MICHAEL CRICHTON

“Oh,” Ross said.She crossed the dump with Elliot. There was a stiff breeze; papers and debrisruffled at their feet. Elliot’s head ached, and the odors arising from the dumpnauseated him.“Not far now,” Ross said, watching the box. She was excited, glancing at herwatch.“Here?”She bent over and picked through the trash, her hand making circles, diggingdeeper in frustration, elbow-deep in the trash.Finally she came up with a necklace—a necklace she had given Amy whenthey first boarded the airplane in San Francisco. She turned it over, examiningthe plastic name tag on it, which Elliot noticed was unusually thick. There werefresh scratches on the back.“Hell,” Ross said. “Sixteen minutes shot.” And she hurried back to the waitinghelicopter.Elliot fell into step beside her. “But how can you find her if they got rid of hernecklace bug?”“Nobody,” Ross said, “plants only one bug. This was just a decoy, they weresupposed to find it.” She pointed to the scratches on the back. “But they’reclever, they reset the frequencies.”“Maybe they got rid of the second bug, too,” Elliot said.“They didn’t,” Ross said. The helicopter lifted off, a thundering whirr of blades,and the paper and trash of the dump swirled in circles beneath them. Shepressed her mouthpiece to her lips and said to the pilot, “Take me to the largestscrap metal source in Nairobi.”Within nine minutes, they had picked up another very weak signal, locatedwithin an automobile junkyard. The helicopter landed in the street outside,drawing dozens of shouting children. Ross went with Elliot into the junkyard,moving past the rusting hulks of cars and trucks.“You’re sure she’s here?” Elliot said.101