Vertical Run

1

Admit it, pal, you’ve always wanted to do this.

Absolutely.

More fun than you’ve ever had in your entire life.

Close. Very close.

The guy in the BMW isn’t taking you seriously. Flash him.

Dave hit his high beams. The BMW’s driver had his ear glued to a cellular telephone. He refused to move, straddling two lanes, and blocking Dave’s passage. Dave snatched the microphone off the dashboard, flicked a toggle switch, and angrily growled. “You in the Beemer, this is a police emergency. Either you get out of the road or you go to jail.”

The amplified sound of his voice echoed through the crowded streets. The BMW’s driver glanced over his shoulder, gave a disgusted look, and pulled to the side. Dave stepped on the accelerator. Accompanied solely by his sardonic guardian angel, he roared through the Manhattan night in a stolen police car.

Yeah!

The keys had been in the policeman’s pocket. They were conveniently tagged with the number and license plate of the vehicle to which they belonged. Dave had glanced at them warily, and was prepared to drop them on the tiled men’s room floor when his inner voice whispered, Hey, pal, you’ve just flattened a uniformed law officer during the performance of his duties — or at least whilst taking a bladder break — and duct-taped him to the handicapped toilet. Add to that the fact that you have stolen his clothes, his badge, his sidearm, and his hat.

But not his shoes.

Only because they didn’t fit. Plus you’ve killed five, maybe six guys who just might be federal agents, stolen money from everyone you’ve met, phoned in a bomb threat, placed life-endangering traps on the fire stairs of a Park Avenue office tower, perpetrated countless aggravated assaults and felonious breakings and enterings, cooked up a batch of home brew explosive, and boosted telephone company property. Oh yeah, also you are wanted for the murder of Bernie Levy. So what are they going to do to you if you steal a police car too? Worst case, maybe they add another few centuries to what’s already going to be ten thousand years in Sing Sing.

Dave shrugged and pocketed the keys. He strolled out of the forty-fifth floor lavatory just as another officer was entering. Dave nodded at him.

“Whadadeal,” the policeman grumbled. “Guy’s got his own private can and he turns leaper. Kee-rist, can ya believe it?”

Dave replied, “So I tell the lieutenant I wanna take a dump, just once in my life, in a private Park Avenue can, and he says no, there might be evidence in it.”

“Said the same to me. Kee-rist, can ya believe it?”

Five minutes later Dave was on the ground floor, pushing his way through the crowd of police and camera crews in the lobby. No one so much as looked at him. As he’d expected, the patrolman’s blues made him even more invisible than his telephone repairman’s disguise.

The patrol car was right by the curb. Dave slipped in, started the ignition, grinned broadly, and drove into the night.

At Eighty-seventh Street and Broadway, Dave yanked the wheel left, gleefully sending the police car into a four-wheel drift, and gunning his way west. In the middle of the next block he switched off the siren and flasher. He slowed, pulled right, and eased the vehicle up to the curb. There was just enough space for it next to a fire hydrant.

There may not be a law on the books you haven’t broken today.

Marge Cohen said she lived on Ninety-fourth Street. Dave planned to walk the rest of the way. Keeping the patrol car — or even being near it — was too risky. Someone would be noticing its absence soon.

With a paper-wrapped bundle containing Greg’s clothes beneath his arm, Dave began walking back east on Eighty-seventh. The sight of a cop on foot was sufficiently uncommon that some few people glanced at him. Most didn’t.

He turned north on Broadway. It had been years since he had been in this part of town. Yuppie gentrification had infested the neighborhood. The bars he passed sported potted ferns and campy names. What used to be junk stores now sold antiques. The clothing shops’ mannequins looked like Cher on a bad night. The streets were still dirty, though, littered with the very special detritus that only accumulates on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Walk like a cop, pal, not like a tourist.

Dave slowed his steps, forced himself into a rolling John Wayne gait, and made a point of looking watchful.

That’s more like it.

He was north of Ninety-first Street before he found what he wanted. Green neon above the entrance announced “McAnn’s Bar and Grill.”

If you can’t trust an Irish pub, what can you trust?

He pushed the door open. The place was dim. It smelled of draft suds, old sawdust, and hot corned beef. The joint’s patrons weren’t yuppies, never had been and never would be. They looked like they’d been at their tables a long time. One or two gave him the eye, and then went back to nursing their beers.

He walked to the bar. The bartender was already pulling him a Ballantine. Dave hated the brand. He accepted it anyway.

“Can I help you, officer?”

Dave lifted his mug. “This is help enough.” He took a sip. The slightly metallic taste reminded him … so long ago … reminded him …

Ballantine was Taffy Weiler’s favorite beer. The redheaded refugee from New York had carted who-knows-how-many cases of the stuff up into the Sierras. Afterward, just before they left, Dave had made him collect all the empties. Taffy wanted to leave them where they lay. Dave had been furious at the idea of the least blemish marring the beauty of …

“Want a shot to go with it?”

“Pardon?” The bartender had broken Dave’s chain of thought.

“I asked if you wanted a shot to go with your beer?”

“Not on duty.”

The bartender snorted. “That hasn’t stopped your partners. Say, you’re new on the beat, aren’t you?”

“Temporary duty. Usually I’m out in Astoria.”

“My name’s Dunne. Call me Jack.”

Uh … right, pal, so what’s the name on that nameplate you’re wearing? No peeking!

“Hutchinson. Everyone calls me Hutch.”

“Figures.”

“You got a phone book, Jack?”

“Sure.” The bartender reached beneath the bar and lifted a thick Manhattan White Pages. He watched while Dave flipped through the C’s. Cogan, Coggin, Cohan, Cohee, Cohen … Lots of Cohens. Pages of them. Cohen, Marge? No listing. Cohen, Marigold? Ditto. Cohen, M.? A couple of dozen. But only one on Ninety-fourth Street. Just off of Amsterdam. It had to be her.

He passed the directory back to the bartender. “Thanks. Is there a phone — a private phone I can use?”

“In the back. Local call, I presume.”

“Very.”

“Be my guest.”

It wasn’t Marge Cohen that he called, and it wasn’t a local number. It was AT&T International information. Dave wanted a telephone number in Switzerland.

2

Marge’s building was a four-story brownstone, the sort that native New Yorkers find charming, but that reminds out-of-towners of the Great Depression. No lights shone through its grime-streaked windows. A flight of pitted concrete stairs led to its grilled front door. Dave heard the sound of snoring. Someone seemed to be sleeping among the trash cans beneath the stairs.

According to the bank of tarnished mailboxes in the foyer, M. F. Cohen’s apartment was on the ground floor and in the rear. Apartment 1B.

Dave looked for the buzzer and intercom system. Somebody had ripped it out of its mountings. He shrugged, and shimmed the lock with his credit card.

Inside the walls were grey with inattention. The carpet was worn and stained, the hall lights dim. The building smelled of age, mold, and indifference. The landlord didn’t spend much on upkeep, and probably wouldn’t until the tenants threatened a rent strike.

Dave knocked on the door to apartment 1B.

Light winked through the peephole in the door. Somebody was looking out. A lock clicked, the latch turned, the door swung open, Marge Cohen sprang at him hissing like a cat. “You sonofabitch!”

What fresh hell is this?

Her hands were hooked into claws; her nails — neither long nor enameled — were aimed at his eyes. Dave jerked back. She missed, but not by much. He held up a palm, “Now wait a minute …”

Marge crouched, ready to spring. “You rotten prick!” She leapt. Her nails came at his eyes again. Dave snatched her wrists, and held her rigid. This was the last thing he had expected.

“Bastard, bastard, bastard!” She writhed in his grip, and landed a hard kick on his shin. Dave knew he’d have a bruise.

Strong for such a little thing, isn’t she?

Marge screamed, “How dare you! How dare you fucking people!” Dave lifted her, pushed back, forced her into the apartment. She kicked him again.

He shoved the door closed with his hip. “Who do you fuckers think you are, just who the fuck do you think you are!” Twisting furiously, she tried to pull away from him. Dave tightened his grasp, drawing her close. She spat in his face.

“Marge? Hey, look, I don’t …” White fire, Indiana summer sheet lightning, scorching pain. Dave’s lungs emptied. He slumped to his knees, fighting for consciousness.

Marge had driven her knee into his groin.

Ransome and his thugs are one thing, pal, but 110 pounds’ worth of infuriated New York womanhood is another thing entirely.

Dave put a hand on the floor to steady himself, and tried to shake his vision clear. It didn’t work. He lifted his head, drawing deep shivering breaths. Marge came at him with a vase heavy enough to kill. As she brought it down, he fell left, sweeping her feet out from under her. She tumbled beside him, cursing. He rolled over on top of her, using his weight to hold her down. She screamed and swore and promised to kill him.

Shouldn’t have swiped her cash like that, pal.

“Mrfpf ahmm serrie …” Dave forced his mind away from the agony between his legs, concentrated on breathing, concentrated on having enough breath to sound coherent. “Marge, I’m sorry about taking your money. I thought it would make it look more authentic and …”

“Money?” she screamed. “Money! You sick bastard, I’d forgotten all about that, you and your goddamned sick perverted friends, I’ll tear your balls off you, you …”

It took him ten minutes to calm her down. By then she was weeping, wretched, trembling like a terrified bird.

Four men, big men, had been waiting at her door. One of them flashed a badge. Fifteen minutes earlier she had ditched the radio Dave had given her, leaving it in a litter bin outside the neighborhood D’Agostino’s. She thought she had nothing to worry about.

“Can we come in and talk to you, Miz Cohen? We want to follow up on the mugging today at your office.”

“Sure. How long will it take?”

“Not long. Here, let me carry that grocery bag for you.”

When she opened her apartment door, only three of them came in. The fourth stood in the hall outside. One of the three turned, fastened all her locks, and rested with his back against the door.

That door was the only way out. Marge backed away, putting a sofa between her slight body and the other two men. One of them carried a black leather satchel. He set it on the coffee table.

The second man, the one with the badge, spoke. “I’m Officer Canady. This is Doctor Pierce.”

“Doctor?”

“A gynecologist.”

“…?”

“We have reason to believe that the man who assaulted you this afternoon may have raped you while you were unconscious.”

“No. Don’t be silly. I’d know …”

“We are here to make a determination. The doctor will now examine you.”

The doctor pulled on a pair of latex gloves.

Marge’s face was clean, she’d washed her makeup off earlier. Her tears flowed clear, each transparent and bright. “Swabs,” she gasped. “Specimen bottles. A needle. The other two watching. Their faces didn’t move. The big one …” She shuddered and sobbed in Dave’s arms.

“Easy, Marge.” Dave couldn’t think of anything else to say. “It’s over. Just take a deep breath and …”

“He held me down. He had his hand over my mouth. He pulled off my things. The other one, the one who said he was a doctor, oh God, it was as bad as, it was worse than …” Her whole body shook, racked with sobs and humiliation.

