Rated: G

Feedback:  Comments appreciated at: tunecedemalis@yahoo.com

Author’s note: So, at the beginning of what ought to be his final semester of pre-law, Mark goes off to Oregon with the judge, winds up in a plane crash, and is out there long enough to grow a beard. And you know how easy it is to put off that one nagging required course until the very end. Thank you, Susan, for suggesting, way back when, that it might have been tough to schedule classes around all those cases.

Thank you to my very patient beta, Cheri, who threw herself between me and the horrors of anachronism, and wrestled many an unwieldy word order into submission.

It had been easy not to think about it while he was being chased through the woods by murderous survivalists, and fairly easy not to dwell on it during the flight home (on an honest-to-God plane with more than one engine). Now, lying in his own bed in the gatehouse at Gull’s Way, on real sheets with a real pillow, the unfortunate facts were keeping him awake.

He turned over and reached to switch on the lamp. 2:15 a.m. He felt the floor along the side of the bed and pulled up the copy of the syllabus that he had dropped there a few hours ago. Physics 110.  He flipped through the first few pages again. Five weeks gone. He’d missed ten lectures, two quizzes, and the midterm. He tallied up the points again. Absolutely hopeless. And without this course he could kiss his December graduation goodbye, and that would put his law school acceptance right in the dumpster.

On the other hand, he supposed he should be grateful; he wasn’t lying dead up there in the wilds of Oregon. No, this was just the next worst thing.

“Professor Kristoff?” He’d hung around until the thicket of students had cleared from around the podium after the lecture. He was the last one.

“Yes?” The middle-aged man with wire-rimmed glasses and a receding hairline barely spared him a glance as he gathered his things into his briefcase. “If it’s a lengthy question, I suggest to make an appointment; my hours are in the syllabus.”

“Not lengthy,” McCormick answered, “unless you make me explain the part between the plane crashing up in Oregon and us finally finding the road that led back to Cedar Corners. That part would take about five weeks and a couple hundred miles.”

He had gotten the man’s attention.

He plunged ahead. “Due to circumstances beyond my control, I’ve been away for a little over a month. What I need to ask you is if there’s any way I can make it through this class with a passing grade,” McCormick finished up bluntly.

“Plane crash? Oregon?” The man’s forehead wrinkled, “There was something in the paper the other day, a judge, what was his name? Hardcastle? . . . and another man.”

Mark tried not to wince. “Yup, Hardcastle,” he said, “and I’m the other guy.”

“My God, it sounded like quite an adventure.”

“Yes, it was. Lots of fresh air, murderous psychopaths, fish,” McCormick suppressed a shudder. “If I ever see another fish on a stick, it’ll be too soon.”

“That Judge Hardcastle must be an amazing person, to come through something like that.”

“Yes,” McCormick readily agreed. “He likes fish. But about this course, Professor, it’s really important to me.”

The professor looked at him over the top of the wire rims. “I don’t suppose that’s because you have a burning desire to increase your understanding of physics?”

McCormick had been feeling for some time now that he was off his game in the lying department, a lack of practice, perhaps. He responded with the gentlest version of the truth that he could summon up. “The fact is, I need this course. It’s to fulfill a science requirement.”

“Then I advise you to take an incomplete and return next semester.”

McCormick looked crestfallen. “Professor, I’m thirty-one. I’ve been accepted by the law school for a January start. If I don’t graduate at the end of December, I’m back at square one. I really need this course.”

“Listen,” Kristoff rubbed his chin with one hand, “I can’t let you take the midterm, those grades are already filed, and it sounds like you probably wouldn’t pass it anyway. I don’t suppose you had your textbook up there with you?”

“Nope.” McCormick shook his head sadly. “If I had, I probably would have burned it to keep warm.”

“Hmm. Well, mathematically speaking, it is still possible for you to pass. The midterm was only one-third of the total grade. You could still pull a low C if you do very well on the final.”

“I don’t suppose there’ll be a lot of questions on gear ratios?”

Kristoff shook his head. “I would suggest you get a tutor; you’re going to need someone to help you get up to speed on the material you’ve already missed.”

“Sorry,” McCormick looked grim, “can’t afford one.”

“Oh, it’s not a matter of cost. I recommend you to the department. They have a list. We use the advanced students; many of them are going into teaching.”

“Ah, great,” McCormick smiled thinly. He was aware that many of his fellow students saw him as something of a dinosaur. With his luck he’d be assigned some attitudinal nineteen-year-old. It would be God’s own revenge for all the times he’d called the judge an old donkey. Donkey, yes. The old he couldn’t help.

The professor was scribbling something on a piece of paper. He handed it over to McCormick. “You call this number tomorrow. Ask to speak to Rose; she has the list. She’ll assign you someone. After that it’s up to you.”

So it was that he found himself waiting in the lobby of the library, at 6:45 on Friday evening. Rose had given him the time and the place. He hadn’t talked to the guy she’d assigned him to, Paul Hanley. Now he was wishing somebody had said something about a white carnation or a Panama hat. There were too many people coming and going. He’d seen several likely prospects, but all had stopped briefly and then wandered on. All he had was Rose’s rather cryptic description, “He’s short.”

The shortest guy in the place was sitting propped on the bench on the opposite side of the lobby. He had his knees drawn up and his nose in a magazine.  He pushed his glasses up almost ritualistically every couple of minutes. McCormick knew him by sight. He’d seen him a few times on the quadrangle, always with an armful of books. He’d pegged him for some professor’s kid, who had fallen not very far from the tree. Now, as the minutes ticked by and all the other possibilities diminished, McCormick had a sinking feeling that Rose had a sense of humor.

6:55. The kid was still immersed in whatever it was. McCormick sidled over to that side of the lobby. 7:00. McCormick seriously doubted that the boy was even fifteen. And it wasn’t a magazine. It was a journal, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. McCormick sighed inaudibly. It was not too late to take an incomplete. But in his heart he knew it was. His parole was ticking down with slow inexorability. The loan on the Coyote would only go so far. It was now or never.

He took the last couple of steps over to the bench and asked, hesitantly, “Paul? Paul Hanley?” The kid looked up. Fourteen, tops. “I’m Mark McCormick.” He was being given the once over. McCormick held out his hand. The kid gave the bridge of his glasses one last push, shook his hand firmly, and scrambled up from the bench.

He was slightly built, about five foot six, with the pale complexion of someone who spends most of their time indoors. All he needed to complete the cliché was some tape on the frames of his glasses and a plastic pocket protector.

“I reserved a study room,” the boy said. He led the way into the library with no further preamble. McCormick followed dutifully behind. The librarian behind the main desk gave McCormick’s escort a smile and said, “Room D,” as she tossed him the key.

The kid caught it on the fly and turned down the hall behind the reference desk with perfect familiarity. He let them into a well-lit room and pointed Mark to a seat at the conference table as he set down his own stack of books.

“Now, which lectures are you having trouble with?”

“Just the ones I missed.” McCormick passed the first twenty pages of the syllabus over and pulled out a blank notebook.

The kid looked down at the thick stack, then up again at McCormick. “Rose is still mad at me about that stuff I put in the office ‘fridge,” he said quietly. “She said she’d get even.”

“It’s not that bad,” McCormick smiled. “I’ve gotten through the first few chapters. Anyway, I got a pretty good grasp of Newton’s Laws. The Otto cycle, I am definitely good on that. Work, power, friction, got those.” He grinned, and added cheerfully, “Where I come from, violating the laws of physics was a capital offense. I understood ‘what’; I just didn’t always know the ‘why’.”

The kid looked at him thoughtfully. “You’re the guy with the car. What the hell is that thing, anyway?”

McCormick looked momentarily startled. Apparently Paul Hanley was not the only person who stood out on campus. “Um, the Coyote.”

The kid gave him a disgusted look. “I know that. The name is plastered on the side. I mean what is it? It’s the only one of those I’ve ever seen.”

McCormick couldn’t help smiling again. “It’s a prototype. One-off. Designed from the ground up.”

“You?” The kid looked doubtful.

“Oh, God no.” McCormick shook his head. “A friend of mine, Flip Johnson.”

“So, it never made it into production?”

“No,” McCormick tapped his pen lightly on the notebook page. “Flip died. Things got complicated.”  How to explain in a few words? Flip’s murder. Taking down Martin Cody. And when the web of legal entanglements had finally cleared-and that had gone on for months after Barbara had gifted him with the car-the truth was, no one else wanted the design, without the designer to go with it.

“Yeah,” the kid said philosophically, as if he’d heard every unspoken word. “Real life’s like that. That’s why I stick to physics.” And then he looked down at the syllabus, all practicality again, “I’ll go down the list; you’ll stop me when I get to something you don’t know.”

An hour passed. They made it through a solid chunk; a week’s worth a least, McCormick figured, feeling a slight twinge of hope as he gathered up his things. On top of everything else, the kid had a sense of humor. He could take vehicular analogies to the point of absurdity.

“Yeah, well,” the kid confessed, when McCormick called him on it, “when I tutor the jocks, it’s all about the football.”

“Good,” McCormick replied, “then at least I’m expanding your repertoire.”

They made an appointment for Monday evening. Three chapters for the weekend. McCormick crossed his fingers that elements of the criminal underworld would cooperate.  

He had his things and was turning to go when the kid tossed out, “Thanks.”

McCormick looked over his shoulder and paused. “For what?” he asked, puzzled.

Paul smiled. “For not asking me how old I was.”

Mark’s eyebrows went up. “Well,” he let go of the doorknob, “You didn’t ask me how old I was, either.”

“Antediluvian,” the kid replied, decisively, “I thought you we’re one of those MBA guys who comes here right from the golf course.”

“Oh, yeah, me playing the back nine.” McCormick laughed. “No, oh no, closer to raking the sand traps, let me tell you.” He shook his head. “And I had you pegged as some professor’s kid, running errands to the library.”

Paul’s eyes shifted away. McCormick recognized all the signs that he had stepped in something, and he had a pretty good idea what. But the kid recovered fast, “Yeah, that’s pretty typical. Girls pat me on the head. It used to be worse. I’ve been here a couple years.” There was a brief pause and then said, “Fourteen.”

“Thirty-one.” McCormick opened the door and stepped out.

“Yargh, that is old,” Paul laughed as he followed him into the hallway.

“Yeah, well, I’m gonna go home, put my teeth in a glass by the bed and listen to some Lawrence Welk while I read chapter six.”

“Who’s Lawrence Welk?” The kid feigned perfect ignorance. McCormick swatted at him with one hand. He scooted out of the way. “Old and slow.” He tossed the key back to the librarian as they passed the desk.  From the lobby they could see the wind was picking up brisk, and it threatened rain.

“Need a ride?” McCormick asked, as they stood on the steps.

“Nah, I’m right over there.” He pointed toward the west end of campus. “Professor Mlotkowski’s.”

McCormick heard all the unspoken words. It was possible that this kid had a mom and dad he visited on weekends in a split-level over in Encino, but odds were no. The whole tutoring gig was probably somebody’s idea of getting this kid socialized. Now there was a sorry thought. He pulled his own jacket around himself tighter as he watched Paul trudge off, clutching his books. Some of us are old before our time.

“Nah, just needs a little elbow grease,” Hardcastle replied.

“Needs a machete.”

The judge looked up, and rubbed his nose thoughtfully. “I think we got one of those in the gardener’s shed.”

“Ju-udge,” McCormick wailed, “It’s acres. If I had known I was coming back to this I would have laid down in those mountains three weeks ago and just given up.”

Hardcastle looked back down at his paper. “Okay, well, rather than listen to your moaning and groaning, I called Pete’s service and they’re sending over a crew Monday. That was the soonest he could squeeze me in. But he says he’ll charge me extra if I let you stand around and make comments about how his guys do things.”

“I never--”

“He says you did last time.”

Last time had been eight months ago, after he’d taken a bullet in the shoulder. Eight months?  The shoulder was fine now. He still felt a pang of regret for the twenty-thousand dollars, though. Was it really eight months?

He became aware that the judge was looking up at him again. He cleared his throat, “No comments, I promise. They can cut it anyway they like.” Then he lapsed back into silence.

“Okay,” the judge interrupted again, after a few minutes, “what is it? You came home early last night and you’ve been moping around here all morning. You gotta learn how to handle rejection a little better than this, kiddo.”

“Huh? Oh, no. I wasn’t out on a date last night, Judge, that was . . . errands,” he finished awkwardly. Then there was a pause followed by a hesitant, “Judge, don’t you ever feel old?” He knew Hardcastle had come close to admitting it, that night by the campfire up in Oregon, when he’d talked about how hard it had been to retire. But this was the patio and broad daylight. McCormick really wasn’t expecting any great insights.

“Yeah,” Hardcastle admitted abruptly, “but that’s because I am old. Don’t tell me you’re having some sort of mid-life crisis or something. You’re kinda young for that, aren’t ya? You gotta pace yourself. Besides, you’ve already got the fancy red sports car.”

McCormick laughed. “Let’s just say it’s all relative. And maybe for my midlife crisis I’ll go out and get a nice sedan.”

“Well, you should wait another ten years. You’re still a kid.”

And for once McCormick didn’t mind being called that.

The tutoring sessions settled down into a pattern. After the first week, Mark stopped worrying about asking stupid questions. He’d realized by then that to Paul they would all sound stupid and, quite probably, he couldn’t even distinguish between the genuinely stupid ones and the rest.

On the kid’s side, there seemed to be a deep well of patience which he’d been drawing on for a long time in order to deal with people who just didn’t get the obvious. He was never condescending, but sometimes there was a subtle hint of disappointment, when his pupil seemed to be missing some point. Avoiding that look had become almost as strong a motivating factor for McCormick as actually passing the course.

By the fourth session they were halfway through the missed weeks, and McCormick had concluded that Paul ought to be teaching the class. They’d come to the end of a chapter with a few minutes left on the hour allotted. McCormick was scanning his notes. Paul seemed a little pensive.

“I think . . .” the kid trailed off. Mark looked up at him. “Do you have to leave yet?” Paul asked quietly.

