Richard dressed fast and shot down to his car, then pushed and repeatedly exceeded the speed limit. He pulled into the motel's lot five minutes early. The place was an ugly, no-frills model, its two stories overlooking only the freeway.

It was a cut above a fleabag, but a very narrow slice. Richard drove slowly now, the window open.

A man broke away from where he'd been hiding next to a bank of soft drink machines, rushing over. He was in a rumpled dark suit, tie gone, clutching a leather laptop bag to his chest like a life preserver. He went straight to the passenger side and ducked inside. Richard gunned them away.

Luis sank down in the seat, his eyes shut. His face was flushed and sweating; he'd been drinking to judge by his breath. Quite a lot, apparently.

"Have you been there all this time?" Richard asked.

"Mm?"

"How long were you at that motel?"

"Since this afternoon."

"Where before that?"

"My car. I drove around. I didn't know what to do. My car's back there..."

"Leave it; you need to disappear."

A bitter laugh. "That does not work so well. God, Stephanie tried to tell me something was wrong."

And you didn't listen. But voicing reproach would help neither of them now. "Tell me what happened when you left work Friday."

"Friday?"

"You didn't go straight home after work. Where were you?" "I had an appointment. I was looking at a horse for Stephanie. Her birthday present. The man and I got to talking; we had some beers. I called home to let her know I'd be late, left a message. I thought she'd just taken the kids out for pizza. When I phoned later, I got a recording that said the line was out of service. So I left. When I got there... it was gone, they were gone."

Luis spoke like a robot, dead-toned, dead-faced, then broke down, trying to stifle his sobs. He couldn't speak, struggled to master himself. Finally he opened the laptop case and pulled out a nearly empty bottle of brandy and drained the last inch from it.

Richard understood the feeling. He'd want to get drunk, too. "Then what did you do?"

"I don't remember much. I drove. I don't know where. I drove for hours, was afraid to stop. Spent the night in the car at some truck station south of the city. Heard the news report on the radio. It felt like everyone was looking at me. I kept seeing Alejandro's face. My own brother. I never really believed he'd do it, maybe kill me but not my woman, not my children." He was out of liquor, but tried to take a pull from the bottle anyway. He didn't seem to notice it was empty.

"Then what did you do?"

"Drove some more. I was tired. The motel looked okay. They took cash in advance, and I used a false name."

"Why didn't you call the police?"

"Alejandro. He'd have people looking for me to do just that. He knows how to buy people; he can buy anything he wants, even death. No place is safe from him. You said we'd be safe. How did he find us? Where the hell were you? Did you tell him?"

That would be the booze, grief, and anger doing the shouting. Richard waited until the momentum faltered. "Don't be foolish, of course not."

"That bastard. I will kill him. Somehow, I will kill him for this, for everything."

"Do you know where he is?"

"If I did, I would not be here." Luis slumped even lower and went silent. He remained so until New Karnak came into view, then sat up, full of alarm. "We can't go here! He will know this is where I work. This is where he will look for me!"

"He won't find you, I promise."

"No! Let me out! He will have people watching this place!"

"Then don't let them see you. You'll be safe once we're inside. Get below the window line."

"You're crazy."

"Luis, please do what I say."

Luis responded less to Richard's soft order and more to the fact that he had no choice in the matter. He cursed and grumbled and slouched low, remaining that way even after Richard parked and got out. He held the elevator door.

"All right-now."

Luis scrambled over, head down as though dodging a bullet. "This place is not safe. It can't be."

"Alejandro will be looking for you to return to your office, not my flat. He doesn't know about me." Not the truth, but Luis didn't need to hear everything just yet. He did need reassurance and another drink. He wasn't thinking straight, and the sooner he got thoroughly numbed into sleep the better. By morning he might be useful.

In the harsh light of the elevator he looked worse than bad: two-day beard stubble, the whites showing all around his red-rimmed eyes, the air of defeat. Rest would help, but not cure him.

The door hummed open, and they stepped into the penthouse. It was as Richard had left it: no intruders lurked in the corners. Richard went to the bar and cracked open a fresh bottle of brandy from the store of assorted bottles in the cabinet. He always kept a supply for guests. He poured a triple and handed it to Luis, who took it without comment and drank.

He'd never been up here before. He looked around incuriously until spying the framed photo of his daughters on the desk. Then he turned away. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" "You hurt, too. I forgot that."

Richard motioned at the couch. "Sit down. I've some good news for you."

He didn't sit so much as back into it, then drop. "Good news? How?"