Dave wrapped his arms around her, nestling her head against his chest. It seemed to comfort her. Besides, it was better that she didn’t see his face, white with rage and bearing the look of a man who was planning vengeance.

9:23 P.M.

Dave had been with her more than an hour. He’d found a bottle of brandy, cheap stuff, Christian Brothers. The liquor had calmed her down. Apart from the bruised circles beneath her green, emerald green, eyes, she was again the pertly attractive woman he’d met that afternoon.

They were no longer talking about the men who had violated her. She couldn’t talk about that. It might be months before she could. Now, they spoke of Dave, trying to find some sense in what had been happening to him.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I can make some guesses, but guesses are all they are.”

She was wearing some sort of powder blue smock. Dave wasn’t quite sure precisely what it was supposed to be — a nightie perhaps, or more likely a top to be worn loosely over slacks. But she wasn’t wearing slacks. And her legs were nice. Dave forced his eyes to focus on her face.

“What? Give me a for instance.” She held a Salem Ultra Light 100 between her fingers. Blue smoke curled up to the ceiling. Dave almost asked her for one. He really wanted a cigarette.

“Okay, first point. It’s the government, or something to do with the government.”

“That’s the looniest thing I’ve ever heard. Hey, I saw this movie on HBO last month. Secret chambers underneath the Pentagon, shadowy men in anonymous uniforms, spooky no-name organizations with ties to Odessa. Lousy movie. I canceled HBO.”

“But it has to be …”

“Don’t be silly. That stuff doesn’t happen — secret plots, fiendish conspiracies …”

“Conspiracies happen. If you don’t believe me, ask Julius Caesar.”

“Oh come on! That was two thousand years ago.”

“How about Iran-Contra or Whitewater or Watergate? Yeah, Watergate. Remember Gordon Liddy?”

Marge studied him. Her eyes were large and bright, her lips pursed. Dave liked the way her lips looked. He thought … He shook his head. He didn’t know what he thought.

Oh yes you do.

“Who? Watergate? Hey, how old do you think I am? That thing was over before I was in grade school.” She waved her hand. A streamer of smoke hung in the air.

“Liddy was one of the Watergate conspirators. He wrote a book after he got out of jail. In it he said that for a while he was sure he was going to be silenced. He said he was ready for it. And Liddy was a Fed. He was an insider. He knew how things worked.”

“Sounds like a nut case to me.”

Dave sighed. When he inhaled he tasted the smoke from her cigarette. “Other covert operations people were involved. Hell, even the courts and the judges called Watergate a conspiracy. Conspiracies are real.”

She shook her head.

“The other thing …” Dave swallowed. “… Aw hell, the guys who do these things, the Gordon Liddys and the Oliver Norths and all the rest, believe, really and truly believe, they’re on the side of the angels. Just like they believe that the guys who are against them are the enemies of truth, justice, and the American way. I’d bet money that if you asked Ransome, he’d tell you that he’s the good guy and that I’m the villain. And he’d be sincere. Hell, I know I was …” Dave dropped into silence.

Marge tilted her head, eyes a little wider. But she was too smart to speak.

“Look, Marge, a long time ago, almost before you were born, I was one of them. They took me away from the Army … No, that’s a lie. They didn’t take me. The truth is, I volunteered. I thought it was the right thing. I thought a lot of things were right back then.” Dave closed his eyes. These were not good memories, and it hurt to bring them back. “Anyway, they sent me to a place in Virginia. I was there for months. Special training. Special weapons. Special intelligence. Special warfare. For a while we thought we were being trained to work with the ARVN, the army of South Vietnam …”

“Vietnam?” The expression on her face changed. He couldn’t read it.

“My war, Marge. I was in it.”

“Was it as bad …”

“Yeah. Worse, actually.” Dave decided the look she was giving him was genuine concern. He was grateful for that. She was too young to remember the war, and too young to be among the ranks of those who hated everyone and everything associated with it.

Likewise too young for you.

He emptied his brandy glass, and poured himself another two fingers. There had been plenty of haters in the old days. Going to war had been bad. In some ways coming back was worse.

“Dave?” She was leaning forward. He could see her breasts shift beneath her smock. She wasn’t wearing a bra and …

Put it out of your mind, buddy.

“Sorry. Old memories.” Dave smiled faintly. “Anyway, I was saying that they trained us for all sorts of dirty work — hundreds of us. Camp P had been in business for ten or twenty years when I was there. It probably still is. Thousands of people have gone through it, a whole army of secret warriors. And now they’re out there somewhere. Maybe they don’t work for the government. Maybe they don’t even work for the outfits who work for the outfits who work for the government. But if you know the right people, you can find them, and they’ll do any job they’re paid to do.”

She frowned. “No way. The government doesn’t kill taxpayers. The deficit is too big. Besides, I can’t believe anyone would give an explicit order …”

Dave spat, “They don’t give orders. They just drop hints. Remember Becket? The king says, ‘Who will free me of this turbulent priest?’ and next thing you’ve got a dead bishop on the floor.”

She nodded, but she wasn’t believing him. “Okay. Suppose it’s possible. What’s your evidence?”

“There isn’t any. Not real evidence. It’s all circumstantial — the way they talk, the high-tech gear they carry, how easy it is for them to order telephones tapped, the fact that Ransome read my Army personnel jacket, the fact that everyone on his side seems to have a Beltway address. And the other thing is Harry Halliwell. My friend Harry, who tried to brain me with a coffee pitcher. He’s a big kahuna, a real political rain-maker. If he’s on Ransome’s team, it has to mean that important people are involved.”

“I still don’t buy it … unless … Do you think it could be something to do with Vietnam?”

“Yes. No. Hell, I don’t know. Something happened there. I was in the middle of it. But I wasn’t the only one involved. If they wanted to silence us, they’d have to come after all of us. Besides, they covered it up — another conspiracy, by the way, a conspiracy of silence. And anyway, it was too long ago. There’s nothing left, there’s nobody that cares. Nobody ever really did.”

“Can you … will you tell me? I mean, maybe you’ve forgotten something.”

Dave’s voice dropped. He almost growled. “Forgotten? Not very goddamned likely. I haven’t forgotten a thing. I wish I could.”

“But …”

“No, Marge. You don’t want to know, and I don’t want to tell you. Just take my word for it. It doesn’t have anything to do with what’s been going on today. It can’t.”

“If you say so. But then why do these people, why would anyone want to kill you?”

Dave threw his arms up at the ceiling. “That’s the sixty-four dollar question. My guess is that I’ve seen or heard something I shouldn’t have. Damned if I know what. But whatever it is, the idea of my knowing it scares the living daylights out of some very powerful people.”

“Scares?” She took a deep drag on the cigarette. Dave sighed.

“Exactly. Scared that I’ll go public. Scared that once I figure out what it is that I know, I’ll blow the whistle. I did that once — blew the whistle. They never forget you if you do that. They never forgive you either.”

“Is that what you’re saying? That they’re afraid you’ll expose … expose whatever it is they’re doing? That they want to kill you because you’re a whistleblower?”

“Maybe, only they’d use stronger words than whistleblower.’ But, yes, it’s possible. In the Army — in the old days — we used the phrase ‘plausible deniability.’ That meant that the senior officers could deny they knew what we were doing. It meant that whatever shenanigans we pulled off, we had to make sure our bosses had the option of saying, ‘Hey, this was a rogue operation. Totally unauthorized. Contrary to orders. Don’t blame us. We didn’t know a thing about it.’ ”

“ ‘Your mission, Jim, should you choose to accept it …’ ”

“Something like that. I’ll tell you one other thing. Whatever it is, it’s something that no one is supposed to know about. Something that no one can afford to have disclosed. The kind of something that makes angry congressmen hold public hearings and reporters from The Washington Post bay at the moon.”

“Iran-Contra.”

“For example.”

His eyes had drifted away from Marge’s face. As if they had a will of their own, they were …

You’re looking at her legs again, pal You really shouldn’t do that.

“Then the reason they’re after you and the reason they’re scared is that you can destroy their cover, their ability to disavow all knowledge of … knowledge of … whatever it is.”

Dave took another sip of brandy. He was feeling warmer now, and a little loose. He set the glass down. Getting tipsy would not be a good thing. “You know what’s weird? What’s weird is that they were going to make me a part of it. I mean if that letter was real, not a forgery I mean, then the FBI was doing a check on me because someone wanted to reactivate my old security clearance.”

“But if they were doing that, why are they trying to kill you now?” She shifted her posture, tucking one leg beneath another. Dave caught a glimpse of pale pink panties.

Speaking personally, it is probably a good thing your balls are black and blue.

“That’s the other sixty-four dollar question. Maybe they found something in their background check that made them think I’m a bad risk. Maybe by the time they found it, someone had said something to me that I wasn’t supposed to hear. I don’t know. All I can say is that it had to have happened within the past few days. Maybe within the past twenty-four hours. Bernie was exhausted. He hadn’t gotten any sleep. Ransome and Carlucci hadn’t shaved. They’d been up all night. And everything they’ve done to catch me has been on the fly — a seat of the pants operation. They’re making it up as they go. There isn’t any plan. That’s the only reason I’m still alive. Ransome is no rookie. If he’d had the time to lay out a nice detailed plan of operations, I would have been bagged and tagged before breakfast.”

She gave him a sympathetic look, and pointed a finger at his empty glass. “Would you like another drink?”

Dave thought, Yes! You have one too!

“No.”

“So what have you done the past few days? What have you seen? Who have you talked to?”

“Marge, I’ve racked my brains. There is nothing. Absolutely nothing. I spent the weekend out on Long Island with Scotty and Olivia Thatcher. Sunday night I picked Helen up at the airport. She’d …”

“Helen?”

“My wife.”

“Your wife.” Her voice was as neutral as the look she gave him. She tucked both legs away out of sight.

You took off your wedding ring, pal. Remember? The lady’s been operating under a misconception.

“Ahh … she’d been out in California for an old college friend’s wedding. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I went to the office. Business as usual. Meetings, conferences, papers to review, decisions to make, calls to return. All routine except that I had to go back out to Long Island on Wednesday for a meeting, and on Monday night I had to play host to some visitors from Japan.”

“Excuse me for a minute.” Marge stood up and slipped out of the living room. She left her cigarette burning in an ashtray. Dave looked at it hungrily. He reached for it, felt guilty, stopped himself, reached again, and felt guiltier still.

Let’s try to resist temptation, pal. By which I mean all temptations the flesh is heir to.

The smoke hung in the air. Dave salivated and suffered until Marge came back.

She was wearing a pair of blue jeans, and was holding a long-haired tabby cat in her arms. Earlier Marge had sat curled on the sofa next to him. Now she perched in an easy chair, discreetly separated from Dave by a cheap glass-topped coffee table.

