n\"No, thank you.\"\n\nHours passed with no further communication as the Foxtrot slowly steamed northeast. The following morning, the Cony received another flash. The submarine asked for bread and American cigarettes. Slaughter smiled as the Cony maneuvered to within eighty feet of the Soviet vessel and prepared for a line transfer. One of Cony's bosun's mates set up the shotgun-looking device designed to thrust a weighted rubber-tipped projectile attached to a long line. The bosun's mate fired the shot line toward the Foxtrot's bridge.\n\nWhen they saw the spearlike projectile flying toward them, the Russians yelled, pointed skyward, and ducked down below the bridge fairing. Slaughter let out a laugh. He recalled that Soviets didn't use shot lines, but instead employed bolo lines flung by a strong seaman. After they sent bread and cigarettes to the Foxtrot, the Cony shadowed the Soviet sub for several more hours, staying 500 yards off her port beam.\n\nThat evening a P2V Neptune ASW plane streaked down from the darkened sky and dropped a scattering of incendiary devices to activate the aircraft's photoelectric camera lenses. Again the men in the Foxtrot's bridge yelled, pointed, and scrambled for cover. Inside B-59, Captain Savitsky interpreted the miniature explosions as a possible attack. He wondered if the Americans had tricked him into surfacing so they could easily sink his boat. Posturing to defend his craft, he armed his nuclear torpedo and opened his outer torpedo tube doors.\n\nOn the Cony, watchstanders shouted as the Soviet sub changed course. Sonar operators reported the sound of torpedo tube doors opening. Ensign Slaughter heard the Cony's captain hail the aircraft carrier Randolph and demand that the Neptune's pi lot cease his photo runs. The CO then ordered Slaughter to have a signalman flash an apology to the Soviet submarine. Nervous minutes passed. Finally, the Foxtrot closed her torpedo tube doors and turned back toward the northeast.\n\nON OCTOBER 28, 400 MILES NORTH of San Juan, Puerto Rico, aboard the destroyer Charles P. Cecil (DD-835), Lieutenant John Hunter, the officer of the deck, saw something that bothered him. Hours earlier they'd been ordered by CINCLANT to search within a twenty-five-nautical-mile radius of a specific coordinate. Hunter did not know why they'd received that order, but he suspected that SOSUS or some other system detected a submarine. He had no knowledge of Bore-sight.\n\nHunter glanced at his watch. Just after 7:00 P.M. local time. He studied the green phosphor glow on the radarscope. A blip, one that resembled the irregular echo of a snorkeling submarine, or \"snork\" in ship jargon. Hunter contacted the Combat Information Center. Radar-man Third Class Russ Napier had also detected the contact in the CIC. Hunter picked up the phone and called the ship's captain, Commander Charles Rozier. The captain granted permission to prosecute. Hunter then made a huge mistake.\n\nHoping that he might fool the Soviet submarine, he ordered a high-speed run toward the contact. He also called down to the sonar shack and asked them to turn off the active stack. No more pings. By the time the Cecil hit twenty knots, the radarscope went blank due to the ship's churn. When the Cecil neared the sub's last known location, Hunter contacted sonar and ordered them to turn on the active stack. Just before he hung up the phone, he heard a loud pop in the background. Sonar called back. The stack had fried itself. The Cecil just lost an ear.\n\nHunter stared at the radar screen. No more blip. Obviously, the submarine went deep. He swore under his breath. Not only did his trick not work, but his decision to switch off the active sonar backfired. They'd just lost the Soviet sub.\n\nCAPTAIN DUBIVKO SURFACED B-36 EARLY IN the evening on October 28. His orders had not changed in days: to maintain a combat-readiness posture on station south of B-59 and B-130 just outside the center of the quarantine line. That position, of course, placed him square in the middle of a phalanx of American ships and planes. Avoiding those hunter\/killers kept the crew on a tight edge while they sweltered in the heat.\n\nDubivko pulled himself up the ladder through the conning tower and edged onto the bridge. A setting sun splashed streaks of purple-orange across the horizon. His lungs savored the fresh air. The past few weeks had taken their toll. Due to excessive heat and lack of sleep, he had dropped almost fifty pounds. Now he could no longer climb a ladder without exhaustion.\n\nThree of the crew stepped onto the bridge platform and leaned their heads back to smell the salt air. They appeared gaunt and weak with deep circles under their tired eyes. Here in enemy waters, Dubivko should be snorting versus surfacing to snorkel. But he was worried about his crew. Given the deplorable conditions, he didn't know how much longer they could endure. He decided to take the chance and surface, and allow the crew some fresh air and saltwater showers in the sail.\n\nEarlier in the day, the OSNAZ group intercepted a radio report that several Russian merchant ships had reversed course and were headed back to the Soviet Union. Dubivko wondered what that could mean. Had Moscow abandoned Operations Anadyr and Kama, thus ending Khrushchev's ambitious plan to place missiles and submarines in Cuba? Were they preparing for war? Having received almost no information from Moscow, he could not even wager a guess. Assuming the worst, he ordered Zhukov not to use surface search radar to minimize detection. That decision came with a downside. An approaching enemy ship could surprise them, and with the additional men topside, diving would be delayed.\n\nIn the event of that scenario, given that they were in calm seas, Dubivko ordered a depth that placed B-36's bridge lower in the water than normal while they snorkeled. He loved cruising on the surface at night with a light breeze ruffling his hair and caressing his cheeks. Despite the hardships they'd endured on this mission, standing high in the sail of his boat made everything seem right again. This was his little slice of heaven, and nothing could take that away.\n\nAlmost nothing.\n\nJust after 7:00 P.M., Zhukov shouted up through the open hatch, \"Contact bearing zero-five-zero!\"\n\nDubivko called down, \"Range? Contact type?\"\n\nSilence. Then, \"Two thousand meters, probable American destroyer!\"\n\nDubivko peered through his binoculars and scanned the horizon. Nothing but black. The destroyer was running without lights.\n\n\"Srochnoiya pogruganye!\"\n\nThe bridge area cleared, and Dubivko slammed the hatch closed above his head. In the CC, he called over the communication line to Pankov, \"Acoustics, bearing to contact?\"\n\n\"Control, we are now detecting two contacts on bearing zero-five-five. Second contact has high-speed screws.\"\n\nTorpedo?\n\nDubivko wondered if they were now at war, and B-36 was destined to become the first vessel sunk. \"Watch Officer, all ahead full, right full rudder, depth seventy meters.\"\n\nDubivko cursed the unseen demons. He did not have a full charge on the batteries. His men were worn down to threads, and worst of all, the damage to the VIPS lid limited their depth to seventy meters. He was a David with one arm trying to fight dozens of Goliaths. At least he had rocks. One big rock in particular. But to fling that weapon from his sling meant ending their mission forever.\n\nON OCTOBER 29, AS THE CLOUDS split to reveal a red sky at morning, Commander Rozier strolled onto the bridge of the Charles P. Cecil and relieved John Hunter of the conn. After the sonarmen repaired the active stack, they managed to regain contact on the Soviet sub. Their prey tried a cadre of tactics to evade but failed. Rozier held on like a cowboy on a bucking stallion, one arm waving a hat. He knew the enemy was blessed with excellent thermal conditions, with the isothermal layer extending down to more than 300 feet, but he suspected fate had intervened to take that advantage off the table.\n\nWhen Rozier received the flash from CINCLANT, providing coordinates and a defined search radius, he was more than surprised. He knew SOSUS was good, but not that good. When he read that the contact type was a probable Foxtrot, he let out a long whistle. Just what kind of new technology could be that certain of the platform type? Now, suspecting that they were prosecuting a Foxtrot, he wondered if something was wrong with the boat.\n\nSoviets used three ratings for submarine diving depth characteristics. Working depth, referred to a window within which a boat could operate under normal conditions for extended periods and engage in combat. Limiting depth documented how deep a submarine could dive before she started hacking and wheezing. Most boats were restricted to a maximum of 300 excursions to this depth for their entire service life. Lastly, design collapse depth was where a submarine turned into Cream of Wheat.\n\nRozier knew that a Foxtrot's limiting depth was 985 feet, which afforded a working depth of 854 feet. Yet their contact, based on active ping estimates, had not descended below 250 feet. Why? That boat's captain must know that the thermal layer started at 300 feet, and if they dropped below that threshold, they'd have a much better chance of avoiding detection. Yet they stayed above the layer. That could only mean an ignorant sub captain or some kind of damage that kept them shallow, and judging by the evasion tactics used so far, Rozier didn't think he was chasing an idiot.\n\nThe Foxtrot's captain used a clever mix of tactics, including trimming the tanks, adjusting the bow planes, speeding up and slowing down, frequently changing course, and hiding in the Cecil's wake. The wake tactic created a baffle that masked the destroyer's active sonar pings, given this at more than thirty knots, the Cecil churned the ocean to a depth of seventy feet. When everything else failed, the Foxtrot tried to inhibit the Cecil's active sonar pings by shooting out chemicals that formed a cloud of hydrogen bubbles when mixed with seawater. That didn't work either.\n\nThe Foxtrot then tried something new. From the sonar shack, Sonarman Third Class Elroy Nelson reported that the sub's screws had gone silent. All he could hear now was the chatter of snapping shrimp in his headset. Rozier figured that the Soviet sub had stopped dead in the water. He circled the last known contact location, pinged, and waited.\n\nA half hour later, the Foxtrot surged back to five knots and ran toward them in an attempt to get behind the Cecil and hide in the ship's wake again. Rozier refused to let that happen. At 500 yards distance, he ordered turns for fifteen knots and right full rudder to keep the Foxtrot pointed toward their bow.\n\nThe Soviet sub then released a noisemaker torpedo, revved up to full speed, and darted off to starboard. Rozier knew to watch for the tactic, given that Soviets were taught to do this during a close-in attack. The aft torpedo room on a Foxtrot housed four torpedo tubes\u2014two filled with warshots and two with noisemakers. In a combat situation, Soviet captains were trained to fire off a noisemaker, followed by a warshot, then make a wide turn and sprint; slow again and go silent. Hopefully, any pursuers would follow the noisemaker and not the submarine. Rozier did not intend to fall for the ruse. Still, he couldn't seem to corner the submarine into a tight enough box to drop any warning charges.\n\nRozier decided to enlist some help by contacting a P2V Neptune ASW plane patrolling the area out of Jacksonville, Florida. The P2V, with the call sign Pollyboy 5, had just relieved another aircraft on station and came roaring toward the Cecil. The plane circled overhead as the Cecil directed the runs over the radio, helping the plane correct its lead angles and line up correctly over the target. Several \"no joy\" runs later, Rozier wondered if they'd ever nail this guy. Then the P2V reported \"Madman,\" and Rozier smiled. The ASW plane's magnetic anomaly detection (MAD) equipment had picked up a fluctuation in the earth's magnetic field when it flew over the Foxtrot's metal hull. Contact nailed.\n\nRozier stayed on top of his quarry throughout the night. More P2Vs arrived in the morning and lit up the ocean with active sonobuoys. They eventually validated contact C-20 as a Foxtrot. Rozier suspected sooner or later that the Soviet sub would run low on battery power and have to surface, but his patience for this game was running thin. Now that he'd cornered the Foxtrot, he decided it was time to drop a few loud incentives into the water. Little did he know that his decision was about to place his ship at ground zero.\n\nALMOST 300 MILES NORTHEAST OF CAICOS Passage, the USS Blandy and several other U.S. destroyers stared at a ghost. They had pursued the illusive Foxtrot contact for fourteen straight hours after she dove to avoid detection by ASW aircraft. Below the surface, Captain Shumkov on B-130 used up a quiver of tactical arrows to dodge the destroyers. In a last-ditch attempt, he shot a noisemaker torpedo from an aft tube. The noisemaker emitted the same frequency as a Project 641 submarine to fool enemy sonar operators. Normally, Shumkov would trail off in a preset direction at ten knots after firing one, but with batteries running low, that option no longer existed.\n\nOn top of the waves, Blandy's sonar operators not only did not fall for the trick, but misinterpreted B-130's noisemaker as \"high-speed screws in the water.\" Blandy's skipper, Captain Edward Kelley, took evasive maneuvers and readied his weapons. Seconds before firing, sonar reported a \"false alarm.\" The contact had only released a decoy that sounded like high-speed screws. Captain Kelley took his finger off the trigger.\n\nSeveral hundred feet below the Blandy, Captain Shumkov ran out of options. Depleted batteries and thin air left him with no choice but to surface or die. Cornered, exhausted, and at his wits end after days of undersea conflict, with explosive charges raining down, Shumkov decided to end the ordeal by firing the special weapon.\n\nHis decision was motivated partly by pride and partly by the desire to save face in front of his political officer, Saparov. He ordered the special weapons security officer to make preparations to fire the nuclear torpedo. The security officer refused, citing that they did not have authorization. Fortunately, fate intervened. Due to the excessive heat and deplorable conditions on board, Saparov took ill and passed out. Shumkov no longer had an audience to bolster his ego. After considerable deliberation, he finally gave the order to stand down. Later he informed the crew that he had never intended to use the special weapon, as B-130 would not have survived the blast.\n\nCaptain Shumkov surfaced B-130 into the fading light of a setting sun on October 30. Not long after, while devouring another meat-filled piroshki, he heard his last engine die. Up until then, he'd clung to a desperate hope that his crew could repair at least one of the other two dead engines. Devastated, he now had no choice but to call Moscow and request a tow home. The bite of piroshki in his mouth turned bitter as he cursed the gods for forcing him to abandon his duty and leave his friends behind in hostile waters.\n\nCAPTAIN DUBIVKO ON B-36 IMAGINED A miniature demon sitting on his shoulder and laughing. The gremlin had succeeded in taking away one of the most important tactical advantages available to any submarine: the ability to go deep. The thermal layer started at one hundred meters, but since they'd damaged the VIPS lid, they could not go below seventy meters, so evading enemy sonar became almost impossible. Inside B-36, the conditions became even more horrific. With temperatures exceeding sixty degrees centigrade in the engine room, and forty-five in other compartments, Dubivko ordered frequent bed rest for most off-duty personnel. Some of the men still passed out due to heat stroke not twenty minutes into their watch.\n\nLack of water exacerbated the problem. Reserves allowed for no more than 250 grams per day per man. Profuse sweating and dehydration increased skin rashes and decreased appetites. Many crew members lost more than thirty percent of their body weight. Fortunately, they'd stocked plenty of fruit compote, which the crew drank in place of water.\n\nAfter they had detected the destroyer, they quick-dove to seventy meters. At thirty meters, they heard the loud chug of the destroyer's engines pass overhead. What they thought were high-speed screws in the water\u2014indicative of a torpedo\u2014turned out to be a towed sonar array.\n\nThe American destroyer continued to harass them by pounding the ocean with incessant active pings. Acoustics reported yet another contact in the port baffles. Given the noise interference generated by the destroyer and circling aircraft, discerning what type of platform this contact might be was not possible. Acoustics did report that the hydrophone effects appeared to be coming from a depth of twenty meters, but they could not be certain. Dubivko wondered if the contact might be an American submarine or one of his sister boats. If the former, Dubivko was a sitting duck. Unable to dive deep, with the batteries nearly depleted, the odds of dodging a speeding torpedo were dismal at best.\n\nHe walked to the nav table and asked Naumov to lay out the plot showing the patrol areas of the four Project 641 submarines. He traced the bearing line to the eastern edge of B-130's assigned patrol area. As the main navy staff still included the call signs of all four boats in their transmissions, Dubivko was unaware that Captain Shumkov had surfaced earlier, lost his last engine, and was preparing to be towed home. He also did not know whether hostilities were escalating or if the two superpowers were engaged in a shooting war. Given that the destroyer circled at 2,000 meters, he suspected that gun barrels remained cold, but he needed to know for certain.\n\nDespite the risk, Dubivko ordered his boat to periscope depth. They needed to snort and assess the tactical situation. Also, they were overdue for a burst transmission from Moscow, and Dubivko wanted to determine if their orders had changed regarding the use of the special nuclear weapon.\n\nAcoustics reported that the P2V Neptune had just made another pass. Dubivko glanced at his watch. Caution dictated timing the passes and lowering the periscope each time the aircraft came near, especially since nightfall remained an hour away. A sailor cracked the conning tower hatch open at twenty meters depth, and Dubivko hurried up the ladder, followed by Political Officer Saparov. He waited for the P2V to make another pass, then raised the periscope. Salt water dripped onto his shoulders, but the small space felt cool compared to the overheated CC. He made a quick visual sweep. Flashes of crimson accented ethereal clouds on the horizon and reminded him of Polyarny.\n\nDubivko spun the scope and marked off the bearings to each of three gray destroyers. Running without lights, the dark silhouettes bristled with guns and antennas. On a fourth bearing, Dubivko spied a single blinking light. He squinted. The shape of a helicopter came into view. Below the whirling blades, a long cable ran into the ocean.\n\nDipping sonar.\n\nDubivko lamented the good weather. Calm seas afforded no hiding places. He lowered the scope and called Potapov on the phone. The chief mechanical engineer reported that the electrolyte in the batteries was now almost pure water. That meant they needed to snort within fifteen minutes. Acoustics reported the sound of the P2V swooping overhead again. Dubivko counted off several seconds in his head, then raised the scope.\n\nHe focused on the stern of the closest destroyer and spotted a large reel of black cable on the fantail. One end of the cable ran over the side and disappeared into the water. A sonar transducer. Dubivko's pulse quickened. Transducers were towed by destroyers and lowered to depths beneath the thermocline to find hiding submarines. At the end of the cable hung a large teardrop-shaped device that improved the destroyer's ability to find submerged targets. For Dubivko, that posed a huge threat, not just from detection, but from collision. If B-36 came too close to that transducer, the heavy object could rip a hole in their side and send them to the bottom.\n\nDubivko checked his watch again. \"Opustit periscope.\"\n\nThe scope lowered back into the housing. He called Acoustics and asked for a depth update on the thermal layer. Unchanged at one hundred meters. The contact reported earlier, which Dubivko thought might be B-130, remained at twenty meters distant. If this was indeed Shumkov, he knew where the layer started, and unless B-130 also suffered from a depth-limiting problem, Shumkov should have descended below that layer. Still, Dubivko had to assume that the contact might be the B-130 and that the Americans had forced them to come shallow.\n\nDubivko struggled with his next decision. He turned over the conning tower to Saparov and slid down the ladder into the CC. He picked up the phone and summoned Alexander Pomilyev, the officer in charge of the special weapon. He met the young man outside his stateroom. They entered, and Dubivko sat on his bunk, while Pomilyev remained standing.\n\n\"I want you to ready the weapon in tube number two.\"\n\nPomilyev's eyes widened. \"Sir?\"\n\n\"We need to surface. If the enemy turns hostile, I intend to fire at the closest target.\"\n\n\"But, sir, that will destroy us as well.\"\n\nDubivko remained silent for a long moment, then said, \"Prepare the weapon.\"\n\nPomilyev lowered his chin. \"Yes, sir.\"\n\nDubivko returned to the conning tower, timed the P2V pass, and raised the scope. He swallowed his guilt and ordered a heading of due east, according to the surrender directions they'd received repeatedly from the Americans\u2014rebroadcast from Russia. With their batteries gone, the least he could do was give B-130 a fighting chance to get away if she was nearby. If B-36 surfaced now, that distraction just might afford Captain Shumkov enough window to sneak away.\n\n\"Vspletye!\"\n\nON OCTOBER 31, AT 4:00 A.M. aboard the USS Charles P. Cecil, Sonarman Elroy Nelson finally got relieved from the stack by Sonarman Allen Tuell. The twenty-something Tuell from Santa Cruz, California, yawned as he settled in for what he hoped wouldn't be a boring six-hour watch. Less than two hours later, at 5:53 A.M., Tuell heard a familiar sound in his headset. His trained ears discerned the shush of high-pressure air. The Foxtrot just blew her ballast.\n\nLieutenant John Hunter heard the 1MC loudspeaker crackle. \"Submarine on the surface!\" All about him, excited sailors in skivvies and shower shoes lined the railing to get a glimpse of the surfacing sub. The stubby nose of a Soviet Foxtrot broached the surface, followed by the long black hull and windowed sail. Here and there the black deck was mottled with weatherworn dull red patches. Hunter wondered if that might be rust. On the sail, three numbers shimmered white in the morning sun. They read 911. Hunter knew this was not the boat's real designation, but only a decoy to fool the enemy.\n\nEnemy.\n\nHunter thought about that word for a moment. Were they really the enemy, or just seventy-eight men caught up in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse started by narrow-sighted men in power? Hunter squashed his political thoughts as several figures appeared on the bridge of the Foxtrot. One raised a flag atop the main antenna, which flapped in the breeze from the back of the sail. Hunter recognized the emblem as the main cruiser ensign of the USSR Naval Fleet. He knew this was a big moment, that he was now a part of history and witnessing the forced surfacing of a Soviet submarine in the Caribbean during the Cuban Missile Crisis.\n\nHis smile died as he saw the Foxtrot make a sudden turn away from the Cecil.\n\nON THE BRIDGE OF B-36, CAPTAIN Dubivko adjusted his binoculars and focused on the boxy destroyer still shadowing them. After intercepting a radio transmission sent to their American escort, the OSNAZ team told him the name of the ship was the Charles P. Cecil. Now less than one hundred meters away, the dark shape of the Cecil loomed over his boat like a massive guard marching him to the gallows.\n\nDubivko figured that the ship's captain maintained that proximity because he knew the \"dead zone\" for Soviet torpedoes\u2014the distance traveled after leaving the tube before the weapon armed\u2014was right at 150 meters. This safety measure, programmed into all torpedoes, prevented weapons from detonating too close to their firing submarine. If Dubivko shot a torpedo at this close range, the projectile would bounce harmlessly off the metal side of the destroyer.\n\nThe American ship flashed a message from their bridge. \"Do you need help?\"\n\nDubivko ordered an OSNAZ signalman to reply. \"We do not need any help. Asking you not to interfere with our actions.\"\n\nDubivko scanned the destroyer. Several gun turrets pointed in their direction. The long barrels looked ominous in the fading light.\n\nWere they preparing to fire?\n\nConvinced that they were, Dubivko lowered his binoculars and called down to the CC. \"Boyevoya trevoga!\" He heard the crew scramble to battle stations. He then ordered a turn to port, away from the enemy ship. He needed to open the distance to more than 150 meters so the nuclear torpedo could arm itself. He called Pomilyev in the forward torpedo room and asked the special weapons officer to prepare to fire tube number two on his order. His hands shook as the boat's screws slapped the ocean and edged B-36 farther away from the destroyer. They had fifty meters to go before they were 150 meters away from the ship.\n\nDubivko thought about his home, his wife, and the life he would never see again. A part of him fought against his decision and tried in vain to talk the other part out of it. But pride and honor made him deaf to the voice of reason. He could not sit still while the Americans blasted his boat into shards of steel. He'd go down fighting with the last breath in his tired and worn body.\n\nDubivko glanced again at the radar repeater as the boat passed 150 meters. He started to call down to Pomilyev but hesitated for a brief moment. Zhukov called up from radio. \"Sir, we just intercepted a radio transmission to the Charles P. Cecil\u2014the destroyer that is shadowing us.\"\n\n\"Transmission?\" Dubivko said.\n\n\"From President Kennedy.\"\n\n\"President Kennedy?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. The message to the Cecil reads, 'Thank you for your work. Keep the surfaced submarine here by all means.'\"\n\nDubivko pondered the message and picked up his binoculars. He scanned back and forth along the destroyer's hull. The gun turrets were now turned away. He breathed a sigh of relief, changed course, and told Pomilyev to disarm the nuclear torpedo. Glad to still be alive, Dubivko descended back into the belly of his boat and ordered Zhukov to transmit a burst message to Moscow informing them of B-36's situation.\n\nThey sent the same message forty-eight times to the main HQ of the naval fleet until they finally received a response. The Cecil continued to shadow B-36 as the crew repaired the damaged upper lid of the VIPS, which earlier had prevented them from being able to deep dive. The diesels ran nonstop for the next two days to charge the batteries. Normally, the charge took only ten to twelve hours, but due to the long periods of high temperatures in the boat, the electrolyte in the batteries soared past sixty-five degrees centigrade. That required them to ventilate extensively to reduce the temperature back down to sixty so as not to cause an explosion.\n\nNot blasted to pieces, not nuked by their own torpedo, not blown up by hot batteries, no longer debilitated by a broken VIPS lid, Dubivko swallowed a bite of piroshki, lit a cigarette, and contemplated an escape plan. A crazy idea popped into his head, and he called Zhukov and Pankov to his cabin.\n\n\"We'll need to distract them,\" Dubivko said as he sat on his bunk.\n\n\"We could try sending a signal in the circular regime using the Sviyaga hydroacoustic station,\" Pankov said, standing bent over in the cabin.\n\nZhukov, also standing bent, scratched his chin. \"That might work. We'd have to rig our acoustics to send out a strong signal on the same frequency as their active sonar beam.\"\n\n\"Is that feasible?\" Dubivko asked.\n\n\"I think so,\" Pankov said. \"We know the frequencies they use, and we're now close enough, but we will need to send several strong transmissions.\"\n\n\"This will work for only a short time,\" Zhukov said. \"Once we're too far away, their sonar will not be disrupted.\"\n\n\"How long?\" Dubivko asked.\n\n\"Minutes,\" Pankov said.\n\n\"That's long enough,\" Dubivko said. \"Make it happen.\"\n\nThe following day, just after lunch, with no helicopters or ASW aircraft in sight, Pankov flipped a switch and flooded the Cecil's underwater ears with a high-pitched whine. Dubivko slammed shut the upper hatch and quick dove. The boat passed underneath the Cecil, and he was certain they missed the ship's hull by mere centimeters. He submerged B-36 to 200 meters, reversed course, and zigzagged away at a fast clip. Pankov lit off a stream of six-second transmissions to suppress the Cecil's active sonar beams. The trick worked.\n\nHours later, Dubivko brought B-36 shallow to transmit a series of burst updates to the main navy HQ. This time they received an immediate reply. Unbeknownst to Dubivko, B-36's transmissions provided solid hits to three Boresight stations.\n\nAmerican ASW planes reappeared, but this time, with a full battery charge and the ability to go deep, B-36 managed to avoid detection. Dubivko attributed this to skill and luck, unaware that the Americans were using Boresight fixes to plot his homeward track. As long as he kept his submarine pointed toward Russia, they wouldn't have to sink his boat.\n\nNOW ONE HUNDRED MILES SOUTH OF Kingston, Jamaica, Captain Ketov on B-4 continued to evade American ASW forces. He harbored no illusions that his good fortune might be attributed to an upgraded sonar system, which afforded B-4 longer-range hearing. That, and a large dose of luck. While B-4 snorkeled throughout the night of November 2, Ketov inhaled the sweet night air, watched silver moonlight dance on the wave tops, and prayed that his good fortune would hold.\n\nFor certain, lady luck had played a role, but Ketov also gave credit to his crew. They'd done an excellent job of combining skill and intelligence to avoid the enemy. While doing that, Ketov noticed that ASW planes stalked them the most when they started to snorkel or snort at night, and aircraft numbers diminished during the day when B-4 ran on batteries. The planes appeared to come around the most in the early evening, not long after B-4 lit off her diesel engines. Based on this pattern, Ketov surmised this was no coincidence and might be due to detection by the American hydroacoustic stations embedded in the seafloor. Of course, he had no knowledge of Boresight, and so did not assume that B-4's late afternoon burst transmissions triggered an ASW response that placed aircraft nearby when the submarine came shallow again to snort.\n\nKetov stood on the bridge and listened to the muted hum of B-4's diesels. He thanked what ever god there might be that he had not fallen to the fate of his friend, Captain Shumkov, on B-130. Ketov could not even imagine losing his engines and having to be towed home. When he heard about the incident on the daily radio update, he wanted to call his comrade and express his condolences. He could not, of course.\n\nKetov glanced at his watch. An additional communications session with Moscow was scheduled for that night. He figured when the session started in twenty minutes, new orders would be issued. During the next five minutes, he let his mind go on vacation. He thought about his wife, his children, and all the things he had missed while living most of his life far away from home. Five minutes came and went before a report from radio jolted Ketov from his daydreaming. Radio detected a signal on the Nakat. The hit was weak but growing stronger. Ketov had observed earlier that some of the P2Vs and Tracker aircraft took to truncating their radar signals in an effort to fool the Soviet subs by making the planes appear farther away than they actually were. He did not intend to fall for this trick. He ordered the bridge cleared and quick dove to a depth of ninety meters.\n\nBrigade Commander Captain Agafonov cornered Ketov in the CC and demanded to know why they went deep fifteen minutes before the scheduled session with Moscow. He appeared anxious to receive an update, as interference had blocked reception of the last one. Ketov explained his reason for diving: that he knew the Americans attenuated their radar signals to ensnare unsuspecting submarines. Agafonov refused to listen. He insisted on surfacing to complete the battery charge and to ensure a clear signal for the radio session. Ketov stood his ground, stating that the OSNAZ group earlier determined that the USS Independence was operating in the area, and they detected dozens of ASW aircraft, including one likely headed their way at this moment. He told Agafonov that as long as he was in command, they were not going to surface.\n\n\"Fine,\" Agafonov said. \"You're relieved of command.\"\n\nShocked, Ketov implored Agafonov to reconsider and to not place B-4 in jeopardy by surfacing. Agafonov waved him off and gave the order to come shallow. Angry, but having no choice, Ketov turned over command and retired to his cabin.\n\nAgafonov brought the boat shallow and extended a periscope. The Nakat barked out a series of loud beeps as American radar got a hit on B-4's masts. Agafonov took the boat deep again, but by then, it was too late. A Tracker airplane from the Independence gained a solid lock and refused to let go. Agafonov tried to dodge as the plane dropped warning charges that rattled dishes and nerves.\n\nHours went by as Ketov remained in his cabin while a less experienced officer tried without success to avoid the enemy. Finally, after three hours of explosions and pinging, Agafonov became frustrated and angry. He called the special weapons officer in the torpedo room and ordered him to ready tube number two. Then he turned the boat toward the USS Independence.\n\nThe officer in charge of the nuclear weapon did as ordered, then called Ketov in his cabin. He informed his commander that Agafonov intended to fire the weapon. Ketov jumped from his bunk and ran toward the CC. He shot through the hatch and stood face-to-face with Agafonov.\n\nThey argued for several long minutes, then Ketov said, \"Do you really want to go down in history as the man who started World War III?\"\n\nThe brigade commander lowered his eyes. With his jaw clinched tight, he looked like a boiling kettle about to blow. He raised his chin and glared at Captain Ketov. The steam evaporated, and Agafonov relinquished command. Ketov relieved the commander and ordered the special weapons officer to stand down.\n\nAfter taking back control of his boat, Ketov recalled the directives issued by Kennedy and the Americans that submarines near Cuba should surface and head east at a slow speed. He did not intend to surface, but he instead instructed the OSNAZ group in radio to broadcast a message to the Americans that B-4 would comply with the instructions. The ASW aircraft stopped dropping explosive charges.\n\nAn hour later, Ketov cheated. With ninety minutes remaining until dark, he made a radical course change, took the boat beneath the thermal layer, and increased speed. As night unfolded in the Caribbean, Ketov slowly brought the boat shallow. Acoustics listened but heard nothing. Ketov popped up a periscope but saw no planes. Nakat ESM detected no nearby radar. Satisfied that no Americans stood poised to harass them, Ketov brought B-4 to snorting depth and recharged the batteries.\n\nHe spent the next ten days dodging the Americans as they made low passes across the ocean's surface to snag him via magnetic or diesel exhaust detection. They never found him. On November 12, he received new orders to head 500 nautical miles north to an area known as the main U.S. Navy ASW line south of Newfoundland. Over the next few days, Ketov noticed that the American ASW forces seemed to follow him north along his track. He saw long-range reconnaissance aircraft flying at high altitudes and P2Vs thrumming along at low or medium heights. Sometimes the Nakat picked up three pairs of P2Vs circling around B-4's previous course. Ketov remained puzzled. Although they still snorted at night, they went silent during the day. So how was it that the Americans could follow him so accurately?\n\nTHE CREW OF B-36 CELEBRATED THE Soviet October revolution on November 7 by taking ocean water showers in the conning tower. Captain Dubivko decided to join them when First Officer Kopeikin wrinkled his nose in the CC as Dubivko walked past. When another submariner can no longer stand your stench, it's time for soap. He drenched himself in the cool, refreshing waters of the Sargasso Sea pouring through the showerhead in the sail and smiled as the water covered his tired body. Finally, he thought, the demons have stopped harassing me. Dubivko's smile vanished when a sailor interrupted his shower to deliver an urgent message.\n\nEngineer Captain Potapov reported that the Compartment Five group commander, Senior Engineer Lieutenant Kobyakov, having become exhausted after enduring high engine-room temperatures for the past several weeks, failed to properly purge the air intakes on the two running diesels. Both engines seized up. That left B-36 with one working engine. Dubivko was now aware of what happened to Shumkov on B-130, and he harbored embarrassing visions of being towed back to port, or worse, of being forced to endure another babysitting escort by an American destroyer.\n\nHe dried off and clambered down to Compartment Five, where Potapov and Kobyakov updated him on the two dead engines. The two engineers spent the next few days cannibalizing one broken engine to try to get the other back online. Running with one engine made Dubivko's job of avoiding detection an almost impossible task. Still harassed by ASW aircraft, this debilitation forced him to keep B-36 stationary in the water while charging the batteries, then run slow on the electric engine during the day.\n\nThe OSNAZ group discovered that the helicopter carrier USS Thetis Bay (LPH-6) occupied the center of the deployment area, and her helicopters also exhibited an uncanny ability to follow B-36's track. Dubivko decided to forgo permission from the main navy HQ and moved B-36 200 miles south. Soon after, he received orders to return home. Hamstrung by two dead engines, B-36 could go no faster than six or seven knots, and Dubivko figured he would not see his wife again until late January, if at all. Then, as B-36 entered the Norway Sea, Potapov reported that he and Kobyakov had repaired one engine, so they now had two working. Dubivko sat on his bunk and let his shoulders relax after he heard the news, certain that the demons were finally departing. Unfortunately, they were only taking a short sabbatical.\n\nWhen B-36 neared Iceland, bad luck prevailed again. B-36 ran out of fuel. Dubivko threw his arms skyward in frustration when Potapov gave him the dismal news. Potapov then suggested that they could mix oil with water to keep at least one engine limping along. That worked for a time, and Dubivko's spirits soared when a fuel tanker came to the rescue near the Lofoten Islands just off Norway. As luck would have it, black swells prevented the tanker from passing a refueling hose to the submarine. Disheartened once again, Dubivko dove B-36 and ran slow on the electric motor. Just when he thought he'd finally lost the battle with lady luck, his main chemist, Yuri Klimov, devised a way to use seawater to charge the batteries enough to temporarily power the electric motor. Now, if they could only make it home before the motor gave out.\n\nBY MID-NOVEMBER, PRESIDENT KENNEDY AND PREMIER Khrushchev hammered out a deal that specified removal of all Soviet offensive weapons from Cuba. These included the nuclear missiles as well as the nest of IL-28 bombers. Days passed, but nothing happened. Members of ExComm met again to discuss options to deal with Khrushchev's obvious noncompliance with the agreement, including more blockade pressure and sending a strike force to take out the IL-28s.\n\nKhrushchev responded to Kennedy's queries by saying that Russia intended to remove the IL-28s, but not right away. He stated that \"it can be done in two to three months.\" Upset by this, Kennedy told his advisers that \"we might say the whole deal is off and withdraw our no invasion pledge and harass them generally.\"\n\nOn November 16, the largest amphibious landing since World War II unfolded at Onslow Beach, North Carolina. The two-day exercise was a full-scale dress rehearsal for an invasion of Cuba. Six marine battalion landing teams, four assault boats, and two helicopter assault carriers were involved. Some 100,000 army soldiers, 40,000 marines, and 14,500 paratroopers supported by 550 aircraft and 180 ships stood ready to invade Cuba.\n\nOn November 20, Kennedy held a press conference to announce that Castro had finally agreed to remove the IL-28 bombers within thirty days. The following day, the president issued a proclamation to end the naval quarantine of Cuba.\n\nAlthough tensions eased by mid-December between the two superpowers, the events that transpired during the Cuban Missile Crisis plunged the world into a Cold War that escalated to the brink of nuclear destruction several more times over the next two decades. U.S. and Soviet submarines were the common element each time.\n\nIN LATE DECEMBER, WHEN B-36 DOCKED at the pier in Sayda Bay, only Brigade Chief of Staff Second Captain Arkhipov came to meet the boat. Dubivko didn't care. He was just glad that the mission was over and that the evil spirits that had tortured him while under way could no longer make his life a living hell. What happened next, however, made him wish he'd never returned home. He was expecting a hero's welcome. After all, he and his crew survived the longest excursion into enemy territorial waters since World War II. They endured horrendous conditions, impossible odds, torturous weather, and a host of debilitating mechanical failures. What he and the other three captains involved in Operation Kama received turned out to be just the opposite of what they deserved and is best described in Captain Dubivko's own words, edited for readability by the author:\n\nOn the next day after we returned to Gadzhiyevo, I was summoned to the Commission of the main Navy Headquarters to analyze the trip. Rear Admiral P. K. Ivanov\u2014head of the Department of Combat Preparedness\u2014headed the Commission. Unfortunately, the work of the Commission on analyzing the actions of the submarines in extraordinary conditions, according to practice established at that time, was aimed exclusively at uncovering violations of orders, documents, or instructions by the commander or by personnel.... We were accused of violating secrecy, failing to abide by NIS-58 instructions for submarine forces while trying to avoid U.S. anti-submarine aircraft and ships. They did not take into account the fact that if we abided by NIS-58...then our submarines would never have arrived at our final destination.\n\n...The conditions in which our submarine brigade had to work were so difficult in the tactical, moral and physiological sense, that we were happy to have returned from that trip alive and healthy. This feeling was confirmed by Military Council of the Northern Fleet Rear Admiral F. Ya. Sizov when he said, \"We did not expect you to come back alive....\"\n\nSome time later, all the submarine commanders who took part in the trip were summoned to Moscow for personal reports to the USSR Defense Minister.... Marshal [Andrei] Grechko refused to listen to my report on the problems and difficulties of the trip.... The only thing he understood was that we violated the secrecy requirements, were discovered by the Americans, and that for some time the enemy maintained contact on our submarines.... He offered his opinion in the statement, \"I would have better sunk than come to the surface....\"\n\n[Our] experience, gained through hardships, should have been culled from all the submarines, analyzed, and shared with other Fleets. To my regret, the Operations Department of the Navy General Staff failed in that endeavor.\n\nI would like to once again express my appreciation and gratitude to the entire crew of B-36 submarine for exhibiting high standards of resistance and valor throughout the trip, and for helping me, as their commander, to affirm our dedication to the Soviet Navy and to our Motherland.\n\n\u2014CAPTAIN FIRST RANK, RETIRED, ALEKSEI DUBIVKO\n\nALTHOUGH PRESIDENT KENNEDY AND DEFENSE SECRETARY McNamara retained suspicions that the four Foxtrot submarines that converged on Cuba in October 1962 might be carrying nuclear torpedoes, the truth was not revealed to the world until 1995, more than three years after the Soviet Union collapsed. Not until then did we learn that the Soviets shipped 161 nuclear warheads to Cuba. Ninety of those were tactical, which would have killed tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers had Kennedy given the order to invade.\n\nI spent my entire adulthood believing that President Kennedy saved the world from nuclear winter during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Certainly, he and the members of ExComm were instrumental in forcing Khrushchev to back down at a crucial time during the brewing conflict, but the other heroes of this undeclared war were the commanders of the four Foxtrot submarines. Each had the opportunity, when faced with disaster, to pull the trigger and start a war. Each could have taken a dozen or more American ships with them into the smoldering center of a mushroom cloud, and each could have propelled the world toward a devastating October that would have changed the course of human history. However, each made the right decision in the end, and those of us who survived that time owe them our gratitude and perhaps our lives.\n\nThe events that transpired in the fall of 1962 brought the world to the edge of nuclear winter not once, but at least a half-dozen times. The Cuban Missile Crisis, perhaps better stated the Cuban Submarine Crisis, spurred the creation of the Moscow\u2013Washington hotline to ensure immediate, direct communications between the superpowers in the event of future potential conflicts. Although critics claim that Kennedy's actions prior to the crisis\u2014particularly those related to the Bay of Pigs incident\u2014likely caused the escalation in the first place, most agree that the outcome propelled the United States to a more confident stance as an international superpower. Unfortunately, the crisis also fueled fear in military and political circles that chilled the Cold War further, leading to an eventual \"keeping up with the Joneses\" competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. Both sides markedly increased spending on offensive weaponry, military technology, and counterintelligence.\n\nAs for Boresight, my father commented many years later that perhaps the success of this program was a double-edged sword. On one side was the technology that enabled U.S. ASW ships and planes to locate the Foxtrots and compel all but one to the surface. On the other side was the fact that, in helping our boys do a better job of forcing the Soviet captains into a corner, we also pushed those submarine commanders to the cliff's edge. While staring at that precipice, with nuclear weapons armed and ready, officers on all four Foxtrots nearly annihilated dozens of U.S. ships. Such an action would have escalated the crisis into a full-scale nuclear war that neither side could win. Only calm heads and perhaps divine intervention kept dozens of American cities from becoming radioactive wastelands.\n\n## CHAPTER ELEVEN\n\nEven castles made of sand, fall into the sea, eventually.\n\n\u2014JIMI HENDRIX\n\nTHE EARLY SIXTIES USHERED IN THE next evolution in underwater warfare with the advent of a revolutionary new type of nuclear fast-attack submarine. Named after the USS Thresher (SSN-593), boats of this class brought to life almost every item on a navy wish list for the perfect stealth boat. From sonar to fire control to weapons to electronic-snooping \"spook\" gear, Thresher's integrated design allowed sailors to operate as a synchronized team\u2014like an ant colony with an attitude. Sub drivers were ecstatic. Faster, deeper diving, more quiet and maneuverable, these boats were the Ferraris of the fleet, which spurred fierce competition between skippers to snag a set of keys to one of the navy's hottest new vehicles.\n\nLieutenant Commander John Wesley Harvey did just that. Born into the Bronx backstreets of New York, he entered the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946. Harvey first served in the skimmer fleet aboard the aircraft carrier Coral Sea (CVB-43) before switching to submarines in 1952. He earned his submarine dolphins on the diesel boat Sea Robin (SS-407) before transferring to the USS Nautilus in July 1955. After a few runs on the Seadragon (SS-194), Harvey took command of the USS Thresher in January 1963. Four months later, he went to sea for the last time.\n\nBUNDLED IN THICK NEOPRENE, SITTING ON the hard deck of the USS Preserver (ARS-8), Sonarman First Class Nihil Smith could no longer feel his cheeks. A harsh Atlantic wind swept its cold anger across the deck of the 200-foot-long rescue ship and swirled above an ocean full of death. Smith turned his frozen face to the right. The head diver flashed a signal. Smith stood and stepped toward the back of the Preserver, a double-tank \"twin-ninety\" scuba rig mounted on his back. As he walked, his navy diver booties scraped across the rust on the ship's deck, and the dense smell of the Preserver's engine exhaust hurried him toward the edge.\n\nMetal chains clanked and winches groaned as the Preserver's crew went about their daily tasks. The Preserver first saw the light of day in San Francisco in 1944 and served as a support ship in the Pacific\u2014a platform for navy divers conducting salvage and rescue operations in such exotic places as Saipan, New Guinea, Guam, Okinawa, and Bikini Atoll. In May 1962, navy divers on the Preserver helped recover Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter after his Aurora 7 capsule splashed down in the Atlantic. A year later, in early May 1963, Preserver's captain got the call he hoped would never come.\n\nThe Preserver caught up with the deep-diving submersible USS Trieste (DSV-0) at the Boston Naval Shipyard, and the two vessels headed toward a location some 200 nautical miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The Swiss-designed Trieste \"deep boat\" bathyscaphe held a crew of two and could descend to the darkest part of any ocean on earth\u2014nearly seven miles deep. Auguste Piccard, her Swiss designer, envisioned grandiose missions of scientific discovery for the sixty-foot-long submarine and named his 1953 creation after a quaint Italian seaport. Like any father, he probably knew his daughter might someday be called upon to search for the remains of a disaster.\n\nThat day arrived when, for the first time in the Trieste's short ten-year life, she became a reluctant detective hunting for bodies. These cadavers, however, were not hidden in back alleys or buried under New Jersey dirt. They lay scattered across the bottom of a dark ocean more than 8,000 feet deep. In such a foreboding place, the odds of finding even the slightest clue were somewhere between zero and \"worse than Vegas.\"\n\nNihil Smith stepped off the Preserver's fantail and climbed onto the small skiff\u2014the Boston Whaler with an outboard motor. He took a seat next to another diver as the Preserver's crew lowered the dive boat into the water. A sailor on the skiff started the outboard, and the Boston Whaler moved slowly away from the ship. Smith glanced back at the Preserver. Not a large vessel, the ARS-8 had two masts, a small superstructure, and a thirty-nine-foot-wide flat deck at the stern. She carried just two 40 mm AA gun mounts and four .50 caliber machine guns, but nobody expected her to fight any battles.\n\nThe skiff reached the dive spot, and Smith stood up. He watched his dive buddy step over the gunwales and splash into the blue. Following suit, Smith seated his scuba regulator, planted his right palm flat against his face mask and mouthpiece and jumped into the ocean.\n\nDespite the thickness of his wet suit, the cold still launched his testicles into his throat. He sucked in several short breaths, forced his mind back to calm, and swam toward his dive buddy. The two met, traded \"okay\" hand signals, then looked down. Air bubbles circulated around Smith's fins, but they did not come from his twin-nineties. These bubbles ascended from a white submarine 100 feet below, on its way up from 8,000 feet deep. He bled air from his buoyancy vest and descended toward the mini-sub. As he cleared his ears to equalize with the ocean pressure, his eyes focused between his knees. Two vents mounted to the deck of the Trieste stared back.\n\nTo Smith, the strange twelve-foot-wide craft below looked nothing like a typical submarine. Instead, the Trieste resembled something from Popular Science magazine with her stump of a conning tower, flattened nose and heel, and round observation gondola bulging from her belly. The vessel's operators climbed down into the gondola through an entrance tunnel connecting to a hatch in the stubby sail.\n\nThe Trieste's pressure sphere offered only enough space for two people, keeping them alive with in dependent life support provided by a closed-circuit rebreather system not too unlike the ones used by astronauts. Two thirty-eight-cubic-foot oxygen cylinders pumped in air, and canisters of soda lime scrubbed carbon dioxide from the air. No diesel engines ran inside the Trieste's hull. Power came from two electric propulsion motors mounted externally and pressure-compensated to withstand the intense forces of the deep. Twelve-volt electric car batteries powered these motors from large boxes located on the after walking deck of the Trieste. Each box housed a dozen batteries. After every dive, all of the Trieste's batteries, including the silver cell ones used inside the submersible, needed recharging.\n\nSmith neared the curved white hull and grabbed onto an eyehook. His dive buddy did likewise. Together they rounded the side and swam toward the \"grappling\" mechanical arms underneath, near the observation sphere. A pair of eyes, inside the Trieste, stared through the single tapered cone-shaped block of Plexiglas mounted on the sphere. Smith gave the operator inside a signal, and an instant later, bright light from a set of quartz arc bulbs lit up the black ocean.\n\nSmith could now see the bottom portion of the forward pellet ballast hopper protruding from the hull just in front of the sphere. He knew that inside the silo\u2014a round cylinder about three feet in diameter and seven feet tall\u2014nine tons of magnetic iron pellets were used as ballast. An identical hopper sat a few feet behind the observation gondola. Using pellets versus water helped increase descent and ascent speeds, given that intense water pressures down deep did not allow for air-filled ballast tanks.\n\nThe pellets, which filled each hopper, resembled oversized BBs. Their weight pulled the bathyscaphe down toward the bottom. When the crew cut off power to large electromagnets attached to the hoppers, the pellets dropped to the ocean floor, and the Trieste shot toward the surface. The crew refilled the ballast \"shot tubs\" from stacks of twenty-five-pound pellet bags lashed to the deck of the Preserver.\n\nSmith kicked his fins and swam toward the mechanical arms. His dive buddy moved alongside and pointed. Smith followed the diver's finger and shifted his eyes downward. The Trieste's bright arc lights reflected off something shiny. A short pipe. Smith's heart skipped a beat, and he wondered if this was the proof they had been searching for. He pulled the pipe free and brought it to the surface. Back on board the Preserver, experts examined the bent piece of metal. In a small compartment filled with navy personnel and scientific experts, Smith watched as one expert took out a magnifying glass and focused on the side of the pipe. The gaunt man with wire-rim glasses wrote down a part number, then flipped through a set of blueprints. The expert thumbed to a page, looked at the part number on the paper, focused back on the blueprint, and raised a stubby chin. Without speaking, the man nodded his head up and down.\n\nSmith stepped outside the room and walked to the fantail. A cruel Atlantic gale swatted at the large ship as she bobbed up and down in the roiling swells. On the horizon, a bruised and swollen sky swallowed the last ounce of sunlight, leaving behind purple cotton clouds.\n\nNIHIL SMITH WAS NO STRANGER TO the dangers faced by submariners. He joined the navy at the age of seventeen after striding into the recruiter's office in Azusa, California, in 1956. He had four uncles who had served their country during World War II; two of them went navy, and one became a submariner. That uncle often talked about the high morale and esprit de corps that could only be found on the boats. Inspired by his uncle's stories, Smith volunteered for subs and reported aboard the diesel boat USS Trigger (SS-564) in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1958. He earned another stripe when he passed the test for sonarman second class and a navy diver pin after graduating from the rigorous training course in Hawaii that same year. While qualifying in submarines during 1959, Smith came to relish the boat life and learned firsthand about the camaraderie that his uncle had talked about.\n\n\"Everybody depends upon everybody,\" his uncle said. \"You're on the boats because you want to be, not because you're forced to be. Where else can you have that kind of togetherness? Where else can you depend on your mates because they all take pride in what they do?\"\n\nOn the Trigger, Smith met just such a mate, a radioman named Joe Walski. Smith and \"Ski\" became close over the next year as they helped each other qualify in submarines. They earned their dolphins on the very same day. By the time Smith transferred off the Trigger, he and Walski were best friends. As Smith walked across the gangplank of his first boat for the last time, he felt like he was leaving a brother behind.\n\nSmith reported to the diesel submarine USS Barbel (SS-580) in Kittery, Maine, and soon discovered that his \"brother\" Walski received a transfer to a nuclear-powered boat going through an overhaul, also in Maine. Smith was ecstatic. He raced over to the drydock and met Walski near the brow. They hugged, and Walski invited Smith for a tour of his boat. Smith slid down the ladder and whistled. Compared to the Barbel, Walski's new submarine seemed like a luxury hotel: wood paneling, shiny pipes, new Naugahyde-covered benches, and all the latest equipment. Walski spent the next hour dangling a carrot in front of Smith, using every angle to try to convince him to leave the Barbel and request a transfer to this newer SSN, known as the USS Thresher. Smith almost conceded but eventually declined, quoting the saying \"Diesel boats forever!\"\n\nSad but certain that he'd made the right decision, Smith sauntered back to the Barbel. Walski went to sea on his youthful nuke boat, while Smith rode the Barbel down to New London, Connecticut. Their respective schedules made visiting each other impossible. Smith then rode with the Barbel through the Panama Canal to her new home port in San Diego. There he received orders to the Naval Electronics Laboratory and was assigned to the research vessel Trieste, which had just returned from making the world's deepest dive in the Marianas Trench.\n\nWhen Smith completed second class diver training in March 1963, he called to tell his quasi brother about the accomplishment. Walski was excited about the news but couldn't talk long, as the Thresher was preparing for upcoming sea trials. They vowed to make time to visit each other again, perhaps sometime later that year. Neither knew that this was a promise that could not be kept.\n\nThe lead ship of her class and the pride of Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, the USS Thresher launched on July 9, 1960. She underwent sea trials throughout '61 and '62, testing a host of modern and complex systems and weapons. After she arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on November 2, 1961, the Thresher's nuclear-trained \"nukes\" shut down the reactor. Equipment failures and mistakes combined to create serious overheating in the engineering spaces that resulted in a partial evacuation of the crew. This event became the first omen signaling the Thresher's eventual demise.\n\nThe second portent occurred while the submarine sat moored at Port Canaveral, Florida. A tugboat accidentally slammed into the Thresher's side and damaged a ballast tank. After repairs at Groton, Connecticut, the Thresher headed south to conduct more tests and trials near Key West, Florida. Thereafter she cruised up to Kittery, Maine, and stayed in the dockyard for refurbishment until the spring of 1963.\n\nAfter her refit, with Radioman First Class Joe Walski on board, on April 9, 1963, the Thresher pulled away from the pier. Lieutenant Commander Harvey informed his crew that they were about to conduct rigorous postoverhaul sea trials. The submarine rescue ship USS Skylark (ASR-20) accompanied the Thresher to the trial area off Cape Cod. On the morning of April 10, 1963, Thresher started the first of her deep-diving tests. When the submarine neared her test depth of 1,300 feet, Lieutenant Commander Harvey called the Skylark on the Gertrude underwater communicator. The message came through garbled, but what could be deciphered indicated trouble. The words \"minor difficulties, have positive up-angle, attempting to blow\" were the last heard from the ill-fated submarine. She died that day along with 129 officers, crewmen, and military\/civilian technicians.\n\nNo one knew for certain what happened to the Thresher until after Nihil Smith wrestled that small pipe, brought up from 8,400 feet deep, away from the grappling arms of the Trieste. The two-man crew of the bathyscaphe had previously spent weeks searching with no luck. Large grids were set up using color-coded markers and numbers for each search section. Every morning, the Trieste sank to the bottom and illuminated the ocean floor. She spent all day covering the grid coordinates, her crew hoping to find the remnants of the Thresher. They found nothing save a yellow boot that resembled part of a \"canary suit\" worn by nuclear personnel during reactor emergencies\u2014not enough to validate Thresher as the source.\n\nEach day Smith and the other divers prepped the 35 mm cameras, filled the ballast tubs with pellets, tested the radios, cleared debris from the Trieste's hull, washed her windows, and \"checked her oil.\" Then they waited. Hours later, usually near sunset, they suited up and prepared to meet the deep-diving vessel when she came back up. Those monitoring the Trieste's ascent called out her depth, having tracked the submersible via hydrophones. When she neared one hundred feet, Smith and another diver climbed into the Boston Whaler and went out to meet her.\n\nTheir work didn't end there. At the completion of each day's dive, crews on the Trieste and Preserver prepared for another dawn and descent into the abyss. They hauled power cables attached to floats over to the Trieste to recharge the lead acid batteries. They wrestled with a high-pressure air line to charge up the antichamber blow system, which expelled air from an area near the sphere to allow the Trieste's crew to exit the submersible after surfacing. While some of the crew processed the film taken during the day's search, others replaced oxygen cylinders in the sphere, along with CO2 canisters and silver cell batteries. Finally, they refilled the pellet ballast hoppers from the twenty-five-pound bags found on deck and checked and rechecked that everything was ready to go again.\n\nPreparations usually concluded around midnight, giving everyone less than six hours of sleep before the 6:00 A.M. predive check. That's when Smith suited up and stood ready to hit the water by 7:00 A.M. The Trieste then disappeared again under the waves while the support crew waited. Days and weeks went by. The Trieste occasionally spotted what looked like a debris field but never brought up any solid evidence, until they found the pipe.\n\nAfter that, over the course of many months, the Trieste located parts of the Thresher strewn across a 160,000-square-yard area. Every day, Smith watched as more pieces were salvaged, all the while painfully aware that his best friend's body lay somewhere in the debris. First they found the stern planes, followed by the fairwater planes. These appendages once looked and functioned much like wings on an airplane to move the boat up and down in the water with the grace of a dolphin. Now they were bent and twisted backward in grotesque shapes that resembled the branches of a dead tree.\n\nAs an orange-red sun sank into the sea and scattered tentacles of dying light across the wave tops, Nihil Smith stood in silence on the deck of the Preserver and thought about those final minutes. He wiped away a tear and imagined the look of shock on the faces of the Thresher's crew as a wall of water filled the boat. He pictured the submarine imploding at 2,000 feet deep and saw the terror-filled eyes of his best friend, Joe Walski, as frigid salt water filled his lungs. To this day, Smith is still haunted by that nightmare.\n\nPHOTOGRAPHS OF THE FALLEN THRESHER, ALONG with recovered parts, allowed a special court of inquiry to conclude that the submarine suffered a joint failure in the saltwater piping system. A shipyard worker connected the joint using silver brazing instead of a standard weld. The Thresher's loss prompted the SubSafe program, which dictated a higher degree of quality control for all U.S. submarines. This decreased the quantity of submarines originally planned for, but increased safety and reliability.\n\nOn the other side of the world, still stung by the Cuban Missile Crisis, Admiral Sergei Gorshkov pushed his navy in the opposite direction. The Soviets sacrificed quality for quantity, producing an average of seven nuclear and six diesel boats per year, which resulted in a spate of accidents. K-8 had a reactor coolant leak in October 1960. In July 1961, eight men died on K-19, a Hotel-class missile boat, when her reactor overheated. B-37 endured an internal torpedo explosion in January 1962, and intelligence reports indicated that the November-class K-3, the Soviet's first nuclear sub, continued to have leaks in her steam generators, along with other per sis tent reactor issues for years. Despite the problems, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara expressed constant concerns about Soviet submarine escalation and the need to accurately locate those boats.\n\nThat concern fueled McNamara's desire to insert himself into the middle of the Boresight program. He contacted Jack Kaye at the NSA and informed the commander that A22 Desk now reported directly to him. McNamara showed up at staff meetings and asked a million questions. Some liked his inquisitive, \"need to know\" manner, and some didn't. When William J. Reed first met McNamara at the White House during the Boresight briefing with President Kennedy, he leaned more toward the \"didn't like\" camp. McNamara's hard-charging style seemed confrontational, especially when the secretary questioned him to death over minute technical details about Boresight. After McNamara got involved with the Boresight program, and Reed started working with him on a more frequent basis, his opinion of the man changed.\n\nThose who knew Robert Strange McNamara sometimes said that his middle name fit like a glove. Possessing the number-crunching mind of a computer, the bull-nosed personality of General George Patton, and the diplomacy of Henry Kissinger, McNamara knew what he wanted and \"damned the torpedoes\" until he achieved his goals. One of those quests entailed the worldwide proliferation of Boresight. McNamara had witnessed firsthand the effectiveness of the system and its ability to diffuse high-seas confrontations by exposing the Soviet's undersea predators. As an insurance package, he insisted on equipping several more GRD-6 stations with Boresight technology while building more Wullenweber sites under Project Bulls Eye to improve accuracy.\n\nHaving been battle tested during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and in light of Soviet submarine advances, Boresight quickly became a hot property. McNamara propelled the program to a lofty number-two status, subordinate only to the Polaris missile program, which allowed ballistic nuclear submarines, like the USS George Washington, to lob radioactive warheads from more than 1,000 miles away.\n\nEmploying Doberman pinscher diplomacy, McNamara pressed NATO allies to allow inspections of select real estate abroad to ascertain the best locations for Wullenweber elephant cages. In addition to already operating installations at Edzell, Scotland, and Hanza, Japan, projected foreign locations included Galeta Island, Panama; Rota, Spain; and Sabana Seca, Puerto Rico. Skaggs Island, California, remained the only functional North American facility with construction planned for Adak, Alaska; Homestead, Florida (replacing the GRD-6); Imperial Beach, California; Marietta, Washington; Northwest, Virginia (also replacing the GRD-6); Wahiawa, Hawaii; Winter Harbor, Maine; and the Pacific island of Guam.\n\nLocations were not picked at random. The geometry involved in optimizing direction finding required math degrees to calculate prime locations. These equations also dictated that, ideally, stations should be spaced 120 degrees apart\u2014or about one-third of a compass circle away from one another. This spacing allowed for more accurate bearing hits on targets.\n\nNot all of the \"Fred Ten\" Wullenweber arrays built by the navy were used for HFDF operations, but most were. The Air Force built similar Wullenweber \"Flare Nine\" antennas at other locations, including Karam\u00fcrsel, Turkey, but none were intended for HFDF use. Navy personnel borrowed some of these arrays for Boresight operations where those locations were suitable, or where signal intelligence requirements, such as transmitter fingerprinting, could best be met.\n\nFor Reed and the A22 team at NSA, the remainder of 1962 and most of 1963 entailed Boresight system refinement and expansion. Although McNamara pushed for rapid deployment, he did so with an eye toward efficiency and economy. Still, for the most part, Boresight equipment requisitions could override virtually any other project save Polaris. Backups to backups were ordered and installed. Contractors and subcontractors, such as Sanders Associates and ITT Federal Systems, had near-blank checks. Components used had to be properly interfaced with one another and with existing equipment. Incompatibilities, glitches, and kinks had to be ironed out in time for McNamara's QA inspections. As was his modus operandi, McNamara frequently microman-aged many of the processes until he was satisfied that his subordinates could live up to his idea of perfection. Some found this annoying, but Reed wished that every public servant kept such a close eye on efficiency and accountability. He felt that America's national debt wouldn't be so high if that were the case.\n\nA Northern California native and son of a shoe sales manager, Robert McNamara graduated from UC Berkeley in 1937 and earned an MBA from Harvard two years later. He gained his hard-nosed accounting skills by working at Price Water house in San Francisco until late 1940, whereupon he returned to Harvard to work as an assistant professor. He served as a captain in the Army Air Force during World War II, then joined Ford Motor Company, where he earned the title of \"whiz kid\" by helping implement modern management control systems. Hard work and brilliance earned him the presidency of Ford in November 1960, which proved short-lived after President Kennedy recruited him as secretary of defense in 1961.\n\nMore than two years later, in the fall of 1963, after Reed received a promotion to lieutenant junior grade (LTJG) and became the primary technical liaison for the A22 Desk at NSA, McNamara requested a meeting at his office in the Pentagon. They spent hours peering through magnifying glasses at potential map locations for Boresight stations.\n\nHalfway through the meeting, McNamara leaned over Reed's shoulder, pointed a long finger at the toe of Italy on the map, and said, \"There. Build one there.\"\n\nAlthough the location looked quite suitable from a geometric standpoint, Reed said, \"Mr. Secretary, I don't believe there's a decent way to get to and from that location. That's all nearly inaccessible mountain country.\"\n\nMcNamara waved a dismissive hand. \"Planes, trains, buses, or horses. There's always a way in or out. Go take a look and report back.\"\n\nReed laughed. McNamara did not. Reed's face turned serious. He cleared his throat and said, \"Yes, sir, Mr. Secretary. I'll get right on that.\"\n\nWeeks later, after traversing political land mines with the Italian government, Reed rented a burro and a guide and rode for two days across the worst terrain ever constructed by God. He returned from the trip with a sore ass, a grumpy demeanor, and a no-go report for McNamara. Getting supplies and construction materials in and out of that location would be impossible at worst and a nightmare at best. McNamara finally conceded and handed Reed a bottle of aspirin. Reed figured that was about as close to an apology as he'd ever get.\n\nEngineers at the Naval Research Laboratory made their own contributions to the Boresight and Bulls Eye programs via a new digital computer with a multiprocessor and magnetic core memory called the AN\/GYK-3. Originally used in the NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) early warning project, the GYK represented the edge of the edge in computing technology. NRL contracted with Burroughs Corporation in 1961 to develop a prototype that turned out to be every bit as impressive as touted by the designers. Burroughs delivered the computer in 1962, which offered the ability to better track moving targets as compared to other systems that were more suitable for managing production inventories.\n\nJudged by today's standards, the computer boasted primitive computing power, capable of handling no more than 625 bytes and around one hundred records per minute. Outputs were sent to CRT displays and high-speed printers. Today we take for granted that our mobile phones can manage millions of bytes of data and breeze through thousands of tasks in a second. Back then such staggering numbers were considered science fiction. These early-generation processors could, however, work on up to twenty tasks at the same time. Despite being slower than a geriatric snail, the GYK's multitasking capabilities created beaming grins on the faces of design engineers.\n\nBased on recommendations he'd received from the engineers at Sanders Associates, Reed contacted Bruce Wald and others at NRL to discuss how they might use the GYK computer for Boresight. A computer could help automate the previously manual and tedious task of plotting fixes to targets by pulling strings of yarn across a compass rose. With the GYK computer, that process could be completed faster and with far greater accuracy. Later that year, the Wullenweber Bulls Eye and GYK computer-infused Boresight projects eventually blended into a single program called Clarinet Bulls Eye, which later changed to Classic Bulls Eye to conform to standard naming conventions.\n\nWith the Cuban Missile Crisis now over, and with the leaves of autumn turning fields of green into swirls of auburn and gold, Reed at first thought he might be able to find time to relax with his family in their two-story Mary land home. But across the ocean, a smitten enemy escalated plans to leapfrog their adversaries by building an arsenal of underwater weapons that could plummet the world back into the Dark Ages. That fact eventually led Reed to the pinnacle of his career, followed by an end that no one expected, least of all him.\n\nTHE BEGINNING OF THAT END STARTED when Captain Kaye, at McNamara's bidding, promoted Reed to one of the most prestigious positions in A22: head of field operations. In short, he became NSA's head Boresight\/Bulls Eye troubleshooter. The job entailed not only frequent trips to all stations in the Atlantic and Pacific, but also additional travel to such locations at Cheltenham, England, for meetings with the heads of NATO intelligence departments and with various international R&D laboratories. Reed admitted years later that pride and a strong sense of duty prevented him from admitting the truth to his boss\u2014that such an assignment required three people, not one. The responsibility and relentless travel eventually took its toll, but in the meantime, Reed carried a pocketful of government \"paper money\" travel vouchers. He also carried a gun.\n\nAny information about Boresight technology, from concept to equipment to operational procedures, received top-secret \"eyes only\" classifications. Sending documents, training materials, or tapes with burst signal examples by mail was out of the question. Top-secret codebooks, plans, instruction manuals, operating guidelines, and protocols needed to be hand-delivered by armed courier to dozens of HFDF stations worldwide. Carrying a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist, Reed and others like him traveled the globe with nervous fingers touching the trigger of concealed weapons. Every shadow hid a potential KGB agent, and every friendly smile seemed dubious.\n\nWearing civilian clothes, unencumbered by his rank as compared to others more senior, accepted into the intelligence community alongside CIA spies and NSA operatives, Reed flew to Norway to assist with Bore-sight installation and training for an antenna system located in Vads\u00f8. He departed for London, thence to Norway in late November 1963. When he arrived in Oslo, several Norwegian intelligence officials met him at the airport. On the way to his hotel, they discussed the strategic importance of having direction-finding systems at this station, given that, if someone threw a rock about a hundred miles from Vads\u00f8, they'd hit Murmansk, one of the Soviet Union's most important and widely used submarine naval bases.\n\nThe navy's main concern centered around the older Golf-and Hotel-class ballistic missile boats, and the new Echo I, Echo II, and Juliet guided missile submarines, not to mention the nuclear-powered November-class subs. While SOSUS still had a chance of finding the Golf, Hotel, and Juliet diesel subs when they snorkeled, Echos and Novembers sported nuclear reactors and sound levels just above the \"quiet sub\" classification of less than 150 dB. That decibel level actually rivaled the USS George Washington: not exactly quiet, but not real easy to find with current sonar systems. Moreover, the Echo II could now carry newer Shaddock SS-N-3 antiship cruise missiles with ranges of up to 245 nautical miles.\n\nThe November-class actually trumped the USS Nautilus and Seawolf on the capability front, and to prove the point, the Soviets sent the Leninsky Komsomol to the North Pole. She arrived in September 1963. With the sting of the Cuban Missile Crisis not yet dissipated, all these Soviet submarine advancements kept the U.S Navy awake at night. Finding and tracking these boats, especially the Hotels, Echos, and Novembers, referred to as the \"HENs\" by NATO, remained paramount and prompted Reed's visit to Norway.\n\nStarving and tired, Reed arrived at his hotel in the evening, showered, shaved, and found the restaurant downstairs. There he met a collection of drunken Norwegian army officers who'd just survived a secret ski-troop exercise. Since a broad patch of Norway's border carved a line down Russia's left flank, Reed figured the \"exercise\" probably took place near Hesseng or Kirkenes. While the soldiers hooted and howled in a language Reed had learned only sparsely, a waitress appeared. Through Reed's partial Norwegian and her broken English, he managed to order a steak. Thirty minutes later, his food had yet to appear, and a sudden hush fell over the room. The Norwegian soldiers stopped laughing and yelling. Their voices descended to whispers, and their faces registered shock and concern. Other patrons stopped eating. Their looks and tones mirrored the army officers. Confused, Reed flagged his waitress.\n\nTears streamed down the girl's face as she approached Reed's table. In her broken English she said, \"They shoot him.\"\n\n\"Shoot who?\" Reed said.\n\nHaving overheard Reed speaking English, an American couple darted over from another table. A rotund man, clutching his wife's hand, said, \"I speak a little Norwegian. Have you heard the news?\"\n\n\"What news?\" Reed said.\n\nThe man looked at his wife. His eyes misted. She started sobbing. He held her in his arms and said something unintelligible. As Reed watched them, others in the room started crying.\n\n\"What's going on?\" Reed asked the man. \"Why is everyone so sad?\"\n\nThe man wiped his cheeks and said, \"President Kennedy's been shot. He died a few minutes ago.\"\n\nReed's stomach knotted, and his hunger vanished. A million questions ran through his mind. Had the Soviets finally retaliated in response to the crisis? Was the United States now at war with Russia? Were Joyce and the kids in danger? He had no answers and would not until morning, when he could contact the U.S. embassy. For now, he could think of only one appropriate thing to do. He grabbed a glass and walked over to the table occupied by the Norwegian army officers. He held up his empty glass, and one of the soldiers poured from a bottle. When Reed held his glass high, the officers stood from their table and did likewise. No words were spoken as the half-dozen military men offered a toast to a fallen hero.\n\nREED RETURNED TO THE STATES AFTER helping the station in Norway optimize their Boresight systems. The following year, on July 5, 1964, carrying a concealed Webley revolver, he left JFK Airport bound for London. He couldn't recall the last time he'd actually fired his pistol at the range. Making time to do that hadn't been a priority. He'd never been shot at and figured the odds of that were just about nil\u2014that is, until he got a call from the CIA, who cordially compelled him to report to Greece on the double.\n\nWhen he arrived in Athens, a CIA operative met him at the airport and said he needed Reed for a sensitive mission. He said his name was Fred. No last name was given. When Reed inquired as to the nature of the operation, Fred said that the NSA was concerned that Soviet spies might have obtained several Boresight technical documents. Once the word spies fell into the sentence, the CIA took jurisdiction. As such, the mission entailed validating that Soviet or Soviet-friendly contacts had indeed absconded with top-secret documents, and if so, their orders were to prosecute the said suspects with appropriate action. When Reed asked for the definition of \"appropriate action,\" Fred shrugged and said, \"Dunno. We usually make that shit up on the fly.\"\n\nReed shook his head and slouched into the seat of the Mercedes. Fred pulled away from the curb at the airport and sped into downtown Athens. Night blanketed the city, and shimmering lights accented the city's marbled works of beauty. The Mercedes had that new car smell, overpowered now and then by Fred's aftershave.\n\n\"Why me?\" Reed asked.\n\n\"We need your technical knowledge,\" Fred said.\n\n\"My technical knowledge? What, to catch a spy?\"\n\n\"No,\" Fred said. \"To validate that said contacts have obtained said documents.\"\n\n\"But if said contacts have indeed pilfered said documents,\" Reed said, \"then who's to say that said contacts haven't already said something to someone or photographed said documents and have, say, already delivered the information?\"\n\n\"Not my problem,\" Fred said. \"I've been ordered to retrieve said documents from said contacts, have you validate their validity, and take appropriate action.\"\n\n\"Which appropriate action you'll be making up on the fly.\"\n\n\"Precisely,\" Fred said as he careened around a corner. Reed held onto the door handle and wondered if he'd live long enough to meet said contacts or examine the documents.\n\n\"Do we know where said contacts are located?\" Reed asked.\n\n\"Yes.\" Fred said.\n\n\"Are you going to tell me?\"\n\n\"They're in a Greek village some distance from here.\"\n\n\"Does this village have a name?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"You don't say.\"\n\n\"No, I don't say.\"\n\n\"Fine,\" Reed said. \"Enough said.\"\n\nThe CIA put Reed up in a local hotel for the night, and the next morning, Fred poured him into a black van and sped toward the Greek village. Nothing was said.\n\nWhen they arrived, another operative named Bob, who'd arrived earlier in the Mercedes, took charge. He said they were waiting for the Greek authorities, as they were under orders to cooperate with the locals. Once the police officers arrived, his orders were to observe the unsubs, verify that they fit the description of said suspects, then take appropriate action. Like Fred, Bob did not define \"appropriate action.\" Bob told Reed to stay in the Mercedes, and Reed offered no argument.\n\nThirty minutes later, a truck full of badge-brandishing, rifle-toting, macho Greeks rolled in. They stormed out of the truck, took up cover positions, and pointed guns. The tallest one approached Bob. The two spoke while pointing at a gin-joint restaurant a half-mile away. It was a dusty town with a scattering of cars, a few peasants milling about, and some thin dogs and chickens here and there. A stench hung in the air that reminded Reed of an Oklahoma barn.\n\nWhen the conversation between the head guys ended, the wait began. An hour went by, then another. Nothing happened. Starving, Reed wondered how long the operation might last. A dark Volvo pulled in front of the restaurant. A half-dozen men slammed car doors and walked inside. The Greek cops raised their heads and ears. Reed noticed fingers twitching. While Bob peered through a pair of binoculars, the head Greek guy waved a hand in the air. His team of six ran screaming toward the restaurant with guns blazing. Bob and Fred dropped jaws, looked at each other, and went running after them, yelling at Reed to stay put in the Mercedes. Again, Reed offered no rebuttal.\n\nThe bad guys in the gin-joint restaurant started firing back through the windows as the Greeks approached. Reed grabbed a pair of binoculars from the front seat and pointed them through the window of the Mercedes. Two of the Greeks dropped onto the cracked road in pools of blood. Not believing his eyes, Reed watched one of the Greeks throw something through the restaurant window. If that's a grenade, he thought, there won't be any documents left to validate. The projectile spewed out smoke instead of shrapnel as the Greeks knocked down the door and ran inside. Bob and Fred went in after them, albeit with a little more caution. Binoculars glued to his eyes, Reed heard muffled gunshots and saw bright flashes through the windows. Then silence.\n\nLong minutes passed. Reed scanned back and forth between the windows and the door. Nothing but smoke. No movement of any kind. Then a hand. Bob's hand. He stepped through the door and signaled for Reed to come over. With trepidation, Reed stepped from the car and walked the half-mile to the restaurant. A wave of nausea hit as he went past the fallen Greeks, eyes open and flies dancing about the blood. He stepped through the door of the restaurant, and his knees buckled. A half-dozen more bullet-torn bodies lay soaked in crimson. Smoke billowed around the room. Bob motioned Reed to a table. He opened a worn leather satchel and removed a few dozen pieces of paper, then handed them to Reed and asked him to validate the documents as Boresight-related or not. Reed examined the stack. He read each page, then reread them to be sure he hadn't missed anything.\n\n\"Well?\" Bob asked.\n\n\"Goniometer,\" Reed said.\n\n\"Gonorrhea?\" Bob repeated. Fred laughed. So did one of the Greeks.\n\n\"Not quite,\" Reed said. \"These papers are technical specifications for a German goniometer\u2014the same one we use in our Wullenweber Bulls Eye sites.\"\n\n\"So said contacts did have secret documents?\" Bob asked.\n\n\"No,\" Reed said. \"The goniometer design is two decades old. We use it in our arrays, but it's not related to the Boresight equipment. In fact, it's not even classified.\"\n\n\"Said document is not even classified?\" Fred said.\n\n\"Not classified,\" Reed said.\n\n\"No shit,\" Bob said. He grabbed the stack of papers from Reed's hand, scanned his eyes across the dead bodies on the floor, and said, \"It is now.\"\n\nAFTER THE GREEK INCIDENT, SOMETHING CHANGED in Reed. The excitement and enthusiasm he once had in his work dimmed. Still, he maintained his competency and helped the Canadians enter the Boresight fold at Masset, Gander, and Newfoundland as part of the Canadian-U.S. Atlantic HFDF network. These sites were later upgraded to Wullenweber or similar arrays. By 1967, more than a dozen Wullenweber elephant cages were built or under construction around the world, and the navy enjoyed a continuous stream of tip-offs, flashes, and fixes on Soviet submarines. As for Reed, he decided to leave the program and take a less stressful post in San Diego.\n\nReflecting on this decision years later, he said that had he stayed in the Classic Bulls Eye program, he might have made full-bird captain one day, which is rare for an up-through-the-ranks Mustang officer. On the other hand, he probably would have sacrificed his sanity and maybe even his soul to gain the world. In hindsight, he did not regret walking away from his James Bond life and was proud to have served as he did, for in doing so, he paved the way for others to take the Boresight\/Bulls Eye programs to new heights of stardom.\n\n## CHAPTER TWELVE\n\nIf you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.\n\n\u2014KAHLIL GIBRAN\n\nON DECEMBER 29, 1964, THE U.S. Navy made a huge blunder by granting Petty Officer John Anthony Walker a top-secret security clearance. While his background appeared clean, a more thorough psychological screening may have revealed cracks in Walker's armor. Nevertheless, the navy welcomed him as an R-Brancher and opened the proverbial intelligence kimono. Walker now had access to the navy's most sensitive cryptographic material.\n\nBy April 1967, the navy assigned Walker to the Naval Communications Area Master Station in Norfolk, Virginia, a drab, windowless, two-story building off Terminal Boulevard. At first glance, no passersby would suspect that inside the facility, operators sent and received thousands of encoded messages every day to and from ships and submarines operating in the Atlantic. Walker's responsibilities as a watch officer in the message center included handling classified communications with U.S. submarines, specifically reading and dispatching top-secret traffic bouncing between the message center and on-station subs.\n\nSophisticated cryptographic machines and Teletypes lined the walls of a small room in the message center, a few feet away from Walker's desk. The machines clicked and hummed twenty-four hours a day as messages were scrambled and unscrambled, traveling ship to shore and shore to ship. The navy code-named its crypto system Orestes, which employed a device called the KW-7, an online, send\/receive message encryption unit installed in shore stations and aboard ships and submarines. To send messages over a secure UHF Teletype circuit, a model 28 Teletype forwarded the prepared message to the KW-7. The unit keyed a UHF transmitter to send out the message. Given its wide use, the navy viewed the KW-7 as one of its most critical encryption devices, used for more than eighty percent of the messages sent and received by the entire U.S. fleet, and of utmost importance to submarine operations.\n\nThe KW-7 came in a small gray box with a panel covering three-fourths of the upper surface area bordered by a set of switches, dials, and lights across a black panel on the lower section. Original versions used wire cords to set the daily encryption key. A newer version came with a small square bulge on the gray cover panel to make room for rows of plugblock modules underneath. Various combinations of the plugblocks allowed for encryption key changes. R-Branchers had to set up the plugboard manually, which everyone hated. Daily keylists were provided to R-Branchers, who in turn changed plugs or block modules to alter the encryption. As such, keylists were considered more than just top secret; they were literally the keys to the hen house.\n\nIn December 1967, when John Walker began stealing keylists for the KW-7 and delivering them to the Soviets, he harbored no concerns that this action might result in the deaths of ninety-eight submariners within three months, and another ninety-nine submariners three months after that. Walker suppressed any guilt he might have felt by assuring himself that as valuable as the keylists might be, the documents he stole were only half of the puzzle needed by his Soviet handlers. Without an actual working KW-7 device, the keylists offered little value. Walker didn't account for Soviet cunning and skill, and therefore never imagined that America's largest adversary would obtain a working KW-7 device less than a month later.\n\nOn January, 11 1968, the spy ship USS Pueblo (AGER-2) sailed out of Sasebo, Japan, with orders to monitor Soviet naval activity around the Tsushima Strait. Their SIGINT mission entailed using Russian-speaking I-Branchers listening via ESM masts to gather intelligence from North Korean ship and shore platforms. For weeks prior to their departure, intercept operators at the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service picked up threats coming from North Korea warning U.S. \"espionage boats\" to stay out of their territorial waters or suffer severe consequences. These transmission reports were never forwarded to the NSA.\n\nWhile the Pueblo sat off the coast of North Korea in early January, not more than a whisper outside the international twelve-mile limit, the CIA intercepted more transmitted warnings, some pointed directly at the USS Pueblo. Again, the NSA was not informed, and the Pueblo remained on station, her deck coated with ice and her crew shivering in the bitter cold. In the distance, North Korean mountains, their black slopes covered with white, jutted toward a bleak sky. Inside the spy ship's thin metal bulkheads, a team of twenty-eight spooks rotated shifts in the tight SIGINT space. Racks of equipment hummed and blinked, including a KW-7 encryption device, typewriters, Teletypes, a WLR-1 intercept receiver, and 600 pounds of top-secret documents.\n\nAlthough the Pueblo carried twenty-two weighted bags to toss these documents over the side, a small incinerator to turn them to ash, and two paper shredders to grind them into oblivion, the combination was not capable of destroying more than a small percentage of the secret material in the event of an emergency. As for the destruction of sensitive equipment, the ship carried no explosives\u2014only sledgehammers and axes, which were no match for hundreds of pounds of steel-encased crypto gear. No U.S. destroyers patrolled nearby. No aircraft carriers and no submarines stood at the ready. No jet fighters sat fueled on runways in the event of an incident with the North Koreans. The NSA and the navy sent the Pueblo into the den of the lion alone, adorned with nothing more than a small knife and a loincloth.\n\nOn January 21, the lion stirred. A Soviet-made SO-I-class submarine chaser came within two miles of the U.S. ship. The following day, two Lenta-class DPRK fishing trawlers cruised within twenty-five yards\u2014close enough for Pueblo's sailors to stare into the eyes of the trawlers' crews. Commander Lloyd Bucher broke radio silence and tried to send a situation report, but the signal did not go through.\n\nThe next morning, on January 23, the North Korean island of Ung-do hid behind a dense mist some sixteen miles away. Inside the Pueblo's SIGINT area, an R-Brancher jolted to attention as he detected radar signals coming from two North Korean SO-1-class subchasers, one of them using the call sign SC-35. On the bridge, Bucher scanned the horizon with binoculars. His eyes widened as the subchaser SC-35 shot out of the mist and raced toward the Pueblo. The small gunboat, brandishing a 3-inch cannon and two 57 mm guns, pulled close and demanded that the Pueblo announce her nationality. Commander Bucher told his crew to raise the American flag and hydrographic signal\u2014the ship's cover as a research vessel.\n\nThe subchaser closed further, pointed her guns, and ordered the Pueblo to surrender. Bucher had no intention of handing over his ship, so he went to all ahead two-thirds and attempted to run. Pueblo's speed paled in comparison to the subchaser's, and to make matters worse, three North Korean torpedo boats joined the chase. SC-35 made a third swing around the Pueblo and hoisted the signal, \"Heave to or we will open fire.\"\n\nNow four miles outside North Korean waters, Bucher tried to maneuver away until two MIG-21 fighter planes roared overhead and yet another torpedo boat and subchaser entered the fray. He contemplated putting up a fight, but Pueblo's ammunition had been stored below decks, and the machine guns were covered in cold-weather tarpaulins. Bucher knew he had to raise his arms in surrender, but not until his crew could destroy the cryptographic equipment on board. He gave the order to do so and asked his engineering officer, Gene Lacy, if they had time to scuttle the ship. Lacy shook his head no. Even flooding the Pueblo would take forty-five minutes, and if the North Koreans shot holes in the life rafts, the crew would die within minutes in the freezing ocean.\n\nBucher continued evasive maneuvers for another two hours to buy time while the crew tried to shred documents and smash the crypto gear into unusable pieces. Given the volume of sensitive material on board, and the hardened steel cases used to house the cryptographic systems, the crew failed to destroy much before the North Koreans sent 57 mm cannon shells toward the Pueblo and opened fire with machine guns. Most of the rounds missed, but a few landed, slicing Bucher's ankle and buttocks.\n\nCommunications Technician Don Bailey had been frantically typing away on the KW-7 unit for more than an hour, sending and receiving messages to and from Japan. R-Branchers in Kami Seya implored Bailey to destroy the cryptographic equipment, but the sledgehammers and axes proved in effective. Kami Seya promised air cover, but no U.S. planes were within range, save a squadron of seventy-eight fighters in Japan, which were forbidden from flying combat missions due to international agreements. The South Koreans requested permission to save the Pueblo with their 210 armed jets, but General Charles H. Bonesteel refused, citing a potential unwarranted escalation. A dozen F-105s were finally given authorization to fly from a nonregulated location in Japan. They requested clearance to sink the North Korean ships and then refuel in South Korea, but they received the opposite instructions, making their arrival in time impossible. When someone shook President Lyndon Johnson awake that morning to brief him on the incident, the North Koreans had already bagged their prize.\n\nAs ordered, Bucher followed the North Korean vessels until the Pueblo neared the coast of North Korea. Around 2:00 P.M. he ordered all stop to check on the destruction of the papers and equipment in the SIGINT area. SC-35 closed to less than a mile and opened fire. More than 2,000 rounds ripped through the Pueblo's thin steel and slammed into the wardroom, laundry room, and passageways. Near Bucher's stateroom, Fireman Duane Hodges slumped to the deck as a projectile tore off most of his leg and sliced open his gut. Blood spilled from his intestines and coated the deck in red. I-Brancher Marine Sergeant Robert Chicca watched in horror as blood oozed from his thigh, and Radioman Charles Crandal screamed in pain as hot metal shards impaled his leg. Fireman Steve Woelk reeled backward as sharp pieces of shrapnel burned into his groin and chest.\n\nOn the bridge, Bucher immediately ordered full ahead to appease the North Koreans and get them to stop firing. He gave the conn to Lacy and ran down to the SIGINT area. On the way he saw the mangled body of Duane Hodges in the blood-soaked passageway. In the SIGINT space, spooks were still trying to cram secret papers into mattress covers and pound crypto equipment into oblivion. Neither effort was going well. Most of the sensitive material, including top-secret code lists, along with the KW-7 and other crypto gear, remained intact.\n\nOut of options and fearing for the safety of his crew, Commander Bucher did the unthinkable. For the second time in history, and not since Commodore James Barron turned over the USS Chesapeake to the Brits in 1807, he allowed a foreign power to seize control of a U.S. Navy ship during peacetime. Once in port, Pueblo's crew members were blindfolded, kicked, beaten, spat on, and marched off the Pueblo at bayonet point. A team of North Koreans hurried aboard and grinned at the sight of a fully operational, undamaged KW-7.\n\nThe North Koreans motored the Pueblo to Wonsan, while her former crew were tortured, starved, and held captive in a POW camp. During his captivity, Commander Bucher faced a mock firing squad, enacted to force a confession. He did not relent until the North Koreans threatened to execute his crew. Given that none of the Koreans spoke enough English to write Bucher's confession, they had him pen the document himself. As a tongue-in-cheek retribution for killing one of his crewmen, Bucher wrote the words: \"We paean the North Korean state. We paean their great leader Kim Il-Sung.\" The North Koreans never caught on.\n\nWhile the Pueblo's crew endured horrendous conditions and unthinkable cruelty, the North Koreans made a deal with the devil. They turned over the captured KW-7 to their Soviet comrades in exchange for money, weapons, perhaps even a few cases of Stolichnaya. That same month, John Walker's current Soviet handler\u2014the vodka-drinking, chain-smoking General Boris A. Solomatin\u2014convinced him to steal a KW-7 operating manual in exchange for a big bonus. Walker gladly complied.\n\nOver the next two months, Soviet communications experts used the manual, their cache of stolen keylists, and the operational KW-7 to gain access to the U.S. Navy's most sensitive communications traffic. Overnight, almost every message sent between American shore facilities to ships and submarines of the fleet became an open book. General Solomatin, the Soviet's KGB chief in Washington at the time, commented many years later that \"Walker showed us monthly keylists for one of your military cipher machines. [He] enabled your enemies to read your most sensitive military secrets. We knew everything.\"\n\nOleg Kalugin, former KGB chief at the Soviet embassy in Washington and John Walker's first handler, validated Solomatin's comments after the Cold War. In an unaired CBS interview, he stated that \"John Walker's information, on top of Pueblo, definitely provided the Soviets with the final solutions to what ever technical problems they may have had at the time.... We certainly made use of the equipment from the Pueblo.\" Kalugin also confessed in his memoirs that before March 1968, the Soviets were intercepting and deciphering encrypted navy messages as a result of the Walker\u2013Pueblo intelligence windfall. This fact played a pivotal role in the downing of two submarines\u2014one Soviet and one American\u2014and brought the world once again to the brink of war.\n\nAlthough the NSA knew that the North Koreans captured the Pueblo, they were not able to communicate with her crew during their eleven-month imprisonment. As a result, the NSA assumed incorrectly that Pueblo's crew destroyed the KW-7 prior to the ship's capture. Worst case, they thought, even if the KW-7 remained intact, and the North Koreans turned the device over to the Soviets, without the daily keylists, the encryption unit had the usefulness of a boat anchor. Of course, the NSA did not know that John Walker had been delivering the Soviets keylists for months, and had also given them an operations manual.\n\nCautious voices at the NSA called for a replacement of the KW-7, just to be safe, but budget-minded objectors overruled. Replacing that many units in the field would be far too costly, and besides, did we mention that the Soviets need the keylists to decipher our messages? A series of charged incidents followed the Walker-Pueblo debacles, beginning with the deployment of a Soviet Golf II ballistic missile submarine in early 1968. K-129, a Project 629A diesel-powered boat with pendant number 722, joined five similar vessels of the Fifteenth Submarine Squadron based at Rybachiy Naval Base on the Kamchatka Peninsula. The Golf IIs represented the Twenty-ninth Ballistic Missile Division at Rybachiy, under the command of Admiral Viktor A. Dygalo.\n\nK-129's skipper, Captain First Rank Vladimir Kobzar, had just completed two back-to-back seventy-day combat patrols in 1967 and was looking forward to some R&R. He held back his anger when new orders demanded that K-129 undertake yet a third patrol. While preparing for that patrol, eleven \"strangers\" walked across the gangplank and descended through the hatch. To this day, aside from a few Soviets in command at the time, no one knows who these strangers were or why they were on board.\n\nOn February 24, 1968, powered by three diesel engines, K-129 twisted away from the pier. Veiled by darkness, the boat did not use running lights. Captain Kobzar stood on the bridge, bundled in a furlined ushanka, and watched waves crash into the bow of his submarine. Distant lightning flashed and mingled jolts of white with threads of morning indigo on the horizon. K-129 shuddered as Northern Pacific waves pounded her sides. Kobzar captured his final memories of daylight, cleared the bridge, and dove his boat under the roiling waves.\n\nArmed with three SS-N-4 Sark submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), each fitted with a one-megaton warhead, K-129 conducted a deep-dive fitness test with ventilation valves closed and ballast tanks sealed. The submarine leveled off at a depth of 200 feet and assumed her patrol course\u2014due east to clear the shoreline shallows.\n\nFifteen miles outside the bay, Kobzar brought K-129 to periscope depth to transmit the first of a series of mandatory mission reports to the naval main staff at fleet headquarters in Vladivostok. Confident that any listening Americans could not decipher their codes, Radio Officer Senior Lieutenant Alexander Zarnakov sent a millisecond burst signal on the SBD radio reporting that K-129 had entered deep waters to start her mission. Miles away, a Soviet radio dish grabbed the burst signal and pushed charged electrons down a wire into a receiver\/decoder.\n\nHundreds of miles away, at Classic Bulls Eye stations in Japan, Guam, and Alaska, R-Branchers recorded the microsecond bursts, analyzed the recordings, and sent tip-offs to Net Control in Hawaii. NC sent out a flash and later received back more bearings from other sites. Operators utilized newer GYK-3 Boresight computers to determine an approximate fix, along with other parameters to determine that they'd found a Golf II-class submarine.\n\nNC informed COMSUBPAC (Commander, Submarine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet) of their findings, who informed the commander of Submarine Squadron One in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. After noting which submarines were operating near enough to Kamchatka, the commander of Squadron One composed a flash message to the appropriate attack submarine. They encrypted and sent that message using a KW-7.\n\nWhile the Soviets had no clue that their burst transmissions were being multiangulated by U.S. Bulls Eye stations, the Americans had no idea that their encrypted communications to and from submarines were as clear and open as ordinary phone calls. The Soviets now knew that an American attack submarine had been sent to trail K-129. They probably suspected that the Americans found K-129's location via the $1.5 billion, 1,300-mile SOSUS acoustic detection system surrounding the Pacific.\n\nSix days out from port, on February 29, K-129 failed to send a routine report that she had crossed the International Date Line. While some suspect rogue activities as the cause for such a breach, Soviet radiomen concur that if a boat's CO knows the enemy may be nearby, he'll forgo a radio transmission\u2014this is especially true for ballistic missile submarines with primary missions to stay hidden. K-129's captain likely knew that an American submarine was operating in the area, in that the naval main staff intercepted the American submarine's position report via the stolen KW-7. Armed with that knowledge, K-129 would have gone deep, snuck under a sound layer, and slipped silently away in another direction. Reports show that K-129 also left her normal mission area on that date.\n\nOne could again argue that K-129 went outside her assigned box because someone on board intended to go rogue. Given that the officers on K-129 had families and loved ones in Russia, this scenario seems unlikely. SOSUS stations reported that once K-129 switched to batteries or ventured too far from hydrophone locations, tracking her became difficult, if not impossible. Could it be that the Soviets knew this fact, having gained that information via intercepted KW-7 transmissions, and ordered K-129 to go outside her box to test SOSUS detection capabilities and range limitations?\n\nOver a twelve-day period, K-129 failed to transmit position reports twice. While this may lead some to believe rogue sailors were the cause, such a conclusion again seems suspect. The fact that K-129 transmitted as prescribed on other days and then skipped a few days is probably related more to evasion than mutiny. Had Captain Kobzar received a warning that a U.S. sub was closing the gap, he would have avoided the risk of coming shallow to transmit, instead remaining below a thermal layer to hide.\n\nThe most reasonable scenario has the Swordfish or another American boat stalking K-129 as directed by Bulls Eye and SOSUS fixes, then K-129 receiving KW-7 intercepted warnings from the naval main staff and avoiding the U.S. submarine like the plague. This game of cat and mouse ensued until K-129's life came to an abrupt end.\n\nWhat happened to the Soviet Golf II on March 8, 1968, just fifteen days away from home and 1,560 miles from Honolulu? Several SOSUS arrays recorded \"an isolated, single sound of an explosion or implosion, a good-sized bang.\" Some speculate that, despite this submarine's ability to fire her ballistic missiles while submerged, for some unknown reason, rogue individuals risked surfacing K-129 to commence an unwarranted attack on Hawaii. While doing so, in the nick of time, the submarine suffered a casualty and sank. This conclusion is based primarily on the fact that K-129 got tapped for her mission six months early, had eleven \"strangers\" on board, missed a few radio updates, and traveled outside her assigned patrol grid.\n\nWhen one considers the Soviet's newfound ability to decipher KW-7 transmissions, perhaps these seemingly odd circumstances begin to make sense. The Soviets may have sent the noisy diesel submarine to sea six months early to test their ability to intercept KW-7 transmissions. They might have assumed that K-129 would be detected snorkeling by SOSUS, which would trigger those transmissions. As for the eleven strangers, one could conclude that these sailors were part of an OSNAZ group of signal intelligence operatives\u2014similar to \"spooks\" on U.S. submarines. They would have been tasked with observing American radio transmissions and analyzing responses, transmission frequencies, and so on. We've already explored the reasons why K-129 may have missed radio transmission times and steamed outside her grid.\n\nEven if Hawaii was not more than 500 miles beyond the range of K-129's missiles, one could argue for the rogue theory if not for the fact that forensic evidence confirms that she did indeed surface. This type of submarine did not need to surface to fire her missiles, snorkel, or go rogue; in fact, such an act makes surfacing all the more unlikely. The only reason why K-129 might come up from the deep while on patrol is because she had no choice. This might be the case if she suffered a catastrophic failure or endured an accident that damaged something badly enough that underwater repairs were not feasible, such as a collision with a U.S. submarine.\n\nGiven the advanced sonar systems available on the USS Swordfish or similar subs, had a U.S. boat been directed to the football field wherein K-129 played, the American attack boat would have eventually found its prey. Having done so, the directives for all sub skippers in 1968 pushed them into close prowling range behind their targets. But which boat received the orders to tail the Golf II?\n\nUnder the command of Captain John Rigsbee, the Swordfish had been deployed in the area on WestPac since February 3. On March 17, nine days after K-129 sank to the bottom of the ocean, the Swordfish pulled into Yokosuka, Japan, under the cover of night, seeking repairs on her conning tower, periscope, and ECM mast. Official reports attributed the damage to ice impact while conducting classified operations in the Sea of Japan on March 2. The navy told the Soviets that the Swordfish was 2,000 miles away from K-129 at the time of the incident. Most points in the Sea of Japan are over 4,000 miles away from Hawaii, but less than 1,000 miles from Yokosuka. If the Swordfish was indeed in the Sea of Japan (that is, near Vladivostok), and whacked her periscope and ECM mast there, why did she not arrive in Yokosuka until two weeks later?\n\nInstead, the Swordfish limped into the harbor at Yokosuka while a Japanese\/Soviet spy, stationed covertly on Honshu Island, observed the event. His Soviet handlers wrote the report off as routine and all but yawned. When retired admiral Ivan Amelko heard the news, his reaction was a bit more dramatic. He accused the United States of causing the demise of K-129 and killing ninety-eight men. The United States, of course, denied the accusation. Perhaps eyewitness accounts can help us clear up this mystery.\n\nIn late March 1968, excited about the prospect of another mission into dangerous waters, Communications Technician Second Class Frank Turban strutted through the door of his bunker in Kami Seya, Japan. Most of the working areas at Kami Seya were housed in underground tunnels to protect equipment and personnel from earthquakes. As a T-Brancher, his job revolved around unusual signals, and whenever one came along, his ears perked. While the Bulls Eye section at the Kami Seya Naval Security Group Activity, commanded by Captain J. W. Pearson, worried over high-frequency direction-finding tip-offs and flash reports from Net Control, Turban focused on special signals.\n\nNothing could be more special than something new and unusual transmitted from a Soviet submarine. BRD-6 ESM masts on board U.S. submarines, designed by Sanders Associates in New Hampshire, collected these signals. The BRD-6, which stands for Boat Radio Direction Finder, contained a miniature HF direction finder and burst signal receiver\/recorder, similar to the one used in Bulls Eye stations. In fact, the engineers at Sanders gained much of their initial knowledge for this design from the meeting they had with William J. Reed and his team in 1962.\n\nWhile at Kami Seya, Turban and ten other spooks received orders to report to the USS Swordfish for a top-secret SpecOp. Spooks were not official members of any submarine crew, did not claim any particular boat as home, but instead \"snuck aboard\" just prior to departure and usually stood watches behind a curtain in the radio room. They did not often mingle with the crew to ensure no secrets were told by accident. After a months-long mission, the CT team disappeared with equal stealth, such behavior conjuring the nickname \"spook\" by submariners.\n\nWhile preparing for his Swordfish adventure, Turban heard from R-Branchers involved in burst signal HFDF operations at Kami Seya that they'd gotten several Bulls Eye hits on a Golf II submarine near Hawaii before the boat went completely dark. She hadn't transmitted again since March 8. Turban thought nothing of this report at the time as he caught a flight to Hawaii to assemble with the other spooks and prepare for their upcoming mission.\n\nIn late April 1968, Turban and his team met the Swordfish in Okinawa, Japan. He noticed that the front of the submarine's sail seemed a bit shinier than the rest of the boat but passed this detail off as routine maintenance. Using a towed underwater camera inside a mini-sub called the Underdog, the Swordfish deployed near Vladivostok to prowl for lost Soviet missile parts. Tethered to the boat like one of the heads of Hydra, the Underdog's twelve-foot-long, two-ton aluminum body contained high-resolution cameras and bright battery-powered strobe lights. She also came with whiskerlike towed sonar and shark fin rudders and bow planes for maneuverability. A small propeller pushed the Underdog through the water, while the tether allowed for remote operation from the submarine.\n\nOperators sat in front of monitors and examined the ocean floor as the Underdog darted across search patterns and relayed images back to the Swordfish. While this type of mission was considered quite dangerous, as it required penetration deep into Soviet waters, Turban noticed that their skipper often ran from his own shadow. When predators came stalking, the boat's executive officer wanted to uncollar and chase the bastards. The CO refused, instead content to stay as far away from potential encounters as possible, earning him the nickname of Charlie Tuna in reference to the Chicken of the Sea television commercials. Turban found the CO's gun-shy attitude strange for an attack-boat driver but asked no questions. After all, he was not officially part of the crew, only a temporary ranch hand with an assignment to find, record, analyze, and fingerprint interesting new signals.\n\nThe Swordfish remained on station in the Sea of Japan for sixty-eight days, while Turban's team, consisting of an officer in charge (OIC) and his assistant (AOIC), two linguist I-Branchers, two R-Branchers, and another special signals T-Brancher like Turban, did their thing. There were also three R-Brancher specialists who worked with the WLR-6 ECM radio equipment. Not once did Turban hear anything from the crew about a collision on March 2, not a word about repairs in Yokosuka or damage of any kind.\n\nIn light of the above, the pink elephant question lingers. The collision on March 2 (or perhaps March 8) took out Swordfish's periscope and ECM masts, placed in her jeopardy, and lowered her mission capabilities to almost zero. If she had been in the Sea of Japan, why did the Swordfish not arrive in Yokosuka until two weeks later? On the other hand, if she indeed had been near K-129, a speed of fifteen knots allowed the Swordfish to pull into Japan on March 17 with ease.\n\nStill, let's assume that the navy's statement is true, and that the Swordfish did not collide with K-129. We know that U.S. Bulls Eye stations intercepted K-129's transmissions, and SOSUS heard her snorkeling more than once. Armed with the knowledge about K-129's whereabouts, the navy certainly would have sent a U.S. submarine to investigate. But which boat?\n\nOn January, 13 1968, Commander Hugh Benton assumed command of the Guardfish (SSN-612) in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Shortly thereafter, his boat deployed for a six-month WestPac special operations mission. The Guardfish was on station near the Sea of Japan in March 1968. The USS Barb (SSN-596) was also on station near Kamchatka, but reports indicate that she was \"surprised\" by Soviet naval activity pursuant to K-129's loss, making her a less likely candidate. Perhaps the Swordfish or the Guardfish pursued K-129, and maybe one of them came a bit too close. Until sailors on either boat are willing to talk, or the navy finally releases the classified logs, the truth won't come to light.\n\nRegardless of what really happened, given access to many of the facts we've just examined, the Soviets reached the verdict that the Swordfish rammed K-129 and caused her to die. They could not, of course, admit to the world that they suspected this because they possessed the means to intercept and decode KW-7 transmissions. Hands tied, they could do nothing more than hurl accusations. The fact that they had a fly on America's wall, and that it eventually led to the first premeditated sinking of a U.S. submarine since World War II, remained a secret.\n\nBY THE THIRD WEEK OF MARCH, Soviet naval headquarters declared K-129 missing and organized a massive air, surface, and subsurface search-and-rescue effort into the North Pacific from Kamchatka and Vladivostok. U.S. intelligence experts examined SOSUS logs and determined an approximate location for the recorded \"bang.\" The Soviets did not have the advantage of SOSUS, and so searched for K-129 in the wrong location. They finally gave up and went home, and soon after officially announced the loss of the Golf II and her crew.\n\nSix weeks later, on Friday May 15, 1968, on station in the western Mediterranean, the USS Haddo (SSN-604) received the coordinates for a nearby Soviet Echo II\u2013class nuclear submarine entering the Atlantic near the Straits of Gibraltar. The Haddo's skipper did not know that the fix came from Bulls Eye stations in the Atlantic. The Echo II's track put her on a course bound for the Canary Islands and a potential rendezvous with Soviet surface ships operating in the area. The Haddo went to work and slipped in close behind the Echo.\n\nOn May 20, Vice Admiral Arnold F. Schade, commander of the Atlantic Submarine Force, ordered the Haddo to hand off her tail of the Echo II to the USS Scorpion (SSN-589). On the Scorpion, Commander Francis Atwood Slattery picked up the trail of the enemy submarine as she made her way toward the Soviet flotilla. Photographed by U.S. satellites, the flotilla consisted of an unusual collection of vessels not normally known to operate together. The strange formation was conducting exercises in waters outside typical Soviet operational areas, in the vicinity of a U.S. nuclear test site, and lofting large balloons that housed surveillance equipment.\n\nCommander Slattery brought the Scorpion to periscope depth around midnight on May 20. Radio operators started transmitting to the naval station in Rota, Spain, that Scorpion had arrived on station, but interference prevented validation of reception. A day later, they finally connected with a navy communications station in Nea Makri, Greece, which relayed Scorpion's message to SUBLANT (Submarine Forces, Atlantic). NAVCAMS (Naval Communications Area Master Station) in Norfolk received the relay from Greece on a KW-7. The message read that Slattery estimated interception of the Soviet surface group in about six hours. Slattery did not know that Soviet ears were listening to his report.\n\nOn May 22, the Scorpion arrived on station. Several hours later, without warning, the boat shook violently as an explosion rocketed through the sub's compartments. The crew scrambled to battle stations as years of experience and training kicked into high gear. Hatches were dogged, valves shut, and switches thrown, but to no avail. In just over a minute and a half, the submarine shot toward the bottom.\n\nAt 6:59 P.M. Greenwich Mean Time, the secret listening stations in the Canary Islands, Newfoundland, and Argentina began a 190-second recording of fifteen eerie acoustic signals as they reflected from the Plato Sea Mount. The signals bounced off convergence zones and found their way to an array of hydrophones mounted on the seafloor, placed there by the Air Force to monitor Soviet nuclear tests. Spinning reels of high-speed recording tapes documented the tragic sound that overpowered the background noise of whistling biologics. The high-energy release was rich in low frequencies with no discernible harmonic structure\u2014a bubble pulsation from an underwater explosion. Operators recognized this as the frightening sound of a dying boat.\n\nIn the months following the death of the Scorpion, the theories as to her demise were many and varied. Initially, the most prevalent theory pointed to a \"hot-running\" torpedo that caused a catastrophic explosion in the torpedo room. But the experts at Ordnance Systems Command insisted that such a detonation was virtually impossible. An explosion could occur only if the torpedo hit an object while running at full speed.\n\nWhat really happened to the Scorpion? Theories and speculations abound and have been addressed ad nauseam in several books, but most concur that the evidence points to an external explosion. One smoking gun all but validated this conclusion. In 1982, at a navy SOSUS training class in Norfolk, Virginia, students observed a LOFARgram printout of a top-secret recording made in May 1968. The scrawled lines on the paper depicted a hostile encounter between two submerged contacts. After twenty minutes, a third contact appeared. This submersible was launched from one of the submarines, and the scribbles verified a high-speed screw. The targeted submarine's signature shifted in width and size, indicating evasive actions as the torpedo neared. Seconds later, the paper filled with black ink as the high-speed screws caught up with the evading submarine and ended her life.\n\nThe students were told that the recording was made during Scorpion's encounter with an Echo II submarine. Authors and experts bring additional facts to bear to substantiate this claim, but to what end? Until governments are willing to expose the truth, the official U.S. Navy position as to Scorpion's demise remains as \"cause unknown.\" If the conspiracy theorists are correct, then the lessons learned from allowing the greed of John Walker to manipulate entire nations will stay buried, and the cause-and-effect results of this act remain as a black stain on the pages of history.\n\n## CHAPTER THIRTEEN\n\nAny sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\n\n\u2014ARTHUR C. CLARKE\n\nTHE SOVIETS FINALLY GAVE UP THE search for their lost K-129 and went home in May 1968, not long after the sinking of the Scorpion. The U.S. Navy let another month go by and then called in the cavalry. Captain James F. Bradley Jr., from the Office of Undersea Warfare, had already spearheaded the creation of the perfect platform to undertake the mission of finding the missing Golf II\u2013class boat. The forty-six-year-old Bradley served as the navy's chief underwater espionage planner, often conducting meetings in a soundproof suite in the E ring of the Pentagon. Quiet, efficient, and whip smart, Bradley's official title of \"Naval Operations, Navy Department\" alluded to nothing covert. Only those close to the captain knew that he wielded the power to craft clandestine intelligence missions for all of the navy's attack submarines.\n\nUnder Bradley's orders, the nuclear submarine USS Halibut (SSGN-587), commissioned in January 1960, received a $70 million upgrade that included the mysterious Fish. Just like the Underdog tethered to the USS Swordfish, the Fish mini-subs contained deep-water cameras and sun-bright strobe lights to find interesting objects on seafloors. Halibut's two Westing house Electric\u2013built Fish cost $5 million each and resided inside a hump-shaped dome on the submarine's bow dubbed the \"bat cave.\"\n\nThe dome once housed Regulus missiles back when Halibut was a teenager and resembled a miniature torpedo room complete with metal racks to house the Fish. The first Fish suffered from a host of issues, some caused by the intense pressures placed on cameras and equipment operating at 20,000 feet deep. These problems took months to correct. With kinks finally ironed out, the refurbished Halibut, commanded by C. Edward Moore under the highest \"Brick Bat 01\" authority, used her Fish to skim ocean floors on scavenger hunts for spent Soviet toys\u2014like intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) warheads that might contain guidance systems for intelligence perusal. Bradley's program, dubbed Operation Sand Dollar, did not pan out as planned, as the boat was plagued by mechanical and computer failures. However, the concept of using the Fish to find and photograph things in dark places proved invaluable.\n\nPaul Nitze, secretary of the navy, caught wind of the debacle and blasted Bradley, Moore, and others involved in the project. Sand Dollar's failures were soon forgiven when Nitze found out about K-129 and the proposal from Bradley to use the Halibut's Fish to locate the downed submarine. The SOSUS team had provided location fixes based on the \"bang\" recordings that documented K-129's last gasps for life. Nitze approved the mission, and Captain Moore set to sea in the Halibut with do-or-die orders to locate K-129, take detailed photographs via the Fish, and place salvage markers. After months of frustration, snagged cables, and near-disasters, the Halibut's mysterious Fish delivered success, and the precise position of the Golf II submarine was no longer a mystery.\n\nArmed with Halibut's K-129 photos and location coordinates, Carl Duckett, then CIA deputy director for science and technology, spearheaded the effort to recover the Golf II submarine intact. Captain Bradley dissented, telling Duckett that \"you can't pick up the goddamn submarine, or it will fall apart.\" Bradley countered with a plan to send in mini-subs, cut open the hull, and retrieve only the tidbits desired at a fraction of the cost of full retrieval. Duckett dismissed the plan and remained determined to haul up K-129 in all her glory, claiming that inside the Golf II there should be Soviet encryption equipment\u2014including a burst radio transmitter and codebooks\u2014and three nuclear SS-N-5 SERB missiles.\n\nA detailed examination of Soviet radio, missile, submarine, and torpedo technology could be invaluable, offering the navy an opportunity to design effective countermeasures and improve ASW and Bulls Eye detection equipment. The Soviet codebooks alone might be worth the expense of the salvage\u2014almost $200 million\u2014and would allow analysts to decode hundreds of hours of burst signals and other transmissions recorded over the years at various Bulls Eye stations. Besides, Duckett insisted, he didn't want to chance leaving anything behind.\n\nCould it be that Duckett overruled Bradley's far less costly plan to ensure that no part of K-129 could be salvaged by the Soviets, especially that part that contained metal fragments from the hull of the U.S. submarine that rammed the Soviet missile boat?\n\nDissenters quieted, the project to recover the K-129 intact moved ahead. The CIA established the Special Projects Staff to oversee the program, which they code-named Azorian. Duckett tapped John Parangosky, a senior official in the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology, to run the show. A former Army Air Force lieutenant in World War II, Parangosky joined the CIA in 1948, where he put his expertise in photographic techniques and project management to use for the U-2 and A-12 spy plane programs. Parangosky recruited U.S. Naval Academy graduate and former diesel submarine officer Ernest \"Zeke\" Zellmer to run the day-to-day operations. President Nixon personally approved the creation of the Azorian task force in August 1969, and CIA director Richard Helms compartmentalized all top-secret project work under the heading of \"Jennifer.\" Only a select handful of individuals at the White House and within intelligence communities knew anything about Azorian.\n\nIn early 1970, Joseph Houston, Itek Corporation's chief optical engineer for underwater systems, had just returned from a test run aboard the USS Dace (SSN-607). Houston spearheaded the development of the new Type 18 periscope, recently mounted on the Dace for sea trials. After a week under way, he wanted to enjoy a few days off. He had joined Itek in 1964 and over the next few years compiled an impressive r\u00e9sum\u00e9 in optics that included the inventions of various testing equipment, advanced optical lenses, and high-resolution cameras, including ones used in several spy satellites under Project Corona. Within an hour after stepping onto the pier from the Dace, Houston received a summons from Itek's vice president of special programs, John Wolfe. The two met over lunch in Wolfe's office.\n\n\"Have you ever been to Mars?\" Wolfe asked as Houston found a seat.\n\n\"Mars as in the planet?\" Houston asked, wondering if this had something to do with his previous work on the camera systems for Viking 1, the first American Mars lander.\n\nWolfe gave a quick nod. \"Yeah, Mars.\"\n\n\"Not lately,\" Houston said. He knew that the broad-shouldered and bushy-headed Wolfe had a flair for the dramatic and wondered if his boss really meant Mars or was just laying the foundation for a metaphoric bombshell.\n\nWolfe examined the contents of the box lunch on his desk, brought by his secretary, and wrinkled his nose. \"I haven't either. Then again, neither has anyone from NASA.\"\n\n\"Is this about Viking 1?\"\n\nWolfe shook his head no. \"It's about solving the problem of taking detailed, high-resolution metrology photos of a hostile environment that we've never been to or seen before.\"\n\n\"I'm not sure I'm following you,\" Houston said, opening a bag of chips.\n\nWolfe said, \"We need your expertise in submarine optics and deep-ocean camera systems to help one of our government clients. They need to take thousands of pictures with no measurement distortion so we can build a virtual model for a rig that can mine manganese nodules.\"\n\n\"Mars has manganese nodules?\"\n\nWolfe waved a hand in the air as he swallowed a bite. \"No, but it might as well be Mars. We need accurate metric data to set up a drilling rig more than three miles deep in the Pacific Ocean.\"\n\nHouston lowered his sandwich. His eyelids flung open as the metaphoric bombshell landed. \"Three miles? No large body camera can withstand that kind of deep-sea pressure, let alone record high-quality metric data. And even if you could, proper lighting would be a major challenge.\"\n\n\"That's why I called you,\" Wolfe said with a smile. A small piece of bread clung to his front teeth.\n\n\"Who's the client?\" Houston asked.\n\n\"The CIA.\"\n\nHouston almost choked on a gulp of water. The CIA? That definitely conjured some curiosity. Houston knew that Frank Lindsay, Itek's chairman of the board, had met Howard Hughes during World War II, back when Lindsay was a gun-blazing, parachute-popping OSS operative. Houston heard that Hughes kept in touch with Lindsay over the years and had recently contacted him about some hush-hush CIA-sponsored project involving deep-sea mining.\n\nHouston said, \"So why is the CIA interested in mining manganese nodules off the ocean floor?\"\n\nWolfe said, \"I could tell you, but then\u2014\"\n\n\"Yeah, I know,\" Houston said, \"you'd have to send me on a permanent vacation to New Jersey. So what are the requirements for this camera and lighting system?\"\n\n\"We need to...drill an oil well 16,500 feet deep, and we need accurately measurable photographs of the area so we can ensure we're designing the equipment to the right dimensions.\"\n\n\"How large an area are we talking about?\" Houston queried.\n\nWolfe's voice dropped another few decibels. \"Three hundred fifty feet long by fifty feet wide.\"\n\nHouston almost gagged again on his water. \"What kind of wellhead has those dimensions? That sounds more like a submarine, not a wellhead.\"\n\nWolfe's face turned white. He rose from his chair and grabbed a bunch of papers off his desk. He walked over to Houston and handed him the stack. \"Read this agreement, sign it, and then we'll talk.\"\n\nProject Azorian, of course, had nothing to do with building a wellhead or mining for manganese nodules on Mars. Instead, Houston was joining a massive team, spearheaded by Howard Hughes, tasked with salvaging an entire 2,700-ton submarine sitting 16,500 feet deep in the Pacific. Houston had no doubt that this top-secret mission would go down in history as one of the most ambitious, expensive, and massive ever undertaken. He suspected that the consequences of failure were huge, but they probably paled in comparison to the backlash certain to come from the Soviets should they find out.\n\nAfter some further discussion with Wolfe regarding how the project would be organized and managed, Houston departed with visions churning in his head of a rig capable of supporting multiple cameras and lights. The enormity of the ocean area to be surveyed complicated the task by a few orders of magnitude. Also, the lighting had to be perfectly uniform, and the camera lenses needed to survive enormous pressures.\n\nTo make matters worse, Houston discovered that his project head was the mysterious John Parangosky, who insisted on being called Mr. P. to maintain his clandestine anonymity. Although Houston found Mr. P. highly intelligent, a great listener, warm with people, and \"the calmest SOB on the planet when the fit hit the shan,\" he could also be a slave driver when it came to meeting design parameters and deadlines. \"Parangosky had the demeanor of Alfred Hitchcock in the 1942 movie The Man Who Came to Dinner,\" said Houston of his former boss. \"He was a heavyset engineer with a receding hairline and a wry sense of humor. He rarely displayed emotion and could smooth out the rough edges of a meeting within fifteen minutes.\"\n\nMr. P. assembled a small team of engineers and technicians in the winter of 1969. Included in the group were Joe Houston, John Wolfe, Floyd Alvarez, Ernest Zellmer, and a dozen others. Mr. P. also leaned heavily on Alex Holser as his \"right-hand man\" to assist with project management tasks.\n\nThe team often met in a conference room at Itek's corporate headquarters in Lexington, Massachusetts. \"Itek's building had a gleaming glass 'swinging sixties' architectural feel,\" said Houston. \"The main lobby jutted out over the parking lot and you entered via a ramp that resembled a vintage airplane staircase. A smattering of Pieter Mondrian artwork covered the walls in the foyer, which resided on the second floor along with the executive offices, cafeteria, and conference room where the Azorian team met.\"\n\nOver the next year, Houston cycled in and out of dozens of team meetings where the group struggled to formulate solutions for a seemingly impossible task. No country in the world had ever succeeded in salvaging anything this large or this heavy from this deep. The Azorian team debated over four potential solutions: The \"Brute Force\" plan entailed using a Rosenberg winch to hoist the entire 2,700-ton sub up from the bottom. The \"Trade and Ballast\/Buoyancy\" concept suggested the use of buoyant material to float the boat to the surface. An \"At-Depth Generation of Buoyancy\" idea proffered employing gas at depth to \"balloon\" the K-129 upward via chemically created hydrogen or nitrogen cryonic gases. Finally, despite Duckett's previous nixing of the down-scaled plan proposed by Captain Bradley to use mini-sub robots to scalpel their way into the submarine's hull, Mr. P.'s team explored this possibility as a backup plan.\n\nIn late July 1970, the group opted for the Brute Force concept using a sling crafted from pipe-strings wrapped about the K-129 and hoisted upward via winches mounted on a yet-to-be-built 565-foot-long ship. By October of that year, an executive committee, headed by Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard and formed to scrutinize Azorian project progress and cost overruns, estimated the program's odds of success at less than ten percent. Only the promise of an intelligence bonanza saved Azorian from cancellation in August 1971, and the CIA got the green light to proceed on October 4, 1971.\n\nWith Mr. P. breathing down his neck, Houston set about solving an almost insurmountable optics and lighting problem. While others on Project Azorian were involved in building the HMB-1 barge, massive grappling claws, and winch system for hoisting K-129 from the bottom, they all relied on Houston's success. They needed to transfer real life into bits and bytes to perform analysis and create what-if scenarios. One can't control the real world of turbulence, lighting, shadows, and what ever else Mother Nature fashions. These parameters need to be manipulated in a make-believe virtual world to better understand the true nature of the environment. That required precise, clear photographs free of shadows or blur that might distort measurements and assumptions.\n\nHouston explained the difficulty of creating such a uniform background to Mr. P. by using the example of driving down a road on a foggy night. By glancing out the window, you'd notice that the street-light illumination is brightest in the center of the beam but diminishes toward the edges of the road. This phenomenon is prevalent with single-beam lights due to dust and particulates in the air that scatter the light. In water deeper than 10,000 feet, few such particulates exist, so the clear water doesn't spread out the light. More lights cover more area, but then you get shadows in the areas in between each beam. Those shadows can distort dimensions and details. Mr. P. was impressed by Houston's explanation but still tapped his watch impatiently.\n\nHouston spent long days designing a four-legged stool to hold an array of lights built by Hydro Products in Southern California, as well as a way to allow the array to hover over specific objects and light up areas eight times the size of the beams. He also designed the means to gain complete uniformity and eliminate shadows across the entire dimensions of the field. In this way, every protuberance, recess, and mechanical detail on the sunken sub could be accurately measured and transferred to blueprints and models used by the rest of the team.\n\nHouston knew that if his lighting or camera caused designers to measure one detail wrong, a $200 million project could fail. Worse, if something catastrophic happened, the Soviets might find out about Project Azorian, which could provoke an international incident. Even more concerning, a massive failure could get people hurt or killed. With the weight of the project's success resting on his shoulders, Houston delivered sample photos to Mr. P. The pictures were of a pond in Houston's backyard, taken by hanging a camera from a tree while Houston's son, Brant, positioned objects to photograph.\n\nMr. P. grabbed the photos from Houston's hand. He pulled out a magnifying glass and glared. He ran the glass across the images, wrinkled his nose, and said, \"Where'd all those catfish come from?\"\n\nHouston copped a sheep grin and shrugged. \"The pond in my backyard.\"\n\n\"Nice,\" Mr. P. said. \"Very nice.\"\n\nHouston nodded, found a seat, and let his aching shoulders slump. Thereafter the team referred to his innovative strobe-light rig as \"the catfish solution.\"\n\nThe remaining design and build phases for Project Azorian involved revolutionary concepts for underwater photography that pioneered the development of a wide-angle lens with zero distortion. This included a means of reducing the pressure on the outer lens by a factor of seven, which allowed conventional lens designs to achieve distortion-free performance. Houston published a technical paper on the topic in the Marine Technology Society's 6th Annual Conference and Exhibition in July 1970. Sometime later, Houston met Carl Duckett, the CIA's deputy director for science and technology and Mr. P.'s boss. Always smiling, fiercely patriotic, handsome, and smart, Duckett possessed an encyclopedic memory and razor-sharp wit. He often used both to fight bureaucrats when they threatened to squelch technological advancements that he believed were critical to national defense. An engineer by training, Duckett almost never thought inside the box.\n\nLike any good engineer, Duckett knew the project's HMB-1 barge\u2014designed to grapple and retrieve a downed submarine three miles deep\u2014had to undergo a series of quality assurance tests before she could resurrect K-129 from the dead. To do this, he towed the barge to a remote location off Long Beach. As a warm California sun soaked beaches and blondes in ultraviolet radiation, Duckett pulled the plug and watched the unmanned HMB-1 barge sink into a 6,000-foot-deep trench. Unbeknownst to him or others on the team, fishermen on a trawler observed the entire operation. From their distant vantage point, they swore that a ship had just sunk with all hands on board. Being good citizens, they called the Coast Guard, which sent out a cutter to investigate. Seeing no signs of a craft or survivors, the Coast Guard assumed a false alarm had been called and went home.\n\nHours later, the barge miraculously reappeared, just as ordered by Carl Duckett. Rejoicing, the fishermen called the Coast Guard and said that God had saved the sunken ship, miracles do happen, and as changed men, they had sworn off liquor and women for life, or at least the weekend. Duckett knew nothing of the affair until Mr. P. read the story in the paper the following day. When informed about the incident, Duckett smiled and quoted Arthur C. Clarke, who once said that \"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.\"\n\nArmed with new \"magical\" deep-diving cameras designed by Joe Houston, the research vessel Sea Scope steamed to the K-129 site. Sea Scope once sailed the seas as the USS Harrier (AM-366), a U.S. Navy Admirable Class Minesweeper commissioned in 1945. The Harrier received a name and designation change not long after World War II. Although reclassified as an oceanographic and research vessel, the Sea Scope came chockful of deep-sea reconnaissance toys, including sonar, ESM, underwater television and photographic equipment, and a magnetic and seabed exploration grappling system. The Sea Scope arrived over the Halibut-marked site of K-129's remains and used the deep-diving cameras and sophisticated equipment to provide a detailed map in support of the Glomar's mission.\n\nPhotos taken by Houston's camera rig revealed that K-129 remained intact, save for a ten-foot-wide hole blown in her side just aft of the conning tower\u2014probably caused by the catastrophe that sank her. Judging by the photographs, the navy estimated the Golf II accelerated to 200 knots on her way down before she collided with the bottom. She was intact but most likely quite fragile. Given that K-129 might be broken beneath her steel outer plating, bringing her up from the bottom would be a long, slow, difficult task, not too unlike those arcade games that challenge you to grab a toy with an imperfect crane and lift it out of the tank. Only in this case, the toys are 16,000 feet down in a tank of dark seawater.\n\nOn November 4, 1972, the Glomar Explorer put to sea under the guise of a mining vessel in search of manganese nodules. Forty handpicked CIA agents made up nearly one-fourth of the crew. Nine teen months later, after a battery of test runs, the Glomar headed toward Hawaii. Upon arriving at the site on July 4, 1974, using a sophisticated guidance computer and bottom-placed transducer, the Glomar team went about the delicate task of maneuvering the HMB-1 into position over K-129. Computer readouts flashed with information in the control room, while operators chewed on fingernails.\n\nIn the meantime, a Soviet SB-10 salvage tug passed within 200 feet of the Glomar Explorer. The tug's crew of forty-three flashed smiles and cameras and unnerved the CIA operatives. The SB-10 finally moved off and Glomar's crew commenced with the salvage.\n\nThe five grappling claws were attached to a length of pipe on the ship, resembling six interconnected tongs suspended from a long platform. The entire affair, nicknamed \"Clementine,\" looked like a giant squid clinging to a pipe. The pipe was fed through a hole, making its way down 16,500 feet to the Soviet sub. Glomar's crew, which consisted mostly of roughnecks who once worked on oil rigs, constructed the tether from sixty-foot-long sections of pipe they linked together like sectioned tent poles. Television cameras equipped with strobe lights monitored the progress, which took several long days to complete. Finally, Clementine reached the bottom.\n\nSeveral more days passed as the crew, using sophisticated computers, made careful calculations to allow Clementine to drape a steel net over the boat's conning tower. Slowly, they wrapped one of the claws around the sub, then another, followed by a third. Silt and sand shot out from beneath K-129 as the claws reached underneath her delicate sides. On board the Glomar, nervous fingers twitched as they gripped joysticks, typed in keyboard commands, and flipped switches. Three and a half miles down, K-129 waited patiently for her ride to the surface. More hours passed as readings were checked and double-checked. Camera images were studied and debated. Finally, convinced that they were ready to hoist, someone gave the signal to proceed with only three claws wrapped about the boat versus all five.\n\nK-129 shuddered as she rose from the ocean floor. Sections of pipe reappeared from the water as Clementine struggled to bring her prize home at six feet per minute. Workers dismantled and stowed the sixty-foot pipe sections, while cameras below the surface kept a watchful eye on the claws. One wrong miscalculation, one incorrect move at this point, could end a mission that had spanned years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Unfortunately, that miscalculation happened, and K-129 rocketed back to the seabed. Clementine's claws still gripped the hull, and the massive arms were pulled down to the bottom along with the submarine. Unbeknownst to project engineers at the time, K-129 slammed into the hard rock beneath the sand, and the impact caused hairline fractures in the grappling arms.\n\nDisappointed but not defeated, the crew tried again, this time grabbing the sub with all five claws. Nine hours later, just 3,000 feet off the bottom, a damaged grappling arm snapped and left K-129 dangling by a hope and thread. Moments later, the fragile sub crumbled like a cookie. The rear two-thirds of the submarine hull broke away and tumbled back to the seafloor. Lost were the conning tower, three missiles, and the room where the codebooks were stored.\n\nThe recovery phase of the Azorian project concluded on August 9, 1974. With the entire mission considered a failure by the CIA, the crew of the Glomar Explorer looked like a defeated football team as they returned home. Making matters worse, while still at sea, they heard about Richard Nixon's resignation on August 8. In all, the Glomar recovered only two nuclear-tipped torpedoes and the bodies of eight Soviet crewmen from K-129. They were buried at sea on September 4, 1974. At least, that's the story told by the CIA. After columnist Jack Anderson divulged classified details about Project Azorian in a Los Angeles Times radio program on March 18, 1975, rumors flew that the agency intended to return to K-129's site to bring up the pieces lost in the first attempt. The truth about what really happened remained clouded until the CIA released portions of an in-house journal written by a participant in the operation whose identity remains classified. Although the fifty-page article contains gaps of redacted text, several sections point to an altogether different outcome to Project Azorian than previously reported. On page forty-seven of the journal, an anonymous participant delivers the following account:\n\nThe Soviet tug [SB-10] left. We were going to be able to do the telltale pumpdown operation without surveillance. Our cover story had held: the Soviets had been fooled. Now we could anticipate seeing our prize without being concerned about sharing it with the owner. Everyone wanted to see the first glimpse of the target. [Redacted text.] Those of us waiting anxiously on deck received a reward of a different type. Bobbing up to the surface (luckily in the well) was a brimming full Jerry-can of torpedo juice. It had travelled over three miles to the bottom and back and been subjected to pressures of over 7,000 pounds per square inch without spilling a drop. [Redacted text.]\n\nThe Mission Director and his team viewed the scene from a balcony-like portion of the ladder, which led down to the well gates. Radiation monitors had reported readings five times background even at this distance. We knew that we were in for a nasty time. Some of the earlier excitement of the mission was returning to the exploitation party. [Redacted text.] It was going to be difficult\u2014the jumbled hulk was not going to reveal its secrets easily.\n\nA concluding paragraph in the article is also quite revealing, again alluding to full success of the mission in stating: \"Thus, the long saga of Azorian came to a conclusion as the HGE [Hughes Glomar Explorer] rested at anchor in the Hawaiian Islands, more than six years since the Soviet G-II-class submarine 722 sank in the Northwest Pacific Ocean. The efforts to locate the site of the sinking and to conceive, develop, build, and deploy the HE system [redacted text] stretched almost as long in time, beginning in mid-1968. And the success that was achieved depended, in the end, on the combined skills of a multitude of people in government and industry who together forged the capability that made it possible to proceed with such an incredible project.\"\n\nThe above statement stands in stark contrast to the dismal admission of near-failure from the CIA in 1975 after the story leaked. A declassified Memorandum of Conversation released by the CIA records a conversation between Secretary of Defense, James R. Schlesinger, and President Gerald Ford during a meeting in the Cabinet Room on March 19, 1975. They were discussing how to deal with Jack Anderson's Los Angeles Times radio story and a subsequent article about Project Azorian printed in the New York Times.\n\nSchlesinger is quoted as saying \"This episode has been a major American accomplishment. This operation is a marvel\u2014technically, and with maintaining secrecy.\"\n\nPresident Ford replied, \"I agree. Now where do we go?\"\n\nAfter Carl Duckett retired in 1974, he contacted Joe Houston, who had recently returned to Itek as the head of special programs for the Applied Technology Division in Sunnyvale, California. Duckett wondered if ATD might need his services in some capacity. Houston immediately called his boss and convinced him to bring Duckett on board as a consultant. Houston and Duckett worked together for another decade and over those years became close friends.\n\nDuckett never confirmed or denied reports that the CIA story about Project Azorian's failure was a smokescreen to hide the truth. Houston heard through others involved in the project that the salvage operation was hampered by nuclear contamination on some of the recovered objects, which included sixty bodies versus only eight, and a few of the nuclear missiles. In fact, Houston heard that several people, while handling those missiles, were burned by radiation and had to \"shower off for an hour\" in the decontamination area.\n\nOver a few beers at Houston's house, he asked Duckett if the rumors might be true, that the Glomar brought back much more of K-129's remains than previously reported. Duckett's eyes twinkled, and he said, \"You know, I was really upset when the CIA said they wanted to return to the K-129 site for a second attempt. That made it sound like we didn't do our jobs and get what we came for the first time around.\"\n\n## CHAPTER FOURTEEN\n\nNever was anything great achieved without danger.\n\n\u2014NICCOL\u00d2 MACHIAVELLI\n\nMANY OF THE DETAILS SURROUNDING PROJECT Azorian became public knowledge after the press leaked the story in 1974. A full year before the Glomar Explorer set off on her mission to bring up K-129, Captain James Bradley had another brilliant idea. He figured if the Halibut's Fish could locate K-129 on the bottom of the ocean 18,000 feet deep, certainly she could locate a Soviet communications cable in the Sea of Okhotsk at a depth of only 400 feet.\n\nThe Soviets likely had no qualms about sending unencoded top-secret messages through their Ministry of Communications cable, given the impossibility\u2014in their estimation\u2014that anyone could tap the signals. But the cable, running between Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk naval bases, could be tapped with a sophisticated recording device to gain access to the Soviet Union's private military conversations. Bradley envisioned a recording apparatus designed to capture weeks of traffic, extracted by the on-station Halibut. Russian-speaking analysts could then transcribe the unencrypted tapes, delivered to the U.S. Navy's intelligence headquarters at Suitland, Mary land.\n\nThe anticipated traffic might include Soviet military plans, details of maneuvers, unguarded conversations between key military and political figures, and other intelligence delicacies. Perhaps loose Soviet tongues would reveal the location of warheads that often landed near the Kamchatka Peninsula or future plans for ballistic missile tests. U.S. submarines, provided with foreknowledge of pending exercises, could be sent in on special operations to photograph and monitor the tests. The NSA would also be alerted to pending weapons tests by increases in military communications traffic through the cable. Before any of these benefits could become reality, however, a major hurdle needed jumping.\n\nMammals on the surface breathe roughly an eighty percent to twenty percent mixture of nitrogen to oxygen. Sport divers learn that air compressed into a metal tank can kill or cause serious injury if certain depths are exceeded for too long. Even navy divers are taught to stay above 130 feet for most dives, and although many of us exceeded 200 feet for various missions, we stayed down no longer than the four minutes allotted by U.S. Navy dive tables. Diving to 400 feet compresses air to the point where one lungful draws substantially more nitrogen and oxygen than \"landlubbers\" breathe. Such concentrations can poison divers and turn them into the equivalent of a town drunk, complete with slurred speech, crazy thoughts, and blurred vision. Although SeaLab underwater habitats experimented with a mix that contained helium versus nitrogen to overcome nitrogen narcosis, divers had to acclimate to the pressure by staying inside a chamber for long days or weeks, and they hated the cold, cramped environment. Still, with helium-induced Donald Duck voices, they often joked that \"to air is human, but to HeO2 is divine.\"\n\nA serious accident, resulting in the death of one diver, put an end to the SeaLab experiments, but not the divination of HeO2 saturation diving. Nascent and dangerous, the science moved forward. The art of deploying saturation divers covertly from a submarine in frigid Soviet waters, however, was an altogether different animal that required an innovative new approach. Although navy scientists had envisioned such deep-diving projects, their concepts were never proven in the field. Creating this capability would impel American ingenuity to new heights, and send submariners and divers on the most difficult, dangerous, and decorated missions of the Cold War.\n\nCaptain James Bradley pushed through a program to have the Halibut outfitted with a pressurized hyperbaric diving chamber mounted on the stern to support deep-sea bottom walking. The chamber was designed to resemble the Mystic Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle (DSRV-1), which became the Halibut's deployment cover story. The DSRV-like chamber, some fifty feet in length and eight feet in diameter, looked like a giant torpedo mounted to the back of a submarine by way of four metal stanchions. Divers entered the chamber from underneath through the boat's escape trunk.\n\nAll submarines have one or more small decompression chambers built into the hull. These are called lock-out chambers or escape trunks, and they allow divers to exit or enter the boat while submerged. These escape trunks are also designed to let submariners exit the sub in the event of an emergency\u2014provided that the boat is not more than a few hundred feet deep. While these trunks are adequate for standard compressed air dives, they are not suitable for saturation diving using helium. A hyperbaric diving chamber is needed for this, which is essentially a sealable pressure vessel with hatches large enough for divers to enter and exit, combined with a compressor to raise the internal pressure.\n\nThere are two types of hyperbaric chambers, one for decompression and one for recompression. The former is used for deep-sea diving operations. The latter is used to treat or prevent decompression sickness. For both, occupants are \"pressed down\" or \"pressed up\" by increasing or decreasing the internal pressure, respectively. Divers are required to remain inside for many long hours, days, or even weeks to prevent serious injury.\n\nIn October 1971, the upgraded Halibut, carrying a stern-mounted decompression hyperbaric chamber and loaded with deep-sea saturation divers, cruised toward the Soviet Union with Commander \"Smiling Jack\" McNish in charge. The Soviet communications cable they sought ran thousands of miles under the ocean deep in the Sea of Okhotsk, a large body of water, surrounded by land, that from the air looked like a massive Russian lake. The undersea cable ran from the Petropavlovsk submarine base and missile-testing facilities on the Kamchatka Peninsula, down to Vladivostok, headquarters of the Soviet \"Far East\" Pacific Fleet.\n\nCommander McNish successfully located the cable's approximate position via Halibut's periscope by finding a small sign posted on a beach warning passersby to avoid running into a buried cable. From there, finding the actual cable in the sand required delicate manipulations of the camera-equipped mini-sub Fish using miles of cable lowered from the bowels of the boat. The Fish swam on its own power, guided via a tether running into the large bat cave on the bow of the Halibut. The tether often fell prey to snags and ocean currents that caused serious jarring of cameras and equipment. Halibut's Fish took rolls of film that revealed nothing. Finally, after several days of searching, the image of a three-inch-diameter Soviet communications cable appeared in one color photo.\n\nThe sat divers then locked out of the submarine's fake DSRV, tapped the cable, and siphoned off a flurry of signals, but the SIGINT spooks on board were not trained in this type of signal capture. McNish returned with poor-quality recordings. The Halibut made a second run on August 4, 1972, but came home with no better results. NSA and navy officials were disappointed but convinced that intelligence pearls awaited in the cable if skilled experts could tap into them properly. Each mission day cost the navy more than $1 million, given the expense of SR-71 spy-plane overflights to monitor Soviet traffic in the area, as well as decoy submarines poised to create distractions should the Soviets come snooping. In light of the expense and importance of the operation, the NSA escalated the signals capture issue to a priority position.\n\nIn the summer of 1974, they contacted one of their own, John Arnold, and tasked him with solving the problem. A navy Mustang officer, Arnold had scratched his way up from seaman to lieutenant commander while gaining expertise in underwater eavesdropping. As a navy spook, he'd previously conducted espionage missions off the Soviet coast aboard the USS Nautilus, including the one that used cameras mounted to toilet paper rolls to photograph nuclear test blasts near Novaya Zemlya in 1961. The NSA instructed Arnold to assemble a crack team of spooks, which he found at the \"Fred Ten\" Wullenweber Bulls Eyes facility in Sabana Seca, Puerto Rico. Arnold's handpicked team consisted of four navy communications technician chiefs, including Master Chief Malcolm \"Mac\" Empey and Chief Mark Rutherford. A Russian-speaking I-Brancher accompanied the four chiefs.\n\nThe five chiefs strode across the gangplank from the pier, seabags slung over uniformed shoulders. The crew did not know these strangers, but most had little doubt as to their function and exchanged excited whispers acknowledging that the \"spooks had arrived.\" Although selected by Arnold, the team reported to their OIC, Tom Crowley, who reported to Captain Augustine \"Gus\" Hubel. They were officially attached to the clandestine Naval Security Group, but none of the spooks thought of themselves as spies. In fact, they never claimed titles higher than sailors or submariners.\n\nMac Empey was colorblind, but that didn't hinder his electronic genius. Since the quirky M-Brancher couldn't discern the color coding for electrical wiring or blueprints, that forced him to learn the entire function of each circuit by heart. Those who witnessed Empey troubleshooting a system were entertained by the constant bobbing and weaving of his head as he scanned schematics up, down, and sideways. The other spooks often joked that he looked like a parrot planning an escape.\n\nMark Rutherford relished his clandestine role as a spook. He loved the \"shaken, not stirred\" image of James Bond and often imitated his favorite movie character. He had a way with words and women and could charm almost anyone. He also excelled at his job, often demonstrating his technical prowess on every piece of gear used by the spooks.\n\nWhile the Halibut crew trained for more than a year to prepare for their next mission, Empey and Rutherford performed amazing technological feats, including the creation and integration of much of the advanced systems used for the mission. The Halibut didn't have CTs of their caliber on the first two runs who understood the nature of the tapped signals. The original R-Branchers performed a \"capture all\" of every conversation on every wire or \"channel\" and dumped everything onto a recorder. That was like trying to listen to a conversation in a small room when twelve people were talking at once. Making sense of the recorded cacophony created an NSA nightmare, which is why the first two missions failed. To solve this problem, Empey and Rutherford knew they had to separate each channel. They also needed to make the recorded conversations easier to hear by using better filtering and signal-processing techniques.\n\nTo accomplish this, they specified thirty pieces of equipment and lugged them down to a cordoned-off spook area in the torpedo room called the \"chart room.\" I-Branchers came up with the name in reference to the small shack used to store confidential charts aboard Soviet submarines, such as the one on Foxtrot-class boats. Over seventy percent of the gear used by the spooks was not military grade, or \"mil spec,\" but came from off-the-shelf manufacturers. The navy relegated maintenance responsibility to the team for this non-mil-spec equipment\u2014most of which was analog versus digital\u2014as well as the task of integrating the systems with each other and with the external cable tapping gear that delivered the signals. Empey and Rutherford did most of the wiring, soldering, tweaking, troubleshooting, calibrating, and worrying.\n\nMuch of the equipment needed to interface to a Hewlett-Packard 1730 digital computer with 32 kilobytes of random access memory (RAM), which represented state-of-the-art back then. Today, a small notebook computer can hold upwards of four to eight million kilobytes of RAM. The chief CTs spent four weeks at HP facilities in Loveland, Colorado, learning how to operate and repair the 1730.\n\nBy 1975, with five of the navy's top spooks aboard, the Halibut was ready to embark on a third mission to the Sea of Okhotsk. All hopes of success were pinned on the improvements made by the spooks, and failure could spell the end of the most promising espionage program deployed during the Cold War.\n\nWHEN FIRST CLASS NAVY DIVER DAVID LeJeune walked across the brow of the USS Halibut in 1975, he glanced at the fake DSRV chamber on her deck and wondered if he should have heeded Zipperhead's admonition. His former executive officer warned him that volunteering for Special Projects would mean living in a tiny chamber with three other divers for almost two months at a time. Such an assignment required round-the-clock dives for weeks in enemy waters, where one wrong move could prove fatal not just to the divers, but to the entire submarine crew. LeJeune ignored Zipperhead's warnings and signed up anyway. He'd been saturation diving for years, had earned his instructor's pin, and was a member of the team that set a world record on a mixed gas dive to more than 1,000 feet. He figured if he had the chops to do that, he could muster the balls to ride the Halibut.\n\nBorn in Fairbanks, Alaska, LeJeune and his family migrated to Santa Fe Springs, California, where he asked his junior high school sweetheart, Cheryl, to marry him. She turned him down, of course, but with a wink and a smile. LeJeune didn't stop trying. He walked Cheryl to the bus stop every day and then, just to impress her, ran the five miles to the school\u2014beating the bus every time. Finally, Cheryl accepted the proposal but insisted they delay the wedding until after their high school graduation. LeJeune waited patiently for the next four years, but just before he could win his lady's hand, Santa Fe Springs High School kicked him out for being a rowdy nonconformist.\n\nLeJeune managed to claw his way to a diploma during summer school, and his reward followed soon after: a draft notice from Uncle Sam. He ignored the notice, bought a motorcycle, and married his first love. LeJeune and Cheryl's wedding bells were accompanied by an unexpected gift: a second draft notice. Having no desire to take a two-year vacation in Vietnam as a ground pounder, LeJeune rode his motorcycle down to the navy recruiter's office. They signed him up on a 120-day delay program, so he passed the time by completing welding school. At the time, he planned only to use that skill on dry land, but he decided to get his feet wet anyway.\n\nLeJeune bought a cheap mask and a pair of fins and enrolled in Los Angeles County's scuba diving program. He paid his $27 for the training and rental equipment and jumped into the water. After cracking the books and completing his pool training, he took a boat ride to Catalina Island for his certification dive. \"I puked my guts the whole way,\" he said, \"but once I got into the water, I felt great. I looked around at all the bright colored fish and said, 'This is for me.'\"\n\nConvinced that the ocean world held the key to his future, he volunteered for Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) training during boot camp in San Diego. In those days, U.S. Navy SEALs and UDTs were separate commands, and LeJeune wanted to stay in the water, not fight in a jungle. Whether he could pass the prerequisite physical training tests for UDT school was never a concern. He'd run a five-minute-mile since his bus-beating days in junior high, swum like a dolphin in L.A. County's scuba school, and marched off ten pounds in boot camp. He'd also lettered in high school basketball and dunked opponents more than once in water polo. But the line between confident and cocky is sometimes a thin one, which can often throttle one's passion. \"I just didn't try hard enough,\" LeJeune said. \"So I came in ten seconds late, and they failed me. I pleaded my case, said I'd do it again, but they turned me down. I damn near cried. I didn't want to be just an ordinary sailor.\"\n\nDefeated and depressed, he reported to his first duty station at the submarine base in New London, Connecticut. That's when he first heard the term fleet diver. He had no idea what that meant, but he knew it had something to do with the ocean, so he filled out a request chit to attend the training. The navy turned him down. Devastated but determined, he put in five more chits. The sixth one got accepted, and he and Cheryl packed up and drove to Norfolk, Virginia\u2014but not before he made the mistake of getting a U.S. Navy diver's tattoo on his arm. When the divers at the navy diving school noticed the unearned tattoo, they punished him by delaying his program start by more than six months. In the mean time, his previous welding experience got him assigned to a detail cutting and torching on the USS Seawolf. \"Had I known I'd have to dive off that old geezer years later,\" LeJeune said, \"I would have cut a hole in her too big to patch up.