CHAPTER 1
2 pm PTSaturday, April 7The Amargosa DesertNevada
The fugitive clawed at the hard sunbaked earth, refusing to believe hewas digging his own grave.
Over the sound of his labored breathing, he heard the shouts of thehunters as they followed his trail. He dug even more frantically, ignoringthe pain of his ripped nails and skin. They don't know the tracks they'refollowing are a man's, he told himself. They'll think it's an antelope or acoyote. They'd never believe a human would be way out here. They're not realApaches. Not like in the old days. He tore at the earth, forcing his bloodyfingers through the gritty soil.
Eons ago, when the Southwest was an inland sea and a Jurassicswamp, this region had been home to countless prehistoric creatures,crustaceans and amphibians, dinosaurs, and flying reptiles. Even aftercenturies of blazing sun and heat, their fossilized shells and bones couldstill be found in the rocky earth, the only evidence that rich teeming lifehad once inhabited this desolate land. But the fugitive had no regard forthe history he was destroying. His every sense was focused on the menpursuing him. They were getting closer. He kept digging, clawing theground furiously, driven by the fear his skeleton could soon join thoseothers, staring soullessly into the glaring sun for the millenniums tocome.
Finally, he lay down in the small trench he'd scratched out of thedesert dirt and pushed the loose soil of his shoveling over his legs andtorso, hiding the outline of his body. With his one free hand he scoopedsand over his shoulders and head so that only his nose and mouth wereexposed. Then he burrowed his hand deep into the earth beneath him andlay quietly, trying to calm his breathing, afraid the slightest movementwould destroy his thin blanket of soil.
Through the ground he heard the hoof beats of the hunters' desertponies grow closer. Keep on riding, you bastards. You can't see me. There'snothing here.
The sound of hoof beats stopped. The fugitive froze under his coverof dirt. He imagined his pursuers standing in their stirrups, searchingthe land around them for a moving target. The silence continued. All hecould hear was the wind sweeping across the desert and the sound of hisheart pounding in his chest.
He screamed in terror as a rough hand suddenly plucked him fromhis burrow, shedding dirt and pebbles. He struggled helplessly, unable tobreak the brutal grip ripping him from his refuge and his dream of escape,freedom, and safety. Even through a veil of pain and fear he could see theglint of steel sweeping down toward him.
He screamed again as he felt the sharp knife against his throat.
... A short distance away, in the hollow of a stone outcrop, thefugitive's companion, Roberto, listened as his friend's cry rose in agony.In his mind, he envisioned the Apache bounty hunters scalping theirvictim alive.
Trembling, he forced his body further back under the boulder, intothe hiding place he'd refused to leave when his friend, Miguel, insisted oncontinuing across the desert. They'd escaped from the private prison workcamp at Yucca Mountain the night before, crawling under the electrifiedfence at a spot where heavy rains had washed out the base and shortedthe security lights that lit up the perimeter.
They'd made good time, but Miguel was anxious to reach the safety ofthe satellite monitoring station, across the Nevada border in California.It was the heart of their escape plan. The soldiers who guarded the stationwould take them in for humanitarian reasons or simply to find out whatthey were doing there. Through them, he and Miguel could contact theproper government officials, people with the authority to lift their prisonsentences in exchange for the information they'd brought with them fromthe camp.
The only problem was reaching the station. It was more than seventymiles from the work camp, on the other side of Death Valley. But in aland where the merciless sun pulled moisture from a man's body in amatter of minutes, it might as well be on the other side of the moon. Andthere were other dangers; poisonous snakes, scorpions, coyotes—and themurderous bounty hunters.
Now Miguel was dead, and he was alone. He'd tried to convince hisfriend that it was too early to leave their hiding place and travel across theopen land, but Miguel had been impatient.
"Miguel," he moaned aloud, recalling how he'd pleaded with hiscompanion to wait for nightfall, when the hunters and scavengers slept.But Miguel wouldn't listen. "No one's after us," he'd argued. "There's no signof anyone looking for us—not even a patrol plane."
Roberto had said no more, even though he knew better. Duringhis imprisonment he'd heard countless stories about what happened toprisoners who attempted to escape across the desert. He wasn't afraidof the reptiles and the scavengers, and months of hard labor at the workcamp had inured him to heat and thirst. But he knew the renegade Indianbounty hunters were always there, waiting. Capturing fugitives was morethan a living for them. It was revenge. This was their land. It always hadbeen.
He remained hidden in his shelter until long after the shouts of themurderous hunters no longer carried over the desert air. It was only afterhe saw the shadows outside soft en with dusk that he crawled cautiouslyout from beneath the boulder. He looked out at the open plain. The bountyhunters were gone. For the first time, he allowed himself to feel relief. I'malive, he thought triumphantly. He'd survived the years in prison and hardlabor at the work camp. He was tougher than the desert, more patientthan the hunters. He would reach the satellite station. He would tell thegovernment about the danger at Yucca Mountain, and be rewarded witha pardon. Never again would he be forced to endure the burning sun, theoverwhelming silence of the desert, and the constant fear of radiationpoisoning.
He saw in his mind the image of the long, undulating, dun-coloredridge that was Yucca Mountain. It loomed up from the Nevada desertlike a serpentine monstrosity, hoarding inside its cavernous body thelong rows of storage casks filled with 80,000 tons of deadly high-levelradioactive waste. Every day, cargo trains filled with steel canisters andconcrete-covered drums of nuclear waste arrived at the waste repository.Every day, convict workers from a nearby private prison, sentenced tohard labor workfare tours at the camp, unloaded the heavy canistersand drums, and bullied them to their storage space in the network ofunderground tunnels.
The lethal threat of those tons of deadly waste terrified even thetoughest convict. And now that threat would be used to terrify the entirecountry.
Roberto wasn't a murderer, and he would never hurt innocentpeople. He'd tell the government about the threat at Yucca Mountain,save millions of lives, and win his freedom in the bargain. Surely thegovernment would be grateful enough to release him from his sentence,give him a new identity, and find him a home and a decent job somewheresafe.
If only Miguel had waited, he thought, before crawling back intohis shadowy hiding place. He wouldn't be so foolish. He'd wait for thecoolness and cover of night.
Reaching beneath his worn prison shirt, he brought out his sealedZiploc bag of water, the extra one he'd kept secret, even from hiscompanion. He'd had the foresight to bring an...
