Gradually, as it always does, the smoke began to clear.

I felt the synapses closing in my head as my noodle rapidly came back online. This was pleasing news. I twitched and poked around with my limbs and found that the rest of me was working too, which was even more pleasing.

I rolled over and discovered that I was lying in a cramped pocket beneath a heavy object canted at a shallow angle. It was the long boardroom table. I thought small thoughts, squeezed out from under its sheltering bulk, and cautiously stood up.

The formerly regal boardroom was now a shambles. Wind whistled through the gaping windows, and one entire wall was demolished, revealing large office environments beyond. People were running everywhere, and the air was hazy with smoke and dust from the explosion.

A groan made me turn. Tungsten's bald cranium protruded, unconscious, from a huge section of collapsed ceiling tiles. I cleared away some of the debris and gave him a quick once-over. He didn't look too bad; as far as I could tell, most of the damage had already been done by his unimaginative tailor.

He'd been lucky. We both had.

I became aware of several panicky men and women in business attire trying to get my attention. "Hey! Are you all right?" one of the women asked over the sound of a fire alarm.

"Yeah. Give me a hand," I replied, indicating Tungsten. Together they hauled him up, slung each of his arms over a shoulder, and off they went. I brought up the rear, grabbing a jacket from a rack as I passed to put on over my tactical shirt and the borrowed pants I was wearing.

We headed for a stairwell into which a sizeable mob was funnelling. I thought it best to part company with the good Mr. Tungsten for now, so I dawdled and let them get well ahead of me, losing myself in the river of humanity corkscrewing down to the ground floor far below.

A few things were obvious to me. First of all, whatever front Tungsten and his Special Operations Branch cronies were operating under in this building was shot. A bomb had been planted somewhere in that room with his name on it - and maybe mine, too. Only our choice of seats and the apparent use of not quite enough explosive had saved our bacon.

Second, it seemed pretty clear that Okabashi Industries was the blower-upper. I really didn't have much to go on - just some briefings from before our raid and the word of a man I had just met. But it seemed to fit. I had already known that Okabashi had some pretty suspicious irons in the fire even before I had learned about this lithotroph business. What had I gotten myself mixed up in?

I was getting the impression that Okabashi Industries did not take kindly to people meddling in its affairs. That was too bad. I planned to do a whole lot more meddling before I was done.

Encouraged by these macho thoughts, I arrived at the lobby, and once outside in the street, I slipped away from the crowds in fairly short order. I stretched my legs for a few blocks and pulled up at a pay phone to make a quick call to Okabashi's main office. I identified myself as a reporter looking for the operations manager of their geologic division and was told that Ronald Doulak was not in today. In fact, there was hardly anyone in today except for a lot of people in suits and ties with badges that said FBI in big black letters.

I thanked her and hung up smiling. The G-men would be taking full advantage of our break-in as an excuse to turn the place upside down. They probably wouldn't discover anything, but they'd make life difficult for the staff for a few days, which was fine with me.

I flipped through the book to the Ds. Fortunately my possibilities were limited to a pair of listings in the northern part of the city. One was busy; the other didn't answer. I let it ring for a full minute before hanging up.

Tearing the page out of the phone book, I made my way across the street into a trendy-looking java joint that wasn't too busy. With some money I'd had stashed in my shirt, I ordered a latte with extra froth and some of that shaved chocolate sprinkled on the top. I sat down, and while I was sipping, I gazed into the reflections in the glass display case full of desserts and studied the man who had followed me in.

He had been following me since I had left Tungsten's office, in fact. He was big and casually dressed, with short dark hair, beady eyes, and a face chiselled into a permanent frown. He was doing a good job of reading the magazine on the table in front of him and not just pretending.

After a few minutes I got up with my drink and moseyed into the men's room. It was fairly spacious and spotlessly clean. Walking to the far end of the counter, I removed one of the liquid soap containers from its dispenser over a sink, scattered its contents hither and yon on the floor between me and the door, and replaced it. The soap was well camouflaged on the white ceramic tile.

I sat on the edge of the counter and waited, sipping my latte and occasionally smacking my chops in appreciation. It was quite good.

About five minutes had ticked by when my shadow finally came in. He saw me sitting with one haunch on the counter, casually swinging one leg and smiling at him, and he pushed the door closed. He moved like a predator, supple and controlled.