“No,” McCormick shook his head. “Sometimes I hang out a little while here anyway. I don’t have to be back any particular time. Why?” He was half expecting the kid to spill his guts on the subject of his home life, or whatever he had that passed for a home.

“I just thought . . .” Paul began nervously, “you know, I think maybe we should just get through another couple chapters.”

McCormick looked puzzled. “I haven’t read all of them yet.”

“S’okay. We’re starting the next section. It’s pretty straightforward.” Paul was trying to sound reassuring, that much was evident, but the voice and the face didn’t match. “It’s just that I might not be able to do any more sessions. They might have to assign you somebody else.”

“Why?”

“Other commitments,” Paul frowned. “Don’t mention it to Rose yet, though. Let’s just wait and see.” The strangest thing was, by that time, hearing a fourteen-year-old boy talk about ‘commitments’ didn’t even strike Mark as odd.

Paul plunged into the next chapter’s material. He was flat-out lecturing and he moved faster, only stopping occasionally to see if Mark was still onboard. Whatever had been troubling him before seemed to be submerged now. After another forty-five minutes, and nearly two chapters, the kid slowly ratcheted down. He paused and took a long breath. The he asked, “Did that make sense?”

“Um,” McCormick looked down at the notes he taken and said, “yeah, mostly. I might have some questions for you next time.” The kid said nothing. “I think you’re going to be pretty good at this teaching thing,” Mark added.

Paul shrugged, “Mlotkowski says it would be a waste. He thinks it’s nuts that I even do tutoring. But I like teaching. I like applied physics, too.” The kid leaned forward in his seat, looking McCormick directly in the eyes, “What’s it like to drive a racecar?”

The segue took Mark by surprise. Then after a brief pause, he frowned. “You did a background check on me?”

“You have to admit it’s weird, a guy your age, and that car, and you told me the designer’s name. It wasn’t hard: Coyote, Flip Johnson, Mark McCormick, the LA Times index.” Paul shrugged again, “So what’s it like?”

McCormick set his notebook down and closed it. He gave the kid a considering look and said, “I don’t think you’d get it.”

Paul sat back surprised. Then he said, unoffended, “You know there’s not much I don’t get.”

“Yeah, well, it’s just that I was remembering something Flip said to me once-you know he designed ‘em, but he wasn’t a driver, not a race driver-he told me the difference between him and me was that I could check my brains at the door.” McCormick smiled. “What he meant was, driving that fast isn’t something you do with your head. You haven’t got enough time to think about what you’re going to do. Oh, you may think you’re thinking about it, but by the time you know you have to do something, you damn well better have already done it.”

Paul smiled wistfully. “That sounds . . . nice.”

“Yeah,” Mark grinned,  “except for the part where you’ve got the inside line on a turn and you wind up swapping paint at 135 miles per hour with somebody who’s working with too much oversteer. Then all of a sudden your brain says ‘What the hell am I doing out here?’ Trust me; you’re better off in a career that doesn’t require asbestos underwear.”

The kid looked mostly unconvinced. McCormick sighed, “Okay, get your permit next year and I’ll teach you how to drive stick--responsible driving--if it’s okay with . . .” he trailed off awkwardly.

“My mom,” Paul finished, after a moment’s hesitation. “She won’t mind.”

McCormick watched  Paul’s eyes shift a little down and to the right. He nodded at the kid without comment. Then he asked, blandly, “What about Friday?”

Paul looked briefly startled, as though he’d forgotten about something for a moment. He said, “We’ll see. Give me your number and I’ll let you know.”

“Um,” it was McCormick’s turn to look a little shifty, “maybe--”

“Oh, yeah,” Paul griped, “that judge guy you work for, don’t want him to know you’re getting tutored by some kid.”

“Kid? No, it’s not that,” McCormick shook his head. “It’s just . . .” he stumbled on, flustered, “he doesn’t even know I’m taking this class. I mean, he knows I’ve been taking some classes, but . . . this would be hard to explain.”

“So, you’re sneaking around studying physics behind his back?” Paul looked at him quizzically. “Okay, I’ve finally met somebody weirder than me.”

“Listen,” McCormick said, intently, “if you were spending all your free time out at the track learning how to double clutch, would you run home and tell Mlotkowski?”

“That’s not the same.”

“Oh yes it is,” McCormick assured him. “Everybody has certain expectations to meet. For you it’s getting that Nobel Prize, for me it’s keeping my nose out of trouble, getting through my parole, and making sure there aren’t too many bugs in the pool. You researched that part, too, didn’t you?”

Paul nodded. There was a moment of thoughtful silence and then, “What’s it like to steal a car?”

“No,” McCormick said emphatically, as he shook his head and stood up. “Friday? Leave a message with Rose, okay?”

The kid barely looked up from the sports page, just nodded and said a quick, “Okay.”

Hardcastle shook his head. Darned if he knew what was going on, but McCormick had been different since they’d gotten back from Oregon. Not unhappy, distracted was more like it. And off in the gatehouse more than usual. The judge had chalked it up to the consequences of a long, hard month in the wilderness. Walking out of the mountains with two murderous psychopaths, no supplies, nothing but the clothes on their backs--it had been a strain.

Strain?-hell, it had been damn near lethal. And the strange thing was, the kid, who could whine, bitch, and complain relentlessly at the slightest provocation, had simply hunkered down. Up there in the backcountry, at the God-forsaken end of nowhere, Hardcastle had gotten a good long look at a survivor.

Well, you knew that already. He made it through San Quentin in one piece.

But now that they were back home, now that they could relax a little, McCormick seemed more tense and withdrawn. It’s what you said up there. You shouldn’t have dumped all that on him. Here he was coming down to the end of his parole. Probably already making plans; that whole thing with Kiki O’Connell, last week, winning the grudge race against her soon-to-be-ex. He’s still got what it takes. Maybe not the Indy, but he could make a living at it. It’s what he’s always wanted to do. And then you came along with all that damn hoo-ha about footprints. Hardcastle shook his head again in disgust.

Mark glanced up from the paper with a puzzled look and said, “What? What I do now?”

“Nothin’,” the judge lumbered to his feet and stalked back into the house.

McCormick looked over his shoulder at the pool--a couple of bugs, nothing major. He looked back at the house, into which the old donkey had disappeared. He frowned. He would say things weren’t quite back to normal since they’d returned from Oregon, but that would require defining ‘normal’.

Up in the mountains it had been pretty simple: walk, find something to eat, try to stay warm and dry, keep the crazies from killing the judge and him, walk some more. Now they were back and things ought to have settled down, but Hardcase was somehow more irritable than before. It was as if he’d said too much up there, and now he regretted it. Yeah, and you, you idiot, you couldn’t just keep your mouth shut and pretend you hadn’t heard him spill his guts.

Stress makes people say things. Later on they’re sorry. McCormick sat pondering, his eyes unfocused on the paper in front of him. He can’t stand being at a disadvantage. He hates needing anybody. But it was okay as long as he didn’t admit it out loud.

You should have told him about law school.

No, not yet.

McCormick folded the paper and got up to clear the table.

Near the end of the lecture, Thursday evening, McCormick found himself tapping the tip of his pen against the notebook, impatient to be done. Kristoff wasn’t bad, but Paul could have handled it in half the time with twice the clarity. Now the hour was up and the class was dispersing. The professor caught his eye and motioned him over with a gesture. McCormick felt a twinge of guilt, wondering if his thoughts had been visible in his expression.

He pasted on a smile and approached. Kristoff gave him a nod and a smile in return.

“Mr. McCormick, looks like you’re getting up to speed on the material. You did fairly well on the last quiz.”

Mark’s smile filled out a little. “Ah, yeah, I think maybe there’s some hope. The tutoring has been very helpful.”

“Yes.” Kristoff gave him a questioning look. “Rose assigned you to Paul? He’s unusual. But he’s done wonders with some of our varsity athletes.”

“So,” McCormick’s smile stayed firmly in place, “he’s sort of the St. Jude of physics.”

“Ah?”

“Patron saint of hopeless cases?”

“Aah, yes,” Kristoff smiled broadly, “just that.”

“Well,” Mark’s smile pulled back into something just a little ironic, “he certainly does make all of this,” his finger swept in a circle, taking in the room, the board, the podium and Kristoff himself, “look pretty straightforward . . . Goodnight, Professor.”

He nodded once sharply, turned and walked away. Dammit all, that man has your future in his hands. Couldn’t you just this once put a sock in it?

It wasn’t until he was almost out to the parking lot, keys in hand, that he lifted his eyes and saw the kid standing alongside the Coyote. He had a black nylon backpack slung over one shoulder and a duffle bag at his feet.

“Paul?” The kid had obviously been waiting for him.

“How was the lecture?”

McCormick threw a quick glance over his shoulder. “Pretty straightforward. Did you . . .” he pointed down to the duffle, “need a lift somewhere?”

“Um, yeah,” there was an edge to the kid’s voice, a certain huskiness. “Could you give me a ride to my mom’s?”

“Yeah, sure,” McCormick replied. “You going for the weekend?”

Paul nodded. “Maybe longer.”

McCormick bent down to pick up the duffle, “Whoa, whatcha got in there, rocks?”

Paul laughed sharply. “Nah, more like minerals, rocks would be lighter.” The kid watched him as he hefted the bag into the Coyote’s none-too-spacious trunk. Mark pointed at the backpack. “No, I’ll carry this,” Paul replied quietly.

McCormick shrugged, tossed his own stuff into the trunk, and closed it. He opened the passenger door for the kid and then climbed in on his own side, sliding down behind the wheel. “Which way?”

“The 405, north,” Paul said, without hesitation.

McCormick laughed, “Don’t tell me, it’s Encino.”

“A little further than that,” Paul replied quietly.

McCormick eased the Coyote out of the space and headed for the exit.

Paul set the backpack on the floor between his feet and undid the flap, reaching inside to take something out. “Do you know what this is?” he asked, tensely.

McCormick, responding to the tone, tapped the brake and looked over sharply at what Paul was holding in his left hand.

“A Geiger counter?” Mark asked.

“Right,” Paul nodded once, “though technically it’s a Geiger-Muller counter, a means of measuring radioactive emissions. Kristoff hasn’t gotten to the nuclear physics chapters yet, has he?”

McCormick shook his head, “No, that’s the last couple weeks of the semester.”

“Good,” Paul said grimly, “then this will be educational.”

He reached forward again, into the backpack, and took out a metal canister, steadying it between his knees. Even in the dim light from the parking lot, McCormick could see the alarming black and yellow symbol on the side.

Paul thumbed on the switch of the Geiger counter, holding the wand up and away from the canister. There were irregular, staccato clicks. “Background radiation,” Paul explained, “about 50 hits a minute. Now,” he dragged the wand closer to the top of the canister. The clicks increased gradually, becoming nearly continuous by the time the wand was touching the edge of the lid.

“What have you got in there, Paul?” McCormick asked slowly.

The kid flicked off the counter and turned a quarter-way round in his seat to face him. “I have a problem I need your help with.”

“What’s in the canister?”

“Do you want me to open it so you can find out?”

“No,” Mark answered emphatically. “But are you sure you want to keep it between your knees?”

Paul looked down, “Don’t worry; it’s contained.” Then he laughed nervously and added, “Anyway, I don’t think I’m going to have to worry about the long-term consequences.”

“Okay,” McCormick let out a breath and edged a little closer to the left side of the car. “So what is going on? What do you mean by ‘help’?”

Paul was looking over his shoulder now, and Mark was a second away from grabbing the damn canister and tossing it out the window, when he heard the kid’s voice, panicky, shouting, “We have to go now.”

The rear-view mirror revealed two figures in dark overcoats approaching on foot from behind. Something suspiciously like the outline of an AK-47 was visible, tucked into the elbow of the man on the right. The other guy was pointing in their direction.

With the instincts born of two years of chasing and being chased, McCormick was already accelerating as the weapon came up to bear. He took the exit at a speed which splintered the barrier before it could rise, followed by a sharp left, the clutch released, and the hand-brake up for the fraction of  a second, sending the rear wheels skidding out to the right side. Then they were back in gear and tearing off, the overcoated guys out of sight behind the brick wall that bounded the lot on that side.

What the hell am I doing out here?

McCormick slowed to a less conspicuous speed once they’d put a few blocks between them and the assault rifle. He’d noticed that the kid had said nothing since their quick getaway, and was now sitting bolt upright, clutching the canister to his chest, the Geiger counter lying forgotten on the floor.

“You okay?” Mark asked testily.

Paul nodded silently.

“Good. Now who the hell were those guys and what is going on? Do they want that canister?”

“No,” the kid let out the breath he’d been holding. “They want what’s in your trunk.”

“Well I know they’re not after College Physics: an Introductory Course, so what the hell’s in the damn duffle bag, Paul, ‘Minerals?’ What kind?” McCormick rubbed the bridge of his nose with one hand while he tried to remember where the nearest police station to campus was. Paul had let his chin drift down to rest on the top of the canister, forlornly. “Stop that,” McCormick said sternly, “sit up straight, will you? What’s in the duffel?”

“It’s the ‘physics package’,” Paul said softly. “You know, from a nuclear bomb.” Mark looked toward the kid without any particular comprehension. Paul’s voice had dropped even lower, “Mostly plutonium, some thorium boosters, the detonator. I’m sorry. I had to.”

Mark stared at the kid, looking for any sign that this was some sort of misunderstanding on his part. He dragged his eyes back to look at the road.

“Oh . . . Paul,” he said quietly, putting his hand to his forehead and shaking his head slowly.

Paul’s voice was low now, and very intense. “I had to. Professor Mlotkowski, he has family over there, his sister; she has kids. I’ve seen their pictures. He had to do whatever they asked him.”

“‘They?’”

“Those guys. The ones with the Kalashnikov. They brought it last week. The bomb. It’s very compact, portable. Russian parts. I don’t know how they got their hands on it” Paul’s calm had given way to fast hiccupping breaths. “They need a lot of maintenance, those things. They wanted Mlotkowski to fix it. He had to. He tried not to let me know about it but . . .” Paul wiped his face on the sleeve of his shirt then clutched the canister. “I went to see Rose today. There was this guy in the office asking questions, maybe from the NRC, I dunno. He was getting names, addresses. If he’d found it, then Mlotkowski . . .”