“Nice cat,” Dave said, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. “What’s her name?”

“It’s a he. His name is Tito. He comes from Colorado.”

“Tito?”

“My older sister married into this enormous extended family. I was out at their ranch this summer. The family patriarch fought with the Yugoslav partisans during World War II. He gave me the cat and named him for me.” She put the animal down on the floor.

Dave stretched out a hand to stroke it. The cat hissed, snapped its fangs, and took a wobbly step out of his reach.

“Careful — I just had the vet fix him,” Marge said. “He’s still in a bad mood from the operation.”

“Oh. Sure. That explains …”

Yup, that explains it, doesn’t it?

Ice formed in Dave’s veins.

There it is. Right in front of your nose. That has to be it, pal. It couldn’t be anything else.

No, it wasn’t possible.

“Are you all right?” Marge’s voice was concerned.

Dave looked doubtfully at the brandy glass in his hand. He tossed the dregs down his throat, stood, and quite carefully dropped the glass so that it shattered on the floor.

3

David Elliot sped east on the Long Island Expressway. He passed the exit to Great Neck, home of the overly amorous Greg, whose clothes he was again wearing. Dave suspected that Greg might currently be viewing monogamous family life as a more desirable — or at least less risky — alternative to being the office Casanova.

He rubbed his hand across the top of his newly smooth head. While Marge, who unlike many New Yorkers had a driver’s license, went to get a rental car, he had snipped, then shaved himself a new hairline. Then he had bathed his remaining hair in peroxide. The effect was curious. Now blond and balding, he thought he looked to be a wholly different man, albeit not one whose appearance he much liked. The hairdo was a bit on the effeminate side. If there had been any of Ransome’s watchers stationed on the Triborough Bridge, they had ignored him.

He wondered if Marge had left yet. He hoped so. And he hoped she would forgive him for stealing her rent-a-car keys and the contents of her wallet while she was in the bathroom. He had decided he had to betray her one more time while she’d been out at the Hertz office. While waiting for her return he had hastily pecked out an explanation on her old electric typewriter:

The one thing he hadn’t mentioned in the note was his fear that, if he hadn’t run out on her, she would insist on answers, or worse, insist on coming with him. It was better she didn’t know anything. Ignorance would be her best protection.

He glanced at the odometer. The car, a low-priced Korean import, was new. It had 215 miles on it when Dave pulled away from Marge’s apartment. Now it had 247. He had another thirty or so miles to go.

A voice on the radio announced that it was time for the headlines. Dave turned up the volume. “At the top of the news this hour, a citywide manhunt is under way for David Perry Elliot, alleged killer of New York businessman Bernard J. Levy. Levy, president of the multi-billion dollar conglomerate Senterex, was hurled from his forty-fifth story Park Avenue window earlier this evening. Law enforcement sources report that Elliot is the prime suspect, and state that Levy had recently raised questions about financial affairs that Elliot was responsible for.”

That’s a new wrinkle.

“Authorities also suspect Elliot of having assaulted police officer William Hutchinson and stolen his uniform and vehicle. Elliot is described as being a white male, six foot one inch tall, weighing 170 pounds, having light brown hair and brown eyes, and in good physical condition. He is described as armed and highly dangerous. Citizens are asked to immediately notify the police if they observe anyone answering to the description. In other news today …”

Dave lowered the volume.

Up ahead a road sign announced PATCHOGUE—24 MILES. His exit.

He’d been there only the day before. He’d traveled in a chauffeur-driven limousine, one of the four kept ready for the use of Senterex executives. Given the midday traffic, it had taken him nearly two hours to get from Senterex’s offices to Lockyear Laboratories. Now, late in the evening, it would take less than an hour.

It has to be Lockyear Laboratories, doesn’t it? That’s the only place Ransome could have gotten your blood sample.

Divisional facilities tours are one of the more wearisome burdens of executive life. A visiting prince from the corporate castle is dispatched to an outlying fiefdom, there to be greeted in a musty reception area by a nervously smiling plant manager. This manager shepherds the travel-worn visitor into a freshly scrubbed conference room. He offers his guest a cup of ill-tasting coffee. Courtesy demands it be taken and sipped. Shortly the division’s four or five most senior people troop into the room. Today their shirts are fresh, their collars buttoned, and their tie knots tight. They are wearing suit jackets, which on all occasions other than ones like this slowly wrinkle behind their office doors. The guest stands, shakes hands, and tries unsuccessfully to memorize their names. The local manager walks to the head of the conference table, fumbles with a projection screen and turns on an overhead projector. He says that he has a few transparencies that will describe his operation. He rarely gets to talk to corporate management, and intends to make the most of this opportunity. The visitor tries to look interested. He’s not. Someone dims the lights. The visitor no longer needs to look interested because now no one can see his face. The local manager drones through an interminable presentation about his operation. Founded after World War II by the elder son of an emigrant tinker; graphs illustrating a forty year history of steady growth; organizational chart in tiny print; process schematics of smooth and efficient operations; lists of satisfied customers; more graphs forecasting ambitious growth plans — in summary a family of happy employees, pleased to have been acquired by a prestigious corporate parent, see a relationship that can only be mutually beneficial. The visitor sits in silence throughout this sermon, either enjoying a relaxing catnap or desperately trying to concoct an intelligent question or two.

“Now, unless you have any questions, let’s take a short break before we begin the walking tour.”

“What about competition?” Dave had asked. Most of the presentation had revolved around immune biology — receptor molecules, antigens, lymphocyte attributes, T cells, B cells, histocompatibility complexes, polypeptides, CD 8 coreceptors, macrophages, and the like. A question about competition was the best Dave could muster.

He didn’t understand much of the answer. It had a lot to do with “unique classes of MHC molecules,” “new approaches to the clonal deletion hypothesis,” “SCID and TCR transgenic laboratory animals,” and “special relationships with the National Institutes of Health and certain other federally funded research organizations.”

Dave, knowing nothing, nodded knowingly. He resented Bernie assigning him responsibility for Lockyear, and was more than merely irritated that he would, once again, have to learn a whole new language and industry so that he could oversee yet another of Bernie’s off-the-wall acquisitions. What the blazes was Senterex doing buying a biotech company anyway?

After a side trip to the washroom, they’d begun their walking tour. The administrative offices; the computer center with Sun workstations running the Molecular Design Laboratories suite of database software; Lab number one with shining chrome equipment doing something Dave couldn’t pronounce; Lab number two with its walls lined with cages full of pink-eyed white mice; Lab number three so cold that Dave could see his breath; Lab four where people were dissecting cats; Lab five …

“And this is Lab five. I don’t think we have time to show it to you today …”

Thank God!

“… besides, you have to get suited up to …”

The door to Lab five flew open. Someone in a snow white “spacesuit”—that bulky form of protective garb that cloaks the wearer from head to heel — started out, glanced over his shoulder, and swore. “Goddamnit, close that cage!” A writhing ball of brown fur bounced into his chest. He stumbled. The brown thing leapt up. Acting on reflex, Dave grabbed at it, caught it. Pain seared through his hand. It was a monkey, a small, reddish brown monkey. Its long canine teeth were locked to his left hand.

A few seconds of confusion followed. Various people muttered, “Sorry. Small accident. Never happens.” Then they led him to the medical station. A nurse cleaned his wound, applied greasy antiseptic, and dressed it with gauze bandages.

“I’ll just take a blood sample now, Mr. Elliot. No, there’s nothing wrong, no chance of rabies or anything like that. But better safe than sorry. That’s our golden rule at Lockyear Laboratories. Better safe than sorry. Oh — and an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. That’s the other thing we say all the time.”

The blood sample.

Yeah. I know. That’s where Ransome got it.

And the painting.

What painting?

Old creepy whatshisname Lockyear, the guy who founded the company.

Dave remembered. There had been a gilt-framed oil painting of Lockyear in the conference room. He’d barely given it a glance. But … there was something about it. It showed an older man, perhaps in his early sixties. Now what the devil was so odd …? It was a … No. The man in the picture … Aha! He was in uniform, an Army uniform. Why would the founder of a biotechnology research laboratory pose in uniform?

Not just any uniform.

The uniform was not a contemporary one, nor even the style Dave had worn during his time in the service. Lockyear had been wearing an Eisenhower jacket, a ridiculously short black tie, and a World War II-style garrison cap.

What did Bernie say about the acquisition?

Lockyear had died a few years earlier. There were problems with his estate. That’s why the company was for sale, and that’s why it was — he claimed — a bargain.

So we’ve got a sixty, maybe seventy year old guy, and a company that’s four decades old. So when he founded it he was maybe in his thirties. But when he’s older, and it comes time to get his memorial portrait painted, what does he do?

Chief executives and company founders pose for their official portraits in blue pinstripe suits. White shirt, dark tie, maybe a vest. But not Lockyear. Lockyear posed in a forty year old military rig.

Odd.

Very odd indeed.

4

At the Patchogue exit, Dave turned south toward the ocean shore. A few minutes later he turned east again.

It was farmland out here, rolling meadows, potato fields, some few stands of trees. The narrow blacktop was empty at this hour. Dave’s rental car was the only thing on the road, his headlights the only light to be seen. He closed his right eye, and held it shut.

You know there’s more to it than the blood sample.

Dave felt uneasy driving at night. He didn’t like the way the trees looked. Leaves, green and warm in daylight, were blanched dead by the glare of headlights.

Come on, admit it.

He hated the pale color. It reminded him of corpses. And trees should be lit from above, casting their shadows below. Night driving reversed the natural order. It made him queasy.

You’re ignoring me, pal.

An animal with incandescent eyes darted across the road. Dave’s heart leapt into his throat. Before he could touch the brakes it was out of sight.

You don’t want to face the facts.

Right turn. Toward the ocean again. It was a moonless night. That would help.

Hey, pal! Listen to me.…

There it was. A long stretch of mesh fence, topped with a coil of razor wire. A gate and a guard shack. A small sign:

Dave drove past, keeping a steady speed. There was no one to be seen. The guard shack was empty, not a watcher in sight.

Was it possible that Ransome blundered, that some of his men weren’t stationed out here?

No way.

Or that Dave was wrong, and that Lockyear did not lie at the center of things?

Likewise, no way.

Dave cruised a mile beyond the southernmost border of the Lockyear fence before switching off his headlights. As he pulled off the road he opened his right eye. It had become dark-adjusted. It was an old infantryman’s trick, keeping one eye closed while the flares were going off. Once the dark returned, your night vision was better than your enemy’s.

Still behind the steering wheel, he struggled out of Greg’s loose clothes and into his policeman’s uniform. Dark blue trousers, dark blue blouse, the colors of the night.

One last thing. The interior light.