"Looking for someone?" I asked.

His stare was solid steel. "We missed you and your boss back there," he said in a menacing tone. "I'm glad I hung around. Now I guess I'll just have to take care of you myself."

"Go home before I give you a swat," I drawled, taking another swig of my latte and loving all this tough-guy talk.

Beady Eyes didn't care for that crack. Unable to restrain himself, he uncoiled like a spring and launched himself at me with the speed and deadly power of a charging tiger. I think he was stepping off into a flying thunder kick aimed at the center of my chest when he suddenly changed course, his feet sweeping up towards the ceiling in a wide arc, arms akimbo and soap flying, and hung in space for a split second before landing with a crash that shook the counter. His head bounced nicely off the ceramic tile, and he lay there sprawled like a train wreck that has finally come to rest.

I stood up, set down my latte, and dragged him into one of the stalls where I arranged him with his arms hugged around the toilet like someone on the tail end of a good, long bender. I took a few seconds to frisk him and produced a wallet with an Okabashi security swipe card, which I pocketed. Shutting the door on him, I took my leave through the back of the place.

I proceeded to the parking garage where I had left a rented car with my stuff in it. After changing my clothes and getting into a pair of pants that didn't cut off the circulation to my legs, I got behind the wheel, got back onto the street, and headed north.

After rousting two little old ladies from their cribbage game at the first address and lavishing apologies upon them, I rolled to a stop a few minutes later in front of the residence of the other "R. Doulak." I walked straight up to the front door and pounded my fist on it. Nothing happened, and after a second pounding I was about to kick it in when it jerked open.

A tall, lean man with a mop of curly dark hair confronted me. He stood well inside, and one of his hands was not very casually jammed into the pocket of his sweat jacket.

"What's all the racket?" he demanded.

"I'm looking for Ron Doulak."

"That would be me. Who are you?"

"A friend. I've just come from what's left of Al Tungsten's office." I watched the color drain from his face. "Mind if I come in?"

He let me in and shut the door. I followed him into his house, a modestly furnished bungalow that looked a little too clean. Every blind and curtain was closed, and the only light came from a pair of floor lamps and a muted TV flickering in the corner. "The name's Raho," I added and gestured toward his pocket. "Thanks for not shooting me with that tube of toothpaste, or whatever you've got in there. I've already been attacked twice today."

Doulak slumped on his couch and took his hand out of his pocket. No gun, as I had guessed. He was holding a pair of clear vials, each one about two inches long with rounded ends and about as thick as a ball point pen.

"Let me see. You're one of the midnight ramblers who broke into the lab, right?" he asked, staring at the vials.

"That's right. I sort of crossed paths with your outfit last night, and got myself deputized by your boss this morning. He pulled my fat out of the fire, you might say. How'd you guess?"

"I got a message from him in the dead of night that mentioned they'd snatched you. Well, if you were looking to cause trouble, mission accomplished. Your little shenanigans have caused quite a stir." He ran his other hand nervously through his curly mop. "Where's Tungsten?"

"He's all right. He was bringing me up to speed on the situation when we were rudely interrupted by an explosion. I think there was a bomb planted somewhere in his office."

He sighed heavily, almost with relief. "I knew it. The jig's up. It was only a matter of time. Okabashi's security division is a living nightmare."

"Tungsten told me you're his inside man."

"Not anymore!" Doulak groaned. "Since I heard about the explosion on the news, I've been expecting guests any minute . . ."

"Bring 'em on. In the meantime, I'd like some answers." I sat down and looked the man in the eye. "I was working on Okabashi from another angle when I got mixed up in this. What's the story? What are these lithophytes Tungsten was talking about?"

"Lithotrophs," Doulak said, turning the vials over and over in his hands and gazing at them thoughtfully. "It means 'rock-eaters.' They're a type of extremophile - microorganisms that can live and actually thrive in environments that are incapable of supporting traditional forms of life.

"These things aren't regular bugs to begin with. All forms of life need two things to survive: carbon and energy, both of which are fundamentally provided by the sun. But lithotrophs live underground where there's no sun and no organic food sources to speak of, so they get their nourishment at the atomic level, harvesting electrons from inorganic minerals."

"That sounds pretty highfalutin."