“How long has he been looking after you?” Mark asked gently.

Paul looked straight ahead. “Since I came here, two years.”

“What happened tonight?” Mark prodded.

“He didn’t come home. I waited. I was going to talk to him. Tell him I knew. I think it was done. They said they were coming back tonight at nine,” Paul added in a hushed voice. “He hasn’t come home yet.”

“Paul--”

“No, he’s not.”

Mark recognized the desperate need behind that denial and let it be for the moment. “So you unfixed the bomb?”

“Yeah,” Paul sniffled and wiped his face again. “I dismantled it.”

“And the parts in my trunk . . .?”

“The essentials. Don’t worry; they’re contained. Proper storage technique is critical.” Paul frowned. “That wasn’t meant to be a pun,” he added seriously.

“Oh, God, no.” Mark shook his head, then looked around and realized he’d been driving for some time without any conscious attention to the process. They were approaching the 405.

“We need a different car,” Paul said, his composure regained for the time being, “and do you have any money?”

“About ten dollars. And what we need is a police station, or maybe an FBI office.”

“No,” the kid replied fiercely. “Not that. They know I took it. They won’t hurt Mlotkowski, or his family, as long as there’s a chance they can get it back.  He just needs some time. I need some time . . .You’ll have to ditch this car; it’s too recognizable. We’ll need a different one.”

“I’m not stealing a car for you, Paul. No.” he spared a glance to the side before easing the Coyote into the expressway traffic.

“Look, Mark,” the kid’s face was set with a grim determination that made him seem nearly adult, “I’m only going to go through this once. I need your help. This,” he tapped the top of the canister, “is closed, but not sealed. If you don’t help me, if you don’t do what I ask you to do . . .” The threat dangled there for a moment. “You’ve got to understand; I don’t care what happens to me anymore.”

“And you’ll let that stuff fall back into the wrong hands?” Mark jerked a thumb back towards the trunk.

“We need to try really hard not to let that happen.” Paul said sincerely. Then, after a hesitation, “He couldn’t let them kill his family. I can’t let them kill him.”

They were approaching the exit to the Santa Monica Freeway, McCormick gripping the wheel and the kid clutching the canister. Mark muttered, “A normal life. Just once, you know?” The kid nodded almost imperceptibly in agreement. “Okay,” Mark had made up his mind, “I’m not stealing one, but maybe I know where I can borrow something.” He exited westbound.

Turning in at the familiar driveway, he saw he had gotten one of his wishes. There was only the light over the porch and another one, from inside the hallway, visible through the front door. The truck was in the drive; the judge had taken the ‘Vette.

As Mark pulled up past the fountain, Paul looked around with an expression of surprise. He glanced at McCormick with one eyebrow up.

“It’s not mine,” Mark shrugged, “I just live here.” He pointed off in the direction of the gatehouse.

“Nice,” the boy said, consideringly.

“Not if you have to mow the lawn,” McCormick sighed, climbing out of the Coyote.

“We’ll need more than ten dollars.” The boy scrambled out of his own seat, never letting go of the canister. “Do you have a credit card?”

“No, Paul,” McCormick shook his head, “I live in a strictly cash economy, and not very much of that.”

“The judge?” Paul tapped the top of the canister with his right hand, and then pointed toward the main house.

McCormick gave the kid a hard look. The longer they hung around debating it, the greater the likelihood that Hardcastle would return.  Mark was developing an ever-clearer vision of what might happen, and it involved a hazmat team, and a serious decline in property values, at the very least.

“Come on,” he said abruptly, and led the kid to the door, keys in hand.

They were inside now. Mark entered the den with Paul right behind him. He went to the picture that covered the safe in the wall. Paul took the seat behind the judge’s desk and watched McCormick turn the dial.

“You know the combination?” He looked vaguely disappointed.

“Yeah,” McCormick looked over his shoulder for a moment as he swung the safe door open.

Paul got up and came around that side of the desk. He tensed up as Mark took out the object that was nearest the front, a large revolver in a well-worn leather holster. “Hey,” he protested.

McCormick looked around briefly for a place to set it down and then held it out in Paul’s direction. “Here. Careful.” He noted the surprised look on the kid’s face. “Well, what the hell am I going to do, shoot you? Just hold on to it for a sec.” He reached further into the safe and brought out a thick envelope. “Where are we going?”

“A ways,” the kid replied vaguely.

“How far? How many days?” Mark frowned. “You do have a destination in mind, right?”

“Yeah,” Paul said, a little surly, “I told you, my mom’s, a couple of days.”

McCormick shook his head. “Okay, a couple days.” He counted off ten twenties and put the envelope back, stuffing the bills into his pants pocket. He held out his hand for the gun. Paul hesitated. Mark gave him a sharp look. “We don’t need that.”

“We might,” Paul countered.

“Look, Paul,” Mark explained reasonably, “It’s a .38. They have an assault rifle. We’re out of our weight class here. Besides,” he fixed the boy with a very intent look, “I have no intention of using it, and I’m damn well not letting you hang onto it. So give it back,” he frowned, “or you can dump that stuff on the carpet right now and walk to your mom’s.”

Paul, looking unconvinced, handed the holster and its contents back to McCormick, who stowed it inside and closed the door of the safe. Paul stepped back. Mark crossed to the front of the desk and reached for a notepad and a pen.

“Wait a sec, you can’t--” Paul began.

“What?” McCormick asked impatiently, scribbling something briefly and adding his signature.

Paul was close enough to see what he had written now. “An I.O.U.?” he asked incredulously.

“Yeah,” Mark slid the note over to the chair-side of the desk and set a paperweight on one corner of it.

“Why?” Paul asked.

“Because,” McCormick said flatly. Then, after a moment longer, “I don’t steal from him.” The kid looked puzzled. McCormick shook his head. “Would you steal from Mlotkowski? I mean, besides nuclear weapons?”

“No,” Paul replied, “of course not.”

“Well, thank you for that vote of confidence,” McCormick muttered.

The kid had the decency to look a little embarrassed. “Sorry,” he said quietly. He looked thoughtful for a moment and added, “I hope you get a chance to pay him back.”

“Yeah,” Mark said, “me, too. But it’s almost the end of the month. He won’t be out that much.”

“And the truck?”

McCormick looked a little more worried at that thought. “Borrowing. He’ll understand.”

Paul nodded. “We need a road atlas.”

McCormick frowned, and then pointed to the right side of the desk. “Bottom drawer.”

Paul scooted around to that side again, holding the canister in the crook of his left arm. He opened the drawer and reached in, coming up with a battered Rand McNally. “Here,” he tossed it over to McCormick. Then he took something else out from the back of the drawer. “You have a key for these?”  

McCormick’s frown deepened. “Why?” he asked, looking at the spare set of handcuffs that Paul had dug out.

“Because you might not shoot me, but you still think you know what’s best,” Paul replied sensibly, “and sooner or later you think I’m going to fall asleep, right? Let’s see your key-ring.”

It was McCormick’s turn to be sullen. He dropped his keys onto the desk. Paul smiled.

“You guys, like, really go around arresting people?”

“That’s just for emergencies,” McCormick pointed to the key in question. “And if you’re going to go stealing bombs and atlases and trucks, and kidnapping people, you’re probably going to need one, too.” He looked up at the clock, 10:25. “Can we go now?” he pleaded.

He stepped out of the car and closed the garage door behind him. The Coyote was probably acting up again. It was a very temperamental creature, an endless challenge, especially with the demands McCormick put on it. The judge went into the house, not giving it much more thought. He wasn’t waiting up for the kid, to listen to him wail about whatever the latest problem was.

He detoured past the den, to turn off the light there. He glanced into the room noticing something on his desk. A note. Fine, he’d gotten a jump on the wailing, no doubt. Hardcastle wasn’t sure there were many original parts left in that vehicle, and he had the receipts for most of the replacements.

He walked over and took the paper from beneath the paperweight.

He stood there, puzzled, for a few full seconds, staring at the I.O.U. Then he sat down heavily in his desk chair. There was only one place in the house where he kept that much ready cash, and while he knew Mark knew the combination unofficially, the idea that he would take something out of the safe, in anything short of a full-blown emergency, was improbable.

He turned the piece of paper over; it was otherwise blank. He looked around the desk, under it--no accompanying note, no explanation of the emergency. He looked over his shoulder out the window at the Coyote, sitting there placidly. He frowned and reached for the phone.

It rang before he could pick up the receiver.

“McCormick,” he snarled, and was brought up short by Frank’s voice at the other end, saying ‘Milt?’

“Yeah,” he replied grumpily, almost certain that a call from Harper at this hour was not a good omen.

‘Where is he, Milt?’

Oh, most certainly not a good omen. “Where’s who?” the judge asked cautiously.

‘Dammit, Milt, we’ve got a little situation here. Where’s Mark?’

“Not here,” Hardcastle admitted unwillingly. “What’s going on?” He heard noises--people talking in the background, Frank shuffling the receiver at his end and leaning into the mouthpiece, dropping his voice.

‘Listen, I’m over at the university. We got a possible suicide, a missing kid, and evidence pointing to Mark being right in the middle of it. How soon can you get down here?’

The judge put his hand to his forehead, leaning his elbows on the desk. “The university? Fifteen minutes.”

‘There’s a parking lot off William’s Drive, west of the library.’  There was a pause, and then, ‘You’d tell me if you knew where he was, wouldn’t you, Milt?’

“Yeah, Frank,” he snarled again, “I’d tell you. A kid? What the hell is going on?”

‘Just get down here.’  Frank hung up.

McCormick drove. Paul had the canister between his knees again, with the atlas on top of that and a flashlight on the Los Angeles inset map. “Topanga north to Ventura, Ventura east to Highway 2.”

“Two?” Mark glanced over at him. “How far?”

The kid squinted down, “Past Wrightwood, to 138.”

“Paul, that’s Angeles Crest Highway.”

“Yeah, it’s scenic.”

“No,” Mark shook his head, “in the daytime, on a motorcycle, it’s scenic. At night, in a truck, it’s a trudge.”

“They won’t expect us to do scenic,” Paul pointed out, “especially at night.” He looked up from the map and out into the night. “How long before he reports this truck stolen?”

“Borrowed,” Mark replied reflexively, gripping the wheel tighter. “I dunno. It depends. Maybe not at all. That’s not the main thing we have to worry about. How soon will somebody miss you? And did anybody see you hanging around by the Coyote?”

“Um,” Paul hesitated, “maybe. Kristoff came out of the building while you were walking over to the car. He waved to me.”

“Oh, wonderful,” McCormick groaned. “Just . . . perfect. Topanga to Ventura to Angeles Crest.”

“Any word?” he asked intently.

“No, Frank; I told you I don’t know where he is. Now what the hell’s going down here?”

Frank glanced over his shoulder. “See the guy with the glasses?”

“Yeah.”

“Name’s Kristoff. Physics professor. He’s saying he saw Mark and this kid, Paul Hanley, out here about 9:15 tonight.”

“Kid?”

“Yeah, fourteen. Some kinda whiz kid, goes to school here. Kristoff says the boy stays with one of the other professors, a guy named Mlotkowski; he’s a professor emeritus. Has a house on campus. He’s his guardian, looks like.”

“So what’s this got to do with McCormick?”

“Kristoff says the kid is Mark’s tutor.”

“Tutor? For what?”

“Physics, aren’t you paying attention? Mark is in Kristoff’s class.”

The judge stood there, staring for a moment, then reached up to rub the bridge of his nose. “Frank, I’m his parole officer. Shouldn’t I know about these things?”

“Well,” Frank shrugged, “maybe Mark figured you only had to know about the bad stuff. Anyway, he missed a lot of classes while you two were wandering around up in Oregon. It wasn’t his fault. So he got a tutor. A couple of weeks now.”

“And the kid’s been reported missing?”

“Not exactly. Kristoff sees this kid standing around out here with Mark; he gets a little concerned. He calls Mlotkowski, doesn’t get an answer, goes over to his house, door’s open, place has been ransacked. He notifies campus security. Meanwhile a car turned up over in Redondo by the pier. Doors unlocked. Cops find a suicide note in it, run a make on the car. It belongs to Mlotkowski. No body yet, though.” Frank took a breath, looking over his shoulder again. “See that guy in the suit?”

“Yeah.”

“His name is Patterson. He shows up right after the first report about Mlotkowski, flashing ID, saying he’s from the NRC.”

“The what?”

“The Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Something about the professor and some ‘transuranium element inventory discrepancies’. That’s what he said, Milt; I’m not making it up.” Frank shook his head. “Only, it’s seems kinda weird that a guy from the NRC would be packing heat. Oh, and there were some reports earlier about two other guys lurking around here, overcoats, fedoras. Somebody may or may not have seen an assault rifle. Someone heard a car go tearing out of here. Got a busted up parking gate and some very familiar looking rubber on the road over here.”

Hardcastle looked in the direction Frank was pointing, then back at the man himself, saying nothing.

“Milt, something’s sure as hell going on here, and I think Mark’s right in the middle of it. So, am I still looking for the Coyote, or does he have the truck?”

Hardcastle studied the ground at his feet for a moment, then looked Frank in the eye and said, “The truck. For now at least. But Frank, you know this is crazy, that McCormick would take off with a kid, unless they were in some kinda trouble, the kid was in trouble.”

“Then why didn’t he come to me?” Frank asked, his voice hard and questioning. “Or you, Milt? He got all the way back to the estate. He must’ve passed a half-dozen police stations. So what’s he think he’s doing? Where is he going?”

“I dunno.” The judge shook his head. “He got two-hundred bucks out of the safe. The guys with the assault rifle, any idea who they are?”

Frank ignored the question, fixing his friend with an astonished look. “He took two hundred dollars from you? He has the combination to your safe?”

“Yeah, sort of. I mean, he’s knows how to open it in case of emergency. So that’s what this must’ve been, an emergency.” Hardcastle insisted. “He left an I.O.U.,” he added. “Frank, he wouldn’t steal from me.”

