A few minutes later, Eric slowed suddenly and veered to the other side of the road. After a moment, he gave a little grunt of satisfaction, stopped, and clicked on the headlights for a brief moment. A small sign with hand-lettered lines was nailed to a tree. “Kurt’s Circle K Ranch. Riding—Backpacking—Wilderness Guides.” He turned in, and after a hundred yards the pines thinned out into a small clearing. He stopped and turned off the motor.

“Come on,” he said gently, anger no longer tightening his voice. “I can’t offer you a lot of comfort tonight, but I think I can give you one pleasant little surprise.”

He got out of the car and came around and opened her door, but she was frozen in place, staring at the two figures who had emerged from the trees and were approaching them. As they came out of the deep shadows of the trees and into the full moonlight, her mouth dropped open. The first man was tall, angular, with wavy gray hair.

“Dr. Cameron!” she whispered, stunned.

Eric nodded, watching her reaction. “Let me introduce you to a couple of friends of mine.”

Nicole got out slowly, dazed, certain that the madness had broken through the walls of her mind.

“Hello, Nicole,” Clifford Cameron said.

“Dr. Cameron! But you—how could you be…”

“It’s the real me,” he said, chuckling softly. “In the flesh.”

“Nicole’s a little taken back, Cliff,” Eric said. “She thought you were dead.”

“So did we,” Chet Abernathy said, stepping forward.

“Nicole,” Cliff said, “this is Dr. Chester Abernathy. You probably heard about him in Central Control tonight. Chet, this is Nicole Lambert, Eric’s Monitor.” He laughed quickly. “Only now I think it’s the other way around.”

“Nicole explained what happened,” Eric spoke up. “Our timing was fine. The Major was on to us—figured out what was happening and pressed your termination button.”

Even in the moonlight, Nicole could see the lines around his eyes deepen. “Oh?”

“Yes, it was even closer than we thought.” Eric turned to Nicole to explain. “We had a system worked out once the incision was made. On the count of three, I was to cut the band and Cliff would yank out the computer chip. Cliff had a hold on the chip and I had just said ‘one’ when suddenly he jerked violently. Fortunately, his hand pulled the chip out. That must have been when the Major hit the button. Cliff was writhing on the table, screaming with the pain, and it took me another second or two to cut the band. By then he was unconscious. I thought he was dead. I even listened for a heartbeat, but I must have been in too much of a hurry.”

“I think it was stopped,” Cliff said. “Eric gave me mouth-tomouth resuscitation. I think he saved my life.”

“Then I heard a car drive up,” Eric continued. “It was Clayne.”