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Amanda's War

By Bill Etem

Published by Bill Etem at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Bill Etem

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover design by www.MotherSpider.com

Table of Contents

Part 1. The Genesis of an Adventuress

Chapter 1. Sovant's Run

Chapter 2. Haakon Finds a Wife in a Beer-Hall

Chapter 3. Von Hellemann's Castle

Chapter 4. Meeting Amanda

Chapter 5. Memories of South America

Part 2. The Tyranny of Uncertainty

Chapter 6. Midnight Swim in the Ice Water of Lake Superior

Chapter 7. Pamela Can't be Trusted to Commit Perjury

Chapter 8. Amanda Becomes World Famous Overnight

Chapter 9. Escape to the Isle of the Sun King

Chapter 10. Angeline and Bergitta

Part 3. The End of the Good Old Days: Hard Times Hit Amanda, Haakon, Al et. al.

Chapter 11. Comrades-in-Arms

Chapter 12. Maria's Reveries

Chapter 13. Quixotic Odyssey

Chapter 14. The Rebellion

Part 4. Convulsing the Universe

Chapter 15. The Avalanche

Chapter 16. The Witch

Chapter 17. Falling Toward the Arctic Ocean

Amanda's War

Part 1. The Genesis of an Adventuress

Chapter 1. Sovant's Run

The light of the full moon had revealed the target. Haakon Sovant, a modern condottieri, or at least a humble body guard, a soldier in a rich man's private army, was alive yet fighting for his life an hour after he had been shot. The bullets recently flying all round Sovant must have been steeped in some sort of poison, as he was writhing on the ice and snow and suffering the most violent convulsions. Sovant thought his heart was going to explode from the violent pounding and the speed of his runaway pulse.

Despite having a bullet carve a thoroughfare into his abdomen, the thought of dying from his bullet wound had not immediately penetrated Haakon Sovant's head. But how soon things change! Sovant was very aware that something evil was in his blood when he began to feel the sinews in his heart being torn apart. To make matters worse he had to fight a war on two fronts; not only was his body racked with convulsions but his mind was reeling with hallucinations. As he thrashed about on the ground Sovant wondered how he was ever going to escape from his predicament.

Not that he could have known it, but he was not hemorrhaging too severely as the bullet hadn't hit any major veins or arteries. Sovant tried to tell himself that if he could only relax a little, just enough to calm his racing pulse, then his heart might not tear itself apart.

It was an hour after the final rays of daylight were dying away in the west when the ordeal began. The full moon was hung over the Great Lake to the east, shining brightly and giving the assassin ample light to take aim. Sovant knew immediately that he had been hit but he was not immediately incapacitated. He drew his Smith & Wesson .357 after diving for cover behind a pine tree. A few seconds elapsed. Then the sound of the crashing of the assassin's footsteps led him to attempt a pursuit. Sovant didn't get far in his counter-attack before the poison hit his heart.

Right after his collapse the convulsions and the hallucinations arrived with all their ferocity. Sovant was concealed in a cluster of pines and dwarf birches - though this was hardly any great consolation to him at the time! - still, Sovant believed, while suffering his hallucinations, in the pandemonium raging in his poisoned mind, that, should the assassin decide to double back and deliver the coup de grace, he, Sovant, would be difficult to locate. Of course the assassin could have found him merely by following the sound of all of Sovant's gasping and thrashing. But the assassin didn't loiter long enough to learn that Sovant was incapacitated and easy to kill. And so the sound of the foot-steps of the killer continued to recede further and further into the distance while Sovant lay convulsing on the ice and snow.

Two hours elapsed before the culmination of the hurricane came and went. Once the most ferocious blasts were behind him Sovant was conscious enough to recall that the first bullet hit him right in the middle of his abdomen, whereas the succeeding bullets seemed to fly far over his head or go far wide of him. Sovant was wondering if his guardian angel finally woke up and decided to do his job; he certainly botched things rather terribly by letting that first bullet get him.

In another hour Sovant had recovered sufficiently to stagger to his feet. He unbuttoned his coat and inspected his wound. Blood was coagulated on the front of his sweater, but, as best he could determine in the moonlight he wasn't bleeding much, certainly not profusely. He also noticed his cell phone was missing. He spent a few minutes searching the snow before giving up. Immensely relieved to find himself alive, with his wits more or less lucid, Sovant now found himself becoming disgusted with his own stupidity. He berated himself for his carelessness. He knew the bullet must have almost severed a vein or artery large enough to kill him. If he had paid more attention to his surroundings earlier he wouldn't have to stuff his guts back into his belly now! Sovant was a professional body guard and his boss was receiving extortion demands from mobsters. He had fallen into the bad habit of not taking these threats seriously; that bad habit was broken for good.

Shivering in the arctic air \- the frosts lingered on though it was almost April - Sovant lit out, stumbling and lurching, drifting in the general direction of a desolate meadow. Crossing this, where he was exposed to snipers in the illumination of the full moon, he wondered if he would meet another bullet. Soon enough he was under the cover of darkness again, under the towering evergreens. The sniper had evidently vanished but in case he hadn't Sovant was scrutinizing the path ahead of him, looking to the right and left and taking a quick glance behind himself, with his weapon in his right hand. He marveled at how scrambled his brain was - he couldn't remember his own name.

The sky to the north and east was shimmering with colored lights within an emerald-green halo; the neon lights of a little city were the cause of the atmospheric phenomena. He could recall that he was near Lake Superior, forty miles below the Canadian line, and yet Sovant couldn't remember the name of the city. As he walked in the woods outside of Grand Marais, Minnesota - a place where he had lived and worked for the last 15 years - Sovant was hearing only the wind in the treetops and the crunch of the ice beneath his boot-heels.

He was feeling better and better with every step. Sovant contemplated his recent run of both good and bad luck. After a hellish ordeal where his heart nearly exploded, he was, strangely enough, feeling a powerful surge of euphoria; it felt wonderful to be alive; and the beauty of the moonlight shining down on these North Woods, so redolent from their conifers, was marvelously intoxicating. The moonlight on the meadows and on the forest was more enchanting than he had ever noticed before. The poison obviously had not dissipated completely; he thought it odd that the poison was now fueling his euphoria, but he wasn't complaining. Yes, it was wonderful to be alive. Sovant had never tried heroin but he couldn't imagine how that drug could ever surpass what he was feeling now. The sweetness of life was too wonderful for words to ever describe.

As the trees yielded before another open meadow, where the moon and the stars were no longer eclipsed by even the tallest of the White pines, Sovant looked up to see the battlements of a Castle silhouetted against the sky. This Castle, situated at the summit of a small mountain, belonged to Sovant's employer, Wolfgang Von Hellemann, the rich man with the private army. An aura of Teutonic romance seemed to pervade the place. The Castle resembled a barbarian tribe's mountain fastness, or at least it did in Sovant's scrambled imagination. Looking down again, Sovant could see more clearly the clock in an illuminated steeple in a church in Grand Marais: it was just after midnight.

Sovant continued on. He approached Lake Superior. He was converging on some fishermen's shacks while listening for sounds of pursuit. The world was silent save for the wind and the waves which broke over the beach. Sovant walked down this beach until he came to a path which ran parallel to a highway. In another mile this highway would become the main street of Grand Marais, which was home to a few thousand people who survived by working in bars and restaurants, gas stations and motels, boutiques and coffee shops.

Chapter 2. Haakon Finds a Wife in a Beer-Hall

Sovant strode into town. For a few awkward moments he wondered if he was a ghost, and he speculated it was his shade which was striding into town. He could feel that his euphoria was beginning to fade. Only cars and barflies stirred on the streets. Soon enough Sovant found himself standing before the portals of an enormous beer-hall. This building, constructed with massive stones and huge timbers, reverberated with amplified music emanating from deep within it. The beer-hall was owned by his boss, the man with the Castle and the mountain, Wolfgang Von Hellemann. Wolfgang had quaintly named his beer-hall Wolf's Lair. It was incapable of containing the tumult raging inside itself. Sovant didn't fail to see the similarity between it and his condition two hours earlier.

Haakon Sovant entered the portals of the beer-hall and proceeded down a tunnel. He came to a cavern adorned with murals - Viking and Teutonic scenes - the haunts of the Valkyries - there were frescos full of Nordic lore - warriors and goddesses, elves and maidens, wolves, stags, streams, forests, trolls guarding treasure troves of gold and precious gems. In one rendition, warted hags were in cahoots with some goblins to boil their witches' brew in a cauldron atop the Brocken on Walpurgisnacht. Moving onwards he came to a second cavern the walls of which were ornament with frescos revealing voluptuous nymphs in attitudes worthy of Michelangelo: they lounged in their half-naked splendor beneath the burning Etruscan sun. Hard by the girls were scenes of Grecian temples and Roman porticos, rivers and lakes below precipitous mountains.

Sovant descended a stone staircase. The walls were here adorned with the protruding heads of boars and stags. When he was halfway down the stairs he could behold the source of the pandemonium. A sea of people filled a vast underworld. A throng, in something of a controlled riot, surged to and fro under the influence of intoxicating spirits and highly amplified music. When they were thoroughly intoxicated, Sovant seemed to recall, the people in these parts were fond of beating their fists upon the tables and pounding their boots upon the stone floor, shouting at the top of their lungs even, at least until the tardy barmaids brought them more beer.

Just before Sovant reached the bottom of the staircase he was confronted by a face vomiting up a gusher of fluid. The face was also spewing curses as it hung suspended in mid-air, cut off from the body which was concealed by a cloud of cigarette smoke and misty fumes from a fire in a hearth. The face vanished almost as suddenly as it had appeared as the man moved on up the stairs. Most likely he was intent on nothing more than finding a hole to crawl into, but, nevertheless, Sovant in his confusion, thought this might be the man who had shot him. Sovant debated whether to follow or confront him. A few seconds elapsed before he decided to hold to his earlier intentions, which were, after he lost his phone, to warn his friends and colleagues in person that some extortionists had launched an offensive. The other bodyguards knew that gangsters had written threatening letters to their wealthy boss - pay up or else being the theme of these notes \- but they were just as careless as he was in disregarding these threats, and they probably did not know some sort of war had begun in earnest.

Sovant was soon navigating his way through the surging underworld. He was plying a course past flames in a second hearth. He was pushing his way through hordes of people guzzling beer from huge masses of glass. Haakon arrived at last at a place with some peace and isolation, an alcove where he could put his back against the wall, where he could watch and listen and observe the crowd all round him.

Despite the fires in the hearths the cavern was cool enough for him to find it necessary to keep his coat on. He held his Smith & Wesson .357 in his right hand, with his right hand hidden in his coat pocket. The highly amplified music was hurting his ears a little and annoying him no end with their blaring. He seriously thought about firing a few shots from his .357 into the nearest speaker. That would give these people something new to talk about. His euphoria had certainly faded away completely.

Sovant was having a terrible time recognizing any friends of his, though people were smiling at him once in awhile, and some at least seemed to recognize him. Searching the faces of both the itinerants as well as the habitués of this beer-hall, though Sovant couldn't seem to tell one from the other, he saw so many strangers guzzling beer or gnawing on turkey legs or chickens or slabs of beef when they weren't pouring beer down their throats. At last Haakon recognized some local fisher-folk, or perhaps he only recognized their woolen garments bespattered with fish-guts. There were also a few farmers with manure still clinging to their boots, and some loggers with sawdust in their clothes and hair. The establishment didn't cater exclusively to the working classes. Mingled among the farmers and mechanics were artistic paupers: starving poets and hungry musicians. Every now and then the barmaids brought drinks to rich Canadians, wealthy Japanese tourists, elegant Chinese businessmen etc., etc. If one had been hit with a poisoned bullet one's inflamed imagination one might think the place was full of beautiful women and peasant wenches, along with rustic louts and perhaps some brigands and barbarians with leonine manes; elegant women in cashmere and taffeta, glamour girls and rich sophisticated youths. Usually there were more proletarians than bourgeoisie in the beer-hall, more wide-bellied truck drivers than delicate gentlemen with soulful eyes and wan, emaciated complexions. Tonight the working-class proliferated in numbers far surpassing the delicate aristocrats.

A blonde serving girl handed Sovant a beer as he was about to decamp from his position against the wall. She gave him a startled look as she scrutinized at his vacant gaze. Sovant was angry with himself because he could not remember her name, though he seemed to recall that he had conversed with her often enough.

`Sorry for forgetting your name,' said Haakon. `An assassin tried to kill me - I got a slug in my gut - no lie - and now I can't even remember my own name, or yours.'

`It's Haakon Sovant. And I'm Kim. I'll call an ambulance for you,' said the bar-maid after a long pause to assess if he was drunk or sober.

`No, don't bother. I have my own doc and I'll see him soon enough.'

Sovant opened up his coat and showed her all the blood on his sweater to prove to Kim he wasn't joking, to prove to her that he had a good excuse for forgetting her name.

`You're not going to die are you?' asked Kim.

`I'll need to get to a hospital tonight but I have to find some people first.'

Sovant drifted past an enormous beast that was rearing up on its hind legs. Along with waitresses in mini-skirts and décolleté the fangs and claws on the 10-foot tall grizzly were only more ways that the establishment's décor sought to create some enchantment for the customers. Sovant continued on until, at last, he located one of his friends. The man was facing away from Sovant but he was easy enough to recognize. A big crowd of people suddenly rushed in and prevented Haakon from approaching his friend. He was hiding his bloody wound from these people while listening to their conversation.

Haakon Sovant maneuvered through the crowd until he found his old friend, who he slapped on the back - Sovant couldn't remember his name. The man and his drinking mates could hardly miss the blood which had coagulated on the front of Sovant's sweater. Sovant thought about improvising a tale about being ventilated by a careless hunter. Poachers were always blasting animals hereabouts out of season. But then he confessed that a gangster had got him. Sovant was listening to these fine people, listening to their words of kind concern. He insisted they were over-reacting, that you had to be tough to be to wage war against gangland terror. Sovant was insisting that they were acting like pampered suburban people, acting is if they never had the exhilarating experience of fighting in hand-to-hand combat before, and probably had never even seen a man covered with blood from a bullet wound before. Sovant was saying all this while smiling and trying to make a joke about all the blood that he was covered in.

Sovant was trying to be funny but no one was laughing. Turning round to jest with more of these solicitous people, he found a striking brunette staring at him. She was another bar-maid with a name that Sovant couldn't remember. As with Kim, he suspected he had spoken to her at least a thousand times. But there was something about her face that was alien to him. Maybe, he wondered, he had never actually seen her before. He thought she was very striking and beautiful. He didn't wonder how he forgot such an arresting face, assuming he had seen her face before, as there was always the poisoned bullet to explain everything that was wrong with his mind and memory. Sovant could hardly help but notice that she was staring at him intently. Now Sovant was certain he was not sure if he had seen her before or not. He knew for a fact he had no chance at guessing her name. Her eyes had locked on to his for a few seconds and Haakon didn't mind that too much. Haakon then watched her as she started to tug at his arm. She was pulling him toward the stairs. Sovant was listening intently to the woman - she had a rather soft voice that was hard to hear - listening intently as the beautiful stranger was telling the people all round them that she would get him to a hospital with or without an argument from him.

`Get him out of here, Maria,' Haakon heard someone say.

`Get him out of here, Maria,' said Haakon in a mocking tone.

`Darling, don't antagonize my boss,' said Maria.

`Her name is Maria and she calls me darling,' thought Haakon to himself.

`I thought he was too sharp with you,' said Haakon.

`Yeah, but he is my boss and you and me and him are all friends so I really wish you won't mock him. It's almost seems like you don't know who he is.'

Maria saw clearly enough that her husband was suffering from some sort of drug. His eyeballs were glassy, the pupils hugely dilated, and they lingered for seconds on every new object that they met. Anyone could see he needed a doctor's care, with his crazy eyes, and with all the coagulated blood on the front of his sweater. Sovant didn't appear to Maria to be weakened from loss of blood. He wasn't sluggish; he didn't look about to slump over and die. He wasn't rocking back and forth. He was still so strong that Maria found it practically impossible to budge him. Sovant had half a mind to stay a little longer to make sure that a man - whose name he also couldn't remember - but one of his comrades-in-arms - was warned that a sniper was on the loose. But, on the other hand, the beautiful brunette was trying so sweetly to drag him out of the beer-hall to get him some medical attention. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps he ought to get patched up; someone else could warn his associates. For some reason Sovant remembered that he had associates, friends of some sort, but he certainly didn't remember they were other bodyguards employed by Von Hellemann.

Still tugging on Sovant's arm, Maria led the way to the stairs. Not that Sovant remembered, but in public they usually tried to pretend they weren't married - as Maria was another soldier in the rich man's clandestine army. With her right hand on her Glock 9mm in her coat pocket, with her left hand pulling on Sovant's arm, Maria proceeded up the staircase and then down the corridor toward the portals. At one point she stopped at a pay phone to talk to a colleague of theirs. Evidently she too had lost her cell phone.

`Gaston,' Maria began, `Haakon has been shot...It doesn't seem like he is in any danger of dying....OK...OK....Right... Talk to you later.'

Gaston, another bodyguard, thought it was best to avoid the local hospital, as an assassin might be waiting there to finish the job. A doctor would be sent round to their apartment. Maria rang off and then she and Haakon exchanged the pandemonium of the amplified music for the tranquility of the deserted streets.

They struck out down the main avenue leading north. Then, making sure they weren't being followed, they darted down an alley and then across someone's back yard. That seemed wise at the time but now a dog barred its fangs at them. It didn't lunge but its barking soon alerted other hounds. And in another minute the call of the wild was universal, with the din of howling dogs echoing over the little city.

After another five minutes of hiking they halted and took refuge behind a garage. They watched and listened and remained perfectly still while concealed in the shadows.

`I remember your face vaguely, at least somewhat, but I can't remember your name,' said Haakon.

Maria searched her husband's face.

`Are you serious?' she asked.

`To be perfectly honest I don't even remember your face,' said Haakon.

`You don't know who I am?' asked Maria.

`I was shot by someone. Then I had the most horrible convulsions. And the hallucinations! I was seeing these crazy horrible images while I was convulsing on the snow for more than three hours. I got hit by a poisoned bullet. I couldn't remember my own name, or Kim's name, until Kim reminded me.'

`I'm your wife. I'm Maria!'

Haakon stared at the woman.

`Like I said that was a terrible ordeal that I just had.'

`I bet.'

`So fill me in a little. Tell me about us.'

`You and me were married in Mexico 20 years ago. We used to work for the CIA. Now we're body guards for an industrialist named Wolfgang Von Hellemann. Do you remember someone named Sergio?'

`No.'

`What about Pamela?'

`No.'

`You and her were close. You and her always had a lot to talk about.'

`Is that right?

`She was in the CIA with us. You worked with me, her, with Sergio too - Sergio is Pamela's husband. We worked in South America: Columbia, Brazil, Argentina. There was also Mexico.

`Who's Sergio again?

`Sergio Molina is Pamela's husband. I can't believe this! You don't remember any of this?'

`No.'

`Amazing. Sergio writes scholarly articles for academic presses that no one reads. He works fulltime along with us as a bodyguard. Pamela and Sergio are our best friends. Don't you remember Amanda? Al? Johann? Gaston?'

`I remember Spain. And I remember Michigan State.'

`East Lansing! That's where we first met. We were undergraduates there at the same time.'

`I don't know you.'

`Your memory will come back. Just give it some time.'

`Where am I from?'

`Michigan. Grand Rapids. Your real name is not Haakon Sovant. It's...'

`Don't tell me,' interrupted Sovant. `Let me see if I can remember it.'

`Everyone knows you as Haakon. You're wanted under your real name in several countries for espionage and conspiracy, so you just stick with the alias nowadays. Even your parents call you by your alias.'

`Do we have any kids?'

`No,' said Maria.

`No kids, and we've been married for 20 years, that seems strange,'

`A lot of things are strange,' said Maria.

Maria was starting to think that Haakon was losing the vacant stare on his face; and perhaps his dilated pupils and glassy-eyes were getting a little less dilated and glassy than they were when she first saw them in the beer-hall. Maria thought it best to make sure he wasn't still bleeding. She lifted his sweater and had a look at his wound.

`We love each other?' asked Haakon.

`Of course.'

`I believe that,' said Haakon rather awkwardly, but not without sentiment and honest emotion. `So we must have a good marriage then, right?'

`Yeah, sure.'

`How's our money situation?

`We're doing ok.'

`Any creditors after us for cash?' asked Haakon. `I'm not a deadbeat am I?'

`No.'

`I'm not an alcoholic, am I? I don't beat you, right? Or for that matter, you don't beat me do you?

`Everything's fine.'

`What's my mother-in-law like?'

`You like her.'

`You'd have to admit it would be very unusual, and rather suspicious sounding, if everything was absolutely perfect between us,' said Haakon.

`We're doing all right except that you are terribly bored with your job. You really hate it. All you do is sit around, or walk in the woods all day or all night by yourself. You watch for trespassers, for goons and extortionists. You walk all over and up and down Von Helleman's property. You remember that he get's extortion letters from mobsters, right? Until tonight we were not really sure if these letters were even serious.'

`I don't know what's wrong with me sometimes.'

`What do you mean?' asked Maria.

`There are these wonderful North Woods. I have a beautiful wife. You say we both want to have kids. I don't see why I would let a dull job interfere with my wonderful situation here.'

`You're making a million times more sense after you got shot than before. Come on. Let's go home.'

Having whispered in the shadows for a few minutes, and still finding that they hadn't been followed, they struck out again, making a quick dash over a garden, then across a street, then across a public park, then down a back alley until they arrived at their apartment.

Chapter 3. Von Hellemann's Castle

Pamela Molina née Lansing, a woman who hailed from Chicago, luxuriated in the warm scented waters enveloping her body as she floated in the bliss of her fragrant bath. She closed her eyes and was on the brink of falling asleep when she heard the front door open and shut. That, she reasoned with unerring logic, would be Maria. Maria Sovant née Camerino, a woman who hailed from Detroit, let Pamela use her apartment, because, they were best friends, and because Pamela had a long walk from town to her cottage high upon Von Hellemann's mountain, and it often wasn't convenient to walk back to her place when she would have to leave it again in an hour or two. Pamela and her husband were also soldiers in Von Hellemann's private army. There was no road to Pamela's place in the woods - and even if there was they didn't like to use their cars because it was easy for extortionists to plant a bomb under a car, and easy for extortionists to shoot you while you drove your car down the street. It was much more inconvenient yet so much safer to dodge from shadow to shadow on foot while venturing to your local destination.

Pamela could hear voices, one masculine the other feminine. Soon enough she was evicted from her bath by some pounding on the bathroom door. Pamela got out of the tub and into a towel. She opened the door to see the wounded Haakon, who still had the vacant stare in his glassy eyes. For a moment she almost didn't recognize him, so distorted were his features. Maria had removed Haakon's coat and sweater and was now explaining to Pamela the tale of the bullet as she washed away the coagulated gore from Haakon's wound. Pamela ransacked the cabinets looking for either a bottle of rubbing alcohol or a bottle of peroxide. The former was found and Maria poured its contents on her husband's wound.

Maria and Pamela checked Sovant's pulse, which was racing somewhat. They watched him as they waited for the doc to arrive.

Haakon, Pamela and Maria could only speculate whether this shooting meant the beginning of a war or the end of one. Sovant was saying that getting shot, but surviving the bullet, was good for their job security in the sense that it confirmed that these threats against their employer were legitimate. If there was no real threat against their boss, his body guards might soon be unemployed. Pamela and Maria saw his point but they also thought his wits were still scrambled.

Pamela bundled herself up, said see ya later to Maria and Haakon, and set off into the cold winter night at nearly 2 o'clock in the morning. The warm bath felt wonderful but she got so sleepy she had to pop a few Benzedrine pills to stay awake before setting out. It might be a long night. Pamela hiked to a gas station that was open 24 hours a day and picked up some more Benzedrine, butter, peroxide, bandages, gauze etc. During her walk Pamela called her husband on her cell phone.

`Hon, it's me,' said Pamela. `Where are you? You got the door locked? You heard what happened? After tonight I'm not walking through those woods unarmed ever again. Try to get some sleep....I'll be home in an hour or two...Ok.....Love ya.'

Pamela was relived to hear her husband and their two kids were safe in their cottage.

After getting the supplies she hiked back to Maria's and Haakon's flat. She didn't mind the exercise she would get when she would walk home later - a three mile climb up a mountain. In fact she loved to exercise - her waist was still just 24 inches - just like it was in high school - but she thought she'd stay at Maria's and Haakon's place a little longer and then walk home. She had her Glock 9mm with her; she wasn't afraid of snipers.

The doc and the cops were there when Pamela returned from the convenience store. The doc had stuck a needle in Haakon's arm and was giving him a pint of O positive. Then the cops asked him if was going to administer a local anesthetic and extract the slug in abdomen. If he could pull it out, it would be Exhibit A, and then the cops could run Exhibit A over to a cop chemist to see if it had been steeped in some sort of insidious toxin. The doctor preferred to not extract the bullet or perform emergency surgery. Haakon's blood pressure and pulse were high but he was not in imminent danger of dying. The doc wanted to get Sovant to the Mayo Clinic as soon as Von Helleman's Lear Jet could be made ready to go.

`You say you never saw the face of the shooter?' inquired Police Officer Yuremevic.

`Never saw him," said Sovant.

`Well, who would know that you were on that path?' asked Officer Jorak.

`The boss. Some of the staff at the Castle,' Sovant was saying. `A few of my associates - other bodyguards.'

`And how many bodyguards does Mr. Von Hellemann have?' asked officer Yuremevic.