“Oh, Milt. This is real bad. He’s making it look like some kinda getaway . . . or a kidnapping, for God’s sake.”

Hardcastle shook his head again. “No, he’s only got a couple months left to his parole and, anyway . . . no. You’d sooner convince me the kid kidnapped McCormick. Hell, it makes more sense. Somebody ransacked this guy’s house, maybe it was the kid, or maybe whoever did it scared the kid off. You said McCormick is in the other guy’s class?”

“Yeah, got out at nine o’clock. Kristoff says he talked to him for a few seconds afterwards.”

“There, ya see. Which building?”  Milt asked. Frank pointed. “Okay, then he walks out into . . . whatever the hell is going on. The kid’s there. Guys with assault rifles--”

“Maybe.”

“Were there shots fired?”

“None reported.”

“No, but he tore out of here hell-bent-for-leather, sharp left to get out of the line-of-fire.” The judge described it a surely as he had seen it fifty times. “The kid said something, or had something. Tell me about him.”

“Paul, Paul Hanley. Fourteen. Been here a couple of years. They say he’s off the chart IQ-wise. Kristoff says he’s been tutoring Mark for about three weeks now.”

“And the other guy?”

“Mlotkowski. Émigré scientist-type. Came over during the cold war. Quiet, kept to himself. Lived alone except for the kid.

“The kid’s parents?”

“Kristoff wasn’t sure. I haven’t run it through Children and Family Services yet. He thinks the mother gave up custody to Mlotkowski a couple years ago. Dunno about the father.”

Hardcastle let out a breath. “Oh, yeah,” he said quietly, “we’ve got us some dynamics, here.”

“Food?” McCormick inquired, driving north through Glendale. “May be your last chance.” He pointed at a hamburger place with a drive-through.

“Yeah,” the kid said, “I guess so, a couple of cheeseburgers.” Paul yawned. “A Coke, I need a large Coke. And some fries.”

“No shake?”

“Um, nah,” Paul replied after a moment’s thought.

Mark pulled in and placed the order, reaching into his back pocket for the money. “Look,” he said, glancing to the side as they waited for their order, “if you’re going to get sleepy I’d appreciate it if you’d put the damn lid on a little more securely.”

“No,” Paul shook his head abruptly, “not sleepy.” Then he stifled another yawn as the bag was passed through the window and placed on the seat between them. He reached for it and then stopped. “Um, you know, I should really wash my hands.”

McCormick set the drinks in place and turned to look at him. “You’re worrying about germs right now?”

“No, not germs . . .  elements. I’ve been handling some kind of bad stuff today.” Paul looked up down at his hands, then back up at McCormick. “Not a good idea to ingest some of these things.”

“Oh, great, now you figure that out, three hours later?” Mark looked at the kid’s hands, as if half-expecting them to glow. “Why didn’t you wash your hands right away?”

“I was busy,” Paul protested.

McCormick shook his head. “Containment, huh? You’re not doing anything for my confidence level here, Paul.” He pulled a sharp right and put the truck into a parking space. Then he took the burgers and fries out, laid them on the seat, and offered the empty bag to the kid. “Come on.”

Paul nodded once, slipped the canister into the sack, then opened the door on his side. “Lock up,” he said, pointing to the duffle behind his seat.

Mark frowned as he did so. “You know how long it would take someone like me to get in this truck without the keys?”

Paul shook his head.

“About as long as it would take you with the keys,” McCormick said grimly.

Paul swallowed once, and looked back over his shoulder at the truck, as he trotted along behind Mark.

One of the uniformed officers was walking over to where Frank and Milt were conferring. “Lieutenant? We just got a radio call. The Commissioner would like to speak to you.”

Harper cast a look over his shoulder to Hardcastle as he followed the officer back to the squad car. The judge watched him slide into the front passenger seat and take the radio so that he could be patched through. The conversation didn’t last very long. When Frank exited the vehicle his shoulders were slumped and he was shaking his head at the officer. Hardcastle watched as the ‘NRC’ guy, Patterson, gave Frank a quick nod of dismissal and then turn back to continue talking to one of the campus security people.

Frank walked back to Hardcastle with a bland face. It would have taken someone who knew him as well as the judge did to notice the subtle lines of tension on the man’s features.

“That’s it, Milt,” Frank kept his voice low and flat. “We’ve been officially called off.” By ‘we’ Hardcastle knew he meant the LAPD. “Redondo Beach has the suspected suicide investigation, and whatever it is that happened here didn’t happen. There’s no missing kid, no break-in at Mlotkowski’s house, and no guys running around with an AK-47.” He joined with Milt in looking at the broken-off parking gate. “The campus police will handle the ‘criminal damage to property’ beef.”

“I don’t suppose we could get into this guy Mlotkowski’s place for a little look-see?”

Frank shook his head. “There’s an unmarked van with federal plates over there right now. Nobody else is getting in, and they aren’t talking.”

Hardcastle’s eyebrows went up. “Well, at least that gives us a little time to track down McCormick. Since you got nothin’ better to do, you want to come over to my place and take a look at the rest of the crime spree? It’s pretty damn subtle. We can make some calls, talk to DCFS, try to figure out where they’re headed. When you talk to the Commissioner, you can blame it all on me.” The judge smiled reassuringly.

“I’ll meet you there,” Frank said wearily as he walked away.

Hardcastle nodded as he climbed back into his car. The smile had already faded away, to be replaced by an anxious scowl. He wished this lack of official interest meant something other than a very high degree of unofficial concern. He suspected that people with far greater resources than his own were already tracking down his wayward ex-con and the professor’s whiz kid.

As he reached forward to put his key in the ignition he saw someone lean over at the passenger side window. “Excuse me?” The voice was quietly anxious, with a vaguely European accent. The white-haired gentleman to whom it belonged asked politely, “Are you with the police?”

Now that a few more words had been spoken, the accent was definitely identifiable as Polish. Hardcastle found one part of his brain busily engaged in the McCormick-like activity of making book, while another part tried to figure out exactly what answer would least worry his new acquaintance. He finally settled for the truth.

“You could say I’m ‘with’ the police, but I’m not a cop.”

The old guy fidgeted a little and looked out over the roof of the car. Then he stooped over again, “Could you tell me what happened here?”

“Nothing, apparently.” The judge managed a quick smile. “At least that’s what they’re saying.” He paused a moment, gauging the old man’s reaction, then he plunged ahead, “Your name wouldn’t happen to be Mlotkowski, would it? Are you looking for a kid named Paul Hanley?”

The color went out of the man’s face and, for a moment, the judge thought he was going to go down. But the man took a deep breath and said, “Where is he? He was here? He was supposed to--” then he bit down on his lip and shook his head once, hard. “Damn that boy, if he would just once listen.” The face was still gray. “I must--”

“Get in the car.” Hardcastle finished the statement for him abruptly. “We need to talk.”

“Listen,” he began tentatively, “I gotta ask you, what would happen if we had an accident?” he jerked his chin back towards the thing packed in behind the kid’s seat.

Paul turned partway toward him and looked thoughtful for a moment. “Depends,” he finally said.

“Not the end of Greater Los Angeles as we know it?”  

“No, that would take a detonator.” Paul smiled thinly, as Mark let out a sigh of relief. “They’d probably have to close the road for a while,” he added.

“How long a while?”

“The stuff’s got a half-life of about 24,000 years. You should drive carefully.”

“Oh,” McCormick answered quietly, keeping his eyes on the road in front of him. Then, after a moment, “Okay, talk to me Paul. Keep me awake.”

“You mean the threat of imminent death isn’t enough stimulation for you?” The kid looked at him curiously.

 “It wears off after a while.” McCormick shrugged. “It’s been a long day. So how’d you hook up with Mlotkowski?”

“Huh?” The kid looked startled.

“You’ve known him, what, two years you said. How’d you meet?”

“Well, I was kinda hanging out at the university by then.”

The kid got quiet again. Mark prodded, “You mean taking classes, when you were twelve?”

“No, just hanging out. The library on campus stayed open a lot later than the public library.”

“Ahh, you mean ‘hanging out’ as in not having anywhere else to go,” McCormick replied matter-of-factly.

The kid nodded at his ready understanding. “Exactly. Things were a little chaotic at home . . . I’d left by then.”

“When you were twelve?” Mark raised his eyebrows, “You were an early bloomer.”

Paul shrugged. “I was always pretty good at taking care of myself. And you know, when you’re that young, and you’re just hanging around, everybody thinks you belong to somebody else.” Paul slouched down in his seat a little.

“Yeah.”

“And the sorority girls were great.”

Mark opened his mouth, then shut it.

“Really. I think it was because most of the houses had no-pet policies,” Paul sighed. “I’d show up to do tutoring--algebra, trig, a little chemistry on the side--and they’d get all goofy. They’d always want to send food home with me.”

McCormick smiled sadly. “I’m surprised you wanted to give all that up and settle down.”

“Well, I didn’t have a lot of choice. Mlotkowski caught on to my scam.”

“Scam?”

“Yeah, I found a copy of the physics department roster, and he was listed as a professor emeritus. I figured he was some old goat who wasn’t around much. So I’d tell the librarian that I was getting stuff out for him. I’d have a list and everything. It was working great until there was one item that he had to be ordered on inter-library loan.”

“And they called him up to tell him he could send over his very helpful young assistant to pick it up,” McCormick laughed. “Geez, Paul, never try to scam a librarian.”

“Yeah,” Paul looked sheepish. “And I thought for sure I was going to wind up in a group home somewhere,” he shuddered. “But then he talked to the librarian about what I’d been checking out, and he talked to me, and eventually he went to see my mom. And then he made me a deal.”

“No more sororities I’ll bet.”

“Nope. All tutoring in the library, home before ten.” Then Paul dropped his voice a half-octave, added a Polish accent and said, “Pawel, all this time-wasting when you should be thinking about Unified Field Theory, and don’t forget to take the garbage out.” The kid shook his head and smiled, “It’s been hell.”

“The worthwhile stuff usually is,” McCormick said. The kid was slumped down in the seat now, his arms wrapped loosely around the canister. He appeared to have sunk back into thought. After a few moments Mark added, “Anyway, I’m glad I don’t have to worry about being a bad influence. I may have taken a few cars, but I never stole a library book.”

“Borrowed,” Paul replied. Then, in another tone completely, “He’s dead, isn’t he.”

The abruptness took McCormick by surprise. He’d been carefully resisting turning on the radio, despite a desperate need to know what was going on, only to avoid hearing any reports of Mlotkowski’s death. That kind of bad news would keep. On the other hand, he knew from personal experience that fanning false hope wouldn’t work either. In the end, he settled for the truth.

“We don’t know that for sure.”

That the professor had climbed into the car without further persuasion or evidence was the most significant sign yet, as far as Hardcastle was concerned, that things were spiraling out of control. Once inside, the man turned to him with a look of desperate fear and worry.

“Pawel, he’s not . . .” he swallowed the thought down unspoken. “Have you seen him?”

“My best guess is he’s okay, and with someone,” now here came the gray edge of untruth, “reliable.” He gave the word an extra emphasis to overcome whatever doubts he had on the subject. McCormick could, no doubt, be relied on to run headlong into most situations without checking even once to see if his backup was available. The judge shook his head almost imperceptibly. Mlotkowski was letting out a premature sigh of relief.

“Thank God,” the older man said to himself then, louder, “he was supposed to spend the weekend with Rose and her family. I sent him to the office this morning with a note explaining things to her. I didn’t dare call. The phones--”

“Wait a minute, let’s back up here. I’m kinda coming in after the intermission,” The judge interrupted. “My name’s Milt Hardcastle. I’m a retired judge.”

“Stefan Mlotkowski. Physicist.” The man’s shoulders slumped a little, “That boy will be the death of me yet.”

The judge nodded and, having found that much common ground, pulled the car quietly away from the curb.

McCormick had to admit he’d been wrong about the scenery. The full moon emerged from a fast-moving, high cloud cover around midnight, and at once the surroundings took on a haunting, silver, otherworldly edge. Paul had sunk deeper into silence. Mark didn’t try to pry any more history from him. All routes would lead back to the same unanswerable question.

But this road, with its switchbacks, and drop-offs, and that eerie light, and don’t forget twenty pounds of death and destruction stuffed behind the seat, well  . . . I thought you wanted normal.

No one had followed them, the judge noted with satisfaction. He’d explained the evening’s events to Mlotkowski as best as he knew them. The professor had listened quietly, not interrupting. Hardcastle concluded by asking, “So were those guys after Paul? And why?”

Mlotkowski’s face was set in a grim expression. “It is very likely. I have had some . . . difficulties lately. A device was brought to me by some men last week.”

“Device?”

The professor nodded slowly. “A thermonuclear device--an experimental type, portable, though it requires two men to carry it. It is very compact.”

The judge listened with a growing sense of dread only slightly relieved by the information that it would take two guys to move the damn thing.

“They threatened to harm my family unless I repaired the device for them, or if I went to the authorities. I told them it would take some time. They were to return for it today.”

“So you fixed it?”

Mlotkowski nodded again. “Nearly so, but then I could not go through with it, nor could I allow them to harm my sister, her family. So I decided to remove myself from their influence. I went to the pier this evening to end my life. I left a note so that the act would be publicly known. If I was dead they would have no reason to harm the ones I left behind.”

“Yeah, makes sense,” Hardcastle agreed reluctantly. “But you didn’t go through with that, either?”

“I have never been a particularly physically brave person,” the professor confessed. “I think I would have gone through with it. I stood out on that pier for a long time. The sun had set. It was nearly dark when I saw the police car, the men looking at my vehicle. I’m afraid I may have parked it illegally. I had left the doors unlocked. I saw more assistance arrive; quite a lot of activity for one old man who wanted to jump into the ocean.” He looked strangely puzzled at this thought.

“At any rate, it was dark by then, and I began to realize that I had, more or less, accomplished what I had set out to do, without actually entering the water. So I walked back down the pier, past my own car, very calmly. One officer asked me if I had seen anyone acting peculiarly. I answered ‘no’ with an American accent.”

