Veil

the stronger became his conviction that this was the case. It was the Army spying on the hospice, not vice versa. Why? Death by natural causes and searching for heaven seemed unlikely topics of interest for the personnel in a top-secret military research facility.

And always the problem remained of determining who had spotted him, and why it had been quickly decided that he should be killed. What else was Pilgrim hiding? Veil wondered. And was it hidden at the hospice?

Twenty minutes later he felt fresh air gently wafting in his face as the cave widened and sloped sharply upward. Veil climbed up the rock slope and found himself at a fairly broad cave mouth that looked down into the valley and the rustic, wooden buildings of the military compound. The buildings were spaced in a horseshoe pattern, with a larger building set at the closed end, the open end facing inland. The enclosed area of the horseshoe was a grassy commons area crisscrossed by white gravel walks, and with a flagpole in the center. The American flag flapped in the wind blowing down the valley from the sea.

Veil put his flashlight into the rolled towel, crouched down, and wedged the bundle beneath a ledge. As he straightened up, a soft chiming sound tolled in his mind.

Danger.

But from where? The chime sound had saved his life too many times in the past for him to doubt it now, but he also did not want to retreat after coming this far. He was silently crouched just inside the mouth of the cave, trying to decide what to do next, when his decision was made for him.

'We know you're there, Kendry.' The voice was deep and resonant, absolutely calm, firm with self-confidence. It came from somewhere above him, just outside the mouth of the cave; the man would be in an advantageous position, with the sun above and behind his back. 'We've been waiting on you. You tripped a sensor when you entered the cave, another one when you were halfway through, and a third just now. We know what you can do, pal, and we're not going to fuck with you. If you come out of there holding anything but the air over your head, you'll be at least twenty pounds heavier by the time you hit the ground. Come on, now; step out slow and easy.'

Mambas.

Veil snatched up the towel, cradled it in his belly to protect the flashlight, then dove headfirst down the sharp incline. He turned and rolled as he landed on his shoulder, then slid on his back to the bottom. There he rolled into a ball and hugged his knees as he waited for what he assumed would be a murderous hail of bullets ricocheting off the stone walls and ceiling.

Instead there was a single, hollow phut. Something large, not a bullet, passed through the air over his head, smacked hard against a wall, and fell to the floor. Veil cursed aloud as the gas grenade exploded.

Chapter 17

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He awoke to find himself naked, in a cage that had been anchored to the ground in the commons area, near the flagpole. The cage, with a locked drop gate facing the open end of the horseshoe of buildings, was not large enough for him to stand or fully extend himself on the ground, and Veil had to shuffle on all fours in order to turn around. It was what, in Vietnam, had been called a tiger cage, or 'cramper.' The object of the exercise, of course, was to break down psychological defenses through steady debilitation, as well as humiliation, and a prisoner's own mind was depended upon to facilitate the process.

From the position of the sun Veil guessed that it was early morning, which meant that he had been unconscious for almost twenty-four hours. He had a throbbing headache, and his mouth tasted green.

There was a good deal of activity in the compound as Army personnel, some with white lab coats worn over their uniforms, passed from building to building. Veil counted three women. Out on a dirt field just beyond the open end of the horseshoe and twenty yards from the bank of the swift-running river, six men in baggy black jumpsuits practiced advanced, complex martial arts kata under the watchful eyes of two Japanese, one young and one old. The old man, dressed in a flaring crimson robe and a broad, crimson headband, stood in front of the exercising men, erect, as still and as silent as a stone pillar. Both hands were placed on a simple wooden staff he held at arm's length in front of him. The old master was practicing his own kata, Veil thought, a Zen-linked exercise; without so much as the blink of an eye, the old man was able to project an aura of raw, mind-harnessed energy powerful enough to make an observer half believe that, if he so desired, the old man could drive the staff to its hilt in the ground, or perhaps split the world with an overhead blow.

With no apparent motions or words that Veil could hear, the old master was directing the kata of the six men moving in front of him. Fists flew, hands chopped, fingers poked, arms whirled, bodies spun. It was all done with blinding speed, a very special kind of beauty that tugged on a line between the mind, heart, and groin, and—like a deadly line of male Rockettes in a surreal Radio City Music Hall of sky, earth, water, and stone—in perfect unison.

Or almost perfect unison. Although Veil could not detect any mistakes, some were obviously made. On occasion the younger Japanese, a burly man dressed only in a loincloth, would abruptly step up behind one of the exercising Mambas and deliver a blow across the man's back or legs with a long flail of split bamboo; the force of each blow was such that the splat of bamboo striking flesh would echo down the valley, bouncing back and forth between the rock faces of the surrounding mountains. No struck Mamba flinched or slowed his pace; the ballet of violence, danced to the staccato, syncopated rhythm of beaten flesh, continued.

The point, aside from punishing errors in form, was to teach that pain is an illusion.

No one, researcher or Mamba, so much as glanced in Veil's direction. Veil turned around and leaned back against the bars. He brought his knees up to his chest, rested his head on his forearms, and waited.

Around noon, Veil felt the hairs on the back of his neck begin to tingle. He turned his head and found himself looking up at three of the Mambas and their Japanese master. The Americans had showered and changed into fresh jumpsuits, and Veil sensed that the master had brought them here to engage in some kind of mental exercise— perhaps nothing more than to test their stealth against his sixth sense, for they had approached without making a sound. The expressions on the faces of the three Americans were intense; the green eyes of the Mamba on the right, a stocky man with brown hair and a pockmarked face, gleamed with a naked yearning to test himself against Veil.

Although he stood as erect as the Americans, the Japanese now projected an aura of relaxation. His eyes were cast down—a gesture of respect.

'Good day, gentlemen,' Veil said easily. 'Listen, as long as you're up, would one of you do me a favor? You can never find your waiter when you want him. I'd like somebody to tell the maitre d' that I'm ready to order. Also, I'd like some water.'

Once again, without any signal from the master that Veil could detect, the three Americans turned and walked away. The old man remained behind for almost a minute, eyes still cast down, then he, too, turned and walked away.

All day he had burned in the sun, and Veil knew he had lost a great deal of body moisture. Now, with the sun going down, the chill and damp of the Northern California evening was beginning to clog his lungs and seep up from the ground into his body. He shivered, and this only served to increase the spasmodic cramping of his muscles that he had been suffering since mid-afternoon. He kneaded the cramped muscles, then tried to exercise as best he could in the small cage in order to avoid hypothermia.

He heard a footfall behind him, turned, and found Colonel Parker standing over the cage, looking down at him. The setting sun shone golden on the man's hard, craggy face and made his eyes glitter. The Army officer stood with his hands behind his back, feet slightly apart. Over his shoulders was draped a heavy, cable-knit sweater, the sight of which made Veil groan inwardly.

'How're you doing, Kendry?' Parker asked in a flat voice.

'This tiger cage is a bit crude, Colonel,' Veil replied hoarsely. His throat was now raw with thirst. 'I'm really disappointed. From you I'd have expected nothing less than state-of-the-art.'