David Dun - The Black Silent

"Why don't you fry them," Ben said. "Tripe's actually quite good, I understand."

The man looked at him with amusement in his eyes. He knew who would win, and Ben now believed that they would disembowel him. Suddenly his joke didn't seem so clever.

"We'll have you take off your shirt and the rest of your clothes and lie down there. We'll begin a sterile prep, start the IV, and get you on the ventilator."

Ben stood feeling like the next few steps were the death walk. He glanced at Stu.

"Hey, man, you don't want to do this," Stu said.

"Gas pains worse than green apples?" With that, Ben now believed himself to be clinically insane, laughing at his own demise.

Stu, Ben, and the Arab watched while Ben removed all his clothes.

"Get on the table," the Arab said. Ben just stood there staring at the gleaming stainless steel and the round holes in the perforated surface that would allow his blood to run down inside the table. He wondered where the blood went. "We can do it the hard way,"

Len said

"Go to hell," Ben said.

Someone threw open the door to the exam room.

"Wait a minute!" another man said. "We're going to get Sarah James. The boss says to use her for the rough stuff. Anderson won't be able to take it and he'll be more coherent that way than with his guts in a bowl."

The Arab man sighed and turned away. "That is a complete change of plans."

Ben felt a new level of fear at the mention of Sarah's name. Was this true? Was it a choreographed act? A bluff?

"We'll be taking Dr. Anderson to her location," the new man said. "You can do it there.

She's by herself in her house. We'll have her in minutes. Unless, of course, Dr. Anderson wants us to stop, wants to spare her the terror."

"We may take out her uterus first. See how he likes that," the self-styled surgeon said.

"Animals," Ben said.

Ben took a closer look at the newly arrived man. He carried a small automatic rifle and wore a camouflage suit. His face triggered a faint glimmer in Ben's memory.

Sarah James sat in the kitchen of her cedar home in a wooden chair that was not as comfortable as the chairs or sofa in the great room. But she had no interest in relaxing or watching more of Flick's manufactured history on the evening news. She had turned out the lights, believing it was safer. She worried about Ben.

The great room off the kitchen had a high-prow point that looked out into the second-growth forest, but it did not provide a view up the driveway. For that, she would need to stand and look out the kitchen window. In the dark, though, the lights of any approaching vehicle did illuminate the interior of the kitchen, turning the cedar golden.

So she waited for the tiny photons to arrive in their inexplicable waves.

She wore a dress for Ben; he was old-fashioned enough to like them, although on her he never seemed to notice-at least until recently and then she wasn't sure. It was painful but true and she didn't believe in kidding herself. Her romantic interest in Ben had been relatively recent and very secret and frankly had surprised her. He was twenty years her senior and she hadn't known that she could feel such physical love for an older man until one day she was looking at him and wanted to go crazy on his desktop.

Tonight, under her dress, she wore a bathing suit-not for flirtation but as a necessary part of the next step in their journey. She glanced at her watch: about fifteen minutes left.

She used memories of Ben to stave off the anxiety. One of her favorites had occurred on a Friday afternoon several months previous. It had been time to go back home to gardening, tennis, maybe a little golf.

She and Ben were discussing lab supplies and new summer interns from the university.

They were standing close and, for some reason after all those years, she had felt so familiar that she inexplicably put her hand on Ben's belly and sort of patted it. There had been some conversation about whether he was getting fat. He wasn't.

Then he took hold of her hand and looked down at her and Sarah knew he was going to kiss her. But he didn't. He hesitated, obviously wanting to-about to-but somehow conflicted. No doubt it was all those years with his sweet Helen. She had been his soul mate. When he had disengaged, he kissed her forehead. It was sweet, but not what she had in mind. When she returned to her desk, she had allowed her imagination to roam free about what might have happened. Lately, however, he took every opportunity to be with her and wasn't at all above making up reasons. Getting together "as friends" was becoming a regular habit.

Although she wanted to come clean about her feelings for Ben, she knew she didn't dare. It was for Ben to validate them, and so far he had not. Ben had become no less charming, but he had become very secretive about his work. He had told Haley little for her own protection and hadn't told Sarah much more for the same reason. His leaving Sanker and avoiding other, greater threats was a thicket, and only Ben could negotiate the passage.

It was time to leave. She gathered up her things and her packed bag, and called Betty Horngrave. Of course, her friend of many years would be happy to check the place and feed the cat. The dog was already in the kennels. Then the phone rang. She picked it up and there was a click. Something about that seemed ominous.

She grabbed her small bag and her laptop computer, looked around, and walked out the door.

She was nervous and was unable to imagine what might happen when she arrived at the dive site.

Ben had explained to her that all of the San Juan Islands were created at the end of the Ice Age and were composed of glacial till. Most of the islands had thin topsoil, less than twenty feet, and in many places the leftover giant chunks of rock were at the surface.

Near Orcas Nob and at various points along the edge of Orcas, some very large rock chunks the size of stadiums were at the surface and the beach face was composed of hard-rock cliffs. Near here sat an experimental area operated by Ben some years ago, and Sarah had a hunch that perhaps that was where he was taking her tonight. It was a hunch based on something Nelson Gempshorn had said about a picnic she and Ben had enjoyed a long time ago. She couldn't imagine why she would be diving in that area; it was a steep drop-off to water ninety to three hundred feet deep. But if not there on President Channel, then where? And why Gempshorn's mention of the picnic, if not to clue her in?

She couldn't guess.

Sarah did think it odd that Ben had not called her himself. But the explanation that he was on the run and headed for a safe place had to suffice. She did not know Nelson Gempshorn well, but she knew that Ben did, even though he had tried to disguise the relationship and never spoke much of the man.

Some years previous, Ben had sometimes taken his small research submarine out there.

The area was about one mile north of an intriguing abandoned lime kiln from the early 1900s, with a standing chimney and underground passages that surfaced at the bank near the water's edge. There were no houses along that stretch of waterfront, although there were homes to the north and to the south. Now the area took on added interest and she tried to consider what could be going on and how she could have missed it.

When she was about to leave, she once again tried Haley's phone and received no answer.

As she was walking to the garage to get in her car for the drive to the Fisherman's Bay docks, a sedan pulled in. It wasn't a police car. Quickly she stepped back next to a large tree. A man jumped out of the car. Suddenly Sarah had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Sam left Rachael on the Geisha with the lights off, but for a small reading light. They had turned the heater on. Rachael waited by the VHF radio for their call, where she would sit, read, and try to relax until the appointed time.