For a moment Mlotkowski came near to smiling but then he continued, quietly, “I found a cab. I gave him an address some ways from here. Then I walked from there to my house. I was being careful not to be seen, in case they had returned. I saw men, a van from the government with no markings. The men were going in and out of my house. I watched for a while and it became clear that they were not finding what they were looking for. I thought the other men must have already returned and taken it. I was desolate. I ought to have done more to keep it from them, even in the condition that I had left it.

“Then I came over here, to the physics building, intending to use the phone, to call Rose’s house and tell Pawel I was alright, that he shouldn’t worry if the police came to talk to him. And here I saw Kristoff, and all those other police. And people talking, standing nearby. I overheard them say a boy was missing. But they didn’t seem to know much else, and if I showed myself to Kristoff the ruse would be up.” He paused for a moment. “Now I think I must talk to the police, though.”

“Well, there’s sure as hell one police officer you have to talk to. And lucky for us he’s headed the same way we are,” Hardcastle replied as he navigated them in and around the sparse midnight traffic on the 405.

“This person you think Pawel went with, he is a student, one of the boys Pawel tutors?”  

“Apparently he is. His name is Mark McCormick. When he’s not in school he works for me,” Hardcastle added dryly.

Mlotkowski shook his head again. “What sort of work does he do?” he asked worriedly.

“Yard work.” The judge replied tersely; no need to raise more alarm in the professor than he was already dealing with. “You never told me why the guys in the fedoras were after Paul? Was he involved in this?”

“I never told him what was going on, and I made those men carry it down into the basement, a room with a lock on the door,” Mlotkowski said, with a hint in his tone that implied he thought that might not have been enough precaution.

“This kid doesn’t own a set of lock picks, does he?”

Mlotkowski looked at him blankly. “Why would he?”

“Never mind,” Hardcastle said wearily. “It doesn’t matter. You have spare keys somewhere in the house, or you take your own set out of your pocket when you’re at home, maybe you leave them in the same place most of the time, so you don’t lose them?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then he was in that room, most likely. Especially if you were going around acting all upset about things. They say he’s pretty smart, your Paul?”

Mlotkowski was still frowning, thinking about what Hardcastle had said. Now he nodded. “Very, very intelligent. Very clever.”

“Smart enough to take apart a suitcase nuke? Make it more than inoperable?”

The professor’s frown deepened. “To do that he would need to remove the fissile material. The plutonium.”

“Could he do that?” Hardcastle’s voice was more urgent. “Remove it and carry it away himself?”

Mlotkowski was turning the idea over. The frown was now joined by a hand, splayed across his lower face and a worried mumble. “Yes . . . yes he could have.” Then he added, “He would think he was helping, that they wouldn’t harm me, or my sister, as long as they needed me to reassemble it. It is possible.” He turned toward the judge, “We must find them. Do you know where he might have taken Pawel?”

“Look, Professor,” Hardcastle tried to contain his rising exasperation, “If Mark was doing the taking, it would have been no further than the nearest police station, or maybe, just maybe, my home; that’s up in Malibu. Now you say this kid of yours might be hell-bent on protecting you. I’m guessing he’s the one calling the shots right now; ‘cause as weird as it sounds, that’s the only thing that makes any sense.”

The judge gave this idea a moment to sink in. Oddly, there was no immediate outraged protest from the older man. He simply repeated the phrase ‘calling the shots’ in a quiet, questioning voice.

“Yeah,” Hardcastle answered gruffly, “Threats, coercion, maybe a certain amount of persuasion. I’m not saying Mark has the best judgment in the world, but this is a little harebrained even for him.”

“He’s a fourteen-year-old boy--”

“Who takes apart nuclear bombs.” Hardcastle paused, changing tacks, “Just how dangerous is this stuff, if he took it?”

“As fissile material, extremely, but he would know that. He would take precautions.”

“No, I mean to be around when it’s not exploding.”

“In the solid form, in less than critical mass?” the professor asked. The judge nodded anxiously. “That’s the problem.” Mlotkowski replied quietly. “It’s not dangerous enough. It has to be combined with other, more radioactive, materials, to be disposed of safely, so it can’t be retrieved and made into weapons.”

“So you could drive around with it, say, in a truck, and be okay?”

“Yes, for the most part.” Mlotkowski said after a thoughtful pause. The judge got the idea that he himself wasn’t the only one trying to tip toe around the more alarming aspects of the situation.

“Um, yeah?” Paul replied sleepily. “What time is it?”

“Very, very late. We’re almost to 138. Which way then?”

“South. Then north on 15.”

“We need to stop soon. I was up at 6:30 this--no, yesterday morning, shooting hoops.”

Paul looked around. “Can’t you just pull over somewhere?”

“Not unless you want to wake up with a state trooper shining a flashlight in the window and asking for the registration. We’re going to need to find a place to crash for a few hours. There’ll be something on 15.”

Paul looked doubtful. “What if they’re already looking for the truck?”

McCormick considered the possibility for a moment then said, “Nah, not yet, not at least until morning. Not even then if you let me make a phone call.”

“No,” Paul replied sharply. “You’ll try to tell him where we are. No calls. But  . . .” he looked down at the canister wearily, “okay, we’ll look for a place.”

“Henderson, Nevada, that’s where he thinks they’re headed,” Hardcastle finished laying out the story for Frank. The three men were standing in the kitchen, waiting for the coffee to finish dripping into the carafe. It was going to be a long night.

“That’s where Pawel’s mother is,” Mlotkowski explained. “I can’t think of anywhere else he would run to. But . . .”

“‘But’ what?” Frank asked.

“He has not seen her in a while, in over two years. He has talked about going but . . . I have put it off.”

“Why? Henderson isn’t all that far.”

Mlotkowski hesitated for a moment, “It was not the trip, but what he would find at the other end.”

“That one,” Mark pointed off to the right and made a quick turn into the driveway.

“Why?”

“It’s a little set back; the parking isn’t visible from the road. That’s the main reason. It looks cheap, and that means they’ve probably got some minimum-wage clerk working the desk, maybe he’s even asleep. In that case all he’s going to want to do is get us checked in as fast as possible, so he can get back to his cot. They’ll be glad to take cash; they won’t look too close at me, and--”

“How come you’re helping?” Paul asked curiously.

McCormick glanced back over at him. “Welcome to the inner workings of the criminal mind . . . I don’t want to get caught,” he added sensibly. “I’d like to turn myself in, but I don’t want to get caught.”

“Don’t worry; I’m going to explain everything to the cops when I’m done.”

“Paul,” McCormick sighed, “I don’t know how to put this but, of the two of us, I’m the one who fits the profile of kidnapper/extortionist . . . I’ve got credentials. I’d just rather not get taken out by an over-eager S.W.A.T. sniper because you haven’t finished carrying out your master plan.”

He parked the truck off to one side, where it could not be easily seen from the motel office, and opened his door. Paul scooted out on his own side, clutching the canister in its fast-food bag, and went around the front of the truck. “I have to go in with you.”

“Ah, trust. It’s a wonderful thing,” Mark said, patting Paul on the shoulder. “Keep your mouth shut; your name is Paul McCormick.”

“Your son?”

“No, I’m not that old, kid. Maybe a nephew or something. They aren’t going to care; just one name is more likely. Anyway, they won’t ask you for ID. If I tell you I left something in the truck; you turn around and walk out, slowly, and get back in the truck. Got that?”

“No. I’m staying with you.”

“I promise, Paul, I won’t say it unless I think we’re in trouble. There may already be something on the news. Kristoff may have said something. I don’t know.”

Paul hesitated and then he asked quietly, “Can I trust you?”

“When I say you can, you can.”

“What have you got so far?” Patterson asked sharply, addressing his weary troops in the kitchen of the Mlotkowski residence.

The senior investigator ran down the list, “One suitcase nuke, Russian parts, physics package missing. Looks like someone ransacked Mlotkowski’s personal papers, maybe some stuff gone, hard to tell. The kid’s room is . . . weird.”

“Weird?” Patterson tried to keep the irritation out of his voice; his men had been up for two days straight on this thing.

“Yeah, weird, as in I didn’t know it was a kid’s room right away, except when I checked the clothes in the closet. He has a lot of books in there: physics, math, mostly in English, also Polish, and a couple in Russian.

“And there are latents in the basement workroom that match some in the kid’s room, and that aren’t Mlotkowski’s.”

“You mean the kid was the one working on the bomb?”

“All I can tell you for sure is that he handled it. Oh, and there’s the fire detectors.”

“What?”

“Three of them, all taken down off the walls, lying open in the kid’s room. They still have their batteries, though. And the sand.”

“Sand?”

“Very fine, white, some on the bedspread, some on the floor near the bed.”

Patterson rubbed his forehead. He was tired. He ought to have been savoring a moment of glory, the capture of a suitcase nuclear weapon. Instead he had only the packaging, and a handful of sand.

“It’s the kid,” he said wearily. “The kid’s got it; him and . . . what was that other guy’s name? I want to know everything about them.”

In a dingy motel room on the outskirts of Los Angeles, two men sat in quiet companionability. One was engaged in the comforting ritual of cleaning his weapon, a venerable and much-beloved AK-47. The other was pouring over a stack of papers, pondering the short and mysterious life of Paul Hanley, and wishing, for once, that he read English as well as he spoke it.

For not the first time in his long association with Milton C. Hardcastle, Frank Harper found himself at the losing end of an argument.

“I’m just saying I can contact the authorities in Henderson. A couple of phone calls, Milt, that’s all. They have a four hour head start on us.”

“What the hell are you going to tell ‘em, Frank? You’re going to wind up with a S.W.A.T. team waiting for them on the other end, and they’re going to be aiming for McCormick.

“He’s driving the truck, not the Coyote, and he probably didn’t use the main drags through LA. And he and the kid have got to be getting pretty tired. I’m guessing if we get lucky we might even overtake them. If we can get to Henderson first, we can do this whole thing without ending up with some sort of crazy stand-off.”

“And then what?” Frank asked in exasperation.

“Then we swing some sort of deal with the government. They get the stuff. The professor here takes charge of the kid, and McCormick gets out of this in one piece.”

“And the guys with the AK-47?” Harper asked acerbically.

“And my sister,” Mlotkowski added nervously.

“I’m still working on the details. We’ve got five hours between us and Henderson.”

Mark lugged in the duffle bag, set it down in the far corner, and surveyed a room that looked like it hadn’t been upgraded since the late sixties. Paul followed him in, closed the door behind him, and trudged over to the nearest bed, canister in hand.

“You want to use the bathroom first?” Paul asked as he studied the radio alarm clock on the nightstand--3:16 am. “I’ll set it for 7:30, okay?”

“A.M. or P.M.?” Mark asked as he headed into the smaller room. When he emerged, a few minutes later, Paul tossed him the handcuffs.

“Find some place to attach these,” he said, apologetically.

“Paul,” McCormick started to protest, “what happened to all that trust we were working on out there?”

The kid merely shook his head.

McCormick sighed, flipped the one cuff around his left wrist, and looked around for an acceptably secure spot. The other bed was too close to the phone. He finally pointed at the pipe that elbowed out of the end of the baseboard radiator and into the floor. “That okay?”

Paul nodded. “I am sorry,” he said as he watched Mark settle himself on the floor and click the other cuff around the pipe. “And I need your keys.”

McCormick scrabbled in his pocket with his free hand and tossed them up to him. Paul put them, and the canister, on the nightstand. He got up and went over to the other bed, taking off the spread and the pillow and handing it down to Mark.

“Thanks. You want to check these?” Mark asked, holding his left wrist up and tugging at the pipe.

“No, I trust you,” Paul smiled thinly.

“Hah,” McCormick laughed sharply. “You’re just lucky I’m too tired to argue with you.” And then he rolled onto his side, stuffed the pillow under his head with his right hand, and went to sleep.

The room reeked of gun oil and solvent. The AK-47 lay neatly on the spread-out newspapers, aged perfection. He touched it lightly and smiled. The other man was shifting back and forth between one of the pieces of paper and a new Rand-McNally Atlas. Finally he tapped the map and gestured his companion over. His finger rested on the jagged southern tip of the state of Nevada. The owner of the Kalashnikov looked down at where his friend’s finger rested. He sounded out the letters, “Nen-deyah-son?”

“H-en-der-son,” the other man corrected him kindly.

Frank was glad it was his own car he’d driven to the estate, less to explain later on to the commissioner. He caught the beginning of the morning rush as he drove east on U.S. 10, heading for the junction with 15.

The other two men had settled into the kind of nervous alertness that was the result of too much caffeine and no sleep. Mlotkowski said practically nothing. Milt would mutter almost inaudibly at intervals.

From the snatches Frank could make out, it appeared to be a heartfelt soliloquy on the subject of the risk-taking behavior of a certain mutual friend of theirs. Frank was sure that if it hadn’t been for the professor’s presence in the back seat, Milt would have expressed his opinions out loud.

As for himself, he had the sinking feeling that his job in this operation was to provide the unwanted sense of perspective. It just might be that Paul and Mark weren’t the only ones in over their heads. He was in a thoughtful state of mind. For now, just think of it as a road trip, me and Milt and . . . Stefan, taking a little run over to Henderson.

For an instant after the alarm went off, McCormick wondered why he hadn’t heard the judge shooting baskets. Then he tried to turn over to hit the snooze button and encountered the cold, hard reality of recent events.

“Dammit, Paul, turn that thing off.” He kicked out at the end of the mattress a couple of times.

He heard an answering groan, which was followed by some movement from under the covers, and a hand reaching out to slap at the control buttons randomly. Paul finally succeeded in silencing it.

“It’s seven-thirty,” McCormick announced.

Another muffled groan.

“Well, you set the alarm, not me,” Mark added with aggravating calm.

“I’m up, I’m up,” the kid matched the words with a slow shuffle into the bathroom.

When he returned he sat down on the edge of the bed and tossed the keys in McCormick’s direction. Before Mark could turn them in the first lock, Paul had retrieved his canister and had both arms wrapped around it as though it was his lifeline. McCormick turned on the light over the desk and took a closer look at the kid.

