The man took a few steps closer. Unlike his shorter, compact-built son, Martin was a big man with a hard-looking body. He could have posed for a tractor ad. He was dressed in tan shirt and pants, thicksoled workboots, and a soiled Caterpillar baseball hat that covered snow-white hair. His face was dark from the sun and deeply creased. Blue eyes looked out from under frosty brows. Austin guessed that he was in his well-preserved seventies or eighties. He was chewing on the stub of a cigar.

“My name is Kurt Austin. I'm with the National Underwater and Marine Agency.”

“What can I so for you, Mr. Austin?”

“I'm looking for Bucky Martin, who was a test pilot back in the late fifties. Might that be you?”

The blue eyes seemed to gleam with amusement at a secret joke. “Yep, that's me.”

Austin wondered if he should get right to it and tell the old man his son had come to see him. The old man spoke.

“You come alone?” Martin said.

It was an odd question, and it set an alarm bell off in Austin's brain. Something about this guy wasn't right. The old man didn't wait for an answer. He went outside, where he had a view of the rental car. Apparently satisfied at what he saw, he dropped the cigar and ground it with the heel of his boot, then came back into the barn. Austin wondered what had happened to Buzz.

“Gotta be careful with smokes around all this dry hay,” he said with a grin. “How'd you find me?”

“We went through some old government files, and your address popped up. How long have you run this farm?”

Martin sighed. “Seems like it's been forever, son, and maybe it has been. There's nothing like tilling the land and taking care of livestock to let you know why people got off the farm as fast as they could in the old days. Damned hard work. Well, looks like my sentence is about to end, though, I didn't think you'd come this soon.”

Austin was puzzled. “You were expecting me?”

Martin stepped to one side and reached behind the gate of a stall. He pulled out a double-barreled shotgun and leveled it at Austin's midsection. “I got a telephone call just like the protocol said I would. I wouldn't move if I were you. My sight isn't what it used to be, but I can see you real well from here.”

Austin stared at the shotgun's yawning black muzzle. “Maybe you should put that thing down before it goes off accidentally.”

“Sorry, son, I can't do that,” Martin said. “And don't try for the pitchfork stuck in that bale, I'd cut you in half before you took one step. Like I said, it's that damned protocol calling the shots, not me.”

“I still don't understand what you're talking about.”

“Oh course you don't. The protocol's been around probably since before you were born. Don't suppose it will do any harm to let you know what it's all about before I kill you.”