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Gunther.
    "The equipment's all set up. You'll be able to watch everything in your office," Gunther said.
    "I'll call you when we're ready to move."
    "Gunther?"
    "Yes?"
    "Be careful."
    "You worry too much."
    "You can't replace the things you love deeply."
    "I'll be careful," Gunther said and hung up.
    Faust's mouth was still tingling from the special mouthwash he used to neutralize any lingering bacteria. He slid his tongue across the smooth texture of his upper lip and looked out the window. To pass the time, he imagined Raymond Bouchard lying crumpled at his feet, naked and trembling as he begged for his life, terrified to turn around and stare down at the yawning valley of bones.
    Major Dixon was throwing up again. This time he was doing it outside, around the corner of the Snack Shack so the skydiving instructors wouldn't see him. His painfully thin body was hunched forward, one hand splayed against the chipped blue paint, the other fiercely gripping the rim of a stainless-steel water bubbler. His sweating face turned an unnatural shade of deep crimson as he hurled more undigested remnants of his breakfast against the ground and sprinkled his sneakers and the yellow pant legs of his jumper's suit.
    "A minute," Dixon wheezed when he stopped gagging. His nasal voice was pure Texas and had a slight, high-pitched whine to it.
    "Just give me a minute and I'll be fine, I promise."
    Conway didn't say a word, just drank his coffee, his fourth cup. He was awake now, wired; behind it, he could feel his anger building, the way a car slowly warms up on a frigid New England winter morning.
    He had tried talking Dix out of this skydiving nonsense at breakfast, but Dix didn't want to hear it. They were going today. End of discussion.
    Very unlike Dixon.
    Conway looked across the wide, sprawling burnt-green field. An hour and a half drive out of Austin, and now they were standing in some town that didn't deserve to have a name. The skydiving school and the Snack Shack were the only signs of civilization on the lonely stretch of highway. As Conway looked around his remote setting, the air hot and smelling of baked dirt and dead grass, he was gripped with an overwhelming feeling of isolation. Somewhere beyond that deep, hard blue sky a satellite was locked on them, watching and listening.
    Come on, Pasha, call and tell me what the heirs going on.
    "You were right, I shouldn't have had that big breakfast," Dixon said, and then straightened up, slowly. He took a mouthful of water, gargled and spit. When he was done, he placed his head in the bubbler. Cold water sluiced off his face and hair.
    At five foot six, Dixon was a good six inches shorter than Con-way, and had a shallow chest with thin arms and legs that carried no muscle tone the kind of body more suited to a twelve-year-old boy than a thirty-two-year-old computer genius. His eyes were set deep in his skull and close together and wide, giving him a look of perpetual wonder. The cheerful demeanor he projected to the outside world masked the sadness of a man who realized he was invisible through no fault of his own.
    Dixon used his sleeve to wipe down his face. He had become a pro at blowing his lunch. Conway had seen the surveillance tapes of Dixon throwing up at the office, at his condo Conway even knew about the most recent development, the blood. Dix had an ulcer.
    Which made the job of trying to keep him sedated next to impossible.
    Dix had suffered from panic attacks for a good part of his adult life, but it was only over the last few weeks, as today's meeting date drew closer, that the attacks intensified, becoming a daily occurrence that seemed to be inching him closer to having a nervous breakdown. Dixon usually kept it together at work, where his mind was focused on some bit of code or technical problem, but later, when he went home alone to his small condo, some disturbing word or image would worm its way into his mind and disrupt the normal, rational flow of his thoughts. He