• THE AMPHITHEATER OF LA IGLESIA

DENTRODE LA MONTAÑA, THE CHURCH WITHIN

THE MOUNTAIN, 9:20 P.M.

Demi stood at the edge of the crowd, as unobtrusively as possible photographing the ceremony taking place in the Aldebaran circle where the sixty monks knelt at its outer edge, heads bowed, chanting in the same indecipherable language as before. Behind them the three bonfires still roared, their embers drifting up into an eerie night sky; the full moon all but lost in the clouds of an approaching storm that announced its ferocity with a spectacular lightning show over the distant valley.

Her white dress flowing around her, Cristina sat like a goddess on a simple wooden throne in the circle's center as, one by one, scarlet-gowned children came to her from the darkness beyond the bonfires, each waiting his or her turn and then slowly and reverently walking into the firelight to approach her. Each child carried something live, a dog or cat or, in the case of several of the older children, an owl, leashed and tethered to a leather arm gauntlet like a falcon, for blessing.

And bless them Cristina did, smiling compassionately and lovingly to each, then saying something unheard and kissing them on one check and then the other, and afterward passing her hand over the creature they had brought, reciting some kind of short prayer as she did. Her words, barely audible, spoken in the same language used by the monks and by Beck and Luciana. Afterward the child moved off, drifting into the darkness beyond the bonfires and the next took its place. All around the adults watched, silent and spellbound, while below, at the edge of the firelight, Luciana and the Reverend Beck stood witness, as if divine shepherds overseeing their flock.

Demi was utterly perplexed. She wondered how the sign of Aldebaran on her mother's drawing, the Aldebaran thumb tattoos on Merriman Foxx, the late Dr. Lorraine Stephenson, Cristina, Luciana, and probably Reverend Beck, fit with all this. Especially this simple touching children's ceremony that blessed dogs and cats and owls. What spirits had Beck been calling forth from the night? What role did Cristina play? What was the significance of any of it?

Maybe it was, as Beck had said, that the coven and its rituals were harmless and there was nothing that couldn't be shown to the world. If so why had she been drugged for her journey here? What had Foxx wanted with Nicholas Marten that involved any of this? What of her mother's disappearance? Her father's warning? Or that given her by the armless Giacomo Gela? And what had he witnessed so many years ago that caused his captors to so heinously mutilate him? Moreover what was the connection of the sign of Aldebaran to the centuries-old cult of Aradia Minor and its traditions: blood oaths, sacrifices of living creatures, human torture? Where was its several-hundred-member audience, the powerful order called the Unknowns?

Had Gela been wrong or even crazy, a bitter armless octogenarian living alone for decades who had fabricated a secret, ancient culture upon which to blame his own condition? Demi saw no sign of any of it. Just families and children and animals. What was here to be feared?

• 9:35 P.M.

Hector and José were already on the tunnel floor, their flashlights pointed upward. Fifty feet above them Amado worked in a tight, sharply sloping chimney helping Miguel ease Hap down, his arm, by necessity, taken from its makeshift sling. The constant throbbing in his wounded shoulder eased somewhat by a pain pill reluctantly taken.

• 9:40 P.M.

The three were still twenty feet above the tunnel floor when they felt the earth begin to shake. Seconds later they heard it. One, two, three, four, and then five. The thundering chop of helicopters coming in and passing overhead at a low level.

Miguel looked at Hap. "More police? CIA?"

"Secret Service," Hap said coldly. "Flown in from Paris."

"How do you know?"

"Because it's my damn job to know!" Hap flared. It was the last thing they needed, more bodies working against them, agents thinking they were helping when they were doing just the opposite. "I would have called them in myself." He looked at Amado below him, "How much further?"

"Not much," Miguel said, then grinned. "The drop is still enough to kill you."

"Next time bring a ladder."

• 9:43 P.M.

"Laser!" Marten said in a hoarse whisper, pulling the president back against the tunnel wall in the inky black.

"Where?"

"Ahead."

"I didn't see it."

"It went on, then off. Either a mistake or they were hoping to get lucky. The last thing they want to do is give themselves away."

"Listen."

Once again came the sound of a drill cutting through stone.

"It's closer," the president's voice was little more than a whisper.

"A second rig?"

Abruptly the sound came again. This one closer than the other.

"And a third."

"They're in front of us with lasers," Marten said. "How far away or how many, we don't know. They're closing in behind us. And then there was that sound before. Like rocks slapped together. What the hell that was, I don't know either."

Suddenly the president raised what was left of the torch. Little more than a glowing ember. He lifted it high and close to Marten's face so that he could see him clearly. "You gave me your word that we would get out of here and that I would address the convention at Aragon. Damn it to hell, we are not going to let them take us now. I'm holding you to your promise."

"Mr. President, take that damn stick out of my face," Marten glared at him.

President Harris stared, then lowered the glowing pick handle. "I'm sorry."

Suddenly there was another flash of laser through the tunnel. Then a second, held longer this time. They could hear the distant echo of footsteps, men moving quickly along the tunnel toward them. From behind came another screech of drill. It held for ten seconds, then its pitch suddenly rose. Immediately the whine diminished.

"They've broken through," the president said.

"Give me that," Marten said quickly, and grabbed the glowing torch, then started back the way they had come.

"What are you doing?"

"Looking for help, Cousin. Looking for help."

• 9:45 P.M.

Marten ran along the track as fast as he dared in the dark, the glowing pick handle held near the tunnel floor, the president on his heels. Then the president caught up.

"Fifty, a hundred yards back, the torch flared." Marten kept moving, his voice barely a whisper. "Just a little. Not enough to think about at the time but there was an air current of some sort. Maybe a crack in the wall big enough we can squeeze into until those laser guys pass, then we go back the way they came, the way we were headed. If they got in, there's a way out."

Behind them a shot of laser light bounced off the tunnel walls. Now they could hear the echo of voices in front of them. Marten ran on another twenty yards, then slowed. "Somewhere here," he stopped and ran the glowing stick along the tunnel floor and then up the walls.

Nothing.

Another shot of laser bounced off the tunnel ceiling behind them. From the darkness in front came the steady drum of running feet.

"Come on," the president breathed.

"Nothing. Maybe I was wrong."

Marten started to move on when suddenly the torch flared up.

"There! You found it!" the president said.

Marten twisted back and pushed the brand toward the wall. The flame rose higher. Then they saw it. A small, three foot square opening in the tunnel wall just where it met the floor and all but obscured by the wooden ties of the ore-car tracks.