He didn’t like what he saw. Paul didn’t appear to have gotten much sleep, if even the whole four hours could have been called ‘much’. He looked down at the radio, thinking maybe the truth couldn’t be worse than all this uncertainty. Yeah, sure, if Mlotkowski had been found dead somewhere with a 7.62 round in him, it would be news, but if he’d taken his own life, it wouldn’t even rate a paragraph in a back section of the Times, though the end result would be the same for this kid.

He reached out and touched the Paul’s shoulder. “Come on,” he said softly. “We gotta go . . . wherever it is we’re going.”

The boy gathered himself together and said, “Yeah, we better get going.”

“You don’t want to show up at your mom’s looking like something the cat dragged in. Eat.” Then, a moment later, “You’re not getting sick, are you?” He cast a nervous glance at the canister and then the duffle squeezed in on Paul’s side of the booth.

“Don’t think so,” Paul replied, “How do you feel?”

McCormick gave that a moment’s thought and then replied, “Fine . . . well, like I drove seventy-five miles of switchback in the dark and then got four hours of sleep handcuffed to a radiator, but otherwise, okay.”

“I said I was sorry,” Paul said sullenly.

“Well, believe it or not, kid, last night doesn’t even make the short list for bad times I’ve had,” McCormick replied. “On the other hand, recent events have really put my other problems in perspective. Kristoff’s final is so far back in the line of things to worry about now, that I can’t even see it from here.”

“You’re going to do fine on that test,” Paul insisted. “We’ve got a couple hours between here and Nevada. I’ll explain high energy physics to you.”

McCormick didn’t respond to this. His attention was rapt on some activity out in the parking lot. He’d idly noticed an unmarked van, driving well under the speed limit, that had slowed and exited, nothing special. Then it pulled into the lot. He felt an almost instinctual shiver crawl across the back of his neck. The van had become purposeful.

“Paul?” Now it had parked a short way from the judge’s truck. Two men emerged, one in a suit and dark glasses, middle-aged, black hair cut short. Something definitely aggressive about him. The other was a little younger, more non-descript. “You know that guy you were telling me about, the one who showed up yesterday in the physics department office and was asking questions?” The two men were looking in the direction of the truck; the one with the sunglasses was saying something to the other.

Paul sat up straighter and his eyes were drawn in the same direction that Mark was looking. “Yeah,” he breathed. “The guy with the glasses, that’s him.”

Mark already had his money out. He dropped a twenty on the table without waiting for the check. “The back way.”

Paul asked no questions. He grabbed the canister and slid out. Mark reached past him and took the duffle, then led him back through the truck-stop diner, to a narrow hallway that led past the washrooms.

Once out the back door, Mark surveyed the scattered cars between the diner and the pumps. “Which one?” Paul asked hopefully.

“None of ‘em,” McCormick shook his head. “Nobody stays at a road stop very long. Whichever one we took, it would be reported missing in about fifteen minutes.” His eyes were fixed on something further out. “That one, though.” He pointed to an ancient pickup, parked out between the pumps and the frontage road. It had a ‘for sale’ sign in the window but looked like it might have been there for a good long while.

“That?” Paul looked worried.

McCormick shrugged. “Non-descript as hell, I wouldn’t even know what color to call it.” He was already strolling in its direction. “I’ll bet it’s been here so long that they wish someone would take it away.” He laid the duffle carefully in the back and opened the driver’s door. “See,” he smiled, “everything but a sign that says ‘steal me’.”

Paul opened the door on the other side. Mark leaned over, felt under the dash for a moment, then looked up as Paul tapped him on the shoulder. “Here,” he handed him a key. “It was under the mat on this side.”

“You’re kidding.” He stared at it for a fraction of a second before inserting it in the ignition, taking down the sign in the window with his other hand. He eased out onto the road like a man in no particular hurry. In the rearview mirror he saw the two guys from the van entering the diner.

“Thank you,” Paul said, once they were out of sight of the truck stop. Mark threw him a questioning look. “For stealing a truck for me,” The boy added quietly.

Mark’s eyebrows went up a little. He studied the road in front of him “Well,” he said after a moment, “I’d like to think of this as an extended test drive.” He pointed down at the crumpled cardboard lying at Paul’s feet. “See? I’ve got the owner’s phone number.”

He’d managed to get a small smile from the kid and smiled himself. He looked out the rearview mirror again. No pursuit . . . yet. But it was only a matter of very little time.

“Paul,” he went on, “you know I was really tempted to stop back there and ask that guy where I was going.”

The kid bit his lip.

“They found us awfully fast. They must know a hell’uva lot about you and me. Hell, they even knew about the truck. You really think those guys are from, what was it, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission?”

“Henderson,” Paul replied. “Henderson, Nevada.”

“Is that where you used to live?” McCormick asked.

“Nah, we lived in Las Vegas. It’s real close. My mom lives in Henderson now.”

“You know your way around there?”

“I have an address.”

“Okay,” McCormick sighed. “We don’t have a lot of options here; it’s pretty much a straight shot from Barstow to Vegas. Any side road we take just increases the chance that they’ll be waiting for us when we get there, but at least they don’t know what we’re driving anymore. And,” he sighed, “at least there were only the two of them”

The driver of the late-model rental sedan nudged his dozing companion, who reached for the gun at his feet almost reflexively on awakening. His friend’s hand on his shoulder stopped him, and then pointed ahead and off to the right at the scene in the parking lot of the truck stop.

An unmarked but familiar van, two men standing next to a truck, arguing. No one else in sight. The two men in the sedan looked at each other, each smiling broadly.

Frank braked and pulled into the right lane. “Hey, isn’t that--”

“My truck,” Hardcastle hollered. “Pull over.”

The vehicle stood off a little by itself, now that the breakfast crowd had pushed through. Hardcastle opened the door. The heat billowed out. “Been parked here for a while.”  He did a quick survey. Only the usual fast-food detritus, He never leaves that kind of crap in the Coyote.  He looked back over his shoulder at the professor. “What are we talking about? I mean size.” Mlotkowski framed a shape with his hands. “Smaller than a bread-box,” the judge muttered. “Nope, not here.”

He looked over at the diner without much hope. “Well, let’s check it out quick, but my guess is they’ve switched vehicles.”

As they were walking to the door, the sound of a minor commotion came from the direction of the pumps, an older man arguing with one of the attendants. Hardcastle detoured over in that direction, the other two following.

As they approached, the words of the older man became clearer. “Whaddaya mean you don’t know who took it?”

The attendant was scratching his hair beneath the back of his baseball cap and staring off in the direction of the road. He mumbled something that only made the older man angrier.

“You left the damn key under the mat again, didn’t you? I told’ja not to do that. Damn kids’ll take anything that isn’t nailed down these days.”

“Lost something?” the judge asked casually.

The older man looked over at him sharply and then, apparently seeing a kindred spirit, grumbled, “Yeah, damn kids took off in my truck. Been trying to sell it for a month now. Knew I shoulda put an ad in the paper and left it in the driveway.”

The judge shook his head in commiseration. “Anybody see ‘em getting away?”

“Nah,” the man complained, “Charlie, here didn’t even notice it was gone.”

The attendant shrugged. “Well, it’s been there so damn long the thing was practically growin’ roots. I told ya you were askin’ too much. Wasn’t worth no $500.”

Hardcastle’s eyebrows went up a little. “What the heck was it?”

“A ’64 Ford,” the older man answered, “F-100, real reliable.”

The attendant barked a short laugh, “Yeah, only 235,000 miles on it.”

Hardcastle’s face had taken on the look of speculation. “Don’t suppose you’re still interested in selling it?”

The older man opened his mouth, looked around for a moment and then back at Hardcastle. “You know, mister--”

“$300, sight unseen,” the judge offered

“Hey, is this some kinda scam?” the older man bristled.

“Scam, hell,” the attendant jumped in. “You should take it, Bill; it ain’t even worth that much.”

The older man cast a baleful glare at his associate. “It ain’t even here.”

“Oh, it’ll probably turn up.” Hardcastle smiled congenially. “I’ll leave you my number. You got the pink slip with you?”

“Well . . .” Bill hesitated. Hardcastle was already reaching for his wallet. The sight of actual green money seemed to push the deal forward. “I guess. But if it turns up at the bottom of some gully, I ain’t responsible,” he huffed, pulling his own wallet out to retrieve the paper.

Paul nodded, looking as wilted as Mark felt. McCormick found himself wondering just what was the market for un-airconditioned trucks in Southern California.

There was not much activity at the combination gas station and general store. After their last experience, McCormick decided to give in to his rising paranoia and park in back of the building. He coasted to a stop just as the radiator had boiled away to vapors.

There was a teenage girl behind the counter, chewing gun and reading a magazine. She barely looked up when McCormick placed the two gallon bottles of distilled water on the counter. When Paul sauntered up with a bag of Cheetos and a couple of Snickers bars, she flashed an engaging smile.

“That all?” she asked.

“And ten dollars worth of regular,” McCormick added, looking down with an air of disapproval at Paul’s lunch.

Out back again, he lifted the hood of the truck. He spit on his fingers and touched the radiator cap experimentally. “We gotta wait a few minutes.” He stared down dubiously at what was under the hood. “I’d say the radiator needs to be re-cored, but that would be like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.”

McCormick was still contemplating his decline in automotive fortune, when he became aware of a muffled, but heavily accented voice from within the store. Paul was up next to him, about to say something. Mark hushed him.

He couldn’t make out the girl’s reply but he already had the duffle out of the flat-bed where he’d stowed it, and was leading Paul back toward a utility shed about a hundred feet behind the store.

He pushed Paul inside, and passed the duffle over to him. “Hide it somewhere in there.”

“They’ll find it,” Paul protested.

“Well at least make ‘em look for it.” Mark shoved him further inside and said hurriedly, “If they fire off some shots, maybe somebody will call the cops. Once you’ve ditched it, go out the back and hide in the scrub.”

He’d just shut the door when, only a second later, he heard a voice shouting at him in what had to be Russian and probably meant, ‘Stop or I’ll shoot.’ This was confirmed a moment later as he took off sprinting in the direction of some rocks about fifty feet away and the man, using admirable self-control, let off a couple of single rounds.

Something punched him in the back of the left arm, almost seeming to carry him forward an extra step before spinning him around. He lost his balance and wound up sitting down, facing the way he’d come, staring at the man as he lumbered up. He was old, maybe a shade older than Hardcastle, with a grizzled face and bristly salt and pepper hair. He brought the Kalashnikov to bear with controlled efficiency as he stood just far enough away to be out of reach of a kick.

This guy likes his work. Very focused.

And that was why the man did not notice the kid holding the solid metal canister poised overhead just behind him.

The thud was dull and almost overshadowed by the grunt, and the clatter, as the rifle hit the ground. McCormick scrambled forward and grabbed it away, but the guy who had followed it down wasn’t moving. Paul stood there, still clutching the canister, looking mildly horrified.

“Handcuffs, Paul, get ‘em,” McCormick found himself panting the words out one at a time. The kid nodded hurriedly and bolted off. Mark used the butt of the gun against the ground as he pushed himself up to his knees. The heat shimmer seemed to be taking on a purple edge as he staggered to his feet.

There are two of these guys. So far the other guy must have decided everything was under control out here. He’s staying with the girl. Paul was back, handcuffs in one hand. Mark gestured down at the guy with his free hand and noticed there was an awful lot of blood on his sleeve. Later.

He went around the side of the building, cradling the gun against his hip. He made it to the front of the store, hugging the wall. He heard more quiet murmuring from within. He peered around the door frame.

The other guy was standing there, non-chalantly talking to the obviously terrified clerk. Luckily there wasn’t much room in her expression for anything else. She barely reacted to the sight of a bleeding man edging in the front door. Mark had decided that Paul’s idea was best, and he brought the butt of the rifle down with the determination born of a desire to finish the job before he himself passed out.

The girl was flat-out sobbing as Paul came in the back door cautiously. “He’s starting to wake up out there. Do you want me to hit him again?”

“Ah, no.” Then Mark looked around briefly. “We gotta get him to walk in here. We only have one set of handcuffs.” He turned to the girl. “After we go, you can call the cops, okay?” She was giving him a blank stare of disbelief as her sobs degenerated into hiccups. “Never mind.” He sighed.

Paul was back, having somehow persuaded the dazed and handcuffed man to stagger into the store. “There,” Mark pointed out front to the sedan. “The door handle.” He dragged the other man with Paul’s assistance and got the two of them safely arranged with the one pair of handcuffs between them.

He was still holding the AK-47. The grizzled guy was looking up at him with despairing rage, now that he was awake enough to realize what was going on. Mark, who was beginning to feel more than the initial blunt numbness of a high velocity gunshot wound, very deliberately detached the magazine and threw it as far as his damaged arm could manage. Then he lowered the safety lock, retracted the reloading handle, and removed the remaining cartridge from the chamber.

The man attached to the door handle watched him in silence. Incomprehension turned to immutable horror in the older man’s eyes, as Mark took his beloved by the barrel and swung it full force against the side of the car repeatedly, until it was reduced to its component parts.

The bustle of activity at the filling station was visible from the road. Frank and the judge looked at each other for a moment and then Frank pulled off.

Hardcastle’s experienced eye took in the whole thing before he’d gotten out of the car: an ambulance, the attendants  working on two guys, two sheriff’s cars and one from the State Police, a young girl standing on the porch of the little store, tearfully telling her story to one of the deputies, while an older woman stood there with her arm around the girl’s shoulder.

He heard a gasp of recognition from the back seat. “You know those guys with the paramedics, Professor?” Hardcastle looked over his shoulder.

Mlotkowski nodded and added, “It’s them.”

“You stay here. Stay down, out of sight. Frank and I are going to reconnoiter.”

The two of them sauntered toward the cluster of people between the late model sedan and the porch. One of the officers approached them and gestured them to a halt. “Sorry folks, store’s not open right now.”

Frank watched Hardcastle transform himself into the bane of working police officers everywhere-the earnest and curious citizen. “Officer, we just needed to get some gas.” They were close enough now to see the guys the paramedics were working on. The older one had a look of despondency on his face that could only be the result of a great loss. The other one just looked pissed as hell.