\"\n\nThe USS Scorpion had gone down with all hands a month earlier, in May 1968, and Cheryl made LeJeune promise that he'd turn down any diving jobs that involved submarines. He agreed, but fate had other plans. In early 1969, Master Diver Billy Kitchens finally let LeJeune suit up for his indoctrination dive\u2014a requirement prior to attending second class divers school to weed out the claustrophobic twitchers. He strapped on his Mark 5 diving rig, complete with a vintage round metal helmet and baggy canvas suit, all the while spewing questions and funny wisecracks. Kitchens never laughed. LeJeune sat in the itchy diving suit for thirty minutes as perspiration stung his eyes and drenched his lips. More bored than irritated, he said, \"Aren't you going to give me a test or something?\"\n\nKitchens rolled his eyes and held out his hand. A dime sat in his gloved palm. \"See if you can get this dime out of my hand with your glove.\"\n\n\"That's easy,\" LeJeune said. He smacked the bottom of Kitchens's hand, and the dime went flying into the air. LeJeune caught the dime, opened his glove, and said, \"There.\"\n\nKitchens manufactured a frown and said, \"LeJeune, I really hope you become a master diver someday, and a little wise-ass student like you makes your life a living hell. That would at least give my days in the navy some meaning.\"\n\nLeJeune spent the next thirteen weeks earning his second-class diver's pin. During that time, Cheryl's name changed to George. The impetus came from being dirt poor without even a spare quarter to attend a movie on the base. That, and a television commercial that depicted two bored vultures with one asking the other, \"Well, what do you want to do?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" LeJeune always replied when Cheryl mimicked the vultures. \"What do you want to do, George?\"\n\nThe name stuck.\n\nLeJeune attended first class diver's school in 1970 and graduated from the Washington, D.C., Navy Yard in January 1971. He spent the next several months in boredom, doing little more than inspection dives on the presidential yacht USS Sequoia (AG-23). After a transfer to New London and another spate of less than exciting dives, LeJeune volunteered for saturation diver training under the navy's Man in the Sea program. That's when his life changed in ways he could never have imagined.\n\nThe navy used an ominous-looking craft called the IX-501 Elk River to train divers on the most dangerous and advanced form of diving extent. The IX designator is given to ships that no longer serve in their original capacity. Commissioned in 1945, the Elk River once operated as a rocket-launching medium landing ship but now deployed strange space-suited creatures down to depths never before attained by humans. Divers wore one-eighth-inch-thick neoprene wet suits against their skin, but that's where any resemblance to ordinary diving ceased. Over the rubber wet suit they draped a baggy pair of coveralls that resembled a Hazmat suit, but completely enclosed. A hose connected to the back of the suit and pumped in hot water to keep the divers warm in below-freezing conditions. The heated water ran through smaller tubes that branched away from the diver's back and formed a spider's web covering the arms, legs, and chest. Warm water from the tubes coated the neoprene underneath like a sprinkler system on a summer's day, while the skintight wet suit prevented scalding from the heated water.\n\nDivers wore a face mask manufactured by Kirby Morgan that resembled the clear Plexiglas masks worn by firefighters. The masks contained microphones and speakers for communications, as well as readouts for temperature and mixed gas levels. A hose ran from the Kirby Morgan that contained the most important element to all divers: air.\n\nLeJeune learned in saturation diving school that dive durations were limited primarily by two factors: gas supply and diver fatigue. \"Saturation diving uses one hell of a lot of gas,\" said LeJeune. \"We only pump in three percent oxygen compared to almost ninety-seven percent helium, but that three percent feels like thirty to the diver.\"\n\nExtended dives not only used up large supplies of helium, but also placed divers at great risk. The longer a diver stays in the water, the more tired he becomes. That's when mistakes are made. Still, macho saturation divers often held contests to see who'd wimp out first and want to be reeled back up to the surface. \"Ten or even twelve hours underwater was not uncommon,\" said LeJeune. \"In fact, if the job only took six, we'd stay down another two just to save face.\"\n\nLeJeune graduated from sat school and, soon after, requested instructor training. During that program, a master diver asked him to build a system for one of the diving rigs to make it easier for divers to close various valves in an emergency. LeJeune rigged up a pneumatically controlled system that caught the attention of a sat-school student, Lieutenant Commander Ross Saxon, eighteen months later. Saxon\u2014who had a large scar on the back of his head that earned him the nickname \"Zipperhead\"\u2014graduated and became executive officer of the newly commissioned USS Ortolan (ASR-22). He then requested, through official channels, that LeJeune build a gas analysis system to support the ship's thirty divers and two rigs. That system and the emergency valve rig created by LeJeune were later adopted by all navy saturation diving platforms worldwide.\n\nLeJeune stayed on board the Ortolan from 1973 to 1975. During that time, he lived the life of hero Dirk Pitt in a Clive Cussler novel. Still starving on navy pay, he and fellow divers Chris Velucci and Don Rodocker came up with a brilliant plan to use saturation diving to hunt for deep-sea treasure. They found some investors, who put up $280,000 to buy the needed equipment and dive boat. Months later, they spent their navy \"vacation\" leave motoring a less-than-adequate dive boat to a point off Nantucket, Massachusetts, where they dropped anchor. They spent the next forty days diving on the wreck of the Andrea Doria, an Italian ocean liner that sank after a collision with another ship in 1956.\n\nThe three divers dreamed of finding precious valuables tucked inside the wreck's steel tomb while fending off bandits who tried to rob them at night. During the day, they avoided lurking hungry sharks and militant nosy authorities. The Coast Guard tried to shut them down more than once, claiming that living conditions and life-jacket supplies were inadequate on board the diving boat. \"We'd move life jackets from one location to another when those guys weren't looking so they'd think we'd had enough,\" said LeJeune. \"They never did catch on. We also carried a bunch of rifles and fired into the night air to keep the pirates away.\"\n\nThe three treasure hunters cut a large hole in the Andrea Doria's side but found nothing more than a chafing dish, a bottle of perfume, some silverware, and the ship's bell. Their investors were less than pleased. \"At least we got a lot smarter about saturation diving on that trip,\" said LeJeune. \"That experience probably saved my ass when I did those Ivy Bells missions off submarines years later.\"\n\nWhich is where LeJeune went next. Tired of working on a sat diving ship while enduring \"puke storms,\" he put in a transfer chit to Special Projects.\n\n\"That means living for weeks or months inside a tiny chamber on a submarine,\" Zipperhead said to LeJeune.\n\n\"I know,\" LeJeune said. \"But at least it's calm down there.\"\n\nThat decision brought LeJeune face-to-face with the submarine that had found the K-129 near Hawaii years earlier and hurled him toward a life that gained him more medals than most combat soldiers earn after years on the battlefield. LeJeune didn't know it at the time, but cable-tapping missions, code-named Ivy Bells by the NSA, were considered by the military the most important missions of the Cold War. They were also the most dangerous, requiring direct approval from the president of the United States prior to each deployment.\n\nLeJeune's first clue that these missions were far from ordinary came within hours of reporting aboard the USS Halibut. He learned that out of the twenty-two divers who accompanied the Halibut on her first two runs, due to the arduous conditions and dangerous nature of the dives, only two volunteered to go again. One of the original divers developed kidney stones on the second run, and Lieutenant Commander \"Doc\" Halworth had to press down, enter the dive chamber, and shoot him full of Demerol. Given the Halibut's slow speed, the diver suffered for weeks until the submarine returned to port. LeJeune suspected that the incident took a mental toll on many of the other divers, which probably accounted for the high attrition rate.\n\nWhen LeJeune met Doc Halworth on the Halibut, he instantly liked the eccentric dive-trained doctor. \"Halworth had a hobby of buying abandoned missile silos,\" said LeJeune. \"He liked to renovate the things and sell them for a profit. He also bought caseloads of overstock shirts to save money. He'd wear an identical shirt damn near every day buttoned all the way to the top. The guy looked like a geek.\"\n\nGeek or not, Halworth's job aboard the Halibut entailed keeping the divers alive. The doctor analyzed the diving math to determine how much gas each diver needed while down. He ensured that mixed gas ratios were accurate and that emergency procedures were adequate to prevent serious injury or death. Still, the divers loved to play tricks on Doc Halworth, including cutting the fingers off the ends of all his rubber examination gloves.\n\nLeJeune's fellow divers included an Asian-Indian with huge \"Popeye\" forearms, Eugene Diem, whom they nicknamed Gunga Din, a smooth-talking consummate professional named John Hunt, and a short black-haired Italian called Bob \"Ginny\" Vindetto. Ginny also had a talent for finding and trading spare parts and often joked that if he ever died on a mission, God would let him into heaven because everybody needs a \"cumshaw guy.\"\n\nTwenty-two Special Projects divers competed for four bunks inside the small DSRV-sized hyperbaric chamber, as only four divers made the cut to conduct the actual mission dives in the Sea of Okhotsk. \"The master diver selected the four best divers for each mission,\" said LeJeune. \"Divers were disappointed if they didn't get picked, but we were all professional about it and worked as a team. We never forgot that we depended on each other for our survival.\"\n\nLeJeune spent the next several months with his fellow divers on the Halibut conducting at-sea training missions off the coast of San Diego. The Halibut set down on the ocean floor using snowmobile-like skis mounted to the underhull of the boat. Teams of three divers deployed from the DSRV on practice runs until every diver had been in the water at least once. The divers wore their neoprene wet suits underneath newer semi-closed Mark 11 saturation diving suits that cost the navy $87,000 each. The MK-11s employed heated water sprinkler systems to keep the divers warm, but also had a small pocket in the front for a thermoluminescent device. The TLDs were similar to the dosimeters worn by nuclear submariners to monitor radiation dosages but were waterproofed down to 1,000 feet.\n\nInside the diving chamber, divers wore dull brown fire-retardant T-shirts, boxer shorts, pajamas, and socks. Even the towels were brown and fireproof. \"The clothing they gave us was hot and itchy and had zero absorbency,\" said LeJeune. \"Using those towels was like drying off with a squeegee.\"\n\nHelium's light weight increases its conductivity, and the gas will rob body heat from a diver at a rapid rate. In fact, helium is the second-lightest element known. Only hydrogen weighs less. Earth's atmosphere contains just five parts per million of the gas, making helium rare and expensive. Chemically inert, helium offers no odor, color, or taste, which makes the gas ideal for diving as long as strict safety precautions are followed. Just as in scuba diving, where deep divers need to decompress to expel nitrogen from the bloodstream, helium divers must do the same to prevent decompression sickness, commonly referred to as \"the bends.\"\n\nIn addition to the bends, saturation divers are at risk for a phenomenon known as high-pressure nervous syndrome (HPNS). The syndrome causes dizziness, nausea, vomiting, tremors, fatigue, body jerks, stomach cramps, decreased mental and physical performance, and insomnia coupled with nightmares. The condition worsens with faster rates of compression or decompression and at greater attained depths. Symptoms were noted in the early 1960s when sat diving came on the scene, and doctors initially referred to them as \"helium tremors.\" The only way to prevent HPNS is to go down and back up again slowly in a hyperbaric chamber while pausing at intervals to allow the body to dissipate the helium from the bloodstream in a similar fashion to decompressing to expel nitrogen.\n\nThere were three sections to the cylinder-shaped diving chamber. Like the DSRV it resembled, the fifty-foot-long by eight-foot-diameter chamber had two bulkheads inside that divided the space into three compartments. The smaller aft section housed the watchstanders\u2014a couple of divers who monitored the four mission divers and catered to their every need. The middle section of the chamber had a hatch that opened into a round connector that attached to the escape trunk on the submarine. Divers entered the chamber through this hatch. The area was also used to store extra equipment and served as a pressurizable entry point should someone need rapid access to the divers, like Doc Halworth.\n\nThe larger bow section kept the four mission divers alive and served as the exit door out to the sea. Similar to a spacecraft, this area had its own life-support system, and not too unlike the environment found in space, the occupants could not easily come back to the world of nonpressurized air should something go wrong.\n\nWatchstanders funneled food, drinks, and other supplies from their nonpressurized aft section to the divers through an eighteen-inch-diameter \"medical chamber\" cylinder that ran into the forward pressurized section. \"Everything we ate and drank was cold,\" said LeJeune. \"Helium doesn't just rob body heat, it also steals warmth from food.\" To make up for the cold meals and limpid coffee, watchstanders ran movie projectors that shot flickering light through a Plexiglas window that came to life on the back metal wall. \"Sometimes the watchstanders played jokes on us by screwing the lid down too tight on a catsup bottle,\" said LeJeune. \"After it's pressurized, you can't get the damn thing off. We got them back by doing the same thing in reverse. Only when they opened the bottle, catsup exploded in their face.\"\n\nHelium's superconductivity required that the diver's forward section be heated to ninety-six degrees Fahrenheit, which to the divers felt like seventy-two degrees. Humidity ran high\u2014almost one hundred percent\u2014which exacerbated health concerns. \"A diver could go to sleep with a minor earache and wake up with pus dripping from his ear,\" said LeJeune. \"Bacterial infections were a big problem.\" The divers also shared one very public toilet and a small sink but enjoyed no showers. Fresh water for sponge baths, shaving, and brushing teeth was delivered through the medical chamber cylinder.\n\nPast thirty-five feet, as the helium level rose, divers sounded like cartoon characters with high-pitched voices. To compensate, they spoke into a \"helium speech unscrambler.\" This small box electronically synthesized the diver's helium-induced Donald Duck squeaks, then lowered the pitch and tone and pumped out normal-sounding speech.\n\nPressing down in the chamber, to equalize the pressure with the ocean outside, took as long as ten to fifteen hours, depending on the depth of the dive. Ten hours was normal for a 400-foot-dive, and getting there any quicker risked exposing the divers to HPNS. \"If we went down too fast,\" said LeJeune, \"every joint ached as the pressure pushed out the lubricating joint fluid. Your body needs time to adjust to a high-pressure environment. Most of us got HPNS more than once, which made us act like a drunk with a case of the DTs.\"\n\nIN 1975, LEJEUNE MADE HIS FIRST saturation training dive off the coast of San Diego aboard the USS Halibut. He and three other divers locked into the claustrophobic hyperbaric chamber and pulled on their neoprene \"undergarment\" wet suits. Body odor from the other divers found LeJeune's nose as he sat on a small cot in the divers' section and stared at various indicators, valves, and piping running along the inside of the enclosure. Master Diver Al Frontz, seated outside the diver's section, pressurized the chamber down to thirty-five feet. At this point, the divers still breathed normal air. The \"press down\" speed used by Frontz to descend to that initial depth determined the partial pressure of oxygen employed for the dive\u2014usually 0.28 to 0.30. Hours passed as Frontz slowly increased pressure, now using only helium. At 160 feet, when the percentage of oxygen in the chamber could no longer support combustion, O2 sensor alarms were turned off.\n\nA half-day later, with the chamber pressurized to the operating depth of 400 feet, LeJeune stood from his cot and followed the other divers to the back hatch that led to the diving platform. This back area was \"blown down\" using a small pipe with threaded ends that ran from the divers' section, through the bulkhead, and into the diving platform area. The divers blew helium through this pipe to pressurize the area to the point where the ocean water came up only to the bottom of the exit hole that led to the ocean. They removed the pipe during transit, as it could pose a safety problem for the submarine should the boat experience a flooding incident. If a master diver were to misplace the pipe or forget to bring it along for the ride, the entire mission could be scrubbed.\n\nLeJeune stepped through the thirty-six-inch-diameter opening at the front of the chamber and found his MK-11 diving rig hanging on the bulkhead. He also donned his suit and face mask. The mask was clamped to a fiberglass frame that formed a hydroseal made out of thin rubber. Around the rubber a spongelike material helped hold back the ocean. Divers soaked the material in water to draw out the air, smeared Vaseline on the rubber, then clamped the mask down tight to prevent leaks. \"One of the limiting factors on dives was that mask,\" LeJeune said. \"After eight hours in the water, your jaw felt like you'd been punched in the face by Muhammad Ali.\"\n\nMask ready, LeJeune pulled on his rubber boots, which contained lead insets and a steel toecap held on with rubber straps. Popeye-armed Gunga Din checked him over to ensure there were no issues. Once suited and checked, LeJeune sat on the edge of the diving platform with his feet dangling in the water. An adrenaline rush ran through his veins as the bottom portion of the platform lowered into the ocean like a hydraulically operated wheelchair ramp in a minivan. The ocean covered his face as he descended into a world of black.\n\nPitch black.\n\nThe blackest of all blacks. Like black hole black.\n\nLeJeune spread his arms and pushed off the curved edge of the submarine. Just like a free-falling skydiver, he floated through the silent ink and fell toward the ocean floor. \"This was always my favorite part,\" said LeJeune. \"I never knew if I was falling into a shark's mouth or what, which made the free fall that much more exciting. I used to live for that moment.\"\n\nTiming his fall, LeJeune braced himself for the impact as his leaded boots hit the murky silt. He heard nothing but the hissing sound of his own breathing. He switched on his light and moved in slow motion toward the other divers. Given the strong currents in the area, he wore two weight belts, which slowed him down even more. Tiny fish darted past his face mask. His light reflected from their shiny sides and made them look like fireflies in an alien world. LeJeune glanced at the two lights inside his face mask near his left eye. The green one was lit, and the red was not. Green was good. That meant his HeO2 mix was fine. Red was bad. That indicated that his breathing mix had dropped to zero. In that event, he carried a coffee can\u2013sized bottle of mix with enough air for about three breaths. LeJeune often wondered if that can of air would keep him alive long enough to get back inside the boat.\n\nTubes snaked throughout LeJeune's MK-11 suit, and warm water surged and sprinkled his goose-bumped skin through tiny holes. A two-inch-diameter tethered cord tied him to the boat and delivered the mixed gas, warm water, two-way communications, and power for his lights. One heavy wire in the cable also functioned as a lifeline to reel him back in should an emergency occur.\n\nLeJeune moved toward a line locker located on the underside of the Halibut. Gunga Din opened the locker and removed a cord that resembled an oversized automobile jumper cable. The cord could be reeled out to a maximum of 350 feet. Ginny Vindetto grabbed the cord and motioned for the others to help. Only three divers deployed, with the fourth still inside in the event of an emergency. The divers pulled the cord over to the simulated three-inch-diameter communications cable running along the ocean floor. As if they were actually in the Sea of Okhotsk on a live tapping mission, they clamped a \"grabber,\" fashioned to the end of the cord, around the cable. They covered up all evidence of the cable tap with a large sand-colored rubber blanket, then started back toward the Halibut.\n\nNear the submarine, Ginny started singing. At first, LeJeune wondered if his ears were playing tricks on him. Then Ginny started cracking jokes, Silly Sally jokes, like the ones he'd told on the playground in grade school.\n\nLeJeune radioed Master Diver Frontz inside the Halibut and told him that Ginny was showing signs of HPNS. Frontz acknowledged the report and told them to help Ginny back inside ASAP. LeJeune approached Ginny and reached for his arm. Ginny pulled away. He told LeJeune to \"leave me the fuck alone.\" LeJeune tried again. This time Ginny ripped down the zipper on his MK-11 and let the twenty-six-degree water flood his suit. LeJeune yelled at Ginny to rezip, but Ginny refused. Gunga Din slow-ran over, and the two tried to get the zipper back up, but Ginny fought them off.\n\nGinny started to sing again, but no more than three words came out before the freezing water temperature finally took its toll. His jaw locked up, and his eyes rolled up into their sockets. He passed out. LeJeune radioed the fourth diver, Cleveland Smith, inside the chamber and told him to start reeling.\n\nLeJeune clung to his friend, while Smith reeled in Ginny's cable line. His arms dangled and flapped about as the currents rushed past, and LeJeune wondered if they were already too late. Inside the chamber, he pulled off Ginny's MK-11 suit, while Smith grabbed the CPR kit. They pumped Ginny's chest and blew air into his lungs. Nothing. No movement. Certain that his friend had just died, LeJeune's heart sank. Finally, Ginny coughed and spewed out saliva. His eyes opened.\n\nHe stared at LeJeune for a long moment, then said, \"Am I still alive?\"\n\nLeJeune nodded. \"I'm not God.\"\n\n\"I was thinking more like the devil,\" Ginny said with a smile.\n\nAfter the incident with Ginny, other divers started showing signs of HPNS. Master Diver Frontz and Doc Halworth shortened the dives and took other precautions, including rotating the divers to see if physical conditioning or other factors might be the cause. Then \"all star\" diver John Hunt, considered one of the least likely to get the condition, started doing goofy things after only six hours down. Frontz and Halworth decided it was time to start blaming the equipment.\n\nSeveral divers, including LeJeune, flew to Panama City, Florida. They spent months in simulated environments testing various parts on the MK-11 suits until a culprit emerged. Each suit came with a CO2 scrubber in the MK-11 backpack that \"burped off\" one-fifth of the expelled gas from the diver's lungs. The scrubber used baralyme chemicals to scrub the CO2 and recycle fresh HeO2 back to the diver. This process also evaporated air bubbles to ensure that none reached the surface, where they could be detected. The scrubber was not heated, and at cold temperatures the baralyme did not scrub efficiently. This caused CO2 buildup and accelerated the possibility of HPNS. The team redesigned the system and replaced the baralyme with lithium hydroxide\u2014the same chemical used by submariners to scrub CO2 on diesel boats. One of the drawbacks included the possibility of chemical burns, but as far as the divers were concerned, staying sane took precedence.\n\nWITH HER DIVERS TRAINED AND READY, the Halibut made her third voyage in June 1975 to the Sea of Okhotsk, which in Russian means \"Mouth of the Bear.\" Excited about conducting his first live mission in Soviet waters, LeJeune accompanied the boat. Unfortunately, he didn't have the balls to stay on board long enough to make a dive. After only a week out, he developed a condition that caused one of his testicles to swell. Doc Halworth insisted that he depart when Halibut pulled in for a minor repair before heading west. Reluctantly, LeJeune complied. The problem turned out to be minor, but by then the Halibut had already left on her voyage to the hinterland.\n\nLess LeJeune, Halibut arrived on station in the Sea of Okhotsk a month later. The trek to the Western Pacific took almost twice as long as for most other attack boats due to Halibut's geriatric reactor, which could muster no more than thirteen knots. After sneaking past the Soviet fleet near the Kamchatka Peninsula, Commander McNish informed the crew that their mission would be one of the most dangerous in naval history. They'd be well within Soviet territorial waters, and if caught, they might not come home. Explosive charges had been placed throughout the boat to ensure that no equipment or survivors could be captured. McNish stopped short, however, of delivering all the details to the crew about their cable-tapping mission, and only he, his officers, the divers, and the spooks knew anything about the fine print.\n\nUpon relocating the cable, the Halibut's crew used a set of anchors and a winch system to set the submarine on the soft ocean floor atop the two skis. She anchored near the communications cable, and the divers locked out of the torpedo-shaped, aft-mounted diving chamber near the boat's rudder. As they had done during practice runs off California, one diver remained inside, while three divers walked in moonlike fashion to one side of the Halibut. Reflective plankton clouds obstructed their vision, while the HeO2 mix made their tongues dry.\n\nThe divers opened the sealed compartment on the Halibut's hull and removed the long electrical cord. They dragged the cord over to the communications cable and located the repeater, a large metallic cylinder that joined sections of the cable every thirty miles and amplified the signals. The spooks knew that the strongest signals could be found there. While attaching the three-foot-long \"grabber,\" which contained a recorder and rolls of recording tape, a large hake fish, attracted by the light, attacked one diver and clamped its razorlike teeth on his arm. Unable to shake the fish loose, the diver removed his knife and jabbed it between the fish's gills. The wounded hake swam away in a flurry of ink.\n\nWhile returning to the Halibut, the divers collected some large crabs for a \"mission accomplished\" dinner. Inside the boat, in the sectioned-off chart room, three spooks at a time stood watch to accomplish phase one of the Ivy Bells tapping mission. This part, which employed a temporarily placed cable tap, required that the Halibut remain on station for several weeks while the spooks recorded signals. The incoming signals needed to be calibrated against data type, time of recording, signal strength, tapped wire (within the bundle), signal anomalies, and to ensure complete continuity and to validate recorded voice and data quality. Unlike the two previous failed missions, two sets of signals were now recorded. One was a \"capture all\" that contained every signal pulled from the cable, and the other separated out each channel to ensure clear conversations could be heard. The team took this function seriously, as hundreds of men were placing their lives at risk to gather the data, and they had but one shot at getting it right. After the mission, the recording tapes would be delivered to the NSA for full transcribing and analysis\u2014the second phase of the Ivy Bells project. That is, of course, if they managed to capture anything at all.\n\nWhile the divers set up the tap, M-Brancher Mac Empey and T-Brancher Mark Rutherford waited patiently with Lieutenant Commander Arnold in the chart room, a small converted storeroom forward of the reactor and opposite the radio room. Once the divers finished clamping the cable, the spooks tried in vain to collect the signals from the tap but heard nothing. They flipped switches and rechecked systems, but to no avail. They requested that the divers return to the cable and check the connection. The divers did and found that they'd attached the tap to a \"dead\" shielded location. They reattached the grabber to an active, unshielded spot, and, using induction, the tap picked up \"leaked\" signals from the cable and sent them up the wire into the spook's gear.\n\nEmpey and Rutherford collected the information and validated parameters, while an I-Brancher strapped on a set of headphones and listened. To his amazement, clear, unencrypted Russian voices filled his ears. He handed a set of phones to one of the spook chiefs, chuckled, and said, \"I've got a Soviet admiral talking to his wife on one line and his mistress on the other.\" Only the I-Brancher could translate the words, so the others took turns listening to the private conversations and imagined other Soviet admirals exchanging top-secret information while sitting at desks in Vladivostok. In essence, the United States had just placed a glass against the Soviet Union's wall to hear their every word.\n\nReminiscent of a professional baseball team, basking in the glory of winning the World Series, the team of five spooks gathered in the chart room and exchanged excited high fives. The Halibut remained on station for another two weeks, filling reels of tape with recordings. Near their departure time, a flooding alarm sounded. A diesel engine pipe had ruptured, sending a gush of ocean water into the boat. The divers, though, were still outside and unaware of the emergency. The Halibut's crew raced to seal up the leak, but freezing cold water numbed fingers and arms as they worked. Commander McNish knew that the extra water made his sub heavy, and that he'd have to do an emergency blow soon to save his boat. He ordered the divers to return to the diving chamber but feared they might not make it back in time.\n\nThe salt water rushed in, and McNish now had to make the most difficult decision of his career: blow to the surface to save his sub and leave the divers to die, or wait for the divers and risk the lives of his entire crew. Seconds before he gave the order to blow, the damage control team reported that they'd fixed the leak. McNish breathed a sigh of relief. After the divers were safely inside, he moved the Halibut out of the area. The submarine returned home after a short stop in Guam for repairs. Though the ride back to port felt even longer than the one out, the crew sang songs and ate steaks in the crew's mess with the knowledge that their efforts were about to make a significant difference in the duration and outcome of the Cold War.\n\nThe Halibut returned to the Sea of Okhotsk a month later and came back with another batch of juicy recordings. Emboldened by Halibut's back-to-back successes, Captain James Bradley asked Bell Labs to build the mother of all cable taps. This device also worked through induction but occupied a twenty-foot-long by three-foot-wide container that weighed six tons and could be left on station indefinitely. That would obviate the need for a submarine to remain in the area for weeks. NSA engineers designed sophisticated new recording devices for the pod that could monitor dozens of lines for months at a time. The complex watertight enclosure contained an electronically programmed system for registering the intercepted information, nearly one hundred multichannel magnetic recording units and a miniature plutonium 238 nuclear power source. Divers nicknamed the heavy contraption, which looked like an elongated fifty-five-gallon drum, the \"beast.\"\n\nBy 1976, the Halibut was ready to be put out to pasture. Two other submarines lined up to take her place, the USS Seawolf and USS Parche (SSN-683) but both were in drydock undergoing repairs and modifications. David LeJeune and most of the divers on the Halibut packed their seabags and reported to the Seawolf. Mac Empey, Mark Rutherford, and the other spooks did likewise. As they had done on the Halibut, the team endured months of simulated practice off the coast of California, and the dangers involved in these dress rehearsals were no different than the real thing.\n\nThe navy kept the Silicon Valley\u2013built pod-tapping beast on a barge in San Diego. They also kept a nonworking practice beast there made from a large metal drum filled with cement. The 1,700-pound dummy pod, also twenty feet long by three feet wide, came packed in a canvas bag encircled by lifting balloons to allow the divers to move the heavy object around on the ocean floor. Navy diver David LeJeune accompanied an NSA operative named Ronald Pelton on a drive in his brand-new Volkswagen van down the coast to pick up the barge with the fake beast and prep everything for a practice run. LeJeune recalled that one of the divers on the last dry run had overinflated the beast. The massive thing rocketed to the surface and washed up on a beach near Santa Barbara. Fortunately, the civilians who discovered the practice beast had no clue as to its function.\n\nDuring their pod-prepping trips, LeJeune got to know the charismatic NSA man named Pelton over beers and even started to consider the guy as a potential friend. He had no clue at the time that Ronald Pelton would one day place the lives of submariners and divers conducting Ivy Bells missions in ultimate jeopardy through an act of treason.\n\nLeJeune and Pelton delivered the fake beast to the Seawolf, and the crew stored the pod in a large locker on the outside hull of the submarine. As far as LeJeune was concerned, the Seawolf looked like the Waldorf Astoria compared to the Halibut. Instead of a fake DSRV, she had a shipyard-installed fifty-foot section just aft of the torpedo room designed for diving operations and unmanned aquatic vehicle (UAV) Fish deployment. Divers called the section Area D, for \"Diving.\" The space contained a twenty-by-ten-foot hyperbaric diving chamber, similar in function and setup to the DSRV-style chamber welded to the back of the Halibut. Inside were four cots, a \"piss bucket\" toilet, and a single washbasin. The chamber snuggled up against the inside bulkhead of the submarine. Above the divers' heads, angled upward and outward, an inner hatch offered an exit. An outer hatch beyond that, similar to ones used in submarine escape trunks, opened outward to the sea. When the Seawolf surfaced, this hatch resided about fifteen feet below the waterline, so it could not be seen by spying eyes.\n\nNear the diving chamber, UAV Fish were stored in small racks, similar to the ones used to house torpedoes. A five-foot-diameter tube running through the pressure hull, resembling a torpedo tube, pointed upward toward the ocean. As an added measure of safety, the tube contained three hatches, one inside, one midway in the tube, and one outside to hold back the sea. Operators loaded the Fish into these tubes, opened all three hatches, and jettisoned the mini-subs into the deep blue yonder to snoop around for things, such as Soviet communications cables.\n\nThe spook's chart room, chockful of electronic eavesdropping equipment, was just forward and dog-legged from the Area D hyperbaric chamber and UAV Fish. Although LeJeune met several of the spooks on the Halibut, he didn't really get to know Mac Empey until his time aboard the Seawolf. LeJeune describes Empey as \"having Einstein hair, a scraggly beard, and maybe two good teeth with cigarette stains.\"\n\nEmpey cornered LeJeune near the chart room after a practice run and said, \"Howdy! I'm Whacko Maco. Want a tour?\" LeJeune's first impression was that Empey \"couldn't pour the piss out of a boot if instructions were written on the heel.\" Born curious, however, LeJeune accepted the invitation.\n\nEmpey insisted that LeJeune first needed to watch an indoctrination video before being briefed on any of the equipment in the chart room. LeJeune agreed. Empey pulled back the curtain on the top-secret area and ushered LeJeune inside. The small space contained only two chairs and more than two dozen rack-mounted pieces of equipment that hummed and whirred. A large monitor overshadowed a keyboard.\n\nEmpey sat LeJeune down in a chair and said, \"This is an important video. Pay close attention to every detail.\"\n\nThe spook pressed a button to start the video. LeJeune's eyes extended with anticipation as he wondered what secrets were about to be revealed. Empey stepped outside and closed the curtain. As the film's title rolled past, LeJeune realized he'd been had. He heard Empey giggling outside the curtain about the same time as Linda Lovelace's name appeared on the credits of the film.\n\nIn spite of Empey's warped sense of humor, LeJeune came to respect the rotund man's brilliance. He possessed no degrees, but God had granted the man Albert Einstein's IQ, along with the renowned scientist's tousled hair. He could multitask like a chess master and chain-smoke like a shipyard worker. When dozen's of engineering-degreed contractors couldn't find a problem with a critical piece of equipment, with the entire $150 million Ivy Bells program on the line, Empey saved the day. The engineers rolled their eyes when the chief asked for the schematic and a description of the problem. An hour later, with eyes darting and tongue wagging, the brilliant spook pointed to a spot on the drawing and said, \"There. That's where it is.\" The engineers didn't believe him but checked anyway. Turns out Empey was right, so much so that he received a Legion of Merit from the deputy director of the CIA.\n\nWhile the Seawolf's crew prepared for their first cable-tapping mission to the Sea of Okhotsk, where they would set up the new beast pod, others honed their clandestine skills, unaware that their destinies would soon collide with those aboard the infamous Wolf.\n\n## CHAPTER FIFTEEN\n\nAll wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers.\n\n\u2014FRAN\u00c7OIS F\u00c9NELON\n\nWHEN THE SOVIETDELTA-CLASS SUBMARINE ENTERED stage right in December 1972, the U.S. Navy shuddered. With a quiver of twelve R-29 ballistic missiles, each capable of delivering megatons of destruction from almost 5,000 miles away, the Delta made U.S. ASW techniques all but obsolete. Prior to the Delta's arrival, Soviet \"boomers\" with shorter-range missiles, in order to get close enough to the United States to launch, needed to transit from Murmansk, curve around Norway, and drop down through the Greenland\/Iceland\/U.K. gap. A swarm of American ships and planes greeted them there, as well as several fast-attack boats ready to latch on like trained bulldogs. With the advent of the Delta class, the Soviets could employ a new strategy: slip under the Arctic ice north of Murmansk and hide for months on end. When and if the order came to fire, they could sneak from under the ice cap, come shallow, and launch. By the time a U.S. submarine found them, it would be too late.\n\nThe Delta class rivaled America's Benjamin Franklin\u2013class boomers in every way. In fact, the United States had actually fallen behind in this area, having not launched a new ballistic missile submarine since the USS Will Rogers (SSBN-659) hit the water in April 1967. Fortunately, U.S. attack submarines were a bit more advanced, but these capable work horses were ill equipped to find Delta submarines hiding under an Arctic ice floe, and no acoustic or signals intelligence yet existed on the Soviet's new boat. Without that intelligence, finding a Delta in open waters posed a problem.\n\nThe issue of locating these \"ice boats\" consumed the navy and the NSA, but they were not completely caught by surprise. Anticipating such an advancement from the Soviets, the navy had launched a new ASW program in 1964 that gave the Classic Bulls Eye program some stiff competition for funding. Under the direction of Vice Admiral Charles B. Martell, the Long Range Acoustic Propagation Project (LRAPP) sought to bring heretofore scattered ASW technologies and efforts, including SOSUS, under a single roof. Employing only a few scientists and requiring modest funds in comparison to other programs, LRAPP conducted scientific experiments and exercises that teamed top ASW civilian minds with navy counterparts. Unfortunately, all of the initial experiments failed. The brass threatened to cancel LRAPP until Dr. Marvin Lasky at the Office of Naval Research saved the day.\n\nLasky helped deploy a miles-long string of acoustic hydrophones towed by a ship or submarine. He called this invention the Interim Towed Array Surveillance System (ITASS), which was, essentially, a movable SOSUS sonar array. The experiments with ITASS that followed proved critical in finding a way to detect Soviet submarines in northern waters near Murmansk. During the height of the program, two opposing scientific camps stood their ground. The LRAPP scientists believed that sound in the ocean traveled in a straight line, or directionally. This meant that sound characteristics would differ depending on where they originated, and submarines could be detected from very far away. Others, including a team of AT&T scientists, argued that noise didn't travel in straight lines, and subs could only be heard if they were not too distant.\n\nCurrent SOSUS arrays in the Atlantic could not detect Deltas in the Arctic. The navy wanted to extend SOSUS into the North Atlantic to fix this problem. AT&T scientists, convinced that their \"omnidirectional\" sound viewpoint was correct, insisted that this move would be a waste of money. SOSUS arrays wouldn't be close enough to the Arctic to do the job. The LRAPP engineers thought otherwise and challenged AT&T to a duel, with the stakes being the demise of the $180 million SOSUS expansion. If the AT&T scientists were right, the project was doomed. If the LRAPP scientists were correct, SOSUS lived. Moreover, future ASW capabilities could be dramatically improved, tipping the scale back in America's direction.\n\nAfter a two-week experiment in which ships towed the new ITASS arrays, the LRAPP team took home the gold. They proved that sound propagated directionally. This led to the permanent installation of SOSUS in the North Atlantic and the development of ITASS arrays that could be towed by attack submarines. Soviet vessels could now be detected from far greater distances than ever before. The navy also ordered operational and procedural changes in the world of antisubmarine warfare and increased funding for ICEX Arctic experiments conducted on a tiny ice floe north of Alaska.\n\nSonar, weapons, and other systems on submarines operate differently in Arctic conditions versus open ocean areas. To better understand these dynamics, every two years, the navy sent two fast-attack submarines to a moving ice floe in the Arctic, a few hundred miles north of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Over a two-week span in the warmer month of March, a team of more than sixty naval personnel, along with civilians from the Arctic Submarine Laboratory and Applied Physics Laboratory, teamed with support personnel and a few cooks to build a temporary base camp for Operation ICEX. Two attack boats spent two weeks conducting experiments on new sonar and communications systems designed for Arctic conditions and firing practice torpedoes at each other. Scientists monitored results and used these findings to improve system and weapon designs for Arctic use.\n\nThese improved designs found their way into a new class of U.S submarines originally launched on March 3, 1967. These Sturgeon-class attack subs boasted vast improvements in quieting technology, coupled with the latest espionage gear. The Soviets had nothing in their attack submarine deck that compared. By 1973, after the success of the LRAPP experiments, the navy expanded SOSUS to twenty-two installations in the Atlantic and Pacific.\n\nAmerican engineers leveraged ITASS and HFDF technologies to design towed sonar arrays and miniaturized versions of Boresight\/Bulls Eye detection and DF technologies that could be installed on U.S. ships under the Classic Outboard program. These smaller HFDF systems also found their way onto Permit (formerly Thresher) and Sturgeon-class submarines as integral parts of BRD-6 and-7 ESM systems. Now when Ivan transmitted a burst signal, lit off a radar, turned a screw, or farted into the wind, an American T-Brancher or sonar tech could catch the scent.\n\nIN EARLY 1973, COMMUNICATIONS TECHNICIAN First Class Frank Turban walked across the brow of the Sturgeon-class submarine Flying Fish (SSN-673) in Norfolk, Virginia. As he stood on the cold deck along with a dozen other spooks, his toes tingled\u2014a sure sign that this mission would be an exciting one. The third submarine to bear the name of the soaring tropical fish with long winglike fins, the Flying Fish was fortunate to have Commander J. D. Williams as her commanding officer. That Turban would earn a Navy Commendation Medal on this run while helping Williams earn a Distinguished Service Medal never crossed his mind.\n\nA New York native, Turban dropped out of high school twenty-one days after his seventeenth birthday on August 12, 1963. Escaping the bitterness of a home soured by alcoholic parents, along with the possibility of an army \"want you for Vietnam\" draft notice, Turban took a cab to the navy recruiters office in Brooklyn. He and twenty other excited kids signed up that day to see the world and experience the navy's promise of an \"adventure and not just a job.\" Even without a high school diploma, Turban scored high enough on his tests for a shot at communications technician school, but with no guarantees.\n\nAfter boot camp, the navy sent Turban to Pensacola, Florida, for CT and T-Brancher schools. Branded with the unofficial title of \"spook,\" sporting a brown beard, and weighing 205 pounds, he reported to his first duty station at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. There he worked as a communicator, operating crypto equipment and handling classified messages for the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) office. Most messages were destined for lower-ranking officers and automatically decrypted, but others were eyes-only for flag officers and came in \"off-line.\" Messages of this nature were usually considered \"hot shit\" and required manual decryption and personal delivery. A few years after his stint at the Pentagon, Turban got orders to NSGA (Naval Security Group Command) in Kami Seya, Japan, where he did a spy run on the USS Swordfish not long after K-129 went down.\n\nOn his first day aboard the Flying Fish, Turban met Mark Rutherford, an M-Brancher spook who'd just completed a top-secret mission on the USS Halibut in the Sea of Okhotsk. Rutherford never said a word about that mission, and Turban didn't probe. As an expert on the BRD-7, Rutherford helped train the spooks on this new gear. Sanders Associates built the BRD-7, and when coupled with two pieces of equipment called Blue Surf and Blue Gill, the integrated system represented the next generation in ESM, along with advanced burst-transmission direction finding and fingerprinting. Turban had been trained on the BRD-6, also built by Sanders, and exposed to the BRD-7, but Rutherford knew the system well enough to preach Sunday sermons.\n\nThe BRD-7 captured Soviet burst transmissions and fed them to the Blue Surf\/Blue Gill equipment that decoded the tiny data streams that William J. Reed found years earlier in Turkey. The system could not decrypt the information, but built-in transmitter fingerprinting allowed operators to determine the type of platform or, in some cases, the class of vessel transmitting. Unlike stationary Bulls Eye stations, most contacts obtained by the BRD-7 were close enough that sprinting down the bearing line could eventually yield a sonar or visual sighting. To obtain these accurate bearing fixes on remote targets required submarines to capture multiple hits from different bearings by frequently changing course and sprinting to new locations. Given that Soviet subs did not often transmit using the burst signal, such an operation could take days.\n\nWith Commander Williams calling the shots in 1973, the Flying Fish glided across the Atlantic and crept into the cold waters of the Barents Sea. Once on station, Williams ordered all quiet and popped up the number two periscope for a peak. Turban sat in the spook shack section of the radio room and waited, his thick fingers tapping nervously on his knees. Though he'd conducted a few SpecOps before, this was his first one near the infamous city of Murmansk. Every submariner knew that the location of this port, tucked deep inside the Kola Bay in the far northwest corner of Russia, translated into danger times two. As headquarters for the Soviet Northern Fleet, more submarines and warships entered and exited this port than any other. Remaining undetected while hunting Ivan in these waters was akin to playing hide-and-seek in a small backyard with only a couple of trees to hide behind.\n\nAfter several days on station, Turban picked up a strange signal on the BRD-7 he'd never heard before. He sat up in his seat and listened. The signature resembled a Yankee-class ballistic missile submarine, but not quite. He wondered if this could be a new type of boat altogether. He keyed his microphone and reported the contact to Commander Williams.\n\nThe Flying Fish sprinted toward the unknown contact. Hours later, Williams slowed to a crawl and brought the boat to periscope depth. He raised the number two scope and peered at the image of an odd-looking submarine resting on the surface. Draping his arms over the scope handles, he let out a long whistle. The contact, designated Master One, looked like a Yankee, but with a larger two-step, humped missile compartment behind the sail. Williams reeled off dozens of photos with the 70 mm camera housed in the periscope, then ordered the \"under hull\" team to report to the control room.\n\nThe team consisted of a few handpicked individuals that Williams had \"certified\" capable of conducting a periscope visual inspection under the hull of a foreign vessel, without destroying the Flying Fish as a consequence. Under-hull runs were considered borderline suicidal, given that submarines needed to descend below a Soviet vessel and pass underneath with video cameras reeling while the periscope looked upward. Only a few feet separated the two boats. One wrong twitch, a sneeze, or a glance away from a dial at a critical time could send the Flying Fish flying into the underside of the Soviet craft. The impact would be heard in Moscow, and the damage might be bad enough to end a mission, perhaps permanently.\n\nThe under-hull team relieved the current watchstanders, while Williams remained glued to the periscope. He glanced away from the scope long enough to call into the radio room, where Turban and the spooks sat behind a curtain in their restricted area. He asked if they had any ideas about the class of this new sub. No one had a clue. He repeated the question to sonar. Since the target remained stationary, they could hear only occasional machinery noises\u2014not enough to determine platform type. Williams had a strong suspicion they were looking at the Soviet's new Delta-class submarine. If so, the Flying Fish would be the first to collect data on this type of boat. Every submariner dreamed that such a find would come along at least once in his career.\n\nTurban had recently read reports that the Soviets churned out the first Project 667B Delta I, designated K-279, in December 1972. As yet, no American submarine had encountered a Delta or captured any of her noise or signals information. An upgrade of the Yankee class, the new sub resembled an American \"boomer\" Polaris missile boat but carried twelve versus sixteen ballistic missiles in her tubes. These medium-range R-29 projectiles granted the Soviet Union the ability to launch from almost 5,000 miles away, making the Delta a far greater threat than her predecessors.\n\nWilliams gave the under-hull order, and the boat crept downward. The dark hull of the Delta loomed large through the scope like the underbelly of a sleeping killer whale. Turban and the other spooks could see what the skipper saw via the periscope-mounted video camera that broadcast to several monitors in the boat through a system called PeriViz, for Periscope Visual. As the Flying Fish passed beneath her prey, barely yards away, rough edges on the Delta rushed past, followed by sealed openings and meshed grates. When the scope focused on one of the grates, something shiny flashed. Williams zoomed in on the object, revealing a cylinder about three inches in diameter by five inches long. Some sort of container had wedged itself into one of the grates. One of the I-Branchers in the radio room read aloud the Russian writing painted across the item\u2014a product label belonging to a popular soda pop manufacturer. In essence, they'd just found a Coke can.\n\nUpon completion of the under hull, Williams circled the Delta and took more shots with the 70 mm and \"snapped-on\" 35 mm cameras. Sonar recorded stationary reactor noises, while Turban and company cataloged signals emanating from the masts. Williams moved out to 2,000 yards and ordered the weapons officer to ready tube numbers one and two, which were both loaded with MK-48 torpedoes. He verbally confirmed a few bearings while focused on the Delta through the periscope. Sailors sitting on the benches in front of the fire control computers dialed in the bearings.\n\nThe weapons officer glanced at Williams and said, \"I have a curve and a good solution on the target. Range two thousand yards, target speed zero knots.\"\n\n\"Attention in the conn,\" Williams said. \"Firing point procedures tubes one and two. Horizontal salvo, two degree offset, two-minute interval.\"\n\n\"Weapons ready,\" the weapons officer said.\n\n\"Firing point procedures,\" Williams said.\n\nA fire-control petty officer sitting on a blue bench in front of a large panel rested a hand on the firing key. With a single order from Williams, the Delta would be transformed into a twisted metal coffin. In the spook shack, Frank Turban rubbed his palms together. He was surprised at how dry they were. He thought that coming this close to sinking a Soviet submarine would cause him to sweat like a boxer, that he'd feel something: fear, anticipation, perhaps even sympathy for the submariners on the other boat. Surprisingly, with his mind focused on his job, he felt nothing but a sensation not too unlike the hum of an electric fence in a light rain. He wondered if that hum would turn into a jolt if they actually fired two torpedoes up the ass of the Delta.\n\nWilliams peeled away from the periscope. He glanced at the fire-control party and said, \"Stand down.\" With the firing exercise concluded, he ordered the diving officer to bring the Flying Fish in close, real close. Through the high-power lens in the number two scope, he snapped pictures of Soviet submariners wearing traditional Ushanka hats on the bridge, framed against a frigid gray smattering of clouds.\n\nIn the spook area, via the PeriViz, Turban watched the Russians light up cigarettes on the bridge of the Delta while carrying on an animated conversation. One of the sailors stopped, turned, and stared right at him. Turban held his breath as he stared right back into the sailor's eyes and saw clearly the questioning look of shock on the man's face. The Soviet sailor raised his hand and pointed right at Turban's nose. Turban knew that the Russian wasn't looking at him directly but had spotted the Flying Fish's periscope. Williams slammed down the handles on the scope and lowered the cylinder into its well. He ordered a deep dive, and the Flying Fish angled down thirty degrees as she made a rapid descent and sprinted away.\n\nWilliams later came shallow again, raised the scope, and afforded the crew the show of a lifetime through PeriViz\u2014complete with popcorn in the crew's mess. The Soviet Kresta I\u2013class cruiser Sevastopol lit off everything she had, including her Big Net, Head Net-C, and Plinth Net radar. She readied her ten torpedo tubes and started spinning the blades on her Ka-25 Hormone helicopter. Other ships and aircraft came onto the scene with equal ferocity. Given all the action going on, Turban thought for sure that Williams would move the Flying Fish outside Soviet territorial waters. Instead, the CO stayed put. Turban knew that Sturgeon-class boats were quiet and hard to find and figured that Commander Williams was about to prove that theory correct.\n\nTU-95 helicopters buzzed into the area and dropped sonobuoys. The active sonar pings were loud enough to be heard through the hull. A brand-new Krivak-class frigate approached, and the spooks got excited when she lit off her Spin Trough, Eye Bowl, Kite Screech, and Pop Group radars. The more data they could collect on these signals, the better. The linguist I-Branchers were having the most fun, listening to open transmissions between the ships and aircraft as they prosecuted the Flying Fish.\n\nOne I-Brancher, Phil Cafrey, stayed well past his watch-relief time and refused to turn over his headset. His eyes wide, his tongue wagging, he listened and translated like a madman possessed. Finally, after eight straight hours, he had to relieve himself. He received permission from the XO to use the nearby stateroom head and ran out of the radio room. In his rush to finish up and get back to his headphones, he missed seeing the large sign hanging on the stall door in the head. From across the passageway, Turban heard Cafrey scream in agony.\n\nAll submarines keep sanitary waste in large tanks that periodically need to be blown to sea. When this occurs, the tanks are pressurized with air to flush the tainted liquid out to the ocean. Large signs are placed in the heads warning sailors not to pull the flapper valves and flush toilets while sanitaries are being blown. To do so launches the pressurized air, along with a spray of waste, back up through the toilet opening and right into the face of the flusher. Cafrey missed seeing the sign and so pulled the flapper. After the screaming stopped, it took him a half hour to wash the stench from his eyes, nose, and body. From that day on, the crew affectionately called him Flapper Phil.\n\nThrough PeriViz monitors, the crew of the Flying Fish watched the procession of Soviet ships prowl back and forth. Radio operators received reports from ground stations that they were hearing \"stutter nine\" transmissions from the Soviets, consisting of all nines in the first group of transmitted characters. This translated to unidentified invader\/contact and almost always meant that the Soviet navy was searching for a U.S. submarine.\n\nThree days later, after all the fun had died down, the Flying Fish snuck away and returned to Norfolk so the NSA could study the photos of the new Delta I. Six weeks later, Turban got a call from Commander J. D. Williams. The CO wanted to know if Turban would like to ride again on the Flying Fish for another northern run. Turban jumped at the opportunity. Three other spooks from the former group of twelve also volunteered, including Mark Rutherford. Turban soon found himself back in cold waters near the North Cape\u2014which is the point where the Norwegian Sea, part of the Atlantic Ocean, meets the Barents Sea, part of the Arctic Ocean. Located on the island of Mager\u00f8ya in northern Norway, the North Cape is not far from Oslo, Norway, where William J. Reed helped set up a Boresight station.\n\nThe Flying Fish sauntered back to the Barents Sea, only this time the SpecOp bordered on boring for the first few weeks. Turban started to wonder why he'd volunteered but then recalled that after the Delta-finding run, he'd made up his mind to follow Commander Williams just about anywhere. Another day passed before Turban got a sniff from a Kresta II cruiser, which carried a new type of antisubmarine missile known as the SS-N-14. Accurate and deadly, the N-14 could rip a hole right through the Flying Fish within seconds. Turban had no desire to tangle with a Kresta II, but the ship continued to transmit to fleet HQ on a frequent basis. The type and frequency of the transmissions seemed odd. Based on a hunch, Turban started scanning the area for known submarine frequencies on the BRD-7. Nothing came up at first, then a faint trace.\n\nTurban almost wrote off the whisper but instead closed his eyes and concentrated. Out of the static came a familiar sound, the scratchy trademark of the burst signal that William J. Reed had heard more than a decade earlier while in Turkey. Too faint to trigger a detection alarm, the trace signal would have gone unnoticed if Turban hadn't become suspicious of the Kresta's repeated transmissions. While analyzing the signal, a neon bulb flashed in Turban's head. He immediately called Williams and explained his theory.\n\n\"A hurt Yankee?\" Williams said as he stood in the tight radio room.\n\n\"Sure looks that way,\" Turban said.\n\n\"How so?\"\n\n\"The Yankee sends a short burst signal to the Kresta. Right after that, the Kresta broadcasts a slightly longer message to HQ. That leads me to believe that the Yankee's not feeling well and needs the Kresta to help her out.\"\n\n\"How do we know where to find her?\"\n\nTurban explained that while T-Branchers, I-Branchers, and R-Branchers were all considered \"spooks,\" each received entirely different training related to linguistics, radio, radar, and communications signals. T-Branchers, like Turban, were highly trained in Soviet communications, signals, and procedures. Most of the time a T-Brancher could listen to a transmission and didn't have to measure anything to know the type of signal, its location, and its purpose. In this case, Turban knew they were listening to a Yankee submarine in the general vicinity of the transmitting Kresta II. To help pinpoint that location, Turban needed Williams to sprint to at least two other locations so they could multiangulate a bearing fix.\n\nWilliams nodded and hurried back to the control room. The Sturgeon-class submarine made a turn and ran for fifteen minutes to a new hole in the ocean. Turban took bearings before Williams cranked up the propeller and drove the Flying Fish to another spot, also fifteen minutes away. Turban took more bearings. Satisfied that he had a descent fix, he gave Williams the estimated bearing and range to the new contact.\n\nThe Flying Fish snuck into the area, whereupon Williams jutted the periscope above the waves for a look. Turban watched on the PeriViz. In the distance he saw smoke billowing from the submarine's sail and open hatches. Sailors darted about the deck in emergency fashion as their Yankee-class boat sat motionless upon the ocean. Gray clouds framed the injured submarine as a light rain splattered the deck.\n\nTurban gazed at the bulging shape of the Yankee in the monitor. He recalled how he'd felt when the Flying Fish cornered the Delta and practiced an approach to fire two torpedoes at her. Save for a low-level undercurrent of excitement, not much emotion flowed through him then. Now, something different welled up inside. Something profound. That most Americans considered these endangered sailors the enemy did not diminish the sympathy that consumed Turban as he wondered how many on board had been hurt or killed. But the Flying Fish could do nothing to assist.\n\nFortunately, other Soviet ships arrived and provided assistance as the Flying Fish lowered her scope and snuck away into the dark depths of the ocean.\n\nUpon returning to Norfolk, Turban learned that the Yankee submarine had endured a serious fire and that some of the crew had succumbed to smoke inhalation. For reasons Turban could not put into words, he felt a deep connection to the fallen. In that moment of grief, those Soviet sailors no longer represented an enemy to be feared or hated. They were fellow submariners and vulnerable in the end, just like him, comrades who shared the unique sacrifices required to work under the sea. Regardless of how cold the war between the superpowers became, Turban would always share a bond with those sailors that only those qualified in submarines could know.\n\nFor his achievements in underhulling the Delta I, and for locating the distressed Yankee, Commander J. D. Williams received a Distinguished Service Medal. Frank Turban earned his first Navy Commendation Medal, and he and Mark Rutherford gained enough notoriety within the NSA to warrant E-ticket rides on two submarines that conducted the most harrowing missions of the Cold War.\n\n## CHAPTER SIXTEEN\n\nIf we weren't all crazy, we'd just go insane.\n\n\u2014JIMMY BUFFETT\n\nBY LATE 1975, SOME AMERICANS HATED sailors. They also hated airmen, marines, and soldiers. The last helicopter flew away from Saigon on April 30, and long-haired protesters uncapped their Magic Markers to create new signs. stop the war changed to ban the nukes and down with the establishment. Having just enlisted in the navy that summer, I became an officially sanctioned target of the hippies. Almost overnight, friends turned into enemies. Did I not know that the warmongers had fueled a war that cost the lives of 1.3 million Vietnamese and 56,000 Americans? And what about the $584 billion the United States had spent on this meaningless conflict? They asked if I'd lost my mind, had perhaps become as psychotic as Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.\n\nI gave little heed to the barbs. I knew things most could not know, perhaps didn't want to know. By then, my father had told me a few hair-raising stories, under an oath to secrecy, about his part in the not-so-cold underwater war against the Soviets. Having enjoyed his years working with the silent service, he suggested that I consider joining the ranks of those committed to finding, and if need be, destroying the new enemy subs entering the fight. What he didn't tell me was that becoming a spy of the deep required learning how to live for months on end without the sun on my face, the love of a woman, or freedom from fear. I think he knew that I'd have to learn these lessons on my own.\n\nMy father had retired from the navy years earlier and embarked on his new career as a writer by penning an award-winning biography of the painter Olaf Wieghorst. Olaf's illustrious life included stowing away on a ship from Europe, working for the mounted police in New York, and chasing Pancho Villa along the Mexican border. Olaf's paintings depicted the Old West with such vivid realism that you could almost taste the dust. His sought-after masterpieces commanded high bids and hung on the walls of the wealthy and notable, including those of President Eisenhower and Senator Barry Goldwater, who wrote the foreword to my dad's book. My father took me to visit Olaf's studio in San Diego, where the humble master showed me authentic Indian head-dresses and vintage frontier rifles. I told Olaf that I intended to follow in my father's footsteps and join the navy. Olaf said that was admirable but encouraged me not to volunteer for submarines. As an outdoors-man, the very thought of living in a sewer pipe made him cringe.\n\nIgnoring Olaf's admonition, I volunteered for submarines and began my adventure on October 21, 1975, ten days after watching the first episode of Saturday Night Live, with George Carlin hosting. That night I stepped off a bus and walked through the gates of the Naval Training Center in San Diego. The navy stripped me of my clothes and ego and over the next eight weeks molded me into a sailor.\n\nAfter boot camp and six weeks of basic electronics school, I crossed the country to complete submarine school and almost eighteen months of fire-control-technician weapons-systems training at the submarine base in Groton, Connecticut. In the summer of 1977, six months after Jimmy Carter pardoned the Vietnam War draft evaders, the navy promoted me to petty officer second class and flew me to the Philippines to join the crew of the USS Haddo. Sonarman Petty Officer Second Class Kenneth \"Greenie\" Greenawald, also destined for the Haddo, flew with me. A medium-built, gregarious guy with an infectious smile and bushy mustache, Greenawald had traveled cross-country from his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and by now looked like the male version of a mistreated Raggedy Ann doll.\n\nThe Haddo had just completed a top-secret operation, and the sight of her smooth hull tied up next to the pier in Subic Bay in the Philippines filled me with an equal dose of excitement and dread. As I approached the mostly submerged craft, I noticed that the hull's black steel did not appear at all smooth. The surface contained brick-sized chunks of black rubberized material. I recalled from my sub school training that the material consisted of anechoic tiles, designed to absorb enemy sonar beams. At the time, I didn't give that detail much thought. Weeks later, when we were dodging a bunch of Soviet warships, I praised the genius designers of this technology.\n\nGreenawald and I walked across the brow of our new Permit-class submarine and handed a copy of our orders to the topside watch. A warm tropical wind chopped the ocean into wavelets that slapped against the boat and left an oily film. After checking our paperwork, the topside watch pointed toward an open hatch. At the edge of the small hole, I peered downward. The heavy scent of nuclear submarine filled my nose. To this day, I've never forgotten that stench. I learned later that since submarine air systems were \"closed loops,\" the scents generated by everything mechanical, chemical, and personal lingered forever. No amount of ventilating could ever scrub away the acrid, oily, fuel-laden, mechanical, electronic, fart-filled odors that could only be called \"the boat smell.\"\n\nThe Haddo's crew consisted of just over one hundred enlisted men and a dozen officers. Commander Norman Mims Jr. served as our CO. He was a seasoned veteran with gray hair and had been on a few diesel boats before progressing to CO of the Haddo. Under him, our executive officer projected the haughtiness of an upwardly mobile, by-the-book leader who lived in constant fear of making a mistake.\n\nLike all submarines, our command consisted of several divisions, including engineering (nuclear and machinist disciplines), navigation, sonar, fire control (weapons), and other operational functions. My division chief, FTGC (Chief Fire Control Technician\u2013Gunnery) James T. Lane, took charge of a small team of two fire-control technicians\u2014and now three with my arrival. Lane worked hard and played hard, and had a wide gap between his front teeth, which he flashed often after cracking dirty jokes. One of the other guys on my team included FTG1 (First Class Fire Controlman) Tim Vinson, the leading petty officer (LPO) of our division.\n\nVinson, a wiry guy from Florida, stood about my height, five feet ten inches, and had slightly thinning hair that he tried to comb forward enough to cover the bald spots. He had a playful, infectious sense of humor that endeared him to the crew. You never knew when to take him seriously. One minute he'd have you engrossed in a serious conversation about intricate technical details, and then suddenly you'd realize the whole thing had been an elaborate ruse.\n\nVinson gave me my first tour of the boat. In the control room, we moved past the Mark-113 fire-control system panels, around the periscope stand, and over to the ballast control panel. Vinson pointed to a panel labeled MBT VENTS. MBT stood for main ballast tanks. Underneath the panel, several small squares were labeled with various numbers and designators. Underneath these squares, seven smaller squares had lighted round circles in the middle, and underneath these, another seven small squares had nonlighted rectangular lines. My head swam with confusion, and I wondered how anyone could possibly memorize the functions of all those controls.\n\n\"What happens if our main ballast tanks fail in an emergency?\" I asked.\n\n\"Simple,\" Vinson said. \"We die.\"\n\nThat same afternoon, Chief Jimmy Lane handed me a qualification card\u2014a two-sided, eight-and-a-half-by-eleven-inch off-white sheet filled with dozens of check boxes next to every major system, valve, pipe, or piece of equipment essential to submarine operation. Completing my \"qual card,\" Chief Lane told me, could someday save everyone's life in an emergency.\n\n\"Suppose you're the only guy in the compartment when there's a big ol' fire,\" Lane drawled. \"You do the wrong thing, and my ass is fish bait. Learn this stuff, nonqual puke, or forever sleep in bad places and forget about movies or leisure-time novels.\"\n\nAny crewmate who wore the shiny \"qualified\" dolphin pin on his chest became the tormentor of anyone who did not. Qualifying consumed me for an entire year. I had never wanted to earn anything so badly in my life. Completing my qualification card to earn my dolphins taught me more about discipline and drive than any college or training course that I have ever taken, and never have I felt more accomplished than the day I donned my silver pin. A week after Vinson gave me my first tour through the boat, the Haddo slipped out of port.\n\nI'll never forget my first dive. I was sitting on one of the cushioned benches in the control room. We had just cleared Subic Bay and were headed for open sea. Idle chatter ceased as various orders were given and repeated to prepare the boat to dive.\n\n\"Dive, dive!\" the words echoed through the tiny control room from the diving officer. I expected to hear massive amounts of air blowing as the vent valves of the main ballast tanks popped open. I thought I'd feel the boat shudder as atomized air and water vapor exploded into the tropical air, while the tanks flooded with 800 tons of seawater to make us heavier. I wanted to hear an old-fashioned submarine \"auooga\" and the sound of Niagara Falls overhead as the submarine slid under the sea. I heard and felt nothing, except a disoriented feeling as the Haddo angled down fifteen degrees at the bow and disappeared under the waves.\n\nIn the front of the control room, the helmsman and planesman\u2014responsible for steering and diving the boat, respectively\u2014sat comfortably in bucket seats and operated airplane-style half-circle wheels. They concentrated on the analog dials and gauges on their control panels, while the chief of the watch (COW) repeated orders issued by the diving officer. As the boat continued its downward motion, I heard her groan, softly at first, almost inaudibly. As we went deeper, the creaks and moans increased in volume and tempo.\n\nCommander Mims ordered a temporary stop at various depths while the crew checked the boat for leaks. When none were found, we descended deeper. With each one hundred feet of descent, the outside water pressure increased by three atmospheres. At 800 feet, twenty-four atmospheres squeezed in on the boat, and twenty-five tons of pressure per square inch threatened to crush the hull. Finally, at 1,300 feet, test depth for a Permit-class boat, our descent into the abyss ceased. Again the crew checked for leaks. I watched the beam of Vinson's flashlight flickering across the piping in Fire Control Alley, a narrow space just behind the control-room equipment where the main digital computer stack was housed. Satisfied that she would again hold back the sea, Mims gave the order to ascend to 800 feet for our transit to Hong Kong.\n\nAs the days went by, I was amazed at how fast I adjusted to life under the sea. The focused objective to qualify as fast as possible, so that I would never again have to hear the words nonqual puke, helped to keep my mind off the fact that millions of tons of seawater were only a few feet away. Every submariner spends an average of one year \"qualifying\" on submarines by studying every switch, valve, system, pipe, and device on the boat until he has all of them memorized: how they work, what they're for, and, most important, what to do with them in case of an emergency.\n\nI spent hours tracing system schematics in the boat's piping-system booklet, and experts tested me on each associated or related item. I located emergency air-breathing (EAB) manifolds. I learned that in a fire emergency, we needed to don airtight masks, plug our hoses into the EAB manifolds, and commence breathing. Not knowing precisely where to find an EAB manifold in an emergency could cost a submariner his life.\n\nOnce I found everything on paper, I performed scavenger hunts to locate them somewhere on the boat. Fortunately, I had help from my boss.\n\n\"Did you find the fallopian tubes yet?\" Vinson asked me.\n\n\"The what?\" I said, validating that I had slept through Biology 101.\n\n\"They're in the bow, not too far from the diesel. Ask Lieutenant Tomlin; he knows right where they are.\"\n\n\"Okay, I'll ask him.\"\n\nTomlin was on watch when I made the mistake of asking, right in front of the entire control-room watch. They all started laughing, and I realized that I'd been had. I felt worse than a high school freshman on his first day of class. More questions followed, all intense. Slacking on qualifications was not tolerated. Lives depended upon everyone knowing their stuff. I drew each system by memory as an expert watched. He then studied my drawing intently and quickly pointed out even the slightest error.\n\nI had reported on board as an FTG2, the equivalent of a sergeant in the army. Until I earned my dolphins, a qualified seaman had every right to denigrate me if I got a qual question wrong. Luxuries were not granted to nonquals. I spent the first six months of my submarine tour sleeping on an air mattress on top of a torpedo rack, while qualified sailors two ranks my junior enjoyed quiet bunks in the bow compartment. My mattress had a leak, and every few hours the damn thing deflated. The lights were always on in the torpedo room, and someone always jabbered away while I tried to sleep. To this day I can fall asleep anywhere and sleep through almost anything. Heaven forbid that anyone should break into my house and steal my bed. I'd probably wake up on the floor sometime later, smiling and unaware that I'd been robbed.\n\nVinson once told me that if I ever missed sleeping on board a submarine, I should crawl onto the top shelf of my closet and hang a curtain in front. Then I should have a friend come around every two hours, rip back the curtain, shine a flashlight in my face, and say, \"Whoops, sorry; wrong guy.\"\n\nOn top of learning what made the boat tick to earn my dolphins, I had to come up to speed on standing watch in the control room and leverage my schooling to keep the fire-control systems operational. Once I did that, I would spend six hours on watch and twelve hours off in a three-man rotation. During my training, I learned about tracking targets, Soviet sub and ship capabilities, and the integration of sonar and periscope information into the fire-control computers. I also learned how to \"dance with the scope.\"\n\nMany of our watches were at night, with the control rigged for dark. The lights were set for red to adjust our eyes to darkness, in case we needed to come to periscope depth. In that event, we might spend several hours with our ESM-infused scope raised so the spooks could monitor radio traffic, or so some of us in the control room could scan the horizon for interesting contacts. During these times, the officer of the deck (OOD) often \"conveniently\" found alternate duties to perform, requiring the fire-control technician (FT) of the watch\u2014that is, me\u2014to dance with the scope in his stead.\n\nLike the old diesel boats, our submarine had two periscopes, but these were located in the control room in the center of a space no larger than the average two-car garage. The smaller Type 2 \"number one\" attack scope was controlled manually. Containing simple daylight optical capability, we used this scope for attack maneuvers where a reduced wake diminished the possibility of detection. The larger Type 18 \"number two\" scope housed all of the neat stuff, like ESM, 70 mm automatic camera equipment, electronically controlled focus and night vision capability, power-assisted rotation, and a special \"RAM\" (radar-absorbing material) to reduce detection by Soviet radar. Power-assisted rotation made turning the scope easier via a flat thumb-controlled button on the right handle. When the OOD wanted to raise the scope, he turned a large tubular \"wheel\" encircling the scope. This activated the hydraulics to lift the scope out of the well.\n\nSome of my duties entailed learning about sonar and how these systems interfaced with our fire-control equipment. Sonar was our primary means of gaining contact information related to TMA (target motion analysis). TMA was not too unlike the mental process that a quarterback undertakes to hit a running receiver. Good quarterbacks learn how to do TMA in their heads by estimating the distance to a receiver, along with how fast he's running, to determine where he'll be when the ball arrives. The quarterback then throws the ball to that spot.\n\nIn the submarine world, fire-control computers do the calculating for the boat's skipper, who is our quarterback. The receiver is the enemy ship or submarine. Using input from sonar, radar, ESM, and\/or the periscope, the computers keep track of the distance, or range, to the receiver, or target. They also track the target's speed, or how fast the receiver is running. Unlike your typical quarterback, however, who must process all this data within seconds to make a decision, back then fire-control computers were painfully slow. Long minutes passed before we could obtain a \"good solution\" on the target. Only then did our quarterback give the order to \"throw the ball\" and fire a torpedo.\n\nOur MK-113 fire-control system, which made all these calculations, consisted of two large banks of electronically and mechanically operated position-keeper (PK) analog computers on the starboard side of the control room. Each PK stood as tall as a refrigerator, but twice as wide. The front panel displayed the shape of a ship on two dials, which represented the enemy vessel and our boat, respectively. Dials and number indicators, similar to mechanical dials in a car odometer, kept track of estimated contact bearing, range, and speed. A complicated array of servos, synchros, and gears worked together to calculate a firing solution. The entire not-so-state-of-the-art system could have been replaced by one of the new Hewlett-Packard handheld calculators just coming onto the market at the time, but I suppose that's why toilet seats cost the navy thousands of dollars.\n\nBehind the main MK-113 consoles in Fire Control Alley, the primary digital computer took up a six-foot-long section and fed two smaller consoles on either side of the PKs. These were also as tall as refrigerators but equal in width. They provided essentially the same function as the PKs, but did so using digital versus mechanical technology. Only four contacts could be tracked at a time via the MK-113 system. On either side of the PKs sat the MK-81 consoles, like smaller refrigerators. These digital consoles were used to program and control wire-guided MK-48 torpedoes to their targets after our CO \"threw the ball.\" Just inside these two units sat the main torpedo and SUBROC missile-firing panel. SUBROCs are submarine-launched rockets with a fifty-mile range and nuclear depth charge capable of vaporizing a three-mile section of ocean.\n\nA large handle adorned the midsection of the firing panel, which we used to fire weapons should the need arise. During battle stations, the fire-control party, consisting of all the fire-control techs and several officers and crew assigned to those stations, operated the entire array of MK-113 equipment. We huddled close together on the benches in front of the whirring systems, sound-powered headphones glued to our ears, and cranked information into the gear in an effort to obtain an accurate firing solution. One wrong number on a solution could send the boat headlong into a Soviet submarine or other underwater obstacle, which could in turn send us all to the bottom.\n\nAs part of my training, Greenawald and the other sonar techs gave me frequent tours of the sonar shack and briefed me on passive and active sonar systems. Sound travels through seawater at roughly 4,000 feet per second over significant distances but offers only a vague clue as to the whereabouts of a contact. Most submarines employ several types of sonar to sniff out the enemy. The spherical sonar array was located in the bow. This consisted of a large fifteen-foot-diameter sphere that housed both active and passive sonar. It looked like a giant beach ball. The conformal array was a low-frequency sonar that wrapped around the midsection of the bow, like a massive piece of electrical tape with built-in ears.\n\nThe towed sonar array, called the STASS, was a by-product of the ITASS system developed by the LRAPP scientists. The \"pigtail\" array looked like a three-inch-thick, 2,600-foot-long garden hose with thirty-two bumps. Each bump housed a hydrophone that listened for distant targets emitting low-frequency sounds. To deploy the array, divers had to enter the water and attach the pigtail to the boat's stern planes. A small \"Mike\" motorboat met up with the sub at sea to help \"stream the array\" for use. The reverse had to be done when entering port.\n\nWhen sonar located a contact, they designated it Sierra one, two, three, and so on, in a sequential numbering system until the end of the mission. A contact of significance, such as a Soviet sub, usually got an upgrade to a Master number. Visual contacts were designated Victor (not to be confused with a Soviet Victor-class sub), and radar contacts were Romeo. Sonar operators spent hours with headphones on ears, turning small wheels on the BQQ2 sonar suite consoles\u2014called the BQS 11, 12, and 13\u2014until they detected a contact aurally.\n\nA waterfall display on an orange monitor for another system, called the BQR-24, visually kept track of the bearing\u2014or the direction\u2014of a sound generated by a contact. The display created a fuzzy narrow line that ran downward as the contact moved. Lines generated by targets shifted left or right as the contact changed direction. More lines equated to more contacts, which created a waterfall effect that resembled raindrops running down a window.\n\nThe BQQ2's sensitive passive capability allowed this system to hear surface ships more than 20,000 yards distant (ten nautical miles). Operators used a computer to catalog distinct sounds that were unique to a particular class of vessel, or even the exact vessel itself. A nick in a screw, \"singing\" propeller shaft, or humming engine noise could become a fingerprint or noise signature that identified a particular sub or surface ship, right down to the hull number. We called this ACINT, for acoustic intelligence.\n\nAs part of a Holystone mission, we might spend hours, days, or even weeks trailing closely behind a Soviet nuclear missile or attack submarine, sometimes approaching to within a few dozen yards. We often trailed and listened for hours, days, or even weeks to every noise made by our prey, while high-speed reel-to-reel recorders captured the information for subsequent input into data banks. This \"up close and personal\" aspect sometimes led to collisions, or near collisions, while shadowing Ivan, especially during a Crazy Ivan maneuver.\n\nI soon learned just what that phrase meant and would come to reason that we called it Crazy Ivan not so much in reference to the shadowed, but perhaps to those of us in the shadow. The baffle area on most submarines spans a sixty-degree arc directly behind the screw. A submarine's sonar is usually mounted in the bow, which creates a \"blind spot\" in the baffle area. This is where U.S. submarines might be found...in Ivan's shadow. We could play there due to our superior sound suppression technology that made it hard for Ivan to hear us.\n\nWhen U.S. boats cleared baffles, they slowed to one-third, turned ninety degrees to port or starboard, listened for any signs of unwanted visitors, then resumed their previous course. When Ivan cleared baffles, he made a 180-degree turn along his previous track, ran in the opposite direction for a while to ensure nothing suspicious lurked in the shadows, then made another thrilling 180-degree turn to resume his original course. The \"thrilling\" part related to speed. Unlike Americans, Soviets did not always slow down to clear baffles.\n\nHearing \"Crazy Ivan!\" from the sonar shack caused serious nail biting in the control room. The cry meant that better than 5,000 tons of Russian submarine had turned back in your direction, and if she didn't smack you, she might hear you. Either one of those scenarios could end your life. So, I reasoned, perhaps it was not just Ivan who deserved to be called crazy.\n\nAFTER A FEW MONTHS UNDER WAY, I finally learned enough to stand the fire-control watch alone. Excited to be on my own for the first time, I scrambled up the ladder to the main deck of the Haddo. The crimson glow of \"rig-for-dark\" red fluorescent lights bathed the interior of the control room and cast eerie shadows on the faces of the crew. The air, filled with hazy cigarette smoke, smelled like day-old coffee. Gray metal boxes clicked and hummed and blinked like tiny buildings in a metropolis under the sea. As I sipped my bitter coffee, Vinson gave me an update and turned the watch over.\n\n\"Who's this?\" I asked, pointing to a track on the plot. The plot board, fashioned from a two-by-three-foot metal box, housed a roll of scientific paper. On the checkered paper, dots and lines recorded the bearings and tracks of various contacts reported by sonar. Even though we had mechanical and digital computers to track contacts, we still used low-tech lined paper to plot the movement of all Master contacts. The roll of paper covered the front of the box that hung off the edge of one of the large PK computers. One of these dots on the paper, designated Master 21, also had a name.\n\n## Photographic Insert 2\n\nFew today know that four Soviet Foxtrot-class submarines, each carrying nuclear torpedoes, nearly started World War III during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. U.S. Navy photograph\n\nThe author with former Cuban Missile Crisis Foxtrot submarine commanders in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in March 2009. Left to right: RAdm. Victor Frolov (B-130), Lt. Anatoliy Andreev (B-36), Adm. Vladlen Naumov (B-36), W. Craig Reed (the author), Capt. Ryurik Ketov, Capt. Igor Kurdin, and translator Svetlana Verholantseva. Author's collection\n\nThe Soviets installed new SBD \"burst\" radio transmitters and encryption systems aboard Soviet submarines in 1960. The U.S. Navy was then unable to locate the Soviet subs until William J. Reed, the author's father, discovered the \"scratchy\" burst signal. Author's collection, taken on a Whiskey-class submarine in Saint Petersburg, Russia\n\nThe torpedo room in a Soviet Foxtrot-class submarine. Tube number two, which carried the nuclear torpedo during the Cuban Missile Crisis, is in the center. Author's collection, Maritime Museum of San Diego, California\n\nThe author touring the Soviet D-2 submarine in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in March 2009, with former Soviet submariners from the Saint Petersburg Submariner's Organization. Author's collection\n\nDuring the Cold War, the U.S. deployed more than a dozen \"elephant cage\" secret listening stations worldwide to locate radio transmissions from Soviet submarines. U.S. Navy photograph\n\nAuthor touring the Los Angeles\u2013class attack submarine USS Albuquerque (SSN-706) in San Diego, California. In the background is the weapons fire-control panel located in the torpedo room. Author's collection\n\nCrew of the USS Haddo (SSN-604) near Hanauma Bay on Oahu, Hawaii, circa 1979. Left to right: Dean Quint, Tim Vinson, Ken Greenawald, unknown, and the author. Author's collection\n\nKen Greenawald and Tim Vinson in the sonar shack of the USS Haddo just off the coast of Petropavlovsk, Russia. Author's collection\n\nControl room of the USS Florida (SSGN-728). Helmsman and planesman steer and dive the boat while the diving officer, seated behind them, issues orders. U.S. Navy photograph\n\nControl room in a Sturgeonclass Cold War submarine. U.S. Navy photograph by Chief Photographer's Mate Robert Hemmerly, courtesy of www.dodmedia.osd.mil\n\nFire control technician operating the missile launch console aboard the USS Seawolf (SSN-21). U.S. Navy photograph by Chief Photographer's Mate John E. Gay, courtesy of www.news.navy.mil\n\nType 18 \"number two\" periscope in the control room of a Sturgeon-class submarine.Author's collection, Naval Undersea Museum, Keyport, Washington\n\nU.S. Navy divers, like the author, deployed from fast-attack submarines during the Cold War to conduct top-secret photographic reconnaissance and surveillance missions. Many of these operations were in concert with Navy SEAL teams. U.S. Navy photographs by Senior Chief Mass Commuication Specialist Andrew McKaskle and Chief Photographer's Mate Mark Reinhard, courtesy of www.osd.mil\n\nThe most dangerous, daring, and decorated missions of the Cold War were undertaken by U.S. Navy deep-sea saturation divers breathing helium and oxygen mixtures. These divers, working from fast-attack submarines, tapped Soviet communications cables off the coast of Russia, at depths of up to 700 feet. U.S. Navy photographs by Mass Commuication Specialist Fisrt Class Eric Lippmann\n\nU.S. Navy divers, conducting top-secret Ivy Bells cable-tapping missions, spent weeks compressing and decompressing inside small diving chambers mounted on submarines, which resembled DSRVs like the one above. U.S. Navy photograph\n\nIn April 1981, the author, aboard the USSDrum (SSN-677) and deep inside Peter the Great Bay (below), was being sent on a mission to take secret photographs of the Soviet Victor III submarine K-324 when the Drum collided with the other sub. The Victor was from the Vladivostok naval base located in the top center of the photograph. The crew of the Drum, including the author, barely survived the encounter. NASA photograph\n\n\"Blackjack?\" I said.\n\nVinson shrugged. \"Master 21. Greenie gave him that name 'cause of the bet.\"\n\n\"Sonarman Greenawald?\" I said. \"What bet?\"\n\n\"Greenie heard a hole in the water on the watch before mine.\"\n\n\"Hole in the water?\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" Vinson said. \"A dead zone where there's no chirping biologics. As if something might be blocking the sound.\"\n\n\"Like a submarine,\" I said.\n\n\"Exactly. The other sonar jocks couldn't hear it, but Greenie swore something was there. Commander Mims wanted to sprint to a new location, but Greenie insisted he could find this guy.\"\n\n\"So what did Mims do?\"\n\nVinson grinned. \"He made a bet that if Greenie could find the contact by the end of the next watch, he could grow his mustache way past regulation standards.\"\n\n\"And what if he lost the bet?\"\n\n\"Then Greenie would have to shave the thing off.\"\n\nI pictured my buddy with a clean upper lip and figured he might be better off losing. \"So what happened?\"\n\nVinson yawned. \"Damned if Greenie didn't stay for two extra watches to find the contact. A submarine, but too faint to tell what kind. Since Greenie won the bet, he nicknamed the contact Blackjack.\"\n\n\"And now Greenawald gets to grow his mustache long.\"\n\n\"Right,\" Vinson said, stifling another yawn. \"I need to crash. The watch is all yours.\"\n\n\"Just don't take my rack,\" I said.\n\nKnowing that I still slept on an air mattress in the torpedo room, Vinson said, \"I'll let all the air out of your rack if you don't keep up on your submarine quals.\" He flashed a coy smile and turned to leave.\n\nAs Vinson strolled out of the control room, Lieutenant Edwin Ladeau Tomlin sauntered in. He was the crew's favorite OOD and had a great sense of humor combined with a quick mind. A graduate of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Tomlin stood over six feet tall, which often required him to duck as he moved about the tight spaces of the boat. He had jet-black hair, an infectious smile, and a boyish face that belied his age. I watched him relieve the previous OOD and walk over to my fire-control plot for an update.\n\nMaster 21, or \"Blackjack,\" remained on a bearing of three-five-two. We were now just outside Vladivostok harbor in the Peter the Great Bay, well inside Soviet territorial waters.\n\n\"How we doing?\" Tomlin asked.\n\n\"Fine, sir,\" I said.\n\nTomlin reached up and clicked a lever on the 27MC communications box. \"Sonar, Conn\u2014can you give me an update on Master 21?\"\n\nGreenawald's voice replied through the box. \"Conn, Sonar\u2014Blackjack is still on bearing three-five-two. Contact is classified as a probable submarine, class unknown at this time.\"\n\nTomlin leaned in my direction. \"Blackjack?\"\n\nI shrugged, said nothing.\n\nTomlin turned toward the front of the control room and issued an order. \"Diving Officer, come left to zero-nine-zero, increase speed to two-thirds.\"\n\nThe diving officer echoed the command, and the boat started to turn. Our 270 feet of black stealth cut through the deep in near silence as the rudder brought us to a new heading. Twenty minutes later, Tomlin gave the order to slow, and sonar went back to work.\n\nAfter a few minutes, Greenawald blared another report through the 27MC. \"Conn, Sonar\u2014contact is on bearing three-five-nine making turns for ten knots on two five-bladed props. Designate Blackjack as a possible Delta III\u2013class submarine.\"\n\nIn 1977, there were only six Delta IIIs in operation, and they were considered the most formidable threat to Western security at the time. The third generation of the infamous Delta ballistic missile sub, this new class came packed with improved stealth and advanced electronics. She was hard to find and even harder to trail.\n\nTomlin immediately called Commander Mims, who hustled to the control room in a matter of minutes. Mims's crow's feet and forehead wrinkles were a sharp contrast to the young faces in the control room. The CO struck me as a man who might have been gutsy enough to be a boat driver a quarter of a century earlier, when diesel fumes filled the tiny spaces of the original Haddo. In those days, submarines fired unreliable Mark 14 torpedoes at massive Japanese warships, then prayed to God they could run and hide before the depth charges started exploding.\n\n\"Cap'n,\" Tomlin said, as Mims stepped onto the periscope stand, \"looks like the sonar jocks picked up a Delta III headed out of Vlad. She's running about ten knots on two fivers bearing three-five-nine.\"\n\n\"I'll be damned,\" Mims said, \"a Delta III coming out of the barn. I have the Conn, Mr. Tomlin, man battle stations. Helm, all ahead two-thirds. Dive, make your depth 1,000 feet, five degree down bubble. Mr. Tomlin, what's our torpedo tube status?\"\n\nThe battle stations alarm sounded while Tomlin gave the CO an update. I had read about the Delta III in the top-secret submarine classification books in the control room and memorized most of the details. Although the Americans and the Soviets were about to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty on September 21, I knew this piece of paper would have no effect on nuclear submarines. The Delta III still deployed sixteen nuclear missiles with a range of almost 5,000 miles. Each missile had multiple warheads that could wipe out almost any city in America within a matter of minutes.\n\nTrailing a Delta III escalated the tension in the control room as men rushed to battle stations. The fire-control tracking party, consisting of a half-dozen officers and sailors, crammed into the control room. A swarm of bodies lined the benches in front of the Mark 113 target-tracking consoles. Few other priorities trumped the trailing of a Soviet boomer headed out on patrol, and if that Delta started flooding a missile tube, one of our Mark 48 torpedoes would be ready to surge from its cylinder and race toward the Soviet boat's twin-screws within seconds. Everyone knew that the longer we could keep a Delta III in our sights, the more points we scored in the \"keep the world safe\" game.\n\nMims walked over to my plot. His eyes squinting, he examined the Xs I had placed on the paper chart in relation to Master 21's recently reported bearings. He ran his finger along the Delta's plot line, then stepped near the periscope stand. He keyed the sonar 27MC. \"Sonar, Conn\u2014give me an update on Blackjack.\"\n\nGreenawald provided an update, while the tracking party entered data into the fire-control computers. Knobs and gears spun in muted whirs. Before long, the weapons officer (Weps) reported that we had a firing solution. We were ready to spin a torpedo up Ivan's tail, and he had no idea we were there.\n\n\"Cap'n,\" the Weps said, \"I have a curve and a good solution on the target. Range 5,000 yards, target speed ten knots.\"\n\n\"Attention in the conn,\" the skipper said. \"We have a good solution on the target. Firing point procedures tubes three and four. Horizontal salvo, one degree offset, one minute interval.\"\n\n\"Weapons ready,\" I heard myself say, an unsteady hand resting on the firing key. My mind reeled with questions. Was this just a practice run or the real thing? Did our CO know something we didn't? Some secret message from COMSUBPAC just received with orders to sink the Delta? Sweat from my palm dripped onto the firing key. I wiped it away before anyone could see it.\n\nLong seconds passed before Mims issued another order. \"Fire control team, stand down.\"\n\nUnsure of what had just happened, my hand stayed glued in place.\n\nLieutenant Tomlin leaned over and pointed at the panel. \"Petty Officer Reed, practice time is over. You wanna let go of that firing key now?\"\n\nWe tracked the Delta III for another several hours as she cleared the harbor and headed toward her assigned station, sometimes closing to within a quarter mile. She crept along at six knots for some time, then suddenly doubled her turns to twelve knots to sprint to a new location. She then slowed for ninety minutes before changing course again by seventy degrees or more. We stuck to her like silent hounds, while sonar recorded every swoosh, nuance, and hiccup. We cataloged the Delta's unique acoustic signature as the SSBN crept into the depths, unaware of the predator lurking in the shadows behind her.\n\nJust as my heart rate subsided, Greenawald reported three more contacts in the area: two Echo II\u2013class boats and one Foxtrot submarine headed our way. Two Kresta I\u2013class guided missile cruisers and the Moskva helicopter cruiser also came onto the scene from the other direction, transiting from the base at Vladivostok. The Delta managed to glide below a thermal layer and slip away as the Echo IIs moved into position on an adjacent bearing. I visualized the scene in the sonar shack, with Greenawald sitting in front of the BQS-11 passive sonar stack struggling to hear the final whispers of the Delta as the muted swoosh of her spinning propellers melted into oblivion.\n\nMims decided to bring us to periscope depth for a look around. \"Diving Officer, make your depth six-five feet, ten degree up bubble.\"\n\nThe boat angled up as we moved toward the surface.\n\n\"Up scope.\" Mims slapped the number two scope handles horizontal. He positioned his face against the eyepiece and swung the scope around to the bearing of the surface group. The WLR-9 ESM detection warning beeped as the Kresta's Top Sail and Head Net-C search radar signals swept past and caught a whiff of our periscope.\n\nHis eye pressed against the socket, Mims said, \"Bearing to the Kresta on my mark...mark! Bearing to the Moskva on my mark...mark! Down scope.\"\n\nI knew we couldn't afford to leave the scope up very long for fear that Soviet radar would detect the protruding mast.\n\n\"What the hell are these boys up to?\" Mims asked no one in particular.\n\nThe XO looked up from the navigation plot through a dank swirl of cigarette smoke. Heavy perspiration painted circles under each arm of his blue coveralls. \"Must be a decoy to let the Delta sneak off to her station.\"\n\nMims nodded.\n\nGreenawald's voice broke through the conversation and echoed over the 27MC. \"Conn, Sonar\u2014transients in the water. Sounds like torpedo tube doors opening.\"\n\nSilence. Then another excited chirp. \"Conn, Sonar\u2014we've got high-speed screws in the water! I repeat, high-speed screws in the water!\"\n\nTorpedoes.\n\nMims maintained his composure. \"Sonar, Conn\u2014bearing to the high-speed screws?\"\n\n\"Conn, Sonar\u2014bearing to the torpedoes is two-seven-two. They're coming from the Echo II.\"\n\nI recalled that in 1968, sailors on the Haddo shadowed an Echo II as she transited out of the Mediterranean Sea. Days later, they handed off that contact to the USS Scorpion. A few days after that, the Scorpion met her demise\u2014probably from a torpedo fired by that Echo II. And now, speeding our way, a torpedo from another Echo II threatened our home. I shuddered as I thought of those sailors on the Scorpion, screaming in fear as a relentless ocean swallowed them whole.\n\nMims issued another order. \"Helm, right full rudder, increase speed to full, make your depth 1,000 feet.\"\n\nEvasive maneuvers.\n\n\"Sonar, Conn\u2014give me an update on Masters 28 and 29.\"\n\nThe two Krestas.\n\n\"Conn, Sonar\u2014bearing to Master 28 is now two-eight-five, Master 29 is two-eight-eight. They're closing in our direction.\"\n\nThe torpedoes, along with several Soviet warships, sped closer and the tracking party feverishly dialed updates into the fire-control systems. Mims ordered another hard bank to maneuver out of the way of the speeding projectiles. As the boat turned, gravity threatened to suck in coffee cups and loose objects. The control room angled to one side in response to the sharp turn to starboard. The tiny control room closed in around me as I struggled to focus on the panel in front of me. Each breath came slow, the tightness in my chest now like a ton of bricks threatening to crush the wind from my lungs. I wanted to run, to hide from the high-pitched screaming of the deadly propellers headed our way, but only freezing ocean awaited me outside the steel hull of the Haddo.\n\n\"Conn, Sonar\u2014the torpedoes are now at 2,000 yards and closing. They have not acquired; I repeat, they have not acquired.\"\n\nJust over one nautical mile away.\n\nI knew that like trained hunting dogs, the sophisticated sonar in the tip of the Soviet torpedoes would soon lock on to the noise generated by our spinning propeller. Mims remained calm, as though he had the situation completely under control. As for me, I was certain that death was a mile away and closing fast.\n\n\"Conn, Sonar\u2014torpedoes have closed to 1,000 yards.\"\n\nOne-half nautical mile.\n\nMims ordered another hard bank, and I wondered what it felt like to drown.\n\n\"Conn, Sonar\u2014high-speed screws are slowing; I repeat, high-speed screws are slowing.\"\n\nI looked up at the overhead of the control room, as if by some mysterious power I might actually be able to see the shiny cylinders in the dark and could will them to stop.\n\n\"Conn, Sonar\u2014high-speed screws are silent.\"\n\nTomlin stepped up behind me and voiced his opinion. \"Damn near skinned our asses on that one.\"\n\nWhispered cheers rang out as Greenawald reported that the torpedoes had stopped dead in the water. Something didn't seem right to me. We had just barely avoided being blown out of the water, and no one in the control room seemed at all fazed, like this was just another routine day. Did I miss something?\n\nTomlin noticed my confusion and said, \"Soviet torpedo exercise. We just got caught in the middle.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" I said.\n\nA few minutes later I had to ask: \"Were the warheads armed?\"\n\nTomlin shrugged. \"Damned if I know.\"\n\nI had just survived my first encounter with the Red Bear. Now I understood what every fast-attack submariner comes to know: for this profession, the fainthearted need not apply. In this undersea world, risks are commonplace, and lives are gambled every day in a war yet undeclared. Over the next few years, across a half-dozen espionage missions, I almost lost that gamble more than once.\n\n## CHAPTER SEVENTEEN\n\nWhen sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.\n\n\u2014WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE\n\nHAVING REPLACED THE HALIBUT AS THE cable-taping spy boat, the USS Seawolf left San Francisco Harbor on June 20, 1976. In the expansive Area D diving section, she carried twenty-two navy divers, including David LeJeune. Unfortunately, the Seawolf also left port with the same sea gremlins that had plagued Captain Aleksei Dubivko on B-36 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Breakdowns, fires, and emergency reactor shutdowns\u2014bad things that always came in threes\u2014kept the crew alert, awake, and filled with anxiety most of the time.\n\nThankfully, Gardner Brown's cousin, Gene Centre, and others like him at Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory back in 1954 took great pride in their work. They went the extra mile during Seawolf's birth to ensure her reactor could exceed design parameters. This functional overbuild kept Seawolf's crew alive more than once. Still, at the ripe age of twenty-two, the old girl had long passed her prime. If one dog year equates to seven human years, then boat years were probably around half that, making the Seawolf seem about seventy-seven\u2014just spry enough to keep trying, but debilitated by arthritis and fatigue. Until another boat could take her place, she'd just have to \"suck it up\" and keep running marathons into the Sea of Okhotsk, and her crew would need to double the frequency of their prayers.\n\nThe Seawolf carried four remote operating vehicles (ROVs) on racks in Area D near the hyperbaric chamber used by the saturation divers. Operators nicknamed the ROVs Deep Throat, Happy Hooker, Hawkeye, and Shortime\u2014the latter gaining its name because every time they put her into the water the electronics \"shorted out.\" Although disguised as \"oceanographic research\" devices, the ROVs had an uncanny resemblance to the Fish and Underdog mini-subs used on the Halibut and Swordfish, respectively. Each were tethered to the submarine, powered by an electric motor and propeller, and contained high-resolution cameras to facilitate finding things on the ocean floor, like communications cables or discarded missile parts.\n\nFive communication technician \"spooks\" also accompanied the Seawolf on that mission: Master Chief Mac Empey and Chief Mark Rutherford\u2014alumni from the third Halibut mission\u2014along with Chief Frank Courtney and Second Class Bob Ellenwood, who'd also made the last Halibut run. The fifth member, Senior Chief Tommy Cox, had just joined the team as a permanent linguistics expert.\n\nAfter Mac Empey's eye-opening indoctrination video, LeJeune befriended the ACT V gang\u2014the name given to the group of five spooks\u2014and hung out with them in the chart room when he wasn't pressing down, diving, or pressing back up in the dive chamber. LeJeune had recently completed barber's school and gained some skill in the art of cutting the crew's hair under way. He was snipping at the head of a spook when Cox sauntered into the area. The smiling I-Brancher sat on an empty torpedo rack and picked up someone else's guitar. Without asking, Cox proceeded to tune all twelve strings. LeJeune groaned, certain that the guy was about to play \"four bars of the only song he knows and then strut off proud and full of himself.\"\n\nCox finished tuning, then pulled a large red handkerchief from his pocket. He honked his nose into the hanky and proceeded to wow the small crowd with a combination of well-played original and popular tunes. LeJeune \"hired\" Cox as his official barbershop entertainer, and the singing spook also became a regular act in the crew's mess, especially when the selected movie sucked or during \"spook night,\" when the ACT V team pitched in and prepared a meal for the entire crew. LeJeune lent a hand for these events, which included serving the officers in the wardroom.\n\nAfter Mac Empey demonstrated his brilliance by saving the Ivy Bells program from extinction on a prior run, he received a promotion to warrant officer and moved into the wardroom with the other officers. Rank held little meaning with the ACT V team, and Empey's beer-drinking days with the spooks at the Horse and Cow Saloon in Vallejo, California, were unchanged by the gold bars.\n\nThe Seawolf set a record in 1958 for the longest submerged transit of sixty days. She broke that record on the first run to the Sea of Okhotsk in 1976 by staying under for eighty-seven days. Although a rough transit, filled with occasional fires, system failures, and turbulent swells, the Seawolf completed her wire-tapping run with no serious issues. Prior to her next mission in 1977, T-Brancher Frank Courtney's wife took ill, requiring him to decline future runs. Mac Empey retired, and so the ACT V team needed to recruit two replacements.\n\nThere were no strangers in the ACT V group. Everyone knew and vouched for someone. Empey and Rutherford knew each other from the Halibut. Empey knew Cox from the USS Lapon (SSN-661), where both served with the famous Commander Chester M. \"Whitey\" Mack. Courtney knew Rutherford and Cox from the Greenling (SSN-614), and so it went. The group meshed and worked well together, which had proved critical to the success of previous missions. As such, the ACT V group often circumvented Bureau of Naval Personnel (BUPERS) recommendations and considered only those they could trust.\n\nAngered by this stance, BUPERS insisted that the team at least interview their candidate, Charlie Miller. At first, the ACT V guys refused, having already decided on an M-Brancher in New London. Tommy Cox and Mark Rutherford finally relented and drove to Sugar Grove, West Virginia. There they questioned Miller for hours and found him to be a more worthy candidate. With one down, they still had one more member to select.\n\nFrank Turban did not at all expect a call from Mark Rutherford to discuss the possibility of joining the elite ACT V Special Projects team, currently assigned to the Seawolf. He'd heard rumors about that aging boat and had no desire to become a part-time member of her genuflecting, prayer-muttering crew. Having served with Rutherford on the USS Flying Fish, where they encountered the first Soviet Delta and a wounded Yankee-class submarine, Turban trusted his friend and decided to listen. Rutherford said that two members recently left the group, and they needed Turban's advanced T-Brancher skills for an important top-secret mission. Perhaps, Turban commented years later, he should have run from the offer. Instead, he accepted and jogged headlong into disaster.\n\nThe Seawolf headed west in 1977 with two new spooks aboard. In the crew's mess, Turban overheard sailors talking about the Wolf's constant spate of problems. They said that their tall, easy-going skipper, Commander Charlie McVain, never ran drills. He didn't need to. The Wolf endured more than enough real disasters. Turban raised an eyebrow when some of the guys actually placed bets that the old boat wouldn't have the chops to complete her next SpecOp. One petty officer joked that if he lost because the sub went down, he wouldn't have to make good on his bet. Turban dismissed the banter as just talk, but he still tossed and turned nervously in his rack. Six days out of Mare Island, the talk died to a whisper, and Turban finally relaxed.\n\nThen a fire alarm uttered a warning and jolted him to attention. He'd just sat down in the crew's mess and started chewing on a sticky bun when a woman's voice blared over the 1MC. A sweet chunk of the pastry lodged in his throat and damn near choked him to death. The crew called their alarm system the \"bitch in the box,\" as the system came with a soft voice in place of a clanging alarm. Someone back in the fifties, during the Seawolf's formative years, thought they should use a soothing Bell telephone operator's voice for alarms versus the clanks and clangs found on diesel boats. An autographed portrait of the old Bell operator hung on a wall in the wardroom. The soft sound of \"Fire, fire in the engine room,\" whether spoken with Grandma's voice or not, did nothing to sooth Turban even a little.\n\nHe initially wondered if the alarm was a drill. Then he smelled the smoke. With the bitch box blaring in his ear, he jumped from his bench, donned an EAB mask, and joined the throng now passing emergency gear aft. Commander McVain announced over the 1MC that a fire had broken out in the reactor compartment. The blood rushed from Turban's face, and his knees shook like branches in a high wind. He knew they were running 100,000 pounds heavier than normal\u2014this to keep the Seawolf anchored to the bottom of the ocean during cable-tapping operations once on station. If the fire caused the reactor to scram, they'd lose propulsion. Given the extra weight, they'd lose depth control. And given the depth of the ocean, they could lose their lives.\n\nTurban watched as a horde of damage-control personnel ran past, EAB masks strapped to their faces. Men shouted and pointed. Others responded by running, pulling gear from lockers, or just getting out of the way. Turban became one of the latter by slipping down into the torpedo room and huddling in the chart room with the other spooks. Nearby were racks of torpedoes, long and green and loaded with explosives. Turban wondered if they'd blow up when heated by a fire. As the boat angled down even farther, he glanced at a nearby depth gauge: 350 feet. He knew that the Seawolf's test depth was 750 feet. The needle on the gauge inched downward even more: 400, 450, 500, 550.\n\nTurban looked over at Rutherford, seated on one of the bunks in the torpedo room. His friend said, \"We're too heavy. They're probably trying to pump the extra water out of the ballast tanks, but they can't keep up.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" Turban asked.\n\n\"The reactor's scrammed,\" Rutherford said. \"We don't have enough power while we're running on batteries.\"\n\n\"What happens if they can't get the reactor back online?\" Turban said as his worst nightmare unfolded in real time.\n\nRutherford shrugged, said nothing.\n\nThe depth gauge hit 650 and Turban muttered a quick prayer.\n\nTwo decks above him, Commander McVain, who'd earned a Ph.D. in nuclear physics, sprinted aft to assist the damage-control party. He left his red-haired, freckle-faced XO in charge. When the boat hit 750 feet, McVain yelled an order up to the control room through a sound-powered phone to \"emergency blow!\" The XO's freckles disappeared, and his face turned white. Frozen by shock, he did not repeat the order. The chief of the watch maintained a calm head and followed his skipper's orders without waiting for the XO. The gushing sound of air permeated the boat.\n\nThen the Seawolf rocketed to the surface, lifted partially out of the water, and crashed back into the ocean. She dove again to more than 200 feet before leveling off on the surface. The crew finally managed to quell the fire and to ventilate the smoke off the boat. Turban later learned that a large fuse in the nuclear compartment had blown. Filled with wet sand, the fuse blew its moist dust into the lube-oil bay, causing a plume of steam. When the reactor operator saw the plume, he thought it was from the propulsion system, so he scrammed the reactor. Without the brute power of her nuclear-propelled blades, the Seawolf could not climb the mountain back to the surface, at least not until McVain ordered an emergency blow to force air into the ballast tanks and push out the extra water.\n\nThankful to still be alive, Turban breathed a sigh of relief. Then he heard the rumor. Apparently, they brought only one spare sand-filled fuse, and they just used that one up. Despite the risk, Commander McVain refused to throw in the towel and head back to port. He figured that the old girl had survived everything thrown at her, and the odds against blowing another fuse had to be one in a million. Then again, thought Turban, Captain Edward John Smith thought the Titanic was indestructible.\n\nTHERE ARE FEW ICEBERGS IN THE Sea of Okhotsk, but there were plenty of Soviet warships and hunter\/killer submarines during the Cold War. Dozens of them strutted across the \"Mouth of the Bear's\" frigid waters while transiting between Vladivostok in the Sea of Japan and Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka Peninsula. After the Seawolf arrived on station, deep inside Soviet territorial waters, navy diver David LeJeune prepared for the dive of his life. Three other divers joined him inside the twenty-by-ten-foot diving chamber in Area D.\n\nLeJeune pulled on his MK-11 deep-sea diving suit. He then dipped his Kirby Morgan mask into some water to soak the spongelike material\u2014this to better keep the ocean out of his eyes. After smearing Vaseline over the rubber seal on the mask, he clamped it down tight on his face and sucked in a few breaths. Nearby, the other divers duplicated the routine, including David \"Whompee Jaw\" Sullivan. The lanky diver earned his moniker by the grace of God, who imbued him with an offset jaw. The engineers at Kirby Morgan actually had to design a special mask to fit the man's unique face. After the divers finished suiting up, they completed their checks and opened the inner hatch, but not before LeJeune placed something in his suit pack. Sullivan climbed up through the opening, wrestled with the outer hatch, and disappeared into the black beyond.\n\nThe hyperbaric chamber was pressurized to maintain equilibrium with the ocean outside, not too unlike the small space at the front of the DSRV-shaped diving chamber on the Halibut. This prevented the seawater from taking up residence in the submarine and allowed the divers to exit to the netherworld. Once outside the sub, darkness engulfed LeJeune as he descended to the ocean floor. Tiny fish fluttered past his face mask, shiny and ethereal in the glow of his underwater light.\n\nLike they had done on countless training dives, LeJeune, Sullivan, and another diver slow-walked the 300 yards over to the twenty-foot-long pod-tapping \"beast.\" The large drum-shaped pod had been placed there on an earlier mission, and thick \"jumper cords\" now snaked through the sand on their way to the communications cable. The recording tapes in the beast had collected hundreds of Soviet conversations over the past several months, and the divers' job now entailed retrieving those tapes for subsequent perusal by the NSA. After completing this task, LeJeune removed a white oval object from his suit pack. He knew that the USS Parche was scheduled to undertake the next mission back to the Sea of Okhotsk and figured he might not be selected as one of the divers to go on that run. As a joke, he wedged a cow's skull under one side of the beast to offer the next set of divers \"a good laugh\" when they arrived the following year.\n\nWhile slogging back toward the Seawolf, a green glow inside LeJeune's mask verified that his HeO2 mix was still good. His stomach growled, and he was thinking about devouring a hamburger in the crew's mess. His hunger evaporated when his mix light turned red. He swallowed a lump and called the master diver, who ordered an immediate \"reel in.\" Something tugged hard at LeJeune's back. His feet shot up from the silt as he sailed through the water, pulled along by his lifeline. The fourth diver, inside the boat, reeled him in at warp speed. Tons of ocean between LeJeune and the boat made the seconds tick past like hours. LeJeune reached back and felt for the small can of mix strapped to his back, painfully aware that it held only three breaths. He was more than a football field away.\n\nOne breath.\n\nSo this is how it ends.\n\nTwo breaths.\n\nWould they remember him as a good man?\n\nThree breaths.\n\nHis vision blurred as his air ran out. He felt dizzy but at peace. He closed his eyes. He did not see God, but he also didn't see the devil. In fact, he saw nothing but darkness. Then a bright light beckoned, and he wanted to follow.\n\nLeJeune blinked. Sullivan's offset jaw formed a crooked smile inches above his face. \"Thought we lost you there, partner.\"\n\nAfter decompressing, LeJeune completed a physical examination and sauntered up to the crew's mess. There he ordered a big, fat, juicy cheeseburger smothered with mayonnaise. He figured if he was going to die of a heart attack, it probably wouldn't be today.\n\nThe Seawolf logged another record that year for the longest-known mission underwater, 106 days all told. She hadn't set out to achieve that milestone, but her aging propulsion system refused to deliver more than ten knots speed, and given the amount of noise she produced, Commander McVain needed to take an indirect course to avoid detection. Those in a position to know full details about upcoming Ivy Bells missions understood that the Seawolf's time was near an end, and the USS Parche would be making the next run to the Sea of Okhotsk in 1978.\n\nDavid LeJeune joined the crew of the Parche and made several more dives, some in the Barents Sea at depths reaching 700 feet. He earned his submarine dolphins in 1977 and qualified as master diver in 1978. He and his wife, Cheryl, whom he still calls George, have been married for more than forty years. Submariners on the Halibut, Seawolf, and Parche referred to the navy saturation divers who undertook these harrowing missions by a special name. They called them heroes.\n\nWHEN DENNIS SMITH GRADUATED FIRST IN his class from navy electronics school in late 1975, he did not envision that Submarine Development Group (DevGru) One would recruit him to help conduct submarine espionage missions. He didn't think his job would entail working on the most top-secret and advanced mini-subs in the world, and he never imagined that fate would place him front and center for the most important underwater missions of the Cold War.\n\nWhen he arrived in Northern California, DevGru assigned him to the oceanographic ship USNS De Steiguer (AGOR-12), skippered by a civilian who reported to Commander Hal Brown, the officer in charge of DevGru One. There he worked with cutting-edge devices called STOVEs, for Surface Tethered Oceanographic Vehicle Experimental. These camera-filled mini-subs had been resurrected from the USS Halibut and painted with \"cool colors\" such as orange or bright fishlike swirls of red and yellow. On the De Steiguer, Smith helped reel out 17,000 feet of cable so the STOVEs could hunt seabeds for interesting tidbits, like spent missile parts. Smith enjoyed his job, but his time aboard the De Steiguer abruptly came to an end when a sea mountain damaged the STOVEs beyond repair during a big storm.\n\nET2 Dennis Smith then received orders to the USS Parche in 1976 and reluctantly reported to the Special Projects Rescue Systems (RS) division. He didn't think the Parche would have anything as \"amazingly cool\" as the STOVEs, but as it turned out, he was dead wrong. In the Parche's torpedo room he found the latest in secret underwater snooping technology, known as the System 2090, which incorporated improved optics, sonar, and more. Using tethered mini-subs similar to the STOVE, Fish, and Underdog UAVs, the Parche found stuff on the ocean floor with these advanced devices like nothing had before.\n\nSmith's RS division consisted of new guys who'd not yet gone on a mission, with the single exception of his boss, Senior Chief Al Lusby. Over the next several months, Smith got to know his teammates well. He also met some of the \"Rescue Communications\" division spooks, including Frank Turban, and a few of the \"Rescue Operations\" saturation divers, like David LeJeune. Both had just completed a run on the Seawolf to the Sea of Okhotsk, and Smith felt a tingle of excitement run down his spine when they talked in hushed tones about Parche's upcoming mission to the same area.\n\nOver the next several months, Smith and the other ETs practiced operating the System 2090 mini-subs. These \"Fish-like\" devices were launched via the torpedo tubes and contained special sonar to help them locate objects underwater. The units were tethered to 400 feet of cable and housed high-resolution television and film cameras and high-beam lights. Despite the fact that the 2090s used torpedo tubes to deploy, the Parche's torpedomen were not allowed to view, let alone work on, any of the equipment. Only the specially trained ETs in the Rescue Systems division were afforded that privilege.\n\nThe 2090s resembled stubby torpedoes, right down to the same green paint. They were all custom made by Westing house Oceanic Division in Annapolis, Mary land. Another company with offices on Tennessee Street in Vallejo, California, made most of the internal equipment, which included a state-of-the-art plasma display and a videodisc recorder that could store 300 frames of video\u2014about 10 seconds' worth\u2014complete with rewind and slow-speed replay. With 2090s running just twelve feet off the bottom in murky waters, this last feature proved critical in spotting three-inch-diameter communications cables and tiny missile parts. The RS division consisted of ten ETs, with five of them standing six-hour watches at a time. On watch, one ET operated the video gear, and another drove the 2090, while yet another navigated.\n\nAs for weapons, the Parche carried only four torpedoes\u2014initially a combination of MK-37s and MK-48s, and later just MK-48 ADCAPs (Advanced Capabilities). These torpedoes were specially modified to light off their motors faster after leaving the tube. Standard torpedoes simply would not work on the Parche when she was on station. Her cable-tapping missions required that she sit in the mud atop jet ski\u2013like sled runners, with her underbelly only a few feet off the bottom. A normal torpedo, when fired, drops downward by almost fifty feet before the motor lights off and speeds it toward a target. This safety feature, which helps prevent problems with \"hot running\" torpedoes, is acceptable in the open ocean, but not for scenarios where the sand is less than fifty feet below the sub. Modified torpedoes solved this problem, but also carried the risk of a hot run, which could terminate a mission.\n\nThe Seawolf remained under repair and tied to the pier while the Parche went to the Sea of Okhotsk in 1978, with Commander John H. Maurer in command. The crew took to calling their skipper \"Bullet Head\" because of his near-bald crewcut. Once the Parche came within range of the cable, Smith and the other ETs shot a 2090 mini-sub out one of the torpedo tubes. On a monitor screen in the torpedo room, Smith watched the 2090 speed across the bottom, its bright strobe light illuminating jagged rocks and frightened fish. The shape of a twenty-foot-long barrel came into view. The beast. Smith stared in awe at the large cylinder and marveled at the ingenuity. American engineers had actually built a watertight container that housed the latest in sophisticated induction-recording technology powered by a miniature nuclear reactor. If they could do that, what couldn't they accomplish?\n\nParche spent the next thirty-one days on station while the RS division divers, including Master Diver David LeJeune, retrieved the recording tapes and returned to the boat. Given Parche's advanced speed, their entire mission time was less than the Seawolf's typical transit time. The Parche started to head home, but Maurer ordered a return to the pod for overhead mission pictures. The Parche hovered over the beast while a 2090 reeled out and snapped shots, some 300 feet below the submarine. Maurer maneuvered the Parche into a hover, not unlike a helicopter, where the boat remained completely still. For subs, this is a difficult maneuver that requires steady hands to pump water in and out of the trim tanks to keep the boat level and stationary.\n\nUnfortunately, hovering did not sit well with the 2090s. They preferred a moving submarine to ensure an unsnagged tether line. With the Parche sitting in one spot, the 2090 windmilled out of control and snapped off from the end of the cable. The ETs had a spare, but it took ten hours to reel in the old cable, unravel it, splice on a new 2090, and test the system. The Parche then had to use the new 2090 to find the old one. Once located, the submarine sat down again and redeployed the divers to grab the spent mini-sub. Having already started to decompress, the divers grumbled but complied.\n\nDennis Smith's first run into harm's way hooked him into the world of Special Projects, where he remained for years to come. One of those missions was Parche's first into the cold northern waters of the Barents Sea in 1979. Given its proximity to Murmansk, home of the Soviet Northern Fleet, this area provided a heightened degree of danger and difficulty for any submarine, let alone a cable-tapping one. Smith and crew spent days searching for the cable, coming within a few miles of the Soviet coastline.\n\nFinding the cable took days, with the Parche sending out a 2090 to snoop around the ocean floor some 700 feet down. Once found, they hovered over the landing spot while dropping 15,000-pound mushroom anchors. The anchors thudded into the silt fifty feet below the submarine. The Parche then inched down slowly until she neared the top of the anchors. She oscillated back and forth above the two anchors before the winches were engaged to pull the boat toward the bottom. Although the Parche had practiced this maneuver dozens of times off the coast of San Francisco, the actual procedure was fraught with risk. One wrong move could send the boat slamming into one of the anchors or rip her free of the tethers and end her ability to stay anchored to the bottom\u2014which would also end the mission.\n\nThe Parche settled to the bottom and deployed the divers. In the pitch-black sea, they manhandled the massive pod-tapping beast into position near a communications cable. They connected the jumper cord to a repeater box and returned to the Parche. T-Branchers then pulled information off the cable, while I-Branchers listened intently to ensure the quality of the tap. Weeks later, the Parche returned to California and received a Presidential Unit Citation for operating \"in the hostile environment of poorly charted ocean areas.\" Her crew celebrated the success of their mission at the Horse and Cow Saloon in Vallejo, and all of them signed gag orders saying that they would remain silent about what they had done for at least thirty years.\n\n## CHAPTER EIGHTEEN\n\nSuccess is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.\n\n\u2014WINSTON CHURCHILL\n\nWHEN THE FIRST ULTRA-QUIET SOVIET NUCLEAR-POWERED hunter\/killer attack submarine, code-named Victor I by NATO, rolled down the ramp at the Admiralty yard in Leningrad in 1968, the U.S. Navy lifted a concerned eyebrow. Sixteen of the Victors splashed into the sea through 1975. By 1978, Seven Victor II submarines were added to the Soviet fleet, each carrying sixteen Stallion cruise missiles that could scream through the air at Mach 1.5 and destroy targets seventy-five miles away. Crews quickly manned battle stations whenever a Victor II was detected anywhere near a U.S. warship. For NATO forces, however, finding a Victor II was not that hard. Soviet engineers were skilled in weaponry but not in the art of stealth.\n\nDuring the early years of the Cold War, the Soviet Union knew that its boats were noisy as hell. Built to keep up with fast U.S. warships, they had a distinct acoustic disadvantage. U.S. sonar operators often joked that Ivan's subs \"whined so loud, they sounded like cats in heat.\" When the Soviets discovered through their spy network that American subs could easily track Victor IIs, they halted production to design the Victor III. To overcome excessive noise issues, the Soviets reverted to a tried-and-true tactic: they cheated.\n\nDuring the late seventies and into the early eighties, the Soviet Union secretly contracted with Toshiba and Kongsberg\u2014Japanese and Norwegian technology companies, respectively\u2014for 140 Kongsberg computers, advanced software, and sophisticated propeller-milling equipment designed to quiet their noisy props. In direct violation of international trade agreements, the two companies, almost overnight, allowed the Soviet Union to produce quiet submarines. In 1979, they did just that with the introduction of the Victor III, which swung the Cold War pendulum back in their favor. For U.S. submariners, hunting Ivan just got a lot tougher, and the statement Commander Kinnaird R. McKee made in 1968 when he served as the CO of the USS Dace (SSN-607) all but came true.\n\nIn short, McKee opined that \"eventually, U.S. and Soviet submarine capabilities will converge.... It will be blind man's bluff with other submarines...because at some point, nobody will be able to find a submarine with anything.\"\n\nThanks to Toshiba and Kongsberg, Victor IIIs sported ultra-quiet tandem four-bladed propellers and special sound-reducing shock absorbers to increase stealth. This class of hunter\/killer attack submarine also came with something else entirely new. Mounted atop the rudder at the aft of the Victor III, a strange tear-shaped pod stretched nearly thirty feet from end to end, with a diameter of eight feet near the front of the pod. From a distance, the odd pod resembled an elongated egg with a sharp taper near the tail. By 1980, the U.S. Navy remained clueless as to what this mysterious pod could be. Obtaining close-up photos of a Victor III odd pod, so the NSA could determine its purpose, became a top priority for U.S. fast-attack submarines.\n\nAT THE REQUEST OF SUBMARINE GROUP (SUBGRU) 5 in early 1980, I received a transfer from the USS Haddo to the USS Drum (SSN-677), a newer Sturgeon-class submarine. Like the Haddo, the crew of the Drum numbered just under a hundred enlisted men and a dozen officers. Our CO, Commander Michael Oliver, was an experienced and proficient leader who often ran headlong into danger like a sword-brandishing swash-buckler after bounty. Our executive officer, Robert E. Fricke, while also professional and intelligent, occasionally pushed the crew a bit harder than needed in an effort to improve efficiency by one more tenth of a percent.\n\nCommander Oliver sat me down in his stateroom a few days after I reported on board and explained why I'd been transferred to the Drum. He told me that Soviet tactics had changed dramatically since 1975, when the Reds projected power into distant waters and tried to cut off Western sea lanes. Now they focused primarily on protecting their SSBNs by finding and destroying U.S. submarines and ASW ships. The Victor III was built with this purpose in mind.\n\nIn light of this radical change in Soviet behavior, the NSA had deep concerns about the purpose and capability of the new odd pod mounted on the rudder of the Victor III. That fear rolled downhill to the navy and downward still to SUBGRU 5. They examined numerous photographs I'd taken of Victor IIIs while on the Haddo and liked what they saw. They wanted more\u2014but preferably closer and clearer. Under strict orders not to discuss any of this with the rest of the crew, Oliver told me that the Drum would be leaving on a WestPac in the fall to conduct two SpecOp missions to get those photos. We would spend the next several months training and preparing for that run.\n\nI saw a gleam in Oliver's eyes that day and figured that our next deployment represented his best ticket to stardom and perhaps another stripe on his sleeve. Oliver said that he'd been instructed to \"exercise every means possible\" to obtain better photographs of the odd pod. Since I'd taken and developed more Victor III shots than almost anyone else and had also received advanced photographic training, Oliver wanted me practiced and ready to help reel off pictures when needed. As I sat in Oliver's stateroom and listened to his speech, feelings of pride, inadequacy, and fear overwhelmed me. I thought the Drum just needed another fire-control technician and navy diver. I hadn't planned on this extracurricular assignment, and I hoped that when the time came, I'd be up to the challenge.\n\nHaving completed a few more classes in recon photography and some on-the-job training during local at-sea exercises, I received orders to report to the diving tower at the Navy SEAL training facility on Coronado Island. Commander Oliver requested that I spend some time doing photographic reconnaissance training with a SEAL team there. This type of exercise was not new, and in fact had been commonplace during the Vietnam War. Navy diver photographers like Steve Waterman, author of Just a Sailor, undertook such operations all the time. Navy recon divers sometimes swam with SEAL teams to various beaches, near foreign vessels, or within visual range of shore-based facilities to take reconnaissance photos for upcoming operations.\n\nI spent the next few months getting in shape at the obstacle course and exercising with some of the SEALs. The physical conditioning reminded me of navy diver school in Hawaii but paled in comparison to what I knew SEALs endured in BUD\/S training. The SEALs also gave me a crash course on the Draeger MK V rebreather. As a diver, I had been using open-circuit SCUBA, usually in the form of heavy twin-nineties that emitted bubbles that could be detected by unfriendly guys. Draegers, which were strapped to your stomach rather than your back, looked like small vacuum cleaners. They emitted no bubbles but could only be used down to a depth of thirty-three feet.\n\nAfter my land-based training time with the SEALs, the Drum conducted an exercise just off the coast of Catalina Island. During this exercise, I teamed with four Navy SEALs\u2014one officer and three enlisted men. We donned wet suits, masks, fins, and standard navy twin-ninety SCUBA tanks. The double-tank rigs were heavy, causing us to bend over as we stood in the bow compartment of the boat just below the forward escape trunk. Someone opened the bottom hatch to the trunk, and I watched one of the SEALs climb up the ladder into the chamber, an oval area about eight feet in diameter and filled with gauges and valves.\n\nThis SEAL's job, completed alone, consisted of locking out of the trunk and finding the line locker, near the bow of the boat, where the mooring lines were stowed. There he removed a rubber Zodiac raft to be used for our mission. The SEAL attached the raft to a tether line anchored to the sub, then inflated the Zodiac to propel it to the surface. This delicate operation took about thirty minutes and was done entirely by feel in near-zero visibility. A couple of raps on the trunk signaled that he'd completed the job, and the rest of us could now deploy.\n\nThe escape trunk could fit only two at a time with twin-nineties strapped to our backs. Once inside the escape trunk, we turned a few valves to expel the air and fill the space with salt water up to the bubble line\u2014about where our heads jutted above the water. The trunk was now pressurized to match the outside water pressure, which allowed us to open the upper hatch and swim out into the ocean. We hooked onto a lifeline running from the top of the submarine's sail to the foremost line locker. The rest of our equipment, not carried with us into the escape trunk, was stowed in that locker.\n\nThe boat slowed to less than one knot, standard operating procedure for diver operations to ensure that none of us would be sucked into the propeller. Our SEAL officer in charge flashed a signal, and we all swam over to the line locker to remove the gear. As I neared the locker, the ocean rushed past my face mask and I shot upward out of control. My lifeline snapped tight with a jolt and prevented me from heading toward the surface. An excruciating pain stabbed at my right ear, and massive pressure squeezed in on my left ear. The sensation felt worse than having a severe head cold while rapidly descending in a plane from 30,000 feet. My stomach fluttered as I tried to clear my ears and kill the pain.\n\nI grabbed hold of the lifeline and pulled myself down toward the SEALs. I could barely see their silhouettes in the dark as a stream of microscopic sea life rushed past. Submarines at periscope depth are supposed to stay at sixty feet as measured to the bottom of the keel. On top of the boat, near the escape trunk, we should have been at around thirty feet. I held my depth gauge up to my mask and nearly let out a yell into my regulator. We were at 200 feet.\n\nI knew that warmer waters tended to make things less buoyant, like 4,000-ton submarines. Sometimes when boats are cruising along in cooler water, and they hit a pocket of warm water, they sink like a rock. An alert planesman in the control room, responsible for keeping the boat level, can often compensate quickly. A not-so-alert planesman can lose depth control and drop a boat by a hundred feet or more in a matter of seconds.\n\nI glanced at my watch. Recalling the navy dive tables, I knew we had only four minutes at 200 feet before we incurred decompression time, not a problem if we regained depth control soon and didn't ascend too fast. I started doing some mental calculations to determine our decomp time if we went past five minutes at 200 feet. While crunching numbers in my head, our OIC held up one hand in the near dark, looking for the okay sign from the rest of us. All of us pointed to our ears first, then gave the okay signal. We all had probably busted our eardrums, but other than that, we were fine.\n\nFive minutes came and went while the boat remained at 200 feet. We'd now have to decompress. Five more minutes ticked by, and still no movement. I looked over at our OIC and tapped my watch. He shook his head no, and a sick feeling hit my gut. I had no desire to get the bends prior to my twenty-fifth birthday. I wasn't happy about the OIC's decision but figured he had his reasons.\n\nTwelve minutes came and went. The forward escape trunk opened, and another diver appeared, carrying two sets of twin-nineties. He signaled that the boat would ascend to periscope depth and remain there until we decompressed. A minute later, the boat came shallow. Navy dive tables dictated that we needed to spend three minutes at thirty feet, seven minutes at twenty feet, and twenty-seven minutes at ten feet. The extra tanks brought by the other diver would give us just enough air to complete our decomp time. As we clung to the line and sucked in gulps of air, I finally understood why our OIC hadn't ordered us to swim to the surface earlier.\n\nSurfacing while we were still inside the four-minute window, so we didn't have to decompress, would have been too risky. The boat needed to speed up to regain depth control, which increased our chances of getting pulled into the propeller if we unhooked from the line. After the four minutes, we were better off waiting for another diver to deliver extra tanks to ensure we had plenty of air between us to complete our decompression time.\n\nAlthough I had received extensive training at navy diver school, which in many respects is similar to the first phase of navy SEAL training, I obviously still had a lot to learn about submarine diving. I had spent so much time improving my photographic skills, and keeping up with my regular fire-control duties, I hadn't devoted proper attention to my diving acumen. I made a commitment that day to learn as much as I could from the SEALs and get wet at least once a week to stay proficient. Never once did I consider the possibility that I might actually be called upon to use my navy diver training on an actual mission in Soviet waters.\n\nIn between plunges in the ocean, I honed my abilities in the art of periscope espionage photography. Not only did this require learning everything a professional photographer learns, such as adjusting camera settings and lens selection for varying light conditions, setting film speeds, as well as the general physics governing the world of film, but I also needed to become proficient at what, how, and when to do all this through a periscope\u2014and in a dripping wet suit aboard a bobbing rubber raft while shaking from the cold. Getting up to speed on that took many long hours of studying top-secret Soviet warship manuals, periscope lens functionality, limitations, and lighting, plus time-of-day requirements, then lots of practice during exercises off the coast of California. On one of those runs, I photographed the stern of the aircraft carrier USS Constellation (CVA-64). We were so close that we could almost make out the name tags on the uniforms of the deck crews. They never detected us.\n\nAlong with taking photos, I was responsible for developing the film and keeping the camera equipment in top condition. We had two types of cameras on our submarine: a standard 35 mm Canon AE-1 camera and a high-speed 70 mm camera built into our number two periscope. Taking photos with the first required connecting the camera's lens directly to the eyepiece on the scope. Taking pictures with the latter was as easy as pushing a small red button on the periscope handle. Theoretically, the 70 mm should have provided twice the quality of the 35 mm, but this wasn't always the case, given that you couldn't adjust settings on the 70 mm the way you could on a Canon.\n\nWhen it came time to develop the film, things got a lot more complex. Developing 35 mm photos under way was a major challenge. We didn't have digital cameras in those days, so this process required manually dunking the film into several baths of chemicals contained in one-foot-square plastic bins. This operation had to be done in total darkness, usually in the yeoman's shack. The plastic bins were placed wherever one could find a flat, clear space. Heaven forbid we should be at periscope depth. The boat would pitch from side to side in the waves, while the soup in each bath threatened to spill onto the deck. I'd place the film in one tub using a pair of tongs and bathe the sheets until done, then set it in the next tub and so on\u2014a time-consuming process.\n\nIn contrast, I used an automated developer for the 70 mm film. This two-by-one-foot metal box did all the work. I simply placed one edge of the film into a side slot and flipped a switch. The machine grabbed the edge of the film and hummed away while feeding the ribbon through a snaked procession across rollers and through baths of developer and fixer solutions. Out the other side, fully developed 70 mm film emerged. This unit simplified the process of film development, as long as the thing wasn't broken. Part of my training included learning how to repair the box when it did break, which was often.\n\nAfter weeks of periscope and recon photography school in San Diego, coupled with lots of practice at sea, the science of film processing and system repair became second nature. Aboard my previous boat, the USS Haddo, I spent several months on a couple of SpecOps taking photos of interesting ships and subs through the periscope using the 35 mm and 70 mm cameras. A good number of these pictures were of the infamous Victor III.\n\nI studied the photos I'd taken of the Project 671RTM Shchuka submarine and marveled at her sleek race-car design, sloped conning tower, and strange pod mounted atop the rudder. I ran a magnifying glass over the pod and squinted, desperately trying to figure out what this thing might be. The introduction of the Victor III in late 1979 caused quite a stir in NATO intelligence circles due to that distinctive oval pod. Some speculated that the egg-shaped housing hid a silent propulsion system, perhaps a magnetohydrodynamic drive unit. Others insisted this had to be an advanced weapons system or a towed sonar array. Nobody knew, and everybody wanted to.\n\nConsumed with finding a Victor III, I deployed aboard the USS Drum on WestPac in the winter of 1980. We crossed the Pacific and assumed our station near Vladivostok but found nothing during our first multimonth SpecOp. We surfaced outside Diego Garcia, a horseshoe-shaped atoll in the Indian Ocean, and received orders to tie up next to the submarine tender USS Sperry (AS-12). Diego Garcia had earned the deserved reputation of being the world's largest toilet bowl. Nevertheless, the tiny island was dry and had beer.\n\nAt only one-half mile across, there wasn't much to see on this mass of jungle and sand that served as the only airstrip suitable for long-range bombers anywhere near the troubled Middle East. The Seabees began their largest peacetime construction on Diego Garcia in 1971. The ambitious project took more than a decade and cost $200 million, ending with a massive complex that could accommodate some of the navy's largest ships, military cargo jets, and long-range bombers. The island also housed a contingency of spooks assigned to a Pusher Bulls Eye HFDF station. The Pusher was a smaller version of the Wullenweber elephant cage antenna array.\n\nWe had received reports weeks earlier from the Sperry on the VLF radio wire warning us of an intruder lurking near their ship. They claimed to have pictures of the large gray predator shadowing one of the submarine tender's twenty-foot launches. From nose to fin, the massive shark measured as long as the launch. We later learned that some of the cooks on the Sperry fed Hector (the nickname they gave the large hammerhead) off the bow of the ship. The shark devoured tons of scraps from the galley, which is probably why it kept hanging around. Having eaten some of the Sperry's meals in San Diego, I wondered how the damned thing was still alive.\n\nWhen we pulled alongside the Sperry during a massive rain squall with high winds, we slammed headfirst into the tender's side and smashed our sonar dome. A team of navy repair divers flew out from Yokosuka a day later to patch up the dent and replace the busted hydrophones. Commander Oliver cordially compelled me to stand shark watch while the divers worked, just in case Hector wandered by. I informed the repair divers that their first sign of imminent danger would be the frantic sound of my fins swooshing past their heads at ninety miles per hour. They all laughed, but not very much.\n\nWith repairs completed, we headed back out on our second SpecOp. Our planned liberty in Perth, Australia, was canceled due to the accident. Commander Oliver now had one black mark in his service record, and the brass never overlooked submarine collisions regardless of the circumstances. This collision, however, was rather minor in comparison to the one that almost took my life two months later.\n\n## CHAPTER NINETEEN\n\nWe're in greater danger today than we were the day after Pearl Harbor. Our military is absolutely incapable of defending this country.\n\n\u2014RONALD REAGAN\n\nTHEY SAY YOUR LIFE PASSES BEFORE your eyes just before you die. For submariners, the only thing that passes before our eyes is a wall of water. In early 1981, while aboard the nuclear submarine USS Drum, that wall of water visited me more than once in my dreams. One nightmare seemed so real that I jolted straight up in my rack from a deep slumber and pounded my head on the steel-encased fluorescent light above me. I spent the next few days with an aching head and vertical lines on my forehead.\n\nThe Drum arrived on station near the Vladivostok naval base inside the Sea of Japan, and several uneventful weeks went by despite our proximity to one of the Soviet Union's largest submarine ports. I wondered if we'd come up dry once again on this run and have to head home without any odd pod photos of a Victor III, the Soviet's newest fast-attack submarine.\n\nA month went by underwater with no sign of a Victor III, and all of us longed for the thrill of the hunt. We stood our watches, cleaned our assigned spaces during \"field days,\" drank green Kool-Aid \"bug juice,\" ate \"gedunk\" snacks, watched Saturday Night Fever until we all hated the Bee Gees, then watched it again. In the after compartments of our 300-foot-long prison, the nuclear-trained \"nukes\" conducted drills in preparation for an Operational Reactor Safeguard Exam (ORSE) scheduled within weeks of our return to San Diego. They complained about our executive officer, Bob Fricke, who insisted on perfection and so drilled around the clock and then drilled some more.\n\nThe nukes got their payback when two of them donned yellow anti-C (antiradiation) suits, grabbed a couple of handheld radiation detection monitors, and paraded down to \"officer's of country.\" They placed a test sample on the bottom of the radiation monitors so they'd tick away as if at ground zero in Hiroshima. Then they waited until the XO drifted off to sleep, crept into his stateroom, and pulled back the curtain on his rack. One of the nukes started poking Fricke in the ribs to wake him up. The XO rubbed his eyes, and his sleepy face wrinkled with perplexity as he pointed at their anti-C suits. The two nukes uncapped their radiation monitors. Both ticked away with ferocity. The XO's eyes widened and resembled the white plates in the wardroom. Playing it to the hilt, one nuke went for the jugular and said, \"Damn! I think this one is still alive. We'd better get the doc down here right away.\"\n\n\"Nah,\" the other nuke said, his voice muffled inside his yellow hood. \"Why bother? He won't last long anyway. Way too many zoomies in the ops compartment by now.\"\n\nFricke came unglued and started blubbering something unintelligible. One of the nukes said he practically peed in his rack. Laughing hysterically, the two nuclear-trained perpetrators ran from the scene. Since Fricke couldn't tell who'd been inside the thick anti-C suits, he had no one to punish. The following day the XO cut the ORSE drills in half.\n\nSix weeks into our three-month SpecOp, the cooks served butter-drenched lobster and grilled steak for the SpecOp's \"midway meal.\" Savoring the tasty morsels boosted my morale but only temporarily. I wanted to find that Victor III. Just over two months into our run, in early April 1981, I finally got that chance. After breakfast I grabbed a cup of coffee from the crew's mess, walked up the ladder into the reddened \"rig for dark\" control room, and took over as fire-control technician of the watch. My duties now included tracking contacts via the MK-113 fire-control system and, when called for, taking pictures of those contacts through the periscope. Resigned to enduring another boring six-hour watch, I sat on the bench near one of the consoles. Analog servos and synchros inside the gray metallic enclosure whined and popped as they struggled to keep up with a distant contact.\n\nDowning a gulp of coffee, I glanced around the control room. Cigarette smoke swirled into the stale air and danced with the steam from a half-dozen navy cups. Save for the sound of a jazz band playing Coltrane, the nostalgic scene reminded me of a bar off Market Street in downtown San Diego. In the dim glow, I saw the chief of the watch sitting across and in front of me on the port side of the boat. He faced a gray monolith filled with black panels covered with an array of switches, dials, and gauges. His oversized left arm almost hid the low-pressure blow panel, and his right shoulder all but covered the square snorkel control area. Just above his head, a horizontal row of red indicators validated that we had no hull openings exposed to the sea. I often wondered what might happen if one of those lights ever went from closed to open while we were deep.\n\nThe alarm switchboard rested above the COW's left ear, adorned with two rows of ten rectangular red alarm lights underscored by three-way switches. Above the COW's right ear, large silver handles jutted from a gray box with a single indicator and two black signs that read aft blow and fwd blow. Of all the panels in the control room, that one sent chills down my spine more than anything else. If the COW ever needed to pull those handles, we'd probably be on our way to the bottom, and our only hope of survival would mean a risky emergency blow to expel the water from our ballast tanks.\n\nTo the COW's right, a helmsman and planesman slouched in bucket seats, hands resting at the ten and two o'clock positions on two half-oval steering wheels. Marlboros dangled from their lips as they shared bad jokes. Each focused on two large dials at eye level that indicated the boat's depth. These two yahoos were responsible for maintaining depth control and steering the boat on the right course. When trailing a Soviet submarine, which we did often on Holystone missions, we'd often come within a few dozen yards to record various machinery and propeller noises. One wrong move by either of these sailors could cause a serious accident, possibly sending either or both subs to the bottom.\n\nAbove and in between these two, dials depicted rudder, fairwater, and stern plane angles, along with gyro course, speed, and dive bubble\u2014the latter equating to the level of the boat in a similar fashion to a carpenter's level. Just behind the planesman and helmsman, a burly diving officer puffed on a pipe. The grandfatherly smell of his sweet cherry tobacco coated the air and reminded me of home when I was a kid. My dad once smoked a pipe until he switched to cigarettes. The chief had smoker's wrinkles and a bald spot on the back of his head. His teeth had long since turned bitter coffee brown. If he hadn't been wearing a dark blue \"poopy suit\" pair of coveralls like the rest of us, I might have mistaken him for a homeless person in need of a shopping cart.\n\nTo the right of the diving control area, just in front of the MK-113 fire-control gear, a large gray navigation and plot table, covered with a chart of the area near Vladivostok, kept two people occupied: the quartermaster of the watch and the junior officer of the deck (JOOD). A panel flanking the left side of the table had recessed buttons to control various functions, and the top held up a navigation ruler. The plot served a dual role: one, to plot the course to our next destination, and two, to manually keep track of nearby contacts in relation to our track. Making sure we knew our location in relation to the other guys could be critical in preventing a collision. I knew that one wrong calculation or assumption could spell disaster and hoped that such would not happen on my watch.\n\nTo my left, on the periscope stand, stood the officer of the deck, Lieutenant Nick Flacco. He'd graduated from Annapolis in 1976 with his eye set on a patrol gunboat squadron based in Naples, Italy. As an engineering major, he ranked in the top twenty percent of his class, and that fact painted a target on his back. While still in his senior year at the academy, the pressure mounted to go nuclear. Officers trained in that discipline questioned Flacco's request for gunboats along with his sanity. During his submarine indoctrination, aboard the USS John Marshall (SSBN-611), the navigator turned to Flacco and said, \"What ever you do, don't go submarines. You won't like it.\" Flacco concurred, stating that he'd already decided on gunboats. Over the next few months, officers pushed and prodded Flacco to select either nuclear subs or surface ships, as the navy needed officers for both.\n\nFlacco chose submarines when he heard that junior officers were sleeping in the brig on aircraft carriers because they didn't have enough staterooms. Based on his class standing, the navy let him choose the USS Drum in San Diego, and he climbed down the hatch in the summer of 1978. An easy-going young officer with a pleasant smile and a get-the-job-done attitude, Flacco was a favorite with the crew. I always hoped that if we did have an emergency, he'd be our OOD at the time.\n\nThat night on watch, just over two months into our boring SpecOp, a technical \"T-Brancher\" spook tucked away in the radio room got a distant sniff on our BRD-7 electronics surveillance system. Faint at first, he almost missed the MRK-50 Series Topol radar, code-named Snoop Tray 2 by NATO. As he analyzed the signal captured by the BRD-7 further, his eyes lit up. At that time, only Victor IIIs and some Delta-class submarines used that type of radar.\n\nOur CO, Commander Michael Oliver, did a happy dance in the corridor outside the radio room when he heard the news. I watched his jig from the control room, wondering why he seemed so excited. I learned from Flacco that the spooks reported good news and bad news. The good news: the Snoop Tray 2 signal was not moving, indicating that the Victor might be resting at night on the surface, something they occasionally did before an exercise. The bad news: they were inside Peter the Great Bay near Vladivostok, which meant a possible traffic jam of lethal Soviet warships.\n\nCommander Oliver decided to chance the risks and pursue the target. If we could get some close-up shots of that Victor III's mysterious odd pod and under-hull pictures of her sleek frame, there'd be big medals and promotions galore. On the other hand, one small miscalculation could result in a catastrophic collision.\n\nOliver hadn't slept in a while, so he ordered our XO to take the conn and follow the radar signal, then wake him when we drew close enough for periscope photos and an under hull. As the fire-control technician of the watch, I had the responsibility of keeping a plot of all the contacts we detected. The Victor III wasn't moving, so that part of the job was easy. Dozens of other contacts in the area, including several submarines and surface ships, were going to and fro at fast clips, so that part proved difficult. Since our MK-113 fire-control system could plot only four targets simultaneously, I dialed Master Two, our Victor III submarine, into one of the digital computer displays, and three other contacts, representing the closest warships, into the other consoles.\n\nWe dodged the warships by running slow while weaving our way into Peter the Great Bay. As we neared our contact, just off Popov Island outside Vladivostok harbor, and the signal strength on the Snoop Tray 2 radar increased, the XO had someone wake up Commander Oliver. Our CO strode into the control room a few minutes later. He smelled like Old Spice aftershave as he approached and glanced at my plot board.\n\n\"Ready the thirty-five,\" Oliver said.\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" I said. I opened a locker, removed the 35 mm camera, checked the film status, and waited.\n\nOliver relieved the XO of the conn and called the under-hull photographic-operations party to the control room. He brought the Drum to periscope depth and raised the periscope, spun the metal cylinder back and forth, then stopped. \"There she is,\" he said. \"Bearing to Master Two on my mark...mark! Range, 900 yards.\"\n\nOur WLR-9 ESM warning indicator started beeping, signaling that enemy radar had gotten a sniff of our extended masts. Through the small PeriViz monitor mounted in the overhead near the periscope stand, I could see what Oliver saw in full color. Streaks of purple-orange clung to a barrage of gray clouds on the horizon as dawn crept toward sunrise. Against the gray, the dark silhouette of the Victor III's sloping conning tower and extended masts seemed surreal, as if only a picture out of the pages of Jane's Fighting Ships. Certainly, the real thing could not be less than a half-mile away. Lights blinked on shore behind the Soviet submarine, intimating that Russians prepared for their day just like we did. I wondered who they were, what they were like, if they loved, laughed, and cried like we did. I wondered what they would think if they knew we were hiding in their front yard.\n\nOliver pushed the small red button on the scope's right handle. I heard a soft whirring as he snapped a 70 mm photo with each push. He unglued his eye and stepped back from the scope.\n\nHe looked my way and said, \"You ready to reel?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" I said, \"the 35 mm is loaded and ready.\"\n\n\"You've got two minutes,\" Oliver said as the WLR-9 beeped away in the background.\n\nI moved over to the scope well and snapped the 35 mm into position, then settled my eye onto the back of the camera and squinted. Morning light crept across the ocean as the sun peeked above the snow-capped Sikhote Alin mountain range on the horizon. With moist palms, I gripped the scope handles tighter and tried to slow down my breathing. On low power, the Soviet submarine filled my view. By feel, I adjusted the camera's focus and f-stop setting and lined up the crosshairs on the odd pod. The control room settled into silence, save for the manual snapping of the camera shutter. I snapped a dozen photos, then switched to the highest-power setting. The oval pod took up the entire crosshaired circle through which I gazed. The WLR-9 chirped away in my left ear, now delivering an almost steady procession of tones.\n\n\"Let's go, Reed,\" Oliver said.\n\nThe CO's deep baritone pushed my pulse across the red line. My fingers twitched as I swung the view over to the masts and snapped a few more pictures. Moving at light speed, I detached the 35 mm camera and flipped up the scope handles to the vertical position.\n\n\"Down scope!\" The oily mast lowered into the scope well. Around me the world turned crimson again. I squinted as my eyes readjusted to the dim red lighting.\n\n\"Well?\" Oliver said. Dark circles underscored the CO's brown eyes.\n\nI shook my head from side to side. \"I got some good shots, Cap'n, but with this lighting angle at this distance, I don't think they're good enough. I recommend we move to the other side, draw in closer, and get the light behind us.\"\n\nI couldn't believe my own words. Nine hundred yards off our port bow sat one of the best attack boats the Soviets had. In nearly every respect, she was comparable, if not better than, our Sturgeon-class submarine. Yet here I was recommending that we move in close enough to smell each other's armpits.\n\n\"I concur,\" Oliver said as the XO leaned in close to listen. \"The 70 mm shots probably aren't going to cut it either. XO, you have the conn. Reed, follow me.\"\n\nOliver walked toward his stateroom. For a brief second, fear and confusion froze my legs. Oliver stopped, turned, and gave me a look.\n\nFeet unfrozen, I followed the CO to his stateroom. Oliver opened the door, and we ducked inside. He sat down at his desk and looked at the floor. I closed the door and stood, waiting for him to speak.\n\n\"I may need you to egress,\" Oliver said, lifting his head.\n\nMy heart shot into my throat.\n\n\"Egress, sir?\" Confused, my thoughts moved in slow motion, as if smothered by cold syrup.\n\n\"I may need you to take a Draeger, egress, and get us some better shots of that Victor III. We need close-up photos of that pod, unfettered by our periscope optics, to determine what that thing is.\"\n\nI didn't know what to say. Take a Draeger? Egress? That meant donning a bubbleless rebreathing device, locking out of the escape trunk in a Soviet harbor, swimming to the surface while tethered to a line, and taking photographs of a Soviet submarine just a few hundred yards away. Even though I had trained with the SEALs for such a mission, I knew he was asking me to volunteer. I also knew that if I did wind up taking those photos, I could never talk about the ordeal with anyone, not even most of the crew.\n\nI had to push my reply past the lump in my throat. \"I'll get the underwater enclosure for the camera and suit up, sir.\"\n\nOliver nodded. \"When you receive my order, and no sooner, you will egress, stay hooked to the line, surface long enough to take a few photos, and then return. Is that understood?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. Understood.\"\n\nOliver rubbed his palms together, looked back at the floor, and whispered something to himself that I didn't understand at the time. \"If they can send divers to tap cables, then I can damn sure send one to take photos.\"\n\nOliver stood and dismissed me.\n\nI left his stateroom and headed toward the bow of the boat. There I suited up and readied my gear, which included placing the 35 mm camera in a watertight enclosure. My father's words, spoken years earlier when I feared stepping to the pitcher's mound in Little League, churned in my head.\n\nFace your fears, son. If you don't, they will own you.\n\nI struck out nine batters in that game.\n\nOnce inside the bow compartment, I opened the bottom hatch to the eight-foot-diameter escape trunk. With the help of a seaman trained in escape trunk operation, I climbed up the ladder and squeezed inside the oval. I closed the hatch below my knees and fought off the suffocating fingers of dread that curled about my neck. A small, dim light cast strange shadows about the tiny metal dungeon filled with gauges and valves. Alone and stuffed into my hot neoprene wet suit, I sat on the bottom of the cold trunk and shivered. My eyes focused on the small metal communications box mounted on the bulkhead, from which I knew my orders to go would be delivered. Hundreds of thoughts did somersaults inside my head, all of them dismal.