Dave used his pistol to shatter the bulb. Then he opened the car door, leaning out to scoop a handful of dirt from the side of the road. It was good thick soil, farm soil, just right for darkening his face, hands, and newly bald scalp.

He backed up, turned, and, headlights off, drove slowly toward Lockyear. A hundred yards from the property line, he switched off the ignition, coasting to a stop near the property’s south boundary.

During the drive across Long Island he’d thought about what he had seen the day before, reconstructing, as best he could, the layout of the Lockyear property. The grounds were a half mile square, with the office complex sitting in the center. For the most part the land was flat and featureless, although there was a slight rise south of the main building. Stands of trees, very nearly forest, surrounded the outer peripheries, concealing the fences.

If Ransome’s men were there, they’d be in the trees, in the shadows, out of sight.

Dave slipped off his shoes. They were no good for what he had in mind. Their leather soles would slip on the grass and fallen leaves, and tap too loudly on linoleum flooring.

Somewhere, somehow, you’ve got to get a decent pair of shoes.

He’d taken two chocolate brown hand towels from Marge’s bathroom. Now he wound them around his feet, binding them with twine. Clumsy, but it would have to do.

He started across the road.

What an absolute goddamned pathetic excuse for a professional! Ransome would be furious. Jesus, you just can’t get good help anymore.

Dave tightened his lips in disapproval. He shook his head. The watcher was thirty feet ahead of him, crouched beneath a low Chinese elm. Dave wouldn’t have seen him if the man hadn’t chosen just that moment to light a cigarette.

No discipline left in the world. Mamba Jack would have de-balled anyone who fired up a butt on night watch.

Moments later Dave thrust the muzzle of his pistol behind the man’s ear and whispered, “Surprise.” The man jerked, groaned, and dropped his weapon. The stench of evacuated bowels arose from him.

“How many?” Dave whispered.

“Uh …”

“Listen up, meathead. I’ve got nothing to lose. If I paint the landscape with your brains they aren’t going to do anything to me that they didn’t already plan to do. So tell me, how many of you are there?”

“Man, no one believed you’d make it out here.”

“I’m going to count to three. One …”

“Five, man, five. Two on this side, two on the other side, and one in the building.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“No lie, man. Honest to God, it’s no …”

The temptation to shoot him was overwhelming. He owed it to them, to Ransome and to all of them. They’d tried to kill him. They’d brought his son into it, his wife, and Annie. They’d used their lies to make his friends into enemies. Maybe worst of all, they’d treated poor Marge Cohen like a piece of livestock. They deserved to die. All of them. Starting with this one.

He didn’t do it. But he did pistol whip him more than was necessary. And when he found another man, some hundred yards north, he did it again. Then, because he felt the need to make a statement, he used his pistol butt to hammer the second man’s ankles into splinters.

The first man had not been lying. There were only two watchers on the south side of the property. Dave took them easily. For the next several months, they would need casts and crutches.

Dave scouted the west side, behind the building complex. No one there — it was going to be a piece of cake.

There was a low, rolling rise to the south. Dave crouched and dashed forward, hidden from sight by the contour of the land. A hundred feet from the rear entrance, he dropped to the ground, and belly-crawled the rest of the way.

One person in the building? That’s what the man had said. Maybe true, maybe false. Only one way to find out.

Dave slid his hand up to the doorknob. It turned easily. Unlocked. A bad sign.

What was inside was a worse sign yet.

5

Lockyear Laboratories was empty. Everything was gone. They’d taken the furniture, the lab benches, the equipment, and the pictures on the wall. Even the light fixtures had been removed. What used to be Lockyear Laboratories was now a hollow shell.

Dave pulled off the towels he’d wrapped around his feet. He padded silently through the barren corridors on stocking feet, trying to remember the route to the research labs.

The building reeked of disinfectant. Every room, every office, every foot of hallway smelled of bactericide. In one or two places the floor was still wet with it. Dave touched it with his hand, brought his fingers to his nose, and winced. Strong stuff.

The day before, he remembered, his tour had taken him past a men’s room, a water fountain, a women’s room, and an employee lounge. The laboratories — numbers one through five — were spaced down a long hallway to the left of the lounge.

It’s not something you saw, it’s not something you heard, it’s not something you did. It’s none of those things.

There. The toilets, the lounge. And …

A click of bootheels on the floor. Someone was coming up the hall, coming from where the laboratories were.

Dave backed around the corner, bringing a pistol up and ready.

Only the faintest light, barely enough to see by, shone through the windows.

The steps reached the end of the corridor, and paused. Then they started again, coming in his direction. Dave coiled his finger around the trigger, seated the pistol firmly in two hands. At this range, it would punch a hole straight through his target. He rather looked forward to that.

Now wraith not man, though without sex or magic, Lieutenant David Elliot has spent this humid day in hell not as predator but as prey, a role for which he is ill-suited.

He has been running a run that has taken him not one step farther from his pursuers, a run that has left him frustrated and vengeful, a run filled with fear.

No more.

Now it has changed. He is the hunter. His pursuers are the quarry. This, he knows, is the proper order of things.

His senses alter, his perceptions shift, he focuses on the landscape ahead, ignores what may lurk behind.

His skin tingles. His eyes dart left and right. His vision is astonishingly sharp, his hearing preternaturally acute. He sniffs the air, and can taste — he swears he can taste — rivulets of sweat running down his hidden enemy’s cheeks.

Hunter.

And, dear God, he has never felt so alive. The walker stepped into view, profiled against a window. Dave leveled his sights. His hands were steady. His target was about five foot five inches tall and slightly built. He drew a bead on the center of the torso. The guard carried an M16A1 assault rifle held at port arms. He was wearing a baseball cap. There was a fall of hair beneath it. It was a woman.

In the days immediately following the 1991 Iraq war, there had been heated debate — in Senterex’s offices as elsewhere — about the role of women in combat. Should women fight? Should they kill? What effect would fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with women have on men? How would the enemy react? David Elliot voiced no opinion, refused to participate in the discussions, feigned disinterest, and tried to change the subject. His experience with the Vietcong had taught him that female soldiers were quite as lethal as males. Nor did any soldier whom he’d ever known hesitate, even for a second, to think about the sex of the enemy firing at him.

She didn’t turn. She passed by, slowly patrolling the hallway, a bored soldier on boring duty. Her steps faded. Soon she was gone.

Dave worked his jaw back and forth. He’d almost killed her just for the hell of it.

Made enough statements for the night, have we?

This business was turning him into something he didn’t want to be. It was taking him back twenty-five years. He had almost gone over the line then. Now he was close to going over it again.

Ransome keeps saying that you’re still one of them, cut from the same cloth.

He shook his head. He wasn’t going to let them do it to him. The price was too high. He remembered the price; he remembered the look of damnation and despair on Mamba Jack Kreuter’s face when Jack realized what he’d done, and knew that he’d gone so far that there was no coming back.

Okay, pal, so cool it. You already know what you’re going to find, so let’s just get this over with and then get the hell out of Dodge.

Dave frowned. He didn’t know what he was going to find.

Oh yes you do.

He started up the hall, turned into the laboratory corridor, and stepped past what had been Laboratory one. It had been, like every other room in the building, stripped bare.

It’s not Lab one. You’ve got to quit pretending that you still don’t know what it is.

Lab two was in the same condition. Likewise Labs three and four.

Lab five.

Even the door was gone. They’d not only removed the furniture and fixtures from Lab five, but they’d even taken the door. And inside it was …

The linoleum had been ripped up. The ceiling tiles were removed. They had attacked the walls, the ceiling struts, the concrete floor with a flame gun. They had sterilized every inch of plaster, concrete, and steel with fire. Nothing, not a fly, not a flea, not a microbe, could have survived in Lab five.

David Elliot doubled over, and fell to his knees. For the second time that day, he vomited.

1

Ransome had been right — Dave would be coming back. He had no choice. He had to see the file on Lockyear, the file in Bernie’s credenza that held the secret about why Bernie — Bernie and everyone else — wanted David Elliot dead.

He was back on the Long Island Expressway, racing west toward New York. The rental car was whining at the speed. Dave pressed the accelerator to the floor. The speedometer registered 85 mph. It was all the car could take. Any more and it would blow apart. He cursed Hertz and he cursed the Korean car industry.

And he cursed Bernie Levy. He knew now what Bernie had done — at least in general terms. He knew because Scott Thatcher had told him.

It had been a year and a half earlier. Scott and his wife, Olivia, had invited Dave and Helen to Thursday night dinner at their Sutton Place pied-à-terre.

Thatcher’s Thursday night dinners were legendary. You never knew who the other guests would be. Visiting heads of state, political pundits, Nobel laureates, artists, writers, musicians, and once a troupe of circus performers — Thatcher hosted them all, or at least the interesting ones.

There had been five couples that night: the Thatchers, the Elliots, a much lionized novelist and his undergrad inamorata, a senator and his wife from one of the western states, and Mike and Louise Ash — the latter executives of Thatcher’s company, married and warring as only people deeply in love can war.

Dinner ended. The dishes were cleared. Thatcher rose and walked to the sideboard. He lifted a bottle of Fonseca’s port and an ebony box. He placed both on the dinner table, and opened the box.

“Cigars, anyone?”

The women fled.

Thatcher withdrew a long, brown Monte Cristo. He sliced its tip with a Buck pocketknife, and, igniting it with a wooden match, grinned a foxy grin. “The last weapon left to the male race, gentlemen.” Thick blue smoke rolled slowly out of his mouth. He passed the humidor to Mike Ash. “All of our other arms are defeated, our stratagems overthrown, our armor pierced. Only the cigar remains, the last tattered banner of manhood, still waving over a battlefield otherwise fallen to Amazons.”

Ash lit his own cigar, passing the box to the senator. “If Justine were here …”

“Ms. Gold, Senator, ever dear to my crotchety heart and surely the only woman in the world who rivals me for sheer wickedness. She handles my public relations — the labors of Hercules, that — and would be here this evening had she not been called out of town on business. A fine woman, with as keen an appreciation of a good Havana as any man I’ve ever met.”

The senator declined to take a cigar, pushing the box across the table to Dave. Dave chose one, rolling it lovingly through his fingers. While he had long ago given up cigarettes, a good cigar was not to be resisted.

The novelist made his apologies and left. Cigar smoke made him sick.

Thatcher leered like a wolf. “Now that the women and the wimps have departed, in what bestial male viciousness might we indulge? Politically incorrect language? Salaciously demeaning stories? Conspiracies to restore female-kind to subjugation? Plots to corrupt children, pillage the environment, plunder minorities, oppress the weak, exploit the poor, and humiliate the handicapped? Or alternatively, perhaps we might wallow in the subject women most despise and speak of sports?”

Mike Ash smiled at Dave. “He’s in one of his moods again.” Ash turned to Thatcher. “What’s got your goat today, chief?”