"I'm not really an expert, but apparently there's nothing else like them. A whole underground community of these lithotrophs was discovered up in the Columbia River Basin about 10 years ago. Okabashi had some exploration teams sniffing around the area awhile later. Since then they've poured an enormous amount of money and resources into something called Project M. They're a gigantic company, and they were able to hide the details pretty well. It took me awhile to access all the records and piece it all together."

"What did you find out?"

"Okabashi, or whoever's controlling them, has developed an extremely aggressive strain of lithotrophs. I mean super-aggressive. These things don't go after base minerals or rock formations a mile underground. They go after metal - refined metal. Iron, steel, anything ferrous. Their metabolic functions and reproduction rates have been accelerated to the point where they're barely measurable." He handed me one of the vials.

"That culture there could eat a battleship for breakfast," he said. "The crew would be treading water before they knew what happened."

I thought of my pry-bar disintegrating before my eyes, and of the predominantly plastic Okabashi lab building, and nodded solemnly as I peered into the miniature depths of the vial. I couldn't see a thing. "How about a cargo ship?" I mused.

"Hell, yes. We're positive that's what happened to the Okabashi freighter that sank a year and a half ago."

"I know. Tungsten said that's what triggered your investigation." I tipped my chair back and regarded the vial thoughtfully. "If you don't mind my asking, what's the story with your outfit? Can't say I ever heard of you before, although in this line of work I guess I shouldn't be too surprised."

Doulak shrugged. "I couldn't even tell you for sure how many names are on the roster, but there aren't many. The unit was formed back in the early '90s by Tungsten and a guy named Eli Zebo. They'd both been in the business awhile and apparently decided to go their own way. Zebo got whacked in Buenos Aires a few years before I was recruited in 1997. It's been very entertaining. This isn't the first time we've tangled with Okabashi, either."

"One of their men followed me after I left Tungsten's office this morning."

"What happened?" Doulak asked, alarmed.

"Let's just say I'm sure he'll wake up and smell the coffee." I held up the vial. "Were you going to use this to protect yourself if they try to bushwhack you? Isn't that a little hazardous? I mean, once these critters get loose, how do you stop them?"

Doulak had gotten up and was standing to the side of his living-room window, parting the blinds slightly to peer outside. "That's the one thing Okabashi hasn't perfected yet. For some reason ultraviolet light, particularly direct sunlight, is lethal to them. Kills 'em almost instantly. Again, I'm no expert, but it probably has something to do with evolving in an environment completely independent of the sun. They wouldn't get any farther than the interior of the house. I was hoping they might even the odds against the goon squad when it arrives. I'm unarmed. . ."

While Doulak was talking, I tried slipping the vial he had given me into a tiny sleeve sewn into the hem of my shirt near the wrist cuff that I used for very small, concealable items. It fit, and vanished quite completely.

"One more question. What do you know about a hombre by the name of John Arbaty?"

"John Arbaty? We worked with him once a few years ago, but never again. Why?"

"I think he may be involved in this somehow," I replied vaguely. I didn't think - I knew - but I felt Doulak was being truthful about it. So where did Arbaty fit in? What had he been doing at the lab? Who was he working for? And as if things weren't bad enough, I had his brother to worry about.

"Well, be glad it isn't his brother Adrian," Doulak said. "I've heard of him. The guy's a lunatic. I hear he - "

"Yeah, yeah, I know," I interrupted him. I sighed and stood up, stepping to the window as well to have a look myself. "Look, there's no point in waiting around here. Let's go."

"Where are we going?"

"Nowhere," a voice said calmly. We both turned.

They'd been very quiet, I had to admit. I hadn't heard a thing. One of them was at the entrance to the kitchen, while the other stood where the hallway met the front door at the foot of the stairs. Both men had guns in one hand, one aimed at me, the other at Doulak, the silencers pointing straight at our hearts like long black fingers. Everyone stood very still.

"Is this who you were expecting?" I asked my host. He was locked in a staring contest with the gunman in the hallway, who was wearing an expression of smug disdain.

"I never did trust you, Doulak," the man said, smiling. "Did you really think you'd fool us?"

"I fooled you," Doulak retorted. As he did I heard a tiny noise, a barely audible pop. It sounded like someone cracking a knuckle. It was the sound of a vial being broken.