`There's seven of us. Four work outside the Castle and three work inside,' said Sovant.

`It's you three and someone else on the outside, right?' asked Officer Jorak.

`Yeah.'

`And what is the name of this fourth person?' asked Officer Yuremevic.

`He's my husband and his name is Sergio Molina,' said Pamela.

`Ever see any extortionists, ma'am?' asked officer Jorak.

`Maybe. I see trespassers now and then. They usually seem harmless and claim they didn't know it was private property, as if there weren't plenty of postings.'

`Ma'am,' began Officer Yuremevic, referring to Pamela, `does Mr. Von Hellemann make it public knowledge that you people are his body guards, or do you have some sort of cover assignments?'

`Sergio works undercover as a woodcutter, a handyman around Mr. Von Hellemann's estate, and as a free-lance writer. He's a scholar,' Pamela was saying. `Maria and I work, as you know - we've seen you there lots of times - at Wolf's Lair. Of the four of us only Haakon is known in town to be one of Von Hellemann's bodyguards.'

`Can you think of anyone, a loan shark, for instance, or a guy he exchanged words with, like a neighbor, or a punk in a bar,' began Officer Jorak, looking at Maria, `can you think of someone other than a hood trying to extort money from Von Hellemann, who would want to kill your husband?'

`I can't think of anyone,' said Maria.

`Haakon doesn't have any enemies,' volunteered Pamela.

`The evidence, on the surface at least ma'am, seems to suggest otherwise,' said Officer Jorak.

`But, since Von Hellemann is super-rich,' began Officer Yuremevic, `and since he has received extortion letters, an out-of-town hood, as you say, is the obvious first speculation to come to mind. But those of us in the detective business are trained to look beyond the obvious...

`We don't jump to conclusions,' interrupted Officer Jorak.

`I jump, sometimes. I bet he pays pretty good, seein' how rich he is,' said Officer Yuremevic.

`Yeah, but a lot of those rich guys are the cheapest S.O.B.s - you'd be lucky to get a nickel more than minimum wage out of some of them,' said the cynical Officer Jorak.

`Whachya talkin' about?' demanded Officer Yuremevic. `He gives away free beer at the beer-hall don't he?'

`Now yer talkin' like a lap-dog lackey for the Republican Party. Free beer! That's nothin' to the super-rich.'

`Draw us a map where the shooting happened. Some of us lap dogs will have a look-see for bullet casings, and we'll take some photos of any boot-prints we find in the snow,' said Officer Yuremevic. `We'll call the station and get some flood lights out to the crime scene.'

The cops departed with the map, and soon enough Pamela was all alone and walking up a mountain path, after she too said goodbye to Maria and Haakon. The latter two were now riding in the doc's car to an airstrip outside of town. A pilot was waiting to take them, in Von Hellemann's jet, to Rochester, MN where Haakon would have the bullet removed and his intestines sewn up at the Mayo Clinic.

It took Pamela 20 minutes to get to the top of a precipice. From here she could see the entire the eastern side of the mountain - that is the eastern side of Von Hellemann's estate. Lake Superior, a thousand feet below, spread out to the horizon, where, barely discernible in the distance, one cold see, lit up as it was by its running lights, a huge ship probably laden with iron ore and bound for an eastern steel mill.

Yesterday's icy gales were dissipating into a gentle draft, and in a few weeks, if Pamela had to work a day shift again, the beginning of spring might be warm enough for her to get a suntan. She passed one of their caches, where they hid supplies for stake-out duty in a spacious hollow in the ground concealed beneath a boulder. She didn't bother to check to make sure it was undisturbed. Along with wool blankets it contained the olive oil and the French bread, kippered herrings in tins and saltine crackers, cheese and chocolate bars, smoked whitefish, smoked salmon etc. There were also a few bottles of bourbon and brandy for the cold night-watches, and lots of spare ammunition. Pamela would be glad when Haakon was back manning this post so she wouldn't have to divide her time between it and the beer-hall. Usually, Sovant divided his time between this eastern lookout and a similar western one. Pamela immensely preferred working at the beer-hall rather than sitting on a rock watching a mountain and a Great Lake. She wondered how Haakon could stand the boredom.

This path through the pines and spruce was a familiar haunt to Haakon and Sergio, but Pamela and Maria almost never went this way. Pamela didn't sense much danger as she ascended. She put a good deal of stealth into her footsteps, and was forever looking right and left for snipers. It was a long and exposed climb. Haakon and Sergio spent a week one summer making the path by hacking a way with machetes through no end of brambles, briars and tangles of buckthorn. In broad daylight it would be the simplest thing for a killer with a scope on his rifle to pick her off. The trees offered some cover but hardly enough to thwart a professional assassin. The last of the ice and snow had melted away in the clearings, and therefore the path was not always slippery, though it wasn't always easy to ascend as it wound its way upwards through the evergreens.

Pamela Molina was breathing hard from the strenuous climb by the time she got to the cottage in the woods where she lived with Sergio and her two kids, Amanda and Al. Aside from tonight they usually had plenty of peace and quite. Their nearest neighbor, Wolfgang Von Hellemann - was two miles away from them, and one had to take one of several narrow paths through the woods to go from their cottage to get anywhere, as there were no roads that cars could use near her place. But the rent was free. She and her husband had saved a lot of money. And she had kept the fat off her figure with this strenuous arrangement.

27 hours later, after Pamela had worked three more shifts at Wolf's Lair, Maria and Haakon had returned from the Mayo Clinic.

With their kids already at the Castle, Pamela and Sergio met up with Maria and Haakon at the latter's apartment.

`I hope you've been careful when walking in the woods,' said Maria.

`I'll bet they wear their bullet-proof vests when they're in the woods,' added Haakon.

`Not quite,' said Pamela. `But Sergio won't leave the cottage without his Uzi and you know I'm always packing heat.'

`I suppose the guy who shot Haakon is a thousand miles away from here right now,' said Maria.

`Were you able to keep all this from Amanda?' asked Haakon, referring to Pamela's and Sergio's 12-year-old daughter.

`She heard me talking on the phone about Haakon getting shot,' said Sergio.

`She's not roaming the woods by herself any longer,' said Pamela. `One of us has to walk her to and from the bus stop. She's too scared to walk alone, not that we'd let her walk alone.'

Pamela found she didn't have to make much of an effort with holding up her end of the conversation. Sergio wasn't much of conversationalist and so she usually had to do most of the work when they saw the Savants. But lately both Haakon and Maria were strangely talkative - they were two chatterboxes jabbering away about frivolous stuff - when, for the last few months, Pamela recalled that conversation had been rather strained between those two. Pamela was also amazed to also see that Maria and Haakon were so affectionate toward each other, holding hands all the time, staring into each others eyes like love-sick adolescents; all of this seemed terribly mysterious to Pamela because for years Haakon seemed rather bored with Maria. He told her he loved her but Maria didn't believe him, or at least that's what Maria told her when she wanted someone to confide in.

Pamela thought about popping some Benzedrine or Pseudoephedrine. It had been her job to patrol Von Hellemann's estate that day. And she had to work late the night before at the beer-hall. She excused herself for a minute, went to the bathroom, and there took seven Benzedrine pills to perk herself up and allow her to get her through the next few hours.

`Hon,' Sergio was saying as Pamela re-entered the room, `Haakon's memory has completely recovered,'

`Oh No!' said Pamela as she shot Haakon a smile.

`Think how terrible it would be to forget all of your mistakes,' said Haakon. `You would just make them all over again.'

`What mistakes have you made? You can tell us now that you have you got your memory back,' offered Sergio.

`My lawyer tells me to button it,' said Haakon looking at Maria.

The four of them bundled up and shoved off, leaving the warm apartment for the cold north wind. Maria locked the door with the key in her left hand, as she was carrying her Glock 9mm in her right hand. The Northern Minnesota neighborhood was exactly as one would expect to find it in late winter after sunset - dark, silent and cold - not that a sense of omnipresent doom lingered over the frozen little city.

They strolled down a few alleys, then over a park, then down a few more streets. They waited in the luminous glow behind a gas station to check to see if anyone had followed them. Pamela counted the seconds as she waited for some headlights to appear, or for the sound of footsteps on the pavement. But they were all alone. They shoved off down a side street. Here the street lights flung their shadow far out in front of her. Pamela was feeling brave because of the powerful handgun she was carrying. Her shadow along with the shadow of the weapon at the end of her arm looked menacing enough as she walked with her friends through a few blocks residential streets. The found the garage where they kept their cars, and then piled into Sergio's Chevy.

In 5 minutes the lights of the little city where spread out beneath them.

Wolfgang Von Hellemann and his wife, Joanna, greeted them when they arrived. Soon they were again hiking over more vast distances, this time striding over marble floors. It was difficult to not see everything in a blur: granite entablatures, towering rose-wood paneled corridors, mirrored hallways, Belgian tapestries, Egyptian pillars, Italian frescos, Grecian statues...

The Castle floated atop massive steel I-beams which spanned an enormous chasm. This chasm was an abandoned iron-ore mine; it had been rather elaborately redecorated and made extravagantly inhabitable. The opulence of it all was terribly inescapable. They entered a glass elevator and began to descend the 1700 feet to the base of what had previously been a mine. The vertical rock walls were illuminated in aquamarine-colored floodlights. Next week they might be lit up in crimson or golden hues. Sovant felt a surge of vertigo as he looked down upon a cobalt-blue sea shining like an opal far beneath the elevator.

At the bottom of the chasm they walked along the shores of a subterranean lake which sat at the center of this underworld. Sovant looked round him and above him. Ahead of them in the distance were towering flames burning in a colossal hearth. Everywhere Sovant looked he found opulence on a massive and preposterous scale. Von Hellemann and the others were walking on a sea of marble which flowed toward the hearth, around which were strewn scrolled divans, Pompeii chairs and récamiers. Von Hellemann was saying he wasn't bored with the place just yet as they walked along the marble shores of the lake.

At last they reached the colossal hearth and the towering flames. Sovant took a seat on a scrolled divan beside Maria. A waiter flitted on the periphery of Sovant`s consciousness. Sovant thought that Von Hellemann was like himself: distracted. He could hardly be dissatisfied with his own devotion to duty, not after he nearly died risking his life to defend Von Hellemann. The waiter arrived with some menus: for drink there was Champagne and Chardonnay, Chianti and Margaritas, Burgundy and Budweiser, MGD, Coors, Superior, Bohemia, Dos Equis, Tecate, Corona, Carta Blanca, Amstel, Heineken...For food there were Caesar salads, prime rib and New York Strips, swordfish and lobster, asparagus tips and pasta alfredo...for smokes there were Rocky Patels, Robustos, Cuesta Reys, Arturo Fuentes...

They drank and dined and smoked while Von Hellemann and Joanna were ever charming and solicitous. It had been a few weeks since any of them had conversed with Von Hellemann in person, and it was always fun to catch up with him on recent events. Wolfgang and Joanna were especially fond of Sergio's and Pamela's children, Amanda and Al, who always loved to explore the Castle, and who were doing just that at the moment.

Sovant glanced at Joanna and then at this marvelous underworld. She reminded him of Proserpine in her exotic haunts. Only rarely did bravado color her or Von Hellemann's conversation. He mentioned that it was a steal for him to spend only $2,000 a day on labor to collect the deadfall timber which he burned in his hearth - a hearth which looked large enough to accommodate a battleship. When he wanted to get a really big fire roaring on special occasions, such as Christmas, when he wanted flames 300 feet wide and 90 feet high to make a really big impression on the local kids, he said it set him back $20,000 an hour to fuel conflagrations of those proportions. And Haakon heard him say, months ago, that 5 Willis Towers, or 5 Empire State Buildings, would easily fit side by side in this basement of his.

Chapter 4: Meeting Amanda

Sovant looked out over the waters of Lake Superior and over all of the miles of green foliage above the deep-blue waters. He stood on a parapet of Von Helleman's Castle with his thoughts consumed with memories of distant days. Two weeks had elapsed since he had been shot and now he was reminiscing on events which happened years before that horrible night of recent memory. There was once a midnight rendezvous in fog-bound Prague, when, as a CIA agent, not as a soldier in Von Hellemann's army, he met a husky Russian, a female agent who, first, asked for a bribe, and then threatened to kill him, and then asked for a job with the CIA, then tried to seduce him, and then she tried to offer him a bribe. Only the love of intrigue could compel most people to live the life of a secret agent. A life of double crosses and continuous fear, of harrowing escapes, of love affairs that couldn't last, of living in close proximity to death, of forever trying to win the confidence of people by engaging in false friendships - who wanted that sort of existence? One's boss might be a sullen brute or a grinning assassin, he might be an agile liar or a harmless drudge, but if he ran into money problems from some sort of addiction, and if he absolutely had to sell something, it might be the names and the lives of the agents he was running. Vengeance was always a great motivator, as was the love of money, as was, for that matter, the urge to salute a flag. He knew espionage agents who craved only the drug of adrenaline. Others seemed to be slaves to their amour-propre. Whether they were or not, they refused to beg, steal or toil, and they evidently found espionage somewhat conducive to their amusement. A man, or a woman for that matter, was born under one of two kinds of curses, Sovant philosophized. There were those who were cursed with a lack of self-confidence, and then there were those who were cursed with too much of it. The latter made the worst kind of agents imaginable, but then the former were just as bad. Sovant didn't quite know what to do with the husky Russian, with her enormous arms and her little mustache - how could he be expected to grasp the complexities of every dilemma that came the way of a secret agent? No doubt there were mysteries too deep to be divined by even his fine mind. He wrestled her to the ground in a central plaza in Prague and stole her handgun. He felt stupid doing so at the time, but, really, what can you do with a crazy Russian female agent with huge arms and a little mustache?

Sovant, like everyone else at Von Helleman's Castle, was wondering when more blood would be shed in this war which seemed to have begun two weeks ago. The exact number of enemies that Von Hellemann had was something of a mystery. Even the basic lore surrounding this industrialist boss of his was murky and convoluted. Sovant found himself becoming disoriented as he attempted to disentangle the tentacles of various gangland operations involving people bent on extorting money from Von Hellemann and his legitimate businesses. One wondered if Von Hellemann was having more trouble with extortionists than the typical mega-billionaire had with them.

A blur of images filed through Sovant's memory. He recalled ancient conversations in dingy beer-halls, the haunts of broken gamblers and backslid preachers. His wife, every bit as much as himself, had to live in these sorts of dingy demimonde circles. They had both been sent by the CIA to work in places where the principals often seemed to die a few years after being born, such as from drug overdoses, or from gangland feuds, or from military coups, or from the wrath of jealous husbands. Sovant thought he might try to reminisce on the more the genteel streets and the less decadent circles he had known. But those memories were too tedious for his current mood. He certainly had to marvel at one piece of news: he had become passionately obsessed with his own wife. What an amazing change happened recently. Haakon was now ailing with love-sickness for his wife. She was so sweet to him after his ordeal in the woods, and now, unless he made a supreme effort to think about other things, all he could think about was Maria.

Sovant at last decamped from the parapet. It was time to go to work. He went to a closet, grabbed a coat, a second weapon, more ammunition, and then he swung a rucksack full of supplies and provisions on to his back. He set off for a door leading out of Von Helleman's Castle. In five minutes he was well on his way down a path through the forest. Sovant, with a weapon in hand, ready to kill anyone who tried to kill him, was alert to sounds and movements all round him. But, so far, the forest presented only the calm façade of springtime innocence.

The path descended the mountain on a course through birch and spruce, pines and firs, blackberries and choke cherries. Despite the obscuring wall of the forest, the blue expanse of Superior was never far from sight if one cared to squint through all the evergreen foliage. Coming to the top of a little rise, he looked in the direction of the city and saw where Grand Marais culminated in a little harbor with its picturesque lighthouse. He could not quite see the sailboat he purchased last summer and which he kept moored in the harbor. He could, however, see a huge seafaring vessel on the horizon. The sweetness of the conifers was marvelously mingled with, if not salt-water, then at least a maritime theme in this part of the Midwest. The tolling of church bells in the little city reminded Sovant of his clandestine days in Spain. Continuing his sylvan voyage, Sovant soon came to a breach in a precipice where a torrent was plunging down from the higher slopes. The cataract ended abruptly where a meadow began just as abruptly. A languid stream flowed over this meadow until it entered another gorge, where it became a wild torrent again which plunged toward the Great Lake. Sovant was soon hearing the pounding of horses' hooves. He turned to catch sight of his friend Sergio, Pamela's husband. He was one of Von Helleman's ostensible woodcutters: in reality he was yet another clandestine agent in Von Hellemann's army. Sergio waved to Sovant as he worked his team of Belgian work-horses in clearing away the winter deadfall. Sovant waved in reply and then continued on, following the path as it ascended briefly to reach the top of yet another precipice. Sovant ventured across a footbridge which spanned this second river on Von Hellemann's estate. Beneath the bridge a torrent was roaring through a gorge. Halfway across he stopped and looked down. Some kids had carved their initials into the railing. He peered over the side of the bridge to see that the river was swollen with melted snow. Whirlpools swirled round submerged boulders.

Sovant didn't neglect to scan the woods for signs of trouble, though a chipmunk was perhaps the most lethal adversary he had seen since leaving the Castle. Sovant wondered if he was in the cross-hairs of a rifle at this very moment as he loitered on the footbridge, enraptured by the perfumed and beautiful forest, by the thunder of the cascade. He looked at the railing and saw again the initials of urchins carved into the wood. There was an Al. M., an A.M. and a W.V.H. Sovant also saw some other initials inside a heart. One could barely make them out but he scratched them out with the edge of a penny, and then, like an adolescent, he wrote: H.S. loves M.S. with a penknife. Sovant admired his artistry, and his youthful romanticism. And then he moved on across the bridge and down the path. In a few more moments a young girl, a twelve-year-old, emerged from the front door of a large cottage, which was charmingly decorated with flowers under its windows. She greeted Sovant in the middle of the pathway. Haakon Sovant knew Amanda Molina perfectly well. She was none other than Sergio's and Pamela's daughter. But for everyone's sake a charade had to be maintained. Amanda and Haakon pretended they barely knew each other, even though Amanda had not been very subtle when she practically ran to greet her secret friend on the path. Amanda thought the charade was idiotic. She was ignoring it completely. Amanda called to her mom, who was inside their cottage, asking her to come and visit with Haakon. Pamela appeared carrying her son, Amanda's baby brother, the two-year-old, Al Molina.

Sovant could see two schools of thought on whether or not he should end the charade of ignoring Pamela and Pamela's kids in public: it would look suspicious if he didn't, and it would look suspicious if he did. It might be best, he decided, should any thugs be spying on them, to not shun Pamela's family completely. But he wanted to convey the impression that Sergio was merely a laborer on Von Helleman's staff of landscapers, and that Pamela was merely a harmless woman who worked part time at a beer-hall. If one of those kids was kidnapped and held for ransom to get money out of Von Hellemann...

Well, it was part of all of their jobs to make sure that never happened.

The cottage had sort of a Scandinavian or Icelandic charm to its lines. Pamela and Amanda, Al and Sovant chatted for a few minutes on a bench beside the path before Sovant got the urge to resume his stroll down the mountainside. Pamela seemed eager to talk to him but Haakon felt impatient, eager to depart. Maria said that he and Pamela always had lots to talk about, but Haakon wished he was talking to Maria rather than Pamela. When Amanda and Al ran off to play, Haakon excused himself and more or less did the same - setting off into the woods and down the path. He pulled his weapon out of his coat pocket as he scanned the path ahead. In twenty minutes he would arrive at the place where he had been shot. Sovant peered into the trees to his right and left, and he looked behind him now and then. Everything seemed perfectly calm.

He soon found the exact location where he spent hours writhing on the ground. In another twenty minutes he arrived at the surveillance post they used, the one which sat atop a precipice and which afforded excellent views of both Superior and the mountain. Sovant's orders were simple enough: stay awake at your post and confront anyone who ventured on to Von Hellemann's property: be polite with people who wandered on to the estate accidentally; but if extortionists wanted war, then fight and win the war.

Sovant settled in for a 12-hour shift on surveillance duty. He had removed from his rucksack some items which he would require later that afternoon and evening: a bottle of whiskey, a huge bottle of water, some bread and cheese, some smoked salmon, some smoked whitefish...

The bright sunlight of the cloudless day reminded him of former days. He once spent a scorching summer in South America sitting on various Columbian and Ecuadoran rooftops watching the comings and goings of people his employers wanted him to watch. Then there was the month he spent living in a shack on a beach in Mexico where he spent his days alone with his Smith & Wesson .357 and his Nikon, watching the doors of no end of resort hotels, hoping to get photographs of some people his CIA superiors were seeking. It was his ordeals with boredom more than the ordeals with danger which led Sovant to loathe the life of a secret agent. And yet when his wife wanted to get out of the espionage business altogether, he thought it might be a mistake. He followed her though and now he was bored to death most of the time with his body guard job. What can you do?

The hours passed monotonously. The afternoon sun sank lower and lower. Twilight came and then night fell. The temperature was falling as well. Sovant reached for a bottle. Like Grant and Beauregard, Haakon Sovant was a soldier who liked to sip Bourbon - a smooth Kentucky sour mash that warmed his bones while he manned a wintry post - while Orion burned above in the cold abyss of the night sky and while war raged below here on earth.

Around 11: 45 pm, while Sovant had briefly nodded off. A gunshot rang out in the woods somewhere on the mountain above him. Sovant woke up, feeling a little disoriented. He was not sure in which direction the shot came from. He drew his Smith & Wesson .357 but felt no great inclination to run up the mountain to investigate. Sovant scanned the slopes for any sign of movement. If was far too dark to see much beyond 100 feet. What else could he do but intercept the shooter should he show himself? And if the shooter never showed, perhaps Johann would apprehend him on the other side of the mountain. Sovant would certainly have gone up the mountain, and risked being ambushed, but he decided his smartest move was to remain where he was, and to keep his eyes and ears open, and to not fall asleep again! It wasn't at all unusual for friendly people to trespass unawares on Von Hellemann's property, though a gunshot at this time of night was unusual. Sovant recalled that Von Hellemann had recently told his guards that it wouldn't hurt if they fired their weapons into the ground, to warn away extortionists. Sovant couldn't see the logic in giving away your position though.

The world had resumed its quiet repose and no more shots had rung out through the woods when Pamela came to relieve him 15 minutes later, at midnight. She said that she had stopped in at the beer-hall and that everything looked safe and secure. She had chatted with Maria for a minute or two, and she even saw her husband there. `Who's watching the kids?' she asked Sergio.

`The boss popped over and said he would,' answered her husband.

Pamela thought there were people who looked like gangsters in the beer-hall, but there were no new people there who looked like gangsters.

When she arrived at the post, Sovant told Pamela about the gunshot. Evidently the forest smothered the sound of the shot in her direction during her walk; she didn't hear it. Sovant told her he would run up the mountain and find out if Amanda and Al and the boss were ok. Then he said he would sprint back to the post and to Pamela to tell her what he learned. A cell phone call would be so much easier, but Von Hellemann would of course be forced to say everything was ok if an extortionist was holding a gun to Amanda's head, or to the head of her two-year-old brother.

Sovant was breathing hard by the time he saw the lights burning in the windows of Sergio's and Pamela's cottage. He peered in a window and saw Amanda, Al and even Von Hellemann all sleeping peacefully on sofas in the living room. Sovant wanted to know if Sergio was all right, but the sleepers didn't look too worried about him. Sovant didn't want to wake them up when it was obvious they weren't worried about the missing Sergio, and he also didn't want to give his boss the impression that he had been sleeping on duty, or that the only gunshot he heard was in his dreams. If Sergio was lying dead or near dead somewhere in the woods, it would be tough to find him, as Haakon wasn't sure of the direction of the gunshot. And there was no direct path between Sergio's cottage and the beer-hall. So who knew what path he had taken? Sovant ran down his path and told Pamela what he saw through the window: her kids were ok, and, it was probably just what it usually was: some kid was firing a gun for fun.

It was now 1:00 am. Sovant knew his wife would be working until 3:00 am at Wolf's Lair. He despised the thought of loitering in that beer-hall for two hours, and so he decided to stay with Pamela for awhile, and no doubt nap a little more, and certainly drink some more Bourbon. He would walk home with his wife after she finished her shift at Wolf's Lair. Body guards, Maria included, were supposed to be tough and independent, perfectly capable of walking home alone. But Sovant worried about his wife.

Chapter 5. Memories of South America

The black expanse of the Great Lake was spread out at their feet beyond the precipice as Sovant and Pamela took stock of their surroundings. With hand guns and plenty of ammo, and with an AK-47 in the cache, they ought to be able to defend themselves. As for protection from the arctic air \- and it was another chilly night - the usual expedients were at hand: sweaters and coats and thick wool blankets, a few bottles of bourbon and brandy, rum and vodka. Von Hellemann was easy going in some respects; he didn't mind them having a few drinks as long as they didn't get drunk on surveillance duty. They could always light a small fire to help them stay warm and cozy provided they were careful in concealing the flames. The scent of wood-smoke was common enough in the North Woods, and it was absurd to think an extortionist might follow the omnipresent scent of wood-smoke in order to ambush somebody. For provisions they had Brie and Gouda and crackers, smoked trout, smoked salmon, smoked white fish etc. They had a cache full of French bread and cakes and currants and chocolate bars, and cream and sugar for their coffee.