Thatcher glowered. “Have you observed that in these decadent times, it is no longer enough to feel good yourself?” His voice rose, reverberating with indignation. “Self-esteem is not enough. A sense of achievement is not enough. Dignity and self-respect are not enough. No, sir, not at all. Rather it has become the case that I cannot feel good unless you feel bad!”

“The California Commission on Self-Esteem …” began the senator.

Thatcher walked right over him. “I cannot feel good about being a woman unless you feel bad about being a man. I cannot be proud of being black unless you are ashamed of being white. I cannot respect myself for being gay unless you are embarrassed that you are straight. Tolerance has been put by the boards; it is a stale and bitter thing and we will have none of it. Equality, likewise; it is condescending at best and in truth intended to demean. If I am to achieve the inner harmony and self-respect that is my due, it will not suffice for you and I to be equals. No! Nothing less than superiority will make me happy. And to ensure that I make my point, I shall commend your libraries to the flames, rewrite your histories, purge your dictionaries, and arm the thought police with power to enforce political correctness in all speech and apprehension. Oh, whole new vocabularies and crafty code words have they …”

Ash interrupted. “You accepted that invitation to speak at the university, didn’t you? Damn it, Scott, I told you not to do it. Dealing with academicians is bad for your blood pressure.”

“As indeed it is. Those slinking worms of sophistry dared to carp at my using the word ‘Indian,’ sneering me bigot and boor for not using ‘Native American,’ which is as sly and snooty a racist neologism as was ever coined, implying that those of us sprung from generations of honest New England yeoman aren’t real Americans …”

“You’re ranting, Scott.”

Thatcher flourished his cigar and showed his teeth. “Of course I am ranting. It is the prerogative of my years, one of the few joys left to me in the autumn of my days, and indeed, given my white hairs and black reputation, it is expected of me. I am a curmudgeon, after all, and have a certain illiberal reputation to maintain.”

“You voted Democrat in the last election.”

Thatcher shot him a sour look. “A moment of weakness, a mistake that shall not be repeated. The man has since exhibited all the character of a stuffed squirrel, or so I might say did it not slander a noble animal, lacking in neither resolve nor mother wit.” Thatcher leaned back, took another long pull on his cigar, and exhaled. “But change the subject if you will. I am only a poor old man, and best ignored by youth.”

Ash looked at the ceiling and spread his hands in open prayer for inspiration.

Dave offered up a distraction: “Did I ever tell you the story of the Dong Hoi cathouse?”

Thatcher arched a bushy white eyebrow. “Something to do with the Vietnam War?”

“Yes.”

“A lamentable business. My opposition to it resulted in Mr. Nixon putting me on the White House enemies list. Did I ever tell you that?”

“Fifty or sixty times.”

“There are so few accomplishments in life in which one can justly take pride. But I interrupt. Please, David, tell your tale.”

Because Scott Claymore Thatcher III was something of a puritan and much disliked obscene language, Dave had to be circumspect in describing how the CIA, learning that a meeting of top Vietcong and North Vietnamese commanders would be held in the Cambodian border town of Dong Hoi, surreptitiously purchased the town’s bordellos, populating them with legions of remarkably contagious prostitutes. Recognizing that the scheme was a violation of Geneva Convention prohibitions against biological warfare, the Agency had clapped (“no pun intended,” Dave added) a strict security seal on the operation, advising no one — not even the military high command — of its scheme. Unfortunately, the Army learned through its own intelligence channels of the impending enemy conference. It reacted by launching a preemptive strike, seizing and garrisoning the town before the enemy arrived.

“Oh no,” gasped Thatcher, who guessed the punchline.

“Oh yes,” Dave said. “Six hundred hormonal young GIs, far from home, with nothing to do on a Saturday night.”

“Dear me!” Thatcher laughed so hard that tears streamed down his cheeks. “Is this true, David? You are not making it up?”

“It’s very true. I knew the CIA agent who ran the operation.” Dave did not mention that the man shortly fled the country because a group of Special Operations officers, led by Mamba Jack Kreuter, had put a price on his head.

Thatcher wiped his eyes. “Ah, the intelligence establishment. They are such rascals. But so dedicated, so sincere. One almost might admire them, had they the merest scintilla of morality. I have my own spy story, by the way. Should you like to hear it?”

“Of course.”

“Well, you are aware that from time to time they approach us — business people, I mean, executives of a certain stature and seniority?”

Dave and the senator nodded. Mike Ash looked perplexed. “Ahh …?”

“Oh, not at PegaSys. I won’t have it in my company. But elsewhere? Why, there has not been an American businessman returned from Moscow since Mike Todd and his bride honeymooned there in the 1950s who was not debriefed by the naughty boys from Langley It is hard to turn them down, you know. One does have a certain patriotic duty. Unfortunately, and I speak from experience here, gentlemen, a little cooperation is but the beginning. Give them an inch and they will take a mile. Unless you are careful, your executive cadre will be suborned into tattling to Washington on the affairs of your foreign suppliers and customers. Worse, you will have your balance sheet weighed down with unproductive Agency assets. In these days of budget deficits and with the Soviet Union gone to its just reward, the spies and the spooks desperately need to find corporate angels to sponsor their grubby little projects. They have too many front operations, too many shell corporations, and now that the cold war has ended, too little money. Therefore they come to you, wrapping themselves in the flag, and asking in the nicest way, ‘Oh, sir, might you do a favor for your country? There is a certain skunkworks that will be closed for lack of funds. If you could find it in your heart to fold it into your corporation so that it might be kept alive, we would be forever in your debt.’ ”

Thatcher snorted. “Rascals! But that’s by the by, and not germane. More port, David? Help yourself. Well then, to begin at the beginning …”

Would Bernie Levy do that? Would he allow Senterex to provide cover for an intelligence operation? Of course he would. Bernie was an ex-Marine. Fiercely patriotic, he wouldn’t have given it a second thought. Semper Fidelis—always loyal.

A front. It would be a going business like any good front. It would have employees, products, services, and customers. There would be an audited balance sheet, a profit and loss statement, and a credible earnings history. From the outside it would be indistinguishable from any other business. Only the insiders — and usually only a handful of them — would know that somewhere in a back room something wasn’t quite kosher. Something like Laboratory number five.

Dave spotted a sign above the freeway exit: GAS, FOOD, LODGING. He cut across two lanes, and sped onto the off-ramp. Behind him a big-rig driver leaned on his horn.

The gas station was just up the road — an all-night station with two pay phones plainly in sight. Dave turned in, switched off the ignition, and tumbled out of the car.

He snatched a phone, dialed Marge’s number, waited while it rang. No answer. Three more rings. Still no answer. On the fifth ring, he heard it pick up. “Hi, you’ve reached 555-6503. We can’t come to the phone right now, so please leave a message at the sound of the tone.”

Smart girl. Her answering machine message contained no names. And she said “we” not “I.” Too many single women didn’t take those simple precautions. And regretted it.

Had she done what he told her to do, and run for cover? “This is Dave. If you haven’t …”

Stop! Just shut up, you goddamned idiot!

Dave gulped. Leaving a message on Marge’s machine was a mistake, a bad one. It would be like Ransome to tap Marge’s phone — he was the sort of man who covered all his bases. And if he overheard Dave making a call to her, then Marge would be in even greater danger than she already was.

“Err … sorry, wrong number.” It was weak, but it was the best he could do. He hung up the phone, and glanced at his wrist.

No watch. You gave it to your lady friend.

He called out to the gas station attendant, “Excuse me, can you tell me the time?”

The attendant pointed mutely at a large-faced clock hanging above the cashier’s shack. 1:12.

Six hours’ time difference between New York and Switzerland. Nobody would be in the office yet. He’d have to wait at least an hour and a half before calling.

You’re really going to call him aren’t you? Bernie has—had—a word for that, pal. Chutzpah.

Ransome thought he’d gotten to everyone Dave knew, lied to them, convinced them that Dave had gone dangerously insane. He had tapped every telephone, and put watchers on every doorstep. There was no place Dave could go, and no one to whom he could turn. Ransome wanted David Elliot to be alone, without a friend in the world.

Maybe, Dave thought, he was. Then again, maybe he wasn’t. Maybe there was one person whom Ransome had overlooked, one person whom Ransome didn’t view as a threat because he knew Dave would never call him, never in a million years.

Mamba Jack Kreuter.

2

Six general court-martials. Kreuter’s is the last.

For reasons of its own, the Army decides to try each man separately. Each faces a separate Board of officers, each is confronted with a different prosecutor, each is defended by a different Judge Advocate General attorney. Only the witnesses are the same.

The Uniform Code of Military Justice puts a premium on procedural efficiency. The same officers serve as both judge and jury. Delaying tactics and legal posturing are not allowed. Convictions are the expected outcome.

The first five court-martials take four days apiece, and are spaced two weeks apart. Their outcomes are as expected.

Dave spends his days and nights alone in the Bachelor Officers’ Quarters. The one time he visits the Officer’s Club, the bartender refuses to serve him. His fellow officers will not speak to him. When he goes out for his morning run, everyone in uniform moves to the other side of the street. He is completely isolated, cut off from human contact, except when he is in the courtroom.

COLONEL NEWTON, PROSECUTOR: Lieutenant, you are still under oath.

FIRST LIEUTENANT ELLIOT, WITNESS: Yes, sir, I’m aware of that.

PROSECUTOR: You have testified in this matter before?

WITNESS: Yes, sir, five times.

PROSECUTOR: Lieutenant, you have heard the Board read the charge sheet against Colonel Kreuter, have you not?

WITNESS: Yes, sir.

PROSECUTOR: On the date in question, on or about 1100 hours, you were in or near the village of Loc Ban, Republic of Vietnam.

WITNESS: Yes, sir.

PROSECUTOR: Who was in command of your unit?

WITNESS: Colonel Kreuter, sir.

PROSECUTOR: Describe the chain of command, Lieutenant.

WITNESS: We had taken casualties, sir. Captain Feldman and First Lieutenant Fuller had been air-evac’d a day earlier along with three NCOs. The colonel and I were the only officers left. Colonel Kreuter ordered me to take command of team alpha and he led the baker team himself. First Sergeant Mullins was the ranking noncom, so he took the con for team charlie.

PROSECUTOR: When you arrived at Loc Ban, what did you find?

WITNESS: Very little, sir. It was barely a village, just a dozen huts in the middle of a rice paddy. Our helicopters had just dusted off the LZ and we …

LIEUTENANT GENERAL FISHER, PRESIDING OFFICER: Twelve hooches, Lieutenant?

WITNESS: Sorry, sir. Actually we counted fifteen.

PRESIDING OFFICER: Be precise, Lieutenant. We’re dealing with capital charges.

PROSECUTOR: Continue.

