"And Mike, he's a young fellow who worked in our service station, he says some men came to the store in a Land Cruiser and talked to my daughter. They had something covered up in the back. Mike sneaked a look when they took it around the rear and he thought it was something green—dead-looking, he said. Then the government comes in here and sprays this awful stuff all over the inside of my meat locker, closes it off, and says we can't use it . . . We lost five hundred dollars in meat. They carted it away, said it was spoiled. Said the locker was contaminated with salmonella."

Hicks's intuition made his skin crawl. "Where were you when this happened?"

"In Baker visiting my brother."

Bernice Morgan gave not the slightest impression of frailty, despite her years. Nor did she appear leathery or "grizzled." She was the last sort of person Hicks expected to find in a small American desert town. But for her manner of speech, she might have been the elderly wife of an English lord.

"How long has your daughter been missing?"

"A week and a half."

"And you're certain she was taken by federal authorities?"

"Air Force types, I've been told."

Hicks frowned. "Have you heard of anything odd in the area—around Furnace Creek Inn, perhaps?"

"Only that it's closed off temporarily. I called about that, and nobody knows anything. The phone service went out this afternoon."

"Do you think that's where your daughter is?"

"It's a possibility, isn't it?"

He pursed his lips.

"I don't think they're holding her so she can talk to the President about business. Do you?" She raised a skeptical eyebrow.

An old, battered primer-gray Ford truck pulled off the road and into the parking lot with a spray of dust and gravel. Two young men in straw cowboy hats jumped from the back, while a third boy and a heavy-paunched, bearded man with oversized wire-framed MacArthur sunglasses stepped down from the driver's seat. They all came through the glass door. The bearded man nodded at Hicks, then faced Mrs. Morgan. "We've been out and back. Road's still closed. George is out there, like Richard said, but he doesn't know what's going on."

"George is one of our highway patrol boys," Mrs. Morgan explained to Hicks.

"Ron, here, thinks his Lisa is still in Furnace Creek," the bearded man continued. A doe-eyed, thin young man nodded wearily. "We're going to take the plane and fly over. Find out what the hell's going on."

"They've probably got the airstrip out there closed," Mrs. Morgan said. "I'm not sure that's smart, Mitch."

"Smart, hell. I never let no government folks push me around before. Kidnaping and shutting down public roads for no good reason—it's time somebody did something." Mitch stared pointedly at Trevor Hicks, surveying his suede jacket, slacks, and running shoes. "Mister, we haven't met."