Pamela was drinking brandy to take the edge off of the cold wind. And Sovant, now that he was officially off-duty, and now that Pamela was in charge of the post, could be more liberal with the bourbon. In fact, they were both getting rather drunk. And they were both cozy under their blankets. Haakon was thinking that matters had certainly been a little confusing over the last several months. He and Maria had been somewhat estranged during these months - she was so distant - whereas he always found Pamela easy to talk to. But everything was better now between himself and Maria after she had taken such good care of him after he had been shot. Sovant soon succumbed to sleep.

Pamela, like Maria, Sergio and Sovant, was ex-CIA, and like them she had been seduced away from the Agency by the higher wages Von Hellemann was paying. She sat with her back against a boulder as she sipped her brandy. She felt the glow of the alcohol slowly gaining in radiance. Brandy not only helped her to fight off the chill of the night air, and fight off the cold penetrating gusts which surged off Superior's waves, but she became a more serene philosopher whenever she felt the glow of alcohol surging inside of her. Pamela felt cozy in her blankets as she sipped more and more brandy. The stars and the planets looked beautiful to her as they burned in the empyrean. The vast expanse of Superior reminded her of the ocean. Soon Pamela was reliving her covert days in South America. She thought of the windward palms curving over the promenade and toward the azure of the Atlantic. She had spent so many hours staring at the portals of so many consulates and embassies. The tedium was interminable, save for the time when she had to take to her heels when bullets were being sprayed all round her. She remembered the day she had been strolling along in her dark sunglasses and her lime-green dress, walking under acacias and nipa palms, past colossal bronze equestrian statues, walking down a tropical sort of Champs Elysees where one was forever finding streets with names such as the Calle Antigua and the Boulevard San Martin and the Avenue of the Emperor Don Pedro II. In every direction one cared to look one saw beautiful fountains and baroque public buildings, gardens and porticos and chic boutiques. In the parks of that city one could loiter on benches under willow wands which swayed in warm equatorial winds. She recalled rising before dawn: feeling the cool shade on her bare shoulders as she sipped her coffee on her balcony. She liked to look at the vast metropolis spread out beneath her. Like a giant slowly stirring to life, the city stirred as it prepared itself for another day of industry and commerce. An hour later she was on her way to work, leaving behind her neighborhood with its towering condos and ivy-clad mansions; she was soon slipping in with the flow of the people on the sidewalks who were going to their own jobs. One would think a few of these people next to her on the sidewalk must have suspected that she was a spy! She could hardly hide the fact that she was a foreigner. Pamela was a natural blonde but she would color her hair to the palest shade of platinum, thinking that by calling attention to herself she would also be proclaiming that she was harmless, certainly not a professional agent. She would walk with the flow of the businessmen in their white guayabera shirts, with a few senoras wearing mantillas, with the great masses of the working classes dressed plainly or exquisitely for their vainglorious or essential labors. She would watch the nuns lead their charges of school girls. The latter were dressed usually in drab grey or navy-blue dress. But occasionally the little girls wore flamingo-pink or canary-yellow dresses, such as on those days which commemorated revolutionary heroes who battled 19th century European royalty and their mercenary assassins. Pamela arrived at the central plaza. There the mists carried by the wind in the lee of the water fountain would fling little rainbows over the paving stones. The cathedral, which dated from the time of the Spanish Conquest, reared up before one on the plaza. It reminded Pamela of Campostela rearing up before masses of medieval pilgrims. Pamela always seemed to meet there the same senora. She would invariably turn her penetrating gaze upon Pamela, a look which seemed to say that this woman knew exactly what Pamela was doing in South America. `She's just a nice old lady who doesn't know anything!' Pamela had to remind herself. They would exchange a few pleasantries, and invariably, upon departure, Senora Alvarez would offer a vaya senorita con Dios to Pamela.

Pamela was, soon enough, contemplating a rendezvous with a book in a South American library. This library, an impressive edifice which was formerly an Imperial Palace, having been constructed by the generation directly after the generation of Balboa and Pizarro, was her favorite haunt in the city. She would also be leaving a message in this library for Haakon Sovant to retrieve. In one of the more esoteric tomes on one of the more lonely shelves, she would leave a sales receipt in a book which Sovant would retrieve later in the day. One of the microdots on this slip of paper contained all the information she had to offer. She'd then browse through the shelves, and glance over a few books on art and photography, literature and cooking, and then she would resume her stroll through the city.

Leaving the library, Pamela pursued a path round the magnificent façade of the Palacio Nationale, a path which ran parallel to a river which wound its way through the lower sections of the city. She was also entering the tougher sections of the city. Here she always felt the terrifying presence of the secret police. The scorpions lurked everywhere! She might have entertained some blithe ideas about espionage in former years, but in South America she could suddenly find herself terror-stricken and barely able to move. Pamela risked a clandestine glance to the right and then to the left. She resisted the temptation to try to execute, in the most nonchalant of manners, a 360 degree turn to see if anyone, such as a policeman, might be lurking in her vicinity. Instead, she swung her portfolio higher on to her shoulder and put a business-like gait back into her steps. Her portfolio contained an easel and some canvas, some oils, some watercolors and some brushes - things which a foreigner trying to pass herself off as a feminine sort of Gauguin living amid exotic haunts might want to carry. She would have to keep up the façade of being someone who was attempting to capture on canvas both the beautiful and the disturbing elements of this South American city. She was an artist and certainly not a yanqui secret agent. Pamela walked past a shack where a toothless man sold propane bottles to make agua caliente. She walked past a dingy cantina where men were said to murder and whore and extort and blaspheme at all hours of the morning. She was no longer strolling past chic boutiques! And as for all of the oleanders and poincianas, the convolvulus and the camellias in the National Gardens - that was a mile back! Pamela saw a familiar face at one point and she stopped to talk to a little girl who was holding a leash tethered to an iguana. All three of them, the lizard included, had to dash for cover in a cantina as a pack of pariah dogs came running over the cobblestones looking to devour the lizard. With the danger gone Pamela gave the little girl some change and they said their goodbyes. Pamela continued on past placards telling of terrible bulls and brave matadors, past a man carrying two chickens, past a dying dog kicking his last desperate kicks in a paroxysm of supreme pathos in the middle of this South American street. She walked by a shop window with a parrot having luminous green plumage. The parrot liked, or so it was reputed, to ferociously flap his wings and scream: Death to the Gringos. Pamela found the store selling the imitation shrunken heads. A stampede of little piglets was herded past it by two boys clad in rags. Further up the street, two swarthy men in dark sunglasses - perhaps emissaries from the Ministry of Supreme Justice - were loitering near another cantina.

The local legend said that this section of the city was haunted by the ghosts of Balboa and Pizarro, or at least by some of their soldiers, and you only had to walk the streets at night to see their disembodied ghosts. Pamela hurried on and reached a more prosperous neighborhood, one filled with shrines devoted to the Virgin. These sorts of shrines proliferated over much of the Republic, and the propaganda of the Communists against such practices often seemed to only fuel such practices. Pamela encountered two dirty gringos who were staring at her. They looked desperate, having a wild-eyed look about them. They looked as if they were debating whether to ask her if she wanted to join them in robbing a bank. Then, passing on, she rounded a corner and was afforded a view of the blue Atlantic. There might have been a hurricane far out to sea, because a thunderous surf was breaking over the beach. The water was deep-blue with the tints of turquoise and aquamarine predominating closer to shore. Pamela thought she might stop hereabouts and set up her easel. She reconsidered and decided she wanted to swim first and paint later. The road to the beach afforded her a better view of the mountains and she marveled at all the terraces and all the bougainvillea and orange groves spread over the lower slopes. She liked the way the beach curved one way while the city behind the beach curved upwards as it rose from the sea to the sierras. The orange blossoms and all the other delicate children of the tropics survived a little ways up the cordillera, but the citrus tress ended abruptly, and then everything was precipices and deserts and barren tablelands leading off to faraway volcanoes which rose above the rain forests.

When she got to the beach she would check to see if the two swarthy men had followed her, but she dared not turn round now to check. In another minute she arrived at the promenade which ran along the shoreline. Little kids were forever cadging for cash from people on the beach. Old women peddled Chiclets and Coca-Cola. Men sold pinwheels and straw hats, glass beads and mirrors, watches and bracelets etc.

Inhaling the perfume of the coconut palms, Pamela tossed a coin to a kid and asked him what was new. The young revolutionary was much more a charity case than a source of military information! But if poverty gnawed at him long enough he might betray some Communists sometime, even for the miniscule sums she was throwing his way. One never could tell with Communists. They could rebel and turn Capitalist and sell out their comrades at the most unexpected of moments. Pamela wondered if he fancied her. He had to be somewhat bedazzled by her, as he certainly couldn't know too many blonde foreign beauties who threw money at him on a regular basis! Pamela and her controllers were gambling that sooner or later some starving, love-sick male would try to act like a big shot around her, try to impress her with his knowledge of something valuable, and then she would throw him a bone and buy the information he was selling, and then she could pass the information on to her controllers.

The air had become oppressively hot and humid as it was wont to do in these latitudes and at this time of the day - mid-day. Pamela was wearing a bikini under her dress. She knew she would want to go for a swim. She dropped her portfolio, kicked off her shoes, stripped off her dress in one fluid motion so as to keep her Smith & Wesson concealed in that dress, and then she made her way toward the water, running over the burning sand. As she strode through the sea-foam a sea-gull suspended itself momentarily on the wind, and then wheeled by her heading down wind. Pamela swam out to the thundering surf. She was thrown down to the sandy bottom by the breakers. She had to struggle and fight to regain the surface. The breakers were tearing at her bikini and she was soon panting like an abused thoroughbred. The waves were intent on drowning her today and a new set of breakers threw her down to the bottom yet again. But Pamela was a powerful swimmer, and there was never the slightest danger of her drowning, even though her chest was heaving and her pulse was racing.

Pamela dried in the sun as she walked in the shallows. She was cool and refreshed, but by the time her skin was dry she was sweltering again under the tropical sun.

Putting her lime-green dress and her white shoes back on, taking up her portfolio, Pamela found some shade under some palms. She combed her hair and fixed her make-up. In half an hour she would meet her husband, Sergio, for lunch. He would talk about all the stolen gold he knew to exist in various bank vaults throughout the city, and she would listen to his plans for recovering some of this gold. Pamela suspected he would get himself killed, but it was futile to attempt to dissuade him, and it didn't do her any good to spend her days and nights worrying about Sergio. On certain subjects he was stubborn beyond belief, and Coronado and Cortez, Columbus and Sergio came to mind whenever Pamela thought about men who were fond of gold. This was unfair because Sergio understood there were things far more important than fabulous riches and inexhaustible hordes of gold; he certainly never aspired to be the richest man in the cemetery; he simply didn't think he was in danger. The concert of Pamela's thoughts, when she resumed her journey through the city, remained focused on Sergio's delirium in thinking he could take gold away from gangsters without any risks. Lost in her thoughts as she was, she was startled when a swarthy man suddenly brushed against her on the Calle Grenadiers. She saw a flash of brilliant white teeth in the midst of the swarthy face. There was a quick exchange of gallantries - con permiso, senorita es muy linda, muy bonita. Pamela smiled at the man but scolded herself for her inattention as she walked quickly away. She knew he must have felt the hard steel of her Smith & Wesson when he brushed against her. No doubt a policeman would ask: and what is the young artist doing with an illegal weapon? But she wasn't arrested. At first she attempted to console herself by thinking that a man could hardly make the rational deduction that something hard as steel beneath a woman's dress must be a sophisticated piece of weaponry. But on second thought she had to admit the swarthy man now knew she was carrying a gun, which might not be a bad thing.

After she had lunch with Sergio at a dive they drove back to their apartment and napped for a few hours, then listened to music, then drank beer and dined on limes and salsa, on steak tacos and grilled onions, then napped some more as they waited for night to fall, and then they got back into Sergio's Ford. They swung by an alley to get Haakon, making sure they were not seen by the authorities. And then they took a road leading up into the mountains south of the city. Sergio was driving cautiously, taking pains to not be pulled over by the police. The road curved higher and higher until it crossed a pass and then descended into a desert. The miles flew by before they found a road which led back to the ocean. After a few more minutes they parked atop a cliff overlooking the Atlantic, well to the south of the city, many miles to the south. The only lights to be seen were from some distant shacks on the beach and from several large seafaring vessels. They got out of the Ford, and, taking a route down the cliff which wasn't too steep, they reached the bottom. The moonlight helped to illuminate their path as they navigated their way through the shadows under the palms and the plantains. They crossed a short section of tall grass and then they were on the beach. Sergio shined a flashlight straight out over the ocean. They could hear nothing and could see little, but if all went according to standard procedure, a motor was now being started two miles away from the shoreline.

In a few minutes the sound of an engine could be detected. Pamela ran down the beach and waded into the water as Sergio and Sovant waited behind her, watching for any cops moving in on them. The procedure, which they had executed several times before, called for Sergio and Haakon to pin down any pursuit - if there was no pursuit Pamela could guide the person or take the contraband coming ashore, or she could escape via the motor launch if the cops came rushing in. Sergio and Haakon knew how to swim and they had a chance of escaping out to sea and of being picked up once they were out of the rifle range. But concentrated police firepower on a motorboat close to shore would leave all of them dead. The next few minutes would let them know if they would be arrested or killed that night.

Pamela watched as Maria jumped from the motor boat. The boat sped away with an agent named LOTHAR at the wheel as soon as Maria hit the water.

Maria, it seems, had made herself persona non grata in yet another South American Republic. She would probably not be arrested and jailed if she was recognized in this Republic, but there was a growing list of nations which would arrest her. Their superiors couldn't be pleased with Maria, but, as she explained on the drive back to town, she had jobs for all of them lined up with a rich and generous employer, provided they were looking to make a change, and Maria was looking to make a change.

The bewitching sparks of romance were soon flying between Haakon and Maria. They had been married the previous year but they had to endure several long separations. Haakon could keep secrets, but he couldn't always keep secret the fact that he was worried about his wildly careless wife. Sergio was taciturn on the drive back to town: he was less than enchanted with current events, and Pamela hadn't even told him about the man who brushed into her, and who no doubt learned she was armed. If Maria persuaded Haakon to take a new job, then Sergio knew Pamela would want to bolt as well, as she and Haakon had worked together for several years, and Pamela was in no mood to trust some stranger - Haakon's replacement - in their dangerous line of work. If Pamela decided to pack it in then that meant Sergio would have to pack it in as well: he certainly wasn't going to divorce his beloved wife. And then he would be saying goodbye to all his hopes of recovering stolen gold. And Sergio hated to see his dreams of attaining vast sums of gold evaporate in a single moment.

Sergio dropped off Haakon and Maria in an alley - it was always thought best that neither Sergio nor Pamela ever knew where Haakon lived, and of course never be seen in his company.

Sergio and Pamela had their minds made up for them on the question of whether they should retire. Two policemen were waiting for them when they got back to their apartment. One of these policemen had discovered that Pamela carried a gun. The cops were curious about this violation of the law. Sergio told them he gave it to her because he was afraid she might need it to fight off some banditos. That was the story he and Pamela had agreed they would tell. It only cost them $5,000 to prevent the both of them from languishing for a few months in a South American jail. An excellent bargain! Sergio and Pamela were like gold mines to those cops that day. The cops knew nothing about their real business, but Pamela and Sergio suspected the surveillance would be ramped up on them, and the cops would certainly be looking to mine more gold from the mine they just discovered. It was too dangerous now for Pamela to carry stolen secrets on her person in this Republic. They might move to a different country in South America, but Maria had found higher paying and less dangerous jobs for them, jobs which were available to them now: and therefore their retirement from the CIA was inevitable. In a few days LOTHAR got them out of the country.

Her reverie was sweet while it lasted but South America was now banished from Pamela's thoughts. Her undivided attention was again directed on the world near a precipice above Lake Superior. Sovant was still sleeping and Pamela poured herself a shot of brandy. Then she poured herself another one. It felt good to have the alcohol wash away the tedium of her job. She listened to the wind in the trees, to the gusts shaking the boughs and the smaller branches.

Pamela glanced at Sovant's written report. She found his entry regarding the gunshot that he heard. He neglected to report in which direction the shot came from. Pamela wondered if he was asleep when the gun was fired. Pamela was a little worried. She wished Haakon had seen Sergio. Still, she and Sovant couldn't investigate every square mile of Von Hellemann's estate every time some kid shot off his .22. At any rate, being only 50 feet yards from a highway, she and Sovant were stationed at an excellent place to catch people entering or departing this end of Von Hellemann's property.

Suddenly, despite being drunk, Pamela was gripped with fear. She could hear the sounds of footsteps coming straight towards her. Pamela drew her Glock 9mm and prepared to shoot. It was not perfectly pitch black darkness, as the glow of the city lights gave a little glow to the world. Suddenly Amanda appeared out of the murk and became visible in the glow. And she was carrying Al. Why, asked Pamela of herself, as she roused Sovant from sleep, would her daughter be carrying her infant son down here, and at this time of night? As the girl got closer, advancing straight down the path, heading directly toward Pamela, Pamela could see she was carrying Al in her left arm, and she was holding a gun in her right hand.

Part 2: The Tyranny of Uncertainty

Chapter 6. Midnight Swim in the Ice Water of Lake Superior

`There's a dead man lying on the ground right by our place!' exclaimed Amanda.

`Who is he?' asked her mother while taking the gun and her son from Amanda.

`Some gangster trying to extort money out of Wolfgang, I suppose. Maybe he was shot accidentally by one of his friends,' said Amanda

`Where's your father?' her mom asked next.

`He left to check on Maria. Wolfgang asked him to go to make sure that she was all right. Wolfgang said he would stay with me and Al. He went to look around, after the gunshot. He came back. He said he didn't find anything. Then he fell asleep. Then he woke up. Then he left but he didn't come back! I couldn't sleep waiting for him to come back. I checked the ground further away from the house. That's when I found the dead man. It was just Al and me all alone. I was real scared. So I wrote Wolfgang a note telling him about the dead man, and saying I was taking Al and leaving to find my mom.'

`Is that the dead man's gun?' asked Sovant.

`Yeah' said Amanda. `Maybe the dead guy is the guy that shot you two weeks ago. See, I thought some of his friends might also come to the cottage. I got Al and myself out of there fast. I wanted some protection but I couldn't carry both Al and our shotgun, so I took the dead man's gun.'

`We got a corpse, probably a gangster, with no gun, lying outside of your cottage,' said Sovant, thinking out-loud. `And you took his gun. This might get out-of-hand.'

`Should we throw the gun into the lake?' asked Amanda.

`We can always throw it in, but we can't always get it out if we need it for some reason,' said Sovant. He was drunk but this was simple stuff to an intoxicated ex-spy.

`You say Wolfgang was with you when you heard the gunshot?' asked Pamela.

`Yeah, he was taking a nap on our sofa,' said Amanda.

`Were you sleeping or half-asleep?' asked Pamela. `Could Wolfgang have shot him and then returned to the sofa without you seeing him?'

`I heard the shot. I mean I woke up when I heard it. Then I went to see if Al was ok. Both he and Wolfgang were still sleeping! That tells you how tired they were.'

`Perhaps it was Johann or Gaston who shot him,' said Sovant, alluding to another body guard who was usually stationed inside the Castle. `Perhaps he couldn't stop at the cottage because he was in pursuit of someone.'

Sovant and Pamela then went into some detail explaining to Amanda that they had two major concerns: 1) they didn't want the news to get out that Al and Amanda's parents were body guards, because they didn't want the news to get out that Amanda and Al were the children of these body guards, as this would make them targets for mob revenge, because the mob might assume that one of Von Hellemann's body guards killed their friend. And 2) they told Amanda that she had to keep secret the fact that she was the one who took the dead man's gun, as the cops would certainly question her. If she told the cops the truth, and if gangsters learned that she took the gun, then nothing but trouble could come from that.

A few minutes after they finished explaining these matters to Amanda they heard the sound of someone crashing through the woods, though he was far away from them. After a few more minutes elapsed, they heard a second person moving in the woods. It was too dark to see anything but the sound of people crashing through the undergrowth was unmistakable.

`Drink up,' said Sovant, handing a bottle of bourbon to Pamela.

`Why?'

Sovant explained why they would have to swim to get out of the trap they were in. It was too dangerous where they were. To move down the path was to risk being killed by a sniper. Yet one had to stay on the path because it was impossible to move through the woods and not make noise when one wasn't on a path. If they stayed where they were, a gangster might kill one of the kids with either bullets or even a grenade. These words didn't scare Amanda, but Sovant scared her when he explained again how they had to escape from where they were. Sovant tried to be patient in going over his drunken logic. If they tried to hike to Wolf's Lair one or more of them might be shot. The path was too dangerous. It was too easy for a sniper to kill them if they took the path. And it was impossible to move silently through the undergrowth. They could not escape by land. And there was no cover nearby where they could hide. They could hide behind a fisherman's shack but that would risk having someone inside killed with a stray bullet. Haakon was insisting that their best chance was to swim a few hundred yards to the lighthouse at the end of the pier. The water was ice cold so they had to drink whiskey to be able to endure the cold. Haakon was insisting there was no real danger involved, merely a little discomfort.

Pamela hated the idea but Sovant insisted it was better than the alternatives. He was saying they would get insulation from the ice water from their woolen sweaters and blankets even when these were drenched. They would be well bundled up but still the water would be shockingly cold when it first hit their flesh. They could find some driftwood for added buoyancy. They had the whiskey to deaden the pain of the ice water against their skin. Without the alcohol it would be a brutally uncomfortable swim to the lighthouse, but not bad at all when drunk. Sovant was now talking about his 24-foot sailboat moored in the harbor and he was explaining that he had a stove on the boat which they could use to warm themselves up.

Amanda took a slim purse out of her back pocket and handed it to Haakon. He wrapped the purse and their weapons in plastic bags and stuck these inside his rucksack. They took up their blankets and then descended to the shore. There was no moonlight, only starlight and a little city glow, and therefore the surface of the lake was quite black and opaque - indeed one could hardly see anything 50 feet away from one. With a dark and drenched blanket tossed over their heads they would be invisible to anyone looking out over the lake from the shore.

Once on the beach Sovant busied himself fetching a large piece of driftwood. Amanda and Pamela set to work wrapping Al in plastic and then in wool blankets. Once Haakon had the driftwood ready in the shallows, and once they took a few more gulps of bourbon before wading into the water, they were ready to shove off. By the time they had waded out to the depth of Amanda's neck, she was crying with pain from the ice water. Pamela let her take as many gulps of whiskey as she needed, and then they started swimming in earnest away from shore.

They kicked and pulled as silently as they could, while clinging to the driftwood. Sovant had to do most of the work in dragging them along, as Pamela could only cling to the driftwood and hold Al, and Amanda could only cling to the driftwood and hold a whiskey bottle while she kicked feebly.

Pamela had to put her hand over Al's mouth whenever he started to cry. Al cried, not because he was cold, but because he was burning up, being wrapped up in so many layers of plastic and wool. Only when the blankets in which Al was wrapped had been drenched for long minutes in ice water did Al become cool enough to be comfortable. When they were half way to the lighthouse they had to stop and rest and finish off a bottle of bourbon. The water became so painful they had to open a second bottle before they reached their destination. They were all shivering uncontrollably, even Al, when they finally reached Sovant's sailboat.

Haakon climbed over its gunwales of his sailboat and then pulled the others aboard. It was cramped as it was only a 24-footer, but it had a paraffin stove in the cabin right where Sovant had last left it. Soon enough they were huddled round the flame trying to cure their uncontrollable shivering. Amanda retrieved her purse from Haakon's rucksack. While Haakon and Pamela were making sure Al was getting warmed up, Haakon suddenly noticed that Amanda was no longer with them. He climbed out of the cabin to search for her; he arrived on deck in time to see Amanda, reeling from all the bourbon, staggering over the pier and heading into town.

`Damn!' swore Sovant under his breath.

Sovant had no doubt that she was headed for the beer-hall because she would want to warn her father that another assassin, or the same assassin who shot him, was on the loose again. She had to be terrified by all the recent shootings, and no doubt she feared her father might be the next victim.

Amanda was staggering and lurching so precariously that Haakon feared she would fall and crack her skull on the concrete pier. He jumped back into the cabin and told Pamela what Amanda was doing. Then he sprinted after her. In jumping from his boat to the peer - the boat was in a little slip - he nearly plunged himself into the lake because of his own inebriated state. Then he tripped and fell and slammed himself on the concrete pier. By the time he picked himself up, now groggier than ever, as he had hit his head on the concrete, he staggered down the pier, and was soon stumbling from shadow to shadow along the sidewalk, trying to stay out of the sight of any gangsters. It occurred to him that Amanda was as stealthy he was, because he had lost sight her. He was somewhat thankful for this, or at least thankful that she was being stealthy. He could see all the way to Wolf's Lair, but she wasn't on that street. Sovant feared the twelve-year-old might have plunged into the lake unseen when he jumped back into his boat's cabin to tell Pamela that Amanda was staggering down the pier and that he was going after her. Sovant went back to the pier to see if she had fallen in. He feared she hit her head on the concrete as he had, and then rolled into the water, and was now drowning. Sovant cast his gaze over the water, searching carefully for her, but he couldn't find any trace of her. Sovant walked back to the main street. Not seeing her, he walked to several other streets. Still not finding her, he walked back to the main street, and, there, at last, he saw her leaving a 24-hour drug store, two blocks away from him. Sovant noticed that she was walking with more control than she had on the pier. She was not staggering and stumbling quite so much as before. Sovant was about twenty seconds behind her when he followed her into Wolf's Lair.

Half the people in the establishment must have witnessed Amanda as the twelve-year-old staggered through the corridors of the beer-hall, stumbling in her drunken condition, with her bedraggled blonde locks and wet clothes, looking terribly lost herself while searching for her lost father, who she still feared was in imminent danger of being murdered. But Sergio was still alive when he finally met up with his intoxicated daughter.

