He looked tired, depleted, defeated. No, no, not defeated, she corrected. If he looked upon this as a defeat, he might not leave. He might take what would seem to him the easier way out.

"You did an exceptionally brave thing, Ronnie," she said conversationally. "Standing up to Russell Dendy. The FBI. You've won. What you and Sabra wanted all along was an audience, someone to listen and play fair with you.

And you've got them to agree to do just that. That's quite an achievement."

His eyes strayed to her. She smiled, hoping it didn't look as phony and wooden as it felt-indeed, as it was.

"Set the guns down and let's go. I'll hold your hand if you like."

"No. No. I'll go out by myself." He placed the two pistols on the counter, and as he wiped his damp palms on the legs of his jeans, Tiel exhaled the breath she'd been holding.

"Go ahead. I'm right behind you."

She hesitated, worried about the handguns, which were still within his reach. Was his seeming compliance a trick?

"Okay. I'm going. Coming?"

He licked his bruised lips. "Yeah."

Nervously she turned toward the door, opened it, and stepped through. The sky was no longer black, she noticed, but dark gray, so that the silhouettes of all the vehicles and people showed up against it. The air was already hot and dry. There was a light wind, carrying sand that abraded her skin as it blew across her.

She took a few steps before glancing back. Ronnie had his hand on the door, ready to push it open. There was no sign of a weapon in his hand. Don't do anything harmful now, Ronnie. You're home free.

Ahead, waiting for her, she could make out Galloway.

Mr. Davison. Gully. Sheriff Montez.

And Doc. He was there. Standing a little apart from the others. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Hair lifting in the wind.

From the corner of her eye she saw the SWAT team herding Two into the back of a van under heavy guard.

The door was slammed closed and the van sped from the parking lot with a screech of tires. Juan had been confined to a gurney, where paramedics were tending to him.

Tiel's glance had just moved past him when she did a double take. He began wrestling against the paramedic trying to insert an IV needle into the back of his shackled hand. Like a madman in a straightjacket, he twisted his body, his head, his arms. His mouth was moving, forming words, and she wondered why she found that so puzzling.

Then she realized that the words he was shouting were in English.

But he didn't speak English, she thought stupidly. Only Spanish.

Furthermore, the words made no sense because he was yelling at the top of his lungs. "He's got a rifle! There!

Somebody! Oh, Christ, no!"

The words registered with Tiel a split second before Juan sprang off the gurney, executed a horizontal body dive off the concrete, and went airborne. He launched himself into the man, his shoulder landing hard against the other's torso and knocking him to the ground.

But not before Russell Dendy got off a clean shot with a deer rifle.

Tiel heard the shattering sound and spun around to see the door of the convenience store raining glass onto Ronnie's prone form. She didn't remember later if she screamed or not. She didn't remember later crossing the distance back to the entrance of the store at a full-out run, or dropping to her hands and knees despite the glass.

She did recall hearing Juan shout-to save his life- "Martinez, undercover Treasury agent! Martinez, Treasury agent, working undercover!"

The antiseptic the paramedic was dabbing onto her hands and knees made them sting. The broken glass had sliced through the fabric of her trousers, which had been cut off above her knees.

Tiel hadn't noticed the cuts at all until the paramedic began removing splinters of glass with tiny tweezers. Only then had they begun to hurt. The pain wasn't significant, however. She was more interested in what was going on around her than in the superficial wounds she had sustained.

Seated on a gurney-she had refused to climb inside the ambulance-she tried to see around the woman who was treating her. It was a chaotic scene. In the pale dawn, the lights of a dozen police and emergency vehicles created a dizzying kaleidoscope of flashing, colored lights.

Medical personnel, those who hadn't rushed to Ronnie's aid, were seeing to her, Treasury Agent Martinez, and Cain.

The media had been denied access to the immediate area, but news helicopters buzzed overhead like brute insects.

Parked on a mesa overlooking the depression known as Rojo Flats was a convoy of television vans. The satellite dishes mounted on their roofs reflected the new sun.

Ordinarily this would be the kind of scene on which Tiel McCoy thrived. She would be in her element. But the customary rush of adrenaline just hadn't been there when she stared into the lens of the video camera to do her live report.

She had tried to work up her usual level of enthusiasm, but she knew it was lacking and only hoped that the viewing audience wouldn't notice, or that if they did that they would assign her lack of verve to the ordeal she had endured.

The report certainly had a dramatic backdrop. She had shouted into her microphone as the CareFlight helicopter lifted off, bearing Ronnie Davison to the nearest emergency center, where a trauma team was standing by to treat the gunshot wound in his chest. The fierce winds created by the whirling blades whipped sand into her eyes. It was the blowing sand to which she attributed her unprofessional tears.

As soon as she concluded her ad-libbed summary of the events that had transpired over the past six hours, she listlessly passed the wireless mike back to Kip, who kissed her cheek, said, 'Terrific," then rushed off to shoot more B-roll, taking advantage of the access he had to the scene because of his association with her.

Only after finishing that piece of business had she consented to having her bleeding palms and knees examined.

Now, speaking to the paramedic, she said, "You must know something."

"I'm sorry, Ms. McCoy. I don't."

"Or you aren't telling."

The woman gave her a retiring look. "I don't know."

She recapped the bottle of antiseptic. "You really should go to the hospital and let someone look at these hands under better light. There might be glass slivers-"

"There aren't. I'm fine." She jumped off the gurney.

Her knees were becoming sore and stiff from the multiple cuts, but she hid her grimace from the paramedic. "Thank you."

"Tiel, you okay?" Gully came huffing up to her. "These sumbitches wouldn't let me past till you got those hands and knees seen to. The video looks great, kid. Best you've ever done. If this doesn't get you the Nine Live spot, then life ain't fair and I'm gonna quit the TV business myself."

"Have you heard anything about Ronnie's condition?"

"Not a thing."

"Sabra?"

"Nothing. Not since the cowboy turned her over to that Dr. Giles and they took her off in the chopper."

"Speaking of Doc, is he around?"

Gully didn't hear her. He was shaking his head and muttering, "Wish they had given me a crack at Dendy. A couple of minutes with me and he'd've been hating life."

"I assume he's under arrest."

"The sheriff had three deputies-meanest-looking cusses I've ever seen-haul his ass off to jail."

Even though she had seen it with her own eyes, she still found it impossible to believe that Dendy had shot Ronnie Davison. She expressed her dismay to Gully. "I don't understand how that could have happened."

"Nobody was paying him any attention. He had put on a good show for Galloway. Crying, wringing his hands. Admitted that he'd mishandled things. He led us to believe that he had seen the error of his ways, that all was for given, and that he only wanted Sabra to be safe. The lying bastard."