And the helicopter came down under the weight of the rain.

t landed a hundred and fifty yards from them down the beach and Marcia watched breathlessly while three men got out and looked at each other and at the rain. The dawn light was still only a dim gray and Marcia could not see the men clearly, but abruptly a jagged spear of lightning blasted rock midway between where they were hiding and the helicopter and in the after-glare through the wet and almost crackling air, the men were very clear. And clearer still when other lightning came down around them, ringing them in, it seemed, like a tent. There was now so much lightning it looked more like an aurora than an electric storm.

The dawn earth, before life, spending itself in fury....

All at once Marcia was running down toward the edge of the water, where the helicopter was. She ran screaming and shouting but the thunder swallowed her puny voice. At every moment she expected Adam Slade to kill her, to merely stand up with the M-gun and shoot her, but he did not and perhaps her unconscious mind in the instant she had fled had instinctively known he would not. For if Adam Slade killed her, he had no hostage. If he killed her and they found him, he would have absolutely no chance.

She turned and looked behind her. There was Slade, silhouetted against the lightning, running, covering the ground in huge strides, gaining on her. She did not look back again. The whole world was lightning and thunder and her legs striking earth under her, up and down, up and down, pounding, running, fleeing, and the rain, Slade's ally, beating her, buffeting her, exploding against her.

She stumbled and fell but she was up and running again in a moment. Now Slade was very close. But the helicopter was close too. She did not think the men there had seen them yet. She waved her arms and screamed although she knew the screams would not be heard—and then Slade was on her.

They went down together and she knew she was frail and helpless before his great strength. He grabbed her, his hands, angry hands on her throat—

And lightning struck.

It bounded and bounced off rock a dozen feet from them. It shook the earth and blasted the rock and pieces like shrapnel cluttered all around them and struck them too and Marcia felt hot blood on her arm and it was her own blood.

But Slade had been momentarily stunned and she was running again. Away from 

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