"Michael is alive."

"Michael... ?" Luis shook his head. "What? But how? The place was leveled."

"I found him hiding in the pump house. Just a few bruises. He's safe with a doctor now, getting first-rate care."

Unlooked-for hope flooded Luis's face, replacing disbelief. "Where? What doctor? Take me to him!"

"In the morning."

"No! Now! I must see him!" He dropped his glass and boosted up, trying to cross to the elevator, but was too unsteady on his feet. He bumped into a table, nearly sending it and himself over. He caught his balance just in time and stood swaying.

"Luis, he will be asleep; waking him up will only frighten him."

"He needs his father; he won't be frightened of me."

"That won't be a good idea just now." Not in your condition, my friend.

"What do you mean?"

"He was very traumatized. I think he saw everything that happened, and it put him into some kind of shock. He's not been able to talk-"

"Then I must go to him."

"In the morning, first thing."

"But-"

"Look at yourself. Charging in the way you are now will upset him even more. He needs to know that his father is calm and in control of himself. When adults can't control their emotions, it frightens children. His world has been turned inside out; because of that you have to be strong for him."

"I can be calm." There was an edge in his tone.

"You'll be more convincing after you've slept. Clean up and get some rest. You've both been through hell. Show him it's possible to survive."

Luis framed his head with his hands, pressing hard on his temples. "How is it possible? Everything was fine yesterday. And now..."

Richard understood that all too well. He'd seen it far too often. "One hour at a time, then one day at a time, no more."

"I don't know if I can stand it."

"You will. For Michael you will."

"Yes." But his voice was dead. "Did he say anything to you at all?"

"No. He's cried a little, but he doesn't speak. The doctor will be finding him a specialist if he doesn't wake out of it soon. He'll need special care no matter what."

Luis took a step forward, seemed to think better of it and sank into an armchair. "And you found him? How did you come to be there?"

"I got an e-mail SOS from Stephanie early Friday morning. Like the one you sent me tonight."

"Yes, she taught me how to do that when we moved here. Made me memorize the code. For emergency. I didn't think to use it until tonight when I saw the motel had an access. I didn't know you were already here."

"I flew straight down." He'd not known that Stephanie had confided the code to Luis. Until now it had been his own private gift to her. For all the good it had done. "Just what disturbed her enough to call for help?"

He spread his hands. "Little things. The stable door was open one morning. I thought one of the kids did it. There were two hikers in the fields once. She said they hung about all day as though watching the house. That bothered me a bit, but only because I thought they might be burglars, so I just said to take extra care about the locking up. We each had a pistol in case of trouble. I was not worried. I wish I'd listened to her."

And I, too. "She told me to come to the house after dark as usual, but by then it was too late."

"How too late?"

"They... were gone by then. I arrived hours too late."

Luis looked steadily at him. "What did you see? Tell me."

"They'd been shot. It was quick. They could not have suffered. They likely never knew what hit them."

"Stephanie... was she... ?"

Richard instantly interpreted the unfinished question. "No. No one touched her."

"A small mercy from a man who knows none. An oversight, I'm sure. The news said it was an explosion, but you saw them."

"I was in the house, yes. I looked for you and Michael, then I smelled the Semtex. It went up just as I got out." Best to keep the truth short and the rest unsaid. Richard wished his own memory could be revised or at least softened.

"A wonder that you are alive."

"And you as well. I believe Alejandro's hit man was watching from cover and was waiting for you to come home.

He mistook me for you and set the place off."

"My God."

"But I got clear, and he totally missed Michael. Alejandro is not all-powerful."

Luis shook his head, not ready to believe that.

"Tell me-why did you erase all the e-mails on your office computer?"

"What?" The subject shift confused him. He had to hear the question again. "You were in my office?"

"I was trying to find you. I noticed those files were deleted. Why?"

"I always delete everything at the end of a day. It means I've dealt with all the work. I don't leave until I've cleared it out."

"Your address book was clean, too."

"That I did later-at a coffee house."

"They had a phone line for that?"

"A public computer."

"At a coffee house?"

Luis shrugged. "It is a modern age. The young people go to such places. I was afraid Alejandro might somehow find the addresses, make trouble for the people, so I deleted that to be safe."

In the midst of his grief, Luis's survival skills had tardily kicked in. There was hope for his recovery, after all.

"Richard-have you spoken to the police?"

"Not yet."

"Why not?"

"I don't want them to know about me."

"They need to know who to look for. You can tell them."