A pained look came to the pale eyes. “I'm afraid they were all killed.”

“Killed.But why?”

“The men who killed them didn't want witnesses.”

“Witnesses to what?”

“Your murder.Or abduction. I'm not sure what they had in mind, only that it was no good.”

“This doesn't make sense. I just arrived here two days ago. I'm a stranger in this country. I'm simply a bone scientist like the others. What reason would anyone have to murder me?”

Schroeder turned his head slightly as if he were listening for something, then he switched the light off. His mellow voice was cool and soothing in the darkness. “They think your grandfather had a secret of great importance. They think he passed it on to you, and they want to make sure no one else learns about it.”

“Grandpa!” Karla almost laughed through her pain. “That's ridiculous. I don't know any secret.”

“Nonetheless, they think so, and that's what's important.”

“Then the deaths of those scientists are my fault.”

“Not at all. The men who pulled the trigger are responsible.”

He pressed the flashlight into her palm to restore a measure of control to her damaged psyche. She flashed the light around so that the beam illuminated the black rock ceilings and walls.

“Where are we?” she said.

“In a cave. I carried you here. It was sheer luck that I found a low place to climb out of the gorge and immediately came to a natural wall of stone. It was split in many places, and I thought we could hide in a narrow gap in the rocks. I saw an opening at the end of a narrow fissure. I cut some bushes and put them around the mouth of the cave.”

She reached out in the darkness and grabbed onto his big hand. “Thank you, Uncle Karl. You're like some guardian angel.”

“I promised your grandfather that I would look after you.”

Karla sat in the dark, thinking back to the first time she remembered meeting Schroeder. She was a young girl, living at her grandfather's house after her parents died. He appeared one day, bearing an armful of gifts. He seemed enormously tall and strong, more like a walking tree than a man. Despite the strength that he projected, he seemed almost shy, but her child's eye had detected a kindliness in his manner, and she quickly warmed up to him.

The last time she had seen him was at her grandfather's funeral. He never forgot her birthday, and sent her a card with money in it every year until she graduated from college. She didn't know the details of the bond between Schroeder and her family, but she knew from hearing the story many times that when she was born her grandfather had persuaded her parents to name her after the mysterious uncle.

“I don't know how you found me in this remote spot,” Karla said.