"They still have a bug planted on us."

"Where could they hide it?" Susan said.

"Inside Herm," Jack said. "Planted during the operation at Groom Lake. They couldn't believe we weren't in my office. The GPS said we were, but we were two feet away, hiding next door."

"Okay, we're good to go," the chip in Jack's ear announced.

"They're coming in," Jack stressed.

"We could go next door," Carol suggested.

"We can't go outside," Jack repeated.

"We don't need to, it's a duplex. My boyfriend's a doctor. We sleep on that side. There's a door between the units."

As they ran down the hall, Herman saw Jack duck into the master bedroom, remove one of the weights from Carolyn's lat machine, and take it with him. They went through a door in the back that led to a laundry porch shared by both units, and slipped into the apartment next door.

Carolyn's boyfriend turned out to be huge. A bodybuilder. He got up from his office computer and wide-armed his way into the hall.

"What's going on, Carolyn?" he said, his voice an octave too high for a guy that big.

"Tim, somebody's trying to take the gene map I've been working on."

"We gotta split before they decide to look over here."

While Tim was talking, Jack heard the order to go in. Both doors were kicked, followed by the sound of running footsteps in the hall next door. They could hear them shouting through the shared wall.

"Living room clear!"

"Bedroom clear!"

Carolyn opened the side door to the carport, and sitting there under a light was a red Chevy Suburban. Jack immediately reached up and knocked the light out with his gun barrel.

"You're coming with us," Jack told them. Carolyn and Tim nodded and headed for the front seat of the Suburban. But Jack held Tim's muscle-bound arm, pulling him back. "I'm driving."

Jack grabbed the keys out of his hand and piled everyone into the SUV. He dug the chip out of his ear, started the engine, and handed Herman the ten-pound lead weight. "Put this over your heart."

"Why?"

"It's lead. It'll mask the transmission."

"But, we don't know for sure I…"

"Lawyers-always an argument!" Jack snapped.

Herman clutched the weight to his chest as Jack started the engine. "Everybody down."

They ducked below the windows while he backed out, making a slow, three-point turn, doing it like he had all the time in the world. He switched on the headlights and began cruising up the street at about ten miles an hour. Herman popped up and peeked out the rear window. The brown Econoline van was still at the curb in front of the duplex. Then Jack rounded the corner and they were out of sight.

"The bug quit," Valdez said. He was inside the van looking at the GPS monitor. "They musta found it."

"How could they find it? It's inside the fucking guy," Pettis answered.

"I'm just telling you, there's no signal." Valdez was uncharacteristically pissed. His dry-biscuit calm had evaporated in a surge of genuine panic. He waited as the four plainclothes CDF troops rushed out the front door of the duplex and motioned that everything inside was clear.

"This can't be happening." Valdez glared at Pettis, who was still buckled into the command chair next to him.

"What about the SUV that pulled out a minute ago?"

"Maybe you're right and the bug did quit," Valdez said. "Let's go." He waved his men back to the van. The CDF troopers piled in. One handed the fifty-page encryption to Valdez. "They left this."

The driver punched it, speeding after the SUV. When they reached the end of the block they turned left, then right, then left, trying to get to the freeway on-ramp, but in their hurry they had misread the GPS map and taken a wrong turn. They wound up at the end of a cul-de-sac, half a block from the 405.

"Fuck!" Valdez raged, the recovered gene map forgotten in his hand.

It was the first time Captain Pettis ever saw the assistant director lose it.

"Whatta you think you're doing with that thing?" Dr. Shiller asked, looking at the ten-pound weight that Herman was cradling against his chest like alead blankie.

Herman was back in the cardio unit at Cedars wearing one of their fashion-ugly, balloon-decorated backless nightgowns. Susan was standing next to his bed. Jack was out of sight behind the open door.

Shiller glowered. He'd definitely had enough of the Strockmires. He took the lead weight off Herman's chest. 'This is for a weight machine."

"Doctor, I'm ready for the procedure now," Herman said.

Doctor Shiller looked down at him as if he were deciding whether to hit him with the weight in his right hand or the metal clipboard in his left. "The nurse said your heart was fine when she took your vitals. She saw the sutures above your groin, so it looks as if you've already had the procedure. This is a busy hospital, Mr. Strockmire. Believe it or not, there are people in this cardio unit who are in actual medical danger."

Herman looked at Susan. "You tell him. He won't listen to me."

"Okay, Doctor, you're right, we think an operation was performed," she admitted. "Dad was kidnapped yesterday, and he was taken to…" she stopped. "He went out to…"

She couldn't say Area 51. He'd throw them out.

"Yes?" Shiller was seconds away from calling security.

Herman took over. "Somebody did an operation on me. They may have implanted a radio transmitter inside me. A bug. Now they're following us, tracking me via satellite."

"You people are wonderful," Shiller said, shaking his head. "From outer space is it? Nice twist."

"Okay, you don't believe me? Take an X ray."

"I'm not wasting any more time on you." Shiller started to leave, but Susan jumped up and blocked his exit.

"Doctor, listen, please! My father has been involved in a very treacherous lawsuit. I told you about it before, remember?"

Nothing from Shiller. No reaction at all.

"Yesterday Dad came into possession of some very sensitive material that in the wrong hands could embarrass some very high-ranking Pentagon officials, maybe even the President. Because they wanted the material returned, my father was drugged and kidnapped. But Dad didn't have it on him. He'd given it to an expert to decode. They knew Dad would lead them to the material, so they planted a bug inside him to follow him until they got their hands on it. After the operation they let him go. Now they've got the material back. But they're still chasing us, because they want to kill us. The lead weight was to mask the bug and keep it from transmitting…" She stopped because Shiller's look had shifted from anger to one of psychiatric concern.

"If you will just open the incision and put a scope up there you'll find the transmitter, then you'll know we're telling the truth," she finished softly.

"Please leave the hospital immediately," he finally said. "Otherwise, I'll call security and have you removed."

Jack had been sitting quietly, unobserved in a folding chair behind the heavy door. As Susan explained her ridiculous story, he was trying to decide just how much deeper into this gunnysack he was prepared to go for no money-and then as soon as he asked that question, he knew he was in all the way. He also knew he was in love with Susan Strockmire.

"Hey, Doc," Jack whispered from behind the door.

"What?" Shiller spun around, surprised to find him there. "Who are you?"

"I'm Dr. Wirta, with the Wirta Eye Clinic."

"An eye doctor?"

He nodded. "A private eye institute. I've been consulting on this case, and I'll have to insist that you do exactly as the lady just instructed."

"Oh, really?" Shiller was giving him an angry little smile that barely turned the corners of his mouth up. "Well, Doctor, unless you're a cardiologist or have some pretty good juice with the Physicians Review Board at this hospital, it's not going to happen."