WITNESS: Most of the villagers were out in the fields working. They didn’t pay much attention when we landed. Like they’d seen it all before. So then Sergeant Mullins and his men rounded them up, brought them back to the huts. We knew an enemy patrol …

PRESIDING OFFICER: Insurgents or North Vietnamese?

WITNESS: At the time it was reported as Vietcong, sir. We knew that a VC patrol had been seen in the area the day before. So we questioned the villagers as to any enemy activity they might have seen.

PROSECUTOR: What response were you given?

WITNESS: A negative, sir. Everyone denied having seen any troops other than our own.

PROSECUTOR: HOW did Colonel Kreuter react to that?

WITNESS: He thanked them, and gave the village headman a carton of Winstons, sir.

PROSECUTOR: What about First Sergeant Mullins?

WITNESS: First Sergeant Mullins was angry, sir. He wanted to apply stronger interrogation techniques. When Colonel Kreuter ordered him not to, he recommended torching — I mean, burning the village.

COLONEL ADAMSON, BOARD OFFICER: Lieutenant, you used the phrase “stronger interrogation techniques.” Can you be more explicit?

WITNESS: Torture, sir.

PROSECUTOR: Lieutenant, were these quote stronger interrogation techniques unquote common in your unit?

WITNESS: Common, sir? No, sir, I wouldn’t say that.

PROSECUTOR: But used?

WITNESS: Yes, sir, on occasion.

PROSECUTOR: By whom?

WITNESS: First Sergeant Mullins, sir.

PROSECUTOR: Under Colonel Kreuter’s orders?

WITNESS: No, sir. Nor with his permission. Sergeant Mullins, sir, well, he often exceeded his orders. Colonel Kreuter had reprimanded him a number of times, and for some weeks prior to the episode at Loc Ban had been trying to get the sergeant reassigned to non-combat responsibilities. I think he was worried that the sergeant was getting pretty close to Section 8.

PRESIDING OFFICER: For the record, Section 8 addresses general discharge from the service by reason of mental instability or incapability, untreatable in the context of active duty.

PROSECUTOR: DO you remember and can you quote for this board the words exchanged by Colonel Kreuter and First Sergeant Mullins at the time?

WITNESS: Not word for word, sir. But I do recollect the sense of the argument. Sergeant Mullins was convinced that the villagers were lying, and that they were collaborating with the VC. Colonel Kreuter replied that there was no evidence to that effect, and that the people looked like peaceful farmers to him. The sergeant said they were all liars the same as every Vietnamese was a liar. He said that if he could take his K-Bar knife to the village headman’s wife, the headman would tell the truth. The colonel ordered him to belay that, and then gave the command for everyone to move out. While we were leaving the village, First Sergeant Mullins said that if the villagers were lying, he would come back. He said he would crucify them one by one to the walls of their hooches. He screamed it at them, sir. He screamed it over and over until we were out of earshot.

PROSECUTOR: Before we move on to the events of the evening, Lieutenant, I wish to ask you whether you experienced any friction with Colonel Kreuter on the occasion in question or any other occasion.

WITNESS: NO friction, sir. If I may say so, I consider the colonel to be a fine man and fine soldier. I honor him, sir, and I always will.

PROSECUTOR: Then there was no bad blood—

MAJOR WATERSON, DEFENSE OFFICER: My client wishes to make a statement.

PRESIDING OFFICER: The accused officer will not—

COLONEL KREUTER, ACCUSED: I got me something to say.

PRESIDING OFFICER: Sit down, Colonel. That’s an order.

ACCUSED: What you going to do, court-martial me?

PRESIDING OFFICER: Colonel—

ACCUSED: I’m going to say this one thing, General,

whether you like it or not. Lieutenant Elliot is as honorable an officer as ever served under my command.

PRESIDING OFFICER: You do yourself no service, Colonel. Be at ease.

ACCUSED: No bad blood between us. There wasn’t then. There isn’t now. There never will be.

PRESIDING OFFICER: I said at ease, Colonel.

ACCUSED: And another thing—

PRESIDING OFFICER: This court is adjourned for an hour. Major Waterson, counsel your client. Turn off that damned steno machine, Corporal.

3

Dave cruised along the avenues west of Times Square. During the twenty years that he had lived in New York, every mayor who had taken office had begun his administration with a pledge to renovate the area, drive out the riffraff, and bring decency and dignity back to the neighborhood.

Somehow or another, none of them ever quite got around to it. Not that it mattered. No one believes the mayor of New York anyway.

At this late hour the action was slowing down. The hookers were no longer patrolling their beats. Instead, they had gathered in small packs, leaning wearily against graffiti-coated walls, sharing cigarettes, and boasting of their pimps. The pimps themselves were out of their flashy cars, standing in their own circles, and negotiating such barters and trades as the day’s business conditions demanded.

The “Triple X–X-X” movie houses were closed, but the bars were still open, their garish neon brightly inviting imprudent fools to enter. Doors periodically opened to admit or eject hunted-looking nighthawks who might make it home safely to bed — but only because the predators were too glutted with earlier prey to stalk them.

Most of the drug hawkers were gone. The touts for the “Girls! Girls! Girls!” and “Live Sex Acts on Stage!” joints were off the streets too. A few sailors, clustered together for protection, stumbled drunkenly down the sidewalk. Three teenage boys circled a trio of bored prostitutes. One boy finally worked up his nerve, and stepped forward. The prostitutes smiled. Dave drove on.

He stopped at a red light. A blue and white patrol car pulled up beside him. The driver glanced his way, and then turned to study the street.

Good. He didn’t even give you a second look. Shaving and dyeing your hair was an inspired piece of work. Even if I do say so myself.

Dave’s stomach grumbled. It had been fourteen hours since his last meal. He was hungry. Worse, exhaustion was catching up with him. He needed coffee, the stronger the better.

There was an all-night cafeteria in the middle of the Forty-fourth Street block. Dave pulled out of traffic and squeezed the rent-a-car between a dumpster and a candy-flake, tangerine orange pimpmobile. He climbed out and stretched.

Three years earlier he and Helen had gone on a photo safari to Tanzania. It had been a luxury affair, managed by the exceptionally competent (and exceptionally expensive) firm of Abercrombie & Kent. Safely seated in mammoth Toyota Land Cruisers, Dave and the other tourists had oohed and ahhed as they passed by hunting lions, stalking leopards, and leering hyenas speckled with blood. As the Land Cruisers approached, the animals cheerfully went about their gory business, not paying the least attention to the sightseers. Nor would they — unless one of the plump pink bipeds left the protection of the truck. Leaving the truck changed the nature of the relationship. Leaving the truck made you meat. Meat!

Dave barely had placed his foot on the sidewalk when a pair of prostitutes moved in on him. One wore a see-through net blouse and hotpants the color of lemon meringue pie. The other wore a Mickey Mouse tank top and a lime green miniskirt.

Citrus colors must be this year’s fashion among the demimonde.

The one in the hotpants began to speak. The second hooker touched her on the shoulder and whispered something in her ear. Hotpants nodded, giving Dave a slightly pitying look. “Sweetie, you’re on the wrong side of town. The kind of trick you want hangs out over on Third Avenue in the lower Fifties.”

Dave gaped. The two turned to walk away.

It’s your new hairdo. It makes you look a little, well …

Dave rubbed his hand across his newly bald dome and smiled.

The air inside the cafeteria was thick and humid. An odor of strong coffee hung in the air, mingling with the smell of greasy meat and cigarette smoke. Most of the tables were occupied, and the place buzzed with low conversation.

Dave walked to the counter. “Large cheese danish, please.” The counterman needed a shave. His eyes were red, and he seemed to think his night would never end. “Outta cheese. They don’t deliver until 6:00, maybe 6:30.”

Dave nodded. “Have you got anything else?”

“Apple. But it’s stale. Like I say, they don’t deliver until 6:00 or 6:30.”

“I’ll take one.”

“No returns. No refunds.”

“Make it two. I need the carbohydrates. And give me a coffee. Black.” Dave paused, then added, “In a paper cup, okay?”

“All I got is styrofoam.”

“Whatever.” Styrofoam would be as easy to get rid of as paper. All he had to do was tear it into tiny shreds.

The counterman slapped two stiff-looking pastries on a chipped plate and filled a large styrofoam cup with coffee. “Four-fifty with the tax.”

The first danish and coffee Dave had ever purchased in New York City had cost him a quarter.

Dave handed him a five dollar bill. “Keep it.” He slid his wallet into his rear pocket.

Someone bumped into his back. Dave knifed his elbow backward. It drove into something soft. There was a gasp of pain. Dave turned. The pickpocket was doubled over, clutching his chest. Dave retrieved his wallet from the man’s fingers and smiled. “Thanks, I guess I dropped it.”

The pickpocket muttered, “No problem, man.” He backed away.

One or two people looked at Dave. Their eyes were expressionless.

He took a table by the window, wolfed down his pastries, and savored his coffee. The pastries tasted dry but good. You can’t get a bad danish in New York. Dave went to the counter for a second serving.

When he returned to his table, he glanced out the window. His jaw dropped. The rental car had disappeared. How long had it taken for someone to steal it? Ninety seconds at the outside.

Africa, he thought. It’s like a tourist leaving the safety of his truck and stepping out onto the veldt.…

Three giggly black women were sitting at the next table. One tapped a cigarette from a pack of Virginia Slims. As Dave watched her, hungrily remembering all the pleasure that tobacco brings, an idea came to mind. Virginia Slims …

He leaned across the aisle. “Excuse me, miss, might I ask you for a smoke?” The woman’s eyes widened. Dave added, “I’ll pay. In fact, I’ll give you a buck for a pack.”

“Chil’, coffin nails cost two-fifty a pack in this city, an’ what planet do you come from?”

Dave handed her a five. She reached in her purse and removed a fresh pack of Virginia Slims. “Profit’s profit, honey, and you don’t look like anyone I can make money off of the usual way”

The other women at her table found her comment hilarious. They dissolved into gales of laughter. “Here. Best take these matches, too.”

Dave broke open the pack, drew out a cigarette, and, for the first time in twelve years, lit up a smoke.

What the hell, pal. You’re going to die anyway.

4

Grand Central Station spooked him. At this late hour it was another place entirely — eerie, almost eldritch. The building was almost empty, and that alone was both unnatural and unnerving.

No more than five people were in sight … a teenage boy and girl slumped sleeping on their backpacks … a lone patrolman circling the perimeter of the main floor … a tired-looking mechanic, greasy in grey-and-blue-striped overalls, tramping wearily out from one of the platforms. Only one of the ticket booths seemed to be manned. The lights above the Off Track Betting windows were dark. The news kiosks were closed and shuttered.

Spookiest of all, the floors were clean.

Dave’s shoes clicked hollowly on the marble. No one seemed to be paying attention to him. Nonetheless, he felt eyes watching. Not hostile. Not even curious. Just watchful.

