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  The city office building looked ready for demolition. Several windows were cracked. Blinds hung at haphazard angles, giving the facade a sleepy expression. A bored policeman slumped in the shaded entrance. Simon entered just as the church bells tolled the hour.

  The guard ran his duffel back through the metal detector three times, while another officer pored over the letter from the city council. Finally they gestured him inside and pointed him down a long corridor.

  The door to the council meeting hall was closed. Simon heard voices inside. He debated knocking, but Vasquez had still not arrived. Simon visited the restroom and changed into a clean shirt. He stuffed his dirty one down under the apparatus. He shaved and combed his hair. His eyes looked like they had become imprinted with GPS road maps, so he dug out his eyedrops. Then he took a moment and inspected his reflection.

  Simon was tall enough that he had to stoop to fit his face in the mirror. His hair was brownish-blond and worn rakishly long, which went with his strong features and green eyes and pirate’s grin. Only he wasn’t smiling now. There was nothing he could do to repay Vasquez for what happened, except help him get the city’s funding so they could complete the project. Then Simon would flee this poverty-stricken town and try to rebuild his own shattered life.

  He returned to the hall, settled onto a hard wooden bench, and pulled out his phone. For once, the phone registered a two-bar signal.

  Simon dialed Vasquez and listened to the phone ring. The linoleum floor by his feet was pitted with age. The hallway smelled slightly of cheap disinfectant and a woman’s perfume. Sunlight spilled through tall windows at the end of the corridor, forming a backdrop of brilliance and impenetrable shadows.

  When the professor’s voice mail answered, he said, “It’s Simon again. I’m here in the council building. Growing more desperate by the moment.” The door beside him opened, and Simon turned away from the voices that spilled out. “Professor Vasquez, I really hope you’re on your way, because—”

  “Excuse me, señor. You are Simon Orwell, the professor’s great friend?”

  Simon shut his phone and rose to his feet. “Is he here?”

  The two men facing him could not have been more different. One was tall, not as tall as Simon, but he towered over most Mexicans. And handsome. And extremely well groomed. The other was the product of a hard life, stubby and tough as nails. The only thing they shared was a somber expression.

  Even before the elegant man said the words, Simon knew.

  “I am very sorry to have to tell you, Señor Simon. But Professor Vasquez is dead.”

  “No, that’s . . . What?”

  “Allow me to introduce myself. Enrique Morales, I am the mayor of Ojinaga. And this is Pedro Marin, the assistant town manager and my trusted ally.”

  “Vasquez is dead?”

  “A heart attack. Very sudden.”

  “He thought the world of you, Señor Simon.” Pedro spoke remarkably clear English.

  The mayor was graceful even when expressing condolences. “Nos lamentanos mucho. We lament with you, Señor Simon, in this dark hour.”

  For some reason, Simon found it easier to focus upon the smaller man. “You knew the professor?”

  “He was a dear friend. My sister and I and Dr. Harold, perhaps you have heard of him? The professor was very close to us all.”

  “You’re sure about Vasquez?”

  “Such a tragedy.” The mayor was around his midthirties and had a politician’s desire to remain the center of attention. “You came all the way from Boston, is that not so? We are glad you made it safely. And we regret this news is here to greet you.”

  “I . . . we’re scheduled to meet the city council.”

  A look flashed between the two men. “I believe they have completed their other business, yes? Pedro will escort you. I must hurry to the city’s outskirts. We are dedicating a new water treatment facility. Long in coming. But so very needed. It is our attempt to aid the poorest citizens of our community. Like the professor’s bold project, no? So very noble.” Enrique was clearly adept at filling uncomfortable vacuums. “Please join me for dinner tonight. Yes? Splendid. We will meet and we will talk and I will see what I can do to assist you through this dark hour. The restaurant by the church. Nine o’clock.”

  Enrique turned and spoke a lightning-swift sentence to Pedro, whose nod of acceptance shaped a half bow. The mayor’s footsteps clipped rapidly down the hall. He tossed quick greetings to several people as he departed, clapped the senior guard on the shoulder, thanked the second guard who opened the door for him, and was gone.

  Simon stared into the empty sunlight at the corridor’s end, wishing the floor would just open up and swallow him whole.

  Then he realized Pedro was waiting for him. “This way, señor. The council will see you now.”

  Chapter 2

  Entering the council chamber, Simon felt as though he was being ushered through a waking nightmare. He could not force the world back into place. He saw tiny fragments, little shards that remained jumbled together like a puzzle he could not fit together.

  Not even when his professional life depended on it.

  Three city officials were seated across the conference table from Simon. The woman who led the city council meeting introduced herself as Dr. Clara. The two men wore cheap three-piece suits, one blue, the other a shade between gray and green. Simon dismissed them in a matter of seconds. It was instantly clear that Dr. Clara was the only person who mattered. Simon thought of the name applied by field researchers to the dominant animal in a pack. Dr. Clara was most definitely the alpha dog. This meeting was really between Simon and her.

