“You heard what I heard,” Gregory said. “That microphone is now off. But you can be heard — and seen. Don’t make a telephone call. Whatever you do, do not make a telephone call!”

Merrill looked toward the ceiling for the source of the voice. “What was that noise?”

“To repeat, you heard what I heard. I am in another room. Don’t make a telephone call.”

“Bullshit! Turn that microphone on! You can see me? I’m punching buttons! I want the microphone on! Do you think I don’t know what I heard?”

“What do you think you heard?” Chino asked.

“Ah, you’re back. I’ve been with that woman fifteen years. Do you think I don’t know what she sounds like when she pukes? Amy, are you all right?”

“Sam, that room is radioac —”

The microphone went dead again. “Commander Merrill,” Gregory said. “Do not use that telephone!”

“I want to speak to my wife!”

“You’ll excuse me for a moment. No calls, Commander, please, for your wife’s sake.”

“Hurt her and I’ll kill you —”

Silence. This Gregory guy was in a different room from her? Not Chino’s partner, Chino had said. Why was the distinction so damned important to them? They could see him, but he couldn’t see or hear them. If he turned on the monitor at the little television studio set, what then? If the set was also wired to the closed circuit security system, he’d see himself.

In all, he realized, it wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to him.

Merrill made his way toward the monitor, trying to look like he was still reconnoitering. Gregory had cut Amy off as she had tried to tell him the room was radioactive. No sign of suits, masks or shields. By the look of things people had worked down here for some time without protection. And the dirt in the back yard was unshielded.

Merrill turned on the monitor. A picture of the studio set came up.

He looked around. On the control console was a TV remote. They were still watching him like kids who had an animal in a box. Without touching the remote, Merrill looked over the console carefully. He turned away from the console and palmed the remote in the same motion. With the device at his side aimed at the monitor, he pressed the button labeled Channel Search.

As the image of the set disappeared in a field of flickering gray, butterfly-yellow numbers appeared in the lower left-hand corner of the screen, fluttering up into double digits so quickly he could barely follow them. He turned around and took a step away and pocketed the remote before turning halfway back to the monitor again. The channel search braked at eighty. On channel eighty was a shadowy figure in a garish red shirt standing in front of a big, black box, all but silhouetted by bright lights behind him.