A thousand invisible bullets, a million.

More bullets than Parker'd ever seen or heard in all his weeks on the range at Quantico.

Glass, wood, splinters of metal shot through the living room.

Parker huddled on the floor, the precious yellow pad still on the desk. He tried to grab it but a cluster of slugs pummeled the floor in front of him and he leapt back against the wall.

Lukas and Cage crawled out the front door and collapsed into the hallway, weapons drawn, looking for a target out the window. Shouting, calls for backup, cries for help. Tobe Geller pushed back from the desk but the chair legs caught on the uneven floor and he tumbled backward. The computer monitor imploded as a dozen slugs struck it. Parker went for the yellow pad again but dropped to his belly as a line of bullets snapped into the walls, heading straight for him. He dodged the volley and lay flat on the floor.

Thinking, as he had before tonight, that he was nearly as afraid of being wounded as he was of dying. He couldn't stand the thought of the Whos seeing him hurt, in the hospital. And he, unable to take care of them.

There was a pause in the fusillade and Parker started for Tobe Geller.

Then the Digger, somewhere outside, on a rooftop maybe, lowered his aim and fired toward the metal pan that the fruit rested in. It too had been placed there for a purpose. The bullets clanged off it and sparks shot into the gasoline. With a huge roar the pungent liquid ignited.

Parker was blown out the door into the hallway by the explosion. He lay on his side beside Cage and Lukas.

"No, Tobe!" Parker cried, trying to get back inside. But a wave of flame filled the doorway and forced him back.

They crouched in the windowless corridor. Lukas on one phone, Cage on another. "… maybe the roof! We don't know… Call D.C.F.D… One agent down. Make that two… He's still out there. Where the hell is he?"

And the Digger kept firing.

"Tobe!" Parker shouted again.

"Somebody!" Geller called. "Help me."

Parker caught a glimpse of the young man on the other side of the raging flames. He lay curled on the floor. The apartment was awash with fire but still the Digger kept shooting. Pumping round after round from the terrible gun into the flaming living room. Soon Geller was lost to sight. It seemed that the table where the yellow pad rested was consumed in flames. No, no! The clues to the last sites were burning to ash!

Voices from somewhere:

"… where is he?"

"… going on? Where? Silencer and flash suppressor. Can't find him… No visual, no visual!"

"Fuck no, he's still shooting! We've got somebody down outside! Jesus…"

"Tobe!" Cage shouted and he too tried to run back into the apartment, which was filled with swirling orange flames, mixed with black, black smoke. But the agent was driven back by the astonishing heat-and by yet another terrifying row of black bullet holes snapping into the wall near them.

More shooting. And still more.

"… that window… No, try the other one."

Cage cried, "Get the fire trucks here! I want 'em here now!"

Lukas called, "They're on their way!"

Soon the sound of the transmissions was lost in the roar of the fire.

Through the noise they could just make out poor Tobe Geller's voice. "Help me! Please! Help me…" Growing softer.

Lukas made one last attempt to get inside but got only a few feet before a ceiling beam came down and nearly crushed her. She gave a scream and fell back. Staggering, choking on smoke, Parker helped her toward the front door as a tornado of flames poured into the corridor and moved relentlessly toward them.

"Tobe, Tobe…" she cried, coughing fiercely. "He's dying…"

"We've gotta get out," Cage shouted. "Now!"

Foot by foot they made their way toward the front door.

In a madness of panic and hypoxia from the burning air Parker kept wishing he were deaf so he couldn't hear the cries from the apartment. Kept wishing he were blind so he couldn't see the loss and sorrow the Digger had brought them, all these good people, people with families, people with children like his.

But Parker Kincaid was neither deaf nor blind and he was very much here, in the heart of this terror-the small automatic pistol in his right hand and his left arm around Margaret Lukas as he helped her through the smoke-shrouded corridor.

Look, Kincaid, you've been living life on Sesame Street for the last few years…

"… no location… no visible flash… Jesus, what is this…" Jerry Baker was shouting, or someone was.

Near the doorway Cage stumbled. Or someone did.

A moment later Parker and the agents were tumbling down the front stairs into the cold air. Despite their racking coughs and vision blurry with tears Cage and Lukas dropped into defensive positions, like the rest of the agents out here. They wiped their eyes and scanned building tops, searching for targets. Parker, kneeling behind a tree, followed their lead.

Crouching beside the command post van, C. P. Ardell held an M-16 close to his thick cheek and Len Hardy brandished his small revolver. The detective's head was moving back and forth, fear and confusion in his face.

Lukas caught Jerry Bakers eye and in a whisper she called, "Where? Where the hell is he?"

The tactical agent motioned toward an alley behind them and then returned to his walkie-talkie.

Cage was retching from the smoke he'd swallowed.

Two minutes passed without a shot.

Baker was speaking into his Motorola, "New Year's Leader Two… Subject was east of us, seemed to be shooting downward at a slight angle. Okay… Where?… Okay. Just be careful." He said nothing for a long moment, his eyes searching the buildings nearby. Then he cocked his head as somebody came back on the line. Baker listened. He said, "They're dead? Oh, man… He's gone?"

He stood up, holstered his weapon. He walked over to Cage, who was wiping his mouth with a Kleenex. "He got into the building behind us. Killed the couple who lived upstairs. He disappeared down the alley. He's gone. Nobody got a look at him."

Parker glanced toward the mobile command post, saw John Evans in the window. The doctor was looking at the grim spectacle with a curious expression on his face: the way a child sometimes looks at a dead animal, emotionless, numb. He may have been an expert in the theory of criminal violence but perhaps had never witnessed its practical application firsthand.

Parker then looked back at the building, which was now engulfed in flames. Nobody could survive the inferno.

Oh, Tobe…

Sirens cut through the night. He could see flashing lights reflected along both ends of the street as the fire engines sped closer. All the evidence gone too. Hell, it'd been in his hand! The yellow pad with the locations of the next two targets on it. Why the hell hadn't he glanced at it ten seconds earlier? Why had he wasted precious seconds looking at the mazes? Again Parker sensed that the document itself was the enemy and had intentionally distracted him to give the Digger time to attack them.

Hell. If he-

"Hey," somebody shouted. "Hey, over here! Need some help!"

Parker, Lukas and Cage turned toward an agent in an FBI windbreaker. He was running down a narrow alley beside the burning duplex.

"There's somebody here," the agent called.

A figure lay on the ground, on his side, surrounded by an aura of blue smoke.

Parker assumed the man was dead. But suddenly he lifted his head and cried, "Put it out!" in a gruff whisper. "Damnit, put it out!"

Parker wiped smoke tears from his eyes.

The man lying on the ground was Tobe Geller.

"Put it out!" he called again and his voice dissolved into a hacking cough.