  Dr. Clara was a heavyset woman poured into a too-small dress. Her hair was clenched into a tight bun, just like the dress squeezed her body. She listened to Simon’s presentation without expression, her gaze flat and measuring. Then she broke in with, “What you are telling us, Señor Simon, we have already heard from Professor Vasquez. You seek to harvest power that is currently wasted in the transmission process and transform it into usable electricity. Is that not correct?”

  “Basically, yes. Like I was saying, more than a third of all power is currently lost between the generating station and the end user. Our device—”

  “We can offer you a thousand dollars American.”

  Simon gaped across the polished table. “You expect me to turn over the apparatus and years of research for a thousand bucks?”

  “We are offering to buy your machine, yes, that is correct.”

  “What about the offer for two hundred thousand dollars in research funding you made to Professor Vasquez?”

  Dr. Clara spoke English without accent or emotion. “I recall making no such offer.”

  Simon unfolded the letter and passed it over. The two men leaned in to read with her. Dr. Clara scanned it swiftly and slid it back. “I did not write this letter. I did not sign it.”

  “Vasquez wouldn’t have urged me to come help with this presentation over a forged letter.” Simon took a hard breath. Yelling would get him nowhere. “Look. This is a revolutionary device. Professor Vasquez was convinced it would change your region’s future.”

  He had so much more he wanted to say. How Vasquez had never been in this for the money. How he had intended to place his share in a trust. One that would help the poorest children of Chihuahua, the state in which Ojinaga was located. Vasquez yearned to help those who had not been given the same gifts as himself, the same opportunities, the same great life. He had accepted that Simon had been in it for the money and the fame. Vasquez was a man who seldom criticized. He had lived with his faith as a silent beacon, waiting for Simon to ask the unspoken questions.

  The woman broke into his thoughts with, “Your device does not work, señor.”

  “Yet. My device does not work yet.”

  “And your associate, Dr. Vasquez, is
dead.”

  Simon felt the noose tightening around his professional neck. Cutting off his air and any hope of recovering his career. “We are this close to a major breakthrough. That is why the research funding is so critical.”

  “We are a poor city. Even if your device worked, we could not pay you what you claim was promised.”

  Simon caught something in her gaze. For an instant, she separated herself from the two men who enjoyed watching him squirm. Her dark gaze opened in a remarkable manner, as though she was struggling not to weep. Simon had a fleeting vision of a very different woman. One trapped in sorrow and something more. Before he could fathom what message she was trying to send him, the instant was gone. The blank-faced councilwoman said, “Our offer stands. One thousand dollars for your machine and these drawings.”

  He rose to his feet and began cramming his documents and the apparatus back in the duffel. “Your offer isn’t enough to get me home.”

  The two men smiled, as though this had been their intention all along. Dr. Clara continued to lean forward, so as to mask her expression from her associates, and shared with him another secret look. Only this time it was full of warning.

  He zipped his duffel shut. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  She shook her head, clearly disappointed with his question. “I hope you enjoy your stay in Mexico, señor.”

  Simon walked down the corridor and passed the guards and stepped through the main doors. It felt as though the building expelled him. The late afternoon sun blasted directly into his eyes. Behind him he heard loud voices and laughter. The duffel bag weighed a thousand pounds. The apparatus anchored him to a billion broken dreams. The heat was a burden that threatened to drive him onto his knees. To his left, the church bells began ringing, hammering at him with musical nails.

  Simon was midway across the square when he halted. He set the apparatus on the ground by his feet. He stared at the battered Mustang, willing himself to get back behind the wheel and drive. Head north, cross the border, get back to Boston.

  But for what? Get another bartending job? Make another futile attempt to be reinstated at MIT? Try to convince the school he had finally turned his life around?

  The bells finally stopped ringing. A doorway in a yellow stucco wall beside the church opened, and young children spilled out. They all wore uniforms of white and pale blue. They chattered gaily as they crossed the square toward a waiting bus. So many shining faces, so much young hope.

  Simon picked up his duffel and walked to his car. He dumped the apparatus in the rear seat, climbed in, started the car, put it into gear, and pulled away. Behind him, the children chased a pair of doves and shrieked their carefree laughter.

  He traveled the same road he had driven south, filled with bitter regret. He had no idea where Vasquez was buried and would not have gone to the grave site if he did. He had not been to a cemetery since the day after his ninth birthday, when he had been dragged by his new foster family to his parents’ funeral. The apologies he had carried south, the four days of words he had spoken to the empty car, were lost to the blistering heat.

  As the city faded into poverty, Simon’s rage finally erupted. He shouted at the westering sun and pressed the pedal to the floor. The Mustang’s engine bellowed a manic note, as though giving voice to all his bitter tumult. Simon blasted out of town and flew into the desert. The industrial zone and border station were masked by the dusty sunset. And beyond that lay two thousand miles of road and the cold, hard reality of nothing to lose.

  He was already over the bump before he realized what he had hit.

  The dusty wooden plank had been dragged across his lane just as he approached. Ten-inch nails studded the plank, dozens of them. They glimmered in the light like teeth. A man squatted in the trench beside the road, almost hidden by the SUV’s shadow.