\n\nWill I get good enough photos? Will the Soviets spot me? Will I survive the mission?\n\nMeanwhile, in the control room, things went from bad to ugly.\n\nWhile Commander Oliver had been talking to me, the XO took the boat deeper to maneuver to the other side of the Victor so we could get shots with the sun behind us versus glaring on our scope lens. This had been my suggestion to Oliver before we left the conn together. With the Victor III sitting still, sonar remained useless, and our ESM's Snoop Tray 2 radar hits were the only means to determine the target's approximate range and bearing. That information allowed for only a rough idea of the sub's location, despite the previous periscope fix.\n\nThe XO, Bob Fricke, ordered Nick Flacco to maneuver the Drum to a point opposite our previous location, then bring the boat to periscope depth again. Knowing that doing an under-hull photographic operation might be next, Flacco ran through a mental checklist. As he did, a silent alarm went off in his head. \"Shit, the wire.\"\n\n\"What did you say, OOD?\" Fricke said.\n\n\"We need to reel in our floating VLF radio wire,\" Flacco said. \"It's still out there.\"\n\n\"Dammit!\" Fricke said. \"Get someone from radio up here now.\"\n\nFlacco called up a radioman, who sprinted into the control room. The petty officer opened a door at the front of the room and stepped inside the tiny area that led up to the bridge. He undogged the lower hatch, climbed up the ladder, and started bringing in the wire. Meanwhile, Oliver returned to the conn and took over. He approached the number two periscope and waited until Flacco confirmed that the Drum had almost reached periscope depth. Oliver wrapped his hand around the orange metal hoop encircling the scope well, then pulled the round bar clockwise. \"Up scope.\"\n\nHands gripping the scope handles, eyes seated into the rubber socket, Oliver waited for his prize to come into focus. For a brief second a smile played on his lips as he savored the moment. The Drum neared the surface and Oliver's smile vanished. He frantically lowered the scope and yelled, \"Emergency dive!\"\n\nToo late. A thunderous boom shook the boat. The radioman who'd been reeling in the wire tumbled down the ladder and slammed onto the deck. Blood oozed from his head. The sound of metal screeching over metal filled everyone's ears in the control room. The boat lurched forward and angled down at the bow by ten degrees. Flacco glanced at the unconscious radioman, then at the door that led to the bridge. The lower hatch is still open, he thought, if we have flooding now...\n\nDown in the bow compartment, shoved into the escape trunk, I heard a deafening clap above my head, followed by an ear-splitting metal shriek. The dim light in the trunk went out, leaving pitch-black darkness in its wake. The force shoved me head-first into a valve handle. My jaw hit the metal wheel. A stinging pain rippled across my face, and the salty taste of blood filled my mouth. I cupped my palm across my bleeding lip and felt for the communications unit in the dark. My fingers found the square box, and I depressed the key. I spat out a clump of blood and blabbered something unintelligible. Nothing but silence. I keyed the box again. Still nothing. I tried opening the bottom hatch to the trunk using every bit of muscle I could muster, but the wheel would not turn.\n\nAlone in the dark, with the world closing in around me, I wondered if we had suffered a major casualty, wondered if we were on a death spiral toward the bottom. For a brief moment, I contemplated flooding the trunk and escaping through the upper hatch. Then I remembered that we were deep in Soviet territorial waters and I knew secrets. My chest started heaving, and I realized that the oxygen flow to the trunk was probably out.\n\nI figured we must have collided with the Victor and the force of the impact near the escape trunk had knocked out the bow compartment communications circuit. A shock wave must have hit oxygen bank number one and ruptured the O2 valve. Tracing the lines in my head, I saw how this could halt the flow of oxygen through valves O-4 and O-27 that led to the escape trunk. The collision must have also caused a pressure imbalance in the trunk, making it impossible for me to open the hatch from the inside. I spat out some more blood and bit on my Draeger's mouthpiece. The throbbing pain around my bottom lip damn near doubled me over as I sucked in some air. I was now living on borrowed time.\n\nUp in the control room, Flacco had someone drag the radioman away from the bridge door and shut the lower hatch. Someone else called for the doc.\n\n\"Why aren't we diving?\" Commander Oliver yelled.\n\nFlacco glanced at the depth gauge. Still at sixty feet.\n\n\"Chief of the Watch,\" Flacco said. \"Flood forward trim tanks.\"\n\nThe boat surged forward a few feet. She angled down even more but still did not go deep. More screeching and grinding rippled through the control room, followed by several loud thuds.\n\n\"I think we're impaled in the Victor's ballast tank,\" Flacco said. \"We're just pushing them sideways.\"\n\n\"All back full!\" Oliver ordered.\n\nMetal crunched as the Drum moved back several feet. The bow dropped by a few degrees.\n\n\"All ahead full,\" Oliver said. The boat shot forward and downward. The depth gauge registered a hundred feet and descending. Then the flooding started.\n\nRain poured from the overhead and drenched the scope well. Flacco looked up. One of the scope seals had ruptured in the collision. Cold salt water rained onto the deck and splattered shoes. The flooding alarm sounded.\n\nOliver clicked the 1MC. \"Now flooding in the control room.\"\n\nThe XO called for a damage control party. Auxiliarymen came running with tools and patches. Taking on water, the Drum sped toward test depth, 1,300 feet down. Freezing ocean water sprayed out of the scope well as if from a pinched hose. Flacco knew if they couldn't get the flooding under control soon, there'd be serious consequences. Vital equipment might short out, and systems could die, all of which could send the Drum to the ocean floor.\n\n\"Quartermaster,\" Oliver said as the A-gangers worked on the scope well leak, \"plot a course to Chin Hae.\"\n\nSouth, thought Flacco, to Korea.\n\nFlacco heard the pinging of Soviet 50 kHz active sonar through the hull. He knew that ASW forces were now hell bent on catching the Drum red handed.\n\n\"I don't have a Chin Hae chart in here,\" the quartermaster said.\n\n\"Then just take us south!\" Oliver yelled.\n\nIn the escape trunk, I heard Oliver's flooding report over the 1MC. The announcement meant someone was still alive, but the flooding verified that we had problems. Regardless, I had to get out of the trunk. The air in my Draeger would not last forever. I took out my diver's knife and started tapping Morse code on the metal hatch. My dad taught me the entire alphabet when I was a kid, and at one point I could even keep up with a CW transmission. Now, however, all I could remember were a few letters. It didn't matter; the seaman on the other side of the hatch probably knew less than I did.\n\nI tapped SOS.\n\nNo response.\n\nI tapped again louder. Still nothing.\n\nPanic threatened to block what little air I had left from reaching my lungs. I remembered my navy diver training in Hawaii, where they'd harassed me in the water every day for hours. They pulled out my regulator, spun me in circles, and damn near tried to drown me. That training taught me a valuable lesson: how to control my fear. Now, thousands of miles from that tropical paradise, I closed my eyes and said a quick prayer. Then I sucked in a few breaths and tapped again.\n\nFinally, the lower hatch opened, and fresh air rushed in.\n\nBack in the control room, the A-gangers managed to stop the flooding and fix the leak, while the corpsman patched up the radioman. He'd sustained a concussion and a deep cut to his forehead. Flacco watched the doc help the petty officer hobble out of the control room.\n\nThen the Indians showed up and surrounded the wagon. Soviet helicopters dropped sonobuoys that bombarded the ocean with active sonar pings. ASW destroyers and fast gunboats came out of Vlad and started chasing the Drum southward. Dozens of propellers chopped at the Sea of Japan, and our sonar jockeys couldn't keep up with all the contacts. Commander Oliver ordered a thirty-degree course change\u2014a zig to remain undetected. Flacco figured the Soviets knew what Oliver knew: that the Drum could only head south through a narrow passage-way to escape. If they threw enough ships and planes out there, the odds of getting away were about nil.\n\nWhile Flacco contemplated his odds of survival, a depth charge exploded.\n\nBy now I had scrambled out of the escape trunk and sprinted to my rack to pull on my coveralls. I climbed the ladder up to the crew's mess, found the doc, and got a patch for my severed lip. I didn't bother to look in a mirror at the damage. I scrambled up to the control room and slid onto the bench next to a half-dozen officers and sailors in front of the fire-control equipment. The weapons officer (Weps) glanced at the bandage on my face and gave me a look that said, \"What the hell happened to you?\"\n\nI didn't bother to explain.\n\nAnother depth charge exploded, and all eyes looked upward. All lips muttered silent prayers. Weps informed me that we'd rammed into the Victor III and probably smashed the entire front end of our sail. The ESM antenna was gone, and both periscopes were useless, not that we needed them now anyway. Flooding occurred but had been contained, and now every Red ship in the Far East meant to do us harm. I wondered if I should have stayed in the escape trunk.\n\nSonar reported that our closest pursuers were two Kresta I\u2013class guided missile destroyers. I dialed them into the fire-control gear, knowing that they could hit a top speed of thirty-two knots. They carried two twin-missile launchers and a Ka-25 Hormone ASW helicopter on the after deck, complete with sonobuoys. Weps figured that the depth charges were probably light warning explosions, but we had no way of knowing for sure.\n\nWe zigged and zagged as ASW ships and planes pinged. Oliver had us hug the bottom for the next two days while explosions shattered the silence, some far away, others so close they rattled dishes. My dad once told me that fear does not discriminate. It doesn't care about our nationality, wealth, religious beliefs, or lack thereof. Fear is an equal opportunity employer, and when I looked at my crewmates, I could see the evidence of it ooze from every pore. We knew that if caught, Ivan would show us no mercy. We had entered their territorial waters and rammed one of their boats, and now all bets were off. Oliver would take us below crush depth before he surrendered the boat to the Soviets. All of us understood well the consequences should we fail to escape, yet everyone to a man kept his cool and did his job well. At that moment, I understood what it meant to be a submariner.\n\nWith vigilance and creative evasions, coupled with lots of luck, we finally made it out of Soviet territorial waters. The Soviets continued their pursuit anyway, and after another day of dodging dozens of warships and planes in the Sea of Japan, sonar reported the sound of a possible collision, faint and distant. We had no way of knowing who or what had caused the metallic crunch. Weps speculated that two Soviet ships, while pursuing us, had collided. Within hours of hearing the smack, the Soviet prosecution activity dropped in half as a large number of ships and planes headed toward the sound of the faraway collision.\n\nThanks to the sudden decrease in the number of Soviet vessels trying to find us, we managed to sneak out of the Sea of Japan and back to the safety of Apra Harbor in Guam. We surfaced and entered the harbor in the middle of the night to avoid detection from Soviet satellites. As the boat moved silently through the dark, I watched silver moonlight glitter on the ocean near my favorite dive spot and thanked God for another day on earth. Then I glanced up at the sail. The front masts were bent or missing, and the bridge area had been smashed like an aluminum beer can.\n\nWe tied up next to the pier and workers shrouded the entire sail with a cover to ensure that Soviet satellite photos would not reveal the obvious. As was the case with many Cold War SpecOps, the boat's logs were altered. No record remained, save memories, to validate that the USS Drum was ever in the vicinity of a Soviet Victor III submarine in Peter the Great Bay.\n\nI later learned that two Japanese sailors died so that more than a hundred of us could live. While we were running from the Soviet navy, the nuclear submarine USS George Washington collided with the Japanese freighter Nissho Maru on April 9, 1981, 110 miles southwest of Sasebo, Japan. When the Washington surfaced, she ran into the underside of the freighter and damaged the hull. The Japanese ship sank within fifteen minutes. Two of her crew of thirteen went down with the vessel. The Washington sustained only minor damage but then became a decoy of sorts for the Drum. The collision distracted more than half of the Soviet forces searching for us, as they assumed incorrectly that the two collisions\u2014the one with the Victor III and the one with Nissho Maru\u2014were caused by the same boat. The Washington managed to sneak away, but the accident sparked a political furor in Japan.\n\nPresident Ronald Reagan now had two submarine accidents on his hands. Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki blasted him for taking more than a day to notify Japanese authorities about the Nissho Maru's demise, and the fact that a U.S. P3 Orion aircraft circling overhead made no attempt to rescue the survivors. On April 11, President Reagan expressed regret over the accident and offered compensation to the victims while assuring the Japanese that radioactive contamination need not be a concern.\n\nThe Soviets threw their own spears. They insisted that a U.S. submarine had collided with K-324, a Victor III\u2013class nuclear submarine sitting on the surface in Peter the Great Bay. K-324 sustained severe damage, and some of her crew were hurt in the accident. The United States denied the presence of any American submarines in the area at the time.\n\nPart of the Northern Fleet and stationed out of Saint Petersburg, K-324 had come off the ramp at the Admiralty yard in 1979. She became the seventh vessel of the Komsomolsk line. Two years after the incident, thanks to the photos taken in 1981 by the USS Drum and other submarines, the United States identified the odd pod on the Victor III's rudder as a housing for a towed sonar array. Proof came later that year when, on October 31, 1983, the USS McCloy (FF-1038) and K-324 were ensnarled in each other's towed arrays some 280 miles west of Bermuda. K-324 was monitoring U.S. ballistic missile submarine movements, hoping to find one of our \"boomer\" SSBN submarines to shadow. The incident severely damaged K-324's propeller. A tug towed her to Cienfuegos, Cuba, for repairs. Two years later, in 1985, the Soviets decommissioned K-324, and her crew never knew who hit them that day in April 1981.\n\n## CHAPTER TWENTY\n\nIf we survive danger it steels our courage more than anything else.\n\n\u2014REINHOLD NIEBUHR\n\nAFTER OUR FATEFUL COLLISION WITH THE Victor III, while nursing a scar on my chin, I no longer took life for granted. Even the smallest things had more meaning now: a glorious sunrise, a fluttering hummingbird, and the charming girl I had met more than a year earlier. I married that girl in June 1981.\n\nIn September, a month before my enlistment end date, my navy detailer called. He said that DevGru One\u2014the Special Projects guys\u2014were interested in talking to me about an opening on the USS Richard B. Russell (SSN-687). I didn't know it then, but the Russell was the Parche's eventual successor for Ivy Bells missions. Around that same time, a couple of civilian recruiters contacted me from Eastman Kodak Company. They liked the combination of my electronics, computer, submarine, and photographic training and offered me a different challenge with a new program starting up in Colorado. I struggled with the decision, as my time in the navy had been some of the best years of my life. As one of my crewmates on the Drum once put it, \"I wouldn't have taken a million dollars to extend my enlistment after we smacked that Victor. Then again, I wouldn't have taken two million to forget the experience.\"\n\nI went to work for Eastman Kodak at the end of 1981 and have never regretted the decision. One of the most valuable lessons I learned during my time on the boats can be summed up in one word: team-work. Having to rely on others for my very survival, who also relied on me, taught me that even if I don't like someone, I need always treat them with respect and value their abilities.\n\nWhile my time in the navy came to an end, others were still trudging through the Cold War mud, some literally. By late 1980, the USS Parche had all but replaced the Seawolf for cable-tapping missions. But the old girl still had at least one more run in her, and no one knew that this would be the most difficult and dangerous of her storied career. Former submariner Jimmy Carter held the reins as president of the United States at the time and was up to his eyeballs in international issues. Iran had captured fifty-three Americans and held them hostage for almost a year. Carter authorized the military rescue mission Operation Eagle Claw in April to free them, but the mission failed, raising tensions in the Middle East to a pitch almost on a par with the Soviet Union.\n\nSix months later, in October 1980, James Rule reported to the USS Seawolf. He walked through a prison-like maze of gates and approached the guard shack overlooking the drydock enclosure. The Wolf looked old but quaint, with her flat teakwood deck, big bull nose, and sleek frame resembling a diesel boat. Bright overhead lights glared off the foreheads of a dozen dungareed sailors who chipped, painted, pounded, and tried to fix the Seawolf's bruised and battered body. Don Langaliers, the Seawolf's chief torpedoman, met Rule at the shack and walked him through orientation, which included a series of fifteen escalating briefings, each one peeling back another layer of the boat's supersecret onion.\n\nAs Rule began meeting the crew, he noticed something interesting. The Seawolf should have been decommissioned years earlier, or at the very least demoted to a blue-haired geezer status and assigned to a minor role supporting the fleet. Instead, she was still one of only two frontline work horses with perhaps the weight of the Cold War's outcome resting on her slumping shoulders. Her crew did not complain, however, and none asked for transfers. Not a man whispered jealous remarks as they watched the crew of the USS Parche\u2014the other Special Projects boat at Mare Island\u2014disappear through the hatch of a far more modern machine.\n\nSeawolf's sailors worked hard and played hard, the latter occurring most often at the Horse and Cow Saloon in Vallejo. That's where Rule mingled with most of the crew on a casual basis, including Fire Control Technician Third Class Tony Mignon. Rule and Mignon soon became friends and talked in excited whispers about what lay ahead when the Seawolf came out of drydock. Rule also met some of the 140 submariners assigned to the USS Parche. Due to the Seawolf's constant state of disrepair, the Parche's crew often called their neighbor boat the \"Pier Puppy.\" They laughed and asked Rule if he enjoyed his duty at \"Building 575.\" The kidding had started after the Parche made the 1979 Ivy Bells run into the Sea of Okhotsk while the Seawolf's imprisoned crew worked on their aging boat.\n\nRule took the jabbing from Parche's crew in stride and got along with most of them, who also lived in the wood-framed barracks at an old munitions depot near the docks. Over the next several months, he shouldered a torpedoman's workload on the Seawolf alongside the team's leading petty officer. He helped load MK-37 torpedoes, scrub decks, fix gear, and stow several Mobile Submarine Simulators (MOSS) on board, which Rule hoped they'd never need to use. Subs shot MOSS from their torpedo tubes as decoys when the Soviets were trying to prosecute them.\n\nAt night, Rule migrated back to the Horse and Cow, where Don Langaliers demonstrated his secret weapon. The man had pierced his penis to connect to a long, thin chain. He ran the chain up through an opening in his shirt. When he wanted to impress the ladies in the saloon, which were the sort that thought perfume should smell like the sump tank on a Harley Davidson, he handed them one end of the chain. When they pulled, the circumcised tip of Langaliers's manhood peaked above his belt buckle and caused eruptions of high-pitched laughter throughout the smoke-filled bar. Although most of the crew thought the chief was \"one crazy son of a bitch,\" and his wife, Bobbi, often shook her head in disgust at his wild antics, she never had to worry about his fidelity or family devotion.\n\nLangaliers considered his torpedo gang a part of that family and often invited Rule and the other torpedomen over to his house for barbecue and beers. The guys played hard but also worked hard, and they respected Langaliers as a leader and mentor. They knew that he'd always have their back, and likewise, they'd always have his. As the months came and went, they became a close-knit fraternity that drank beer at night and worked on weapons of mass destruction during the day.\n\nBy the end of 1980, with the overhaul finally complete, the Seawolf took a short run up to Bremerton, Washington, to conduct sea trials in Puget Sound. Not a day out to sea, Rule found himself surrounded by smoke in the back of the crew's mess. Someone ran past him at a fast clip, with an EAB mask sucked to his face and a hose dangling in his hand. The bitch-in-the-box alarm alerted the crew to a \"fire, fire in the engine room.\" Rule ran to find his own EAB mask. Still unqualified, he sat in the crew's mess, helpless and scared as blue-suited sailors raced around him to dog hatches, flip switches, close valves, or help stifle the fire.\n\nThe Seawolf's CO, Commander Michael C. Tiernan, ordered an emergency blow, and the boat shot to the surface. Ten submariners were overcome by severe smoke inhalation before the crew could ventilate and clear the air. Glad to still be alive, Rule felt ashamed because of his fear. Later he molded that trepidation into a stubborn drive to spend a year qualifying as a submariner so he could contribute during the next emergency.\n\nLimping and wheezing, the Seawolf headed back to drydock. She was scheduled to do the next Sea of Okhotsk cable tap, while the Parche went to a new tap site in the Barents Sea. With the Seawolf back on the blocks, the Parche took her place again for the summer Okhotsk run to retrieve the previous year's pod recordings. The Seawolf was not scheduled to see the dark of ocean again until late 1981, and for Commander Tiernan, this would be his first run into the heart of danger. Until then, the crew viewed Tiernan almost in the same light as an unproven nonqual and took to calling him \"Captain Milquetoast.\"\n\nThe Seawolf's executive officer, J. Ashton Dare, was held in equal esteem. Dare came from aristocratic stock, and as the son of an admiral, he sometimes exhibited an arrogant demeanor. In reference to Dare's strict policies, the crew often exchanged comical remarks such as \"Dare'll be no liberty, Dare'll be no fun.\" For the next several months, while the crew slaved to repair the tired Wolf, no one had much fun. Jim Rule watched the Parche head out to sea and longed for the chance to go on a mission to the Sea of Okhotsk. Little did he know that he'd soon regret that wish.\n\nWHEN FIRE CONTROL TECHNICIAN THIRD CLASS Tom Ballenger reported to DevGru in June 1981, he wanted to be integrated into the crew of the Seawolf right away. He had just completed his training on the antiquated MK-101 fire control system\u2014a predecessor to the MK-113\u2014in Groton, Connecticut. The crisp-uniformed DevGru officers approached him while he was in FT school and dangled the Seawolf carrot. He bit and moved his pregnant wife to Northern California. She delivered their son a month before Ballenger walked through the gate at Mare Island to see his new boat. The submarine was still at sea, and the Special Projects folks required a long waiting period to complete background checks. They needed to validate that Ballenger wasn't a \"card-carrying commie.\"\n\nBallenger spent his six-week waiting period in the \"woodshed,\" a dockside woodworking shop. Each day he gazed at the Seawolf in drydock, scaffolding covering her sides, arc welders sparking into the air, and dockworkers carrying pipes, valves, and other parts in and out of her worn hull. After weeks of sawing and sanding, Ballenger finally got called to the SCIF, the secured briefing facility used to orient new members of the Seawolf and Parche crews.\n\nHe signed a decades-long gag order not to talk about anything he'd see or hear about on the Seawolf, then endured a battery of fifteen security briefings that discussed the boat's special-projects mission but offered few details. Briefings completed, a yeoman whisked him down to the boat. He walked on board the old girl, thinking that everything he'd learned about nuclear submarines held no meaning here. The Seawolf was a unique specimen. As a diesel\/nuke hybrid, she resembled both and yet neither. Ballenger felt lost and confused as he followed the yeoman to the boat's sail, into the conning tower, and down through a hatch that dropped into the wardroom, past the CO and XO's staterooms, then officer's country, then forward through the control room and navigation gyrospace area into the crew's mess to meet some of the crew.\n\nThree tables lined up athwartships and two along the starboard bulkhead. The galley was located forward of the tables. Chiefs were allowed to sit at the back table near two main battery breakers, the nuclear-trained \"nukes\" at the back parallel table and the spooks and divers at the forward table. The yeoman sat Ballenger and the other inductees at a center table. A beefy 300-pound chief with round cheeks approached. He grabbed Ballenger's shoulder, squeezed, and said, \"Get a haircut, nonqual puke, or find another boat.\"\n\nBallenger offered a shaky grin. \"Okay, Chief...?\"\n\n\"Moorman. Master Chief Dave Moorman. I'm the chief of the boat. Don't ever cross me.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nMoorman squeezed harder and rolled his eyes in disgust. \"Don't call me sir. I'm a chief, not an officer. Understood?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, I mean...Chief.\"\n\nBallenger spent the next sixty days in the deck division, chipping, painting, and fixing until they allowed him to assume the duties commensurate with his training as a fire-control technician. He then met FT Leading Petty Officer Tony Mignon, who was a nice enough guy but seemed to be wound a bit tight. A wiry but strong southern boy from Alabama, Mignon loved to wear his faded gray Confederate soldier's hat under way. Seems like he never took it off, not even to sleep. Most of the crew liked the guy, who told dumb but funny jokes and talked about his life's goal of unplugging from society and living off the land by himself in the mountains.\n\nMignon reported to Fire Control Chief Powell, who fit the typical chief profile of semi-dumpy and overweight. Powell had light brown hair, a scraggly beard, and thick glasses. Soft-spoken, the chief knew his stuff about the MK-101 fire-control weapons systems\u2014the only electronics piece of gear situated on the Seawolf's \"wet side\" in the control room. The port side had blow valves, flood, and drain manifolds, various pipes, and other \"wet\" mechanical items, whereas the \"dry side\" held most of the electronics, except the FT gear, which was positioned all the way aft on the port side. An old tube-style power supply, just forward of the ladder into the crew's mess, gave life to the MK-101. The gear consisted of an analog target-tracking Position Keeper and a torpedo control and firing panel that fed data to the MK-37s in the torpedo tubes. Operators selected a tube and programmed firing order via an old rotary-style control device, about as antiquated as a telephone with a dial versus buttons.\n\nMonths passed, and Ballenger slowly adjusted to life on the boat. Chief Torpedoman Langaliers enlisted his help, along with that of torpedoman Jim Rule, to travel into the hills near Concord, California, and practice detonating blocks of C4 explosive. They'd jam detonation chords and blasting caps into the aft ends of cow carcasses, find cover, and blow the cows into hamburger. Back on the boat, they rigged blocks of the C4 with three bomb blasters in strategic locations, forward, amid-ships, and aft. No reasons were given for the explosives, but everyone knew that if they were caught on station, they would not be taken alive.\n\nAs a gesture to offset the unease consuming his torpedomen, Chief Langaliers brought a ceramic frog down to the torpedo room. In a strange but funny initiation ceremony that somehow involved his chained penis, Langaliers christened Beauregard the frog as their official voyage mascot and wedged him into an overhead spot near a torpedo tube.\n\nPrior to the Seawolf's departure, Ballenger met some of the navy divers who'd be conducting the cable-tapping missions in Soviet waters. They were all seasoned first-class or master divers who the crew called \"heroes.\" When Ballenger walked past the chart room Special Information Center (SIC) \"spook\" area, curtains usually blocked his view. Occasionally, he caught a glimpse of the equipment inside, and intuition combined with his electronics knowledge gave him a good idea of its use.\n\nNear the torpedo room, Area D housed the diving chamber, and a section called the aquarium held the four camera-outfitted mini-sub Fish. An assortment of video equipment, amplifiers, and other electronic gear also decorated the space. The dog-legged area took up ten feet by almost five feet and could hold up to thirty people. All totaled, up to 190 men could be loaded into the Seawolf's belly, consisting of 125 standard boat crew, 10 or so spooks, and 50 other Special Projects personnel.\n\nAlmost a month after leaving port, the Seawolf arrived on station over the Soviet communications cable. Under way, Tom Ballenger qualified as a planesman\u2014one of the guys responsible for moving the boat up and down in the water. He sat in the control room in a bucket seat and helped guide the Seawolf into position near the twenty-foot-long cable-tapping \"beast\" pod. On the sub's underbelly were two sledlike skids that the crew called skegs. These allowed the boat to sit on the bottom near the pod. In the control room, Commander Tiernan ordered the chief of the watch to balance the water in the trim tanks to level the Seawolf over the cable. The COW flooded the tanks too fast with too much water. The boat lurched forward and downward. She was headed in a beeline for the mud.\n\nThe COW yelled at the diving officer, who barked an order to Ballenger. His heart racing, Ballenger tried to unscramble the order in his head. As the planesman, he pulled upward on the half-wheel clenched in his hands. Employing the boat's built-in thrusters\u2014which helped maneuver the sub like the tiny rockets on a space capsule\u2014he tried desperately to compensate for the extra weight in the trim tanks, but the boat was too heavy. He managed to keep the Wolf from colliding with the ocean floor, but one of the skegs slammed down on top of the Soviet communications cable.\n\nCommander Tiernan fumed and yelled an obscenity. Ballenger was certain that the skeg whacked the cable hard enough to alert the Soviets, who might at any minute send out a posse to investigate. Tiernan kept the boat silent and still for a long while, waiting and listening. Nothing happened. Satisfied that he'd dodged a bullet, he sent out the divers. The heroes donned their MK-11 deep-sea diving suits and Kirby Morgan masks. They locked out of their pressurized hyperbaric diving chamber and pushed heavy metal boots toward the beast nearby. They retrieved the tapes from the pod, which had been recording conversations from the communications cable for several months, and delivered them to the spooks inside the boat. The T-Branchers collected, verified, and calibrated the signals, while the I-Branchers listened to the Soviet jabber to validate the recordings.\n\nStill outside and near the beast pod, one of the divers felt something tug at his arm. He held his hand out and stared at his glove. Currents moved his arm up and down in a steady rhythm. He contacted the Seawolf and asked if they felt anything. They did, but it seemed minor, probably just a light storm overhead stirring the currents. The diver shrugged and continued working.\n\nThe Wolf was too deep to have the VLF wire floating up near the surface to pick up radio signals. As such, Commander Tiernan and crew did not hear about the twin storms converging from hundreds of miles away as they marched toward the Kuril Islands. They didn't know that every ship in the Sea of Okhotsk had received a warning to leave the area immediately, that high winds were pounding seashores, toppling trees, and threatening to sink vessels as they scurried to safety.\n\nNaval command centers issued urgent reports that two major tempests were now dancing together and kicking up fifty-five-knot geysers of water. When the typhoon hit, since she was 400 feet beneath the gale, the Seawolf at first only shuddered. Her divers only sensed a few strong currents. As the perfect storm above turned uglier, the Seawolf groaned and rocked from side to side. Her three divers no longer felt mild flutters, but were now upended and pulled across the sand like mannequins in a flood.\n\nThe ocean grabbed one diver, and with the vengeance of a wrestler, hauled him about the ocean floor until his leg landed under the edge of a skeg attached to the sub. The Seawolf's ski leg had lifted into the air during the boat's rocking. With terrified eyes, the diver lay helpless in the silt as the skeg reached its highest rocking point and then started back down, right on top of him. The skeg brushed his protective suit just as the hand of another diver pulled him free. Thanking God for the miracle, the diver followed his two buddies into the Seawolf's chamber hatch.\n\nInside the boat, cans, plates, cups, utensils, and anything not secured went flying. Sailors ducked as the projectiles whizzed past their heads. Beauregard, the torpedomen's porcelain mascot, jumped from his loft and careened against a torpedo tube. Tiernan had seen enough. With the divers locked back inside, he terminated the mission and ordered the Seawolf off the bottom. But before the boat moved an inch, an alarm sounded. A reactor specialist standing next to a heat-exchanger gauge saw something that raised the hairs on his neck. The gauge, which measured the temperature of cycled cooling water for the reactor, had spiked into the red zone. The nuke knew in an instant that something was clogging the intake valves. He checked and discovered they were filled with sand. Grabbing a sound-powered phone, he called the control room.\n\nAfter hanging up the phone in the control room, Tiernan, Dare, and a flurry of nukes clad in blue ran aft. When they arrived, wet sand had blanketed the compartment. The Seawolf's skegs were now buried in the mire and the boat's intake vents, normally kept several feet off the bottom by the skegs, had been pushed flat against the bottom. Now the engines sucked in sand and tiny sea creatures, along with salt water. The uninvited intruders jammed their way into the turbines and generators and refused to leave. What's worse, as the Seawolf rocked, she sucked in more and more of the stuff and took on additional weight. Worse still, the storm's incessant pushing and pulling had wedged the Seawolf's skegs deep into the sand. She was now stuck, 400 feet deep in Soviet waters, with no way to break free.\n\nTiernan knew that the sand could shut down the reactor, which would take days to restart, if it ever did. He huddled his officers and senior \"salty\" enlisted men together to brainstorm a way to break free. What ever they tried had to be done with care and speed. Soviet warships patrolled the area, and if the Seawolf rocketed to the surface, they'd be a sitting duck. The few MK-37 torpedoes they carried on board were no match against a fleet of missiles, torpedoes, and depth charges. The Seawolf's slow speed and dog-barking noise would make her easy to catch. That left few options that would not take them from the pan into the fire.\n\nThey revved the engines and tried a controlled emergency blow, all without luck. The Seawolf remained captured, a fly trapped in the ocean's web. Forward and backward they pushed and pulled in an effort to wrest one or both skegs free. Nothing worked. Seventy-two hours ticked by, one agonizing minute at a time. A vital reactor system dropped to one-third efficiency as the vents continued to suck in sand and silt. Carbon dioxide levels rose as many of the ship's systems were shut down, and burner and scrubber capacities diminished. Some of the crew were sent to their racks to conserve air, while others started to come unglued.\n\nEvery sailor who volunteers for submarines must pass a battery of psychological tests designed to weed out the claustrophobic, unbalanced, antisocial, and potentially psychotic. Dealing with the unstable on a submarine, where a crew lives in close proximity for three months or longer, can quickly become a nightmare. Occurrences of the \"crazies\" are a rarity, and when they do happen, captains always fear they could trigger a chain reaction. When the fourth day passed, and the Seawolf remained welded to the ocean floor, Commander Tiernan hoped that his crew would keep it together but worried that someone might crack under the pressure.\n\nHis eyes glazed, Petty Officer Tony Mignon staggered his gangly, tired body up the ladder into the control room. His Confederate hat covered the top of his head but did little to hide the frightened, distressed look on his face. Chief of the Watch Don Langaliers, while sitting next to the ballast control panel, watched Mignon approach from the back of the control room near the interior communications (IC) switchboard equipment. Langaliers noticed that Mignon's eyes were moist and dazed. The young FT muttered something unintelligible, followed by a loud cry about how they were all going to die, and no one would know what happened.\n\nThe XO and a couple of officers near the periscope stand, who were going over ideas to gain freedom from the sand, looked up with stunned faces. Mignon let go another cry, along with a string of profanities. Langaliers leaned back from his station and said, \"Tony, chill out. We need you to be quiet right now.\"\n\nThe planesman and helmsman, both gripping steering wheels at the front of the control room, flashed each other puzzled, worried looks. Mignon ignored Langaliers' request and started yelling even louder. Then he banged his head hard against the Ships Inertial Navigation System (SINS) gyroscope housing, all the while screaming obscenities and doomsday chants. The skin on his forehead split open. Blood oozed onto the SINS housing. Commander Tiernan, whose stateroom was nearby around a dogleg from IC alley, stuck his head out into the passageway to see what was going on. Tony lunged at Tiernan, screaming that they were all dead men, and it was the skipper's fault.\n\nLangaliers jumped from his station. He and another crewman, J. K. Branham, grabbed Mignon before he could tear out Tiernan's eyeballs. They wrestled the strong FT to the deck, while the XO called for the doc. A minute later, Don \"Doc\" Post bolted up the ladder with syringe in hand. Langaliers and Branham held Mignon down, while Doc shoved a needle into the man's arm. Mignon stopped blabbering and started drooling. A couple of guys escorted the sedated sailor down to the torpedo room, where Jim Rule was standing watch.\n\n\"Seeing Tony like that hit us all pretty hard,\" said Rule. \"The doc asked me to keep an eye on him in the torpedo room. Once Tony's meds wore off, we had a long conversation, and both of us knew that his submarine days were over. We shared experiences that bonded us like brothers on that boat and swore that we'd maintain our friendship for life. Unfortunately, that never happened.\"\n\nAfter the incident with Tony Mignon, Commander Tiernan knew that the sand in the hourglass had all but run out. The hours trapped under the waves had exceeded ninety-six, and it wouldn't be long before the dominoes started falling and others followed in Mignon's wake. Seawolf's nuclear reactor continued to weaken, and air-purifying systems were starting to fail. Tiernan thought about the boat's early days, when teams of shipyard workers had collaborated to overengineer her reactor and equip her with the \"heart of a Mack truck and the soul of a '57 Chevy.\" He recalled discussing the reactor's design capability with his navigator, Lieutenant Commander James Christopher Cane, who had a reputation as the \"coolest cat on the boat under fire.\" The Seawolf had so many emergencies that when they did happen, Cane took them in stride and wore an almost annoyed versus concerned demeanor, ordering the crew to take actions using a matter-of-fact tone. Cane had suggested having the divers clear as much sand as possible on either side of the skegs, then push the engines well past the redline while moving back and forth in similar fashion to a truck stuck in the mud. They could cut the anchors loose to reduce their weight and do a normal blow on the ballast tanks until they broke out of jail.\n\nThe XO, who'd been involved in the discussion, expressed concerns that a normal blow could cause them to broach the surface. The storm seemed to be subsiding, which meant more Soviet warships might be returning to the area. Cane calmly intimated that the Soviets wouldn't be a problem if the Seawolf never broke free. Tiernan put the plan on hold pending the exhaustion of other options. Now he decided that Cane just might be right.\n\nHe ordered the divers to lock out and use fire hoses to clear the sand away from the skegs. One diver, while blasting away with a hose, dug a large hole behind him as he went. A mountain of sand built up on the edge of the pit. As the diver worked, the weight of the sand toppled from the crest and covered the diver up to his neck. Only the diver's Kirby Morgan mask could be seen above the mound. The other divers rushed over, dug for an arm, and pulled. Nothing happened. They pulled again. Finally, the diver broke free, but the sand filled in again around the skegs, and they had to start the job all over again, only this time employing more caution.\n\nIn the control room, the Seawolf groaned in agony as the reactor went into overdrive, and the anchors were cut loose. The nukes ground their teeth as the engines whined, and the spaces aft started to heat up. Jim Rule heard loud screeching through the hull and held his breath. The Seawolf struggled and clawed but still barely moved. Commander Tiernan blew the ballast tanks and pushed the reactor well past the design parameters, painfully aware that if his hunch proved wrong, they'd all die together at the bottom of the sea or be caught by the Soviets and probably suffer the same fate.\n\nThe Seawolf finally nudged, a slight movement at first, followed by fitful screeching, a few trembles, and a rolling wobble. The sub at last broke free and headed for the surface. That was the good news. The bad news was they were going up too fast and would definitely breach the surface, which meant they might be detected by the Soviets. They were also making tons of noise, mostly due to a broken skeg that banged against the hull. Tiernan knew that any nearby warships would have to be deaf not to hear the thing.\n\n\"When that loud clanking started,\" said Rule, \"Chief Langaliers and our weapons officer met with us in the torpedo room. Weps said that we should prepare for the worst, as we'd probably be detected. Langaliers didn't say a word. He just dusted off a thick manual, and handed the thing to me. I saw this look in his eyes that said, 'This is what we trained for, so just suck it up.' The manual outlined the procedures for setting off the bomb block charges we'd placed in the boat, launching our MOSS, and if need be, shooting our way out with MK-37 torpedoes.\"\n\nAfter hitting the surface, Tiernan fought to bring the boat's sail back under the waves. Damaged and sand-filled equipment almost doubled the Seawolf's noise output as she clawed toward the Kuril Islands and escape. Still, they were free, and the crew cheered. High fives were offered, and palms smacked. Then the bad guys came out, and the cheering stopped. Just a few ASW ships took up pursuit to start, followed by a barrage of ships and planes that dropped sonobuoys and pinged away at the sea around them. In the torpedo room, Rule acknowledged an order from Langaliers, and he and the other torpedomen launched the MOSS units from the tubes. Just before the launch, Rule took a bottle of Wite-Out and painted the words CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG on the side of the long, ten-inch-wide device in reference to the sound emitted, which simulated the Seawolf's old-jalopy chits and bangs. At first, the MOSS decoy didn't work. Rule wondered if God had allowed him to survive the sand-stuck ordeal so he could experience a more gruesome death at the hands of the Soviets. Luck prevailed and some of the Soviet warships took the bait and peeled away.\n\nAfter another day of ducking and hiding, the Seawolf managed to sneak away and stagger back home to Mare Island. She came back to little fanfare, however, as angry voices in Washington were certain that the Wolf had exposed the location of the Ivy Bells tapping pod when she smacked the Soviet cable with her skeg.\n\n\"It was a bittersweet return,\" said Rule. \"We were back alive, and pride filled all of us who played a part in that ordeal. Still, the powers-that-be considered our mission a failure. Those of us who were on the Wolf during that run disagree. Mother Nature may have forced us to change our objectives, but we successfully completed one of the most dangerous missions of the Cold War.\"\n\n## CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE\n\nDuring times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.\n\n\u2014GEORGE ORWELL\n\nON THE MORNING OF JANUARY 15, 1980, the forty-four-year-old Ronald Pelton, a bearded man with blond hair, strolled across Sixteenth Street toward a gated building. He whispered something to the guard at the gate and was ushered in. The FBI agent on the corner noticed the man and signaled to his partner one block away. The agent's partner shook his head and whispered the reply \"Unsub\" into his ear-mounted communicator, for \"unknown subject.\"\n\nPelton sat in the outer office and waited. Vitaly S. Yurchenko, the embassy's KGB security officer, walked into the room. He inquired as to the reason for the man's visit. Pelton confessed that he had secrets to sell and wanted to be paid in gold bullion. Yurchenko did not understand, and asked why the man wanted to be paid with cold chicken soup.\n\nPelton reiterated his request, more clearly specifying gold bullion. He removed a document from his pocket and showed Yurchenko, who studied the paper. Pelton explained that he had previously worked for the National Security Agency, and that he had secrets and wanted to be paid well. He informed Yurchenko that he had once been in charge of prepping a large underwater recording pod used by divers to tap sensitive Soviet communications cables. He knew details about how this system worked and where the pod was located. Yurchenko listened, then agreed upon a price for the information.\n\nThree hours later, Ronald Pelton, code-named \"Mr. Long\" by the Soviets, left from a side entrance, hidden among other Soviet workers. Now clean-shaven, he ducked into a van that drove him to the Soviet residence quarters at Mount Alto. There he consumed a hot meal and received a briefing on how to meet again with a Soviet contact in Vienna. The Soviets returned him to his car, where he drove away into the night, unnoticed by the FBI.\n\nIn fact, they didn't notice him for another three years. The breach wasn't discovered until 1984, and the FBI did not arrest Pelton until November 25, 1985. He confessed to revealing details about the Ivy Bells cable-tapping operations being conducted by the Seawolf and Parche in the Sea of Okhotsk. He is now serving three consecutive life sentences but is scheduled for early release in 2015. When Master Diver David LeJeune heard about what Ronald Pelton had done, he was shocked. LeJeune had worked with the man years earlier and never suspected that his former colleague would stoop to espionage. \"He deserves what he got,\" LeJeune said when asked about the matter. He had no other words to offer on the subject.\n\nBy late 1981, based on the information received from Ronald Pelton, the Soviets found the \"beast\" in the Sea of Okhotsk and brought the pod up from the bottom. The large drum is now on display at a Cold War KGB museum in Moscow. The uncanny timing, in light of the Seawolf's accidental contact with the cable during her last mission, sent the navy into a tailspin. Although Richard Haver, a civilian department head at Naval Intelligence, intimated that a spy might have tipped off the Soviets in a report he filed on January 30, 1982, he and others were concerned that the cable smack might have caused static or an interruption that alerted the Soviets. Regardless, cable-tapping missions to the Sea of Okhotsk came to an abrupt halt.\n\nThere was no evidence that the Soviets found the tap placed in the Barents Sea by the Parche, so that submarine, with Commander Peter J. Graef in charge, deployed again to northern waters in 1982 for a 137-day trip. Upon her return, President Ronald Reagan awarded the Parche a fourth Presidential Unit Citation, which he delivered to Graef along with a box of cigars. The Parche went into the yards through 1983, while the noisy Seawolf was relegated to finding missile parts. In the wings, the nearly finished USS Richard B. Russell awaited her chance to pick up the gauntlet.\n\nPRIDE AND FEAR CONSUMED PETTY OFFICER Second Class Laird Cummings as he shuffled across the brow of the Russell in the fall of 1985. The last of the Sturgeon-class submarines, it had been built at Newport News, Virginia, and commissioned on August 16, 1975. After a decade in service, she still looked almost new, at least from the outside. A strange rectangular hump jutted from the backside of her sail. Cummings had learned via his fifteen DevGru briefings that this chamber housed the Special Projects divers that the Russell employed for various deep-sea missions, replacing the DSRV-like chamber used by other Special Projects boats.\n\nCummings followed his DevGru escort to the hatch, then held his nose. The strong odor of diesel fuel, amine, body odor, cigarette smoke, burnt coffee, and somebody's butt crack combined to create a smell unlike any other on earth, one that would permanently saturate his clothes for years to come. With timid feet, he climbed down the ladder of his new home and descended into the dungeon.\n\nWithin days, Cummings met a good number of the Russell's 112 enlisted men and 14 officers, including her fit-looking skipper, Commander Walter H. Petersen. The six-foot-four COB, Master Chief Wolfert, handed Cummings a qual card and initiated him into the world of Russell. When the boat finally went to sea, Cummings slept in the torpedo room alongside the spooks, divers, and other Special Projects personnel. Although curtains were slung across the spook electronics area, he more than once glimpsed the two dozen plus pieces of gear used during their clandestine operations in the Barents Sea. Often while trying to sleep, he'd hear one of the spooks chant, \"Comex Run One,\" followed later by \"Finex Run One.\" Such chatter went on up to number 500 or more. Cummings translated the jargon as \"Commence Exercise Run One,\" in reference to the tapping runs that collected and recorded data from the cables and synchronized times and parameters, this to ensure accurate retrieval and prevent an unnecessary and dangerous rerun.\n\nCummings often ran into some of the navy divers in the reactor tunnel\u2014the space that divides the forward compartment from the aft\u2014under which resides the nuclear reactor. Despite the fact that enough radiation zoomies sped around inside the tunnel to sterilize King Kong, the divers set up shop there with an exercise bike and a Soloflex work-out machine. When Cummings first met these high-risk-takers, he noticed heavy facial lines and deep eye circles\u2014signs of aging far beyond their years. He'd heard from others that the harsh world of saturation diving took its toll on these \"heroes,\" requiring them to press down and decompress for weeks in a small enclosure, eat cold food, and survive the bends at least once in their careers. They'd obviously been through hell and back but still found time to keep in shape.\n\nWhen Cummings stepped into the reactor tunnel to take readings, he noticed a diver working out on the Soloflex. The beefy guy had placed the machine just below the 400-pound air flask valve that controls the release to the emergency coolant system for the reactor. What Cummings hadn't noticed was that every time the diver raised the bar on the Soloflex, he hit the valve hand wheel just enough to turn it a notch. Eventually, the valve popped off its seat and clanked to the deck. The tunnel filled with the high-pitched screeching of air. The diver froze. Cummings ran from the other side of the tunnel and shut off the air valve seconds before the emergency coolant kicked in, which would have been a very bad thing in the world of reactors.\n\nThe diver stared at Cummings with wide eyes. Cummings figured that the hiss of high-pressure air escaping was probably the scariest thing on earth to this macho man. He shrugged, pointed at the Soloflex, and said, \"I'd move that thing if I were you.\"\n\nLater that week the Russell found herself stuck in the mud, in similar fashion to the Seawolf years earlier. Cummings had heard about that incident from others and began to worry that they might be as unlucky as the Wolf, or worse, that they'd be even less lucky and not make it back alive. Ingenuity and experience saved them from an eternal patrol in the Barents Sea as Commander Petersen and crew found a way to dislodge from the bottom after less than a day.\n\nThe Russell completed her mission and surfaced near Yokosuka, Japan. Cummings was anxious to step on dry land again, but the boat had come up in the middle of a sea state-7 hurricane. Cummings and the crew spent hours sharing seasick trashcans while driving the boat through the squall. Finally, Commander Petersen said, \"To hell with this, we're going back down.\" He dove the boat almost to test depth, where the ocean's fury abated, and the currents were as \"smooth as a baby's ass.\" Cummings strolled into the crew's mess. Someone started a movie. Someone else made popcorn. He smiled, reclined on a bench, and forgot all about the world above. Dry land could wait for another day.\n\n## EPILOGUE\n\nWhen written in Chinese, the word crisis is composed of two characters. One represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.\n\n\u2014JOHN F. KENNEDY\n\nALMOST 200 SUBMARINERS, SPOOKS, AND NAVY divers were interviewed for this book. Not one regretted their time in the navy, and nearly all displayed a genuine love for their country when asked about the selfless sacrifices they made to preserve freedom and democracy. Some may call this corny, but those of us who served use a different word. We call it pride.\n\nWith the conclusion of the Cold War, transitions in operational tactics rippled through the submarine force as the bipolar world order of the superpowers shifted to a multipolar collection of interests. The possibility of another world war diminished, but opportunities for regional conflicts, like those in Iraq and Afghanistan, abounded. The makeup and operational posture of the U.S. Navy reflected this change, as priorities migrated from a blue-water stance to a focus on the littorals, or coastal waterways. Intelligence operations shifted from strategic to tactical reconnaissance. Submariners who once maintained long periods of communications silence were expected to exchange information much more frequently with the surface fleet. Invisibility used to be the byword of the silent service, but submarines soon became political weapons brandished publicly and continued as spy platforms and deterrents to nuclear war.\n\nBy April 2, 1991, thirteen U.S. submarines were conducting surveillance and reconnaissance operations in support of the first Gulf War. Attack boats USS Louisville (SSN-724) and USS Pittsburgh (SSN-720) were ordered to launch TLAMs against Iraq. In all, U.S. surface ships and submarines fired 288 land-attack variants of the Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAMs) during the Gulf War\u20148 of those coming from the Louisville and 4 from the Pittsburgh. These launches validated that U.S. submarines could operate as part of an integrated strike force while receiving target and strike data from surface partners. The success of this operation set the stage for future submerged missions in which TLAM strikes could take out early-warning, air-defense, and communications systems to offset threats to U.S. aircraft. Given their superior stealth capabilities, TLAM-loaded submarines could now sneak into attack positions unnoticed, then wreak havoc without warning.\n\nThe Parche and Russell continued to conduct Ivy Bells missions well into the 1990s. When the Mare Island Naval Shipyard closed in 1994, the Parche transferred to a new home port at Naval Submarine Base in Bangor, Washington. She received navy unit commendations for her Ivy Bells missions in 1995, 1996, and 1997. The USS Parche was decommissioned at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard on October 19, 2004, as the most decorated vessel in the history of the U.S. Navy. All totaled she received nine Presidential Unit Citations, ten Navy Unit Citations, and thirteen Navy Expeditionary Medals during her thirty years of service. Parche's sail was moved in 2006 to a location near Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.\n\nIn 1989, the first Seawolf-class attack submarine (SSN-21), intended as a replacement for the aging Los Angeles class, rolled down the ramp. Plans called for a fleet of twenty-nine of these new submarines built over a decade, but that number was eventually trimmed to twelve. With the end of the Cold War in 1991, and subsequent military bud get cuts, the number dwindled to three.\n\nQuieter, larger, faster, and packing twice the armament of a Los Angeles\u2013class boat, the Seawolf also came with a bigger price tag. The new subs were intended as a response to the Soviet Typhoon, the deep-diving titanium-hulled Alpha, and the new super-quiet Akula. An advanced design and array of special equipment allowed the new Seawolf to operate in shallow waters and deploy up to eight SEALs or divers at a time. Divers and T-Branchers could take advantage of Seawolf's Multi-Mission Platform (MMP), which included an underwater splicing chamber used for fiberoptic cable tapping. Seasoned divers, like David LeJeune, who served on the decommissioned original Seawolf during the Cold War and performed Ivy Bells cable-tapping missions, would have been elated with such luxuries.\n\nSubmariners claim that the Parche's successor, the USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23), became \"Washington's premier spy submarine,\" conducting cable-tapping missions and retrieving missile fragments from seabeds. Although the Jimmy Carter is a formidable Special Operations vessel, packed with advanced combat systems, larger spherical sonar arrays, wide aperture arrays, and new towed arrays, as well as near-silent pumpjet propulsion systems, boats of this class were eventually superseded by newer Virginia-class submarines.\n\nThe USS Virginia (SSN-774) was the first in a line of ultra-modern and sleek submarines designed for a vast array of open-water and coastal missions in virtually any ocean. A less costly alternative to the expensive Seawolf class, these new submarines came just in time to replace thirteen decommissioned Los Angeles\u2013class boats. The Virginia boasted a number of technology and shipbuilding innovations. Gone were the periscopes. In their place came photonic masts mounted outside the pressure hull that housed high-resolution cameras with light-intensification and infrared sensors. Also included were an infrared laser range finder and an integrated ESM array that transmitted signals from the mast's sensors through fiberoptic data lines. Similar to the Seawolf, gone also was the traditional propeller, replaced by a quieter pumpjet propulsion system.\n\nAs for the submariners who manned these boats after the Cold War, in many ways their roles changed dramatically. In other ways they remained the same. No longer did they hunt the Red Bear's massive carriers and cruisers, and cat-and-mouse Holystone games diminished dramatically. But clandestine espionage operations continued, as did sub-deployed SEAL missions.\n\nTo support these missions, several submarines were modified to carry swimmers and equipment more effectively. Attack boats and ballistic missile submarines were retrofitted with special chambers called Dry Deck Shelters (DDSs), which housed Swimmer Delivery Vehicles (SDVs). Special fittings and modifications to air systems and other features enabled these boats to transport and launch SDVs and deploy combat swimmers. SEALs exited from these chambers while the submarine stayed submerged, then swam to the surface along with their equipment.\n\nThe navy recently removed the twenty-four Trident missiles from four of their \"boomer\" SSBNs and replaced them with 154 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles. Converted into SSGNs, these massive bastions of destruction now carry up to sixty-six Special Operations Forces (SOF) that might include the Airforce Special Tactics Squadron (STS), Recon Marine divers, and SEALs. Most missions, however, call for one SEAL platoon of fourteen enlisted men and two officers, along with additional SEALs tasked with mission planning and equipment handling. Two former missile tubes on each SSGN now function as dedicated lock-in\/lock-out chambers to allow combat swimmers to exit the boat while submerged. These subs also carry two dry deck shelters and two advanced SEAL delivery systems to support clandestine operations.\n\nWithout a superpower to fight, the nature of SSGN operations now focuses on a very different kind of enemy. Rear Admiral William H. Hilarides, program executive officer (submarines), spoke on this topic during a \"relaunch\" ceremony for the USS Ohio (SSGN-726) on February 7, 2006: \"Ohio's return to service is truly monumental. Now Ohio will conduct missions that will have a direct impact on the ongoing Global War on Terror.... SSGNs are truly force multipliers.\"\n\nAlthough the Soviet Union vanished almost two decades ago and no longer threatens to undermine the United States' dominance of the world's oceans, and although most terrorist-thwarting activities are land-based, the U.S. Navy continues to operate an extensive fleet of submarines and undertake clandestine missions. In 2008, more than 500 submarines roamed the oceans worldwide. Asian countries commanded 135 of these, while 45 came from the Middle East. The proliferation of advanced conventional submarines is a troubling problem for the U.S. Navy, given that over forty nations rely on advanced diesel submarines. In the Pacific Ocean, over 140 submarines are frequently deployed within striking distance of critical trade-zone choke points.\n\nTo monitor potential threats posed by foreign submarines, three classes of American SSNs remain in service, including the Los Angeles class, still the backbone of the submarine force, with forty-six in operation. Thirty-one of these are equipped with tubes for vertically launched Tomahawk cruise missiles.\n\nMassive Red Bear ballistic missile boats are no longer the daunting threat they once were, but the task of detecting and neutralizing enemy submarines has actually increased in difficulty for the United States. Most subs are smaller and quieter than ever before and can stay submerged for months on end. Many operate in shallow waters, making detection even harder. The need to locate these boats has led to advances in modern antisubmarine warfare that far surpasses the dismantled Boresight\/Bulls Eye technology. The modern ASW arsenal now includes new types of sensors, advanced active and passive sonar acoustics, sonobuoys, and fixed hydrophones.\n\nCommunications have also come a long way since the Cold War. In March 2009, two Los Angeles\u2013class boats, the USS Annapolis (SSN-760) and USS Helena (SSN-725), played cat and mouse in the frigid Arctic north of Alaska during a weeks-long ICEX exercise. These boats shot dummy torpedoes at each other, which were later recovered by navy divers via drilled holes in the ice. They also tested a revolutionary new form of underwater communications technology and then surfaced through thick layers of ice to visit the nearby ICEX camp, a smattering of modular huts that house dozens of navy personnel and scientists for weeks at a time.\n\nJeff Gossett, technical director for the Arctic Submarine Laboratory, said that \"we installed an exciting new digital ICOMMS system on the subs that allowed us to type messages into a laptop that were encoded and transmitted to the boats through an underwater noisemaker. Imagine being able to send and receive e-mails to a submarine hundreds of feet deep running at top speed!\"\n\nBack in my day we had to park two boats right next to each other and talk through an underwater \"Gertrude\" device that garbled the sound so bad that boat skippers often gave up in frustration. To most of us Cold War submarine veterans, e-mail at depth and speed still sounds like science fiction.\n\nAs for Boresight\/Bulls Eye's innovative technology, obsolescence occurred in tandem with the advent of worldwide satellite communications. Not only did satellite transmissions obviate the need to send radio bursts\u2014as Soviet subs once did during the Cold War\u2014but these small orbiting craft can also be used effectively for ASW operations. Today, satellites can image ocean surfaces using optical and radar techniques, which can indirectly detect submarines operating at shallow depths. Thermal imaging is another means of detection, as well as low-flying aircraft. And while SOSUS still plays a role in submarine and vessel detection, many of those arrays have been reassigned to civilian duties for marine research.\n\nIN MARCH 2008, MY DAD AND I sat on his veranda in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and talked about the Boresight program as we listened to the tropical rain tap at the plastic patio covering. He scratched at his head and then started laughing. When I asked him what was so funny, he said the itch reminded him of Commander Petersen\u2014his boss at the Karam\u00fcrsel Huff Duff in Turkey.\n\n\"When we lost those Russkie subs,\" Dad said, smiling, \"after we pissed our pants, we all started scratching our heads. But Commander Petersen never stopped scratching. He was going bald and had this skin condition made worse by stress. Captain Mason and I were more worried about Petersen scratching himself to death than we were about the NSA breathing down our necks. Now that I think about it, that's pretty funny. Maybe Petersen's dandruff prevented World War III.\"\n\nThat was the last time I spoke to my dad. He passed away on July 30, 2008.\n\nA week later, one of my colleagues, Joel Harrison, pointed at his computer screen and said, \"There.\"\n\nThe chief technology officer at a software company in Silicon Valley and one of the cofounders of a multibillion-dollar storage firm, Joel was once a Boresight\/Bulls Eye technician during his navy days in the seventies. I followed his finger to the satellite photo displayed on his computer but saw nothing save an empty circle filled with dirt.\n\n\"That's where the Bulls Eye antenna was located,\" Joel said. \"It's gone now, but I still look at that circle and reminisce. That was some pretty cool technology.\"\n\nIndeed, it was.\n\nToday the large pole antennas used for the last Wullenweber CDAA array built at Imperial Beach near San Diego still remain. Inside the poles, the mortar building no longer houses Boresight systems, but instead is used as a planning facility for advanced U.S. Navy SEAL operations.\n\nAs I reflect on the role played by U.S. submariners, navy divers, spooks, and antisubmarine operatives during the Cold War, including the professionals who developed, deployed, and operated Boresight\/Bulls Eye stations, I often recall the battle at Rorke's Drift. Fought during the Zulu War, on the afternoon of January 22, 1879, this bloody conflict is one of the most famous in British history. Ninety-five soldiers from Company B of the Second Battalion, led by Lieutenant John Chard, bravely held off 4,000 savage Zulu warriors for twelve hours. They lost seventeen men, while the Zulus lost 600. The British held their ground with .45-caliber Martini-Henry breech loading rifles, while the Zulus pitched spears and swung clubs. Historians credit superior training, technology, and leadership as keys to this victory. A hundred years later, the keys to another victory were quite similar.\n\nDuring the height of the Cold War, the United States remained greatly outnumbered by the Soviets, with only 123 submarines pitted against nearly three times that number. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, spurred by paranoia, the NSA's voracious appetite for intelligence gathering became a primary espionage motivator. Ascertaining the characteristics and capabilities of Ivan's submarines, many armed with long-range nuclear missiles, became crucial to national security. No cost or danger seemed too high in comparison to potential global destruction.\n\nBut the paranoia was more perceived than real. Two years after Nikita Khrushchev became Communist Party first secretary, he ordered Admiral Sergei Gorshkov to dismantle the Soviet fleet. He stopped all heavy cruiser projects in midcourse. By 1957, the Soviet navy had dwindled to just 350 ships. Gorshkov's submarine force consisted mostly of short-range boats designed for coastal defense, not cross-ocean aggression. When the United States launched the world's first nuclear-powered fleet ballistic missile submarine, the USS George Washington, in 1960, the Soviets had no answer to this threat. The Hotel-class K-19 launched the year before could hold no candle to the George Washington. K-19 carried only three nuclear missiles compared to sixteen. She had to surface before firing, and the entire sequence took twelve minutes\u2014more than enough time for a U.S. hunter\/killer sub to sink her. She was plagued with problems, including a severe nuclear-reactor failure that cost the lives of twenty-seven sailors.\n\nThe Red Bear's attack submarines fared no better. Dozens of nuclear accidents occurred on these boats at the cost of more lives. Although Ivan boasted greater numbers than the United States, a majority of Gorshkov's submarines were old and noisy. For most of the Cold War, until Toshiba and Kongsberg illegally helped upgrade their technology, the Soviets were spear-chucking Zulus fighting rifle-carrying Brits.\n\nOn U.S. submarines, enlisted men received many months of training and performed complex and technical functions under way. In contrast, only more senior officers and michmen\u2014the equivalent of warrant officers in the U.S. Navy\u2014undertook those duties on a Soviet sub. On an American SSBN, the typical crew consisted of 15 officers and 125 enlisted men. K-219, a Cold War Soviet SSBN, had thirty-one officers, thirty-eight michmen, and only forty-nine seamen. Compared to the modern-looking U.S. submarine facility in Groton, Connecticut, where I received my training, the Paldiski Soviet nuclear submarine training center resembles a Zulu mud hut.\n\nAt the time, though, we didn't know that our opponents were so far behind. By the time the Cold War ended, they'd done a pretty good job of catching up to and, in some cases, surpassing American technology. All but gone were the creaky Zulu-class diesel boats and noisy November-class nuclear subs. In their place, deep-diving titanium-hulled Alpha-class submarines ruled the seas with advanced propulsion systems capable of pushing speeds up to forty-five knots. Our Los Angeles\u2013class boats could hit only thirty-five knots on a good day. Had the Soviets not run out of money and patience with communism, the Cold War might have ended differently.\n\nToday, given Russia's current economic state, its fleet has dwindled to a small number of ships and submarines. Those vessels still afloat are often unable to deploy due to a lack of trained crews and resources. Maintenance and repair are dismal. In November 2009, the RIA Novosti news agency quoted retired Russian navy admiral Vyacheslav Popov as saying, \"If things remain as they are, we will have to mothball most ocean warships by 2015. That will sharply reduce the navy's capability.\"\n\nAs the Russian navy diminishes, the Chinese navy is increasing and improving at a rapid rate. Given recent confrontations with China's submarines, including a collision with the destroyer John S. McCain's towed array near the Philippines, one wonders if another Cold War is brewing. While the hawks seek more funds to expand the U.S. Navy's submarine fleet, doves argue that there is no need for such weapons in a post\u2013Cold War world. Perhaps these misinformed well-wishers have yet to learn from the past. China now owns a significant portion of America's burgeoning debt and has emerged as an economic power-house in recent years.\n\nIn the decade from 1995 to 2005, the Chinese navy launched thirty-one nuclear submarines. Many of these are advanced ballistic missile SSBNs that carry long-range nuclear weapons. Professor Toshi Yoshihara of the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, recently said that, \"for at least the next two decades, missile defense...will have no answer to a capable SSBN patrolling the open ocean.... This asymmetry in capability suggests that...the only effective response to a capable Chinese SSBN is the employment of traditional antisubmarine warfare assets, particularly hunter\/killer nuclear attack submarines.\"\n\nIf Yoshihara's words are true, American submariners will be ready for the calling. The legacy is strong, and the pride still runs deep.\n\n## NOTES\n\nSOME OF THE INFORMATION CITED HEREIN was derived via research from numerous books, websites, and documents as outlined under Resources for each chapter, but a vast majority of the content came from interviews with individuals who experienced these events firsthand. Most of those interviewed were in their senior years, and a few recollections were less than optimal. Although every precaution was taken to validate facts, time lines, and names, in a few cases this was not possible. Also, some accounts differed from those of others involved, and in such cases care was taken to determine the most accurate accounting of events based on the facts at hand. Not all stories imparted by submariners, navy divers, and government operatives who were interviewed made the final cut for inclusion in the book. Readers are encouraged to visit the author's website at www.wcraigreed.com to read or download these exciting accounts.\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nREFERENCES\n\n2007 Submarine Encyclopedia: U.S. Navy Submarine Fleet, Sub History, Technology, Ship Information; Submarine Pioneers, Cold War Technology, Department of Defense, Progressive Management, April 27, 2007. This book and CD-ROM combination contains almost 19,000 pages of in-depth information on almost anything one might want to know about submarines and ASW, with an emphasis on the Cold War. I used this handy reference in almost every chapter of the book.\n\nWEBSITES\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cold_War\n\nCHAPTER 1\n\nPRIMARY INTERVIEWS\n\nCaptain Paul Trejo, USN, Retired, former LTJG on the USS Blenny (SS-324).\n\nGardner Brown, MM3, and other former crew members from the USS Cubera (SS-347) and USS Seawolf (SSN-575).\n\nNote: Gardner Brown does not know what ancient buildings the USS Cubera hid behind while dodging Soviets in the Black Sea, but the explorer Robert Ballard discovered the remains of an ancient structure 311 feet deep near Turkey in 2000 that he believes was flooded during the time of Noah. Brown agrees that the \"Main Street\" wherein the Cubera hid could be a similar city buried under the ocean during the Great Flood ( http:\/\/news.nationalgeographic.com\/news\/2000\/12\/122800blacksea.html).\n\nRESOURCES\n\nCold War Submarines, Norman Polmar and K. J. Moore, Potomac Books, 2004, provided a reference for submarine designations and capabilities\n\nRunning Critical: The Silent War, Rickover, and General Dynamics, Patrick Tyler, Harper & Row Publishers, 1986\n\nThe Submarine: A History, Thomas Parrish, Penguin Books, 2004\n\nPower Shift: The Transition to Nuclear Power in the U.S. Submarine Force as Told by Those Who Did It, Dan Gillcrist, iUniverse, 2006\n\nWEBSITES\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hyman_G._Rickover\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/USS_Nautilus_(SSN-571)\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/USS_Cubera_(SS-347)\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Greater_Underwater_Propulsion_Power_Program\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/George_W._Grider\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/USS_Seawolf_(SSN-575)\n\nhttp:\/\/www.iwojima.com\/\n\nCHAPTER 2\n\nPRIMARY INTERVIEWS\n\nDonald Ross, Ph.D., former DEMON sonar project lead in San Diego, provided excellent information regarding SOSUS capabilities and development of submarine sonar systems. More information can be found in Ross's book noted below.\n\nNote: When the torpedo-propeller design group moved to Penn State in late 1945, Dr. Donald Ross, at the age of twenty-four, presented a paper at the navy's first scientific meeting on hydrodynamic topics sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR). Ross proposed that submarines be built like torpedoes and that the current twin-screw designs could be replaced by a single-screw configuration. He forecast that such a design might empower higher propeller speeds without causing cavitation noise. Albert G. Mumma, the navy captain who'd helped capture German XXI sub designer Helmuth Walter during World War II, shot up from the center of the group and shouted, \"The navy will never build something that stupid!\"\n\nThe crowd nodded their agreement. After all, submarines must have two screws in the event that one fails. Twin-screws are also needed for better maneuverability. Despite pleas to the contrary from Ross, navy officials agreed with the group and dismissed the idea. Years later, when the David Taylor Lab in Mary land successfully demonstrated the new Albacore-type submarine, damned if the thing didn't have a single screw. The officer in charge, one Albert G. Mumma, received a naval commendation for his role in furthering single-screw submarine designs. That achievement catapulted Admiral Mumma to chief of the Bureau of Ships\u2014and therefore Hyman Rickover's boss\u2014in 1955, and the Albacore single-screw became so successful that most modern navies adopted the configuration for almost all submarine designs.\n\nDuring one of his runs on the USS Nautilus, Ross received an invitation to the wardroom. The Nautilus's skipper, Commander Eugene Wilkinson, flashed a coy smile and pulled out a deck of cards. He laid $20 on the table and said, \"You in?\"\n\nRoss pulled out a twenty and sat down next to three other officers. Several hours later, after having cleaned out the pockets of everyone in the wardroom, Ross scooped up his winnings and headed toward the door.\n\nStern-faced, Wilkinson stood from the table and said, \"Don't think for a minute I'm going to forget this, Dr. Ross.\"\n\nYears later, in 1969, Richard Nixon halted all Holystone submarine missions due to a spate of serious accidents. Wilkinson employed Ross and his team to solve a major problem with submarine sonar that appeared to be the root cause of the \"run-ins\" with Soviet submarines when U.S. boats tried to follow them. Ross solved the problem for Wilkinson and received the highest citation awarded to civilians for his contribution.\n\nRESOURCES\n\nMechanics of Underwater Noise, Donald Ross, Ph.D., Peninsula Publishing, 1987\n\nTransparent Oceans: The Death of the Soviet Submarine Force, Louis P. Solomon, LRAPP Company, 2003\n\nCold War Submarines, Norman Polmar and K. J. Moore, Potomac Books, 2004\n\nHide and Seek: The Untold Story of Cold War Naval Espionage, Peter A. Huchthausen and Alexandre Sheldon-Duplaix, John Wiley & Sons, 2009\n\nBlind Man's Bluff, Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew, Public Affairs, 1998\n\nHitler, Doenitz, and the Baltic Sea, Howard D. Grier, Naval Institute Press, 2007\n\nWEBSITES\n\nhttp:\/\/www.globalsecurity.org\/intell\/systems\/sosus.htm\n\nhttp:\/\/www.navy.mil\/navydata\/cno\/n87\/usw\/issue_25\/sosus2.htm\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/SOSUS\n\nCHAPTER 3\n\nPRIMARY INTERVIEWS\n\nWilliam J. Reed, LT USN, Retired, regarding HFDF technology and deployment. I interviewed my father in depth and then double-checked the details against other research and interviews.\n\nRobert Lynn Wortman, CD, RCN, RCMP, Retired, regarding World War II Huff Duffs and HFDF sights in the United States and Canada.\n\nPamela Wallinger Reed (author's sister) offered excellent insights into events in Turkey, Mary land, and San Diego when my father was in the navy.\n\nJoyce Louise Reed (author's mother) offered excellent insights into events in Turkey, Mary land, and San Diego when my father was in the navy.\n\nGeorge Munch, former Boresight\/Bulls Eye HFDF systems and Wullenweber array engineer who also helped get most of the joint U.S-Canadian sites up and running.\n\nFrank Cawley, deputy director of the HFDF division at the NSA, former HFDF Boresight\/Bulls Eye communications technician.\n\nJohn Gurley, former communications technician chief, USN, worked on Boresight systems and Wullenweber \"elephant cage\" arrays.\n\nGus Lott, Ph.D., founder of Yarcom, Inc. ( www.yarcom.com), former Boresight\/Bulls Eye systems and Wullenweber array contracting engineer. Gus is now the chief scientist for the Signal-to-Noise Enhancement Program (SNEP). In the 1980s, Dr. Steve Jauregui at the Naval Postgraduate School made SNEP a regular scientific program. The navy returned the program back to the NSA in 2003. Today, SNEP sends experts to sensitive receiver facilities to reduce noise from power lines, computers, and many other emitters that can interfere with signals. Gus provided some outstanding information on the theory and math behind the operation of Boresight\/Bulls Eye systems and stations and noted that when these systems were built in the sixties, there were few power lines or other sources of electrical interference. By the nineties, the areas nearby had been built up, and errors increased. Engineers like Gus discovered that interference noise now emanated from lines and laptops and helped correct for such.\n\nRESOURCES\n\nRadio Direction Finding, P. J. D. Gething, Institution of Electrical Engineers, December 1987. This book is considered by most in the field the Bible on HFDF and Wullenweber arrays.\n\nThe Canadian History of Signal Intelligence and Direction Finding, Robert Lynn Wortman and George Fraser (self-published), 2006.\n\nThe Codebreakers, David Kahn, Scribner, 1996. Chapters 11 and 15 detail interesting information about the use of HFDF Huff Duffs during World Wars I and II.\n\nWEBSITES\n\nhttp:\/\/www.researcheratlarge.com\/Pacific\/RDF\/\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/USS_George_Washington_(SSBN-598)\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/UGM-27_Polaris\n\nhttp:\/\/rusnavy.com\/science\/electronics\/rv6.htm\n\nhttp:\/\/www.globalsecurity.org\/intell\/systems\/sosus.htm\n\nhttp:\/\/russianfun.net\/technology\/secret-soviet-submarine-base-in-sevastopol\/\n\nhttp:\/\/www.angelfire.com\/falcon\/usspillsbury-der_133\/elequip.html\n\nhttp:\/\/www.jproc.ca\/sari\/counter.html\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/High_frequency\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Battle_of_Jutland\n\nCHAPTER 4\n\nPRIMARY INTERVIEWS\n\nWilliam Reed, LT, USN, Retired.\n\nRobert Lynn Wortman, CD, RCN, RCMP, Retired, former Bore-sight\/Bulls Eye HFDF systems and Wullenweber arrary engineer.\n\nGeorge Munch, former Boresight\/Bulls Eye HFDF systems and Wullenweber array engineer.\n\nFrank Cawley, deputy director of the HFDF division at the NSA, former HFDF Boresight\/Bulls Eye communications technician.\n\nJohn Gurley, former communications technician chief, USN, worked on Boresight systems and Wullenweber arrays.\n\nGus Lott, Ph.D., founder of Yarcom, Inc. ( www.yarcom.com), former Boresight\/Bulls Eye systems and Wullenweber array contracting engineer.\n\nNOTES\n\nOthers involved in the development of the magnetic tape recorder in concert with Robert Misner and Howard Lorenzen were Dr. Hector Skifter and James Gall.\n\nMack Sheets also accepted the NRL \"Top 75 Inventions\" award, along with Robert Misner.\n\nDrs. Rindfleisch, Pietzner, Schel horse, and W\u00e4chtler led the effort to build the first CDAA Wullenweber array at Joring, Denmark.\n\nJurgen Wullenweber's fame grew among the common folk, who revered him as a legendary upholder of the Protestant cause. He died in Wolfenbutiel in 1537 while fighting for that cause, which propelled him to martyrdom.\n\nMack Sheets assisted Robert Misner with the invention of the AN\/FRA-44 recorder\/analyzer.\n\nThe first successful HFDF fix in World War II came on the morning of July 13, 1943. German U-boat 487 transmitted an update to Berlin. The Tenth Fleet ASW group grabbed the transmission on several Huff-Duffs and fixed U-487's location as just northwest of the Cape Verde Islands. The ASW team hurried the fix to the escort carrier USS Core (CVE-13). Wildcat and Avenger aircraft scrambled from the deck of the Core and sped toward the U-boat. They found her snorkeling on the surface and blasted the submarine with bombs and cannon fire. U-487 sank to the bottom. The entire operation took less than ten hours and laid the foundation for future ASW operations. After the war, the United States and Soviet Union propelled their respective HFDF programs forward, while shifting their focus on finding each other versus locating German U-boats.\n\nRESOURCES\n\nRadio Direction Finding, P. J. D. Gething, Institution of Electrical Engineers, December 1987.\n\nThe Canadian History of Signal Intelligence and Direction Finding, Robert Lynn Wortman and George Fraser The Soviet Union and the Arms Race, David Holloway, Yale University Press, 1984\n\nU.S. Military Operations Since World War II, Kenneth Anderson, Brompton Books Corporation, 1984.\n\n\"Operator's Organizational, Direct Support, General Support, and Depot Maintenance Manual for Antenna Group Countermeasures Receiving Set AN\/FLR-7(V7\/(V8),\" U.S. Army Security Agency, Materiel Support Command, Vint Hill Farms, Warrenton, VA 22186.\n\n\"A Wide-Aperture HF Direction-Finder with Sleeve Antennas,\" Raymond F. Gleason, Robert M. Greene, Naval Research Laboratories Memorandum Report 843, August 20, 1958\n\n\"Award for Innovation, 75 Years,\" Naval Research Laboratory, obtained from the PDF document found at http:\/\/www.nrl.navy.mil\/content.php?P=75thANNIVESARYAWARDS\n\nWEBSITES\n\nhttp:\/\/www.nrl.navy.mil\/pao\/pressRelease.php?Y=2000&R=32-00r\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Battle_of_Jutland\n\nCHAPTERS 5\u201310\n\nPRIMARY INTERVIEWS\n\nWilliam Reed, LT., USN, Retired. Details involving the White House meeting in this chapter were derived from interviews with and memoirs written by my father, William J. Reed. Although I requested information on Boresight and this meeting via the Freedom of Information Act, I received only a rejection notice from the NSA on my first attempt and no response on the second. However, I extensively researched time logs for all the major players and key events of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and based on the reported whereabouts of these individuals, as well as actions taken at specific times, and based on my father's recollections, I believe 5 P.M. on October 25 is when the meeting with President Kennedy and his advisers occurred. My father was not positive about the first names or correct spellings of the last names of Petty Officers Denofrio and Odell, who worked with him on the Boresight project. Apologies to those individuals if the names are incorrect.\n\nRobert Lynn Wortman, CD, RCN, RCMP, Retired, former Bore-sight\/Bulls Eye HFDF systems and Wullenweber array engineer.\n\nGeorge Munch, former Boresight\/Bulls Eye HFDF systems and Wullenweber array engineer.\n\nFrank Cawley, deputy director of the HFDF division at the NSA, former HFDF Boresight\/Bulls Eye communications technician.\n\nJohn Gurley, former communications technician chief, USN, worked on Boresight systems and Wullenweber arrays.\n\nPeter Lewis, former communications technician chief who worked on Boresight and HFDF systems during the sixties, offered excellent input regarding this technology.\n\nGus Lott, Ph.D., founder of Yarcom, Inc. ( www.yarcom.com), former Boresight\/Bulls Eye systems and Wullenweber array contracting engineer.\n\nAnonymous sources who worked on government programs during the Cold War.\n\nRyurik Ketov, Captain First Rank, Retired, in Saint Petersburg, Russia, former commander of B-4.\n\nA. F. Dubivko, Captain First Rank, Retired, in Saint Petersburg, Russia, former commander of B-36.\n\nRadm. Victor Frolov, served as the executive officer aboard B-130.\n\nLt. Anatoliy Andreev, served as assistant to the submarine commander lieutenant aboard B-36.\n\nAdm. Vladlen Naumov, served as captain-lieutenant, navigator, and commander of BCh-1 (navigation) aboard B-36.\n\nNote: I met with the above former Soviet submariners in Saint Petersburg, Russia, via invitation and sponsorship provided by the Saint Petersburg Submariners Organization commanded by Captain First Rank (retired) Igor Kurdin. Igor and his staff, including Ksenya Hohlova, were of tremendous help in arranging meetings and providing transportation, as well as translation and tour-guide assistance. Information offered by these five, in several areas, contrasted with that printed in Peter Hutchthausen's book, October Fury. Captain Dubivko, via Adm. Naumov, stated that some of the details printed in October Fury were \"pure fiction.\" While Hutchthausen's book offers an interesting and well-researched read, numerous details regarding Foxtrot-class submarines and historical accounts, based on expert opinions, are incorrect. Captain Ketov provided in-depth information on the operation and history of the Soviet SBD burst signal radio that spurred the Boresight program.\n\nCharles Skillas, former engineering director at Sanders Associates in New Hampshire, imparted information regarding the navy programs under development during the time my father met with his team in 1962.\n\nSpecial thanks are due R. J. Hansen, who provided a detailed tour of the B-39 Foxtrot submarine located at the Maritime Museum of San Diego. Hansen is considered the most \"qualified\" American submariner on the Foxtrot class, having studied under former B-427 commander Captain Third Rank Igor Kolosov for two years. Hansen also reviewed the Foxtrot details in this book for accuracy, so I blame any remaining mistakes on him, of course. The B-427 is also open for tours and is located next to the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California.\n\nJeff Loman, tour and volunteer coordinator for the Maritime Museum of San Diego, assisted in setting up my tour with R. J. Hansen. Information on the B-39 can be found at www.sdmaritime.org.\n\nStanley Pearlman, vice president of Newco PTY LTD, LLC, which owns the B-427, provided a few of the Foxtrot-class submarine pictures herein, and many of the Foxtrot operational details were gleaned from the B-427 tour book. Information on the B-427 and the tour can be found at www.russiansublongbeach.com.\n\nRESOURCES\n\nBody of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency, James Bamford, Anchor, April 30, 2002, offered information regarding John Arnold and Cuban SIGINT missions conducted by the USS Nautilus and Oxford, as well as details about the USS Pueblo.\n\nJeffrey G. Barlow, \"Some Aspects of the U.S. Navy's Participation in the Cuban Missile Crisis,\" in A New Look at the Cuban Missile Crisis, Colloquium on Contemporary History, June 18, 1992, No. 7, Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy\n\nCommand in Crisis: Four Case Studies, Joseph F. Bouchard, Columbia University Press, 1991\n\nThe Cuban Missile Crisis, ed. Laurence Chang, National Security Archive, 1992\n\n\"The Naval Quarantine of Cuba, 1962,\" Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, 1963, http:\/\/www.history.navy.mil\/faqs\/faq90-5.html\n\nOctober Fury, Peter Huchthausen, John Wiley & Sons, 2002\n\nPresidential Recordings: John F. Kennedy, The Great Crises, Vol. III, Philip Zelikow and Ernest R. May, ed., W. W. Norton, 2001\n\nCables from Cuba History File\/U.S. Navy Operational Archives; Deck Logs from Record Group 24, U.S. National Archives\n\n\"The Cuban Missile Crisis as Seen through a Periscope,\" Ryurik A. Ketov, Captain First Rank, Russian Navy (retired), Journal of Strategic Studies, vol. 28, no. 2, 217\u2013231, April 2005\n\n\"In the Depths of the Sargasso Sea,\" A. F. Dubivko, Captain First Rank, Russian Navy (retired; unpublished memoir)\n\n\"Reflections of Vadim Orlov, We Will Sink Them All, But We Will Not Disgrace Our Navy,\" V. P. Orlov, Captain Second Rank, Russian Navy (retired; unpublished memoir)\n\nCINCLANT SOSUS contact reports during the Cuban Missile Crisis\n\n\"Khrushchev, Castro and Kennedy: Motivation, Intention, and the Creation of a Crisis,\" Robin R. Pickering, thesis presented to the faculty of Humboldt State University, May 2006\n\nDeck logs obtained for various naval platforms during the Cuban Missile Crisis\n\nEyeball to Eyeball, The Inside Story of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Dino A. Brugioni, Random House, 1991\n\nSoviet Naval Developments, third edition, foreword by Norman Polmar, The Nautical and Aviation Publishing Co. of America, 1984\n\nThirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Robert F. Kennedy, W. W. Norton & Co., 1969\n\nSubmarines of the Russian and Soviet Navies, 1718\u20131990, Norman Polmar and Jurrien Noot, Naval Institute Press, 1991\n\nCombat Fleets of the World 1980\/81, Jean Labayle Couhat, Naval Institute Press, 1980\n\nU.S. Military Operations Since World War II, Kenneth Anderson, Brompton Books Corporation, 1984\n\nOne Hell of a Gamble, The Secret History of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, W. W. Norton & Co., 1997\n\n\"Report Heightens Nuclear Sub Mystery\/Torpedo Theory Contradicts Findings of USS Scorpion's Wreckage in 1968,\" Stephen Johnson, Houston Chronicle, December 27, 1993\n\nThe Reminiscences of Admiral George W. Anderson, Jr., U.S. Navy (Retired), vol. 2, U.S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, MD, 1983\n\n\"Role of Polaris Submarines in the Cuban Missile Crisis,\" VADM Charles Griffiths, USN (Retired), The Submarine Review, July 2009, pp. 69\u201370\n\nThe Face of Moscow in the Missile Crisis, William F. Scott, Studies in Intelligence, vol. 37, no. 5, 1994\n\nCommand History, ref. (a) OPNAVINST 5750.7, encl., Command History Destroyer Squadron 21, [memo] from Commander Destroyer Squadron Twenty-One to Chief of Naval Operations (OP 29)\n\nCUBEX: U.S. Anti-Submarine Operations during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Norman Polmar, Moscow, September 27, 1994\n\nChronology (Fleet Operations Report, Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962), Naval Historical Archive, Washington, D.C.\n\nCuban Quarantine Operations\u2014Historical Account of, ref. CINCLANT Staff Notice 5213 of November 7, 1962 [memo], from Cuba Quarantine Center (O3Q) to CINCLANTFLT Command Information Bureau, Historical Office (J09H)\n\n\"Destroyer Forced Red Sub Up,\" Evening Capital (QP), June 14, 1963\n\nHistory of USS Charles P. Cecil (DD-835), Naval Historical Archive, Washington, D.C.\n\nWEBSITES\n\nhttp:\/\/www.navycthistory.com\/index.html\n\nhttp:\/\/www.navycthistory.com\/homestead_email_roster.html\n\nhttp:\/\/luxexumbra.blogspot.com\/2005\/06\/frd-10-endangered-species.html\n\nhttp:\/\/www.fas.org\/irp\/program\/collect\/an-flr-9.htm\n\nhttp:\/\/www.tscm.com\/masset.html\n\nhttp:\/\/jproc.ca\/rrp\/masset.html\n\nhttp:\/\/www.tscm.com\/gander.html\n\nhttp:\/\/www.cubainfolinks.org\/webpage\/Articles\/bejucal.htm\n\nhttp:\/\/www.navycthistory.com\/NSGStationsHistory.txt\n\nhttp:\/\/straightwhiteguy.mu.nu\/archives\/cat_military_stuff.php\n\nhttp:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB122619710466311417.html\n\nhttp:\/\/www.thc.state.tx.us\/museums\/musnimitz.shtml\n\nhttp:\/\/www.navycthistory.com\/index.html\n\nhttp:\/\/www.themoscowtimes.com\/article\/1010\/42\/372216.htm\n\nhttp:\/\/jproc.ca\/rrp\/\n\nhttp:\/\/jproc.ca\/rrp\/grd_6.html\n\nhttp:\/\/www.scribd.com\/doc\/4566441\/Matthew-Aid-The-National-Security-Agencyand-the-Cold-War\n\nhttp:\/\/www.jfklibrary.org\/jfkl\/cmc\/cmc_october28.html\n\nhttp:\/\/www.jfklibrary.org\/jfkl\/cmc\/cmc_october27.html\n\nhttp:\/\/www.gwu.edu\/~nsarchiv\/nsa\/cuba_mis_cri\/docs.htm\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Curtis_LeMay\n\nhttp:\/\/avalon.law.yale.edu\/20th_century\/msc_cuba070.asp\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Maxwell_D._Taylor\n\nhttp:\/\/www.gwu.edu\/~nsarchiv\/nsa\/cuba_mis_cri\/photos.htm\n\nhttp:\/\/www.gwu.edu\/~nsarchiv\/NSAEBB\/NSAEBB75\/#11\n\nhttp:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wgbh\/nova\/subsecrets\/life03householder.html\n\nhttp:\/\/www.gwu.edu\/~nsarchiv\/nsa\/cuba_mis_cri\/docs.htm\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sanders_Associates\n\nNOTES\n\nIn addition to the Nakat ESM systems, Foxtrot submarines carried a crude but effective Quad Loop radio direction finder that could detect HF radio transmissions and determine rough bearings to the sources. As the name implies, the antenna consisted of four oval pipelike metal loops attached to a center pole jutting out from the top of the sail.\n\nCHAPTER 11\n\nPRIMARY INTERVIEWS\n\nNihil Smith, former sonarman and navy diver, offered a heart-wrenching account of his dives on the wreck of the USS Thresher in 1963.\n\nWilliam Reed, LT., USN, Retired.\n\nRobert Lynn Wortman, CD, RCN, RCMP, Retired, former Bore-sight\/Bulls Eye HFDF systems and Wullenweber array engineer.\n\nGeorge Munch, former Boresight\/Bulls Eye HFDF systems and Wullenweber array engineer.\n\nFrank Cawley, deputy director of the HFDF division at the NSA, former HFDF Boresight\/Bulls Eye communications technician.\n\nJohn Gurley, former communications technician Chief, USN, worked on Boresight systems and Wullenweber arrays.\n\nPeter Lewis, former communications technician chief who worked on Boresight and HFDF systems during the sixties, offered excellent input regarding this technology.\n\nGus Lott, Ph.D., founder of Yarcom, Inc. ( www.yarcom.com), former Boresight\/Bulls Eye systems and Wullenweber array contracting engineer.\n\nRESOURCES\n\n\"An Analysis of the Effects of Feedline and Ground Screen Noise Currents on a Conical Monopole Receiving Antenna,\" Thomas D. Gehrki, Thesis, June, 1994\n\n\"A Wide-Aperture HF Direction-Finder with Sleeve Antennas,\" Raymond F. Gleason, Robert M. Greene, Naval Research Laboratories Memorandum Report 843, August 20, 1958\n\n\"Utilization of a Multiprocessor in Command and Control,\" Bruce Wald, Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 54, no. 12, December 1966\n\nCold War Submarines, Norman Polmar and K. J. Moore, Potomac Books, 2004, provided a reference for submarine designations and capabilities.\n\nSoviet Naval Developments, third edition, foreword by Norman Polmar, The Nautical and Aviation Publishing Co. of America, 1984\n\nU.S. Military Operations Since World War II, Kenneth Anderson, Brompton Books Corporation, 1984\n\nSubmarine vs. Submarine, Richard Compton-Hall, Grub Street, 1988\n\nStrategic Intelligence for American National Security, Bruce D. Berkowitz and Allan E. Goodman, Prince ton University Press, 1989\n\nThe Soviet Union and the Arms Race, David Holloway, Yale University Press, 1984\n\nWEBSITES\n\nhttp:\/\/www.lostsubs.com\/E_Cold.htm\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/USS_Thresher_(SSN-593)\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bathyscaphe_Trieste\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/USS_Preserver_(ARS-8)\n\nhttp:\/\/usnavyphotos.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/ars-8-usspreserver1res cue-85x11.jpg\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Robert_McNamara\n\nhttp:\/\/www.janes.com\/articles\/Janes-Military-Communications\/US-Navy-worldwide-HF-DF-system-AN-FRD-10-or-Bullseye-United-States.html\n\nhttp:\/\/www.jproc.ca\/rrp\/masset.html\n\nhttp:\/\/www.onpedia.com\/encyclopedia\/Wullenweber\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wullenweber\n\nhttp:\/\/coldwar-c4i.net\/CDAA\/history.html\n\nhttp:\/\/www.r-390a.net\/faq-systems.htm\n\nhttp:\/\/groups.msn.com\/ctoseadogs\/wullenwebers1.msnw\n\nhttp:\/\/www.fas.org\/irp\/program\/collect\/an-flr-9.htm\n\nhttp:\/\/www.eham.net\/forums\/Elmers\/201472\n\nhttp:\/\/www.espionageinfo.com\/Pr-Re\/Radio-Direction-Finding-Equipment.html\n\nCHAPTER 12\n\nPRIMARY INTERVIEWS\n\nFrank Turban, former communications technician \"T-Brancher\" chief and spook, provided keen insights into missions conducted by the USS Swordfish around the time of K-129's demise.\n\nRESOURCES\n\nBody of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency, James Bamford, Anchor, 2002\n\nScorpion Down, Ed Offley, Basic Books, 2007\n\nRed Star Rogue, Kenneth Sewell with Clint Richmond, Pocket Star Books, 2005\n\nAll Hands Down: The True Story of the Soviet Attack on the USS Scorpion, Kenneth Sewell and Jerome Preisler, Simon & Schuster, 2008\n\nA Century of Spies, Intelligence in the Twentieth Century, Jeffrey T. Richelson, Oxford University Press, 1995\n\nA Matter of Risk, Roy Varner and Wayne Collier, Random House, 1978\n\nThe Jennifer Project, Clyde W. Burleson, Prentice Hall, 1977, and the Texas A&M University Press, 1997\n\nBlind Man's Bluff, Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew, Public Affairs, 1998\n\nThe Pueblo Incident, Report No. 76\u20139, R. C. Spaulding, Naval Medical Research and Development Command, reprinted from Military Medicine, vol. 141, no. 9, September 1977\n\nSpy vs. Spy, Ronald Kessler, Pocket Books, 1988\n\nSpy Book: The Encyclopedia of Espionage, Norman Polmar and Thomas B. Allen, Random House, 1997\n\nWEBSITES\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/USS_Pueblo_(AGER-2)\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Soviet_submarine_K-129_(Golf_II)\n\nhttp:\/\/www.seattlepi.com\/awards\/scorpion\/scorpion3.html\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/John_Anthony_Walker\n\nhttp:\/\/jproc.ca\/crypto\/kw7.html\n\nhttp:\/\/www.knobstick.ca\/museum\/kw7.htm\n\nhttp:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-srv\/aponline\/20000822\/aponline135027_000.htm\n\nhttp:\/\/www.lostsubs.com\/E_Cold.htm\n\nCHAPTER 13\n\nPRIMARY INTERVIEWS\n\nJoseph Houston, former optics engineering lead on Project Azorian and member of the USSVI submariner's organization in San Jose, California, offered a behind-the-scenes view of the engineering effort involved in bringing up the remains of K-129, as well as a friend's recollection of Carl Duckett, CIA deputy director of science and technology, and of John Parangosky, project director, also known as Mr. P.\n\nTo test his photographic \"catfish solution\" for Project Azorian, Joe Houston used a Pentax camera loaded with Plus-X 35 millimeter black-and-white film while clinging precariously to the end of a large limb that arched over the pond in his backyard. Joe inched to the center of the branch while his fifteen-year-old son, Brant, positioned the targets by tilting them to the best reflective angle of almost 45 degrees. Brant then triggered a Hydro Products strobe lamp after Joe determined that the tree limb had stopped swaying enough to take an exposure. Father and son performed this test after dark in secret seclusion from spying neighbors, and Brant swore an oath to secrecy that he has kept to this day.\n\nDavid LeJeune, master diver chief, USN, Retired, imparted the only firsthand details ever exposed to the public about top-secret navy saturation diving operations during the Cold War.\n\nRESOURCES\n\nBlind Man's Bluff, Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew, Public Affairs, 1998\n\nThe Jennifer Project, Clyde W. Burleson, Prentice Hall, 1977, and the Texas A&M University Press, 1997\n\nBody of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency, James Bamford, Anchor, 2002\n\nSpy Sub, Roger C. Dunham, Naval Institute Press, 1996\n\nSpying Beneath the Waves: Nuclear Submarine Intelligence Operations, prepared by Hans M. Kristensen, Greenpeace International, August 1994\n\nThe Universe Below, Discovering the Secrets of the Deep Sea, William J. Broad, Simon & Schuster, 1997\n\nUSS Scorpion (SSN-589)\u2014Court of Inquiry Findings, Opinions, Recommendations, 26 October 1993\n\n\"Report Heightens Nuclear Sub Mystery\/Torpedo Theory Contradicts Findings of USS Scorpion's Wreckage in 1968,\" Houston Chronicle, December 27, 1993\n\n\"Project Azorian: The Story of the Hughes Glomar Explorer,\" Studies in Intelligence, Fall 1985, Secret, Excised copy\n\nMemorandum of Conversation, February 7, 1975, 5:22\u20135:55 P.M., Confidential, Excised copy, Archival source: Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library; National Security Adviser\u2014Memoranda of Conversation, box 9\n\nMemorandum of Conversation, \"[Jennifer?] Meeting,\" March 19, 1975, 11:20 A.M., Secret, Excised copy, Archival source: Ford Library, National Security Adviser\u2014Memoranda of Conversation, box 10\n\nWEBSITES\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Soviet_submarine_K-129_(Golf_II)\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/USS_Halibut_(SSGN-587)\n\nhttp:\/\/www.gwu.edu\/~nsarchiv\/nukevault\/ebb305\n\nCHAPTER 14\n\nPRIMARY INTERVIEWS\n\nDavid LeJeune, master diver chief, USN, Retired.\n\nFrank Turban, former communications technician \"T-Brancher\" chief and spook who rode the USS Seawolf for several SpecOps.\n\nRESOURCES\n\nBlind Man's Bluff, Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew, Public Affairs, 1998\n\nThe Jennifer Project, Clyde W. Burleson, Prentice Hall, 1977, and the Texas A&M University Press, 1997\n\nTango Charlie, Tommy Cox, Riverdale Books, 2006\n\nSubmarines, Rear Admiral John Hervey, Brassey's Sea Power, Naval Vessels, Weapons Systems and Technology Series, 1994\n\nU.S. Navy Diving Manual, NAVSEA 0994-LP-001-9010, Navy Department, June 1978\n\nWEBSITES\n\nhttp:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/USS_Halibut_(SSGN-587)\n\nCHAPTER 15\n\nPRIMARY INTERVIEWS\n\nJeff Gossett, technical director for the Arctic Submarine Laboratory.\n\nFrank Turban, former communications technician \"T-Brancher\" chief and spook who rode the USS Flying Fish and USS Seawolf for several SpecOps.\n\nRESOURCES\n\nSubmarines of the Russian and Soviet Navies, 1718 to 1990, Norman Polmar and Jurrien Noot, Naval Institute Press, 1991\n\nCold War Submarines, Norman Polmar and K. J. Moore, Potomac Books, 2004\n\nCombat Fleets of the World, 1980\/81, ed. Jean Labayle Couhat, Naval Institute Press, 1980\n\nTransparent Oceans: The Death of the Soviet Submarine Force, Louis P. Solomon, LLRAPP Company, 2003\n\nSubmarine, A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship, Tom Clancy, Berkeley Books, November 1993\n\nSpying Beneath the Waves: Nuclear Submarine Intelligence Operations, prepared by Hans M. Kristensen, Greenpeace International, August 1994\n\nCHAPTER 16\n\nPRIMARY INTERVIEWS\n\nKenneth Greenawald, former sonar technician aboard the USS Haddo (SSN-604).\n\nLt. Edwin Ladeau Tomlin, former officer aboard the USS Haddo.\n\nRESOURCES\n\nCold War Submarines, Norman Polmar and K. J. Moore, Potomac Books, 2004\n\nThe Blue Jackets Manual, twentieth edition, revised by Bill Bearden and Bill Wedertz, United States Naval Institute, 1978\n\nSubmarines, Rear Admiral John Hervey, Brassey's Sea Power, Naval Vessels, Weapons Systems and Technology Series, 1994\n\nAnti-Submarine Warfare, W. J. R. Gardner, Brassey's Sea Power, Naval Vessels, Weapons Systems and Technology Series, 1996\n\nSubmarine: A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship, Tom Clancy, Berkeley Books, November 1993\n\nSpying Beneath the Waves: Nuclear Submarine Intelligence Operations, prepared by Hans M. Kristensen, Greenpeace International, August 1994\n\nNOTES\n\nThe tradition of the U.S. Navy submarine dolphin insignia, awarded to those who complete submarine qualification, dates back to June 13, 1923, when Capt. E. J. King, commander of Submarine Division Three, forwarded a suggestion to the Bureau of Navigation (now designated secretary of the navy). He recommended that a distinguished device be adopted for those submariners who passed the rigorous requirements to become operationally qualified in all aspects of submarines.\n\nKing submitted his own pen-and-ink sketch of the new emblem that submariners spent a year earning. The design consisted of a shield mounted on the beam ends of a submarine, with dolphins forward and aft of the conning tower. The commander of Submarine Division Atlantic endorsed the suggestion, and over the course of several months, the Bureau of Navigation solicited additional \"dolphin\" designs.\n\nThe navy asked a firm in Philadelphia that had previously designed class rings for the Naval Academy to create just the right emblem to dress the uniforms of qualified submariners. The firm came up with two designs that were eventually combined into a single emblem. On March 21, 1924, Theodore Roosevelt Jr., acting secretary of the navy, accepted the dolphins as the official insignia of qualified submariners. Fifty-three years later, on board the USS Haddo, I yearned for the day that I could proudly wear the approved emblem on my uniform, just above my heart\u2014a dolphin flanking the bow and conning tower of a submarine.\n\nCHAPTER 17\n\nPRIMARY INTERVIEWS\n\nFrank Turban, former communications technician \"T-Brancher\" chief and spook who rode the USS Parche and USS Seawolf for several SpecOps.\n\nDavid LeJeune, master diver chief, USN, Retired.\n\nDennis Smith, former electronics technician aboard the USS Parche (SSN-683).\n\nRESOURCES\n\nCold War Submarines, Norman Polmar and K. J. Moore, Potomac Books, 2004\n\nTango Charlie, Tommy Cox, Riverdale Books, 2006\n\nBlind Man's Bluff, Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew, Public Affairs, 1998\n\nSubmarine: A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship, Tom Clancy, Berkeley Books, November 1993\n\nSpying Beneath the Waves: Nuclear Submarine Intelligence Operations, prepared by Hans M. Kristensen, Greenpeace International, August 1994\n\nWEBSITES\n\nhttp:\/\/www.navysite.de\/ssn\/ssn687.htm\n\nNOTES\n\nThe ACT V group of spooks originally selected Bill Stringfellow to replace Mac Empey but recanted after interviewing Charlie Miller, the candidate recommended by BUPERS.\n\nCHAPTER 18\n\nPRIMARY INTERVIEWS\n\nKenneth Greenawald, former sonar technician aboard the USS Haddo (SSN-604).\n\nEdwin Ladeau Tomlin, former officer aboard the USS Haddo.\n\nFormer crew members who served aboard the USS Drum (SSN-677).\n\nAnonymous sources who worked on government programs during the Cold War.\n\nCaptain First Rank Igor Kurdin, Russian Navy, Retired, president of the Saint Petersburg Submariners Organization.\n\nRESOURCES\n\nCold War Submarines, Norman Polmar and K. J. Moore, Potomac Books, 2004\n\nBlind Man's Bluff, Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew, Public Affairs, 1998\n\nSeals in Action, Kevin Dockery, Avon Books, 1991\n\nU.S. Navy SEALs in Action, Hans Halberstadt, Motorbooks International Publishers, 1995\n\nThe Power Series; U.S. Navy SEALs, Hans Halberstadt, Motorbooks International Publishers, 1993\n\nSubmarines, Rear Admiral John Hervey, Brassey's Sea Power, Naval Vessels, Weapons Systems and Technology Series, 1994\n\nU.S. Navy Diving Manual, NAVSEA 0994-LP-001-9010, Navy Department, June 1978\n\nSubmarine: A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship, Tom Clancy, Berkeley Books, November 1993\n\nSpying Beneath the Waves: Nuclear Submarine Intelligence Operations, prepared by Hans M. Kristensen, Greenpeace International, August 1994\n\nNOTES\n\nAdvanced computer-processing capabilities, towed arrays, and superior materials science gave the United States huge advantages over the Soviet Union throughout most of the Cold War. Sound suppression involved a variety of practices, including everything from motor mounts to plant design choices, such as minimizing the amount of rotational equipment required and the use of lower steam pressure. Soviet submarine designs sacrificed stealth for speed, usually employing noisier five-bladed screws that allowed for a few extra knots at the top end. They wanted to keep up with the source of their greatest naval fear\u2014American aircraft carriers. U.S. boats employed secret machining technology to crank out seven-bladed screws that traded top-end speed for stealth. The Soviets were unable to duplicate this until Toshiba and Kongsberg sold the technology required.\n\nCHAPTER 19\n\nPRIMARY INTERVIEWS\n\nFormer crew members who served aboard the USS Drum (SSN-677).\n\nAnonymous sources who worked on government programs during the Cold War.\n\nCaptain First Rank Igor Kurdin, Russian Navy, Retired, president of the Saint Petersburg Submariners Organization.\n\nRESOURCES\n\nCold War Submarines, Norman Polmar and K. J. Moore, Potomac Books, 2004\n\nBlind Man's Bluff, Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew, Public Affairs, 1998\n\nPiping Systems, SSN 677, NAVSEA 0903-013-4010, Naval Ship System Command, July 1972\n\nSubmarine: A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship, Tom Clancy, Berkeley Books, November 1993\n\nSpying Beneath the Waves: Nuclear Submarine Intelligence Operations, prepared by Hans M. Kristensen, Greenpeace International, August 1994\n\nWEBSITES\n\nhttp:\/\/wapedia.mobi\/en\/Soviet_submarine_K-324\n\nCHAPTER 20\n\nPRIMARY INTERVIEWS\n\nJames Rule, former torpedoman on the USS Seawolf during Ivy Bells missions.\n\nThomas Ballenger, former fire control technician on the USS Seawolf during Ivy Bells missions.\n\nFrank Turban, former communications technician \"T-Brancher\" chief and spook who rode the USS Seawolf for several SpecOps.\n\nDavid LeJeune, master diver chief, USN, Retired.\n\nRESOURCES\n\nCold War Submarines, Norman Polmar and K. J. Moore, Potomac Books, 2004\n\nBlind Man's Bluff, Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew, Public Affairs, 1998\n\nNOTES\n\nSome of the other divers assigned to the Seawolf that Petty Officer Tom Ballenger mingled with included Bill Fitzpatrick, Tim Bohl, and Eddie Baker. Ballenger claims that, in addition to \"heroes,\" the crew often referred to the divers as \"3200s.\" He suspects this was in reference to some of the equipment they used, but he never knew why. Master Diver David LeJeune does not recall anyone using the 3200 term for the divers.\n\n\"Beau got a little beat up but survived his fall from the perch,\" said Jim Rule regarding the smack that the torpedoman's porcelain mascot took during the storm that hit the Seawolf. \"It was one of those little things that gave us hope that maybe we'd survive. When you're consumed by thoughts of death, you look for anything that can lift your spirits. Beau surviving that fall made us think that maybe we could make it, too.\"\n\nCHAPTER 21\n\nPRIMARY INTERVIEWS\n\nJames Rule, former torpedoman on the USS Seawolf during Ivy Bells missions.\n\nThomas Ballenger, former fire control technician on the USS Seawolf during Ivy Bells missions.\n\nFrank Turban, former communications technician \"T-Brancher\" chief and spook who rode the USS Seawolf for several SpecOps.\n\nDavid LeJeune, master diver chief, USN, Retired.\n\nRESOURCES\n\nCold War Submarines, Norman Polmar and K. J. Moore, Potomac Books, 2004\n\nBlind Man's Bluff, Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew, Public Affairs, 1998\n\nA Century of Spies: Intelligence in the Twentieth Century, Jeffrey T. Richelson, Oxford University Press, 1995\n\nSpy vs. Spy, Ronald Kessler, Pocket Books, 1988\n\nSpy Book: The Encyclopedia of Espionage, Norman Polmar and Thomas B. Allen, Random House, 1997\n\nWhen Dennis Smith returned to the USS Parche in 1983, things had changed in ways unimagined. Commander Peter J. Graef had taken command, and a myriad of new faces walked the passageways. Master Diver David LeJeune relieved the previous master diver after he forgot to bring the critical section of threaded pipe that allowed the divers to \"blow down\" the water from the diving platform in the fake DSRV. An entire mission had to be scrubbed as a consequence.\n\nSmith recalled that previous cable taps were conducted at the repeater locations, the points where two long sections join, and the signal is boosted to last through the next leg in the journey. Tapping the cable at this point seemed most efficient in the early days but came with drawbacks. Soviet cable-laying ships usually pulled cables up for spot checks at repeater locations. Should they hoist up a tap along with the cable, that'd be bad.\n\nA land-based U.S. intelligence operative had managed to obtain a section of the communications cable used by the Soviets from a Russian vendor, which allowed the NSA to examine the design and engineer a more efficient cable-tapping method. Divers now were equipped with special tools that allowed them to penetrate the outer wrapping of the steel wire down to the center dielectric inside the shielding.\n\nThe clamp used for the tap also had a breakaway feature. If the Soviets pulled up the cable, the induction tap would simply \"pull out\" of the cable, allowing it to twist back to normal. Only a barely visible scar remained as evidence of foul play. A new System 9500 came with a small amplifier, buried in the mud, that allowed the large pod enclosure to reside almost a mile away from the recording container. Divers attached 4,500 feet of cable to the amplifier, then returned to the Parche. The boat moved to a new location and dropped the other end of the 4,500-foot cable along with a Deep Ocean Transponder (DOT), which allowed the divers to find the cable end and hook up the twenty-foot-long \"beer keg\" beast. This ingenious system improved cable-tapping efficiency while lowering risk.\n\nDuring Smith's second run to the Barents, the Soviets detected the Parche sneaking into the area. Commander Graef came to periscope depth at night and maneuvered into the middle of a large Russian fishing fleet to hide from the lurking Soviet warships and planes. Sonar reported active pinging and planes and helos scattering sonobuoys all around them. Light \"warning charge\" explosions clapped in the distance.\n\nHis chest thumping, Smith sat in the chief-of-the-watch seat on the port side of the \"rigged for red\" control room. Graef sounded off bearings to contacts that he spied through the scope. A loud thud, followed by an emergency buzzer, echoed through the compartment. For reasons unknown, the controls for the fairwater and stern planes, which control the depth and angle of the boat, shifted from normal to emergency hydraulics. The noise rattled everyone in the control room, including Smith. The planesman and helmsman jumped in their seats and started muttering expletives. The diving officer followed suit.\n\nGraef peeled his eye away from the periscope and said, \"We drill for this all the time, people. It's just the hydraulics shifting to emergency. Get a grip and drive the fucking boat! You guys know how to do this.\"\n\nWith that, everyone calmed down and guided the submarine through the briar patch unscathed. Smith let out a slow breath, certain that his CO had everything under control. Despite the dangers that encircled his home, he knew he'd survive yet another mission into the hinterland and return with something no amount of money could buy: a sense of pride that runs deeper than any other.\n\nEPILOGUE\n\nRESOURCES\n\n\"DESI: Diesel Electric Submarine Initiative, a Partnership for Global Security,\" Undersea Warfare, Spring 2006, pp. 19\u201320.\n\n\"Joint Spec Ops: Air Force, Navy Test Rescue Scenario,\" Undersea Warfare, Spring 2006, pp. 9\u201311.\n\n\"The How and Why of Open Architecture,\" Undersea Warfare, Spring 2008, pp. 6\u20139.\n\n\"Managing Modernization: A Fleet First Perspective,\" Undersea Warfare, Spring 2008, pp. 10\u201312\n\n\"Patrolling the Deep: Critical Anti-submarine Warfare Skills Must Be Restored,\" available at http:\/\/www.armedforcesjournal.com\/2008\/09\/3654984\/\n\nChina's Future Nuclear Submarine Force, ed. Andrew S. Erickson, Lyle J. Goldstein, William S. Murray, and Andrew R. Wilson, Naval Institute Press, 2007\n\nWEBSITES\n\nhttp:\/\/www.sublant.navy.mil\/ICEX09\/ICEX09.htm\n\nNOTES\n\nQuieter submarines demand shorter passive detection ranges, which has triggered research in low-frequency active sonar. The downside of such systems is the adverse effects on whales and dolphins, which has caused an uproar in environmentalist circles. No such uproar emanates from software engineers, who revere recent changes in modern sonar systems that transcend the closed architectures used in the equipment of my day. In the eighties and nineties, BQQ-5 sonar systems served front and center on submarines and relied on Sperry\/UNIVAC UYK-7 processors. Unfortunately, this technology became obsolete not long after installation. Proprietary software came part and parcel with hardware, and decoupling the two could not be done. Software upgrades required drastic hardware plus system changes and vice versa, which translated into expensive, typically in the range of $150 million.\n\nThe navy reduced that price tag to under $15 million by incorporating the ARCI program, which stands for Acoustic Rapid COTS Insertion. COTS means commercial off-the-shelf technologies. After ARCI, software is now updated every two years in sonar shacks on modern Los Angeles-, Seawolf-, and Virginia-class submarines, where glittering computer screens resemble a Star Trek movie set. Similar changes have impacted fire-control systems. I recall spending hours troubleshooting bays of massive analog gear on Permit- and Sturgeon-class boats. That's all been replaced by a bank of BYG-1 consoles with readouts that look more like video-game monitors than submarine combat systems. After touring some of these modern marvels, I often miss my time on the boats and wish I was just a few decades younger.\n\nFor most submariners, especially those involved in top-secret and highly dangerous Holystone and Ivy Bells missions, dry land often waited for more than ninety days at a stretch. Such was also the case for submariners serving on fleet ballistic-missile \"boomer\" subs. At sea for months on end, few found time for romance or families. Most missed holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, and their children's first breaths. Still, they served with pride and carried pictures of loved ones while operating in hostile waters.\n\nWhen Bill Heaton graduated from a small Alabama high school in 1977, uncertainty owned him. The yellow brick road that lay ahead was littered with choices that could lead to somewhere dismal or nowhere at all. His friends suggested the Crimson City, so he followed in their footsteps and enrolled in the University of Alabama at Birmingham. As a starving freshman, he struggled through classes while working nights to pay the tuition. A year went by before the money ran out. Heaton then followed in his father's footsteps and found employment at Alabama Power. Each day after work, he forced his eyes to stay open during night classes at the university, but he soon found it impossible to keep up with schoolwork and earn a paycheck. Out of options and money, Heaton fell to his knees and prayed. His strong Christian faith gave him confidence that an answer would come.\n\nThe following day, rays of morning light shot through his window and lit up a book on his desk. He dusted off the cover and smiled. A book about submarines. As a kid, he'd read just about everything written about World War II submarines and imagined himself in the role of a Barnacle Bill riding the old smoke boats. Every young boy needs heroes, and for Heaton, submariners were role models worthy of respect. Never was he more excited than when his parents bought him a model of the submarine USS George Washington. He played with the missile-launching mechanism so much that he broke the tiny spring. Now, as he stared at one of his old submarine storybooks, he knew that God had answered his prayers.\n\nHeaton's father had served in the Air Force with pride, and although antiestablishment anger still rippled through a society shattered by the Vietnam War, Heaton still got choked up when they played the national anthem at baseball games. Some called his red, white, and blue sentiment corny, but he didn't care. That day, in August 1979, he marched down to the recruiting office and volunteered for submarines. He signed up on the delayed entry program and attended boot camp in Orlando, Florida, in March 1980, graduating on the very day that the mission to rescue the hostages in Iran failed. Eight U.S. servicemen died in that attempt when a helicopter crashed into a C-130 transport plane. Heaton gathered with the other new recruits as the boot-camp company commander informed them of what had happened. Unsure if another war lay just around the corner, Heaton muzzled his trepidation as he stood and saluted, ready to serve alongside his fellow sailors.\n\nAfter boot camp, Heaton attended interior communications school in San Diego, California, followed by Submarine School in Groton, Connecticut. He learned about how submariners talk to one another, stay on course, and breathe air while submerged through the classes he took about closed-loop communications systems, gyro compasses, and central-atmosphere monitoring systems. Heaton completed C School, added a stripe to his sleeve, and went home on vacation. A friend ridiculed him and insisted that Heaton was \"stupid to join the navy,\" and that \"serving in Uncle Sam's Canoe Club was a colossal waste of time.\" Heaton ignored the insults and reported to his first submarine, the USS Stonewall Jackson (SSBN-634). A few years later, while at home on leave again in September 1983, he met the love of his life.\n\nTwenty-three-year-old Beth worked with one of Heaton's cousins, who talked her into a blind date. Beth at first refused, stating that she had no desire to go out with a sailor who'd been at sea for months. Beth still lived at home, and an hour before the date she told her mother that she'd changed her mind and didn't want to go through with the meeting. Her mother insisted that to cancel would be impolite, so Beth reluctantly went upstairs to pick out a pair of shoes. She came back down an hour later in blue jeans and a red V-neck sweater. She had a thing for red shoes and wore a different style on each foot. Near the bottom of the stairs she said, \"Mom, I can't decide which of these to wear.\"\n\nA man's voice responded with \"I like the one on the right.\"\n\nBeth glanced up. A handsome five-foot-eleven, dark-haired sailor stood near the door. As she gazed into Heaton's eyes, Beth felt a glow in her chest.\n\n\"When I saw Bill for the first time,\" Beth says, \"bells started ringing, and I just knew that God was telling me he was the one.\"\n\nIt was love at first sight for Bill Heaton as well, but given his at-sea schedule on the Jackson, he saw Beth for only a few weeks at a time during the next nine months, which made each day all the more precious. Following a brief visit during the July Fourth weekend, Heaton called Beth from the pier at Kings Bay, Georgia. His voice shook as he talked.\n\n\"What's wrong?\" Beth asked.\n\n\"We're going out to sea tomorrow,\" Heaton said, \"and I don't want to spend another day without you by my side.\"\n\n\"I don't understand,\" Beth said. \"I am by your side.\"\n\n\"I mean,\" Heaton said, pausing for a few seconds, \"I want you by my side forever. I want you to be my wife.\"\n\nBeth had expected a kneeling proposal at a fancy restaurant complete with violins and a diamond ring, but she figured that \"ordinary\" was not in the cards for a submariner. Tears streaming down her cheeks, she said yes. \"I decided that it didn't matter if he proposed in a restaurant, my living room, or from Timbuktu. I loved him and wanted to be his bride. We knew he was due back in port in September, so we made plans for the weekend following the boat's arrival.\"\n\nBeth spent the next three months planning and inviting and giggling with anticipation. Then she got a call from her church pastor. He couldn't do the ceremony that weekend, so they needed to change the date. Beth panicked. How could she get word to Heaton, who was now 500 feet deep somewhere off the coast of Russia? E-mail did not exist in those days, so she sent a \"family gram\" with the message \"Wedding date changed\u2014stop\u2014details later\u2014stop\u2014new date September 15\u2014end.\"\n\nBill Heaton married Beth in September 1984. He nicknamed her Dusty in reference to an episode when she had tried to reuse an old vacuum cleaner bag because they couldn't afford to buy a new one. The bag split open and covered her from head to toe with dust. Heaton later transferred to the USS Batfish (SSN-681), a fast-attack boat that took him to the Barents Sea on SpecOps more than once. During one run, they conducted an \"under hull\" on an infamous Alpha-class Soviet boat, at the time one of the most advanced, fastest, and deepest-diving submarines in the world. Several times on that mission, when they were almost caught by the Soviets, Heaton wondered if he'd ever see Beth again. He relied on God and his fellow submariners to bring him home. \"I learned to trust others implicitly in submarines,\" says Heaton. \"Not just to throw me the ball or keep my car safe, but with my life. That kind of trust changed me forever.\"\n\nHeaton became the Protestant lay leader on the Batfish, conducting Sunday services and Bible studies with others of faith. \"I was humbled and honored to serve my country as a submariner,\" says Heaton. \"To this day my friends still call me 'Navy Bill.'\"\n\n## SEARCHABLE TERMS\n\nThe pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature of your e-book reader.\n\nABC News, 147\u201348, 156\n\nAcoustic intelligence (ACINT), 273\n\nActive sonar systems, 18, 272\u201373\n\nAgafonov, Vitali, 96, 172\u201373\n\nAkula\u2013class submarines, 338\n\nAlabama Power, 376\n\nAlantika, 115\n\nAleksandrovsk, 64\n\nAlpha\u2013class submarines, 338, 344\n\nAlvarez, Floyd, 220\n\nAmagin, 137\u201338\n\nAmelko, Ivan, 209\n\nAmerican Seaside Club, 25\u201326\n\nAmerica's Cup (1962), 78\n\nAnadyr, 58\u201361. See also Operation Kama\n\nAnderson, George W., 102, 106, 116\u201318, 125\u201329, 137, 147, 149\n\nAnderson, Jack, 225\u201326\n\nAnderson, Rudolph, 149\n\nAndrea Doria, 237\u201338\n\nAndreev, Anatoliy, 108\u201310\n\nAnechoic tiles, 266\n\nAN\/FLR\u20139, 47\n\nAN\/FRA\u201344, 43, 47\n\nAN\/FRD\u201310 (\"Fred Tens\"), 47\u201349\n\nAN\/GYK\u20133, 191\u201392\n\nAnnapolis, USS, 341\n\nApplied Physics Laboratory, 254\n\nApplied Technology Division (ATD), 227\n\nApra Harbor, 316\n\nAQA\u20137 signal processors, 143\n\nARCI program, 375n\n\nArctic Submarine Laboratory, 254, 341\n\nArkhipov, Vasily, 73, 151\u201355, 176\u201377\n\nArnold, John, 62\u201363, 231\u201332, 247\n\nAT&T, 253\u201354\n\nAurora 7, 181\n\nAustin, Mary, 22\n\nB-4, 67\u201377\n\nassuming combat readiness, 93\u201394, 107\n\navoiding detection, 171\u201374\n\nheading to Cuba, 73\u201377, 93\u201394\n\nmission details, 69\u201371, 75\u201376\n\nspecial weapon onboard, 68\u201370\n\nstorm troubles, 94\u201395\n\nB-36, 65\u201367, 73\u201377, 165\u201371, 174\u201378\n\nassuming combat readiness, 167\u201370\n\navoiding detection, 85\u201386, 110\u201315, 118\u201321, 149\u201350, 160\u201361, 165\u201368, 170\u201371\n\nbad luck onboard, 174\u201376\n\nheading to Cuba, 73\u201377, 82\u201386, 88\u201393, 95\u2013100, 107\u201315, 118\u201321, 149\u201350\n\nmission details, 69\u201371, 75\u201376\n\nPankov operation onboard, 82\u201384, 90\u201391\n\nreturning home, 176\u201378\n\nspecial weapon onboard, 66\u201367, 69, 71, 88\u201389\n\nB-37, 188\n\nB-59, 70\u201377, 107, 120, 149\u201355, 158\u201359\n\nB-130, 65, 69\u201377\n\navoiding detection, 164\u201365, 167\u201368\n\nengine troubles, 130\u201334, 164\u201365\n\nheading to Cuba, 73\u201377, 107, 120\n\nmission details, 69\u201371, 75\u201376\n\nBache, USS, 150\n\nBaer, Ralph, 146\u201347\n\nBailey, Don, 202\u20133\n\nBaker, Eddie, 371\u201372n\n\nBallard, Robert, 350n\n\nBallenger, Tom, 322\u201326, 371\u201372n\n\nBangor Naval Submarine Base, 338\n\nBanks, Bill, 19\u201320\n\nBaralyme, 245\n\nBarb, USS, 211\n\nBarbel, USS, 184\u201385\n\nBarron, James, 203\u20134\n\nBatfish, USS, 378\n\nBathyscaphes, 181\n\nBathythermograph (BT), 6\n\nBaud, 38\n\nBaudot, Jean\u2013Maurice-\u00c9mile, 38\n\nBayern, 44\u201345\n\nBay of Pigs, 179\n\nBBC Radio, 120\n\nBeale, USS, 150\n\nBeatty, David, 45\n\nBeauregard (mascot), 324, 326\n\nBekrenyev, Leonid, 129\n\nBellini, Ettore, 44\n\nBell Telephone Laboratories, 16\u201319, 248\n\nBends, 240, 335\n\nBenjamin Franklin-class submarines, 252\u201353\n\nBenton, Hugh, 211\n\nBesugo, USS, 2\u20133\n\nBettis Atomic Power Laboratory, 14, 282\n\nBirinci Inonu, 52\u201356\n\nBlake, Gordon, 136\u201337\n\nBlandy, USS, 106\u20137, 164\u201365\n\n\"Bleed air,\" 1\u20132\n\nBlenny, USS, 1\u20139\n\nBlind Man's Bluff (Drew and Sontag), ix\n\nBlue Gill, 256\n\nBlue Surf, 256\n\nBob (CIA operative), 196\u201397\n\nBohl, Tim, 371\u201372n\n\nBolo lines, 158\n\nBol'shevik Sukhanov, 116\n\nBondville Station, 47\n\nBonesteel, Charles H., 203\n\nBoresight project, 47\u201351, 188\u201391\n\ncalibration and signal analysis, 50\u201351, 53\n\ninstalling and testing, 49\u201350, 81\u201382, 87\n\nMcNamara and, 127\u201328, 137, 138, 188\n\nNSA funding and naming, 44, 47\u201348\n\nrefinements and expansion, 118, 141\u201347, 149, 189\u201394\n\nsuccess of, 179\n\nBoston Naval Shipyard, 181\n\nBowles, Ethel, 32\n\nBowles, Hoyle, 32\n\nBoykin, Dennis B., III, 14\n\nBQR\u201324, 273\n\nBradley, James F., Jr., 215\u201317, 221, 228\u201331, 249\n\nBranham, J. K., 328\n\nBRD\u20136, 209, 256\n\nBRD\u20137, 256\u201357\n\nBrill, USS, 51\n\nBrown, Aubrey, 101\n\nBrown, Gardner, 10\u201315, 282, 350n\n\nBrown, Hal, 289\u201390\n\n\"Brute Force\" plan, 220\u201321\n\nBryant, James S., 2\u20139\n\nBucharest, 126, 134\n\nBucher, Lloyd, 201\u20134\n\nBUD\/S training, 297\n\nBuffett, Jimmy, 264\n\nBuinevich, Doctor, 82\u201384\n\nBulls Eye, 44, 45, 47\u201349, 188\u201391, 197\u201398\n\nBundy, McGeorge, 87, 136\u201337, 148\n\nBureau of Naval Personnel (BUPERS), 284\n\nBurke, Arleigh, 126\n\nBurroughs Corporation, 191\n\nBurst signals, 33\u201338, 41\u201342, 50\u201351, 123\u201324, 144\u201345\n\nByham, Donald, 4\u20136\n\nCable\u2013tapping missions, 228\u201331, 233\u201334, 238, 245\u201351, 287\u201389, 291\u201393, 319, 324\u201327, 332\u201336\n\nCafrey, Phil, 260\n\nCaicos Passage, 107\n\nCaltech, 25\u201326\n\nCanadian\u2013U.S. Atlantic HFDF network, 197\u201398\n\nCane, James Christopher, 329\n\nCarbon dioxide (CO2) poisoning, 8, 9, 12\u201313\n\nCarlin, George, 265\n\nCarlson, Rich, 17\u201318\n\nCarpenter, Scott, 181\n\nCarter, James Earl \"Jimmy,\" 15, 265, 319\n\nCastro, Fidel, 59, 157, 176\n\nCatch\u201322 (Heller), 35\n\nCavala, USS, 19\u201320\n\nCelik, Captain, 51\u201356\n\nCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA)\n\nCuban Missile Crisis and, 62, 63\u201364, 103\u20135, 106, 148\n\nForeign Broadcast Information Service, 200\u2013201\n\nGreek incident, 194\u201397\n\nProject Azorian, 217, 219\u201328\n\nCentre, Gene, 14\u201315, 282\n\nCesium clocks, 145\n\nChaffin, Leo, 7\n\nChard, John, 343\n\nCharles P. Cecil, USS, 107, 159\u201364, 168\u201370\n\nChebanenko, Admiral, 65\u201366\n\nCheprakov, Lieutenant, 133\u201334\n\nChesapeake, USS, 203\u20134\n\nChicca, Robert, 203\n\nChinese navy, 345\n\nChurchill, Larry, 17\u201318\n\nChurchill, Winston, vii, 294\n\nCircularly Disposed Antenna Array (CDAA), 45\u201346, 47\n\nClarinet Bulls Eye, 191\n\nClarke, Arthur C., 215, 223\n\nClassic Bulls Eye, 191, 197\u201398, 253\n\nClassic Outboard program, 254\u201355\n\n\"Clementine,\" 224\u201326\n\nClower, Lieutenant, 80\u201381, 122\n\nCODAR (COastal raDAR), 142\n\nCold War Medal Act of 2007, ix\n\nCombat Information Center, 159\n\nCompass rose board, 29\u201330, 124, 145\n\nConstellation, USS, 300\n\nCony, USS, 107, 129, 134, 150, 157\u201359\n\nCoral Sea, USS, 180\n\nCore, USS, 355n\n\nCourtney, Frank, 283\u201384\n\nCousins, Rich, 35\u201338\n\nCox, Tommy, 283\u201384\n\nCrandal, Charles, 203\n\nCrazy Ivan maneuver, 273\u201374\n\nCretan Star, 119\n\nCrews, Harry, 156\n\nCrowley, Tom, 231\u201332\n\nCuban Missile Crisis, 57\u2013179. See also Operation Kama\n\nfirst U.S. casualty, 149\n\nKennedy\u2013Khrushchev deal, 176\n\nKennedy's secret memo to Khrushchev, 156\u201357\n\nKhrushchev's letters to Kennedy, 156\u201357\n\nSoviets halt advance of cargo ships, 148\n\nSoviets launch Operations Kama and Anadyr, 57\u201361\n\nU.S. ExComm meetings, 87, 102, 118, 129\u201330, 178\n\nU.S. military preparations, 115\u201318, 147\u201348\n\nU.S. quarantine measures, 64\u201365, 106\u20137, 115, 116\u201317, 120, 125\u201330, 150\n\nU.S.\u2013Soviet standoff, 149\u201350, 156\u201357\n\nU.S. surveillance, 78\u201382, 86\u201388, 101\u20137, 115\u201318, 122\u201325, 130, 134\u201340, 148\u201349\n\nU.S.'s initial discovery of Soviet operations, 61\u201365\n\nCubera, USS, 10\u201313, 15, 350n\n\nCummings, Laird, 334\u201336\n\nCumshaw, 35\n\nCussler, Clive, 237\n\nDace, USS, 217\u201318, 296\n\nDare, J. Ashton, 321\u201322, 326\u201327\n\nDartmouth College, 11\n\nDavis, John, 62, 78\n\n\"Dead zone\" for Soviet torpedoes, 169\n\nDecompression sickness, 230, 240\n\nDeep Ocean Transponder (DOT), 373n\n\nDeep Submergence Rescue Vehicle (DSRV), 229\u201330\n\nDefense readiness condition (DEFCON), 117\u201318\n\nDelta\u2013class submarines, 252\u201353, 257\u201358, 276\u201381\n\nDemodulation, 19, 20\n\nDEMON sonar systems, 20, 21\n\nDenofrio, Tommy, 81\u201382, 141\u201345\n\nDepth charges, 152\u201355, 315\u201316\n\nDesign collapse depth, 6\u20137, 162\n\nDe Steiguer, USS, 289\u201390\n\nDeveloping film, 300\u2013301\n\nDiego Garcia, 301\u20132\n\nDiem, Eugene \"Gunga Din,\" 239\u201340, 243, 244\u201345\n\nDiesel\u2013powered submarines, 8\u201310, 13, 14, 15\n\nDipping sonar, 166\u201367\n\nDirectional Frequency and Ranging (DIFAR), 142\u201344\n\nDirectional sound viewpoint, 142\u201343, 253\u201354\n\nDiver fatigue, 237\n\nDive tables, 229\n\nDiving depths, 6\u20137, 162, 167\n\nDobrynin, Anatoly, 102\n\nDolphin insignia, 180, 367\u201368n\n\nDonovan, Robert, 157\n\nDrew, Christopher, ix\n\nDrum, USS, vii, 295\u2013317\n\ncollision with Victor III, 311\u201314\n\nevasive maneuvers, 314\u201316\n\nexercises, 297\u201399\n\noutside Diego Garcia, 301\u20132\n\nrecon photography, 296\u201397, 299\u2013301\n\nspotting Victor III, 304\u201311\n\nDry Deck Shelters (DDSs), 339\u201340\n\nDubivko, Aleksei, 65\u201367, 73\u201377, 165\u201371, 174\u201378\n\navoiding detection, 85\u201386, 110\u201315, 118\u201321, 149\u201350, 160\u201361, 165\u201368, 170\u201371\n\nbackground of, 65\u201366, 69\n\nbad luck onboard, 174\u201376\n\nheading to Cuba, 73\u201377, 82\u201386, 88\u201393, 95\u2013100, 107\u201315, 118\u201321, 149\u201350\n\nmission details, 69\u201371, 75\u201376\n\nPankov operation onboard, 82\u201384, 90\u201391\n\nreadying the weapon, 167\u201370\n\nreturning home, 176\u201378\n\nspecial weapon onboard, 66\u201367, 69, 71, 88\u201389\n\nDuckett, Carl, 216\u201317, 221, 222\u201323, 227\n\nDulles, John Foster, 78\n\nDygalo, Viktor A., 205\n\nEastman Kodak Company, 318\u201319\n\nEaton, USS, 150\n\nEcho\u2013class submarines, 193, 212, 214\n\nEdzell Bulls Eye, 48\u201349, 87\u201388, 189\n\nEisenhower, Dwight D., 265\n\nElectric Boat Corporation, 9\u201310, 14\u201315\n\nElectronic countermeasures (ECM), 41, 42\n\nElectronic intelligence (ELINT), 40\n\nElectronic surveillance measures (ESM), 5, 52\u201355, 114, 151\u201352, 200\n\nElephant cages, 47\n\nElk River, 236\n\nEllenwood, Bob, 283\u201384\n\nEmergency air\u2013breathing (EAB), 269\n\nEmpey, Malcolm \"Mac,\" 231\u201333, 247\u201351, 283\u201384\n\nEnterprise, USS, 105, 107\n\nEscape trunks, 230, 297\u201399, 310\u201315, 340\n\nEssex, USS, 105, 106\u20137, 120, 134\n\nExComm (Executive Committee of the National Security Council), 87, 102, 118, 129\u201330, 178\n\nF\u00e9nelon, Fran\u00e7ois, 252\n\nFifteenth Submarine Squadron, 205\n\nFilm processing, 300\u2013301\n\nFingerprinting, 256\n\nFire control, 3\n\nFish, 215\u201316, 230\u201331, 249\u201350\n\nFitzpatrick, Bill, 370 n\n\nFlacco, Nick, 306\u20137, 311\u201315\n\nFlasher, USS, 11\n\nFlying Fish, USS, 255\u201363, 284\n\nFokin, Vitali, 58\u201361, 70\u201371\n\nFollow\u2013on Test (FOT), 116\n\nFomin, Aleksandr, 147\u201348, 156\n\nFord, Gerald, 227\n\nFord Motor Company, 190\n\nFort George G. Meade, 4, 22, 50, 102\u20136, 130\n\nFoxtrot\u2013class submarines, 62, 68, 150, 162, 357\u201358 n, 360 n\n\nFred (CIA operative), 194\u201397\n\nFricke, Robert E., 295\u201396, 304, 311\u201312\n\nFrontz, Al, 242, 244\u201345\n\nFUNNEL, 62\n\nFursenko, Aleksandr, 157\n\nGagarin, 149\n\nGall, James, 354n\n\nGas supply, and divers, 237\n\nGates, Thomas, 118\n\nGauss, Karl, 144\n\nGaussian, 144\n\nGearing, USS, 134\n\nGeneva Convention, 46\n\nGeorge Washington, USS, 116, 189, 193, 316\u201317, 343\u201344, 376\n\nGibran, Kahlil, 199\n\nGilpatric, Roswell, 125, 127\u201329, 136\u201337\n\nGIUK gap (Greenland, Iceland, United Kingdom), 83\n\nGlomar Explorer, 223\u201328\n\nGnomonic projection, 30\n\nGoldwater, Barry, 265\n\nGolf II, 205, 207\u20138, 210, 212, 216, 224\n\nGoniometers, 48, 197\n\nGorshkov, Sergei, 31, 57\u201361, 64\u201365, 70\u201371, 82, 188, 343\u201344\n\nGorski, Anatoly, 157\n\nGossett, Jeff, 341\n\nGovernor Dummer Academy, 11\n\nGraef, Peter J., 333\u201334, 372\u201374n\n\nGrant, Ulysses S., 135\u201336\n\nGraznyy, 134\n\nGRD\u20136 stations, 43, 49, 87\u201388, 105\u20136, 134, 149, 188\u201389\n\nGreater Underwater Propulsion Power (GUPPY), 10\n\nGrechenov, Major, 148\u201349\n\nGrechko, Andrei, 177\u201378\n\nGreenawald, Kenneth \"Greenie,\" 265\u201366, 272, 275\u201381\n\nGreenling, USS, 284\n\nGrider, George W., 11\u201313, 15\n\nGriffiths, Charles, 116\n\nGrigorievich, Valentin, 153\u201354\n\nGromyko, Andrei, 102\n\nGT&E Sylvania Electronics Systems, 46, 47\n\nGuardfish, USS, 211\u201312\n\nGulf War, 338\n\nGurley, John, 122\u201325\n\nGYK\u20133 computers, 145, 147, 191\u201392, 206\n\nHaddo, USS, 265\u201381\n\ncrew of, 266\u201367\n\nfirst dive, 267\u201368\n\nlife under the seas, 268\u201381\n\nsonar systems, 271\u201374\n\ntracking and photographing submarines, 212, 276\u201381, 301\n\ntransfer from, 295\u201396\n\nHalibut, USS, 229\u201333, 238\u201351\n\ncable\u2013tapping mission, 228\u201331, 245\u201351\n\nsearching for K-129, 216\u201317\n\nupgrade, 215\u201316, 230\n\nHalidere (Turkish neighbor), 23\u201324\n\nHalworth, \"Doc,\" 238\u201339, 245\u201346\n\nHansen, R. J., 357\u201358n\n\nHanza Bulls Eye, 87\u201388, 189\n\nHarrier, USS, 223\n\nHarrison, Joel, 342\n\nHarvard Underwater Sound Laboratory, 17\n\nHarvey, John Wesley, 180, 185\u201386\n\nHaver, Richard, 333\n\nHayden, Edgar, 46\u201347\n\nHeaton, Beth, 377\u201378\n\nHeaton, Bill, 376\u201378\n\nHelena, USS, 341\n\nHelium diving, 229, 230, 240\u201342\n\nHeller, Joseph, 35\n\nHelms, Richard, 217\n\nHendrix, Jimi, 180\n\nHensley, Jimmy, 34\u201337\n\nHeyser, Richard S., 86\u201387\n\nHigh frequency (HF), 27\n\nHigh frequency direction finding (HFDF), 23, 26\u201329, 41, 50\u201351, 355n\n\nHigh\u2013pressure nervous syndrome (HPNS), 240, 242, 244\u201345\n\nHilarides, William H., 340\n\nHitchcock, Alfred, 220\n\nHodges, Duane, 203\n\nHolser, Alex, 220\n\nHolystone, ix, 273, 305, 375\n\nHomestead Station, 78\u201382, 86, 105\u20136, 116, 122\u201325, 134\n\nHotel, 193\n\n\"Hot running\" torpedoes, 291\n\n\"Hot shit,\" 255\n\nHouston, Brant, 364n\n\nHouston, Joseph, 217\u201324, 227, 364n\n\nHubel, Augustine \"Gus,\" 232\n\nHughes, Howard, 219\n\nHughes Glomar Explorer, 223\u201328\n\nHunt, John, 239\u201340, 245\n\nHunter, John, 159\u201364, 168\n\nHutchthausen, Peter, 357n\n\nHybla Valley Coast Guard Station, 44\n\nHydro Products, 222, 364n\n\nHyperbaric diving chambers, 230, 240, 242, 249, 287\u201388\n\nIDKCA (\"rise to the surface\"), 126\n\nIlyushin Il\u201328\n\nbombers, 104, 176\n\nIndependence, USS, 172\u201373\n\nIndigirki, 64\n\nIntelligence operatives (I-Branchers), 29, 262\n\nInterim Towed Array Surveillance System (ITASS), 253\u201355, 272\u201373\n\nIonospheric hop, 87\u201388\n\nIran hostage crisis, 319, 376\u201377\n\nIraq, and Gulf War, 338\n\nItek Corporation, 217\u201324\n\nITT Federal Systems, 48, 189\u201390\n\nIvanov, P. K., 177\n\nIvy Bells, ix. See also Cable\u2013tapping missions\n\nIwo Jima, 11\n\nJamming systems, 40\u201341, 50\n\nJauregui, Steve, 353n\n\nJefferson, Thomas, 135\n\nJimmy Carter, USS, 339\n\nJohn Marshall, USS, 306\n\nJohn S. McCain, USS, 345\n\nJohnson, Lyndon, 203\n\nJuliett\u2013class submarines, 193\n\nJupiter missiles, 148, 156\u201357\n\nJust a Sailor (Waterman), 296\u201397\n\nK-3, 188\n\nK-8, 188\n\nK-19, 188, 343\u201344\n\nK-129, 205\u201312\n\nHalibut search for, 216\u201317\n\nProject Azorian salvage plan, 217, 221\u201328\n\nrogue theory about, 207\u20138\n\nsinking of, 211\u201312\n\nSwordfish stalking of, 207\u201312\n\nK-219, 344\n\nK-324, vii, 304\u201317\n\nDrum collision with, 311\u201314\n\nDrum spotting of, 304\u201311\n\nKalugin, Oleg, 204\u20135\n\nKami Seya Naval Security Group Activity, 202\u20133, 209\u201310, 255\n\nKaram\u00fcrsel Station, 22\u201323, 26\u201339, 49\u201350\n\nKaye, Jack, 78\u201379, 87, 102\u20136, 118, 130, 134\u201340, 147, 188, 192\n\nKelley, Edward, 164\n\nKelly, Joseph, 16\n\nKennedy, John F.\n\naddress to nation (October 22, 1962), 107, 115\n\nassassination of, 193\u201394\n\nbriefing with Reed about Boresight, 134\u201339\n\non crisis, 337\n\ndeal with Khrushchev, 176\n\nExComm meetings, 102, 118, 129\u201330\n\ninvasion preparations, 147\u201348\n\nquarantine measures and, 102, 105, 106, 107, 118, 125\u201326, 129\n\nsecret memo to Khrushchev, 156\u201357\n\nSoviet offensive weapons and, 62, 63\u201364, 87, 101\u20132, 104, 115, 120, 176\n\nSoviet submarines and, 102, 106, 129\u201330, 134\u201335, 149, 150\n\nWorld War II and PT 109, 137\u201338\n\nKennedy, Robert, 117, 148\n\nKetov, Ryurik, 67\u201377, 93\u201395, 107, 171\u201374, 357n\n\nKey West Naval Base, 115\u201316\n\nKGB, 157, 204, 332\n\nKhabarovsk Krai, 46\n\nKhrushchev, Nikita, 343\n\ndeal with Kennedy, 176\n\nhalts advance, 148\n\nletters to Kennedy, 156\u201357\n\nnuclear arms in Cuba, 59\u201360, 64, 148\n\nsubmarine mission, 82, 89, 117, 118, 134\n\nKing, E. J., 367\u201368n\n\nKirby Morgan masks, 236, 287\n\nKissinger, Henry, 188\n\nKitchens, Billy, 235\n\nKlimov, Yuri, 175\u201376\n\nKnox, William, 134\n\nKobyakov, Lieutenant, 174\u201375\n\nKobzar, Vladimir, 205\u20137\n\nKodiak Station, 123\n\nKola Bay, 256\u201357\n\nKolosov, Igor, 358n\n\nKomiles, 149\n\nKomsomolsk, 317\n\nKongsberg, 294\u201395\n\nKopeikin, Arkadyi, 67, 74\u201376, 96\u201399, 110, 174\u201375\n\nKorean War, 2, 5, 42\n\nKresta II, 261\u201362\n\nKurdin, Igor, 357n\n\nKW\u20137 devices, 200, 204\u20135, 208\n\nLacy, Gene, 202\u20133\n\nLane, James T., 266\u201367\n\nLangaliers, Bobbi, 320\n\nLangaliers, Don, 319\u201321, 324, 328, 330\u201331\n\nLaning, R. B., 15\n\nLa P\u00e9rouse Strait, 2\u20133\n\nLapon, USS, 284\n\nLasky, Marvin, 253\n\nLeJeune, Cheryl, 233\u201336, 289\n\nLeJeune, David, 233\u201346\n\nAndrea Doria dive, 237\u201338\n\nbackground of, 233\u201335\n\non Halibut, 233, 238\u201346\n\non Ortolan, 237\n\non Seawolf, 235, 249\u201350, 282, 283\u201384, 287\u201389, 292\n\ntraining, 234\u201335, 237\n\nLeninsky Komsomol, 193\n\nLibbert, John, 40\n\nLimiting depth, 162\n\nLindsay, Frank, 219\n\nLithium hydroxide, 245\n\nLock\u2013out chambers (escape trunks), 230, 297\u201399, 310\u201315, 340\n\nLoman, Jeff, 358n\n\nLong Range Acoustic Propagation Project (LRAPP), 253\u201355, 272\n\nLorenzen, Howard Otto, 40\u201344, 50\n\nLos Angeles\u2013class submarines, 339, 340\u201341, 344, 375n\n\nLos Angeles Times, 225\u201326, 227\n\nLott, Gus, 353n\n\nLouisville, USS, 338\n\nLovelace, Linda, 251\n\nLow Frequency Array (LOFAR), 18\u201319, 142\n\nLow\u2013frequency sonar, 16, 272\u201373, 375n Lusby, Al, 290\n\nLyubimov, Engineer, 85\u201386\n\nMcCloy, USS, 317\n\nMcCone, John, 62, 63\u201364, 106, 148\n\nMachiavelli, Niccol\u00f2, 229\n\nMack, Chester M. \"Whitey,\" 284\n\nMcKee, Kinnaird R., 295\n\nMcMahon, Knight, 45\n\nMcNamara, Robert, 62, 102, 118, 125\u201330, 136\u201339, 149, 150, 188\u201391\n\nMcNish, Jack, 230, 246, 248\n\nMcVain, Charlie, 285\u201387, 289\n\nMager\u00f8ya, 261\n\nMagnetic anomaly detection (MAD), 163\n\nMaintenance personnel (M-Branchers), 29\n\nMalinovsky, Rodion, 58\u201361\n\nManganese nodules, 218\u201319, 224\n\nMarconi, Guglielmo, 44\n\nMare Island Naval Shipyard, 338\n\nMarianas Trench, 185\n\nMaria Ulyanova, 59\n\nMarine Technology Society, 222\n\nMark 11 saturation diving suits, 239\u201340, 242\u201345\n\nMartell, Charles B., 253\n\nMaslennikov, Ivan, 155\n\nMason, Frank, 25, 31\u201333, 37\u201339, 49, 50\n\nMasset Station, 197\u201398\n\nMaurer, John H., 291\u201392\n\nMayans, viii\n\nMignon, Tony, 320, 323, 327\u201329\n\nMikoyan, Anastas, 120\n\nMilitary grade (\"mil spec\"), 232\u201333\n\nMiller, Charlie, 284\u201385\n\nMims, Norman, Jr., 266, 268, 275\u201381\n\nMisner, Robert, 42\u201344, 47\n\nMK\u201311 diving suits, 239\u201340, 242\u201345\n\nMK\u2013113 system, 271\u201372\n\nMobile Submarine Simulators (MOSS), 320\n\nMondrian, Pieter, 220\n\nMoore, C. Edward, 216\n\nMoorman, Dave, 323\n\nMueser, Roland, 16\u201319\n\nMultiangulation, 28, 30, 45, 49, 138\n\nMumma, Albert G., 351n\n\nMurray, USS, 150\n\nMystic, 229\u201330\n\nNaftali, Timothy, 157\n\nNapier, Russ, 159\n\nNational Photographic Interpretation Center, 86\u201387\n\nNational Press Club, 157\n\nNational Security Council (NSC), 118\n\nNational Security Operations Center (NSOC), 62\n\nNaumov, Sergei, 75, 85, 97, 108\u20139, 113, 166\n\nNautilus, USS, 8\u201310, 13\u201314, 15, 20\u201321, 62\u201363, 180, 193, 231, 351n\n\nNaval Electronics Laboratory, 185\n\nNaval Reactors Branch, 9\u201310\n\nNaval Research Laboratory (NRL), 40\u201345, 50, 145, 147, 191, 253\n\nNaval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC), 11\n\nNaval Scientific and Technical Intelligence Center (NAVSTIC), 20\n\nNaval Security Group (NSG), 22, 146, 232\n\nNavy Expeditionary Medal, 9, 338\n\nNavy SEALs, 234, 296\u201399, 338\u201339, 340\n\nNea Makri Station, 212\u201313\n\nNelson, Elroy, 163, 168\n\nNet Control (NC), 29\u201330\n\nNew York Herald Tribune, 157\n\nNew York Times, 227\n\nNew York Yankees, 100\n\nNicholson, Jack, 264\n\nNiebuhr, Reinhold, 318\n\nNissho Maru, 316\u201317\n\nNitrogen narcosis, 229\n\nNitze, Paul, 216\n\nNixon, Richard, 80, 217, 225, 352n\n\nNoisemaker torpedoes, 163, 164\n\nNorfolk Naval Communications Area Master Station, 199\u2013200\n\nNorth American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), 191\n\nNorth Korea, and USS Pueblo, 200\u2013205\n\nNorth Pole, 15, 193\n\nNovaya Zemlya, 62\u201363, 139, 231\n\nNovember\u2013class subs, 188, 193\n\nNuclear Non\u2013Proliferation Treaty, 277\n\nNuclear\u2013powered submarines, 8\u201310, 13, 14, 20\u201321, 180\n\nOdell, Carl, 81\u201382, 141\u201345\n\nOffice of Collection and Signals Analysis, 40\u201344\n\nOffice of Undersea Warfare, 215\n\n\"Off\u2013line,\" 255\n\nOhio, USS, 340\n\nOkinawa Bulls Eye, 48\u201349\n\nOliver, Michael, 295\u201396, 302, 307\u201316\n\nOmnidirectional sound viewpoint, 142, 253\u201354\n\nOne Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (movie), 264\n\nOne Hell of a Gamble (Fursenko and Naftali), 157\n\nOnslow Beach, North Carolina, 176\n\nOP\u201320\u2013G (Office of Chief of Naval Operations), 45\n\nOperational Reactor Safeguard Exam (ORSE), 304\n\nOperation Anadyr, 58\u201361. See also Operation Kama\n\nOperation Eagle Claw, 319\n\nOperation Falling Leaves, 118\n\nOperation ICEX, 254\n\nOperation Kama, 57\u201377, 82\u201386, 88\u2013100, 107\u201315, 118\u201321, 130\u201334, 148, 149\u201355, 157\u201378. See also B-4; B-36; B-59; B-130\n\nOperation Paperclip, 46\n\nOperation Sand Dollar, 216\n\nOperations specialists (O-Branchers), 29\n\nOrel, Vice Admiral, 66\n\nOrestes, 200\n\nOrlov, Pavel, 150\u201355\n\nOrtolan, USS, 237\n\nOrwell, George, 332\n\nOSNAZ, 77, 94, 121, 133\n\nOxford, USS, 61\u201362, 63, 86, 101, 106\n\nPackard, David, 221\n\nPalm Beach International Airport, 115\n\nPancho Villa, 265\n\nPankov, Lieutenant avoiding detection, 108\u201315, 161, 170\u201371\n\noperation onboard, 82\u201384, 90\u201391\n\nParangosky, John, 217, 220\u201323\n\nParche, USS, 289\u201393\n\ncable\u2013tapping missions, 248\u201349, 288, 291\u201393, 319\u201322, 333\u201334, 338, 372\u201374n\n\nParshin, Viktor, 131\u201333\n\nPasha (cat), 72\u201373\n\nPassive sonar systems, 16\u201321, 272\u201373\n\nPatton, George, 188\n\nPCS\u20131380, 139\u201340\n\nPearlman, Stanley, 357n\n\nPearson, J. W., 209\n\nPelton, Ronald, 249, 332\u201334\n\nPennsylvania State University's Ordnance Research Laboratory, 16\u201317\n\nPeriscopes, 270\u201371, 299\u2013300\n\nPeri\u2013Viz (Periscope Visual), 258, 259\u201360\n\nPermit\u2013class submarines, 254\u201355, 266, 375n\n\nPetersen, Walter H., 30\u201331, 33, 37, 49, 334\u201336, 342\n\nPetropavlovsk Naval Base, 2, 228\n\nPhiladelphia Naval Shipyard, 10\n\nPhotographic intelligence (PHOTINT), on the USS Blenny, 4\u20136\n\nPiccard, Auguste, 181\n\nPittsburgh, USS, 338\n\nPlato, 40\n\nPlato Sea Mount, 213\n\nPliyev, Issa, 59\n\nPolaris missile program, 189, 258\n\nPollack, USS, 11\n\nPomilyev, Alexander, 66\u201367, 88\u201389, 167\u201370\n\nPopov, Vyacheslav, 344\n\nPortsmouth Naval Shipyard, 185\n\nPosition\u2013keeper (PK), 271\u201372\n\nPost, Don \"Doc,\" 328\n\nPotapov, Lieutenant, 121, 166, 174\u201375\n\nPreserver, USS, 180\u201384, 186\u201387\n\nPrice Water house, 190\n\nProject 627, 20\u201321\n\nProject 629A, 205. See also K-129\n\nProject 641, 66, 68, 71, 83. See also B-4; B-36; B-59; B-130\n\nProject 667B, 257\u201358\n\nProject Azorian, 217, 219\u201328, 364\u201365n\n\nProject Boresight, 47\u201351, 188\u201391\n\ncalibration and signal analysis, 50\u201351, 53\n\ninstalling and testing, 49\u201350, 81\u201382, 87\n\nMcNamara and, 127\u201328, 137, 138, 188\n\nNSA funding and naming, 44, 47\u201348\n\nrefinements and expansion, 118, 141\u201347, 149, 189\u201394\n\nsuccess of, 179\n\nProject Bulls Eye, ix, 44, 45, 47\u201349, 188\u201391, 197\u201398\n\nProject Colossus, 17\n\nProject Corona, 217\u201318\n\nProject Jezebel, 16\u201317\n\nProkov, Johnny, 157\n\nPronin, Vladimir, 93\u201395\n\nPropeller designs, 17, 351\u201352n\n\nProust, Marcel, 57\n\nPT 109, 137\u201338\n\nPueblo, USS, 200\u2013205\n\nPuget Sound Naval Shipyard, 338\n\nPump seals, 14\u201315\n\nQuantity vs. quality of submarines, 187\u201388\n\nQuittner, Arnold, 139\u201340\n\nRadar\u2013absorbing material (RAM), 270\n\nRadiation shielding, 14\u201315\n\nRadio\u2013Countermeasures Sound Recorder-\n\nReproducer (IC\/VRT\u20137), 42\u201343\n\nRadio direction finding (RDF), 44\u201345\n\nRadio Liberty, 120\n\nRadio Moscow, 148\n\nRadio operators (R-Branchers), 28\u201329, 50, 200, 232, 262\n\nRAF Chicksands, 47\n\nRandolph, USS, 107, 120, 150, 152\u201353, 159\n\nReagan, Ronald, 303, 317, 333\u201334\n\nRed November, 20\u201321\n\nReed, Joyce Louise, 23\u201324, 26\n\nReed, Lon, 32\n\nReed, Pamela Wallinger, 24, 26, 34\n\nReed, W. Craig\n\non the Drum, 295\u2013317\n\nat Eastman Kodak Company, 318\u201319\n\non the Haddo, 265\u201381\n\nReed, William J., 22\u201344\n\non the Birinci Inonu, 52\u201356\n\nBoresight system refinement and expansion, 118, 141\u201347, 149, 189\u201394, 194\u201397\n\nat Fort George G. Meade, 102\u20136, 130\n\nGreek incident, 194\u201397\n\nat Homestead Station, 78\u201382, 122, 123\n\nat Karam\u00fcrsel Station, 22\u201323, 26\u201339, 49\u201350, 342\n\nKennedy assassination and, 193\u201394\n\nat Masset Station, 197\u201398\n\nat NSA's Office of Collection and Signals Analysis, 40\u201344\n\npromotion to A22\n\nhead of field operations, 192\n\nretirement of, 264\u201365\n\nat Sanders Associates, 141\u201346, 189\u201390\n\nScratchy and, 23\u201326, 34\n\nat Skaggs Island Station, 146\u201347, 149\n\non success of Boresight program, 179\n\nat Vads\u00f8 Station, 192\u201394\n\nat White House for Boresight briefing, 134\u201340, 188, 356n\n\nRichard B. Russell, USS, 318, 334\u201336, 338\n\nRickover, Hyman G., 8\u201310, 14\n\nRigsbee, John, 208\u20139\n\nRindfleisch, Hans, 46\n\nRobert E. Lee, USS, 116\n\nRodocker, Don, 237\u201338\n\nRogers, Warren, 157\n\nRoom 40, 44\u201345\n\nRoosevelt, Franklin, 136\n\nRoosevelt, Theodore, 136, 368n\n\nRorke's Drift, 343\n\nRoss, Donald, 16\u201320, 351\u201352n\n\nRossokho, Anatoly, 70\u201371\n\nRounds, H. J., 44\u201345\n\nRozier, Charles, 159, 161\u201364\n\nRule, James, 319\u201322, 324, 328\u201331, 372n Rules of engagement, 70\u201371, 76, 93, 102, 128, 129, 150, 152\n\nRusk, Dean, 62, 102, 148\n\nRutherford, Mark, 231\u201333, 247\u201348, 249, 256, 261, 263, 283\u201386\n\nRybachiy Naval Base, 205\n\nRybalko, Galena, 61\n\nRybalko, Leonid, 57\u201361, 68, 70\u201371, 82\n\nRybalko, Natasha, 61\n\nSafety of submarines, 187\u201388\n\nSafford, Laurance F., 45\n\nSanders, Royden, Jr., 141\u201342\n\nSanders Associates, 141\u201346, 189\u201390, 209\n\nSan Diego Naval Training Center, 265\n\nSan Francisco Giants, 100\n\nSanta Fe Springs High School, 234\n\nSaparov, V. G., 75, 84\u201386, 96, 99, 110\u201314, 164, 166\u201367\n\nSargasso Sea, 61, 65, 93\u2013100, 108\n\nSatellite communications, 341\u201342\n\nSaturation diving, 229\u201330, 237\u201351\n\ntraining, 237, 242\u201345\n\nSaturday Night Live (TV program), 265\n\nSavitsky, Vitali, 70\u201377, 107, 125, 149\u201356, 158\u201359\n\nSaxon, Ross \"Zipperhead,\" 233, 237, 238\n\nSayda Bay, 65\u201368, 88, 115, 176\n\nSBD radios, 61, 93\u201394, 133\u201334, 206, 357n SC\u201335, 201\u20132\n\nScali, John, 147\u201348, 156\n\nSchade, Arnold F., 212\n\nSchlesinger, James R., 227\n\nScorpion, USS, 62\u201363, 212\u201314, 235, 279\u201380\n\nScratchy (bear), 23\u201326, 34\n\nSeadragon, USS, 180\n\nSeaLab, 229\n\nSEALs, 234, 296\u201399, 338\u201339, 340\n\nSea of Okhotsk, cable\u2013tapping missions, 228\u201331, 233\u201334, 238, 245\u201351, 287\u201389, 291\u201393, 319, 324\u201327, 332\u201336\n\nSea Robin, USS, 180\n\nSea Scope, 223\n\nSeawolf, USS, 13\u201315, 282\u201389, 291, 319\u201331\n\ncable\u2013tapping missions, 248\u201351, 287\u201389, 324\u201327\n\nsand\u2013stuck ordeal, 325\u201331\n\nSeawolf\u2013class submarines, 13\u201314, 193, 338\u201339, 375n\n\nSequoia, USS, 236\n\nSevastopol, 11\u201312, 52\n\nSevastopol, 259\u201360\n\nShackleton aircraft, 85\u201386\n\nShaddock, 193\n\nShakespeare, William, 282\n\nShchuka, 301\n\nSheets, Mack, 354n\n\nShips Inertial Navigation System (SINS), 328\n\nShip submersible nuclear (SSN), 8\u201310\n\nShkval, 86, 115\n\nShot lines, 158\n\nShumkov, Nikolai, 60, 65, 69\u201377, 107, 130\u201334, 164\u201368, 172, 175\n\nSignal intelligence (SIGINT), 5\n\nSignal\u2013to\u2013Noise Enhancement Program (SNEP), 353n\n\nSituation report (SITREP), 117\n\nSizov, F. Ya., 177\n\nSkaggs Island Station, 48\u201349, 87\u201388, 105\u20136, 146\u201347, 149, 189\n\nSkean, 87\n\nSkifter, Hector, 354n\n\nSkillas, Charles, 141\u201347, 357n\n\nSkipjack, USS, 11, 21\n\nSkory, 54\u201356\n\nSkylark, USS, 185\u201386\n\nSkywave propagation, 27\n\nSlattery, Francis Atwood, 212\u201313\n\nSlaughter, Gary, 157\u201359\n\nSmith, Cleveland, 244\u201345\n\nSmith, Dennis, 289\u201393, 372\u201374n\n\nSmith, Edward John, 287\n\nSmith, Gaines \"Whirly,\" 12\n\nSmith, Nihil, 180\u201387\n\nSolomatin, Boris A., 204\u20135\n\nSonar arrays, 16\u201317, 253\u201355, 272\u201373\n\nSonar systems, 16\u201321, 208, 254, 271\u201374, 375n Sonar transducers, 167\n\nSonobuoys, 111, 142\u201343\n\nSonographs, 34, 35\u201337\n\nSontag, Sherry, ix\n\nSOSUS (Sound Surveillance System), 16\u201317, 103, 117, 253\u201354\n\nSound suppression, 274, 370n\n\nSpecial Warning 32, 126\n\nSperry, USS, 301\u20132\n\n\"Spot report,\" 29\n\nSS\u2013N-14, 261\u201363\n\nStalin, Joseph, 58, 59, 122\n\nStanford Research Institute, 47\n\nStone, John, 44\n\nStonewall Jackson, USS, 377\n\nStraub, Herman, 17\u201318, 20\n\nStringfellow, Bill, 369n\n\nSturgeon\u2013class submarines, 254\u201355, 295, 334, 375n\n\nSubic Bay, 265\u201366\n\nSubmarine Development Group (DevGru) One, 289\u201390\n\nSubmarine Towed Array Surveillance\/Sonar System (STASS), 272\u201373\n\nSUBSAFE, 187\n\nSullivan, David \"Whompee Jaw,\" 287\u201389\n\nSurface Tethered Oceanographic Vehicle Experimental (STOVEs), 289\u201390\n\nSurface\u2013to\u2013air missile (SAM), 63\u201364\n\nSuzuki, Zenko, 317\n\nSweeney, Walter, 102\n\nSwimmer Delivery Vehicles (SDVs), 339\u201340\n\nSwordfish, USS, 207\u201312, 215, 255, 283\n\nSystem 2090, 290\u201391, 292\u201393\n\nTapping of cables. See Cable\u2013tapping missions Target motion analysis (TMA), 271\n\nTechnical Extracts of Traffic Analysis (TEXTA), 101\n\nTechnical specialists (T-Branchers), 29, 101, 123, 209, 211, 255, 262, 284\u201385, 307\n\nTerek, 86\n\nTest depth, 6\u20138, 56, 268, 286\n\nThermal imaging, 342\n\nThermal layers, 6, 56, 108, 121, 165\n\nThermoluminescent devices (TLDs), 240\n\nThetis Bay, USS, 175\n\nThresher, USS, 180\u201387\n\ndemise of, 185\u201386, 187\n\nrecovery of parts, 183, 184\n\nsearch for, 180\u201387\n\nThresher\u2013class submarines, 180, 254\u201355\n\nTiernan, Michael C., 321\u201322, 324\u201331\n\nTitanic, 287\n\nTomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAMs), 338, 340, 341\n\nTomlin, Edwin Ladeau, 269, 275\u201378, 281\n\nToshiba, 294\u201395\n\nTosi, Alessandro, 44\n\nTrejo, Paul, 1\u20139\n\nTrident missiles, 340\n\nTrieste, USS, 181\u201383, 185\u201387\n\nTrigger, USS, 184\n\nTsushima Strait, 200\u2013201\n\nTuell, Allen, 168\n\nTurban, Frank, 290\n\non Flying Fish, 255\u201363\n\non Seawolf, 284\u201387\n\non Swordfish, 209\u201311\n\nTurkey, Jupiter missiles in, 148, 156\u201357\n\nTurks Island Passage, 97\u201398, 107, 118\u201319\n\nTUSLOG Detachment 28, 22\u201323, 26\u201339, 49\u201350\n\nTwain, Mark, 101, 141\n\nTwenty\u2013ninth Ballistic Missile Division, 205\n\nTwin\u2013screw designs, 17, 351\u201352n\n\nTyomin, Abram, 95\n\nUnderdog, 210\u201311\n\nUnder\u2013hull runs, 257\u201358\n\nUnderwater Demolition Team (UDT) training, 234\u201335\n\nUnderwater photography, 217\u201322\n\nUnidirectional hearing, 142\n\nUnion College, 13\n\nV-5 program, 11\n\nV-12 program, 11\n\nVads\u00f8 Station, 192\u201394\n\nVarankin, Sergeant, 148\u201349\n\nVelucci, Chris, 237\u201338\n\nVictor\u2013class submarines, 294\u201395, 296\n\nVictor III, 294\u201395, 296, 301, 303\u201314\n\nVietnam War, 264\n\nViking 1, 218\n\nVindetto, Bob \"Ginny,\" 239\u201340, 244\u201345\n\nVinson, Tim, 266\u201370, 274\u201381\n\nVirginia, USS, 339\n\nVladivostok, 2\u20133, 210, 230, 276, 301, 303\n\nVladivostok Higher Naval School, 65\n\nVoice of America, 99\u2013100, 120\n\nVon Braun, Wernher, 46\n\nVon Hipper, Franz, 45\n\nWald, Bruce, 191\n\nWalker, John, 199\u2013200, 204\u20135, 214\n\nWalnut Line, 106\u20137, 116\u201317, 125, 130, 149\n\nWalski, Joe, 184\u201386, 187\n\nWalter, Helmuth, 351n\n\nWard, Alfred, 147, 150\n\nWatchstanders, 240\u201341\n\nWaterman, Steve, 296\u201397\n\nWater reserves, 165\n\nWesting house Oceanic Division, 290\u201391\n\nWhiff, 61\u201362\n\nWhite House, 135\u201336\n\nWide Aperture Receiving System (WARS), 47\n\nWieghorst, Olaf, 265\n\nWilkinson, Eugene, 351\u201352n\n\nWilliams, J. D., 255\u201363\n\nWill Rogers, USS, 252\n\nWoelk, Steve, 203\n\nWolfe, John, 218\u201320\n\nWorking depth, 162, 167\n\nWorld Series (1962), 100\n\nWorld War I, 44\u201345\n\nWorld War II, 9, 11, 40\u201341, 45\u201346\n\nKennedy and PT 109, 137\u201338\n\nWullenweber, 41, 43\u201347, 188\u201391\n\nWullenweber, Jurgen, 46, 355n\n\nWundt, Rolf, 46\n\nYankee\u2013class submarines, 257\u201358, 261\u201363\n\nYoshihara, Toshi, 345\n\nYurchenko, Vitaly S., 332\u201333\n\nZarnakov, Alexander, 206\n\nZellmer, Ernest \"Zeke,\" 217, 220\n\nZhukov, Yuri, 75, 91\u201392, 95\u2013100, 107, 113\u201314, 119\u201321, 160\u201361, 169\u201371\n\nZulu War, 343\n\n## ACKNOWLEDGMENTS\n\nI WOULD LIKE TO OFFER A special thanks to the following individuals, not already mentioned, for their contributions to the book:\n\nKenneth Greenawald and T. Michael Bircumshaw (editor of the American Submariner magazine), who as \"chief submarine technical advisers\" caught several errors before we went to print. Likely there are several more, and I'm certain to receive an e-mail from a crusty chief blasting me for \"getting it wrong.\"\n\nOthers who provided assistance, input, or stories that did not find their way into this book include: Adam Bridge, Al Burger, Boyce Williams, Brian Lawrence, Chuck Brickell, Chuck Young, Dave Arzani, Doug Bailey, Ernest Harkness, Frank Cawley, George Fraser, George Munsch, Guss Lott, Joel Harrison, Ken Sewell, Pavel Korshunov, Peter Lewis, Ralph Baer, Rich Petsch, Richard Moore, Skip Bauman, Stephen Lozier, and Thomas Hayter.\n\nI would like to thank my agent, James Hornfischer, and my editor, David Highfill of William Morrow\/HarperCollins, for their outstanding efforts in helping to mold this into a much better book.\n\n## About the Author\n\nW. CRAIG REED served as a U.S. Navy recon diver, submarine weapons technician, and special ops photographer deployed on nuclear fast-attack submarines. He earned commendations for completing top-secret operations during the Cold War and is an alumnus or member of several military, veteran, and technology associations. Born into a navy family on the island of Guam, Reed is now a partner in a technology marketing consulting firm and lives in Silicon Valley, California.\n\nwww.wcraigreed.com\n\nVisit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.\n\n## ALSO BY W. CRAIG REED\n\nDNA\n\nTarzan, My Father (with Johnny Weissmuller Jr. and William Reed)\n\n## Credits\n\nJacket design by Mumtaz Mustafa\n\nJacket photograph \u00a9 by Onne Van Der Wal\/Corbis\n\n## Copyright\n\nRED NOVEMBER. Copyright \u00a9 2010 by William Craig Reed. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.\n\nFIRST EDITION\n\nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data\n\nReed, W. Craig. \nRed November: inside the secret U.S.-Soviet submarine war\/W. Craig Reed.\u20141st ed. \np. cm. \nIncludes bibliographical references. \nISBN 978-0-06-180676-6 \n1. United States\u2014Military relations\u2014Soviet Union. 2. Soviet Union\u2014Military relations\u2014United States. 3. Cold War. 4. Submarine warfare\u2014United States\u2014History\u201420th century. 5. Submarine warfare\u2014Soviet Union\u2014History. 6. Submariners\u2014United States\u2014Biography. I. Title. \nE183.8.S65R435 2010 \n359.9'30973\u2014dc22 \n2009053269\n\nEPub Edition \u00a9 April 2010 ISBN: 9780061992544\n\nVersion 08102012\n\n10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1\n\n## About the Publisher\n\nAustralia\n\nHarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.\n\n25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)\n\nPymble, NSW 2073, Australia\n\nhttp:\/\/www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au\n\nCanada\n\nHarperCollins Publishers Ltd.\n\n55 Avenue Road, Suite 2900\n\nToronto, ON, M5R, 3L2, Canada\n\nhttp:\/\/www.harpercollinsebooks.ca\n\nNew Zealand\n\nHarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited\n\nP.O. Box 1\n\nAuckland, New Zealand\n\nhttp:\/\/www.harpercollins.co.nz\n\nUnited Kingdom\n\nHarperCollins Publishers Ltd.\n\n77-85 Fulham Palace Road\n\nLondon, W6 8JB, UK\n\nhttp:\/\/www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk\n\nUnited States\n\nHarperCollins Publishers Inc.\n\n10 East 53rd Street\n\nNew York, NY 10022\n\nhttp:\/\/www.harpercollinsebooks.com\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}} +{"text":"\n# 100 WAYS TO \nMOTIVATE YOURSELF, \nTHIRD EDITION\n\nChange Your Life Forever\n\nBy Steve Chandler\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2012 by Steve Chandler\n\nAll rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher, The Career Press.\n\n**100 W AYS TO MOTIVATE YOURSELF, THIRD EDITION**\n\nCover design by Howard Grossman\/12E Design \nPrinted in the U.S.A.\n\nTo order this title, please call toll-free 1-800-CAREER-1 (NJ and Canada: 201-848-0310) to order using VISA or MasterCard, or for further information on books from Career Press.\n\nThe Career Press, Inc.\n\n220 West Parkway, Unit 12\n\nPompton Plains, NJ 07444\n\n**www.careerpress.com**\n\n**Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data**\n\nChandler, Steve, 1944-\n\n100 ways to motivate yourself: change your life foever \/ by Steve Chandler. \n\\-- 3rd ed.\n\np. cm.\n\nIncludes index.\n\nISBN 978-1-60163-244-9 -- ISBN 978-1-60163-554-9 (ebook)\n\n1. Motivation (Psychology) 2. Self-actualization (Psychology) I. Title. II. \nTitle: One hundred ways to mo-tivate yourself.\n\nBF503.C48 2013\n\n158.1--dc23\n\n2012023412\nTo Kathryn Anne Chandler\n\n## Acknowledgments\n\nTo Lindsay Brady, for the ongoing perception of success; to Stephanie Chandler, for tirelessly working the cosmos; to Kathy, for more than I can say; to Jim Brannigan, for the representation; to Fred Knipe, for the music on New Year's Eve; to Ron Fry, for Career Press; to Nathaniel Branden, for the psychology; to Colin Wilson, for the philosophy; to Arnold Schwarzenegger, for a day to remember; to Rett Nichols, for the tension plan; to Graham Walsh, for the Tavern on the Green; to Terry Hill, for the century's first real mystery novel; to Cindy Chandler, for the salvation; to Ed and Jeanne, for the Wrigley Mansion; to John Shade, for the fire; to Scott Richardson, for the ideas; to Ann Coulter, for the wake-up calls; to Steven Forbes Hardison, for coaching and friendship beyond the earthly norm; and to Dr. Deepak Chopra, for unconcealing the creative intelligence that holds us all together.\n\nAnd to the memory of Art Hill: without whom, no life, no nothin'.\n\n## Contents\n\nIntroduction: Motivation Requires Fire\n\n100 Ways to Motivate Yourself\n\n1. Get on your deathbed\n\n2. Stay hungry\n\n3. Tell yourself a true lie\n\n4. Keep your eyes on the prize\n\n5. Learn to sweat in peace\n\n6. Simplify your life\n\n7. Look for the lost gold\n\n8. Push all your own buttons\n\n9. Build a track record\n\n10. Welcome the unexpected\n\n11. Find your master key\n\n12. Put your library on wheels\n\n13. Definitely plan your work\n\n14. Bounce your thoughts\n\n15. Light your lazy dynamite\n\n16. Choose the happy few\n\n17. Learn to play a role\n\n18. Don't just do something...sit there\n\n19. Use your brain chemicals\n\n20. Leave high school forever\n\n21. Learn to lose your cool\n\n22. Kill your television\n\n23. Break out of your soul cage\n\n24. Run your own plays\n\n25. Find your inner Einstein\n\n26. Run toward your fear\n\n27. Create the way you relate\n\n28. Try interactive listening\n\n29. Embrace your willpower\n\n30. Perform your little rituals\n\n31. Find a place to come from\n\n32. Be your own disciple\n\n33. Turn into a word processor\n\n34. Program your biocomputer\n\n35. Open your present\n\n36. Be a good detective\n\n37. Make a relation-shift\n\n38. Learn to come from behind\n\n39. Come to your own rescue\n\n40. Find your soul purpose\n\n41. Get up on the right side\n\n42. Let your whole brain play\n\n43. Get your stars out\n\n44. Just make everything up\n\n45. Put on your game face\n\n46. Discover active relaxation\n\n47. Make today a masterpiece\n\n48. Enjoy all your problems\n\n49. Remind your mind\n\n50. Get down and get small\n\n51. Advertise to yourself\n\n52. Think outside the box\n\n53. Keep thinking, keep thinking\n\n54. Put on a good debate\n\n55. Make trouble work for you\n\n56. Storm your own brain\n\n57. Keep changing your voice\n\n58. Embrace the new frontier\n\n59. Upgrade your old habits\n\n60. Paint your masterpiece today\n\n61. Swim laps underwater\n\n62. Bring on a good coach\n\n63. Try to sell your home\n\n64. Get your soul to talk\n\n65. Promise the moon\n\n66. Make somebody's day\n\n67. Play the circle game\n\n68. Get up a game\n\n69. Turn your mother down\n\n70. Face the sun\n\n71. Travel deep inside\n\n72. Go to war\n\n73. Use the 5 percent solution\n\n74. Do something badly\n\n75. Learn visioneering\n\n76. Lighten things up\n\n77. Serve and grow rich\n\n78. Make a list of your life\n\n79. Set a specific power goal\n\n80. Change yourself first\n\n81. Pin your life down\n\n82. Take no for a question\n\n83. Take the road to somewhere\n\n84. Go on a news fast\n\n85. Replace worry with action\n\n86. Run with the thinkers\n\n87. Put more enjoyment in\n\n88. Keep walking\n\n89. Read more mysteries\n\n90. Think your way up\n\n91. Exploit your weakness\n\n92. Try becoming the problem\n\n93. Enlarge your objective\n\n94. Give yourself flying lessons\n\n95. Hold your vision accountable\n\n96. Build your power base\n\n97. Connect truth to beauty\n\n98. Read yourself a story\n\n99. Laugh for no reason\n\n100. Walk with love and death\n\n101. Just roar!