Cave dwellers. They say this part of town is riddled with tunnels and underground passageways. People live in them, keeping guard through holes and grilles, only coming out when there’s no one around.

The hair on the back of his neck prickled. New York is strange. Deep in the night, it is stranger still.

Dave turned east. There was, he recollected, an instant photo booth not far from the Lexington Avenue exit.

He studied the instructions. “PHOTOGRAPHS. Four pictures for $1. Adjust seat height. Insert $1 bill in tray, face up. Push in. No change returned. Green light illuminates when ready. Red light illuminates when complete. Wait 1 minute. Remove pictures from slot.”

Dave fed a dollar into the machine. The red light winked green. Click. Click. Click. Click. Whirrrrrr. The light turned red again. He counted off sixty seconds, and withdrew a strip of photographs that made his eyebrows arch querulously.

Jesus, pal, that hairdo makes you look queer as a plaid rabbit. Let’s not talk to any strangers, huh?

Dave held the strip of photographs between his fingers, blowing softly until it was completely dry. Then he drew a small pocketknife out of his slacks, using it to trim one of the photographs to the size of the picture on the stolen ID card: “American Interdyne Worldwide. M. F. Cohen, Computer Systems Analyst.” He spoiled the first photo. The second was a perfect fit, precisely the same size and dimensions as Marge’s picture.

He needed something to fasten the photo to the card. His options were few. Indeed, he had no choice in the matter.

Oh no! Yecch! Ugh! Gross me out!

He felt around beneath the seat in the photo booth. Sure enough, there were several pieces of chewing gum stuck to it.

Typhoid! Herpes! Gingivitis!

He pried one loose, tried not to think about what he was going to do, and popped it in his mouth.

You are a truly disgusting individual.

The flavor was gone. No matter. He chewed it soft, stretched out a thin strand, and used it to glue his photograph over Marge’s. He slid the result into a plastic window in his wallet, formerly the home of a driver’s license now as useless as his credit cards.

And now, he needed to make one last phone call.

Well, not needed.

Wanted.

Marge Cohen was on his mind. Marigold Fields Cohen. He liked “Marigold” better than “Marge.” And he needed to be sure she was safe.

Just a quick call, just to make sure she’d left. She had to be gone, long gone, by now.

But still, he wanted to check one more time.

There were five pay phones in a row, right next to the photo booth. Four of them were out of order. One of them worked. Dave dialed. One ring, two rings.

She has her answering machine set to answer after five rings.

Three rings, but not a fourth. “Hi, you’ve reached 555-6503. We can’t com — I’ve got her, Mr. Elliot, and if you want her, you know where to find her.”

There were now five out of order phones next to the photo booth.

Dave gripped the handset, torn from its wire, though he didn’t entirely remember doing so. He turned it over, studied it with an empty mind, and placed it back on its now useless cradle.

It was a lie, of course. Ransome up to his goddamned tricks again. Psychological warfare. Mindfucking his prey. Trying to weaken him, frighten him, make him act rashly; it is eminently more useful to destroy an enemy’s spirit …

It could not be true. Dave had called earlier. Marge’s regular message, a single woman’s thoughtful message, was on the machine then. That could mean only one thing. Marge had made it. She’d gotten free and fled. Then Ransome’s men had returned. They found her gone.

Dave cursed himself for wrecking the phone. If he hadn’t he could call back, call Marge’s number again. There was something to the way Ransome’s voice sounded … as if it had been coming from too far away. Through a radio? Yes, almost certainly. That’s what had happened. Ransome’s little friends had found Marge missing and radioed for instructions. Ransome, cunning Ransome, had used the radio link to record the message.

That was it. It had to be.

It was a shot in the dark. Ransome did not know, could not possibly know, that Dave felt … felt what? … felt something that men should not feel about women who are twenty years their junior. Ransome was just guessing, hoping that Dave was foolish enough to feel some sense of obligation to a woman he’d only met twice, and whom, if the ugly truth were told, he’d exploited on both occasions.

Yeah, a shot in the dark, and a long shot at that. The act of a man who was running out of time, running out of ideas, and getting desperate. It was just a cheap trick.

But if it wasn’t …

If it wasn’t, he was going back to Senterex anyway. The secret locked in Bernie’s credenza was reason enough. And if Ransome really did have Marge … well, he’d have to do something about that, wouldn’t he?

Escalators led out of Grand Central and into the old Pan Am building, newly renamed for its current owner, Metropolitan Life Insurance, but more commonly known to cynical New Yorkers as the Snoopy Building — a sarcastic tribute to Met Life’s advertising spokes-beagle. At this late hour the escalators had been turned off. Dave climbed them anyway, then walked swiftly through a darkened lobby and out onto Forty-fifth Street.

Park Avenue was above him, an elevated roadway that left ground level a block north at Forty-sixth Street. Two dark pedestrian tunnels led from where Dave stood to the corner of Forty-sixth and Park, and Dave could see sleeping bodies stretched out in their shadows. He needed to get to Park Avenue. He didn’t need any incidents.

Disturbing the homeless, annoying the crazies, caused incidents.

Maybe you ought to think about moving to a safer city. You know, Sarajevo, Beirut …

Dave chose the tunnel that looked emptiest, and tried to walk as softly as he could.

He almost made it, but not quite. Just short of Forty-sixth Street something plucked at his foot. Adrenaline spiked his heart. He kicked hard, simultaneously snatching a pistol from his belt. “I’ll fucking blow you away!” The loudness of his own voice scared him.

A surprised rat spun through the air, collided with a wall, and squeaked with indignation. Dave stood, breathing hard, sweating, cursing himself. The rat trotted back toward Forty-fifth Street.

Getting a little hyper, aren’t we, pal?

He slipped the pistol back beneath his shirt, and jogged out to Park Avenue.

The sight stunned him. He had never seen Park Avenue so beautiful, had never thought that it could be. By night, the traffic gone, the sidewalks empty, it possessed a certain peace, a gentleness. Noisily frenetic by day, it now seemed to him to be a woman, dark-haired, napping lightly, and wearing the faintest of slumbering smiles.

He stood momentarily transfixed, wondering how it was that he had never noticed how heartbreakingly gorgeous this city could be.

The central median, dividing the northbound and southbound lanes, sparkled with flowers — not the tulips of spring, but the asters of fall. The colors were muted by the streetlights, turned to soft pastels. To the north the traffic lights changed, blinking their circuit from green to yellow to red and back to green. The buildings were mosaics of light and dark, indigo blue and deep sea green dominating.

Green …

Emerald green … green as a green bottle … green as a small, perfect lake nestled in a high Sierra valley … in the magic evening of a hot summer day … Taffy Weiler wearing a loopy grin … horses standing bowed as if praying to an equine God … David Elliot, his heart near enough to bursting, knowing that no matter how sour his later life might turn …

In the dark behind him someone cursed. A bottle arced out of the shadows and exploded at his feet.

The moment was gone. The Sierras disappeared. The city returned, and night.

In New York, only imbeciles stand still after sundown.

The hair on the back of his neck prickled again. Someone was watching him, sizing him up, wondering about the contents of his wallet. It was time to move on.

Dave trotted north. Four more blocks would bring him to the corner of Fiftieth Street.

The nightowls had long since departed the Avenue, the workaholics left for home at last. Some few random office windows were still lit — largely, Dave thought, the offices of people who had not gone home until after the janitors were through with their chores.

Nonetheless, there were still people in every building, including his own.

He stood across the street, studying its windows floor by floor. On the eleventh floor most of the lights were lit. That particular floor was occupied by the mergers and acquisitions department of Lee, Bach & Wachutt, one of the city’s most notoriously predatory investment bankers. Up higher, on floors 34 to 39, many of McKinley-Allan’s lights were still on. Doubtless, legions of eager young management consultants were toiling the night away, striving to satisfy the perfectionist partners who had long since gone home to bed.

Elsewhere the building was a checkerboard of light and dark, albeit mostly dark. No one floor seemed to be showing more …

Thirty-one.

Dave squinted. The thirty-first floor’s windows were neither bright nor dark. They were merely dim. The curtains had been drawn closed on every window facing Park Avenue.

What’s on thirty-one?

Dave didn’t remember. A reinsurance company? No, that wasn’t right. A trading company? That was it. A trading company with the word “Trans” in its name. Trans-Pacific? Trans-Oceanic? Trans- … something or another.

Promising, very promising. Just the kind of anonymous enterprise the intelligence crowd likes.

“Hi. Wanna date?”

Dave spun, his fist drawn for a punch.

“Whoa, honey! I ain’t no trouble.”

She — he? — was the most improbable transvestite Dave had ever seen. Too tall, too thin, dressed in a silvered Chinese cheongsam, and dripping with rhinestone jewelry.

Dave growled, “Two things. One, don’t sneak up behind people. Two, go away.”

He — she? — the creature cocked its head, placed an electric pink fingernail against its cheek, and smirked. “Aw, don’t be that way, baby. I can tell from just lookin’ at you, you like what I got to offer.”

See, I warned you about your new hairdo.

Dave felt himself blush. He didn’t like the experience. “Get out of my face.”

“Lighten up, hon. Tell you what, seein’ as you gonna be my last customer of the business day, I give you a special price.”

Dave bit his words, one by one: “I. Am. Going. To. Say. This. Only. Once. Go! Away!”

“Oooh. A rough one. Don’t look so rough, but I guess appearances can …”

Dave took a step forward, put his flattened palm against the man’s chest, and pushed. The transvestite stumbled back over the curb and sat down hard.

“Awww!” He pointed at his high-heeled, shiny patent leather sandals. One of his five inch spikes had snapped. “Now look what you’ve done, you animal! Those cost me forty dollars a pair from Frederick’s! Plus shipping and handling!” He started blubbering.

My, my. Turning into a fag basher now, are we?

Dave winced. What he had just done had been too natural, too instinctual — the same as it was twenty-five years earlier. Got a problem? No problem. Just lock and load, my friend, and shortly all of life’s ambiguous complexities will be simplified. And never forget, anyone who’s a little different, anyone who isn’t just like you, well hell, son, in this man’s Army we call that kind of person “target.”

Dave gritted his teeth and started to frame an apology.

A voice came out of the shadows. “Kimberly, you all right, child?” Another luridly dressed prostitute clattered into view. This one seemed to be a woman (or at least a more authentic-looking cross-dresser). She was wearing a black ciré skirt that barely hid her panties, a blood red Victorian bustier, and heels that were as high as the fallen Kimberly’s.

Jesus, where are these people coming from?

“Ohhh, Charlene, he hit me.” This from the crying transvestite.

“I did not. All I did …”

Charlene advanced on Dave. “You some sort of rough trade, huh? Beat up on a helpless little faggot? That your thing, ain’t it, whuppin’ up on ’em? Poor boy Kimberly the nicest boy in the life, mister. He don’t need no business from your kind.”

