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stream for fifty yards before entering a small natural cave where the catwalk ran onto a platform. The catwalk continued beyond the platform and into a larger tunnel. For whatever his instinct Brewmeister chose to climb the short metal ladder leading up from the platform. He ascended into another small cave. Here there were no stalactites or stalagmites. Only walls and ceilings and floors covered in smooth dry mud. Illumination was ample but not electrical. It emanated from a far opening. As he had done earlier, Brewmeister followed the light source, entered a second cave which had a natural stream trickling through and which was also coated by dried mud. Beyond the stream was another natural tunnel. It too was mud-coated. Then he came out into someplace he couldn’t believe.
    The underground chamber he stood in was as wide as any cavern he had ever seen in the area, ever heard of. Went up twenty-five feet. Was electrified by string after string of glaring light bulbs suspended from on high. In the middle of the floor an enormous metal scaffold rose to the ceiling. To a spot from which the rock had been chipped away. To where something black and square was exposed.
    Brewmeister walked around for a better view. One couldn’t be had from this distance. He climbed the scaffold. Red and white microflashes sparked above. He stopped below the huge metal square block protruding down through the rocks. A hole had been torn out of its bottom. Up inside the hole he could see a white-hot flame cutting through the darkness. The flame withdrew. A loud metal bang echoed. Something fell and clanged, leaving behind a circle of light above. A circle into which the plastic-masked face of a police welder appeared.
    The mask popped up. The police technician stared down in disbelief at the face of Brewmeister looking up at him from the hole in the bottom of the vault.
    A terrible rumbling occurred. Brewmeister’s face undulated back and forth, in and out of view. Disappeared. The police technician stared harder down through the hole in the bottom of the vault … saw surging, foaming water … torrents and eruptions of water as if a dam had burst. Before the lights below went off he caught a glimpse of Brewmeister’s face gasping for air, of his hand clutching for help. Both face and hand disappeared in a swirl of froth.
    â€œHave you reached Grafton?” It was 1 P . M . and the long-distance voice of A. R. Roland spoke from SOG. SOG was the acronym for Seat of Government. Seat of Government was J. Edgar Hoover’s own personal and preferred title for the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the FBI, where Roland served as assistant to the Director, the fifth-highest-ranking man in the Bureau.
    â€œNo, sir, not yet.” This voice was from Prairie Port and belonged to forty-six-year-old, silver-haired John Lars Sunstrom III. “We did get through to Silver Lake and they’re sending someone after him.”
    â€œSilver Lake?”
    â€œThe fishing camp in Montana he’s vacationing at.”
    â€œDamnable time for a vacation.”
    Sunstrom thought of saying it was a damnable time for a robbery as well. “Yes, sir.”
    â€œBut they have found our man Brewmeister?”
    â€œTwenty minutes ago,” Sunstrom said. “They’re bringing him to the University Hospital now.”
    â€œHow badly hurt is he?”
    â€œIt’s hard to say. He’s unconscious and pretty well banged up, from what I’m told.”
    â€œHe’s not about to die, is he?”
    â€œâ€¦ I don’t know.”
    â€œHe was found in the river? The Mississippi River?”
    â€œYes, sir. The River Patrol spotted him lying on a delta island three miles below Prairie Port.”
    â€œSo he was spit out into the river somewhere along the way, is that right?” Roland asked. “He was swept out from under the bank and spit into the river?”
    â€œYes, sir, that’s right,”