\n\n102. Experiment with happiness\n\n103. Catch life by the handle\n\n104. Leave yourself messages\n\n105. Try reinventing yourself\n\n106. Choose responding over reacting\n\n107. Apply the book you read\n\n108. Do what you can do today\n\n109. Create a different system!\n\n110. Enjoy your resistance training\n\nBibliography\n\nIndex\n\nAbout the Author\n\n## Motivation Requires Fire\n\nWhen Bob Dylan wrote in his book _Chronicles_ about how much he admired Joan Baez before he met her, he said, \"I'd be scared to meet her. I didn't want to meet her but I knew I would. I was going in the same direction even though I was in back of her at the moment. She had the fire, and I felt I had the same kind of fire.\"\n\nWe don't question what he means by \"the fire.\" We read on, knowing full well what he means. But sometimes I wonder, though. Do we really? Do we know it from experience? Do we feel the same fire? Do you have to be a poet or a singer? No. We all know what it is to have that same fire, no matter how briefly we have experienced it.\n\nMy own life's turning point came when I discovered I could light that fire all by myself. It took me more than 50 years to discover this. But I'm slow in these matters. You can get it today if you want. For the first 50 years of my life I thought the fire only happened when something inspired me. It was something that had to happen to me. And the reason I believed that was because that was my experience. You have to go by what you know, don't you?\n\nThe funniest thing about fire is that it takes fire to light it.\n\nI go to the fireplace to start a fire. I put crumpled-up newspaper under the kindling. Then I put the logs over the kindling wood. But how do I start this fire? I need a match. Or a lighter. You have to have fire to start a fire. Ironic? Paradoxical? Counterintuitive? Cruel hoax?\n\nA friend of mine once said, \"You're on _fire!_ \" He was referring to the fact that I'd just sent him a flurry of book ideas, written copy for things we were selling, recorded audio programs, and a number of other activities and actions.\n\nHow did I set myself on fire? With fire.\n\nOne action led to another and I wasn't afraid to rise early and work. I made myself exercise. I devoted myself to work instead of allowing distraction. Work (as it always does when you throw your entire self into it) soon became fun.\n\nPlaywright Noel Coward said, \"Work is more fun than fun.\"\n\nIt is when you do it. It is _not_ fun when you think about it. Especially when you think about it ahead of time.\n\nTo light a fire you need a fire. Rubbing two sticks together creates enough friction and heat to produce a spark and then a flame that you can put into the bigger fire.\n\nIt is the same process for yourself. Getting into action whether you feel like action or not is like rubbing two sticks together. Do you think the sticks felt like being rubbed together? Do you ever see them do it on their own?\n\nSince its first printing in 1996, this little book has enjoyed a success I never imagined. During its first 18 years of sales, we have seen the emergence of the Internet as the world's primary source of information. People have not only been buying this book on the Internet, but they've been posting their reviews. What's wonderful about Internet bookstores is that they feature reviews by regular people, not just professional journalists who need to be witty, cynical, and clever to survive.\n\nOne such reviewer of _100 Ways_ in its original edition was Bubba Spencer from Tennessee. He wrote: \"Not a real in-depth book with many complicated theories about how to improve your life. Mostly, just good tips to increase your motivation. A 'should read' if you want to improve any part of your life.\"\n\nBubba gave this book five stars, and I am more grateful to him than to any professional reviewer. He says I did what I set out to do:\n\n\"Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.\"\n\n\u2014Charles Mingus, legendary jazz musician\n\n## 1. Get on your deathbed\n\nA number of years ago when I was working with psychotherapist Devers Branden, she put me through her \"deathbed\" exercise.\n\nI was asked to clearly imagine myself lying on my own deathbed, and to fully realize the feelings connected with dying and saying good-bye. Then she asked me to mentally invite the people in my life who were important to me to visit my bedside, one at a time. As I visualized each friend and relative coming in to visit me, I had to speak to them out loud. I had to say to them what I wanted them to know as I was dying.\n\nAs I spoke to each person, I could feel my voice breaking. Somehow I couldn't help breaking down. My eyes were filled with tears. I experienced such a sense of loss. It was not my own life I was mourning; it was the love I was losing. To be more exact, it was a communication of love that had never been there.\n\nDuring this difficult exercise, I really got to see how much I'd left out of my life. How many wonderful feelings I had about my children, for example, that I'd never explicitly expressed. At the end of the exercise, I was an emotional mess. I had rarely cried that hard in my life. But when those emotions cleared, a wonderful thing happened. I was clear. I knew what was really important, and who really mattered to me. I understood for the first time what George Patton meant when he said, \"Death can be more exciting than life.\"\n\nFrom that day on I vowed not to leave anything to chance. I made up my mind never to leave anything unsaid. I wanted to live as if I might die any moment. The entire experience altered the way I've related to people ever since. And the great point of the exercise wasn't lost on me: We don't have to wait until we're actually near death to receive these benefits of being mortal. We can create the experience anytime we want.\n\nA few years later when my mother lay dying in a hospital in Tucson, I rushed to her side to hold her hand and repeat to her all the love and gratitude I felt for who she had been for me. When she finally died, my grieving was very intense, but very short. In a matter of days I felt that everything great about my mother had entered into me and would live there as a loving spirit forever.\n\nA year and a half before my father's death, I began to send him letters and poems about his contribution to my life. He lived his last months and died in the grip of chronic illness, so communicating and getting through to him in person wasn't always easy. But I always felt good that he had those letters and poems to read. Once he called me after I'd sent him a Father's Day poem, and he said, \"Hey, I guess I wasn't such a bad father after all.\"\n\nPoet William Blake warned us about keeping our thoughts locked up until we die. \"When thought is closed in caves,\" he wrote, \"then love will show its roots in deepest hell.\"\n\nPretending you aren't going to die is detrimental to your enjoyment of life. It is detrimental in the same way that it would be detrimental for a basketball player to pretend there was no end to the game he was playing. That player would reduce his intensity, adopt a lazy playing style, and, of course, end up not having any fun at all. Without an end, there is no game. Without being conscious of death, you can't be fully aware of the gift of life.\n\nYet many of us (including myself) keep pretending that our life's game will have no end. We keep planning to do great things some day when we feel like it. We assign our goals and dreams to that imaginary island in the sea that Denis Waitley calls \"Someday Isle\" in his book _Psychology of Winning_. We find ourselves saying, \"Someday I'll do this,\" and \"Someday I'll do that.\"\n\nConfronting our own death doesn't have to wait until we run out of life. In fact, being able to vividly imagine our last hours on our deathbed creates a paradoxical sensation: the feeling of being born all over again\u2014the first step to fearless self-motivation. \"People living deeply,\" wrote poet and diarist Ana\u00efs Nin, \"have no fear of death.\"\n\nAnd as Bob Dylan has sung, \"He who is not busy being born is busy dying.\"\n\n## 2. Stay hungry\n\nArnold Schwarzenegger was not famous yet in 1976 when he and I had lunch together at the Doubletree Inn in Tucson, Arizona. Not one person in the restaurant recognized him. He was in town publicizing the movie _Stay Hungry_ , a box-office disappointment he had just made with Jeff Bridges and Sally Field. I was a sports columnist for the _Tucson Citizen_ at the time, and my assignment was to spend a full day, one-on-one, with Arnold and write a feature story about him for our newspaper's Sunday magazine.\n\nI, too, had no idea who he was or who he was going to become. I agreed to spend the day with him because I had to\u2014it was an assignment. And although I took to it with an uninspired attitude, it was one I'd never forget.\n\nPerhaps the most memorable part of that day with Schwarzenegger occurred when we took an hour for lunch. I had my reporter's notebook out and was asking questions for the story while we ate. At one point I casually asked him, \"Now that you have retired from bodybuilding, what are you going to do next?\"\n\nWith a voice as calm as if he were telling me about some mundane travel plans, he said, \"I'm going to be the number-one box-office star in all of Hollywood.\"\n\nMind you, this was not the slim, aerobic Arnold we know today. This man was pumped up and huge. And so, for my own physical sense of well-being, I tried to appear as though I found his goal reasonable.\n\nI tried not to show my shock and amusement at his plan. After all, his first attempt at movies didn't promise much. And his Austrian accent and awkward, monstrous build didn't suggest instant acceptance by movie audiences. I finally managed to match his calm demeanor, and I asked him _just how_ he planned to become Hollywood's top star.\n\n\"It's the same process I used in bodybuilding,\" he explained. \"What you do is _create a vision_ of who you want to be, and then live into that picture as if it were already true.\"\n\nIt sounded ridiculously simple. Too simple to mean anything. But I wrote it down. And I never forgot it.\n\nI'll never forget the moment when some entertainment TV show was saying that box office receipts from his second _Terminator_ movie had made him the most popular box office draw in the world.\n\nOver the years I've used Arnold's idea of creating a vision as a motivational tool. I've also elaborated on it in my corporate training seminars. I invite people to notice that Arnold said that you _create_ a vision. He did not say that you wait until you _receive_ a vision. You create one. In other words, you make it up. A major part of living a life of self-motivation is having something to wake up for in the morning\u2014something that you are \"up to\" in life so that you _will_ stay hungry.\n\nThe vision can be created right now\u2014better now than later. You can always change it if you want, but don't live a moment longer without one. Watch what being hungry to live that vision does to your ability to motivate yourself.\n\n## 3. Tell yourself a true lie\n\nI remember when my then 12-year-old daughter Margery participated in a school poetry reading in which all her classmates had to write a \"lie poem\" about how great they were.\n\nThey were supposed to make up untruths about themselves that made them sound unbelievably wonderful. I realized as I listened to the poems that the children were doing an unintended version of what Arnold did to clarify the picture of his future. By \"lying\" to themselves they were creating a vision of who they wanted to be.\n\nIt's noteworthy, too, that public schools are so out of touch with the motivational sources of individual achievement and personal success that in order to invite children to express big visions for themselves they have to invite the children to \"lie.\"\n\nMost of us are unable to see the truth of who we could be. My daughter's school developed an unintended solution to that difficulty: If it's hard for you to imagine the potential in yourself, then you might want to begin by expressing it as a fantasy, as did the children who wrote the poems. Think up some stories about who you would like to be. Soon you will begin to create the necessary blueprint for stretching your accomplishments. Without a picture of your highest self, you can't live into that self. Fake it 'till you make it. The lie will become the truth.\n\n## 4. Keep your eyes on the prize\n\nMost of us never really focus. We constantly feel a kind of irritating psychic chaos because we keep trying to think of too many things at once. There's always too much up there on the screen.\n\nThere was an interesting motivational talk on this subject given by former Dallas Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson to his football players during halftime at the 1993 Super Bowl:\n\nI told them that if I laid a two-by-four across the room, everybody there would walk across it and not fall, because our focus would be that we were going to walk that two-by-four. But if I put that same two-by-four 10 stories high between two buildings only a few would make it, because the focus would be on falling. Focus is everything. The team that is more focused today is the team that will win this game.\n\nJohnson told his team not to be distracted by the crowd, the media, or the possibility of losing, but to focus on each play of the game itself just as if it were a good practice session. The Cowboys won the game 52\u201317.\n\nThere's a point to that story that goes way beyond football. Most of us tend to lose our focus in life because we're perpetually worried about so many negative possibilities. Rather than focusing on the two-by-four, we worry about all the ramifications of falling. Rather than focusing on our goals, we are distracted by our worries and fears. But when you focus on what you want, it will come into your life. When you focus on being a happy and motivated person, that is who you will be.\n\n## 5. Learn to sweat in peace\n\nThe harder you are on yourself, the easier life is on you. Or, as they say in the Navy Seals, the more you sweat in peacetime, the less you bleed in war.\n\nMy childhood friend Rett Nichols was the first to show me this principle in action. When we were playing Little League baseball, we were always troubled by how fast the pitchers threw the ball. We were in an especially good league, and the overgrown opposing pitchers, whose birth certificates we were always demanding to see, fired the ball to us at alarming speeds during the games.\n\nWe began dreading going up to the plate to hit. It wasn't fun. Batting had become something we just tried to get through without embarrassing ourselves too much. Then Rett got an idea.\n\n\"What if the pitches we faced in games were slower than the ones we face every day in practice?\" Rett asked.\n\n\"That's just the problem,\" I said. \"We don't know anybody who can pitch that fast to us. That's why, in the games, it's so hard. The ball looks like an aspirin coming in at 200 miles an hour.\"\n\n\"I know we don't know anyone who can throw a baseball that fast,\" said Rett. \"But what if it wasn't a baseball?\"\n\n\"I don't know what you mean,\" I said.\n\nJust then Rett pulled from his pocket a little plastic golf ball with holes in it. The kind our dads used to hit in the backyard for golf practice.\n\n\"Get a bat,\" Rett said.\n\nI picked up a baseball bat and we walked out to the park near Rett's house. Rett went to the pitcher's mound but came in about 3 feet closer than usual. As I stood at the plate, he fired the little golf ball past me as I tried to swing at it.\n\n\"Ha ha!\" Rett shouted. \"That's faster than _anybody_ you'll face in little league! Let's get going!\"\n\nWe then took turns pitching to each other with this bizarre little ball humming in at incredible speeds. The little plastic ball was not only hilariously fast, but it curved and dropped more sharply than any little leaguer's pitch could do.\n\nBy the time Rett and I played our next league game, we were ready. The pitches looked like they were coming in slow motion. Big white balloons. I hit the first and only home run I ever hit after one of Rett's sessions. It was off a left-hander whose pitch seemed to hang in the air forever before I creamed it.\n\nThe lesson Rett taught me was one I've never forgotten. Whenever I'm afraid of something coming up, I will find a way to do something that's even harder or scarier. Once I do the harder thing, the real thing becomes fun.\n\nThe great boxer Muhammad Ali used this principle in choosing his sparring partners. He'd make sure that the sparring partners he worked with before a fight were _better_ than the boxer he was going up against in the real fight. They might not always be better all-around, but he found sparring partners who were each better in one certain way or another than his upcoming opponent. After facing them, he knew going into each fight that he had already fought those skills and won.\n\nYou can always stage a bigger battle than the one you have to face. Watch what it does to your motivation going into the real challenge.\n\n## 6. Simplify your life\n\nThe great Green Bay Packer's football coach Vince Lombardi was once asked why his world championship team, which had so many multi-talented players, ran such a simple set of plays. \"It's hard to be aggressive when you're confused,\" he said. One of the benefits of creatively planning your life is that it allows you to simplify. You can weed out, delegate, and eliminate all activities that don't contribute to your projected goals. Another effective way to simplify your life is to combine your tasks. Combining allows you to achieve two or more objectives at once.\n\nAs I plan my day, I might notice that I need to shop for my family after work. That's a task I can't avoid because we're running out of everything. I also note that one of my goals is to finish reading my daughter Stephanie's book reports. I realize, too, that I've made a decision to spend more time doing things with all my kids, as I've tended lately to just come home and crash at the end of a long day.\n\nAn aggressive orientation to the day\u2014making each day simpler and stronger than the day before\u2014allows you to look at all of these tasks and small goals and ask yourself, \"What can I combine?\" (Creativity is really little more than making unexpected combinations, in music, architecture\u2014anything, including your day.)\n\nAfter some thought, I realize that I can combine shopping with doing something with my children. (That looks obvious and easy, but I can't count the times I mindlessly go shopping, or do things on my own just to get them done, and then run out of time to play with the kids.)\n\nI also think a little further and remember that the grocery store where we shop has a little deli with tables in it. My kids love to make lists and go up and down the aisles themselves to fill the grocery cart, so I decide to read my daughter's book reports at the deli while they travel the aisles for food. They see where I'm sitting, and keep coming over to update me on what they are choosing. After an hour or so, three things have happened at once: 1) I've done something with the kids; 2) I've read through the book reports; and 3) the shopping has been completed.\n\nIn her book _Brain Building in Just 12 Weeks_ , Marilyn Vos Savant recommends something similar to simplify life. She advises that we make a list of absolutely every small task that has to be done, say, over the weekend, and then do them all at once, in one exciting, focused action. A manic blitz. In other words, fuse all small tasks together and make the doing of them one task so that the rest of the weekend is absolutely free to create as we wish.\n\nBob Koether, who was the president of Infincom, had the most simplified time management system I've ever seen in my life. His method was: do everything right on the spot\u2014don't put anything unnecessarily into your future. Do it now, so that the future is always wide open. Watching him in action was always an experience.\n\nI was sitting in his office and I mentioned the name of a person whose company I wanted to take my training to in the future.\n\n\"Will you make a note to get in touch with him and let him know I'll be calling?\" I asked.\n\n\"Make a _note?_ \" he asked in horror.\n\nThe next thing I knew, before I could say anything, Bob was wheeling in his chair, and dialing the person on the phone. Within two minutes, he'd scheduled a meeting between the person and me, and after he put down the phone he said, \"Okay, done! What's next?\"\n\nI told him I had prepared the report he wanted on training for his service teams and I handed it to him.\n\n\"You can read it later and get back to me,\" I offered.\n\n\"Hold on a second,\" he said, already deeply absorbed in reading the report's content. After 10 minutes or so, during which time he read aloud much of what interested him, the report had been digested, discussed, and filed.\n\nIt was a time management system like no other. What would you call it? Perhaps, Handle Everything Immediately. It kept Bob's life simple. He was an aggressive and successful CEO, and, as Vince Lombardi said, \"It's hard to be aggressive when you're confused.\"\n\nMost people are reluctant to see themselves as being creative because they associate creativity with complexity. But creativity is simplicity. Michelangelo said that he could actually _see_ his masterpiece, The David, in the huge, rough rock he discovered in a marble quarry. His only job, he said, was to carve away what wasn't necessary and he would have his statue. Achieving simplicity in our cluttered and hectic lives is also an ongoing process of carving away what's unnecessary.\n\nMy most dramatic experience of the power of simplicity occurred in 1984 when I was hired to help write the television and radio advertisements for Jim Kolbe, a candidate for United States Congress running in Arizona's Fifth District. In that campaign, I saw firsthand how focus, purpose, and simplicity can work together to create a great result.\n\nBased on prior political history, Kolbe had about a 3 percent chance of winning the election. His opponent was a popular incumbent congressman, during a time when incumbents were almost never defeated by challengers. In addition, Kolbe was a Republican in a largely Democratic district. And the final strike against him was that he had tried once before to defeat this same man, Jim McNulty, and had lost. The voters had already spoken on the issue.\n\nKolbe himself supplied the campaign with its sense of purpose. A tireless campaigner with unwavering principles, he emanated his sense of mission and we all drew energy from him. Political consultant Joe Shumate, one of the shrewdest people I've ever worked with, kept us all focused with consistent campaign strategy. It was the job of the advertising and media work to keep it strong and simple.\n\nAlthough our opponent ran nearly 15 different TV ads, each one about a different issue, we determined from the outset that we would stick to the same message throughout, from the first ad to the last. We basically ran the same ad over and over. We knew that although the district was largely Democratic, our polling showed that philosophically it was more conservative. Kolbe himself was conservative, so his views coincided with the voters' better than our opponent's did, although the voters weren't yet aware of it. Each of our ads focused on our simple theme: Who better represents _you_? This allowed us to gain rapidly in the polls as election night neared.\n\nThe night-long celebration of Jim Kolbe's upset victory brought a huge message home to me: The simpler you keep it, the stronger it gets. Kolbe won a close victory that night, but he served 11 terms and is now an Obama appointee. He has never complicated his message, and he has kept his politics strong and simple, even when it looked unpopular to do so.\n\nIt's hard to stay motivated when you're confused. When you simplify your life, it gathers focus. The more you can focus your life, the more motivated it gets.\n\n## 7. Look for the lost gold\n\nWhen I am happy, I see the happiness in others. When I am compassionate, I see the compassion in other people. When I am full of energy and hope, I see opportunities all around me. But when I am angry, I see other people as unnecessarily testy. When I am depressed, I notice that people's eyes look sad. When I am weary, I see the world as boring and unattractive. Who I am is what I see!\n\nIf I drive into Phoenix and complain, \"What a crowded, smog-ridden mess this place is!\" I am really expressing what a crowded, smog-ridden mess _I_ am at that moment. If I had been feeling motivated that day, and full of hope and happiness, I could just as easily have said, while driving into Phoenix, \"Wow, what a thriving, energetic metropolis this is!\" Again, I would have been describing my inner landscape, not Phoenix's.\n\nOur self-motivation suffers most from how we choose to see the circumstances in our lives. That's because we don't see things as they are, we see things as _we_ are.\n\nIn every circumstance, we can look for the gold or look for the filth. And what we look for, we find. The best starting point for self-motivation is in what we choose to look for in what we see around us. Do we see the opportunity everywhere? \"When I open my eyes in the morning,\" said Colin Wilson, \"I am not confronted by the world, but by a million possible worlds.\"\n\nIt is always our choice. Which world do we want to see today? Opportunity is life's gold. It's all you need to be happy. It's the fertile field in which you grow as a person. And opportunities are like those subatomic quantum particles that come into existence only when they are seen by an observer. Your opportunities will multiply when you choose to see them.\n\n## 8. Push all your own buttons\n\nHave you ever peeked into the cockpit of a large airliner as you boarded a plane? It's an impressive display of buttons, levers, dials, and switches under one big windshield. What if, as you were boarding, you overheard the pilot say to the co-pilot, \"Joe, remind me, what does this set of buttons do?\" If I heard that, it would make it a rough flight for me. But most of us pilot our own lives that way, without much knowledge of the instruments. We don't take the time to learn where our own buttons are or what they can do.\n\nFrom now on, make it a personal commitment to notice everything that pushes your buttons. Make a note of everything that inspires you. That's your control panel. Those buttons operate your whole system of personal motivation.\n\nMotivation doesn't have to be accidental. For example, you don't have to wait for hours until a certain song that picks up your spirits comes on the radio. You can control what songs you hear. If there are certain songs that always lift you up, make a mix of those songs and have it ready to play in your car. Go through all of your music and create a \"greatest motivational hits\" playlist for yourself.\n\nUse the movies, too. How many times do you leave a movie feeling inspired and ready to take on the world? Whenever that happens, put the name of the movie in a special notebook that you might label \"the right buttons.\" Six months to a year later, you can watch the movie and get the same inspired feeling. Most movies that inspire us are even better the second time around.\n\nYou have much more control over your environment than you realize. You can begin programming yourself consciously to be more and more focused and motivated. Get to know your control panel and learn how to push your own buttons. The more you know about how you operate, the easier it will be to motivate yourself.\n\n## 9. Build a track record\n\nIt's not what we do that makes us tired\u2014it's what we don't do. The tasks we _don't_ complete cause the most fatigue.\n\nI was giving a motivational seminar to a utility company, and during one of the breaks, a man who looked to be in his 60s came up to me. \"My problem,\" he said, \"is that I never seem to finish anything. I'm always starting things\u2014this project and that, but I never finish. I'm always off on to something else before anything is completed.\"\n\nHe then asked whether I could give him some affirmations that might alter his belief system. He correctly saw the problem as being one of belief. Because he did not believe he was a good finisher, he did not finish anything. So he wanted a magical word or phrase to repeat to himself that would brainwash him into being different.\n\n\"Do you think affirmations are what you need?\" I asked him. \"If you had to learn how to use a computer, could you do it by sitting on your bed and repeating the affirmation, 'I know how to use a computer. I am great at using computers. I am a wizard on a computer'?\"\n\nHe admitted that affirmations would probably have no effect on his ability to use a computer.\n\n\"The best way to change your belief system is to change the _truth_ about you,\" I said. \"We believe the truth faster than we believe false affirmations. To believe that you are a good finisher, you must begin by building a track record of finished tasks.\"\n\nHe followed my suggestions with great enthusiasm. He bought a notebook and at the top of the first page he wrote, \"Things I've Finished.\" Each day, he made a point of setting small goals and finishing them. Whereas in the past he would be sweeping his front walk and leave it unfinished when the phone rang, now he'd let the phone ring so he could finish the job and record it in his notebook. The more things he wrote down, the more confident he became that he was truly becoming a finisher. And he had a notebook to prove it.\n\nConsider how much more permanent his new belief was than if he had tried to do it with affirmations. He could have whispered to himself all night long, \"I am a great finisher,\" but the right side of his brain would have known better. It would have said to him, \"No, you're not.\"\n\nStop worrying about what you think of yourself and start building a track record that proves that you can motivate yourself to do whatever you want to do.\n\n## 10. Welcome the unexpected\n\nMost people do not see themselves as being creative, but we all are. Most people say, \"My sister's creative, she paints,\" or \"My father's creative, he sings and writes music.\" We miss the point that we are _all_ creative. One of the reasons we don't see ourselves that way is that we normally associate being _creative_ with being _original_. But in reality, creativity has nothing to do with originality\u2014it has everything to do with being _unexpected_. You don't have to be original to be creative. In fact, it sometimes helps to realize that no one is original. Even Mozart said that he never wrote an original melody in his life. His melodies were all combinations of old folk melodies.\n\nIf you believe you were created in the image of your Creator, then you must, therefore, be creative. Then, if you're willing to _see yourself_ as creative, you can begin to cultivate it in everything you do. You can start coming up with all kinds of unexpected solutions to the challenges that life throws at you.\n\n## 11. Find your master key\n\nI used to have the feeling that everyone else in life had at one time or another been issued an instruction book on how to make life work. And I, for some reason, wasn't there when they passed them out. I felt a little like the Spanish poet Cesar Vallejo, who wrote, \"Well, on the day I was born, God was sick.\"\n\nStill struggling in my mid-30s with a pessimistic outlook and no sense of purpose, I voiced my frustration to a friend of mine, Dr. Mike Killebrew, who recommended a book to me. Until that time, I didn't really believe that there could be a book that could tell you how to make your life work.\n\nThe name of the book was _The Master Key to Riches_ by Napoleon Hill. It sat on my shelf for quite a while. I didn't believe in motivational books or self-help. They were for weak and gullible fools. I was finally persuaded to read the book by the word _riches_ in the title. Riches would be a welcome addition to my life. Riches were probably what I needed to make me happy and wipe out my troubles.\n\nWhat the book actually did was a lot more than increase my earning capacity (although by practicing the principles in the book, my earnings doubled in less than a year). Napoleon Hill's advice ultimately sparked a fire in me that changed my entire life.\n\nI soon acquired an ability that I would later realize was self-motivation. After reading that book, I read all of Napoleon Hill's books. I also began buying motivational audiobooks to listen to in my car and as I went to sleep each night. Everything I had learned in school, in college, and from my family and friends was out the window. Without fully understanding it, I was engaging in the process of completely rebuilding my own thinking. I was, thought by thought, replacing the old cynical and passive orientation to life with a new optimistic and energetic outlook.\n\nSo, what is this master key to riches? \"The great master key to riches,\" wrote Hill, \"is nothing more or less than the self-discipline necessary to help you take full and complete possession of your own mind. Remember, it is profoundly significant that the only thing over which you have complete control is your own mental attitude.\" Taking complete possession of my own mind would be a lifelong adventure, but it was one that I was excited to start.\n\nMaybe Hill's book will not be your own master key, but I promise you that you'll find an instruction book on how to make your life work if you keep looking. It might be _The Power of Now_ by Eckhart Tolle, _The Last Word in Power_ by Tracy Goss, _Frankenstein's Castle_ by Colin Wilson, or _The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem_ by Nathaniel Branden. All those books would have worked the primary transformation for me, and they have all taken me higher up the motivational ladder. Your own key might even come from the spiritual literature of your choice. You'll find it when you're ready to seek. It's out there waiting for you.\n\n## 12. Put your library on wheels\n\nOne of the greatest opportunities for motivating yourself today lies in the way you use your drive time. There is no longer any excuse for time in the car to be downtime or frustrating or time that isn't motivating. With the huge variety of audiobooks now available, you can use your time on the road to educate and motivate yourself at the same time.\n\nWhen we use our time in the car to simply listen to music or to curse traffic, we are undermining our own frame of mind. Moreover, by listening to tabloid-type \"news\" programs for too long a period of time, we actually get a distorted view of life. News programs today have one goal: to shock or sadden the listener. The most vulgar and horrific stories around the state and nation are searched for and found.\n\nI experienced this firsthand when I worked for a daily newspaper. I saw how panicked the city desk got if there were no murders or rapes that day. I watched as they tore through the wire stories to see if a news item from another state could be gruesome enough to save the front page. If there's no drowning, they'll reluctantly go with a near-drowning.\n\nThere is nothing wrong with this. It's not immoral or unethical. It feeds the public's hunger for bad news. It's exactly what people want, so, in a way, it is a service. But it reaches its most damaging proportions when the average listener believes that all this bad news is a true and fair reflection of what's happening in the world. It's not. It is deliberately selected to spice up the broadcast and keep people listening. It is designed to horrify, because horrified people are a riveted audience and advertisers like it that way.\n\nIf we would be more selective with how we program our minds while we are driving, we could have some exciting breakthroughs in two important areas: knowledge and motivation. There are now hundreds of audiobook series on self-motivation, on how to use the Internet, on health, on goal-setting, and on all the useful subjects that we need to think about if we're going to grow. If we leave what we think about to chance or to a tabloid radio station, then we lose a large measure of control over our own minds.\n\nMany people today drive a great deal of the time. With motivational and educational audiobooks, it has been estimated that drivers can receive the equivalent of a full semester in college with three months' worth of driving. Most libraries have large sections devoted to audiobooks, and all the best and all the current audiobooks are now available on Internet bookseller's sites.\n\nAre all motivational programs effective? No. Some might not move you at all. That's why it's good to read the customer reviews before buying an audio program over the Internet. But there have been so many times when a great motivational audiobook played in my car has had a positive impact on my frame of mind and my ability to live and work with enthusiasm.\n\nOne moment stands out in my memory above all others, although there have been hundreds. I was driving in my car one day listening to Wayne Dyer's classic audio series, _Choosing Your Own Greatness_. At the end of a long, moving argument for not making our happiness dependent on some material object hanging out there in our future, Dyer said, \"There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.\"\n\nThat one thought eased itself into my mind at that moment and never left it. It is not an original thought, but Dyer's gentle presentation, filled with serene joy and so effortlessly spoken, changed me in a way that no ancient volume of wisdom ever could have. That's one of the powers of the audiobook form of learning: It simulates an extremely intimate one-on-one experience.\n\nWayne Dyer, Marianne Williamson, Caroline Myss, Barbara Sher, Tom Peters, Nathaniel Branden, Earl Nightingale, Alan Watts, and Anthony Robbins are just a few motivators whose audiobooks have changed my life. You'll find your own favorites. You don't have to find time to get to the library. Forget the library. You are driving one.\n\n## 13. Definitely plan your work\n\nSome of us may think we're too depressed, angry, or upset about certain problems right now to start on a new course of personal motivation. But Napoleon Hill insisted that that's the perfect time to learn one of life's most unusual rules: \"There is one unbeatable rule for the mastery of sorrows and disappointments, and that is the transmutation of those emotional frustrations through definitely planned work. It is a rule which has no equal.\"\n\nOnce we get the picture of who we want to be, \"definitely planned work\" is the next step on the path. Definitely planned work inspires the energy of purpose. Without it, we suffer from a weird kind of intention deficit disorder. We're short on intention. We don't know where we're going or what we're up to.\n\nWhen I was a training instructor at a time-management company many years ago, we taught businesspeople how to maximize time spent on the job. The primary idea was this: one hour of planning saves three hours of execution.\n\nHowever, most of us don't feel we have time for that hour of planning. We're too busy cleaning up yesterday's problems (that were caused by lack of planning). We don't yet see that planning would be the most productive hour we spend. Instead, we wander unconsciously into the workplace and react to crises. (Again, most of which result from a failure to plan.) A carefully planned meeting can take a third of the time that an unplanned free-for-all takes.\n\nMy friend Kirk Nelson managed a large sales staff at a major radio station. His success in life was moderate until he discovered the principle of definitely planned work. He spent two hours each weekend on his computer planning the week ahead. \"It's made all the difference in the world,\" he said. \"Not only do I get three times the work done, but I feel so in control. The week feels like my week. The work feels like my work. My life feels like my life.\"\n\nIt is impossible to work with a definite sense of purpose and be depressed at the same time. Carefully planned work will motivate you to do more and worry less.\n\n## 14. Bounce your thoughts\n\nIf you've ever coached or worked with kids who play basketball, you know that most of them have a tendency to dribble with only one hand\u2014the one attached to their dominant arm. When you notice a child doing this, you might call him aside and say, \"Billy, you're dribbling with just the one hand every time, and the defender can easily defend you when you do that. Your options are cut off. You need to dribble with your other hand, too, so that he never knows which way you're going to go.\"\n\nAt this point Billy might say, \"I can't.\" And you smile and say, \"What do you mean you can't?\"\n\nAnd Billy then shows you that when he dribbles with his subdominant (weaker) hand and arm, the ball is all over the place. So, in his mind, he can't.\n\n\"Billy,\" you say. \"It's not that you _can't_ , it's just that you _haven't.\"_\n\nThen you explain to Billy that his other hand can dribble just as well if he is willing to practice. It's just a matter of logging enough bounces. It's the simple formation of a habit. After enough practice dribbling with his other hand, Billy will learn you were right.\n\nThe same principle is true for reprogramming our own dominant habits of thinking. If our dominant thought habit is pessimistic, all we have to do is dribble with the other hand: Think optimistic thoughts more and more often until it feels natural.\n\nIf someone had asked me (before I started my journey to self-motivation that began with Napoleon Hill) why I didn't try to be more goal-oriented and optimistic, I would have said, \"I can't. It's just not me. I wouldn't know how.\" But it would have been more accurate for me to just say, \"I haven't.\"\n\nThinking is just like bouncing the basketball. On the one hand, I can think pessimistically and build that side of me up (it's just a matter of repeatedly bouncing those thoughts). On the other hand, I can think optimistically\u2014one thought at a time\u2014and build _that_ habit up. Self-motivation is all a matter of how much in control you want to be.\n\nThe overall pattern won't change after just a few positive bounces of the brain. If you're a pessimist, your biocomputer has been programmed heavily in that direction. But it doesn't take long before a new pattern can emerge. As a former pessimist myself, I can tell you it really happens, slowly but surely. You do change. One thought at a time. If you can bounce it one way, you can bounce it the other.\n\n## 15. Light your lazy dynamite\n\nHenry Ford used to point out to his colleagues that there wasn't any job that couldn't be handled if they were willing to break it down into little pieces. When you've broken a job down, remember to allow yourself some slow motion in beginning the first piece. Just take it slow and easy. It isn't important how fast you are doing it. What's important is _that_ you are doing it.\n\nMost of our hardest jobs never seem to get done. The mere thought of doing the whole job, at a high energy level, is frequently too off-putting to allow motivation to occur. A good way to ease yourself into that motivation is to act as if you were the laziest person on the planet. (It wasn't much of an act for me!) By accepting that you're going to do your task in a slow and lazy way, there is no anxiety or dread about getting it started. In fact, you can even have fun by entering into it as if you were in a slow-motion comedy, flowing into the work like a person made of water.\n\nBut the paradox is that the slower you start something, the faster you will be finished. When you first think about doing something hard or overwhelming, you are most aware of how you don't want to do it at all. In other words, the mental picture you have of the activity, of doing it fast and furiously, is not a happy picture. So you think of ways to avoid doing the job altogether. The thought of starting slowly is an easy thought. And doing it slowly allows you to actually start doing it. Therefore it gets finished.\n\nAnother thing that happens when you flow into a project slowly is that speed will often overtake you without your forcing it. The natural rhythm inside you will get you in sync with what you are doing. You'll be surprised how soon your conscious mind stops forcing the action and your subconscious mind supplies you with easy energy.\n\nTake your time. Start out lazy. Soon, your tasks will be keeping the slow but persistent rhythm of that hypnotic song on Paul McCartney's _Red Rose Speedway_ album, \"Oh Lazy Dynamite.\" The dynamite is living inside you. You don't have to be frenzied about setting it off. It lights just as well with a slowly struck match.\n\n## 16. Choose the happy few\n\nPolitely walk away from friends who don't support the changes in your life. There will be friends who don't. They will be jealous and afraid every time you make a change. They will see your new motivation as a condemnation of their own lack of it. In subtle ways, they will bring you back down to who you used to be. Beware of friends and family who do this. They know not what they do. The people you spend time with will change your life in one way or another. If you associate with cynics, they'll pull you down with them. If you associate with people who support you in being happy and successful, you will have a head start on being happy and successful.\n\nThroughout the day we have many choices regarding who we are going to be with and talk to. Don't just gravitate to the coffee machine and participate in the negative gossip because it's the only game in town. It will drain your energy and stifle your own optimism. We all know who lifts us up, and we all know who brings us down. It's okay to start being more careful about to whom we give our time. In his inspiring book _Spontaneous Healing_ , Andrew Weil recommends: \"Make a list of friends and acquaintances in whose company you feel more alive, happier, more optimistic. Pick one whom you will spend some time with this week.\"\n\nWhen you're in a conversation with a cynic, possibilities seem to have a way of disappearing. A mildly depressing sense of fatalism seems to take over the conversation. No new ideas and no innovative humor. \"Cynics,\" observed President Calvin Coolidge, \"do not create.\" On the other hand, enthusiasm for life is contagious. And being in a conversation with an optimist always opens us up to see more and more of life's possibilities.\n\nKierkegaard once said, \"If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never.\"\n\n## 17. Learn to play a role\n\nYour future is not determined by your personality. In fact, your personality is not even determined by your personality. There is no genetic code in you that determines who you will be. _You are the thinker_ who determines who you will be. How you _act_ is who you become.\n\nAnother way of seeing might be contained in these related thoughts from _Star Trek_ 's Leonard Nimoy: \"Spock had a big, big effect on me. I am so much more Spock-like today than when I first played the part in 1965 that you wouldn't recognize me. I'm not talking about appearance, but _thought_ processes. Doing that character, I learned so much about rational logical thought that it reshaped my life.\"\n\nYou'll gather energy and inspiration by being the character _you_ want to play.\n\nI took an acting class a few years ago because I thought it would help me deal with my overwhelming stage fright. But I learned something much more valuable than how to relax in front of a crowd. I learned that my emotions were tools for me to use, not demonic forces. I learned that my emotions were mine to work with and change at will.\n\nAlthough I had _read_ countless times that our own deliberate thoughts control our emotions, and that the feelings we have are all caused by what we think, I never trusted that concept as real, because it didn't always feel real. To me, it felt more like emotion was an all-powerful thing that could overcome my thinking and ruin a good day (or a good relationship).\n\nIt took a great acting teacher, Judy Rollings, and my own long struggles with performing difficult scenes to show me that my emotions really could be under the complete control of my mind. I found out that I could motivate myself by thinking and acting like a motivated person, just as I could depress myself by thinking and acting like a depressed person. With practice, the fine line between acting and being disappeared.\n\nWe love great actors because it seems like they _are_ the characters they play. Poor actors are those who can't be their part and therefore don't convince us of their character's reality. We boo at those people. We call it bad acting.\n\nYet, we don't realize that we miss the same opportunities in life when we can't be the person _we_ want to be. It doesn't take authentic circumstances to be who you want to be. It just takes rehearsal.\n\n## 18. Don't just do something...sit there\n\nFor a long time, all by yourself, sit quietly, absolutely alone. Completely relax. Don't allow the television or music to be on. Just be with yourself. Watch for what happens. Feel your sense of belonging to the silence. Observe insights starting to appear. Observe your relationship with yourself starting to get better and softer and more comfortable.\n\nSitting quietly allows your true dream life to give you hints and flashes of motivation. In this information-rich, interactive, civilized life today, you are either living your dream or living someone else's. And unless you give your own dream the time and space it needs to formulate itself, you'll spend the better part of your life simply helping others make _their_ dreams come true.\n\n\"All of man's troubles,\" said French philosopher Blaise Pascal, \"stem from his inability to sit alone, quietly, in a room for any length of time.\" Notice that he did not say _some_ of man's troubles, but _all_.\n\nSometimes, in my seminars on motivation, a person will ask me, \"Why is it that I get my best ideas when I'm in the shower?\"\n\nI usually ask the person, \"When else during your day are you alone with yourself, without any distractions?\"\n\nIf the person is honest, the answer is _never_.\n\nGreat ideas come to us in the shower when it's the only time in the day when we're completely alone. No television, no movies, no traffic, no radio, no family, no pets\u2014nothing to distract our mind from conversing with itself.\n\n\"Thinking,\" said Plato, \"is the soul talking to itself.\"\n\nPeople worry they will die of boredom or fear if they are alone for any length of time. Other people have become so distraction-addicted that they would consider sitting alone by themselves like being in a sensory-deprivation tank. The truth is that the only real motivation we ever experience is _self-_ motivation that comes from within. And being alone with ourselves will always give us motivating ideas if we stay with the process long enough.\n\nThe best way to truly understand the world is to remove yourself from it. Psychic entropy\u2014the seesaw mood swing between boredom and anxiety\u2014occurs when you allow yourself to become confused by massive input. By being perpetually busy, glued to your cell phone, out in the world all day with no time to reflect, you will guarantee yourself an eventual overwhelming sense of confusion. The cure is simple and painless. The process is uncomplicated. \"You do not need to leave your room,\" said Franz Kafka. \"Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen. Simply wait. Do not even wait. Be quiet, still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.\"\n\n## 19. Use your brain chemicals\n\nThere are drugs that you can use to motivate yourself with, those energizing chemicals in your system that get activated when you hug someone, laugh, sing, dance, or run. When you're having fun, your body chemistry changes and you get new biochemical surges of motivation and energy.\n\nThere isn't anything you do that can't be transformed into something interesting and uplifting. Victor Frankl has written startling accounts of his life in the Nazi concentration camps, and how some prisoners created new universes unto themselves inside their own minds. It might sound absurd, but truly imaginative people can access their inner chemical creativity in the loneliness of a prison cell.\n\nDon't keep trying to go outside yourself searching for something that's fun. It's not out there anywhere. It's inside. The opportunity for fun is in your own energy system\u2014your synergy of heart and mind. That's where you'll find it. Pro football Hall of Famer Fran Tarkenton recommends looking at any task you do as fun. \"If it's not fun,\" he says, \"you're not doing it right.\"\n\nWilliam Burroughs, a former drug addict and author of _Naked Lunch,_ discovered something that was very interesting and bitterly amusing to him after finally recovering from his addictions. \"There isn't any feeling you can get on drugs,\" he said \"that you can't get without drugs.\"\n\nMake a commitment to yourself to find the _natural_ highs you need to stay motivated. Start by finding out what it does to your mood and energy to laugh, to sing, to dance, to walk, to run, to hug someone, or to get something done. Then support your experiments by telling yourself that you're not interested in doing _anything_ that isn't fun. If you can't immediately see the fun in something, find a way to create it. Once you have made a task fun, you have solved the problem of self-motivation.\n\n## 20. Leave high school forever\n\nMany of us feel as though we've been left stranded in high school forever, as if something happened there that we've never shaken off. Before high school, in our earlier and more carefree childhoods, we were creative dreamers filled with a boundless sense of energy and wonder. But in high school something got turned around. For the first time in our lives, we began fearing what other people were thinking of us. All of a sudden, our mission in life became _not to be embarrassed_. We were afraid to look bad, and so we made it a point not to take risks.\n\nI'll never forget something that happened to my friend Richard in high school. Richard and I were walking home from school one day, and all of a sudden he stopped in his tracks, his face frozen with horror. I looked at him and asked what was wrong. I thought he was about to suffer some kind of seizure. He then pointed down at his pants and wordlessly showed me where his belt had missed a loop!\n\n\"I spent the whole _day_ like this!\" he finally said. It was impossible for him to measure what everybody thought of him as they passed him in the halls, perhaps seeing the belt had missed a loop. The damage to his reputation was probably beyond repair.\n\nWhen I give my seminars on motivation, I love the periods when I take questions from the audience. But many times I can see the painfully adolescent looks of self-consciousness on people's faces when they ponder the risk of asking a question in front of the group. This habit of worrying more about what others think of our thoughts than we do about our own thinking usually begins in high school, but it can last a lifetime. It is time to be aware of what we're doing and, once again, leave high school. It's time to reach back to those pre\u2013high school days of innocent creativity and social fearlessness, and draw on that former self.\n\nBy the way, I came up with a way to deal with the moments of silence that fill a seminar room when I ask for questions. I go to the board and make five circles. Then I tell the audience that I used to say in my classes, \"If there are no questions at this point, we'll take a break.\" People always want to take a break, so there wasn't much incentive for asking questions. But questions are the most fun part of a seminar for me, so I came up with this game: _After five questions\u2014we take a break_. Now I find people in the audience urging people around them to join in asking questions so we can take our break sooner. Although it's an amusing artificial way to jump-start the dialogue I'm looking for, what it really does is take the pressure off. It takes the participants out of high school.\n\nMost people don't realize how easily they can create the social fearlessness they want to have. Instead, they live as though they were still teenagers, reacting to the imagined judgments of other people. They end up designing their lives based on what other people might be thinking about them. A life designed by a teenager! Would you want one? You can leave that mind-set behind. You can motivate yourself by yourself, without depending on the opinions of others. All it takes is a simple question. As Emerson asked, \"Why should the way I feel depend on the thoughts in someone else's head?\"\n\n## 21. Learn to lose your cool\n\nYou can create a self that doesn't care that much about what people think. You can motivate yourself by leaving the painful self-consciousness of high school behind. Our tendency is to go so far in the timid, non-assertive direction, it might be a profitable over-correction to adopt these internal commands: _Look bad. Take a risk. Lose face. Be yourself. Share yourself with someone. Open up. Be vulnerable. Be human. Leave your comfort zone. Get honest. Experience the fear. Do it anyway_.\n\nThe first time that I ever spoke to author and psychotherapist Devers Branden it was over the telephone, and she agreed to work with me on building my own self-confidence and personal growth. It wasn't long into the phone conversation before she asked me about my voice.\n\n\"I am very interested in your voice,\" she said, with a tone of curiosity.\n\nHoping she might be ready to give me a compliment, I asked her to explain.\n\n\"Well,\" she said. \"It's so lifeless. A real monotone. I wonder why that is.\"\n\nEmbarrassed, I had no explanation. This conversation took place long before became a professional speaker, and it was also long before I ever took any acting lessons. It was long before I learned to sing in my car, too. I was completely unaware and very surprised that it seemed to her that I was coming across with a voice like someone out of _Night of the Living Dead_.\n\nThe truth was that during that period in my life, I was living scared. Things weren't going well for me financially, I had serious health problems in my family, and I had that mildly suicidal feeling that accompanies an increasing sense of powerlessness over one's problems. (I now think one way a lot of men hide their fears is by assuming a macho kind of dull indifference. I know that's what I had done. That a psychotherapist could hear it immediately in my voice was unnerving, though.)\n\nTrying to understand why I covered fear with indifference, I remembered that back in my high school the \"cool\" guys were always the least enthusiastic guys. They spoke in monotones, emulating James Dean and Marlon Brando. Brando was the coolest of all. He was so indifferent and unenthusiastic, you couldn't even understand him when he spoke.\n\nOne of the first homework assignments Devers Branden gave me was to watch _Gone with the Wind_ and study how fearlessly Clark Gable revealed his female side. This sounded weird to me. Gable a female? I knew Gable was always considered a true \"man's man\" in all those old movies, so I couldn't understand what Devers was talking about or how it would help me.\n\nBut when I watched the movie, it became strangely clear. Clark Gable allowed himself such a huge emotional range of expression, that I could actually identify scenes in which he was revealing a distinctly female side to his character's personality. Did it make him less manly? No. It made him more real, and more compelling.\n\nFrom that time on, I lost my desire to hide myself behind an indifferent monotonous person. I committed myself to get on the road to creating a self that included a wider range of expression, without a nervous preoccupation with coming off like a man's man. I also started noticing how much we seem to love vulnerability in others, but don't trust it in ourselves. But we can learn to trust it!\n\nJust a little at first. Then we can build that vulnerability until we're not afraid to open up into an ever-widening spectrum of self-revelation. By losing face, we connect to the real excitement of life. And what if I don't always come off as an indifferent man's man? Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.\n\n## 22. Kill your television\n\nMy brother used to own a T-shirt store and one of the most popular shirts for sale said, \"Kill Your Television.\" I bought that T-shirt with the picture of a TV being blown up. You can actually change your life by turning off your television. Maybe just one evening a week, to start with. What would happen if you stopped trying to find life in other people's shows and let your own life become the show you got hooked on?\n\nCutting down on television is sometimes terrifying to the electronically addicted, but don't be afraid. You can detox slowly. If you're watching too much television and you know it, you might find it useful to ask this one question: \"Which side of the glass do I want to live on?\" When you are watching television, you are watching other people do what they love doing for a living. Those people are on the smart side of the glass, because they are having fun, and you are passively watching them have fun. They are getting money, and you are not.\n\nHere's a good test for you to determine if television motivates you more than books do: Try to remember what you watched on television a month ago. Think hard. What effect are those shows having on the inspired side of your brain? Now think about the book that you read a month ago. Or even the e-zine you read last week. Which made a more valuable and lasting impression? Which form of entertainment better leads you in the direction of self-motivation?\n\nGroucho Marx once said he found television very educational. \"Every time someone turns it on,\" he said, \"I go in the other room to read a book.\"\n\n## 23. Break out of your soul cage\n\nOur society encourages us to seek comfort. Most products and services advertised day and night are designed to make us more comfortable and less challenged.\n\nBut, only challenge causes growth. Only challenge will test our skills and make us better. Only challenge and the self-motivation to engage the challenge will transform us. Every challenge we face is an opportunity to create a more skillful self.\n\nIt is up to you to constantly look for challenges that motivate you. It's up to you to notice when you're buried alive in a comfort zone. It's up to you to notice when you are spending your life, in the image of the poet William Olsen, like a flower \"living under the wind.\"\n\nUse your comfort zones to rest in, not to live in. Use them consciously to relax and restore your energy as you mentally prepare for your next challenge. But if you use comfort zones to live in forever, they become what rock singer Sting calls your \"soul cages.\" Break free. Fly away.\n\n## 24. Run your own plays\n\nDesign your own life's game plan. Let the game respond to you rather than the other way around. Be like Bill Walsh, the former head coach of the San Francisco 49ers. Everybody thought he was eccentric because of how extensively he planned his plays in advance of each game. Most coaches would wait to see how the game unfolded, then respond with plays that reacted to the other team. Not Bill Walsh. Walsh would pace the sidelines with a big sheet of plays that his team was going to run, no matter what. He wanted the other team to respond to him. Walsh won Super Bowls with his unorthodox proactive approach. But all he did was to act on the crucial difference between creating and reacting.\n\nMany of us can spend whole days reacting without being aware of it. We wake up reacting to news on the clock radio. Then we react to feelings in our body. Then we start reacting to our spouse or our children. Soon we get in the car and react to traffic, honking the horn and using sign language. Then, at work, we see an e-mail on our computer screen and react to that. We react to stupid customers and insensitive bosses who are intruding on our day. During a break, we react to a waitress at lunch. This habit of reacting can go on all day, every day. We become goalies in the hockey game of life, with pucks flying at us incessantly. It's time to play another position. It's time to fly across the ice with the puck on our own stick ready to shoot at another goal.\n\nYou can create your own plans in advance so that your life will respond to you. If you can hold the thought that at all times your life is either a creation or a reaction, you can continually remind yourself to be creating and planning. _Creation_ and _reaction_ have the same letters in them, exactly; they are anagrams.\n\nRobert Fritz, who has written some of the most profound and useful books on the differences between creating and reacting, says, \"When your life itself becomes the subject matter of the creative process, a very different experience of life opens to you\u2014one in which you are involved with life at its very essence.\"\n\nPlan your day the way Bill Walsh planned his football games. See the tasks ahead as plays you're going to run. You'll feel involved in your life at its very essence, because you'll be encouraging the world to respond to you. If you don't choose to do that, the life you get won't be an accident. As an old Jewish folk saying puts it, \"A person who does not make a choice makes a choice.\"\n\n## 25. Find your inner Einstein\n\nThe next time you see a picture of Albert Einstein, realize that that's actually you. See Albert Einstein and say, \"There I am.\" Every human has the capacity for some form of genius. You don't have to be good at math or physics to experience genius level in your thinking. To experience Einstein's creative level of thinking, all you have to do is habitually use your imagination.\n\nThis is a difficult recommendation for adults to follow, though, because adults have become accustomed to using their imaginations for only one thing: worrying. Adults visualize worst-case scenarios all day long. All their energy for visualization is channeled into colorful pictures of what they dread.\n\nWhat they don't comprehend is that worry is a misuse of the imagination. The human imagination was designed for better things. People who use their imaginations to create with often achieve things that worriers never dream of achieving, even if the worriers possess much higher IQs. People who habitually access their imaginations are often hailed by their colleagues as \"geniuses\"\u2014as if \"genius\" were a genetic characteristic. They would be better understood as people who are practiced at accessing their genius.\n\nRecognition of the power of this genius in all of us prompted Napoleon to say, \"Imagination rules the world.\" As a child, you instinctively used your imagination as it was intended. You daydreamed and made stuff up. If you go back into that state of self-confidence and dream again, you'll be pleasantly surprised at how many innovative and immediate solutions to your problems you come up with.\n\nEinstein used to say, \"Imagination is more important than knowledge.\" When I first heard he'd said that, I didn't know what he meant. I always thought additional knowledge was the answer to every difficult problem. I thought if I could just learn a few more important things, then I'd be okay. What I didn't realize was that the very thing I needed to learn was not knowledge, but skill. What I needed to learn was the skill of proactively using my imagination.\n\nOnce I'd learned that skill, the first task was to begin imagining the vision of who I wanted to be. Dreaming, in its proactive sense, is strong work. It's the design stage of creating the future. It takes confidence and it takes courage. But the greatest thing about active dreaming is not in the eventual reaching of the goal\u2014the greatest thing is what it does to the dreamer.\n\nForget the literal attainment of your dream for now. Focus on just going for it. By simply going for the dream, you make yourself come true.\n\n## 26. Run toward your fear\n\nThe world's best-kept secret is that on the other side of your fear, there is something safe and beneficial waiting for you. If you pass through even a thin curtain of fear, you will increase the confidence you have in your ability to create your life.\n\nGeneral George Patton said, \"Fear kills more people than death.\" Death kills us but once, and we usually don't even know it. But fear kills us over and over again, subtly at times and brutally at others. But if we keep trying to avoid our fears, they will chase us down like persistent dogs. The worst thing we can do is close our eyes and pretend they don't exist.\n\n\"Fear and pain,\" says psychologist Nathaniel Branden, \"should be treated as signals not to close our eyes but to open them wider.\" By closing our eyes we end up in the darkest of comfort zones\u2014buried alive.\n\nJanis Joplin's biography, which chronicled her death from alcohol and drug abuse, was aptly titled _Buried Alive_. To Janis, as to so many similarly troubled people, alcohol provided an artificial and tragically temporary antidote to fear. It is no accident that in the old frontier days the nickname for whiskey was \"false courage.\"\n\nThere was a time in my life when my greatest fear of all was public speaking. It didn't even help to know that fear of speaking in front of others is people's number one fear, even greater than the fear of death. This fact once caused comedian Jerry Seinfeld to point out that most people would rather be in the coffin than delivering the eulogy.\n\nFor me, it ran even deeper than that. As a child, I could not give oral book reports. I'd plead with my teachers to let me off the hook. I would offer to do two, even three written book reports if I didn't have to do the oral one. But, as my life went on, I wanted to be a public speaker more than anything. My dream was to teach people everywhere to learn the ideas that lead to self-motivation, the ideas that I had learned. But how could I ever do this if stage fright left me frozen with fear?\n\nThen one day, as I was driving in Phoenix, flipping through the radio stations, I accidentally happened upon a religious station where a histrionic preacher was yelling, \"Run toward your fear! Run right at it!\" I hastened to change the station, but it was too late. Deep down I knew that I had just heard something I needed to hear. No matter what station I turned to, all I could hear was those words: \"Run toward your fear!\"\n\nThe next day I still couldn't get it out of my mind, so I called a friend of mine who was an actress. I asked her to help me get into an acting class she had once told me about. I told her I thought I was ready to overcome my fear of performing in front of people.\n\nAlthough I lived in a high state of anxiety the first weeks of that class, there was no other way around my fear. There was no real way to run from it any longer, because the more I ran, the more pervasive it got. I knew I had to turn around and run toward the fear or I would never pass through it.\n\nEmerson once said, \"The greater part of courage is having done it before,\" and that soon became true of my speaking in public. Fear of doing it can only be cured by doing it. And soon my confidence was built by doing it again and again.\n\nThe rush we get after running through the waterfall of fear is the most energizing feeling in the world. If you are ever in an undermotivated mood, find something you fear and do it\u2014and watch what happens.\n\n## 27. Create the way you relate\n\nWe can't create our truest selves without creating relationships in the process. Relationships are everywhere. Relationships are everything.\n\n\"There is no end to relationship,\" said the Indian spiritual leader Krishnamurti. \"There may be the end of a particular relationship, but relationship can never end. To be is to be related.\"\n\nI have trained many corporations with a four-part seminar series. The first three parts are on self-motivation, and the final part is on relationship-building. Sometimes CEOs ask me up front, ahead of the training, if I don't have that ratio out of balance.\n\n\"Shouldn't you have more of it be on relationship-building?\" they ask. \"After all, team-building and customer relations are surely more important than self-motivation.\"\n\nI stand by my ratio. We can't relate to others if our relationship with ourselves is poor. A commitment to personal motivation comes first. Because who wants to have a relationship with someone who is not motivated in any way? When we do get to the fourth part, relationship-building, the focus is on creativity. Creativity is the most neglected and yet most useful aspect of relationship building.\n\nIn relationships, most of us think with our emotions rather than our minds. But to think with our feelings instead of our minds puts us in the unresourceful state that Colin Wilson describes as being upside-down. When we view relationships as opportunities for creativity, they always get better. When our relationships get better, we are even more motivated.\n\nMy youngest daughter, Margie, was in fourth grade when a very shy girl in her class accidentally put a large black mark on her own nose with an indelible marker. Many of the kids in the class pointed at her and started to laugh. The little girl was finally reduced to tears of embarrassment. At some point, Margie walked over to the girl to give her some comfort. (Margie's astonished teacher related this story to me.) Impulsively, Margie picked up the marker and marked her own nose, and then handed the marker to another classmate and said, \"I like my nose this way. What about you?\"\n\nIn a few moments, the entire class had black marks on their noses, and the shy girl who was once crying was laughing. At recess, Margie's class all went out on the playground with marked noses, and they were the envy of the school\u2014obviously into something unusual and \"cool.\"\n\nThis story is interesting to me because of how Margie used her creativity and her mind instead of her emotions to solve a problem. She elevated herself up into her mind, where something clever could be done. If she had used her feelings to think with, she might have expressed anger at the class for laughing at the girl, or sadness and depression.\n\nAny time you take a relationship problem up into the mind, you have unlimited opportunities to get creative. Conversely, when you send a relationship problem down the elevator into the lower half of the heart, you risk staying stuck in the problem forever.\n\nThis doesn't mean that you shouldn't feel anything. Feel everything! Notice your feelings. Just don't think with them. When there's a relationship problem to be solved, travel up your ladder to the most creative you. You'll soon realize that we create the relationships we have in our lives; they don't just happen.\n\n\"We are each of us angels with only one wing,\" said the Italian artist Luciano de Crescenzo, \"and we can only fly embracing each other.\"\n\n## 28. Try interactive listening\n\nThe principle of using interactivity as a creativity-builder is not restricted to computer games or chat rooms. Once we become fully conscious of this principle, we can find ways to become more interactive everywhere. We can even make conversations with our family and friends more interactive than they once were.\n\nWe all have certain business associates or family members who, as they speak to us, we have a feeling that we already know what they're going to say. This lowers our own consciousness level, and a form of mental laziness sets in. Whereas in the past we might have just passively suffered through other people's monologues, we can now begin introducing more interactivity. In the past we might have punctuated our sleepy listening with meaningless words and phrases, such as \"exactly\" and \"there you go,\" but we weren't truly listening. But that passive approach shortchanges us and the people we are listening to.\n\n\"When we are listened to,\" wrote Brenda Ueland, \"it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life.\"\n\nThe more thoughtful our questions are, the more interactive the conversations. Look for opportunities for interactivity to motivate yourself to higher levels of experience.\n\n## 29. Embrace your willpower\n\nI can't tell you how many people have told me that they have no willpower. Do you think the same thing? If you think you have no willpower, you are undermining your own success. Everyone has willpower. To be reading this sentence, you must have willpower.\n\nThe first step in developing your willpower, therefore, is to accept its existence. You have willpower just as surely as you have life. If someone put a heavy barbell on the floor in front of you and asked you to lift it and you knew you could not, you would not say \"I have no strength.\" You'd say, \"I'm not strong enough.\" \"Not strong enough\" is more truthful language, because it implies that you could be strong enough if you worked at it. It also implies that you do have strength. It is the same with willpower. Of course you have willpower. When you accept that little piece of chocolate cake, it is not because you have no willpower. It is only because you choose not to exercise it in that instance.\n\nThe first step toward building willpower is to celebrate the fact that you've got it. You've got willpower, just like that muscle in your arm. It might not be a very strong muscle, but you do have that muscle.\n\nThe second step is to know that your willpower, like a muscle in your arm, is yours to develop. You are in charge of making it strong or letting it atrophy. It is not grown by random external circumstances. Willpower is a deliberate, volitional process.\n\nWhen I left college to join the army, one of the reasons I decided to sign up was because I thought it might help teach me to develop my self-discipline. But somehow I had not been aware of the \"self\" in self-discipline. I wanted discipline to be given to me by someone else. I found out in boot camp that others do not give willpower and self-discipline. The drill sergeant might have been persuasive and inspiring (or at times terrifying), but he couldn't make me do anything until I decided to do it. Nothing happened until I generated the will to make it happen.\n\nMake a promise to yourself to be clear and truthful about your own willpower. It is always there.\n\n## 30. Perform your little rituals\n\nSee yourself as a shaman or medicine man who needs to dance and sing to get the healing started. Make up a ritual that is yours and yours alone\u2014a ritual that will be your own shortcut to self-motivation.\n\nAs you read through these various ways to motivate yourself, you might have noticed that action is often the key. Doing something is what leads to doing something. It's a law of the universe: An object in motion stays in motion.\n\nThe great basketball player Jack Twyman used to begin each practice session by getting to the court early and taking 200 shots at the basket. It always had to be 200 shots, which he counted out, and it didn't matter if he already felt tuned up after 20 or 30 shots. He had to shoot 200. It was his ritual, and it always got him into a state of self-motivation for the rest of the practice session or game.\n\nMy friend Fred Knipe, an Emmy award-winning television writer and comedian, did something he called \"driving for ideas.\" When he had a major creative project to accomplish, he got in his car and drove around the desert near Tucson until ideas began to come to him. His theory was that the act of driving gave the anxious, logical left side of his brain something to do so the right side of his brain could be freed up to suggest ideas. It's like giving your child some toys to play with so you can watch the evening news.\n\nIn his book about songwriting, _Write from the Heart_ , John Stewart writes about composer and arranger Glenn Gould, who had a ritual for finding a new melody or musical idea when he seemed to be stuck and nothing was coming. He'd turn on two or three radios at the same time, all to different stations. He'd sit and compose his own music while listening to music on the three radios. This would short-circuit his conscious mind and free up the creative subconscious. It would overload the left side of his brain so the right could open up and create without judgment.\n\nMy own ritual for jump-starting self-motivation is walking. Many times in my life I have had a problem that seemed too overwhelming to do anything about, and my ritual is to take the problem out for a long walk. Sometimes I won't come back for hours. But time and again during the course of my walks, something comes out of nowhere\u2014some idea for an action that will quickly solve the problem.\n\nOne of the reasons I think this ritual works for me is that a ritual is action. Starting a ritual is taking an action that leads toward finding the solution. The dancing medicine man is already doing something. Make up little rituals for yourself that will act as self-starters. They will have you in action before you \"feel like\" getting into action. Rituals always override your built-in hesitation so that you can get yourself motivated in a predictable, controllable way.\n\nIf you are not a writer, painter, or poet, you might be thinking that this does not apply to you. But that's what I would call the creative fallacy. In fact, your entire life is yours to create. There are no \"creative\" professions that stand apart from others, like an exclusive club. Martin Luther King Jr. said, \"Be an artist at whatever you do. Even if you are a street sweeper, be the Michelangelo of street sweepers!\"\n\n## 31. Find a place to come from\n\nMost people think they'll feel good once they reach some goal. They think happiness is out there somewhere, perhaps not even too far away, but out there all the same. The problem with putting off feeling good about yourself until you hit a certain goal is that it may never happen. And you know all the time you're striving for it that it may never happen. So, by linking your happiness to something you don't have yet, you're denying your power to create happiness for yourself.\n\nA lot of people use personal unhappiness as a tool, as proof of their own sincerity and compassion. Yet, as Barry Kaufman points out eloquently in _To Love Is to Be Happy With_ , being unhappy is not necessary. You can be happy and also be sincere. You can be happy and also be compassionate. In fact, loving someone while you are unhappy does not show up like love at all.\n\nFred Knipe talked to me about how we human beings have learned to use and abuse unhappiness\u2014he said he had made a list for me of the secret reasons why people think they should feel bad. \"If I feel bad, then that proves I am a good person,\" he said. \"Or, if I feel bad, I am responsible. If I feel bad, I'm not hurting anybody. If I feel bad, it means that I care. Maybe if I feel bad, it proves I'm being realistic and aware. If I feel bad, it means I'm working on something.\" That list gives us powerful motivation to be unhappy. But as Werner Erhard (personal transformation pioneer) taught in his well-known seminars, happiness is a place to come from, not to try to go to.\n\nI once saw Larry King interviewing Werner Erhard by satellite from Russia, where Erhard was living and working. Erhard had mentioned that he might be moving back to the United States soon, and Larry King asked him if coming home would make him happy. Erhard paused uncomfortably, because in his view of life nothing makes us happy. He finally said, \"Larry, I am already happy. That wouldn't make me happy, because I come from happiness to whatever I do.\"\n\nYour happiness is your birthright. It shouldn't depend on your achieving something. Start by claiming it and using it to make your self-motivation fun all the way and not just fun at the end.\n\n## 32. Be your own disciple\n\nSo, why do I claim we have no willpower? Is it a misguided desire to protect myself? Is there a secret payoff in saying I have no willpower? Maybe if I absolutely deny the existence of willpower, I am no longer responsible for developing it. It's out of my life! What a relief!\n\nBut, here's the final tragedy: The development and use of willpower is the most direct access to happiness and motivation that I'll ever have. In short, by denying its existence, I'm shutting my spirit down.\n\nMany people think of willpower and self-discipline as something akin to self-punishment. By giving it that negative connotation, they never get enthused about developing it. But author William Bennett gives us a different way to think of it. Self-discipline, he notes in _The Book of Virtues_ , comes from the word disciple. When you are self-disciplined, you have simply decided\u2014in matters of the will\u2014to become your own disciple.\n\nOnce you make that decision, your life's adventure gets more interesting. You start to see yourself as a stronger person. You gain self-respect.\n\nAmerican philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson used to talk about the Sandwich Island warriors who believed that when they killed an enemy tribesman, the courage of that dead enemy passed into the warrior's living body. Emerson said that the same thing happens to us when we say no to a temptation. The power of that dead temptation passes into us. It strengthens our will. When we resist a small temptation, we take on a small power. When we resist a huge temptation, we take on huge power.\n\nWilliam James recommended that we do at least two things every day that we don't want to do\u2014for the very reason that we don't want to do them\u2014just to keep willpower alive. By doing this, we maintain our awareness of our own will.\n\n## 33. Turn into a word processor\n\nIf you associate the word \"willpower\" with negative things, such as harsh self-denial and punishment, you will weaken your resolve to build it. To increase your resolve, it's often useful to think of new word associations.\n\nTo weight lifters, failure is success. Unless they lift a weight to the point of _failure_ , their muscles aren't growing. So they have programmed themselves, through repetition, to use the word _failure_ in a positive sense. They also call what we would call _pain_ something positive: _the burn_. Getting to the burn is the goal! You'll hear bodybuilders call out to each other: \"Roast 'em!\" By consciously using motivated language, they acquire access to inner power through the use of the human will.\n\nZen philosopher and scholar Alan Watts also used to hate the word \"discipline\" because it had so many negative connotations. Yet he knew that the key to enjoying any activity was in the discipline. So he would substitute the word skill for discipline and when he did, that he was able to develop his own self-discipline.\n\nLanguage leads to power, so be conscious of the creative potential of the language you use, and guide it in the direction of more personal power.\n\n## 34. Program your biocomputer\n\nIf you're a regular consumer of the major news programs, you belong to a very persuasive and hypnotic cult. You need to be deprogrammed. Start by altering how you listen to electronic radio gossip, the news, and shock and schlock TV shows. Program out all the negative, cynical, and skeptical thoughts that you now allow to flow into your mind unchecked when you hear the news. The news is not the news. It is the bad news. It is deliberate shock. The more you accept it as the news, the more you believe that \"that's the way it is,\" and the more fearful and cynical you will become.\n\nHow do we change it? By worrying about it? No. Rather than fretting about crime and apathy and whatever you wish would change in the world, it's often very motivational to heed the words of Gandhi, who said, \"You must be the change you wish to see.\"\n\nSan Francisco writer and musician Gary Lachman wrote a captivating essay called \"World Rejection and Criminal Romantics\" in which he observed, \"It's the Ted Bundys that get television coverage, not the thousands of self-actualizers who work away at self-transformation quietly and anonymously. And it's their influence, not that of the Ted Bundys, that will shape the face of the coming century.\"\n\nOften we don't have an opportunity to skip the media reports of crime and scandal, so it's important that we listen in a way that always programs out the effect. We are pretty good at doing this when we pass the tabloids in the grocery store checkout line. We smile at them even before reading that aliens are living in the White House. We need to take that same attitude toward what passes as serious media.\n\nOnce you've gotten good at factoring out the negative aspects of the media today, take it a step further: Make your own news. Be your own breaking story. Don't look to the media to tell you what's happening in your life. Be what's happening.\n\n## 35. Open your present\n\nPractice being awake in the present moment. Make the most of your awareness of this hour. Don't live in the past (unless you want guilt) or worry about the future (unless you want fear), but stay focused on today (in case you want happiness).\n\n\"Until you can put your attention where you want it,\" said Emmet Fox, \"you have not become master of yourself. You will never be happy until you can determine what you are going to think about for the next hour.\"\n\nThere is a time for dreaming, planning, and creative goal-setting. But once you are complete with that, learn to live in the here and now. See your whole life as being contained in this very hour. Let the microcosm become the macrocosm. Live the words of the poet William Blake and his description of enlightenment:\n\nTo see a world in a grain of sand\/\n\nand heaven in a wild flower\/\n\nhold infinity in the palm of your hand\/\n\nand eternity in an hour.\n\nSir Walter Scott said he would trade whole years filled with mindless conformity for \"one hour of life crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks.\"\n\nIt's amazing what can be done by people who learn to relax, pay attention, and focus, appreciating the present hour and all the opportunity it contains. It is said that in America we try to cultivate an appreciation of art, while the Japanese cultivate the art of appreciation. You, too, can cultivate the art of appreciation. Appreciate this hour. This hour, right now, is pure opportunity.\n\nThe great French philosopher Voltaire was on his deathbed when someone asked him, \"If you had 24 more hours to live, how would you live them?\" Voltaire said, \"One at a time.\"\n\n## 36. Be a good detective\n\nIn your professional life, whatever it is, always be curious. When you meet with someone, think of yourself as a bumbling but friendly private detective. Ask questions. Then ask follow-up questions. And then let the answers make you even more curious. Let the answers suggest even more questions. This will motivate you to higher levels of consciousness and interest.\n\nWhen you prepare a meeting with someone, prepare your questions. Cultivate your curiosity. Don't ever be at a loss for questions to ask. Most of us do the opposite. We prepare our answers. We rehearse what we are going to say. We polish and strengthen our presentation, not realizing that our host would much rather talk than listen to us.\n\nIf you are in business, you know that when prospective customers contract for long-term services, they want a company that's truly interested in them, that understands them, that will be a good consultant to them. To show a prospect that you are genuinely interested, you must be the person who asks the most thoughtful questions. To convince a company that you understand it, you will ask the best follow-up questions\u2014based on its answers. To convince a company that you will be a good consultant during the course of the contract, you will have out-learned your competitors by the inventiveness and quantity of your questions. Your curiosity will get you the business. But you can't just rely on impulsive, on-the-spot questioning. Being prepared is the secret. Preparing your questions is even more important than preparing the presentation of your services.\n\nIndiana's former basketball coach Bobby Knight always said, \"The will to win is not as important as the will to prepare to win.\" This is not only useful in business. If you are about to have an important conversation with your spouse or teenager, it is very useful to prepare your curiosity rather than your presentation. When you prepare your curiosity, you always seem to have one more question to ask before you leave, just like Lt. Columbo from the old TV show. As the character played by Peter Falk, Columbo disarmed his subjects by asking many seemingly impromptu questions. Like a disorganized but innocently charming child, he would ask about the tiniest things. As he prepared to leave, he always paused at the door, as if absent-mindedly remembering something he forgot to ask. \"Excuse me sir,\" he would say, apologetically. \"Would it inconvenience you if I asked you one more question?\"\n\nGreat relationship-builders ultimately learn that the sale most often goes to the most interested party and the quantity and quality of your questions will measure your level of interest. You might be thinking that this doesn't apply so much to you because you're not in business, or you don't sell for a living. But heed the words of Robert Louis Stevenson: \"Everybody lives by selling something.\"\n\nIn _Follow the Yellow Brick Road_ , Richard Saul Wurman writes about physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi, who won a Nobel Prize for inventing a technique that permitted scientists to probe the structure of atoms and molecules in the 1930s. Rabi attributed his success in physics to the way his mother used to greet him when he came home from school each day: \"Did you ask any good questions today, Isaac?\"\n\nBy asking questions in your relationships, you are already creating the relationship, and you are already self-motivated. You don't have to wait for the other person to make it happen.\n\n## 37. Make a relation-shift\n\nMotivate yourself by giving someone else the ideas necessary for self-motivation. You can have any experience you want in life simply by giving that experience away to someone else. John Lennon called it \"instant karma.\" In most of our relationships we stay focused on ourselves. We're fascinated by how we're coming off. We're constantly monitoring what others must now be thinking of us. We live as if mirrors surrounded us.\n\nNorman Vincent Peale used to observe that shy people were the greatest egomaniacs on earth, because they were so focused on themselves. You can see that when you observe the body language of a shy person. The looking down and turning in. The curling-up with self-consciousness\u2014as if surrounded by mirrors.\n\nWhen we shift our focus to the other person in the relationship, something paradoxically powerful happens. By forgetting ourselves we start to grow. I have developed an entire seminar around this one shift. It is called \"Relation-Shift.\"\n\nSpencer Johnson, author of _The One-Minute Sales Person_ , calls it \"the wonderful paradox: I have more fun, and enjoy more financial success, when I stop trying to get what I want and start helping other people get what they want.\"\n\nIf you want to be motivated, shift your inspiration to someone else. Point out the strengths of the other individual to him or her. Offer encouragement and support. Offer guidance in his or her own self-motivation. Watch what it does for you.\n\n## 38. Learn to come from behind\n\nProgress toward your goals is never going to be a straight line. It will always be a bumpy line. You'll go up and then come down a little. Two steps forward and one step back. There's a good rhythm in that. It is like a dance. There's no rhythm in a straight line upward.\n\nHowever, people get discouraged when they slide a step back after two steps forward. They think they are failing, and that they've lost it. But they have not. They're simply in step with the natural rhythm of progress. Once you understand this rhythm, you can work with it instead of against it. You can plan the step back.\n\nIn _The Power of Optimism_ , Alan Loy McGinnis identifies the characteristics of tough-minded optimists, and one of the most important is that optimists always plan for renewal. They know in advance that they are going to run out of energy. \"In physics,\" says McGinnis, \"the law of entropy says that all systems, left unattended, will run down. Unless new energy is pumped in, the organism will disintegrate.\"\n\nPessimists don't want to plan for renewal, because they don't think there should have to be any. Pessimists are all-or-nothing thinkers. They're always offended when the world is not perfect. They think taking a step backward means something negative about the whole project. \"If this were a good marriage, we wouldn't have to rekindle the romance,\" a pessimist would say, dismissing the idea of taking a second honeymoon. But an optimist knows that there will be ups and downs. And an optimist isn't scared or discouraged by the downs. In fact, an optimist plans for the downs, and prepares creative ways to deal with them.\n\nYou can schedule your own comebacks. You can look ahead on your calendar and block out time to refresh and renew and recover. Even if you feel very \"up\" right now, it's smart to plan for renewal. Schedule your own comeback while you're on top. Build in big periods of time to get away\u2014even to get away from what you love.\n\nIf you catch yourself thinking that you are too old to do something you want to do, recognize that you are now listening to the pessimistic voice inside of you. It is not the voice of truth. You can talk back. You can remind the voice of all the people in life who have started their lives over again at any age they wanted to. John Housman, the Emmy award-winning actor in _The Paper Chase_ , started acting professionally when he was in his 70s.\n\nI had a friend named Art Hill, who spent most of his life in advertising. In his heart, however, he always wanted to be a writer. So in his late 50s, he wrote two books that got published by a small publishing house in Michigan. Then, when he was 60 years old, Hill had his first national release with _I Don't Care if I Never Come Back_ , a book about baseball published by Simon and Schuster. The book was a popular and critical success, and his dedication page is something I treasure above any possession I own:\n\n\"To Steve Chandler\u2014who cared about writing, cared about me, and one day said, 'You should write a book about baseball.'\"\n\nNobody cares how old you are but you. People only care about what you can do, and you can do anything you want, at any age.\n\nDon't listen to the voice inside that talks about your age, or your IQ, or your life history, or anything it can slow you down with. Don't be seduced. You can start a highly motivated life right now by increasing the challenges you give your brain.\n\n## 39. Come to your own rescue\n\nAfter a seminar I gave in Vancouver, Canada, Don Beach, the sales manager of Benndorf Verster, one of that city's top businesses, sent me a tape of a song that he wanted me to hear. He said it reminded him of what I had been teaching his team about self-esteem. The song was a live performance by the old folk-singing duo, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee. The song is called \"Love, Truth and Confidence.\" It's about how we foolishly chase after love and try to discover the ultimate truth, while ignoring something much more vital to our happiness: confidence.\n\nThe chorus of the song goes like this: \"Love and truth \/ you can find \/ any place, anywhere, anytime \/ but you can just say 'so long' \/ once confidence is gone \/ nothing matters anymore.\"\n\nI never knew the true power of self-confidence until I began working with Dr. Nathaniel Branden and his wife Devers Branden. Both are authors and psychotherapists with the Branden Institute for Self-Esteem, and they have provided me with the most powerful insights I've ever received into how I operate as a human being.\n\nDr. Branden's book, _The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem_ , is unlike any other psychology book on the market, because in addition to its eloquently written philosophy on how to build inner strength, it also contains a full year's worth of practical, powerful, user-friendly exercises to raise your own consciousness and self-esteem. His sentence-completion exercises are so effective and exciting that if you do them, I can say without a trace of exaggeration, you can get tens of thousands of dollars worth of personal growth therapy for the price of a single book.\n\nBefore you assume that Branden's notion of self-esteem is the same as that being bandied about by New Age educators, you must read his work and listen to his audio. Most people today think others can bestow self-esteem on us. Such misguided thinking leads to phenomena such as classes without grades and work without standards for excellence. Perhaps you have heard about that Little League group in Pennsylvania that wanted to eliminate keeping score from baseball games because of the damage that losing does to children's self-esteem. When we confuse pampering and coddling with instilling self-esteem, we really encourage the upbringing of sensitive children who have no inner strength whatsoever. When it comes time for such overpraised, underachieving kids to find success in the competitive global marketplace, they will be confused, fearful, and ineffective.\n\nThe concepts taught by Nathaniel and Devers Branden are intellectually ruthless and unsentimental. Some of the best ideas go all the way back to Branden's years working with the great novelist and objectivist philosopher Ayn Rand.\n\nThe Brandens have taught me how to objectively explore the weaknesses in my own thinking and to challenge the self-deception that was undermining my effectiveness in life. \"To trust one's mind and to know that one is worthy of happiness is the essence of self-esteem,\" writes Dr. Branden. \"The value of self-esteem lies not merely in the fact that it allows us to feel better, but that it allows us to live better\u2014to respond to challenges and opportunities more resourcefully and appropriately.\"\n\nThe two ideas contained in the Brandens' work that have most helped me are: 1) \"You can't leave a place you've never been\"; and 2) \"No one is coming.\" I used to believe that I could run from all my frightening thoughts and beliefs about myself. But all that ever did was create deeper internal fears and conflicts. What I really needed was to get all my fears into the sunshine and demystify them. Once I systematically began to do that, I was able to dismantle those fears, as a bomb squad dismantles a bomb. Acceptance and full consciousness of those fears\u2014and the self-sabotaging behavior they led to\u2014was \"the place I had never been.\" Once I was in that place, I could leave.\n\nThe notion that \"no one is coming\" was somehow terrifying to accept. The idea that no one was going to rescue me from my circumstances is an idea that I might never have accepted. That idea sounded too much like the final abandonment. It contradicted all my childhood self-programming. (Many of us, even as grownups, devise very elaborate and subtle variations on the \"I want my mommy\" theme.) The Brandens showed me that I could be much happier and more effective if I valued independence and self-responsibility above dependency on someone else. When you accept the idea that \"no one is coming\" it is actually a very powerful moment, because it means that you are enough. No one needs to come. You can handle your problems yourself. You are, in a larger sense, appropriate to life. You can grow and get strong and generate your own happiness. And paradoxically, from that position of independence, truly great relationships can be built, because they aren't based on dependency and fear. They are based on mutual independence and love.\n\nOnce, in a group therapy session, a client of Dr. Branden's challenged him on his principle that \"no one is coming.\" \"But Nathaniel,\" the client said, \"it's not true. You came!\"\n\n\"Correct,\" admitted Dr. Branden, \"but I came to say that no one is coming.\"\n\n## 40. Find your soul purpose\n\nHow do you know what your true life is? Or what your soul's purpose is? How do you know how to live this purpose? The answers to these questions are yours for the taking, but you must seize the answers and not wait to be given them. No one will give you the answers.\n\nOne good clue as to whether you are living your true life is how much you fear death. Do you fear death a lot, just a little, or not at all?\n\n\"When you say you fear death,\" wrote David Viscott, \"you are really saying that you fear you have not lived your true life. This fear cloaks the world in silent suffering.\" When mythologist Joseph Campbell recommended that we \"follow our bliss,\" many people misunderstood him. They thought he meant to become a pleasure-seeker, a selfish hedonist from the \"me generation.\" Instead, he meant that in order to find out what your true life could be, you should look for clues in whatever makes you happy.\n\nWhat gets you excited? In the answer to that question, you'll discover where you can be of most service. You can't live your true life if you're not serving people, and you can't serve people very well if you are not excited about what you're doing.\n\nWhat makes you happy? (I know I already asked, but the fear that \"cloaks the world in silent suffering\" comes from not asking that question enough times.) In my own professional life I have finally found that teaching makes me happy, writing makes me happy, and performing makes me happy. It took me many years of unhappiness to finally reach the point of despair necessary to ask the question: What makes me happy?\n\nI was the creative director for an ad agency and I was making a good deal of money producing commercials, meeting with clients, and designing marketing strategies. I could have done this type of work forever, but my horrible fear of death was my clue that I was not living my true life.\n\n\"People living deeply,\" wrote Ana\u00efs Nin, \"have no fear of death.\" I was not living deeply. And it took me a long time to get clear answers to my question: What makes me happy? But any question we ask ourselves often enough will eventually yield the right answer. The problem is, we quit asking.\n\nFortunately for me, in this rare instance of persistence in the face of extreme discomfort, I didn't quit asking. The answer came to me in the form of a memory\u2014so colorful it was almost like a movie scene. I was driving at night in my car 10 years earlier, and I was as happy as I had ever been. In fact, I was driving around aimlessly so that I could keep my feeling of happiness preserved and contained within that car\u2014I didn't want anything to interrupt it. It was so profound that it lasted for hours.\n\nThe occasion was a speech I had just given. The subject of it was my recovery from an addiction, and the night that I spoke I was running such a high fever, and I had such a fear of speaking in public that I tried to call the talk off. My hosts wouldn't hear of it. Somehow I made it to the podium and, probably because my fever and flu were so intense, I spoke freely, without caution or self-consciousness. The more I spoke about freedom from addiction, the more excited I got. My creativity just soared. I remember the audience laughing as I spoke. I remember them jumping to their feet and cheering when I was finished. It was the most remarkable night of my life. Somehow I had reached people in a way I'd never reached people before, and their own expressions of joy lifted me higher than I had ever been.\n\nIt was that memory of that moonlit night, driving in my car, that came back to me 10 years later after I'd spent weeks repeating to myself the question, \"What makes me happy?\" Now I had the picture, but I had no idea how to act on it. But at least I knew what my true life was, and I knew that I wasn't living it.\n\nThen one day one of my major advertising clients asked me to hire a motivational speaker for a big breakfast meeting they were having for their sales staff. I didn't know of anyone in Arizona who was any good\u2014the only motivational speakers I was familiar with were the national ones whose tapes I'd listened to so often in my car, people such as Wayne Dyer, Tom Peters, Anthony Robbins, Alan Watts, and Nathaniel Branden. But Alan Watts was dead\u2014and the rest were probably far too expensive for our little breakfast.\n\nSo I called Kirk Nelson, a friend of mine who was sales manager at KTAR in Phoenix, and asked his advice. \"The only person in Arizona worth hiring is Dennis Deaton,\" he said. \"He speaks all over the country, and he's usually booked, but if you can get him, do, because he's great.\"\n\nI finally reached Deaton in Utah, where he was giving seminars on time management. He agreed to come back to Phoenix in time for our breakfast and give a 45minute motivational talk.\n\nKirk Nelson was right. Deaton was impressive. He held the audience spellbound as he told stories that illustrated his ideas about the power that people have over their thoughts, and the mastery that they can achieve over their thinking. When he finished speaking and came back to the table where we had been sitting, I shook his hand and thanked him, and I found myself making a silent vow that someday soon I would be working with this man.\n\nIt wasn't long after that that he and I were indeed working together. It was at a company called Quma Learning, Deaton's corporate training facility based in Phoenix, Arizona. Although I began with Quma as its marketing director\u2014creating advertisements, video scripts, and direct-mail pieces\u2014I soon worked my way up to the position of seminar presenter.\n\nMy first big thrill came when Deaton and I were both invited to speak at a national convention of carpet-cleaning companies. It was the first time I had ever shared the stage with him, and I was to go on first. He was in the audience when I spoke, and I have to admit I had worked harder than I'd ever worked in my life to prepare for this event.\n\nThe participants had heard Deaton before at previous conventions and loved him, but they'd never heard me. After my presentation was over, they clapped enthusiastically and as Deaton passed me on his way to the stage he was beaming with pride as he shook my hand. (Unlike myself, Dennis Deaton has very little professional jealousy of other speakers. He was happy for my success. I have to admit that my favorite moment occurred when, after he was introduced, someone in the audience teasingly shouted out, \"Dennis who?\")\n\nMany people get confused and believe that living their true life means getting lucky and finding a suitable job with an appreciative boss somewhere. What I have come to realize is that you can live your true life anywhere, in any job, with any boss.\n\nFirst find out what makes you happy, and then start doing it. If writing makes you happy, and you're not writing for a living, start up a company newsletter or your own Website. When I first realized that speaking and teaching made me happy, I started a free weekly workshop. I didn't wait until something was offered to me.\n\nWhatever goal you want to reach, you can reach it 10 times faster if you are happy. In my sales training and consulting, I notice that happy salespeople sell at least twice as much as unhappy salespeople. Most people think that the successful salespeople are happy because they are selling more and making more money. Not true. They are selling more and making more money because they are happy.\n\nAs J.D. Salinger's character Seymour says in _Franny and Zooey_ , \"This happiness is strong stuff!\" Happiness is the strongest stuff in the world. It is more energizing than a cup of hot espresso on a cold morning. It is more mind-expanding than a dose of acid. It is more intoxicating than a glass of champagne under the stars.\n\nIf you refuse to cultivate happiness in yourself, you will not be of extraordinary service to others, and you will not have the energy to create who you want to be. There is no goal better than this one: to know as you lie on your deathbed that you lived your true life because you did what made you happy.\n\n## 41. Get up on the right side\n\nSince I was a child, I've always been intrigued with the idea that you could have a great day just by getting up on the right side of the bed. Later in life, during my years as a largely unsuccessful songwriter, one of the few successes I had was with a country rock song that I co-wrote with Fred Knipe and Duncan Stitt. It was called \"The Right Side of the Wrong Bed.\" Today my fascination is not so much with the right side of the bed as it is with the right side of the head\u2014or to be more precise, the right side of the brain.\n\nThe best explanation of how \"whole-brain\" thinking surpasses left-brain thinking or right-brain thinking is in a book written by British philosopher Colin Wilson called _Frankenstein's Castle_. Wilson reveals that we have more control over drawing vital energy and creative ideas from the right brain than we ever realized. And what stimulates the right brain the most is a high sense of purpose.\n\nIf you had to carry a heavy sack of sand across town, your left brain might get upset and tell you that you were doing something boring and tedious. However, if your child were injured badly and she weighed the same as the huge bag of sand, you'd carry her the same distance to the hospital with a surprising surge of vital energy (sent from the right brain). That's what purpose does to the brain. Self-motivation gets more and more exciting as the left brain gets better and better at telling the right brain what to do.\n\n## 42. Let your whole brain play\n\nPassive misuse of the brain leads to a life of reaction rather than creation. When Oliver Wendell Holmes said that \"most people go to their graves with their music still in them,\" he just as easily could have said that most people live in their left brain only. When Thoreau said, \"most men lead lives of quiet desperation,\" he was describing what life is like if you stay trapped in left-brain, linear, short-sighted thinking.\n\nBut the irony is that the left brain has gotten an unfairly negative reputation, simply because people stay trapped there. When people learn that the left brain is there to connect with the right, then it takes on new power and function. When people stay trapped in linear, flat, and logical left-brain thinking and never activate the creative right side of the brain, they lose their love of life. The right brain comes alive during dreaming at night while the left brain sleeps. But it is possible (as artists, poets, and saints can attest) to have the same two-sided interplay that we had as children, while we are awake. We simply have to fire it up by using the left brain to call on the right. This is what happens when we make love, play games, write poetry, hold a baby, or face a threatening crisis: The left brain commands the right brain to come alive and get involved. That is when you get whole-brain thinking, or what psychologist Abraham Maslow called peak experiences.\n\nThe three best ways to activate whole-brain thinking are through 1) goal-visualization, 2) joyful work, and 3) revitalizing play. Rather than wait for external crises to appear, create internal challenge games of your own\u2014goals and purposes\u2014that lead you in growth toward the motivated person you want to become.\n\nThe real excitement in studies of the power of the right brain lies in their suggestion of a neurological basis for personal transformation. It's not just motivational puff or secular evangelism to say that we possess unlimited creative energy, and we can use it to create the lives we want. As Colin Wilson writes in _The Essential Colin Wilson_ :\n\nIn fact, we can learn to live on a far, far higher level of power. And that is what the left brain was intended for. Its farsightedness gives it the ability to summon power. Yet it hardly makes use of this ability. It could be compared to a man who possesses a magic machine that will create gold coins so that he could, if he wanted, pay off the national debt and abolish poverty. But he is so lazy and stupid that he never bothers to make more than a couple of coins every day\u2014just enough to see him through until the evening...or perhaps he is not lazy: only afraid of emptying the machine. If so, the fear is unnecessary. It is magical, and cannot be emptied.\n\nMost people regard their right brain with a sense of wonder. They think inspiring thoughts \"came to them\" out of the blue. \"Last night I had the strangest dream!\" they will say, not knowing how much control they really have over that magical machine.\n\n## 43. Get your stars out\n\nTerry Hill is a writer who has lived all over the world and has been a friend of mine since we met each other in the sixth grade in Birmingham, Michigan. His short story, \"Cafes Are for Handicapping,\" features an intriguing character named Joe Warner who likes to tell stories about horse racing.\n\nJoe Warner tells the story of being in the press box at Belmont when Secretariat put away the Triple Crown by 31 lengths.\n\n\"And I looked beside me when he was coming down the stretch at all these hardened, cigar-chomping New York newspapermen and they all had tears running down their cheeks like little babies. 'Course I couldn't see too clear myself for the tears in my eyes. I was 23 at the time. And it was the first Triple Crown in my lifetime. Imagine that.\"\n\nThat story brought me even closer to a question I've been asking all my life. Why do we cry when we see huge accomplishments? Why do we cry at weddings? Why do I cry when the blind girl jumps with her horse in the movie _Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken_? Or when the Titans win the game in Denzel Washington's _Remember the Titans_? Why did those sportswriters cry to see that horse win by 31 lengths?\n\nThis is my theory: we weep for the winner inside of all of us. In these poignant moments, we cry because we know for a fact that there is something in us that could be every bit as great as what we are watching. We are, for that moment, the untapped greatness we are seeing. But we get tears in our eyes, because we know the greatness isn't being realized. We could have been like that, but we aren't.\n\nTerry Hill also gives public talks on creativity. His own work in advertising and public relations throughout the years has won countless awards and, as one might expect, he presents some learned and sophisticated formulas for \"creating.\" But he finishes all his talks by saying it is really a simple thing to be creative\u2014all you do is \"get your stars out.\" That's how you tap into the untapped you.\n\nHis reference is to _Seymour: An Introduction_ by J.D. Salinger. Seymour is writing a letter to his brother Buddy, who has chosen to become a professional writer. Seymour tells his brother that writing has always been more than a profession, that it has been more like Buddy's religion. He says that Buddy will be asked two very profound questions when he dies about the writing he was doing: 1) \"Were most of your stars out?\"; and 2) \"Were you busy writing your heart out?\"\n\nTerry Hill's advice to his audiences on the subject of creativity is to make sure you \"get your stars out.\" This is another way of saying let the stars that are in you shine freely. Don't force them out. Just let them shine. Although Hill's audiences are usually advertising people and writers, his recommendations apply to all of us. Our lives are ours to create. Do we want to create them in a lackluster way or do we want to be inspiring? When we write our plans and dreams, we need to write our hearts out. In shooting for the stars, it's time to get a bit wild. Wild hearts can't be broken.\n\n## 44. Just make everything up\n\nSometimes in my seminars I will ask the people in the audience to raise their hands if they think of themselves as \"creative.\" I've never had more than a fourth of the audience raise their hands. I then ask the people how many of them were able to make things up when they were younger\u2014make up names for their dolls, make up a game to play, make up a story for their parents when the truth looked less promising.\n\nAll hands go up.\n\nSo, what's the difference? You made stuff up as a child, but you're not a creative adult? The difference is that we have charged the word \"creative\" as meaning something truly extraordinary. Picasso was creative. Meryl Streep is creative. Wyclef Jean is creative. But me? One of the ways to get started creating goals and action plans is to just \"make them up,\" as you did as a kid. Think of creating in simpler terms. Think of it as something all humans do very easily. French psychologist Emile Coue said, \"Always think of what you have to do as easy and it will be.\"\n\n## 45. Put on your game face\n\nMost people who play a lot of golf or tennis work much harder at their games than they do at work. All people work harder at play than they do at work, because there's no resistance. Golfers are working harder on the golf course than they are at their professions. They don't always know this (although their spouses usually do) because it doesn't feel like work\u2014it feels like fun. They bring more energy, innovation, and zest to what they're doing out on the course because it's a game. They also bring an ongoing commitment to increasing their skills. Everyone is interested in getting better at the games they play.\n\nAs for the effect of games on energy, consider a bunch of guys playing poker all night. Because poker is a game, people can play it all night until the sun comes up. When they finally come home to sleep, you might be tempted to ask them, \"How did you manage to stay up all night? Were you drinking coffee and soda?\" No, they confess, they were drinking beer. \"But shouldn't beer slow you down and make you tired?\" Not if you are playing a game! In fact, you'll also learn that they were probably smoking cigars and eating junk as well\u2014not generally known as stimulants. What was stimulating was the game. The joy of competition.\n\nPlaywright Noel Coward once said, \"Work is more fun than fun.\" I included that quote in a seminar guidebook for a sales group a year ago and one of the participants in the back of the room raised his hand and said, \"Yeah, Steve, who is this Noel Coward guy? I figure with a quote like that he's either a porn star or a professional golfer.\"\n\nThat line got a great laugh at my expense, but it also revealed a truth (which almost all humor does). People believe that the fun jobs are always somewhere else. \"If only I could get a job like that!\" \"If only I had been a pro golfer!\" But the truth is that fulfilling and fun work can be found in anything. The more we consciously introduce game-playing elements (personal bests listed, goals, time limits, competition with self or others, record-keeping, and so on), the more fun the activity becomes.\n\nI worked on a project with a young man in Phoenix who was selling three times as much office equipment as the average salesperson on his team. He said he didn't understand his coworkers who got depressed easily, took rejection hard, and struggled with putting their deals together.\n\n\"I don't take this that seriously,\" he smiled. \"I love all my sales challenges. The tougher the prospect is, the more fun I have selling. There is absolutely nothing personal or depressing in any of this for me. When I meet a new sales prospect, it's a chess game.\"\n\nWhatever it is you have to do, whether it's a major project at work or a huge cleaning job at home, turning it into a game will always bring you higher levels of energy and motivation.\n\n## 46. Discover active relaxation\n\nThere is a huge difference between active relaxation and passive relaxation. When we play video or computer games, play cards, work in the garden, walk the dog, or play chess, we are interacting with the unexpected, and our minds are responding. All of these activities increase personal creativity and intellectual motivation. They are all active pursuits.\n\nActive relaxation refreshes and restores the mind. It keeps it flexible and toned for thinking. Great thinkers have known this secret for a long time. Winston Churchill used to paint to relax. Albert Einstein played the violin. They could relax one part of the brain while stimulating another. When they returned to workday pursuits they were fresher and sharper than ever. Most of us try to deaden the mind in order to relax. We rent mindless videos, read pulp fiction, drink, smoke, and eat until we're foggy and bloated. The problem with this form of relaxation is that it dulls our spirit and makes it hard to come back to consciousness.\n\nI accidentally discovered the restorative powers of video and computer games when I played some with my then 9-year-old son Bobby. What began as a way to make him happy and spend time with him became a brain-challenging pursuit. The complexity of computer football, basketball, and hockey games required stimulating recreational thinking.\n\n\"Thinking is the hardest work we do,\" said Henry Ford, \"which is why so few people ever do it.\" But when we find ways to link thinking to recreation, our lives get richer. We become players in the game of life and not just spectators.\n\n## 47. Make today a masterpiece\n\nMost of us think our lives accumulate. We think they are adding up to something. We think of our lives as being strung together like a long smoky train, so that we can add new freight cars when we're feeling right, and dump the others when we're not.\n\nBut when basketball legend John Wooden's father said to him, \"Make each day your masterpiece,\" Wooden knew something profound: Life is now. Life is not later on. And the more we hypnotize ourselves into thinking we have all the time in the world to do what we want to do, the more we sleepwalk past life's finest opportunities. Self-motivation flows from the importance we attach to today.\n\nJohn Wooden was the most successful college basketball coach of all time. His UCLA teams won 10 national championships in a 12-year time span. Wooden created a major portion of his coaching and living philosophy from one thought\u2014a single sentence passed on to him by his father when Wooden was a little boy\u2014\"Make each day your masterpiece.\"\n\nWhile other coaches would try to gear their players toward important games in the future, Wooden always focused on today. His practice sessions at UCLA were every bit as important as any championship game. In his philosophy, there was no reason not to make today the proudest day of your life. There was no reason not to play as hard in practice as you do in a game. He wanted every player to go to bed each night thinking, \"Today I was at my best.\"\n\nMost of us, however, don't want it to be this way. If someone asks us if today can be used as a model to judge our entire life by, we would shriek, \"On no! It isn't one of my better days. Give me a year or two and I'll live a day, I'm certain of it, that you can use to represent my life.\"\n\nThe key to personal transformation is in your willingness to do very tiny things\u2014but to do them today.\n\nTransformation is not an all-or-nothing game, it's a work in progress. A little touch here and there is what makes your day (and, therefore, your life) great. Today is a microcosm of your entire life. It is your whole life in miniature. You were \"born\" when you woke up, and you'll \"die\" when you go to sleep. It was designed this way so that you could live your whole life in a day.\n\n## 48. Enjoy all your problems\n\nEvery solution has a problem. You can't have one without the other. So why do we say that we hate problems? Why do we claim to want a hassle-free existence? When someone is emotionally sick, why do we say, \"He's got problems\"?\n\nDeep down, where our wisdom lives, we know that problems are good for us. When my daughter's teacher talks to me during open house and tells me that my daughter is going to be \"working more problems\" in math than she worked last year, I think that's wonderful. Why do I think it's wonderful when my daughter gets more problems to solve, if I think problems are a problem? Because somehow we know that problems are good for our children. By solving problems, our kids will become more self-sufficient. They'll trust their own minds more. They'll see themselves as problem-solvers.\n\nWe are so superstitious about our own problems that we tend to run from them rather than solve them. We have demonized problems to such a degree that they are like monsters that live under the bed. And by not solving them during the day, we tremble over them at night.\n\nWhen people took their problems to the legendary insurance giant W. Clement Stone, he used to shout out, \"You've got a problem? That's great!\" It's a wonder he wasn't shot by someone, given our culture's deep superstition about problems. But problems are not to be feared. Problems are not curses. Problems are simply tough games for the athletes of the mind, and true athletes always long to get a game going.\n\nIn _The Road Less Traveled_ , one of M. Scott Peck's central themes is that \"problems call forth our wisdom and our courage.\" One of the best ways to approach a problem is in a spirit of play, the same way you approach a chess game or a challenge to play one-on-one playground basketball. One of my favorite ways to play with a problem, especially one that seems hopeless, is to ask myself, _What is a funny way to solve this problem? What would be a hilarious solution?_ That question never fails to open up fresh new avenues of thought.\n\n\"Every problem in your life,\" said Richard Bach, author of _Illusions_ , \"carries a gift inside it.\" He is right. But we have to be thinking that way first, or the gift will never appear.\n\nIn his groundbreaking studies of natural healing, Dr. Andrew Weil suggested that we even regard illness as a gift. He wrote in _Spontaneous Healing_ :\n\nBecause illness can be such a powerful stimulus to change, perhaps it is the only thing that can force some people to resolve their deepest conflicts. Successful patients often come to regard it as the greatest opportunity they ever had for personal growth and development\u2014truly a gift. Seeing illness as a misfortune, especially one that is undeserved, may obstruct the healing system. Coming to see the illness as a gift that allows you to grow may unlock it.\n\nIf you see your problems as curses, the motivation you're looking for in life will be hard to find. If you learn to love the opportunities your problems present, then your motivational energy will rise.\n\n## 49. Remind your mind\n\nPerhaps you have noted an idea in this book, or another recent book you've read, that you want to hold on to. It might be an idea that you knew, the moment you saw it, would always be useful to you. You might even have underlined it for future reference. But what if the book goes on the shelf, or gets loaned to a friend, and is forevermore out of sight and out of mind? This is a very common experience, but there is a remedy: start treating self-motivational ideas as if they were songs.\n\nYou can find ways to rewind these ideas so they'll play again and again until you can't get them out of your head. That's how belief systems are restructured to suit our goals. Place the thought you want to remember into the jingle track in your brain so that it can't get out.\n\nYou can create a new self by learning the beliefs you want to live by\u2014one thought at a time. Learn these thoughts as you would the lyrics for a song you had to perform on stage. A friend of mine used to learn his parts in musicals by placing index cards with song lyrics all over his office, home, and bathroom mirror. He sometimes had them on the dashboard of his car. Why? He was making a conscious visual effort to reach the backside of his own mind.\n\nThe trick is to keep this motivation going, to deliberately feed your spirit with the optimistic ideas you want to live by. Any time a thought, sentence, or paragraph inspires you or opens up your thinking, you need to capture it, like a butterfly in a net, and later release it into your own field of consciousness.\n\nFor me, discovering an exciting idea in a book or magazine is a true peak experience. It makes the world bright and comprehensible. I get that tingle in my spine. I get that \"Oh, yes!\" feeling. The more I deliberately fill my mind with the words and phrases that originally stirred the peak experience, the easier it is to remember that life is good.\n\nColin Wilson writes in _New Pathways in Psychology_ :\n\nThis is why people who have a peak experience can go on repeating them: because it is simply a matter of reminding yourself of something you have already seen and which you know to be real. In this sense, it is like any other \"recognition\" that suddenly dawns on you\u2014for example, the recognition of the greatness of some composer or artist whom you had formerly found difficult or incomprehensible, or the recognition of how to solve a certain problem. Once such a recognition \"dawns\" it is easy to reestablish contact with it, because it is there like some possession, waiting for you to return to it.\n\nDuring my talks on self-motivation, one of the questions I'm asked most often is, \"How do I keep this going?\" People say, \"I love what I've learned today, but I've often gone to seminars that got me motivated and then a few days later I was back to my old pessimistic self, doing exactly what I used to do.\"\n\nIf I were in the mood to be blunt, I would answer the question this way: Why, if you love what you've learned about self-motivation, would you ask me how to keep it going in your life? The person in this room best equipped to answer your question is you. So I'll ask you, how will you keep this going in your life? I bet you could give me 10 ways you could do it. And I bet that if this were a foreign language you had to learn, you would set aside a certain amount of time each day to review it, to read it out loud, and to make certain you learned it. I bet you'd buy audiobooks for your car and even arrange small study groups. So the real question is this: is mastering the art of motivation as important as learning another language?\n\nOnce while I was attending a Werner Erhard seminar, I had some free time during a break so I wrote myself a letter. I put down all the ideas I wanted to remember from the seminar and I sealed them in an envelope. I took it home and a month later I mailed it to myself. When I opened it at work and read it, it was like a fresh experience all over again. I was so impressed by how effective this was for me that I employed the idea in one of my own seminars. I had everyone in the audience write out the important insights they'd received and what they intended to do differently in their lives from this moment on. When they were finished, I asked them to seal the letters into the envelopes I'd provided and address the envelopes to themselves. I told them I would hold them for a month and then mail them all.\n\nThe reports I got back were remarkable. Some people said seeing those thoughts written to themselves in their own handwriting brought the whole seminar back to them. They felt a rush of excitement and a new commitment to take action.\n\nAre you willing to remind yourself to treat yourself to your own best thoughts? Are you willing to set visual traps and ambushes, so you'll always see words and thoughts you know you want to remember?\n\n## 50. Get down and get small\n\nThe fewer goals you set each day, the more you feel pushed around by people and events that are beyond your control. You suffer from a sense of powerlessness. Rather than creating the reality you want, you are only reacting to the world around you. You have much more control over the activities of your day than you realize. By increasing your conscious use of small objectives, you will see the larger objectives coming into reality.\n\nMost people participating in the free enterprise system have become thoroughly convinced of the power of setting large and specific long-range goals for themselves. Career goals, yearly goals, and monthly performance goals are always on the mind of a person with ambition. But often those people overlook altogether the power of small goals\u2014goals set during the day that give energy to the day and a sense of achieving a lot of small \"wins\" along the way.\n\nIn his psychological masterpiece, _Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience_ , Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi refers to large goals as \"outcome\" goals and small goals as \"process\" goals. The beauty of process goals is that they are always within your immediate power to achieve. For example, you might set a process goal of making four important phone calls before lunch. On a sheet of paper you make four boxes, and as you make each call you fill in a box, and when the four are made, you file the paper in your goal folder and go enjoy lunch. Because you've earned it.\n\nYou can set process goals, for example, before a conversation with a person. I want to find these three things out, I want to ask these four questions, I want to make these two requests, and I want to pay my client one compliment before I leave. Process goals give you total focus. When you are constantly setting process goals, you are in more control of your day, and you feel a sense of skillful self-motivation. At the end of the day, or the beginning of the next day, you can check your progress toward your outcome goals. You can adjust your process goals to take you closer to the outcomes you want, and always keep the two in harmony.\n\nLet's say it's now the end of a long, hard day. You have a half hour before you have to go home. If you're not in the habit of setting process goals, you might say, \"I guess I ought to do some paperwork or make a call or two before I go home.\" You look at the pile of paper on your desk, or you mindlessly thumb through phone numbers, and all of a sudden someone comes by your desk to chat. Because you have nothing specific to do you engage in conversation and, before you know it, the half hour is gone and you have to go home. Even though you didn't leave anything specific unfinished, you still have that vague feeling of having wasted time.\n\nNow what happens if you use that half hour to set and achieve a process goal? \"Before I go home tonight I'm going to send out two good letters of introduction with all my marketing material included.\" Now you have a process goal and only a half hour in which to do it. When the person comes by your desk to chat, you tell him you'll have to talk to him later because you've got some things that have to get out by five.\n\nPeople who get into the swing of setting small goals all day long report a much higher level of consciousness and energy. It's as if they are athletes constantly coaching themselves through an ongoing game. They are happier people because their day is being created by the power inside their own minds, and not by the power of the world around them.\n\n## 51. Advertise to yourself\n\nI often start the day by drawing four circles on a blank piece of paper.\n\nThe circles represent my day (today), my month, my year, and my life. Inside each circle I write down what I want. It can be a dollar figure, it can be anything, and the goals can change from day to day\u2014it doesn't matter. There is no way to get this process wrong.\n\nBut by writing the goals down, I am like an airline pilot who is consulting a map prior to takeoff. I am orienting my mind to what I am up to in life. I am _reminding_ myself of what I really want. We wouldn't think, before an airline flight, of poking our heads into the cabin and saying to the pilot, \"Just take me anywhere!\" Yet, that's how we live our days when we don't check the map.\n\nSometimes in my seminars on motivation, people say they don't have time for goal-setting. But the four-circle system I described takes only four minutes! Once during a workshop on goal-setting, I asked if anyone in the audience had any interesting experiences with visualization. We had been discussing sports psychologist Rob Gilbert's observation that \"losers visualize the penalties of failure, and winners visualize the rewards of success.\"\n\nA young couple shared a story about how they had wanted for years to buy their own home, but never got the money together to do it. Then one day, after reading about the practice of treasure-mapping (posting pictures of what you want in life somewhere in your office or home), they decided to put a picture on their refrigerator of a new house, the kind they dreamed of owning.\n\n\"In less than nine months, we'd made the down payment and moved in,\" said the amazed husband. His wife added, \"Alongside the photo of the house we eventually put a little thermometer that we filled in as our savings toward a down payment grew.\"\n\nI have heard many similar stories about how treasure-mapping has worked for people. I have also read books and attended seminars that explain why. Most of them discuss what happens to the subconscious mind when you send it a picture of something you want. Because the subconscious mind only communicates with vividly imagined or real pictures, it will not seek to bring into your life anything you can't picture.\n\nWithout advertising our goals to ourselves, we can lose sight of them altogether. It is possible to go an entire week, or two or three, without thinking about our main goals in life. We get caught up in reacting and responding to people and circumstances and we simply forget to think about our own purpose.\n\nI have an example of how this practice worked in my life: Three years ago I was interested in giving more seminars on the subject of fund-raising. I coauthored a book called _RelationSHIFT: Revolutionary Fund-Raising_ with University of Arizona development director Michael Bassoff. We had done some successful seminars on the subject, and I wanted to do more. So, on the wall of my bedroom I put up a white poster board, and on that board I put up a lot of pictures and index cards with my goals on them. I wanted to have all those goals in front of me when I woke up each morning, even though I only spent a minute or two looking at the board each day.\n\nOne of the index cards I had pinned to my goal board simply contained the bold-markered letters, \"ASU.\" It was almost lost among the hodgepodge of photos and goals I'd covered the board with, and I'm certain I only barely noticed it each morning as I got up. I put it up there because I thought it would be great if I could give seminars to Arizona State University, especially now that I was living in the Phoenix area. I really thought nothing more of it.\n\nOne day at the offices of the corporate training company where I worked, I was asked to shake the hand of Jerry, a new employee. I asked Jerry to come in and sit down. We talked in my office for a few minutes about his joining the company. I asked him about his family and he casually mentioned that his parents were living in town, and that his mother worked at ASU. Normally, that would have meant nothing. ASU is a very well-known and oft-mentioned presence in the Phoenix area. But something went off in my mind when he said that, and I know in hindsight that \"something\" was my daily view of my goal board.\n\nMy ears perked up when he said \"ASU\" and I asked him, \"What does your mother do at ASU?\"\n\n\"She's the chief administrative assistant to the development director at the ASU Foundation,\" he said. \"They're in charge of all the fund-raising at the University.\"\n\nI really brightened at that point, and I told Jerry about my past work in fund-raising at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and how I'd always wanted to do similar work at ASU. He said he'd be delighted to introduce me to his mother and to the development director himself. Within a month, ASU fund-raisers were attending my seminar on _RelationSHIFT_ and I had realized one of the goals on my board. I honestly believe that if I had not had a goal board up in my bedroom, Jerry's mention of ASU would have gone right past me.\n\nThis illustrates something important. We need to advertise our own goals to ourselves. Otherwise, our psychic energy is spread too thin across the spectrum of things that aren't that important to us.\n\n## 52. Think outside the box\n\nOnce I attended a new business proposal presentation by Bob Koether, in which he had his prospective customers all play a little nine-dot game that illustrated to them that the solutions to puzzles are often simple to see if we think in unconventional ways. As people laughed and tore up their puzzles in frustration when Koether showed them the solution, he stood up to make his final point.\n\n\"We restrict our thinking for no good reason,\" said Koether. \"We do things simply because that's the way we always did them. I want you to know that our commitment in serving your company is to _always look outside the box_ for the most innovative solutions possible to our problems. We'll never do something just because that's the way we have always done it.\"\n\nTo many business leaders pitching a lucrative account, this kind of puzzle-solving exercise would simply be considered a clever presentation. But to Bob Koether, it was a symbolic expression of his whole life in business.\n\nOnce, on a Xerox-sponsored trip in Cancun, Mexico, Bob and his brother Mike spent the day out in treacherous waters on a fishing boat. After coming ashore, they retired to Carlos O'Brien's restaurant for tequila and beer and a period of reflection on their lives in sales thus far.\n\n\"We knew that as well as we had done, we would never own boats like the one we were just in if we remained at Xerox,\" said Bob. \"We talked about possibilities in the bar, and it wasn't long before we noticed some black T-shirts on the wall with the word _infinity_ on them. Then, for more than two hours, Mike and I discussed just what the word _infinity_ meant. Out of that discussion, a dream was born, a dream that took shape in the form of Infinity Communications.\"\n\nBob Koether and his brother believed that there was one vital area in which Xerox was underperforming\u2014and that was customer service. What if, they asked, a company's commitment to the customer was infinite? Not boxed-in, but unlimited in its possibilities for creative service? With that concept as motivation, the two brothers formed \"Infincom\" (short for Infinity Communications) in the state of Arizona, and within 10 years they grew from six employees and no customers into a $50-million business with more than 500 employees. And for the past three years straight, the _Arizona Business Gazette_ has ranked Infincom the number-one office equipment company in Arizona\u2014ahead of Xerox.\n\nAll of us tend to look at our challenges from inside a box. We take what we've done in the past and put it in front of our eyes and then try to envision what we call \"the future.\" But that restricts our future. With that restricted view, the best the future can be is a new and better past.\n\nGreat motivational energy occurs when we get out of the box and assume that the possibilities for creative ideas are infinite. To realize the best possible future for yourself, don't look at it through a box containing your own past.\n\n## 53. Keep thinking, keep thinking\n\nMotivation comes from thought. Every act we take is preceded by a thought that inspires that act. And when we quit thinking, we lose the motivation to act. We eventually slip into pessimism, and the pessimism leads to even _less_ thinking. And so it goes, a downward spiral of negativity and passivity, feeding on itself like cancer.\n\nI like to use this example in my seminars to illustrate the power of continuing to think: Let's say a pessimist has made up his mind to clean his garage on a Saturday morning. He wakes up, walks out to the garage, and opens the door. He is shocked to see just how much of a mess it is. \"Forget this!\" the pessimist says with disgust. \"No one could clean this garage in one day!\" At that point, the pessimist slams the garage door shut and goes back inside to do something else. Pessimists are \"all-or-nothing\" thinkers. They think in catastrophic absolutes. They are either going to do something perfectly or not at all.\n\nNow let's look at how the optimist would face the same problem. He wakes up on the same morning, goes to the same garage, sees the same mess, and even utters the same first words to himself, \"Forget this! No one could clean this garage in one day!\"\n\nBut this is where the key difference between an optimist and a pessimist shows itself. Instead of going back into the house, the optimist _keeps thinking_. \"Okay, so I can't clean the whole garage,\" he says. \"What _could_ I do that would make a difference?\"\n\nHe looks for awhile, and thinks things over. Finally, it occurs to him that he could break the garage down into four sections and do just one section today. \"For sure I'll do one today,\" he says, \"and even if I only do one section each Saturday, I'll have the whole garage in great shape before the month is over.\" A month later, you see a pessimist with a filthy garage and an optimist with a clean garage.\n\nThere was a woman in one of my seminars in Las Vegas who told me that this one concept\u2014the optimist's habit of looking for partial solutions\u2014had made an interesting difference in her life.\n\n\"I used to come home from work and look at my kitchen and just throw up my hands and curse at it and do nothing at all,\" she told me. \"I'd think the exact same thing as the pessimist in your garage story. Then I decided to just pick a small part of the kitchen and do that, and that area only. It might be a certain counter, or just the sink. By doing just one small part each night I never resent the work, it's never overwhelming, and my kitchen always looks decent.\"\n\nPessimists like to set their problems aside. They think so negatively about doing the whole thing perfectly that they end up doing nothing at all! The optimist always does a little something. She or he always takes an action and always feels like progress is being made.\n\nBecause pessimists have a habit of thinking it's hopeless\" or nothing can be done, they quit thinking too soon. An optimist may have the same initial negative feelings about a project, but he or she keeps thinking until smaller possibilities open up. This is why Alan Loy McGinnis, in his inspiring book _The Power of Optimism,_ refers to optimists as \"tough-minded.\"\n\nThe pessimist, as far as the use of the human mind goes, is a quitter.\n\nRecent studies show, says McGinnis, that optimists \"excel in school, have better health, make more money, establish long and happy marriages, stay connected to their children and perhaps even live longer.\"\n\nTo witness one of the most profound illustrations of the practical effectiveness of optimism in American history, you'll want to watch the movie _Apollo 13_. Although the job of bringing those astronauts back from the far side of the moon looked daunting and overwhelming, the job was accomplished one small task at a time. The people at Mission Control in Houston who saved the astronauts' lives did so because even in the face of \"impossible\" technological breakdowns, they kept on thinking. They never gave up. They looked for partial solutions, and they declared that they would string these partial solutions together one at a time until they brought the men home safely.\n\nWhile the astronauts' lives were still in doubt, there was one glaring pessimist in Houston ground control who made the comment that he feared that Apollo 13 might become the \"worst space disaster\" in American history. The ground commander in Houston turned to him and said with optimism and anger, \"On the contrary, sir, I see Apollo 13 as being our finest hour.\" And he turned out to be right, which illustrates the life-or-death _effectiveness_ of optimistic thinking.\n\nWhenever you feel pessimistic or overwhelmed, remember to _keep thinking_. The more you think about a situation, the more you will see small opportunities for action\u2014and the more small actions you take, the more optimistic energy you will receive. An optimist keeps thinking and self-motivates. A pessimist quits thinking\u2014and then just quits.\n\nIn the Broadway musical _South Pacific,_ the heroine sings apologetically about being a \"cock-eyed optimist.\" She admits she's \"immature and incurably green.\" This was an early version of a blonde joke. She confesses, as the giddy song soars melodically, that she's \"stuck like a dope on a thing called hope and I can't get it out of my heart...not this heart.\" That's how our society has viewed optimists\u2014they are dopes. Society thinks optimistic thinking is something that comes from the heart, not the head. Pessimists, on the other hand, are \"realistic.\" In fact, pessimists will never tell you they are pessimists. In their own minds, they are realists. And when they run into habitual optimists they sneer at them for always \"blue-skying\" everything, and not facing grim reality.\n\nPessimists continually use their imaginations to visualize worst-case scenarios, and then, concluding that those scenarios are lost causes, they take no action. That's why pessimism always leads to passivity.\n\nBut even lying on his couch, bloated with junk food and foggy from too much television, the pessimist knows somewhere in his heart that his \"what's the use?\" attitude is not effective. He is living a life that is reflected in what Nietzsche once said: \"Everything in the world displeased me; but what displeased me most was my displeasure with everything.\"\n\nOptimists have chosen to make a different use of the human imagination. They agree with Colin Wilson's point of view that \"imagination should be used, not to escape from reality, but to create it.\"\n\n## 54. Put on a good debate\n\nNegative thinking is something we all do. The difference between the person who is primarily optimistic and the person who is primarily pessimistic is that the optimist learns to become a good debater. Once you become thoroughly aware of the effectiveness of optimism in your life, you can learn to debate your own pessimistic thoughts.\n\nThe most thorough and useful study I've ever seen on how to do this is contained in Dr. Martin Seligman's classic work, _Learned Optimism_. The studies done by Seligman demonstrate two very profound revelations: 1) optimism is more effective than pessimism; and 2) optimism can be learned.\n\nSeligman based his findings on years of statistical research. He studied professional and amateur athletes, insurance sales-people, and even politicians running for office. His scientific studies proved that optimists dramatically outperform pessimists. So what Norman Vincent Peale had been saying for years in his books on the power of positive thinking was finally proven to be scientifically true.\n\nPeale had based his books on testimonials and supportive biblical passages. The problem with that was that the people he needed to reach the most\u2014skeptics and pessimists\u2014were precisely the kinds of people who would not be anxious to take anything on faith. But once you've digested the remarkable writings of Seligman, you can go back and read Peale with a new sense of excitement. If you don't accept his religious references, it doesn't matter\u2014the personal testimonials are stimulating enough to give his writing great power. Although his most famous book is _The Power of Positive Thinking,_ I have derived much more motivation from _Stay Alive All Your Life_ and _The Amazing Results of Positive Thinking_.\n\nIf you are now skeptical about your power to debate your own pessimistic thoughts, keep in mind that most of us are already great debaters. If somebody comes in and takes one side of an argument, we can usually take the other side and make a case, no matter which side the first person took. Debate teams have to learn to do this. Team members never know until the last second which side of the argument they will be debating, so they learn to be prepared to passionately argue either side.\n\nIf you catch yourself brooding, worrying, and thinking pessimistically about an issue, the first step is to recognize your thoughts as being pessimistic. Not wrong or untrue\u2014just pessimistic. And if you are going to get the most out of your _bio-computer_ (the brain), you must acknowledge that pessimistic thoughts are less effective.\n\nOnce you've accepted the pessimistic nature of your thinking, you are ready to take the next step. (This first step is crucial, though. As Nathaniel Branden teaches, \"You can't leave a place you've never been.\") The second step is to build a case for the optimistic view.\n\nStart to argue against your first line of reasoning. Pretend you're an attorney whose job is to prove the pessimist in you wrong. Start off on building your case for what's possible. You'll surprise yourself. Optimism is by nature expansive\u2014it opens door after door to what's possible. Pessimism is just the opposite\u2014it is constrictive. It shuts the door on possibility. If you really want to open up your life and motivate yourself to succeed, become an optimistic thinker.\n\n## 55. Make trouble work for you\n\nOne evening, many years ago, my then 14-year-old daughter Stephanie went for a walk with a friend, promising me she would be back home before 10 p.m. I didn't pay much attention to the clock until the 10 o'clock news ended and I realized that she hadn't come home yet. I started to get nervous and irritated. I began pacing the house, wondering what to do. At 11:30, I got in my car and started cruising the neighborhood looking for her. My thoughts were understandably anxious, part fear and part anger. Finally, at 11:45, I drove back past my own house and saw her silhouette in the window. She was home and safe.\n\nBut I kept driving. I realized that I was thinking completely pessimistically about the entire incident and I needed to keep thinking before I talked to her. As I drove along I observed all the pessimism I was wallowing in: _She doesn't respect me. She can't keep a promise. My rules and requests mean nothing. This is the tip of the iceberg. I'm going to have problems with her for the next four years at least. Who knows where she went and what she was doing? Were drugs involved? Sex? Crime? I'm losing sleep over this. This is ruining my peace of mind and my life_.\n\nBy recognizing how pessimistic my thoughts were, I was able to let the thoughts play completely out before taking a deep breath and telling myself, _Okay. That's one side of the argument. Now it's time to explore the other side_. One of my favorite tricks for flipping my mind over to the optimistic side is to ask myself the question: _How can I use this?_\n\nHow could I use this incident to improve my relationship with my daughter? How could I make my rules and requests more meaningful to us both? I began to build my case for optimism. I realized that great relationships are built by incidents like these. They are not built by theoretical conversations, but by difficult experiences and what we learn and gain from them. So I decided to drive a little while longer and let her wait inside. I was sure that by now her sister had told her that I was out looking for her, so she was now the one pacing and anxious. _Let her sweat a little,_ I thought, _while I continue to think things through_.\n\nI continued to reflect upon my past relationship with Stephanie. One of the great aspects of it was Stephanie's honesty. She had always radiated a quiet and confident kind of serenity about life, and found it easy to be honest with her own feelings and honest with other people. Whenever there had been incidents with other children, teachers, or other parents involved in some misunderstanding, I could always count on Stephanie to tell me the truth. Asking her about what happened always saved me a lot of time.\n\nAs I drove the dark neighborhood, I also ran through my happiest memories of Stephanie as a little girl, how much I loved her and how proud I was of her when I went to her concerts or talked to her teachers. I recalled the time in grade school when I embarrassed her by asking her principal if he would consider re-naming the school after her. (She had just won an academic award of some kind and I was intoxicated with pride.)\n\nFinally my mind was completely won over to the optimistic side. Thinking about how I could use this gave me the idea that this incident could be made into something bigger than it seemed\u2014a new commitment to each other to keep agreements and trust each other.\n\nWhen I finally got home, I could see that she was scared. She tried to blame the incident on her not having a watch. She wanted me to appreciate that, somehow, she was a victim of the whole incident. I listened patiently and then I told her I thought it was a much bigger deal than that. I talked about my relationship with her and how I had cherished her truthfulness throughout her childhood. I told her that I thought we might have lost all of that tonight. That we might have to figure a way to start over.\n\n\"It's not that big a deal,\" she protested. But I told her that I thought it was a very big deal, because it was all about our relationship and whether we were going to keep agreements with each other. I told Stephanie I wanted her to be as happy as she could possibly be, and the only way I could really help that happen would be if we kept agreements with each other. I told her how scared I was, how angry I was, how her staying out had ruled out a good night's sleep for me. I asked her to try to understand. I talked about our life together when she was a little girl, and I reminded her how extraordinarily truthful she was. I mentioned a few incidents when she got in trouble, but how I had gone right to her for the truth and always got it.\n\nWe talked for a long time that night, and she finally saw that coming home when she says she's coming home\u2014indeed, doing what she says she's going to do\u2014is a really \"big deal.\" It's everything.\n\nAfter that incident and conversation, Stephanie was extremely sensitive to keeping her word. If she went out and promised to be back at a certain time, she took along a watch or made certain someone she was with had one. The incident that night was something neither of us forgot, because it got us clear on the idea of trust and agreements. You could even say that it was a _good_ thing.\n\nWe have heard of so many incidents where bad events in retrospect were strokes of great fortune. A person who broke her leg skiing met a doctor in the hospital, fell in love, married him, and had a happy relationship for life. Because most of us have experienced a number of these incidents, we're aware of the dynamic. What seems bad (a broken leg) turns out unexpectedly great. We begin to see the truth that every problem carries a gift inside it. By choosing to _make use of_ seemingly bad events, you can access that gift much sooner. By asking yourself _How can I use this?_ or _What might be good about this?_ you can turn your life around on a dime.\n\n## 56. Storm your own brain\n\nThe term \"brainstorming\" is now very well-known in American business life. I first learned it many years ago when I worked as a copywriter in an ad agency. Whenever we would get a new account, our agency's president would get us all together to brainstorm for creative ideas for the client.\n\nThe main rules of a brainstorming session are: 1) there are no stupid ideas\u2014the more unreasonable the better; and 2) everyone must play. I have facilitated brainstorming sessions with business managers. We go around the table and each person puts out an idea and the facilitator writes it on the flip pad. We go around and around until all the reasonable ideas are exhausted and the unreasonable ideas start to flow. It is usually among the unreasonable ideas that something great is discovered. Brainstorming works so well because the usual restraints against stupidity are lifted. It's okay to be unreasonable and far out.\n\nWhat most people in business don't realize is that this powerful technique can also be used by an individual. I first discovered this while driving in my car a number of years ago listening to a motivational tape by Earl Nightingale. He talked about a system he had learned that worked wonders.\n\nOn the top of a piece of paper or blank document, you put a problem you want solved or a goal you want reached. You then put numbers 1 through 20 on it and begin your brainstorming session. The rules are the same as with a group session. You have to list 20 ideas, and they don't have to be well thought out or even reasonable. Give yourself permission to flow. Your only objective is to have 20 ideas scrawled down within a certain short amount of time.\n\nIf you do this for a week, you will end up with 100 ideas! Are all of them usable? Of course not, but who cares? When you began the process you probably didn't have _any_ usable ideas.\n\nI have used this system many times with really great results. It works so well because it relaxes the normal tensions against creative, outrageous thinking. It invites the right side of your brain to play along.\n\nA friend once called for some advice about his career. He was in show business and had developed his act to the point where he was one of the top performers in the nation. His problem was marketing and self-promotion. That part of his career was lagging behind his talent.\n\n\"What if I told you that there is someone who can give you 100 specific marketing ideas tailored to your precise career and audience?\" I asked him. He was very interested.\n\n\"You yourself are that person,\" I said.\n\nI then told him about the list-of-20 self-storming technique I had personally been using for a number of years. He eagerly jotted down the rules of the game and got busy playing. Two weeks later, he called me very excited about the results. \"I've got some really great marketing ideas right now, more than I've ever had in the past,\" he said. \"Thanks.\"\n\nSelf-mentoring is the best mentoring you can get because your mentor knows you so well. And although it's often beneficial to get specific outside personal coaching, the best coaching teaches us to look within.\n\n## 57. Keep changing your voice\n\nThere have been times when I have been told that I am lucky to have a good speaking voice. And some people are impressed that I rarely use a microphone in my seminars, even with hundreds of people in the audience.\n\nPeople will conclude that I have been \"blessed\" with a powerful set of vocal cords. But it is not true. As I related in an earlier chapter, my voice used to be no better than a feeble monotone. That is, until I got motivated to change it. There were two instances that inspired my system for developing my voice. The first was a magazine interview I read many years ago about the actor Richard Burton (who had perhaps the most mesmerizing speaking voice of all time\u2014listen to the Broadway recording of \"Camelot\" and hear him as King Arthur speak and \"sing\" his songs). In the interview, Burton said that his voice was how he made his living, so he made certain that each morning while showering he sang a number of songs to keep his vocal cords strong. Later, on a television talk show, actor Tony Randall told the host how he developed his trademark sing-song acting voice: \"I took up opera,\" he said. \"I found that singing opera did more for my stage voice than anything else I ever tried.\"\n\nThose two interviews have stayed in my mind ever since, and I always have music in my car to sing along with. I crank it up good and loud (this is best done while driving alone) and sing at the top of my lungs. I make certain that I do this every day, even when I don't feel like singing. In the words of William James, there's another benefit: \"We don't sing because we're happy, we're happy because we sing.\"\n\nPrior to a major public speech, I'll often get to my location more than an hour ahead of time and then just drive around the neighborhood singing like a madman. (Sometimes I worry that my host client might drive by and spot me in my car singing along with Elvis. But the benefits are worth that risk.) I find that when I drive and sing like that, my breathing is better, my timing is better, and when I speak, my voice effortlessly fills the hall.\n\nYou might think, _I don't speak for a living_ , so such a weird practice might not be necessary for you. But we all speak. A pleasant, relaxed, and strong speaking voice is a priceless asset to anyone whose job involves communicating with other people.\n\nWhen referring to people whose speaking voices are pleasing to listen to, many people use words such as \"melodious\" and \"well-modulated.\" These are good hints to tell if someone is complimenting a great speaking voice.\n\nYou are not stuck with the voice you have now. Start singing, and soon you'll be creating the voice you'd like to have. The stronger your voice, the stronger your confidence. The stronger your confidence, the easier it is to motivate yourself.\n\n## 58. Embrace the new frontier\n\nFortunately, for all of us, a new frontier is upon us. Because our nation, and world, has entered the Information Age, the old patterns for living are gone. An article by business writer John Huey appeared in the June 27, 1994 edition of _Fortune_. In it, Huey observed, \"Let's say you're going to a party, so you pull out some pocket change and buy a little greeting card that plays 'Happy Birthday' when it's opened. After the party, someone casually tosses the card into the trash, throwing away more computer power than existed in the entire world before 1950.\"\n\nIn the old paradigm, forged in the Industrial Age, human beings became less and less useful and adventurous. We found lifelong employment in guaranteed jobs and did our jobs the same way until retirement. Then, once we reached retirement age, we became thoroughly useless to society and lived lives dependent on the government, our relatives, or our own savings that we accumulated in our \"useful\" years. Now, with the technological explosion and entry into the Information Age, employers are no longer as interested in our job histories as they used to be. They are now more interested in our current capabilities.\n\nOne of the romantic appeals of the early Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett frontier days of our nation was the usefulness of individuals. If you were living out on the frontier, farming, cooking, and hunting, and you turned 65, it would never occur to anyone to ask you to \"retire.\"\n\nWe have finally come back to those days of honoring usefulness over age and status. For example, if my company is trying to enter the Chinese market to sell its software and you, at age 70, can speak fluent Chinese, know all about software, and have energy and a zest for success, how can I afford to ignore you?\n\nBill Gates of Microsoft has said, \"Our company has only one asset\u2014human imagination.\" If you took all of Microsoft's buildings, real estate, office hardware, physical assets\u2014anything you could _touch_ \u2014away from the company, where would it be? Almost exactly where it is now. Because in today's world, a company's value is in its thinking, not in its possessions.\n\nThis is great news for the individual\u2014because usefulness is back in style. If you can cultivate your skills, keep learning new things, study computers, learn a foreign language, or become an expert in a foreign culture and market\u2014 _you can make yourself useful_.\n\nThe great basketball coach John Wooden recommended that we live by this credo\u2014especially apt for the new technological frontier: \"Learn as if you were to live forever. Live as if you were to die tomorrow.\"\n\nGone are the days when your employability depended primarily on your job history, your school ties, your connections, your family, or your seniority. Today your employability depends on one thing\u2014your current skills. And those skills are completely under your control. This is the new frontier. And where we once entered retirement age nervous about the \"wolves at our door,\" today, with a commitment to lifelong growth through learning, we can be as useful to the world community as we are motivated to be. The more we learn about the future, the more motivated we become to be a valuable part of it.