"What are you trying to tell me?"

"What neither of us want to hear, let alone think. That hopeful as you are to address those people, the reality is we may never get out of here. All along I've been trying to find an air current that would suggest an opening. A crack, a crevice, anything we could try to break open or squeeze through to the outside. We've passed several but none large enough or with air current strong enough to make me think it was worth using up what energy we still have.

"If we reach the far end of this shaft without finding something more promising, we will have to come back and look for a side tunnel we might have missed in the dark, if there are any. After that if we still haven't found something, I don't know. I'm sorry to rip up your hopes, Mr. President, but at this stage there's not a damn thing you can do about those people you want to address or the killings at Warsaw or the genocide itself. Right now the only lives that matter are ours, and if we don't find a way out there's a very real chance we'll die in here. With water I give us maybe ten days, two weeks at best."

"Light a match," the president said abruptly.

"What?"

"I said light a match."

"Mr. President-we're going to need every match we have left."

"Light it."

"Yes, sir," Marten reached down and fished the matchbox from his pocket, then took out a match and struck it.

The flame lit the president's face like a torch. His eyes were frozen on Marten's.

"It is not yet seven o'clock Saturday night. Sunrise tomorrow is a long way off. There is still time to get to Aragon and address the gathering there. Still time to stop the murders at Warsaw. Still time to stop the genocide in the Middle East. This president will not die in here, Cousin. He cannot and he will not. Far too much is at stake."

In the flickering light Marten saw a man racked with exhaustion; clothes torn, face and hands ripped and bloodied and scraped raw, every pore, every strand of hair, from beard to head, coated with dust and dirt and grime. A man who might well have been beaten but who wasn't.

If he wasn't, neither was Marten. "You will not die here, Mr. President," he said, his own voice as hoarse as the president's. "Somehow we will find a way out. Somehow you will address those people."

The president's eyes held on Marten's. "I won't let you get by with just that."

"What do you mean?"

"I want your promise. Your word."

The flame on the match dwindled to nothing. What seconds before had been a staggeringly noble idea, an impossible dream, or just a plain crazy hope Marten had bought into, the president had suddenly turned into a deeply personal pact. Raising the level of the game so that the task before them became more than a commitment of mind and body, it became one of the soul.

"You are a stubborn bastard," Marten whispered.

"Give me your word."

Marten hesitated and the match burned out and once more the dark invaded everything.

"You have it," he whispered finally, "you have my word."

• EL BORRÀS, 6:55 P.M

Hap Daniels gritted his teeth as the motorcycle bounced down a narrow dirt path and Miguel followed two other motorcycles toward the Llobregat River. Of the three machines only Miguel's had a sidecar. The others were straightforward Hondas. The first was ridden by Miguel's nephew, Amado. The other carried José and Hector, two of Amado's friends. None was older than eighteen, but they had lived in El Borràs all their lives and knew the mountainous territory, with its air shafts, natural chimneys, and entryways to the caves and old tunnels, and the tunnels themselves, inside out. Hap hadn't liked the idea of the others coming along, but Miguel had assured him each young man was completely trustworthy and would say nothing of what they were doing or whom they were looking for even if they were stopped.

"Believe me," Miguel told him, "even if we are lucky enough to reach the president, they won't recognize him-you might not either. To the boys he will be a missing American friend who was exploring the caves and got trapped inside the mountain when the big rock-slide or earthquake or whatever it was hit."

The three machines slowed, then stopped as they reached the river. The Llobregat here was probably fifty yards wide, muddy and fast-flowing from the runoff of winter rains. Miguel looked at Hap in the sidecar.

"There's a gravel buildup beneath the water. It looks deep but isn't. Still, anything could happen."

"Cross it," Hap said without expression.

Miguel signaled Amado, and the first two motorcycles started across, Amado first, then Hector driving the second machine. Partway across Hector nearly lost it in the rush of water. Then he gained control, gunned the engine, and made it across, stopping to wait with Amado. A half second later Miguel twisted the throttle, the motorcycle inched forward and entered the water and started across. The rush of swift water threatened to sweep them away but Hap's weight in the side car steadied it and with a bounce and roar of the engine they crossed to the others. Again Miguel signaled Amado, and the young man led off, taking them up a steep gravel trail.

Rough as it was on Hap, the motorcycle had been the thing to use. They were going up into the foothills and then to mountain trails beyond. A car was useless and walking would take far too long. Moreover, Hap hardly had the stamina to walk very far anyway.

• 7:10 P.M.

The sun dipped over the mountain ridges just above them, putting the dirt trail they climbed into full shadow. Hap was leaning forward, trying to find some way to ease the pain in his wounded shoulder as the motorcycle bounced mercilessly over the rough terrain, when his BlackBerry sounded. He took it from his jacket and looked at the source of the call. When he saw it was Bill Strait, he clicked off, then turned off the ringer. In that instant he thought of the encrypted text message Strait had sent him at 4:10 P.M.

Hap. Trying for hours to reach you. Where the hell are you? Chief of staff reports at 4:08 P.M. from Madrid that Crop Duster was not, repeat NOT, at the monastery at Montserrat. CIA ops took brief hostile fire from unknowns at monastery office of a Dr. Merriman Foxx. Our mission to Montserrat aborted mid-flight. Returned to base at Barcelona. CNP and Spanish intel investigating hostile fire. WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU? ARE YOU OKAY?

Hap glanced at Miguel as he guided the motorcycle up a narrow rain-rutted trail in the increasing darkness. Until a few hours ago he had never seen this man in his life. Now he was trusting him and three young Spaniards with his life and that of the president, if he was still alive. It was something he should have been able to call Bill Strait for; order him to fly a full contingent of Secret Service, CIA, Spanish intel, and Spanish police out here on the double to scour the hills and mountaintops looking for any passageway that would give them access to the areas below where Miguel believed the president and Nicholas Marten might be, and at the same time demand a demolition crew be sent to blast through the rock from inside Foxx's office complex.

There was, and always had been, an iron bond between Secret Service agents, trust beyond measure. That was until now, until all this had happened, and where he, like the president, had no idea how far this thing went or who in God's name he could trust. So as much as he wanted to, as much as he should have been able to do so under any circumstances, Bill Strait wasn't contacted, his message not replied to.

"Damn," Hap swore bitterly to himself. How he hated mistrust, especially when it was his own and he didn't know who or what to believe.

"Hap," Miguel said suddenly.

"What is it?"

"There," Miguel pointed at the sunlit crest of the mountains four or five miles in the distance.