Scores of scandalized beer-hall patrons hooted in sincere indignation or in sarcastic fun at Amanda's inebriated state, not failing to damn the laissez faire attitude of her permissive parents with crude insults and no end of self-righteousness commentary. In the meantime, Maria and Haakon had joined Amanda and Sergio. The two sober adults looked upon the drenched and drunken adult as they would have looked upon any lunatic. It was too riotous to hear any of his explanations inside the beer-hall, and therefore the adults ushered Amanda up the stairs and out of the huge portals while the beer-hall patrons jeered contemptuously at them. The throngs were however compassionate enough to also shout some words of commiseration and encouragement to the poor little girl who was saddled with such a low-life for a mother, as they assumed Maria was her mother. They were saying all sorts of nasty things about her. As for Amanda, the comments weren't all jeeringly negative.

`Keep your head up, dear!'

`I wonder if she's a sweet child when she's sober. She looks darling!'

`Hey you little alcoholic kid - when you have brats of your own someday don't be a worthless drunk like yer old lady. And learn what a towel can do for you too, you hear me little drunken kid?'

Chapter 7: Pamela Can't be Trusted to Commit Perjury

Before joining the others outside the beer-hall, Sergio stopped at the pay phone and called Von Hellemann's messaging service. He told the woman who answered that they all had some vacation time coming, and, as Von Hellemann said they could take it at any time, they were taking a day or two off for a quick vacation. The boss would understand why some of his bodyguards would want to get their kids away for a day or two from a place where murders and attempted murders were happening ever more frequently.

As they walked back to the sailboat, Sovant explained, more or less coherently, what happened. Soon enough Maria began to scream at him, accusing him of flagrant idiocy for taking Al and Amanda for a drunken swim in the ice water of Lake Superior.

Amanda kept repeating the mantra: `We had to escape the thugs because we had to warn you that they were all over the place and we were afraid they might kill you.' But her words sounded like:

`WeHatToEscayThugsBecuzWeHatToWarYouThaTheyOverPlaceAnWeAfrayTheyKilYou.'

Once Sergio was assured that Al was safe, he found some time to be indignant with Pamela, accusing her of being drunk long before she started to swim.

Pamela was angry with Sergio for being in the beer-hall, and not at home watching Al and Amanda, to which Sergio said his boss asked him to check on Maria, to make sure she was safe, and the same boss said he would stay with Al and Amanda to make sure they were safe.

Everyone calmed down, and Sergio and Maria had to admit that nothing too terrible had happened to Al and Amanda.

The sober adults saw two big problems. First, if the cops found out that Haakon and Pamela had gotten a twelve-year-old drunk, so that she could endure a swim in the ice water of Lake Superior, and then had risked her life and the life of a two-year-old, by having them submerged in ice water for nearly 20 minutes, they might face prison time for child endangerment. The fact that Haakon and Pamela had to get even more drunk than they already were to endure the ice water was probably not going to win points for themselves with either the judge or the jury. It's true that, in their intoxicated minds, they sincerely believed they had to flee from killers in order to save Amanda and Al, and to warn Maria and Sergio that the mountainside seemed covered with trespassers, who they had to assume were dangerous. But could they convince a jury that they were wise to take the kids for a dangerous swim before they determined for a certainty that those men in the woods were killers? Sergio and Maria asked questions that they thought a prosecutor might ask. Perhaps the men in the woods were harmless? Perhaps they were tourists who got lost? The prosecutor might ask: What men in the woods? What killers? Did you call out to them? Did you ask them who they were? Or were you already drunk and witless? And then, when drunk and witless, did you get even more drunk and more witless when you dragged two kids into frigid water?

The police and the doctors at the Mayo Clinic certainly saw that Haakon had a bullet wound. There was certainly a thug somewhere. And then, two weeks later, there was the dead body Amanda found. But to get a twelve-year-old drunk, and to plunge her and a two-year-old into ice water, seemed rather reckless to Maria and Sergio. They could see why there would be some jail time.

The two sober adults in the sailboat agreed that some people had to hide out and sober up before they met with any cops. Once the cops learned that the dead man was a thug, they would understand why witnesses would flee the scene for awhile to protect some kids. Once they sobered up it would be easy for them to deny Amanda was drunk. It would be easy to claim that she was sick with the flu, and that she was drenched because she accidentally fell into the lake but was able to get out some seconds later.

Sergio and Maria knew it was a waste of time to have Haakon, Pamela and Amanda rehearse the story now, as it was a waste of time to have the drunk people commit a fabrication to memory, but the sober people, Sergio and Maria, still wanted them to get it straight themselves. It would have to be emphasized to Amanda that she could tell the cops some of the truth, she could say she was in the cottage when the shooting happened, but she must never say that she or any of them were drunk. And she must never say that they went for a swim in Lake Superior. And she must never say that she took the dead man's gun.

Maria was worried that Von Hellemann would hear that no end of witnesses saw Amanda and Haakon drunk in the beer-hall. No end of witnesses could testify that they were all wearing wet clothes and were drunk.

`They can't prove they were drunk,' said Sergio. `The story is they were walking on the pier to go to Haakon's sailboat, and then some punks pushed both of them into the lake. It took them awhile to climb out of the water. The symptoms one has when one's internal body temperature is very cold: stupor, dazed and glassy eyes, lack of coordination etc., resemble the symptoms of intoxication.'

`That's your story,' said Maria to Pamela, Haakon and Amanda, `you fell into the lake because some punks pushed you into the lake. We'll remind you of all this later when you sober up.'

`All of them walked,' Sergio was saying, `to Haakon's sailboat. You didn't swim there. You walked there after Amanda carried Al down the path, after she found the dead man's body.'

`Right.' said Maria.

`No,' said Haakon, no longer slurring his words too terribly. `The story is we were on my sailboat and Amanda slipped into the water. She went under and Pamela and I dove in to rescue her. It took a while to find her and to get her out after we found her, so of course we all got hypothermic. That's the story. That way we don't have to look at any mug shots of any punks. Whereas if we say Amanda was pushed off the pier by some punks, then the cops will want me to look at mug shots, and look at photos of local kids, and it will look fishy when I can't identify anyone.'

`Why didn't you go to the beer-hall first?' asked Sergio. `Why did you go to the sailboat before you went to the beer-hall if you were so keen to warn Maria and Me? I'll tell you why. Because you wanted to make sure the kids were safely hidden away on the sailboat. Got it? And of course you lost track of Amanda after you pulled her out of the lake, and then Amanda ran off to that store, and then to the beer-hall. She was hungry, I guess. She was also hypothermic and confused. Got it?'

`Yeah.'

Grand Marais had been a model city, in terms of peace, sweet repose, and charming small town Americana, that is, it was a model city until it suddenly erupted into chaos, when the wailing of police sirens became universal. There was pandemonium inside the beer-hall, and now there was pandemonium outside of it as well. No doubt the dead body had been found. Still, it seemed a lot of fuss to make over one dead gangster. No doubt these hick-town cops didn't see many bullet-ridden corpses to enliven their routine, reasoned Maria.

Fortunately, there was no law against people sailing on lakes and having campouts with cozy fires. The sun would be shining tomorrow and the day wouldn't be too cold. And they would all be sober. Amanda and Al could pretend they were Vikings sailing over the Norwegian Sea. With these arguments Sergio prevailed over every contrary voice which told him to stay in town.

Pamela, whose eyeballs were rolling in their sockets, suddenly lurched over. She didn't get sick, as Sovant and Amanda earlier had, but then, as everyone knows, it's better to retch rather than let the alcohol stew in one's stomach.

`Get her,' yelled Maria as Sergio lunged forward. He pulled Pamela to her feet. She had lost consciousness. Sergio slapped her face with cold water as he was afraid she might never wake up, but she woke up.

Haakon gave himself the task of making coffee as he rehearsed in his mind the story they had just agreed on. Unlike Pamela, Sovant had sobered up fast by thinking about the possibility that he might go to jail. He was all for the idea of getting out of town and soon. It would give them time to coach Amanda. She would have to learn to answer perfectly some rude or tricky questions from impertinent or cunning cops: Why were you drenched? Why were you intoxicated? And her answers: `I was very cold - I was not drunk. I slipped off of Haakon's sailboat and fell into the frigid lake.'

They would have to coach Amanda so well it would be impossible for her to ever tell the cops the truth.

Maria wasn't keen on sailing in chilly weather in a crowded boat, but a cozy campfire sounded all right. She would have the duty of staying up all night in a cramped boat watching Amanda and Pamela, to make sure they didn't die from alcohol poisoning, as Sergio had to steer the boat, and Sovant was still too intoxicated to be trusted to watch anyone. She could see her husband falling asleep any second now. Maria believed that as long as everyone made it through the night, and didn't have any complications from alcohol poisoning or hypothermia or slipping in the cramped cabin of the boat and cracking one's skull on something hard, and as long as Amanda, Pamela and Haakon didn't say anything stupid to the cops - then everything ought to turn out ok. Al could only talk in baby-talk, so he could be trusted to keep a story straight.

Maria watched as Sergio and Haakon held mugs filled with lukewarm coffee as they tried to get Amanda and Pamela to drink up.

The police sirens were no longer blaring quite so loudly over the city. Haakon was saying that someone at Von Hellemann's Castle might remember that he owned a sailboat, and that the cops would eventually send someone round to check it out. On this news Sergio and Haakon went topside while Maria was left to tend to Pamela and Amanda. Both Amanda's and Pamela's eyeballs were glassy, and still rolling uncontrollably in their sockets. Maria had to slap their faces to keep them awake while she struggled to get them to keep on drinking their coffee.

On the deck, Sergio and Haakon, satisfied that no one was on the pier, and that no cops were to be seen, pulled in the mooring lines. Sergio fired up the outboard. They would raise the jib and mainsail later. No bullets or police bullhorns ordered them to stop as Sergio maneuvered the little craft out of the harbor.

A northeasterly course was set once they were upon the open lake. Sovant kept plenty of blankets and provisions on his boat, so no one would get any colder than they already were. Maria set herself to the task of brewing more coffee over the paraffin stove, while the others got out of their wet clothes and wrapped themselves up in the dry blankets. As the seconds elapsed the sober adults, Sergio and Maria, were relieved to see that they had escaped. Somehow, they had gotten away.

Pamela was still suffering, with her eyeballs still rolling wildly in her sockets. They got her out of the cramped cabin and into the fresh air on deck. The lake was calm, with only small swells, but the wind off the shore was fresh and invigorating. In another mile or two they decided they might go ashore, and light a fire, if Pamela didn't get any better. Amanda and Sovant, with several cups of coffee in each of them, with a cold fresh wind blowing in their faces, hardly seemed intoxicated. Pamela seemed to be somewhat revived in the cold breeze, or at least her eyes became a little more steady, though she was quite delirious, and was speaking in crazy, incoherent fragments. Haakon, who was at the helm, killed the outboard. They were surging along in perfect silence, with the jib and the mainsail alone driving them along parallel to the shoreline.

The breeze was steady and in a few hours, they had put 20 miles between them and the cops in Grand Marais. Before dawn had lightened the sky in the east, they found a secluded cove where they could hide out for the day. Haakon kept a cable and a winch in the boat, and he was therefore able, after lowering the mast, to drag the sailboat up the beach and under a canopy of pine trees. No cops would spy it now.

It was magnificent the way the red ball of the sun was suspended above the Great Lake. And their enjoyment of the sunrise was all the more delightful because law enforcement did not bust in on them while they were enjoying the fiery spectacle above Superior's waters.

Pamela was dreadfully tired but Sergio, fearing hypothermia, wanted to get one last cup of hot coffee into her before he let her sleep. Maria and he would have to take shifts during the day to monitor her breathing and her pulse, for they were still afraid she might lapse into a coma, or drown in vomit. They worried they might not get her to a hospital in time to save her life, if they absolutely had to get her to a hospital. Despite all these worries the magnificent sunrise seemed to lift everyone's spirits. With plenty of warm blankets to curl up under, and with a little time to sleep and sober up, they all hoped Pamela would soon make a full recovery.

By 5:00 in the afternoon the setting sun was turning the hills of Isle Royale into molten gold. By 5:00 pm everyone had had a long sleep, and everyone was wide awake. Even Pamela had enjoyed a deep and wonderful sleep. She was perfectly healthy, except for the fact that she had no memory of getting drunk, and she had no memory of Amanda and Haakon being drunk. She had no memory of staggering into the beer-hall, no memory of swimming in Lake Superior, no memory of sailing in Haakon's boat. Pamela could recall nothing about any dead man lying outside of her cottage. Pamela had no memory of anything that happened over the last 24 hours.

It was all strange and shocking news to Pamela that 4 well-armed adults, all professional body guards, along with two kids, were material witnesses in a murder case. It was news to Pamela that they had all gone on holiday just when the authorities would want to question them about a dead gangster lying outside of Pamela's cottage. Pamela thought it plausible that a man might be lying dead outside of her cottage \- as that was what everyone was insisting - but it sounded terribly far-fetched to Pamela, terribly hard to believe indeed, that she, Amanda and Haakon had gotten drunk, and then went for a long swim in Lake Superior, in a desperate endeavor to elude some gangster friends of the dead gangster lying near her home.

They had planned to sail back to Grand Marais that evening to face whatever consequences awaited them. Amanda was well-coached. She was never going to admit that she was drunk, even if the police were to confront her with no end of witnesses who insisted that she was drunk. In her rehearsals, she was very convincing. She had no difficulty in insisting, in the face of Haakon's taunts, pretending he was a cop, that she was freezing! She was not drunk! She slipped off a sailboat into ice water. Her mother and Haakon dove in to save her!

But Amanda's mother seemed a hopeless case in Amanda's eyes. Everyone except Pamela was well coached to haul out all of their best excuses: Haakon had a terrible ordeal at the hands of the extortionists. They feared for the lives of the children. The lives of Al and Amanda were in great danger, because, obviously, one man was dead and Haakon almost died. Certainly the cops could understand, that, if, mobsters learned that one of their friends had been shot next to a cottage where two of Von Hellemann's body guards lived, these gangsters could be counted on to make trouble for those body guards and for their children.

Von Hellemann had more body guards inside the Castle to protect him. Why wouldn't his other body guards retreat to protect themselves and their children? Any sensible person ought to be able to see that they had to get out of town to protect Amanda and Al.

Everyone save Pamela understood that some small lies were necessary. Pamela had to be trained, indoctrinated, brainwashed if necessary, so that she could be made to understand that they had to take drastic measures, and, now, they had to lie about these measures.

She could well understand that she had no memory of the last 24 hours. But she seemed unable to repeat the story she was told to repeat. She was seen by witnesses in the beer-hall. These witnesses would all say that her daughter was both soaking wet and drunk. How did Amanda, her daughter, get in that condition? What sort of woman was her mother? Pamela was finding it terribly difficult to remember to say that her daughter was never drunk, but she had to admit her daughter was drenched, and she had to remember to say that Amanda fell into the lake at a time when most children her age where asleep in their beds in their homes.

But Pamela was exasperating, because, though she was no longer drunk, she seemed to vaguely remember something about Amanda taking someone's gun, and she was insisting she thought it best not to lie about this to the authorities. The others thought it was understandable why she would not want to commit perjury in a case which involved a man lying dead and very close to her cottage. But it was exasperating for everyone to see that she couldn't understand logic, logic which pertained to the welfare of her son and daughter. It was a shock to Sovant, in so many unimagined ways. He never suspected this woman, who he worked with for years in the CIA, could become so terribly amateurish and confused merely because of a little whiskey and a little cold water.

`She'll have to lawyer-up,' said Sergio. `That will keep her out of jail. But she might be unemployable when we look for new jobs.'

`Give her some time,' said Maria. `Maybe she'll be fine tomorrow.'

`If she is not prepared to commit perjury, if she can't lie with credibility, so to speak, then we have to convince her to clam up,' said Sergio. `A prosecutor will crack her open if she doesn't know what she's doing. If she can't tell a simple story without botching it, she'll get herself and Haakon convicted of perjury and child endangerment. If she can't tell the story right then she and Haakon will go to jail. Her brains are scrambled. And they might not be unscrambled tomorrow, or the next day, or the next day.'

When night fell they climbed back into the boat and set the sails. A strong breeze was blowing, and in three hours they were hard by Mt. Josephine, just below the Canadian line. They found a secluded cove while still in the USA.

`Mama,' said Al.

`What honey?' asked Pamela.

`Mama sad?'

`No, Mama is not sad.'

They beached the boat, lowered the mast, and then used the winch to drag the boat under the cover of the pine forest. Then they piled up driftwood which they found strewn conveniently for them over the beach, and soon they were warming themselves before the warm and fragrant blaze.

They had smoked fish and French bread, cheese and apples, cakes and raisins and chocolates. Bottles of beer, brandy and bourbon were always at hand, though no one was much in the mood for intoxicating spirits. They had iodine tablets to purify lake water, so there was no threat of going thirsty. Al cuddled up close to his mama under the blankets to keep warm. With only the occasional whine of truck and car tires from the highway nearby, there was little to distract Al from his deepest slumbers. Al loved the sweetness of the pines in this exquisite forest. He loved the wind which sang in the tree tops, and the million stars which shone down upon him. The murmur of the surf and the crashing of the waves breaking over the beach only served as a lullaby to Al as he drifted off to sleep.

Chapter 8. Amanda Becomes World Famous Overnight

The next day Sovant went on a solo mission and he walked to Grand Portage, MN. He ducked into a store on a hunt for donuts, pound cake, coffee, sugar, cream, raspberries, shampoo, shaving razors, toothpaste, Rolaids, Aspirin, bleach and newspapers. Sovant snatched up three newspapers after glancing at their front pages. The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune had a huge photo of Amanda. USA Today and The Grand Marais Cassandra also had big spreads on her. He felt proud to know the twelve-year-old just from these excellent photos of her charismatic face. Amanda's long blonde hair, her clear complexion, her perfect smile and her beautiful brown eyes were very striking to behold staring out at millions of readers from the front pages of all three newspaper.

While walking back to rejoin the others Haakon had plenty of time to examine these newspapers. They were warning readers to be on the lookout for the twelve-year-old Amanda Molina, daughter of Sergio and Pamela Molina. To paraphrase the press: Amanda's footprints were found all round the body of a murdered FBI agent. This agent had been shot in the back by a shotgun blast. A shotgun was found in a nearby cottage with Amanda's fingerprints on it. Amanda's fingerprints were found on the slain agent's holster. His revolver was missing. Amanda's fingerprints were found on the slain agent's wallet. This wallet, found lying close to the slain FBI agent, didn't have any cash in it. Three of his FBI associates testified that he was carrying roughly $700 in new $100 bills. A drug store clerk in Grand Marais testified that she was 100% positive that Amanda purchased a bag of Doritos and a 20 oz bottle of Diet Cherry Coke in her store, and that she used a crisp $100 bill to pay for those items. The time of this purchase was roughly 20 minutes before the prominent industrialist, Wolfgang Von Hellemann, had notified the police that a man had been killed on his property. He called the police roughly 2 hours after the blast from a gun was heard by several witnesses. These witnesses agreed the blast came in the direction of a cottage where Amanda Molina lived with her parents and two-year-old brother. Von Hellemann found a note from Amanda which directed him to the location of the slain FBI agent. Numerous beer-hall patrons were quoted in all three newspapers saying they saw Amanda stumbling in a drunken stupor, staggering through a beer-hall, while eating Doritos and drinking a 20 oz. bottle of Cherry coke. One witness said that Amanda had a `crazed look in her eyes.' Many witnesses were on the record insisting that Amanda, her mother and a man named Haakon Sovant were wearing clothes drenched with water, and all three staggering, so intoxicated they could barely stand and could hardly speak. All three newspapers gave the names and photographs of the four adults who were helping Amanda to escape after she had murdered the FBI agent for his money.

`Amanda Molina, a cowardly, thieving murderer,' ran the words of one editor writing in The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, `who more or less brazenly admitted her guilt in a note to Von Hellemann, was no stranger to gunplay. Her parents' profession intimately involved her with gun violence. Amanda Molina grew up in a home that glorified guns, in a home that was `shot through with the pathology which guns and bullets must inevitably breed.' I shouldn`t wonder that, somewhere, sometime, a sweet-looking kid from such a dysfunctional family would be transformed into a cold-blooded executioner.'

The papers reported that Amanda's father was ostensibly one of Von Hellemann's wood-cutters, but he was actually a soldier in Von Hellemann's private army, and this Sergio Molina was known to carry a revolver and belts of ammunition as he went about clearing brush and cutting deadfall on the vast Von Hellemann estate.

Some of Amanda's school chums were interviewed by the police and were on the record saying that she was starting to run with a tougher crowd. Her science teacher said she knew Amanda would be `nothing but trouble' sooner or later. Her best friend, Jennifer Woodhill, defended Amanda and said she would visit Amanda in prison as often as she could, if it came to that.

Numerous witnesses categorically insisted that Amanda's father, Sergio Molina, was in the beer-hall at the time that the authorities say the FBI agent was gunned down outside of his cottage in the woods. Many of these witnesses also place Amanda's mother in this beer-hall - a famous gathering spot for locals and tourists - earlier that night, at the time when a gun blast rang through the woods. All witnesses agree there was only one shot heard that night, roughly at 11:47 pm.

Now the lot of them had disappeared after the drunken Amanda had been seen staggering through town, spending the slain FBI agent's money, about the time the body of the slain agent was found by Von Hellemann. The townsfolk were putting two and two together and coming up with the theory that she needed whiskey to deal with the reality confronting her - the reality of having her life thrown into inconvenient turmoil, having to become a fugitive, having to run for her life to stay out of prison - after she gunned a man down in cold blood, gunned him down in order to steal his money, after she murdered a man who was survived by a wife and three young children.

Sovant had to read the newspapers, while, at the same time, remain keenly vigilant in winding his way back to their camp site, taking pains to look harmless, so that no alert citizens would suspect him, and then alert the authorities as to where they had seen one of the fugitives.

Sovant handed Pamela one newspaper, gave another to Sergio, and gave the last one to Maria. When Sergio finished reading his copy of The Grand Marais Cassandra he gave it to Amanda.

Amanda's eyes glazed over. Her arms and hands started to shake. She was shaking with emotions in her shoulders as she read about herself in the stilted, highly emotional prose of The Grand Marais Cassandra.

`Damn!' exclaimed Amanda. `What an amazing pack of lies!'

Her mother said nothing but simply stared straight at the ground.

`Like I told you before,' said Amanda, `I was lying in bed, unable to sleep, when I heard a gunshot. Wolfgang and Al just kept right on sleeping. It says in the newspaper, here let me show you the quote: `Von Hellemann claims he was sleeping and didn't hear a gunshot.' That's right! I woke Wolfgang and told him about the gunshot. He got up and went to investigate. He didn't find any dead body, or see anything unusual. He came back inside, said that his body guards were encouraged to fire their rifles at the ground now and then, to scare off trespassers...

`That's true,' said Maria .

`Then he took a nap because he said he was dead tired. Then he woke up and said he was surprised anyone on his staff would fire their weapon close to our cottage. He said he would go talk to some people. He walked out the door and I watched him head off toward the Castle. Then I looked around the outside of the cottage again. That's when I saw the body. Of course my footprints would be around the body. I'm the one who discovered the dead man. I thought about running after Wolfgang but I was afraid that the person who shot him might still be around, and I didn't want to leave Al alone for two seconds. I ran back into the house and locked the door and grabbed the shotgun out of the hall closet. I was ready to kill any thug who tried to come inside. That's how my fingerprints got on the shotgun. But Wolfgang didn't come back. I was afraid. I grabbed Al, wrapped him up in blankets, but it was too awkward carrying both Al and the shotgun. So I grabbed Al and the blankets and went outside. I put him down when I took the man's revolver. It was not awkward carrying Al in my left arm with the revolver in my right hand. I remember feeling a sense of relief because now I would be ready if I met any thugs as I walked through the woods to find mom and Haakon. Yes, it is true that, after I placed Al on the ground - he was still sleeping! \- I took the man's wallet and cash. I thought the guy was just a thug. Why shouldn't I grab some cash off a dead punk? I remembered Maria talking about grabbing some thug's cash once when she was telling me a story about when was a spy in South America. Maria will tell you she told me that story. See, she's nodding her head. How was I supposed to know he was an FBI agent and not an extortionist? If the letters FBI were in big yellow letters on the back of his coat, I didn't see any letters. If they were there, then, with a new moon and a pitch black night, those letters wouldn't be very visible. The gun blast might also have torn the letters, and then blood might have further covered them. I thought he was killed by one of his mobster friends, perhaps by accident. I didn't know. I was worried that more gangsters might head my way, so, I grabbed the money out of his wallet, grabbed the gun, grabbed Al, and then I walked down the mountain to your post. I was carrying the gun in my right hand and Al in my left arm. He was sleeping practically the whole time! I didn't shoot anyone! The man was killed with a shotgun, but he wasn't killed with our shotgun. I swear I didn't shoot the man!'

`You've had a lot of time to think up some logical explanations,' said her mother. `You sound like you rehearsed that story pretty well.'

`I'm telling you the truth! I swear. I didn't shoot the man. I took his money because I assumed he was a creep, an extortionist, and, since he was already dead - well - I admit I wanted the cash. But you're crazy if you think I killed that man to get his money!'

`Then you spent the money on Doritos and Diet Cherry Coke,' said her dad.

`I suppose that's what will send me to the gas chamber if they catch me. But I didn't shoot the man.'

