The top of the boulder was maybe twenty feet high, ten feet across, pointed at the far end and ridged too deeply for Lang to lie completely flat but not deeply enough to provide cover. He could only hope that the Templars would look for him on the ground and that he wasn't the sniper's target. Those two hopes were.more of a gamble than Lang would have preferred but no one was giving him a choice of odds.

A sound below. Lang squirmed over and looked down. He hadn't noticed one of the Templars had a bald spot. He was edging around the boulder, the collapsible stock of his weapon pressed to his shoulder.

Lang wiggled the stone out of his belt and pulled into the lowest squat he could manage. He was going to have to jump on the guy, not crawl, if he wanted to surprise the Templar with his full weight.

Something made Lang glance over his shoulder just before he leapt. He was looking at one of those Heckler and Koche's about thirty yards away. Lang knew the weapon wasn't particularly accurate at that range but with a thirty round clip, marksmanship was purely a bonus.

Lang had no time to be certain he was going to land on the Templar below him. He could only spring and hope.

Lang took one last glance as his head and shoulders rose to the ledge that had been sheltering him. Even at thirty yards, Lang was certain he could see the Templar grinning at the sure kill.

The man with the Heckler and Koch aimed at Lang stood clear of the rock to get the perfect angle. It was a fatal mistake.

The guy's head dissolved in a pink mist.

Lang jumped into space just as the rifle's second crack of the day bounced from hillside to hillside like a trick shot on a billiard table.

The sound made the man below lookup. He moved but not quickly enough to avoid the force of Lang's weight. The impact knocked the breath out of both men and they went down in a heap. The Templar was struggling to bring his gun to bear. Lang slipped an arm under one of his opponent's and snaked a hand over the man's shoulder to cup the back of the head, giving Lang leverage to force him sideways so the weapon pointed harmlessly at the ground.

With his other hand, Lang had the rock up, ready to pound the Templar's skull.

"That's quite enough, Mr. Reilly."

The words connected with Lang's consciousness simultaneously with cold steel against the back of his neck. He recognized the feel of a gun's muzzle as well as Silver Hair's voice. That had been it, then: one Templar to keep the shooter occupied while the other made himself bait with Silver Hair right behind, both men screened by the boulder between them and the rifleman.

Lang had been had.

"Drop the stone and clasp your hands behind your head. Slowly, now, stand." Lang did as he was told. The man Lang had jumped on got to his feet slowly. His sleeves and trousers were shredded and one of his jacket's inseams was torn open. He'd never wear that suit again. That was the only good news, that plus the fact that two of the murderous bunch would never kill again.

Silver Hair kept the weapon, whatever it was, pressed to the back of Lang's skull as he spoke a few words in a language Lang didn't understand. The other man turned his back to Lang.

"Put your hands on his shoulders, Mr. Reilly," Silver Hair ordered.

Lang did as ordered and the trio began a slow walk down the mountainside. With Lang sandwiched between the two Templars, whoever had killed the other two couldn't shoot without a better than even chance the bullet would penetrate two bodies, Lang's included. Clever.

Cardou

1047 hours

"Shit!" The man stood, staring through his binoculars. "They're getting away." For the first time in hours, the sniper looked up from the scope. "Not all of them."

The man grunted disapproval. "Whatever. They're taking Reilly. We should follow and see if you can't bag the other two."

"And risk killing him? Unless they are sick, crazy, they will keep him between them like ham in a sandwich." "I'm sure he'd be amused at the simile," the man muttered, "but they're getting away." "Not true. They will not stay around here and when they leave, we will know where."

Cardou

1103 hours

They were on the other side of Cardou when Lang and the two Templars came to a Range Rover parked between two outcroppings so large that the vehicle was invisible until they were almost on top· of it.

"In the back," Silver Hair said.

Lang was climbing in when he felt a pinprick in the back of his neck. Before he could get into the seat, the interior of the car began to ripple as though he were seeing it through water. His arms and legs were heavy, too heavy to move. Lang knew what had happened, that he should fight the effect of the drug.

But it felt too good to complain.

Then everything went black.

Location unknown

Time unknown

When he regained consciousness, Lang had no idea how long he had been out or where he was.

Of course, they wouldn't have wanted him to know, not if they were planning extensive questioning. They were succeeding. All he knew was that he was lying in an unusually uncomfortable bed, staring up at what appeared to be an old-fashioned canopy. And that his shoulder still hurt like hell where his arm had been wrenched upwards on the hillside.

Lang's Agency training taught total disorientation as an effective interrogation tool. Keeping a captive ignorant of day or night, the date or the hour upsets the internal clock just like jet lag. Jet lag, though, goes away once the body accepts the new schedule. To question someone effectively, you make sure nothing is done at the same time twice. Likewise, not letting the subject know where he is may open up all sort of anxieties the questioner can put to use.

Also the lights. You keep the subject in a place without windows and at the same light level twenty-four hours a day. Intensely bright light if sleep deprivation is part of the plan; low light, too dim to see well, if not.

The talk about truth serum had been just that, talk. Outside of some old spy novels, drugs are usually little help. Sodium pentothal, scopolamine, narcotics like that, inhibit the brain's ability to fabricate, to make up lies, but they also are risky. Too little and you still get lies; too much and the subject is either sound asleep or dead. Whatever the drug makes them babble is going to be incomprehensible.

Plain old-fashioned torture was less than reliable, too. It worked for confessions for the same reason it doesn't work to get information: a man will tell any lie just to stop the pain. Lang very much hoped the Templars realized that.

Lang had been taught that modern interrogation consists of simply wearing your subject down, breaking his will. A less polite word for it is a species of brainwashing.

Lang slid out of bed to the floor, some three or four feet down, and walked the perimeter of the small room. The bowed exterior wall made him curious as to the outside appearance of the building. The single window was shuttered and, no doubt, barred on the outside. The only door was fitted with a intricately cast brass lock plate. When he bent over, closed an eye and squinted through the keyhole, he saw nothing. The key had been left in the outside of the lock.

The dim overhead light cast few shadows because, other than Lang and the bed, there was nothing in the room. No pictures on the walls, no window treatment, no rug, nothing. Had it not been for the hand-pegged hard wood floor and the ornate and undoubtedly expensive wall paper, he could have been in a jail cell.