A sudden shift occurred just as Reese passed through the villa’s front gates. The rain did not simply stop, nor did the clouds lessen. Instead, the season of gloom completely vanished. The change was so drastic they might as well have left one world and entered another. The sky became a huge open field so vast it shamed the remaining clouds into scuttling away. A blast of wind caused the surrounding trees to give great shuddering heaves. Sunlight turned the falling droplets into gems.
Trace muttered, “Shame it couldn’t wait another ten minutes.”
“This is bad?”
“Makes us easier to spot.” He raised his hand. Keyed his earpiece. “Go . . . Okay. Which corner? . . . Roger that. Hold for the green light. I say again, hold position.” He released the mike and told his team, “Our spotter is in place. Top floor’s action is restricted to two rooms. In the room to our right somebody is playing a computer game. And a man is talking softly in the southeast corner, to your left and back against the cliff. Spotter says it sounds like the guy is counting.”
Reese stiffened. “This is not good. According to what we’ve managed to ascertain, counting is part of how they do this ascent thing.”
“So do we pull back?”
She stared at the villa, her focus so intense she could almost peel away the stones. Beyond the walls, the village was utterly silent. Not even a dog barked. “If they’re not out here waiting for us, it has to mean they haven’t been able to break through again.”
Trace said, “A lot depends on you being right.”
Reese started to snap that he was the one who didn’t want any more false starts. But an argument would get them nowhere. All she wanted was to get this over and done. The thought of her face on an international arrest warrant was a hot flame pressing her forward. “I say let’s do it.”
Trace walked over to where his teammate held a scanner. “Show me.”
The guy steadied the apparatus on one knee and took aim through the eyepiece. Trace knelt as his guy pulled a small flat-screen from the apparatus’s side, connected to the machine by a flexible cable. Reese moved in close beside Trace as the guy said, “Starting with the ground floor. Infrared first.” He did a slow sweep. “There. Back north room. Could be as many as six laid out on the floor, one person seated.”
“I see it.”
The screen was filled with a rose-colored glow near the base. A single figure rose above the cluster of light.
Trace asked, “That’s the best you can do?”
“It’s the stone. The walls must be two feet thick.”
“Try the other.”
“Switching to X-ray.” The screen went blank, then was filled with a faint bluish glow. The lone figure appeared on the screen. The image zoomed in closer. “He’s sitting down.”
“Any others?”
“They’re too close to the floor. The heat image is clearer. Switching back. I say a minimum of four, more like six. All but the one guy lying down.”
A sudden gust blasted through the trees, showering them with droplets. Reese cleared her face and said, “It’s how they ascend. One person directs while the others lie down and go.”
“I don’t understand a word you just said, and I don’t care. Are we good to go or not?”
She wanted desperately to say yes and saw the same taut desire on his face. “Check out the rest of the house.”
Trace turned back to the screen. “Go back to X-ray.”
“Roger that. Okay. Rest of the ground floor looks empty.”
“Go to the middle floor.”
“Middle floor looks totally vacant.”
“Top floor.”
“Activity on the top floor. Two rooms occupied. We’ve got what looks like a woman standing in an inside doorway in the middle bedroom. She was the one playing with the computer before. And there in the back is another guy seated.”
Reese said, “Where is everybody else?”
Trace said, “Switch to infrared.”
“Switching now. Okay, the north room here, it’s only got the lone woman. Here to the south, we’ve got the same deal as we saw on the ground floor. Only the glow is clearer. Walls must be thinner. Nothing on X-ray, they meld with the floor. Must be on pallets. But look, here’s the heat image. Okay, I count six prone bodies.”
Reese felt the steel bands about her chest ease slightly. She speed-dialed her phone.
Patel answered, “You are so in trouble with Weldon.”
“Where is he?”
“Pacing the top tier. Talking on the phone. Very angry.”
It could not be helped. The only response to Weldon angry was the same as to Weldon happy. Bring home the results. “Are you monitoring cell phone activity?”
“Of course I am.”
“And?”
“Twenty minutes ago, this Massimo spoke with his girl again. She is named Consuela. Another student called her mother and said she wanted to come home. The pharmacologist, Dr. Elizabeth Sayer, called her father.”
“I thought they were estranged.”
“They are. Is that a problem?”
Reese pondered that, then set it aside. “Go on.”
“Twenty minutes back, the conversations ended. We continue to monitor the cell phones. I can hear nothing through two of them. Through the third, Massimo’s, I might hear a man counting. Or chanting words. It is very faint. The phone must be in a backpack.”
She ran through everything another time. “The pharmacy van.”
“What about it?”
“Anybody say anything about being sick?”
“Not on the phone. But we’ve accessed the Italian students’ university files. One of them is diabetic.”
“Okay.”
“Weldon wants a word.”
“Not now.” She ended the call. “Nada.”
Before Reese could say anything more, however, Weldon’s voice burrowed through her earpiece. “You think you can deny me access by shutting off her phone?”
Reese turned her back to the villa and the team. Not that it would do any good. Weldon was speaking through the open circuit, which would connect them all once they went in. They could all hear her as she hit the mike button and snapped, “No, Weldon. Being the pro you are, I assumed you would get the message that now is not the time.”
Weldon breathed twice, then cut the connection. Trace grinned at her. “Bosses are such a pain.”
“Okay, here’s my take,” Reese said. “They’re still blind. They’ve got everybody clustered in two teams, trying to get somebody out here to find us. It’s desperation on a new level.”
“So we go?”
Reese did not nod so much as shiver. “Right now.”