Miss Parker and Lyle go to Texas searching for Jarod. When they arrive to a shipping container, where he was locked for days, they see themselves locked inside it, in an apparent survival situation, similiar to the one Jarod pretended during the time he was there.

Meanwhile, Jarod does a test fo survival in a military camp, while he tries to unsolve the mystery behind a soldier's death. Aparently, he went crazy and mutillated and killed himself.

In the container, Jarod leaves a key to Miss Parker hidden in one of the grasshoppers he left as ration, and leads her to find some newspapers that told the death of two oriental sisters, and whose first suspect was Lyle. He defends himself saying that he was cleared of the charges, and that it was prooved that it was the boyfriend of one of the sisters who killed them.

Jarod convinces himself that the boy died due to something that happened during the test and finds an ally during the investigation. The officer has been arrassed by the colonel and the dead officer knew about this, what gives Jarod one more motive to believe that the Colonel knows more that what he gives. 

Miss Parker finds a box that opens with the key Jarod gave her. Inside is a clock with the inscriptiong "Catherine Parker" in the back. Miss Parker explains to Lyle that the clock was given to her mother when she won a swim competition, and that, later, her father gave it for her 12th birthday. The clock was also what kept her alive during a situation when she almost drowned.

Jarod discovers that drugs were used (one in special - abyss) and that they drove the officer to madness, and to suicide. He uses his own version of the drug to bring to justice the Colonel responsible for the young man's death.

The container in which Miss Parker and Mr. Lyle travelled is shipped back to The Centre and, when they get back to where they started, they almost catch Jarod.

In the end, Jarod calls Miss Parker and tells her that she must learn to disting her friends from her enemies, and she asks him if that's suppose to mean that he's her friend and that Lyle is her enemy. After the conversation, Jarod gives his last respects to the young military officer in his funeral.