  All four of the Mustang’s tires banged, tight sounds like gunshots. The Mustang had been traveling at over seventy miles an hour. The wheels deflated in a split second. The rims hit the pavement and began throwing up sparks higher than his windscreen. The car shrieked like an animal caught in a trap.

  Simon wrenched the wheel, but the car did not respond. The Mustang spun in a lazy circle, the sparks rising like fireworks. He heard a blaring horn and spotted a massive truck’s front fender come racing toward him. For the first time he genuinely thought he was about to die.

  The left front tire rim caught a rock or groove or something, and the car jerked as though yanked by an unseen hand. The Mustang veered off the road just as the truck blasted by.

  The car tumbled into the trench and gnashed down the rocky slope. Rocks and shrubs screeched against the right side. The trench was about fifteen feet deep and grew steeper the closer they came to the bottom. The Mustang swooped down the final drop and hammered its nose into the concrete trough lining the base. The car rocked once, twice, and then creaked and groaned and came to rest at a steep angle. The trench’s narrow dimensions kept the Mustang from turning completely over.

  Simon huffed a series of very hard breaths. The loudest sound he could hear was the boom of his heart. Rocks scattered and slid down the ledge beside him. Somewhere in the distance a truck’s horn continued to blare as it drove away.

  Simon forced his hands to unclench the wheel. His thoughts formed a rambling noise, but one thing was vividly clear. He was still in danger. He was certain he had to move. Get out of the car. And flee.

  He unhooked his safety belt and eased himself down to the earth. He clambered out of the car, scaling his seat and searching for handholds in the dirt. Everything hurt. Then he remembered the apparatus and crouched down to where he could look into the rear seat.

  The black duffel bag was gone.

  Instantly his life and the world came into sharp focus. The final remnant of his former world was inside that duffel bag. The last remaining vestige of his life as a scientist.

  Gone.

  Then he saw it. Hidden in the scar his car had plowed in the yellow dirt, melded into the trench’s shadows.

  His legs were trembly and his fear was very real. But he managed to clamber around the side of the car, hop across the concrete base, and scale the raw earth. The duffel was twisted at an odd angle, which suggested that the apparatus inside was badly damaged. But now was not the time to worry about such things. Because his mind was clearing enough to realize that the danger was not over.

  In fact, if he was right, it was only just beginning.

  Chapter 3

  As Simon raced across the desert, he heard a faint noise behind him. Simon had trouble identifying it. It was a faint beeping, like a radar gun, or . . .

  He risked a glance back. Silhouetted against the last shard of daylight was the hunter. He used both hands to steady his aim and hummed a bizarre beeping noise, almost like he was playing a video fighter, bringing Simon into the target-circle.

  The hunter treated Simon’s death as a game.

  Simon scaled a steep-sided ledge, using all four limbs to fight for holds in the loose earth. A bang sounded behind him. The bullet whined off a rock to the right of his face, then something smacked him in the forehead. Simon lost his footing and tumbled over the ledge.

  He fell and rolled and came up running, though his mind felt disconnected and his legs were wobbly. Even so, he ran. His vision blurred and then cleared, his limbs refused to follow the scattered directions from his brain, then snapped back into rhythm. Still, he ran.

  The maquiladora, or industrial zone, was made up of three distinct components. A cluster of brand-new structures rose to his right. Their prefab siding gleamed in the guard lights. They were surrounded by new fencing topped with barbed wire. A generator rumbled loudly somewhere out of sight. Simon searched for a way through the fence and found none.

  The wound on his forehead drummed in time with the generator. Each breath punched a new hole in his pain. He swiped at th
e blood that trailed across his left eye and glanced back. The hunter had returned to his SUV. He spun in a dusty circle and flew across the scrubland, taking aim at Simon.

  Directly ahead of Simon were a cluster of perhaps two dozen older buildings. They formed an industrial slum, with pitted walls and broken windows and empty parking areas. Beyond the farthest structures, traffic rumbled down the highway connecting Ojinaga to the border. Simon resisted the urge to try for the cultivated area connecting the newer zone to the highway. The angle of the hunter’s approach suggested this was what he wanted. He knew the terrain and Simon did not. The hunter intended to herd him into the dead zone between the desert and the fence.

  Simon veered toward the zone’s third section: a vast workers’ compound. Bordering the apartment blocks were tiny garage-style operations servicing the newer industrial structures to his right. The housing was as grim as anything he had ever seen.

  Beyond the dwellings Simon glimpsed what appeared to be a dusty market square. This entire section was fenced, of course. Everything of value in Mexico was fenced. But Simon ran toward it anyway, hoping against hope that he would find a hole or a break or at least a tree that would give him a lever on which he could scale his way to safety.

  The hunter must have seen what he intended, because the SUV’s motor roared angrily. The change spurred Simon to a speed he had not thought possible. He was not being chased by a man. He was fleeing death itself.

  He could not find a way through. The fence was rusting, but the holes were all covered with black-mesh nylon. Simon didn’t slow, he didn’t hesitate. He leapt as high as he could and smashed into the fence, full force.

  To his left, the stanchion holding up the fence snapped clean off.