He couldn't get over how familiar the engraved glyphs on the deep green rock looked to him. Bannock got restless and wandered in circles, smelling ants, and the sun climbed and declined. Finally he looked up, and frowned quizzically, struck by a new thought. He reached into the back of his truck for a vial, and placing it in his pocket, strolled down the hill to the back door of the kitchen He wandered through the door aimlessly, trying to look like a folkie in quest of a cup of coffee, but as it turned out his ruse was unneeded. The kitchen was finished with lunch and not yet busy with dinner preps, and neiother the giant Russian nor the Chinese girl were in evidence. He walked to the huge stainless fridge door, where he had glimpsed an intense conversation going on between Red and the cook crew the evening before, and took the vial out of his pocket. He sprayed the surface of the stainless steel door, and watched, astonished. The ultrafine powder settled where fingers had drawn figures and forms, and outlined the prints around the door handle, the palm-lines along the edge where it was usually pushed to close it, and across the wide center, an array of crudely drawn geometric forms.   There were five of them, in random alignment, and all five were perfect duplicates of some of the forms carved into the rock he had been given by Dundee.

Argent reached into a bluejean pocket and took out his microcell, balanced it between thumb and forefinger, and snapped three pictures of the forms on the refrigerator door. He grabbed a paper towel, and wiped the telltale powder off the fridge, jammed it into his pocket, and headed back up toward his Land Rover.

Uncurling from a dark corner on the far side of the kitchen, the tiny Chinese woman walked softly to the door and watched him climb the hill, watching and frowning unhappily until he disappeared from sight.