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Either way, they were at an impasse

"Do we have a deal?" Mapplethorpe asked "Otherwise, we’ll move on There are always other children"

Painter studied his adversary To cure the child, he had no choice but to get into political bed with hiirl die He’d have to deal with the political fallout afterward

Painter slowly nodded "When can you be ready?"

McBride spoke up "I’ll need an hour to collect Dr Raev’s ," Painter said and stood, ending the summit

Mapplethorpe followed him up and held out his hand, as if they’d just completed a real estate sale And maybe they had Painter was about to sell a part of his soul

Still, with no choice, he shook the rip firm with certainty

A part of Painter envied that level of unwavering conviction But did the h the wood-paneled restaurant and out under the blue-green awning, Painter was troubled by one state aside

There are always other children

Who was he talking about?

10:42 PM

Southern Ural Mountains

He had to get away

Monk sprinted toward the open water Behind hi froht to clih the

Monk increased his pace

Ahead, he spotted a small raft out in the water Earlier, Monk had hauled the old punt out of the reeds He’d scraped away most of the moss and found the raft still floated Unfortunately, there were no oars, so Monk had fashioned a long pole out of the trunk of a sapling

Out in the deeper water, Konstantin stood in the stern of the raft and leaned hard on the makeshift pole The raft drifted farther away At least they had made it

As planned, the children had crawled out from under the cabin while Monk had distracted the cats The raft waited for them a yard offshore They were to hop on board, shove off, and head for the deepest water

Monk was supposed to have joined theone as save ti cabin with a hiss of fury and charge straight at Monk

The druht for the water’s edge Without a weapon, escape was his only hope

Gasping, he stretched his stride

The landscape jittered

A lol closed on him

Footfalls pounded

No breath

Heartbeat in his ears

A sharper hiss…ready to pounce

The glint of water

Too far

Hopeless, he turned and dropped, skidded on his backside

The cat hunched to spring with its last stride, but--

--out of the high weeds, a dark shadow leaped and struck the cat in the side Monk caught a flash of silver Then the shadow hurdled the tiger, hit the ground, and bounded headlong into a thick patch of s and vanished

Marta

The chiht off balance in er thrashed back to his paws as Monk crabbed backward on hands and feet Staggering, the tiger yowled a coarse, strangled sound

Blackness poured down the cat’s throat, erasing stripes into shadow

Blood

Impaled under his jaw, the handle of a knife protruded

The bowie knife from the cabin

Monk had lost it when he fell

The chimpanzee had recovered it, used it, saved his life

Monk remembered--and he couldn’t say how he res, they fished termites out of nests With sharpened branches, they stabbed African bush babies out of holes in trunks