\n\n## 59. Upgrade your old habits\n\nBad habits simply cannot be broken. Nor can they be gotten rid of. Ask the millions who continue to try. They always end up, in the words of author Richard Brautigan, \"trying to shovel mercury with a pitchfork,\" because our bad habits exist for good reasons. They're there to do something for us, even if that something ends up being self-destructive. Down deep, even a bad habit is trying to make us operate better.\n\nPeople who smoke are trying, even through their addiction, to do something beneficial\u2014perhaps to breathe deeply and relax. Such breathing is needed to balance stress, so their smoking is a way in which they are trying to make themselves better. Bad habits are like that\u2014they are based on a perceived benefit. That's why they're impossible to just \"get rid of.\"\n\nThat's why habits must be respected and understood before they can be transformed. What created the habit must be built upon, not killed. We must go to the beneficial impulse that drives the habit, and then expand on that to make the habit grow from something bad into something good.\n\nLet's take drinking as an example. I've known people who used to be drunk all the time who are now sober all the time. How did they do it? Couldn't we just say that they just got rid of their drinking habit? Not really. Because, without exception, the recovered people I know _replaced_ their drinking with something else.\n\nTaking all of one's courage, relaxation, and spirituality from a bottle of alcohol is a very damaging habit. But to simply eliminate it leads to even worse problems: detoxing, fear, dread, paranoia. A total void.\n\nPeople who join Alcoholics Anonymous, however, replace their \"false courage\"\u2014once found in a bottle of alcohol\u2014with _real_ courage found in the meeting rooms of AA. The completely artificial sense of spirituality formerly found in a tumbler of spirits is replaced by the true and deeply personal spirituality found in working the 12-step program of enlightenment. The superficial but highly emotional relationships the alcoholic makes in his favorite bars are replaced by real friendships.\n\nReplacement is powerful because it works, and where bad habits are concerned it's the _only_ thing that works. I've known people who quit smoking without intending to. They took up running, or some form of regular aerobic exercise, and soon the breathing and relaxation they were getting from the exercise made the smoking feel bad to their bodies. They quit smoking because they had introduced a replacement. People who diet have the same experience. It isn't staying away from fattening food that works\u2014it's introducing a regular diet of delicious, healthy food that works. It's replacement.\n\nSubconsciously you don't think your bad habits are bad! And that's because they're filling a perceived need. So the way to strengthen yourself is to identify the need and honor it. Honor the need by _replacing_ the current habit with one that is healthier and more effective. Replace one habit, and soon you'll be motivated to replace another.\n\n## 60. Paint your masterpiece today\n\nThink of your day as a blank artist's canvas. If you go through your day passively accepting whatever other people and circumstances splatter on your canvas, you will more than likely see a mess where art could be. If the mess troubles your sleep, your next new day will begin in a state of fatigue and mild confusion. From such a state, your canvas will be splattered all the more with shapes you don't like and colors you never chose.\n\nThinking of your day as a painter's canvas will allow you to be more conscious of what is happening to you when you flood your mind with nothing but Internet gossip, commercials on the radio, the latest murder trial, your spouse's criticisms, office politics, and pessimistic musical lyrics. If you'll allow yourself to step back far enough to realize and truly see that your daily canvas is filling up with all these negative things, a certain freedom occurs. It's the freedom to choose something better.\n\nThe more _conscious_ we are of our freedom to paint whatever we want on our canvas, the less we go through life as a victim of circumstances. Many of us aren't even aware of our own victim status. We read whatever's on the coffee table, listen to whatever's on the car radio, eat whatever's handy, scan whatever's on the Internet, talk to whomever calls us on the phone, and watch whatever's on the television\u2014often too passive to even click the remote control.\n\nWe must be aware that we have it in us to change all that. We can paint our day our way. The best time management\u2014or \"day-painting\"\u2014course I ever took was taught by Dennis Deaton. His seminar's main point is that we can't manage time\u2014we can only manage ourselves.\n\n\"Clear the clutter from your mind,\" Deaton says, \"and remove the obstacles to greater success.\"\n\nWhereas most time management courses feel like courses in engineering, Deaton has captured the spirit of the artist in his teaching. His prescriptions for managing your day all stem from goal-creation and living the visions you create. Wake up and visualize your day as a blank canvas. Ask yourself, _Who's the artist today? Blind circumstance, or me? If I choose to be the artist, how do I want to paint my day?_\n\n## 61. Swim laps underwater\n\nWhen Bobby Fisher prepared for his world championship chess match with Boris Spassky, he prepared by swimming laps underwater every day. He knew that as the chess matches wore on into the late hours, the player with the most oxygen going to his brain would have the mental advantage. So he built his chess game by building his lungs. When he defeated Spassky, many were surprised by his astonishing wit and mental staying power, especially late in the matches when both players should've been weary and burned out. What kept Bobby Fisher alert wasn't caffeine or amphetamines\u2014it was his breathing.\n\nGeneral George Patton once gave a lecture to his troops on brainpower. He, too, knew the connection between breathing and thinking. \"In war, as in peace, a man needs all the brains he can get,\" said Patton. \"Nobody ever had too many brains. Brains come from oxygen. Oxygen comes from the lungs where the air goes when we breathe. The oxygen in the air gets into the blood and travels to the brain. Any fool can double the size of his lungs.\"\n\nI learned about Patton's passion for teaching his troops deep breathing from Porter Williamson. I had once written a few political radio and television commercials that caught Mr. Williamson's attention, so he called me and asked me to lunch one day. He had identified himself as the author of _Patton's Principles_ , so I eagerly accepted his invitation, having coincidentally read the marvelous book a few weeks earlier. Williamson had served in the army for many years as Patton's most trusted legal adviser.\n\nWilliamson told me many stories about serving with Patton, and how truly extraordinary a motivator the general was. Most of the Patton quotes in this book come from Williamson's own memories of his service with the great general. Williamson told me about how he himself had lost his leg to bone cancer, and how the doctors had erroneously forecasted his death twice. His inner strength, he said, often came from the inspiration he received in his days of serving with Patton.\n\n\"Frequently, General Patton would stop at my desk,\" recalled Williamson, \"and ask, 'How long you been sitting at that desk? Get up and get out of here! Your brain stops working after you sit in a swivel chair for 20 minutes. Keep the body moving around so the juices will run to the right places. It'll be good for the brain! If you sit in that chair too long, all of your brainpower will be in your shoes. You cannot keep your mind active when your body is inactive.'\"\n\nThat one principle\u2014an active mind cannot exist in an inactive body\u2014became Bobby Fisher's secret weapon in winning the world championship of chess. Who would have guessed that swimming underwater would make you a better chess player? Certainly not the overweight, worn-out chess \"genius\" Boris Spassky.\n\nSometimes, all you need is the air that you breathe to motivate yourself. Going for a run or a walk or simply deep breathing gives the brain the fuel it feeds on to be newly refreshed and creative.\n\n## 62. Bring on a good coach\n\nAfter a disappointing round on the golf course, Tiger Woods will often take a golf lesson. When I first heard about this, I asked myself, _Who could give Tiger Woods a lesson in golf?_\n\nBut that was before I ever really understood the value of coaching. The person who taught me that value was a young business consultant named Steve Hardison. Hardison taught me this: Tiger takes a lesson not because his coach is a better player who can give advice and tips, but because his coach _can stand back from Tiger Woods and see him objectively_.\n\nSteve Hardison had created an art form of coming into corporations and seeing things objectively. In fact, his perception ran deeper than that. He had near-psychic power to see what was missing. It was a gift he could also apply to individuals, but only if they were ready for the rigors of his coaching.\n\nI used to teasingly call one of his illustrative personal stories \"The Parable of the Mission.\" As a young missionary for his church in England, Hardison broke all records for enrolling congregants. He contrasted his own method with that of the other missionaries.\n\nWhile the others would rush out and knock on doors all day, Hardison would spend the first part of each day planning and plotting his activities. By _creating_ his day before it happened, he was able to combine visits, economize on travel time, and increase the number of enrollment conversations in a given day. He also used his creative planning time to set up intraneighborhood referrals so that many of his visits came with a reference.\n\nThe other missionaries were very active, but they were focused on the activity, not the result. They were in the business of knocking on doors and scurrying about\u2014Steve was in the business of enrolling people into the church. The records he set for enrollment were no accident. He planned things that way.\n\nSteve helped me understand something that lives inside of all of us, something he called \"the voice.\" When you wake up in the morning, the voice is there right away, telling you that you are too tired to get up or too sick to go to work. During a sales meeting when you are just about to say something bold to a client, the voice might tell you to cool it. \"Hold back.\" \"Be careful.\"\n\n\"The trick is,\" said Steve, \"to not ignore or deny the existence of the voice. Because it's there, in all of us. No one is free of the voice. However, you don't have to obey the voice. You can talk back to the voice. And when you really get good, you can even talk trash to the voice. Make fun of it. Ridicule it. Point out how stupid it is. And once you get into that way of debating your own doubts, you start to take back control of your life.\"\n\nMany times I'd be in the middle of a large business project and ask to meet with Steve for an hour. After he listened for a few minutes, he would almost invariably see right away what was missing in my behavior. He would say, \"Are you willing to accept some coaching on this?\" And I would eagerly say yes. Then he would tell me truthfully, sometimes ruthlessly, what he saw. I didn't always like what he saw, but I always grew stronger from talking about it.\n\nHardison's coaching was so jolting that sometimes it reminded me of an incident that happened to me when I was a boy playing Little League baseball. I had injured my knee in a play at third base, and when the game was over, the knee was swollen and my entire leg was stiff. As I sat on the bench with my leg straight out in front of me, a doctor whose son was on our team was kneeling down by my leg as my father looked on.\n\n\"I'd like you to bend your leg now,\" he said to me as his hands gently held my swollen knee.\n\n\"I can't,\" I told him.\n\n\"You can't?\" he asked, looking up at me. \"Why can't you?\"\n\n\"Because I tried, and it really hurts.\"\n\nThe doctor looked at me for a second, and then said simply but gently, \"Then hurt yourself.\"\n\nI was startled by his request. Hurt myself? On purpose? But then, without saying anything, I slowly bent my leg. Yes, there was tremendous pain, but that didn't matter. I was still mesmerized by his request. The doctor massaged my knee with his fingers and nodded to my father that everything would be okay. I'd have to have x-rays and the usual precautionary exam, but he saw nothing seriously wrong for now.\n\nBut I was still aware that something very big had just happened to me. After a boyhood that was characterized by avoiding pain and discomfort of any kind, all of a sudden I saw that I could hurt myself if I needed to, and that I could do it calmly without batting an eye. Perhaps I wasn't the coward I'd always thought I was. Perhaps there was as much courage in me as in anyone else, and it was all a matter of being willing to call on it. It was a defining incident in my life, and it was not dissimilar to the way Steve Hardison, as a coach, has required that I call on things inside me that I didn't know I had.\n\nHardison is a gifted and courageous public speaker, a resourceful and relentless salesperson, a talented athlete, and a committed family man and church member. I could write an entire book about Steve Hardison's remarkable work in coaching and consulting, and someday I just might. Examples of ways that he coached me to higher levels of performance are plentiful. But I think the greatest thing he has taught me is the value of coaching itself.\n\nOnce you open yourself up to being coached, you begin to receive the same advantages enjoyed by great actors and athletes everywhere. When you open yourself up to coaching, you don't become weaker\u2014you grow stronger. You become more responsible for changing yourself. In _The Road Less Traveled_ , M. Scott Peck writes, \"The problem of distinguishing what we are and what we are not responsible for in this life is one of the greatest problems of human existence...we must possess the willingness and the capacity to suffer continual self-examination.\"\n\nThe best coaches show us how to examine ourselves. It takes courage to ask for coaching, but the rewards can be great. The best moments come when your coach helps you do something you have previously been afraid to do. When Hardison would recommend that I do something I was afraid to do, I'd say, \"I don't know if I could do that.\"\n\nYou can get coaching anytime. If coaching is appropriate for your golf or tennis game, it is even more appropriate for the game of life. Ask someone to be honest with you and coach you for a while. Let him check your \"swing.\" Let him tell you what he sees. It's a courageous thing to do, and it will always lead to more self-motivation and growth.\n\n## 63. Try to sell your home\n\nOnce when Steve Hardison and I were discussing a few of my old habits that were holding me back from realizing my business goals, I blurted out to him, \"But why do I _do_ those things? If I know they hold me back, why do I continue to do them?\"\n\n\"Because they are _home_ to you,\" he said. \"They feel like home. When you do those things, you do them because that's what you're comfortable doing, and so you make yourself right at home doing them. And as they say, there's no place like home.\"\n\n\"Home\" can be an ugly place if it's not kept up and consciously made beautiful. \"Home\" can be a dark, damp prison, smelling of bad habits and laziness. But we _still_ don't want to leave it, no matter how bad it gets, because we think we are safe there. However, when we inspect the worn-out house more closely, we can see that the safety we think we're experiencing is pure self-limitation.\n\nAfter grasping Hardison's metaphor of home, I immediately saw that I needed to move out of _my_ house. I needed to move up in the neighborhood. I needed a better home one that contained habits that would keep me focused on goal-oriented activity. Hardison helped coach me in that direction until the new activities began to feel like where I should have been living all along.\n\nHardison's metaphor of \"home\" as the equivalent of old disempowering habits has stayed with me for a long time. Recently while I was putting together a tape of motivational music to play in my car, I included the energetic \"I'm Going Home\" by Alvin Lee and Ten Years After. As I drove around listening to it turned up all the way, I thought about what Hardison taught. I let the song be about the new home I would always be in the process of moving to. Don't be afraid to leave the psychic home you're in. Get excited about building a larger, newer, happier home in your mind, and then go live there.\n\nIn Colin Wilson's brilliant but little-known, out-of-print novel _Necessary Doubt,_ he created Gustav Neumann, a fascinating character who made many discoveries about human beings. At one point Neumann says, \"I came to realize that people build themselves personalities as they build houses\u2014to protect themselves from the world. They become its prisoners. And most people are in such a hurry to hide inside their four walls that they build the house too quickly.\"\n\nIdentify the habits that keep you trapped. Identify what you have decided is your final personality and accept that it might be a hasty construction built only to keep you safe from risk and growth. Once you've done that, you can leave. You can get the blueprints out and create the home you really want.\n\n## 64. Get your soul to talk\n\nWe've always been a little nervous, culturally, about talking to ourselves. We usually associate it with insanity. But it was Plato who said that his definition of _thinking_ was \"the soul talking to itself.\" If you really want to get your life worked out, there is no one better to talk to than yourself. No other person has as much information about your problems and no other person knows your skills and capabilities better. And there's no one else who can _do_ more for you than yourself.\n\nA lot of people in the motivational and psychological professions recommend affirmations. You choose a sentence to say, such as, \"Every day in every way I'm getting better and better,\" and repeat it whether or not you think it's true. While affirmations are a good first step to reprogramming, I prefer conversations. Conversations work faster.\n\nThe two most inspirational guidelines to productive self-conversational exercises are in Martin Seligman's _Learned Optimism_ and Nathaniel Branden's _The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem_. Seligman offers ways to dispute your own pessimism and create the habit of optimistic thinking. Branden offers provocative sentence stems for you to complete.\n\nRather than brainlessly parroting \"I'm getting better and better\" to myself, it makes a longer-lasting impression when I logically argue the case and win. With enough back-and-forth conversation, I can _prove_ to myself that I am getting better. Proof beats the parrot every time. It's one thing to try to hypnotize myself through repetition of words to accept something as true, and it's quite another to _convince_ myself that it is true.\n\nBranden suggests that we get our creative thinking going each morning by asking ourselves two questions: 1) What's good in my life? and 2) What is there still to be done? Most people don't talk to themselves at all. They listen to the radio, watch TV, gossip, and fill up on the words and thoughts of _other people_ all day long. But it's impossible to indulge in that kind of activity and also get motivated. Motivation is something you talk yourself into.\n\n## 65. Promise the moon\n\nOne frightening and effective way to motivate yourself is to make an unreasonable promise\u2014to go to someone you care about, either personally or professionally, and promise that person something really big, something that will take all the effort and creativity you've got to make happen.\n\nWhen President John Kennedy promised that America would put a man on the moon, the power of that thrilling promise alone energized all of NASA for the entire time it took to accomplish the amazing feat. In his book about the Apollo 13 mission, _Lost Moon_ , astronaut Jim Lovell called Kennedy's original promise \"outrageous.\" But it showed how effective being outrageous could be.\n\nIn his book _Passion, Profit, and Power,_ Marshall Sylver recalls seeing a billboard in Las Vegas put up by one of the casino owners who wanted to become a nonsmoker. The billboard read: \"If You See Me Smoking in the Next 90 Days, I'll Pay You $100,000!\" Can you see the power in that promise?\n\nI once promised my children that I would send them to camp in Michigan. They had been to the camp near Traverse City before, and loved it. When you live year-round in Arizona, there's something magical about the water and emerald forests of northern Michigan. It was an expensive camp, but when I made the promise, I was doing well financially, and I was confident that they could all go.\n\nThen as the summer neared, I'd run short of money and had to rearrange my priorities. My speaking schedule had replaced much of the commissioned selling I was doing and it looked like camp might not be in the picture.\n\nI remember specifically talking to my son Bobby, who was 8 years old at the time, about how times were temporarily hard and how camp didn't look like a good possibility any more this year. He was in the front seat of the car and I'll never forget for as long as I live the look on his face. He said very softly, so softly that I could barely hear him, \"But you promised.\"\n\nHe was right. I didn't say I'd try, I didn't say it was a goal\u2014I promised. And the feelings I had at that moment were so overwhelming that I finally said to him, \"Yes, I did promise. And because you reminded me that it was a promise, I will say to you right now that you're going to camp. I'll do what it takes. I'm sorry that I forgot it was a promise.\"\n\nThe first thing I did was change jobs, and my first condition on accepting my new job was that my bonus for signing was the exact amount of money it took to send my children to camp. It was done.\n\n## 66. Make somebody's day\n\nTo basketball coach John Wooden, making each day your masterpiece was not just about selfish personal achievement. In his autobiography, _They Call Me Coach_ , he mentions an element vital to creating each day.\n\n\"You cannot live a perfect day,\" he said, \"without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.\"\n\nI agree with that. But there's a way to _make sure_ you can't be repaid\u2014and that's doing something for someone who won't even know who did it. This gets into a theory I've had all my life, that you can create luck in your life. Not from the idea that luck is needed for success, because it isn't. But from the idea that luck can be a welcome addition to your life. You can create luck for yourself by creating it for someone else. If you know about someone who is hurting financially, and you arrange for a few hundred dollars to arrive at their home, and they don't even know who you are, then you've made them lucky. By making someone lucky, something will then happen in your own life that also feels like pure luck. (I can't explain why this happens, and I have no scientific basis for it, so all I can say is try it a few times and see if you aren't as startled as I have been at the results...it doesn't have to be money, either. We have a lot of other things to give, always.)\n\nWhen _you_ get lucky, you'll get more motivated, because you feel like the universe is more on your side. Experiment with this a little. Don't be imprisoned by cynicism posing as rationality on this subject. See what happens to you when you make other people get lucky.\n\n## 67. Play the circle game\n\nIf you use my four-minute, four-circle, goal-setting system described earlier, you can be the creator of your universe.\n\n\"You know, that's blasphemous,\" a seminar student once told me during a break. \"Only God can create the universe.\"\n\n\"But if you believe that,\" I said, \"you must also believe as it is written, that we were all created in God's image. And if you believe in God as the Creator, and that He created us in His image, then what are we doing when we don't create? Whose image are we living in when we deliberately do not create?\"\n\nTry this: After you wake up in the morning, wipe the sleep from your eyes, sit down with a pad of paper, and draw four circles. These are your own \"planets.\" Label the first circle, \"Lifelong Dream.\" (And in order to keep this example simple, I'll make it strictly financial, although you can do it with any kind of goal you want.) Your lifelong dream might be to save a half a million dollars for your retirement years. So, put that number in your \"Life\" circle. Then look at circle two, the next planet in your solar system. That circle you will label, \"My Year.\" What do you need to save in the next year in order to be on course to hit your life savings goal? (When you factor in the interest, it's less than you think.) And when you arrive at the figure, make certain that it matches up mathematically with your first circle. In other words, if you save this amount, and save, say 10 percent more each year that follows, will you achieve your \"Life\" number? If not, do some more math until you get a direct connection between your yearly savings projection and your lifelong goal.\n\nNow that you've got your first two circles filled with a number, move to the third circle, \"My Month.\" What would you have to save each month to hit your year's goal? Then put that number down. Three circles are now filled.\n\nNow go to the final circle, \"My Day.\" What do you need to do today that, if you repeated it every day, would ensure a successful month?\n\n(By the way, as I said, this doesn't have to just be about money, it can be about physical fitness, learning a language, relationship networking, spirituality, nutrition, or anything important to you.)\n\nThe power of this system lies in thinking of it as a universe. When you work the math, you cannot help but see that each circle, if done successfully, _guarantees_ the success of the next circle. If you hit your daily goal every day, your monthly goal is automatically hit. In fact, you don't even have to worry about it. And if your monthly goal is reached, the yearly goal has to happen. And if your yearly goals are hit, the lifelong goal _will_ be reached.\n\nWhen you study the irrefutable mathematical truth contained in this system, a strange feeling comes over you. You realize that all four circles are ultimately dependent on the success of just one circle: the circle labeled, \"My Day.\"\n\nThen you get the strangely empowering sensation that you have just proved on paper that your day and your life are the same thing. There is no future other than the future you are working on today. Your future is not stranded out there somewhere in space.\n\nThis is what the great poet Rainer Maria Rilke meant when he said, \"The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens.\"\n\nRemember that once you have worked out the math for this, the circle game is only a four-minute daily exercise. Many times in seminars I give, participants will say that they are too busy for all this goal-setting activity. They have lives to live! But I like to remind them of the words of Henry Ford, who said, \"If you do not think about the future, you won't have one.\" And I also like to stress that I am only talking about four minutes a day.\n\nThe purpose of making the circles mathematically sound is that you can remove the elements of faith and hoping from your action plan. You _know_ your goals will be hit. Who would you want to bet on, the tennis player who has faith that she's going to win or the one who _knows_ she's going to win?\n\nBy drawing these simple four circles you can create your universe anywhere, anytime. Waiting in line at the bank, sitting in the doctor's office, waiting for a meeting to begin, or just doodling. Each time you do it, your universe gets closer to you. Each time you draw the circles, you are hit with this revelation: There is absolutely no difference between succeeding today and having a successful life.\n\nIn _The Magic of Believing,_ Claude Bristol recounts a particularly absent-minded habit of his that, looking back, may have had a bigger impact on shaping his universe than he ever realized. He said that whether he was on the phone, or just sitting in moments of abstraction, he would always have a pen or pencil out, doodling.\n\n\"My doodling was in the form of dollar signs like these\u2014$$$$$\u2014on every paper that came across my desk. The cardboard covers of all the files that were placed before me daily were covered with these markings; so were the covers of telephone directories, scratch pads, and even the face of important correspondence.\"\n\nBristol's later studies on mind stuff experiments, the power of suggestion, and the art of mental pictures caused him to conclude that his lifelong habit of doodling dollar signs had had an enormous impact on programming his mind to always be opportunistic and enterprising when it came to money. The fortune he acquired demands that we take his observations seriously.\n\n## 68. Get up a game\n\nIt is said that John F. Kennedy's father's credo was, \"Don't get mad, get even.\" That credo has a certain vengeful, clever wisdom in it as far as it goes, but you might go even further with this credo: \"Don't just get even\u2014get better.\"\n\nWhen Michael Jordan was a sophomore in high school, he was _cut_ from his high school basketball team. Michael Jordan was told by his coach that he wasn't good enough to play high school basketball. It was a crushing disappointment for a young boy whose heart was set on making the team, but he used the incident\u2014not to get mad, not to get even, but to get better.\n\nWe all have those moments when people tell us, or insinuate to us, that they don't think we measure up\u2014that they don't believe in us. Some of us have entire childhoods filled with that experience. The most common reaction is anger and resentment. Sometimes it motivates us to \"get even\" or to prove somebody wrong. But there's a better way to respond, a way that is creative rather than reactive.\n\n\"How can I use this?\" is the question that puts us on the road to creativity. It transforms the anger into optimistic energy, so we can grow beyond someone else's negative expectations.\n\nJohnny Bench, a Hall of Fame baseball player, knew what it was like to not be believed in.\n\n\"In the second grade,\" he said, \"they asked us what we wanted to be. I said I wanted to be a ballplayer and they laughed. In the eighth grade they asked the same question, and I said a ballplayer, and they laughed a little more. By the 11th grade, no one was laughing.\"\n\nOur country has gone through a difficult period of time since World War II. We no longer value heroes and individual achievement as we once did. \"Competition\" has become a bad word. But competition, if confronted enthusiastically, can be the greatest self-motivating experience in the world. What some people fear in the idea of competition, I suppose, is that we will become obsessed with succeeding at somebody else's expense. That we'll take too much pleasure in defeating and therefore \"being better\" than somebody else. Many times during conversations with my children's teachers, I was told how the school had progressively removed grades and awards from some activities \"so that the kids don't feel they have to compare themselves to each other.\" They were proud of how they'd softened their educational programs so that there was less stress and competition. But they were not softening the program\u2014they were softening the children.\n\nIf you are interested in self-motivation, self-creation, and being the best you can be, there is nothing _better_ than competition. It teaches you the valuable lesson that no matter how good you are, there is always somebody better than you are. That's the lesson in humility you need, the lesson those teachers are misguidedly trying to teach by eliminating grades. It teaches you that by trying to beat somebody else, you reach for more inside of yourself. Trying to beat somebody else simply puts the \"game\" back into life. If it's done optimistically, it gives energy to both competitors. It teaches sportsmanship. And it gives you a benchmark for measuring your own growth.\n\nThe poet William Butler Yeats used to be amused at how many definitions people came up with for happiness. But happiness wasn't any of the things people said it was, insisted Yeats.\n\n\"Happiness is just one thing,\" he said. \"Growth. We are happy when we are growing.\"\n\nA good competitor will cause you to grow. He or she will stretch you beyond your former skill level. If you want to get good at chess, play against somebody better at chess than you are. In the movie _Searching for Bobby Fisher,_ we see the negative effects of resisting competition on a young chess genius until he starts to _use_ the competition to grow. Once he stops taking it personally and seriously, the game itself becomes energizing. Once he embraces the intriguing fun of competition, he gets better and better as a player, and grows as a person.\n\nI mentioned earlier that I'd heard a report on the radio that there was a Little League organization somewhere in Pennsylvania that had decided not to keep score in its games anymore because losing might damage the players' self-esteem. They had it all wrong: Losing teaches kids to _grow_ in the face of defeat. It also teaches them that losing isn't the same as dying, or being worthless. It's just the other side of winning. If we teach children to fear competition because of the possibility of losing, then we actually _lower_ their self-esteem.\n\nCompete wherever you can. But always compete in the spirit of fun, knowing that finally surpassing someone else is far less important than surpassing yourself.\n\n## 69. Turn your mother down\n\nPsychologist and author M. Scott Peck observes, \"To a child, his or her parents represent the world. He assumes that the way his parents do things is the way things are done.\" In Dr. Martin Seligman's studies of optimism and pessimism, he found out the same thing: We learn how to explain the world to ourselves from our parents\u2014and more specifically, our mothers.\n\n\"This tells us that young children listen to what their primary caretaker (usually the mother) says about causes,\" writes Seligman, \"and they tend to make this style their own. If the child has an optimistic mother, this is great, but it can be a disaster for the child if the child has a pessimistic mother.\" Fortunately, Seligman's studies show that the disaster need only be temporary\u2014that optimism can be learned...at any age.\n\nBut it is not self-motivating to blame Mom if you find yourself to be a pessimist. What works better is self-creation: to produce a voice in your head that's so confident and strong that your mother's voice gets edited out, and your own voice becomes the only one you hear.\n\nAnd as much as you want to eliminate the continuing influence of a pessimistic adult from your childhood, remember that blaming someone else never motivates you because it strengthens the belief that your life is being shaped by people outside yourself. Love your mom (she learned her pessimism from _her_ mother)\u2014and change yourself.\n\n## 70. Face the sun\n\n\"When you face the sun,\" wrote Helen Keller, \"the shadows always fall behind you.\" This was Helen Keller's poetic way of recommending optimistic thinking. What you look at and what you face grows in your life. What you ignore falls behind you. But if you turn and look only at the shadows, they _become_ your life. When I was younger I remember hearing other kids tell a joke about Helen Keller. \"Have you heard about the Helen Keller doll?\" they would ask. \"You wind it up and it bumps into things.\" I've often thought about that joke, and why such a joke about someone who was deaf and blind was funny. I think the answer lies in our nervousness about other people overcoming huge misfortunes. (Perhaps we laugh nervously because we haven't overcome our own small ones.)\n\nIn our own day and age, we are quick to consider ourselves victims. We are all victims of some sort of emotional, social, gender, or racial abuse. We enjoy taking what difficulties we have had in life and blowing them up into huge injustices. Helen Keller didn't complain about being from a dysfunctional family, or being a woman, or not being given enough money from the government to compensate for her handicaps. She had challenges most of us can't even imagine, but she refused to become fascinated by them and make her handicaps her life. She didn't want to focus on the shadows when there was so much sun.\n\nBritish author G.K. Chesterton used to say that pessimists don't stay anti-life very long when you put a revolver to their head. All of a sudden, they can think of a million reasons to live. Those million reasons are always there, down inside of us, waiting to be called up. Our pessimism is usually a false front put on to get sympathy.\n\nIn his stirring book _Son Rise_ , Barry Neil Kaufman tells an astonishing true story of how he and his wife nurtured their autistic son to a happy, extroverted life. Kaufman and his wife made a conscious choice to see their son's disability as a great blessing to them. It was just a choice, like choosing to face the sun instead of facing your shadows. But as Kaufman says, \"The way we choose to see the world creates the world we see.\"\n\n## 71. Travel deep inside\n\nMost of us wait to find out who we are from impressions and opinions we get from other people. We base our own so-called self-image on other people's views of us. \"Oh, do you really think I'm good at that?\" we ask, when someone compliments us. If we're persuaded that they are being honest and have made a good case, we might try to alter our self-image upward.\n\nIt's great getting feedback from others, especially positive feedback. We all need it to live and feel good. But when it's all we've got, we're in danger of being far less than we could be, because our _self_ -image always depends on _others_. And all they see is what we're risking right now. What they never see is what's inside of us, waiting to emerge. Because they can't see that, they will always underrate us.\n\nYour journey can be internal. You can travel deeper and deeper inside to find out your own potential. Your potential is your true identity\u2014it only waits for self-motivation to come alive. \"For this is the journey that men and women make,\" said James A. Michener, \"to find themselves. If they fail in this, it doesn't matter much else what they find.\"\n\nLet positive reinforcement and compliments be a mere seasoning to your life. But prepare your life's meal yourself. Don't look outside yourself to _find out_ who you are, look inside and _create_ who you are.\n\n## 72. Go to war\n\nAnthony Burgess was 40 when he learned that he had a brain tumor that would kill him within a year. He knew he had a battle on his hands. He was completely broke at the time, and he didn't have anything to leave behind for his wife, Lynne, soon to be a widow. Burgess had never been a professional novelist in the past, but he always knew the potential was inside him to be a writer. So, for the sole purpose of leaving royalties behind for his wife, he put a piece of paper into a typewriter and began writing. He had no certainty that he would even be published, but he couldn't think of anything else to do.\n\n\"It was January of 1960,\" he said, \"and according to the prognosis, I had a winter and spring and summer to live through, and would die with the fall of the leaf.\" In that time Burgess wrote energetically, finishing five and a half novels before the year was through (very nearly the entire lifetime output of E.M. Forster, and almost twice that of J.D. Salinger).\n\nBut Burgess did not die. His cancer had gone into remission and then disappeared altogether. In his long and full life as a novelist (he is best known for _A Clockwork Orange_ ), he wrote more than 70 books, but without the death sentence from cancer, he may not have written at all.\n\nMany of us are like Anthony Burgess, hiding greatness inside, waiting for some external emergency to bring it out. I believe that's why my father and many people of his generation speak so fondly about World War II. During the war, they lived in a state of emergency that brought out the best in them.\n\nIf we don't pay attention to this phenomenon\u2014how crisis inspires our best efforts\u2014we tend to brainlessly create a life based on comfort. We try to design easier and easier ways to live, so that we won't be surprised or challenged by anything. People who get the knack of self-motivation can reverse this process and get that wonderful World War II sense of vitality into their lives. Athletes do it constantly.\n\n\"How do you feel about tonight's game with the Trail Blazers?\" a reporter once asked basketball star Kobe Bryant. \"It'll be a war out there,\" he said with a twinkle in his eye.\n\nWe don't have to wait for something tragic or dangerous to attack us from the outside. We can get the same vitality going by challenging ourselves from within. A useful exercise for self-motivation is to ask yourself what you'd do if you had Anthony Burgess's original predicament. \"If I had just a year to live, how would I live differently? What exactly would I do?\"\n\n## 73. Use the 5 percent solution\n\nMany years ago, when I first began considering the idea of changing my life, I went through some emotional mood swings. I would get very high on an idea of who I could be, and I'd set out to change myself overnight. Then my old habits would pull me back to who I used to be, and I would become demoralized and depressed for weeks, thinking I didn't have what it took to change. As the weeks went by, I finally caught on to the idea that great things are often created very slowly, so why couldn't great people be created the same way? I began to see the value in small changes, here and there, that led me in the direction of who I wanted to be.\n\nIf I wanted to be someone who was healthy and had good eating habits, I would introduce a salad here, a piece of fruit there, and take the creative process very slowly. Now I almost never eat red meat, but it didn't happen by simply ruling it out one night. (All the times I tried that, my stomach, which used to far outrank my mind in my internal chain of command, would rule it back in the first time I smelled a barbecue in the neighborhood.)\n\nPyschotherapist Dr. Nathaniel Branden is known for the effectiveness in his therapy of using sentence completion exercises. By asking his clients to write out or speak six to 10 endings, quickly, without thinking, to a \"sentence stem,\" he allows people to explore their own minds for their hidden power and creativity.\n\nA typical sentence he might ask you to complete six to 10 times would be, \"If I bring 5 percent more purposefulness into my life today...\" Then you, the client, give your rapid endings to the sentence. That's how you find out what you think and secretly know about your own power to add purpose to your life. One of the fascinating aspects of Branden's sentences is the \"5 percent\" part. It seems like an awfully small amount of change when you look at it, but think of how it would play out. If you brought 5 percent more purposefulness to your life each day, it would only be 20 days before you had _doubled_ your sense of purpose.\n\nHuge things can be accomplished by focusing on one small action at a time. Novelist Anne Lamott recalls an incident in her childhood, the memory of which always helps her \"get a grip.\" She remembers:\n\nThirty years ago, my older brother, who was 10 years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, \"Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.\"\n\nWhen we stay the same, it's not because we didn't make a big enough change, but rather because we didn't _do_ anything today that sent us moving _toward_ change. If you continue to think of yourself as a great painting you are going to paint, then wanting to instantly change is like wanting to finish your portrait in 10 minutes and then put it up in the art gallery.\n\nIf you see yourself as a masterpiece-in-progress, then you will relish small change. A tiny thing you did differently today will excite you. If you want a stronger body, and you took the stairs instead of the elevator, celebrate. You are moving in the direction of change. If you want to change yourself, try making the changes as small as they can be. If you want to create yourself, like a great painting, don't be afraid to use tiny brush strokes.\n\n## 74. Do something badly\n\nSometimes we don't do things because we're not sure we can do them well. We feel that we're not in the mood or at the right energy level to do the task we have to do, so we put it off, or wait for inspiration to arrive.\n\nThe most commonly known example of this phenomenon is what writers call \"writer's block.\" A mental barrier seems to set in that prevents a writer from writing. Sometimes it gets so severe that writers go to psychotherapists to get help for it. Many writers' means of earning a living depends on its cure. The \"block\" (or lack of self-motivation) occurs not because the writer can't write, but because the writer thinks he can't write _well_. In other words, the writer thinks he doesn't have the proper energy or inspiration to write something, right now, that's good enough to submit. So the pessimistic voice inside the writer says, \"You can't think of anything to write, can you?\" This happens to many of us, even with something as small as a postcard to send, or an overdue e-mail to answer. But the writer doesn't really need psychotherapy for this. All he or she needs is an understanding of how the human mind is working at the moment of the \"block.\" The cure for writer's block\u2014and also the road to self-motivation\u2014is simple. The cure is to go ahead and _write badly_.\n\nNovelist Anne Lamott has a chapter in her marvelous book _Bird by Bird_ called \"Shitty First Drafts.\" The key to writing, she says, is to just start typing anything\u2014it can be the worst thing you've ever written, it doesn't matter. \"Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts,\" says Lamott. \"You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something\u2014anything\u2014down on paper.\" By the mere act of typing you have disempowered the pessimistic voice that tried to convince you not to write. Now you are writing. And once you're in action, it's easy to pick up the energy and pick up the quality.\n\nWe're often afraid to do things until we're sure we'll do them well. Therefore we don't do anything. This tendency led G.K. Chesterton to say, \"If a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing badly.\"\n\nGoing out for a run gives me an example of the same phenomenon. Because I don't feel that I have a good, strong run in me, the voice says \"not today.\" But the cure for that is to decide to do it anyway\u2014even if it will be a bad run. \"I don't feel like running now, so I'm going to go out and run slowly, in such lazy, bad form that it does me no good, but at least I will have run.\" But once I start, something always happens to alter my feelings about the run. By the end of the run, I notice that it had somehow become thoroughly enjoyable.\n\nIn my self-motivation seminars, I often give a homework assignment for people to write down what their main goals are for the next year. I ask them to fill no more than half a page. This is not a difficult assignment for people who are willing to just come off the top of their heads and have fun filling the page. But you would be surprised at how many people absolutely anguish over it, trying to get it \"right,\" as if they were going to be held forever to what they wrote down. Many people simply can't do it. To get them to complete the exercise, I say, \"Put anything down. Make something up. It doesn't even have to be true. They don't even have to be _your_ goals, just do it so you can understand the exercise we're about to do.\" The point is to just do it.\n\nIn many ways we are all novelists like Anne Lamott. Our novels are our lives. And many of us get a tragic form of writer's block that causes us to not write anything at all. It's a tragedy, because deep down we are very creative. We could write a great life. It's just that we're so afraid of writing badly, that we never write. Don't let this happen to you. If you're not motivated to do something you know you need to do, just decide to do it badly. Add a little self-deprecating humor. Be comically bad at what you're doing. And then enjoy what happens to you once you're into the process.\n\n## 75. Learn visioneering\n\nA few years ago I spent some enjoyable time working with motivational speaker Dennis Deaton and teaching his principles of visioneering\u2014which he defines as \"engineering dreams into reality\" by the use of active mental imaging. When I gave my weekly Thursday night public seminars, I'd sometimes teach Deaton's visioneering concepts, and my (then) little daughter Margery would always accompany me. She helped hand out workbooks and pencils and when the seminar got started she would take a seat in the audience, open her own workbook and participate. She was 10 at the time, and I was never certain exactly how much she was absorbing.\n\nThen one weekend afternoon by the pool at our apartment complex, I relaxed in a deck chair while Margie and her girlfriend Michelle played by the pool. There were a lot of people in and around the water that day, but above them all I could hear Margery and Michelle having a heated conversation down by the deep end of the water.\n\n\"I just can't do it!\" said Michelle.\n\n\"Yes, you can,\" said Margie. \"You just have to believe you can.\"\n\n\"I'm _afraid_ to dive,\" said Michelle. \"I've never dived in my life.\"\n\n\"Michelle,\" said Margie, \"listen to me. Will you just try it my way?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" said Michelle. \"Okay, what's your way?\"\n\n\"Just close your eyes,\" said Margie, \"and picture yourself on a diving board. Can you see yourself standing up there?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Michelle.\n\n\"Okay good!\" said Margie. \"Now, I want you to get an even better picture. What kind of bathing suit are you wearing? Can you see it?\"\n\n\"It's red, white, and blue,\" said Michelle, her eyes still closed. \"It's like an American flag.\"\n\n\"Great,\" said Margie. \"Now picture yourself diving off the board in slow motion, just like in a dream. Can you see that?\"\n\n\"Yes I can,\" said Michelle.\n\n\"That's great!\" shouted Margie. \"Now you can do it. Because if you can dream it, you can do it! Let's go over here and do it.\"\n\nMichelle followed her slowly to the end of the pool. I was looking over the top of my book but not letting them know I was listening. I was amazed. I had no idea what would happen next, but I noticed a number of people around the pool area watching and listening with fascination, while pretending not to.\n\nMichelle walked up to the edge of the water and looked very scared. She looked at Margie, and Margie said, \"Michelle, I want you to keep saying, very softly, 'If I can dream it, I can do it' and then I want to see you dive in.\"\n\nMichelle kept repeating \"If I can dream it, I can do it,\" and all of a sudden, surprising even herself, she dove\u2014a near-perfect dive into the deep end with almost no splash!\n\nMargie was jumping up and down and clapping when Michelle came up from the water. \"You did it!\" she shouted, and Michelle was grinning as she climbed up to do it again.\n\n_Could it be,_ I thought to myself, _that this system is this simple?_\n\nThe principle is this: You won't do anything you can't picture yourself doing. Visioneering is just another word for picturing yourself. Once you make the picturing process conscious and deliberate, you begin to create the self you want to be. We dive into the pictures we create.\n\n## 76. Lighten things up\n\nSunlight and laughter. That's what cures most fears and worries. Terrifying problems are better solved in the light than in the dark. And there are many ways to bring them into the light.\n\nPick a frightening problem. Then do the following: talk about it with someone, draw an illustrated map of it on a huge piece of paper, make \"Top 10\" lists about the problem, tell yourself some jokes about the problem, sing about the problem, and, finally, dance a dance that expresses the problem.\n\nIf you do all these things, I promise you that your problem will seem a lot funnier, and less frightening, than it once did. It is impossible to laugh deeply and be frightened at the same time.\n\nHumor is the highest form of creativity. It's the hardest to produce and the most enjoyable to receive. Humor, like all other creativity, is a matter of making unusual combinations. The more surprising the combination, the funnier the humor. Your own motivational level will always be lifted by humor. Any time you are stuck, ask yourself to take things lightly. Ask yourself to come up with some funny solutions. Laughter will destroy all limits to your thinking. When you are laughing, you are open to anything.\n\n## 77. Serve and grow rich\n\nOne good way to motivate yourself is by increasing the flow of money into your life.\n\nMost people are embarrassed to even think this way. They don't want to \"think and grow rich\" because they think they will be thought of as selfish or greedy. Or maybe they still believe in the thoroughly discredited Marxist economic superstition that to make money, you have to take it away from somebody else. Or else they don't want to come across as being obsessed with money.\n\nBut do you know who is _really_ obsessed with money? People who don't have any. They obsess about money all day long. It's in their family discussions, it's on their minds at night, and it becomes a destructive part of their relationships during the day. The best way _not_ to be obsessed with money is to trust your game plan for earning your way to financial freedom. \"Our first duty,\" said George Bernard Shaw, \"is not to be poor.\"\n\nThe road to not being poor always travels through your professional relationships in life. The more you serve those relationships, the more productive those relationships will become, and the more money you will make.\n\n\"Money is life energy that we exchange and use as a result of the service we provide to the universe,\" wrote Deepak Chopra in _Creating Affluence_. When you understand that money flows from service, you have a chance to understand something even more valuable: Unexpectedly large amounts of money come from _unexpectedly large degrees of service_.\n\nThe way to generate unexpected service to the people in your life is to ask yourself, \"What do they _expect_?\" Once you're clear on what that is, then ask, \"What can I do that they would not expect?\" It's always the unexpected service that gets talked about. And it's always getting talked about that increases your professional value. As Napoleon Hill repeatedly pointed out, great wealth comes from the habit of going the extra mile. And it is always a smart business move to do a little more than you are paid for.\n\nIt is almost impossible to enjoy a life of self-motivation when you're worried about money. Don't be embarrassed about giving this subject a great deal of thought. Thinking about money a little bit in advance frees you from having to always think about it later. Allow yourself to link financial well-being with an increased capacity for compassion for others. If I am living in poverty, how much love and attention can I give to my children or my fellow humans? How much help can I be if I, for sheer lack of creative planning, am always worried about being in debt? \"Poverty is no disgrace,\" said Napoleon Hill. \"But it is certainly not a recommendation.\"\n\n## 78. Make a list of your life\n\nNever hesitate to sit down with yourself and make lists. The more you write things down, the more you can dictate your own future. There is an unfortunate myth that lists make things trivial. But lists do the opposite\u2014they make things come alive.\n\nI have a friend who made a list of all the positive things about himself that he could think of. He listed every characteristic and accomplishment that he could remember in his life that he was proud of. He keeps the list in his briefcase, and says he often reads through it when he's feeling down. \"By seeing all those things written down, and letting myself read them one at a time, I can change my entire attitude from being discouraged to feeling positive about myself,\" he says.\n\nWriting lists of goals and objectives is also a powerful self-motivator. It's one thing to go into a meeting mentally briefed on what you want to accomplish, but you'll feel even stronger having written it out. There is something about writing something down that makes it more real to the right side of your brain.\n\nMy friend Fred Knipe sometimes travels to Phoenix to spend a day talking with me. We've been close friends since college and share an unorthodox sense of humor. Our meetings together are anything but structured. We free-associate and talk about everything under the sun. He'll often arrive with a list.\n\nIn the days prior to our meeting, he'll jot down subjects he wants to be sure he remembers to talk to me about while we are together. And it's _because_ our conversations are so free-form that the list is valuable for him. He doesn't ever have to call me back the next day and try to discuss something over the phone that would have been much better discussed in person.\n\nIf you've ever tried grocery shopping for a large event without a shopping list, you are aware of the nightmare it can be. Most people have learned not to shop that way. I've learned by hard experience that it can mean additional trips to the store to pick up forgotten items.\n\nWhy is it that people don't apply that same principle to their lives? Most people take more time planning a picnic than they do planning a life. Because they _know_ that if they don't make a list and forget the hot dog buns as a result, they are going to be called an idiot by someone.\n\nStart by listing all the things you would like to do before you die. Keep the list somewhere handy, where you can look at it and add to it. Then list the people in your life you want to remain close to and stay in touch with. Friendship is so precious, why let it be forgotten? It sounds silly to make a list of your friends, but you'll be surprised at how it reminds you who's important and motivates you to stay in touch.\n\nMy friend Terry Hill, the writer, is one of the greatest list-makers of all time. He has a list of every book he has ever read, every poem he's read, and many more things I don't even know about. It gives his life a sense of history, depth, and direction.\n\nWe don't have to wait to become famous so that someone else might write our history. We can be writing our history while it happens. And when we list our goals, we're writing our history _before_ it happens. Legendary advertising executive David Ogilvy started his advertising agency by making a list of the clients that he most wanted: General Foods, Lever Brothers, Bristol Myers, Campbell Soup Company, and Shell Oil. At the time, they were the biggest advertising accounts in the world, and he had none of them. But in a sense he did have them, because they were on his list. \"It took time,\" said Ogilvy, \"but in due course I got them all.\"\n\nA goal gains power when you write it down, and more power _every time you write it down_. What motivates you most in life ought to be in your own handwriting. People all too often look for motivation in what others have written. If you become a good list-maker, you will learn how to motivate yourself by what _you've_ written.\n\n## 79. Set a specific power goal\n\nMost people are surprised to learn that the reason they're not getting what they want in life is because their goals are too small. And too vague. And therefore have no power.\n\nYour goals will never be reached if they fail to excite your imagination. What really excites the imagination is the setting of a large and specific _power goal_.\n\nUsually, a goal is just a goal. But a _power goal_ is a goal that takes on a huge reality. It lives and breathes. It provides motivational energy. It gets you up in the morning. You can taste it, smell it, and feel it. You've got it clearly pictured in your mind. You've got it written down. And you love writing it down because every time you do, it fills you with clarity of purpose.\n\nIn his audiobook series, _Visioneering_ , my old partner Dennis Deaton teaches the transforming power of lofty goals. Deaton talks about creating a mental movie that you watch as often as possible. He urges you to make it a movie that stars _you_ \u2014living the results of achieving your specific goal.\n\nWalt Disney left us many great things: Disneyland, Walt Disney World, and great animated films. But what I believe was his greatest gift was the summing up he did of his life's work: \"If you can dream it,\" he said, \"you can do it.\"\n\nA power goal is a dream with a deadline. The deadline itself motivates you. People who have created power goals start living on purpose. They know what they're up to in life. How can you tell if you've got a big enough and real enough power goal? Simply observe the effect your goal has on you. It's not what a goal _is_ that matters; it's what a goal _does_.\n\n## 80. Change yourself first\n\nDon't change other people. It doesn't work. You'll waste your life trying. Many of us spend all our time trying to change the people in our lives. We think we can change them in ways that will make them better equipped to make us happy. This is especially true of our children. We talk to our children for hours about how we think they should change. But children don't learn from what we say. They learn from what we do. Today's children, upon hearing us talk to them about how they should change, will often say, \"Yeah, right.\" It's shorthand for \"I'm not listening to what you say, I'm listening to what you do.\"\n\nGandhi was especially tuned in to the futility of changing other people. Yet Gandhi was probably responsible for more change in people than any other person in our era was. How did he do it? He had a profoundly simple formula. People would often come to Gandhi to ask how they could change others. Someone would say, \"I agree with you about nonviolence, but there are others who don't. How do I change them?\" And Gandhi told them they couldn't. He said you couldn't change other people.\n\n\"You must _be_ the change you wish to see in others,\" said Gandhi. In my own seminars, I probably use that one quotation more than any other. I am always asked, \"How can I change my husband?\" Or, \"How can I change my wife?\" Or, \"How can I change my teenager?\"\n\nPeople who take the seminars on self-motivation, at some point during the workshop, agree completely with the principles and ideas. Then, they start to think about the people who _don't_ buy in. In the question-and-answer period, their questions are about _those poor people_. How do we change _them_? I always quote Gandhi. _Be_ the change you wish to see in others.\n\nBy _being_ what you want _them_ to be, you lead by inspiration. Nobody really wants to be taught by lectures and advice. They want to be led through inspiration.\n\nSales managers often ask me how they can get a certain salesperson to do more self-motivated activities. I tell them that they have to _be_ the salesperson they want to see. Take them on a call, I say, and let them watch you. Don't tell them how to do it, inspire them to do it.\n\nI once attended a concert given by my daughter's fourth-grade chorus, which sang a song called \"Let There Be Peace on Earth.\" The song's words went, \"Let there be peace on earth, _and let it begin with me_....\" I beamed when I heard it. It was such a beautiful expression of _being the change_ \u2014a celebration of self-responsibility that rarely is portrayed in young people's lives today.\n\nWhat you _tell_ people to do often goes right by them. Who you _are_ does not.\n\n## 81. Pin your life down\n\nCar dealer extraordinaire Henry Brown once told me a story about his son, a high school wrestler. His boy had been getting only fair results as a wrestler that year and when Henry talked to him about it he learned the reason. Henry's son entered each wrestling match more than thoroughly prepared to _counter_ anything his opponent tried. But no matter how gifted Henry's son was at countering moves, countering was still countering, so the other wrestler always dictated the tempo. Finally, Henry suggested to his son that he try entering a wrestling match with his own attack _plan_ \u2014a series of moves that _he_ would initiate no matter what his opponent tried. The boy agreed, and the results were remarkable. He began winning match after match, pinning opponent after opponent.\n\nThe young wrestler's goal had always been to win. He didn't have a problem setting goals. But what had to be added was a plan of action. In sports, as in life, goals alone aren't always enough. As Nathaniel Branden says, \"A goal without an action plan is a daydream.\" Henry Brown didn't just give that advice to his son because he bought into it theoretically. His own Brown and Brown Chevrolet dealership had been the number-one Chevy dealership in the nation many times because he planned his company's own yearly performance in the same way he coached his son.\n\nEvery year he has his general manager send me the detailed videotape that outlines the dealership's game plan for the coming year. It includes all the department's projected earnings down to the penny. By boldly charting such a specific course, Brown lets the market _respond to him_. Once, when I asked him how his dealership got through a previous year's nationwide automotive sales recession, he said, \"We decided not to participate in it.\"\n\nBefore any adventure, take time to plan. Design your own plan of attack. Don't just counter what some other wrestler is doing. Let life respond to _you_. If you're making all the first moves, you'll be surprised at how often you can pin life down.\n\n## 82. Take no for a question\n\nDon't take no for an answer. Take it for a question. Make the word _no_ mean this question: \"Can't you be more creative than that?\" In my seminars, I work with a lot of salespeople and one of the most requested topics of discussion is \"cold calling and rejection.\" One of the greatest problems salespeople, and people everywhere, face is in the meaning _they give_ to someone else's _no_. Many people hear _no_ as an absolute, final, and devastating personal rejection. But _no_ can mean anything you want it to mean.\n\nWhen I graduated from college with a degree in English, I was not overwhelmed with companies trying to hire me. So I decided to try to get a job as a sports writer at the daily evening paper in Tucson, Arizona, the _Tucson Citizen_. I had spent four years in the army, and I hadn't done any sportswriting since high school.\n\nWhen I applied for the job, I was told that my major problem was that I had never done any professional sportswriting before. It was the typical situation of a company not being able to hire you because you haven't had experience\u2014but how can you gain experience if no one will hire you?\n\nMy first impulse was to take _no_ as their final answer. After all, that's what they said it was. But I finally decided to have _no_ mean\u2014\"Can't you be more creative than that?\" So I went home to think and plot my next move. The reason they wouldn't hire me was because I had no experience. When I asked them why that was important, they smiled and said, \"We have no way of knowing for sure whether you can write sports. Just being an English major isn't enough.\"\n\nThen it hit me. Their real problem wasn't my lack of experience\u2014it was _their lack of knowledge_. They didn't know whether I could write well enough. So I set out to solve their problem for them. I began to write them letters. I knew they were interviewing four other people for the position and that they would decide within a month. Every day I wrote a letter to the sports editor, the late Regis McAuley (an award-winning writer in his own right, who made his reputation in Cleveland before coming to Tucson).\n\nMy letters were long and expressive. I made them as creative and clever as I could, commenting on the sports news of the day, and letting them know how great a fit I thought I was for their staff. After a month, Mr. McAuley called me and said that they had narrowed it down to two candidates, and I was one of them. Would I come in for a final interview? I was so excited, I nearly swallowed the phone.\n\nWhen my interview was coming to an end (I was the second one in), McAuley had one last question for me. \"Let me ask you something, Steve,\" he said. \"If we hire you, will you promise that you'll stop sending me those endless letters?\"\n\nI said I would stop, and then he laughed and said, \"Then you're hired. You can start Monday.\"\n\nMcAuley later told me that the letters did the trick. \"First of all, they showed me that you could write,\" he said. \"And second of all, they proved to me that you wanted the position more than the other candidates did.\"\n\nWhen you ask for something in your professional life and it is denied to you, imagine that the _no_ you heard is really a question: \"Can't you be more creative than that?\" Never accept _no_ at face value. Let rejection motivate you to get more creative.\n\n## 83. Take the road to somewhere\n\nEnergy comes from purpose. If the left side of your brain tells the right side of your brain that there's a sufficient crisis, the right side sends you energy, sometimes superhuman energy. That's why there's such a difference between people who set and achieve goals all day, and people who just do whatever comes up, or whatever they feel like doing. To one person, there is always added purpose. To the other, there is boredom and confusion, the two greatest robbers of energy. Knowing what you're up to, and why you're up to it, gives you the energy to self-motivate. Not knowing your purpose drains you of all motivation.\n\nWe've all heard the stories of a diminutive mother who, seeing that her small child was trapped, lifted a tremendously heavy object, such as a car, so the child could be freed. When asked to repeat the superhuman feat later, of course the woman couldn't do it. Being a single father has put me in touch with the dramatic connection between purpose and energy. If I am cooking something, for example, and out of the corner of my eye I can see flames emerging from the kitchen, it is amazing how fast I can move from the living room into the kitchen. Crisis creates instant purpose, which creates instant energy. When our purpose is great, so is our strength and energy.\n\n\"But, I don't know what my purpose is,\" a lot of people tell me, as if someone forgot to tell them what it is. Those people may wait forever to be told how to live and what to live for.\n\nThere can only be two reasons why you don't know your purpose: 1) you don't talk to yourself; and 2) you don't know where purpose comes from. You think purpose comes from outside yourself instead of from within. Purposeful people know how to go deep into their own spirit and talk to themselves about why they exist, and what they want to do with the gift of life.\n\n\"Only human beings have come to a point where they no longer know why they exist,\" said the Lakota shaman Lame Deer. \"They don't use their brains and they have forgotten the secret knowledge of their bodies, their senses, or their dreams.\"\n\nLame Deer is not optimistic about what the future holds for people who live without purpose. \"They don't use the knowledge the spirit has put into every one of them,\" he says. \"They are not even aware of this, and so they stumble along blindly on the road to nowhere\u2014a paved highway that they themselves bulldoze and make smooth so that they can get faster to the big empty hole that they'll find at the end, waiting to swallow them up. It's a quick, comfortable superhighway, but I know where it leads. I've seen it. I've been there in my vision and it makes me shudder to think about it.\"\n\nPurpose can be built, strengthened, and made more inspiring every day. We are totally responsible for our own sense of purpose. We can go inside our own spirit and create it, or not. The energy of our lives is wholly dependent on how much purpose we're willing to create.\n\n## 84. Go on a news fast\n\nI first heard the term \"news fast\" from Dr. Andrew Weil, who writes about natural medicine and spontaneous healing. Weil recommends going on news fasts because he believes this has a healing effect on the human system. To him, it's a genuine health issue.\n\nMy own recommendation for news fasts has to do with the psychology of self-motivation. If you go for periods of time without listening to or reading the news, you will notice an upswing in your optimism about life. You'll feel a lift in energy. \"But shouldn't I stay informed?\" people ask me. \"Aren't I being a bad citizen if I don't keep up with what's happening in my community? Shouldn't I be watching the news?\" In answering this question, I offer an observation that may startle you: The news is no longer the news.\n\nIt used to be that Walter Cronkite would end his program by saying, \"And that's the way it is.\" And we trusted that he was right. But today, it's much different. Shock value has the highest premium of all for a news story, and the lines are now blurred between the evening news and the grossest tabloids.\n\nToday, the goal of the person putting the evening news show together is to stimulate our emotions in as many ways as possible. Every night we will see human suffering. We will also see con artists, and even whole companies getting away with scams that victimize people cruelly. If there's a report on politics, it features the most venomous attacks between two partisans. The goal of the news today is stimulation. It's to take us on an emotional roller-coaster ride. It's a \"good\" program if we have been enraged by one story, saddened by another, and amused by the third.\n\nIs it any wonder that by programming our minds with this gross and frightening information all day and into the night, we end up a little less motivated? Is it hard to understand a certain slippage in our optimism?\n\nGoing on a news fast is a refreshing cure for this problem. You can do it for one day a week, to begin with, and then get back into the tabloid shows the next day if you have to. Once you start fasting, you'll find your entire mood picking up.\n\n\"But what about staying informed?\" you ask. There are many ways to stay fully informed. The Internet has wonderful, thoughtful sites. In fact, it is far better to be informed intellectually than to be informed emotionally. There are weekly and monthly magazines as well as e-zines that do a fine job of informing us and giving us a calm, thoughtful, overall perspective on the news. Don't worry about missing out on important news. Really big news, such as a war, a natural disaster, or an assassination, will get to you just as quickly during a news fast as it would if you were watching the news.\n\nBegin to experiment with news fasts today. Go on a short one at first, and then extend the period of time as your system allows. When you _do_ return to the news, be totally conscious of just what the show is trying to do to you. Don't passively take it in as if what you are seeing is really \"the way it is.\" It's not. They're not going to tell you how many thousands of planes landed safely today.\n\n## 85. Replace worry with action\n\nDon't worry. Or rather, don't just worry. Let worry change into action. When you find yourself worrying about something, ask yourself the action question, \"What can I _do_ about this right now?\" And then do something. Anything. Any small thing.\n\nMost of my life, I spent my time asking myself the wrong question every time I worried. I asked myself, \"What should I be feeling about this?\" I finally discovered that I was much happier when I started asking, instead, \"What can I _do_ about this?\" If I am worried about the conversation I had with my wife last night, and how unfair I might have been to say the things I said, I can ask myself, \"What can I _do_ about that right now?\"\n\nBy putting the question into the _action_ arena, a lot of possibilities will occur to me: 1) I could send her flowers; 2) I could call her to tell her I was concerned about how I left things; 3) I could leave a nice little note somewhere for her; or 4) I could go see her to make things right. All of these possibilities are actions, and when I act on something, the worry goes away.\n\nWe often hear the phrase \"worry it to death.\" But that phrase doesn't reflect what really happens when we worry. It would be great if we _could_ worry something to death. When it dies, we could dispose of the body and be done with it. But when we worry, we don't worry a thing to death, we worry it _to life_. Our worrying makes the problem grow. And most of the time, we worry it into a grotesque kind of life, a kind of Frankenstein's monster that frightens us beyond all reason.\n\nI once came up with a system for action that helped turn my worrying habits completely around. I would list the five things that I was worried about\u2014perhaps they were four projects at work and the fifth was my son's trouble he was having with a certain teacher. I would then decide to spend _five minutes_ on each problem doing something, anything. By deciding this, I knew I was committing myself to 25 minutes of activity, but no more so it didn't feel at all overwhelming.\n\nThen I could make a game of it. On project one, a seminar workbook deadline for a new course, I'd spend five minutes writing it. Maybe I only got the first two pages done, but it felt great. It felt like I'd finally started it.\n\nThen on item number two, a meeting I knew I had to have with a client over a sticky contract issue, I would call his office and schedule the meeting and put it in my calendar. That, too, felt good.\n\nMy third worry, a stack of correspondence I needed to answer, I would take five minutes sorting and stacking and putting them into a folder that was separate from the other clutter on my desk. That felt satisfying, too. The fourth item was a travel arrangement that had to be worked out. I'd take no more than five minutes looking at my calendar and leaving a voice mail for my travel agent to fax me some alternatives on the trip.\n\nFinally, on the matter of my son, I would pull out a piece of paper and write a short letter to his teacher expressing my concern for him, my support of her efforts, and my desire to arrange a meeting quickly, so all three of us could sit down together and make some agreements.\n\nAll of that took 25 minutes. And the five things that were worrying me the most were no longer worrying me. I could then go back anytime later and work them to completion. If something is worrying you, always _do_ something about it. It doesn't have to be the big thing that will make it disappear. It can be any small thing. But the positive effect it will have on you will be enormous.\n\nAnything that worries you should be _acted on,_ not just thought about. Don't be scared about the action; you can make it very small and easy, as long as you take action. Even small actions will chase away your fears. Fear has a hard time coexisting with action. When there's action, there's no fear. When there's fear, there's no action.\n\nThe next time you're worried about something, ask yourself, \"What small thing can I do right now?\" Then do it. Remember not to ask, \"What could I possibly do to make this whole thing go away?\" That question does not get you into action at all.\n\nActing on your worries frees you up for other things. It removes fear and uncertainty from your life and puts you back in control of creating what you want. Just do it.\n\n## 86. Run with the thinkers\n\nThe president of a major office equipment company put his problem to me this way: \"How do I get the whiners in my company to stop whining and start coming up with solutions?\"\n\nHe went on to explain that he had two kinds of people working for him, the Whiners and the Thinkers. The Whiners were often very smart and dedicated employees who worked long, hard hours. But when they came into the manager's office, it was almost always to complain.\n\n\"They're great at finding fault with other managers and telling me what's wrong with our systems,\" the president said, \"but they are a drain on me because they're so negative that I end up trying to make them feel better. After that, I'm depressed.\"\n\nThe Thinkers, on the other hand, had a different way of coming into the office with problems. \"The Thinkers come to me with ideas,\" he said. \"They see the same problems that the Whiners see, but they've already thought about possible solutions.\"\n\nThe Thinkers, in other words, have assumed ownership of the company, and are creating the future of the company with their thinking. The Whiners have stopped thinking. Once the problems are identified, and their reaction to them justified, the thinking stops.\n\nThe Thinkers have taken their reaction to the company's problems past their emotions, and into their minds. And because they have formulated some solutions, the nature of their meeting with the manager is creative. It's a brainstorming meeting. The manager enjoys these meetings because they stimulate his mind, too. Both parties leave the meeting feeling energized intellectually, and the manager looks forward to future meetings with the Thinkers.\n\nThe Whiners have left their reaction to their company's problems down at the emotional level. They express resentment, fear, and worry. The manager's problem in such a meeting is that he deals primarily with those emotions, so he finishes the meeting with his own sense of discouragement.\n\nWhen you are committed to self-motivation as a way of life, you will fall into the realm of the Thinker. Your thinking not only creates your motivation, but it creates your relationships, your family, and the organization you work for, as well, because they are all a part of you. You are more valuable to your organization with this orientation to thinking, and you're more valuable to yourself.\n\n## 87. Put more enjoyment in\n\nThere is a huge difference between pleasure and enjoyment. And when we're absolutely clear about the difference, we can grow much faster toward a focused and energized life. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi best describes this difference in his various books on \"flow\"\u2014the psychological state that we get in when time disappears and we are thoroughly engaged in what we're doing.\n\nCsikszentmihalyi distinguishes what we do for pleasure (routine sex, eating, drinking, and so on) from what we do for enjoyment. Enjoyment is deeper. Enjoyment always involves the use of a skill and the facing of a challenge. So sailing, gardening, painting, bowling, golfing, cooking, and any such activity involving skills meeting a challenge constitute enjoyment.\n\nPeople who get clear on that difference begin to put more enjoyment into their lives. They reach the happy and fulfilled psychological state known as \"flow.\" Increasing their skills and seeking challenges to engage those skills are what lead to an enjoyable life.\n\nThere are many stories and accounts about the winners of lotteries who are jubilant when they win, but whose lives descend into a nightmare after acquiring that _unearned_ money. (No challenge, no skill.) The lottery looks like \"the answer\" to people because they associate money with pleasure. But the true enjoyment of money comes in part from the _earning_ of it, which involves skill and challenge.\n\nWatching television is usually done for pleasure. That's why so few people can remember (or make use of) any of the 30 hours of television they have watched in the past week. In watching television, there is no combination of skill and challenge.\n\nContrast that dull pleasure hangover we get from watching television with what happens when we spend the same amount of time preparing for a big Thanksgiving dinner for friends and relatives. In looking back, we remember quite vividly the entire Thanksgiving endeavor.\n\nDespite her run-ins with Wall Street and the law, one of the most intriguing people on our national scene has always been Martha Stewart. Throughout the 1990s, she personified mastery of the concept of small enjoyments. Her magazines and television programs celebrated cooking, gardening, and home entertainment skills. Her own contagious enthusiasm for the things she enjoyed made her, in my opinion, one of that decade's true heroes of optimism. If you're feeling as though you have forgotten how to _enjoy_ your own home, yard, or kitchen, you might buy one of her books and allow her optimism to inspire you. You can increase your own self-motivation by learning to be more aware of the profound difference between enjoyment and mere pleasure.\n\n## 88. Keep walking\n\nEver since I was a child, I had a recurring dream that I began each day facing a mattress. The more I pushed into this mattress before my day began, the more the indentation went in, and the more saved-up the sprung energy of the mattress got. The more the mattress was indented with my pushing at the start of the day, the higher it would spring up when I lay down on it to sleep at night. I would lie down on this mattress at night and see how high my dreams would send me. How high I flew would always depend on the indentations I gave the mattress during the day. The impressions I gave it. How impressive I was. The difference I made.\n\nAfter thinking about that dream, I decided to step up my walking. I decided that the recurring dream was the way my subconscious chose to tell me something vital. Something about the difference walking made. Something about oxygen being pushed into my system. Walking would be an action I could take while wide awake. Walking would drive more oxygen into my lungs. I would become more like the great football coach Amos Alonzo Stagg, who lived to be 103 years old. Amos Alonzo Stagg was asked how he lived to be so old (the average life expectancy during his lifetime was 65) and he said, \"I have, for the greater part of my life, indulged in running and other vigorous exercise that forced large amounts of oxygen into my body.\" I increased my walking just to see what would happen if my lungs became my mattress. I began to get happier. I began to enjoy life more. I began to be more _motivated_. As I walked, I wondered: What if the spirit lives as an aura around us? What if the spirit were a cloud of energy that exists around and outside our bodies ready at all times to be breathed in? Drawn right into the soul? What if when you breathed deeply, you pulled in your own spirit? And you received energy for action\u2014energy for an explosive take-down of one of your out-of-control problems. What if the solution to problems outside you was inside you?\n\nDeepak Chopra quotes an ancient anonymous Indian sage as identifying humanity's near-fatal superstition: \"You believe that you live in the universe when in reality the universe lives in you.\"\n\nMany modern scientific books are now referring to the human brain as the \"three-pound universe.\" When the body moves, so does the mind. So does that inner world. When you're walking, you are organizing your mind whether you want to be or not. Soon we realize that the mind and the body _are_ connected. When the Greeks said the secret to a happy life was a sound mind in a sound body, they were onto a powerful truth.\n\nI try to talk myself _out_ of that truth many times a week. _I'm too tired to exercise. I have an injury. I haven't had enough sleep. I should listen to my body! I would be short-changing my children of the important time they need with me if I selfishly went out for my long walk_. But I am always better off if I choose the walk. I am even better at relating to my children, because walking takes me to the soul. That's why I can't leave it out. I can't pretend it has nothing to do with this subject, because it's how I pull the truth to me. I pull the globe around toward me under my feet by walking. As the world turns, the lies leak out of my mind, into space. As the body becomes sound, so does the mind. It's true.\n\nThere is something about walking that combines opposites. Opposites: activity and relaxation. (This very paradox is what creates whole-brain thinking.) Opposites: out in the world and solitude. (Alone, but out there walking.) This combining of opposites activates the harmony I need between the right and left brain, between the adult and the child, between the higher self and the animal. Great solutions appear. Truth becomes beauty.\n\nYou have your own walking available to you, too. Yes, indeed. It might be dancing, swimming, running, racquetball, boxing, or aerobics, but it's all the same thing. It's all a way of moving the body around like a merry plaything and oxygenating the spirit in the process.\n\n## 89. Read more mysteries\n\nMy great friend and editor Kathy Eimers, to whom I first dedicated this book, and later married, has always been a devoted reader of mystery novels. When I first met her, I thought, _How curious that someone so intelligent would be reading mystery novels all the time_.\n\nIt was especially interesting to me because Kathy is one of the most literate people I've ever met, a quick thinker and a skilled professional writer and editor. Her editing of my books was the one thing, in my opinion, that gave them the sparkle that people said they enjoyed.\n\nIn my own ignorance, I assumed mystery novels were pretty light fare, and hardly a challenge to the human mind. But I changed my mind. Not only have I peeked into some of the mystery books she recommended (Agatha Christie and Colin Dexter), but I found out more about what good mystery does to the intellectual energy of the human mind.\n\nKathy has one of the most creative and energetic problem-solving minds I've ever encountered. I constantly marvel at her mental energy and perception because it stays clear and sharp\u2014all day, and long into the night. I would often find my own mental acuity descending the evolutionary ladder as night approached, while hers stayed alive and creative.\n\nThe person with the highest IQ ever measured\u2014Marilyn Vos Savant\u2014recommends mystery novels as brain builders. \"Not only is this exercise fun, but it's good for you,\" she says. \"I'm not talking about violent thrillers, or police procedural novels, but instead I'm directing you to those elegant, clue-filled, intelligent mysteries solved by drawing conclusions, not guns.\"\n\nVos Savant sees the reading of mysteries as something that leads to a stronger intelligence.\n\n\"If you try to keep one step ahead of the detective in an Agatha Christie or a Josephine Tey or a P.D. James mystery novel, it will sharpen your intuition,\" she writes in _Brain Building in Just 12 Weeks,_ \"The Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle never go out of favor, and rightly so. Holmes's methods are brain-builders brought to life.\"\n\nWhen people think of personal transformation, they don't normally think they can strengthen their own intelligence. IQ is something our cultural attitudes have always said we're born with and stuck with. But Vos Savant, whose IQ was measured at 230 (the average adult IQ is 100), believes strongly that the brain can be built as surely and as quickly as the muscles of the body.\n\nSo the next time you feel like curling up with a good mystery, don't feel guilty or nonproductive. It might be the most productive thing you've done all day.\n\n## 90. Think your way up\n\nIn some of my seminars I like to draw a picture of a ladder on the board and call it \"the ladder of selves.\" On the very bottom I write \"The Physical,\" in the middle I put \"The Emotional,\" and at the top I place \"The Mind.\" We can move up or down this ladder by the sheer force of will, although most people don't know they have that option.\n\nBy traveling up the ladder, past the physical, through the emotional, and into your mind, you have the opportunity to be creative and thoughtful. You can see possibilities. Many of us, however, never get past the emotional section of the ladder. When we're stuck there, we begin thinking with our feelings instead of thinking with our minds. If you hurt my feelings, and I'm angry and resentful, I might give you a long and eloquent speech about what's wrong with you and how you operate. But, because I'm thinking with my feelings instead of my mind, I'm destroying something with my speech instead of creating an understanding. People do this without knowing it. They let their emotions speak for them, instead of their thoughts. So what you hear is fear, anger, sadness, or other emotions put to words, but never creating anything.\n\nIf you can picture this ladder inside of you, and start to notice that you are letting your feelings do your thinking and speaking, you can move up. You can get creative and really think and _then_ speak. As Emmet Fox says, \"Love is always creative and fear is always destructive.\"\n\nGo ahead and feel your feelings. But when it's time to talk, let your mind into the conversation. Your mind is what motivates you to your highest performance, not your feelings.\n\n## 91. Exploit your weakness\n\nMake a list of your strengths and your weaknesses on separate pieces of paper. Place the list of strengths somewhere where you'll see it again, because it will always pick you up. Now look at your list of weaknesses and study them for a while. Stay with them until you feel no shame or guilt about them. Allow them to become interesting characteristics, instead of negative traits. Ask yourself how each characteristic could be useful to you. That's not what we usually ask about our weaknesses, but that's my whole point.\n\nWhen I was a boy, I remember watching a remarkable tap dancer by the name of \"Peg Leg Bates\" on the Ed Sullivan show. Bates had lost his leg early in life, a circumstance that would lead most people to give up any dreams of becoming a professional dancer. But to Bates, losing a leg was not a weakness for long. He made it his strength. He put a tap at the bottom of his peg leg and developed an amazing syncopated tap-dancing style. Obviously, he stood apart from other dancers in auditions, and it wasn't long before his weakness became his strength.\n\nMaster fundraiser Michael Bassoff has dazzled the development world by turning unappreciated staff members into great fundraisers. He, too, likes people's weaknesses, because he knows that they can be turned into strengths. If there is a \"shy\" secretary in the development office he's working with, he turns that person into the staff's \"best listener.\" Soon donors can't wait to talk to that person because she listens so well and makes people feel so important.\n\nOne of my weaknesses early in life was my difficulty in talking to people. I had no confidence in my ability to speak and converse, so I got in the habit of writing people letters and notes. After a while, I got so practiced with it that I turned it into a strength. My letter writing and thank-you notes have created many relationships for me that would not have been created if I'd just focused on my shyness as a weakness.\n\nI have four children, but I didn't begin having children until I was 35 years old. For a long time I saw myself as being \"older than normal\" to be a father. I worried about it. I wondered if my son or daughters would be uncomfortable with a father so old. And then I realized that this didn't have to be a weakness. I thought about who I was when I was 25, and what a difficult time I would have had being a good father back then. Soon I took this \"weakness\" to be a great strength. Then one day while watching _The Little Mermaid_ with my kids, I saw myself as the father in that movie\u2014vigorous, strong, and wise, with flowing white hair. It was the perfect image. I now see my age as a major strength in raising my kids. The only \"weakness\" was in the way I was looking at it.\n\nThere isn't anything on your weakness list that can't be a strength for you if you think about it long enough. The problem is, our weaknesses embarrass us. But embarrassment is not real thinking. Once we really start _thinking_ about our weaknesses they can become strengths, and creative possibilities emerge.\n\n## 92. Try becoming the problem\n\nWhatever type of problem you are facing, the most self-motivational exercise I know of is to immediately say to yourself, \" _I_ am the problem.\" Once you see yourself as the problem, you can see yourself as the solution. This insight was dramatically described by James Belasco in _Flight of the Buffalo_. \"This is the insight I realized early and return to often,\" he wrote, \"In most situations, I am the problem. My mentalities, my pictures, my expectations, form the biggest obstacle to my success.\"\n\nBy seeing ourselves as victims of our problems, we lose the power to solve them. We shut down creativity when we declare the source of the trouble to be outside of us. However, once we say, \"I am the problem,\" there is great power that shifts from the outside to the inside. Now we can become the solution.\n\nYou can use this process the same way a detective uses a premise to clarify a crime scene. If the detective says, \"What if there were two murderers, not one?\" she can then think in a way that reveals new possibilities. She doesn't have to prove that there were two murderers in order to think the problem through as if there were. The same is true when you become willing to see yourself as the problem. It is simply a way to think.\n\nIn _The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem,_ Nathaniel Branden writes, \"To feel competent to live and worthy of happiness, I need to experience a sense of control over my existence. This requires that I be willing to take responsibility for my actions and the attainment of my goals. This means that I take responsibility for my life and my well-being.\"\n\nBefore I had realized the full power of a self-motivated life, I spent a lot of years pointing fingers. If I didn't have enough money, it was somebody else's fault. Even my perceived personality flaws were somebody else's fault. \"I was never taught that!\" I would shout in exasperation. \"No one showed me early in life how to be self-sufficient!\" was a complaint I voiced often. But I was avoiding a basic truth: I was the problem. The reason I fought so hard to avoid that truth was that I never realized it contained good news. I thought it looked entirely shameful and negative. But once I discovered that accepting responsibility for the problem also gave me new power for solving it, I became free.\n\n## 93. Enlarge your objective\n\nHere is another self-motivator that also must be used as an intellectual tool only. Take a certain goal of yours and double it. Or triple it. Or multiply it by 10. And then ask yourself, quite seriously, what you would have to do to achieve that new goal.\n\nI used this game recently with a friend who holds a position in sales. He came to see me because he was selling $100,000 worth of product each month, the most on his team, and wanted to somehow get to $140,000.\n\nI asked him to tell me what it would take for him to sell $200,000 worth of equipment each month. \"$200,000!\" he shouted. \"That's impossible. I'm leading the team already with $100,000, and nobody thought that could be done.\"\n\n\"What would you have to do?\" I persisted.\n\n\"No,\" he said. \"You don't understand. I want to hit $140,000 a month, and even that is so hard I don't know how I'll do it.\"\n\nI finally told him the theory behind this game. \"If you seriously look at an outrageous goal, such as $200,000, it will open things up for you creatively that wouldn't have opened up if you stayed looking at $140,000.\" He nodded slowly and reluctantly agreed to play along for a while.\n\n\"Okay,\" he said. \"But remember, we're talking about something that's impossible.\"\n\n\"Fine,\" I said. \"But if your life depended on hitting $200,000 next month, what exactly would you do?\"\n\nHe laughed and then started listing things as I wrote them down on a flip pad. After he got through the ridiculous ideas, like stealing other peoples' accounts and cooking the books, he began to think of more ideas. At first it was hard.\n\n\"I'd have to be in two places at once,\" he said. \"I'd have to make twice as many presentations as I'm making. I'd have to present to two clients at once!\"\n\nThen it hit him. All of a sudden he got the idea that he might be able to stage a large presentation of his product with a number of clients in the room at one time. \"I could rent a room at a hotel and have 20 people in for coffee and donuts, and I could make a big deal out of it,\" he said.\n\nA number of other ideas came to him\u2014ways to combine his cold-calling with his travel time, ways to utilize e-mail as a sales tool, how to use the administrative staff better, and ways to expand his contracts so that they would cover longer periods of time for a higher original fee, but at a lower overall rate. Idea after idea came to him while I wrote furiously on the pad.\n\nAll of the ideas were a result of his thinking big\u2014\n\n\"How would I sell $200,000 if I absolutely had to?\"\n\nHe surpassed his goal of $140,000 _the very next month!_\n\nI've often used this method with myself. If I have a goal of signing two seminar contracts in the next three weeks, I'll often get out a pad of paper and ask, \"How would I get 10 contracts signed in three weeks?\" Inflating my goal puts me at a different level of thinking, and because I'm solving the problem of 10, I always get at least two.\n\nIf you want to really get some fresh motivational ideas, try expanding your goal. Blow it up until it scares you. Then proceed in your thinking as if it's a _must_ that you achieve it. Remember that this is just a self-contained game, not a promise to anyone else. But it's a game that's fun to play because it works.\n\n## 94. Give yourself flying lessons\n\nWe need heroes in our lives. They are not a sign of weakness; they are a source of strength. \"Without heroes,\" said Bernard Malamud, \"we are all plain people and we don't know how far we can go.\"\n\nHeroes show us what's possible for a human being to accomplish. Therefore, heroes are very useful to anyone who is in the process of finally understanding self-motivation. But unless we consciously select our heroes in order to use them as inspiration, we simply end up _envying_ great people instead of emulating them.\n\nWhen used properly, a hero can be an enriching source of energy and inspiration. You don't have to have just one hero, either. Choose a number of them. Put their pictures up. Become an expert on their lives. Collect books about them.\n\nMy youngest sister, Cindy, as a shy little girl, always admired Amelia Earhart. After Cindy reached her 30s, she revealed to me that she had been taking flying lessons. I was stunned! A few weeks after that, the family went out to a little airport outside of town to watch her fly her first solo. \"I was so scared,\" said Cindy, \"that my mouth and throat went completely dry.\"\n\nFlying has nothing to do with what Cindy does for a living\u2014she just took lessons and learned to pilot a plane because of the impression that her hero, Amelia Earhart, made on her as a little girl.\n\n\"We grow into that which we admire,\" said Emmet Fox.\n\nBefore he became a famous author, Napoleon Hill was struggling as a writer and speaker. He had a friend whose restaurant business was not doing well and Hill offered to give free motivational speeches at the restaurant one night a week to help his friend increase his business. The speeches helped his friend a little, but they helped Hill a lot. He began to gain a large following.\n\nWhen I read about that part of Hill's life, it gave me an idea. At the time I wanted to be a full-time speaker and I didn't know where to begin. I'd done a few seminars and talks here and there, but there was no pattern or purposeful direction to it. I decided to emulate Hill. I began putting on a free, open-to-the-public workshop every Thursday night at the company where I was working as a marketing director.\n\nAt first, the workshops were not well attended. I had to spend part of the week begging people to come. Once the audience was two people! But week by week the workshop's reputation grew, and my own experience grew along with it. Soon we had large audiences waiting to get in on Thursday nights, and I credit that little free workshop with putting me into full-time public speaking.\n\nWas it an original idea? No, I stole it. I copied a hero of mine. But our awareness of the choice involving heroes is vital for self-creation. We can envy them or we can emulate them. The best _use_ of heroes is not to just be in awe of them, but to learn something from them. To let their lives inspire us. They are only people like we are. What distinguishes them from us is the great levels they've reached in self-motivation. To passively adore them is to insult our own potential. Instead of looking _up_ to our heroes, it is much more beneficial to look _into_ them.\n\n## 95. Hold your vision accountable\n\n\"It's not what a vision _is_ ,\" says Robert Fritz \"it's what a vision _does_.\"\n\nWhat does your vision do? Does it give you energy? Does it make you smile? Does it get you up in the morning? When you're tired, does it take you that extra mile? A vision should be judged by these criteria, the criteria of power and effectiveness. What does it _do_?\n\nRobert Fritz is widely quoted in Peter Senge's business masterpiece, _The Fifth Discipline_. Fritz is a former musician who has taken the basic principles of creativity in music composition and applied them to creating a successful professional life. Life gets good, he argues, when we get clear on what we want to create.\n\nMost people spend most of their waking hours trying to make problems go away. This lifelong crusade to solve one's problems is a negative and reactive existence. It sells us short and leaves us at the end of life (or at the end of the day) with, at best, the double-negative feeling of \"fewer problems\"!\n\nFritz points out in _The Path of Least Resistance_ :\n\nThere is a profound difference between problem solving and creating. Problem solving is taking action to have something go away\u2014the problem. Creating is taking action to have something come into being\u2014the creation. Most of us have been raised in a tradition of problem-solving and have little real exposure to the creative process.\n\nStep one in the creative process is having a vision of what you want to create. Without this vision, there is no way to create. Without this vision, you are only problem-eliminating, which is a double negative. It's impossible to feel positive about a life based on a double negative.\n\nSo the way to alter your thinking is to _notice_ when you're drifting into, \"What do I want to get rid of?\" and mentally replace that thinking with, \"What do I want to bring into being?\"\n\nWhen Fritz says that we have been \"raised in a tradition\" of problem solving, he is almost understating it. We are programmed and wired to think that way every day. Notice the thinking of people as they approach a challenge, even a challenge as small as an upcoming meeting with other people:\n\n\"Here's what I hope doesn't happen...\" one will say. \"Well, here's how you can avoid that...\" someone else will helpfully say. \"The only problem we have is this...\" a third person will say, attempting to make the meeting seem less frightening.\n\nNotice that nowhere was there the question, \"What would we like to _bring into being_ as a result of this meeting?\" Whether the situation is as small as a meeting or as large as your whole life, the most useful question you can ask yourself is, \"What do I want to bring into being?\" It's a beautiful question, because it makes no reference to problems or obstacles. It implies pure creativity. It puts you back on the positive side of life.\n\nMy friend Steve Hardison made an observation about self-motivation that I have always remembered and agreed with. \"It's just one thought,\" he said. \"Motivational teachers repeat it many different ways, but it's just one thought: It's a binary system. Are you on or are you off?\"\n\nAre you positive or are you negative? Are you creating or are you reacting? Are you on or are you off? Are you life or are you death? Are you day or are you night? Are you in or are you out? And there's nothing more motivational to flip your binary switch to \"on\" than a clear vision of what it is that you really want. What do you want to bring into being? It doesn't matter what that vision is or how often it changes. It only matters what that vision _does_.\n\nIf your vision isn't getting you up in the morning, then make up another one. Keep at it until you develop a vision that's so colorful and clear that it puts you in action just to think about it.\n\n## 96. Build your power base\n\nKnowledge is power. What you know is your power base\u2014it's the battery you run on. You need to charge it constantly and consciously. Who do you want to be in charge of what you know? News directors? Radio disc jockeys? The office gossip? Tabloid newspaper editors? A pessimistic family member? Unless we _consciously_ decide to build our own knowledge base, with a sense of direction to it, then we will be programmed, totally, by random input. Feeling miserable and alienated from life is _caused_ by not being in control of what we know.\n\n\"Misery and alienation are not laid upon us by fate,\" wrote Colin Wilson. \"They are due to the failure of the ego to accept its role as the controller of consciousness. All our experiences of happiness and intensity force the same conviction upon us, for they involve a sense of mastery.\" You can be the master of your own fate. You can make choices all day long about what you are going to learn and what you are not going to learn.\n\n\"What are you reading over there?\" someone may ask you. \"Oh, it's just something I found in the trash,\" you might say. And it might seem harmless enough to read something you found in the wastebasket because there was nothing else nearby, _but whole lives are shaped that way_. The computer term \"GIGO\"\u2014garbage in, garbage out\u2014is even truer for the human biocomputer than it is for mechanical computers.\n\nTake control of what you know. The more you know about what motivates you, the easier it is to motivate yourself. The more you know about the human brain, the less trouble you have operating it. Knowledge is power. Respect yours and build on it.\n\n## 97. Connect truth to beauty\n\nI hate reading motivational material that thunders at me about the importance of integrity and honesty for their own sake. Somehow, that always seems to turn me off, because the writers come off like angry preachers and teachers\u2014hardly inspiring.\n\nI'm always more inspired by things that are made to look interesting and fun. I'm always taken in by a promise of life being more beautiful and rarely taken in by a promise of a life being more righteous and proper. To me, the best case to make for honesty is how beautiful it is, how clean and clear it makes the journey from current reality to the dream.\n\nWhen people know _exactly_ where they are, they can go somewhere from there. But being \"lost\" is a function of dishonesty. And when we're lost, or dishonest, anywhere we go from there is wrong. When we start with a false reading, there's no direction home.\n\nTruth, on the other hand, is clear, complete, and compellingly vivid. It is solid and strong, so it can hold us steady as we climb. \"Truth,\" said poet John Keats, \"is beauty.\" The more honest we are with others and ourselves about current reality, the more energy and focus we gather. We don't have to keep track of what we told one person or what we told another.\n\nOne of the best and most positive explanations of the beauty of personal integrity was expressed by Nathaniel Branden in _The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem_. Branden, unlike most writers on the subject, sees truth and integrity as a positive part of the process of self-esteem. His point is not that we owe it to other people's sense of morality to be honest, but that we owe it to ourselves.\n\n\"One of the great self-deceptions,\" said Branden, \"is to tell oneself, 'Only I will know.' Only I will know that I am a liar; only I will know that I deal unethically with people who trust me; only I will know that I have no intention of honoring my promise. The implication is that _my judgment is unimportant and that only the judgment of others counts_.\"\n\nBranden's writing on personal integrity is inspiring because it's directed at creating a happier and stronger self, not at a universal appeal for morality.\n\nWe describe a work of art that is sloppy and unfinished as \"a mess.\" The problem with lying, or lying by omission, is that it leaves everything so incomplete\u2014in a mess. Truth always completes the picture\u2014any picture. And when a picture is complete, whole, and integrated, we see it as \"beautiful.\"\n\nI'll even hear about people\u2014usually people whom you can't believe about anything\u2014described as \"a mess.\" And conversely, a person who you can always count on to be honest with you is often referred to as a \"beautiful\" person. Truth and beauty become impossible to separate. Truth leads you to a more confident level in your relationships with others and with yourself. It diminishes fear and increases your sense of personal mastery. Lies and half-truths will always weigh you down, whereas truth will clear up your thinking and give you the energy and clarity needed for self-motivation.\n\n## 98. Read yourself a story\n\nAbraham Lincoln used to drive his law partners to distraction. Every morning he would come into his office and read the daily newspaper _aloud_ to himself. They would hear him in the next room reading in a booming voice. Why did Lincoln do his morning reading aloud? He had discovered that he remembered and retained _twice_ as much when he read aloud than when he read silently. And what he did remember, he remembered for a much longer period of time. Perhaps it was because Lincoln was employing a second sense, the sense of hearing, and a second activity, the activity of speaking, which made his readings so memorable to him. Any time you have an opportunity to read something that is important to you, try reading it aloud and see if you don't make twice the impression on yourself. When you discover something you want to remember, and draw upon in the future, read it aloud.\n\nSteve Hardison, one of the most successful business consultants I have ever known, credits one origin of his success to a time when he was a struggling young man without money or a clue about where he wanted to go. Then one day he came across Napoleon Hill's enormous book, _Law of Success,_ and read the entire volume _aloud_.\n\nMy favorite piece of writing to read aloud is Chapter 16 of Og Mandino's _The Greatest Salesman in the World_. Here's a part of it, which you may now read silently to yourself. However, if you want a real shot of adrenaline to your spirit, I recommend you mark this page and when you're alone, read it aloud like Lincoln:\n\nI will act now. I will act now. I will act now. Henceforth, I will repeat these words again and again, each hour, each day, every day, until the words become a habit as my breathing and the actions which follow become as instinctive as the blinking of my eyelids. With these words I can condition my mind to perform every act necessary for my success. With these words I can condition my mind to meet every challenge.\n\n## 99. Laugh for no reason\n\nBecome a performer. Be an actor and a singer. Act like you already feel like you want to feel. Don't wait until the feeling motivates you. It could be a long wait. Most of us believe that an emotion, such as happiness, comes first. Then we do whatever we do, in reaction to that particular emotion. Not so. The emotion arises simultaneously with the doing of the act. So if you want to be enthusiastic, you can get there by acting as if you were already enthusiastic. Sometimes it takes a minute. Sometimes it skips a beat. But it always works if you stay with it, no matter how ridiculous you feel doing it.\n\n_Feel_ ridiculous. If you want to be happy, find the happiest song you know and sing it. It works. Not always in the first few moments, but if you keep at it, it works. Just fake it until you make it. Soon your happy singing will show you how much control you do have over your own emotions.\n\nZen monks do a laughing meditation in which they all gather in a circle and get ready to laugh. At the stroke of a certain hour the teacher hits a gong, and all the monks begin to laugh. They have to laugh, whether or not they feel like it. But after a few moments the laughter becomes contagious. Soon all the monks are laughing genuinely and heartily. Children do this, too. They start giggling for no reason (often at the dinner table or some other forbidden setting, and the giggling itself makes them laugh). The truth is this: laughter itself can make you laugh. The secret of happiness is hidden inside that last sentence. But adults aren't always comfortable with this. Adults want kids to have _reasons_ for laughing. As I used to drive my children long distances to visit relatives, I'd get most irritated when they began laughing and giggling in the back seat without reason. I developed a backstroke swing to curb the laughter. \"Why are you laughing?\" I would shout. \"You have no _reason_ to be laughing! This is a dangerous highway and I'm trying to drive here!\"\n\nBut adults like me might want to get back that appreciation for joyful spontaneity. We might want to confront the question, \"What is the one thing that most makes me feel like singing?\" And then know the answer: \"Singing.\" What most gets you in the mood to dance? Dancing. The next time you ask someone to dance, and they say, \"I don't feel like dancing,\" you might reply, \"That's because you're not dancing.\"\n\n## 100. Walk with love and death\n\n\"I am a coward.\"\n\nThat was how the book began. It was a novel I was reading not long after I had graduated from high school, and those first words staggered me. I remember staring at those words, unable to continue reading, I was so stunned. Never had a book connected with me so quickly. I was a coward, too. I just never admitted it so openly as did the author of _A Walk with Love and Death_. The author was Hans Koning, and the book was a medieval love story later made into a movie by John Huston, but none of that mattered. What mattered was that there was another coward on the planet other than me. Even if he was fictional, the words were real enough for me.\n\nMy self-image at the time I read that book was based on my fears and nothing else. In my mind, I was truly a coward. And if someone were to tell me I'd done something brave, I'd think they were wrong somehow. Or that they didn't know how easy that thing was.\n\nWhere did this self-image come from? I don't blame my parents, because I believe we create our own pictures of ourselves, and I had a choice whether to stick with this self-image or not. Although I don't blame my parents, I can trace where I got the _idea_ of my being a coward to their encouragement.\n\nMy mother, too, was afraid of everything. She lived to the age of 66 without ever having made a left turn in traffic; she was so afraid of oncoming traffic. (She always knew how to make a looping series of right turns to get where she was going.) She consoled me and told me that I was just like her. A coward, I thought. She was very loving and empathetic about it, but my self-image became unshakable. However, my mother said she'd try to be there to help me do the many things she knew I wouldn't be able to do.\n\nI met my father when I was two and a half years old. He was a war hero, home from World War II, and it is reported that when he walked into our home and saw me for the first time, I looked up at his imposing uniformed figure and said, \"Who is that?\"\n\n\"John Wayne,\" my mother should have said.\n\nMy father was afraid of nothing. He was a decorated soldier, a star athlete, a tough and successful businessman, and the list goes on. But he soon knew one thing about his little boy\u2014no guts. And it was distressing to him.\n\nSo, both parents and the child himself were all in agreement about it. The father was upset about it, the mother understood, and the boy was just scared. That is possibly why, as I grew older, I discovered \"false courage.\"\n\nI discovered\u2014through use of an intoxicating substance\u2014that I could be who I wanted to be. But soon the marvelous discovery turned to addiction, and my life revolved around my dependency on it. They were wild times, but as anyone will tell you who's been through it, there was no growth or fulfillment during those years. They soon became an intolerable nightmare.\n\nFortunately, I recovered. It has been more than 20 years since I've had to resort to chemically based courage. During that recovery period, which was often difficult, I came to learn a prayer that was popular among fellow recovering people. They called it \"The Serenity Prayer,\" and you've probably heard it: _God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference_.\n\nI think it is called the serenity prayer because that's what everyone wants from the prayer\u2014serenity. Abruptly ending a long period of substance abuse can leave you far short of serene. Although with each passing day it gets better and better, that prayer was something to hang onto.\n\nBut after being clean and sober started to work for me, I knew something was still missing\u2014I knew I needed more than serenity. My deep-seated self-image of being a coward had not gone away, and so I turned my attention to the second line in the prayer, _the courage to change the things I can_. In my mind, it was no longer the serenity prayer\u2014it had become the courage prayer. Courage was still what I lacked, and that feeling of personal cowardice was still my entire self-image. It shaped my whole personality.\n\nWhen my friend Mike Killebrew gave me Napoleon Hill's _The Master Key to Riches_ , the answer to my courage prayer began to come to me. If I didn't have the courage inside of me, I would create it. And at that moment, the process of self-motivation began in earnest.\n\nI could cite you many examples of the fears I had, but to illustrate how I overcame them, I'll use an example I referred to earlier\u2014my fear of public speaking. I've since learned that the fear of public speaking is not unique to me. In fact, it's considered the number-one fear among our population today, even greater than the fear of death. To me, though, it was a painful manifestation of the overall deep fear that constituted my entire personality. I laughed knowingly once when Woody Allen said that he was \"afraid of the dark and feared the light of day.\" That was me.\n\nWhen I finally made myself join an acting class to face my fear of speaking, I learned to my horror that I was the only non-actor in the class. In our first session, led by the hugely talented actress and coach Judy Rollings, I listened as everyone in the class talked about all the recent stage productions they had been in.\n\nJudy gave us each a long monologue to learn and recite in the next session. Mine was from _Spoon River Anthology_ and my character was a judge who had been mocked as a young man, but rose to judge those in the community who used to make fun of him. It was a challenging piece, and I was terrified.\n\nI knew I had to do something harder than the recital to prepare for the recital, so I set out to do it. I memorized my part and began to perform it in front of people. I asked whoever would listen to sit down and watch me recite this piece. I did it in front of my actress friend Judy LeBeau, who had gotten me into the class. I recorded it and sent it to songwriter and comedian Fred Knipe. I did it in front of my friend Kathy. I made my children sit quietly and watch me do it over and over. Each time, I was scared, my heart was pounding, and I hyperventilated. But each time it got easier and better. Finally the day of the class arrived. I took the day off from work to rehearse this little three-minute piece all day. When class time arrived, I was extremely nervous, but not deeply panicked.\n\nJudy Rollings asked for volunteers to perform their monologues, and as each experienced actor got up to do theirs, I gained confidence. I could see that they, too, were very nervous. They were acting in front of peers, which is sometimes harder than before a normal audience. They were blowing their lines and, in embarrassment, asking to start over. Some of their voices were a little shaky. I was encouraged. Finally, with just one or two of us left to go, I volunteered and walked slowly to the front of the room.\n\nWhat happened then is something I'll never forget. As I went to the front of the room, just before I turned around to face the teacher and class, a voice in my mind spoke to me, and it said only one word: _Showtime_. With a surprising surge of energy, I delivered my piece. My voice soared up and hit the dramatic points and dropped down to emphasize the subtle lines and the parts that I gave a funny interpretation to were drawing huge laughs from the class. When I was finished, I looked back up and saw that the whole class had burst out clapping\u2014something Judy had told them not to do for anybody.\n\nWhen I drove home that night, I was in heaven. I kept reciting my monologue out loud, reveling in the memory of their laughter and clapping. The thing I thought I feared most in life was somehow mastered. And I repeated to myself the principle I had used to make it happen\u2014the more I sweat in peacetime, the less I bleed in war.\n\nI often look back on who I was when I first encountered the words, \"I am a coward,\" in _A Walk With Love and Death_. And I realize that today I have something that I didn't have back then, the _knowledge that courage can be created_. I still have fears, but I no longer _am_ fear. I no longer think of myself as a coward. And when people compliment me on something I've done that they think was courageous, I don't dismiss them as being crazy or stupid.\n\nThere is a way I use to motivate myself to overcome any fear that's in my way today. It's a way I've never told anyone about until now, because it has a strange name. I call it \"walk with love and death.\" When I need to get through something, face something, or create a courageous action plan\u2014I take long walks. When I walk long and far enough, a solution _always_ appears. I eventually get oriented to the most creative course of action.\n\n\"When you walk,\" writes Dr. Andrew Weil in _Spontaneous Healing,_ \"the movement of your limbs is cross-patterned: the right leg and left arm move forward at the same time, then the left leg and right arm. This type of movement generates electrical activity in the brain that has a harmonizing influence on the central nervous system\u2014a special benefit of walking that you do not necessarily get from other kinds of exercise.\" I call it \"a walk with love\" because love and fear are opposites. (Most people think love and hate are opposites, but they are not.) The ultimate creativity occurs from a spirit of love and, as Emmet Fox says, \"Love is always creative, and fear is always destructive.\"\n\nI call it a \"walk with death,\" because it is only the acceptance and awareness of my own death that gives my life the clarity that it needs to be exciting.\n\nMy walks often last a long time. Somehow, whatever challenge I'm facing appears to me from many different angles as I'm walking. I know that one of the real values is that while walking, I'm truly alone with myself\u2014there are no phones to answer or people to talk to. I create so little of that kind of time in life, that it's always surprising how beneficial it is.\n\nTake your own challenges out for a walk. Feel your self-motivation growing inside you, as the electricity in your brain starts to harmonize your central nervous system. You'll soon know for a fact that you have what it takes. You won't have to pray for the courage to change the things you can\u2014you will already have it.\n\nI discovered something remarkable quite by accident one night as I was conducting a workshop on goal achievement. I discovered the power of negative thinking. As the people in the workshop struggled to list their goals on a piece of paper, I ran out of patience.\n\n\"How will you get what you want if you don't know what it is?\" I asked the room, half of which still had empty sheets of paper and empty facial expressions.\n\n\"Okay,\" I said, \"Let's put these goals away. I want to try something different. Take out a new sheet of paper and do this. Write down what you _don't want_ in your life. List every major problem and source of discomfort you have. All your worries. All the negative things you can think of, even if they haven't come into reality yet. Even if they are just things you don't want to happen in the future. Take your time and be thorough.\"\n\nWhat I saw happen next startled me. The entire room's energy level picked up, and everyone in the workshop was writing and writing and writing. It wasn't long before some people asked if they could use a second page.\n\nSomething strange and electric was filling the air as people aired their fears and grievances. Pages were flooded with ink, and hands and fingers had to be shaken out so people wouldn't cramp up from writing so much. When I called an end to the exercise, the room was buzzing.\n\nI had obviously let something loose that wasn't there before. At that moment I got my first true look at the power of the negative. Actually, I had seen it before. When I took the time to look back over my life, I realized that saying _no_ was always a stronger stand to take than saying _yes_. Saying _no_ is drawing a line in the sand. It is putting your foot down. It is passionate and powerful. Compared to saying _no_ , saying _yes_ is wobbly and wishy-washy. I said _yes_ to a thousand drinks of alcohol in my life. But it wasn't until one hung-over suicidal morning when I said _no_ that my life got completely turned around.\n\nSaying _no_ is powerful, because it comes from the deepest part of the soul. There are some things we just won't tolerate. When we fully understand the power of those _no's_ deep inside of us, we can use them to motivate ourselves like never before.\n\nWhen the people filled their papers up with what they _didn't_ want, we got busy converting problems into goals. You don't want to go bankrupt? Then let's get a prosperity plan going! You don't want to weigh as much as your two best friends combined? Then let's get a nutrition and exercise program going! Any _no_ can be converted to a powerful _yes_.\n\nSo if you're stuck without any truly motivating goals, dreams, or commitments, then go negative first. Figure out what you absolutely don't want\u2014what you absolutely fear and dread and refuse to let in to your life\u2014then convert it to its opposite, positive form and see what happens. You'll be more motivated than you ever dreamed you could be.\n\nI have used this in one-on-one meetings with people who wouldn't open up and tell me what they wanted. I simply asked them to tell me what they _didn't_ want to have happen and we were off to the races. Once you know what that is, you can convert the conversation to exciting plans and objectives. This explains why so many successful people had difficult upbringings, sometimes living in the harshest poverty. They connected very early to what they didn't want. The rest was clear sailing.\n\nThe next time you lack passion when thinking of what you want, try turning it around. Ask yourself what you absolutely don't want, and then feel the energy building in you to overcome that problem. That energy you're feeling is the deepest and most primal form of motivation.\n\n## 101. Just roar!\n\nWinston Churchill once said, \"I may not be the lion, but it was left to me to give the lion's roar.\"\n\nWhen people hire me to coach them, one of the first things I am happy to notice is that they usually suffer from the same myths I suffered from. That allows me to relate quickly and get them started on the path to achievement. The primary myth is the one Winston Churchill's quote relates to. The idea that I have to figure out _if I have what it takes_ , given my up-to-now identity, to do what I really want to do.\n\nThe answer is no. Just start doing it. If you need a lion's roar, you don't have to figure out if you are a lion first. Just roar. Way too much precious energy is lost in trying to figure out our identity, and why we are the way we are. We miss this fact of life: action doesn't care who you are.\n\n## 102. Experiment with happiness\n\nWe were born to be happy.\n\nThe spiritual leader Poonjaji once said, \"Happiness is permanent. It is always there. What comes and goes is unhappiness. If you identify with what comes and goes, you will be unhappy. If you identify with what is permanent and always there, you are happiness itself.\"\n\nWe add worries, fears, beliefs, and dark visions born of passivity to our happiness. We create a burden. If we want to find what's really at the heart of things (happiness), we've only to laugh, dance or sing.... OR: work at one single purposeful piece of work long enough (without distraction) until the light shines.\n\nPeople believe there is some generalized state of mind called happiness that they must find a way to achieve. So they begin arranging outside circumstances to match up with a vision of happiness they might have. They get a spouse and a house. A dog and a baby. A job and a car. They keep adding circumstance on circumstance. Soon it's a boat and a second home. Why a boat and a second home? Because the car and the first home didn't do it. It didn't make them feel generalized, consistent happiness.\n\nThen one day a storm hits the town and the house across the street has a giant tree fall on it. Children are trapped inside, and you race across the street, crawl into the wreckage, and pull a child to safety. As you sit on the lawn receiving hugs from the mother and father of the child, you are happier than you have ever been. Why can't you use that memory to find the true nature of happiness? Why are you, two weeks later, looking for a new house, a new spouse, a new car, or a new counter top?\n\nI once wondered what work I should do. I had been in the world of advertising, writing ads and commercials, but I lost my job when the company went under. _What is my true calling?_ I wondered. _What is my real work?_ I decided to take a long walk and think about my past. When was I happiest? Most excited? Most lit up? When could I say that I was really _on fire_?\n\nOne night during my recovery from addiction, the answer came. I was at a large meeting hall and they asked me to be the speaker. _Who, me?_ I wasn't at all prepared. And I also had the flu. So I felt awful. I also had a huge fear of public speaking. A bad mix of circumstances. I said no.\n\nThey pressed on, and they said _come on!_ They said there were newcomers to recovery who were scared too, but they were scared that they couldn't live without their drugs and alcohol. That they probably were not going to have any life at all. They asked what exactly I was scared of. Was it that I'd look foolish by not being a good speaker? They told me to stop thinking of myself and to think of the others. That persuaded me.\n\nSo I pushed past my fear and my fever and I walked up the steps to get to the podium to face that huge hall of people. I started hesitantly. Then I remembered what my sponsor had told me just before I got up there. \"Just tell the truth,\" he said. \"Just tell everyone what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now.\"\n\nSo I started telling the crowd what it was like. All the tragic and comic death-defying dysfunctions I participated in while drunk. The blackouts. The time in jail. Standing before the judge. The lies and sickening betrayals. And for some odd reason the people in the hall were roaring with laughter. There was something about my story, my sad life, that made them laugh and laugh. I looked out over the audience and saw the happiest faces I had ever seen. What was happening? I was just telling the whole truth. And maybe my fever was helping me, was feeding me with a weird kind of manic energy.\n\nThen I told what happened. The miracle of recovery. The total eclipse of the heart. The turnaround of a life. Clean and sober and free with three lovely daughters and a second chance. I told how I did it. How the steps of recovery were taken.\n\nAfter that talk, I was given a standing ovation and surrounded by people for an hour afterward. They said I explained how to take the steps better than anyone they'd heard in a long time. What was the formula? Mix fever with fear and add a huge shame-based desire to help the newcomer to recovery? No. Steps. Steps were the formula. The steps I walked up to the podium. The three steps of a connective talk that were told to me ahead of time by my sponsor: 1) What it was like, 2) what happened, and 3) what it's like now. Steps.\n\nSo, thinking about what work and what steps make me happy, I thought about that night and I decided right then and there that I would be a teacher of recovery. But not just from alcohol and drugs. But from all the other less lethal addictions, such as sadness, regret, procrastination, lack of wealth, lack of clients, career problems, and inadequate goal achievement. And so it happened that knowing where happiness comes from by allowing my own life to be an experiment, by testing it rather than trusting all the books, I found my work. You have to have fire to start a fire. Only a match, only a flame, can start a motivational fire.\n\n## 103. Catch life by the handle\n\nWhen I created an audio series called _MINDSHIFT_ I wanted to say that sometimes the shift of one's mind can be so simple that it can ride in for you while you're closing your eyes and taking a breath. All of a sudden you're not stuck to all these things you're believing about the world and the negative imaginary future that people dwell on all day. All day long, people are obsessed with their negative imaginary futures.\n\nAnd one of the many ways to shift back into the creative mode is to take a walk by the ocean. And the ocean can be anything. It can be a beautiful house plant in my apartment. It can be a wonderful picture on the wall. Take that in fully, completely, and let it ride in on some deep breaths and close your eyes and all those thoughts that held you captive can go away. Whether you're picturing it or you're at the actual ocean taking a walk and just taking in the view completely, really being present with it and having it be the only thing and breathing it in and listening to the sounds, listening to the waves and _being there_ because that breaks the pattern, it breaks the hold that these negative beliefs have on you and it releases that creepy feeling that negative beliefs are the truth about life, which, of course, they're not. They're just negative beliefs. So, when I slow down, I get out of my negative imaginary future. I stop racing ahead into the future in my mind and I bring myself back to a relaxed, present-moment big picture.\n\nThere's this old story of the shoe salesman who goes to a distant country, arrives there and sees that no one there wears shoes and he says, \"Oh, no. I'm not going to make any sales on this trip. No one here wears shoes.\" Another salesman goes to the same country and he sees that no one wears shoes and he says, \"Oh, boy. I'm going to have a field day here, nobody has shoes yet!\"\n\nYou can catch life by the handle or by the blade. When you are in your future you will always be catching it by the blade. Someone throws you a knife. You catch it. The second shoe salesperson is the person who caught the knife by the handle. And the first guy caught the knife by the blade.\n\nThe more you can slow down, life slows down. That knife that's headed toward you slows down, and it is easier to catch it by the handle.\n\nAnd the more you race out ahead into your own future, your negative imaginary future, which people obsess about, the faster you're trying to solve problems that don't exist and that has you continuously catching the knife by the blade, in other words, seeing nothing but bad news and putting all news into the filter of bad news. _Oh, no, the economy is bad therefore I'm not going to make any money_. Well, really, a lot of people made their money by knowing what to do during the Depression, knowing that there were new services that needed to be provided and new things that needed to be done. They didn't just automatically quit.\n\n## 104. Leave yourself messages\n\nI have certain messages, quotations, sayings that I read in the morning. There is one that I always read no matter what, and I will never move this one out of the line-up: \"He who is not every day conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.\" \u2014Ralph Waldo Emerson\n\nOur usual system is to not only avoid what we fear, but also to avoid knowing that we are avoiding things. We don't know why we have this vague feeling of danger and insecurity. We just know it's there.\n\nEvery day I practice this avoidance, I become weaker and more cowardly. I get scared more easily, sometimes by the smallest things\u2014the phone ringing, an e-mail from a creditor. Courage and strength do not remain in place. The same is true with my soul and spirit. Each day I skip Emerson's advice to face a small or large fear, it's like my arm not lifting a small or large weight. Weakness creeps in. Therefore I use the quote as a message across time from Emerson to me. I see it in the morning because I have put it there as a way to motivate myself. And it works.\n\nHere is another one (another motivational message!) that I have up on my bookcase, and I make sure I let it sink in at least once a week:\n\nIt is important that you get clear for yourself that your only access to impacting life is action. The world does not care what you intend, how committed you are, how you feel or what you think, and certainly it has no interest in what you want and don't want. Take a look at life as it is lived and see for yourself that the world only moves for you when you act. \u2014Werner Erhard\n\n## 105. Try reinventing yourself\n\nA person in one of my seminars came up to me during the break and pointed at the title of my book _Reinventing Yourself_ and told me she was offended by the title.\n\n\"What's so wrong with me that I have to reinvent myself?\" she said.\n\n\"You don't have to reinvent yourself,\" I said. \"And nothing has to be wrong with you for you to do it.\"\n\nFear of change is the root of most unhappiness. Companies are like this, as well\u2014companies who stay stuck in old ways of being clinging, clinging, clinging as long as they can to comfort zones.\n\nSo what's the answer to the question, _Why should I reinvent myself?_ It's kind of like you are at the high school reunion, you are sitting at the table, and they are playing all the songs that were popular when you were in high school, and somebody comes up and says, \"Please dance with me\", and you say to yourself and to them, \"Why should I dance?\" Well, that's an absurd question. Dance just to dance. Dance just to have fun. Go on out there on the floor and dance and you'll see why you should dance. The same feeling is true with reinventing yourself. Reinvent yourself and you'll see why you are doing it. The real fun, the real joy is in reinventing yourself. It isn't in figuring out why.\n\n## 106. Choose responding over reacting\n\nThe great psychologist Rollo May said, \"Human freedom involves our capacity to pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight.\" People who enjoy being more and more creative through their days, weeks, and lives are happy to learn the distinction between reacting and responding.\n\nReacting occurs when I get an e-mail that angers or annoys me, and I send a blistering reply that makes the relationship worse, or when a family member says something and I say something sarcastic in reply. These are emotional reactions.\n\nIf I'm to build great relationships in my professional and personal life, I want to begin to _respond_ and not react. A response is a creation based on what I want the relationship to be, _not_ based on what the other person has said. It honors my commitments and creativity over my immediate negative feelings. Like the great psychologist and author Rollo May points out, it's all about learning to pause.\n\nThe habitual impulse may be to emotionally react to people. But inside the pause I can remember my true purpose. I can center on my commitment not to let other people bring me down. I can see the value, as I pause, in not taking anything personally. Then, when I breathe inside my pause, I can shift back up to \"create mode.\" What kind of relationship do I really want with this person? What kind of a response would be most likely to create that?\n\n## 107. Apply the book you read\n\nThe great poet Ezra Pound said, \"Properly we should read for power. A person reading should be a person intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.\"\n\nI have found that a great book is even more powerful the second time through, especially if it has been a year or so since I read it. I am more enriched reading that book for a second time than I am reading some new book for the first time. It's the difference between information and transformation.\n\nPeople often say to me, \"I love that book, the problem is applying it.\"\n\nWell, my answer to that is the application is everything. Loving the book is nothing. It isn't how many books you read, it's how many you apply. You are better off, therefore, reading one book four times than reading four books one time each. Instead, most people try to accumulate knowledge. But it doesn't help you when it's accumulated, it makes you fat and overstuffed.\n\nA friend told me 100 books he thought everyone in my profession should read. I'd rather he tell me the _one book_ I should read 100 times. The difference is between a life that is changed, and a life that is weighed down with heavy, immobilizing knowledge.\n\nWe can sit and ponder philosophical concepts forever, but it won't help our lives. What really helps is to test things, experiment, try things out and take the conceptual excitement and put it into _immediate action!_\n\nA lot of times, a fire starts internally when I read something (Bruce Lee's _Jeet Kune Do,_ for example). It starts in my mind and my heart, and I get all excited. Then what I always want to do after that is put some kind of process in place in which I monitor myself to make sure I'm going to do some application. So, in a funny way, when somebody says, \"I have a problem with application,\" my answer is, \"Well, then _do more application_.\"\n\nThere's really no problem, unless you're being hypnotized by circumstance. Let's say I read a book about Bruce Lee and exercise and I get real excited and it says that if a person takes 10,000 steps a day, his blood pressure... and all these biomarkers (or vital markers?) improve. He's going to live 10 years longer and have a better quality life than the average person who only takes 3,000 steps a day. When I read about that, the motivational fire starts inside me and I think that would be fun. I'm starting to get excited. But application is everything here.\n\nSo I buy a pedometer. I put a chart on my wall and I start tracking how many steps I take each day. How long is it going to take me to find my path to 10,000 each day? So I create a game around it, and I do some tracking and I keep score.\n\nI don't keep score because I need to be a competitive alpha male winner, but because the game element has a paradoxical effect on human beings. It introduces accountability (because you're counting things), which is really needed. And it also adds a playful game element. In charting how many steps I take, I created a little game that challenged me to take more steps in December than I took in November. I created a contest between \"Me in December\" versus \"Me in November\" and I found out one December morning that I won. It's over. I can take a knee, the game's over, I've beat my last month's number!\n\nThe game element in anything that you put into application adds a wonderful sense of play. You've got accountability, there's a scoreboard, and you also have a sense of gamesmanship. It's fun, and I'm winning. That's true for anything. Not just physical exercise.\n\nIt's really true for people who sell or market their services. The minute they start accounting for how much time they put into sales and marketing, their sales and marketing results get better.\n\nSo, to the person who says \"I have a hard time applying,\" my answer is, \"That's because you're not applying. That's why you have a hard time applying.\"\n\nIf somebody says, \"I just joined a new health club but the problem is I have a hard time getting myself to go.\" My answer would be, \"Well, go.\" Go to the club. There isn't really a lot in between wanting to go to the club and going to the club. We think there's a lot between those two things, but we are wrong, and we pay a terrible price for that miscalculation. We put phony barriers between wanting it and doing it, and that's where the hypnosis of circumstance comes in.\n\nThat's why I believe coaching is such a powerful profession, because if you know you're going to go see your coach in a week, and if you know that you and your coach agreed that you'd take certain actions this week to see how they turned out, you're going to make sure you take those actions. Because when you sit down with your coach again, you're going to be reporting in on how they worked. It introduces the accountability, the game element. The word \"coach\" comes from sports, it doesn't come from any kind of psychological or spiritual field. Once you see all of this you can become the director of the movie of your life. You choose your activity, and then you yell, \"Action!\"\n\n## 108. Do what you can do today\n\nSometimes people e-mail me to see if they can work with me for a year to have me be a coach and partner to their big dream that they have committed to _just now_. I'm not against dreaming big, but a problem emerges when this big goal is all you've got and there's no way you can have a great day because as you live through your day, and you've made so little progress toward the big dream, it feels like a bad day. Or it feels like a hopeless ambition, and the goal ends up actually hurting your self-esteem. It ends up reminding you, every time you look at it, of _how far away you are from where you want to be_.\n\nThen the goal starts to reinforce the idea that you're not enough, or you're not there yet, or you haven't arrived. You haven't made it. You've got a long way to go. All of those thoughts are demotivating and demoralizing. They don't help. So, here I've got this beautiful goal; I've put it on my wall, and it only reminds me that I'm not there yet. I'm not enough. The air goes out. I am deflated by what was meant to inspire me. And, so, if my programming or my identity becomes _I'm not there yet_ , it's hard to fire up and have a great day from that position.\n\nWhat I like to do, once I or one of my clients has an outcome goal, a results goal, is to only let that goal help inform my plan for what I'm going to do _today_. For example, an Olympic athlete such as Michael Phelps might dream of six gold medals in the Olympics, but he and his coach have to reduce that, translate it into the kind of _day_ they are going to have at the pool _today_. What kind of day, if repeated, would lead to that goal?\n\nIf I want to look a certain way, how would I work out and what would my diet be _today_ for me to look that way? What we're looking for to get you the best human performance, even in such categories as marital happiness, is \"What can I do _today_?\" Not \"How do I achieve my big, dreamy goal way down the road?\" There is no road, and there is no guaranteed future. The game changes. Life changes. Therefore the real goal is to honor the microcosm.\n\nA day is a microcosm of life itself. You can \"die\" at night when you go to sleep and experience rebirth when you wake up. Most people see that as a positive thing. They say things such as, \"Wow, what a great sleep I had... I had a dreamless sleep... _I was dead to the world_. I feel great.\" You are then born again each morning.\n\nIf I can really live this way, and teach my children and clients to do the same, and practice living this way, then things always turn out well because I have leverage and access to my energy now. I'm going to do my 100 pushups, I'm going to do my walking, my running, I'm going to do my writing for my book, I'm going to make 10 sales calls. These are all things I can do and they don't depend on the universe returning something to me.\n\nToday is where it all happens.\n\n## 109. Create a different system!\n\nThe great genius Buckminster Fuller said, \"You can't change anything by fighting or resisting it. You change something by making it obsolete through superior methods.\" Making the bad thing go away is a double negative: _bad thing_ and _go away_ are both negative. To change my life, I want positive energy. What Buckminster Fuller is saying is an important part of why coaching and consulting works. My coach does not have me fight off bad habits. My coach has me execute superior methods of living that make the bad things a mere memory.\n\nWhat I learned from the visionary and enlightened president of Microchip Technology, Steve Sanghi, is that the world is a collection of systems. When I was asked to come into that company to coach and train its people, they shared their culture with me and I was awakened. Every result in life is produced by a system. And every system is perfect for the result it gets. So if you are not getting the result you want, look at the system that is producing that result. What system do you want to replace it with?\n\nIf eating a high-carb diet and exercising infrequently is producing the result of my being 30 pounds overweight, I first want to recognize that it's a perfect system for doing that. By seeing the system as perfect for the result it gets, I no longer have to make myself \"wrong\" or \"weak.\" It's simply a system. By replacing that system with a regular exercise program and a balanced diet, I find I have lost the 30 pounds. I made the old system obsolete through superior methods. That's the only way anything ever changes.\n\n## 110. Enjoy your resistance training\n\nHow much weight do you give to circumstance? Do you allow it to pull you down? Take you out of action? Does the weight of circumstance leave you with no chance at a courageous surge of creativity?\n\nIf you _lifted_ the circumstance, would you not grow stronger? Some people call it resistance training, and they love it. They hire a personal trainer to show them how to take on more and more of this invigorating training.\n\nWe run from it in real life, but then we sign up for a gym membership to engage in it big time. You can do resistance training every day, everywhere. You can think of it as _lifting circumstance_. Or you can curse and avoid circumstance and grow weak. Use it (that arm of yours, that big heart) or lose it.\n\nThe softest and easiest way to live is to simply suffer, to let the sight of rocks hypnotize you. You are growing sleepy now. Your arms and legs are growing weaker and weaker with every breath you take.\n\nIf you wanted a hole in your back yard and I brought you a shovel, that would be all you needed. You wouldn't need to trust the shovel or believe in the shovel. The most effective thing would be to leave your mind out of it, and just use it. If you called me to say there is still no hole in the back yard, and you don't know why, I would say it was because you haven't used the shovel.\n\n\"Why don't I use the shovel?\"\n\nBecause you don't use it.\n\n\"Why don't I _want_ to use the shovel?\"\n\nYou don't have to want to use the shovel to use the shovel. We've become very confused about our wants and desires. We've been so spoiled into thinking we should have everything we want and desire, that we are paralyzed. We don't take action until we feel like we really want to!\n\nRemember that only fire starts fire.\n\nTo say \"I don't apply it\" is already giving yourself the answer to your conundrum. The best way to motivate yourself is to act. Even though that sounds unhelpful!\n\nPeople want to know how to motivate themselves so that they can take the actions they need to take to have the life they want. What they don't see is that action is what creates motivation. Not the other way around. But once they see it, they have new freedom. They realize that they can just act without over-thinking it.\n\nYou know the water's freezing. You hesitate with the thought that it will shock your system to just jump in. But then you just jump, and five minutes later you are joyful, and the water is exciting and fun.\n\n## Bibliography\n\nBach, Richard. _Illusions_. New York: Dell Publishing, 1981.\n\nBelasco, James. _Flight of the Buffalo: Soaring to Excellence, Learning to Let Employees Lead_. New York: Warner Books, 1994.\n\nBennett, William. _The Book of Virtues_. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.\n\nBranden, Nathaniel. _The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem: The Definitive Work on Self-Esteem by the Leading Pioneer in the Field_. New York: Bantam Books, 1995.\n\nBristol, Claude. _The Magic of Believing_. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1948.\n\nChandler, Steve and Michael Bassoff. _RelationSHIFT: Revolutionary Fund-Raising_. San Francisco, Calif.: Robert D. Reed Publishers, 2001.\n\nChopra, Deepak. _Creating Affluence: The A-to-Z Steps to a Richer Life_. San Rafael, Calif.: Amber-Allen Publishing, 1993.\n\nCsikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. _Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience_. New York: Harper & Row, 1990.\n\nDyer, Wayne. _Choosing Your Own Greatness_. Nightingale Conant Corp., 1991. Audiocassette.\n\nDylan, Bob. _Chronicles_. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004.\n\nGoss, Tracy. _The Last Word in Power: Executive Re-Invention for Leaders Who Must Make the Impossible Happen_. New York: Doubleday, 1996.\n\nHill, Art. _I Don't Care if I Never Come Back_. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1980.\n\nHill, Napoleon. _The Master Key to Riches_. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 2009.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Law of Success: The Master Wealth-Builder's Complete and Original Lesson Plan for Achieving Your Dreams_. New York: Penguin, 2008.\n\nJohnson, Spencer. _The One Minute Sales Person: The Quickest Way to Sell People on Yourself, Your Services, Products, or Ideas_ \u2014 _at Work and in Life_. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.\n\nKaufman, Barry Neil. _To Love Is to Be Happy With_. New York: Ballantine Books, 1977.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Son Rise: The Miracle Continues_. Tiburon, Calif.: H.J. Kramer, Inc., 1994.\n\nKoning, Hans. _A Walk With Love and Death_. Montgomery, Ala.: NewSouth Books, 1961.\n\nLamott, Anne. _Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life_. New York: Anchor Books, 1995.\n\nLee, Bruce. _Tao of Jeet Kune Do_. Santa Clarita, Calif.: Ohara Publications, 1975.\n\nLovell, Jim and Jeffrey Kluger. _Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13_. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994.\n\nMandino, Og. _The Greatest Salesman in the World: You Can Change Your Life With the Priceless Wisdom of Ten Ancient Scrolls Handed Down for Thousands of Years_. Hollywood, Fla.: Frederick Fell, Inc., 1968.\n\nMcGinnis, Alan Loy. _The Power of Optimism_. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.\n\nOgilvy, David. _Confessions of an Advertising Man_. New York: Athenium, 1963.\n\nPeale, Norman Vincent. _The Power of Positive Thinking_. New York: Ballantine Books, 1982.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Stay Alive all Your Life_. New York: Fireside, 2003.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _The Amazing Results of Positive Thinking_. New York: Fireside, 2003.\n\nPeck, M. Scott. _The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth_. New York: Touchstone, 1978.\n\nSeligman, Martin. _Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life_. New York: Pocket Books, 1990.\n\nSenge, Peter. _The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization_. New York: Doubleday, 1990.\n\nStewart, John. _Write From the Heart_. Buckingham, Va.: Crow Press, 1991.\n\nSylver, Marshall. _Passion, Profit, and Power_. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.\n\nTolle, Eckhart. _The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment_. Vancouver, B. C., Canada: Namaste Publishing, 1999.\n\nUeland, Brenda. _If You Want to Write_. Eastford, Conn.: Martino Fine Books, 2011.\n\nViscott, David. _Risking_. New York: Pocket Books, 1990.\n\nVos Savant, Marilyn. _Brain Building in Just 12 Weeks_. New York: Bantam, 1991.\n\nWaitley, Denis. _The Psychology of Winning_. New York: Berkley, 1986.\n\nWeil, Andrew. _Spontaneous Healing: How to Discover and Embrace Your Body's Natural Ability to Maintain and Heal Itself_. New York: Ballantine: 1995.\n\nWilliamson, Porter. _Patton's Principles: A Handbook for Managers Who Mean It!_ New York: Touchstone, 1982.\n\nWilson, Colin. _The Essential Colin Wilson_. Berkeley, Calif.: Celestial Arts, 1986.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Frankenstein's Castle: The Right Brain: Door to Wisdom_. London: Ashgrove Publishing, 1982.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _Necessary Doubt_. New York: Pocket, 1966.\n\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. _New Pathways in Psychology: Maslow and the Post-Freudian Revolution_. New York: New American Library, 1974.\n\nWooden, John. _They Call Me Coach_. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004.\n\nWurman, Richard Saul. _Follow the Yellow Brick Road: Learning to Give, Take, and Use Instructions_. New York: Bantam, 1991.\n\n## Index\n\n5 percent solution, \u2013142\n\nacting the part you want to be, \u201342\n\naction, changing worry into, \u2013163\n\naction plans, , \u2013154\n\nactive relaxation,\n\naffirmations, \u201330,\n\n_Amazing Results of Positive Thinking, The_ ,\n\nasking questions, importance of, \u201369\n\naudiobooks, , \u201335\n\nawareness, making the most of, \u201367\n\nbad habits,\n\nreplacing, \u2013117\n\nreprogramming, \u201338\n\nBassoff, Michael, ,\n\nBennett, William, \u201364,\n\nbiocomputer,\n\ndefinition of,\n\nGIGO and the human,\n\nprogram your, \u201366\n\n_Bird by Bird_ , \u2013143\n\n_Book of Virtues, The,_\n\n_Brain Building in Just 12 Weeks_ , ,\n\nbrain chemicals, using your, \u201345\n\nbrainstorming, \u2013111\n\nBranden, Devers, \u201348, \u201375\n\nBranden, Nathaniel, , , , \u201375, , , , , ,\n\nbreathing, \u2013120\n\nBrown, Henry, \u2013154\n\nBurgess, Anthony, \u2013140\n\n_Buried Alive_ ,\n\nBurroughs, William,\n\nBurton, Richard,\n\nCampbell, Joseph,\n\nchallenge as motivator, \u2013140\n\nchallenge, facing, \u201323,\n\nchanges, small, \u2013142\n\nchanging yourself, , \u2013142, \u2013153\n\nChesterton, G.K., ,\n\nChopra, Deepak, ,\n\nChurchill, Sir Winston, ,\n\ncoaching, value of, \u2013124\n\ncomfort zones, ,\n\ncompetition, \u2013135\n\nconfidence, ,\n\ncourage, ,\n\ncreating a vision, \u201319\n\n_Creating Affluence_ ,\n\ncreating vs. reacting, \u201352,\n\ncreative fallacy, the, , \u201385\n\ncreative\n\nmode,\n\nprocess, , \u2013179\n\nthinking, ,\n\ncreativity vs. originality,\n\nCsikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, ,\n\ncuriosity, power of, \u201369\n\ndeathbed exercise, \u201317\n\nDeaton, Dennis, \u201379, ,\n\nDe Crescenzo, Luciano,\n\ndiscipline, \u201360,\n\ndreaming, power of,\n\ndreams, ,\n\ndriving, \u201335\n\n\"driving for ideas,\" \u201361\n\nDyer, Wayne, ,\n\nEimers, Kathy, \u2013169\n\nEinstein, Albert, \u201353,\n\nEmerson, Ralph Waldo, , , \u2013199\n\nenergy, , ,\n\nenjoyment vs. pleasure, \u2013166\n\nErhard, Werner, , ,\n\n_Essential Colin Wilson, The_ ,\n\nFalk, Peter, \u201369\n\n\"false courage,\" ,\n\nfate, mastering your own,\n\nfatigue, cause of,\n\nfear, \u201355, , , , \u2013193,\n\nfearlessness, social, \u201347\n\n_Fifth Discipline, The,_\n\nfire, motivational, , , , , ,\n\nFisher, Bobby, \u2013120\n\n_Flight of the Buffalo_ ,\n\nflow,\n\n_Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience,_\n\nfocus, \u201321,\n\n_Follow the Yellow Brick Road_ ,\n\nFord, Henry, , ,\n\n_Fortune_ ,\n\nfour-circle exercise, , \u2013132\n\nFox, Emmet, , ,\n\n_Frankenstein's Castle,_ ,\n\nfreedom, \u2013118,\n\nfriends, positive, surrounding yourself with, \u201340\n\nFritz, Robert, , \u2013179\n\ngame, turning work into a, \u201387, \u2013203\n\ngames as challenges,\n\nGandhi, ,\n\nGIGO,\n\nGilbert, Rob,\n\ngoals,\n\nbig, \u2013205\n\nconverting problems into, \u2013193\n\ncreating, ,\n\nenlarging your, \u2013175\n\nhappiness and, \u201380\n\nimportance of setting, , \u201395, \u201399, \u2013132, \u2013152\n\noutcome, ,\n\npower, setting specific, \u2013152\n\nprocess, \u201395\n\nprogressing toward, \u201372\n\nsetting small, \u201395\n\nstaying focused on, \u201321\n\nwriting down your, \u201399,\n\nGoss, Tracy, ,\n\n_Greatest Salesman in the World, The_ , \u2013184\n\ngreatness, tapping into your, \u201384\n\nhabits,\n\nbad, \u2013117, \u2013125\n\nreprogramming your bad, \u201338\n\nhappiness, \u201328, \u201363, , \u201380,\n\nexperiment with, \u2013196\n\nHardison, Steve, \u2013124,\n\nheroes, \u2013177\n\nHill, Napoleon, \u201333, , , , \u2013177, ,\n\nHill, Terry, \u201384,\n\nhonesty, \u2013202\n\nimagination, using your, \u201353\n\nInfincom, ,\n\nInformation Age,\n\ninformation vs. transformation, \u2013202\n\ninner voice, \u201372, \u2013122,\n\n\"instant karma,\"\n\ninspiration, leading through,\n\nintention deficit disorder,\n\ninteractive listening,\n\nJames, William, ,\n\nKafka, Franz, \u201344\n\nKaufman, Barry Neil, ,\n\nKeller, Helen, \u2013137\n\nKennedy, John F., ,\n\nKillebrew, Mike, ,\n\nKnipe, Fred, , , , ,\n\nknowledge as power base, \u2013181\n\nKoether, Bob, , \u2013100\n\nKolbe, Jim, \u201327\n\n\"ladder of selves,\"\n\nLamott, Anne, , \u2013144\n\nlanguage, power of, \u201365\n\nlaughter, \u2013147, \u2013185\n\n_Law of Success_ ,\n\nlazy dynamite, \u201339\n\n_Learned Optimism_ , ,\n\nleft-brain thinking, ,\n\nleft brain vs. right brain, \u201381\n\nlife,\n\ncreating your,\n\nsimplifying your, \u201327\n\nlistening,\n\ninteractive,\n\nreprogramming your,\n\nlist-of-20 self-storming technique,\n\nlists, making, \u2013151\n\nluck,\n\n_Magic of Believing, The_ ,\n\n_Master Key to Riches, The,_ ,\n\nMay, Rollo, \u2013201\n\nMcGinnis, Alan Loy, ,\n\nMicrochip Technology,\n\nMicrosoft,\n\nmind vs. emotions, \u201357\n\n_MINDSHIFT_ ,\n\nmoney, \u2013148\n\nmotivation, easing into, \u201339\n\n( _see also_ lazy dynamite)\n\nmystery novels, reading, \u2013169\n\n_Naked Lunch_ , _Necessary Doubt_ ,\n\nnegative beliefs,\n\nnegative thinking, power of, \u2013193\n\n_New Pathways in Psychology_ ,\n\nnews fasts, \u2013160\n\nNichols, Rett, \u201322\n\nNin, Ana\u00efs, ,\n\n\"no one is coming,\" \u201375\n\n_One Minute Sales Person, The_ ,\n\noptimism, pessimism vs., \u2013106\n\noptimistic thinking, \u2013137\n\nPascal, Blaise, \u201343\n\n_Passion, Profit, and Power_ ,\n\npassive relaxation,\n\n_Path of Least Resistance, The_ ,\n\nPatton, General George, , , \u2013120\n\n_Patton's Principles_ ,\n\npeak experiences, ,\n\nPeale, Norman Vincent, ,\n\nPeck, M. Scott, , ,\n\npersonal\n\nintegrity, \u2013183\n\ntransformation, ,\n\npersonality,\n\npessimism, \u2013106, , ,\n\npessimistic\n\noutlook,\n\nthoughts, debating, \u2013106\n\nvoice, , \u2013122, \u2013143\n\n( _see also_ the voice)\n\npessimists, ,\n\nPeters, Tom, ,\n\nplanning your work, \u201336\n\nplanning, importance of, \u2013154\n\nplans, writing your,\n\nPlato, ,\n\nplay, value of,\n\npleasure vs. enjoyment, \u2013166\n\n_Power of Now, The,_ 33\n\n_Power of Optimism, The_ , ,\n\n_Power of Positive Thinking, The_ ,\n\npresent, living in the, \u201367\n\nproblem, becoming the, \u2013173\n\nproblems as learning tools, \u201391, \u2013109\n\nproblem-solving vs. creating, \u2013180\n\nprogress, natural rhythm of, \u201371\n\npromises, making unreasonable, \u2013128\n\npsychic entropy, _Psychology of Winning_ ,\n\npublic speaking, , , , \u2013196\n\npurpose, finding your, \u2013158\n\nreacting vs. responding, \u2013201\n\nreading, \u2013184, \u2013202,\n\nreality, turning dreams into, \u2013146\n\nreinventing yourself (concept), \u2013200\n\n_Reinventing Yourself_ (book),\n\nrejection as motivator, \u2013156\n\nRelation-Shift (seminar), ,\n\n_RelationSHIFT_ (book),\n\nrelation-shift, making a, \u201370\n\nrelationship-builders,\n\nrelationship-building, \u201358\n\nrelationships, \u201358, ,\n\nrelaxation,\n\nactive vs. passive,\n\nactivity and,\n\nresistance training,\n\nresponding vs. reacting, \u2013201\n\nright-brain thinking,\n\nrisks, taking,\n\n_Road Less Traveled, The,_ ,\n\nRobbins, Anthony, ,\n\nRollings, Judy, , \u2013189\n\nSalinger, J.D., ,\n\nSchwarzenegger, Arnold, \u201318\n\nself-consciousness, , ,\n\nself-creation, , , ,\n\nself-denial,\n\nself-discipline, , \u201360, ,\n\nself-esteem, \u201375,\n\nself-examination, \u2013124\n\nself-image, \u2013138, \u2013187\n\nself-mentoring,\n\nself-motivation rituals, \u201362\n\nself-motivation, \u201329, , \u201370, , \u201393, , , ,\n\nself-responsibility, ( _see also_ \"no one is coming\")\n\nself-revelation,\n\nSeligman, Dr. Martin, , , \u2013136\n\nsentence-completion exercises, , \u2013141\n\nserenity prayer,\n\nservice, , \u2013148\n\nsilence, listening to, \u201344\n\nsimplifying your life, \u201327\n\n_Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, The_ , , , , ,\n\nsocial fearlessness, \u201347\n\n_South Pacific_ , \u2013104\n\nsoul purpose, find your, \u201380\n\nSpassky, Boris, \u2013120\n\n_Spontaneous Healing,_ 40, \u201391,\n\nStewart, Martha, \u2013166\n\nsystem, create a different,\n\nteam-building,\n\ntelevision, turning off the, \u201350\n\nThinkers vs. Whiners, \u2013164\n\nthinking outside the box, \u2013100\n\nthought,\n\nconnection to motivation, \u201338,\n\npower of, \u201342\n\nthoughts vs. emotions,\n\ntime management, \u201325,\n\ntransformation, personal, , , \u2013204\n\ntreasure-mapping, ( _see also_ four-circle exercise)\n\ntruth, , ,\n\nunexpected, welcoming the,\n\nunhappiness as a tool,\n\nvictim status,\n\nvision, creating a, \u201319, , \u2013180\n\nvisioneering (concept), \u2013146\n\nvoice,\n\nchanging your, \u2013113\n\nthe, \u2013122\n\nVos Savant, Marilyn, ,\n\nvulnerability, using your, \u201349\n\n_Walk With Love and Death, A_ , ,\n\nwalking, , \u2013168, \u2013191\n\nWalsh, Bill, \u201352\n\nwants vs. desires,\n\nWatts, Alan, , ,\n\nweakness, exploit your, \u2013172\n\nWeil, Dr. Andrew, , , ,\n\nWhiners vs. Thinkers, \u2013164\n\nwhole-brain thinking, \u201382\n\nwillpower, developing, \u201360,\n\nWilson, Colin, , , , , , , ,\n\nWooden, John, , ,\n\nwork, planning your, \u201336\n\nworry, , \u201353, , \u2013163\n\nwriter's block, \u2013143\n\nXerox, \u2013100\n\n## About the Author\n\nSteve Chandler is a life coach and a keynote and convention speaker who lives and works in Phoenix, Arizona. He has brought his workshops and seminars to more than 30 Fortune 500 companies and hundreds of small businesses. His other bestselling motivational books include _100 Ways to Motivate Others, Reinventing Yourself, Time Warrior, 17 Lies that are Holding You Back,_ and _Truth That Will Set You Free_.\n\nChandler can be reached at _www.stevechandler.com_. There you will also find free audio downloads and motivational messaging subscriptions.\n\n## Also by Steve Chandler\n\n_100 Ways to Motivate Others_\n\n_Reinventing Yourself_\n\n_50 Ways to Create Great Relationships_\n\n_The Joy of Selling_\n\n_17 Lies That are Holding You Back_\n\n_RelationShift_\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}} +{"text":"The \nAFFINITY \nBRIDGE\n\nThe author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices.\n\n**Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author's copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com\/piracy.**\nThis is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed \nin this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.\n\nTHE AFFINITY BRIDGE: A NEWBURY & HOBBES INVESTIGATION\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2009 by George Mann.\n\nAll rights reserved.\n\nA Tor Book \nPublished by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC \n175 Fifth Avenue \nNew York, NY 10010\n\nwww.tor-forge.com\n\nTor\u00ae is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.\n\nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data\n\nMann, George.\n\nThe affinity bridge \/ George Mann.\u20141st ed.\n\np. cm.\n\n\"A Tom Doherty Associates book.