`That's life for you. Sometimes it goes your way. Sometimes you get smacked upside the head,' philosophized Sergio as he shook his head in disbelief.

`Maria and Haakon,' said Pamela, `we would certainly understand if you wanted to leave us.'

Maria and Haakon both said they believed Amanda. They both said they knew she was innocent. They also said there was a good chance she would be tried as an adult and would be found guilty by a jury, and sentenced to life in prison.

`It's too risky to turn her over to the cops," said Haakon.

`She's definitely innocent,' said Maria, `but she might spend a long time in prison, because how is anyone going to convince a jury with all this damning evidence against her?'

`We might,' said Pamela, `lay low for awhile and then try to get to Montreal or Halifax, and then take a freighter to Argentina or Brazil. We have money in our Swiss accounts. You still got most of the $700 right?'

`Yes,' said Amanda as she pulled the cash from her back pocket.

`We'll send it to the FBI agent's wife and kids,' said Pamela, taking the cash.

`Mana bad? Mana bad? Mana bad?' asked the persistent Al.

Pamela told him that Amanda was not bad, but, the little toddler looked unconvinced. Perhaps he didn't understand what was going on, but he certainly looked terrified when he looked at his big sister.

Chapter 9: Escape to the Isle of the Sun King

They spent the day in a daze. The fog they stumbled in was very slow to lift itself, and they vacillated between running and surrendering. Maria was especially eloquent in arguing in favor of running, insisting that Amanda was innocent and yet insisting it would be madness to think the legal system would find her innocent.

That night the north wind blew with gale fury, cold and cruel, as they huddled beneath their blankets by the little campfire hidden away under the conifers along the shore of the Great Lake. The following morning brought the same powerful winds as the night before, but the sky was clear and the red ball of the sun lifted its cheerful self above Superior's turbulent waters. As the others lay warm in their blankets Amanda kindled the fire to get the coffee a-brewing.

`We might hike up a nearby river and then cross into Canada,' Sergio was saying. Or we might steal a car. Or we might get back on the boat tonight and make for Isle Royale under cover of darkness. The cops might be closing in on us right now. We can either steal a car at that store where Haakon bought the newspapers, or we can start hiking, or we can get back on the boat tonight.'

`Isle Royale looks promising,' said Haakon. `From there we can either head for Canada or for some place like Copper River, Michigan. If the wind stayed this strong we could even sail all the way to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan tonight.

`What do you think, Pamela?' asked Maria.

`I only wish I had more experience running from the cops,' deadpanned Pamela, who was in surprisingly good spirits after hearing Maria's impassioned defense of her daughter.

`I vote for Isle Royale,' said Sergio. `We could sink the boat in shallow water to hide it, lay low for a few days, then refloat the boat and sail on to Canada some dark or stormy night.

`We can set out after dark this evening,' said Maria. `With no running lights on we ought to be invisible enough in Haakon's boat.'

When darkness fell they used the cable and winch to drag the sailboat back into the water. Pamela and Amanda and Al got aboard and then Pamela prepared to lower the centerboard. Sergio and Haakon and Maria pushed from the shallows and then jumped aboard. Haakon took the helm while Maria and Sergio raised the jib and mainsail.

With the wind blowing more moderately than it had been that morning, there was no need to reef either the mainsail or the Genoa jib. They were soon making a respectable 9 miles per hour. Haakon kept a compass in the boat and so there was little danger of getting lost in the darkness. They had maps but no detailed charts, and therefore there was some danger of shoals. As there was no moonlight Isle Royale would be nearly invisible if the starlight was eclipsed by thick clouds. But if they kept a close eye on the compass, and on their speed, they should be able to avoid sailing straight into the island, and they should also be able to avoid sailing straight past the island. What a nightmare it would be to find themselves in the morning light tempest-tossed and lost, surrounded by huge waves and arctic temperatures on the main part of the lake!

They were on a course nearly due east, and on this vector and in these moderate winds they were concerned with two things: shoals which might puncture the hull and plunge them into the ice-water, and being sighted by the authorities. It was possible that a freak wave would capsize the boat. They could remain afloat in the ice water if capsized, as they were all wearing life preservers, but even wrapped up in many layers of wool and nylon they could not expect to live very longer if they were unable to right the boat and climb back aboard. Haakon saw no reason why this would happen. He bought the boat because it was a type which was easy to set right if it was knocked down. Cops and shoals were the only real dangers Sovant insisted.

Al was stoical for the most part. The brave little tot howled with discomfort only rarely. He and his mama and sister huddled close together on deck. The waves rocked the little boat roughly enough and they all grew a little ill from being tossed and plunged and shaken. They were all on deck, because to huddle in the warm cabin, while being tossed by even these moderate waves, would be to court the worst horrors of sea sickness in a matter of minutes. Out in the fresh air one had a good chance of avoiding vertigo especially if one stared at the scattered lights along the Minnesota shore. Haakon suspected that someone would soon be feeling wretched enough, and he knew they would not be climbing on to solid ground any time soon.

They left the Minnesota shore at 9 pm. The wind was out of the northwest at 15 mph, gusting to 20. By 10 pm the wind had increased some, and by 11 pm it was blowing at 20 mph with the gusts approaching 30 mph. The mainsail was first reefed and then lowered altogether; they were maintaining an estimated 9 mph charge to the east with the Genoa alone to power them through the surges. At midnight they could see, off the port bow, in the faint starlight, Michigan and the southern shore of Isle Royale. Sovant said the island would be there and he was true to his word. In half an hour they could turn to the northeast, and head up the lee shore of Isle Royale on a beam reach.

Sovant noticed the faint lights of a vessel far to the southwest of them, many miles away, roughly near Grand Marais, MN. He quickly discovered it was approaching at high speed as its lights, though many miles away, grew slightly but perceptibly brighter as the minutes passed.

They proceeded round the southern end of the island. Once they were far enough to the east they entered the lee of the island. Here the large waves vanished from beneath their hull entirely. They were no longer rolling so violently, and they could raise the mainsail and get 11 mph out of the little boat without too much fear of capsizing.

Sovant steered to the northeast. Soon the lights of the boat he suspected was pursuing them disappeared entirely. The southern cape of Isle Royale eclipsed them.

Sovant thought it time to explain to everyone what was happening. For the last hour these poor people were oblivious to the harrowing chase. Sovant hadn't bothered to mention the approaching boat, which would soon reappear some miles behind their transom, perhaps in another hour, or perhaps in less than an hour.

Sovant saw two courses before them. They could either seek shelter on Isle Royale. If it was a Coast Guard vessel that was chasing them they could probably expect to be hunted down on some lonely upland of that island. Or, they could turn away from Isle Royale and head out into the main part of the lake. They would have to drop their sails before the pursuing ship rounded the southernmost shore of Isle Royale. With their sails lowered they would be more or less invisible. Or at least if they dipped below the horizon then night vision equipment is useless. But they would have to raise their sails eventually if they wanted to cross another 50 miles of open water to reach land somewhere on Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula. Then, once they raised their sails, they would become visible and would be hunted down. Yet if they didn't raise their sails they would be dead in the water.

Sovant said they were probably trapped either way, but at least they had a fighting chance on land, whereas on the open waters of Lake Superiors they had no chance. Not surprisingly, everyone agreed with Haakon's thinking that it would be best to not venture across 50 miles of open water. Sovant calculated it would be roughly an hour's sail from Long Point, the southernmost tip of Isle Royale, up to Point Houghton. At the latter Point the shoreline ran to the west and south to create a bay. Haakon suspected this bay would be the end of the line for them. They might hope for an easy landing without any deep water coming right up to any cliffs, but, in any case, they would have to make their landfall, and then they would have to sink the sailboat, and then they would have to take their chances striking out across the rough country, seeking a place to hide themselves, and they would have to find the means to find their way back to the mainland, probably by stealing someone's boat, and hopefully a better boat than his own, such as one with a big powerful motor on it.

The minutes dragged slowly along but the wind stayed strong and they ploughed straight ahead with no reduction in speed. At last, the lights on a boat, 15 miles to the southwest, appeared over their transom. It was now obvious that they were being hunted down. Haakon estimate the vessel was doing 30 miles per hour. This meant they had 30 minutes to find a place to hide.

In 15 minutes they found a sandy beach. In 20 minutes they had the mast lowered and had their supplies off of the boat. Sovant then opened the drain plug in 10 feet of water, and watched his boat sink. He swam to shore, got out of his wet clothes and into dry garments, and in 30 minutes they had all concealed themselves amid the dwarf pines and the scrub birch which ran down to the beach all along that shoreline.

Soon enough a vessel came cruising in to Siskiwit Bay. She was shining a powerful searchlight over the land and the water. The foliage on this coast would have to be sufficient to conceal them, and by remaining perfectly still, as the searchlight scanned the woods all round them, they had, so far, avoided detection. The pursuers evidently lacked infrared detectors. If it had those they would have had no chance of escape.

As the boat moved farther away from them, Haakon was whispering some happy thoughts to everyone.

`We made it,' agreed Maria. `We're home free.'

`No, we will have to fight to escape from this island,' said Amanda.

Chapter 10. Angeline and Bergitta

The winds were strengthening that night and they found they had to huddle under many heavy blankets to keep from freezing. There was no snow falling but violent storm clouds were seething above their heads. At 3 o'clock in the morning, with the wind still howling all round them, everyone was wakened from fitful sleep by the sound of a woman's voice. She was shouting, `Raus! Raus! Wake up! Wake up!'

Sovant found, in the beam of his flashlight, two women, both fortyish. They looked well-to-do, in Haakon's estimation, or at least they were dressed in expensive, expedition-quality garb.

`You guys are on TV you know,' one of the women was saying. `You must be either Haakon or Sergio.'

`Haakon.'

`I'm Bergitta. This is Angeline. You can see the lights on our boat off yonder. We were sitting in our hot tub when we saw a little blue light. We wondered if it might be a flame from a paraffin stove. Then the Coast Guard showed up and shined its probing searchlight at us. We were in the hot tub in our bikinis, so the US Coast Guard might have enjoyed checking us out. The Coast Guard officer got in his launch and came over and asked to search us. We let them of course. We learned who they were searching for, and then the little blue light made some sense, but of course we didn't mention that to the Coast Guard. Like I said you're all over the news and on TV. The authorities were slow to discover that you had a sailboat and that it was no longer moored in the Grand Marais Harbor, but once they discovered it was gone, they began searching the lake in earnest for you.'

By this time Al could be heard crying under his blankets. Soon enough he was having a look at the curious ladies. They were telling him he would soon be warm and comfortable, and that had him smiling again.

`We'll help you as best as we can,' said Angeline. `You sunk your boat, huh? That was smart. Do you think it's deep enough? We can drag it into deeper water to make sure it's invisible. From a helicopter one can see to a depth of 50 feet or more beneath the surface.'

`We know Amanda is innocent,' Bergitta was saying. `It's insane to think you murdered that FBI agent, dear, but that's what everyone thinks right now.'

Al got a scared look in his eyes when he heard these words. He wasn't quite sure what they meant but he knew enough to know they were bad for Amanda. He just heard something about Amanda murdering someone, and he knew they were running from the police. Poor Al started to whimper and cry again.

`Cheer up little fellow,' Angeline was now saying. `We're going to help your big sis. She's on the lam you know. The cops are gunning for her cause they think she gunned down a G-man. But we know she's innocent! We just have to prove it! Or rather, we only have to find a reasonable scenario which will plant the seed of doubt in the minds of jurymen.'

Al was still crying.

`Cheer up little guy. We'll loan you our launch,' said Bergitta. `It has a 250 horse power outboard. Just keep your running lights off and watch the GPS and you can make it easily to Canada. But wait a few days till things quiet down.'

`Oh let's just run them ashore in the big boat,' said Angeline.

`Yes, that might be better,' said Bergitta. `The authorities have night vision equipment, radar, sonar, high powered rifles, not to mention a willingness to shoot to kill. They can spot you a long time before you can spot them.'

They set off down the beach. Like Lear out on the heath they had to battle the gales of chaos as they made their way toward some sort of asylum. It would have been a bleak scene indeed had Bergitta and Angeline not arrived to lend some hope to what seemed their futile attempt to flee. The Coast Guard cutter had vacated the bay, though perhaps another ship would appear round a headland at any moment. They were safe for the moment and yet they felt blasted with fear of imminent capture.

In twenty minutes they had walked over to the launch which they used to motor out to Bergitta's and Angeline's vessel, the Columbia Maru. Angeline was saying that it was a rusting 387 foot cargo boat which they converted into a luxury vessel. They had spent a lot of money putting a big new rebuilt MAN B & W 10,000 horse power marine two-stroke turbo-charged diesel into it, and they threw a lot more money at electrical and mechanical contractors; they also invested a lot of their own time, aggravation and sweat in gutting, degreasing, sandblasting, painting, redecorating and provisioning their floating pleasure palace. But it was all worth it! They dropped some more cash when they filled it full of glass and black granite, and then some more pennies were needed to gave it enormous staterooms and a futuristic ballroom to throw extravagant parties in. And now their masterpiece was anchored 1000 feet from shore in 6 fathoms of water. Bergitta remained in the launch with Haakon and Sergio, while Angeline welcomed the others aboard the big boat. Those who remained in the launch proceeded to find Haakon's sunken sailboat. After a brutal plunge into the ice water for Haakon, during which he looped a rope round a stanchion, they used the powerful launch to drag the boat into deeper water. Haakon let go one end of the rope, pulled on the other end, and soon the whole length of rope was wound up again and stowed away, and then Bergitta, Sergio and Haakon joined the others on the Columbia Maru.

Angeline was in the meantime showing Al and the ladies where they could freshen up and where they could get something to eat. The kitchen and the dining room were immense brass and granite, stainless steel and marble creations. After showing them where the food was they descended two flights of stairs and Angeline showed them how they could hide behind a false wall in the engine room should they need to hide if the cops wanted to search the boat again. This false wall was something which Bergitta and Angeline had constructed, because they knew it would come in handy if the cops were called to one of their parties to make a drug bust. Angeline said she and Bergitta weren't users but she couldn't vouch for all of their friends - in any event, should some of their guests need to hide from the cops she had learned the hard way that it's wise to have a room behind a false wall. Angeline then took her guest back up to the main deck and showed them their staterooms.

Angeline was explaining to Al and Amanda, Pamela and Maria that since their boat had formerly been a rusting cargo ship, the Columbia Maru might never have an `aura of pre-eminent splendor' about her, and yet, Angeline maintained, there was `no hint of dilapidated grandeur' and `no suggestion of meretricious elegance' about the refurbished boat, though Angeline detested the vulgar term `refurbished boat,' preferring instead `resurrected vessel' which she liked much better than Bergitta's suggestion of: `transformed and revivified floating pleasure palace.' Angeline confessed that she was `a great foe of eclecticism,' and therefore she let Bergitta do all of the interior decorating, with the upshot being that there was with `no promiscuous commingling of decors clashing in hideous proximity to detract from the vessel's thematic and aesthetic purity.'

`It's not my cup of tea,' admitted Angeline, `but Bergitta did the best she could and I support her for that.'

Angeline explained that Bergitta and she refused to use the terms such as `the mess,' and certainly not `the head,' as they thought those viler nautical terms, and they insisted instead on using terms such as kitchen and dining room and bathroom. With these preliminaries out of the way, and with Bergitta and the men back now from their little expedition, Angelina busied herself by pouring them hot coffee and giving them cinnamon rolls to feast upon. She also offered steaks and au gratin potatoes to those who wanted something more substantial than cinnamon rolls.

Once their 4 am snack was finished Bergitta suggested they relax for awhile in their enormous hot tub. She was saying Al wouldn't get a chance to luxuriate in a spa - and it beat hiding out in the wilds of Isle Royale. Bergitta painted a glorious word-picture of how they ought to indulge themselves in the luxury of the warm, lilac-scented waters now, as they would have to endure the hardships that befall desperate fugitives later. Angeline supplied them with the bathing suits.

They stepped outside onto the main deck. They endured the cold gale blowing down from Canada and sunk themselves into the warm water. As clouds boiled and surged above them, as the north wind howled, they luxuriated in the fragrant warmth of 100 degree water which was perfumed with an exquisite scent. Bergitta and Angeline joined them after they had surveyed the horizon and found no that lights on any ships were to be seen.

`Been on this part of the lake long?' asked Maria while re-emerging after she had submerged her head to warm it up.

`Not too long,' said Angeline. `We're from LA but we bought and then refurbished the boat in Cleveland. It took us all last summer and fall to get it running and looking good. We'll head on over to Duluth and then turn around and see again Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland. Eventually we'll make our way to Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, Boston, New York, Miami etc., etc. We'll hire a captain somewhere, sometime to steer it, but for now we don't mind doing that ourselves. We're learning. We're taking it slow. We haven't run aground yet!'

`You must be loaded!' exclaimed Amanda, forgetting that people suspected her of having had an unhealthy and excessive interest in other people's money.

`My father passed away three years ago and he left me some money,' said Bergitta.

`Bergitta had been frugal with her money for years, so this ship is something of a rare extravagance,' said Angeline.

`Had I been frugal?'

`Frugal in the sense that you used to toss hundreds around without a care, but now you toss thousands around without a care in refurbishing an old rust bucket,' said Angeline.

`We've breathed life into a work of art, into an oceanic vessel with classical lines. We have not "refurbished an old rust bucket",' said Bergitta.

`My expertise with oceanic vessels is almost exclusively limited to interior design,' Angeline was saying, `whereas Bergitta's repertoire of talents encompasses not only interior design but hydraulic and electrical systems, drive shafts and big greasy bearings, lubrication systems and bulkheads and smoke stacks and corrosion-resistant paints. Bergitta is Universal Woman, whereas I am the living embodiment of Restricted Woman.'

`Don't let her bamboozle you with that verbiage. Angeline is an accomplished outdoorswoman. She paints with sensitive yet boldly naturalistic strokes of the brush. Her eye is sound and true - perhaps she's better in oil than in water color though that's a contestable point - but everyone agrees she captures on canvass the soul of whatever she paints. Angeline is quite simply too distracted by her other accomplishments - I won't say predominantly feminine accomplishments - to presently enjoy mechanical hardware such as engines and turbines, turbo-chargers and big greasy bearings.'

`Bergitta was trying to teach me the cycles in a four-stroke engine: Intake, Compression, Power and Exhaust. I've managed to memorize four words, and I know what they mean, but that doesn't mean I'll ever be able to fix the huge diesel on this boat when and if it ever breaks down,' said Angeline.

`Especially since we have a huge turbo-charged two-stoke diesel,' said Bergitta.

`It boggles my mind to try to understand how an engine can combine both the intake and the compression elements into one stroke of the piston, and then combine the power and the exhaust elements into the next stroke of the piston. You would think that all engines would have to be 4-stroke engines wouldn't you? This seems especially so when a turbo-charger is used, as the function of the turbo-charger is to shove air above atmospheric pressure into the cylinder during the intake phase. I find in all this only more proof that I am Restricted Woman. Bergitta, Universal Woman, has a mind which comprehends all manner of internal combustion engines.'

`I wonder if, deep-down, we aren't land creatures more than water creatures. But we want desperately to believe that we have romantic, seafaring souls. Hence, this caprice of ours in breathing life into this vessel,' said Bergitta.

`I'm glad you didn't liken one of us to the unglamorous hippo, a creature who takes equally well to both land and water,' said Angeline.

`What I mean by land creatures is that Angeline and I are into treks, expeditions, you know, beholding gorgeous mountain scenery. We climbed Denali last year,' said Bergitta.

`Took the West Buttress route,' said Angeline. `It was two weeks of bitterly cold penitential purgatorial privation, but the great mountain beckoned us, and who were we to resist?

`When last we were in South America,' said Bergitta, `we made it to the summits of Cotopaxi and Sajama. Those are 20,000 foot peaks which anyone in top physical condition can walk up with no danger of dying from a fall.'

`They're not like Kangchenjunga and K2, Chogolisa and Changabang, where you fall thousands of feet and straight to your death if you make the slightest little slip-up,' said Angeline.

`Angeline and I went all over the Karakorum,' said Bergitta. `Before that we had been hiking through the Hindu Kush and Pakistan. The west face of Nanga Parbat rises 23,000 feet straight up from the Indus River Valley, so that was a panorama to marvel at.'

`Its stupendous precipices defy description for though they render man pitiful and insignificant in comparison, this gives no accurate perspective on their true proportions,'' said Angeline.

`I understand what she said,' said Amanda.

`Eventually Angeline and I trekked all over the Karakorum and the Himalayas, though we don't risk our necks climbing the big and steep peaks. That whole region is a graveyard you know, and a huge outhouse. People are forever falling to their deaths or being crushed in avalanches. 30 Germans died on Nanga Parbat before anyone finally got to the summit of that treacherous mountain. Yes, a vast graveyard and a huge outhouse are the Himalayas. Which reminds me, don't let me forget to give you plenty of bleach so you can keep your camp clean while you're hiding out in the wilderness in the coming months. You don't want to get dysentery when you're making your daring escape from vengeful lawmen crying for blood and justice. You guys remind me of....'

Bergitta had to dunk her head in the hot water for a little while because the icy winds had frozen her wet hair. She reemerged and was saying: `Where was I? Oh, yes, I was saying that you guys remind me of intrepid explorers. Soon you will venture forth once again into the wilderness to confront the inhospitable elements. Are you afraid? No! Are you brave? Assuredly! I have immense respect for you and for your will to survive while these cops and bounty hunters are gunning for you. If you make one slip-up with the cops, it will be over for all of you. You're like Mallory and Irvine, Tasker and Boardman, great explorers, adventurers, bold seekers who climbed to eternity on the North Face of Everest. You look death squarely in the face. You might all be gunned down in a glorious shootout, but you will never surrender. I'm quite sure of that. You probably think I need to soak my head again, but I'm being sincere.'

`We'll get through it,' said Maria.

`Let's not forget either,' said Angeline, `to give you plenty of bandages and antibiotics and antiseptics, as well as aspirin, cold medicine, cough syrup etc., etc.'

`And we'll give you plenty of apple sauce and yogurt for Al,' said Bergitta. `Once we get you off this island and get you to some lonely section of the mainland shore, you should be able to escape easily enough, but you might have to stick to the wilderness for awhile and avoid city life.'

`We just love to sit in this hot tub and relax,' Angeline was saying, `though we're not going to be able to really relax until you guys are safe. It's so much fun to anchor the boat before a city like Chicago at night time. That's when I really love to sit in this hot tub and gaze up at all the wonderful lights in all the towering skyscrapers. You can forget to wear your bikini out in the wilderness, but you might get an indecent exposure conviction on your record if you get too relaxed and forgetful when you're in cities. That's pretty much the biggest danger we face in life, but we haven't slipped up in that regard yet, knock on wood.'

Pamela was playing with Al who loved how the cold wind rushed over his head and how he could always warm up by having his mama hold his nose and plunge him down into the warm water.

`Did you grab her cell phone?' asked Angeline.

`Got it,' said Bergitta.

`Bergitta's mom is with us for a few days. She's sleeping now but when she wakes up she'll recognize you guys - she was glued to the TV and the news reports about you guys all day today.'

`She's not as Liberal and as Broad-Minded as some people, so I grabbed her cell phone so she can't call the cops on you guys,' said Bergitta. She was a Hitler Maiden - a little brown shirt - seventy five years ago. She really soaked up the rigorous training she received as a little girl.'

`We call her "The Nazi Sponge",' said Angeline.

While relaxing in the Jacuzzi all of the adrenaline that had accumulated from the sea-chase and the terror of the Coast Guard was slowly washed out of their systems. Eventually fatigue and the need for sleep told everyone they were ready for bed. They found their staterooms and slept about as peacefully as people can when they know every lawman in North America was hunting them.

`You are a sweet-looking child,' said Frau Hildegard Rummel to Amanda when everyone was seated at the dining room table for lunch later that day. `But in my day if someone killed a police officer that person was lined up against a wall and shot. They didn't waste time with lawyers and trials. Justice was swift, and if it wasn't always sure, it was nevertheless a powerful deterrent against crime and criminals.'

`Ma, we've told you Amanda didn't shoot the FBI man,' said Bergitta.

`Well of course they're going to proclaim their innocence. That's what criminals do. Why are they running if they are innocent? Bergitta you are so brainless at times it makes my heart murmur and skip beats whenever I contemplate how brainless you are. Dummkopf daughter! You're aiding and abetting fugitives, you're helping killers! Do you know how many years in prison you could get if you get caught? Dummkopf ! I don't care if they murder me - I'm old and withered - I'm an aged, as my darling daughter would say - but you're still young! You could still find a husband and have children.'

`Please, ma, you're making little Al cry. See his big cheeks are all wet. He'll probably have nightmares about you. Don't let the mean old Nazi woman scare you, Buddy, she's just an old woman set in her old woman ways.'

`Don't you call me a Nazi, Bergy. I couldn't help what my parents did with me. But you! Honestly. Aiding and abetting criminals!

Sergio and Pamela, Maria and Haakon and Amanda could see it was useless to plead their case before the former Hitler Maiden. There couldn't be a bigger waste of words than to expend some in trying to persuade Frau Rummel.

`Don't think I'm heartless,' said Frau Rummel. `I know it's perfectly natural for parents to want to help a child who is in trouble. Let's give you the benefit of the doubt, let's suppose you people are good and decent people. Can't you see you are still exposing my daughter and her...a...friend...'

`She's my partner, ma. Angeline and me are a couple. We're Lesbians, ma. We were married in a ceremony eleven years ago, remember?' said Bergitta.

