Marilyn found the mist reassuring. Small wonder they had had such a difficult night. She pushed herself off the aware of a persistent, unsettling tightness in her chest-a band that seemed to prevent her taking in a full, deep breath.
'Richard?'' She called his name, waited a moment, then stepped into the small courtyard. He was seated, facing away from her, in a high-backed wicker chair.
'Richard, you should see all the dust in the air in there. It's no wonder-' She crossed in front of him and stopped in mid-sentence.
Her husband was awake and meeting her gaze, but she had never seen him look worse. His color was an ashen, dusky gray; his eyes, hollow, flat, and lusterless. His breaths, drawn through cracked, pursed lips, were rapid and shallow. It was as if he had aged decades in just one night.
'I'm sick,' he managed to say.
'I can see that. Richard, I'm going to get Dr. Barber.' Before he could reply she hurried off. By the time she had reached the clinic, not fifty feet away, she had to stop and catch her breath.
Barber, wearing a white lab coat over his sport clothes, listened to her account with concern.
'It's almost certainly an allergic reaction,' he said. 'Last year a congressman who came out to check on the program had a similar reaction.
The mold, probably. I'm a psychiatrist, but I have some training in internal medicine as well. I'll have a look at your husband. Some Benadryl, and maybe a little bit of Adrenalin, and hell be better in no time.'
Within a few minutes of receiving the medication Richard did seem better, although Marilyn was not certain whether the improvement was due to Barber's treatment or the news that the mechanic had arrived back with Charity's Land Rover and was confident he could repair their Jeep.
At Barber's insistence, she allowed herself to be checked over and dosed with two capsules of Benadryl and a shot of Adrenalin.
Then, after packing their knapsack and taking a supply of Benadryl from Barber, they set off in the Land Rover to retrace the to the Jeep indicated by Richard's careful notes and compass readings. The mechanic, a taciturn Native American who gave his name only as John, seemed to know the desert well.
'Nine mile,' he said. 'That is how far you walked.'
'Seemed farther,' Richard managed before yielding once again to a salvo of violent coughing.
'Nine mile,' John said again.
Marilyn reached over and wiped a bit of pink froth from the corner of her husband's mouth. His complexion had once again begun to darken, and his fingernails were almost violet. Still, he sat forward gamely, following his notes as, one by one, they passed the landmarks he had noted. Watching him, Marilyn sensed a rebirth of the pride and caring that had long ago vanished from her feelings toward the man.
'John, will you direct us to the nearest hospital?' she asked, aware of the band once more tightening around her chest.
'St. Joe,' the Indian replied. 'TWenty-five, — six mile due east from where your Jeep will be.'
'Half a day?'
'Maybe. Maybe more.'
Struggling to ignore her own increasing shortness of breath, Marilyn wiped off the sheen of dusty sweat that covered Richard's forehead.
'Richard, maybe we should go back to the clinic.'
'No… I'm okay,' he rasped, coughing between words. 'Let's just get… the Jeep fixed… and get… the hell… out of… here.'
Marilyn washed another Benadryl down with a swig from their canteen, and then helped him do the same. Minutes later, in spite of herself, she, too, began to cough.
The nine-mile drive over roadless terrain took most of two hours.
The repair of the Jeep took considerably less than one. Richard tried to help, but by the time John had finished, Richard had given and was slumped in the passenger seat, leaning against the door, bathed in sweat.
'Okay, Mrs.' John said. 'Start her up.'
The engine turned over at a touch.
'Could You follow us for a ways?' she asked, fighting the sensation in her chest with all her strength.
'Ten, twelve minutes is all. Dr. Barber needs me back. There's a dirt road nine, ten mile due east.
Impossible to miss. Turn south on it. Go ten mile more to Highway Fifty. Then right. I hope your husband feel better soon.'
Marilyn thanked the man, attempted unsuccessfully to pay him, and then drove off as rapidly as she could manage, trying at once to keep track of the compass, Richard, and ruts in the hard desert floor.
Strapped into his seat, Richard had mercifully fallen asleep.
After one-half mile by her odometer, John tooted, gave her a thumbs-up sign, and then swung off to the south.
She hadn't driven another half mile when the tightness in her chest intensified. Relax, she urged herself. Don't panic…
Don't panic. An audible gurgling welling up from her chest began to accompany each breath. Fear, unlike any she had ever known, swept her restive. She stopped the Jeep.
'Richard, wake up,' she gasped. 'I can't breathe. I can't-' She reached over and touched his arm. His hand drop to his side.
Richard!'
The name, though she screamed it, was barely audible. She grabbed her husband by the chin and turned his face around to her. It was puffed and gentian; his eyes were open but sightless. Thick pink froth oozed from the corners of his mouth.
Marilyn undid his web belt. As she staggered around the Jeep to the passenger door, she felt liquid percolate into her throat She stumbled and fell heavily to her knees at the moment she pulled open the door.
Richard's body toppled from the seat and landed heavily on her, pinning her to the ground. She struggled to push him aside, but her strength was gone. Soon, her will was gone as well. She slipped her arms around him and locked her thumbs in his belt loops.
Directly above her the sun drifted into view and passed across the sky without hurting her eyes or even causing her to blink. Over what seemed minutes, but might have been hours, she felt a strange peacefulness settle in. With that peacefulness came another feeling-a connection to Richard, a sense of closeness to him more intense than any she had ever known.
And she was sure, as she felt the weight of him lessen and then vanish, that he was alive. He was alive, and he knew she was there with him.
Marilyn's breathing grew less labored. Inwardly, she smiled.
Outwardly, the sun had set A chill evening wind rose from the west, sweeping a film of fine desert sand over the Jeep and the two inert figures locked in embrace on the ground beside it.
EIGHT MONTHS LATER
It was just after two o'clock in the morning. Outside of Warehouse 18 the East Boston docks groaned eerily beneath a crust of frozen snow.
Inside, wedged in the steel rafters thirty feet above the floor, Sandy North made a delicate adjustment in the focus of his video transmitter and strained to catch the conversation below. But even if he missed part of the exchange, it was no big deal. At this distance, the souped-up Granville pickup he had brought with him to Boston could record a hiccup.
For nearly three months, under the deepest cover, North had been working the docks for the Bureau of Alcohol, 'tobacco, and Firearms.
He was, in essence, on loan to them through an agency that specialized in providing such personnel. And