\"\n\nISBN-13: 978-0-7653-2320-0\n\nISBN-10: 0-7653-2320-6\n\n1. London (England)\u2014History\u201419th century\u2014Fiction. I. Title.\n\nPR6113.A546A69 2009\n\n823'.92\u2014dc22\n\n2009012919\n\nFirst Edition: July 2009\n\nPrinted in the United States of America\n\n0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1\n**_For James George Alexander Mann_**\nACKNOWLEDGMENTS\n\nNo book is written in isolation, and I owe thanks to a great many people, not least to the miraculous Emma Barnes for all her support (how _do_ you fit it all in?), Michael Rowley for being a true friend, Mark Newton for being a fantastic sounding board, Lou Anders for continuing encouragement, Chris Roberson and Allison Baker for their shared love of British TV (amongst many other virtues), Nathan Long for his judicious pencil, my family for their ongoing support, and Fiona, my wife, for taking me seriously when I needed it most, and for not taking me seriously the rest of the time.\nThe \nAFFINITY \nBRIDGE\nCONTENTS\n\nPROLOGUE\n\nCHAPTER 1\n\nCHAPTER 2\n\nCHAPTER 3\n\nCHAPTER 4\n\nCHAPTER 5\n\nCHAPTER 6\n\nCHAPTER 7\n\nCHAPTER 8\n\nCHAPTER 9\n\nCHAPTER 10\n\nCHAPTER 11\n\nCHAPTER 12\n\nCHAPTER 13\n\nCHAPTER 14\n\nCHAPTER 15\n\nCHAPTER 16\n\nCHAPTER 17\n\nCHAPTER 18\n\nCHAPTER 19\n\nCHAPTER 20\n\nCHAPTER 21\n\nCHAPTER 22\n\nCHAPTER 23\n\nCHAPTER 24\n\nCHAPTER 25\n\nCHAPTER 26\n\nCHAPTER 27\n\nCHAPTER 28\n\nCHAPTER 29\n\nCHAPTER 30\n\nCHAPTER 31\n\nEPILOGUE\nPROLOGUE\n\nINDIA, JUNE 1901\n\nThe flies. Always the damn flies.\n\nCoulthard slapped at the insects buzzing incessantly around his face and checked his rifle for the fifth time that hour. The heat was proving even more oppressive than usual, and the hair at the nape of his neck was damp with perspiration, his uniform tight and uncomfortable. The other two weren't faring much better, either: Hargreaves was perched on a nearby rock, taking a long swig from his water bottle, and Taylor was pacing backwards and forwards, kicking miserably at the dirt. Only two days remained before the start of their return journey to England, and the lieutenant was still riding them hard, forcing them to go out on patrol in the stifling midday sun. Coulthard cursed under his breath. The man was an egomaniac.\n\nFrom the craggy outcropping on which he stood, Coulthard could just make out the village they had trudged their way here from: a small collection of farms and ramshackle buildings that leaned awkwardly against each other like rows of uneasy siblings. Behind him, a line of trees marked the edge of the village boundaries, and to his left, a series of distant specks denoted a smattering of local farmworkers tending their crops in fields of leafy green. The place had an air of expectancy about it, like somehow it was holding its breath in anticipation of something yet to come.\n\nYawning, he turned to his companions, resting his rifle against a nearby rock. \"So, what's the first thing you're going to do when we get back to London?\" They'd had this conversation a hundred times in the last few weeks, and he already knew what Hargreaves was going to say. Still, it was a conversation that reminded them all of home, and as far as Coulthard was concerned, that was no bad thing.\n\nHargreaves looked up from his water bottle. He mirrored the other man's smile. \"The minute I step off that airship, I'm heading for a pint in the Fox and Hound. I've missed the sorry beggars that prop up the bar in there, and I've missed a good pint of English ale.\" He chuckled at the memories. \"After that, who knows? Maybe I'll take the train out to Berkshire and spend some time on my parents' farm.\" He glanced over at Taylor, who was still kicking up clouds of dust with his feet, a preoccupied expression on his face. Hargreaves dabbed at the perspiration beading his forehead with the back of his sleeve and then leaned in conspiratorially. \"Not sure about him, though.\" He indicated the other man with his water bottle. \"He's not in a good way. Too wet behind the ears for the things he's seen out here.\" He lowered his voice even further. \"May be the asylum for him, when we finally get him home. Poor sod.\"\n\nCoulthard let the comment pass without a response. They'd _all_ been too wet behind the ears for the things they'd seen out here. India was a world apart from England, even with its thin veneer of Empire. He couldn't wait to get home, to get away from the heat and the noise and the ever-present flies. He watched Taylor for a moment, pacing backwards and forwards like an animal trapped in a cage. Hargreaves was right, of course: India had clearly broken the man. He wasn't sure if there was anything to be done for him now. But the asylum? Even the thought of it made him shudder. He'd visited an asylum once, back in Wandsworth, and the screaming of the inmates still rang out in his dreams sometimes, during the long nights when he lay there, trying not to think of all the terrible things he'd seen. If Taylor were headed for the asylum, what hope was there for the rest of them?\n\nRepressing another shudder, Coulthard turned his attention back to Hargreaves. \"Well, if luck be with me, my Ruth will be waiting at the airship port when we arrive.\" He smiled at the thought of her. In another week, he'd be holding her in his arms, spinning her around in the pale winter sun. His heart felt as if it would burst in his chest. That was the thing that would keep him sane, the thing that he was out here fighting for: his life back in England, and the lives of everyone he loved.\n\nHargreaves smiled. He'd heard all of this before. He reached for his water bottle again, and Coulthard turned to survey the horizon once more.\n\nThere was a shuffling sound from behind him. At first, Coulthard assumed it was Taylor, still kicking awkwardly at the sun-baked soil with his boots. Then he became aware of a quiet whimpering sound, like that of a frightened animal, and he felt his hackles rise. He turned around slowly on the spot. His heart was hammering in his chest. What he saw was enough to send him running for the asylum himself.\n\nThe creature that was menacing Taylor was like something raised from the very depths of Hades itself. It was dressed in the torn rags of an Indian peasant, and may once have been human, but now looked more like a half-rotted corpse than like anything resembling a man. The creature's skin was desiccated and peeling, its eyes bloodshot, its hair hanging in loose stringy strands around its face. Its teeth were bared in a rabid snarl, and it was bearing down on a terrified Taylor. Coulthard presumed that it had crept out from the cover of the nearby trees when they hadn't been paying attention. Taylor was on his knees before it, using his arms to cover his face from the beast as if simply trying to will it out of existence.\n\nCoulthard scrambled hurriedly for his rifle, fumbling as he tried to bring the barrel to bear on the horrifying creature. Hargreaves was already on his feet and rushing forwards, his sword drawn, ready to take a swing at the monster. Shaking, Coulthard tried to remind himself to breathe, to hold himself steady as he planted his feet and took aim. He let off a shot, jarring his shoulder with the sudden recoil. The creature staggered back for a moment, then surged forwards again in a frenzy, lashing out at Taylor, who had given himself over completely to his terror and seemed unable even to attempt to defend himself from the diabolical thing. Coulthard watched in shock as the creature raked its nails across Taylor's face, digging its bony thumbs into his eye sockets and sending him spinning to the ground, his once-handsome face reduced to nothing but a bloody ruin. He gave a final wail before crumpling to the dirt, silent.\n\nThe creature turned its attention to Hargreaves. Blinded by rage after witnessing the fate of his fellow soldier, Hargreaves swung his blade at the lurching monster with all his might. It struck home, cleaving deep into the creature's chest, biting through skin, muscle and bone, but it hardly seemed to slow the beast at all. To Coulthard's amazement, it showed no signs of pain, or even distraction, as Hargreaves struggled to pull his weapon free from where it had wedged inside the creature's shattered rib cage. Coulthard let off another shot, to no avail, and finally accepted the uselessness of the firearm and abandoned it to the ground instead drawing his sabre and rushing quickly to his fellow's side.\n\nUsing his momentum to carry his blade forward, he speared the monster directly through the gut, driving his sword home until the hilt itself was buried deep inside the creature's abdomen. He twisted it, trying desperately to slow the assault of the vile thing, to draw some sort of reaction from it. All the while, it continued to rage at Hargreaves, who had given up trying to pull his weapon free and was now pummelling the monster's face with his fists as he endeavoured to wrestle free from its talonlike grip. A moment later, his movements turned to spasms when, unable to gain useful purchase on the creature, it pulled him close and tore his throat out with single wretched bite.\n\nCoulthard, aghast, pulled his sabre free of the creature's guts and aimed a blow at the arm that still held the limp body of his friend. The blade sliced clean through the arm, lopping off the limb at the elbow and dropping the dead Hargreaves to the dirt. Dark blood sprayed from the wound, but the monster itself seemed entirely unperturbed by its injury. Baring its teeth, it pounced on Coulthard, clamping its mouth on his forearm as the man struggled to bring his weapon up before him in defence. Howling in pain, Coulthard kicked at the creature, desperate to break free. He could smell the carrion-stench of the thing, see the feral hunger behind its darting inhuman eyes.\n\nAcutely aware of the horrifying manner in which his friends had died, Coulthard's instincts screamed at him to run. With a concerted effort, he grabbed a handful of the creature's hair and wrenched his arm from its mouth, tearing skin away from bone as an enormous hunk of his flesh was rent away in the creature's jaws. Almost swooning with the pain, Coulthard drove the blade of his sword through the monster's chest and then turned and fled, his feet pounding the dry earth as his legs pumped as fast as they could, sending him careening down the side of the outcropping and onwards towards the village, his left arm dangling uselessly by his side.\n\nBehind him, the unusual beast, still with the hilt of the sabre protruding rudely from its chest and the stump of its missing arm spouting ribbons of dark blood, turned and grabbed the hair of Taylor's fresh cadaver and began to drag it slowly towards the cover of the trees.\nCHAPTER 1\n\n##\n\nLONDON, NOVEMBER 1901\n\nThe room was full of ghosts.\n\nOr so Felicity Johnson would have had him believe. Sir Maurice Newbury, weary from a day spent scouring the dusty stacks of the British Library, drummed his fingers on the table with a quiet impatience. The dinner party was not working out at all as he'd anticipated.\n\nAround him, the other guests sat in a wide circle, spaced evenly around a large round table, their faces glowing in the dim light of the gas-lamps. Overturned tumblers, tarot cards, holly leaves and other assorted paraphernalia littered the table-top, and their host, her shrill voice piercing in the otherwise silent room, was attempting to raise the dead.\n\nNewbury, decidedly unimpressed by the charade, glanced at the other guests around the table. Their faces were difficult to read in the half-light, but many of them appeared captivated by the performance of the woman as she waved her arms about her, wailing, her eyes shut tight, her body tensed; possessed, apparently, by some kind of unearthly spirit. She was currently engaged in babbling something about Meredith York's dead brother, and the poor woman was entirely taken in, sobbing on her husband's arm as if she truly believed she were receiving messages from beyond the grave.\n\nNewbury shot a look at the man seated beside him and shrugged. Sir Charles Bainbridge was a Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard, a favoured agent of Queen Victoria herself and one of the most rational men in Newbury's acquaintance. He didn't think for a minute that his old friend would be taken in by any of this nonsense. He was older than Newbury, about ten years his senior, and was greying slightly around the temples. His moustache was bushy and full, and his eyes were bright, shining with mischief and the glassy patina of alcohol. Acknowledging the pained expression on his friend's face, Bainbridge offered an amused smile, the flickering light casting his face in stark relief. Clearly, he was considerably more forgiving of the indulgences of their host. Newbury shook his head in exasperation.\n\nA few moments later, Miss Johnson fell back into her chair with a gasp, her eyes suddenly flicking open, her hands raised to her mouth in affected shock. She turned to survey her guests. \"Did I\u2014?\"\n\nMeredith York nodded emphatically, and a moment later, when the gas-lamps were turned up and the room was once again cast in a warm orange glow, the small audience paid tribute to their host with a hearty round of applause. Newbury sat back in his chair, relieved that the spectacle was over. He rubbed a hand over his face, feeling a sense of lethargy creeping over him. The other guests were already deep in conversation as he surveyed the scene with the air of someone ready to take their leave. He didn't want to be drawn out on his opinions of the evening's pursuit, lest he inadvertently cause offence. He patted his friend on the arm.\n\n\"Charles?\" The other man turned to meet his gaze. Newbury stifled a yawn. \"My lodgings beckon me. I'm intent on taking a stroll. Would you care to join me?\"\n\nBainbridge allowed himself a brief chuckle at the other man's expense. \"That keen to get away, Newbury?\" He shook his head in feigned disapproval, but his smile was barely concealed. \"I had a feeling that you'd find this all rather objectionable. Come on, let's bid our friends good night and take our leave.\"\n\nThe two men stood together, and Felicity Johnson almost leapt out of her seat when she spotted them out of the corner of her eye. She briefly patted Meredith York on the back of the hand before turning to regard them. \"Oh, gentlemen, must you go so soon?\"\n\nNewbury edged around the table and took her hand. \"I am afraid that duty calls, my dear Miss Johnson. Both Charles and I have early appointments to keep in the morning. Thank you for a pleasant evening.\" He paused, unsure how to go on. \"It has been an . . . entertaining diversion.\" He inclined his head politely and turned to reclaim his coat from the butler standing by the door. The woman's face fell, and she stammered briefly before replying. \"Always a pleasure, Sir Maurice.\" She turned to Bainbridge, who was just collecting his cane from the hat stand in the hallway. \"And you, Sir Charles. I do hope we will see you both again soon.\" And with that, she returned her attention to the adoration of Meredith York and her other guests.\n\nOutside, the pavement was covered in a layer of hoary frost. Newbury turned his collar up against the biting winter chill. The moon was full in the sky, the night was clear and people bustled along the street, their breaths making foggy clouds in the cold air. Newbury drew the crisp air deep into his lungs, obviously relieved to have escaped further embarrassment at the hands of Miss Johnson.\n\nBainbridge, his cane clicking rhythmically against the ground as he walked, turned to Newbury as they made their way back towards Piccadilly. \"Really, Newbury, did you have to cut her so?\"\n\n\"Oh, Charles, the woman's a buffoon! She's trifling with things she has no real concept of, making light of Mrs. York's bereavement. Games like that are dangerous and hurtful.\" He shook his head, sighing. \"I did not aim to cause offence. I simply wanted to let her know that we were not taken in by her little merriment. You know as well as I do, there were no spirits present in that room.\"\n\nThey stopped as a ground train trundled by, the huge steam engine roaring as the fireman stoked the flames, the carriages behind it bouncing along the cobbled road, their wooden wheels creaking under the strain. Newbury caught stuttering glimpses of the people inside the small carriages as they rushed by, snug inside their little booths, speeding on towards their destinations. The driver, on the other hand, was wrapped up warm against the elements, sitting atop the engine itself on a large dickey box, a huge steering wheel clasped between his gloved hands. They watched as it rattled away into the night, causing hansom cabs and more traditional horse-drawn carriages to divert from their paths. Newbury smiled. It was time for the past to make way for the future.\n\nThe two men crossed the road and continued on their way. Newbury decided it was time to change the subject. \"So, tell me, Charles, any new developments in the case at hand?\"\n\nThe other man sighed. \"Not as such. Can't seem to get past this ridiculous story about the glowing policeman. It's making life very difficult for my constables. They keep being accosted out on their rounds. No one will answer their questions, and the men themselves don't want to go out at night, lest they find themselves running into this damnable fellow. Superstitious prigs!\"\n\nNewbury looked suddenly serious. \"Charles\"\u2014he patted the other man on the shoulder\u2014\"look who has his ire up now! Don't be so swift to discount these stories, at least before we have any real evidence to the contrary.\"\n\nBainbridge looked incredulous. \"Heavens, Newbury, surely you're not putting any stock in these ridiculous tales? They are clearly as much poppycock as Miss Johnson's spirits!\"\n\nNewbury hesitated. \"Look, Charles, I know I was dismissive of Miss Johnson, but I've spent the entire day scouring shelves in the British Library, looking for references to a glowing policeman, and I assure you, there is more to it than meets the eye.\"\n\nBainbridge stopped in his tracks. He leaned on his cane. \"How so?\"\n\n\"There's a case from about twelve years ago. A bobby who was murdered by a gang of petty thieves\u2014found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. You know the sort of thing.\" Bainbridge nodded. \"Well, for a month _after_ the body was interred, a 'glowing bobby' was seen looming out of the fog around the Whitechapel area, his pale skin shining an iridescent blue. One by one, the bodies of the thieves turned up, all strangled, all dumped in the same area of the city. Witnesses reported sightings of the dead constable, come back from the grave to seek revenge on his aggressors. After the last of the thieves turned up dead, the 'glowing bobby' was never seen again.\" He paused. \"Until now, that is. I pieced the story together from various newspaper reports.\"\n\nBainbridge shrugged. \"It was probably the other boys from the station, using the story as a cover to take revenge for the murder. They don't take kindly to one of their own being put in the soil.\"\n\nNewbury nodded. \"That may well be the case, but until we know more, I think we need to follow this line of inquiry. It may turn out to be nothing but poppycock, but we shouldn't dismiss it until we've had the opportunity to investigate a little further first.\"\n\n\"Very well.\" Bainbridge covered his mouth with the back of his hand as he coughed. \"Come on, let's get out of this cold.\"\n\nNewbury sauntered along beside him. \"Would you care to join me for a nightcap at the White Friar's? They have a shockingly good brandy.\"\n\nBainbridge was about to reply when a sudden powerful gust of wind knocked them both back a step, and the older man found himself clinging to his hat to ensure it wasn't lost in the draught. He looked up. \"Damn airships! I wish they wouldn't fly them so low over the city.\"\n\nNewbury laughed, following his gaze. The underbelly of an immense vessel was scudding overhead, scintillating in the reflected light of the city and temporarily blotting out the moon, casting the two men in a dark shadow. The airship companies had been enjoying a period of rapid growth in recent months, with demand for air travel almost exceeding their capacity to build new vessels and clear space for berthing fields. The appearance of a sizeable ship such as this was becoming a frequent occurrence in the skies over London, as the Empire grew larger and an increasing number of people found profitable business abroad. With the haulage companies taking to the skies, too, there was no longer any need to relocate to foreign climes on a permanent basis, and many businessmen had taken the opportunity to set up subsidiary companies in India, America and the West Indies. Newbury himself had never travelled on one of the vessels, but he was certainly enamored with them, and watched in wonder as this one drifted lazily overhead, en route, he supposed, to a berthing field south of the city. He glanced back at Bainbridge, who had finally finished repositioning his hat. \"Well? To the White Friar's?\"\n\nBainbridge shook his head. \"Not tonight, old friend. You've given me much to think about, and I must say that that pudding of Miss Johnson's is sitting rather heavily on me now. Don't have quite the constitution I used to.\"\n\nNewbury smiled. \"You'll hear no argument from me.\" He held out his hand, and the other man grasped it firmly. \"Let me know if there are any further developments in the case. In the meantime, I bid you well and good night.\" He turned and made off in the direction of the White Friar's Club, gazing up at the sky in wonder at the vapour trails left in the wake of the passing airship.\nCHAPTER 2\n\n##\n\nNewbury leaned back in his chair and, with a sigh, spread his morning copy of _The Times_ out before him on the desk. After retiring from the White Friar's Club the previous evening, he'd found he was unable to sleep. Nonetheless, with the coming of the dawn, he had risen, dressed and caught a cab across the city from his Chelsea lodgings to his office at the British Museum. He had little doubt that his housekeeper, Mrs. Bradshaw, would curse him colourfully in her delightful Scottish tones for failing\u2014yet again\u2014to inform her of his plans, but he also knew that she was growing used to his unpredictable comings-and-goings, even if she feigned exasperation to his face.\n\nOutside, the sun was settling over the city, and the streets were gradually coming to life as people set about their daily business. Soon the museum would be bustling with his fellow academics and, not long after, with members of the public, come to gaze in awe and wonder at the treasures on display in the gaudy exhibits. Newbury had been an agent of the Queen for nearly four years, and whilst he was typically engaged in some case or other\u2014whether helping Scotland Yard or left to his own devices\u2014he continued to maintain a position at the museum all the same. He was an experienced anthropologist, with a particular speciality in the religion and supernatural practices of prehistoric human cultures, and he often found his academic work had resonance with his work in the field. At present, he was engaged in writing a paper on the ritualistic practices of the druidic tribes of Bronze Age Europe. He'd hardly found time to touch it for a week, however, what with the string of bizarre strangulations occurring around Whitechapel and his desire to aid his old friend, Bainbridge, in the hunt for the killer. Discovering that the culprit may have supernatural origins had only solidified his resolve to see the case through to the end, and what's more, the revelation put the case firmly and directly into his specific area of expertise. Since briefing the Queen with a missive the previous day, any time he spent aiding Bainbridge with his investigations was now considered official business.\n\nNewbury yawned. It was still early, and his secretary had yet to arrive at the office. He was anxious for a cup of tea. He regarded the newspaper before him, paying no real attention to the article he'd been trying to follow, which concerned a politician involved in some lurid financial scandal. He was dressed in a neat black suit, a white shirt and crimson cravat. His hair was dark\u2014the very colour of night itself\u2014and swept back from his face, and he was clean-shaven. His eyes were a startling emerald green. A casual observer would have placed him in his early thirties, but in truth, he was approaching his fortieth year. He looked up at the sound of someone bustling into the adjoining room and called out, \"Good morning, Miss Coulthard. I'd like a pot of tea when you're settled, please.\" He returned, distractedly, to his reading.\n\nA moment later, there was a brief rap at his door. He didn't look up from his newspaper when the door itself swung open and someone crossed into the room. \"Thank you, Miss Coulthard. I trust you are well?\"\n\nThe woman cleared her throat. Newbury's eyes flicked up from the print. \"Oh, my dear Miss Hobbes. I do apologise.\" He fumbled for a moment, unsure how to remedy his error. \"I'm afraid I'm still getting used to the notion that another person will be sharing my office. Do come in.\" He half stood behind his desk, embarrassment clearly written on his face, as his recently hired assistant, Miss Veronica Hobbes, crossed the room and took a seat before him. She was pretty: brunette, in her early twenties, with a dainty but full figure, and dressed in a white blouse, grey jacket and matching skirt.\n\nShe smiled. \"Please don't apologise, Sir Maurice. It takes more than a little case of mistaken identity to offend me.\"\n\nNewbury returned her smile. \"Very good. Let's get you settled in, then, shall we? But first . . . I don't suppose you're at all handy with a kettle?\"\n\nAn hour later, fortified by a constant supply of Earl Grey, the office had become a hive of activity. Newbury was working through his notes from the previous day, trying to make sense of the various newspaper reports and apparent sightings of the \"glowing bobby\" around Whitechapel. He was wearing a frown, lost in thought and deep concentration.\n\nVeronica was hard at work, clearing the spare desk across the other side of the room, unpacking her small box of belongings and filing the many sheaves of abandoned notes she continued to find in drawers and random piles all around the office. She had placed her jacket over the back of her chair, rolled up the sleeves of her blouse and attacked the mess like it was some sort of villain in need of appeasing. Newbury was suitably impressed by her fastidiousness.\n\nIt was into this scene that a distraught Miss Coulthard came running, late, her hastily tied bun coming loose so that strands of her hair flapped around her face as she came to rest in the doorway, breathless. Both Newbury and Veronica looked up in concern.\n\nNewbury was on his feet immediately, worry etched on his face. \"My dear Miss Coulthard, whatever is the matter?\"\n\nThe woman cowered, as if afraid of what she had to say. Veronica offered her a heartfelt smile.\n\n\"Oh, sir, it's my brother Jack. He disappeared yesterday, and we've every fear that he may have succumbed to that terrible plague.\"\n\nNewbury shuffled uneasily. \"I understand your concern completely, Miss Coulthard. Look\u2014\" He indicated his visitor's chair. \"\u2014come and take a seat for a while, and Miss Hobbes here will fetch you a hot cup of tea.\" He glanced at Veronica apologetically, and she waved dismissively before hurrying off into the other room to organise another pot of tea.\n\nNewbury put a hand on Miss Coulthard's arm to reassure her. \"Now, why don't you tell me exactly what you know?\"\n\nThe diminutive woman looked up at him, a pained expression on her face. \"In truth, sir, there ain't that much to tell. Jack went off to work yesterday morning as normal\u2014to Fitchett and Browns, the lawyers\u2014and never came back. We had a restless night, worrying what kind of a mess he'd got himself involved in, as he's never been one to loiter before coming home of a night. My sister-in-law and I took ourselves down to the law offices first thing this morning, to enquire as to his whereabouts, and it seems he never even made it that far.\" With this, she let out a racking sob, bringing her gloved hand up to her face to stifle her tears. \"They had no idea where he was, or why he hadn't shown up for work the previous day.\"\n\nNewbury sat back in his chair, looking thoughtful. \"I'm sure we'll find a suitable explanation, Miss Coulthard, if we apply ourselves. Now, tell me, what makes you think it's the plague?\" He looked up at the sound of the kettle whistling in the other room and caught sight of Veronica listening to their conversation from the doorway. He nodded approvingly and then returned his attention to the crying woman before him.\n\n\"There have been terrible things happening in our neighbourhood, sir, terrible things indeed. Revenants, they're calling them. Victims of the plague, found staggering around in the fog of a night, like wild animals, baying for people's blood. Bloodshot eyes, peeling skin\u2014they're like walking corpses, wandering around in the darkness, waiting for passers-by. The plague transforms them into mindless monsters.\" She crossed herself to ward off the thought of the horrifying creatures.\n\nNewbury nodded. \"I'm well aware of the phenomenon, Miss Coulthard. It's thought the plague was brought here from India, borne over by returning soldiers. It inspires a terrible brain fever and a degenerative state in the flesh. Was Jack bitten by one of these walking cadavers?\"\n\n\"Not that we know of. Jack knows better than to loiter in the dark these recent months. But I fear he must have encountered one on his way to work that morning. The fog was thick around Brixton, and it may have been upon him before he had an opportunity to flee.\"\n\nNewbury shook his head. \"Unlikely, Miss Coulthard. As I understand it, the victims of this plague find the light painful to their eyes and will avoid stepping out during the daylight hours unless desperate or provoked. Remember, they are driven by animal desires, and not those of a rational human being. Besides, anyone bitten by one of these creatures will incubate the illness for a number of days before showing any symptoms. If your brother was indeed harassed in the street, he would have likely retained his senses and sought medical assistance at a nearby hospital. I'm sure, therefore, that there must be another explanation as to his disappearance.\"\n\nMiss Coulthard was still shaking. \"You really think so?\"\n\nNewbury smiled. \"Indeed. There are many things that can keep a man away from his home for a night, Miss Coulthard, and whilst some are less savoury than others, I'm sure in this case, there'll be a reasonable explanation.\" He paused whilst Veronica placed a steaming cup of tea on the desk before Miss Coulthard. \"Now, see yourself right with that cup of tea, and then take the rest of the day off. If there's still no news tomorrow, come and see me again and we'll file a missing-persons report with Scotland Yard.\"\n\nMiss Coulthard braved a smile. \"Thank you, sir. It's just . . . we're all so on edge, what with the strange things that have been happening. Time was when we would have laughed it off. But with these revenants walking the streets . . .\"\n\n\"I know, Miss Coulthard, I know. The plague has us all concerned for the well-being of our loved ones and friends. I promise I'll keep my ear to the ground for any clues that may help you to locate your brother.\" Newbury stood and edged around the desk. \"You stay put for a moment, Miss Coulthard, whilst I have a few words with Miss Hobbes.\" He crossed into the adjoining room, straightening his jacket and pulling the door shut behind him.\n\nVeronica looked up. \"What is it?\"\n\n\"I'll wager it has something to do with drinking or gambling, or both.\" He shook his head.\n\n\"Is there anything we can do to help?\"\n\n\"No. I'm convinced the situation will resolve itself. Another day or two, and the man will show up at his own door, hungry and not a little sheepish. Either that or they'll find him in a cell across the other side of the city, too embarrassed at his own behaviour to tell his family where he's been.\"\n\nThere was a rap at the outer door to the office. Veronica glanced quizzically at Newbury before crossing the room and allowing the door to swing open, revealing a messenger standing in the hallway, a small card clasped in his right hand.\n\n\"Message for Sir Maurice Newbury, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Thank you. I'll see that he gets it.\" She took the card from the young boy and turned to Newbury, who had sidled up behind her, his interest piqued. He took the card from her and turned it over in his hand.\n\n\"It's from Bainbridge.\" His face had taken on a grim aspect. He looked up at Veronica. \"Get your coat. There's been another murder.\"\nCHAPTER 3\n\n##\n\nThe cab clattered noisily over the cobbled street as its pistons churned furiously and the driver swore at the mechanism in a half-hearted attempt to make it run faster. In the back, Newbury and Veronica sat in silence, jolted by the speed at which the vehicle rumbled towards its destination and by the unevenness of the road. At the front, the driver sat upon his dickey box, pulling levers to direct the angle of the wheels as the steam-powered pistons fired with noisy abandon and the cab bounced along on steel wheels softened with rims of polished hardwood. Veronica couldn't help thinking that, whilst it might have taken them a few minutes longer, a traditional horse-drawn carriage may have offered them a more comfortable alternative to the loud, dirty transport within which they now sat. Newbury, on the other hand, was a keen supporter of progress, and whilst even the driver seemed to be having difficulty keeping the contraption under control, Newbury appeared to be relishing every moment of their tumultuous journey.\n\nOutside, the fog was still thick and cloying, a yellow tubercular cloud that sat heavy over the city, a shroud over the populace and a haven for the creeping things of the dark. Veronica watched through the window, seeing only the impression of grandiose buildings looming out of the smog, or the occasional vehicle flitting by on the road, its passengers hidden behind darkened windows or wreaths of smokey fog. Gas-lamps flickered in the damp air, a network of disembodied halos that lined the edges of the streets. Underlit carriages rode on a carpet of rolling fog. It was mid-morning, but it seemed to Veronica as if the day had somehow stalled, the sunlight replaced by a remarkable twilight that appeared to have descended all across the city. She looked up, presuming that the regular slew of airships that filled the skies these days had been grounded temporarily by the impenetrable weather, or else they had risen up above the smog to where the skies were clear and free of city air. She glanced at Newbury, but his face seemed suddenly serious. She folded her hands on her lap and waited.\n\nPresently, as they raced towards Whitechapel and the scene of the murder, the fog became gradually less dense and the buildings closed in, the streets becoming narrower, the towering mansions and sweeping terraces of Bloomsbury giving way to less monumental structures and more factories, breakers' yards and public houses. Whitechapel was not the sort of place that Veronica would visit by choice. It was one of the seedier locales of the city, a refuge of beggars, criminals and whores. She shivered when she considered what they might find there. Pulling her coat tighter around her shoulders, Veronica drew the curtain across the window inside the cab, and Newbury raised an eyebrow in her direction, evidently interested to know what had spooked her. She pretended not to notice.\n\nA short while later, the cab juddered to a halt and the driver clambered down from his perch and opened the door for the two passengers. The engine was still running, and outside, the noise of it was even more intense. It sounded like some great industrial machine, churning out clouds of steam and soot into the already bleak morning.\n\nNewbury made good on the fare and no sooner had he climbed down from the carriage than Bainbridge was at his side, leaning on his cane, his overcoat pulled tight around his wiry frame. He looked like he'd been here for a while already.\n\n\"Ah, good, Newbury. We can press on.\" He paused for a moment at the sight of Veronica, unsure how to go on. He inclined his head politely. \"Good morning, Miss Hobbes.\"\n\nHe turned to Newbury. \"Can I have a word?\"\n\nNewbury smiled. \"Indeed.\" They moved to one side.\n\n\"My dear fellow, do you think it's a good idea to bring a lady to a scene such as this? She could find it terribly alarming.\"\n\nNewbury chuckled. \"Charles, I may have known the girl for only a few weeks myself, but already I know better than to exclude her.\" He smiled. \"Trust me, Miss Hobbes can look after herself.\"\n\nCharles shook his head, as if dismayed at what the modern world was coming to. \"So be it.\" He sighed. \"Come on, this way.\"\n\nHe led them on to where the body was lying, sprawled out on the cobbles like a broken doll, its neck contorted into an awkward posture, the face a picture of anguish and pain. Surrounding the scene were three constables, their hands clasped firmly behind their backs, each of them keeping a wary eye on the surrounding fog and what it may or may not be hiding from view.\n\n\"Any witnesses?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nNewbury knelt closer to examine the body. The man was dressed in pauper's clothes, dirty from the workhouse, with black filings underneath the fingernails. He was clean-shaven and appeared to be in his mid-twenties. Newbury turned him over gently, examining the soft flesh around the throat, probing with his gloved fingers. He looked up at Bainbridge, who was standing over them, watching intently. \"The neck's been broken, but the cause of death is definitely strangulation. Look at these marks here, here and here.\" He indicated with his hand. \"This bruising suggests the victim was grabbed forcefully around the throat and struggled somewhat before finally being despatched. There's nothing of the perpetrator left at the scene, but it certainly matches the profile of the other killings.\"\n\nVeronica cleared her throat. \"Has he been robbed?\"\n\nBoth of the men turned to look at her in surprise. \"Good question, Miss Hobbes. Let me check.\" Newbury fished around in the dead man's pockets for a moment before withdrawing a small leather wallet from inside the man's waistcoat. He opened it up. Inside was a smattering of low-denomination coins.\n\n\"He had little enough about him, but whoever\u2014or whatever\u2014killed him clearly wasn't interested in making a profit.\"\n\nBainbridge tapped his cane thoughtfully against the cobbles. \"So what did they have to gain?\" The frustration was clearly evident in his voice. \"Are they just killing people for the hell of it?\"\n\nNewbury stood, handing the wallet to Bainbridge. \"No, I doubt that very much. There has to be a motive here somewhere. We just can't see what it is, as yet.\"\n\n\"Well, I hope one of us starts seeing it soon. This is the seventh victim this month. Things are getting out of hand. I'm going before Her Majesty this afternoon, and currently, all I have to tell her is that the body count keeps getting higher!\"\n\nNewbury looked pained for his friend. \"Look, I'm making some progress with my research that could suggest a couple of avenues for your men to investigate. Why don't you call on me later at the office and I can talk you through it? Right now, I think it best that you get that cadaver moved to the local morgue and have the surgeon begin the post-mortem directly. A body lying around in the fog might be too much of a temptation for these 'revenant' creatures to bear.\" He glanced around at the nearest constable, who was shuffling uncomfortably on the spot.\n\nBainbridge shrugged. \"Yes, yes, you're quite right.\" He turned to the constable on his left, waving his cane. \"You, man. Go and organise some transport to get this body moved.\" The other man hesitated, as if he were about to protest. Bainbridge was having none of it. \"Well, go on, then!\" The constable scuttled off into the fog. Bainbridge turned back to Newbury and Veronica. \"I'd better go with them, make sure the surgeon gets the correct instructions. Can you find your own way back?\"\n\nVeronica nodded. \"Of course we can, Sir Charles. But first, would you object terribly if I put a few questions to your men?\" She moved over to stand beside Newbury.\n\nBainbridge looked confused, but assented readily. \"No, no, my dear. Anything at all, if you think it may prove useful in helping to solve the case.\"\n\nVeronica nodded appreciatively and then stepped around the body and approached one of the remaining two constables.\n\n\"Good morning, ma'am.\" He looked vaguely uncomfortable at the thought of being questioned by a woman.\n\n\"Good morning, Constable . . . ?\"\n\n\"Pratt, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Good morning, Constable Pratt. I'm in need of some assistance. You see, my colleagues over there are labouring under the impression that I'm fully up to date with all the minutiae of this murder enquiry, but, as I'm relatively new to the job, I seem to be missing some of the pertinent facts. I was hoping you could help me out of my predicament?\"\n\n\"Certainly, ma'am. Where would you like me to begin?\"\n\nVeronica affected ignorance. \"Well, we could start with the victims. How many are there now?\"\n\nPratt hesitated before going on. \"Well, ma'am, there are seven official victims, all of them strangled to death and abandoned in the street, just like this one. All from the same area of the city.\"\n\n\"Official victims?\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am. Folk around here are saying there's actually around three times that number, if not more. Sometimes the families come and move the bodies before the police happen upon them, other times the corpses are stripped and robbed and end up floating down the river.\"\n\n\"And what of witnesses?\"\n\n\"People aren't too forthcoming, ma'am. They're attributing these killings to a phantom, the glowing policeman. Talk like that makes them clam up good and proper when a man in uniform comes knocking on their door. Not only that, but people are scared to come out at night. On one hand, they're worried about the murderer; on the other, about the revenants that are walking the streets at night, hiding in the gutters like animals. Places like this, they ain't safe, ma'am. People keep themselves to themselves.\"\n\nVeronica smiled. \"So do _you_ think this is the work of the glowing policeman, Constable Pratt?\"\n\n\"I'm not qualified to say, ma'am. But I do know folk who claim they've seen him out here, wandering around in the fog, his face and hands glowing with ghostly blue light whilst he waits for his next victim.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Constable. Most useful.\" She made her way back to where Newbury and Bainbridge were standing, a wry smile on her face. \"It sounds as if these bodies may be just the tip of the iceberg.\"\n\nBainbridge nodded, obviously impressed. \"You continue to confound me, Miss Hobbes.\"\n\nVeronica smiled. \"Let's just hope it proves useful in bringing the killer to justice, Sir Charles.\"\n\n\"Indeed. Indeed.\"\n\nNewbury doffed his hat to his old friend. \"Charles, we'll take our leave. Watch your back out here, won't you, and remember to call by the office this afternoon for a talk. I'm sure we can start moving forwards in this matter, hopefully before another sorry individual loses his life.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Newbury. Your assistance is most appreciated.\"\n\n\"Say no more.\" And with that, Newbury and Veronica turned on their heels and disappeared into the fog-laden morning in search of a cab.\n\n\"I liked your trick with the constable back there.\" Newbury was in a much more talkative mood, now that the two of them had managed to hail a hansom cab and were on their way back to the museum.\n\nVeronica was relieved that, this time, they'd been able to settle on a more traditional vehicle, pulled by horses, instead of the more temperamental steam engine they had suffered before. She regarded Newbury from across the carriage. \"I've always believed that it's worth keeping one's ear to the ground, finding out what people are saying. Invariably, in my experience, that's where one may find the truth, or at least the kernel of the truth that has given rise to the tall tales.\"\n\nNewbury nodded in agreement. \"An admirable tactic, and one that I'm convinced will bear fruit. But consider this\u2014\" He paused for dramatic effect. \"\u2014what if, in this instance, the tall tales were actually based on fact?\"\n\nVeronica's eyes betrayed her incredulity. \"Come now, sir, you're not suggesting the glowing policeman is the real source of these murders?\"\n\n\"Indeed not, although at this stage, I'm loath to rule _anything_ out. What I'm getting at is the notion that the stories could have been inspired by _past_ events, occurrences from many years ago that have left a residual, latent fear amongst the folk of this particular district.\"\n\n\"You've found something, haven't you, in your studies? Some reference that sheds light on what's going on at the moment?\"\n\n\"A reference that _may_ shed light on what's going on at the moment. In truth, it may also turn out to be entirely unrelated, although I find that difficult to believe, given the nature of the murders and the circumstances surrounding the deaths. I've already mentioned it to Bainbridge, but he puts no stock in the idea.\"\n\nVeronica leaned forwards in the carriage. \"Do tell.\"\n\nNewbury smiled. He was beginning to believe he'd made the right choice in hiring Veronica as his new assistant. \"About twelve years ago, there was a disturbing case in the Whitechapel area, in which a gang of petty thieves were discovered breaking into a house. Instead of fleeing the scene, they turned on the policeman who had found them, and viciously beat him to death. The thieves were never brought to justice, but for a month after the policeman's body was interred, a 'glowing bobby' was sighted around the streets, walking his beat and searching out his murderers, one after the other.\"\n\n\"What happened?\"\n\n\"They all turned up dead. Strangled, just like the victims we've seen in the last couple of weeks. Such was his vengeance, it was said, that the murdered policeman had actually risen from the grave to seek revenge on his killers. Once they were all dead, the 'glowing bobby' disappeared, never to be seen again.\"\n\nA ground train rattled by their cab, startling the horses and causing them to whinny noisily and pull up by the side of the road. The driver shouted down his apologies and waited for the other vehicle to pass before coercing the animals back out into the road.\n\nVeronica sat back in her seat. \"The parallels are uncanny.\"\n\n\"Indeed. But there are holes. Why would the spirit return now, after all this time? Did it ever really exist, or was it just a cover used by the dead man's colleagues to track down and dispose of his killers? What, if any, are the connections between the victims? I can't see a good reason for the spirit of the dead policeman to be taking these innocent lives, both men and women. I'm not convinced the profile actually fits.\"\n\n\"But you are convinced that it is _possible_? Have any other policemen been murdered in the area lately? Could it be the same phenomenon, but a different set of people involved?\"\n\nNewbury straightened his back. He looked thoughtful for a moment. \"My dear Miss Hobbes, what a splendid deduction! We'll get Bainbridge looking into it first thing this afternoon. I've been so wrapped up in trying to draw parallels between the two cases that I'd overlooked this most obvious of angles.\"\n\nBy this time, their cab was approaching Bloomsbury and the British Museum could be seen through the window, an epic, monolithic structure rising out of the grey afternoon. Newbury took his watch out of his pocket and examined its face. He glanced at Veronica. \"I don't know about you, but I'm feeling rather peckish. Spot of lunch?\"\n\nVeronica grinned. \"Sir Maurice, I'm famished.\"\n\nWith Miss Coulthard gone for the day, the office was silent when they returned from lunch, with just the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner to break the monotony. The two rooms were connected by an interior door, the main office being a fairly large open space with Miss Coulthard's desk placed centrally to face the door. The walls were decorated with an array of spectacular artefacts, ranging from mediaeval weaponry to a glass display cabinet filled with smaller antiquities from Egypt, Greece and Rome. A small stove had been fitted in the far corner, and a series of bookcases were overflowing with ageing, dusty tomes.\n\nNewbury had just finished arranging his hat on the hat stand when Veronica, who had already gone through to the side room where their desks were located, reappeared in the doorway, brandishing an envelope.\n\n\"It's got the Royal seal on it. Someone must have delivered it whilst we were out.\" She handed it to Newbury. He opened it immediately, dropping the envelope to the floor.\n\n\"It's from the Queen.\" He unfolded the letter and began to read.\n\n> _To our faithful servant,_\n> \n> _It is requested you abandon all current activity and proceed immediately to Finsbury Park. An airship has crashed this morning in suspicious circumstances, and one suspects foul play. Early reports suggest no survivors._\n> \n> _Full report expected in due course._\n> \n> _This is a matter of grave importance to the Crown._\n> \n> _Victoria R._\n\nNewbury folded the note in half and slipped it into his jacket pocket. Veronica eyed him quizzically. He reached for his hat.\n\n\"We're off the murder investigation. At least temporarily.\" Veronica looked somewhat disappointed by the news. Newbury continued. \"There's been an airship crash in Finsbury Park. I'm afraid we're going out again.\" He pushed his arm into the sleeve of his long black overcoat and headed for the door. \"Come on, I'll explain on the way.\"\nCHAPTER 4\n\n##\n\nFrom over two hundred yards away, it was clear that the airship crash was a disaster of phenomenal proportions. Black smoke spiralled through the sky in a dark liquid trail, a smudge across the landscape, clearly denoting the point of impact and consequent explosion. The heavy fog was starting to lift now, but the scene it uncovered had Newbury wishing it had stayed put.\n\nThe wreckage was scattered across a wide area of parkland, isolated flames still licking in little glowing puddles where firemen had yet to extinguish the smaller pieces of debris that had come to rest in the area surrounding the main carcass of the downed ship. Hose carts circled the wreckage, whilst onlookers milled about a police cordon that had been established around the entire perimeter of the park. A tree was on fire on the far side of the site, and firemen were currently engaged in trying to bring it under control before the flames spread to the neighbouring evergreens.\n\nThe airship itself was now nothing but a burnt husk, its shattered substructure an exposed skeleton, stark against the surrounding parkland. It reminded Veronica of a beached whale she had once seen when she was a child, half-rotted in the sea air, its huge rib cage exposed to the elements.\n\nNewbury clambered down from the cab, choking on the thick smoke that lay heavy in the air all around them. The stench of the burnt vessel was almost unbearable. He turned to help Veronica down beside him, offering her a handkerchief to cover her face. She took it gratefully.\n\n\"What in God's name happened here?\" Her voice was muffled from behind the small piece of linen that she held over her mouth and nose. Her eyes watered, stinging with the smoke.\n\n\"Airships such as this one get their lift from gasbags filled with hydrogen. The gas is highly inflammable, and in a major impact such as this . . .\" He shook his head. \"Well, you can see the results for yourself. I've read about a handful of similar incidents. The most recent was in Bulgaria, I believe, where a pilot missed his berthing tether and instead lowered the ship onto the ground spike, ripping the gasbags open and engulfing the entire vessel in flame.\"\n\nVeronica looked grave. \"But all those passengers . . .\" She was staring out over the chaotic scene before them, unsure what to make of it all. She drew her coat around herself, an unconscious gesture that revealed her horror at the sight of the wreckage and the carnage it represented.\n\nNewbury was lost for comforting words. He paused and then looked around, straining to see over the bustling crowds of people. \"Come on; let's see if Bainbridge is here yet.\"\n\nTogether, the two of them circled the cordon, looking for signs of the Chief Inspector. Newbury kept a hand on Veronica's arm as they pushed their way through the press of locals, who had turned out in droves to catch a glimpse of the downed ship. Newbury supposed he couldn't blame them; for many it was a frightening near miss, with such a devastating explosion occurring so close to their homes. The vessel could easily have come down upon a row of terraced houses instead of the relative safety of the park. For others, it was surely a unique opportunity to witness something that they would usually only read about in newspapers, a sensational spectacle to tell their grandchildren of in years to come. From a purely detached perspective\u2014ignoring, for a moment, the human cost of the tragedy\u2014history was unfolding before their eyes.\n\nThey pressed on, fighting against the swarm of people in an attempt to find someone who looked in charge. Moments later, they found whom they were looking for.\n\nThe police had set up a temporary base underneath a bandstand, just inside the cordon at the far end of the crash site. Wreaths of dark smoke still curled through the air, and here, the stench of the wreckage was even more intolerable than when they'd first arrived. Newbury tried not to imagine what was causing the diabolical smell. He made his way over to the cordon line and called to get the attention of one of the men stationed there.\n\n\"Hello? May I have some assistance here, please?\"\n\nTwo men in suits, deep in conversation, looked around to eye the newcomer. One of them flicked his wrist to a uniformed officer, and the man came plodding over to where Newbury and Veronica were standing.\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"I'm attempting to locate Sir Charles Bainbridge. Can you tell me, is he present at the site?\"\n\n\"No, sir. I don't believe he is.\" The other man looked irritated, as if anxious to get back to his post.\n\n\"Ah. Well, in that case, is there anyone else I could talk to?\" Newbury reached into his jacket pocket and produced his credentials, which he waved at the constable. The monogram of Queen Victoria was clearly visible on his papers. \"My name is Sir Maurice Newbury, and I'm here on the business of the Crown.\"\n\nThe constable stared at him, wide-eyed. \"Of course, sir. If you'd like to come this way?\" The officer lifted the cordon and both Newbury and Veronica dipped their heads to pass underneath the rope barrier. Veronica, straightening herself on the other side, made a point of repositioning her hat. Newbury supposed she was trying to keep herself busy and prevent her mind from wandering back to the horrors on the other side of the bandstand.\n\nThe two men in suits were still talking as the three of them approached. Veronica glanced around. She could see that the police were struggling to get the situation under control; they were few in number, and the constables were barely managing to keep the onlookers back from the cordon. Meanwhile, higher-ranking officers tried to coordinate the other emergency services and ensure that nothing was removed from the wreckage that would prove useful in uncovering the cause of the disaster. Veronica was sure that the investigation was already under way, but it seemed to her as if the police had their hands full just trying to stop the crash site from getting out of control.\n\nThe bobby who had led them over from the barrier made a point of clearing his throat, and the two men in suits ceased talking for a moment to take them in. The man on the left, dressed in pin-striped grey, with a full beard and dark green cravat, looked Newbury up and down discerningly. He seemed about to say something when the constable stepped in. \"Sir, this gentleman is here on behalf of the Crown.\"\n\nThe man nodded, an unreadable expression on his face. \"The Crown indeed. Well, we can certainly use all the help we can get. Abominable affair.\" His face cracked into a sad smile. He held out his hand. \"Inspector Foulkes of Scotland Yard.\"\n\nNewbury took his hand. \"Maurice Newbury.\"\n\n\"Ah, Sir Maurice. Yes, Sir Charles has told me all about you. Glad you could make it.\" He put his hand on the shoulder of the man he'd been talking with when they arrived. \"This is Mr. Stokes, representing the company that built and operated the airship in question.\"\n\nVeronica noted that Stokes was harbouring a dark frown.\n\nNewbury took his hand, inclining his head politely. \"Mr. Stokes.\" He stepped back, allowing the others to see Veronica, who had been standing behind him in the shadow of the bandstand throughout the course of the exchange. \"This is my assistant, Miss Veronica Hobbes. She'll be aiding me in my enquiries. Please ensure you extend to her all the necessary courtesy and freedom she requires to properly execute her role.\"\n\nFoulkes looked startled by this new development, but quickly spluttered his assent.\n\nNewbury turned to the man named Stokes. \"Mr. Stokes, I'd appreciate it if you could elaborate on some details for me. Have you any notion yet of what occurred to bring about this sorry situation?\"\n\nStokes looked immediately uncomfortable. He was a short, lean man, shorter than both Newbury and Foulkes and only a few inches taller than Veronica. He wore a brown suit and white collar, with black shoes that, Veronica noted, were filthy with mud, grime and ash from the crash site. His moustache was trimmed to perfection and waxed at the ends, and his bushy eyebrows did much to accentuate his apparently permanent frown. He shuffled nervously on the spot. \"Alas, we're only just beginning to piece together the sequence of events that preceded this tragedy. There is nothing in the wreckage to indicate what may have happened onboard, and we can see no obvious reason why it should have plummeted out of the sky as dramatically as it did. Unfortunately, there are no survivors left to question, either.\"\n\nNewbury shook his head, his face serious. It was obvious he didn't care for Stokes's dismissive tone. \"What of the ship itself? What was it, and where was it bound?\"\n\n\"The ship was named _The Lady Armitage,_ and according to my charter, it was bound for Dublin. It was a passenger-class vessel, the smallest size in the fleet, and appears to have been carrying around fifty individuals when it crashed.\"\n\n\"Fifty . . .\" Veronica was appalled.\n\nNewbury continued. \"And what of your employers, Mr. Stokes?\"\n\nStokes offered Newbury a black look. \"I'm a representative of Chapman and Villiers Air Transportation Services, of Battersea. Mr. Chapman himself has engaged me to assess the situation here today and to act as his mouthpiece during the ongoing investigation. Any questions pertaining to the company can be directed at me. I am also the firm's legal representative.\"\n\nNewbury glanced at Veronica, a sardonic expression on his face, and then turned his attention to Inspector Foulkes. \"Do you know if Sir Charles will be attending the scene?\"\n\n\"Not initially, sir. He has ceded responsibility for the case to me for the time being. He's still caught up in this damnable Whitechapel situation. They found another body this morning.\"\n\n\"Indeed. Miss Hobbes and I were present at the scene.\" He glanced back at Stokes, who was attempting to clean the dirt from his shoes by rubbing them on the grass. \"Do we know how long it's been since the vessel came down?\"\n\nThe other man didn't look up from his ministrations. \"Witnesses are reporting seeing the vessel come down between ten and ten thirty this morning.\" He emitted a _tut_ ting sound as he continued to rub the side of his shoe on the wet grass, to no avail.\n\nNewbury flushed red. \"Damn it, man! Fifty people are dead! Show some decency, and pay attention to the issue at hand.\"\n\nStokes ceased wiping his shoes and looked immediately flustered. He stammered something incoherent, which Newbury decided to take as an apology. Foulkes tried to cover his laughter at the man's expression with a loud cough.\n\nNewbury met Foulkes's eyes. \"I think the next logical step is for me to examine the wreckage.\"\n\n\"I'm sure that will be acceptable to Mr. Stokes.\" The Inspector shot the lawyer a sideways glance. \"But I will warn you, Sir Maurice, it is a disturbing experience. I toured the remains of the vessel as soon as it was cool enough to go aboard, and I assure you, it's no place for a lady.\" He made a point of stressing these last few words.\n\nNewbury was unperturbed. \"I appreciate your candour, Inspector Foulkes. Of course, it's up to the lady to decide for herself. Allow me to consult with Miss Hobbes in private for a short while.\" With that, he turned his back on the two men and drew Veronica to one side, under the shadow of the bandstand.\n\n\"Miss Hobbes. Veronica. I would not presume to ask you to follow me into the horror of this wreck. I did, after all, hire you to assist me in my academic pursuits, and not to risk life and limb clambering after me into the still-smouldering carcass of a downed airship.\" He paused, giving his words time to sink in. \"I'd be very happy if you preferred to wait for me here instead.\"\n\nVeronica crossed her arms. \"That's all very well, Sir Maurice, but what if you miss something fundamental? Surely a second pair of eyes would prove useful, especially when one considers the sheer size of the wreckage?\"\n\nNewbury smiled, trying to conceal his pleasure at her response. \"Very good. Well, better pucker up that resolve, my dear. It's going to be dangerous, dirty and pretty horrific in there.\" He was about to move off when another thought occurred to him. \"Oh, and hang on to that handkerchief, too. I suspect the smell will be unbearable as we get closer.\"\n\nNewbury returned to stand beside Inspector Foulkes. \"Miss Hobbes will attend the scene alongside me.\"\n\nFoulkes looked ready to object, before Newbury caught his eye. \"I assure you, I'll look after the lady's well-being. Now, what's the best way into the wreck from here?\"\n\nStokes answered. \"The ship came down nose-first, so the rear of the ship retains the bulk of its shape whilst the sub-frame at the front of the vessel has compacted, making it difficult to enter. I'd suggest you find your way around the left-hand side\"\u2014he indicated with a wave of his hand\u2014\"and enter through the main cabin door on the side of the gondola. I'm not sure what it is you're hoping to find in there, though, Sir Maurice. In truth, it's nothing but a burnt-out husk.\"\n\nNewbury shrugged. \"I'll know it when I see it, no doubt. Thank you for your assistance, gentlemen. We shall return presently, before the light begins to wane.\" He turned and offered Veronica his arm.\n\nFoulkes watched as the two Crown investigators, entirely incongruous in their formal attire, began walking slowly towards the huge shattered structure on the park green, cautiously stepping around the still-smouldering piles of debris as they walked.\nCHAPTER 5\n\n##\n\nThe wreck of _The Lady Armitage_ was like the carcass of some ancient, primordial beast; the skein of rubber-coated fabric that served as the outer skin of the vessel now burnt and torn like peeling flesh. The sub-structure of iron girders jutted into the sky like broken ribs, blackened by the soot and heat and buckled from the impact. The engine housing, at the rear of the wreckage, looked relatively intact, although in truth, it was hard to tell, as much of it was buried in the earth where the impact had driven it into the ground. The passenger gondola, usually situated underneath the belly of the ship, had been forced upwards and backwards, puncturing the underside of the vessel and contorting awkwardly where it came into contact with the iron struts of the interior frame. The whole thing was a terrible mess, and Newbury had to use every ounce of his experience to maintain a level head as he walked towards it.\n\nSteam and smoke still rose from deep inside the wreckage. As Newbury and Veronica approached the misshapen outer door of the gondola, Newbury felt the need to warn his assistant once again of the dangers they may face inside. \"Make sure you don't touch anything. It may still be hot from the fires. And watch out overhead, too; the wreck hasn't settled yet, and as the metal cools, fragments of the vessel may still collapse inwards, trapping us inside, or worse.\"\n\nHe covered his nose and mouth with the crook of his arm to stave off the terrible smell of death and burnt rubber. Veronica followed suit, once again holding Newbury's borrowed handkerchief to her face. The hem of her skirt was already thick with mud and soot where it trailed on the ground, her boots filthy with grime. She tried not to notice.\n\nThe door into the gondola had buckled badly. There was nothing but a blackened frame there now, where once there had obviously been an elaborate door and mechanism. Veronica peered inside, seeing nothing but darkness and iron girders. \"Are you sure this is the best way in?\"\n\n\"It looks like the _only_ way in, as far as I can tell.\" He looked around, confirming his suspicions. \"I wouldn't trust that man Stokes for a minute, but I can't fault his directions in this instance. Here, let me go first.\" Newbury tentatively put a hand on the outer rim of the door. \"Still warm.\" He gripped it more firmly with both hands and swung himself through the twisted metal opening. Veronica watched him disappear inside.\n\n\"Oh, well. For Queen and Country, I suppose.\" She grabbed the doorframe and swung herself in behind him.\n\nInside, Veronica found it difficult to get a sense of the scale of the ship. She was standing in what she assumed had been the lobby, although now, with fire and structural damage, it was difficult to tell. _The Lady Armitage_ may have been small by airship standards, but on the ground, it was still an immense vessel, and the passenger gondola was equally well-proportioned. Newbury was heading towards the compartments at the front of the gondola, if she had her bearings right. She watched him climbing over blackened furniture and the still-warm cinders of other unidentifiable objects. He turned back. \"I'm off to try to find the pilot's control room. You take a look around. We'll meet up again shortly.\" She looked the other way, trying to see a path through the scene of destruction. \"Oh, and Miss Hobbes?\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Be careful.\"\n\nShe smiled to herself, pleased with his evident concern.\n\nThe lobby\u2014or what remained of it\u2014was a long rectangular room with doors in each of the far walls. Since Newbury was heading fore, she decided to take the other option and see what she could find towards the rear of the vessel. She supposed, as she trod carefully over the ash-covered floor, that she was heading towards the part of the ship reserved for passengers, since the bulk of the gondola's interior space seemed to lie in this direction. Fighting her way past the crisp shell of a wooden sideboard, and ducking under a nest of trailing metal cables, she came to a stop in front of the door. It was still relatively intact, although flames had obviously licked black soot up and down its fascia. She hesitated. She knew she was likely to happen across a body or two on the other side. Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself. Her palate was growing used to the stench now, and her clothes were so thick with grime, dust and soot that she'd given up paying attention. She reached out and tried the handle, then immediately withdrew her hand. It was still hot from the fire, and even through her red-leather gloves, she knew it would scald her hand. Not only that, but the door appeared to have sealed shut with the heat. Stepping back, and looking around her to ensure no one was watching, she hitched her skirt up above her knees and sent her booted foot flying into the centre of the door. It gave a little in the frame, splintering where the wood had been stressed by the heat. She tried again, this time putting her full weight behind her as she drove herself forwards into the door.\n\nIt gave, bursting open and slamming back against an iron girder that blocked the way on the other side. She wondered, for a moment, if Newbury would come running at the noise, but after a short while had passed and she could hear no sound of him, she decided to press on. Pushing back against the door, she decided she'd try to squeeze through the gap she had created between the doorway and the girder. She tucked her hat underneath her arm, her dark hair spilling out of its carefully prepared coiffure.\n\nShe manoeuvred herself into the opening. Inside, she could still feel the residual warmth from the burnt-out interior. The floor was covered in a sticky mudlike residue, which she supposed had been created when the water from the hose carts had mixed with the soot and ash, forming a film of black grime upon the ground.\n\nShe looked around, and then dropped the handkerchief to the floor with a gasp. She stared in horror at the sight before her. Row upon row of passenger seats were filled with the remains of the dead. Horrific, skeletal cadavers sat fixed in their final death throes, gripping the seats in front of them, screaming at their neighbours, or else spilled out onto the floor, where they had tried to find somewhere to run. It was as if someone had set out a grisly diorama, a charnel house audience locked away in this horrible room, awaiting an appointment with God. She approached slowly, forcing back the rising bile in her throat. Her eyes filled with tears. It was the most appalling sight she had ever seen. She wondered why the people were nearly all still seated, why they hadn't tried to bail out of the ship as it crashed, or at least taken cover in the hope that they may survive the impending impact. The corpses were all blackened and burnt, cooked flesh still clinging to the bones, terrified screams still fixed on their faces. She had no way of telling which of them had even been male or female, save for the occasional piece of jewellery still hanging around a woman's throat.\n\nLeaning close to one of the bodies, she noted the answer to her earlier question: The person had been tied into their seat, fixed by a hoop around their left foot to the base of the seat in front. She checked another, and another, and found that they were all the same. No wonder the people hadn't tried to run. They couldn't.\n\nVeronica noticed a gentle patter of raindrops on her face. She looked up. High above, she could see the sky through the torn belly of the airship, the broken spokes of its internal structure poking up into the waning afternoon light. She realised almost immediately that the water droplets she had felt were not rain, but water from the hose carts, sprayed into the blazing inferno earlier that day and still dripping from the girders up above. She glanced around, looking for anything else that may be of use. She could see a hole in the left side of the room, where the firemen had obviously dug their way through from the outside in an attempt to find survivors. She wondered how those men had reacted to the scene that had faced them. Had they, too, been as appalled as she was? She finally gave in to her horror and vomited on the ground, her eyes stinging as she retched violently, over and over again, until there was nothing left for her body to expel. She stood, gasping, wondering if she'd ever be able to cleanse the smell of the burnt flesh from her hair and skin or, worse, from her nightmares. Perhaps she should have stayed outside after all.\n\nShe turned at the sound of the door banging against the girder. Newbury stepped into the room. He coughed, hacking on the smell of the still-warm bodies.\n\n\"My God.\" He rushed to Veronica's side. \"Are you alright?\"\n\nVeronica coughed. \"I'm not sure I shall ever be alright again. I just can't believe the devastation. So many people dead, burned alive in the fires. What a horrible way to die.\"\n\nNewbury looked saddened. \"It won't have been a lingering death. The collapse of the gasbags will have caused a series of massive fireballs to blow through the ship. That probably explains why they're all still in their seats.\"\n\nVeronica crouched down beside a row of seats. \"That, and the fact that they were all tied into position like common criminals.\" She showed him the loop of charred rope around the ankle of the nearest passenger.\n\n\"Stokes made no mention of the vessel being chartered as penal transport. Do you suspect he was trying to hide something?\"\n\n\"I believe he was trying to cover his own back.\" She stood again, blinking. \"What did you find in the control room?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" She moved to turn away, anxious to put space between herself and the grisly scene, and then paused when he continued talking.\n\n\"That's just it. Nothing. No pilot or co-pilot to be found. No bodies, no evidence to suggest they were ever there at all. It's as if the pilot simply abandoned the controls.\"\n\nVeronica frowned. \"Do you think that's why the ship went down? Because the pilot wasn't at the controls? Could he have bailed out before impact? Or could he be back here, unidentifiable now from the other passengers?\"\n\n\"I suppose anything is possible.\" Newbury looked up, noticing that the light was starting to go. \"Come on. I think we've seen enough, and this is far from my ideal of one's first time aboard an airship.\" He looked circumspect. \"Besides, I do believe we have some more questions for Mr. Stokes.\"\n\nMr. Stokes was still standing around the police cordon when Newbury and Veronica edged up beside him. They were both filthy from climbing around in the wreckage, and Newbury was looking forward to retiring for the day, intent on a long soak in a hot bath. Stokes turned to regard them as they approached.\n\n\"Well, I do believe it's true what they've been saying. The Crown _is_ prepared to get its hands dirty from time to time.\" He guffawed at his own joke.\n\nNewbury was unmoved. \"Foulkes?\"\n\nStokes was obviously taken aback by Newbury's directness. \"Um, no. He's had to go off somewhere. Something about a fireman getting injured in the wreckage.\"\n\n\"Well, Mr. Stokes, perhaps _you_ could make yourself useful for a moment? I have another question, and it's very much in need of an answer.\"\n\nThe other man nodded, apprehensive now.\n\n\"What became of the ship's pilot? I've been down to the control room, and there's no evidence of a body. Indeed, there's precious little evidence that a pilot was even on board.\"\n\nStokes's complexion turned a ghostly shade of white. \"The, um, the pilot is missing.\"\n\n\"Missing? How does a pilot go _missing_? Did he bail out before the crash?\"\n\n\"Not exactly, Sir Maurice . . . If I can just\u2014\"\n\n\"Look, man, I'm in no mood for your ridiculous evasions now! Can you answer the question or not?\"\n\nVeronica put a hand on Newbury's arm in an effort to quell his rising temper. Stokes gave an audible sigh. \"There is no way the pilot of that vessel could have bailed out before the crash.\"\n\n\"And why is that, Mr. Stokes?\" This from Veronica, who had evidently decided to step in and calm the situation before things got out of hand.\n\n\"Because it wasn't a 'he.' It was an 'it.' \" He rubbed his hands over his face in exasperation. \"The pilot of _The Lady Armitage_ was a clockwork automaton, designed by Mr. Villiers himself. They're remarkable units, capable of many basic and, indeed, higher functions. But they are _not_ programmed to abandon their stations in an emergency. They're simply not capable of it.\"\n\nNewbury looked incredulous. \"An automaton piloting an airship! Why didn't you think to disclose this information before now? There's the probable cause for your disaster, Mr. Stokes! The unit clearly malfunctioned.\"\n\nStokes shook his head defensively. \"Oh no, Sir Maurice. That's simply not possible. The automata have been piloting airships for nearly six months now, and safety records have improved dramatically during that period. Up to eighty percent! The program is fully approved. We have all the necessary paperwork back at the office. I assure you, sir, that it's a simple impossibility that the unit malfunctioned. It's physically not possible.\"\n\n\"So where is the unit now, Mr. Stokes?\" Veronica smiled in a placatory fashion.\n\nStokes cleared his throat. He was clearly unhappy with the course of the entire conversation. \"I'm afraid I have no idea. My report will state that the device was destroyed in the explosion. Now look\u2014\" He waved a manifest in front of them. \"\u2014I really have to be getting on. I'm expected to provide a full passenger register for the police before the day is out.\"\n\n\"Of course. We're sorry to have kept you.\" Veronica took Newbury's proffered arm and began to walk away. Then, as if just remembering something, she stopped and looked back. \"Oh, and Mr. Stokes? Just one more thing before you go?\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Could you tell me why all of the passengers were confined to their seats, with loops of rope around their ankles?\"\n\nStokes looked as if he were about to choke. \"A simple safety precaution, Miss Hobbes. In case of emergency, all passengers are required to insert their left foot into the safety brace underneath the seat in front. It stops people tumbling all over the craft if the pilot encounters dangerous turbulence whilst airborne.\"\n\nVeronica nodded. \"Thank you, Mr. Stokes. You've been most helpful.\"\n\nShe watched with Newbury as the little man scuttled away, keen to put distance between him and the ire of the moonlighting academics. The light was fading now, the sun low in the sky over the city. The crowds of people around the edges of the park had begun to thin and disperse.\n\n\"You understand, of course, that there's no feasible way in which the skeleton of a brass automaton could have been incinerated in that blaze? Especially when one considers that the majority of the human cadavers are still relatively intact.\" Newbury sounded contemplative now, rather than angry.\n\n\"Yes, my thoughts exactly.\"\n\n\"I'm beginning to think that Her Majesty's suspicions were correct. Something is definitely wrong here, and I'll wager it has its roots in the offices of Chapman and Villiers Air Transportation Services.\" He sighed, blinking to keep himself alert. \"For now, though, I think it's time I retired to my lodgings. Can I drop you at home on my way, Miss Hobbes?\"\n\nShe nodded, clearly exhausted. \"Please do, Sir Maurice.\"\n\nHe held the cordon for her as they took their leave of the crash site and made their way to the nearest carriage.\n\nThe evening was still and cold as Newbury, attired only in a simple dressing gown, settled in his study before a roaring open fire. A book was open on his lap\u2014 _Trelawny's History of Esoteric Societies of the Seventeenth Century_ \u2014one of the many aged, leather-bound volumes that lined the walls around the room. Other shelves held more bizarre specimens: vials of chemical compounds, jars filled with preserved biological samples, a pentagram cast out of twenty-four carat gold, the bleached skull of a chimpanzee and much more besides. Paper files were stacked neatly in rows along one wall, containing reams of case notes, old academic papers, clippings and other assorted reference materials collected during many long hours of research. The study was his private haven, the room he filled with all the ephemera of his life. It was the one place where he could relax, where he felt free to become himself and where much of his actual deduction was carried out; over time, the study had become a place of revelation. He eased back in his armchair and turned the pages in his book.\n\nMrs. Bradshaw had retired for the evening after drawing him a bath and admonishing him enthusiastically for the state of his clothes. He smiled. She was forbidden from entering the study, but if she were to ever see its contents\u2014not least the cluttered manner in which he liked to keep it\u2014he wagered she'd flee his service at once. Not only that, but many of his files contained confidential information that needed to be kept away from prying eyes. He had no reason to doubt Mrs. Bradshaw's integrity, but he suspected the contents of his files would be enough to discredit the monarchy at least ten times over, and he feared what temptation could do to even the most loyal of people. For that reason, he kept the door to the room locked at all times, even when he was inside of it. He'd invited Bainbridge in once or twice, for he trusted him implicitly, and after the events of the previous summer\u2014during which they'd hunted a madman intent on inflicting an Ancient Egyptian plague on London\u2014he knew the man had a stomach for the bizarre.\n\nTonight, however, he was happy for the solitude. He sat watching the dance of the flames for a while. He couldn't help thinking of the ruined, tortured faces of the corpses in the wreck of the airship that he'd seen that afternoon. Veronica had taken it badly, but so, in truth, had he. He'd seen innumerable corpses in his lifetime, of course, but in this instance, it was a matter of scale; never before had he witnessed a scene quite so horrifying as this.\n\nHe reached for a small brown bottle from the shelf behind his head. The label was peeling, but he knew well what it contained. He unscrewed the lid and poured a measure of the liquid into the half-full glass of claret that rested on the side table by his armchair. The laudanum would help him sleep, or so he told himself as he raised the glass to his lips and took a long drink. In the morning, he would meet Veronica at the office, and they would head to Battersea, to Chapman and Villiers's manufactory. There he hoped to find out more about the mysterious automata and their creator, Mr. Pierre Villiers, an exiled Frenchman who\u2014he had read\u2014had been brought up on charges over a decade ago for experimenting on human wastrels in his Parisian laboratory. Still, that was for the morning. For tonight, he hoped, oblivion was near at hand. He drained his glass and sank back into the comfort of his Chesterfield, waiting for the laudanum to do its work.\nCHAPTER 6\n\n##\n\nGiven the heavy fog of the previous day, the morning seemed unusually bright as Veronica made her way up the steps outside the main entrance of the British Museum. Birds twittered in the trees overhead, and the sun poked through the clouds to sprinkle bright columns of light across the city.\n\nAfter the horrors of yesterday, Veronica had retired to her lodgings in Kensington, where she'd bathed, eaten and gone directly to bed. Now, feeling somewhat refreshed, she hoped that the coming day would prove less fraught, and also less likely to inspire nightmares. The scenes from the crash site were still emblazoned on her mind, and she tried to push them to the back of her thoughts as she prepared herself for what the new day might bring.\n\nWatkins, the doorman, was on hand to permit her entrance to the museum at this early hour, and he did so with a kindly smile. It was not yet eight, but she suspected Newbury would already be sitting at his desk, reading his newspaper as was typical of his morning routine. All the more surprising, then, was the scene that greeted her when she did finally open the door to the office on the basement floor. Newbury was nowhere to be seen, his desk undisturbed, his coat and hat distinctly absent from the stand inside the door. Instead, Miss Coulthard sat at her desk, her face in her hands, tears streaming down her cheeks in desperation and dismay.\n\n\"Oh, Miss Hobbes. I'm sorry that you should happen upon me in this state.\" She looked up at Veronica as she came through the door.\n\nVeronica quickly peeled off her coat and hat and pulled a chair up beside Miss Coulthard, taking her hand in her own. \"I take it there's still no news?\"\n\nMiss Coulthard, sobbing, nodded briskly. \"We've had no word. Neither have his employers. We all fear the worst, Miss Hobbes. I can think of no reason why he'd stay away this long, unless the revenants have got him.\"\n\n\"Now, Miss Coulthard, we don't know anything for sure. I do think it's unlikely that he's had a run-in with one of these 'revenant' creatures. I hear lots of talk about them, all over the city, but I'll admit I've yet to see one myself, and in truth, I'm starting to wonder if they even exist at all.\" She smiled warmly. \"Have you seen one with your own eyes, Miss Coulthard?\"\n\n\"No, Miss Hobbes, I can't say that I have.\"\n\n\"There you are, then. Neither of us can even verify their existence. So how likely do you find it that Jack may have encountered one on his way to work?\"\n\n\"Well . . .\" Miss Coulthard wiped her eyes, sniffling. \"I suppose not likely at all. It's just . . .\" She screwed her hands into fists, frustrated. \"What _else_ could have happened to him?\"\n\nVeronica rubbed the back of her neck. \"Well, that's what we'll engage the police to find out today. I'm sure it'll turn out to be something quite innocent.\"\n\nMiss Coulthard smiled. \"Thank you, Miss Hobbes. I've been waiting here for Sir Maurice to accompany me, after what he said to me yesterday, but he hasn't arrived as yet. I fear he's made other arrangements or decided to go elsewhere this morning, on an errand or suchlike.\"\n\nVeronica glanced at the clock, a slight frown crossing her face. \"No, no. We definitely arranged to meet here this morning. I'm sure he's just been held up. When he arrives, we'll put on a fresh pot of tea and then I'm sure Sir Maurice will send a note across town to his associates at Scotland Yard.\" Veronica noticed that Miss Coulthard had reached into her pocket and was now clutching a small sepia photograph to her chest. \"Miss Coulthard, may I enquire as to the identity of the person in your photograph?\"\n\nThe secretary looked down, staring at the photograph as if seeing it for the first time. She held it out to Veronica. \"My brother, taken before he went off to war.\"\n\nVeronica took the battered old picture and gave it an appraising look. A man, dressed in a field uniform, posed for the camera, a rifle cocked over one arm, his other arm resting against a large stone plinth. The backdrop was a large canvas showing paintings of trees and other unidentifiable flora. \"He's very handsome, Miss Coulthard.\" She turned it over. There was an inscription on the back, written in a shaky hand. It read: _Jack Coulthard, January 1901._ \"Where did he see action?\"\n\n\"India. He was invalided out six months ago, after he was savaged by a wild animal whilst on patrol. The men he was with were all killed. We were blessed that he survived. They told us he was gripped by a terrible fever for days after the incident. When he returned home he was a shell of his former self. But he picked himself up and applied for an apprenticeship at Fitchett and Browns. They've done well by him, too. He's made quite a name for himself amongst the junior members of the establishment.\"\n\n\"I'm glad to hear it, Miss Coulthard. Now, I think this photograph will be useful for the police, if you can bear to part with it for a short while? They'll be able to use it to show Jack's likeness to their officers. It'll make it easier for them to spot him if they know exactly who they're looking for.\"\n\nMiss Coulthard nodded. \"I thought as much.\" She passed Veronica the picture and watched as the other woman slipped it safely into her purse. \"I don't know what we'd do without him. It'll ruin us if he can't be found.\"\n\n\"I'm sure it won't come to that. Now . . .\" Veronica trailed off at the sound of footsteps on the other side of the door. \"Ah, that sounds like Sir Maurice. Come on, let's get that pot warming.\" She rose to her feet just as the door swung open and Newbury stepped into the office. He looked haggard, as if he hadn't slept. Dark rings circled his eyes, and his face had taken on an unusual pallor. He lifted his bowler hat from his head and smiled. \"Good morning, ladies.\"\n\nVeronica looked immediately concerned. \"Sir Maurice, are you unwell?\"\n\nHe shook his head dismissively. \"Only a malady of my own making, I fear, my dear Miss Hobbes. Nothing a strong cup of Earl Grey won't fix.\" He draped his coat on the stand beside him. \"Miss Coulthard. Any news on your missing sibling?\"\n\nThe secretary shook her head, fighting back further tears.\n\nNewbury frowned. \"Well, give me your address on a piece of paper, along with the particulars of the last time you saw your brother, his place of work and any distinguishing marks that may help the police to identify him. If you have it to me in the next half hour, I'll dash off a note to my friends at Scotland Yard.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Sir Maurice. I'm very much obliged to you.\"\n\n\"Say nothing of it, Miss Coulthard. It's the very least I can do.\" He rubbed his hand over his chin. \"Now, Miss Hobbes, let us adjourn to my desk and see if we can't plan our next move.\"\n\n\"I'll be with you directly, Sir Maurice, just as soon as I've organised this pot of tea.\" She watched as he disappeared through the partition door, unsure what to make of his sudden change in demeanour.\n\n\"So what you're saying is that you're not convinced that the automaton was the cause of the disaster?\"\n\nNewbury nodded. His colour had returned, and he seemed imbued once again with his usual energy. Veronica had to admit she was relieved; when he'd walked through the door that morning, she'd been just about ready to hail a cab and ferry him to the nearest doctor. Now, after a recuperative cup of tea and a few minutes spent composing a note for Miss Coulthard, he was cheerfully engaged in outlining his current thoughts on the matter in hand. \"What I'm saying is that I'm willing to hold off judgement until I've seen the evidence for myself. I've seen one or two of these automata demonstrated in my time, and they're certainly amazing creations. Technology moves quickly, these days. If you've any doubt, just look up at the sky.\" He gestured with both of his hands. \"Chapman and Villiers is one of the preeminent air transportation organisations in London. If even a quarter of those airships above the city are under the control of an automaton, then in my book, that's a wondrous thing indeed!\"\n\n\"I don't doubt you're right, Sir Maurice, but we must be sure not to let our enthusiasm for technological developments cloud our judgement in this matter.\"\n\nHe looked at her slyly. \"I can see you've got a sharp sense about you, Miss Hobbes. You're absolutely right, of course. But equally I trust you will not damn the technology before we have carried out the due investigative process.\"\n\n\"Agreed. Even if Mr. Stokes is an odious wretch who did nothing but cloud my opinion of his organisation.\"\n\n\"Indeed. If we're lucky, we'll have no further dealings with the man today.\"\n\nVeronica sipped her tea thoughtfully. \"So, what of the Whitechapel murders? Have you thought any further on the mystery of the glowing policeman?\"\n\nNewbury shook his head, slowly. \"Alas, I've had to forgo that particular case, for the time being, anyway. If we get to the bottom of this airship issue quickly enough, I'll see what I can do to help. Otherwise, I'll just have to point Charles in the right direction and hope he can get to the bottom of it himself. He's got plenty of good men at his disposal, and if the case does turn out to have a supernatural origin, it won't be the first time he's come up against that sort of thing and won.\"\n\nVeronica raised her eyebrows.\n\n\"A story for another time, perhaps.\" He stood, pulling on his gloves.\n\nVeronica placed her cup back on the saucer. \"One last question before we take our leave. May I ask why this crash is deemed so important to the Crown?\"\n\nNewbury paused for a moment, as if deciding how much he should disclose to this woman, whom\u2014despite her having been in his employ for only a matter of weeks\u2014he was already beginning to trust with his life.\n\nVeronica took his lengthy pause as a sign of his disapproval. She flushed red. \"Oh, please forgive me! Have I overstepped the mark?\" She stood, nearly knocking her cup and saucer over as she banged awkwardly against the edge of his desk.\n\nNewbury waved her to sit down again. \"No, not at all, Miss Hobbes. The truth of the matter is simple: I don't know. I'll admit, I'm finding that question peculiarly frustrating. I can see no obvious connection between the affairs of the monarchy and the disaster that became of _The Lady Armitage._ Not only that, but the Whitechapel case is more definitely within my area of expertise.\" He sighed. \"Nevertheless, one must do one's duty. And I must admit, I'm rather intrigued by this whole automaton business.\" He held the door open for Veronica and ushered her through.\n\nMiss Coulthard was sitting at her desk, the nib of her pen scratching noisily as she attempted to transcribe one of Newbury's recent academic papers for the museum archives. He shook his head as he collected his coat. \"Miss Coulthard? Did you manage to have my letter sent to Scotland Yard as I instructed?\"\n\n\"Yes, Sir Maurice. I sent it by cab as you requested.\"\n\n\"Very good. Then I must ask you what you're still doing here, scratching out one of my illegible essays when you should be at home, awaiting news of your brother?\" He smiled warmly.\n\n\"Well, sir, this document was supposed to be completed for filing yesterday. I was concerned about getting behind in my work.\"\n\n\"Poppycock! Now, Miss Hobbes and I will be gone for the rest of the day, so I dare suggest you won't be missed. Go on, be off with you. I shan't take my own cab until I'm convinced you're well away from this place.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir. I won't forget your kindness.\" She placed her pen carefully back in the drawer and fumbled with her papers.\n\nA moment later, when Miss Coulthard had collected her belongings, the three of them left together, locking the door to the office behind them.\nCHAPTER 7\n\n##\n\nFrom the Chelsea Bridge, the airship works were clearly visible in the morning light as a series of immense red brick hangars, squat beside the shimmering Thames, fumes rising like smoke signals from a row of tall, broad chimneys. Steam hissed from outlet pipes in great white plumes, whilst water gushed back into the river in a deluge of brown sludge. Huge airships were tethered to the roofs of the hangars, reminiscent of a row of children's balloons, bobbing languorously in the breeze.\n\nNewbury looked out over the river. Ships and boats of all shapes and sizes drifted lazily along the shipping lanes, dipping gently with the ebb and flow of the water. It was busy, thick with the detritus of industry. It was noisy, too: horns blaring and gulls chattering over the constant clatter of horses' hooves as they rolled over the bridge towards their destination. He caught sight of one ship to which the others were giving a wide berth. He studied it for a moment through the window. Large red crosses had been painted on the sides of the hull, and the flag had been lowered to half-mast. He guessed it was a plague ship, carrying the corpses of the dead out to sea, where they would likely be dumped, unceremoniously, into the water. He knew from his discussions with Bainbridge that the corpses of plague victims had been turning up all over the city, particularly in the slums, where the people lived in squalor and the virus could easily spread from host to host. Stories of the \"revenants\" were spreading, too, with the daily newspapers parroting the rumours heard on the streets and sensationalising the epidemic for the gleeful consumption of cockatoos such as Felicity Johnson. They were right to fear, though; before the virus killed its host, it would completely unravel their humanity, transforming them into a monstrous killing machine. Their flesh would stop regenerating, their only thoughts becoming animalistic, feral; in short, they would be reduced to nothing but the basest of creatures, and with that loss of faculty, they'd become almost unstoppable, feeling no pain, showing no awareness of wounds that would kill an average man. It was as if the virus, somehow, kept them alive through all of this, waiting for an unidentified biological trigger. Then, after a handful of days had passed, the virus would complete its work and turn their brains to sponge, dropping their spent, lifeless bodies by the side of the road. It was a bad way to go. He hoped, for Miss Coulthard's sake, that she was wrong and that her brother had so far managed to evade infection. Everything he knew about the virus suggested if that if he _had_ been infected, by now he'd either be dead in a gutter or else stalking the fog-shrouded streets by night, a mindless monster in search of food and blood.\n\nNewbury closed his eyes for a moment, lulled by the motion of the cab. He imagined that Her Majesty would be growing impatient with the crisis by now, keen for the virus to burn itself out in the poorer districts of the city. She probably had a hundred scientists searching for a vaccination. If no solution were found soon, he had no doubt that she would place a cordon around the slums in an effort to slow the spread of the disease. Everyone was anxious, fearful of what might happen if the plague truly managed to get a grip on the city. Some projections suggested that up to 50 percent of the population could succumb to the illness: if not killed by the virus itself, then taken by one of the rampaging monsters it created. He suspected that it would be some time yet before the issue came to a head, and that the worst was probably still to come.\n\nHe looked up. Veronica sat in silence on the other side of the cab, lost in thought. Her hands were folded neatly on her lap, her face turned to the opposite window. She was wearing a powder blue jacket and white blouse, with matching culottes. He admired her modern sensibilities. Indeed, he admired much about her. Searching around for another distraction, he chose not to disturb her reverie. Instead, he unfolded his morning copy of _The Times_ on his knee and inspected the day's headlines. Unsurprisingly, the editor had chosen to dedicate the front page to a huge article about the _Lady Armitage_ disaster. The headline read AIRSHIP CRASHES IN FINSBURY PARK: SABOTAGE SUSPECTED, UPWARDS OF 50 DEAD. Newbury shook his head. Sabotage suspected? He wondered if Stokes had been feeding ideas to the press. He certainly wouldn't put it past the man. He hoped to find the company's directors a little less repellent but was expecting to be disappointed. In his experience, like invariably attracted like, and any associates of Mr. Stokes would either have to maintain a will of iron or an ego as enormous as that of Stokes himself.\n\nHe settled back in his seat, flicking through the pages of newsprint on his knee. He was still feeling delicate from the excesses of the laudanum, and silently chastised himself for giving in to his cravings. Miss Hobbes was astute, and his late arrival at the office and less-than-savoury appearance that morning had not gone unnoticed. He resolved to represent himself better in future.\n\nThe driver tapped loudly on the top of the cab, and both Newbury and Veronica looked up in surprise, dragged away from their thoughts.\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Is this the place you're looking for, sir?\"\n\nHe glanced out of the window. The cab had come to rest outside a small office building appended to a much larger complex of industrial hangars and factories. A sign above the door read CHAPMAN & VILLIERS AIR TRANSPORTATION SERVICES.\n\n\"Yes, thank you driver, this is the place.\" He sighed, and caught Veronica's eye, folding his newspaper under his arm as he did so. \"Are you ready, my dear?\"\n\n\"Absolutely.\"\n\n\"Well then, after you.\" He watched her clamber down from the cab to the street below. He had a feeling that today, one way or another, some of the missing pieces of the mystery would begin clicking into place.\n\nThe offices of Chapman & Villiers were an austere affair, housed within a separate structure that was divorced from the factory proper by a large courtyard and an elaborate set of cast-iron gates. Clearly the proprietors were intent on maintaining a strict distance between their visiting clientele and the factory workers, who, Newbury guessed, would likely have a separate entrance somewhere around the rear of the complex. It appeared, from the signs evident in the windows, that the office not only dealt with the company's commercial affairs but also served as a travel agency, of sorts, selling passage on its fleet of charter vessels to locations all over the globe, from Prussia to China, Jersey to Hong Kong. Newbury toyed with his gloves for a moment. \"Well, Miss Hobbes, I do hope you have your detective's cap on?\"\n\nIn reply, she stepped forward and pulled the office door open before her. It groaned loudly on its hinges. \"Of course. After you, Sir Maurice.\"\n\nHe shook his head, taking the door from her and ushering her inside. \"Come now, Miss Hobbes, let's do things properly.\"\n\nThe main reception area was as sobering in appearance as one expected after taking in the view of the building from the outside: the walls were hung with a dark, burgundy covering that seemed to soak up all the light, and a scattering of chairs were situated beside low coffee tables and tall leafy plants. A set of short stairs led up to another, unseen level. A clerk sat in one corner with his back to them, talking to a customer in hushed tones about purchasing transport to the Far East.\n\nBut their attention was most immediately drawn to the man behind a mahogany desk in the centre of the room, his fingers forming a perfect pyramid before him on the polished surface, his pale face belying his apparent displeasure at receiving customers so close to lunch. When he spoke, his voice was thin and nasal. \"Can I help you?\"\n\nNewbury strode up to the desk and placed his hat down beside a sheaf of paper files. The clerk looked at the item as if it were a horse's head, his disdain clearly evident.\n\n\"I'm here to see Mr. Chapman.\"\n\nThe clerk made a show of looking in his ledger. \"Are you sure, sir? I have no meetings scheduled for Mr. Chapman today. He really is a very busy man.\" He shut his ledger as if that were simply the end of the matter. \"Perhaps you'd care to make an appointment?\"\n\n\"I'm afraid you don't seem to understand. It's imperative I speak with Mr. Chapman today.\" Newbury glowered at the man behind the desk.\n\n\"Imperative, you say, sir? Could I enquire as to what business you may have with my employer that could possibly be so urgent? If you're looking to make a complaint about a recent journey, then you can find the forms behind you on the table there.\"\n\nNewbury sighed. \"I'm here on the business of the Crown. It is a delicate matter that I wish to discuss with Mr. Chapman in private. Of course, if you'd prefer me to air his private business out here\u2014?\"\n\nThe man's entire demeanour changed. His face seemed to flush with colour, and his pursed lips split into a wide smile. He swallowed, and parted his hands in a conciliatory gesture. The timbre of his voice became immediately more welcoming. \"Of course, sir. I quite understand. Allow me to go and enquire as to whether Mr. Chapman is available. May I offer him your name?\"\n\n\"Sir Maurice Newbury.\"\n\n\"Please take a seat, Sir Maurice. I will only be a moment.\"\n\nNewbury watched as the clerk scuttled out from behind his desk and crossed the office, glancing once behind him to see if Newbury was watching. He climbed the stairs and disappeared from view. Veronica lowered herself into one of the chairs, smiling to herself. Newbury paced the office, obviously impatient.\n\nA moment or two later, the clerk appeared at the top of the stairs. He climbed down, his hands clasped behind his back, and approached Newbury tentatively, as one might approach a lion. \"Mr. Chapman is in his office and would be only too delighted to make your acquaintance, Sir Maurice. I will show you up now.\" He beckoned for them to follow. Newbury remembered to reclaim his hat before helping Veronica to her feet.\n\nAt the top of the stairs, three doors led into what Newbury supposed were private offices. The clerk hesitated before the middle one, clearing his throat. He rapped politely, three times, and then opened the door with a flourish, stepping to one side to allow them to enter.\n\n\"Your visitors, sir.\"\n\nNewbury followed Veronica into the room, his hat tucked carefully under his arm.\n\nIt was a large office, and ostentatiously furnished, cluttered with artwork and fine goods from all corners of the globe. Newbury glanced around, trying to get a measure of the place. A large marble fireplace dominated one wall, whilst above it, a portrait of the Queen looked mournfully down upon the visitors. A display case in one corner held relics from as far afield as Constantinople, Baghdad, Greece and Delhi; souvenirs, Newbury supposed, from journeys undertaken in pursuit of business in those far-flung nations.\n\nChapman himself lounged in a large Chesterfield, smoking a cigarette. His hair was blond and cut long around his shoulders, and he was dressed in his shirtsleeves and a black waistcoat. Newbury thought he had the look of a cat about him, languorously warming himself before the fire. He stood as Newbury entered the room, and moved quickly to shake his hand. \"Sir Maurice Newbury, I presume?\"\n\n\"Indeed.\" Newbury took his hand and shook it firmly. He stepped to one side. \"Allow me to introduce my assistant, Miss Veronica Hobbes.\"\n\nChapman smiled and took her hand, holding it for just a moment longer than was necessary, before inclining his head politely. \"Delighted, I'm sure.\" He gestured at the clerk, who was still standing in the doorway. \"Now, can my man Soames fetch you any refreshments? A brandy, perhaps?\" He glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner. \"Not too early for that, are we?\" He looked baffled, as if he'd only just realised the time.\n\nNewbury shook his head. \"A pot of tea would be fine. Earl Grey, if you have it?\"\n\nChapman nodded briskly, and Soames disappeared again, clicking the door shut behind him. They heard his footsteps on the stairs as he descended to the office below.\n\nChapman beckoned for them to take a seat, folding himself back into his chair. He reclaimed his cigarette from the ashtray on the table and took a long, luxurious draw. It was clear to Newbury that the man didn't give much thought to convention: his entire manner was at odds with his station, and his appearance marked him as something of a fop. Nevertheless, he couldn't help feeling drawn to the man's bohemian charm. He could see immediately that there was a cool intelligence lurking behind the darting ice-blue eyes, and whilst he didn't put much stock in the man's taste in furnishings, he had to admit the fellow had an acute nose for business. Either that or he was spending his inheritance at a rate that would soon see him bankrupt or destitute. Chapman tapped his cigarette in the ashtray and regarded Newbury with a wistful smile. \"So, Sir Maurice, I presume you are here regarding that terrible business with _The Lady Armitage_?\" He looked suddenly serious. \"A truly lamentable affair.\"\n\nNewbury nodded. \"Yes. Have you visited the site of the wreckage yourself, Mr. Chapman?\"\n\n\"No.\" He paused to take another draw on his cigarette. \"Unfortunately, I was previously engaged\u2014a small matter to resolve with my banker\u2014so I took the liberty of relying on my legal representative, Mr. Stokes.\"\n\nNewbury stiffened. \"Yes, I spoke with Mr. Stokes for a brief while yesterday.\"\n\nChapman smiled knowingly. \"Terrible bore, isn't he? Seems to be the way with these legal chaps. Dependable, though. I trust he gave you everything you required?\"\n\nNewbury nodded. \"In a manner of speaking. Nevertheless, I thought it wise to pay you a visit this afternoon, in an effort to get a better understanding of your operation, and to see for myself these automata that Stokes mentioned.\"\n\nChapman's eyes seemed to light up. \"Ah, the automata. Villiers's prized creations. They are impressive machines, Sir Maurice, if you have not yet seen one?\"\n\nNewbury glanced at Veronica. \"Indeed not. I would certainly welcome a demonstration.\"\n\n\"I'm sure that can be arranged.\" He reached over and crumpled his cigarette in the ashtray. \"And you, Miss Hobbes. I'm sure you'd find the machines equally as impressive.\"\n\n\"I'm sure I would, Mr. Chapman.\"\n\nNewbury looked up at the sound of rapping on the door, and then Soames entered, bearing their tea on a large platter. He crossed the room and placed it on the table before them. Chapman watched him turn and leave, waiting until the last moment to call after him. \"Thank you, Soames.\"\n\nNewbury scratched his chin absently. \"So, Mr. Chapman, Mr. Stokes mentioned yesterday that one of these remarkable new automata was behind the controls of _The Lady Armitage_ when she went down?\" Veronica studied the other man's face, watching for a reaction.\n\nHe remained impassive. \"Quite possible. I believe around half of the fleet is now piloted by the machines. We even have a Royal charter. Remarkable, really, when you come to think of it.\"\n\n\"Quite.\" Newbury paused. \"Mr. Chapman, I'm not sure if you're aware of all the circumstances surrounding the disaster yesterday morning?\"\n\nChapman looked puzzled. \"Mr. Stokes provided me with a thorough report of his findings. I also spoke with Inspector Foulkes of Scotland Yard. I'd imagine myself to be in full possession of the facts.\"\n\n\"Did Mr. Stokes's report make reference to the fact that the pilot of the vessel appeared to be missing from the wreckage?\"\n\nChapman fished around in his waistcoat pocket, searching out his silver cigarette case. He flicked it open and withdrew one of the small white sticks, then offered the case around to the others. When they didn't accept, he slipped it back into his pocket and struck a match with a loud rasp. Smoke billowed around his face as he regarded Newbury. \"He made mention of the fact that the unit in question had been destroyed in the impact.\"\n\nNewbury met his gaze. \"I find that very difficult to believe, Mr. Chapman. I understand the skeletal frames of these automata are constructed out of brass?\"\n\n\"Correct.\"\n\n\"Then why were there no remnants of the unit in evidence anywhere on board the ship? Both Miss Hobbes and I toured the wreckage, and I can assure you, there was nothing to be found.\"\n\nChapman poured the tea, his face thoughtful. \"Well, if Mr. Stokes's assertions are correct, the unit may have burnt up in the fires that followed the crash.\"\n\nNewbury sipped from his teacup. \"Come now, Mr. Chapman. We both know that the heat in that wreckage would never have reached a temperature enough to incinerate brass. There has to be another explanation.\"\n\nChapman shrugged apologetically. \"Perhaps it survived the incident and clambered out of the wreckage, wandering away into the park?\"\n\n\"The police are certainly following that line of enquiry. Tell me, do you have any notion what may have gone wrong with the unit to cause it to lose control of the vessel, Mr. Chapman?\"\n\nChapman shook his head. \"As I understand it, Sir Maurice, the automaton was not responsible for the crash. We've had an impeccable safety record throughout the fleet since the implementation of these machines. I find it far more probable that, regrettably, there was a mechanical fault with the vessel itself.\"\n\n\"So you put no stock in the notion that the automaton unit may have malfunctioned?\"\n\n\"I do not. Although in truth, you'd have to ask Villiers. He's the man who invented the things; he should be able to give you a better idea of their functions and limitations.\" He shrugged.\n\nVeronica placed her empty teacup on the table. \"So, Mr. Chapman, where would we find Mr. Villiers?\"\n\nChapman smiled. \"He'll be in his workshop behind the mechanical works. I can take you there, if you like, by way of the airship manufactory?\" He stood, not waiting for a reply. \"What do you say? A quick tour of the facility?\"\n\nBoth Newbury and Veronica rose from their seats. Veronica met Newbury's eye. \"Mr. Chapman, I think that would be an excellent idea.\"\nCHAPTER 8\n\n##\n\nThe hangar was cold, and Veronica hugged her jacket to herself, wishing she'd thought to bring a shawl or a more substantial overcoat along with her that morning. Her breath fogged in the air before her face. She tried to avoid shivering.\n\nThey were standing on a steel walkway above the main factory floor, where the huge shell of an airship gondola was currently under construction. It sat upon a large wooden pallet, squat in the centre of the massive room, scaffolds running over its surface like the strands of a vast spider's web, ensnaring the bowels of the partly erected ship. Men buzzed around the skeleton of the vessel like worker ants, swarming up the sides of the scaffolds to place glass panes into the wooden window-frames and pass doors, seats and other furnishings through to the workmen inside. Tools clattered loudly, and men shouted to each other above the noise.\n\nVeronica stared down from the railing that ran along the side of the walkway. After her experience the previous day, she found the sight of the unfinished gondola incredibly eerie, reminiscent of the smashed wreck of _The Lady Armitage._ Many of the fittings were the same as those she had seen inside the shattered vessel, and from where she was standing, the internal layout looked practically identical. She could hardly bear to look at the passenger cabin, with its row upon row of empty seats, without visualising the scene inside of the burnt-out ship; the blank, ruined faces of the dead staring back at her, accusingly. She fancied for a moment that she could still smell the stench of the wreck, the aroma of cooked human flesh assaulting her nostrils and palate. Her stomach heaved.\n\nShe shook her head, realising that she was gripping the railing tightly with both hands. She had a sudden unnerving sense of vertigo, like she was tumbling over the railing towards the factory floor below. She closed her eyes. The moment passed. She caught her breath, drawing raggedly at the air. She knew it was no good giving in to melancholy. She'd seen the results of that before, long ago. What was done was done, and now the most important thing was to find out who was responsible for the disaster, and if necessary, aid Newbury in bringing them to justice. She breathed calmly, and hoped that the others hadn't taken note of her momentary lapse.\n\nShe watched a man below struggling to carry a large mirror across the factory floor, and wondered for a moment if the new ship was intended as a replacement for _The Lady Armitage._ She decided not; it was clearly too soon after the crash for the workman to be this advanced with the construction. She turned from the railing. \"It's quite an operation you have here, Mr. Chapman.\"\n\nChapman, who had been deep in conversation with Newbury, turned and smiled. \"Wait until you see the next hangar, Miss Hobbes. Now, that's really something to behold.\" He nodded at the workmen down below. \"Come on, let's get a closer look.\" He led them along the steel walkway, their feet clanging loudly against the metal rungs as they walked. They made their way down a series of steps at the far end of the hangar.\n\nChapman crossed the floor to where the men were working and climbed up onto the wooden pallet, peering into the shell of the new gondola. He seemed pleased.\n\nDown at this level, the air was filled with the smell of oil and wet paint, and the noise was tremendous: banging, sawing, shouting. There appeared to be an entire army of men at work. Newbury counted at least ten of them, dancing around each other, ferrying components back and forth, their faces damp with perspiration and grime. Not one of them looked up from their work to eye the newcomers as Newbury circled the construction, drinking it all in.\n\nHe looked up. High above them, the red brick walls turned to windows, allowing the natural light to seep in from outside. The roof was a skein of corrugated lead sheets, laid over a framework of wooden beams. The place was enormous, yet seemed bizarrely reduced by the sheer size of the gondola that was being erected inside of it.\n\nNewbury finished circling the pallet and then moved to stand beside Chapman, clapping a hand on his shoulder to get his attention. The other man, who'd been standing with his hands on his hips, admiring the work of his craftsmen, stepped back, leaning in to hear Newbury's question.\n\n\"How long does it take you to build one of these? From start to finish, I mean?\"\n\nChapman raised his voice so the other man could hear. \"About three weeks. This is the smallest size in the fleet, a passenger-class vessel. The rest of the frame is being welded in the next hangar.\" He pointed to the other end of the vast room, where a huge archway led through to the next part of the site. Newbury could just make out some of what was going on inside, with iron girders being lifted into place around a wooden frame, the entire construction apparently suspended from the ceiling.\n\n\"Three weeks? That seems awfully quick.\"\n\nChapman nodded. \"I know. We've spent the last ten years perfecting the process, ironing out all of the wrinkles.\" He coughed, and seemed to consider searching out another cigarette, before quickly changing his mind. \"This one's bound for India.\" He nodded at the gondola in front of them. \"It'll be out of here in a couple of days. We'll have an automaton fly it over the water. That way there's no need for the pilot to come back again, you see.\" He smiled. \"It's a good package. The new owner is provided with a fully trained pilot, and we're not stuck ferrying people back and forth across the ocean.\"\n\nNewbury nodded. He could see the economy in the system. \"I admire your business acumen, Mr. Chapman. And your men certainly seem to know what they're doing.\" They both regarded the workmen still scurrying to and fro all around them.\n\nNewbury glanced at Veronica out of the corner of his eye. He could see that she was feeling uncomfortable being around another airship so soon after her visit to the crash site the previous day. He decided to hurry things along. \"Are we ready to move on, Miss Hobbes? I'm eager to see how the balloon itself is constructed.\"\n\nVeronica smiled thankfully. \"Yes, indeed. Mr. Chapman, please lead on.\"\n\nThey followed Chapman across the floor of the manufactory towards the archway and through to the next hangar. As they approached, Veronica gasped in wonder at the sight. The space itself must have been twice the size of the previous room, opening out into a cavernous hall filled with all manner of mechanical wonder and, at its heart, the massive skeletal frame of an airship balloon. Light shone down from the windows above in great shafts, penetrating the gloom and picking out the swirling dust motes in the air. Newbury stood beside Veronica as they looked up in awe. The im mense structure of the airship was clearly taking shape, suspended from the ceiling on an array of large mechanical arms. Iron girders were being welded into place around a wooden frame, hot sparks showering the room below in a series of glittering waterfalls. Men, tied into harnesses and dangling from roof joists, clambered around the structure, gas tanks strapped to their backs, welding torches clamped firmly in their gloved fists. Other men operated large cranelike machines, lifting the iron girders into place for their colleagues to weld. Newbury had never seen anything like them; the operator sat inside a small cab on top of the machine, manipulating levers to control the arm, which terminated in a large claw used to grasp the iron girders and move them to precisely the required position. The machines themselves were fixed in place, bolted to the floor, and spluttered loudly as their steam engines turned over in the relatively enclosed space of the hangar. Chapman held his hands out, encompassing the scene before them. \"Impressive, isn't it?\"\n\nNewbury couldn't help but agree. \"Magnificent. A remarkable achievement.\"\n\nChapman smiled. \"It is, rather.\" He rubbed his hands together in an unconscious gesture. \"The difficulty, of course, is one of space. We have only enough room to assemble one vessel at a time. I've been thinking, recently, of constructing another facility on the other side of the river, but in truth, the advent of the automaton business has rendered that superfluous, at least for now.\"\n\nVeronica was still regarding the skeleton of the vessel suspended overhead. She glanced at Chapman. \"Are the automata also manufactured on the premises, Mr. Chapman?\"\n\n\"Indeed they are, Miss Hobbes. Although I feel I must warn you that the scale of the operation is hardly as impressive.\" He indicated the airship. \"The technology is still relatively new, and the units are expensive to develop. Mass production is unfortunately some years away. Nevertheless, orders have been growing steadily, and the production line has been constantly engaged since its inception.\" He cleared his throat. \"We'll pass through the area on the way to see Villiers in a few moments.\"\n\nNewbury looked contemplative. \"Tell me, Mr. Chapman, why it is that a highly successful airship business should make the move into artificial intelligence? It strikes me that the two disciplines make strange bedfellows. Why invest in something so new and speculative?\"\n\nChapman paused before responding, as if weighing the question. \"On one hand, in Villiers, I had the expertise and the vision to pull it off, and on the other, I saw the opportunity to make a return.\" He shook his head, not satisfied with his own answer. \"No, it's more than that. After my father passed on, Sir Maurice, I found myself in the enviable position of inheriting an industrial empire, and with it, a significant fortune. I could have taken the opportunity to live a life of pleasure, wasting my time dallying with insignificant trifles, spending my days lounging around my estate. I admit, for a while I was tempted. But I also knew that if I devoted my life to such lackadaisical pursuits, I would soon shrivel up and die. I needed stimulation, and more, I had an overriding desire to aid progress. After meeting Villiers and being introduced to his revolutionary plans for a new breed of airship, I decided to invest a portion of my fortune in setting up this firm.\" He paused only momentarily, obviously in his stride. \"I could see clearly, then, the impact that Villiers's incredible new designs would have on the air transportation industry, and with time and a lot of hard work, my faith was proved right. Chapman and Villiers Air Transportation Services became one of the most important airship operators in the world.\"\n\nThe others were listening intently. \"So why risk that now? Why divert the resources of your successful company into something untested, unproved on the open market?\"\n\nChapman shrugged. \"Because I grew bored, and because Villiers kept pushing forward, irrespective of finances, time or effort. You'll understand that when you meet him. The man is fuelled by a passion for his work. He was like an unstoppable force, and it was only then, after watching him work himself into the ground, night after night, for months on end, that I finally realised how the automaton project could help us to fulfil our original ambition. I started to consider the almost limitless applications of these mechanical men. If they could learn to write, they could be employed as clerks. If they could learn to cook, they could replace servants. If we taught them the art of war, they could even march into battle against the Empire's foes. Think how many needless deaths could be averted? Surely these remarkable devices could aid in the technological revolution of the Empire? Surely that could only be of benefit to the wider populace, freeing them from the tedium of household chores, leaving more time for education and other, more profitable enterprises? I think you'll see, when we have Villiers give us a demonstration of the units, what a spectacular revolution awaits us, just around the corner, when the world becomes truly aware of what we're doing here in our little factory in Battersea.\"\n\nVeronica met Newbury's eyes. \"But Mr. Chapman, what of the people pushed out by these automata, and what of their families? If their jobs are taken away from them, to be replaced by these artificial men, many of them will be left destitute, with no hope of finding other work. Surely _that's_ not in the best interests of the Empire?\"\n\nChapman nodded. \"Yes. I, too, have concerned myself with that, Miss Hobbes. Yet . . . we can't allow it to halt progress. Society will redress the balance, given time. Communities will change, and people will find worthwhile employ in any number of different industries. The automaton revolution will provide them with even more opportunities, and I'm convinced it will raise the standard of living across all classes throughout the entirety of the Empire.\"\n\nNewbury looked unsure. \"Grand claims indeed, Mr. Chapman.\"\n\n\"Time will tell, Sir Maurice, time will tell. But it is clear to me that you need to see one of these marvellous machines in action!\" He was animated now, fired up on his own rhetoric. \"Allow me to walk you through the automaton production site on our way to see Villiers. It's just this way.\"\n\nNewbury arched an eyebrow at Veronica, and the two of them fell in behind Chapman as he continued his tour of the facility, picking a route through the array of spluttering machines that continued to swing iron girders into place high above their heads.\nCHAPTER 9\n\n##\n\nThey passed along a corridor that stemmed off from the main airships works and eventually led them to a small warehouse space that appeared to have been hastily converted into a production line. Two large steam-powered presses thumped with reassuring regularity, pushing out components in a variety of shapes and sizes, from brass arm braces and finger joints to shiny torso plates and elaborate cogs. Men stood alongside the rolling conveyor belts that fed out from the machines, each one picking up components and checking them for flaws before sending them on to the assembly teams on the other side of the warehouse. There, small groups of men were busy welding the components together, testing the articulation of the joints and assembling the frames of the automatons. The room was hot; bustling with people and filled with the smell of oil and steam.\n\nChapman paused in the doorway. \"As you can see, the automaton production facility is still a relatively minor concern when considered alongside the main airship works, but in time, I have hopes that it will grow.\"\n\nNewbury paced alongside one of the presses, watching as the machine-head spun on its axis, pressing a new component from the mould on its fascia. He spoke to Chapman as they walked. \"How many automata does the facility produce in any given day?\"\n\n\"Fully functioning units?\"\n\nNewbury nodded.\n\n\"One or two. They can actually make upwards of ten frames on a good day, but Villiers himself installs the internal control systems, and it's delicate work. Any faster, and we'd jeopardise the integrity of the machines or risk damaging the complex mechanisms that make them run.\"\n\n\"I'm looking forward to meeting him. Villiers, that is.\"\n\n\"Let's see if he's here now. That's the door to his workshop.\" He waved to indicate the glass-panelled door up ahead. They approached, and Chapman rapped quickly on the glass before pushing the door open to reveal the workshop within.\n\nThe room was fairly small, after the grandeur of the airship hangars, and it was cluttered with components and other mechanical ephemera: cogs, tools, automaton torsos, pages covered in elaborately scrawled designs, a model airship hanging from the roof. In truth, the room had as much of the feel of a laboratory as that of a workshop, the sort of place where scientific breakthroughs were commonplace and genius was taken for granted.\n\nVilliers himself stood at his workbench, fiddling with a brass skull. He was wearing a brown leather smock, not unlike a butcher's apron, and had a magnifier flipped over his right eye on a wire frame, the base of which wrapped around his head like the crude frame of a hat. His hair was coarse and black, and he was unshaven, with a vaguely dishevelled appearance. He was fairly short, although taller than Veronica, and his only acknowledgement upon hearing them enter the room was to grunt at the automaton head he was holding and choose not to look up from his work.\n\nChapman waited for a moment to see if his business partner would remember his manners. When it was clear the other man intended to carry on working on the brass head regardless of their presence, he stepped forward, trying to get Villiers's attention. He cleared his throat. \"Villiers. I'd like to introduce you to Sir Maurice Newbury and his assistant, Miss Veronica Hobbes. They're here on the business of the Crown, investigating the airship crash I mentioned to you yesterday.\"\n\nVilliers offered a half-shrug before continuing to dig around inside the brain cavity of the brass skull. There was an awkward silence. Then, a moment later, something popped free from inside the device and flew into the air, before falling to the floor by Veronica's feet. Newbury noted that it was a tiny gold lever of some sort. Villiers looked up, satisfied. \"I'm sorry, what were you saying, my friend? Hmmm?\"\n\nHe seemed to notice Newbury and Veronica for the first time. \"Oh, please excuse me. I was lost in the middle of a delicate operation. . . .\" His accent was thick, with a Pa ri sian lilt. He placed the automaton head on his workbench, along with the tool he had been using.\n\nNewbury stepped forwards, his hand extended. \"No need for apologies, Monsieur Villiers. I am Sir Maurice Newbury, and this is my assistant, Miss Veronica Hobbes.\" Veronica inched forwards, and Villiers took her hand, gently. \"As your associate here intimated, we're working on behalf of the Crown. We'd like to talk to you about your automaton devices and the airship crash that occurred yesterday in Finsbury Park.\" He stopped for a moment, glancing around. \"I must say, though, Monsieur Villiers, this truly is a remarkable workshop. A credit to you, I'm sure.\"\n\nVilliers smiled. \"Thank you, Sir Maurice. I can spare a little while to talk, although I am sure my associate has already told you much the same as what you will hear from me.\"\n\nNewbury nodded. \"Nevertheless, I do feel your opinions on the matter will be of use. Are you aware of the circumstances surrounding the crash?\"\n\nThe Frenchman shrugged. \"In as much as Monsieur Chapman told me yesterday.\"\n\n\"So you're aware that the automaton that was piloting the vessel appears to have gone missing from the wreckage?\"\n\nVilliers looked immediately uncomfortable. \"Missing? No. Destroyed, perhaps? I know my creations, Sir Maurice. There is no way the unit could have gone 'missing,' unless someone spirited it away from the crash site for their own devices.\"\n\nNewbury glanced at Veronica. That was an option they hadn't yet considered. Veronica was watching Chapman, trying to gauge his reaction to Villiers's words.\n\n\"So what do you believe happened, Monsieur Villiers? Did the automaton malfunction and cause the crash?\"\n\n\"Impossible. There is no capacity for the units to malfunction. Physically, they can function only if their program is loaded correctly. They operate on a series of punch cards. If the card does not engage, the unit will immediately freeze. If that were the case with the pilot of _The Lady Armitage,_ the vessel would never even have taken off in the first instance.\" He stopped, stroking his stubble-encrusted chin. \"My assumption is that the vessel itself was at fault. Perhaps one of the steering pulleys had come loose, causing the mechanism to lose tension? If that were the case, the vessel would have been practically uncontrollable, and in high winds, it could have easily been knocked off course.\"\n\nVeronica crossed her arms. \"But as I understand it, Monsieur Villiers, the skies were calm yesterday morning. Otherwise the fog would not have settled on the city as it did.\"\n\nVilliers shrugged. \"Then it is a matter for the police to decide what occurred. I am in the dark. Whatever the case, I understand it was a terrible accident, and for that I am truly sorry.\" He hesitated. \"I assure you, however, that the source of the problem is with the vessel, and not with the pilot.\" He regarded them sternly.\n\nNewbury decided to change the subject. \"So, Monsieur Villiers. What of your exile from Paris and the claims that you experimented on wastrels? Is there any tru\u2014\"\n\n\"Come now, Sir Maurice, is this really necessary?\" Chapman cut in, clearly trying to come to the aid of his friend.\n\n\"It's alright, Joseph.\" Villiers seemed unmoved by the question. He faced Newbury. \"What of it? It was a long time ago, Sir Maurice, and very much a part of my past. I have spent the last de cade in London, working to revolutionise the aeronautical industry with Monsieur Chapman. I no longer even think of Paris, and consider London my home.\"\n\nNewbury nodded. \"Very well, Monsieur Villiers.\" He noted that the Frenchman had chosen not to refute the claims. The man's arrogance was obvious, but not without foundation. He softened his tone. \"So what inspired you to begin developing a new type of automaton, after years of designing airships? Mr. Chapman tells me you worked day and night to achieve your goal.\"\n\nVilliers looked circumspect. \"In truth, I have always dreamed of building the perfect automaton. For years, I have strived to reach this stage, and it was only when the airship business had established itself and the manufacturing process had been automated that I found myself with the time and resources to realise my dream.\" He glanced at Chapman. \"Once my friend and I began discussing the application of these units\u2014household servants, drivers, soldiers, clerks\u2014we agreed it was time for our business to diversify. The added benefit, of course, was that the machines could be taught to fly the fleet of airships we had spent the last ten years establishing.\"\n\n\"It's an impressive achievement indeed, Monsieur Villiers. So tell me, are the units intelligent, self-aware?\"\n\nVilliers shook his head. \"No, they are not sentient in their own right. They are simply machines that operate according to a complex set of algorithms and programs. Have you seen one operating, Sir Maurice?\"\n\nNewbury shook his head, and Chapman interrupted. \"I was hoping that you would be able to give our guests a demonstration, Pierre?\"\n\n\"Of course. Allow me to do so now.\" He moved over to the corner of the workshop where, Veronica realised for the first time since entering the room, an automaton was sitting in a chair, its head bowed. Villiers stood before it.\n\n\"Rise.\" His voice was a firm, emotionless command.\n\nThe unit's head jerked up at the sound of Villiers's voice, and it quickly rose to its feet. \"Follow.\" He turned and walked back across the workshop towards them. The automaton followed suit, stepping forward into the light. The two visitors looked on, transfixed with wonder. The automaton was about the size of a man, skeletal, with a solid torso formed from interlocking breast and back plates. Its eyes were little mirrors that spun constantly on an axis, reflecting back the lamplight. Its mouth was nothing but a thin slot, and its remaining features were engraved into the otherwise blank mask of its face. In its chest, a glass plate revealed, like a tiny porthole, a flickering blue light, dancing like an electric current. Its brass frame shimmered in the light, and it moved like a human being, fully articulated, as it strode across the room towards them. Its joints creaked as it walked, and its brass feet clicked on the tiled floor of the workshop. It stopped about two paces behind Villiers and cocked its head to one side, regarding them silently.\n\nChapman clapped his hands. Newbury and Veronica looked on, feeling a little unnerved.\n\nVilliers turned to the automaton. \"Pick up that glass tumbler and pour me a brandy.\" He pointed across the room at a small table, which held the tumbler and a decanter, amongst other detritus. The automaton set to work immediately, crossing the room with a fluid gait, avoiding a pile of machine parts on the floor and approaching the table with the utmost precision. Taking care, it reached down and picked up the glass between its brass fingers\u2014which, Newbury noticed, were affixed with little leather pads to prevent them from shattering the tumbler\u2014and poured a measure of brandy from the decanter. A moment later, it strode back across the workshop to offer Villiers his drink without ever spilling a drop.\n\nNewbury was astounded. \"Bravo. Bravo, indeed!\" He glanced from Villiers to Chapman and back again. \"This is indeed a revolutionary invention. What else can it do?\" He was clearly enthused.\n\nVilliers smiled. He took the drink from the automaton and pointed to a chair by his desk. \"Take a seat.\" The automaton did as requested, positioning itself as if ready to receive further instructions. Villiers crossed to the desk himself, with Newbury close behind him, and searched out a letter. He placed this on a stand in front of the automaton, beside a typewriter on the desk. \"Copy this.\" He indicated the sheet for the mechanical man. The automaton did not respond, its only movement the continual spinning of its mirrored eyes and the flickering of the iridescent light inside its chest.\n\n\"Ah. Please forgive me.\" Villiers handed his brandy to Newbury and leaned over his desk. He pulled open a drawer, pulling out a sheaf of punch cards. He rifled through, finally selecting one and brandishing it in front of him. \"This par tic u lar unit has yet to learn how to carry out this task.\"\n\nHe pressed a panel on the back of the automaton, and it swung open easily, revealing some of the unit's internal workings. Newbury peered inside, fascinated. \"Tell me, Monsieur Villiers, how does it learn? I was under the impression from your earlier comments that the device lacks its own intelligence, although it certainly appears to respond to complex voice commands.\"\n\nVilliers took the punch card and fed it into a slot within the back of the machine. \"As I mentioned earlier, Sir Maurice, the automaton operates on a series of predetermined programs. These programs are expressed as a series of punch cards that the internal mechanisms of the device can interpret and enact. The device has the capacity to file up to twenty-eight of these cards at any one time on a revolving spindle, and when asked to perform a task, it will check the programs stored on its spindle and see if the correct card is in its repertoire. If so, it will retrieve the card and carry out the task. If not, well, you've seen the reaction in that situation.\"\n\nNewbury shook his head in disbelief. \"A machine that learns. . . .\"\n\nVilliers clicked the panel shut. He repeated his earlier command. \"Copy that.\"\n\nThere was a whirring sound from within the chest of the automaton. Then, suddenly, its hands blurred over the keys of the typewriter, and within a matter of seconds, the entire page had been typed. Newbury leaned forward, taking the page from the top of the typewriter and comparing it to the original letter. It was identical, in every respect, even to the extent of recreating an error, where a misspelled word had been omitted with a series of X's.\n\n\"Veronica, do you see this?\" He held the pages up for her. \"It's identical.\" He turned to Villiers. \"What, it must be ten times faster than a human being?\"\n\n\"Undoubtedly so.\"\n\nNewbury shook his head. He was quite lost for words.\n\nVeronica studied the two copies of the letter. \"It's certainly very impressive.\" She seemed hesitant to be carried away by the spectacle.\n\nNewbury was in his element. \"Monsieur Villiers, tell me about the power source.\"\n\nVilliers was obviously enjoying the attention. \"The device is designed to power itself. When the automaton moves, a rotor inside its abdomen rocks back and forth, ratcheting the winding mechanism and causing the mainspring in the chest to become taut. Effectively, the unit is self-winding, and thus it will never power down, unless commanded to do so. If left inactive for long periods without instruction, the unit will eventually move itself to trigger the winding mechanism.\"\n\n\"So it goes for a little stroll? Quite wonderful.\"\n\nVeronica looked at the automaton warily. \"It certainly _seems_ intelligent, Monsieur Villiers.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Miss Hobbes. A compliment indeed. The entire purpose of an automaton is to give the impression of intelligence, maintaining the illusion whilst the workings of the device are kept hidden from the audience.\"\n\n\"And what are those workings, Monsieur Villiers? We've seen the mechanism that enables the device to be programmed, but how does it come to understand your voice commands, or interpret the input from its mirrored eyes?\"\n\n\"Ah, well, that is the secret, is it not?\" Villiers put his hand on his hips. \"The device is fitted with an incredibly complex mechanism that mimics the neurological structures of a human brain. It makes judgments by asking itself a series of logical questions and interpreting the results, enabling it to select a course of action. For example\"\u2014he leaned on the back of the automaton's chair\u2014\"if the device were commanded to walk across this workshop, it would automatically find a route around the workbench there, without having to walk into it or attempting to climb over it. This is achieved through a series of logical questions that the unit's brain is designed to follow. What will happen if the unit walks into the workbench? How will walking into the workbench prevent it from achieving its goal? What is the quickest alternative route to its destination? Switches trigger inside the brain to enable the automaton to settle on the most effective solution to each question, thus deciding its route around the workbench. In this instance, the unit would obviously decide to alter its course, rather than face potential damage by walking into an immovable object.\" Villiers smiled, obviously pleased with himself.\n\nVeronica looked back at Chapman, who had taken a seat by the door and was also smiling as he watched the others receive their lecture from his friend. He had struck a match and was in the process of lighting a cigarette. The glare of the flame cast his face in stark relief.\n\nNewbury placed his hand on the automaton's head. \"Can we see? I'd very much appreciate an opportunity to take a look inside this remarkable contraption.\"\n\nVilliers nodded, and went to fetch a tool to open up the automaton's skull.\n\nVeronica took the opportunity to catch Newbury's eye, and he smiled knowingly. He was allowing himself a moment of indulgence, but she knew from the look on his face that he wouldn't allow himself to get carried away. He was ready and alert, absorbing everything.\n\nVilliers returned and set to work on the automaton's head. It took him only moments to unclip the skull cap and unscrew the safety catch that gave access to the unit's mechanical brain. Both Newbury and Veronica couldn't help but gasp at the sight revealed when the plate was lifted away. The automaton's brain was like the workings of some incredible watch, only orders of magnitude bigger and more complex. They both leaned in, watching the cogs and levers as they ticked over, minute switches flicking from one position to another as the automaton regarded its surroundings. It was like seeing human thought processes in action, like some sort of bizarre window into the human soul. In some ways, it was disturbing, to see a creation so complex and wondrous yet without feeling, lacking the spark of life. On the other hand, Newbury was amazed to consider that it could be argued that the human brain was the same as this incredible device, a series of clockwork switches and cogs rendered flesh and blood. He watched for a moment longer, intrigued by the ticking of the tiny mechanical components as the automaton sat unmoving before them, unaware that they were looking deep into the very fabric of its being.\n\nVilliers stepped in and replaced the skull cap. \"We must not leave the internal components exposed to the air for too long. Moisture affects the workings, and the small mechanisms can easily become clogged with dust.\"\n\nNewbury stood back, watching appreciatively as Villiers used his tool to replace the fittings. \"I must thank you for your demonstration, Monsieur Villiers. It's been quite enlightening.\"\n\nVeronica nodded her agreement. \"Yes, thank you for your time. The experience has left me feeling quite breathless.\" She turned to Newbury. \"Is there anything further you require of Mr. Chapman or Monsieur Villiers, Sir Maurice?\"\n\nNewbury looked thoughtful. He turned to Chapman. \"I do not believe there is. If you would be kind enough to escort us back to your office, Mr. Chapman, Miss Hobbes and I will take our leave. I daresay you have pressing business to attend to.\"\n\nChapman stood, inclining his head. \"Of course, Sir Maurice. It has been a pleasure to show such enthusiastic visitors around our humble business.\" He beckoned them towards the door.\n\nNewbury turned to Villiers and shook his hand firmly. \"Fascinating work, Monsieur Villiers. I expect we'll meet again.\"\n\nHe allowed Veronica to go ahead of him, and together they walked back towards the office complex, leaving Villiers alone with his clockwork automaton and his thoughts.\n\nOutside, the afternoon was turning to twilight as Newbury and Veronica hailed a hansom cab. Newbury had offered Veronica his coat to stave off the chill, and as she mounted the steps into the cab, she turned to regard him, the horses whinnying as they stamped their feet impatiently by the side of the road. The sound of the foghorns on the river made it difficult to hear.\n\n\"So, what next? Do you think Chapman and Villiers have anything to hide?\"\n\nNewbury lowered himself onto the seat opposite her, and the driver whipped his reins, jerking the vehicle into motion. \"I suspect they have a great deal to hide, my dear, but whether it pertains to the case at hand, I remain unsure.\" He ran his fingers over his chin. \"I need time to consider our findings. I admit I find it difficult to see evidence of foul play. Unless you can offer any further insights that you think I may have missed?\"\n\nVeronica shook her head. \"I don't believe so. I remain wary of Mr. Chapman. I find him both insincere and egotistical. I do believe he was holding something back.\"\n\nNewbury agreed. \"Indeed. There is clearly more to the man than meets the eye. He obviously believes himself to be a great philanthropist, or at least wishes to paint that picture of himself to others. He delivered his message with a little too much zeal for my taste.\"\n\nVeronica pulled Newbury's coat around herself. \"Do you think the automaton demonstrations have helped to shed a light on the disaster surrounding _The Lady Armitage_? I singularly failed to see the significance of anything they showed us, as spectacular as it all was.\"\n\nNewbury thought on this. \"I believe they succeeded in demonstrating how unlikely it is that the automaton itself malfunctioned. Although I'll admit, I'm still baffled as to what happened to it after the vessel had crashed. I wonder if there is any stock in what Villiers suggested, about someone spiriting it away before the authorities arrived.\"\n\n\"I wondered the same. Perhaps it's best we speak with Sir Charles again, to see if Inspector Foulkes has turned up any further evidence from the area around the scene?\"\n\nNewbury seemed distracted. He glanced out of the window. \"Indeed. I'm sure we'll speak with both of the aforementioned gentlemen in due course.\" He seemed to relax a little. \"Tomorrow I shall pay a visit to Buckingham Palace to talk with Her Majesty. It's been a difficult couple of days, Miss Hobbes, and I have no doubt that you would benefit greatly from a day of rest.\" He smiled, waving his hand to stifle her objections. \"Besides, it'll give me a little more time to ponder our next move.\"\n\nVeronica sighed. \"Very well. Let us agree, then, that you will call for me if there are any new developments. We can't have you charging in alone.\"\n\nNewbury laughed. \"Indeed not, Miss Hobbes. That would never do.\"\n\nHe continued to chuckle as the cab rolled on towards Chelsea, and home.\nCHAPTER 10\n\n##\n\nNewbury had visited Buckingham Palace on numerous occasions over the last few years, yet the grandeur of the place never failed to take his breath away. He was awed by the spectacle of it: looming out of the grey fogshrouded morning, its towering fa\u00e7ade was an imposing sight, a symbol of Her Majesty's might rendered in stone for the entire world to see.\n\nHe glanced up at the pillars that stood, sentrylike, over the main entrance. To either side of these were vast rows of windows, hiding all the secrets of the Empire behind their heavy curtains of red and gold. In the driveway, stable hands were exercising the horses, and a line of impressive carriages stood ready by the main gates. Newbury wondered if some sort of state function were being planned, or else if foreign dignitaries were expected to pay a visit later that day. He knew Her Majesty would not be impressed by either of those eventualities.\n\nNodding at the guard, who shivered as he opened the gate for Newbury to pass through, he made his way around the rear of the im mense building, making haste for the private entrance that was situated near the servants' quarters, out of sight from prying eyes. He braced himself against the chill. The morning had brought with it a crisp frost, and the sun was yet to break through the dense cloud of fog that had settled on the city during the night. It was still early, but Newbury knew he was expected. It didn't do to keep Her Majesty waiting.\n\nHe approached the familiar oak door, glancing quickly from side to side to ensure that he wasn't being watched, and rapped gently with the brass knocker. After a moment, a small panel slid open and a pair of eyes appeared.\n\nNewbury cleared his throat. \"Morning, Sandford. It's Newbury here.\"\n\nThe panel slid shut again, and a few seconds later the door swung open, revealing a small foyer inside. The room was brightly lit with gas-lamps and, Newbury was pleased to see, the roaring flames of a fire. Sandford, the butler who oversaw this small secret area of the palace, ushered Newbury inside, clicking the door shut behind him. He held his arm out for Newbury's coat and hat. Newbury removed the garments and passed them to the butler, offering his thanks. The man was aged, now, in his seventies, with a shock of white hair and liver spots speckling his face and hands. He looked impeccable in his suit, however, and Newbury had the utmost respect for the man. He had stayed in service out of an unerring sense of duty to the Crown, and Newbury had often wondered if he had once been an agent of the Queen himself, back in the early days of the Empire. He certainly had a few tricks up his sleeve.\n\nSandford draped Newbury's coat on the stand in the corner and returned to his favourite position beside the fire. Newbury was rubbing his hands, attempting to soak up the warmth of the flames.\n\n\"Warm yourself there for a moment, sir. Her Majesty is expecting you in the throne room, but I daresay she'll wait a moment longer whilst you make yourself presentable.\" He winked at Newbury, and they both smiled. Newbury had received no official summons from the Palace, but he knew from experience that Her Majesty would be expecting a report on his findings at the crash site, as well as his consequent investigations. In fact, given the nature of the case, he was surprised that he hadn't received a summons before now.\n\nNewbury straightened his suit. \"Well, Sandford, I'm as ready as I'll ever be.\"\n\nSandford nodded, offering him an appraising look. \"That you are, sir.\" He turned about on his heel, more deftly than his appearance would give him credit for. \"I'll walk you there now, sir.\" They left the comfort of the fire behind them, exiting the foyer by a side door and out into a small passage that Newbury had walked along many times before. It snaked through the bowels of the palace, a secret route between the throne room and Sandford's little waiting area at the back of the great house. The corridor had been built for a different purpose, Newbury believed\u2014an escape route from the throne room should the monarch ever find herself threatened and in need of escape. Now, though, it was primarily used to bring Her Majesty's agents into the palace for private audiences, concealing them from the rest of the household, who Newbury doubted were even aware that the passageway existed. Of course, it depended entirely on one's point of view. Newbury couldn't help but think that the secret corridor also prevented Her Majesty's agents from soaking up too much of what was going on elsewhere in the palace. Victoria was a monarch who liked to play her cards very close to her chest indeed.\n\nNewbury couldn't keep his eyes from wandering as the two of them strolled along the passageway. The walls were lined with austere portraits of long-dead kings and queens, the figureheads who had helped to shape the nation in times past. Victoria herself was notably absent from the gallery, and Newbury wondered if that would be the first role of any new incumbent to the throne: to hang a portrait of this most powerful ruler in its rightful place, at the head of the gallery of her predecessors. Not that the queen showed any real signs of abdication or debilitating illness; the marvellous machines of Dr. Fabian took care of that. He was a scientific genius without precedent, and Newbury was only grateful that he was loyal to the Crown and not, as others with pettier minds might have been in his position, hungry for power in his own right. He'd met the man only once, fleetingly, but he knew at some point he was likely to meet him again. Most agents of the Crown found occasion to visit Dr. Fabian at least once or twice during the course of their career.\n\nPresently, their feet scuffing the deep pile of the carpet, they came to rest before a door. The corridor ended abruptly here, and Newbury knew that the vast chamber of the throne room awaited him on the other side.\n\nSandford knocked boldly on the door, straightening his tie.\n\n\"Come.\" The command from within was direct, pointed.\n\nThe butler reached for the handle and clicked the lock, allowing the door to swing open into the room. All Newbury could see inside was darkness.\n\n\"Sir Maurice Newbury, Your Majesty.\" Sandford shuffled out of the way to allow Newbury to pass, and then pulled the door shut behind him. Newbury heard the sound of the butler's feet rustling on the carpet as he slipped away, heading for his rooms and the relative warmth of his fire. He stepped forward in the darkness, waiting for his eyes to adjust. Heavy curtains were drawn across all the windows, casting the place in dark shadow. The only light in the entire room was a gas lamp flickering in one corner, a lonely flame adrift on a sea of darkness. He had the sense of standing in a cavernous space, but being able to see only a few feet in front of him. He could hear the sound of Dr. Fabian's machines, wheezing and sighing as they rasped at the air, their bellows clicking as they rose and fell in the darkness.\n\nFinally, Victoria spoke.\n\n\"Ah, my faithful servant. What news do you bring?\" Her voice cut through the darkness like ice, sending a shiver up and down his spine. He turned towards the sound, and bowed.\n\n\"Majesty.\" He paused. \"Precious little news, I fear.\" He sighed, deciding how to go on. \"I attended the scene of the airship disaster, as requested, and discovered certain . . . irregularities.\"\n\n\"Go on.\"\n\n\"The body of the pilot was missing from the wreckage, and the passengers, or what remained of them, had all been tied into their seats. There were no survivors at the scene. I later discovered that the vessel had, in fact, been piloted by a clockwork automaton developed by the airship's operators, Chapman and Villiers Air Transportation Services.\" He hesitated, weighing his next words carefully. The wheezing sound continued steadily in the darkness. \"Yesterday I visited the manufactory of the aforementioned business and saw one of these automaton units being demonstrated. I have no reason to believe the pilot of _The Lady Armitage_ could have malfunctioned at the controls. The cause of the disaster remains unclear.\"\n\nThere was a creaking sound as Victoria wheeled forward in her chair, emerging from the shadows into the dim glow of the gas-lamp. Newbury fought the urge to gasp at her appearance. He had seen her before, of course, but the sheer extent of Dr. Fabian's work was a constant source of shock and amazement. The Queen was lashed into her wheelchair, her legs bound together, her arms free and resting on the wooden handles that enabled her to rotate the wheels of the contraption. Two enormous tubes protruded from her chest, just underneath her breasts, folding around beneath her arms to connect to the large tanks of air that were mounted on the back of the chair. Bellows were affixed to the sides of the contraption and groaned noisily as they laboured with the pressure, forcing air from the tanks in and out of her collapsed lungs. Her chest rose and fell in time with the machine. A drip fed a strange pinkish liquid into her bloodstream via a catheter in her arm and a bag suspended on a brass frame over her head.\n\nShe regarded Newbury with a steely expression. \"Newbury.\" Her voice was full of gravitas. \"We must impress on you the critical nature of this assignment. It is a matter of some importance to the Crown. We expect you to do your duty and identify the source of the disaster. Foul play remains a distinct possibility.\" Her mouth was a tight line, her face old and tired. Nevertheless, her eyes shone with a brilliant gleam that, even in the semi-darkness, gave evidence of the fact that her mind was still as sharp as her tongue.\n\nNewbury was unsure how to respond. \"Of course, Your Majesty. I will endeavour not to disappoint in this matter.\" He shuffled awkwardly. \"If it's not impertinent to ask . . . may I know the origin of your suspicion of foul play? It may prove useful in identifying the next course of action.\"\n\nVictoria moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. \"Very well. A member of the Dutch royal family\u2014a cousin of this household, no less\u2014has been missing in London for some days. Intelligence from other sources suggested he may have been on board _The Lady Armitage_ when she went down. This morning, the mortuary confirmed his body had been identified in the wreckage.\" She hesitated before going on. \"We need not impress on you the severity of this situation, Newbury. One suspects that sabotage of the vessel may have been an attempt to discredit this house. Worse, we fear the means of that sabotage may in some way be related to your . . . field of experience. We have given our word to the boy's mother that we shall provide a reasonable explanation for the disaster. You must find an answer, and quickly. What with all this business in Whitechapel and the plague spreading through the slums, your expertise is needed elsewhere. Scotland Yard are floundering without your aid. Hurry to it, Newbury. Bring us the answers we need.\"\n\nNewbury bowed his head. \"I will press on with all haste and due diligence, Your Majesty.\"\n\n\"Go, then, and report back to us soon.\"\n\nHe turned to leave.\n\n\"Oh, and Newbury, how is that new assistant of yours working out? A woman, isn't she?\"\n\nHe smiled. \"Miss Hobbes? Yes, delightful, Your Majesty. And full of spark. She'll be a great asset to us, in time.\"\n\nVictoria let out a rasping chuckle. \"We do hope so, Newbury. Women like that are difficult to find. Make sure you keep her close.\" With that, she turned the handles on the sides of her chair and retreated slowly into the darkness.\n\nNewbury fumbled back to the door in the dim light, turned the handle, and left.\n\nSandford was waiting by the fire when Newbury emerged from the passageway. He turned to look at the younger man, and then picked up a tumbler from where he'd left it on the mantelpiece.\n\nNewbury accepted it gratefully and took a long swig. The alcohol attacked his palate, causing him to splutter slightly. \"Brandy?\"\n\nSandford nodded, his lips curling in a wide smile. \"For the cold, sir.\"\n\n\"Thank you. Very considerate of you, Sandford.\" He downed the rest of the drink, feeling the warmth spreading through his chest. He knew that Sandford was an old hand at this sort of thing, and that the reason for the brandy had, in truth, little to do with the cold. The man was simply used to seeing agents return from an audience with the monarch, and the brandy was a restorative offering to steady their nerves and put colour back into their cheeks. Newbury was thankful for the opportunity to do just that. He'd never found it difficult to talk with Her Majesty, but the sheer weight of expectation and nervous ness always left his nerves jangling for the rest of the day. Today, of all days, he needed to head back to his lodgings and try to relax, to ponder all the disparate elements of the case and see what shape they were beginning to take. Not only that, but in answering one mystery, he had inadvertently opened up another. He now knew what had agitated the Queen so much about the airship disaster, but he was faced with an even more difficult question to answer: What was a Dutch royal doing on board a passenger-class vessel bound for Dublin? He needed a breakthrough, and at the moment, he wasn't sure where to look next.\n\nNewbury placed the glass back on the mantelpiece and moved to fetch his coat and hat. Somehow, Sandford was there before him, and he thanked the butler as he helped Newbury on with his coat. \"Sandford, my thanks. I'm sure it won't be too long before I'm giving myself over to your hospitality once again.\"\n\nSandford nodded. \"Best of luck, sir.\" He opened the door for Newbury, momentarily allowing a gust of air into the room, stirring the newspapers that lay on the table. It was cold out, but the day was still young. His head buzzing with thoughts and the warm glow of alcohol, he stepped out into the grey fog and slipped away into the busy streets of London.\nCHAPTER 11\n\n##\n\nThe visiting room was cold and impersonal; clinical, even. Veronica was convinced that it wasn't supposed to feel so unwelcoming, even for a hospital. Her parents were paying a small fortune towards the upkeep of the place, after all. The least they could do would be to provide a few cushions and a bit of colour around the place to brighten things up. No wonder the majority of the patients were so miserable and lifeless.\n\nVeronica firmly believed that people were inspired by their surroundings, and that a dull and dreary hospital would reflect badly on the mood of the patients, especially in an institute such as this, which catered for the clinically insane. She knew Amelia would agree. She resolved to make a point of talking to Dr. Mason about it at the next available opportunity.\n\nVeronica sat with her hands on her lap, waiting for the nurses to fetch her sister. She felt uncomfortable and ever so slightly on edge, as she always did when she visited the asylum. She'd travelled to Wandsworth early that morning, taking care to ensure no one saw her leaving her apartments in Kensington and hailing a cab. She hadn't told Newbury where she was going, and consequently she hoped that he hadn't attempted to call on her with news of the case. If he had, she'd just have to tell him that she'd decided to go out for a stroll. She was meant to be taking the day to recuperate, after all.\n\nShe glanced around. One of the nurses sat on a stool by the door, looking out into the corridor. This would be her guard, she supposed, the woman posted there for the duration of her visit to make sure that her sister didn't stray towards violent tendencies, or that Veronica didn't try to sneak her any proscribed articles such as cosmetics, cutlery or photographs of the family. It was ridiculous, of course. Her sister had never hurt anyone in her life, and Veronica had no intention of causing difficulties for Amelia by bringing her any gifts that would cause her emotional unrest.\n\nDr. Mason believed that the less contact the patients had with their families, the easier they would find it to settle in to their new environment. In fact, the last time Veronica had spoken with him, he'd admonished her for the frequency of her visits, citing all manner of recent papers on the subject and claiming that the regularity of her calls was working against the treatment programme he had instigated for her sister. To Veronica, it seemed like an archaic way to try to make someone better, isolating them from the people who loved them. Besides, she knew it was a pointless exercise, anyway, although she didn't admit that to Dr. Mason. It wouldn't do to have him think that she disagreed with his diagnosis. Only, Veronica knew that her sister was far from the lunatic that the doctor had led her parents to believe. She wasn't mad. She just happened to be able to see into the future.\n\nVeronica looked up at the sound of footsteps from the corridor outside. The nurse who was sitting on the stool turned to look at her in acknowledgement, and then a moment later another nurse in a white uniform led Amelia into the room. Veronica's heart leapt. She stood, moving to embrace her sister.\n\nAmelia was painfully thin, and dressed in a loose-fitting outfit comprising a grey woollen blouse and matching skirt that Veronica thought would be better suited to a prison than to a hospital. Her hair was raven-black and long, loose around her shoulders, and her pale skin and soft complexion gave the impression that she was even younger than her fragile nineteen years. She looked scared, although her face lit up as she entered the visitors' room and saw her sister coming towards her.\n\n\"Veronica! You came.\"\n\nVeronica embraced her, feeling the press of her bony shoulder blades through the prickly fabric. \"Of course I came!\" She led Amelia to the sofa where she had been sitting and bade her to take a seat. \"Are you eating enough? You're so terribly thin.\"\n\n\"I eat well enough, sister. The food here is passable.\" She forced a smile. \"Anyway, what news do you bring from the outside world? Do our parents send word?\"\n\nVeronica looked uneasy. \"No, Amelia, no word from home.\" She patted her gently on the back of her hand. \"But I'm sure they will call soon.\" She lowered her voice to a whisper. \"You know how Dr. Mason likes to hold them at bay.\"\n\nAmelia glanced at the door. The nurse was still sitting on her stool, staring out into the corridor, as if there were something more interesting to engage her attention out there. Amelia sighed. \"I don't understand it, Veronica. They must know by now that they've made a mistake. It's clear that I'm not a lunatic. I'm convinced the seizures are a medical condition. They must be able to control them with drugs or remedies of some sort. They _must._ \" She looked into Veronica's eyes. \"I want so desperately to go home.\"\n\nVeronica felt tears welling in her eyes, and she blinked them away, forcing herself to be strong for her sibling. \"I know, Amelia. I know.\" She looked away, unable to see the pleading in her sister's eyes. \"Your illness is unique. The doctors need time to study it, to find a way to help you. I'm sure they're doing everything they can.\"\n\nAmelia nodded, biting her bottom lip. She brushed her fringe away from her eyes. \"Well, that's enough about me! Tell me about yourself, Veronica. What have you been up to? This hospital is so drab and boring that I need to hear stories of the real world. I like to think of you going about your business out there, all pretty and professional in your smart clothes.\"\n\nVeronica smiled. \"I think your expectations of my life are rather fanciful, Amelia. I work in a museum. I've spent the last week transcribing Sir Maurice's essays and researching academic papers on the druids of Bronze Age Europe. It's good work, but it's quiet. Hardly the stuff of high adventure!\"\n\nAmelia nodded, a twinkle in her eye. \"You forget, sister, that I'm able to see more than you think, even from in here. I fancy your recent exploits are far more engaging than you care to let on.\" She smiled, dismissing the issue. \"So, tell me, have you scandalised the museum terribly with your forward-thinking ideas?\"\n\nVeronica laughed. \"There have been a few raised eyebrows, certainly. Although I try to abstain from truly ruffling any feathers. I'd rather hold on to my position for the time being.\"\n\n\"And what of suitors?\" The nurse by the door looked over, obviously interested in Veronica's response. \"I hear that Sir Maurice cuts a dashing figure about town.\"\n\n\"Amelia, really.\" Veronica blushed. \"Sir Maurice and I have a strictly professional acquaintance. He's a handsome man, I admit, but I\u2014\"\n\n\"\u2014protest too much, clearly.\" Amelia cut in, chuckling. \"Come now, sister, I'm only playing with you.\" She scratched at her arms, where the woollen shirt was evidently irritating her skin.\n\nVeronica was suddenly serious. She put her hand to Amelia's cool cheek. \"Have you had any more episodes this week, Amelia?\"\n\nAmelia shrugged. \"A few.\" She looked away, noncommittal.\n\n\"And . . .\"\n\n\"And they were just as unpleasant and unwelcome as they usually are.\" She looked up at Veronica again, searching her face. \"I do wish they could find a way to make them stop. The things I see . . .\" She trailed off, clearly distraught.\n\nVeronica hugged her close, her voice soothing. \"I know Amelia. We're doing all we can, I promise.\"\n\nShe felt Amelia go limp in her arms.\n\n\"Amelia?\" She held her by the shoulders. \"Amelia?\"\n\nSuddenly, Amelia's thin body began twitching jerkily, her muscles going into spasms as Veronica tried to hold her still. Her eyes rolled back in their sockets, her mouth foaming as she shook wildly on the sofa.\n\n\"Amelia!\" She glanced at the nurse, who had only just realised what was happening.\n\n\"Help in here!\" The woman came away from the door, running to Veronica's side. She took hold of Amelia and eased her to the floor. She continued to twitch violently. \"We need to restrain her so that she doesn't hurt herself.\"\n\nVeronica dropped to her knees, clamping her hands over Amelia's legs. Her face was filled with concern. \"What now?\"\n\nThe nurse didn't look up from where she was struggling to hold Amelia's arms by her sides. \"Now we wait for the doctor.\"\n\nAmelia started to babble something incoherent in the midst of her tortured seizure. Veronica tried to make sense of the garbled words, tears now streaming freely down her cheeks. There was something about fire, screaming and trains. Other than that, it was impossible to tell what Amelia was saying, as her body, racked with nervous energy, fought against their grip in random, violent spasms.\n\nVeronica heard footsteps. She didn't look up. A moment later, two more nurses were by Amelia's side, one of them cradling her head whilst the other took over from Veronica, pinning her sister's legs to the floor. Veronica heard a familiar voice from behind her.\n\n\"Miss Hobbes. Please step away.\" She stood, looking round to see Dr. Mason hovering by the edge of the sofa. He looked serious. \"I think it is time for you to leave now, Miss Hobbes. Your sister is in safe hands.\" Veronica glanced back at her sister's writhing body, held down by a small army of nurses. She looked torn.\n\n\"Really, it's for the best. We can see her through this unfortunate episode, and then afterwards she'll be in need of rest.\" For once, Veronica thought, the swarthy-looking man in the brown suit had a kindly expression on his face. She believed he really did want to help her sister. \"You can call again in a week's time. I'm sure she'll be up and about again by then. If the weather is tolerable, you could even take her for a walk around the airing court.\" He smiled. \"But now it is time to go. I'll walk you to the exit.\"\n\nVeronica relented, glancing back at her sister one last time as Dr. Mason led her towards the door. Just as she was about to cross the threshold, however, she heard Amelia scream her name.\n\n\"Veronica!