`You always call me `ma' whenever you want to paint me as a heartless, out-of-touch Marie Antoinette who loves to advise the poor to have some cake, and whenever you want to portray yourself as a lawyer for the oppressed proletariat...As I was saying, even if we suppose you people are good and decent and innocent people, can't you see you are endangering these two Lesbian Love Birds? Do you want them to be arrested and thrown into jail for years? Why don't you get into the launch and go? Just take it and go!'

`That's how they'll get caught, and that's how we'll get caught, ma. We got to be smart about things, ma. Don't be a dummkopf, ma. We have to look like we are in no big hurry. We might be watched right now. That's why I got the blinds drawn. Comprende? Tonight when it is good and dark we'll drop them off in Canada.'

`All right. Say, has anyone seen my cell phone?' I hope it hasn't been stolen,' said the ancient lady as she glanced at Amanda.

Amanda felt like saying something but she had the good sense to hold her peace.

Amanda wrote in her diary about the events of that evening: We spent the afternoon alternating between eating, sleeping and luxuriating in the Jacuzzi. Angeline and Bergitta brought the "Columbia Maru" out of the little bay and we reversed the route which we had come the previous night. We came down the Eastern flank, and then round the Southern shore of Isle Royale. When the sun went down a difficult decision had to be made. There was wind. But there was too much of it! We left the Southern shore of Isle Royale and were slammed with 10 foot waves rolling down from the North. We could either retreat to the lee of the island again or we could venture forth into the gale. The wind was howling out of the North, with the gusts over 50mph. The billows were piling higher and higher. We said the Lord's Prayer and proceeded onwards into Storm and Darkness at about 9 o'clock. The full fury of the blast was slamming us over the starboard bow. Nature was terrifying to behold last night. It was not the cold, and it was not the fear that boat would break apart in the surges which made everything so awful: it was the nausea. When you're as seasick as we were you really don't care if you live or die. In fact dying becomes a potent attraction to you, as it promises an end to your misery. Halfway to Canada, that is, twenty miles into our voyage, a ship with powerful lights 5 miles away to the West seemed to be closing in on us. It was too far away to cause any panic, but Angeline and Bergitta said they would deal with the Coast Guard, should it be the Coast Guard, while we made our escape in the launch. Angeline put the bow directly into the wind and eased back on the throttle. We were able to scramble into the launch without being seen by those on the Coast Guard ship, because we had the full length of the "Columbia Maru" between the little launch and the Coast Guard vessel. It was hell soaring up and then plunging down the sides of those waves in the little launch in total darkness. But I'm writing all this from the Canadian shore, 50 miles below Thunder Bay. We made it to a little oasis of salvation amid this hostile world, though we were barely hanging on to life and sanity at the end of our voyage. It's Friday and the sun is shining and we're free and alive. Not one of us slipped off the launch to fall away into the icy abyss. Not one of us met death in terrifying icy darkness. Al was howling and rending the air with his anguished cries, but he is smiling and happy now! Sergio was saying it was like we were on The Raft of the Medusa. We'll call the number Bergitta gave us to let them know we made it to safety. The ladies advised us to be cagey and speak in code, saying something like: "Sidney and Clarice are just dying to see the revivified vessel!" Thanks for everything Angeline and Bergitta! Dad and Haakon sunk your launch in water 50 feet deep, but I suppose you can afford to buy another one. See you later!

Part 3. The End of the Good Old Days: Hard Times Hit Amanda, Haakon, Al et. al.

Chapter 11. Comrades-in-Arms

The Canadian authorities were not as inept as their American cousins and they swiftly rounded up Amanda and her fugitive accomplices and criminal kinfolk. Amanda felt an unprecedented and unimaginably brutal rage welling up inside her as the police clamped the cuffs on her wrists and as they shoved her into the cruiser. She wanted to scream but she couldn't find her voice. She was innocent, and yet she was being brutalized by a legal machine run by demons in human form. She was still trying to scream as the Canadian cops drove her to her next cage where she might languish until she went mad for all they cared. Amanda was burning with rage as....

`It's all right! You're just having a nightmare, ' said Pamela as she tried to comfort her distraught, half-asleep daughter.

`I thought that was real. I thought for sure the cops had got me,' exclaimed Amanda with immense relief in her shaking voice.

`No,' said Sergio, `you're still on the loose, you're still a fugitive on the run from no end of US bounty hunters, state lawmen, federal marshals, provincial lawmen, federal Canadian lawmen, Canadian bounty hunters, and all the law-and-order-loving citizens who covet the fabulous price on your head....'

Pamela then took Amanda aside and the two of them had a chat.

`Here's the deal,' said Pamela. `You and me, and Al and your dad should probably get away from Haakon and Maria.'

`You think they might snitch? You think they might try to cut a deal with the cops?

`Probably not but why should we take a chance?'

`I don't think I can say goodbye to Haakon,' said Amanda.

`Why? Do you love him?'

`I suppose,' said Amanda.

`Look. And don't be crazy. It's unlikely but certainly possible that one of them, either Haakon or Maria, might say to themselves that it is no good having to run from the law for the rest of their lives! They might cut a deal with authorities, telling them where you can be found if the cops promise to drop all aiding and abetting charges against them. It's certainly possible Haakon and Maria might make that deal.'

`Yeah?'

`Let's tell them that you and me feel guilty about putting them through the wringer. It's killing both of us to have to put the baby through the wringer, but we got to keep him around! Let's ask Haakon and Maria to go on ahead, because it is painful for us to have to make them live like fugitives on our account - and that's the truth. We just won't mention our other motivation. We won't mention the part about how we suspect they might rat on us. What we really need to do is lay low in the Canadian wilderness for a few years. We have plenty of cash. Sergio can get to Thunder Bay in a day or two. We have fake passports and phony birth certificates and drivers licenses there, just as we got the same things sitting in safety deposit boxes in Buenos Aires, Geneva and Hong Kong. No one else knows about our fake papers. The CIA taught us to have them but the CIA doesn't know about them, and no one else knows about them. Sergio can get our papers, the cash, the car, the provisions....'

`We can't give Haakon or Maria the slightest hint that we're afraid they might betray us,' said Amanda. `But I'll just have a talk with Haakon right now. I can't leave him.'

`No you won't talk to him. You listen to me. You need me to make sure you stay out of jail for the rest of your life. Your dad is going to approach them and pitch the idea that the three of them ought to hike into Thunder Bay. You, me and Al will remain here. Once the three of them are gone, the three of us can move on to a new hiding place. And we will tell your dad to meet us at midnight some night on the highway two miles above the border.'

`They will not want to leave us.'

`What makes you think that?'

`Haakon loves Al and me, and Maria and you are best friends.'

`If Haakon or Maria refuse to split with us, then we'll just leave them a nice note insisting we can not in good conscience risk their future by tying them so closely us. Then we just sneak off without them,' said Pamela.

Maria and Haakon had no objections to the idea of walking with Sergio to Thunder Bay.

Sergio was trying to divine the intentions of his inscrutable wife and prodigal daughter. They didn't think it necessary to tell him why they suddenly succumbed to a distaste for hiking into Thunder Bay. Perhaps, he thought, they thought they could better evade the police by splitting up. Perhaps they couldn't. Sergio had long since grown fatigued weighing the incriminating and the exonerating evidence surrounding Amanda's case; what else could he do but assume she was innocent as the alternative was unthinkable? Whatever he decided about her he didn't expect their ordeal to end any time soon. Complete vindication seemed so far away it might as well be unattainable.

If it wasn't Pamela's and Amanda's caprice to split up then it was Haakon's humorous condition which kept Sergio entertained on their 2 day march into Thunder Bay. The man had been indifferent to his wife a few weeks ago but now he was captivated by her, lost in her charms, always pining to be close to her as they walked along under the enormous evergreens. Sergio could see as well as the next man that Maria was captivating in her way. Why did he find it so surprising that romance was weaving its spell round those two? Well because Haakon had been indifferent to his wife just a few weeks ago. Sergio knew he wasn't dreaming about that. There was frost between them. But the ice was gone now. Evidently Maria could become mesmerizing whenever it struck her fancy to turn on a switch.

The bliss of a tropical sea-breeze once blew over a verandah in South America, a verandah on which Sergio was standing and listening to Maria converse with a man named Jules Lancereaux. He owned a mining company and was having trouble with saboteurs and extortionists; a glib flow of words flowed from the man - `Colette discovered Audrey Hepburn...Michaelangelo's infatuation with Vittoria Colonna was keeping him from producing more masterpieces; the man needed to live like a cave man to get any work done and Colonna was....Charlotte Corday, when plunging that knife into Marat, showed herself to be a samurai in full possession of the kiri-sute gomen...the orgies of Samothrace destroyed the already effeminate Greek males... the debaucheries of Paris, London and Berlin first enfeebled and then gave the coup de grace to the voluptuous pleasure-seeking Northern European females....'

The man was too doctrinaire in the estimation of Sergio's instincts but whether he was profound or superficial, and Sergio wasn't sure what he was, Sergio couldn't see how he was any sort of big trouble. Still, `these dilettantes might be dangerous' encapsulated Sergio's opinion of Lancereaux. It was their job to ensure that his mines weren't blasted out of operation by communist saboteurs.

Sergio was trying not to think about how cruel it was that fate had turned on them so recently and so remorselessly. The opulence of that South American verandah where they were surrounded by jonquils and orchids, by alabaster amphorae, by candle-flames stirring atop tables full of mangos and oranges, lemons and limes, prime rib and fresh seafood, were far removed from their current Canadian predicament. He forced himself to think of better days and his thoughts turned to the time he was driving through the Vendean bocage, then to the time he observed a lapis sea shining beyond emerald meadows in the Maritime provinces, the west side of Cape Breton to be precise; now he found the blue waters of Superior barely perceptible blocked as they were by all the evergreens; this Canadian wilderness recalled to Sergio's mind odysseys in former days. The gale blowing off Superior was swaying the tops of the pines far above his head, reminding him now of sea-breezes washing over Nova Scotia and over a beach on the Gulf of Mexico - that was a place where he had once memorably reclined in sunshine, just as he was doing now. Maria and Haakon, who were presently plunging undaunted down the path had asked Sergio to hang back for an hour or two and conceal himself behind the laurels and firs, so he could watch the path and remain unseen while he took note of any gendarmes in pursuit of some fugitives. By the time Sergio would shove off from this position, in another hour or two, Maria and Haakon would by then have found a place off the path where they too could hide and watch for cops while Sergio caught up with them. After they met they might hike for a few more minutes, at least until they found the right place to bivouac for the night. They had enough blankets to stay war assuming an arctic air mass didn't descend on them. Should Sergio witness a cop on the path he would wait a few minutes, let the man pass on a good ways, and then he would give Haakon and Maria a warning shot from his .357. Once that was done he'd have to dive deep into the woods; he would have to use his wits and his best tactics at woodland stealth, or at least he would have to do something other than back himself into a corner so incompetently that he got himself captured by the Canadian cops. Sergio shifted himself so as to stay in the center of a little golden oasis of sunlight that filtered down through a rent in the treetops. The fragrance of the fir cones and the junipers, of the pines and the ferns had Sergio wondering if he would ever see his beloved cottage again. Not likely. He missed its divine setting amid the forest primeval. The best aspect of its location was that air there was suffused with the most wonderful perfume. He liked the sweet idyllic breath of the tropics but Sergio was partial to these sublime northern forests, so redolent with the opiate of the evergreens. Though your tamarinds and oleanders, your banyans, lotus blossoms and mangroves won't survive in these high latitudes...That Amanda! What had that mercurial girl of his actually done? What exactly was she guilty of? Or was she innocent? Couldn't she be acquitted in court someway, somehow? A week ago Sergio was reading his books in his cozy cottage before a fire in his hearth and now he was sitting on damp grass watching for cops while trying to stay out of an Ontario jail cell. What mysterious steps might they take to best orchestrate their escape from this nightmare? Sergio was talking to himself. Sergio was also telling himself to keep watch on the forest behind him as well as on the path in front of him, as new troubles had a way of piling on top of the troubles you already had. Getting bit by a rabid skunk seemed a distinct possibility. Sergio dined on some bread and pate de foix gras which was washed down with champagne; these delicious provisions were supplied by Angeline and Bergitta. `What the hell happened?' Sergio was apostrophizing his daughter. Sergio was soon thinking they were crazy to think they could soon risk taking a boat from Halifax to South America, assuming they got as far as Halifax. In another twenty minutes Sergio had to be quick about hiding the goose liver when a golden retriever walked right up to where he was sitting and put his muzzle in Sergio's face. Sure enough a little boy then came running down the path calling for his dog. The dog ran off leaving Sergio to wonder how he and the goose liver had both avoided detection. Sergio fought off some melancholia while two hours slowly elapsed. His little oasis of sunshine had long since darkened now that the sun was descending in the west. When he stood up to begin his hike Sergio estimated he had two hours of daylight remaining. That was plenty of time to find Haakon and Maria. And just where was the nearest policeman, right now, wondered Sergio, as he walked beneath the pines trees, scanning to his right and to his left, looking for lawmen.

Pamela, Al and Amanda were concealed amid the pines and birch trees on a headland that jutted out into Lake Superior. They were sitting in the sunlight outside their tent, wrapped in blankets, drinking coffee or soda and eating smoked whitefish.

Amanda was reading Time Magazine. Pamela found it lying beside the highway half a mile away. It had a picture of Amanda on its cover, and an unflattering one at that. `It wouldn't have killed those prima donnas to use a better shot of me,' said Amanda to no one in particular.

Time was saying,

`In America, where Amanda Molina is a pariah among her own people - we want her loaded with chains and dragged off to the nearest gas chamber post haste - she is not only a murderer but she is seen by some as a person who embodies the flaws and complexities of both Lucrezia Borgia - the daughter and the concubine of Pope Alexander VI, and therefore the archetypal fallen woman - but also an Alcibiades, the traitor and the desecrator of all that is holy. But is she really a complex, multi-faceted psychopath as some commentators have insisted? And of course it has also been claimed ad nauseum by the perverse European press that her bodyguard parents - these preposterous, modernized, soi-disant Bartolommeo Colleonis and Castruccio Castraconi degli Antelminellis - are the real villains of the tragic drama. Like Giulia Farnese, another concubine of the promiscuous aforementioned pontiff, Amanda Molina exhibits unrestrained precocious sensuality, witness her insatiable desire for food and intoxicating spirits so soon after she murdered the FBI agent in cold blood...'

Amanda didn't care much for that article in Time so she tried another:

`The 70 million unwed mothers in the USA who constitute the largest sub-faction of all the sub-factions which make up the 120 million marginalized females in America, alienated women whom the power elites in Washington D. C. have decided are too inconsequential to pander to...'

`It's odd how some magazines manage to stay in business,' Amanda was saying to Pamela. `I suppose being a fugitive makes you a marginalized female, ma, you've been shunted to a side track, in case you weren't aware of that fact. It seems you are now too inconsequential for the power elites to pander to.'

`That applies to you more than me. I can always go back to Chicago. But you're marginalized wherever you go: Minnesota, Michigan, Ontario...'

`You're in a bad mood. Cheer up. Look at all this great food we have from Angeline and Bergitta. It's diner sur l'herbe for us, but it's not like we have to live on cuisses de grenouilles, pain et beurre d'arachide, corbeau, anguille, oeufs de mouette, cailletot, cou d'oie, tete de veau....which so many millions of marginalized French people must subsist on. And what about you, Al? Haven't you been marginalized terribly by the power elites?

`Mana go jail.' Said Al.

`You don't even know what jail is. You're like a parrot, Al.'

`Mana go jail.'

`If you don't have anything good to say about someone, Al, then don't say anything at all.'

`Why don't you go back to writing your memoirs, or whatever it was you were writing earlier,' said Pamela.

This idea struck Amanda`s fancy. She picked up a pen and a notebook and began to write where she had left off earlier...

`The black damask and the crimson brocade under the colonnades of Von Hellemann's Castle could hide their daggers but it could not conceal the cabal of extortionists who had come to collect millions of dollars from Wolfgang Von Hellemann. Von Hellemann's wife, Joanna, clad in a dress of exquisite silk, shimmering in hues of amethyst and bluish-green, diaphanous and daring in its plunging décolleté, stood before the desperate men as they pressed their claims that the millions of dollars they were demanding would buy her husband excellent protection from every sort of criminal syndicate and undesirable element in modern society. But like Esther from Jewish antiquity, Joanna was a powerful aphrodisiac and she only had to find some means to use her allure to bring destruction upon these Gentiles...'

Amanda put down her pen while she thought about aphrodisiacs and Haakon. She thought it was strange how she so effortlessly confessed to her mom that she was in love with him. She just blurted it right out. Now she jokingly told herself she only had to find a way to get rid of Maria.

Sergio met up with Maria and Haakon. The latter two had some time on their 50 mile hike into Thunder Bay to guess for themselves why Pamela might have wanted to get away from them. They told Sergio that they wanted to stay together, but, they would separate if that's what he and Pamela wanted. Haakon and Maria insisted they would not be offended if they were asked to go their separate way, but they also insisted that they might be a big help in helping Amanda elude the cops. Sergio said that was all he needed to hear to know they all ought to stay together. Sergio didn't think it necessary to mention to them that he would do whatever Pamela asked him to do.

Sergio made his errands in Thunder Bay: he got their identity papers and the cash; he bought a big car and filled it with supplies. While he was doing his errands he left Haakon and Maria wrapped up in their blankets, huddled under a bridge which spanned a stream - it was thought too risky to rent a motel room, too risky for the three of them even to be seen together on the streets of Thunder Bay. Later that night Sergio drove back to pick up Pamela, Amanda and Al. They were right there by the side of the highway, at midnight, on the second night, as planned. Before he left Haakon and Maria to pick up his wife and kids, a few awkward moments passed between them. Sergio didn't want to abandon them, and just drive on and leave them under the bridge, though of course Haakon and Maria now had money and papers. Still everyone could see there were some excellent reasons to split up. Sergio knew he might never see Haakon and Maria again when he left them in Thunder Bay.

Sergio had to plead long and hard with his wife to convince her to trust Haakon and Maria. It took an hour but at last he prevailed with Amanda's help.

Haakon felt a wave of relief wash over him when he saw Al and the other Molinas pull up in the Crown Victoria as it swung under the bridge. Amanda could tell that Haakon and Maria were getting emotional when they saw that their friends hadn't deserted them. Amanda thought she wouldn't give a big hug to both Haakon and Maria, because she wanted to act like nothing happened, to make it seem like she had never seriously contemplated, for the last few days, deserting Haakon and Maria forever, without even a goodbye. But she couldn't help running straight to them and embracing them both.

The rest of the night crept by and no police cars with wailing sirens rushed in to disturb their sleep or to haul everyone away in chains. They were all up and awake by 7 o'clock. Amanda spread out a map of Canada on the ground. Where do you want to go? What do you like, East or West?'

`Let Al decide,' said Maria as she brought the tot over to the map. `Where do you want to go, kiddo?'

Al surveyed the map and then brought his fist down hard on New Brunswick.

`Let's rethink this,' said Pamela.

`Let's go North and West. What do you say to lonely wastes and a midnight sun above the Arctic circle?' asked Sergio. It was agreed they would go North and West.

Chapter 12. Maria's Reveries

Maria was at the wheel when the sensation of sudden terror washed over her. Her first inclination was to fight the irrational terror. She had had panic attacks before and she attributed this one's origins to her unsettled wits and their fugitive ways. They spent three days wandering west over the back roads of Ontario, sleeping in tents at night by the shores of lakes or streams, because Sergio thought he might have been recognized when he bought the car, or when he was doing his errands, and he feared the police would set traps in the forms of a roadblock for them on the main highways. After three days of dirt roads Sergio finally relented and now they were driving west on Canada 1. As the seconds elapsed it became obvious to Pamela that the fear of the hunted was upon her. She felt as if a huge tiger was stalking her. Her pulse was racing and a cold sweat enveloped her in fear. There was no doubt in her mind now - never mind the fact that she didn't have a shred of real evidence to substantiate her intuition - the cops were closing in on them.

At Brandon, Maria turned off Canadian Highway 1 and veered the Ford Crown Victoria to the north, on Manitoba 10. The map she had glancing at earlier told her that 10 led, in a couple hundred more miles, to Grass River Provincial Park, and then other roads led to Lac La Ronge Provincial Park in Saskatchewan. These seemed secluded enough. It's true that the lesson they learned on Isle Royale was to never back themselves into a corner. Maria asked herself if that was what she was doing now as she drove north on Manitoba 10. She could see how an island in a frigid lake could be construed as a corner, whereas the whole Canadian landmass stretching out before her hardly seemed a trap of any sort that she could discern. Her pulse was slower now that she was driving North on Manitoba 10. Maria could help but notice that her panic was in remission. At least she was no longer suffering from cold sweat, no longer frozen with quite so much fear as before. Her thoughts seemed to her to be more or less coherent. She reasoned that if they were about to be arrested while driving down Canada 1, then it was wise for her to veer off on to Manitoba 10. And if they were not about to be arrested on Canada 1, then the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were probably not setting up a roadblock for them up ahead on Manitoba 10.

Maria thought her logic was impeccable. She ought to be able to convince everyone she made the right decision, even though in half of her mind she suspected she was acting on blind, irrational fear. She had her explanations ready to go, and she would soon have to explain to her passengers why she was driving them toward isolated Flin Flon rather than toward cosmopolitan Vancouver, and driving in this direction not long after Pamela had delivered a big sermon about how they must never again get trapped in isolated locations.

As the others slept, and as Maria drove deeper into Manitoba, the moon and the stars were shining down upon her, illuminating the roadway which carved its path through the evergreens rising up on both sides of the highway. Maria glanced over at Amanda, who was resting her head against the passenger side window. Amanda looked as if she was drifting sweetly in dreamland, with the rhapsody of the wind rushing by her window to sing her to sleep. Maria recalled how happy Amanda was when she hugged her and her husband that night under the bridge in Thunder Bay. Maria now seemed convinced, in her own mind at least, that her action in turning on to Manitoba 10 had saved them from arrest, just as surely as they had been saved on their flight to Isle Royale, and saved from tragedy that night in the launch with the terrible wind and the mountainous waves on the Great Lake. It was impossible to prove but somehow she knew a police roadblock was waiting for them on Canada 1.

Maria liked to drive and she liked to relive the good old days as she drove. Tonight was a little different. Tonight Maria thought of a night when she was standing outside her apartment in Grand Marais. There was a slit between the window frame and the window shade, but the slit was wide enough for her to see some things. She was coming home during a break in the middle of her shift at the beer-hall. She had some suspicions and she wanted to check them out. She wanted these suspicions either substantiated or dispelled. She knew Pamela liked to take baths at her place and she suspected she would see exactly what she saw when she peeped through that slit: her husband and her best friend were naked together in her bathtub. Maria resolved, more or less immediately, to kill Haakon for cheating on her in that way with Pamela. The only questions were when and how. The inclination to kill didn't lessen any over the course of a few weeks, though Maria decided she had to wait a little before she pulled the trigger. It was certainly no extortionist, but rather it was Maria, Haakon's own beloved wife, who tried to murder her husband by gunning him down in the woods, and using a poisoned bullet to make the kill. Some time after seeing her best friend with her husband in the tub, Maria remembered she had some poisoned bullets which she kept from her days in the CIA. She knew she was insanely jealous. She knew that that was the way she was. Of course she felt remorse two seconds after the bullet hit her husband, and of course she was ecstatic to see Haakon still alive later that evening when she found him in the beer-hall with all the blood on his sweater. How amazing it was that he never suspected her! Normally when a man is having an affair with another woman, and then is shot, he puts the usual suspects at the top of his list of suspects. In any event, two weeks later, Maria suspected that the tragedy with the FBI agent might have struck as a result of her insane jealousy...

Maria didn't like to think about that. But she remembered how it was, a day after Sergio, Pamela and Amanda decided to not desert her and Haakon, and not leave them all alone under that bridge in Thunder Bay, a day after Amanda gave her a big hug with tears in her eyes, she remembered that she, Maria, on a wild caprice, confessed to Amanda that she had attempted to kill Haakon. Maria thought about telling a fib to Amanda: saying it was some woman she didn't recognize in the tub with Haakon, but the truth slipped out and Amanda learned that day that her mom used to cheat on her father with Haakon.