The man raised his gun and looked right down the barrel into the eyes of his target. His smile had melted away. "You're very sly. Your friend here is pretty slippery, too, but frankly I think he's out of tricks. And so are you." His trigger finger grew white.

The silencer fell to the floor and shattered like glass.

In the next instant all sorts of exciting things began to happen. The lights and the TV went dead just as my adversary convulsively pulled his own trigger. The gun crumbled in his grip like stale bread. The button of his trousers added to his woes at the same time by giving way. I had been ready for that, so I took advantage of his surprise to step in close. My left hand was holding my own pants up, but my trusty right was cocked and I let it rip. It had worked well the night before. I put a freight train behind it this time. He caught its full force on the jaw, and after a brief aerial journey he was laid out like a cold breakfast, and that was apparently that.

I turned to see Doulak standing over the other gunman, who was curled up on the floor in a fetal position and verbally expressing his considerable discomfort.

"That's about the only move I know," Doulak panted.

"If you only learn one, that's a good one," I said. There was a sudden, thunderous crack and a horrible groaning from the walls.

We were out the door in seconds, aided by its falling off its hinges as we burst through. We stood at a safe distance to watch for a moment as the house shuddered, creaked, and became abruptly still as it precariously settled, waiting for a stiff breeze to blow it down.

"Incredible," Doulak said, awe in his voice. "I knew they were fast, but . . . it's incredible. It only took seconds for them to . . ." He reeled back with sudden comprehension as the physical evidence stared him in the face. I couldn't help but feel a little shaken myself as he turned to me. "What does Okabashi have planned for these things? Raho, we've got to stop them!"

"I agree," I said. "At this rate I'll be out of pants within a week." I thought for a moment, turned, and started walking toward my car.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"You're not coming with me. You take care of those two goons. Call the cops. Call whoever you have to. Your cover's obviously blown, so watch your back. I'm going back out to Okabashi's lab facility."

"What?"

"I'm going to try the direct approach. I don't like being on the defensive, and I've had enough of being chased, blown up, followed, and bushwhacked."

"Are you nuts? What are you going to do out there?"

"I'm not sure. I'm pretty much making this up as I go along," I admitted, as I plucked open the car door and got in. After I had changed my pants yet again, I had a few quick questions for him, the answers to which I jotted down in a notebook. I wished him luck as we shook hands.

Doing a U-turn and tearing back up the street, I headed out of the city. The drive was uneventful, and it was already twilight when I saw the glow of the Okabashi building lights rising up from behind the towering trees.

Was I really crazy to come back here? Maybe. But maybe it was time to take the initiative. I needed to know more.

The stolen security card got me through the doors and into the huge, sweeping main building. From our pre-raid briefings I had learned quite a bit about various aspects of Okabashi's operations, and at this time of day there was little activity and fewer staff. More importantly, the law would presently be making life miserable for everyone here, so their routines would be totally disrupted. All the better for me.

A yawning hallway led me to the records department without my seeing a soul. The building was more or less deserted. This was better than I had expected. Once I was logged in, it didn't take long to bring up the files I was looking for.

When I cross-referenced them with the parallel files Doulak had identified, quite a few brand-new entries had been added. It had been a busy day at the office for the boys in Project M.

It was all so engrossing that I was completely surprised when something suddenly crashed into the side of my neck with terrible force. Agonizing pain shot the length of my entire body like an electric current and I pitched forward numbly onto the desk, knocking the computer to the floor, kicking out blindly behind me with one leg. My chair was hurled somewhere and something collided with the back of my head, disconnecting me from my body completely and delivering me into an inky black void.

I floated there for awhile. Time ceased to exist. There was no sound except for a steady throb. It grew louder and began to hurt. The black void became a murky red, and then gray. Slowly my eyes creaked open. Light stabbed into my brain like a hot knife.

"He's coming round," a voice said.

lifted my head. I was in a room of some kind. There were pipes everywhere. There was the sound of water, of waves lapping against steel. I tried to move and could not.

"How good of you to join us, Mr. Raho," another voice said. It had an accent I couldn't place.

Slowly the speaker came into focus. He was a tall man, well-dressed. Broad shoulders. Wide jaw. Glittering eyes.

The man smiled.

"My name is Eli Zebo," he said. "Perhaps you would be so kind as to tell me what you know about Project M . . ."