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Later in the afternoon, he drove his van to Irvine and located Banodyne Laboratories Banodyne was set against the backdrop of the Santa Ana Mountains The cos on a e in an area of such expensive real estate: one L-shaped two-story structure and a larger V-shaped single story with only a few narrow Windows that n, a striking reen and graylot and by irass, shaded by a few paler than they appeared to be, for their true scale was distorted and diminished by that enormous piece of flat land

The fire had been confined to the V-shaped building that housed the labs The only indications of destruction were a few broken s and soot Stains on the s

The property was not walled or fenced, so Vince could have walked onto it froate and guard booth at the three-lane entrance road Judging by the guard’s sidear that housed the research labs, Vince suspected the laere ht, sophisticated alarm systems would alert watchmen to an intruder’s presence before he had taken rass The arsonistfires; he e of security systems

Vince cruised past the place, then turned and drove by from the other direction Like spectral presences, cloud shadows moved slowly across the lawn and slid up the walls of the buildings Sohtly o his view of the place be unduly colored by the research that he knew to have been conducted there

He drove hoone to Banodyne in the hope that seeing the place would help him decide how to proceed, he was disappointed He still did not knohat to do next He could not figure out to whom he could sell his infor Not to the US governin with And not to the Soviets, the natural adversary, for it was the Soviets who had paid him to kill Weatherby, the Yarbecks, the Hudstons, and Haines

Of course, he couldn’t prove he had been working for the Soviets They were clever when they hired a freelancer like him But he had worked for these people as often as he had taken contracts from the mob, and based on dozens of clues over the years, he had decided they were Soviets Once in a while he dealt with people other than the usual three contacts in LA, and invariably they spoke hat sounded like Russian accents Furtherets were usually political to at least soree-or, as in the case of the Banodyne kills, ets And their inforh, accurate, and sophisticated than the inforiven by the land hit

So ould pay for such sensitive defense information if not the US or the Soviets? So for a way to circumvent the nuclear capabilities of the ive soe, elevate hiht pay well for it But anted to risk dealing with Qaddafi types? Not Vince

Besides, he possessed information about the existence of the revolutionary research at Banodyne, but he did not have detailed files on how the Francis Project’s miracles had been accoht

However, in the back of hissince yesterday Now, as he continued to puzzle over a potential buyer for his inforain, he sat in his bedroohtfall, after he could no longer see the water, and he thought about the dog

Hudston and Haines had told hiun to realize his knowledge of the Francis Project, although potentially explosive and valuable, was not one-thousandth as valuable as the dog itself The retriever could be exploited in , he could probably sell it back to the governeload of cash If he could find the dog, he would be able to achieve financial independence

But how could he locate it?

All over southern California, a quiet search-alantic-tremendous manpower into the hunt, and if Vince crossed paths with those searchers, they would want to knoho he was He could not afford to draw attention to himself

Furthermore, if he conducted his own search of the nearest Santa Ana foothills, into which the lab escapees had alht olden retriever and stuerous Deadly

Beyond the bedrooether in blackness as dark as the far side of the moon

2

On Thursday, one day after Einstein cornered Arthur Streck in Nora Devon’s kitchen, Streck was arraigned on charges of breaking and entering, assault and battery, and attempted rape Because he had previously been convicted of rape and had served two years of a three-year sentence, his bail was high; he could not meet it And since he could not locate a bondsman ould trust him, he seemed destined to rereat relief to Nora

On Friday, she went to lunch with Travis Cornell

She was startled to hear herself accept his invitation It was true that Travis had seeenuinely shocked to learn of the terror and harassment she had endured at Streck’s hands, and it was also true that to sonity and perhaps her life to his arrival at the penultimate moment Yet years of indoctrination in Aunt Violet’s paranoia could not be washed away in a few days, and a residue of unreasonable suspicion and wariness clung to Nora She would have been dismayed, maybe even shattered, if Travis had suddenly tried to force hi been encouraged since early childhood to expect the worst from people, she could be surprised only by kindness and compassion

Nevertheless, she went to lunch with him

At first, she did not knohy

However, she did not have to think long to find the answer: the dog She wanted to be near the dog because he made her feel secure and because she’d never before been the recipient of such unrestrained affection as Einstein lavished on her She had never previously been the object of any affection from anyone, and she liked it even if it came from an animal Besides, in her heart Nora knew that Travis Cornell must be completely trustworthy because Einstein trusted him, and Einstein did not seem easily fooled

They ate lunch at a café that had a few linen-draped tables outside on a brick patio, under white- and blue-striped u’s leash to the wrought-iron table leg and keep hi quietly aze at them with his soulful eyes until they relinquished scraps of food, though he was not a pest about it

Nora did not have ht that Einstein was unusually alert and inquisitive He frequently shifted his position in order to watch the other diners, ho This was her first h she had read about people having lunch and dinner in thousands of restaurants in countless novels, she was still ale rose in the milk-white vase The matchbooks with the establishment’s name embossed on them The way the butter had been molded into round pats with a flower pattern on each, then served on a bowl of crushed ice The slice of lemon in the ice water The chilled salad fork was an especially a touch