Dazed, only halfconscious, forgetting her Hippocratic Oath and her lifelong pledge of nonviolence, she raised the Remington, pumped the last shell in, and shot the man in the chest and face from pointblank range even as he reached past her for Joshua.

This time the blast knocked the man out the door, across the patio, and over the railing into the sixty-foot ravine below.

And then Kate remembered nothing except Joshua in her arms, still crying but unhurt, and Tom's arm around her, Tom's voice soothing her as he led her into the lighted living room and called the police.

Kate had been on the ER end of ambulance runs during her residency years ago, but it was as if she had never seen paramedics in action on site before. They arrived ten minutes before the police and seemed to take the blood and glassfilled nursery for granted. One of the men went to check for signs of the intruder in the ravine while the remaining male and female paramedics set Tom's dislocated shoulder, pulled shards of glass from his back, and checked Kate and Joshua over and pronounced them unhurt. Kate and Tom both pulled on some clothes in preparation for the next wave of officialdom.

Three Boulder police cars and the sheriff's 4 x 4 arrived at the same time, blue and red lights flashing across the meadow and shimmering on the windows. The paramedics were trying to get Tom to go to the hospital, but he refused; the detectives interviewed Tom in one room, Kate in the other. She never let go of Joshua.

Powerful flashlights were probing the ravine when Tom and Kate pulled on their jackets, bundled Joshua in a heavy blanket, and stood at the edge of the patio to watch.

“It's at least eighty feet down there,” said the sheriff. “And there's no way down to the stream except down this cliff.”

“It's less than sixty feet,” said Tom, standing at the edge of the granite and sandstone bluff. The shrubs there were broken and tom. Kate could hear the stream trickling at the bottom of the ravine; it was a sound she had grown so used to that she normally ignored it.

“The body could have washed downstream,” said the chief Boulder detective. He was young and bearded and had dressed hurriedly in sweatshirt and chinos under a corduroy jacket.

“The stream's pretty shallow this time of year,” said Tom. “No more than six or eight inches of water in the deeper spots. “

The detective shrugged. The sheriff's men were rigging a Perlon climbing rope around the large ponderosa pine at the edge of the patio.

“You're sure you didn't recognize the man?” asked the detective sergeant for the third time.

“No. I mean, I'm sure,” said Kate. Joshua was sleeping in the folds of blanket, the pacifier still in his mouth.

“And you don't know how he got in?”

Kate looked around. “The sheriff said that the kitchen door had been jimmied. Is that correct, Sheriff?”

The sheriff nodded. “Pane cut out. Both inside locks opened. It looked fairly professional.”

The detective made a note and looked over to where the sheriff's people and the paramedics were arguing about how to rig the ropes. Uniformed police officers walked along the edge of the ravine, shining flashlights down into the darkness.

The chief detective came out of the house holding a plastic baggie. Kate saw the gleam of steel in it. He held it up to the light. “Know what this is?” he asked.

Kate shook her head.

“Fancy little palm knife,” he said, showing her how it was held, the steel knub against his palm, the doubleedged blade protruding between the knuckles of two fingers. The detective turned to Tom. “He had 'this in his hand when he came at you?”

“Yeah. Excuse me a second, Lieutenant.” Tom walked over to the sheriff's deputies and quietly showed them how the Perlon lines had to be rigged. Then he borrowed a web harness from a paramedic and clicked a carabinier in place as if to demonstrate how to prepare for a rappel.

“Hey!” shouted the deputy as Tom leaned back, one arm still in a sling, and gracefully rappelled over the edge of the cliff.

A paramedic tied on to his own line and followed him down the cliff. The uniformed officers swung their lights onto the duo as they bounced down rock and dropped gently into the shrubs and dwarf juniper at the base of the cliff. Tom looked up, waved with his good hand, and unclipped. from the Perlon line. Deputies scurried to hook on and follow.

The sun came up before the search was called off. Kate had carried Joshua into the house and tucked him in her own bed; when she came back out, Tom was pulling himself easily up the rock face with one arm while the deputies and paramedics huffed and puffed to climb with both arms busy.

He stepped onto the patio, unclipped his carabinier, and shook his head.

“No body,” gasped a deputy coming over the edge. “Lots of blood and broken branches, but no body.”

The detective sergeant took out his notebook and stepped close to Kate. He looked tired and the brilliant morning light gleamed on gray stubble. “Ma'am, you're sure you hit this guy with both shotgun loads?”

“Three times,” said Tom, putting his good arm around her. “Twice at ranges of less than four feet.”

The detective shook his head and stepped back to the bluff. “Then it's just time until we find the body,” he said. “Then maybe we'll figure out who he was and why he was trying to kidnap your baby.”

Tom nodded and went into the house with Kate.

On Monday, Ken Mauberly called Kate into his office. She had been expecting the invitation.

Mauberly was the chief administrator for the Rocky Mountain Region CDC, but his office was the only one in the NCAR/CDC complex without windows. He said that the view distracted him. Kate sometimes thought that this choice of an office said much about the character of the man: quiet,dedicated to work, selfeffacing, competent, and fanatical only about his longdistance running.

He waved her to a seat and slouched in his own chair. His jacket was draped over the back of the chair, his tie was loosened, and his sleeves were rolled up. He leaned across the desk and folded his hands. “Kate, I heard about the problem you had Saturday night. It's terrible, just terrible to have your home invaded like that. Are you and the baby all right?”

Kate assured him that they were fine.

“And the police haven't caught the assailant?”

“No. They found some signs that he might have left the stream about half a mile below the house, but there's been nothing definite. They've put out some sort of bulletin based on the description Tom and I gave them.”

“And your exhusband is all right?”

Kate nodded. “His arm was injured slightly, but this morning he was pressing weights with it.” She paused. “Tom is staying with us . . . with Julie and the baby and me . . . until they find the guy or we all get our courage back.”

Mauberly tapped a pencil against his cheek. “Good, good. You know, it's funny, Kate. I've opposed capital punishment all of my adult life, but if I woke as you did to find someone in my child's bedroom . . . well, I wouldn't hesitate a second to end that person's life on the spot.” Embarrassed, he set the pencil on the desk.

“Ken,” said Kate, “I appreciate the sentiments, but you wanted to talk to me about something else, didn't you?”

The administrator leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “Yes, Kate, I did. I haven't had a chance to tell you what a fine job you did on the Romanian tour . . . both while you were there and in the report you did afterward. Billington and Chen at the WHO tell me that it was pivotal in helping form policy toward the relief effort. Pivotal.”

Kate smiled. “But what have I done for you recently?”

Mauberly returned the smile. “That's not quite how I'd put it, Kate. But it has been a couple of months since you've gone full time into another project. I'd hoped that you'd head up the Colorado Springs HepatitisB investigation . . . not that Bob Underhill isn't capable, don't misunderstand me, but“