Dave backpedaled. “Now look, lady …”

“I ain’t no lady. I’s a whore.” Something bright and sharp snapped open in her hand. “An’ whores take care of their friends.”

5

Dave looked around wildly. There wasn’t a cab in sight. No police cars. A lone Toyota sped north on Park Avenue. Its driver glanced in his direction, looked away, and increased his speed. The transvestite named Kimberly was tottering to his feet. His eyes were bright with feral hunger.

Charlene crouched, circling Dave. The thing in her hand was a straight razor, and she held it in a wholly businesslike fashion.

“Now look …”

Kimberly urged her on. “Cut him, Charlene.”

“Yeah, get him!” Another voice. “Take his balls off!” And another.

A pack of them. Seven or eight. Black and white. Dressed to kill, and looking for all the world like a pride of hunting cats. Meat!

Charlene’s eyes sparkled. Her pupils were wide. Dave guessed she was high on some drug. “White man, you about to have the worst experience in your faggot life.”

A gun would solve the problem. All he had to do was pull one out from beneath his shirt. Showing it would probably do the trick.

But if it doesn’t …?

If it didn’t, then it would only make matters worse. And if matters became worse, he’d have to use it.

Charlene’s razor sliced the air beside his cheek. He dodged left. She was a little off balance. He could have taken her easily.

Then you’d have all the rest of them to deal with. Let her go. The others will stay back as long as they think she can handle you.

Charlene hissed. “You move fast for a pussy queer.” She came in again. He felt the wind as the razor flashed past him at eye level.

Not bad, she almost got you that time.

The woman was good. He was going to have to do something about her.

The razor weaved and flashed. A three inch cut snicked open on his shirt.

He couldn’t risk pulling a gun. If she made him shoot her, he wouldn’t be able to go into the building. The corner of Fiftieth Street and Park Avenue had been the center of too much excitement today — bomb scares, twelfth floor muggings, Bernie’s suicide. One more incident, and the police would be all over the place.

While New York City’s finest are willing to overlook a lot, a bullet-riddled corpse on Park Avenue usually gets their attention.

Dave edged back, slowly luring Charlene forward. He heard steps shuffle nearby. Someone was getting ready to give her a hand.

Now or never.

He lurched left, as if trying to flee. Charlene moved in with the grace and speed of a tango dancer. The razor arced down, shining in the streetlights, cutting for his face. He slid under her arm. Her wrist slammed down on his shoulder. The razor clattered on the sidewalk.

Your next move has to be flashy, a real crowd-pleaser.

Dave dropped into a crouch. The woman’s momentum carried her over his shoulder. He cocked his right leg behind her ankle, kicking it forward while he thrust his body upward. Charlene’s feet left the ground. She began to tumble. Dave snatched her arm and twisted, adding velocity.

It was perfect. It was spectacular. She spun like a propeller, turned 270 degrees in the air, and smashed facedown on the sidewalk. She lifted her head, spitting blood.

Dave ran. The gang behind him howled.

He sprinted across Park Avenue, reaching the median before Charlene’s friends worked up the courage to follow. Someone hurled a can at him. It bounced off his hip and clattered on the asphalt. Dave kept running.

To the disgust of the construction industry and the irritation of the developers, New York City requires that high-rises have ample outdoor public space. For this reason, and this reason only, Dave’s building was fronted by an open plaza. The plaza was surrounded by marble-faced planters. Every now and then the landlord tried to grow shrubbery in them. The plants died, poisoned by the air and choked by trash.

Dave vaulted a planter and dashed toward the entrance.

There were — or rather had been — a pair of fountains on either side of the plaza. However, by the end of the eighties, the city’s homeless population had begun treating such decorative amenities as open-air bathrooms. The building management drained them, and erected chain-link fences around their borders.

Behind him someone stumbled into the fence. Dave sprinted toward the steps, cleared them in one leap, and bounced off a window. He saw the night guard inside look up at the sound. The man started to rise from his desk.

Two glass panes had been shattered during the morning’s evacuation. They’d been replaced with plywood. Dave ran by them. There were revolving doors ahead. The first one was closed, a yellow-striped safety barricade set in front of it. Dave flung himself into the second.

He pushed. Nothing happened. There was a sign on the glass: USE CENTER DOORS FOR ENTRY AFTER 9:00 P.M.

Dave darted out. The pack was close. One woman was out ahead of the others. She brandished a broken bottle, and was shrieking like a banshee.

Dave threw the center door open. The guard was up. He had a radio in his hand. It was one of Ransome’s radios, and the guard was one of Ransome’s men.

Dave let his voice rise in fear. It wasn’t difficult. “Help! I’m being …” He ran toward the guard station.

He glanced over his shoulder. There were more than a dozen of them now. They boiled into the lobby behind him.

Dave fumbled for his wallet, flinging it open in front of the guard. “Please! I work here! I’m supposed to be on duty! These animals want to kill me!”

The guard’s eyes flitted from Dave’s face to the approaching mob. When he looked at Dave, he didn’t like what he saw. When he looked at the mob, he liked it even less. He reached beneath the desk. His hands came out holding a shotgun, an autoloader with an oddly shaped choke.

Ithaca model 37. Complete with duckbill choke. Long time no see, old friend.

A popular weapon in Vietnam. Fully automatic. Loads and ejects through the same underside port. The duckbill spreads the shot horizontally, in a nice wide arc. If there’s somebody hiding in the bushes, all you have to do is point in their general direction. A charge of number 4 shot does the rest. The grunts who carry the guns call them “Hamburger helpers.”

Of course if there was a camera crew in the neighborhood, you made sure that your Ithaca was out of sight. Couldn’t have the folks back home know that their baby boys were toting around great big nasty meat shredders.

The guard leveled the shotgun on the crowd. Things went quiet.

“Street-sweeper,” someone muttered, using the Tactical Police Force’s nickname for a duckbilled 12-gauge.

Dave’s inner voice urged him, Ham it up, pal. Ham it up.

He took the advice. “My God! Thank you, officer! Those creatures were going to tear me apart!”

The guard glared at Dave, his face a mask of homophobic loathing. All at once, and for the first time in his life, David Elliot knew what it was to be hated not as an individual, but rather as a member of a class.

“Don’t you listen to that faggot!” A tall Hispanic woman stepped forward.

The guard growled, “What’s your gripe, lady?”

“He beatin’ up on people. He just whupped the hell out of my frien’ Charlene and a poor transvestite boy.”

The guard gave Dave a malevolent stare, his eyes hot with abhorrence of homosexuals. Dave played to the man’s repugnance; it was the only thing to do. “They tried to take my wallet! I pushed her away. I didn’t want to hurt anybody! Do I look like some sort of brute?” He fumbled his cigarettes out of his jacket and nervously lit one.

The guard scowled at the pack. Virginia Slims. That settled it for him. “No, mister …” He glanced at Dave’s doctored ID card. “… Mister Cohen, you most certainly do not.” He turned to the mob. “You people get the hell out of here. Go back on the street where you belong.”

The Hispanic woman looked over her shoulder. Several of her cohorts nodded encouragement. She rounded on the guard, screaming: “We gonna kill you, prick! You and your faggot boyfriend!”

The guard’s face went bright red. He put the shotgun to his shoulder. “People like you don’t call people like me queer.”

Oh Christ! He’s another goddamn Mullins.

The late First Shirt had once broken the jaw of a buck sergeant who had jokingly called him a “homo.” Too many career military men were the same way.

We definitely do not need a midnight shotgun massacre.

“Queer lover! Pansy boy!” The mob wasn’t helping things.

Dave forced his voice into a high-pitched giggle — Norman Bates sharing a joke with his mother. “Kill them! Nasty whores!” He strutted two steps toward the pack. “He’s going to turn you into Gaines Burger, you bitches!” The Hispanic woman stopped short, let her hands fall, and shook her head. Dave whirled to face the guard. He opened his eyes wide, hoping they glittered with appropriate insanity. “Well, do it!”

The guard’s eyes flicked left and right between Dave and the crowd. Dave swiped at his lips, as if brushing away a fleck of saliva. He jiggled on his feet impatiently, turned and stepped back to the guard desk.

Someone behind him muttered, “Aw, shit. This ain’t worth it.”

The guard’s posture changed slightly. Just enough. He was calming down. “I’m counting to ten.”

Now, while he’s distracted …

Dave drew back another step, moving out of the guard’s field of vision, stretching his hand to where the man’s radio lay.

“Can’t count to twenty-one. Ain’t got enough digits.” The whores began to laugh. The guard snorted. The trouble was over.

Nope. The trouble’s just begun.

1

Dave was back in the American Interdyne computer room. He had been tempted to make his first stop the thirty-first floor, the place where all the lights were on and the curtains were drawn. If Ransome really had taken Marge Cohen prisoner, that would be where he’d keep her.

But Ransome didn’t have Marge. Dave was sure of it.

Almost sure.

Besides, if the thirty-first floor was Ransome’s base of operations, there would be guards at the elevator and watchers by every stairwell. Trying to break in was too risky, and it would buy him nothing.

And anyway, he had work to do at American Interdyne. He remembered he had seen an old Mead Data Services Nexis terminal sitting right next to AIW’s mainframe. It might be just what he needed.

Mead, like Dow Jones and a handful of others, maintains a massive on-line database of articles, extracts, and facts assembled from a legion of sources. For a price, anyone can dial in and retrieve information on almost any subject. All you need is the phone number, an ID, and a password.

Consistent with the highest standards of corporate computer security, someone from American Interdyne had Scotch-taped a TymeNet dial-up number, user ID code, and password to the Nexis terminal’s keyboard.

Dave flexed his fingers over the keys, and logged on. He’d never used any of the news retrieval services himself. That was a job he delegated to his aides. Nonetheless, he didn’t think it would be difficult.

A line of characters printed slowly across the screen. Running at 1200 baud, a glacial speed, the terminal was, like everything else in AIW’s computer room, an antiquity. Dave scanned the instructions as they appeared, entering the American Interdyne ID and password in the proper places.

The system menu appeared. It offered him a choice of topics — general news, business news, scientific databases, financial statistics, and a half dozen other categories. The last menu choice read, “ALL.” That was the one he wanted.

Next, the terminal asked how far back in time he wanted to search. Dave pecked in “20 YEARS.”

“INVALID PARAMETER. TRY AGAIN.”

“ID YEARS.” That worked.

The system asked: “KEYWORD OR SEARCH ARGUMENT?”

Dave typed, “LOCKYEAR,” and hit the “enter” key.

The machine told him it was working. After a few moments it displayed, “12 MATCHES FOUND. USE TO REVIEW. USE TO CHANGE SEARCH CRITERIA.”

Dave stroked the “enter” key again.

“FULL OR AB STRACT ?”