The officer was still trying to shepherd them away. “There’s a place down the road, eight maybe ten miles.”

“Don’t think we’re gonna make it that far; we’re on vapors as it is,” Hardcastle pleaded, looking down at something which, to the trained eye, appeared to be half of the hand guard of an assault rifle and a smattering of blood.

The officer had seen it, too. He looked back over his shoulder and shouted, “Here’s another piece over here.” Then he ushered the two men around it. “Okay, use that far pump over there. Just get yourselves five bucks worth. You’ll make it to the next stop.” He was shouting back up to the porch again, “Mary Beth, I’m gonna have these folks here get five dollars worth on the last pump, okay?” The older woman on the porch nodded back.

Hardcastle was still looking over at the side of the sedan itself. Frank tried to nudge him back into the conversation and, that failing, answered, “Looks like it’s gonna be a lot of trouble for everybody. You know, I think we can make it, what did you say, eight miles?”

The officer assured him, it was certainly not more than that. Frank had Milt by the arm and was urging him toward the car. The judge muttered to him, “Lemme talk to that girl for a minute. She’s the witness.”

Frank was climbing back in on his side, the professor cautiously peeking up from the back seat. “What happened?” he asked nervously.

“Well, it’s got McCormick’s name all over it; that’s for sure,” Frank sighed, leaning back. “Looks like he took out your two Russian arms dealers and smashed up their AK-47.” And then, to Milt, “That girl won’t talk to you. And if we’d hung around any longer that officer would have been over here running a routine check.”

“He does your yard work?” Mlotkowski muttered.

Hardcastle was still gazing out the window fixedly in the direction of the sedan. “That was a lot of blood.”

“Blood?” Mlotkowski sat up and leaned forward.

“Yeah, well,” Frank said, “you know head wounds--”

“Neither of those guys was bandaged,” Hardcastle pointed out.

The professor’s alarm intensified, “Paul?”

“No,” the judge interjected. “If it had been the kid, McCormick would have stuck around, waited for help. Then they’d know about the plutonium and there’d be a whole lot more action here than two deputies and a state trooper.” Hardcastle shook his head. “No, it was Mark.”

“Then it can’t have been too bad,” Frank assured him. “The kid doesn’t drive, does he Professor?”

Mlotkowski shook his head.

“See?” Frank said. “He’s on his feet. He’s driving. He’s okay, Milt.”

He was glad Paul was sitting to his right. The kid had gone pale while he dutifully wrapped Mark’s arm and shoulder in strips torn from one of his own spare t-shirts. Mark wasn’t going to think about the fact that that t-shirt had been swaddling a mysterious-looking metal object, deep in the duffle.

Now Paul was sitting bolt upright in his seat, not looking to the left at all, not saying anything, either.

“Look, Paul,” Mark smiled wearily, “I’m okay. This still doesn’t qualify for a really, really bad day. Hell, that could have come out a whole lot worse back there.” No, he noted, that hadn’t been too reassuring.

“Anyway,” he changed the subject abruptly, “it’s starting to look like damn near everybody knows where we’re heading.” No response from the kid. Mark went on cautiously, “Do you know if there are any more of those Russian guys?” The kid shook his head, either a negative or an ‘I don’t know’. “Yes or no?” McCormick asked outright with impatience.

“I’m not sure,” Paul answered quietly. “I only saw the two.”

Damn, not the answer he was looking for.

Mark shook his head. “Look, I’m getting a little . . . frayed, you know? We could use some back-up here, just in case.” The kid had lapsed back into silence. “I’m gonna pull over, the next place we see a phone, and call Hardcastle, okay?”

Paul nodded, slowly.

“We coulda at least found out how long ago it happened,” the judge grumbled worriedly as they passed the sign announcing their entry into Nevada.

“No we couldn’t,” Frank insisted. “Not without risking them getting interested in us. Better we just put the hammer down and get to Henderson as soon as possible.”

McCormick looked at the ‘Welcome to Henderson’ sign wearily. “Now what?”

Paul had gradually come back to life over the last hour’s drive, if ‘life’ could be described as nervous tension. He’d taken a piece of paper out of his bag and was watching the cross streets carefully. “There,” he said, pointing to the next intersection. “A right, I think.”

Mark followed this instruction and the ones that followed. Their route was taking them out of the center of town, northeast, to a quieter area. It was only a few miles before Paul signaled him to a halt, pointing to a drive leading back past a sign that said ‘Ashbury Manor’. Mark frowned at him questioningly as he turned.

The lot was half empty, and the two-story building sat far enough from the road for quiet. Mark had pulled into a spot facing it and now he sat studying the situation. “Your mom works here?” he asked quietly.

“No.”

McCormick nodded, feeling like a guy who’d been holding the schematic upside down by mistake. His readjusted mind went back to making a plan, feeling a little slow.

“You’ll just have to be Paul Hanley this time. I don’t think they’d let a kid in unless . . .” He frowned again, “You’ve never been here before?”

“No,” Paul was almost whispering, “she was still living on her own when I left.” There was a pause. “Things must’ve gotten worse.”

Mark nodded. He reached behind the seat for his jacket. “I’m your Uncle Mark. We’re here to visit your mom.” He fumbled with the jacket. “Listen, Paul, you gotta come around this side and loosen up this bandage,” he said quietly. “I think there’s some swelling. I can’t feel my hand.”

Paul shot him a concerned look and scrambled out of the car, leaving the canister on the seat. He loosened the top knots and eased the pressure off, retying it and then helping him slide the jacket sleeve up over it.

Mark got the sleeve in place. A shiver ran through him. It no longer seemed too hot for the jacket. He slid out of the car to stand next to Paul, swayed for a moment as the head rush passed, and then got his bearings.

Paul reached in to get the canister. McCormick glanced at him sharply. “You can’t take that in there. You don’t need it.” Paul looked a little sheepish, Mark went on, “And we’ll have to leave the duffle, too. I can’t manage it. We’ll just have to put it in the cab and lock up.”

They strolled across the lot slowly, McCormick wishing for the umpteenth time that there had been an answer when he’d called home to Gull’s Way from the last two stops. He didn’t know what the plan was after this, and he doubted that Paul did, either.

It took a moment to adjust to the cool dimness of the lobby. Mark led them to the front desk but Paul was already talking, a little shyly it seemed. “Allison Hanley?”

The receptionist looked down in her book and said “Two-oh-five, east.” She pointed to the elevator. “Family?”

“Son,” Paul said simply. “And her brother.” He pointed over at McCormick, who smiled wanly.

The receptionist looked briefly concerned. “You okay?” she smiled up at Mark. “You look, um . . .”

“A touch of the sun,” he reassured her, and tried not to lean too obviously on the kid as they walked over to the elevator.

“I’ll let them know you’re coming up,” the clerk said dubiously as they stepped onto the elevator.

There was a nurse in the upstairs hallway. “I’m Shelly,” she introduced herself hastily. "I’m one of Allison’s regular nurses.” She looked back and forth between the two and finally settled her attention on Paul. “I didn’t know she was having company today. Have you seen her recently?”

Paul shook his head. “Two years.”

The nurse gave McCormick a sharp, disapproving look, then down at Paul again, “She’s not having one of her good days. She might not know who you are.”

“That’s okay,” Paul said quietly. “Sometimes she didn’t even then.” He hesitated for a moment and then pushed the door open.

Mark stood there in the hallway behind him, vaguely aware that he was being expected to follow him in. The nurse leaned over and whispered, “You should have called.”

“Sorry,” McCormick mumbled, “Paul can be very insistent.” He pushed the half-open door with one hand.

The shades were drawn against the late afternoon sun. The woman in the bed was neat and tidy, well-cared for, and utterly blank. Paul stood next to the bed, her hand loosely held in his. Her face was not turned to him, nor particularly turned away.

Mark stayed back along the wall by the door, trying not to be in the way. Shelly had, after a moment’s glance at the boy, stepped back outside.

“Mom?” Paul whispered once. There was no flicker on the woman’s face. He continued on, his voice low, but now clearly not directed at his mother. “It started with spells, you know. It was after I was born. But she was okay a lot of the time. She took medicine. She worked for one of the casinos.”

He turned to look at Mark. “She was really, really smart. Math. Statistics. It was like breathing for her.” He looked back at his mother, putting her hand down carefully on the cover. “One of the doctors, early on, said it was stress, and I tried so damn hard to be less stressful.” Paul shook his head in disgust. “Anyway, it wasn’t stress, it was schizophrenia.”

Paul patted the hand on the coverlet absentmindedly. “But sometimes I think being a single mom didn’t help.”

Mark shook his head. “Other people decided that; that’s the one thing you can’t be held responsible for.”

“Yeah, I know.” Paul smiled incongruously. There was a long pause in the dim, silent room, then the kid added, “You know they say insanity is hereditary,” the smile had fallen a little off to one side; his voice was perfectly even. “You get it from your kids.” He gave the hand one last pat and then leaned forward unembarrassedly to kiss her on the forehead. They he turned away and led Mark through the door.

Shelly was still in the hallway, not too far away. She had her eyes on Paul as he emerged. The kid smiled at her and said, “She looks . . . okay.”

Shelly put her hand on his shoulder. “You should come back, maybe call first. She has days when she’s more there.”

“I dunno,” Paul replied looking over his shoulder, “maybe it’s just better to stick with how she was.”

“Maybe,” Shelly said doubtfully. She was staring down past Paul, at the floor between them and the room they’d just left. Mark saw a twinge of puzzlement, then alarm, in her expression, and he followed her gaze a moment before she said, “You’re bleeding.”

The crimson drops made a neat trail that ended with a rapidly increasing cluster right where Mark was now standing. He reached for his left wrist and felt the wet cuff. He heard Paul saying something about an accident and someone was pushing him toward a chair.

“I’m okay,” he protested as another nurse came up, as someone--it was Shelly-- peeled back the still-dry edge of his jacket and said to someone else, “Call 911.”

They put his head down--he didn’t protest; he really was feeling like crap by now. He saw Paul out of the corner of his eye, looking kind of pale himself.

He grabbed for the kid’s wrist with his good hand and said, urgently, “Go get your stuff, Paul.” He reached into his pants packet, scrabbling with sticky fingers for the key. “Here,” he passed it over, “can you manage it?”

Paul nodded worriedly. “I got it out to the car.”

He watched the kid go, then put his head back and hissed in pain as someone applied pressure to his arm. Well, at least it’s not numb anymore.

He turned his head to the side at the sound of some movement and saw Paul, sitting in a chair with the canister and the duffle at his feet.

“You’ve been unconscious,” the kid said with worried asperity.

“No,” Mark corrected mildly, “I’ve been asleep. And so far I’m not handcuffed to anything, so I’d say the day is improving. Why’d you bring that damn canister in here?”

Paul looked down, then up again. “You told me to get my stuff . . . anyway--”

“Well, probably safer in here than leaving it out in that truck,” Mark finished impatiently. “Have the police gotten here yet? What time is it?”

“Yeah,” the kid replied crankily, “they have. It’s about seven.”

McCormick frowned. “So how come I’m not under arrest? I mean, at least the truck. What’ya tell ‘em?”

“Not much,” Paul answered. “I pretended I was a kid. I didn’t want to start a panic. So, so far, you’re just a victim. I think they want to talk to you, though.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” McCormick conceded. “Where the hell is the NRC when you need it? Maybe we can call them, let them know where we are.” He looked around for a phone. “And we gotta reach Hardcastle--”

As if on cue, there was the sound of rising voices from a ways off, drawing closer and, among the multitude; one who’s gravely familiarity left McCormick with the strange combination of worry and relief. He must’ve gotten my message. But then he did the math and realized that wasn’t possible. Didn’t matter, he told himself. As long as he’d made it.

The voices were louder and clearer now and a second later the curtain was yanked open. McCormick laid his head back and blinked a couple times. The guy from the parking lot, sans sunglasses, and now with dark, angry eyes, had his hand on the curtain. His eyes swept the room and stopped on Paul and what was at his feet.

Just behind him was Hardcastle, who stepped past the other man in the direction of the gurney and flashed a look at McCormick that said,  ‘Are you okay?’ and ‘Good, in that case I’m gonna kill you when I get you home.’ all in one breath-taking glance. Mark managed a thin smile.

Then everyone was talking at once again, including the doctor who was insisting that none of this was going to happen in his ER, and a guy in uniform, the Henderson Police no doubt, who just wanted to know what the hell was going on.

“Shattup,” the judge announced stentoriously. It had the desired effect for just long enough for him to establish a couple of ground rules. “Gentlemen, my name is Hardcastle and I am this kid’s lawyer.” He pointed at Paul. “His, too.” He added McCormick as an apparent afterthought. “If you want to talk to either of them, you talk to me first.”

The other man bristled, “That kid’s--”

“Patterson, isn’t it?” the judge interjected smoothly. “NRC, I hear?”

Patterson’s eyes narrowed. “I have the authority to take this boy and his luggage, into custody.”

“Let’s see the ID,” Hardcastle smiled cooperatively. Patterson was reaching for his wallet. Hardcastle’s smile became mildly shark-like. “The real ID . . . and then the warrant.”

Patterson froze. He glared at the judge and started to open his mouth. “Mister Patterson,” Hardcastle cut him off peremptorily, “if you try to take my client and his luggage out of here. I think we’re just going to have to let all these folks here know exactly what it is you’re after.” Hardcastle gestured to the area beyond the cubicle, where he now had the attentive interest of bystanders and staff. “Ma’am,” he gestured to a middle-aged lady a few feet away, sitting in a wheelchair with her newly-casted ankle propped up, “may I ask your name?” The judge was almost courtly.

“Kimball,” the woman looked surprised, “Marilyn Kimball.”

“You’re from Henderson?” he smiled.

“Ah, yes,” she said, “I teach school. Sixth grade.”

“And you sir?” he raised his voice to a man standing over by the far wall.

“I’m just waiting for my prescription,” the man replied, confused.

“No, I mean your name?”

“Ah, Ferguson.”

“From around here?”

“No, visiting Lake Mead. I have a boat.”

