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headings. Here’s your only play—get the hell out and rendezvous with me at Darkmans Henge. We will palaver under the flag of truce.”
    “Palaver, eh? A nice way of saying there’ll be blackmail terms.”
    Labrador chuckled. “Hardly. I offer information regarding your predicament, which is vastly more problematic than it may appear. This information is provided freely and without obligation.”
    “Shall we deliver ourselves into your hands, then? Dream on, sir.”
    Dred, cuing on Mac’s half of the conversation, said, “I, for one, have no interest in being tortured, imprisoned, or experimented upon. Again.”
    “It’s your choice, Macbeth. Hang around the manor and wait to see where the chips land. If the cult doesn’t do you in, your grandfather will. He loves a scapegoat. Rendezvous at the henge and I’ll give you what help I may.” The line clicked dead.
    Mac cursed and looked at Dred. “Labrador claims to possess valuable intelligence pertaining to our situation.”
    “Zircon tapped the house line. Scoundrels.”
    “Tit for tat. We tap their communications up the yin-yang.”
    “And we jitterbug on up the mountain for a picnic?” Dred snapped his fingers. “Just like that?”
    “Given recent history I’m inclined to accept his pledge at face value. Much as I hate to admit it, one thing about Labrador, he’s cut from different cloth than Dad and Granddad. The fellow keeps his word.” Mac unlocked the fire safe and removed a bundle of money, passports, a Luger automatic, and a keypad. He scooped these items and Little Black’s case into a pair of rucksacks. Little Black presented a quandary—the machine was tangible, material proof that the boys had meddled in company business and gotten Arthur and his brothers killed in the process. Little Black had also (possibly) interfaced with data from an alien intelligence, and despite Arthur’s dying words, the scientific find of all human history wasn’t something to discard lightly. Mac needed to consider his options, which meant no hasty decisions. He tossed one of the rucksacks to Dred, and hustled through the door.
    A secondary garage was attached to the rear of the barn. Two Jeeps, a wrecker, a halftrack, a Land Rover, and a crop-duster were parked inside. The boys jumped into the Land Rover (specially customized by gearheads of the Sword motor pool for all-terrain utility) and punched the gas.
    Mac parked at the property fence-line and entered a code into the keypad. The resultant signal tripped the circuit on a master relay connected to demolition explosives. The barn collapsed with a low rumble that rattled the vehicle. Flames and smoke soon engulfed the ruins.
    “Now Dad is gonna want to kill us,” Dred said.
    “He’ll need to stand in line.” Mac put the Rover into gear and beelined toward the Catskills along a series of cart tracks and hiking trails, and straight through the woods when necessary. Dred spent much of the next hour hollering. Whether from exultation or fear was debatable.
    A forsaken mining road that old maps catalogued as Red Lane twisted around Darkmans Mountain. A granite cliff loomed on the passenger side and descended vertically toward the forest canopy on the driver’s side. Mac hugged the cliff face. Rock scraped paint from Dred’s door. The elder Tooms brother didn’t feel much concern. He’d spent several weeks of his short life driving trucks loaded with purloined jungle artifacts along the dreaded Yungus Road in Bolivia.
    Soon, the way broadened and leveled and Mac hooked left at a fork. He rolled through a thinning stand of pine and parked in a clearing that gently angled toward the summit. This was Darkmans Henge, neutral parlay site of the Toomses, Labradors, and other powerful families and institutions. It had served as such for generations. Nature, ever at work reclaiming its haunts from the domesticating hand of man, obscured the ancient henge with dislodged boulders, thick clumps of brush, and moss.