Maria thought that if she told Amanda her secret then Amanda would feel that her friend, herself, Maria, really trusted her, and truly believed she was innocent. And then, wonder of wonders, Amanda, decided she needed to tell Maria a few things. Maria suspected as much, and Amanda confirmed these suspicions when said she killed the FBI agent. Amanda had been living in terror, thinking that that her mom or dad would be the next victim of this killer with the poisoned bullets. Amanda would watch her parents go off to work in those spooky woods, either to that beer-hall or to patrolling Von Helleman's estate, leaving their daughter to wonder when one of them would be shot and killed. Amanda explained how she would sit and brood by her window at night, looking out at that dark and ominous forest. What else in nature has such a split personality? In the daytime the forest looks innocent, magnificent and beautiful even, but at night it becomes so sinister and menacing. At night, in the North Woods, your imagination conjures up witches lurking behind every tree. Well, as Amanda explained, Von Hellemann came by their cottage one night - he did this fairly often as Sergio is a scholar and Von Hellemann liked hearing about Sergio's researches. On this particular night Von Hellemann stayed with Amanda and Al but he asked Sergio to check the beer-hall to ensure that she - Maria - was all right. It was only two weeks after the `thug' had shot Haakon, and everyone was nervous about another shooting, except of course for Maria. Von Hellemann, who didn't seem to mind taking strolls at night through the woods, perhaps because he knew he was paying lots of money to lots of bodyguards to protect him, asked Sergio to check on Maria. Von Hellemann and Al were sleeping while Amanda was brooding in the dark, sitting in a chair looking out her bedroom window, worried that her mom would be murdered as she walked home through the dark woods. And after Sergio had left, she was now worried that her dad would be shot and killed. As Amanda sat in her bedroom looking out her window at the woods, with everything so dark and ominous, she was almost at her wit's end trying to find a way to end this nightmare....And then, suddenly, she saw a man creeping along the pathway! She watched in horror as he hid himself beneath some pines. Amanda was so terrified she couldn't move. She wanted to scream but her voice was frozen with fear. Eventually, as the minutes slipped by, Amanda calmed down a little. She watched as the man remained where he was. Quite suddenly she decided she wasn't going to wait for her mom or dad to come along that path and be murdered by this extortionist. She decided that if she screamed he would only run off, and would then return to murder her mom or her dad the next night, or the night after that, or the night after that. She thought that if she woke Von Hellemann, he would chase the thug away, or get shot himself, and then she would have the same problem when the thug came back. Amanda decided that she would fix him for good. She was going to make sure that what happened to Haakon wasn't going to happen to her mom or dad. So, she got up very slowly from the chair she was sitting in. She walked silently out of her room. She got the shotgun out of the hall closet and made sure it was loaded. She quietly opened a window in her parents' bedroom. This room was on the opposite side of the cottage from where the man was waiting in the darkness under the trees. She was being very careful to wake neither Al nor Von Hellemann, and to not make any sounds which would alert the stranger outside. She climbed out the window and set herself on the ground. Then she took the long way round, treading slowly so as to not make a sound, finding at last a path that she could follow until she was situated only twenty feet right behind the man lurking in the shadows. There was no moon to illuminate anything. There was only starlight to take aim by. Maria couldn't help thinking of how she had enough light to draw a bead on Haakon, whereas Amanda merely had a vague shadow to aim at when she found her target. And Amanda had to get very close just to see this vague shadow of the man. She raised the shot-gun, got the shadow in her sights, and pulled the trigger. The roar of both barrels exploding stunned her for a few moments. She had fired shotguns before so she knew to be ready for the recoil. But the blast broke the silence of the forest so violently that she was stunned, stunned as if by the roar of a cannon. Amanda stood frozen for a few seconds and then she advanced to find a man dying fast while his groans slowly went silent. Amanda didn't know at the time that she got him right in the middle of his back, right in his spine with the 12 gauge. But she could indeed hear his groans fade away, and then she heard his breathing cease, and she was seeing no movement from the shadow under tree. Everything was perfectly still under the starlight. Amanda tugged on the man's coat to check to make sure he was dead, and then she ran back into the cottage. There she discovered that both Von Hellemann and Al were still sleeping! She was ready to do a little dance, ready to celebrate with them at having eliminated a murdering extortionist. For some reason, she then thought it best to pretend that she didn't kill the guy. She thought it best to pretend the man might have been accidentally killed by one of his extortionist buddies. And then, a little later still, she decided it was best to say that she heard a shot but hadn't gone outside to investigate. She had lots of time to think with Von Hellemann and Al snoozing on the sofas! Maria put the shotgun back in the hall closet. Then she woke Von Hellemann and told him that said she heard a gun shot. Von Hellemann got up and said he would have a look round outside. He set off in the wrong direction, looked around some, saw nothing, heard nothing, and then came back inside the cottage. He told Amanda that he encouraged his bodyguards to point their weapons at the ground and fire off shots. That was one way to tell trespassers and extortionists to keep off his property. He wondered if one of his bodyguards had followed his advice. Von Hellemann then went back to sleep! Amanda didn't realize she left her footprints in the soft earth all around the dead man's body. She was in a daze when she lay down herself on a couch. She closed her eyes and thought about what she ought to do next. Haakon must have peered into the window around this time and saw Amanda, Al and Von Hellemann all sleeping on the sofas. Amanda might have had her eyes closed but she wasn't sleeping. Eventually Von Hellemann woke up again, and he told Amanda he thought he better check with his staff to see if anyone fired a shot. He told Amanda he would be back in 30 minutes and told her to keep the door locked. Amanda then told him she knew how to use the shotgun in the closet! She remembered saying that because she regretted saying it half a second after she said it. When Von Hellemann left, Amanda, as she described it, said her `brain was a lump of chaos.' One moment she wished she had simply asked von Hellemann to deal with the man in the shadows. The next moment she was glad she did what she did.

Maria was remembering Amanda's account to her as she drove north on Manitoba 10. Well of course Amanda made some crazy decisions, thought Maria. When Amanda decided to make a run for it with Al, she decided to take the guy's money and his weapon when she ran, which wouldn't have been so crazy if she hadn't left her fingerprints in just about every incriminating place. She left the note telling Von Hellemann that she found a dead body outside and that she was too scared to stay in the cottage, fearing more thugs were lurking about, and that she was taking Al and going to look for her mom. Von Hellemann came back, saw the cottage was empty, found the note, found the body....Maria was trying to recall Amanda's exact words when she told her how it all happened. When Amanda was carrying Al past the dead man, she stopped, put the still sleeping Al on the ground, got the man's gun, got his cash. She of course didn't put the wallet back into his pocket; she just dropped it after taking the cash. Then, with Al in her left arm, and the gun in her right hand, and the cash in a slim purse in the pocket of her blue jeans, she set off to find her mom. She took the gun of course because she feared she would meet `another' thug on the path. She took the cash because she didn't see any problem taking money from a dead guy who had been terrorizing her. She continued down the mountain until she found her mom and Haakon.

After getting drunk and after freezing in the lake, Amanda naturally would make mistakes - like buying the Doritos and the Diet Cherry Coke with a crisp $100 bill - still crisp because the bills were in the slim purse which was wrapped with their weapons in plastic bags before they took the swim in Lake Superior - make lots of mistakes - like stumble drunk into the beer-hall in front of a hundred witnesses, though at the time she didn't see herself as a fugitive.

For Maria, the realization that the FBI agent's wife and kids would still have their husband and father if she hadn't set the whole chain of anguish into motion, by shooting her husband, thereby by giving Amanda the impression that killers were running loose in the woods, was of course something which Maria tried to shove out of her thoughts.

Amanda and she both swore they would tell no one else what happened. They had to consider the innocent - Sergio and Al - and telling the world what happened wasn't going to bring the FBI agent back to life. Maria debated with herself about telling Amanda that it was her mother who was in a bathtub with her husband. She could blame it on some woman she didn't recognize. But Maria told Amanda the truth about her mom because she thought a lie might come back to bite her somehow.

Maria later reasoned that Amanda would eventually become sick and tired of shouldering the responsibility for making fugitives out of everyone. And soon or later Pamela would cast a glance at Amanda that told Amanda that her mom wasn't so sure about her, a glance which said that she suspected her daughter might have murdered a man for his money - and then the daughter might not keep a secret secret - she might explain to her mother that she knew who the woman was who Maria saw with Haakon in the bathtub. Then Amanda might say to her mom that Maria would not have shot Haakon, and then she - Amanda - would not have been so quick to jump to the conclusion that the man lurking in the shadows was a gangster, and then she would not have killed the FBI agent by accident, if her mom was never seen with Haakon in the bathtub, and then, soon enough, if Sergio heard all this, all hell would break loose...

After confessing to Amanda her secret, Maria debated in her mind for a day whether or not to confess everything to Pamela. If she was going to learn the truth sooner or later, it was perhaps best she learned it sooner, and from herself. Perhaps the secret could then be limited to the womenfolk. Al and Sergio could be protected. Maria asked Amanda if they should tell everything to Pamela, tell her what really happened. Maria went through all the reasons why it was necessary. Amanda agreed; it would be best that her mom knew everything: that her daughter had killed the FBI agent because she thought he was a hood who would murder one of her parents, that Maria intentionally shot Haakon, and that she, Pamela, was found guilty of adultery, and was guilty along with Haakon of starting all the trouble. Later that same day Maria and Amanda certainly opened Pamela's eyes to a few things! That was a tough day for Pamela, to have to learn that both her daughter and her best friend knew about her adulterous affair with Haakon, to have to learn that her best friend had tried to commit murder, and tough to learn that her daughter really did kill the FBI agent, though not for his money of course. After the shock wore off somewhat Pamela was glad to know the truth about what happened, not that there was in the back of her mind any suspicion that Amanda might have actually murdered a man in cold blood for his cash, so that she could buy for herself a Diet Cherry Coke and some Doritos. So the women made a deal. They would keep Al and Sergio in ignorant bliss. They promised to try their best to never let Al and Sergio ever know what really happened.

They all applauded Maria's decision to turn north on Manitoba 10 when each, turn by turn, awoke from his or her nap. The authorities had no way of knowing the names and passport numbers which they were now using, and though their new papers and their license plates could not be traced to their former identities, they acknowledged it was wise to leave the main trans-Canadian artery between Eastern and Western Canada. And really, what else can you expect someone to do when they feel as if a huge tiger is chasing them? You have to let them try to get away from that horrible sensation of panic, such as by letting them veer off on to a different highway.

Pamela was ready to take the wheel when Maria confessed she needed sleep. They fueled up at a quaint little gingerbread-house sort of gas station - with four of the five fugitives - Al was of course not considered a fugitive by the authorities - crouching low so they couldn't be seen by the attendants. Haakon filled the tank and paid the bill. Then they set off done a dark and secluded stretch of Canadian roadway. Amanda thought the woods here were as spooky as any she had every seen. By the time they reached the desolation beyond the town of Swan River the first glimmers of dawn were discernible in the eastern sky. Pamela thought it wise to get out of Manitoba and steer towards Saskatchewan and the western provinces. She was thinking the high country of British Columbia was the best refuge. These lowlands were fine for now but in another month the mosquitoes would be too obscene to endure. They wanted the high mountains where the nocturnal frosts would kill all the vicious blood sucking insects. They also wanted to lose themselves in the wilderness for six or seven months. Sergio had an M-16 and plenty of ammo in the trunk to deal with grizzlies if it came to that. He had connections in Thunder Bay, and after the fiasco on Isle Royale he decided he better use them. They had $70,000 with them in cash and had plenty more in the Swiss accounts. They wouldn't suffer too much as long as they eluded the cops and weren't eaten by bears. They had plenty of blankets and coats, tents and air mattresses, guns and bullets. They had enough money to buy everything else they required to survive in the Canadian Rockies.

Chapter 13. Quixotic Odyssey

They wanted to lay low while the hot pursuit cooled a little. They cross Saskatchewan and Alberta at a languid pace. The long sojourn in the wilderness didn't begin in earnest until one brisk, invigorating morning in late April. It was windy and cold but with a clear brilliant blue sky when they set out at last on foot. The Crown Victoria had been sold the day before, and the fugitives now thought it best to lose themselves in the roughest country, where they had to rely on their own boot-heels for their transportation.

They might have a look at Tweedsmuir Provincial Park - steering north of Mt. Waddington - but their route was far from certain. They certainly wanted to complete their swing through British Columbia before the first snow fell next autumn. Haakon hoisted a 100 lbs pack on to his back. The women carried half of that, and Amanda had half of that. Sergio would have to carry Al most of the time.

The trail followed the Nechako river, on the banks of which were crowded both evergreen and broad-leaf trees. They had gone about 200 yards down a path when Al began to make some protests.

`This isn't going to work. The poor little guy will end up becoming a snack for a big hungry bear,' teased Amanda. `Let's go back. I'm quite sure Al will get eaten by a bear if we keep this up.'

` Mana bad!' cried Al. `Mana bad!'

`Keep walking,' said Pamela.

They walked for less than 2 hours that day, as that was the limit Al could endure even though he was carried in comfort for most of the time. They fished and painted, listened to music and read paperbacks, played chess and washed in the river, ate and slept to pass the time. They had to duck for cover once, as there were a few other hikers about, though it was really only crucial for Amanda to hide herself. She was almost a 13-years-old and her face was not one which people would not soon forget. She was quite striking. When they all had sunglasses on it was unlikely anyone would recognize them, but so far Amanda had been able to dive into the cover of the trees by the side of the path before they encountered strangers.

They were all lounging in the shade of some pines when lunch was served. The main course was the trout which they caught in the river and which they roasted over their campfire.

`When we first got to Isle Royale,' Haakon was saying to Amanda, `you said we would have to fight to get away with our lives. What is your intuition telling you about this trek we're on now?'

`Bears, mountain lions and avalanches,' said Amanda.

`Forgetting to use the iodine,' said Sergio, `and thereby drinking parasite-ridden water - and I'm thinking of Al especially - is our greatest danger. We'll have to watch him every second to make sure he doesn't hurt himself.'

`Tell us a tale, ma,' Amanda was saying, `about when you was a spy in South America.'

`It was way back in 1990s, and Haakon and I were working in Mexico and in various Central and South American nations. Haakon fell in love with Maria in Mexico - she was generally working in either Mexico or Bolivia. Your father was still trying to not flunk out of graduate school at Southern Illinois University at the time - he told you how much he liked to drink beer so I'm not telling you anything here which you don't already know - and of course you know I met your father in Oaxaca, and you know how you wouldn't be with us today if I hadn't slept late one morning and missed my flight out of Houston, a flight which later crashed outside of Guadalajara killing everyone aboard. After Guadalajara Haakon and I went to Acapulco, then to Vera Cruz, then to Havana - travelling as tourists under Canadian passports - then to Bogotá and then to Cali where Haakon and I finally corned this Red Chinese diplomat / spy who was blackmailing a womanizing right-wing Columbian businessman, and who was pocketing most of the money for himself and was only giving a fraction of it to the Columbian Communists. If we could prove to him that we could prove to his bosses that he wasn't giving all of the money to the Columbian Communists, then we could put pressure on him, by saying: either help us, or we will show your bosses that you're not giving all of the money to the Columbian Communists.'

`Why did you want the Communists to get the money?' asked Amanda.

`We wanted the Red diplomat to give us valuable information. He probably didn't know much at the time, but in 20 years, if he got some promotions, he might learn a few things. Once he started to cooperate with us he had to keep on cooperating, because if he didn't keep on cooperating we would show his bosses that he was a traitor, and then he would be executed by a Red Chinese executioner. So, we had to get him to cooperate with us. He had a prestigious job, so, naturally, he wouldn't want to lose it. Therefore he wouldn't want his bosses to learn that he was keeping most of the money that he got from the womanizing businessman for himself. Therefore he might co-operate with us, because, if he didn't co-operate, we would prove to his bosses that he was keeping most of the money for himself, and then he would be shipped back to China, where he would be given a new job, such as driving a yak to Mongolia. Well he was caught in a trap and that was too bad for him! But we had to find out if the USA was being threatened by Red China in some way that we didn't know about. Maybe they had a cache of H-bombs outside of Kansas City. Who knows? Putting pressure on greedy diplomats is one way to learn the secrets of an enemy power.'

`So you blackmailed the blackmailer,' said Amanda.

`Yeah,' said Pamela.

`You were pretty good with the plans and schemes once. What's the plan now, by the way?' asked Amanda.

`The plan is to soak up all this beautiful nature. Cast your gaze on those mountains. They hold you spellbound with their magnificence, don't they?' inquired Sergio.

`That's godless Communism! Loafing and worshipping nature is at least Socialism. Capitalists toil and exploit and thereby acquire Capital,' said Amanda in her teasing way.

`The plan,' Sergio was saying, `is that you're going to love it when we're piloting a raft down the Mackenzie latter this summer. That will be idyllic because the summer air will be filled with warmth and sweetness. The fragrance of the wildflowers, the grass and the evergreens you know. It's not all scrub and tundra in the North Country. Grasslands and timber proliferate. There are deciduous trees: maples, oaks, elms, lindens, poplars and sycamores. And then it's a coniferous paradise with miles upon miles of firs and pines and spruce stretching off into eternity. Riding the raft down the Mackenzie will be a wonderful and luxurious excursion for us. When a thunderstorm hits and bolts of lightning are slicing the air all around us, the waves on the river might get a little wild, but nothing like the waves on the ocean or on a Great Lake. I read this book that said the Mackenzie, on its march to the Arctic is like the Danube on its march to the Euxine. Just as the latter becomes wild and tumultuous as it ploughs through the Iron Gates, the Mackenzie can get wild as well when the mountains crush in on it from both banks. But first we must prepare our minds and bodies. We'll have to hike close on a thousand miles before we reach the Mackenzie. I'll teach you to hunt and fish, to fight bears and wolves, to philosophize under the constellations, to...'

`You're crazy, pops, if you think Al will consent to be carried a thousand miles any time soon, just so that you can drift down a big dirty river on a raft,' said Amanda.

Chapter 14. The Rebellion

Three weeks had elapsed since they began their journey on foot into the wilderness. They swung close to but not through Tweedsmuir Provincial Park, and were now heading into Northern British Columbia, striking out for Northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories: for The Great Slave Lake and the Mackenzie River. They had climbed to high altitude, over 8,000 feet, and it was a chilly evening as they conversed round their campfire. June was still in the future and frost would cover the ground round their campsite by morning.

Nightfall found Amanda cuddled up and cozy in her blankets. She was sharing a tent with her parents and brother. Amanda woke twice during the night. The first time the squawking of an eagle or a hawk startled her out of her sleep. The second time it was the intense and ominous silence outside the tent which shook her awake. She tried to fall back to sleep but was unable to. But dawn was upon them and the sky began to lighten in the east. Amanda left her warm blankets and rekindled the campfire. Soon enough she had plenty of hot coffee a-brewing. Amanda liked the heat of the flames on her face and on her cold hands and fingers on mornings such as these; and a cup of hot coffee was always welcome on a cold morning in the wilderness.

Maria joined Amanda - she couldn't sleep either - and they spoke in whispers, conversing about the trials and hazards of living in the wilderness. One morning not too long ago, loud bursts of machine gun fire exploded in their ears. Haakon was firing the M-16. A huge grizzly bear, 200 feet away from their camp, watched as the bullets sprayed the dust at his enormous paws. He turned and strolled nonchalantly away, not being fond of the warning shots Haakon was giving him. Seeing his prospects of having an easy meal suddenly dashed must have been a terrible disappointment. Amanda had some admiration for Haakon in his actions. She was glad he didn't kill the bear when he really didn't have to. Maria and Amanda had to admit the fear of being devoured by grizzlies wasn't a huge issue with them once they stopped being stingy with the ammo and started periodically firing rounds to warn the brutes to stay away. Amanda knew the arguments for laying low were too reasonable for her to ignore. She wasn't quite sure why Maria was willing to lose herself in the wilderness. Amanda wished the cops lacked some persistence in hunting her down, but she was too infamous, and Al was too famous to not be recognized: they had to hide. Maria and Amanda liked the idea of hiding out - only let it be in London or Paris, Zagreb or Budapest. They weren't the only ones who were disenchanted with the prospect of spending many months roughing it in the Canadian wilderness. Pamela wanted a house or at least a cute little cottage. Amanda wanted to have that at the minimum. Rebellion was always a-brewing whenever Sergio and Haakon did much talking about hiking hundreds of miles to a river, then drifting for hundreds of miles down that river, then hiking hundreds more miles over a mountain range to reach another river, then building a raft and drifting hundreds of miles down that river...

But the wilderness had gotten into Sergio's and Haakon's blood, and when a passion gets into someone's blood who knows what mischief must ensue?

Maria and Amanda were whispering these sentiments as they drank their coffee and as they fried up bacon and omelets for themselves and the other fugitives who were now piling out of the tents.

`Vagabonds living the life of Lot and Abraham, without the livestock, but living and sleeping beneath the same stars in the night sky, and with the same sorts of enemies, that is what we have become,' Sergio was saying as he drank his coffee and ate his bacon. He was then tracing with his hand the line of their journey for that day. They would continue upwards, climbing higher and higher until they crossed a pass over 10,000 feet high. Then, if their maps could be trusted, it would be an easy descent practically to sea level before they would follow yet another rushing mountain river to its headwaters, and ascend to another pass over yet another range of mountains.

`We're wise to take this course,' said Haakon. `Every day that we stay hidden, more people forget the name and the face of Amanda Molina. Al's muscles have toughed up to the point where he can almost walk as far as the rest of us. We made those 40 miles the other day, even if most of that was downhill, and even if Al had to be carried some of the way.'

`It can't work,' said Amanda leading the rebellion. `We can't walk to the Arctic. If we stay close to the Pacific we won't freeze. Your way leads to a trap once the weather turns cold in the autumn. Pop can hike to the nearest highway and catch a bus back to Prince George. He can buy a pick-up truck there. He can buy a chain saw, a gasoline powered generator, a table saw, hammers, nails, paint, windows etc. We could find a lonely stand of hardwood trees, spend a day transforming these into lumber, load up the truck, and then drive to quaint place by an inlet of the Pacific. The supplies can be unloaded, the truck can make several trips to pick up all the free timber, and in two weeks two cozy cottages can be built. These can be hidden beneath a forest of towering pines, with only a short walk to a spring for fresh water, and with only a short walk to the Pacific.'

No one said anything for a moment but Amanda could tell from Maria's and her mom's faces that they thought she had prevailed.

`The authorities,' began Haakon, `are on the watch for squatters and fugitives. They have very sophisticated equipment which tells them where squatters or fugitives are located. If we remain stationary they will locate us and they will send cops round to investigate us. They might not catch us in a month or two or three, but we'll have to worry constantly about being caught. The way Sergio and I have it planned involves very little risk of capture. We're safe this way. There is a little hardship, there are some grueling hikes, but there is no anxiety, no worrying, no fretting. We just have to rough it for a little longer. We'll buy some property soon enough, but for now we have to lose ourselves in the wilderness.'

Maria and Pamela could see his point and didn't argue. Still, neither could see themselves spending the winter in Canada. Maria especially wanted the tropics and emerald oceans. Hawaii would be a fine place to land in. There she could feel again the surge of the Kona - the warm southwest wind that blew over the Islands. Maria didn't mind the golden wheat-fields inflamed under the Canadian sunsets, but these were fleeting phenomena, and she wanted the warmer and more consistent splendors found only in the tropics. She liked to hear the chorus of the breakers lull her to sleep at night. And where else could she inhale the fragrance of cocoanut palms? Maria had once fallen in love with South America. The divine perfume of the tropics, the incense of pimento and no end of spices that she used to inhale in the markets of Columbia, and all those glorious miles of bougainvillea and jonquil which filled the city she once called her home, were exactly what she wanted now. She wondered how she could ever survive a long and bitter Canadian winter.

Part 4. Convulsing the Universe

Chapter 15. The Avalanche

Amanda watched in horror as a wall of ice and snow swept down the mountainside, dragging her little brother away with its murderous will. The cries of terror from the little tow-headed tot were soon drowned as the avalanche buried him beneath many tons of ice and snow. His mother, father and sister, along with Haakon and Maria, stumbled and fell as they made their frantic way down the mountain as best they could, desperate to dig Al out from beneath the avalanche which had missed them but had carried little Al away. They dug furiously at the place where they thought it most likely that Al was buried. For many long minutes they scratched and clawed and dug into the snow, trying their best to rescue him, hoping and praying he was in an air-pocket, and, somehow, miraculously, was finding enough air to keep himself alive.

But they only recovered the lifeless body of the little guy. He had suffocated under all those tons of snow. With tears streaming down their faces, each of them was devastated to see that the sweet little fellow had perished.

Then Al's grief-stricken mother turned on Haakon and Sergio and cursed them for leading them into this wilderness.

`Damn you! Damn you!' screamed Pamela.

For awhile Sergio held his peace, and then he unleashed his grief and anger on his wife.

`If you hadn't been naked with your friend Haakon here in Maria's bathtub, then Maria wouldn't have shot Haakon in the woods, and then Amanda wouldn't have been so terrified of murderers lurking in the scary woods at night, and then she wouldn't have shot and killed the FBI agent by accident, and then she would not be a fugitive, and then none of our troubles would have hit us, and Al would still be alive, and we would all be happy, if only you hadn't lusted after Haakon in the bathtub...'

Amanda woke from another one of her wilder dreams to find Al sleeping sweetly in the same tent in which she and their parents were sleeping. An avalanche had not killed the sweet little guy!

Amanda left the warmth of her blankets. She left the tent to kindle a fire and brew some coffee. They had slogged hundreds of miles and had arrived at the banks of the Great Slave Lake, from whence flowed the immense Mackenzie River. It was midsummer and in these high latitudes a gray twilight prevailed over the sky at midnight. Amanda's complexion had deepened under all the days full of sunshine over the last two months to dark brown. Her hair was sun-bleached to the palest shade of blonde.

Amanda usually slept soundly, free of nightmares. The rigors of the march brought exhaustion, and the loneliness of the wilderness - with no lawmen in sight - were all conducive to restful sleep. Her muscles and sinews were certainly toughened from lugging heavy packs a thousand miles over the roughest terrain. Amanda had to wonder if the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or the FBI were closing in on her. Perhaps her nightmare meant danger was at hand. But she didn't feel any intimations of sudden arrest now that she was awake. Her woman's intuition wasn't warning her to run from camp.

She had a pile of sticks formed like a little teepee above the dry kindling needles. Amanda struck a match. The flame flew up. The kindling caught fire and soon the wood was popping and hissing in the flames.

