Darius had not moved or spoken since Giordino shot him. Any other man would have gripped a wounded and bleeding hand; not Darius. The huge brute let his hand hang limply to one side, indifferently allowing the blood to splatter on the sub's deck. The lost expression on his face reminded Pitt of a newly caged gorilla he had once seen in the San Diego Zoo, an ugly misshapen monster who could not grasp the meaning of the barred walls and the strange-looking animals beyond that stood five feet deep, observing his every movement. Pitt was very happy indeed that at least five of Zeno's gendarmerie had their guns trained between Darius' cold black eyes.

Pitt nodded toward Darius. "What happens to him?"

"A fast trial," Zacynthus answered. "Then the firing squad—"

"There will be no trial," Zeno interrupted. "The gendarmerie have never admitted to a traitor in their ranks." His voice was grave, yet his eyes were filled with sadness. "Captain Darius died in the performance of his duties."

The cavern suddenly became silent. Pitt, Zacynthus and Giordino all exchanged puzzled glances over Zeno's use of the past tense.

Darius said nothing. He displayed no emotion, no sign of fear, only a resignation to a fate that precluded even the remotest possibility of hope. Slowly, very carefully, like a man who hadn't tasted sleep in days, he climbed from the sub onto the dock and stood before Zeno, his head bowed.

"It seems I have known you for many years, Darius." Zeno sounded very tired. "Yet I haven't really known you at all. God alone knows why you came to be what you are. It is a pity, the gendarmerie lost a good man…" Zeno hesitated, groping for words, but he could think of nothing else to say. Carefully, almost to the point of meticulousness, he withdrew the cartridge clip from his gun and removed all the shells except one. Then he reinserted the clip and held out the gun, butt first, to Darius.

Nodding, as if in secret understanding, and searching Zeno's eyes for a sign that never came, Darius took the gun, turned slowly toward the tunnel and began walking numbly across the dock.

"No good-bye, no regrets, no to hell with you," Giordino said uncomprehendingly. "Just like that, he wanders off and blows his brains out. Ten will get you one that Darius makes a break for it."

"His life ended when he became a traitor," Zeno said quietly. "Darius knew it then—he knows it now. An early death was his fate when he dropped from the womb, there was no escaping it. Five minutes to talk with his God and prepare his soul—then he will squeeze the trigger."

Giordino watched Darius fade into the blackness of the tunnel and said nothing. The finality of Zeno's words shattered all his doubts over Darius' intentions. Until the day he, himself, died, Giordino would never understand how anyone could let loose of life so unquestioningly.