Things had been quiet in the next room for some time, with no more comings and goings. It had to be almost dawn.

Monks finally allowed himself to believe that Mandrake could survive an hour without attention, and admitted to the fatigue he had been holding off with growing difficulty. He was hungry, too. He decided, reluctantly, that it was time to give in.

He stored the insulin and syringes on a crude shelf, high up where Mandrake couldn’t reach them. Out of long habit, he had developed caution to the point of compulsiveness.

Then he uncovered the plate of food that Marguerite had left earlier. There was a chunk of well-done roast beef and some boiled potatoes, cold by now but still looking good. The mug was full of red wine. The utensils were plastic, picnic-style. He ignored them, picking up chunks of the food with his fingers and cramming them into his mouth. He eyed the wine longingly, but decided he had better not drink it. He rinsed his hands and mouth, realizing that he was going to have to negotiate for items like a toothbrush, soap, and toilet privileges. Reluctantly, he urinated into the slops bucket. It was another thing there wasn’t much choice about.

He programmed his wristwatch alarm to wake him up in fifty minutes, then took the pillows from Motherlode’s empty bed, formed them into a bolster next to Mandrake, and stretched out beside the little boy. He stayed half sitting up so he wouldn’t sleep too deeply, but finally let his eyes close.

The information he had absorbed so far played in his weary mind like flickering clips of tape on an old-time movie reel. His overwhelming sense was that he had landed in an Alice in Wonderland scenario of dreamlike madness-except that it was pervaded by very real violence, and the looming threat of a child’s death. It was presided over by a macho speed freak who dominated his followers, made allusions to Machiavelli, and hinted at the grandiose importance that he would enjoy in the eyes of history, yet expressed a simpleton’s distrust of medicine. His followers seemed to think they were on some TV show like Survivor, but they carried sophisticated weapons, and it looked like the men had deliberately mutilated their fingertips, presumably to avoid being identified.

On top of it all, Monks’s son was deeply implicated, and if Monks ever did get out of here and blow the whistle, Glenn would be in serious trouble.

He worked to push it all aside and courted the half-sleep he had learned to count on over many years in the ER.

Mandrake was lying on his belly, the side of his face pressed into the pillow and his arms down close to his body, in the seal-like posture typical of sleeping children. Monks kept the back of one hand pressed lightly against him, so he would feel any restlessness that might signal an adverse reaction to the insulin. So far, Mandrake had hardly stirred, except when Monks roused him to drink. He seemed to have drifted into a semiconscious state, perhaps caught in diabetic torpor-or withdrawn into some inner hiding place, to escape from this incomprehensible nightmare.

But as Monks drifted off, he felt a little hand touch his, then creep into it, like a tiny frightened creature seeking safety.

Monks awoke to the beeping of his wristwatch alarm. It read 3:00 P.M. He sat up, groggy and disoriented, uncertain of where he was. Then he remembered.

Mandrake’s bedroom was dim and quiet, and the little boy was lying curled up with his stuffed snake on the other bed.

Monks had continued to monitor his condition through the early-morning hours, giving him water and broth, until Marguerite had come in, at about ten A.M. and offered again to take over. Mandrake’s blood-sugar level had kept improving in the meantime, and so Monks had agreed. Rest was imperative in order to function with the clear-mindedness that the situation demanded. He had lain down on the room’s other bed with a pillow over his head and slept deeply, a measure of his exhaustion.

Marguerite was not in the room now. He hoped that she had kept her promise to keep Mandrake drinking.

He became aware of a faint sound, a sibilant murmur that stopped and started. Then he realized that Mandrake was whispering to the toy snake. It was the first sign of anything like liveliness that Monks had seen in the boy. He hesitated, reluctant to interrupt. But the monitoring had to continue, and it was time for the next insulin shot.

“How you feeling, buddy?” Monks said, sitting beside him. Mandrake’s eyes were open, but he didn’t look up. “You getting hungry?”

To his surprise, Mandrake nodded solemnly.

“Good job,” Monks said. “I’ll get you something in just a minute. How about soup? That sound okay?”

Another nod.

Monks kept up a patter of talk as he went through the now familiar process of getting Mandrake to drink and checking his blood-sugar level. That had climbed a little, to 289, but that was okay-it was significantly lower than it had been to start with, but not dropping dangerously. As best as Monks could tell, the three-unit doses he had given were in the ball park. He decided to stay with them.

When he went to get a syringe, he realized with unpleasant surprise that there weren’t as many left as he had thought. It had seemed that there were about twenty, but now he counted only fourteen.

Out of habit he pinched up a bit of Mandrake’s flesh, in a different place this time. Insulin shots dissolved fatty tissue; if repeated, they could leave dimples. The absurdity of worrying about things cosmetic in this situation flashed across his mind.

“I’m sorry I have to sting you, Mandrake,” he said. “But it’s going to make you feel better, I promise.” Mandrake squirmed a little in protest this time. The show of resistance pleased Monks perversely. Mandrake still hadn’t cried at all for his mother. Monks had assumed at first that his lethargy was too deep, but maybe Marguerite had been filling that role. Or maybe Mandrake had already figured out, with the prescience that some children seemed to have, that he shouldn’t expect much in the way of nurturing from Motherlode.

“Okay,” Monks said, withdrawing the needle and swabbing the puncture with vodka. “Let’s see about that soup.”

He walked to the bedroom door, dragging the cable from his hobbled ankles, and looked into the main room. Someone was sitting in a chair beside the door. Monks recognized the bulky shape of Hammerhead. He had traded his shotgun for an assault rifle like Captain America ’s.

“Mandrake needs to eat,” Monks said.

“I’ll tell Marguerite.” Then Hammerhead added stiffly, “My orders are to get you anything you want, as long as it’s cool.”

Monks decided not to get into what “cool” constituted just now.

“I’d like to see my son,” he said.

“I’ll pass that on.”

“I could use some strong coffee. And I need to clean up. Soap, towel, toothbrush, all that.”

Hammerhead took his radio from his belt and punched a series of beeps. He spoke into it with the clipped, quasi-military style that Monks had heard Hammerhead use last night.

“Brother, this is Hammerhead calling Marguerite, requesting immediate assistance at the lodge. Repeat, Marguerite to the lodge. Over.”

A moment later, a woman’s voice answered: “Marguerite copies. Over.”

“The kid needs soup. And bring a toothbrush and that kind of shit. Over.” He hooked the radio back on his belt, then walked to Monks.

“Lay down on your belly with your hands spread out,” he said. Monks did. He felt a tugging at his ankles, then heard a click. “Okay, get up.” Monks stood and realized that he was free of the cable. But the shackles around his ankles stayed on.

“I’ll take you to the washhouse,” Hammerhead said, gesturing with the rifle toward the lodge’s door.

“Wait a minute. Can’t I put my boots on?”