\"\n\nShe looked back, startled. Amelia was trying to force herself up into a sitting position, facing her sister as the nurses tried ineffectually to hold her down. Her eyes were still rolled back in their sockets, showing nothing but a disturbing sheen of milkywhite, but Amelia seemed to be looking straight at her, as if she could actually _see_ where Veronica was standing in the doorway.\n\nShocked, she whispered her response. \"Amelia?\"\n\nThe reply was a tortured rasp, as if dragged from somewhere within the depths of the girl's nightmare. \"It's all in their heads, don't you see, Veronica? You must see!\" She collapsed back into her spasms, and shaking his head, Dr. Mason took Veronica by the arm, leading her away from the terrible scene of her sister's distress and on towards the secure exit of the hospital.\n\nOutside, Veronica looked up at the asylum and used her handkerchief to wipe away the tears that were still stinging her eyes. The clock tower showed that it was fast approaching two in the afternoon, and she knew she'd be wise to head back to her rooms in case Newbury decided to call. She hated what was happening to her sister, back inside that terrible red brick building, locked inside a ward with no reasonable company, no decent clothes, no respect. She hated the fact that she couldn't do anything about it, either; that her parents had forbidden her from even discussing the issue with them, after she had railed so hard against their decision to place Amelia in the hands of these strangers in the first instance. Consequently, she hadn't had any contact with them for over two months, and neither had they been to visit her sister since her incarceration in September. She knew that, soon, she was going to have to write to them and insist that they pay a visit to the asylum to see their daughter. Amelia had enough to endure; it was unfair for her to have to suffer feelings of embarrassment, guilt and rejection, too.\n\nVeronica regained her composure and proceeded along the gravel path towards the exit to the railed compound and the street beyond. She passed the airing court on her left, a large paved courtyard used to exercise the patients when the weather was clement enough for them to venture outside. She smiled. Next week, she would return to Wandsworth and take Amelia for a walk around this little yard, admiring the flowers and the birds as they had when Amelia was a young girl and Veronica would take her for morning walks along the country lanes by their parents' house. In the meantime, she would throw herself into the case with Newbury and spend some time deliberating on the meaning of Amelia's outburst. She could hear the words echoing around in her mind as she walked. \"It's all in their heads, don't you see? . . .\"\n\nShe had no idea what it meant, and whether it was simply the ramblings of a disturbed, frightened mind, or something far more pertinent to her immediate future.\n\nOnly time, she supposed, would tell.\nCHAPTER 12\n\n##\n\nThe next day, Veronica woke early and decided that, after breakfast, she would head straight to the office. She'd had no word from Newbury, and she was anxious to find out if there had been any further developments in the case. He may have been able to solicit further information from Her Majesty during his visit to the palace, and she wanted to press him to speak with Sir Charles, to find out if Inspector Foulkes had managed to uncover anything further at the scene of the crash.\n\nFollowing her trip to the manufactory earlier that week, Veronica was still engaged with the notion that the vessel's automaton pilot may have crawled out of the wreckage, scrabbling away into the trees before anyone else arrived at the scene. It wasn't an outlandish idea; the automaton she had seen demonstrated had a hardy skeletal structure. She could see how the unit may have found itself confused, damaged but still functional, climbing out of the ruined cockpit before its more delicate components were consumed by the heat and the flames. Perhaps it had lain there inactive for some time before its pre-programmed systems engaged and it had been driven to move, not in an effort to escape the fire but simply because it was compelled to start the winding mechanism within its chest, as Villiers had described to them during the demonstration in his workshop. She would discuss these thoughts with Newbury at length when she arrived at the office.\n\nVeronica pulled back the curtains in her living-room and looked out over the street. The sun was only just poking up over the clouds, but already the high street was bustling with people. Mechanical carriages trundled rudely along the road, puffing clouds of steam high into the air, their drivers shouting down at pedestrians to make way. She shook her head. She couldn't understand Newbury's obsession with progress. Of course, the automata were marvellous inventions, but she couldn't help wondering what would happen to all the people they would displace if they were ever properly applied to industrial work in the city. Besides, London was a city still finding its way out of the last century. In her eyes, before there could be any major scientific revolutions, there were other more pressing social inadequacies in need of resolving. For a country run by a woman, Britain was still a nation in awe of its men.\n\nStepping away from the window, Veronica walked to the small kitchen and put a flame to the grill. She'd take her toast and tea, and then, without further ado, she'd hail a cab to Bloomsbury and allow her head to be filled with the details of the case. That way, she thought, she might be able to forget the sight of her sister, her eyes shining white in the harsh light of the gas-lamps, screaming Veronica's name as she was pinned to the floor by a coterie of nurses and reassured by the doctors that the only reason she was suffering so much was because she was entirely insane.\n\n_______\n\nThe office door was locked when Veronica arrived at the museum. She fished around in her purse, searching out the key that she carried with her for the rare occasions when she was the first to arrive for the day. She turned the key hastily in the lock and stepped inside, closing the door behind her.\n\n\"Hello?\"\n\nThe place was deserted. In fact, glancing around, she was convinced that it hadn't been disturbed since she was last there herself, with Newbury and Miss Coulthard, almost two days before. She knew that Newbury had given Miss Coulthard leave to take as much time as she needed in the search for her missing brother. The fact that she was not here did not bode well for her success in locating his whereabouts. Sighing, Veronica slipped her bag from her shoulder and placed it on the stand. She did the same with her coat and hat a moment later. Then, glancing at the grandfather clock in the corner, decided to press on for a while in the hope that Newbury would soon put in an appearance. If not, she would head over to his lodgings in Chelsea to see if she could find him there.\n\nShe set about making herself a pot of tea, and decided to take some notes, trying to put all of her haphazard thoughts about the case into some sense of order. That way, when she did finally manage to catch up with Newbury, she'd be able to present her ideas in something of a more coherent form.\n\nAn hour later, it was past nine o'clock and there was still no word of Newbury. Veronica had filled two sheets of paper with copious notes on the case of _The Lady Armitage,_ recounting not only her own thoughts on the matter but also the chain of events that had led them to this point in the investigation. If she were asked to write a report on the case at a later date, the notes would prove an invaluable basis for the endeavour.\n\nGlancing up at the clock again, she decided that it was time she tried to find out what had happened to her employer. She hoped that he hadn't been called away to another crime scene during the night, at least without attempting to get a message to her first. Even though she didn't relish the idea of encountering more cadavers, she also didn't want to find herself suddenly left out of proceedings. It wasn't like Newbury to leave her in the dark, though. She'd known him for only a matter of weeks, but already they had formed a mutual respect for each other, and no matter how secretive some of his pursuits may be, she knew that he wasn't in the business of shutting her out. She'd just have to track him down and find out what it was that had delayed him.\n\nVeronica gathered her things and scrawled a brief note, which she left on Newbury's desk, just in case they accidentally missed each other as she made her way over to Chelsea. She locked the office door behind her, climbed the stairs to the ground floor\u2014where the exhibitions were already beginning to fill with the noisy hubbub of the public\u2014and left through the main entrance in search of transport.\n\nNewbury's home was a delightful terraced house in a quiet suburban district of Chelsea. The entire street in which it sat appeared comfortably middle-class, residential and relatively unassuming. As she stepped down from the cab and paid the driver, Veronica tried to reconcile this fact with her knowledge of the man himself. Everything about the look of the house, at least from the outside, seemed to represent exactly the opposite of what she had taken to be Newbury's taste. The place looked decidedly _old-fashioned_ : a traditional English home, with a small rose garden at the front of the property and a door painted in bright pillar-box red. An ornate black railing ran around the edges of the garden, and a short path led up to the door itself, terminating in a series of tall steps. A bay window looked out onto the street below, although the light was reflecting brightly on the glass panes, making it difficult for Veronica to see if there was anyone inside. She shook her head. For a man so obsessed with the benefits of progress, Newbury kept a house that seemed a trifle understated and traditional. Still, she supposed it was good to challenge stereotypes.\n\nHesitating for a moment, the thought flashed through her mind that she might have given the cab driver the incorrect address. She searched out her notebook and double-checked the number on the door. It was certainly the address Newbury had given her, written in her book in her own neat copperplate: _10 Cleveland Avenue, Chelsea._ She shrugged to herself and approached the door, rapping the knocker briskly. Behind her, the cab rolled away down the road, its horse's hooves clattering noisily on the cobbles.\n\nShe waited for someone to answer the door. There was no response. She knocked again, louder this time. After a few more moments had passed and there was still no answer, she stepped away from the door and tried peering through the window instead, cupping her hands around her face to help her see. The room beyond the window had been dressed as a dining room, containing a long oval-shaped table, a small fireplace, a teak sideboard and a series of bookshelves lined with numerous leather-bound tomes. The door to the room was shut, and there was no evidence that the furniture had been disturbed that morning. She turned away, trying to decide what to do. It was clear that Newbury wasn't at home, and she had no idea where he may have gone, other than the office. She could head back there in the hope that he would eventually put in an appearance, or else she could return to Kensington and await his call. She chewed on her bottom lip thoughtfully.\n\nThen, just as she was about to take her leave, the door clicked open behind her, and a rotund middle-aged woman dressed in the black uniform of a housekeeper appeared in the hallway, trying to catch her breath. \"Oh, I'm sorry, miss. I was out in the back, dealing with the linens.\" Veronica noticed that the woman's sleeves were rolled up and her hands were still dripping with water.\n\nShe smiled. \"I'm sorry to drag you away from your duties. You must be Mrs. Bradshaw? Sir Maurice has spoken very highly of you.\"\n\nThe woman looked perplexed. \"Indeed I am, miss. And how can I be of service?\" She spoke with a warm Scottish lilt. Her grey hair was scraped back severely from her face, worn in a black net, and whilst she certainly cast an imposing figure, it was clear she was a person of warmth and integrity. Veronica could see why Newbury liked her.\n\n\"My name is Miss Veronica Hobbes, Sir Maurice's new assistant. I was supposed to be meeting him at the museum this morning, but he hasn't arrived, so I thought it best to call instead, to ensure everything was in order.\" She craned her neck to see past the housekeeper and into the hallway beyond. It was gloomy inside, with deep burgundy wallpaper and dark wooden furnishings that added to the sense of the austere. There was no sign of Newbury, although she supposed he could have been elsewhere in the house, in the living-room or working out of sight in his study.\n\nMrs. Bradshaw glanced from side to side, looking along the street. She fixed her eyes on Veronica. \"Miss Hobbes, the master told me to make you welcome if you ever had reason to call. I think you'd better come inside.\"\n\nVeronica frowned. The woman seemed strangely on edge, as if Veronica's presence in the house would somehow make her uncomfortable. Nevertheless, she mounted the stairs to the door and stepped through into the dark hallway beyond.\n\nNewbury's coat and hat were still hanging on the stand beside a small table and mirror. The post was lying unopened on the table. Veronica turned to Mrs. Bradshaw. \"Is Sir Maurice at home?\"\n\n\"Yes, miss, although I'm not sure he is receiving visitors.\" She looked concerned, and it dawned on Veronica that something was not quite right.\n\nShe decided to press the woman further for an explanation. \"Is Sir Maurice unwell? I assure you, Mrs. Bradshaw, that I have only his best interests at heart, and that you can rely on me to treat the matter with the utmost sensitivity.\"\n\nMrs. Bradshaw sighed. \"Very well, miss. Let me take you to him now.\"\n\nVeronica placed her hat beside Newbury's on the stand and unbuttoned her coat as they walked. Mrs. Bradshaw led Veronica up the creaking flight of stairs at the end of the hallway, past a small landing that branched off into a sizeable bathroom, and then up to the first floor, where a series of doors opened onto what Veronica assumed were the bedchambers.\n\nVeronica hesitated. \"Is he resting in bed, Mrs. Bradshaw? I'm not sure that it would be entirely appropriate for me to see him in that way.\"\n\nMrs. Bradshaw shook her head. \"No, miss. He's in there.\" She indicated a panelled door at the end of the landing. \"That's his private study. The master has been holed up inside since yesterday morning. He stepped out, and when he returned, he went directly to this room and locked himself inside. I've been unable to get a word out of him since.\"\n\nVeronica looked puzzled. \"Do you think he's unwell?\"\n\nMrs. Bradshaw shrugged. \"I can't say, miss. It's unusual behaviour, certainly. Not that I'm a stranger to that, these last few years.\" She looked circumspect. \"But I worry he hasn't eaten, or taken anything to drink. I've tried knocking, but I've had no reply.\"\n\n\"Do you have a key?\"\n\n\"No, miss. It's the one room in the house that Sir Maurice keeps to himself. He said if I were ever to go in there, I would be immediately dismissed from his service. God knows what he's got in there, but I ain't about to try and find out.\"\n\nVeronica nodded. \"I'm sure it's just a case of security, Mrs. Bradshaw.\" She put her hands on her hips. \"Now, would you mind if I tried to solicit a response?\"\n\n\"Please go ahead, miss. It would put my mind at rest to know the master was well.\"\n\nVeronica approached the door. She put her ear to one of the panels, listening intently for any sound from within. Nothing. She pulled the red leather glove off her right hand, placing it carefully in her coat pocket, and rapped loudly on the door. \"Sir Maurice? It's Veronica. Are you well?\"\n\nShe paused for a moment, waiting for a response. She glanced at Mrs. Bradshaw, who offered her a noncommittal shrug. The moment stretched. She knocked again. \"Sir Maurice? Are you home? I have some thoughts on the case I'd like to discuss with you today.\" Still nothing.\n\nVeronica frowned, addressing her next question to Mrs. Bradshaw. \"You're sure he's in here? Could he have left during the night?\"\n\n\"No miss. His bed is undisturbed, and his coat and hat are still on the stand downstairs.\"\n\nVeronica tried the handle. It turned, but the door wouldn't open.\n\n\"He always keeps this door locked, miss, even when he's inside. If he asks for tea, I leave it out here on the landing and he collects it at his leisure.\"\n\nVeronica smiled. \"Mrs. Bradshaw. All this talk of tea is making me thirsty. I don't suppose you would be so kind as to put the kettle on the stove for me?\" She rubbed the back of her neck. \"I'll continue to try to raise a response from Sir Maurice. I'll be sure to call if I have need of your assistance.\"\n\nMrs. Bradshaw looked uneasy. \"Are you sure, miss? Somehow it doesn't seem appropriate to leave you up here alone.\"\n\n\"Please do not concern yourself with propriety, Mrs. Bradshaw. I am sure Sir Maurice would trust me enough not to idly wander through his private rooms. I assure you I will remain just here on the landing and attempt to find out what is preventing him from answering our calls. Once the tea is prepared, we'll take stock of the situation and agree on a course of action.\"\n\n\"Very well, miss. I'll be in the kitchen if you need me.\"\n\nVeronica watched as Mrs. Bradshaw disappeared down the stairs, her long skirt swishing around her as she walked.\n\nShe knocked on the door again. There was still no response from within. She glanced behind her, judging the length of the landing. There was plenty of room for a run-up. She slipped her other glove from her left hand, popped it in her pocket and wriggled out of her coat, draping it over the side of the banister. She adjusted her blouse. Then she walked to the other end of the landing and, with one last glance down the stairs to make sure that Mrs. Bradshaw was completely out of sight, took a run at the door, presenting her shoulder to the wooden panels. The door creaked in its frame, but didn't give way. She tried again, this time throwing all her weight in front of her as she slammed into the door. It burst open with a loud splintering sound, banging against some unseen piece of furniture inside and kicking back at Veronica, who was struggling to maintain her balance. She caught the door as it came back at her and leaned on it heavily, her shoulder aching from the impact. She hoped that Mrs. Bradshaw hadn't heard the noise in the kitchen two floors below, that the sound of the kettle whistling on the stove had been enough to mask the racket. She'd know soon enough, if the housekeeper came running up the stairs to see what all the fuss was about.\n\nGasping for breath, she looked around, searching the room for Newbury.\n\nThe first thing that struck her about the study was the sheer amount of bizarre paraphernalia that lined the shelves. Aside from the vast array of books, there were all manner of esoteric objects on display. Jars containing what looked like the amputated tentacles of an unidentifiable sea creature, the skull of a chimpanzee, bottles filled with strange-coloured liquids, arcane symbols cast in precious metals, little stone idols that appeared to date from sometime in pre-history\u2014the list was endless. The second thing that struck her was that Newbury was lying face down on the floor, in the centre of an large pentagram that had been drawn on the bare floorboards in white chalk. The carpet had been rolled back to reveal the symbol, although it wasn't immediately clear if it was freshly drawn or had been hidden under the Turkish pile for some time. Objects lay all about the prone man: an empty glass and wine bottle, a sprig of rosemary, some matches and a brown medical bottle half-full of liquid.\n\nShe rushed to Newbury's side, kneeling on the floor and rolling him over onto his back. His breath was shallow and his face was cold and glistening with perspiration. She searched for his pulse, feeling around his unshaven throat until she found it, counting out the rhythm under her breath. She loosened his shirt and placed a hand on his cheek. \"Oh, Newbury, what have you been up to?\"\n\nHe moaned, his eyes flickering under their lids.\n\nVeronica heard footsteps on the stairs. Mrs. Bradshaw had obviously realised something was amiss. She called up ahead of her. \"Everything alright up there, miss?\"\n\nVeronica knew immediately that she couldn't allow Mrs. Bradshaw to see Newbury in such a state, or let her see the inside of his study, either. The contents of the room were alarming enough to Veronica herself, and she already had a very good notion of Newbury's expertise in the dark arts and all the mysterious paraphernalia associated with them. The scene inside the room would probably be enough to send poor Mrs. Bradshaw running straight to the police.\n\nVeronica propped Newbury's head on a cushion that she grabbed from the nearby daybed and stepped out into the hallway, closing the door behind her. She stood in front of the damaged lock, ensuring that Mrs. Bradshaw couldn't see where the frame had been splintered during her assault on the door.\n\n\"Everything is fine, Mrs. Bradshaw,\" she said as calmly as possible. \"You will be pleased to hear that I have managed to rouse Sir Maurice. He is suffering from a slight fever and has been dozing in his study. I'm attending to him now. I'm sure that he will shortly be anxious for some light food to aid him in his recovery.\" She smiled. \"For now it would be of much benefit to him if you could fetch us another cup and saucer to go with that pot of tea.\"\n\nMrs. Bradshaw eyed her inquisitively. There was an awkward silence. Then, realising that it was probably better to go along with Veronica's instructions than defy her employer's wishes and enter the study herself, she nodded her head in assent. \"Right you are, miss. I'll leave the tea on the landing for the two of you.\" She turned and made her way back down the stairs.\n\nVeronica called after her. \"Thank you, Mrs. Bradshaw. And if you could see yourself to fetching a flannel and a bowl of cool water, that would be most helpful, too.\" She slipped back into the room, not waiting for Mrs. Bradshaw's response.\n\nNewbury hadn't tried to move. He was only semi-conscious, possibly even delirious. She bent over him, grabbing him firmly under the arms, and hauled him up onto the daybed a few feet from where he was lying. She paused for a moment, trying to catch her breath after the exertion. Making sure he was comfortable, she set about collecting the objects from the floor, placing them neatly on the coffee table by the side of the fire. She picked up the little brown bottle and inspected the label. It was peeling, but she could easily make out what it contained.\n\n\"Laudanum.\" She shook her head. She had no idea what Newbury had been up to with the pentagram, but it was clear to her that the laudanum was responsible for his current state of ill health. She rolled the carpet back into place, hiding the elaborate chalk symbols. She had a lot of questions for her employer, but first she had to make sure she could bring him round. She crossed the room and went to his side. Taking her handkerchief from her sleeve, she gently mopped his brow, brushing his hair back from his forehead with her other hand.\n\n\"So you do have an Achilles' heel, after all, Maurice.\" She dabbed tenderly at the beads of sweat running down his face.\n\nSearching out a blanket was a relatively easy task. She laid it over him as he shivered, then set about stoking the fire, which had burned low in the grate without attention. Long ago, when her sister had first begun having seizures, the doctors had treated her with laudanum, and she knew all too well the pains of withdrawal, having spent long hours by Amelia's bedside as she came round from the large doses she'd had administered to her in an attempt to quell her visions. She watched Newbury as he lay there on the daybed, his breath still shallow as his lungs fought for air. He'd clearly taken too much of the dreadful stuff. Now it was just a waiting game as his body purged itself of the drug. Veronica, making herself comfortable in a chair by the fire, would stay by his side as it did so.\nCHAPTER 13\n\n##\n\nWhen Newbury woke, he was appalled to find Veronica asleep in the chair by the fire. He had no idea how much time had passed. He sat up, bleary eyed, and then sank back into the warm confines of the daybed, unable to move. His head was spinning, and he felt sick to his stomach. He ran a hand through his hair, which was damp with perspiration, and then rubbed at his eyes, trying to shake the feeling of lethargy. He'd lost track of events and couldn't remember how he'd ended up where he was. The physical symptoms, however, were entirely familiar; he knew he'd overdone it on the laudanum.\n\nHe glanced around the study. Everything had been restored to order. After propping him up on the daybed, Veronica must have rolled the carpet back into place to hide the chalk pentagram that he'd drawn on the floorboards. He wondered if that had been for Mrs. Bradshaw's benefit. If so, it suggested that she'd seen it herself. He could only think how shocked and appalled she must have been to see the items that he had on display in there. That, coupled with the fact that Veronica was sitting across the room from him, meant that he'd have a lot of explaining to do. Worse still, Veronica had seen him at his lowest ebb. He wondered if he'd ever be able to earn her respect again. He cursed himself for his weakness. Still, what was done was done, and he supposed it was his own foolish actions that had landed him in this position. Now he had to face his embarrassment with humility. He sighed.\n\nCraning his neck, he tried to work out how Veronica had entered the room. His first thought was that Mrs. Bradshaw must have kept a spare key, one that he wasn't aware of, but then he saw that the doorframe was splintered and the lock was hanging loose where the screws had been torn out of their housing. The door itself was propped closed with a large stone vase that Veronica had taken from one of his displays. Absently, he wondered if she'd realised that it was nearly two thousand years old. Not that it mattered. She'd obviously used her shoulder to barge her way in. She was a strong woman, and he was thankful to her for the consideration she had shown. He'd underestimated her resourcefulness. He wouldn't allow himself to do it again.\n\nNewbury shifted on the daybed, watching Veronica as she slept in the chair, the rise and fall of her chest as her breath came in little flutters, her head lolled gently to one side. The firelight cast dancing shadows all about her. He wanted to stay in that moment, for time to stand still so that he could lie there, basking in the firelight and watching the pretty girl who had come to his rescue\u2014without having to face her when she woke and explain his failings. He imagined watching the light dying in her eyes as he revealed the truth: that aside from his more salubrious pursuits he was a habitual opium-eater and a dabbler in the occult. He had drawn the pentagram on the floor in an effort to divine a solution to the case, and when it hadn't worked, frustrated that he couldn't seem to find the clarity of mind that he had been searching for, he had given himself up to the drug, intent on dreaming his way to the solution. Of course, such is the delusion of the addict, and he had found no salvation in debauchery. He was no closer now to having a solution than he was when he set out from the palace that morning. If indeed it was still the same day; he had no idea how long he'd been unconscious and whether, outside, it was even day or night. He coughed, fighting back nausea. The racking movement caused little explosions of pain in his head.\n\nThe sound of his coughing caused Veronica to stir. Her eyes flicked open. She looked dazed for a moment, before the sight of Newbury seemed to register and she realised where she was.\n\nIn a moment, she was out of the chair and had rushed to his side. \"Maurice. You're awake.\"\n\nHe looked up at her and smiled. \"Indeed. Although I fear I could hardly be further from my true self. I'm sorry you had to see me like this.\"\n\nShe laughed, obviously relieved. \"You did give me an awful fright. But you'll be well soon enough. When you're feeling up to it, Mrs. Bradshaw will prepare some food and draw you a bath.\"\n\nNewbury looked anxious. \"Mrs. Bradshaw? Did she\u2014?\"\n\n\"No.\" Veronica shook her head, cutting him off. \"You need not worry about that. Mrs. Bradshaw didn't see a thing. She thinks you have a fever.\"\n\n\"And you?\"\n\n\"I think you have a fever of your own devising.\" She smiled tenderly. \"Although I assure you that I'm in no position to judge. We all have our secrets and vices.\" She paused. \"I admit I have no idea what you were up to with that pentagram, however.\"\n\nNewbury coughed again, easing himself back into the cushions. His eyes were glassy and tired. \"I was searching for answers.\" He paused, and she listened to his ragged breath for a moment whilst he made up his mind about whether to tell her any more than that. His eyes flicked over her face. \"I was trying to find out who or what was behind the crash.\"\n\nVeronica narrowed her eyes, suspicious. \"And?\"\n\n\"And the exercise proved fruitless. I'm afraid we're no closer now than we were when we last spoke.\" He sighed. Veronica took his hand.\n\n\"What of the laudanum?\"\n\nNewbury grimaced. \"A moment of weakness, is all.\" He met her gaze. \"I shall take the matter in hand.\" He looked away again. \"Now, did you say something about a bath?\"\n\n\"Yes, I'll call down to Mrs. Bradshaw now.\" She rose from her knees and brushed herself down.\n\nAs she turned towards the door, Newbury sat forward, catching her hand. \"Veronica?\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\nHe smiled, his face sincere. \"Thank you.\"\n\nShe nodded. \"You're welcome.\"\n\nHer fingers trailed in his as she walked away, leaving the room in search of Mrs. Bradshaw.\n\n\"Thank you, Mrs. Bradshaw.\"\n\nNewbury smiled as his housekeeper presented him with a large plate piled high with a fluffy omelette and crisp bacon. On the table she placed a rack of toast, blackened to perfection. It was late to be having breakfast\u2014almost three in the afternoon\u2014but she was used to such irregularities and had been sure to offer Newbury her sympathies upon discovering he'd been unwell. Happy that she had discharged her duty, she slipped away from the dining room, casting a final glance at Veronica as she pulled the door shut behind her. It was clear that she didn't understand what Veronica's role in this whole matter had been, and that she had mixed feelings about the scenario. On the one hand, Veronica had proved indispensable in helping her to look after Newbury, and had been the one to finally rouse him from his study. On the other, it seemed somehow inappropriate for her employer to so freely allow his female assistant the run of his household, and for her to allow herself to be so familiar with the gentleman, particularly in company. Nevertheless, she had a great deal of respect for Newbury and had been in his employ for many years, so she had decided to trust his sense of propriety and say nothing that may cause offence. She took the stairs two at a time, eager to get back to her chores, and to some semblance of normality, before the day was out.\n\nVeronica sipped at her tea, watching Newbury from across the table as he attacked his meal with vigour. He had spent the last hour taking a bath, shaving and then dressing in his private rooms. He looked almost restored to his former self, save for the dark rings that still sat heavily beneath his eyes. Veronica was sure that a hearty meal would be good for his constitution and aid in his recovery from the effects of the laudanum. She had passed the time whilst he washed and dressed by perusing the spines of the rare books in his study. It was a wide and varied collection, containing many books she had never heard of and was sure could not be found in the annals of the British Library. Whilst she had been aware of Newbury's speciality in dealing with the occult and paranormal, she hadn't been aware of the sheer _intensity_ of his fascination. If finding him semi-conscious inside an enormous chalk pentagram hadn't been evidence enough, the esoteric volumes in his private library had proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was one of the foremost experts in the field throughout the whole of the Empire.\n\nShe placed her empty cup on the saucer. Newbury looked up.\n\n\"So, tell me, what came of your visit to the palace yesterday?\"\n\nNewbury finished chewing his food. \"Very little, I'm afraid, although I did manage to tease out of Her Majesty the reason for her unusual interest in the case.\" He reached for his coffee, taking a long draw. Veronica leaned forward, waiting for him to continue. \"Apparently the body of a Dutch Royal was found aboard the wreckage. A cousin of the Queen, in fact.\" He paused, waiting for her reaction.\n\nVeronica frowned. \"But wasn't _The Lady Armitage_ a passenger-class vessel? Why would a member of the Royal Family take a second-class transport to Dublin?\"\n\nNewbury smiled. \"Precisely. But it's not much of a lead. We can't even begin to consider interviewing the family, and besides, they have even less of an idea about the whole thing than we do. The man had been missing in London for days before it happened. Her Majesty has promised the boy's mother an explanation, and it's up to us to find one, as soon as possible.\" He didn't look particularly confident. Taking his cutlery, he continued to tackle his breakfast. Veronica poured herself another cup of Earl Grey. They sat in silence for a few minutes, each of them racking their brains for ideas.\n\nVeronica was startled by a knock on the door. Newbury looked up, but didn't speak. A moment later, Mrs. Bradshaw entered, bearing a silver tray that was covered in letters\u2014the post Veronica had seen on the hall table when she'd first arrived. It seemed like days had passed since her arrival that morning.\n\n\"Your post, sir. I thought you may like to open it whilst you finished your breakfast?\"\n\n\"Very thoughtful, Mrs. Bradshaw. Thank you.\" He watched her leave and then turned his attention to the tray she had placed on the table beside him, studying the contents intently. Five or six letters lay scattered upon it. He placed his cutlery on the side of his plate and poked at the envelopes, stopping when he saw one that bore a hand he didn't recognise.\n\nHe glanced up at Veronica. \"Excuse me for a moment, my dear, whilst I take a look at this rather interesting missive.\" He used his finger to tear the envelope open and withdrew the letter he found inside. It was dated the previous day, and written in a perfect copperplate, with big artistic flourishes, on plain white paper. Newbury scanned the short paragraph that composed the body of the letter, then folded it in half and passed it to Veronica.\n\nVeronica unfolded it and spread it out on the table before her.\n\n> _Sir Maurice,_\n> \n> _I request your presence at the Orleans Club, 29 King St, S.W., tomorrow at four. I find myself in possession of information that may pertain to your current investigation, regarding the crash of the passenger airship_ , The Lady Armitage. _I'd appreciate the opportunity to aid you in bringing the perpetrators in this matter to justice._\n> \n> _Yours, \n> Mr. Christopher Morgan_\n\nShe looked up. \"Do you know this man?\"\n\n\"Indeed not. Although . . .\" He thought for a moment. \"I believe I know him by name and reputation.\" He took another sip of his coffee. \"A speculator and a dilettante, if I'm not mistaken. I believe he owns an art gallery across town.\" He smiled, dabbing his mouth with his napkin. \"Nevertheless, Miss Hobbes, we have our lead, and no time to spare. If we're to make it to the Orleans Club by four, we should be on our way directly. Are you fit?\"\n\nVeronica smiled back, delighted to see Newbury so engaged and full of energy once again. She nodded. \"Are you?\"\n\nNewbury laughed, shrugging his shoulders. \"Fortified by eggs and bacon. Let us not procrastinate any longer.\" He stood, pushing the remnants of his meal to one side. \"Come on, let's fetch our coats.\"\n\nVeronica watched Newbury's back as he left the room, calling for Mrs. Bradshaw. She hoped he was up to another sojourn, and whilst she admitted to herself it was wonderful to have the old Newbury back, she felt drained by the whirlwind that surrounded him. She'd rather, for his health, that they put the meeting off until the following day, but with no return address on the letter, it would be difficult to get word to Morgan in time\u2014and in truth, it was too good an opportunity to miss. It was the only lead they had, and if they chose to enjoy the confines of Newbury's home for much longer, the trail would almost certainly grow cold again. Reluctantly, she climbed to her feet and followed after him, anxious to keep a watchful eye on proceedings, and on Newbury himself.\nCHAPTER 14\n\n##\n\nIn their haste to get across town, Veronica had allowed herself to be subjected to the noise and bluster of one of the steam-powered carriages that Newbury appeared so heartily to enjoy. It had proved as uncomfortable as ever, and now, on the doorstep of the Orleans Club, she found herself rearranging her dress and trying to put herself hastily back in order. It was cold, and fog was beginning to settle over the streets in wispy tendrils, slowly encroaching upon the city like ivy creeping across an old brick wall.\n\nThe Orleans Club, Newbury had informed her on the way over, was the offshoot of a gentle-men's club based in Twickenham, the town dwelling for members of the latter who, it seemed, were welcome to invite guests to the establishment so long as they were of the male variety. Any women were referred directly to the ladies' room and kept well out of earshot of the banter that took place in the main lounge. Veronica found the whole idea ridiculous, but she also knew that she wasn't about to overturn hundreds of years of tradition simply by complaining about it. She was aware that Newbury attended a club, and that he found it a worthwhile pursuit, in terms of both business and pleasure. Not only that, but it was important that they got to speak with Morgan, one way or another. She supposed she'd just have to live with it, for now.\n\nThe building itself was typical of this type of establishment; a Georgian town house that sat mid-terrace between what appeared to be private dwellings on either side. Sash windows revealed little about the activities inside, covered by heavy drapes, and there were no signs or indicators that they had even come to the correct address, other than the number _27_ on the door, as suggested in Morgan's letter. Clearly the members of the Orleans Club liked to carry out their business behind closed doors.\n\nNewbury stepped up to the blue-panelled door and rapped loudly with the knocker. Almost immediately, it creaked open and a butler appeared in the opening. Light spilled out onto the steps around their feet. Newbury presented his letter and informed the man that they had come for a private conference with one of the club's members, Mr. Christopher Morgan.\n\nThe man studied Newbury and Veronica with what seemed to be a measure of disdain. \"I'm afraid we have yet to enjoy the pleasure of Mr. Morgan's company today, sir.\"\n\nNewbury pulled his watch from his pocket, popping open the engraved case and glancing at the ivory face inside. \"I see we're a little early. Perhaps Mr. Morgan intends to meet us here at four, as his letter suggests, or perhaps he is running a little late. Either way, I do believe that we'd like to wait.\"\n\nThe butler nodded, opening the door a fraction wider to allow them to pass. \"Sir can wait in the lounge, and I'll be sure to inform Mr. Morgan of your presence when he arrives. I'm afraid your companion will have to wait in the ladies' room.\"\n\nNewbury put his hand on Veronica's arm. \"As I suspected, my dear. I'll try not to be too long about it. Why don't you ask around in there and see if you can get a measure of this fellow from the other ladies? It may be that you can find out something useful while you're waiting.\"\n\nVeronica nodded. \"Of course.\" She allowed the butler to escort her to the door of the ladies' room, whilst Newbury disappeared down the hallway in the direction of the main lounge. The butler held the door open for her, and she stepped through.\n\nThe ladies' room was clearly an underused commodity. The room itself was small, and whilst lavishly furnished, it bore the musty odour of emptiness; Veronica had the sense that the place was more of a showroom than a location where ladies actually went to pass the time, at least by choice. She suspected that the room was provided as a service to those unlucky men who didn't seem able to go about their business without their wives following on behind them, limpetlike. That or it was listed as a benefit in the members' book, and as such had to be upheld for those rare occasions when a lady actually found herself in the unenviable position of needing somewhere to wait for her companion whilst he went about his business inside. Whatever the case, there were only two other ladies present in the room when Veronica entered, and both looked up, startled, to see a newcomer whom they might endeavour to coerce into a discussion of some sort. They both stood, placing the books they had been reading on the chairs where they had been sitting. Veronica smiled warmly. \"Good afternoon, ladies.\"\n\nThe two women looked at each other, and then turned back to Veronica. The one on the left, who was wearing a long dress cut in pale yellow silk, returned Veronica's smile. \"Likewise, I'm sure.\" She indicated the chair beside her. \"Please, won't you join us for tea?\"\n\n\"I'd be delighted.\" Veronica walked over to the table and the two ladies returned to their seats.\n\nThe woman in the yellow dress poured Veronica a cup of tea from the silver pot on the stand beside her chair. \"My name is Mrs. John Marriott, although you may call me Isabella.\"\u2014she glanced up\u2014\"This is Miss Evelyn Blackwood.\"\n\nVeronica took the proffered cup and saucer. \"Thank you. My name is Miss Veronica Hobbes. It's a pleasure to meet you.\"\n\nEvelyn Blackwood, a young dark-haired woman in a red jacket and matching skirt, looked Veronica up and down. \"Is this your first time at the Orleans Club, Miss Hobbes? I haven't seen you here before.\"\n\nVeronica nodded. \"Yes, indeed. My associate is here to meet one of the members. I thought it wise to wait for him in here.\"\n\nIsabella Marriott gave her a conspiratorial wink. \"So, dear, who exactly is this mysterious 'associate'? You can be sure that your secret is safe with us.\"\n\nVeronica almost laughed out loud. She had no reason to hide her association with Newbury, and it was clear that the two ladies, so starved for company, were fishing for gossip and intrigue to keep themselves amused. It would do no harm to let them think what they would. In fact, it may help to draw them out on their thoughts about Morgan. \"I'm here with Sir Maurice Newbury, the academic and anthropologist.\"\n\nIsabella and Evelyn exchanged glances. \"A sir? Well, didn't you do well for yourself, Miss Hobbes?\" Both of them began to giggle like schoolchildren. Veronica was finding the whole experience incredibly trying. \"So tell, us, Miss Hobbes. Is he devilishly handsome?\"\n\nVeronica took a sip of her tea, wishing for a moment that it was something stronger. \"Well, I suppose he is, rather.\" She tried to look coy, playing along with the conversation.\n\nEvelyn clapped her hands together. \"How exciting! A new romance in the Orleans Club. Just wait until we tell Juliana!\"\n\n\"Now, now, Evelyn, don't get carried away.\" Isabella placed a hand on her friend's knee. \"Miss Hobbes is only just getting started.\" She looked at Veronica expectantly.\n\nVeronica saw her chance to turn the conversation in a different direction. \"Well, Sir Maurice is here for an important meeting with Mr. Christopher Morgan. I've heard a lot about the man, but I've never had occasion to meet him. Is he a fine fellow?\"\n\nIsabella looked impressed. \"Oh, Miss Hobbes, one of the finest. Mr. Morgan is a pillar of our community, both here and in Twickenham. He owns an art gallery in town, and all the ladies who've been lucky enough to visit the place say it's full of the most wonderful paintings. Mr. Morgan, is a true gentleman. I'm sure that if your Sir Maurice is having any dealings with Mr. Morgan it is a good reflection on them both.\"\n\nVeronica smiled. \"I'm delighted to hear it, Miss Marriott. I appreciate your candour.\"\n\nEvelyn leaned forward, clutching her empty teacup to her knee. \"Do you think Sir Maurice might decide to become a member of the Orleans Club? I'm sure the other gentlemen would make him most welcome, and I'd love to introduce you to Juliana.\"\n\nIsabella cut in before Veronica had chance to answer. \"Juliana is Evelyn's elder sister. She recently married an industrialist named Greene. She has pretensions of becoming a novelist.\"\n\n\"Really?\"\n\nEvelyn nodded enthusiastically. \"Actually, I believe she's really rather good. She gives Margaret Oliphant a run for her money, anyway.\" She patted the book beside her on the chair and smiled.\n\nVeronica tried to look engaged by the idea. \"I'm sure that she's very talented indeed, Miss Blackwood.\" She placed her cup and saucer on the table. There was a rap at the door. The three women looked up to see Newbury framed in the doorway.\n\n\"Miss Hobbes. I'm sorry to disturb your conversation, but I believe our business here is done.\"\n\nVeronica tried to hide the relief on her face. As she stood, Isabella leaned in and whispered surreptitiously, \"You're right, dear\u2014he's terribly dashing.\"\n\nVeronica smiled knowingly and turned to face both of the ladies. \"Good afternoon, ladies. It's been a pleasure.\"\n\nEvelyn glanced from Newbury to Veronica. \"You must come and see us again, Miss Hobbes. Sir Maurice, do say you'll bring her again.\"\n\nNewbury coughed to cover his laughter. \"All in good time, I'm sure.\"\n\nEvelyn smiled triumphantly. \"That's settled then. Next time Juliana may be here. I am sure she'd be delighted to tell you about her writing.\"\n\n\"I'll look forward to it.\" Veronica turned on her heel and joined Newbury in the hallway, before the two of them took their leave of the Orleans Club and headed out into the cold afternoon.\n\n\"So, how did you find Morgan?\"\n\nThey were waiting for a cab by the side of the road. The fog had settled even lower during the time they had passed inside the Orleans Club, and the street seemed deserted, wreathed in a thick smog. Veronica was standing close to Newbury, partly in an effort to fight off the penetrating chill, but partly for the comfort of having him nearby. The fog made her uncomfortable these days, what with all the talk of revenants and glowing policemen. She had resolved to spend as little time out in it as possible, for the time being, at least.\n\n\"I'm afraid I didn't find Morgan at all. He didn't keep our appointment. Either he was detained elsewhere, or simply decided that his information wasn't so inflammatory after all.\"\n\nVeronica frowned. \"That sounds unlikely, especially after hearing about him from the ladies inside the club.\"\n\nNewbury chuckled. \"Yes, you did seem to ingratiate yourself with them rather.\"\n\nVeronica sighed. \"I admit that I find that sort of woman most difficult to engage. I think it was their sheer desperation at seeing another female face that led them to embrace me so quickly.\"\n\nNewbury shrugged. \"Did they reveal anything useful, other than recommendations for the latest romance novel or the usual society gossip?\"\n\n\"Not as such. Although they did go on at length about Morgan, assuring me he was an excellent fellow, a perfect gentleman and a 'pillar of their community.' Doesn't sound to me like the sort of chap not to keep his appointments.\"\n\n\"Indeed.\" Newbury paused at the sound of horse's hooves. He stepped into the road for a moment, catching the attention of a cab driver. He came back to stand beside Veronica as the cab drew up before them, coming to rest beside the curb. \"Well, it's been a difficult day for us both, Miss Hobbes, and I suspect, with the dark drawing in, that it's a little too late to go searching for Morgan now. What do you say that I drop you at home and we set out again first thing tomorrow morning for Morgan's gallery? We shouldn't allow the trail to go cold, no matter how tenuous it actually is.\"\n\nVeronica nodded her assent. After the day she'd had, she'd be glad for a hot bath and an early night. \"Will you be alright, Sir Maurice?\"\n\nHe caught the meaning behind her words as he opened the door of the cab for her. \"I'll be fine, Miss Hobbes. Absolutely fine.\"\n\n\"In that case, I think it is an excellent plan. I'm sure we could both do with the rest.\"\n\nThey mounted the cab and gave the driver directions. Then, falling into a casual silence, each of them watching the fog roll by the windows of the cab, they set out for Kensington, and home.\nCHAPTER 15\n\n##\n\n\"Good God, Newbury. You look done for!\" Bainbridge had never been a man to keep his thoughts to himself.\n\n\"A rough night, Charles, followed by a long day. Think nothing of it.\" Newbury stood to greet his guest. \"How the devil are you?\"\n\n\"Troubled, if truth be told. Can't seem to shake this damn Whitechapel case. I'm starting to think you may have been on to something, you know, with all that 'glowing policeman' business.\" He dropped himself into a chair in Newbury's lounge, sighing, and Newbury took a seat opposite him. He knew Mrs. Bradshaw would already be organising drinks. He hadn't been expecting Bainbridge to call, but he wasn't disappointed by the development. His old friend offered good company, and he was in need of a distraction to prevent him from pondering too long on the other events of the day.\n\n\"Well, I have no doubt Mrs. Bradshaw will be preparing a brandy. We can discuss it at our leisure before a warm fire. I only wish I could do more, but I'm up to my neck in this other affair.\"\n\n\"You're a good man, Newbury. But tell me, I've heard nothing further on the airship disaster. What news?\"\n\n\"Little, I'm afraid to report. Her Majesty is eager for a quick resolution, but the leads are few and far between. She's adamant there's foul play involved, but I admit I'm still unsure. I take it Foulkes hasn't turned up anything useful?\"\n\nBainbridge shook his head. \"Indeed not. He's a good man. Thorough. If there was anything to be found, he'd have turned it out by now. I'm afraid it's in your hands, Newbury. Ah, look . . .\"\n\nThey turned to see Mrs. Bradshaw enter the room bearing two large glasses of brandy. Bainbridge took one from her, smiling, his bushy moustache quivering as he did so. \"An asset to you, Newbury.\" He raised the glass to Mrs. Bradshaw. \"I'm in dire need of a housekeeper like you, Mrs. Bradshaw. Many thanks.\" He took a long draw of the brandy, blinking as the alcohol assaulted his palate. Newbury sniffed at his glass and then placed it on the low table between them. He wasn't sure his damaged constitution was ready for it just yet. Mrs. Bradshaw quickly made herself scarce.\n\nNewbury leaned back in his chair, making himself comfortable. The room was small and cosy, with three chairs, a roaring fire, a small bureau and a portrait on the wall showing his grandfather in his military attire. The man had fought in Afghanistan during the expansion of the Empire, and was in many ways responsible, if indirectly, for Newbury's fascination with the occult. John Newbury had died in action, and his small chest of belongings had been returned to the family back in London aboard an old steamer. Still only a boy, Newbury had wondered at the secret contents of the chest, which his father had kept locked and hidden under his bed. One day, when his father was away on business and his mother was receiving visitors in the rooms below, Newbury had taken the key from the drawer in the nightstand and crawled underneath his parents' bed, searching out the chest and unlocking the ornate clasp. The contents were to change his life forever.\n\nAside from the more typical paraphernalia of war\u2014a pistol, a dagger, a medal\u2014the chest contained three books of a kind young Newbury had never encountered before. The knowledge within them would send him spiralling into a world full of mystery, full of magic and creatures of the night, rituals and charms. They contained a secret history of the world, a cata-logue of the occult and a guide to all the bizarre, arcane practices that demonstrated the thin line between life and death. For weeks, Newbury would return to the chest underneath his parents' bed, digging out his grandfather's books and reading by candlelight, filling his head with wonders. He still had the books, now, safe in his study, reclaimed from his father's belongings after both his parents had died. The chest had remained in place for another thirty years, undisturbed, and the day he had finally laid his mother to rest he had returned to the family home to collect it. By this time, of course, Newbury had assembled a vast library dedicated to the arcane, but these particular volumes he had never found again, and they now held pride of place in his collection. He wondered if they were the only three copies of the books that still existed, anywhere in the Empire.\n\nSnapping out of his reverie, Newbury glanced at Bainbridge, who had downed the rest of his brandy and was watching him inquisitively. \"Lost you for a moment, Newbury. Everything alright?\"\n\n\"Yes. Yes, indeed. I was lost in thought. Apologies, old man.\" He clapped his hands together, demonstrating that Bainbridge had his full attention. \"So tell me, what's troubling you about the Whitechapel case?\"\n\nBainbridge stared at the empty glass in his fingers, turning it over so that it caught the light. \"We're just getting nowhere, Newbury. More and more bodies are turning up, dumped all over the place, and we don't even have a suspect. The witnesses, such as they are, all report seeing a ghostly blue figure emerge from the fog, and then they damn well run for their lives. Who can blame them? Some report hearing the screams of the victims as they run, but that's about all we've got to go on. It's the same every time\u2014the victim is strangled, apparently without motive, and none of their belongings are taken or disturbed. There is never any trace of the killer left on the scene, and we haven't been able to find anything that links the victims to one another either. I admit to being completely confounded by it all.\" He looked exasperated, and Newbury, taking pity on his old friend, got out of his chair and searched out a bottle of brandy from a small cabinet on the other side of the room. He placed it on the table in front of a thankful Bainbridge before dropping back into his seat.\n\n\"Well, I can see why you're grasping at straws.\" He smiled. \"Miss Hobbes had an interesting notion a few days ago that the killer may not be the original 'glowing policeman' at all, but a new one, an example of the same phenomenon at work, involving different people entirely. Have there been any constables killed in recent months?\"\n\nBainbridge looked thoughtful. \"Not that I'm aware of. Although it's certainly worth double-checking. I'll have a man look into it tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Excellent. Other than that, have there been any changes at all in the pattern of the murders? Any minor detail that you haven't mentioned to me as yet?\"\n\nBainbridge poured himself another drink. \"Not as such, although the most recent body was different from the rest.\"\n\nNewbury leaned forward, his interest piqued. \"How so?\"\n\n\"It was a gentleman. All of the victims so far have been paupers, down-and-outs. This chap was a member of a private club with connections to a number of well-respected families. He had no real business being in Whitechapel in the early hours of the morning. We're wondering if he was actually killed elsewhere and then moved across town to give the impression that he was just like all the other victims.\"\n\n\"What was his name?\"\n\n\"Christopher Morgan. Owned an art gallery not far from here, I'm given to understand.\"\n\nNewbury practically leapt out of his chair. \"Charles! Morgan asked me to meet him this very afternoon! Now I know why he didn't keep his appointment. There has to be a connection. Look here\u2014\"\n\nHe sprang out of his seat and rushed to the pile of papers he'd left on the bureau. He rifled through them, discarding most of them on the floor in his haste. After a moment, he put his hand on the envelope he'd received that afternoon, containing the letter from Morgan. He handed it to Bainbridge, who eyed it curiously.\n\n\"Go on. Open it, Charles!\"\n\nBainbridge slipped the letter out of the envelope and cast his eye over it warily. He seemed to take a moment to let it sink in, then folded it neatly, put it back inside the envelope and placed it on the table beside his drink. \"So Morgan had a secret about the airship disaster, and then he turned up dead at the hands of the glowing policeman on the same day he was supposed to meet with you to reveal it.\"\n\n\"Or at the hands of someone wanting us to _believe_ it's the glowing policeman. He may well have been killed elsewhere and deposited at Whitechapel, just as you suggested.\"\n\n\"It can't be a coincidence.\"\n\n\"Only further investigation can help us to establish that, my dear man.\" Newbury was animated now, and he reached for his brandy, hoping it would help to steady his jangling nerves. \"Charles, I need to see the body.\"\n\n\"Impossible.\"\n\n\"How so?\"\n\n\"Because it's already been delivered to the morgue for a post-mortem examination. They'll be cutting him open at first light.\"\n\nNewbury shook his head. \"Then we go now. It's imperative that I get to examine the corpse. It could shed light on both of our cases.\"\n\nBainbridge nodded, although he was obviously reluctant to venture out again at this hour. He glanced at his fob-watch. It was approaching seven o'clock. \"What about dinner? Could we stop somewhere on the way?\"\n\n\"Afterwards, Charles! This could be the breakthrough we've been waiting for. Let's not waste another second!\"\n\nBainbridge downed the last of his brandy and stood to join Newbury at the door. \"My private coach is downstairs. We'll take that directly to the morgue. They won't be happy to see us at this hour, but I'm sure we'll be able to talk them around. Shall I send for Miss Hobbes?\"\n\nNewbury thought for a moment. \"Let's not. We'd only disturb her unduly. I can fill her in when we meet tomorrow morning.\"\n\nBainbridge nodded, and together they set out in search of clues.\n\n_______\n\nThe morgue was a cold and dreary place, in keeping, Newbury supposed, with its function as a repository of the dead. This was the place where murder victims or other suspicious deaths would be sent by Scotland Yard for closer examination, before the cadavers were forwarded to a funeral parlour and prepared for burial. Paupers, of course, tended to go directly from the table to a wooden box, and then into the ground, without the dignity of an elaborate service. The state did what it could, but as the politicians insisted on reminding everybody, it was not a charity.\n\nNewbury looked the place up and down as Bainbridge spoke with the mortuary attendant, showing his credentials in an effort to solicit the man's help. The room had a clinical feel, with white-tiled walls and floor, steel instruments set out carefully on wooden trolleys and a pair of marble slabs, empty and awaiting the freshly dead. Newbury shivered despite himself. The room reminded him of a bizarre underground station, with a curved roof and tiled archways leading to other rooms. The entire building seemed to echo with their footsteps, silent save for the voices of the other two men as they agreed, finally, that Newbury could examine the corpse of Christopher Morgan.\n\nThe mortuary attendant\u2014a tall, lean man, freshly shaved, with his blond hair swept back in a widow's peak and a pale complexion that suggested he spent the majority of his time indoors\u2014led them through one of the open archways and into an adjoining chamber, where one of the slabs was covered by a white sheet. With a serious look in his eye, the attendant drew back the cover and allowed them to gaze upon the cadaver that had once been Christopher Morgan.\n\n\"Is this the man you're looking for?\" His voice was nasal and thin.\n\nBainbridge was starting to get impatient with the man. \"We'll have to take your word for it. We have no record of his likeness. Neither of us was in attendance at the crime scene.\"\n\nThe attendant nodded. \"Then please feel free to inspect the body for as long as you deem necessary. I shall return to my post and await news that you have finished.\" He stopped, glancing sharply at Newbury. \"I hope you find what you are looking for.\"\n\nNewbury met the man's gaze. \"Thank you.\" He turned to regard the body, waiting for the attendant's footsteps to disappear into the next room before looking up at Bainbridge, who was opening and closing his fist with impatience. He drove his cane down hard on the tiled floor. \"Despicable fellow. Even after I established my position, he continued to question me regarding our visit. I have it in mind to speak with his superiors about his conduct.\"\n\nNewbury put a hand on his friend's arm. \"It's late, Charles, and our visit is very irregular. Let us concentrate on the task at hand.\"\n\nBainbridge nodded, clearly not placated. \"On with it, then. Let's get this done with so we can get to dinner. This place always gives me the chills.\"\n\nNewbury reached over and rolled the white sheet down to the dead man's knees. It was evident almost immediately that Morgan had been a man of fortune: his black suit was perfectly tailored, probably Saville Row, and his hands were perfectly manicured and impeccably clean. His hair had clearly been worn short in a side parting, but now it had been disturbed, either in the struggle that preceded his death, or during the transportation of the body to the morgue. The man still wore a fine gold ring on his right hand and an expensive chain looped from his fob-watch to his waistcoat pocket. Newbury glanced at Bainbridge. \"So it wasn't a robbery, then.\"\n\n\"No. Just like the others. The only difference here is that Morgan had more on him worth stealing.\"\n\nNewbury felt around in the man's pockets. They were practically empty. One held a handful of loose change whilst another held his wallet. To Newbury's dismay, there was nothing inside that suggested Morgan's reasons for wanting to speak with him at the Orleans Club earlier that day: just a couple of business cards, some banker's notes and a grainy sepia photograph of a woman sitting on a wicker chair, smiling at the camera. He stuffed the wallet back into the pocket where he had found it.\n\n\"Well, nothing so far to shed light on the airship disaster. Let's see if the manner of his death brings us any closer to an answer in the other matter, shall we?\" Newbury inched around the table, examining the corpse in minute detail as he did so. He stopped beside the head, taking the chin between his thumb and forefinger and moving the head from side to side, as if he were trying to make Morgan shake his head. \"The neck's not broken, but there's some pretty serious bruising around the throat. I'd wager it's a crushed windpipe. The assailant appears to have caught him with both hands and throttled the life out of him. Poor chap. It doesn't even look like he got a chance to fight back.\" He leaned closer, examining the bruised flesh around the throat. The skin was starting to take on a waxy pallor as rigor mortis set in. His brows furrowed in concentration.\n\n\"What is it? Have you seen something?\"\n\nNewbury stepped back from the mortuary table. \"Take a look at the bruised areas around the throat.\"\n\nBainbridge handed Newbury his cane and leaned heavily on the marble slab, lowering his face to examine the corpse more closely. \"What am I looking for, man? I can see plenty of bruises. Looks to me like the chap was strangled, just as you said.\"\n\n\"Indeed, but if you look a little closer, you'll see what I'm interested in. There are flecks of blue powder spotted about his throat. It shimmers if you shift slightly in the light.\"\n\n\"My God, Newbury. I think you're on to something.\"\n\nNewbury smiled. \"It's not much, but it certainly suggests our killer may have a more corporeal explanation than we'd previously imagined.\"\n\nBainbridge stepped away from the corpse. \"So what's to be done?\"\n\nNewbury circled the table again, finding the white sheet and folding it neatly back over the corpse. \"Miss Hobbes and I will pay a visit to Morgan's gallery tomorrow and interview the staff. I need to establish what it was he was so keen to talk to me about. It may have been what got him killed, and if so, there's a definite link between the glowing policeman and the wreck of _The Lady Armitage._ \" Bainbridge nodded, listening intently. \"I'd suggest that you have your men test this blue powder at first light. Let's see if they can't establish a manufacturer. That way we can run through their customer records and begin to narrow down the list of potential candidates for our killer.\"\n\nBainbridge grinned. \"Marvellous. Newbury, I knew you'd be of service to me when I knocked on your door this evening. Now\u2014\" He took the other man by the shoulders and led him away from the mortuary slab, his cane clicking on the tiled floor as they walked. \"\u2014what about that dinner you promised me? How about that little place you like by Kingsway?\"\nCHAPTER 16\n\n##\n\nIt was mid-morning before Newbury rose, pulled on his dressing gown and sauntered to the bathroom to begin his daily ablutions with his razor and flannel. The previous day had been a drain on him, both physically and mentally, and today he had chosen to lounge for a while in bed, reading a book. He was, of course, eager to press on with the case, but by the same token was sure that Morgan's gallery could wait for a few hours whilst he ensured that he was fully recovered from the excesses of the laudanum. He had finally emerged around ten o'clock, enjoyed a leisurely feast of porridge, fruit and toast and then, after opening his post, had taken a short constitutional stroll before hailing a cab to Kensington to call for Veronica. His mind felt sharp and alert, his body taut and wiry. His trip to the morgue with Bainbridge had proved enlightening, and he was sure they were getting closer to the heart of the mystery surrounding the wreck of _The Lady Armitage,_ and also the Whitechapel strangulations and the glowing policeman. It was clear that the two investigations were linked, somehow, and he hoped that a visit to Morgan's gallery would help him to establish the nature of that link. It would take a day or two for the police to analyse the blue powder he'd found on Morgan's corpse, but in the meantime, he'd agreed with Bainbridge that he'd press on at the gallery, and that they would keep each other informed of their progress. The discovery of the powder had been playing on his mind since the previous evening, and he couldn't help wondering if he'd somehow missed the evidence on the first few bodies that he had inspected. Were there specks of the stuff on the collars or clothes of those other victims? He certainly didn't recall seeing anything around their throats, save for bruising and the obvious signs of a fight, although he knew by now that it was too late to check. The bodies would have been interred in the local cemetery, and he was loath to start digging up graves on the off chance that he'd still be able to find evidence of a fine blue power on their clothes. In fact, in all likelihood, their clothes would have been burnt and their corpses dressed in their best suits before burial. He clacked his tongue. He supposed it may be that the killer was getting careless or arrogant, confident that no matter what trace he left of himself at the scene, the police would be unable to catch him. He may have taken care to remove all the evidence at the scenes of the first few murders, but after weeks of continued activity with no sign that the police were on to him, he may have grown lazy. Newbury had seen that before: the mad gleam in the eye of the killer, the notion that he was somehow invincible and above the law. It wouldn't surprise him if the killer turned out to be totally insane.\n\nOn the other hand, of course, he'd inspected the other bodies _in situ_ at the various murder scenes, in the dark and the fog, and it could be that he'd simply missed the evidence without the aid of the lamps and the clinical gleam of the morgue. So be it. He knew it was a waiting game now: waiting for the police laboratory to identify the powder, or else waiting for the killer to make his next move. He closed his eyes as the cab rumbled on towards Kensington, wondering which it would be.\n\nVeronica's apartment was on the ground floor of a large terraced house, built during the Georgian period, with tall sash windows and the brickwork rendered in smooth white plaster. The fumes of the passing ground trains and steam-powered carriages had begun to stain the white walls up above, turning them a dirty grey, and Newbury knew that Veronica would disapprove most heartily of this development. He found a delicious irony in that. Veronica was such a forward-thinking woman, and put such great stock in the liberation of the fairer sex, but in other ways she had yet to accept the tide of progress that was currently washing through the Empire. Industry and technology were revolutionising the world, an unstoppable force as certain as life and death, and in Newbury's view, the only options were to embrace it wholeheartedly or else be left behind. He wasn't old enough yet to get stuck in his ways.\n\nWhen Newbury did finally rap on Veronica's door, it was clear almost immediately that she had spent most of the morning awaiting his arrival. Moments after her housekeeper had come to the door, Veronica appeared in the hallway, dressed in a short grey jacket, white blouse and long grey skirt.\n\nNewbury smiled at her from the door. \"Good morning, Miss Hobbes. I'll wait for you outside.\"\n\nHe held the cab whilst she collected her belongings and put on a long woollen coat to protect her from the winter chill. The wind was bracing, and Newbury took the opportunity to seek shelter in her doorway whilst he waited. She joined him a moment later, smiled, and then climbed up into the cab without saying a word. Newbury, grinning, gave the driver instructions and clambered in behind her.\n\nSettling into his seat, he turned towards her, only to find her watching him intently from across the cab. He removed his hat and placed it neatly on the seat beside him.\n\n\"You look well today, Sir Maurice. I'm delighted to see it.\" She was wearing a kindly expression.\n\n\"Thank you, Miss Hobbes. I do believe that I am fully recovered. Please, let us speak no more of the incident\"\u2014he looked somewhat sheepishly at the floor\u2014\"if you can bear to forgive me my foolishness.\"\n\nVeronica blinked, looking from his face to the window and back again. \"I see no reason to dwell on it, Sir Maurice.\" She smiled, altering her tone. \"What plans do you have for the day ahead?\"\n\n\"Ah, well, yesterday evening brought with it developments of a sinister kind.\"\n\nVeronica leaned in, intrigued. \"Go on.\"\n\n\"After parting company with you here in Kensington, I returned directly to my lodgings, with plans to settle in for the evening, only to find Sir Charles calling on me half an hour later for dinner. It was an entirely unexpected visit, but certainly not an unwelcome one, and I invited him in to join me. During the course of our conversation, he inadvertently revealed the reason for Christopher Morgan's non-appearance at the Orleans Club yesterday afternoon.\"\n\n\"Which was?\"\n\n\"The simple fact that he was dead.\" Newbury allowed that to sink in for a moment. Veronica searched his face expectantly, waiting for him to continue. \"Killed, apparently, by the glowing policeman.\"\n\nVeronica gasped. \"Where? What happened?\"\n\n\"We're not sure. His body was discovered in Whitechapel like each of the others, but it seems doubtful that he would have been there of his own volition, especially in the early hours of the morning. I suspect he was murdered because of the secrets he held, and his body was moved to Whitechapel in an effort to disguise that fact.\"\n\nVeronica shook her head. \"So are you suggesting the two investigations may be linked?\"\n\nNewbury shrugged. \"Perhaps. I admit I have my reservations. Morgan's death is not a perfect fit with the pattern of the other murders. For a start, he was a gentleman, where the other victims were all paupers. I have no doubt that his death is in some way related to our investigation of _The Lady Armitage_ disaster; it seems far too much of a coincidence that Morgan would write to me claiming to have evidence regarding the matter just a day before he died. I think the question is whether or not his death is truly related to the glowing policeman murders, or whether the circumstances of his death are just an elaborate cover adopted by someone trying to throw us off the scent.\" He scratched his chin. \"I wish I'd had chance to talk with the man. Still, he may have left us a clue all the same.\"\n\nVeronica raised her eyebrows.\n\n\"I visited the morgue with Bainbridge last night to examine the body. We found specks of a strange blue powder around the throat and collar of the corpse.\"\n\n\"Meaning? . . .\"\n\n\"Meaning nothing, as yet. But it could be the method by which the killer is disguising himself as the glowing policeman, covering his face and hands in this iridescent powder. It would certainly fit the descriptions we've had from the various witness reports. Scotland Yard are running some tests in an attempt to identify the manufacturer of the powder.\"\n\n\"So you're convinced now that the glowing policeman is not of supernatural origin?\"\n\nNewbury shook his head. \"I'm convinced _Morgan's_ killer is not of supernatural origin. We've seen no evidence of this powder on the other bodies from Whitechapel, so I'm reluctant to make any assumptions about whether or not they were killed by the same hand. We can't rule out the idea, but neither can we jump to conclusions. Still, the powder gives us a lead, of sorts. Whether it aids us in simply resolving the mystery surrounding the airship crash, or whether it also leads us to the Whitechapel strangler, time will tell.\" He smiled. \"Whatever the case, I'm hoping we'll find some further answers at Morgan's art gallery today, or at least some more clues to point us in the right direction.\"\n\n\"One thing is certain. There doesn't appear to be a simple solution to any of this.\" Veronica shrugged, folding her hands on her lap.\n\nNewbury smiled. \"There rarely is, my dear Miss Hobbes. There rarely is.\"\n\nNewbury looked up, startled as the cab came to a sudden juddering halt. He peered out of the window. The cab had come to rest before a large red brick building. It was a single storey structure, no bigger than a public bath-house, with a sloping roof of grey slate tiles and an elaborate entrance porch in the classical style, with four large Corinthian columns and a series of low steps up to the door. Ivy formed a web-work across the fascia of the building, trimmed to accommodate the entrance-way itself, and a small pleasant garden gave the impression that both the gallery and grounds were kept in impeccable order. A sober-looking sign by the front gate read THE CHRISTOPHER MORGAN GALLERY OF FINE ART.\n\n\"Miss Hobbes. I do believe we've arrived.\"\n\nVeronica looked round. \"Do you think there'll be anyone here? Given the circumstances, I mean?\"\n\n\"I have no idea. We shan't let it stop us, though. Come on.\"\n\nNewbury paid the fare and, having dismounted the cab, moved to stand beside the wrought-iron gate, surveying the scene before him. The cab driver steered the horses around a large turning circle at the end of the driveway and guided them off towards the city once again, their hooves clacking on the cobbled road.\n\nNewbury took a moment to enjoy the view of the building and its grounds. He noted that the flower-beds were still bursting with colour, even at this late point in November. Overhead, pigeons cooed noisily as they wheeled in the sky, high above the bustle of the city. Veronica crossed the path to stand beside him. After a moment, he held out his arm for her, and she took it appreciatively, locking her arm in his, and together they set off towards the gallery, their feet crunching on the loose gravel of the path as they walked.\n\nMoments later, to their surprise, they found themselves joined in the courtyard by a burly-looking policeman who had apparently seen them coming and stepped out from the shadow of the doorway, where he must have been standing for some time. He nodded politely and cleared his throat. \"The gallery is closed today, sir. I'm afraid you've had a wasted journey.\"\n\nNewbury smiled. \"On the contrary, my good man. We're here on business.\" He withdrew his arm from Veronica's and fished around in his jacket pocket before producing a black leather wallet filled with crisp yellow documents. \"Here, allow me to show you my papers.\"\n\nThe policeman stepped forwards and took the proffered papers from Newbury. He glanced over them briefly, his eyes widening at the sight of Her Majesty's seal and signature, before handing them back to the other man. There was a minor alteration in his posture. \"Please forgive me, sir. How can I be of assistance?\"\n\nNewbury folded the wallet away into his pocket once again. \"Thank you. We're fully appraised of the situation regarding Mr. Morgan's death. You need not divert your attentions away from your duties on our behalf, Constable. Nevertheless, can you tell us if there have been any further developments since yesterday evening? Did any of your officers find anything of interest inside?\" He nodded at the building, as if clarifying his question.\n\nThe policeman shook his head. \"No, sir. Inspector Lewis spent much of yesterday interviewing the staff and searching the gallery for evidence, but there appears to be nothing out of order. It doesn't seem likely that the victim was killed on the premises, and we've been unable to establish a motive for any other suspects, either. Much the same as the rest of those Whitechapel killings, if you ask me.\" He glanced over his shoulder at the gallery. \"We're keeping an eye on the place all the same, mind you.\"\n\nNewbury frowned. \"Would you mind if we took a look around? We won't disturb anything, but I think it would aid our own investigation.\"\n\nThe policeman stepped to one side to let them pass. \"Be my guest. The staff all turned up for work today, too, so you'll find most of them inside. Not sure what's to become of them, really.\"\n\n\"Yes, a sorry state of affairs.\" Newbury led the way towards the gallery entrance, mounting the steps. \"Thank you, Constable.\" He pushed on the door and stepped inside, Veronica following close behind him.\n\nThe foyer was a spacious room, with a large reception desk and two doors leading off to either side of the building. Newbury guessed these led to the two exhibition galleries he'd seen advertised in the papers, one featuring the work of a Frenchman, Gustave Loiseau, the other a British artist named Paul Maitland. The reception desk was unmanned, and the place was quiet. It was as if the building itself were in mourning for the loss of its patron.\n\nNewbury crossed the room, his heels clicking loudly on the marble floor. He stopped before the door on the right, turning towards Veronica. \"Shall we take a wing each, Miss Hobbes? I've never been enamoured of the Impressionist school, but I'm interested to see why this Frenchman has been causing such a stir throughout London.\" He grinned. \"If you happen across Morgan's office, don't touch anything. I think it's best we tackle that together.\"\n\nHe didn't wait for Veronica to respond before disappearing through the open door, the sound of his footsteps ringing out into the cavernous space of the foyer.\n\nVeronica waited until the sound of Newbury's footfalls had diminished, and then she turned in the other direction, heading towards the left wing of the gallery.\n\nPassing through the doorway, she realised that the gallery itself comprised a series of interconnected rooms, each one featuring an array of paintings hung neatly on white walls. Many of the paintings were landscapes, and she recognised a number of them as views of the English countryside. The palette was subdued, but even so, against the stark white of the walls the colours leapt out at her like vibrant splashes of light. She supposed that was the point.\n\nShe toured the room, paying no real attention to the details in the paintings. She found the mood of the place serious and maudlin. There was nothing of Christopher Morgan in here; only the artist and the works he had chosen to display.\n\nAn archway led through to another room, longer this time, although the paintings continued in the same vein: trees and landscapes, the occasional building. There was no doubt in Veronica's mind that the artist had great ability, but personally the pieces left her cold. She moved on, hoping to find evidence of people in the next room.\n\nShe was not disappointed. The exhibition appeared to terminate in this third and final chamber, and she could hear voices coming from behind a tall panelled door that was marked with the word PRIVATE on a small brass plate. She approached the door and knocked loudly with the back of her hand. The chattering ceased.\n\nAfter a moment, she heard footsteps approaching the door from the other side, and then it creaked open, its hinges protesting loudly, and a boyish face with ginger hair and startling blue eyes appeared at the opening. \"Yes?\"\n\nVeronica was a little taken aback by the man's directness. \"Oh. Good morning. I'm here with the Crown investigation, looking into the matter of Mr. Morgan's unfortunate death. I'd appreciate it if I could come in and ask you a few questions?\"\n\nThe man's face fell. \"More questions?\" He opened the door to its full extent and stepped aside to allow Veronica through. \"We spent a good deal of yesterday talking to the police. Do we really need to go over it all again?\"\n\nVeronica glanced around the room. This was obviously the staff and office area behind the scenes of the main gallery. Three other people were seated at a large table, two men and a woman, all watching her with interest as she took in her surroundings. There were two other doors exiting the room, both marked with brass plaques similar to the one on the door she had just come through. One read STOREROOM, whilst the other read MR. C. MORGAN, ESQ., PROPRIETOR.\n\nShe turned towards the man with red hair. \"I'm afraid so, although we'll do our best to keep it to a minimum.\" She glanced at the other expectant faces around the table. \"My name is Miss Veronica Hobbes. May I take a seat for a few moments whilst we wait for my companion?\"\n\nThere was a brief pause, and then the woman stood. \"Please do, Miss Hobbes. We know you're here to help.\" She frowned at the redheaded man before indicating a chair. Veronica accepted it gratefully. The woman returned to her seat, as did the redheaded man, who plopped himself down opposite Veronica, scowling. The woman continued. \"I'm Cynthia. This is Jake.\" She pointed to the man on her left, a slight rakish-looking chap in a grey suit, who nodded in acknowledgement. \"This is Stephen,\" she said next, this time indicating the man on her right, who gave the impression of being a labourer of some sort, dressed in a waistcoat and shirt and with a swarthy look about him. \"And this,\" she said, shaking her head and pointing at the redheaded man, \"this is Adam.\"\n\nVeronica tried her best to give a sympathetic smile. \"I suspect things are a little up in the air for you all at the moment.\" She directed her question at the woman. \"Did you all know Mr. Morgan very well?\"\n\nCynthia nodded. \"As well as anyone knows their employer. He was a good man, Miss Hobbes, and he didn't deserve what happened to him.\" She glanced at Jake, who picked up the conversation.\n\n\"We'd all heard stories about this glowing policeman, read the reports in the newspapers about the killings in Whitechapel, but none of us can understand how Mr. Morgan got involved in all that business. He never mentioned it to any of us. It's just senseless.\"\n\n\"And now no one seems to know what will happen to the gallery. Mr. Morgan's son is in Africa, and his wife died last year of pneumonia. We're waiting for the solicitor to tell us whether we're out on the street or not.\" Adam shook his head.\n\n\"Tell me, had Mr. Morgan exhibited any unusual behaviour in the last few weeks? Have there been any strange occurrences at the gallery?\"\n\nThey heard a noise and looked around as one to see Newbury standing in the doorway. He'd obviously been listening to the conversation for a few moments.\n\nVeronica turned back to the others. \"This is Sir Maurice. He is responsible for our investigation.\"\n\nCynthia shrugged, looking from Veronica to Newbury. \"No. Nothing out of the ordinary.\"\n\n\"Unless you count that automaton device that Mr. Morgan brought back to the gallery a few weeks ago?\" The man called Stephen spoke in a quiet, unassuming voice that seemed somewhat at odds with his swarthy, manly appearance.\n\nNewbury paced into the room, resting his hands on the back of an empty chair. \"Go on.\"\n\nThe man looked at the table-top as he talked, clearly nervous. \"Well, Mr. Morgan bought one of those new automaton men a few weeks ago, and brought it back to the gallery to serve drinks during the private viewings. He wanted it to be a talking point amongst the guests.\"\n\nVeronica leaned closer to hear. \"And what happened?\"\n\nStephen glanced at her. \"After a few days, it started to behave erratically. It failed to carry out Mr. Morgan's instructions and began shambling around the place like it had lost its balance. It started to emit strange sounds, high-pitched whistles and suchlike.\" He toyed with his fingers. \"Then, on the following day, it attacked Mansfield, the desk clerk, when he came in to look at the books. Mr. Morgan and I had to prise it off of him and lock it in the storeroom until the manufacturers could come and collect it. It made a hell of a racket in there.\"\n\n\"Was anybody hurt?\"\n\n\"Just cuts and bruises. But Mr. Morgan was hopping mad. He sent a telegram to the company he'd bought it from. He refused to have a replacement. Said the things were dangerous and should be banned.\"\n\nNewbury stood back from the table. \"Do you know the name of this manufacturer?\"\n\nStephen met his gaze. \"I do, sir. Chapman and Villiers. I remember it clear as day.\"\n\nNewbury walked over to the door marked STOREROOM. \"Is this where you imprisoned it?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nHe opened the door and glanced inside. Veronica craned her neck to see. The contents of the cupboard were exactly as one would expect: a mop and pail, a broom, a shelf full of cleaning products. The inside of the door, however, was marked with a series of long gouges, scratches where the automaton had clearly tried to break out of the cupboard, raking its brass fingers across the wood. Newbury caught Veronica's eye. He closed the door.\n\n\"Is any of this actually relevant?\" Adam sat back in his chair, clearly put out by the conversation. \"What difference does it make now? Mr. Morgan was murdered by the glowing policeman, and no talk of automatons and clerks is going to bring him back.\"\n\nCynthia leaned across the table and took his hand. \"Adam, everything is going to be alright.\" The young man pushed his chair back petulantly and got to his feet, strolling pointedly from the room. Cynthia sighed, waiting for the sound of his footsteps to fade before speaking. \"He's young, and he's taken it hard. He was fond of Mr. Morgan, and he's worried about losing his earnings.\" She shrugged once more. \"We all are.\"\n\nVeronica stood. \"I can assure you that we'll do everything we can to find the culprit. You've been very helpful. Now, if we can just take a quick look inside Mr. Morgan's office, we'll leave you to your mourning.\"\n\nJake nodded. \"The door's open. Go ahead. I'm not sure you'll find anything of use in there, mind you. The police have been through it once already.\"\n\nVeronica navigated her way around the table, and together, she and Newbury left the three remaining employees to their thoughts.\n\nJake's words had proved more or less correct, and the two investigators had found nothing of real use in Morgan's sparsely furnished office. The desk had been piled high with correspondence, but much of it had already been rifled through by the police, and it consisted mostly of bills, receipts and speculative letters from artists, soliciting Morgan to exhibit their work. Veronica had managed to locate the receipt, and consequent refund slip, from Chapman and Villiers, and was appalled by the expense Morgan had gone to in acquiring the unit. It was no wonder he had complained bitterly when the thing began to malfunction: the device had cost him more than Veronica was paid in a year. She had passed the documents to Newbury, who had folded them carefully and slipped them into his pocket for later use.\n\nAs they strolled along the private driveway outside the gallery, Newbury's disposition seemed to brighten. \"Well, Miss Hobbes. Another interesting development, wouldn't you say?\"\n\nVeronica smiled. \"Absolutely. I believe I could now hazard a guess as to what it was that Morgan wished to talk to you about yesterday.\"\n\n\"Indeed?\"\n\n\"Well, it sounds to me as if Morgan had cast-iron proof that the automaton units are not, as Monsieur Villiers had us believe, impervious to malfunction.\"\n\n\"Precisely my thoughts, Miss Hobbes. It seems as though our friends from Battersea were a little economical with the truth.\"\n\n\"To my mind, that puts Chapman and Villiers themselves very much in the frame for Morgan's murder. They certainly had a motive. It also suggests that the pilot of _The Lady Armitage_ may indeed have been subject to a malfunction. Shall we pay them another visit this afternoon?\"\n\nNewbury shook his head. \"No, my dear Miss Hobbes. It's too soon for all that. We need more evidence before we can build a case against them. Motive on its own is not enough. Certainly, they had a lot to gain from Morgan's death, but we still don't know what the link to the Whitechapel case may be, if any. I don't want to compromise either investigation by charging ahead prematurely. No, I suggest we part company for a short while.\"\n\nVeronica looked concerned.\n\nNewbury laughed. \"Don't worry, I'm not about to go charging off without you. I'm overdue a stop at the office, and I'm anxious to see if there is news from Miss Coulthard. Are you free this evening?\"\n\n\"Yes, of course.\"\n\n\"Then how would you like to accompany me to a soiree?\n\nThe Hanbury-Whites are hosting a party at their house in St. John's Wood and I was planning to attend.\"\n\nVeronica looked a little taken aback. \"Thank you, Sir Maurice. I would be delighted to accompany you.\" She smiled, fiddling with the buttons on her coat.\n\n\"Excellent. I will call for you in a cab around seven.\"\n\n\"Just be sure that it's one of the horse-drawn variety, and not one of those terrible modern contraptions. I can't bear the noise and the smell.\"\n\nNewbury chuckled. \"I most certainly will.\"\n\nThey turned from the driveway onto the street, which was bustling with mid-afternoon traffic. Newbury hesitated. \"Can I drop you now?\"\n\nVeronica shook her head. \"No. I'm intent on a stroll. You go ahead.\"\n\n\"Are you sure? It's quite a walk back to Kensington.\"\n\n\"Positive. I could do with the exercise.\"\n\nNewbury nodded, and Veronica watched as he hailed a cab, and, with a brief wave, disappeared inside. Then, wrapping her coat around her shoulders, she set off into the blustery afternoon, a wide grin on her face.\nCHAPTER 17\n\n##\n\nThe party was in full swing when, later that evening, Newbury and Veronica arrived in St. John's Wood, climbing out of their cab to stand in the shadow of the extravagant family home of the Hanbury-Whites. The moon was a bright disk in the sky, wreathed in wintry mist, and Veronica's breath plumed in the frosty air. She turned on the spot, taking in the view.\n\nCarriages and hansom cabs were arriving and departing in a constant stream, depositing guests on the gravelled driveway at the foot of a large flight of stone steps. Visitors dressed in their best finery flowed up these steps, disappearing into the grand entranceway as if it were the maw of some ancient famished beast. Inside, silhouettes chattered to one another behind brightly lit windows, and the hubbub of voices was spilling out into the night, an undulating cacophony of pleasantries, compliments, vitriolic sleights and whispered asides. Butlers stood in the open doorway, greeting the guests and taking their coats as they drifted through to the party inside.\n\nThe house was magnificent. Built about a hundred years before, it had all the wonderful proportions of Georgian architecture that she had come to adore, the same that had inspired her to take the lodgings she now kept in Kensington: tall sash windows, a glorious front porch, a squat rectangular shape. It lacked the ostentation of the more recent buildings that had been springing up all over London, and she approved wholeheartedly. She couldn't wait to see inside. Years ago, her parents had introduced her to London society, and she had visited a great many of the grand houses in the city, but with the news of Amelia's illness, they had spent the last year in solitude, retreating from the social scene, and the effect had been to leave Veronica without a means to engage with it herself. She was grateful to Newbury for the opportunity to join him this evening, and for giving her the chance to wear something other than the functional attire she often found herself donning for the office. Worse, her recent activities in the field\u2014climbing through the wreckage of burnt-out airships or visiting manufactories on the other side of the river\u2014had left her feeling less than ladylike. Tonight, she'd decided, as she looked herself over in the cheval glass at her apartment, she would redress that balance. She turned to Newbury, who was standing alongside her. \"Thank you for bringing me here.\"\n\nHe smiled warmly. \"You're welcome, my dear.\" He was wearing a smart, black evening suit; formal, but with a forgiving cut. Around his throat he wore a perfectly knotted bow tie, and a top hat balanced precariously on one side of his head. He looked the perfect picture of a gentleman. He turned to look Veronica up and down, now that he had an opportunity to admire her properly in the light of the street-lamps. She was dressed in an immaculate flowing gown of yellow silk. It had a low neckline, exposing the soft pink flesh of her throat and chest. The bodice was fitted, with skirts that flowed all the way to the floor and skimmed the ground as she walked. The ensemble was finished with a single string of opalescent pearls and a pair of matching earrings. Her hair was tied up in an elaborate coiffure.\n\n\"Miss Hobbes, I must add that you look wonderful this evening.\" Newbury, attempting to hide his embarrassment, offered his arm, and together they climbed the steps towards the bustle of the house.\n\nInside, it was immediately clear to Veronica that the party was very much the zenith of London society that evening. Everywhere she looked, she saw faces she recognised, as well as ten others she did not. The place was bustling with ambassadors, politicians and gentlemen, not to mention their multitudes of wives and daughters. She stood for a moment on the threshold of a large room, arm in arm with Newbury, and together they surveyed the scene. Brass automata wove through the press of people, elegantly side-stepping the little conversational clusters that had formed, bearing trays full of drinks and food. Veronica watched as one made a lap of the room, its glassy, spinning eyes shimmering in the reflected light of the gas-lamps, the porthole in its chest revealing the crackling blue of the electrical charge generated by its winding mechanism. For all the stories she'd heard that day about the unit that had malfunctioned at Morgan's art gallery, she was still impressed by the machines and the smooth manner in which they seemed to integrate with the party and its revellers. She watched people snatching drinks from the trays as the automata brushed past them, hardly pausing in their conversations to consider the miraculous nature of the devices that were wandering amongst them, pandering to their every need. There were at least ten of the devices waiting on the guests, and Veronica couldn't help wondering at the expense the Hanbury-Whites must have gone to in having them there. She had seen the price of an individual unit that morning and could only suppose that the automata were there on loan, and did not actually belong to the household itself\u2014that would surely be too much.\n\nShe leaned in towards Newbury, keeping her voice low. His hair smelled faintly of lavender. \"I admit to feeling a little nervous in the presence of so many automata. After hearing the stories this morning at the gallery, I mean.\"\n\nNewbury nodded, acknowledging her concern, but it was clear he was feeling playful. \"My dear Miss Hobbes, it's not the automata you should be worried about. They may be dressed in their best finery, but I assure you, half the men in this room are more dangerous than those devices could ever be.\" He smiled. \"Come on, keep your wits about you and we'll do a lap.\"\n\nHe led her in a circuit of the room, nodding politely at the other guests as they passed each one in turn. Newbury was clearly an established figure amongst the society crowd, and was greeted innumerable times by men whom Veronica did not recognise: men wearing ancient wispy beards, men dressed in immaculate military attire, men who gave the impression of being nothing but ridiculous fops. In turn, Newbury was polite, but he did not allow himself to be drawn into conversation, having just the right air about him of a man who needed to be somewhere else and could not stop to pass time in idle chit-chat.\n\nAfter making a circuit of about half the large room, they paused momentarily by the fireplace and were approached by one of the automata. Newbury claimed two flutes of champagne from the proffered tray, passing one to Veronica. The automaton paused, cocking its head to regard them. For a moment, it remained there, eerily still. The moment stretched. Veronica thought she could hear the sound of its mechanisms whirring away inside, but then it turned away and moved on, drifting towards another small gathering of guests who looked as if they were in need of more refreshment. Veronica shivered, and took a long draw from her glass.\n\nAfter passing a few words with a man named Dr. Russ, who had seemed rather engaging and had complimented Veronica enthusiastically on her dress, patting Newbury on the shoulder like an old friend, the two of them exited the room through a second door, winding their way farther into the large house. They walked along a short hallway filled with the billowing smoke of cigarettes, dodging the crowd that had spilled out from the other rooms, and coming to a set of double doors, behind which more chattering voices could be heard.\n\n\"I believe this should be worth seeing, Miss Hobbes.\" Newbury, grinning, pushed on the doors and they swung open, revealing a large chamber filled with row upon row of wooden chairs, arranged to accommodate a large piano and two stools in the corner of the room. Music stands had been set up, and sheets of notation had already been placed _in situ_. Many of the seats in the room had already been taken, but there were a few empty rows near the very front of the chamber. The guests were mostly engaged in talking amongst themselves, but a number of them looked up as the newcomers entered the room.\n\nNewbury cleared his throat. \"Come on, let's find somewhere to sit. I'm told the performance will be a real eye-opener.\"\n\nSmiling, Veronica allowed herself to be led.\n\nNewbury, nodding and greeting the other members of the assembled audience as they shuffled along the central aisle, located two chairs in the very front row and indicated that Veronica should take a seat. She lowered herself carefully into the chair, ensuring that her skirt did not crumple too severely beneath her. Newbury took his place beside her, first taking a printed order of play from the pile on a nearby table. He flicked through it quickly, and then placed it on his lap, folding his hands over it.\n\nHe turned to Veronica, his voice lowered. \"Looks like they're starting with Elgar. Could be worse.\" He grinned.\n\nVeronica shook her head. It was clear Newbury was enjoying himself, but not, as far as she could tell, for the same reasons as the other guests. He did not seem to want to engage with the society crowd, at least any more than he deemed necessary. Instead, Veronica got the distinct impression that he was toying with them, laughing at their self-congratulatory attitudes, and whilst she did not believe he actually thought himself above his peers, it seemed as if he were remaining purposefully aloof from them. It was an interesting side to his character, and one that she had not expected to see.\n\nVeronica heard the doors swing open behind her and a hush descend on the room. She glanced over her shoulder, almost gasping out loud at the sight she saw. A man in his fifties, with greying hair and a slight limp in his left leg, was leading two automata into the room. They walked with the typical mechanical gait of the others of their kind, but were each dressed in a neat black suit and tie, and one was clutching a violin and bow firmly between its padded brass fingers. She tracked them as they strode down the central aisle between the rows of chairs, taking up their positions in the corner. The automaton holding the violin took a seat on a stool before the music stand and readied itself, tucking the instrument neatly underneath its chin. The other lowered itself into place before the piano, its brass feet clicking as it found the pedals, its fingers resting silently on the ivory keys. The man who had entered the room with them took his place beside the piano, paused, and seemed to steady himself with a deep lungful of air. He looked around the room, ensuring that the audience was prepared, and then turned back to the two automata. With a sharp flick of his wrist, he cued them to begin their performance.\n\nNewbury glanced at Veronica, a smile on his face.\n\nThe violin stirred. Veronica settled back into her seat, watching intently. The automaton drew the bow back and forth across the strings with an expert touch, and she found she was holding her breath, not wanting to exhale, lest she somehow shatter the magic of the moment. She closed her eyes, allowing the music to wash over her. It was deeply affecting, and delivered with incredible precision. The piano joined in then, the other automaton timing its performance so that it seamlessly segued along with its companion at the violin. The music soared, both arresting and beautiful, and Veronica could barely believe that it was being delivered so perfectly by two inhuman devices, designed, so she had thought, for simple labour and not for complex tasks such as this. Waiting on guests was one thing\u2014even maintaining an airship in flight\u2014but delivering a piece of music with such skill and power made her think twice about the nature of these brass machines. She'd assumed the automata lacked any real sense or emotion, lacked the sentience of living things, being simply machines that could be programmed with punch cards to _imitate_ human behaviour, rather than having any awareness of self, or of how their behaviour would impact others. Judging by the skill with which they handled their instruments, however, she began to doubt that assumption. She'd always maintained that music was more than just the sum of its parts; not so much a technical skill in isolation, but an emotional one, too, an art form that blended passion with ability. She was astounded by the quality of the automata's performance, and moved by it as well.\n\nShe glanced around the room, trying to get a measure of the audience's response. Like her, many others in the room were entirely engaged with the performance. Newbury had closed his eyes and seemed lulled by the melody. She twisted in her seat, looking back towards the double doors by which they had entered the chamber. To her surprise, Joseph Chapman was standing there, his hands clasped behind his back, looking ill at ease in his formal attire. He seemed to be staring directly at her. Veronica blinked, and then looked away. She tried to focus on the performance, but had the bizarre sense that Chapman's eyes were burning holes in the back of her head. Her face flushed. She glanced back. Chapman was still staring over at her, his face blank, showing no sign of emotion. Feeling uncomfortable, she looked away, nudging Newbury with her elbow. Surprised, he turned to face her, his eyes questioning.\n\nShe whispered, and pointed over her shoulder with her thumb. \"Chapman.\"\n\nNewbury strained in his seat, searching the back of the room for the man. After a moment, with no success, he glanced back at Veronica, shaking his head. Unnerved, she leaned on the back of her chair, trying to see what had become of the industrialist. The woman in the chair behind her made a _tut_ ting sound and shifted obviously in her seat, making her displeasure with the fidgeting Veronica clearly evident. Veronica sank back into her chair, frustrated. Newbury placed his hand on hers in a placating gesture. A few moments later, the automata finished their first piece, and both Newbury and Veronica joined in with the enthusiastic applause. Then, when the moment seemed appropriate, Newbury stood, held his hand out for Veronica, and lifted her out of her chair. As politely as possible, the two of them slipped away from the scene, leaving the room to silent glares from the other members of the audience. Veronica heard the music starting up again as the door fell shut behind them.\n\nThe hallway was still bustling with guests. Newbury leaned in closer and spoke into her ear. \"Are you alright?\"\n\nVeronica shrugged. \"Yes. Just a little unnerved. It wasn't a friendly look he gave me. He seemed somehow . . . sinister. It was as if he were trying to threaten me in some way.\"\n\nNewbury frowned. \"Are you sure it was Chapman that you saw?\"\n\nVeronica nodded. \"Certain.\"\n\nNewbury straightened his back. \"Well, in that case, let's see if we can't find out where he's hiding now.\" He took Veronica by the arm and led her back towards the main thrust of the party, passing a gaggle of squawking women in the hallway as they did so. Newbury cringed as the ladies seemed to grow momentarily silent, whispering to one another conspiratorially as they brushed by. Veronica wondered what inane secrets they were sharing at Newbury and Veronica's expense. The giggling resumed again almost as soon as Newbury and Veronica had reached the other end of the hall.\n\nThe party had swelled in the few minutes they'd been away from the main reception room, with more and more guests arriving and others yet to drift away from the main hubbub and farther into the bowels of the great house. The room was hot and bustling with people. The automata waited patiently in the wings, surveying the crowd, ready to step forward at any time to offer the guests more refreshment. Newbury strained to see over the heads of the nearby dignitaries. After a moment, he stopped craning his neck and leaned in to whisper to Veronica. \"No sign of Chapman in here. At least that I can see from the doorway. Shall we do another lap and try to get a better look?\"\n\nVeronica nodded. \"I'd feel better about it if we did. At least that way I'd know I'm not imagining things.\"\n\nNewbury gave her a reassuring look. \"I'm sure that's not the case. We don't have to confront him about it, but we can certainly try to keep an eye on him, if indeed he's here. Come on.\"\n\nThey edged into the room, taking two further flutes of champagne from the tray proffered by the automaton near the door, and began the process of slowly weaving their way through the crowd, working clockwise around the edges of the room. Veronica held on tightly to Newbury's arm as they manoeuvred through the press of guests, keeping their eyes peeled for any sign of the industrialist. It wasn't long before they'd circled back as far as the main entrance. Finding a little more breathing space there, they decided to take a moment to pause. Guests were still arriving as they stood with their backs to the door, surveying the room. Newbury sipped at his drink, regarding the little huddles of people nearby. \"Perhaps he left?\"\n\n\"Or perhaps he's watching us from elsewhere in the room?\" Veronica shivered at the thought.\n\nNewbury frowned. He looked as if he were just about to reply when he stopped suddenly and turned away at the sound of shouting from the other side of the room. A hush descended on the party like a thick blanket, smothering the chatter. It was difficult to make out what was being said, but a man was clearly engaged in directing a torrent of abuse at another man whom he felt had somehow done him a disservice.\n\n\"\u2014and another thing, sir! Your company's literature clearly states that in circumstances such as this, full recompense is assured. Yet I continue to find no such recompense is forthcoming! A damnable business, and you, sir, are a damnable man!\"\n\nNewbury raised his eyebrow at Veronica. Neither of them could see anything through the gathered throng. There was a wave of gasping sounds, and then the crowd suddenly parted as two automata, their trays now abandoned, moved forward, their brass feet clicking on the marble floor, a middle-aged gentleman in a black suit between them. The automata each held one of the man's shoulders as they forcibly marched him towards the exit. The man was squirming, clearly in discomfort, and the spinning eyes of the automata glinted in the low light, their features frozen, unmoveable. Behind them, Joseph Chapman stood with his hands on his hips, a wry smile on his face. He glanced at Newbury and then nodded politely, his eyes flicking away to watch as his two brass guardians escorted the other man from the building. Then, as the guests all looked upon the scene with a kind of horrified fascination, he set off after his clockwork devices, exiting the party through the main entrance. Outside, the sound of the man's protests trailed away down the street. The party took only a moment to recover, and then the hubbub began in earnest once again, the society gossips quickly moving to engage one another with talk of the scandal.\n\nNewbury looked at Veronica, bemused. \"Well, my dear Miss Hobbes, you were certainly right about Chapman being in attendance here tonight, but it seems as if the problem has miraculously solved itself.\"\n\nVeronica smiled. \"Yes, you could say that, I suppose. But what do you make of it all? It strikes me that the unfortunate captive of those automata may be a likely witness in our developing case.\"\n\nNewbury nodded. \"Yes, it certainly seems that way, doesn't it? I get the distinct impression that the poor gentleman may have had a similar experience to Mr. Morgan.\"\n\nVeronica looked thoughtful. \"Indeed. Do you think he's in danger of suffering the same fate? Should we go after them?\"\n\nNewbury shook his head. \"No, I'll wager the man is in no danger, this evening at least.\" He took a long draw from his flute of champagne. \"Even if Chapman is somehow connected to Morgan's death, this outcry was a little too public for anything to come of it now. The connection would be obvious to everyone. The automata will take the man around the corner and he'll flee to his abode, angry and embarrassed. No doubt Chapman will take the opportunity to gloat to anyone who'll listen.\"\n\nVeronica placed her empty glass on a sideboard behind her. One of the automata immediately made a beeline over to reclaim it. \"It is interesting, though, isn't it? I mean, after finding us in the other room watching the performance. It's almost like Chapman arranged for us to see this little charade. Did you notice how he made a point of catching your eye?\"\n\n\"I did. I wonder what it is he's up to.\" Newbury was watching the crowd again as he talked. \"Let's see if we can discover the identity of Chapman's protagonist before the night is out. That way, we can pay him a visit in the morning.\"\n\n\"And now?\"\n\n\"And now we have a party to attend.\" He smiled, holding out his arm. \"I believe we were in the middle of doing a turn around the room. And you, my dear Miss Hobbes, look as though you could use another drink.\"\n\nArm in arm, they rejoined the gathered crowd and searched out another glass of champagne, keeping a wary eye on the automata as they tried to enjoy the rest of the party.\nCHAPTER 18\n\n##\n\nNewbury woke with a thick head and a dry mouth. He rolled over, burying his face in his pillow. Then, as if surfacing from a glassy pool of water, he suddenly became aware of the world outside of his own head. Someone was rapping insistently on the door to his bedchamber. He rolled onto his back, peeling back his eyelids. It was still dark; there was no light streaming in through the window, and he hadn't yet had sleep enough to banish the residue of the alcohol he had consumed the night before. Early morning, then. He sat up, running a hand through his hair.\n\n\"Sir Maurice? Are you there?\" The rapping continued.\n\nNewbury frowned. \"Yes, Mrs. Bradshaw. I'm awake.\"\n\nThere was an audible sigh of relief from the other side of the door. \"Very well, sir. Sir Charles is here to see you. I've asked him to wait in the living-room. Shall I assure him that you will attend to him shortly? I understand that it is a matter of some importance.\"\n\nNewbury pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He groped around in the semi-darkness for his pocket-watch, finding it on the bedside table. He peered at it intently, trying to see the hands. It was just after five. It must be important, for Charles to be calling at this hour. \"Please do, Mrs. Bradshaw. I'll be with him momentarily.\"\n\nMrs. Bradshaw's footsteps fell away from the door, and Newbury slumped back into his pillows, rubbing his eyes. Then, sighing, he slipped from underneath the warm woollen blankets of his bed and stood beside his dresser, shivering in the chill. He blinked a few times until his eyes had adjusted properly to the dim light, and then searched out his dressing gown, flung it around his shoulders and shoved his feet into the slippers he kept underneath his bed. A moment later, he was following behind Mrs. Bradshaw, squinting in the bright light of the gas-lamps as he stumbled down the stairs to meet his friend.\n\nBainbridge was pacing anxiously before the fireplace, which was dull and cold and full of nothing but ash at this early hour in the morning. He held a brandy in his hand, but appeared not to have taken a swig of it, as yet. He looked up when Newbury came into the room, his moustache bristling at the sight of his old friend, still dressed in his bedclothes and suffering from a mild hangover.\n\nNewbury looked the other man up and down. \"There's been another murder in Whitechapel.\"\n\nBainbridge looked astounded by this rather minor piece of deduction. \"How did you\u2014?\"\n\nNewbury sighed. \"Why else would you be here at this hour, Charles?\" He shrugged. \"Your boots are still clean, and you look like you've dressed hastily: your tie is askew and you've notched your belt on the wrong hole.\" Bainbridge looked down at his belt, and then shook his head in exasperation. \"I take it you've only recently been made aware of the situation and have come to pick me up on your way over to the scene?\"\n\nBainbridge nodded. \"Indeed. As you say. So jolly well go and fetch up some clothes and make yourself presentable, man. I've already sent a cab for Miss Hobbes.\" He took a swig of his brandy and leaned heavily on the mantelpiece.\n\nNewbury nodded, smiling, and then disappeared once again from the room.\n\nA few minutes later, the two men took their leave of Newbury's Chelsea home and mounted the cab that Bainbridge had left waiting for them on the road outside. Its steam engine spluttered noisily as the driver gunned the controls and sent the vehicle careening into the cold, dark morning. Newbury, his head still groggy from the alcohol and lack of sleep, fell back into the seat inside. He had dressed hastily and still wore the shadow of a beard around his face and throat, but had more or less managed to make himself presentable. He looked up when Bainbridge tapped on the window with the end of his cane. \"Not sure how much longer I can put up with this abominable weather, Newbury.\" He glanced out at the smoky, fog-filled streets as they rushed by. \"This damnable fog makes our police work doubly hard. Gives these criminal types the cover they need for sneaking around the city at all hours.\" He sounded weary.\n\nNewbury nodded, but didn't speak. He watched the shapes of building flit past, hidden by the gossamer mist that seemed to soften the edges of everything, making the real world outside the cab seem insubstantial, otherworldly.\n\n\"Are you well, Maurice? You seem unusually quiet.\"\n\n\"Quite well, Charles. I attended the soiree at the Hanbury-Whites' last night. I fear I may have led Miss Hobbes rather astray; we indulged in one too many glasses of champagne amidst the merriment.\"\n\nBainbridge laughed heartily. \"Then I shall conserve my sympathy for more worthy subjects! I take it there was much merriment to be had, in that case?\"\n\nNewbury grimaced. \"A little. Most interesting, however, was the scene between a certain Mr. Musgrave of Islington and Joseph Chapman, of Chapman and Villiers Air Transportation Services.\"\n\n\"How so?\"\n\n\"It appears Chapman sold Musgrave one of those automaton devices. It later malfunctioned and killed his best hound. The word from the society gossips is that Musgrave had been trying to claim compensation from the company and, having received no satisfactory response, took the opportunity to set upon Chapman in front of everyone at the party.\"\n\nBainbridge sat forward, resting on his cane. \"So what happened?\"\n\n\"Not a great deal, if truth be told. Chapman had Musgrave escorted from the party by two of his automata and then made his own exit from the proceedings. We didn't see him again all night.\"\n\n\"How peculiar. Do you think it's relevant to your case?\"\n\nNewbury nodded. \" _Our_ case, Charles. You're forgetting Christopher Morgan. It transpires that the same situation is true of Morgan, although in his case, it ended in a rather more grisly fashion. He'd also had an automaton malfunction at his gallery and had successfully negotiated a refund from Chapman. However, when he heard about _The Lady Armitage,_ he wrote to me asking to meet, intending to divulge his miserable experience with the device, and the rest you are already aware of. He ended up dead and dumped in Whitechapel.\"\n\nBainbridge clenched and unclenched his fist. \"So it seems as if Chapman is involved in Morgan's death, and that he may be behind the airship disaster, too. What of Musgrave? Do you think he's in danger?\"\n\n\"That's just it. I can't see how he could be, not after the performance made by Chapman at the party last night. If he turned up dead now, it would give us cause to pull Chapman in immediately. If he is guilty of Morgan's murder, I can't believe he'd be so insouciant about it.\"\n\nBainbridge took a moment to let that sink in. \"But what about the other murders? They don't follow the same pattern as Morgan's. Do you still think Morgan's killer tried to use the existing spate of murders as a cover for his own crime?\"\n\n\"That's what I'm trying to work out. We've got very little we can actually pin on Chapman yet, and if we move too soon, we'll simply cause him to clam up. We need to build a solid case against him, if indeed he is responsible for Morgan's death. Whilst we've certainly established that the automaton device that was piloting _The Lady Armitage_ could have caused the crash through malfunction, in truth, we've got no real way of linking Chapman to Morgan's murder, as yet. It's a matter of time and patience.\" He shuffled in his seat, adjusting his collar. \"As to whether the other murders are connected, too, I still have my doubts. Perhaps we'll find out more at the scene we're about to attend. Did your men find out anything useful about the blue powder we found on Morgan's corpse, by the way?\"\n\nBainbridge shook his head. \"Not as yet. So far, they haven't even been able to identify the powder itself, let alone the manufacturer, but they're aware of the importance of the matter. Some of them think it may have come over from China.\"\n\n\"Good. Make sure you tell me the minute you hear anything.\"\n\nThe men fell silent, both gazing out of the window at the sleepy city, both wishing they were still at home in their beds instead of rushing through the morning fog towards Whitechapel and another unhappy death.\n\nAfter a few moments, Bainbridge looked up, catching Newbury's eye. \"Oh, I received another invitation from Miss Felicity Johnson in yesterday's post, for a small gathering she's having on Tuesday evening. Did you find yourself invited to the same?\"\n\nNewbury tried to keep a serious face as he met the other man's eye. \"I did not.\"\n\nThe two men faced each other across the cab. Bainbridge was first to give in, looking away in an attempt to stop himself from sniggering. By the time they reached the outskirts of Whitechapel, the two men were roaring with laughter in the back of the cab, both of them finding the hilarity a welcome distraction from the more serious elements of their lives, and the knowledge that they were once again headed towards a scene of terror and death in one of the poorer parts of the city.\n\nWith a grinding of gears and a spluttering of the engine, the cab rocked to a halt on the cobbled road alongside another, waiting vehicle. Bainbridge was first to jump out into the foggy morning, crossing the cobbles to the door of the other carriage. He rapped loudly before swinging the door open and stepping up into the cab. A moment later, as Newbury was arranging his hat by the curb side, he watched as Veronica emerged from the other vehicle, closely followed by the Chief Inspector.\n\nVeronica crossed the street to stand beside him. \"Good morning, sir. How are you?\"\n\nNewbury arched one eyebrow. \"Capital. And you, my dear Miss Hobbes?\"\n\n\"Perfectly well, thank you, Sir Maurice.\" Veronica smiled brightly. Newbury grinned. She gave no impression that her alcohol consumption the previous evening had affected her in any way.\n\nBainbridge approached them, bearing three small oil lanterns, his cane tucked neatly underneath his left arm. He handed one of the lanterns to each of them and then fiddled with the shutters on his own until the light was emanating in a warm halo all around it. It reflected back in the fog, giving it a strange, fuzzy glow, as if he were clutching a ball of light itself and not a lantern at all. He turned to the others. \"Right. Turn these up like mine so we can keep an eye on each other as we walk. This blasted fog is so thick this morning that we run the risk of losing each other if we don't stick together.\" He looked from Veronica to Newbury and back again. \"It wouldn't do to be losing either of you in the fog out here. We don't know what else might be lurking around the corner.\" His face was steely, determined. \"I've told one of the cabs to get on its way, whilst the other waits for us here. We'll head to the scene of the murder, take a look to see if there's anything new to be deduced, and then be on our way, as quickly as we can. No use hanging around out here when there's a couple of men already in attendance by the body.\" He took his cane from under his arm. \"Come on. One of them is waiting to show us the way.\" He set off, hugging the edge of the curb as he walked, in an effort to stay on track in the blinding fog. He was joined a moment later by a uniformed bobby who had been waiting around the other side of the cab. Newbury and Veronica followed behind them, their lanterns held up in the gloaming.\n\nIt was only a matter of minutes before Bainbridge's lantern came to a halt and Newbury and Veronica sidled up beside him. A scene resolved out of the fog. The confluence of three buildings and the cover of an arched alleyway had created a barrier of sorts against the thick smog. It still lay heavy in yellow wispy strands, but with the light of the three lanterns, plus the one held by the other uniformed constable already in attendance, Newbury was able to ascertain the key elements of the scene.\n\nA body lay on the cobbles a few feet away from where he was standing. Moisture from the fog had caused the skin to take on a damp sheen, and the waxy complexion suggested that the corpse had been _in situ_ for some time before being discovered. That was only to be expected, Newbury supposed, given the visibility out there that morning. The neck of the corpse had been violently twisted and was lying at odds to the rest of the body. Clearly the neck had been snapped before the body was dropped to the ground. The man himself was undeniably a pauper, aged around thirty years old and wearing a scruffy beard and long straggly hair.\n\nBainbridge moved off to talk with the other policeman, who was standing with his back to the wall a few feet away from the corpse, looking nervous and cold. Newbury caught snippets of the conversation as they talked: Bainbridge questioned him in detail about the circumstances of the death, how the alarm was raised, who found the body, which of the men was first on the scene. It was a thorough interview and, whilst it didn't appear to yield any further clues, it ensured they weren't making any assumptions before examining the corpse. The two constables did not mention the glowing policeman to Bainbridge, and it seemed as if there were no reliable witnesses to call on. Newbury waited for Bainbridge to return, his cane clicking on the cobbles.\n\n\"I'll take a look at the corpse, if you've no objection, Charles?\"\n\n\"Of course not. That's why you're here, isn't it?\" Newbury could tell that the other man was feeling the pressure.\n\nVeronica stepped forward. \"What can I do to help, Sir Maurice?\"\n\n\"If you can stomach it, can you go through his pockets whilst I examine the wounds?\"\n\n\"Of course.\" She circled around the body and dropped to one knee, setting about the task of emptying the dead man's pockets and searching out his wallet beneath the layers of dirty wool.\n\nNewbury leaned in towards the body. He loosened the man's collar and examined the soft flesh around the throat. It was badly bruised and broken. He took the man's head by the chin and moved it from side to side. Then, mumbling something to himself, he took up the man's left hand and examined the fingernails. The hands were filthy, but it was clear he'd been in a fight. The knuckles were bloodied, and there was some sort of residue under the fingernails where he had scratched his attacker during the fight.\n\nBy this time Veronica had located the man's wallet and had moved to one side to examine the contents. Newbury looked up at Bainbridge, who was leaning over him impatiently, his lantern dangling over Newbury's head. \"Found anything?\"\n\n\"Indeed. Just give me a moment to confirm my suspicions.\" Newbury rested the man's lifeless hand upon his chest, and searched around in his own pockets for his penknife. \"Here, hold that light steady for me, Charles.\" He beckoned the other man closer. Taking up the dead man's hand again, Newbury unclipped the blade of his penknife and ran the point of it underneath the fingernail. He then returned the hand to its place beside the victim and lifted the blade to the light, examining the residue he had scraped free. \"Ah. Just as I thought.\"\n\n\"What is it, man?\" Bainbridge was frowning, unclear what it was exactly that Newbury had found.\n\nNewbury rose to his feet. \"Here, give me the light and take a look at the man's throat. I think you'll see something of great interest around the larynx.\"\n\nBainbridge placed his cane on the ground beside the corpse and leaned in. \"The what?\"\n\n\"The Adam's apple.\"\n\nBainbridge took a moment to look over the body. Then, without saying another word, he pushed himself up to stand beside Newbury. \"Blue powder.\"\n\n\"Precisely. Dusted around the collar and worked into the broken skin, where the assailant's hands had clutched him around the throat.\" He held out his penknife, handing Bainbridge his lantern back. \"And here, too, under the fingernails. He scratched at the killer's hands as he struggled to get free. That's probably why the killer had to break his neck in the end, because he was fighting back too hard.\"\n\n\"Well, I suppose it means our 'incorporeal' killer has struck again.\"\n\nNewbury nodded. \"Indeed. But this time the profile is exactly the same. This man was clearly a pauper, judging by his clothes and the state of his hands. Veronica, did you find anything?\"\n\nVeronica came to join them, clutching the dead man's wallet. \"Only a few coins. Nothing of note. He certainly wasn't robbed, though.\"\n\nBainbridge shook his head. \"So here's the link to Morgan, then, and Chapman through that. The blue powder is a dead giveaway, regardless of what it actually is.\"\n\nNewbury looked thoughtful. He turned back to look at the corpse. \"Perhaps. We certainly may have missed the blue powder on the earlier victims. But there is a distinct problem with your theory about Chapman, I'm afraid. This man has been dead for at least eight hours, judging by the rigor mortis and the pallor of his skin. Chapman couldn't possibly have done it.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\nVeronica put her hands on her hips. \"Because he was with us at the party.\" She paused for a moment, shaking her head. \"Very clever.\"\n\nNewbury gave an impressed sigh. \"Indeed. Very clever. We wondered why Chapman was making a point of being seen. Now, I think, we have our answer. He's toying with us, inviting us to call him out. He knows he has a watertight alibi, for this and, no doubt, for Morgan's death, too. And whilst we have good reason to believe the airship crash could be the result of an automaton malfunction, all we have is reasonable doubt. Without the evidence from the wreckage, we have no way of proving our argument.\" He ran a hand over his stubble, adjusting his collar. Veronica shivered in the cold.\n\n\"So, what, we lay a trap?\" Bainbridge said, frowning and frustrated.\n\n\"I'm not sure it's that easy.\" Newbury blinked, and noticed that Veronica's lantern was beginning to gutter in the damp. \"Come on, we can talk further on the way back. Let's get out of this damp fog and somewhere warm for breakfast.\"\n\nBainbridge concurred, and went to have a brief word with the two constables before rejoining Newbury and Veronica and starting out for the cab once again. The fog was still thick and cloying, and away from the shelter of the mouth of the alleyway, they were soon smothered by it once again. Nevertheless, following the line of the curb led them easily back to the waiting cab, their lanterns bobbing in the quiet darkness. The cab driver was huddled on his dickey box against the cold, the engine running noisily, steam spouting into the cold air through tin funnels on the top of the contraption. He looked up when he heard them coming, grateful for the opportunity, no doubt, to be on his way.\n\nNewbury was first to the coach door, and held it open for Bainbridge and Veronica. They both extinguished their lanterns before mounting the step, and Newbury held his aloft to ensure they could see. Then, just as he was about to follow suit, Bainbridge slapped his knee in frustration. \"Damn it! I must have left my cane beside the body back there. Watch out, Newbury, I'll just run back and fetch it.\"\n\nNewbury held his hand up to steady the older man. \"No fear, Charles. You stay where you are, and I'll dash back and collect it for you. It'll only take me a moment.\" He turned and held the lantern aloft before moving to retrace their steps along the curb. He heard the coach door click shut behind him.\n\nAfter a moment, Newbury had been almost completely swallowed by the dank fog. The sounds of the steam engine had faded to a dull thudding as the pistons fired relentlessly, turning over the large mechanical machine. He crept along, hoping to avoid surprising the two uniformed constables at the scene. A moment later, he emerged from the fog into the mouth of the alleyway. What he saw was one of the most horrifying scenes he had ever witnessed in his life.\n\nThree monsters\u2014it was the only way he could think to describe them\u2014were in the process of gutting the two constables, whose corpses had been dashed to the ground, blood spattered across their torn faces, spilled out over the cobbles all around them. Steam rose from the warm innards as the revenants pulled loops of intestine free from large rents in their bellies, feasting on it all indiscriminately, stuffing it into their mouths with abandon. The creatures looked as if they may once have been human, but all sense of their humanity had now been lost. Their flesh was peeling in long ribbons, their hair falling out around their shoulders, their clothes hanging filthy and torn from their abused bodies. The virus had done its work well, and these monsters were now no more than dead carriers of the plague, capable of nothing but killing and feeding on their victims. They had the stink about them of half-rotted corpses, and this foul smell, mingled with the stench of blood and faeces, caused Newbury to gag violently. He fought back the urge to vomit, not wanting to draw attention to himself. The three creatures were intent on their feeding frenzy, and he didn't want to give them cause to make him their third victim of the day. Tentatively, he glanced from side to side. The area was entirely surrounded by the thick fog, and he had no sense of whether there were more of the creatures lurking in it. He was only a few feet away from the corpse of the murder victim, and he could see Bainbridge's cane on the cobbles beside it. He assumed the revenants were ignoring the body because it was hours old, and with two fresh victims, there was no need for them to feed on the bloated flesh of the dead.\n\nGingerly, Newbury inched forward, trying not to make a sound. He was intent on getting out of there as quickly as possible, and whilst he wasn't really concerned with retrieving Bainbridge's cane, he knew it would make a handy bludgeoning weapon if he found himself cornered with nowhere to run. The sound of the creatures feeding on the ruined corpses of the two policemen filled his ears. He repressed the fear that was creeping up his spine. He needed to keep a clear head.\n\nHe reached out slowly and, keeping his eyes on the backs of the three revenants, felt for the cane with his fingertips. At first he found nothing but cold, slick cobbles, but he patted the ground for a moment longer and eventually his fingers closed on the hard wood of the cane. He rose slowly to his feet, bringing the cane along with him. Trying not to let the adrenaline make him run, he tightened his grip on the lantern and turned slowly away from the nightmare scene, directly into the path of another revenant.\n\nNewbury stumbled backwards but it was too late, and the creature, its foul breath sour in his face, leapt forward and clamped its jaws onto his left shoulder. He cried out in agony as the monster's teeth bit down through his clothes and into his flesh, drawing blood. Its hands quested for a grip on his torso, its talons raking into his flesh, tearing his overcoat as if it were paper. Newbury kicked out with all his might, getting a measure of leverage on the creature and forcing it back with his booted foot. The monster allowed itself to be pushed back momentarily, releasing Newbury's shoulder from its vicelike jaws, before coming at him again, its teeth bared in an ominous black snarl.\n\nHis shoulder aching with the vicious bite wound, Newbury reacted as quickly as he could, swinging the cane down across the creature's temple, striking it hard with the round brass handle. It staggered to one side with the force of the blow, the bones around the eye socket shattering where the brass knob had impacted. Newbury tried to glance over his shoulder to make sure the other three creatures were still busy with their existing meal and were not closing in on him from behind. They were not, but the one in front of him ranged up again in no time at all, and he found himself dodging out of the way of its flailing talons. His shoulder throbbed, and he could feel the warmth of his blood seeping down the inside of his shirtsleeve.\n\nHe struck the revenant again with the cane, this time breaking loose a few teeth, which rattled to the stones below, but it seemed to have no real effect on the creature. Its bloodshot eyes glared at him as they circled each other, Newbury trying hard not to stumble over the corpse that lay behind him on the ground. The creature lunged once again, aiming its jaws towards his throat, hoping to incapacitate him by tearing his windpipe and jugular out with its teeth. Not knowing what else to do, Newbury dropped the lantern and threw himself backwards, using the corpse of the dead pauper to cushion his fall. He then rolled quickly to one side, scrabbling back up to his feet as quickly as possible, brandishing Bainbridge's cane before him. He could see out of the corner of his eye that the other three creatures were still busy with the remnants of the policemen. He knew it wouldn't be long before they turned their attention to this new quarry, however. He had to despatch the one in front of him soon, or he risked ending up like the bobbies.\n\nHe circled, fixing his attention on the revenant before him. It was waiting, hulking over the body of the dead man, looking for another opportunity to pounce. Blood was running down the side of its face where he'd caved in the orbit of its eye, and he noticed for the first time that it had a letter opener half-buried in its neck. Clearly this was not the first time it had cornered someone unexpectedly.\n\nNewbury readied himself, planting his feet firmly on the cobbles. He'd managed to snatch up the oil lantern again after his brief tumble, and realising that he was no match in strength or endurance with the creature, he'd decided to try something else.\n\nThe revenant pounced, uncoiling in mid-air like a half-human panther, baring its teeth and flexing its claws. Newbury swung wildly with the lamp, connecting with the monster's shoulder and spattering its hair and face with hot oil. There was a sudden _whoosh_ ing sound, and all at once the creature was on fire, its rotten skin and lank hair spreading the angry flames that seemed to spill out from the lamp like a wave of liquid light. Within seconds, the creature's entire head and shoulders were in flames, and it staggered about, unable to see as its eyes boiled away in the heat. Newbury took the opportunity to run, darting past the burning monster and staggering away into the fog. His shoulder burned where the creature had bitten him, and his right side was agony where its talons had gouged a tear in his flesh. Drawing a huge breath and fighting against the spinning darkness that threatened to drag him into unconsciousness, Newbury started back in the direction of the cab.\nCHAPTER 19\n\n##\n\nWithout the aid of the lantern, Newbury found it difficult to get his bearings in the thick fog. He stumbled along the road, doing his best to anchor himself to the curb in an effort to stay on track. He was bleeding profusely from the wounds in his shoulder and side, and he leaned heavily on Bainbridge's cane, attempting to propel himself along in an effort to get away from the terrible scene behind him as quickly as possible.\n\nThe fog wreathed everything in its clinging oppressive blanket, and Newbury found it almost impossible to see. This in itself wouldn't have troubled him, but now, in the midst of escaping the clutches of the revenants, he had no idea whether he was being followed or not. The creatures could have been shambling along behind him these last few minutes, drawn to the scent of his spilt blood.\n\nHe glanced behind him. There was nothing but a sea of white. He tried not to think of the nightmares that were hulking within it. If he got lost in the fog now, the likelihood would be that he'd never be able to find his way out of it again. He tried to focus on getting back to the cab: to Bainbridge, Veronica and safety.\n\nPresently, after what seemed like an age, he became aware of the choking sound of the cab's engine, and breathed an audible sigh of relief. The sound would be enough to guide him through the remaining fog and darkness to his friends. Clutching at his shoulder, he marched on, confident that Veronica would be able to help him stem the flow of his blood when they managed to get him up into the cab. He almost laughed. The whole episode seemed so bizarre, now, dislocated from reality, left behind in the fog. He squeezed his shoulder a little tighter, feeling woozy from the loss of blood.\n\nA moment later, he was snatched rudely back to the present by the sound of a shrill, piercing scream from somewhere up ahead. It cut through his dizziness like a knife. Newbury felt his hackles rising. One thought crossed his mind: _Veronica_.\n\nShaking off his pain and lethargy, Newbury forged on, forcing himself to run towards the sound, blindly throwing himself through the hazy curtain of fog. He skidded to a halt when the cab came into view.\n\nTwo revenants were menacing his friends, clutching at the cab door and shaking the vehicle back and forth like children with a toy-box, trying to get inside. The driver had clambered hurriedly onto the roof of the cab in an effort to put himself out of the creature's reach, but now found himself clinging on for dear life as the vehicle rocked from side to side. His fingers grasped the brass rails, and his shouts for help were growing more and more desperate as he slid across the flat roof, doing his best to stop his feet from dangling too far below. The thick shroud of fog prevented Newbury from seeing into the cab itself, but the shouting emanating from inside it made it clear to him that both Bainbridge and Veronica were trapped in the carriage, doing their best to keep the monsters from getting in.\n\nWith no other options available to him, Newbury rushed forwards, bringing Bainbridge's cane to bear and driving it with all his might into the lower back of one of the monsters. It penetrated the beast's rotten flesh, forcing a gob of putrescent fluid out of the exit wound on the other side, but seemed to cause the creature no visible sign of pain or distraction. Newbury pulled the cane free with an almighty heave and instead drove his boot into the back of the monster's knee, causing it to buckle to one side.\n\nThe creature freed its hold on the carriage, finally turning to see what had caused it to stumble. It bared its teeth in a grim caricature of a smile. Newbury was appalled to see that, once, the monster had been a woman. It wore the tattered remnants of a blue gown, ripped open to expose its distended belly. Its feet were bare and rotten, black and peeling, with toes missing where rats had evidently chewed on the foul flesh.\n\nNewbury paced back a few steps, trying to draw it away from the cab. It stumbled towards him, snatching out with its talon-fingered hand in an effort to grab hold of him.\n\nNewbury shook his head. \"You'll have to be quicker than that.\" He whipped the cane around again, connecting loudly with the monster's wrist and snapping the brittle bones there with a sickening _crunch_. The hand fell limp, and the creature withdrew momentarily, as if bemused by this new development. By this time, however, the other revenant had become aware of what was happening and had moved away from the carriage to join its fellow, evidently deciding that an unprotected quarry represented easier pickings than a sealed cab. They closed on Newbury together, working like pack animals to come at him from both directions at once.\n\nPanicking, Newbury was unsure how to fend them off. He held Bainbridge's cane out before him, the brass knob swinging to and fro like a club, but he knew this wouldn't hold them off for long. He had no lantern this time to use as a weapon, and the two creatures were between him and the cab. He'd just have to make it up as he went along. He feinted to one side, causing the revenant on his right to swipe for him, and then pushed forward, slamming the cane into the back of the creature's head. The momentum of its attack, coupled with the force of Newbury's blow, carried it forward, and it sprawled out on the cobbles, smashing its face hard on the ground.\n\nNewbury wheeled on the other one, just in time to see the back of its hand slam forcefully into his face. The impact sent him careening across the road. He landed heavily, jarring his left elbow on the stones and fighting to keep his breath. He snatched up Bainbridge's cane from where he'd dropped it in the gutter, and rolled to the right, just before the creature was on him again, slashing at his already-bloody shoulder. His clothes fell away in shreds, and his arm bloomed with pain as the monster's talons tore away chunks of flesh. Knowing that the impact of the cane itself would have little effect, Newbury instead hooked it behind the revenant's ankle and rolled forward onto his knees, pulling on the shaft of the cane with all his might. It seemed to have the desired effect, toppling the shambling monster heavily onto its side. Newbury, gasping for breath, tried to stagger away, but the first creature didn't stay down for long, and the other was already back on its feet and heading in his direction. He backed up, desperate for an idea. He knew he was going to lose if the fight came down to brute force and endurance.\n\nBehind him, he heard the pistons on the cab firing noisily as the driver readied their escape. Beneath this, just out of earshot, he could hear Veronica and Bainbridge clamouring for attention. He didn't have time to try to make out what they were saying before one of the revenants dived at him, landing bodily on top of him and sending them both sprawling back towards the ground. Newbury managed to get a hold on the monster's throat and it gnashed its teeth dangerously, its putrid breath almost enough to send him spiralling into unconsciousness. He'd lost the cane somewhere in the fall, but with his other hand free he had no option but to try to lever the creature off of him. He punched out, hard, his fist crumpling through slick, rotten flesh and burying itself deep inside the creature's belly.\n\nIt thrashed around on top of him as, grimacing, Newbury forced his hand deeper inside of it, questing for its spine. Seconds later, he found purchase on the brittle bony structure and, pushing his fingers deeper into the rotten fibrous tissue that surrounded it, managed to grasp hold of it with his fist. He pulled as hard as he could, pushing against the creature's throat with his other hand for leverage. There was a dry cracking sound, as if old timber were being snapped underfoot, and the spine splintered in his hand.\n\nThe creature's legs stopped thrashing, twitched a couple of times, and lay still. Its arms continued to claw away at him, however, its teeth ominously close to his face. Newbury, gasping for breath against the weight of the creature on top of him, withdrew his hand from the rotten belly, trying not to think about where it had been. His damaged shoulder was perilously close to giving in. He put his right hand on the ground and pushed himself over, rolling with the creature until their roles were reversed and he found himself on top of the foul thing, his left hand still tight around its throat.\n\nGlancing up to get a measure of what had happened to the other one, he jumped back off the beast and fumbled around, looking for Bainbridge's cane. It was nearby on the cobbles, close to where he had fallen. He retrieved it quickly, then backed up, waiting for the other revenant to loom out of the fog.\n\nThe creature he had been struggling with\u2014the one that had formerly been a woman\u2014was still trying to right itself, pulling itself up on its arms and finding that its legs would no longer support it. Relentless, it started to shuffle towards him, using its arms to pull it along the ground. It was an obscene gesture, and Newbury was unable to watch. He turned to look behind him, trying to work out where the cab was in the fog. He leaned on the cane for a moment, catching his breath. Perhaps the other creature had slipped away, driven by the desire to find its own prey, when it looked as though its fellow had Newbury pinned to the ground? But that seemed unlikely.\n\nHe heard Veronica calling his name, somewhere behind him in the cloudy soup. He set off, staggering towards her voice, but stopped when he became aware of the shape of the other revenant, about ten feet away from him, silhouetted in the fog. It had its back to him. He edged around it, following the sound of the churning pistons nearby. Gingerly, he placed one foot after the other, doing his utmost to remain silent as he circled the monster. Then, stumbling on a loose stone, his foot scuffed on the cobbles. The creature twitched at the sound and spun around to face him. Newbury, exhausted, waved the cane from side to side, trying to hold it at bay. He didn't think he had the strength to take another one down.\n\nHe heard Bainbridge calling to him from the carriage. \"Newbury! Newbury! Use the cane.\"\n\nHe couldn't help but laugh at this most inappropriate advice. \"I'm using the bloody cane, man!\" He stepped back, trying to keep his distance from the creature. He knew it was likely to pounce at any moment.\n\nBainbridge's disembodied voice came back to him. \"No! Twist the knob on the end of the cane. Quickly!\"\n\nNewbury peered along the shaft of the cane. The bulbous brass knob didn't look extraordinary in any way. Nevertheless, desperate to find a way out of his current nightmare, he swung it back towards him, clutched hold of the cold metal knob and twisted it sharply to the right.\n\nThere was a clicking sound from within the shaft itself. Clasping the knob, Newbury pointed the end of the cane at the revenant, unsure what he expected to happen next. The shaft twisted and then began to spin, sections of the wood unpacking along its length and folding out to create a kind of chambered structure along the middle of the cane. Brass filaments ran along the inside of this structure. The spinning reached a crescendo and, with an electrical hum, an arc of blue light spat from one end of the chamber to the other, fizzing along the length of the shaft and crackling at the terminus of the device, the small pointed section at the very end of the cane.\n\nSmiling, Newbury raised the weapon towards the revenant just as the creature decided to give up waiting for an opportunity to catch Newbury off guard and threw itself towards him, claws outstretched. The point of the shaft impaled the monster through the chest, and there was a loud _bang_ as the electrical current flowed into the rotting carcass of the creature and fried what was left of its nervous system. The creature lost its momentum and dropped to the ground, dead for the second time. Blue light arced in its open mouth, and the blackened, dirty hole in its chest was smouldering, dark smoke rising into the air to mingle with the thick fog. Newbury's lungs filled with the scent of charred meat. He looked down at the body. The electrical current had set the creature's hair on fire, and little flames were licking at the edges of its tattered clothes. It wouldn't be long before the flames took and the creature's papery, rotten flesh became nothing but dry kindle.\n\nHe stood over the body and pulled the lightning cane free. Then, confident that the monster was finished, he staggered over to where the other one was still struggling to pull itself along the ground and drove the cane into its back, just below the base of the neck. Blue light sparked dramatically. The creature thrashed around for a moment before the twitching subsided and Newbury knew he had put it out of its misery. He stood for a moment, gathering his strength.\n\nThen, not even bothering to deactivate the weapon, Newbury staggered towards the sound of his friend's voices, hopeful that, this time, he'd be able to make it back to them unmolested.\n\nBainbridge and Veronica were waiting by the cab when Newbury staggered out of the fog. He was faint and bleeding from multiple injuries, the blue electrical light dancing and fizzing in the darkness along the length of Bainbridge's cane. They both rushed towards him, their eyes flitting nervously from side to side, worried that more revenants may come hulking out of the fog at any moment. Bainbridge swept the weapon out of Newbury's hand and twisted the brass knob, compacting the device so that it folded away neatly, dissipating the electrical charge and ensuring none of them would accidentally bear the brunt of its force. Within a matter of seconds, the peculiar device was nothing more than a cane once again.\n\nNewbury, his vision swimming, practically collapsed into Veronica's arms, and together with Bainbridge she lifted him up into the cab. They laid him carefully across one of the seats, and Bainbridge used the top of his cane to rap on the ceiling of the carriage, letting the driver know they were all safely back on board. A moment later the engines gave a wheezing gasp, and the vehicle trundled away into the rising dawn.\n\nVeronica was on her knees beside Newbury, tearing strips off his shirt to use as makeshift bandages on his wounds. He looked a mess: his torso was covered in scrapes and bruises and he was pale from the loss of blood, which pooled on the floor after soaking through his torn clothes and running free. Veronica tried to stem the flow with her hands, applying as much pressure as she could to the tear in his shoulder.\n\n\"Oh, Maurice.\" She seemed at a loss for words.\n\nNewbury turned his face towards her. \"I'll be alright. Everything will be alright.\" His voice was nothing but a croak. He cast his eyes at Bainbridge, who was sitting in the seat opposite them, leaning heavily on his cane. \"Quite a contraption, Charles. Wish I'd known about it earlier.\" His face cracked into a weary smile. \"Where did you acquire it?\"\n\nBainbridge shook his head, smiling in amazement that Newbury had even the strength to hold a conversation. \"Dr. Fabian. Never had much chance to put it to the test, but the old girl seemed to do alright by you out there, didn't she?\"\n\nNewbury nodded, wincing as Veronica tied a strip of fabric tight across the wound in his shoulder. \"She certainly did.\"\n\nVeronica glanced at Bainbridge, concern etched on her face. \"That's the best I can do, here. We need to get him to a hospital.\"\n\nBainbridge scoffed. \"Might as well take him to a butcher's shop. No, we need to get him to the Fixer.\"\n\n\"The what?\"\n\n\"The Fixer.\" Newbury turned his head to look her in the eye. \"One of the Queen's surgeons . . .\" He coughed, shifting on the seat in an attempt to alleviate the pain. \"Tell her, Charles.\"\n\nBainbridge picked up the explanation. \"The Fixer is one of the Queen's personal surgeons, on hand to help Her Majesty's agents in times such as this. He works for Dr. Fabian. He's the best medical man I've ever had the misfortune to meet, and he's got a place out in Bloomsbury, not far from the museum.\"\n\n\"Does the driver know where to go?\"\n\nBainbridge nodded. \"Barnes? Yes, he's one of ours. Why do you think he didn't bolt when he had the chance earlier, when Newbury had those damnable revenants after him?\" He paused, glancing over at Newbury, his brows furrowed. \"I take it the two uniformed chaps weren't so lucky?\"\n\nNewbury shook his head, but didn't speak. Bainbridge knew this meant the worst. \"Damn!\" He rammed his cane against the floor. \"Poor bastards.\" He glanced at Veronica. \"I do apologise, Miss Hobbes.\" She waved her hand dismissively.\n\nNewbury had closed his eyes. Veronica brushed his hair back from his face. She met Bainbridge's stare. Her voice was only just above a whisper, as if she didn't really want to know the answer to the question she was asking. \"What about the plague? Doesn't it spread when the revenants bite someone? Will he be infected?\"\n\nNewbury eyes flicked open again. He tried to prop himself up on one arm, but cringed when the pain in his side became too much. He returned to his previous position, supine on his back. He searched Veronica's face with his eyes. \"Don't worry. I'm immune to the plague. I won't be infected.\"\n\nBainbridge leaned closer. \"Immune? How so?\"\n\nNewbury swallowed, then reached up and pulled at his ragged shirt, exposing a large expanse of his chest. It was streaked and matted with blood, but it was easy to see the sickle-shaped scar of white tissue just above his left nipple, even in the dim light. \"I was bitten before.\" Veronica's eyes were wide with shock. \"Years ago, in India. My family had purchased some land out there, just about the same time that I'd found myself enamoured with stories of the occult. When the opportunity arose to pay a visit, I jumped at the chance. I spent two years in Delhi, exploring the Indian myths, searching for truth in the ancient stories of their culture.\" He sucked in his breath as the cab rolled over the uneven cobbles, jostling him in his seat. \"At around the same time a plague was spreading through the slums, a virus that turned people into shambling cannibals, forcing their skin to stop regenerating and blowing the blood vessels in their eyes.\" He coughed, raising a hand to his mouth.\n\n\"The revenants.\" Veronica mopped his brow.\n\nNewbury nodded. \"The revenants. I was out visiting a temple in the hills when I was set upon by one of the detestable creatures. It bit me here on the chest, but I was young and quick-witted enough to be able to get away. I managed to find my way back to my family's rooms in Delhi, whereupon they immediately called for the doctor. The Indian physician told us that his research had shown that the virus incubated in the brain for eight days before massively altering the physiology of the victim.\"\n\n\"What happened?\"\n\n\"They threw me in a cell and gave me nothing but bread and water to survive. For eight days, I ran the most appalling fever, and then, on the eighth day, the fever broke and I began to recover. Soon after, the doctor sent me home. He told me I was one of only a handful of people he knew who had survived the plague.\" He glanced from Veronica to Bainbridge. \"I'm convinced that this is the same virus, spread here from India, and that, provided my wounds don't kill me first, I'll live to fight another day.\" He flexed his fingers, frowning at the pain in his shoulder.\n\nBainbridge nodded. \"Of course you will, my man.\" He looked serious. \"Of course you will.\" He patted Veronica on the shoulder reassuringly and then looked up, smiling. \"We all know that the Fixer can perform miracles, don't we.\"\n\nNewbury sighed. The cab trundled on towards Bloomsbury, and towards the mysterious surgeon who, Bainbridge assured them, would be able to make things right once more.\nCHAPTER 20\n\n##\n\nThe sun had risen by the time the cab pulled up outside the Bloomsbury home of the Fixer, reducing the fog to wispy trails of vapour that seemed to linger in the air like white tendrils. Newbury had passed out a short while after they had set out from Whitechapel, and Veronica had continued to tend to him, staunching his wounds and trying to limit his blood loss by continuing to use strips of his shirt as makeshift bandages. She was covered in blood herself, now, her skirt, blouse and hands sticky with the gritty residue. Bainbridge thought it was a credit to her that she seemed entirely unfazed by this development.\n\nNewbury's breath was shallow, his skin had lost its colour and his eyes had sunk back in their sockets. Black bruises had emerged all over his exposed body where he had taken a severe battering from the revenants. Bainbridge hoped the Fixer really was able to work miracles. Newbury would need one if he were going to live.\n\nTaking his cane, Bainbridge stood and swung the carriage door open, glancing from side to side to see if anyone was watching. There were a few early risers going about their business, but the street was mostly deserted. He turned back to Veronica. \"Stay here. I'll go and make arrangements.\" She nodded silently and he ducked out of the cab, nodding at the driver as he mounted the step down to the road and made for the entrance of the large house. The building was tall, with three storeys above ground and a basement below, which Bainbridge knew would be their destination today. The house stood at the end of a long terrace, and as Bainbridge mounted the steps up to the front door, he heard the engine of the cab chugging behind him and watched as the driver reversed the cab around the corner, parking it near the iron staircase that led down to the basement level.\n\nHe rapped loudly on the door with the end of his cane. There was a momentary pause, and then the door clicked open and a middle-aged man in a black suit appeared in the opening. \"Ah, good morning, Sir Charles. Won't you come in?\"\n\nBainbridge stepped over the threshold and into the opulent foyer of the house. It was a grand building, worthy of royalty itself. The floor had been laid in a shimmering white marble, and a huge staircase swept away towards the upper levels of the house. Panelled doors led off into other, private rooms. A chandelier hung from a perfect ceiling rosette, and a small table had everything arranged just so. The entire place smelled of freshly cut flowers. The presentation was immaculate.\n\nBainbridge caught sight of himself in the large mirror hanging on the opposite wall, and shuddered. He looked terrible. Once he'd deposited Newbury with the Fixer, he'd see Miss Hobbes back to her lodgings and head home himself for a sleep and a long soak in the bath.\n\nThe manservant who had admitted him to the house\u2014a stout man of around fifty, with a receding head of grey hair\u2014looked Bainbridge up and down, as if trying to ascertain the reason for his visit. \"Are you well, Sir Charles? . . .\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, no time for all that, Rothford. I've got Sir Maurice Newbury in the cab back there, practically torn to pieces. He's in urgent need of the Fixer.\"\n\nRothford snapped to attention. \"Quite right, sir. Better bring him around the side entrance, quick-sharp. I'll notify the master immediately. I believe you know the way?\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"Then go, sir, and I'll make the necessary arrangements.\"\n\nBainbridge nodded. \"Thank you, Rothford.\"\n\n\"I'll hear no word of it, sir.\" He clicked the door open again and ushered Bainbridge out.\n\nBainbridge hurried down the steps and round the corner to where the cab was still waiting, its engine burring noisily. Overhead, an airship swept low over the city, whipping his hair back from his face. He was glad he'd left his hat in the carriage earlier. He hopped up onto the step and spoke to the driver. \"Keep an eye out, Barnes. Wouldn't do to have anyone see what we're up to.\"\n\nThe driver nodded. \"Aye, sir. I'll give you the word when you're clear to make a move.\"\n\n\"Good man.\" He ducked into the carriage. Newbury was still unconscious. Bainbridge put a hand on Veronica's shoulder. \"All will be well, Miss Hobbes. We've brought him to the right place. The Fixer will do his work, and Sir Maurice will be back on his feet in no time at all.\" He glanced down at the supine man. \"Here, can you help me with his head whilst I lift him down?\"\n\n\"Of course.\" Veronica moved to cradle Newbury's head as Bainbridge placed his cane on the opposite seat and moved to scoop his unconscious friend up into his arms.\n\nHe staggered under the weight, trying to get his footing, and then was able to rest Newbury's head in the crook of his arm as he moved towards the open door. Gasping a little for breath, unused to the exertion, he called out to the driver. \"Barnes? Are we set?\"\n\n\"Aye, sir. All clear.\"\n\nBainbridge stepped cautiously down onto the step beneath the carriage door, and then onto the street below. Without looking back, he approached the side of the house, mounting the first rung on an iron staircase that descended from street level down to the basement of the large house. His feet clanged loudly on the steps as he struggled to manoeuvre Newbury down the tight enclosure. Then, reaching the bottom of the flight of stairs, he used the edge of his boot to bang on the wooden door that awaited him there. A fraction of a second later, the door swung open, revealing a dark space beyond, and Bainbridge, shifting so as not to strike Newbury's head against the doorframe, slipped quietly inside.\n\nA few minutes later, Bainbridge emerged from the same doorway, having deposited Newbury with Rothford to await the ministrations of the Fixer. He crested the top of the iron staircase, dusted himself down, and, red-faced from the exertion, hopped back into the cab with a nod to the driver. The engine spluttered to life as Bainbridge took a seat, careful to avoid the spilled blood that was congealing on the floor. Barnes would have his work cut out for him, cleaning that lot up.\n\nVeronica was sitting with her hands folded in her lap. She looked nearly as white as Newbury had, shocked to the core and uncertain about Newbury's condition.\n\nBainbridge attempted to offer her his warmest smile. \"My dear Miss Hobbes. I should think Sir Maurice will owe you a large debt of gratitude when he eventually comes round from all this. Your efforts in stemming his wounds are surely what kept him alive during the course of the journey over here. Now, the Fixer can do his work and make him whole again.\"\n\nVeronica pursed her lips. \"Sir Charles, I think it is we who shall owe Sir Maurice a debt of gratitude. His actions at the murder scene are what saved us all from disaster. He willingly put himself in the way of those monsters to save us from harm. Saving his life in turn was the very least we could do, if indeed we have managed it.\" She looked away, still dignified, even whilst caked in the dried blood of her employer. \"I hope this 'Fixer' is everything you've made him out to be.\"\n\nBainbridge nodded, carefully weighing her words. \"You're quite right, of course, Miss Hobbes. Forgive my insolence. I did not mean to demean the actions of our brave friend, only to embolden you with talk of your own. I was aiming to give reassurance, where perhaps none was needed. I'm afraid I've forgotten how to talk to ladies, ever since my wife died. I now spend all my time in the company of other men.\"\n\nVeronica returned his gaze. Her demeanour softened. \"Sir Charles, I fear it's not a case of knowing how to talk to a lady. I'm simply concerned for the well-being of Sir Maurice.\" She tried, ineffectually, to brush some of the dried blood from her clothes. \"So tell me, what does this Fixer do?\"\n\nBainbridge smiled. \"He fixes things.\"\n\nNewbury woke with a start.\n\nHe sucked at the air.\n\nHis head was throbbing, although he felt as if he'd somehow been infused with a warm, liquid glow; warmth that started in his belly and seemed to seep upwards towards his head, gloriously taking the edge off his pain and leaving his mind to wander in a drowsy state of semi-consciousness. He knew the sensation of old.\n\nOpium.\n\nNewbury peeled open his eyes, and then immediately shut them again. The light in the room was blinding, clinically sharp, and it seared the back of his retinas like a hot knife. He drew a ragged breath, pulling the air down into his lungs. His chest felt like it was on fire. Cautiously, he tried to open his eyes again, reaching up to shelter them from the glare with cupped hands. Stinging tears ran down his cheeks. He blinked them away. Finally, an image resolved.\n\nHe was lying on his back on a hard metal table. A face was looming over him. He tried to sit up.\n\n\"No, Sir Maurice. Try to lie still. Everything is going to be alright.\"\n\nNewbury felt a hand on his chest, holding him still on the table. He blinked up at the strange face that was hovering over him. The man was in his late forties, balding, with a neatly trimmed black beard. A bizarre mechanical contraption sat on his head, like a wire frame that encompassed his temples and forehead, with various accouterments and glass lenses attached to it on folding levers and arms. The man reached up and flipped one of these lenses down over one eye.\n\n\"Who are you? Where am I?\" Newbury had a panicked edge to his voice.\n\n\"I'm the Fixer, and you're in my workshop, underneath my home. You have nothing to worry about.\"\n\nNewbury breathed a sigh of relief, allowing himself to relax. He'd never had occasion to visit the Fixer before, but he was well aware that the man existed: a personal surgeon of Her Majesty's who made himself available to her agents in times of dire need. He remembered Bainbridge speaking about him in the carriage, just after the attack. What was not good was the fact that, if he was here, his situation was potentially very grave indeed.\n\nNewbury quickly discovered that his abdomen and shoulder lanced with pain every time he made even the slightest motion with his body. He tried to lie still, giving himself over to the warmth of the opium, but the Fixer had been wise and had dosed him with only enough to take the edge off the pain, and not enough to render him unconscious again. He felt gloved hands tearing at his clothes and the faint stirring of a breeze on his exposed flesh. Nevertheless, the room itself was warm, and listening to the sounds around him, he had the sense of a workshop full of bizarre mechanical devices. There was a faint electrical hum, accompanied by the occasional sound of a belching valve as it issued forth a cloud of hot steam, as well as the constant _tick-tock_ of numerous clockwork engines powering objects that he could not see from his limited vantage point on the table. Newbury tried not to imagine what the man was about to do to him with the strange machines that were making such sounds.\n\nThe Fixer appeared in his field of vision once again, wavering slightly under the influence of the opium, and then disappeared. Newbury could hear him shuffling around the other side of the table. The Fixer cleared his throat, and then began to speak, offering a running commentary as he examined Newbury's wounds. His voice, Newbury noticed, was gruff and gravelly, the voice of a man who'd smoked too much heavy shag in his time. \"Hmmm. A vicious bite in the left clavicular area, there. Serious tears to the flesh and muscular tissue. Excessive blood loss.\" He paused for a moment, poking sharply at the wounds on Newbury's chest. \"Deep gouges in the chest. Numerous flesh wounds. A severe laceration in the left side of the chest and abdomen. My, my. You have been busy.\"\n\nNewbury stirred uncomfortably. He waited until he heard the other man move away from the table, his footsteps ringing on the tiled floor, and then, with a significant effort, managed to prop himself up on one elbow.\n\nThe Fixer stood at the foot of the table, fiddling with an array of surgical tools, which pinged noisily on a steel tray. Beside him on a wooden trolley was a rack of steel hypodermic syringes, which contained a range of strange, multi-coloured fluids. Newbury took the opportunity to take a better look at the man who called himself the Fixer.\n\nAside from the contraption on his head, the man was wearing a tarnished leather smock and matching leather gloves. Newbury couldn't help thinking that he had more of the appearance of a butcher about him than of a physician. He had a ruddy complexion and the manner of a public schoolboy. Newbury suspected he spent a great deal of time in his workshop, and very little time engaging with the world.\n\nUnsure what was likely to happen next, and unwilling to ask, Newbury cast his eyes around the room, trying to get a measure of his surroundings.