His voice was smooth, casual, and had a faint Australian accent. In comparison, his words were shockingly ugly and cold. "Now lay your guns down on the ground. Very carefully."

Emily hesitated. "Do it, Joel." She put her gun down.

Joel didn't move for an instant, then reluctantly laid his gun down, too.

"Very smart." The Australian lifted his fingers to his lips and gave a piercing whistle. "Time to check your cargo. Stand very still while we do it, and you may live for a while longer."

"Bastard," Joel said. "You killed them in cold blood."

"Of course. It's always best to keep a cool head when violence is involved." He glanced at the six men who had streamed down from the hill. "Borg, be quick about it. I want to know in the next five minutes." He turned back to Joel. "If you'd been a little cooler, we might have lost you. I saw the lady trying to make you stay in the truck. If you'd been less emotionally involved, you could have-"

"It wasn't his fault," Emily interrupted. "I would probably have done the same thing."

"You're defending him even in these circumstances? You must be very good friends. I can't tell you how happy that makes me."

Emily was watching his men carelessly tossing artifacts out of the back of the truck. She flinched as a three-foot-high vase broke. "Tell me what you're looking for. You don't have to destroy every¬thing."

"How devoted you are to doing your job. Preserve and protect."

"That's right." She had to figure a way to get out of this. The sit¬uation was too dangerous to make mistakes. "Let me protect the rest of these artifacts. Tell me what you want."

"I will if we don't find it." He called, "Borg?"

"It's not here, Staunton," A short, burly man with thinning brown hair jumped to the ground and motioned to the other men to leave the truck. "I thought maybe in the vase, but it wasn't there either."