"Get me Sinclair," he yelled out to the hooded boys. "Get Mr. Phelps for me now. "

The three looked at one another and spoke in Spanish, but they were too far away for me to understand.

Ellen reached for the handles of Zeldin's wheelchair. "I'm sorry, sir. Let's all just calm down and go back to-"

"Get your hands off there, young lady," he said, raising the volume another few notches.

Scotty started wheezing and clutching his chest.

"Scotty? Scotty?" I put my arm around him and tried to find a bench to seat him on, but as I leaned in close to talk to him, the teens came running toward us. One broke for a side door that led out to a large sculpture garden, turning to lock it behind him and remove the key before rejoining the others.

The three raced in our direction. They shouted something to Zeldin as they came by him, while one of them grabbed Ellen and lifted her off her feet, tossing her onto a large shrub with branches that stretched out five feet in each direction. They kept on running past us, back to the long tunnel and toward the front entrance.

Ellen's screams should have shattered the hundreds of glass panes that surrounded us.

I let go of Scotty and ran to where she lay, facedown, as though something was holding her in place.

"Ellen!"

She stretched out an arm to me and turned her face. There was blood everywhere.

I stepped off the paved walk and onto the rocks that ringed the giant plant. Encephalartos horridus-a ferocious blue cycad was the way a nearby sign described this unlikely weapon.

Every long arm of the green monster was lined with spikes, from its root down to its very tips. Ellen's face and torso had been impaled on them with the force of the kid's thrust, and I had to literally lift her off its center, thorns hanging from her skin like rusty nails from an old railroad tie.

I sat her on the ground and waited for her heaving cries to stop. Behind me, Scotty-also in some kind of physical distress-kept murmuring apologies about not being able to help.

"Call nine-one-one, Scotty. Can you do that?"

Ellen started to pull the prickly pieces out of her forehead. "Don't touch them," I said to her. "Let me try it."

I could see she was ripping the skin on her face in an effort to get out the thorns. The pain must have been excruciating, and I tried to spread the wounds apart with my fingers to release the embedded needles without further lacerating the surface.

Again I looked over my shoulder. Scotty had rested his bulky body against some kind of small tree trunk. The overweight, outof-shape detective was fumbling with his cell phone as though it was a struggle even to open it. He looked like he was in the middle of suffering a heart attack.

I grabbed the phone from his hand and dialed 911.

"It's just my angina, Alex. It'll pass."

"Operator? Yes, it's an emergency. At the Botanical Gardens. Inside the Haupt Conservatory."

Now the battery of questions.

"No, operator. I have no idea what cross street. It's a police officer down. Two officers, badly injured. We need an ambulance and we need cops."

"I don't understand, miss. Is this a crime or a medical emergency?" the 911 operator asked.

"It's both, damn it. We're wasting precious time."

I gave her the information and hung up. I dialed Mercer's number. "Where the hell are you?"

"I'm over in front of the administration building. I just arrived but nobody's around."

"The conservatory-the crystal palace, remember? Get security and get over here as fast as you can. There's an ambulance on the way. I'll explain."

I dropped the phone on the ground and tried to stop Ellen from pulling more thorns out and scarring her face.

In all of this, it suddenly occurred to me, Zeldin had never opened his mouth to offer help. I twisted around to confront him, but he was nowhere in sight.

"Is it taking them as long as it feels?" Ellen asked.

I had removed all the thorns from her face. Blood had streaked down her cheeks and lined her neck. It caked on my hands as well.

"Are you okay if I go back to the door? Maybe Mercer's having trouble getting in."

She nodded.

"Scotty-don't even think about moving a hair until Mercer and I get back," I said, but he didn't seem capable of trying. I balled up my bloody scarf and tucked it beneath his head.

I retraced my steps through the African desert. The late-afternoon sun was casting shadows now, and all of the plants seemed more sinister than they had before Ellen's assault-branches and tendrils and leaves as large as elephant ears reaching out over the path as though to slow my retreat and grab on to me.

I broke into a trot as the walkway sloped downhill, tree limbs grazing the top of my head and catching on the sleeves of my jacket. The long cylindrical tunnel was dark and claustrophobic, almost like an empty subway tube. I kept looking behind me because it sounded as though I were being chased, but it was just the noise of my own footsteps echoing off the metallic walls.

Out of Africa now, and passing through the end of the tunnel, I slipped in a puddle of water that had dripped from an overhead sprinkler, and grabbed the moss-covered rocks to stop myself from falling. Their surface felt hairy and damp, like a handful of caterpillars resting in the shade.

I pushed off and jogged up the curving ramp, snagged on the head by hanging jade vines and the pods of cacao plants. The Victorian reflecting pool was like an oasis in the middle of the other, overgrown faux environments, but it took only seconds for me to dash through it before being launched back into the dank humidity of the tropical jungle.

There was no sign of human life in the dense growth, but as I ran around the base of the huge tree trunk, I could hear feet pounding on the skywalk above me. I ducked off the path and into a mass of ferns, looking up and fearing another encounter with the three young thugs. It was only the same workman I had seen on the way in, oblivious to everything but the browned tips of his plants. He seemed anxious to find out who was racing through his sanctuary this time, and from the expression on his face was more frightened by the encounter than I.

By the time I reached the Palm Dome, I could hear pounding against the front door, and through the glass windows could see Mercer, a security guard, and two EMTs. Once I let them inside, I started to double back-out of breath myself-and told them what they would find as they ran on ahead, pointing in the direction where I had left Ellen Gunsher and Scotty Taren.

Mercer stopped me and tried to calm me down. "Why did you call for medics?"

"Ellen's cut up pretty badly, but I think it's all superficial. I'm worried about Scotty, though. He's got some kind of coronary history and he's just collapsed in there like a lump."

"Take some deep ones," he said, as I bent over, my hands on my knees, trying to regulate my breathing. "You never met with Zeldin?"

I straightened up. "Yeah, he was here. Didn't you pass him on your way in?"

"No. The security guard said I just missed him. He sped off the grounds in one of those minivans."

"Who was driving?"

"According to the guard, Zeldin himself was behind the wheel," Mercer said.

"What about kids? Did you see any 'wild child' types?"

"Yeah. When the guard opened the gate for me, a trio ran out. Hoodies?"

"Exactly. We've got to get the local precinct on it. They're the ones who pushed Ellen, and it seemed to me it was on some kind of signal from Zeldin."

A blue and white squad car pulled up in front of the conservatory with its lights flashing. Uniformed cops got out on each side and we met them at the door, repeating the story and suggesting that they get started in case the three teens were still moving through the neighborhood in a pack. They radioed out the generic description with orders to bring the group in for questioning and then took off to sweep the area before darkness enveloped the city streets.