\n\nThe basement was lit by a series of long, unusual gas-lamps that arced across the ceiling from one wall to the other, curved glass tubes that terminated with gas valves where they met the walls at each end. An array of strange machines and surgical tables filled the space in between. One of these\u2014a large brass contraption about the size of a small table, with two glass vats full of bubbling fluid atop it\u2014had long coils of tubing that snaked out from the belly of the machine and away into the dark corners of the room. Another, smaller contraption was fitted with wheezing bellows of the sort Newbury had seen attached to Queen Victoria's life-preserving engine. It even rose and fell with the same constant rhythm of Her Majesty's breathing machine, although in this instance, it appeared that the bellows were helping to power an unusual electrical device, the lights on it flickering from orange to blue as the exposed filaments danced with the current.\n\nThe alarming contraption above Newbury's own table was connected to an extensive brass framework, a kind of large gun on a moveable rail, with fat tubing trailing from the back of it and disappearing into a nearby hatch in the floor. The device had a trigger fitted to the undercarriage and the end of it terminated in a spread of fine needles, bunched together to form a neat point. Newbury shivered.\n\nThe Fixer turned to notice him looking. \"Impressive, isn't it?\" He turned to encapsulate the room with a gesture of his arms, indicating the various machines. \"This is what Dr. Fabian gets up to when he isn't busy attending to Her Majesty or running errands for the likes of you and Sir Charles. Works of genius, every one of them.\"\n\nGroggily, Newbury met his gaze, and felt immediately disorientated by the sight of the man's strange eyewear, which magnified the appearance of his right eye so that it seemed at least three times the size of his left. \"So, what's next? Surgery?\"\n\nThe Fixer smiled. \"Of a sort. I'm going to knit your shoulder and chest back together with my stitching machine.\" He indicated the gunlike device on the rail overhead. \"Then I can give you a blood transfusion and a dose of one of Dr. Fabian's excellent compounds.\"\n\nNewbury narrowed his eyes. \"What will it do?\"\n\n\"Fix you, of course.\" The man beamed. Newbury held his gaze, a serious expression on his face. Sighing, the Fixer continued. \"It's derived from a rare flower that Fabian discovered out in the Congo last year. When the powder is dissolved in saline and transfused into the human body, it boosts the existing immune system, helping the blood cells to clot and bind, so that muscles and bones can reconnect very swiftly indeed. I wish we'd know about it before\u2014could have saved a lot of trouble with Ashford all those years ago.\" He paused, tapping his foot on the tiles as if planning his next move. \"Come on. Let's get you under the knife. You'll know the effects of the treatment soon enough, anyway.\"\n\nCautiously, Newbury laid his head back against the hard surface of the table. The Fixer moved round to stand beside him, reaching over to wash his shoulder wound with a wet cloth. The antiseptic fluid burned angrily where it came into contact with the damaged, puckered flesh. Newbury winced and clenched his jaw, grinding his teeth as the other man reached up and took hold of the stitching machine. Newbury closed his eyes. He heard the device firing up, the _rat-a-tat-tat_ of the needles scraping back and forth as the Fixer applied pressure to the trigger, testing the pneumatic power.\n\nHe brought the gun closer to Newbury's shoulder, and then, without any further warning, he jabbed the device into the soft tissue underneath the skin of Newbury's left arm. The needles began to puncture the lacerated flesh in a torrent of relentless pinpricks.\n\nNewbury screamed out in agony as the device stitched a series of fine filaments deep into his clavicular muscles; slowly, deliberately, knitting his shoulder back together. The Fixer began to move the device along the extent of the wound, closing the flesh where the revenant's mouth had torn it open. Blackness swam around the edges of Newbury's vision.\n\nHe swooned, and everything went dark.\n\nWhen Newbury came round again, he was lying on a bed, his head resting on the soft, downy pillows, a thick woollen blanket pulled up over his waist. Thin rubber tubes jutted rudely from incisions made in each of his wrists, trailing off toward large machines on either side of him, one of which was giving off a deep mechanical rumble and a gentle gasp of warm air. He tried to sit up, but felt his shoulder pulling tightly where the Fixer and his stitching machine had done their work. He flexed his fingers and tentatively moved his arm, feeling that he'd regained a lot of strength in the limb. The pain in his shoulder and abdomen had mostly subsided to a dull ache. He lifted the corner of the blanket warily and looked down at the line of puckered flesh where the machine had sewn him back together again. It was bruised and purple, and had an ungainly web-work of black stitches weaving across it, but it was far better than an open wound, and in truth, he felt almost normal again.\n\n\"Marvellous, isn't it?\" Newbury looked up, noting for the first time that the Fixer was sitting in a chair by the side of the bed, watching him intently as he explored his handiwork. His strange headpiece was on the table beside him. He looked considerably more normal without his leather smock and gloves. \"It won't leave much of a scar there, either, what with the watertight stitches and the transfusion of Dr. Fabian's healing compound that you're receiving.\" The Fixer smiled. \"It'll be sore for a few weeks, though.\"\n\nNewbury folded the blanket back over his lap. \"How long before I'm up and about?\"\n\n\"A couple of hours. There's no reason to keep you here, once the transfusions are complete and we've found you some suitable clothes. You should go home and rest, let the compound do its work.\" He waved at Newbury's abdomen underneath the fawn-coloured blanket. \"It should hold up, even if you do find yourself in another scrape. Those stitches aren't designed to give out on you. You'll need to come back in a couple of weeks to have them out again, whatever the case.\"\n\nNewbury grimaced at the thought of it. He lifted his arms, presenting his wrists to the other man. \"Which one's which?\"\n\n\"The machine on your left is giving you blood. The one on your right is giving you the saline solution.\"\n\nNewbury glanced at the machine to the left of him. It seemed to be vibrating gently, humming as it pumped the fluid along the coiling black tube and up into his arm.\n\nA panel near the Fixer's chair was decorated with a series of dials, all of which had been turned to various positions that made no sense to Newbury, at least from where he was sitting.\n\nHe met the other man's eye, indicating the transfusion machine \"Why is it so noisy?\"\n\n\"Ah. That's the refrigeration unit. I use that to keep the blood from congealing. It doesn't last long out of the body. Luckily for you, Rothford is a willing donor, and his blood type is compatible with most people's.\"\n\n\"Rothford?\"\n\n\"My manservant.\"\n\nNewbury nodded.\n\n\"You'll meet him shortly. Now, though, you need to lie back and rest. I'll come and disconnect you shortly, once we're both convinced that you're ready to take a walk.\" The Fixer stood at the foot of the bed, smiling, and then disappeared into the gloom.\n\nNewbury allowed his head to fall back onto the pillow. The effects of the opium had worn off, and his skin crawled with craving. He longed for the warm glow of the drug. He thought of the small bottle of laudanum on the shelf in his study, thought momentarily of what he might do when he got home . . . and then thought of Veronica, and the manner in which she had found him just a couple of days ago. It wouldn't do to descend into that madness again. Sighing, he closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep, listening to the sounds of the gurgling fluid that was currently seeping into his bloodstream.\n\nA couple of hours later, dressed only in a plain white robe, and with thick yellow poultices applied to his wounds, Newbury followed the Fixer up a small internal staircase and into a waiting area that was set out like a gentleman's reception room. Roth-ford, the Fixer's manservant, was waiting for them there, his hands folded neatly behind his back. He stood when the two gentlemen came into the room.\n\nThe Fixer spoke first. \"Rothford, this is Sir Maurice Newbury. He'll be needing your attention, as well as some assistance finding suitable attire. Please treat him as a guest in this house.\"\n\nRothford gave a single nod of the head, and then glanced at Newbury, a twinkle in his eye. \"Very good, sir.\"\n\nThe Fixer clapped a hand on Newbury's arm, carefully avoiding the wound on his shoulder. \"I'll leave you in Roth-ford's capable hands. Be sure to take some time to rest.\" He turned to leave, and Newbury reached out to stop him. He offered the Fixer a sincere smile. \"Thank you, I\u2014\"\n\nThe other man shook his head. \"Don't thank me. Simply try to make sure that you don't need my attentions again in the near future, especially before you're back to have those stitches out.\"\n\nNewbury laughed, causing his chest to burn with pain. \"I'm not planning on it, I'll give you that much.\"\n\nThe Fixer smiled. \"For men in our profession, Sir Maurice, that has to be enough. Good day to you.\"\n\n\"Likewise.\" Newbury watched as the man disappeared from the room, descending the stairs towards his workshop once again.\n\nRothford approached from the other side of the room. \"If you'd like to come with me, Sir Maurice, I'll show you to our dressing room.\"\n\nNewbury nodded and followed behind Rothford as he led him through a door, along a short passageway and through another door into a small room on the left. It was furnished with a wardrobe, cheval glass mirror and dressing table. Rothford crossed to the wardrobe and opened the doors with a flourish. Inside, Newbury could see that it was filled with all manner of formal suits and dresses, white shirts and underclothes. He wondered how many \"visitors\" the Fixer regularly received.\n\nRothford searched through the rack of clothes for a moment, before withdrawing a black suit on a hanger and holding it up beside Newbury. \"There. I should imagine this will do. I'll lay it on the chair over here.\" He draped it over the back of the tall chair by the dressing table. \"Please feel free to help yourself to a shirt and underclothes. When you're decent, you'll find me in the reception room at the other end of this short hallway. I'll organise some breakfast. Bacon and eggs?\"\n\n\"Thank you.\" Newbury nodded, unsure what else to say. He watched as Rothford exited the room, clicking the door shut behind him.\n\nThen, gingerly, he disrobed, eyeing his wounds in the cheval glass. The line of bruised, puckered flesh that ran down the left side of him looked angry and sore. Yet, strangely, he felt decidedly more alert than he had in days. He supposed that had a lot to do with Dr. Fabian's miraculous healing compound. He made a mental note to attempt to find out the name of the flower it was derived from. It would make an interesting study, and he could do worse than to have a small amount of the compound available to him at his Chelsea lodgings.\n\nTaking care to dress slowly so as to avoid pulling on his stitching, Newbury was soon feeling more like his usual self, and with the promise of eggs and bacon just along the hall, he realised he was absolutely famished. Finding a pile of his personal belongings arranged on the dressing table, he slipped these into the pockets of the borrowed suit and set off in search of Rothford, Earl Grey and food.\nCHAPTER 21\n\n##\n\nVeronica sat beside Amelia on a wooden bench on the grounds of the asylum, wrapped up against the chill. They were watching the other inmates as they circled the airing court like a flock of birds, each following the others as they walked, their feet crunching noisily on the gravel. Nurses kept a watchful eye from one end of the courtyard, gossiping amongst themselves and dressed in thick winter coats. Their breath plumed in the frosty air.\n\nVeronica glanced at Amelia, who\u2014even dressed in a heavy coat and shawl\u2014was shivering with the cold. She put her arm around her sister, hugging her closer for warmth. Veronica knew that she shouldn't have come. She could think of a hundred reasons why she shouldn't be there that day, why she'd have been far better off staying away, yet none of them seemed quite so important as the reason she had finally given in and made the journey across town. Now, here, she could barely face her sister, who had been delighted by the unexpected visit and had clutched her brightly, kissing her fondly on the cheek. Tired and emotional after a difficult morning, Veronica had chosen to walk with Amelia in the gardens before broaching the true reason for her visit.\n\nAfter Sir Charles had deposited her at her Kensington lodgings, Veronica had found herself alone in her apartment, her housekeeper out running errands around town. She had stripped out of her filthy clothes, poured herself a scalding hot bath, and sat weeping on the bathroom floor, her knees drawn up to her chin, tears streaking down her blood-caked cheeks.\n\nShe sat like this for at least an hour, cycling through the full gamut of emotions, from relief to anxiety and then back again. She had been so terrified by those detestable creatures as they attacked the cab, trying to peel the door away to get at her and Bainbridge inside, that she had done little to aid in the battle. She cursed herself for being so weak. She was a strong woman, a fighter, but she had seen no way out of that dreadful scenario, and had almost given herself over to her fast-approaching fate, when Sir Maurice had appeared out of the fog and taken on the two monsters single-handedly, drawing them away from the cab.\n\nShe felt ashamed that her first thought had been to flee, to get away from there as quickly as possible whilst she had the chance, to abandon Newbury to the monsters in an effort to save herself from harm. Reason had reasserted itself, however, and she had remained in the carriage, knowing that there was little she could do to help him as he fought the creatures in the fog-enshrouded street. She had come close to rushing out there to aid him when she heard him crying out in pain, but she knew that she would only have served as a distraction and that, had she taken on one of the creatures herself, she would have surely lost out to its brutish strength and animalistic will.\n\nThe worst horror, however, had been seeing Newbury in such a desperate condition after he'd managed to make it back to the cab. Even now she feared for his life, feared what this Fixer character may do to him, and worse, feared that his words of reassurance regarding the revenant plague were simply that\u2014words\u2014and that before long he would succumb to the terrible blight and, regardless of how tightly she had tied his bandages and how well she had staunched the flow of his lifeblood, she would lose him anyway.\n\nShe couldn't bear the thought that Newbury might transform into one of those horrifying creatures, and she knew that he, too, would rather die than let that happen. So she had resolved to visit Amelia at the asylum, to take advantage of her sister with a long list of difficult questions, and to try to ascertain what the future held.\n\nAmelia was watching the other inmates as they went about their laborious routine. \"Tell me I'm not reduced to that, Veronica. I feel like a little bit more of my life is sapped away from me each and every day I spend in this terrible place.\"\n\nVeronica hugged her sister closer. \"You're not, Amelia. You're not like that at all.\"\n\n\"Then why do I have to live like this? What have I done wrong to deserve to be locked up in here? It's basically a prison cell.\"\n\nVeronica didn't know what else to say. \"I'll get you out, Amelia. I promise. I'll find a way to get you out.\"\n\nAmelia shifted slightly in her arms and smiled. \"I know you will, Veronica. I know it's just a matter of time.\"\n\nVeronica looked at her sister quizzically. \"Do you know something? Have you seen something in one of your visions?\"\n\nAmelia shook her head. \"You know it doesn't work like that, Veronica. I only remember snatches of what I see, dreamlike sequences and unconnected images. In one of them, I see you and me, walking down the street together, away from this place.\"\n\n\"Can I ask you something? Something I promised I'd never ask you?\"\n\nAmelia slipped out of Veronica's embrace, stiffening slightly on the bench. \"What is it?\"\n\n\"Have you seen what becomes of Sir Maurice? In the future, I mean.\" Veronica couldn't meet her eye.\n\n\"No. Nothing.\" Amelia shrugged. \"Well, that is to say that I do not recall seeing anything. Why, what happened?\"\n\nVeronica was exasperated. She balled her hands into tight fists. \"Try for me, Amelia. This is very important. Try to remember if you've seen him during a recent episode. Anything at all. Even just a glimpse.\"\n\nAmelia looked pained. \"Veronica, I've never even met the man. This is not something I know how to control. It happens, and then it is as if the episode somehow leaves a residue in my mind, fleeting images I can sometimes remember. It's not as if I can recall the entire episode at will.\"\n\nVeronica tried to fight back the tears. \"I know, Amelia, I know. I'm so sorry.\" She turned away, breathing deeply to steady herself.\n\nAmelia put her hand on Veronica's arm. \"Don't be. Clearly something terrible has happened, and I want to do everything I can to help.\"\n\n\"You already have. I suppose now it's just a matter of time.\"\n\n\"What happened? Tell me.\"\n\n\"Sir Maurice was attacked by three revenants this morning. They practically tore him apart, but he managed to get away. He was fighting for his life, bleeding all over the carriage\u2014all over me\u2014but we managed to get him to the surgeon.\"\n\nAmelia put a hand to her mouth. \"Will he make it through?\"\n\nVeronica was solemn. \"I don't know. Worse than that, though, is the threat of plague. I have every fear that he might have been infected.\"\n\n\"Oh, God.\"\n\n\"That's why I came to you, Amelia. I had to know if you'd seen him in one of your visions, had to know if he was going to be alright. I should never have come. It was unfair of me.\"\n\n\"Sister, you've done so much for me. Is it not fair that I at least attempt to repay that love and loyalty from time to time?\"\n\n\"It doesn't work like that, Amelia. You don't owe me anything.\"\n\n\"I know _exactly_ how it works, Veronica. That's why I love you so.\"\n\nToo late, Veronica noticed that Amelia was starting to take short, shallow gasps at the air, beginning the process of inducing an episode. She clutched her by the shoulders. \"No! Stop it, Amelia! Stop it now!\"\n\nAmelia shook her head, gasping for breath.\n\nVeronica held her tight. \"I'm sorry, sister.\"\n\n\". . . I . . . know . . .\" Amelia began to shake, her body shuddering as her muscles went into spasm. Her eyes rolled back in their sockets, showing the milky-white underside of her eyeballs. She rocked back, saliva running from the corner of her mouth.\n\nVeronica glanced around to see if any of the nurses had noticed. They were still engaged in conversation by the main asylum doors. She clutched Amelia close, trying to keep her safe.\n\nAmelia began to babble. At first it seemed incoherent, a long chain of moaning sounds and half-formed words, but then Veronica began to make sense of what she was saying.\n\n\". . . from the sky . . . like a child's balloon, tumbling . . . tumbling towards the ground . . . water . . . shouting . . . confusion.\"\n\nVeronica shook her head, trying to get through to her sister. \"No Amelia, that's already happened. The airship has already crashed!\"\n\n\". . . water . . . dripping water . . . a clockwork man.\" She gasped, gulping air down into her lungs, her entire body shaking as the fit took complete control of her body. \". . . a dark place . . . a woman's voice . . . Veronica!\" The shuddering stopped. Amelia turned towards her sister, her unseeing eyes fixed on Veronica's face. It was the most eerie thing Veronica had ever seen. She let go of Amelia, reflexively forcing herself backwards on the wooden bench. She heard footsteps on the gravel behind her.\n\n\"It's all in their heads, Veronica. Tell him. You must tell him. It's all in their heads.\" Amelia collapsed back into spasms once again, and Veronica, shaking, looked round to see two of the nurses rushing to Amelia's aid.\n\nThey gathered her up as quickly as they could and laid her out on the lawn beside the wooden bench, holding her down as she continued to spasm.\n\nVeronica leaned over them, desperate to see if Amelia had anything more to say, unprepared for her sister to go through all this agony on her behalf without even finding an answer. But it was not to be. Amelia's episode began to subside and the twitching of her body slowed. She didn't utter another word. Veronica slumped back onto the wooden bench, thankful, at least, that her sister seemed to be unscathed.\n\nAmelia's breath was shallow and she looked dazed, unsure where she was or how she may have got there. She looked up at Veronica, the nurses still pinning her arms to the ground.\n\n\"Veronica?\"\n\n\"Yes, I'm here, Amelia. Are you okay?\"\n\nAmelia blinked, looking at the faces of the two nurses who were holding her down on the cold grass, awaiting the arrival of the doctor. \"I'll be alright.\" She met Veronica's gaze. \"Did you find what you were looking for?\" Her eyes were questing, searching for approval from her older sister.\n\nVeronica looked away. \"I'm not sure, Amelia. I don't know what it all meant.\"\n\nDr. Mason came running towards them, then, his face flushed. He scowled when he saw Veronica sitting on the bench in the middle of the scene. \"Hello, Amelia. I think it's time we got you inside.\" He turned to Veronica. \"Your sister will be taking her leave of us now.\"\n\nVeronica gave one decisive nod. She stood as the nurses helped Amelia to her feet. \"I love you, sister.\" She stepped forward and kissed Amelia on the cheek. \"Be well.\"\n\n\"I'll try.\"\n\nVeronica turned and walked away from the scene, her hand on her head to keep her hat from fluttering away in the breeze.\nCHAPTER 22\n\n##\n\nThe next morning, Newbury rose early, still tender from the ministrations of the Fixer the previous day. He went directly to the bathroom and washed his wounds, and then applied a thick layer of the yellow poultice to each of them in turn. The substance smelled faintly of beeswax, although he could only guess at what else it comprised. He felt vibrant and nervous with energy, partially the result of too much rest, and partially, he imagined, the continued effect of Dr. Fabian's compound. His wounds had begun to heal already, too, although there was still a long way to go before he'd be back to anything like his normal physical form.\n\nNewbury had spent the remainder of the previous day holed up in his study, pacing the room, smoking his pipe and doing his utmost to stop himself giving in to his cravings for the laudanum, which sat in its little brown bottle on the shelf across the room, teasing him with promises of warmth, forgetfulness and solitude. He had sorted through a number of papers from his years in India, searching out references to the revenant plague and attempting to lose himself in reminiscences of the period. Mrs. Bradshaw had prepared him a lavish roast beef dinner, and he had taken it in the dining room, the first time for months that he had made a point of sitting down to eat a proper meal in his own house.\n\nBy morning, however, he felt he could carry on like this no longer. He was concerned that boredom would indeed drive him to the dreaded opiate that he was attempting so pointedly to resist. Instead, he had resolved to head to the office, to deal with any outstanding correspondence, ensure that Miss Coulthard was bearing up, and otherwise busy himself with work on his now-overdue academic paper.\n\nHe secretly hoped that, in doing so, he would happen upon Miss Hobbes with news of the case, and together they could spend the day mulling over the developments so far, gathering their thoughts whilst his constitution was restored and agreeing on a course of action for the following day. If nothing else, he knew Her Majesty would not look too kindly on him wasting another day in lackadaisical pursuits when he had a case to solve, injured or not.\n\nIt was still too early in the day to expect Mrs. Bradshaw to have risen to make breakfast, so instead Newbury settled for organising himself a pot of Earl Grey and rummaging up a few slices of toast, which he ate with a smear of marmalade whilst reading the morning papers. Then, confident that he was well enough for a brief stroll, he fetched his coat and hat and set out, drawing in the fresh morning air and celebrating the fact that he was still alive. The previous day's events seemed like a lifetime ago, a dark and distant memory, and if it were not for the occasional twinge in his upper torso as he walked, he could almost have believed that it had been nothing but a fantasy.\n\nPresently, tiring from his walk, Newbury hailed a cab to take him the rest of the way to the museum. The streets were still quiet, but the sun had risen and the fog was already lifting. He bounced along in the back of the cab, wincing every time the horses ran over an uneven patch of cobbled road and the wheels juddered, jolting his injured body painfully.\n\nThe museum grounds were still deserted when the cab pulled up outside the main gates. Newbury stepped down and paid the driver, who doffed his cap and set the horses trotting off towards Charing Cross Road, their hooves clattering loudly in the otherwise empty street. Newbury crossed the courtyard and mounted the steps up to the main entrance, smiling warmly at Watkins, who was on hand even at this hour to welcome early arrivals. Pulling his gloves off and loosening his scarf, Newbury made his way down to the basement floor and along the short corridor to his office. Taking his key from inside of his jacket pocket, he turned it easily in the lock, pushed the door open and stepped inside.\n\nIt was clear Miss Coulthard had visited the office in the last couple of days. The correspondence had been neatly stacked in the appropriate trays, the cups and saucers had been tidied away and there was a note on her desk, in her handwriting, addressed to him. He picked it up, unfolded the card and scanned the neat copperplate briefly, before dropping it into the wastepaper-basket beside the door. No word on her brother Jack, it seemed.\n\nNewbury clicked the door shut and draped his coat and hat on the stand. He crossed to his private office, noting that there was a pile of papers for him to sign, obviously left there by Miss Coulthard, and growing in size every day he was away from the office.\n\nHe disliked the menial administrative duties of his position at the museum, but in other ways it held his interest when he wasn't on a case, allowed him to come and go as freely as he liked and gave him access to many files and artefacts he would otherwise find it very difficult to obtain. Not only that, but it served as a perfect cover for his position with the Crown, meaning that, rather than having to hide himself away from society as many of the other agents did, he could instead continue to ingratiate himself with the nobility of London, all of which, he felt, provided him with a greater opportunity to do his duty for Her Majesty and the Empire. Connections, in London, were everything, and he found they opened doors where others would find them locked.\n\nFlexing his damaged shoulder muscle to stop it from stiffening up, he lowered himself heavily into his chair. He flicked through the pile of papers on his desk, sighing in dismay. There wasn't even enough there to keep him engaged for an hour, and whilst his paper on the druidic tribes of Bronze Age Europe was in dire need of further work, he still hoped to find an opportunity to get back on the case before the morning was out. He drummed his fingers on the desk. He needed to talk to Musgrave.\n\nNewbury looked up at the sound of the main door clicking open. He glanced at the grandfather clock through the open door of his office. It was still too early for it to be Miss Hobbes. Perhaps, in an effort to distract herself from the difficult situation at home, Miss Coulthard had decided to come to the office early that morning?\n\nHe stood, moving round from behind his desk to greet the new arrival. He stopped short when he heard a familiar clacking sound, like brass feet clanging against the porcelain titles of the floor.\n\n_Automaton._\n\nHe backed up, wondering how one of the clockwork men had managed to get into the museum, let alone track down his office on the basement floor. The feet continued to clatter on the tiles, slowly, deliberately, and Newbury realised that, judging from the sounds of their shuffling movements, there must be more than one of the devices.\n\nA moment later, one of the units appeared around the corner behind the coat stand. Newbury stiffened. It seemed to survey the office, its spinning eyes flicking from one corner of the room to the other. When it caught sight of Newbury, it began to move again, turning around slowly and approaching him, its arms hanging limp by its side. Another one shuffled into the room behind it.\n\nNewbury braced himself. \"What are you doing here? What do you want?\"\n\nThe automaton cocked its head slightly, as if trying to compute his words. Then, stopping about six feet away from him, it raised its right hand before its face. There was a soft, almost pneumatic _snick_ ing sound as thin, knifelike blades slipped out from the ends of its fingers, turning its hand into a vicious razor-sharp claw. Newbury crept backwards until his legs encountered the edge of his desk. The automaton resumed its slow, relentless march towards him. Behind it, the other unit moved farther into the room, blades clicking out of the ends of its fingertips to form an identical gruesome-looking weapon. He noted with dismay that the right hand of that second unit was already smeared in blood. He supposed that answered his question about how the devices had found their way into the museum.\n\nKnowing that he was already seriously injured and therefore unlikely to be able to hold the automata off for long, Newbury decided to go on the offensive. He waited a moment until the nearest unit was only a matter of feet away from him and then charged it, trying to use his speed and body weight to his advantage.\n\nThe automaton saw him coming, however, and twisted out of the way, contorting itself in a manner a human being would find impossible to emulate. Newbury, unable to stop his momentum, slammed into the side of Miss Coulthard's desk, jarring his injured shoulder and spinning awkwardly to the ground. The desk overturned, sending sheaves of paper blooming into the air.\n\nJust in time, Newbury realised he'd landed at the feet of the second automaton, and he rolled to the left, narrowly avoiding its falling hand, which chopped down against the tiles with terrifying force, splintering the porcelain in a cloud of dust. Newbury, still on the floor, grabbed out for the automaton's leg, yanking it forward and unbalancing the device, sending it smashing down to the hard floor beside him. It immediately began to climb to its feet, twisting its shoulder joints to give it better leverage. Newbury climbed to one knee and thrashed out, bringing the coat stand crashing down in front of him just in time to block the path of the other automaton, which was charging him from across the room. He had to think fast.\n\nLeaping to his feet, he cast around for a weapon. His abdomen and chest were on fire as his movements pulled on the stitches, tearing at his damaged flesh. The automata, scrambling over the coat stand, had been reduced to tireless killing machines, stripped of their harmless guise as servants. Their gears churned as they both came at him again, swinging their bladed hands towards him, one of them only a matter of inches from his face.\n\nHe fell back, banging his head awkwardly against the wall. Trying to ignore the burst of sharp pain that flared at the back of his skull, he dived to the left, sending the kitchen equipment skittering across the tiles as he tried to take cover behind the small gas stove, forcing himself over the top of it and onto the floor on the other side. Between the stove and Miss Coulthard's overturned desk, he found himself trapped in the corner of the room, with nowhere else to turn. The one thing in his favour was the fact that the automata seemed unable to work out how to climb over the furniture, instead choosing to reach over and slash at him with their razor-sharp finger blades. He tried to stay out of their reach.\n\nNewbury glanced around in desperation, still looking for something he could use to defend himself. Above him on the wall was a mediaeval axe with a long wooden shaft. He grabbed for it, hastily pulling it free of its mount and showering himself with a spray of plaster. Balancing it in both hands, he swung the unfamiliar weapon in a wide arc, using it to parry the outstretched hands of the mechanical men. It was weighty, and it strained his already exhausted body to lift it properly. Nevertheless, at present, it was all he had to keep the automata at bay.\n\nHe hefted the weapon as high as he could and brought it down heavily upon the chest of the automaton on his left. There was an almighty crash. The wooden handle of the ancient weapon splintered in his hands with the impact, sending the iron head banging loudly to the floor. The automaton staggered backwards for a moment, a large dent in its brass casing, but then, just as quickly, was able to reassert itself and come at him again over the top of the stove. This time, catching him on the backswing, the automaton's hand struck him hard in the arm, and he cried out as the blades sliced his flesh, drawing blood. He snatched his arm back instinctively and managed to scramble out of the reach of the machine.\n\nHe could hardly believe the resilience of the device: the blow from the axe had practically collapsed its chest, even cracking the glass porthole that contained the electrical light that powered its clockwork mind, but the unit seemed unconcerned and continued to mount its attack. Newbury threw the broken shaft of the axe at the other automaton, which knocked it aside to no effect. He knew it was only a matter of time before the machines worked out how to shift Miss Coulthard's desk out of the way to get to him.\n\nNewbury searched the walls for more weapons, thankful now that he had been able to coerce the museum's curator into allowing him to have a small display of anthropological items in his office. A few feet away, over Miss Coulthard's desk and on the wall above the fireplace, was a flail. The weapon was a few hundred years old, but Newbury knew from examining it in the past that the shaft was still firm. He hoped the star-shaped iron ball on the end of the chain would make an effective weapon against the automata, puncturing the relatively soft brass of their skulls and damaging the delicate cogwork in their mechanical brains. It was a blunt tool for a blunt job. He just had to work out how to get to it.\n\nHe measured the distance with his eyes. If he leapt up onto the overturned desk he could be at the weapon in two strides, but equally, he ran the risk of one of the automata catching hold of his leg as he tried to rush by, pulling him to the ground whilst he was unbalanced and sticking him with its vicious claws. He looked over at them. The two machines continued to try to swipe at him from behind the stove. The situation wasn't about to improve, unless he made a decisive move. He had to risk it. There were no other weapons anywhere in reach, makeshift or not, and if he waited any longer the automata would, by sheer relentlessness, find a way to reach him. Jumping up onto the desk didn't seem like a good option, however, especially in his present condition, so instead he decided to see if he could reach the weapon by other means.\n\nStanding, his back to the wall in an effort to stay out of the reach of the questing brass fingers, Newbury edged over towards the chimney breast. Keeping himself as flat as possible, he reached an arm around and used his fingertips to feel for the flail. If he stretched onto his tiptoes, he could just about touch it, but he needed to get past the desk to be able to get a proper grip on the thing. He stared into the impassionate faces of the brass machines, watching their mirrored eyes spinning as they clutched for him, their minds programmed only to kill. If he got out of this alive, Chapman and Villiers were going to have a great deal to answer to.\n\nNewbury surged forward, feeling the blades of both automata impaling the flesh and muscles of his upper arms. Pain blossomed, causing everything to go momentarily white, but he forced himself through it, knowing that this would be his only chance at survival. He hoped Dr. Fabian's compound would continue to work its miraculous healing powers on these fresh wounds.\n\nReaching down, using his momentum to drive himself forwards, he grasped hold of the underside of the desk and flipped it up towards the two machines, connecting with them both at waist height and sending them sprawling to the ground. Not waiting to see how quickly they would be able to get up, Newbury jumped up and grabbed hold of the flail, pulling it down from the display hooks on the wall. He gave it an experimental swing in his right hand, and then, charging forwards towards one of the mechanical men, he arced the ball and chain above his head, slamming it across the side of its skull with as much power as he could muster as it struggled to get up from underneath the desk. The skull split with a dull thud, cracking along the seam between the access plate and the rest of the brass head. Newbury gave a triumphant gasp, trying to free the spiked ball from where it had embedded itself in the inner workings of the machine's head. The damaged automaton kicked spasmodically a few times, its feet clacking on the tiles, and then it was still.\n\nNewbury didn't have time to celebrate. He looked over his shoulder to see the other automaton pulling free of the desk and climbing easily to its feet. He noted it was the unit that he had struck earlier with the axe, and decided to aim his weapon at the glass plate in its chest, tackling an existing weak point in the hope of disabling it faster. He had no idea whether this would have the desired effect, but it had to be worth a try. His arms ached where the gashes in his flesh were weeping blood down his sleeves. He knew he couldn't go on much longer.\n\nNewbury yanked the flail free of the fallen machine, noticing that in doing so, he had exposed something fleshy and wet inside. He didn't have time to look, however, as the other automaton was coming up on him fast. He swung the flail in a wide arc around his head, feeling his shoulder scream in protest as he slammed the weapon against the automaton's chest, shattering the glass plate and causing electricity to arc out into the room in a spectacular display of shimmering blue light. The machine stumbled from side to side for a moment, tottering on its feet, before collapsing to the floor, its brass skeleton still fizzing and crackling with raw electricity.\n\nNewbury dropped the flail and sank to his knees, exhausted. He remained there for a few moments, straining to catch his breath. The electrical current continued to crackle over the destroyed skeleton of the second automaton.\n\nHe looked around the ruination of his office. Miss Coulthard was not going to be happy. He flexed his shoulders, cringing with the pain, and held his arms up before him, cautiously exploring the knife wounds through the fabric of his shirt. They didn't seem so severe as he'd imagined, although the pain was excruciating. He tried to push it to the back of his mind. He looked over at the spilled workings of the machine whose skull he had destroyed. There was definitely something wet and organic seeping out from underneath the brass fittings.\n\nCautiously, Newbury used the edge of the overturned desk to pull himself upright, and tentatively approached the brass skeleton. He prodded it with his foot, making sure that there was no spark of life left inside of it. It flopped lifelessly onto its back. Deciding it was probably safe, he leaned closer, using his fingers to pry the skull open a little farther so he could see inside. He turned the head towards the light. Then, appalled, he dropped the skull to the floor with a loud clatter and stepped away from the gruesome sight, putting his sleeve to his mouth in disgust. His fingers dripped with sticky fluid.\n\nInstead of the clockwork mechanisms that he had been expecting to find inside of the automaton's skull, there was a pinkish-grey, fleshy human brain. Newbury fought back the rising bile in his throat. Then, needing to confirm his suspicion, he retrieved the flail from where he'd discarded it on the floor it a few feet away, and set about splitting open the head of the other unit. A couple of sharp blows later and the skull had given way, revealing the same disturbing sight as the first time: the spattered grey matter of a human organ. He leaned one arm against the wall, trying to process the information. Human organs inside of clockwork men. An airship crash. A series of brutal strangulations in the slums.\n\nSuddenly, a thought began to resolve itself in his mind, the stirrings of a theory taking shape. Wasting no further time, he snatched up his coat from the floor and ran from the office, taking the stairs two at a time, grimacing as his wounds throbbed painfully. He crossed the huge foyer of the museum, hurtled through the main entrance and burst out onto the street, startling a flock of pigeons that had settled in the courtyard. Without pausing, he ran directly to the nearest cab and leapt on board, flinging himself into the seat. The driver leaned down and glanced in through the window.\n\n\"Where to?\"\n\n\"Scotland Yard, as quickly as you can stir those horses into action!\"\nCHAPTER 23\n\n##\n\n\"Charles!\"\n\nNewbury burst into the office of the Chief Inspector and stumbled over to his desk, still dripping blood from the fresh wounds in his upper arms.\n\nBainbridge looked him up and down with an expression of dismay on his face. \"Good God, man. Shouldn't you be resting? Look at the state of you. You're bleeding all over the place. Didn't the Fixer do his work?\" Bainbridge stood, as if he were about to move to Newbury's aid.\n\nNewbury, gasping for breath, staggered across the room and slumped into a Chesterfield beside the fire. \"I'm fine, Charles.\" He wheezed, red-faced from running. \"But I think I have the solution.\"\n\n\"What?\" Bainbridge came round from behind his desk, pushing his spectacles further up his nose. \"Look here, before you start any of that, what's going on with all this blood? Are you hurt?\"\n\nNewbury emitted a gasping laugh. \"A little. I've just fought off two of those automaton devices in my office.\"\n\nBainbridge looked flustered. He repeated himself. \"What?\"\n\n\"It seems we're getting a little too close to the truth. Someone sent two automata to my office in an attempt to assassinate me. They weren't your typical automata, either; they had hidden blades in their fingers, and worse, human brains in their brass skulls.\"\n\nBainbridge shook his head, lowering himself into the other chair by the fire. He reached over to a small table in the corner and took a decanter and two glasses, pouring them both a large brandy. \"I think, Newbury, that you'd better start at the beginning.\"\n\nNewbury accepted the drink gratefully and took a long draw from the glass. He rested his head against the back of the chair. \"What do you know about Pierre Villiers?\"\n\n\"Only what you've told me. That he's a genius. That he was exiled from his own country for experimenting on waifs and strays. That he created the automata for Chapman to market. Nothing more than that.\"\n\nNewbury nodded. \"It's that bit about experimenting on waifs and strays that is interesting me at the moment. What _exactly_ was he doing? What was so bad that his own countrymen had him banished from Paris, renowned the world over as a place of free-thinking and bohemian eccentricity?\"\n\n\"You've lost me.\" Bainbridge raised his eyebrows, shaking his head.\n\n\"No, Charles. I think this has a bearing on our case. Villiers has a fascination with the inner workings of the mind. He told me he's always wanted to build the perfect automaton. What if the device he showed me in his workshop wasn't it? What if it couldn't do everything he wanted it to? Perhaps it was that drive for perfection, and his experiments on those wastrels back in Paris, which provided him with the necessary knowledge to successfully transplant a human brain into a clockwork housing. Perhaps _that_ is his idea of the perfect automaton device?\"\n\nBainbridge looked appalled.\n\n\"I saw it with my own eyes, Charles. I cracked open their brass skulls on my office floor and saw the human organs inside. I think that's why we didn't find the pilot in the wreckage of _The Lady Armitage_. Chapman probably had his man Stokes remove it before anyone else got to the scene. If we'd found it there, we would have taken it away for investigation, and would likely have discovered what they were up to.\"\n\nBainbridge took a swig of his drink, grimacing at the thought. \"But where are they getting the organs from?\"\n\n\"I can't be certain, but I suspect that's where the link to the glowing policeman murders comes in. It all makes a horrible kind of sense. They employ someone to murder paupers in the Whitechapel slums, using strangulation as the method of despatch so as not to damage the brains. Then they make an arrangement with the mortuary attendant to harvest the brains of the victims as they come through the morgue. It's a neat arrangement, however despicable it may be.\"\n\nBainbridge went red in the face. \"I knew that damn mortuary assistant was up to no good!\" He glared at Newbury, obviously incensed. \"So you think the reason for the airship crash is a malfunction in the bridge between the human brain and the automaton frame? Did the pilot simply lose control?\"\n\nNewbury shook his head. \"I can't answer that with any certainty, although I suspect Villiers is far too clever for that to be the case. I don't think it was the interface that went wrong. I think it was the brain.\"\n\n\"You mean they had trouble keeping the brain alive outside of the body?\"\n\n\"Not at all. Think about it, Charles. There's a plague burning through the Whitechapel slums. Remember what I told you about the Indian doctor? The revenant virus incubates for up to eight days in the human brain. God knows how many of those harvested organs were already infected when they were wired up to the automata.\" He paused. \"Judging by the manner in which Christopher Morgan's device went awry, I'd say we are dealing with something far more alarming than a simple malfunction. I think a number of those automata are carrying the revenant plague.\"\n\n\"My God, they're like ticking bombs.\" Bainbridge shook his head. \"But Newbury, they're all over the city.\"\n\n\"I know, Charles. I know. We'll need to enlist the entire Metropolitan police force to aid us in decommissioning the whole lot. But first we've got to tackle Chapman and Villiers. I say we get over there this morning and try to catch them on the hop. They won't yet be aware that their assassination attempt this morning was a failure.\"\n\nBainbridge nodded. \"Very well.\" He eyed Newbury warily. \"Are you sure you're fit?\"\n\nNewbury smiled. \"I'm far from fit. But I'll live.\"\n\nBainbridge downed the last of his brandy. \"What does Miss Hobbes make of all this?\"\n\nNewbury nearly spat his drink across the room. \"Oh, God, Charles. I hadn't even considered. What if they sent the automata after her, too?\" He jumped to his feet. \"We need to get over there now, as fast as we can.\"\n\n\"Right you are.\" Bainbridge placed his empty glass on the table and made straight for his cane. He grabbed his coat from the stand, not even bothering to put it on as he charged out the door. \"Come on. I'll get us a police carriage. We'll be there in no time.\"\n\n\"I pray that's time enough.\" The two men hurried from the room.\nCHAPTER 24\n\n##\n\nKensington High Street was bustling with people by the time the police carriage came hurtling through the traffic, rocking furiously from side to side as its wheels bounced on the uneven cobbles, causing Newbury and Bainbridge to shift uncomfortably in their seats. They had barely spoken a word between them during the short journey from Scotland Yard, each of them choosing to mull over the situation in silence. Newbury, on his part, did not wish to give voice to his obvious concern for Veronica. It was as if talking about the possibility of her being under threat would somehow make the situation more tangible, more likely to become a reality. Instead, he sat clenching and unclenching his fists in nervous anticipation, hoping desperately that his lack of consideration would not result in her coming to any harm. He knew he would not be able to live with himself if it came to that. He cursed himself for being so caught up in his own concerns about the case.\n\nA few moments later, the carriage shuddered and came to a stop. The horses stamped their feet impatiently as the driver tugged on their reins, trying to hold them still. In the back, Newbury climbed to his feet. He was the first through the door, helping Bain-bridge down to the street beside him. He glanced at the door to Veronica's apartment, just a matter of feet away. \"You'd better make sure you have that miraculous cane handy, Charles. If Miss Hobbes is in trouble, we may find ourselves in need of it.\"\n\nBainbridge nodded, and then turned to the driver. \"Wait here.\"\n\nThe driver doffed his cap in acknowledgement.\n\nTogether, Newbury and Bainbridge approached the house. Newbury had taken only a few steps towards the door when he stopped suddenly and waved at Bainbridge to remain still. \"Shhh. Can you hear that?\"\n\nBainbridge listened intently.\n\nComing from the other side of the door was the faint sound of a woman shouting. The words themselves were indiscernible against the background noise of the busy road, but it was enough to send both men into a course of immediate action.\n\nNewbury wasted no time. He charged at the door, using his good shoulder to slam against the wooden panels. The door flexed resolutely in its frame, but didn't give. He tried again, and then, on the third attempt, the lock gave in and the door bounced open, revealing the scene inside.\n\nVeronica was standing in the hallway, her feet planted firmly apart, pointing a glowing poker at the throat of a man in a policeman's uniform. The man, who was tall and well-built, had backed up against the wall, trying to keep the angry woman at bay. It was immediately obvious that he was no real police constable, and what was more, he had painted his face and hands with an iridescent blue powder that shimmered as it caught the light.\n\nNewbury gasped. _The glowing policeman_. The man's uniform was scorched across the front where he had already taken a blow from Veronica's hot poker. They'd clearly been engaged in the struggle for some time, and it seemed that, presently, Veronica had the upper hand.\n\nUnsure what to do, Newbury called to Veronica and rushed forward to help try to pin the glowing policeman. \"Veronica! Be careful!\"\n\nSurprised, Veronica turned to see Newbury charging towards her. The man in the policeman's uniform saw this distraction as a chance to get away and took it without hesitation. He seized Veronica's wrist and twisted it sharply, causing her to cry out and drop the weapon on the floor. Then, giving her a harsh shove that sent her sprawling to the ground, he turned and bolted, flinging himself along the hallway towards the kitchen and the back door.\n\n\"You oafs! I had him pinned!\" Veronica shouted as she picked herself up, frustrated, rubbing at her sore wrist. Newbury, leaving Bainbridge to attend to the lady, took flight after the escaping murderer, barging past Veronica and careening down the hallway in quick pursuit, banging his injured shoulder painfully off the wall as he ran.\n\n\"Oh no you don't!\" He heard Veronica call after him, followed by the sound of her footsteps as she charged after him.\n\nNewbury skidded into the kitchen, throwing his arm out to catch hold of the doorframe and slow himself down momentarily. The back door had been flung open, and the man was scrambling over a wall. Newbury followed suit, darting out into the backyard and leaping up to grab hold of the brickwork. He hauled himself bodily over the wall and dropped into the alleyway behind the house, catching sight of the man doubling back on himself and heading off in the direction of Kensington High Street. Puffing, Newbury picked up his pace, pushing himself to run after the fleeing criminal as fast as his tired, injured body would propel him along. He wasn't about to let his physical condition prevent him from resolving this case, and the glowing policeman was a fundamental part of the puzzle. The man's testimony would be crucial in helping to bring the main players to justice, before he swung from the gallows himself for his crimes.\n\nNewbury, not waiting to see if Veronica had made it over the wall, skidded around the corner into a side street, just managing to keep the uniformed man in view. He charged on, narrowly avoiding a pile of wooden crates that someone had abandoned in the middle of the road and nearly losing his footing on the slick cobbles in the process.\n\nThe other man disappeared between two buildings up ahead. Newbury raced after him, his chest and abdomen screaming in pain. He could feel some of his stitches pulling free as he pushed his body beyond the limit of its endurance. He could hardly believe that only yesterday he had been laid out, dying in the Fixer's workshop, and today he was running through the streets of Kensington in pursuit of a multiple murderer. It was a testament to either the Fixer's miraculous abilities or Newbury's own stupidity. He tried his best to bury the pain as his feet pounded the ground, his entire body shaking with the thudding of his shoes against the hard road.\n\nNewbury burst out onto the busy thoroughfare, glancing in both directions to try to ascertain which way the other man had run. Almost too late, he caught sight of him leaping up onto a passing ground train, snatching hold of the side railing attached to one of the carriages and pulling himself up onto the roof. The long train of interconnected carriages snaked along behind him as it trundled noisily down the road.\n\nNot stopping to consider the risk, Newbury ran after it, launching himself from the pavement and just managing to catch hold of the iron railing that ran around the rear end of the vehicle. He tried to haul himself up, his feet trailing in the road as the vehicle steamed ahead, the driver unaware of his newest passengers. He heard Veronica shouting something from behind him, but he was already out of earshot as the train rumbled on along the road.\n\nGasping, Newbury hoisted himself higher, wedging his foot on the buffer and pulling himself into a standing position, balancing tentatively on the railing. He heard banging and shouting, and looked round to see the people inside the carriage had opened their side window and were leaning out, jeering at him to let go. There was a similar commotion coming from farther up the train, and Newbury reasoned that the passengers had seen the strange blue-skinned policeman leap up onto the roof and were now calling for the driver to stop the vehicle.\n\nBeing careful not to lose his hold, Newbury used one hand to explore the roof of the carriage. It seemed firm, and had a thin lip running around the edge of it that he could use as a handhold to pull himself up. It was the only way he was going to be able to catch up with the man he was chasing, and he didn't want to risk losing him if the devious blighter decided to jump off the train farther up the road to make good on his escape.\n\nNewbury swung his other arm up, finding his grip on the roof of the carriage. He manoeuvred his feet until he could gain some purchase on the railing and then began to pull himself up and over, using his leg muscles as much as possible to avoid pulling on his weak shoulder. After a minute or two, he managed to swing first his chest and then his legs up onto the roof of the carriage. He lay still for a moment, catching his breath and casting around for a sight of his quarry. The roof was mostly flat, with a slight camber to each side to allow rainwater to run off into the street below. Newbury looked over the side. The cobbles rushed by at speed. It wouldn't do to fall.\n\nThe glowing policeman was clinging to another roof, about three carriages farther up the train. He was on his knees and had his back to Newbury, clutching the lip that ran around the edge of the carriage roof. He shifted from side to side with the movement of the train.\n\nNewbury knew that it would be difficult to get closer to the man without attracting his attention, but he also knew that moving quickly would provide him with his best shot at success. If he could get near enough to knock the policeman over the head\u2014he had lost his helmet somewhere during the run\u2014he could potentially disable the man before he even realised that Newbury was there.\n\nTentatively, he pushed himself up onto his knees, trying to work out whether it would be safe enough for him to walk along the roof of the carriage without falling. The train was still trundling along at a reasonable speed, but the road was straight, and as long as they didn't bounce over any potholes, it was worth the risk. Not that he had any other options in mind.\n\nSlowly, he got to his feet, keeping his eyes on the man up ahead. He took a quick step forward, almost stumbled, but managed to keep his balance by waving his arms out beside him. He crept towards the rim of the carriage, looking down at the gap between the roof he was standing on and the next one along in the train. It was at least four or five feet. The ground swept past below. He was going to need a running jump to clear it. If he missed he'd end up caught amongst the hard buffers or tumbling to one side and cracking his head on the cobbled road, or worse, dashed beneath the train's wheels. None of them seemed like a good way to go.\n\nSighing, he edged away from the gap, taking a few steps backwards. He looked around to establish that there were no trailing wires that could inadvertently snare him as he made his dash, and then, with a deep breath, he careened forward and leapt into the air, throwing himself as far as he could towards the next roof in the long line of carriages. He came down with a loud _smack_ , landing on his right side and skittering across the bitumen-covered roof, sliding towards the edge of the carriage.\n\nThrashing around, he managed to get a grip on the lip of the roof, planting his feet as best he could to gain leverage. The landing had knocked the air out of his lungs, so he sucked fruitlessly at the sky, lying on his back, trying desperately to pull himself round. He could hear shouting from the passengers beneath him, panicked by the sudden bang on the roof of their carriage. He wondered how long it would take the driver to start weaving from side to side again, or else bring the vehicle to a halt.\n\nNewbury rolled up into a sitting position. He realised immediately that his attempts at subtlety had been wasted; the noise he'd made leaping across the gap had been enough to startle the man in the policeman's uniform a few carriages ahead. He had not, however, made any move to try to flee, as Newbury had anticipated he might; instead, he had turned to face the Crown investigator, a look of grim resignation in his eyes, as if ready to take him on if Newbury decided to come any closer. As far as Newbury saw it, however, he had no choice but to continue. He wasn't about to be intimidated, and whilst he'd had his absolute fill of combat during the course of the last couple of days, he would do what was necessary to bring the man to justice.\n\nNewbury found his footing and this time didn't stop to ponder the jump. He ran at the end of the carriage, diving over the gap and throwing himself, spread-eagled, onto the roof of the next one in the long train. This time he was prepared for the impact and recovered much faster from the landing, although he felt the wounds in his arms open up again as he grasped for a handhold, warm blood weeping down the length of his forearms. They burned angrily, and Newbury felt like he'd forgotten what it was like to live without pain.\n\nHe looked up, making sure that the glowing policeman hadn't jumped across from the next carriage to meet him. Thankfully, the man had chosen to wait it out on the other roof. He was hovering near the lip of the carriage, his fists ready, his stance set firm. He looked like a prize-fighter, silhouetted against the morning sun. There was no way Newbury would be able to make the jump across to tackle him. If he flung himself over as he had with the other carriages, he'd run the risk of colliding with the man, knocking them both to the ground and their deaths. It was simply too treacherous, and he needed to come up with an alternative course of action as quickly as he could. He moved over to the end of his carriage to stand opposite the counterfeit policeman, swaying slightly with the movement of the train. The gap between them opened and closed as the train bounced over the cobbles, bringing them dangerously close together and then pulling them apart again with every bump and twist of the road.\n\nTheir eyes met. The man scowled angrily, his expression filled with fury and ire. It was clear to Newbury that he was the sort of man who made his living from violence: his face was a patchwork of scars and old wounds, and his nose had been broken on numerous occasions. He was unshaven, and underneath the shimmering blue powder he had painted over his exposed skin, his neck was covered in a string of dark illegible tattoos.\n\nNewbury shouted to him over the noise of the churning engine. \"Look here. There's no way we're both getting down from here alive, unless we choose to do it together. I can help. They'll go easy on you if you cooperate.\"\n\nThe other man grunted. \"You mean they'll give me a shorter rope to dangle from?\" He shook his head. \"Not me. I ain't going willingly to no noose.\" His accent was clipped with the sounds of the East End, his voice a gruff bark.\n\nNewbury nodded. \"So be it.\" He glanced from side to side, looking for anything he could use as a weapon. There was nothing obvious to hand. He shifted slightly as the train rocked forward. The movement brought the two carriages momentarily closer together, and the man took the opportunity to swing out, catching Newbury off guard with a hard fist in his gut. Newbury toppled backwards, clutching at his waist. He used his feet to shuffle back from the edge whilst he regained his composure, keeping his eye on his adversary. The glowing policeman eyed him with a sarcastic smile. Newbury clambered to his feet. He edged closer to the gap once again, his arms drawn up in front of him in readiness. He wasn't sure how much power he'd be able to muster in his damaged shoulder, but he flexed his neck muscles in anticipation and, when the opportunity arose, dashed forward and took a swing at the other man.\n\nAt that moment, however, the carriage veered suddenly to the right, and the gap between the two men widened dramatically as the engine turned a corner up ahead and sent the train of carriages careening out in a wide arc behind it. Too late to stop his momentum, Newbury toppled into the gap, falling between the two carriages. He lashed out, scrabbling desperately to find purchase on anything that would prevent him from falling to the ground. In his panic, he managed to grab the ledge that ran around the roof of the other carriage, his body slamming hard into the rear end of the carriage itself. He held on tentatively by his fingertips, thrashing his feet around beneath him as he tried to find something firm that could take his weight.\n\nThe face of the glowing policeman appeared over the lip of the carriage roof, leering down at him. The man was laughing at his apparent stroke of good fortune. It was almost a comical sight, this human face shining blue in the early morning sunshine. If Newbury hadn't been hanging precariously by his fingertips, he would have laughed out loud.\n\nThe policeman approached the edge of the roof and stamped his boot down hard on Newbury's left hand, crushing his finger-tips painfully against the metal rim. He ground his foot, trying to force Newbury to let go. Newbury could feel the skin shredding from his knuckles underneath the man's roughly shod boot. He cried out in agony, barely managing to keep a hold on the roof. His eyes filled with involuntary tears of pain. The man lifted his foot away for a second, giving the slightest of reprieves, but then smashed it down again heavily, using his heel to force Newbury's fingers away from the edge.\n\nNewbury, blinded by panic, swung out from the end of the carriage, clutching the roof with only one hand. Below, the road was a blur of dark stones that sped past as the train gathered speed and momentum. If he fell, his life was forfeit. Determined to hang on for all he was worth, Newbury tried again to swing his legs onto some footing. This time he connected with the iron buffers and managed to get his feet up onto one of them, sighing with relief as he secured himself against the end of the carriage. He was far from safe, but neither was he about to tumble to a miserable death.\n\nThe other man, not seeing that Newbury had managed to get himself into a position with more leverage, prepared to stomp down on Newbury's other hand. Newbury waited until the man lifted his foot and then swept out with his free hand, grasping him by his ankle and pulling sharply forwards, toppling the man onto his back so that he splayed out on the carriage roof with a considerable _bang_. Newbury used the opportunity to pull himself up to safety as the glowing policeman, dazed from the fall, rolled to one side and scrambled to the other end of the roof in an effort to buy himself time to recover. A moment later, he climbed back to his feet, shaking his head.\n\nWarily, the two men faced each other. The glowing policeman was clearly the bigger of the two, his strength probably far exceeding the academic's, but Newbury didn't have time to ponder the odds. He charged forward, catching the other man off guard and driving his fist up and under his chin. It connected with a _crack_ , and the man staggered back, disorientated. Newbury continued his assault, punching the criminal as hard as he could in the kidneys, trying to bring him to his knees. Unfortunately, the second of these blows had quite the opposite effect than was intended.\n\nLosing his footing, the glowing policeman skidded backwards on the bitumen roof, his feet giving way beneath him as he misjudged the camber and overbalanced. Wheeling his arms like a flapping bird, he fell over the side of the carriage, hurtling towards the cobbles below. Newbury dashed forward, reaching out to try to catch hold of the falling man, but his fingers managed only to graze the collar of the stolen police uniform before the man was gone. There was a sickening crunch as he hit the ground below.\n\nNewbury sucked in his breath and leaned over the side of the train as they hurtled away, straining to see what had become of the glowing policeman. He had to avert his eyes from the scene almost immediately. The man had landed awkwardly on the back of his head, splitting it open on the cobbles like a cracked egg. His body was a twisted pile of torso and limbs, the neck obviously broken, and oily blood seeped from the head wound to stain the stones underneath.\n\nCollapsing back onto the roof, Newbury cursed himself yet again for letting a vital clue slip out of his reach. He felt no remorse for the death of the man who had posed as the glowing policeman; as far as Newbury was concerned, the villain deserved everything he got. Nevertheless, lying there bleeding and shivering on the top of a speeding train, Newbury couldn't help but feel frustration that the whole affair had resulted in nothing, except perhaps the death of a killer who could otherwise have provided evidence against Chapman and Villiers before he went to the gallows. He had to hope that the evidence he had already collected would be enough to condemn the two industrialists in court.\n\nMustering what remained of his strength, Newbury crawled to the far edge of the carriage and shouted down to the driver and guard, both of whom sat in a small cabin atop the main housing of the engine itself.\n\n\"Driver! Time you stopped this bloody train to let me down, isn't it?\"\n\nThe man looked up at the battered and bruised face of Newbury, leaning down over the top of the carriage. He stuttered, unsure how to respond. The guard reached for his truncheon.\n\nNewbury sighed. \"Let me down and I'll show you my papers, man! I'm working on behalf of the Crown.\"\n\nThis was clearly enough for the driver, who applied the brakes and slowly brought the train to a stop, to much shouting and consternation from the passengers. Newbury lowered himself carefully over the edge of the carriage roof, clambering down onto the engine casing and using the fireman's steps to lower himself to the street below. The driver looked him up and down, mystified that a man claiming to work for the Crown should be found in such a diabolical state, crawling around on top of the 9:20 to Marylebone.\n\nThe guard climbed down from the cab and walked around the front of the train, his truncheon in hand. He came to stand before Newbury. \"Papers, you say?\"\n\nNewbury fished his papers out from his inside jacket pocket and waved them at the portly fellow, whose eyes widened at the sight of the Royal Seal. He glanced up at the driver, nodding slowly.\n\nNewbury outlined the situation. \"Now, look here. I have to get back to my associates. You need to alert the police as quickly as you can. There's a dead man in the street back there, dressed as a police constable. His face is painted up to look blue. Tell the bobbies that Sir Charles Bainbridge of Scotland Yard wants the body taken to the morgue immediately. Can you do that?\"\n\nThe man nodded, clearly unsure how to react.\n\nNewbury, shaking his head, had little choice but to rely on the man. \"This is a matter of state importance. Now, go to it!\"\n\nThe guard glanced back at the driver, and then at the carriages full of passengers. He shrugged. Then he ran off in the direction of the dead man. The driver cranked a lever on the front of the engine, allowing steam to hiss noisily from a vent in the roof, and then the train rumbled slowly away, gathering speed and momentum as it did.\n\nNewbury took one last look at the passengers, many of whom were leaning out of their windows heckling him as the train pulled away. Then turned and searched out a passing cab, leaping aboard and directing the driver to make haste in the direction of Veronica's apartment, where he hoped to find both Bainbridge and Veronica herself awaiting him.\nCHAPTER 25\n\n##\n\nThe door was still hanging loose on its hinges when Newbury ducked into Veronica's apartment a short while later. He winced as he walked along the hallway, heading towards the sound of voices that were coming from one of the reception rooms at the back of the house.\n\nHe could hear Bainbridge fussing over Veronica from within. \"Really, Miss Hobbes. I do suggest we call a doctor.\"\n\nVeronica's response was terse. \"Sir Charles, I will not be fussed over unnecessarily. I assure you I am quite well.\"\n\nBainbridge sighed extravagantly. \"Very well. As you wish.\" Newbury could imagine him rolling his eyes in consternation. The conversation lapsed into silence.\n\nNewbury approached the door to the lounge and knocked loudly before entering. Veronica jumped to her feet. \"Sir Maurice! Oh . . .\" Her mouth fell open in slack-jawed amazement when she laid eyes on his bedraggled appearance. She crossed the room, took him by the arm and led him slowly to a nearby chair. Her face was a picture of concern.\n\nNewbury smiled. \"Do I really look that bad?\"\n\nVeronica looked away, refusing to be drawn on the question, but Bainbridge was more to the point. \"You look like you've gone ten rounds with an Indian tiger. Are you badly hurt?\"\n\nNewbury couldn't help but laugh. \"That's the second time you've asked me that today, Charles, and the answer remains decidedly the same: no more than can be expected.\" He shifted in his seat where the leather upholstery was pressing painfully against his wounds. \"I think we'll get today's excitement out of the way, and then I'll be paying another visit to the Fixer, to see if he can't dose me up with some more of that miraculous compound of his. I took a bit of a beating out there today.\" He fell silent, watching the fire gutter in the grate as the others waited for him to go on.\n\nBainbridge pulled at the edges of his moustache impatiently. \"Are you going to elaborate, then? Did you lose him somewhere?\"\n\nNewbury watched Veronica as she made her way back to her seat. He shook his head. \"No. He's very much dead.\"\n\nBainbridge nodded, his face unreadable. Veronica looked aghast. \"What happened? I lost you on the High Street when you jumped aboard the train. I couldn't keep up in this damnable dress.\" She looked down at her torn, dirty skirt with disdain.\n\n\"He scrambled onto the roof of the train. I followed suit, we scuffled and he fell to his death. It's a damn shame. It would have been far more useful if I'd managed to restrain him instead. I would have liked the opportunity to question him about the case.\" He glanced at Bainbridge. \"I left instructions for the body to be taken to the morgue.\" Bainbridge nodded his approval.\n\n\"You fought him on the top of a moving ground train?\" Veronica's voice was strained.\n\nNewbury nodded. \"Indeed.\"\n\n\"What were you thinking of! You could easily have gone over the side with him!\"\n\nBainbridge raised an eyebrow at this outburst from Veronica. \"Miss Hobbes, it is clear to me that you are still suffering from a certain degree of shock, which is only to be expected following the nature of this morning's attack. Perhaps you need some time alone to recover?\"\n\nNewbury smirked as Veronica bit back on her retort. She glanced over at him, her eyes flashing. \"My apologies, Sir Maurice. I did not mean to question your judgement.\"\n\nNewbury gave a half-hearted laugh. \"Oh, but you are quite correct in this matter, my dear Miss Hobbes. It was a rather foolhardy exercise, and one I shall be in no hurry to repeat, I assure you. I've had quite my fill of hand-to-hand combat for the time being. What galls me terribly is the fact that I did not even manage to apprehend the villain for my troubles.\"\n\nBainbridge spluttered. \"On the contrary, old boy! Your actions have resulted in the removal of a major criminal element from the streets of London. You are to be congratulated. A job well done!\"\n\nNewbury shrugged noncommittally. He turned towards Veronica. \"And Miss Hobbes, I assume you are quite well? Were you hurt in your struggle with the man?\"\n\nVeronica shook her head. \"No, I'm well enough, thank you. A little shaken, perhaps. I'm pleased to report that you and Sir Charles arrived before the situation degenerated into actual violence. I should have hated it if I'd found cause to actually use that hot poker on the man.\" She shot a sardonic glance at Bainbridge, who seemed impervious to the witticism, or else was simply choosing to ignore it.\n\nNewbury smiled. \"You certainly seemed to have everything under control when we arrived, Miss Hobbes. I'm only sorry that I had to involve you in this terrible business. If I'd imagined at the outset of this investigation that it would in any way put you in danger, I would, of course, have refrained from including you in proceedings.\"\n\nVeronica sat forward in her seat, clasping her hands together in front of her. She looked anxious. \"Not at all, Sir Maurice. I wouldn't have it any other way. I couldn't bear to be excluded now.\"\n\nNewbury nodded slowly. \"Very well, then.\" His lips curled, as if satisfied that he had done his duty in giving Veronica the opportunity to back out. \"Let us order the events in our minds. Miss Hobbes, can you tell us exactly what happened here? Before I chased the villain from the scene, I mean. It could be pertinent to the case.\"\n\nVeronica sighed. \"I'm not entirely sure, I'm afraid.\" She glanced from Newbury to Bainbridge. \"I was in this room, taking a cup of tea before the fire, when I heard a sound from the hallway. I turned to look just as the man you saw, dressed as the blue policeman, barged in and came at me with his fists. I grabbed the poker from the fire and used it to drive him back into the hallway. That was when the two of you arrived. He must have found his way in through the back somehow.\"\n\n\"What about your housekeeper?\"\n\n\"Mrs. Grant has only just arrived for the day. She's in the kitchen at the moment, searching out a temporary prop for the door. She doesn't begin her duties until half past nine on a Thursday.\"\n\nNewbury sank back into the clutches of his chair. He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. \"Do you think Mrs. Grant could find it in her heart to prepare a pot of Earl Grey for two gentlemen in urgent need?\" He glanced over at Bainbridge. \"Charles and I have a great deal to talk to you about.\"\n\nVeronica frowned. \"I am sure Mrs. Grant will be only too happy to accommodate you. But what is it that you need to discuss?\"\n\nNewbury ran a hand over his face, sitting forward in his chair. \"I think we'd better start at the beginning.\"\n\nNewbury recounted his theory to Veronica over a pot of tea, in much the same way as he had explained it to Bainbridge earlier that morning in the offices at Scotland Yard. Veronica nodded solemnly as she took it all in, and Newbury could see by the look on her face that she thought it made a terrible kind of sense, when all the facts were considered alongside each other.\n\n\"So you're essentially saying that Chapman and Villiers organised the glowing policeman murders as a means of obtaining human brains for use in their automaton devices?\"\n\nNewbury nodded.\n\n\"And that you believe the reason that some of the automata have been malfunctioning\u2014thus causing the airship crash, amongst other things\u2014is because a number of those organs were carrying the revenant plague?\"\n\n\"That's about the size of it, my dear. Of course, questioning the man who was posing as the glowing policeman would have helped to establish the link with more certainty, but the clues are all there: the human organs in the automata that attacked me; the blue powder around the throat and collar of the murdered Christopher Morgan, who had previously threatened to expose Chapman and Villiers, the glowing policeman coming after you this very morning. It all fits together perfectly. I suspect if we were able to disinter the bodies of the glowing police-man's earlier victims, we would very quickly be able to establish that the brains had been removed from the bodies. The fact that those organs have all been sourced from the Whitechapel slums, where the revenant plague is rife, coupled with the fact that we know the virus has an eight-day incubation period, suggests that the revenant symptoms might not present until days after the automaton units were sold to their clients.\" Newbury sat back, crossing his legs and taking another mouthful of Earl Grey.\n\nVeronica shook her head. \"It's all in their heads! Ha! I should have realised earlier.\" She sighed. \"It's all in the heads of the automata.\"\n\nNewbury frowned. \"What was that, Miss Hobbes?\"\n\nVeronica met Newbury's gaze. \"Oh, nothing. Something for later, perhaps. It has no bearing on the case.\" She clapped her hands together. \"So, what is our next move?\" She glanced at Bainbridge.\n\n\"Chapman and Villiers. It has to be. As Newbury has already pointed out, the moment they get wind of the fact that their assassination attempts this morning have failed, they'll have to make a run for it. We need to get to them first, if we're not already too late.\"\n\nNewbury shook his head. \"No, they're both as arrogant as each other. Chapman probably thinks he can take us on at our own game, and Villiers, I suspect, doesn't care one way or another. I doubt they'll run. In fact, if we're lucky, they'll play right into our hands.\"\n\n\"And directly into a noose, too, if I have any say in the matter.\" Bainbridge tapped his foot on the carpet, coughing loudly. \"Shall we make haste?\"\n\nVeronica stood. Newbury did the same. \"If I may make use of your bathroom facilities before we leave, Miss Hobbes? I would very much like to wash away some of this blood and grime before making the journey across town.\"\n\nVeronica smiled. \"Of course. Let me show you where to go.\" She led him from the room, showing him along the hall to the small bathroom.\n\nNewbury hesitated before the door. He turned to regard her. \"Thank you, Miss Hobbes. I won't keep you for long.\" He held her gaze for a few seconds, noticing for the first time the pretty smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. \"I'm very glad you survived this morning unscathed.\"\n\nVeronica laughed softly. \"And I'm very glad that you survived at all.\" Her voice was barely a whisper, as if she didn't want Bain-bridge to overhear their conversation. She put her hand on his arm. \"When we left you with the Fixer, I . . . I thought I might not see you again.\"\n\n\"I know.\" He looked pained. \"I'm sorry I put you through all of that. I'll be well enough with a little time.\"\n\nVeronica shook her head. \"You have nothing to be sorry for, Sir Maurice! It is I who should be thanking you. Your efforts against the revenant creatures were enough to save all of our lives.\" She leaned over and kissed him gently on the cheek, her lips leaving a cool, damp impression on his skin.\n\nNewbury cleared his throat, embarrassed. \"In that case, Miss Hobbes, after the manner in which you found me in my study the other morning, I do believe we're about equal.\" He offered her a wide grin. \"Now, if you'll forgive me, I really must attend to my wounds. I fear this suit is already beyond saving, but I'd like to give it my best shot all the same.\"\n\nVeronica laughed, this time not bothering to hide her amusement. \"You'll find some fresh bandages in the cabinet beneath the sink.\"\n\nNewbury stepped into the bathroom and clicked the door shut behind him. He listened to the sound of Veronica's footsteps disappearing along the hallway before undressing in front of the mirror, setting the tap running and tending to his raw and bloody wounds. It was only just after ten o'clock in the morning, and already it was proving to be a long, painful day.\nCHAPTER 26\n\n##\n\nThe sun was a watery, baleful eye that glared down at the Thames through a bruised eyelid of rain clouds as Newbury, Veronica and Bainbridge rolled over the Chelsea Bridge in the back of the police carriage, on their way to Battersea and the Chapman and Villiers manufactory.\n\nNewbury watched Bainbridge leaning out of the carriage window, straining to take in the sight of the embankment as it came into view. He followed the other man's gaze. The scene across the river was murky, the mist and rain forming a thick veil across the landscape. The rain had begun to fall not long after they had set out from Veronica's apartment, and the three of them had quickly decided to huddle together in the waiting vehicle. Bainbridge had stopped only to send word to Scotland Yard, requesting uniformed assistance, but they all knew it would be some time before the Yard were able to muster their men. In the meantime, Newbury had been eager to press on, to head directly to Battersea and confront Chapman and Villiers before the two of them realised the police were finally on to them.\n\nNewbury looked up at the dark clouds that were scudding across the sky, brooding with intent. The rain would continue well into the afternoon, if he was any judge of the weather.\n\nAcross the river, the warehouses of Chapman and Villiers were squat mounds of red brick, imposing even amidst the industrial buildings that sat to either side of them. A number of airships were still tethered to the roofs, tousled by driving wind and precipitation. They bobbed fluidly but remained fixed in place by long coils of rope.\n\n\"Impressive, isn't it, Charles?\"\n\nBainbridge turned to look at him, his expression fixed. He nodded. \"Bigger than I had imagined.\"\n\n\"Indeed. Wait until you see inside. The manner in which they construct the new dirigibles is magnificent.\" He allowed his eyes to wander to the floor, biting back his enthusiasm. \"If only they'd contented themselves with that, eh, rather than trying to revolutionise the world with their clockwork men?\" He shook his head.\n\n\"Newbury, people like that will never be content with their lot. What ever they say, it's not about changing the world. It's about wielding power. They may call themselves philanthropists, but in truth they're just as greedy as the rest of us, just as hungry for money and validation. In this case, probably more so.\"\n\nNewbury met his friend's eyes. \"You're right, of course. About Chapman, at least. But I think Villiers is a different matter entirely. I don't see that he's at all interested in money or validation. I think he sees his work as a personal challenge. He has no grand schemes to change the world; he wants only to be left alone to his amoral experiments, as terrible as they are.\"\n\nBainbridge sighed. \"That may be so, but it doesn't alter the fact that together they've committed the most heinous of crimes. There's no redemption to be had here. They're both for the noose.\"\n\nNewbury nodded and leaned back in his seat. He glanced at Veronica, who had been listening to the conversation from her place beside him. She didn't seem to have anything she wanted to add to the discussion and instead turned away, pretending to distract herself with the view out of the window. He wondered for a moment about what she was thinking.\n\nNewbury closed his eyes, lulled by the motion of the carriage. His wounds ached desperately. He hoped that the affair would be over soon so that he could spend a few days holed up in his lodgings, convalescing in his study. For now, though, he had work to do, and he knew that what ever evidence the three of them had at their disposal, Joseph Chapman was not going to willingly accept his fate.\n\nThe cab rolled on, its wheels clicking loudly on the cobbled road as they neared their destination.\n\nThe reception area of Chapman and Villiers Air Transportation Services was devoid of activity when Newbury burst in followed by both Bainbridge and Veronica. Chapman's clerk, Soames, sat in his usual position behind the mahogany desk, his hands forming a thin steeple on the desk before him. He glanced up nonchalantly as the door clicked shut behind the visitors.\n\n\"Ah, good day to you, Sir Maurice.\" The man's eyes flicked over the faces of three newcomers, like a lizard assessing its prey. \"I am afraid that you will find Mr. Chapman is unavailable today. I hope you have not had a wasted journey.\" He offered Newbury a sickly smile.\n\nNewbury turned to Veronica, inclining his head in the direction of the stairs. She grasped his meaning immediately and crossed the room in a few quick strides, mounting the bottom step and starting up in the direction of Chapman's office.\n\n\"Really, Sir Maurice!\" Soames stood, placing his hands on the desk before him. \"I assure you that Mr. Chapman is not here. There is no need to contest my word on the matter.\"\n\nNewbury glared at him but said nothing.\n\nA moment later, Veronica appeared at the top of the staircase and gave a curt shake of her head. Chapman obviously wasn't in his office. Still, Newbury couldn't find it in himself to trust the clerk.\n\n\"Where is he?\"\n\nSoames looked exasperated. \"I honestly can't say. He arrived this morning as usual, took his tea in his office and then went about his business. I haven't seen him for at least two or three hours. He told me to keep his diary free for today.\"\n\nNewbury clenched his fists, exasperated.\n\nBainbridge put his hand on Newbury's shoulder. \"What now?\"\n\nNewbury shrugged. \"Villiers, I suppose.\"\n\nSoames sighed dramatically. \"Gentlemen, without an appointment, I really must insist\u2014\" He stopped short when Bain-bridge raised his cane, leaned over the desk and placed the tip of it against the man's chest, tapping it gently as if weighing how much force he would need to shatter the clerk's breast-bone.\n\n\"Look here. If you have any sense about you at all, you will stop with your insipid drivel and make haste away from this place before you find yourself implicated in affairs you'd rather stay out of!\"\n\nThe clerk looked appalled, then stepped back from the tip of the other man's cane, his legs bumping into his chair behind the desk. He opened and closed his mouth as if unsure how to respond to the threat. \"I . . . oh . . .\"\n\n\"Shut up, man! My name is Sir Charles Bainbridge, and I am a Chief Inspector with Scotland Yard. My colleagues and I intend to locate Mr. Villiers for an interview. You can either assist us by pointing us in the right direction, or you can choose to create a situation for yourself. I fear the latter option will not work out for the best.\"\n\nSoames shrivelled away from the Chief Inspector, clearly terrified by the man. \"I believe you'll find him in his workshop on the other side of the manufactory site, sir.\"\n\nBainbridge nodded and withdrew his cane. The other man sighed visibly with relief. \"Good man. Now, heed my advice and take your leave. I assure you that you do not wish to be associated with this business any more than you already are. As it is we'll need to have you in for questioning.\" He turned to Veronica, who was crossing the room to join them once again. \"Are we set?\"\n\nVeronica nodded.\n\n\"Then come on, Newbury. Lead the way.\"\n\nNewbury shook his head in disbelief. \"You never fail to impress me, Charles.\" He held his arm out for Veronica, fearing that, without her aid, his injuries may soon overcome him. She took it, and together they set off in the direction of the manufactory proper, following the route they had taken during their previous visit, when Chapman himself had been serving as their guide.\n\nThe hangar was suffused with the same biting chill as the city outside of the walls, but at least, Newbury considered, it was sheltered from the wind and the rain. He pulled his overcoat tighter around his shoulders and watched as the others did the same. Below, on the hangar floor, a new gondola was under construction, and the scene was nearly identical to the one Newbury and Veronica had witnessed a handful of days before, although the workmen in this instance were still assembling the basic shell rather than fitting the interior. Newbury leaned over the rail, searching the floor for signs of Chapman. He was nowhere to be seen.\n\nBainbridge approached the edge of the metal walkway, clasping the rail with his left hand. He surveyed the industrious scene below. \"You're right, Newbury, it's a very impressive operation, indeed.\"\n\nNewbury nodded, fighting back a shiver. He knew he'd lost a lot of blood, and consequently he was feeling the cold somewhat more than usual. The bandages and salves he had applied at Veronica's apartment had helped to stem the tide, however, and he was convinced that the worst of it was over. \"Yes, this is where they assemble the passenger gondolas. The next hall is where they build the frames for the main body of the vessel.\" He waved his hand. \"Come on. We have to pass that way to get to Villiers's workshop, anyway.\"\n\nThey made their way along the metal walkway and down onto the main floor of the hangar, where the workmen seemed to ignore their presence entirely, preferring to continue with the task of constructing the gondola. The place was filled with the loud din of industry, and Newbury wrinkled his nose at the smells of oil and scorched wood.\n\nThe next hangar was equally busy, with the skeleton of a vessel being hoisted into place by the pneumatic cranes that ran around the edges of the large room. Bainbridge looked up, clearly impressed, as Newbury led him past the foreman, who was bellowing instructions to the men working the cranes, trying to make himself heard over the noise. Sparks dripped from welding arcs high above them. They edged around the machinery and exited the main airship works, passing along the short corridor that led them out into the smaller room that housed the automaton production line.\n\nThe room was crowded and hot, the steam-driven presses firing noisily as they worked at incredible speeds, pistons pumping furiously as they pushed out the brass components that would be used in the assembly of the clockwork men. A swarthy-looking man in a pair of grey overalls looked up when they entered the room, downed his tools and passed the chest plate of the automaton unit he was working on to another, smaller man who had been assisting him.\n\nHe approached the group of three interlopers, wiping the grime and oil from his face with the back of his sleeve. \"Can I help you?\"\n\nNewbury stepped forward. \"Yes. We have an appointment with Monsieur Villiers. The clerk on the desk in reception sent us through.\"\n\nThe man eyed them warily. \"An appointment, you say? Can I see some identification?\"\n\nBainbridge bustled forward impatiently. He pulled a leather wallet from his pocket and flicked it open, presenting it to the man. Inside was an official badge and papers from Scotland Yard, bearing the crest of Her Majesty. The man looked perplexed, as if he were unsure whether he should let the Chief Inspector and his companions through to see his employer, or why they should even be interested in speaking to the reclusive scientist. Eventually, though, he seemed to come to a decision. He stood aside and waved them at the door to Villiers's workshop with a shrug. \"He's in there.\"\n\n\"Thank you.\" Newbury inclined his head in gratitude and approached the door to the workshop. He didn't bother to knock, instead reaching out for the handle and giving the door a gentle shove. It swung into the room to reveal the same cluttered workbench they had seen before, buried beneath a vast array of components, but no sign of the man they were looking for. Newbury ushered the others through, then closed the door behind him.\n\nBainbridge was frowning. \"Where the devil are those damnable fellows hiding?\" He cast around, trying to make sense of the cluttered workshop. He looked flustered, as if he thought that the two men had somehow managed to get away.\n\nNewbury was just about to respond, when Veronica tugged on his arm. \"Look!\"\n\nHe followed her gaze to where she was pointing. The automaton in the corner\u2014the demonstration model they had seen during their previous visit\u2014was rising out of its chair and moving towards them, its left arm outstretched, its fingers opening and closing like the shining brass pincers of a crab. Its feet clacked on the tiled floor as it walked. Bainbridge, seeing the sinister-looking device making a beeline for him, grabbed his cane with both hands and gave the brass knob a sharp twist to the right. \"Oh no, you don't!\"\n\nThe shaft of the cane began immediately to unpack itself, and now that he had a better opportunity to observe the mechanism, Newbury was even more impressed. Small hinges unfurled at the top of the cane, causing thin brass rods to uncouple from the main shaft of the weapon so that they formed a kind of metal cage around the device. The central column began to spin rapidly, generating sparks of light within the cage itself. There was a sudden flicker, and then blue light arced along the length of the weapon, running back and forth along the conductor rod with a sharp electrical hum, from the handle all the way down to the tip of the shaft.\n\nBainbridge, raising the weapon before him like a rapier, wasted no time. He jabbed the point of the cane towards the chest of the shambling automaton, the sharp tip actually managing to pierce the brass plate and bury itself deep in the heart of the clockwork device. Pulsing electrical energy leapt from the cane into the delicate internal mechanisms of the automaton, which either overloaded the device or caused its delicate clockwork brain to seize. There was a grinding sound from deep within the machine, the stink of burning oil, and then the device gave a spasm and dropped to the floor, rendered useless by Bainbridge's attack.\n\nNewbury stepped forward and leaned over the unit. The blue light that had flickered beneath the porthole in its chest had gone out, and its eyes had ceased spinning.\n\nHe looked up at Bainbridge, who was busy repacking his cane. \"Good show, Charles!\"\n\nBainbridge smiled. \"Now you see why I always endeavour to have the device by my side. One never knows when it may come in handy.\"\n\nVeronica sidled up beside them. \"When you two gentlemen are finished congratulating one another, I have something interesting to show you.\" She stepped away again, crossing the room to where the automaton had been sitting when they first entered.\n\nNewbury couldn't help but emit a short chuckle when he saw the scowl on Bainbridge's face. He joined Veronica by the automaton's chair. \"What is it?\"\n\n\"Here.\" She ran her hands over the wall, demonstrating the thin outline of a door, hidden in the wall behind the automaton's chair. \"I wonder if this is where we'll find our quarry.\"\n\nNewbury put a hand on her shoulder. \"You're to be congratulated, Miss Hobbes. I'll wager this is _exactly_ where our quarry will be hiding. Stand back, won't you?\" He waved the others back from the wall to give himself room to manoeuvre the chair out of the way. Then, returning to the wall, he ran his fingers around the edges of the door.\n\nBizarrely, it appeared to have been cut directly out of the wall, as if someone had simply chopped a section of the wall away and then reattached it on a pair of well-placed hinges. It was decorated in the same dark wood panelling as the rest of the room. Newbury admired the handiwork; it was an exceptional piece of engineering, and if Veronica had not noticed the thin outline of the door, it was likely they would have abandoned their search of the workshop and moved on.\n\nHe ran his hands over it again. There were no obvious switches, handles or triggers in the vicinity. Not knowing what else to do, Newbury gave the door a push and felt it give a little. He pressed more firmly, until there was a clicking sound, and then stood back as the door swung free towards him. He caught hold of it in his left hand as it came towards him, peering cautiously into the brightly lit chamber revealed on the other side.\n\nPierre Villiers stood beside a low mortuary slab in a room that had been fitted out like a hospital surgery. White tiles covered the floor, walls and ceiling, and bright gas-lamps burned with intensity in fixtures situated along each of the walls. A trestle table had been set up beside the slab, holding an array of tools, knives, lenses and other items of surgical equipment, and Villiers himself was stooped over the empty skull of an automaton, preparing to transfer a human brain into the cavity. The organ itself rested beside him on the slab, suspended in a large glass demijohn filled with a yellowish fluid that bubbled effervescently, as if it were connected to an air supply of some sort. The entire set-up reminded Newbury disconcertingly of the morgue: cold, clinical and filled with the overwhelming stench of death.\n\nVilliers did not look up as Newbury, Bainbridge and Veronica filed into the room, their shoes clicking on the porcelain tiles. He was alone, with no sign of Chapman to be found. Newbury cleared his throat. After a moment, Villiers looked up with the briefest of glances, before turning away and continuing with his work. He talked as his fingers danced around inside the automaton's brass skull. \"Sir Maurice. I did not expect to be seeing you again so soon.\"\n\nNewbury laughed. \"I think, Monsieur Villiers, that you did not expect to be seeing me again at all.\"\n\nThe Frenchman shrugged. \"As you say.\"\n\n\"They're not quite so infallible as one has been led to believe, are they, these automata you've created?\"\n\nVilliers reached for one of the tools on the trestle table beside him and began cranking something noisily within the brass head. \"No. But they are beautiful, though, are they not? A wonder of modern science? Do not tell me that you are not intrigued, Sir Maurice, that you are not at least a little bit interested in how I managed to make them work.\" He glanced up, looking at Newbury, although his eyes seemed to be focused on something else that the others could not see. He cleared his throat. \"Here, let me show you what I am doing.\"\n\nBainbridge started forward, brandishing his cane, but Newbury put an arm out to stop him. \"Just a few moments, Charles. It pays to know what we're dealing with.\"\n\nVilliers laughed heartily. \"I knew it!\" He moved around the mortuary table, turning the automaton's head towards Newbury, so that the Crown investigator could see clearly inside the empty skull. There was a short brass spike at the base of the cavity, with four exceptionally fine filaments trailing out from a separate point just below the tip of the spike itself. Villiers put his hand inside the cavity. When he spoke, his voice was full of arrogance and pomp. \"The human organ is placed in this cavity, here, lowered gently onto the brass spike to hold it firmly in place. The wires are then threaded precisely through the cortex until they engage with the sensitive response centres in the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Electrical stimuli, generated by the movement of the automaton device itself, are then fed back and forth along these wires to create a simple neural interface that enables the organ to receive input from the world outside of the machine's casing.\" He clacked his tongue against his teeth. \"I call this my 'affinity bridge,' the device by which my creations may learn to interact with the external world.\" He grinned, as if satisfied that his audience was giving him his due attention. \"Once it is working we pack the rest of the cavity with a preserving jelly to ensure the organ does not degenerate or become damaged if the device is required to make any sharp movements.\" He paused, drumming his hand on the table before reaching for the large glass jar that held the harvested brain. He slid it across the table-top so they could see. Newbury heard Veronica swallow.\n\n\"But what about the original personality, the person whose brain you have stolen? Doesn't that present itself once the organ is connected to this 'affinity bridge'?\"\n\nVilliers practically scoffed. \"We bypass the original personality, of course! Consciousness is simply a by-product of the human organism. It is not necessary for life to be self-aware. It is certainly not necessary for an automaton to be self-aware. In truth, in attaching a human brain to the affinity bridge, I am simply engaging the neural structure of the organ, making use of the existing nervous system and the brain's inherent processing functions. It is a much cheaper and less time-consuming option than building a new component to do the same job, although, as you've seen, the latter is indeed possible.\" He smiled. \"At its most basic level, Sir Maurice, the human being is essentially a machine.\"\n\nNewbury nodded, appalled by Villiers's arrogance and yet somehow still intrigued enough to want understand the elaborate details of the process the man had developed: the melding of man and machine. \"So what went wrong?\"\n\nVilliers glowered at him. \"Nothing! My device functions perfectly.\"\n\nBainbridge, impatient and keen to draw the conversation to a close, decided to speak up at that point. \"Poppycock! What about the airship crash, and all these reports we've had of your machines going haywire?\"\n\n\"The human organs!\" Villiers sounded enraged. \"Joseph brought me faulty organs.\" He banged his fist on the mortuary slab. \"In the early days, I had no mind to enquire where Joseph was obtaining the human brains that I needed for my work. Frankly, I had no reason to care. At least not until some toffee-nosed art dealer began claiming his machine had been exhibiting dangerous and unruly behaviour. I had the machine brought here for testing, and when I opened up the skull cavity, I found the organ riddled with signs of the revenant plague. I asked Joseph where he'd laid his hands on the organs, and that's when he told me he'd engaged a third party to retrieve them from the Whitechapel slums. Of course, by that time, the plague had already begun to spread far and wide, and we had no way of telling which of the devices might already have been affected. We had no choice but to continue.\"\n\nVeronica spoke softly. Her voice sounded remarkably calm. \"So that's why _The Lady Armitage_ went down?\"\n\nVilliers nodded. \"Yes. Joseph had the pilot unit removed from the wreckage before the police arrived. The device was returned to my workshop. The casing was badly damaged by the flames, but there was no mistaking the signs. The brain had practically been reduced to a sponge inside of the brass skull, all malformed and rotten with plague.\"\n\nNewbury glanced at Bainbridge before stepping forward towards Villiers. \"If the technology had developed in different circumstances, without the need to resort to murder, you would be heralded as a genius, Monsieur Villiers. I'm ashamed to say that the path you have taken in this instance, however, has reduced you to nothing but a common criminal.\" Newbury put his hand on the automaton's head to hold it still. \"You do understand that you're going to have to come with us?\"\n\nVilliers nodded slowly. \"May I just\u2014?\"\n\nThere was a terrifying _bang._\n\nThe sound seemed to reverberate around the entire room. Villiers slumped to the floor, blood streaming from a bullet hole in his forehead, just above his right eye. The white tiles on the wall behind him were spattered with a bright spray of blood and brain matter. Veronica screamed. Newbury spun around on his heel to see Chapman framed in the doorway, clutching a revolver that he turned to point directly at Newbury's face. Smoke curled in lazy curlicues from the end of the discharged barrel.\n\n\"Never could keep his mouth shut, the arrogant bastard.\" Chapman flicked his hair away from his face, eyeing the three of them carefully. Veronica shifted slightly, and Chapman waved the gun at her. \"Not a single move, Miss Hobbes, or your beloved Newbury gets a bullet in the head, just like poor old Pierre.\" These last few words were delivered with a nasal sneer. He took them all in with a sweep of the barrel. \"Now we're going to do things my way.\" He indicated with his head. \"Newbury. Over there, with the girl.\"\n\nNewbury eased himself around to stand beside Veronica. \"Whatever happens today, Chapman, this is going to follow you. You can't keep running forever.\"\n\nChapman shook his head. \"Oh, please. Don't patronise me, Newbury. You really should know better than that.\" He turned to Bainbridge. \"You. Old man. Your turn next. Get over there and join them in the corner.\" Bainbridge turned slowly towards the industrialist. He made a cautious step towards Veronica and Newbury, then altered his momentum at the last moment, whipping up and out with his cane and connecting hard with Chapman's outstretched wrist.\n\nThere followed a brief moment of chaos when, for Newbury, the world seemed to suddenly stop. It was as if the whole scene had been cast into silence. The revolver went off, sending a bullet ricocheting off the tiled walls and causing Newbury and Veronica to duck involuntarily to avoid being hit. Chapman let out a howl of pain and clutched at his wrist, letting the revolver fall to the floor so that it skittered across the tiles towards Villiers's corpse. Bainbridge readied himself to strike another blow.\n\nThen reality came crashing back in, and Chapman, reacting faster than the others, turned and ducked out of the doorway, leaping over the skeletal frame of the ruined automaton and fleeing the workshop as quickly as his legs would carry him. Bainbridge stooped to retrieve his revolver.\n\nNewbury and Veronica looked at one another, and then, making up their minds at exactly the same moment, they gave chase, each of them sprinting out of the door in pursuit of the fleeing criminal. Bainbridge was quick to follow, hefting the gun in his right hand.\n\nBehind them, the corpse of Pierre Villiers stared unseeing through the open door, his jaw slack with death, blood pooling around the exit wound at the back of his splintered skull.\nCHAPTER 27\n\n##\n\nNewbury was the first out of the door. He charged after Chapman, throwing himself around the edge of Villiers's workbench and out into the main automaton production facility. The presses were pounding noisily, pistons firing in quick succession and clouds of steam hissing into the air, obscuring large swaths of the factory floor from view. It was obvious the men working the machines had not heard the gunshot over the racket of the production line, and none of them showed any signs of having noticed Chapman racing through the facility, either. If Newbury didn't find him quickly, the industrialist would be able to lose himself in the factory with ease.\n\nGlancing frantically from side to side, Newbury finally caught sight of the man darting out through a side door in the far wall, which led to the river outside. He followed swiftly behind Chapman, his entire body protesting at the strain as he dodged around the machines, nearly slamming into a man who was lifting a partially assembled automaton frame from a conveyor belt. The worker cried out as he ducked out of the way, sending an array of components clattering to the floor. Newbury kept chasing Chapman towards the exit on the other side of the factory floor.\n\nThe door was still swinging to and fro as Newbury burst through, skidding to a halt on the other side just in time to prevent himself from careening forward into the river. He planted his feet in the muddy bank. The water churned furiously a few feet from where he had come to a stop. Outlet pipes jutted rudely from the factory wall, spewing brown sludge into the river.\n\nThe weather had deteriorated even further since their arrival at the manufactory, and rain lashed at Newbury's face in the driving wind. He cupped his hand to his eyes, trying to work out what had happened to Chapman. Surely he couldn't have thrown himself into the river? There was no sign of the man in the water, or of any boat that he may have kept berthed here for such an occasion. Of course, if Chapman _had_ gone in, he might already have drowned, given the fierce weather.\n\nThere was a scuffing sound from behind him. Newbury felt his hackles rising. He spun around to see Veronica coming out of the factory through the door he had just used himself. He offered her a slight shrug, but the gesture was lost as he hunched against the wind and the rain. He glanced along the length of the building, trying to work out where the other man had managed to flee. It was then that he noticed a cast-iron ladder had been bolted to the wall, just to the left of the exit, beside one of the main outlet pipes. He looked up, turning his face towards the grey sky as he tried to make out where it led. The ladder ran all the way up to the top of the building, disappearing from view where it curved over the lip of the factory roof.\n\nJoseph Chapman was edging his way up the wet rungs, pulling himself up the metal frame towards the roof, where, Newbury realised, an array of newly built airships awaited him. Clearly that was how Chapman intended to effect his escape. He was already about halfway towards his salvation. The wind was blowing him awkwardly from side to side as he climbed, his hands slipping on the slick rungs, but despite the obvious danger Newbury knew that he couldn't risk letting the man get away. If he made it to one of the airships, he could be halfway to the Continent within a couple of hours. It wouldn't take much for him to lose himself from there, disappearing into one of the darker corners of the Empire or, worse, to Asia and beyond.\n\nNewbury turned to Veronica, trying to make himself heard over the rattling wind. \"Get back inside. Wait for me in there.\" He pointed towards the door, where Bainbridge was standing, framed like a silhouette in the doorway. Then, without waiting to hear or acknowledge her response, he leapt up onto the bottom rung of the ladder and began to climb.\n\nThe going was treacherous. The wind dragged at him as if it were trying its very best to prise him free of the ladder. The rain had caused the metal rungs to become wet and slick, and the downpour continued to needle at his face, stinging his eyes and making it difficult to see. Within minutes, his clothes had soaked through, and he shivered as he hauled himself upwards, clattering after Chapman on the ladder as fast as his damaged, aching body would carry him. The side of the factory was terribly exposed, and Newbury tried not to think what would become of him if the wind did manage to throw him from the ladder. In all likelihood, he would be dashed on the ground below, or else blown out into the river and a watery grave.\n\nIt was clear from the way in which Chapman had slowed that he was tiring as he approached the top of the building. Trying to ignore the burning pain in both shoulders, Newbury pressed on. He was closing on the other man, slowly but surely. He knew he couldn't allow his ailing body to slow him now.\n\nHe watched through squinting eyes as the industrialist reached the lip of the roof and threw himself bodily over the top of the ladder, disappearing temporarily from view. A moment later Newbury did the same, hauling himself over the top of the ladder, swinging his legs around underneath him and landing heavily on his rear atop the tiled roof of the factory. He gasped for breath. The wind was howling amongst the chimney stacks, and a confusing web of ropes strained against the pull of the bobbing airships, which filled the sky overhead like a blanket of glittering clouds. He searched the rooftop for a sign of Chapman. About thirty feet away, the industrialist, soaked to the bone, his long hair now lank and slicked to his face, had just finished loosening the tether on one of the airships, and was busy climbing aboard. Newbury watched him mount the short flight of wooden steps beside the iron berthing ring and step across to the gondola, watching his footing as the airship listed dangerously from side to side in the wind.\n\nNewbury was unsure whether Chapman had even realised that he had been followed this far; he appeared to have an almost casual, nonchalant air about him. Newbury hoped that it would be this that would prove to be his undoing, allowing the Crown investigator to gain the element of surprise.\n\nNewbury got to his feet and charged after the other man. He scrambled up the wooden steps and flung himself towards the open door of the gondola, just as the vessel banked awkwardly to the left, buffeted by a wild gust of wind. He slammed into the side of the vessel, his hands questing frantically for purchase, one of them catching hold of the threshold at the base of the door, the other slipping dangerously free of the wet doorframe. The airship began to drift away from its berth, pitching and groaning as it rocked back and forth in the harsh wind.\n\nNewbury dangled from the doorframe, buffeted by the wind as he tried desperately not to fall. He thought he heard the sounds of someone shouting from below, but the driving rain and his precarious position meant he had no time to pay heed to whatever was going on down there on the rooftop.\n\nWith a huge effort he swung out against the harsh wind, the fingers of his free hand catching hold of the doorframe. He clawed to find a more substantial grip. His fingers caught on something firm and loose; the wooden rung of a rope ladder. He tugged on it, gasping in relief as it came free from its housing just inside the door. He pulled it near, allowing the ladder to unfurl, flapping away beneath him as the airship drifted across the rooftop, narrowly missing another large vessel that was berthed beside it. He fought to get his feet on one of the rungs. Rain thrashed over his back and he cried out as more of the stitches in his abdomen tore free with the strain. His shoulder burned.\n\nFighting against the pain and fearing he might blow free at any moment, Newbury jammed his feet into the rope ladder and hauled himself up, rolling into the open door and collapsing onto his back, just as the vessel banked again. He was soaked to the skin, his clothes wet through, and blood was running freely from any number of wounds that had torn open during the climb.\n\nThe door was still open behind him, the rope ladder dangling free over the rooftop. Rain blew in on every gust, spattering the inside of the foyer with water. Chapman was nowhere to be seen.\n\nPanting for breath and grimacing with the strain, Newbury climbed to his feet, catching hold of a sideboard that had been anchored to the deck just inside the foyer of the vessel. He found his footing as the airship righted itself once again. He brushed water away from his eyes. The rain drummed noisily against the wooden panels of the gondola.\n\nSuddenly, the airship bucked wildly as the engines kicked in with a high-pitched whine. Newbury grasped hold of the sideboard to stop himself from falling, drawing ragged breaths as he held himself steady. The vessel powered out over the river, away from the manufactory.\n\nTired, hurt and unsure whether he had enough energy left in him for the fight, Newbury turned and set off down the passageway, towards the cockpit, Chapman and\u2014he hoped\u2014the end of the affair.\nCHAPTER 28\n\n##\n\nThe door to the cockpit was shut when Newbury finally made his way along the passageway to confront Chapman. The engines hummed noisily and the vessel had righted itself, even though it still shuddered disconcertingly with the to-and-fro of the wind. Now it was climbing in altitude, rising high above the factory and the city below.\n\nNewbury was near exhaustion and anxious to get Chapman into custody. He knew the man had lost his firearm back at the factory, and suspected that he would not have hidden a replacement aboard a brand new airship, a vessel that could have only been completed by his factory a handful of days before this, its maiden voyage. Nevertheless, it was a gamble. Newbury knew that he was far from his physical peak, and whilst Chapman was a dilettante and a fop, he was also unscrupulous and cunning. Newbury only hoped that he still had surprise on his side. Readying himself, he reached out, took the door handle, and gave it a sharp twist. He stepped back and allowed the door to swing open towards him. It clattered against the wall of the passage.\n\nChapman sat at the controls inside the small cockpit, his hands dancing over the vast array of levers, buttons and cranks that adorned the panels before him. Above, dials were set into a polished wooden dashboard, showing altitude, speed and fuel levels. Beyond that was the viewing port: a series of large reinforced glass windows that offered a vast panoramic view of the city below, a kind of surreal bird's-eye perspective of the landscape that Newbury had never been granted before. The Thames wound away into the distance, whilst nearby the factories and industrial buildings of Battersea pumped ribbons of steam into the air. Farther afield, the City of Westminster was like a jewel amongst the rows of closely built houses: proud buildings and public parks, museums and parliament. The city glittered in all its majesty, whilst all the while, the storm clouds formed a dark, brooding vault across the sky.\n\n\"Pretty, isn't it, Sir Maurice?\" Chapman laughed gently underneath his breath as he spoke. \"I often like to come up here\u2014when the weather is better, admittedly\u2014to take in the view of the city. London really is an amazing place to call home. The hub of the modern world. I shall be sorry to have to leave.\"\n\nNewbury stood in the doorway. \"Why don't you take the ship down, Chapman? There's nowhere left to flee. If you come quietly now, we can make it easier on you.\"\n\nChapman laughed, louder this time, and shook his head. He turned in his seat to eye Newbury. \"You know it never works like that, Newbury. Villiers was a fool, for all his genius. He would have walked willingly to the noose. Not me.\"\n\nNewbury clenched his fist by his side, knowing well what was likely to come next. \"Then I'm afraid we find ourselves at an impasse.\" He crept forward, ready to make a move.\n\nChapman got to his feet, careful to keep his pilot's chair safely between the two of them. He smiled slyly. \"Indeed we do.\" He lashed out as he spoke, sending his fist flying towards Newbury's face. Newbury ducked quickly out of the way, feeling the fist brush his cheek, ever-so-narrowly missing its target. He thrashed back at the other man, connecting hard with his sternum and causing him to stagger backwards, banging against the control panel. It wasn't a graceful move, but it was certainly functional.\n\nChapman shook his head, disorientated, and then quickly regained his composure. He straightened himself and stepped away from the controls. The airship juddered, and both men realised at the same time that Chapman's fall had in some way knocked the controls out of line. Chapman glanced at the panel, and Newbury took the opportunity to pounce, coming at him hard, his fist slamming brutally into Chapman's abdomen. Chapman buckled, gasping, but sent a blow of his own into Newbury's gut as he doubled over.\n\nNewbury fell back against the doorframe, jarring his shoulder painfully. He wrenched himself about to face Chapman, and the sharp movement finally proved too much for the Fixer's handiwork. He felt his stitches giving out and blood began to gush from the long wound in his side. His vision swam, and the world was momentarily limned in blackness. He sank to the floor, clutching his abdomen in agony.\n\nIt took Chapman only a moment to realise what had happened, and he swept in on Newbury, taking full advantage of the other man's wretched condition. He struck the Crown investigator with a brutal backhand across the face, sending him sprawling to the floor, his cheek smarting from the impact. Newbury coughed blood onto the floorboards in a sickly stream. Chapman laughed. He drove a booted foot hard into Newbury's stomach, taking the wind out of him and leaving him gasping in pain and shock. Newbury tried to roll away, to find a means to get himself upright again, but the passageway was too tight, and his body protested. He simply couldn't muster the energy to move, no matter how much his mind screamed at his legs and arms to react. He was trapped in the narrow passage, with nowhere left to escape the other man's assault.\n\nChapman circled him, taking the opportunity to gloat. He stepped over Newbury's prone form, turning him over with his boot like some common animal found dead by the roadside. He spat at Newbury, and then set about pummelling him with a series of vicious kicks, punctuating his words with powerful outbursts of violence. \"What you don't seem to understand, Newbury, is that the sort of people who would benefit from the work Villiers and I were doing couldn't give a hoot about the loss of a few peasant lives, especially if it ends up making their own lives more comfortable. There'll be no public outcry. There'll be no noose. Her Majesty herself will probably give me a medal for my services to the Empire!\"\n\nNewbury groaned, but couldn't find enough of a pause in the beating to emit a response. He brought his knees up to his chest in an effort to protect himself from the constant rain of blows. His side felt warm with spilling blood.\n\n\"I suppose I'd better throw you\u2014\"\n\nThere was a dull, wet thud, and then the kicking ceased. Newbury peeled open his eyes to see Chapman collapse to the floor. The industrialist banged his head against the wall as he fell, crumpling to a pile beside Newbury on the floorboards. Newbury looked up through one bruised eyelid.\n\nVeronica stood in the passageway, a large copper fire extinguisher clutched in her hands. She must have made it onto the rope ladder before the airship drifted out over the river. She looked bedraggled, her dress torn and wet, her hair flung back messily over one shoulder. To Newbury, however, she looked like a vision of Heaven itself.\n\n\"Thank you.\" His voice was a wet, warbling croak. He coughed and vomited more blood onto the floor beside him.\n\n\"Don't thank me, Maurice. Just get up and help me fly this thing. If you hadn't realised, we're tumbling out of the sky like a dead weight. If we can't find a way to land the ship, all of this will have been in vain anyway.\" She dropped the fire extinguisher noisily to the floor. Newbury groaned and put his hand against the wall in an effort to raise himself up. His hand slipped, leaving a dark smear of blood across its pristine white surface.\n\n\"I'm going to need a little help getting up.\"\n\nVeronica looked pained, but her resolve was steely. She bent low over Chapman's unconscious body and grasped hold of Newbury's hands. Placing her feet against the far wall, she heaved him up into a sitting position. From there he was able to use the doorframe as leverage to pull himself upright. He staggered to the controls, unsteady on his feet.\n\nVeronica followed behind him. \"Where do we start?\"\n\n\"I have no idea.\" He slumped into the chair and grabbed hold of two levers that he hoped controlled the steering paddles on the underside of the vessel. He looked out through the viewing port. His vision swam. The city was coming up fast to meet them. They were set into a dangerous spiral, blown from side to side by the sharp winds, and he wondered if he was already too late to make a difference. The best option he could see at this stage was to try to steer the vessel towards the dark smear of the Thames. At least that way they'd be able to ditch it in the water without turning the whole ship into a blazing inferno. At least he hoped that would be the case. He'd never even _been_ on an airship before, let alone tried to land one in a river.\n\nDriven on by the image of the burnt cadavers he had seen in the wreck of _The Lady Armitage,_ Newbury tugged hard on the levers, throwing his weight behind them as he attempted to right the vessel from its dangerous collision course. The engines coughed with the strain and the dials on the dashboard were all flickering in the red. If the engines were to get too hot, they would run the risk of explosion, which in turn would ignite the balloon of hydrogen above them. He glanced out of the viewing port to see the city screaming towards them. He knew the engines would be no good to them now anyway. He reached over and flicked the switch on his right, cutting the power. Immediately, the whine from below them ceased.\n\nVeronica rushed forward. \"What are you doing?\"\n\n\"Trust me.\" He stood, leaning as hard as he could on the steering levers. Through the viewing port he could see the nose of the vessel edging up against the harsh wind, but his ministrations were having little effect on the terrifying rate of their descent. He hoped beyond hope that the water would help to cushion the blow.\n\nThe airship dived into the Thames, spinning onto its side as it came down, first glancing off the surface like a skipping stone and then dipping down into the water, sending a vast wave ahead of itself as it slowed to a halt. The balloon bobbed on the surface of the river, whilst the gondola, not designed with any buoyancy in mind, quickly began to take on water, pulling slowly towards the bottom of the river.\n\nNewbury, powering on through adrenaline alone, scrambled up from the controls, frantically searching to ensure Veronica was unhurt. He found her draped over the back of the pilot's chair, where she'd braced herself during the landing. He put a hand to her cheek, tenderly. \"Come on. I hope you can swim?\"\n\nShe nodded. \"Help me with Chapman.\"\n\nNewbury looked down at the industrialist, who was still unconscious, even with the stirrings of river water beginning to lap at his upturned face. He nodded. \"If we must.\"\n\nGroaning, he reached down and hooked an arm under Chapman's shoulder. Veronica did the same, and together they hauled him towards the exit. The passageway was taking on water more quickly than either of them could have imagined, and by the time they reached the gondola's main exit they found it was easier to swim, dragging Chapman along behind them. Thankfully, the door had buckled and sprung open during the landing, so it was a simple matter to navigate out of it one at a time, passing Chapman through between them. The river water was ice cold, and with the loss of blood, Newbury was beginning to feel faint, his muscles starting to seize up. He kicked furiously, resolved that he wasn't going to fail Veronica now, not when they were so close to safety.\n\nThe wind and rain were still pounding when he eventually got free of the airship. Linking arms with Veronica to form a platform for Chapman, they made for the riverbank as quickly as they could. It was only a matter of minutes before Veronica was able to haul Chapman out onto the slick mud of the bank. Newbury, barely conscious, bobbed for a moment in the ice cold water, his body finally giving up on him. He felt the blackness closing in. His head sank beneath the surface. The cold seemed to penetrate him to the core.\n\nThen, suddenly, he was on his back, and Veronica was leaning over him, checking he was still breathing. She dragged him further up the bank, towards safety. The rain still pounded his face, the mud wet and clinging beneath his head. Stars were dancing before his eyes, and in the distance, out in the river, he could see the outline of the airship, drifting with the current and blown about by the wind. He heard the sound of hurried footsteps behind him. He didn't bother to look round.\n\n\"We made it. We made it Maurice!\" She put her hand on his chest and collapsed next to him on the riverbank. Her breath was shallow. \"Stay with me now. The police are on their way.\"\n\nEverything went black.\nCHAPTER 29\n\n##\n\nVeronica's feet crunched on the gravel as she strolled slowly up the path towards the asylum. The inclement weather had finally broken during the night, the wind and rain receding to leave behind a cold, dry morning that, Veronica considered, was far more typical of the season than the storm weather of the previous two days. She breathed in the fresh air, filling her lungs. It was crisp and filled with the promise of winter. Unconsciously, as if affected by the thought of the changing seasons, she pulled the collar of her thick overcoat up around her throat to stave off the chill. Her cheeks felt pinched with the cold.\n\nUp ahead, Veronica could see that many of the asylum's patients were out taking their exercise on the airing courts, small groups of them clustered around the grounds, sheltering beneath the spindly autumnal trees or else strolling round in concentric circles like caged animals searching for a means of escape. The nurses watched with beady eyes and tired expressions from their usual perch beneath the sheltered stone archway.\n\nVeronica searched the scene as she walked, looking for signs of Amelia. Her sister was nowhere to be seen. She jammed her hands into her coat pockets and approached the main building. As she brushed past the two nurses on guard duty, Veronica noticed a young man sitting on a wooden bench beside the asylum wall. He looked uncomfortable in his rough woollen clothes, and his face was ruddy with the cold. He was unshaven and unkempt\u2014haggard, even\u2014but for some reason he looked familiar to Veronica. She racked her brain but found she was unable to immediately place him. Perhaps it was just a case of over-familiarity; she may have seen him during a previous visit to the asylum and the sight of him had lodged itself somewhere in the back of her mind.\n\nThe man turned to look at her as she strolled past the end of his bench, and despite herself Veronica felt struck by the haunted look in his eyes. He smiled unconvincingly when he saw her looking, and then turned away, contemplating the gravel path as if it held all the secrets of the universe. Feeling a slight sense of unease, Veronica continued on her way, stopping once to glance over her shoulder at the young man. She had the vague sense that, somehow, there was more to him than immediately met the eye. Unsure what else to do, she tried to shake off the notion. She made her way under the archway, through the small courtyard on the other side, and entered the asylum through the main door, which the nurse on the door unbolted for her with a wary glance.\n\nOnce inside, she approached the reception desk a few feet to one side of the entrance. The nurse behind the desk looked cold in her thin uniform, and she shivered noticeably when Veronica came through the door, bringing with her a cold draft. Veronica cleared her throat. \"I'm here to see my sister, Amelia Hobbes.\"\n\nThe nurse smiled. \"I'm afraid visiting hours have finished for the day. You may have noticed that the patients are currently engaged in their daily round of exercise outside.\"\n\nVeronica nodded. \"Indeed. Although I fear my sister was not to be found in the grounds. I wonder\u2014\" She paused, trying on her best conspiratorial expression. \"\u2014could you bend the rules just a little? I'm very anxious to ensure my sister is in good health.\"\n\nThe nurse was about to answer when Veronica heard footsteps behind her, and looked round to see Dr. Mason approaching along the hallway.\n\nHe smiled warmly as he drew up beside Veronica. \"It's alright, Nurse Willis, I think on this occasion we can make an exception.\" He indicated for Veronica to walk with him, and they set off together along the corridor, their heels clicking loudly on the hard, white tiles.\n\n\"Thank you, Dr. Mason. It's just that it's been a few days since my last visit, and I'm anxious to ensure my sister is well.\"\n\nThe doctor offered Veronica a grave look. \"I'm afraid you'll find your sister in ill health, Miss Hobbes. The frequency of her episodes has increased markedly over the course of the last few days, with the most recent occurring just over an hour ago. Try not to show your concern when you see her. She's looking very gaunt and tired.\" They marched along the corridor for a moment, passing a number of empty wards and rooms on either side.\n\nVeronica nodded. \"Very well. I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me, Dr. Mason.\"\n\nThe doctor smiled. \"I want only what is best for your sister, Miss Hobbes, contrary to what you may have believed about my methods in the past.\" He came to a halt before a door, which led off into a side room. It was painted a drab grey and had a small window set into it at about head height.\n\nVeronica peered inside. Amelia was sitting in a wheelchair in the small room, sunlight streaming in through the window. Beside her, a nurse sat in a folding chair, reading a book. Amelia's face was turned away from the door, but Veronica could see immediately that her skin was a deathly white.\n\nDr. Mason pushed the door open and ushered Veronica through. Amelia looked up to see who had entered and the nurse trailed off her reading, smiling at the sight of the visitors. Amelia's face lit up when she saw Veronica.\n\n\"Veronica! How lovely.\" She looked up at Dr. Mason. Veronica tried to hide her dismay at the sight of her sister. \"May we sit and talk, Dr. Mason?\"\n\nThe doctor nodded. \"Indeed. I believe some time with your sister will do you well, Amelia.\" He beckoned to the nurse. \"I shall return in a little while, and then it will be time for your rest.\" He glanced at Veronica, and then turned away, holding the door open for the nurse to leave before him. The door swung shut behind them.\n\nVeronica glanced around the room. The furnishings were sparse, but not unpleasant. It was obviously some sort of day-room, a place for patients to come when they weren't well enough to join the others on the airing courts outside. The very fact that Amelia was here, instead of enjoying the fresh air, did not bode well for her overall health. Veronica looked at the spine of the book that the nurse had placed on the coffee table. \"Jane Austen, eh? I'd have thought the library here would be full of far more turgid fare than that!\"\n\nAmelia smiled. \"Oh come here and give me a hug, sister! It's so good to see you.\"\n\nVeronica did as she was bade, taking her sister gently in her arms and kissing her lightly on the cheek. She cupped Amelia's face in her palms for a moment, looking her up and down, and then set about rearranging the blanket on her knees.\n\nAmelia slapped her away. \"I'm not an invalid, Veronica!\" She smiled. \"At least, not yet.\"\n\nVeronica lowered herself into the chair beside her sister. \"Oh, Amelia, what am I to do with you?\"\n\nAmelia shrugged. \"I had thought I might be getting out of this dreadful place, but now I'm not so sure. The episodes have been getting more and more frequent, and Dr. Mason is clearly concerned for my health.\" She laughed. \"But then I suppose he's told you all of that already, hasn't he?\"\n\nVeronica nodded. She didn't know what else to say. She searched Amelia's face for a moment. \"You were right, you know.\"\n\n\"What about?\"\n\n\"About everything.\" Veronica sighed. \"Everything you saw in your visions. It all came to pass. The airship crash. The automata. 'It's all in their heads,' you said to me, over and over again. 'It's all in their heads.' \" She shrugged. \"It was, too.\"\n\nAmelia looked puzzled. \"What _are_ you going on about?\"\n\n\"Your visions, of course. Don't you remember?\"\n\nAmelia shook her head. She gazed at the floor. \"We've talked about this before. I don't remember most of what I see during my seizures.\" She folded her hands on her knees, fidgeting awkwardly with her fingers. \"I'm sorry.\"\n\nVeronica shook her head. \"Don't be.\" She paused, her brow furrowed. \"I've got to help you somehow, Amelia. I'm going to talk to Sir Maurice, see if we can't find a better way to keep you well. There must be something we can do.\"\n\nAmelia looked up. \"How is Sir Maurice? After your last visit I was concerned. . . .\"\n\nVeronica smiled. \"He's fine. Well\u2014he's recovering. He had quite an ordeal, if truth be told. We all did.\" Unconsciously Veronica turned her arm over on her lap and rubbed at her sore wrist. Amelia looked appalled.\n\n\"Veronica! Look at those bruises. Are you quite well? What the devil have you been up to?\"\n\nVeronica quickly covered her arm in the folds of her dress. \"It's nothing. I'm well enough, thanks to Sir Maurice, anyway. He saved my life.\"\n\nAmelia grinned. \"Quite the hero, isn't he? Do tell.\"\n\nVeronica blushed. \"That's enough of that. Now, tell me, are you getting enough to eat? You're still so painfully thin.\"\n\n\"Stop avoiding the subject, you terrible sister! You can't tease me like this! You know it's bad for my constitution.\" Amelia beamed.\n\n\"Then what will I have to tell you about on my next visit? At least this way, I can offer you something to look forward to.\"\n\nAmelia laughed. \"I suppose that's true, at least.\" She put her hand on Veronica's arm. \"You must reassure me that you're looking after yourself out there, though. It wouldn't do for our parents to end up with _two_ sick daughters, now would it?\"\n\nVeronica sighed. \"All is well, Amelia. If you must know, I've had rather a thrilling adventure. And yes, you're right. Sir Maurice _is_ rather a hero, after all.\" She laughed and looked out of the window, watching the trees blowing back and forth languorously in the breeze. \"I'm not sure yet how I'll be able to go back to my desk at the museum after the excitement of the last few days. It all feels a little mundane at the moment.\"\n\nAmelia smiled knowingly. \"Oh, I suspect there's more adventure to come, Veronica. You always were the headstrong one. I can't imagine you'll be behind that desk for long.\"\n\nVeronica sighed. The moment stretched into silence. She was just about to speak again when there was a gentle rap at the door, and both of them looked up to see Dr. Mason appear in the opening. \"Ladies, I'm afraid it's time Amelia took a rest. It pains me to hurry you, but I think it best we get her settled before the other patients return from their exercise.\"\n\nVeronica smiled at Amelia sadly and then leaned over and kissed her tenderly on the cheek. She rose to her feet. \"Take care, sister. I'll return in a few days to see how you're getting along.\"\n\nAmelia nodded. \"Until then.\"\n\nDr. Mason held the door open for Veronica as she left the day-room without looking back, the stirrings of tears in the corners of her eyes.\n\nThe young man was still lounging idly on the wooden bench when Veronica stepped out of the asylum. She tried again to place him, but somehow his identity eluded her. She was convinced that she'd seen him before, in a different context. She took a few steps along the gravel path, and then, deciding that she'd be unable to let it rest, she turned back and accosted one of the nurses, who seemed both bemused by Veronica's sudden appearance and annoyed at having her train of thought interrupted whilst gossiping with one of her colleagues.\n\n\"Excuse me, nurse. Can you tell me: Who is that man?\" She spoke in hushed tones so as not to let him overhear her words, indicating him with a wave of her hand.\n\nThe nurse looked over her shoulder and shrugged. \"I have no idea, ma'am. None of us do. He was brought in last night after lights-out, and the night nurse was told to find him temporary accommodation. He was in a terrible state. His clothes were covered in blood and the wounds on his arms were severe. He looked like he'd been savaged by an animal. Not for the first time, either, judging by the scars we found when we washed him down.\" She shrugged. \"We cleaned him up and gave him a bed for the night, is all. It was one of the locals who found him, shivering in the gutter by the side of the road. They brought him in last night, figuring he wasn't a drunk and may have been a patient who had somehow found his way out of the asylum. Seems he can't remember his name or any of his family connections. Poor sod. He'll be collected and taken to the public sanatorium later this afternoon.\" She searched Veronica's face for an answer. \"Why do you ask?\"\n\nVeronica frowned. \"For some reason he just looks . . . Oh God!\" She stared at the man over the nurse's shoulder, watching him as he gazed up at the sky, lost in a world of his own devising. Suddenly something seemed to click in her head. \"Oh God! Jack! Jack Coulthard!\" She ran towards him, realisation dawning behind her eyes. \"You're Jack Coulthard!\"\n\nThe man turned to look at her, his eyes searching; confused and unsure how to take this outburst from a strange woman he had no idea whether he should know. \"I am?\"\n\n\"I believe so, yes.\" She grinned, almost disbelieving the coincidence. \"Your sister showed me your photograph. She's waiting for you to come home.\"\n\nThe nurse rushed over to Veronica. \"You're saying that you know this man?\"\n\n\"I know his sister, yes. She's been searching for him for a week. She's beside herself with concern.\" Veronica turned to face the nurse, who was looking as bemused as the patient. \"Quickly, call for a cab immediately. We have to send for her now.\"\n\nThe nurse nodded and disappeared under the archway to fetch assistance, her feet crunching noisily on the loose stones.\n\nVeronica took a seat beside the young man on the bench, almost bursting with excitement. \"Oh, Jack, your sister is going to be so delighted to discover you're alive.\"\n\nThe man returned her gaze, a bright smile lighting up his face. He looked lost, but hopeful.\n\nNearby, the other patients continued to circle the airing courts, indifferent to the fact that their newest arrival would, in just a matter of hours, finally be reunited with his loved ones.\nCHAPTER 30\n\n##\n\nNewbury leaned heavily on the mantelpiece and took a long draw on his pipe, watching the smoke curl in lazy circles in the still air of his Chelsea living-room. He was wearing a long blue dressing gown and slippers, and was warming himself by the raging fire that Mrs. Bradshaw had built up for him earlier that evening. Across the room, Bainbridge sat easily in one of the Chesterfields, his cane propped by the door, a brandy clutched firmly in one hand, a cigar in the other. He observed Newbury through a pungent wreath of smoke.\n\nNewbury was tapping his foot impatiently, unable to allow himself to relax. He clearly wasn't taking well to his period of convalescence.\n\nBainbridge sucked on the end of his cigar. \"So, truthfully, how are you man? You seem irritable.\"\n\nNewbury laughed. \"No, not irritable, Charles. Just anxious to get out of these rooms! I feel like I've been trapped in here for weeks, pacing backwards and forwards, waiting for something new to come along that I can sink my teeth into. My wounds are healing in a satisfactory fashion, and with any luck, I'll be fighting fit again in no time. I need something new to engage my mind. I fear I'll be climbing the walls before long if something doesn't come along soon.\"\n\nBainbridge shook his head. \"Newbury, you astound me! I'd have thought after your experiences this last week you'd be eager to get some rest. I know I am!\"\n\nNewbury chuckled. \"You know me, Charles. I never have been able to stand still for long.\" He glanced at the end of his pipe, a frustrated look on his face, and then tapped out the spent tobacco on the mantelpiece, banging the vessel repeatedly against the palm of his left hand. He moved stiffly across the room, still wincing with the movement, and lowered himself into the armchair opposite Bainbridge. He searched out his leather tobacco pouch from amongst the debris on the coffee table, and began the process of refilling his bowl. \"So tell me, Charles, what of Joseph Chapman?\"\n\nBainbridge took a swig of his brandy, shuddering as the alcohol sent tickling fingers of warmth into his belly. He looked grave. \"Chapman's for the noose, and he knows it. His crimes were some of the most severe and inhumane I've yet encountered in my career, and in this city, that's certainly saying something. What galls me, though, is the man's consistently pompous attitude. He sits there during his interviews gloating about his crimes, about how clever he was to outwit us for so long. The man is a monster.\"\n\nNewbury struck a match, lit the bowl of his pipe and tossed the dead match into the fire with a brief glance over his shoulder. He puffed to kindle the flames before replying. \"They often are, Charles. They often are. Shame about Villiers, though. He was an entirely singular man.\"\n\nBainbridge pulled a face. \"For the life of me, Newbury, I cannot understand where you developed such profound respect for the man.\"\n\nNewbury closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was studying the floor. \"It's complicated, Charles. Villiers was an evil man, but he was also incredibly accomplished. In fact, I'd go as far as saying he was a genius, in his own way. And with genius comes a certain amorality that is sometimes difficult to judge. Genius is, in many ways, akin to madness. Both states of mind demand a disconnection from reality, from the real, physical world, an ability to lose oneself in thought.\" He shrugged. \"There is no contesting the fact that Villiers's crimes were of the most appalling variety, but I only wonder what may have come of it if his genius could have been harnessed for the good of the Empire, instead of being misapplied in such a terrible way. . . .\" He trailed off, lost in thought.\n\nBainbridge chewed on the end of his cigar. \"Good riddance to him, is what I say. Chapman did us a favour when he removed the man from proceedings, and that's all I have to say on the subject.\" He paused. \"Still, it's good to see another case through to its resolution, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Hmmm?\" Newbury returned from his reverie, his eyes darting to meet Bainbridge's expectant face. \"Oh, yes indeed. Although I hasten to add that there _is_ still one small part of the mystery that perplexes me. I've yet to discover the reason why a Dutch nobleman was to be found on board the wreckage of a passenger-class airship bound for Dublin.\"\n\nBainbridge placed his glass on the table and leaned forward. \"I may have something to help you with that, old man. The one good thing about Chapman's boastful tirade is that we've been able to glean a few facts from his testimony. He claims _The Lady Armitage_ had been engaged by a coterie of local noblemen, men who were keen to see as many revenants removed from the streets as possible, for use as a plague ship. Chapman had been using the automata to round up the revenants like animals, forcing them onto the airships and shipping them off to Ireland, where his men were setting them loose in the countryside\u2014if they didn't dump them at sea during the course of the voyage. Not sure that explains how your Dutchman found himself involved in the matter, but it may help you get to the bottom of the mystery, eh?\"\n\nNewbury looked animated. \"Indeed it does, Charles. Indeed it does!\" He sprang out of his chair, clamped his pipe between his teeth and began pacing back and forth before the fire, all sense of his stiffness gone. The silence stretched. After a moment, he turned to Bainbridge, gesturing frantically with his hands. \"Charles, allow me to ask you a question. Why should a visiting nobleman take to the streets of Whitechapel by evening, choosing to travel alone, without the protection of a Royal escort?\"\n\nBainbridge frowned. \"No reason at all, unless he had a taste for the wicked side of life, if you catch my meaning.\" He coughed into his hand, embarrassed at the implication.\n\n\"Precisely! If the man had harboured a longing for visiting cheap whores whilst staying in the city, he would surely have slipped out of his lodgings unaccompanied, in an effort to keep his inappropriate activities under wraps. If the newspapers were to discover his secret, it would cause the palace a terrific scandal, and if any unscrupulous aides were made aware of it, they might have chosen to use the information against him at some point.\"\n\n\"Blackmail, you mean.\"\n\nNewbury nodded. \"Indeed. So we've established that if the man _did_ engage in such carnal pursuits, he would be sure to hide the fact from his aides, stepping out alone only at the most opportune moments, such as late in the evening after his men had retired.\" He smiled to himself, pleased with his deduction. \"Could it be, then, that the man inadvertently contracted the revenant plague during one of these nightly sojourns to the slums, so that when the automata came to round up the miserable fellows a week or so later, he was wandering the streets, transformed into one of the detestable creatures?\"\n\n\"You could be right, Newbury! Certainly no one would recognise the man in that state.\"\n\n\"Until, that is, they removed his charred corpse from the wreckage, which would show no signs of the viral infection that had thus far been ravaging his body. An identifying item of jewellery would be all that it would take for the coroner to proclaim that Her Majesty's missing cousin had been found.\"\n\nBainbridge retrieved his brandy from the table. \"My God, Newbury. I think you're on to something. But how the devil do you prove the man had such inappropriate desires in the first place? That's quite an accusation to level at a member of the Royal Family without any real shred of evidence. I can't imagine Her Majesty will accept your story on supposition alone.\"\n\nNewbury chuckled. \"That's just it, Charles. I believe I have all the evidence I need. I've spent the last couple of days scouring my records for background on the Dutch royal family, identifying potential victims. Her Majesty had been less than forthcoming about which particular cousin had been involved in the incident, but her words provided me with a number of important clues. I knew we were dealing with a young man, a minor royal, but someone who would be sent to London on diplomatic duties all the same, probably due to the importance of their mother. After taking all of that into consideration there was only one likely candidate, a man whose name\u2014I'm sure you will forgive me\u2014I will refrain from repeating here.\" Newbury paused for breath, although it was clear he was anxious to proceed with his tale. \"But during the course of my reading, I turned out a number of newspaper reports regarding a 'misunderstanding' between one of the Queen's cousins and a mysterious 'lady,' who claimed to be the bearer of an illegitimate child. The newspapers had reported the story as a minor item, alluding to the fact that the woman was a prostitute and had probably invented the entire story as a means of extorting money from the unfortunate young man. However, in light of current events, I'll wager there's truth behind the tale. And what's more, I imagine it was this very same man whose corpse was extracted from the crash site of _The Lady Armitage_ just a few days ago in Finsbury Park.\"\n\nBainbridge nodded, a smile curling his lips. \"I should say that will do the job.\"\n\n\"Indeed.\" Newbury returned to his seat with a satisfied sigh. He raised an empty glass. \"Well, that's the end of it then.\" He sucked on his pipe, resting his head against the tall back of the Chesterfield.\n\nBainbridge shuffled awkwardly in his seat. \"There is just one other thing I should mention, if you're not too opposed to hearing me out on something rather peculiar?\"\n\nNewbury peeled open his eyes, his interest piqued. \"Go on.\"\n\n\"I'm sure you recall our conversations from a few days ago, regarding the potential origins of the glowing policeman?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"At the time, before Morgan's death and the realisation that we were on the trail of a purely corporeal killer, you mentioned Miss Hobbes's supposition that the perpetrator could in fact have been a phantom killer akin to the one reported all those years ago. Another example of the same phenomena, you said, involving entirely different people.\"\n\nNewbury sat forward in his chair and poured himself a brandy, listening intently to Bainbridge's account. \"Quite so.\" He considered his friend, concern evident in his eyes. \"What's troubling you, Charles?\"\n\nBainbridge shook his head. \"It's all rather embarrassing, really. I mean, I don't know what to think. You know I'm not a superstitious man.\"\n\n\"For Heaven's sake, Charles. Get to the point.\"\n\n\"You asked me if there had been any recent murders of police constables in the Whitechapel area, and at the time I couldn't say for certain. But I had the clerks check the records and it turns out there was a man, a Mr. John Harris, who was done in with his own truncheon by a gang of youths, after he happened upon the miscreants roughing up a girl in an alleyway earlier that night. They got away with it, too, since a local shopkeeper provided an alibi. The word amongst the rest of the men was that the gang had applied a liberal amount of pressure to the shopkeeper and, fearing for the safety of his wife and daughter, he had willingly perjured himself to protect them.\"\n\nNewbury took a swig of his brandy. \"Let me guess. It turns out a number of these youths were amongst the victims of the glowing policeman, found strangled in the Whitechapel area, their personal effects still _in situ_ on the bodies?\"\n\nBainbridge smiled. \"Close, Newbury. _All_ of the youths were amongst the reported victims of the glowing policeman. I don't know what to make of it. It seems like too much of a coincidence to ignore.\"\n\nNewbury laughed. \"Ha! I'll wager coincidence has nothing to do with it!\" He sank back in his chair. \"Of course, there's no way of telling, now. It _could_ have been coincidence, or it could have been the murdered man's colleagues taking the opportunity to seek revenge. But it would certainly explain why we didn't identify the residue of the blue powder on all of the victims. Revenge can drive people to do terrible things, Charles, terrible things indeed. Even, perhaps, to rise from the grave itself. Did I ever tell you of the Hambleton affair?\"\n\n\"I don't believe so, no.\"\n\n\"Ah, well. I suspect that's a story for another occasion. Nevertheless, it serves to prove the point. There are things in this world\u2014and beyond\u2014for which the combined efforts of science and religion have yet to divine a suitable explanation. I have no doubt that, given time, they will.\" He heaved himself out of his chair, stretching his sore muscles. \"But now, my friend, I must prevail upon you to forgive me. I feel the need to retire for the evening, to rest these damnable wounds in an effort to hasten my recovery and put an end to my captive misery.\" He sniffed. \"The guest room is yours if you want it.\"\n\nBainbridge rose to his feet and clasped a hand on his friend's shoulder. \"No, I'll take my leave, dear boy.\" He smiled warmly. \"Look after yourself, and keep an eye on that wayward assistant of yours. She'll be causing a scandal or two of her own if she doesn't check herself from time to time.\"\n\nNewbury laughed heartily. \"Indeed. She might at that.\"\n\nBainbridge downed the remainder of his brandy and crossed the room, collecting his coat and cane. \"Well, Newbury. Until next time.\"\n\n\"Good-bye, Charles.\"\n\nThe Chief Inspector took his leave. Newbury waited until the sound of his footsteps had receded down the street. He banked the fire, making sure the embers were burning low, and turned out his pipe in the grate. Then, leaving the living-room behind him, he climbed the stairs and passed along the hallway towards his bedchamber. He stopped outside the room and placed his hand on the doorknob. A little farther along the landing, the door to his study was propped shut, still loose on its hinges following Veronica's dramatic entry a day or two earlier. He'd have to have it fixed in the next couple of days, once he'd regained the rest of his health.\n\nHesitantly, he withdrew his hand from the handle of his bedroom door and crossed the landing, his wounds itching where scabs had formed over the open cuts. He pushed his way through the unwieldy study door and propped it shut again behind him. He turned up the gas jet on the wall, causing a dim radial glow to light the room. The room was just as he'd left it.\n\nHe crossed to the daybed and took a seat, eyeing the little brown bottle on the table in the corner. In the dim light, he could just see the peeling label, the familiar liquid inside. There was also a half-drunk bottle of red wine on the table beside it, stoppered with a used cork. It had probably spoiled during the intervening days. He rubbed a hand over his face and glanced at the door sheepishly, knowing he should head for his bedchamber, and stood, pacing towards the landing. His stomach twisted in knots. He drew a deep breath, trying to fight off his cravings, playing out the consequences in his mind. He'd promised Veronica. . . .\n\nHe glanced back at the bottle in the half-light. It sung to him of cosy oblivion and warmth. It was like the call of a siren; unrelenting, full of terrible beauty. The need burned within him, made every inch of his skin crawl.\n\nHe stood on the threshold of the room for a few moments, tortured and confused by his own desires. Then, finally, he crossed the room, collected the two bottles, and settled himself on the daybed, aware that, for a short time at least, he could banish the guilt that gnawed at him from within. The laudanum would bring stillness. The laudanum would remove all sense of fear, all sense of doubt. The laudanum would excise the pain, and tomorrow, he told himself as he carefully poured a measure from the dull, inconspicuous bottle, was another day entirely. Tomorrow he could start again.\nCHAPTER 31\n\n##\n\nVeronica glared at the pile of unsorted papers on her desk and sighed. The office was deathly quiet, lacking the banter she had become accustomed to, with only the constant _tick-tock_ of the grandfather clock and the occasional sound of Miss Coulthard shuffling papers in the adjoining room punctuating the monotony.\n\nShe leaned back in her chair and glanced over at Newbury's empty desk, which had lain undisturbed since they were last in the office together the previous week. Correspondence had temporarily been forwarded to his Chelsea home whilst he spent time convalescing away from the museum, and the lack of his usual cheer lent the place a mournful air, as if it were missing something fundamental, the heart of it temporarily removed. The office itself had been restored to something approximating order, following Miss Coulthard's return to work and the removal of the automaton remains by Scotland Yard, who were keen to gather evidence for the case against Chapman. Not that they needed to worry, Veronica considered; she was certain that they would be able to uncover enough at the manufactory to send him to the gallows ten times over, especially when one took into consideration the testimonies of Sir Maurice and Sir Charles, both respected members of society and gentlemen to boot.\n\nVeronica leaned back in her chair, drumming her fingers idly on the desk. The days following her visit to the asylum had passed in a sedentary fashion, and whilst she had enjoyed hearing tales from an effervescent Miss Coulthard about the return of her brother Jack, in truth, she was finding it difficult to give her administrative tasks their due attention. It had only been a handful of days since the apprehension of Joseph Chapman and the resolution of the case of _The Lady Armitage,_ and she already found herself speculating on what the future may hold. She longed to see Newbury again, to lose herself in another mystery. She knew it was idle speculation, but it helped fuel her motivation for the laborious research work she was obliged to carry out whilst she waited for Newbury himself to return to work.\n\nDeciding that she shouldn't put it off any longer, she set to work, taking a stack of manuscript pages from the top of the nearest pile and leafing through the content in an effort to identify any references that Newbury might find useful in the writing of his most recent essay, regarding the ritualistic practices of the druidic tribes of Bronze Age Europe.\n\nThere was a polite rap on the inner door. Veronica looked up to see Miss Coulthard hovering in the doorway, a large sheaf of papers clutched tightly in her arms.\n\n\"Miss Hobbes, I'm just running these along to the museum archive. I'll be back shortly if you find you have need of me.\"\n\nVeronica smiled. \"Of course. Thank you, Miss Coulthard.\" She indicated the large stack of papers on her desk. \"I won't be going anywhere for a while.\"\n\nMiss Coulthard gave her a knowing sigh and then left, her heels clicking loudly on the tiled floor. Veronica returned distractedly to her reading.\n\nA few minutes later, she heard the door open and shut in the adjoining room, followed by the sound of footsteps on the threshold of the office. She continued reading, her eyes flicking over the carefully crafted copperplate on the page before her. \"You were far quicker than I'd imagined, Miss Coulthard. Now, if you could find it in your heart to put the kettle on the stove. . . .\" She looked up at the sound of a man clearing his throat, her voice trailing off. \"Sir Maurice! I\u2014we weren't expecting you back so soon!\"\n\nNewbury smiled. \"My dear Miss Hobbes. There is only so long a gentleman can sit in his rooms, staring at the walls, before the experience becomes entirely unbearable.\" He removed his hat and indicated his desk with a wave of his hand. \"Besides, that essay isn't going to write itself.\" He beamed at her, his eyes twinkling.\n\nVeronica grinned. \"Tell me. How are you feeling? Are you recovered?\"\n\n\"A little stiff. My wounds are healing well enough, although it's a damnable irritation. Still, I imagine I'll be back to my usual self before long. Provided, that is, that I don't find myself scrabbling around on the top of any moving ground trains in the near future.\"\n\nVeronica laughed. \"Well, sit yourself down, and I'll prepare a nice cup of Earl Grey. Miss Coulthard should be back soon. She's just popped along to the archive to file some papers.\" She climbed to her feet, stretching her back after spending too long sitting hunched over her desk.\n\n\"Indeed. I ran into her in the passageway. It's most excellent news about the safe return of her brother. I understand that you were instrumental in seeing him home?\"\n\nVeronica came out from behind her desk. She shrugged. \"Yes, I suppose you could put it that way. I happened upon him in the most unlikely of spots, and having seen one of Miss Coulthard's photographs, I was able to place him. His memory has yet to return in full, but I'm told he's otherwise in good health. It transpires that Miss Coulthard was correct all along, that he was indeed savaged by a revenant in Brixton, but somehow managed to get away. It seems the two of you have a good deal in common, too: aside from spending time in India, you've both encountered revenants on more than one occasion and lived to tell the tale. Jack is also immune to the plague. Miss Coulthard says that the doctors are talking about fashioning a vaccination from his blood.\"\n\nNewbury nodded, smiling. \"Remarkable. I'm most delighted for Miss Coulthard.\" He paused, running a hand over his face. \"So, tell me, how did you find Amelia? Is she bearing up?\"\n\nVeronica tried to maintain her smile, but her face faltered. \"Not well, I'm afraid. She grows weaker with every visit I make. I don't know what else I can do for her. I think just being in that place is enough to suck the life out of her.\"\n\nNewbury stepped closer and tenderly placed his hand on her arm. \"We must see what we can do to help. I'll give the matter some attention directly.\"\n\nVeronica's breath became shallow. She edged nearer to Newbury, her heart hammering in her chest. Her lips were dry. \"It's good to have you back, Sir Maurice.\"\n\n\"I\u2014\"\n\nThen the door swung open and Miss Coulthard bustled noisily into the office. Veronica hurriedly stepped back from Newbury, smoothing her dress. Her face flushed.\n\nMiss Coulthard seemed not to notice anything untoward. She smiled. \"Good to have you back, Sir Maurice.\" She glanced at them both in turn, and then shuffled over to the stove. \"Tea, anyone?\"\n\nNewbury laughed. \"Yes, please, Miss Coulthard. That would be perfect.\" He crossed into the other room and dropped his hat on the stand, shrugged out of his coat, and then, moving carefully so as not to put stress on his wounds, he wandered back through to his desk and lowered himself into his chair.\n\nVeronica returned to her seat. They eyed each other across the office, neither of them knowing what to say. Miss Coulthard whistled tunefully in the other room as she set the kettle on the stove and searched around in the cupboard for some cups and saucers.\n\nNewbury was first to break the silence. \"Did Bainbridge stop by to inform you of my theory about the Dutch Royal cousin and _The Lady Armitage_?\"\n\nVeronica nodded. \"Indeed he did. He was rather less than forthcoming when it came to detailing the activities the man had been pursuing in the Whitechapel district, but I was able to tease out enough information from his inferences to work out what he was trying to say.\"\n\nNewbury laughed. \"That certainly sounds like Charles. He never could talk to a lady.\"\n\nVeronica looked suddenly serious. \"I suppose that explains why all of the passengers had been tied to their seats on the airship. The fact that they were plague victims, I mean.\"\n\n\"Yes, I suppose it does.\"\n\nVeronica toyed with the corner of one of the manuscript pages on her desk. \"So how did Her Majesty take the news? It's rather a scandalous affair for the family, isn't it?\"\n\nNewbury shrugged. \"I visited the palace yesterday. Her Majesty seemed to take the news impartially. She was rather too busy admonishing me for the state of my health, if truth be told.\" He chuckled. \"I doubt there'll be any word of it in the press. Whether the facts are deemed appropriate for the boy's mother, we'll have to leave for others to decide.\"\n\nVeronica nodded. \"So, what's next?\"\n\nNewbury laughed again. \"Druids. The Bronze Age. Pages and pages of arduous notes.\" He leaned back in his chair. \"After that, who knows? I'm sure that something will turn up.\" He shifted to see Miss Coulthard entering the office, bearing two cups of Earl Grey on a wooden tray.\n\nVeronica smiled, reaching for another sheaf of papers on her desk. She shuffled them into a neat pile before her. Looking up, she met Newbury's eye from across the room. \"I do believe it will, Sir Maurice. I do believe it will.\"\nEPILOGUE\n\nThe life-preserving machine laboured in the semi-darkness, hissing and wheezing as the bellows rose and fell in time with the toilsome breathing of its occupant. Her Majesty Queen Victoria eased herself forward, wheeling her chair closer to the figure that was standing in the shadows on the other side of the audience chamber. Her face resolved in the gloom. She was wearing a stern expression. \"We are most satisfied with the resolution of this investigation\"\u2014her voice was shrill and echoed around the empty room\u2014\"yet we remain concerned for the well-being of our agent. Tell me, Miss Hobbes, do you believe that Sir Maurice acquitted himself in a manner becoming a representative of the Crown?\"\n\nVeronica swallowed and stepped forward into the wavering light of the gas-lamps. \"I do, Your Majesty. Sir Maurice is a credit to his nation.\"\n\nThe monarch nodded. \"Very good. That is most reassuring.\" She put her hand to her mouth and gave a wet, spluttering cough. The machine wheezed as it tried to compensate for the brief fit. Her chest heaved, her lungs filling with oxygen. She continued, catching her breath. \"Even so, Miss Hobbes, we encourage you to remember your duty. We must ensure that Newbury remains steadfast in his beliefs. We fear that the dark arts have a terrible allure, and, lest you forget, your primary role in this assignment is to protect Newbury from falling for such devious charms. One would hate to imagine that we were allowing another dissenter to propagate in our midst.\"\n\nVeronica frowned. \"What word is there of Dr. Knox?\"\n\nThe Queen shook her head. \"No word. He is lost to us. We have dozens of agents searching for him, all across the Empire, but he proves as elusive as he ever was. He has managed not to show his hand for over a year now. One wonders what he is plotting in the darkness.\"\n\nVeronica shrugged. \"Perhaps he is already dead.\"\n\n\"No.\" The Queen was firm. \"He is a wily devil, and he has darker forces at his disposal. We have no doubt that he is alive, somewhere out there, hiding in the quiet places, unseen to our agents.\" She straightened herself in her wheelchair. \"What is clear to us is that Newbury must be steered in a wholly different direction. He cannot be allowed to succumb.\"\n\n\"Yes, Your Majesty. I can assure you that this matter remains my sole concern. I will ensure that Sir Maurice does not fall prey to that particular trap.\"\n\nVictoria raised an eyebrow. \"You seem overly confident in your own abilities, Miss Hobbes. Perhaps you already have the man wrapped around your little finger.\" She laughed, and the sound was like boots crunching on gravel.\n\nVeronica looked away, a pained expression on her face. \"Perhaps. Yet I think his heart is true. He will not be swayed by petty obsessions or a vain desire for power. He is not Aubrey Knox. He serves you well, Your Majesty.\"\n\nVictoria nodded. \"Then you may go, Miss Hobbes, and be about your business.\" She wheeled back a few feet, indicating that it was time for Veronica to leave. Veronica crossed the room. Victoria waited until she was nearing the door. \"Oh, and Miss Hobbes? One other thing before you take your leave.\"\n\nVeronica turned back to regard her, finding it difficult to place her in the dim light. \"Yes, Your Majesty?\"\n\n\"This 'affinity bridge' that Newbury spoke of. The device that facilitates the interaction between the human brain and an artificial body. Have they all been destroyed?\"\n\n\"No, Your Majesty. The Chapman and Villiers automata are currently being decommissioned, but it is proving to be a lengthy process. It will be some months before they are all accounted for.\"\n\nThe Queen offered her a weary smile. \"Good. Please ensure that you keep at least a handful of them in working order. One never knows when the technology may prove useful.\"\n\n\"Indeed, Your Majesty. I will endeavour to do so.\" She glanced at the door. \"Will there be anything else?\"\n\n\"No. That is all. Thank you, Miss Hobbes.\"\n\n\"Good day, Your Majesty.\"\n\nVeronica pulled open the door and hurried along the passageway, keen to get away from the palace and back to the museum, to Newbury and to her newfound life of adventure.\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}