“Ivory hunters,” Sergei pronounced. He picked up a splint of bone from the hundreds of broken pieces that littered the ground. “I had no idea they had found this place. It's a sin. There's no science here. It looks as if someone has taken a hammer and chisel to it.”

“Actually, we use a portable jackhammer.”

The words came from thickset man who stood looking down on them from the top of the bluff. His broad face, his narrow, hooded eyes and high cheekbones advertised his Mongol ancestry. A thin mustache drooped down on either side of his mouth, which was wide in a thin-lipped grin. Karla had studied Russian while she was in Fairbanks and got the gist of what he was saying. The assault rifle cradled in his arms spoke louder than any words.

He whistled and a second later four more men appeared in the gorge, two from each side, all armed with similar weapons. They had tough-looking, unshaven faces, with sneering mouths and hard eyes.

Sergei may have been vain and disagreeable, but he displayed an unexpected courage born of scientific anger. He pointed to the broken bones. “You did this?”

The man shrugged.

“Who are you?” Sergei said.

The Mongol ignored the question and looked past Sergei.

“We are looking for the woman named Karla Janos.”

The man was staring at Karla, but she was startled to hear her name from the stranger's lips. Sergei glanced at her in reflex, then thought better of it.

“There is no one here by that name.”

The Mongol issued a curt order, and the man nearest to Karla grabbed her roughly by the arm with his dirt-encrusted fingers and pulled her away from the others.

She resisted. He squeezed her arm so hard it bruised. He smiled when she grimaced in pain, and he put his face close to hers. She almost gagged on the odor of his unwashed body and his foul breath.

She glanced over her shoulder. The other scientists were being herded along another ravine. The man at the top of the banking had disappeared. As she was hustled out of sight, she heard Maria scream, then male voices shouting.

Shots rang out, the noise echoing off the walls of the gully. She tried to run back to her colleagues, but the man grabbed her by the hair and jerked her back. First came excruciating pain, then anger. She whirled around and tried to claw his eyes out. He pulled his head back, and her fingernails scraped harmlessly against the stubble of his scruffy beard.

He lashed out with the back of his hand. Karla was stunned by the blow, and offered little resistance when he put his foot behind her legs and pushed her down. The back of her head hit the ground and galaxies whirled before her eyes. Her vision cleared, and she saw the man staring down at her with amusement, then lust, in his piglike eyes.