Soon enough she was sipping her coffee. Then she thought she would postpone her breakfast and instead take a bath, which she liked to take twice a day. Throwing off her clothes, grabbing a bar of soap, she waded to the depth of her waist in the Great Slave Lake. She didn't have to drink any whiskey to protect herself from the shock of the chilly water. Then she plunged herself under the cold water. Then she stood up and lathered up with the soap, before plunging under the lake again to rinse herself off. A towel was waiting for her when she got back to shore. Amanda got dressed under the wan sky of the subarctic summer night; she looked round her again just to make sure no one was spying on her. Amanda saw, very far away, the microscopic silhouette of a man looming up on a treeless horizon. She had been wondering about Haakon. He had ventured off by himself several days ago, intent on reaching a village where he could buy food and supplies. Amanda had wondered where he was and how he was faring. Had he met a beautiful Indian woman? Or was he still in love with Maria? Amanda had to admit that if he had never fallen out of love with Maria life certainly would be different for all of them, herself especially!

Haakon was indeed returning from his mission to gather supplies for the run northwards. They needed a new saw to cut timber. They required rope to lash the timbers together to make the raft on which they intended to ride down the river. Food had always been abundant yet dull as there was no shortage of lakes and streams in which to catch fish. But how much fish can you eat before you get sick of fish? Sergio brought down an elk now and then, with his machine gun, so there was fresh venison to be had, now and then. Their supply of brandy and bourbon was running low and Haakon was being counted on to remedy this emergency.

In 30 minutes Haakon had arrived and greeted Amanda as he lowered the huge pack which carried all the supplies. Haakon said it weighed 200 lbs. Then Haakon took a towel and the soap and proceeded to give himself a scrubbing in the lake. After a wash and a shave, Haakon sat down by the fire next to Amanda to rest his bones and give her the news.

Chapter 16. The Witch

`It was a crazy trip,' said Haakon to Amanda. He was whispering as he didn't want to waken those sleeping in the tents.

`What happened?' Amanda whispered back. `Was there any trouble with cops?''

`No,' said Haakon. `But a lot of positive publicity has come your way. And there's a lot of bad publicity surrounding my wife.'

`Tell me about it.'

`Our old friend Wolfgang Von Hellemann has been talking to some newspaper reporters. They say that he says that you shot the FBI agent by accident, because you thought he was a gangster, perhaps the goon who tried to kill me - and you wanted to kill him before he killed your mom and dad. That's been the theory a lot of people have had. And we know this is nothing new. But here's the bad publicity for my wife: Wolfgang has been saying that he knew a man in South America by the name of Jules Lancereaux, a mining man like Wolfgang. Lancereaux passed away a few years back but he knew my wife pretty well before we were married. I once had the impression they were very close. I'm telling you all this personal stuff because it's in all the papers, so you'll hear of it sooner or later. It was Lancereaux who put Maria in touch with Von Hellemann. And it was by way of this connection that your parents and my wife and I came to work for Wolfgang. But Maria never told me everything about Jules Lancereaux. She said she was a sorority sister of Mrs. Von Hellemann's niece and that it was this connection which put her in touch with Wolfgang. Anyway, we all got jobs in Grand Marais after we had to flee South America, and after we resigned from the CIA. These newspaper reporters who are quoting Von Hellemann say that Lancereaux was not a sorcerer but he knew people who did more than dabble in black magic. Lancereaux told Wolfgang that he had some poisoned bullets, given to him by a South American witch doctor, which he gave to Maria - and the story goes that if an unrequited lover shoots her beloved, under the light of the full moon, with one of these poisoned bullets, assuming she first steeps the magic bullet in her own blood, then, provided he doesn't die, he will fall in love the woman who shot him. Can you believe this love potion stuff? Von Hellemann has been preaching the theory that Maria shot me with one of these poisoned bullets, which she got from Lancereaux, who got it from a Bolivian witch doctor. Von Hellemann has been helping you a lot public-relations-wise via these reporters; he's been cursing himself for leaving you and Al in that cottage in those spooky woods after I had been shot. People have forgiven you. They are finding Von Hellemann's account of things very credible. Not everyone has forgiven you, but a lot of people believe you must have mistaken the FBI agent for a gangster, and they've transferred their animosity from you to Maria. I was shot on a night when the moon was full. But why would my wife try to slip me a love potion by shooting me with a poisoned bullet under a full moon, when I never stopped loving her?'

`Good question,' said Amanda, though she was thinking: You Know Why.

`Well, like I said, I thought I ought to tell you everything because you'll see a newspaper eventually. And if Maria is a witch, and if she did try to murder me, then you deserve to know that you will soon be riding a very slow raft down a very long river with a dangerous witch.'

Amanda didn't know what to say after that flippant remark. She said nothing for a few moments but she was thinking: You told me all this because you're fishing for information.

`Tell me,' began Amanda, after the long pause, `I know you loved Maria before you were shot, but did you love her any more deeply after you were shot. Did you become madly in love with her? We don't have to assume you were hit with an `enchanted' bullet. But you would know if you loved her before you were shot. And you would know if you fell in love with her after you were shot.

`When I was hiking back here I was asking myself those question over and over. Maria and I definitely got a lot closer. She was so sweet to me after I was shot.'

`I promised to keep it a secret, but your wife confessed to my mom and to me a long time ago that she shot you. And Von Hellemann is right about me, I shot the FBI man. I saw him lurking in the shadows. I thought he was a thug who was going to kill my parents when they returned to our cottage.'

There was another long pause as Haakon pondered Amanda's words.

`We all knew that if you killed the FBI agent it was for those reasons. But why would Maria try to kill me?'

`She peeped through a window one day and saw you and my mother naked together in a bathtub'

`Oh.'

`So you must not have been in love with Maria when you were in the tub with my mom, huh?'

`Things get so crazy sometimes, you don't always know what's what.'

`Your wife told me that she was furious, that she was consumed with rage, but in her jealous rage she happened to remember that she still had those magic bullets which Lancereaux got from the witch-doctor. She thought that she might as well give it a try - what did she have to lose? She's religious, she thought about mortal sins and all that, but she was really furious with you. She was desperate for revenge. But I suppose she also desperately wanted to see if shooting you would make you less interested in my mom and more interested in her, provided you didn't die. Do you want to tell your wife what Von Hellemann has been saying?'

`As soon as we get back to civilization she'll learn what he has been saying. Everything will come out then.'

`It might be best if she learns later, because we won't be crowded together on a raft then,' said Amanda.

`There's that angle of course.'

`It's our secret then,' said Amanda.

`And how good are you at keeping secrets?'

`Do you think she is still capable of murder?'

`No. Not as long as she doesn't fly into a jealous rage.'

`You're not still interested in my mom are you?'

`That's one of those questions where you are only allowed to give one answer - No. And that's the truth.....We might do whatever we have to do to keep your dad and your brother from finding out what's been going on. They might learn eventually, but let's postpone that day.'

`Agreed.'

Amanda curled up close to the fire and said she would try to sleep a little more.

Sovant looked out over the Great Slave Lake and his mind was carried back to Superior's shores. He was reliving the time when he felt the blasts of hot air on his face from the huge flames in the colossal heart at the bottom of Von Hellemann's Castle. There was the thunder of the cataract and the subterranean river which fell into the subterranean lake. Sovant loved the way the colors of the floodlights lit up the walls of Von Helleman's underworld. He saw himself taking a glass elevator 1700 feet straight up, until the bottom of the chasm glowed like an opal between his feet. He made his way down the corridors of porphyry, past a file of caryatids and a rank of atlantes supporting a massive entablature. He was striding down the marble and travertine boulevards which were the hallways of the Castle. When, at last, he left the Castle, exiting via a portico, then crossing a veranda which led him to the immense lawn, the full moon was well up, directly overhead in fact now that it was midnight. Superior was shining under this moon-glow and Sovant had little difficulty finding the path through the forest, the path which led to the footbridge over the gorge, which led straight to the cottage where Amanda and Al lived with their parents. Sovant saw himself walking under pines and junipers, firs and spruce. It was easy to dismiss the birch and even the maples, because the scent of the evergreens was what really impressed one most about these North Woods. Their sweetness so was intoxicating and omnipresent. It was midnight and midsummer and the air was sultry - it was stiflingly hot even at midnight - while Sovant was taking a nocturnal plunge through the conifers. On this part of the forest path an open meadow was as rare as an island in the Atlantic. Whenever one tread over these nocturnal paths one was always conscious of ancient folklore: the imagination had a tendency to populate the dark forest with goblins and witches. Who wouldn't find a forest a little spooky at night? But it was still simply a matter of not letting your imagination run away with you. And, really, what are the chances that a witch is going to catch you in the woods?

The wind in the treetops, the creaking of the boughs and the branches, a cry of a night hawk, the hum of the insects, the crunch of his heals on the gravel: these were the only sounds Sovant could hear on the path that night last summer. There were no howling wolves. No enraged grizzlies to get his heart pumping. There were merely trees and moonlight and the mountain and the Great Lake for as far as the eye could see. Of course it would all be very eerie if he allowed the weaker half of his mind to give orders to the stronger half. He didn't know if he believed in diabolical forces, yet he was certainly breathing harder, and his pulse was pounding when he came to the footbridge. He began to cross it. The roar of the water in the gorge was so loud it drowned out every other sound. A pack of wolves could be running after him and he would not hear them until they were at his throat, so loud was the water crashing below him and over boulders. With such magnificent materials all about to work with, Doré could have painted a haunting sylvan scene full of witches gathering in the moonlight.

Sovant in his reverie stopped that midsummer night midway across the bridge. There, perfectly visible in the light of the full moon, were Amanda's and Al's initials carved into the wood. He ran his finger over the Al M. and the A.M. He had to hunt for a little while for his own profession of love, as he had written one, albeit in very small letters. But there it was: there was the H.S. and the P. M. inside a heart. There were the initials he had inscribed in the handrail last summer. When exactly did he erase them? When did he obliterate them and instead write: H.S. loves M.S? Sovant recalled that it was when he first crossed that bridge after he had been shot. It was two weeks after he had been shot by Maria with a poisoned bullet, when he carved their initials into that bridge. Two weeks after he had been shot by Maria he renounced his love for Pamela and he made a written declaration of his love for Maria. It was exactly as if, one day, he was mad about Pamela, and then the next day he was mad about Maria. It couldn't be denied: all the facts pointed directly to supernatural enchantment.

Sovant was indeed wondering about how he became so infatuated with Maria so suddenly after he had definitely fallen out of love with her.

Sovant also wanted to remember the spot where the FBI agent had died. He wanted to recall the window which Amanda would stare out of, brooding, staring in silence, looking out at the darkness, at the haunted scene, at the black malevolence of the forest beyond her bedroom window. He found the places he was looking for in his mind's eye. He found the window through which Amanda let herself down, carrying the shotgun, when she first started out on her lethal errand. Sovant saw in his mind's eye the punctured, bloody back of the FBI agent. He imagined the scene when his distraught children first learned that their daddy was dead. That sort of anguish seemed like something a witch would like to inflict. Could it be that the witch was his wife? Sovant tried desperately to find the words which would prove Maria innocent, but he wasn't finding them.

Sovant could see the spot where Amanda must have stood when she pulled the trigger. He told himself, more than once, when he travelled those paths at night, guarding Von Hellemann and his estate, that there was no such thing as sorcery: there were no murdering witches: the summer solstice was just another day: midnight was just another tick on the clock: the full moon shining down on the woods was just another natural phenomena with nothing supernatural about it. Sovant imagined what the FBI agent must have thought as he crouched in those dark shadows, and thought when he heard the shotgun blast behind him, and then he felt the life ebb slowly out of him in his dying moments. Sovant certainly knew what it felt like to fight for his life after being gunned down in a dark forest.

Sovant, like an agile lawyer, was trying to tell himself, that, though Maria had shot her husband with a poisoned bullet, nevertheless, Maria was a perfectly sweet and wonderful woman. She was a little high-strung, undoubtedly, and he certainly shouldn't have cheated on her, especially with her best friend. Honestly! - having Amanda mention that Maria had seen him naked in a bathtub with her naked mother! How embarrassing was that? Sovant took a gulp of his bourbon, as he needed a drink rather badly at the moment. Sovant couldn't help seeing the culpable role he played in the death of the agent. If he never cheated on Maria with Pamela, the FBI agent would still be alive. If he accused Maria of being a sorceress, damning accusations could be made against him. Still, Sovant was wondering about love potions and magic spells, wondering if an enchantress named Maria Sovant née Camerino, who hailed from Detroit, had bewitched him with black magic. Sovant had to admit it was an odd thing for a former CIA agent to be wondering about.

Amanda woke up and she and Sovant started whispering again. Then, a little while later, Maria joined them.

`When did you get back?' asked Maria, while Haakon stood up to kiss his wife.

`Maybe 20 minutes ago,' said Haakon. `Sorry if our talking woke you.'

Maria and Haakon retired to their tent. Amanda drew her blankets tightly round her shoulders as she sipped her coffee and looked out over a gray, shadowy world which didn't seem to know if it was day or night.

Chapter 17. Falling Toward the Arctic Ocean

They left the Great Slave Lake in their wake, having pushed their raft and themselves into the current of the Mackenzie three days ago. This raft - the result of 27 trunks of pines trees lashed together with nylon rope - gave buoyancy to all of their garments and guns, gasoline tanks and fishing gear, ammunition and books - all the provisions and supplies they required to survive in the wilderness for years should they choose to lose themselves for years. Their little sail was billowing in the breeze, giving them some steerageway should they need to dodge whirlpools or oncoming barges.

Amanda was leaning against the mast and thinking about Haakon. She wondered if he was of a seafaring race, as his named implied. His talents seemed to run in the direction of water craft though Amanda seemed to recall that his name was merely a nom de guerre. Unlike herself, who was forever battling the tedium of life aboard a floating vessel, Haakon seemed perfectly content drifting down a languid river. He had his fishing pole and his love for playing with Al, his gift for easy conversation with anyone who cared to listen. Amanda had to admit there was a great advantage to river drifting over oceanic voyages. Of course one couldn't get sea sick on a tranquil raft. The disadvantages, which were more in the manner of hearsay than anything she had experienced herself, were the plunging cataracts, the precipitous water falls, the rivers crowded with barges which could smash small rafts in a twinkling. She was impatient with the slow progress that a raft sans an engine makes, though she understood all of the mathematics explained to her: a 3 mph current will transport one over 700 miles in 10 days.

To the west was a mist-shrouded shore. To the east were small mountains rising into a cloudless sky. The scenery was enchanting, as the water shone with a sea-green color under the horizon, though it was grayish brown closer to the raft. The splendors of the Canadian North were helping to drive away her ennui. She wondered if she would ever be captivated by water and landscape they way some other people were. She was impressed with yesterday's sunset. Then the great river was not merely a languid flood of brown water: under the sun there were no end of glittering variations to behold, and the water went from brown to blue to sea-green to golden hues and then to black when the long twilight arrived. But, despite all these variations in nature, tedium descended all the same upon Amanda's head from the minute they crowded themselves on to this raft and shoved off from shore, leaving the Great Slave Lake behind them. Amanda had gotten into a rhythm during their months of hiking. The opiate of daily exercise had driven off that fog of discontent which hung over her whenever she was sedentary. It was not always possible to swim ashore and follow the raft on foot. There were bogs and sloughs and quick sands. There were swarms of flies and mosquitoes to torment one on large sections of both banks of this river. On the raft one had to subsist on day dreams, fishing, idle chit chat, watching for other boats, keeping a watch for storms beating up from the south, or at least if one cared to exercise one's imagination, one might think of frightful storms bursting forth at any minute. One could always keep illustrious company with the characters in the fictional and nonfictional books they brought with them. But when the shore was dry and free of mud, Amanda could always find someone to help her cure her melancholia, by swimming ashore with her and then hiking with her for miles over that shoreline.

Today, Maria and Amanda swam to the western shore to take a stroll.

`I never was any good at keeping a secret,' confessed Amanda.

`It's good everything has finally been explained,' Maria was saying. `I wonder if Haakon is ever going to confront me about my attempt to kill him. He's infinitely more devoted to me after I tried to kill him than he was before, so he might never mention the matter of my attempt to murder him. Men are strange creatures, in case you didn't know.'

`You mean he's flattered that you loved him passionately enough to try to murder him,' said Amanda.

`There might be more to it than just that,' replied Maria. `Maybe he just started to think more clearly after that fight he had with those convulsions and hallucination.'

`Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, as they say.'

`Could be,' said Maria. `You must be a little torn about the course we're taking. I mean, if we gave ourselves up, and if people are now on your side, you might only get probation. Though, of course, a jury of idiots might give you the gas chamber.'

`To some people I'll always be a killer. That's why I want to stay a fugitive in the wilderness for awhile longer,' said Amanda.

`It hurts me to hear that Von Hellemann is trumpeting my secrets, not that I blame him for trying to protect you. You understand how I went a little crazy there. But I don't want you to think I'm a witch. I am not a sorceress. I was just insanely jealous.'

`I know,' said Amanda. `I've been on your side, and not just because I'm thankful you didn't try to murder my mom in your jealous rage. I only wish we could keep my dad and my brother in the dark about a few things concerning my mom. But that probably can't happen.'

`I don't see why not. It's only you, me, your mom and my husband who know about the bathtub scene. That didn't make the newspapers. Can't we execute a decent cover-up operation with something as simple as that? If we get caught and it comes out that I shot Haakon because I was convinced he was cheating on me with some mystery woman, I'll invent a convincing story. Your mom's name never has to be mentioned. As long as we all keep our stories straight no one will be convicted of perjury. And it's worth taking the risk to make sure your dad and brother never learns about my husband and your mom.'

`Agreed,' said Amanda.

`There's a secret you'll keep?'

`Hmm-Hmm.'

`So the story is this: I shot my husband because I knew he was cheating on me with some woman, but I don't know her name, she didn't work at Von Hellemann's beer-hall. I had never seen her before when I looked in some window to see her and my husband in the tub. We're saying it was a case of temporary insanity on my part, and of course a case of mistaken identity on your part, with the FBI agent, which is true.'

`Sounds good,' said Amanda. `Does Haakon really think that I have a good chance with a jury?'

`Von Hellemann might arrange a deal for you. You'd serve no prison time, probation only, provided you returned to Grand Marais and told the truth. It might help your story if Haakon and me lost ourselves in Europe or South America for awhile. Of course there's a problem. If it gets out that you perjured yourself to protect your dad from the truth, then you haven't told the truth. Then the deal's off. And then you would go to prison.'

`This gypsy life suits me for now. I got a new name. A new identity. Once I grow a bit taller no one will ever connect me with some photos in some old newspapers.'

`That's smart. Stay away from the courts and the press at all costs. They'll either try to hang you or try to make a profit off you, or both.'

`Yeah.'

`And like you said, you aren't any good at keeping secrets.'

`Yeah.'

`Not to be too blunt with you, but you have to assume that you will not be able to tell a lie, to commit perjury, when the wife and kids of the slain FBI agent get emotional in court, when they demand that you tell the whole truth. And then if you tell the whole truth, after you have already sworn to the jury that you were not protecting me, and that you never knew who shot my husband, then things could blow up in your face. You might get a lot of jail time.'

`You're right again. On the one hand I wish my dad knew the truth, not that I think he's tormented by the suspicion that I killed the FBI man for his money. He might never find out what happened if he never researches some old newspapers.'

`Haakon and me think Von Hellemann might have known there were FBI agents on his property the night you shot one. Odd how everyone slept soundly through that shotgun blast. We wonder if Von Hellemann was pretending to be asleep for some reason.'

`That crossed my mind a few time,' said Amanda.

`When Von Hellemann returned later - and found your note - that must have shook him up. Once he saw that note, and saw the body, saw the letters FBI on the back of the man's jacket in the beam of the flashlight - letters which he couldn't discern without the flashlight - which is crucial evidence in your favor - Von Hellemann was probably thinking of ways to protect himself, not that he must have known that you killed the agent. If he didn't know it was you who killed the man, he probably thought the odds of him being murdered that night were fairly high, especially when he was walking back to the Castle through those dark woods after he found the FBI agent. If only he had gone outside of your cottage earlier and had done a better job of searching the premises after you woke him up, when you said you heard a gunshot, everything would have been seen as just a terrible accident, because you hadn't yet taken the agent's gun and money. Von Hellemann has threatening letters from real extortionists. The cops saw the bullet hole in Haakon. They know the Mayo Clinic pulled a poisoned bullet out of him. It sounds a little fishy to say one slept while a shotgun was blasting outside the door, but when one is dead tired one can sleep through a lot. If only you had not left your footprints and fingerprints everywhere. If only you had not bought the Doritos and the Diet Cherry Coke with the $100 bill - everyone would know that, at worst, you accidentally shot the FBI agent, because you were terrified of killers lurking in the dark forest. But cheer up, people are starting to believe it was an honest mistake on your part. Maybe everyone will support you soon, even juries and prosecutors. But everyone thinks I'm a murdering witch. If only I hadn't been so insanely jealous! I can hardly believe that I was driven to homicide. You watch movies about that sort of thing, and then, next thing you know, you're standing in the shadows waiting to pull the trigger on a cheating husband. How crazy is that?

`But weren't you hoping that that magic bullet would win Haakon back to you? And isn't it fascinating how bewitched Haakon is with you now! Look how devoted your husband became, and just after he was shot with a love-potion in the form of a poisoned bullet that you got from that witch-doctor in South America.'

`Tease me all you want. It's true I was overjoyed to see he hadn't died. I saw him hours later that night at the beer-hall. Talk about relief, and not just because I would hate to think of myself as a murder. At one minute I was filled with jealousy and murder, but all that disappeared right after I shot him.'

`Is the love between you two going to last this time?' asked Amanda.

`Who knows? Are you worried I'll shoot him again with another love potion under another full moon?'

`No.'

`Have you forgiven your mom for cheating on your dad? She was a good agent with the CIA. Secret agents are driven to live dangerously. We're adrenaline junkies.'

`Is that why she cheated on my dad?'

`Don't know what was in her head. At least she doesn't seem torn up that Haakon is back with me.'

`She's relieved you didn't murder her!' exclaimed Amanda.

`Your mom and me go way back. She knows that violence is usually out of character with me. If I was in a bathtub with her husband, she wouldn't stick an axe in my skull, at least I don't think so, but temporary insanity is a crazy thing.'

`I guess.'

`You can tell your mom about everything we've talked about if you want. I'm no longer mad at her about anything. I hope she feels the same way toward me. I know Haakon loves me not your mom, so that makes it simple for me to forgive and forget.'

`Oh we know Haakon loves you,' said Amanda. `And my mom already knows the latest news about you. I do like to talk. We've analyzed your case from every angle!'

Amanda and Maria hiked for 20 miles that day. When they were ready to rejoin the others they ran a couple hundred feet ahead of the raft, slipped into the cold invigorating current, swam toward the middle of the Mackenzie, and then tread water as they watched the raft drift into position to pick them up. Amanda and Maria then feasted with the others on fresh duck and fresh venison steaks which Sergio had shot, roasted and seasoned.

`I used some special seasoning,' Sergio was saying. `I got these spices in South America.'

`Oh no, not the Paraguayan spices!' exclaimed Pamela. `They give you a feeling of euphoria, but first your tongue burns, and then you start to sweat, then you feel your bones shaking in their joints, and then you finally get to the euphoria.'

`She exaggerates,' said Amanda.

`Not if you take the full dose,' said Maria. `And Haakon and I have both over-dosed on Sergio's cooking before.'

They dined as well on some of the delicacies which Haakon had selected on his hike into civilization: asparagus and red cabbage, beets and potatoes, Brie and Camembert, chocolate and raspberry tort, sherry and chardonnay, coffee and tea, brandy and bourbon; Irish whiskey, Canadian whiskey, Scotch whiskey...

Amanda sat between Al and Sergio: everyone was sitting round the campfire which rested atop a thick layer of rocks piled in a wooden box atop the timbers of the raft. The air had been oppressive that evening, sultry - the sort of choking atmosphere which led one to leap into the river every ten minutes to wash the sweat away. Later, dark storm clouds came surging up from the south: there were sporadic blasts of thunderbolts and strong winds came rushing over the river. The rain fell in torrents for only a few minutes, but, après le deluge, when the clouds cleared away, when the winds no longer blew in torrential gusts, when the cool air had been washed in the cleansing rain, the atmosphere became as sweet as perfume and was indeed intoxicating to inhale.

In a few more days they might make a trek over the mountains to the west. Perhaps they would follow a river until it fell into another river which fell into the Yukon River. Or they might find an Indian settlement and spend the winter teaching the Eskimos the White Man's ways. This alternative was especially appealing if the settlement was so remote as to be a stranger to newspapers, TVs and radios. When spring arrived they would hike over the mountains and find the Yukon River. Then they could drift upon it until they could make an easy trek into Fairbanks.

Amanda's hair could be dyed black again. Their phony passports were in perfect order. They could be safe in Warsaw or Prague, Berlin or Budapest a few days after they were in Fairbanks.

Haakon had purchased another two hundred pounds of delicacies at a barge company's general store on the Dease River: strawberry jam, raspberry jelly, blackberry preserves, green olives, black olives, smoked ham, currants, dried apricots, fresh oranges, chocolates, candies, wines: Chardonnay, Chianti, Burgundy, Zinfandels, Champagne etc. - to give as gifts to the Indians, not that they anticipated having to buy the silence of the Red Men. Sergio thought he would like to teach Math and Science, French and English literature, and the Bible, to Eskimo kids during the long winter. And yet the scholar was ignorant of so much knowledge! He was clueless about these people, these people with their violent and uncontrollable passions, who were sitting so close to him on the raft. Everyone save a cherub named Al had conspired to keep Sergio in ignorant bliss. And everyone was content to be fugitives and vagabonds drifting upon the waters of the great Mackenzie River as they fell toward the polar sea.

The End

