Somehow she made it through the flight to L.A. The minute she got off the plane, the pager on her hip vibrated to life, nearly scaring her right out of her skin. With shaking hands, ignoring the crowd jostling around her, she lifted EVS's high-tech, compact pager and saw she had two messages. The heavy turbulence on the plane must have masked the vibration.

The first printed message renewed her terror.

It was from a South American number, and signed "Alda." "Haley, I hope you've gone. They think you're responsible! Run, Haley. If you haven't already, run!"

Haley swallowed hard. So she wasn't the only one left alive, thank God!

But the second message had her staggering to a chair, mindless of the crowd around her. It, too, was from South America, from another number she didn't recognize.

"Come back or you're next."

She was next.

What now? The U.S. government had its own program going at the United States Geological Survey, the nation's center for earthquake research. Studying plate tectonics and shifts in the earth's crust, they also searched for methods of prediction. The geologists there were also developing a way to reduce the effects of earthquakes, utilizing a method that would eventually approximate the system that Haley had already created. But the USGS believed they were the brightest and the best. They'd never accept the fact that she'd developed a superior system-only to lose it.

Haley firmly turned off her pager, but couldn't bring herself to throw it away. Somehow, sick as it seemed, the thing was her only link to that insane world. She shivered and closed her eyes, willing herself not to cry. She could be thankful for one thing-that without her or the other geologists to recreate it, the system couldn't be used again. And without the notes and records destroyed in the bomb blast, she couldn't produce another system like it in less than a year.