“Have all of you met Mr. Patterson?” the judge gestured broadly to include the dozen or so people within eyesight and then back at the fuming man.

“Dammit,” Patterson muttered under his breath, “you have no idea.”

“Yes, I do,” the judge had dropped his voice to match Patterson’s, “but in this country we don’t ‘disappear’ people, and we have search warrants, and arrest warrants.”

He let the man seethe for a moment, and then launched himself in a more conciliatory tone, now only audible to those in the cubicle. “On the other hand, it is entirely possible that my client, Mr. Hanley, would give you his luggage, and any other information you might require,” his voice dropped even lower, “if I see your other ID, and if I make some phone calls first.”

“Who the hell are you, anyway?” Patterson muttered.

“I told’ja, the kids’ lawyer.”  He made a gesture for the man to follow him. “Doc, you’ve got a room with a phone we can use? I’d like to get this circus out of your ER as soon as I can.”

The doctor glanced down at the duffle and up at the judge and at Patterson. “NRC?” he asked, his one eyebrow going up questioningly. “Yeah, there’s a room in the back here.”

Hardcastle turned to the uniformed cop and smiled politely, “Officer, you’re going to be watching things here?” The officer nodded mutely. “Good,” the judge smiled, pointing at McCormick, “Don’t let that one get away.”

Then he was gone, leaving a giddy silence in his wake. Paul looked at Mark, who shook his head slowly and smiled, “I think I saw that scene in a Frank Capra movie once.”

“We’re not going to be arrested?”

“Dunno,” McCormick shook his head, “There’s still the truck.”

“I’ll tell ‘em I made you do it.”

“You know, Paul, if there was any way I didn’t have to tell him about that part--”

The doctor was back, still looking mildly concerned and stepping around the duffle with more care than previously. He checked McCormick’s pulses and the dressing one more time, then nodded his satisfaction.

Shortly after that the nurse returned, made him sit up, took his blood pressure one last time, and removed the IV. “I’ll be back with your papers in a sec,” she said.

A moment later the judge returned, with a quieter, less hostile Patterson in tow. “Paul,” the judge began, in an oddly formal tone, “Mr. Patterson here would like your permission to take this bag and its contents into his custody. As your counsel I’d advise you to accept that offer.”

“It’s yours,” Paul breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you,” he added to the judge.

Patterson reached for the duffle and, without further discussion, turned to go.

“Wait a minute,” McCormick interrupted, “what about the canister?” He pointed down at the fast food bag a little to the left of the chair.

“Mark--” Paul began to speak

Patterson’s eyebrows rose, “What the hell’s that?”

“Paul?”

The kid was leaning forward in his seat, hands propped on the edge, on either side of his knees, his eyes cast downwards. “Americium,” he murmured softly, “241, about a hundred kilobecquerels.”

This statement was met by a row of blank stares. “Um, three micro-curies, that’s about one one-thousanths of a gram.” He reached down and picked up the canister, reaching inside to the lid without removing the bag. Mark drew in a breath as he took it off and held it out to the others. There were three miniscule gold packets taped inside the lid; the rest of the container was filled with sand.

Paul looked down at his construction. “They’re the ion emitters from some smoke detectors. The sand’s from the ash tray in the lobby of the physics building.” He looked at Mark embarrassedly, “I’m sorry.”

Hardcastle looked at the kid, and then McCormick. “He snookered you, huh?”

“Yeah,” Mark shook his head, “but he did this really effective thing with a Geiger counter.”

“Geiger-Muller counter,” Paul corrected automatically. “They’re good alpha particle emitters.”

Patterson laughed harshly and left. The police officer shook his head and muttered. “What the hell am I gonna put on the report?” then also walked away.

Mark scooted off the gurney, watching the officer leave. “That’s it?” he asked in disbelief.

“Not by a long shot, kiddo,” the judge growled. “You better get dressed.” He led a very subdued Paul out of the room.

“There’s packing in the back of the wound,” she said. “It needs to come out on Monday. It’s all on the papers. See your doctor.”

Oh, good, Charlie will get to hear all about this debacle, too. It amazed McCormick how the compellingly correct decisions of the moment could appear so blindingly idiotic in retrospect.

She put his arm in a sling. He was grateful for this. True, it was starting to ache again, but he also had the vague notion that this visible reminder of his injuries might keep Hardcase from hauling off and clocking him when the upcoming discussion got heated. He hoped so, anyway.

He wandered out into the hallway, finding the judge and a downcast Paul just outside the curtain.

The judge looked him up and down and asked, “All set?” in such a mild tone that McCormick almost jumped in surprise.

“Um, yeah.”

“Okay, car’s outside.”

“We’re not all gonna fit.”

“Frank’s.”

McCormick made a silent ‘oh’. The list of witnesses was getting longer and longer.

“It’ll be tight with the five of us,” the judge continued.

Paul was still walking with his eyes downward, McCormick had been given drugs, neither one was paying much attention to the math. But the man waiting impatiently in the back seat of Frank’s car didn’t wait any longer once they emerged from the ER entrance.

“Pawel?” he shouted across two rows of cars, as Frank grabbed his arm and tried to get things back under control.

Paul’s eyes lifted and a look of profound disbelief crossed his face for a split instant, followed by the visual confirmation of what he’d heard, and a whoop of absolute amazement. He dashed across, ducking between cars, and was swept up in the professor’s embrace.

“Mlotkowski?” McCormick asked, as he turned to the judge.

“Yup,” came the reply, with some satisfaction.

“But we thought he was--”

“Dead? Yeah, that’s what everybody thought. Heck, they still think it. He even left a note for the Redondo Police Department.”

McCormick swayed a little, trying to adjust the schematic one more time. Hardcastle had him firmly under the arm and signaled Frank to bring the car around. A few moments later he was settled in the back seat, with Paul in the middle and the professor on the far side.

The judge got in the front passenger seat. As Frank pulled out of the lot, Hardcastle turned halfway around so he could see the three of them.

“Now here’s the deal,” he began matter-of-factly, as though averting a nuclear disaster had been on his ‘to-do’ list all along. “Patterson and his crew are high-tailing it back to the San Bernardino county lock-up to get their arms dealers. I wish ‘em luck; they’ve got some very tough prosecutors there. The two Russian guys have no reason not to think you’re dead, Professor, but since we don’t know for sure that there aren’t more where they came from, I’d suggest you stay dead for at least a couple more weeks.”

“McCormick?” he turned his attention to Mark, huddled down at the far end looking guilty as hell. “That piece of junk you drove into town? Is it road worthy enough to get to Fresno?”

“But, Judge it’s--”

“I’m askin’ you about its driving qualities, not its pedigree.”

McCormick swallowed once, turned to Paul and said, “There’s still half a gallon of water left. I’d pick up a couple more before you leave town. Keep an eye on the gauge; it starts creeping up even a little, you pull over and give it some time. Professor, you drive stick?”

“Since I was a boy.”

“Good, this is an old Ford three. Very straightforward.”

They were pulling into the lot of the nursing home. The truck sat forlornly where it had been left.

The judge dug in his pocket for his wallet. “Here,” he said, “You’ll need the papers.” He’d pulled out the pink slip. McCormick’s eyes got slightly wider.  He also took out some cash. “This’ll tide you over for the next couple of days. I’ll reach you via General Delivery, Fresno. You can reach me at Gull’s Way. Paul knows the address. If you send me a paper authorizing me with Power of Attorney, I can send you whatever else you need. I mean, if that’s okay with you. I’m already his lawyer.” The judge pointed at Paul.

The professor was almost speechless. “I . . . I’d be delighted.”

“Good, you and the kid can take a vacation. You look like you could use one. I’m thinking this won’t have to be a long-term arrangement. Those two guys in the lock-up are probably in so much trouble with their higher-ups that you and your family will be completely forgotten. But worse comes to worst, you change your name, change Paul’s. I know a real friendly judge up in Fresno, Al Tunney. I’ll talk to him.”

“Paul Stefanski,” the kid piped up. Mark and the judge looked at him. The professor’s mouth opened soundlessly, and then closed in a smile.

The judge nodded once and then went on, almost to himself, “I suppose somebody from DCFS is gonna have to know what’s going on. I’ll take care of that . . . eventually.” And then, out loud, “And Kristoff will have to know. Otherwise he’ll probably call the cops when McCormick shows up for class on Tuesday.” Mark looked aghast at yet another aspect of the future discussion.

“That about cover it?” The judge was climbing out. The professor did the same.

Paul turned toward Mark and said, very earnestly, “Thank you . . . and I am sorry.” He patted him gently on the good shoulder. “And I hope I didn’t get you into too much trouble, but the judge seems really nice.”

McCormick heard a stifled laugh from Frank in the driver’s seat, which he supposed ought to be reassuring, because Frank wouldn’t be laughing if he thought he was going to have to fill out all the paperwork that would go with charges.

“S’okay, Paul,” McCormick sighed. “I told you I’ve had worse days. Really.”

“And I’ll keep the truck. I’m gonna fix it up. You’ll see. I’ll read up on it.”

“Okay.” Mark made a face at the heap of junk sitting next to them in the lot. “That’s the optimism of youth. Wait’ll you find out. You don’t own something like that; it owns you.”

Paul was out of the car. He looked up, momentarily, at the nursing home looming across the lot, then he turned back to the truck. Mark saw him fetch the bottle from the cab, pop the hood, and fill the radiator. Then two of them were climbing in and waving good-bye. The judge watched them depart before rejoining Frank in the front seat.

He checked his watch. “We can make that truck stop by eleven, eleven-thirty. I don’t want to leave my pick-up there over night. A lot of truck thefts around there, I hear.”

Frank laughed again. Mark nestled down sideways on the back seat, shivered once, and wrapped his good arm around the other. Frank cranked the heat up and the judge slipped his jacket off and tossed it back at him.

“Come on,” the Judge was thumping him on the knee. “Halfway home.”

He saw the truck parked where he’d left it, only that morning, though it seemed more like several weeks ago. He straightened out and edged toward the open door.

The judge grabbed his jacket before it slid to the floor. “Here,” he said gruffly, “put this thing on before you catch pneumonia.” He held it out for McCormick to slip on his good arm and then pulled it over his bad shoulder, an easy fit. Mark stood there feeling a little dazed while the judge buttoned him up.

“You two okay?” Frank was leaning out the driver’s window, eager to be off.

“Yeah, Frank,” the judge waved him off. “Thanks for everything; I owe you one.”

Frank laughed as he pulled away.

It occurred to Mark that, though he’d had a ground-eye view of what had gone on the last twenty-four hours or so, he was sorely lacking in the Big Picture. He was pretty sure Hardcastle would fill him in sometime during the interrogation. But the interrogation seemed to be a long time coming.

He climbed wearily into the passenger side, then winced as he noticed the cheeseburger wrappers on the floor. “I meant to get those out of there before we took off again,” he apologized.

“Yeah,” Hardcastle grumbled, “in-between triggering a three-state nuclear emergency and grand theft auto.”

“That Patterson guy showed up; we had to leave in a hurry, and,” he added after a moment’s thought, “there was nothing ‘grand’ about that auto. How much did you pay for it?”

“Three hundred.”

McCormick cast a sideways glance at him. “You were robbed.”

“I was in a hurry. He wanted five hundred.”

“Well, thank you anyway.” He eased down and leaned his head back against the seat.

The judge made a general gesture in the direction of his arm and asked, “You’re not going to make a habit of this, I hope?”

“Yeah, yeah,” McCormick sighed, “like it’s never happened to you,” he slid comfortably into the banter.

“Not like that it hasn’t,” the judge insisted, “taking on a guy with an AK-47 barehanded is just . . . stupid.”

“Well, that was Paul. And he wasn’t barehanded; he had the damn canister. And his IQ probably just about equals yours and mine put together.”

“Now, you’d have to say that, wouldn’t you,” the judge pointed out. “After all, he snookered you, didn’t he?”

“That he did.” McCormick smiled slightly. “The thing with the Geiger counter, the Geiger-Muller counter, was damn effective.”

“Lucky for you.”

“What?”

“Him giving you an excuse and all.”

McCormick sputtered indignantly, “Is that what you think? That I’d go tearing across the state with some kid on some kind of a . . . a mission to save some guy I never even met.  With crazy arms dealers and unmarked government agents after me, risk my parole and--”

“Yeah,” the judge interrupted calmly, “I do.”

McCormick shut his mouth firmly. There was a long silence.

“Anyway,” Hardcastle glanced at him, and began again, on a different tack, “so when is the graduation?”

Mark was staring straight ahead, an absolutely unreadable look on his face. “Well,” he had dropped his voice to something little more than an exhalation, “at this rate, I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about it.”

“Nah, I talked to that kid while you were getting dressed. He says you’ve got it nailed.”

“He did?” McCormick looked surprised.

“Yeah, so when is it?”

“End of December.”

“And was I going to get an invitation?” the judge prodded just a little harder.

“I think I’m a little old for that walking across the stage stuff, Judge. I figured it’ll be ceremonial enough if I open the letter in the dining room instead of the kitchen.”

“Too bad,” Hardcastle looked a little disappointed. “It only happens once.”

Not if I can help it.

Tell him about law school.

Not yet.

The judge yawned. “I dunno, kid,” changing tacks again, “I don’t think I’ve got two and a half more hours of driving in me, and I’m sure as hell not letting you behind the wheel.”

McCormick looked out the window, equally weary, grateful for the change of subject. He surveyed the familiar stretch of road. “There’s a motel up ahead, quiet, off the road.”

“Good place to park a truck where the state troopers won’t notice it, if it’s been reported stolen?”

“You didn’t do that, did you? Report it stolen, I mean.”

The judge shook his head. “But you weren’t sure, were you, huh?”

“I was pretty sure. There,” he pointed, “the one on the left.”

Hardcastle surveyed it with a jaundiced eye as he pulled off. “Looks a little run down; how are the beds?”

“Dunno,” McCormick replied cryptically. “They’ve got baseboard heat, though.”

Hardcastle chuckled at this non-sequiter. Though he pretty much figured he had the Big Picture, it was gonna be entertaining as hell prying out the details.






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