Giving her the number of the phone he’d just appropriated, he hung up.
And still had no idea of what to do about Michael Sundquist.
Katharine was being followed.
She knew it, as surely as she knew her own name.
The car’s lights had switched on as she’d made a left turn in Puunene. She watched in the rearview mirror as it pulled up behind her, following closely when she took the quick right onto Hansen Road, the shortcut to the Hana Highway.
How had he known she’d be coming this way?
Was the car bugged?
Of course it was — the same device that automatically opened the gate no doubt sent out a signal that Takeo Yoshihara’s men could home in on.
Twice she considered turning off Hansen Road to take one of the narrow cuts through the cane fields that would lead her up toward Kula, but both times she lost her nerve as she slowed the Explorer to a near stop to peer up the long stretches of deserted road that quickly disappeared into the blackness of the night.
A blackness that seemed far darker than usual.
If she took one of these roads and got lost, she could poke around in Kula or Pukalani for an hour and never find the road to Makawao. Worse, if the car that was following her overtook her, and forced her off the road—
She cut off the thought, telling herself her sense of being followed was brought on by paranoia, but, unbidden and unwanted, an image of Ken Richter’s body sprawled in a pool of fresh blood rose up in front of her, and the terror that had been escalating inside her all day notched up yet again. If they hadn’t hesitated to gun down Ken Richter, why would they hesitate to kill her, too?
When the car behind her blasted its horn and ducked around her to speed away into the night, Katharine’s body jerked so convulsively that she wrenched her shoulder against the restraining seat belt.
That’s it! she scolded herself. If you don’t calm down, you don’t have a hope of saving Michael.
Bringing the Explorer back up to speed, she held it steady until she came to the intersection with the Hana Highway, then turned a few hundred yards farther on, where the road ascended the slope of Haleakala. She remained steadfastly calm until she neared the Haliimaile cutoff that wound through the cane fields to the left and would eventually take her to Baldwin Road, just a mile or so below Makawao.
Almost involuntarily, her eyes went to the pair of headlights glowing in the polarized glass of the rearview mirror.
Biting down hard on her lower lip, Katharine moved into the left turn lane.
The car behind followed.
She let the car continue to slow until she was almost into the intersection, then pressed the accelerator hard and swerved back to the right, shooting into a break in the uphill traffic that was small enough to make the driver of the car she’d cut off blast furiously on his horn. Ignoring the sound, Katharine glanced in the side mirror.
The other car was just completing its left turn, its taillights disappearing down the road toward Haliimaile as she watched.
Feeling both relieved and a little bit foolish, she managed to keep the paranoia firmly in check until she came to the turnoff from Olinda Road into the dark, narrow lane that led to her house.
As if acting under its own volition, her right foot left the gas pedal and moved to the brake. The Explorer rolled to a stop, its headlights aimed down the drive, washing the shadows away as far as the first curve in the road that wound through the eucalyptus trees.
The road appeared to be deserted.
Too deserted?
Images flashed through her mind of a dark figure lurking in the shadows within the forest, peering through the windows as she quickly packed a bag so that the watcher would believe she was planning to spend at least this night at Takeo Yoshihara’s estate.
When would they come for her?
Would they use the cover of darkness to close in on the house, while she was helplessly blinded by the false security of the electric lights?
Or would they wait until she was at the estate itself?
No! No, no, NO!
No one had followed her; no one was waiting for her!
Then, just as she was about to move her foot back to the gas pedal, the cellular phone rang, startling her so badly she yelped out loud. Fumbling in her purse, she found the instrument, flipped it open, and held it to her ear. “Rob?”
“It’s me,” his familiar voice confirmed. “Two things. First, Al can’t get into the Serinus directory from any computer outside the estate. But he says there’s a workaround. Once you get there, get to any computer terminal — try the one in my office — and connect to this number. Got a pen?” Katharine rummaged in her purse, then told him to go ahead. Rob gave her a telephone number, then repeated it. “Once you hook up to him from my office, he should be able to use my terminal as a slave, and Yoshihara’s central server won’t realize he’s coming in from the outside.”
“What’s the other thing?”
“Michael,” Rob said. “We need a place to take him.”
“We have to get him out first.”
“We think we can do that. But the big question is, where are we going to take him?”
It was the question Katharine had been avoiding all the way home. Now she could put it off no longer. If Michael truly could no longer breathe fresh air, then where could they possibly go? Anywhere they took him, anywhere at all—
And then it came to her: the skull.
The skull from the Philippines — and the reason it was of such interest to the Serinus Project. The mutant boy — and Katharine was now convinced the murdered child had been a mutant — had been living on Mount Pinatubo, breathing the fumes spewing from the volcano. “The Big Island,” she said. “If we can get him to where the eruption is going on, he might be able to breathe!”
There was a silence, then Rob spoke again. “It might be possible. But he’s going to have to be able to breathe long enough for you to get him out of the building, plus maybe ten to fifteen minutes. Can he do that?”
Katharine didn’t hesitate. “I’ll make sure he can.”
“How long before you get back to the estate?”
Katharine glanced at her watch. It was just past nine-thirty. “I’m just getting home,” she said, calculating the time it would take to grab a few things, then drive to the estate. “I guess I should be there by ten. That’s if they let me get in at all.”
“Don’t talk that way,” Rob told her. “Don’t even think that way. Just get what you need and go. If we’re lucky, we’ll have what we need within a few minutes after you get online with Al. How much time will you need to figure out a way to get him out of the building?”
“How much can I have?” Katharine countered.
“I wish I knew.”
“All right. I’ll let you know when I get there. Will I be able to talk to Al on the computer?”
“Absolutely.” He paused. “It’ll be just like passing messages in school.”
In the darkness Katharine smiled bleakly. “Why don’t I quite believe that?”
“Well, I thought I’d give it a shot, anyway.” There was a short silence, then Rob spoke again, his voice suddenly shy. “Katharine? Be careful, okay?”
It wasn’t just the words, but the way he said them. A tiny bit of Katharine’s tension eased, and she finally started the car slowly down the long driveway. “You have no idea how careful I intend to be,” she said softly. “And you also have no idea how much courage it will give me if you just keep talking while I drive down this road. Remind me never to take another house that’s at the end of a long, narrow, dark road.”
“What do you want me to talk about?”
“I don’t care. Tell me I don’t have to be scared, and that there’s nobody waiting in my house, and that
